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WPC and The Spokesman

I have one addendum to yesterday’s post “Have You Voted Yet?” concerning the City of Spokane Levy and the Spokesman’s “Editorial Board” opposition to it. Stacey Cowles, the only remaining member of said Editorial Board referenced data from the Washington Policy Center to suggest we pay our police and firefighters too much, supposedly more than comparable communities. To Mr. Cowles it followed that the City Council ought to do more homework and cut costs, not propose an increase in property tax. Mr. Cowles offered no cost saving measure (other than the implied suggestion of cutting salaries) nor did he offer any substantive critique of the programs and positions to be funded with levy money.

But there is more: 

The Washington Policy Center is the Koch-donor group supported non-profit “think tank” in Washington state. In 2017 the WPC threw a fancy fundraising dinner at the Davenport Grand with Nigel Farage, “Mr. Brexit,” as the featured guest speaker and most of the Spokane GOP in attendance. You can read more about that here. The WPC is also a major provider of McMorris Rodgers’ policy positions, something I learned firsthand during her attempted repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Read Constituent Biopsy by the Washington Policy Center fob CMR. 

If you visit the Washington Policy Center’s website you will note thirty-five names on their Board of Directors, most of them from the west side of the state. There are two from Spokane, Heidi Stanley of Empire Bolt and Screw and Anne Cowles, Stacey Cowles’ wife. Ms. Stanley and Ms. Cowles also sit on the “Eastern Washington Advisory Council” of the Washington Policy Center. No other Spokane residents are both on the Board and the Council.

One of my readers reminded me of this connection, writing: “What he [Stacey Cowles] doesn’t say is that his wife, Anne Cowles, is on the Washington Policy Center board.  For an S-R reporter, it would be a huge conflict of interest to cite a source where a relative has a powerful position.  How does he get away with not disclosing this?”

Mr. Cowles disparagement of the levy deserves to be ignored. Vote yes.

Back next week.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

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Have You Voted Yet?

Dear Group,

Have I voted? Election? What? Huh? Didn’t we just have an election? Check out your junk mail pile. As a Spokane County voter you have a roughly 75% chance of finding a ballot due next Tuesday, February 12.

Do you feel a little blindsided? Here’s a tool I found that might help with that: https://www.spokanecounty.org/list.aspx  On that webpage, enter your email address or cell number (per the directions), then scroll down to “News Flash” and “Elections” (or anything else you might want to notified of from County government), click and, voila! you’ll get notification of upcoming events. Welcome to the digital age.

According to the Spokesman only 3/4 of registered voters in Spokane County received ballots for this election. That’s because all the issues on these ballots pertain to tax levies in various School and Fire Districts. “Orchard Prairie School District 123, Spokane County Fire Protection District 8, Spokane County Fire Protection District 13 (which is Newman Lake Fire and Rescue) and Spokane Valley Fire Department are replacing existing property tax levies.”

Then there’s the “CITY OF SPOKANE Proposition No. 1 Levy for Hiring of Police and Fire Personnel and Funding Crime Reduction Programs” Click this link for a good description of what this levy would pay for. 

As a City of Spokane resident and property tax payer I’m voted for it and I encourage you to do the same. It seems to me that $60 more per year paid in property tax on a home valued at $200,000 is well worth what it buys. 

So who would think otherwise? No surprises here. Stacey Cowles and David Condon both offer the opinion that the City Council did not do its homework, that the Council is just throwing money around [click the names for their opinions]. Stacey Cowles uses his bully pulpit as the sole member of the editorial board of his family owned newspaper [see Daniel Walters’ commentary on that] to say the City of Spokane is paying its police and firefighters too much. He and Condon think the City Council needs to go back to the drawing board and cost cut. His source of information? Ah, yes, the Washington Policy Center, the local Koch-donor-group funded “think tank” that never met a tax of which it approved. Where were Cowles and Condon when the Spokane City Council was working to respond to citizens’ concerns about property crime and emergency services? 

