Invasion of the floating paparazzi

Whale-watching is big business in the San Juan Islands of northwest Washington State, generating $10 million per year in revenues. And for good reason: three to four pods of the "Southern Resident Killer Whale" population roam the inland waters of Puget Sound and the Gulf Islands of British Columbia. Gray, humpback and minke whales also pass through the area on occasion.

Last weekend, with three friends, I had the amazing good fortune to watch from shore as more than thirty orcas of the "K" pod swam past the lighthouse at Lime Kiln Point on San Juan Island. Some came within twenty-five feet of the rocky Point and lingered for at least half an hour before they resumed their northerly course up Haro Strait, which separates the San Juans from Vancouver Island. Through the "Orcasound" hydrophone set up by observers, we could hear a din of orca cries and their staccato echolocations.

Though I'd seen orcas before, from shore and from the Washington State ferries, I'd never felt immersed in their culture until last Saturday. We felt surrounded by orcas as we watched them engage in breaching, fluke waving, pectoral slaps, rolling, tailobbing and spyhopping. They didn't just swim on by--they stopped and lingered. A couple orcas also engaged in obvious, um, mating "behavior" less than fifty feet from shore in the cove north of Lime Kiln Point (despite the close presence of a boat). All this was a first for me.

The pod was accompanied, as usual, by a fleet of recreational boats that could best be described as floating paparazzi. Several boats sped ahead of the orcas, dropped anchor in the middle of their obvious path and waited for the show to begin. Larger vessels crammed with whale-watchers loomed farther offshore. Small planes flew low overhead and circled for better views. The underwater engine noise from the flotilla of boats often overwhelmed the orca communications that we heard through the hydrophones.

The Whale Museum in Friday Harbor, on San Juan Island, estimates that a half million people patronize commercial whale-watching vessels each year in the archipelago, while another 3,000-8,000 watch orcas from private boats. The industry certainly contributes to the public's general knowledge of orcas and marine mammals, thereby increasing support for the preservation of endangered species. My impression is that the commercial operators are more careful about observing guidelines than the owners of smaller vessels.

And there's little doubt the orcas have become accustomed to the prolonged attention they receive, even though boaters routinely violate the ineffectual "Be Whale Wise" guidelines that have been developed. Still, the constant presence of humans and their machines seemed like low-level harassment to us. It's hard to believe that it has no effect on orca behavior, including hunting and socialization. These animals have a right to be free of human interference during at least a portion of their migrations through the San Juans.

In the absence of state or federal action, the San Juan County Council has been urged to adopt an ordinance that would be more effective at regulating human interaction with whales. Violations would be punishable by a fine of up to $750. It's unclear whether the County has the resources to enforce such an ordinance, but it would be better than nothing at all. In addition, the Council--or the state or federal governments--should designate certain areas to be "harrassment-free" zones, where humans are not permitted to approach orcas at all.

PHOTO #1: Orca adorned with kelp, seen from Lime Kiln Point, San Juan Island, Washington State. (All photos taken from shore.)

PHOTO #2: One of thirty orcas that swam past the Point over about three hours on July 21st.

PHOTO #2: Two orcas swim past a private boat that had leapfrogged ahead of their group and dropped anchor in a cove at Lime Kiln Point. In so doing the pilot violated the following "guidelines":

"KEEP CLEAR of the whales’ path. If whales are
approaching you, cautiously move out of the way."

"DO NOT APPROACH or position your vessel
closer than 100 metres/yards to any whale."

"STAY on the OFFSHORE side of the whales when they are traveling close to shore." [The boat was inshore as the orcas approached.]

The pilot could've easily complied with all these guidelines. But hey, I'm sure they got some great pictures. Kayakers are also numerous in these waters, but they can't keep up with the orcas for long and don't create noise pollution.

Film Review: Mike Moore's "Sicko"

"Who are we, and what has happened to our soul?"
—Mike Moore, narrating Sicko

A couple days ago I saw Sicko, and left with a glimmer of hope that the debate about our scandalous and brutal system of health care might move to another level. How? By looking beyond the limited "solutions" proposed in places like D.C. and here in Oregon, where an increased cigarette tax—blocked by legislative Republicans (1)—would've provided coverage for all uninsured children in the state.

Meanwhile, the health-care crisis becomes more pronounced every year: only 60% of employees have health insurance through their jobs, compared to 69% in 2000 (2). And the coverage is less comprehensive as it grows more expensive. As Moore's interviewees appallingly reveal, insurance companies are relentless about applying policy exclusions to limit or deny coverage altogether.

The film also takes a close look at the myths about the purported failures of "socialized medicine" in places like Canada, Great Britain and France, then concludes with a foray into the Cuban health-care system. Moore's interviewees suggest that national health insurance in those countries is widely viewed as successful, and they look upon the U.S. system with horror. And those systems are not only less expensive: they produce better health outcomes, including such things as lower infant-mortality rates and longer life expectancies.

Moore argues that it's time to broaden the discussion to see what could be borrowed from these foreign models to create a system of universal care that's appropriate for the U.S. and our boundless (and often justified) suspicion of government programs. ("Appropriate for the U.S." would probably mean, of course, a "mixed" system of private and public payers rather than the simple "single payer" system that gets surprising support in polls.)

But Moore's film isn't about the uninsured, nor is it just about those who think they're adequately insured until the hospital and doctor bills start to fill their mailboxes. And it's not ultimately about alternative health-care systems in other countries, either. Its real focus is the same issue that's presented by the torture "debate:" "who are we," as Moore asks, and what do all these policy choices reveal about our national values? (3)

I've always defined politics as public morality, since policy choices always reflect personal and social values and, ultimately, moral decisions. Moore's films, including Fahrenheit 9/11, demonstrate how policy debates and decisions are distorted by a dysfunctional political process that is front-loaded in favor of narrow economic interests. And by a national media that is too lazy or ideologically conditioned to inform or redefine the debate.

The inevitable result, in health-care policy and everything else, comes at the expense of the democratic and utilitarian notion of the "greatest good for the greatest number."

Moore contrasts the contentious model of French politics, in which the "government fears the people," with the contemporary American model in which "people fear the government." If Americans make limited demands on their government and its corporate masters, Moore argues, then it's because of economic insecurity—the fear of losing their jobs and their health insurance, fear of being unable to pay the massive debts that they've incurred (often for health care). That gnawing anxiety has been amplified in the atmosphere of generalized fear that is one of the legacies of 9/11—a legacy that politicians from Bush to Cheney to Giuliani have been quick to exploit.

The result is a political climate in which the large majority of citizens seems demoralized, anxious, cynical and abstracted—and too jaded to even vote. This vacuum has reinforced the tendency of politicians of both parties to respond to those who finance their campaigns and, quite often, employ them after they leave office. In the absence of populist pressure from the disaffected majority, national and state governments are dominated by those who have a deep economic interest in the status quo (4). This dynamic results in policies that are patently absurd, producing the cruel, mechanistic and inhuman health-care system that Moore describes.

