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.

This is one of five departments I run with a free hand to manage as I see fit, given my long career in top-level management positions.  Yes, a long career!

The other departments are the Department of Pet Peeves, the Department of “Just Saying,” the Department of Inquiring Minds Want to Know, and the Department of Words Matter.

So, now for new good quotes.

FROM A SALEM FREE CLINIC E-MAIL:  “We are so pleased and thankful when we look back on 2023. 

“With the generosity of our volunteers, donors, partners, and staff, we were able to provide move than 5,800 free patient appointments in 2023.

“This past year, we also teamed up with the Salem-Keizer School District to promote sports physicals as part of our services.  We were able to provide 185 such physicals to students who had no access or where otherwise unable to obtain one.

“We had the privilege of serving patients ranging from 1 years old to 97 years old.  Among many patients, 15 different languages were represented.  From Chuukese, to Spanish, to Swahili, we are proud that all are able to receive compassionate care, in their own language.”

COMMENT:  Salem Free Clinics is clearly one of the pieces of good news around Salem.  It was started by churches several years ago – churches like the one my wife and I have attended for 30 years, Salem Alliance.

More than 70 churches are involved supporting the clinic and helping to fund it in its main location at our church.

To me, it is a good story of “putting feet to the gospel of Christ,” because Christ loves ALL people.

FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES:  “Immigration has propelled the U.S. job market further than just about anyone expected, helping cement the country’s economic rebound from the pandemic as the most robust in the world.

“That momentum picked up aggressively over the past year.  About 50 per cent of the labor market’s extraordinary recent growth came from foreign-born workers between January 2023 and January 2024, according to an Economic Policy Institute analysis of federal data.

“And even before that, by the middle of 2022, the foreign-born labor force had grown so fast that it closed the labor force gap created by the pandemic, according to research from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.”

COMMENT:  I have written several times recently on the immigration issue, especially because Donald Trump and his ilk have turned the issue into a political one, not a substantive one based on fact.

Now the NY Times joins with another fact:  Immigrants are helping to fuel U.S. economic growth.

That should be recognized, but, also, not used as a shield by those in Congress to avoid doing something about the illegal immigrant issue.  They had a solution in their sights a couple weeks ago until Trump said he wanted no public policy solution so he could continue to play loose with facts on the campaign trail.

FROM PEGGY NOONAN IN THE WALL STREET JOURNAL:  “A man on CNN is reporting live from outside a polling place in suburban South Carolina and recounts a small story.  An 18-year-old man had just voted, and the election clerk called out, ‘Ladies and gentlemen we have a first-time voter.’  The room burst into applause.  ‘They say that’s a tradition here,’ the reporter said.  It touched me.

“All the networks had been showing all these normal Americans who showed up to vote, the people who make the country work, and interviewing them on the way in and out.  ‘I voted for Trump because . . .’  ‘I’m for Haley.’  All of them patient and good-natured with the media folk.

“I thought, not for the first time, that America has become an 80/20 country, with 80 per cent so sterling and responsible and constructive, taking part, keeping the whole edifice up and operating, of all faiths, colors and persuasions. 

“But we only pay attention to the 20 per cent because they make all the news — outrageousness of every sort, hurting people on the street or making threats on TikTok or acting out in every field, including politics, in some ignorant way.

“The 80 per cent never make news because they’re modestly doing what’s expected.  But we should never forget who we are, a good people, and by an overwhelming majority. That gets drowned out in the daily drumbeat.”

COMMENT:  Noonan looks on the bright side – and that’s worth doing on occasion with all the “bad news” going on around us, especially in politics. 

Good that she does this to remind us to remember that many Americans are trying to do the right thing these days, even as stupid Americans tend to get all the publicity.

FROM SALEM REPORTER, WITH ADDITIONS FROM ONE MY EARLIER BLOGS:  “Salem Reporter performed a solid public service a few days ago when it hosted an evening public seminar on the prolific use of guns in the Salem-Keizer community.

As chronicled by Salem Reporter Editor Les Zaitz, various citizens stopped him in the lobby of the Elsinore Theater, site of the event, to thank him for Salem Reporter’s initiative to arrange and host the Town Hall.

As Zaitz put it in a summary of the event:

“Really, it is those who attended or watched on TV who deserve the credit, not Salem Reporter.”

He went on:

“The amount of gun violence in Salem was the issue.

“Over the months, we’ve reported on gun crimes.  And we have provided details of the Salem Police Department’s analysis, but we judged it was time for more stories.” 

COMMENT:  And time for citizens of goodwill and solid intent to gather in one place to talk about the problem.

Zaitz said talking together and forthrightly can be the start of finding solutions in a very complicated issue.

As I wrote above, Salem Reporter performed a valuable public service by organizing and hosting the public forum.  Better than just standing by to watch more gun violence.

So, overall, kudos to these journalism outfits:  The New York Times for its report on immigration and the economy; the Washington Post for its report on an immigration test that sets the record straight on the facts, not the innuendo; Salem Reporter for its focus on gun control, and the Wall Street Journal for finding out that there is, at least on occasion, a bright side in politics.