OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, JULY 11, 2016
Discovering Seaside by the numbers
Founded in 1873
SOUTHERN
EXPOSURE
STEPHEN A. FORRESTER, Editor & Publisher
LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
B y
R.J.
M aRx
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
HEATHER RAMSDELL, Circulation Manager
Another massacre,
another set of clichés
‘E
scalating cycle of violence” has become a cliché —
something we skip over on our way to more novel news.
Last week’s attack on police in Dallas, close on the heels of
video-recorded killings of civilians by police, deserves to
wrench our attention back to this complex issue.
It has always been true gunman who murdered ive
that the misdeeds of one evil innocent oficers in Dallas,
or reckless man can unravel wounding seven more, said
the carefully woven norms his actions were vengeance
crafted by civilization. It was, for police shootings of
for example, one assassina- African-Americans
tion that set off the terrible
There undoubtedly are rac-
chain reaction that precipi- ist and trigger-happy police,
tated World War I, killing 17 just as there are lawed indi-
million.
viduals in every other pro-
In the 21st century U.S., the fession. On the other hand,
growing cyclone of deadly few citizens blame police
shootings is in no sense on the for being on edge. Last
scale of warfare. But it is nev- Thursday’s events in Dallas
ertheless deeply shocking and bring the number of American
oficers killed in the line of
worthy of action.
Last week’s episode was duty in 2016 to 58. In 2015,
all the more troubling because 130 died; in 2014, the death
it again involved slayings by toll was 145.
It would be the worst possi-
and of society’s defenders, the
police. Homicides by police ble outcome if hateful actions
in Minnesota and Louisiana by a few lead to more lives
added to the nearly 500 fatal being lost — either civilian
shootings of U.S. civilians by or police. We expect calm and
police in the irst half of 2016, mature policing.
At the same time, this is
compared to 465 in the irst
six months of 2015. A dispro- yet another in a seemingly
portionate number of those endless sequence of mass
killed are African-American. murders, too often com-
Even so, many of these kill- mitted with weapons origi-
ings by police occurred in cir- nally designed for warfare.
cumstances that were not con- It verges on political insan-
ity that we permit such easy
sidered controversial.
The highly publicized inci- access to killing machines by
dents last week initially appear virtually any murderous crank
unreasonable, but investiga- who desires one.
When will enough ratio-
tions are still far from arriving
at any formal allegations of nal citizens stand up and say
wrongdoing by oficers. The we’ve had enough?
Marine commandant
should imitate Comey
F
BI Director James Comey
broke ground last week in
publicly making judgments
on Hillary Clinton’s behavior
with classiied emails. The
Register-Guard of Eugene
wrote Friday that Comey had
crossed a line and should not
have. It is true that Comey
broke precedent. The direc-
tor’s comments on Clinton
were extraordinary. But this
was an extraordinary situa-
tion in which the director’s
candor added credibility to
the FBI’s decision not to seek
an indictment of the former
secretary of state.
All bureaucrats easily can
hide behind process. That
is especially true for law
enforcement, because it is
based on a set of processes
that are governed by stat-
utes and rules. A bureaucratic
answer is fundamentally
unsatisfying.
In another part of
Washington, D.C., another
agency head is wrestling with
a highly visible, potentially
criminal matter. The com-
mandant of the Marine Corps,
Gen. Robert Neller, oversees
an investigation of a Marine
recruit’s suicide at the Parris
Island Marine Corps Recruit
Depot. The dead Marine was
a Muslim. The Wall Street
Journal reports that the
deceased’s chief drill instruc-
tor was under investigation
for hazing recruits, includ-
ing mistreatment of another
Muslim recruit. More than
a dozen Parris Island drill
instructors are under investi-
gation by the Naval Criminal
Investigative Services.
Eventually this will reach
Gen. Neller’s desk. In making
the Navy prosecutors’ judg-
ments public, we hope Neller
will follow FBI Director
Comey’s example. The pub-
lic, as well as Marines every-
where, deserve candor, not a
bureaucratic answer.
his industry employs the most
people in the city of Seaside:
A) Education and health services
B) Retail trade
C) Manufacturing
D) Accommodation and food
services
If you saidD, you’re right. About
41.8 percent of workers in Seaside are
in the hotel and food businesses. Retail
trade was a distant second, with 14.1
percent.
One of the irst things I noticed
when I became the editor of both the
Seaside Signal and the Cannon Beach
Gazette was how iercely competitive
the cities in the South County are —
with each other. Living in Gearhart
complicates matters.
