July 31, 2021 by davefiskum

NOW HIRING!>

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write. I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf. The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie. And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Have you noticed all of the “new hiring” signs lately?

They are everywhere.

On the backs of semi-trucks making their way up and down the highway.

On billboards on those highways.

On the sides of work trucks in my neighborhood.

On the lawns of employers in our area.

You get the point.

Hiring is going on around us. Well, at least advertising for jobs is. Who knows if those jobs get filled?

Here’s quick summary of national statistics.

“Total non-farm payroll employment rose by 850,000 in June, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 5.9 per cent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Notable job gains occurred in leisure and hospitality, public and private education, professional and business services, retail trade, and other services.”

So, the economy is percolating and unemployment is holding steady, if not going down.

There are always economic uncertainties on the horizon, but, for me, one bottom line is: I wish some of those persons who don’t have jobs these days would apply for openings and gain employment, which is one of the best social programs available. Better, for example, than being homeless.

I know that may be a bit simplistic if folks face certain challenges, including mental health issues and lack of training. But, in some cases, the jobs are there without specific training requirements. Learning on the job can occur.

If unemployment was rising, that would be a different problem. It is not, so I say, get a job.

July 29, 2021 by davefiskum

WHAT JOURNALISTS COULD DO TO IMPROVE COVERAGE – BUT IT WILL BE TOUGH

As a former newspaper reporter, I read with interest a column by Margaret Sullivan, media columnist for the Washington Post.

Using sharp and effective language, she argued for actions that will be, (a) difficult for reporters and their bosses to achieve in the real, every-day world of reporting, and (b) require changing basic notions of how journalists cover issues in a society marked by more division and dissention than we ever have seen.

Sullivan’s story appeared under this headline:

Our democracy is under attack: Washington journalists must stop covering it like politics as usual

I could write about what she advises, but better, I think, to run her own words as my blog for today.

Back in the dark ages of 2012, two think-tank scholars, Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann, wrote a book titled “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks” about the rise of Republican Party extremism and its dire effect on American democracy.

In a related op-ed piece, these writers made a damning statement about Washington press coverage, which treats the two parties as roughly equal and everything they do as deserving of similar coverage.

Ornstein and Mann didn’t use the now-in-vogue terms “both-sidesism” or “false equivalence,” but they laid out the problem with devastating clarity (the italics are mine):

“We understand the values of mainstream journalists, including the effort to report both sides of a story. But a balanced treatment of an unbalanced phenomenon distorts reality. If the political dynamics of Washington are unlikely to change any time soon, at least we should change the way that reality is portrayed to the public.”

Nearly a decade later, this distortion of reality has only grown worse, thanks in part to Donald Trump’s rise to power and his ironclad grip on an increasingly craven Republican Party.

Positive proof was in the recent coverage of congressional efforts to investigate the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol.

The Democrat leadership has been trying to assemble a bipartisan panel that would study that mob attack on our democracy and make sure it is never repeated. Republican leaders, meanwhile, have been trying to undermine the investigation, cynically requesting that two congressmen who backed efforts to invalidate the election be allowed to join the commission, then boycotting it entirely. And the media has played straight into Republicans’ hands, seemingly incapable of framing this as anything but base political drama.

“ ‘What You’re Doing Is Unprecedented’: McCarthy-Pelosi Feud Boils Over,” read a CNN headline this week. “After a whiplash week of power plays . . . tensions are at an all-time high.”

Is it really a “feud” when Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy performatively blames Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for refusing to seat Republicans Jim Jordan and Jim Banks — two sycophantic allies of Trump, who called the Jan. 6 mob to gather?

One writer at Politico called Pelosi’s decision a “gift to McCarthy.” And its Playbook tut-tutted the decision as handing Republicans “a legitimate grievance,” thus dooming the holy notion of bipartisanship.

“Both parties have attacked the other as insincere and uninterested in conducting a fair-minded examination,” a Washington Post news story observed. (“Can it really be lost on the Post that the Republican party has acted in bad faith at every turn to undermine every attempt to investigate the events of Jan. 6?” a reader complained to me.)

