Re-Thinking Wilderness Advocacy

I happen to have many heroes. Ray Ring is one of them. Has been for years. Among his many "hats," he is a writer for High Country News. But he also works for a quiet non-profit, Sonoran Institute. And he is an effective thinker about long simmering conflicts here in the west. You know, those kinds of fights where people have been at it for years and no one really remembers why? Loggers v. environmentalists. ATV users v. wilderness preservationists.

So it didn't surprise me to see Ray Ring's most recent op-ed in High Country News. We're thinking along the same lines. Many of these long entrenched battles become more about stereotypes and less about the underlying issues. I remember years ago, during the height of the "Spotted owl" battles when a forest activist said to me, glass of wine in her hand, "well you know, all loggers are alcoholics." And of course, I also remember a student of mine, a former mill owner, regaling me with stories of Birkenstock wearing greenies, as he called them. Ray Ring's op-ed (with one minor stereotype slip, can you spot it?) punctures those mental pictures and adds some serious thought to how wilderness advocates can bridge the gaps with the ATV and snowmobile crowd (traditional whipping boys and girls of The Wilderness Society).

I have always believed that education is a far far better way to achieve change than mandates, laws, and regulation. Especially when it comes to environmental and natural resource choices. One of the most effective ways to educate is to bridge the gaps between yourself and your "students." Dressing in snowmobile outfits, showing up at snowmobile rallies, and talking about ways to find common ground is not just a tongue-in-cheek idea, it's brilliant.

Ta-Da! Recession Over. Sadly, Pain is Not

No longer waiting around for the stimulus money to "trickle down" to its citizens, Tennessee decided to put people to work in the fashion of a New Deal works program. The several hundred people in a rural Tennessee county who were laid off when an automobile manufacturing plant went to Mexico, were able to find state jobs in, yes, the unemployment office, working on thinning a forest, and other public works tasks.

And this is good, because despite economists declaring the recession "officially over," the pain of unemployment, lost value in retirement equities, and increasing prices in necessities such as gasoline, are continuing to hit everyone.

We have a long way to go before anyone feels like they are out of the woods. The so-called green job creation may, at it's peak, develop into 2.4 million jobs, a mere drop in the bucket of how many jobs have been lost in this recession, much less how many more need to be created to keep up with the growing work force.

While housing sales are increasing, house values continue to slide. In other words, people are buying, but sellers are losing value with each sale. Most of these sales are excess inventory or subsequent to bank foreclosures.

As the Slate article suggests, don't download Happy Days Are Here Again.

Unequal Forgiveness

Taking a break from health care complexities, I listened to sports radio as I drove around on errand runs. Michael Vick has been "conditionally reinstated" to play in the National Football League (NFL). For those of you who may not remember, Mr. Vick was convicted and served 19 months in prison for his role in a gambling operation that was centered around using specially trained (and horrifically abused) pitbull dogs as fighting animals.

The two talk show hosts (one of them a local former University of Washington quarterback) went back and forth on the merits of this reinstatement. One of the hosts said he would not hire him, the other was far more forgiving.

I believe that humanity, what makes us all human, is the capacity to change. To reflect and re-think our behavior. I believe in second, third, fourth chances. But here is a moment, a very important moment, for many people involved in the criminal justice system. It is a time for the NFL to use it's influence, for criminal defense attorneys, prosecutors, judges, probation officers to all say that in America, we must forgive everyone. Not just some highly talented quarterback who can help some team win. There are hundreds of thousands of ex-cons who can not find work, who are not accepted into schools, colleges, who are shunned. Now is the time, right now, to have that discussion. And the best person to lead it?

Michael Vick.

ObamaCare

President Obama has moved onto two issues which have been a part of political dialogue for at least thirty years: health care and education. It seems we have been debating these issues for ions. I am beginning to feel we are in an Orwellian "forever crisis" in education and health care. And I actually wonder if there is a crisis in either.

There is no doubt that the cost of health insurance has increased. Dramatically. I have been a consumer of private health insurance for many years, juggling the costs, squinting at computer screens trying to find lower premiums and still have care when/if I need it. I am extremely healthy. I do all the things this current Administration wants to "nudge" us into doing: I have never smoked, exercise like crazy, keep my weight in check. I don't eat a lot of sweets, drink a lot of coffee, and don't visit the doctor often! But my premiums kept going up. Somewhere in this scenario, someone was making a lot of money off of my monthly payments.