I’ve often thought if Gearhart, Sea-
side and Cannon Beach all got together
we could sure give Astoria a run for its
money.
There seem to be more divisions
in Clatsop County than the European
Union and I’ve met plenty of Sea-
siders who are quite happy to never
stray south of Avenue U or north of
the Necanicum Bridge. But what does
being a Seasider really mean?
Fourth of July ireworks, suring at
the Cove and griping about Hood to
Coast come to mind.
But Shawna Sykes, workforce
analyst of the Oregon Employment
Department Research Division has a
more scientiic approach. Working for
the employment department, her mis-
sion is to support businesses and pro-
mote employment.
Sykes reinforces what we already
know, and shatters what we think we
know. Sykes unleashed a PowerPoint
demonstration at a Seaside Down-
town Development Association’s
June breakfast. She put it all out there
in numbers and graphs, city by city,
county by county and throughout the
state. Using a “Jeopardy!” format,
she ingeniously force-fed a half hour
of dry labor and population data to an
audience pleasantly distracted by Pig
’N Pancake French toast and blintzes.
Categories were Employment
and Unemployment, Industry Facts
and Trends and Demographics.
Responses revealed data about who’s
working, who’s not, in what ields,
education, income, age and housing.
The Clatsop County labor force
T
has actually decreased
More females are
What
since 2006, by 450 jobs
employed in Seaside than
— an 8.8 percent drop.
males, 58.6 percent to
does
Yet the unemployment
41.4 percent.
rate is the same as the
The city’s housing
being a
state’s 4.5 percent, below
crunch and employment
the national average of 4.7 Seasider needs are easily seen by
percent.
the numbers: an aging,
really
The county’s unem-
afluent population of
ployment rate is 11th low-
mean? mostly second homeown-
est in the state, tied with
ers who occupy the hous-
Tillamook County. Corvallis, home ing stock yet and drive the demand
to Oregon State University, at 3.3 per- for labor.
cent, is the lowest; Grant County, at
Sixty percent of the city’s hous-
8.8 percent, is the highest.
ing units are vacant — yet the city
There were 3,551 total jobs in Sea- is unable to build for those who are
side in 2014.
here.
Top median household income
The state percentage of total
goes to Gearhart at $50,179; sta- housing units is that are vacant is
tus seekers may be surprised to hear 10 percent. Yet Clatsop County has
Astoria’s median income is higher a 27 percent vacancy rate. Cannon
than that of Cannon Beach, $45,104 Beach stands at 60 percent vacant,
to $4,423. Seaside falls behind at Gearhart, 58 percent and Seaside
$41,037, but still beats Warrenton’s 37 percent. About two-thirds of the
$38,693.
county’s housing is used for sea-
Highest percent of residents 25 sonal, recreational or occasional
years and older by educational attain- use.
ment is led by Cannon Beach. More
Only 10.8 percent of homes are
than 13 percent of its residents hold available for rental.
graduate or professional degrees.
I’m trying to igure out what this
Another 26 percent are college grads. all means.
Seaside’s 11.2 percent with graduate
In a June Wall Street Journal
or professional degrees is the same piece, a headline reads: “In era of big
rate as the state overall. Of Seaside data, storytelling matters more than
residents, 22.4 percent have some ever.” It was addressed to the adver-
high school, 30.9 percent possess a tising industry, but it could impact all
high school degree or equivalent and of us as we translate the mountains of
24.9 percent hold bachelor degrees.
data before us.
Gearhart’s residents are 51.7 mar-
What are our own stories, and how
ried couples, slightly above the Clat- do the dots connect? How do our hab-
sop County average of 51.1 percent. its, our occupations and our education
About 47.6 percent of Seaside resi- shape not only ourselves, but those
dents are wed.
around us?
Which Clatsop County city has
Would the proile of an aver-
the youngest median age? Warrenton age Seaside resident be a 44-year-
wins by more than a decade, with a old female with a high school degree
median age of 32.1. The average Sea- working in the hospitality industry
side resident is 44.2 years old, Gear- looking for an affordable rental?
hart, 45.2 and Cannon Beach, 52.4
Online
years not-so-young.
worksourceoregon.org or https://
Manufacturing, public administra- www.qualityinfo.org
tion and inance and insurance have
R.J. Marx is The Daily Astori-
the lowest housing turnover rates; an’s South County reporter and edi-
accommodation and food service are tor of the Seaside Signal and Cannon
among the highest.
