Agitators Have (Some) Rights
A persistent group of agitators has been targeting the Hood River County School Board for the last five months, decrying various practices and concepts such as equity, vaccine mandates, mask mandates, and possibly life in general.
They’ve been very vocal and very loud, disrupted the business of the school board, harassed individual school board members, and sought to bring guns to meetings (maybe not illegal if you have an open carry permit, but, not coincidentally, rather intimidating).
The school district finally moved the board meetings back to virtual only, in the interest of public safety.
The agitators then protested that their right to speak and be heard were being shut down.
Since the school board is still encouraging public comments at the virtual meetings and alternatively by email, it seems the right to speak and be heard is still intact.
The idea of rights really is important, however. The people involved, like all of us, do indeed have a right to their opinions. And, like all of us, they do have a right to express their opinions and be heard.
Being loud, aggressive, and/or threatening does not help articulate the opinion, and surely does not help others “hear” (i.e., listen to, receive, understand, and consider) the opinion.
It’s as if the belligerent delivery is more important than having the message heard.
So yes, clearly the agitators do have (some) rights, as we all do. They do not have the right, however, to disrupt/control public meetings.
They do not have the right to harass, threaten, or intimidate others.
They do not have the right to expect that this extreme bullying is okay in this community.
They do not have the right to make fear, anxiety, or hatefulness part of our way of life here. To be 100% clear, none of us have that right.
What do you want your community to be? A bullying free-for-all? Or an of-course-I’ll-help-you kind of place?
For me, I say about this bullying — not in my name, and not in my community.
Join me?
Cindy Allen
Hood River
Adult behavior
Passion for life, passion for principles, passion for liberty. These are all great things, but passion not coupled with responsible and mature adult behavior is a toxic and unproductive combination.
The Klickitat County Republicans (KCR) have a platform, as do many organizations, that lists our principles. Under the guiding principle of behavior, we stand by “civil discourse between candidates, constituents, and the public.”
It has been a tumultuous year. History proves that there will always be challenges to our life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, but with challenges comes choice: The choice to be well-spoken, the choice to post on social media responsibly, the choice to suggest solutions, and the choice to voice anger clearly and concisely that addresses the problem and not the person.
As we enter 2022, the KCR wishes everyone a wonderful New Year full of civil discourse that presents opportunities, productive ideas, and the leadership foundation for future generations.
Lisa Evans, Chairwoman, Klickitat County Republicans
White Salmon
Winter shelter
For those wondering, the small shelters recently erected at 317 State St. have been placed there by Hood River Shelter Services (HRSS) to assist those without a house or heat in the coldest part of the year.
For the past several years, HRSS has been offering safe, warm shelter each winter, often in churches. With the need to avoid close quarters due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we used city, county, state and federal funds to purchase small portable shelters. With these shelters we can minimize close contact and provide those in need with electricity, heat, and, through the generous donations of our wonderful restaurants, warm dinners. This shelter is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
HRSS also connects the homeless with social services, including physicians and professionals who can link our guests with permanent housing and needed resources.
This past week we have had up to 23 guests, all but four of whom are permanent Gorge residents. Several are employed and several are actively seeking employment. Approximately half of those needing shelter are people who used our services last year, and many others are accessing our services for the first time.
Due to COVID-19, fewer people have been able to volunteer on site at the shelter, but we have been able to hire excellent staff and are pleased that we still have 20 volunteers who deliver lunches from the Adult Center and dinners from our restaurants and who take on some administrative activities.
As HRSS board members, we have been proud to help provide winter shelter, meals, and connections to needed services for unhoused residents of the Gorge for many years. We appreciate the extensive support that has been provided by so many members of our community.
For more information on our Warming Shelter and how to make a donation, please go to the website, hoodrivercares.org.
Reverend Alicia Speidel, Will White, Jan Damschen and Fran Finney
The Board of Directors of the Hood River Shelter Services
Historical context
Looking back at the arc of history, people in other times and places have held different views of right and wrong, different understandings of justice and equality. Some of those understandings were driven by self-interest. Many others by simply accepting the norms of the time.
We lack the time and knowledge to decide everything on our own, so we look to others for our understandings. Those understandings change over time and we sometimes find ourselves on the wrong side of history. I’m pretty sure my use of fossil fuels will be judged harshly in the future.
