Thursday
May172012
Thursday, May 17, 2012 at 03:01AM
It was comforting to see that Eileen Brady, the reputed co-founder of New Seasons, couldn't buy her way into the November run off for mayor of Portlandia.
I love New Seasons, it's my favorite local grocery chain. But Brady doesn't have any government experience aside from being on a blue ribbon governor panel on health care reform while her two winning opponents Charlie Hales, a former city commissioner, and Jefferson Smith, a legislator, do have such experience. While Hales bested Smith by 10% in a low turnout election (40%), next November in a high turnout presidential election his margin will shrink. I wouldn't take any bets now on who might win but clearly Hales is the favorite. But this May not November!
The most interesting results for me were the victories in Metro races by Sam Chase and Bob Stacey. Both have indicated support for building more affordable housing. Stacey was quoted in the Oregonian that "We're not creating enough housing that's affordable to all households. You can't consign low-income (residents) to the least convenient, most distant parts of the metro-area." Right on Bob. I take some credit for this comment since last fall when Stacy ran unsuccessfully against Tom Hughes for Metro's president, I called them on OPB's Think Out Loud program advocating affordable housing. Stacey had no record on that issue but did the better job of answering my question which caused me to to endorse him on my blog after having endorsed Hughes at first.
Since Metro is tasked with designing the 3 county metro area using land use principles based on Oregon's famous and unique land use planning regime inherited from the McCall era (Senate Bill 100) the influence of Stacey and Chase, who has an excellent affordable housing pedigree based on being former Portlandia city commissioners and housing advocate Eric Sten's chief of staff, this is promising news. Stacey is correct low income housing should not be confined to the margins of the east side of Portland or out in Washington County's rural west side. We need to have a regional strategy which locates housing near places of work which will create more livable and sustainable communities.
Stacey and Chase will have to contend with former Mayor of Hillsboro Hughes, a long time acquaintance of mine as a former Aloha social studies teacher and OEA activist, who has become the witting tool of the big box industry on the West side aka the hi tech biggies - Intel, Tectronics et al... They will have their work cut out for them as members of the 7 member Metro council whose bias tilts to creating green spaces not jobs or housing. Good luck gentlemen. Any such work will require the legislature's help. Given the election results the line up of the next session is murky. Most pundits predict a similar line up in January 2013 to the current 30/30 and 16/14 ratio in the House and Senate respectively.
Tuesday
May152012
Tuesday, May 15, 2012 at 02:34PM
As a former adjunct professor at Portland State University, 2005-2009, I wasn't eligible for the Oregon public employees retirement plan (PERS). But I got a notice yesterday from the PERS system saying I wasn't getting any benefits despite my former employment, gee was I surprised. In reading the fine print I noticed that if one is in the PERS system one's benefits are based on 1.5% times your final annual salary averaged. It's all gobbly gook to me but I sure wish my TIAA/CREF pension plan, which is very good, gave me the equivalent of 1.5% times my monthly salary when I retired from Pacific!
I could use that extra .5% for my golf fees and model train habit. Heck, just give me a modest cut of former UO head football coach Mike Belotti's PERS benefits!
No wonder Oregon has a budget problem with less and less going into K-12, human resources and higher education. I'd feel differently about this if my public employee spouse was in the PERS system but the City of Forest Grove denied her any pension plan and only gave her partial health care coverage late in her 30 plus year career. So she still trots of the the "salt mines" every morning as my Marion the Librarian. According to my pension plan forecast she has to work until she's 95 to keep me in the income bracket I've become accomstomed to. Now where's that walker I bought for her on Mother's Day?
I'm revising my view of the 1% to include not only hedge fund managers (aka ass holes), CEOs (aka jerks) of banks that are too big to fail et al. but to also include retired double and triple dippers like members of Congress (aka vultures of the public purse).
Some of my friends might be surprised about my anti-PERS spin. But over the years I've watched PERS increasingely get out of control, suffer mismanagement by mostly Democratic administrations and be influenced by public employee unions as their fiefdom. When there is no accountability and no transparency, which there isn't even now with PERS, you get what one might expect, decisions made by political cronies who think anyone who critiques public pension systems is anti-union. My problem is that unions like corporations play an insider trading game at the taxpayer's expense!
Saturday
May122012
Saturday, May 12, 2012 at 10:29AM
"Were American presidential candidates serious about discussing what really matters in the world, they would be arguing about how best to support the Arab quest for dignity and democratic freedoms, and how to end the American and other Western legacies of double standards that speak of freedom but continue to support autocrats. Some things have changed in the past year, and others have not."
- Rami G. Khouri
Last week NPR interviewed a British foreign policy guru talking about the unintended consequences of US/NATO policy in Libya The basic line was that removing Gadaffi had created a political vacuum within Libya and much of Central Africa. It reminded me of the argument during the Vietnam War that losing Vietnam would create a "domino effect" wherein other nations in Southeast Asia from Vietnam to Burma would fall into the Commie orbit.
While we should be concerned that the internal political dynamics in Libya are unsettled given regional and tribal conflicts endemic to Libya, to argue that chaos will be unleashed on Sub-Saharan Africa from the Sudan to Nigeria is a bit much. Not that Central Africa is a bastion of political stability, it clearly is not. Given the legacy of European Colonialism, Central Africa has been a mess since the 1950s.
