Bonanza Column 185 – Trustees, not Representatives

Before I get to this week's subject, a personal note. Very often when I'm out and about in the community, people will tell me that they like my columns, or even that while they don't always agree with me, they appreciate the way I approach my topics. On the other hand, there are people who post on the Bonanza website and are just insulting – my favorite is the person who said "no one cares what you think, Ed" (well, you did – enough to read and comment). Sometimes people will say I don't have my facts straight – when they correct something I got wrong, I appreciate it, but mostly they just make the accusation, which suggests to me that (a) they don't like the facts I cite or (b) they don't know the difference between facts and interpretations. In any case, thanks to all of you who read thoughtfully. For the others, be assured, I'm not going anywhere. Live with it.

Now to business: With the primary and the election coming up, it seems worthwhile to me to review some things about the IVGID Board of Trustees.

First of all, there's that term "Trustees." A trustee is "a … person to whom property is legally committed to be administered for the benefit of a beneficiary." There's something important to notice there – a trustee administers on behalf of the beneficiary. They don't represent the beneficiary and they're not accountable to the beneficiary. The IVGID Board is charged with administering the assets of the District, but they're not our representatives. – we get to elect them every two years, and so if we don't feel they're operating for our benefit, we can replace them, and as public officials they are required to give us the opportunity to be heard on issues we're concerned about, but if, in the last analysis, they decide that what is going to benefit the District has them act contrary to what some or many people want, they not only have the right to do that, but they have a legal obligation to do that.

A representative, for example in Congress, on the other hand is supposed to do just that – represent the views of his or her constituents. We can't all be there to vote on the laws, so we elect someone to represent us. Since this is a democratic republic, the majority rules, and so it's not unreasonable for a congressperson to represent the majority view in his or her district, perhaps to the detriment of the minority. That's pretty much what democracy is about – the rule of the majority, with the courts there to watch to protect the rights of the minority if the representatives go against the founding principles of the republic.

So what we are electing in November is Trustees, not Representatives. Years ago, the people who then lived in the area decided that a GID was the form of government they wanted, and instituted it. Since then many people living here have tried to change that to a different form of government – a town, a county – that would expand the purview of the governing body beyond water, sewer, trash, and recreation and would provide for a governing body that would be more accountable as representatives, but so far that hasn't gone anywhere.

So when we judge an incumbent like Gene Brockman or any of the aspirant candidates, we should judge Gene's record and the statements and proposals of all of the candidates based on what the job is – to hold our community assets in trust and to be good stewards – to administer them for our benefit. One measure of stewardship is that a good steward leaves the assets entrusted to him or her more valuable than they were when the steward took office. When I hear about so-called "financial conservatism" that sounds a lot like "don't spend any money," I wonder if that will leave the community's assets more valuable. When I look at the Trustees spending money to fight lawsuits that would devalue our beaches, I see them doing their job.

Last week's Bonanza's "Word on the Street" asked "Does the IVGID Board Represent you?" With all due respect to my colleagues, I think this was the wrong question – I would have asked "Does the IVGID Board Do a Good Job of Caring for the Community's Assets?" That's the question. Now, on June 8 and in November, let's answer that question the only way that matters – at the ballot box.

Bonanza Column 184 – IVGID Candidates and a Quick Note on the Governor

Last Monday's IVGID Candidate Forum sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce and the Bonanza was, overall, very informative and well done. Most of the six candidates (the June 8 primary will eliminate two) for the two open seats were thoughtful and conducted themselves well, keeping to the issues and the questions put to them and refraining from attacking each other.

Some themes emerged from the questions and answers. One obvious concern was finances – IVGID has an aging infrastructure that will cost money to repair, and this raises concerns and questions about where the money is going to come from, etc.

It was clear that most of the candidates had done their homework and they were able to answer some complex questions pretty cogently. Because questions were formulated in advance, mostly by Bonanza readers with some by Bonanza staff, many addressed candidates' previous statements and positions, and here in some cases the candidates acquitted themselves less well. Particularly this early in the game I don't expect candidates to be thoroughly versed in the minutiae of the IVGID budget etc., but if a candidate has made it a plank in their platform to improve something, I think it's reasonable to expect them to provide some specifics on how they will do that, and in this some of the candidates' answers were woefully insufficient.

There was one trend I found disturbing on a couple of levels. It's one thing, and I think it's fair game, to run against the record of the current Board of Trustees – to cite, for example, some instances where you think they have spent money unwisely and to say how you would have handled it. I don't think, however, that it's fair or wise to run against the IVGID staff. It's easy to criticize, but the staff works under the Board's direction. In my experience the IVGID staff are to a person hard-working, dedicated, and competent, and where the candidates are concerned the staff are not in a position to defend themselves. More importantly, candidates, if you are elected you will be working with this staff – are you sure you want to start off in an antagonistic relationship with them?

Some minor fuss has been made of one candidate's mention of the General Manager's salary and the budget item for IVGID to provide the GM with a vehicle every few years. Again, if you want to get people's attention, it's easy to do that by talking about money, but both items are, in my view, specious. The GM makes as much as the Governor of Nevada – so what? He also makes orders of magnitude less than officers in the private sector who manage smaller organizations and smaller budgets and who have a lot fewer resource constraints. Of what possible relevance is the comparison to the Governor. A company car is not at all unusual as a benefit for someone whose job is 24/7 and takes him all over the district. Most companies and agencies consider it more economical than trying to figure out how to reimburse such an official for use of his private vehicle.

