PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

A column in the Wall Street Journal under the headline, Freedoms from an Age of Non-Stop Botherers, got me to thinking about the pros and cons of today’s technology.

The columnist, Joe Queenan, worries that technology bothers him nearly all the time.

“American society has now turned into the house I grew up in,” he writes in a reference to his father who always bothered him. “People never stop invading my mental space. In a restaurant, the waiter keeps popping by to ask if everything is all right ‘so far,’ ominously implying that something is lurking inside the chicken parm that could make things go south in a hurry.

“On the flight to LAX, the pilot constantly interrupts the movie to announce that the plane is cruising at an altitude of 35,000 feet and should be able to make up the 15 minutes wasted on the runway.

“Bogus outfits constantly call, purporting to raise money for veterans, cops, political prisoners, rain forests. Telemarketing robots check in to see if I want to repair my devastated credit-card rating or escape the clutches of the IRS. Cultural organizations phone to ask if I’m aware that ticket prices cover only a fraction of the costs of running the Philharmonic, the art museum, the Amazon. ‘I am aware,’ I reply. ‘You just called 20 minutes ago.’

“The internet, invented to facilitate the flow of information, now merely facilitates the flow of interruption. The time has come to add new ‘freedoms’ to the admirable list of four offered by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on Jan. 6, 1941. His were freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom from want, freedom from fear.”

Here’s Queenan’s list.

Freedom From Algorithms

Freedom From People Who Make Annoying Noises For a Living [Like leaf blowers or Jim Cramer, the trash-talking stock purveyor on TV.]

Freedom From Pop-Ups

Freedom From Emails Announcing Not-to-Be-Repeated 36-hour Sales on Dirt-Cheap Flights to Atlanta, Duluth and Houston

Freedom From Scams That Insult My Intelligence

Freedom From Follow-up Inquiries by Third-Party Sellers

Freedom From Disconcerting Error Messages

Freedom From Newsmaking Tweets. [Yeah, you know who we’re talking about here.  Just stop. Take a day off.  Let the rest of us breathe.]

Technology, of course, carries a host of benefits, as well. To counteract Queenan’s concern about “bothering,” here is my partial list of pros that benefit my lifestyle.

• You can read a host of material on-line, including newspapers, though, as a former reporter, I still like to hold papers in my hands.
• You can get important alerts quickly, including, for example about adverse weather or bad traffic.
• You can engage in more interactions with friends, or even expand a list of friends, by using Facebook, Instagram or Linked-In. [This must be done in balance so it does not get in the way of personal contact.]
• You can get access to huge trove of information on local, state and federal governments…if you want such information. [As a now-retired state lobbyist, I would have loved to have information on line, including, for example, for the thousands of pieces of legislation that are introduced every legislative session. As it was, we had to maintain huge filing cabinets of all the paper. It was just near the end of my tenure that the Capitol in Salem gained wi-fi service, which made work much easier and quicker – and even meant the end of our Salem-based office.]
• You can use hand-held I-phone GPS capability in your car to navigate your way around unfamiliar territory instead of getting lost or relying on handwritten notes.
• And, for me as dedicated golfer – read the intro to this blog – I and my friends can sign up on-line for tee times, which is much easier that it used to be with many phone calls.

So, who is right? Joe Queenan or me. Well, both. If used properly and in balance, technology can be more than a bother, though interruptions occur for all of us. For me, I prefer to focus on how technology can be an aid to a more organized lifestyle.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

To repeat what I have written several times in the past, this is one of two departments I run with a free hand to do what I deem to be right and best. The other is the Department of Pet Peeves.

I have not written much on the latter subject lately, though in the Department of Good Quotes Worth Remembering, I have an opportunity to share a pet peeve or two as I comment on quotes.

So, here goes again.

From Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ):  “The week has lent itself to a feeling of instability. The president has deliberately added to the rancor and tension of his nation’s daily life, lurching in his tweets from mischief to malice to a kind of psychopathology—personal attacks, insinuations, videos from a group labeled racist by the British government. You always want to say he has reached peak crazy, but you know there’s a higher peak on the horizon. What will Everest look like? He has no idea how to be president.”

Comment: As usual, Noonan is right on point. Trump has no idea how to be president. He violates many of the norms of reasonable conduct regardless of political party. He also tends to compromise his own supposed objectives – and, to get an idea of how damaging and risky is his conduct, just read one of the quotes below from the Washington Post.

