THURSDAY, AUGUST 6, 2020
Baker City, Oregon
4A
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EDITORIAL
Shrine
spirit
defies the
pandemic
The East-West Shrine All-Star Football Game has
featured plenty of memorable football plays since the
game moved to Baker City in 1973.
But though it’s a celebration of Oregon’s top play-
ers from the state’s smaller high schools, the Shrine
game has always been about far more than touch-
downs and tackles.
And no year has shown more clearly the core pur-
pose of this annual event than 2020.
Because there was no event.
No football game at Baker Bulldog Memorial
Stadium.
No parade through downtown, with Shriners driv-
ing their comically tiny go-carts and bathtubs and
Model Ts.
No Baker County Cattlewomen’s breakfast in
Geiser-Pollman Park.
But the most important thing will happen, in defi -
ance of the pandemic.
The East-West Shrine Game committee, as it does
every year, will send a check to the Shriners Hospital
for Children in Portland.
The place where it’s not hyberbolic to say that
miracles happen.
For nearly half a century the Shrine Game in
Baker City has been a major fundraising for the
Portland hospital, which treats children, for free, for a
variety of conditions.
The Shrine committee announced in early May
that this year’s game, set for Aug. 1, was canceled due
to the coronavirus.
But neither organizers, nor the dozens of people
and businesses that donate to the hospital under the
auspices of the game, were content with simply writ-
ing off the annual fundraiser.
Randy Guyer of Baker City, the committee’s trea-
surer, said Monday that he expects this year’s check
to the Portland hospital will be in the $30,000 range,
similar to the contribution in recent years.
That will include more than 100 donations from
Baker County farmers and ranchers, $1,000 from the
Haines Stampede Rodeo Association, and contribu-
tions from other individuals, businesses and Shrine
clubs statewide.
There will also be the proceeds from the sale of the
annual Shrine steer, a tradition that distinguishes
the Baker City event from other fundraisers for
Shriners hospitals. The steer — this year’s animal is
a Black Angus cross raised by Ty Morrison, a 2020
Baker High School graduate — was bought by the
Baker County CattleWomen and Cattlemen, and
on Friday evening the steer, which Morrison named
Chubby, will be “bought” and then re-donated several
times.
The generosity and selfl ess spirit that so many
people have shown in the midst of this pandemic and
its economic deprivations are gratifying.
— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor
Your views
A tale of two recent
letters to the editor
In the Aug. 1, 2020, edition of the
Baker City Herald are two letters to
the editor penned by people, neither
of whom I know personally. One letter,
penned by Thomas Wilcoxson, conveys
a message of pride in our country, our
fl ag, our veterans, and a hope of unity
and change through peaceful protest.
The second, penned by Mike Meyer,
offers no such positive message, but
serves to alienate and divide which
is so typical of those on the left. His
message, if you read between the lines,
and from other letters he’s written to
this paper, is, if you disagree with me
or what I believe, you can leave, and
in this letter, offers to help you pack. I
wish, in no way, to call attention to my-
self, but a bit about me, before I contin-
ue. I’m going on 74, born and raised in
Oregon, lived in Oregon all my life, save
my service years (1967-70) and while a
relative newcomer to Baker City, (lived
here 26 years), my roots run deep in
this county. My maternal grandfather,
his parents and his brother emigrated
here in 1882 when granddad was 15.
He married my grandmother in 1903,
and they had two daughters, my aunt,
born in Haines in 1904 and my mom,
born in Haines in 1908. I happen to
have the 1925 yearbook when my mom
graduated from Baker High School.
My great-grandparents are buried in
Haines, another great-grandmother
on my mom’s maternal side, buried in
Wingville, and my maternal grandpa,
grandma and aunt are buried at
Mount Hope.
I own property in Idaho, Mr. Meyer,
and love every minute I’m there. Were
it not for my health I would consider a
move, one that I would not take lightly,
but such a move would be made of my
own volition and not by you or anybody
that thinks like you. I would tread
lightly, if I were you, Mr. Meyer. An edu-
cated guess tells me there are far more
people east of Highway 97 that would
gladly help pack your bags for a trip
back to Portland than there are those
that would pack my bags for a move
to Idaho. You conclude your letter with
“Peace to all,” which is hypocritical in
my view. If your letter was an attempt
at humor, I’m not amused.
This is my one and only letter to this
paper, of this kind, in 26 years, and
may be my last. I’ve better things to do
than sit around staring at my calendar,
“Xing” off the days until I can write
another one.
Donald Neugart
Baker City
OTHER VIEWS
Mars mission and valuing science
Editorial from The Baltimore Sun:
From writer H.G. Wells to fi lm-
maker Ridley Scott, the possibility
of life on Mars has long sparked the
public’s imagination for generations.
And if there ever was a time when a
world could use a demonstration of the
power of science, or at least a hopeful
distraction, it is in the Year of Oh-My-
Lord 2020.
Earth is caught not only in a raging
COVID-19 pandemic but in an extraor-
dinary rejection of the systemic study
of the natural world. When a sitting
member of Congress who openly defi es
social distancing norms contracts the
virus and then blames mask-wearing
for his fate, as Texas Republican Rep.
Louie Gohmert did, while a sitting
president promotes videos of a woman
who believes the coronavirus has
already been cured (and warns about
having sex with demons), as Donald
Trump did, then maybe it’s time
everyone got back in the classroom for
some remedial instruction. Perhaps a
NASA mission is just what the doctor
ordered.
