Obama is Here

There's a rally for Obama going on outside the building where my office is located. The Secret Service said to stay away from the windows, and to leave them shut (or they'd show up and do it for you), but there is the roof cam.

It's 5:45 and people are just being allowed inside the gates they set up, guess I should go listen. Not sure when it ends (you may have to refresh the screen to get a live shot - unfortunately, a tree is blocking the view of the stage).

Ah, here are the details (I'm in PLC):

As you may know, an event with Senator Barack Obama will occur tomorrow, Friday, May 9. Senator Obama will be on campus for a 7:45 p.m. outdoor rally at Memorial Quad (the space bordered by the Library, Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, 13th Avenue, PLC, Chapman, and Condon). Gates to the event will open at 5:45 p.m. 

At the request of the United States Secret Service, the buildings will be closed to the public after 5:00 p.m. Also at that time, all windows in the buildings must be closed. Any windows that are left open will be closed by law enforcement personnel.  Law enforcement will be in PLC before and during the event. University faculty and staff members with official business in PLC will have access after 5:00 p.m. to the building with University photo identification. Law enforcement requests that building users with official business in their offices avoid congregating at windows.

Update:

Shortly after finishing his Friday evening rally on the University of Oregon campus, candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination Sen. Barack Obama sat down with Register-Guard reporter Karen McCowan.

Here is the transcript of his interview.

Question: Your San Francisco remark about “bitter” rural voters stirred up a hornet’s nest. Much of Oregon is rural. What would you like to say to our rural voters?

Answer: The truth is that most people of good will recognize that what I meant may not have come out right. That people are frustrated and angry about their economic situations. That jobs have been shipped away. Entire towns have fallen onto hard times. They rely on the things they can depend on: Their faith, their traditions that have been passed on from generation to generation. But they are justifiably frustrated the government’s not looking out for them. And if we’re going to do our job in Washington to listen to these communities, then we’re going to have a different set of policies, and that’s what this election is about.

Question: Sen. Clinton recently described federal payments to counties with public forests as an obligation and an entitlement. Do you agree? How would you ensure that this commitment is consistently met?

Answer: I completely agree that it’s an obligation that we have to meet. I think that we’re not meeting it well right now because we’re doing it piecemeal year after year by year. And it’s very difficult for local communities to plan for libraries and county jails to figure out what their staffing levels should be next year or the year after that. That’s why I’m looking forward to working with Sen. Wyden to find a more permanent solution to this issue.

Question: What is your position on federal forest management and logging on federal lands?

Answer: My general philosophy is that we should not be afraid to tap our natural resources for economic growth as long as it’s done in an environmentally sustainable way: Protecting old-growth forests while looking at ways that we can potentially work with second-growth forests. That’s the kind of balance that we can strike. But the federal government has to listen to people on the ground. And what we can’t allow is our natural resources and the extraordinary beauty of Oregon to be degraded because of short-term thinking.

Question: The Oregon Coast is reeling from the recent federal decision to close the entire summer commercial salmon fishing season. How would you work with our fishermen and coastal towns?

Answer: Well I think we need to figure out how we can provide these communities, and people who fish for a living, relief. This is a national emergency caused in part by what happened to salmon stocks further south. We shouldn’t just have one community suffer all that harm. Long-term we’ve got to use the best possible science available to make sure our fishing grounds are preserved and protected. We have not always done that wisely.

Question: Would you favor dam removal on the Snake River?

Answer: I think that it’s very important to look at what the science indicates. So far, at least, the science is ambiguous in terms of whether dam removal would solve the problem.

Question: Sen. Clinton has released a 10-point list of proposals for our state. Do you disagree with any of the items in her Oregon Compact? Would you sign on in support?

Answer: I confess that I have not looked at her 10-point proposals, but what I’ve done is provided very clear answers about not only how we would deal with issues specific to Oregon, like the Klamath River or the Klamath Basin, and how we would deal with the issues of salmon runs and county payments. But I’ve also been very clear about how I would deal with issues that affect people beyond Oregon. Things like high gas prices. Sen. Clinton continues to believe that a gas tax holiday is a good solution. I think it is a gimmick and we need to be serious about investments in alternative energy, and raising fuel efficiency standards on cars — approaches that I’ve been in favor of for many years.

Question: How about your feelings on whether or not the federal government should be involved in Oregon’s assisted suicide law?

Answer: I believe that this has been debated thoroughly in Oregon. The people of Oregon have made a decision about it. I don’t think that federal government should overturn the Oregon law, but I do think the will of the people has to be protected as long as the safeguards are in place to make sure that there isn’t abuse.

