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Former President Donald Trump has proposed massive trade tariffs if he’s elected. Kamala Harris has equated the idea with a massive national sales tax, which isn’t very wrong. Nearly every economist has dismissed his “concept of a plan” as somewhere between silly and dangerous. The near unanimity is a huge part of the problem.

We must begin with two admissions. First, tariffs will reduce our collective wealth. Every trade barrier makes some things more expensive. And that reduction in buying power will affect most those who spend most of their earnings on the daily stuff of life.

Second, Trump has not shown aptitude toward details and nuance. So the most likely scenario if he wins will be a broad tariff on countries he doesn’t like, or maybe every country without exception. This will create a chaos that will itself be a drag on our (and everyone else’s) economy. A worldwide depression would not be unlikely.

Given such substantial downsides, why even entertain the idea? Because voters will be entertaining the idea this fall. But also, on a related point, because Trump has demonstrated an uncanny ability to recognize a popular fear and to capitalize on it electorally. He’s a savant at recognizing a Zeitgeist before others.

Liberals love their Farmers Markets. They’d rather buy their food locally, even though imported vegetables are cheaper. Trading frugality for familiarity is not a foreign concept. We feel a greater measure of control when there are fewer middlemen in a transaction, even if it costs a little more.

When we buy our limes from Chile, how do we know we’re not supporting child labor and ecological disaster? We don’t. We do know that the lime that is 10 cents cheaper traveled a thousand miles to get to our grocery store. Buying local eliminates that danger. That factor matters more to liberals.

Trade efficiency has produced a remarkable surge in our standard of living. Can we afford to give some of that buying power back to our neighbors? Manufacturing and agricultural jobs give workers more satisfaction because they are making something tangible. Service jobs or anything in the legal or financial sectors will always be more abstract — and so, for many, less satisfying.

Deaths by despair have skyrocketed along the same lines as our increased buying power. Having more money is sometimes not worth it. Retraining machinists to become accountants sounded good in the 1980s, but we know now that doesn’t work for everyone. If AI is poised to accelerate our productivity improvements, now might be the perfect time to consider shortening and simplifying supply chains.

Multinational corporations have grown so much more than our wallets since NAFTA and other free trade agreements. Several corporations are now wealthier and more powerful than most nations on the planet. That’s not the world most liberals would prefer to live in.

The upheaval that would follow inevitable trade wars would be substantial, but temporary. United States consumers will benefit in the long run because manufacturing jobs will return (albeit slowly) if that was the only way to avoid the tariffs. If anything, our economy here would begin to look more European, where the VAT tax funds most government operations. Imagine conservatives when they discover they’ve created a society that functions more like Europe!

Finally, Israel has demonstrated a new danger behind impossibly complex supply chains. Any link in the chain could invite surveillance or explosives or sabotage. Keeping every step of manufacturing closer to home is more expensive, but less dangerous. Those trade-offs are very real, all of a sudden.

Two final points, which are not economic so much as political (in the broadest sense.) Why have Democrats gone silent on the case to be made for tariffs? Bernie Sanders has certainly made the case for workers’ rights and “Buy American.” More broadly, why have Democrats ceded the issue so completely to Republicans? Consensus among elites does not instill confidence as much as suspicion.

Lastly, the populist rhetoric has not quite crystallized around this sweeping solution. No crowd response has emerged that resembles “Build the Wall!” (even though trade sanctions are essentially walls.) Once Trump identifies a call-and-response that resonates with people, he adds an absurdist flourish at the end, to make it his own.

Making Mexico pay for the wall, sending Hillary or Biden to prison, debating Biden “anytime, anywhere,” ending a protracted war on his first day in office — he needs to tell his followers that he “alone can fix it” and it will be easy for him. He hasn’t found a rhetorical flourish to drive home his tariff plan. That might be because he knows it could make liberals happier than he would like.

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RTC3 – Sadness

May 9, 2023

1. Clearing Throat

When Scott asked me to give a paper this year, it became clear to me what I imagine many of you know personally and more consequentially. He’s not an easy guy to say No to! So I did the best I could by delaying my talk as many months as possible. And now, here we are.

Scott gave me two prompts when he asked me. First, he suggested I could talk about what it was like to have my tiny house vacation spot incinerated in the 2020 Holiday Farm fire. That was just a very sad event — I’ve never had anything that bad happen to me that fast before.

Or, Scott said, I could just talk about whatever column I’m currently working on for the Register-Guard, whenever it came around to that. But then, in November, the newspaper announced it no longer had room, budget or courage for an Opinion Page. That was not as unexpected as the wildfire, but it also tapped a well of sadness.

A theme was developing. Roundtable’s tradition is that we’re supposed to give a paper on a subject outside of our field of expertise. Tonight’s topic certainly checks that box. Many of you know my writing style is on the wry side. Some of you remember the free weekly humor magazine Comic News or our Grin & Wear It store at the 5th Street Market.

But most of you don’t know that for seven years before coming to Oregon I was a syndicated humor columnist for the Scripps Howard News Network. Or that I ran a cabaret theatre in Chicago and performed improvisational comedy every week for six years after college. We’ve all heard the formula that comedy is “tragedy plus time.” I’m beginning to feel like I’m running out of time, so I’m going straight to tragedy I guess.