From Holman Jenkins in the WSJ:  “Retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn on Friday pleaded guilty to lying about a non-crime. Even Adam Schiff, the House Democrat most determined to ride the Russia collusion story to bigger and better things, acknowledged that conferring with a representative of Russia about the incoming administration’s Russia policy is not illegal or improper.”

Comment: Jenkins makes a good point. Simply talking with Russians is not necessarily illegal or improper. Of course, lying about such contact is allegedly illegal, as the Flynn case shows. So, did the Trump campaign or administration coalesce with Russians? Not sure yet. But, it also may true that the Clinton campaign made similar overtures to Russia, which represents, other WSJ writers have said, a particular misunderstanding of Russian’s aims – advance its own cause in the world, not cooperate with others.

From Peggy Noonan in the WSJ:  “Mr. Franken’s weakness as a political figure was having no sympathy for those who disagree with him, not bothering to understand how the other side thinks, while always claiming for himself the high moral ground. This now common attitude frays political bonds; once it was considered poor political comportment.”

Comment: Noonan also writes cogently about soon-to-be former U.S. Senator Al Franken. Franken had a number of faults, including the fact that his experience before being elected did not qualify him to be a U.S. senator. Nor did his belief that he always was right, claiming “the high moral ground” for himself. No aceptance for other views. His lack of comportment in his roles previous to being elected to Congress should have foretold to voters in Minnesota that he would be a very poor U.S. senator.

From hill.com:  “The U.S. labor market maintained steady growth in November, which is better than expectations with Congress on the cusp of passing the first massive tax package in decades.  Employers added 228,000 jobs last month, and the unemployment rate held at 4.1 percent, the lowest level since December 2000 when it was 3.9 percent, the Labor Department reported on Friday.”

Comment: Good news on the economic front. My view always has been that economic growth or stagnation is due to factors mostly beyond the direct control of political figures, either a governor in a state like Oregon or the president. Still, if the news is positive, politicians will try to take credit for it. If the news is not good, they will try to escape. In this case, the good news is that the private sector economy is performing well. Long may it last.

From Joe Scarborough in the Washington Post:  “Donald Trump spent much of 2016 questioning his opponent’s stamina to be president of the United States. But it is now Trump’s own fitness that is being scrutinized by friends and foes alike. After Trump spent recent weeks creating a level of chaos unseen around the White House since Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974, Capitol Hill politicians and media outlets are quietly questioning whether Trump is fit for the highest office in the land. That the commander in chief slurred his way through the end of a speech on Jerusalem was just the latest in a string of unsettling incidents.  Many who move through his orbit believe Trump is not well. That is a verdict that was reached long ago by many of the president’s own staff. More than a few politicians and reporters across Washington have shared similar fears.”

Comment: Scarborough may have various axes to grind, but his take on Trump’s fitness to be president – or lack of fitness – is, at best sobering. Problems with Trump have revolved around his mental fitness to be and act like a president. If physical limitations are added to the mix, it does not bode well for the future. What to do about it should be a source of concern for all of us.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime

In today’s world, it’s easy to get caught up in the trappings of Christmas and forget the real reason for the season.

The real reason?

It’s a season to remember the birth of Christ who came to this world to save us and give us hope for a future beyond what might exist by our own actions.

In our family, my wife has done a great job of starting various Christmas celebrations, which she hoped would become traditions. They did.

• We have usually gathered with our two children, their spouses and their children, our grandkids, for a joyous celebration on Christmas Day, though recently we have adjusted the day to accommodate their other-family schedules. Easy to adjust and keep alive our own family traditions.
• We start by opening stocking presents with the stockings hung over our fireplace, though the presents themselves won’t fit inside them.
• We then move to the breakfast table where we have scrambled eggs, bacon and what has come to be a great tradition for us – rolls soaked in a brown sugar substance that gets better with time. The rolls are heated so they taste nothing but good. Without these rolls, Christmas just wouldn’t be same!
• After breakfast, we take a breath to read the Christmas account in Luke 2, which chronicles Christ’s birth in a lowly stable in Bethlehem. Good to hear this story time after time.

“So it was that while they (Mary and Joseph) were there in Bethlehem, that she came to the end of her time. She gave birth to her first child, a son. And as there was no place for them inside the inn, she wrapped him up and laid him in a manger.”

• Then, after hearing the Luke 2 story, we open presents — and try to do so, one-by-one, so we see what everyone gets. This “one-by-one” premise was started after my father, now gone for a number of years, would open his presents surreptitiously and early in an attempt to get a head start on the process.

So, whatever your traditions, I hope you pause to enjoy them at this time of year. Don’t hurry through Christmas. Pause. Reflect. Express thanks for the Savior who came to the earth to rescue us, the true meaning of Christmas.

