Archive for February, 2015

The blame is ours

Author: Barrett Rainey

Our so-called “social media” has been filled in recent days with the totally embarrassing remarks of an Idaho Republican legislative troll during a public hearing the other day. And the state’s reputation took yet another prominent hit in the national media as it so often has in recent times.

This time the troll was Rep. Vito Barbieri of the crazy North Idaho Barbieri’s. Guy’s been elected three times because voters in his district all seem to come from the same shallow end of the gene pool and see nothing wrong. He’s a California transplant who says he’s a lawyer though he’s never taken the Idaho Bar exam. He eats his own shoe leather – regularly and publically – by inserting his foot in his mouth before engaging his brain.

This time, his question of a doctor testifying before an Idaho House committee – a woman doctor yet and in a very public hearing – was whether it would be possible to peek inside a woman’s vagina by putting a small camera down her throat. Now, if for some reason you haven’t heard this, I’m definitely not making this up. I swear!

The cherry on top of this dipstick? He’s a board member of a North Idaho pregnancy crisis group. How’d you like to have him answer the phone when your scared teenage daughter – or any daughter – was reaching out for help?

“Just swallow a little camera, Dear, and see if it’s all O.K. down there.”

Now, I grant the nation’s political bodies aren’t full of PhD’s. And not everyone who chooses to run for public office has the skills deemed necessary to tie both shoes. So, some political vacancies extant are filled in by … well, let’s just say the “intellectually under-served.” Like a Barbieri.

Yes, he’s caught his share of embarrassing shots for the last week or so. Yet again. He’s even tried to say the question was “rhetorical.” Rhetorical? To which one could legitimately respond, “What the Hell’s the difference?”

While it’s easy to make fun of this cretin, there’s a really serious side to this Idaho political mistake. Because, the fact is, he’s no mistake. Elected three times by his neighbors who know him for the empty suit he is, he really does represent a constituency. So did Michelle Bachman. So does Darrell Issa and Steve King and Louis Gohmert and Ted Cruz and Mike Lee and all those other riders on the clown bus. While the rest of us might think these and other self-serving members of that “intellectually under-served” class have no place making decisions for us on issues beyond their understanding, the fact remains they represent people who think they do.

As a nation, both left and right, most of us are bemoaning the ongoing display of childishness in Washington – John Boehner and Mitch McConnell at one end of the playground – the President at the other – a lot of juvenile-acting delinquents in the middle. Regardless of differing political leanings, nearly all of us are tired of the stalemate, the name-calling, the intransigence of the situation.

The state of our national politics is now causing legitimate concern on the part of leaders of other countries who wonder if we’re no longer able to govern ourselves. They’re nervous about us keeping our word on important world matters. And, given the already divisive and guttural level of discourse in the 2016 campaign for the presidency, they’re concerned about what our relations will be with them in the future.

Yep, it’s bad. In fact, we’re a crippled republic. We’ve put the levers of government in the hands of too many unqualified to operate them. Many have no idea what a republic really is – couldn’t really define democracy if they put down their worn Bible’s and took up a dictionary. Failing to understand the real role of government – or their elected role in running that institution – they’ve tried to replace knowledge with dogma – action with inaction – representation of all with representation of a few.

When I see the full-throated ignorance of a Cruz or a Gohmert or a Lee, I see a Barbieri. When I hear members of one house of Congress excoriate (by individual name) the other (or the president) in debate, I hear a Barbieri. When decorum, discipline and protocol are ignored by members or congressional “leadership” on the national stage, I think of the Barbieri’s we’ve sent to Boise – to Salem – to Olympia – to Washington D.C..

The ability of these people to embarrass us – to shame us by their inappropriate behavior – to fail us by their political misconduct – to betray our votes by resorting to flawed religious zealotry rather than common sense – these things too many ill-informed voters have allowed. We did it either by replacing expectations of competence with narrow-mindedness in our choices – or by not educating ourselves so we can make smarter, more well-informed candidate selection the priority of the voting franchise.

We’re the ones who’ve given the Vito Barbieri’s of this world the stage on which to stand – the spotlight in which to bask – and the seat at the head table from which they can embarrass and humiliate with their ignorance. We’re the sponsors that put him where he is. And where they are.

Better informed voters making better informed selections can put better informed people in positions of political leadership. And return the Barbieri’s of this world to the silence of ignominy they have proven they deserve.

Affairs of State

Author: admin

“Kiss today goodbye; the sweetness and the sorrow. Wish me luck – the same to you. But I can’t regret what I did for love. What I did for love.”

Those words – written by Edward Kleban for the play “Chorus Line” – could probably serve as an epitaph for John Kitzhaber, Oregon’s former governor.

While there are several investigations being conducted into his activities covering the last year or so of his tenure, it’s doubtful anything of any criminal seriousness will come of them. Dumb? Yes. Criminal? Don’t think so. When it all shakes out, the bottom line will probably look something like lyricist Kleban’s words above.

