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 of 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.

My wife and I are caught in an Omicron Covid limbo as are many others around the country.

For us, the limbo is this:

• We were exposed to our son who came down with what appears to be Omicron.
• Here in La Quinta, California, we managed to stand in line to get a Covid test, but are now waiting for results.
• We wandered around town yesterday – with masks on, I emphasize – to try to find “at home Covid tests” at various pharmacies.  None was available.
• Now, like many others, we wonder how to go about life in this limbo, while our intent is to avoid infecting others if it turns out we have the virus.
• But, if there is good news, it is that neither my wife nor I have any virus symptoms, at least insofar as we – individuals without health care credentials — can tell.

Here is the way the Wall Street Journal wrote about this country-wide limbo issue this morning:

“Stephanie Chen has been working in the office in Orange County, Calif., each day, taking her 5-year-old son to school, attending church, and going about her routine for nine days, all while wondering if she is positive for Covid-19.

“When Ms. Chen learned that her cousin’s entire family tested positive for the virus after a Christmas gathering she attended with them in Orange County, pharmacies were sold out of rapid tests.  Lines exceeded two hours at a local testing site.  A Rite Aid website said no appointments were available within 50 miles of her home for at least two weeks.

“Ms. Chen, 38, who isn’t symptomatic, tried to order a home-delivered PCR test through a Los Angeles County program, but so far hasn’t even received confirmation it is on its way.  “I’m just frustrated because they’re telling us, ‘Go test, go test,’ but how do you do that if the resources aren’t available?” Ms. Chen said.”

Soaring demand around the country makes lab-based and at-home tests hard to come by, just as we found out in yesterday’s around-the-town foray.

The Biden Administration says it has ordered millions of new tests, but no one knows for sure when or how they will become available, though I add this excerpt a story in the Washington Post this morning:

“The White House is finalizing details with the U.S. Postal Service to deliver 500 million coronavirus test kits to households across the country.  The Administration will launch a website allowing individuals to request the rapid tests.  Officials aim to begin shipping the kits by mid-January.”

While the at-home tests are due to arrive fairly soon, many people, at the moment, are forsaking tests, leaving them unable to determine whether they are infected or are potentially exposing others.  

So, we remain in limbo, hoping against hope that we will find a way out soon.

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 of 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.

Remember what you were doing last January 6?

I do.  I was watching and hearing an insurrection by a group of so-called Americans trying to overthrow the government.

So, on this anniversary of January 6, I started my day, as I usually do, by reading two major U.S. newspapers – the Wall Street Journal that operates from the right center and the Washington Post that operates from the left center.

In this way, I read ideas that help me come up with my own views.

So it was this morning – the anniversary of the events January 6, 2021 — that I read both newspapers.

The result?  Predictably, two views.  They didn’t necessarily conflict.  They just came to different conclusions as we commemorate a fateful anniversary.

Here is a quick summary of the two views:

FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL:  “Democracyisn’t dying.  January 6 was a riot, not an insurrection, and U.S. institutions held.

“The Capitol riot was a national disgrace, but almost more dispiriting is the way America’s two warring political tribes have responded.  Democrats led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi seem intent on exploiting that day to retain power, while the Donald Trump wing of the GOP insists it was merely a protest march that got a little carried away.

“One lesson is that on all the available evidence January 6 was not an ‘insurrection,’ in any meaningful sense of that word.  It was not an attempted coup.  The Justice Department and the House Select Committee have looked high and low for a conspiracy to overthrow the government, and maybe they will find it.  So far they haven’t.”

FROM THE WASHINGTON POST:   “On January 6, the fight for democracy came home.  There’s still so much we don’t know.

“One year ago, President Donald Trump incited a violent mob of his supporters to desecrate the U.S. Capitol.  Their goal:  To prevent Congress from counting electoral votes and declaring Joe Biden the winner of the 2020 presidential election.

“It appeared possible that Trump’s campaign to advance his personal interests at the expense of the country’s had finally reached a turning point. So shocking was the disregard for the democratic process that even senior Republicans might understand the peril they had invited by bowing to Trump.

