Obama ≠ Castro

American Politics are often frustrating. I find one of the most frustrating things about our politics is that people seeking elective office are compelled to simplify the complexities of their positions in ways that are clear and concise so as to translate as effectively as possible across print, broadcast, and blog media with the goal, of course, of reaching as large an audience as possible (at least 50.1% of those who bother to vote). This isn't the only possible political dynamic, but it's the one that we're faced with.

There are many ways that politicians simplify their message into "talking points," elements of a political platform, "sound bites," etc. To do so doesn't by definition mean that truth is compromised, but it does mean that the full complexity of a given topic is sacrificed to some degree. The potential benefits of simplification are balanced by potential shortcomings. Minimizing complexity can do disservice to a given topic by obscuring power dynamics, leaving out multiple causes, ignoring the role of human agency, perpetuating one logical fallacy or another, etc.

One of the many reasons why I don't have any respect for Sarah Palin (and why I pity her supporters) is that she consistently takes the "low road" as she's simplifying complex realities for her personal, financial, and political purposes. A recent example is how she characterized Fidel Castro's speech regarding the recent passage of health care reform legislation in the U.S.

It seems so long ago

I received an email with a jpeg version of a reprint of this article (other bits: title, second page).

As is always the case with these things, I checked the veracity of this information on Snopes, and found that it checks out.

A quick Internet search for this fwd-fwd-fwd email finds that it's been around at least two years, and, at least on the first page of Google hits this evening, most links bring up this article to poke fun and express a collective "thank the gods we're not there anymore!" This sentiment raises questions about why so many of us chuckle at this article ca. 2010 and recognize that the culture is no longer at a place where such an article could be written.

Foremost among the reasons why is feminism, and feminist-propelled changes to state and federal laws which, in turn, modified how government works. Recall that in this purportedly democratic nation women could not vote in Oregon elections until 1912, nor in national elections until 1920. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 secured a minimum wage for all workers, men and women; Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act barred discrimination based on gender, among other things; California adopted the nation's first "no fault" divorce law in 1969; Title IX of the Education Amendment (PL 92-318) in 1972 barred gender discrimination in education; Roe v. Wade in 1973 established a woman's right to her own body, etc. etc.(all of these listed here).

These examples are not exhaustive, by any means, but they are illustrative of my main point: Political change happens, but not without human agency, and often not without much struggle against the status quo; in the case of women's history in the U.S., change would not have happened without feminism -- critiques of the movement notwithstanding.

Critics of feminism include the thoughtful Christians with whom I disagree and the hate-filled misogynist bigots for whom I have zero respect.

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Sewer system financing in Portland . . .

. . . is something I need to learn more about. I covered this topic in my thesis to some degree, but definitely need to do more research. Finances and economics are not my strong suit.

That being said, my general take on urban sanitation infrastructure is that it's well worth the expense because it establishes an essential foundation for the life and health of residents. However, unlike shiny new sports facilities, high-profile convention centers, and spruced-up former warehouse districts, such infrastructure is not as visible nor as sexy. So, for people who don't understand the direct relationship between this infrastructure and individual and community health, the necessary taxes to support this infrastructure often seems to be ill-spent. This is not to say that there are more or less productive ways to spend a dollar of tax money allocated for sanitation infrastructure (as with any other use of taxes), but to dismiss a given proposal out-of-hand simply because it's another tax or tax increase is incorrect.

I agree with the idea to spend some of Portland's sewer funds on Mayor Adams' proposed Green Streets project. Keeping stormwater runoff from both the combined sewer system* and from direct runoff into the Willamette watershed is a great long-term idea, as is increasing bike and pedestrian-friendly infrastructure in the city. To combine these two outcomes within one project is an effective and efficient use of limited resources. I don't quite understand the logic of knee-jerk anti-taxers and limited-governmenters who oppose this plan. Yes, we do need an informed public debate surrounding tax and spending policies.** However, once these taxes/fees are levied for infrastructure that benefits us all, I don't understand how the opposition can then rail against combining projects to achieve more with the same pile of money.

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* Soon-to-be-mostly-uncombined.