On the other hand I am of the age where the medical profession likes to recommend lots of tests. Going to the doctor is no longer an hourly visit, it's days and days of hourly tests: mammograms, colonoscopies, bone densities. And when I sat down with the doctor for my "pre-surgery" exam for the colonoscopy, I realized all of this had become way overblown. I mean, millions of people before me had lived great lives without having some doctor stick a laser down their colon. But this doctor went through this draconian lecture about how often people get colon cancer, and oh, you're co-pay is $15 and the surgery is over $2000! Yikes!

While I have been supportive of addressing the costs of health care, I think we are still not ready, as a society, to deal with this issue full on. Just as other sensitive problems have taken years, sometimes decades, to solve, this one may just need more seasoning. It's personal, whether it is should Medicare cover hip replacements for our parents or whether a private insurer can decide not to allow a defibrillator. In the abstract we all "get it," but at the moment, when it's our mother, our brother, our child, we want what is best and available. We need time to have a longer national discussion. And frankly, our minds have been on the economy. On our neighbor's foreclosure, our bills, our friend's job.

And then there is education. I have also been an avid consumer of education. I've been to elite private universities and state schools. I have taught at both. I have lectured at elementary schools deep in the ghettos and private elite schools that have graduated some of our country's finest minds. While I am not a professional educator, it seems to me our education system is doing just fine. We're producing great kids who are smart, motivated, committed. Cranky up the education system to rely on "indicators," such as test scores or other quantifiable measurables always seems regressive to me. Measuring doesn't account for learning and the multiple ways we absorb life.

I am wondering about President Obama right now. He has mis-stepped on these two issues. And seems to have lost focus on financial industry reform, the economy, and other front burner issues. We need Obama to care, every moment, about those kinds of things rather than get bogged down in "problems" that seem to have been around for a very long time and are dug out of the closet by every single politician when they want easy votes.

Green Jobs and Free Trade

Here and there I have been reading snipes at the Obama Administration's manufacturing policy. The best one liner was something to the effect that while we may be heading for a "green economy," the actual "green jobs" are being created, right now, in China. Most of the turbine windmills are being manufactured in China then exported here. Now that's a carbon footprint if there every was one!

So it seems we should be thinking about what exactly those green jobs entail, and how do we create and sustain them. Part of this discussion, I suspect, means we re-visit the ideas of free trade. China artificially suppresses the valuation of the Yuan, which means we are able to get stuff cheap from them. And they dump a lot of products here in the US, making it virtually impossible for our manufacturers to compete.

How about we say to the world that we need to make the beginnings of the green economy a local issue. Local manufacturing of the components for green energy generation. And using local engineering talent to site the green energy production. Or how about really figuring out how to make our automobile manufacturing the best in the world, energy efficient and cool looking, keeping living wage jobs here in the US.

It just seems hypocritical to me if we talk the talk but certainly don't walk it.

Making It In America

There was a fascinating article in Monday's New York Times about manufacturing in America. Troubling was the news that we are almost dead last among so-called developed nations in manufacturing. Last is France. This is not good news.

If we want to develop an economy that does not experience the ravishes of boom and busts, we simply must wean our reliance off of cheap products from overseas. And we must develop those manufacturing jobs which create and sustain a middle class.

An added component in this discussion about the economy has got to be health care and whether we want to continue, as a society, to rely upon employers to provide it as a benefit, whether it is taxed as income, and how to address the reality that very few people stay in the same job their whole lives.

We have succumbed to the flame-throwers who say by advocating "made in America" we are shutting the door to free-trade. I believe we are taking control of our money, just like families who are weaning themselves off of credit card debt. China, who has tons of cash, keeps taunting us as the world's largest market. But what, really, do we have to market to them? What do we build here that they need? We have got to at least equalize the trade deficit so jobs, good jobs, are created here at home and we're not supporting some repressive toy factory in China.

Our failure to figure this out may result in a further deepening of the depression, despite the current glimmers of hope.

Amateur Science

Today, an amateur astronomer disclosed an amazing discovery on Jupiter. Every morning for the past week I have been witnessing Jupiter in the southwestern sky. But this Australian man peered into his backyard telescope and found a spot that he'd never seen before.

