Another one of those stories — from the Associated Press: “A Nevada couple letting their SUV’s navigation system guide them through high desert of Eastern Oregon got stuck in snow for three days when the GPS unit sent them down a remote forest road.”
Fortunately, they were prepared for being stranded — food, water, warm clothes — and they made it okay, with a memorable Christmas under their belts.
We’ve heard this one before. Several people have got stuck on the McKenzie Highway here in the Sisters Country because the GPS told them that was the route to take — never mind the signs that say “Road Closed.”
There’s a story about a couple of guys in Poland who drove into a lake because the GPS pointed them at it. But that couldn’t be true, right?
Stories like this play right into my suspicions about technology. GPS is pretty cool. I like having all the information even a basic unit provides.
However... the technology is seductive. Ah, how easy to grow complacent. Let’s cut through here. We can always follow the bread crumbs back to camp, right?
Relying on your GPS instead of low-tech techniques like map-and-compass and common sense (know your route before you take it, etc.) is a good way to get yourself in trouble.
Then again...
The couple was rescued after they finally got a weak signal on their — GPS enabled — cell phone and rescuers were able to locate them.
“GPS almost did ’em in and GPS saved ’em,” said Klamath County Sheriff Tim Evinger.
A perfect illustration of a double-edged sword. Writ large, it’s a metaphor for the role of technology in our lives. Do we run it, or does it run us?
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Monday, December 21, 2009
Joyeux Noel
On Christmas Eve, December 24, 1914, a strange thing happened in several sectors of the trench line that cut across Belgium and France.
The allied English, Scottish and French soldiers, and the German troops facing them across a recently-established No Man’s Land, spontaneously laid down their arms, stood up in their trenches and walked out into that beaten, corpse-strewn zone of death. They greeted each other in a cautious, then friendly, expression of the season’s spirit.
They exchanged chocolate and cigarettes, showed each other pictures of wives and girlfriends, drank together and even engaged in impromptu religious observances and at least one informal soccer match.
In some sectors, the informal truce lasted only part of a day. In others, it is said to have lasted, more or less, until New Year’s.
It was a brief — and for many participants profoundly moving — moment in that maddest of wars, the one they called The Great War until a still greater one that it set in motion eclipsed its unique horrors a generation later.
The High Commands on both sides took a very dim view of such fraternization with the enemy and steps were taken to ensure that no repeat of the spontaneous Christmas Truce occurred again. Years of savage, industrial slaughter also seared away the vestiges of fellow-feeling that still existed in that first Christmas of the war.
But ever since that night in 1914, the Christmas Truce has loomed large as a moment of humanity amidst a numbingly inhuman conflict, a flash of sanity in a world gone suddenly and perhaps irrevocably insane.
Each Christmas season, my family watches the beautiful 2005 French film about the Christmas Truce, “Joyeux Noel.”
It is as powerful a Christmas story as you can find, a hopeful, yet tragic, reminder of the true value of the season: a moment to celebrate the fellowship of man.
A Joyeux Noel to all of you and yours.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
The allied English, Scottish and French soldiers, and the German troops facing them across a recently-established No Man’s Land, spontaneously laid down their arms, stood up in their trenches and walked out into that beaten, corpse-strewn zone of death. They greeted each other in a cautious, then friendly, expression of the season’s spirit.
They exchanged chocolate and cigarettes, showed each other pictures of wives and girlfriends, drank together and even engaged in impromptu religious observances and at least one informal soccer match.
In some sectors, the informal truce lasted only part of a day. In others, it is said to have lasted, more or less, until New Year’s.
It was a brief — and for many participants profoundly moving — moment in that maddest of wars, the one they called The Great War until a still greater one that it set in motion eclipsed its unique horrors a generation later.
The High Commands on both sides took a very dim view of such fraternization with the enemy and steps were taken to ensure that no repeat of the spontaneous Christmas Truce occurred again. Years of savage, industrial slaughter also seared away the vestiges of fellow-feeling that still existed in that first Christmas of the war.
But ever since that night in 1914, the Christmas Truce has loomed large as a moment of humanity amidst a numbingly inhuman conflict, a flash of sanity in a world gone suddenly and perhaps irrevocably insane.
Each Christmas season, my family watches the beautiful 2005 French film about the Christmas Truce, “Joyeux Noel.”
It is as powerful a Christmas story as you can find, a hopeful, yet tragic, reminder of the true value of the season: a moment to celebrate the fellowship of man.
A Joyeux Noel to all of you and yours.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Hats off to the line crews
Central Electric Cooperative has had its nose bloodied in court — and in the court of public opinion — in recent months.
Some of the utility’s actions haven’t been too popular, especially in the Sisters Country. Tall steel power poles and massive new substations in the back yard are bound to raise the ire of neighbors.
But whatever you might think of CEC’s recent projects, you can’t fault the dedication and hard work of the crews that responded to last week’s power emergency.
While those of us who lost power due to a catastrophic equipment failure got up, shivered, cussed, and tried to figure out how to get the house warm and cook some breakfast, those crews were already out in brutal cold, figuring out just what had gone wrong and getting repairs underway.
Some of those crews were out for 24 hours in subzero cold, nursing the system back to life a little at a time.
We’d all rather the power didn’t go out in the first place. We’d all like to see it come back faster once repairs are made. But we should all be grateful for the will to work through the problem, despite bone-chilling cold and long hours on the part of line crews and the support staff that helped keep them in the field.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Some of the utility’s actions haven’t been too popular, especially in the Sisters Country. Tall steel power poles and massive new substations in the back yard are bound to raise the ire of neighbors.
But whatever you might think of CEC’s recent projects, you can’t fault the dedication and hard work of the crews that responded to last week’s power emergency.
While those of us who lost power due to a catastrophic equipment failure got up, shivered, cussed, and tried to figure out how to get the house warm and cook some breakfast, those crews were already out in brutal cold, figuring out just what had gone wrong and getting repairs underway.
Some of those crews were out for 24 hours in subzero cold, nursing the system back to life a little at a time.
We’d all rather the power didn’t go out in the first place. We’d all like to see it come back faster once repairs are made. But we should all be grateful for the will to work through the problem, despite bone-chilling cold and long hours on the part of line crews and the support staff that helped keep them in the field.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
The Real Tiger Woods
“Who knows what any of us would be like after 30 years with no one ever telling you ‘No.’”
A fellow I was working with last weekend said that. He wasn’t talking about Tiger Woods, although we both laughed and agreed he might has well have been.
The sordid Tiger Woods scandal is different only in degree, not in kind, from dozens of other scandals involving athletes, actors, politicians, preachers — all men of power and prestige, who are too often coddled and enabled by Yes Men (and apparently lots of Yes Women as well).
So, there’s obviously something to what my friend says. Fame, fortune and power obviously contribute to narcissism.
But my creed is that character is fate. The seeds of narcissism have to be there in the first place to grow into the giant weed that is Tiger Woods’ character.
Of course there are enormous temptations placed in the path of the wealthy, the powerful, the talented, the beautiful and the famous. As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing inherently wrong with indulging yourself in those temptations. Unless you’re living a lie, preaching or displaying one set of public values and virtues while privately practicing ... something else.
Until you make a promise to another person.
Private matter? You go out of your way to make yourself a public figure, you flash your dazzling smile across TV screens across the world and reap the enormous financial rewards of creating a public persona then complain when your own actions crack the facade and give your public a glimpse behind the curtain? Come on. That’s just one more layer of hypocrisy.
Honesty, integrity, authenticity — these are marks of character. As humans, we sometimes fall short of our best character. We make mistakes. The heart — or the mind and the body — strays.
But Tiger Woods didn’t make a “mistake.” He made choices, tried to cover them up and projected an image of a devoted son, husband and father, an incredibly gifted athlete with a charmed life.
That’s not having your character twisted by years of nobody telling you “No” and too many women saying “Yes.” It’s not “sex addiction” or some other form of psychological disorder. That’s just hypocrisy, self-indulgence and bad character.
The guy’s a bum. We didn’t know it, but he always was.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
A fellow I was working with last weekend said that. He wasn’t talking about Tiger Woods, although we both laughed and agreed he might has well have been.
The sordid Tiger Woods scandal is different only in degree, not in kind, from dozens of other scandals involving athletes, actors, politicians, preachers — all men of power and prestige, who are too often coddled and enabled by Yes Men (and apparently lots of Yes Women as well).
So, there’s obviously something to what my friend says. Fame, fortune and power obviously contribute to narcissism.
But my creed is that character is fate. The seeds of narcissism have to be there in the first place to grow into the giant weed that is Tiger Woods’ character.
Of course there are enormous temptations placed in the path of the wealthy, the powerful, the talented, the beautiful and the famous. As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing inherently wrong with indulging yourself in those temptations. Unless you’re living a lie, preaching or displaying one set of public values and virtues while privately practicing ... something else.
Until you make a promise to another person.
Private matter? You go out of your way to make yourself a public figure, you flash your dazzling smile across TV screens across the world and reap the enormous financial rewards of creating a public persona then complain when your own actions crack the facade and give your public a glimpse behind the curtain? Come on. That’s just one more layer of hypocrisy.
Honesty, integrity, authenticity — these are marks of character. As humans, we sometimes fall short of our best character. We make mistakes. The heart — or the mind and the body — strays.
But Tiger Woods didn’t make a “mistake.” He made choices, tried to cover them up and projected an image of a devoted son, husband and father, an incredibly gifted athlete with a charmed life.
That’s not having your character twisted by years of nobody telling you “No” and too many women saying “Yes.” It’s not “sex addiction” or some other form of psychological disorder. That’s just hypocrisy, self-indulgence and bad character.
The guy’s a bum. We didn’t know it, but he always was.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
The big freeze
Fifteen below is cold enough, I reckon.
The power outage caused by the extreme cold overnight on Monday is causing folks some discomfort. Imagine if a cold snap like this lasted a few days with no power.
An inconvenience quickly turns into an emergency.
Last night’s events are a strong argument for a wood stove and alternative means of cooking food and heating water. And for a backup supply of water if the well pump goes out. And a supply of extra food if the grocery store is closed.
Sure, you can go to the local Red Cross center, but isn’t it better to be prepared to shelter in place? This morning we stoked up the wood stove, fired up the propane burner and boiled some water for coffee, cooked some soup and all was well.
It’ll still be well if there’s no power tonight and the temperature sinks below zero.
Modern conveniences based on electrical power sure are nice, but it doesn’t pay to be totally dependent on them.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
The power outage caused by the extreme cold overnight on Monday is causing folks some discomfort. Imagine if a cold snap like this lasted a few days with no power.
An inconvenience quickly turns into an emergency.
Last night’s events are a strong argument for a wood stove and alternative means of cooking food and heating water. And for a backup supply of water if the well pump goes out. And a supply of extra food if the grocery store is closed.
Sure, you can go to the local Red Cross center, but isn’t it better to be prepared to shelter in place? This morning we stoked up the wood stove, fired up the propane burner and boiled some water for coffee, cooked some soup and all was well.
It’ll still be well if there’s no power tonight and the temperature sinks below zero.
Modern conveniences based on electrical power sure are nice, but it doesn’t pay to be totally dependent on them.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Carnivale
Nugget writer Jeff Spry lent me the first season of the HBO series Carnivale last week and I became an instant addict.
The show is set in 1934 in the Dustbowl and in California, involving two apparently converging story arcs following a traveling carnival and a pastor in California.
It is weird, mythic, dark and compelling viewing and I highly recommend it.
The 1930s were a strange, mad time. The world was going to hell in a bucket and there is something surreal and bizarre about what W.H. Auden called “that low, dishonest decade” that makes it the perfect setting for a tale of strange, mystical, mysterious happenings.
I wonder if people will look back on the current epoch — with the war on terrorism and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression — with the same sense that the world was strangely off-kilter. Moreso than “normal,” I mean.
There’s certainly enough material to populate a good freak show.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
The show is set in 1934 in the Dustbowl and in California, involving two apparently converging story arcs following a traveling carnival and a pastor in California.
It is weird, mythic, dark and compelling viewing and I highly recommend it.
The 1930s were a strange, mad time. The world was going to hell in a bucket and there is something surreal and bizarre about what W.H. Auden called “that low, dishonest decade” that makes it the perfect setting for a tale of strange, mystical, mysterious happenings.
I wonder if people will look back on the current epoch — with the war on terrorism and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression — with the same sense that the world was strangely off-kilter. Moreso than “normal,” I mean.
There’s certainly enough material to populate a good freak show.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
War tax
As President Obama deliberates over his Afghanistan strategy (thought he had one during the campaign — guess that was just rhetoric), some Democrats are proposing the imposition of a “war tax” to cover the costs of escalating what is sure to be a long-term commitment with uncertain goals and exit strategy.
Of course, this is political posturing, but I’d prefer to take it seriously.
There should have been a war tax from the beginning. Putting billions of dollars of war spending on our credit card is bankrupt in every sense of the term.
Sen. Carl Levin of the Senate Armed Services Committee wants a tax on the wealthy to cover the costs of escalation. Bah. Should be across the board. All of us should bear the burden. Or decide we don’t want to.
That, of course, is why we don’t do the war tax thing. Wars that start showing up in a clear and unmistakable way on our tab run the risk of getting really unpopular really fast.
If the mission is worth pursuing, it’s worth shared, national sacrifice. Why should military families be the only ones feeling a direct impact? If the whole nation is not on board with the mission, maybe we should reconsider the mission.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Of course, this is political posturing, but I’d prefer to take it seriously.
There should have been a war tax from the beginning. Putting billions of dollars of war spending on our credit card is bankrupt in every sense of the term.
Sen. Carl Levin of the Senate Armed Services Committee wants a tax on the wealthy to cover the costs of escalation. Bah. Should be across the board. All of us should bear the burden. Or decide we don’t want to.
That, of course, is why we don’t do the war tax thing. Wars that start showing up in a clear and unmistakable way on our tab run the risk of getting really unpopular really fast.
If the mission is worth pursuing, it’s worth shared, national sacrifice. Why should military families be the only ones feeling a direct impact? If the whole nation is not on board with the mission, maybe we should reconsider the mission.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Ashes to ashes? Future anxiety in America
It’s all over in 2012. So says the ancient Mayan prophecy and last weekend’s box office champion movie. Pretty soon we’ll be treated to the film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s horrific Pulitzer Prize-winning post-apocalyptic novel “The Road.”
This is the kind of story we tell ourselves when we’re looking at the light at the end of the tunnel, convinced it’s an inbound train. Anxiety about the future seems to have the American consciousness in its grip — when we can tear ourselves away from John and Kate and Carrie Prejean’s sex tape(s) that is.
Only about a third of Americans think the country is on the right track. For a future-oriented, optimistic culture like ours, that equates to a bout of depression. People are surly and angry and there seems to be little faith that we can get anything done.
In his latest column (The Nugget, November 18, page 2), David Brooks addresses this anxiety as it relates to the growing power of China (aka, our banker):
“....moral materialism fomented a certain sort of manic energy. Americans became famous for their energy and workaholism: for moving around, switching jobs, marrying and divorcing, creating new products and going off on righteous crusades.
“This eschatological faith in the future has motivated generations of Americans, just as religious faith motivates a missionary. Pioneers and immigrants endured hardship in the present because of their confidence in future plenty. Entrepreneurs start up companies with an exaggerated sense of their chances of success. The faith is the molten core of the country’s dynamism.”
Right now, that faith is deeply shaken — and China seems to have taken it over.
Brooks again: “The anxiety in America is caused by the vague sense that they have what we’re supposed to have. It’s not the per capita income, which the Chinese may never have at our level. It’s the sense of living with baubles just out of reach. It’s the faith in the future, which is actually more important.”
I’ve personally never had that manic faith. I grew up knowing that things can go very wrong and that the outlook wasn’t going to improve. A lifelong immersion in history-geekdom reinforced an innate pessimism.
But it’s an optimistic kind of pessimism. Or maybe a pessimistic form of optimism. Acceptance.
In the words of Steve Earle:
Now, nobody lives forever
Nothin' stands the test of time
Oh, you heard 'em say "never say never"
But it's always best to keep it in mind
That every tower ever built tumbles
No matter how strong, no matter how tall
Someday even great walls will crumble
And every idol ever raised falls
And someday even man's best laid plans
Will lie twisted and covered in rust
When we've done all that we can but it slipped through our hands
And it's ashes to ashes and dust to dust
Yep. That’s pretty much how I see things. May seem weird, but it’s a cheerful, or at least comfortable, thought. We’re all part of gigantic long-term processes and the way things are is the way they must be.
I certainly don’t believe in being passive. Work and struggle are worthy — for their own sake. It doesn’t matter that it all turns to rust and ash in the end. The point is to fight the good fight. I get up and do my best every day. It doesn’t matter what the future may hold.
That outlook relieves a lot of anxiety. I do think that, in the grand sweep of things, America is in relative decline. It’ll be a long one, and hopefully not an abrupt, catastrophic crash. Every tower ever built tumbles/No matter how strong, no matter how tall.