We elect City Council members, a City Council President, and a Mayor to take a hard look at the details of making Spokane a safe and comfortable city in which to live. I like programs this levy will support and I don’t need to listen to grousing and second guessing from one of the biggest property owning families in the area telling me my Council Members aren’t doing their job…

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

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Demographics

Dear Group,

“Demography: (from prefix demo- from Ancient Greek δῆμος dēmos meaning “the people”, and -graphy from γράφω graphō, implies “writing, description or measurement”[1]) is the statistical study of populations, especially human beings. …Demography encompasses the study of the size, structure, and distribution of these populations, and spatial or temporal changes in them in response to birth, migration, aging, and death.” [From Wikipedia] 

I consider our world, the ecosystem in which we live, to be finite. Finiteness is a bedrock concept, a concept shared by most people with any background in biological science. Our ecosystem is limited and intimately interconnected. That we are part of and dependent on that ecosystem is fundamental, a fact that runs counter to our tendency to think of ourselves as exceptional. The world can support only a limited population of any organism before the biological and physical systems upon which that organism depends begin to collapse. [It turns out there is a opposed thought stream dedicated to the idea that human ingenuity can and will triumph over these limits, but that is an topic for another day.]

I have long been interested in human population growth, human demographics, the details of how we as a species have “gone forth and multiplied.” I view our survival as a species as dependent on our peak numbers and our pattern of resource use, especially the burning of carbon fuels. 

Today allow me to introduce to you a remarkable man, a statistician, physician, public speaker and educator, Hans Rosling. I find his presentations fascinating. He offers demographic insight that is entertaining and accessible to non-mathmeticians, I encourage you to click on and watch his 13:20 minute TED talk, Religions and Babies. It will be time well spent. He makes a convincing argument that human population will stabilize at around ten billion. That leaves open the question as to whether 10 billion exceeds the carrying capacity of the planet, but his talk offers some welcome hope.

Sadly, Hans Rosling died in February 2017, age 68. His TED lectures live on. I have enjoyed and learned something new from each one I have spent the time to watch. I encourage you to explore this man’s insights. 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

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Trump as Christian

Dear Group,

A few days ago I called up my conservative friend and former neighbor for another chat. After we caught up on family news we circled around to politics. She offered that she and her daughter resolved to take “a vacation” from politics for the month of December, a vacation they found so calming they extended it through January. She volunteered she still listened occasionally to TV news. I knew from previous conversations that her channel of choice was Fox. 

With an even voice I inquired, “Do you still think President Trump is doing a good job?” 

“Oh, yes!” she replied enthusiastically.

“Can you give me examples of where you think he is doing good things?”

“Well,…the economy is great! Unemployment is really low. Even minorities have jobs! And President Trump is a good Christian. He hasn’t always been, but he has the approval of Christian leaders like, Billy…no, Billy died…Franklin, Franklin Graham and other Christian leaders. President Trump is a believer. And he moved the embassy to Jerusalem, something other Christian presidents have wanted to do, but President Trump really did it!

If any are wondering why this embassy move is so important to some people read CMR’s Worldview.

Please remember Christian thought is not now and never has been monolithic. Many from mainline denominations and some self-described evangelicals find Trump’s personal and presidential actions impossible to square with Christian faith. Thinking of all Christian church-goers as supporters of Trump and his actions is an intellectual trap to be avoided.

That said, there is a great desire among the most right wing of Christians to think of the Trump presidency as divinely inspired or divinely guided. For years conservative propagandists have been fostering a siege mentality among these people, beating the drum about gay marriage, the sins of the LGBTQ, the depravity and danger of bathroom laws, and the evils of abortion. Feeling deeply maligned, this group now has a savior who has shifted the makeup of the federal court system to come to their defense. Over the last eight years Mitch McConnell engineered vacancies in the Supreme Court (the Merrick Garland stiff-arm) and nearly a hundred vacancies in the lower courts, vacancies now mostly filled by Trump on Federalist Society recommendations. These are judges who will skew decisions in a conservative direction for decades. For many beleaguered right wing Christians this is proof enough of divine guidance of the Trump presidency.