Jupiter, it turns out, is his passion. He knows many of the contours of this planet and this odd spot at first seemed like something he should know. As he gained confidence, he realized it was something different. Different, in fact, from the last time he looked at Jupiter, two nights before.

Indeed, NASA astronomers have confirmed that it appears that something hit the planet, causing this hole, this spot.

Amateur scientists are everywhere and frequently, trusting their gut more than anything, surprise and dazzle us with their discoveries. It is "local knowledges." You watch and observe something for so long, you just know. Different birds, or swallows coming earlier in the season, or bears being more adventurous, or a smell...we can learn a lot from these folks.

Good on ya' mate. Great discovery. And so wonderful 40 years after the first man stepped on the moon. Imagination isn't dead.

The Obama Foreclosure Plan Is Not Enough

The numbers are disappointing. No, the numbers indicate failure on the part of the Obama Administration in addressing the foreclosure nightmare.

And part of the reason for this failure is the dismal response by the Administration to the proposal to change current bankruptcy law allowing "cram downs" of loan modifications (now, remember, bankruptcy judges can cram down loan modifications for corporations in bankruptcy or for your second home, but not a primary residence). The lack of this leverage, I think, is allowing banks to dilly-dally in modifications.

But allowing foreclosures diminishes property values in an economy of already souring real estate. The diminishing values, in other words, the amount of equity already lost, will apparently pay for the health care changes the Obama Administration wants.

Hmmm. Once again, isn't it time to stop these foreclosures?

There Is Something About Foreclosures

And they still keep happening at rates unseen since the Great Depression. Yet, coincidentally, housing starts rose last month. But bear in mind with the foreclosures there will be a glut of housing on the market.

We are fooling ourselves if we think that returning to the hay-day of the real estate bubble is going to solve financial woes. But it seems that is where we are heading. And sighs of relief are coming out of Washington, DC as well as financial master-minds, such as Goldman Sachs.

I'll keep eating my popcorn and watch from the sidelines.

At 59 Years Old, Tom Watson....

I am a sports nut. I love the stories in sports. I have avidly been following Lance Armstrong's return to the Tour de France. But today, there is amazing news at the British Open. The British Open is notorious for gobbling up the best in golf. Almost always played in links courses, which are a rarity here in the States, the best golfers tend to follow their balls into huge holes which are sand traps, into the ocean, or watch their shots at a championship float down a small stream running through the course.

One of the legacies of the British Open was a duel between Tom Watson and Jack Nicolas. Shot for shot thriller.

And today, 59 year old Tom Watson did it again. For almost the whole day he led the field and currently sits one shot under the leader.

It doesn't get much better.

Group Think

Yesterday there was a short piece in the local paper about a candidate for city council. While he seems like a qualified individual, what concerns me is that he currently works for the City. And this is a disturbing trend. That people whose only or major life experiences have been in government seem to dominate the policy-making side.

Another current Seattle City Councilwoman, Sally Clark, prior to her appointment then subsequent election, had also only worked for the City of Seattle. Several of the candidates for local office are government employees.

And in our state capital, the governor, who has been in government in some form or fashion for a very long time, only appoints Olympia insiders to commissions and other positions. For instance, the Wildlife Commission is now dominated by current employees of the University of Washington, the Washington State Department of Health, and numerous retirees of various governmental positions.

I tend to think that having outsiders, people who come from life experiences other than the government, is vitally important for our democracy.

But what concerns me is it seems people from life experiences other than government are not running for office. Perhaps with all the news pressures, the 24/7 media, the no holes barred bloggers who feel no shame in exposing every little detail about a candidate, perhaps those things are barriers to well qualified people running for office.

However, if we end up with a government run by only insiders, our democracy will continue to whither.

Meritocracy

In today's New York Times, David Brooks posted a great op-ed piece about meritocracy. Of course, his exhibit A is the US Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor. But what Brooks forgot, I think, was not only the compelling issues of ethnicity but also her gender.

Practicing law as a woman in the early 1980s was no picnic. Law firms, even government prosecuting offices, did not have maternity leaves. It was a rare even to see a woman elected to partnership, much less a woman made head of a prosecutor's division. To just tread water, women had to work twice as hard and be even more perfect.

Sonia Sotomayor has had to sacrifice a lot of living in order to be sitting at the table, being grilled by privileged white men who have had wives, aides, children take care of their every need. Which, in my opinion, makes them less able to judge this amazing woman's ability to be a Supreme Court Justice.

