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 to 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 my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as 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 could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

I have often said that, in retirement, I have a lot of time on my hands. 

Which is why I use some of that time to play golf or volunteer at golf tournaments around the Northwest.

It’s also why I have time every day to read the Oregonian newspaper, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the New York Times.  I am a newspaper junkie.

There, I run across strange comparisons.

One occurred this morning.

It arose in a column by David Von Drehle in the Washington Post and a story by Josh Dawsey in the Washington Post.

Here it is:

FROM VON DREHLE:  “Sooner or later, the leader makes a truly bad decision that springs reality from the prison of lies.  For Vladmir Putin, that bad decision is the invasion of Ukraine.  

“All of Russia is not as stupid as this decision would suggest — but the Russians who correctly perceived the patriotism of the Ukrainian people had no way to warn Putin.  The Russians who knew about the weakness of their army had no avenue to inform Putin.  The Russians who understood the latent strength of the West weren’t welcome around Putin.  The Russians familiar with the unpreparedness of the civilian reserves weren’t consulted by Putin.  All the leader heard was the groveling echo of his own misconceptions.

“That Putin is now blaming the sycophants he created for failing to bend reality to match his delusions was predictable.  One must be alert when walking in Moscow these days, given the hazard of plunging bureaucrats tossed from windows and chucked down stairways.”

FROM DAWSEY:  “As president, Donald Trump weighed bombing drug labs in Mexico after one of his leading public health officials came into the Oval Office, wearing a dress uniform, and said such facilities should be handled by putting “lead to target” to stop the flow of illicit substances across the border into the United States.

“He raised it several times, eventually asking a stunned Defense Secretary Mark Esper whether the United States could indeed bomb the labs,” according to a new book by New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman. White House officials said the official, Assistant Secretary for Health Brett Giroir, often wore his dress uniform for meetings with Trump, which confused him.

“The response from White House aides was not to try to change Trump’s view, but to consider asking Giroir not to wear his uniform to the Oval Office anymore,” Haberman writes in “Confidence Man,” an extensive book about Trump’s time in New York and as president.

“The 607-page book, which has long been awaited by many of Trump’s aides, is set to be published Tuesday.  A copy was obtained by The Washington Post.  The book details unusual and erratic interactions between Trump and world leaders, members of Congress and his own aides, along with behind-the-scenes accounts of his time as a businessman.”

Why did this comparison cross my mind?

At least a couple reasons.

1. Trump admires Putin and his ability to rise above any advice to do only what he wants to do at all times.  Thus, invading Ukraine. 
2. Like Putin, Trump was his own person in office, never accepting advice or counsel from anyone other than sycophants, like Giroir, who wanted only to please Trump.

Trump was in his cloister.  Apart from rational discussion about any public policy.  If he thought it and if he said, then it was right no matter countervailing evidence.

The fact that Trump hated to read anything, including the daily intelligence brief created for all presidents, only made his independence more dangerous.

And that’s exactly what we don’t need in the Oval Office – another term for Trump, the epitome of a narcissist.

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 to 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 my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as 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 could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

It doesn’t take a brilliant mind to grasp the reality of this blog headline. 

Thus, my mind qualifies.

If, in government, “public discourse” means the ability to have reasonable discussions about pressing public policy challenges, then we appear to have lost that ability – in Oregon and nationally.

The loss applies to both Republicans and Democrats.

Republicans repudiate all things government, led by the clown, Donald Trump. 

Democrats endorse all things government, led, on one hand, by President Joe Biden, and, on another hand, by Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (who strikes me as the Democrat’s answer to Trump).

Wall Street Journal commentator Gerard Baker, retired executive editor of the newspaper, made these points in an on-line column this morning.  [In the spirit of full disclosure, Baker is not my favorite columnist as he writes in retirement.  But, that does not mean that I don’t read – or sometimes agree with – what he writes…which, come to think of it, relates to what appears below, the need for improved discourse.

The sub-head of Baker’s piece:  “Our leaders of both parties now seem free to utter things completely at odds with reality and logic.”

He continued:

“If I had to pick the most worrying characteristic of our current dystopia, I would choose the unsettling disconnect between the seriousness of the challenges we face and the public discourse that is supposed to be addressing them.

“A perilous war rages in Europe, as a failing tyrant with nuclear weapons launches desperate new waves of cannon fodder against a nation whose defense we are financing and reinforcing.  In Asia, the emerging Chinese superpower is in the throes of a significant economic and social upheaval that may propel it toward the full-scale confrontation it increasingly threatens with Taiwan, an island whose people we are pledged to defend.

