FRIDAY, AUGUST 30, 2019
Baker City, Oregon
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EDITORIAL
Tax kicker
economics
Oregon income taxpayers are in line to receive the
biggest refund next year due to the state’s unique tax
“kicker” law. State offi cials said this week that tax
revenue exceeded by $2.6 billion the state’s projection
from 2017. Under the kicker law, the state returns
taxes, in the form of credits, when revenue surpasses
projections by at least 2%.
Some state lawmakers and offi cials — Democrats,
mainly — probably will try to divert at least some
of this money. They might propose to pay down the
state’s public employee retirement system shortfall
or bolster the rainy day fund as a hedge against a
future recession.
But another announcement this week, this one
from the federal government, highlights the econom-
ic benefi ts of keeping money in Americans’ wallets
rather than in government coffers.
Reports show that although the national economy
slowed this spring, with the gross domestic product
growing by 2%, down from 3.1% in the fi rst quarter,
an increase in consumer spending to the highest
level in nearly fi ve years partially offset that slow-
down.
This is vital because consumer spending is respon-
sible for about 70% of economic growth.
Oregon’s reserve funds already are at an all-time
high of $3.7 billion. Making sure residents receive
their full kicker credits — the average is estimated
at $739 — would stimulate the economy and, poten-
tially, reduce the need to dip into that reserve.
— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor
Your views
Congress needs to act to
improve elections security
Our elections are still under threat
from hacking, and Congress has not act-
ed to keep our elections safe. However,
the U.S. House has passed a bill to al-
locate $600 million for election security
in states and municipalities. Security
would involve paper ballots and adults
rather than voting by machines which
can be tampered with.
Now it is up to the Senate to join with
the House of Representatives to pass
legislation to ensure safe elections. So
contact your senators and request ac-
tion on safeguarding our elections. Ask
Senator McConnell to move forward on
election security.
Election security should be a bipar-
tisan effort and we need some positive
action from our leaders so that we can
vote with confi dence, knowing that
our votes will be accurately counted.
Incidentally, Rep. Greg Walden voted
against HR 2722, Securing America’s
Federal Elections Act.
Bruce Raffety
Baker City
Baker City could use a clock/
thermometer downtown
Kinda quiet in the letters to the editor
department. What better way to spend
a late summer afternoon than musing
about what I see around us?
It would be nice if we had a working
thermometer downtown. When you live
in a land of such extremes, it’s a handy
thing to have. And you can take pictures
of it to record its historical value with
the town in the background.
None of the clocks downtown are
worth a hill of beans. Too small to be leg-
ible from a distance. It would be nice to
have one that sits on a vintage pedestal
or something. In theme with the build-
ings of the period.
Another thing concerns this very pa-
per. Small town papers are slowly dying
out for a number of reasons. Printing
and distribution are darn expensive now
and everybody is moving their publica-
tions online. The writing is on the wall ...
It breaks my heart that a town of
this size no longer has a radio station.
There’s such a need. I’m hoping some
adventurous person will bring that back
someday.
Dan Collins
Baker City
OUR VIEW
We remember when we found out that our
favorite chocolate chip cookies weren’t made
by elves in a hollow tree.
Had we not been 8 at the time, we might
have hired a lawyer and taken the folks at
Keebler to court for falsely suggesting it was
elven magic that made the cookies and other
snacks so good. Such a case would have been
thrown out of court.
But that lawsuit would have had more
merit than one fi led last week against the
Tillamook Creamery Association by the Ani-
mal Legal Defense Fund, which is even more
without merit.
The dairy cooperative is accused in the
lawsuit of unjustly enriching itself and violat-
ing Oregon trade practices law by touting
small family farms with pasture-raised cows
when most of its milk is sourced from the
“most industrialized dairy factory farm in the
country.”
About two-thirds of the creamery’s milk
comes from 32,000 dairy cows raised at
Threemile Canyon Farms’ facility in Board-
man, “where cows are continuously confi ned,
milked by robotic carousels, and affl icted
with painful udder infections,” the lawsuit
alleges.
The complaint claims that while the
company advertises its dairy products as
being produced in Tillamook County with
“small-scale traditional farming methods,”
it’s heavily reliant on a distant “mega-dairy”
that’s large enough to be “visible from space.”
Tillamook is a farmer-owned cooperative.
The sale of cheese, butter and ice cream on a
national scale benefi ts those farmers.
Unlike Keebler, which specifi cally claimed
its products were made in a hollow tree by
elves, Tillamook has never claimed that all
its products are made in Tillamook or all the
milk is sourced from its members.
That Tillamook sources milk from Three-
mile Canyon Farms and other large dairies
outside Tillamook County has never been a
secret. It has been reported widely for nearly
20 years, not only in the East Oregonian but
other statewide media such as Oregon Public
Broadcasting and The Oregonian/Oregonlive.
com.
We’re not sure what “traditional farming
methods” consumers imagine are utilized by
co-op members who have appeared in Tilla-
mook advertising. With the exception of scale,
many of their methods are similar to those
employed at Threemile Canyon.
Milking carousels — robotic or otherwise
— are common on the dairies of farmer-
owners in Tillamook County. No commercial-
scale dairy milks by hand.
“Painful udder infections” occur on small
family farms too, even on organic dairies.