Question: What specific steps would you take to wean the U.S. from its dependency on oil?

Answer: I was very specific about the need for raising fuel efficiency standards on cars. I’ve got proposals to make sure that we are reducing oil consumption by 25 to 30 percent. It’s very important that we invest in alternative fuels. Ethanol, which has been the dominant alternative fuel, I think has its own problems but is a transitional technology. And if we can shift to cellulosic ethanol using things like switch grass and wood chips and other non-foods, then I think it can be a terrific benefit. And I also think that we’ve got to invest in mass transit and think about how our growth patterns are developed. And obviously Oregon’s been a leader in this. I think the country as a whole needs to examine and take some cues from some of the great work that has been done here.

Question: Imagine I’m an Oregon Democrat with my mail-in ballot on my kitchen table, one who could support either you or Sen. Clinton, but mostly wants my party back in the White House. In 25 words or less, convince me why I should mark your name.

Answer: I’ll answer the question in two ways. If the question is electability, then I believe I can attract independents and new voters and attract a level of excitement that will expand the base in play. I compete as well as Sen. Clinton in the states that we traditionally win, but I also put in play states that we don’t traditionally win. But I think in this election we can’t just be a party that’s worried about how to win, we also have to worry about why we should win. We’re at our best when we’re calling the country to a higher purpose. And I think, as I said out there, we can have all the 10-point plans we want. If we’re subject to special interest influence, if we’re not straight with the American people about how the problems are going to be solved, if we can’t unify the country, then we won’t change Washington and these will continue to be 10-point plans that are offered election after election, but we won’t solve problems. And I think that this is one of those historic moments where the country is ready to move in a new direction and I think I’m the best person to lead that.

Comments

[JD]

Mark, do the party a favor and vote for Obama!

[Dickeylee]

Just a casual observation, but there's not a whole lot of blacks on campus, are there? I mean, is Barack the only one there? Been watching the feed for 15 plus minutes now....

[Mark Thoma]

Eugene, OR:

The racial makeup of the city is 88.15% White, 3.57% Asian, 1.25% Black or African American, 0.93% Native American, 0.21% Pacific Islander, 2.18% from other races, and 3.72% from two or more races. 4.96% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.

[esb]

Frankly, I am stunned at the low Asian + Pacific "Islander" numbers.

For a University town on the rim of the Pacific, amazing.

This certainly is not the racial composition of the 100,000 people surrounding the University of Washington, which (from visual inspection) seems to be 1/4 Asian.

Why the difference??

[tekel]

three points: 1. I was in Lillis from 5:30 until about 8 last night, at the annual meeting of the UO investment group. We changed rooms three times during the course of the evening. Even at around 6, law enforcement and secret service were in the Atrium of the b-school building, (you know, all the glass at the north end of the quad) and they were respectfully asking people to move away from the windows and stay off the balconies. Kind of a pity, because that's one of the big attractions of the building- you can't go anywhere without crossing a balcony or walking by a five-storey-high sheet of glass. I wanted to take a picture for my wife, but they wouldn't allow us to get close, even though we were clearly a bunch of clean-cut "serious" kids in suits and ties.

2. Seeing all the people on the quad was very cool- very much a rock-concert atmosphere. They lucked out that the weather was great yesterday. I haven't seen any estimates of attendance, but the pre-speech numbers the university was giving out were around 20,000 people... and from what I saw, that number is believable.

3. The lack of racial diversity is one of the most disappointing things for me about living in Eugene (the food sucks too). I grew up in Michigan and then lived in LA for 5 years and the Bay Area for 8. Eugene is the most homogenous whitebread place I've ever been. You can't really call this the pacific rim, because we're a few hundred miles from any port that could exert that kind of influence on the local society. I think we have much more in common with the north end of the CA Central Valley than anywhere else. (Or maybe somewhere like Yountville- people who live there like it, people who live in real cities [a] can't understand why, and [b] look down their nose at us like we're a bunch of inbred shitheel farmers). Seattle is actually an ocean-port city, and it's actually a real city, with several million people living there. Comparing Seattle to Eugene isn't even Apples-to-Oranges, it's more like Apples-to-baseballs.

[Lafayette]

A vision for a fairer America

Article (BO): "But I think in this election we can’t just be a party that’s worried about how to win, we also have to worry about why we should win. We’re at our best when we’re calling the country to a higher purpose."

Agreed; so why don't you address Income Inequality and America's bent for plutocratic government -- or is this what you mean by "special interests"?

There is no way whatsoever of correcting Income Inequality without treating the policy that created it -- which happened when Reagan took an axe to marginal income taxation. Will BO correct that matter by increasing marginal taxation, say, putting it back to where it was after the war in the 1950s?

