THE BULLETIN • FRIDAY, JUNE 25, 2021 A5
EDITORIALS & OPINIONS
AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER
Heidi Wright
Gerry O’Brien
Richard Coe
Publisher
Editor
Editorial Page Editor
Deschutes County
may finally get
needed judges
I
t looks like this may be the year Deschutes County finally
gets not just one, but two more needed circuit court judge
positions.
It’s not a done deal. But the po-
tential was clearly there Thursday
morning in black and white in a pair
of amendments to two House bills.
An amendment to House Bill
3011 would increase the number of
judges in Deschutes County from 7
to 9. An amendment to House Bill
5006 adds money to pay for two
judges and support staff.
Deschutes County’s need for more
judges has been clear for years. It’s
been one of the most “underjudged”
counties in the state. The Oregon Ju-
dicial Department found it to have
one of the worst balances of judicial
workload and staff.
That means getting justice for
people before the courts takes lon-
ger. Accusations of crimes, child
custody, business disputes and more
take more time to resolve. That’s not
good for anyone.
The Legislature always has to
make decisions about balancing rev-
enue and need. Judges across the
state have come up short. There have
been efforts going back at least to
2002 to increase judges in the state.
There has been some progress. De-
schutes missed out time and time
again.
2019 was one of the more mem-
orable examples. What did the leg-
islative leadership do? An anony-
mous amendment was submitted
to House Bill 2377 with no judge
for Deschutes County. We’ll al-
Deschutes County’s need for
more judges has been clear for
years. It’s been one of the most
“underjudged” counties in
the state. The Oregon Judicial
Department found it to have one
of the worst balances of judicial
workload and staff. That means
getting justice for people before
the courts takes longer.
ways remember what Mike McLane
said reacting to the amendment in
committee.
He was then a state representa-
tive and is now a judge on the cir-
cuit court for Jefferson and Crook
counties.
“Not Deschutes?” he asked.
His question was met with only
silence.
This year may be different. This
year should be different.
“It has been 18 years since De-
schutes County was granted a new
judicial position,” state Rep. Jason
Kropf, D-Bend told us. “In that time
our population has grown signifi-
cantly, and although our courts have
done incredible things with lim-
ited resources, it has been stretched
thin.”
Public records advocate
deserves to be independent
O
regon’s public records ad-
vocate should be an ad-
vocate for openness and
transparency.
Senate Bill 500 would make it
clear that the position will be more
independent, too. The governor will
no longer get hiring and firing au-
thority. That will become the pur-
view of the state’s public records ad-
visory council.
The public records advocate is
part of government, but it also must
push government to adhere to the
law and encourage improvements in
the law. It’s not an easy path to walk.
And it’s even more complicated if
the governor controls your hiring
and firing and may have different
priorities for openness.
Ginger McCall, Oregon’s first
public records advocate, resigned in
2019 because she felt she was getting
undue pressure from the governor’s
office. Maybe nobody did anything
technically wrong. But it did make it
clear that a change in the law would
be a good idea.
The advocate can hold govern-
ment accountable for how it com-
plies with the law. The advocate can
help educate the public and govern-
ment about the law. And the advo-
cate can point out where changes
are necessary in the law. But to do all
that right, the office does need to be
independent.
S.B. 500 surely seems on its way to
be signed by Gov. Kate Brown. That’s
just what should be happening.
Editorials reflect the views of The Bulletin’s editorial board, Publisher Heidi Wright, Editor
Gerry O’Brien and Editorial Page Editor Richard Coe. They are written by Richard Coe.
Worry more about China than Russia
BY JAMES HOHMANN
The Washington Post
T
he salute was carried live to 1
billion people but went unno-
ticed by most of the world.
Three astronauts aboard China’s
new rival to the International Space
Station gave military salutes to Pres-
ident Xi Jinping during a videocon-
ference broadcast Wednesday on
state television. “We in Beijing await
your triumphant return,” Xi told the
three officers of the People’s Libera-
tion Army standing in front of Com-
munist Party flags as they orbited 242
miles above Earth.
Last week’s launch from a base in the
Gobi Desert was followed obsessively
inside China but largely overlooked in
the United States — overshadowed by
President Joe Biden’s summit with Rus-
sian leader Vladimir Putin. Although
both adversaries threaten U.S. interests,
Americans need to worry more about
a rising and militarizing China than a
revanchist Russia. The new space race
helps illustrate why.
