HinesSight

Wildfire good deeds need to become Covid good deeds

People here in Oregon, as elsewhere on the West Coast, have been wonderfully generous with their time, money, and effort in helping others affected by the massive wildfires burning in our forests.

The nightly local news is filled with stories about meals being prepared for firefighters, livestock being cared for after homes were destroyed, donations of clothes and other household goods being used to aid the newly homeless, and other acts of kindness. 

Such isn't surprising. Most people are generous. They feel empathy and concern for those in need. They want to make things better when suffering is rampant. 

I've been wondering, though, how it is that our nation's response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been so splintered and controversial when the response to West Coast wildfires has been so cohesive and praiseworthy.

How is it that Americans are so willing to risk their lives to save homes threatened by wildfire, yet often so reluctant to wear a mask in indoor public spaces or outside when six feet of physical distancing can't be maintained?

Covid has killed hugely more people than the wildfires have. The cover of the current issue of TIME magazine contains a large 200,000, the number of those killed by COVID-19 since the virus started to ravage the United States. 

The cover story is called An American Failure. There are many reasons for the failure to contain the virus, including the willful incompetence of Donald Trump. But other factors are at play, according to the story.  Such as:

Americans today tend to value the individual over the collective. A 2011 Pew survey found that 58% of Americans said "freedom to pursue life's goals without interference from the state" is more important than the state guaranteeing "nobody is in need." 

It's easy to view that trait as a root cause of the country's struggles with COVID-19; a pandemic requires people to make temporary sacrifices for the benefit of the group, whether it's wearing a mask or skipping a visit to their local bar.

...Absent adequate leadership, it's been up to everyday Americans to band together in the fight against COVID-19.

To some extent that's been happening -- doctors, nurses, bus drivers and other essential workers have been rightfully celebrated as heroes, and many have paid a price for their bravery. But at least some Americans still refuse to take such a simple step as wearing a mask.

Why? Because we're also in the midst of a epistemic crisis. Republicans and Democrats today don't just disagree on issues; they disagree on the basic truths that structure their respective realities.

Half the country gets its news from places that parrot whatever the Administration says, true or not; half does not. This politicization manifests in myriad ways, but the most vital is this: in early June (at which point more than 100,000 Americans had already died of COVID-19), fewer than half of Republican voters polled said the outbreak was a major threat to the health of the U.S. population as a whole.

So how is it that Republicans, along with Democrats and independents, are so willing to work hard to help evacuees threatened by wildfires, yet so many aren't willing to wear a mask or do other things to prevent people from suffering the nasty effects of COVID-19?

One reason is that it isn't possible to deny the reality of the wildfires, while there is plenty of misinformation circulating about COVID-19. If it were possible for Trump to spew falsehoods about wildfire damage being "fake news," likely a quarter or more of the population would agree with the Liar in Chief. 

Instead, reporters here in Oregon have been doing a great job communicating wildfire news via newspapers, television, social media, and other ways. This shows the importance of local journalism, which is more trusted than national news outlets. (I trust both, but I'm a news junkie.)

Another factor relates to the American individualism cited in the TIME cover story.

Volunteering to help those displaced by the wildfires is up to each person. Nobody is forcing them to do this. But orders to wear masks in public places come from elected officials. So there seems to be a reluctance by many to do what should be done to save lives just because someone else is telling them to do this.

That reminds me of a childhood retort. "I'm doing it not because you told me to, but because I want to." It's disturbing that adults would extend that to "I'm not doing it because you told me to, even though it is the right thing to do."

At any rate, I'm hoping that the compassion evident in the response of people to wildfire victims -- both those who lost their homes and those who had to evacuate -- will carry over to an increased willingness to wear a mask, physically distance, avoid crowded indoor places like bars, and do other things necessary to prevent death and disease from COVID-19.

With life, it's a truism that we're all in this together. And while no one gets out of life alive, death coming to everyone, we should do our best to help others get through difficult times in their life, whether this be dealing with a wildfire or avoiding infection with the coronavirus.

Wild is what we're wishing will end

For most of us, wild has generally positive connotations.

We like to be out of civilization and trekking into a wilderness. Being called a "wild thing" made for a popular song. We're more excited to see an animal in the wild than in captivity. 

But while a bit of wild is a good thing, too much leaves us exhausted, scared, anxious, uncertain.

That's where the West Coast of the United States is at the moment. Sure, other parts of the country also are suffering from an excess of wild. Oregon (where I live), Washington, and California just have wild to an astonishing degree.

Currently we're suffering through the worst wildfires in memory -- and likely in the entire history of our states. About 40,000 Oregonians have had to leave their homes under a Level 3 "GO NOW" evacuation order. The air quality in Salem, a few miles from my house, is off the chart.

Believe me, it doesn't take long after having a bunch of very large wildfires in your part of the world to make you think, "That's enough wild for a while. Like, forever."

After a week of heavy smoke, I went looking for HVAC filters today. In Salem they've become the new toilet paper, unavailable at the two stores I checked.

Global warming is largely to blame.

Forests are exceptionally dry after an extended drought. Political gridlock, caused in part by repeated walkouts of Republican legislators in Oregon who objected to a climate change bill, preventing a quorum, have stifled attempts to thin trees and create defensible spaces around forest communities.

Our power went out last Monday night.

High winds caused a utility pole to catch fire, leaving electrical wires in the middle of a nearby road. In the Santiam Canyon to the east of Salem, downed power lines caused fires that decimated entire towns. Underground utilities would eliminate that risk. 

But our country isn't investing in infrastructure. We've been lavishing money on the military and giving trillions of dollars in tax cuts to giant corporations instead. Of course, by "we" I mean Donald Trump and congressional Republicans. 

It feels like nobody sensible is in charge of the United States because that's the truth.

So wild proliferates unchecked far beyond the bounds of what citizens are comfortable with. The COVID crisis is another obvious example. There has been no effective national leadership, just posturing, lies, and false reassurances from the Commander in Chief of Wildness.

Trump adores chaos. He revels in conflict.

This makes him utterly incapable of being the cool, calm, collected leader who could guide us through a pandemic that has caused almost 200,000 deaths in the United States, many or most of them preventable given how much better other comparable countries have dealt with the novel coronavirus. 

Then there's the Black Lives Matter movement.

A week doesn't go by, it seems, without another disturbing example of how a person of color has been wrongly killed by police. Here too, national leadership is lacking. Some good things are happening at the state and local level, while Trump focuses on a few protesters who cause trouble rather than the systemic racism that's being protested.

"I can't breathe" is a common denominator that links all three manifestations of excessive wild.

That's what George Floyd said as a Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck. Millions of people are enduring wildfire smoke that is unhealthy for everybody, and especially hazardous for those with asthma and other breathing problems. A prime COVID-19 symptom is pneumonia and damaged lungs.

However, there's also a psychological breathlessness afflicting our nation -- the exhausting feeling of climbing a Mount Wild where one steep challenge follows another with little opportunity to rest. Worse, the person who is supposed to be guiding us is clueless about what needs to be done to reach a place of ease.

This is why it is so important that Joe Biden be elected this November. He's the calming anti-wild president that we so sorely need and long for.

Our caring about societal issues has a disturbing trajectory

It's a familiar happening. Some event stimulates an outpouring of concern about a societal issue. Like mass shootings, global warming, police killings of Blacks, Postal Service slowdowns, Trump's outrageous actions.

Protesters march in the streets. Facebook and Twitter erupt. Legislators are contacted. Passionate views are expressed. Vows of "we've got to do something about this" are plentiful.

And then... the familiar trajectory of the bell-shaped curve is evident. What goes up, comes down. A peak level of societal concern is reached, then declines to about the same level it was at before.

Maybe a bit higher, but nowhere near as large as when it seemed that lasting change finally was going to happen.

Then a new issue takes hold in the national consciousness and the same dynamic plays out. This is natural. Nothing last forever. Change happens. It isn't possible for people to stay focused on a single issue forever, or even for very long.

We need to be realistic about what can be achieved by these periodic displays of concern.

Yes, they're exceedingly valuable. They draw attention to a pressing problem, as has been evident with the Black Lives Matter movement. The spark of George Floyd's murder set off a firestorm of justified outrage that brought many more people on board with the Black Lives Matter cause.

So how can this social energy be harnessed for lasting good? As with other causes, somehow a commitment to lasting change has to be institutionalized. 

Yeah, I know. That's a dreadful term for many, institutionalized. It conjures up an image of a patient in a mental hospital, or a prisoner in a penitentiary. Rigid procedures, a lack of freedom, stultifying routine. 

Well, routine is what we're looking for when it comes to lasting societal change.

After activists bring a problem to our attention though special means -- protests, passionate speeches, calls to action -- a transition into institutionalized policies needs to happen. Otherwise the bell-shaped curve thing occurs, a big flurry of ascendent activity followed by a descent into business as usual.

I realize that this is difficult for activists to hear. It's the truth, though. For example, Black Lives Matter protests have done their job in raising public awareness of systemic racism and other inequities within police departments.

But now those protests have reached the point of diminishing returns. People tune out protesters when the same message is repeated over and over for months on end, as has been happening to the city to the north of where I live in Salem -- Portland, Oregon.

This has been exacerbated by a small group of troublemakers who hijack the otherwise peaceful protests, setting fires in police buildings, breaking windows, and such. That encourages counter-protests by the law and order crowd, fueled by Trump's lie that Democrat-led cities are being wrecked by angry mobs. 

What's needed at this point is institutional change within police departments. That process isn't nearly as exciting as marching in the streets. It is equally or more important, though.

Here in Salem, Oregon's capital, our city council has embarked on a months-long effort of conducting a performance audit of the Salem Police Department which will be led by an outside consultant. Sure, a performance audit doesn't exactly lend itself to a stirring chant: What do we want? Performance audit! When do we want it? In a few months!

However, if all goes as planned, and that's a big "if," the performance audit could produce marked improvements in the police department in line with the demands of Black Lives Matter protesters and allied groups.

Institutionalizing change is how lasting progress has been made in civil rights, women's rights, gay rights, environmental rights, all sorts of rights. It is more difficult when political leaders on the local, state, or national level are opposed to the cause being promoted. 

Difficult, but not impossible. Elections can alter the political landscape. Pressure can alter political minds. So let's strike a balance between raising awareness of societal problems through in-your-face methods, and institutionalizing the needed changes.

"A Letter on Justice and Open Debate" needs to be read by all extremists

Last Friday Bill Maher's Real Time show on HBO featured a discussion between Maher and two people who signed a letter calling for more tolerance of opposing views and the free exchange of information and ideas -- Thomas Chatterton Williams and Bari Weiss.

(There's a video of their Real Time segment on a Daily Beast story. It's well worth watching.)

Williams spearheaded the letter, which I've copied in below from a Harper's web page. To see who has signed it so far, click on the preceding link. It includes some familiar names: J.K. Rowling, Salman Rushdie, Fareed Zakaria, Malcolm Gladwell, Noam Chomsky. 

The shorthand way of describing the letter is that it decries "cancel culture," which a New York Times opinion piece describes:

As The Times columnist Ross Douthat argues, cancellation is typically expressed as a collective attack on someone’s reputation and employment, which may include calls to deny people opportunities to speak before an audience (in person or online), be fired or put out of business, especially when such calls come from within one’s own professional community. While the Harper’s letter did not expressly use the phrase cancel culture, its emphasis on the “need to preserve the possibility of good-faith disagreement without dire professional consequences” accords neatly with Mr. Douthat’s definition.

There are many ways of looking at the problem described in the letter, which naturally is the point of the letter. Freedom of expression is needed to investigate every problem in society, including the problem of not allowing freedom of expression.

My personal experience with this doesn't rise to the cancel culture level. I don't have a position that can be cancelled, being a retired blogger and author. What I've encountered has been more along the lines of You can't say that because you're an old white guy. 

For example, my wife, Laurel, was one of the women who put on the first Salem Women's March in January 2017 after Trump was elected. So I had a special interest in a subsequent event that organizers were calling the Salem Womxn's March, which I thought was a bad idea.

OK. Some thought it was a good idea. But instead of explaining why they were right and I was wrong, on Facebook I got a lot of comments along the line of "An old white guy can't criticize how a woman's march is being planned." Which was totally off base, because obviously I was entitled to do just that -- express my opinion.

More recently, I wrote what I thought was a non-controversial blog post, "Violence should never be part of a Black Lives Matter protest." But since I'm not Black, numerous Facebook commenters said I wasn't able to talk about what should happen at the protests. Which also was ridiculous, because I'm perfectly capable of expressing my views on this subject.

Anyway, here's the Harper's letter, minus the names of those who have signed it. I added some extra paragraph breaks to make the letter easier to read.

    A Letter on Justice and Open Debate

July 7, 2020
The below letter will be appearing in the Letters section of the magazine’s October issue. We welcome responses at [email protected]

Our cultural institutions are facing a moment of trial. Powerful protests for racial and social justice are leading to overdue demands for police reform, along with wider calls for greater equality and inclusion across our society, not least in higher education, journalism, philanthropy, and the arts.

But this needed reckoning has also intensified a new set of moral attitudes and political commitments that tend to weaken our norms of open debate and toleration of differences in favor of ideological conformity. As we applaud the first development, we also raise our voices against the second. The forces of illiberalism are gaining strength throughout the world and have a powerful ally in Donald Trump, who represents a real threat to democracy.

But resistance must not be allowed to harden into its own brand of dogma or coercion—which right-wing demagogues are already exploiting. The democratic inclusion we want can be achieved only if we speak out against the intolerant climate that has set in on all sides.

The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted. While we have come to expect this on the radical right, censoriousness is also spreading more widely in our culture: an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty.

We uphold the value of robust and even caustic counter-speech from all quarters. But it is now all too common to hear calls for swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought.

More troubling still, institutional leaders, in a spirit of panicked damage control, are delivering hasty and disproportionate punishments instead of considered reforms. Editors are fired for running controversial pieces; books are withdrawn for alleged inauthenticity; journalists are barred from writing on certain topics; professors are investigated for quoting works of literature in class; a researcher is fired for circulating a peer-reviewed academic study; and the heads of organizations are ousted for what are sometimes just clumsy mistakes.

Whatever the arguments around each particular incident, the result has been to steadily narrow the boundaries of what can be said without the threat of reprisal. We are already paying the price in greater risk aversion among writers, artists, and journalists who fear for their livelihoods if they depart from the consensus, or even lack sufficient zeal in agreement.

This stifling atmosphere will ultimately harm the most vital causes of our time. The restriction of debate, whether by a repressive government or an intolerant society, invariably hurts those who lack power and makes everyone less capable of democratic participation.

The way to defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion, not by trying to silence or wish them away. We refuse any false choice between justice and freedom, which cannot exist without each other. As writers we need a culture that leaves us room for experimentation, risk taking, and even mistakes.

We need to preserve the possibility of good-faith disagreement without dire professional consequences. If we won’t defend the very thing on which our work depends, we shouldn’t expect the public or the state to defend it for us.

Wall of Moms founder hits wall of political correctness

As a progressive, it deeply bothers me when progressives turn on each other rather than on the real current enemy, Donald Trump and his Republican enablers.

All too often progressive groups fall prey to extreme political correctness, where the slightest deviation from left-wing political purity is met with extreme vilification. 

This has befallen the founder of the Wall of Moms movement, Bev Barnum.

Barnum is a Mexican-American mother who wanted to do something to protect Black Lives Matter protesters in Portland from the aggressive tactics of federal agents sent by Trump to supposedly guard the federal courthouse, while the real goal seemingly was to bolster Trump's fading reelection chances by appealing to voters energized by a law-and-order mentality.

The Wall of Moms movement has been a huge success. Spin-off groups have formed all around the country. But as the Biblical saying goes, no prophet is accepted in his own home town. Or in this case, her home town.

For me the first clue that something was amiss with the Wall of Moms movement came when I noticed that the twitter feed for Wall of Moms had stopped talking about the Black Lives Matter protests and was all about bashing Bev Barnum.

Why? Well, the Wall of Moms twitter feed shared a message from Barnum that seemed completely reasonable to me, but obviously didn't comply with whatever purity test was being used by whoever now controlled "WOM OFFICIAL."

So Barnum, the founder of Wall of Moms, came up with the idea of making Wall of Moms a movement that could be used to support causes in addition to Black Lives Matter. It's hard for me to see what could be wrong with that.

Why not have a Wall of Moms at rallies supporting efforts to combat global warming? Or immigration reform. Or health care for all. Or a $15/hour federal minimum wage. Or stopping pipelines slated to cross Native American lands. 

But since the first Wall of Moms was in support of Black Lives Matter protests, the politically correct progressive police decided that only Black women should be in charge of the Portland Wall of Moms. A Mexican-American woman wasn't enough of a person of color to count, I guess.

That's ridiculous. 

Sure, it makes sense that Black Lives Matter groups should be led by Black people. But it makes no sense that other groups wishing to support the Black Lives Matter movement also have to be led by Black people.

It's such a waste of energy when progressives outdo themselves to see who can be the Purest of Them All, forgetting that the real enemy aren't those who fail to attain some mythical standard of political correctness, but those in this country who are leading us down the road of authoritarianism, racism, militarism, and other undesirable "ism's."

Bev Barnum forms a non-profit Wall of Moms organization. Good for her. If anyone doesn't like that, they can do something different on their own. What happened to women supporting women rather than tearing other women down?

I can't understand why whoever is running the OFFICIAL WOM twitter feed is so set on disparaging Barnum when they should be focused on making sure that federal agents leave Portland and police reforms occur in Oregon's largest city.

The Oregonian newspaper has a story about the dispute within the Wall of Moms movement, "Portland's Wall of Moms crumbles amid online allegations by former partner, Don't Shoot PDX." What were the shocking allegations? Here's some of what the story says.

Portland Wall of Moms, a group formed in recent weeks and quickly recognized as a staple of nightly downtown protests, was accused publicly Wednesday of “anti-Blackness” by leaders of an existing, Black-led community group.

Wall of Moms, whose members said they aimed to support and protect other Black Lives Matter protesters near the fence in front of the federal courthouse, announced Friday that its white leadership had rescinded their positions to allow women of color to be in charge. New leaders announced Friday include Teressa Raiford, executive director of Don’t Shoot Portland, Demetria Hester and Danialle James.

But less than a week later, Don’t Shoot Portland took to Instagram to urge people against supporting the Wall of Moms, saying that it was no longer working with the moms group.

“The lies are finally clear and we are sad but ultimately not surprised that anti-Blackness showed its ugly head,” read the post published on Wednesday by Don’t Shoot Portland, a local Black Lives Matter and mutual aid group founded in 2014.

The Wednesday post alleges that Wall of Moms founder Bev Barnum filed for business registrations without consulting the newly instated Black leaders and that the safety of Black members at the nightly protests in downtown Portland was overlooked.

Barnum has not yet commented publicly about the allegations.

The post said that issues of Black mothers’ safety have only come to light in the past 24 hours.

Barnum appeared to file three business registrations on Tuesday including one that makes The Wall of Moms a 501c3 nonprofit. Don’t Shoot Portland interpreted the filings to mean that Wall of Moms goal was to get federal officers out of Portland -- not to support Black Lives Matter, according to the Instagram post. The newly instated Black leaders were not told about the registrations, according to the post.

Wow. Bev Barnum wants to get federal officers out of Portland. She filed three business registrations. So this makes her "anti-Black"? I'm a strong supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement, but not when leaders of that movement do or say crazy stuff. They owe Barnum an apology, in my opinion. 

If you don't agree, fine. That's your opinion. We can agree to disagree without vilifying each other.

Violence should never be part of a Black Lives Matter protest

I doubt they read blogs like mine, but if some of the jerks who have been aiming fireworks at the federal courthouse in Portland every night, trying to dismantle the temporary fence that surrounds the building, and otherwise provoking a violent end to the otherwise peaceful Black Lives Matter protests do come across this post, let's have a debate.

My position is: Violence should never be part of a Black Lives Matter protest. Not ever. Repeat, never. 

Now, let me give reasons for why I think I'm correct about this. The first reason is much less important than the second, but I'll start with it.

Yes, I'm an old white guy. However, I was in college from 1966-71 at San Jose State College (or as I like to call it, with zero to back me up, the Stanford of the South Bay).

We had lots of protests against the Vietnam War. I recall that most were peaceful, though sometimes the cops behaved badly. However, most of us hippies truly did believe in "Make love, not war." Sure, there were fringe groups on campus that espoused violence against the Powers That Be. I didn't know anyone who agreed with them, though

So I felt right at home at the only Black Lives Matter protest I've attended here in Salem. It featured thousands of people who listened to inspiring speakers, then marched through downtown and back to the Capitol Mall without any trace of violence or even overt hostility to police. 

(Jerry Moore, the police chief spoke at the event.)

The focus was on what it should be: Black Lives Matter.

And that's what is so irritating about the violent acts being carried out by small numbers of troublemakers or anarchists, not only in Portland but now also in Seattle and other cities. Which gets me to my second, and more important, reason for decrying violence at these protests.

Black leaders are calling for an end to it.

A few days ago E.D. Mondainé, president of the Portland branch of the NAACP had a right-on opinion piece in the Washington Post. Here's some excerpts.

Early in his activism, Malcolm X was asked by a young white woman what she could do to help the cause of civil rights. He famously replied, “Nothing.” Years later, he regretted dismissing her so abruptly, because he came to believe there was much she could do to advance the cause of justice for black people in the United States. But I am quite certain that striking yoga poses nude on the streets of Portland, Ore., was not on his list of actionable items.

Images of “Naked Athena,” as the protester has been labeled, have gone viral, her unclothed confrontation with police earning her accolades as a brave ally of the cause. But I see something else: a beneficiary of white privilege dancing vainly on a stage that was originally created to raise up the voices of my oppressed brothers and sisters. In this, she is not alone. As the demonstrations continue every night in Portland, many people with their own agendas are co-opting, and distracting attention from, what should be our central concern: the Black Lives Matter movement.

...Unfortunately, “spectacle” is now the best way to describe Portland’s protests. Vandalizing government buildings and hurling projectiles at law enforcement draw attention — but how do these actions stop police from killing black people? What are antifa and other leftist agitators achieving for the cause of black equality? The “Wall of Moms,” while perhaps well-intentioned, ends up redirecting attention away from the urgent issue of murdered black bodies. This might ease the consciences of white, affluent women who have previously been silent in the face of black oppression, but it’s fair to ask: Are they really furthering the cause of justice, or is this another example of white co-optation?

...Thursday night, I will lead a rally in downtown Portland to refocus public attention where it belongs: on redeeming a guilty nation. But recent events might be a sign that our work in the streets should be coming to an end.

I am not suggesting retreat. Instead, I am proposing that we take the cause of Black Lives Matter into those places where tear gas and rubber bullets and federal agents cannot find us, and where there is less risk of spectacle distracting from our true aims. In boardrooms, in schools, in city councils, in the halls of justice, in the smoky backrooms of a duplicitous government — that is where we will finally dismantle the gears of the brutal, racist machine that has been terrorizing black Americans and hollowing out the moral character of this nation since its inception.

A front page story in today's Portland Oregonian makes some similar points. 

It was almost 11 p.m. Wednesday when the crackle and flash of fireworks erupted at the federal courthouse in downtown Portland.

For some of the Black activists across the street at the county’s Justice Center, the disruption was a signal to wrap up for the night. The volatile scene beginning to play out a block away was distracting the crowd.

Michael Richard, 38, the final speaker, closed with a lament:

“What’s going on over there is a white movement … that’s taking over Black Lives Matter.”

The rest of the night would be marked by fire, chaos and a show of force by federal officers.

“A spectacle” is how the Rev. E.D. Mondaine described the spasm of late-night violence that has become the norm.

He blamed not only disruptive protesters but also presidential interference, which he said is carefully calculated to divert attention.

