A4
Opinion
wallowa.com
October 17, 2018
Wallowa County Chieftain
Vacation is
always way
too short
It’s always a mixed bag returning from a week of vacation.
While it’s nice to get back in harness, it would also be nice to
have another few days or even an extra week to enjoy leisure
time.
We spent time on the Oregon coast mostly south of New-
port, camping and hanging out.
While the coast is packed with natural beauty, the economic
impact of the loss of lumbering as an industry is stark the fur-
ther south you travel. Sometimes, we have the myopic view
that Wallowa County was the only place impacted when mills
were closed. Not
true.
Coos Bay is
a good example.
While there are
definite patches
Paul Wahl
of progress, an
obvious
eco-
nomic
“bust”
cycle is in progress.
We spent several nights in a yurt in one of Oregon’s state
parks. It was a fitting home away from home. We love yurts
and can’t wait to see the yurt village that is planned for Wal-
lowa Lake State Park.
This is a great time of year to camp as all the children are
in school, and it’s mostly us older types puttering around. For
some reason, I get my best sleep in a sleeping bag.
One of the highlights of our trip was a concert by the Yach-
ats Big Band. The group is essentially a community band with
young and old participating. The sound was outstanding.
How difficult would it be to get some “big band” music in
Wallowa County? I think we should try.
Another highlight was whale-watching. I actually saw a
whale come up out of the water and go back down this trip.
My eyesight isn’t the greatest, so I usually miss what everyone
on the boat is oohing and aahing about.
This time there were enough of them out there and moving
slow enough that I could spot them before they disappeared.
Whales are amazing creatures.
WAHL TO WALL
MY THANKS to Tim Trainor, a former editor with our
group, who stepped in and handled most of my duties remotely
from Portland. Technology is an amazing thing. It’s not easy
to keep track of all the moving pieces that are part of a weekly
edition of the Chieftain.
We did have a sports story on the Enterprise High School
football team’s crushing victory go astray. It is printed in this
week’s edition. Thanks to everyone who called this to our
attention.
WE HAVE two editions remaining before the November
elections. Thanks to everyone who has written election-related
letters. All of them have been respectful and within the word
limit.
For the edition of Oct. 31, we will not be printing anything
that raises new issues or allegations since there would not be
sufficient time to publish a response prior to the election.
Nearly 200 people turned out for the candidate forum last
Wednesday, which was among the larger crowds in recent
memory. There is considerable interest in this election, which
is a good thing. Let’s make sure we have a really good turn-
out on Nov. 7.
etters to the Editor are subject to editing and
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port) another party’s ideas.
We do not routinely run thank-you letters.
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Common sense, women’s sense
In a time when just about everything is
politicized and monetized, when we think
of states in reds and blues, sports stadiums
by their corporate names and “stars”of
football, Hollywood, politics, Silicon Val-
ley and the Fortune 500 by their annual
income and net worth, it might be time
to discuss important issues with good old
common sense.
Let’s not even talk about climate
change, but let’s do talk about fire, about
how it has changed in occurrence and com-
plexity over the past 50 years, and what we
should do about it.
We know that nature and Indians abid-
ing with nature made fire a part of the
Northwest environment for millennia.
We know that white settlement began less
than 200 years ago, fire suppression began
100 years ago, and that building in the
urban-forest interface has increased rap-
idly over the last decades.
And we know that warmer temperatures
and drier weather in some Western places
has resulted in catastrophic wild fires. It’s
simple to say that we have to reintroduce
fire — an idea gaining wider acceptance
with many audiences. But how?
Common sense tells me that the con-
versation cannot just be between timber
companies and environmentalists, but has
to include foresters, grasslands scientists,
builders, city and county planners, clima-
tologists, ranchers, farmers, loggers and
Indian elders. Lawsuits will not get us
through this mess — which is largely of
our own creation.
Ditto rains and floods. Would you buy
a house on the Florida Coast? In Califor-
nia wine country? Should private and gov-
ernment insurance programs continue to
MAIN STREET
Rich Wandschneider
rebuild in known hazardous places? Get a
conversation — and one outside of argu-
ments about climate change — going!
International affairs? How could Dem-
ocrat and Republican leaders continue to
support the Saudis over decades, when the
Saudis were building mosques and schools
and exporting Wahhabi Sunni fundamen-
talism across the Middle East and into
Asia?
Our lost lives in Afghanistan and Iraq,
our lost influence in Syria and the human
disaster in Yemen owe much to our reli-
ance on the Saudis and our hatred for the
Iranians. The Israelis? Sure, they should
be part of the conversation, but not its
controllers.
Money. If arms sales and money have
led us to the Saudi-Yemeni-Syria fix we
are in, can we openly address arms sales?
And Mexican border issues, for that mat-
ter. We decry the illegal drugs and peo-
ple coming this way, but do nothing about
the arms and the manufacturing chemicals
going into Mexico. These things are not, or
should not be, partisan issues.
The one factor that all of the above
seem to have in common is white men,
mostly old white men. In international
relations, Nikki Haley and Hillary Clinton
are recent exceptions to the policy-mak-
ing cabal of white men. And both have
received praise in their diplomacy from
political opponents.
In arms and chemical companies and
sales, CEOs are universally white men.
