Boreal B[l]og

I didn’t like Senator Jon Kyl, when he represented Arizona.  I might have even hated him.  When he was in office, I wanted a bill mandating a national medical safety reporting system.  This is beginning to happen now, but in 2001, when I began, nobody considered the idea.

I called Mr. Kyl’s office, requesting what I wanted, and instructed to go to their Phoenix office to meet with a staff member there.  I put on a coat and tie.  I almost never put a coat and tie on in Arizona.  I do for funerals, when many, incredibly, do not; I went years without wearing a coat and tie.  Why would I dress up to visit to a senator’s office, when I detested the man?

I had respect for the office.

There is a huge difference between respect for the office and respect for the man or woman holding that office.  The office must be honored.  I honored the office of US Senator by dressing up.  I ended up talking to a nurse, who to this doctor was insulting, since I knew more about medicine than she did.  I said nothing about the snub, presented my program, and heard nothing afterwards, which annoyed me greatly, and indeed, showed great disrespect for me.

I had respect for the office.  Don’t forget that.  When a South Carolina Congressman yelled “You lie” to Mr. Obama during a State of the Union address, it was a massive breach of protocol and courtesy.  One simply does not denigrate the office regardless of what one thinks of the man. Those who don’t know how to deal with the issue properly should either avoid the situation or remain quiet.

In what follows, my wife disagrees with me, but perhaps my military background colors my opinion.  Everybody who has served in the military knows the difference between respect for the office and respect for the man.  I was put down by enlisted people who used “Sir,” “Doctor,” or “Lieutenant,” in a tone of voice making it abundantly clear they detested me.  I did the same to senior officers.  Later on, I would do it to lawyers, a powerful technique, for arguing with somebody who keeps calling you “Sir” is difficult.

Dartmouth students recently “flamed” (a Dartmouth expression) Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, asking him many sexually explicit questions about Perry’s opposition to Gay Rights and similar issues.  Gov. Perry was asked:  “In your campaigns you have received hard-money campaign contributions of $102 million, half of which came from 204 donors. Would you have anal sex for $102 million?”

The defense in The Dartmouth, which I once served on the editorial board, was this:  “When confronting those in power who actively disrespect the rights and humanity of others, any demand to civility is ironic…”

No, I don’t agree with this.  If you become those whom you despise, what have you become?  What made Iraq so awful was that we Americans did what we criticized others for, being inhumane.  Any demand for civility is appropriate, not ironic.  You figure out how to get your point across without being disrespectful.  

Personally, I would have asked one of these questions: 

1. “Mr. Perry,  why did you ask people to pray that Hurricane Rita turn around in the Gulf of Mexico and go backwards, when all the weather models predicted landfall near Houston?  Would you abolish NOAA, NWS, and the NHC?”  
2. “Do you think we can pray our way out of global climate change or cure cancer?  How do you view science, Sir?”    Add the Sir.  It matters.
3. “What is your stance on prayer vs. human action, Governor?”  Frankly, that is one of the best questions I can think of to ask a religious person.

From the editor again: Respect in this context is not a paramount or meaningful concept. I’m not advocating disrespect per se — rather, that incivility can be an effective and appropriate tool for such circumstances.

I don’t agree.  Mr. Perry is a sitting governor of Texas.  I don’t like him personally, and I don’t like Texas very much either.  The latter is irrelevant, but the former calls for civility.  By being disrespectful, you have advocated disrespect.  Incivility is a shocking tool that will do exactly the opposite of what you intend.  As a Dartmouth alumnus, I was ashamed of my school; I feel if LGBT people continue on this path, it will harm their cause, not enhance it.  You mentioned the icky factor.  A lot of us support your rights without wanting to hear details.  Can you understand that?

My questions were disrespectful, but I reject the notion that I should respect a man who holds power simply because he holds it. It should matter what he does with that power, and what he does is oppress people he finds icky.

