OPINION READER’S FORUM
Founded in 1906
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 19, 2022
A4
OUR VIEW
Hermiston’s MLK march off ers lessons in unity
A
t the Martin Luther King Jr
Day Peace March in Herm-
iston on Monday, Jan. 17,
speakers repeatedly called out for
unity. We share their request; we
hope for people to come together and
strive for a better world.
The event itself was a mixture of
diff erent people. The speaker’s list
included individuals of varied races
and occupations. City government
was represented with a speech by the
Hermiston city manager, and local reli-
gious leaders spoke, too. Also, the
attendees at the event were a rainbow
of diff erent races.
The diversity of the crowd was
mentioned in one speech at the event.
A speaker pointed out that there were
many types of individuals in the atten-
dance. In stating this point, the speaker
said this was in line with King’s mes-
sage. King, the speaker said, would
approve of a unity made up of diff er-
ent parts.
Speaker Marlando Jordan, a Ken-
newick preacher, came to Hermiston
to share his refl ections on King. He
praised the civil rights leader for his
faith, vision, courage and loving heart.
It was because of all these things, Jor-
dan said, that King was able to have
broad appeal. People unifi ed behind
the great man.
It is a shame that King, a victim of
hate, is not with us. He would be in his
90s now, if he had not been assassi-
nated when he was only 39 years old.
We have people in our community now
who started having birthdays before
King, so it is easy to picture King with
us.
In trying to make guesses as to what
King would be saying to us, we lis-
ten to people at the Hermiston march
and at other marches. Making their
points about a better world, speakers
frequently quoted King. In advocat-
ing for progress, the speakers pushed
for unity. And there were several
ideas in the speeches are worth further
consideration.
One point was that unity can be sur-
prising. A partnership between The
Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-day
Saints and the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored Peo-
ple, for instance, might not be the fi rst
collaboration people might imagine.
Still, their cooperation has led to the
advancement of humanitarian interests.
Taking their example, we might also
accomplish great ends.
Another point put forward at the
march is that good things come from
tireless work. A young speaker at the
march told of how she is putting in an
eff ort to educate others of our imper-
fect history and our potentially bright
future. King, her model, serves as an
example for us all. We see how he
worked hard in unity with others, and
we try to act in similar fashion.
A third point, which was also men-
tioned in a speech, is that unity does
not mean uniformity. We do not need
to be the same; in fact, it is better that
we are not all identical. The beauty of
our community is that we have peo-
ple who look, and sometimes think,
diff erently.
All of this goes to say that there
were a lot of valuable takeaways from
the Jan. 17 event. We here at the Herm-
iston Herald are grateful to all the peo-
ple who organized it and participated
in it. For those who did not attend, we
encourage you to make plans to be at
the next one. You might also want to
look out for the next event put on by
the organizing organization, the Herm-
iston Cultural Awareness Coalition.
WRITERS ON THE RANGE
A dangerous new predator stalks the West
T
he grizzly bear. The wolf.
The cougar. These magnifi -
cent creatures, apex preda-
tors, how can we not admire them?
People cross the world for the
opportunity to see one in the wilds
of Yellowstone or Alaska.
There, we view them from
a distance, free to indulge our
awe in safety. It has been a
long time since Americans
lived in fear of wild beasts.
But now that fear has
returned. Fear felt not just in
the woods, but also in cities Pepper
and towns: Paradise, Califor- Trail
nia; Talent; and now in Supe-
rior and Louisville in Colorado’s
Boulder County.
The dangerous predator we’re
facing these days is wildfi re,
charging even out of grasslands to
destroy our homes. And no one is
safe.
As an ecologist, I know that
predators are essential to the health
of wildlife communities, keeping
prey populations in check. They’re
also a driving force in evolution,
favoring the faster or stronger or
smarter animals able to escape their
attacks. Of course, civilization long
ago freed us from the evolutionary
pressure exerted by predators. But
that freedom has come at a cost.
When populations and eco-
systems grow badly out of bal-
ance, there must come a correc-
tion. Humans and the environments
we have created are not immune
to this rule, and we must recognize
that we have unleashed the
fi re-predator through our own
choices.
What choices? On the
global scale, we have released
vast amounts of carbon diox-
ide and other greenhouse
gases into the atmosphere.
This was done at fi rst in igno-
rance, but for at least the past
30 years, it truly was a choice
made in the face of increasingly
desperate warnings.
The resulting greenhouse
eff ect has raised temperatures
and decreased rain and snowpack
throughout the West, contribut-
ing to “fi re weather” like the hur-
ricane-force winds that shockingly
bore down on the suburbs of Den-
ver in the dead of winter.
We also made land-manage-
ment choices that strengthened the
threat of fi re. First, we behaved as
if we could banish fi re from the
landscape, suppressing all wild-
land fi res everywhere, and ending
the use of prescribed fi re in forests
as a management tool. This led to a
huge build-up of fl ammable fuels.
Second, industrial-scale logging
eliminated over 90% of fi re-re-
sistant old-growth forests and
replaced them with highly fl am-
mable tree plantations. Finally, we
vastly expanded our human foot-
print, building houses right where
the fi re-predator likes to roam, at
the brink of forests and grasslands.
Reconciling ourselves to the
depredations of wildfi re requires
that we take the long view. The
fuel-choked forests resulting from
our (mis)management need to burn,
and they will burn. The best we can
do is to preserve the old forests that
remain and manage younger for-
ests to increase their resilience to
moderate-intensity fi re. It could
be a century or more before a new
forestland equilibrium is reached,
one with lower fuel loads, better
adapted to the high fi re-frequency
climate we have created.
