Is it appropriate for Muslims to construct a building — described almost invariably as a mosque, although it also includes a community center — two blocks from ground zero in Manhattan?

The problem with this question is that it’s the wrong question.

Here’s what we ought to be asking ourselves:

Is it appropriate for any group that condemns Islamic terrorists in general, and the Sept. 11 attacks in particular, to construct a building two blocks from the site of the deadliest of that day’s atrocities?

We suspect a significant number of people would give a different answer to the latter question than to the former.

Almost two years ago, 2,448 Baker City voters picked Milo Pope to represent them.

On Tuesday evening Pope let them down.

He failed to attend the regularly scheduled City Council meeting.

Not because he was out of town or otherwise unavailable.

By his own admission, Pope, who’s an attorney, chose instead to attend a private gathering at his law office.

Pope also acknowledged, in a telephone interview with the Herald, that he regrets his decision.

He said he hasn’t made a habit of missing Council meetings, nor does he intend to.

We’ll take Pope at his word.

Except when I happen to have a bowl of vanilla ice cream.

This temporarily clarifies the situation.

A handful of blackberries, dusted with a skim of sugar and gently bruised with the back of a spoon to release their pungent juice, can transform a scoop of soft serve into a dessert that’s positively ambrosial.

My predicament, though, has nothing to do with the various culinary uses of the blackberry. These, ranging from cobblers to jams to munching them fresh-plucked, are pretty much above reproach.

What I can’t figure out is whether, speaking ecologically rather than gastronomically, I’m for the fruit or against it.

The thing is, the Himalayan (also known as the Armenian) blackberry, according to biologists, is a noxious weed.

And we’re supposed to abhor those.

Inmates at Baker City’s Powder River Correctional Facility have done a variety of worthwhile tasks over the past 20 years, ranging from fighting wildfires to landscaping the library and other public spaces.

But the latest job assigned to Powder River inmates, though perhaps not the most important, certainly warms our hearts like no other.

Through a program started by New Hope for Eastern Oregon Animals, prisoners will help train abandoned dogs, many of which were abused or neglected.

It’s been a strange summer in Baker County, weather-wise, but in my estimation a particularly pleasant one.

The season, should its current patterns persist clear through until autumn, now scarcely a month away, will rank as an especially moderate example of its kind.

This pleases me because our summers, when they diverge any great distance from average, tend to be decidedly uncomfortable.

Abnormally hot summers, for instance, annoy me because they soil what seems to me the essential reward of this golden season. This of course is the ability to go outdoors wearing a minimum of clothing and not worry overmuch about whether you’ve memorized the proper remedies for heatstroke.