A4
Opinion
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, February 1, 2017
Too much at stake
to bog down session
with usual silliness
T
he 2017 Oregon
Legislature will convene
Wednesday amid
acrimony, political silliness and
dire predictions.
This is all part of the ritual
dance that launches each
legislative session, as the
Republicans and Democrats,
House and Senate, and
individual lawmakers jockey for
political leverage.
Gov. Kate Brown and
legislative leaders from both
parties predict this could be the
most diffi cult legislative session
in years, as lawmakers struggle
to balance the state budget
and develop a transportation
package.
At some point — probably
late spring, if this session follows
the usual pattern — legislators
will begin the diffi cult
compromises on the budget and
other contentious issues. No
one wants a repeat of the era in
which the Legislature repeatedly
was called back to the Oregon
Capitol to revise the state
budget.
As state Senate Majority
Leader Ginny Burdick,
D-Portland, said last week, “I
think everybody just needs to
take a deep breath.”
Legislators can speed the
political process by abandoning
some of their political silliness,
especially in the House, where
Republicans are threatening to
slow daily business.
Democrats outnumber
Republicans 35-25 in the House
and 17-13 in the Senate. Those
numbers give Republicans
little infl uence except on tax
measures, which require a
supermajority for approval.
That is why Republicans
may demand that the House
devote far more time to publicly
reading legislation aloud, word-
for-word. That would slow the
legislative process to a crawl,
ensuring fewer bills become
law, which some Oregonians
might see as a blessing. But that
threat also gives Republicans a
bargaining chip: Give us more
of what we want and we won’t
slow the process.
Whether that is obstructionism
or pragmatism is in the eye of
the beholder. House Republican
Leader Mike McLane of Powell
Butte had a fair point when he
noted that the Democratic leaders
in Congress also employ such
“obstructionist” tactics because
their party is in the minority.
Congress is an awfully low
bar for comparison. Oregonians
expect more of their Legislature.
That includes having the majority
party make concessions to work
well with the minority party, and
vice versa.
Republican leaders have
admitted that the 2017-19 state
budget will be untenable without
more revenue. Democrats
need Republican votes for any
tax increases, which require
a supermajority for passage.
In return, Democrats should
accept the need for continued
reforms to hold down the cost
of government, including the
Public Employees Retirement
System.
Some people want to delay
PERS discussions, possibly
until a special session. That
is a very bad idea. Special
legislative sessions come with
no guarantees.
Likewise, the 2017
Legislature should meet both
Democrats’ and Republicans’
needs in putting together a
transportation package. There
is widespread agreement that
Oregon must reinvest in its
roads and bridges, and make
its public transit systems
more effective. But the
majority Democrats should
heed Republicans’ desire for
fl exibility in the state’s low-
carbon fuel standards for
vehicles — a fl awed program
that Democrats rammed
through the 2015 Legislature.
Those are real issues. The
sooner that legislators can
get past the acrimony and
obstructionism, the sooner
they can make progress on
those real issues.
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F ARMER ’ S F ATE
The flat-out truth
By Brianna Walker
To the Blue Mountain Eagle
I don’t have all my ducks in a row.
I don’t even have them all in the same
pond. I’m not even sure they are all
ducks — there may be some fl ying
squirrels in there. But I thought I had
the basics fi gured out: The sun rises in
the east, farming almost pays the bills
and gravity holds us onto this spinning
ball we call Earth. That is, until last
week.
“Do you believe the earth is a
globe?” was the start of the conversa-
tion.
“Um ... yes ... why?” I answered,
curious as to what kind of joke was
about to be played on me.
“Just wondering,” the lady replied.
“It’s possible it’s fl at.”
I nearly choked on my orange juice.
“Oh, yes, fl at ... I thought we disproved
that back in 1492?”
I was then presented with a list of
200 “proofs” that Earth is not the spin-
ning globe most people believe it to be.
It’s actually the biggest conspiracy ever
to be pulled off.
Sometimes the best thing you can
do is just sit back, keep your mouth
shut and just let the crazy unfold.