A lot of folk are looking under the gubernatorial bed for conspiracy, double-dealing, illegal acts and other political flotsam. We live in that kind of society these days. If there’s something not quite right afoot, “there must be more serious criminality buried around here somewhere.” Again, doubtful.

Kitz seems to be a victim of what a lot of politicians crash into when they’ve been on the stage for a long time. Feelings of invulnerability creep in. A bit too much of ego, too. Thirty or so years of legislative and front office life can bring on those characteristics for someone who’s lost touch with the rest of us.

Trained as a physician specializing in trauma care, there’s no doubt the man is smart and talented. Not many of us can do that. Add those 30 or so years of political life in senior positions in the legislature and governorship without a major stumble and you’ve got quite a life’s record of achievement. Damned good!

Still, the guy’s human. Like John Kennedy. Franklin Roosevelt. Dwight Eisenhower. George Washington and his drinking buddy Tommy Jefferson. And a couple other occupants of the White House – one of whom stashed his mistress and bastard son in North Idaho 90 or so years back. All bright, successful men with lengthy records of achievement and accomplishment. Except that last one. All of whom fell prey to slipping into someone else’s bedroom. Or, successfully luring someone into theirs. Power and sex are fine separately. When taken together, they most often don’t work out well for all concerned.

Our former governor’s Achilles heel turned out to be one Cylvia Hayes, a woman of some beauty, smarts and – it seems from her public history – some very expert wiles that got to a number of men. What she did – and how she did it – we’ll leave to those investigations. But there’s no arguing she and her effect on the governor combined to form the catalyst that brought an end to his public life.

Love or lust, we’ll never know. But we can be reasonably confident Kitzhaber’s personality changed from a sort of loner to a more effusive and outgoing character after the two got together. He was not a detail guy for most of his career – preferring to use the “big picture” approach to his political work, then getting involved when others had perfected the details. But, after Ms. Hayes entered stage left, his public persona was more cordial with those around him and with his various constituencies. He blossomed, as it were.

You have to wonder, if we were back in the ‘40’s and ‘50’s, would there have been a different end to this story? Eisenhower’s infidelities in England weren’t fully revealed until after his death. For nearly all his presidency, few Americans knew Roosevelt spent his days in a wheelchair – much less had a mistress. Even public confirmation of John Kennedy’s numerous peccadillo’s wasn’t widespread in the early ‘60’s.

But, now, we live in an era of voyeurism and character assassination with a public thirst for all the lurid details. Some politicians – for reasons I simply can’t explain – survive mixing politics and illicit sex. South Carolina’s Mark Sanford – he of the phony Appalachian Trail hike – certainly has. David Vitter – a self-admitted adulterer – still sits in the U.S. Senate. They’re among the most recent lurid exceptions to the public’s expectation of proper decorum and decency in our politicians.

Our former governor certainly doesn’t appear to have conducted himself in the same low life way as Vitter and Sanford. But he’s chosen to fall on his sword, take his public punishment – and embarrassment – retreating to private life. And that’s fine.

It’ll be interesting to see if Ms. Hayes become Ms. Kitzhaber in coming months. Somehow, I doubt it. With the exception of gaming our immigration laws with a sham marriage a few years ago, Cylvia has been notably unattached. In a legal sense, that is,

My wishes are for his success in whatever John Kitzhaber decides to do – whether it’s going back to medicine or tackling new career challenges. He’s not the first elected executive to be tempted into public humiliation over matters of the heart. Often happens in journalism, too.

So I’m told.

Living with the sword

Author: admin

We Nor’westerners are often prone to complacency when looking at tornados, hurricanes, tropical storms and other climate disasters in our old continental U.S.. Our response is usually something like “Tsk tsk. Isn’t that too bad?” Because we live on the continent’s last few feet of real estate, we acknowledge the news without having really deep feelings for local trauma of the moment in other regions.

Our own Northwest neighborhood doesn’t host many such events. Oh, we have windstorms and occasional flooding. Once in awhile, forest fires come uncomfortably close. Really though, most of us here remain unaffected in any direct way.

BUT – geologic history tells us Yellowstone Park used to be about 500 miles west of where it is now – west of downtown Boise in Southwest Idaho. Mt. St. Helens has blown its top and killed some folk in our lifetimes. Rainier, Hood, Baker, Shasta and a few other so far peaceful mountains in our region give off occasional rumbles. Just to keep us on our toes. No, nothing major in the neighborhood. Recently. Yet.

Still, we denizens of Oregon’s coastline are almost always of two minds when the morning alarm goes off. Today’s just another day – or – today may be our last day. It sort of depends on whether you’re a risk taker. After all, that Cascadia Subduction Zone and the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate are our constant neighbors. The tsunami starters.

