A4 BAKER CITY HERALD • SATURDAY, AUGUST 6, 2022
BAKER CITY
Opinion
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Saturday, August 6, 2022 • Baker City, Oregon
EDITORIAL
Grateful for
volunteer
firefighters
W
hat a hectic week it was for wildland
firefighters.
And what a dramatic illustration of how vital the ef-
forts of the volunteers and other local residents who
rush toward, rather than away from, the dangerous
flames.
Lightning started two blazes in northern Baker
County. The first, on Sunday, July 31, burned about
416 acres between Thief Valley Reservoir and the
Medical Springs Highway. The second, started in the
early evening of Wednesday, Aug. 3, was about nine
miles to the east, near Keating. It burned about 200
acres.
In both cases, volunteers from rural fire protection
districts played key roles in quickly stopping the fires
and protecting nearby homes. Local ranchers also
were among the first to arrive at the Keating fire.
Although no residents had to evacuate, the Baker
County Sheriff’s Office did issue Level 2 notifications
— meaning residents should be ready to leave at any
time — during both blazes.
Working with crews from public agencies, includ-
ing the Bureau of Land Management, Oregon Depart-
ment of Forestry and U.S. Forest Service, volunteers
from local protection districts — there are more than
half a dozen in Baker County — are a vital cog in the
firefighting machine. And because the volunteers are
local residents, they’re often the first to arrive at a fire.
Unfortunately many of these districts have strug-
gled over the past decade or so to recruit replacements
for volunteers who, often due to age, can no longer
do the dangerous and physically demanding work of
combatting wildfires.
Buzz Harper, longtime chief of the Keating Rural
Fire Protection District, took the lead on Wednesday’s
blaze, arriving just five minutes or so after he and a lo-
cal rancher, Curt Jacobs, both saw smoke following a
lightning storm. Harper said he’s pleased that there’s
a group of young volunteers, in some districts, who
are enthusiastic about helping protect their neighbors’
properties.
As this past week has shown, with its frightening
scenes of wind-driven flames racing through desic-
cated grass and sage, those volunteers are a bulwark
against potential tragedy. Everyone, even those whose
homes and livelihoods weren’t close to the flames,
should be grateful for their selfless dedication.
— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor
YOUR VIEWS
Allowing extremists to
ignore rules leads to
chaos
I am so sad after reading
the article in Saturday, July 30
paper about the Republican
meeting. I attended the meet-
ing on July 28 as an elected
PCP. The article in your pa-
per did not capture what hap-
pened. It was shocking to me
how a small group of people
can totally disregard the by-
laws and manipulate a pro-
cess. It was a clear example of
“might makes right” or as one
of the ring leaders said — “we
don’t care about the bylaws!”
Most of the people in Baker
County, whether Republi-
cans or not, understand that
a society cannot long exist
without rules and laws. That’s
just common sense. When
you blatantly disregard the
rules designed to keep order,
chaos is the result. Just look
at Portland and the chaos re-
sulting from allowing radi-
cals to govern the city. Well,
don’t be fooled: When we al-
low extremists to toss aside
the rules so they can illegally
grab power then Portland‘s
chaos is coming here to Baker
County.
Nora Bass
Baker City
OTHER VIEWS
US, world face economic turmoil
Editorial from the Minneapolis
Star Tribune:
W
hether America is
in a recession or not
has yet to be offi-
cially determined. But unoffi-
cially, U.S. consumers may al-
ready believe that a downturn
has begun and may be accel-
erating after a week of conse-
quential economic news and
months of rising prices.
The July 28 announcement
from the Commerce Depart-
ment that the U.S. economy
contracted 0.9% in the second
quarter of 2022 — following a
1.6% decline in the first quarter
— meets a standard definition
of a recession: two consecutive
quarters of negative growth.
A National Bureau of Eco-
nomic Research panel will
eventually decide. Although
that official declaration will
be meaningful, what mat-
ters most is how consumers
feel and behave in the face of
higher prices on many goods
and services.
The rate at which inflation is
increasing is at a four-decade
high following years of stable
prices. Most paychecks have
not kept up with the increased
cost of living, leaving many
consumers — especially those
with low incomes — feeling
worse off.