A new world is rising right before our eyes. We’re in an age of profound change. There are too many contingencies to hazard predictions (unless that’s your racket) but it’s a safe bet that another century will see a profound realignment of power structures, ecology and life-ways.
“History is never coming back,” says my fifth-grader. She’s right. Cling to nothing temporary, say the stoics. And if it’s material, it’s all temporary.
Don’t sweat it. See you in 2012. Maybe.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
This is the kind of story we tell ourselves when we’re looking at the light at the end of the tunnel, convinced it’s an inbound train. Anxiety about the future seems to have the American consciousness in its grip — when we can tear ourselves away from John and Kate and Carrie Prejean’s sex tape(s) that is.
Only about a third of Americans think the country is on the right track. For a future-oriented, optimistic culture like ours, that equates to a bout of depression. People are surly and angry and there seems to be little faith that we can get anything done.
In his latest column (The Nugget, November 18, page 2), David Brooks addresses this anxiety as it relates to the growing power of China (aka, our banker):
“....moral materialism fomented a certain sort of manic energy. Americans became famous for their energy and workaholism: for moving around, switching jobs, marrying and divorcing, creating new products and going off on righteous crusades.
“This eschatological faith in the future has motivated generations of Americans, just as religious faith motivates a missionary. Pioneers and immigrants endured hardship in the present because of their confidence in future plenty. Entrepreneurs start up companies with an exaggerated sense of their chances of success. The faith is the molten core of the country’s dynamism.”
Right now, that faith is deeply shaken — and China seems to have taken it over.
Brooks again: “The anxiety in America is caused by the vague sense that they have what we’re supposed to have. It’s not the per capita income, which the Chinese may never have at our level. It’s the sense of living with baubles just out of reach. It’s the faith in the future, which is actually more important.”
I’ve personally never had that manic faith. I grew up knowing that things can go very wrong and that the outlook wasn’t going to improve. A lifelong immersion in history-geekdom reinforced an innate pessimism.
But it’s an optimistic kind of pessimism. Or maybe a pessimistic form of optimism. Acceptance.
In the words of Steve Earle:
Now, nobody lives forever
Nothin' stands the test of time
Oh, you heard 'em say "never say never"
But it's always best to keep it in mind
That every tower ever built tumbles
No matter how strong, no matter how tall
Someday even great walls will crumble
And every idol ever raised falls
And someday even man's best laid plans
Will lie twisted and covered in rust
When we've done all that we can but it slipped through our hands
And it's ashes to ashes and dust to dust
Yep. That’s pretty much how I see things. May seem weird, but it’s a cheerful, or at least comfortable, thought. We’re all part of gigantic long-term processes and the way things are is the way they must be.
I certainly don’t believe in being passive. Work and struggle are worthy — for their own sake. It doesn’t matter that it all turns to rust and ash in the end. The point is to fight the good fight. I get up and do my best every day. It doesn’t matter what the future may hold.
That outlook relieves a lot of anxiety. I do think that, in the grand sweep of things, America is in relative decline. It’ll be a long one, and hopefully not an abrupt, catastrophic crash. Every tower ever built tumbles/No matter how strong, no matter how tall.
A new world is rising right before our eyes. We’re in an age of profound change. There are too many contingencies to hazard predictions (unless that’s your racket) but it’s a safe bet that another century will see a profound realignment of power structures, ecology and life-ways.
“History is never coming back,” says my fifth-grader. She’s right. Cling to nothing temporary, say the stoics. And if it’s material, it’s all temporary.
Don’t sweat it. See you in 2012. Maybe.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Wrangling over the McKenzie Meadows annexation
The proposed annexation of the 30-acre McKenzie Meadows property for the site of a senior living community has become a hot issue in Sisters.
The public rhetoric has, so far, been pretty civil (though I’ve heard some complain otherwise). The private comments I’ve heard are another story. People are fired up about this.
That’s a little weird to me. Seems like an issue that could be addressed pretty dispassionately. I can easily lawyer both sides.
Pro: Sisters needs to accommodate an aging population. This is the piece of land that had the right price to make a project pencil. It was already approved for annexation by voters. It’s not sprawl; it’s bordered by schools and a shopping center.
If the project doesn’t fly, it’s just a bare piece of ground paying taxes into the city.
It’ll provide vital construction jobs and ongoing service jobs.
Con:
The jobs are speculative; we don’t know if this project is viable.
Sisters needs to focus on keeping a vital downtown core. We’ve already pushed development and economic activity out on the margins (Outlaw Station at one end, Five Pine at the other).
We already have too much inactive developable space and too much inventory; we shouldn’t add too it now.
Neither side is all right or all wrong here. There are competing visions, sure, and differing views on viability, but I don’t think any honest assessment couldn’t concede points to the other side.
But that’s not how we do things anymore. And that’s what interests me.
Sisters, like the rest of the nation, has fallen into a very divisive, hardball kind of politics. In the city council election last November PACs contributed significant amounts of money to campaigns, for the first time in Sisters’ history.
The school local option campaign drew in a lot of cultural baggage from well outside the school district — attitudes toward public education in general and toward taxes and government in general — that shaped peoples’ attitude toward a strictly local measure.
This annexation issue has brought out some pretty strong language regarding various peoples’ integrity, character and motives. Again, that’s all been private and/or anonymous so far, but it wouldn’t surprise me to see it go public during and after the city council’s decision on Thursday night.
What it shows me is that Sisters is not much different than anywhere else in the USA right now. People are quick to take sides, quick to think the worst of each other and feel increasingly threatened by people who think differently than they do.
I guess this is nothing new. Certainly the fight over the sewer system got pretty nasty.
But there seems to be something meaner in the air these days, an ill wind that pushes into the cracks between people and drives them farther and farther apart until disagreements are irreconcilable differences.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
The public rhetoric has, so far, been pretty civil (though I’ve heard some complain otherwise). The private comments I’ve heard are another story. People are fired up about this.
That’s a little weird to me. Seems like an issue that could be addressed pretty dispassionately. I can easily lawyer both sides.
Pro: Sisters needs to accommodate an aging population. This is the piece of land that had the right price to make a project pencil. It was already approved for annexation by voters. It’s not sprawl; it’s bordered by schools and a shopping center.
If the project doesn’t fly, it’s just a bare piece of ground paying taxes into the city.
It’ll provide vital construction jobs and ongoing service jobs.
Con:
The jobs are speculative; we don’t know if this project is viable.
Sisters needs to focus on keeping a vital downtown core. We’ve already pushed development and economic activity out on the margins (Outlaw Station at one end, Five Pine at the other).
We already have too much inactive developable space and too much inventory; we shouldn’t add too it now.
Neither side is all right or all wrong here. There are competing visions, sure, and differing views on viability, but I don’t think any honest assessment couldn’t concede points to the other side.
But that’s not how we do things anymore. And that’s what interests me.
Sisters, like the rest of the nation, has fallen into a very divisive, hardball kind of politics. In the city council election last November PACs contributed significant amounts of money to campaigns, for the first time in Sisters’ history.
The school local option campaign drew in a lot of cultural baggage from well outside the school district — attitudes toward public education in general and toward taxes and government in general — that shaped peoples’ attitude toward a strictly local measure.
This annexation issue has brought out some pretty strong language regarding various peoples’ integrity, character and motives. Again, that’s all been private and/or anonymous so far, but it wouldn’t surprise me to see it go public during and after the city council’s decision on Thursday night.
What it shows me is that Sisters is not much different than anywhere else in the USA right now. People are quick to take sides, quick to think the worst of each other and feel increasingly threatened by people who think differently than they do.
I guess this is nothing new. Certainly the fight over the sewer system got pretty nasty.
But there seems to be something meaner in the air these days, an ill wind that pushes into the cracks between people and drives them farther and farther apart until disagreements are irreconcilable differences.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
The long memory of veterans
Jeff Spry did a nice piece in this week’s Nugget profiling Harold Mulligan, a former Sisters resident who is still active in Sisters veterans groups. Mulligan is a Pearl Harbor survivor and he saw a lot more action in the Pacific Theater during World War II.
Jeff’s story closes with a quote that I found very striking:
“Mostly at night when sun goes down is when it bothers you most. The older you get, the worse it gets. There's a lot of nights lying awake.”
That sounds a lot like my uncle, now 91 and living in Arizona. He was an infantry captain in Italy during the war. I know little of his service because when I was young and we lived in Southern California, he never talked about the war.
I do know that he saw a lot of heavy combat in very rough terrain and that it was a bad experience for him.
My dad visits him a lot and now, he says, after decades of almost complete silence on the subject, the war is almost all my uncle talks about.
What particularly preys on his mind is the young 18-year-old replacements sent into the lines at night. Many times, the Germans would mortar the Americans’ position overnight and these kids would be wounded or killed before they ever fired a shot. Before anybody even knew their name.
My uncle keeps coming back to that. He’s lived a long life. Those kids had theirs cut short. That kind of thing gets to you.
Those memories reaching their long fingers across decades of time are not uncommon, I’m told. “The older you get the worse it gets” is common. It’s not unusual for decades of silence to be broken by an intense focus on wartime experiences.
“Stereotypically normal,” says a friend who works with veterans dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder.
That’s why groups like those that have recently come into being in Sisters where veterans assist one another are so important. Veterans who have a hard time dealing with their memories need to be around people who have shared similar experiences, who know how it feels.
And my friend in the field will tell you, there’s a whole new generation of men and women who are going to struggle with “a lot of nights lying awake.”
Hopefully, we are better now at helping folks get through those long nights than we used to be.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Jeff’s story closes with a quote that I found very striking:
“Mostly at night when sun goes down is when it bothers you most. The older you get, the worse it gets. There's a lot of nights lying awake.”
That sounds a lot like my uncle, now 91 and living in Arizona. He was an infantry captain in Italy during the war. I know little of his service because when I was young and we lived in Southern California, he never talked about the war.
I do know that he saw a lot of heavy combat in very rough terrain and that it was a bad experience for him.
My dad visits him a lot and now, he says, after decades of almost complete silence on the subject, the war is almost all my uncle talks about.
What particularly preys on his mind is the young 18-year-old replacements sent into the lines at night. Many times, the Germans would mortar the Americans’ position overnight and these kids would be wounded or killed before they ever fired a shot. Before anybody even knew their name.
My uncle keeps coming back to that. He’s lived a long life. Those kids had theirs cut short. That kind of thing gets to you.
Those memories reaching their long fingers across decades of time are not uncommon, I’m told. “The older you get the worse it gets” is common. It’s not unusual for decades of silence to be broken by an intense focus on wartime experiences.
“Stereotypically normal,” says a friend who works with veterans dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder.
That’s why groups like those that have recently come into being in Sisters where veterans assist one another are so important. Veterans who have a hard time dealing with their memories need to be around people who have shared similar experiences, who know how it feels.
And my friend in the field will tell you, there’s a whole new generation of men and women who are going to struggle with “a lot of nights lying awake.”
Hopefully, we are better now at helping folks get through those long nights than we used to be.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
The electronic leash
I hate my cell phone.
I don’t like the feeling that I can be tracked down at any time, anywhere. Sometimes I feel like the damn thing is like one of those electronic surveillance devices they slap around your ankle when you’re under house arrest.
But I don’t know how I got along without one. It makes my job so much easier. Journalism is about 80 percent phone calls, and I don’t have to be chained to a desk to make them. My cell phone makes me more productive.
Come January, I’ll have to get a hands-free device to use it in the truck. Oregon, like other states is trying to crack down on cell phone distractions while driving. This may be a cosmetic effort. There’s evidence that it’s the talking itself that is the big distraction, not holding the phone (though dropping your cell phone in the car prompts an almost instinctive move to grab it instead of paying attention to the road. That’s a crash waiting to happen).
Somehow I doubt that the new Oregon law will be stringently enforced, which makes it kind of moot. The urge to use the phone is too strong unless the consequences are huge.
Maybe they should be, especially for texting while driving. In Britain, texting while driving is a serious crime and if you hurt somebody, you will go to prison. It’s treated more or less like drunk driving.
Cell phones are here to stay until they are supplanted by some more sophisticated technology. That means we’ll have to put up with people yakking on their phone in the grocery line and other annoyances.
Texting habits will cnt 2 dstry wrtn eng lng LOL.
But maybe it’s a good idea to make the roads communications free zones. At least ban texting and enforce the ban with strict penalties. Nobody can argue that texting while driving isn’t a big public safety concern (can they?).
As for cell phone use, I try to be good about that, but I’m probably bad as everybody else. After all, I have a GOOD REASON to be using the phone in the car.
I’ll do the hands free thing in January, though I’d rather take that damn thing (and yours, too) and chuck it out the truck window at 80 mph.
Wait. That’s illegal.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Why we do stupid things in the outdoors
Last Saturday, a young woman from Bend left Devil’s Lake Trailhead at 1 p.m. intending to summit both South and Middle Sister.
She was totally unprepared for being out after dark, even though she left with only about 5-1/2 hours of good daylight left. She had no emergency blanket or rations.
The 20-year-old is a runner and obviously very fit; she did something like 25 miles in rough terrain in the dark to get to Three Creek Road, where a woodcutter found her the next morning and gave her and her dog a lift into town.
A few months back, an experienced ultra runner got lost in the canyons and chapparal of San Diego County on a “short” training run. She was missing for days and nearly died. She copped to the fact that she had been in a hurry to get her training in and violated her own pre-run routine and emergency preparation.
Why do capable people do such dumb things, things that risk their lives and the lives of those who turn out to rescue them?
A book I read recently has some great insights into this phenomenon, which happens over and over and over again. It’s called “Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why” by Laurence Gonzales.
There’s a lot to this book and any thumbnail necessarily gives it short shrift, but one of the basic points is this: The mind creates “emotional bookmarks” based on strong positive or negative experiences. Our mind goes to those when we make decisions and the emotional feedback we get overrides our rational mind, our good sense.
In the case of highly trained and capable athletes, the emotional bookmark flags the great feeling they get from their training, which can be downright addictive (in the chemical as well as the emotional sense). The desire to get out there and do the run, the trek, the climb, overrides the rational caution flags: it’s too late to start; I don’t have my emergency kit together; I’m not sure of the route.
We are all susceptible to this phenomenon; people whose skill and fitness have got them out of trouble in the past even more so than the average bear. We all like to think “Man, I’d never do anything that STUPID,” but the truth is, you just might, if the emotional bookmark grabs you hard enough.
There’s a lot in the book about the kind of mindset that gets people through survival situations, but the most important lesson in “Deep Survival” is to be aware of the tricks we play on ourselves that get us into those situations in the first place.
Slow down. Recognize when your desires — to just get out there, to make it to that peak, to try to beat the dark to get past that one last drainage — are letting you slide into a dangerous situation.
It’s important to understand that it’s not about smart/stupid. “I’m too smart to do that” is the kind of hubris that leads to unexpected trouble.
Great book; recommend it highly. Combine it with Gavin de Becker’s “The Gift of Fear” and you get a much better understanding of the interplay between thought and emotion that can literally mean the difference between life and death.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
She was totally unprepared for being out after dark, even though she left with only about 5-1/2 hours of good daylight left. She had no emergency blanket or rations.
The 20-year-old is a runner and obviously very fit; she did something like 25 miles in rough terrain in the dark to get to Three Creek Road, where a woodcutter found her the next morning and gave her and her dog a lift into town.
A few months back, an experienced ultra runner got lost in the canyons and chapparal of San Diego County on a “short” training run. She was missing for days and nearly died. She copped to the fact that she had been in a hurry to get her training in and violated her own pre-run routine and emergency preparation.
Why do capable people do such dumb things, things that risk their lives and the lives of those who turn out to rescue them?
A book I read recently has some great insights into this phenomenon, which happens over and over and over again. It’s called “Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why” by Laurence Gonzales.
There’s a lot to this book and any thumbnail necessarily gives it short shrift, but one of the basic points is this: The mind creates “emotional bookmarks” based on strong positive or negative experiences. Our mind goes to those when we make decisions and the emotional feedback we get overrides our rational mind, our good sense.
In the case of highly trained and capable athletes, the emotional bookmark flags the great feeling they get from their training, which can be downright addictive (in the chemical as well as the emotional sense). The desire to get out there and do the run, the trek, the climb, overrides the rational caution flags: it’s too late to start; I don’t have my emergency kit together; I’m not sure of the route.
We are all susceptible to this phenomenon; people whose skill and fitness have got them out of trouble in the past even more so than the average bear. We all like to think “Man, I’d never do anything that STUPID,” but the truth is, you just might, if the emotional bookmark grabs you hard enough.
There’s a lot in the book about the kind of mindset that gets people through survival situations, but the most important lesson in “Deep Survival” is to be aware of the tricks we play on ourselves that get us into those situations in the first place.
Slow down. Recognize when your desires — to just get out there, to make it to that peak, to try to beat the dark to get past that one last drainage — are letting you slide into a dangerous situation.
