Scavenger Hunt3 – Newspaper from the Flckr photostream of LuluP

In January of 2002, one of the A2 columnists ended his column and I faced a hole to fill with very little notice. I decided that the fastest solution was to fill it myself, so that evening I wrote a column and submitted it to editor Mark Derry; thus, my stint as a regular newspaper columnist began.

Take 2 consisted of personal, non-political commentary. My first columns focused on non-controversial topics ranging from the anniversary of my daughter’s leukemia diagnosis (the subject of my first column), to travel travails and DIY dilemmas, for example.

The number of printed issues per week isn’t the only change that’s occurred at the local newspapers over the last 11 years. In 2002, classified ads were still a big part of the newspaper business model. The classified ad reps sat not far from the Dispatch newsroom, and I could hear them on the phone with customers, quoting prices and confirming ad copy. Craig’s List had not yet decimated newspapers’ classified ad revenue.

Another big difference: Early in the 21st century, the local newspapers did not have web sites or online comments sections. All content was printed on paper, none on pixels.

After a little more than a year of writing for Take 2, Derry moved my column to the opinion page. That change meant that my column shifted to a more political focus, or as I wrote at the time, “fewer tree-toppling kittens, more weighty issues.” Looking back, I’d amend that description of the opinion page issues to “more hate mail-generating topics.”

Because the newspaper did not have an online presence, reader responses took the form of email messages, snail mail letters, phone calls and in-person discussions. Generally, those methods of expressing one’s opinion do not allow for anonymity. Anyone who wanted share his opinion more broadly had to submit a letter to the editor, which, if it was coherent enough to be published, was printed with the author’s name and city.

Today, most folks who disagree with me share their thoughts in the newspapers’ online comments section, which offers anonymity, or at least the illusion of it. Meanwhile, the columns to which these online commenters are reacting bear my name, email address and photo. Online critics are not required to subject themselves to even one of those levels of accountability.

I realized the implications of this inequity very quickly after the debut of the newspaper’s online comments feature. That’s why I rarely read online comments, and when I make infrequent exceptions, I give anonymous comments the same amount of credibility as the commenters’ level of accountability, that is to say, almost none. (This policy extends to all web sites with anonymous comments, not just to comments about my columns.)

A sense of anonymity frees some people to post stunningly vile comments that they would never express if they had to say them face to face or using another method that imposes the accountability that attaching one’s identity to one’s words brings. Combined with the increasing disregard for facts that’s so prevalent in what passes for political “debate” today (the subject of my penultimate column), you’ve got a toxic brew that’s poisoning our democracy and our communities. When we ignore facts, we cannot think critically. When the illusion of anonymity leads us to disregard the humanity of those with whom we disagree, we squelch debate.

During the nearly 11 years that I’ve been writing columns, I’ve worked hard to use the platform to champion critical thinking, reason and logic; to promote tolerance and equality; and to advocate for policies and actions that would improve South County. It’s been my great privilege and pleasure. But now it’s my turn to end a column.

The decision to end my column is largely driven by personal factors that make it difficult to find the time to research prospective column topics and come up with 750 relevant words of wisdom. However, the trend toward fact-free, venom-filled, accountability-deficient “debates” is also a factor. At one time, the debate invigorated me; increasingly, it worries me. I suspect it’s time for a fresh critical-thinking, reality-based writer to take my regular spot on the opinion page.

One thing that writing opinion columns and serving on editorial boards for nearly a decade has taught me is the importance of agreeing on a common set of facts. I’ve learned that it’s the key to taking the venom out of political debates. The failure of so many to grasp the universe as it really is, to borrow Sagan’s phrase, is the reason that our political disagreements are so intractable.

If both sides of a debate stipulate the facts that are relevant to an issue, but still disagree on the best course of action, the disagreement is due to differing priorities. Acknowledging this makes understanding the other side’s position much easier, thus reducing the likelihood of demonizing the opposition.

In 2007, the California Supreme Court ruled that public employee salaries are public information. As you might expect, the editorial board of the newspaper lauded that decision. A public employee I know was disconcerted by the praise and we met to discuss it over lunch. No epithets were hurled, no food was thrown, no voices were raised. Why? Because we agreed on the basic relevant facts. However, we had different priorities: My top priority was government transparency; the public employee’s top priority was personal privacy. In this clash of priorities, the California Supreme Court determined that government transparency was the most important.

