Letter to the Oregonian: Regarding Hovde on Family Leave

Dear Editors:

Removing the chaff from Hovde's opinion piece ("Paid family leave? Let's give it a deserved rest", Sun. 22) reveals the wheat of her anti-humanitarianism. She conflates the deserved responsibility of "personal choice" with the vagaries of personal "circumstance". She dehumanizes people as "employees" or "co-workers" and finds their concern for each other as "odd" or "burdensome". She isolates people as "individuals" who "need to do their part" and appropriately "plan" and is unable to see them as her community and the care of young and old its point. But ultimately she would prefer to punish the many families in need than find out her yuppie neighbor got her $42. What a sad person.

Some link from the Oregonian!

Majority of Oregon's House members vote against bailout: Yay! I am glad our reps voted as they did! I will be calling Wu and thanking him and asking him to stick to it.

DeFazio offers alternative to $700 billion bailout: Go DeFazio!

Financial markets regain much of the ground lost yesterday: Heard on NPR some other Congressperson's scare tactic that the 750+ pt loss in the market wiped out something like $1.5 trillion dollars! And so now "much" of that "loss" is "regained"? Talk about Monopoly money.

Reinhard: Not sure who "they" are...

David Reinhard writes about The New Yorker's cover. Here is the letter I wrote:

David Reinhard is unsure who are the "Obama critics [that] traffic in this Muslim Manchurian candidate nonsense" in his commentary on July 17th, 2008 regarding the New Yorker magazine's caricature cover of Barack and Michelle Obama. Plainly Reinhard missed that Daily Show episode: It's you! The media! Jon replays a number of idiotic clips from the media essentially gossiping about Barack. Reinhard should review it.

Quentin Crain

Jon's commentary:

Letter on Reinhard's: The Moral Landscape of 'Juno'

David Reinhard just can not understand why anyone does good:

Oh, the characters generally do the right, life-affirming thing in the end. But I'm not sure they -- or anyone else in "Juno" -- could tell you why. There are no moral or ethical structures to guide them. There's no overarching belief system. The characters are at the mercy of their feelings.
. . .
An actual belief system provides a sturdier moral foundation, though I'll admit it might not go over big in a hip movie about teenage pregnancy. It might smack too much of morality and, egads, religion.

Uggh.

Here was my letter:

I have read all the "New Atheists" books (Dawkins, Harris, Dennett, and Hitchens) but I must say David Reinhard's piece ('Random acts of kindness, senseless acts of beauty?', Jan. 6) almost has me convinced as to the benefit of religion. He says that without an "actual belief system", eg. religion, good deeds are inexplicable. The "New Atheists" assert that, basically, our moral intuitions come to us via evolution. But I am beginning to wonder. Thank goodness for religion! Undoubtedly, without it Reinhard would be raping and killing as desired.

Tally: Week of Dec. 28 - Jan. 3

Letters Received: 449
Letters Published: 71

Most Popular Topic: The Bush administration
Number of Letters: 56
Opposed: 50
Support: 6

Second Most Popular Topic: The presidential campaign
Number of Letters: 34

Tally: Week of Nov. 23 - 29, 2007

Letters Received: 575
Letters Published: 71

Most Popular Topic: Iraq War
Number of Letters: 60
Opposed: 56
Supported: 4

Second Most Popular Topic: The now-dead proposal to rename a Portland street after Cesar Chavez
Letters: 57

Reinhard on Waterboarding & Response

David Reinhard offers yet another humanitarian column:

First, if all waterboarding is torture, why does the U.S. government waterboard its own folks in survival training programs?

. . .

Second, if it's torture, why didn't Congress say so when the issue came up in 2005.

. . .

Does it qualify as torture under some other U.S. law? As former prosecutor Andrew McCarthy points out in a crack National Review Online article, our criminal code defines torture as a government act "specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering," with "severe" meaning "prolonged mental harm." Waterboarding could qualify if done repeatedly. "But," he asks, "what about doing it once, twice, or some number of instances that were not prolonged or extensive?"

. . .