“At home we are caught in the worst of economic traps — as the Federal Reserve inflicts unavoidable monetary pain to kill the surging inflation incurred by its avoidable mistake.  Meanwhile the global economy seems to be sliding into a potentially serious recession, and financial markets are eroding our wealth at a dizzying pace.”

At a time when Baker says there is a “need for quiet, calm deliberation,” the current conversation sounds “like the game room of a psychiatric institution.”

“This isn’t a partisan point,” Baker adds.  “Both sides are only too eager to point out the mania in the other’s rhetorical obsessions but deny the delusion in their own.  So secure are they in the knowledge that their supporters will stand by whatever they say that our leaders now seem free to utter things completely at odds with reality and logic.”

Current problems in public discourse go well beyond political rhetoric, Baker says.

“Our larger discourse is dominated by cultural authorities who want us to believe things that the human mind rebels against — that there is no such thing as biological sex, that the way to fight past discrimination is with present discrimination, that not punishing crime is the way to prevent crime, that words can mean whatever they tell us they mean.  These are the nostrums of the dominant progressives in our culture, but we shouldn’t kid ourselves that conservatives aren’t also susceptible to impossible ideas and implausible theories.”

Further, modern technology has created platforms that elevate extreme voices.  Look only at Trump and his minions or Ocasio-Cortez and her’s.

Baker concludes: 

“It’s inescapable that part of the answer lies in the collapse of the traditional institutions of authority.  The stability of the two-parent family, the primacy of faith and the cohesion of a wider community not only conferred an order on people’s lives but established a larger sovereignty of truth on them.  Loving but firm parental leadership, the eternal verities of religion, the obligations to a wider social unit of shared values imposed a structure of epistemic guardrails.

“It is not that this structure constrained us all to believe the same things, religiously, politically or otherwise, but it established the prior understanding that there is such a thing as a higher truth that mocks propositions and ideas that defy it.”

This is a good summary of what bothers me about the current state of politics.  Lying comes naturally to those in public office, as well as to many voters.

Seemingly, there is no middle ground.  No ability.  Not just to talk, but to LISTEN to what others have to say and consider whether what they say raises questions about your own viewpoint.

That’s what middle ground is – the area where consensus and agreement can occur.

And it appears to be unalterably lost in politics today, a sad commentary.

So, I say to those running for election and to those voting in the election, bring me middle ground!

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 to 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 my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as 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 could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Does the status of Oregon’s death penalty factor in to your decision on how to vote in the upcoming gubernatorial election?

For me, it doesn’t.  For some others, it might.

The reason is that what Oregon’s governor thinks about the death penalty affects whether that penalty will go into effect here.

Though the death penalty is law in Oregon, no individual has been put to death here for about 25 years.

The reason:  Two governors – John Kitzhaber and Kate Brown – have declared a moratorium on use of the most extreme penalty under law, death.  Both were unalterably opposed to the death penalty and expressed their view with the moratorium.  They just said they would not preside over implementation of the law.

So, the question arises, with a new governor taking office in 2023, what will happen to the death penalty?

For the answer, I rely on one of the best journalistic enterprises in Oregon, Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB).  In the spirit of full disclosure, I represented OPB when I worked as a lobbyist and it was a pleasure to do so.  My old firm still holds OPB as a client.

So, what did OPB write in its on-line edition?  This.

“For more than a decade, Oregon governors have placed a moratorium on capital punishment, despite a long-standing, voter-approved constitutional amendment that allows the state to kill people convicted of the most serious crimes.

“Oregon’s next governor has the power to decide whether to maintain the moratorium of their predecessors, or revoke it, opening up the possibility of the state carrying out death sentences once more.

“’As long as the death penalty remains a possibility, there’s always the possibility of an execution,’ says Jeff Ellis, director of the Oregon Capital Resource Center, which assists attorneys representing people sentenced to death.

OPB asked all three gubernatorial candidates:  If elected governor, would you continue or repeal the current moratorium on the death penalty?  Why?

The three candidates responded in writing. Their complete, unedited answers were carried by OPB and are reprinted below.