The point, candidates, is this: tell us what you're for, not what you're against. Offer solutions, not criticism or problems. If there are areas you think you can make work better for us, the residents whose assets you propose to hold in trust, tell us how, and be specific. Don't get sucked into the temptation to just criticize and complain – we have enough of that around this community; let's hear how you'll make it better.

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On another quick note, Governor Dim Gibbons seems to have stepped in it again. He took an answer that his opponent, Brian Sandoval, gave to an inane interview question some years ago, took it out of context, and is trying to use it to label Sandoval an anti-Semite. I guess the guv's getting desperate. Don't get me wrong, I would love to see Gibbons as the GOP candidate – I'm a Rory Reid supporter – but really, Sandoval is very good and would be a better governor than Gibbons has been on his best day, and he doesn't deserve this level of mud-slinging.

HuffPo Column 17 – Who’s the Bigger Threat: Shahzad or McCain and Lieberman?

After 9/11 we heard from a great many public figures that if we changed our way of life, if we allowed that incident to cause us to live in fear, "the terrorists will have won." Now almost ten years later, it seems that, in the minds of many on the right, the terrorists have, by that definition, won.

In the wake of the failed Times Square car bomb, we have heard from John McCain, Joe Lieberman, and many others on the right that Faisal Shahzad should not have been given his Miranda rights, that he should be tried by a military tribunal, that the FBI and NYPD should have deferred to the intelligence community in the investigation, etc. Given the apparent lag between his being put on the no-fly list and his boarding the airplane at JFK, we can expect to hear more justification for profiling, etc.

Let's assume, as seems very likely, that Faisal Shahzad did all the things he is accused of having done – and let's assume that he did so with training and some sort of support from terrorist groups in Pakistan or Afghanistan. He is an American citizen and the US Constitution guarantees to anyone accused of a crime in the United States, regardless of citizenship, the presumption of innocence, the right to due process, etc. What McCain, Lieberman, and the others are saying, in effect, is "damn the Constitution; when we are in danger, all that goes by the boards." If we buy that, then the terrorists will, indeed have won.

Bear in mind that this is not your father's war. In the World Wars, in Korea, even in Vietnam, the issue was occupation of territory. World domination would go to whichever power occupied (and therefore ruled) the largest area of the world. The goal of the so-called Islamic Fundamentalists (and any serious student of Islam will tell you they are neither) is not primarily to occupy territory, it is to destroy any way of life, any view of the world that is not in accord with theirs. They want to destroy the State of Israel not so they can occupy that sliver of land, but to strike a blow to the heart of Judaism. They have no designs on occupying the United States – they want to undermine the Western way of life – freedom, equality, democracy – and they believe that if they can fatally wound those principles in the US, the rest of the West will fall with us.

Given that, those on the Right who call for dealing with Shahzad, the underwear bomber, and others by extra-constitutional means are playing right into their hands, Guantanamo, waterboarding and other "extraordinary methods," rendition, all work perfectly for the terrorists. If I were Osama bin Laden I would not see the Times Square bomb as a failure – sure, if it went off, thousands of people would have been killed and damage would have been done; maybe Shahzad would even have got away; but none of that would do the damage to America that would be done if we listen to the chicken hawks on the Right and abrogate the Constitution.

The United States Constitution is the charter document of democracy in America and a model of what is possible for the world. Notwithstanding the places where we fall short of its ideals and principles – notwithstanding Arizona, Goldman Sachs, the Tea Parties, and the lunatic fringes on the Right and the Left, it is what makes us who we are, and we go outside the boundaries of that charter at our peril.

So who is the bigger threat to the American way of life? An inept 30-year old loser who could barely find his ass with both hands if you spotted him a cheek or two US Senators who rose to be candidates for President and Vice President of the United States who publicly call for disregarding the Constitution?

Bonanza Column 183 – STAR Follies!

I go to Star Follies every year to support our schools and to enjoy it – I never intend to write about it and every year I do because I can't not. It is just about the best thing that this community has to offer.

Over the past couple of months I've spent two weeks in New York at a program for business executives that has as its purpose nothing less than a complete reinvention of who its (already very successful) participants are being in the world. The methodology used is not new to me – I've been working with it in one form or another for about 30 years. What is different is that the methodology of personal transformation is combined with that of the theater. The designer of the program has a long and successful background as an acting coach, and she has brought together some of the finest acting coaches and actors around – people you would know if you watch TV.

In that program I watched as executives who have never had a thought of being on stage took on an assigned project – a song or reading – that they were to perform, with coaching, at the level of a Broadway performance, and I saw them do it – the last evening of the program was in a theater and they performed – brilliantly and movingly. I performed myself and it was a life-changing experience.

So when I went to the Follies this year I watched the performances through the eyes of one who knows what it takes to get up on stage and get way far outside your comfort zone, and I was just knocked out. My purpose here is not to review the Follies – I'm not a critic or a reviewer, and there's no point anyhow. Unlike a Broadway performance, this one is new – new material, new cast, new everything every year. But as someone whose first love was acting and directing, I can't let something as remarkable as this go without comment.