Beef cows get them, too. Dairy producers
take great care to prevent the infections and
to treat them once they appear.
In 2012 PETA sued the California Milk
Advisory Board claiming its popular “happy
cow” promotion was false advertising. A
judge threw that case out, ruling PETA
couldn’t back up its claims.
An Oregon judge should do the same with
this case.
(In the interest of full disclosure and to
avoid litigation, we admit to leading read-
ers on a bit. We thought Chips Ahoy were a
lot better than the Keebler cookies, but the
Nabisco advertising campaign didn’t fi t our
narrative.)
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the Baker
City Herald. Columns, letters and cartoons on
this page express the opinions of the authors and
not necessarily that of the Baker City Herald.
Crater Lake always lives up to its reputation
I underestimated Crater Lake.
Which is not an easy thing to do
with a lake that’s almost 2,000 feet
deep and clogs the collapsed throat
of a volcano that until very recently,
geologically speaking, was taller
than Mount Hood.
Perhaps I’ve been jaded by recent
visits to better-known phenom-
enon of both the natural variety
— the Tetons and Death Valley, for
instance — and the unnatural —
Mount Rushmore.
All three of those places lure
more visitors than does Crater
Lake, which is Oregon’s lone na-
tional park.
Considerably more in the case
of Grand Teton National Park
(3.5 million visits in 2018), Mount
Rushmore (2.3 million) and Death
Valley National Park (1.7 million).
Crater Lake’s visitor count last year
was 720,000, which barely put it in
the top 100 (97th) among 378 sites
managed by the National Park
Service.
I think it’s more likely, though,
that I simply took Crater Lake for
granted.
I have been there several times,
for one thing.
And because I don’t even need
JAYSON
JACOBY
to leave my native state to see the
lake, it seems to me that I don’t
afford the place the same cachet of
exoticism I reserve for other states
whose sights and ways I am not so
familiar with.
I suspect I am similarly dismis-
sive, however unconsciously, of
other Oregon attractions, such
as the Cascade volcanoes, the
coast and Multnomah Falls, that
undoubtedly leave residents of less
amply endowed states in awe.
(I’m thinking here of, say, Kansas
or Iowa, states where the highest
point for miles around might well
be a grain silo rather than a basalt
butte.)
But my complacency disap-
peared immediately on the after-
noon of Aug. 18 when we rounded
a corner on the Rim Drive and had
our fi rst glimpse of Crater Lake.
I very nearly had to pull over
to the shoulder and gather my-
self. The scene was so singular, so
fantastically strange, that I could
scarcely resist the urge to stare at
the lake rather than make sure I
didn’t crash into an oncoming car or
careen off a cliff.
(And there is no scarcity of cliffs
at Crater Lake. Nor of oncoming
cars, at least on an August week-
end, no matter the park’s compara-
tively meager visitor tally.)
At any other time I would insist
that no body of water could impress
me as much as a mountain. I sup-
pose it’s because I spend most of my
time on land rather than in water,
but when I look upon a craggy peak
I can imagine what it would be like
to stand atop a fi n of stone, or to try
to ascend a nearly sheer slope.
Water doesn’t have the same
effect on me.
Except Crater Lake is different.
Its color is its most compelling
attribute — a shade of blue that’s
unique. I think it’s a fool’s errand to
try to describe the lake through the
conventional means of comparison.
The water’s hue is so distinct from
the blue of the sky or the sea or a
gemstone to make such analogs
not merely irrelevant but indeed
misleading.
I abhor and so normally eschew
clichés, but one is perfectly appro-
priate with regard to Crater Lake.
You truly must see it to believe it.
And even when you see Crater
Lake the scene is so jarring in its
novelty that it can seem, however
briefl y, to be the product of some-
thing other than nature.
✐
✐
✐
Went for a bike ride Sunday, in
the velvet light that previews dusk,
and I felt on my cheeks the breath
of autumn on the August breeze.
This was not the genuine article,
to be sure.
But waning August can some-
times put on a pretty fair approxi-
mation of the season to come, can
make the shelter of a light jacket
feel cozy for the fi rst time since May
(or June, what with our obstinate
climate).
At the risk of veering into mat-
ters more mystical than scien-
tifi c, this feeling that the fulcrum
between seasons has begun to tilt to
a discernible degree can’t always be
gauged with precision by a ther-
mometer.
The temperature during the bike
ride was perhaps a few degrees
lower than what it was around
twilight a couple weeks earlier.
Yet the quality of the air was
decidedly different, the delineation
between the light and the dark
more abrupt and somehow harsh.
It was still perfectly pleasant,
lacking the true chill of October.
There were even a couple of sorties
by mosquito, a symbol of summer
as certain as the s’more.
But it was obvious too that this
wasn’t the apotheosis of a summer
evening, when dusk falls but the
temperature barely does, and you
know that even at dawn the air will
remain oppressive.
Summery temperatures will
likely persist for at least a few more
weeks, of course.
Indeed, just a few days after the
bike ride the afternoon sun was as
scorching as in late July.
But a milestone had passed just
the same, as it does every year.
And for me that threshold mo-
ment happened while I was pedal-
ing, the silhouette of the Elkhorns
etched on the western skyline, and
the frost, the inevitable ice, not far
beyond.
Jayson Jacoby is editor
of the Baker City Herald.