The bankruptcy of this sort of coverage was exposed on Tuesday morning, when the January 6 commission kicked off with somber, powerful, pointedly nonpolitical testimony from four police officers who were attacked during the insurrection. Two Republicans, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, even defied McCarthy’s boycott to ensure their party would be sanely represented.

This strain of news coverage, observed Jon Allsop in Columbia Journalism Review, centers on twinned, dubious implications: “That bipartisanship is desirable and that Democrats bear responsibility for upholding it — even in the face of explicit Republican obstructionism.”

This stance comes across as both cynical (“politics was ever thus”) and unsophisticated (“we’re just doing our job of reporting what was said”). Quite a feat.

Mainstream journalists want their work to be perceived as fair-minded and nonpartisan. They want to defend themselves against charges of bias. So they equalize the unequal. This practice seems so ingrained as to be unresolvable.

There is a way out. But it requires the leadership of news organizations to radically reframe the mission of its Washington coverage. As a possible starting point, I’ll offer these recommendations:

Toss out the insidious “inside-politics” frame and replace it with a “pro-democracy” frame.
Stop calling the reporters who cover this stuff “political reporters.” Start calling them “government reporters.”
Stop asking who the winners and losers were in the latest skirmish. Start asking who is serving the democracy and who is undermining it.
Stop being “savvy” and start being patriotic.

In a year-end piece for Nieman Lab, Andrew Donohue, managing editor of the Center for Investigative Reporting’s Reveal, called for news organizations to put reporters on a new-style “democracy beat” to focus on voting suppression and redistricting. “These reporters won’t see their work in terms of politics or parties, but instead through the lens of honesty, fairness, and transparency,” he wrote.

I’d make it more sweeping. The democracy beat shouldn’t be some kind of specialized innovation, but a widespread rethinking across the mainstream media.

Making this happen will call for something that Big Journalism is notoriously bad at: An open-minded, non-defensive recognition of what’s gone wrong.

Top editors, Sunday talk-show moderators and other news executives should pull together their brain trusts to grapple with this. And they should be transparent with the public about what they’re doing and why.

As a model, they might have to swallow their big-media pride and look to places like Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, public radio station WITF which has admirably explained to its audience why it continually offers reminders about the actions of those public officials who tried to overturn the 2020 election results. Or to Cleveland Plain Dealer editor Chris Quinn’s letter to readers about how the paper and its website, Cleveland.com, refuse to cover every reckless, attention-getting lie of Republican Josh Mandel as he runs for the U.S. Senate next year.

These places prove that a different kind of coverage, and transparency about it, is possible.

Is it unlikely that the most influential Sunday talk shows, the most powerful newspapers and cable networks, and the buzziest Beltway websites will change their stripes?

Maybe so. But, to return to Ornstein and Mann in 2012, it’s a necessity.

“We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional,” they wrote.

They probably couldn’t have imagined the chaos that followed November’s election, the horrors of January 6, or what’s happened in the past few weeks.

The change they called for never happened. For the sake of American democracy, it’s now or never.

July 28, 2021 by davefiskum

IMAGINE THIS: HEALTH CARE EMPLOYERS CANNOT MANDATE EMPLOYEE VACCINES IN OREGON!

If I would have written that headline a few months ago, you probably would have said, no, that is not case.

But, it is the case.

Under a 32-year-old law, health care employers in Oregon are prevented from mandating vaccines for their workers.

Meanwhile, the Veterans Administration in Oregon is imposing a vaccine requirement for all of its health care workers. The reason the VA can do so? It is part of the federal government, not state government here, so the state’s anti-vaccine law does not apply.

Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) pointed this out in an on-line news story this week.

By Amelia Templeton, Kate Davidson and Rob Manning, here is what it said:

“For more than 30 years, Oregon law has prevented employers from mandating vaccines for healthcare workers. That’s left Oregon an outlier as more hospitals nationwide require vaccination.

“The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs announced it will require COVID-19 vaccinations for its front-line health care employees, including doctors, nurses, and dentists. Employees will have eight weeks to be fully vaccinated and can get the shot for free at any VA facility.

“It makes the VA the first health care system in Oregon to require the vaccination,” the OPB story said. “State law generally prevents such mandates for healthcare workers. The policy will apply to the VA Portland health care system and all of its facilities.”

