Letters to the Editor: July 17, 2020

A real stunner

On July 9, The Oregonian ran an opinion piece from The Washington Post headlined, “Mischaracterization of speech is not an anomaly.” It was a real stunner coming from such liberal papers as The Post and Oregonian.

Columnist Marc Thiessen wrote how the national press, including The New York Times, totally mischaracterized President Trump’s July 3 speech from Mount Rushmore.

After reading the coverage, he said, he watched a replay and found none of the reports were true. He came to the conclusion, “Trump’s critics in the media have fallen in the insidious habit of taking his quotes criticizing the hordes who burn buildings and tear down statues and reporting them as criticism of racial justice protesters.”

This is dishonest. As Thiessen warned, “If celebrating and defending our founding principles on the Fourth of July is ‘dark and divisive,’ then that tells us less about Trump than the sad state of our country.”

It would be nice if the News-Register could be as occasionally magnanimous as The Post and Oregonian.

Bob & Donna Lunt

McMinnville

 
Morally bankrupt

By any measure, we now find ourselves living through the worst presidency in the history of this country. Yes, worse than Nixon’s and even Buchanan’s, given the trajectory of death and destruction for the U.S.

Let’s review events just since January:

Professional military and diplomatic personnel testified to the president’s betrayal to Russia of the Ukraine and U.S. interests; he was impeached by the House, based on clear and overwhelming evidence of guilt in the matter; he grossly abused the power of pardon to cover up that betrayal, as the latest Stone commutation illustrates; he did nothing about Russia putting bounties on the lives of U.S. military personnel; he doubled down on making racism the center of his re-election campaign; he used excessive force in removing peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square for a photo op with a book he’s never read in front of a church he never attends; he continues to behave with willful incompetence and malice in the handling of the pandemic, spreading misinformation that has had lethal consequences, even to the point of staging rallies; he withdrew from the World Health Organization, which helps coordinate responses to pandemics; and he plays hapless bystander even as the American economy crashes, yet manages to tweet infinitely.

Obviously, his response to the COVID and economic crises is the worst of these.

Indeed, his continuing COVID response is, by any measure, a crime against humanity. Were we signatories to the International Criminal Court, we would have the option of extraditing him to The Hague for trial.

COVID’s health impact, visiting long-term damage on the body, will alone cost this country an untold economic and human sum going forward. In your children’s lifetime, this country will not recover from the moral crime of rewarding a deranged sadist and his ethically nihilistic party with public office.

Steve Rutledge

McMinnville

The village idiot

I don’t understand. What’s so hard, humiliating or unfair about wearing a mask? I really don’t get it.

All of the science says wearing a mask while inside public buildings or in close proximity to others while outdoors will help slow this virus. That is really the only defense we have.

We are all in this together. If we all do our part, such a small part, we can probably slow this virus in our area. If we don’t do our part, jobs will be lost, businesses and schools will stay closed, sports and large gatherings will be canceled.

If you think a mask makes you look silly, messes up your hair, fogs your glasses, smears your makeup or steps on your rights as a proud American, you’re wrong. It doesn’t.

Most people are wearing masks.

When they see someone without a mask, they are not thinking: “Boy, that person is really macho. What beautiful hair. What a great American.” What they’re really thinking is, “village idiot.”

Please wear a mask!

Cliff Probasco

McMinnville

 
Meth peddler woes

Poor Mr. Stirling. He wants out of federal prison.

It’s dangerous for him. He might catch the COVID virus.

I wonder if poor Mr. Stirling thinks about the lives he would have endangered when he was hauling 28 seven-gallon jugs of  liquid meth to distribute.
I hope the authorities let him sit where he is — at FCI Sheridan. He doesn’t deserve special treatment.

Eleanor Fuhrer

McMinnville

Change the culture

The #MeToo movement has come to Linfield University. As a Class of 2020 alumna of the institution, I cannot stress enough how important this is.

Nearly 3,000 students, alumni, faculty, and staff have signed a petition calling for David Baca’s resignation from his position as the Chair of the Board of Trustees. Mr. Baca’s use of his influence and power to cover up multiple board members’ sexual misconduct is disgusting. If he will not step up and take responsibility for perpetuating the deep and festering rape culture at Linfield, then he is not deserving of holding the institution’s most powerful position.

Beyond Mr. Baca’s resignation, we must completely uproot the systemic culture at Linfield that protects perpetrators and shames survivors. Linfield needs to do better at providing resources that make survivors more willing to report incidents of sexual misconduct.

The College of New Jersey recently implemented a survivor-centric program of restorative justice that allows survivors to decide what they need to heal from their trauma and encourages perpetrators to learn how their actions have affected others. This could mean that a survivor gets to share a personal statement with the perpetrator, can ask that the perpetrator complete a course on alcohol education, or meet regularly with the school’s Title IX coordinator.

This program is not punitive in any way, but rather focuses on education of the accused party and healing for the survivor. In so doing, rape culture can be deconstructed bit by bit.

The new university should be looking for barrier-breaking ways to deal with sexual misconduct among its students and its administrators. This would be a much more effective form of rebranding than a name-change.

Maddie Brunkhart

Portland