I hope by the end of our evening together I will have convinced you that sadness is not outside my field of expertise and it’s not outside your field of expertise either. It’s square within our field of expertise and we’re recklessly trying to eliminate one of our most elemental commonalities.

2. Intro

Here’s what tonight’s talk won’t be about: grief, depression, or post-traumatic stress. Tons of books have been written about each, but almost nothing has been written recently for a general audience about sadness, despite its ubiquity. Truth be told, some of the best recent research into sadness is presented in Pixar’s 2015 children’s movie, “Inside Out!” I recommend it.

/ / Grief is a type of sadness, but not all sadness is grief. In fact, bereavement is the only carve-out offered in the 1980 edition of the APA’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III). Any other source of sadness that persists for more than two weeks qualified as Major Depressive Disorder. Depression diagnoses then exploded, even though persistent brain chemical imbalance is believed to be relatively rare.

DSM3’s depression definition opened the floodgates for pharmaceuticals. Direct-to-consumer advertising came soon after that, accelerating the trend.

To put that trend into familiar terms for this audience, grade inflation came to the medical profession. Doctors’ efforts to reduce suffering yielded to demands that every discomfort should be eliminated. We pathologized a basic human emotion. Sadness shifted from an emotion to a disorder to a disease to a disability.

Depression is not tonight’s topic. But consider its first definition, from Hippocrates in the 5th century BCE: “If fear and sadness last for a long time, it is melancholia.” (File that away.) Tonight’s topic is sadness — not a disease, not a disability — just a small, simple, shy emotion.

My promise to you for tonight is not shy! I will offer you a blueprint to rebuild human civilization, following the same formula that built it the first time! I’m glad my friend Dan Bryant is here tonight, because this talk will require an Alter Call — a call for you to alter your opinions about and your response to sadness.

Ready? Here we go!

3. Evolutionary Conundrum

We start with a puzzle — a conundrum that biologists have been talking about for generations. How did sadness help humans survive? Why would Natural Selection have favored the sullen and sorrowful? Why would somebody who is disappointed with life be rewarded with more of it? What is the biological inheritance of sadness?

Emotions activate us. Anger pumps adrenaline. Fear makes us hyper-vigilant. Disgust makes us reel from the repulsive. Happiness puts a skip in our step. Emotions make us louder, faster, stronger. But sadness does none of that. It drains our energy, averts our gaze, turns us inward, and makes us want to give up. That doesn’t sound like what Natural Selection would naturally select. So what’s going on here?

Scientists have offered four prevailing theories. These four ideas will shape my talk tonight.

<< Theory One >> Pensive reflection sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. Well and Good, but this idea does not take into account that our ancestors didn’t have the luxury of pensive reflection. Predators wanted the meat on their bones. Whatever reflecting they may have been doing didn’t make them less tasty. Philosopher Kings forget that we can’t all be kings, or — even worse — philosophers!

<< Theory Two >> Stillness hid survivors from predators. If a baby’s mother was mauled by a pack of wolves, being quiet and still might help it survive. This one doesn’t pass the smell test, mostly because stillness wouldn’t have eliminated the scent that predators most often use to locate their prey.

<< Theory Three >> Reticence and passivity after losing to a rival affirms the social order, making humans better able to cooperate and to follow their leaders. This fits neatly into the “survival of the fittest” meme, but it doesn’t square very well with the “be fruitful and multiply” result. We don’t eliminate losers. We let them feel sad, and then they return to do their roles. Hunger Games, this isn’t.

<< Theory Four >> (My favorite.) Sadness survived for no good reason, not for any reason of its own. The term used for this borrows from architecture. Sadness is a spandrel. What’s a spandrel?

Hold up your left hand and make an “L” — that fleshy curve between your thumb and your finger sort of resembles a spandrel, used by cathedral builders in the Middle Ages. That curved space later became a favorite spot for artists and sculptors. But its purpose was originally to add a wider footing for the vaulted ceilings. 

You got your flying buttress heading this way, and you got your vaulted ceiling heading up this way. But gravity also wants to have its way. So, spandrels. It was an engineer’s solution that became an architect’s signature. (You can put your hand down now.)

I will argue that each of these ideas, taken together and given proper context, solves the conundrum and points us forward. Now, let’s put the pieces back together.

4. Affirming the Social Order

Let’s begin with the theory that comes closest to solving the puzzle on its own — sadness affirms the social order. If two employees are bucking for the same promotion, only one wins. Whether it was an easy decision or a hard one is irrelevant. Once it’s made, it looks right, because the “winner” walks tall and the “loser” shrinks from view.

Good losers are an essential element to our winning formula of cooperating with one another. Cooperation tempers competition. Resources and opportunities are always limited. Competition creates winners and losers. If losing competitors don’t challenge the results, everything runs more smoothly.

Sadness oils the machine, reducing social friction. But sadness isn’t suicide. It passes. Sadness focuses the mind, returns us to first principles. // The loser may seek a similar promotion elsewhere. She might take classes, to enhance her value to the company. He might consider an entirely new career path.

The sad loser is a good loser, not plotting revenge or undermining the winner. Here we have to be careful. Sadness sits on a slippery slope. Sadness can deepen our resolve, but so can anger or disgust. Those other emotions are louder and quicker.