It’s important to understand that it’s not about smart/stupid. “I’m too smart to do that” is the kind of hubris that leads to unexpected trouble.
Great book; recommend it highly. Combine it with Gavin de Becker’s “The Gift of Fear” and you get a much better understanding of the interplay between thought and emotion that can literally mean the difference between life and death.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Remembering Chief Mouser
I was saddened to hear that Sisters’ former fire chief Don Mouser has died.
Chief Mouser had been running the fire service here for almost 20 years when I got to town and started reporting on fire department issues.
I always enjoyed interviewing him — interviews that often turned into conversations, salted with stories of the old days in the Sisters fire service.
Chief Mouser was definitely what you’d call Old School — but he laid the groundwork for what has become a very up-to-date fire and medical service.
He started out as a logger — which I think most of the volunteer fire crew in the early days were. They did what they needed to do in the way that seemed best to them — and some of those ways would curl the hair and melt the eyeballs of a modern-day OSHA type.
It wasn’t that they were deliberately unsafe — they just had to make do with what they had and the techniques and tools at hand at the time. Heck, they don’t even let firefighters ride hanging on to the outside of engines any more.
Chief Mouser was riding a significant wave of change. For much of his 25 year tenure, Sisters remained a small and pretty sleepy town, but change was in the wind. Modernization was a must. The Sisters-Camp Sherman RFPD acquired new equipment and enhanced its training and professionalism.
Chief Mouser was one of the leaders of the charge to bring Sisters up to speed with an ambulance service and EMTs, believing that the fire district had to care for the medical needs of residents and visitors as well as protecting them from fire.
I always got the impression that the Chief was progressive in his thinking when it came to the kinds of services and skills Sisters needed in its fire department. But I don’t think he much cared for the added administrative burden that seems inevitably to come along with modernization.
Maybe that’s why our conversations toward the end of his tenure so often turned to the old days and the old way of doing things. That’s the way it is with pioneers. They can look with pride on what has come from their labors, but nothing has quite the tang of being in the thick of it, when the tasks were simple but difficult, when the world was young and so much needed to be done.
Hats off to you, Chief. You were a good man and you did a good job.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Chief Mouser had been running the fire service here for almost 20 years when I got to town and started reporting on fire department issues.
I always enjoyed interviewing him — interviews that often turned into conversations, salted with stories of the old days in the Sisters fire service.
Chief Mouser was definitely what you’d call Old School — but he laid the groundwork for what has become a very up-to-date fire and medical service.
He started out as a logger — which I think most of the volunteer fire crew in the early days were. They did what they needed to do in the way that seemed best to them — and some of those ways would curl the hair and melt the eyeballs of a modern-day OSHA type.
It wasn’t that they were deliberately unsafe — they just had to make do with what they had and the techniques and tools at hand at the time. Heck, they don’t even let firefighters ride hanging on to the outside of engines any more.
Chief Mouser was riding a significant wave of change. For much of his 25 year tenure, Sisters remained a small and pretty sleepy town, but change was in the wind. Modernization was a must. The Sisters-Camp Sherman RFPD acquired new equipment and enhanced its training and professionalism.
Chief Mouser was one of the leaders of the charge to bring Sisters up to speed with an ambulance service and EMTs, believing that the fire district had to care for the medical needs of residents and visitors as well as protecting them from fire.
I always got the impression that the Chief was progressive in his thinking when it came to the kinds of services and skills Sisters needed in its fire department. But I don’t think he much cared for the added administrative burden that seems inevitably to come along with modernization.
Maybe that’s why our conversations toward the end of his tenure so often turned to the old days and the old way of doing things. That’s the way it is with pioneers. They can look with pride on what has come from their labors, but nothing has quite the tang of being in the thick of it, when the tasks were simple but difficult, when the world was young and so much needed to be done.
Hats off to you, Chief. You were a good man and you did a good job.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Hate crimes
This from CBS News:
Last week, House Republican Leader John Boehner objected to House passage of a bill that would expand hate crime laws and make it a federal crime to assault people on the basis of their sexual orientation.
"All violent crimes should be prosecuted vigorously, no matter what the circumstance," he said. "The Democrats' 'thought crimes' legislation, however, places a higher value on some lives than others. Republicans believe that all lives are created equal, and should be defended with equal vigilance."
Based on that statement, CBSNews.com contacted Boehner's office to find out if the minority leader opposes all hate crimes legislation. The law as it now stands offers protections based on race, color, religion and national origin.
In an email, Boehner spokesman Kevin Smith said Boehner "supports existing federal protections (based on race, religion, gender, etc.) based on immutable characteristics."
I’m actually with Boehner on this one — until it comes to his rationale.
I’ve always thought “hate crime” enhancement was a crock. Motive is an element of guilt, but it shouldn’t be an element of punishment. A man who kills another man because he hates him personally has commited a crime every bit as heinous as a man who kills someone for racial or religious reasons. Hate is hate, murder is murder.
But Boehner’s rationale here is troubling. Mainly because he’s either a fool or a bigot (or both). Religion apparently is an “immutable characteristic” even though people can and do change their religion, sometimes several times. But being gay is not?
Personally, I’d rather see the whole idea of “hate crimes” scrapped.” But if you’re going to have such definitions, sexual orientation should certainly be on the list. And Boehner and his ilk need to get a clue.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Last week, House Republican Leader John Boehner objected to House passage of a bill that would expand hate crime laws and make it a federal crime to assault people on the basis of their sexual orientation.
"All violent crimes should be prosecuted vigorously, no matter what the circumstance," he said. "The Democrats' 'thought crimes' legislation, however, places a higher value on some lives than others. Republicans believe that all lives are created equal, and should be defended with equal vigilance."
Based on that statement, CBSNews.com contacted Boehner's office to find out if the minority leader opposes all hate crimes legislation. The law as it now stands offers protections based on race, color, religion and national origin.
In an email, Boehner spokesman Kevin Smith said Boehner "supports existing federal protections (based on race, religion, gender, etc.) based on immutable characteristics."
I’m actually with Boehner on this one — until it comes to his rationale.
I’ve always thought “hate crime” enhancement was a crock. Motive is an element of guilt, but it shouldn’t be an element of punishment. A man who kills another man because he hates him personally has commited a crime every bit as heinous as a man who kills someone for racial or religious reasons. Hate is hate, murder is murder.
But Boehner’s rationale here is troubling. Mainly because he’s either a fool or a bigot (or both). Religion apparently is an “immutable characteristic” even though people can and do change their religion, sometimes several times. But being gay is not?
Personally, I’d rather see the whole idea of “hate crimes” scrapped.” But if you’re going to have such definitions, sexual orientation should certainly be on the list. And Boehner and his ilk need to get a clue.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Friday, October 9, 2009
You’re joking, right?
For a minute there this morning, I thought that the Saturday Night Live crew had taken over the Nobel Prize committee. It seemed like a pretty good extended riff on last weekend’s skit. You know the one. The one where President Obama cops to NOT GETTING ANYTHING DONE!!
Pretty funny. The Nobel Peace Prize. For talking nice.
CNN reports that “The announcement caught the White House off guard. One senior administration official said ‘we were quite surprised.’”
Well, yeah, I bet.
Because the president has NOT DONE ANYTHING to deserve such an award.
The nominations were closed 12 days after he took office. Talk about the triumph of style over substance.
This year’s science prizes went to men whose work transformed our lives, producing fiber optic technology and the basis for digital photography. I guess next year they should just award the prize to someone who can articulate an idea nicely. Why bother with actually producing a breakthrough?
For that matter, I'm working on a novel. It's not done, much less published. It's a really great idea. I think they oughta give me the Nobel Prize for Literature.
I don’t care what your politics are, anybody ought to be able to smell B.S. when they step in it. This is a travesty that should be rejected by everyone — starting with President Obama himself.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Pretty funny. The Nobel Peace Prize. For talking nice.
CNN reports that “The announcement caught the White House off guard. One senior administration official said ‘we were quite surprised.’”
Well, yeah, I bet.
Because the president has NOT DONE ANYTHING to deserve such an award.
The nominations were closed 12 days after he took office. Talk about the triumph of style over substance.
This year’s science prizes went to men whose work transformed our lives, producing fiber optic technology and the basis for digital photography. I guess next year they should just award the prize to someone who can articulate an idea nicely. Why bother with actually producing a breakthrough?
For that matter, I'm working on a novel. It's not done, much less published. It's a really great idea. I think they oughta give me the Nobel Prize for Literature.
I don’t care what your politics are, anybody ought to be able to smell B.S. when they step in it. This is a travesty that should be rejected by everyone — starting with President Obama himself.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Thursday, October 8, 2009
What are we supposed to be preparing for?
Had an interesting reaction yesterday to a story that we ran in The Nugget about Cache Mountain Traders and the “prepper” culture.
A fellow I ran into at the gym was a little freaked out by the premise, as though there was something off-kilter, weird about the whole idea.
“What are we supposed to be preparing for?” he asked. “Armageddon?”
My response was, “Anything.” The idea is to be prepared for any kind of trouble that rolls down the pike.
David Brooks’ column in this week’s Nugget points out some of the trouble that we face — the financial kind. (You can read it here, too: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/29/opinion/29brooks.html.
Brooks argues for a return to the kind of fiscal self-restraint that produced “sound economic values” that served as a counterweight to the “notorious materialism” of American culture.
Without those sound economic values, we face the inevitable result of affluence and luxury: “decadence, corruption and decline.”
Brooks’ argument is a moral one. I’d argue that the whole idea of self-reliance and preparedness should be considered a moral issue, too.
Ideally, each of us should strive to be physically fit and capable, financially fit and secure and emotionally and spiritually strong to take on the inevitable challenges that life flings at us. We should have the knowledge base and the material preparedness to weather storms, natural or man made.
You can come at these virtues through a variety of spiritual and cultural traditions. There is no need to attach a political agenda.
It is a mistake, I think, to scoff at those who take heed of the storm clouds on the horizon. It seems a strange reaction, given how bad things are and how much worse they could get.
But maybe it’s not so strange. “Fitness” of all kinds takes hard work and discipline. What Brooks argues for in his column would take a massive cultural shift from a sense of entitlement to a sense of responsibility — and political decisions that are unlikely to be made in the animal farm of the public arena.
Maybe it’s just easier to dismiss the calls for a return to old virtues as quaint at best, weird at worst. But I know who the people are that I will want in my camp when Big Trouble comes.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
A fellow I ran into at the gym was a little freaked out by the premise, as though there was something off-kilter, weird about the whole idea.
“What are we supposed to be preparing for?” he asked. “Armageddon?”
My response was, “Anything.” The idea is to be prepared for any kind of trouble that rolls down the pike.
David Brooks’ column in this week’s Nugget points out some of the trouble that we face — the financial kind. (You can read it here, too: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/29/opinion/29brooks.html.
Brooks argues for a return to the kind of fiscal self-restraint that produced “sound economic values” that served as a counterweight to the “notorious materialism” of American culture.
Without those sound economic values, we face the inevitable result of affluence and luxury: “decadence, corruption and decline.”
Brooks’ argument is a moral one. I’d argue that the whole idea of self-reliance and preparedness should be considered a moral issue, too.
Ideally, each of us should strive to be physically fit and capable, financially fit and secure and emotionally and spiritually strong to take on the inevitable challenges that life flings at us. We should have the knowledge base and the material preparedness to weather storms, natural or man made.
You can come at these virtues through a variety of spiritual and cultural traditions. There is no need to attach a political agenda.
It is a mistake, I think, to scoff at those who take heed of the storm clouds on the horizon. It seems a strange reaction, given how bad things are and how much worse they could get.
But maybe it’s not so strange. “Fitness” of all kinds takes hard work and discipline. What Brooks argues for in his column would take a massive cultural shift from a sense of entitlement to a sense of responsibility — and political decisions that are unlikely to be made in the animal farm of the public arena.
Maybe it’s just easier to dismiss the calls for a return to old virtues as quaint at best, weird at worst. But I know who the people are that I will want in my camp when Big Trouble comes.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Friday, October 2, 2009
So much for consequences...
Oregon running back LeGarrette Blount, suspended for the season after his postgame tirade at Boise State on Sept. 3, could be reinstated after all. Ducks coach Chip Kelly will discuss Blount's status after today's practice, and a release Thursday night from the school said Kelly's plan "could include Blount's potential reinstatement prior to the conclusion of the 2009 season.'' Blount has practiced regularly with the team for the past three weeks, mostly on the scout team. He has attended all the games. On Thursday, a letter of apology signed by Blount appeared in the campus newspaper.
Apparently, talent does mean a free pass...
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Talent does not mean a free pass
Small wonder so many people think Hollywood is out of touch with “mainstream” American values.
You have to be pretty far out of anything resembling the mainstream of culture to advocate that a man who admitted forcing himself on a 13-year-old girl should get a get-out-of-jail-free card.
Yet that’s what a lot of Hollywood luminaries are doing when it comes to Roman Polanski.
Polanski is unquestionably a brilliant director. “Chinatown” is one of the great movies of all time and his “MacBeth” left a searing impression on me in high school.
But he also did something very bad way back in 1978, and he skipped the country to avoid facing the music. He needs to come back to the U.S. and place himself before the court. If there was prosecutorial misconduct, as has been credibly alleged, that needs to be addressed — by the courts.
The fact that the victim, now in her 40s, does not want prosecution is irrelevant. It’s not her call.
The outcry to free Polanski is a reflection of the double standards at play when the rich and talented run afoul of the law. Nobody would be pleading for immediate release of some Joe who did what Polanski admitted doing.
The rich, powerful and talented cannot be above the law, or we have no justice at all.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
You have to be pretty far out of anything resembling the mainstream of culture to advocate that a man who admitted forcing himself on a 13-year-old girl should get a get-out-of-jail-free card.
Yet that’s what a lot of Hollywood luminaries are doing when it comes to Roman Polanski.
Polanski is unquestionably a brilliant director. “Chinatown” is one of the great movies of all time and his “MacBeth” left a searing impression on me in high school.
But he also did something very bad way back in 1978, and he skipped the country to avoid facing the music. He needs to come back to the U.S. and place himself before the court. If there was prosecutorial misconduct, as has been credibly alleged, that needs to be addressed — by the courts.
The fact that the victim, now in her 40s, does not want prosecution is irrelevant. It’s not her call.
The outcry to free Polanski is a reflection of the double standards at play when the rich and talented run afoul of the law. Nobody would be pleading for immediate release of some Joe who did what Polanski admitted doing.
The rich, powerful and talented cannot be above the law, or we have no justice at all.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Learn to love fire
The Forest Service is getting set to touch off a series of prescribed burns.
They’re gun shy after last year’s escape, which caused the 1,800-acre Wizard Fire. I think they’re worried about public response.
Well, this member of the public is in full support of the fall burning program. I don’t love smoke on crisp, clear fall days and I don’t love brown pine needles in my woods — but I’m willing to live with them for the sake of the long-term health of the forests I love.
The forest is more than a pretty view — it’s a vital ecosystem. For some of us it is a downright sacred world. We’ve done a lot to make it sick and fire is the cure.
It’s the only cure, too. Mechanical thinning doesn’t replace fire. Nothing does. It is nature’s cleansing agent and this is its time of year.
There’s no excuse for the lapses that led to the Wizard Fire. I understand why people are angry about that. But there’s another truth that needs to be told here: the Wizard Fire was a beautiful thing from the standpoint of forest health. Almost all low-intensity — a nice, cleansing fire.
We need to treat more of the forest with fire — and at this time of year — not less. Of course we need for it to happen on purpose, in a controlled, non-threatening manner.
The Forest Service blew it on the RNA burn last year — and learned from it.
We can’t let the risks associated with prescribed burning make us too fearful to reap its benefits.
We need to put up with the smoke and the “ugly” immediate aftermath, because it is the only thing that can protect the forest from much uglier disease and from catastrophic fire.
About 1/4 of the Angeles National Forest where I roamed incessantly as a kid and as a young man has been ruined, burned to a literal crisp by an arson-caused wildfire of catastrophic proportions.
It was inevitable; the only thing that could have prevented the dire consequences is if those slopes had burned over lightly many times in preceding years.
If you love the forests of the Sisters Country, learn to love fire. The forest cannot live without it.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
They’re gun shy after last year’s escape, which caused the 1,800-acre Wizard Fire. I think they’re worried about public response.
Well, this member of the public is in full support of the fall burning program. I don’t love smoke on crisp, clear fall days and I don’t love brown pine needles in my woods — but I’m willing to live with them for the sake of the long-term health of the forests I love.
The forest is more than a pretty view — it’s a vital ecosystem. For some of us it is a downright sacred world. We’ve done a lot to make it sick and fire is the cure.
It’s the only cure, too. Mechanical thinning doesn’t replace fire. Nothing does. It is nature’s cleansing agent and this is its time of year.