** And there definitely is not much evidence of "informed public debate" in the comment threads to Oregonian articles on this topic -- see, for starters, the comments to the article spurring this post: Janie Har, "Portland sewer, water rates lack third-party check," Oregonian March 27, 2010.

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Industry threats in the face of environmental regulation: Crying wolf, or worth heeding?

A few preliminary thoughts on the most recent discussion related to the Portland River Plan (sources cited below):

T. Alan Sprott wrote an OpEd on March 26. He's the vice president of Vigor Industrial LLC in Portland and chair of the Working Waterfront Coalition. Reflecting on a lack of consensus with the Portland River Plan, he argues that

Swimming in the Willamette River in and near Portland

For quite a number of weeks now I've intended to finalize this post about swimming in the Willamette River in and near Portland Harbor. Two discussions about swimming in the river can be found at this Portland Mercury Blogtown post, and at this archived "Think Out Loud" program from Oregon Public Radio.

Now, for some historical context . . .

Blogging the ASEH 2010 (pt. 1): Willamette River Cruise

Hawthorne Bridge. 

Image taken while descending gangplank to the tour boat.

This is my first post discussing my experience at the 2010 American Society for Environmental History (ASEH) conference, held here in Portland from March 10-14. This post will focus on the Willamette River cruise on on Wednesday, March 10, from noon to about 4:00 p.m.

I'll commence with an admission: I spent about two years writing a thesis on the topic of Willamette River pollution, and I grew up on the Oregon coast, but until this river cruise I had not been on the river! Scandalous!! In some sense, however, this doesn't really mean anything -- after all, how many present-day historians of the Civil War were on the field at Gettysburg in the midst of the battle? Nonetheless, there is something to be said for experiencing the actual site(s) upon which unfolded aspects of one's historical research.

Banal writing about beer

This article at Slate.com is a smarmy, uninformed, and, ultimately, frustratingly droll piece regarding the so-called relative places of beer and wine in American culture.

It isn't until the third from last paragraph in the piece (regarding how the development of one type of beer--bland American-style pilsener--went hand-in-hand with the development of industrial technologies) that I agreed with anything the author writes. I guess this proves that one need not really know anything about what one is writing about in order to get something published. In this way, the article is also a great example of constructing a straw man to dismantle subsequently with half-considered, generalized banalities.

Oy...

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Portland's Black Panther Party & local media response

On Thursday, March 18, the Northwest History Network (NHN) sponsored a presentation by Martha Gies and Jules Boykoff on the topic of media representation of Portland's Black Panther Party from ca. 1969 to 1978. Former Portland BPP members Percy Hampton and Kent Ford were also featured at this event, and provided stories from their own experiences to augment Martha & Jules' analysis.

A representative from KBOO was there and recorded the event. He told me that the radio station may broadcast the event in its entirety, or they may use clips of the recording to create a news story; as of today, I checked their website and didn't find archived broadcast of the event or an announcement of such a broadcast in the near future. I did, however, find an archived show from Feb. 28, 2008, here featuring "former members of the Portland Chapter of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense: Oscar Johnson, Percy Hampton, Gary Clay, and Kent Ford."

My very own Avatar review!

Preface

I just recently (and finally) watched Avatar, and I've been trying to craft this commentary for weeks now. Rather than dilly-dally any longer, I've incorporated some final thoughts and present it in all it's imperfections:

Introduction

There are many fascinating threads of analysis that course through the movie. I've read a small portion of reviews and analyses found in my not-at-all-systematic Internet meanderings. A conclusion I've drawn from this research is that I haven't been able to find much written about what seems to me two very important points that connect Avatar with its other relatives in the blockbuster fantasy and sci-fi categories: 1) Why is it (nearly) always the white guy who saves the day? 2) Why is violence so often the solution to violence?

442,000 men took a stroll, and only 10,000 came back

 The Strange Maps blog posted and discussed a fascinating map/graph of Napoleon's Russian campaign, 1812-1813, shown above.

We now have a copy of this map hanging on the wall in the Northwest History Network office, which is beside the point in all regards save one: Seeing the map in the office the other day, I was reminded both that it existed and how fascinatingly effective it is in getting across the point that war is hell, and absolute war corrupts absolutely.

