OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2015
Despair, in uniquely American style
Founded in 1873
STEPHEN A. FORRESTER, Editor & Publisher
LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
HEATHER RAMSDELL, Circulation Manager
It’s about turning
young lives around
Astoria, Seaside districts could imitate
the goal of South Jetty High School
O
ne aspect of a newspaper’s mission is to take its readers
inside places they don’t know about.
That is what Edward Stratton
did last Wednesday with his report
on South Jetty High School. In
Warrenton near Costco, this state
facility houses up to 50 young in-
mates. As Stratton noted this place
is “mostly invisible to local resi-
dents.”
One of the facility’s core mis-
sions is to move inmates across the
¿nish line to obtain a high school
diploma. Its teachers are trained
in a new program called Positive
Human Development, which fo-
cuses on accountability.
The Warrenton School District
runs South Jetty High School.
Warrenton Grade School Librarian
Kathy Merritt is one of the instruc-
tors.
In a State of the State speech
some 25 years ago, Oregon Gov.
Neil Goldschmidt talked about
the massive prison-building pro-
gram on which the state had em-
barked. We will build prisons, said
Goldschmidt. But if that’s all we
do, they will always be full. That
is one way of explaining the logic
and the importance of a program
like South Jetty High School.
Education is one of the most im-
portant levers in moving toward a
productive, non-criminal life.
By contrast, illiteracy is a crimi-
nal indicator. Thus, there is a signif-
icant link to Stratton’s earlier story
on the alarming rate of truancy in
Clatsop County schools — especial-
ly among kindergarten students in
Astoria and Seaside. A person of that
age who misses foundational read-
ing instruction starts school without
the most basic learning tool.
Astoria and Seaside’s school
boards should give as much priori-
ty to curbing truancy as the state of
Oregon is putting into South Jetty
High School. Both strategies lead
to the same place.
Time wasted waiting
on Keystone kill
P
resident Obama last week
¿nally did something many
felt he should and could have done
near the start of his administration:
He said no to the Keystone XL tar-
sands oil pipeline between western
Canada and re¿neries on the 8.S.
Gulf Coast.
Particularly during the months
leading up to the 2012 presiden-
tial and 2014 congressional elec-
tions, the slowly oozing nature of
this bureaucratic decision struck
both supporters and opponents
of the pipeline as brazen political
cowardice. Clearly, a progressive
Democrat would not give the go-
ahead to a fossil-fuel project of
such stellar symbolic importance.
Declining for so long to sim-
ply make this decision of¿cial
was a matter of avoiding an elec-
tion-year handicap for a handful
of politicians — perhaps most no-
tably Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La.,
who lost her 2014 re-election bid
despite vociferously defending
Keystone on behalf of her ener-
gy-oriented state.
It is important to note that
Keystone is not particularly im-
portant as either a great economic
boon or as a potent villain in the
struggle against climate change.
From the climate perspective,
denying permits to one oil pipeline
is the equivalent of hoping to stop
the blight of heroin addiction by
banning the sale of a hypodermic
needle. The pipeline is merely one
delivery system for oil; the private
companies and economic forces
that push for more fossil-fuel de-
velopment will ¿nd other ways to
get their product to market.
In fact, Joel Connelly of the
Seattle P-I reported last week that
the 800,000 barrels per day of
Alberta tar sands that would have
been carried by Keystone will like-
ly instead be piped within Canada
to the British Columbia coast and
then via tanker ship down through
sensitive Paci¿c Northwest wa-
ters. Tanker traf¿c through Haro
Strait between the San Juan and
Gulf Islands could increase from
¿ve ships a month to 4.
It will be a Pyrrhic victory in-
deed if the 8.S. notches an illusory
climate win that someday results
in a major oil spill in the Salish
Sea.
Nor do Keystone advocates
have much of a leg to stand on
when they claim enormous job
creation. After an admittedly wel-
come bump in jobs during pipeline
construction, permanent employ-
ment gains have been estimated
at a grand total of 5 nationwide
for ongoing operation and mainte-
nance.
Legitimate and substantial steps
to begin limiting climate damage
from burning fossil fuels has long
been stymied by the manipulations
of corporations and their servants
in Congress, who deny anything
is going wrong. The New York
attorney general’s investigation of
ExxonMobil’s alleged efforts to
deliberately deceive the public is
the beginning of the end of willful
ignorance about the challenges we
face from greenhouse gases creat-
ed during traditional energy pro-
duction.
Time wasted in an empty ¿ght
over Keystone XL should have
been spent by the 8.S. and Canada
in developing real alternatives to
burning tar-sand oil, American
coal and other dirty fuels. Real
leaders will quit playing games
and immediately get busy with
funding research and development
of clean energy. It quite possibly
can be done, but we can’t afford to
lose another moment.