I want to appreciate the great work by everyone involved. Sure, you could say, they lip-sync. But let me tell you from personal experience, if you're not a natural dancer, choreography is much harder than singing or acting, and these folks were step-perfect as well as great in their acting and their lip-syncing. No surprise that the biggest group behind the scenes is the Choreographers.

And the kids. My oh my, the kids – from 5^th grade through high school they were amazing. Please – don't talk to me about sullen, withdrawn teenagers. These kids were OUT THERE!!!! And the adults – teachers, principals, professionals, you name it. I won't single anyone out by name – it would be unfair to the others – but I'll make one exception. Gene Brockman was born to play Officer Krupke!

The folks who make the Follies happen – Producer Ron Stichter, Director Don Hertel, and particularly Assistant Director Kathie Goldberg who makes it all work, and the Board of Directors, the Crew, the school liaisons, and all the volunteers, thank you. And I would be remiss if I didn't mention Linda Offerdahl – the costumes were funny, topical and above all professional-grade.

I don't often claim to speak for others, but in this I'm confident that I am speaking for our whole community when I say Thank You, from the bottom of our hearts not only to this year's cast and crew, but to everyone who, for the past 11 years has taken part in this great event.. You give us hope, joy, and peace in our town, at least for a couple of nights, and you contribute to our kids – our future – immeasurably.

If you haven't gone to Star Follies, mark your calendar now for next year, and if you want to have a life-changing experience of going beyond what you think you can do, sign up to perform. You'll love it.

Bonanza Column 182 – The New Crime in Arizona - WWH

One of the great paradoxes of America is that the country as we know it is completely the product of immigrants and the descendents of immigrants. The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Emancipation Proclamation, the National Anthem (and we could go on and on) were all conceived and written by immigrants or their descendents. Every single president and an overwhelming majority of legislators at the national, state, and local level were immigrants or descendents of immigrants Add to the list almost everything we can call "American Culture," whether that is regional or national, all our national treasures with the exception of the Statue of Liberty, our most treasured music and literature.

Early immigrants and their immediate descendents worked systematically to create an America that started in the 16^th Century, disconnected from anything that might have been here before European colonists arrived. Very little of Native American culture survives except for a few pockets, most notably in Alaska and Hawai'i, but unless you are 100% Native American in your family history, your people came here from somewhere – long ago or recently, but you are a descendent of immigrants.

The paradox comes when these same descendents of immigrants somehow claim for their own the mantle of "real Americans" and take it as their right and duty to be sure that this culture, which is an amalgam of all the cultural strains that have gone into it over the past 500 years, isn't contaminated by any current input. When they want to close the borders to people who, but for the grace of God and timing, could be their grandparents.

Like many Incline residents, I spend a lot of time in Arizona – working there. I don't find Arizonans, at least in Phoenix and Tucson where I hang out, to be very different from people I meet elsewhere in the country. Nonetheless, they seem to have a predilection for going out on some fairly loony limbs. They keep electing Joe Arpaio Sheriff in Maricopa County, for example, despite the fact that in any other state the only thing he'd be a candidate for is a rubber room. Now they've passed a law making it a state crime to be an illegal immigrant, requiring that immigrants carry proof of their legality at all times (I'm pretty sure these same folks would reach for their guns if anyone suggested a required national ID card), and allowing police to stop anyone at any time if they suspect they might be an illegal alien.

So now in addition to the nationwide unwritten law making DWB (driving while Black) cause for random stops and searches, we have in one state legislated WWH (working while Hispanic). We could, I suppose, write it off to one more bit of Arizona craziness – the Right has AZ, the left has CA, and leave it at that. But TV stations in Las Vegas (channel 5) and Reno (channel 4) are conducting online polls, and as of now both show majorities (very strong in LV and substantial in Reno) of those responding approving of the Arizona law.

Lots of folks aren't going to like my saying this, but just as poll taxes and "literacy tests" were ostensibly aimed at unqualified voters but were really attempts to keep any African-Americans from voting, and same-sex marriage bans are ostensibly to protect the "sanctity of marriage" but are really an expression of homophobia, the fuss over illegal immigration has at its roots anti-Hispanic racism. Yeah, yeah, I know, it's ostensibly about their not paying taxes (catch-22: they can't pay taxes because if they did we'd know they were here) and overtaxing services (which mostly they don't do for the same reason) but I don't buy it any more than I bought that the reason country clubs didn't allow Jews was because they didn't mix well and were pushy.

The Roman Empire operated on the principle that the way to world peace and order was to (a) conquer everybody else and (b) make them become Romans. It didn't turn out well for them and it's unlikely to turn out well for the US.

Bonanza Column 181 – Gibbons and the Tea Partiers

While there is a lot you can say about Governor Jim Gibbons, I don't think anyone could accuse him of being: smart, low-profile, or rational.

Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto correctly refused to join an ill-advised lawsuit filed by some states' attorneys general against the anemic health care reform bill passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama. You don't need to agree with the bill to support Masto's logic in refusing – in the unlikely event that the other states' suit is successful, the results of that suit would apply nationwide including Nevada, so there is no reason to expend state resources. Gibbons, naturally, attacked Masto for doing her job and vowed to soldier on alone if need be. He has now started a fund to do that and named a Las Vegas attorney as special counsel to pursue the suit.