Audacity of Speculation

Last night I attended a dinner party where one of the guests was a dot.com CEO. Since leaving one of the behemoths of the software business, he has created two "start-ups," selling one to Google and his current project is being groomed for another large corporation to purchase for, presumably, a bazillion dollars.

I thoroughly enjoy this young, smart, erudite young man. Particularly, I love engaging his mind. So last night's dinner table discussion, as it always does when we're together, became dominated by the two of us. I wondered why it is that companies are no longer developed to be owned or managed by the developers. I talked about Ford, Boeing, Weyerhaeuser, Goodyear, even IBM (where the Watson family still owns a large amount of stock). Now it seems, in the Silicon Valley or dot.com era, companies created to "flip" them to even larger companies. Think MySpace. Tech journalists constantly speculate about the latest start-up's chances of being acquired by Google, Microsoft, Murdoch, or Barry Diller. My friend's comment was that he was not that interested in viewing his work as his life. In other words, work was a means for him to have the money to do what he wants (and he has a lot of money).

And I bemoaned the days of work and identity. The loggers who viewed their world as being out doors, of having significant risk, and feeling challenged. That now days we merely quantify that work, we pay people like loggers and fishermen to leave what they love. It's all about money.

We buy houses, fix them up and flip them (or we used to), we start businesses with the intent of flipping them to? And relationships...well, that's a whole other matter...

We are, I think, a society of speculators. No staying power. And despite the economy, that isn't changing. The geniuses of Wall Street have merely moved on to other "houses" doing the same swaps and derivatives that they did before. The dot.com folks whose balloons popped in the early part of this decade merely went on to other start-ups. It's other people's money, so who cares? Goldman Sachs, Bank of America are back in the saddle, posting profits, while foreclosing on homes and taking federal bail-out money. It's insane.

Perhaps our economy will not heal, will not be on sound footing, until we learn that speculating on the grand scales that we idealize, is not good. More is lost than money. In this most recent boom and bust, people lost homes, families have split up, parents lost jobs. We need to figure out not only how to build businesses that create value and meaning for the people who work there, but also intend to make something of value and meaning to the consumer.

Think of how audacious a Henry Ford would be in the current corporate culture, wanting to manufacture a product that will last and will be affordable? Where he employs people who have an opportunity to make a decent wage? And where the Ford family remains a part of that company long past the founders death? The idea would be laughed at by today's Lords of Wall Street. The cash would not come fast enough for their taste.

Until we change from speculators to owners, our economy will continue to slide.

Hammering Home the Cost of The Real Estate Bubble

Fixated on this issue, but the real estate bubble is bursting fast. Yesterday it was the number of construction loans in default, today a prominent local home developer has several projects in foreclosure. Of course, he is protected personally, you know, gets to keep his waterfront home and private helicopter, but what goes up must come down...

Further SIgns Green Shoots Are Whithering

The news in the construction industry is not good. Here in the Seattle area, defaults in construction loans are at an all time high.

We have a long way to go before we really begin to see progress. And is it only me that missed the fact that less than 30% of the economic stimulus money would be "on the streets" this year? Whatever happened to "shovel ready?"

Meanwhile, large manufacturing industries, such as Boeing, are threatening politicians who are indirectly hammering unions about strikes. The implication is if the machinist union agrees to a no strike clause in their contract, Boeing may consider staying in the Puget Sound region (or keeping their much maligned "Dreamliner" assembly plants in this region). This after Washington State gave Boeing enormous tax incentives to keep the assembly plants here in Washington. It seems we have forgotten that middle class blue collar jobs are an important, no vital, component of a healthy regional economy.

We have a long way to go to pull out of this economic debacle.

Lance Amazing Armstrong

No matter what you feel about him, Lance Armstrong and his cycling team put together an amazing performance today. Lance is back.

After Madoff

The catharsis of Bernie Madoff's sentence was short lived. It didn't take long for the victims to swing into action, commenting on every news article about Ruth Madoff or their sons that they too should be put into prison. But really, what is going on here, according to Frank Rich's fabulous op-ed piece in the 5 July 2009 New York Times, is that we are hungering for something to be done to the wizards of Wall Street who keep gyrating the world's economy and particularly ours, through these boom and busts.