Nationwide, many health care systems are making COVID-19 vaccines mandatory for their workforces, as vaccination rates have stalled and the delta variant is leading to yet another surge in COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations.

Oregon is the only state in the nation with the vaccine prohibition.

“Virtually any employer in Oregon can require employees to be vaccinated, but hospitals are prohibited from doing so,” according to Michael Cox, vice president of public affairs for the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems.

“We’re urging state policymakers to lift the prohibition.”

The fact is that legislators, in the recently concluded legislative session, did not deal with the old Oregon law.

The issue comes up in next February’s short legislative session, but it is not clear yet whether employee unions will take a position on the issue. Often, they believe employees should retain choices about their behavior.

So, why dos the vaccine ban exist in Oregon law?

Well, it’s an old story.

When asked about the issue by the Oregonian newspaper, former State Senator Wayne Fawbush put it bluntly: “Now, why the hell did we do that?” [In the spirit of full disclosure, I lobbied Fawbush when he was in the Legislature, though, in my memory, we did not deal with the vaccine issue.]

The exemption, he recalls, was tucked into a 1989 bill that focused predominantly on ensuring health care workers were informed if they were exposed to patients with infectious diseases, a particularly important issue at the time because of the HIV epidemic.

But records of the committee hearings make no mention of the vaccine exemption that’s become such a hot topic 32 years later.

So, we have this conundrum. Those of us who seek health care services during the pandemic cannot be sure that workers we see have been vaccinated.

Strange, but true. And my hope is that the dissonance will prompt legislators next year to fix the outdated Oregon law. No doubt, former Senator Fawbush agrees with me.

July 27, 2021 by davefiskum

GOLF RULES: IS THERE ANY FLEXIBILITY?

Is there any flexibility in golf rules?

Who knows?

But, I ask this question for a couple reasons. First, in retirement, I don’t have much else to do other than think about golf rules – or, for that matter, play golf under the rules of golf. Second, I encountered a situation the other day when I was serving as a starter for a junior golf tournament at Michelbook Golf Club in McMinnville, Oregon – a situation that prompted me to think about whether there is any flexibility in the rules – and, specifically, the administration of them.

Here’s what happened.

A mother driving her son to the course got stuck in traffic, thus fearing her son would miss his tee time. So, she called the course to provide an alert.

The tournament director got the message and said, if the player was late for the tee time, he would either be penalized or disqualified depending how late he was. And the alert call would not do any good.

Under golf rules, it was the right call. The tee time is hugely important. Miss it and you get penalized or DQ’d.

But, given that this was a junior golf tournament and the mother and son were traveling from some distance away, the tournament director said the son would be allowed, if he arrived late, to play just for the experience of playing…his score would not count.

Should the mother have made the call? The answer is yes. Her action illustrated that, if the player was late, he had hoped to be on time, so a “no-show,” if it happened, would not be counted against him in future tournaments.

It was an act of good faith on the mother’s part.

Another rules-related incident happened a few years ago at Trysting Tree in Corvallis, Oregon.

In this case, the starter on the tee gave the wrong instruction to players about which tee markers they would use. The written golf rules for the day had the right markers; the starter had the wrong ones.

It turned out that, following the starter’s instructions, four groups of players teed off on the wrong tees before the mistake was discovered.

So, what to do in this, another junior golf event run by the Oregon Golf Association (OGA)?

It turned out that the OGA Executive Director, a rules expert in her own right, was on site at the tournament, so she, with the tournament director and several rules officials, caucused by phone to decide what to do. The options were, (a) to disqualify all of those who had used the wrong tees and had not corrected the error in time, or (b) find some other less-onerous penalty.

I watched and listened as the decision was made – a compromise that imposed a two-stroke penalty on all players, but avoided a DQ. The reason? A voice of authority, the starter on the tee, had given the wrong instructions and players had followed his instructions. They could have known better, but didn’t.

So, back to the main question posed in this blog: Is there any flexibility in administering golf rules?

The answer is yes, there can be. But those who allow such flexibility also understand they are making an exception and, thus, doing so must occur only under unusual situations. Otherwise, the purpose of the rules – “to protect the field” – could be in jeopardy.