One other thing that shouldn't be overlooked in any review of Sicko, or any other Moore film: it's hilarious. Moore heaps well deserved, and unanswerable, ridicule on those who have created and perpetuated this absurdity. When I wasn't on the verge of tears or rage, I was often laughing uncontrollably.

Margaret Thatcher famously said: "There is no such thing as society: there are individual men and women, and there are families." In that kind of world, there can only be individual, rather than collective, solutions. Even in this great American bastion of individualism, though, Moore points out that we've found collective solutions to individual problems by creating police and fire departments, schools, libraries, social security, Medicare and a postal system.

Everyone faces the risk of illness and death, so why not find a common solution to the need for health care? If John has to pay for Mary's medical procedures now, whether through taxes or health-insurance premiums, then Mary and the rest of us will pay for his later. If you spread the risks and share the costs, everyone ultimately benefits. The private system now in place simply excludes too many people and costs too much (due in part to the constant administrative pressure to exclude people). And it produces bad outcomes far too often.

Illness may be an individual problem, but we have a common interest in seeing that we all get the best available treatments for it. And it's the only approach that's morally defensible.

Sicko is an important film, as most critics seem to realize. See it, then come back and add your comments.

NOTES

(1) Oregon law, as a result of the conservative "tax revolt" that has decimated the state's public sector, requires a 3/5 majority to approve any additional taxes. The Democrats enjoy a majority in both house of the legislature, for the first time in years, but they lack the necessary 60% to pass any tax. So the conservative program of "starving the beast" of government has resulted in denying basic health care coverage to thousands of uninsured Oregon children. Legislative Republicans, yielding to pressure from the beer and wine lobby, refused to raise a tax on alcoholic beverages that hasn't been adjusted for 30 years. And the pathetic corporate minimum tax of $10, which is actually paid by thousands of Oregon corporations, also remains unchanged after decades. "Who are we," indeed?

(2) And their premiums increased by 9.2% in just one year (2005).

(3) This is a familiar subject on this blog (as seen here and here) And also here, where I wrote (not long before Mitt Romney proposed "doubling" the size of Guantanamo rather than closing it):

Unfortunately, and to our national shame, it's an exaggeration to say that there's a "debate" at all: there's little evidence of any controversy outside the Beltway, raising profound questions about the state of U.S. political culture these days. If I had to guess, I'd say that the general attitude on the subject may be summarized by a phrase from an altogether different controversy: "don't ask, don't tell." The Administration, it would seem, is tacitly authorized to take whatever action George Bush deems suitable to protect the country...

(4) This analysis isn't new, of course, as Greens and the few remaining Naderites would hasten to add. The system of "legalized extortion and bribery," otherwise known as campaign finance, has been around for decades and has never been more entrenched than it is in 2007.

PHOTO: A demonstration in support of public services in Paris, 2005. The banner reads: "Privatizations: Stop! All together for public services."

Blues Break: Etta Baker - "Mint Julep"

Etta Baker (1913-2006) of Morganton, North Carolina, plays "Mint Julep" in the Piedmont blues style also associated with Blind Willie McTell, Reverend Gary Davis, Blind Boy Fuller, John Cephas and (though he was from Mississippi) John Hurt. If there are any videos or films of her performances available, I couldn't find them online.

The Jukebox feature (audio only) at the Musicmaker Relief Foundation offers some outstanding blues selections, both historic and contemporary, including some MP3's of Baker's work.

Checking the rap sheets

Neal Boortz, on his nationally syndicated radio talk show, had the following exchange with a caller on July 5th:

BOORTZ: But in the case of Scooter Libby, Scooter Libby and Bill Clinton got sentenced and convicted for exactly the same crime. Can you -- now tell me, why is there so much outrage on the left that Scooter Libby isn't going to have to serve a 30-month jail term, and not a bit of outrage on the left that Bill Clinton didn't even get a 30-month jail term.

CALLER: I don't remember Bill Clinton actually being convicted for perjury.

BOORTZ: I'm sorry, he was.

CALLER: He was exonerated by a Republican Senate if I remember correctly.

BOORTZ: No sir, that's an impeachment. We're talking about a criminal trial, sir. The verdict was guilty. He was disbarred as a result of that verdict. He had his privileges to practice law before the Supreme Court of the United States revoked because of that verdict.

CALLER: Well, the bottom line --

BOORTZ: But you know, it's a crime that Scooter Libby isn't going to jail but quite OK that Bill Clinton didn't.

[...]

Scooter Libby was convicted of the exact same thing that Bill Clinton was convicted of. Bill Clinton got no jail time. That was fine. Scooter Libby now gets no jail time. That's not fine. Bill Clinton, liberal. Scooter Libby, presumed right wing.

Media Matters (among others) quickly challenged these patently false statements and Keith Olbermann gave Boortz his nightly "Worst Person in the World" award.

Still, there's still a widespread impression, fomented in certain right-wing quarters, that Clinton committed a perjury crime for which he was never held accountable. The implication is that partisan politics, including the inability of Senate Republicans to muster the 2/3 majority needed to convict Clinton in 1999, resulted in a legal travesty. Democrats who criticize Bush's commutation of Scooter Libby's 30-month jail sentence are therefore attacked, by Boortz and his colleagues, for the vilest form of hypocrisy.

Did Clinton, in fact, commit the crime of perjury?

The Oregon perjury statute is contains typical language describing the offense:

A person commits the crime of perjury if the person makes a false sworn statement in regard to a material issue, knowing it to be false. (ORS 162.065; my emphasis.)

A working definition of "material" evidence is:

...relevant and significant in a lawsuit, as in 'material evidence' as distinguished from totally irrelevant or of such minor importance that the court will either ignore it, rule it immaterial if objected to, or not allow lengthy testimony upon such a matter.

So a lie under oath is not "perjury" unless it relates to a "material issue" rather than a collateral matter, like Clinton's affair with Lewinsky.

Clinton's misrepresentations (i.e., lies) about his affair with Monica Lewinsky were certainly under oath, since they were made at a sworn deposition, but they weren't "material" in the context of the Paula Jones lawsuit. (Ironically, the federal rules of evidence wouldn't have allowed any questions about collateral matters like the Lewinsky affair prior to 1994, when Bill Clinton signed a revision of those rules into law. But his consensual sexual relationship with Lewinsky had little or no relevance to Jones' claims of sexual harassment that bordered on assault.)

Any reasonable jury, presented with all the material evidence in a perjury prosecution of Clinton, would enter a "not guilty" verdict in short order. The Lewinsky affair was so tangential and unrelated that the trial judge wouldn't have allowed Jones' lawyers to even inquire about it in front of a jury. The rules for asking questions at trial are far more strict than those that apply to out-of-court depositions.

From a strictly legal point of view, the perjury charge at Clinton's impeachment trial was a no-brainer (1). A politicized Senate still mustered 45 votes to convict (and 55 to acquit)--well short of the 67 needed to remove a president.

