OlsonOnline

How I voted

One might expect that I would vote a straight Democratic ticket, but I'm more progressive than that.
So, wherever possible, I vote for the Green Party candidate.

For example, instead of voting for Ron Wyden, who's going to win anyway, I voted for greenie Teresa Keane, who has an impeccable progressve platform. Here's her Voter's Pamphlet statement:

Voter Registration Information
United States SenatorTeresa
Keane
Pacific Green
Occupation: Psychiatric/Mental Health Nurse Practitioner and Medical Educator

Occupational Background: Clinical Instructor, OHSU School of Medicine and Nursing, Physician Assistant Division; Stress Reduction Clinic Director, OHSU and Legacy Emanuel Pain Management Clinics

Educational Background: 1991 BSN Nursing, California State University; 1994 MS Nursing, OHSU; 1995 Post-Masters Certification, OHSU

Prior Governmental Experience: None yet

Community Involvement: Treasurer, Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility; Past Treasurer, American Society for Pain Management Nursing, Portland/Vancouver Chapter; President, Colony Homeowners Association

As your U.S. Senator, I will advocate for:

Stopping the war; bringing our troops home now: It's wrong to send our children to die for oil in Iraq. Unilateral invasions are wrong. I will work to reestablish the U.S. as a leader for human rights.

Single-payer universal healthcare: We are a wealthy nation, and can afford a comprehensive healthcare system for all.

Stop environmental destruction: I oppose commercial logging on public lands. We need a roadless policy in our national forests, and should support the Kyoto Protocol to prevent global warming.

Raise the minimum wage: We should provide living wages for all workers based on cost of living and a 40-hour work week. Repeal Taft-Hartley.

The Republican and Democratic parties are corrupted by corporate money. I'm a nurse practitioner, union member, and single mother. Send me to Washington, DC, I will work for a government that can't be bought.

Hey, who can argue with any of those issues? Especially the last one about the corruption of the major party candidates by corporate money.

The ballot measures are more straight forward-- NO on the county tax repeal, YES on the 50-50 initiative for the state forests, and an emphatic NO on the rest of the substantive measures, especially Measure 37, the property rights takings proposal.

But Measure 36, the anti-gay marriage Constitutional Amendment, deserves attention for the satirical Arguments in Favor contributions by M. Dennis Moore. Here's the wesite for one of his "front groups", heterosexualbreeding.com, which argues that the Bible prohibits the marriage of non-virgins, interracial couples, and anybody who has been divorced.

Considering that half of all heterosexual marriages fail, who can possibly take seriously the argument that gay marriage is a threat to traditional marriage, whatever that means?

"Dr. Strangelove" and U.S. foreign policy

It's more than coincidental to read first, that the U.S. is lifting its 13 year arms embargo on Haiti just as lawlessness and violence in that country is spinning hopelessly out of control, and second, that Henry Kissinger, according to phone conversations that he himself had taped, was instrumental in propping up military dicatorships in Chile and Argentina with a complete and utter disregard for human rights.

Here's his stance on Pinochet and Chile:

" During the conversation Kissinger makes it clear that he disagrees with efforts to pressure Pinochet to stop violating human rights, and equates such diplomacy with efforts to weaken and overthrow the military regime. 'I am not on the same wavelength with you guys about this business,' Kissinger tells Rogers. 'I just am not eager to overthrow these guys.' During his meeting with Pinochet on June 8th in Santiago, Kissinger told the Chilean dictator that 'in the United States, as you know, we are sympathetic with what you are trying to do here. I think that the previous government was headed toward Communism. We wish your government well.' "

The archived "telcons" also expose Kissinger threats against U.S. Ambassador Robert White for speaking out about human rights abuses in Argentina.

The point here is that American foreign policy, especially in Latin America, has had one overriding concern: opposition to and subversion of "leftist" governments, and support for conservative "anti-communist, anti-Marxist" regimes, even when they are obviously dictatorial and anti-democratic. That's true even of Jimmy Carter-- the human rights President. His trip to Iran in an attempt to prop up the corrupt Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi precipitated the Iranian Revolution, which ultimately led to his defeat in 1980 to Ronald Reagan, who, ironically, cared nothing about human rights.

The larger point is that Bush's preemptive war in Iraq, with its imperialistic overtones, is nothing new in U.S foreign policy. It continues a well-documented tradition of American meddling in the affairs of sovereign countries to promote American interests, which, contrary to what Bush says, are not necessarily democratic interests.

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On the local level, a story in today's Oregonian says that Oregon is dumping, at least temporarily, the math problem solving component of the state testing program.
That means that school performance will be judged exclusively, almost, by a battery of multiple choice standardized tests in reading, math, and science. The one exception is the writing sample, a true performance based measure, much like math problem solving.

