FRIDAY, AUGUST 23, 2019
Baker City, Oregon
4A
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OUR VIEW
Officials
answer to
the public
Occasionally it is prudent to remind voters in Oregon
of a few, fundamental elements regarding our access to
government.
In Oregon, the presumption is always government is,
and will always will be, open to public scrutiny. This scru-
tiny promotes our form of democracy and also furnishes a
degree of transparency.
In short, all Oregonians have a right to know what their
government is doing, how it is spending taxpayer money
and what that money is spent on. This isn’t a nifty notion,
or an aspiration. It is a right. Like the right to keep and
bear arms. Like the right of free speech. It isn’t a debat-
able item.
In short, every single Oregonian has the right to pre-
pare and deliver a public records request to any govern-
ment entity to seek specifi c records. Some records are
inaccessible and are “exempt.” These exempt records are
that way for a very specifi c reason with a narrow scope.
The important question for readers is what is a news-
paper’s role in such a paradigm. A newspaper — a good
one at least — acts as a sort of de facto representative of
the people. When matters that are important to the body
politic as a whole come to light, the newspaper can act
in the public interest and fi le a public records request.
This action isn’t about pursuing red herrings or hound-
ing hard-working elected and public offi cials. The process
is designed to help inform the public — voters — so they
can make good decisions about policy. That’s because
elected and appointed offi cials — at least in our nation —
don’t get to do whatever they want when they want. Our
system doesn’t work that way. Every public and elected
offi cial is beholden to the voters. Every public and elected
offi cial has but one responsibility — to represent their
constituents.
That means, in the end, that public and elected lead-
ers are required to be open with the public. Whether they
want to or not, they must answer to the body politic. As a
newspaper, our role is ensuring that those elected and ap-
pointed offi cials don’t lose sight of that important fact and
to certify they are being open and transparent.
Occasionally, that system puts us at odds with people
who have the best interest of the public at heart but don’t
see why certain elements of their work should be open
to the public. We take no pleasure creating more work
for public or elected offi cials but we consider our role as
a watchdog to be vital for not only the health of our little
piece of the Republic but for the well-being of our system
of government as a whole.
We take our job seriously and readers should rest
assured we will meet any challenge to keep our readers
informed.
After all, that’s our job.
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the Baker City Herald.
Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the
opinions of the authors and not necessarily that of the Baker City
Herald.
Falling into the rabbit hole of
the energy facility siting process
Alice sits in the docket in a court-
room full of what look like sheep but
are really members of the Oregon
Energy Facilities Siting Commit-
tee (EFSC). In the back of the court
are what appear to be vultures but
are actually Idaho Power lawyers
and PR persons. In the judge’s seat
is the Brown Queen. The sheep are
baaaing, the vultures are grinning on
their perches, hunched, rubbing the
tips of their wings together as if they
had hands and, the Brown Queen is
screaming at Alice, “Shut up! Shut up!”
Alice yells back, “This is nothing but
a kangaroo court.”
“Of course it is!” the Brown Queen
screams, “Why? Because we always
jump to our own conclusions.”
Alice interrupts: “Like for Idaho Pow-
er, and it makes me hopping mad. How
deep is a kangaroo’s pocket anyway?”
“Order!” shouts the Brown Queen,
“None of your impertinence! Let-
ters you address to us we will ignore
because a power company helped elect
me and in turn I own the weasels —
hmmm, I mean sheep, who I appointed
or sanctioned. We make this look
democratic. Write protest letters all you
want but remember, we make the rules.
We even have a rule if you don’t cross
your i’s and dot your t’s we automati-
cally throw your letter out.”
“But you don’t dot t’s or cross your
i’s.”
“Oh but I do!” the Brown Queen
exclaims, crossing her eyes. “And after
they cross, I do it again, that way
everyone who voted for me knows I’m a
double crosser. Next, everyone’s letters,
like yours, I feed them to my EFSC
weasels — hmmm, I mean sheep, who
make fun of them before voting on the
WHIT
DESCHNER
known outcome. That’s why we always
win. And you lose.”
“But it isn’t fair,” Alice cries. “The
power lines are unnecessary. The only
reason you want to approve this is
because Idaho Power is buttering your
bread. New technology will render
Idaho Power’s project useless. Idaho
Power plans on ruining over 9,000
acres of land running lines through
Eastern Oregon and give us nothing. To
boot, Idaho Power has no honest plan
to stop their equipment from spreading
noxious weeds into our farmlands!”
“Shut her up!” the Brown Queen
bellows.
The noise in the court gets louder,
the EFSC sheep are baaaing with
intent and the Idaho Power vultures
are ruffl ing feathers and are blowing
raspberries. Alice continues:
“What about fi res like the Paradise
fi re that was started by PG&E? Idaho
Power plans to use our volunteer fi re-
men to extinguish their fi res. You’re
going to approve Idaho Power’s plans to
destroy our national heritage, ruining
Letters to the editor
We welcome letters on any issue of
public interest. Letters are limited
to 350 words. Writers are limited
to one letter every 15 days. Writers
must sign their letter and include
an address and phone number (for
verifi cation only). Email letters to
news@bakercityherald.com.
tracks of the Oregon Trail, and then
rub it in by stringing wires and plant-
ing towers in plain sight of the BLM’s
Oregon Trail Interpretive Center. It
will ruin the tourism Baker has nur-
tured.”