Beach Gazette.
The power of altruism to heal society
By DAVID BROOKS
New York Times News Service
estern society is built on the
assumption that people are
fundamentally selish.
W
Machiavelli and Hobbes gave
us inluential philosophies built on
human selishness.
Sigmund Freud gave us a psychol-
ogy of selishness. Children, he wrote,
“are completely egoistic; they feel their
needs intensely and strive ruthlessly to
satisfy them.”
Classical economics adopts a model
that says people are primarily driven by
material self-interest. Political science
assumes that people are driven to maxi-
mize their power.
But this worldview is clearly wrong.
In real life, the push of selishness is
matched by the pull of empathy and
altruism. This is not Hallmark card
sentimentalism but scientiic fact: As
babies our neural connections are built
by love and care. We have evolved to be
really good at cooperation and empa-
thy. We are strongly motivated to teach
and help others.
As Matthieu Ricard notes in his rig-
orous book “Altruism,” if an 18-month-
old sees a man drop a clothespin she
will move to pick it up and hand it back
to him within 5 seconds, about the same
amount of time it takes an adult to offer
assistance. If you reward a baby with
a gift for being kind, the propensity to
help will decrease, in some studies by
up to 40 percent.
When we build academic disci-
plines and social institutions upon sup-
positions of selishness we’re missing
the motivations that drive people much
of the time.
Worse, if you expect people to be
selish, you can actually crush their ten-
dency to be good.
Samuel Bowles provides a slew of
examples in his book The Moral Econ-
omy. For example, six day care cen-
ters in Haifa, Israel, imposed a ine on
parents who were late in picking up
their kids at the end of the
when your job of citizen-
day. The share of parents
ship is hard and frustrating.
who arrived late doubled.
Whether you are a teacher
Before the ine, picking up
serving students or a soldier
their kids on time was an act
serving your country or a
of being considerate to the
clerk who likes your ofice
teachers. But after the ine,
mates, the moral motiva-
showing up to pick up their
tion is much more power-
kids became an economic
ful than the inancial moti-
transaction. They felt less
vations.
Arrangements
compunction to be kind.
that
arouse
the inancial
David
In 2001, the Boston ire
lens
alone
are
just messing
Brooks
commissioner ended
everything up.
his department’s pol-
In 1776, Adam
In real life, Smith
icy of unlimited sick
deined capi-
days and imposed a
talism
as
the push of that takes a machine
limit of 15 per year.
private
Those who exceeded
selfishness self-interest and orga-
the limit had their
nizes it to produce
is matched general prosperity. A
pay docked. Suddenly
what had been an ethic
years later Amer-
by the pull few
to serve the city was
ica’s founders created
replaced by a utilitar-
struc-
of empathy a tured democracy
ian paid arrangement.
to take private
The number of ire- and altruism. factional competition
ighters who called
and, through checks
in sick on Christmas and New Year’s and balances, turn it into deliberative
increased by tenfold over the previous democracy. Both rely on a low but
year.
steady view of human nature and try
To simplify, there are two lenses to turn private vice into public virtue.
people can use to see any situation: the
But back then, there were plenty
economic lens or the moral lens.
of institutions that promoted the
When you introduce a inancial moral lens to balance the economic
incentive you prompt people to see lens: churches, guilds, community
their situation through an economic organizations, military service and
lens. Instead of following their natu- honor codes.
ral bias toward reciprocity, service and
Since then, the institutions that
cooperation, you encourage people to arouse the moral lens have withered
do a selish cost-beneit calculation. while the institutions that manipulate
They begin to ask, “What’s in this for incentives — the market and the state
me?”
— have expanded. Now economic,
By evoking an economic motiva- utilitarian thinking has become the
tion, you often get worse outcomes. normal way we do social analysis and
Imagine what would happen to a mar- see the world. We’ve wound up with
riage if both people went in saying, “I a society that is less cooperative, less
want to get more out of this than I put trusting, less effective and less lovely.
in.” The prospects of such a marriage
By assuming that people are self-
ish, by prioritizing arrangements
would not be good.
Many of our commitments, pro- based on selishness, we have encour-
fessional or civic, are like that. To be aged selish frames of mind. Maybe
a good citizen, to be a good worker, it’s time to upend classical economics
you often have to make an altruistic and political science. Maybe it’s time
commitment to some group or ideal, to build institutions that harness peo-
which will see you through those times ple’s natural longing to do good.