Are we over our heads!
Chuck Bolsinger,
Your fine piece helps me recognize again that The Gazette has important articles and fine writers (besides Barry). Below you will find a different take on the opinion piece in the Oregonian. (Had you noticed Glasfeld's letter? If not it helps support my belief that such a response is an insufficient correction to such an important perversion of integrity.) Since Oregonian wasn't interested in my angle, I submitted it to WW, which hasn't responded. Perhaps these editors and the experts themselves just can't understand why reasonably intelligent people
can't be satisfied with technical explanations for such important issues, as you have done so well, but I think I'm right in believing nearly all of us are in over our heads with anything except the obvious matter to which I am pointing.
Dick McQueen, (503) 622-0162.
* * *
Mark Zusman,
If you don't find this of interest, please let me know as I'll try to find another outlet.
Dick McQueen, (503) 666-6630.
The piece I am submitting below comes after some astonishment in my dealings with The Oregonian. Perhaps this is unfounded, as it appears to be the same old same old, with no corruption or collusion evident, only the need to keep readership jived up with fascinating columns, and using letters (see P.S. #3) probably largely ignored and more difficult to retrieve, to later fill in purported public participation and information.
I shouldn't be all that surprised (see P.S. #4.) and this kind of thing is probably more common than might be expected, for possible reasons that call for further discussion, but that in any case make it important to recognize and openly publicize clear falsifications whose basis the public can reasonably understand. (I think the issue here is the obfuscation of information with technical jargon, intended or not, such as to wear down those who may be trying to get a grip on a matter of public policy and concern.)
Is this much ado about little, as Oregonian Editorial seems to be implying to me, or is it, as I believe, opening the lid on whether or not some experts are really concerned about fair and accurate information coming to the public regarding matters of major public concern? If you have some other way or another writer to make the case more effectively, I will yield. Fulks is certainly not the only culprit, and science is not the only vehicle. (We may just be becoming immune to the problem through its use in the constant spinning of information in political campaigns.)
Googling Fulks will reveal another possibly similar situation based on charges sounding like or bordering on misrepresentation, but that's another whole can of worms I tried to understand before backing off.
* * *
Opinion Piece:
How are you doing in deciphering the arguments in the global warming/climate change debate? If you've come to some conclusions, I'll bet they are based on your trusting some politically based information, and probably whether or not to accept scientific opinion on the matter. Determining whether widely held consensus is satisfactorily valid, or if there are holes in the case, but also the issue of the role of how minority opinion ought to be considered, are probably all left hanging.
I'm a relative novice on this subject, as is probably over 99% of the public, though I continue to read and consider what is made available. So I perused and clipped for my file Gordon Fulks' opinion piece ("Climate orthodoxy perpetuates a hoax", Oregonian, 2/25/08) and followed this up by reading responding letters on the 27th, including one by Arthur Glasfeld. I found these two scientists (Fulks and Glasfeld) in sharp disagreement with each putting forward technical arguments that I would need to read very carefully to understand, and even then would be unqualified to arbitrate. However Glasfeld mentioned that Fulks had supposedly used a direct quote, but in so doing, misrepresented a line of published research by removing three words from the end of a sentence and closing the abbreviated sentence out with a period. Though I couldn't imagine how such could be the case, being reasonably literate, I believed I could judge this particular matter. So after Googling the article, I began reading and was soon snowed by the
technical information, but able to find the "abbreviated" sentence. Sure enough, Fulks had clearly shortened the author's sentence and obviously intended meaning, as charged by Glasfeld.
Since Oregon State Climatologist George Taylor's name had been invoked by Fulks, I discussed this with him (all of this on email—I hadn't known any of these people—I found Taylor pleasant and encouraging at this stage) and next with Fulks and then Glasfeld. Hoping to receive an explanation that a typo or other editorial error had caused the problem, instead I received a combination of generalized and relatively abstract information, coupled with even more technical data and surrounding information that I was unable to competently and satisfactorily decipher. There were some other problems in the communications, but ultimately, in pressing repeatedly for a specific understandable response to the misrepresentation matter, Taylor and Fulks cut me off.
Much more could be said about this, but what it makes clear is that these two scientists (Fulks and Taylor) appear to be uninterested in communicating with me on the specific issue of misrepresentation, and in a manner understandable to me. Instead they seem inclined to respond with generalizations, and in a "scientific"/political manner, on an issue that I believe needs resolution based on clear dependable statements of accepted grammatical usage. I might then be able to have confidence in more technical information that I could believe was being provided accurately from the best scientific information at hand. And in this case, an admission or verifiable explanation should be forthcoming to show how/why such a misrepresentation could have taken place. I could understand that, but lacking it, I will put aside the apparent obfuscations of these two and look instead to the opinions of other experts to trust, with respect to this problem of global warming, a problem with a magnitude having the potential to eclipse all others faced by humans.
Dick McQueen,
P.O. Box 264, Brightwood,
(23323 E. Margaret Lane, Wildwood),
(503) 622-0162.
P.S.
#1. I noticed in reading this over I have given no clear statement about my position on global warming/climate change. Perhaps it's obvious, but if not, perhaps that's OK
#2. (I did commit one potentially grievous blunder in this; carelessly passing on Taylor and my earlier interactions to Fulks, for which I quickly apologized, with Taylor's acknowledgment, though it may have influenced how Taylor and Fulks later interacted with
me and with each other, copies of which they forwarded to me. Ultimately they both quit responding further to me w/o resolving my probe.)
#3. (To The Oregonian's probably belated credit, both Fulk's article and respondents' ltrs are now available on the Web.)
#4. [This is not my first experience in tracking down what seemed like a preposterous claim, having checked out the literature references for a theory proposed from a supposedly scientifically based position (neurosciences) that seemed to run against common sense, but that was seriously impacting professional practice (in education). In that case I spent several hundred hours looking into the original research to finally be able to determine what is now accepted (most recently discussed by Kurt Fischer In Harvard Graduate School of Education News, 12/1/04-Fischer has in personal communication credited his published basic research, my published literature research and Stephen Jay Gould's published critique, as instrumental—Fischer is a Psychologist, I am a now retired science teacher).]

