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Posts published in “Day: August 25, 2011”

Paying and spending, more or less

August 25, 2011

There's a great map toward the end of a Portland Tribune post up today dividing Portland by regions according to how much money each contributes (per person) and how much is spent.

The upshot is, you pay more on the west side, and a little less is spent on you there, while the reverse is the case toward the east of town.

You can get why. Property values, and the taxes from them, are much higher west of the Willamette River than over on the east, toward Gresham. And there's often somewhat more need for police and fire services over in the north and east ends. Just the way things work.

Crump doesn’t say

August 25, 2011

When I took my first job reporting on state politics, at the Idaho State Journal in Pocatello, I spent a good deal of time rummaging through old clips of political stories, especially from the last four or five years - getting up to speed with the characters in the play.

One of the frequent reporter and columnist bylines I bumped into was Steve Crump, who covered politics for the paper when the key political figures were people like Frank Church, Jim McClure, Cecil Andrus and George Hansen. It was a very lively period in Idaho politics with some colorful people; Crump had a lot of good material to work with.

But then, maybe he's been able to find the color in even less likely environs. He's retiring at month's end from the Twin Falls Times News, where he's been since 1983, first as sports editor and more recently as editorial page editor. He's also been writing columns about Idaho, its history and colorful people (he recently did a great top 10 - Idaho's most interesting people).

Hardly anyone still in Idaho journalism goes back so far.

Carlson: Trust, Verify

August 25, 2011
carlson
Chris Carlson
Carlson Chronicles

Former Coeur d’Alene Tribal Chairman and Casino Executive (1994-2006) David Matheson, is back in a seat of prominence, his old job as Casino executive, after five years of acrimonious litigation full of charges and counter-charges the press shouldn’t repeat because there were no verdicts and no real conclusions.

Any observer of Native Americans, or anyone who has business or political dealings with tribes as an entity quickly learns the internal politics of any tribe are as Byzantine and as complex as any politics anywhere. If one has not been raised in that culture one cannot begin to understand the machinations.

Even if one could understand the complexities of the various family and clan relationships, one would need a scorecard to comprehend the inner workings, which family is up and which is down, why some view an education in the college’s of the white conquerors as a negative not a positive, why children can be raised by an entire village successfully, why the native religion can absorb the teachings of the Jesuit missionaries.

Suffice it to say to outward appearances the Matheson family is back in the saddle of real power. Whether that is at the expense of some other powerful family, which is now out, who outside can say? Those that do know won’t say, one can bet on that.

One can also say most Native Americans are acutely aware of public perceptions; more so than other minorities because in many cases they have been victimized by the hokey Indian stereotypes that exist in our culture.

David Matheson has over the years proven to be a savvy operator. He obviously is a survivor and one can wager though outward appearances may be he cares little about public perceptions in fact he is acutely aware of how important they can be. (more…)