Gibbons is not, to my knowledge starting any funds to improve education, hire more teachers, prevent furloughs and outright layoffs of state employees, or for any other purpose that might actually benefit the state.

Instead, the Governor is grandstanding as part of his campaign for re-election. After all, even if the other states' suits were to win, how can he claim any credit for it or curry favor with the tea party crowd if he didn't visibly take action – never mind what's good for the state or where else he might spend his time on business that is actually needed. No, Gibbons, along with Sue Lowden, the massively unqualified candidate for Harry Reid's seat, is out there working the tea party circuit.

There is very little possibility that the Tea Party "movement" will be a major factor in any of this year's elections. A recent study by the Winston Group, a conservative-leaning polling and strategy firm run by the former director of planning for former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, found that the portion of the public that identifies with the Tea Parties is around 17%. 65% of Tea Partiers self-identify as "conservative" as compared with 33% of the electorate at large. 81% of Tea Party respondents expressed very little approval of Barack Obama's job as president, which exceeded disapproval levels held even by Republicans (77%) and conservatives (79%).

All this suggests that the Tea Party crowd is comprised predominantly of ultra-conservatives, and that despite their insistence that they are the "real Americans" who will "take their country back," they are in fact a fringe movement whose views are not shared wholeheartedly even by others who are with them on the right side of center. One has to question, then, the wisdom of Gibbons' aligning himself with the movement and with Lowden, whose record in business is already being exposed as at odds with her stated positions as a candidate.

The Tea Partiers, though, are right about one thing – it's time for a change. Gibbons and his GOP crowd have failed to lead in Nevada – we remain at the bottom of the heap in education, we have record unemployment levels, and are failing to attract new business to the state. Rory Reid, the leading Democratic candidate for Governor, is young and largely untested, but if you listen to what he has to say, there is at least the possibility of something different. His father, Harry Reid, is, of course also up for re-election to the Senate, and has done more for Nevada from Washington than Gibbons (and for that matter the ethically-challenged John Ensign) have come close to doing. Reid's seat is one area where we don't need, and can't afford change.

But as for Gibbons, remember the old saying – if we don't change our direction, we're liable to get where we're headed – and on almost any measure you can hold the Governor accountable for, where we're headed ain't pretty.

Bonanza Column 180 – Public Service or Indentured Servitude?

A recent letter to the Bonanza took the "spendthrifts" on the IVGID Board of Trustees to task for considering a 3 percent raise in salary for District staff, characterizing the salary and benefits of the staff as "generous."

I'm writing this from Hawai'i, where furloughs for state employees including teachers and librarians have resulted in cutbacks in services, closing of libraries, cuts in school hours for education and activities, and a general decline in public services, statewide. I suppose we could do that in IVGID – cut back on salaries and staff, have less frequent garbage pickup, close the rec center, tennis courts, and golf or skiing a couple of days a week, and generally skimp, but I'd be willing to bet almost anything that the same people that are complaining about the rec fee and staff benefits would demand that the level of services be maintained. You can't have it both ways.

Personally, I'm glad that we are able to provide what I think are adequately competitive compensation packages to IVGID staff – they provide outstanding services, are genuinely customer-centered, and are on the whole a cut above most municipal employees, and that goes from the folks who pick up the trash and keep the grounds to the executive level, in my experience without exception. IVGID has taken some steps to cut costs without diminution of services, e.g., by offering various food services to local restaurants and caterers if they want to bid for the opportunity to provide them. The General Manager and the staff have been appropriately cognizant of and conservative about needed renovations and improvements while being clear what would be lost if these are not done. I know something about management in both the public and private sectors, and I think IVGID does one of the better jobs I've seen of managing money, facilities, and people.

As I pointed out in last week's column, the facilities in the Village contribute both directly and indirectly to our property values, and to the quality of life here. The sentiment of a significant portion, maybe even a majority, of residents, against affordable housing makes it necessary to compensate District staff who cannot afford to live here for the added expense and inconvenience of having to commute. All told, I think the proposal to the Board of a 3 percent (i.e., cost of living) raise is reasonable and prudent.

Mostly, though, it's important to recognize that we can't have it both ways – we can't have world class facilities and services and at the same time cut back the way Hawai'i and California have done. We can't continue to pay those we consider "public servants" as if they were indentured servants and not lose them to the private sector – that goes for teachers, IVGID staff, police, and fire as well. After one of my columns on the future of IV/CB, one resident called and in all sincerity made the argument that we should not have anything but the most basic services, no businesses, and be a purely residential community like, for example, Sea Ranch. OK, I suppose that's one way to go, but I predict that if we go that way there will be no "here" here in twenty years or so, and then what would the bears do for food?

Huffington Post Column 13 – Political Dialogue: Too Important to be Hijacked

Writing about politics from a perspective that is pretty far left of Center, I frequently hear from readers on both sides of the political spectrum that things will not work politically in the US until everyone thinks as they do – they seem to feel that those they disagree with should be done away with in some way – deported, voluntarily leave the country, die, and then all would be right with the world.