“But Trump quickly regained hold of the Republican Party. Three weeks after Jan. 6, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy made a penitential pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago.  He and his fellow Republicans rejected efforts to create a bi-partisan panel to investigate the insurrection; some even defended the rioters.

“They booted Representative Liz Cheney out of their leadership for refusing to go along with Trump’s lies. Republican state legislatures passed anti-voting measures and conducted bogus vote audits designed, not to reconfirm the integrity of what experts declared to be a safe and secure election, but to provide fodder for conspiracy theorists.”

For me, both views are inadequate.

The Wall Street Journal falls down on the side of definitions, contending that the events of January 6 were a “riot, not an insurrection.”

Yet, the dictionary defines insurrection this way:  “A violent uprising against an authority or government.”

Anyone with eyes and ears could see and hear that January 6 was an insurrection.

By contrast, the Washington Post opts for the position that “we need to know more.”

Agreed.  But, again, with eyes and ears, there was no question that we an assault on our form of government was under way.  More information would indict participants, but we already saw and heard was happened.

So, where are we on this fateful anniversary?

I wish it were true that we learned lessons last January 6, so we are able avoid another insurrection. 

So far, I fear the jury is out.

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 of 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 borrow this headline from the Washington Post.

It appeared over a column that agreed with one of my main contentions, about which I have written several times:  There is huge risk for religion in this country when so-called “White evangelicals” have headed, in legions, toward Donald Trump and his acolytes, thus perverting true Christianity.

The so-called “White evangelicals” are not evangelical at all.  They give rot to the word evangelical, so I decline to use it anymore in any positive sense.

Here is how Post columnist Jennifer Rubin started her recent column:

“Much has been written about White evangelicals’ central role in the fraying of democracy.  More attention, however, should be paid to the damage the political movement has inflicted on religion itself.

“The demographic — which remains in the throes of White grievance and an apocalyptic vision that postulates America (indeed “Western civilization”) is under attack from socialists, foreigners and secularists — forms the core of the MAGA movement.  Many have rejected the sanctity of elections, the principle of inclusion, and even objective reality.

“The consequences have been dire for American politics.  The siege mentality has morphed into an ends-justify-the-means style of politics in which lies, brutal discourse and even violence are applauded as necessary to protect ‘real America.’  

“Essential features of democracy, such as the peaceful transfer of power, compromise with political opponents, and defining America as an idea and not a racial or religious identity, have fallen by the wayside.”

Sadly, Rubin writes, “the degradation of democracy has intensified in the wake of Joe Biden’s victory.  The doctrinal elevation of the ‘big lie,’ the increase in violent rhetoric and the effort to rig elections, all reflect a heightened desperation by the MAGA crowd.”

While lovers of democracy note the risks for the U.S. form of government, Rubin advocates that we “should not lose track of the damage the MAGA movement has wrought to religious values.”

Peter Wehner, an evangelical Christian (sorry, I borrow the word “evangelical” one more time) and former adviser to President George W. Bush, agrees with Rubin, though they write from separate points of view in different publications. 

In a column for Atlantic Magazine, Wehner reports how a recent speech from Donald Trump, Jr. reflects the inversion of religious faith.

“The former president’s son,” Wehner writes, “has a message for the tens of millions of evangelicals who form the energized base of the GOP:  The scriptures are essentially a manual for suckers. The teachings of Jesus have gotten us nothing.”

Then, he adds, “decency is for suckers.” 

I say Trump and his son are the ones who are indecent.

Trump, Jr. believes, as his father does, that politics should be practiced ruthlessly, mercilessly, and vengefully. The ends justify the means.  Norms and guardrails need to be smashed.   Morality and lawfulness must always be subordinated to the pursuit of power and self-interest.  That is the Trumpian ethic.

Sounds selfish, right?  Well, it is.

Wehner continues:

“Understanding this phenomenon goes a long way toward explaining the MAGA crowd’s very unreligious cruelty toward immigrants, its selfish refusal to vaccinate to protect the most vulnerable, and its veneration of a vulgar, misogynistic cult leader.  If you wonder how so many ‘people of faith’ can behave in such ways, understand that their ‘faith’ has become hostile to traditional religious values such as kindness, empathy, self-restraint, grace, honesty, and humility.

