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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (June 8, 2019)
VIEWPOINTS Saturday, June 8, 2019 East Oregonian The best is yet to come T here was a slight breeze as I walked down the ramp of the clubhouse — green fees paid, a few new tees in my pocket, and a scorecard in my hand. The red and white flag on the No. 9 green waved as if to say hello, and my eyes scanned the horizon hoping there were others taking advantage of the mild, spring morning. As I sauntered toward the cart shed, I thought about the hundreds of times I had walked out of clubhouses during my life. I thought about golf shoes, put- ting greens, my favorite rain gear, and the smell of freshly mowed greens. Today, I was returning to something that had once defined me in hopes that it could find a place in my full and busy life once again. The lock on the shed door popped open with the turn of the small key. I slid it off the metal latch and smiled to myself as I grabbed the handle. It was the kind of smile that appears when I’m not sure what lies ahead, but I’m brave enough to find out. It was the smile, I’m proud to say, that has appeared fre- quently over the past several months with a new job, a new focus, and new opportunities. With a soft push, light filled the small, dark space and the top of my golf bag came into view. I hadn’t touched my clubs for years and wasn’t sure if I’d even remember how to hold onto them with the right amount of strength or confidence that once came without a second thought. Chuck- ling to myself, I thought about how the confidence in one’s ability to do something changes when they hav- en’t put what they know into practice, or when circumstances and choices haven’t allowed for that “thing” they once loved to be a part of their life. The spaces and places that had filled my days for nearly half my life were left behind years ago. Now I had found myself strapping my trusty blue bag filled with 12 of my favorite friends to the back of the golf cart, hoping they knew how excited I was to get them out of the dark and into the light. The first tee was empty. I looked at the scorecard to check the yardage and was thankful for the long, straight hole in front of me. The tee markers pointed straight ahead, and the driver in my hand seemed to sigh with pleasure as my fingers wrapped around the grip. I pushed up on my toes, and then set- tled back into my heels as I took a few easy swings, feeling myself relax as the club head brushed softly across the grass in a back-and-forth motion. The fluid motion was still there, even with- out the practice, and as I kept my head still, staring down at the ball on the ground in front of me, I knew the few hours I had cut away for myself were going to be just what my clubs and I both needed. An hour and a half later, the fair- way of the ninth hole had three balls sitting in various places near the 150- yard marker. For as long as I could remember, my 5 iron had always been my “go-to” club at 150 yards out, and today was no different. The first shot came up just a bit short, but would lend itself to a short chip and one putt. The second shot was off the back side and seemed to be ready to go home before I was, and the third one was the best. It popped off the face of the club and soared toward the middle of the green. I watched it carefully as I held my fol- low through, hoping the one tee left in my pocket would have to repair the ball mark it had the potential of leaving. It was the shot that begged me to come back for more. Nine holes might not seem like much of a challenge, and 40-plus strokes may not seem like much either, but that time on the course in the town I call home was everything I needed it to be and then some. It had been the quietest place I had been in months, maybe even years. I heard mead- owlarks chirp, I watched some deer graze in the rough, and my gaze was not focused on myself, but instead on everything that was in front of me and a small, white ball. Thankfully, I hadn’t forgotten how to swing, how to keep my composure when the shot didn’t go where I wanted it to, and how to see that with a bit of practice, I can still play a decent round of golf. If you’re like me and haven’t made time for something that brings you joy and offers a chance to be quietly present in this one life you have to live, then make a change. Step out on a limb, pick up that thing you’ve for- got you were good at, and show your- self that you don’t have to be the best at something to enjoy it to the fullest. L indsay M urdock FROM SUN UP TO SUN DOWN Thank you, Echo Hills Golf Course, for giving me a place to continue to grow, a place to connect with the beauty of home, and a place where I remembered to look forward — because honestly, I believe that the best is yet to come. ——— Lindsay Murdock lives in Echo and teaches in Hermiston. The racial reckoning comes W hen I was a boy I was taught These look like church or synagogue a certain story about Amer- services, but the object of veneration is ica. This was the land of America. How can we tell our story? opportunity. Immigrants came to this How