SATURDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2020
Baker City, Oregon
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EDITORIAL
Staying
vigilant
with fire
We’ve almost made it.
But we’re not quite, if you’ll forgive the cliché, out of
the woods yet.
Overused though it is, that fi gure of speech hap-
pens to be appropriate in the context of the 2020
wildfi re season.
The woods, as well as the rangelands of Northeast-
ern Oregon, remain abnormally dry after a summer
of drought, particularly in Baker County.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown recently declared a
drought emergency in the county, on the request of
the Baker County Board of Commissioners.
Rainfall for 2020 is less than half of average at the
Baker City Airport.
And although there’s little to no chance of light-
ning, which usually starts more than half the fi res
in our region, the risk of human-caused fi res will
continue until another couple of soggy Pacifi c storms
roll through. The rainfall last weekend curbed, but
didn’t eliminate, the fi re danger.
The Oregon Department of Forestry reported re-
cently that about half the acres burned in the North-
east District this year were from human-caused fi res.
The next week will be one of the busier ones of the
year in our wildlands, as thousands of deer hunters
seek to bag a buck.
But it’s also forecast to be a dry week, with sun-
shine and temperatures well above average. Cooler
nights with higher humidities mean fi res won’t burn
as intensely — but those same conditions encourage
people to light campfi res. Fires are allowed in desig-
nated Forest Service campgrounds, but still prohib-
ited most everywhere else, including private lands
owned by Hancock Forest Management.
In a year that brought the worst wildfi res on record
in parts of Oregon, the northeast corner has fared
relatively well, with fewer than 1,500 acres burned.
If we can stay vigilant for another few weeks, that
gratifying statistic will become part of history.
— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor
OTHER VIEWS
Debate turns into national disgrace
Editorial from The Sun Sentinel
(Fort Lauderdale, Florida):
The debate Tuesday night degenerated
almost from the start into a national dis-
grace. And yet it served the public interest
by making some things alarmingly plain.
President Donald Trump showed
himself, possibly even to supporters who
were still in denial, as a scowling, humor-
less, petulant bully who has zero respect
for any rules or anyone else’s opinions,
and certainly none for the truth or for a
peaceful election. He made his racism into
an issue that will not — should not — go
away.
Just from his demeanor and Joe
Biden’s, one could have watched the
debate without sound to know who was
winning, which of them talked directly to
the people instead of at his opponent, and
which is fit for the nation’s highest office.
However, some things that Trump said
needed to be heard to understand why he
is profoundly dangerous and why replac-
ing him is nothing less than a national
emergency.
Trump parried three invitations from
moderator Chris Wallace to “condemn”
white supremacists and militia groups,
and advise them to “stand down and not
add to the violence” in some cities where
protest demonstrations have turned ugly.
Trump insisted that virtually all the
violence is on the left.
After Biden challenged him to repudi-
ate the Proud Boys by name, Trump
finally replied.
“Proud Boys, stand back and stand
by,” he said. He went on to attack antifa
and insist that “this is not a right-wing
problem, this is a left wing ...”
He did not in any sense condemn the
thugs on the right.
In that moment, Trump revealed how
much the Proud Boys matter to him.
They are an utterly vicious, fascistic
organization, known for anti-Muslim
bigotry and misogyny and threatening
political demonstrations. They were in-
volved with avowed Nazis and the KKK
in the anti-Semitic “Unite the Right”
rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, three
years ago. On that occasion, which ended
in the murder of a peaceful protestor,
Trump declared there were “fi ne people”
on both sides.
A year later, the Proud Boys mounted
a threatening demonstration against
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during her
visit to Miami. One participant was Nel-
son Diaz, chairman of the Miami-Dade
Republican Party and a supporter of Ron
DeSantis’ campaign for governor. Diaz
apologized, saying he had not known
of the Proud Boys and their noxious
reputation. But DeSantis ignored calls to
repudiate them and went on to win the
election.
They had not had any high-level
praise before Trump said Tuesday night
that they should “stand by.” They glee-
fully expressed pride on social media,
with one meme, obviously photoshopped,
depicting Trump in one of their polo
shirts. They have been banned at times
from Facebook and YouTube for violating
policies against hate speech.
Trump’s shout-out was unmistakably
relevant to what he said later about
“urging my supporters to go to the polls
and watch very carefully.”
Watch? Or disrupt?
Here is how The New York Times
reported an event in Virginia last week:
“A group of Trump supporters waving
campaign fl ags disrupted the second
day of early voting in Fairfax, Va., on
Saturday, chanting ‘four more years’ as
voters entered a polling location and, at
one point, forming a line that voters had
to walk around outside the site.
“County election offi cials eventually
were forced to open up a larger portion of
the Fairfax County Government Center
to allow voters to wait inside away from
the Trump enthusiasts.”
The last time any would-be leader of a
democracy encouraged supporters to be-
have like that, it was another humorless,
scowling man who was in the process of
turning Germany into a dictatorship.
Now, the titular “leader of the free
world,” an honorifi c that left the White
House when Barack Obama did, has
confirmed beyond any doubt his affection
for the same sort of racists upon whom
that tyrant relied.
Of course Trump couldn’t condemn
them. He needs them. That is one of the
greater reasons, among many, why the na-
tion must replace him with Joe Biden.