Consider an alternative model that is much less common. Consider the Amish. In 2006, a troubled neighbor with a gun barricaded himself and twenty children inside the schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, a tiny village in Pennsylvania Dutch country. He raped several young girls, murdered five of them and then killed himself.

The Amish community gathered immediately to care for all the survivors, including the wife and family of the assailant, who were not Amish. A week later, the gunman’s funeral was attended by more Amish than non-Amish. Early in my research, I read a book about that event and how it captured the American imagination for a week or two.

“Amish Grace” centered on forgiveness, but I drew a different conclusion than the book’s authors. I think the strength that community showed was rooted in their deliberate ways of making space for sadness. They allowed the void a tragedy created to become a wellspring that flowed with forgiveness.

Sadness is not clinically a disorder, but there is, at least temporarily, a loss of order and then a re-ordering. Five mothers in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania were suddenly no longer parenting pre-teen girls. For the next six months, the community handled their daily chores. It was an emotional barn-raising. Rebuilding a person, on-site, with materials available inside their circle of support.

Sadness absolutely did affirm the social order, which is very important to the Amish. Even beyond that, sadness created a new social order for mothers who were tragically torn from their motherly duties.

5. Stillness Avoids Predators

Those who endure loss (and feel the sadness that results) are indeed kept safe — not by avoiding predators but by attracting supporters. This was the key insight that my friend Megan stumbled upon in January. Megan is a therapist. We take long walks together every week. Somewhere between Valley River Center and Delta Ponds, walking north on a crisp Monday, the skies opened up. Not with rain — with revelation!

Sadness is just like every other human emotion. It activates just like all the others, but with this modification. It’s not the one who feels the sadness who is activated. It’s their circle of support, flying into action at the sight of a single tear, or a suspicious stillness. Stillness here doesn’t reduce assault. It attracts help. Natural Selection doesn’t care which side of the ledger shifts. It’s still a net benefit in evolution’s survival sweepstakes!

That benefit gets amplified and accelerated by a dynamic called “The Network Effect.” You may not be familiar with the term, but you know what it looks like. It’s why it’s so hard to quit Facebook or Twitter. The Network Effect is what moves the stock market. 

Once a party starts to get too loud, it just gets louder, because everyone is adapting to everyone else. We may not always recognize it, but humans perform a sophisticated murmuration, like starlings — each of us reacting to what others around us are doing, while they are busy reacting to what others around THEM are doing.

The Network Effect is on constant display in a single word: “fashion.” Lapel width, collar styles, pleats and pockets. Everybody does it because everybody’s doing it. Which is to say, adding a little sadness to the human emotional landscape can go a very long way.

6. Tears

We’re halfway through, so let’s take a little break from all this talk about people. People can be so distracting! Looking at all of you is terribly distracting to me. My run-throughs with this script were so much easier when you weren’t here!

Forget people for a moment and focus only on the water involved. Somebody once said that life is water’s method of moving uphill. So, for just a minute or two, let’s track how water moves up the sad hill.

Humans cry for a multitude or reasons. Other animals also cry, but most scientists agree that only humans weep with sadness. Exhibiting weakness or distress hasn’t been rewarded the same way in other species.

How many sadness tears do you suppose would fit into a shot glass? Shout out your answers. ( + + + + ) Would it help if I told you that the typical human sadness tear contains less than a microliter of water? A microliter is a thousandth of a milliliter. Come on, science professors? How many microliters in one ounce?

50,000 tears will fit in this shot glass, give or take.

One tear can alter the trajectory of another human being. Do you agree? But we’re not looking at people, remember? So one microliter of water affects seven gallons of water — that’s how much water is inside most of us. One microliter moves seven gallons — that’s a leverage value — uphill momentum — of 1 : 26.5 million.

But let’s suppose that one tear affects every audience member at a sold-out Hult Center Show. Silva Hall, capacity 2,447, times seven gallons each, still moved by less than one microliter of water. That’s 1 : 62 billion!

That’s real power. If one person altered the course of 62 billion people, that would be every human alive today, plus everyone who died in the last 4,000 years. That’s more impact than Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, and Abraham combined. That’s the sort of uphill flow of life that’s available to each of us.

OK, let’s return to our evolutionary conundrum and those four prevailing theories.

7. Spandrel

It turns out the most useful answer was the one that seemed to be giving up on the question. Sadness is in fact a spandrel. It’s there to support something more important. But what helped humans survive that was important enough to justify the discomfort of sadness? Pain in childbirth is a spandrel — it necessarily follows our larger heads and bigger brains. What makes sadness worth its trouble?

Sadness evokes empathy. Empathy spurs activity. We circle the wagons to protect the infirm, but also those enduring loss. That’s a significant evolutionary advantage — our biological inheritance. One tear can move 62 billion gallons of watery humanity, thanks to empathy. Empathy is what got us to the top of the food chain, and nothing calls it out better than sadness.

8. Pondering

The fourth and final theory can now be revisited, because we are all philosopher kings. At least in this room and in America, but honestly, most of the world’s population knows how to not become prey to another species — at least those we can see. Bugs and bacteria continue to plague humans, almost as much as humans plague other humans.

We do have the historic luxury of returning to first principles, pondering the deeper truths and resolving to become more authentic selves. Here’s the alter call — alter your reaction to sadness, in yourself and in those around you. Sadness is painful, but it’s usually fleeting. It’s also an incredible gift. Don’t wish it away. Welcome it in. Give it time and space to do its work.

