Posts published in “notes”

Last fall, when the sexual harassment complaints against Roseburg (Oregon) Senator Jeff Kruse surfaced, he was accused of “ongoing workplace issues,” without a lot more detail provided. People reacted seriously, but for those of us without knowledge of the specifics - and an unwillingness to prejudge in a time when j'accuse too often seems enough for conviction - a clear assessment was harder to make.

That's not a problem now.

A detailed investigation of Kruse's activities was conducted, and this week the results, 51 tightly-spaced pages worth, were released.

Before this report, we were left wondering what exactly it was he did - and with one small exception, he did not deny the allegations (saying in some cases that he didn't remember) - and so left wondering whether this was serious stuff. Taken together, and in some cases even as individual incidents, this was certainly worth the uproar.

Part of the conclusion read, "there is a longstanding pattern of Senator Kruse engaging in unwelcome physical contact toward females in the workplace, including Senator [Sara] Gelser and Senator [Elizabeth] Steiner Hayward, and that he stubbornly refused to change that behavior after being warned about it in March 2016." There were other people and incidents involved too, but what seemed most especially pertinent was the unwillingness to change his activities and approach. I can understand not reading someone else's mind, or intuiting their preferences; persisting after those concerns were conveyed (in this case even through official channels) is highly noteworthy.

Many of the MeToo cases in recent months have exposed clearly bad behavior, while some have seemed - to me - in a grayer area. The report is recommended reading. It makes clear that Kruse was not operating in a gray zone, and that clarity should help with moving through what is likely to come next. - rs

Purely local: Returning home from Portland yesterday, we drove the new Newberg-Dundee bypass in Yambill County. The long-awaited bypass. Compared for the travel available upt to now on Highway 99, it is an improvement. Here's hoping it can become more of one.

The new road - there aren't a lot of "new" roads these days, are there? - was good. It was an easy, pleasant drive of four to five miles, and it showed off some areas off to the side of Newberg and Dundee. Travel speeded up; all of it was traversed at highway speed.

And it will divide the traffic volume heading through the area, which alone will help diminish the periodic parking lot at Dundee.

But . . . the northeast-side entrance, coming in from the Sherwood area, is balky and clumsy; you have to do several lengthy twists and turns, some of them not intuitive, to get to the actual new road. It wouldn't surprise if some people miss the route or just say the hell with it.

And it falls a couple of miles short of connecting directly with the old, existing, Dayton bypass, which would help a great deal.

These may be projects for the future. Hopefully. - rs

Incorrect or even made-up information about the world around has grown to be a real problem. In our household we routinely have to sift through what's real and what's either satire or otherwise not reality-based.

But that's a matter of fact versus fiction. In a sense, that's not too hard to deal with; most of the time you can (if you're willing to keep your mind open to do the work of sorting) work through to what's real and what's not. Inevitably, if you do that, sometimes you'll find data that supports your world view, and sometimes you'll find something that undermines it. The latter is useful, if you're into thinking: It means you may get to add another level of sophistication to the way you interpret things.

Then on the other hand, there's this from the just-released survey American Views: Trust. Media and Democracy, from Gallup and the Knight Foundation:

Four in 10 Republicans consider accurate news stories that cast a politician or political group in a negative light to always be “fake news.”

The study noted that "The research community often defines 'fake news' as misinformation with the appearance of legitimately produced news but without the underlying organizational journalistic processes or mission. However, some political and opinion leaders, including Trump, commonly label news stories they disagree with or that portray them in a negative light as 'fake news.'”

If that kind attitude becomes commonplace - data isn't real if it runs counter to the way I want the world to look - then we really are lost. I don't think we're there yet. But consider this a serious warning signal.

Addendum: See also Arizona Senator Jeff Flake's floor speech on Wednesday, well worth the read.

A few thoughts after finishing the new book Fire and Fury, by Michael Wolff, about the first nine months or so of the Trump Administration.

One is that many of the points in the Washington Post's review of it, were on target. It was journalistically iffy: There was little clarity about the source of much of the material, or the background. (One long scene happened, apparently but not made clear in the book, at a house party Wolff held.) There were curious gaps and omissions; there were significant elisions. In a number of cases, conflicting explanations or descriptions were offered, with no effort to determine which of them might be, at least, most true. And so on.

With all that true, there are some other things worth saying about it (and reasons why reading the book isn't a waste of time).

One is that, while no one should be shocked if some material in it doesn't hold up, evidently, at least so far, the large bulk of it does. Don't take it all to the bank; but as for providing a broad, rough picture, it seems to do the job.

It is published in book form, but it seems more like quick, journalistic writing, more an impression (segments are reminiscent, sans the style, of some of Hunter Thompson's political pieces). It was done fast, in a hurry, probably in part to keep from seeming out of date in months to come. But that does give it some immediacy.

Generally, it matches up with, and reflects, a good deal of the reporting that's been done in recent months. That means the outline of the book doesn't tell us much new, that only the details are really fresh. Still, the details, in aggregate (and recognizing that some of them may not endure) provide a good deal of depth and understanding about the dynamics inside the White House. The stories we've seen in established publications have a lot more depth after this new book is absorbed.

There's some good, useful background about the key figures involved, too, that many people may not have known.

And it is entertaining.

It's worth a read. Add to that a cautionary note: Don't take it all to the bank. But . . . it's with factoring in, not as any kind of definitive take, not as a finely documented record of the time and place, but as a partial, immediate, temporary piece of the story. Something else we can draw on, in addition to other sources, as we try to figure out in years ahead just what happened. - rs

Two new U.S. senators were sworn in Wednesday - Doug Jones of Alabama and Tina Smith of Minnesota - both arriving after presence in part of a national political firestorm. Jones' election as a Democrat from Alabama is remarkable, but Smith's entry to the Senate is the one that sets a statistical record. She becomes the 22nd woman in the U.S. Senate, marking the largest number of women ever to serve there.

That simply brings ther Senate more or less into line with the rest of American politics, because the 20 percent mark is about where women are in politics nationally.

The Center for American Women in Politics at Rutgers University has looked at the numbers, and as a matter of percentage here is the female membership of various elective cadres:

• Senate - 22%.

• House of Representatives - 19%.

• Statewide elected officials (including governors) - 24%.

• Mayors (100 largest cities) - 22%.

• State legislatures - 25%.

The across the board similarity is remarkable.

And it may rise across the board a year from now. - rs

And welcome to 2018. Before we welcome another year in another 365 days, we should have quite a bit to discuss. We'll be back to get it started tomorrow.

Enjoy!

Have a great holiday - and we'll be back tomorrow.