Certainly, the July 30 launch was
not as dramatic as aliens landing
in New Jersey bent on destroying
mankind or astronaut Mark Watney
getting stuck on the red planet in the
movie “The Martian” and forced to
MacGyver his survival, or even the
antennae rising from the back of Uncle
Martin’s head in “My Favorite Mar-
tian.” But at least the Perseverance
rover now headed to Mars is real and
not fi ctional. Its mission is to closely
examine the rocks and soil beginning
with the Jezero Crater while the com-
panion drone helicopter Ingenuity hov-
ers 15 feet above the surface to check
out the challenges of the Martian fl ight.
It’s entirely possible Perseverance
will uncover signs of ancient microbial
life on Mars as it roams the planet. It’s
not the fi rst such U.S.-led effort (four
others, Curiosity, Opportunity, Spirit,
and the original Mars rover, Sojourner,
came before it) but it’s the most capable
with the ability to drill and store core
samples and ramble across the land-
scape for the equivalent of two earth
years.
It’s a shame that now comes the bor-
ing part. Perseverance won’t land until
February. In movies, this is usually the
moment where there’s a montage of
rocket hurtling clips interspersed with
scenes of NASA personnel hunched
over computers before a landing takes
place about 30 seconds later. Still, this
gives everyone time to marvel at how
human ingenuity and knowledge has
reached the point where a remotely
controlled robot stuffed with all kinds
of technology from lasers to drills,
cameras and microphones, sitting on
top of a powerful Atlas V rocket can
be launched into space with the press
of a button on a mission that will take
years to complete.
Isn’t that amazing? This isn’t science
fi ction. It’s a product of a Mars explora-
tion effort decades in the making. And
this time the United States is not alone.
Studying Mars is now an international
effort with the United Arab Emirates’
Hope and China’s Question to Heaven
spacecraft already on their way, the
former destined to circle the planet to
study its weather and the latter to send
its own rover to the surface.
Now, cut to the fi nal reel and imag-
ine if Perseverance discovers evidence
of some one-celled organism that lived
on Mars 3.7 billion years ago when
the planet was more habitable with a
watery surface. Fossils? Maybe not but
some trace of organic chemicals could
exist. Will third planet inhabitants see
such a breakthrough as the answer to
the eternal question, is there life be-
yond Earth, or as a fraud perpetrated
by the liberal eggheads with their fake
news co-conspirators?
Here’s a good pretest: Is the person
reacting to such an event wearing a
mask to prevent the virus from spread-
ing or still insisting that hydroxy-
chloroquine is a cure so why bother?
Sometimes reality truly is stranger
than fi ction. Onward.
OTHER VIEWS
Editorial from The Los Angeles
Times:
Prizing loyalty over qualifications,
President Donald Trump has nomi-
nated several economists with oddball
or inconsistent views of monetary
policy for seats on the Federal Reserve
Board of Governors, along with sev-
eral with solid credentials. The Senate
has ably sorted the wheat from the
chaff so far, but that may change soon
-- and it couldn’t come at a worse time.
Two weeks ago, the Senate Banking
Committee voted to endorse Trump’s
two most recent nominees, sending
them to the full Senate for a final
vote. One mainstream choice drew
bipartisan support from committee
members: Christopher J. Waller, direc-
tor of research at the St. Louis Federal
Reserve Bank. The other, quirky pick
advanced only with Republican votes:
economist Judy Shelton, whose main
qualification appears to be the work
she did in 2016 for Trump’s campaign.
By law, the Fed has two missions:
keeping inflation in check and push-
ing for full employment. In practice,
the Fed board has played a key role in
helping the U.S. economy recover from
recession, holding down interest rates
and making it easier for struggling
businesses to obtain loans. The central
bank’s efforts have been especially
important in the last two decades,
as the deep ideological divide among
lawmakers has prevented Congress
from responding as aggressively as
it should to downturns. And after the
2008-2009 recession, the Fed was
given new powers for regulating and
supervising systemically important
financial institutions.
Shelton, however, wants to turn
back the clock to the days when
the Fed didn’t intervene quickly
and creatively to help the economy.
She is best known for advocating
a rules-based system of monetary
policy, where each nation’s currency
has a fixed and predictable value.
And in particular, she likes the gold
standard, which the United States
embraced from its founding until the
Fed finally abandoned it in 1973. The
rigid gold standard is the antithesis
of modern monetary policy, which
seeks to increase the supply of money
when credit is dangerously tight and
decrease it when inflation is eating
away the dollar’s value.
Economists roundly reject the idea
of returning to the gold standard. It
makes no sense — and ignores the
lessons of history — to abandon the
central bank’s ability to react to crises
in the banking system and the wider
economy.
Shelton’s main arguments boil
down to nostalgia for a bygone era
when countries weren’t so intercon-
nected, trade volumes were lower
and savings accounts paid more than
negligible interest rates. Returning to
the gold standard or other hamstrung
monetary policy won’t bring those
days back.
Nor is it a good idea to tie the
Fed more closely to Congress and
the White House, as Shelton favors.
Trump may want a Fed board that
responds to his needs, but the rest of
us need a central bank that tunes out
the political noise and focuses on its
mission.