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leisesturm's comments:
on Wage Woes
Why is it always that when the issue of Socialism is raised the examples of Russia, China or Cuba are trotted out? Can you really compare the totalitarian or facist states where privacy, individual freedoms, etc. are sharply curtailed and the governement inposes involuntary communism on a Proletariat so a small ruling class can live large off the proceeds and funnel the rest into the military police that maintain the racket to the progressive socialist countries in Northern Europe? Can you?
But we are not in those parts of the world. In this part of the world, the U.S. there are well over 20 million people out of work. We also know that this number does not reflect the (millions?) that have given up ever finding work again. We also know that across ALL industries in this country the number of open job positions is less than 2.4 million. Oregon has less than four million people and I don't know how many open job vacancies but it seems that to be concerned with the wages being earned by the presently employed is... ... silly.
Going forward there are two things that can be done: the first is to immediately halve the wages of all workers thereby allowing a doubling of workforce with no additional burden on employers. This includes minimum wage workers. This option is not my favorite but since it appears impossible to consider the other option: additional taxes on those with net worths over $10 Million, it is the only viable plan.
posted 2 years, 6 months ago
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on Bomb Plot in Portland
@aloevera. What the FBI should have done upon receiving the tip from Mohamud's father was pick him up for questioning. Period. Anything more was/is entrapment. He had no target, no method, no means no anything except motive. If pure motive were grounds for the construction of elaborate undercover operations reminiscent of the old Mission Impossible series then there would be a LOT more of these stories breaking in the news. The usual way these things end is for law enforcement to go confront the kid and in the ensuing stand-off... ... ethnic parents, by all means read this as: Do not turn your misfit children in to PDX law enforcement. See to it yourselves. Likely they are messed up because of your single minded determination for success in America never mind what they might need from you in the way of love and guidance. I can say that because I am an adult child of U.S. immigrants who kept their noses to the grindstone for 40 years without ever once stopping to come up for air. But, I digress. As you can see though, when it comes to actually preventing horrors like Oklahoma City, 9/11, Wells Fargo, the Marine Base shooting... ... law enforcement is impotent. They have no power to predict and/or prevent mass destruction by determined individuals or groups. About the only comfort in that is that such occurrences are relatively rare. Another poster is correct in suggesting that we attempt to find out the "why" of terrorist motivation. I would go as far as to suggest that we already know the "why". That is an entire new topic.
H
posted 2 years, 6 months ago
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on Bomb Plot in Portland
@"Any half-way motivated 19 year old..." Maybe it's me but I don't believe the 19 year old in question's major was engineering. This particular 19 year old would not be making a WMD on his own. Had he succeeded in getting to Yemen he may have played a role oversea's in causing trouble for our military or our allies but that is far from the scenario that we are forced to contemplate. There are disaffected youth by the thousands in America trolling for trouble on the Internet. How many of them are recruited... erm... entrapped by Federal agents? I've lived near Portland for two years and did not know that there was/is a tree lighting ceremony in Pioneer Square.
H
posted 2 years, 6 months ago
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on Bomb Plot in Portland
"this kid would have figured out a way to get his hands on a bomb one way or another."
Emphatically, no, he would not have. Them that can, do. He wasn't doing. He was led by the nose right up to the end. It is beyond shameful. The FBI has obviously not gauged correctly the degree of public susceptibility of the Pacific Northwest as they are getting considerable blowback on this.... shameful waste of taxpayer money. In NYC they might have had something. In trying to drag Portland into the fray they may have overreached the publics capacity for manipulation.
H
posted 2 years, 6 months ago
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on Bomb Plot in Portland
I am not sure where you are going with this. Agreed, it does not make sense... that can't be all there is to that, can it? I mean... what about the blonde, blue eyed Taliban fighter they found hiding in a cave somewhere... he was even more ensconced in the bosom of America's 'Dominant Culture'. What, at 19 you never had a bad day... a bad week? The only difference between you and him is that when you were 19 there was no Internet to vent on. The only difference between others that are presently 19 years old and in the midst of a bad patch is that there wasn't an FBI operative manning the chatline and setting in motion... ... they played this kid like a Guarneri... they could have made him do anything... including Good. Instead they pushed him further to the Dark Side to further their own ends.
H
posted 2 years, 6 months ago
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on Bomb Plot in Portland
What was/is your culture doing to stop people like the Turnidges (sp.) i.e. the Father/Son bombers?
H
posted 2 years, 6 months ago
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on Faith Fissure
The American Constitution is a relatively recent document as far as these things are concerned. It has been ammended I don't know how many times and their is still contention and division among those it is intended to unify. The Holy Bible, as a document of authority, has essentially been unrevised in over 1500 years! Can you say 'outdated', boys and girls? The church I attend was split virtually in two over the hire of an openly gay minister. A much bigger church than the one in question. That schism and its aftermath have not been the focus of any OPB program that I am aware of. What is it that makes the Episcopal Church in general or St. Matthew's Parish in particular so important to Portland... to Oregon, that an entire Think Out Loud segement is devoted to their problems?
posted 3 years, 1 month ago
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on Police Matters
I do not know if it has been mentioned in the blog but it is clear that the guests on the show are dancing around the 400lb gorilla of RACE. As an African American male newcomer to PDX I have already been in several encounters with law enforcement. All for bicycle related matters. I frequently roll through stop signs (not lights) and when I first arrived I did not always wear a helmet or have blinkies at night. No matter what the reason for the stop the police ALWAYS subjected me to a 15 minute long search for prior warrants in other states.