Yes, what about this limited use when the time bomb is ticking and thousands of American lives are at stake? If your answer is "Yes, whatever it takes," you're in line with the public. In a Pew Research Center poll, 12 percent said torture (not waterboarding, general torture) was sometimes justified to gain critical information; 31 percent said it was often justified.

1. Uh ... maybe they do it in a military program called "Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape", to uh you know, learn how to evade, resist and escape? Stooopid.
2. Maybe because the Republicans were in the majority in Congress in 2005?
3. This is just dumb. If you are going to use waterboarding "once, twice, or some number" then it is just sadistic. Making such a policy simply means the 'bad guys' know all they have to do is hold out.
4. Reinhard's math skill are in line with the rest of his cognitive abilities. "In line with the public" means 12 + 31 = 43% of the public.
   

How about a video response from someone who ought to know?

Tally: Week of Oct. 19 - 25, 2007

Letters Received: 712
Letters Published: 80

Most Popular Topic: Oregon's Measure 49
Number of Letters: 96
'Yes' on 49: 57
'No' on 49: 34
No position: 5

Next Most Popular Topics:
Oregon's Measure 50: 67 letters
Bicyclists/traffic safety: 61 letters

Tally: Week of Oct. 5 - 11, 2007

Letters Received: 661
Letters Published: 80

Most Popular Topic: The Bush administration
Number of Letters: 72
Oppose: 69
Support: 3

Tally: Week of Aug. 31 - Sep, 6

Received: 493 letters
Published: 73 letters

Most Popular Topic:
Iraq War 43
Opposed 40
Support 3

Second Most Popular Topic:
Sen. Larry Craig 41

Letter on David Reinhard's: There are defeatists, and then there is Brian Baird

"There are defeatists, and then there is Brian Baird" was a commentary by David Reinhard about pretty much anyone who feels the Iraq Invasion has and can only fail and Representative Baird's recent trip to Iraq in which he finds both hope and a reason to stay forever.

Here was my letter:

In David Reinhard's latest absurdity ('There are defeatists, and then there is Brian Baird', Aug. 23), he convinces no one of the notion that he is either sorry for nor will refrain from "partisan name-calling". It is certainly not "defeatist" to recognize reality, as evidenced in the latest National Intelligence Estimate which notes that the "steep escalation of rates of violence has been checked for now" leaving Iraq with a best a flat rate of violence in which easily over 1500 Iraqi civilians are killed each month -- hooray! Since it is certain that US troops will kill more civilians, children among them, a "truth-telling simple descriptor" of David Reinhard and other 'succeedists' such as Baird would be: 'Child-killers'.

Letter on David Reinhard's: A surge of information to counter the defeatocrats, Thur 26th 2007

"A surge of information to counter the defeatocrats" was a commentary by David Reinhard about Bush's latest attempt to justify the Iraq fiasco.

Here was my letter:

What was thuglican David Reinhard's point in his July 26th opinion "A surge of information to counter the defeatocrats"? Is it that Bush is taking propagandistic advice from Osama bin Laden in framing the war in Iraq as the "third world war"? Or is it to prove correct the assertion of critics when he informs us that "in 2004 [Zarqawi] pledged allegiance to bin Laden" finally giving al-Qaida any real sort of "presence" or "prestige" in Iraq and thereby putting the lie to al-Qaida as a justification for the invasion? Really, what is the point to David Reinhard?

Letter on two opinion pieces, Sun July 22nd 2007

"Hateful, insulting, unpatriotic - and so very Portland" by David Reinhard and "Bumper-sticker mentality opts for surrender to terrorism" by Charles Gorder Jr. Reinhard's was about a work of art at PDX (our local airport) that he found offensive and Gorder's was about those people with bumper-stickers saying things like U.S. Out of Iraq, Oppose the War, and Bring the Troops Home were the same as wanting to surrender to the terrorists.

Here was my letter:

David Reinhard ("[Hateful - so very Portland]") and Charles Gorder Jr. ("[Bumper-sticker mentality]") in Sunday's paper complain about the -- sarcasm ahead -- anti-war surrenderist Portlanders who make art and not bombs and sloganeer on their cars their support for bring the troops home. I, on the other hand, am proud to be a resident of this city and thoroughly enjoy seeing the weekly tally of letters received by the Oregonian which, this week and historically, are consistently 15 to 1 in favor of peace and rationality.