Our society has worked tirelessly to eliminate sadness, or to at least remove it from any public expressions. Partly because it’s not commercially viable. Portraying sadness on the big screen is extraordinarily difficult. Meryl Streep can pull it off, but how many others? Meanwhile, how many Rambo movies are made with superheroes wreaking vengeance and retribution for wrongs inflicted?

Sadness does not exert for itself. It doesn’t self-promote. So we must make its case. Yes, it’s uncomfortable to feel sad. And yes, if you show your sadness, that might make others uncomfortable. We’re so out of practice that we aren’t sure we’re expressing it right or reacting to it properly. 

It’s so much easier to just get angry about every slight or misfortune that comes our way. That’s the expedient choice, but that doesn’t honor our biological inheritance. We have the privilege of philosopher kings. Sadness and empathy brought us this far. And, “Ya gotta dance with them that brung ya.”

9. Call to Inaction

So I leave you tonight with a Call to Action — or, in this case, a Call to Inaction! Our society has a dangerous empathy deficit. We’re told we have to go it alone. That’s terrifying, because we know in our deepest selves that’s not how we got here. But we can’t say anything because we believe — wrongly — that no one else is harboring the same fear.

Hippocrates was right. Melancholia — depression — grows where sadness and fear combine. I’ve sorted through a scientific conundrum with you tonight, but I want to leave you with causal conundrum that is equally befuddling.

Do you want less tragedy in the world? Less anger, less violence? More grace and forgiveness? More peace? Here’s what you can do to make a world with less sadness. Be sad! That evokes empathy in others, which will benefit you and them in ways that nothing else can. If we practice empathy with one another regularly, we won’t feel frightened when we feel sad. We’ll recognize its important role in bringing us together.

Sadness and weakness — asking and accepting help — is humanity’s superpower. No sadness, no empathy. No empathy, no community. No community, no meaning. No meaning, no point.

Sadness allows us to co-regulate every day, to coordinate our intentions, to cooperate our activities, and to co-evolve our destiny. We’re not individuals. We’re not even social animals. We’re an intelligent swarm, murmuration in motion. We’re as busy as starlings, responding to perceived dangers, gathering together in support, deepening our awareness, and building the future. But a future without sadness is no future at all.

Every one of us has the capacity to move millions, using nothing but factory-installed equipment. Thank you for your kind attention and I welcome your questions.

==

Bibliography

Fromm, E. (1941). Escape from Freedom. Henry Holt.

Horwitz, A.V. and Wakefield, J.C. (2007). The loss of sadness : how psychiatry transformed normal sorrow into depressive disorder. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press.

Inside Out. (2015). Pixar.

Keller, Timothy. (2022). Opinion | What Too Little Forgiveness Does to Us. The New York Times. [online] 3 Dec. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/03/opinion/tim-keller-forgiveness.html.

Kraybill, D.B., Nolt, S.M. and Weaver-Zercher, D. (2007). Amish grace : how forgiveness transcended tragedy. San Francisco, Ca: Jossey-Bass.

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The results are in and things don’t look good. I’m not talking about the College Football Playoff rankings, or even the latest polling for Oregon’s tightening race for governor. I’m looking at something more important and much more difficult to reverse. Student test scores have plummeted in Oregon and pretty much everywhere else.

Football rankings and election results reset themselves on a regular basis. Test scores show our children have lost roughly a full grade of learning since the pandemic began. If we don’t develop significant remedial plans, we face a future with less collective knowledge and the earning potential that comes with it. It will dent the competence and confidence of an entire generation.

I’m afraid it’s even worse than that. I believe the arrested development isn’t limited to our schoolchildren. Students are tested and scored regularly. We can accurately gauge their progress from a documented baseline. Why should we assume that online learning isn’t failing all of us to a similar degree? The Bureau of Labor Statistics just recorded the sharpest decline in worker productivity since measurements began in 1947.

You and I are not learning our multiplication tables or the state capitals or the Pythagorean theorem. But we are learning — or we should be! And just like those over-tested youngsters, we’re trying to progress without a set of reliable tools.

We don’t bump into others when everyone’s tethered to their screens at home. We don’t overhear snippets of information that others don’t know we need. We don’t drop in unexpectedly on friends and neighbors. Heck, we don’t even pick up the phone without first making an appointment to avoid an intrusion.

I’m afraid we’re losing the skill — and maybe also the appetite — for unscripted conversations. We learn best collectively and organically — the same as schoolchildren. Instead, we’re learning only about the things we know we don’t know. Our digital tools offer us new efficiencies. But we’re seldom learning about things that we don’t know we don’t know. (And that’s most of what’s unknown.)

Did you know there’s more flavor in a cilantro stem than in its leaves? Or that Bill Watterson named Calvin & Hobbes after a dour theologian and a conservative philosopher? Or that cold summer nights make fall colors deeper? All that information is available, but only if you ask.

Conversations can convey information that we’ve sought, but that’s the least of it. Conversations create connections. They pique interest. They rebuke assumptions. They form stories. They share intent. They elicit commitments. Each participant leaves with more questions than answers, leading to more conversations.

