A4 BAKER CITY HERALD • SATURDAY, JULY 23, 2022
BAKER CITY
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Baker City, Oregon
EDITORIAL
Silly rule
mars track
I
magine a football rule that penalized a player for reacting so
quickly that he runs past a defender for an easy touchdown catch.
Or a baseball player who anticipates the pitcher’s move to the plate
and steals home but instead of scoring the winning run he’s thrown
out of the game.
Probably you can’t envision such scenarios because they’re too lu-
dicrous to contemplate.
But you’re not in charge of the rules for track and field.
The people who are in charge, unfortunately, insist that in a sport
where speed is such a vital skill, being a trifle too fast is grounds not
for a gold medal, but for disqualification.
This mystifying rule was enforced on July 17 on the sport’s biggest
stage outside the Olympic Games. Sadly, this dismal display hap-
pened at Hayward Field on the University of Oregon campus, where
the World Athletics Championships are taking place in America for
the first time. This event, which draws a worldwide television audi-
ence measured in the hundreds of millions, is a showcase for Oregon.
The 10-day event, which concludes July 24, also has the poten-
tial to raise interest among Americans in the sport prior to the 2028
Olympics in Los Angeles. But thanks to the farcical rule that afflicted
Devon Allen, one of the fastest hurdlers in the world and a former
University of Oregon track athlete and football player, the event, at
least briefly, devolved from a celebration into an embarrassment.
Here’s what happened.
When the starter’s pistol went off for the 110-meter hurdles, an
event in which Allen has run the third-fastest time ever, he got a great
start out of the blocks.
Too great, it turned out.
Allen was disqualified for what’s technically called a false start. But
that term, in this case, is as inappropriate as the rule itself.
Allen didn’t start running too early, before the pistol was fired,
which is what any logical person would define as a false start.
He reacted too quickly. You might ask, and quite reasonably, how,
in a race that takes about 13 seconds, reacting too quickly could be
anything but a benefit.
The answer is that track and field officials set one-tenth of a sec-
ond as the typical reaction time — the time between the pistol’s blast
and the runner’s foot leaving the block. If a runner reacts any quicker,
he or she is disqualified. Allen’s reaction time on July 17 was 0.099.
That’s one-thousandth of a second too fast, a margin only a machine
can measure. And only a human could decide is a reason to disqual-
ify a runner.
To reiterate: Allen didn’t cheat. He didn’t start running before the
starter’s pistol went off. In effect, he was ready to run a tiny fraction of
a second faster than his competitors.
It is difficult to conceive of a more nonsensical rule, or one that’s
more antithetical to the concept of competition.
Scientists once concluded that a human couldn’t run a mile in less
than four minutes. But when Roger Bannister accomplished that feat
in 1954, he wasn’t disqualified from the race. He was celebrated for
his landmark athletic achievement.
This, of course, is how we normally respond to athletes who hone
their abilities and transcend what we believed to be possible. Normal,
sadly, is a word that can’t be fairly applied to track and field’s reaction
time rule.
— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor
COLUMN
Judicial nominations out of whack
BY JONATHAN BERNSTEIN
T
he Senate on July 19 con-
firmed U.S. District Court
Judge Michelle Childs for
seat on the DC Circuit Court of
Appeals, generally considered
the most important court in the
nation other than the Supreme
Court. Childs, and the circum-
stances of her nomination and
confirmation, provide a good
tour of how out of whack the ju-
dicial nomination process has
become.
Childs was one of the final can-
didates to be considered by Pres-
ident Joe Biden for the Supreme
Court vacancy that eventually
went to Justice Ketanji Brown
Jackson. Childs had strong sup-
port from House Majority Whip
(and famous Biden endorser)
James Clyburn, as well as from
Republican Senator Lindsey Gra-
ham. Both are from South Caro-
lina, where Childs went to high
school and law school, and where
her district court seat was located.
But Childs probably never
had a real chance at the Supreme
Court. Not because she is proba-
bly more moderate than Jackson,
but because of one crucial fact:
Childs was born in 1966, while
Jackson was born in 1970.