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And this additional point: What does “one-ball rule” mean? I ask this question because of recent experiences in my sojourn as an OGA official. In United States Golf Association qualifiers run by the OGA, players play under the “one-ball rule.”

This means they have to play the “same brand and same model” golf ball throughout their round.

The question that emerged recently was this: Does the same ball mean the same color ball, a question that arises because of the increased use of a yellow golf ball.

The answer is yes. Here’s what the Internet says:

“The one ball rule isn’t part of the Rules of Golf, meaning not every golfer has to adhere to it either when playing casually or even in most tournaments. However, it’s a recognized condition of competition tournament organizers can require of their competitors — often called a “Local Rule.” The one-ball rule means basically what it implies, requiring a golfer must use the same golf ball — same manufacturer and model — throughout a stipulated tournament round.

“For example, if a golfer starts his or her round with a TaylorMade TP5x golf ball, her or she has to use that ball throughout the round. They can switch out golf balls as desired between holes or as required when balls are damaged or lost, but the golfer has to exchange one TaylorMade TP5x for another TaylorMade TP5x golf ball.

“The one ball rule not only requires a golfer to use the same manufacturer and model of golf ball, but it also compels a player to use a golf ball with the same color throughout a round. That means a golfer can’t switch between white, yellow, pink or another color.”

So, there you have it – in case, as is not likely, you care.

July 26, 2021 by davefiskum

IF YOU COULD PLAY ONLY ONE COURSE FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE, WHAT WOULD IT BE?

As has been the case in the past, the idea for this blog arose when I read the most recent on-line issue of one of my favorite golf magazines, Links.

It asked a probing question for golfers: If you could play only one course for the rest of your life, what would it be?

The article started this way:

“While many of us are stuck at home, we’ve had plenty of time to daydream about the places we’d like to travel and the golf courses we’d like to play once again, or for the first time.

“I’ve spent a lot of time (says the author, Al Lunsford) refreshing social media, too, and have seen an interesting topic being floated around—if you could only play one golf course for the rest of your life, what would you pick?”

For me, the answer is simple, though I would have to violate the standard by selecting two courses. They would be my home course in Salem, Oregon, Illahe Hills Golf and Country Club, and a great course in the north of Scotland, Royal Dornoch.

If I was forced to pick one, it would be Illahe Hills.

Illahe, nearing its 60^th anniversary, offers a challenge for all levels of golfers, from children, to beginners, to high handicappers, to single digit players, to scratch golfers.

The greens are known as among the best in the Northwest. Plus, the bunkers were refurbished about three years ago and, with their white sand, still look good. Trees line the course and several holes are affected by water hazards – oops, by water penalty areas to use terminology under the new rules of golf.

I have been a member at Illahe for more than 30 years and I never – NEVER – get tired of playing the course, which, at the tips stretches to 7,000 yards, though I don’t play that far back given my age.

As for Royal Dornoch, there are not better courses in Scotland, in my judgment.

Here is what the Royal Dornoch website says about the course:

“A proud member of Highland Golf Links a partnership which offers attractive packages for visitors to enjoy the finest links golf and luxury hotel accommodation while exploring a unique and beautiful part of Scotland.

“Royal Dornoch is spellbinding and many golfers from all over the world make the pilgrimage to this natural links at some point in their lives. It is often quoted as one of the must-play courses.

”It’s the timeless setting that makes Royal Dornoch such a pleasing place to play golf. It’s wild, isolated and, at the same time, absolutely beautiful; there’s the blaze of color in early summer when the gorse is in flower. The pure white sandy beach divides the links from the Dornoch Firth and it all feels very humbling.”

For me, the good news is that my wife and I have laid plans to head to Dornoch next spring for a one-month stay, which will allow me to play the course and others in the near region. It is my attempt to live out my bucket list to live out a dream play – play the course many times in the spirit of what golf writer Lorne Rubenstein did a few years ago when he stayed for four months and wrote his great golf book, A Season in Dornoch.