But in so many of our current debates, we can’t even agree on the facts. Some examples:

Affordable Care Act: This law, often called ObamaCare, doesn’t have any provisions to create anything remotely like “death panels,” yet 41 percent of respondents to a recent Associated Press-GfK poll believe it does.

Global climate change: The idea that “climate change is almost certainly being caused by human activities” is supported by “more than 95% of scientists working in the disciplines contributing to studies of our climate,” according to SkeptiScience. In addition, “There are no national or major scientific institutions anywhere in the world that dispute the theory of anthropogenic climate change. Not one.”

The science is so overwhelming that Prof. Richard A. Muller, once a prominent climate change skeptic, recently changed his mind after conducting a Koch-funded study on the subject. The LA Times noted that “the Charles Koch Charitable Foundation, … along with its libertarian petrochemical billionaire founder Charles G. Koch, has a considerable history of backing groups that deny climate change.”

Yet, only 67 percent of Americans accept that climate change is a real phenomenon, The Hill reports.

Abstinence-only sex education: Despite their backers’ claims to the contrary, studies show that abstinence-only sex education programs do not increase rates of teen abstinence, and that abstinence-until-marriage programs reduce the use of contraception and increase rates of anal and oral sexual activity among teens who take pledges to remain virgins until marriage, according to studies reviewed by the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States. Yet, over the last 25 years, the federal government has spent more than $1.5 billion on abstinence-only sex ed programs, SIECUS reports.

Death penalty. The death penalty is vastly more expensive than life in prison without parole. The LA Times reported on studies that show those increase costs are due to higher trial expenses, appeals costs, increased death row security measures, among others. Yet, it’s not uncommon for Proposition 34 opponents to deny these numbers.

I could go on and on, citing topics as diverse as evolution, the efficacy of trickle-down economics, President Obama’s birthplace and religion, the history of this country’s founding, to name just a few.

It’s gotten so bad that pop culture is acknowledging the problem. Superman’s alter ego, Clark Kent, quit his journalism job at The Daily Planet with these words: “Facts have been replaced by opinions. Information has been replaced by entertainment.”

I worry about our political climate in which facts are increasingly irrelevant and in which ignorance is tolerated and sometimes celebrated. It’s in our best interest to grasp reality, as Sagan suggested, even when it doesn’t line up with our ideology or theology. I hope that we can learn from the Dalai Lama, who wrote in The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality, “If scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims.”

Anti-Obama display on Foothill Avenue

No sooner did South County finally get out of the news as a hotbed of bigotry — after the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors’ approval of a much-protested proposal for a Muslim worship center in San Martin moved that story out of the spotlight — than we landed right back in the same predicament, thanks to Blake Lebeck.

Lebeck decorated the yard of his home on Foothill Avenue in unincorporated Santa Clara County near Morgan Hill with a display that includes a noose, watermelon, and an effigy of President Barack Obama.

Incredibly, Lebeck denied that he’s racist, according to reporter Michael Moore’s story. Instead, Lebeck claimed, “I’m trying to get a response.”

Here’s my response: Mr. Lebeck, I think that you’re full of B.S. Or, to borrow a phrase from Vice President Joe Biden, malarkey. Because your display criticizing this nation’s first African-American president includes watermelon and a noose, your denial doesn’t pass a laugh test.

Ignorance does not excuse Lebeck’s inclusion of watermelon in his display. As Keith Woods, dean of faculty at the Poynter Institute, wrote in 2003, “There’s no reason today, with information just a mouse-click away, why anyone should tromp blindly into the briar patch of racial stigma.” Especially when the symbol is centuries old and deeply offensive, as Woods described: “Since the earliest days of plantation slavery, the caricature of the dark-skinned black child, his too-red lips stretched to grotesque extremes as they opened to chomp down on watermelon, was a staple of racism’s diet. Over time, the watermelon became a symbol of the broader denigration of black people. It became part of the image perpetuated by a white culture bent upon bolstering the myth of superiority by depicting the inferior race as lazy, simple-minded pickaninnies interested only in such mindless pleasures as a slice of sweet watermelon.”

