SATURDAY, MAY 30, 2020
Baker City, Oregon
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EDITORIAL
Welcoming
a vaccine
Government offi cials, including Oregon Gov. Kate
Brown, have said they don’t believe society can return
to something approaching normal until a vaccine is
widely available for the coronavirus.
But a recent poll suggests a signifi cant number of
Americans don’t necessarily concur — or at least that
they aren’t eager to bare their shoulders for an inocula-
tion against the virus that has affected the world like
none since the Spanish fl u in 1918.
The poll from The Associated Press and the NORC
Center for Public Affairs Research found that about
half of respondents defi nitely would get a vaccine for
the coronavirus.
Considering the miraculous benefi ts that vaccina-
tions have conveyed on the human race, eradicat-
ing deadly diseases such as smallpoxes and nearly
eliminating once-common affl ictions such as polio and
measles, the poll results are troubling.
The timing, before we have a lot of information about
trials of possible vaccines, might have infl uenced the
results. About 20% of respondents said they would
refuse the vaccination, while almost one-third said they
aren’t sure whether they would.
A certain level of trepidation is not surprising since
we’re not accustomed to researchers putting a vaccine
on such a fast track. Yet experts, including Dr. Francis
Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health,
emphasize that, as with other vaccines, this one will be
rigorously studied for safely as well as effi cacy. “I would
not want people to think that we’re cutting corners
because that would be a big mistake,” Collins said. We
should be grateful, not suspicious, that scientists are
striving to create a vaccine as soon as possible — their
work will save lives and help the economy recover.
The speed of their efforts refl ects the severity of this
pandemic, not a lack of rigor.
Some concerns expressed by respondents are utterly
unfounded. Among the roughly 20% who said they
won’t get the vaccine, about 4 in 10 say they fear the
inoculation would infect them. But the leading vaccine
candidates don’t contain the virus itself — they would
spur a response from the immune system without it.
The coronavirus vaccine should be one of the great
medical achievements of our lifetimes. But only if we
embrace its benefi ts, both for ourselves and for society.
— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor
OTHER VIEWS
Get the Supreme Court on camera
Editorial from The Chicago Tribune:
The U.S. Supreme Court has been
making history lately, and not by the
usual method of issuing decisions in
important constitutional cases. The
coronavirus pandemic has prompted
the justices to break with tradition in
some big ways.
The fi rst was to hear oral arguments
remotely, so that they and the contend-
ing lawyers don’t have to travel to the
courtroom in Washington, D.C. Like
many other people who once worked
in offi ces, the justices have been doing
their jobs from home. They apparently
concluded this option would work fi ne
not just for reading briefs and doing
research but also for grilling attorneys
as they present their cases.
The fi rst case, heard on May 4, was a
trademark dispute involving the travel
website Bookings.com. The justices
and lawyers called in to the teleconfer-
ence and the business unfolded more
or less as usual. The marble columns
at the building’s main entrance did not
crumble from the shock waves — de-
spite one embarrassing moment when
a toilet was heard fl ushing. Let’s all
pretend “the fl ush heard around the
country,” as a CNN headline dubbed it,
never happened, shall we?
The new format did make a differ-
ence: Instead of jumping in helter-
skelter to interrupt the attorneys and
one another, the justices politely took
turns asking questions. The more
orderly proceedings induced Clarence
Thomas, who sometimes goes years
without speaking at these sessions, to
ask several questions.
The justices also approved another
change: allowing the live broadcast of
oral arguments. In recent years, the
court has made audio recordings avail-
able afterward. This, however, was the
fi rst time that Americans could hear
cases argued live. Since then, they have
gotten to hear several more. For anyone
with an interest in the Supreme Court,
which includes some journalists, it’s an
exciting change.
It should allay any fears the justices
had about live broadcasts. “Remind me
why they haven’t been doing this all
along?” Gabe Roth of Fix the Court, an
organization that advocates more open-
ness, asked the Los Angeles Times.
Maybe it will encourage the court to
give Americans an even better picture
of its work by admitting video cameras,
as soon as the court goes back to hear-
ing cases in person. If hearing is good,
seeing and hearing is better.
The justices have long rejected this
option. During his time on the court,
David Souter said, “The day you see a
camera come into our courtroom, it’s
going to roll over my dead body.” The
late Antonin Scalia feared brief video
clips would be used on news programs
in ways that would “miseducate the
American people.” Elena Kagan wor-
ries that “we might fi lter ourselves in
ways that might be unfortunate.”
The same objections could be raised
about audio, which has become routine.
We think the court as well as the public
would benefi t from the greater under-
standing that would come from letting
ordinary people watch arguments as
they happen. On occasions when major
cases are decided, plenty of Americans
would tune in to see John Roberts or
Ruth Bader Ginsburg summarize the
court’s opinion — or their dissent.
Sen. Dick Durbin and Rep. Mike
Quigley, both from Illinois, have
repeatedly introduced bills to require
the court to allow all open sessions to
be televised. “Supreme Court rulings
affect the lives of every American
from every ZIP code in the country,”
says Durbin. “Yet, Supreme Court
arguments and decisions can only be
watched by a few hundred Americans
who are able to obtain a seat in the
courtroom and view them live.”
Maybe the experience with live audio
will make the justices realize that there
is nothing to fear from video. The work
they do is a vital part of our system
of government, and every American
should have the opportunity to see how
they do it.
Magical May; and the tale of a boy and a backhoe
I was puttering about in my
yard the other evening, enjoying
the carefree amble of a man whose
lawn is freshly mowed and fl ower
beds recently purged of at least the
most obvious weedy infi ltrators.
