VIEWPOINTS
Saturday, April 16, 2022
East Oregonian
A5
BETTE
HUSTED
FROM HERE TO ANY WHERE
‘Poetry
allows us
to find
some
clarity’
I
t’s here again — April, National
Poetry Month. Is poetry even relevant,
you may be wondering, as images of
horror in Ukraine fill our screens and our
minds?
William Carlos Williams famously put
it this way: “It is difficult to get the news
from poems, yet men die miserably every
day for want of what is found there.” Yes,
men — and women and children, too, we
want to add. Babies.
Can poetry help? “We are living in
a time where we don’t have access to
the usual things that have comforted
us,” current Oregon Poet Laureate Anis
Mojgani told The Oregonian. “Poetry
allows us to find some clarity in difficult
and challenging times.”
That’s why he has created the Daily
Tele-Poems Telephone line. During
National Poetry Month, if we call 503-928-
7008 we can hear Mojgani or recent
Oregon Poet Laureates Elizabeth Woody,
Kim Stafford or Paulann Petersen shar-
ing a poem. Today I heard Paulann’s poem
about coming eye to eye with a humming-
bird, and for a moment the heaviness
inside me lifted.
That’s what Mojgani had in mind.
He wanted us to be able to “turn down a
little bit of the noise that is plaguing us
right now and have a quiet moment or two
with oneself though the voice of another
person.”
Of course, not all poems are about
hummingbirds. When we instinc-
tively turned to poetry after the attacks
of Sept. 11, 2001, we wanted Auden’s
“September 1, 1939.” Polish poet Adam
Zagajewski offered balm to New York-
ers — and all of us — with “Try to Praise
the Mutilated World,” which he published
in The New Yorker magazine on Septem-
ber 17, 2001. Even in the worst of times,
poetry acknowledges our human feelings
and helps us live with them.
What poems and stories will come out
of the suffering in Ukraine? Can words
offer guidance when we see images of
bodies in the streets and read of rape as
a weapon of war, bodies of men whose
hands are still tied behind their backs, a
child’s muddy toy that we know means
another child swallowed by war?
Yet already we’re hearing stories. Just
this week I read that a woman had given
ceramic cockerel jugs to President Volody-
myr Zelenskiy and British Prime Minis-
ter Boris Johnson as they walked through
the rubble of Borodiankia, a city north of
Kyiv, where they were finding evidence
of atrocities “much worse” than those in
Bucha. The jugs were originally designed
by beloved twentieth century Ukrainian
artist Prokip Bidasiuk, whose work had
been displayed at the National Museum
for Applied Folk Arts. One such ceramic
rooster had somehow miraculously
survived the bombardment intact, and
when it was photographed still standing
on its kitchen shelf it became an instant
symbol of Ukrainian resilience.
So there you go. From hummingbirds to
roosters.
What we’re watching in Ukraine is the
struggle for democracy, a people’s need
to choose. Authoritarians tell us we are
inherently wicked and therefore cannot
govern ourselves. We need their moral
superiority and their version of religion,
which, to judge by the images bombarding
us, seems a far cry from “love your neigh-
bor as yourself.” Restrictions on long-held
individual freedoms are happening in our
own country too, and more are threatened.
I think of the scrap of paper on my
mother’s bulletin board, those lines she
had copied from Robert Frost’s poem
about a glass of cider: “I’d catch another
bubble if I waited. / The thing was to get
now and then elated.” She understood the
forces of repression, but she knew. Given
love and a chance, life goes on. As long as
it can.
Maybe it’s her influence. Despite these
dark times, I found several optimistic
poems in my own recent files. True, one
was about Alzheimer’s Disease and a
failed suicide attempt, but the woman who
had tried to end her confusion by jump-
ing into the river had been a championship
swimmer in college, and when she entered
the water, she swam. It seemed a perfect
metaphor. When times are hard, swim.
Just keep swimming.
It might help to call that number. After
all, it’s National Poetry Month.
———
Bette Husted is a writer and a student
of tai chi and the natural world. She lives
in Pendleton.
Our friends the insects
MORE INFORMATION
JEFF
BLACKWOOD
UNDERSTANDING OUR
CHANGING CLIMATE
W
indshield surveys. These are
often used by all kinds of people
to set context or get an idea of
what is happening. This could be a farmer
checking weeds in wheat, a scientist eval-
uating the extent of damage by wildfire,
or just checking out the line at your favor-
ite drive-through coffee shop. But there is
another kind of windshield survey.
