Isaac Laquedem

On Key

In a flattering if foolish attempt at economy, a local educational institution (what we used to call a "school") has advertised me as its keynote speaker for its principal fundraising event, which is to take place in the near future (meaning before the next election). After giving two keynote speeches for other organizations in the 1980s, I had thought that I had done my duty as a keynote speaker, but apparently not.

Mrs. Laquedem, on whom I've inflicted the draft of the speech, has encouraged me to cut out half of it (10 minutes of 20), so if your organization should need a keynote speaker, I still have 10 unused minutes of fresh material available.

Simple Simon Says

The Laquedem household should be prime territory for George Bush's campaign this fall on both economic and policy grounds. The President wants to cut taxes for us and our friends in the Mausoleum Club, and he's a strong supporter of Israel, two causes near and dear to what passes for our heart. We're not sure what to make of his War on Terra, the Laquedems' ancestral planet, but he does make it sound like a good thing, even if we have to walk barefoot through the airport because of it. On these issues, if President Simon Says he's going to do something, we're generally willing to support him.

But we don't understand his current fixation on "nuance," which is apparently the stealth buzzword of his campaign. He wants the voters to believe that John Kerry is too nuanced to be president, at least that's what I think his campaign is spinning. Look at the Commentary page of the April 28 Oregonian. In "Another View" it quotes an editorial from the Philadelphia Inquirer: "Bush speaks in unapologetic, Lincolnesque fashion of America as the Almighty's instrument of human emancipation....Many Americans -- weary of a politics of polls, positioning, spin and evasion -- lap it up....they don't want someone hamstrung by nuance, plagued by misgivings." At thebottom of the same page is a column by Myriam Marquez of the Orlando Sentinel, criticizing Senator Kerry as the "King of Nuance" yet allowing that "a leader who doesn't consider the nuances of issues will face dire policy problems (see Iraq), but there's a point where nuance becomes a liability." I'm guessing that it's the Bush campaign that's trying to tag Senator Kerry as being full of nuance.

A lot of us like nuance. We like to know that our leaders understand the ramifications of what they're doing. And (subject to the objection of Mrs. Laquedem) the woman who flirts in a nuanced way will command more of our attention than the woman who simply flashes.

It takes a certain amount of intellect to be able to provide nuanced analysis of current problems, something a Simple Simon can't do. It takes much less intellect to come up with a snappy sound bite.

Mr. President, if you want our votes, you're not going to get them by having your campaign staff continue to spread the word that Senator Kerry is smarter than you are.

Naming well is the best revenge

Sunday afternoon I walked through Ira's Fountain, which I still think of as the Forecourt Fountain because that's what it was called in 1969. It's named after Ira Keller, onetime head of Willamette Industries and chairman of the Portland Development Commission during the urban renewal craze of the late 1960s. Mr. Keller reportedly hated the fountain. After he died, the city named it after him.

That brought to mind the Atherton Heights subdivision outside of Lake Oswego, which the developer named not after himself but after the development's strongest opponent, who lived next door. And that brought to mind the Bill Roberts Transit Mall, named after one of Tri-Met's founders and first chairmen, who came to dislike the mall because of what it did to his property on Fifth Avenue.

I like the idea of naming things in revenge, or with the touch of irony. Let's keep going with this encouraging trend. How about some day having the George W. Bush School of Elocution, the Vera Katz Public Parking Garage, or the Don McIntyre High School?

Gorging on casinos

The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, operators of the casino at Kah-Nee-Tah, wants to build a casino in the Columbia River Gorge, either near Hood River or at Cascade Locks, 20 miles closer to Portland. Warm Springs needs the governor's approval to build at Cascade Locks, but not at Hood River, because the site near Hood River is tribal trust land. The Cascade Locks site is not.

Reading between the lines, Warm Springs strongly prefers Cascade Locks. The Hood River design is an 8-story casino with restaurants built into a hillside. The Cascade Locks design includes a casino and restaurants, and also shops, a pool, a spa, a conference center, and a hotel, none of which is apparently in the Hood River design.

Diane York, the Hood River county commissioner who presented the plans to the Gorge Commission, also prefers Cascade Locks to Hood River, and she may have good reasons for her choice. But I was struck by her comment that locating the casino in Hood River could be "disastrous, economically and scenically." (Her words, as quoted by the Oregonian on April 24.)

