KATHRYN B. BROWN
Owner
ANDREW CUTLER
Publisher/Editor
JEFF BUDLONG
Interim Hermiston Editor
SATURDAY, SePTeMbeR 11, 2021
A4
Founded October 16, 1875
OUR VIEW
A moment
we can’t
forget
N
o student attending high
school in Pendleton, Herm-
iston or Milton-Freewater
now had yet been born on that sunny
September morning that changed
America forever.
Twenty years.
Two decades.
There are many ways to measure
the divide between today and the
terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Some are purely numerical. Others,
like the reference to current students
at Pilot Rock, Echo, Stanfield, Athe-
na-Weston or Umatilla reflect this
span of time in a way perhaps more
surprising than straight statistics.
Nearly one generation of Ameri-
cans has no memory of that day.
For those of us who were alive, and
old enough to form specific and last-
ing recollections about the moment we
heard what had happened — and what
still was happening — the memories
likely remain vivid.
The significance of even epochal
events such as 9/11 inevitably fades, of
course.
The years pass and they yield their
dismal harvest of fresh tragedies and
historic happenings.
The past 20 years hardly have been
deficient in either category. We have
endured the losses of some of the best
among us in Afghanistan, a direct
result from the 9/11 attacks, and in
Iraq. We have weathered the worst
economic episodes since the Great
Depression.
And of course we remain mired
in the most severe pandemic in a
century.
Yet that September morning
remains one of the defining events in
America’s history, comparable, to cite
a few examples within living memory,
the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor
on Dec. 7, 1941, the assassination of
President John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22,
1963, and the explosion of the Space
Shuttle Challenger on Jan. 28, 1986.
Much as the images from those
terrible days have become ingrained
in our national memory, so too have
the incomparable scenes of those two
great towers, landmarks in our biggest
city, ablaze and eventually crumbling.
YOUR VIEWS
Pendleton parks
spark joy during
trying times
A big thank you to Pend-
leton Parks & Recreation
Director Liam Hughes and
his department for taking
such good care of our Pendle-
ton community parks.
During the year of
COVID-19 isolation and
recently throughout our
spring and summer heat
waves, my husband and I
have been enjoying early
morning walks. These walks
have saved our sanity by
allowing us to share a “good
morning” with fellow walk-
ers and joggers as we just
enjoyed being outside. If we
were early in the morning, we
could enjoy the birds, squir-
rels and many dogs. If we
were a little later in the morn-
ing, we enjoyed watching the
children participating in the
summer parks programs.
We are very fortunate to
have such nice community
parks in Pendleton.
Jan Loughary
Pendleton
Let’s promote the
general welfare
of the population
Watching the anti-vac-
cine and anti-mask mandate
protests around the country,
my first impression was, “how
selfish.”
LETTERS
The East Oregonian welcomes original letters
of 400 words or less on public issues and public
policies for publication in the newspaper and on
our website. The newspaper reserves the right
to withhold letters that address concerns about
individual services and products or letters that
infringe on the rights of private citizens. Letters
must be signed by the author and include the
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The phone number will not be published.
Unsigned letters will not be published.
SEND LETTERS TO:
editor@eastoregonian.com,
or via mail to Andrew Cutler,
211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801
tions and mask mandates are
not about restricting your free-
dom but are to “provide for the
common defense and promote
the general welfare.”
The Preamble to the Consti-
tution is where our Found-
ing Fathers laid out what they
wanted to accomplish with the
Constitution. The right seems to
continually ignore the Pream-
ble to the Constitution and the
media never calls them on it.
One would think originalists
would believe the Preamble
to be the most important and
significant paragraph of the
Constitution. One would think?
Phil Philiben
Bend
The epitome of what an editor should be
ANDREW
CUTLER
EDITORIALS
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East
Oregonian editorial board. Other columns,
letters and cartoons on this page express the
opinions of the authors and not necessarily
that of the East Oregonian.
As a veteran I thought of
the young men and women at
Walter Reed Medical Center
right now. They are missing a
limb, an eye or suffering from
whatever atrocity war can
provide. They are going to be
inconvenienced for the rest of
their lives. They will be incon-
venienced because of serving
us, all of us. Anti-vaxxers and
-maskers are so weak that they
cannot be inconvenienced.
Inconvenienced for a week, a
month, or if need be, a year.
Really?
I suggest the anti-vaxx-
ers and anti-maskers read the
Preamble to the U.S Consti-
tution, especially the part
that states to “promote the
general welfare.” Vaccina-
FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK
I
was saddened recently when I
learned that longtime character actor
ed Asner passed away.
Most people of a certain age remem-
ber Asner as Lou Grant on “The Mary
Tyler Moore Show” where he holds
sway over a zany group of characters at
the fictional WJM television station in
Minneapolis.
After the Mary Tyler Moore series
closed in 1977, Asner was cast in the lead
role of the series “Lou Grant.”
“Lou Grant” premiered in Septem-
ber 1977 and ran on CbS until Septem-
ber 1982. In the show, Asner played a
city editor of the fictional Los Angeles
Tribune daily newspaper. Unlike “The
Mary Tyler Moore Show,” this series
was an hour-long drama focused on the
newspaper industry as it stood then.
I became acquainted with Asner
through the “Lou Grant” show. While
I remembered “The Mary Tyler Moore
Show,” it was on “Lou Grant” that I
gained my first impression of the news-
paper industry.
Looking back at the old episodes, they
can seem — at times — to be quaint arti-
facts of a long-gone age of newspapers.
For one, the technology is different now,
as is the prominence of the newspaper
industry.
A great many of us can remember
when a newspaper like the fictional
Los Angeles Tribune was one of the
key pillars of information dissemina-
tion. back when “Lou Grant” was on
TV, it was newspapers and the three big
networks that provided our view of the
world.
While the show was fictional, it did
deal with real life, serious issues on a
regular basis.
For me, Asner’s depiction of Lou
Grant was the embodiment of what a
“real” editor should be. Tough but fair
and always trying to keep an eye out for
his employees.
The series also showed the problems
and challenges reporters faced as they
worked on stories, a reality I think the
vast majority of the general public is
unaware of.
The production of a daily or weekly
newspaper doesn’t happen in a vacuum
and is often punctuated with unforeseen
problems that seem to crop up when
the story subject is extra important and
deadline looms.
I am no television critic but I always
liked Asner as an actor. In a sense, his
depiction of Lou Grant helped me —
years later — to choose journalism as a
career.
Occasionally, I will call up one of the
old “Lou Grant” episodes online and
watch it, as a reminder of what our indus-
try once was and to watch a very good
actor play a good role in one of the gems
of back-in-the-day television.
I, for one, will miss him.
———
Andrew Cutler is the publisher/editor
of the East Oregonian and the regional
editorial director for the EO Media Group,
overseeing the East Oregonian and five
more newspapers in Eastern Oregon.