Former Oregon House minority leader Christine Drazan, the Republican candidate for governor, indicated she would lift the moratorium, but not approve every execution:

“I am personally opposed to the death penalty, but the death penalty was put in place by Oregon voters.  I will follow the law by reviewing cases on a case-by-case basis, which is my duty as governor.  Rather than setting aside the law, I will act based on the facts and fulfill my duty within the confines of my conscience.”

Former speaker of the Oregon House, Tina Kotek, who is running as a Democrat for governor, said she would keep the moratorium in place:

“Oregon has not followed through on the death penalty in over 25 years, and as governor, I would continue the current moratorium.  I am personally opposed to the death penalty because of my religious beliefs.”

Former Democrat State Senator Betsy Johnson, who is running as an unaffiliated candidate, said she would allow the state to carry out executions:

“As governor, I will enforce Oregon’s death penalty in cases where a judge or jury deems it appropriate for a heinous crime.  Oregonians have twice voted on and affirmed our death penalty.  It’s time for liberal politicians to stop trying to overturn it or subvert it by letting dangerous criminals out of prison.”

Recent changes by the Legislature and rulings by the Oregon Supreme Court have resulted in fewer people on Oregon’s death row. Since 2019, the number of people sentenced to die in Oregon declined from 28 to 20, according to the Oregon Department of Corrections.

Oregonians, based  on voting records, have mixed views on capital punishment.  It has been both banned and approved over the years.

Voters approved a constitutional amendment in 1984, once again adopting capital punishment.  Since then, two people in Oregon have been put to death.  Others have waited for execution dates that never came.

In 2019, Oregon lawmakers voted to re-define and narrow the types of offenses that constitute aggravated murder, the only charge that carries a death sentence.  As a result, capital offenses are limited to people convicted of murdering a law-enforcement officer, carrying out a terrorist attack that kills at least two people, murdering a child younger than 14, or killing someone in prison while serving time for a murder conviction.

Even if the moratorium in Oregon was lifted, experts say executions would not resume immediately because, in the cases of prisioners now on death row, appeals have not run their course.

Finally, my view:  I do not support the death penalty because, over the years around the country, mistakes have been made – and, obviously, there is no way to recover from those mistakes.  True, gruesome crimes deserve a severe punishment, but, for me, life in prison without parole constitutes that just punishment.

A friend of mine, who once served as Oregon’s chief justice added weight to this view when he said that the cost of keeping someone in prison for life did not add up to what the cost would be of appeals in death penalty cases. 
There are reasons other than money to hold views on the death penalty, but the former chief’s analysis was compelling for me.   

Now, as for voting for governor later this fall, positions on the death penalty, at most, will be a secondary or tertiary issue for me.  As I decide how to vote, I’ll care about the entire records of the three candidates, not any “single issue.”

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 to 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 my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as 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 could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

I continue to be stunned by:

• The necessity for no less a seasoned commentator than New York Times Chief Editor Joseph Kahn to write this week that “democracy is under attack.”  It is unusual for the chief editor to make such a pronouncement.  He said he had ample reasons for doing so.

• The continuing duplicity of Donald Trump and his minions.  This week, Trump held a rally to court QAnon weirdos to his aide, another in a long time of disingenuous actions by a clown who wants to be president again.  And, his courtship occurred as he comes under increasing legal jeopardy for, among other things, inflating the value of his properties when it came time to get loans and deflating those same properties when it came time to pay taxes.

Kahn’s major column a couple days ago appeared under this headline: “Democracy challenged; Representative Government Faces Its Most Serious Threat in Decades.”

He wrote:

“This is an election unlike any we’ve experienced in recent decades.  Not only do candidates of both major parties in the United States have starkly different views on the pressing issues of the day, including climate change, war, taxes, abortion, education, gender and sexual identity, immigration, crime, and the role of government in American life.

“They also disagree on democracy itself, especially one of its central pillars – willingness to accept defeat at the polls.”

His reference was to recent comments by many Republicans who said they would not accept defeat at the polls.  So, I ask them, why conduct an election in the first place; why not coronate them and move on?

Meanwhile, at the Trump rally in Ohio, the former president closed his speech to the strains of a melody widely associated with the QAnon conspiracy movement, which holds that the government is run by a secret cabal of satanic pedophiles.

As reported by Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank:

“En masse, audience fully extended their right arms and pointed their index fingers as Trump proclaimed them to be ‘one movement,” apparently echoing the name of the QAnon song they were hearing, with the theme – ‘where we one, we go all.’”

The one-arm salutes reminded some of the “Heil Hitler” salutes of the Nazi era in Germany.

