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About Baker City herald. (Baker City, Or.) 1990-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 4, 2021)
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2021 Baker City, Oregon 4A Write a letter news@bakercityherald.com EDITORIAL Your views Fast work foils a scary fire It was a very bad place for a wildfi re. Granted, in this summer of drought and record- breaking heat, there is no good place for a wildfi re to start in Northeastern Oregon. But the upper part of the Rock Creek canyon, in the Elkhorn Mountains about 13 miles northwest of Baker City, is a decidedly dangerous spot for a blaze. Aerial photos illustrate the threat, showing the nearly contiguous carpet of conifer trees. Worse still, many of these trees are subalpine fi rs, a species that burns with unusual vigor due in part to the concentra- tions of fl ammable oil in its needles. Then there is the issue of access for fi refi ghters. Mainly, there isn’t any. Not the rapid access afford- ed by roads, anyway. There isn’t a road within a mile of the Rock Creek fi re, which was reported Monday afternoon, Aug. 30. The fi re was moving fast. Flames were engulfi ng entire trees — “torching” — and spreading from crown to crown. A cold front was moving through, spurring wind gusts that worsened the situation. Then the aircraft arrived. In the several crucial hours Monday afternoon and evening — when not a single fi refi ghter was on the ground in the area; fi re offi cials said it was too danger- ous to have crews rappel from a helicopter — a fl eet of fi ve tankers dropping retardant and two helicopters dumping water kept the fi re in check. There’s no way to be sure, of course — wildfi re is nothing if not unpre- dictable — but it’s reasonable to believe that without that rapid and aggressive aerial campaign, the fi re would still be spreading today. With massive blazes burning elsewhere in Oregon, California, Idaho and other western states, it’s fortu- nate that the aircraft were available so rapidly. We don’t want to have rely on good fortune. Not with tens of thousands of acres, in the Elkhorns and across the region, vulnerable to fi re until the fi rst widespread autumn rainstorm. Lightning is still possible, but it’s much less likely now than during August. The Forest Service initially deemed the Rock Creek fi re human-caused but later changed it to “unknown” pending an investigation. Regardless, campfi res are banned except in camp- grounds and designated recreation areas. All of us who use public forests should heed that and other precau- tions. This has been a comparatively quiet fi re season around here. Let’s all strive to make sure it ends up that way. — Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor Vaccine myths call into question science education It seems to me that the quality of education in the fi eld of science has become wholly inadequate in this country. Are we not aware that science is not an alternative belief system? That it is based on empiri- cally derived hypotheses obtained through long study of the data based on experiment and observa- tion, rather than theory or personal beliefs. Again, scientifi c data is NOT the same as deeply held personal beliefs. People who know anything about vaccinations and know of the long history of working on vaccines for viruses ever since the 1918 great pandemic fl u, and know that vac- cines were NOT produced “too quickly” to be safe. They will know the difference between DNA and mRNA and how these viruses work at replicating themselves. People who know about viruses would not be in- gesting a horse parasitic medication to fi ght the virus. People who know about metals and magnetism are not going to be claiming that the COVID vaccine “magnetized” them. It is not necessary for all students to want to be scientists when they graduate and go on to study at a higher level, but at the very least we should be providing in our school system a solid foundation of science to know enough about how it works and then can make informed decisions based on facts ... NOT personal beliefs. Christine Howard Baker City City Council needs to consider responsibility as well as rights The City Council’s idea of a law- suit against Governor Brown’s man- dates in her effort to stem the spread of a deadly virus is very disturbing. If it is done for political purposes, it is inexcusable, aside from also being a misuse of taxpayers’ money, both the City’s cost to fi le and the State’s to defend. If done out of ignorance, it shows that the councilors are in urgent need of a science-based (not Facebook-based) crash course in epi- demiology and viral mutation. One currently hears a lot about “individual rights,” but very rarely about “individual responsibility,” the latter supposed to be an integral part of and basis for the former. The vaccines have been proven safe and very effective, and masks are primarily to keep those who do get infected from spreading the virus to others. Is there any thought about those who will get sick or maybe even die because they follow the councilors’ lead? Or those who work to exhaustion and at personal risk to take care of them? Kirsten Badger Baker City Vaccine better than horse dewormer Editorial from St. Louis Post- Dispatch: For months after the coronavi- rus vaccines were released, many Americans who refused to take them cited the fact that they were initially approved by federal regulators on an emergency fast-track basis rather than under the normal drug-approval process. That fear, never fully valid to begin with, should have fi nally been laid to rest by the recent full, formal approval of the fi rst of the vaccines. Yet even now, signifi cant numbers of vaccine-skeptical people are instead turning to a drug meant to deworm horses, which has repeatedly failed to protect against the coronavirus in clinical trials and in some cases has proven dangerous. This should stand as further evidence (if any was still needed) that the anti-vaccination movement lacks any credibility what- soever and should have no sway over public policy. Ivermectin has been effectively used in small doses in humans to treat parasites, but human trials haven’t produced evidence it’s effective on the coronavirus. That hasn’t stopped people from buying up the human version to the point that pharmacies are running out. Worse, some are turn- ing to veterinary supply sources for the livestock version — which is not merely ineffective against the corona- virus but dangerous. Ivermectin-relat- ed