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I grew up in the 5th and I have always valued the education I got from West Linn.  Scott Brunn, you voted against emergency funding allocations to the state school system from lottery funds and, even though it passed, West Linn has had to cut 9 days from it's school year. West Linn has continued to rally and pay higher property taxes to cover losses from the state.

This seems to be a microcosm example of how you might vote at the federal level...While your vote may look fiscally conservative the decision will ultimatley cost the people you represent more if they want to maintain or exceed the standards needed for a quality education. How do you reconcile this cause and effect?

posted 2 years, 7 months ago
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@DaniT... I don't think you got the point of the comment. It was not "look how great Passover is" it was about how education can illuminate more information on religious history.

I also think that you are a touch off the mark in the tone of your comment slyly suggesting that passover is a celebration of the death of children. It's not. The passover represents the sparing of Jewish life (being passed over), not the destruction of others (though that is the implication)... If you read the rabbinical teachings, some do refer to the suffering of the oppressor as a key part of history, while others remind us that the Jews suffered the plagues as did the Egyptians, thus one of the reasons gentiles are invited to join in Passover, because it is a shared history. The purpose is to continue an oral history of the people, to be passed from generations. It is far more a complex and subtle a topic than you paint it, and perhaps you meant no offense, but you might want to be a bit more reasoned the next time you take aim at an important tradition for many...It would be like saying that Easter is the celebration of the brutal death of a religious leader. It's part of the whole story, but not the crux of it.

posted 2 years, 7 months ago
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Sorry if this shows up twice...I had trouble posting.

I read that those who are college educated are more likely to be atheist/agnostic/secular than those without. (can't remember the source). The Pew study also asserts that, more than religious affiliation (or non affiliation), the people who scored best were more educated. This correlation seems to work in tandem with the idea that the more you are trained to ask and seek knowledge, the less dogmatic you may become.

I have spent time studying many religions and the one thing I regularly notice is that people seem to be unaware of basic religious history outside of their own. I grew up in a secular Jewish home (We celebrate our ancestry without the identification of faith). When I was in a religion class in college, the professor mentioned that Passover was coming up, and none but the Jewish students knew what she meant. I assumed that the Exodus stories were widely known in Western culture, but apparently, it was news to a lot of people. Now all those college educated students do know more than they did before that class and probably did better on the Pew quiz.

posted 2 years, 7 months ago
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While my first striking memory of the Festival was of Othello, with Anthony Heald as Iago (so good!) I must say, that I am more continually impressed with the more modern works that they do. The Festival premiers new writers and first works consistently. I so appreciate that they can honor the past works that serve as a road map to the current and future works that keep living drama alive, relevant and in our lives.

posted 2 years, 11 months ago
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The first time I heard of a quarter life crisis, I was 18 and a freshman in college. John Mayer used the phrase in one of his songs...I was very struck by the thought, although had no context in which to understand it.

After graduating, the concept hit me like a ton of bricks. I was back home with my parents working part time as a teachers aide and part time as a nanny. I don't even like kids that much and had no interest in dealing with them. I was in a long distance relationship, because I managed to graduate on time while the majority of my friends had taken a 5 year track...so I was in a holding pattern, just waiting and depressed.

Now at 26, I actually like my job, but I see my boyfriend and friends in that holding pattern that I was in a few years ago. Given the dramatic downturn in the economy, mixed with muddled emotions about our potency as the future leaders in this country, there is a feeling of helplessness and apathy. I think this also comes with later retirement for our parents, so we can not effectively enter the workforce and see an upward trajectory... perhaps a sideways one at best.

the mid-20-somethings of this day are restless and a bit apathetic about the future. I think it's becuase while we were told "you can do anything. reach for the stars etc..." the reality is we are also being held back by the elder generations that are not ready to let go...and I think they may not be ready to let go, because they are worried about their kids future and want to be able to support them. it's quite the cycle.

posted 3 years, 1 month ago
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There were several bullet points in the bill that will be enacted immediately...as in right now, as of the signing of this bill. One of them is to halt the exclusions for children and people at high risk, or as you put it, "when they need it most". For the average adult, those changes will take effect in 2014.

A few more immediate changes include tax breaks for small businesses to help cover their employees and for adult children to be able to remain on a parents plan until the age of 26...for the recent college grads out there that have been shut out of the job market, this is really helpful.

posted 3 years, 1 month ago
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Ok, I just had to intervene with a touch of humorous science here. Check out this "6 Shockingly Evil Things Babies Are Capable of"article:

http://www.cracked.com/article_18404_6-shockingly-evil-things-babies-are-capable-of.html

While Seeker was clearly being hyperbolic in his initial statement, he is absolutely right on when it comes to the base nature of a human being.