“Our movement has been co-opted and I am angry about it,” said Mondaine, president of the Portland NAACP. “Once again the status quo is finding a way to interrupt this revolution, this moment.

“We have to begin to organize more people to talk about the distractors,” he said. “These are privileged children of the status quo dancing on the stages that were designed to lift up the voices of people like (civil rights leader) C.T. Vivian and (U.S. Rep) John Lewis, the stages that were built to lift up the voice of justice and equality and inclusion.”

...Even before the involvement of federal law enforcement, the nights have tended to unfold in predictable ways: Black activists lead the crowds in front of the Justice Center with chants such as “Black lives matter” and “No justice, no peace.” Often they exhort the crowd to refrain from violence.

Then at some point well after dark, a faction of protesters that Blake referred to as “the graveyard shift,” largely young and white, turns its attention to the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse.

Over the course of the past week, demonstrators have carried out a range of destructive acts: They’ve set bonfires in the courthouse portico and pried plywood off the windows and doors, tossed a grill and garbage over the fence around the building, pointed lasers at officers and lit fireworks with concussive blasts that can be felt for blocks.

Almost on cue, officers with U.S. Marshals Service and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, many in camouflage and tactical gear, at some point emerge from the courthouse and sweep the streets using clouds of tear gas, pepper balls and other impact munitions.

...People lashing out during the protests “have legitimate anger, but I would respectfully disagree with them,” said Eric Ward, a longtime civil rights strategist and executive director of the Western States Center, a Portland-based organization that monitors right-wing extremism.

“I would say they are applying that anger in a wrong way,” Ward said. “Pulling down the boards of the federal courthouse or the Justice Center doesn’t stop police from brutalizing Black and Latino and Indigenous people on the streets of Portland.”

Protesting police violence by acting violently toward police obviously undercuts the core message of these protests. It serves no purpose. Well, it serves Trump's purpose to demonize the Black Lives Matter protests as threats to law and order in cities controlled by Democratic mayors.

And that's another reason to end the violence by a minority of protesters: Trump is relishing it.

Here's how easy it is to vote by mail in Oregon

TO: People in states that don't already have 100% vote by mail
FROM: An Oregonian (me!) who loves vote by mail
SUBJECT: How easy it was for me to vote today

First, I want to emphasize that you shouldn't believe anyone, such as Donald Trump, who claims that vote by mail is beset with problems. It isn't. For quite a few years Oregon has had vote by mail for every election. Screw-ups are very rare. Fraud is virtually nonexistent. 

With that out of the way, here's a brief description of what I had to do to cast my ballot today in the May 19 primary election. In short, not much.

(1) Yesterday I got an email from Marion County Elections that told me my ballot was about to arrive in the mail.

(2) Today my ballot did arrive. This is the return envelope.

(3) I sat on a stool at our kitchen counter and completed the May primary ballot in about five minutes. I could have done it sooner, but I needed to check the Voters Pamphlet about the candidates in a few races I wasn't familiar with.

Also, I had to spend some time gazing at the name of my wife, Laurel Hines, on the ballot -- first time she's appeared! I also wrote in a few names of neighbors who, I'm sure, would love to serve as a Democratic Party Precinct Committee Person. Or, maybe not.

(4) This year I didn't even need to stick on a stamp to mail my ballot. The Oregon legislature passed a law that requires prepaid postage on every return envelope. This afternoon we went to Minto Brown Island Park for a dog walk along the Willamette River, so along the way I mailed my ballot on the same day I received it.

Bottom line: I have no idea why every state doesn't use 100% vote by mail for every election.

It makes perfect sense at any time, but extra perfect sense in this COVID-19 time. We Oregonians can cast our ballot without coming close to another person. In my case, I did, but it was just my wife -- who soon will have the title of Most Exalted Precinct 788 Democratic Committee Person. 

I'm not wearing gloves because of cold, but of old (COVID-19)

With fairly warm weather coming to western Oregon next week, I want to explain why I'll be wearing gloves when I go grocery shopping, enter a coffee shop, or am in other public places.

As should be obvious, it isn't because I'm cold, but because I'm old -- and thus more susceptible to the nastier effects of COVID-19, or coronavirus. My wife, Laurel, is in the same situation, except a bit more so, since she has asthma and COVID-19 attacks the respiratory system.

Today Amazon delivered four pairs of these oh-so-trendy gloves that Laurel ordered for me. (Via Amazon I'm also getting some gray gloves with no markings, though I do like the two-tone look of these gloves.)

Laurel has been using similar gloves during her many years of walking dogs at the Willamette Humane Society.

So she's got a routine down that we'll be using until the COVID-19 epidemic in Oregon slows down markedly. Namely, have several pairs of thin plastic gloves available so the ones that have been used can be washed with a load of laundry, then reused.

The reason wearing gloves makes sense to us is that COVID-19 can linger on surfaces for hours, and we don't have a very big supply of hand sanitizer. Thus our plan is to put gloves on when we go into a store or other public place, then take them off before getting back into our car.

It'll be important to not touch the fingers of the gloves when taking them off and putting them back on, but I've been practicing how to do this.

Wearing gloves will give us some increased peace of mind when we're out and about. 

Some Googling revealed that in general, public health experts haven't been advising people to wear gloves, just as they haven't been advising the use of masks. But that advice has focused on thin disposable medical gloves.

And gloves are not recommended either: "This isn't something the general public would be wearing," said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. "I don't think they're going to do anything but give people a false sense of security, waste time and create more demand for something that's unnecessary, just like masks."

While disposable gloves are frequently worn in medical settings, they won't be as effective in day-to-day life.

"Latex gloves can rip very easily," said Adajla. "They're not designed for going out, running up stairs, doing things in daily life. They're not very durable when it comes to pumping gas or anything ... They're going to get holes. They're not meant for wearing during activities and daily living. Even as a physician, I have my gloves rip all the time."

OK. But what my wife and I will be wearing are lightweight garden gloves, which, as noted above, we'll be washing and reusing. Sure, we'll look like old people worried about getting COVID-19, but here's the thing: that's exactly who we are!

And we're not alone. Today I asked the dozen or so members of our monthly Salon discussion group if they were comfortable meeting during the COVID-19 outbreak. Only one person said they were, so we're going to cancel our March meeting and see how it goes come April.

It's a risk vs. return thing.

Yes, we enjoy getting together and talking about all sorts of interesting subjects. But as I said in an email to the group, it wouldn't be worth it if someone got seriously ill from attending a meeting, as unlikely as that might be. (Plus, it's going to get more likely as the disease spreads.)

Lastly, here's a right-on post that a Facebook friend, Susann Kaltwasser, wrote today. Susann makes some excellent points.

It occurred to me last night after watching all kinds of shows with interviews of experts, mayors and governor dealing with the pandemic that here in Salem we are focusing on the wrong things!

We are worried about toilet paper and handiwipes and masks. And we worry about the crowds in the grocery stores and if school is going to be closed and how will we get to work.

But while we are worrying about the little things like staying safe and our jobs, who is worrying about the big things?

Things like ....is Salem Health (hospital) going to have enough beds to accommodate all the sick patients who have the virus and can they keep them separate from the rest of the patients in the hospital?

Do they have enough equipment to treat hundreds of people who might get ill at the same time? Respirators? ICU equipment?

What will happen to the people who are ill, but not so ill that they need to be in the hospital? People who if they stay at home will just infect the rest of the family need to be kept in isolation. Where will they stay?

What do we do about children who live with their grandparents, because they do not have parents? And then the grandparents get sick?

When will we begin testing people in Salem and then what do the rest of us do, because right now the authorities are not even telling people what city they live in?

Seattle has taken some strong measures out of necessity, but do we want to have thousands of people become ill before Salem begins to take precautions?

Our City does press releases, but where is the face of the "City"? Where is the leadership? What are they doing to help calm us now, so that when things get really bad....and we need to assume that they will...that we do not have panic (assuming that it has not already begun)?

Are we all alone and have to fend for ourselves? Do we think our president is going to save us? Is washing our hands and avoiding people all we should be doing?

This is what other cities did and it did not stop the virus...it is just placating and delaying the inevitable. But can we learn a lesson and do some more proactive things to lower our curve?

I'll bet that you have more questions. When are we going to take this situation serious and begin to actually ask the right questions?

My thoughts about the coronavirus outbreak

Yeah, there's other stuff going on in the world right now other than the coronavirus. But since my mind is filled to overflowing with thoughts about this rapidly evolving tragedy, I figure I might as well do a brain dump into this blog post. So in no particular order...

(1) Feel for us old folks, America. My wife and I are both over 70 by a year or two. So we're doomed! If we get infected. Well, maybe not mortally doomed, though this is possible, but likely we'll suffer more than younger folks. Yet the empty shelves of hand sanitizer, both in stores and online, face young and old alike.

I completely understand why a 30-something parent wants to stock up on hand sanitizer to protect their children and other family members.

But just as public health experts are saying everybody at low risk should wash their hands regularly to reduce the chance they could pass the coronavirus on to someone high risk -- like my wife and me -- maybe it makes sense to reserve some supplies of hand sanitizer for those with compromised immune systems, other serious health problems, and the elderly.

(2) Trump supporters need to wake up. Last night Trump gave a speech designed to reassure a worried nation. It had the opposite effect. Which isn't surprising, because Trump can be guaranteed to tell lies, falsehoods, and half-truths at every opportunity. His failure to mobilize the federal government in the early days of the coronavirus outbreak has made a bad situation way worse.

Other countries have tested vastly more people than the United States. Thus our country is flying blind when it comes to knowing the real extent of how many are infected with the coronavirus. The lack of testing kits is a clear case of presidential malpractice. Unfortunately, those who will become seriously ill because of our Idiot-in-Chief won't be able to sue him. We can vote him out of office this November, though.

(3) Investors are acting wisely. It's painful to see the stock market crashing. But a (small) bright spot is that investors are recognizing with great clarity that the crap Trump has been spewing about the coronavirus outbreak can't be trusted. This morning I read a great Bloomberg piece that explained why the market crashed after Trump's speech to the nation.

Basically, the reason is that Trump's ideas for bolstering the economy were feeble and made little sense, while what is needed to calm the markets is a strong, fact-based, scientifically sound approach to dealing with the coronavirus. Other countries have done this with considerable success. Until the Trump administration changes course and admits it is on the wrong track, the stock market is gong to keep saying, do something different.

(4) Life does seem a bit sweeter. Quite a few years ago I read a piece in Parade magazine by an Iraq war veteran (if I recall correctly) that contained a gripping line: "We all need something in our life that can kill us." Of course, that would be life itself. But what this guy was getting at is that life feels more lively when we know it could end at any moment.

I've been dealing with pretty severe pain in my right leg for about a month. But today was sunny here in Oregon, and it's supposed to rain tomorrow. So I got out my DR Field Mower with the lawn mowing attachment and attacked the grass in our large rural yard. As I was mowing, I kept thinking, "If I were to die from the coronavirus soon, at least I'd leave behind a good-looking lawn."

Somehow that was comforting. It got me focused on the here and now, with a dose of there and then. Namely, the prospect of my eventual death, which obviously isn't a matter of "if" but "when." Sure, it is unlikely that the coronavirus will do me in. But something will, one day, and it felt good to be reminded of how precious every moment is, given that we can't be sure how many moments remain to us -- a lesson that the coronavirus outbreak is teaching all of us.

(5) Sports... who cares? Today it was announced that March Madness, the NCAA basketball tournament, won't happen this year. Likely the rest of the NBA season is headed for the same outcome. I was looking forward to watching the Oregon teams in the tournament, but this was a wise decision by the NCAA.

Let's imagine that just one person in the whole United States contacted the coronavirus and died as a result of March Madness. Would that make the tournament worthwhile, a whole bunch of basketball entertainment in exchange for one death? I don't think so, because there isn't any way to weigh the value of a single life versus millions of satisfied fans. Sports are just a small part of life. Life, on the other hand, is life.

(6) Our health care system is teetering. What's deeply concerning about the coronavirus outbreak is how it is going to cast a spotlight on the shortcomings of our health care system. Democrats in Congress are correctly proposing ways to ensure that everyone who needs medical treatment gets it, whether or not they have insurance. But this should be a permanent given, not an add-on in a public health emergency.

Also, I'm feeling mildly guilty about my days in the 1970s and 80s when I was a health planner here in Oregon. One of our jobs was to regulate hospital and nursing home expansions and purchases of expensive medical equipment like CT scanners. The goal was a lean health care system with little excess capacity. 

But now it looks like a lot of excess capacity would be highly desirable. Likely hospitals are going to have to choose between treating seriously ill coronavirus patients, and people with equally serious other problems, such as heart attacks. Bill Gates and others have been warning that a global pandemic was coming. It's too bad that our nation's leaders didn't take those warnings seriously.

(7) Seniors, the homeless, and other vulnerable people deserve to be Job #1. Most Americans are going to get through the coronavirus crisis just fine. Yes, we might have to ration our toilet paper and hand sanitizer, along with finding other things to do than watch sports. But mostly hidden from our view will be many other people who will suffer much more.

Reports already are coming in of seniors who are afraid to go shopping because they might be infected. I hate to think of elderly people sitting at home, isolated and fearful. The homeless also are going to be affected by the outbreak. How do you "socially distance" -- keeping six feet away from other people -- when you're living on the street, or in a homeless shelter?

Then there's those with lung, heart, kidney, and other health problems. My wife has asthma. She likely would be at greater risk than I am from the coronavirus, since it attacks the lungs. And there's millions of other people in this county in a similar situation: having to deal with an immune deficiency problem, or some other serious medical condition.

I just wish we had a president right now who could speak as Joe Biden did today. Compassionately, competently, caringly. The coronavirus could be a way for our county to come together and face this problem as one people, bound together by a common enemy.

It still could happen. But not because of Donald Trump. Rather, in spite of him.

Pros and cons of being a 70-something white guy these days

Well, it was fun while it lasted... being a 71 year-old white guy. For a while recently, I was exulting in the ascendance of my 70-something peers in the Democratic primary.

Bernie Sanders: 78 years old

Joe Biden: 77 years old

Mike Bloomberg: 78 years old

Woo-hoo! The three most viable candidates left standing (albeit shakily) were white guys even older than me.

Yes, Elizabeth Warren was still in the race for a while after Bloomberg dropped out, but by that time it was clear that Sanders and Biden were going to duke it out for the Democratic nomination. It sure looked like 2020 was going to be the Year of the Septuagenarian, in my own mind at least.

I stood a little taller. My back was a little straighter. I looked in the mirror at my gray hair and beard and felt a little better about my aging visage.

Until the coronavirus panic struck. 

I was OK, though obviously not ecstatic, about the stock market going up and down like a yo-yo. Or, to really show my age, like a slinky. 

What truly grabbed my attention, though, was the frequent mentions of how old people -- often disturbingly defined as over 70 -- were at much higher risk of dying from the coronavirus. Suddenly being an old white guy didn't seem nearly as appealing.

A few days ago NPR reported that while the overall death rate was 2.3% in China, among those 70-79 the death rate was 8%. And unless my aging ears misheard the satellite radio in my car today, I recall that someone said the elderly death rate could be 10-15%.

Yikes! Those aren't great odds. Of course, having an underlying condition like a heart, lung, or whatever disease adds to the risk for us old folks, and I'm in pretty good shape, health-wise.

Still... now when I look at Sanders and Biden my thoughts are less on how great it is that they've been able to rise to the top of the Democratic presidential race at their age, as on how risky it is for them to be pressing the flesh at so many campaign events, surrounded by throngs of people that could easily include someone carrying the coronavirus. 

Oh, well. At least I can take solace in the fact that 73-year old President Donald J. Trump is in charge of keeping me safe from the coronavirus. Problem is, early on that solace took a nosedive when I heard all the lies, falsehoods, and misstatements coming out of Trump's mouth.

But all things will pass. I just hope that one of them isn't me passing away from the coronavirus before I get to see Biden (most likely) or Sanders (less likely) defeating Trump in November.

Good news is, I don't have a blood clot. Bad news is, Trump still is president.

Being an ardent progressive in election year 2020 means that I'm prone to view everything through the lens of what it means for the prospect of making Trump a one-term president this November. 

Yes, even being tested to rule out a blood clot in my right leg -- which occurred yesterday.

A bit over a week ago I had a physical therapy visit to get some advice on what to do about annoying leg pain. When Michael, the therapist, asked me what caused the pain, I gave this 30-something guy my 71-year-old perspective on health problems like this one.

"Michael, when I was your age, I could figure out why something hurt. Like, playing too much tennis with my questionable serving technique led to tennis elbow pain. But now that I'm the age I am, aching body parts happen mysteriously. I get out of bed the wrong way, or lift a bag of groceries weirdly, and -- bingo! -- pain. Except the pain doesn't occur right away, so I can never be sure what caused it."

Which is typical for us Medicare folks, based on lots of conversations I've had with people about my age regarding their bodily afflictions. 

Anyway, yesterday the pain in my right leg was so bad, I kept thinking about what a nurse at my family physician's office told me a few days ago when I talked with her about my leg pain. Her main concern was a blood clot, so she told me that if my leg is swollen and feels warm to the touch, I should seek medical care right away.

After some Googling of "blood clot leg" and measuring my calves to see if the right one was the same size as the left one (it was), and feeling that both legs were the same temperature, at first I was reassured that I didn't have a clot. Until I read one more article that said sometimes a blood clot can be present with none of the usual symptoms.

Then I got a second leg warmth opinion from my wife. She spent way more time comparing my lower legs than I did, eventually concluding, "Maybe the right one is a little bit warmer."

That tiny maybe got me to thinking that I should go to Salem Health Urgent Care to rule out a blood clot. However, that didn't turn out to be as simple as I expected, even though it was easy to make an online appointment for 2:40 pm with a Nurse Practitioner. And I was seen close to on-time.

She felt my legs, questioned me about the pain I'd been having, and did her own measurement of my calves. She also prescribed a topical NSAID that could replace the oral Advil I'd been taking, but seemingly with less risk of side effects. Somewhat surprisingly, though, she also strongly recommended that I get an ultrasound to make sure I didn't have a blood clot in my leg.

Yes, I was worried about this possibility, as low as the chance was that I had a clot. And it made sense to rule out a potentially fatal problem, like a clot breaking free and heading to my lungs, or maybe even heart. 

But having been a health planner and policy analyst in my pre-retirement life, I also was aware of how legal liability concerns can affect medical care decisions. I'm not saying that occurred in this case, but just now the Great God Google did reveal a number of law firms who have web pages along the lines of "Medical Malpractice for Failure to Diagnose Deep Vein Thrombosis."

The symptoms of DVT can be missed or misdiagnosed.  This can be extremely dangerous because a person may think that they have something simple like a leg cramp or strain when they actually are experiencing symptoms of DVT.  

I was fortunate that the Cardiac/Vascular center at Salem Hospital could perform an ultrasound on my legs later in the day, which avoided an E.R. visit. The "lower extremity venous duplex unilateral" procedure went smoothly, and I enjoyed chatting with the technician who explained what was being shown on a large screen which, pleasingly, didn't include a blood clot.

This gets me to Trump.

Health care is super-important for everybody. When you're hurting, sick, or needing medical attention for whatever reason, getting that care with a minimum of fuss and cost is Job #1 on your mind. I'm fortunate to be on Medicare, which I like vastly more than the private health insurance I had before.

Medicare For All makes a lot of sense. So does Medicare For All Who Want It. So does the Affordable Care Act. 

What makes zero sense is Trump's unceasing effort to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare -- undoubtedly in part because of that word "Obama," which fills Trump with irrational anger (and maybe envy, since Obama was a much more popular president than he is).

Trump has no interest in making our nation's health care system better. He simply wants to destroy the most conservative approach to providing health care to all Americans, the Affordable Care Act. Since it relies on private health insurance, Republicans like Trump should be embracing the Affordable Care Act instead of trying to demolish it.

The plain fact is that, like me, most people feel good about their doctors and other health care providers, while being indifferent (at best) about their insurance company. So if somehow Trump, or the Supreme Court, succeed in killing the Affordable Care Act, that makes Medicare for All much more likely, given that Republicans have no viable health care plan of their own.

Lastly, Trump's health care incompetence is on full display as he stumbles through a response to the coronavirus crisis. It's evident that Trump cares much more about how the stock market is doing (horribly) than overseeing a fact-based, transparent approach to dealing with the coronavirus.

One big problem that Trump faces is that his incessant lying makes people automatically believe that whatever he says isn't true. Thus his efforts to calm people down about the coronavirus are having the opposite effect, as Catherine Rampell says in a Washington Post opinion piece, "With coronavirus, Trump's lies and his reassurances backfire."

Trump clearly understands that government messaging can move markets; he blames the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for issuing warnings that may have unnerved traders. At his news conference Wednesday, he also scolded Democrats for allegedly “trying to create a panic.” Trump seems not to realize that saying everything is fine when no one trusts you to assess the situation honestly can cause people to freak out, too.

...In this context, it’s clear how Trump-delivered reassurances might backfire — and already have. While Trump spoke Wednesday from the White House, telling Americans that the government has things under control, stock futures fell. Ordering government scientists to clear comments with Vice President Pence’s office, as has been reported, threatens to dilute the value of any soothing words such experts might offer, too.

There is a corollary to the Goolsbee rule on crisis and credibility. It’s one that Goolsbee told me he learned from the late, great former Federal Reserve chair Paul Volcker during the financial crisis a decade ago, when Goolsbee was advising President Barack Obama. Volcker said that the only asset you have in a crisis is your credibility. Hence this other rule of thumb: All normal, non-crisis time should be spent establishing the credibility you’ll need when a crisis inevitably hits.

Would that the Trump administration had done so, instead of fibbing about crowd size and so much else that followed.

City Club talk about Oregon demographics and 2020 Census pleasingly factual

We live in an age of opinionating.

For example, this afternoon the Mueller report was released to the Attorney General. Now there's a frenzy of speculation about what is in the report, how much of it will be released to the public, what the political impact will be, and so on.

So it was pleasant to attend a Salem City Club talk today by demographer Charles Rynerson, a Research Associate with the Population Research Center at Portland State University (my graduate school alma mater): "Oregon Demographic Trends and the 2020 Census."

Rynerson was low-key, highly competent, and almost entirely factual. His talk felt like a healing warm bath of concrete data that (temporarily) washed away the torrent of opinions from a myriad of news sources that typically flood my political junkie brain.

-----------------------

UPDATE: After emailing Rynerson some questions, as noted below, I got the following replies after he returned from vacation. Keep in mind what he says here as you read the rest of my blog post. The first message was sent to someone else who had questions similar to mine. I've uploaded a link to his edited PowerPoint presentation.

Hi,

Sorry for the delay, I was on vacation from the moment I left the City Club event!

This is the edited version of the presentation, based on valuable feedback that I got from a few people after the meeting.  Slide #21 showing in- and out-migration by age group was presented with the two data series overlapped 100%, making it appear that it was a stacked column chart, implying that in-migration was smaller than out-migration.  In fact, in-migration (green columns) is larger for every age group.  By lowering the overlap percentage, this should now be apparent.

Download Rynerson_Demographics_2019

Brian Hines also brought this up in his blog post https://hinessight.blogs.com/hinessight/2019/03/city-club-talk-about-oregon-demographics-and-2020-census-pleasingly-factual.html, showing the original version of the chart. I have cc'd him here, and will follow up with him to clarify a couple of other points.

Glad you enjoyed it!

-Charles

Hi Brian,

I hope you saw my previous message in which I attached the PPT presentation and improved the migration by age group slide.  If you don't have PowerPoint, let me know.  I'd be glad to print it to PDF and send to you.

Thanks for covering the event with the blog post.  You captured most of what I said perfectly.  Allow me to correct a couple of things that I didn't make clear:

"In every age group, more people moved from Oregon to another state than moved to Oregon from another state."