My friend is among those who are sure Trump is truly Christian, a man who, like the Apostle Paul, has undergone Christian conversion from his former ways. After all, Trump chose Mike Pence as his running mate, a politician with impeccable credentials among right wing Christians. Trump burnishes his image with such believers at the National Prayer Breakfast, a venue once considered bi-partisan, but now infused with political rhetoric. One can think what one wishes about Trump’s sincerity in this conversion, but photos of Trump in prayer with evangelical leaders is proof enough for some.

It does not end there: Far right Christian conviction that the Trump presidency is divinely guided is promoted in a movie. The Trump Prophecy played briefly in major theater chains in October 2018, mostly in central and southern states. You can watch it here or buy a  DVD this March (websites recommended for perusal, not purchase). The Trump Prophecy was produced at Liberty University where the producer took advantage of student labor, The Trump Prophecy tells the story of a firefighter who received a message from God in 2011 predicting the Trump presidency. This strikes me as bald political propaganda, but it feeds a voracious appetite for confirmation among believers like my friend. (If you are not familiar with Liberty University, founded by Rev. Jerry Falwell in 1971, it is high time you become acquainted. It is a growing political and cultural player, developed expressly as a Christian fundamentalist contrast to “liberal” education.)

For those of a fundamentalist stripe who doubt Trump’s piety, there is a convenient alternative: Trump as a divinely guided tool, Tump as King Cyrus of Persia, the king who freed the Jews from Babylon. King Cyrus is”...the model for a nonbeliever appointed by God as a vessel for the purposes of the faithful.” (Isaiah 45) (The quote is from a NYTimes article well worth reading.)

Surely not every fundamentalist Christian consciously subscribes to one of these Trump justifications to explain their conviction that Trump is wittingly or unwittingly the answer to their prayers, but for many on the right Trump’s sincerity or lack of sincerity as a Christian is irrelevant. 

I urge you to engage in listening to Christian friends and acquaintances. Draw them out. Don’t argue, just listen. Once you find someone like my friend there is no point in argument. You will not change minds such as these. They are hermetically sealed. Like McMorris Rodgers, such minds find Trimp’s “positive disruption” as instrumental in furthering the aims of fundamentalist Christian. Instead, listen, learn, and engage with minds that are not yet closed. Offer the contrasting statement of your own values. (See George Lakoff’s Don’t Think of an Elephant.) 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

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Tyndall, Trace Gas, and the Merchants of Doubt

Dear Group,

Science-based understanding of our world is based on reproducibility. A finding or conclusion is tested and tested again by both the original scientist and others in the same and related fields by repetition and exploration of other lines of evidence. (That is the primary difference between science and religion. Science is verifiable by repeated experiment.) When a commentator makes a statement of doubt that contests a fundamental fact of physics it is a sure sign we have entered a parallel universe. Such is the “trace gas” argument.

The argument goes: Carbon dioxide is a trace gas. Because it is a trace gas, comprising only 400 parts per million (PPM) of the atmosphere (0.04%), it cannot possibly be a major player in global warming. 

Sue Lani Madsen, a conservative guest columnist for the Spokesman Review, illustrates the “trace gas”  argument in her own Spokesman report of an NPR “On Point” Panel in which she participated on September 22, 2017. The topic was wildfires, but her fundamental denial of global warming became a glaring issue. In Ms. Madsen’s Spokesman report describing the event she wrote, “Carbon dioxide is 0.039 percent of Earth’s atmosphere, a trace gas from mostly natural sources.” A likely source of her denialist argument is the “Galileo Movement” in Australia (Galileo would be appalled). Visiting their website is eerily reminiscent of visiting the website of the Flat Earth Society. You can read a little about the Galileo Movement’s arguments and a point by point refutation in an article from Scientific American from August 16, 2011 entitled “Why Carbon Dioxide Is a Greenhouse Gas.” 