Without a modicum of skill and intent, our verbal exchanges will not always naturally rise to this level. We exchange needed information and go no further. Or we report only information that originated with others — movies, books, websites, controversies — never revealing why any of it matters to us.

We don’t share sadness as easily as anger. We talk more easily about conformity than about surprise. Our sameness is simple. Our sorrows never are. How much ground have we all lost over the past few years? No one is measuring that.

==

Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a column each Wednesday for The Register-Guard and archives past columns at www.dksez.com.

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Spare Sunday Scraps, Syllogisms, and Superfluous Sagacities:

• Don’t expect sharp knives in an Airbnb kitchen. That’s a metaphor for something, but I don’t know what.
• I wonder how AP writers would rank the Ducks, had they played PSU at Autzen instead of Georgia in Atlanta to start this football season.
• What is unbeknownst to me vastly outweighs what is beknownst to me. (This no longer includes the fact that “beknownst” isn’t actually a word.)
• I saw “Watch Batteries Changed Here.” I asked for show times and they looked at me like I’m weird.
• A Costco rotisserie chicken costs about the same as a car air freshener and it works just as well.
• Bicycling would double in popularity if the headgear looked cool. “It’s not what you do. It’s how you look doing it.”
• Any suggestions how I can progress from a condition to a syndrome and ultimately to a full-blown complex?
• You call them opinions. I call them insights.
• Lanyards are not part of Eugene’s usual dress code.
• I popped a button the other day. I wasn’t proud of it.
• Nobody told me that people have stopped using craigslist.
• I can draw more than conclusions.
• Allspice didn’t replace all others.
• Why doesn’t my bottle of non-aspirin contain a little bit of everything (except aspirin, of course)?
• Hardly anyone calls anyone “dumb” anymore. In my childhood, we regularly used the word twice as an appellation.
• It’s a sham that an “e” can be silent but still essential.
• Politically speaking: The left adores being right. The right abhors being left.
• We can become so obsessed with what something means that we can’t see what’s true.
• Does every thin person have an eating disorder? Is every ascetic hiding shame? Are all overachievers compensating for bad parents? Is every deviation from the mean a malady?
• “No problem” has slowly replaced “you’re welcome” but it can still mean “I forgive you.” This isn’t the first conflation of pleasantries. For generations, “I’m sorry” has meant both “I’m sad” or “I’m regretfully responsible.”
• When you eat portions of leftovers, do you put the remainder into ever-smaller containers? (I do, even if my fridge isn’t overstuffed.)
• We’re running so many tests on people that we may run out of litmus.
• The dime is our best coin; the nickel’s the worst. Fight me.
• I swear no one ever told me that removing water from the tofu brick gives it a more familiar mouthfeel. And a third of my friends are vegetarians!
• Does enduring design come from deep authenticity or deep empathy? Both.
• Sometimes we have to say something out loud to find out whether we believe it.
• If you’re not curious, you are failing to use the factory-installed equipment.
• I’d favor a leaf-blower tax with the funds subsidizing rake prices. Keep increasing the tax until rakes are free.
• Anything that’s paid for by someone else should cost more. If you’re paying with your own money (with no intent to get reimbursed) — whether it’s a car or a lunch or an iron lung — you should get the lowest price.
• Bowling alleys shouldn’t require you to rent their shoes if your sneakers cost more than $100.
• Automobile manufacturers should add a second horn that conveys, “Oops, I’m sorry.” This small technology could eliminate most road rage.
• Not to brag, but I invented the self-fulfilling prophecy. Or I meant to.
• We should give base-12 a try. We’d all like to be younger and most of us would like to weigh less. A 65 year old who weighs 200 pounds would instantly become a 148-pound 55-year-old, just like that.
• Exploregon. You’ll adoregon. Who could ask for moregon?

==

Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a column each Wednesday and Sunday for The Register-Guard and archives past columns at www.dksez.com.

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November ballots are in our hands. Political ads are expanding the definition of ubiquity. Debates are over and voting has begun. Campaign promises seem to grow more and more outrageous. Here are some campaign promises I’d like to see, ones that would actually improve our lives.

Every candidate promises to eliminate waste and inefficiencies. How about these?

• Repeal “lather, rinse, repeat.” Ban shampoos that fail to do their job the first time!
• No more dialing one before long distance calls. Americans have better things to  do with their time. And if you’re dialing a number with the same area code as yours, you should be able to skip those first three digits, just like the old days.
• The Internet prefix “www” should no longer be spoken as nine syllables. Americans should say “triple w” (five syllables) or “trip-dub” for short, saving everyone’s breath and time!
• Address prison overcrowding by arresting smaller people. Problem solved!
• America should have only one fireworks show on the 4th of July, but make it so large that it can be seen from both coasts. Iowa owes the country this.
• Some efficiencies are too much. Single-ply toilet paper? Outlawed on Day One.

Many inefficiencies come from confusion. A real hero of a candidate would promise to make modern life less confusing. Start with these:

• Serial numbers, confirmation codes and other strings of random numerals and letters may no longer contain zeroes, ones, or the letters O, I, or L.
• Every machine alert must emit a unique sound. Annoying ones must be changed. (Fun fact: the Internet was invented because fax machines’ connection handshake sounded so creepy.)
• Medicare and Medicaid funding will be withheld if medical professionals report test results as “negative” to convey good news and “positive” to mean bad news.
• Every grocery store must have the same layout, with a printed catalog of every item listed alphabetically available in every aisle.
• “I before E” — always. No exceptions.
• All child custody arrangements will follow the same schedule. This way, all divorced fathers will have their kids on the same weekends and single moms will have the   same weekends free. (Same sex parents will flip a coin to determine roles.)
• Shoe sizes must be recalculated. Use a scale that goes to 100, giving consumers more precision and mending the gap between the halves and the half-nots.