But watermelon is not the most disturbing symbol in Lebeck’s display; that distinction goes to the noose. Jeannine Bell of the Indiana University Maurer School of Law summarized the noose’s racist history in her 2010 paper, The Hangman’s Noose And The Lynch Mob: Hate Speech And The Jena Six. She wrote, “The hangman’s noose has historical roots in the practice of lynching. … Records show that 4,743 people were lynched between 1882, the year of the earliest recorded lynching, and 1968. Most of these victims—over 70%—were Black. … The noose became indelibly linked to the image of Klan terror.”

Lebeck’s display does not connect the noose or watermelon to any of Obama’s policies. The only plausible explanation that I can find for Lebeck’s decision to include them in his display is as disparaging references to Obama’s race.

But racism is not the only form of ignorance in Lebeck’s display; it also includes a fake teleprompter that instructs Obama to go back to Kenya.

I’m always stumped by the extreme right wing’s fondness for Obama teleprompter criticism. As Robert Schlesinger wrote in US News & World Report, “Teleprompters are tools. Sure they’re high tech if you’ve just emerged from the 1950s (which might explain the GOP’s fascination with them), but ultimately they’re just a medium for prepared remarks, substantively no different from a sheet of paper on a lectern. … Teleprompters are tools that every president since Dwight Eisenhower has used.” Today, most politicians — including Republicans like Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, and many others — often use teleprompters when giving speeches. Does Lebeck, who has a Mitt Romney sign in his yard, criticize the GOP nominee for using teleprompters?

Mitt Romney using a teleprompter

Then there’s Lebeck’s birtherism. The idea that Obama was not born in America is a completely debunked conspiracy theory that seems to have strong appeal to fearful Americans.

As Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman wrote after Obama released his long-form birth certificate, “There has never been a shred of persuasive evidence that Obama was born anywhere but Hawaii. But thanks to rampant paranoia and widespread credulity, the myth of his foreign origins gained currency among many people who should know better. … It’s a thunderous testament to how far people will go in deluding themselves.”

In the end, Lebeck’s display is instructive, but not in the way that he likely intended. It reminds me that racism is a toxic brew of ignorance that is fermented with hatred and fear. That’s the only useful information that passersby can glean from Lebeck’s shameful display.

Obama 2008 Presidential Campaign from the Flickr photostream of Barack Obama

When Obama took office four years ago, the economy was in the midst of the worst recession in 75 years and was dangerously close to a full-blown depression.

When Obama took office, the country had experienced 13 straight months of job losses. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was at 8,000, having lost more than a third of its value.

When Obama took office, we were involved in two wars and Osama bin Laden was alive and plotting.

Today, the economy is recovering. For example, we’ve had 30 straight months of job growth.

Think how much better the economy would be, however, if Republicans in Congress hadn’t blocked bills like the American Jobs Act and the Bring Jobs Home Act. An analysis of the fully paid-for AJA by Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi concluded that it would have “increased real GDP growth in 2012 by two percentage points, added 1.9 million jobs, and reduced the unemployment rate by one percentage point.”

Today, the Dow just set a five-year high by closing at 13,610. That’s thanks, in large part, to Obama’s economic stimulus efforts that most Republicans opposed and that, despite the facts, they label a failure. What’s more, at the time that the stimulus was enacted, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman warned that it was too small. Think how much more robust our economic recovery would be if Republican opposition hadn’t prevented a larger stimulus package.

Today, we are no longer fighting in Iraq and we have an exit plan for Afghanistan. Moreover, Osama bin Laden is dead because Obama approved a gutsy, risky raid. bin Laden survived as long as he after the Sept. 11 terror attacks because then-President George Bush diverted resources and attention from Afghanistan to Iraq. Bush said in 2002, “I don’t know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don’t care. It’s not that important. It’s not our priority.” GOP nominee Mitt Romney agreed, saying of bin Laden in 2007, “It’s not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person.” Like almost every other position Romney has taken (abortion, gay rights, his own tax plan, his own health care reform plan), he’s tried to shake the Etch-a-sketch on this one, too. Which Romney should you believe?

