DH News Story on CARES

From the DH:

LEBANON — Petitioners seeking the recall of two Lebanon School Board members have drawn criticism for what some call aggressive tactics.

In a separate development, the organization seeking the recall says it now has enough signatures to qualify the recall question for a special election.

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, the aggressiveness of the paid signature gatherers is certainly news. On the other, the DH has barely seemed to cover the petition effort.

Combine that with my distrust of Hering, and Moody's record, and I have the sneaking suspicion that the reason this story happened was Hering - who has also written at least one editorial decrying the recall effort.

Don't get me wrong; what Moody wrote is news, plain and simple. But the story reads to me like the angle was intended to be the complaints against the paid signature gatherers and she managed to sneak the status of the recall effort in.

This is all supposition on my part, of course.... but like I said, I distrust Hering.

"Corvallis showed its love"

Corvallis showed its love
By DALYA IBRAHIM
As I see it

We all belong to God, and to Him we will return.

I have received the sudden death of my beloved husband Sheikh Imam Awad Elgarguri with full submission to God’s will and with absolute belief and trust in His Divine wisdom. Since he passed away last month, I have been engulfed by an overflowing demonstration of love and care from the Corvallis community.

People from different backgrounds, religions, ages and nationalities have all been united by benevolent and humane feelings toward the man who lived amongst them and interacted with them all as a genuine and sincere friend for nearly three decades.

As the Imam and religious leader of the Muslim Community in Corvallis, Awad dedicated his whole life to setting an example of true Islam to his community members both inside, and outside, of his Mosque.

Islam means submission and peace. God created us from different nations and tribes, but we are all brethren in humanity. Diversity enriches and nourishes the growth and development of the human race and promotes peaceful collaboration and a coherent coexistence. This is the message Awad sought to exemplify.

I have witnessed firsthand how genuinely he cared for all the people — family, friends and even strangers — whom he may have met once in a store or at the post office, for example. To him, Corvallis was his beloved hometown, and he was so proud of it as a city and as an ideal community.

My children, family and I would like to present our most profound gratitude to all the people who have shared their heartfelt condolences either in person or through telephone calls, e-mails or the mail. My special thanks to the Adair Village Fire Department, the Corvallis-Benton County Public Library, Oregon State University faculty and Linn-Benton Community College staff, Oregon Connections Academy, All Family Vision Care and the Samaritan Internal Medicine, to name a few.

The sincere kindness that my family received from the members of BETT AM community, members of First United Methodist Church, and all the members of Salman AlFarsi Islamic Center alike made my husband’s vision of the ideal society a living reality.

To all of you, your kindness has been the light that warmed my heart and rekindled my spirit. This is the true Corvallis that my husband loved so dearly. His life was a celebration of good faith. Your kindness made his passing a commemoration of goodness.

Thank you.

Dalya Ibrahim of Corvallis is the widow of Awad Elgarguri.

Editor’s note: Awad Mohamed Elgarguri, 49, died July 18 in a head-on collision on Highway 99W. He was driving home from a prayer meeting with his 16-year-old son, who is recovering from his injuries.

OK, it's not even a question anymore, and it's not even protesting

Two more posts from Don't Tase Me, Bro!:

Minneapolis Police Seize Journalists' Notebooks, Cameras, Cell Phones, Money Without Warrant

And in case you read the story and decry "but they're not real journalists," this:

It's Now Ilegal for Journalists To Photograph Politicians and Lobbyists on a Public Street

Yup - ABC News journalists, on a public street, were arrested for photographing politicians.

The first story irks me more personally, but the second is, in some ways, more totalitarian: The sole crime was, it sounds like, annoying people in positions of power.

I can't stop reading that blog, even though all it does is make me stare at my computer screen and my blood pressure go up.

Jaw-Droppage Has Commenced

From Rate Your Students.... ah, I can't even begin to describe it.

Go read.

Is Protest Now Illegal in Practice?

I've recently subscribed to "Don't Tase Me, Bro," a blog about the erosion of civil liberties. It's as much horrifying as informative. From the last few days:

Denver Protesters Ordered to Disperse, Then Trapped and Prevented from Dispersing, Then Pepper Sprayed

State Department Plan to Smear First Amendment Protected Protest as "Eco-Terrorism"

Denver Police Bulletin: Protest Sign Handles, Bicycles, Hand-Held Radios and Maps Mark Protestors as "Potentially Violent"

And my personal favorite:

Denver: Protesters Arrested for Refusing to Give Their Names to Police

From that last story:

Two protesters were arrested Sunday for not giving their names to police, raising questions about when that constitutes a crime.

"Isn't this America?" asked Denver attorney John Holland. "Don't you have the right to protest? Don't you have the right to remain silent?"

Law-abiding protesters don't have to give their names to police, he said.

I'll answer my own question: I think that many police view the act of protesting as illegal in and of itself - and since they have the power to enforce that belief (legally or otherwise), protesting has become, in many places, de facto illegal. Certainly elites view protests as illegal.