There’s no excuse for the lapses that led to the Wizard Fire. I understand why people are angry about that. But there’s another truth that needs to be told here: the Wizard Fire was a beautiful thing from the standpoint of forest health. Almost all low-intensity — a nice, cleansing fire.
We need to treat more of the forest with fire — and at this time of year — not less. Of course we need for it to happen on purpose, in a controlled, non-threatening manner.
The Forest Service blew it on the RNA burn last year — and learned from it.
We can’t let the risks associated with prescribed burning make us too fearful to reap its benefits.
We need to put up with the smoke and the “ugly” immediate aftermath, because it is the only thing that can protect the forest from much uglier disease and from catastrophic fire.
About 1/4 of the Angeles National Forest where I roamed incessantly as a kid and as a young man has been ruined, burned to a literal crisp by an arson-caused wildfire of catastrophic proportions.
It was inevitable; the only thing that could have prevented the dire consequences is if those slopes had burned over lightly many times in preceding years.
If you love the forests of the Sisters Country, learn to love fire. The forest cannot live without it.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Crossing the line
I got an earful from my brother this morning regarding “what passes for news these days.”
He was peeved about the new focus of the remarkable story of Melanie Oudin, the 17-year-old phenom who knocked over, one after another, a murderers row of Russian aces on her way to the U.S. Open Tennis quarterfinals, where she fell to 19-year-old Caroline Wozniacki.
Someone dug up court filings on divorce proceedings between Oudin’s parents and aired the whole sorry tale, which was dutifully reported by media from the sports world and beyond. Tabloid fodder from heaven, right?
“Here’s the good news,” my brother said. “You’ve become a celebrity because of an exceptional tennis performance. Here’s the bad news: You’re a celebrity; and this is how we treat celebrities.”
As is often the case, my brother and I were thinking the same thought. My reaction to seeing this story splashed all over the Internet was, why does this girl deserve to have her family’s dirty laundry hung out for everyone in the world to pick over?
The answer is, she doesn’t. I realize that this is spitting into the ocean, but there is no reason that any of us need to know about this. It’s mere titillation.
Family problems — divorce, infidelity, illness — are well within a zone of privacy that should be respected. Politicians and some other public figures should be exempted because there is an issue of public trust involved, but even there some circumspection is in order. We don’t need the feeding frenzy that accompanies these things, from Bill Clinton to Mark Sanford to John Edwards.
Thinking about the Oudin situation led me back to another, more significant, question of drawing lines that I’ve been thinking a lot about for the past few days: the publishing of an AP photo of the dying of Lance Corporal Joshua Bernard in Afghanistan (after his family had asked AP not to distribute the photo).
That decision by AP drew stinging rebukes for insensitivity.
I’m of two minds about this. I don’t think AP should have distributed this particular photo, especially in the face of an express request from the family not to do so. Showing the young man in his last, dying agony caused too much pain to his loved ones.
But by the same token, we are too inclined to sanitize ugly realities. We don’t need to know about someone’s messy marital situation. But we do need to face up to the reality of warfare that is being carried out in our name and on our dime.
If we don’t have to look, we don’t have to face up. (That’s not a political statement, by the way. Whether you support a policy or not, it’s important to grapple with the consequences, especially when they are literally life-and-death).
“Just tell us about it; we don’t need to see it.”
I’ve heard that fairly often in response to photos of accidents and the like. I don’t buy it. Much as it pains a word guy to say it, images are more powerful than words at conveying stark realities.
I’ve seen (and shot) my share of bad accidents. Seeing what I have seen has made a significant impact on my driving habits. Not the rational understanding of the dangers of the highway — an emotional response to seeing what happens when a couple of tons of steel hits something at speed.
That’s got value. That’s a need-to-know thing. We all know that that damned Barclay Drive/Highway 20 intersection is dangerous. Seeing twisted steel all over the road makes you actually slow down and look when. Does me, anyway. Every time.
Sensitivity to victims and family members is important. You don’t necessarily need to show the face of fear and pain to get the point across. How graphic is too graphic? Is it the ability to put a name to a face the tipping point?
There is an iconic photograph of a terrified young Vietnamese girl running down a road from a napalm attack on her village that brought home powerfully the impact of that conflict on civilians. Why is it OK to run that and not a shot of a dying U.S. Marine?
How about the famous shot of the South Vietnamese officer executing a Viet Cong guerrilla during Tet?
I think AP stepped over the line, but I can't say in a hard-and-fast way where the line lies.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
He was peeved about the new focus of the remarkable story of Melanie Oudin, the 17-year-old phenom who knocked over, one after another, a murderers row of Russian aces on her way to the U.S. Open Tennis quarterfinals, where she fell to 19-year-old Caroline Wozniacki.
Someone dug up court filings on divorce proceedings between Oudin’s parents and aired the whole sorry tale, which was dutifully reported by media from the sports world and beyond. Tabloid fodder from heaven, right?
“Here’s the good news,” my brother said. “You’ve become a celebrity because of an exceptional tennis performance. Here’s the bad news: You’re a celebrity; and this is how we treat celebrities.”
As is often the case, my brother and I were thinking the same thought. My reaction to seeing this story splashed all over the Internet was, why does this girl deserve to have her family’s dirty laundry hung out for everyone in the world to pick over?
The answer is, she doesn’t. I realize that this is spitting into the ocean, but there is no reason that any of us need to know about this. It’s mere titillation.
Family problems — divorce, infidelity, illness — are well within a zone of privacy that should be respected. Politicians and some other public figures should be exempted because there is an issue of public trust involved, but even there some circumspection is in order. We don’t need the feeding frenzy that accompanies these things, from Bill Clinton to Mark Sanford to John Edwards.
Thinking about the Oudin situation led me back to another, more significant, question of drawing lines that I’ve been thinking a lot about for the past few days: the publishing of an AP photo of the dying of Lance Corporal Joshua Bernard in Afghanistan (after his family had asked AP not to distribute the photo).
That decision by AP drew stinging rebukes for insensitivity.
I’m of two minds about this. I don’t think AP should have distributed this particular photo, especially in the face of an express request from the family not to do so. Showing the young man in his last, dying agony caused too much pain to his loved ones.
But by the same token, we are too inclined to sanitize ugly realities. We don’t need to know about someone’s messy marital situation. But we do need to face up to the reality of warfare that is being carried out in our name and on our dime.
If we don’t have to look, we don’t have to face up. (That’s not a political statement, by the way. Whether you support a policy or not, it’s important to grapple with the consequences, especially when they are literally life-and-death).
“Just tell us about it; we don’t need to see it.”
I’ve heard that fairly often in response to photos of accidents and the like. I don’t buy it. Much as it pains a word guy to say it, images are more powerful than words at conveying stark realities.
I’ve seen (and shot) my share of bad accidents. Seeing what I have seen has made a significant impact on my driving habits. Not the rational understanding of the dangers of the highway — an emotional response to seeing what happens when a couple of tons of steel hits something at speed.
That’s got value. That’s a need-to-know thing. We all know that that damned Barclay Drive/Highway 20 intersection is dangerous. Seeing twisted steel all over the road makes you actually slow down and look when. Does me, anyway. Every time.
Sensitivity to victims and family members is important. You don’t necessarily need to show the face of fear and pain to get the point across. How graphic is too graphic? Is it the ability to put a name to a face the tipping point?
There is an iconic photograph of a terrified young Vietnamese girl running down a road from a napalm attack on her village that brought home powerfully the impact of that conflict on civilians. Why is it OK to run that and not a shot of a dying U.S. Marine?
How about the famous shot of the South Vietnamese officer executing a Viet Cong guerrilla during Tet?
I think AP stepped over the line, but I can't say in a hard-and-fast way where the line lies.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Some actual thinking about health care
If you’re tired of the shouting and the superficial sound bytes passing for discussion of health care reform in the United States, you might want to check out the latest issue of The Atlantic magazine.
David Goldhill writes a piece titled “How American Health Care Killed My Father.”
It’s too long and detailed an exploration of the flaws and potentials of American health care to summarize here. The gist is this.: Goldhill argues that the only way that costs can be tamed and quality ensured is by converting to a consumer-driven model for health care.
Right now, patients and their families are not the customers — insurance companies and the government are. Goldhill argues that any reform that does not address that fundamental distortion is bound to fail.
It’s a refreshingly nonpartisan, non-ideological approach — Health Savings Account; government-pooled catastrophic insurance; greater transparency.
No shouting, no spinning. It's long, it's detailed, it's dense with ideas and information. Worth a read.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200909/health-care
Jim Cornelius, Editor
David Goldhill writes a piece titled “How American Health Care Killed My Father.”
It’s too long and detailed an exploration of the flaws and potentials of American health care to summarize here. The gist is this.: Goldhill argues that the only way that costs can be tamed and quality ensured is by converting to a consumer-driven model for health care.
Right now, patients and their families are not the customers — insurance companies and the government are. Goldhill argues that any reform that does not address that fundamental distortion is bound to fail.
It’s a refreshingly nonpartisan, non-ideological approach — Health Savings Account; government-pooled catastrophic insurance; greater transparency.
No shouting, no spinning. It's long, it's detailed, it's dense with ideas and information. Worth a read.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200909/health-care
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Friday, September 4, 2009
Duck you sucker!
Okay all you Duck fans out there: What do you do about LeGarrette Blount?
For those of you who have been completely incommunicado since Thursday night, a Boise State player bumped Blount and said something (presumably impolite) to him after Boise State’s 19-8 victory.
Blount decked him with a beautiful right handed sucker punch. Then he started to go after some fans and had to be wrestled to the ground by a Ducks assistant coach.
Blount later apologized, saying he lost his head. We noticed. And it’s apparently not the first incident with him this season.
So what do you do with him? If I’m the coach, I suspend him indefinitely — until I know for sure that he can control himself. I don’t care how important a player is to a team, that kind of lack of self-control can’t be tolerated.
What’s the appropriate sanction?
Jim Cornelius, Editor
For those of you who have been completely incommunicado since Thursday night, a Boise State player bumped Blount and said something (presumably impolite) to him after Boise State’s 19-8 victory.
Blount decked him with a beautiful right handed sucker punch. Then he started to go after some fans and had to be wrestled to the ground by a Ducks assistant coach.
Blount later apologized, saying he lost his head. We noticed. And it’s apparently not the first incident with him this season.
So what do you do with him? If I’m the coach, I suspend him indefinitely — until I know for sure that he can control himself. I don’t care how important a player is to a team, that kind of lack of self-control can’t be tolerated.
What’s the appropriate sanction?
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Monday, August 24, 2009
Are you a ‘prepper’?
I was in Cache Mountain Traders in Sisters last week to interview Steve Wilson about the new focus of his store.
He’s gone from a consignment store to a depot for “preppers.”
What is a prepper? I didn’t know either. Hadn’t heard the term.
Turns out prepper is a new term for what we used to call “survivalists” before that term got loaded up with bad connotations and images of potbellied guys in camo fatigues running (waddling?) around in the woods playing soldier.
It’s a good idea to try to lose that image. ’Cause being a prepper is not a bad idea; not at all.
We live in a wondrous era of abundant supply, literally at our finger tips. the local store carries every kind of everything or can get it for you in a couple of days. Actually, you don’t even need to leave the house. You can order up most anything you need or desire from the Internet.
But as Steve points out, it’s all as complex — and as fragile — as a spider web. We don’t like to think about how easily it could all break down.
And what do you do then?
That’s what being a prepper is all about. Being prepared. Like a good Boy Scout.
Do you have enough clean water and food to last you a while if things get hairy? How about an alternative heat source and a means of cooking food if the electric stove is out?
These are good things to think about, especially in a place like Sisters, which is, in truth, relatively isolated.
A lot of preppers are concerned about major socioeconomic collapse and that turns some people off from the whole subculture. It’s almost as if they are hopeful that the worst happens so they can put all their preparation into action. Remember all the doomsday preaching about Y2K?
Total socioeconomic collapse is a remote possibility, but it’s not completely implausible. And preparing for the worst gives you a lot of head space to deal with less catastrophic but still dangerous scenarios.
Hurricane Katrina provided searing images of people helpless in the face of natural disaster, without supplies, without a plan. Why be one of those people?
Here in Sisters, a major winter storm, a wildfire, could easily create the need to activate an emergency plan. A stockpile of food and water makes sense; so does some emergency communication device like a crank-up radio.
And, yes, some means of protecting what you have is always a good idea. Doesn’t have to be an AR-15; a good shotgun will do and your hunting rifle or even your .22 plinker will serve.
This doesn’t have to be a huge dollar investment and most everything you need can be readily found at surplus stores, hardware stores or places like Cache Mountain.
Most gear that you might put up as a prepper can double as camping/backpacking/hunting gear anyway, so it’s insurance you can actually use for fun.
The library is full of good books and there’s all kinds of interesting “prepper” Web sites out there. Many of them are full of recipes and homesteading advice — not what you associate with “survivalism.”
It’s really about self-reliance and in my book that’s always a good thing. I’ve been looking at my stuff and getting set to fill in gaps (mostly an insufficient supply of imperishable foodstuffs). It’s been an interesting exercise, one that has reminded me to think “what would we do if?”
If you’re not a prepper, maybe you oughta be.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
He’s gone from a consignment store to a depot for “preppers.”
What is a prepper? I didn’t know either. Hadn’t heard the term.
Turns out prepper is a new term for what we used to call “survivalists” before that term got loaded up with bad connotations and images of potbellied guys in camo fatigues running (waddling?) around in the woods playing soldier.
It’s a good idea to try to lose that image. ’Cause being a prepper is not a bad idea; not at all.
We live in a wondrous era of abundant supply, literally at our finger tips. the local store carries every kind of everything or can get it for you in a couple of days. Actually, you don’t even need to leave the house. You can order up most anything you need or desire from the Internet.
But as Steve points out, it’s all as complex — and as fragile — as a spider web. We don’t like to think about how easily it could all break down.
And what do you do then?
That’s what being a prepper is all about. Being prepared. Like a good Boy Scout.
Do you have enough clean water and food to last you a while if things get hairy? How about an alternative heat source and a means of cooking food if the electric stove is out?
These are good things to think about, especially in a place like Sisters, which is, in truth, relatively isolated.
A lot of preppers are concerned about major socioeconomic collapse and that turns some people off from the whole subculture. It’s almost as if they are hopeful that the worst happens so they can put all their preparation into action. Remember all the doomsday preaching about Y2K?
Total socioeconomic collapse is a remote possibility, but it’s not completely implausible. And preparing for the worst gives you a lot of head space to deal with less catastrophic but still dangerous scenarios.
Hurricane Katrina provided searing images of people helpless in the face of natural disaster, without supplies, without a plan. Why be one of those people?
Here in Sisters, a major winter storm, a wildfire, could easily create the need to activate an emergency plan. A stockpile of food and water makes sense; so does some emergency communication device like a crank-up radio.
And, yes, some means of protecting what you have is always a good idea. Doesn’t have to be an AR-15; a good shotgun will do and your hunting rifle or even your .22 plinker will serve.
This doesn’t have to be a huge dollar investment and most everything you need can be readily found at surplus stores, hardware stores or places like Cache Mountain.
Most gear that you might put up as a prepper can double as camping/backpacking/hunting gear anyway, so it’s insurance you can actually use for fun.
The library is full of good books and there’s all kinds of interesting “prepper” Web sites out there. Many of them are full of recipes and homesteading advice — not what you associate with “survivalism.”
It’s really about self-reliance and in my book that’s always a good thing. I’ve been looking at my stuff and getting set to fill in gaps (mostly an insufficient supply of imperishable foodstuffs). It’s been an interesting exercise, one that has reminded me to think “what would we do if?”
If you’re not a prepper, maybe you oughta be.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
The Civil War isn’t over
I recently re-ignited my interest in the American Civil War, which had lain dormant for about 15 years.
In that intervening decade-and-a-half, the landscape of Civil War study changed radically — because of the Internet. There are scores and scores of Civil War sites and blogs, from scholars’ pages to reenactor group sites to partisan blogs.
Oh, yes, partisan blogs.
You see, the Civil War isn’t over; the past isn’t past.
The origins and causes of the great conflict are argued in the blogosphere as vigorously, if not (quite) as violently as they were argued in the middle of the 19th Century.
This is no mere academic debate. It remains at the center of our identity as a nation.
Southern Partisans, neo-Confederates, argue that the war was a second War of Independence, a defense of liberty against an overreaching Federal government. Sound familiar? Not surprisingly, the blogs of Southern Partisans tend to be arch-conservative and antigovernment. They’re consistent, too.
While their attention right now is on battling health care reform as conceived by the current administration, many blog archives reveal a strong anti-Iraq War tendency — a rejection of what they regard as an imperialist U.S. that violates the original spirit of the Republic.
Where they go off the rails is in their minimization of slavery as a causal factor. Most reject slavery as a cause of war at all. That’s twaddle. You only have to look at the declaration of secession of South Carolina or the Constitution of the Confederate States of America to see that defense of the institution of slavery was fundamental to the Southern cause, even if it was not a paramount motive of many of the men who fought bravely and skillfully in the defense of hearth and home.