Beyond beginning the hard work of cleaning up the eight-years-in-the-making economic and foreign policy disasters that Bush and his Republican congressional cronies left behind, Obama has made significant progress in other areas; here are just a few:

• Repealed Don’t Ask Don’t Tell
• Signed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act
• Passed health care reform
• Reformed student loan program
• Removed Bush’s restrictions on federal spending on stem cell research

In late 2008, the American automobile industry, which supports 13 million jobs in the US, according to ABC News, was on the brink of failure, unable to get loans after the 2008 Wall Street meltdown.

Many Republicans, including Romney, opposed the plan to assist the auto industry. Romney wrote an op-ed for the New York Times entitled, “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.” The first line of Romney’s op-ed? “If General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye.”

Today, the American auto industry is thriving. Then-President-elect Obama supported rescuing the American auto industry. When he took office, Obama expanded the auto loan program that the Bush Administration started. Obama’s expansion plan required “equity stakes and agreements for massive restructuring.”

What if we had listened to Romney? The AP reported expert predictions of a “catastrophic chain reaction in the economy, eliminating up to 3 million jobs and depriving governments of more than $150 billion in tax revenue” if the American auto industry failed. Instead, it’s booming, demonstrating the foolishness of Romney’s position.

Obama has done a great job, despite inheriting an unprecedented mess and facing an obstructionist opposition party in Congress that prioritized political points over the good of this country. He has earned another term.

Please join me in voting to re-elect President Barack Obama.

San Quentin from the Flickr photostream of terriem

Two high-profile law-and-order propositions are on the November general election ballot. Those of us who lean left of center have lots of reasons to vote yes on Proposition 34, which would end California’s death penalty and replace it with life in prison without parole, and Proposition 36, which would amend California’s three-strikes law.

But you should find a cost-benefit analysis persuasive no matter where you land on the political spectrum. We simply cannot afford the current systems, which are outrageously expensive, and which do not work as intended.

If voters approve Prop 36, life sentences would be imposed on third strike offenders only if the third strike was serious or violent. It would also allow judges to resentence current inmates whose third strikes resulted in life sentences for non-violent offenses.

Currently, any new third-strike felony can result in a life sentence. Want an example? Bernice Cubie, 59, is serving a life-sentence after a third-strike felony conviction for possessing $10 worth of drugs. As Yes on 36 advocates note, “Murderers and rapists receive shorter prison sentences.”

Perhaps stories of injustice don’t pluck your heart strings. If that’s the case, let’s take a look at some cold, hard numbers. The non-partisan California Legislative Analyst’s Office says that passing Prop 36 would result in “ongoing state correctional savings of around $70 million annually, with even greater savings (up to $90 million) over the next couple of decades. These savings could vary significantly depending on future state actions.”

California’s three strikes law has been in place since 1994 and is credited, at least by some, with reducing crime in the Golden State. (Opinions differ.) Prop 36 would not repeal it. Instead, Prop 36 would tweak California’s three strikes law so that people like Bernice Cubie — who were never intended to targeted by the law — don’t become expensive lifetime incarceration burdens on the taxpayers of California.

The case is even more compelling for Prop 34, because the death penalty is even more expensive and it’s completely ineffective in deterring crime.

Prop 34 asks, “Should the death penalty be repealed and replaced with life imprisonment without possibility of parole when someone is convicted of murder with specified special circumstances?” It would apply to the 725 current death row inmates in California, replacing their death sentences with life sentences without the possibility of parole.

There are plenty of compelling ethical arguments against the death penalty. Those arguments highlight the finality of the death penalty and include debates about the immorality of the sentence and point out that it is unfairly and inconsistently applied.

However, let’s look at the cost and the ineffectiveness of death sentences. The LAO estimates that passing Prop 34 would result in “ongoing state and county criminal justice savings of about $130 million annually within a few years, which could vary by tens of millions of dollars.”

CBS News reports that California spends $184 million a year to maintain its death penalty system. What’s more, we’re spending that money for a system that doesn’t prevent crime. The Death Penalty Information Center notes, “The murder rate in states that do not have the death penalty is consistently lower than in states with the death penalty. The South, which carries out over 80 percent of the executions in the U.S., has the highest murder rate of the four regions.”

The death penalty is obscenely expensive and stunningly ineffective. It doesn’t pass even the most basic cost-benefit scrutiny. When you throw in the moral arguments against the death penalty, the case for abolishing it is overwhelming.

