What's Tony Thinking

Another Week Ends, May 26

As this week ends we are Northeastern Oregon, or to be specific, Wallowa County. To put an even finer point on it, we’re at the cabin built by my grandparents near Wallowa Lake. The cabin, at least the original part of it, dates to 1926, and so turns 100 in a couple years. Do people celebrate cabin “anniversaries”? I imagine we shall, but I have no idea how. Suggestions for observing a cabin centennial are hereby invited.

Since the cabin is not “winterized,” we close up completely from mid-October to mid-May. Then there’s a long, hard, mountain winter. We call our May visit “opening up.” Turn the water on, air the place out, clean and dust, reclaim the lawn from a million sticks and limbs that have fallen during the long winter, rake and mow and generally apply a lot of TLC to a place that looks pretty forlorn — but then — shakes off the dust and gets up wagging its tail.

Earlier this month, the voters of Wallowa County had before them a measure popularly known as “Greater Idaho.” The ultimate hope of its supporters is to exit Oregon and enter the great State of Idaho by Idaho extending its western border to take in parts of eastern Oregon. To which this fourth generation Oregonian says, “If you want to live in Idaho, fine, move there!” Anyhow, the vote passed by a small margin, like 10 votes, with about 3,500 people turning out to vote. Given that the population of the County is about 7,000, that seems like a high turnout.

But the margin is small enough to kick in a recount. Even if it passes there will be no immediate succession. The effect of the vote is to require the County Council to have twice-a-year discussions as to the possible benefits of a move or annexation. However, in a little oddity, the ballot measure failed to actually specify “Idaho,” so I guess the Commissioners could consider becoming a part of New Mexico or Maine. Maybe sell to the highest bidder? Should you be wondering why roughly half of the voters here want to be incorporated into Idaho, the general answer is that people say they aren’t understood or represented over in the state capitol in Salem (my birthplace!) on the other side of the Cascade Mountains.

But there’s actually a bit more disturbing element to all this. A growing number of Americans are deciding where to live based on politics. This past winter I chatted with a contractor at a bar in Wenatchee, Washington who said the main reason for the influx of people there is they want to be “in a red area.” My guess is that many of Greater Idaho folks would rather be in a red state than a blue one. Apparently, there are now realtors who specialize in relocating people to a state of their political preference. I mean why rub elbows with people you don’t agree with?

Book banning. There was an outcry of articles this week to the effect that Florida Governor, Ron DeSantis, had banned the poetry of Amanda Gorman, including the poem she wrote, and read, for President Biden’s inauguration in 2021. I am thinking, reading some of these reports, “since when do Governors have the power to ban books?” Jonah Goldberg at the Dispatch Newsletter cites to a bunch of the outraged articles . . . and then gives us what really happened:

“It turned out the poem wasn’t banned. It was removed from a shelf in a library “media center” for grade-schoolers and put on a shelf for middle-schoolers.

“That’s it. One school. One library. Moved a book to a different shelf.” ‘

The point isn’t about book banning, is it? The point is how captive we are to broad-stroke narratives and everything that is made into fuel for their fire. Narratives that take one book, in “one school, one library, moved a book to a different shelf,” and turn it into “Ron DeSantis [who we must now all hate] has banned [dear] Amanda Gorman’s works in all of Florida.”

(One of) My Pet Peeves is Black Tinted Car Windows. I do have a reason. When you ride a bike, as I do, being able to see the face and eyes of a driver is important. You want to see that they see you. Hard black, full tint, no can see.

And yet . . . a few minutes ago a large Latino family arrived at one of the nearby rental cabins. Three big pick-ups, every one of them with total black tinted windows. That said, each of the drivers dropped their window to say “hello” as they passed me.

Then I got it. (At least some/many) People have the black-out windows so that they won’t be stopped so often for Driving While Black or Driving While Latino.

Senator Tim Scott announced this week that he running for President. He also noted that he has been stopped at least 18 times in his lifetime for “Driving While Black.” Nevertheless, Scott is a believer in America.

Now, isn’t life strange? You’ve got a billionaire white guy from New York/ Florida who is telling us America is in the crapper; and you’ve got a Black American whose grandfather couldn’t read or write and who has been pulled over for no reason by the cops about once a year in his adult life saying that America is a great place!