This geologic “Sword of Damocles” exists not over our heads but off the shoreline. The plate and zone are about 40-80 miles out and affect – or could violently affect – an area from Vancouver Island to San Francisco.

It’s been a long, long time since there’s been a major “shaker” hereabouts. Most quake-watchers count January 27, 1700, as the last “big one.” It is thought to have been larger than the one that swamped Fukishima in 2011. Better than 9.0 on a Richter Scale – had there been a Richter Scale in 1700.

Next largest was more recent – March 27, 1964. Worst of it was in Alaska but four kids were killed in Newport, here on our Central Oregon coast, with houses and infrastructure destroyed down to Crescent City, CA.

There’s been serious exploration on the Oregon coast, some up the Sixes River about where Curry and Coos County meet up. Harvey Kelsey, and Eileen Hemphill-Haley of Humbolt State found evidence of 11 large, tsunami-producing earthquakes off our coastline during the last 6,000 years.
Their work also showed each of the11was accompanied by a tsunami that spread beach sand more than two miles inland. Even way uphill! Lots of sand. Imagine the strength of the ocean push that could do that.

Then there’s this. Last of the big 11 was about 1700. Scientists think there’s an overall average reoccurrence interval of between 300-5,500 years. Given the last big shaker was in 1700 and we’re now at 2015, we’re about 300 years out. So, those who calculate such things figure we’ve got a 10-20% chance of a big one in the next 50-100 years. Plus or minus a year or two.

Now, 10-20% chance of being drowned on any given day might seem statistically pretty unlikely where you sit. But, suppose you sat here! Right next to we folk who daily watch the usually peaceful blue Pacific. If it were your home – your family – YOU – would you be comfortable? Only a 10-20% chance of being wiped out today. Nuthin’ to worry about. Right?

But we’re not done yet. Suddenly, the Cascadia fault has gone silent! No noise. No movement. Nothing. And scientists are concerned. For four years, they’ve been dropping special seismometers to the ocean floor and getting zero readings. Nothing. They fear the Cascadia plates are locked.

Dr. Doug Toomey, U of O seismologist, says this is not good. With no occasional relief in small shakers, pressure could be building up that can’t escape. Yet. Building up for a real monster! Says Toomey, “If completely locked, it’s increasingly storing energy that has to be released eventually.” Nobody knows how much strain there is now or how much there has to be before whatever happens – happens. Toomey and other scientists are talking 9.0 and tsunami. But when? And where? They don’t know!

Says Toomey, “I’m very concerned.” EDIT NOTE: Me, too.

Don’t get me wrong. Not everyone here is on tranquilizers. There’s been no run on Valium for months now. Like repainting your house every couple of years, keeping a closet full of rain gear, remembering your galoshes when leaving for church or washing all the sea crud off your new car every day or so, living with one eye on the ocean skyline looking for that “big one” – all part of everyday life. Keeps you on your toes.

Still, it takes awhile to get used to that question each morning. “Is this the day?”

Naw. Not today.

The vaccine pander

Author: admin

If you believe unvaccinated children should be allowed in public schools, you’d better stop reading right here and go back to your regular Faux Neus viewing ‘cause you’re not going to like what follows one damned bit.

Let me put it as simply as I can. Your unvaccinated child/grandchild has no God-given right to infect my vaccinated grandchildren. None. If your kid/grandkid doesn’t have a completed shot record in hand the first day of school, he/she should not be allowed on the bus. Period.

To see politicians running for any office teeter this way and that on such an important issue health should be a national embarrassment. The popular – but throughly unconscionable – practice of pandering to any given voter block by office seekers using mush-mouth answers on nearly any subject certainly is. On this one, is could also be deadly.

Watching Chris Christie wallow in the verbal swamp on this subject is embarrassing, though hardly out-of-character, for a guy who’s the only one who doesn’t realize his political career is nearly over. But Rand Paul is the one that disappoints most. First, because he’s a doctor. Second, because his response has been the nutcase echo of Michelle Bachman with this “I’ve heard of…” or “”someone told me…” B.S.. The man is a physician-by-training. He knows better. If he truly doesn’t, his medical career is just one bad diagnosis from landing him in malpractice court.

I’m old enough to remember measles epidemics. When I was in elementary school in East Wenatchee, two kids in my school died of measles. There were deaths in other schools, too. The vaccines at that time were weaker and usually given separately as opposed to the combination practice now. Even so, wise parents who’d seen measles epidemics in their lifetimes made sure their kids had the best protection – measles, mumps, diphtheria, etc..

Now, vaccines are much more effective. Medical and pharmaceutical professionals have better tools and more knowledge. We can protect nearly everyone from these once terrible diseases.