“If the Earth is round,” she contin-
ued, “why are horizons always fl at?” I
was then presented with a number of
anomalies. Have you ever wondered
why planes don’t fl y over Antarctica? It
would be a direct route to many places
— if the world was round. But it isn’t.
There is no such thing as the South
Pole. And so the conspiracy begins ...
Now, back to the
curvature of the hori-
zon. It is perfectly fl at
— therefore, the Earth
must be fl at. Don’t
bother
responding
about the large surface
Brianna
area of the Earth or the
Walker
International Space
Station sending back
photographs of the Earth; you should
be able to see the curvature if it exist-
ed, and any photographs sent by NASA
have been faked. They know this to be
true because the clouds have words in
them, and there is a cartoon dog visible
in the NASA photos of Pluto. This is a
conspiracy theory that swallows oth-
er conspiracy theories whole. Gravity
is a hoax. Space travel is a hoax. The
sun and moon aren’t what we have
been told either. Some even believe the
moon is just a projected hologram.
You may think the obvious question
here is: What would be the motivation
behind a hoax on such a global ... er, I
mean world scale?
“It just makes more sense,” she kept
answering. “Makes more sense as to
why airplanes can fl y without having
to account for the curvature ... Makes
more sense for the moon to be a translu-
cent disk having it’s own light ... Makes
more sense as to why we can see things
140 miles away without them going off
the horizon backward.”
I just kept thinking Galileo would
be turning over (I mean orbiting) in his
grave about now. I had never thought,
in my life, I would be defending my po-
sition on a moving solar system, or that
Earth was spherical. I kept waiting for
someone to pop out and say, “You’re on
Candid Camera!” But no one popped
up. Later that day, I had to turn to the
internet — and discovered that there
is a whole society of people out there
that believe the Earth is fl at. The more I
read, the more surprised I was to learn
that the fl at Earth community has sup-
porters all around the globe — OK, so
maybe that pun fell fl at! (Haha.)
After reading a few of their web-
sites, I was even more shocked. These
people posit that we are living on a clus-
ter of continents, the oceans surround
us and a rock or ice wall (protected by
NASA) keeps us from falling off. Any
arguments using physics or science will
be met with, “If you believe that hoax.”
People have the right to their
opinion to be sure. It’s not like I have
viewed Earth from space with my
own eyes. But if the world isn’t round
and it doesn’t spin, we wouldn’t be
able to take another trip around the
sun. Moon pops wouldn’t taste the
same, and Star Trek would be to-
tal fi ction. Oh, what an unbearable
thought! I think I’ll just put an out-
of-order sticker on my head and call
it a day — not to be confused with
a revolution of the sun. On the plus
side, there would be no need to wor-
ry about global warming! Maybe the
man in the moon could toss down
some of his green cheese, because af-
ter a day like this I may need some-
thing to go along with the wine!
Brianna Walker occasionally
writes about the Farmer’s Fate for
the Blue Mountain Eagle.
L ETTERS TO THE E DITOR
‘Political correctness’
To the Editor:
American slavery was rational-
ized using convictions of racial
inferiority. Southern defeat did not
free Southerners from need of such
rationalizations, and the fear of the
victimizer becoming victimized
expressed itself in mechanisms
like the KKK. In 2000, William
Lind shed light on the origins of a
now 70-year-old Leftist “agenda,”
which imagined minorities, wom-
en and gays aligned against white
males in a “Long Walk Through
the Institutions” (including mar-
riage) to destroy the middle class
and bring on a communist revolu-
tion.
American introspection that
began with Archie Bunker soon
moved to the Neanderthal “Tim
the Tool Man” and Homer Simp-
son who, like black slaves, were
dehumanized to justify “political
correctness.” By 2016, John Ka-
sich could run for president, brag-
ging that he had set up a $500,000
“grant fund” for any woman or mi-
nority IT start-up that would come
to Ohio. Or as they say in liberal
land, “No white male need apply.”
