Posted inCurrent affairs

An open letter to Obama (from a still-hopeful progressive)

A friend of ours here in Salem, Russ Beaton, has written an open letter to President Obama that expresses what a lot of other people who voted for him in 2008 are feeling:

Good about what Obama has done so far, bad about his lack of evident zeal for moving the country further forward after the midterm election.

Throughout the arduous primary campaign, I eagerly listened to every speech and interview I could access.  My early conclusions were always reinforced and my enthusiasm grew.  I sent all that I could afford as campaign donations and continually worked for your candidacy as opposed to Hillary’s – who I believe would make an outstanding President.  But we needed a fresher start with one not as connected with past successes, failures and political entanglements.

…Given this background of support, I am compelled to say that your comments in the press conference the day after the 2010 midterm elections were the first words I have ever heard from you that were truly disappointing.  Even to an independent centrist and especially to an ardent supporter, your call for compromise and “working together” sounded like complete capitulation.

I hope you'll read Russ' entire three page letter. (A Word file can be downloaded below; I'll also attach the letter as a continuation to this post.)
Download Open Letter to Obama

Russ is an Emeritus Professor of Economics at Salem's Willamette University. Also, a Bearcats Hall of Fame tennis coach.

Read on for an excellent explanation of why progressives like me are disappointed  with President Obama, yet still hopeful that our enthusiasm can be rekindled by seeing some sparks and fire emanate from the Oval Office.

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Posted inCurrent affairs

Senate Republicans get stupid on START treaty

If you're anywhere near my age, you'll remember the not-so-good old days of nuclear war fear: home bomb shelters, Cuban missile crisis, above ground tests in Nevada that caused radioactivity to show up in milk, and other scariness. Almost everyone would agree that reducing nuclear arsenals is a good thing. Since 1992 this has happened through treaties between the United States and the Soviet Union (now reduced to Russia). A New START treaty is ready to be ratified by the Senate. Previous nuclear arms control treaties were approved by massive bipartisan margins: 93-6 in 1992 for the START I treaty…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Entertainment

Bristol Palin boosted by Tea Party vote fraud

Bristol Palin, Sarah Palin's daughter, is a mediocre dancer. I've watched every episode of Dancing With the Stars this season, so I can testify to that. She's been in the bottom two many times, saved only by viewer votes -- not the judge's scores. Last night Bristol made it into next week's final (top three will compete) by beating out Brandy, a far superior dancer. Brandy got 57 points from the judges on Monday, the competition night, including perfect 10's for her Tango, while Bristol got 53. What bugs me -- a lot -- about the viewer voting is that…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Sustainability

Ice sheet melting brings oceanfront dream closer

I've always wanted to live on a beach. According to a New York Times story, if I live to be about 150 -- to the end of this century -- that dream will be at least three vertical feet closer to our current elevation of 440 feet, and possibly a lot more. Scary, especially for those who already live in low-lying coastal areas, and for young people (plus those yet to be born) who will bear the brunt of global warming effects -- including sea level rise. Reading "As Glaciers Melt, Science Seeks Data on Rising Seas" added to my…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Home life

Me to Federal Reserve: “Higher interest rates, please”

The U.S. Federal Reserve is supposed to be an independent guardian of our banking system, immune from pleas to do this or that from either politicans or regular citizens. But since Sarah Palin felt free to critique the Fed's recent monetary policy actions (though many, including me, were surprised she even knew what the Fed did), I figured I might as well throw in my own request: Higher interest rates, please. Higher inflation also, if that goes along with higher interest. I'll confess to being minimally economically literate. But I know how to balance my checkbook (except when I can't).…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Science Sustainability

Climate scientists challenge global warming deniers

Great news: climate scientists have decided they no longer will tolerate truth-besmirching, anti-science, fossil fuel industry-supported global warming deniers. Unfortunately, the campaign to bring more facts and less irrationality into policy debates isn't quite as aggressive as the LA Times story said (which was reprinted in the Portland Oregonian, where I read it this morning). Faced with rising political attacks, hundreds of climate scientists are joining a broad campaign to push back against congressional conservatives who have threatened prominent researchers with investigations and vowed to kill regulations to rein in man-made greenhouse gas emissions. The still-evolving efforts reveal a shift…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Kitzhaber needs to make Oregon #1 in health care