So, Trump is courting QAnon, “despite clear evidence that the paranoid madness (the QAnon fantasy ends in Trump’s opponents being executed) inspires violence.”

Well, at first blush, my notion is this:  QAnon weirdos and Trump deserve each other.  They have nowhere else to turn but to blame someone for something as they seek to aggrandize themselves.  It’s what narcissists do. 

But, a second notion arrives.  What Trump is doing is very dangerous territory, bordering on sedition, if not already there.  No doubt, that won’t bother him. 

It bothers me.

And, as Kahn writes, American democracy is, in fact, under attack.

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 to 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 my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as 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 could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

The headline on this blog appeared on a column by Jennifer Rubin that appeared this morning in the Washington Post.

Because I agree wholeheartedly with Rubin’s point – genuine Christians should never tolerate actions by two governors (Greg Abbott in Texas and Ron DeSantis in Florida) to send migrants to Washington, D.C. and Martha’s Vineyard, respectively, to score political points.

Abbott and DeSantis deserve ridicule for their nefarious actions.  And the migrants involved deserve our genuine sympathy, plus our resolve to help the less fortunate, a key tenet of Christianity.

Here is Rubin’s column:

**********

You don’t need to be an expert in theology to know that a central tenet of the world’s major religions is to care for the sick, the weak and the vulnerable.

Jews, who have been perpetual immigrants, hold dear to the Torah’s invocation: “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.” (Lev. 19:33-34).

So too for Christians. When it came to the treatment of the stranger and other vulnerable people, Jesus told his disciples, “Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.” (Matt. 25:40).

How did we get from there to a movement — dominated by people who declare the United States to be a Christian nation — that celebrates reports of government officials tricking immigrants into getting onto a plane and sending them hundreds of miles away as part of a partisan campaign of fear, demagoguery, and xenophobia?

One could simply write off these Republicans and their leaders, such as Governors Ron DeSantis of Florida and Greg Abbott of Texas, as hypocrites.  But that does not quite get to the heart of the matter.

This insidious phenomenon is the result of white supremacy burrowing its way into Christian churches and political movements. Robert P. Jones, president of the Public Religion Research Institute, explained in a recent speech the fundamental flaw of this ideology:  “That America was divinely ordained to be a Promised Land for European Christians, a kind of new Zion. A model for the rest of the world.  And underneath that vision, its implied presupposition was that White people were superior to all other races because they were the bearers of ‘civilization’ and Christianity.  This is the logic of white supremacy and domination.”

If one believes that construct, then the White southerners are perpetual victims, forced to endure the presence of Black and Brown people and subjected to indignity by secular elites.  Sending invaders (read: non-White people) North, in their eyes, is simply score-settling.

Now, not all Christians or Americans of faith buy into this claptrap. The Church World Service, a group devoted to providing refugee services with representatives from 17 Christian denominations, put out a scathing statement after DeSantis sent 50 immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard. It denounced the “divisive and harmful actions” of moving migrants across the country without notice to local communities to allow them to prepare for the arrivals.

The statement went on to condemn “inflicting cruelty and harm on vulnerable people who are seeking safety by using them as political pawns.” It continued:

As a faith-based organization, we believe that all of humankind is created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), and all people should be treated with compassion as they seek protection. The history of anti-refugee, anti-family, anti-immigrant, anti-children actions and rhetoric by Governors Abbott and DeSantis have inflicted pain on the vulnerable, the least of these.

Instead of playing into their unjust and unethical actions that do not represent our nation’s values, our national, state, and local leaders should equip our communities with the resources they need to ensure new arrivals have access to food, clothing, shelter, legal orientation, medical care, dignified transportation, and other case management services.” . . .

“The acts of Governor Abbott and Governor DeSantis in this case are morally atrocious, especially in light of our sacred scriptures in Matthew 25 that call on us to see the face of Christ in the migrant and all those fleeing persecution,” added Rev. Noel Andersen, director for Grassroots Organizing at CWS.

The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society has also denounced “the choice to treat people like packages.”  A HIAS official pointed out, “The U.S. government has granted permission to every single person on these buses and planes to be in the United States and to seek asylum.  After getting off the bus, many have no idea where they are.  They have immediate emergency housing, health, and legal needs.”