Clinton's lies were breathtakingly stupid and inexcusable, but they weren't a crime. He was trying to prevent public embarrassment to himself and his family rather than (like Libby) cover up a criminal conspiracy that amounted to treason. Clinton still had to pay a $90,000 fine for civil contempt of court for his misleading testimony, and his license to practice law in Arkansas was suspended for five years (1). The judge wrote that:

Simply put, the president's deposition testimony regarding whether he had ever been alone with Ms. (Monica) Lewinsky was intentionally false, and his statements regarding whether he had ever engaged in sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky likewise were intentionally false . . . .

The same federal judge threw Paula Jones' civil case out of court before trial, but Clinton paid her an extravagant settlement just to make her go away (and to avoid the risks inherent in any appeal). He was never indicted for perjury or any other offense by Ken Starr, the zealous right-wing special prosecutor who investigated the Lewinsky matter, or anyone else.

The protracted obsession of the political and media classes with Bill Clinton's sex life, and his crude attempts to conceal it, seems utterly trivial after four disastrous years of war in Iraq. Yet the war crimes committed by Bush/Cheney aren't even on the radar screen of the House Judiciary Committee or virtually anyone else in official Washington, as noted on these pages, last week (3).

Those who denounce hypocrisy in Washington have been looking in the wrong places.

Meanwhile, Dubya is the only U.S. president who has ever been convicted of a crime. Not to be outdone, Dick Cheney was also convicted of two similar criminal offenses in Wyoming during his wild youth (4).

NOTES

(1) Clinton was also charged with obstruction of justice based on the underlying perjury charge.

(2) Due to the Arkansas suspension, Clinton was also suspended automatically from practicing in the U.S. Supreme Court, where he had never argued a case.

(3) Senator Gordon Smith (R-Oregon) stated last December that Bush's policy in Iraq "may even be criminal," an accusation that would provide a legal basis for impeachment. Yet he refused to vote in opposition to the surge a few weeks later.

(4) A notion that quickly leads to total cognitive disconnect. At least one other VP accumulated a criminal record, but not before taking office. Spiro Agnew, Nixon's VP, was convicted of tax evasion and money laundering after he resigned from office in disgrace following a bribery investigation.

PHOTO: Impeachment trial of Bill Clinton in the Senate, 1999 (Wikipedia)

Blues Break: Mance Lipscomb - "Jack of Spades"

The great Mance Lipscomb (1895-1976) on slide guitar as it should be played: with a jackknife. Lipscomb, born in Navasota, Texas, was the son of a former slave and a mother who was part Choctaw. "Mance" is short for "emancipation."

What if... and then what?

First, a few assumptions:

1. Legal grounds exist to initiate impeachment proceedings against Bush/Cheney on the theory that the invasion and occupation of Iraq were criminal acts under the Nuremberg Principles of 1945 and international law, and possibly under U.S. law;

2. Despite overwhelming evidence of such crimes against peace, including waging a war of aggression, the Democratic leadership will not initiate impeachment proceedings against Bush/Cheney, as Nancy Pelosi has already declared;

3. Bush/Cheney will finish out their full 8-year terms without facing criminal prosecutions in the U.S. or elsewhere;

4. The next president will not pardon Bush/Cheney, having noticed the effects of Nixon's pardon on Jerry Ford's prospects in 1976; and,

5. No criminal prosecutions against Bush/Cheney will ever be initiated by the federal government or any U.S. state.

There's ample reason to believe that all these assumptions will prove correct. So will Bush simply fly off to a comfortable retirement in Crawford and clear brush for the rest of his life, unmolested by the legal system (not to mention his conscience, if he ever had one)? Will Cheney go back to Halliburton for a victory lap? (Certainly the Iraq war has been a "victory" for Halliburton's bottom line.)

The short answer: probably. Congress will likely investigate the roots of the war and its disastrous outcome, if the Democrats retain control, and a long series of damaging revelations will undoubtedly follow.

But if legal action comes from any quarter, it will have to originate in another country or some international body. The prospects of that happening aren't very promising, either.

A national court might initiate a prosecution under its own law, as Spain memorably did with Pinochet of Chile in 1998. Pinochet was charged with perpetrating murder, torture, illegal detention and "disappearances" on Spanish citizens in Chile during and after the 1973 coup. Pinochet was arrested and held on a Spanish warrant in the U.K., but he was eventually released for reasons of poor health.

In theory, a court in just about any country could take similar action against Bush/Cheney—especially if world opinion finds it repugnant that the U.S. legal system can ignore their war crimes. If an EU country like Spain were to initiate a prosecution, any other EU country may be bound to enforce the warrant and extradite the defendant for trial. But it's hard to imagine the U.K., for example, extraditing its former allies under any circumstances. (Besides, Tony Blair is equally susceptible to such a legal attack.) Besides, George Bush only left the U.S. twice before taking office (and I say that advisedly) in 2001—so staying home won't be much of an inconvenience for him.

In 1993, Belgium enacted a unique War Crimes Law that authorized its courts to prosecute individuals for war crimes committed anywhere on the planet. Its courts were given "universal jurisdiction" regardless of the location of the crimes or the nationality of the perpetrators and victims. Cases were filed against various members of the Bush/Cheney cabal, leading Donald Rumsfeld to threaten to withdraw NATO's headquarters from Brussels. The U.S. ignored these claims and denounced them as propaganda stunts. Belgium has drastically curtailed the law during the last few years.

For these and other political reasons, a successful prosecution in any national court seems very unlikely—except maybe in absentia, as a court in Milan is now prosecuting 26 alleged CIA agents for kidnapping an Egyptian cleric on Italian soil. The U.S. is unlikely to acknowledge the right of any other country to bring a former president and vice-president to justice in its own courts, or even members of their administration.

How about international forums? The most obvious possibility is the International Court of Justice (the ICJ or World Court) in The Hague, the UN's judicial branch. But the U.S. withdrew from the "compulsory jurisdiction" of the ICJ during the Reagan administration in 1986. The reason? The government of Nicaragua had sued the U.S. for its support of the illegal contra guerilla war against its elected government (1). In effect, Nicaragua won a default judgment against the U.S., which had rejected the court's jurisdiction and refused to try the case on its merits.

In theory, an aggrieved state, like Iraq, could initiate a case against the Bush/Cheney administration—but not against its individual members—through the ICJ on the model of the Nicaragua v. U.S. litigation. But the U.S., even under a Democratic administration, is unlikely to consent to the ICJ's jurisdiction in a case which it could almost certainly lose.

The ICJ is ineffectual, in other words, unless two countries voluntarily submit to its jurisdiction in advance and try the case to a final judgment. The U.S. would never agree to try Iraq v. U.S. in the ICJ or in any other international forum.

That leaves the International Criminal Court (ICC). So far 145 countries have either joined the court or signed the Rome Statute that created it. The notable exceptions are the three most populous countries in the world: India, China and, predictably, the U.S. Unlike the ICJ, the ICC has jurisdiction over individuals who commit genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of "aggression" (which has not yet been defined [2]). But the ICC would be powerless to prosecute Bush/Cheney without the advance consent of the U.S. government, and that perceived challenge to U.S. sovereignty wouldn't be accepted by any conceivable administration in Washington.