The reason? What it comes down to is that true performance measures--authentic assessments--are difficult and time consuming to score. With class sizes increasing, teachers just don't have the time to score such open-ended tests. Multiple choice tests are simply scanned, and bingo!-- you have a score. Unfortunately, it's a score of limited value in assessing true learning, and of no value in judging the performance of schools and their programs.

More unfortunate is the distinct possibility that the writing assessment, a really good measure of a student's ability to actually express ideas through the written word, could suffer the same fate as the math problem solving test. As I wrote in my September 2 post, the writing assessment is a great classroom instructional and diagnostic tool, but unreliable beyond that:

"In other words, to use the writing assessment, which is excellent for the classroom, to judge the performance of teachers or schools is quite simply a misuse of a valuable instructional tool."

The Oregonian defects from a lousy President

According to Willamette Week, the Oregonian's endorsement of John Kerry is only the second Democrat ever to win approval of the O's editorial board, so in effect, it was simply a vote of no confidence in the performance of George W. Bush. As I've said before, this election is a referendum on Bush, pure and simple.

By the Oregonian's own tally, letter writers in the past weeek favored Kerry over Bush by a ratio of over 4 to 1-- 838 supported Kerry, 201 favored Bush. Imagine the outrage had the paper endorsed Bush.

Editorial page editor Bob Caldwell showed up on CNN's Newsnight with Aaron Brown, explaining to a national audience that the decision to jettison Bush, the paper's choice in 2000, was based solely on the President's hard turn to the right after his election. The Oregonian likes Republicans of the more moderate variety. Although that really doesn't explain how Barry Goldwater won the O's endorsement in 1964 over LBJ.

As Ron Suskind writes in this New York Times profile, Bush is running what amounts to a "faith based Presidency." As a result, he neither encourages reasoned debate, nor does he tolerate dissension.

Suskind describes an encounter with a Bush aide in 2002 which sheds light on the inner workings of his Administration:

"In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

"The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.' ''

You remember what happened to the Roman Republic after it became an empire. Sacked by the barbarians, the terrorists of their day.

NCLB in the debate

Despite George W. Bush's repeated attempts in last night's debate to offer up his educational reform --No Child Left Behind-- as the solution to all our economic woes-- he referred to it as "really a jobs act"--, he only succeeded at demonstrating his own ignorance of the legislation he so proudly promotes.

In answer to a question about the minimum wage, Bush again invoked NCLB. He said this:

"You cannot solve a problem unless you diagnose the problem. And we weren't diagnosing problems. And therefore just kids were being shuffled through the school."

And then he said this:

"Many inner-city kids just move through. We've stopped that practice now by measuring early. And when we find a problem, we spend extra money to correct it."

That's not true. NCLB does not provide extra money to schools with difficult to educate children. It punishes them! In fact, it requires them to spend their own money to provide transportation to students who wish to transfer to a "better performing school."

Here is the pertinent section of the law, courtesy of Ken Goodman, that lays out specifically what happens to "failing schools":

"Sets forth restructuring requirements for schools that continue to fail to make AYP after a full year of corrective action. Requires LEAS to: (1) continue to provide public school transfer options to all students enrolled there, as well as supplemental educational services for eligible children who remain in the school; and (2) plan and implement a major restructuring of the school's governance arrangement that makes fundamental reforms and has substantial promise of enabling the school to make AYP. Includes among such restructuring arrangements for a school: (1) reopening as a public charter school; (2) replacing all or most of the staff (which may include the principal) relevant to the AYP failure; (3) making a contract for operation of the public school by a public or private entity with a demonstrated record of effectiveness; or (4) SEA operation of the school.

"Requires States to identify for improvement LEAs that have failed to make AYP for two consecutive years. Requires such LEAs to make improvement plans. Directs each State to: (1) provide technical or other assistance to identified LEAs to develop and implement their plans and work with schools needing improvement; and (2) implement a system of corrective action for such LEAs. Requires States, if an LEA fails to make AYP after two school years after its identification, to continue technical assistance and to take at least one of the following corrective actions: (1) deferring programmatic funds or reducing administrative funds; (2) instituting and fully implementing a new curriculum that is based on State and local academic content and achievement standards, including providing appropriate professional development based on scientifically based research for all relevant staff, that offers substantial promise of improving educational achievement for low-achieving students; (3) replacing LEA personnel relevant to AYP failure; (4) removing particular schools from LEA jurisdiction, establishing alternative arrangements for such schools' public governance and supervision; and (5) appointing a receiver or trustee to administer LEA affairs in place of the superintendent and school board."