The historic legacy of colonialism is exemplified by British "divide and rule" tactics used in India based on religious loyalties which pitted Hindus and Muslims against each other resulting in partition. The Brits, the French and the Portuguese carved up their empires for purposes of administrative control not in recognition of the history and geography of tribe, clan or religion. So we are now faced with this bitter harvest.
Sadly the USA under Pax Americana all too often mimiced 19th century colonialism in the 20th century and into the 21st century regardless of who is POTUS or which party is in power. We don't have colonies in the old fashioned sense but geo-poltiical alliances which amount to the same thing. As the only super power, one means of ending American neo-colonialism is to quit being the world's policeman and the #1 arms merchant in the world. Only then will our diplomacy be credible.
What worries me is that is Libya a new Afghanistan? After 9/11 we responded by attacking al Qaeda in Afghanistan, then ousted the Taliban at which point we turned our attention away to Iraq. Are we doing the same thing in Libya today? I don't know. Yemen not Libya is the new training ground for al Qaeda on the Arabian peninsula. But with another failed state in the wings, Libya, will the jihadists find another home base there too along with Somalia?
I wondered what the analyst would say about contemporary Russia. Would he prefer a Stalinist system in place of the Putin regime? Sometimes we look at the good old days through rose colored glasses because they were relatively stable, each side of the Cold War knew the rules and played by them in the era of MAD. But the price paid by the captive people of Eastern Europe was a pretty high price to say nothing of the costs of the economy of permanent war in USA and her allies.
Here's a link to a very sober analysis my CC sent to me today which is worth a read. There's nothing new here that a person familiar with the writings of C.Wright Mills, William Appleman Williams, Michael Parenti or Noam Chomsky has not read from the early '60s. But most of these names are unknown to the current generation so this article is a nice refresher course on the implications of global politics, the national security state and the consequences of permanent war.
It reminds one of the saying - "be careful what you wish for, you might get it."
Saturday
May122012
Saturday, May 12, 2012 at 09:45AM
Coal trains headed for Spokane EDITOR'S NOTE: Last Monday there was a rally in Pioneer Square to stop the shipping by rail of coal from Wyoming to ports in Oregon or SW Washington. First we had the LNG battle over importing natural gas and now exporting it. Now Big Coal wants to use the Pacific Northwest as ports of exit for coal shipped to China. None of this makes sense from an environmental point of view.
Don't believe me - check out Robert Kennedy Jr's speech at Pioneer Square last week. I brought RFK, Jr. here in the 1997 edition of the Tom McCall Forum to debate former VP Dan Quayle. It was not a fair fight. Kennedy is one of the most brilliant people I've ever met and the most articulate of the Kennedy clan. His speech last week only hints at his acumen given as raspy voice.
What bothers me is the local media downplaying the rally saying only several hundred attended the rally. Even the organizers lowballed it at 600. Well the pictures of Pioneer Square show many more people than several hundred. I've been in Pioneer Square for political rallies of upwards of 5000-10,000 people. Look at the pictures and decide for yourself. Looks like a full Pioneer Square audience to me.
What is also interesting from a political point of view is that none of the 3 Portlandia mayor candidates were there only Multnomah County Commissioner Jeff Cogan was. None of our Oregon congressional delegation was there nor legislators or Guv K who is opposed to coal trains. And the organizers were the environmental community NOT the folks from Occupy Wall Street PDX. Interesting!
Check out photos from the rally:
Check out video footage from the rally:
Check out media coverage of rally:
Organizations who helped put on this rally:
Columbia Riverkeeper . Sierra Club . Climate Solutions . Washington Envrionmental Council . Oregon Environmental Council . Greenpeace USA . Friends of the Columbia Gorge . Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility . 350.org . CREDO . Puget Soundkeeper Alliance . North Sound Baykeeper . Lake Pend Oreille Waterkeeper . Coos Waterkeeper . Western Organization of Resource Councils . National Wildlife Federatiom . Waterkeeper Alliance
Friday
May112012
Friday, May 11, 2012 at 10:14AM
NPR had a story this morning on how Mitt Romney as a prep school student of privilege was also a bully leader of his "gang." Can poor little rich white kids have gangs?
The incident related was Mitt and his friends bullied a young fellow with long died blond hair who they assumed was gay. They tackled him and Mitt personally cut his hair. A same sex sort of Samson and Delilah moment? Granted boys (and girls) will do dumb things as teenagers, even as college students. It seems that acting stupidly is a right of passage in one's youth. It must be part of God's plan for we sinful mortals.
However, Romney doesn't remember this singular moment in the victim's life. He admits having been a prankster. This goes way beyond good clean fun, it's the stuff of being a predator not a fun loving kid. But how can Romney not remember the incident? I suspect he does, but prefers to lie or deny it. One suspects that Mr. Bain Capital also feels that way about the companies and workers he eliminated in his days of being a "creative" destroyer.
Again, it's not the incident itself that tells the whole story although gays might disagree, it's the denial that tells the tale. What other skeletons are in Mitt's closet?