If Californians pass Prop 34 and Prop 36 on Nov. 6, we’ll not only do the right thing from a moral point of view, we’ll also do the right thing according to cost-benefit analyses. We can save $220 million a year with these two measures. That’s $220 million per year that could be spent on increasing public safety resources, repairing our crumbling infrastructure, or educating California’s children.

Please join me in voting Yes on Prop 34 and Prop 36.

Prop 32 asks, “Should unions, corporations, government contractors and state and local government employers be prohibited from using payroll-deducted funds, or in some instances their own funds, for political expenditures?”

Sounds like a fair idea at first blush, doesn’t it? But think about it: Other than unions, what group uses revenue from payroll deductions for political donations? As the League of Women Voters said, “few, if any.” Under Prop 32, unions, whose major source of income is payroll deductions of membership dues, would have new restrictions on political spending of the vast majority of their funds, while other groups, which have many other sources of revenue, would have no political spending restrictions on the vast majority — or any — of their funds.

By restricting political spending based on the revenue source, Prop 32 effectively restricts unions and almost no other groups. That’s simply unfair.

Moreover, in the post-Citizens United era in which we live, which declares that money equals speech, Prop 32 looks an awful lot like an unconstitutional restriction on unions’ free speech.

It’s popular to label unions “special interests,” a pejorative that’s applied to unions almost exclusively but applies to any group, corporations included. If passed, Prop 32 will squelch the speech of unions but not other special interests groups, such as corporations.

I’m not a union member. What’s more, I often advocate for public employee pension and benefit reform and public employee compensation transparency, positions that hardly endear me to labor unions. But this is matter of basic fairness.

Prop 32’s unfairness reminds me of the unfairness in our tax code that allows GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney to pay about 13 percent in federal income taxes (that we know of — who knows what lower rates would be revealed if he released a reasonable number of years of returns, as his own father did and every other presidential candidate of the modern era does) on his income, while working people pay much higher rates. He can do that without spending time in federal prison because the tax code has a loophole, the carried interest exemption, that treats his income differently than it treats earned income.

Similarly, Prop 32 unfairly treats revenue from payroll deductions more stringently than it treats other kinds of revenue.

Moreover, Prop 32 exempts super PACS (many run by large corporate interests) and independent expenditure committees from its restrictions. It also does not apply to spending on candidates for President, the US Senate, or the US House of Representatives.

If you don’t like unions, that’s your right. Unions aren’t perfect, but neither is any other human enterprise, including the corporations of the private sector. But if you dislike unions and value justice, Prop 32 is not the answer. If you support Prop 32 while claiming that you’re being fair and impartial, as many of Prop 32’s backers are doing, you’ve wandered into Orwellian territory.

Prop 32’s deceptiveness reminds me of the GOP’s efforts to impose voter ID requirements; those are done under the guise of protecting the vote. They’re pretending to fix a problem that doesn’t exist (a report found 10 — 10! — cases of in-person voter fraud in the US since 2000) as cover for their efforts to prevent likely Democrats from voting. Those 10 cases are the justification they’re using to disenfranchise millions of voters, most of whom are not Republicans. As a Pennsylvania state Sen. Daylin Leach succinctly put it, “If you have to stop people voting to win elections, your ideas suck.”

Similarly, if you have to impose lopsided rules to stop one side from winning political debates, take a good hard look at your ideas and your methods of communicating them. It’s likely that one or other, or both, to borrow Leach’s phrase, suck.

The answer to speech you don’t like is more speech, not silencing one side while allowing the other side to hog the microphone.

Let’s not game our system, codify unfairness, and hurt our democracy. Join me, the League of Women Voters, Public Citizen, the California Tax Reform Association, and many others in voting no on the deceptive, disingenuous, unfair, Orwellian Prop 32.

Tolerance is such a simple idea, but one that’s incredibly difficult for some people to grasp, as evidenced by the bigoted opposition to the construction of a mosque in San Martin. With opponents appealing the Santa Clara County Planning Commission’s recent approval of the mosque proposal, we’ll have more opportunities to witness intolerance rooted in bigotry.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines a bigot as “A person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance.

I’m not saying that all opposition to the mosque is bigoted. In most cases, I can only take opponents’ word if they claim that they’d be citing similar concerns about traffic, noise, local-serving uses or groundwater contamination if a worship center and cemetery proposal came from a Catholic, Protestant Christian, Jewish, or Mormon group as they’re raising about this proposal from Muslims.