Tom Ford is right to give babies the benefit of the doubt though, given that their evil activities are unintentional. It's their Id state (to be Freudian), they don't know better in early stages of development.

posted 3 years, 2 months ago
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The police, while they make unforgivable mistakes sometimes, are not out to harass your daugter. If you are concerned about people being "undertrained "when it comes to their reactions to the police, would it not also be to the benefit of your child to have had a positive interaction with them? This perhaps will train her to be less irraionally fearful than her mother. Your fear will only instill a fear in your daughter and it seems to be no fault of the police in the situation you described.

posted 3 years, 3 months ago
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I think there is too much of an assumption that if a teacher wears a symbol, sometimes required of them by their faith, that that amounts to proselytization. The fact is, a teacher is just as capable of bringing in religion, without any outward symbols at all.

I attended a school where 2 teachers were also the Christian Youth Group leaders and they would advertise participation in youth group in class. I had a teacher bring in members of his church who go on missions to discuss the importance of bringing god into the third world to save the people.

I would much rather have preferred to have a teacher wear a head scarf as a Muslim or Russian Orthodox, or someone wearing a yarmulke...these symbols don't offend me. What offends me is a teacher who is a participant in a religious organization that they try to recruit for in a public school. There is a huge difference!

posted 3 years, 3 months ago
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Mr. Gore,

I have so many questions for you, but I'll try and keep this brief.

- How would you compare working in government vs. working in the public interest as a private citizen? Which do you think has had more effect overall?

- The new Pew Research numbers that have come out conclude that the public is less concerned about global warming now than they were 3-4 years ago. Pair that with the recent Pew "news IQ Quiz" that concluded only 23% of the public knows what cap and trade pertains to and we can draw a conclusion that lack of knowledge on the subject leads to lack of care. What will this mean for cap and trade legislation? What might this mean to the business community that run companies based on market trends and thus impact their respective lobby platforms?

- How do you feel about the entertainment media's focus on global issues that seem to get less news media coverage?  Given your skepticism about media accountability and yet your reliance on media for your platforms, where do you feel that entertainment and accountability intersect and what that means to the future global perspective in America?

Thank you for your time! TOL please pick one of my questions to ask!

posted 3 years, 6 months ago
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to magdalen23,

I see your point. However, the context of my statement was that if you choose not to have children because of overpopulation, it is different from choosing to be entirely childless/free. My point is that there is a distinction, which I think you would agree with.

posted 3 years, 7 months ago
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To clarify, you choose not to reproduce for the sake of overpopulation. This is different from being childless, because you could always adopt, have a child and not contribute to overpopulation.

You could say that you are also childless as a way of maintaining a smaller carbon footprint because the consumption estimates of a single American child is equal to something like 30 children in India (not sure on the exact stat, but something very alarming).

SarahKate also made the similar mistake of distinction. Being childless and not reproducing are 2 different things.

posted 3 years, 7 months ago
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Thank you for this discussion.

While I may be young, I have never in my life wanted to bear my own children. It is indoctrinated in little girls that being "mommy" is the right feeling to have, I was often criticized, even as young as 12 and 13, for not looking forward to a traditional family life when I was older.

Even now, after giving a wealth of reasons not to have my own children, friends still tell me that my biology hasn't kicked in yet, wait until more of my friends and family have children, then I will feel "the urge" etc and so on. It's really insulting and yet completely socially acceptable behavior.

It's acceptable because the course of human history tells us that bearing children is in the public interest. Investment and growth of human capital has always been a public affair, as a matter of community survival. (that's another discussion)

While I have pretty much ruled out bearing my own children, I have not ruled out adoption. Unfortunately, adoption is far more costly, time consuming and in many cases less predictable than having your own children. With so many parentless kids in the world I find it rather shocking that our system is still set up to financially and socially favor reproduction over adoption. This is not to say that we shouldn't support those who choose to bear their own, but rather, that we should support those who are making the sustainable choice to adopt just as much.

As a final note, if on this forum, parents decide to tell the childless that they are missing our and don't know/understand the joy of raising kids, consider this...In recent surveys of families with and without children, those without are more likely to be happier than those with kids. I think this is a very enlightening article that seems to fairly reflect the emotional misnomers people often have about being a parent. (The surveys cited in this article do not include the 2006 Pew research that concluded people with or without children were reporting equally on happiness)

posted 3 years, 7 months ago
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That happened to me last year. It was the first evening drive home after daylight savings, so it was darker than usual, and rainy. I thought I would be extra safe and stop while the light was still yellow. Sure enough, I get hit from behind...my insurance went through the roof! 

posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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When I first heard about this new development, my thought was "how cool!" and then I thought...."unless the world becomes a real life Gattaca" But my question about the abuse of power through gene manipulation and therapy on such a large scale is ridiculous, thus the argument has only been relegated to science fiction films.