“In this upside-down world White evangelicalism has become, the willingness to act in self-sacrificial ways for the sake of vulnerable others — even amid a global pandemic — has become rare, even antithetical, to an aggressive, rights-asserting White Christian culture.  The result is reckless self-indulgence that places some evangelicals’ own aversion to being told what to do ahead of the health and lives of vulnerable populations.”

And, not to mention self-indulgence for themselves as they eschew, for example, vaccines and masks.

There is no hint of awareness that their actions are a mockery of the central biblical injunction to care for the orphan, the widow, the stranger, and the vulnerable among us.

Another writer put it this way:

“It’s important to say this straight.  This refusal to act to protect the vulnerable is raw, callous selfishness.  Exhibited by people I love, it is heartbreaking.  Expressed by people who claim to be followers of Jesus, it is maddening.

“If these trends continue uninterrupted, we will wind up with a country rooted in neither democratic principles nor religious values.  That would be a mean, violent and intolerant future few of us would want to experience.”

I concur, on at least two grounds:

• First, it makes absolutely no sense to mix politics and religion.  In Mark 12:17, the Bible counsels us “to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”  Good advice.  Keep religion – or the term I prefer, Christianity – separate, except to allow your Christian convictions to influence how you act and behave in society, including in politics.
• Second, political dogma – especially from the “White evangelical” movement described above — pollutes real Christian beliefs.  The church should be about God, not politics.

There, I said it again.  With emphasis.

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 of 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.

Forgive the plays on words in this blog headline.

I just couldn’t resist. 

Especially after reading a column by Helaine Olen that appeared in the Washington Post.

It took on critics who said that President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, should not have dispatched their dog, Major, to a home other than the White House. 

They loved Major, but knew he was not fit for all the normal commotion in the White House, so they gave him to friends.  And they acquired another young dog, Commander, who can be trained to live in all the commotion.

But the writer, Olen, could not resist revisiting comments by Donald Trump over the years, which, she said, illustrates that he hates dogs. 

Doesn’t surprise me because he appears to dislike, even hate, anyone but himself.

Here is what she wrote: elHe

“I wouldn’t take seriously any barking tweets from Trump supporters about these Major matters.  The former president has made clear that he doesn’t care for canines.  He has a track record of using dog insults to belittle humans.

“Remember Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, killed in a military raid?  Trump crowed that he had “died like a dog, he died like a coward, he was whimpering, screaming and crying.”

“Trump gloats when a perceived enemy or rival was ‘fired like a dog.’  His history of comparing political rivals to canines includes claiming that Utah Senator Mitt Romney ‘choked like a dog’ in the 2012 presidential contest and that Florida Senator Marco Rubio was ‘sweating like a dog’ at a 2016 Republican presidential debate.”

So, my conclusion? 

Trump is a dog, though that gives him too much credit and also impugns the character of our dog, Callaway.

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 of 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.

As we start the new year – 2022 – it is worthwhile to reflect on how “we” could do better in political activity.

I say that as a former state government manager and state lobbyist who spent more than 40 years involved in lawmaking in the state.  And I say that as a person interested in our form of government which I have watched to descend recently into unprecedented depths of antagonism and despair.

That’s true nationally, but, in different ways, it’s also true in Oregon.

No less an important figure that former Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber talked about this issue as he was interviewed by Dick Hughes, former editorial director for the Statesman-Journal and now a writer of useful columns while working on his own.

Listening to what Kitzhaber has to say is worthwhile, though it must be acknowledged that the former governor threatened at least part of his reputation while committing various ethical violations at the end of his last year in office, an end he fashioned for himself.

Still, we should not let those human failures dwarf his solid service and good thoughts for our future.

I lobbied Kitzhaber over the years, first when he served as a state senator and then as president of the State Senate where he often exercised his policy muscles as a former emergency room doctor in his hometown, Roseburg, Oregon.

We didn’t always agree, but he clearly had a good mind for politics, especially to describe how to get things done in a collaborative fashion, as well as how to appeal to all Oregonians.