We love candidates who endorse term limits. I agree there are terms that should be limited — or abolished altogether. For example:

• “Datum” can follow “whom” as unnecessary, elitist, and condescending. “Data” is already singular with regular people.
• Swap the meanings of “man” and “human.” Human will now refer to males in particular and “man” will refer to our species more generally, just so we can have a “chairman” or a “spokesman” again.
• “Farther” and “further” aren’t both necessary. Let the American people decide which one to keep. Same with “capital/capitol” and “principle/principal.” And can we just admit that “its” looks better with that apostrophe that Americans insist on giving it?

If politicians ran on promises like these, voter turnout would vastly improve.

==

Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a column each Wednesday and Sunday for The Register-Guard and archives past columns at www.dksez.com.

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I dislike horse race coverage of political campaigns. It conveys that only winning matters. The backstory of each participant can be overlooked, unless they win. The betting odds give horse racing a powerful narrative. Who will get rich from this horse’s performance? (OK, that might be the most appropriate parallel.) Still, politicians are not horses and shouldn’t be covered as if they are.

There’s an important difference. We’re active participants in political races. Or we can be, if we take the trouble to vote. No candidate can win without support expressed by voters. The race is not about the candidates. It’s about us. How well do they understand us? How clearly do they respond to us? Do they inspire us?

The candidates who meet most of us in our moments are the ones who succeed. We’d rather read a careful critique of them, but the outcomes provide a detailed analysis of us.

Examinations of who voted and why usually come after the election, first from the losing party and then from media. They always pledge to learn from mistakes and do better next time. But when the next time comes around, the horse race once again dominates the coverage.

Elections tell us much less about the candidates and much more about ourselves. With that in mind, let me try to explain why I think Republicans are likely to succeed beyond expectations this cycle, but without referencing any candidates directly. The risk I run is that if I’m completely wrong, I’ll have nowhere to hide. So be it.

Political polling has become more difficult and less reliable for several reasons. Fewer people have landlines. Most are not willing to talk to a pollster. Bigots don’t usually identify themselves as bigots. (There are ways around this problem, but it takes more questions and analysis than political campaigns give it.)

When pollsters are viewed as part of the establishment — the “deep state” — respondents may lie to them, just for the fun of it. (Everybody needs a hobby.) Some of these difficulties are acknowledged as a margin for error, which we mostly ignore. Taken together, polling doesn’t accurately reflect us. They’re even worse at predicting our (voting) behavior.

Issues get plenty of poll-driven coverage, but some issues drive people more than others. Abstract concepts — for most of us, that includes war, unemployment, and election integrity — don’t tug on us like issues that impact us directly, like inflation or crime.

Some issues are static. Others are cumulative. In all but a few states, abortion is as legal and available now as it was several months ago. We don’t tend to vote based on something that happened four months ago. Even if what happened was bad, it affects behavior that it hasn’t gotten worse.

Contrast that with consumer price increases. If a gallon of milk increases 20 cents, that is on top of last month’s increase, and the increases from the months before that. It’s bad news that’s getting worse. Same with housing availability, job security, and most economic issues.

Some issues are statistically static but emotionally cumulative. Homelessness and property crime don’t have to get worse for it to feel like they’re getting worse. We just get tired of dealing with some problems more than others. Even after problems are being solved, our emotions can keep us wary and worried for a long time. 

Conservatives have learned to channel their disgust into angry activism. Disgusted liberals tend to become hopeless and apathetic. Which group of disgusted citizens is more likely to vote?

Taken together, conservatives are more likely to be undercounted and extra-motivated. The eventual vote tally and the candidates themselves simply reflect our moods and motivations back to us.

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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a column each Wednesday and Sunday for The Register-Guard and archives past columns at www.dksez.com.

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I don’t blame EWEB’s commissioners for declining the purchase proposals they received for their former downtown headquarters. I blame them for something else.

Eugene Water and Electric Board had high hopes when they issued a Request for Proposals early in the summer. A waterfront building adjacent to downtown with 100,000 square feet on 4.4 acres was bound to attract interest from developers, philanthropists, civic leaders, and entrepreneurs, far and wide.

It didn’t turn out that way. They received four proposals. Each had portions that were disappointingly vague. None came from far or wide, unless you consider Veneta out of town.

Start with Olympus Academia, a private school for witches and other pagans. Their GoFundMe campaign hoped to raise $300,000. So far, they have raised $356 from three donors. Olympus Academia probably won’t be transforming itself into a full-fledged university, with the former EWEB headquarters as their international campus.

The other three proposals came from some of the building’s closest neighbors. Brian Obie is the only one of the three who has a track record that fits the scale of this project. Obie Companies has grown the 5th Street Public Market into a regional magnet by expanding westward with the Inn at the 5th, and then the Gordon Hotel.