It is judging the number of insects splat-
tered on your actual windshield as you
travel down the highway in the summer-
time. What I am noticing is there are fewer
and fewer marks on the glass, and this has
some major implications.
What we do know is that because insects
have exoskeletons and cannot regulate their
body heat like mammals, they are more
susceptible to rapidly changing tempera-
tures associated with climate change.
Temperature regulates insects’ physiology
and metabolism. Increasing temperatures
can increase insects’ metabolic rates which
leads to consuming more and growing
faster. If temperatures climb too fast, life
cycles can be damaged.
Even though insects have evolved over
hundreds of millions of years, the current
rate of change in our environment has made
changes in insect populations less predict-
able. This is having significant effects on
all aspects of our lives from agriculture
to wildlands to public health to our food
supplies.
Some native insects such as bumble-
bees are shifting their ranges northward.
Recent studies in northern California have
found decreases in butterfly populations at
higher elevations. Some non-native insects
are finding new toeholds, sometimes with
damaging effects. Forest insects, like bark
beetles are expanding northward, and in
some cases, are having two annual hatches
instead of just one, due to longer summers
and host species being more stressed.
In the Gulf Coast regions, mosquitoes
The OCCRI report is an important tool to
help us and our communities prepare and
adapt to a changing climate. Similar reports
are completed for Grant, Baker, and Wallowa
counties. The report is available by con-
tacting Oregon Climate Change Research
Institute, College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmo-
spheric Sciences, 104 CEOAS Admin Building,
Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331.
The report is also available to download from
this website: https://blogs.oregonstate.edu/
occri/oregon-climate-assessments/.
carrying diseases such as Zika and dengue,
previously thought to be more equatorial
in range are increasing in frequency. West
Nile disease, carried by mosquitoes, also is
expanding its range into the Pacific North-
west. Pathogen carrying mosquitoes and
ticks are expanding northward throughout
the country and are surviving our milder
winters.
What we eat is highly tied to pollinators.
Recent research on pollinators by Oregon
State University found many pollinators are
specially adapted to certain plants. When
those plants bloom before the insects are
able to utilize them, it can hamper plant
reproduction as well as insect health.
Many bird species are dependent on
rich insect populations as their main
food source. Birds serve multiple roles in
the environment, including pollination.
Climate change risks, such as early spring
heat waves, wildfire, and other habitat
losses are affecting bird populations now.
A recent article in Science magazine
stated that breeding adult bird populations
have plummeted in North America since
1970 by more than 2.6 billion. Birds and
insects are co-dependent, and changes to
one affects the other. A report just released
by the Audubon Society predicts two-thirds
of our bird populations will be vulnerable to
extinction by 2100 if we stay on our current
climate change trajectory.
So, what can we do to enhance native
insect populations? While it may be
convenient for some to wait for others or
governments to act, we all share in the
responsibility for a changing climate. Since
insects are fundamental to the health of our
ecosystems, including us as humans, there
are things we personally can do to support
healthy insect populations.
Healthy soils, the foundation for life,
are closely tied to healthy insect popula-
tions. In our yards, on our farms, and in the
wildlands, we can mulch, prevent erosion,
reduce our dependence on chemical fertil-
izers and insecticides and prevent damage
by overgrazing and other land impacting
activities.
We can plant native species in our yards
and create diverse habitat. Ornamental and
exotic plants rarely provide the food base
for native insects, some of which have very
specific dietary needs. Monarch butter-
flies, for instance, are in peril, and are
very dependent on milkweed. The Master
Gardener program, extension.oregonstate.
edu/mg/umatilla, is a great resource for
ideas for plantings. Several communities
will have plant sales this spring as part of
Farmer’s Markets in partnership with the
Master Gardener program.
In our yards, we can plant a variety of
native plants and trees to promote diverse
bird habitat and healthy insect populations
to help fend off invasive species.
Riparian areas and wetlands support
some of the richest habitat for native insects
by providing diverse food and shelter. Typi-
cally, these areas amount to less than 5% of
the landscape. Protecting these areas can
be a huge benefit to all those dependent on
them.
