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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (June 6, 2016)
OPINION 4A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, JUNE 6, 2016 Where America is working 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 Ready or not Washington’s experience with pot is a cautionary tale for Oregon O regon’s latest incremental step toward full-out normaliza- tion of marijuana and its active ingredient THC comes at a time when there are indications legalization is having a detri- mental effect on driving safety in Washington state. Even ive or 10 years ago, it Even those who had become would have strained the imag- discouraged with crimi- ination to envision Thursday’s nal penalties for a compara- launch of sales of edible mar- tively innocuous intoxicant ijuana/THC candy and other expressed worry about how products. Although Oregon marijuana would add to exist- has a deeper experience than ing problems with impaired most states with medical mar- driving, along with less quanti- ijuana, the cultural and legal iable societal impacts like loss changes we’re experiencing of mental acuity and increas- now are unique in living mem- ing minors’ access to drugs. ory. Such novelty is exciting In Washington state, there has to those who enjoy marijuana. been an upswing in the propor- Even many of those who don’t tion of fatal vehicular accidents imbibe are content with an end in which marijuana was found to one destructive aspect of the present in drivers. Between “War on Drugs.” the legalization approval in There are indications, par- November 2012 and 2014, there ticularly in Washington state was a doubling in the number of and Colorado, that the price of fatals in which marijuana may marijuana is rapidly declining. have played a role. Researchers This is likely to also be true with AAA found that before in Oregon. This has positive legalization, 8.3 percent of driv- implications that go beyond ers in fatal crashes had THC in being easy on the budgets of their blood, compared to 17 per- marijuana consumers. cent after legalization — many “As the cost of legal mari- of whom also had alcohol or juana falls, it puts a strain on other drugs present. any illegal marijuana enter- Law enforcement is still prises still running. This is playing catch-up with the issue. good because legal marijuana In Washington and Colorado, businesses have to do things prosecution for driving under like ensure product qual- the inluence relies on a test ity and verify the age of their inding more than 5 nanograms customers. They’re also a lot per milliliter of THC in drivers’ less prone to crime or vio- blood. Oregon relies on ofi- lence, given that they’re legal cer observations to determine places of business. So if ille- whether a driver is impaired. gal ventures can’t compete, All this clearly demands price-wise, everybody wins,” close scrutiny by lawmakers, commentator Emma Cueto police and the public. While it correctly observed on the remains unlikely that legaliza- online magazine bustle.com. tion will be rolled back, reine- However, the growing ubiq- ments in enforcement and per- uity of marijuana in the Paciic sonal responsibility on the part Northwest has downsides. of drivers will be essential. A spring tide of state athletic skill I t is a big deal when a team from a small town wins a state athletic championship. That has happened a lot in our region this season. Even when they come close, it is still a source of pride. On Friday Knappa High School rallied but fell short of a second con- secutive state baseball title. When will scouts with clip- boards and speed guns appear? The Astoria girls track team piled up a record number of points by a 4A team in the Oregon state meet. The team’s grade point average was also noteworthy: at 3.79, the sec- ond highest in their category. Across the river, the Ilwaco boys won the state golf cham- pionship, in what has become something of a tradition. On the track and ield front, about 20 Paciic County ath- letes won medals in state competition. Championships such as these make us feel good about our communities. Remember the elation when the Astoria High School basketball team won its 1998 championship under coach Mike Goin? Then there was the series of Fishermen baseball champi- onships under coach Dave Gasser in 2006 and 2009 and coach Brian Babbitt in 2011. The boys and girls on these teams have done something remarkable, and they will remember it for a lifetime. So will many of us. By DAVID BROOKS New York Times News Service s individuals, we all try to build on our strengths and work on our weaknesses, and it’s probably a good idea to bal- ance these two activities. But as a country we are completely messing this up. A In this election we’ve been ignoring the parts of America that are working well and wallowing in the parts that are fading. This has led to a campaign season driven by fear, resentment