By PAUL KRUGMAN
New York Times News Service
A
couple of weeks ago
President Obama Barack
mocked Republicans who are
“down on America,” and rein-
forced his message by doing a
pretty good Grumpy Cat im-
pression.
He had a point: With job growth
at rates not seen since the 1990s,
with the percentage of Americans
covered by health insurance hitting
record highs, the doom-and-gloom
predictions of his political enemies
look ever more at odds with reality.
Yet there is a darkness spread-
ing over part of our society. And we
don’t really understand why.
There has been a lot of comment,
and rightly so, over a new paper by
the economists Angus Deaton (who
just won a Nobel) and Anne Case,
showing that mortality among mid-
dle-aged white Americans has been
rising since 1999. This deterioration
took place while death rates were
falling steadily both in other coun-
tries and among other groups in our
own nation.
Even more striking are the prox-
imate causes of rising mortality.
Basically, white Americans are, in
increasing numbers, killing them-
selves, directly or indirectly. Sui-
cide is way up, and so are deaths
from drug poisoning and the chron-
ic liver disease that excessive drink-
ing can cause. We’ve seen this kind
of thing in other times and places
— for example, in the plunging life
expectancy that afÀicted Russia af-
ter the fall of Communism. But it’s
a shock to see it, even in an attenu-
ated form, in America.
Yet the Deaton-Case ¿ndings
¿t into a well-established pattern.
There have been a number of stud-
ies showing that life expectancy
for less-educated whites is falling
across much of the nation. Rising
suicides and overuse of opioids are
known problems. And while pop-
ular culture may focus
after all, talking about the
more on meth than on
consequences of behavior,
prescription painkillers or
and culture clearly matters
good old alcohol, it’s not
a great deal. Most nota-
really news that there’s a
bly, Hispanic Americans
drug problem in the heart-
are considerably poorer
than whites but have much
land.
lower mortality. It’s prob-
But what’s causing this
ably worth noting, in this
epidemic of self-destruc-
context, that international
tive behavior?
comparisons consistently
If you believe the usu-
Paul
¿nd that Latin Americans
al suspects on the right,
Krugman
have higher subjective
it’s all the fault of liber-
als. Generous social programs, they well-being than you would expect,
insist, have created a culture of de- given their incomes.
So what is going on? In a recent
pendency and despair, while secular
humanists have undermined tradi- interview Deaton suggested that
tional values. But (surprise!) this middle-aged whites have “lost the
view is very much at odds with the narrative of their lives.” That is,
their economic setbacks have hit
evidence.
hard because they expected better.
Or to put it a bit differently, we’re
Rising
looking at people who were raised
to believe in the American Dream,
mortality is
and are coping badly with its failure
to come true.
a uniquely
That sounds like a plausible hy-
pothesis to me, but the truth is that
American
we don’t really know why despair
phenomenon.
appears to be spreading across
Middle America. But it clearly is,
For one thing, rising mortality is with troubling consequences for
a uniquely American phenomenon our society as a whole.
In particular, I know I’m not the
— yet America has both a much
weaker welfare state and a much only observer who sees a link be-
stronger role for traditional religion tween the despair reÀected in those
and values than any other advanced mortality numbers and the volatility
country. Sweden gives its poor far of right-wing politics. Some people
more aid than we do, and a majority who feel left behind by the Ameri-
of Swedish children are now born can story turn self-destructive; oth-
out of wedlock, yet Sweden’s mid- ers turn on the elites they feel have
dle-aged mortality rate is only half betrayed them. No, deporting im-
migrants and wearing baseball caps
of white America’s.
You see a somewhat similar bearing slogans won’t solve their
pattern across regions within the problems, but neither will cutting
8nited States. Life expectancy is taxes on capital gains. So you can
high and rising in the Northeast and understand why some voters have
California, where social bene¿ts are rallied around politicians who at
highest and traditional values weak- least seem to feel their pain.
At this point you probably ex-
est. Meanwhile, low and stagnant or
declining life expectancy is concen- pect me to offer a solution. But
while universal health care, higher
trated in the Bible Belt.
What about a materialist expla- minimum wages, aid to education,
nation? Is rising mortality a conse- and so on would do a lot to help
quence of rising inequality and the Americans in trouble, I’m not sure
whether they’re enough to cure ex-
hollowing out of the middle class?
Well, it’s not that simple. We are, istential despair.