can we be good citizens? What land and found an open field rituals embody our civic creed? and a fair chance to pursue Eric gives sermons in the their dreams. In this story Ben- middle of these sessions, and jamin Franklin could be held the book is a collection of up as the quintessential Amer- sermons delivered between ican — the young hustler, who November 2016 and August through his ingenuity and 2018 — nearly the first two dogged self-improvement cre- years of the Trump era. The ated new businesses and com- collection is like a penetrating munities, a new sort of person time-lapse movie of the Ameri- D aviD can mind over that period. and a new sort of country. B rooks Eric is an enlightened Seat- This was a unifying national COMMENT tle progressive but with a rec- story. When it dominated, poli- tics was over which party could onciling, loving tempera- ment. His hero is Abraham Lincoln offer the most opportunity. and his goal is to heal a divided nation. But that story has been challenged In the early sermons, just after Don- over the years, most compellingly by ald Trump’s victory, Eric is torn — he the people we used to call multicul- turalists. The Ben Franklin story, they wants to empathize with Trump vot- ers but also to judge them harshly. But, point out, doesn’t include the Native overall, the emphasis is on humbly American or African-American expe- rience; it doesn’t take into account the understanding global populism. ways America has not really offered a Then come Charlottesville, the out- rages at the southern border. As the fair chance to many of its people. months go by, Eric’s attention turns The multicultural story gradually more to race. Trump is no longer seen began to rival the Ben Franklin story, as a historic aberration, but the embod- especially in schools. Over the past two iment of white supremacy that has years it has almost entirely eclipsed it always been near the core of the Amer- in many parts of our society. ican experience. He is the modern-day I realized this while reading my John Calhoun, just as mass incarcera- friend and colleague Eric Liu’s new tion is the modern-day Jim Crow. book, “Become America.” Eric’s orga- nization Citizen University hosts regu- Eric is not alone in his shift in lar gatherings called “Civic Saturdays.” emphasis. As Zach Goldberg points out in Tablet, over the past several years there has been a sharp shift in opin- ion, especially among white progres- sives, on all subjects racial. For most of the latter half of the 20th century, for example, about 10% of white lib- erals supported increased immigra- tion; now it’s 50%. As Goldberg writes, African-Americans are actually less progressive on these issues than white liberals. Both Trumpists and their oppo- nents have also de-emphasized the Ben Franklin narrative and embraced narratives that put race at the center. Trump’s narrative is: We real Amer- icans (white) have to protect our cul- ture from the alien (brown) who would weaken it. The opposing narrative is something like this: America began with a crime — stealing the land from Native Amer- icans. It continued with an atrocity, slavery. The American story is the con- flict between oppressors who seek to preserve white supremacy and people who seek to move beyond it. The essen- tial American struggle is to confront the national sin, have a racial reckoning and then seek reconciliation. “A religion provides a moral frame- work for choice and an ethical standard for action,” Eric writes. Both these nar- ratives have taken on the qualities of a civic religion. As many writers have noted, in the progressive account, racism has the exact same structure as John Calvin’s conception of original sin. It is a cor- rupting group inheritance, a shared guilt that pervades everything — it is in the structures of our society and the invisible crannies of our minds. I don’t know about you, but I walk into this next chapter of American life with a sense of hopefulness and yet great fear. America needs to have a moment of racial reconciliation. His- tory has thrown this task upon us. But we Americans are not at our best when we launch off on holy wars. Once you start assigning guilt to groups, rather than to individuals, bad, illiberal things are likely to happen. There’s a lot of over-generalized group accusation in both these narratives. I’m haunted by that sentence in Lin- coln’s second inaugural: “And the war came.” Nobody wanted it, but it came. Eric’s great contribution is to show how to mix conviction on racial matters with humility and gentleness. More- over, he is always pushing toward an American creed that moves beyond both the white monoculture and the fracturing multiculturalism. He is always pushing toward a national story large enough to contain all the hybrid voices. Somewhere in America a young art- ist is writing that story, that new vision that will serve as a beacon to draw us all onward. ——— David Brooks is a columnist for the New York Times. Trump destroys American greatness from within to dominate the Independence Day cele- t’s hard to work up much sympa- thy for the hollowed-out husk of a bration on the