• • My bad -- two other people who spoke with me immediately after the presentation had the same takeaway. Thus I realized that I should edit the image so that the two series are not completely overlapped.  It is not a stacked column chart; the green bars are really taller than the reddish-brown bars for every age group.  I think the edited chart makes that clear.

"Rynerson said there are 13 metropolitan areas in Oregon, with each area being a county. The other 23 counties are in non-metro areas."

• • I hope I didn't say that.  There are 8 metropolitan areas in Oregon.  The Portland MSA includes 5 Oregon counties (and 2 Washington counties), the Salem MSA includes 2 counties (Marion+Polk), and the remaining 6 MSAs are one county each, for a total of 13 Oregon counties in metropolitan areas.

"The other eight counties have a large net migration, but Rynerson said almost all of this was due to Marion County."

• • No, there is positive net migration in all of the metropolitan counties.  Most of the natural increase is attributable to Marion County.

"70% of people will get an Internet-first 2020 Census survey, while 30% of people in broadband deprived areas will get a Paper-first survey. "

• • I did say that, but I may have been a bit reckless.  I'm not sure where I got the 70-30 figure, and I can't find a source.  I may have been confusing it with the 2018 Census Test in Providence, RI, which was 70-30.
  • All of these links say that the 2020 Census breakdown will be 80-20.
    • https://www.brennancenter.org/digitizing-2020-census
    • https://www.wired.com/story/us-census-2020-goes-digital/
    • https://www.nlc.org/sites/default/files/2018-10/Census%202020%20MAG_0.pdf

 I hope these clarifications help!

-Charles

---------------------------

Here's photos of some of Rynerson's slides that I snapped with my trusty iPhone, along with commentary on each. I'll end with some additional things he told us. Let's geek out on some interesting info on how Oregon is changing demographically.

The flowing line is total population in Oregon, which is estimated to be 4,195,300 in 2018. The bars are annual increases in population form 2001 to 2018. The marked dip around 2010-11 reflects the recession that hit in earnest in 2008.

There was a decline in the rate of population growth from 2017 to 2018, but Rynerson said not much should be made of this, since the number of people added in 2018, 54,200, was still quite high.

Population growth is a function of net migration (# of people coming to Oregon - # of people leaving Oregon) plus natural increase (# of people born - # of people dying). This image shows these components in 5-year periods from 1960-65 to 2010-15. Remember: 5 years. That's why the numbers on the vertical axis are so large.

Net migration (brown bars) has always been greater than natural increase, except in 1960-65 and especially in 1980-85 -- which I recall was another economic downturn. The highest net migration was in 1990-95. Natural increase was at its lowest point in 2010-15.

This is a similar graph, but with the components shown in a single bar for individual years from 2001 to 2018. Natural increase in Oregon has been steadily declining since 2007, mostly because of lower birth rates. Net migration has increased a lot since low points in 2010-11.

Because population growth in Oregon has been greater than the national average, Rynerson said our state likely will gain a congressional seat after the 2020 census. He said that redistricting will start in April 2021, apparently because this is when requisite census data is available.

This slide shows that currently Oregon has a considerably larger population per seat in Congress than Washington, California, or the United States as a whole. Reason: Oregon narrowly missed out on getting an additional seat after the 2010 census. If we get a 6th seat, as expected, our population per seat will drop to about 715,000.

This slide shows the average number of people moving to Oregon (green bar) and the number of people moving from Oregon (brown bar) by age group from 2013 to 2017. Not surprisingly, those aged 20 to 29 are the biggest movers. In every age group, more people moved from Oregon to another state than moved to Oregon from another state.

This seems to be at odds with the positive net migration figures shown in a previous slide, so likely I'm missing something here. (Which is why Rynerson is a professional demographer, and I'm not.) I've emailed Rynerson, asking about this. 

Rynerson said there are 13 metropolitan areas in Oregon, with each area being a county. The other 23 counties are in non-metro areas. (All it takes to be a metro area is to have a population center with 50,000 or more people.)

Net migration has been greatest in the 5-county Portland Metro area, as has the natural increase. Which figures, since that area has by far the most people. The other eight counties have a large net migration, but Rynerson said almost all of this was due to Marion County. 

And in the 23 non-metro counties, which basically means rural Oregon, net migration has been very low -- along with a negative natural increase, with more people dying in those rural areas than are being born. 

This chart shows where people moving to Oregon come from. (The columns total to 100%.) Overall, 24% come from California. Rynerson said the SW Oregon and Deschutes column confirms his intuition that southern Oregon has a higher percentage of Californians than other parts of Oregon -- 34%. 

The Willamette Valley percentages are very close to the Oregon total, Rynerson noted.

This interesting chart shows by age group in 2016 the number of white/non-Latino people (blue) and all other people (brown). It shows that the proportion of white/non-Latino steadily increases with age: 63% for those under 15, 71% ages 15 to 44, 82% 45 to 64, 91% 65 and older. 

So demographically, the future belongs to people of color -- an oft-cited national fact that holds true in Oregon, though we have a smaller percentage than the United States as a whole.

Lastly, this slide shows the "baby bust" that's been reflected in previous slides. The blue 1990-2017 trend line is non-Latino total fertility rates, and the green line is Latino total fertility rates. Meaning, the total number of children a woman has. The fertility rates for both groups have been steadily declining, which is why the natural increase in Oregon has been dropping.

But the Latino birth rate has dropped especially fast since 2000. Now it is 1.96, not all that far above the non-Latino rate of 1.51. Rynerson said the replacement rate is 2.1, given that some children don't survive to adulthood. So couples need on average to have 2.1 children to keep the population steady, without accounting for net migration.

This shows that Oregon would be losing population long-term if it wasn't for people moving into our state.

Here's some other info Rynerson shared in his talk:

-- 70% of people will get an Internet-first 2020 Census survey, while 30% of people in broadband deprived areas will get a Paper-first survey. Those who don't respond to the Internet survey apparently will get a paper survey.

-- The Trump administration's attempt to add a "Are you a citizen?" question to the 2020 Census is still being adjudicated. Rynerson said that if this question ends up being included, and someone doesn't answer it, but completes the rest of the survey, likely there won't be a follow-up attempt, due to lack of resources. So I can see immigrant rights organizations advising people to leave that question blank. Heck, I'll likely do that myself, if the citizen question is asked. 

-- Attempts will be made to include homeless people in the 2020 Census. During a one-night event, census staff will go with local  people to try  to count the homeless.

Trump's tariff threat on foreign cars irks VW GTI loving me

Just when I think I can't get more irritated at Donald Trump, our (hopefully) one-term president does something that causes my Irritation Index to jump to a new high.

In this case -- imposing a tariff on imported cars that could reach 25% -- it's a threatened something that's raising my ire. But given Trump's oft-stated love of tariffs, even when they're a spectacularly bad idea, it sure seems like there's a good chance he'll go ahead with an imported car tariff. 

At my age, 70, obviously I've owned a lot of different cars. More have been foreign than domestic. And not because I've got anything against American-made cars. My wife and I have leased three Chevy Volts, a great car that sadly, is being discontinued by GM.

Foreign cars simply appeal to me more.

I've enjoyed my mother's '57 VW bug that I inherited and drove in my college years; a Toyota Corona that took my wife to the hospital when our daughter was born; a Toyota MR2 with flip-up headlights that I loved to turn on; a Volvo 850 turbo that proved station wagons can be really fun to drive; a BMW 325 ix that handled snow pretty darn well; several Toyota Highlanders, one hybrid and one regular; a succession of Toyota Priuses, or maybe Priii; a couple of Subaru's, a Legacy and an Impreza; and currently, a 2017 VW GTI that I'm enjoying even more than the GTI I owned in the early 80's. 

Oh, my wife and I also have ordered a 2019 Toyota RAV4 Hybrid, even though the hybrid version hasn't even been released yet.

It will replace our 2014 Toyota Highlander. The RAV4 Hybrid will be made in Japan. If Trump goes ahead with a 25% tariff, the car we're buying from Capitol Toyota here in Salem, Oregon would cost us about $8,000 more, at least. (We haven't gotten a final price on the car yet.)

Everybody who works at Capitol Toyota is an American citizen, I'm pretty sure. And Capitol Toyota obviously is an American company. Why Trump wants to endanger the financial health of all the dealerships that sell foreign-made cars escapes me -- along with so much else Trump does that makes no logical sense. 

I'm not sure what we'd do if Trump imposed a 25% tax on the 2019 RAV4 Hybrid. Likely we'll have bought the car prior to the three month window following the mid-February completion of a Commerce Department report that concluded tariffs could be imposed on foreign cars for national security reasons. 

The Trump administration won't release that report, probably because it is difficult to imagine how having the Toyota RAV4 built in Japan is a major threat to our national security. Likely the Commerce Department made crap up just to please Trump. 

So far few people with working brains in their head are saying "Yay!" to Trump's dumb tariff plan.

Even US automakers think a 25% tariff on imported cars would be a bad idea, in part because other countries would slap tariffs on American cars, and in part because American cars use a lot of parts made overseas that could also be subject to tariffs.

There's even a possibility that cars made in Mexico and Canada would be subject to a 25% tariff.

This would really irk me, since my much-beloved 2017 VW GTI was built in Mexico, and I'm looking forward to the release of the next-generation GTI -- which reportedly will arrive in the United States as a 2021 model sometime in 2020. 

Even with winter tires on steel wheels, I love how my VW GTI looks. And even more, how it drives. There's no better "hot hatch" made by any car manufacturer, foreign or domestic. 

So Donald Trump should let the market decide what cars are bought in the United States.

Believe me, if Trump makes VW GTI's unaffordable to those aficionados like me who adore this car, we'd rather keep our current GTI's until a smarter president takes office than buy a lower-quality domestic vehicle.

The totality of one's life is what counts, not a few screwups

Shock! I totally agree with a piece by Bret Stevens, the New York Times columnist who usually tilts too far rightward for my progressive taste. 

But "Why Ralph Northam Should Not Resign" is absolutely correct in its condemnation of judging people by a few missteps that they've made, rather than the totality of the path they've taken in life. 

Stevens notes that almost all of us have done things that, in retrospect, make us cringe. Here's some personal examples from the high school period of my 70-year-old life. I want to note that my behavior was shared by most of my white, middle-class friends, so I'm using "we."

-- We called anybody who seemed the least bit effeminate "faggot." Well, actually we used that term as an insult for anybody, not just possible homosexuals.

-- We used "retard" with wild abandon for anyone who had a mental disability.

-- We called our Mexican-American classmates spics, taco benders, and greasers. They had their own insulting terms for us, though spoken in Spanish. 

So am I a bad person? Of course not.

Back in 1962-66, my high school years, there was virtually zero attention paid to diversity, sensitivity, political correctness. Girls took Home Economics. Boys took Shop and Mechanical Drawing. Feminism was just dawning, if not still below our horizon.

Sure, it could be argued that my inconsiderate behavior occurred when I was a teenager, not in my 20s, as was the case with Virginia Governor Ralph Northham wearing blackface. But that really isn't the point.

The question is whether society is going off the rails when there's an expectation that people in public life, such as politicians, must be held to a standard that few of us could meet.

Here's some excerpts from Stevens' opinion piece:

It’s probably for the best that Ralph Northam seems determined not to resign as governor of Virginia. He may have done something ugly and dumb many years ago, when he was a young man and prevailing notions of socially permissible behavior were uglier and dumber than they are today.

In the face of a political and reputational disaster he has stumbled badly in explaining himself. If he weathers the scandal, it will mainly be because all of his potential successors have grave compromises of their own.

In the 35 years between those two points he has, by all appearances, lived an upstanding life without a hint of racial bias. If we are going to embrace a politics where that’s not enough to save a sitting governor accused of no crime, we’re headed toward a dark place.

...each of us might want to perform an internal audit before we join the cast-the-first-stone coalition. [Stevens then cites his own history of mild bigotry.]

I admit to all of this not as a form of moral — or immoral — exhibitionism, but because I think it’s true of the overwhelming majority of people irrespective of their race or gender. (If you don’t agree, audit yourself twice.) Few of us are proud of these lapses. Many of us are trying to be considerably more mindful about them.

But most of us don’t rip ourselves to pieces over them, either.

That’s because we believe that our worst moments and dumbest utterances shouldn’t define us.

That our youthful behavior is more of a reflection of what is around us than a representation of what’s inside. That we deserve to be judged by the decency of our intentions and the totality of our deeds. That we are entitled to a presumption of innocence, a measure of forgiveness, a sense for our times, and multiple opportunities for redemption.

Absolutely. 

A poll has found that Virginians are divided on whether Northam should resign, with 47% saying he should, and 47% saying he shouldn't. It's interesting that African-Americans are more supportive of Northam than whites, with 58% wanting him to stay in office and with 37% wanting him to resign.

Now, obviously there are degrees of bad behavior.

I'd rate wearing blackface and doing a Michael Jackson imitation, the only offense Governor Northam has admitted to, as a mild infraction. But sexual assault, which Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax has been accused of by two women, that's much more serious.

I'm fine with Northam apologizing and remaining as Governor. However, if Fairfax's accusers turn out to be credible, almost certainly he needs to resign. 

Apologies aren't enough in many cases. Often, though, apologies are too much. Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank makes this case in "The Democratic apology tour is a sorry spectacle." 

He observes that Elizabeth Warren is apologizing for claiming Native American heritage. Joe Biden regrets backing tough-on-crime legislation. Kirsten Gillibrand regrets her previous pro-gun and tough-on-immigration positions. Meanwhile, Trump never apologizes for anything, even though he has done hugely more that merits an apology. 

Democrats are just big on apologizing, even when this isn't justified.

Us liberals often have unduly high expectations of politicians. We want them to have hewed to an ideal of progressive purity throughout their career, even though in everyday life we all learn from our mistakes (frequently more than we learn from our successes).

So stay in office, Governor Northam. And cut down on the apologizing, fellow Democrats. No one is perfect. It makes no sense for someone to resign or apologize when at the time they supposedly erred, they had no idea that what they were doing was wrong.

2019 Salem Women's March is January 19 on Capitol Mall

People of Salem and surrounding areas, here's my strong advice for what you should do from 11 am to 3 pm on Saturday, January 19. Attend the 2019 Salem Women's March on the Capitol Mall. 

My wife was an organizer of the first 2017 Salem Women's March. We loved it.  In 2018 we went to the rather weirdly named Salem Womxn's March. We loved it also.

(See below for the photo/video web pages I made of the events.)

Here's how the 2019 Women's March is described on a Facebook event posting:

The Third annual Women's March in Salem is scheduled. There will be educational and promotional booths from 11 AM to 3 PM. The Rally with speakers will start at noon and the March at 1 PM. There will be food and coffee trucks available.

Salem-News has a story about the march, "Salem Women's March 2019 is coming up." 

Thousands of women from Salem, Eugene and surrounding areas will rally and march in Salem, along with thousands of women in cities across the country and the globe on Saturday, January 19, 2019 as part of the third annual Women's March.

“The Women’s March is not just a March, it is a movement and it has shown its power to change political outcomes and the direction our society is going,” said Debbie Miller, President of the organizing Board for this year’s Women’s March in Salem.

The event is from 11 a.m. through 3 p.m at the Oregon State Capitol Steps/Mall on Court Street.

Women will march in support and solidarity with other women and supporters to remember and solidify the power and the influence that women built by taking to the streets in 2017 and 2018, bringing particular attention to equity in healthcare, wages, and power.

“Not only are a large portion of national leaders ineffective, but they are also destructive to the welfare of their constituents.

"We must make sure they never feel we think their selfish, greedy and amoral behavior is seen as normal. So, we take any and all opportunities to rise up, making ourselves visible and heard all the way to D.C.,” said Joan Warnock, Secretary of Women's March Salem.

SPEAKERS:

-- Professor Wendi Warren Binford: Director of Willamette University Clinical Law Program
--  Danielle Meyer: Chair of the Salem Human Rights Commission and KMUZ Community Radio program host
--  Shelaswau Bushnell Crier: lawyer, teacher at Willamette University, member of several state advisory committees and served as VP for Salem-Keizer NAACP
--  Jennifer Hofmann: Americans of Conscience blog creator and writer
--  Sarah Bennett: Homecare Worker-activist in campaign for care workers rights

For more information or questions on logistics, including accessibility, email: [email protected]

If you missed the 2017 and 2018 marches, or even if you attended them, live (or relive) the great spirit of those days via these Adobe Spark web pages I made of the events.

Good news for Dems in my daughter's Orange County report

Along with other progressives, I'm trying to tread a middle way between undue optimism and excessive pessimism regarding tomorrow's Super Duper Important midterm election. 

But after getting a politically-oriented phone call this evening from my daughter Celeste, who lives in Orange County, California (Laguna Niguel, to be exact), I'm tilting more to the side of "Democrats could have a great day on Tuesday." 

Celeste has been interested in politics, but until this year I wouldn't call her an activist. Tonight, though, she excitedly told me that last weekend she did her first-ever canvassing -- for Harley Rouda, a Democrat who is running against Dana Rohrabacher in California's 48th District. 

Rohrabacher, a conservative Republican who is known for his love of Putin and all things Russian, has held his Orange County seat for 30 years. But he's in a tough fight with Rouda this time around. FiveThirtyEight.com rates the race as a toss-up, with Democrat Rouda narrowly favored to win.

Celeste told me that over 1,100 people have volunteered to campaign for Rouda. Even more impressive, she said that young people were much in evidence at the Rouda meetings she's been to. (Celeste is 46, which I consider young, so those really young people must be in their 20s and 30s.)

She felt super-energized after canvassing for Rouda.

Remember, this is Orange County we're talking about. Sure, Laguna Beach leans liberal, but historically the 48th District has been solidly Republican. Celeste said it consists of coastal areas like Huntington Beach, which is a conservative stronghold.

So the mere fact that the Rouda-Rohrabacher race is so close is one reason to feel positive about Democratic chances tomorrow.

Another reason is the influx of fresh progressive energy into Orange County. Celeste proudly told me that she had recently joined  WAVE, Women for American Values and Ethics, a non-partisan progressive group in Orange County formed after the 2016 election. 

Regarding the Rouda campaign, Celeste told me that there were so many people wanting to canvass for Rohrabacher's Democratic challenger, they've been canvassing Democratic leaning households who haven't returned a ballot yet twice. 

This sort of anecdotal evidence isn't proof that a Blue Wave is about to wash over the United States tomorrow.

However, when combined with polling, early voting, and other indicators of Democratic enthusiasm, my daughter's phone call tonight makes me pretty darn optimistic that November 6 will mark the beginning of the end of the national nightmare that began two years ago, when Trump soundly lost the popular vote but squeaked out a narrow victory in the electoral college. 

Here's a photo of Celeste and her husband, Patrick, looking all southern California'y in Newport Beach.

Here's Nate Silver's predictions for key Oregon and national races

For political junkies like me, Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight.com web site is a treasure trove of election prediction delights. It's beautifully designed, statistically sophisticated, and a good way to learn statistical principles without actually taking a course.

In this post I'm going to share how Silver looks upon some key House, Senate, and Governor races, naturally with a special focus on Oregon races. First, though, here's some tweets that Silver shared today:

So the lean/likely zone for Nate Silver is between a 60%-95% chance of a candidate winning. And the toss-up zone is when no candidate exceeds a 60% chance of winning. Keep in mind that "chance of winning" is different from the predicted percent of the vote a candidate will receive. 

With these definitions out of the way, on to the races!

I'm using the middle "Classic" 538.com forecast, rather than the "Lite" or "Deluxe" forecast (the latter includes experts' ratings, while "Classic" is billed as I'll take the polls, plus all the "fundamentals": fundraising, past voting in the state, historical trends, and more.)

Also, I made screenshots of the pop-ups on 538.com, which explains the bleed-through of what lay beneath the pop-up.

Oregon governor. Silver gives Democrat Kate Brown a 85% chance of winning, which warrants a "Likely D" rating. Yet I've seen newspaper stories calling the race a toss-up. Maybe by their definition, but this isn't how 538.com views the Oregon governor race. 

Florida governor. It's interesting that Democrat Andrew Gillum has almost as high a chance of winning, 78%, as Kate Brown, which puts the Florida Governor's race also in the "Likely D" category. 

UPDATE: Somehow I forgot to include the Georgia and Wisconsin governor races. Here they are:

Georgia governor. This is a really tight race. I don't understand why Kemp has a 58% chance of winning, given that his forecasted vote share is just slightly higher than Abrams'. But I'm sure Silver has some very good reasons for making this prediction.

Wisconsin governor. Another toss-up race. Maybe Scott Walker's election luck (and/or manipulating) has run out. A lot of liberals in Wisconsin will be overjoyed if Evers ends up winning.

Control of the House. Silver gives Democrats a 85% chance of winning control of the House of Representatives. That's high, but I try to keep in mind that Hillary Clinton had a 71% chance of beating Trump, and we know how that race turned out. It'll be interesting to see how close Democrats come to gaining 39 House seats, which is Silver's predicted average gain.

Schrader's House race. Democrat Kurt Schrader has exactly the same chance of holding onto his Oregon 5th House seat as the Democrats have of taking control of the House: 85%. 

Walden's House race. In the Oregon House district where Greg Walden is running for re-election, his Democratic opponent has been doing a lot of traveling around the far reaches of eastern Oregon. But her chances of winning are very slim: 1%. The three other Oregon house races are all rated as solid D, with DeFazio, Blumenauer, and Bonamici all given at least a 99% chance of winning. So Schrader's race is by far the most competitive in Oregon.

Rohrabacher House race. My daughter and her family live in Dana Rohrabacher's Orange County, California House district. She's been working to defeat him, so she'll be pleased to learn that his Democratic challenger has a 64% chance of beating him. Orange County used to be solidly Republican, so this shows how the Blue Wave may become a reality.

Control of the Senate. As is well known, Democratic control of the Senate is unlikely, since many more Democratic senators are up for re-election (many in states Trump won), a result of how well Dems did back in 2012. So the 17% chance of Democrats winning control of the Senate is about the same as the 15% chance Republicans have of maintaining control of the House.

North Dakota Senate race. Listening to satellite radio as I drove around today, I heard a pundit say that Democrat Heidi Heitkamp could lose her Senate race by 20 points. But Nate Silver gives her a 32% chance of winning, and has her forecasted vote share at 48%. So this seems to be an instance of people giving a candidate essentially a zero chance of winning when actually the race is much tighter.

Nevada Senate race. Likewise, the prevailing "wisdom" (note the scare quotes) seems to be that Dean Heller is on his way to keeping his Senate seat in a state that Clinton won. Silver, though, has the race as a toss-up, since Heller has only a 59% chance of winning. 

Florida Senate race. Roughly mirroring Andrew Gillum's chance of winning the Governor race, fellow Democrat Bill Nelson has a 72% chance of beating current Florida Governor Rick Scott in the Senate race. This surprises me, as I thought Scott was quite popular. But it seems a combination of Democratic enthusiasm and "red tide" worries in the state are buoying Nelson.

Texas Senate race. Beto O'Rourke is getting a lot of Democratic love nationally, but his chance of beating Ted Cruz is slim at 21%. Could happen, though. A 1 in 5 chance is a lot greater than a 1 in 100 chance, as is the case with 4 of 5 Oregon House races.

Arizona Senate race. Democrat Sinema has a 64% chance of beating Republican McSally in this race for an open Senate seat. So that's good news for Democrats, since nearly everything has to go right for Dems in Senate races for them to have a chance of taking control of the Senate.

I'll end by observing that I trust Nate Silver's methodology a lot more than I trust my progressive mind -- which dearly hopes that against all odds, somehow the Democrats take control of the Senate.

I believe that Silver is correct with his 17% chance of this happening.

But I can understand why some consider that the Democrats have a greater chance, since mere "clicking around" the 538.com Senate map can produce a different outcome (which I'd call by a non-technical term: wishful thinking.)