So, here are excerpts of what Kitzhaber told Hughes:

“We have allowed ourselves to become increasingly defined by our differences and, as a result, our politics have become reactive and deeply transactional.  Each legislative session and budget cycle seem to operate almost in isolation from one another — from what came before and what must come next — with the only certain thing linking the policy and budget decisions of one session with another being the intervening, and increasingly toxic, election cycle.

“The problem is rooted, at least in part, in the long-term economic challenges faced by many rural communities, and in a sense of isolation from the political power centers in the more urban parts of the state. Economic struggle and isolation have been the daily experience of many people in rural Oregon, and they preceded the pandemic by many years.

“Add to this the intersection of state mandates with a group of people who do not react well when ‘told what to do’ by someone from outside — and you have the formula for anger, frustration and division.”

To this, Kitzhaber added his thoughts on one of the most challenging public policy challenges for Oregon, as well as for the U.S. – reforming health care.

“Unbundling the complexity of the health care system starts with a question.  Are we trying to ensure that everyone has access to health care? Or are we trying to ensure that everyone is healthy?  This question is foundational because how we answer it defines the rest of the conversation.”

Kitzhaber’s point was that the health debate primarily has been framed around lack of access to care instead of the greater question of how to ensure Americans are healthy. Access is but one aspect; health is broader.

For me, Kitzhaber’s recipe for better politics in 2022 rests on these elements:

• Look at the big picture, not just the small one.
• Take a longer view than just what one legislative session can do or not do.
• Consider every issue at the Capitol in Salem as it affects BOTH urban and rural Oregon.  In other words, don’t let what has been called “The Two Oregons,” urban and rural, continue to infect political discourse.  Too often, public officials from urban Oregon control the entire political process and seem not to care about rural Oregon.  Rural Oregonians are often angry.  Never the twain shall meet.
• Take a hard look at such issues as health care policy to ask, as Kitzhaber does, what the real issue is – access or health.  Such too-narrow questions are found throughout politics and public policy. For example, the Legislature’s perennial school-budget debate revolves around whether a certain dollar amount is deemed adequate — not whether the money is being spent effectively and in the most essential long-term areas for the benefit of school children.

Here is how the columnist, Hughes, sums up the challenge:

“Oregon seems unable, or unwilling, to address the paradoxes.  Most Oregonians share the same core values, including family, good health, educational and economic opportunity, and a deep love for our landscape.  Yet we, copying the rest of the country, have settled for a political system that focuses on short-term, partisan wins and losses instead of long-term, mutual goals that serve the common good.

“This arrangement primarily benefits politicians and special interests who have a vested interest in gaining short-term victories – getting elected, building resumes, and reaping donations.  How do we turn the conversation toward bringing Oregonians together, regardless of place or politics?  How do we collaboratively create and commit to long-term strategies that invest in an economically, environmentally and socially healthy Oregon instead of short-term fixes that pick winners and losers?”

The point of all this is that all of us can do better in politics in 2022.  So, let the New Year begin with resolve to do just that.

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 of 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 thought of the headline for this blog when I read a column this morning by Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal.

As we head from one year to the next year, Noonan posits – and I agree — it is worthwhile to reflect on things to love about America.  Better than just to focus on the negative because, surely, there is enough of that to go around.

For me, I added, in a list below, “things to love about life with my family and friends” because that is part of what it means for me to be an American.

Noonan’s column is thought-provoking because it rests on perceptions about America from an immigrant who wanted to come to America, who came to America, and then made a life for himself and his family apart from the daily violence he faced in the Middle East.

Here is how Noonan started her column:

“Amjad Masad came to America in January 2012.  He was from Amman, Jordan, and 24.  He came because his father, a Palestinian immigrant to Jordan and a government worker, bought him a computer when he was 6.

“Amjad fell in love and discovered his true language.  He studied the history of the computer and became enamored of the U.S. and Silicon Valley.  He imagined the latter as a futuristic place with flying cars and floating buildings.  He saw the 1999 movie ‘Pirates of Silicon Valley,’ about Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, and decided America was the place he must be.

“His memory of arriving at John F. Kennedy International Airport is a jumble, but what he saw from the bridge going into Manhattan was unforgettable—the New York skyline gleaming in the distance. It was like a spiritual experience. He was here.

