PAGE A4, KEIZERTIMES, NOVEMBER 13, 2015
KeizerOpinion
KEIZERTIMES.COM
Care for the abuser, not the abuse
GOP voters’ love of the unserious
By MICHAEL GERSON
Welcome to the vetting season, in
which presidential candidate resumés
are pumped full of air, submerged in
water, and tested for bubbles like an
inner tube.
None of the Republican candi-
dates, even the few with actual gov-
erning experience, has ever suffered
the level of scrutiny given to a top-
tier presidential prospect. It is part
journalism, part tax audit, part frater-
nity hazing and part—especially when
it comes to Republicans—ideological
hit job. (The last, consulting Aristote-
lian logic and CNBC, does not need
to be true of every journalist to be
true nonetheless.) Only Democrat
Hillary Clinton has made a career of
sailing in this hurricane. And even she
is taking on water with an ongoing
FBI investigation.
Ben Carson, amazingly, has been
asked to substantiate the claim that he
actually tried to hit his mother with a
hammer. Was it kept on the mantel as
a souvenir? Are there pictures of the
event in the family scrapbook? And,
by the way, did he embellish his re-
sume through the hazy high school
memory of a recruiting meeting?
Carson’s claim that his treatment
is unique—“I have not seen that
with anyone else”—is disproved by,
well, just about everyone else. Marco
Rubio is being called to account for
questionable purchases as a state rep-
resentative on a GOP American Ex-
press card, including some fl ooring. In
my book, hardwood would indicate
disqualifying extravagance; laminate,
reassuring practicality.
What is the actual charge? One of
the CNBC debate moderators asked
Rubio if his expense record demon-
strates “the maturity and the wisdom
to lead this $17 trillion economy.”
First of all, an American president
does not lead the economy. He helps
create laws that marginally improve or
complicate economic conditions. And
second of all, what utter garbage. How
does properly balancing a checkbook
relate to presidential economic leader-
ship, which is actually determined by
ideology and legislative effectiveness?
For Jeb Bush, the vetting process
has been more about performance.
How does he distinguish himself from
the wallpaper in the debates? His town
hall meetings, by one media account,
are “charmingly anachronistic,” ap-
parently because political discourse is
better served by Twitter sarcasm. The
real question: Is Bush’s stated refusal
to be an “angry agitator” disqualifying
in a political party that seems to view
angry agitation as the sum of the po-
litical enterprise?
All the while, Donald Trump lobs
sarcastic tweets, appears on late-night
television and leads the Real Clear Pol-
itics average of polls. Trump is some-
how enjoying the presidential vetting
season as a spectator instead of a target.
For about a quarter of the Republican
electorate, there is apparently no scan-
dal that could rock their high regard.
Think for a moment. What would
it even mean for Trump to infl ate his
resume when his whole campaign is
a hyperbolic infl ation of his resume?
How do you accuse Trump of mishan-
dling his checkbook when he brags of
bilking hapless investors through the
bankruptcy laws, or makes money
through gaming businesses that prey
on gambling addicts and low-income
people? How do you hold Trump to
performance standards when part of
his appeal as an outsider is a blustering,
appalling ignorance of policy?
What if (entirely hypothetically)
Trump had gold-plated fi xtures in his
bathrooms, put his name on a shady di-
ploma mill, issued misogynist personal
attacks and took credit for buying
politicians? That would be a Tuesday.
Stepping back, what does it mean that
a signifi cant portion of prospective
GOP voters are seriously consider-
ing a leader who can’t be embarrassed
because he is incapable of shame? A
leader who can’t be disgraced because
expectations are already so low?
The choice of a president, at least
in theory, should have something to
do with character, policy views, tem-
perament, governing record and po-
litical philosophy. Trump is judged by
his followers on an entirely different
set of standards, imported from reality
television. Is he entertaining? Check.
Is he angry? Check. Does he demolish
political correctness and political con-
vention? Double check. Is he authen-
tic? Ah, here is the rub.
By one defi nition, political au-
thenticity is defi ned by the impulsive
expression of everyman instincts. By
another defi nition, authenticity means
taking serious things—such as rheto-
ric and political ideas—seriously. The
former unleashes and rides political
passions. The latter channels passions
into useful public purposes through
political and governing skill. The for-
mer culminates in the cutting tweet.
The latter in Lincoln writing and re-
writing the Gettysburg Address or his
second inaugural, which were made
authentic through thought and craft.
So far, this is the sad, overall sum-
mary of the 2016 campaign: They
took unserious things seriously.
One grocery
store choice
sponse. The more
folks do this the
better chance we
have. We already
go to the south
Salem Winco to
do most of our
shopping. I would also recommend
doing the same thing if you would like
to see a Costco at this end of town
since the one and only in Salem is be-
coming a nightmare.
