Isaac Laquedem

Goldbricking

In certain circles the Knower of All Things is believed to know everything, maybe because he doesn't talk all that much. He says that people have been asking him for the inside story about Uncle Neil, which he won't share.

Not possessing the gift of omniscience attributed to the Knower, and seeing that the Oregonian is now getting around to covering the Goldschmidt story, I'm going to lay off of Uncle Neil and keep this blog Neil-free for a week or so. (And yes, I know that "Neil" and "free" don't often appear in the same sentence.) Besides, the Knower tells me that he's going to get to spend several days away from work with one of Goldschmidt's close business associates next week, though he doesn't promise to pass on what he may pick up.

Archibald Cox

Archibald Cox died Saturday at age 92. When not teaching at Harvard he was the United States Solicitor General and served on any number of boards and commissions. He came to the notice of the general public when Richard Nixon appointed him as the first Watergate special prosecutor, later ordering attorney general Elliot Richardson to fire him when Cox would not back down from a subpoena. Richardson refused, and Nixon fired Richardson. (Nixon did not have the authority to fire Cox directly.) Richardson's number two man, William Ruckelshaus, also refused to fire Cox, and Nixon fired Ruckelshaus. The number three man, an obscure functionary in the Justice Department, did fire Professor Cox. (He was Robert Bork, later nominated for the Supreme Court and rejected after a firefight in the U.S. Senate.)

I remember Professor Cox as a professor of constitutional law. He was a clear lecturer, but very dry. In the first lecture he invited students to see him during his office hours if they had any questions about the course, or just wanted to talk about constitutional principles. I didn't dare take up his time. Neither did most of the class.

In the last lecture three months later he told us how much he had enjoyed teaching the course. His only regret, he said, was that no one had come to see him in his office. He had no pride, or didn't let it show, and was very modest about what he had accomplished. One Monday he said that he was sorry that he would miss class on Wednesday, but that Professor X would give the lecture instead. Thursday we read in the newspaper why he had missed class: he was in Washington, arguing the Bakke case and defending affirmative action.

I last saw Professor Cox a few years ago, when he spoke briefly at an event in Boston. He was still clear and dry at 88, and he talked about the future without alluding even once to the things he had accomplished in the past.

Know your landlord

Today's Oregonian reports that the Trail Blazer organization has jumped into the Rose Garden bankruptcy fray. The basketball company (owned by Paul Allen) has asked the judge that's overseeing the bankruptcy of Oregon Arena Corp. (owned by Paul Allen, and the owner of the Rose Garden) to order that, if the Rose Garden is given to the bondholders who hold the mortgage on the arena, the bondholders must spend $11 million at once to maintain the arena, including replacing the hot water lines and the scoreboard. Steve Patterson, president of the Trail Blazers (and until this week, also a manager of Oregon Arena) is quoted as saying that if Mr. Allen retains control of the arena, he will find some way to pay for the maintenance. He's also quoted as saying that the maintenance arrangements are something that needs to be done for the fans, and (in the Oregonian's words, not his) he "questioned whether creditors are willing to make the investments necessary to keep the arena in first class condition."

Let me get this straight. First Mr. Allen directed his company to file for bankruptcy rather than provide the money to pay its chief creditor. Next he says that if his chief creditor is given ownership of the arena, security for the $192 million loan, then the creditor -- and not Mr. Allen's companies -- should pay $11 million of expenses that Mr. Allen shirked.

I'm not buying it. I hope the judge doesn't, either. Why not give the arena to the bondholders and let them strike a new deal with the Trail Blazers, at arm's length?

Oh, that Geneva Convention

Americans have been saddened and angered by this week's reports that a soldier (Sgt. Donald Walters, from Salem) did not die on the battlefield last year, but was made a prisoner of war by the Iraqis and then shot a few hours later.

It's an act that clearly violates the Geneva convention -- but then our government has declared that the Geneva Convention doesn't apply to the Iraq war. I'm guessing that the administration isn't going to bring up that awkward little fact when it mourns Sgt. Walters.

Venerable Mom's refrigerator

Venerable Mom's birthday this week was as good a reason as any to pay her a visit, always a pleasure because despite her advanced years and disinclination to travel (if she knows how to access this weblog, I will hear from her tomorrow about this one) she maintains a lively interest in the affairs of the day.

After the celebrants left I saw that her refrigerator boasts two identical pictures of George and Laura Bush and one of the President in his office, each neatly taped above the fundraising letter that accompanied it. Not having thought of Venerable Mom as a Bush fan, I asked what she had contributed. "Nothing," she proudly said (VM revels in thrift), "they all came free." Then across the room I saw her copy of Richard Clarke's book about September 11, and two other books critical of the Bush administration.