“He settled in New York, worked at a startup, then moved west—he needed to be in Silicon Valley.  Five years ago, he became co-founder and CEO of Replit, a company that offers tools to learn programming. It employs 40 people full-time and 10 contractors.”

Now, my story does not reflect perceptions of being an immigrant, as important as those perceptions are.  I was born in the U.S., though, as is the case with many others, I have immigrant blood in my background, only a generation or two removed from Norway.

On Twitter, Masad came up with 10 things to love about America and I repeat them in brief below, before adding my own perceptions to the list.

“1. Work Ethic. First thing I noticed was that everyone regardless of occupation took pride in doing a bang-up job, even when no one looked.

“2. Lack of corruption. In the 10 years in the US, I’ve never been asked for a bribe, and that’s surprising.

“3. Win-win mindset. People don’t try to screw you on deals, they play the long game, and align incentives in such a way that everyone wins.

“4. Rewarding talent. From sports to engineering, America is obsessed with properly rewarding talent.

“5. Open to weirdos. Because you never know where the next tech, sports, or arts innovation will come from, America had to be open to weirdness.

“6. Forgiveness. Weird and innovative people have to put themselves out there, and as part of that, they’re going to make mistakes in public. The culture here values authenticity, and if you’re authentic and open about your failures, you’ll get a second and a third chance.

“7. Basic infrastructure. Americans take care of their public spaces.

“8. Optimism. When you step foot in the US there is a palpable sense of optimism.

“9. Freedom. Clearly a cliche, but it’s totally true.

“10. Access to capital. It’s a lot harder to innovate and try to change the world without capital.

It would be possible to argue with some items on this top-10 list.  But, remember, they are perceptions from an immigrant who has been here only for a few years.

Here is my list as, with you, I prepare to move into 2022 only a few hours from now.  So, I am thankful for:

• My family – wife Nancy, son Eric, daughter Lissy, daughter-in-law Holly, and three grandchildren…Mason, Drew and Kate.  All of them make my life better.
• My friends, many of whom play golf with me…a passion for me and, often, for them.
• My heritage in a Christian family.  I think every day of my parents and the life they built for five children, a life built on a recognition of God as creator and savior.
• My recognition of my wife’s parents who I knew before asked Nancy to marry me – and her father said yes!  Neil and Nan Fraser lived lives pleasing to God.
• My association with Salem Alliance Church for more than 30 years, which gave me a host of friends and a way to remember what God has done for me.
• The support I received from partners and associates in a lobbying and public relations firm I helped to found in 1990.  It was originally called Conkling Fiskum & McCormick, but came to be called CFM Strategic Communications and, then, CFM Advocates.  Great friends to this day, even in retirement, as we converse often about lobby work.

So, as one year passes to the next, focus on the positive things in life, for there are positives if we only take time and expend effort to think of them.

The way Peggy Noonan closed her column is the way I will close this blog:

“God bless all Americans, old and new, here by birth, belief or both, as we arrive together in an unknown place called 2022. Let’s keep our eyes fresh, shall we?”

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 of 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 was talking with a good friend of mine the other day who, as we entered a room for a meeting, exclaimed – why do I have to wear this mask; it doesn’t work anyway?

I beg to differ.

And, in so doing, I cite a wealth of science indicating that masks save serious illness or even death as all of us deal with the third iteration of the coronavirus, Omicron.

Is there any guarantee?  No.  But science is on the side of wearing a mask.

Here is the way a Florida television explained the issue:

“Plenty has been said about putting on a mask since the COVID-19 pandemic began.  There is plenty of truth, but also no shortage of misinformation and disinformation.

“SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is spread by very small droplets from the mouth and nose.

“Every time you cough, every time you sneeze, or just exert yourself, you have a strong grunt, you might produce some of those very, very small droplets and that’s how the infection can spread from one person to the next.

“There was uncertainty in the beginning of the pandemic about how it was spread.  The unknown was one of the reasons why masks were not initially recommended to limit the spread.  In time, we learned a little bit more about the virus.  That’s when it made more sense to wear masks.”

Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker took the issue farther in a column she wrote that focused on the vaccine, not just masks.