Dear Friends of DoveLewis:
Today we were highlighted in the Portland Business Journal’s cover story about the difficulties many area non-profits have in terms of fundraising activities after building or expanding into new facilities. Visit www.portland.bizjournals.com to read the article.
It accurately reflects the vital importance that our wonderful supporters play in our future by helping us retire the debt that was necessary to build our much needed and long past-due NW hospital. Whether funds are raised prior to construction or afterward, the need is the same and the money goes to the same purpose—helping our organization expand its critical medical services and unique community programs. Four years ago we faced the prospect of either scaling back services or moving forward with an expansion that was first identified as a need as long ago as the early 1990s. We chose to move forward rather than backward.
We made this decision prudently and cautiously. We made wise decisions regarding the cost of the project and its impact on our overall operating costs. The Business Journal accurately notes that during our first year of operations in the new NW hospital we experienced a loss of more than $500,000 for all of our business operations. What the article did not report was that we expected and planned for that loss and that we were in fact within $2,000 of our prediction. In addition, the Business Journal also did not report that we expect to turn that expected loss into at least a break-even position this year, which is great news.
At the end of the day, however, it is vital to DoveLewis to eliminate the debt we are carrying due to our expansion. We do use revenue from our NW hospital operations to pay our monthly payment on that debt. Once it is retired we will be able to funnel an additional $30,000 a month back into our medical services and community programs. Imagine all the good those funds could do for your pets, your family, and our community!
With your help, a truly exciting future lies ahead for DoveLewis. Thank you for your support.
Ron Morgan, Executive Director,
DoveLewis
###
For questions or comments about the content of this email, please contact Tiffini Mueller at tmueller@dovelewis.org.

PGE rates
             PGE is looking to raise rates once again at January 2009. The Public Utility Commission doesn't have the guts or fairness to regulate on behalf of rate payers. As a reminder to the public, PGE and Enron didn't pay taxes for years 1997 and 2004. The monies were rat holed in tax shelters by Enron in the Caymen Islands and other locations. PGE rate payers were saddled with $92 million dollars a year for those years which totaled right at a billion dollars to cover those tax monies. My question is: "When are PGE customers going to be compensated for those dollars through lower rates until it is paid back?" If the utility commissioners can't represent the rate payer then the Governor needs to step in and clean house and replace them with people that will get the job done on behalf of customers! I’m tired of the crooks running the system and even more tired of our elected officials not doing anything about it!
            Bob Decker,
            Welches,Or,
            bjdecker41@yahoo.com.

War costs
It is important to recognize the serious, sometimes enormous losses incurred by a very small fraction of our citizens, and the further economic and associated problems this war has helped bring about as they threaten the future of our nation.
But in fact, most of us are feeling very few and relatively minor actual present effects, shown in part by our major concern over gas prices. We need to include in our concerns, the millions of Iraqis suffering badly, with probably at least several hundred thousand deaths (or nearly 700,000, depending on which sources you accept) and with many more injuries, and major infrastructure and cultural disruptions and displacements, apparently affecting a very large portion of the population. These would be unthinkable were they scaled proportionately over our own population.
Whether the war was (is) a good idea or not, we are largely responsible for this devastating situation, and we need to try to overcome our self indulgence and recognize that our typical quietly defensive attitudes influence the rest of the World's views of us as insular and irresponsible. We are better than this. We ought to carefully consider what is implied by these attitudes toward us, and our associated disgraceful de-emphasizing of the losses to so many (often innocent) Iraqis as we ponder our own difficulties.
This is not to ignore great suffering by some Americans, and seemingly intractable problems here at home, but these (so far) seriously impact only a small minority of our citizens, though include those who have paid a great price in the war. A trip to any mall will demonstrate that consumerism remains high, that we are grossly overweight, and we have many fine vehicles to transport us at our whim, all this while taking on large personal and enormous national debt. Most of us are among the most privileged people on earth, in fact the most privileged ever, so we can well afford to overcome our primitive attitudes shared with all humans, and think more generously of others, and particularly of those whose fortunes have turned to such a degree on our actions.
Yet little is being asked of most of us, with our politicians apparently needing to pander to us to attract sufficient attention and votes to have any hope of being elected and in positions to help us extract ourselves from our largely self inflicted difficulties.
What can be done? Any leader or prospective leader who gives too clear an explanation ought to be carefully scrutinized. None seems to have a comprehensive and realistic plan, probably because none is reasonably possible. What we do need are leaders who will speak truthfully, not withholding unpleasant information, and without dismissing our obligations, while showing enough courage and thoughtfulness to be able to eventually and ultimately
help lead us and our descendants out of these quagmires and into the coming decades, but also
without dismissing or ignoring our responsibilities to others. I thank The East County Gazette for exercising their exceptional opportunities and responsibilities in this process.
Before these comments are dismissed as the harangues of an old codger (which they are), consider whether they may have at least some merit. While those expressing the concerns I have shared, receive little positive and some negative reaction, I do try to stay socially, intellectually, and politically engaged, reading and listening to both the Right and the Left, so something of what I'm proposing may just be worth considering.
Dick McQueen,
P.O. Box 264, Brightwood,
(503) 622-0162.