Here's what I mean:

I zoom around and see that in Missouri Democrat McCaskill has a 58% chance of holding onto her seat in a red state. In Indiana Democrat Donnelly has a 68% chance of winning. In West Virginia Democrat Manchin has a 89% chance of winning. In Montana Democrat Tester has a 85% chance of winning. 

Then I fantasize that Democrat Heitkamp beats the odds with her 32% chance of winning, and holds onto her North Dakota seat. Plus, Democrat Sinema wins the open seat in Arizona, and Democrat Rosen beats incumbent Heller in Nevada. 

Bingo! Seemingly this means Democrats pick up two Senate seats and they have a 51-49 control of the Senate. 

The flaw in this is my wishful non-statistical thinking. Silver runs computer simulations. I simply run what I want to have happen in my own mind. It could happen, because Silver says there's a non-trivial 17% chance Democrats can take control of the Senate. 

It's just a lot less likely than the "everything goes right for Democrats" scenario I can fashion in my left-leaning mind. 

Great 2018 investing analysis: "Do facts matter anymore?"

In these Trumpian times it often seems like we live in a post-truth world where reality is whatever someone wants it to be. But investing is one area where facts can be ignored for a while, but eventually always come back with a vengeance.

So when I saw that our investment advisor's most recent quarterly musing about how things are going both internationally and here in the United States was titled, "Do facts matter anymore?," I read it more closely than I usually do. 

Since I'm pretty sure this analysis only goes to clients, I've blacked out the name of the investment advisor, along with one other identifying word. Here it is in PDF form, complete with my orange highlighting. 
Download Do facts matter anymore?

I'm a long-time investor who has learned one basic truth over many years: believing you are smarter than the markets, or other investors, is foolish. Here's a couple of blog posts I've written about the logical conclusion derived from that truth: invest in index funds. 

Index investing lets me relax in a stock market crash
Index investing rocks and Jim Cramer sucks

Since basically all I do these days investing-wise is rebalance our portfolio to keep it at roughly a 50-50 balance between stock index funds and bond index funds, I don't pay much attention to "gurus" who claim to be able to know where the markets are heading.

This includes the quarterly investment analysis that comes from our advisor (who I need to be able to invest in Dimensional Fund Advisors, DFA, funds -- since they aren't available to individual investors who don't have a financial advisor).

After all, index investors like me aren't really concerned all that much with which way the economic winds are blowing, since we're content with riding out both scary storms and pleasant breezes.

And at the opposite end of the investment philosophy spectrum, day traders, and commonly now, millisecond traders who rely on lightning-fast movements in a financial instrument to make their money, also aren't concerned with long-term trends, just whatever works to make some quick profits.

So the analysis prepared by my investment advisor is a throwback to simpler times, written on paper, mailed out quarterly, a reasoned discussion of what various facts, figures, trends, and such mean to investors with a lengthy time horizon. Again, here's a link to the PDF file. 

I'm sharing this analysis in part because it is believably gloomy, and when the markets take a big downturn, as they inevitably will, I can have the satisfaction of saying "I told you so!" Or more accurately, I told you what my investment advisor said was going to happen, a matter of when, not if. 

Here's some of what I found most interesting in "Do facts matter anymore?"

-- U.S. federal debt is included in GDP growth. Makes sense. I just had never heard of this before. The Trump tax cuts have us headed toward trillion dollar annual deficits in the near future. The way GDP is calculated, this will be counted as something positive, not negative, as it should be, especially since tax cuts in a strong economy are super-stupid.

-- This isn't new news, but I was surprised to read that adjusted for inflation, "breadwinner" incomes paying an average of $45,000 annually have risen just 0.8% since 2001. Also, that 26.9 million part-time workers have been classified as employed if they work one hour a week or more.

-- I'd also read this before, but it bears repeating: "Debt financed stock buybacks are the primary driver for these breathtaking stock prices and valuations, not company fundamentals or macroeconomic underpinnings." My advisor added, "No problem, optimistic future prospects and narratives, not current earnings and revenues, are all that matter at the moment."

-- As an investor, I found this both pleasing and disturbing: "Earnings aren't necessary for stock prices to rise any more since in the aggregate companies are spending all or more of their net income buying back shares of their own stock and paying dividends to shareholders, reducing share float and boosting earnings by dividing earnings across far fewer shares."

-- A story in today's Oregonian about a cooling in Portland's real estate market echoed my advisor's observation that mortgage applications and pending home sales are declining. Rising mortgage rates and prices make it difficult for new home owners to enter the market, with affordability a major problem,

For those who don't want to read the entirety of "Do facts matter anymore?," here's my investment advisor's not-so-cheery conclusion:

Narratives and prices can change quickly. Company fundamentals like valuations and macroeconomic variables like income growth, ignored for years, will eventually matter again. Don't expect Wall Street or the Fed or various experts to see any trouble coming.

In April 2008, former Fed Chairman Ben Bernacke confidently proclaimed there was no problem. In 2010 a House committee investigating the 2008 crisis learned that former Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan "the Oracle," admitted he had been blindsided by the housing crash and credit market collapse in 2008.

Facts do matter, no matter how Trump tries to ignore this clear, well, fact. Right now the markets are in a state of irrational exuberance, to not-coin a phrase. 

At some point rational despair will wash over the investment community, and we'll head into what hopefully will be a fairly short-lived recession marked by a steep stock market decline.

Since this is a virtual 100% certainty, the only bright side I can get from this is if it happens before the 2020 presidential election, so American voters will have an additional reason to dump Trump.

Between the black and white of suicide, there's a gray area

The recent suicides of Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade have gotten people talking about the problem of taking one's own life. That's good. 

But I don't feel like we're talking about an important issue that is almost a taboo topic: the gray area between (1) the black badness of people killing themselves when there are better options available to them, and (2) the white goodness of people taking control of their death when they are suffering and only have a few months or less to live.


What I see as a gray in-between area is when a person considers that life doesn't seem worth living, but they aren't terminally ill, and there really isn't much or anything that can be done about the bleak situation they're in.

Is it OK to kill yourself in such a situation? I lean toward saying "Yes," but I'm not completely sure. Which is why I call it a gray area. 

Now, I want to be clear that my use of the term gray area doesn't mean that someone is semi-suicidal, as in this person's description of how they feel most days. What I'm talking about is the middle ground of a societal agreement about when it is right or wrong to kill yourself.

As noted above, virtually everybody would agree that if a person is thinking of committing suicide when there are better options open to them (such as mental health treatment, or changing one's situation), every effort should be made to prevent them from taking their life.

And at the other end of the suicide spectrum, if medical professionals agree that someone is near death, and they're seriously suffering from their terminal condition, there's increasing agreement that assisted suicide, or medical aid in dying, is morally acceptable. 

(Seven states currently allow this, including Oregon, where I live.)

That's the black and white of suicide. The difficult gray area is when a person has very good reasons to feel that they don't want to keep on living, and there's little or no chance of changing those reasons, and they aren't terminally ill.

On a personal note, fairly recently I had direct experience of what it is like to be so depressed, the idea of not being alive held considerable appeal for me. Fortunately, I got help with my depression and am feeling much better now. I wrote a blog post during my dark period, "Too depressed to do anything else, I'll write about my depression."

I mention this because it was a wake-up call for me, given that I've been a person who had a distinct fear of death, which to my atheist mind means being gone forever -- a disturbing sensation I described in "Death and the primal fear of non-existence." 

So it was a decidedly unusual experience for me to be aware of my thoughts about death during my depressed period, which were along the lines of You know, being dead doesn't seem so scary anymore. In fact, it sounds pretty damn good.

Thus even though I wasn't really in the gray area that I'm talking about here, because my suicidal tendency was situational, curable with an anti-depressant, plus the support of loved ones and the passage of time, now I have a better understanding of how someone can feel like life isn't worth living, because the situation they're in is just so damn shitty.

And sometimes shitty situations can't be changed, as when someone has a chronic medical condition and it seriously affects their quality of life. 

Like I said, I'm undecided about this gray area of suicide.

My leaning is toward society being more accepting of people taking their own life after careful and full consideration of the pros and cons of committing suicide, when there is little or nothing that can be done to change the situation that is causing them to contemplate choosing death over life.

Autonomy is a wonderful thing. Conversely, feeling trapped is a bad thing. I readily admit that even in my current non-depressed frame of mind, I feel comfort in the fact that if the quality of my life ever degrades to a really low point, there's the option of ending my life.

Writing those words just struck me as strange. I almost feel ashamed, or embarrassed, to have said what I just did. But it's how I feel. And I know that I'm not alone in feeling this way. 

The strangeness of saying "there's the option of ending my life" seems to come from a taboo in our society against talking about the suicidal gray area I'm referring to. 

We're accustomed to urging people contemplating suicide for bad reasons to seek help. Increasingly, we're accustomed to praising people who are terminally ill and choose to hasten their death to avoid needless suffering. But there's an awkward silence about those who have good reason to feel that life isn't worth living, and those reasons are difficult or impossible to change.

I don't know how to deal with this gray area. I just wish that as a society, we could talk about it more openly and honestly. This blog post is my small step in that direction.  

Trump passed 3,000 lies this month. That's horrific.

Everybody lies. Sometimes. A little bit.

But Donald Trump lies to a degree that far surpasses any other president, and indeed most human beings in general, aside from pathological liars such as psychopaths. 

I have to give the Washington Post credit for having staff with the fortitude to chronicle Trump's lies since he took the oath of office. On May 1 the Post reported "President Trump has made 3,001 false or misleading claims so far."

In the 466 days since he took the oath of office, President Trump has made 3,001 false or misleading claims, according to The Fact Checker’s database that analyzes, categorizes and tracks every suspect statement uttered by the president.

That’s an average of nearly 6.5 claims a day.

When we first started this project for the president’s first 100 days, he averaged 4.9 claims a day. Slowly, the average number of claims has been creeping up.

Indeed, since we last updated this tally two months ago, the president has averaged about 9 claims a day.

So we can add about 300 additional lies to Trump's tally, given that the month of May is almost over. Now, the Post uses the term "false or misleading claim" rather than lie, since "lie" implies that someone knows the truth but speaks a falsehood anyway.

Me, I think lie is a perfectly fine word to describe what Trump is doing. Here's a couple of reasons why.

First, a Politico piece, "Trump's Lies vs. Your Brain," points out that Trump has been lying for a long time, not just after he became president. Lying is his habit. Trump does it knowingly and proudly.

The sheer frequency, spontaneity and seeming irrelevance of his lies have no precedent. Nixon, Reagan and Clinton were protecting their reputations; Trump seems to lie for the pure joy of it. A whopping 70 percent of Trump’s statements that PolitiFact checked during the campaign were false, while only 4 percent were completely true, and 11 percent mostly true. (Compare that to the politician Trump dubbed “crooked,” Hillary Clinton: Just 26 percent of her statements were deemed false.)

Those who have followed Trump’s career say his lying isn’t just a tactic, but an ingrained habit. New York tabloid writers who covered Trump as a mogul on the rise in the 1980s and ’90s found him categorically different from the other self-promoting celebrities in just how often, and pointlessly, he would lie to them. In his own autobiography, Trump used the phrase “truthful hyperbole,” a term coined by his ghostwriter referring to the flagrant truth-stretching that Trump employed, over and over, to help close sales. Trump apparently loved the wording, and went on to adopt it as his own.

Second, Trump often lies about the same thing repeatedly.

Thus even after the truth has been pointed out to him, Trump persists with his lying. This is despicable behavior for anyone. It is horrific when someone is President of the United States, since citizens have a right to expect that their president is being truthful with them.

The Washington Post has an interactive graphic that documents Trump's most frequently repeated lies. For example, he's repeated this false claim 72 times: “So we have the biggest tax cut in history, bigger than the Reagan tax cut. Bigger than any tax cut.”

The truth is:

Trump’s tax cut is nearly 0.9 percent of the gross domestic product, meaning it would be far smaller than President Ronald Reagan’s tax cut in 1981, which was 2.89 percent of GDP. Trump’s tax cut is the eighth largest tax cut — and even smaller than two tax cuts passed under Barack Obama.

What's almost as astounding as the frequency with which Trump lies is the unwillingness of Republicans to hold him accountable for those lies. Amazingly, GOP Congressman Jim Jordan has said that he's never heard Trump lie.

An adult human possessed of all his sensory capabilities said he has never heard the president lie. By The Washington Post's count, Trump hit 2,000 lies with 10 days to spare in his first year in office. As Cooper rightly asked, do none of these qualify as falsehoods for Jordan?

Did Jordan think the president was saying true things when he suggested Ted Cruz's father was involved in the JFK assassination? When he said Mexico was going to pay $12 billion for The Wall, which will now cost American taxpayers $25 billion? When he started saying in private that it wasn't him on the Access Hollywood tape?

Of course he didn't. But Jordan, like pretty much everyone else in his party, is terrified to cross the president in public.

History is going to judge all those conservative apologists for Trump harshly.

In fact, I'll go further and say that everybody who voted for Trump in the 2016 presidential election should be held accountable for their willingness to put politics over morality and love of country, since Trump's propensity for lying was on clear display all through his campaigning.

I find it decidedly depressing that 38% of voters in Salem, Oregon, where I live, cast their ballot for Trump. This means that an awful lot of people in my town are totally fine with having our country led by a pathological liar. And that is indeed... awful. 

Look -- I'm almost 70. I remember many presidents: Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2, Obama.

None of them lied anywhere near as much as Trump does. Further, Trump's lies are having the effect that he desires: destroying the fabric of our democracy so his totalitarian desires can come to fruition. The Politico piece says:

The dynamic we are seeing unfurled in the United States is not merely hypothetical. We already have a model of this process—a country regressing when its leader goes from progressive to deceptive: Russia under Vladimir Putin.

“This worldview”—a zero-sum, I win-you lose one—“is relatively more prevalent in Russia and other cultures with weak rule of law, high corruption and low generalized trust, as compared with Western democracies,” Cushman says. But when Western democracies start looking like those cultures, the norms can quickly shift.

The distressing reality is that our sense of truth is far more fragile than we would like to think it is—especially in the political arena, and especially when that sense of truth is twisted by a figure in power. As the 19th-century Scottish philosopher Alexander Bain put it, “The great master fallacy of the human mind is believing too much.”

False beliefs, once established, are incredibly tricky to correct. A leader who lies constantly creates a new landscape, and a citizenry whose sense of reality may end up swaying far more than they think possible. It’s little wonder that authoritarian regimes with sophisticated propaganda operations can warp the worldviews of entire populations.

“You are annihilated, exhausted, you can’t control yourself or remember what you said two minutes before. You feel that all is lost,” as one man who had been subject to Mao Zedong’s “reeducation” campaign in China put it to the psychiatrist Robert Lifton. “You accept anything he says.”

Police need to give up the "21-foot rule" and other dangerous myths

It was great to see a recent story in the Portland Oregonian, Officers get new de-escalation training, which de-bunked the myth that police officers need to keep someone with a knife at least 21 feet away from them, because supposedly "a person with a knife within that distance can stab you before you can shoot."

This never made sense to me, as I noted in a 2010 post, "Why I'm bothered by another Portland police killing." 

The transient, Jack "Jackie" Collins, was intoxicated and threatening people at Hoyt Aboretum. After Walters knocked on the restroom door, Collins came out. Pretty clearly, Collins had been cutting on himself. There was no report that he had hurt anybody.

So Walters is faced with a 58 year old drunk guy armed with an x-acto knife. I've got several in my tool box. They're handy for stripping wallpaper and handling other chores. Yes, they have a sharp blade. However, they aren't a "bad guy" weapon of choice.

Walters, after having two days to talk things over with his attorney, says that he was backing up, ran into some barrier, and had no choice but to shoot Collins four times. I find that difficult to believe.

If it's true, then Walters is to blame. Restrooms are for public use. Public walk up to them, and people walk away from them. If Walters made the mistake of backing into a barrier, Collins didn't deserve to die for that.

Walters had called for backup. There was ample opportunity to defuse the situation once the police officer realized that all he was dealing with was a drunk transient, possibly suicidal, who only had an x-acto knife.

...One of the guys in my martial arts class, who I've trained with for quite a while, also has been a bouncer in several bars. He says that he has had knives pulled on him several times. The guy never had to kill anybody. Nor has he ever been injured.

I understand fear. I don't blame Walters for fearing for his life. But here's the thing: if you sign up to be a police officer, you should be prepared to "protect and serve." That means putting your life on the line in order to protect and serve the public.

Given that last paragraph, I really liked how Tom Wilson, a retired patrol bureau chief from a Maryland police agency who has been training Portland police on how to handle emotionally disturbed people, modified a familiar adage:

The forum instructors urged Portland police not to repeat the message they've likely heard as young officers.

"You probably were told 'your No. 1 job is to make sure you go home at night,' '' Wilson said. "Isn't it our No. 1 job to make sure everybody goes home?''

For sure.

Too many police officers in the United States are overly ready to use deadly force when this really isn't necessary. As Wilson said, they should have the attitude that it is as important to protect the lives of the people they're dealing with, as their own lives. 

Naturally this is a general rule. If someone is seriously threatening the life of an officer, obviously the officer has a duty to protect themselves. 

An emotionally disturbed person with a knife doesn't meet this criterion. Which gets us back to the myth of the 21-foot rule. The Oregonian story says:

The forum's training departs from traditional training, where officers have been taught to respond to a threat immediately, take charge with commands, hold their ground, and ratchet up the type of force depending on a suspect's behavior. It also debunks the 21-foot rule, used in Portland police training, which says that a person with a knife within that distance can stab you before you can shoot.

''Just simply holding a knife isn't necessarily an imminent threat,'' said Camden County police Lt. Kevin Lutz, who also taught Portland police this week. "We're not throwing out the concept but believe it should be a guide, not a rule. We don't want officers to think of that distance like a kill zone.''

Lutz was among officers from around the country who helped the research forum develop the training, called ICAT for Integrating Communications, Assessment and Tactics. It sprang from a review of basic police training in Scotland, where officers don't carry guns.

"Why is it when you have someone who is a mentally ill person with a knife in Glasgow, you're able to handle it without someone being shot and we can't?'' Wexler asked, when visiting the country. Wexler brought officers from around the United States to observe the Scotland training. They studied Scotland's approach and modeled the forum's curriculum after it.

Among the training videos is footage from a police body camera that captured an unusual response by Camden County [New Jersey] police to a call involving a man with a knife in a restaurant in November 2015.

When police arrived, the man had walked out of the restaurant and ignored calls to drop the knife. Instead of surrounding him, a handful of officers formed a walking perimeter and followed him as he strode down several city blocks, waving the knife. Some officers stayed ahead, clearing out pedestrians in his path, others to his side and behind.  Taser shots were unsuccessful. Few officers had guns visible. Eventually, the man dropped the knife and was arrested.

March For Our Lives, Salem -- photos, video, commentary

Here's photos, a video of a moving song, and some commentary on today's uplifting March For Our Lives rally at the Capitol. The organizers estimate a crowd of 3,500, which seems believable to me. I enjoyed taking photos of people with creative signs that had great messages. We've got to act to prevent more mass shootings. Repeat: GOT TO. 

Click on the image below to see the Adobe Spark page I made.

"How Democracies Die" advises against hardball tactics with Trump

Well, it wasn't the most fun reading I've ever done, not by a long shot, but today I finished "How Democracies Die" by two professors of government at Harvard, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt.

A basic message of the book is summarized in the final chapter:

When American democracy has worked, it has relied upon two norms that we often take for granted -- mutual tolerance and institutional forebearance. Treating rivals as legitimate contenders for power and underutilizing one's institutional prerogatives in the spirit of fair play are not written into the American Constitution. Yet without them, our constitutional checks and balances will not operate as we expect them to. 

Trump, of course, is pushing hard against what Levitsky and Ziblatt call the "guardrails" of democracy.

He's notoriously prone to denigrating his political opponents, going so far as to threaten Hillary Clinton with jail time, which Trump's supporters applauded with cries of Lock her up!

And Trump not only ignores the forebearance of former presidents who acted in accord with historical precedent, he takes childish pride in behaving as unpresidential as possible, wrongly viewing this as some sort of authenticity rather than as what it is -- boorish behavior. 

After reading the scarily cogent descriptions of how Trump is acting like other authoritarian national leaders, I was fully prepared for the Saving Democracy chapter to be full of hard-hitting advice about how to resist the dangers of Trumpism.

I wasn't disappointed. However, I was surprised. 

Probably I shouldn't have been, since what Levitsky and Ziblatt call for in that chapter is fully commensurate with the tone of their entire book. I guess it was my own desire to give Trump and his GOP enablers a taste of their own medicine that caused me to anticipate a harder-edged tone regarding how our democracy is to be saved.

In short, to do what Trump should be doing, but isn't: engage in mutual tolerance and institutional forbearance. Here's some passages from the Saving Democracy chapter on this subject.

In our view, the idea that Democrats should "fight like Republicans" is misguided. First of all, evidence from other countries suggests that such a strategy often plays directly into the hands of authoritarians. Scorched-earth tactics often erode support for the opposition by scaring off moderates. 

And they unify pro-government forces, as even dissidents within the incumbent party close ranks in the face of an uncompromising opposition. And when the opposition fights dirty, it provides the government with justification for cracking down.

...Even if Democrats were to succeed in weakening or removing President Trump via hardball tactics, their victory would be Pyrrhic -- for they would inherit a democracy stripped of its remaining protective guardrails. 

If the Trump administration were brought to its knees by obstructionism, or if President Trump were impeached without a strong bipartisan consensus, the effect would be to reinforce -- and perhaps hasten -- the dynamics of partisan antipathy and norm erosion that helped bring Trump to power to begin with.

As much as a third of the country would likely view Trump's impeachment as the machinations of a vast left-wing conspiracy -- maybe even as a coup. American politics would be left dangerously unmoored.

And here's a passage that resonates particularly true given yesterday's marvelous win of Democrat Conor Lamb over his Republican opponent in a Pennsylvania special election for a House seat. Lamb took some positions at odds with liberal orthodoxy, but that's what was needed to win in a district that had voted Republican for many years.

Building coalitions that extend beyond our natural allies is difficult. It requires a willingness to set aside, for the moment, issues we care deeply about. 

If progressives make positions on issues such as abortion rights or single-payer health care a "litmus test" for coalition membership, the chances for building a coalition that includes evangelicals and Republican business executives will be nil. 

We must lengthen our time horizons, swallow hard, and make tough concessions. This does not mean abandoning the causes that matter to us. It means temporarily overlooking disagreements in order to find common moral ground. 

Why calling shooters "mentally ill" won't reduce school massacres

Following the most recent school shooting in Florida that resulted in 17 deaths, Trump and the NRA are resorting to their usual blather about mental illness being the problem, not guns. 

This is crazy. 

The United States doesn't have more mentally ill people than other countries with vastly fewer school shootings. What distinguishes our country is the number of guns we have. With around 4% of the world's population, we have about 48% of the world's guns.

Also, most school shooters aren't really mentally ill. My wife is a retired psychotherapist. She understands mental illness. And she understands that most school shooters are angry, bitter, enraged, depressed -- but not clinically mentally ill. 

UPDATE: A New York Times story, "Opening Mental Hospitals Unlikely to Prevent Mass Shootings, Experts Say," makes the same points as I do. Just better, since they cite psychiatrists who have studied mass shooters and discuss the shooters themselves, who are typically angry and depressed, as are countless other teenagers, but not mentally ill.

There's loose talk from Trump of reopening mental hospitals and forcing disturbed teenagers to be admitted. This makes no sense. It isn't easy to commit someone to a mental institution, nor should it be. 

"Disturbed" isn't at all the same as "mentally ill."

By definition, anyone who goes into a school and kills people is disturbed, because this behavior isn't normal. However, taking that sort of action requires planning and forethought. A would-be school shooter who is psychotic or otherwise out of contact with reality likely won't be able to carry out his plan.

