OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, MAY 17, 2016
Humane revolution has some wins
By NICHOLAS KRISTOF
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
Warrenton has a
good opportunity
igital books were supposed to diminish the importance
of libraries. Some skeptics even say that libraries no lon-
ger are essential.
But evidence doesn’t easier time fashioning a way
support that. Even within forward.
the conines of our region,
Seaside presents a use-
something quite differ- ful example. Its new library,
ent is happening. Libraries opened in 2008, was built
in Cannon Beach, Seaside, from scratch. Situated
Warrenton and Astoria are near City Hall, the library
community hubs, buzzing became part of Seaside’s
with activity. Across the remarkable set of civic fur-
Columbia, in Paciic County, niture, which includes the
the Timberland Regional Bob Chisholm Community
Library is a well-utilized Center and the recreation
marvel.
center and indoor swim-
As Erick Bengel described ming pool. The library con-
in last Thursday’s edition, tains cozy reading areas, as
Warrenton faces the chal- well as rooms for meetings
lenge of replacing its library, and author appearances.
The advantage a small
which is housed in a his-
toric building that was once town enjoys — as opposed to
Hammond’s town hall. The cities like Portland or Seattle
lip side of Warrenton’s chal- — is building intimacy into
its library. That is especially
lenge is an opportunity.
Astoria faces a similar apparent in Cannon Beach’s
need to enhance the library library, but also in Seaside.
These places become
it has or build new. But
Astoria’s matrix of prospec- magnets and what architects
tive solutions has not led to call activity nodes. We wish
an easy solution. Warrenton, Warrenton well. This could
however, might have a much be a very good thing.
D
n 1903, New Yorkers executed
an elephant on Coney Island,
effectively torturing her to death.
I
Accounts vary a bit, but it seems
Topsy was a circus elephant who had
been abused for years and then killed
a man who had burned her on the
trunk with a cigar.
After
her
owners had no
more use for her,
Topsy was fed
cyanide, electro-
cuted and then
strangled with a
winch. The Edi-
son motion pic-
ture company
made a ilm of it,
Nicholas
“Electrocuting
Kristof
an Elephant.”
So maybe there is an arc of moral
progress. After many allegations of mis-
treatment of animals, Ringling Bros.
this month retired its circus elephants,
sending them off to a life of leisure in
Florida. SeaWorld said this spring that
it would stop breeding orcas and would
invest millions of dollars in rescuing
and rehabilitating marine animals.
Meanwhile, Wal-Mart responded
to concerns for animal welfare by
saying last month that it would shift
toward cage-free eggs, following sim-
ilar announcements by Costco, Den-
ny’s, Wendy’s, Safeway, Starbucks and
McDonald’s in the U.S. and Canada.
This is a humane revolution,
and Wayne Pacelle, president of the
Humane Society of the United States,
has been at the forefront of it. Alter-
nately bullying companies to do bet-
ter and cooperating with those that do
so, he outlines his approach in an excel-
lent new book, The Humane Econ-
omy. These corporate changes have
vast impact: Wal-Mart or McDonald’s
shapes the living conditions of more
animals in a day than an animal shelter
does in a decade.
There is also a lesson, I think, for
many other causes, from the environ-
ment to women’s empowerment to
global health: The best way for non-
proits to get large-scale results is
sometimes to work with corporations
to change behavior and supply lines —
while whacking them when they resist.
The Environmental Defense Fund
and Conservation International do
something similar in the environmental
space, CARE works with corporations
to ight global poverty, and the Human
Rights Campaign partners with compa-
nies on LGBT issues.
Critics sometimes see this as moral
compromise, negotiating with evil
rather than defeating it; I see it as prag-
matism. Likewise, Pacelle has been a
James Estrin/The New York Times
Elephants perform for the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Cir-
cus in Uniondale, N.Y., in 2009. Ringling’s retirement of its elephants
is just one example of how animal rights activists are winning gains
by working with corporations to change behavior and supply lines.
vegan for 31 years but cooperates with million. Countries follow their enlight-
fast-food companies to improve con- ened self-interest when they protect ele-
ditions in which animals are raised for phants, just as McDonald’s pursues its
meat.
self-interest when it shifts toward cage-
“Animals jammed into cages and free eggs.
crates cannot wait for the world to go
It’s also astonishing how sensi-
vegan,” Pacelle told me. “I’m quite sure tive companies are becoming to public
they want out of this unyielding life of opinion about animals. After Cecil the
privation right now, and once that ques- lion was shot dead in Zimbabwe, ani-
tion is settled, then sensible people can mal protection groups lobbied airlines
debate whether they
to ban the shipment of
should be raised for the
such trophies. Delta,
Wal-Mart or American, United,
plate at all.”
