OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, JANUARY 28, 2016
Stay sane America, please!
By DAVID BROOKS
New York Times News Service
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
Governor launches
a smart initiative
Classroom teachers will gain
professional support
T
he Chalkboard Project is Oregon’s research and devel-
opment arm for K-12 education. For 12 years, this orga-
nization, which was created and funded by Oregon’s most
prominent foundations, has run trial programs in public schools
and measured results.
It has been a struggle to educator supports that focus
get the Legislature to fund on professional develop-
Chalkboard’s pilot programs. ment. Hildick says these
Gov. John Kitzhaber became supports will kick in at
Chalkboard’s advocate. And the point when a young
now Gov. Kate Brown has Oregonian decides to
taken a giant step in the same pursue classroom teaching
as a profession. They will
direction.
In a little noticed element also recognize the impor-
of her agenda announced tance of mentoring teachers
last week, Gov. Brown is WKURXJK WKH FULWLFDO ¿UVW
breaking new ground. Says few years. And they will
Chalkboard’s
executive foster the development of
director, Sue Hildick: “The administrators.
Hildick describes why a
governor is stepping out into
K-12 space with something private partner is essential.
³,W KDV EHHQ GLI¿FXOW IRU
we think is important.”
By executive order, Brown the Oregon Department of
is creating a group to design Education to administer
a public-private entity to do because they are a compli-
things Chalkboard has tried ance agency. It’s hard for
them to do innovation,
to do for years.
The eventual product will because largely they give out
be a Council on Educator dollars based on formulas.
Chalkboard is one of the
Advancement. Chalkboard
will provide the venture brightest spots in Oregon
education.
Gov.
dollars for this innova- K-12
tion. This center’s aim will Brown’s initiative will lead
be a statewide system of to some excellent outcomes.
I
n January of 2017 someone will
stand at the U.S. Capitol and
deliver an Inaugural Address.
This is roughly the place where
Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt,
Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald
Reagan once stood.
I am going to spend every single day
between now and then believing that
neither Donald
Trump nor Ted
Cruz nor Bernie
Sanders will be
standing on that
podium. One of
them could win
the election, take
the oath, give
the speech and
be riding down
David
Pennsylvania
Brooks
Avenue. I will
still refuse to believe it.
Yes, I know what the polling
evidence is telling us about Trump,
Sanders and Cruz, but there are good
reasons to cling to my disbelief.
First, these primary campaigns
will not be settled in February. They
won’t be settled in March or April.
Sometimes a candidate can sweep
,RZDDQG1HZ+DPSVKLUHDQGFUXLVH
to the nomination. But that candidate
has to be broadly acceptable to all parts
of the party. Trump, Cruz and Sanders
are not.
As Jay Cost writes in The Weekly
Standard, “This could mean a lengthy
nomination battle that stretches all the
way to the California primary in June.”
On the Republican side the early
primaries and caucuses allocate
delegates proportionally. Only 16.2
percent of the delegates overall come
from winner-take-all states. That
means the delegate-getting war will be
a slog.
7KH ¿UVW GD\ ZKHQ DQ\ FDQGLGDWH
could rack up a big winner-take-all
delegate harvest is March 15, an
eternity from now. More than half the
delegates will be allocated after that
date.
Second, Cruz and Trump will go
after each other with increasing ferocity
over the next many weeks or months.
There is a decent chance, given their
personalities, that they will make each
other maximally unattractive and go
down in each other’s death embrace.
Third, the Trump and Sanders
turnout problems are real. Trump is
T
his winter’s heavy rain —
5 inches in some places
last Thursday — is weighing
down the ground, lubricating
old faults and causing land-
slides. It’s a problem that
impacts property owners,
developers, communities and
planning departments.
Ground is visibly slipping
in Emerald Heights, along the
Astoria Riverwalk, at Ilwaco
Cemetery and other places
around the Columbia estuary.
Some of these slides already
are, or will become, expensive
liabilities at a time when there
are few public resources to
stabilize them. The Ilwaco
Cemetery, historically and
culturally important, faces
expenses far beyond its means.
• Property owners need
to watch for warning signs
of impending slides. These
include new cracks in the
ground, foundations and
sidewalks; tilting trees on
slopes; changes in door and
window openings; springs,
seeps or standing water on
previously dry ground. If
these signs appear, steps like
diverting water away from
affected areas can slow or
stop slippages. Prevention is
expensive, but a far cheaper and
better option than attempting to
mitigate damages after slides
occur. Consult an engineer.
• Developers, and municipal
and county planners, have to
incorporate both known and
suspected geophysical dangers
in decisions about develop-
ment. Failure to do so exposes
all parties to expenses and
invites litigation.
• Logging on steep slopes
must be subjected to scrutiny.