There has always been this strain at the fringes of American politics and neither side has a monopoly on it. From time to time there have been movements to send the Irish back to Ireland, the Jews back to Europe, the Blacks back to Africa and the American Indians back to … well, no one's quite sure about that one. Notwithstanding that, these have always been the ideas of ideologues and extremists. The vast majority of Americans have, historically, been proponents of the sentiment attributed (perhaps wrongly) to Voltaire: "I may not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

It seems to me, though, that in recent years American political dialogue has degenerated into a war that has as its object the demolition of the other side. I think it is absolutely crucial that we nip this trend in the bud. So far this war has been mostly rhetorical, but recently the rhetoric has escalated to unwarranted insults ('you lie," "baby killer"), racial slurs, and homophobic slurs directed at members of Congress. And it seems to be heating up to the point of bricks through windows and assassination plots, and lest we forget, people on both sides have been injured or killed, though so far, thankfully, this has been rare. Nonetheless, it seems to be heating up.

Readers, apparently stung by my criticism of hypocrisy on the Right often accuse me of wanting the Right to disappear. On the contrary, I think that would be a very bad thing, just as bad as if the Left disappeared. In my work with corporations one of the key principles I teach, one for which there is clear scientific evidence, is that in order for any group to come up with ideas that are smarter than its smartest members would have come up with on their own, it must have a wide range of diverse viewpoints. I am convinced that one of the reasons that the US has been a consistent world leader in innovation, quality, human rights, standard of living, and on and on is that we have had a lively and vibrant dialogue among wide-ranging points of view.

Another principle of group intelligence is that the extremes cannot be allowed to hijack the debate. During the Vietnam War era, the anti-war left took control of the debate. While the view is not popular on the left, it is my firm belief that, despite the best of intentions, our taking over that debate from Nixon et al. had them resist all the more and thus prolonged the war and cost countless lives. This is not something of which I am proud – it is something I try to make up for in my life and in my writing.

Today the anti-government Right has an influence in current political debates that is, by all indications, all out of proportion to its actual numbers or popular support. Just as the Left in the 70's attracted all kinds of ideas that were irrelevant to being against the war – Leary's "tune in, turn on, drop out" comes to mind as do Kesey's Acid Tests and others – the anti-government Right finds itself in bed with the insanity of the birthers, racists, militia extremists, and a whole clown car of idiots and nutcases.

Just as the Left had to get itself straightened out in the post-Vietnam dialogue, it's time for those on the Right who know the value of the dialogue to retake control of it from the extremists, both those in the Tea Party movement and those in Congress. We need two sides or we will become very dumb indeed at a time when we need every ounce of intelligence and wisdom we can find.

Bonanza Column 178 – Boulder Bay and IVGID

I yield to no one about my credentials as an environmentalist. I have been a consultant to both the executives and Board of Directors of the Sierra Club, and consider myself to have been "green" before green was fashionable. This long-standing interest in and commitment to the environment makes the attitude of the League to Save Lake Tahoe, Tahoe Area Sierra Club, and other local groups toward the Boulder Bay project baffling to me.

In other parts of the country, environmental organizations seem to take a fairly rational view of the need to balance progress and change with environmental concerns. Unless there are clear indications that irreparable damage will be done with no compensating environmental benefit, these organizations, the Sierra Club among them, generally work with government and private interests to find acceptable solutions. The environmental organizations here at Lake Tahoe, however, seem to have as their objective to turn everything here back to a "natural" state and to oppose any change that does not simply remove people and human habitation.

TRPA has been very open to input on the Boulder Bay EIS – they have made many changes based on that input and are in the process of one more revision of the draft study. While I don't advocate making environmental or societal decisions based on public sentiment alone, it's worth noting that the input TRPA received was overwhelmingly in support of the project, particularly alternative C, and where substantive questions and objections were raised, TRPA has been responsive. Nonetheless, at what is probably the eleventh hour, a coalition of the League, the Sierra Club, the California Watershed Network and local groups of questionable provenance has come forward with objections, but no alternative solutions.

I question the provenance of the local groups because at least one of them, the North Tahoe Preservation Alliance, seems to have been formed for the express purpose of opposing the Boulder Bay project and has had a problematic relationship with the facts in its arguments. The others, "Friends of the West Shore," "Friends of Tahoe Vista," and "Friends of Crystal Bay/Brockway," are unknown to us and we have no indication of who they represent, how many they represent, or whether they know what they're talking about.

The Boulder Bay project, particularly alternative C, is a huge improvement over the current dinosaur on the property, which is an environmental disaster on almost every count you can think of. While the Wittenbergs are great people, I think it's extremely unlikely that they will level the property, plant grass, trees, and flowers, and stock it with Bambi-esque forest creatures. They are business people, and it is a given that they will run a business on the property. That being the case, they have done a terrific job of designing and redesigning a property and amenities that will be eco-friendly, down to plans for bicycles, car-sharing programs, shuttle service, etc., as well as health and wellness facilities and an aesthetically pleasant and non-intrusive design. But it seems nothing will satisfy our local environmentalists. If Roger Wittenberg were a spiteful man, which I know him not to be, he would say to hell with all of them and leave the current monstrosity in place. Thank heavens he's smarter than they are.