A four-and-a-half-year age
gap may not seem like a big deal,
but as long as the current system
of lifetime tenure and the era of
strong partisan polarization last,
age is going to be the first quali-
fication for every Supreme Court
nomination. Four-and-a-half
years is more than a full presiden-
tial term, giving Jackson (if all else
is equal) a slightly better chance
to retire with a future Democrat
in the White House than Childs
would have had.
This does not seem like a great
way to choose Supreme Court jus-
tices. But that’s where the incen-
tives lie.
Childs and Jackson each rep-
resent one of Biden’s signature
accomplishments of his presi-
dency: He has significantly added
diversity to the federal bench
and to the executive branch. He
has been particularly aggressive
about nominating women, includ-
These are important vacancies and filling them promptly is
generally a good thing, although rushing too much to get these
lifetime positions filled doesn’t seem all that great.
ing Black women like Childs and
Jackson. While this no doubt re-
flects Biden’s personal preferences,
it is mainly an acknowledgment
that the energy of the Democratic
Party in recent years has come
from women, from Black party ac-
tors and from Black women.
Childs wound up with a fair
amount of bipartisan support for
her DC Circuit confirmation, with
15 Republicans supporting her.
One might suppose, then, that she
has a potential future as a compro-
mise candidate for the Supreme
Court if a Democratic president
is faced with a Republican-major-
ity Senate — especially, say, after
she completes 10 years or more as
an appellate judge (and therefore
would be an older nominee).
But we’ve seen this movie be-
fore, and we know that Repub-
licans have no interest in com-
promise. It’s unlikely that even a
slim Republican-majority Senate
would bring any Supreme Court
nominee from a Democratic
president up for a vote. Indeed,
Merrick Garland, now Biden’s
attorney general, was 64 when
President Barack Obama nomi-
nated him after the death of Jus-
tice Antonin Scalia in 2016, and
he probably had a more moderate
reputation then than Childs does
now. But the Republican Senate
majority refused to even hold a
hearing on his nomination. Sev-
eral Republican senators said later
during that year’s campaign that
they would be unlikely to con-
sider any nominee from Hillary
Clinton if she was elected.
Which brings us to why Dem-
ocrats are rushing to confirm as
many judges as possible right
now. Republicans need only gain
a single Senate seat in this year’s
midterm elections to win a ma-
jority for the final two years of
Biden’s term, and the general ex-
pectation is that if they do, they
will repeat what they did in 2015-
2016: Shut down most judicial
nominations, and pretty much all
circuit court nominations.
That’s not what happened when
Democrats had Senate majorities
during the presidencies of Rich-
ard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald
Reagan, George H.W. Bush and
George W. Bush, and it’s not even
what Republican majorities did
during Bill Clinton’s presidency.
But that’s how Republican leader
Mitch McConnell and today’s Re-
publicans operate. They could
push for compromise candidates,
and defeat those — especially ap-
pellate nominations — whom
they particularly opposed.
That’s why Biden nominated
another 11 judges last week, and
the Senate is making confirma-
tions a top priority. If Republicans
do win a majority in November,
expect Majority Leader Chuck
Schumer and the Democrats to
use the lame duck session late this
year to confirm as many of Biden’s
nominations as possible.
That in itself isn’t dysfunc-
tional. These are important va-
cancies and filling them promptly
is generally a good thing, al-
though rushing too much to get
these lifetime positions filled
doesn’t seem all that great. But
there’s a plausible future in which
Democrats hold the White House
and Republicans have a Senate
majority for an extended time
and the result is a massive judicial
shortage, with vacancies never
getting filled.
Bottom line: The judicial nom-
ination and confirmation process
is a mess, and it doesn’t appear
that it’s going to change for the
better anytime soon.
Jonathan Bernstein is a Bloomberg Opinion
columnist covering politics and policy. A
former professor of political science at the
University of Texas at San Antonio and
DePauw University, he wrote A Plain Blog
About Politics.
COLUMN
Graffiti and litter: the twin plague of public spaces
I’ll concede that some have talent.
But however honed their artistic
gifts might be, their chief attribute is
arrogance.
I can think of no other word to de-
can’t decide whether litterbugs or scribe those who think their creations
the purveyors of graffiti annoy me are so worthy of exposure that they’re
more.
certain I want to see them while I’m
Both groups of miscreants sully
out for my customary afternoon walk.
public spaces, and with palpable dis-
I hold to the quaint notion that
dain for those subject to their grim
true artists can always find a suitable
handiwork.