calls to poison control centers have risen fi vefold in recent months. It’s reminiscent of the controversy over hydroxychloroquine, a malaria medication that, like ivermectin, has shown scant actual evidence of effec- tiveness against the coronavirus and has potentially dangerous side effects. But with backing and misinforma- tion from right-wing media and some Republican politicians (including, in the case of hydroxychloroquine, former President Donald Trump), too many Americans are viewing these unprov- en, unlikely remedies as silver bullets, while continuing to reject vaccines that have been proven for months to be both highly effective and safe. It’s not putting it too strongly to suggest that this is madness. What social, political or psychological factors would cause large numbers of other- wise rational Americans to reject vac- cines that have earned provisional and now formal approval by the Food and Drug Administration, while embracing drugs that the FDA and other experts warn are ineffective and dangerous? It’s almost as if, having staked out the bizarre position that vaccine accep- tance is a violation of conservatism, those adherents are suddenly recogniz- ing that the crisis is real and lunging for whatever vaccine alternative they can fi nd. Declaring an entire segment of society to be so outside the pale that their voices should be deliberately ignored isn’t something that should be done lightly — but on the issue of these snake-oil alternatives, the time has come. Vaccine mandates, vaccine passports and other proposed policies are centered on the simple scientifi c fact that vaccines work. Like all public policies, these ideas must be open to debate. But there should be no seat at that table for those who pass up medi- cally approved vaccines in favor of a horse dewormer. Remembering the man who tried to save my brain I read “obituary” in the email and as always when I come across that lonely word, unattached to any name, I winced slightly, as if anticipating a possible blow. With trepidation, I clicked to open the message. I wondered, in that instant while the computer worked its digital magic, whose name I would see — whether it was a person I had known, whether I would be shocked to learn of the death. It was. And I was. The name was David Coughlin. Dave was such a vital man — a man whose hands and feet were the fi rst to touch some of the most pre- cipitous mountain faces in North- eastern Oregon — that it had never occurred to me to think that he might die at the modest age of 77. I think I was surprised too — and, of course, saddened — because Dave and his wife, Lisa, had so recently started anew. After living in Baker City for almost 50 years, the couple moved in March of this year to Bend, where their daughter, Jennifer, and grandson, Jackson, live. JAYSON JACOBY The Coughlins sent me a let- ter that month, one they wanted published in the Herald. They an- nounced in the letter that they were moving. They thanked the com- munity “for all your kindness and friendships over the years” and they wrote that they hoped “we have con- tributed as much to the community as it has given to us.” I have no doubt that they did. Lisa taught at Baker High School. Dave was an attorney here for 46 years. He was an integral member of the Baker County Community Literacy Coalition, and a board member for many years. I had a brief phone conversation with Dave at the time. I told him I thought it was a fi ne gesture, writ- ing that letter. I told him I hoped he and Lisa would enjoy spending more time with their daughter and their grandson. I’m sorry for them all that their time together was so short. I spent an hour or so in Dave’s offi ce in 2017, interviewing him for a profi le story on his retirement. It was the sort of interview that makes this job scarcely seem like work. Dave told me about his moun- tain climbing exploits, a topic that I fi nd endlessly fascinating. I did not until that day know that he had played football at Dartmouth. He told me that when he fi rst saw the Elkhorn Mountains he knew, in the way that people sometimes do, that he was destined to live here, in the lee of those great peaks. I under- stood what he meant. But the memory that will, I sus- pect, always be the most vivid, when I think of Dave Coughlin, was quite a different encounter. And it was one that Dave himself didn’t even know about — which is to say, he didn’t know it was me — until I told him some time after. It was many years ago, perhaps as long as a decade although I can’t be sure, so slippery is time. I was riding my bike on Highway 7, just south of town and headed toward Sumpter (not that I intended to ride so far; my destination was Salis- bury Junction). I was rounding the corner where the highway enters Bowen Valley when I saw the fi gure standing on Beaver Creek Loop, the gravel road that meets the highway there. He was standing beside his car, gesticulating. I couldn’t at fi rst make out what he was getting at. But as I pedaled closer I under- stood. I also recognized Dave. He was pointing to his head, but his goal was to make me think about my own. Which was not, I realized sud- denly, protected by a helmet. A champion triathlete who un- doubtedly has covered more miles on two wheels than I ever will do, in addition to his achievements in the mountains, Dave certainly understood the importance of a helmet. As I rolled past I gave Dave a thumb’s up, my face crinkled into what I hoped was the appro- priately sheepish grin of a person who knows he’s been caught out in public doing something conspicu- ously stupid. Sometime later, probably a cou- ple days but certainly not so much as a week, I phoned Dave to make sure he knew who the foolish rider was. I thanked him for reminding me that brains generally do not fare well in collisions with asphalt, par- ticularly from the elevated perch, and speed, of a bicycle. Mostly I wanted to be sure he didn’t regret his action, didn’t won- der whether he had been presump- tuous in trying to persuade someone to protect the only brain he’s ever going to have. Even now, years later, I still think of Dave every time I strap on my helmet, which I do even when I’m going for a short ride in town with my kids. I fi gured someday I would have a chance to tell him that story again, to remind him that he had inspired me to stop acting like an idiot in at least one way. A tiny part of Dave’s legacy, to be sure. But it meant something to me. Still does. Jayson Jacoby is editor of the Baker City Herald.