The final option would be an ad hoc court, authorized by the UN, similar to the one created in The Hague in 1993 that eventually prosecuted former Serbian president Milosevic for war crimes. That temporary court, awkwardly known as the "International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia" (ICTY), was established by the Security Council rather than the General Assembly. The U.S. could simply veto any UN resolution that would create a similar court to investigate and prosecute Bush/Cheney and their co-conspirators.

Even if any of the options mentioned above were viable, the U.S. would almost certainly ignore a warrant and refuse to extradite Bush/Cheney et al. for trial in any other country or international forum. If the five assumptions at the top of this entry are correct, no international body will be able to make Bush/Cheney accountable for their criminal behavior after they leave office.

Which closes the circle and brings us back to domestic legal remedies. But Speaker Pelosi declared the constitutional remedy of impeachment "off the table" for Congress over a year ago. Once Bush/Cheney finally walk away from the disasters they've created on January 20, 2009, it's conceivable that an aggressive U.S. attorney could launch a criminal prosecution against them and other former members of their cabal. But the new administration will likely opt to begin a "healing" process, perhaps with some equivalent to the South African "truth and reconciliation" commission.

All of which would leave this country's reputation as a "nation of laws" in about the same shambles as the capital of Iraq.

NOTES

Thanks to Wikipedia's articles on the Belgian War Crimes Law, the ICJ, and the ICC for dates and other background information.

(1) The ICJ found the Reagan administration "in breach of its obligations under customary international law not to use force against another State", "not to intervene in its affairs", "not to violate its sovereignty", "not to interrupt peaceful maritime commerce", and "in breach of its obligations under Article XIX of the Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation between the Parties signed at Managua on 21 January 1956."

(2) The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg defined "aggression" as "the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."

PHOTO: The International Criminal Court in The Hague (Wikipedia Commons)

Blues Break: Andrea Gibson - "Blue Blanket"

Poet Andrea Gibson performs "Blue Blanket," from her album "Swarm." (Complete lyrics, and many other poems by Gibson, are available online.)

Wednesday snippets

Bong Hits 4 Alito

The "BONG HITS 4 JESUS” decision (Morse v. Frederick) by the U.S. Supreme Court has gotten a lot of attention (and deserved scorn) this week.

The only real surprise, and slightly encouraging development, is Samuel Alito's concurring (and probably naive) declaration that the decision "provides no support for any restriction of speech that can plausibly be interpreted as commenting on any political or social issue, including speech on issues such as 'the wisdom of the war on drugs or of legalizing marijuana for medicinal use.'"

While clearly troubled by the majority's analysis, Alito shares its dubious conclusion that the student's sign advocated illegal drug use. But at best, as Justice Stevens commented in dissent, the statement was "ambiguous." Most likely, it was a satirical comment on both right-wing fundamentalism and "the wisdom of the war on drugs." In other words, this case is about protected political speech that lies at the very core of the 1st Amendment's protections.

This is a wretched decision, again favoring the police powers of the state over civil liberties, but it could've been even worse. Alito may not prove to be another Souter, but could he already be moving (very tentatively) towards a mild ideological independence, at least on 1st Amendment issues?

My prediction: nahhhhh... Ain't gonna happen.

Supporting and opposing dictatorships

When does a state, or an international force authorized by the U.N. or NATO, have the legal and moral right to invade another sovereign state and overthrow its government? One simple and plausible answer is "never," but it seems to me that certain behaviors by a state can be so barbaric and unacceptable that it forfeits its right to exist.Those behaviors include:

1) When one country gratuitously or without provocation invades another, as in Korea in 1950.

2) When a dysfunctional government is unable or unwilling to control the mass slaughter of one group of citizens by another (as in Rwanda and Darfur).

3) When a government is engaged in genocide or ethnic cleansing against its own population, or the population of an occupied country (as in Bosnia).

The form of "intervention," whether by military force or an aggressive regime of sanctions, can be debated. But it seems reasonable that military interventions can only be justified if they are specifically authorized by the UN Security Council (whose rules need to be modified and whose membership needs to be changed to include China and India as permanent members).

It's easy to imagine a dictatorship so harsh and repressive towards its own population, without actually engaging in mass murder, that it practically demands to be removed. Saddam Hussein's case confronts this issue directly, but his worst behavior occurred at a time (the '80s) when he had the tacit support of the U.S. government. The U.S. has a long history of supporting friendly regimes whose behavior has been equally horrific, from the Shah of Iran to Pinochet in Chile to the Saudi royal family. The only variable, it seems, is whether the regime is willing to accommodate U.S. "interests," which Saddam violated only by attempting to annex Kuwait (yet another undemocratic "friend" in the region). The gassing of 5,000 Kurds at Halabjah in 1988 barely attracted official notice in Washington (1).

The unprovoked U.S. invasion of Iraq makes it obvious that there need to be clearer international standards for military interventions in the affairs of sovereign countries. With clearer standards, maybe Bush would've been less reckless in 2003, when he invaded Iraq "gratuitously or without provocation." Even under the existing standards of Nuremberg, Bush's "preventive war" was a criminal act for which he and his administration need to be held accountable.

Now we know why the Bush administration refused to participate in the International Criminal Court.

Greasing the skids for dictators

On a related subject, a recent article in Harper's asks and answers this question: "How is it that regimes widely acknowledged to be the world’s most oppressive nevertheless continually win favors in Washington?" The answer, in part, is: highly-paid Washington lobbyists who have effectively represented despicable regimes like those of Hitler, Saddam, Nicolas Ceausescu of Rumania and Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire. Their approach has gone way beyond traditional lobbying with Washington politicians: a major focus has been on extracting favorable stories for clients from reporters.

The second element of the strategy was a “media campaign.” In a slide entitled “Core Media Relations Activities,” APCO promised to “create news items and news outflow,” organize media events, and identify and work with “key reporters” [like Jim Hoagland of the Washington Post].

Apparently nothing is too sleazy for Washington's political culture nowadays, no hand too dirty to shake or even praise. [Check out Hullabaloo for Digby's take on this subject and the Harper's article.]

The Hate Boat

It seems the The National Review has sponsored another Caribbean cruise featuring conservative luminaries (if that's the right word) from William F. Buckley to Rich Lowry to Dinesh D'Souza. Johann Hari seemingly stowed away to write his own hilarious and deeply disturbing account of this Ship of Fools for The New Republic. Hari skewers this racist and xenophobic crowd nicely, but I have to raise an objection to his unfair and ageist reference to the passengers' (apparently) advanced age: "They give [a speaker] a wheezing, stooping ovation and break for coffee." The elderly may be a tempting target for ridicule regardless of political persuasion, but we need to get beyond easy laughs directed at physical characteristics, like age, that people can't control. [More thanks to Digby at Hullabaloo for the link to Hari's article.]

NOTES

(1) In fact, the U.S. State Department "instructed its diplomats to say that Iran was partly to blame" for the massacre. The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) did a study that

concluded, apparently by determining the chemicals used by looking at images of the victims, that it was in fact Iran that was responsible for the attack, an assessment which was used subsequently by the the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for much of the early 1990s... The CIA altered its position radically in the late 1990s and cited Halabja frequently in its evidence of WMD before the 2003 invasion.

