PAGE A6, KEIZERTIMES, FEBRUARY 1, 2019
Opinion
Talk less, do more
By LYNDON ZAITZ
We have all seen them, the home-
less here in Keizer. Those whose whole
life is in a shopping cart. Homelessness
is a top-of-mind issue that we in Iris
Capital can no longer ignore.
For years, the Keizer Police were
successful in pushing those who called
the streets home out of the city. It
didn’t matter to most
residents where they
went, just as long as they
were not here.
The
Keizer-Salem
homeless population has
increased even with a
robust economy and low
unemployment. Some
are homeless by choice (living off the
grid as it were), some through bad
personal decisions, others through no
fault of their own. Regardless, home-
lessness is no longer a problem that
can be swept away.
There is a large number of orga-
nizations and bodies that address our
regional homeless issue. Meetings are
held, words are spoken, action plans
are written and then...nothing.
What action should be taken? First,
a reliable census. A count of those who
are homeless by choice and don’t want
help as well as a count of those who
want a roof over their head but can’t
due to fi nancial diffi culties, mental
health issues, drug addiction or they
may simply not know how to access
services.
Knowing the mental health status
of a person who won’t accept help
is key. A person suffering from men-
tal health issues may not be able to
communicate their needs or wants in
a cogent way. A healthy person who
chooses to live on the street is differ-
ent than a person suffering poor men-
tal health. Poor mental health can lead
to suspicions of others and aggressive
or belligerent behavior, which can
make it hard for them to recognize
when assistance—without strings—is
being offered. Those people should be
steered toward services that will give
the help needed.
For those without mental health
issues but who wish to remain on the
street, unemcumbered by society’s
dictums, a matter of enforcing rules
and law is called for. Panhandling or
sleeping in doorways is not what po-
lite society accepts and the laws need
to be strenghtened. There should not
be much sympathy for one who can
and is able to hold a job and thus have
a permanent address. The sympathy is
for those who truly need assistance
and will take it.
Oregon’s governor talks
of adding $2 billion in ser-
vices and programs over the
next decade. How much of
that astronomical amount
will be earmarked for the
services the homeless need?
Building affordable housing
is a nice thing but it doesn’t fi t into a
for-profi t model. That means that lo-
cal governments will have to lead the
way and provide the needed housing
for those who want it and need it. Of
course such public housing needs to
be temporary—a hand up, not a hand
out.
An action plan to address home-
lessness of those who are addicted to
drugs of any kind, needs to include
government-funded treatment cen-
ters. Most addicts would rather not be
hooked, and if offered detoxifi cation
and counseling would take it. Drug
treatment coupled with temporary
housing and counseling can go a long
way to reduce the homeless popula-
tion.
The best action plan that a body
can take to tackle the homeless issue?
Cancel every other meeting and spend
that time on the streets. Time spend
on the street helping those who want
help would certainly be more produc-
tive than a meeting where the only
result is more talk and more strategies.
With more time outside meeting
rooms, the task forces, committees,
boards could link arms with other
groups also working on the homeless
issue, and aim for tangible results and
solutions.
Just as there is no glamour in being
homeless, there should be absolutely
no glamour in talking about it with-
out action.
zaitz
writes
(Lyndon Zaitz is editor and pub-
lisher of the Keizertimes.)
Buzzfeed, Twitter give media black eyes
By DEBRA J. SAUNDERS
First, Buzzfeed News ran a story
Jan. 16 that asserted President Don-
ald Trump told his long-time private
attorney Michael Cohen to lie to
Congress about talks with Russia
about a Trump Tower in Moscow.
The sources? Two anonymous fed-
eral law enforcement
offi cials.
By Friday of that
week, a thin gruel of a
story had put cable news
in a ferocious feeding
frenzy as pundits breath-
lessly pronounced that,
“if true,” Trump should
be impeached. Yes, they jumped on
an anonymously sourced story that
they wanted to be true, then cagily
waved the “if true” disclaimer just in
case reality intruded.
They would have continued to
say “if true” for days, even as no oth-
er news organization could verify
the Buzzfeed piece, had not Special
Counsel Robert Mueller’s offi ce
ended their glee by issuing a state-
ment roundly debunking it.
The next day, another epic media
fail was born.
A brief video clip of a white
male high school student in a Make
America Great Again hat staring si-
lently as a Native American activist
stood before him beating a drum
and chanting was unleashed on
Twitter. A rush to ill-informed judg-
ment followed.
The left dusted off every stereo-
type in its vault. Twitter users de-
scribed the moment as a confronta-
tion between smug privileged white
teens and a besieged Vietnam vet-
eran proud of his Native American
heritage.
CNN contributor Reza Aslan
tweeted, “Honest question: Have
you ever seen a more punchable face
than this kid’s?”
In a classic case of confi rmation
bias, mainstream news outlets went
with that narrative that placed the
blame on teens in MAGA hats. The
Washington Post report-
ed that the high schooler
was wearing a “relentless
smirk.” The story report-
ed the assertion of Nathan
Phillips, the Native Amer-
ican drummer, that the
kids were shouting, “Build
that wall,” even though, the
story noted, there was no video of
the students chanting about a wall.
Standards?