“It’s abundantly clear,” Parker wrote, “that vaccines at the very least help reduce the intensity of covid-19.  The booster helps even more.  Most vaccinated people evade infection entirely, probably in part because they also take other precautions, such as distancing and masking. Those who’ve died of covid over the past several months were almost exclusively unvaccinated.”

At the same time, Parker says she understands, though doesn’t support, what she calls “the revulsion toward government mandates.”  

“We’re all a bit anti-establishment, aren’t we?  Americans didn’t become obstreperous just recently.  Our warring spirit and a predilection to oppose authority precedes our arrival to these shores.  We’re all rebels by virtue of most of us having crossed the pond, so to speak.  Saying no may not be wise in some circumstances, but as a countercultural posture, we customarily view dissent as a basic right.

“To the anti-vaccine contingent, a vaccine mandate is tantamount to a violation of one’s autonomy.  No one is entitled to enter my temple without my permission. Case closed.  And yet:  How can some people see the vaccine as a gift and others view it as a toxin contrived for dubious purposes? How do we bridge this gap?”

Parker has no answers.  Nor do I.

However, regarding the “revulsion to government mandates,” now being exhibited by so many, I ask these questions:

• Why reject scientific facts when your reason for rejecting rests on personal perception, or worse, on political intrigue?
• How many times a day do you observe government regulations as you drive your car in the proper lane, obey stop signs or wear your seatbelt?
• Why don’t you give government scientists room to learn about the virus as they may say one thing one week, then correct the record the next week when more information is available?

Parker opines that “convincing others to follow the majority’s lead (those who favor vaccines and masks) will require diplomacy and empathy, not finger-pointing and shaming.

“The challenge for 2022 is how to reconcile these two opposing views.  One requires a united front against a potentially deadly disease (which could be with us forever), the other demands respect for individual rights.”

For my part, I would add that success against the virus requires at least two things:

1. Setting aside political views and concentrating on finding authoritative information, not subject to innuendo or inaccurate discourse, and
2. Deciding that health and life is important than anything else, so vote for it by actions.

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 of 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.

There is no better way than what appears below to follow-up on my post the other day, one that emphasized the value of looking at Christmas as more than just a holiday.

It should be a time genuinely to reflect on the hope we have as Christians based what Christ did for us.  His work on our behalf started when he was born in a manger in the small town of Bethlehem more than 2,000 years ago.  So, a Christmas, we celebrate that momentous occasion.

This is the follow-up – reprinting a column by Washington Post writer Michael Gerson that appeared on-line a couple days ago.  In excellent words, Gerson advocates for hope, not despair, despite everything we see around us these days.

And, as you will read below, he expresses this hope even as he lies in a hospital suffering from cancer.

So, read on — on this day after Christmas.

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By Michael Gerson/  

Many in our country have lost the simple confidence that better days are ahead, for a variety of understandable reasons. There are the coronavirus’s false dawns, followed by new fears. There are rising prices and empty store shelves, as if in Soviet Romania. There is Afghanistan, descending into man-made catastrophe. There are increases in urban violence. And deeply embedded racial injustice. And an environment buckling under terrible strains. Everything seems crying out in chaotic chorus: Things are not getting better.

That spirit possesses our politics. The right sees a country in cultural decline, stripped of its identify and values. The left fears we are moving toward a new American authoritarianism. Both are ideologies of prophesied loss. In a society, such resentments easily become septic. So many otherwise irenic people seem captured by the politics of the clenched fist. A portion seem to genuinely wish some of their neighbors’ humiliation and harm.

Under such circumstances, it can feel impossible to sustain hope. Yet from a young age, if we are lucky, we are taught that hope itself sustains. It is one of the most foundational assurances of childhood for a parent to bend down and tell a crying child: It is okay. It will be all better. We have an early, instinctual desire to know that trials are temporary, that wounds will heal and all will be well in the end.

When a child abuser violates such a promise, it is the cruelest possible betrayal. When young people and adults lose confidence in the possibility of a better day, it can result in the diseases and ravages of despair: drug addiction leading to overdose, alcoholism leading to liver failure, depression leading to suicide.

