4 A
❘
WEDNESDAY EDITION
❘ SEPTEMBER 14, 2016
Siuslaw News
NED HICKSON , EDITOR
❘ 541-902-3520 ❘
EDITOR @ THESIUSLAWNEWS . COM
Opinion
P.O. Box 10
Florence, OR 97439
New desk, same love for this paper and its community
Seventeen years ago next
month, I sat across from the
very desk I’m now writing at,
trying to explain to editor
Bob Serra why he should hire
me. I was up against a couple
of journalism graduates from
the University of Oregon.
Though I had been a writer
for many years, I had no
experience as a journalist.
No degree of any kind.
In fact, I had spent the last
10 years as a corporate chef
and restaurant consultant.
Maybe he’ll hire me if I
promised to make him lunch
every day? I thought.
When he called back to
hire me, it changed my life in
ways I hadn’t imagined, as
well as ways I had always
hoped for.
Florence has a way of
doing that because of the
kinds of people who make up
its character as a community.
When I first moved here as a
sophomore in high school in
1981, it was culture shock for
a 15-year-old who was used
to life in suburban Los
Angeles. Life on the North
Fork didn’t include malls and
movie theaters.
one place that would always
be home. Living in places
like Dallas, Texas, and
Atlanta, Ga., and traveling the
country from Alaska to
From the Editor’s Desk
N ED H ICKSON
Or wearing mud boots.
I couldn’t wait to leave.
But by the time I graduated
from Siuslaw High School in
1984, I knew wherever my
travels took me, I would
eventually come back to the
Tennessee as a corporate chef,
I still always thought of
Florence as my home.
After nearly two decades
as a sports editor and colum-
nist for Siuslaw News, I’ve
had the privilege of engaging
with the Florence and
Mapleton community on
many levels, whether it be a
laugh, a shout of excitement
during a game, or quiet tears
after tragedy.
On the surface, the news-
paper is a time capsule chron-
icling life in our community
— informing those of today
and offering its history for
tomorrow. But it’s more than
that. It’s also a member of the
community, contributing what
it can to its neighbors in the
same way we do as individu-
als.
That’s been my philosophy
from the beginning and one
that will continue as editor.
Truth be told, it was
serendipity that brought me
back in 1998 through a
chance meeting and my
friendship with previous
sports editor Jason Jensen.
However, it was my love
for this community that led to
this desk; sitting in front of it
at first, and now sitting
behind it as your editor.
My door is always open.
Although, from time to
time, you might still find me
back in the kitchen.
Contact him at nhickson@the
siuslawnews.com or P.O. Box 10,
Florence, Ore., 97439.
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Write to:
Editor@TheSiuslawNews.com
The perfect solution
Trumpism toxin
Apparently, sanctions against North
Korea aren’t effective to slow down its
nuclear program because China financially
supports them.
At the same time, China is against any
missile defense system in South Korea.
So the perfect solution is for the USA to
develop and launch a satellite that’s capa-
ble of changing any missile’s targeting
software to RTS — “Return To Sender.”
Bill Craig
Florence
The Trump hustle, a toxic brew of big-
otry, paranoia and parochialism, has incited
the darker angels of the millions of
Americans whose faith in our economic,
governmental and political institutions has
collapsed. Mr. Trump tells them the reason
is the rapists, murderers, Muslim terrorists
and other foreigners who themselves or
whose parents have crossed our borders to
take advantage of American largess and a
“rigged” system paralyzed by corrupt offi-
cials and political correctness.
This coarsened political message repris-
es the rant of Peter Finch’s character in the
movie “Network:” “I’m as mad as hell, and
I’m not going to take this anymore!”
Trump’s unbuildable border wall and
impossible deportation of 11 million peo-
ple, allowing in only “severely vetted”
immigrants who pass religious and ideo-
logical tests, may sound good to nativists
and alt-right-wingers. So did the exhorta-
tions of the anti-Catholic immigrant Know-
Nothing Party in the 1850s. But, 175 years
later, it remains the same flimflam, only
now done in reality TV skin tones.
But, Trump’s careless, irresponsible pur-
suit of voters “who are not going to take
The Clinton defense
Hillary Clinton told the FBI dozens of
times that she couldn’t remember all the
stuff they wanted to know. She said she had
some brain damage due to a concussion.
How would she be able to find the
nuclear football, let alone the code to use
it?
Martha Stewart’s stockholder called her
one day, said he had a heck of a deal.
Martha told the truth and went to jail. I
guess she didn’t know about the Clinton
defense.
Martin Cable
Dunes City
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John Bartlett
Jenna Bartlett
Ned Hickson
Susan Gutierrez
Cathy Dietz
Ron Annis
Jeremy Gentry
this anymore” is poisoning the well beyond
the Hispanics, Muslims and others he
explicitly targets.
This was brought home to me when my
10-year-old eurasian granddaughter came
home to ask her ethnic-Chinese father, who
became a citizen after he was brought to
America when he was 9 to escape the
Khmer Rouge, “Daddy, if Mr. Trump is
president will you have to go back to
Cambodia?”
A Trump loss in November might damp-
en these fears. But, will the Trumpism
toxin remain in the system to poison my
granddaughter’s generation?
Mr. Trump, enabled by the endorsement
of too many party leaders like Ryan,
Christie and Giuliani, has implicitly prom-
ised his supporters a gated nation within
which everyone will have a job, speak only
English and lead middle-class lives where
law and order will prevail.
What happens when it turns out this
Mayberry RFD disappears when you turn
off the TV? We can only hope for responsi-
ble leadership that can put Trump’s xeno-
phobic genie back in the bottle.
Arnold Buchman
Florence
Pres. Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20500
Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
FAX: 202-456-2461
TTY/TDD Comments: 202-456-6213
www.whitehouse.gov
Gov. Kate Brown
160 State Capitol
900 Court St.
Salem, OR 97301-4047
Governor’s Citizens’ Rep.
Message Line 503-378-4582
www.oregon.gov/gov
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden
221 Dirksen Senate Office Bldg
Washington, DC 20510
202-224-5244
541-431-0229
www.wyden.senate.gov
FAX: 503-986-1080
Email:
Sen.ArnieRoblan@state.or.us
U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley
313 Hart Senate Office Bldg
Washington, DC 20510
202-224-3753/FAX: 202-228-3997
541-465-6750
State Rep. Caddy McKeown
(Dist. 9)
900 Court St. NE
Salem, OR 97301
503-986-1409
Email:
rep.caddymckeown@state.or.us
U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio (4th Dist.)
2134 Rayburn HOB
Washington, DC 20515
202-225-6416/ 800-944-9603
541-269-2609/ 541-465-6732
www.defazio.house.gov
State Sen. Arnie Roblan (Dist. 5)
900 Court St. NE - S-417
Salem, OR 97301
503-986-1705
West Lane County Commissioner
Jay Bozievich
125 E. Eighth St.
Eugene, OR 97401
541-682-4203
FAX: 541-682-4616
Email:
Jay.Bozievich@co.lane.or.us