— and legal — venue for their wares,
Littering is basically an act of la-
whether it’s a fancy gallery or a hum-
ziness — the product of people who
ble craft fair.
can’t be bothered to hold onto their
Some place, in any case, where peo-
trash until they get to the nearest re-
ple go because they want to see art,
ceptacle, which in any inhabited place and even potentially to pay for it.
isn’t likely to be distant.
The only money that’s going to be
(I understand that some litter is in- shelled out for the crop of graffiti that
advertent — a stray gust that plucks a has recently sprouted, like unpleasant
hamburger wrapper from a front seat and possibly toxic toadstools, in the
before the driver can snatch it back, or walkways on both sides of the Dewey
a scrap of paper that slips through a
Avenue underpass, is whatever it will
hole in somebody’s pocket.)
cost to paint over them.
Graffiti, by contrast, is inherently
This is a task which has been un-
intentional.
dertaken a few times in that spot in
And I have no doubt that many
the past several years, but without
practitioners believe themselves to be lasting results.
artists who are beautifying rather than
It seems that the considerable ex-
befouling their targets.
panses of concrete, covered with in-
Jayson
Jacoby
I
dustrial gray paint, is a siren song that
vandals — vandals with aesthetic pre-
tensions, perhaps, but vandals just the
same — simply can’t resist.
I walk the underpass at least a cou-
ple times most weeks. I don’t keep
records about the history of graffiti
there, but after the most recent rash,
sometime last year, the paint that cov-
ered the various scribblings remained
largely intact for several months.
Earlier this year, though, a few stray
sprayings showed up in the tunnel on
the west side of Dewey.
Those, sadly, seemed to serve as in-
spiration. Now the tunnels on both
sides are strewn with graffiti, and so
is the wheelchair-accessible ramp on
the east side, which leads to the bridge
across Dewey.
Some of this, predictably, is profane.
I can appreciate art that is provocative,
even jarring, rather than tradition-
ally beautiful. But painting words that
can’t be spoken on the public airwaves
without the potential of drawing an
FCC fine betrays nothing, it seems to
me, except a childish inability to con-
ceive a coherent thought.
Which is not to suggest that the
Mona Lisa would be appropriate in
its place.
If you absolutely must express your-
self in art — and I understand that
creativity often is at its root a com-
pulsion — procuring a canvas which
is neither publicly owned nor visible
to passers-by, some of whom might
be accompanied by children who can
sound out certain one-syllable words,
is no great obstacle.
To return to my conundrum about
which is more cretinous — littering
or graffiti — the underpass gets me to
thinking about this question because
it’s a magnet for both.
The tunnels, in particular, are fre-
quently adrift in the typical detritus —
soda cups, scraps of paper and plastic,
the occasional moldy, ant-infested
remnants of a fast food meal.
As I walk through, peering in the
dim light so as to avoid stepping in
something sticky or otherwise foul, I
ponder how every ugly sight, whether
on the ground or the walls, is utterly
unnecessary.
The gray paint, if left alone, would
last for years, requiring only an occa-
sional touch up to reverse the effects
of subzero January mornings and blis-
tering July sunshine.
The only inevitable debris is the
natural — autumn leaves or drifts
of cottonwood fluff propelled by the
breeze. I would, it scarcely needs to be
said, rather step on a maple leaf than
a putrefying piece of hamburger or a
puddle of congealed milkshake.
And although gray-painted con-
crete can’t fairly be called attractive,
neither is it offensive. Besides which,
nature is effortlessly artistic, and it’s
a rare walk when I’m not inspired by
something I see. I can glimpse parts
of both the Elkhorns and the Wal-
lowas from near the underpass and I
always get a small thrill from the sight
of those grand mountains, white or
gray or blue depending on the season
and the time of day, no view quite the
same as another.
The contrast is so distinct that it’s
a trifle unsettling, the ever-shifting
beauty of the mountains, so unlike the
fixed ugliness of litter, the persistent
stupidity of graffiti.
Jayson Jacoby is editor of the Baker City
Herald.