Salem-News.com Op Ed articles Page 23

Op Ed:
Home Learning Center
Best Tool for Teachers,
Parents, Kids, Budgets

Learning Media, Technologies are NOW Essential for 21st Century

(SALEM) - When I was 2, my Dad gifted me with a straddle-seat "Learning Desk".

It sported a “worktop and chalkboard” AND a “Learning Console” with scrolls for A-B-Cs; the square, circle, oval, and cross; and a "map" with city, plain, coast, and mountain illustrations.

Other scrolls carried many more visuals, to which you wrote your own "stories" for every imaginable image: Charts, sketches, cartoons, "store-fronts", "factories", "offices", and more --with an additional list easily accessed and affordable.

Op Ed:
SOMEbody Gotta
Cover The Story,
As U.S. Free Press Fails

Citizens Losing Essential Information for Democratic Decisions.

(SALEM) - When I worked as Wires Editor in Boston for United Press, we had a Bureau Chief named Hank Minott --famed for his newsroom shout when chaos threatened-- intermittently always, more often than not.

No matter what the first-content of any one shout, he always ended with “SOMEbody gotta cover the (insert word) STORY!”

AND somebody did --on the dead run, conscientiously, completely and professionally-- if you wished to keep on coming to work there.

That was then.

Op-Ed: Circumventing Oregon`s Constitution For an Emergency Experiment

By: The 11 members of the House of Representatives who voted “no” on SCR 1 on January 17th.

(SALEM) - 150 years ago a group of 60 elected delegates met in Salem and drafted Oregon’s Constitution in just 33 days.

They sent it to the ballot where it was approved by voters.

Recently a majority of Oregon’s modern day delegates voted to circumvent the spirit and intent of our state constitution by adopting Senate Concurrent Resolution 1, the “Annual Sessions test.”

Article IV, Section 10 of the Oregon Constitution specifically states legislative sessions “shall be held biennially” - every two years.

Only the people can change the Constitution if they believe the Legislature should convene at the State Capitol every year.

Op Ed:
The Oregon Game Goes ON...
And ON...And ON...
With NO Consequence

Great Opportunity May Be Sacrificed For Funds-Deposited

(SALEM) - “Historic occasion” very seldom occurs in rapid-repeat for most political parties. We are seeing that occur constantly right now in regular-order for the Democrats declaring their own “new directions” for Oregon.

This political-drama is playing out right before our eyes, in “the Salem Arena”, with performing parties center-stage enacting anew the bloody dramaturgy of this Ethics Commission remedy-or-renewal.

Op Ed:
Painful Pay-Off
Can Guarantee
Ethical Attention in Oregon

Strong Consequences Needed For Destroyed Trust

(SALEM) - Human nature is full of quirks and “surprises” even from mature politicians chosen by full voter trust.

Painfully-damaging political behavior by some so trusted, but proven too easily led astray, had become a cultural characteristic in the Oregon Legislature.

Oregonians now demand deep changes in the Ethics Commission system overseeing such situations.

“Painful behavior demands painful consequence” is an essential principle of democracy. The Federalist Papers provide discussion in detail and depth as Founders felt their way to make sure democracy worked.

Op Ed:
Business Leaders
Recognize Reality,
Seek Solid Actions

Sustainability Offers Oregon Competitive Edge

(SALEM) - Oregon’s emerging business-corporation cadre of leadership showed why reality is finally being recognized at the fifth annual Oregon Leadership Summit.

“Competitive edge” is THE demanded-essential these days for exceptionally difficult developments centered on global business and trade developments. That fact was entirely clear to the more-than-1000 Oregon leaders gathered for this very-solid session.

Most significant was appointment of Allen Alley, a proven-by-performance business-side high profiler, as a deputy chief of staff for Governor Kulongoski.

Op Ed:
Corporate Changes
Shape Decisive Year
For State of Oregon Future

Cultural Shift Demands Leadership to End Failures

(SALEM) - Every New Year presents great potential for real progress --always shadowed by looming dangers of return to the same-old wrenching “recent wrong-ways”.

Year 2007 --in the 21st Century!-- simultaneously “promises and threatens Oregon with no way to know which it will be for many months yet to come.”

The balance-point is precarious, holding exceeding promise for positive change forced by broad social and economic pressures becoming intolerable for many. We are, already and surely, experiencing serious cultural changes, invariably impacting business at all levels, especially in corporate form.

Op Ed:
Takes Two To Deal:
Ethics Must Control
Lurking Lobbyists

Commission Needs Billy-Club, Not Lunch Checks

(SALEM) - Even Adam Smith, very early-on, understood that “it takes two to make a deal” --in 1776. Smith’s fundamental assumption was-and-is that it should be equitable and worthwhile for both parties.

If one of them is working for somebody else, the other must take full caution and care; especially if chosen and trusted so to do, uniquely in the public interest, by very-public vote, now forced under sharp, serious surveillance --again.

Trust is on the voter-legislator side, and cannot in good conscience be applied to provide private profit for the other side.

Op Ed:
POGO-Prognosis
Reflects Demanding
Democratic Action

We Can Defeat Distorting Damage-Done By Us

(SALEM) - “We have met the enemy and he is us” has become a wise and widely-cited Pogo-pronouncement.

What Pogo is telling us is that “We” did it... and in the process became “us”... obviously “to blame” for what’s gone wrong.

But then, those words reflect what’s “gone right”, too; not by politicals but via democratic development; leading “us” on, NOW, to still further possible practicalities.

Op Ed:
Perverted Politics
Killed Previous U.S.
Universal Healthcare

Moral-Hazard Myth Reverses Common Sense and Economics

(SALEM) - American history tells some woeful tales about political perversion forcing portentous decision, with damning consequence.

But our healthcare market-based debacle is setting new records in costs, consequences, and pending catastrophe.

Its most painful impacts are on the least-able to pay and our once-vauntedly “comfortable” middle-class of white-collar workers.