Yet, nothing happens. In fact, banks and financial institutions have increased their lobbying capacities in Washington, DC, watering down any possible legislation that may regulate their secretive and outlandish practices. Meanwhile, in anticipation of even the minor tweaking the Obama Administration has done to these institutions, banks are raising rates on credit cards, fees for accounts, and even the privilege to withdraw your own money. Think about that. You have to pay to get your money!

Henry Blodget, a former securities analyst on Wall Street, made millions during the last bubble induced by the financial industry, the dot.com era. His analysis caused stock brokers to recommend a feeding frenzy for small start ups, and when the dust settled and there was no "there there," Blodget was charged by the New York Attorney General for stock manipulation because he, among other stock analysts, didn't believe in the hype they were selling. He settled the civil case. However, the irony is, Henry Blodget is a talk-head analyst for NPR. NPR! Explaining how the financial industry is creating bubbles, again!

It seems we can not quite clean our closets. The next thing you know we'll have Enron executives on NPR giving us advice on how to speculate on commodities.

So it seems that as each day passes from the Obama inauguration, nothing happens to prevent these kinds of bubbles from happening again. Frank Rich is right, we would probably cheer for a John Dillinger these days, just as much as people did in the 1930s. Someone who had the guts to take it to the banks just as much as the banks and financial industry continue to take it to us.

Another article which demonstrates that nothing has changed is a fascinating account of how Goldman Sachs has been at the bottom of every bubble we have recently experienced. Yet the company and their executives (the roll call of former Goldman Sachs execuitves who have gone on into powerful government positions is breathtaking: Jon Corzine, Governor of New Jersey and former US Senator, Robert Rubin and Henry Paulson, Secretaries of Treasury...). Why would we regulate a cash cow for the powerful?

Ever get that sinking feeling that nothing will change? Remember, unemployment is rising, foreclosures are rising, your bank is charging you more for less....

Oops, Can't Find Those Green Shoots

It appears the green shoots of economic recovery might be withering a bit. Today's announcement of job losses for June is sobering, much less the percentage that isn't receiving wide coverage, that well over 16% of Americans are unemployed. That means, the 9.5% plus another 6% or so who are chronically unemployed, not just on unemployment. Yikes. It think that is something like 3 out of every 10 Americans are without employment.

These are not good numbers. I think recession doesn't quite describe what we are in right now. We have not seen these numbers since 1948, when the deployment after World War II reeked havoc on the economy. And in fact, the numbers are even worse since it doesn't appear there is any job creation despite the stimulus spending (do you think really the money is going to help states and municipalities fill in their budget deficits? Nah...).

Hold on, though, these numbers will probably get a little worse.

Land Use Planning and Density

Years ago I did a masters thesis on clustering housing around "working forests." Later I gave a presentation at the Kennedy School for Government at Harvard on the same topic. In New England, the idea caught on and there are several developments, now, around forests which are managed for timber products. So it didn't surprise me to read that the new thing is clustering housing around working farms or ranches. It's the ultimate in eating from local sources.

It's a great idea and it's popularity confirms what the Pew polling data shows, that people prefer to live in single family houses with surrounding open space. While suburbs may be unpopular for many so-called "environmentalists," it's still the dream of most Americans.

In Seattle there is a density dogma. Funneling people into mass transit (I call it planning for lemmings), using behavioral strategies to "nudge" people out of cars, and upzoning in neighborhoods to allow for mass and density in projects (or the nail salon buildings where there are apartments or condos above retail which either remains empty or has amazingly tenacious nail salons as tenants). In a matter of a few years we have gone from a charming city with dozens of quirky neighborhoods to a cranky city with cookie-cutter buildings on every single block. However, it is virtually impossible, if you're an aspiring policy maker or politician, to question this urban planning. Every single interest group, from realtors to environmentalists have bought into it (for a variety of reasons which are at odds with each stakeholder group). But it is also an unrealistic and frankly elitist way of trying to make people conform to a way of life that doesn't exist. It's as if the planners and stakeholders are incapable of even examining their own life patterns: the trips to the doctor, taking kids to soccer games, having to care give for elderly parents, wanting to take in a concert or play...I suppose it's ok for them to use their cars but not anyone else (the Seattle mayor famously has said he can't bike to work because he needs a security detail! Yeah, right).

So here it is, the lusting after the bucolic but being told living in homogenous canyon-like cities is better. And how did these urban planners get in control?