The Post story also framed Phil-
lips as he wanted to be framed, the
hapless “man in the middle” who
was forced into unwanted confron-
tation.
Later, conservatives posted a vid-
eo that showed that Phillips, rather
than being surrounded by students
as he had claimed, actually had ap-
proached the students.
The paper also ran a correction
on its reporting that Phillips served
in Vietnam. He did not.
Nick Sandmann, the MAGA-hat
wearing teen, released a statement
in which he denied smirking and
maintained that he chose to remain
silent and expressionless because he
didn’t want to infl ame a tense situ-
ation.
Many who posted nasty tweets
about the students from Kentucky’s
Covington Catholic High School
deleted them. Some even apolo-
gized.
Actress Alyssa Milano refused to
other
voices
walk back the tweet she had posted
on the standoff by the Lincoln Me-
morial: “The red MAGA hat is the
new white hood.”
Noting that the students were
on the Washington Mall waiting for
a bus after participating in the an-
ti-abortion March for Life, Milano
argued, “Let’s not forget—the entire
event happened because a group of
boys went on a school-sanctioned
trip to protest against a woman’s
right to her own body and repro-
ductive healthcare.”
Translation: Conservatives are fair
game.
Conservatives are fair game for
virtue-signaling conservatives. Twit-
ter has turned into a forum in which
people prove their goodness by be-
rating others as unworthy, and con-
servatives also trash-talked the stu-
dents from Kentucky’s Covington
Catholic High School.
In the heat of the pile-on, the Na-
tional Review’s Nicholas Frankovich
tweeted, “As for the putatively Cath-
olic students from Covington, they
might as well have just spit on the
cross and got it over with.” Frankov-
ich later apologized, rightly copped
to being “preachy and rhetorically
excessive,” and deleted the tweet.
When Trump fi rst entered the
White House, there was a con-
certed move to keep him off Twit-
ter because even his own staff was
concerned that his often combative
bursts on Twitter were, well, unpres-
idential. Like Aslan today, he would
make assertions of questionable ac-
curacy, but stand by them anyway.
Two years later, we are all unpresi-
dential and social media in reality is
anti-social.
(Creators Syndicate)
College admin and coach salaries and perks
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Recently, in an open letter pre-
pared by University of Oregon Pres-
ident Michael Schill and three under-
lings asked for more tax money to not
only support the Ducks in Eugene but
public education across
the state. The university
administrators wrote a
lengthy column in de-
fense of their needs.
Among several state-
ments made by the col-
laboration, they wrote
that “Some Oregonians
hear a message coming
from Salem that sounds
as if lawmakers plan to ignore tens
of thousands of college and univer-
sity students who represent our col-
lective future. Flat funding will close
the door of opportunity for students
across Oregon and will hurt the econ-
omy.”
However, one of the most costly
money problems at the UO is what’s
paid in salaries, bonuses and perks for
administrators and coaches at the that
public school. President Schill’s salary
and bonuses, plus a free home, a free
car and incidental expenses, add up
to well over $500,000 annually. The
other administrators in his offi ce have
hidden salaries and perks; however, if
known, would likely raise eyebrows so
high as to pinch taxpayer foreheads.
Meanwhile, it’s an established fact that
the median household income in Or-
egon is $60,212.
Then there are the many coaches
in all the sports offered at the UO,
including, but not limited to, bas-
ketball, gymnastics, softball, hardball,
track and fi eld, and football, where it
is public knowledge that in basketball
and football the salaries, bonuses and
perks add up to over $2.5 million for
the head coach. Even assistant coach-
es are over-abundantly rewarded for
their efforts. Just last week a woman’s
softball coach left Oregon where he
was paid $274,000 to go elsewhere
because he was “not paid enough,”
while a football wide-receiver coach
will go to Mississippi State
from UO where he was
paid $335,000 annually.
A former U.S. senator,
Everett Dirksen of Illinois,
once said, “A billion here,
a billion there, pretty soon
you’re talking about real
money.” And so it seems
as one applies that sage
remark to UO. Once its
administrative and coaching costs are
added up, they amount to real mon-
ey. And the question that follows is,
if they’ve got enough real money to
throw excessively at all these individ-
uals who manage offi ce and fi eld, why
should Oregon taxpayers have to shell
out more?
Further, the UO is a public school
whose purpose is educating people.
To the contrary, its purpose is not to
bring in some bigshot from the East
gene
mcintyre
who supposedly can perform uni-
versity miracles for multi-millions of
dollars and coaches for the playing of
games. Students in attendance end up
paying a whole lot of the costs iden-
tifi ed here which jacks up the cost of
tuition exponentially every time some
one of note is brought in to manage
or coach while they receive in return
no better an education; in fact, it often
means that, when money gets tight,
UO employees, such as professors and
assistant professors, who perform the
duties and responsibilities for teaching,
are part-time on contract and must
fi nd a second employment to make
their ends meet.
I come at this matter not from sour
grapes or a grudge, as I earned two
post-graduate degrees at UO. It’s just
high time that we stand our ground
in terms of runaway costs at public
institutions and bring an end to unre-
strained, runaway spending and return
to the principled and dedicated pur-
pose of higher education.
(Gene H. McIntyre shares his opin-
ion frequently in the Keizertimes.)