I was so riled by Ms. Madsen’s denial of basic physical fact I went looking for the original physics research. I found it in the story of the life and work of a British scientist named John Tyndall (1820-1893). Tyndall was a man from a time when men and women (See Eunice Newton Foote in wikipedia) of moderate wealth could advance basic science in home laboratories, a time when scientific discovery was the stuff of popular culture. 

The detailing of carbon dioxide as a major greenhouse gas (even when present in “trace” quantities) was simple in concept but challenging in execution. John Tyndall developed an apparatus consisting of a source of heat energy of known intensity, a tube to contain whatever gas or gas mixture Tyndall wished to study, and a device to measure the energy that passed through the gas without being absorbed. Tyndall published his experiments and results in a paper with the distinctly un-sexy name, “On the Absorption and Radiation of Heat by Gases and Vapours, and on the Physical Connexion of Radiation, Absorption, and Conduction.” You can read the actual paper here.  (See P.P.S below.) A great summary article on Tyndall’s painstaking work, courtesy of the BBC (on the occasion of the publication’s 150th anniversary) can be read here [highly recommended]. Carbon dioxide was only one of many gases Tyndall studied with his apparatus. This is physics. The results are reproducible, totally independent of denialist claims. 

I “know” Tyndall’s results are true not just because I trust the story of Tyndall’s life and work, but because I trust scientists who tried to prove Tyndall wrong…and instead got the same results. (That does not keep modern day denialists from offering nonsensical polemic to cast doubt.)

Had I been brought up to believe that truth emanates only from one holy book, had I not spent much of my youth reading stories of the lives and discoveries of great scientists, I suppose I might consider a 19th century researcher untrustworthy, his experiments somehow motivated by a political or pecuniary agenda and therefor suspect, his results inconsistent with my worldview.

We learn from stories. We “know” what we know because we trust the people who tell those stories. In the case of scientific knowledge we trust not just the people, like Tyndall, who did the foundational physics experiments of atmospheric gases, we trust him because countless others since Tyndall have reproduced and refined his work. 

Whenever the “trace gas” argument surfaces it is a marker for ignorance of physical fact.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. Those who popularize anti-science narratives may be sincere, smug, and confident, motivated and bolstered by the accolades received from their tribe and followers. Projecting nefarious motivations (“Climate Change is a Chinese hoax.”) or delusional thinking on scientists and verified scientific fact is for these folks a satisfying enterprise…and so much easier than actually engaging in scientific endeavor.

P.P.S  Scientific papers of Tyndall’s time were presented as narrative stories of the experiments performed. Reading Tyndall’s paper reminds me of the stories that introduced me to the scientific method in my youth. Comparing Tyndall’s paper to modern, dry scientific papers reminds me of the power of narrative to engage the reader. Visit the actual paper here. 

 
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“Why Congress is so Dumb”

Dear Group,

An article appeared on the opinion page of the Spokesman on Saturday, January 12, entitled “Why Congress is so Dumb,” written by Bill Pascrell Jr., New Jersey’s 9th Congressional District’s Representative to the U.S. House of Representatives since 1996. 

It is worth your while to click and read the whole thing, but the take-home for me was this: Rep Pascreli documents a big problem. While lobbying from a multitude of interest groups has only increased, Congressional staffing, fact-gathering power, and the actual writing and debating the details of bills by real Congresspeople and their staffs has greatly diminished. This is the sort of thing thing that creeps up on the observer. It happens so slowly that many don’t notice the change. 

This is outsourcing of Congressional function to lobbyists and think tanks that do self-serving “research,” and offer model legislation to Congresspeople. On account of creeping staffing cuts Congress is woefully under-equipped to critically evaluate the offered “research.” No doubt for some it must be a relief not to feel any need to critically evaluate, fact find, debate, and actually write legislation. After all, if one can rely, for example, on the Washington Policy Center, to craft bills and opinions then, like McMorris Rodgers, one can devote one’s time to crafting message instead of critical thought. Her entire $1.3 million Congressional Representational Allowance can then be devoted to staying in office as part of the Trump team.