AYP means adequate yearly progress. LEA means local education agency.

As I said yesterday, NCLB does the opposite of what its title-- stolen from Marion Wright Edelman's Children's Defense Fund-- implies: It leaves our most vulnerable children behind in schools with ever increasing populations of students who are at risk for failure. I've written about this innumerable times, but this post --"Intelligence"-- is the most recent.

My April 7 Joe's School post also contains a short critique of NCLB by Marty Solomon, who says quite bluntly that "... No Child Left Behind legislation will actually damage our schools."

Media endorsements: Do they matter?

Willamette Week's endorsements for local candidates and ballot measures pretty much match my own. No surprise there, although I still haven't forgotten, nor forgiven, the weekly's support for Ballot Measure 5, the disastrous property tax limitation, over a decade ago. The repercussions of that initiative --the damage to public schools, the dramatic shift of the tax burden away from businesses and onto individuals, the necessity of going hat-in-hand repeatedly to the public for funds to support vital public services-- are still being played out today.

Willamette Week's rationale for their backing of Measure 5? It would force Oregonians to accept a sales tax-- a bad idea which never came close to happening-- and it would also force the equalization of funding between rich and poor school districts. That didn't happen either, except in an unexpected backwards way. Rural poor districts got rich, relatively speaking, with excessive state funding, while the formerly well-funded urban and suburban districts were, literally, impoverished. As a teacher in a suburban Portland district, I witnessed the transformation of our schools personally. After 1991, programs were gradually cut, and class sizes slowly grew.

But back to the present. Willamette Week's federal endorsements include 1st District Congressman David Wu, about whom I wrote yesterday. Unlike the Oregonian, which called Wu "ineffective", Willamette Week sees him as "solid", and his opponent, Goli Ameri, as dangerous:

"Wu, by contrast, supports abortion rights and gay marriage, and he took a brave early stand against the Iraq war. He is fluent in sudden oak and salmon, has steered federal funds into the district and has promoted small-scale initiatives such as getting seniors involved with schools. Not stunning, but solid. For those reasons, we urge voters of the 1st to stick with Wu, despite his manifest flaws."

Willamette Week, in its recommendation of a "yes" vote on Measure 34, the so-called 50-50 plan for the Tillamook and Clatsop Forests, reveals that the state Board of Forestry is dominated by big timber interests, a fact I wasn't aware of:

"The seven-member board, which is legally limited to no more than three members with financial interests in logging, now has at least five. This is just one reason the Department of Forestry can no longer be trusted to manage the delicate ecosystems in state forests.

"Documents show that the department has repeatedly steamrolled over the concerns of its own biologists--in order to yield the maximum dollars for county governments, public schools and the department's own budget (see 'The Coast Is Clearcut,' WW, March 6, 2002)."

Another good reason to vote yes on Measure 34.

Of course, the best reason to vote for the measure, as I wrote in this post, is to dispel the myth of sustainable forestry and the "jobs" it provides:

"Sustainable forestry is a myth. Logging companies are in it for the short term. They 'cut', and then they 'run', leaving behind ragged little communities of idled workers. Private woodlands were denuded by the 1950's, followed by massive overcutting on public lands for the next three decades. That, and not the 'spotted owl', is what caused the closure of mills and the loss of timber related jobs. Perhaps only six percent of the original Old Growth conifer forests, true forest ecosystems, remain in the swath of land that runs from Alaska to Northern California. Yet forty percent of the Tillamook and Clatsop Forests isn't enough to satiate the greed of the big timber companies."

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Having just watched the final Presidential debate, I was struck by how many questions were answered--or not answered-- by Bush's reference to No Child Left Behind, the educational initiative that he obviously feels is the highlight of his domestic policy. Too bad that Kerry hasn't examined the issue more carefully because he had ample opportunity to expose the logical fallacy at the heart of NCLB.

Simply put, No Child Left Behind, when fully implemented, will actually leave many of our most vulnerable children behind. How? By equating student performance on standardized tests in reading and math with the performance of the schools they attend. In other words, by completely ignoring student demographics. The consequences for these so-called "failing schools" is to leave them with populations of students most likely to fail-- those with poor skills and with uninvolved and unsupportive parents. It's a prescription for disaster, not for success.

More on this crucial issue, which many in the public arena simply don't understand, tomorrow. Or the next day. I have a lot of work to do in my rental house next door.

Media machinations

The Oregonian is apparently modulating its surprising endorsement of John Kerry by publishing a hit piece on Congressman David Wu, dredging up an unprosecuted assault on his college girlfriend twenty-eight years ago.