GOP should take the winnings and run
By CHARLES
KRAUTHAMMER
Washington Post Writers Group
WASHINGTON — Where do
Republicans get that special tal-
ent for turning gold to dross? They
score an electoral “massacre” (The
Economist) in 2014 and, a year lat-
er, what do they have to show for
it other than another threat to shut
down the gov-
ernment? Hil-
lary
Clinton
is caught in
email Àagrante
and Benghazi
mendacity and
Mark J. Terrill/AP Photo
yet, with one
Republican presidential candidates, from left, John Kasich, Mike Huck-
Kevin McCar-
abee, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina,
thy gaffe and a
and Ted Cruz take the stage during the CNBC Republican presidential
singularly inef-
debate at the University of Colorado, Oct. 28, in Boulder, Colo.
fective 11-hour
Charles
Benghazi hear-
Krauthammer
ing, Republi-
rum?
gay employees. Quintanilla seemed
cans render her
Third, this continues the sea- genuinely unable to fathom that one
sanitized.
son-long GOP diversion from what can oppose the most radical change
And now their latest feat. They should be its real target — the in the structure of marriage in hu-
win a stunning victory over their wreckage wrought by seven years man history — as Bill Clinton, Hil-
perennial nemesis, the mainstream of Barack Obama. The greatest iro- lary Clinton and Barack Obama all
media — a slam-dunk rim-rattling ny of this campaign is that Clinton did just a few years ago — without
exposure of the media bias they and Bernie Sanders are the ones wanting to see gay people persecut-
have been complaining about for a making the case that the economy ed and denied decent treatment by
half-century — and within a week is stagnant, inequality growing and their employers.
CNBC produced the best night
they so overplayed their hand as to the middle class falling increas-
dissipate whatever sympathetic ad- ingly behind. That’s a devastating of the entire campaign season for
vantage they gained.
indictment of Democratic gover- the GOP. And yet some Republi-
The CNBC debate was
nance, exactly the case cans were determined to turn it into
a gift for the GOP, so un-
Republicans should have another theater of their civil war
The
adorned a demonstration
been making all year. against the GOP “establishment.”
of liberal condescension,
they’ve wasted This time the target was Republi-
CNBC Instead,
hostility and arrogance
months trading schoolboy can National Committee Chairman
Reince Priebus. As if Priebus is re-
that the rest of the media debate
taunts and ad hominems.
— their ideological cover
Now another distrac- sponsible for Harwood.
Good grief. Priebus’ job, the
exposed — were forced
tion: debate structure.
was
to denounce and ridicule
The party is demanding party’s job, is to control the num-
a gift
their ham-handed col-
there be no repetition of ber of debates and set the calendar.
leagues. What happened
the CNBC debate. Why, Its doing so in 2015-16 constitutes
then? Instead of quitting for the
for God’s sake? That de- a signi¿cant achievement, consid-
while they were ahead, the
bate was the best thing to ering the damage done to the GOP
GOP.
Republicans plunged into
happen to the GOP since in 2011-2012 by its 20 freelance
debates. That endless, vicious intra-
a week of meetings and
Michael Dukakis.
statements, whining and complain-
Won’t someone tell the Republi- mural ¿ght — featuring Rick Perry
ing, bouncing around a series of de- cans that they won? Let it go. Who and Newt Gingrich savaging Mitt
mands, including control of the kind cares who’s on the next debate pan- Romney’s “vulture capitalism” —
of questions that may or may not be el? Don’t they realize that fear of laid the premise for Obama’s nega-
asked at future debates.
ridicule alone will temper the in- tive and winning campaign.
Ted Cruz has suggested that
Who’s the genius who thought stincts of whatever liberal question-
Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and
up that one? First, it instantly al- ers are chosen?
lowed the liberal media to turn the
John Harwood’s obnoxiousness Mark Levin moderate Republican
tables and play defenders of jour- and Becky Quick’s incompetence debates. Good idea, wrong target.
nalistic independence against GOP earned most of the opprobrium How about this arrangement? Lim-
bullies.
heaped on the moderators’ perfor- baugh & Co. should moderate the
Second, it made the Republicans mance. But it was Carl Quintanilla Democratic debates. What a splen-
look small. To paraphrase Chris who demonstrated just how un- did blood-soaked spectacle that
Christie’s “fantasy football” mo- moored liberal delusions about con- would be.
As for the GOP? Bring on the
ment, the economy is in the tank, servatives have become. He asked
Russia is on the move, the Islamic Ben Carson how, as an opponent liberals. The Republicans should
State is on the attack — and the of gay marriage, he could remain demand the return of Harwood,
candidates are debating the proper on the board of a company that is Quick and Quintanilla, until the end
room temperature for a debate fo- known for its generous treatment of of time.