On July 27, as was expected,
the Federal Reserve again
raised a key interest rate —
this time at three-quarters of a
point — to curb inflation.
The painfully necessary in-
crease is meant to decrease
economic demand and thus
prices. “We need growth to
slow,” Fed Chair Jerome Pow-
ell said. “We don’t want this
to be bigger than it needs
to be, but ultimately, if you
think about the medium- to
longer-term, price stability is
what makes the whole econ-
omy work.”
So do jobs, and in this as-
pect the U.S. and Minnesota,
in particular, are in a better po-
sition than in previous down-
turns. The overall U.S. unem-
ployment rate is a relatively
low 3.6%, and Minnesota just
announced its lowest unem-
ployment rate ever, at 1.8%. Yet
if the economy cools further,
so could job growth.
The Fed’s previous positions
of years of relatively low in-
terest rates may have contrib-
uted to the need to raise them
so quickly. But it’s important
to remember that the central
bank, like federal, state and lo-
cal governments, was trying
to respond to an anemic pan-
demic economy.
It’s also critical to note that
the policy responses have
an international context.
The economy is intercon-
nected and in fact genuinely
global, and the unrelenting
COVID-19 crisis and war in
Ukraine, which both exac-
erbated the worldwide sup-
ply-chain problem, have had
a hand in rising prices, too.
Higher rates of inflation, slow-
ing growth and rising interest
rates are being seen in other
developed economies in Eu-
rope and elsewhere, and the
developing world faces a po-
tentially more acute, even ex-
istential, food crisis due to the
disruption from Russia’s inva-
sion.
The globalization of eco-
nomic headwinds led the In-
ternational Monetary Fund
to warn on July 26 of a global
recession. In a blog post timed
with the release of the IMF’s
report, titled “Gloomy and
More Uncertain,” the IMF’s
chief economist wrote, “The
world may soon be teetering
on the edge of a global reces-
sion, only two years after the
last one.”
Whatever one calls it — and
predictably, the Biden admin-
istration doesn’t want to use
the term “recession,” while
Republicans do — economic
conditions have worsened.
Whether the Fed can produce
a “soft landing” of lower in-
flation without more serious
damage to the economy re-
mains to be seen. But overall,
the U.S. is in a better position
than most major economies,
Timothy Kehoe, a Univer-
sity of Minnesota professor
of economics and adviser to
the Federal Reserve Bank of
Minneapolis, told an editorial
writer.
“The world is in a time of
unprecedented amounts of
economic uncertainty with the
continuing COVID-19 pan-
demic, not as brutally here as
in some other countries, and
the war in Ukraine,” Kehoe
said. “The United States is do-
ing the best of any major coun-
try in the world right now.”
That’s a credit to U.S. citizens
and policymakers, but no one
can say with certainty if that rel-
ative strength will continue.
COLUMN
DNA testing: The perils of peering into your genes
I
know where I came from, bio-
logically speaking, but what if my
DNA disagreed?
What if everything I had come to
believe over nearly 52 years — the
source of the shapes of my eyes and
the astigmatism that has plagued
them since I was in elementary
school, my propensity for headaches
and for kidney stones — was rejected
by my very genes?
As recently as 15 years ago, this
question would have been largely hy-
pothetical.
But since then, and in particular
in the past decade, the prevalence of
consumer genetic testing — through
companies such as Ancestry and
23andMe — has given tens of millions
of people details about their genetic
building blocks.
Very specific details.
And because much of that informa-
tion is publicly available through data-
bases, we’ve never been so capable of
finding out if our personal story con-
flicts with the tale our DNA tells.
Moreover, some of us are learning
about these life-changing discrepan-
cies not through our own genealog-
ical curiosity, but through someone
else’s — and quite likely a someone
else who is a close relative, perhaps
even a parent, whose existence we not
only didn’t know about but never had
cause to even suspect.
This is the topic of one of the more
fascinating books I’ve read in many
know to understand the topic.
Her book, fortunately, is a story not
of genes and chromosomes, of vials
and cotton swabs, but of people.