Trump’s election threatens to
emancipate “uppity” white males,
Christians and stay-at-home moms
from the stereotypes of inferiority
the church of “political correct-
ness” has placed upon them, and
the Left now fears victimization
from people they have been berat-
ing, when that is not what Trump
was selling.
I say, before you ascribe saint-
hood to Congressman John Lew-
is for fighting for his own rights
(which would come to include a
place at the front of the Affirma-
tive Action line), you might want
to acknowledge all those maligned
“deplorables” who stood up for
him against their own race in the
’60s and then moved to the back
of the line trying to right that old
wrong.
Tucker Carlson mentioned
some liberal blogger whose white
male plumber spoke with a South-
ern accent, causing the blogger to
wonder if the plumber had voted
for Trump, and that possibility
made him uncomfortable, even
afraid. He blogged that his life
would never be the same.
What the liberal was describ-
ing was what we call “bigotry”
and “prejudice.” Without a Green-
back-wielding, Lincoln-style lead-
er, there can be no Reconstruction,
no reconciliation that will not be
thwarted by “carpetbaggers” (The
Money Masters).
Russ Denton
Prairie City
Bring the
Hammonds home
To the Editor:
The Hammonds should be home
with their families.
Seventy-four-year-old Dwight
and son Stephen were and are
respected ranchers in the Burns
area. They are presently serving
a five-year mandatory sentence
for arson on federal land. They
were labeled terrorists in order to
justify this grossly disproportion-
ate sentence for the destruction
(burning) of approximately 130
acres of BLM pasture.
They stood trial once and
served their time. The DOJ came
back in federal appeals court and
won, reinstating the 5-year sen-
tence. Double jeopardy is men-
tioned often as I have read the
articles reporting the trial and hap-
penings that led to the fi nal out-
come, which to me is a gross mis-
carriage of justice.
A mandatory fi ve-year sentence
is to discourage terrorists and arson-
ists who disregard the law. Was this
a witch hunt used to send a message
to good solid Americans that dis-
sent? Could be — maybe yes.
The Hammonds have been de-
scribed in such terms as respected,
great neighbor, salt of the earth ag
folks. If this father and son fi t the
profi le of arsonist or terrorist, we
are all in trouble. “Remember this
is not about me; this is about our
country,” were Dwight Hammond’s
parting comments as he was taken
from home and family a year ago.
For goodness sake, someone
has the leverage to get these men
out of prison. Unfortunately for
the Hammonds, I think they were
caught up in what I refer to as “a
virus sweep.” Easily labeled as
such if you have issues with the
BLM and their land-management
policies. I’m infuriated to see the
pardons and commutations being
dished out at this time, drug deal-
ers and terrorists. None seem to
be forthcoming for Dwight and
Stephen.
Bring the Hammonds home.
Wanda Ballard
Baker City
Walden should change
course to protect
constituents’ health
To the Editor:
I have written an open letter to
Congressman Greg Walden, whose
reported praise of the president’s
new executive order to relax penal-
ties and reduce enforcement of the
Affordable Care Act’s provisions
is ill-advised at best. In the Gorge,
including his home town of Hood
River, thousands may lose essential
access to health insurance cover-
age, hence to needed care, if the
ACA’s fundamentals are removed
or collapse.
Districtwide, many tens of
thousands of people are at risk in
this way. Moreover, Congressman
Walden’s reported support of re-
versing Medicaid expansion, Chil-
dren’s Health Insurance and other
programs vital to the health of his
constituents and neighbors, if true,
would be a tragedy and embarrass-
ment to our district.
For some reason, Mr. Walden
has ignored repeated requests for
response from some of his constit-
uents on these matters recently, in-
cluding myself.
I hope he will now reply to me
in a substantive and personal man-
ner that I may share with others
whom he offi cially represents here
in the Second district. Most of all,
I hope that he will use his leader-
ship to change course and protect
the health and wellbeing of those
whom he represents, rather than
push ahead to fulfi ll ill-informed
campaign promises by a presiden-
tial candidate who has demonstrat-
ed no understanding of health care
history, policy or health economics.
Tina Castañares, MD
Odell