Michael Johnson
Keizer
To the Editor:
In regards to Marge Willson’s letter
(Keizertimes, Oct. 30) about one gro-
cery store in Keizer: she is very correct
that Keizer needs another choice, espe-
cially one that is not way too expensive.
I urge everyone to go onto the
Winco website and click on Contact
Us and let them know we want them
in Keizer. I sent them an e-mail and
was very encouraged with the re-
(Washington Post Writers Group)
letters
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By ERIC A. HOWALD
The friend request arrived earlier
this year, nearly 20 years since our
last conversation.
That one went something like
this:
“Eric, phone call.”
“Thanks, mom.”
“Hello?”
A pause.
“Hi, Eric, it’s Mike. I’m in the
hospital.”
This is how my former best
friend opened the conversation after
twelve months of radio silence.
“Why are you in the hospital?”
“I had an accident. I OD’d. I was
dead for four minutes before the
medics revived me.”
“Oh.” Another long pause. “Are
you okay now?”
He sniffed hard. This was some-
thing of a nervous tick he’d had ever
since we fi rst met at age 12. We were
19 at the time of the phone call.
“Yeah, it was about six weeks ago,
but I’m trying to contact some of
my old friends, now.”
This didn’t sound like Mike. This
sounded like it was coming from
someone in the hospital room with
him telling Mike this is what he
should do.
“Okay, are you still in the hospi-
tal?”
“Right now, yeah, but I hoped I
could call you after I get out.”
“Sure, just let me know.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
Click.
As far as I was concerned, our
friendship had ended the prior au-
tumn. After fi ve years of near insepa-
rability, with Mike spending entire
weekends smashing Nintendo but-
tons with me at the foot of my bed
and taking three-week vacations
with my family, I could no longer
suffer being the one driving him to
his dealer’s house and being asked
to wait in the car. It all ended as
we stood on his mom’s porch on a
sunny day in October. I was in tears
and yelling as I confronted him over
his drinking and drug abuse. He was
drunk, and probably high, but it hurt
like hell when I told him I loved
him like a brother and he giggled.
Now, for reasons, I struggle to
fathom, he’s tracked me down
through Facebook. On one hand,
I’m relieved. I’m relieved to know
he either made it through or is mak-
ing it through. At the same time, it’s
like having Jacob Marley rise from
the grave and
start rattling
chains about.
It may seem
harsh, but I
compartmen-
talized Mike’s
“death” as a
suicide. Never
speaking to each other again after
that phone call made that easier on
me.
Before I confi rmed his friend
request, I sent Mike a private mes-
sage hoping to talk about how our
friendship dissolved. He still hasn’t
responded. I stopped looking to see
if he would update his profi le with
photo – some sort of proof of life –
after a week.
For a long time, Mike’s substance
abuse was the lens through which
I entered every conversation about
the topic. It infuriated me, not that
people would use narcotics and al-
cohol to excess, but that they were
even available at all. With my whole
heart, I believed that drugs killed
people, not that people killed them-
selves using drugs. But the latter is
what it actually is, isn’t it?
It wasn’t until I was working on a
master’s degree in communications
that I learned what it truly meant
to think critically. I learned to ques-
tion motives and ask the right ques-
tions to get me there. That’s when
I discovered a Mike – and more
broadly, a country – in an entirely
different light. The veil was pulled
back, and I saw how socioeconomic
forces are typically one of the big-
gest infl uences on substance abuse,
and I could connect that line right
to Mike. He and his sister, and his
father, and his uncle were all living
under his grandmother’s roof. I saw
weed for the fi rst time taped under-
neath the lid to a toilet basin in his
house – his uncle’s stash – and I’ve
seen circumstances like his refl ected
elsewhere in our country.
Which brings me to the lack of
needle exchanges in Marion Coun-
ty. I’ve talked with an addict as part
of this paper’s recent series on hero-
in abuse in Keizer. I know what it’s
like to watch someone struggle with
addiction and hope beyond hope
that they are at least being as safe as
possible. And the absence of a local
needle exchange makes me fearful.
Earlier this year in Austin, Indi-
ana, nearly 150 people tested HIV
positive; the disease was primar-
ily transmitted via sharing needles
while injecting an opiate named
Opana. Tales of whole families do-
moments
of
lucidity
ing Opana together are coming to
the surface. Until the governor there
declared a state of emergency – in
only the affected county – there was
no needle exchange program for
drug abusers. Now it must contend
with that lack of foresight at an ex-
ponentially greater cost.
Opposing sides try to frame the
needle exchange debate as either
“saving lives” or “enabling abusers.”
In reality, it is both. It’s saving the
lives of drug abusers, and there is no
wrong there.