At a time when
Air Canada and other
the world is a mess, McDonald’s companies promptly
Pacelle outlines a
obliged.
shapes
hopeful vision. The
In the pet store
public has always had
business, two chains
the living
some impact with
— PetSmart and Petco
conditions — have prospered
charitable donations,
and there have always
without accepting the
of more
been occasional boy-
industry’s norm of
cotts, but sometimes
dogs and cats
animals in selling
its greatest inluence
from puppy mills and
comes by leveraging
a day than other mass breed-
daily consumer pur-
ers. Instead, since the
an animal
chasing power.
1990s they have made
“As the humane
space available to res-
economy asserts its shelter does cue groups offering
own power, its own in a decade. animals for adoption.
logic and its essen-
PetSmart and Petco
tial decency, an older
don’t make money off
order is passing away,” Pacelle writes these adoptions, but they win customer
in his book. “By every measure, life loyalty forever, and they have helped
will be better when human satisfac- transfer 11 million dogs and cats to
tion and need are no longer built upon new homes.
the foundation of animal cruelty. Inde-
I believe that mistreatment of ani-
fensible practices will no longer need mals, particularly in agriculture,
defending.”
remains a moral blind spot for us
It’s true that atrocities continue humans, yet it’s heartening to see the
and that the slaughter of animals like consumer-driven revolution that is
elephants persists. There were some underway.
130,000 elephants in Sudan 25 years
“Just about every enterprise built on
ago, while now there may be only 5,000 harming animals today is ripe for dis-
in Sudan and the country that broke off ruption,” Pacelle writes. In a world of
from it, South Sudan, Pacelle writes.
grim tidings, that’s a welcome reminder
Yet there is a business model for that there is progress as well. We’ve
keeping grand animals like elephants gone in a bit more than a century from
alive. One analysis suggests that a dead making a movie about torturing an ele-
elephant’s tusks are worth $21,000, phant to sending circus elephants off to
while the tourism value of a single liv- a Florida retirement home. But, boy,
ing elephant over its lifetime is $1.6 there’s so much more work to do.
Don’t let technology
get in way of safety
It takes a policy and a village
I
n rural areas like ours,
it’s “all hands on deck”
for law enforcement when
a life-threatening incident
arises. City police, county
sheriff’s deputies and state
oficers rely on radios to let
them know when a fellow
oficer needs a hand.
In what authorities hope
will be a short-term tran-
sitional issue, Washington
State Patrol’s switch to a
new communications sys-
tem recently resulted in a
delay obtaining help for a
trooper who was trying to
make a dificult arrest on a
remote roadside.
The
problem
arose
because
the
Federal
Communications
Commission freed up valu-
able communications fre-
quencies by squeezing law
enforcement dispatch into
a smaller part of the inite
wavelength spectrum. If all
goes well, this change from
the old analog “wideband”
system to a digital “narrow-
band” system has the poten-
tial to be more reliable, and
make it easier for dispatch-
ers to locate oficers.
State agencies in Oregon
and
Washington
have
largely completed the switch
to narrowband, but local
implementation is more of
a challenge. Purchasing and
installing narrowband-com-
patible systems is compli-
cated and expensive — about
$3,000 per radio for oficers
and $4,500 for dispatchers.
Flaws in the new system
are only now becoming fully
apparent as state agencies
endeavor to mesh with local
departments. State cops can
hear locals, but locals can’t
hear them.
The picture that emerges
is one of policing agen-
cies all doing their best to
ind workarounds for their
now-incompatible
com-
munication systems. Local
law-enforcement
leaders
struggle with how to pay for
an under-funded mandate to
upgrade in parallel with the
states.
A technological upgrade
that damages the ability of
public-safety personnel to
talk to one another is ridic-
ulous, unacceptable and in
need of a fast and thorough
solution.