The mainstream media have put a greater focus on whether laws might have been broken and what legal recourse these migrants might have. CNN reports “the migrants’ attorneys said that brochures given to their clients were ‘highly misleading’ and ‘used to entice (their) clients to travel under the guise that (resettlement) support was available to them. The brochure lists refugee services, including cash and housing assistance, clothing, transportation to job interviews, job training and assistance registering children for school, among other resources.”

But whether state or federal laws were broken or taxpayer money misused, these political stunts will be as much a stain on our nation as the previous administration’s child separation policy. If this were a foreign country, the media might treat this as a human rights violation, a repudiation of the obligation to attend to the needs of asylum seekers and an injury to the nation’s standing around the world. That might be a good place to start examining how self-described Christians rationalize the abuse of human beings.

**********

There, the full column.  Good words.  Good analysis.  Good summary of  real Christian values.

DID THE WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE SHOW US THE FACE OF GOD?

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 to 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 my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as 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 could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

An editorial writer for the Arizona Republica wrote a thought-provoking piece the other day that made this statement:

“Peering into deep outer space, images from some 13 billion years ago, stirs not only our wonderment, but also takes us on a journey of spirituality.”

The writer, Phil Boas, was talking about the Webb Telescope, which has transmitted incredible images back to earth from far farther than the Hubble Telescope before it.

Boas asked this probing question in the headline – “Did the Webb Telescope show us the face of God?”

He went on:

“How infinitesimally small are we? 

“We are so small our brains lack the processing power to answer the question.

“So small that on Monday morning we attended to the mundane, the things our primitive minds could manage:  Eggs for breakfast, food and water for the dog and then, at the very outer edges of our comprehension, $5.50 for a gallon of gas.

“Then came news of something we can never fully comprehend, an image so astonishing it provokes the biggest questions:

“Who are we?”

“Where are we?”

“Are we alone?”

“Is there a God?”

Beyond those questions, here are just a few of the incredible facts Boas included in his column:

• “…what a patch of sky!  It includes a massive cluster of galaxies about four billion light-years away that astronomers use as a kind of cosmic telescope.  The cluster’s enormous gravitation field acts as a lens, warping and magnifying the light from galaxies behind it that would otherwise be too faint and faraway to see.”
• Through the Webb Telescope, mankind is seeing extremely distant galaxies “that stretch back to the beginning of time.  It’s a galaxy-finding machine.”
• A lonely speck in the cosmic dark:  This is the oldest documented light in the history of the universe from 13 billion years — let me say that again — 13 billion years ago.
• A billion is a number so large it is essentially an abstraction to the human mind.  Light that has traveled 13 billion light-years requires context so we can begin to understand it – see the next bullet.  
• Light moves at a speed of 670.6 million miles per hour.  A beam of light can travel approximately 6 trillion miles in a single earth year, according to Space.com.  At that speed, you could travel around the Earth 7.5 times in a single second.
• The numbers are staggering.  Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, is about 100,000 light-years across and contains some 100-400 billion stars, according to NASA.  Its size is too big to comprehend, but, within the context of the larger universe, it is smaller than a grain of sand.
• One of our neighboring galaxies is Andromeda. It is 220,000 light-years wide.  More than twice the size of our own.
• How many galaxies do you think there are?  NASA estimates 2 trillion. And if you can wrap your brain around that, ask yourself this question:  How many planets are there in all those galaxies?
• Too many planets to comprehend:  Roughly 700 quintillion — that’s 7 followed by 20 zeroes — 700,000,000,000,000,000,000.

My mind is boggled by these statistics, not to mention the photos produced by the telescope.  In the face of these numbers and photos, my eyes glaze over, not just my mind.

Then, to regain my composure, I return to my basic premise, a choice I presume to make:   It is that God created all of what we see and cannot see –-  and I admire his handiwork, at least what I can understand of it.

And, more good news:  We can have a personal relationship with this very big God.

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 to 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 my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as 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 could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

When talking about Donald Trump and those who copy his stupidity, it is tough to do what this blog headline does, which is limit the number to two.

But, in this case, two is the right number.

It refers to two stupid governors – Greg Abbott in Texas and Ron DeSantis in Florida – who thought they had a great idea:  Pay government money to transport immigrants from their states elsewhere to put those “elsewheres” under pressure.

The Washington Post put it this way in relation to the destination DeSantis chose, Martha’s Vineyard:

“It was a political stunt meant to embarrass a vacation enclave known for attracting liberal, A-list celebrities.