Merry Christmas!

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

I’ll answer the question in the headline with a simple proposition: It is because the subject is so important that it deserves thought and study even as someone like me focuses more on issues in Oregon than in the world.

In a piece in the Wall Street Journal, former State Department official, Robert B. Zellich, describes Trump’s foreign policy “as a style of deal-making with uncertainty and brinkmanship, without a plan for what comes next.”

Zellick continues that Trump’s foreign policy “reflects his instinct for political realignment at home, based on celebrity populism.”

To Zellick and many others, populist movements feed off grievances and impatience with traditional politics. Frustrations—whether generated by economic distress, social displacement, or cultural challenges—fuel skepticism about institutions and elites. Challengers (who want to become the new elite) attack traditional leaders as out of touch, incompetent and corrupt.

Sound like Trump?

He rallies his supporters by proclaiming what Zellick calls “three presumptions of populism.”

• First, populism professes to reflect the will of a scorned people. Hillary Clinton called them “deplorables.” The will of the people is intolerant of the give-and-take of pluralism.
• Second, populism finds and blames enemies, domestic or foreign, who thwart the people’s will – or at least “some of the people’s will.” Trump has mastered creating such scapegoats.
• Third, populism needs “the leader,” who can identify with and embody the will of some of the people. Like other populist leaders, Trump attacks the allegedly illegitimate institutions that come between him and the people. His solutions, like those of other populists, are simple. He contends that the establishment uses complexity to obfuscate and cover up misdeeds and mistakes. He claims he will use his deal-making know-how to get results without asking the public to bear costs.

Trump’s foreign policy, if you can call what he does and how he acts a “policy,” revolves around himself. He is, as we have seen time and again, a narcissist.

Mr. Zellich writes that, on Trump’s recent trip to Asia, “foreign leaders took his measure. They played to his narcissism. He in turn basked in their attention, diminishing his own country by blaming past presidents, and preened with promises of great but unspecified things to come.”

His ego also makes him comfortable with authoritarian leaders as his recent trip showed. Presidents Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and Rodrigo Duterte play to Trump’s ego, as has part of the Saudi royal family.

Thus, Mr. Zellich adds, “other countries are preparing for a world in which they can expect U.S. demands but can no longer rely on American leadership.”

A smart U.S. foreign policy ought to rely on cementing alliances with friendly nations and even reaching out to potential enemies to discuss areas of possible collaboration in a world that often appears to be on the brink of more war.

That’s what other presidents have done, though, in this piece, I am not advocating the ideas of former president Barack Obama, who, for all his personal credentials, spent more time on the world stage apologizing for America than advocating for it.

Trump’s foreign policy represents a break from postwar presidents of both parties, reaching back to Harry S. Truman. Other presidents led an alliance that recognized U.S. security is connected to mutual interests in Europe, the Asia-Pacific region and the Middle East.

Past presidents believed that the U.S. economy would prosper in a world of expanding capitalism, governed by rules and practices that matched America’s competitive and dynamic markets. Over time, U.S. foreign policy strove to expand human rights, liberty and democracy. Trump dismisses this U.S.-led international system as outdated, too costly and too restrictive of his case-by-case deal-making.

A letter to the editor writer in the Wall Street Journal said the other day that “Mr. Zoellick’s assessment of President Trump’s foreign policy misses one point: The train of American world leadershiup has left the station and is not coming back,” in what the writer called “a multipolar and nuclear world.”

So, what next? From my post in the Western States, my hope is that Trump will become more strategic rather than just tactical. My hope is that he would rely on his experienced staff, especially former military leaders, for advice and counsel. My hope is that he would drop Twitter which only inflames the foreign policy atmosphere. And my hope is that he would let his ego rest for the good of the country.

False hopes, you say. Perhaps. But hope is better than one of the alternatives, which is despair.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

To say that December 1, 2004 was an important day in my life would be an understatement.

The day began like many others. I was in Seattle for a meeting with clients, then drove back south, stopping in Portland for dinner with my partner, Pat McCormick. That done, I headed out for my home, Salem, where I arrived home at about 7:30 p.m.

It was a Wednesday evening, so with garbage pick-up the next day, I took the cans out to the street.

As I went back into the house, I felt queasy, but, initially at least, chalked it up to a busy day, with hours in the car. The feeling persisted, so I drank a couple glasses of winter and sat down on the couch in our family room.

Nothing helped, so I told my wife, Nancy, I ought to head into the emergency room. By car or ambulance, she asked. I said by car.