PHOTO: U.S. Supreme Court (Wikipedia Commons)

Geaghan's Pique of the Week: Cellphone towers

Anyone who pays attention to the built landscape has noticed the proliferation of cellphone towers, most dramatically in suburban areas and along freeways. On recent trips, for example, I've seen some gargantuan towers along freeways in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Their ugly (and strictly utilitarian) design further degrades landscapes that are already afflicted by billboards, shopping malls, parking lots, subdivisions, "monster warehouses" and the freeways themselves. From a hill outside our small town, it's easy to see the extent to which a forest of 80-100 foot cell towers has proliferated in recent years.

To compound the problem, cell towers are sometimes built right next to one another, ignoring the obvious advantages of reducing impacts and costs by encouraging companies to share towers. In a political culture and economy where everything—and I mean everything—is subordinated to short-term corporate profit, tower design and appropriate siting are rarely considered (1). Licensing fees can be an irresistable temptation to property owners no matter how detrimental the visual and potential health impacts may be on a community—not to mention the devaluation of adjacent properties.

Efforts by local governments to regulate cell tower construction have been rejected by the courts, most recently in San Diego:

[Last week's] ruling was a victory for mobile carriers, including Sprint PCS, which sued the county on claims the law limited competition in wireless telecommunications by making it too expensive and arduous for network providers to put up new towers.

A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found the county ordinance "imposes a permitting structure and design requirements that presents barriers to wireless telecommunications within the county, and is therefore preempted" by federal law [the Telecommunications Act of 1996].

Changing technologies may have the beneficial effect of at least limiting the need for new towers. TechNewsWorld reports that:

Seoul, South Korea-based wireless carrier SK Telecom is planning early next year to deploy new technology that reduces the need for cell phone towers -- so-called "antennae diversity" technology, which may soon also be installed throughout the U.S. and Europe, experts tell TechNewsWorld.

The technology, developed by Bedminster, N.J.-based Magnolia Broadband, Inc., enables carriers to double the number of customers they serve with each mobile phone tower.

But there are downsides. Given the continuing rate of expansion in cellphone networks, the total number of towers seems likely to increase no matter what—especially in places like China and India. And the towers are likely to remain aesthetic nightmares. Worse yet, according to TechNewsWorld:

The next generation of the technology -- currently being tested in Korea -- is even more powerful, promising to give customers GPS-like tracking capabilities on each mobile phone in the network, enabling them, as one expert told TechNewsWorld, to track where one's 18-year-old daughter is after her high school prom, or where one's teenage son is, two hours past curfew.

One can easily imagine more malevolent uses. By permitting the electronic monitoring of millions of people, the same technology could enable the federal government to continue its present course toward what was once called "Total Information Awareness." In a country that already has the least amount of personal privacy in the developed world, this technology has to be considered an ominous development.

Cellphone towers don't have to be as ugly as they uniformly are. Communities can't ban towers, despite unanswered health concerns (2), nor would such a move be very popular with the tens of millions of Americans who have woven the cellphone into their lifestyles to a disturbing extent.

"Stealth" designs are far more common in Europe than North America, with towers that are camouflaged to resemble trees or church steeples. No doubt artists and architects would respond creatively to the challenge of reducing the visual impacts of cell towers. Unfortunately, courts would likely continue to reject attempts by communities to require tower design to meet certain aesthetic standards. But it's worth a try. It would help if congress would empower states, cities and counties to increase local control over the siting and design of cell towers.

NOTES

(1) A dozen years ago, our local City Council refused to consider any restrictions on siting cell towers, with predictable results.

(2) And not just for humans: the latest Harper's magazine, in its "Findings" column, reports that the proliferation of cellphone signals may have something to do with the drastic decline in bee populations.

PHOTO: A cellphone tower in Oregon (Wikipedia Commons).

DISCLOSURE: Yeah, yeah—I have a cellphone, too. But it's never turned on unless I'm making or expecting a call, and my use is limited to about a fifteen minutes per week.

Prediction for a future Pique of the Week: Utility poles and wires that continue to needlessly degrade our towns and neighborhoods. As for those who might quibble over my use of "pique," I realize it has something to do with "wounded vanity." In fact, I still harbor the vain notion that I live in a stunningly beautiful democratic country, though that notion seems harder to justify than it once did.

Blues Break: Rory Gallagher - "Bullfrog Blues"

The indefatigable Irishman Rory Gallagher (1948-95) redlines at 9,000 RPM and mixes it up with the crowd at a 1980 concert in France.

Not asking, not telling

Not since the disastrous French colonial war in Algeria has a democratic country been engaged in a deep internal debate about torture—or, "enhanced interrogation techniques," to use the clinical euphemism that's currently in vogue. The first Guantanamo detainees have been in military custody for over five years, with yet another suicide in recent weeks, and the crimes at Abu Ghraib were revealed early in the Iraq war, yet the debate in the U.S. continues.

Unfortunately, and to our national shame, it's an exaggeration to say that there's a "debate" at all: there's little evidence of any controversy outside the Beltway, raising profound questions about the state of U.S. political culture these days. If I had to guess, I'd say that the general attitude on the subject may be summarized by a phrase from an altogether different controversy: "don't ask, don't tell." The Administration, it would seem, is tacitly authorized to take whatever action George Bush deems suitable to protect the country (as noted in earlier posts here and here).

To the extent that there has been any debate at all, there's ample evidence that it was most intense within the Pentagon, between the civilian and military leaderships:

Speaking publicly for the first time, senior U.S. law enforcement investigators say they waged a long but futile battle inside the Pentagon to stop coercive and degrading treatment of detainees by intelligence interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Their account indicates that the struggle over U.S. interrogation techniques began much earlier than previously known, with separate teams of law enforcement and intelligence interrogators battling over the best way to accomplish two missions: prevent future attacks and punish the terrorists.

In extensive interviews with MSNBC.com, former leaders of the Defense Department’s Criminal Investigation Task Force said they repeatedly warned senior Pentagon officials beginning in early 2002 that the harsh interrogation techniques used by a separate intelligence team would not produce reliable information, could constitute war crimes, and would embarrass the nation when they became public knowledge.

The investigators say their warnings began almost from the moment their agents got involved at the Guantanamo prison camp, in January 2002. When they could not prevent the harsh interrogations and humiliation of detainees at Guantanamo, they say, they tried in 2003 to stop the spread of those tactics to Iraq, where abuses at Abu Ghraib prison triggered worldwide outrage with the publishing of graphic photos in April 2004.

[...]

It was two years before the photos emerged from Abu Ghraib, the Pentagon cops said, when they began arguing that coercive or abusive interrogations would not serve war-fighting or justice.

