We don’t as a rule recommend Baker City emulate Portland.

But we’d be pleased to ride the big city’s coattails on the matter of cryptosporidium.

Somebody needs to come clean about the dirty air in the basement of the Baker County Courthouse.

In particular, somebody needs to tell us — the public who own the building, and the employees and contractors who work there — in specific, plain English what was found in air samples taken in the basement on Dec. 20, and what, if any, are the potential health hazards.

We used to believe that Congressman Peter DeFazio, who represents Oregon’s 4th District, west of the Cascades, had a greater immunity than most politicians to the peculiar effects of long-term exposure to Washington, D.C.

Although we sometimes disagree with DeFazio’s positions, we admire his independence and his knack for slipping out of the powerful grip of dogmatic partisanship.

Then we read his recent op-ed in The Oregonian.

We hear or read the words every year around this time.

Sometimes in their original, the Gospel of Luke, chapter 2.

Or in the paraphrasing of the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

And those in certain generations might think first of the lisping voice of Linus, whose monologue lent such a heart-warming conclusion to the Peanuts Christmas special.

“Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth peace, goodwill to men.”

The U.S. military is a fine example of a meritocracy.

Today it’s even more so, thanks to Congress’ vote to overturn the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” policy.

That misguided law, which dates to President Clinton’s first term, prevented openly gay people from serving in the armed forces.

Computers are marvelous tools — microchips helped put the words you’re reading on this page, for instance.

But computers are lousy spelling teachers.

Which is why we disagree with the Oregon Department of Education’s recent decision to allow seventh-graders and sophomores to use computer spell-checkers when they take state writing tests in January.

If you think Oregon’s congressional delegation is ignorant of the great sprawling lands that lie east of the Cascades, we offer a single word to refute the theory:

Biomass.

Logging slash, to use the colloquial term.

For decades the accepted method of dealing with this debris was to pile it out in the woods and then burn it.

This produces a little heat and a lot of smoke, neither of which has any value.

Western governors gave the federal Endangered Species Act quite the tongue-lashing last week.

Utah’s Gary Herbert deemed the law “nonsensical.”

Idaho’s Butch Otter chimed in with “broken, bankrupt and fraud."

When it comes to college scholarships, Leo Adler’s name reigns supreme in Baker County.

As well it should — Adler, the philanthropist who died in 1993, bequeathed his $20 million fortune to the community, with more than half set aside to help Baker County and North Powder students go to college.

In the past 15 years, thousands of local residents have benefited from Mr. Adler’s generosity.

But lately another benefactor has helped make higher education more attainable for Northeastern Oregon students.

Oregon Trail Electric Cooperative.

The non-profit utility, which supplies power to most of Baker County and to parts of Union, Grant and Harney counties, will dole out 28 scholarships, each worth $3,000, in 2011.

Yet just a decade ago, OTEC’s scholarship program consisted of four awards of $1,000 each.

The link between drug and alcohol abuse and crime is so strong that it could better be described as a stout steel chain.

We’re not talking cause and effect.

Drugs don’t commit crimes, of course — people do.

Yet a cavalcade of research shows that large percentage of the people who commit crimes also use, and in many cases abuse, drugs.

Which is why responsible prison systems — including Oregon’s — try to cure inmates’ addictions while they’re incarcerated.

That approach is more expensive, but the extra dollars are well-spent.

Inmates are less likely to commit another crime after release, which means fewer innocent victims and fewer people to keep locked up on the taxpayers’ dime.