7KH 3DFL¿F 1RUWKZHVW LV
rife with landslide issues and
there’s plenty of good advice
available. One good overview
is available at www.tinyurl.
com/LandslideInfo.
This costly and disruptive
problem isn’t going away, and
is likely to worsen as devel-
opment spreads into former
forested areas and onto steeper
hillsides.
Climatologists
believe rainfall events will
become more severe. Tree
roots are rotting away in
long-settled areas, relaxing
their hold on soil.
We have to keep landslides
from happening when we can,
and identify more affordable
ways to repair the destruction
after they happen.
doing very well among people who Marco Rubio has had a bad month,
haven’t voted in the past four elections. darkening his tone and trying to sound
It’s possible he has energized them so like a cut-rate version of Trump and
much they will actually caucus and Cruz.
vote, but you wouldn’t want to bet your
Before too long Rubio will realize
gold-plated faucets on it. People who KLV¿UVWWDVNLVWRUDOO\WKHYRWHUVZKR
don’t vote generally don’t vote.
detest or fear those men. That means
Sanders is drawing support from running as an optimistic American
nonvoters, too. Sanders is up in some QDWLRQDOLVW ZLWK VSHFL¿F SURSRVDOV
polls overall, but he trails big time to reform Washington and lift the
among people in Iowa who caucused working class.
LQDQGDPRQJWKRVHZKRDUHGH¿-
If he can rally mainstream Republi-
nitely registered to vote.
cans he’ll be at least tied
It’s quite possible that
with Trump and Cruz in
The
the big story post-Iowa
the polls. Then he can
will be how badly these
counter their American
Trump
two underperformed.
decline
narrative,
Fourth,
establish-
with
one
of
his
own:
and
ment Republicans who
This country is failing
are softening on Trump
Sanders because it got too narcis-
because they think
sistic, became too much
turnout like a reality TV show.
he is more electable
than Cruz are smoking
Americans lost the ability
something. According to problems to work constructively to
a Pew Research survey,
things done.
are real. get Finally,
a majority of Americans
eventually
think Trump would make
the electorate is going
a poor or terrible president.
to realize that in an age of dysfunc-
Chuck Todd ran through Trump’s tional government, effective leadership
favorable-unfavorable ratings on capacity is the threshold issue. That
“Meet the Press” on Sunday: Among means being able to listen to others,
independents, Trump is negative 26 surround yourself with people smarter
points; among women, negative 36; than you, gather a governing majority
among suburban voters, negative 24. and above all have an actual imple-
Is the Republican Party really going to PHQWDWLRQ VWUDWHJ\ 1RW 7UXPS &UX]
nominate one of the most loathed men or Sanders has any remote chance of
in American public life?
turning his ideas, such as they are, into
Fifth, America has never elected a actual laws.
candidate maximally extreme from the
In every recent presidential election
political center, the way Sanders and U.S. voters have selected the candidate
Cruz are. According to the FiveThir- with the most secure pair of hands.
tyEight website, Cruz has the most They’ve elected the person who would
conservative voting record in the entire be a stable presence and companion for
Congress. That takes some doing.
the next four years. I believe they’re
Sixth, sooner or later the candi- going to do that again. And if they’re
dates from the governing wing of their not, please allow me a few more
parties will get their acts together. months of denial.
Sarah Palin saves feminism
She used the last refuge
what a woman in politics
of scoundrels in Tulsa,
is wearing. But again, Palin
Oklahoma,
Wednesday,
has freed us up. She sported
wrapping herself in patri-
$6+,1*721 ² ,W¶V D a cardigan so gaudy and
otism. In her convoluted,
WRXJK FDOO WR ¿JXUH RXW rogue at her Iowa endorse-
disingenuous way, she
ment of Donald Trump (the
which place is more benighted: man who viciously mocked
charged President Barack
Hollywood or Saudi Arabia.
her former running mate’s
Obama with a lack of
“respect” for veterans
Saudi Arabia was pulling ahead war record) that we would
be
remiss
not
to
mention
and suggested that Track
with all its beheadings and its top
that
it
was
the
sartorial
had post-traumatic stress
Maureen
cleric’s fatwa on chess as “the work of
UHÀHFWLRQ RI 3DOLQ DQG
disorder and became
Dowd
Satan.”
Trump themselves.
“hardened,” implying this
Ordinarily, you have to tread is what led to the incident prompting
But then Hollywood took the lead
with its Jim Crow Oscars, Scully gingerly in critiquing a working his arrest. This from the archconserva-
being offered half of Mulder’s pay for woman on her mothering skills. But tive who presents herself as a model
the “X-Files” reboot, and its second- Palin’s brawling brood runs so wild of personal responsibility and scourge
class treatment of Rey — the scrappy around the state she once governed, of victimhood?