The FCC, which drove
this change, and the large
corporations that will proit
from the bandwidth for-
merly used by law enforce-
ment, should be tasked with
helping make sure this tran-
sition is fully funded and
well-engineered.
generous system costs 1.2
last week, while the news
percent of the GDP. So we
media was focused on
could move a long way up
Donald Trump’s imaginary
the scale with a fairly mod-
.S. politicians love to pose friend, I mean imaginary
est investment.
as defenders of family val- spokesman, Hillary Clin-
ton announced an ambi-
And it would indeed
ues. Unfortunately, this pose is tious plan to improve both
be an investment — every
often, perhaps usually, one of the affordability and qual-
bit as much of an invest-
ity of U.S. child care.
ment as spending money
remarkable hypocrisy.
This
was
an
import-
to repair and improve our
And no, I’m not talking about the
ant announcement, even if
transportation
infrastruc-
Paul
contrast between public posturing it was drowned out by the
ture.
After
all,
today’s
Krugman
and personal behavior, although this ugliness and nonsense of a
children are tomorrow’s
contrast can be extreme.
campaign that is even uglier and more workers and taxpayers. So it’s an
Which is more amazing: the nonsensical than usual. For child-care incredible waste, not just for families
fact that a long-serving Republican reform is the kind of medium-size, but for the nation as a whole, that so
speaker of the House sexually abused incremental, potentially politically many children’s futures are stunted
teenage boys, or how little attention doable — but nonetheless extremely because their parents don’t have the
this revelation has received?
important — initiative that could well resources to take care of them as well
Instead, I’m talking about policy. be the centerpiece of a Clinton admin- as they should. And affordable child
Judged by what we actually do — istration. So what’s the plan?
care would also have the immediate
or, more accurately, don’t do — to
OK, we don’t have all the details beneit of making it easier for parents
help small children and their parents, yet, but the outline seems pretty clear. to work productively.
America is unique among advanced On the affordability front, Clinton
Are there any reasons not to spend
countries in its utter indifference to would use subsidies and tax credits a bit more on children? The usual sus-
the lives of its youngest citizens.
to limit family spending on child care pects will, of course, go on about the
For example, almost all advanced — which can be more than a third of evils of big government, the sacred
countries provide paid leave from income — to a maximum of 10 per- nature of individual choice, the won-
work for new parents. We
cent. Meanwhile, there ders of free markets, and so on. But
don’t. Our public expendi-
would be aid to states and the market for child care, like the
ture on child care and early Can our communities that raise market for health care, works very
education, as a share of
child-care workers’ pay, badly in practice.
income, is near the bottom neglect and a variety of other mea-
And when someone starts talking
in international rankings
sures
to
help
young
chil-
about
choice, bear in mind that we’re
of
(although if it makes you
dren and their parents. All talking about children, who are not in
feel better, we do slightly children of this would still leave a position to choose whether they’re
edge out Estonia.)
America less generous born into afluent households with
be
In other words, if you
than many other coun- plenty of resources or less wealthy
judge us by what we do,
but it would be a big families desperately trying to juggle
ended? tries,
not what we say, we place
step toward international work and child care.
very little value on the
norms.
So can we stop talking, just for a
lives of our children, unless they hap-
Is this doable? Yes. Is it desirable? moment, about who won the news
pen to come from afluent families. Very much so.
cycle or came up with the most effec-
Did I mention that parents in the top
When we talk about doing more tive insult, and talk about policy sub-
ifth of U.S. households spend seven for children, it’s important to realize stance here?
times as much on their children as that it costs money, but not all that
The state of child care in Amer-
parents in the bottom ifth?
much money. Why? Because there ica is cruel and shameful — and even
But can our neglect of children be aren’t that many young children at more shameful because we could
ended?
any given time, and it doesn’t take a make things much better without rad-
In January, both Democratic can- lot of spending to make a huge dif- ical change or huge spending. And
didates declared their support for ference to their lives. Our threadbare one candidate has a reasonable, fea-
a program that would provide 12 system of public support for child sible plan to do something about this
weeks of paid leave to care for new- care and early education costs 0.4 per- shame, while the other couldn’t care
borns and other family members. And cent of the GDP; France’s famously less.
By PAUL KRUGMAN
New York Times News Service
U