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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 26, 2012)
December 26, 2012 New Prices Effective May 1,2010 « Martin Cleaning Service "life Wo W MW B^ SUoeKSP BY How §7RiA Carpet & Upholstery Cleaning Residential & Commercial Services l W we ' re \ (Boor CoNffW IIS’ OWN GhlUPREN Minimum Service CHG. $45.00 A sm a ll d is ta n c e /tr a v e l c h a rg e m a y b e a p p lie d CARPET CLEANING 2 Cleaning Areas or more $30.00 Each Area Pre-Spray Traffic Areas (Includes: 1 sm all H allway) 1 Cleaning Area (only) $40.00 AT CoHHEcViCC' Includes Pre-Spray Traffic Area (Hallway Extra) Stairs (12-16 stairs - With O ther Services): $25.00 Area/Oriental Rugs: $25.00 Minimum $40.00 Minimum Sharing Blame for a Climate of Violence Heavily Soiled Area: Responsibility and the tragedy in Newtown, Conn. Area/Oriental Rugs < Wool): Additional $10.00 each area (Requiring Extensive Pre-Spraying) UPHOLSTERY CLEANING Sofa: $69.00 Loveseat: $49.00 Sectional: $ 109 - $ 139 Chair or Recliner: $25 - $49 Throw Pillows (With Other Services): $5.00 ADDITIONAL SERVICES • Area & Oriental Rug Cleaning • Auto/Boat/RV Cleaning • Deodorizing & Pet Odor Treatment • Spot & Stain Removal Service • Scotchguard Protection • Minor Water Damage Services SEE CURRENT FLYER FOR ADDITIONAL PRICES & SERVICES Call for Appointment (503) 281-3949 W inslow M yers One of the Dalai L am a’s first p rin ciples is something he calls “universal re sponsibility.” How ever quick we are to place His Holiness on a saintly pedestal, it is only because the threshold of our own responsi bility sometimes seems so very low, especially at this moment of reflection upon the massacre of the innocents in Newtown, Conn. From a tearful President on down through the powerful talk radio demagogues to ordinary citizens, we all bear a share of responsibility for the climate of violence that is the context for the tragedy in Newton. I’m as responsible as anyone because I haven’t yet written my representative concerning my strong feelings about gun control. Great Britain endured 58 firearm murders in 2011, while America had 8,775. Great Brit ain banned modem handguns al together in 1997 and studies show a slow but steady decrease in by crimes involving handguns in the UK ever since. The weapons industry and the anti-control lobbyists led by the NRA certainly ought to step up to their share. They managed to chill the speech of both presidential can didates, even though the previ ous mass murder in Aurora, Colo, took place at the height of the campaign. Talk radio and television, with its sneering contempt for oppos ing views and simplistic polar ization of issues upon which people of good will may differ, clouds the atmosphere of our culture with potential violence. Don’t say words alone can’t be violent, and incite to violence. It happens all the time. The ob scenity is to get paid millions to pander to our most primitive fears and impulses. It is a cliche to say that our e n te rta in m e n t ru n s on the adrenalin of violence. But there are unconscious assum ptions operating that make that vio lence even more pernicious. Defense, choked up with tears of pride when he left office and was awarded the Medal of Free dom. Years later he was brought to the realization that the cam paign he helped to lead against Vietnam was a mistake of crimi nal proportions. And so at last he shed more universal tears, tears that included his sadness about the waste of war and the deaths of too many innocent Vietnam ese. It is possible to imagine that, in private, Mr. Obama sheds some tears for the broken innocents of Afghanistan and Pakistan that are the “collateral damage” of his drones. For the time being, our politi cal culture continues to operate in a state of radical dissociation. W hen our leaders shed tears equally for the deaths of children anywhere in the world, I shall, as Michelle Obama said when her husband was first running for president, for the first time I’m truly proud to be an American. The movie “Argo,” a well- crafted thriller made by a liberal leaning director about getting seven Americans out of harm ’s way in Iran, still managed to reduce all the Iranians in the film to crude swarthy stereotypes. “Zero Dark Thirty” rationalizes our government’s use of torture to find Osama bin Laden. Our President lives and works at the center of a storm of hyper violence. Mr. Obama has been the subject of more violent threats to his own life than any Presi dent in history. And surely the threats to Obama’s person would only increase if he took our inter national policies in a more dovish direction. No worries there. It is the commander-in-chief s daily duty to rain down a hell of violence that, while intended to eliminate terrorists, often kills innocent children as randomly as the an gel of death that just descended upon a peaceful town in Con Winslow Myers, syndicated necticut. by PeaceVoice, is the author Robert McNamara, President o f Living Beyond War: A Kennedy’s steely Secretary of Citizen’s Guide.