For good reason Rep. Pascreli dates the beginning of this outsourcing to 1995 and the Speakership of Newt Gingrich, a key architect of our current political morass. I would go back farther to the Powell Memorandum of 1971 [click and read that section], although one might wonder if, were he alive today, even Lewis Powell would wonder if his memorandum had been heeded a little too well.

There is an obvious solution: Roll back the staffing cuts that Gingrich set in motion, beef up the staff and fact-gathering institutions that have atrophied, and put Congress back on track to function as the deliberative body it is meant to be. 

I strongly encourage you to click and read “Why Congress is so Dumb,” Please let me know by “Reply” email if it cannot be accessed on account of a paywall. 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry
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The PDC, WA State Civics

Dear Group,

We, as residents of Washington State, pay dues for our membership in this State. Some of these dues are used to fund a state agency called the Public Disclosure Commission. The PDC is an important part of the civics of Washington State. Allow me to introduce you.

The Public Disclosure Commission is the only Agency of the Washington State government created by a vote of the people. In 1970 a group of concerned citizens calling themselves the Coalition for Open Government (COG) gathered signatures for Initiative 276. Initiative 276 appeared on the 1972 General Election Ballot and passed with 72% of the vote. Twenty years later, in 1992, Initiative 134 passed by a similar margin. Initiative 134 established contribution limits and other campaign restrictions governing electoral conduct for elections in the State of Washington.. 

Think about that. The Public Disclosure Commission was established with overwhelming support from the voters of Washington State, voters who wanted to make the electoral process in Washington State and the money that flows within it more transparent. I encourage you to click and read Washington’s Public Disclosure Commission, Its mission, services, and data files for a great overview. (I found this document in a few clicks via the Wikipedia entry under Washington State Public Disclosure Commission.)

I’ve been a resident of Washington State since 1985. I am embarrassed to admit that prior to November, 2016, I was unaware of the Public Disclosure Commission, and until the day of this writing I did not know the first thing about the PDC’s origin. 

The Washington State Public Disclosure Commission (PDC) offers a wealth of useful information about election related spending of candidates, lobbyists, and independent election related expenditures for all offices and initiatives within Washington State. Candidates for federal office, i.e. the United States Senate and House of Representatives, work under the rules of the Federal Election Commission. (Interesting note: the FEC, like the PDC, was established in the early 1970s.) The PDC and FEC have to distinct websites, pdf.wa.gov and fec.gov. 

As a small example of the utility of Public Disclosure Commission data let’s ask, “Who is gathering money to run in the August Washington State Primary for office in the City of Spokane?” I urge you to follow along. Go to pdf.wa.gov, click “Browse” and choose “Candidates by Office Sought.” Set to Election Year “2019.” Leave the setting at “Show All Campaigns.” Scroll down and Click “Municipal” and under that click “City of Spokane” (or anything else of interest). 

Today, for the purpose of illustration, under “City of Spokane,” click “Mayor, City of Spokane.” There you see seven candidates. The only one I recognize is Ben Stuckart, the current President of the City of Spokane City Council. The Spokesman posted an article mentioning his candidacy for Mayor a few weeks ago. Who knew there were six others already raising money to run for Mayor?

Who is this Shawn Poole? He is reporting having raised over $7000. Click his name. Note that $1000 comes from what is presumably his business, “Pooles Public House.” Google “Shawn Poole.” There you will find shawnpoole2019.com, a website that will quickly introduce you to his political bent. (Municipal offices are nominally “non-partisan,” but…)

No one wins an election with raising money. The Public Disclosure Commission tells who has started to gather funds and how much. Others may still appear. Candidates officially file to run in the August Primary between Monday, May 13, 2019 and Friday, May 17, 2019.  Nonetheless, visiting the PDC now offers advance notice. 

I present this by way of orientation readily available data. Use it. I hope never again to receive a ballot for an August Primary Election and wonder, “What election is this?” or “Who are these people?” One of these candidates will ultimately represent (or pretend to represent) my interests as a citizen. It behooves me to learn about the candidates before I’m asked to vote. 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry