Naming the high school

Another missed opportunity to memorialize a hero! First, Arlie Seems and now Robert Maxwell. I’m sorry for Bend residents who are being short changed by a nearsighted school board and a naming committee that doesn’t value history. When I bought my first car, my dad gave me a copy of Lewis McArthur’s “Oregon Geographic Names” to keep stowed and often recovered from under the seat. Over the years, it has been replaced by Volume 2 and as a reference has answered my and my family’s questions as we have traveled throughout the state. Beyond giving us a sense of connection to place, the names made the places come alive. The most interesting reading of this otherwise sober reference book is the author’s meticulously researched anecdotes regarding people for whom these places have been named. Homesteaders, road builders, soldiers, postmasters and ordinary people and their families who came and stayed long enough to have left their names. It didn’t have to take a committee to notice them. Connecting a name to a place is by far the most meaningful message available to our collective Central Oregon memory. Do our children and/or the newcomers in our community know that this matters to us?

— Sarah Goodrich Larson, Bend

Consider Bob Maxwell

I was disturbed by Chris Boyd’s, the principal of the new high school, comments on the naming of the new high school. He talked about diversity, inclusion and not alienating someone based on gender, race or background. What are we teaching our kids? Are we preparing them for the real world that does not have this safe bubble that he is trying to create. I thought that our school’s job was to prepare students for life as it really is, not as we wish it was. This is a world where lack of inclusion, unfairness, bigotry and alienation exist. The world is not some sort of utopia. Let us teach that. When Bob Maxwell threw himself on that grenade in World War II, he did it for every American. Nothing is more inclusive and respective of diversity than that. The people Bob alienated were German soldiers, as he fought to bring peace to the world. Consider Bob (or Robert) Maxwell for the new high school’s name.

—Tom Clark, Redmond

Delay Bend bond vote

The global coronavirus pandemic gives reason to postpone the vote on the Bend Transportation Bond.

We are watching a catastrophic crash in financial markets and the Federal Reserve scrambling to forestall a crash in the economy. Why? The coronavirus pandemic.

If the Fed is right, the economy will take a big hit, economic activity will sag and tourism especially will suffer. There are already reports on Bend’s nextdoor.com of long -haul truck drivers sitting at home because Los Angeles port activity has collapsed by 20%. And that’s before this epidemic has really taken hold in the USA.

In this situation, any household would use common sense, pause and take a “wait and see” approach before taking out a new mortgage.

And that’s what the Transportation General Obligation Bond is: a mortgage assumed by residents.

The economy may not react as the Fed fears — but far better to delay a decision on this transportation bond until the November elections than move blindly ahead. Common sense argues that we should assess the impact of the coronavirus on Bend’s tourist economy and on residents’ incomes before assuming a new mortgage.

So, urge council to use common sense and allow time to consider both the impact of economic disruption on Bend, its economy and residents, and the nature of funding for this new mortgage of unprecedented size.

Go to “Delay the Vote” (chng.it/gcHJgjpc5y) and add your name to a petition to delay any vote on the transportation bond until the November elections.

—Gavin Leslie, Bend

Change GOP mascot

Recent actions by Republicans in the U.S. Senate and in our own Oregon Senate and House prompt me to suggest that it’s time for the GOP to change its mascot. Both the Democrat donkey and the Republican elephant became symbols of their parties in the 19th Century. The donkey was adopted by Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Jackson in 1828, after his opponents called him a jackass. Rather than being offended, Jackson adopted the donkey in his campaign posters. Origins of the elephant as the Republican’s symbol are more obscure, but may be traced back to the civil war, when Union soldiers referred to combat as “seeing the elephant” and more directly to Thomas Nast’s political cartoons during the 1870’s.

In any case, the unwillingness of Republican U.S. Senators to call witnesses in Trump’s impeachment trial and our Oregon Republican state senators’ and representatives’ blindness to the existential threat of climate change lead me to propose that a more appropriate symbol for today’s GOP would be an ostrich with its head buried in the sand. Refusal to face reality seems to be the dominant characteristic of 2020 Republicans, so it seems time for them to adopt a more appropriate party symbol.

— John Cushing, Bend

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