On another note, the IVGID budgeting process has been remarkably open and transparent. Still, they have done the unthinkable and are considering an increase in the rec fee, so naturally people are up in arms, with the shopworn argument "I don't use the facilities, why should I pay?" OK, listen carefully, here's why: whether you use the facilities or not, access to them significantly increases the value of your property. If they are not kept up or in some cases renovated, they will deteriorate and so will the value of your property. When you moved here you knew that part of what you were getting was a set of community amenities. Those require maintenance and upkeep. The Board and staff of IVGID are doing everything in their power to keep the budget process rational – let's try to keep the discussion of the process the same.

Bonanza Column 177 – The 2010 Elections

Along with Daylight Savings Time and March Madness, Spring brings with it (at least every other year) the beginning of election season.

While 2010 is technically an "off-year" election, this particular off year brings us some interesting and important choices. In Incline Village/Crystal Bay we will elect two IVGID Trustees, at least one of whom will be new to the Board, and statewide Nevada will elect or re-elect a Senator, a Governor, and most of the rest of the State government.

This is important because, even though we are stuck with John Ensign for another couple of years (unless the current ethics investigation results in his removal), we have the opportunity to unseat Governor Jim Gibbons and to return Harry Reid to the Senate for six more years.

Traditionally, turnout for off-year elections is low compared to Presidential years, and turnout for the primaries, which will be June 8 this year, even lower. This is a good year to make an exception to that rule given what is at stake.

It's too early to make judgments about most of the offices, but I think it's fair to say that there is the opportunity to make some important changes and also to keep some very good people in office. The field for the Governor's race is, as usual, broad and colorful. We have the hapless Mr. Gibbons running for re-election and a whole bunch of Republicans challenging him in the primary including the very well-qualified Brian Sandoval who gave up a lifetime appointment as a Federal Judge to try to unseat the Governor. On the Democratic side there is Rory Reid who, while not widely known in Northern Nevada, looks like a good choice as well.

I've written before in this space about the importance of returning Harry Reid to Washington. We have in Washington right now a junior senator who has shown so little personal integrity that he should resign, yet he refuses to. If we are foolish enough to defeat Reid, then Nevada will be represented by a brand-new junior senator and a senior senator who is under an ethical cloud. Why would we trade being represented by the most powerful member of the Senate for that? Reid has done a good job for Nevada, most recently in the areas of jobs and tourism, and we should retain him and find him a working partner who will do a better job than the feckless Mr. Ensign.

Locally we have Frank Wright of Crystal Bay running for State Senate. Apparently Mr. Wright finds no inconsistency in bringing suit against IVGID and running for public office himself. We'll see if the voters agree. And speaking of IVGID, we have Gene Brockman running for re-election and while most of the rest of the field have not distinguished themselves by local service, there is the surprising entry of Dennis Oliver into the race. Dennis will have to establish an identity for himself as an Incline resident that is separate from his job as spokesperson for TRPA, but if he can do that he could bring a fresh and important perspective to the IVGID Board.

So we'll see how it goes. The first milestone in the various races will be March 23, the last day for candidates who have filed to change their mind and remove their name from the ballot. Then for most races there is the primary election to narrow the field on June 8, after which the races will be on in earnest leading up to election day in November. Hopefully we'll see some real debate on the issues rather than partisan appeals, name-calling, and negative ads and we'll have the opportunity to do some good for our community, state, and the nation.

Bonanza Column 176 – IB Resolved

When I first heard about the IB program being planned for Incline's schools I was uncertain about my view of it. On the one hand it sounded like a good program – very good, actually; on the other hand I have worked with the AP program at HIS, particularly our nationally ranked We the People program, and was unsure of what value IB would add. So I set about talking to people on both sides of the issue and reading up on the pros and cons of IB, and I made no secret of my being undecided – in fact, I devoted several columns to it. I also partnered with the Bonanza to propose a community forum the ground rules of which were designed to ensure a debate on the merits with minimal unsupported opining. The group in favor of IB responded enthusiastically to this proposal and provided a surplus of potential panelists. The group against IB was nominally enthusiastic, but failed to propose a panel despite numerous concessions. In the process they accused me of being biased in favor of IB and, in demanding someone else moderate, called into question my fairness and integrity. At the end of the day, though, despite getting everything they asked for, they failed to take the field and the forum was cancelled. Now that same group wants to know "What do we need to do to stop the madness and have the community discussion that is so badly needed?" Huh?

Well, I've made up my mind. I am for the IB program in Incline schools. I'll tell you why in a minute, but indulge me in a short digression. I haven't been able to find who first said "a person is known by the enemies he/she makes," but I've always hesitated to subscribe to that idea. Still it's an appealing idea – Joe Lieberman infamously invoked it to justify his opposition to the public option – liberals were for it, and that was enough for him to go against it. I've found myself tempted by it in this IB debate. So much of the opposition to IB ranges from ignorant (it will compromise separation of church and state because it's a religion-based program – it must be – there are Baccalaureate Services in churches at graduation time) to ridiculous (it's a liberal plot to have the UN take over our schools in service of creating a world government to rule over the US) that I have to struggle not to just favor IB because it's opponents are either plain silly or so far out in the tea party sea of the Right that they can't see land. If you don't believe me, look at this column on line on www.tahoebonanza.com and read the comments. I mean, I don't read them but I guarantee they'll be there.