and pessimism. And it will lead to worse policy- making down the road, since pros- perity means building on things we do well, not obsessing over the things that we’ve lost. The person chiely responsible for this all-warts view of America is, of course, Donald Trump. Trump has focused his campaign on the struggling white neighbor- hoods in the industrial Midwest. The prototypical Trump voter is an upscale man from a downscale place. As Nate Silver has demon- strated, Trump voters are not poor. Their median household income is about $72,000, which is far above the national average. But they tend to be from former manufacturing hubs, which have been in decade- slong decline. They tend to be from places like Kokomo, Indiana, which has had a 13.5 percent decline in weekly wages since 2000, and Sagi- naw, Michigan, which has had a 9.8 percent decline. These areas enjoyed a brief resurgence four years ago, when manufacturing picked up. But the manufacturing economy has headed south again over the past 19 months, thanks to low foreign demand. Peo- ple in such places are so desperate for any sort of change that they’re willing to overlook all the baggage that comes with Donald Trump. Trump’s general election focus on the swing states of the industrial Midwest means that Hillary Clin- ton will have to focus her efforts there, too. The whole tenor of the fall campaign will be shaped by the pain of towns that are in long-term decline — where people feel eco- We should be focusing on the growing, dynamic places and figuring out how to use those models to nurture inclusive opportunity and rejuvenate the places that aren’t. nomically adrift and cul- tural amenities, but high turally left behind. housing prices and lots of Energy issues will inequality. play an outsized role. As The second kind of Ronald Brownstein of cities we might call Joel The Atlantic has shown, Kotkin cities, after the Republicans tend to do writer who champions well in industrial places them. These are oppor- heavily reliant on car- tunity cities like Hous- bon-intensive fuels. Dem- ton, Dallas and Salt Lake ocrats tend to do well City. These places are less David in postindustrial places regulated, so it’s easier to Brooks where carbon output is start a business. They are low. Trump will hit Clinton for sup- sprawling with easy, hodgepodge porting environmental regulations housing construction, so the cost of that hurt the manufacturing econ- living is low. Immigrants lock to omy. Clinton will rally her peo- them. ple with efforts to address climate As Kotkin and Tory Gattis change. pointed out in an essay in The City This style of campaign could Journal, Houston has been a boom- also pave the way for a longer-term town for the past two decades. It’s realignment. Michael Lind of New America’s fourth-largest city, with America argues in an essay in Polit- 35 percent metro area population ico that Republicans are becoming growth between 2000 and 2013. a Midwestern, white working-class It’s the most ethnically diverse city party that embraces economic in America and has had a surge in nationalism — walling out immi- mid-skill jobs. Houston’s diver- grants and global economic compe- sified its economy, so even the tition. The Democrats are becoming energy recession has not derailed a multicultural globalist coalition its progress. that will see national boundaries as We should be having a debate obsolete. between the Kotkin model and the But there’s another America out Florida model, between two suc- there, pointing to a different polit- cessful ways to create prosperity, ical debate. For while people are each with strengths and weaknesses. looding out of the Midwest, they That would be a forward-look- are looding into the South and the ing debate between groups who West. The inancial crisis knocked are open, conident and innovative. many Sun Belt cities to their knees, That would be a debate that, while it but they are back up and surging. might divide by cultural values and Jobs and people are now heading to aesthetics, wouldn’t divide along Orlando, Florida; Phoenix; Nash- ugly racial lines. ville, Tennessee; Charlotte, North We should be focusing on the Carolina; Denver and beyond. growing, dynamic places and ig- There are two kinds of places uring out how to use those models that are getting it right. The irst to nurture inclusive opportunity and we might call Richard Florida cit- rejuvenate the places that aren’t. ies, after the writer who champions Instead, this campaign will focus on them. These are dense, highly edu- the past: who we need to shut out to cated, highly communal places with get back what we lost. plenty of hipsters. These cities, like The future is being built right Austin, Seattle and San Francisco, now. The prevailing sense of public have lots of innovation, lots of cul- despair is just wrong. The id that ate the planet By PAUL KRUGMAN New York Times News Service O n Tuesday the politi- cal arm of