Or, will he continue to flim-flam the issue of Income Inequality by changing the subject, because the obvious answer is politically embarrassing at present to the very donors who are supporting him -- themselves with their own "special interests". (I.e., keeping marginal tax rates where they are -- hugely in the favor of capital accumulation by a preciously small percentile of upper-income Americans.)

The moral issue in America today is one of Generalized Greed brought about by rapacious capitalism. When people see others earning hallucinatory amounts of wealth, they wonder why they are left with the crumbs off the table to exist.

This is not fair. It is decidedly partial. And it disfavors the larger part of this country consisting of the ordinary middle and lower middle-classes who are its mainstay constituency.

Where is BO's vision for a fairer America, where opportunity is assured by repairing a dysfunctional Health Care system and full-term (to tertiary level) educational scholarships for all of America's youth? His policy platform does not go nearly far enough in either of these directions.

Without scholarships, where would BO be today?

[Betsy L. Angert]

Dearest Mark . . .

I thank you for this. It was all very interesting to me. I have never been to Oregon and have long been curious. The roof cam is very cool.

My move to Florida has impinged upon my ability to see candidates in person. Fortunately, I did see potential President Obama at the Yearly Kos Convention in Chicago. At the time, I thought to go to the Obama breakout session. In retrospect, sadly, I chose to attend another candidate's talk.

I am grateful for the transcript. I wonder. Did you introduce yourself to the man who now has greater superdelegate support? Did you share your gratitude for his position on the gas tax holiday? Perhaps, you expressed appreciation for his show of reverence towards Economists, or economic theories as they relate to the subject of short-term fuel festivities. Smiles.

Betsy L. Angert
BeThink.org

[Betsy L. Angert]

Dear Lafayette . . .

I too object to Barack Obama's Health Care Plan. I offer these reflections . . .
Health Care in America; Uninsured, Underinsured, Universal Woes
Clinton and Obama Offer Universal Health Care Plans; No Insurance

Still, I have hope. Perhaps, if Barack Obama is President the people have a chance.

You may have read, A New Hope. By Jann S. Wenner. Rolling Stone. March 20, 2008

Barack Obama is a community organizer. If you investigate how his campaign works you will discover the people are the power. He speaks of this often, and while words are nice, in action, this is what occurs within the Obama for President community. I was surprised to realize this. I have worked actively to get out the vote throughout my life. This alliance differs from others.

The idea that we, the people do the work, is indeed a novel concept, although I believe our forefathers intended this to be.

Hillary Clinton reminds us she wants to lead the country. You may recall the reference to Lyndon Baines Johnson. "Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when he was able to get through Congress something that President Kennedy was hopeful to do, the president before had not even tried, but it took a president to get it done."

I am sorry. I disagree with Senator Clinton's contention. Had the people not gone out into the street in droves, nothing would have occurred.

I personally prefer to live in a nation where we, the people are the government. Laws are enacted by, of, and for the people. The Clinton Choice Plan is a poor example of Universal Health Care. It does not cover all! The fine print fascinates me. At least Senator Obama admits his plan is incomplete. I welcome the honesty.

I could say more; however, I must get some sleep. For now, rest is among the best health care policies.

Betsy L. Angert
BeThink.org

[Lafayette]

The dead have no salaries

BA: Barack Obama is a community organizer.

I'll grant you that. I wouldn't know, I couldn't know. I'll take an honest person's word on the matter.

In this forum, I have been asking about birthrights. For a kid who came a long way on scholarships, because he was evidently bright and capable, he should understand how very important a decent education can be to everyone -- regardless of whether they can find a scholarship or not. And, most cannot. Why should an education cost so much such that it is a barrier?

As for Health Care, I'll trade you references; here below is a book review regarding the Health Care mess that is far more important than the Sub-prime mess, presently getting all the useless attention.

People are in a turmoil over their jobs -- but what does life matter if it is made precarious by an inadequate and costly Health Care system? The dead have no salaries.

Health care: No place to be sick

May 8th 2008
From The Economist print edition

"Hospital: Man, Woman, Birth, Death, Infinity, Plus Red Tape, Ban Behavior, Money, God and Diversity on Steroids", Julie Solomon, Penguin Press

A PLETHORA of current television programmes attests to a widespread fascination with those who work in hospitals and those they heal, or try to. Julie Salamon's year in the life of Maimonides Medical Centre in Brooklyn has a cast less beautiful than that of “Grey's Anatomy”, less witty than that of “Scrubs” and less foul-mouthed than that of “No Angels”. But with its careful documentation of financial crises, feuds, personality clashes and, most of all, life-and-death drama, it feeds the same appetite for pathos, intrigue, tragedy and redemption.