I was reaching across the stump
of our honey locust — long since
felled, and little lamented as it
cast but a puny patch of shade —
stretching to snag a windthrown
willow limb, when a zephyr fi lled
my nose with the scent of new lilac.
If May were casting about for an
offi cial aroma I likely would nomi-
nate that one.
It is not quite the sweetest smell
of spring — bitter cherry, named for
its fl avor rather than its odor, earns
my vote in that category.
But lilac has a heft to it — an al-
most physical presence as it arrives
at my nostrils, as though the fi ne
sensitive hairs inside were quiver-
ing like the just-plucked strings of
a guitar.
Moisture seems to enhance the
aromatic effect.
This particular evening was dry,
but the clouds draped the foothills
and had that swollen appearance
which suggests rain is imminent.
The same breeze that wafted the
lilac over my cheeks also carried
the fresh damp tang of all that
liquid suspended overhead, a veri-
table ocean in the sky.
Often as not in our climate,
which is a much closer kin to the
desert than to the rainforest, this
preview is in effect the whole show,
JAYSON
JACOBY
and the clouds slide to the east,
stubbornly holding their moisture
until they slam into the unyielding
granitic masses of the Wallowas
and the Seven Devils, those ram-
parts of the Rockies.
But it is in May when the preg-
nant clouds are most apt to deliver
on their promise.
Indeed it was later that week
that rain sluiced down for the bet-
ter part of a day, swelling streams
and puddling muddy, pollen-speck-
led water in every depression.
I enjoy such days, in the main.
I relish them for their very
rarity, among other reasons. I feel
the same about other abnormal
phenomena such as the night
when the temperature, rather than
halting at a more customary zero,
continues to plunge to 15 below,
or 25, or the November afternoon
that feels more like August and no
matter the yellowed leaves and the
blazing orange patches where the
tamaracks grow thickly.
But I also appreciate day-long
May rains because they nourish
the greenery that helps sustain us
through the long and inevitably
torrid summer. In the soggy May
day lies the promise of the cool-
ing canopy of July ash leaves, the
plump tomato and the smiling
sunfl ower.
May, moreover, is the balm which
eases us, gently and with no pain-
ful chafi ng, from one season to the
next.
I would despair were true sum-
mer to arrive hereabouts as soon as
May, just as I would if winter, with
its incessant frigidity, barged in
along about the end of September
to commence its long residency.
In most years May boasts the
year’s fi rst 80-degree afternoon —
a chance to remember what it is
to wear shorts outdoors without
wincing.
But there is nothing malignant
about early heat, even though it
always feels rather like an ambush,
coming as it does after so much
monotonous chill.
A hot afternoon in May lacks the
treachery of the same tempera-
ture in July, when it’s likely to be
just another sizzling day in a long
series. In high summer the only
potential relief during a heat wave
is the thundershower — exciting,
certainly, but as unreliable as that
one friend who invariably shows
up an hour late and without the
promised potato chips.
But in May, no matter how sti-
fl ing any individual day, I am com-
forted by the knowledge that the
North Pacifi c will almost certainly
conjure at least a couple more cold
fronts soon — those refreshing
intervals that hold off summer for a
bit longer while lilac still perfumes
the cool hours on the edge of dusk.
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On the night of the May 19 elec-
tion I received an interesting email.
A man, inquiring on behalf of his
5-year-old son, asked if I had a pho-
tograph of the 1995 Case backhoe
that Baker City plans to sell.
This particular piece of equip-
ment garnered considerably more
attention than most earthmov-
ing implements, due to a curious
clause in the city’s 1952 charter.
That clause requires the city to
get voters’ approval before selling
property, including equipment and
vehicles, worth more than $10,000.
City offi cials fi gure the backhoe
could fetch around $16,000 through
an online government auction, so
on the ballot the backhoe went.
Voters, perhaps assuming they
weren’t going to get to use the ma-
chine to remake their own spreads,
went for the city’s plan at a rate of
better than 92%.
This unusual bit of electoral
intrigue prompted stories in The
Oregonian, among other news
outlets that generally show little
interest in Baker City happenings.
I told the boy’s father that I
didn’t have a photo — my fi le on
publicly owned backhoes is woe-
fully thin — but that I fi gured I
could get one.
I immediately thought of Tom
Fisk.
Tom is the operations supervisor
for the city’s public works depart-
ment. When I have any question
involving a city street or sewer pipe
or anything else that can be paved
or buried or busted, he’s almost
always the fi rst person I call.
The reason for this is simple —
he almost always has the answer.
And as I expected, Tom was able
to supply me with a photograph of
the increasingly famous backhoe,
which I duly passed on to the dad.
But Tom wasn’t satisfi ed.
The photo he sent was an older
one, he said, and it showed the
backhoe not with its bucket, but
with a different tool — one the city
isn’t selling.
So on the rainiest day in almost
5 years, Tom went out to get a cou-
ple more photos of the backhoe, this
time wearing its standard attire, so
to speak. He texted the pictures to
me, and I again forwarded them on
to the father.
He thanked me profusely and
wrote in an email that his boy was
very excited by the photos.
I emphasized that I was merely
the messenger, and that Tom de-
served the credit.
I suspect he would defl ect that
credit, would suggest that he had
done nothing special.
But I’d like to believe that help-
ing to make a little boy smile is
precisely the sort of thing for which
the word special is meant.
Jayson Jacoby is editor
of the Baker City Herald.