Links Magazine polled some of its writers on the one-course-for-life question and here is what emerged:

Jack Purcell (President/Publisher): Secession Golf Club—Beaufort, South Carolina
George Peper (Editor): Old Course at St Andrews—St. Andrews, Scotland
Jim Frank (Senior Editor): San Francisco Golf Club—San Francisco, California
Al Lunsford (Digital Editor): Winter Park Golf Course—Winter Park, Florida
Tim Carr (Art Director): Tashua Knolls, Trumbull, Connecticut
Nick Edmund (Contributing Writer): Royal County Down—Newcastle, Northern Ireland
Ryan Asselta (Contributing Writer): Pinehurst No. 2—Pinehurst, North Carolina
Tony Dear (Contributing Writer): Gamble Sands—Brewster, Washington
David DeSmith (Contributing Writer): Pebble Beach—Monterey, California
Adam Stanley (Contributing Writer): Cabot Links—Inverness, Nova Scotia, Canada
Erik Matuszewski (Contributing Writer): Cypress Point—Monterey, California

So, follow me and pick your own favorite course for the rest of your life.

July 24, 2021 by davefiskum

MORE EXAMPLES OF FEDERAL GOVERNMENT FAILURE

When I worked in state government many years ago here in Oregon, one of my bosses said: “One of the easiest things to do is to be cynical about state government.”

He was right then. And, if he made the statement again today, he also would be right.

But, what follows is not cynicism – at least I contend it is not. It is recognizing two recent failures of the federal government, not Oregon state government – one very obvious and another not-so obvious. So, my views are not cynical; they represent an attempt to tell it like it is from my perspective.

Creating a Congressional Committee to Investigate the January 6 Insurrection: After Congress couldn’t get its act together enough to create a consensus committee, representing both the House and the Senate, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi decided to create a House version of such a committee.

Except she and her staff failed to get their act together.

First, she made her own appointments, then allowed Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to name Republicans to the committee. Wouldn’t you know it, McCarthy appointed several flamethrowers who could not be counted on to conduct themselves with aplomb and a straightforward approach to reviewing the insurrection.

So, Pelosi rejected two Republicans appointees. Then, McCarthy pulled his other appointees out and said there would no Republican participation.

Pelosi then charged ahead, risking what would appear to be a Democrat-only review of what anyone with a pair of eyes could see was an insurrection on January 6 to throw the election to Donald Trump even though he lost outright to Joe Biden.

Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne contends that, with one dramatic act to turn down weird Republicans, Pelosi called out the extremists in what was once the “Grand Old Party” and exposed their political dysfunction.

“It is no longer possible to proceed normally when Republicans answer to a leader and his loyal base for whom reality is an inconvenience, fairly counted elections are a hindrance and outright lies are an accepted currency of politics.”

True. But, n the other hand, Pelosi could have done better. She could have allowed the Republican appointees to serve and then allowed them to do in public what they would have done anyway, which was come across as nothing other than sycophants for Trump.

So, don’t hope for anything resembling consensus to emerge from this process.

Developing a Federal Government Budget: Now, for the other government failure, one not-so obvious. It deals with the federal government budget and a tendency to aim low – perhaps intentionally – on the cost of expansion of government programs and, thereby, increase chances to adopt an ever-larger set of federal outlays.

Here’s the way the Washington Post wrote about the subject:

“Lawmakers trying to seal a bi-partisan infrastructure deal and maneuver Democrat priorities through Congress will claim those plans are fully paid for, but they look likely to use a series of creative budgetary techniques to achieve that target.

“President Biden and other Democrats have said they want to pay for their policies, attempting to pair new tax cuts and spending on one hand with tax increases and spending cuts on the other. That is an intentional choice to avoid additional borrowing or scaling back their agenda. Republicans have also insisted that any bi-partisan infrastructure deal be paid for.

“Instead of borrowing at historically low interest rates, as was the case in the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief law in March, lawmakers appear set to open a well-worn bag of maneuvers, which analysts in both parties call gimmicks, to help claim their policies aren’t adding to the national debt, though Democrats will certainly have tax increases to point to.

“Some techniques exploit gaps and quirks in how non-partisan analysts at the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation measure the effects of policies. Others are designed to supplement official analyses with claims about savings or revenue that don’t meet those offices’ criteria.”

Enough detail.