Let's get real here, in the near future, the only people who would be able to afford this kind of gene therapy aren't the people who are contributing, on a large scale, to planet overpopulation...they will probably only have 1 maybe 2 kids, and the clientele will probably be the sort who are are going to spend their life as active parents, educating and providing for their children, because it's clear that they care enough to go through gene therapy in the first place.

Then for the next generation, ideally, gene therapy won't matter...it's like the polio vaccine, eventually , no one ever got polio, because, well, we were all inoculated. 

posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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I participated in a 48 hour film competition in college. It was so much fun and it was just amazing to see what people came up with! The project included specific thematic elements that must be included in each film as well as the incorporation of a few words and phrases that were brainstormed as a collective group. 

These film projects rely on strong team connections where everyone knows what they are doing and use their individual best to enhance the overall project.

I took from my experience the notion that even when a task seemed daunting to me, there would be someone on the team that looked at it with a very different vision and made it happen!

As for the question of creativity on a time limit...we do it all the time. There is always a deadline to meet and projects to finish. This is just part of what keeps life moving forward.

posted 3 years, 9 months ago
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ScottMil,

As you say "it just sometimes makes it harder to prove" That's exactly why they are trying to develop a refined notion of what it means to be incapacitated for rape to occur. It helps clean up the blurred line of consent and non-consent, which I understand, you don't believe is possible because of the natural "he-said/she-said" factor with little accurate memory and often little if any physical evidence to back a claim.

You ask "whether the degree of their offense is at all related or relevant to the degree of the mental incapacity of the victim", This law says no...the offense is the offense, as you have also said "rape is rape." You have been contrary in this conversation when, in essence, you agree with it. Although maybe you question the validity of an initial claim of rape, as many do in these cases...Which is what makes it hard for people to come forward in the first place.

posted 3 years, 10 months ago
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The fact of the matter is 1 in 4 women are raped in their lifetime - most don't report it. In fact, the "silent-rape" which is the question at hand here only has a 5% rate of report. There is an even lower rate of report for men who are attacked and the numbers are newer and less conclusive for men.

The majority of rape victims know their attacker and often trust the person who violates them. This is how most silent-rape occurs. The person assumes a level of personal safety when with a friend, to be able to drink.

This issue simply protects a victim from being blamed for being passed-out drunk and taken advantage of, assuming the person committing the act has the ability to determine said incapacity.

This is not a women's issue, this is an issue of defining to a greater degree how a rape can be prosecuted and defended. Concerning the shift in the burden of proof, one would hope that the prosecutors do their homework and bring reasonable charges that hold up to the standard beyond a reasonable doubt and avoid false claims. And if this doesn't happen, we have an appeals system.

Let's keep in mind that charges can't be brought without a victim coming forward. If a person feels like their claim will fall on deaf ears because they were passed out when raped, they won't prosecute. This bill will help victims maintain a level of credibility in instances of silent-rape/date-rape claims. It makes sense to me to introduce this bill.

posted 3 years, 10 months ago
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As a child with dyslexia, I found that association with images and context helped me with understanding the formation of a word far more than phonetic applications.

As a young adult, assisting in a special ed classroom after college I found that the dyslexic student I worked with learned best the same way I did. In fact, his pattern was so similar to mine it was uncanny.

I still have a painfully hard time with math...a number has no context 86 and 68 can easily be twisted around without knowing it's wrong, but no and on mean such different things in the context of a sentence that the brain self corrects to give the word the right meaning.

While I know that as a parent of a child with a learning disability is hard, one thing I'm sure you understand, learning patterns are so different. What works for one student won't for another...I think perhaps rather than demonizing the "whole-learning" system, you may want to focus your efforts on helping your child's teacher(s) work with him or her based on your observations of how best to teach your child.

posted 3 years, 11 months ago
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Well said!

While I would love to be able to support American designed and made products, the companies providing them spent so much time lobbying congress and building monopolies that they forgot about their product. As a result they became too big and slow moving to support their own growth or focus on innovation.

Perhaps this is the sign we needed that monopolies are dangerous, too many acquisitions create a mess for management and any resulting business model(s).

posted 3 years, 11 months ago
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