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About Baker City herald. (Baker City, Or.) 1990-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 27, 2019)
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2019 Baker City, Oregon 4A Write a letter news@bakercityherald.com EDITORIAL Streets & striping Baker City Councilor Lynette Perry took to Facebook this week to survey her constituents about the possibil- ity of restriping 10th Street from its 4-lane confi gura- tion, with no center turn lane, to 3 lanes, with one travel lane in each direction and a center turn lane. That’s the striping scheme that’s been in place on Campbell Street, from Main to Birch, since 1997. Perry’s two posts on the subject have solicited more than 70 comments since Monday. The vast majority of posters want to keep 10th Street as it is. Facebook is hardly a scientifi c survey, of course. But it is an effective way for an elected offi cial to get a sense of public sentiment — almost certainly more effective than relying on people to attend a City Council meet- ing. The Oregon Department of Transportation has proposed to change to 3-lane striping on 10th Street between Broadway and Pocahontas, and possibly on Broadway from Main to 10th. But the decision is ulti- mately up to the City Council, hence Perry’s posts. Traffi c engineers generally prefer the 3-lane setup because it’s been proved effective at reducing crashes — in particular rear-end collisions that happen on 4-lane streets when a driver has to stop, in the left travel lane, to make a left turn. According to ODOT data, in the fi ve years after Campbell was restriped the number of crashes on that section dropped by 15%. In 2013 a consulting fi rm the city hired to update its transportation plan suggested restriping both 10th and Broadway streets to 3 lanes. The fi rm’s report noted that making that change tends to reduce average speeds, and it creates room for bicycle lanes. The response to Perry’s Facebook posts is compelling evidence that Baker City residents prefer the current 4-lane confi guration on those two streets. It certainly gives Perry and her fellow councilors something to consider when they take up the issue next year. Staying with 4 lanes is reasonable, considering there hasn’t been an abnormal rash of crashes on either street that can be attributed to the striping. Moreover, traffi c volumes on 10th and Broadway are about half, roughly 5,000 vehicles on average per day, the volume on the 3-lane stretch of Campbell. — Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor OUR VIEW Say no to decriminalizing drugs Oregonians may be asked next year to approve a ballot measure that would decriminalize the possession of illegal drugs. That in itself is a bad idea; worse is the way the measure would fi nance improved drug treatment programs. Initiative Petition 44 is the baby of the Drug Policy Alliance, a national organization that hopes to change the way Americans deal with drugs. It recently turned in to the Secretary of State’s Offi ce the 1,000 signatures needed to begin work on a ballot title. While Oregonians love their legal marijuana, they may be far less will- ing to decriminalize everything from heroin and other opioids to metham- phetamine, and with good reason. Those drugs are both addictive and dangerous, and decriminalization could make it easier for children to get hold of them. Perhaps the real point of IP 44 is the way it expands treatment for those with drug problems, and the way it fi nances that expansion. Initial estimates are that in its fi rst year, the program envisioned in the measure would cost $57 million, most of which would come from taxes im- posed on recreational marijuana sales that now go to cities, counties, state police and various health improvement efforts. In succeeding years, costs are expected to grow, and again, marijuana taxes would be used to fi nance the program, along with funds redirected from savings on prosecution and incar- ceration costs. Only after all of that would the state police, cities and counties receive the tax dollars voters were promised they would receive when marijuana was made legal in Oregon. While it’s probably not surprising that some in the criminal justice sys- tem are opposed to the measure, some treatment providers oppose it, as well. They point out they’re already working with the state to improve treatment options and worry that, among other things, the ballot measure includes no way to push those with addictions toward treatment programs. Oregon voters, if they’re asked to approve IP 44, should just say no. The current system may need fi xing, but wholesale decriminalization is not the answer. Nor is it appropriate to short- circuit local efforts to improve drug treatment measures in Oregon, as this measure no doubt would. Letters to the editor letters to the editor. • Letters are limited to 350 words; longer letters will be edited for length. Writers are limited to one letter every 15 days. • The writer must sign the letter and include an address and phone number (for verifi cation only). Letters that do not include this information cannot be published. • Letters will be edited for brevity, grammar, taste and legal reasons. • We welcome letters on any issue of public interest. Customer complaints about specifi c businesses will not be printed. • The Baker City Herald will not knowingly print false or misleading claims. However, we cannot verify the accuracy of all statements in 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. Mail: To the Editor, Baker City Herald, P.O. Box 807, Baker City, OR 97814 Email: news@bakercityherald.com Anti-hunting columnist dehumanizes people If I wrote that all liberals are the same because they support labor unions and believe restrictions on abortions are unconstitutional you might accuse me of both general- izing and stereotyping. And