But what I wish for is that the federal government would develop more rational budget development policies. State the true cost of new programs. Avoid gimmicks. Then, contend for their passage on the merits.

Clearly, it would be too much to ask that the federal government do what happens in Oregon, which is that expenditures must be balanced with revenue in every two-year cycle.

With federal outlays, however, so much is at stake, especially, for example, if the country goes to war or faces a deep recession that balanced budgets are not possible. Frankly, budget discipline might have to take a back seat to funding the troops and equipment or to boosting the economy.

But neither reality – war or the economy — should be presumed to be sufficient to avoid the discipline of producing solid, accurate estimates of the cost of new, proposed federal outlays. So far, that is not occurring.

July 22, 2021 by davefiskum

GREAT NEWS FOR BANDON DUNES IN OREGON!

Those of us who have the good fortune to play golf at the Bandon Dunes on the South Oregon Coast have been impressed lately with a new great deal announced this week by Bandon Dunes and the United States Golf Association (USGA).

There is no better way to herald the good news than to run a story from Global Golf Post. So here goes:

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In an unprecedented announcement, the USGA has awarded 13 championships to Bandon Dunes Golf Resort, beginning with the U.S. Junior Amateur in 2022. The relationship will begin with that championship and run through the 2045 U.S. Junior Amateur and U.S. Girls’ Junior Championships.

Bandon Dunes will host the U.S. Women’s Amateur and U.S. Amateur in 2032 and 2041, marking the first time those two original USGA championships will be contested at the same host venue in the same calendar year. It remains to be determined if those championships will be played back-to-back or concurrently.

The resort will also host the U.S. Junior Amateur and U.S. Girls’ Junior in 2045, which will be the fourth time those championships will be conducted at the same facility in the same year. The agreement also includes the 2029 Walker Cup Match and the 2038 Curtis Cup Match.

Bandon Dunes Golf Resort opened in 1999 when its namesake first course made its debut. Over the next 20-plus years, four more 18-hole courses were created, as well as a 13-hole short course called The Preserve.

The USGA and Bandon Dunes are not strangers. The Curtis Cup was the first USGA event played at the resort, in 2006. Six more USGA championships have been played at the resort, most recently the 2020 U.S. Amateur Championship.

The 2022 U.S. Junior Amateur Championship will be the first U.S. Junior Amateur and eighth USGA championship hosted by the resort, which will make Bandon Dunes the first site to host eight different USGA championships.

“With five championship-caliber courses and incredible support from the resort’s ownership, Bandon Dunes is the perfect location for these USGA championships,” said John Bodenhamer, USGA senior managing director of championships. “(Bandon Dunes owner) Mike Keiser has been an incredible advocate for amateur golf and his ongoing support for the USGA and our mission served as the vision for this partnership. We are excited and honored to work together for years to come.”

Discussions leading to this agreement began last summer and started to come together when Bandon Dunes hosted the 2020 U.S. Amateur. The discussions were helped along by a special bond created by recently retired USGA CEO Mike Davis and Keiser. Over the years, Keiser had said that he’d love to host one USGA amateur championship each year. While that is not practical for numerous reasons, this agreement can be traced on a straight line to Keiser’s wish.

“I love amateur golf. What the USGA does for amateur golf and to grow the game is exceptional,” Keiser said “I built Bandon Dunes for all amateurs to enjoy the great experiences and spirited competition that golf provides, and we are thrilled to be hosting the USGA’s signature amateur championships for years to come.

“We are particularly grateful to Mike Davis, who has been an advocate for Bandon Dunes since the resort’s earliest days. Amateur golf will always have a place at Bandon Dunes, and this commitment from the USGA is significant. We are welcoming of all the great championships that the USGA will bring to the resort as Bandon Dunes is the home of amateur golf.”

“I built Bandon Dunes for all amateurs to enjoy the great experiences and spirited competition that golf provides, and we are thrilled to be hosting the USGA’s signature amateur championships for years to come.” – Mike Keiser

Keiser’s generosity in golf knows no bounds. Just one of many examples involves the USGA. When the resort hosted the men’s and women’s Public Links Championships concurrently in 2011, he spoke at the players dinner on the eve of the competition and unexpectedly invited all contestants to stay as long as they wished and enjoy as much golf as they wanted, at no additional cost.