However, much of the opposition to the San Martin mosque proposal has included statements like these:

• “This is a Christian country. This is an American valley. I’m just suspicious that they’re sneaking in to contaminate our country.” ~ Diane Dawson, Morgan Hill, 2012

• “What will it take to wake Americans up to the threat of Islam? How many more concessions will we make in the name of liberal political correctness?” ~ Dawson, 2007

• “… The representatives of the so-called “religion of peace” want to add insult to injury and build a mosque in our idyllic community. … Maybe you [Muslims] should return from where you came from. Maybe it’s time for another Crusades.” ~ Jim Becker, San Martin
  

• “Every other religion in a country with an Islamic majority in power is repressed. You have to draw the line somewhere.”  ~ James Fennell, Gilroy

• “It is naïve to think that [Muslims] have no ulterior motive for establishing themselves in the U.S.” ~ Nancy Murphy, San Martin

• “I do not wish for me and my family to be converted to Islam, nor do I wish for us to be slain.” ~ Scott Thompson, San Martin

• “Having a mosque in South County is a bad idea. … You wouldn’t give your house keys to a burglar or your gun to a murderer. Why then would you give a foothold in our community to a group that wants to destroy our way of life?” ~ Andrew Serrano, Morgan Hill

Besides being bigoted, religious intolerance is also un-American. Merriam-Webster defines un-American as “not characteristic of or consistent with American customs, principles, or traditions.” This country was founded by courageous individuals who fled religious persecution in their homelands. Religious tolerance is written into America’s founding documents.

The First Amendment states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The United States Supreme Court, in numerous cases, has judged this to mean that religion and government should be separate, a key American concept commonly called the separation of church and state.

Moreover, the Fourteenth Amendment contains the equal protection clause that requires that all people are treated the same under the law. It does not include an asterisk followed by the words “except Muslims.”

Having embarrassing, ignorant allies is painful. Just ask all the folks in the Republican Party who agree with Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO)’s position on abortion — ban all abortions, even for victims of rape or incest — but rushed to denounce his ignorant, offensive claim that women tend to not conceive as a result of “legitimate” rapes.

As a South County resident who cherishes American values like tolerance, diversity, and religious freedom, I cringe every time I learn about a South County neighbor’s bigoted, un-American comment opposing the mosque.

Here’s the bottom line: The worship center proposal should be held to the same standards that would be applied to any other proposal from that site; the religion of the people making the proposal is utterly irrelevant. If you believe that the religion to be practiced at the proposed worship center is relevant, I strongly suggest that you look up the definition of bigotry and study this country’s founding principles

“Ultimately, America’s answer to the intolerant man is diversity, the very diversity which our heritage of religious freedom has inspired.” ~ Senator Robert F. Kennedy

Obama vs. Romney 2012 from the Flickr photostream of DonkeyHotey

As an American politics junkie, the next few months are my Super Bowl, World Series, World Cup, and Stanley Cup all rolled into one. Sports fans chat about how their favorite teams are faring. Social media addicts talk (and tweet) incessantly about techniques for using the latest tool. Grandparents share photos and stories about their grandkids at the drop of the hat. Chefs share recipes. Gardeners swap tips and seeds. Me? I talk politics. While I’ve got lots of interests, once every four years, the closer we get to the US presidential election, the narrower my focus becomes.

And I think that’s a good thing. It’s hard to find a more important topic in general than politics, and it’s hard to find a more important race — to the entire world, not just Americans — than the competition to become the President of the United States.

The person we choose to serve as president represents this nation to the rest of the world. The person we choose makes and strongly influences life-and-death decisions for Americans, especially those serving in the military, but also for people in other parts of the world. (Ask the residents of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, for just a few examples.)

The person we choose selects Supreme Court justices who serve life terms on the nation’s highest court. Wonder about how important who we elect in November might be just in the realm of affecting the Supreme Court for decades to come? Note that four of the nine current justices are over 70 years of age. Three of those justices will turn 80 during the next president’s term; one will turn 79.

Those are just a few of the reasons that the US presidential election is worthy of our time and attention. But it’s not the only race that matters. Who you send to the Senate and the House of Representatives has a great deal of influence on any president’s effectiveness.