Despite this internal debate, the techniques of torture had already been studied in depth for decades by the Pentagon—but only to teach soldiers how to resist torture, not to practice it:

"Many of the controversial interrogation tactics used against terror suspects in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo were modeled on techniques the U.S. feared that the Communists themselves might use against captured American troops during the Cold War, according to a little-noticed, highly classified Pentagon report released several days ago. Originally developed as training for elite special forces at Fort Bragg under the "Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape" program, otherwise known as SERE, tactics such as sleep deprivation, isolation, sexual humiliation, nudity, exposure to extremes of cold and stress positions were part of a carefully monitored survival training program for personnel at risk of capture by Soviet or Chinese forces, all carried out under the supervision of military psychologists. (1)

So the techniques of presumed communist torturers were assimilated by the U.S. military and eventually re-emerged in the protocols for treatment of detainees in Iraq and Guantanamo. Contrary to the conventional wisdom that untrained and understaffed U.S. guards improvised techniques, perhaps inspired by Jack Bauer and other government operatives in shows like "24:"

The report, completed last August but only declassified and made public on May 18, suggests that the abusive techniques stemmed from a much more formal process than the Defense Department has previously acknowledged. By 2002 the Pentagon was looking for an interrogation paradigm to use on what it had designated as "unlawful combatants" captured in the "war on terror." These individuals, many taken prisoner in Afghanistan, were initially brought to the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo, although others were subsequently hidden away in CIA secret prisons or turned over to U.S.-allied governments known to practice torture. That same year, the commander of the detention facility at Guantanamo began using the abusive "counter resistance" techniques adopted from SERE on prisoners at the base, and according to the Pentagon report SERE military psychologists were on hand to help.

The use of some "enhanced interrogation techniques" has apparently, for now, been limited:

In response to fallout over the well-documented cases of prisoner abuse — which included prolonged isolation, sensory deprivation (visual and auditory), forced removal of clothing, exploiting prisoners phobias (notably fear of dogs), and threats against family members — the Pentagon began scaling back the use of SERE tactics in 2002 and eventually banned them altogether. The Army Field Manual, which serves as a primary guide for U.S. military interrogation, now specifically rules out the use of a variety of SERE-founded techniques including water-boarding, a form of simulated drowning, as well as the use of dogs.

But critics remain concerned that the Pentagon's clean-up has not gone far enough. In the letter to Secretary Gates, dated May 31, 2007, the non-profit Physicians for Human Rights cites an appendix of the current Army Field Manual that "explicitly permits what amounts to isolation, along with sleep and sensory deprivation." The letter, signed by retired Army General Stephen Xenakis, a psychiatrist and former senior medical commander, and Leonard Rubenstein, the organization's executive director, also points out that the current Field Manual remains "silent on a number of other SERE-based methods (including sensory overload and deprivation) creating ambiguity and doubt over their place in interrogation doctrine."

If the latest Republican presidential debate is any indication, the more restrictive policy on torture could be short-lived. The candidates, notably excepting John McCain in a rare moment of lucidity, fell over themselves to prove who could be toughest on future detainees. The current policies are ambiguous at best:

Even assuming that Pentagon reforms have succeeded in cleaning up the worst excesses of U.S. interrogations, a number of experts have grave doubts that current policies are either workable or effective. Members of the Intelligence Science Board, many of whom serve as consultants to the Pentagon, have recently argued that U.S. interrogation policy involves a grab-bag of outmoded techniques, many dating from the 1950s, that ignore lessons learned from law enforcement and lack cultural sensitivity to Arab and other foreign prisoners. The kind of insensitivity, critics might now add, that we once assumed only our worst enemies would show their foreign prisoners. (2)

The de facto standard for the treatment of detainees was best revealed by George Bush in his memorandum of February 7, 2002. He declared that the U.S. would treat unlawful combatants "humanely and to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of Geneva" [my emphasis]. As events have demonstrated, the final authority on "military necessity" is George Bush and no one else.

NOTES

(1) SERE techniques were designed to "replicate harsh conditions that the Service member might encounter if they are held by forces that do not abide by the Geneva Conventions." [Quoted from page 23 of the 131-page secret report (2006) by the Defense Department's Inspector General, of which a heavily-redacted copy is available online. Its purpose was to evaluate the DoD's investigations into detainee abuse.]

(2) There's a succinct definition of torture, along with a statement of the moral and policy reasons not to practice it, on page 4 of the DoD report.

PHOTO: Hooded Iraqi prisoner chained to a railing at Abu Ghraib (from Wikipedia Commons).

Blues Break: Mississippi John Hurt - "Lonesome Valley Blues"

The great Mississippi John Hurt (1892-1966) dazzles Pete and (I think) Peggy Seeger, probably on the Seegers' Rainbow Quest TV show in 1965 or so. Hurt enjoyed a brief musical career in the 1920's but soon, during the Depression, went back to his life as a sharecropper in Avalon, Mississippi. He was rediscovered by ethnomusicologist Tom Hoskins in 1963, performed widely and produced several highly influential albums.

It may be possible to sit passively during any of Hurt's performances, but why would anyone want to bother?

Pushing the envelope

Veterans for Peace established this memorial on the beach at Arlington West in Santa Monica in 2004, and it has expanded relentlessly each year with the casualty count in Iraq.

As of today, the war in Iraq has inflicted 3,454 deaths and 26,188 wounded on U.S. forces. 980 of those deaths have occurred since last Memorial Day weekend, compared to 807 during the previous year. Over two hundred troops have been killed over the last two months alone. It's not unusual for the same number of Iraqis to be killed and wounded over a single weekend.

And it will only get worse, as Bush warned on Thursday:

"We're going to expect heavy fighting in the weeks and months," he said. "We can expect more American and Iraqi casualties." He added, "It could be a bloody -- it could be a very difficult August."

Meanwhile, yet another poll shows that:

"Six in 10 Americans say the U.S. should have stayed out of Iraq and more than three in four say things are going badly there -- including nearly half who say things are going very badly, the poll found."

Last week the Democrats in Congress blinked in their confrontation with Bush over timetables for withdrawal. They had little choice, of course, since they lack the Republican support needed to override the inevitable second veto. The war is funded through September, and it seems unlikely that even these poll numbers will persuade Republicans to desert Bush in sufficient numbers to have an impact on policy. Unless the situation deteriorates dramatically, they're unlikely to go into total panic mode until the primary season begins in 2008.

As a lame duck, Bush is unlikely to be able to pursue any kind of domestic agenda in Congress, for which we can all be grateful. But on Iraq, as with the Gonzales affair, he can safely adopt an in-your-face posture, defying the growing opposition to do something to force a change.

During the 1996 campaign, Bob Dole got exercised because Al Gore visited a Buddhist temple and was rewarded with some $122,000 in (legal) campaign contributions. He asked: "Where's the outrage? When--when will the voters start to focus? ...How far can you push the envelope? How much can you get away with? What can you do? "

The context has changed completely, but eleven years later Dole's questions—which seemed trivial even back then—are far more momentous. Voters are clearly focused on the war, and there seems to be no lack of outrage, but Bush has plenty of reason to believe that he can get away with just about anything—and nothing can be done about it. Sadly, he apparently faces no political consequences even if another 2,000 Americans die in Iraq before January 20, 2009.