A columnist living through an appropriate column illustration should probably disclose it. I have been dealing with cancer for a long time. For most of that period, the cancer was trying to kill me without my feeling it. It was internal and theoretical. Now I have reached a different and unpleasant phase, in which the cancer is trying to kill me and making me feel it — the phase when life plans become unknitted and the people you love watch you be weak.

I am not near death and don’t plan to be soon. But there is a time in the progress of a disease such as mine when you believe that you will recover, that you will get better. And I have passed the point when that hope is credible. Now, God or fate has spoken. And the words clank down like iron gates: No, it will not be okay. You will not be getting better.

Such reflections flow naturally when you are writing from the antiseptic wonderland of the holiday hospital ward. But nearly every life eventually involves such tests of hope. Some questions, even when not urgent, are universal: How can we make sense of blind and stupid suffering? How do we live with purpose amid events that scream of unfair randomness? What sustains hope when there is scant reason for it?

The context of the Nativity story is misunderstood hope. The prophets and Jewish people waited for centuries in defiant expectation forthe Messiah to deliver Israel from exile and enemies. This was essentially the embodied belief that something different and better was possible — that some momentous divine intervention could change everything.

But the long-expected event arrived in an entirely unexpected form. Not as the triumph of politics and power, but in shocking humility and vulnerability. The world’s desire in a puking infant. Angelic choirs performing for people of no social account. A glimpse of glory along with the smell of animal dung. Clearly, we are being invited by this holy plot twist to suspend our disbelief for a moment and consider some revolutionary revision of spiritual truth.

Or at least this is what the story says, which we try to interpret beneath limited, even conflicting texts. No matter how we react to the historicity of each element, however, the Nativity presents the inner reality of God’s arrival.

He is a God who goes to ridiculous lengths to seek us.

He is a God who chose the low way:  Power in humility; strength perfected in weakness; the last shall be first; blessed are the least of these.

He is a God who was cloaked in blood and bone and destined for human suffering — which he does not try to explain to us, but rather just shares.  It is perhaps the hardest to fathom:  The astounding vulnerability of God.

And he is a God of hope, who offers a different kind of security than the fulfillment of our deepest wishes. He promises a transformation of the heart in which we release the burden of our desires, and live in expectation of God’s unfolding purposes, until all his mercies stand revealed.

There is an almost infinite number of ways other than angelic choirs that God announces his arrival.  I have friends who have experienced a lightning strike of undeniable mission, or who see God in the deep beauty of nature, or know Jesus in serving the dispossessed.

For me, such assurances do not come easy or often. Mine are less grand vista than brief glimpse behind a curtain. In Sylvia Plath’s poem “Black Rook in Rainy Weather,” she wrote of an “incandescent” light that can possess “the most obtuse objects” and “grant / A brief respite from fear.” Plath concluded: “Miracles occur, / If you care to call those spasmodic / Tricks of radiance miracles. The wait’s begun again, / The long wait for the angel. / For that rare, random descent.”

Christmas hope may well fall in the psychological category of wish fulfillment. But that does not disprove the possibility of actually fulfilled wishes. On Christmas, we consider the disorienting, vivid evidence that hope wins. If true, it is a story that can reorient every human story. It means that God is with us, even in suffering. It is the assurance, as from a parent, as from an angel, as from a savior: It is okay.

And even at the extreme of death (quoting Julian of Norwich): “All shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

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 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 of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, 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.

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Here, on Christmas Eve, I reprint a blog I wrote last year to commemorate one of my favorite holidays of the year, Christmas.  For me, Christmas is more than just a holiday.  It is a time to relish what “advent” means – commemorating the arrival of the Christ-child with all that means for us in the ability to have a relationship with Him, a relationship that spawns real hope.  The words last year ring true in most respects this year, so here they are.

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Consider the words of a hymn, one that, thankfully, was part of several of our church services during this Christmas season.