Letter on David Reinhard's: World's greatest deliberative ... pajama game, Thur July 19th 2007

"World's greatest deliberative ... pajama game" was a commentary by columnist David Reinhard regarding the Levin-Reed amendment that Harry Reid kept the Senate open late to debate.

Here was my letter:

It is revealing to note that recent events allowed David Reinhard in his commentary "World's greatest deliberative ... pajama game" to comment on two deliberative bodies: The US Senate and the Iraqi Parliament. In the Senate, Republicans filibustered, something they used to call the "nuclear option" and "obstructionism", a vote on the Levin-Reed admendment that would begin within 120 days troop redeployment from Iraq. In Iraq, its parliament is planning on taking off the month of August -- something Whitehouse press spokesman Tony Snow is sympathetic to: Baghdad is quite hot on the summer you know -- before the much anticipated report on progress to Congress by General Petraeus. Sadly but truely, yet another demonstration of David's partisan mind.

Letter on Debra Saunders': It is simply too soon to discuss surge failure, Mon July 16th 2007

"It is simply too soon to discuss surge failure" was a pundit commentary on the Iraq surge by Debra Saunders. I can not find it on the Oregonian's website, but I believe it was this one.

Here was my letter:

Presumably the Editors wished to provide some "balance" to the Iraq surge by offering Saunders' opinion ("too soon to discuss surge failure'), which 36% of Americans at most would agree with (Pew Research Center's survey of March 26, 2007). Saunders', like all those on her side of this issue (see Reinhard on Sunday), only offer as "evidence" of the surge's effectiveness the military's own statements and pronouncements. Such propagandistic stenography is repellent to the bulk of humanity that understood by the Enlightenment; Saunders ought to be ashamed.

Letter on David Reinhard's: A Soldier's Truth about Gitmo, Sun July 15th 2007

"A Soldier's Truth about Gitmo" was a commentary by columnist David Reinhard regarding Guantanamo.

Here was my letter -- and published!*

Reinhard pens another apologia for the military, straight from the military -- something we hoped had been left in the last century -- in "A Soldier's Truth about Gitmo". I will let other readers write in about his blatant lying ("the detainees are being treated humanely."); my favorite is the sympathy we are supposed to feel for the guards when the detainees react to their pleasant condition. Reinhard parrots: "Apparently, [the detainees] weren't impressed with Gitmo's good grub, top-tier medical care and Islamic sensitivity." Yes, it is unsurprising that Reinhard can not fathom why they go on hunger strikes, act up towards their most hospitable hosts, and attempt and succeed at killing themselves. One wonders why Reinhard does not make a reservation for himself: Certainly he would enjoy the amenities and has nothing to miss outside Gitmo - just like the current guests.

* - The editors unfortunately replaced "blatant lying" with "[such claims as]" suggesting that the treatment of the detainees is open for interpretation. Bullshit.

Letter on an Editorial: A license for chaos, Sun July 15th 2007

"A license for chaos" was an editorial regarding the Real ID Act of 2005 that the editors believed the Oregon legislature failed to address and act on by implementing it.

Here was my letter:

A useful corrective to the Oregonian's editorial
"A license for chaos" -- like much else in the paper --
is to review the ACLU's position. Unsurprisingly the ACLU
opposes the Real ID act, but more interestingly on the ACLU's
website for this issue (www.realnightmare.org) you can find a
color coded map of US states that have passed or introduced
state legislation *opposing* the federal Real ID act. It turns
out that 17 states have passed legislation opposing this
implementation of a national identification system. Arkansas
has decided to opt out, Georgia has authorized its governor
to delay compliance (because their attempt already ended
in disaster), Tennessee opposes its implementation and
urges its repeal, and finally Oregon has introduced legislation
requiring implementation only with federal funds and better
data security and privacy safeguards effectively opposing
Real ID. As usual, the Oregonian is on the wrong side of
the issue.