A surprising amount of what Ms Salamon has to tell of her year of untrammelled access to staff and patients has little to do with healing the sick. She attends lectures on the role of spirituality in medical care. She learns about the hospital's new “Code of Mutual Respect”—an attempt to get consultants to stop swearing and throwing things at nurses and junior doctors. And, again and again, she witnesses the effects of “diversity on steroids”, as she terms the bewildering variety of people treated by a hospital founded to serve Orthodox Jews and now dealing with patients from a huge variety of ethnic and religious groups, while still struggling mightily to satisfy its main intended beneficiaries. Some staff tell her they are sick of multiculturalism and ethnic competences (“all just crap”). Others, less jaded, offer kooky observations: Chinese women come into the labour wards just before midnight (as restaurants close), Pakistanis in the small hours (as taxi-drivers come off shift) and Hasidic Jews at 10pm (no one knows why).

Not all of the cast of thousands are engrossing and the level of detail sometimes confuses more than it illustrates. But the fine grain of Ms Salamon's observations allows her to paint a compelling—and damning—portrait of a dysfunctional health-care system. She describes the chaotic emergency room, with patients waiting in holding patterns like aircraft at a busy airport, and the “frequent flyers”, as the staff call those they send away with prescriptions for medicines these patients cannot afford, knowing they will soon be back in a bad way once more.

She meets uninsured patients with seven-figure bills, destined never to be paid, who know that only if they stay do they retain the right to be treated. (The hospital can force them to leave only if they can do so on their own two feet.) And she meets some whose stay will be tragically brief, because lack of insurance has kept them away from doctors until it is too late. One such is a young mother from the Dominican Republic without papers but with cancer that is already terminal before she seeks medical help. She dies so quickly that there is little the hospital's staff can do other than help her relatives arrange care for her three small children.

Those in the rich world who do not die in hospital will surely see someone they love do so, and the sight, Ms Salamon shows all too clearly, will be hard to bear. “Too often they died feeling abandoned and alone, shielded from fear by neither science nor God nor the reassurance of a doctor who seemed to care about them,” she says of the people whose ends she witnessed. She does meet some doctors who understand that, when the time comes, they should stop trying to fix the unfixable and “follow the patient down the vale of tears”—but far, far too few.

[Betsy L. Angert]

Dear Lafayette . . .

I have no argument with any of what you share in this last comment.

If you read Health Care in America; Uninsured, Underinsured, Universal Woes you know that as an adult, I have only had Health Care coverage for eighteen months of my life. In the essay referenced, I shared but one personal anecdote. There are many. Might I tell the tale of my time in the hospital after a very serious automobile accident?

Not only was I misdiagnosed and mistreated, the physician refused to attend to all areas of pain. He was concerned only with my heel. The doctor assured me, one leg would be shorter than the other. He prescribed I not move that leg at all for many months. Granted, another physician would validate that walking would not be possible for an extended period. However, so much of what I was told and not told was not true.

Fortunately, after another critical injury, years earlier my Mom told me "Do not listen to the doctors or anyone else. Listen to your body."

The nurses in the medical facility were no better than the surgeon, the orthopedic expert, the radiologist, the . . . the physical therapist was helpful for the few minutes I saw him. While in the hospital, no one noticed my broken sternum, or the four broken ribs.

This narrative is one of countless. This was singular incident in my life. The cost for my four-day stay was exorbitant. Thankfully, I did not have surgery! I could only imagine that expense.

Recently, my cousin, who is well insured, was taken to the hospital with bronchial pneumonia. She realized, as I had, and as my Mom warned. Most medical facilities are places where pills are pushed. Preventative medicine is rarely practiced in this country.

I feel very privileged. One of my closest friends is a retired nurse. Another is a medical doctor. Each is extremely cognizant of what occurs in hospitals. The physician, in large part, decided to close his practice with thanks to the system. From insurance plans to the quality of time spent with a patient, standards ensure that all is folly.

Years ago the physician friend helped me to understand, medical school is a technical college. Doctors are similar to car mechanics. In each field, diagnosis is most difficult. Not only can no one truly feel your pain. Physicians are people. The have their own aches and sorrows.

I do not believe a President or Congress will solve our problems. We the people must be engaged! I refer you to the comment I left on another article on this site, Pain Inequality and the Social Security Retirement Age. As long as we allow ourselves to be economic slaves . . .