Other bloggers see the meaning of the war very differently.
Some bloggers are deeply committed to the understanding that the war that began over the preservation of the Union ended up being about the extension of the promise of American society — one where all men are created equal.
This exalted view of the meaning of the war can lead to some real hostility toward those who see that interpretation as a gloss. And some smearing with a broad brush.
In another post I referred to a Civil War blogger — very hostile to the outlook of the neo-Confederates — who slagged off the entire homeschool movement because he sees so many homeschoolers in Virginia getting a positive spin on the Confederacy in their history study.
The pieties of teh Southern Partisans can get a little thick — and their denial of the centrality of slavery doesn't pass any kind of historical muster. On the other hand, many of the “anti-Confederate” bloggers can be incredibly snarky, lending credence to the Southron’s belief that the “Yankees” have an incurably holier-than-thou outlook that must impose its worldview on others who don’t want it.
To those who don’t know much about the Civil War (and maybe don’t care) this may all seem vaguely ridiculous. But it’s as serious as a charge of grapeshot.
Interpretations of the meaning of the Civil War matter a great deal to many people as a way of defining who they are culturally and politically. Recently, a large group of scholars (including the notorious William Ayers) called upon President Obama to forego the long-standing tradition of laying a wreath at the memorial to the Confederate dead at Arlington.
Obama upheld the tradition and laid the wreath.
This stuff matters. In many ways, fundamental issues of the War continue to gnaw at us today, whether we recognize where they come from or not. What is the definition of liberty? Is the federal government a guarantor of liberty, extending the torch of freedom, or is it in itself a threat to liberty?
Are we defined as Americans by our race? Is the original sin of slavery an indelible stain or was it washed out by the blood of 640,000 Americans and the passage of 140 years?
These questions remain unanswered — and maybe unanswerable. If the war didn’t decide them, what could?
When we see the passion the rage, the alienation between Americans and (dare I say it) the hatred that marks the bleeding edge of the partisan divide in this country, it is plain to see that the Civil War is not over.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
In that intervening decade-and-a-half, the landscape of Civil War study changed radically — because of the Internet. There are scores and scores of Civil War sites and blogs, from scholars’ pages to reenactor group sites to partisan blogs.
Oh, yes, partisan blogs.
You see, the Civil War isn’t over; the past isn’t past.
The origins and causes of the great conflict are argued in the blogosphere as vigorously, if not (quite) as violently as they were argued in the middle of the 19th Century.
This is no mere academic debate. It remains at the center of our identity as a nation.
Southern Partisans, neo-Confederates, argue that the war was a second War of Independence, a defense of liberty against an overreaching Federal government. Sound familiar? Not surprisingly, the blogs of Southern Partisans tend to be arch-conservative and antigovernment. They’re consistent, too.
While their attention right now is on battling health care reform as conceived by the current administration, many blog archives reveal a strong anti-Iraq War tendency — a rejection of what they regard as an imperialist U.S. that violates the original spirit of the Republic.
Where they go off the rails is in their minimization of slavery as a causal factor. Most reject slavery as a cause of war at all. That’s twaddle. You only have to look at the declaration of secession of South Carolina or the Constitution of the Confederate States of America to see that defense of the institution of slavery was fundamental to the Southern cause, even if it was not a paramount motive of many of the men who fought bravely and skillfully in the defense of hearth and home.
Other bloggers see the meaning of the war very differently.
Some bloggers are deeply committed to the understanding that the war that began over the preservation of the Union ended up being about the extension of the promise of American society — one where all men are created equal.
This exalted view of the meaning of the war can lead to some real hostility toward those who see that interpretation as a gloss. And some smearing with a broad brush.
In another post I referred to a Civil War blogger — very hostile to the outlook of the neo-Confederates — who slagged off the entire homeschool movement because he sees so many homeschoolers in Virginia getting a positive spin on the Confederacy in their history study.
The pieties of teh Southern Partisans can get a little thick — and their denial of the centrality of slavery doesn't pass any kind of historical muster. On the other hand, many of the “anti-Confederate” bloggers can be incredibly snarky, lending credence to the Southron’s belief that the “Yankees” have an incurably holier-than-thou outlook that must impose its worldview on others who don’t want it.
To those who don’t know much about the Civil War (and maybe don’t care) this may all seem vaguely ridiculous. But it’s as serious as a charge of grapeshot.
Interpretations of the meaning of the Civil War matter a great deal to many people as a way of defining who they are culturally and politically. Recently, a large group of scholars (including the notorious William Ayers) called upon President Obama to forego the long-standing tradition of laying a wreath at the memorial to the Confederate dead at Arlington.
Obama upheld the tradition and laid the wreath.
This stuff matters. In many ways, fundamental issues of the War continue to gnaw at us today, whether we recognize where they come from or not. What is the definition of liberty? Is the federal government a guarantor of liberty, extending the torch of freedom, or is it in itself a threat to liberty?
Are we defined as Americans by our race? Is the original sin of slavery an indelible stain or was it washed out by the blood of 640,000 Americans and the passage of 140 years?
These questions remain unanswered — and maybe unanswerable. If the war didn’t decide them, what could?
When we see the passion the rage, the alienation between Americans and (dare I say it) the hatred that marks the bleeding edge of the partisan divide in this country, it is plain to see that the Civil War is not over.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Getting back on track with health care reform
The current proposals for health care reform are probably dead.
That doesn’t mean health care reform isn’t possible. It sure is necessary. I know of at least one Sisters business that just eliminate its insurance benefits for employees because they can’t afford it. That’s going to become a common litany over the next few years if something isn’t done.
Don’t like the current House bill or the plans being bandied about in the Senate? Let’s hear some alternatives.
A Steve Lopez column in the L.A. Times a couple of days ago outlined a California surgeon’s ideas. They won’t “fix” health care, but they sure make sense and it seems like perhaps some common sense changes might do some good.
Above all, they might be politically achievable, assuming that our legislators are not completely in thrall to the insurance companies. Perhaps a foolish assumption, but let’s pretend they aren’t just for the sake of argument.
Read the whole column here: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lopez12-2009aug12,1,2117780.column
The gist is this:
• Dump the "50-state patchwork" of private insurance programs that can't cross state borders and switch to competing national plans that would be required to take all comers, with no exemptions for preexisting conditions.
• Reinstate federal regulations abandoned in the 1980s that limited insurance companies’ fees.
• Move away from employment-based healthcare, with companies paying higher salaries, instead, so employees can shop for a suitable plan and carry it with them from one job to the next.
• Cap malpractice suits.
Obviously this would require more government regulation, but it would not be a “government takeover of health care” as feared by activists opposing so-called “Obama care.” It would also require tort reform, so often resisted by the Democrats who are too influenced by lawyers’ lobbies.
These ideas make sense and seem like they are in the realm of the possible, even in a climate now poisoned by deep rancor.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
That doesn’t mean health care reform isn’t possible. It sure is necessary. I know of at least one Sisters business that just eliminate its insurance benefits for employees because they can’t afford it. That’s going to become a common litany over the next few years if something isn’t done.
Don’t like the current House bill or the plans being bandied about in the Senate? Let’s hear some alternatives.
A Steve Lopez column in the L.A. Times a couple of days ago outlined a California surgeon’s ideas. They won’t “fix” health care, but they sure make sense and it seems like perhaps some common sense changes might do some good.
Above all, they might be politically achievable, assuming that our legislators are not completely in thrall to the insurance companies. Perhaps a foolish assumption, but let’s pretend they aren’t just for the sake of argument.
Read the whole column here: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lopez12-2009aug12,1,2117780.column
The gist is this:
• Dump the "50-state patchwork" of private insurance programs that can't cross state borders and switch to competing national plans that would be required to take all comers, with no exemptions for preexisting conditions.
• Reinstate federal regulations abandoned in the 1980s that limited insurance companies’ fees.
• Move away from employment-based healthcare, with companies paying higher salaries, instead, so employees can shop for a suitable plan and carry it with them from one job to the next.
• Cap malpractice suits.
Obviously this would require more government regulation, but it would not be a “government takeover of health care” as feared by activists opposing so-called “Obama care.” It would also require tort reform, so often resisted by the Democrats who are too influenced by lawyers’ lobbies.
These ideas make sense and seem like they are in the realm of the possible, even in a climate now poisoned by deep rancor.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Thursday, July 30, 2009
A taxing dilemma
The City of Sisters has a dilemma on its hands.
Its analysis of its street maintenance requirements shows a need for about $140,000 per year in maintenance. The street fund is funded to about $90,000, with additional funds subsidized by transfers from the general fund.
That’s not sustainable over the long haul.
Everybody knows that deferred maintenance creates greater costs in the long run and when it comes to street repairs, the costs accelerate tremendously as road conditions worsen.
So, the city is proposing a 3 cents per gallon gas tax. They figure it would cost the average driver who buys all their gas in Sisters about $21 per year. It’s acting now, because come September there will be a four year moratorium on local fuel taxes.
The idea isn’t real popular among the fuel dealers in Sisters and among some other local folks. They argue that such a tax unfairly burdens five local businesses, making them less competitive with stations in Bend and Redmond (Redmond, too, is reportedly considering a gas tax).
They believe that an extra 3 cents per gallon will lead people to fill up in Bend when they’re running errands in the big town.
The city council says it looked at other funding mechanisms — specifically a utility bill surcharge — but they say it’s too burdensome on city residents and property owners. They say a gas tax is more broadly distributed and captures money from people — outlying residents and tourists — who use city streets but don’t pay city taxes.
This isn’t the best time to add to anyone’s tax burden. But then again, it’s not good stewardship to defer maintenance and incur greater costs down the road.
So, what should the city do? Pass the tax? Wait four years and put it to a vote? Presumably the city would continue to subsidize the street fund out of the general fund for those four years. Should they go ahead with a utility bill surcharge — about $114 per year for each account? Do nothing?
If the answer is “take it from somewhere else in city government,” where should it come from?
We all want our streets to be decent to drive on. How do we pay for them?
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Its analysis of its street maintenance requirements shows a need for about $140,000 per year in maintenance. The street fund is funded to about $90,000, with additional funds subsidized by transfers from the general fund.
That’s not sustainable over the long haul.
Everybody knows that deferred maintenance creates greater costs in the long run and when it comes to street repairs, the costs accelerate tremendously as road conditions worsen.
So, the city is proposing a 3 cents per gallon gas tax. They figure it would cost the average driver who buys all their gas in Sisters about $21 per year. It’s acting now, because come September there will be a four year moratorium on local fuel taxes.
The idea isn’t real popular among the fuel dealers in Sisters and among some other local folks. They argue that such a tax unfairly burdens five local businesses, making them less competitive with stations in Bend and Redmond (Redmond, too, is reportedly considering a gas tax).
They believe that an extra 3 cents per gallon will lead people to fill up in Bend when they’re running errands in the big town.
The city council says it looked at other funding mechanisms — specifically a utility bill surcharge — but they say it’s too burdensome on city residents and property owners. They say a gas tax is more broadly distributed and captures money from people — outlying residents and tourists — who use city streets but don’t pay city taxes.
This isn’t the best time to add to anyone’s tax burden. But then again, it’s not good stewardship to defer maintenance and incur greater costs down the road.
So, what should the city do? Pass the tax? Wait four years and put it to a vote? Presumably the city would continue to subsidize the street fund out of the general fund for those four years. Should they go ahead with a utility bill surcharge — about $114 per year for each account? Do nothing?
If the answer is “take it from somewhere else in city government,” where should it come from?
We all want our streets to be decent to drive on. How do we pay for them?
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Monday morning quarterbacking from the Oval Office
President Obama was way out of line in Wednesday night’s press conference when he said that Cambridge police “acted stupidly” in arresting Obama’s friend Henry Louis Gates, Jr. for disorderly conduct.
The facts of the case as we know them seem to support the belief that the officer acted according to appropriate protocol. A cop has to be abundantly cautious when responding to a report of a break-in — and Gates forced the front door of his home. Cop didn’t know it was his house.
If the officer was responding to my home he’d have done the same thing. In fact, I’ve been checked out when closing up The Nugget after delivering papers on a dark winter night. I appreciate that the cops are paying attention.
It certainly does not appear to be a “black in America thing.” Whether The officer had to arrest Gates for disorderly conduct or not is questionable, but the man was railing at him loud and long and was warned twice. Again, seems like a behavior thing, not a race thing.
What is really out of line here is the President of the United States weighing in on the issue in a nationally televised press conference. The president should not be second-guessing a local cop in a local matter on national TV, especially in an unfortunately and unnecessarily racially charged incident. Especially when he prefaces his comments by saying he doesn’t have all the facts.
Irresponsible behavior.
If anyone is owed an apology here, it’s Sgt. Jim Crowley, who did his job and now has to deal with second guessing from City Hall and Monday morning quarterbacking from the Oval Office.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
The facts of the case as we know them seem to support the belief that the officer acted according to appropriate protocol. A cop has to be abundantly cautious when responding to a report of a break-in — and Gates forced the front door of his home. Cop didn’t know it was his house.
If the officer was responding to my home he’d have done the same thing. In fact, I’ve been checked out when closing up The Nugget after delivering papers on a dark winter night. I appreciate that the cops are paying attention.
It certainly does not appear to be a “black in America thing.” Whether The officer had to arrest Gates for disorderly conduct or not is questionable, but the man was railing at him loud and long and was warned twice. Again, seems like a behavior thing, not a race thing.
What is really out of line here is the President of the United States weighing in on the issue in a nationally televised press conference. The president should not be second-guessing a local cop in a local matter on national TV, especially in an unfortunately and unnecessarily racially charged incident. Especially when he prefaces his comments by saying he doesn’t have all the facts.
Irresponsible behavior.
If anyone is owed an apology here, it’s Sgt. Jim Crowley, who did his job and now has to deal with second guessing from City Hall and Monday morning quarterbacking from the Oval Office.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Spinning health care
Health care is in the hands of politicians and pundits. That means you can’t trust anything you hear. The spin machine, left and right, is in high gear.
I don’t know how best to ensure the best health care for the largest number of people at an acceptable cost. I don’t know that anyone does.
But there are a few things I do know — and I’m sick of hearing these points spun by ideologues who would rather win an argument than get anything done.
• American health care is not very good overall. Yes, we have the best health care in the world — if you can access it; if you can afford it. But overall we spend more than other developed countries for poorer outcomes.
That has to change. How?
• Americans have to change our lifestyles. We’re too fat, our diets are poor and we don’t get enough exercise. We get drunk and high too much and end up in emergency rooms.
Those of us who don’t do all those things — who live active lifestyles and eat well and avoid the pitfalls of drugs and alcohol are subsidizing the rest.
• Medical intervention often comes late and in the most expensive stages of illness. Surgery rather than preventive medicine.
• We spend gobs of money extending people’s lives at the very end of them. When my mother was dying of cancer, she stopped chemotherapy that could have extended her life another six months or a year. Keeping a dying person alive is not the same thing as saving a life. We need to learn the difference.
The crisis in American health care is real — and it’s close to home, if not right on our doorstep or in the living room.
Every year, small businesses like those in Sisters struggle to insure their employees — if they can at all. Every year, they are faced with paying more for less.
It’s not hard to find people right here in Sisters who delay seeing a doctor because they don’t have coverage or their coverage is inadequate. Everyone knows someone who need medical help who has to fight to get it — if they get it at all. People in those straits often get sicker and their care costs more than if they had just been able to see the doctor when they first got sick — or had intervention before a problem turned into a nightmare.
One bugaboo that comes up in any discussion of a public health care option is “rationing” of health care.
We ration health care now. Anyone who has ever dealt with an HMO has experienced rationed health care. Anyone who has delayed seeing a doctor because they can’t afford it has rationed their own health care.
“Some bureaucrat” is managing your health care when your insurance company drops you or doesn’t cover what you thought was covered.
Any health care reform is going to be imperfect. The Obama administration’s current plan has significant flaws and it needs to be rethought. What is needed is a genuine, bipartisan, good faith effort to create a system that controls costs better, covers more people and encourages cultural shifts that empower people to take control of their own health through their lifestyle, and less through the pharmacy and the hospital.
That’s not likely to happen. There’s too much ideological baggage being dragged around in this discussion, too many people with a stake in political success or failure rather than in creation of good public policy.
My bet is that health care reform fails — again — and the status quo continues. And the continued status quo means things get worse.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
I don’t know how best to ensure the best health care for the largest number of people at an acceptable cost. I don’t know that anyone does.
But there are a few things I do know — and I’m sick of hearing these points spun by ideologues who would rather win an argument than get anything done.
• American health care is not very good overall. Yes, we have the best health care in the world — if you can access it; if you can afford it. But overall we spend more than other developed countries for poorer outcomes.
That has to change. How?
• Americans have to change our lifestyles. We’re too fat, our diets are poor and we don’t get enough exercise. We get drunk and high too much and end up in emergency rooms.