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The Kale is Always Greener on the Other Side of the Fence: Re-(un)developing Urban Land for Agricultural Purposes in Detroit

I came across this article in the Oregonian the other day and was astounded by a few things:

Operating on a scale never before attempted in this country, the city would demolish houses in some of the most desolate sections of Detroit . . . [and turn] large swaths of this now-blighted, rusted-out city back into the fields and farmland that existed before the automobile.

"Things that were unthinkable are now becoming thinkable"

a city of nearly 2 million in the 1950s has declined to less than half that number. . . . approximately 40 square miles of vacant property in Detroit . . .

The current plan would demolish about 10,000 houses and empty buildings in three years and pump new investment into stronger neighborhoods.

There are organizations like Hantz Farms that are preparing to make use of the newly-cleared land in Detroit to create "the world's largest urban farm."

This is a pretty exciting project that will likely help re-define what "urban" means.

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Linking to insights on food security, public health, & sustainability

With almost no time before class this evening, I can't possibly formulate anything substantive to write about on the topic of food security that hasn't already been written by Delia Christina, within the comment thread to her post, or, at least, linked from her post.

So, with full awareness of my lack of originality, here is what I think, in brief: This post and the comments raise some important points specifically on the topic of public health and food security, while also providing another example of how important it is to get outside of one's own bubble if one wants to understand an issue and work on solutions.

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Oregon's geologic history

This fascinating site from the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries (ODGMI) showcases the geologic history of the state. This site explains the fundamentals of plate tectonics and then illustrates in 20 progressive maps the incremental stages of land formation within the boundaries of the state beginning 400 million years ago. This progression provides a clear overview of the accretive geologic history of the state.

The resource linked above is supplemented by this project seeking to understand the Missoula Floods. As this page of the ODGMI's site shows, there are some extensive deposits from the Missoula Floods in much of the Willamette Valley and along the Columbia Gorge in northern Gilliam, Morrow, and Umatilla counties.

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On "Lessons of History" @ EotAW

silby recently posted a thought-provoking entry on EotAW that articulates a response to the question "what is history?"

my point is . . . to note how badly the historical ethos sometimes relates to the larger society. If I had quickly to sum up that ethos, it would be as “Yes, but….” That is, historians go about constructing the past, aware always of that process of construction, and willing to consider alternate designs. Yes, this is how I am interpreting this history now, but I am aware that there are other interpretations and other evidence. Despite George W. Bush, all history is (or should be) revisionist. All history should be ready to be rewritten. The effect of that “Yes, but…” is to make scholarly history complex and at the same time weaselly, uncertain and always whirling around to catch the interpretation sneaking up from behind.

The complexity that this creates is, of course, at odds both with the simplicity that Paul Krugman craved and that economics provided. It is at odds, as well, with the adversarial nature of the court room, in which opposing counsels must argue, without doubt or allowance for ambiguity, their side of the case.

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On Literalism

A valued reader recently forwarded to me a link to this article, as part of a continuation of my process of investigating issues of science & trust and Biblical literalism.

The author of the forwarded link, Henry Morris III, D.Min. (1918-2006)*, provides one definition of "Biblical literalism." Before I get to this, however, I must refer to Morris' affiliation as the founder and* Chief Executive Officer of the Institute for Creation Research. I could not find an "About" button on the ICR's website, so I ran a quick Internet search and found the following on Wikipedia:

The Institute for Creation Research (ICR) is a Christian institution in Dallas, Texas that specializes in education, research, and media promotion of creation science and Biblical creationism. The ICR adopts the Bible as an inerrant and literal documentary of scientific and historical fact as well as religious and moral truths, and espouses a Young Earth creationist world view. It strongly rejects the science of evolutionary biology, which it views as a corrupting moral and social influence and threat to religious belief.

Morris provides a list of four bulleted characteristics that Biblical literalism is not, in his (and, by extension, ICR's) view, and contrasts these with five bulleted characteristics that do define proper literalism, in his view. Laying out these points in this way is intended to convey Morris' preferred definition in a clear and concise fashion. However, he falls far short of this goal in many ways.