Metaphorically VM's in between the President and his policies. She likes the President personally (the refrigerator) but not what he is doing (the reading table). I don't want to extrapolate too much from this -- most voters aren't my mother -- but if the President wants her vote this fall he'll have to figure out how to get off her refrigerator and over to her reading table.

A free park is a smart park

Today's Oregonian reports that retired theater magnate Tom Moyer says the Park Block unification project is dead. Mr. Moyer says the project is dead because of the recent disgrace of its leading exponent, Neil Goldschmidt. Mr. Moyer had put up $5 million to buy the first of the four developed Park Blocks that stand between the Mausoleum Club and O'Bryant Square.

Jack Bog says "good riddance" to the project. But I think Jack starts from some misconceptions about the idea. The Knower of All Things reports that (1) the City would not have to buy any of the four blocks; the Park Blocks Foundation was to buy it and then give it to the City gratis; (2) Mr. Moyer hadn't hired Uncle Neil to do anything; Uncle Neil was running with the project for reasons of his own (and a cursory search of public records will reveal that Uncle Neil managed to grab for himself the best building in the four-block stretch, the Woodlark Building on Alder Street), and (3) some of the City people involved in the project aren't content with Mr. Moyer paying for Park Block 5 (the surface parking lot southwest of Nordstrom) but expect him to pay to build and maintain the park also.

I'd be more impressed with the City trying to get Tom Moyer to pay to build and maintain the future public park on Park Block 5 if the City were equally diligent in getting Homer Williams to build and maintain the Lair Hill tram.

Dunkin's Retreat

Someone asked the Knower Of All Things about Dunkin's Retreat, which in its previous incarnation operated on SW 6th Avenue near Pine Street. The front half was a cafe. The back half was a cardroom, in which the habitues played poker and panguingue for small to medium stakes. (This was in the 1960s and early 1970s, before the Transit Mall forced the business to move.) Its owner was Johnny Boston (a nickname because he grew up in Boston, though he was born in Argentina), a restaurateur who liked the occasional friendly wager.

One day the government closed the cardroom and charged Johnny Boston with promoting gambling. Some minor penalty ensued, and the card games ceased. He sold the business and it moved to 11th and Washington.

The same state that righteously prosecuted Johnny Boston for promoting gambling now runs video poker games and sells scratch-off lottery tickets. Johnny went to his reward 20 years ago, but the odds are 7 to 2 that he's looking down and laughing.

Lynndie England's children

will do what their mother says, without being asked twice.

Schools, shots, and soldiers

Betsy used my recent post about schools as the spark for this post of hers. In it, she talks about her decision to send her daughter to a magnet school instead of to her neighborhood school: good (she says) for her daughter, but not so good for her neighborhood school. (I am unfairly shortening her thesis.) She ends by saying, " And I'll probably always wonder if I made the right decision [sending her daughter to the magnet school]...or if I only contributed to a larger problem. "

We can make decisions in our rational self-interest that would not be sensible if everyone made them. For example, measles is a dangerous disease. No rational person would want his or her child to catch measles. Yet in the United States, thanks to an effective public health program, immunized persons have a slightly higher chance of catching measles (from the vaccine) than do unimmunized persons (from infected people). So a rational individual would refuse to be immunized. But if everyone acted in rational self-interest and declined to be immunized, within a few years we would have a measles epidemic and a lot of children would die. So we (or most of us) accept a slightly higher risk in exchange for the larger social good: we act as we want others to act even though we increase our risk of catching measles. (If I were the only unimmunized person in the world, I would be safer than if I had the shot.) And by being immunized I have "some skin in the game" -- the moral right to insist that others be immunized also. If I refuse immunization, I'm making the "right" self-centered decision, but I'm becoming part of the larger problem.

Purely selfishly I should vote against school taxes. I have no children in the public schools. But what world would my children and grandchildren inhabit if their age group isn't educated? I think I've voted for every school tax measure on my ballot. By voting for school taxes I again have some skin in the game, and the right to insist that our schools do a good job. If I vote against school taxes then I'm again making the "right" self-centered decision, but I'm becoming part of the larger problem. Scientifically illiterate adults aren't going to cure cancer no matter how hard they try.

What about war? A government that starts a war can predict that a certain number of its soldiers will die, even though it can't predict which soldiers will die. That factor tempers the decision to go to war: is the possible result worth the loss of life? I don't want to stretch my theory too far, but it seems to me that a nation's leadership that has almost no record of service in the armed forces and no children in the armed forces doesn't have any skin in the game.

Francesconi forces runoff

Am I the only one who looked askance at the Oregonian's Wednesday headline on the Mayor's race, which read "Potter forces runoff"?

Potter finished first, not second. The Oregonian didn't print "Naito forces runoff" (County Commissioner Lisa Naito finished first but didn't get 50%) or "Fish forces runoff" (Nick Fish, city council candidate, ditto).

Shouldn't the headline have read "Francesconi forces runoff?" Or maybe "Dewey defeats Truman"?