Those of us who don’t do all those things — who live active lifestyles and eat well and avoid the pitfalls of drugs and alcohol are subsidizing the rest.
• Medical intervention often comes late and in the most expensive stages of illness. Surgery rather than preventive medicine.
• We spend gobs of money extending people’s lives at the very end of them. When my mother was dying of cancer, she stopped chemotherapy that could have extended her life another six months or a year. Keeping a dying person alive is not the same thing as saving a life. We need to learn the difference.
The crisis in American health care is real — and it’s close to home, if not right on our doorstep or in the living room.
Every year, small businesses like those in Sisters struggle to insure their employees — if they can at all. Every year, they are faced with paying more for less.
It’s not hard to find people right here in Sisters who delay seeing a doctor because they don’t have coverage or their coverage is inadequate. Everyone knows someone who need medical help who has to fight to get it — if they get it at all. People in those straits often get sicker and their care costs more than if they had just been able to see the doctor when they first got sick — or had intervention before a problem turned into a nightmare.
One bugaboo that comes up in any discussion of a public health care option is “rationing” of health care.
We ration health care now. Anyone who has ever dealt with an HMO has experienced rationed health care. Anyone who has delayed seeing a doctor because they can’t afford it has rationed their own health care.
“Some bureaucrat” is managing your health care when your insurance company drops you or doesn’t cover what you thought was covered.
Any health care reform is going to be imperfect. The Obama administration’s current plan has significant flaws and it needs to be rethought. What is needed is a genuine, bipartisan, good faith effort to create a system that controls costs better, covers more people and encourages cultural shifts that empower people to take control of their own health through their lifestyle, and less through the pharmacy and the hospital.
That’s not likely to happen. There’s too much ideological baggage being dragged around in this discussion, too many people with a stake in political success or failure rather than in creation of good public policy.
My bet is that health care reform fails — again — and the status quo continues. And the continued status quo means things get worse.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Home schooling is child abuse? — a Civil War blogger slanders a whole educational movement
Exploring some Civil War blogs, I came upon a pretty bald statement about homeschooling. It gave me pause, because it runs strongly counter to my observations of homeschooled children in Sisters and elsewhere.
Kevin Levin, on his Civil War Memory blog, said:
The real tragedy is to see the children who are the product of homeschooling. Yes, there is evidence to suggest that some homeschooled kids out perform their public school peers, but I’ve taught a number of these kids over the past eight years and it isn’t pretty.
Most of the kids I’ve taught with this background find it very difficult to adjust to a school community. Many haven’t spent enough time learning how to interact with their peers, but the biggest disappointment is to watch them in the classroom.
The kids I’ve taught are very obedient and well-behaved, but try to get them to question what they read or what the teacher says and you will end up pulling your hair out. They were never taught to formulate their own ideas or to see school as an opportunity to develop their own views about things.
It’s very sad. I’ve seen up close what happens to kids who are taught to see US History as “God’s plan”. In a previous comment someone said that it reminds them of child abuse and I couldn’t agree more.
Wow.
He later qualified some of his statements in the face of comments to the contrary, but... wow.
My own impression of homeschooled kids has been overwhelmingly positive. They seem mature and comfortable interacting with adults. Well-behaved, indeed, but not automatons.
The homeschooled kids I know, including a couple of family members, have not had problems adjusting to a school environment — in fact, they seem to continue to excel. They seem to be independent thinkers who know how to find information on their own — and are willing to question it.
In my experience, most homeschoolers — not all — are coming from a Christian perspective and there is some inherent ideological bias. But it is ridiculous to think that there is no ideological bias in public education — or in any group of people talking about ideas and issues. The most ideologically rigid people I've ever encountered were at the "free-thinking" University of California, Santa Cruz.
I don't believe homeschooled kids are any less capable of challenging their own perceptions than public school kids.
Personally, I’ve always believed that most education occurs in the home anyway, whether it’s “homeschool” or not. I didn’t get my passion for history — or much of my education in it — from school. I got it from reading and talking about it with my parents. I learned more about the Civil War from sharing books and discussions (sometimes arguments) with my dad than I did from any classroom, up to and including a university degree in history.
I believe in public education and want to see the best we can get in Sisters. But for those for whom it makes sense to opt out in favor of homeschooling, it seems to work.
I’d be interested in hearing other people’s experience with homeschooling — as participants or critics.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Kevin Levin, on his Civil War Memory blog, said:
The real tragedy is to see the children who are the product of homeschooling. Yes, there is evidence to suggest that some homeschooled kids out perform their public school peers, but I’ve taught a number of these kids over the past eight years and it isn’t pretty.
Most of the kids I’ve taught with this background find it very difficult to adjust to a school community. Many haven’t spent enough time learning how to interact with their peers, but the biggest disappointment is to watch them in the classroom.
The kids I’ve taught are very obedient and well-behaved, but try to get them to question what they read or what the teacher says and you will end up pulling your hair out. They were never taught to formulate their own ideas or to see school as an opportunity to develop their own views about things.
It’s very sad. I’ve seen up close what happens to kids who are taught to see US History as “God’s plan”. In a previous comment someone said that it reminds them of child abuse and I couldn’t agree more.
Wow.
He later qualified some of his statements in the face of comments to the contrary, but... wow.
My own impression of homeschooled kids has been overwhelmingly positive. They seem mature and comfortable interacting with adults. Well-behaved, indeed, but not automatons.
The homeschooled kids I know, including a couple of family members, have not had problems adjusting to a school environment — in fact, they seem to continue to excel. They seem to be independent thinkers who know how to find information on their own — and are willing to question it.
In my experience, most homeschoolers — not all — are coming from a Christian perspective and there is some inherent ideological bias. But it is ridiculous to think that there is no ideological bias in public education — or in any group of people talking about ideas and issues. The most ideologically rigid people I've ever encountered were at the "free-thinking" University of California, Santa Cruz.
I don't believe homeschooled kids are any less capable of challenging their own perceptions than public school kids.
Personally, I’ve always believed that most education occurs in the home anyway, whether it’s “homeschool” or not. I didn’t get my passion for history — or much of my education in it — from school. I got it from reading and talking about it with my parents. I learned more about the Civil War from sharing books and discussions (sometimes arguments) with my dad than I did from any classroom, up to and including a university degree in history.
I believe in public education and want to see the best we can get in Sisters. But for those for whom it makes sense to opt out in favor of homeschooling, it seems to work.
I’d be interested in hearing other people’s experience with homeschooling — as participants or critics.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Thursday, July 2, 2009
The Golden Age
I love the ’30s.
It was, in so many ways a terrible time. The rise of fascism and National Socialism, Stalin’s purges, the Great Depression. W.H. Auden called it a “low, dishonest decade” and there’s no arguing with that. So what’s to love?
Man, they had had style.
Men dressed — including the omnipresent fedora. None of this going out to dinner in a tank top and flip flops. Women went for whatever glamour they could afford and their style has never been matched.
Has there ever been a meaner piece of machinery than a Thompson submachine-gun? And the pistol hit the extent of its necessary development with the Colt 1911 .45 automatic — it’s all decadence from there.
A big American car in basic black — what else could you possibly desire?
People traveled on trains and there are no more romantic words than “the night train to...”
American music was going through one of its periods of massive creativity, with the jazz age effortlessly moving into the age of swing, and the movies were entering a golden era. Hemingway was at the peak of his powers, with no signs of his decline into a drunken parody of himself.
Michael Mann’s vision of the 1930s comes alive on the screen in “Public Enemies.” Maybe it’s weird to feel nostalgic for times long gone before your own, but it’s not an uncommon malady among history geeks.
All I know is that I sat in front of the Sisters Movie House screen last night and wished I could crawl right through it and straight into 1933, hard times and all.
See a review of "Public Enemies" at http://www.nuggetnews.com/main.asp?SectionID=65&SubSectionID=105&ArticleID=16034&TM=65500.79.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
It was, in so many ways a terrible time. The rise of fascism and National Socialism, Stalin’s purges, the Great Depression. W.H. Auden called it a “low, dishonest decade” and there’s no arguing with that. So what’s to love?
Man, they had had style.
Men dressed — including the omnipresent fedora. None of this going out to dinner in a tank top and flip flops. Women went for whatever glamour they could afford and their style has never been matched.
Has there ever been a meaner piece of machinery than a Thompson submachine-gun? And the pistol hit the extent of its necessary development with the Colt 1911 .45 automatic — it’s all decadence from there.
A big American car in basic black — what else could you possibly desire?
People traveled on trains and there are no more romantic words than “the night train to...”
American music was going through one of its periods of massive creativity, with the jazz age effortlessly moving into the age of swing, and the movies were entering a golden era. Hemingway was at the peak of his powers, with no signs of his decline into a drunken parody of himself.
Michael Mann’s vision of the 1930s comes alive on the screen in “Public Enemies.” Maybe it’s weird to feel nostalgic for times long gone before your own, but it’s not an uncommon malady among history geeks.
All I know is that I sat in front of the Sisters Movie House screen last night and wished I could crawl right through it and straight into 1933, hard times and all.
See a review of "Public Enemies" at http://www.nuggetnews.com/main.asp?SectionID=65&SubSectionID=105&ArticleID=16034&TM=65500.79.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Defiance
Every once in a while I see a movie that really sticks with me. I think this one is worth passing on.
Defiance (out on DVD) is the story of the Bielski Partisans, a group of Jews who escaped into the forests of what is now Belarus during WW II.
I remember visiting the Holocaust Museum in DC about 15 years ago and being overwhelmed by a sense of frustration at the passivity of the Jews in the face of destruction. Why didn’t they fight back — die on their feet instead of on their knees?
Looking at it rationally, there’s a lot of reasons it went down as it did. The bald fact is that not many were in any position to fight back — and many thought that if they could just survive and buy time, they cold weather this great pogrom as they had weathered them for centuries.
They could not yet understand the ferocity of the Nazi’s intent: extermination. It’s still almost incomprehensible today.
But some did fight, escaping from ghettos and camps to the forests to join partisan bands, many of them Soviets who had been cut off in the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.
The Bielski Brothers founded their own partisan band. Their focus, at elder brother Tuvia’s insistence, was on saving Jews rather than fighting the Germans, but fight they did, and effectively.
Watching the movie led me to read a history of the partisans titled The Bielski Brothers, available at the Deschutes Public Library.
It’s a story worth knowing. The movie is well-done, with a fine character study of the brothers and the strains of leadership. Choices were often brutal.
There’s plenty of action, but it is markedly different from the usual Hollywood fare. The violence is not exhilarating; it is frightening and nerve-wracking.
Through their determination to live like human beings, even if it was only for a short time, the Bielskis saved 1,200 Jews. After the war, the brothers faded into obscurity.
They deserve to be remembered and Defiance does them justice.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Defiance (out on DVD) is the story of the Bielski Partisans, a group of Jews who escaped into the forests of what is now Belarus during WW II.
I remember visiting the Holocaust Museum in DC about 15 years ago and being overwhelmed by a sense of frustration at the passivity of the Jews in the face of destruction. Why didn’t they fight back — die on their feet instead of on their knees?
Looking at it rationally, there’s a lot of reasons it went down as it did. The bald fact is that not many were in any position to fight back — and many thought that if they could just survive and buy time, they cold weather this great pogrom as they had weathered them for centuries.
They could not yet understand the ferocity of the Nazi’s intent: extermination. It’s still almost incomprehensible today.
But some did fight, escaping from ghettos and camps to the forests to join partisan bands, many of them Soviets who had been cut off in the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.
The Bielski Brothers founded their own partisan band. Their focus, at elder brother Tuvia’s insistence, was on saving Jews rather than fighting the Germans, but fight they did, and effectively.
Watching the movie led me to read a history of the partisans titled The Bielski Brothers, available at the Deschutes Public Library.
It’s a story worth knowing. The movie is well-done, with a fine character study of the brothers and the strains of leadership. Choices were often brutal.
There’s plenty of action, but it is markedly different from the usual Hollywood fare. The violence is not exhilarating; it is frightening and nerve-wracking.
Through their determination to live like human beings, even if it was only for a short time, the Bielskis saved 1,200 Jews. After the war, the brothers faded into obscurity.
They deserve to be remembered and Defiance does them justice.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Why I hate ATVs
Let me start right off by saying that I’m not advocating banning ATVs. I don’t like the things, at least as recreational vehicles, but I’m not big on advocating bans for things I don’t like.
But they damned sure need to be taken seriously as a dangerous toy.
My brother wrecked an ATV back when I was a sophomore in high school and he was a wild man of 26. Rode it off a 15 foot cliff one night. He managed to push the machine off of himself before he landed with it on top of him and by luck he landed between a couple of boulders that would have broken him like a match stick.
He could well have been killed or massively injured. As it was, he got away with wrenching his knee, biting a hole through his tongue and turning into a full-body bruise. A couple of days in bed and he was back up and at ’em.
Not everybody is so lucky.
And it’s not just the ATV riders themselves at risk. They come up on horses and spook them, putting horsemen in the dangerous position of dealing with a spooked horse and fast-moving machines.
That’s saying nothing of the damage they do to trails.
An ATV is a great farm and ranch tool, useful to hunters packing out their game and, I’m sure, a blast to ride fast and free in the woods. All those things have their place.
I’m not opposed to risky activities — far from it. But I know that you don’t just climb on a hot horse and ride with no training. It’s too easy to climb on an ATV and go, quickly exceeding your capabilities and the machine’s and get yourself into deadly trouble, like my brother did years ago.
His wreck and a few close encounters in the woods have built a visceral dislike of those machines in me. I don’t want to knock anybody else’s fun, but I don’t want them anywhere around me — and I hope anybody who climbs on one takes the time to learn how to handle it — and to learn the courtesy to stay away from the horses.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
But they damned sure need to be taken seriously as a dangerous toy.
My brother wrecked an ATV back when I was a sophomore in high school and he was a wild man of 26. Rode it off a 15 foot cliff one night. He managed to push the machine off of himself before he landed with it on top of him and by luck he landed between a couple of boulders that would have broken him like a match stick.
He could well have been killed or massively injured. As it was, he got away with wrenching his knee, biting a hole through his tongue and turning into a full-body bruise. A couple of days in bed and he was back up and at ’em.
Not everybody is so lucky.
And it’s not just the ATV riders themselves at risk. They come up on horses and spook them, putting horsemen in the dangerous position of dealing with a spooked horse and fast-moving machines.
That’s saying nothing of the damage they do to trails.
An ATV is a great farm and ranch tool, useful to hunters packing out their game and, I’m sure, a blast to ride fast and free in the woods. All those things have their place.
I’m not opposed to risky activities — far from it. But I know that you don’t just climb on a hot horse and ride with no training. It’s too easy to climb on an ATV and go, quickly exceeding your capabilities and the machine’s and get yourself into deadly trouble, like my brother did years ago.
His wreck and a few close encounters in the woods have built a visceral dislike of those machines in me. I don’t want to knock anybody else’s fun, but I don’t want them anywhere around me — and I hope anybody who climbs on one takes the time to learn how to handle it — and to learn the courtesy to stay away from the horses.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
The Persian whirlwind
In 1989, the world watched as students and others protested their lack of freedom in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China. The protest left an iconic image seared into the collective consciousness of the world: a lone unarmed youth, facing down a column of tanks.
We are seeing something similar happening in Iran. The iconic image from this convulsion is the Youtube video of a beautiful young woman dying on the street in Teheran, shot through the chest.
The Chinese Communist regime did not fall as a result of Tiananmen, but it was forced to change. China is not free, but it much more free than it was in 1989, and it is much more prosperous. It is part of the community of nations.
The Iranian regime may not fall because of the protests sparked by the election controversy, but there is no way it can escape change. A bell has been rung that the mullahs cannot unring. The legitimacy of the regime has been fatally undermined by its own actions.
We are witnessing a historic whirlwind and it is exhilarating. Salute the courage of the protesters in Tehran; they are putting their lives on the line for freedom.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
We are seeing something similar happening in Iran. The iconic image from this convulsion is the Youtube video of a beautiful young woman dying on the street in Teheran, shot through the chest.
The Chinese Communist regime did not fall as a result of Tiananmen, but it was forced to change. China is not free, but it much more free than it was in 1989, and it is much more prosperous. It is part of the community of nations.
The Iranian regime may not fall because of the protests sparked by the election controversy, but there is no way it can escape change. A bell has been rung that the mullahs cannot unring. The legitimacy of the regime has been fatally undermined by its own actions.
We are witnessing a historic whirlwind and it is exhilarating. Salute the courage of the protesters in Tehran; they are putting their lives on the line for freedom.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Filling the unforgiving minute
When I was in my 20s, a high school buddy of mine was killed in a car wreck in Pasadena, California. At his funeral, his father, an Englishman, read Kipling’s poem, “If”:
If
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream – and not make dreams your master,
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!
It was the first time I’d heard the poem and — given the emotionally charged circumstances — it’s not surprising that it stuck in my head and heart ever afterward.