Jeff and Victoria Wilson-Charles submitted a proposal for the property that they can probably see from the stainless steel roof of their ultra-sustainable (and ultra-expensive) Watershed Building at 3rd and Mill.

As co-owners of Territorial Vineyards & Wine Company and active philanthropists, their commitment to the area is unquestioned. If they are ready to tackle anything on this scale, their previous projects haven’t shown it.

The EWEB building’s neighbor to the east also submitted a proposal but it was never completed. The Eugene Science Factory would love to have a larger and more permanent home. As the University of Oregon expands Autzen’s athletic facilities westward, that wish may become a necessity.

Science Factory supporters hope to replicate Portland’s beloved OMSI, attracting families from across the state. Of all the proposals, this one offers the clearest and widest public use for the waterfront property. Unfortunately, the proposal contained no financial commitments. Civic Stadium proved what’s possible, but who will be able to champion the project as fervently as Bev Smith?

EWEB’s commissioners have authorized General Manager Frank Lawson to continue negotiations directly with respondents, seeking a sales agreement that balances intended use, economic benefit, sale price, financing and the proposers’ qualifications. That’s an awful lot to ask of Lawson. He already has a day job, running Lane County’s largest utility.

The commissioners should examine why their RFP process failed to attract wider interest. Maybe hanging a “for sale” banner all summer was not enough outreach. Projects with a similar scope often begin by asking only for applicants’ qualifications. Negotiations for intended use and final price can follow as a separate step.

Consultants specialize in large-scale sales like this one. EWEB should hire one. Or sell it to the city, the way the Eugene 4J School District divested Civic Stadium. And call Bev Smith.

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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a column each Wednesday and Sunday for The Register-Guard and archives past columns at www.dksez.com.

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Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky continues his master class on resisting authoritarianism, but similar lessons are also available closer to home.

Last Saturday, a bridge linking Russia to Crimea was partially destroyed by a truck bomb, damaging a key Russian supply route and a symbol of Putin’s resolve to dominate Ukraine. The bridge is — was! — an engineering marvel, built after Russia illegally annexed Crimea in 2014. The 12-mile stretch is the longest bridge in Europe.

Shortly after the explosion created a fireball over the Kerch Strait, Zelensky gave his nightly update on the war. He ended his report to Ukraine and the world with a mock weather report. He declared that it was sunny throughout Ukraine but quipped that conditions were “cloudy in Crimea — but still quite warm.“

Imagine how that mockery must have rankled Russian President Vladimir Putin. His response came a full week later. He called for a special government commission to investigate the matter. (He then ordered a Kyiv schoolyard to be bombed in retaliation, but he’d already made his point.)

Eugene comedian Leigh Anne Jasheway links humor to stress reduction, telling her students, “If you can laugh at it, it can’t hurt you.” That might not be literally true for Zelensky, but Putin won’t be able to extinguish the courage of Ukraine’s people. They will have the last laugh.

Meanwhile, another police state can be studied near Cleveland, Ohio. Anthony Novak in 2016 created a fake social media page, mimicking his local Police Department’s Facebook page. The Parma Police Department charged him with disrupting police operations, even though his parody page was up only for a few hours. 

Novak was arrested, jailed, tried, and acquitted. He then sued the police department for violating his free speech rights, testing the limits of qualified immunity for government agencies. The Institute for Justice, the civil rights law firm, described his case as “both humorous and very serious. If the police can use their authority to arrest their critics without consequence, everyone’s rights are at risk.”

Novak’s case is currently on the Supreme Court’s docket, prompting a hilarious and important Amicus Curiae by The Onion, a parody newspaper based in Chicago.

The brief wastes no time demonstrating its intent. It begins, “The Onion is the world’s leading news publication, offering highly acclaimed, universally revered coverage … [It] has grown into the single most powerful and influential organization in human history, maintaining a towering standard of excellence to which the rest of the industry aspires.”

“The Onion cannot stand idly by in the face of a ruling that threatens to disembowel a form of rhetoric that has existed for millennia, that is particularly potent in the realm of political debate, and that, purely incidentally, forms the basis of The Onion’s writers’ paychecks,” the brief continues.

The 23-page brief ends with similar verve: “The Onion intends to continue its socially valuable role bringing the disinfectant of sunlight into the halls of power. See Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 67 (1976) And it would vastly prefer that sunlight not to be measured out to its writers in 15-minute increments in an exercise yard.”

It all reminds me of my decade-long tenure as publisher of the Comic News. We once endorsed John Kitzhaber over Bill Sizemore for governor after interviewing four expert stylists to determine which candidate had the better hair. It was a populist approach — giving people what they really want — just like war-weary Ukrainians really wish they could hear about their weather.

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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a column each Wednesday and Sunday for The Register-Guard and archives past columns at www.dksez.com. The Onion’s legal brief can be viewed at https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22-293/242292/20221003125252896_35295545_1-22.10.03%20-%20Novak-Parma%20-%20Onion%20Amicus%20Brief.pdf

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Hundreds of local households rearranged their domestic affairs this summer to make room for visitors to compete in or watch the World Championships at Hayward Field. For many, it was their first foray into the sharing economy. Are we ready to build on that sharing economy to create a sharing culture?

I believe in the sharing economy. Decades were spent trying to convince Americans not to over-consume. But cars and trucks and houses kept getting bigger, even though families were getting smaller. Acquisitiveness is how Americans gauge stature, so having more stuff proved to be an irresistible urge.