the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of America’s most inluential environmentalist groups, made its irst presidential endorsement ever, giving the nod to Hillary Clinton. This meant jumping the gun by a week on her inevitable designation as the presumptive Democratic nominee, but the NRDC Action Fund is obviously eager to get on with the general election. And it’s not hard to see why: At this point Donald Trump’s personal- ity endangers the whole planet. We’re at a peculiar moment when it comes to the environment — a moment of both fear and hope. The outlook for climate change if current policies continue has never looked worse, but the prospects for turning away from the path of destruction have never looked bet- ter. Everything depends on who ends up sitting in the White House for the next few years. On climate: Remember claims by climate denialists that global warming had paused, that tempera- tures hadn’t risen since 1998? That was always a garbage argument, but in any case it has now been blown away by a series of new temperature records and a proliferation of other indicators that, taken together, tell a terrifying story of looming disaster. At the same time, however, rapid technological progress in renew- able energy is making nonsense — or maybe I should say, further non- sense — of another bad argument against climate action, the claim that nothing can be done about greenhouse gas emissions with- out crippling the economy. Solar and wind power are getting cheaper each year, and growing quickly even without much in the way of incentives to switch away from fos- sil fuels. Provide those incentives, and an energy revolution would be phate-free detergent. But just around the corner. polluters’ rage isn’t about So we’re in a state where terrible things are rational thought. in prospect, but can be Which brings us to avoided with fairly mod- the presumptive Republi- est, politically feasible can presidential nominee, steps. You may want a who embodies the mod- revolution, but we don’t ern conservative id in its need one to save the most naked form, stripped planet. Right now all it of the disguises politicians would take is for America usually use to cloak their Paul to implement the Obama prejudices and make them Krugman administration’s Clean seem respectable. Power Plan and other No doubt Donald So we’re actions — which Trump hates environ- don’t even require protection in in a state mental new legislation, just part for the usual rea- a Supreme Court that sons. But there’s an where won’t stand in their extra layer of venom way — to let the U.S. to his pro-pollution terrible continue the role it stances that is both per- things took in last year’s Paris sonal and mind-bog- agreement, guiding glingly petty. are in the world as a whole For example, he has toward sharp reduc- repeatedly prospect, restrictions denounced tions in emissions. intended But what happens but can be to protect the ozone if the next president layer — one of the avoided is a man who doesn’t great success stories believe in climate sci- of global environmen- ence, or indeed in with fairly tal policy — because, inconvenient facts of he claims, they’re the modest, any kind? reason his hair spray Republican hostil- politically doesn’t work as well ity to climate science as it used to. I am not feasible and climate action making this up. is usually attributed He’s also a bitter steps. to ideology and the foe of wind power. power of special inter- He likes to talk about ests, and both of these surely play how wind turbines kill birds, which important roles. Free-market fun- they sometimes do, but no more damentalists prefer rejecting sci- so than tall buildings; but his real ence to admitting that there are ever motivation seems to be ire over cases when government regulation unsuccessful attempts to block an is necessary. Meanwhile, buying offshore wind farm near one of his politicians is a pretty good business British golf courses. investment for fossil-fuel magnates And if evidence gets in the way like the Koch brothers. of his self-centeredness, never But I’ve always had the sense mind. Recently he assured audi- that there was a third factor, which ences that there isn’t a drought in is basically psychological. There California, that oficials have just are some men — it’s almost always refused to turn on the water. men — who become enraged at any I know how ridiculous it sounds. suggestion that they must give up Can the planet really be in danger something they want for the com- because a rich guy worries about mon good. Often, the rage is dis- his hairdo? But Republicans are proportionate to the sacriice: for rallying around this guy just as if example, prominent conserva- he were a normal candidate. And tives suggesting violence against if Democrats don’t rally the same government oficials because they way, he just might make it to the don’t like the performance of phos- White House.