John Kitzhaber, a Democrat who recently was elected Oregon's governor, is a physician. He's already helped to heal my progressive depression over the national midterm election results. But I can tell that Republican craziness in Congress, now that they control the House, is going to upset my psyche almost as much as Kitzhaber's win (and Jon Stewart's rally) restored sanity to my political soul. Today I read that the GOP plans to try to starve health care reform enactment by cutting off funding. This is chicken-shit and stupid, as almost everything Congressional Republicans do these days is. For example, they…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Kitzhaber’s win restores my progressive enthusiasm

Ah, it was just what the doctor ordered, a fitting phrase since John Kitzhaber is a physician. Yesterday afternoon I learned that he'd earned a late-breaking victory and will become Oregon's governor...again (he served two terms from 1995-2003). As I predicted a few days ago before the national election returns started to come in, by midnight Tuesday my state of mind was hovering in the "depressed" zone. My wife wasn't helping with her the country is doomed mutterings. When we went to bed Kitzhaber was about 13,000 votes behind. Waking up on Wednesday, I rushed to my laptop to see…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Last election blog before inebriation sets in

It's not even 3:00 pm here in Oregon. But I need to write about today's midterm elections now, before I'm mentally unable to make sense. After all, soon the polls will start closing in the east. Super-political-commentator Nate Silver will start live blogging on FiveThirtyEight in a few minutes. I'll do my best to resist, yet won't be able to stop obsessively watching online and on TV for early signs of what is to come. I'm planning to start my late afternoon/evening in a caffeinated state. This is normal for me. However, I may need to jolt my brain into…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

How the Rally to Restore Sanity changed me

I'm notorious for making resolutions that don't last, whether around New Year's or yesterday -- when my wife and I, along with some progressive friends, watched the Rally to Restore Sanity in its entirety thanks to CSPAN. But after being immersed for three hours in Jon Stewart's and Stephen Colbert's inimical brand of political humor/satire, I think they may have permanently changed the way I look upon those with whom I strongly disagree. Meaning: Tea Party folks, right-wing Republicans, religious fundamentalists, dogmatic moralists, climate change deniers, and other anti-science types who try to found social policies on feelings rather than…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Marijuana

Marijuana users can drive just fine — vote yes on Prop 19

I learned many things during my college years (1966-71) at San Jose State University. One was that heavy marijuana users, a.k.a. "stoners," could drive just fine while under the influence. I can personally testify to this. Oh, man, I sure can. This fact is politically relevant since opponents of California's Proposition 19, which would legalize and tax marijuana in Oregon's neighbor to the south, are promulgating ridiculous claims about stoned drivers killing people if Prop 19 passes. On average, a drunk driver kills someone every 45 minutes. Recreational marijuana use in fatal crashes will increase if Prop. 19 passes. It…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

My dismaying post-election forecast

A week ago I was feeling better about the upcoming election. Recently, though, I had an intuitive flash that got me politically down in the dumps again. Here's the thought process that ran through my mind: In 2006 and 2008 the Democrats made big gains in Congress. And, of course, Obama became president. But Washington remained dysfunctional. Gridlock and excessive compromising left every major policy area -- jobs, financial reform, health care, energy policy, immigration -- a shadow of the bright light that should have been cast upon our country. So now the citizenry is pissed. They're angry at the…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Neighborhood

Is Tea Party anger filtering into neighborhood groups?