This follows the Oregonian's endorsement of Wu's opponent for the 1st District seat, Iranian-American Goli Ameri. Ameri is an anti-tax, anti-public school, anti-choice conservative, who poses as a moderate Republican. In short, she's another vote for the ideologues in the conservative Republican House.

Wu may not be the most scintillating member of Oregon's Congressional delegation, but he votes the right way, meaning that he's a reliable obstacle to Republican attempts to overturn New Deal and Great Society landmark legislation. Like Social Security. Like Medicare.

I don't give a damn what he did in college three decades ago. But I do give a damn about the timing of the Oregonian's "revelations" about Wu.

I see it as a blatant attempt to affect, directly and negatively, the outcome of this election. Hopefully, readers will see it as such.

Peace through environmentalism

Question: Does the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to an environmentalist make George W. Bush, who has been called the worst environmental President in history, a war criminal? Should one exist, would it qualify him for the Nobel "War" Prize?

I said in my earlier post that, in addition to his cavalier warmongering, there were two other compelling reasons Bush should be ousted from office: The first was his plan to restructure the tax code to punish those who work for wages while rewarding those who don't. The second was his abysmal environmental record, which "poses a threat to the well being of American citizens."

I never equated his environmental crimes with war crimes, however, until today when I read of the remarkable decision by the Nobel Committee to award the Peace Prize to African environmental activist Wangari Maathai, who had this to say:

"Many of the wars in Africa are fought over natural resources," Maathai told The Associated Press. "Ensuring they are not destroyed is a way of ensuring there is no conflict."

The American ambassador to Kenya added this:

"Ambassador Andrew Young noted, 'It is very refreshing to see such a prestigious award go to a dedicated African woman whose work is having such a positive impact not only in environmental issues, but in all aspects of humanity that are crucial to peace and prosperity.' "

Now maybe readers of this blog will start to take my environmental rants more seriously.

Click here and here for two other accounts of this truly groundbreaking development.

"Mac attack" give the Oregonian indigestion

The Oregonian today published a retraction of Don McIntire's lie that public employees -- like my wife, an RN for county corrections-- are exempted from paying the county temporary imcome tax (see yesterday's post.)

Of course, the O didn't exactly call it a lie, which it most certainly was. Here's the text of the retraction ( which I have to type out verbatim since it's not on the Oregonian's website):

McIntire's column erred on income tax

A Wednesday guest commentary by Don McIntire, president of the Taxpayer Association of Oregon ("Should Multnomah income tax be repealed?"), erroneously claimed that public employees "don't have to pay" the tax.

Although it's true that state law prohibits taxation of PERS (Oregon Public Employees Retirement System)
benefits, just as federal law prohibits taxation of Social Security and other federal pensions, public empolyees who live in Multnomah County do pay the county income tax on their pay, just as privately employed taxpayers do.

The retraction appears in a little box at the bottom of the op-ed page, headlined in a much smaller font than the other opinion pieces on the page competing for the reader's attention.

Such an egregious misrepresentation deserves-- DEMANDS!-- a more prominent place on the editorial page.

UPDATE: My wfe, the taxpaying RN, actually called editorial page editor Bob Caldwell yesterday to complain about the McIntire column. So maybe she is responsible for the retraction.

The "Mac" attack

After reading Don McIntire's rant in today's Oregonian, I fired off this letter to the editor:

Don McIntire in his op-ed piece today (Oct. 6) urging a yes vote on Measure 26-64 claims that the county tax is unfair since it exempts public employees --"because that is one of their PERS benefits."

That's news to me, and my wife, who is a public employee (she works for the county) and a PERS enrollee. She and all her colleagues at the Multnomah County Justice Center do indeed pay the county tax. Just like all the county residents in the private sector.

McIntire has long been a critic of public employees and the taxes that support them. But this latest fabrication is way out of line, even by his standards. People in public service pay taxes and contribute to the economy. They may never get rich, but they are indispensable to a smoothly functioning society.

I, and my wife, will gladly vote NO to Stop the Repeal of the county income tax.

I was inclined to use stronger language, like calling McIntire a liar and an anti-tax, anti-government scumbag, which he is, but that's not the Oregonian's style, and I'd like the give the letter at least a slim chance of publication.

My irritation with McIntire and his crusade against against public sector workers in particular, and government in general, goes way back. Way back to the late 70's, in fact, when he and Tom Dennehy and Frank Eisenzimmer repeatedly attempted to impose property tax limitations, a la California's Proposition 13, on the state of Oregon. They were never successful, until the now discredited Bill Sizemore came along and got Ballot Measure 5 passed in 1991. It's been downhill for schools and public services ever since. Hence, the temporary Multnomah County income tax to prop up schools, and a few crucial county social services.

