Cry Big Bad Wolf!

It's easy setting up a black-white situation - one side settles on "yes" and the other side settles on "no." It seems to The Doser that the black-white scenario is in danger of being enacted in Eastern Oregon. The issue is the wanted/unwanted presence of wild wolves. The conservationists say that there should be wild wolves in the area. The ranchers say they are paying a price for the plan in slaughtered livestock. Here is The Doser in Portland supporting the wild-wolf plan. There is a rancher in Joseph who is having to finance the plan - at least in part.

How would it be if the State of Oregon controlled the sport killing of deer so that the wolves could have their natural prey and, then, reimbursed the ranchers for stock proved to have been slain by wolves.

Well, you say, that's a compromise for which the deer-hunters must pay. (It is their fee support, and legislative support, which is vital to the Oregon Wildlife programs.) Okay, we need a reasonable compromise for that one!

President Acts on Afghanistan Issue.

President O'Bama has decided to send more troops to Iraq after a lengthy period of consideration. The President appears to have sent messages to all but one of the participants in that Slough of Despond that is Afghanistan 2009. To the military, he said: none of you is the Commander in Chief of the US military. I hold that role. To Kharzai, he said: we want you to find a positive function for yourself contrary to all of your history and inclination. To our soldiers, he said; we now have goals that you are asked to achieve.To the people of he world, he said: This is a major mess that we need your help to clean up. He failed to send a clear message to the people of the United States who are giving monetary support to our Afghani opponents. That message should have been: What are you going to do to solve your drug purchase problem?

Bean-bag Brouhaha

The Doser fears that the Portland decision to suspend Police Officer Christopher Humphreys is so riddled with James Chasse politics that the officer would have been suspended had he been caught spitting on the side-walk. Such a shooting-from-the-hip decision process clouds the whole more important issue of what force may properly be used by police officers.

Too hot to handle.

The recent spurt in growth of the venerable bristlecone pines raises questions about warming. Of course it is not denied that such evidences of global warming tend to show that there is global warming going on. The diminution of polar ice and the advance of conifer forests into the tundra, and a number of other processes, show that there is global warming. The sticking point for the objectors is their view that it is not emergency-type global warming of which we are the cause but just a run-of-the-mill natural cycle of warming. When we are causing an atmospheric effect that results in global warming, when global warming has occurred at an increased rate recently, it seems to The Doser that we must curtail that conduct whether it is causing the global warming or exacerbating it.

Bull-facting.

When the stock market makes a move, it is often reported with all the assumptions of a statement of fact that "......the Dow dropped 24 points today on news that Consolidated Dog Food had reported lower than expected third quarter earnings." The Doser finds it just too precious that they can bring themselves to say such a dumb thing publicly and even more precious that they would do so apparently assuming that we will believe them.

Wanting not to believe.

The WW II story about the Nazi use of corpses to get fat for soap has been quite authoritatively questioned. The memory of this horror has now been aroused. There appears to be another claim that human fat is being collected from murdered Peruvian victims and sold for cosmetic purposes. It is to be hoped that the Peruvian story is also not correct. The Doser finds it difficult to think of human beings falling to such evil practices.

They have scheduled the trial of the ones who claim they arranged the destruction of the twin towers. The trial is set in a court house quite near the scene of the tragedy. That there probably won't be many jurors called who actually dwell in that area only reduces "the problem." The problem will be to get an unbiased jury. The questioning of jurors will proceed along two lines: (1) Do you know about the event that took out the twin towers on 9/11? and (2) Do you think you can be an unbiased juror? The jury will be made up of those who answer "yes" to the second question. The defense won't have enough perremptory challenges to clean that mess up! Think! If the answer is "no" to the first question, is that really believable ? And - if "yes" to the second question, is that really believable?

Only a Rat testifies.

When The Doser was a child, the person who was a tattle tale was not highly regarded. That, you will remember, was the whiner that constantly ran to the "Mom" with: "Johnnie just took my doll...etc." Even "Mom" was inclined to discourage tattle-taling.

But, "Mom" was right on the cusp of the problem: she wanted the girl to come and tell her if her brother was stuck up a tree. She just did not want to be included in the way brother and sister learned to deal with each other. The message, however, was: "Don't be a tattle-tale." Since the investment the "teller" had in telling was slight, it was still possible for "Mom" to give some dimension to the prohibition.

It's like The Doser's grand-children who were told not to speak with strangers. The children learned the lesson that they should not speak to their infrequently-visiting grand-parents. What seems to be needed is a training message that says: Don't do this - but - do that.

Later in life, when peers began to be more important and the parental regulations-structure more burdensome, the person who went to authority with a report on what was going on was called a "rat." The Doser understands that this term is used on those who "rat" on their criminal associates. Even the "informer," without whom most crimes would remain unsolved, is not a noble figure - even to the police who rely upon him. By this time, the "costs of telling" have gone up. Payment and protections are sometimes provided for the person who tells.

The US Navy used to have a well-embedded "us-them" demarcation which did not encourage enlisted men to "tell" on other enlisted men. The Doser's guess is that it is still pretty much the same, generally, in all armed forces. Probably based camaraderie and the fear of retaliation. However, The Doser's friend Rob, says that there are Army mechanisms to protect a person who is picked on, hazed, violated and the like. It does turn on going to authority to complain. It would be a long walk to the Lieutenant's office past the Sergeant's desk! And an even longer walk back to the berthing area.