But then, along comes Airbnb and others, implicitly congratulating you for your achievement and then asking if you’d be willing to share it with others. Now that Airbnb is a behemoth that has made its founders billions, some worry that Airbnb in particular has become too large for our own good.

But the idea remains a good one. Smaller start-ups deserve your attention. Home Share Oregon, a nonprofit program, hopes to increase access to affordable housing. They link people with more room than they need with people who need a room, focusing on fixed-income seniors.

Some have tried hosting with Airbnb (or its lookalike cousins like VRBO), but don’t really care for the rooming house vibe. They also don’t want a full-time housemate. There’s a sweet spot in between, used primarily by short-term travel nurses, called Furnished Finder. PeaceHealth also maintains their own short-term lodging list for travel nurses.

If you’re planning a vacation, but don’t feel comfortable asking neighbors to water your plants or feed your cats, Trusted House Sitters screens people who are looking for temporary housing and can provide those services in return. All of these commercial services perform background checks on applicants before sending them to your home.

The sharing movement is now expanding options for movement itself.

You know about Uber and Lyft, but did you know there are ways to rent your neighbor’s car? Turo is becoming the Airbnb of car rentals, along with smaller outfits like DriveShare and GetAround. You can rent a car through HyreCar and drive it for Uber! They handle the insurance and verify the renter’s identity, leaving the sharing to you.

The city of Eugene maintains a page for those who would like to carpool together. EWEB has partnered with Forth Mobility to rent electric cars on an hourly or daily basis. PeaceHealth continues its sponsorship of Eugene’s bike rental program.

There are sites that facilitate peer-to-peer sharing of garages, gardens, campsites, sailboats, surfboards, bicycles, and airplanes. Surfboard-sharing may never be big in Eugene, but you can see where this is headed.

Why does each of us need a lawn mower when we use it for only an hour or two each weekend? Can Internet connectedness make it easier for us to share a cup of sugar with a neighbor? How quickly can we get used to sharing how many things? That’s the question the future is asking.

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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a column each Wednesday and Sunday for The Register-Guard and archives past columns at www.dksez.com.

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We’re told that USC and UCLA bolted for the Big Ten because they wanted part of a richer broadcast rights package being negotiated. The windfall for each school looks to be at least $20 million per year and possibly double that.

Pac-12 responded by accelerating negotiations for their next broadcast rights package. Most anticipate an announcement in the next month or two. Apple and Amazon have both been willing to open their checkbooks for a seat at the table. Other streaming services may also have interest.

American soccer fans will have to enter the Apple ecosystem to watch their favorite teams. There will be an app that streams with Apple TV. Some games will be included with Apple TV+. Highlights will be available on the free Apple News app.

Meanwhile, Amazon paid billions for the exclusive broadcast rights for NFL’s Thursday Night Football. Their first broadcast delivered a healthy audience. They also sold more Amazon Prime memberships in those three hours than ever before.

Should the Pac-12 conference entertain offers from streaming services? Should they consider giving them exclusive rights if the price is right? Or is it too soon to deny ESPN and FOX the nighttime inventory that only comes from Pacific Time Zone match-ups?

Answering the last question first, no. “Too soon” applies only when the trajectory is uncertain. Streaming will overtake cable and broadcast television. They want to hasten their conquest.

Don’t forget that FOX had only “The Simpsons” until they added live sports. Cable TV was considered a luxury until ESPN earned it legitimacy. Don’t forget, because the negotiators haven’t forgotten. Pac-12 could instantly become a leader again. To think otherwise is nothing but a failure of imagination.

Broadcast outlets deliver more households right now, but for how much longer? What can streaming services do better than any broadcast outlet? I’ve started a list:

– A memorable play can be turned into an instant meme for social media, including avatars of successful players.

– Click here to buy your favorite player’s jersey right now. Add a little extra to the purchase price and we’ll deposit all the extra and a little more into that player’s NIL account.

– Dr. Pepper’s Fansville commercials (and others) can be digitally altered to show the good guys wearing your team’s colors, based on your account preferences.

– Don’t feel like watching the commercials? You can skip them for 99 cents and get extra analysis from your favorite personalities. Or an instant video game that puts your avatar in the same predicament your team just faced. Can you do better? You have 90 seconds!

– Should they go for it on 4th down? Instant polling can show immediate results. Do all your friends agree? How about all the friends of your friends?

– Show current game and season stats for each player whenever they touch the ball.

– Play-by-play can be made available in any language through crowdsourcing, including sign language.

– Bid on a signed jersey or an NFT from one of your team’s former greats. Fifty percent of proceeds will be given to that player’s favorite charity.

– Put your friends on your screen, watching the game with you, with their sound on or off. It will feel like a Zoom meeting, but an enjoyable one.

– Alexa remembers you ordered a pizza at halftime last game and asks if you want to do that again.

When Pac-12 popularity explodes onto social media, SEC and Big Ten will wish they hadn’t locked themselves into legacy broadcast deals. If the Pac-12 is really shrewd, they will negotiate a 10% commission on all future deals with other conferences in return for proving the concept.

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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a column each Wednesday and Sunday for The Register-Guard and archives past columns at www.dksez.com.

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