It is easy to condemn past generations and individuals using today’s norms and values. None of us are perfect and our shared understandings evolve. A more balanced approach might be to judge others with a measure of kindness and humility — to acknowledge where individuals have moved us towards greater justice, while speaking out where they failed.
Our Founding Fathers created a nation that brought freedom and equality to many, while failing to provide those same benefits to indigenous peoples, the enslaved and women. We can be proud of much of our nation’s history, while acknowledging and seeking justice for its failures.
We should be reluctant to judge the past solely on either its failures or successes. We need both our 1776 story and our 1619 story, along with all the others stories that make up our history — the good and the bad.
Richard Davis
The Dalles
Learning anxiety
As a university math teacher, then K-12 mentor in after-school programs for 22 years in retirement, I can assure you that most white students in our country experience more psychological stress and anxiety when learning math than learning anything about U.S. racial history.
So are we supposed to eliminate or “dumb down” (teach less) math in our K-12 education, as many Republican legislators and school board members insist we do teaching U.S. racial history, just because they think it might make some white students anxious?
It’s really scary for democracy when people demand what’s taught must adhere to their own ideologies, and even more scary when Republican state legislatures cement it into law, as some have. Also, people demanding no vaccination or masking mandates in schools, again to satisfy their own ideologies, are defying science while jeopardizing the health and lives of our children.
It’s not the parents’ responsibility to indoctrinate their children with the parents’ own political views and biases. Rather, those genuinely concerned about our youth’s most expressed and legitimate anxieties should take action on such issues as combating school shootings (gun control) and limiting global warming.
Norm Luther
Spokane
Required Reading
Public school students are required to study many subjects including reading, writing, history, and math. I am really starting to wonder if economics should be part of the local curriculum based on some of the letters in the paper.
It has been decades since I took an economics class, but I am quite certain the instructor never said if a politician had an “R(epublican)” after their name, it meant prices would be low and supplies would be endless. I also don’t recall being told that if a politician had a “D(emocrat)” after their name it meant skyrocketing prices and a horrible economy.
Some of the false claims submitted in the paper could be explained in the first month of a middle school economics class. Perhaps introducing economics to the curriculum could clear up some things?
If that is helpful, I might suggest geopolitics or science as a means to “educate” away the growing xenophobic racism and lack of knowledge about viruses facing our country.
Steven Kaplan
Hood River
Thank you
I wanted to reach out and thank the Columbia Veterinary Hospital and especially Dr. Becky for what they did for my chihuahua Coco.
I live in Eugene and Coco had gotten very sick, so I took her to an emergency clinic in Springfield. They found out that she was anemic and needed an emergency blood transfusion and surgery to remove four pennies from her stomach. I had already given them a down payment of more than $1,500, but they wanted $8,000-10,000 more or they would not touch her. I was told that if I didn’t have the money, I should have Coco put down.
I was traumatized. I went and picked her up, devastated, because I was not going to put her down without at least trying to save her life, but I didn’t have the money. I was feeling hopeless and crying. It wasn’t until Victoria, the woman I originally got Coco from, reached out to me and told me to try the Columbia Veterinary Hospital. I drove three hours to The Dalles with Coco and they took her immediately into blood transfusion and surgery. They didn’t even ask me about money, it was all about the care to get Coco well. I was at peace because of their love. I knew that no matter what happened to Coco, she was in great hands because of their compassion.
After Coco came out of surgery and I came to pick her up, the lady at the desk told me it was taken care of. I started crying, I was so thankful. It had been such a stressful few days trying to figure out how I was going to find this money to save Coco that this was a huge weight off my shoulders.
Even though the transfusion did not take and Coco did end up passing, she passed at home, surrounded by her family, and we had the peace of mind of knowing we’d done all we could, and we are so grateful for Columbia Veterinary Hospital and Dr. Becky.
Our family is also so grateful to Victoria because not only did she recommend Columbia Veterinary, but after Coco passed, she gifted us her little brother, Cookie. Though Cookie is not a replacement for Coco, he has brought a lot of joy to our family and helped us through this difficult time.
Thank you Columbia Veterinary Hospital, thank you Victoria and thank you Dr. Becky for all you did for Coco.
Sabrina Contreras-Boyd
Eugene
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