Outraged vets urged Palin not to
heroine of “Star Wars: The Force in a way that is so contrary to her
Awakens.” Rey, played by Daisy evangelistic, sanctimonious homilies reduce PTSD to a political “chew toy,”
Ridley, embodies the awakening on family values, that it seems only as one put it, or to excuse domestic
Force. Yet even the director, J.J. Christian to advise her to study the violence by citing the disorder.
The rattlebrained Palin has
Abrams, called it “preposterous and Obamas to see what exceptional
reversed her Iraq position, so that now
ZURQJ´ WKDW 5H\¶V DFWLRQ ¿JXUH ZDV parenting looks like.
With Palin and Trump, a failed her stance somehow matches Trump’s
missing in action from some game
and toy tie-ins — a traditionally male reality star and a successful one, consistent and prescient one against
gall is divided into two parts. There the Iraq invasion.
realm.
$QG /XFDV¿OP LV UXQ E\ D JLUO has been a lot of talk this campaign
When she saw Track off to Iraq
season about how female in 2008, she echoed W.’s specious
DFWLRQ ¿JXUH .DWKOHHQ
pols bring superior qualities argument, calling the war a “righteous
.HQQHG\VRJR¿JXUH
Yes,
to the table: collegiality cause” to avenge “the enemies who
That is why it’s so
listening skills. But planned and carried out” 9/11. But
inspiring to see a woman
Sarah and
Sarahcuda shows that we in her endorsement of Trump, she
out on the campaign trail
truly the equals of praised Rand Paul, who thinks we
who has had such a historic
Palin, are
men, capable of narcis- should have left Saddam Hussein in
impact
on
feminism,
sistic explosions, brazen place, and argued that America should
helping to recast outmoded
I’m
hypocrisy and unapolo- stop “footin’ the bill” for oil-rich
assumptions about women.
giving getic greed. She had barely nations and “their squirmishes that
Yes, Sarah Palin, I’m
WKH HQGRUVHPHQW have been going on for centuries,
giving you a shout-out.
you a ¿QLVKHG
Tuesday when she began ZKHUHWKH\¶UH¿JKWLQ¶HDFKRWKHUDQG
Before Palin, if a woman
using it to raise money for yellin’ ‘Allah akbar,’ calling jihad on
ÀDPHG RXW LQ D VSHFWDFXODU shout-
SarahPAC, so she can take each other’s heads for ever and ever.”
fashion, it was considered
her show on the road.
an X through the X chro-
Hillary Clinton is presenting
out.
Her oldest son, Track, herself as the embodiment of women,
mosome. If Billie Jean King
lost to Bobby Riggs, women would was a kid with a temper before he an American Marianne, pushing
be seen as second-class athletes. If served in Iraq for a year, conveniently her gender in an all-for-one-one-
*HUDOGLQH )HUUDUR VHHPHG XQ¿W IRU shipping off in the fall of 2008 as for-all, now-or-never way. She’s even
the White House, all women might be his mother began her hockey-mom campaigning this week in Iowa with
spiel. The 26-year-old was arrested Billie Jean King. Women should
judged incapable.
But when Palin turned out to be Monday on an assault charge, accused support her because if she founders,
XWWHUO\XQTXDOL¿HGDQGXQLQWHOOLJLEOH of punching his girlfriend in the face it will be bad for women. One Demo-
spouting her own special Yoda-like and kicking her during an alcohol-fu- cratic senator said privately that many
ODQJXDJHLWGLGQRWUHÀHFWSRRUO\RQ eled argument at the Palins’ home in Democrats believe that Hillary is still
women as a whole — only on her and Wasilla, Alaska. His girlfriend told the the presumed nominee only because
John McCain. What the hell were you police that he was also waving around she is a woman.
DQ$5DVVDXOWULÀH
thinking, Senator?
But Palin has done us a favor by
Instead of just admitting that her proving that a woman can stumble,
Ordinarily, it’s considered sexist
to call a woman shrill. But Palin family is a mess, Palin exhibited babble incoherently on stage and
liberated us on that score. She really Trump-like swagger, conjuring a story spew snide garbage, and it isn’t a blot
in an attempt to gin up the crowd and on the female copybook.
is shrill.
Ordinarily, it’s dicey to focus on occlude her son’s behavior.
It’s all on her. Can I get a hallelujah?
By MAUREEN DOWD
New York Times News Service
Landslides happen W
If we can’t prevent them, we
must mitigate the outcome
Mary Altaffer/AP Photo
A supporter winks at Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump
after he signed an autograph for her during a campaign event at the
Roundhouse Gymnasium, Tuesday, in Marshalltown, Iowa.