This partnership serves as further proof that in just two decades, Bandon Dunes has emerged as one the great golf destinations anywhere on the planet. And it serves as re-affirmation of the brilliance of Keiser’s vision at Bandon Dunes and his dogged persistence to see it through.

And finally, this agreement firmly places Keiser in the pantheon of important and influential figures in the history of the American amateur game, for men and women, for elite and recreational players alike.

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I have managed to find time to play all five courses at Bandon and, in a piece of news unrelated to the USGA announcement, the Bandon management has announced that it is in the early stages of booking a sixth course on its property. It will be called “Near River Dunes” and likely will be designed by Scottish architect David McClay Kidd, who designed Pacifiic Dunes at Bandon and now lives in Central Oregon.

July 21, 2021 by davefiskum

MORE ABOUT CRITICAL RACE THEORY

I am little hesitant to write again about “critical race theory” because I am not sure I have much new to offer to the swirling debate. I guess I could add that ignorance doesn’t usually stop me.

But, an essay in the Wall Street Journal this morning prompted me to think again about the subject. It appeared under this interesting headline – “The Hedgehogs of Critical Race Theory” — and this first paragraph:

“The political philosopher Isaiah Berlin turned an obscure fragment by the ancient Greek poet Archilochus (‘The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing’) into an intellectual’s cocktail-party game. In a famous essay, published as a book in 1953, Berlin suggested that the world is divided between hedgehogs and foxes—between those who believe in One Big Thing (one all-sufficient super-explanation), and those who are content with a more modest, irrational and even incoherent idea of history’s unfolding. Karl Marx was a supreme hedgehog: Everything, for him, was about the conflict of economic classes. Franklin D. Roosevelt was a restlessly improvising fox. “

The essayist, Lance Morrow, used the above to contend that many people today start with important truths – slavery was wicked, for example – “and then get carried away into monomania.”

Here are two paragraphs that summarize Morrow’s contention:

“The hedgehog’s trajectory may begin on the side of undeniable and important truth—for example, the truth that slavery was a great wickedness in America (as it was elsewhere in the world), and that race prejudice has been a chronic American dilemma and a moral blight that has damaged and scarred the lives of millions of black American citizens over generations.

“All true—a truth to be acknowledged and addressed. But hedgehogs, who deal in absolutes, are liable to get carried away. Their truth changes shape as it coalesces into a political movement and gets a taste of power and begins to impose itself programmatically. Its ambitions swell, it grows messianic, it embraces civic idiocies (defund the police!) and beholds the astounding impunity with which it may run amok in the streets and burn police cars and shopping malls, as it did last summer, and the ease with which it may take over city councils and mayors’ offices and turn so many of the country’s normal arrangements upside down.”

I agree with Morrow’s basic notions, though, for me, I summarize my views a bit differently as follows:

It makes all the sense in the world for all of us to become more aware of racism, both in society and in our ourselves. The latter often can be subtle, but still important. Knowing more and learning more about racism and ourselves are solid goals.
Things go too far when “critical race theory” becomes a political catch-all phrase that forms a prism through which every other issue is judged. Concern about racism becomes political, not personal. And, political overkill makes it almost impossible to recognize progress we have made as a nation against imbedded racism. The fact is that recognition of progress – as well as how far we have to go — can create incentives for more progress.
As a Christian, I also recognize what God says about race in the Bible. HE says we should not be a respecter of persons and that everyone – regardless of race, skin color, geography or history – can be a CHILD OF GOD. Good for us to remember that God calls us to respect and love all others just as he does.

My wife, to her credit, takes action to illustrate her love for other, especially refugees. They arrive in the Salem nearly every week and often are helped by a program run through our church, Salem Alliance.

My wife’s role has been to provide clothes, food and furniture to these refugees as they arrive here trying to build a new home for themselves. So, concern for immigrants is not something that just happens at our southern border. It is right here where we live.

July 18, 2021 by davefiskum

IMPRESSIONS FROM RECENT HAWAII TRIP

My family had the recent good fortune to spend a week in Hawaii.

Yes, the entire family. And it was good to be together on the island of Maui. Mostly post-pandemic.