Sure, disturbed youth who appear to pose a threat to themselves or others need to get help. But a policy of committing them to a mental institution or taking their guns away probably is going to backfire.

Potential school shooters aren't insane. They know what they want to do and how to do it.

It stands to reason that they will be well aware of a policy in their community that anyone who makes threats about killing others will face serious consequences: forced mental health treatment, having guns confiscated. 

Trump and the NRA seem to believe that would-be school shooters won't change their behavior in the face of those sorts of policies. This is the same sort of simplistic thinking that led to everyone being forced to take off their shoes before boarding a plane because once a terrorist tried to detonate a shoe bomb.

Um, terrorists can read. They can think. They know that measures are being taken to detect shoe bombs, so almost certainly they now will try other ways of bringing down an airplane.

Same applies to people pondering a school shooting. If they know that acting angry and making threats will bring them to the attention of authorities, many, if not most, will alter their behavior. They won't want to have their guns confiscated, so they will act as normal as possible.

Focusing on mental illness after a school shooting is just a ruse by the NRA and their supporters to deflect attention from the real cause of school gun deaths. Which is, of course, guns. 

Automobile accidents are called that because, duh, it takes an automobile to have an automobile accident. Likewise, it takes a gun to have a gun death. How many people have been killed in school by a knife or explosive? To my knowledge, zero. 

Easy access to guns is the reason our country has so many school shootings. Universal background checks, banning assault rifles and high-capacity magazines -- these are what will save lives, not a misguided focus on mental illness.  

Seventeen young lives cut short. We need a real culture of life.

Four days ago seventeen people were shot to death at a Florida high school, fourteen students and three staff.

It infuriates me that there's any debate about what needs to be done: ban the AR-15 and other assault rifles along with high capacity magazines, and strengthen background checks for all gun purchasers. 

More could be done, of course. But this is a good place to start. The surviving students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School understand this. They're pressing hard for gun control legislation. 

Shut up and listen!

That’s the message seething students have for President Trump and other gun-friendly lawmakers, demanding they stop making excuses and immediately pass reforms in the aftermath of the Florida bloodshed — or face being voted out of office.

What's deeply irritating is that many conservatives who oppose gun control legislation that would save many lives claim to be in favor of a "culture of life" because they oppose abortion.

This is total B.S.

Anyone who doesn't do everything in their power to stop the snuffing out of young lives has zero credibility on the culture of life front. 

And we know what needs to be done, because other countries that have done that thing have a much lower rate of school shootings. 

Between 2000 and 2010 there were 57 incidents of school violence in 36 countries. The United States, with about 300 million people, accounted for about half of those incidents, 28.

The other half of the incidents were in 35 countries that have 3.8 billion people, and thirteen of those countries have never had a school massacre. What makes the United States so special, in a very bad way?

Guns.

We have way more guns than those other countries. They have mentally disturbed people, just as we do. But guns are the problem, not people. Other countries have much stronger gun ownership laws, so they have many fewer gun deaths.

Violence in U.S. schools is much more likely be carried out using a gun, too. As Quartz explained about the study:

In the vast majority of U.S. killings, perpetrators used guns. By comparison, China — with the second-greatest number of incidents — saw 10 mass killings, but none involving firearms. Germany saw three mass shootings; Finland saw two. Thirteen other countries each saw one incident with at least one person being wounded or killed; in the rest nobody was reported as hurt.

There's evidence, too, that school violence is declining in other places. As my colleague explained this morning, “in Europe, there hasn't been a major high-casualty gun attack on a campus in almost a decade.”

That's because Americans have a disproportionate number of guns (at least 300 million, about one per person), especially handguns and semiautomatic weapons. (A bullet from an AR-15 rifle, which the alleged shooter used in the Florida attack Wednesday, can penetrate a steel helmet from five hundred yards.)

Experts say it is time to bring back the assault weapons ban. Gun massacres (6+ deaths) were much reduced in 1994-2004 when assault rifles were banned, compared to the decades before and after. 

The average life expectancy at birth for both sexes is 79 years. Premature deaths at any age are bad. When teenagers die in a school shooting, it is horrific. Those fourteen students who were shot to death by an AR-15 rifle started Valentine's Day feeling that a long life lay before them.

By the end of the school day they had no life left. They were dead, victims of a rabid gun culture in this country that doesn't give a crap about how many people die from guns, so long as gun nuts can have unfettered access to their beloved weapons of mass destruction.

I'm fed up with useless thoughts and prayers after every mass shooting. I'm proud of the students who are vowing to vote out any politician who doesn't support strong gun control legislation. 

No more excuses. If a politician isn't willing to get on board the gun control train, hopefully they will be kicked off at the next election. Most Americans in both parties support gun restrictions. It's time for this silent majority to speak super loudly. 

Early spring on our property shows need for Oregon cap-and-trade bill

Global warming is real. We humans are causing it. Urgent steps need to be taken to reduce carbon emissions.

These three facts are borne out by some photos I took a few days ago of how vegetation is leafing out much earlier than usual on our ten acres in rural south Salem, Oregon.

We've lived here for 28 years. This is really unusual plant behavior for February 4. The green shoots screamed to me, Global warming is making us do this!

Now, I'm old enough (69) and have lived in Oregon long enough (47 years) to run the risk of sounding like the proverbial geezer talking about the Blizzard of Ought-Eight, when the snow reached as high as grandma's chin.

But I sure do remember when December, January, and February here in the Willamette Valley typically were filled with weeks of solid rain, ice storms, freezing temperatures, and other weather nastiness. 

Such is much less common now. Temperatures are warmer. More precipitation is falling as rain in the mountains rather than snow. We've only had a few days of freezing temperatures. Our daffodils are getting ready to bloom.

Yes, I understand the difference between weather and climate. But I've got almost a half century of experience with western Oregon weather, and there's been changes over those years that certainly are due to global warming.

Which, of course, is caused by carbon pollution. 

Environmentalists, business people, and many others concerned about reducing Oregon's carbon footprint have been working on a cap-and-trade bill that is desperately needed. 

An Oregonian story briefly summarizes what the bill would do:

In addition to creating a limit on greenhouse gas emissions, the plan would require many of Oregon's largest polluters to pay for their emissions by purchasing allowances at an auction. The state would spend the proceeds from the auctions to reduce the financial impact to households, support projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help areas disproportionately impacted by climate change.

What's aggravating, though, is that the same story says that Democrats in the state Senate claim there isn't time in the shorter 2018 legislative session to pass the cap-and-trade bill -- even though Dems control both houses of the legislature and the governor is a Democrat.

So how long is it going to take? And another question: how much time does the world have to reduce carbon emissions? My answers: too long, and no time to waste.

Disturbingly, Governor Kate Brown didn't mention cap-and-trade in her recent State of the State address. Yet pleasingly, Nike has joined the Oregon Business Alliance for Climate, a group supporting the cap-and-trade bill.

Every day I get an email from Brown's re-election campaign asking for a donation.

Earth to Brown, via me: When you start pushing legislators to pass the cap-and-trade bill this year. and promise to sign the bill if it reaches your desk, that's when I'll start to consider contributing additional money to your campaign. 

Bridging our Divide meeting was a mind-opening experience

I'm a left-leaning atheist. Last night I had pleasant interactions with a Christian conservative.

That was the goal of the Bridging Our Divide meeting at the IKE Box: to get people to listen to those with differing political views with empathy, respect, open-mindedness.

Here's part of how the Bridging Our Divide web site describes their mission (they're based in Portland, but hold meetings around the country):

Bridging Our Divide is working to promote constructive dialogue across political and ideological divides by creating forums for conversation.  

Our work is focused on hosting Community Dialogue Events and Common Ground Debates in various cities around the United States. 

As a nation, we're being split apart by an inability to communicate and see common ground. There's a growing sense of division and contempt fueled by partisanship, social media, and geographic separation.

We need to work together to improve communication between people with different ideologies and different visions of America, because our core values and needs overlap more than they differ. 

Many on the left and right are failing to see the underlying values and humanity of those on the other side of the political divide. We're seeing a rise in extremist rhetoric on the right, and on the left, many have taken to labeling, shaming, and shutting down those with a different perspective. This drives away potential allies, pushes others further in the opposite direction, and creates a climate of contempt for everyone involved. 

I saw two city councilors at the meeting, Chris Hoy and Jim Lewis. They occupy different ends of the political spectrum, which naturally was what the Bridging Our Divide organizers wanted -- diversity. Here's a slide that shows the self-described make-up of the people who registered for the meeting.

I put myself in the "liberal or left-leaning" category. Like I said, one of the women at our table said she was very conservative. The other three were a very liberal man, a left-leaning woman, and a man who didn't really share much about his political views. Here's a photo of my four discussion partners.

Prior to the small group part of the meeting, Shiloh Halsey, the Bridging Our Divide founder, explained what his group was all about and described how the evening would go.

Then five people who had volunteered to be part of a kick-off panel went up to the stage and answered questions designed to elicit how they view their political persuasion and the general state of political discourse in our country at the moment.

This took almost an hour.

There were two liberals, two conservatives, and an independent (a political science professor from Corban University who was one of the local organizers). In line with the warm and fuzzy tone of the meeting, the panelists did a pretty good job of not being too in-your-face about those with a differing political viewpoint.

Nonetheless, I probably wasn't the only person in the room who felt, at times, like what was being said was off-base. One reason I felt this way was that all five of the people on stage, if I recall correctly, said they were Christian. And one man in particular wasn't shy about bringing Jesus up when he defended his conservative worldview.

At first I thought this was strange, that all five were Christian, but since most people in this country are, I guess it wasn't really so surprising. It was mainly that, as an atheist, I don't feel the need to talk about my non-belief in God when discussing politics, so when the Christian panelists brought up their religious beliefs, that struck me as unusual. 

My liberal mind also took issue with a prevailing perspective among the five panelists: that it is difficult to find unbiased news sources. Actually, it isn't. Just stay away from Fox News, and read the New York Times and Washington Post. That's what I do, daily. 

After a short break the small group discussion part of the meeting began. To me, this was the best aspect of the evening. I wish the panelist part had been a bit shorter, so the small group discussion part could have been a bit longer. We got some tips ahead of time from Halsey (click to enlarge):

Good advice.

The small group part of the evening consisted of one of the people at a table choosing a question from a list provided by the organizers and asking it of another person.

This was an enjoyable experience.  Mostly I talk with people who see the world pretty much as I do, from a non-religious liberal perspective. So it was refreshing for me to be able to ask the conservative Christian woman, "Do you believe in life after death?" Not surprisingly, she did. 

I responded with "Well, I hope you're right." Which was absolutely true, even though I don't believe in an afterlife. Hey, common ground! The woman is certain she'll live on after she dies, and I wish this was true. 

There's a power to simple non-judgmental listening. (Well, mostly non-judgmental; like I said, I couldn't help but mentally disagree with what some of the panelists were saying, because it struck me as factually wrong.)

I came away from last night's meeting feeling like I understood conservatives better. A theme of the meeting was that social media, like Facebook, exaggerate political differences, because we only get sound bites, by and large, and aren't able to directly experience the presence of the person expressing an opinion.

When I hear a conservative viewpoint coming from a person I'm sitting next to, I realize that they're a complex human being with whom I have much in common, aside from our political differences. Social media detract, and distract, from this realization.

The Bridging Our Divide meeting wasn't life-changing for me, but it definitely was life-affirming.

I came away determined to do two things simultaneously: (1) keep on expressing my own political views as strongly as ever, while (2) trying to do a better job of looking upon those with a differing view as people who are just like me, in that they feel they have good reasons for believing as they do, and also want to make the world a better place.

Moderation in the pursuit of justice is a virtue. Usually.

Today I came across a letter written by Martin Luther King while he was in jail. It criticizes "white moderates."

That got me to thinking about Barry Goldwater's saying about moderation. Interestingly, King and Goldwater seem to have something in common, though their political views were very different.

King: 
First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

Goldwater: 
Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue.

Now, despite King's words in his letter, he actually did practice moderation in his fight for civil rights. Non-violence was his credo. He spoke strongly, but as far as I know didn't insult or disparage his opponents (by and large; the letter from jail is quite biting). 

Most of us, certainly me included, would rather have our political leaders tilt toward moderation and away from extremism. The problem is, and this also is me included, extremism can just feel so good. 

When we believe that we're totally right and the other side is totally wrong; when we can't find anything amiss with our position, and nothing correct with what those idiots on the other side want; when our hearts thrill to voices from our political tribe, and we feel disgust at the braying of those on the other side -- there's a fulfilling primal sense of going into battle with flags flying in the name of righteous truth, justice, and our sense of the American way.

Yet this belief, this feeling, this sense, it's dangerous.

What the world needs now, especially our country, is an understanding that people should develop the capacity for responding to perceived injustice, inequity, and unfairness with varying degrees of intensity, depending on the situation. When everything is a Code Red call to arms, and sometimes my Facebook feed seems this way, we're less able to distinguish between a need for moderation and compromise, and a need to lay everything on the table, going all-in, hooray for our side!

During a recent meeting of a monthly Salon discussion group that my wife and I belong to, I made some observations about moderation. Naturally they made sense to me, since I'm me. In part, they went something like this:

When was the last time any of us liberals found some good in what Trump or the Republicans in Congress are doing? Isn't it bothersome that we've gotten so tribalistic, so dismissive of those who hold a markedly different political view, that we're unable to visualize the benefit of finding a moderate common ground somewhere in the middle of extreme views?

For example, probably reducing corporate taxes was a good thing. Sure, the way Congress did it, this will result in more income inequality, but taken by itself, that portion of tax reform seemed to make sense. Yet I find it difficult to admit that the GOP can do anything right or good. 

It seems to me that our default attitude should be moderation, taking the best from both sides of an issue, finding middle ground. Hey, this worked for the Buddha, so why not us?

I'm not saying that I'm naturally inclined to do this when it comes to politics. But at least I have some inclination in that direction, even though right now I'm pretty piss-poor at backing up that inclination with action.

If there's an extreme injustice, as was the case with segregation, then extreme measures usually need to be taken against it. However, most of our political disputes, especially at the state and local level, don't fall into that category. Yet often those on either side of an issue act as if they were.

Over on my Church of the Churchless blog I shared eight tweets by Sam Harris about morality. They point to the fact, that, well, facts are a big part, maybe the essential part, of what moderation is all about. This was his final tweet:

8/ So what is morality? What *ought* sentient beings like ourselves do? Understand how the world works (facts), so that we can avoid what sucks (values).

Segregation super-sucked for so many people it was super-obvious that it needed to end. Moderation wasn't a virtue in this instance, since no facts were needed to know that segregation was bad, other than the brute fact of its existence.

Most political issues, though, aren't so clear-cut.

Policies in the areas of  taxes, environment, health care, education, housing, defense, land use, and such typically come in shades of gray, rather than black and white. Debates require a moderator. Facts really are the impersonal "moderator" in most political debates.

Because Republicans are in control of Congress and the Presidency, and today's GOP is notoriously adverse to facts, most of the blame for a lack of moderation at the national level falls in their laps.  On the local and state level, though, there's more opportunity for facts, and reasoned discussion/debate about the meaning of those facts, to moderate extreme positions on both ends of the political spectrum.

Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."

Well, the only reason for this is that liberals are more respectful of facts. Which goes a long way toward explaining why they're typically more inclined to compromise, to moderate their positions, than Republicans are.

Unless the facts strongly support a liberal position, in which case they're doing the right thing by being immoderate. 

2017 Salem Women's March in words, photos, videos

Wow, in the course of writing about the 2018 Salem Women's March, which looks like it will be a Womxn's March for reasons I'm unable to fully fathom, I just realized that I never put up a blog post about the 2017 Women's March.

I must have been so eager to share the Adobe Spark page I made of that event -- words, photos, videos -- on Facebook, that I forgot to do the same in a blog post. 

So... enjoy.

It's fitting that I'm doing this on Christmas day, since the 2017 Women's March was a huge gift to Salem. There was amazing energy, enthusiasm, joy, and community spirit on that cold, wet, windy January 21 day. Hopefully organizers of the 2018 march will be able to recapture that.

"Intersectionality" can be dangerous left-wing tribalism

I'm a liberal. Which is why I support liberalism. Meaning, in this context, open-minded discourse about the nature of reality where all views are welcomed, so long as they're backed up by reason and facts. 

The interesting thing is that liberals can act in illiberal ways. Of course, so can conservatives.

But it's more shocking and surprising when liberals try to shut down discussion of certain topics because they've bought into a dangerous tribalism that views one side, their side, as possessing all goodness and truth, and the other side as being all bad and wrong.

Recently I had a taste of this when I -- a old white heterosexual man -- dared to critique the decision of some women who decided to call an event next month the 2018 Womxn's March, rather than a Women's March, as the highly successful 2017 event that my wife helped organize was called.

Now, what surprised me about the response on Facebook wasn't that people were disagreeing with me. I'm used to that as someone who regularly writes about local political goings-on. 

The surprising thing was that I was being told that as a "cis-gendered white male" I didn't even have the right to weigh in on whether calling this event a Womxn's March was a good idea. I found that idea so absurd, I pushed back on the attempt to suppress my free speech.

Today I came across a summary of a recent talk by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt that does a good job of explaining the dynamics of what was going on. Even though obviously my blog post and the reaction to it didn't take place in a university setting, the same left-wing tribalism seemed to be at play here.

In "The Age of Outrage," Haidt starts off by noting that our strong tendency toward tribalism is rooted in evolutionary history. 

I’d like you to consider an idea that I’ll call “the fine-tuned liberal democracy.” It begins by looking backward a few million generations and tracing our ancestry, from tree-dwelling apes to land-dwelling apes, to upright-walking apes, whose hands were freed up for tool use, to larger-brained hominids who made weapons as well as tools, and then finally to homo sapiens, who painted cave walls and painted their faces and danced around campfires and worshipped gods and murdered each other in large numbers.

When we look back at the ways our ancestors lived, there’s no getting around it: we are tribal primates. We are exquisitely designed and adapted by evolution for life in small societies with intense, animistic religion and violent intergroup conflict over territory. We love tribal living so much that we invented sports, fraternities, street gangs, fan clubs, and tattoos. Tribalism is in our hearts and minds.

We’ll never stamp it out entirely, but we can minimize its effects because we are a behaviorally flexible species. We can live in many different ways, from egalitarian hunter-gatherer groups of 50 individuals to feudal hierarchies binding together millions. And in the last two centuries, a lot of us have lived in large, multi-ethnic secular liberal democracies. So clearly that is possible. But how much margin of error do we have in such societies?

Well, not as much there used to be. Haidt notes several reasons for this. Our society needs a balance between centrifugal forces that push people apart and centripetal forces that bring people together. 

Currently the centrifugal forces have gained strength, owing to, according to Haidt: (1) no unifying common enemy, as there was in the two world wars: (2) social media being a tool to express outrage; (3) diversity reducing bonds of trust between individuals; (4) the more radical Republican party, and (5) the new identity politics of the Left.

Which gets me to Haidt's discussion of intersectionality, a word that had been thrown at me once or twice in the debate over Womxn and Women. Here's how Haidt views the term.

Let us contrast [Martin Luther] King’s identity politics with the version taught in universities today. There is a new variant that has swept through the academy in the last five years. It is called intersectionality. The term and concept were presented in a 1989 essay by Kimberlé Crenshaw, a law professor at UCLA, who made the very reasonable point that a black woman’s experience in America is not captured by the summation of the black experience and the female experience.

She analyzed a legal case in which black women were victims of discrimination at General Motors, even when the company could show that it hired plenty of blacks (in factory jobs dominated by men), and it hired plenty of women (in clerical jobs dominated by whites). So even though GM was found not guilty of discriminating against blacks or women, it ended up hiring hardly any black women. This is an excellent argument. What academic could oppose the claim that when analyzing a complex system, we must look at interaction effects, not just main effects?

But what happens when young people study intersectionality? In some majors, it’s woven into many courses. Students memorize diagrams showing matrices of privilege and oppression. It’s not just white privilege causing black oppression, and male privilege causing female oppression; its heterosexual vs. LGBTQ, able-bodied vs. disabled; young vs. old, attractive vs. unattractive, even fertile vs. infertile.

Anything that a group has that is good or valued is seen as a kind of privilege, which causes a kind of oppression in those who don’t have it. A funny thing happens when you take young human beings, whose minds evolved for tribal warfare and us/them thinking, and you fill those minds full of binary dimensions. You tell them that one side of each binary is good and the other is bad. You turn on their ancient tribal circuits, preparing them for battle. Many students find it thrilling; it floods them with a sense of meaning and purpose.

And here’s the strategically brilliant move made by intersectionality: all of the binary dimensions of oppression are said to be interlocking and overlapping. America is said to be one giant matrix of oppression, and its victims cannot fight their battles separately.

They must all come together to fight their common enemy, the group that sits at the top of the pyramid of oppression: the straight, white, cis-gendered, able-bodied Christian or Jewish or possibly atheist male. This is why a perceived slight against one victim group calls forth protest from all victim groups. This is why so many campus groups now align against Israel. Intersectionality is like NATO for social-justice activists.

This means that on any campus where intersectionality thrives, conflict will be eternal, because no campus can eliminate all offense, all microaggressions, and all misunderstandings. This is why the use of shout-downs, intimidation, and even violence in response to words and ideas is most common at our most progressive universities, in the most progressive regions of the country.

Well, I'm a straight, white, cis-gendered, mostly able-bodied atheist male. So I guess that puts me in the crosshairs of those who practice the extreme form of identity politics that is also found on liberal college campuses.

As Haidt argues, intersectionality is a bad idea on those campuses, and it also is a bad idea elsewhere. What's most ridiculous is that I'm on the side of the Womxn's March organizers. I simply disagree with them on some points and have been trying to explain why I feel that way in an open, reasonable fashion. 

Most recently in "My open plea to 2018 Salem Womxn's March organizers" and "Everybody should be able to talk about anything (just about)."

I heartily agree with Haidt's view of the danger that intersectionality poses. It needs to be resisted. Haidt says:

Let me remind you of the educational vision of the Founders, by way of E.D. Hirsch: “The American experiment . . . is a thoroughly artificial device designed to counterbalance the natural impulses of group suspicions and hatreds . . . This vast, artificial, trans-tribal construct is what our Founders aimed to achieve.”

Intersectionality aims for the exact opposite: an inflaming of tribal suspicions and hatreds, in order to stimulate anger and activism in students, in order to recruit them as fighters for the political mission of the professor.

The identity politics taught on campus today is entirely different from that of Martin Luther King. It rejects America and American values. It does not speak of forgiveness or reconciliation. It is a massive centrifugal force, which is now seeping down into high schools, especially progressive private schools.

Today’s identity politics has another interesting feature: it teaches students to think in a way antithetical to what a liberal arts education should do. When I was at Yale in the 1980s, I was given so many tools for understanding the world. By the time I graduated, I could think about things as a Utilitarian or a Kantian, as a Freudian or a behaviorist, as a computer scientist or a humanist. I was given many lenses to apply to any one situation.

But nowadays, students who major in departments that prioritize social justice over the disinterested pursuit of truth are given just one lens—power—and told to apply it to all situations.

Everything is about power. Every situation is to be analyzed in terms of the bad people acting to preserve their power and privilege over the good people. This is not an education. This is induction into a cult, a fundamentalist religion, a paranoid worldview that separates people from each other and sends them down the road to alienation, anxiety, and intellectual impotence.

Everybody should be able to talk about anything (just about)

We live in strange times. They got a bit stranger for me yesterday, after I wrote a post on my Salem Political Snark blog, "Salem should have another Women's March, not a Womxn's March."