Also conspicuous: The fact that the Democrats are just as complicit in this erosion as the Republicans. I don't hear Dems at the convention (or even many liberal bloggers, to be honest) decrying the brutal and undemocratic tactics being used by police. Of course, since Dems are elites too, this is not terribly surprising. Sad, yes, but not surprising.

Danah Boyd on lowering the drinking age

I think she's got something interesting to say about the whole debate:

Anyone who tries to tell you that something magical happens for everyone at the age of 21 that makes youth brains capable of moderate consumption at that age is full of shit. The drinking age is not about psychology, no matter how many reports appear to "prove" otherwise. The drinking age is first and foremost about social control. We tried to prohibit everyone from drinking and when that failed, we went about trying to oppress the population that could be controlled. Like all other acts of Prohibition in this country, the minimum drinking age stems from a set of moral values projected onto a population as a means of control.

Read on.

Tom Hayden: Obama Will Probably Lose

He says some interesting things, as usual:

There's no need for so many police in Denver, Hayden says. "With Obama having opposed the war, there's no real reason for demonstrations." Hayden also feels that the "radicals of the 60s don't get credit for what has happened for good in the Democratic Party." He thinks there's too much harkening back to 1968. "All this talk about '68 because we have a fascination with round numbers," he quips. "Our country is full of the wreckage of the 60s."

Hayden observes that "there is a new social movement on a vast scale" centered right now in the Obama Campaign. "These young people will plant seeds for the next twenty-five years." But they are "small-d" Democrats, Hayden says, and they are environmentalists and idealists. "They don't want a war in :Pakistan!" And "if Obama loses, which I think he might," Hayden says, nevertheless the Democratic Party will have grown bigger. As for Obama, "he is losing. He is gonna lose the electoral college."

What do you think? Is he right?

The strange thing, I don't really disagree with anything Hayden, but I still have this feeling Obama's chances are better than Hayden gives him credit for. Today, anyway. Yesterday - and probably tomorrow - I'd say Obama has little to no chance.

Go figure.

Music & Aging

From Carrie Brownstein over at Monitor Mix, a post worth checking out:

Last week, I received an interesting suggestion for a post. I was asked to ponder whether one's relationship to music -- either strictly as a fan or as both a fan and a musician -- keeps one in a delayed or perennial state of adolescence.

So, does music keep us young? And is that a good thing?

I wanted to leave a comment, but the first commenter said almost exactly what I was thinking: What does it mean that most people continue to listen to the music they listened to when they were, say, 15-25?

BRAIN HURT

Hering:

The governor makes $93,600 now, and for the chief executive of an enterprise with 50,000 or more workers, that’s low. But other states have nothing to do with it. What do we care what Arizona or Nevada pay?

Because the work is comparable? Because it's really the only thing the governor's job can be compared to? Did he seriously ask that?

In public positions the guiding principle should be: Make the compensation high enough so someone can live on the money, but not so high that people seek office because of what they would earn if they win.

What about paying elected officials enough so they are less likely to be bought off by lobbyists and/or cushy industry jobs while in or when they leave office? Because it needs to be high enough to attract quality candidates? (Not that there aren't other factors, but there is certainly a pay rate that will cause otherwise good candidates to walk away.)

Setting salaries for elected officials is hard because there’s no economic way to settle on an amount. Wages in those offices have no link to the amount the enterprise earns. (They don’t in mega-corporations either, where the principals often get raises even when their enterprise is about to go broke.

Wrong. What he could have said was "the standard rule of thumb regarding linking CEO pay to company earnings doesn't apply here, because a state is not a corporation." Then he could have offered a suggestion as to what metric we might use to look at elected official pay. Since he didn't, I'll offer the obvious: The overall health of the state. Or, to be more detailed, the social, economic, administrative, political, environmental, etc., health of the state.

Jeebus, one almost thinks he wants his readers to be dumber when they're done.

Clueless

Hering:

Some Buzz Saw-style restaurants, even in settings less interesting than the right bank of the Willamette River, have not done well. Witness the demise of the Hereford Steer in Albany, closed several years ago and then demolished, and the recent closure of The Gables in Corvallis. But others, such as Michael’s Landing in Corvallis, are going strong, so it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what change in society’s eating and entertainment habits caused the demise of some.

If he doesn't know something, he should really either research the topic or just not write about it. The Gables closed because its owners are in their 80s, and even their son, who is close to 50, wanted something else to do. This was basic information in the article on the closing that ran in the GT. Nowhere was it mentioned that they closed due to lack of customers.

And Michael's Landing is not 'going strong'. It hasn't been for years. It's barely scraping by.

One also has to wonder if Hering has noticed the influx of new places in Corvallis in the last few years. I can't speak for Albany, but when Magenta moves downtown, the Waterfront Grill opens up, Iovino's remodels and reopens, Cloud 9 and Downward Dog come to town, Block 15 and Tokyo Steakhouse show up, Aomatsu remodels and adds teppanyaki tables, and Strega (a Tapas bar) opens, well, it's not hard to imagine how there could be more stress on existing Corvallis restaurants.

Jeebus, does this guy do any research for his editorials?