Back in January of 1993, in my old Joe's School weblog, I wrote about an encounter with some angry white guys in the sauna at the Y. Here's part of what I said in defense of public employees:

"Forgive my impertinence, but I have yet to be convinced that those who provide a service in the private sector (lawyers, doctors, financial consultants, real estate agents, stock brokers, private school teachers) stimulate the economy any more than those service providers employed by the government (teachers, lawyers, doctors, policemen, nurses.) According to the paper, our economy is driven by "consumer spending". Well, public employees spend their after tax income on houses, cars, food, clothes, entertainment just like everyone else. They're not a drag on the economy, as some insinuate. They drive it!"

I never tire of reminding voters of what McIntire said about public schools, which is all you really need to know about his politics and social ethic: He called our public education system "a socialistic mishmash." And that's an exact quote.

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Back on September 20, I imparted my voting advice on selected state ballot measures. Here is what I said about Measure 38:

"And lastly, VOTE NO on Measure 38, which would abolish Oregon's publicly owned workers comp insurance agency, SAIF, and benefit it's privately held competitor, Liberty Mutual. This is an example of the initiative process at its worst-- a blatant attempt to use direct democracy to directly enrich a private company."

The backers on Measure 38 call themselves Oregonians for Accountability. Their website refers to the reform of SAIF, which is as close to a lie as you can get without actually lying. The title of Ballot Measure 38 reads: "Abolishes SAIF;"

Oregonians for Accountability is simply a front group for Liberty Northwest, a subsidiary of Liberty Mutual. Yesterday I got a mailer from the O of A front group which is a classic of advertising duplicity and cynicism. It reads in part:

"ENHANCING PRESCRIPTION DRUG COVERAGE for OREGON WOMEN and CHILDREN

----Measure 38 can deliver funding to provide the health care WOMEN need----"

Such Orwellian distortions of language and logic are the stock in trade of advertising agencies, which are nothing more than propaganda whores, for sale to the highest bidders.

If the initiative process in Oregon can be used to abolish the competition for a private insurance company, maybe it can also be used to rid politics of the scourge of Madison Avenue style propaganda.

I'll work on it.

Meth, and "the Manichean Candidate"

The Oregonian's series on the methamphetamine epidemic and the federal government's inept attempts to combat it reveals that the Reagan Admistration, despite its bluster about winning the war on drugs, couldn't muster the courage to "just say no":

"On Sept. 14, President Reagan and his wife, Nancy, called for a crusade against drugs.

" 'Each of us has to put our principles and consciences on the line -- whether in social settings or in the workplace -- to set forth solid standards and stick to them,' Nancy Reagan said in a 20-minute, televised address. 'There is no moral middle ground.' "

It turns out out the only "principle" that mattered to Reagan, and subseqently the Republican Congress, was the unregulated and unfettered operation of the "free market."

The Drug Enforcement Administration's plan to restrict the the supply of the crucial ingredients in the manufacture of methamphetamine, ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, which are also the effective ingredients in cold pills, was stymied by fierce lobbying from pharmaceutical companies, which feared the restrictions would reduce profits. (See yesterday's post.) Legislation that was passed had huge loopholes, which meth entrepreneurs took full advantage of:

" (Sen. Diane) Feinstein said the industry's influence remains an obstacle.

" 'There's no question there's a problem. There's no question that pharmaceutical companies allow the problem to happen,' Feinstein said.

" 'This is one issue where greed gets ahead of safety.'

" (Sen. Orrin) Hatch said he considers meth 'a vicious drug' and takes seriously the need to battle the trade. But he said he remains wary of giving the DEA too much influence over sales of 'a good cold medication.'

" 'I would like to find a way to solve it,' Hatch said of the meth problem. 'On the other hand, we shouldn't let a bureaucracy unilaterally, without legislative authorization, interfere with the marketplace.' "

As I said yesterday, profit trumps good policy.

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Frank Rich has this to say about our born-again Manichean President:

"The president - who after 9/11 called the war on terrorism a 'crusade,' until protests forced the White House to backpedal - is divine. He may not hear 'voices' instructing him on policy, testifies Stephen Mansfield, the author of one of the movie's source texts, 'The Faith of George W. Bush,' but he does act on 'promptings' from God. 'I think we went into Iraq not so much because there were weapons of mass destruction,' Mr. Mansfield has explained elsewhere, 'but because Bush had concluded that Saddam Hussein was an evildoer' in the battle "between good and evil."