The Chinese didn’t put an astronaut
into space until 2003, 42 years after the
Soviets, but Beijing has been making
cosmic strides that, unlike the Kremlin’s
advances during the Cold War, have yet
to rouse Washington out of its relative
complacency.
Last month, China landed a rover
on Mars — becoming the only nation
besides ours to do so. Last September,
the Chinese launched and recovered a
spaceplane that spent two days in low
Earth orbit. In 2019, China became
the first country to land a craft on the
far side of the moon.
The same day Biden met with Pu-
tin, Russian and Chinese officials un-
veiled a road map in St. Petersburg to
jointly build a lunar base that could
accommodate humans by 2036. The
Chinese have also conducted tests
that indicate advanced capabilities to
knock out U.S. satellites. Last June,
they launched the last in a constel-
lation of 35 satellites to create a rival
network to our GPS system.
In April, the U.S. intelligence com-
munity’s annual threat assessment
warned that “Beijing is working to
match or exceed US capabilities in
space to gain the military, economic,
and prestige benefits that Washington
has accrued from space leadership.”
This threat isn’t limited to the vac-
uum of space. China’s efforts must be
viewed in the context of its ongoing
genocide in Xinjiang, smothering of
Hong Kong, saber-rattling against Tai-
wan and obstruction of independent
investigations into the origins of the
coronavirus.
Fortunately, most leaders in both U.S.
political parties recognize the need to
counter China and support our space
program. In 2019, the Trump adminis-
tration moved up by four years, to 2024,
the timetable for returning astronauts
to the moon. The Biden team embraces
this aggressive, if underfunded, goal.
If we are to maintain U.S. suprem-
acy in space, we should also try to
learn from our early setbacks. Jeff She-
sol’s “Mercury Rising,” published this
month, tells the fascinating backstory
of how John Glenn became the first
American to orbit Earth in 1962. Even
though John F. Kennedy campaigned
on closing the space gap, his initial
commitment seemed more rhetorical
than real. Kennedy’s budget director re-
sisted spending on manned spaceflight.
When Kennedy told a joint session
of Congress that America should try
to land a man on the moon by the end
of the decade, he and his top aides
were struck by the lack of applause in
the chamber. The Democratic chair-
man of the House Appropriations
Committee called Kennedy’s budget
request “wholly unrealistic and fantas-
tic beyond measure.”
Gallup polling in 1961 found that
almost 6 in 10 Americans opposed
spending the $40 billion they were told
it would cost to put men on the moon.
When respondents ranked the issues
for which they’d be willing to pay more
taxes, space came in fifth. Early media
coverage focused on the expense, not
excitement, of a mission whose pros-
pects were considered remote.
The success of Glenn’s Friendship 7
mission created momentum and built
support for additional spending. “Ev-
erything in retrospect has an air of in-
evitability, but it wasn’t,” Shesol said .
Even after Glenn’s achievement,
many Americans remained skeptical
about exploring the final frontier. She-
sol said that’s why Kennedy delivered
what became his famous “we choose to
go to the moon” address at Rice Univer-
sity. “This generation does not intend to
founder in the backwash of the coming
age of space,” Kennedy declared. “The
exploration of space will go ahead,
whether we join in it or not. . . . No na-
tion which expects to be the leader of
other nations can expect to stay behind
in the race for space.”
Half a century later, in the face of a
different communist threat, another
new age is dawning. Yes, Russia re-
mains a threat. The global pandemic
is still with us. And red ink is spilling
for decades to come. But for all the
competing budget and political con-
cerns, the martyred president’s words
feel freshly urgent.
James Hohmann is a columnist for The
Washington Post.