“Filling the unforgiving minute” has become a daily mission. Some days you do it better than others.
Yesterday was such a day. My daughter and my wife hit the arena early for a lesson with Jessica Yankey, who is an excellent equestrian trainer. Ceili, who had up until a couple of weeks ago, said she did not want to jump, was cantering over small jumps with a world-beating smile on her face.
My wife, who has recovered nicely from knee surgery this spring, is back in the saddle and riding without pain or fear.
Her brother and his sons are visiting from, up from California. We took them shooting and boys who had never fired a shotgun were blasting flying clays out of the sky. They loved being able to shoot their rifles at reactive targets at unknown distances instead of just punching paper on a range. Then it was off to their campsite along the Metolius to cast a fly line, roast marshmellows and sing Ian Tyson songs around the campfire.
Brother Dave is an avid birder and he was beside himself at the paradise he had found in Camp Sherman.
I write all this not to journal the day — I still think nothing’s better than a pen and a notebook for that.
It’s just that, as we drove out to Camp Sherman, Marilyn and I were talking about what an enormous privilege it is to live here, a place where people come to experience things that are just not available to them at home — a natural world, a world that is still, compared to other places, relatively free and still rich and beautiful.
It’s all too easy to take for granted that the Sisters Country is one of the very best places on earth to fill your unforgiving minute with 60 seconds of distance run.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
If
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream – and not make dreams your master,
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!
It was the first time I’d heard the poem and — given the emotionally charged circumstances — it’s not surprising that it stuck in my head and heart ever afterward.
“Filling the unforgiving minute” has become a daily mission. Some days you do it better than others.
Yesterday was such a day. My daughter and my wife hit the arena early for a lesson with Jessica Yankey, who is an excellent equestrian trainer. Ceili, who had up until a couple of weeks ago, said she did not want to jump, was cantering over small jumps with a world-beating smile on her face.
My wife, who has recovered nicely from knee surgery this spring, is back in the saddle and riding without pain or fear.
Her brother and his sons are visiting from, up from California. We took them shooting and boys who had never fired a shotgun were blasting flying clays out of the sky. They loved being able to shoot their rifles at reactive targets at unknown distances instead of just punching paper on a range. Then it was off to their campsite along the Metolius to cast a fly line, roast marshmellows and sing Ian Tyson songs around the campfire.
Brother Dave is an avid birder and he was beside himself at the paradise he had found in Camp Sherman.
I write all this not to journal the day — I still think nothing’s better than a pen and a notebook for that.
It’s just that, as we drove out to Camp Sherman, Marilyn and I were talking about what an enormous privilege it is to live here, a place where people come to experience things that are just not available to them at home — a natural world, a world that is still, compared to other places, relatively free and still rich and beautiful.
It’s all too easy to take for granted that the Sisters Country is one of the very best places on earth to fill your unforgiving minute with 60 seconds of distance run.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
And you thought there was no such thing as a free lunch
The Sisters School District is initiating a free summer lunch program for kids under 18 (see this week’s issue of The Nugget).
It’s a federally-funded program, with no local dollars spent, designed to provide a nutritious lunch for kids whose families are in tough financial circumstances. Sisters’ census data shows that there are enough families in such straits for the area to qualify for the program.
You can see that for yourself in the numbers being served at the Kiwanis Food Bank.
I have no problem with feeding kids who need help to get a good lunch. The problem is, the program is not means-tested; there is no application process. Anybody under 18 can show up and get a free lunch.
There’s no means-testing or qualification because the program can’t “discriminate” or stigmatize by identifying kids who need help and only serving them.
This kind of thing drives me nuts. We can’t serve the kids who need it and exclude those who don’t because it might hurt somebody’s feelings to be singled out?
I understand the rationale — “stigma” might discourage people who need the program from using it — but I don’t like it. It invites abuse. You could argue that it involves a small amount of money and it’s only federal dollars anyway, so what’s the big deal...
But it’s this kind of thing that sours people on programs that their tax dollars fund, that gives what should be a beneficial helping hand a bad name.
This isn’t the school district’s fault; they have to work within the rules as they are handed down. And, especially right now, it’s a worthwhile program.
I guess we should just hope that teens and families who can afford lunch do the right thing and buy it in town and leave the free lunch program for those who really need it.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
It’s a federally-funded program, with no local dollars spent, designed to provide a nutritious lunch for kids whose families are in tough financial circumstances. Sisters’ census data shows that there are enough families in such straits for the area to qualify for the program.
You can see that for yourself in the numbers being served at the Kiwanis Food Bank.
I have no problem with feeding kids who need help to get a good lunch. The problem is, the program is not means-tested; there is no application process. Anybody under 18 can show up and get a free lunch.
There’s no means-testing or qualification because the program can’t “discriminate” or stigmatize by identifying kids who need help and only serving them.
This kind of thing drives me nuts. We can’t serve the kids who need it and exclude those who don’t because it might hurt somebody’s feelings to be singled out?
I understand the rationale — “stigma” might discourage people who need the program from using it — but I don’t like it. It invites abuse. You could argue that it involves a small amount of money and it’s only federal dollars anyway, so what’s the big deal...
But it’s this kind of thing that sours people on programs that their tax dollars fund, that gives what should be a beneficial helping hand a bad name.
This isn’t the school district’s fault; they have to work within the rules as they are handed down. And, especially right now, it’s a worthwhile program.
I guess we should just hope that teens and families who can afford lunch do the right thing and buy it in town and leave the free lunch program for those who really need it.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Signs of moderation?
The pressure cooker that is the Middle East looks to be bleeding off some of the head of anti-Western steam it’s built up over the past 20 years (or 100 years, depending on your historical perspective).
A moderate, US-backed coalition took the parliamentary elections in Lebanon, where a year or two ago it looked like Hezbollah was building strength.
In Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is under threat from moderate challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi in what could be a watershed election.
The Pakistani army has roused itself and rolled back the Taliban in the Swat Valley.
All of these gains are modest and reversible. Most analysts think Ahmadinejad will still win and that Iran will continue its nuclear program regardless. Lebanon is always fragile and the Pakistani Taliban are nothing if not resilient.
But things are looking better than they have for some time. Obama’s speech in in Cairo was a good one and well received. It seems possible to get off on a different foot with Middle East diplomacy. As always with Obama, it remains to be seen if soaring rhetoric can be matched by real action on the ground.
So much will depend upon what happens in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. If real progress can be made there, if Muslim populations that are sick of living in fear of extremists among them say, “Enough!” if Iraq can remain stable and Afghanistan become at least a semi-functional state — perhaps we’ll be looking at a new era of relative peace, stability and prosperity in this volatile region.
That’s a lot of ifs, but there’s reason enough to be cautiously optimistic.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
A moderate, US-backed coalition took the parliamentary elections in Lebanon, where a year or two ago it looked like Hezbollah was building strength.
In Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is under threat from moderate challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi in what could be a watershed election.
The Pakistani army has roused itself and rolled back the Taliban in the Swat Valley.
All of these gains are modest and reversible. Most analysts think Ahmadinejad will still win and that Iran will continue its nuclear program regardless. Lebanon is always fragile and the Pakistani Taliban are nothing if not resilient.
But things are looking better than they have for some time. Obama’s speech in in Cairo was a good one and well received. It seems possible to get off on a different foot with Middle East diplomacy. As always with Obama, it remains to be seen if soaring rhetoric can be matched by real action on the ground.
So much will depend upon what happens in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. If real progress can be made there, if Muslim populations that are sick of living in fear of extremists among them say, “Enough!” if Iraq can remain stable and Afghanistan become at least a semi-functional state — perhaps we’ll be looking at a new era of relative peace, stability and prosperity in this volatile region.
That’s a lot of ifs, but there’s reason enough to be cautiously optimistic.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Thursday, June 4, 2009
The ripple effect of GM bankruptcy
We received a press release today announcing that Bob Thomas Car Company in Bend is losing its Chevrolet franchise.
Bob Thomas Car Company announced today that the appeal filed with General Motors to allow Bob Thomas to retain the Chevrolet and Cadillac franchises has been denied. To the best of company’s knowledge, no appeals submitted by dealers in the region have been successful.
The Bend dealership is reviewing the Wind-Down Agreement the company received from GM yesterday, which would allow the dealership to sell their remaining Chevrolet and Cadillac inventory over the course of the next seven (7) to fifteen (15) months.
I talked to the Bob Thomas service department this morning, asking about service on my extended warranty on my Chevrolet Silverado. The word: Once they’ve sold their inventory, I’ll have to go to Madras or Portland for warranty service.
That’s a shame. I always got good service there. I don’t know what the impact will be on jobs, but there’s sure to be one.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Bob Thomas Car Company announced today that the appeal filed with General Motors to allow Bob Thomas to retain the Chevrolet and Cadillac franchises has been denied. To the best of company’s knowledge, no appeals submitted by dealers in the region have been successful.
The Bend dealership is reviewing the Wind-Down Agreement the company received from GM yesterday, which would allow the dealership to sell their remaining Chevrolet and Cadillac inventory over the course of the next seven (7) to fifteen (15) months.
I talked to the Bob Thomas service department this morning, asking about service on my extended warranty on my Chevrolet Silverado. The word: Once they’ve sold their inventory, I’ll have to go to Madras or Portland for warranty service.
That’s a shame. I always got good service there. I don’t know what the impact will be on jobs, but there’s sure to be one.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Barbaric triumph?
I got home Tuesday night and found my wife and daughter transfixed by the show Earth 2100.
The theme of the speculative documentary is that a “perfect storm” of population growth, resource depletion, climate change and the attendant conflicts spell big trouble for civilization — up to and including collapse.
The animated doomsday scenario was riveting, intercut with interviews with a range of scientists, arachaeologists and historians.
Of course, as a history nut, I was gratified to see that the notion of civilizational collapse was treated in historical context. It’s happened before. The Maya. Rome. The Byzantine Empire; Easter Island. The key here is that, with a “global” civilization, where do we go when the walls come tumbling down?
Through it all, I could hear an echo of the dark vision of my favorite fantasy author, Robert E. Howard, best expressed in his finest story of Conan the Cimmerian, “Beyond the Black River.”
“Barbarism is the natural state of mankind,” the borderer said, still staring somberly at the Cimmerian. “Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph.”
That hasn’t seemed true for the past millenium. Nations and empires have risen and fallen, sure, but civilization itself has thrived. The past thousand years have been a record of the inexorable rise of civilization, particularly Western Civilization, and the apparent “conquest” of nature.
But you have to wonder, was that a thousand-year whim of circumstance? Are we on the cusp of the ultimate barbaric triumph?
Jim Cornelius, Editor
The theme of the speculative documentary is that a “perfect storm” of population growth, resource depletion, climate change and the attendant conflicts spell big trouble for civilization — up to and including collapse.
The animated doomsday scenario was riveting, intercut with interviews with a range of scientists, arachaeologists and historians.
Of course, as a history nut, I was gratified to see that the notion of civilizational collapse was treated in historical context. It’s happened before. The Maya. Rome. The Byzantine Empire; Easter Island. The key here is that, with a “global” civilization, where do we go when the walls come tumbling down?
Through it all, I could hear an echo of the dark vision of my favorite fantasy author, Robert E. Howard, best expressed in his finest story of Conan the Cimmerian, “Beyond the Black River.”
“Barbarism is the natural state of mankind,” the borderer said, still staring somberly at the Cimmerian. “Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph.”
That hasn’t seemed true for the past millenium. Nations and empires have risen and fallen, sure, but civilization itself has thrived. The past thousand years have been a record of the inexorable rise of civilization, particularly Western Civilization, and the apparent “conquest” of nature.
But you have to wonder, was that a thousand-year whim of circumstance? Are we on the cusp of the ultimate barbaric triumph?
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Friday, May 15, 2009
Never waste a recession
Sisters’ room tax revenues are down 13.3 percent compared to to the first quarter of 2008.
Another round of grim economic news, right? Not so fast.
Sisters is down all right, but not down anywhere near as much as Bend and the rest of Deschutes County. Bend’s room-tax revenues are off by 28.2 percent for March; Deschutes County as a whole by 22.7 percent. That tracks with the rest of the state, where room tax revenues are down by 20 to 30 percent from last year.
(Room taxes are levies imposed upon each night’s stay in a motel or hotel. They are a way of paying for the impacts of tourism on municipal services and a significant portion of revenues are usually plowed back into promoting tourism).
So Sisters is down, but not as much as elsewhere. Further, revenues are still up 15.3 percent compared to the first quarter of 2007. That’s in large part because FivePine Lodge come online later in 2007, adding a bunch more rooms. But those rooms still need to be filled to have an impact, so the number remains a valid gauge of where we sit.
We may not be sitting pretty, but we’re hanging in there. Sisters’ main industry is still and will always be tourism, so it’s good to see that people are still coming in decent numbers in the slow time of year. It bodes well for summer.
Actually, there’s a great opportunity here to take advantage of people’s need to stick closer to home. Sisters is a heck of a lot closer and cheaper for a Portland family than Disneyland or Mexico or Hawaii. There’s a good chance that, with good promotion, Sisters’ tourism industry could weather the economic storm in pretty good shape.
The housing market and broad sectors of the labor market are still hurting and recovery is not on the near horizon, but if tourism hangs on, so does Sisters. Recovery in other sectors will come, eventually.
Erin Borla, Executive Director of the Sisters Area Chamber of Commerce, gets it. “Never waste a recession” is her current watchword. The Chamber is aggressively marketing Sisters as a high-value destination for budget-conscious travelers. Lots to do and see, not too much travel expense.
Raising Sisters’ regional and national profile will stand us in good stead years down the road when this recession is an ugly memory — and Sisters is still dependent on tourist dollars.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Another round of grim economic news, right? Not so fast.
Sisters is down all right, but not down anywhere near as much as Bend and the rest of Deschutes County. Bend’s room-tax revenues are off by 28.2 percent for March; Deschutes County as a whole by 22.7 percent. That tracks with the rest of the state, where room tax revenues are down by 20 to 30 percent from last year.
(Room taxes are levies imposed upon each night’s stay in a motel or hotel. They are a way of paying for the impacts of tourism on municipal services and a significant portion of revenues are usually plowed back into promoting tourism).
So Sisters is down, but not as much as elsewhere. Further, revenues are still up 15.3 percent compared to the first quarter of 2007. That’s in large part because FivePine Lodge come online later in 2007, adding a bunch more rooms. But those rooms still need to be filled to have an impact, so the number remains a valid gauge of where we sit.
We may not be sitting pretty, but we’re hanging in there. Sisters’ main industry is still and will always be tourism, so it’s good to see that people are still coming in decent numbers in the slow time of year. It bodes well for summer.
Actually, there’s a great opportunity here to take advantage of people’s need to stick closer to home. Sisters is a heck of a lot closer and cheaper for a Portland family than Disneyland or Mexico or Hawaii. There’s a good chance that, with good promotion, Sisters’ tourism industry could weather the economic storm in pretty good shape.
The housing market and broad sectors of the labor market are still hurting and recovery is not on the near horizon, but if tourism hangs on, so does Sisters. Recovery in other sectors will come, eventually.
Erin Borla, Executive Director of the Sisters Area Chamber of Commerce, gets it. “Never waste a recession” is her current watchword. The Chamber is aggressively marketing Sisters as a high-value destination for budget-conscious travelers. Lots to do and see, not too much travel expense.
Raising Sisters’ regional and national profile will stand us in good stead years down the road when this recession is an ugly memory — and Sisters is still dependent on tourist dollars.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Alternative energy
David MacKay, a University of Cambridge physics professor, is a straight shooter and he hits the bullseye with a commentary on cnn.com.
We need to introduce simple arithmetic into our discussions of energy.
We need to understand how much energy our chosen lifestyles consume, we need to decide where we want that energy to come from, and we need to get on with building energy systems of sufficient size to match our desired consumption.
Our failure to talk straight about the numbers is allowing people to persist in wishful thinking, inspired by inane sayings such as "every little bit helps."
Read the whole thing here: www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/05/13/mackay.energy/index.html (Sorry, hotlink isn't showing up).
Alternative energy has become a front in the Culture War instead of a scientific/economic quest for the next paradigm. People identify their "side" in the war with symbolic icons like the cars they drive: Hummer vs. Prius.
Fortunately, it seems that thinking like MacKay's is becoming more widespread. More and more people are seeing that environmental and economic interests are not necessarily in conflict when it comes to alternative energy. That maybe it's in all our interests to pursue clean, diverse sources of energy in addition to fossil fuels, which aren't going to go away any time soon.
MacKay is right; we need an honest discussion about costs and benefits and the scale of the questions we're facing.
Nothing inhibits that kind of dialogue more than a holier-than-thou attitude, which attaches as much value to marginal symbolic actions as to substantial ones. We need to lose the cultural baggage that too often attaches itself to environmental and energy issues and start talking about what it would take to sustain the American way of life as it currently stands.
Then, when we have a real assessment of costs, we can talk — without preaching — about ways we should change for the better.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
We need to introduce simple arithmetic into our discussions of energy.