Among other things, I talked about how using Womxn rather than Women didn't seem to be a wise idea, especially since the 2017 Salem Women's March was a huge success, and people thinking of attending the 2018 event would be confused by a word that is both unpronounceable and unfamiliar. I said:

My biggest concern, though, is how featuring "Womxn" in the name of the event is going to affect how Salemians view the march. Obviously the focus of the 2018 march should be on the horrors being wrought by the Trump administration, women's rights, and the "Me Too" wave of sexual harassment awareness.

Anything that detracts from this focus is a distraction. And often progressive groups get involved in unproductive disputes over who is more politically correct to the Nth degree which dissipate energy that should be directed at the real enemy: Donald Trump and his Republican cronies.

It appears that the organizers of the 2018 Salem Womxn's March have settled on that name. Well, I'm hoping that they will change their minds. 

"Womxn," in case you're wondering, is another step away from having "men" right there in "women," replacing the previous "womyn" which reportedly is a white, liberal-feminist concept while "womxn" includes transgender people who identify as female, along with other marginalized womxn.

OK. Words come and go. I'm fine with that.

In my blog post I echoed what some women were saying on the Facebook page belonging to Salem Resists. Those women felt that it made more sense to use "Women" in the name of the event, especially since numerous major cities in this country are having Women's Marches on Saturday, January 20, while Salem would be having a Womxn's March on Sunday, January 21.

(Note: I've corrected the paragraph above to take out a mention that the Womxn's March is being sponsored by Salem Resists. I've been informed that Salem Resists just shared a notice of the event, but isn't sponsoring it.)

Well, my post was met with a bunch of comments from women (oops, womxn) who said that I shouldn't be talking about the upcoming event, even though my wife was a lead organizer of the 2017 Salem Women's March and I created a web page that chronicled it. 

Here's an example:

Well, I don't agree that my opinion doesn't matter. Everybody's opinion matters on everything, is my writer's attitude.

Once society starts saying that only certain people can express their opinion about something, we're headed down a dangerous road that leads to censorship, limits on free speech, and obnoxiously extreme political correctness. 

Philosophically, I heartily disagree with the assumption that only those who have had a certain experience -- such as being female or a racial minority -- can weigh in on certain subjects. My disagreement stems from the fact that everybody has a unique life experience. 

Sure, women have their own special perspective. Yet so does everyone else. Like, to choose someone I'm pretty damn familiar with, me. 

As I noted in my blog post about Women vs. Womxn, I was deeply involved with the 2017 Salem Women's March, surely more so than most or all of the women who are involved in planning for the 2018 event. As noted above, my wife was a lead organizer of the 2017 march and she kept me informed of all the goings-on. 

Standing on stage during the speaking part of the event, holding onto a "tent" pole to keep the shelter from blowing over on a cold wet windy January day, I had a wonderful view of the thousands of people in attendance, who were marvelously cheerful and energetic given the blustery weather.

It was an experience I'll never forget. So I feel completely entitled to express my views about plans for the 2018 Womxn March, since I'm well aware of what worked and didn't work in 2017 (such as, the sound system needed improving, given the unexpectedly large size of the crowd).

But even if I wasn't as well informed as I am, I still believe that I'd have a perfect right to express my opinion about not only the Womxn March, but anything else that my little mind sprouts up in the fertile field of my consciousness. Free speech has few limits. I can be wrong; I can be stupid; I can be boring.

And I still can speak.

The notion expressed by the women who felt that I should be silenced because I'm a man offends me. If that sounds politically incorrect, too bad. When we start putting limits on who can express an opinion because of their sex, race, age, ethnicity, or any other characteristic, we've crossed into dangerous First Amendment territory. 

Which I'm pleased to share.

Gun nuts are like children playing with light-sabers (but more dangerous)

I'm hugely enjoying Kurt Andersen's book about how our country became the world's #1 purveyor of kookiness. "Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire" is filled with right-on observations.

Andersen chronicles our nation's love affair with fantasy from 1517 up to the near-present -- which is where I am now in the book. 

Today I read the Gun Crazy chapter. The following excerpt is one of the best descriptions of gun nuttery I've ever come across. Andersen is a hunter and gun owner, so this makes his characterization of gun wackos even more believable.

Andersen writes:

One set of fantasies has had more current, awful, undeniable real-world consequences than any other: the one that recast owning guns as among the more important rights, as American liberty and individualism incarnate. During my lifetime, the love of guns has become a fetish. It is picking our pockets and definitely breaking our legs.

...Today only about a quarter of Americans own guns -- but the average owner has three or four. Fewer than eight million people, only 3 percent of all American adults, own roughly half the guns. Members of that tiny minority of superenthusiasts own an average of seventeen guns apiece.

Let me put a finer point on what I'm saying.

Very, very few of the guns in America are used for hunting. Americans who own guns today keep arsenals in a way people did not forty years ago. It seems plain to me that that's because they -- not all, but many -- have given themselves over to fantasies. 

The way I did as a child and still do on the rare occasions I shoot, they imagine they're militiamen, Wild West cowboys, soldiers, characters they've watched all their lives in movies and on TV, heroes and antiheroes played by Clint Eastwood and Mel Gibson and the Rock, like Davy Crockett or Butch or Sundance or Rambo or Neo (or Ellen Ripley or Sarah Connor).

They're like children playing with light-sabers, except they believe they're prepared to fight off real-life aliens (from the Middle East, from Mexico) and storm troopers, and their state-of-the-art weapons actually wound and kill. 

Why did gangsters and wannabe gangsters start holding and firing their handguns sideways, parallel to the ground, even though that compromises their aim and control? Because it looks cool, and it began looking cool after filmmakers starting directing actors to do it, originally in the 1960s, constantly by the 1990s.

Why are Americans buying the semiautomatic AR-15 and rifles like it more than any other style, 1.5 million each year? Because holding and shooting one makes them feel cooler, more like commandos. For the same reason, half the states now require no license for people to carry their guns openly in public places.

It's the same reason, really, that a third of the vehicles sold in America are pickups and four-wheel-drive Walter Mittymobiles, even though three-quarters of four-wheel-drive off-road vehicles never go off-road. It's even the reason blue jeans became the American uniform after the 1960s. 

We are actors in a 24/7 tableau vivant, [living picture] schlubs playing the parts of heroic tough guys. 

Spectacular  mass killings happen in America far more often than anywhere else, and not just because we make massacre-perfect  weapons so easy to buy. Such killers are also engaged in role-play and are motivated by our besetting national dream of overnight fame.

The experts say that most mass killers are not psychotics or paranoid schizophrenics in the throes of clinical delusion; rather, they're citizens of Fantasyland, unhappy people with flaws and failures they blame on others, the system, the elitists, the world. They worry those resentments into sensational fantasies of paramilitary vengeance, and they know that acting out those fantasies will make a big splash and force the rest of us to pay attention to them for the first time. 

"Mingling of the Tribes" effort could help to heal divisiveness in Salem

I don't know if this is a great idea, a crazy idea, a great crazy idea, or some other variety of idea (such as, worthless).

I just keep envisioning the notion of a citywide Mingling of the Tribes effort here in Salem that would bring people together in these divisive times to better understand our differences and foster respectful communication, while having fun in the process -- without trying to force agreements.

Back in March I took my first blog post crack at this idea in "Salem should have an annual political roast: 'A Mingling of the Tribes.'"

Nationally, politics is really divisive. Less so in Oregon. Here in Salem, we're kind of at a middling state of political tension. Intense nastiness rarely is overt, but under the surface irritations fester.

Conservatives, progressives, and everybody in-between (or something else) never are going to hold hands and sing kumbaya together.  But I've got a more realistic goal:

Local politicians and other community leaders get together annually for a good-hearted roast of each other and, equally importantly, themselves. 

...I sort of like this name for the roast: “A Mingling of the Tribes." By tribe, I mean a collection of like-minded people who normally hang out mostly with each other. Salem has many "tribes" with different political, cultural, religious, and other sorts of views.

So I like the theme of mingling, strange bedfellows, that sort of thing.

This morning, during my half-baked barely-concentrating daily attempt at meditation, I found myself thinking, a common occurrence when I'm trying not to think, about the Mingling of the Tribes idea.

Once again it hit me that what bothers me the most about the state of our country today is the divisiveness. I readily admit that I've contributed to this in my progressive zeal to change things. Conservatives do the same thing, divide.

There's got to be a better way. That way isn't going to happen at the national or even state level. If it is going to happen, it will have to happen at a local level where people can meet face-to-face and talk eye-to-eye. 

I realized that I'd like to go beyond the original Mingling of the Tribes idea that I talked about in the March blog post, yet still include the roast notion. 

I envisioned a community-wide ongoing effort with a goal of getting different "tribes" in Salem to understand each other better, to communicate with each other more effectively, while still feeling free to fight for what one believes in fairly, respectfully, truthfully, and vigorously.

An image that came to mind is football teams eating together before a bowl game and exchanging back-slapping hugs after the game. During the game they battle. Before and after, they mingle. A time for each. 

I'd love to see the Statesman Journal and Salem Weekly each get behind a Mingling of the Tribes effort.

I have ideas for how this would go. But almost certainly how anybody thinks it would go isn't how it would actually go. The goal would be to spark some collegial fires in Salem and not worry overly much where or how they spread.

Web site. Facebook page. Community events. Videos. Neighborhood association presentations. And yes, an annual roast. Lots of possibilities. 

My wife is a retired clinical social worker who was a psychotherapist in private practice. She knows a lot about how to guide people who vehemently disagree on certain issues to interact positively with each other. I'm sure she'd be glad to advise on the Mingling of the Tribes idea.

I'm not thinking only politically.

Salem also has divisions along economic, racial, ethnic, religious, geographic, cultural, sexual preference, and other sorts of divides. There are countless opportunities to get people talking with each other who strongly disagree on specific issues, yet almost certainly agree on many others, including the basics of living in a complex, often-frustrating world.

Anyway, I just wanted to share these rough ideas that came to me today for what they're worth. Which may not be much. This Mingling of the Tribes idea may be too crazy to pursue. It just feels right to me, especially at this time in our country's history.

Hey, Congress, don't take away my state and local tax deductions

These days the Republicans in Congress and the White House are adept at doing stuff that irritates my sense of fairness. But usually it doesn't directly affect me. Or at least, not much.

For example, attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act upset me because of the horrendous impact this would have on millions of people who have insurance through Obamacare. Yet since I'm on Medicare, repeal wouldn't have meant much to me personally.

The tax reform efforts that are making their way through the House and Senate committees are different, though. One thing that grabs my attention is the proposal to do away with deductions for state income taxes and local property taxes. 

I live in Oregon. Oregon doesn't have a sales tax.

So to keep state government going we have a high income tax: for couples the rate is 5% up to an income of $6,700, then 7% up to an income of $16,800, and 9% on income between $16,800 and $250,000 -- after which the rate is 9.9%. Obviously Oregon's income tax is quite regressive, since a rate in the 9% range hits every couple with an income between $16,800 and a gazillion dollars.

Our property taxes also are high.

They are restricted, capped, or something I don't really understand owing to several citizen initiatives that passed many years ago. Regardless, property taxes obviously are particularly high in cities like Portland that approve lots of bond measures.

My wife and I live in a rural area, so our property taxes are lower. Still, we're paying over $500 more a year now after voters approved a school bond in the May 2017 election.

Now, I'm no tax expert. But I just spent about twenty minutes Googling the question of state and local tax deductibility, so I know more than I did before researching this topic.

What I found doesn't change my sense of unfairness at the efforts in Congress to either markedly scale back the deduction for state income and property taxes, or eliminate it entirely. 

A CNN Money piece irked me the most, "There's a loophole in GOP's plan to kill the state and local tax deduction." It says that while individuals won't be able to claim these deductions, most pass-through businesses would. 

But tax experts have spotted what appears to be a big exception to the repeal: The owners, shareholders and investors in so-called pass-through businesses would still be allowed to deduct their state and local taxes in full.

The provision allows the deduction if the state and local taxes are "paid or accrued in carrying on a trade or a business ... [or on expenses related to] production of income."

As for everyone else who currently takes the SALT deduction? Sorry, Charlie, no can do.

Pass-throughs make up the majority of U.S. businesses. They take the form of sole proprietorships, LLCs or S corps. And those with an ownership stake in them pay taxes on the entity's profits on their individual returns.

So for them, under the House bill, state and local taxes could be treated as a business expense on their personal return. That would include President Trump, who typically structures his businesses as pass-throughs.

But ordinary employees of such businesses would still be barred from taking the deduction against their wages.

This is ridiculous. Some people would get to deduct state and local taxes as a business expense, while ordinary employees and retired folks like us wouldn't. 

There's a good argument to be made that not allowing the deductibility of state and local taxes, SALT, is double taxation. Sure, a piece by the Tax Foundation argues otherwise. But if those arguments are valid (and I don't think they are), then the deduction for state and local taxes should be eliminated for everybody, businesses as well as individuals.

The Tax Policy Center has good information on this subject, noting that while 29% of federal returns overall claim the SALT deduction, higher income households are much more likely to claim a deduction for state and local taxes. So politically, the suburban voters who just gave Democrats big wins in yesterday's elections would be hit the hardest by a tax reform bill that axes this deduction. 

Lastly, an opinion piece by a tax expert, "The GOP gets a big part of its tax plan backward," makes some good points about the relative wisdom of allowing deductions for state versus local taxes. 

The House Republican tax plan proposes repealing much of the state and local tax deduction, allowing individuals to deduct up to $10,000 of local property taxes but eliminating the rest of the deduction. This gets sound tax policy precisely backward. Smart tax reform would allow taxpayers to deduct what they pay to states — and would end the deduction for local taxes.

...Understanding that the state and local deduction is in fact two deductions is important because states and localities fund very different things.

Local taxes typically benefit those within relatively homogeneous localities in a way that is similar to a purchase of private goods. When residents pay local taxes, those taxes fund local schools, parks and recreation, police and fire agencies, and so on, that provide a relatively direct benefit to those paying the taxes. Wealthy individuals benefit from their local taxes in much the same way they benefit from purchasing a membership to a private club. No one seriously argues that a membership to a private club should be deductible, yet in effect that is what the deduction for local taxes allows.

State taxes, on the other hand, are less like private purchases because states spend a significantly higher percentage of their revenue on redistributive programs, such as state welfare programs, funding for poor school districts and health care for low-income residents. When wealthy individuals, who gain the most benefit from deductibility because they pay higher marginal tax rates, pay state taxes, that cost looks more like a charitable contribution than a membership in a private club, and so a deduction is more justified.

Therefore, smart tax policy would allow taxpayers to deduct the cost of state income taxes while eliminating the deduction for local property taxes. As it happens, because local taxes account for approximately half the overall deduction, this change would raise approximately $500 billion over the next decade.

Instead, House Republicans propose doing just the opposite. By retaining deductibility for local property taxes, their approach would continue to disproportionately subsidize wealthy, country-club-like localities, albeit to a smaller degree for the wealthiest towns and cities because of the $10,000 cap. And by eliminating deductibility for state taxes, the tax plan would end the federal government’s subsidy for state governments, which spend a significant percentage of their revenue on redistributive programs.

So at least maintain the deduction for state taxes, Congress.

However, I'd be even happier if the whole tax reform effort failed, because it's mainly a giveaway to corporations that are already doing just fine, while screwing over many middle class people with either a minuscule tax reduction or even a tax increase.

More misguided cougar and wolf hysteria strikes Oregon

Oh, my! Lock the doors and keep the children inside! A cougar may have killed a house cat in Seaside, Oregon. So all student activities at Seaside Elementary School were moved indoors. 

Which is ridiculous, because while cougars may kill cats (so will dogs, of course, and much more often), a cougar has never killed a human in Oregon. 

As I said in "Danger warning! -- people and dogs sighted in Salem park," what Seaside school authorities really should be concerned about are adult men and family dogs roaming around near the playground.

I've done some research to quantify the relative risk of being killed by (1) a person, (2) a dog, and (3) a cougar. These United States statistics cover 2001-2010, the previous ten years.

There were 162,230 homicides during that decade, an average of 16,223 per year. In 2010, ninety percent of the killers were men, according to the FBI. Fifty-three percent of murder victims were killed by someone they knew; a quarter were slain by a family member.

The lesson: if you spot a man in a park, be fearful. Especially if you know him. Males you've met before are the most dangerous killing creatures any human will ever encounter. 

Dogs are considerably less likely to kill you. Still, 263 people were slain by dogs over the last ten years, an average of 26 per year. 

What about cougars?

Most people are more afraid of cougars than of their fellow humans or dogs. But they shouldn't be. Cougars killed just 3 people in the United States from 2001-2010. That's an average of .3 per year.

So you're 54,000 times more likely to be killed by a person (probably a man) than by a cougar. And you're 87 times more likely to be killed by a dog, than by a cougar. This is why, if you value your life, people and dogs should be feared much more than cougars.

Unfortunately, irrationality reigns when it comes to wildlife. Why? Seemingly because they're wild. We're used to seeing men and dogs in parks. Cougars are rare, so people freak out when one is sighted.

Then there's the case of the hunter in eastern Oregon who shot and killed a wolf, claiming self-defense. His story is highly suspicious, for a number of reasons.

For one thing, he admits that at first he thought he saw three coyotes moving around him. Then he claims that one of the animals ran at him. Supposedly fearing for his life, he shot and killed the animal, which turned out to be a woif -- which can't be killed by hunters in Oregon unless it is a case of self-defense.

The man's story started to unravel when it was revealed that his bullet entered the side of the wolf and exited the other side. So the wolf couldn't have been running at him when it was shot. 

The pictures and police report paint a different picture, according to wolf advocacy group Oregon Wild... Steve Pedery, the nonprofit's conservation director, said in an email that he'd like to see further investigation of the hunting incident. He's not convinced the animal was running at the hunter, and questioned why the wounds are on the animal's side. 

"How can a wolf that is moving away from someone be a threat?" Pedery said, "and why would ODFW [Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife) sign off on a report that is directly contradicted by the evidence?"

A commenter on the original Oregonian story, "Go Figure," makes some great points.

According to information and photos described by KGW, the wounds on the animal are inconsistent with the description of the wolf running toward the shooter. Instead, it seems the wolf was running away from the shooter at an angle, the bullet having entered mid-body and exited through the front of the animal at the left shoulder.

"The wolf has what appears to be an entry [wound] on her right [side], midway between the hind quarters and front shoulder. A larger exit wound appears to exist near the front left shoulder of the wolf."

If the hunter was fearful of being attacked by coyotes (he said he assumed they were coyotes until closer inspection) that were surrounding him at close range, which would prevent shooting toward all of them, a quick and reasonable first response would be a warning shot into the dirt. And, indeed, the hunter describes the animals he did not kill, which were protected wolves, immediately ran away after his one shot.

Western United States wild wolf attacks on an adult human who is not running (1) in mild weather, (2) in an area of plentiful game, (3) with no record of the wolves becoming habituated to a human population, or (4) being fed in the area are, to the best of my knowledge, unheard-of. That should have cast doubt on the hunter's story of being targeted by a group of wolves as if he was prey.

In any case, the evidence does not match the story, and the story is inconsistent with not wanting to harm animals he was not hunting. It seems likely that he may have poached a protected wolf, then, upon conferring with his buddies, hatched a cover story to try to avoid responsibility for an illegal kill. Certainly, based on the description of the photographic evidence alone, further investigation is warranted.

For sure, further investigation is warranted. Wolf attacks on humans are extremely rare. 

Despite what The Onion might have you believe, wolf attacks are exceedingly rare. In 2010, a fatal wolf attack in Alaska marked only the second documented case ever of a wolf killing someone in the wild. There are some 77,000 wolves in North America. The first-ever confirmed case of fatal wolf attack in the wild in North America occurred in 2005, when Kenton Carnegie was attacked by a pack of wolves in Saskatchewan, Canada.

In 2006, the San Francisco Chronicle found evidence of only 27 non-fatal wolf attacks on humans in North America. Most of those cases involved rabid wolves, which are themselves exceedingly rare, according to the Chronicle.

So it's very, very unlikely that the hunter, Brian Scott, actually was attacked by a wolf. Probably what happened is that Scott thought the animals were coyotes, decided to shoot one of them, and then made up a story after realizing he had killed a protected wolf.

We've got to get beyond irrational fairy tales about Big Bad Wolves. Just as with cougars, wolves are hugely less of a threat to humans than other people and dogs are. Live and let live should be our basic wolf and cougar policy, not shoot on sight. 

Apple wanted a credit check via Equifax. I paid cash for an iPhone 8 instead.

Screw you, Apple. I love you dearly for the beautiful devices you make. I've owned lots of Apple computers, tablets, printers, and phones ever since the Apple II+ with a floppy drive came into my life way back when.

But when I got to the very end of the ordering process for an iPhone 8 plus today, wanting to purchase it through the Apple financing program that I used to buy my iPhone 6 plus, I got a message that there was a problem with my credit.

I was pretty sure that I understood what the problem was. When this email message came a little while later from the bank Apple uses, Citizens One, I for sure knew what the problem was. 

I have a freeze on my credit report with each of the four major credit bureaus, which naturally includes Equifax -- the credit bureau that Apple, through Citizens One, is using to process applications to buy an iPhone on a monthly payment plan.

Yes, the very same Equifax that recently had a data breach affecting 143 million people. Yes, the very same Equifax that wants those people to sign up for a year of free credit monitoring that will probably turn into paid credit monitoring after 12 months are up. 

I've zero interest in voluntarily having anything to do with Equifax. They screwed up big time by having such poor security on those 143 million credit files. Yet Apple, through Citizens One, is requiring that anyone who wants to buy an iPhone through their payment plan have Equifax provide a credit report.

So I started over on the Apple web site. When I got to the "how to pay" part of my iPhone 8 plus purchase, I entered credit card information and bought the phone outright. 

Yeah, it was over a thousand bucks, with AppleCare, a case, and a wireless charging gizmo. 

But it was worth it to have nothing to do with Equifax. Sure, I know how to unfreeze my credit history for a couple of days with a $10 payment to Equifax. It's just that after the Equifax data breach, I don't want to unfreeze my credit for any length of time if this isn't absolutely necessary.

Here's what also irritates me.

Just about every story I've read about the Equifax breach recommends putting a freeze on one's credit for maximum protection. Also, I financed the iPhone 6 + purchase through Citizens One and made a timely monthly payment for two years.

That doesn't count, though. When I phoned Apple support, I was told that with a new iPhone purchase, I'd have to make a new credit application.

Like I said, screw you, Apple.

I realize that corporate decisions are made well in advance of product roll-outs. It just sure seems like after the Equifax breach, Apple should have demanded that Citizens One use a different credit bureau than Equifax. Lots of people, maybe millions, must have put a freeze on their credit history after the breach.

Us iPhone buyers shouldn't have to fork over $10 to Equifax to unfreeze our credit history. Bad move, Apple. I'm sure I'll love my iPhone 8 plus when it arrives. But the buying process sucked because of the Equifax connection. 

Highway 20 fire closure on Santiam Pass raises arson suspicions

So many wildfires are burning in the Cascades and central Oregon. Today a fire started just south of Highway 20 in the Potato Hill area between the Santiam Junction (of highways 20 and 22) and the Hoodoo ski area. 

Bend's KTVZ reports:

A new wildfire prompted closure of U.S. Highway 20 west of Santiam Pass and a second closure near Suttle Lake Tuesday afternoon, hours after three new brushfires erupted around the Newberry National Volcanic Monument south of Bend, one prompting evacuations of Lava River Cave and the Lava Lands Visitor Center, authorities said.

Willamette National Forest officials said the fire was reported around 3 p.m. near Potato Hill, around milepost 76 on Highway 20. The fire began on the south side of the highway but jumped the highway and was burning near Lost Lake.

Crews and air resources responded to the fire, estimated late Tuesday afternoon at about five acres, burning in the area of the 2003 B&B Complex Fire, the 90,000-acre blaze that was the largest in Deschutes National Forest history.