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I had the coronavirus dripped into my nose, on purpose, for science
ney donation being a particularly apt
example). But when, in June 2020, I
month ago, in one of the most
joined the nonprofit 1Day Sooner,
terrifying moments of my life,
which advocates for potential chal-
I was deliberately exposed to
lenge study volunteers, there were no
SARS-CoV-2. The coronavirus itself
challenge studies planned anywhere
came as a clear liquid dropped into
in the world. That changed when one
my nose — a process that took a team was announced in mid-October and
of six, with some unsealing the virus,
granted ethical approval in February.
some recording the doses and a nurse
My journey as a research subject
counting down the seconds. I submit- began in London in January, with a
ted to this for one simple rea-
half-day’s worth of screening:
son: This was my way to help
swabs, tests and sampling
advance our fight against the
to ensure I was healthy, my
novel coronavirus.
lungs were working properly,
I’m part of the world’s
I was antibody-negative, and
first COVID-19 human
I didn’t have any preexisting
challenge study. Challenge
conditions that increased
studies, which have been
my susceptibility to the vi-
Fraser-
instrumental to our under-
rus. A few weeks later, I got
Urquhart
standing of diseases such as
the call I’d been hoping for:
influenza, malaria and chol-
I would proceed to the next
stage, which involved two meetings
era, pose risks to volunteers that can
with a study doctor where, over several
make them controversial. Given the
hours, we read and discussed an in-
potentially massive scientific and so-
formed-consent form of more than 30
cial benefits of learning more about
pages. (Study volunteers were compen-
the disease, I felt willing to shoulder
sated approximately $6,375, an amount
the risks: The dangers of COVID-19
based on the London living wage. As I
for someone my age are similar to
receive the payments over the next year,
routine medical procedures (live kid-
BY ALASTAIR FRASER-URQUHART
Special to The Washington Post
A
I am donating them to nonprofits.)
The study started in late March. I un-
derwent a rigorous health check for the
first two days, involving X-rays, scans,
lung tests and blood samples. Then, on
the third day, I was given the virus.
One of the essential requirements
for challenge studies is strict isolation,
to ensure that the virus can’t leak into
the outside world. I was confined in a
biocontainment room, designed from
the ground up to stop viruses from
leaving. Slightly larger than a standard
hospital room, it was kept at a slightly
lower air pressure than the ward be-
yond. Nobody entered without wear-
ing gloves, gown and a breathing
hood, with a unit that pumped in de-
contaminated air. I couldn’t even see
into the hospital — only into a small
antechamber where the staff scrubbed
themselves in and out. Apart from
them, I had no human contact — not
even with the other trial participants.
I was awake each morning by 5:30
for the study health professionals to
take my vital signs, three swabs and a
saliva sample; my last checks finished
as late as 11:30 p.m. I gave daily blood
samples and took smell tests and CT
scans and had my lung function an-
alyzed. By the end of the study, I had
racked up well over 100 swab tests.
While not all of that was pleasant, it
was surprisingly satisfying to think
about the sheer amount of data my
body was generating as a study sub-
ject. The downtime was mundane: I
read books, got some work done and
watched a lot of Netflix.
From the outside, my family and
friends constantly checked in: Every
morning, I woke up to concerned texts
about my health. Though the risk of
severe illness was low, the study team
had steroids, oxygen and remdesivir on
hand in case I took a turn for the worse.
None of those treatments were perfect,
which meant I was unsettled about the
virus throughout the study. Fear that I
might develop “long COVID” domi-
nated all our thoughts. (At the moment,
I’m free of any long-term symptoms.)
My mum fussed about my lung capac-
ity, complaining that I’d “started giv-
ing her trouble before I was born and
hadn’t stopped since.”
The study is ongoing in London.
Suffice to say that I felt rough for quite
a few days after getting the virus. It
felt like something I would expect
from a bad cold. I fully recovered (and
had two consecutive negative coro-
navirus test results) by the time I left
the quarantine facility — and I had a
newfound respect for the power of the
virus. By the time my 17 days in the
study were up, I was more than ready
to go home.
I felt as though I was doing some-
thing to end the pandemic misery by
voluntarily exposing myself to the vi-
rus. I also carried the disheartening
knowledge that this study was not as
effective as it could have been. If we
had run it earlier on, perhaps the world
could have learned more about the
virus faster. Perhaps, we would have
made swifter progress toward testing a
vaccine or effective treatments.
I don’t think challenge studies only
teach the world about the coronavi-
rus. More fundamentally, they show
us that there are people who are truly
happy to take on physical risks to ad-
vance human knowledge and health.
Alastair Fraser-Urquhart lives in Stoke, England,
and works as the UK Chapter Manager for 1Day
Sooner, a group that advocates for COVID-19
challenge trial volunteers.