I want to go to school here

During this past week I attended the Americana Project CD release concert at The Barn and the SALI tournament on Sisters athletic fields. In both cases, there was an abundance of young people pursuing a passion with joy, teamwork and commitment.

I also attended the Ten Friends fundraiser at Aspen Hall. There I heard stories of the life-changing experiences Sisters youth have had trekking in Nepal with the charity, founded by two Sisters teachers. Interviewed Student of the Month Sam Bearzi, whose extraordinary level of engagement he attributes to a desire to give back to a community that has given him “this monumental opportunity at Sisters High School.”

My own daughter’s experience here has been very good. Not perfect — there’s always things that don’t work the way you’d like them to — but overall very good.

I want to go to school here. It’s way better in every way than the suburban California schools I attended way back when. Sure, the quality of the schools has been hyped, but even cutting through all that, there really is something special going on here — but it may not last much longer.

It’s all under threat. After years of deep cuts, we really are coming to the end of our budgetary rope. The school district has done a good job over many years wrapping things in duct tape, plugging holes with bubble gum and making things work. We can do that for maybe one more school year, but after that, it doesn’t look good.

I hope people get that. I hope that nobody is feeling complacent, because, as Superintendent Jim Golden told me, “we’re not down the drain, but we’re circling.”

The district riffed 6.2 FTE last Friday. Good people doing good work in the classroom who are now out of work — and their work has to be covered by others or left undone. The proposed budget spends the district’s reserves. They’ll have to cut days or more people to close the remainder of the $1.3 million shortfall.

By 2014-15, Sisters schools will be looking at the kind of trouble Redmond’s having now. And that’s WITH local option. Without it, the game’s pretty much up. Quality education would be gone.

Everybody with a stake in Sisters should be concerned about this. The schools are a major attractant to Sisters; significant erosion of quality would be a major blow to economic development efforts. Losing all the many points of engagement the schools provide would harm families and reduce the quality of life in the Sisters Country.

So, what’s to be done? Above all, voters must support local option when it comes up for renewal later this year or early next year. That’s all that stands between the schools and real financial calamity. If you’re politically-minded, there’s a crying need for reform of PERS, which has placed an unsustainable burden on schools.

Beyond that, support the Sisters Schools Foundation. Volunteer to help with efforts like Celebrate Sisters, sprucing up the physical plant with volunteer labor. Work with organizations like the Sisters Folk Festival and the Sisters Science Club who are adding enrichment and material support to the schools.

We’ve got a good thing going here. We need to fight to keep it.

Jim Cornelius, Editor

The era of the cheap shot

 

The New Orleans Saints put out an injury bounty on opponents. Meta World Peace (aka Ron Artest, NBA thug) throws an elbow that earns him a suspension and puts a player out with a concussion. The NHL playoffs are a spectacle of mayhem. 

We are living in the era of the cheap shot.

Hard play is great. This crap ain’t hard play. It’s assault with intent to injure. Seriously. If you or I deliberately hit someone in the throat with a stick or threw an elbow to their ear, we’d be up on charges. 

Consider the hit that Raffi Torres of the Phoenix Coyotes put on Marian Hossa of the Chicago Blackhawks last week. Torres left his skates and went for Hossa’s head, well after Hossa had unloaded the puck. Hossa left the ice on a stretcher and is still recovering from a serious concussion. 

A thug took a far superior opponent off the ice in the playoffs. For the Coyotes, Torres for Hossa was a good tradeoff.

Torres’ 25-game suspension is a stern message, but only that. Torres is a serial offender; he should be gone, done, banned from the league.

This NHL playoff season has been rife with cheap shots. Not just big hits, not just fighting where two players square off — we’re talking vicious, inexcusable headhunting. The league needs to come down harder on this kind of behavior. If you’re going to deliberately threaten the career and health of your opponents, your career should be at stake, too. A Torres-scale suspension for a first offense. A season for the second. Next time you do it, you’re done. Three strikes, you’re out.

As for the Saints’ coaching staff… Putting a bounty on opponents is so far beyond the pale, it should be grounds for a lifetime ban for the first offense.

Real zero tolerance would put a stop to this stuff in a hurry. It’s doubtful that any of the professional sports will go that far. 

Given the primacy of sports in American cultural life, what happens in the arena percolates through the whole culture. Unless we want to live in the Society of the Sucker Punch, we’d do well to put a stop to the mayhem.

Jim Cornelius, Editor

Stand your ground

The tragic Trayvon Martin case has cast “Stand Your Ground” laws into the spotlight. In some quarters there is a cry to repeal such laws as an incitement to vigilantism.

That would be a bad call.

Stand Your Ground or “No Duty to Retreat” laws extend so-called Castle Doctrine from your home to any place you have a right to be. In short, if you are assailed, you have the right to defend yourself — to the extent of deadly force if you reasonably believe your life is threatened. You are not obligated to retreat.

In a society of free men and women, which we purport to be, such a doctrine is appropriate and necessary to preserve the absolute right to be secure in your person.

Now, retreating from a bad situation — or avoiding it in the first place — is usually the wisest course of action, legally, morally and tactically. However, the law should not put the onus on the citizen. On the other hand, if you deliberately place yourself in the position of initiating or pursuing and escalating a confrontation, Stand Your Ground should not apply.

No law can be written so as to address every situation absolutely in its every nuance. Ultimately, we must rely on the judgment of police, district attorneys, grand juries, perhaps a jury of one’s peers. Justice, being in the hands of humans, is imperfect.

Stand Your Ground should remain on the books.

Jim Cornelius, Editor

The debasement of language

Tribune Media Services, which provides syndicated columns for The Nugget’s Page 2 opinion section, recently sent out a “Sensitive Language Advisory.” It read thus:

“In Joel Brinkley’s American Voices column for release 4/3/2012 (‘China’s social ‘harmony’ more fragile than it appears’), the word ‘dyke’ appears in the first and eighth paragraphs. While the word is correctly used in its traditional sense, editors may want to use the spelling ‘dike’ to avoid any consternation among readers.”

Oh, for cryin’ out loud! The correct use of a word might cause “consternation” because it can mean something else in a different context? What, are we 12? Scratch that. My 12-year-old is more mature than that.

The language police; a shrinking population of readers; the dumbing down of discourse (if it can’t be said in 140 characters, does it, like, even matter?) — all signs of the creeping debasement of language. For a guy who makes his living and his art out of stringing words together with as much craft as I can muster, it’s more than a little discouraging.

Last week, a friend who is also a writer told me that he suddenly feels like “a man from another age.” No kidding. Nothing left to do but try to stem the tide. I feel like the little Dutch boy…

No! Don’t go there! It’ll cause consternation!

Jim Cornelius, Editor