4A COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL September 23, 2015
O PINION
CONTACT YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS
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Eugene, OR 97401
Phone: (541) 682-4203
Fax: (541) 682-4616
Cottage Grove City Hall: 942-
5501. www.cottagegrove.org/
Cottage Grove Mayor Tom
Munroe: 942-5501.
Oregon State House of
Representatives:
Cottage Grove City
Councilors:
Rep. Cedric Hayden (REP)
District: 7
900 Court Street NE
Suite H-379
Salem, OR 97301
Phone: (503) 986-1407
Fax: (503) 986-1130
Email: rep.cedrichayden@state.
or.us
Mike Fleck, At Large:
942-7302
Heather Murphy, At Large: 942-
3444
Jake Boone, Ward 1:
653-7413
Jeff Gowing, Ward 2:
942-1900
Oregon State Senate:
Sen. Floyd Prozanski (DEM)
District: 004
900 Court Street NE
Suite S-319
Salem, OR 97301-0001
Phone: (503) 986-1704
Fax: (503) 986-1080
Email: sen.fl oydprozanski@state.
or.us
Garland Burback, Ward 3:
942-4800
Lane County Commissioners:
Faye Stewart, East Lane Commis-
sioner. Lane County Public Service
Building
Why a big ego could be your downfall
N
ot so long ago, our cul-
ture really (really) ad-
mired people with big egos. We
called them rugged individual-
ists, fearless leaders, MVPs,
visionaries, and go-getters. We
respected these confi dent and
successful folks for (seemingly)
having all the answers. They
were all too happy to stand their
ground and argue their point,
and we saw this as a sign of
strength and leadership.
Now, everything has changed.
Larger-than-life egos are fast
becoming liabilities. Indeed,
in what may fi rst appear to be
a paradox, Professor Edward
Hess says that ego's mortal en-
emy—humility—is one of the
traits most likely to guaran-
tee success in the 21st century
workplace.
"In the tech tsunami of the
next few decades, robots and
smart machines are projected
to take over more than half of
U.S. jobs," says Hess, a profes-
sor at the University of Virgin-
ia's Darden Graduate School of
Business and author of "Learn
or Die: Using Science to Build
a Leading-Edge Learning Orga-
nization" (Columbia Business
School Publishing, 2014, ISBN:
978-0-231-17024-6,
$29.95,
www.EDHLTD.com).
"The jobs that will still be
'safe' involve higher-order cog-
Offbeat Oregon History
Murder of policeman turned Portland
against Unwritten Law
BY FINN J.D. JOHN
For the Sentinel
The Unwritten
Law Files
This column is one of a series
of case studies of the early-20th-
century mania for honor kill-
ings in Oregon. It was popularly
known as “The Unwritten Law,”
and it was a social convention
that permitted and/or obligated
a man to murder anyone whom
he knew to be working to seduce
his wife or sister. Unwritten Law
cases arose around the country
in the 1890s and were alarming-
ly common until around the time
of the First World War. Today’s
column discusses one such case,
which took place in Portland in
1907, and which may actually
be the case that ended what had
been widespread public approv-
al of Unwritten Law killings.
W
hen the story fi rst hit the news-
papers, it all seemed very clear
and simple:
An Albina man got drunk and beat up
his wife. Her brother went looking for
him to teach him a lesson and brought
along a friend who happened to be a
police offi cer. The wifebeater, tracked
down at a local saloon, came out shoot-
ing, and moments later the innocent,
luckless policeman lay dying on the
sidewalk as the wife-beating murderer
fl ed into the night.
For newspaper readers on the morn-
ing of Dec. 19, 1907, it was like a
Vaudeville stage tragedy come to life.
There was a good guy – brave, valiant
Joseph P. Sivener, on a mission to de-
liver a much-deserved thrashing to his
no-good, wife-beating brother-in-law; a
bad guy – Melville Bradley, the afore-
nitive and emotional skills that
technology can't replicate, like
critical thinking, innovation,
creativity and emotionally en-
gaging with other humans," he
explains. "All of those skills
have one thing in common:
They are enabled by humility."
Skeptical? Ask yourself this:
Have you ever met someone
with a big ego who was really
good at being open-minded?
Really good at refl ectively lis-
mentioned brother-in-law, whose surly,
shifty-eyed mugshot appeared next to
the story in the paper; the fair damsel
– poor, battered Mrs. Bradley; and an in-
nocent victim: the poor policeman, who
was just doing his job when sudden and
undeserved death came and bore him
away from his devastated wife and four
tiny children.
But those newspaper readers would
have just one day in which to savor that
comfortingly familiar storyline. The
very next day, the fi rst of a series of rev-
elations started peeling away layers that
eventually revealed a drama that seemed
to take every convention of the clean-cut
crime-story genre and turn it inside out.
When all was revealed to the increasing-
ly appalled and jaded readers, there was
not a single adult in the entire story that
most Portlanders could respect or relate
to in any way – except, perhaps, in some
small way, the murderer.
But the greatest loser in the whole
affair seems to have been Portland’s
growing infatuation with “The Unwrit-
ten Law.”
Here’s the story police got on the
night of the murder:
Melville Bradley had gotten into a
fi ght with his wife, Kate, earlier in the
tening? At putting himself in
another's shoes? At playing well
with others? At saying, "I don't
know," "Your idea is better than
mine," or, "You're right"? Didn't
think so.
Clearly, if you want to be an
effective leader (or even a suc-
cessful employee) in our brave
new workplace, you are going to
have to rein in your ego and be-
come more team-oriented. And
make no mistake, says Hess: It
day – a fi ght that ripened into “a beat-
ing administered to Mrs. Bradley by her
husband in a fi t of drunken jealousy,”
according to the Morning Oregonian’s
report.