Until last night I'd thought of Tea Party craziness as being mostly confined to the national and state levels. But after attending a meeting of our rural south Salem (Oregon) neighborhood association last night, I'm wondering if that sort of free-floating irrational anger is making its way into deeply local concerns. I've been the secretary of our association for many years -- almost twenty. In the not-so-good old days, soon after we moved into this area, some of the neighborhood association meetings were so vehement, people would almost come to blows. Then the hotheads departed, or got older and a…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Lars Larson flunks neuroscience and common sense

Revealing that I haven't reached a state of enlightened ego-loss, I'll admit to a reason why I listen to conservative Portland talk show host Lars Larson fairly frequently: I feel superior when I do. Because Larson, like most other right-wing public airwave pundits, is both amazingly ignorant of modern science and deficient in common sense. Case in point -- a discussion he had today with a caller who was trying to equate an innate propensity toward homosexuality with an innate urge to abuse children sexually. Larson believes that gayness is learned, a lifestyle choice, which is ridiculous. Yet he was…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

I’m feeling better about Dem election chances

Do you feel the shift in the political wind? I do. Hopefully it isn't a product of wishful thinking, a desire to escape the hurricane that many pundits say will blow Democrats off of the political landscape on November 2. I don't think it is. Today on Sirius' POTUS I heard the communications director for a Hispanic organization say that the voters she represents are getting more engaged in the election, and are ready to vote against those who are into immigration reform-bashing. And the Daily Kos Senate Snapshot now has Democrats holidng onto 53 Senate seats, up one from…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Sisters, Oregon divided over real estate development

Since my wife and I are part-owners of a cabin in Camp Sherman, Oregon -- about fifteen minutes from charming Sisters (the town, not siblings) -- we follow the political goings-on in Sisters as best we can. Which mostly is through reading The Nugget, the town's weekly newspaper, though we also get insights from a business owner who we're on chatting-terms with. The Nugget always is an entertaining read. The regular "Sisters sheriff's calls..." column is a favorite of ours. Here's some entries from the October 6, 2010 paper which reflect the laid-back nature of the area. A deer got…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Sustainability

If you care about our planet, don’t vote for Dudley

I could almost hear the increasingly hotter Earth breathing a steamy sigh of relief when the newest Oregon gubernatorial poll came out today. Rasmussen Reports has John Kitzhaber ahead of Chris Dudley 48% to 46%. Dudley shouldn't be this close, given his disturbingly lukewarm support, or outright disdain, for environmental issues. Oregonians are proudly green (not referring to school colors, Beaver fans). We want our state to remain a leader in job-creating sustainability. But like the Oregon League of Conservation Voters says, "Oregon can't afford a governor who's not sure about global warming." Last week, at the KGW/Oregonian gubernatorial debate,…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Why Chris Dudley is wrong for Oregon

Last night's televised debate between Chris Dudley and John Kitzhaber was my first chance to see Dudley in an unscripted setting. I already felt like I knew Kitzhaber fairly well, since I met him quite a few times when he was president of the state Senate back in the '80s and I was working on health policy issues -- one of Kitzhaber's core interests. I moved to Oregon in 1971, when Republican Tom McCall was governor. I liked McCall a lot. So the notion of having a (R) after the name of the person who leads Oregon isn't automatically reprehensible…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Salem

Why Jason Freilinger out-debated Patti Milne

I just got back from a League of Woman Voters' debate between Jason Freilinger and Patti Milne, candidates for a Marion County Board of Commissioners position. In my utterly biased opinion, Freilinger won by a mile. Maybe even a light year. Why? Because he didn't shy away from tough questions like Milne did. Milne is a professional politician seeking a third term in office. Freilinger has a business degree and works in the private sector, where problems have to be tackled head-on or you don't succeed in the long run. I said that I was utterly biased because I am.…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Humor

Who knew you could pitch a no-hitter on LSD?

I sure didn't know this until last night, even though I took quite a bit of LSD back in my early college days (1966-1968'ish). I learned about the marvelous achievement of Dock Ellis via an HBO presentation of a Robin Williams stand-up comedy show. When I saw Williams tell the tale of Ellis' LSD'ized no-hitter, I laughed a lot. Sort of felt like a flashback. Maybe it was. Here's the You Tube snippet:  If you want to know the full story of how Dock Ellis came to be pitching a major league baseball game while high on LSD and benzedrine…
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