The right wing crazies continuing to peddle the fully discredited “research” of more than 30 years ago are putting their own families at risk if they practice what they’re trying to get the rest of us to believe. And if they ARE practicing by not vaccinating their offspring, then those kids should not be allowed to endanger the rest of us and ours.

Getting a shot of measles vaccine doesn’t mean a child can’t come down with the disease. Few shots are 100 percent. But, getting one can greatly decreases a youthful vulnerability caused by an as-yet undeveloped and untested disease-resistant human body.

Patrick Moynihan’s oft-quoted maxim “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not his own facts” is most apt in this current political dustup. If those who persist in peddling long-refuted, phony, right wing propaganda would adhere to the Senator’s dictum, there would be no “debate.”

If the right to your opinion truly ends where my nose begins – and it does – then your right to raise an unvaccinated child should end before stepping on public school property. And it does!

And one more thing. What does it say about our nation’s presidential campaign of 2016 that a childhood disease has captured the spotlight while truly urgent world affairs slide off the radar? Have the lack of common sense and an abundance of intellectually-vacuous political pandering become so pervasive in our national dialogue?

Are there vaccinations for those?

With the exception of Idaho, when Northwest states make the national news, it’s most often because something of national import has happened in our Northwest backyard that everyone else should know about. Something legitimately of news value or of extraordinary human interest. Again, most often, with the exception of Idaho.

When Idaho makes the national media, you can just about always bet the farm it’s because of someone – or something – outrageous, doing something counter to accepted behavior or being an embarrassment to themselves or the country-at-large. This week, it’s been too many of the Idaho public testifying ridiculously before a legislative committee that appeared to be ready to “deep six” the bill even before the hearings.

At issue are four words: “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.” The legislation would add those words to Idaho’s Human Rights Act which already prohibits discrimination for many other reasons i.e. religion, race, etc.. That’s it. Straight forward as that. No hype. No confusion. No B.S..

The problem is – and this is where the embarrassment comes in – the two days of testimony about those four words have drawn some of the craziest, off-the-wall, bigoted, ignorant, irrelevant, belligerent, nonsensical, dumbest and – in too many cases – fact-less voices ever to step before a microphone.

It isn’t that people who oppose the legislation should not be heard or given a chance to make their points to a legitimate panel of lawmakers. Far from it. Step up. Order your facts. Put your written remarks on the podium. Adjust the mike for your comfort. Speak your mind. Have at it. That’s what a hearing is for.

But that’s not what’s happened. I refuse to – and I won’t – repeat all the strange, baseless, hypocritical, phony moralizing, self-defeating, contradictory and demeaning arguments offered. No, Sir! Won’t do it.

But if you watched or listened to most of the two days of the hearing, you could sum up the pro and con arguments in two ways. Generally, those supporting adding the words to the Act talked of love, equality, sharing, respect, civil rights and fairness. Those against – and again, this is from listening to what was said – talked of hidden, powerful homosexual agendas, continuing and protecting the right to reject food, shelter or business from people not entirely like themselves. They talked of anti-gay printers being forced to print flyers for gay customers or gay bakers putting poison in cakes of anti-gay Idahoans.

Other voices opposing came from other states, claiming to represent “American family-supporting organizations” with messages of members claiming to be “God fearing” and “God loving.” But their testimony spoke of “homosexual treacheries” and “predators searching out innocent children” and other traditional boogeymen to be feared if each Idahoans is given legal protection to share in rights afforded all other Idahoans.

Now, I’m one who loves irony. And here it comes. Several legislators up on the dias were Mormon. Proud, practicing Mormons. Some of whom have previously talked of allowing discrimination approved by their Church to drive their person and legislative views.

But during Tuesday’s hearing – same hour exactly – several Mormon officials at the very top of the Church’s hierarchy, held a press conference in Salt Lake City to announce Church support for gays, homosexuals and people of other races. They called it a “balanced approach” when dealing with such things as housing and employment regardless of race and gender.

“We must all learn to live with others who don’t share the same belief’s and values,” was the message. And they condemned “centuries of discrimination” in all forms.

To me, that’s I-R-O-N-Y in all capital letters!

Now, that’s not to say the Mormon Church is free of all discriminatory beliefs and practices in its own history. No, Sir. Even participants in the SLC presentation talked of retaining some of the old ways and said the Church wanted to continue discriminating in employment and other areas.

But, the important thing is, the LDS Church has apparently taken several pretty large steps to come into line with life today in which gay marriage is legal in 34 states – more coming – and more major corporations and federal/state governments are removing policy barriers of all types.

If you were one of those Mormon legislators up on that dias, did you just hear Moroni’s trumpet sound? Is that bill before you as cut-and-dried and doomed to the round file as it was just the day before? Whatdya think?

It may be too late to save Idaho from yet another well-publicized – and well-earned – round of public embarrassment in the national media. But it’s not too late to rethink what just the day before was a foregone conclusion.

Ah, irony.