2012 conventions 2012 election 2013 session 2013 special election arts arts and culture author ballot measures basketball bomb books boy scouts budget bullying business charlie hales children clackamas climate change coal college courts crime culture culture club democrats drugs economy education environment family film fluoride food gay rights guns handguns health health care health insurance high school history housing immigration international internet kitzhaber law legislature lgbt literary arts living marijuana marriage media medicine mental health military minor parties mohamed mohamud movies music native americans news newspaper obama olympics oregon our town parenting pers photography police politcs politics port portland portland business journal president prevention public safety religion republicans rnc romney rural salem sam adams sandy hook schools science shooting sports suicide supreme court taxes technology television terrorism theater third parties transportation union university of oregon washington wildfire women

One issue with electronic media that you have not yet addressed: permanence. I still own and read books that I bought as a child over 40 years ago, but I can no longer read the email I received in the late1980s and early 1990s: I saved it on disks, but I no longer have a computer that can read such disks. Even if I did, it is likely that the media have degraded. CDs are only expected to last 15-20 years, file formats change every few years ... but books last 100s of years. Imagine how many great works of literature and philosophy would have been lost had they been available only electronically!

posted 3 years, 10 months ago
view in context

Okay, I'll say it: taxes SHOULD be raised to cover the legitimate expenses of government. Our current income tax is essentially flat; making it somewhat more progressive on the wealthiest businesses and individuals is long overdue. Cutting govenment services means cutting jobs, worsening unemployment and spreading the cost of necessary services over even fewer paychecks. Teachers and police are not frills.

posted 3 years, 10 months ago
view in context

A few minutes ago, your guest gave an amazingly graceful response to the post implying that illiteracy was a matter of personal irresponsibility. Both of your guests described chaotic childhoods in which issues of survival (health in one case, fear in the other) quite understandably took precedence over school. To imply that illiteracy is due to irresponsibility is insensitive at best. I commend your guest on his even-handed response, and I wish both of your guests the best of luck as they continue to expand their skills.

posted 3 years, 11 months ago
view in context

My frustration with the current system is the seeming capriciousness of the penalties for sex abuse and rape. Your opening included the story of a man who spend 6 years in prison for soliciting an underage prostitute. Constrast that with the 6 month sentence served by the drunken neighbor who forcibly and violently raped my 14-year-old niece while she was sleeping at a friend's house. (This occurred in Washington state 8 or 9 years ago.) While I realize that an underage girl, even if working as a protitute, is not legally able to give consent, it seems that it should be possible to distinguish between cases such as these.

posted 4 years, 2 months ago
view in context

The interview this morning with former Gov. Barbara Roberts suggests a topic: rights of the homeless. This morning, for example, the interview ended without a discussion of what a person should do to exercise their right to vote when they cannot prove a fixed address. How to get a ballot? How to assert one's right to vote in the national and state-wide races? I am sure there are other similar rights that could be included in such a show.

posted 4 years, 7 months ago
view in context

I grew up in a small town in Oregon. When I graduated from high school in the early 1970s, I had never been in the physical presence of a Black or Latino, and the only Asians I had met were a girl who had been adopted from Korea as an infant and a Japanese woman who was a close friend of my mother's. My sole exposure to people of color was what I saw on TV. (Fortunately, I had the opportunity to meet and be friends with people of color in college.)

How has this affected me? I think I may have avoided a lot of the negative stereotypes simply because they never came up. My parents did their best to make sure that I knew about their disapproval of racism when it did show up on TV or in conversation. At the same time, I think it has left me with the assumption that people of color are just like me - and that isn't completely fair in acknowledging their very different experience in this society.

posted 4 years, 9 months ago
view in context

While I completely agree with the main point (that our society would benefit from a greater emphasis on language learning), I want to point out that merely studying or knowing another language will not automatically make one able to function professionally in that language. I teach, and I have had students whose first language was not English. Some have told me that they had difficulty initially when they returned home and took a professional job: they had not learned the professional vocabulary in their native language. Oh, they picked it up, but they did have to learn it.

To make leaders who can function successfully in two languages, we need to do more than teach a language class off on the side. Students need to be educated broadly in both languages: math, science, history, business, etc. I have seen a bilingual program at the K-12 level in which students were taught all subjects in both languages, alternating days, with the goal of creating high school graduates who not only speak both languages but are educated in both languages.

posted 4 years, 9 months ago
view in context

I'm all for expanding the bottle bill to cover more types of containers, but I am concerned that redemption center idea would actually reduce recycling. If I had to make a special trip to a redemption center instead of being able to redeem them where I bought them, it just wouldn't happen. In the less-populated parts of the state, would there be enough centers close enough to make the trip cost effective in a world of $4.00 gas? And while some folks may not like this, the street people who are scavenging and returning bottles and cans now may find it difficult to travel to a redemption center - and they are doing a lot of recycling for us.

posted 4 years, 11 months ago
view in context

I am a registered Democrat who voted for Clinton in the primary. I would never vote for McCain, but Obama is far from having my vote. It would not be the first time that I have left the presidential portion of my ballot unmarked.

What would it take? Obama is an excellent orator and has the "vision thing" nailed. He needs to convince me that he has a clue about how to get things done in Washington. My best advice to him: give us an early indication of the advisors and key personnel that would be part of an Obama presidency.

posted 4 years, 11 months ago
view in context