PHOTOS: Arlington West [Thanks to Digby at Hullabaloo for the tip.]

Geaghan: Saturday snippets

Back on the circuit

Al Gore is riding the interview circuit again, peddling his latest book. The Assault on Reason, directed at a wider target than the current execrable administration, sounds terrific.

Last night, on Charlie Rose, Gore was both passionate and articulate with such force that you had to wonder yet again what Gore '07 might've been able to do in 2000 (when he won by a half million votes, of course) or 2004. At a minimum, he might've put up a more strenuous fight over the Florida recount rather than quickly ceding the field (and the election) to the likes of James Baker, Katherine Harris and the Supremes.

It seems clear enough, for now, that Gore would be the strongest in the current field of hypercautious Democrats. But "strongest" doesn't necessarily mean "electable," given the baggage that Gore has to carry—quite unfairly, for the most part. Still, he's the only candidate in either party who comes across as what we once called "presidential," back when that was a compliment.

A candidate Gore, with a lot more to lose, might revert to that strange combination of timidity (especially after the first debate) and arrogance that fatally constricted him in 2000. He seemed to leave the door open, just a crack, to running if the right conditions develop—like if Clinton or Obama self-destruct or get dismembered by the proverbial vast right-wing conspiracy. A Gore candidacy, of course, would invigorate the hyenas who have never stopped circling him. But, for now, no one else inspires much confidence that he or she is up to the job.

As for Charlie Rose, he and Terry Gross of NPR's Fresh Air still do the best in-depth interviews in the U.S. media. Though I'm a dedicated viewer of The Daily Show and the Colbert Report, their interviews are simply too short—and too facetious, by design—to address complex issues. And Colbert's interviews are, hilariously, as much about Colbert as they are about his guests.

No subject is too obscure for Charlie Rose's show, and it lasts a full hour, so there's both depth and breadth. But he has an irritating tendency to interrupt responses that promise to be interesting, and he seems to think he has to give progressive guests a hard time to pre-empt conservative critics who otherwise might accuse him of lacking "balance." This tendency remains widespread among journalists (especially on PBS/NPR) who still overreact to conservative challenges. For the most part, though, Rose tends to be obsequious, sometimes to the point of fawning, towards his celebrity guests. Still, it's consistently the best interview show on television.

Guillermo del Toro

Speaking of Fresh Air, Terry Gross offers an outstanding interview (available via podcast) with Guillermo del Toro, the Mexican writer-director whose Pan's Labyrinth won four Academy Awards this year. The mythical dimensions of this film run far deeper than were apparent to me after just one viewing. Del Toro is impressively articulate and entertaining, and Pan is on my short list of the best films of the last five years.

"The Lives of Others" (2006)

This German film (Das Leben der Anderen), directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, has been playing to full houses here in Portland for the last six months or more. If you haven't seen it yet, and it's still in local theaters, don't miss it. It deserves comparison with my other German favorites such as Mephisto (1981) and Downfall (2004), along with such classics as Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire (1987) and The American Friend (1977). Like the comic Goodbye Lenin (2003), it's set in East Berlin during the last years of communist rule. Great acting, directing and cinematography throughout. Oddly reverberates on this side of the Atlantic after six grim years of George Bush.


PHOTO: Al Gore (Wikipedia Commons, 2006)

Blues Break: Dire Straits - "You And Your Friend"

Mark Knopfler casts a spell, and displays his inimitable talent, during a performance in (most likely) Nîmes, in the south of France, during the mid-90's or so. The song first appeared on the album "On Every Street" (1991).

Portland metro: The region that works, sometimes

When I moved to Portland—the one on the Upper Left Coast—more than three decades ago, the downtown was separated from the Willamette River by a freeway and a parking lot filled the defining space in the center of the city. Now the freeway is Waterfront Park and the parking lot has become the fanciful and popular Pioneer Courthouse Square. The city is arguably the most politically progressive in the country. Its politics have been dominated by a liberal/progressive coalition that has elected a variety of eccentric but effective politicians to city, state and national office—including a mayor who ran a tavern and first made a name for himself by posing for a photo in which he opened his trench coat and (apparently) flashed a downtown bronze nude.

The "city that works," as city vehicles describe it, has been a success on so many levels that it's hard to object to the rampant smugness about the place. Until recently, innovation has been a recurring theme in city and state politics since the era of Governor Tom McCall, one of the last progressive Republicans. He collaborated with a Democratic legislature in 1973 to create Oregon's legendary land-use scheme, which limited sprawl and protected farms and forests until it was eviscerated by Ballot Measure 37 in 2004. Mayor Neil Goldschmidt, since disgraced, had a vision for downtown Portland that was successfully realized over two decades.

The Portland metro region extends from the state capital in Salem to Vancouver, Washington, and has a population approaching two million. Land-use planning in Oregon has achieved two major successes in this region:

1. Transportation

Some twenty-five years ago, federal funds were diverted from a freeway project to create the first segment of the MAX light-rail system, which has been extended to the western suburbs, the south shore of the Columbia river and the busy airport. The system is fast, efficient and unaffected by heavy traffic on local streets. However, it only carries about 4% of daily commuters in the region, even though rush-hour trains are packed. And it lacks the express trains that would offer better competition for freeways by shortening commutes.

A new $117-million commuter rail line through Beaverton, Tigard and Wilsonville could become a promising model for similar intersuburban projects. Still, the new line is expected to attract a ridership of only 3,000-4,000 daily trips by 2020. Regional transportation planning lags far behind the demographic curve.

2. Containment of sprawl

The Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) was intended to draw a line in the rural dirt, beyond which urban development would not extend. The rich farmlands of the Willamette Valley, though often wasted (IMHO) to cultivate grass seed for golf courses, are directly threatened by the urban expansion of Portland, Salem and Eugene. The Portland region's UGB extends over 232,000 acres and includes 24 cities and parts of three counties.

Where I live, near the limits of the UGB, there's no transition from urban to rural: you drive about a mile and suddenly the subdivisions stop—you're in pristine open countryside. And you don't see miles and miles of the miniature baronial estates on 1-5 acre plots that desecrate the landscapes of places like upstate New York and Pennsylvania with their immaculate lawns and aristocratic pretensions.

The UGB's governing body, called Metro (for Metropolitan Service District), has resisted pressure from developers and other lobbyists to extend the UGB in our area. But the UGB has grown incrementally in other parts of the Metro region that have been designated for suburban expansion, partly in response to a state law requiring a 20-year supply of buildable residential lands. (Care to guess how that happened?) In fact, the boundary has been adjusted more than three dozen times, most recently in 2005. Metro asserts that the UGB was not intended to be "static."

So the central question for a UGB defined in this way is: what's the point, long-term, in having a growth "boundary" that keeps expanding? The current answer goes something like this: the UGB promotes orderly growth that won't overwhelm local governments and infrastructures. In reality, though, periodic expansions of the UGB only delay sprawl, which moves inexorably into some of the best farmland west of the Mississippi. Metro claims that it utilizes a 50-year planning horizon, but current rates of UGB expansion are unsustainable over such timespans.