“With reportedly no warning to local officials, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis surprised the island of Martha’s Vineyard by sending two planes filled with about 50 migrants, many of them from Venezuela.  The migrants said they were promised jobs, housing and education in an undisclosed location.  Unable to read or speak English, most didn’t even know where they were when they landed.

“It’s all part of an ongoing shift-and-dump campaign from Southern Republican governors who are using desperate people as political pawns to protest the Biden Administration’s immigration policies.  It happened again when Texas Governor Greg Abbott claimed credit for sending two surprise buses full of migrants to D.C., where they were dropped off near the residence of Vice President Kalama Harris, carrying all they had in clear plastic trash bags.”

Atlantic Magazine characterized De Santis’ action as “cartoonish,” apparently rising from his misguided belief that liberal Bay Staters are just as racist as the Republican MAGA-base voters he’s trying to woo, and that they would prove it by reacting with outrage when a bunch of Latin Americans showed up on their doorstep.

Instead of producing pressure, DeSantis and Abbott wound up highlighting an outpouring of humanity.

Michelle Norris wrote this in the Washington Post:

“When people speak of Martha’s Vineyard, they usually refer to sprawling beaches, spectacular homes and marquee names such as the Obamas, the Clintons, Seth Meyers or Spike Lee.  The island is known for its wealth, and, to be sure, there is a lot of that.  But there is another Martha’s Vineyard that people don’t know much about, and it was on full display this week.

“Yes, there are Land Rovers and yachts here, but the Vineyard is primarily an island of farms and fishermen, a year-round population that lives close to the land and in many cases works hard to make ends meet.

“It’s an island that seesaws between overwork and underemployment. It’s a place where everything — gas, food, housing, toothpaste, you name it — costs more than it does on the mainland.  It’s a place where 1 in 6 year-round residents is a registered user of the Island Food Pantry and one-third of school-children receive free or reduced-price lunch.

“It’s a place where organized groups go “gleaning” each week, picking produce left behind by farming machines so it can be used in the food pantry.

“It’s a place where a free supper is held almost every night in one of the island churches during the winter months when seasonal work related to tourism has dried up, so no one has to go hungry.”

It’s also a place, Norris added, that has, over many decades, opened its arms to various waves of immigrants, and it did so again even when it had no warning of the coming influx.

An emergency shelter was opened within hours — finding food, clothing, inflatable beds, children’s toys, feminine hygiene products, linens and volunteer interpreters who speak Spanish.

In other words, Martha’s Vineyard residents did what rational citizens would do, which is to help those in need.  Folks in Washington, D.C. also responded well in response to Abbott’s action.

Actions by Abbott and DeSantis are bizarre.  They illustrate that they cannot help but take stupid political actions they believe will energize their bases – not actions to deal with the reality that immigrants want a better life in America.

And, those bases? 

They are the so-called “MAGA Republicans,” a group of Americans who support Trump, reject the outcome of the 2020 election, and are open to political violence as a tactic to achieve their desired ends.

By the way, what do the initials stand for?  Well, “Make America Great Again,” a favorite phrase of Trump, which achieves exactly the opposite.

Nowhere was this stupidity more evident than when Trump and his minions – or, if you prefer, acolytes and sycophants – did what still today stands as a horrible, tragic act:  Separating children from their parents at the southern border and jailing or otherwise sequestering those parents from their children.  Many of the families still have not been reunited.

So, upon reflection, the headline in this blog uses wrong words:  “Two Clowns.”

DeSantis and Abbot aren’t clowns.  Their actions don’t prompt laughter.  From me, they prompt derision – and that should stand for all of us.

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 to 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 my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as 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 could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

The best answer to the question is the headline is…“perhaps.”

Conventional wisdom – and, remember, convention it’s not always wrong – is that voters begin paying attention after Labor Day.

Well, it’s after Labor Day.

Not sure everyone is paying attention yet, but, if they were, they would know that, (a) there are three candidates bidding to take over from the current governor, Kate Brown, who is term limited, (b) it is not clear yet who would be favored to win come November, and (b) a third-party candidate has a genuine chance to win this time around.

The candidates are:

• Christine Drazan, the Republican
• Tina Kotek, the Democrat
• Betsy Johnson, the Independent

All are veterans of state government in one way or the other.  Drazan was most recently Republican Leader in the Oregon House; Kotek was the long-standing Speaker of the Oregon House; and Johnson was a long-serving Democrat in the Oregon Senate.  All resigned from those jobs to run for governor.