It was to get away from this kind of harrasment that I left my previous home. There the database searches took the better part of an hour so on balance PDX is an improvement... and the roads are better. But, it must be said, there is a racial bias in the way law enforcement in most, if not all, states of the U.S. conduct their affairs. I don't know James Chassey's race. I do not know the race of the 12 year old girl on the MAX platform. I do not know Kendra James' race. I wonder how much money I would lose betting that they are all African American?
How is it that I hear these stories of all this police brutality over and over and still not know the race of the participants? What is this, a new kind of censorship? I am told whether I want to know or not that so and so is "the first African American to _________" but for several days this incident on the MAX has been reported with all references to the race of the girl and the officers unreported. I would argue that it is far more relevant in situations where there has been injury or death. I also don't believe that officers should be given any more freedom to self police themselves.
H
posted 3 years, 6 months ago
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on Breast Cancer Screening
Breast cancer is not analguous to prostate cancer. The female counterpart to the male prostate is the uterus. That said, IMO the fact that medical science eventually developed a screening tool for prostate cancer that involves a simple blood test should raise the bar at least that high for the detection of ALL cancers. I don't think it is an easy assignment but I see no evidence that Big Pharma is even trying out products that detect a variety of cancers non-invasively.
I also feel that rather than allow Big Pharma to continue raking in Billions doling out regimens of chemotherapy drugs that do not work, they should be directed towards CURES. Where is the incentive on the part of Roche or Pfizer or Warner-Lambert or any other pharmaceutical company to come up with effective cures for cancer when they are compenated so handsomely for drugs that add only months or weeks... years? Doubtful. IMO if someone does go years without a recurrence of their illness it wasn't due to the efficacy of their drug regimen but that they would have had this outcome regardless. Obviously this is America, we don't go around 'directing' corporations to do anything, so how about simply not rewarding them so handsomely for palliatives. How about notifying them that they will get the big money jackpots when and if they can deliver drugs that CURE. They can either supply the drugs they do make at steep discount or donate them: in direct proportion to their efficacy in patient outcomes. If they can't deliver a cure, nothing is lost, but I'm betting that they can. They just need some incentive.
H
posted 3 years, 7 months ago
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on Breast Cancer Screening
I have lost three cherished aunts on my mothers side. All had their breast cancers detected early through mammograms. Nevertheless, and despite assurances that treatment was progressing well because of the early detection their deaths followed roughly two years or less after diagnosis. I think the medical community hasn't a clue about diagnosis and care of any cancer and given that is hardly in a position to be relaxing standards for detection and care. SO WHAT if a biopsy is negative. Rather than be annoyed, the doctors and administrators should rejoice. An individual woman receiving false positives and repeat biopsies has to make some personal strategic policies on how to deal with that, but for the HMO's or clinics that perform the procedures if they do 20, 30 or 50 thousand of them and many are negative that will have to be accepted as the price to be paid because of the inneficiencies of the front line diagnostic tools.
I don't know if it has been mentioned in this blog yet but there are thermal imaging mammograms that do not use radiation. My ex-GF was given a questionable standard mammogram and was due for a repeat in six months. I convinced her to get a thermal scan to reduce her radiation exposure. The thermal scan found two additional anomalies that the standard mammogram didin't even detect. It was $300 out of pocket for her but she could afford it. Why aren't HMO's buying these machines and thus bringing the prices for their use down??? Of course my ex needed biopsies done on the anomalies and they were negative. I don't think she is unhappy about that!
H
posted 3 years, 7 months ago
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on Bike Plan 2030
I am late to this because I was hoping to get a chance to make my point on the air. I apologize if the point has been made in this blog but it was never made on air: IMO the plans for further investment in bike lane marking and 'bike boulevard's' promote a seperatist viewpoint among bike riders and motorists alike. Too many of the callers felt that when a bike lane ended they were out of options.
I am new(ish) to Portland and I ride most everywhere by neccessity. I Google a trip to a new destination and follow the directions as would any motorist doing the same thing. No motorist would question whether they can use a particular road because they didn't know if there was a 'car lane' on it!!?? with the possible exception of I-5, I-205, 405, etc) no cyclist should want (or need) special accomodations to ride any street or road in PDX metro.
Last year when I was here just a few months I was coming home at night in Hillsboro. I was on Cornell headed west. The bike lane ended at the airport miles short of my home. I was hounded off the road by the cars, clipping and honking crazily. I was totally unfamiliar with the interior streets and got badly lost.
Driver awareness has got to be less expensive than the millions planned in road renovations and improvements. Going forward it is likely there will be less money in Portland's economy not more. If cyclists continue to hold out for as extensive a bike road network as what motorists have many will remain sidelined indefinitely as the projects get cancelled or delayed.
I have to say though, as one who has cycled in the Midwest and on the East Coast. Oregon gets a lot of things right and it is a shame that so many residents think that its unsafe to get out there and ride. It is also a shame that so many think that bicycles are just for recreation and that you cannot carry large loads. We are the ONLY couple that ride a tandem to the Winco and load a BOB Yak trailer with 100lbs of groceries every week. That is a shame.
H
posted 3 years, 7 months ago
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