But your local races also deserve your time and attention. In good fiscal times, your city council members decide which projects to fund — the library or the sports facility; your school board members decide which electives to implement — more foreign languages or vocational education. In bad fiscal times, they decide what programs, projects and facilities to cut.

Yes, I talk and write about politics a lot. And I’ve sometimes been asked (usually by someone with a lot of doubt underpinning the question) whether I’ve ever changed anyone’s mind. The answer is yes. I know this because people have told me so. And that’s very gratifying, even if it is relatively rare. For example, polls show that between 3 and 8 percent of voters are undecided between President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in the presidential race. But writing about politics, even in this polarized political environment, has value, I believe.

That question about changing people’s minds is often posed in context of disapproving of so-called negative campaigning. Negative ads – those that point out the shortcomings of your opponent – are an important part of educating undecided voters. Of course, negative ads need to be balanced with positive ads – those pointing out your own strengths — but I’m not one of those folks who bemoans negative advertising as a category.

As long as negative ads are factual and relevant, I’m fine with them. Unfortunately, we know that’s often not the case. I could cite example after shameful example from history and the current race. But that doesn’t mean that negative ads are bad; it means that lying is bad.

Preaching to the choir — both by singing the praises of your candidate or party and highlighting the weaknesses of your political opponents — boosts morale and helps to ensure that your political allies make it to the polls. And because I know that I’ve changed at least a few people’s minds over the years, I know that it also gets people thinking about important issues. So even if I haven’t changed someone’s mind (yet), there’s benefit in getting them to think critically about the candidates they support and they positions they endorse.

In politics, like most things, as long as we’re talking honestly about relevant facts, the more we talk, the better.

• Just before the Olympics began, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney traveled to London to show off his diplomatic and foreign relations skills — or not. As Romney headed across the pond, an anonymous Romney advisor dog-whistled to racists that President Barack Obama doesn’t appreciate the UK and US’s shared “Anglo-Saxon heritage.” That’s not all: Romney also managed to insult his British hosts by doubting their readiness to host the games and willingness to embrace them. Romney then broke protocol by talking about his meeting with the head of MI6. These are just a few the gaffes that caused the British press to dub Romney “Mitt the Twit” and to judge him “worse than [Sarah] Palin.”

The Sun, Friday, July 27, 2012

Romney’s foibles inspired Brits to coin a new term for his performance, “RomneyShambles.” It’s a play on the slang term “omnishambles” that’s largely unknown in the US because it comes from a British sitcom. “Omnishambles” means “a complete screw-up in all areas,” according to Macmillan Dictionary. RomneyShambles provided me — and many folks who’ve been distressed by the stunningly dishonest campaign that Romney’s been running — with a heck of a lot of schadenfreude.

Twitter exploded with the RomneyShambles hashtag, providing yet another competition. Following are the tweets about Romney’s gaffes that I’d like to award bronze, silver, and gold medals, if I could. For the bronze, @brx0 tweeted, “Next up: Driving around London with the queen’s corgis on the roof.” For the silver, Danielle Blake (@DCPlod) tweeted, “Romney retroactively cancels visit to London.” For the gold, the Guardian’s Paul Harris (@paulxharris) tweeted, “Good old Mitt. His charm offensive in the UK failed to be charming, but he really pulled off the offensive bit.”

• The opening ceremony, which was created by Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle, was entirely different than the spectacular show produced by the Chinese to open the 2008 Summer Olympics. I loved that the Brits prize their system of socialized medicine, the National Heath Service, so much that they included a substantial tribute to it in the opening ceremony.

Romney was in attendance at the opening ceremony. He has flip-flopped on health care reform so much (like he has on many other issues, ranging from abortion to immigration to gun control to gay rights) that he is now promising to repeal the Affordable Care Act that is modeled after his own signature achievement as Massachusetts governor. His presence and flip-flop history meant that the opening ceremony tribute to actual socialized medicine generated more schadenfreude for me.

• The first 2012 Olympic competition I watched was Saturday morning’s men’s road race. I noticed lots of bikes made by Morgan Hill-based Specialized Bicycle Components. I did a little online research during the race, and learned that from Twitter user @RaceRadio that all of the Specialized bikes in the Olympics are a distinctive red-orange color. Knowing that made it easy to pick out the Specialized riders from the peloton. When two men’s road race competitors broke away from the pack toward the end of the race, I knew who to root for: the guy on the Specialized bike. And, lo and behold, Kazakhstan’s Alexander Vinokourov won the gold medal on his Specialized bike.