The Salem Statesman-Journal carried an interesting article yesterday asking each candidate what the biggest problem is in state government and what they would do first to fix it, if they got elected.  Here are excerpts of their answers:

Tina Kotek:  “We need to hold all levels of government accountable for delivering on the promises they make.  That will require breaking down silos and increasing communication among federal, state, and local leaders so we can actually work together to tackle our biggest challenges.

“The biggest problem in state government right now is that agencies can’t get grant money out the door fast enough to the organizations who want to help people, specifically Measure 110 resources to help people suffering from addiction.  I will fix this by installing new leadership, streamlining contracting practices, and keeping a close eye on outcomes.”

Christine Drazan:  “I find it ironic that my two opponents are suddenly extraordinarily critical of our state government.  They have been in positions of extreme power for the past decade.  If they felt like things were broken, why didn’t they do something about it?

“We need to rebuild our state agencies from the ground up.  I will fire Kate Brown’s agency heads and appoint leadership that shares my commitment to customer service, transparency, and accountability to the people of

Betsy Johnson:  “The two parties, dominated by their ideological extremes, would rather fight than find common ground.  I will take the best ideas and best people from both parties to move us forward.  I will demand bi-partisan support for legislation, budgets, and appointments.  No longer will one party run roughshod over the other.  Diverse voices will be included — no matter your politics or zip code.”

I’ll let you be the judge of these answers.  But I do hope – and, for my part, intend – to keep my eyes and ears open as the campaigns take more shape.

Well, there is at least one group that is paying attention to the race.  The Republican Governor’s Association (RGA) dropped another $1 million into Drazan’s campaign a day or so ago, thus bringing the total up to $2.6 million.  In other words, the RGA believes Drazan has a chance to win and, if she does, she would be first Republican governor since Vic Atiyeh more than 35 years ago.

Meanwhile, the Kotek and Johnson campaigns continue to raise campaign cash, including a large campaign from Nike’s Phil Knight to Johnson. Kotek’s go-to source is Oregon’s public employee unions.

I also wish there would soon be an independent poll conducted by a reputable pollster that would give us a handle on the race – at least for a horserace perspective.  So far, all we have are polls conducted by one side, or the other, or the other.  Nothing on which to rely.

But, then, of course, the most reliable course for all of us is to focus on how to vote and then vote that way, no matter what advance polls say.  The best poll is the one taken at the election.

And this footnote:  The intention, announced above by one candidate, to fire state agency heads may sound good and it is may actually be smart politically in some quarters.  But, the fact is that agency heads and their key deputies serve “at the pleasure” of any governor, so their resignation letters, figurately at least, are in the governor’s desk drawer at all times.

At one point, with my resignation “in his desk,” a new governor fired me when I was deputy director of the Oregon Economic Development many years ago.  I moved on.

I do wish that, in a new gubernatorial administration, existing agency heads would be exposed to tough questions by a new governor and her top staff, and then, (a) if they passed, (b) if their previous service records were generally acceptable, and (c) if they indicated they would be pleased to work in the new administration, they then would have a chance to keep their jobs.  Quality experience matters.

So, start watching as the Oregon gubernatorial sweepstakes continues.

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 to 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 my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as 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 could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

A version of this headline appeared on a story in the Wall Street Journal.

Yes, it was about “gavel bashing.”

What’s that?

Well, as the article put it:  “Vexed city, county and school board officials resort to bashing (their wooden gavels) to restore order in unruly times.”

The Journal writer, Jacob Gershman, wrote this:

“There is no Guinness World Record for the most banging of a gavel by a local government official.  But a Hinds County Board of Supervisors meeting last year in Mississippi was surely one for the history books.

“The gathering began civilly enough with an invocation and the Pledge of Allegiance.  Then, in protest of an agenda item, County Supervisor David Archie raised a makeshift gavel he bought at Home Depot and proceeded to pound it hundreds of times.  A local newspaper called it a ‘gavel-pounding rampage.’”

As someone who has used a gavel to chair meetings, I would add that banging it is rarely a solid way to maintain order.  Using a gavel is usually a perfunctory way to start meetings or change agenda items in mid-stream.  It should be combined with reasonable attempts, in words, to encourage committee or commission members to retain order.

Easier said than done in these days of yelling and screaming by some who want to get their way, especially in government circles.  No doubt they have learned from one Donald Trump who has made yelling and screaming a fine art.