Eastbound traffic was being stopped at Santiam Junction and westbound traffic at Santiam Pass. ODOT warned, “This could be a lengthy closure, so travelers should consider using an alternative route, avoid the area or expect delays.”

The other closure was a mile east of the intersection with Suttle Lake Loop.

This is bad.

The only (small) good news is that currently ODOT's TripCheck site is reporting that while Highway 20 is closed to eastbound traffic at Potato Hill, westbound traffic is being let through via a pilot car. Be sure to check for current updates if you plan to travel to or from central Oregon on Highway 20.

[Update: I read the TripCheck report wrong. Just saw a tweet that explains both eastbound and westbound traffic now is being let through via a pilot car, so even better news.]

A Facebook friend who lives in the Sisters area clued me in to the Highway 20 fire and road closure via a post. Some commenters wondered, as I did, about whether there's a non-natural reason for the rash of fires breaking out near roads.

Meaning, someone is starting them on purpose.

Understand: there's no proof of this. Maybe careless people are responsible. Maybe smoldering lightning strikes are coming to life. It just seems strange that several fires in central Oregon started near roads today. The KTVZ story also said:

Meanwhile, three new fires south of Bend were reported around 1 p.m., One fire, Incident 1036, was stopped at two acres and fully lined by late afternoon, with crews working to contain it, said Deschutes National Forest Public Affairs Officer Jean Nelson-Dean.

A second fire burned two miles southeast of Lava Butte, on the east side of Highway 97. It also was lined by late afternoon and crews were working to contain it.

Probably investigators are looking into the possibility of arson. I can't imagine why someone would want to torch Oregon's beautiful forests, but humans are capable of some crazy stuff. 

For now, the priority has to be on getting the fires under control. Commenters on the Facebook post painted a disturbing picture of how things are in the Camp Sherman, Black Butte Ranch, and Sisters area.

We should be OK, though lots of smoke/ashes and eerie looking today.

The sun is totally obliterated and it is not even 7:00PM, but very ominous feeling. My deck is covered with ashes.

These fires (including Newberry Crater) seem suspicious to me. Starting independent of other fires, and near highways. 

Trump's transgender policy is unscientific and unfair

A few days ago President Trump unleashed another ridiculous Twitter storm, this time about transgender people serving in the military.

On Wednesday morning, Trump wrote on Twitter that “after consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States government will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military."

"Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail,” Trump added. “Thank you."

Not surprisingly, these short sentences are filled with lies. 

There's no evidence that Trump consulted military experts about the transgender issue. His Defense Secretary was caught off guard by the Twitter announcement, saying he was "appalled." 

Trump's intention to ban transgender people from serving in the armed forces appears to have been made for purely political reasons. 

Mr. Trump elected to announce the ban in order to resolve a quietly brewing fight on Capitol Hill over whether taxpayer money should pay for gender transition and hormone therapy for transgender service members. The dispute had threatened to kill a $790 billion defense and security spending package scheduled for a vote this week.

But rather than addressing that narrow issue, Mr. Trump opted to upend the entire policy on transgender service members.

Given that there aren't many transgender individuals in the military, their gender-transition related health care costs -- between $2.4 million and $8.4 million annually -- are a minuscule fraction of overall defense spending. And Trump's frequent Mar-a-Lago trips cost much more than transgender military health care.

Lots of things bug me about Trump. One of the many irritations is how Trump cares very little about understanding policies, choosing to focus almost entirely on politics.

(Yet he isn't very good at political machinations, leaving aside his slim presidential victory, having just crashed and burned on his pledge to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, and having no other significant legislative accomplishments so far.)

The same day Trump announced his intention to ban transgender people from serving in the military, I read a chapter in D.F. Swaab's book, "We Are Our Brains: A Neurobiography of the Brain, from the Womb to Alzheimer's." Swaab, says the book jacket, "is an internationally renowned researcher in neuroscience and a professor of neurobiology at the University of Amsterdam."

In his Sexual Differentiation of the Brain in the Womb chapter, Swaab talks about some basic transgender facts that Trump should have learned before he issued his banned-from-the-military tweets. 

All the data indicates that gender problems arise in the womb. Tiny variations in genes associated with the effect of hormones on brain development have been found to increase the likelihood of transsexuality. It can also be increased by abnormal fetal hormone levels or by medication taken during pregnancy that inhibits the breakdown of sex hormones. 

The differentiation of our sex organs takes place in the first months of pregnancy, while the sexual differentiation of the brain occurs in the second half of pregnancy. Since these two processes take place at different times, the theory is that in the case of transsexuality, they have been influenced independently of one another. 

Thus a transsexual comes to feel that he/she is inhabiting a body that doesn't match with his/her mind. 

In 2007 V.S. Ramachandran published an interesting hypothesis and provisional research finding on transsexuality. He believes that the neural body map of MtF [male to female] transsexuals lacks a penis, while that of FtM [female to male] transsexuals lacks breasts, due to these not being programmed into the map during development. As a result, they don't recognize these organs as their own and want to get rid of them.

Regardless of the exact biological cause of transsexuality, it seems clear that transgender individuals don't choose to transition to the other gender like someone chooses to dye one's hair or get a tattoo. Almost certainly, transsexuality isn't a choice. Neither is homosexuality.

Virtually all of the evidence points to the fact that when it comes to sexual identification as male, female, something in-between, or something else, people are, in Lady Gaga's words, "born this way." 

I realize that Trump doesn't like to read much. But maybe he'd watch a video.

Some of the lyrics:

Don't be a drag, just be a queen
Whether you're broke or evergreen
You're black, white, beige, chola descent
You're Lebanese, you're orient
Whether life's disabilities
Left you outcast, bullied, or teased
Rejoice and love yourself today
'cause baby you were born this way

No matter gay, straight, or bi,
Lesbian, transgendered life,
I'm on the right track baby,
I was born to survive.
No matter black, white or beige
Chola or orient made,
I'm on the right track baby,
I was born to be brave.

I don't like the Fourth of July because I'm super-patriotic

Patriotism is way over-rated. At least, the way this word usually is defined makes it highly limiting: love for or devotion to one's country. 

OK. I love the United States. I'm devoted to this country.

I also love...

My neighborhood, Spring Lake Estates
My city, Salem
My county, Marion
My state, Oregon.
My country, United States (as already mentioned)
My continent, North America
My planet, Earth
My galaxy, Milky Way
My universe, which let's call Universe

So I'm super-patriotic.

I love and am devoted to so much more than just my country. Celebrating Independence Day (today!) by focusing on the American flag, fireworks, nationalism, our military, the Founding Fathers (no mothers, apparently) strikes me as an excessive attention to a small slice of what every person in this country should be devoted to.

In short, everything in existence, because nothing stands alone. 

There's no such thing as independence. The United States wasn't really independent in 1776, or any other date. Today, as every day, our country is embedded in a web of physical, cultural, economic, environmental, and other sorts of connections. 

All too often, people view patriotism as elevating one's country among all those other levels of reality I listed above. There's many problems with this. I'll just mention a few. 

First, as just noted, the plain fact is that the United States doesn't stand above (or below) the other entities I listed. The United States is a concept, an abstraction, a way of thinking about the territory, political institutions, and such that now encompasses 50 states. 

Viewed from space, there is no evident United States or any other country. Countries aren't so much physical realities as they are conceptual realities. 

So when viewed from a loftier systems perspective, we can see that without individual states there would be no United States. And without the United States, there would be no conceptual union that those states could belong to. Thus the United States can't exist without other entities, and those other entities can't exist without the United States.

This interrelatedness of everything makes it impossible for me to view patriotism as love of country. I'm also a neighborhood, city, county, state, continent, planet, galaxy, and universe patriot. 

In different ways these aspects of reality all touch me. I love each of them. I'm devoted to each of them.

Naturally I spend most of my life at my neighborhood and city level. This is where my mind and body touch existence most directly. However, I recognize that without every other level of reality -- notably the level of my planet, Earth -- I couldn't enjoy the small slice of planetary goodness called Spring Lake Estates and Salem. 

Second, then, "my ________ (choose a level) right or wrong" makes no sense. I heard this sentiment a lot in my college days when so-called patriots would say to us hippie Vietnam War demonstrators, love it or leave it. Meaning, the United States.

No. False choice.

I don't have to love my country or leave my country. I can disapprove of what my country is doing and work to change it while still loving the United States. Further, to give a current example, I can love the Earth and heartily disapprove of the Trump administration's disregard of the Paris Agreement and other efforts to combat the harmful effects of global climate change.

In this regard I'm an Earth patriot.

I understand that the United States has a responsibility to our planet that it isn't fulfilling. When my wife and I took part in the Salem March for Science event on Earth Day this year, I felt super-patriotic criticizing Trump's anti-science stance, because my love and devotion extended beyond the narrow confines of nationalism.

Like my sign said, "Science is Universal." 

That's why I like super-patriotism. It doesn't have any boundaries. A super-patriot loves, and is devoted to, every aspect of reality -- from one's immediate neighborhood to the furthest reaches of the universe. 

Which doesn't mean that I like everything in reality. There's a lot I want to change, to make better, to improve on the planetary levels of existence (there's no way I can alter anything on the galactic or universe scale; I can only admire this vastness from afar).

Third, and lastly, an ordinary patriot believes "The United States is the greatest country on Earth." A super-patriot realizes that this is a subjective opinion, not an objective fact, because their view is broader.

Consider: I'd never say that my neighborhood, city, or state is the greatest.

I love where I live, but I understand that most people love where they live. From this Oregonian's perspective, I find it astounding that some people adore North Dakota. Yet, they do. I have no doubt that lots of North Dakotans consider their state to be the greatest in our country. 

As do lots of people in every other state.

Likewise, people in every country believe that theirs is the greatest nation on the planet. A 2016 YouGov poll asked respondents in 19 countries whether "they believe you live in the best country in the world." Here's the results as reported in a Business Insider story, "RANKED: How patriotic 19 world-leading economies are."

19. France - 5%
18. Germany - 5%
17. Vietnam - 6%
15. Sweden - 7%
15. Singapore - 7%
14. Hong Kong - 8%
13. Finland - 11%
12. Norway - 11%
11. Malaysia - 11%
10. Denmark - 13%
 9. UK - 13%
 8. Indonesia - 14%
 7. Philippines - 15%
 6. Thailand - 25%
 5. Saudi Arabia - 25%
 4. UAE - 27%
 3. Australia - 34%
 2. India - 36%
 1. United States - 41%

So what does this mean, objectively speaking? Nothing. 

Because there is no objective way to determine which country is the best in the world. So patriotism based on a feeling of "We're #1" is ludicrous. Many people in every country believe they are #1. The United States just happens to have the highest percentage.

(But India would way outvote us, since it has so many more people.)

This comment on the low German result of 5% was interesting: "Over six decades have passed since the Second World War, but Germans still have a 'pathological fear' of patriotism, according to German magazine Der Spiegel."

That's understandable.

However, I believe everybody should have such a fear, given that nationalistic patriotism is limited, divisive, and works against a broad view of our interconnected reality.

I encourage super-patriotism: a love of country that doesn't elevate devotion to one's nation above love of neighborhood, city, county, state, continent, planet, galaxy, and universe.

Common facts are the bedrock of democracy -- which Trump is blasting away at

There's a lot of reasons to detest what President Trump is doing to our country.

What's most concerning, though, isn't any specific outrage -- destroying health care, denying global warming, tearing apart the social safety net -- but his general attack on shared reality.

If people can't agree about the basic nature of the world we all live in together, it isn't possible to even discuss the problems we face, much less agree about what needs to be done about them. 

About a week ago I wrote about "On Tyranny," a little book that packed a big punch. This is one of the excerpts that I shared:

Believe in truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If  nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.

The next book I read was "The Trouble With Reality: A Rumination on Moral Panic in Our Time," by Brooke Gladstone. It also is little (just 87 pages). 

I didn't like it as much as "On Tyranny," partly because Gladstone's call to action to save reality left me lukewarm, if not confused. The author's intent seemed more to explain how we got to our current post-truth era, than to lay out a path back to consensual reality. 

These are the last three sentences in "The Trouble With Reality." They didn't make me feel that our troubles could be over.

We breed infinite realities and they never can be reconciled. We cannot fully enter someone else's. But if we really look, we might actually see that other reality reflected in that person's eyes, and therein lies the beginning of the end of our reality problem.

Well, maybe, though the notion of seeing Trump's reality reflected in his eyes makes me want to barf. It's a nauseating prospect which I have difficulty finding any purpose in, and certainly doesn't strike me as being the "beginning of the end of our reality problem."

Maybe this is because I imagined our country's most notorious reality-denier. I do agree that finding common ground with people we disagree with (leaving Trump aside) is the only way to return our society to a functional state. 

Which is the point of one of my favorite passages in Gladstone's book, a quote from an article Ned Resnikoff wrote on ThinkProgress.

Consensus is the bedrock of democracy.

For differences to get resolved in a properly democratic fashion, there needs to be agreement over the terms of the debate. Interlocutors must be aware of their shared rights and responsibilities, and they need to be capable of proceeding from a common set of facts and premises.

When political actors can't agree on basic facts and procedures, compromise and rule-bound argumentation are basically impossible; politics reverts back to its natural state as a raw power struggle in which the weak are dominated by the strong.

A great example is this short video of Senator Claire McCaskill, a minority Democrat, asking Senator Orrin Hatch, a majority Republican, if there will be a hearing on the Senate Republicans' health care bill. 

In three minutes, McCaskill demonstrates what indeed is the trouble with reality in Washington, D.C. Political power struggles are par for the course in Congress. 

But these Trumpian times have led to bizarre situations like this one. A bill to reshape 1/6 of our nation's economy, the health care sector, is being fashioned behind closed doors by a dozen or so white male Senators. So far there is no plan to hold a hearing on the bill.

Worse, there is no publicly-revealed bill for McCaskill or anyone else to examine, study, dissect, analyze, and suggest improvements to. Democracy can't function where there is no shared reality, no set of common facts that can be discussed and debated. 

I agree with Gladstone that facts are not enough. But they are an essential beginning. As she says below, reality is more than facts. 

Part of the problem stems from the fact that facts, even a lot of facts, do not constitute reality. Reality is what forms after we filter, arrange, and prioritize those facts and marinate them in our values and traditions. Reality is personal.

Yes, reality is personal.

However, our personal realities can find common ground when they are based on shared facts. Otherwise, in politics and in other areas of life, we never really come in contact with each other if every person feels free to adopt their own "alternative facts." 

"On Tyranny" is a disturbingly great read for these Trumpian times

On Tyranny by historian Timothy Snyder is a small 126-page book that I read in about ninety minutes. But it's impact on me was huge. 

Yes, good things come in small packages. And in this case, only cost $5.26 (from Amazon). 

Snyder never mentions Donald Trump by name. But his frequent references to "the president" make it clear about the tyrant he's warning us about. 

This is the most astounding thing about Snyder's book: that he wrote it. 

Now. After Trump's election. To alert Americans to the danger of tyranny arising in our liberal democracy that, until recently, was generally felt to be immune to what befell Germany in the 1930's. 

Being 68, I have memories of many U.S. presidents. John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan. George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama. And now, Donald Trump. 

Before these Trumpian times I never worried seriously that our democracy was in danger.

I opposed much of what Republican presidents like Reagan and Bush (the W. variety) sought to inflict on our country. But this all seemed within the bounds of normal political goings-on. Conservative presidents try to achieve right-wing ends. Liberal presidents try to achieve left-wing ends.

Back and forth we go between right and left while the all-important institutions that guarantee our constitutional democracy carry on regardless of who is in power.

Well, Snyder shocked me out of that complacency -- even though I already knew that Trump was a whole different sort of president. Here's an excerpt from his final chapter:

Until recently we Americans had convinced ourselves that there was nothing in the future but more of the same. The seemingly distant traumas of fascism, Nazism, and communism seemed to be receding into irrelevance. We allowed ourselves to accept the politics of inevitability, the sense that history could move in only one direction: toward liberal democracy. 

After communism in eastern Europe came to an end in 1989-91, we imbibed the myth of an "end of history." In doing so, we lowered our defenses, constrained our imagination, and opened the way for precisely the kinds of regimes we told ourselves could never return.

Unfortunately, they're back. And not in some third-world country led by an autocratic ruler.  Snyder uses historical examples in his 20 short chapters to show that right here in the United States we face authoritarian dangers in this Age of Trump. 

I encourage you to read "On Tyranny."

Even if you think you're aware of the threat Trump poses to our liberal democracy, believe me, Timothy Snyder will wake you up even more, big time. Here's some additional excerpts from the book that I especially liked.

Stand out. Someone has to. It is easy to follow along. It can feel strange to do or say something different. But without that unease, there is no freedom. Remember Rosa Parks. The moment you set an example, the spell of the status quo is broken, and others will follow.
----------
Believe in truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If  nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.
----------
Do not obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.  

Publicly defend your incompetent president, Trump voters

With every passing day, Donald Trump's astounding incompetency to serve as President becomes more obvious.

His lies, blunders, and disrespect for the office he won with the aid of Russian meddling in the 2016 election make it perfectly clear that Trump is on track to be the worst president in our nation's history.

His dismal approval rating, 43% as of yesterday, is an accurate reflection of the low regard most Americans have for our Idiot In Chief. By comparison, Barack Obama had an 62% approval rating by March of his first term in office. 

I proudly voted for Hillary Clinton. Her campaign arguments regarding Trump being unfit to serve as president are becoming more evidently true with every new Trump tweet. 

So I'm wondering: 

How many Trump voters here in Oregon, and particularly in my home town of Salem, are willing to publicly defend the guy they favored to lead our country? 

Being a progressive, I mainly talk politics with people who share my liberal views. We detest Trump, for many excellent reasons. But 39% of Oregon voters cast their ballot for Trump; 38% of Salem voters did the same.

Thus there's a lot of people out there in my area of the country who thought Donald Trump would be a good president. At least, a better president than Hillary Clinton. I'd like to know if they still defend Trump.

I don't see many signs of this.

On my Facebook feed, conservative friends or acquaintances aren't standing up for Trump. Right-wingers in Oregon, or Salem, aren't making obvious statements of "I'm still a strong supporter of the man I voted to be president."

But maybe Trump-lovers will come out of the closet. If you're one of them, leave an I love Trump comment on this post with your real name. Show the world that you're still proud to have put him in the Oval Office.

More...

Defend Trump's recent Tweet-accusations that Obama "wire-tapped" his phone before Election Day, despite the fact there is zero evidence to support this ridiculous claim.

Apparently the current President of the United States, Donald Trump, believes this crap because he read about it on some wacko right-wing media outlets. 

WASHINGTON — It began at 6 p.m. Thursday as a conspiratorial rant on conservative talk radio: President Barack Obama had used the “instrumentalities of the federal government” to wiretap the Republican seeking to succeed him. This “is the big scandal,” Mark Levin, the host, told his listeners.

By Friday morning, the unsubstantiated allegation had been picked up by Breitbart News, the site once headed by President Trump’s chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon. Less than 24 hours later, the president embraced the conspiracy in a series of Twitter posts accusing his predecessor of spying on him, setting in motion the latest head-spinning, did-he-really-say-that furor of Mr. Trump’s six-week-old presidency.

This is the latest, but certainly not the last, highly outrageous WTF action by the fool who was voted into office by a minority of Americans -- who still constituted a large proportion of the electorate, even here in liberal Oregon.

So Trump voters should either admit to the rest of us that you made a BIG MISTAKE, or publicly support the man who is now bringing disgrace on the highest office in the land. 

It'll be interesting to see how many of you take me up on this offer to leave an I still love Trump comment with your real name. Maybe there are more people willing to go along with Trump's falsehoods and screw-ups than I suspect.

Which would be disturbing. Because the only way we're going to be able to get our country back on track is if citizens stand up to the demagoguery of the Man Who Would Be King, or even Dictator, rather than "merely" President.   

Let's make Salem an island of sanity in an increasingly crazy country

We're one week into four years of a Trump presidency.

If the trend line of Crazy continues, it will be so far off the charts I'm worried our United States will disintegrate into a tangled mass of splintered humanity, with most people saddened, angered, and frustrated, and a minority cheering the arrival of whatever disastrous future Trump's barely-there mind envisions for our country.

When I wake up in the middle of the night and start worrying about what kind of hellscape awaits our nation, the only thought that calms my frazzled psyche is this:

Here in Salem, we can be a refuge of love in a wilderness of hate; an island of sanity in an ocean of craziness; a town that comes together in a country that is splitting apart. 

Look, I realize this may sound unduly idealistic given that 38% of Salem voters cast a ballot for Trump and 49% for Clinton.

There's no consensus among our citizenry on anything, including how to deal with homelessness, whether a Third Bridge is needed, what to do about a Plan B for a new police facility, how to revitalize downtown, and what improvements, if any, need to be made to our schools, mass transit system, roads, bike paths, and other communal aspects of Salem.

This doesn't really matter, though. 

Heck, it is rare that my wife and I start off with a consensus about anything. For example, until recently I didn't even know that we needed a new living room couch. Our current one seemed absolutely fine to me. But Laurel gently and persuasively explained why she doesn't like the couch. Yesterday we ordered a new one. She was happy. I was happy. And I'm sure when the new couch arrives, our dog also will be happy with it.

What we did was simple:

Talk to each other; listen to each other; understand how the other person feels; give reasons for why we feel the way we do; compromise; engage in give and take; come to a mutually satisfying agreement; realize that we don't have to see something in exactly the same way, just similarly enough to be able to converse about it.

Hopefully Salem's elected officials, public employees, business leaders, civic activists, advocates for this-and-that, and citizens of all sorts will be able to come together in these Trumpian times, demonstrating that while Washington D.C. may be a place of rancor and people talking past each other, our town can be different.

Which means, of course, that we have to talk to each other. And not just through social media, as President Obama said so eloquently in his farewell speech: 

Understand democracy does not require uniformity. Our founders argued, they quarreled, and eventually they compromised. They expected us to do the same. But they knew that democracy does require a basic sense of solidarity. The idea that, for all our outward differences, we’re all in this together, that we rise or fall as one.

...For too many of us it’s become safer to retreat into our own bubbles, whether in our neighborhoods, or on college campuses, or places of worship, or especially our social media feeds, surrounded by people who look like us and share the same political outlook and never challenge our assumptions. In the rise of naked partisanship and increasing economic and regional stratification, the splintering of our media into a channel for every taste, all this makes this great sorting seem natural, even inevitable.

And increasingly we become so secure in our bubbles that we start accepting only information, whether it’s true or not, that fits our opinions, instead of basing our opinions on the evidence that is out there.

And this trend represents a third threat to our democracy. Look, politics is a battle of ideas. That’s how our democracy was designed. In the course of a healthy debate, we prioritize different goals, and the different means of reaching them. But without some common baseline of facts, without a willingness to admit new information and concede that your opponent might be making a fair point, and that science and reason matter, then we’re going to keep talking past each other.

...So, you see, that’s what our democracy demands. It needs you. Not just when there’s an election, not just when your own narrow interest is at stake, but over the full span of a lifetime. If you’re tired of arguing with strangers on the Internet, try talking with one of them in real life.

Salem needs more opportunities for diverse people to come together and talk openly, honestly, and, yes, sometimes heatedly, about what we have to do to make our town better. 

Face to face. Eye to eye. 

Sure, we always are going to feel more comfortable in our own "tribe." I'm a progressive atheist vegetarian. I readily admit that hanging out with conservative religious carnivores can stretch my ability to empathize, understand, relate, grok. But I need this stretching, a form of psychological yoga. It helps keep me limber.

We here in Salem can get through the next four years, and the four years after that, whatever the future may bring, if we keep in mind a saying that is as true as it is a cliche: what unites us is stronger than what divides us. 