We need to understand how much energy our chosen lifestyles consume, we need to decide where we want that energy to come from, and we need to get on with building energy systems of sufficient size to match our desired consumption.
Our failure to talk straight about the numbers is allowing people to persist in wishful thinking, inspired by inane sayings such as "every little bit helps."
Read the whole thing here: www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/05/13/mackay.energy/index.html (Sorry, hotlink isn't showing up).
Alternative energy has become a front in the Culture War instead of a scientific/economic quest for the next paradigm. People identify their "side" in the war with symbolic icons like the cars they drive: Hummer vs. Prius.
Fortunately, it seems that thinking like MacKay's is becoming more widespread. More and more people are seeing that environmental and economic interests are not necessarily in conflict when it comes to alternative energy. That maybe it's in all our interests to pursue clean, diverse sources of energy in addition to fossil fuels, which aren't going to go away any time soon.
MacKay is right; we need an honest discussion about costs and benefits and the scale of the questions we're facing.
Nothing inhibits that kind of dialogue more than a holier-than-thou attitude, which attaches as much value to marginal symbolic actions as to substantial ones. We need to lose the cultural baggage that too often attaches itself to environmental and energy issues and start talking about what it would take to sustain the American way of life as it currently stands.
Then, when we have a real assessment of costs, we can talk — without preaching — about ways we should change for the better.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Friday, May 1, 2009
No duty to retreat
This from CNN:
Authorities do not plan to file charges against a Florida orange grove owner who fatally shot a 21-year-old woman, saying he is protected under the state’s controversial “no retreat” law.
Bullet holes pocked the windshield of the crashed SUV, and blood stained the passenger seat.
But the woman’s boyfriend faces second-degree murder charges in her death, because the woman was shot to death during an alleged felony — the theft of an SUV.
Tony Curtis Phillips, 29, didn’t fire a single shot. He didn’t even know his girlfriend, Nikki McCormick, was dead until police showed him an online news story.
Police said McCormick accompanied Phillips as he attempted to steal the SUV from a barn in an orange grove near Wahneta, Florida, before daylight Tuesday.
Grove owner Ladon “Jamie” Jones opened fire as the SUV approached him, according to an affidavit released by the Polk County Sheriff’s Office. Phillips fled; McCormick was shot in the head and later died.
Authorities said Jones is protected by Florida’s “no retreat” law, which gives him the right to use lethal force if he reasonably believes his life is in danger. Phillips, however, faces charges because police allege he was committing felony grand theft auto at the time of McCormick’s death.
This is nearly perfect justice. People have the absolute right — and should have the capability — to defend themselves against criminal acts that threaten their safety, wherever such acts occur. “No retreat” means that self-defense is a legitimate first response, not a last resort.
This should be a first principle of law everywhere.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Authorities do not plan to file charges against a Florida orange grove owner who fatally shot a 21-year-old woman, saying he is protected under the state’s controversial “no retreat” law.
Bullet holes pocked the windshield of the crashed SUV, and blood stained the passenger seat.
But the woman’s boyfriend faces second-degree murder charges in her death, because the woman was shot to death during an alleged felony — the theft of an SUV.
Tony Curtis Phillips, 29, didn’t fire a single shot. He didn’t even know his girlfriend, Nikki McCormick, was dead until police showed him an online news story.
Police said McCormick accompanied Phillips as he attempted to steal the SUV from a barn in an orange grove near Wahneta, Florida, before daylight Tuesday.
Grove owner Ladon “Jamie” Jones opened fire as the SUV approached him, according to an affidavit released by the Polk County Sheriff’s Office. Phillips fled; McCormick was shot in the head and later died.
Authorities said Jones is protected by Florida’s “no retreat” law, which gives him the right to use lethal force if he reasonably believes his life is in danger. Phillips, however, faces charges because police allege he was committing felony grand theft auto at the time of McCormick’s death.
This is nearly perfect justice. People have the absolute right — and should have the capability — to defend themselves against criminal acts that threaten their safety, wherever such acts occur. “No retreat” means that self-defense is a legitimate first response, not a last resort.
This should be a first principle of law everywhere.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Thursday, April 30, 2009
A pig in a poke
Swine flu may be the most overblown story of 2009 so far. It’s my bet that it’ll take the title come year’s end.
Maybe it’s a kind of crisis hypersensitivity. We all got conditioned to the economic news getting worse and worse — continually exceeding expectations for bad news.
So as soon as the swine flu story broke, everybody seemed to immediately go to the worst case scenario. Every hypochondriac nerve in the population started jangling. Wait... I’m getting a sore throat. I’M GONNA DIE!!!
Well, no. Turns out that swine flu, though it has claimed lives in Mexico, isn’t all that deadly. It’s not the 1918 flu. It’s probably not even an average year’s flu.
Why do we do this? Every year thousands of people die from complications of seasonal flu (36,000 in the U.S. is the number currently being reported. So far, swine flu has claimed one life in the U.S. — of a little boy who came here from Mexico and had underlying health conditions).
Influenza can be deadly, especially if you have underlying medical problems. I’ve had the real-deal flu a couple of times and I can see how it could kill you. I’ve got a pretty stout constitution and it wiped me out.
But the flu is a normal part of life and most years, most people don’t get it. Those that do mostly suffer and recover. Some die.
Eventually there will be another 1918-style pandemic and boy that is scary. A lot of people died in that one and, perversely, it disproportionately affected the young and healthy.
Those kinds of pandemics happen very rarely. It makes sense to plan ahead and for public health and emergency agencies to coordinate a response. I don’t fault the CDC and the World Health Organization for tracking a new mutation of a virus and informing the public. That’s their job.
But I do fault the national media for climbing all over the story with a maximum of hype and bombast and a credulous public for reacting as if the sky was falling.
I guess there’s something extra scary about the idea of a virus spreading silently, deadly, like a conscious malign force. It’s the stuff of Stephen King novels; in fact he wrote the story in The Stand.
But c’mon folks, let’s keep things in proportion here. Take the usual flu season precautions — you’re gonna be okay.
...Until SKYNET becomes self aware and launches a nuclear strike, destroying most of mankind and launching a war between humankind and cyborgs. Where are you John Connor????...
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Maybe it’s a kind of crisis hypersensitivity. We all got conditioned to the economic news getting worse and worse — continually exceeding expectations for bad news.
So as soon as the swine flu story broke, everybody seemed to immediately go to the worst case scenario. Every hypochondriac nerve in the population started jangling. Wait... I’m getting a sore throat. I’M GONNA DIE!!!
Well, no. Turns out that swine flu, though it has claimed lives in Mexico, isn’t all that deadly. It’s not the 1918 flu. It’s probably not even an average year’s flu.
Why do we do this? Every year thousands of people die from complications of seasonal flu (36,000 in the U.S. is the number currently being reported. So far, swine flu has claimed one life in the U.S. — of a little boy who came here from Mexico and had underlying health conditions).
Influenza can be deadly, especially if you have underlying medical problems. I’ve had the real-deal flu a couple of times and I can see how it could kill you. I’ve got a pretty stout constitution and it wiped me out.
But the flu is a normal part of life and most years, most people don’t get it. Those that do mostly suffer and recover. Some die.
Eventually there will be another 1918-style pandemic and boy that is scary. A lot of people died in that one and, perversely, it disproportionately affected the young and healthy.
Those kinds of pandemics happen very rarely. It makes sense to plan ahead and for public health and emergency agencies to coordinate a response. I don’t fault the CDC and the World Health Organization for tracking a new mutation of a virus and informing the public. That’s their job.
But I do fault the national media for climbing all over the story with a maximum of hype and bombast and a credulous public for reacting as if the sky was falling.
I guess there’s something extra scary about the idea of a virus spreading silently, deadly, like a conscious malign force. It’s the stuff of Stephen King novels; in fact he wrote the story in The Stand.
But c’mon folks, let’s keep things in proportion here. Take the usual flu season precautions — you’re gonna be okay.
...Until SKYNET becomes self aware and launches a nuclear strike, destroying most of mankind and launching a war between humankind and cyborgs. Where are you John Connor????...
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Big trouble in Pakistan
We’ve got big trouble in Pakistan and there’s very little we can do about it.
The Pakistani Taliban are making significant territorial advances in the wake of a peace deal that basically turned over big swaths of territory in the Swat Valley and elsewhere to the black turbans.
This is a huge problem for the Obama Administration, which has linked Afghanistan and Pakistan strategically.
In the immediate sense, it means an ever-larger sanctuary for Taliban fighters engaged in Afghanistan.
The 20th Century history of insurgency and guerrilla warfare from Rhodesia to Vietnam shows that insurgencies that have sanctuaries are almost impossible to defeat, no matter how successful counterinsurgency forces are in the area of operations.
In the larger sense, Pakistan is well on its way to becoming a failed state — nuclear-armed failed state. For years the real nightmare scenario of Islamic terrorism has been the possibility of fanatics getting their hands on the Pakistani nuclear arsenal.
That raises the specter for which we went to war in Iraq: the possibility of a state regime handing over weapons of mass destruction to terrorists. It must also be making India very nervous...
Pakistan is near economic ruin and the massive aid packages planned by the Obama administration may just be poured down a rat hole. We can’t afford to prop them up, but we can’t allow them to fall down.
All this may seem very far from Sisters and very distant from the daily concerns of keeping afloat in a dire economy. But we’ve got community members going into harm’s way in Afghanistan. They will be directly affected by what goes down in Pakistan.
And if Pakistan itself goes down, we will be living in a much more dangerous, much more unstable world. If Southern Asia goes up in flames, don’t think it won’t have an effect on us.
There’s nothing you or I can do about Pakistan, obviously. But it makes sense to get ready for the aftershocks as it totters toward a fall.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
The Pakistani Taliban are making significant territorial advances in the wake of a peace deal that basically turned over big swaths of territory in the Swat Valley and elsewhere to the black turbans.
This is a huge problem for the Obama Administration, which has linked Afghanistan and Pakistan strategically.
In the immediate sense, it means an ever-larger sanctuary for Taliban fighters engaged in Afghanistan.
The 20th Century history of insurgency and guerrilla warfare from Rhodesia to Vietnam shows that insurgencies that have sanctuaries are almost impossible to defeat, no matter how successful counterinsurgency forces are in the area of operations.
In the larger sense, Pakistan is well on its way to becoming a failed state — nuclear-armed failed state. For years the real nightmare scenario of Islamic terrorism has been the possibility of fanatics getting their hands on the Pakistani nuclear arsenal.
That raises the specter for which we went to war in Iraq: the possibility of a state regime handing over weapons of mass destruction to terrorists. It must also be making India very nervous...
Pakistan is near economic ruin and the massive aid packages planned by the Obama administration may just be poured down a rat hole. We can’t afford to prop them up, but we can’t allow them to fall down.
All this may seem very far from Sisters and very distant from the daily concerns of keeping afloat in a dire economy. But we’ve got community members going into harm’s way in Afghanistan. They will be directly affected by what goes down in Pakistan.
And if Pakistan itself goes down, we will be living in a much more dangerous, much more unstable world. If Southern Asia goes up in flames, don’t think it won’t have an effect on us.
There’s nothing you or I can do about Pakistan, obviously. But it makes sense to get ready for the aftershocks as it totters toward a fall.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Here comes the big hit
Last week, Sisters schools were looking at a $970,000 shortfall. Superintendent Elaine Drakulich told the board she could deliver a balanced budget on that number by not renewing temporary contracts, using up most of the district’s budget carryover and through savings from various efficiencies.
This week, the district is looking at a $1.5 million shortfall, thanks to a revised budget forecast from the state.
That means the district is going to have to look at cutting school days, freezing salaries and benefits, or cutting staff — or a combination of these moves and more.
This could open up some interesting questions for debate in the schools and community.
How many days can be cut before there is real damage done to students? (Hey, we’ll get the two week spring break back!)
Should cut in-service days to preserve as many teaching days as possible?
What about using merit rather than seniority as the criterion for a Reduction in Force (RIF)? Mike Morgan raised the question with the Budget Reduction Committee and with Board Chair Chris Jones. He tells me he’s planning to push the issue and he says he’s got a lot of folks in his corner.
“Merit” is a big sticky wicket in education. Everybody believes in rewarding merit, but nobody wants to implement “merit pay” or use it — at least not formally — to determine who stays and who goes in a RIF.
Undertstandably, there doesn’t seem to be much stomach for a RIF. Cutting staff could well mean cutting valuable programs and nobody wants that to happen.
We could cut days rather than staff, which both parents and staff seem to favor. That keeps class sizes smaller, but less time in the classroom can’t be considered a good deal. It’s not at all clear whether a salary/benefit freeze combined with other cuts would save enough money to stave off cuts.
It all comes down to finding another $530,000. Cutting days may seem like the easy route, but 10 days to two weeks is not compatible with quality education.
This crisis calls for creativity and courage. Day cuts? Pay cuts? Staff cuts? Program cuts? None of it is appetizing, but the district has to make the tough calls with one mission in mind: delivering the best quality education possible with the resources available.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
This week, the district is looking at a $1.5 million shortfall, thanks to a revised budget forecast from the state.
That means the district is going to have to look at cutting school days, freezing salaries and benefits, or cutting staff — or a combination of these moves and more.
This could open up some interesting questions for debate in the schools and community.
How many days can be cut before there is real damage done to students? (Hey, we’ll get the two week spring break back!)
Should cut in-service days to preserve as many teaching days as possible?
What about using merit rather than seniority as the criterion for a Reduction in Force (RIF)? Mike Morgan raised the question with the Budget Reduction Committee and with Board Chair Chris Jones. He tells me he’s planning to push the issue and he says he’s got a lot of folks in his corner.
“Merit” is a big sticky wicket in education. Everybody believes in rewarding merit, but nobody wants to implement “merit pay” or use it — at least not formally — to determine who stays and who goes in a RIF.
Undertstandably, there doesn’t seem to be much stomach for a RIF. Cutting staff could well mean cutting valuable programs and nobody wants that to happen.
We could cut days rather than staff, which both parents and staff seem to favor. That keeps class sizes smaller, but less time in the classroom can’t be considered a good deal. It’s not at all clear whether a salary/benefit freeze combined with other cuts would save enough money to stave off cuts.
It all comes down to finding another $530,000. Cutting days may seem like the easy route, but 10 days to two weeks is not compatible with quality education.
This crisis calls for creativity and courage. Day cuts? Pay cuts? Staff cuts? Program cuts? None of it is appetizing, but the district has to make the tough calls with one mission in mind: delivering the best quality education possible with the resources available.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Sunday, April 12, 2009
One rescued captain; three dead pirates
Excellent outcome.
This is one area where the historical record gives clear guidance on the path to take. Piracy, unlike drug trafficking, can be curtailed by stepped up paramilitary law enforcement that makes the risk/benefit calculus to heavy for the pirates to bear.
Aggressive attacks on pirates has squashed piracy outbreaks across the Seven Seas, from Pompey Magnus in the Roman Mediterranean to Brooke in the South Seas to the Shores of Tripoli.
Good for us, good for the French. Yo-ho, yo-ho, a pirate's life... sucks.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
This is one area where the historical record gives clear guidance on the path to take. Piracy, unlike drug trafficking, can be curtailed by stepped up paramilitary law enforcement that makes the risk/benefit calculus to heavy for the pirates to bear.
Aggressive attacks on pirates has squashed piracy outbreaks across the Seven Seas, from Pompey Magnus in the Roman Mediterranean to Brooke in the South Seas to the Shores of Tripoli.
Good for us, good for the French. Yo-ho, yo-ho, a pirate's life... sucks.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
Thursday, April 9, 2009
That's the spirit
A bunch of citizens rebuilt a Hawaiian road that was washed out by flooding. Their own initiative. Gotta love that.
"Their livelihood was being threatened, and they were tired of waiting for government help, so business owners and residents on Hawaii's Kauai island pulled together and completed a $4 million repair job to a state park -- for free."
— CNN.com
Reminds me of Curt Kallberg standing up in a school board meeting when Sisters couldn't pass a bond to build new classrooms at Sisters Elementary School. "Why don't we just build em?" he asked. And Curt and a bunch of buddies in the trades and volunteers did it. Donated labor, donated cash/materials and a quick turnaround on a project that has benefited hundreds of local kids.
We need that can-do spirit right here, right now.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
"Their livelihood was being threatened, and they were tired of waiting for government help, so business owners and residents on Hawaii's Kauai island pulled together and completed a $4 million repair job to a state park -- for free."
— CNN.com
Reminds me of Curt Kallberg standing up in a school board meeting when Sisters couldn't pass a bond to build new classrooms at Sisters Elementary School. "Why don't we just build em?" he asked. And Curt and a bunch of buddies in the trades and volunteers did it. Donated labor, donated cash/materials and a quick turnaround on a project that has benefited hundreds of local kids.
We need that can-do spirit right here, right now.
Jim Cornelius, Editor
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