Meanwhile, what about us? Col-
orado’s Marshall Fire proved that
wildfi re is the one predator we
can’t eliminate. Far from any for-
est, this was pushed through tin-
der-dry grasslands by howling win-
ter winds and burned more than
1,000 suburban homes in a matter
of hours. So, like any prey species,
we must adapt as best we can. As
individuals, we can create defen-
sible space around our homes. We
can get skilled at escaping wildfi re
by having evacuation plans ready.
As a society, we can adopt sen-
sible policies to limit development
in fi re-prone areas. Recent events
prove that these include not just
remote forestlands, but grasslands
near suburbs. Faced with predators,
animals try to get into the center of
the herd. We need to do the same,
avoiding exposure to the fi re-preda-
tor at the vulnerable edge.
Finally, we can — we must —
embark on an urgent global eff ort
to end the burning of fossil fuels
within the next few decades. If we
do not, the West will face year-
round fi re weather, and a future at
the mercy of fi re.
Yet there is reason for hope: the
human capacity for rapid social
and cultural evolution. Let’s har-
ness that strength, and work toward
the day when fi re is a predator no
more, but our powerful partner in
the stewardship of the land.
———
Pepper Trail is a contributor to
Writers on the Range, writerson-
therange.org, a nonprofi t dedicated
to spurring lively conversation
about the West. He is an ecologist
in Ashland.
PASTURES OF PLENTY
Art and creativity need not be forged in suff ering
G
rowing up, I had never
given the Beatles much
thought. Like all good
children being raised in corporate
America, I had a tangential
knowledge by way of adver-
tisements. Nike and “Revolu-
tion.” “Come Together” and
luxury vehicles.
The songs were clipped
and snipped and ready to
sell stuff . It was not until I
Alex
became a parent, fueled by
Hobbs
the revulsion of technology,
that I purchased a record player for
my children. It seemed fi tting that
with their Union Jack-clad Victrola
that a Beatles record should be
spun fi rst. The record was “Abbey
Road.” Less of a record and more
of a launchpad.
It wasn’t long after the needle
fi rst descended onto vinyl that my
sons began to show interest in cre-
ation, little fi ngers fi nding their
way along keys of a piano in paths
they’ve never before taken. I
started to ask myself how is a
person imbued with a desire
to create?
What might the world be
like if we were all given equal
opportunity to fully explore
the depths of art, to analyze
the spark of human creation?
If for a moment we were all
released from the expectations and
standards of what we should be
producing, what might blossom in
the void?
In lieu of answers to these ques-
tions, I have only the Beatles. Spe-
cifi cally, the nine hours of footage
compiled by Peter Jackson in his
documentary “Get Back.”
What is most notable about the
entirety of the documentary is an
underlying sense of playfulness. A
joyful abandon. In fact, it reminded
me of my sons. This isn’t necessar-
ily equating “Let it Be” with what-
ever combination of notes my son
puts together, but in the distillation
process, you will fi nd the same
unbothered spirit. The same will-
ingness to take risks, be silly, and
lean into vulnerability.
We have a misconception that
art and creation are predicated
upon pain. There are certainly no
shortages of this trope in our col-
lective mindset. For example, I
recently visited Portland where I
took my children to see Beyond
Van Gogh: an installation that
attempts to change the narrative
surrounding the troubled painter. It
was inspiring, but one left unable
to isolate his art from his tragedy,
his torture.
Author Ursula Le Guin said,
“The trouble is that we have a bad
habit, encouraged by pedants and
sophisticates, of considering hap-
piness as something rather stu-
pid. Only pain is intellectual, only
evil interesting. This is the trea-
son of the artist: a refusal to admit
the banality of evil and the terrible
boredom of pain.”
If this isn’t an invitation to
frolic in strawberry fi elds, I don’t
know what is.
———
Alex Hobbs is a former educa-
tor turned homeschooling mom.
She has a degree in political sci-
ence from Oregon State University.
CORRECTIONS
Printed on
recycled
newsprint
VOLUME 115 • NUMBER 3
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LETTER TO THE
EDITOR
Recent Supreme Court
ruling should change
vote-by-mail system
I was intrigued by the
recent Oregon Supreme
Court ruling concerning
the exclusion of inactive
voters from being counted
on petitions. In review of
the opinion it stipulated
that by statue inactive vot-
ers are prohibited from
voting. Thus only active
voter’s signature will be
counted. A voter is consid-
ered inactive if they have
not voted in the last 10
years and have been noti-
fi ed by the county.
I think this ruling will/
should have ramifi cations
concerning Oregon’s vote-
by-mail system. Instead of
sending out mass ballots
to all registered voters,
only active voters should
be allowed to vote using
the rationale of the court’s
ruling.
I am not a proponent of
vote-by-mail. I am a fi rm
believer in one person,
one vote. I also think peo-
ple should have to show
some type of identifi cation
to vote. The United States
is only one of a few coun-
tries in the world that do
not require identifi cation
to vote. Given the impor-
tance of each election, it
is critical to ensure voter
integrity.
So, if you are in an
inactive status your sig-
nature will not count on
a petition, and the same
should hold true to your
ballot. If you are in an
inactive status, all you
have to do is contact the
Oregon Driver and Motor
Vehicle Services to be
activated.
Some court rulings
have unattended conse-
quences, I think this one
may and should change
the vote-by-mail system in
Oregon.
Joe Mesteth
Hermiston
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