The pages of “The Lost Family”
years.
teem with ordinary Americans whose
“The Lost Family: How DNA Test- stories, whether tragic or mysterious
ing Is Upending Who We Are” is a
or uplifting — and some are all of
2020 book by journalist Libby Cope- these and more — are always compel-
land.
ling and always deftly told.
Copeland examines in great detail
I also appreciate that Copeland
how at-home DNA tests — you spit
doesn’t downplay her ambivalence.
in a vial or swab your cheek, put the
She acknowledges that DNA test-
sealed package in the mail and get
ing, and the ever-expanding data-
your results back in a few weeks —
bases, not only can help adopted
occasionally have ramifications that
children reunite with their biological
the person who did the spitting or
parents, but that these genetic reser-
swabbing never imagined.
voirs aid police in finding murderers.
What starts as a bit of a lark —
Copeland writes about what’s likely
most people are merely curious about the most famous of the latter cases —
whether their ancestry leans more
the arrest of Joseph James DeAngelo,
heavily toward, say, Western Europe
a California serial killer and rapist
or Scandinavia — sometimes yields
who was unknown for more than 30
shocking results.
years until his identity was revealed
That your father isn’t who you had through a DNA match to a distant rel-
always believed him to be, for in-
ative whose genetic information was
stance.
in a public database.
Which is information apt to leave
Police, taking advantage of what’s
even the most even-keeled person
known as genetic genealogy, arrested
floundering for a while.
DeAngelo in 2018, and in 2020 he
Genetics is a complicated subject
pleaded guilty to multiple counts of
— much too complicated for me, who murder and kidnapping and was sen-
struggles with the soft sciences and is tenced to prison for the rest of his life.
all but helpless when it comes to the
(Which might not be terribly long,
hard.
as DeAngelo is 76.)
Fortunately, Copeland’s prose never
Copeland also describes the expe-
gets mired in impenetrable jargon.
riences of people who, through DNA
She explains what a reader needs to
tests, learned about extended families
Jayson
Jacoby
— siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles
— they would otherwise never have
met.
In some cases these families, who
suddenly and unexpectedly needed
to grill a lot more burgers and hot
dogs for their barbecues, were ecstatic
about their discoveries.
Copeland writes about people who
almost immediately developed pow-
erful and loving bonds that, given
their genetic links, ought not be sur-
prising.
Yet for all these tearful meetings,
Copeland doesn’t blanch at writing
about other episodes where the results
of a DNA test left a person confused,
bitter and sad.
She writes of people who find out
that one of their biological parents is
a stranger. But they, rather than being
welcomed with hugs and kisses, are
instead shunned — told, in effect, that
their genetic connection is irrelevant
and unwanted.
These passages are particularly poi-
gnant.
I can scarcely imagine finding out
that my parentage wasn’t what I be-
lieve it to be.
But to then compound that shock-
ing revelation with the reality that my
biological parents, or parent, had no
interest in knowing me, strikes me
as inexpressibly sad — akin to being
promised a family and then having it
yanked away, like a blanket that was
sheltering you on a frigid night.
Although I have never seriously
considered having my DNA tested
— nor have I received a test kit as a
Christmas gift, which apparently is a
big part of the business — after turn-
ing the final page of “The Lost Fam-
ily,” I pondered the matter with a de-
cidedly different perspective.
Having since thought further,
though, I concluded that at some
point I’ll probably surrender some sa-
liva in service of peering into my ge-
netic background.
I realized that although Copeland’s
research raises questions about ge-
netic genealogy — it’s no parlor game,
certainly — her book, for obvious rea-
sons, concentrates on especially inter-
esting cases.
While reading the book it’s natural,
I think, to overestimate how common
it is for people to have their entire
lineage erased and replaced with a
wholly different hereditary tree.
But of course these cases are ex-
ceedingly rare. If they were common,
I suppose Copeland wouldn’t have
bothered writing her book.
Still and all, I suspect anyone who
reads “The Lost Family” might won-
der, however briefly, whether they
truly want to know what a DNA test
would reveal.
It is human nature, certainly, to
avoid answers we don’t want to hear
by simply never asking the question.
Jayson Jacoby is editor of the Baker City
Herald.