Reducing our use of household chem-
icals including insecticides will create
healthier homes for all of us.
And we can all do what we can to
personally reduce our carbon footprint and
greenhouse gas emissions, the major cause
of our rapidly changing climate.
So, this summer, do your own wind-
shield survey. Our native insects are essen-
tial to our food chain and our survival. Let’s
do what we can to support them.
———
Jeff Blackwood retired from a career with
the U.S. Forest Service and is a member of the
Eastern Oregon Climate Change Coalition.
Is the rural-urban divide myth or reality?
DICK
HUGHES
OTHER VIEWS
or your political reading pleasure,
the early edition of the state voters’
pamphlet for the May 17 election —
the Military/Overseas Voters’ Guide — is
online from the Secretary of State’s Office.
At the tail end are three local ballot
measures. Ones in Klamath and Douglas
counties would continue the unlikely quest
to merge Eastern and Southern Oregon
into Idaho. The voters’ guide endorsements
from Move Oregon’s Border ask, “Who do
you trust with your child’s future: Idaho
government or Oregon government?”
The third measure, in coastal Charles-
ton, would tax short-term lodging to
promote tourism, support public safety and
spruce up the community. An argument in
favor states, “All of the funds stay within
the county and nothing is sent to Salem,
benefiting the area directly.”
Ah, the fraught relationship between
rural Oregon and the state capital, although
more often it’s characterized as the rest of
Oregon vs. Portland.
Is the rural-urban divide a myth or daily
reality? Talking with reporters before this
year’s legislative session, state Sen. James
Manning Jr., D-Eugene, called it a myth
because he represents both urban and rural
areas. He said it’s his responsibility to
understand all constituents’ concerns.
F
Does that happen with all, even most,
legislators? In this election year, it seems
worth quizzing legislative and gubernato-
rial candidates about the urban-rural rela-
tionship. How many urban candidates have
visited all 60 Oregon House districts? How
many rural politicians have gotten to know
every legislative district in the Portland
metro area?
Certainly, many issues are statewide,
such as child care. Or housing, which is in
such short supply everywhere that Salem
ranks even worse than Portland in compar-
ative housing affordability. Hospitality
workers in tourist areas, whether along
the coast or in winter sports areas, cannot
afford to live there.
Yet vast differences exist between big
cities, with revenue to pay for government
services, and sparsely populated areas.
For example, much of rural Oregon must
depend on state police for law enforcement
protection, as Sen. Fred Girod, R-Lyons,
reminds his colleagues.
Drug cartels gained a foothold in South-
ern Oregon for illicit marijuana grows, he
said, because Oregon’s population nearly
doubled since Tom McCall was governor
while the number of troopers dropped by
more than one-third.
Other rural examples: Klamath County
has the highest unemployment rate in
Oregon, not having fully recovered from
the Great Recession. Internet access is so
poor in Jackson and Josephine counties that
22% of respondents to a recent survey said
they had considered moving.
Meanwhile, rural residents have legit-
imate reasons for believing they have less
say in state government. They increasingly
are outnumbered. “This is why Oregon
passes laws that kill Southern Oregon
industries and values,” said Mike McCa-
rter, of Citizens for Greater Idaho, in his
voters’ guide argument.
It’s important to note, however, that
the 2022 Legislature took several actions
aimed at helping rural Oregon. That
included devoting $100 million for rural
projects vetted by a team consisting of
Reps. David Gomberg, D-Otis; Mark
Owens, R-Crane; and Greg Smith, R-Hep-
pner; and Senate Republican Leader Tim
Knopp, of Bend.
Pollster John Horvick, of DHM
Research, recently pointed out that only
42% of voters live in the Portland metro
area. Of the remainder, 27% live in the
other Willamette Valley counties, and 31%
in the rest of the state.
However, a majority of Democrats
(53%) reside in the Portland area, whereas a
plurality of Republicans (41%) live outside
Portland and the Willamette Valley.
Bear in mind that Democrats, Republi-
cans, Independent, unaffiliated and minor-
party voters can be found everywhere,
including Democrats in drought-stricken
Klamath County. Democrats included this
statement in their voters’ guide argument
against creating a county Border Relocation
Board: “It won’t rain any more here just by
calling ourselves part of Idaho.”
———
Dick Hughes has been covering the
Oregon political scene since 1976.