Here a few of my impressions after the week-long trip.

PANDEMIC – ALIVE OR NOT? In advance of our trip – we departed on July 5 – we had to get a Covid test and prove that we were still “negative.” The result would allow us to board the Alaska flight to Hawaii.

Of course, about three days after we left Oregon, the Covid test requirement was shelved, though given late news about rise of the Delta variant, it would not surprise me to see the Covid test requirement reinstated.

In Hawaii, there was evidence of the pandemic, mostly the requirement to wear masks inside any building, including restaurants, hotels, and golf pro shops. Otherwise, no imposing requirements.

RENTAL CAR CRUSH/ We heard in advance about the crush of rental car reservations in Hawaii, but, in our case, it turned out that we had no difficulty.

Here’s the way the Wall Street Journal wrote about the issue this weekend:

“Stories of painfully long waits, non-existent cars, astronomical prices and other travails are common on social media. Some frustrated customers have taken to invoking a scene from the sitcom ‘Seinfeld,’ in which comedian Jerry Seinfeld reacts to a car rental company running out of cars: ‘You know how to take the reservation, you just don’t know how to hold the reservation.’”

This was not our experience. The rental car line was long when we arrived in Hawaii, but our vehicle was ready and waiting.

We had heard stories about folks renting U-Haul trucks and moving vans when cars were not available. We didn’t see that, but, then again, we were watching the beautiful Hawaii ocean, not rental cars.

GOLF ON MAUI/My son, Eric, and I managed to play four times on Maui, twice on the Gold Courseat Wailea, once on the Emerald Course there, and once on the King Kamamaha private course.

Good golf, but….

On the Gold Course, here are strange policies. First – okay, I guess – everyone has to wear a mask in the clubhouse. Then, to get to the driving range, you have to grab a few clubs and borrow a special golf cart to drive about 100 feet.

Then, finally, you don’t get the key for your regular golf cart until about five minutes before you tee off.

I could think of better ways to arrange things.

Plus, in Hawaii, grain on greens plays havoc with your golf ball. You have to know how to reads the grain, then adust for it.

Overall, he golf was good. And, in case anyone wonders, son Eric beat me every time. And that is fine – it makes me proud of him.

July 17, 2021 by davefiskum

WHAT IS FIRST? SOLID THINKING OR SOLID WRITING

My daughter posed the question in the headline to me on our recent trip to Hawaii.

Of course, there is more to do in Hawaii that ponder this question, but nonetheless it is a good one.

When I was in a position to hire employees in state government or in the lobbying and public relations company where I worked for nearly 25 years, I always focused on assessing a candidate’s ability to write.

To me, the ability to write clearly and solidly indicated an ability to think clearly and solidly. But, my daughter properly said, it could be the other way around.

Either way, both thinking and writing are important, no matter what kind of job you aspire to or hold.

As I have focused on the ability to write during my career, I have come up with some “good writing” hints:

Think of an ANGLE for what you write, something you believe will entice readers to continue to read. If you don’t like the word “angle,” use proposition or main point.

Incorporate ACTIVE VERBS.

Follow this general rule – BEST FACT FIRST.

Use SPRING TRANSITIONS. Let the last sentence of a paragraph SPRING to the next, something like, which I am making up as I go: Governor Brown won plaudits for her effort to find middle ground on various issues at the Capitol. Call it an attempt at bi-partisanship. Then, on to the next paragraph: Bi-partisan efforts also marked the work of Senator Mark Hass as he tried to forge a compromise on tax policy in the Senate Revenue Committee.

Include the 5 WS AND THE H — who, what, when, where, why and how.

Use the INVERTED PYRAMID style – best fact first, then other facts and perspectives that may be of lesser importance.

Don’t hesitate to describe to YOUR OWN EXPERIENCE in what you write because doing so will have the potential to bring your ideas alive.

Consider these to be guidelines. Not hard and fast rules. For, writing is an art, not a science.

Let your personality show through what you write.

So, think clearly and write clearly. Or write clearly as a reflection of thinking clearly. Either way works.

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Perspective from the 19th Hole

Thoughts from a lobbyist who has represented clients in Oregon and Washington, D.C. for more than 40 years.

Month: July 2021