Now back to our story. Why am I coming down in favor of IB? Not, as you might think, because of its benefits at the High School level. I'm still not sold that it will add value where AP doesn't already. I see its greatest value at the Elementary level where the IB curriculum, including dual-immersion language programs, seems to me to be clearly superior to any other public school curriculum I've seen. It will send our kids to Middle and High School with a really solid educational foundation on which to move into AP, IB Diploma, or for that matter Technical or Business Programs, and it will give English Language Learners real skills and power in English and English native speakers the same foundation in Spanish. I think that's a really good thing, particularly given the data on the benefits of early language education and bilingualism on learning in general.

Brian Sandoval, a Republican candidate for Governor endorsed IB in a speech to local Republicans last week. Sandoval is a member of that endangered species, moderate Republicans, but he is clearly a Republican and a Conservative. Hopefully that will put the lie to the crazies who keep trying to pull a McCarthyesque red scare in opposing IB. The school district has said that IB is a done deal – it will be here. In that case, it seems to me it behooves us as a community to (a) learn the facts about it and (b) get behind it – the people we elect and those we pay to make decisions on education for our kids have given the opinion they are accountable for. Let's move on.

Bonanza Column 174 - ARC

For the past few years, I have had the privilege of working with some of the most dynamic and inspirational young people I have ever met. Year after year, participants in the ARC (Adventure, Risk, Challenge) Program amaze me with their courage, determination, and commitment to their future, their family, and their community.

 

ARC is a program for ELL (English Language Learner) high school students that combines summer leadership and literacy immersions in the outdoors with year-round mentoring and academic support. Working with students who lack access to enrichment of any kind, ARC has guided 80% of its graduates to pursue some form of higher education, a remarkable outcome for this population.

 

As part of their work, ARC participants prepare video essays on topics of concern to our community. This year's video essays will be presented by the kids at ARC's annual Food for Thought Tamale Dinner on March 13, 2010, from 6 to 10 p.m. at the North Tahoe Boys & Girls Club.

 

ARC participants' video essays are the result of the students' actively exploring and examining their personal lives, their families, and their neighborhoods to identify issues that directly affect them and their community. Over the course of the project, as students have explored critical concerns within our community, they have generated a rich collection of stories and have developed multiple literacy skills using digital media tools to express their voice and content through writing text and incorporating sound, images, and graphics.

 

ELL high school students in the Tahoe/Truckee region have a multitude of obstacles to overcome: they have identified literacy gaps, come from families living below the poverty line, and in many ways live in the margins of our community. They lack access to local resources due to language, transportation, and economic barriers. Many of their parents lack formal education, are ill-equipped to support their children's learning at home, and cannot help their children navigate the public school system. This results in academic failure, making higher education opportunities inaccessible. Students who fail high school lack incentive to further their learning through vocational or academic training, and have little chance for self-sufficiency. Essentially, there is no pathway to living wage careers that could ultimately break the cycle of poverty for the next generation.

 

ARC began in 2004 to address these significant barriers with a curriculum that incorporates the study of self, family, and community action, gearing participants toward meaningful civic contributions as they transition into adulthood. ARC links wilderness to academics, adventure to leadership, environmental science to literacy, and confidence to activism.

 

Like most programs of its type, ARC is continuously raising funds, both from foundations and from local sources. Events like the tamale dinner help, but they're not sufficient – if you or someone you know wants to support this worthwhile program, let me know and I'll see that they contact you.

 

The food at this dinner is great - homemade tamales, rice, and beans as well as soft drinks will be served at the dinner, with all proceeds benefiting the program.

 

Tamales can be ordered (by the dozen) in advance by visiting the ARC website (www.arcprogram.org) and downloading an order form. ARC participants have requested that guests bring two cans of food to support Project Mana, and in return, they will receive a free drink. The students also will be collecting spare change to send to Haiti. Immediately following dinner, they will premiere their video essays. This event is free and open to the public. I hope to see you there.

Bonanza Column 173 – Does the End Justify the Means?

One of the oldest debates in moral philosophy is based in the question "does the end justify the means?" Like most questions of morals, this one does not admit of an easy answer, though there are those who have attempted to answer it categorically. Machiavelli, in The Prince, was unequivocal – the end a ruler sets his sights on is all and any means used to obtain that end are justified. Given that the eponymous prince was Cesare Borgia and the time was Renaissance Italy, the ruling class naturally found this advice very agreeable.

Most philosophers come to a conclusion along the lines of "it depends." If the end is moral, and the only way to achieve it is immoral, then the end may justify the means. For example, if I can save the life of a child (moral) by lying to a murderer about the child's whereabouts (immoral), then the end is sufficiently important to justify the means. On the other hand if I can convert an atheist to belief in God (moral) by lying to him about God (immoral), then no, the end doesn't justify the means because the means are contradictory to the end.

There are people who, like the Borgias, are firmly convinced that any means are justified to achieve their ends. These are people who are so firmly convinced that they are right that nothing can create even the slightest crack in their certainty. Fundamentalists and extremists of every stripe – on the political left and right, in virtually every religion fall into this category.