This is our country, our community. . . if we accept that there will be poor and they will serve the wealthy, if we do not educate all equally . . . Hence, I am happy to support a community organizer.

While originally, I strongly supported Dennis Kucinich and his proposed Universal Single Payer, Not for Profit Health Care Plan, as one who does actively volunteer for the candidate of my choice, I realized Kucinich's ability to build an alliance that works for themselves, the country, and the cause was weak. As I said in my earlier statement, I do have firsthand experience with numerous campaigns and have for decades. Barack Obama has created a community that cares and acts on their beliefs. That alone is phenomenal to me.

Betsy L. Angert
BeThink.org

[Lafayette]

We've got to stop the rot

BA: Barack Obama has created a community that cares and acts on their beliefs. That alone is phenomenal to me.

I sincerely hope you are right. Otherwise, it will be another 8 years in purgatory for this nation.

I can only relate circumstances in French hospitals and though I know of instances where patients received bad health care, they are admittedly rare.

As I have opined in this forum, for at least a year, it is not for purposes of tweaking the nose of the American government that the World Health Organization found more than half of the top 15 in the global classification of Health Care systems were European -- and the US at 37th.

And, that the key element of those top HC-systems is to assure Health Care accessibility, that is, have GP visit fees as low as possible -- which is necessary to allow Preventive Care to foresee / prevent illness rather than Remedial Care trying to save a patient’s life. (An ounce of prevention … etc., etc., etc.)

Also, I have argued constantly for renewed Social Investment in education, both primary and secondary as well as tertiary, in order to give our citizens a chance to compete in an intensely more competitive world. This does NOT mean an array of scholarships for the fleetest or the brightest or the best, but free tuition for ALL who wish to master the skills, talents and knowledge that this millennium will exact of them in order to benefit from a decent living.

However, self-dependence is so ingrained a notion in the US, that it will certainly take all the talents of Mr. Obama to change mentalities. Even some he has hitherto not even known he needed or had.

We shall see ...

[swells]

Lafayette, While I also share your enthusiasm for education, it has been my experience that one can lead a horse to water but it is impossible to make that same horse drink unless that horse is thirsty.

Many, many children in this country simply do not see education as desirable. Usually, this is because their parents and peers do not see it as desirable.

I have personally seen areas where the educational system was purposefully set up to make students smart enough to be worker drones for the loacl factories but not smart enough to actually think for themselves.

The problem in the educational system in the US is that we have an essentially predatory system. Therefore, the educational system is set up to generate a certain population of prey animals.

I don't think education can change much until people change on a more fundamental basis.

[Betsy L. Angert]

Dear Lafayette . . .

However, self-dependence is so ingrained a notion in the US, that it will certainly take all the talents of Mr. Obama to change mentalities. Even some he has hitherto not even known he needed or had.

You will get no argument from me. I offer my sense of America and where we stand on the world stage. America, World Superpower?

As an educator, I understand what occurs in American schools is for the most part counter to critical thinking, creativity, innovation, and imagination. As one who believes in intrinsic motivation, I am often frustrated with a system that focuses on competition and self-reliance.

As I look around, I realize none of us is alone. I cherish the words of Thomas Paine in Common Sense. . . . .

In order to gain a clear and just idea of the design and end of government, let us suppose a small number of persons settled in some sequestered part of the earth, unconnected with the rest; they will then represent the first peopling of any country, or of the world. In this state of natural liberty, society will be their first thought. A thousand motives will excite them thereto; the strength of one man is so unequal to his wants, and his mind so unfitted for perpetual solitude, that he is soon obliged to seek assistance and relief of another, who in his turn requires the same.

Four or five united would be able to raise a tolerable dwelling in the midst of a wilderness, but one man might labor out the common period of life without accomplishing any thing; when he had felled his timber he could not remove it, nor erect it after it was removed; hunger in the mean time would urge him to quit his work, and every different want would call him a different way. Disease, nay even misfortune, would be death; for though neither might be mortal, yet either would disable him from living, and reduce him to a state in which he might rather be said to perish than to die.

I subscribe to . .

"All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

I invite your review and reflections . . . .
Congress and Bush Clash; Children's Health and the Commonwealth

Barack Obama I think can do nothing other than what we allow him to do; no President can. I have concluded we must choose a President who is a peaceful person if we what peace. "Solutions" are statements. How a person lives their lives speak volumes or so I believe. A Commander-In-Chief can propose, inspire, and hope that we, the people will act. Sadly, for too long Americans act as though they, the common folk have no authority. No many think of government as a separate superior force. If citizens decide apathy is the chosen path, then the President has absolute power.

Betsy L. Angert
BeThink.org