I recently completed the article, “Expand Idaho movement gains traction” (The Observer, May 12, 2020). Brilliant I say. Join borders with a state as white as the disappearing glaciers, says it’s okay to drive Canada-bound oil drilling rigs through a sovereign Indian nation, has played host to a thriving neo-Nazi community up north and whose last good governor was an Andrus, not someone whose surname was drawn from the mustelidae family. Meld with a state whose power company wants to chew up the La Grande view shed, create a monumental wildfire hazard and provide needless power to a rapidly urbanizing state that’s become Californians’ new emigration hotspot. Sure as your born this plays well.

I suspect this map-rending exercise is bull-goosed by the same folks who show respect for their fellow citizens in the supermarket by not wearing gloves and masks. The same people who think the novel coronavirus is a liberal plot. And the same people who think Oregon Gov. Kate Brown is the lead singer for “Molly Hatchet” and not a true heroine who in conjunction with medical and business professionals has kept Oregon’s infection and mortality rates among the lowest in the world. Yep, sign me up or…

Better yet, as I am in the older and more virus susceptible class, I will most likely not see the success of the movement. But if I am around I have a plan: We will petition to form a new state within a state. Let’s call it “Rosenbomber.” Further, after the requisite 242 petition signatures are presented to the Union County clerk, we will put the petition on the statewide ballot, and after our success we will promptly checkpoint all roads through Rosenbomber to vehicular traffic (not horses) much as is being done in South Dakota to protect the Cheyenne River Sioux and Oglala Lakota Sioux from infection. We would do it for both health and to protect against political infection.

The state of Rosenbomber would be welcomed in the arms of the mother state of Oregon, of which we are so proud for its wildernesses, its environmental consciousness, its budding pot shops, its lovely painted hills and towering mountains, its rivers and creeks, its border with the Pacific Ocean, its once and future great salmon runs and for so many other reasons

Maybe a creative soul out there could create the first state of Rosenbomber flag with the motto: “Are You Friggin’ Kidding Me?”

Michael R. Rosenbaum

La Grande