Appreciating autumn — and the AM radio
I pressed my right foot hard
against the gas pedal, as if I were
digging a shovel’s blade into the
soil, and our Toyota FJ Cruiser’s
front tires plunged into the calf-
deep mud puddle that spanned the
gravel forest road.
I fl icked on the wipers — the
FJ needs three blades to clear its
awkwardly shaped windshield,
which offers a slit-like view that
a tank driver would fi nd familiar
— and the blades slung torrents of
silty sludge clear into the snowber-
ries and lodgepole pines that lined
the road.
From his perch behind my seat,
my son Max guffawed.
(Max is 9, and as 9-year-old boys
often are, he delights in any driving
maneuver that causes gloop to
squirt up higher than the hood.)
I don’t as a rule muddy our
nearly 13-year-old rig, for which I
have great affection, any more than
is necessary to get wherever we’re
going.
(The Toyota tends to acquire a
heavy load of muck under the best
of circumstances anyway, what
with the condition of many back-
roads hereabouts.)
But I couldn’t resist the chance
to splash on last Saturday, Sept. 26.
As is the case with a good many
things I do which are wholly un-
necessary but impossible to resist, I
was prompted in this case by a long
JAYSON
JACOBY
period of deprivation.
I was so pleased to actually come
across a mud puddle that, like a
dusty bird, I felt compelled to take
a dip.
The fi rst Pacifi c storm of the
autumn had swept through the
previous night, leaving the woods
spangled with water and creat-
ing the fi rst puddles I had seen in
many weeks.
The contrast to our trip to the
mountains just 6 days earlier, and
less than 10 miles away as the
raven fl ies, was dramatic.
On that day we drove a section of
the Ladd Canyon Road — the up-
per end, through the old Anthony
Burn near Grande Ronde Lake —
and in places the dust, which was
about the consistency of cake fl our,
was so deep I could feel it tugging
at my tires, as though I were driv-
ing in the soft dry sand above the
high tide line.
We left a billowing brown wake
that obscured the roadside pines,
and when we got home a patina
lay across the dashboard, the FJ’s
rubber seals, though in good shape
for an aged vehicle, helpless against
the gritty onslaught.
With that contact lens-clogging
experience fresh, it was naturally
pleasant, in the dust-free wake of
the storm, to drive toward Johnson
Rock lookout, on the opposite side
of the Grande Ronde River. I appre-
ciated being able to glance at my
mirrors and not wonder whether
the rig, after so many years of faith-
ful and untroubled service, had at
last suffered a drastic failure and
caught fi re.
The puddles that pockmarked
the road to Johnson Rock weren’t
the only evidence that the transi-
tion between seasons was under-
way.
The topmost branches of some of
the tamaracks had gone yellow, a
preview of the show yet to come.
The cumulus, propelled by
a fresh wind, moved at a pace
distinctly different from the slug-
gish pace of summer clouds, which
never seem in any particular hurry.
And when we parked and got
out to hike the last part of the road
to the lookout — I prefer a more
stealthy approach — I winced
briefl y as the wind lanced into my
bare cheeks.
Like the tamarack needles this
was a foreshadowing.
Except this one was slightly
foreboding, a promise of numbing
nights and of the long silent season
when snow dominates the scene,
soft and implacable.
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That evening we sat round a
campfi re at Spool Cart camp-
ground, a fi ne blaze of lodgepole
and maple that, like the puddles,
was a gift from the equinoctial
storm.
Just the day before the Forest
Service, in deference to the rain,
relaxed its rules, allowing fi res at
campsites with metal rings after a
couple weeks when a combustion
moratorium was in effect.
As we listened to the logs crackle
I watched Max fi ddle with the
tuning knob of the radio perched
on our picnic table. It was the
fi rst time during our summer of
camping excursions that I thought
to bring the GE Superadio I have
owned for more than 20 years. This
model is an anachronism, really, as
its chief boast is the sensitivity of
its AM antenna.
AM radio, in the era of Wi-Fi and
streaming services, might seem as
relevant as black-and-white TV
and refrigerators painted the color
of an overripe avocado.
But I still fi nd it fascinating to
twist the dial, with exquisite slow-
ness to fully capture the medium’s
immense range, and listen to the
cacophony of distant voices and
bursts of static.
This of course is best done
after dark, when the atmospheric
vagaries allow AM signals to
tumble along for hundreds or even
thousands of miles. The Superadio
is particularly adept at pulling in
these pulses, however briefl y.
Max was entranced by this
comparatively simple technology.
He was especially fascinated when
he happened upon a station —
somewhere in Southern California,
based on a commercial for a Pasa-
dena business — that was airing
“Coast to Coast AM.” The discus-
sion, aptly enough for a campfi re in
the dark woods, featured supposed
sightings of Bigfoot.
I relaxed in my folding recliner,
basking in the warmth of a good fi re
and eavesdropping on America’s
insatiable and eclectic interests.
As Max spun the dial the discus-
sion careened as wildly as a weath-
ervane as a tornado approaches.
For a few seconds I listened to an
earnest examination of President
Trump’s Supreme Court nominee
but soon Max’s restless right hand
brought me the voice of a man, in
some distant place I’ll probably
never see, who was almost ecstatic
with gratitude for the host who
helped him coax a recalcitrant
carburetor back to life.
Jayson Jacoby is editor
of the Baker City Herald.