National Mall. He would human being that is Mitch McCo- politicize what has long been a nonparti- nnell, or Lindsey Graham for that mat- san family affair, setting up “the angriest ter. This country is a harder, colder, more July 4 ever,” as Eleanor Holmes Norton, mean-spirited place because the District of Columbia delegate these senators would rather in the House, put it. bootlick a bully than stand After the inauguration deba- for the principles they once cle, Trump moved on to bigger espoused. targets — the judiciary, the mil- Surely, they know the price itary, the press, and the profes- of their vassalage. To serve sional class of bureaucrats who Donald Trump is to lose all have made the United States a self-respect. You lie for him. model for competence and incor- T imoThy You cover for him. You hate ruptibility in the Civil Service. E gan for him. John Boehner, the for- With William Barr, Trump COMMENT mer House speaker, has more now has an attorney general honor as a mercenary for mari- who doesn’t care how much last- juana than the elected Republi- ing damage he does to truth, justice and cans shoveling dirt over the grave of the the American way. His mandate as the Constitution. nation’s top prosecutor is to carry out But Americans should care about a Trump’s private vendettas. more lasting and damaging corrosion — Next week, the House will vote on the destabilizing of venerable institutions. whether to hold Barr in contempt for It’s one thing to corrupt a politician, the defying the constitutional role of over- natural osmosis of the species. It’s quite sight by the legislative branch. Get another to debase the foundations of a used to it. Barr is marshaling the enor- great democracy. mous legal muscle of the people’s Jus- It started on Day 2, when the hapless tice Department as a political hit squad. liar, newly subsidized by taxpayers, tried He’ll use the law, which he ignores when to conscript the National Park Service it suits him, to try to imprison public ser- into the fantasy that his crowd was the vants who launched an early investiga- largest ever. tion of Russian attempts to subvert a U.S. The beloved Park Service survived the election. encounter with the devil, barely. But now No matter that an earlier presiden- the keepers of our national story are fac- tial quisling, failed Kansas gubernato- ing an authoritarian president who wants rial candidate Kris Kobach, could find no I evidence of another of Trump’s fictions, millions of illegal voters. Barr’s job is to muddy the origins of the Russian investi- gation enough to frame career public ser- vants as traitors. Normally, the courts would be bul- warks against the barbarians. And indeed, many judges have stood up to some of Trump’s most outlandish and illegal behavior. But the Trump effect, turning everything he touches to a cheap commodity, is to denigrate the legal arbi- trators as “Obama judges” or “Mexican” judges. You’re with him or against him. This is dangerous stuff. And it gets worse. The most disgusting of the recent corruptions is the attempt to make the military another extension of presiden- tial vanity. The White House wanted to “minimize the visibility” of the USS John S. McCain while Trump was in Japan. So, a family name synonymous with sac- rifice on behalf of country was covered up so that President Bone Spurs would not be offended. Kim Jong Un has to be jealous. Following this desecration, the act- ing defense secretary, Patrick Shanahan, said the military “will not be politicized.” Sorry. That ship has sailed. You would think that matters of the soul would be harder for the soulless occupant of the White House to tar- nish. After a round of golf last Sunday, a disheveled-looking Trump abruptly showed up at a church in Virginia. The White House said Trump wanted parish- ioners to pray for victims of a recent mass shooting. Instead, they were asked to pray for Trump. The pastor later said he had been blindsided. The same cannot be said for the man who oversees the Census Bureau, Com- merce Secretary Wilbur Ross. He’s try- ing to use a mandate of the Constitution, the decennial census, to shore up power in the Electoral College and Congress for the aging white men of Trump’s base. Any day now, the Supreme Court will rule on Ross’ effort to insert, into the census form that goes out to every house- hold, a citizenship question, something that hasn’t been asked since 1950. It could mean that about 6.5 million people would go uncounted — citizens and noncitizens. This is a blatant abuse of power and of an otherwise benign government agency, affecting not just the number of repre- sentatives or electoral votes each state gets, but also the fate of numerous cities dependent on federal billions in mostly blue America. We’ve had a census every decade since 1790, after the colonies threw off a king and created a governing document establishing an independent judiciary, a legislative branch that writes the rules of the land, and asserting that no man is above the law. To the present occupant of the White House, it’s only a piece of paper. ——— Timothy Egan is a columnist for The New York Times. A5