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 written about this before as we have watched protests waggle across the country from college to college.

Protesters, some of whom are genuine and some of whom are motivated by professional protesters, are concerned, in some way or form, about conditions in the Middle East, either pro-Israeli or pro-Palestine.  Many of the protesters describe themselves as “pro-Palestine.”

For me, protests recall two things:

• As a lobbyist for about 25 years at the State Capitol in Salem, Oregon, I saw a lot of protests.  Most of them amounted to just that – protests that did not achieve much in the way of change.  Those who protested on the steps of the State Capitol may have gotten media coverage, but not much else.

• As a graduating college student in 1970, I saw Vietnam War protests, not necessarily at “my” campus, Seattle Pacific College, but around the country.  And, it would not be an exaggeration to say those protests accomplished something – emphasizing an unjust War and even helping to prompt the task of bringing it to a conclusion, so more lives would not be lost in pursuit of who knows what.

During that same period, I also watched civil rights protests, often led by Martin Luther King, and those protests, usually non-violent, played a major role in emphasizing an important subject – civil rights for ALL Americans, regardless of the color of their skin.

Here are a couple other protest comments recently.

• From Oregon Public Broadcasting/In the spring of 1970, the Portland State University campus had been a hive of anti-Vietnam War activity for months.

But things got hot on May 11 when Portland Mayor Terry Schrunk ordered police to forcibly remove protesters from a collection of tents and makeshift barricades in the Park Blocks. About 30 demonstrators were injured.

This was just a week after national guardsmen opened fire on students during an anti-war demonstration at Kent State University in Ohio, killing four and wounding nine others.

As a resident of Seattle, Washington, at the time, I was not on-hand in Oregon to see and hear about this, but, from afar off, I did watch the Portland mayor bring the protest to the an end for fear of injuries to the general public.

• From the Wall Street Journal:  Protesters on college campuses in the 1960s and ‘70s are watching a familiar story play out.

Back then, student demonstrators denounced the Vietnam War and marched for civil rights.  They made a long list of demands.  Police arrested them.

Today, pro-Palestinian protesters have disrupted campus life at universities across the U.S.  They have their own demands, including colleges divesting themselves of investments in companies doing business with Israel.  Thousands have been arrested.

Regarding the pro-Palestine protests, only time will tell whether they achieve their objective.

And, then this from the Wall Street Journal, drawing on a law in Ohio (and elsewhere) that hearkens back to KKK protests:

“Campus protesters may be enjoying the spring weather in their encampments, but, in some states, they will need to wave their Palestinian flags with masks off.  In a letter to university presidents last week, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost reminded them that the state has a law against those who use masks to disguise their identity.

Masks worn today “to harass Jews are no different than those that were once worn to intimidate blacks or the Catholics who were also a Klan target.  Masks have been a disturbing element of the campus protests because they add a menacing element to anti-semetic slogans and chants.”

The Journal also congratulated the University of Chicago for its efforts to “control” – my word – protests on its campus.  The effort stems from this logical, sensible statement, as chronicled in a column by the Journal’s William Galston:

“The committee (one created by the university) stated that the university may restrict expression that violates the law, defames individuals, or constitutes a ‘genuine threat or harassment, that invades protected privacy or confidentiality, or is incompatible with the functioning of the university.”

Good statement.  I wish all colleges and universities would follow it.