Domestically, in health care, women have
gained some footholds (locally as well as
nationally), which might be why health
care has become an open national issue.
I don’t know whether we will get
Medicare for All, or some kind of ratio-
nal single-payer system, but the insurance
companies are backing off on covering
preconditions and the ripping up of Afford-
able Care championed by Sen. McConnell
is giving way to more rational discussions
of actual health care needs. I think we can
thank women in Congress and in the health
care business for this.
This tug between men and women in
the professions and in power might be the
most important battle of our times. And
men — especially old white men like me
— cannot be proud. If you want to get out
of politics, look at the Catholic churches in
Boston and Pennsylvania. And look back
to Jimmy Swaggart. We white men have
used our power to dominate women and
girls — and sometimes boys — sexually,
educationally and politically ... forever.
And if Judge Kavenaugh wasn’t the
reckoning, he is getting us closer. I believe
him: he has no recollection of his student
actions while drunk.
But I have known blackout drunks and
had been too close in my own student days.
I am not proud of that and not proud of the
white men — Democrats and Republicans
— on that committee who could not bring
up blackout drinking and sexual groping,
standard operating procedure in the good
old ‘50s and ‘60s when boys were sup-
posed to get as much as they could, and it
was up to girls to stop them.
Measure 106 deserves your support
GUEST
COLUMN
Growing up, many of us were taught,
“if you can’t say something nice, don’t
say anything at all.” As a young adult,
I personalized this philosophy with an
internal conviction that I wanted to be a
positive person rather than negative and
grumbly; I have tried to live up to this
ideal.
Times have changed since my
upbringing. A clear example recently wit-
nessed is the intimidation, hate-filled, vio-
lent, tactics of extremists on the politi-
cal front.
Against this current backdrop, I’d like
to engage a civil, respectful conversation
about an issue that often sends people
from both ends of the political spectrum
from 0 to 60 in around three seconds. A
conversation centered on facts rather than
emotion, a conversation about the issue
of abortion in Oregon.
In the current election season, lots of
yard signs are out including a bright blue
one saying “YES on 106.” I’m part of a
group, Oregon Life United, that worked
to get this measure on the ballot.
We are truly a grassroots organization
with no special interest support or money;
instead more than 10,000 committed vol-
unteers across the state gathered more
Annette Lathrop
150,000 signatures necessary to qualify
for the ballot.
Oregon is the only state in the coun-
try that has zero laws limiting abortion.
This includes aborting a baby up to hours
before birth for any reason.
Oregon taxpayers paid $24.4 million
for more than 57,000 abortions, approxi-
mately 10 abortions each day, 2002-2017,
the earliest date data is available.
Oregon HB 3391, signed into law
August 2017, greatly expanded tax-
payer funding of abortion. (Not insig-
nificant is the fact this bill was rushed
through the legislature in the final days
before adjournment, without any com-
mittee hearings or public testimony, then
declared to be an emergency thereby pre-
venting it from ever being referred to the
public for a vote.)
The result of this new law is today,
anyone –– living in Oregon or just here
for short time, uninsured or covered by
OHP –– can have an unlimited number
of free (taxpayer funded) abortions at any
time during pregnancy.
A “yes” vote on Measure 106 will
not in any way affect anyone’s right to
choose abortion.
Passing Measure 106, however, is nec-
essary to stop taxpayer funding of elec-
tive, including late-term, abortions when
the baby is perfectly healthy.
What is not true –– Measure 106 is not
about limiting or “cherry picking” health
care. While grassroots are behind this
measure, the powerful well-funded spe-
cial interest groups, Planned Parenthood
and NARAL, will most likely be spend-
ing millions in an effort to distort and
confuse facts, working to convince voters
to oppose.
This is truly a David vs Goliath
scenario.
Oregon taxpayers should not be forced
to pay for other people’s choices. Please
join me in voting “yes” on Measure 106.
Annette Lathrop is Oregon Life United
Wallowa County Coordinator and for-
merly authored the Chieftain column
“Just Thinking.”
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Contents copyright © 2018. All rights reserved.
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Volume 134
1 Year
$40.00
$57.00
How I became a ‘working’ volunteer
I got a message from Wallowa County
Commissioner Todd Nash the other day.
He said they were re-doing the corrals
at the timed event end of the fairgrounds
arena and could use some help.
I initially thought he was in need of
a good plan for the new layout. Always
eager to be a consultant and share my
extensive knowledge on corral configu-
ration, I readily accepted his invitation to
participate. We set up an appointment for
the next day at 8 a.m.
I cleaned up and appropriately dressed
in my best ranch apparel, grabbed some
OPEN RANGE
Barrie Qualle
sketches I had worked on for the corral
feng schui remodel and headed for the
fairgrounds arriving 10 minutes early for
the appointment.
Upon arrival and ready to consult, I hap-
pily headed toward Todd and Greg Seifer,
the fairgrounds ace employee, who were
already at the site. After some pleasantries,
Todd said, “well we better get at it.”
With that, he and Greg began the
demolition of the standing set of cor-
rals. I became a little confused but feel-
ing uncomfortable standing around, even-
tually started helping with the work. Todd
and Greg worked with a steady efficiency
and were making good progress.
I fetched tools and helped move things
that took more than one person. I acciden-
tally got caught up in the effort and began
See QUALLE, Page A5