After that, Bradley stormed off to a
saloon, where he apparently had sev-
eral more drinks. Meanwhile, Kate had
gone to her brother, Joseph Sivener, and
told him what had happened. Sivener, as
brothers are wont to do when such news
reaches their ears, rolled up his sleeves,
stuck out his chin and stormed off to the
saloon, intending to serve his brother-
in-law a few hand-crafted knuckle sand-
wiches.
A Portland policeman named John W.
Gittings accompanied Sivener to the sa-
loon and stood on the sidewalk nearby
as Sivener entered. Once inside, Sive-
ner found his man. “Come outside,” he
growled. “I want to see you.”
“You do, do you?” Bradley shot back.
“Well, I can’t see you any too damned
quick.” And he followed his brother-in-
law to the door.
Sivener wasted no time. As soon they
were both out the door, he hauled off and
punched Bradley in the face. Bradley’s
response was to pull a revolver out of
his pocket and fi re point-blank at Sive-
won't be easy.
"We're talking about self-
work that's never fi nished," he
says. "For one thing, ego-based
thinking is our brain's default
position—we naturally seek to
reinforce what we already think
we know. Also, we have to over-
come a lifetime of cultural and
behavioral big-ego condition-
ing. But if we're to stay compet-
itive in the Smart Machine Age,
it has to happen!"
ner. It was a clean miss, as was a second
follow-up shot. Sivener turned and tried
to fl ee but tripped and fell into the mud
by the street. There he lay, petrifi ed with
fear.
Meanwhile, Bradley had seen Git-
tings, and Gittings was probably already
drawing his service revolver. Bradley
turned his pistol on the policeman and
fi red his other four shots straight into
the offi cer. Gittings managed to get off
fi ve shots of his own before collapsing
to the sidewalk. None of Gittings’ shots,
apparently, touched Bradley.
Bradley immediately took to his heels.
After a few moments, Sivener picked
himself up out of the mud and went to
see to Gittings, who was still alive – but
barely.
“I’m afraid I’m done for,” the fallen
policeman said. “Send for a doctor at
once. Here is my gun. There is only one
shot left in it. Take it and get him if you
can.”
He then struggled to his feet, tottered
a few steps, then collapsed into Siven-
er’s arms and died.
Meanwhile, Bradley was running for
home, where he got his hat and van-
Please see OFFBEAT, Page 10A
The effects of soda and low-nutrient foods on children’s behavior
BY JOEL FUHRMAN, MD
For the Sentinel
T
he standard American
diet, chock full of soda and
other sugary drinks, fast foods
and other low-nutrient foods,
can have a major impact on the
health and
lives of our
children.
Rising rates
of
child-
hood obe-
sity driven
by this way
$ PUUBHF ( SPWF 4 FOUJOFM
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of eating have received much
attention; however, low-nutrient
foods are still having negative
effects on the physical and men-
tal health of children who are
not overweight. Children are not
immune to the damaging health
effects of the standard American
diet, which can set them up for
a lifetime of poor health ranging
from heart disease to behavior
problems and lower cognitive
performance.
On average, U.S. children and
teens consume over 200 calories
a day from soda and other sug-
ary drinks, and it is estimated
that about 14 percent of their
calories come from fast food.
As a result of the poor diets of
American children, more than
one-third of normal-weight
teenagers (and about half of
overweight teenagers) have at
least one diet-related risk fac-
tor for heart disease. These di-
etary patterns have the potential
to dramatically affect not only
public health but the productiv-
ity of our future adult popula-
tion; studies have implicated
poor diet in limiting intelligence
and academic performance, and
also have drawn parallels be-
tween consumption of sweets
during childhood and violence
in adulthood.
A study on soda consumption
found an increase in behavior
and attention problems in fi ve-
year-old children (as assessed by
their mothers) with increasing
daily consumption of soda. For-
ty-three percent of the fi ve-year-
olds in the study drank soda at
least once a day. The authors ad-
justed their results for potential
confounding factors that might
affect behavior, such as hours of
television and a stressful home
environment, and still found a
signifi cant association between
soda consumption and aggres-
sion, withdrawn behavior and
poor attention. They proposed
that caffeine and/or fl uctuations
in blood sugar might be respon-
sible for the association between
soda and behavior problems.
Blood glucose levels do affect
the workings of the brain, and
habitual high sugar intake has
been shown to impair cognitive
function. Several previous stud-
ies on high school students have
also associated soda consump-
tion with aggressive behavior,
as well as depression and self-
harm. Plus, higher sugar sweet-
ened beverage consumption is
linked to diabetes, cardiovascu-
lar disease and cancers.
In addition to soda, higher fast
food consumption in fi fth grade
(four or more times per week)
has been associated with poor-
er academic progress in math,
reading and science between
fi fth grade and eighth grade.
Children who ate fast food one
to three times per week—a com-
mon level of intake—compared
to those who ate no fast food
had lower scores in math. These
results suggest that children eat-
ing fast food frequently could
slow their academic progress.
The food habits children de-
velop in their early years have
a substantial impact on their
physical health and mental
well-being throughout the rest
of our lives. Parents need to
know this information, so that
they can help their children to
live healthfully, maintain a posi-
tive mindset and reach their full
cognitive potential.
Dr. Fuhrman is a #1 New York
Times best-selling author and a
family physician specializing in
lifestyle and nutritional medi-
cine. Visit his informative web-
site at DrFuhrman.com. Submit
your questions and comments
about this column directly to
newsquestions@drfuhrman.
com. The full reference list
for this article can be found at
DrFuhrman.com.
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