The Wall Street Journal story went on:

“The wooden gavel may be best known as a symbol of the legal profession and a prop for reality show judges.  But in these unruly times, the gavel has become an emblem of civic disorder.  Footage from local government meetings shows vexed city, county and school board officials bashing their gavels, sometimes so hard they splinter, to enforce silence, parliamentary procedure, and civil debate.

“Officials wielding the gavel call it a primitive but useful tool to gain control of the room when Robert’s Rules fly out the window.  Those on the receiving end bristle at all the banging.

“’In a well-functioning polity, the gavel is a symbol of a community that allows debate and respects difference,’ said Stephen David Reicher, a professor of social psychology at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. ‘The gavel is saying, let’s listen to each other,’ he said.  ‘The contesting of the gavel is precisely about the splintering of that sense of community.’”

So, for me, no gavel bashing.

And, I say that as the current of the Oregon Government Ethics Commission where, yes, I have a gavel, but use it sparingly.

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 to 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 my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as 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 could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

I cannot.

Believe it, that is.

I remember exactly where I was when word came across the television that planes had crashed into the World Trade Center towers.  No one new whether it was a plane that had good off-line or something intentional.  Of course, turned out to be the latter. 

Remembering 9/11 is like when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated or when Americans first walked on the moon.  I remember exactly where I was.

For 9/11, I was with a lobbyist friend over in Central Oregon for a political fundraising golf tournament.  Before we were scheduled to tee off, we went into the pro shop and couldn’t believe what we were seeing on the TV.

A better word — stunned, even though, as I said above, we didn’t have much good information at the moment.  But what we saw created an indelible image, one that lives to this very day.

Think of the good word “indelible.”  Here’s what it means:

“That that cannot be removed, washed away, or erased.”

Exactly.

My friend and I immediately called our wives back home in Salem, Oregon who also had seen the TV coverage and were just trying to adjust to it.  My friend’s wife was a grade school principal in Salem, so, to support her as she dealt with young kids in class, she asked him to come home.

Without question, he did.  And we did.

Of course, 21 years later, we know much more than we did at the time.

In the Washington Post, columnist David Van Drehle wrote under this headline:

21 YEARS AFTER 9/11, THE WAR HAS NOT ENDED FOR ANYONE

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“Twenty-one years after the destruction of the World Trade Center towers in Lower Manhattan, one can ask whether the United States has yet learned the principal lesson of that shocking, savage day.  It is a lesson well-known to military planners, yet hard for a nation with allies on its borders and oceans at its sides to believe bone-deep.

“In the starting and ending of wars, the letting of blood and the waging of battle, the enemy has a vote.  The day that has come to be known as 9/11 began a war only for us; for the enemy, the war had been raging for years. The little army of Osama bin Laden had hit American embassies in Africa, bombed a U.S. naval ship atAden Harbor in Yemen, even signaled its intentions to destroy the twin towers by planting a truck bomb in a World Trade Center garage in 1993.

“The audacity of 9/11 — using 19 al-Qaeda fighters,civilian lives and lakes of jet fuel to carry out a massively destructive attack — finally convinced Americans that we were at war.  And for the next 20 years, we fought until we tired of the idea.”

Every president going back to George W. Bush wanted to end the awful business.  Barack Obama promised to wrap things up.  Donald Trump also promised to wrap things up and negotiated the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan.  President Biden completed the withdrawal in ugly fashion just in time for the 20th anniversary of 9/11.

But, Von Drehle adds, “we no more control the ending of the war than we controlled the beginning.  With the drone-strike killing of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in July, the known enemy commanders of 9/11 are all captured or dead.  Yet, the enemy has morphed and migrated.  The war has not ended for the Islamic State or for other violent jihadist groups around the world. It hasn’t ended for the governments offering them support and encouragement.”

Therefore, the war has not ended for us.

And, it’s impossible, Von Drehle writes, when the “War on Terror,” as it was named by President Bush, will end.  Mostly, that war goes on behind-the-scenes and often at night as America’s highly-skilled commandos and special operation forces work to end terror.

This kind of war takes a physical, mental and emotion toll for those who fight it and it is important for all of us to recognize the work they do on our behalf, even, if, as was the case with 9/11, we don’t see it every day.

As another 9/11 anniversary comes and goes, we owe allegiance to those who died on that terrible – at the Twin Towers, at the Pentagon, or the field in Pennsylvania – as well as to those who protect us day and night at their own risk.