Mr. Perry holds power because he was elected, a bad, ugly, legal money driven process now, and Mr. Perry won.  I don’t like the elections process in this country; changing the election rules in Texas would also have been a good question to ask Mr. Perry, along with voting rights in general.  Nobody is asking you to respect him, but your questions should not be disrespectful.  If you treat a governor that way, would you treat an elder in society that way, too?  Yes, it matters what Mr. Perry does with his power, and you could have stated exactly those words to him.  You could have said that his stance against gay individuals was in your view an abuse of his power, and while you respected his office you could not possibly respect him as a man.  I’m not sure he is oppressing people; here, at least; people can leave Texas and stay in the country.  If you want a definition of oppression, go to My Stealthy Freedom on Facebook and see how Iranian women get arrested or have acid thrown at them for showing too much of their hair in public.  Or be sentenced to jail for a year because they saw a volleyball game.  Or be hanged for killing their rapist.  

I have been very vocal in the 300 posts I have on this blog.  I think it is time for a national reality check about politeness and respect.  We can start with the office, even if we don’t like the person.  Trust me, Mr. Perry knows you don’t like him, and Mr. Obama knows that a lot of folks don’t like him either.  Your dislike isn’t going to change either.  What would change him, if anything, would be respect for the office, stated; dislike of his policies, stated; and cogent reasons why you feel he is on the wrong side of history.

If The Dartmouth editor can’t figure out a way to say that, I would wonder how she got accepted.  I am not nearly as articulate as she, and I got accepted.  Maybe it was because my mother taught me to be polite.

A year ago, I went to my last party in Tucson, saying to myself that with the exception of two people present, I would never see anybody there again.  I said that a lot my final year in Tucson.  It was odd that the day I drove to Oregon, I never did a last walk around of the house, because I thought I would be back to help sell it.  I didn’t have to return, so I never said goodby to the saguaros, chollas, barrel cacti, prickly pear, the pyrrhuloxias, the phaniopeplas, the place where I did my astronomy for 15 years, and all the rooms.  We had a good house.

I said good-by to three people.  I hinted at it to a neighbor, but he didn’t say a word.  I arrived in Tucson quietly and I left quietly.  It was like I never existed.  I wrote an astronomy column for 20 years, and never heard a word when I was let go.  If the medical community were sad to see me go, only the Executive Director of the Medical Society said it.  I never heard a word from others.

The party was in early December, one of the few months I liked in Arizona, where one can be outside in Arizona in the evening.  I sat down, talking to a couple with whom I used to ride the bike.  Another man came up, whom I did not know, and began berating me about moving to Oregon in general and Eugene itself.  I was stunned, since the conversation hadn’t been at all about me but about the couple.

I am amazed that while I consider myself not particularly skilled in social behavior, I would never behave the way some of those influential in social circles do.  Apparently, he and his wife spent time every summer in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, but his wife couldn’t stand the rain and couldn’t wait to get back to Tucson.  More power to them if they were happy.

He told me “it rains in Oregon,” which is kind of obvious, and I replied, “Yeah, great, isn’t it?”  I didn’t tell him I was leaving a state that had 30 years of above normal temperatures since 1984, a 20-year drought, serious water issues, and the most dysfunctional legislature in the country.  Nor did I mention I bet a major career change to statistics on helping the medical community but missed the course on marketing.  In any case, when I crossed the Colorado at Parker, I knew the car would never roll back into the state.  In the past 8 months, neither have I.  There are times when I truly wonder if I will ever return to the state.  I haven’t missed it.

So, what has been my experience to date in Oregon?  Well, yes, it rains.  From April to June, we got 6 inches, almost all at night, a lot of it brief showers, with sunshine afterwards.  From June through September, we got hardly any.  The darkness, dreary days with rain all the time I have yet to see, although I’m assured I will see them.

Last night, my wife and I walked to see the men’s basketball game at Matt Knight Arena, walked to dinner afterward, put on our rain suits, head lamps and reflectors, and walked 2 miles home in moderate rain.  It was a great day.  I often take a rain jacket but don’t expect to wear it.  We are still drier than we should be, although a 3 inch soaking sure helped the stream flow on Spencer Butte; The Sisters and Mt. Jefferson are again snow covered.  I can identify the major Cascade peaks now. I have not given up a day of running because of rain, because it rarely rains hard, and then only briefly.