We come to understand this most intensely when we break out of our cultural and political shells, daring to peck our way out of hardened beliefs that often bear little resemblance to reality, or to how other people truly look upon our shared world. 

Like I said, I had no idea that a new couch was what our living room needed until my wife ushered me into this fresh understanding. All things are possible when approached with open minds.

Let's give it a try, Salem. I really need our town to come together, given the clear and present danger that our nation is going to split apart.

Clinton's election-eve campaign speech reminded me of how far women have come

Driving home from my Tai Chi class tonight, my election-obsessed brain caused my fingers to choose the MSNBC button on my car's satellite radio rather than the Chill or Classic Vinyl music stations that ordinarily attract me.

I heard President Obama's voice. 

He was speaking at one of Hillary Clinton's final campaign events, a 40,000 person rally in Philadelphia. Obama was inspiring. Obama strongly urged people to get out and vote tomorrow. Naturally, for Clinton.

Then Clinton took the stage. You can hear part of what she said in the video below.

What moved me was how positive she was, how competent-sounding she was, how uplifting she was. The title of a New York Times story about the last full day of campaigning put it nicely: "Optimism From Hillary Clinton and Darkness From Donald Trump at Campaign's End."

The contrasts between the candidates and their messages were on vivid display in the campaign’s last full day.

As she embarked on a four-state tour, Mrs. Clinton gave a sunny and optimistic summation of her candidacy for the White House.

“Tomorrow, you can vote for a hopeful, inclusive, big-hearted America,” she told a crowd in Pittsburgh.

Mr. Trump, who campaigned in five states on Monday, took a harsher approach, assailing the “crooked media,” attacking a “corrupt Washington establishment” and mocking Mrs. Clinton over and over.

“It’s a rigged, rigged system,” he declared in Raleigh, N.C. “And now it’s up to the American people to deliver the justice that we deserve at the ballot box tomorrow.”

It's difficult, really difficult, for me to understand why anyone would vote for Trump.

Trump is spectacularly unqualified to be president. He lies constantly, and with relish (hugely more than Clinton).  He is uninformed, emotionally unstable, a habitual insulter, and virtually devoid of substantive policies that have a chance of fulfilling his pledge to "make America great again." 

By contrast, as you can hear in the video below Clinton speaks of building bridges, not walls; of being stronger together; of how love trumps hate. Sure, Clinton has her acerbic side. All politicians do. But she is far and away the better person in the 2016 presidential race -- more moral, caring, intelligent, committed, and wise.

Also, a woman.

It's been strange how her female'ness has been downplayed in this election. In 2008, there was tons of talk about how amazing it was that Barack Obama would be this country's first black president. However, there's been much less explicit attention paid to an equally amazing fact: tomorrow, most likely, Hillary Clinton will become our first female president.

Maybe this is because women have come so far, compared to where they used to be. 

I'm a man.

So I readily admit that I can't fully appreciate the meaning of feminism, equal rights, breaking the glass ceiling. Yet neither can most Americans, because they have grown up in a time when women have enjoyed many more opportunities than in, say, the semi-dark ages I grew up in: the 1950s and 1960s.

In my high school, girls couldn't wear pants. They took Home Economics. My highly intelligent mother, born in 1912, never graduated from college, even though her Massachusetts senior class yearbook says she was "College Preparatory for Wellesley." 

Her brother became a businessman. My mother and her sisters all got married at a young age. They didn't have careers. After she got divorced and raised me by herself, my mother got a job as postmaster (postmistress?) of a tiny branch office in Three Rivers, California.

I'm pretty sure that of all my elementary school classmates, I had the only mother who worked. At a job that was far below her capabilities. But that was the way things were back then. And the odds were still stacked against women when my daughter was born in 1972.

August 1970

Below the Clinton video, I'll share a You Tube clip of a 1974 "Free to Be... You and Me" special. I heard Marlo Thomas' record played over and over by my daughter when she was a bit older. It was filled with positive feel-good feminism.

These sentiments in the song will seem damn obvious to girls and women today. Believe me, they weren't as recently as the 1970s.

I see a land bright and clear, and the time's comin' near
When we'll live in this land, you and me, hand in hand
Take my hand, come along, lend your voice to my song
Come along, take my hand, sing a song

For a land where the river runs free
For a land through the green country
For a land to a shining sea
For a land where the horses run free
And you and me are free to be you and me

Every boy in this land grows to be his own man
In this land, every girl grows to be her own woman

At the risk of sounding like an old geezer who can't stop talking about the way things used to be, I'll do just that.

Young'uns, there was a time not long ago when it was freaking impossible to imagine a woman becoming president. Yes, I realize this sounds crazy, but it's true. Heck, like I said, it was difficult to imagine a woman being a CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Or for women my mother's age, even being able to work at a job society reserved for men.

So when Clinton is elected president tomorrow (or so I hope and expect), this is going to mean different things to different people in this country.

I just wish that almost everyone could agree that the woman speaking in the New York Times video below is eminently qualified to be president, and it will be a wonderful thing to have a woman lead our country.

Follow FiveThirtyEight and PredictWise to stay presidential-poll sane

For political junkies like me, it's easy to go a little (or a lot) crazy during the excruciatingly long presidential campaign season -- becoming joyful when a chosen candidate (Clinton, in my case) is ascendent in the polls, and despondent when a downturn happens.

Here's my advice about how to handle this:

Follow the best poll analyzer around, FiveThirtyEight, Nate Silver's operation. After he left the New York Times, Silver and Co. branched out into analyzing sports and other areas.

But politics, not surprisingly, is his emphasis at the moment. I follow FiveThirtyEight on Twitter and enjoy his highly competent take on what's happening in the Clinton-Trump battle.

He regularly reminds people that single polls aren't meaningful, like the recent CNN poll that showed Trump with a 2-point lead nationally. Looking at averages of many polls over time is the way to go.

Currently FiveThirtyEight gives Clinton a 67% chance of winning, almost exactly the same as in early June. There have been ups and downs for the candidates, but no overall movement in the past three months. 

I'm also a fan of prediction markets, where people lay bets on political and other sorts of contests. I don't follow prediction markets very closely, so had to do some Googling to find a good example to share. 

PredictWise popped up. This is the web site's pitch:

PredictWise reflects David Rothschild’s academic, peer-reviewed, research into prediction markets, along with polling and online/social media data. The backbone of predictions on this site are market-based, generated from real-money markets that trade contracts on upcoming events. While we have great respect for: polls and online/social media data, the topline predictions reflect data that are more accurate, flexible, and update in real-time.

Below is the current presidential chart.

It shows Clinton with a 75% chance of winning, and Trump 25%. Which isn't far off from FiveThirtyEight's 67% chance of a Clinton victory.

You can see that the prediction markets are more stable than the FiveThirtyEight model. FiveThirtyEight had the race tied in late July, while at that time PredictWise had it 70-30 in favor of Clinton.

At any rate, there's two months left before the November election.

Quite a few ups and downs likely remain for both presidential candidates. Like I said, it's easy to get overwrought about temporary blips in the long term trend. The time to worry is when your favored candidate is on a steady downward trend close to election day.

Once the presidential debates begin, I suspect we'll see some significant bumps for the candidates. The debates will give people a chance to see Clinton and Trump on the same stage, talking about the same issues. I'm predicting Clinton will benefit from the debates.

But I'm not betting on it. I'll be watching PredictWise as a detached observer.

Melania Trump's plagiarism shows why Donald would be a horrible president

If anyone needed a reason to oppose Donald Trump's presidential ambitions, the debacle of his wife's plagiarized speech at the Republican Convention last night sure offers up a good one.

It's obvious to anyone with half a brain -- which apparently doesn't include Donald Trump -- that Melania Trump borrowed from Michele Obama's 2008 speech at the Democratic Convention where her husband won his first presidential nomination. 

The New York Times has a clear comparison of the Trump and Obama speeches in "Questions Over Melania Trump's Speech Set Off Finger-Pointing." Here's the more extensive example of plagiarism. (click to enlarge)

The chance that Melania Trump independently came up with the same ideas, the same words, and the same order of expressing them as Michelle Obama did is so close to zero, let's just round things off and say... zero. 

Supporting the near-certainty that significant portions of Trump's speech were copied almost verbatim from Obama's speech is a follow-up New York Times story: "How Melania Trump's Speech Veered Off Course and Caused an Uproar." The story is based on interviews "with more than a dozen people involved in and close to the Trump campaign." 

The Trump campaign turned to two high-powered speechwriters, who had helped write signature political oratory like George W. Bush’s speech to the nation on Sept. 11, 2001, to introduce Ms. Trump, a Slovenian-born former model, to the nation on the opening night of the Republican National Convention.

It did not go as planned, and it has eclipsed much of the action at the party gathering in Cleveland, where delegates on Tuesday night formally nominated Mr. Trump for president.

The speechwriters, Matthew Scully and John McConnell, sent Ms. Trump a draft last month, eager for her approval.

Weeks went by. They heard nothing.

Inside Trump Tower, it turned out, Ms. Trump had decided she was uncomfortable with the text, and began tearing it apart, leaving a small fraction of the original.

...The two original speechwriters were not aware of how significantly the speech had been changed until they saw Ms. Trump deliver it on television Monday night, along with the rest of the country.

In the prime-time address, Ms. Trump unfurled a sequence of life lessons — about how “your word is your bond,” about “your dreams and your willingness to work for them,” and the “integrity, passion and intelligence” of her parents — in the same sequence and using much of the same language that Mrs. Obama employed in 2008.

So Melania Trump, likely with the aid of her staff, used Michelle Obama's words without attribution. That's plagiarism, a cardinal sin in speechwriting.

In interviews, alarmed Republican speechwriters outlined the layers of formal scrutiny, apparently disregarded by the Trump campaign, traditionally applied to almost every draft of a major convention address. They described word-by-word fact-checking by a dedicated team of experts and computer software designed to catch plagiarism. Several online programs, like DupliChecker, are available at no cost.

“It’s pretty standard,” Mr. Stevens said of the software, which detects overlap in word choice and sentence structure. “We used it.”

An urgent priority: avoiding the slightest hint of oratorical theft.

“The most cardinal rule of any speech-writing operation is that you cannot plagiarize,” said Mr. Latimer, the Bush speechwriter, who is now a partner at Javelin, a communications firm. If you do, he said, “you lose your job.”

Now, the smart and honest thing for the Trump campaign to do would have been to acknowledge the plagiarism, explaining how and why it happened. 

For example, perhaps Melania Trump wasn't aware that using part of someone else's speech in your own speech is a major no-no in this country. As a youth she was focused on modeling, not English literature.

I would have found it charming if Ms. Trump had told the public, "I loved what Michelle Obama said. I'm sorry that I copied her words, rather than expressing her view in my own language. I'm new to speechwriting. I won't make this mistake again.

Instead, though, the Trump campaign has dismissed the uproar over Melania Trump's plagiarism, denying it even happened.

The Trump campaign on Tuesday dismissed criticism that Melania Trump directly lifted two passages nearly word-for-word from the speech that first lady Michelle Obama delivered in 2008 at the Democratic National Convention, calling the complaints "just absurd."

Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort insisted no mistakes had been made with the speech and said the issue was "totally blown out of proportion."

Wow. 

Unfortunately, there have been so many wow's coming from the Trump campaign, the American public is getting used to them. This doesn't make them acceptable.

A presidential candidate needs to demonstrate that he or she is in touch with reality. Sure, they will have their own unique viewpoint on things, but it is vitally important that their understanding of the basic nature of those "things" be factually correct.

It's really bothersome that Trump plays so fast and loose with facts. This shows that he would be a terrible president, since the leader of the United States has to be in command of what is actually happening in the world -- not what he or she wants to have happen, or hopes to have happen. 

Here's the PolitiFact summary of their Donald Trump fact-checks. A freaking 75% are mostly false, false, and Pants On Fire false. Yes, 75% are false. 

By contrast, here's Hillary Clinton's fact-checks. Only 27% are mostly false, false, and Pants of Fire false. That's still too many, but it is almost a mirror image of Trump's truth-telling. I'd much rather have a president who is speaking truthfully 3/4 of the time, than a president who is speaking falsely 3/4 of the time.

Melania Trump's plagiarism, and how the Trump campaign has handled it, is just another indication that Donald Trump is totally unqualified to be president of the United States. 

Five reasons to vote "No" on $82 million Salem Police Facility bond

I like the Salem Police Department. I don't like the City of Salem's proposed $82 million "supersized" plan for a new police facility. Likewise, I can support our armed forces and still oppose wasteful military spending.

I've made an Adobe Spark web page that lays out five good reasons to vote NO on the $82 million bond measure that will be on the November ballot. Plus, a bonus reason. Scroll down and click to see it.

Tonight I'm planning to testify during the public comment period at a City Council meeting where, almost certainly, approval of the bond measure referral will occur. 

Here's what I told City officials recently in an email where I gave them advance notice that I'd be opposing the police facility bond measure:

I want to let City officials know that I (along with others) will be actively opposing the $82 million police facility bond measure that, almost certainly, will be approved by the City Council at the upcoming June 27 meeting. 

This is unfortunate, because a lyric from an Adele song comes to mind: “You could have had it all.” After the ill-fated plan to build a new police facility on the Civic Center campus was dropped due to strong community opposition, Salem was close to a consensus on how to proceed:

Build a 75,000 to 106,000 square foot police facility away from the Civic Center, with surface parking, and make vital seismic upgrades to City Hall and the Library. 

But the size and cost of the police facility doubled, and the seismic upgrades got squeezed out by the new supersized “full meal deal” plan. So now some of the people who have closely followed this project feel duty-bound to oppose the $82 million bond measure. 

Me included. 

As a first step, I’ve put together a Salem Can Do Better web page — which presents five reasons to vote “No” on the bond:

http://www.salemcandobetter.com

Since community discussion on important issues is always good, Salem will benefit by having a vigorous debate between now and the November election about the merits of the $82 million police facility proposal. As you know, polling showed just about an even split between those who initially favored and opposed a bond for this purpose. 

So I look forward to being a voice on the “No” side of the debate, recognizing that others will speak up for “Yes.” Then voters will decide the question, hopefully based on a full and accurate understanding of what it would mean for the bond measure to pass or fail.

     — Brian

Bernie Sanders' revolution is turning into a whimper

Oh, Bernie. This Hillary supporter wants so much for you to recognize the reality that she will be the Democratic presidential candidate, not you. 

And then to work hand-in-hand with Clinton and the Democratic Party to (1) defeat Donald Trump in November, and (2) bring about the progressive policies that you so ably championed during your campaign.

But this tweet by Mark Murray, the senior political editor for NBC News, neatly expresses how your revolution is turning out at the moment:

Not with a bang, but with a whimper

Ouch! Biting, yet true. 

A story in today's New York Daily News has a headline with a similar message: "Enough, Bernie, enough: Sanders needs to hang it up."

After decisively losing the nomination of a party that was never his political home, Bernie Sanders is revealing egotism of practically Trumpian proportions.

Sanders insists that he deserves powerful sway over the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton, whom he savaged during the campaign as an “unqualified” stooge of Wall Street.

As they say at closing time: Bernie, you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.

...Having become the surprise man of the moment because his lifetime of droning about a rigged system came into vogue, Sanders has lost acquaintance with the American political system.

In 2008, Clinton lost the Democratic nomination to Barack Obama by a grand total of 41,622 votes and 127 pledged delegates.

Despite the razor-thin margin, Clinton she did not have the gall to suggest that she could pressure the victor to accept any of her platform. She understood, as everyone should, that the winner’s ideas carry the day.

Obama embraced Clintonian ideas only when he deemed them worthy. He graciously offered her the position of secretary of state. He bent in her direction on health care, building an individual mandate into his eventual plan.

These were choices made of his own free will, not because Clinton insisted that her 18 million votes entitled her to anything.

This time, Sanders pulled in 3.7 million fewer votes than Clinton and far fewer delegates.

The way Sanders is acting now that he has lost the nomination makes me realize that I was correct in not voting for him in the Oregon Democratic primary. Sanders' grand political vision is fine. However, his perception is horribly blurred when it comes to dealing with concrete, practical, realistic policy decisions. 

Bernie doesn't seem to realize that he has lost, and Hillary has won.

The loser of a presidential primary doesn't get to decide what the party platform is, determine who chairs the Democratic National Committee, or get their way on Democratic Party election reforms.

Sanders is entitled to work for these things. But he doesn't get to demand them. Sanders needs to congratulate Clinton on her victory, then get to work campaigning for her and fighting against Trump. 

Unfortunately, today much of his focus was on those Democratic Party reforms (some of what he wants is problematic, such as allowing Independents and Republicans to vote in open Democratic primaries), rather than on conceding defeat and endorsing Clinton. 

If Sanders keeps up his Whining Game, he risks alienating the clear majority of Democratic Party primary voters who preferred Clinton's political views. It's amazing that a guy who lost the presidential primary, big time, somehow feels that his positions have to be adopted by the person who defeated him.

Be a good loser, Bernie. Then join with Clinton in bringing about the progressive revolution that both of you want.

Tough to know what to do about mass shootings in United States

I wish I had a realistic answer to stopping mass shootings in this country. I wish somebody did. 

But here we are again, 50 dead and 53 wounded in an attack on a gay nightclub, the worst mass shooting in the history of the United States, and no realistic answers are apparent.

Depressing.

The problem is with that word, realistic.  Because it's pretty obvious why this country has way more gun killings than any other nation: we have way more guns. 

We're not going to get rid of all those guns, though. No way. Not going to happen.

Australia was able to ban semiautomatic and automatic rifles and shotguns. It also instituted a mandatory buy-back program for newly banned weapons. Mass shootings stopped. However, we've got the 2nd Amendment, a fanatic group of NRA-backed gun nuts, and a House of Representatives that likely will remain in Republican control for a while.

This country's best hope for common sense gun control is to change the membership of our Supreme Court enough to allow a return to the legal principle that held sway throughout our nation's history until very recently: the "right to bear arms" isn't an individual right, so reasonable restrictions can be put on it.

I'd like to see assault weapons banned.

They don't serve any sort of hunting or self-defense purpose. I own guns for those purposes (I don't hunt, but I've used a shotgun to blast ground squirrels burrowing under our house's foundation). I've never felt like I needed an assault weapon.

This would be a positive step to reducing the toll of mass shootings. It's hard to believe that Omar Mateen, the gunman in the gay nightclub massacre, could have killed and wounded so many people without using an AR-15-style assault rifle. 

Still, a New York Times piece, "How They Got Their Guns," looks at the guns used in 16 recent mass shootings. Only five involved assault-style weapons. Further:

The vast majority of guns used in 16 recent mass shootings, including two guns believed to be used in the Orlando attack, were bought legally and with a federal background check. At least eight gunmen had criminal histories or documented mental health problems that did not prevent them from obtaining their weapons.

So stricter universal background checks seems like a good place to start in our nation's quest to reduce mass shootings. It seems crazy that Mateen was able to buy his guns so easily, even though he'd been investigated by the FBI as a possible ISIS-sympathizer. 

Beyond this, I'm having trouble thinking of what can be done. Realistically. 

Sure, it'd be great if nobody believed in fantasies about how an imaginary God wants those who don't believe in a certain made-up religion to kill unbelievers. This isn't going to happen anytime soon, though. 

And while better mental health treatment is needed, the United States doesn't have more disturbed people than other countries. We have more freaking guns. People aren't the mass shooting problem in this country. Guns are. So it seems obvious that stronger gun control is the answer.

Along with more and better research on gun violence. The ban on this is absurd. That April 2016 story said;

A coalition of 141 medical organizations sent a letter to four senior members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees on Wednesday urging them to restore funding for gun violence research at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Medical professionals and our communities work to address the devastating and long-lasting physical and emotional effects of gun violence on victims, their families and their friends, but are hampered by the insufficient body of evidence-based research to use to point communities toward proven gun violence prevention programs and policies,” the letter reads.

How many more automobile deaths would there be today if car manufacturers had gotten Congress to ban research on air bags, antilock brakes, road design, and such? So here's another realistic step toward reducing gun deaths: put researchers to work on figuring out the best policies to do this.

Sanders needs to do "Golden Rule" thing, now that Clinton is presumptive nominee

Today is historic. The New York Times headline says it all.

Hillary Clinton Has Clinched Democratic Nomination, Survey Reports.

Hillary Clinton became the first woman to capture the presidential nomination of one of the country’s major political parties on Monday night, according to an Associated Press survey of Democratic superdelegates, securing enough of them to overcome a bruising challenge from Senator Bernie Sanders and turn to a brutal five-month campaign against Donald J. Trump.

Almost eight years after she ended her campaign against Barack Obama before a crowd with many teary women and girls, Mrs. Clinton signaled the news to a jubilant crowd at a campaign stop in Long Beach, Calif.

“I got to tell you, according to the news, we are on the brink of a historic, historic, unprecedented moment, but we still have work to do, don’t we?” she said. “We have six elections tomorrow, and we’re going to fight hard for every single vote, especially right here in California.”

It would have been nice if the Sanders campaign had acknowledged the historic nature of a woman finally being the presumptive presidential nominee of a major party.

A spokesperson could have said something like, "We congratulate Ms. Clinton on gaining enough delegates to be the apparent nominee of the Democratic Party. We hope to change the minds of some superdelegates, but we know this will be very difficult to do. Still, we will try, since so many people have supported Senator Sanders. If we fail, rest assured that we will be strong supporters of Ms. Clinton in her race against Donald Trump."

But the quotes in the New York Times story were nothing like this. Instead, I read:

“It is unfortunate that the media, in a rush to judgment, are ignoring the Democratic National Committee’s clear statement that it is wrong to count the votes of superdelegates before they actually vote at the convention this summer,” said Michael Briggs, a Sanders spokesman, in a statement.

“Secretary Clinton does not have and will not have the requisite number of pledged delegates to secure the nomination,” the statement continued.

“She will be dependent on superdelegates who do not vote until July 25 and who can change their minds between now and then.”

This reeks of sore loser -- especially since Sanders has railed against the ability of superdelegates to overturn the will of voters in the Democratic primaries. Who, it turns out, gave Clinton millions more votes and hundreds more pledged delegates than Sanders. 

Yet now Sanders is signaling that he will try to overturn the will of the clear majority of primary voters by getting superdelegates to give him the presidential nomination that he wasn't able to win in a fair fight with Clinton. 

I understand how tough it is to go through a bruising race for the Democratic presidential nomination and come up short. I also realize how passionate Sanders supporters are about their favored candidate. 

Both Sanders and his supporters need to do the Golden Rule thing, though: imagine how they would feel if things had turned out differently, and today the Associated Press had declared Bernie Sanders to be the presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic party -- having won enough pledged delegates and the support of enough superdelegates to put him over the top.

They would be freaking outraged if a spokesperson for the Clinton campaign had said something like:

"Sure, Sanders has gotten the majority of votes and delegates. But this doesn't matter, because we're going to do our best to convince superdelegates that Clinton is the more electable candidate. America isn't ready to elect a socialist as president, no matter how many Democratic voters think otherwise."

They'd be screaming about the unfairness of Democratic party insiders being able to overturn the will of the majority of primary voters. 

Yet this is exactly what Sanders says he is intending to do. 

Along with most other supporters of Hillary Clinton, I have a lot of fondness and respect for Bernie Sanders. His positions aren't hugely different from Clinton's, but I like his unique passion and genuineness. Sanders has brought issues to the nation's attention that needed to be in the spotlight. 

Kudos to him for that. I'm worried, though, that Sanders is going to fritter away much of that goodwill by engaging in a mean-spirited, fruitless battle to achieve through superdelegates what he couldn't achieve through the primary process.

If he spends the time between now and the Democratic convention trying to take the nomination away from Clinton that she has fairly won, this is going to make progressives like me want to shun Sanders -- because it irks when he is trying to do to Clinton what he wouldn't have wanted done to him, if he'd won the majority of primary votes and delegates.