Alexandre Vinokourov moves clear of the peloton from the Flickr photostream of Sum_of_Marc

When I watched the women’s road race on Sunday morning, I watched for the Specialized bikes. While none of the medalists was riding one the bikes with the South County connection, it was great having the information as I watched the coverage.

I wonder why Specialized didn’t do more to inform potential customers here in South County, around the country, and around the world about their Olympic connection. I get lots of press releases from people and organizations with thin or non-existent South County connections, but I haven’t seen anything from Specialized about their easy-to-spot bicycles in the Olympics.  During the women’s road race, I rooted around Specialized’s Twitter feed, Facebook page, and web site and didn’t find any information, even after Vinokourov’s gold medal performance atop a Specialized bike. Seems like lots of missed opportunities — before and during the Olympics — to me.

As I write, the London Olympics are only a few days old. I’m looking forward to the surprises, schadenfreude, spectacles, social media storms and snafus, the search-engine optimization opportunities, and, oh yes, the sports competitions that the remaining weeks provide.

Have you ever heard about a city council or school board decision and wondered, “What were they thinking?!”

Why not try to find out for yourself? Run for office. Opportunities to serve in an elected office abound right here in South County, and the time to throw your hat into the ring is right now.

In Morgan Hill, the Morgan Hill Unified School District board has seven seats; the seats currently held by Peter Mandel, Kathy Sullivan, and Bob Benevento will be on the Nov. 6, 2012 ballot. The Morgan Hill City Council has five seats; the council seats currently held by Larry Carr and Marilyn Librers will be on the November ballot. The mayor’s seat, currently held by Steve Tate, will also be on the ballot (the mayor serves two-year terms in Morgan Hill).

In Gilroy, the Gilroy Unified School District board has seven seats; the seats currently held by Rhoda Bress, Mark Good, Patricia Mitgaard, and Fred Tovar will be on the November ballot. The Gilroy City Council has seven seats; the council seats currently held by Cat Tucker, Perry Woodward, and Bob Dillon will be on the November ballot. The mayor’s seat, currently held by Al Pinheiro, will also be on the ballot.

The nomination period – the time frame during which you can pull, complete, and return papers to file to run for office – for the November elections opened yesterday. You have until Aug. 10 to return those papers. That’s extended to Aug. 15 if the incumbent for an office does not pull and return papers during the original nomination period.

In order to run, you must be at least 18 years old, a citizen of California and the United States, a registered voter, and a resident of the district for which you’re seeking office.

Why should you consider running for a school board or city council seat?

As former US Interior Secretary Franklin Knight Lane said, “A public office is not a job, it is an opportunity to do something for the public.”

Serving on your local school board or city council is a chance to improve and give back to your community. Moreover, if you’re thinking of a career in politics, service on local boards or councils is a great training ground for the art of compromise, for the intricacies of the legislative process, and a way to understand the needs of your community before you attempt to represent your neighbors in county, state, or federal elective office.

But those benefits assume that you win your race. I believe that you do your community an important service just by running for local elective office, whether you win or lose. That’s because when candidates run for office unopposed, they don’t have to debate issues, spend time with voters to learn what concerns them, be responsive to the local media, or make much of an effort at all to earn the privilege of representing their fellow community members.

But as soon as there’s more than one candidate running for an office, all of that changes. When a race is contested, suddenly candidates have to meet as many voters as possible, engage in public debates, answer reporters’ questions, work hard to understand what voters want in order to earn their trust and votes.

So, if you have the time, energy, interest, and skills to serve as a school board trustee, city council member, or mayor, please give serious consideration to pulling, completing, and filing nomination papers. Detailed information about running for elected office in Santa Clara County is available on the registrar’s web site. Click the Candidate & Measure Information link on the left, then choose November 6, 2012 Candidate & Measure Information from the menu.

Win or lose, you’ll help your community by ensuring that every race is competitive and that no candidate has a cakewalk to public office.

“Competition at the polls makes politicians more responsive to the citizens.” ~ Scott Bradshaw