you would, of course, be right to chastise me on both counts. The tendency to sort people into distinct and narrow categories, as though the Dewey Decimal System were as appropriate for humans as for books, strikes me as the sort of noxious attitude that entices people to deny, however subcon- sciously, the essential humanity of those whose lifestyles they disdain in some way. It seems to me that American society has been moving in recent years in the gratifying direction of eschewing such simplistic defi ni- tions in referring to each other. As well we should — humans are nothing if not complex, and I appreciate the increasing recog- nition that each of us is unique, notwithstanding the inevitable commonality of certain qualities and interests. I was rather surprised, then, by a column offered recently by a syndication service the Herald uses occasionally for content on this page. The columnist contends that hunters who kill deer and eat the meat are ethically identical to hunters who kill black rhinoc- eroses in Africa and import the animal’s skin, skull and horns as JAYSON JACOBY trophies. “Despite what ‘sport’ hunters would like you to think, they’re actually all the same,” writes Mi- chelle Kretzer, a senior writer for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). “There’s really no difference between people who kill elephants, rhinos and lions for fun and those who fi nd amusement in gunning down deer, squirrels, turkeys and bears.” That’s quite an obnoxious allega- tion. But it’s not even the most of- fensive paragraph in Kretzer’s column. That dubious distinction, in my view, is reserved for a work that isn’t even her own. She also quotes author Howard Siegel, whose book title — “Ordinary Beasts: Hunting and Cultural Psychopathy” — suggests that there’s no great difference between a hunter and a serial killer. Siegel’s conclusion, Kretzer writes, is that hunting “is killing without a purpose other than the self-pleasuring of the hunter.” I don’t generally pay much attention to PETA, or to authors whom PETA offi cials admire. I have lampooned some of the organization’s more outlandish campaigns, including its effort to rid the language of such sayings as “kill two birds with one stone,” and to cajole us, while also shaming anglers, into referring to fi sh as “sea kittens.” These examples seem to me harmless, since I don’t detect any intent on PETA’s part to demean entire classes of people based on a single shared hobby. But I’ve always believed that the veneer of silliness that overlays many of PETA’s public pronounce- ments disguises a bigotry that, like all examples of that breed, isn’t even slightly amusing. Kretzer’s screed against hunters does away altogether with PETA’s sometimes disarming fatuousness. Her column lays bare what seems to me the organization’s underly- ing hatred for people who don’t subscribe to PETA’s narrow beliefs about the relationships between humans and other organisms. Kretzer’s indictment of hunters is rife with claims so hyberbolic that any writer with a modicum of self-awareness would I suspect blush at the very thought of pen- ning them. Lines such as “hunters kill because they enjoy killing,” and hunters who kill animals “do it just for the ‘thrill’ of it” remind me of nothing so much as the hysterical ramblings of a teenager whose self- righteous indignation is as honed as a bodybuilder’s biceps but whose faculty for soberly contemplating a complex topic is as fl accid as a newborn’s abs. If I didn’t fi nd Kretzer’s exagger- ations so abhorrent I might admire her confi dence in dashing off proc- lamations so easily disproved that none but the most robotic acolyte could read the passages without a refl exive shudder. She writes, for instance, that “natural predators help maintain the balance of the ecosystem by killing only the sickest and weak- est individuals. Hunters, on the other hand, aim for animals whose heads they’d like to hang over their fi replace.” This seems to me the written equivalent of children who, when ordered to eat their lima beans, hold their breaths until they pass out. Kretzer is correct, of course, that humans are the only preda- tors who care whether a buck is a well-proportioned four-point or a misshapen three-point. This is hardly a revelation. And it’s a point any reasonable hunter would readily concede. But Kretzer’s smug assurance that predators “only” kill the weak- est and sickest is not a biologically defensible claim. The idea that a cougar, or a wolf pack, that hap- pens upon a perfectly healthy adult deer will in every such case allow the deer to saunter past, and then wait however long it might take to fi nd a sickly specimen to pounce on, is nonsensical. Non-human preda- tors are opportunistic hunters. And although prey animals weakened by illness, age or injury obviously are easier to catch and kill, animals in that condition aren’t always handy when a predator decides it’s time to eat. Kretzer’s allegation that hunt- ers kill animals “just for the ‘thrill’ of it,” ignores reality in a similarly sophomoric way. If Kretzer were right there would be no need for venison recipes. Yet even a cursory internet search reveals hundreds. I recognize, of course, that PETA isn’t interested in an actual debate about the differences between tro- phy hunting and sport hunting. Kretzer’s column could hardly express more clearly the organiza- tion’s disdain for killing animals for almost any reason. What I fi nd curious is that a PETA offi cial would be so callous as to defi ne people based on a single characteristic. It is one thing to fi nd hunting distasteful regardless of its purpose. It is quite another to sug- gest, as Kretzer does, that a person who shoots a deer and ends up not with a trophy but with a freezer full of healthy meat might well suf- fer from a mental defect. Jayson Jacoby is editor of the Baker City Herald.