So, as she looked for her car keys, I went out to the garage and, as I put my hand on the door to open it, I knew I would go down so I got down on the cold, cement floor.

That’s where Nancy found me, so she immediately called 911 and, within about 10 minutes, the ambulance arrived, which is saying something because we live fairly far south of the central city.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I was having a heart attack, which I prefer now to call “my episode” because I dislike the phrase heart attack.

Within about two hours, doctors at Salem Hospital had inserted a stent to enable the main artery to my heart to function properly. That saved my life.

I was in the hospital for three more days during which two more minor stents were inserted in subsidiary arteries.

By Friday, I was home recuperating, which hindsight says, didn’t take long as I thought it would.

On the evening of my arrival at the hospital, my wife and son, Eric, were told by the doctors that I had experienced a heart attack. They had no idea that had been the case. Neither did I at that moment. And, the doctor said, it was a major one from which many victims don’t recover. They even don’t always get up after going down.

So, as I look back on all of this after 13 years, I am thankful for a lot.

• I am thankful that Nancy was home when I went down so she could call the ambulance and get me to the hospital in what must have been near record time.
• I am thankful that Eric got home – he lived across the street from us – just as the ambulance arrived, so was able to help Nancy respond to the emergency.
• I am thankful for the doctors and other medical personnel at Salem Hospital who responded so well to my emergency.
• I am thankful for the cardiac rehabilitation services at Salem Hospital that aided in my recovery.
• I am thankful for my daughter, Lissy, who came down immediately from Seattle to tell me how much she loved me, which is great to hear coming from a daughter as great as Lissy.
• I am thankful that a wonderful dog, Hogan, came into my life shortly after my episode and played an instrumental role in my recovery. [The bad news is that about two months ago we had to put Hogan down as he suffered from a brain tumor. His departure created a huge hole in our lives, which we have filled with another great dog, Callaway.]
• I am thankful for all my friends at work and in our neighborhood – including on my golf course, Illahe Hills — who rallied around me in what turned out to be a successful recovery.
• And, most of all, I am thankful to God for giving me a new lease on life.

In your own situation, whatever that may be, take time to be thankful, both during the aftermath of one of the best holidays on the calendar, Thanksgiving, but also as we anticipate Christmas and what it really means – the birth of our (my) Savior.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

Republicans in Congress are replicating mistakes Democrats made about seven years ago.

In the tax bill, now undergoing vetting among Republicans in the U.S Senate, they are talking only between and among themselves. Democrats, even some who might be willing to consider middle-of-the-road tax proposals, are shut out of the process.

That mimics what Democrats did with then-President Barack Obama when they produced Obama Care without one Republican vote.

As a former state lobbyist in Oregon, I say that is exactly one of the wrong ways to do the public’s business.

One side – either Republicans or Democrats – doesn’t have all the answers and should not behave as if they do.

What should matter is finding the smart middle ground. Not always the exact middle, but a compromise, which has become, unfortunately, a dirty word in politics these days.

It’s been 16 years since the last tax bill passed Congress and was signed by a president, George W. Bush, in his first year in office.

As Kimberley Strassel opines in the Wall Street Journal, “the Bush tax package was hardly as sweeping as today’s proposed reform, but it did contain similar provisions. It cut marginal rates across the board, even knocking nearly 5 points off the top marginal rate for the 1 per cent. It cut capital-gains taxes and lowered the estate tax to zero in 2010, before the reductions expired. These are all cuts that House and Senate Democrats today uniformly decry as giveaways to the rich and powerful.

“Yet back then,” Strassel continues, “nobody doubted some Democrats would support the legislation. Republicans barely commanded a Senate majority, with just 50 Senate votes, yet the tax-cut train rolled unswervingly on. Ultimately, 12 Senate Democrats voted yes. Some of these were moderate Democrats, a species that is now all but extinct— John Breaux of Louisiana, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Tim Johnson of South Dakota. But the ayes also included Dianne Feinstein from California and Bob Torricelli from New Jersey.”

The process 16 years ago may not have been pretty. Most efforts to develop compromise are not. But it was a process. Which is more than anyone can say these days as we watch one side, the Democrats, do damage with ObamaCare, then watch the other side, the Republicans, risk the same with tax reform. Getting even appears to be the main objective.

To those suggest that I appear to be more interested in process than substance, I say, “guilty.” For me, a solid process produces solid substance.

Further, it was telling for me that the Wall Street Journal endorsed the Senate tax package and the New York Times wrote an editorial opposing it. That means there is middle ground for the taking. Let’s hope those in Congress find it.