“Off with her head!” the Brown
Queen roars.
“At least I have one,” Alice retorts.
“What about noise? EMFs? No plan for
those is there? And those Idaho Power
dams built 50 years ago promising to
build fi sh ladders for them but lied just
to build the dams? And you are slob-
bering to give license to Idaho Power to
do as they please and run permanent
havoc throughout Eastern Oregon.
You were given charge of protecting
citizens, not nurturing profi ts for big
businesses! And furthermore …”
But the vultures began squawking
“Ignore the facts! Ignore the facts!” and
Alice can no longer be heard. Ripping
off their outfi ts, the sheep have sud-
denly revealed themselves as weasels
who begin hissing. The Brown Queen
smashes her gavel on her desk, and
crossing her eyes, commands, “Take
her away! No, bring her here! Let me
give her a sentence: ‘lake Alice away
and make her wrile protest lellers the
resl of her life and when elernily comes,
remove her head.’ There! How do you
like that sentence?”
“You didn’t cross your t’s.”
“No but I crossed my eyes.”
“Your rules,” said Alice, “Don’t make
any sense.”
Alice said much more that day.
But it can’t be printed here.
Whit Deschner is a Baker City resident
and member of the Stop B2H Coalition.
Bear is back: Grylls captures a new generation
It occurred to me recently that
far too much time had passed since
I watched a man bite off a snake’s
head and drink his own urine.
Not that he did it on the same
day or anything.
And although I was pretty sure
this particular man also once
slaked his thirst by squeezing liquid
from manure he yanked out of an
animal’s bloated carcass, I couldn’t
be certain whether the dung donor
was a camel or a wildebeest.
I missed Bear Grylls.
The Englishman was once a
formidable TV personality but I
couldn’t recall the last time I had
seen him on the screen.
Grylls starred in “Man vs. Wild,”
which aired on the Discovery Chan-
nel from 2006 to 2011.
The show’s concept was simple
and for me, at least temporarily, all
but irresistible.
Grylls would make a dramatic
entrance into some forbidding
landscape — he often leaped from
a helicopter or some similarly
death-defying feat — and then
JAYSON
JACOBY
make his way through the desert
or mountains or jungle or whatever,
eventually reaching civilization.
Along the way Grylls would
demonstrate a variety of survival
techniques. Some of these were
quite straightforward and poten-
tially useful — Grylls is quite adept
at starting fi res, for instance.
But it was his fl air for the out-
landish that so appealed to an audi-
ence accustomed, by 2006, to the
spectacle that is reality television.
Grylls was forever putting
himself into precarious situations
— scaling cliffs without ropes and
diving into frigid whitewater rivers
and poking about in caves.
But I daresay his reputation was
made largely on his willingness to
swallow items most people would
deign even to touch with a fi ngertip.
Grylls consumed, in addition to
his own bodily fl uids, various in-
sects, some of which made a consid-
erable crunch if you turned up the
hi-fi far enough while he was biting
down. He was also prone to gulping
down parts of animals that had not
been rendered slightly more palat-
able by exposure to fl ame.
And one time he gave himself an
enema.
In common with many reality TV
series, I eventually became fatigued
with “Man vs. Wild” largely because
it was repetitive.
Grylls traveled to a different
place for each episode, but his
exploits followed a predictable
script. You knew he would conquer
some topographical obstacle with
panache — but with a cliffhanger
followed by a commercial — con-
struct some rudimentary but
clever shelter, fashion a fi re and eat
something that would make most
people vomit.
The formula became too familiar
to be especially compelling.
It became clear to me that Grylls
wasn’t likely to, for instance, per-
form an appendectomy on himself
and then eat the superfl uous organ.
I gradually lost interest.
But then my son, Max, who’s 8
and thus too young to have watched
Grylls during his cable heyday,
found out about the show.
Max and his sister, Olivia, who’s
12, insisted we investigate the
streaming services to see if “Man vs.
Wild” is available.
Naturally — inevitably — it is.
We started with the episode from
Season 3 when Grylls tackles the
Black Hills and the Badlands of
South Dakota. This wasn’t coinci-
dental, as we had recently visited
both places. And although we hiked
in the Black Hills we had suffi cient
food and water in our packs that we
didn’t have to resort to less pleasant
forms of sustenance.
Both Max and Olivia have taken
to “Man vs. Wild” with enthusiasm,
neither being jaded, as I am, by
overexposure in the past.
Max, who already had a budding
fascination with outdoor tools, is
especially enamored with Grylls’
accouterments.
I sat down at our laptop the
other evening and the active tab
was a website featuring a fearsome
survival knife — the sort of weapon
Rambo might deploy when his
M-16 or a fl amethrower was a trifl e
too impersonal for dispatching half
a dozen mercenaries.
We had a discussion, Max and I,
just before bed recently about the
merits of fi xed-blade and folding
knives. This is a topic that rarely
comes up in the Hardy Boys books
we read most nights.
And although Frank and Joe,
like Bear Grylls, get into plenty of
scrapes, most of their adventures
involved hearty comfort foods lov-
ingly prepared and served by their
mother or by Aunt Gertrude.
Also, the Hardys, when threat-
ened by dehydration, always fi nd a
convenient spring before resorting
to less savory refreshments.
Jayson Jacoby is editor
of the Baker City Herald.