Those of us old enough to remember the Nazi era remember how horrified we were that neighbors were encouraged to "tell" on neighbors. That is: they were encouraged to tell the authorities about infractions of the law. Further, to show how despicable the Nazis were, we were led to understand that they encouraged children to tell on their parents.

The Doser was thinking about the boy who brought the gun to school the other day. Apparently, his backing among the student body for bringing a weapon to school was not large because some students told some teachers about the gun. Even at this remove, one wonders if the plural of "students" and "teachers" was not used to protect a single person that told.

It is not hard to imagine that there are situations where the ones who would want to tattle-tale or "rat" on the school gunsel would certainly not do that: for example, if there were mean streets between the school and their homes and the gunsel was a member of a gang. The costs of telling could be very high.

Anyone that has ever attended an automobile accident or witnessed a crime in a crowded place knows very well that, "I don't want to get involved," decides who saw anything. Thus, even to uphold rules that we all rely upon, we can't bring ourselves easily to tell authorities what happened. Here, the "don't tell" rule applies even though the costs of telling are as low as giving a statement or appearing in court.

What we seem to have is a well-settled ambivalence about telling authority that somebody did something wrong? Those feelings come out of a culture that fully supports that reluctance. Though it works to the disadvantage of the underdog, the violated person, it appears to The Doser that it may be too embedded to be cured.

Even after jettisoning abortion payment.

The thirty-nine US Representatives that voted against the health care reform - for your information:

1. Adler, John (N.J.)
2. Altmire, Jason (Penn.)
3. Baird, Brian (Wash.)
4. Barrow, John (Ga.)
5. Boccieri, John (Ohio)
6. Boren, Dan (Okla.)
7. Boucher, Rick (Va.)
8. Boyd, Allen (Fla.)
9. Bright, Bobby (Ala.)
10. Chandler, Ben (Ky.)
11. Childers, Travis (Miss.)
12. Davis, Artur (Ala.)
13. Davis, Lincoln (Tenn.)
14. Edwards, Chet (Tex.)
15. Gordon, Bart (Tenn.)
16. Griffith, Parker (Ala.)
17. Herseth Sandlin, Stephanie (S.D.)
18. Holden, Tim (Penn.)
19. Kissell, Larry (N.C.)
20. Kosmas, Suzanne (Fla.)
21. Kratovil, Frank (Md.)
22. Kucinich, Dennis (Ohio)
23. Markey, Betsy (Colo.)
24. Marshall, Jim (Ga.)
25. Massa, Eric (N.Y.)
26. Matheson, Jim (Utah)
27. McIntyre, Mike (N.C.)
28. McMahon, Mike (N.Y.)
29. Melancon, Charlie (La.)
30. Minnick, Walt (Idaho)
31. Murphy, Scott (N.Y.)
32. Nye, Glenn (Va.)
33. Peterson, Collin (Minn.)
34. Ross, Mike (Ark.)
35. Shuler, Heath (N.C.)
36. Skelton, Ike (Mo.)
37. Tanner, John (Tenn.)
38. Taylor, Gene (Miss.)
39. Teague, Harry (N.M.)

Reasonableness at last.

Oregon appears to have adopted a sensible evaluating program for schools. Schools will be graded "by how well they move students ahead from where they start the year."

My opinion more important than your health.

If abortion opinions were as correct as they are over-bearing, the next reasonable step would be to legalize slaying abortion clinic workers.

Citizen of the Flies?

The Oregonian ran an informative article on the issue of run-away teens.

Let's assume that there is a group of youths that think they are adults and leave their parental homes because they want to be liberated from the parental situation. The Doser wonders: What about having adult-sponsored youth living enclaves? These would be designated civic entities where they are free to act as adults: they can earn a wage that sustains them, they must live by the laws of the state and will, presumably, need to adhere to the rules of the mores section into which they gravitate. They can drink, dope, shirk, fornicate, form partnerships, espouse causes, act out and work as much as they want to - with the same consequences that older adults experience when they do those things. They would have an opportunity to live as an adult with an adult's consequences. The deal would be that all youths that want to "run away from home" could enroll.

Sort of a combination of CCC and Lord of the Flies?

Now you see it, now you don't.

The Fed. has held the short term interest rate at close to zero. We say "Wow! The good ol' Fed. taking good care of us!" NO. The Doser points out that the low rate of interest is the rate by which big banks borrow money from the Fed. They are still charging us ruinous rates of interest using their almost free money.

As The Doser looks around Afghanistan, as President O'bama must be doing, He wonders if the USA has any friends there. He wonders whether the number of troops will make any difference in the country. What, exactly, will an increased deployment accomplish there?. Will it win any friends in the Muslim world? Is the whole Western world hoping we'll commit to military action there? Do we have any rational reason to believe that, if we storm those formidable mountains, we will find Osama bin Ladin or the al queda big-wigs? Really, is there any reason why we are wasting our lives there? The Doser trusts that President O'bama reaches the conclusion: "pull 'em out."

A Third Possibility.

The circumstances appear to have presented President O'bama with a simple decision: Send in more troops - if so, how many? - OR - Withdraw all the troops - if so, when? The Doser believes that straightforward scenario ignores a possible third course that might even be acceptable to the Pastun. The thing to do would be: 1. Withdraw all of our troops, and 2. Deploy a suicide brigade made up of civilian engineers, physicians, educators and agronomists. We should tell the whole world what we're doing - and do it. They will stand there unarmed, exposed, seriously in harm's way, facing the full spectrum of Afghanis that range from patriots to near-savages all of whom hate us. If they die, the plan fails; if they live, both Afghanistan and the world could benefit.