Hot?  Sure.  Eugene hit 101 and had 36 days over 90, a record, but high temperature records are the new norm in America.  Unlike Tucson, Eugene cools off at night.  I didn’t use cooling the whole summer.  In Tucson, we used to open the house half the nights in summer; the last summer we closed up from May through September. One can ride a bike 12 months a year in Tucson, but they do the same in Eugene, just well lit up, wearing rain gear, although not as many wear helmets as I would like.  We have a river walk along a real river, swollen by autumn rains, not a dry river bed that once ran most of the winter.  Hiking is year round in Oregon.  The high Cascades are now closed except for snowshoes, but the coast is available, although it will be wet.  In Arizona, the hiking season is from maybe October to maybe March.  The hiking in Oregon is wonderful.

I’m useful here, a new feeling.  I volunteer 2 days a week at a community college, teaching math, and love it.  They like having me.  I volunteered 9 years in the schools in Tucson and was never busy enough.  When I left, I never heard a word. I’d go to Lane 5 days a week, but I’d miss my 6 mile weekly hike with the Obsidian Hiking Club, climbing 1500 feet to the top of Spencer Butte, trailhead 6 miles from my house.  I help read to young kids, because Oregon businesses realized that poor reading skills in their children needed to be addressed.  I’ve led 2 hikes into the Cascades, and next month will lead at least two in the Coast Range.  I’ve taken more than 60 hikes within a day’s drive of Eugene, a third with a climb of 2000 feet or more.

My recycling garbage bin is larger than my regular garbage; it was the opposite in Arizona.  Property taxes are double; there is no sales tax.  There’s a Dutch Brothers about a mile away, and I can walk to Track Town Pizza every week for German Stammtisch.  I’ve been to a bunch of track meets and walked to each one.  I ride the bus downtown, because it is free for me and easy.  I never once rode the bus in Tucson.  Shameful.

No place is perfect, and Oregon is no exception.  The rural areas are red,  crazies run for Congress, ones who have names of the nearly 32,000 scientists who deny climate change, but don’t list the degrees and don’t update the list.  Besides, last I heard, science wasn’t decided on numbers of scientists but on facts.  We have homeless and Whovilles here and graffiti, like any other place.  We debate what to do.  The newspaper has printed two of my letters, one of which may lead to my helping with the Death With Dignity Act.  There is a good chance I will help with the Oregon Patient Safety Program.  They wrote me back and followed through.  I couldn’t get past the dugout in Arizona with that.  Marijuana will be legal next July, and the Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza downtown is just that.  There’s a Farmer’s Market every week during the spring and summer.

I run daily on Pre’s Trail, and when we walked home last night in the rain, I told my wife she was finally an Oregonian.

I’ve been one for some time.  I love it.

At a recent Tuesday evening Stammtisch, over at Track Town Pizza, where I get my weekly chance to listen and speak German, I had just explained, in German, the story behind our having a rather large number of house cats, all former strays.

One man, nice enough, commented that the local humane society was euthanizing animals and had a “red list” for dogs that at the end of the week: if they hadn’t been adopted, they were going to be euthanized.  He used as an example that a lady friend of his turned her cat over to the organization, offering to pay for everything, then had her check bounce.  The next day, the lady returned, paid again, and saw her former cat in a truck.  She wanted to say “good by” again, and related to the man who was telling me all this that her cat was going to be taken to be euthanized.

I listened, stunned.  I wasn’t so stunned, however, to wonder why the lady turned the cat over to the organization in the first place.  One reason to relinquish a cat is one’s inability to care for it.  If the lady could drive and pay, but her check bounced, perhaps she was a little demented and her memory inaccurate.  Since the story was being retold, the chance of inaccuracy increased.  I stayed silent.

The second issue was the “Red List”; the third was the man had once wanted a husky, and the society didn’t have any.  He got one from an ad in the newspaper.

I am a strong animal lover.  I was bummed and I left the Stammtisch shortly after, deciding I  would check his story out.  There is too much of what I call Fox News behavior, where poorly unsubstantiated rumors or outright lies are treated as fact.  I am a strong supporter of two Humane Societies in two states and wanted to learn if there were substance to these allegations.