In Oregon and the other 49 states, no once seems capable of contemplating hundred-year horizons, much less the Great Law of the Iroquois: "In every deliberation we must consider the impact on the seventh generation... even if it requires having skin as thick as the bark of a pine."

The other major failure of regional planning has been its inability to effectively regulate sprawl within urban growth boundaries. (At a meeting of elected officials, I heard a councilor from a nearby city declare flatly that "you can't have sprawl within a UGB.") The result is suburban sprawl that would be difficult to distinguish from what you'd find around Atlanta, Minneapolis or Phoenix, including:

• Freeways that are totally inadequate for the volume of traffic they have to accommodate in a rapidly-expanding region. And there are few plans to even deal with existing bottlenecks, much less anticipate future ones. Despite a vague sense that more freeways aren't the solution, there's little planning for alternative modes of transportation on a regional scale that could make a difference.
  
• Vast shopping complexes that similarly overwhelm the transportation network, especially the large regional megamalls of Washington and Clackamas counties.
  
• Euclidian zoning that compulsively segregates residential from commercial areas, forcing residents to drive miles to do their grocery shopping (with some notable exceptions, like Orenco Station on the west side). Mixed-use development is a still a rarity despite the influence of New Urbanism (and here) on professional planners during the 1990's.
  
• Traditional subdivisions built at relatively low densities on street networks that lack connectivity. Many of these subdivisions are visually oppressive, including "snout" houses with projecting windowless garages that produce neighborhoods devoid of charm.
  
• Low-density development creates an autocentric region in which mass transit becomes a less viable and more expensive alternative.
  
• Design practices that continue to place retail stores in strip malls at the far end of vast parking lots, creating a depressingly sterile wasteland of asphalt and parked cars.
• Trademark architecture, from Target to McDonald's, that is standardized across the country and demolishes any remaining sense of place.
  
• Wide boulevards that are so pedestrian-hostile that, for my children's safety, I once drove across an 8-lane avenue to go to the other side rather than risk crossing on foot.
  

The list could go on and on, but you probably get the idea by now. On balance, the UGB is far better than nothing, but it has failed to deliver on its real potential. The sad likelihood is that the region will suffocate on its own growth as freeways clot and the beauty of the landscape is subverted by sprawl.

Builders, developers and realtors have kept up the political pressure to erode even the few successes of Oregon's land-use system. BM 37 is their most recent (and spectacularly effective) effort, but they have also managed to persuade many residents that high densities are inherently evil—and almost a socialist plot. Yet some of the most expensive and desirable property in Oregon (and the world, for that matter) is built at high density, like Portland's thriving Pearl district. The real issue is not density, but design. If sensitively and attractively designed, with private as well as public spaces (and decent soundproofing), high density can be a positive feature in urban development.

Portland has one huge advantage in this regional free-for-all of internal expansion: it can't sprawl, since most of its incorporated area has already reached buildout. Land-use issues in Portland involve redevelopment (as with the Pearl district) and gentrification (as in parts of Northeast Portland that were once low-income and African American neighborhoods). In both respects, development in Portland has achieved some spectacular successes and a few notable failures.

Portland's downtown deserves first mention on the list of successes. It channels light-rail and bus routes along designated streets with limited automobile traffic. Design elements, including brick sidewalks and public sculpture, provide some visual unity (though nothing like you'd see on the streets of Florence or Paris). Short, 200-foot blocks and height restrictions help the downtown retain a more human scale. The overall impression, amplified by clean streets and heavy pedestrian traffic, is quite stunning compared to most cities in the U.S. No wonder planners and journalists (as here) still come from all over the country to tour Portland. As the old saying goes: "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed are kings."

Looking at individual buildings, though, downtown Portland is mostly bland and undistinguished. For the last half-century the ubiquitous glass and steel towers of the modernist style have dominated new construction, and few are memorable in any way. One of the rare innovative structures, Michael Grave's Portland Building, is a pale and sadly underfunded imitation of his original postmodernist design. Plans for new corporate buildings offer little but variations on a painfully familiar dehumanizing theme. Meanwhile, the city's political leadership faces constant criticism for its stagnation and lack of real vision.

Like Pittsburgh, the area outside downtown Portland includes some revitalized neighborhoods (such as Northwest 23rd Avenue and the Hawthorne district on the east side) that retain their richly-textured urban charms. The downside of such gentrification, as usual, has been much higher rents and real-estate values, displacing residents who often have to look to inner-ring suburbs for affordable housing (if it's available at all).

It should certainly be noted that, for a city its size, Portland offers some impressive cultural advantages, including a thriving music and arts scene. It has also become a much more ethnically diverse area, with many fine restaurants, thanks to migration from both inside and outside the U.S. Portland, at last, is beginning to have the feel of a cosmopolitan city.

Meanwhile, Oregon is struggling to reclaim its tradition of innovative land-use leadership through a visioning process awkwardly known as the Big Look. A better name for it might be "On Second Thought."

Perhaps it's a mistake to expect a place like Oregon, and a region like Portland, to be an earthly paradise. The natural beauty of the state, deeply marred as it is by industrial logging and urban sprawl, continues to move and even astonish me more than thirty years after my arrival. But such a large and growing disparity between potential and reality leaves me, ultimately, disappointed and fearful of what's coming next. It's been a tough decade for Oregon, as well as the rest of the country and world, but there are some fragile signs of hope.

The people of Oregon have yet to prove that they're worthy of occupying this landscape. But all in all, it's still a great place to live, and (shameless plug) visit.

NOTES

This is the fourth installment in an occasional series—previous installments are here, here and here—about the so-called "Oregon Story," which might be more accurately described as the "Oregon Myth." My focus has been on successes and failures of Portland and Oregon as places to live and their potential as a planning models for other regions. The series is based on my observations as both a long-term resident and a former elected official in the metro region. I'm neither a land-use planner nor an architect, though I tend to have strong opinions about both disciplines.


PHOTO #1: Portland and distant Mt. Hood from the Pittock Mansion, about 1,000 ft above downtown. (My photo, taken March 2007).

PHOTO #2: Recent urban sprawl within the Urban Growth Boundary, including a Safeway, Barnes & Noble, Office Depot, Target, Haagen's and--inevitably--a McDonald's. Location: 185th Avenue and the Sunset highway in Washington County. This entire area was farmland when I moved to Oregon. (Photo from Google Earth.)

Welcome, Ellis!

Ellis, a refugee from the temporarily-dormant Disambiguation ("Voice of the overeducated liberal coastal elite since 2006"), is about to become a—we hope—regular contributor to Runes, starting as soon as he can free up some time from his present conditions of servitude. A philosopher by training and temperament, Ellis will no doubt touch on that subject as well as any damned thing that interests him. Like the rest of us, he enjoys reader comments and the occasional full-blown controversy. So welcome, Ellis!

PHOTO: Ellis Island, after which our friend was not named.

Blues Break: B.B. King and Tracy Chapman - "The Thrill is Gone"

B.B. King and Tracy Chapman team up to sing King's classic back in 1997.