I understand how a casino could be disastrous scenically (which may be government-speak for "look ugly"). I don't know how it would be disastrous economically (meaning, maybe, cause Hood River County to lose jobs) if it's in one place in the county, but not if it's in another place. Any ideas?

Ernie Bonner

If you like the look of downtown Portland, for example the fact that the riverfront is a park and not a freeway, or the fact that downtown buildings don't block the view of Mount Hood from important landmarks, it's in large part because of Ernie Bonner's work as Portland's planning director from 1973 to 1978. Ernie, who died on April 22, also started a website with a history of Portland's planning, pdxplan.org, and comments from people who were involved in the process. Take a look, and think of Ernie.

Best wishes, Mrs. Welch 3

The marriages in the Style section of today's New York Times lead off with Jack Welch, age 68, formerly of General Electric, marrying Suzanne Spring Wetlaufer, age 44, a Portland native and formerly editor of the Harvard Business Review. She left her position as editor of HBR because after interviewing Mr. Welch for HBR, she fell in love with him, and vice versa, and were discovered by Mr. Welch's second wife (Wetlaufer is his third), Jane Beasley Welch.

Just before Mr. Welch and Mrs. Welch 2 filed for divorce, he published his autobiography, in which he gave full credit to Mrs. Welch 2 for his success as head of GE. (Mrs. Welch 2's lawyer must have made good use of the quotations, and I'm sure that Mrs. Welch 2, who was a corporate lawyer before marrying Mr. Welch, appreciated them in an ironic or perhaps Homeric way.)

Felicitations and best wishes to you, Mrs. Welch 3, and may you have many happy years together. But don't be offended if when Mr. Welch writes his next book, he leaves you out of it.

Cause and Effect?

France closed its last coal mine on April 23. France's coal industry once employed 300,000 people.

The Oregonian's squib on the event modestly notes, "Coal has been a money-losing business [in France] since the industry was brought under the state's control nearly 50 years ago."

$141,000 for running backs; $450,000 for everyone else

In his April 20 column, The Oregonian's Steve Duin noted that the University of Oregon spent $141,000 in January to woo 25 prospective college football players to attend the school. He quotes the University's director of admissions as saying the school has only a "modest" budget to attract top students, which may explain why in the last 3 years, UO has attracted fewer than 50 National Merit Scholars. For comparison, Iowa State attracted 259 and Kansas 255 in the same period.

The same issue reported that the state of Oregon is spending $450,000 on Brand Oregon, its attempt to promote Oregon to out-of-state businesses and the travel industry, and to market Oregon products. That values the state's desire to attract businesses and tourists and develop jobs for its 3 million residents as being equal in value to 84 varsity linemen. (And as with all college football departments, UO's has a horrible placement record, ranking right down there with the philosophy department.)

Why bother attracting out-of-state businesses to come here if we aren't going to supply the college graduates they need to hire?

The Laquedem Campaign Finance Reform And School Support Plan

Rather than complain that the Commissioner of Money has raised $1 million in his bid to be mayor, let's put that energy to good use.

If most of us believe that elections are usually won by the candidate who raises the most money, then we need to change the system to reflect that. Hence the Laquedem Campaign Finance Reform and School Support Plan. (Please note: this is not the Laquedem Campaign Finance and Reform School Support Plan, though some of our candidates could use a stint in that institution.)

The plan is simple. Designate one of the five city council seats to be won by the candidate who raises the most money, net of campaign expenses: that is, the winner is the candidate with the largest campaign bank balance on election day. The campaign balances of all candidates for that seat then go to support local schools. A good group of candidates for the "money seat" could raise $4 or $5 million, at least, for the local schools.

The advantages are clear. First, the "money seat" candidates will siphon most of the campaign money available from the other races, leaving candidates in the other races on more nearly equal financial footing. Second, the campaign finance reports will double as the pre-election polls, leaving no one in doubt about where the race stands. Third, leftover money goes to the schools, which could always use a few bucks. Everybody wins!

If money is going to talk, let it speak up and not just whisper in the corner.

You can always learn a little more

When Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto in 1930, he instantly became the most famous living astronomer in the world. He had his choice of academic and scientific positions, and could have done very well for himself on the strength of his discovery of Pluto.

What did he do next?

He went to college.

That's right: he had taught himself astronomy with books from the public library and by building telescopes in high school, but he had not had any academic training in astronomy and hadn't gone to college. So two years after he discovered Pluto, he became a freshman at the University of Kansas, where he signed up to take first-year astronomy. Here is more of Tombaugh's story.

Even the champions keep learning.