I’m not certain how far Mike
fell before overdosing, but it likely
involved needles and he might have
been saved from catastrophic illness
by exchanging dirty needles for
clean ones. I want to believe that ev-
eryone can agree his life was worth
saving at age 19. But, I don’t even
care about the age of an abuser, I
care about the abuser. Even though
I left our friendship in the rearview,
I value Mike’s life and everything he
meant to me.
In the same way that I had gotten
distracted with the drugs being the
things that killed people, the debate
over needle exchanges only keeps us
from getting to the heart of what is
ailing this country. It’s not meth or
heroin or Opana or whatever-the-
hell-comes-next that is the problem.
The problem, as I see it, is the shat-
tered narratives we were told we,
and everyone else, should be living.
When Prince Charmings don’t
arrive, when success is no longer
guaranteed by way of hard work,
when we discover that there are
forces working against us through
no fault of our own, it’s actually
kind of nice to have something to
take the edge off. But there will al-
ways be those who carry it too far,
and sink in over their heads, before
realizing what’s happened.
Sadly, the narratives we believe in,
like the opposing sides of the needle
exchange “debate,” are becoming
ever more fractured and diminished.
And no one is offering up anything
to replace what we’ve lost, least of all
me when my 11-year-old asks the
big questions. I wish it were differ-
ent.
What I still believe in is Mike. I
want to believe that one day he’ll
read that Facebook message (maybe
this article) and discover that I still
care about him and never stopped. I
hope he replies. Maybe then we can
both have a good cry about it.
(Eric A. Howald is associate edi-
tor of the Keizertimes.)
Mizzou’s very real political football
By DEBRA J. SAUNDERS
Activists at the University of
Missouri just won themselves a tro-
phy Monday. After weeks of protests
against the president of the Univer-
sity of Missouri System, Tim Wolfe
—and, most importantly, after the
Mizzou football team threatened to
boycott games until Wolfe quit—
the administrator caved. “It is my
belief we stopped listening to each
other. We have to respect each other
enough to stop yelling at each other
and start listening and quit intimi-
dating each other,” said the clearly
intimidated Wolfe.
The New York Times attributed
student and faculty demands that
Wolfe resign to “racial tensions.”
Black students report being called
the N-word. In October, someone
used feces to draw a swastika in the
university’s Gateway Hall. Activists
formed the group Concerned Stu-
dent 1950, named after the year the
University of Missouri fi rst admit-
ted African-Americans.
I share their anger at demeaning,
racist language and the yahoos who
drove through campus
Sunday in trucks with
Confederate fl ags. I just
don’t understand what
Wolfe had to do with
those episodes. Critics
charge that Wolfe had
become isolated. The
fact that head coach
Gary Pinkel supported
his players’ threatened
boycott suggests that is
the case.
Last month, when
protesters surrounded
Wolfe’s car during the
homecoming
parade,
Wolfe’s driver revved
the engine. One pro-
tester told The Washing-
ton Post the car bumped
another protester. Over
the weekend, when stu-
dents surrounded Wolfe
and demanded that he
defi ne “systematic op-
pression,” he answered,
“Systematic
oppression is
because you
don’t believe
that you have
the equal op-
portunity for
success.” An
enraged stu-
dent shouted back, “Did you just
blame us for systematic oppression?”
In short, Wolfe made a mistake
fatal to any academic career. A uni-
versity administrator is supposed to
preface every statement to students
who badger him with a phony re-
mark about how impressed he is
that students really care. No mat-
ter how rudely students behave, no
matter how unrealistic their pur-
suits, the modern university presi-
dent must pretend he fi nds their
antics engaging.
That’s a diffi cult task, given the
eight demands dictated by Con-
cerned Student 1950. No. 1: Wolfe
must give a handwritten apology,
read it publicly and “acknowledge
his white male privilege.” Next: Af-
other
views
ter his public humiliation, Wolfe had
to go. Also: The group demanded a
“mandatory” racial awareness and
inclusion curriculum “vetted, main-
tained, and overseen by a board”
composed of “students, staff, and
faculty of color.” That is, the activists
demanded that Mizzou indoctrinate
all students with their special brand
of racial politics. Their demands
present the university not as a haven
for an epic battle of ideas but as a
steamroller for political conformity.
CNN’s Jake Tapper asked UM
journalism professor Cynthia Frisby
what Wolfe had done to become
the focus of protest. She answered,
“It was the lack of response.”
Not displaying suffi cient anguish
apparently is all it takes to repre-
sent “systematic oppression.” After
Wolfe’s resignation, students gath-
ered in the quad and sang “We Shall
Overcome.” They think they did
something positive, when to the
contrary, they trivialized racism.
(Creators Syndicate)