O Holy Night

The stars are brightly shining

It is the night of our dear Savior’s birth

Long lay the world in sin and error pining

‘Til He appeared and the soul felt its worth

A thrill of hope a weary world rejoices

For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn

Fall on your knees, O hear the angel voices

O night divine, O night when Christ was born

O night divine, O night, O night divine

Truly He taught us to love one another

His law is love and His gospel is peace

Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother

And in His name all oppression shall cease

Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we

Let all within us praise His holy name

Just think for a moment about those words, including these sentences: “His law is love and his gospel is peace.  Chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother.  And, in his name, all oppression shall cease.”

Love and peace.  No one is a slave to another.  Oppression shall cease.

Doesn’t sound like this world, does it?  Because it’s not this world during a time marked by dissension, distrust and violence, the latter in word, if not in deed.

So it was, with these words echoing in my mind, that I came across the headline, which I used for this blog.  It appeared over a column in the Washington Post by one of my favorite writers, Michael Gerson.

A former speechwriter for President George Bush, Gerson demonstrates two traits – a solid writing ability, and an acute sense of analysis.  And all of this is informed by his Christian convictions.

The word he uses – “advent” — is not necessarily in common usage these days, though its meaning is clear:

Advent is the start of something.

Here is how the dictionary defines the term:

• Coming into place, view, or being; arrival:  The advent of the holiday season.

• The coming of Christ into the world – and, specifically, the period beginning four Sundays before Christmas, observed in commemoration of the coming of Christ into the world.

Gerson makes the point that, even in the face of confounding issues in the U.S. and the world, “advent” fosters a sense of hope because it remembers the day Christ came into the world to develop a way for each of us to have a relationship with Him.

“America’s political culture,” Gerson continues, “is dominated by fear.  For some, it is fear that the triumph of progressivism would bring anti-religious persecution and fundamentally alter the American way of life.  For others, it is fear that the re-election of President Trump would remove the last restraints on his cruelty, vindictiveness and contempt for the rule of law.

“My anxieties are firmly in the second camp.  But the general mood of trepidation is universal.  Our greatest political passion seems dedicated not to the pursuit of dreams, but to the avoidance of nightmares.

“This is the time of the Christian year dedicated to expectant longing. God, we are assured, is at mysterious work in the world.  Evil and conflict are real, but not ultimate.  Grace and deliverance are unrealized, but certain.  Patient waiting is rewarded because the trajectory of history is tilted upward by a powerful hand.

“This is the fullest expression of the hope of advent — that all wrongs will finally be righted, that all the scales will eventually balance and that no one will be exploited or afraid.  But this hope is not yet fulfilled.  

“Poets and theologians have strained for ways to describe this sense of anticipation.  It is like a seed in the cold earth.  Like the first barely detectable signs of a thaw.  Like a child growing in a womb.”

Gerson weaves his words into an incredible picture – a picture of a world marked by hope that God is returning to “establish his kingdom,” which will be marked by no slavery, no oppression and peace.

I choose – yes, it is a choice – to rest in this HOPE.  God is returning and, meanwhile, we can have a relationship with Him through what Christ has done for us, a relationship defined very well by the words of O Holy Night.

Truly He taught us to love one another

His law is love and His gospel is peace

Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother

And in His name all oppression shall cease

Great emphases and hope for this Christmas season!

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 of 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.

Forgive me for writing about myself.  Better, I guess, that another blog devoted to Donald Trump.

But, with time on my hands these days, I have found myself recalling my experience as a state lobbyist.

One of the memories are some of the sayings I used to advocate for my clients.

Here is a brief summary (I thought of only three; no doubt more will come to mind as I look back over my 25 years as a lobbyist):

• That’s the first step down a slippery slope:  This was a phrase I sometimes used to indicate that doing one thing could lead to another thing and the result would be the bad news of falling to the bottom.  I advocated, don’t take the first step.

• That’s like a circular firing squad:  This was a phrase I used – not very often, perhaps – to indicate that taking a certain action without adequate thought could lead to more than one victim.

• That’s like ready, shoot, aim:  Similar to the phrase above, this was meant to indicate that a proposed action had not been vetted sufficiently.

Your word is your bond:  This was less a saying than an aspiration.  I conclude with the phrase because I thought it was a good mark of a successful, effective lobbyist – someone you could trust to stick to his or her word.

Think of this phrase.

It would be good if it marked, not only lobbyists, but legislators, as well.  Not to mention all of us in society.