Regarding the husky, the local humane society doesn’t have control over animals that are brought in; it isn’t their fault that they didn’t have what he wanted.  Stated less politely, obtaining an animal through a newspaper ad strongly suggests (although not completely) that the man paid for the dog, which were it the case, I find reprehensible, given that we euthanize 2.7 million a year in the United States.  Yes, read that number again.  I wonder how many were healthy huskies.

I learned that the local society transported cats only if the animal needed a higher level of care or had a better chance of being adopted at another facility.  They also euthanize on site, so the man’s story was wrong.  The Red List once existed, but with a former control facility, which no longer exists.  The current society has no such list.  In addition, if you sign over an animal, the animal is no longer yours.  If the animal has kidney failure, arthritis, or is FIL positive, it won’t be adopted, and it will be euthanized.  Adult cats are not very adoptable. Fact.

To summarize, when one checks facts carefully, many rumors are found to be partially or completely unfounded.  Keep that in mind, when reading or hearing shocking things.  There are facts, and there are unsubstantiated opinions.  A lot of the latter rule the day; the former tend not to be what people want to hear.

There is a huge problem with companion animal overpopulation, entirely the fault of irresponsible people in this country, and completely within our control to solve as a people.  The 2.7 million animals I mentioned are 55% cats, 45% dogs.  This number, of course, does not count the number of homeless animals poisoned, shot, run over, drowned, starve, die of hypothermia, disease, or other causes.  I do not have those data.  I assume in my county 5000 animals are euthanized annually and another 5000 die from homelessness.

Perhaps, we ought to ban breeding.  Period.  There are far too many “designer dogs” bought, when a mutt has hybrid vigor and can be a loving animal.  Fact: a group of pit bulls recently attacked a horse, requiring the latter to be euthanized. However, some solutions cause new problems:  spaying and neutering requirements might lead to people hiding their animals to avoid what I would charge: $1000 a year for an unneutered animal. Portland, Oregon, euthanizes 30% of animals that come into their shelters.  Birmingham has more than double the rate, as do Charlotte and Memphis.  Yet, in Atlanta, some shelters went from 85% being euthanized to 20% by adoption programs and other measures.  It is no coincidence that most of our house cats came from rural Arizona, red as red can get, where litters were dumped, healthy cats were tossed out to fend for themselves, because of divorce, moving, “they don’t allow animals,” “they are too much work,” “I became allergic,” and other examples of boorish, non-thinking people who would do the same to their kids if they could.  Come to think of it, they do.  This is the God, guns, and guts group, who shame the country and their Bible, where in at least six different places speaks to the need for us to care for animals.

We ought to publicize the numbers of euthanized animals in the county each month as part of my definition of how healthy my city is and the state of society.  The government does not fund humane societies.  These organizations exist through donations and charges for animal adoption and care.  It will get worse in Tea Party America, where people should be left alone, because people do such a good job of taking care of themselves.  It’s no secret that the five worst states for health insurance, a basic need, are Texas, Nevada, New Mexico, Florida, and Georgia.  The five best are Massachusetts, Vermont, Hawaii, Washington D.C., and Connecticut.  The worst for teen pregnancy are New Mexico, Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana.  The five best are New Hampshire, Vermont, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and Utah.  When people regulate themselves effectively, we won’t need government to do it.  I’m not holding my breath.

Americans need a whopping big dose of the ugliness here about our treatment of animals.  If a thin stray cat or dog that is eating garbage here doesn’t arouse something sad, then some of our humanity has been lost.  Nearly all of these stray animals will remain homeless, dying slowly by a host of conditions, none pretty.  Frankly, the lucky ones will be euthanized.  To think euthanasia of healthy cats and dogs does not happen in one’s community is to deny reality of an ugly, sad, unnecessary, completely treatable condition, a national disgrace.  Want to fix it?  Ask for monthly counts of euthanasia to be publicized, to keep the issue before the public. Donate money, work to ban breeding, and make crimes against animals severely punishable, for animal abuse correlates very strongly with human abuse.

We rank livability of cities using climate, median income and cultural opportunities, certainly not mentioning how many animals are dumped at the local shelter.  I am not surprised.  Healthier golf courses, excellent medical care and more cultured rich people rank higher than the stray animals population and euthanasias performed on animals who could give more love than one can imagine.