While no one in politics is immune from falling into this trap, we've recently seen what I think are some particularly egregious examples of it from members of the Republican Party. In the past couple of weeks it's been revealed that a large number of the leading Senate opponents of the economic stimulus – people who railed against it as everything from ineffective to socialist, have quietly been getting money for their states from that same stimulus and touting its effectiveness – even taking credit for it – people from the same party that excoriated John Kerry for being a flip-flopper – these same people are now reversing themselves on a wholesale basis on anything that the GOP has done or endorsed that President Obama now supports.

In fact, that is the only logic to their actions – if Obama's for it, we're against it. Try KSM in civilian courts – horrors! But under a Republican administration Richard Reed, the shoe bomber, and hundreds of others were tried (and convicted) in civilian courts . Act aggressively against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, even killing key leaders – Horrors! But Obama is soft on terrorism.

I'm not saying that the left is immune to hypocrisy – but the scale of GOP lying (the shoe bomber was an American citizen, Obama hasn't used the word "war" to describe our opposition to terror) and hypocrisy (denouncing the stimulus while taking money and credit for it on the sly and praising its effectiveness, calling for Rahm Emanuel to resign for using the word "retarded" but excusing Rush Limbaugh for the exact same thing) seems to me to be unprecedented.

De Tocqueville said that in a democracy the people get the government we deserve. If we continue to tolerate the Right's "say anything, do anything, as long as it makes the President look bad and gets us elected" assault, then maybe we do deserve them if they are voted in in 2012.

Tahoe Ticker Column 21 - Hypocrisy-Fest on the Right

"Yeah of course its extreme, you don't know anything the individual he could have had other issues." Imagine if that was said about the underwear bomber or the Ft. Hood killer, and now imagine the outrage from the right that would follow – further proof that liberals are soft on terrorism! Treason! String 'em all up!

Now imagine that the quote is not from a liberal or democrat, but from our newest US Senator, Mr. Brown of Massachusetts, the poster boy for grassroots outrage, who ran in part on a platform of being tougher on terrorism than is the current mode of operations. And he said it not about a terrorist so inept that all he did was set his pants on fire, but one who flew a small plane into a government office building where 200 people were working, killing at least two and destroying much of the building.

So Senator Brown, where's the outrage? Yeah of course its extreme, you don't know anything the individual he could have had other issues. No one likes paying taxes obviously. Really? That's it? This is an act of domestic terrorism by a right-winger against the government, and all Mr. "tough on terrorism" has to say is what under other circumstances he would characterize as leftie soft on terrorism pap?

Senator Brown hasn't been in the Senate long enough to have a cup of coffee but he seems to have jumped right on the bandwagon of Republican hypocrisy. In the past couple of weeks it's been revealed that many of the leading opponents of the economic stimulus, who railed against it as everything from ineffective to socialism have quietly been getting money for their states from that same stimulus and touting its effectiveness. We've seen again and again Republicans in Congress – people from the same party that, in addition to swift-boating John Kerry, accused Kerry of being a flip-flopper – these same people are now reversing themselves on a wholesale basis on anything that the GOP has done or endorsed that President Obama now supports.

In fact, that is the only logic to their actions – if Obama's for it, we're against it. Try KSM in civilian courts – horrors! But Richard Reed, the shoe bomber was tried (and convicted) in civilian courts. Act aggressively against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, even killing key leaders – Horrors! But Obama is soft on terrorism.

De Tocqueville said that in a democracy the people get the government we deserve. If we continue to tolerate the Right's "say anything, do anything, as long as it makes the President look bad" assault, then maybe we do deserve them if they are voted in in 2012.

Bonanza Column 162 - TOCCATA

What the heck, it's Valentine's day, Mardi Gras is Tuesday, let's put partisan rancor aside for one week and talk about something that's unarguably good.

I had the privilege last week to attend a concert by the TOCCATA Orchestra and Chorus with the violinist Elizabeth Pitcairn. It was the fourth of four concerts held at Squaw, on South Shore, Cal Neva, and the one we attended at Trinity Episcopal Church in Reno. What an evening!

You may recall that Ms Pitcairn was here last Fall when she played the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto – this time she played a short Dvorak piece in the first number of the evening and then the Bruch Concerto for Violin as the pièce de resistance of the evening. She followed these with encores that included two duets with Donna Axton on the piano.

I'm not a music critic, I don't play any instrument more complex than an iPod, and as for my singing, forget it, but I do love music and listen to it a lot, and I'm especially fond of music for the violin. I wrote last Fall that I had not had an experience to match Pitcairn playing Mendelssohn since the time, as a graduate student, I sat in the first row to hear Yehudi Menuhin play the Beethoven Violin Concerto with the Rochester Philharmonic. That was about 45 years ago. Now I've had matching experiences twice in six months. The Bruch is a marvelously complex piece of music, the red Stradivarius is a magnificent and historic instrument, and Elizabeth Pitcairn is, in my humble opinion (and when it comes to music, it really is humble) the best young violinist to come along in a very long time. Her playing is in a class with Menuhin, Heifetz, and Stern, she is beautiful and lively and has an amazing rapport with the orchestra and the audience.

And while the focus with any concert like this is on the soloist, I would be remiss if I didn't give props to James and Nancy Rawie and the incredible contribution they've made to our community by organizing and managing TOCCATA (it stands for The Orchestra and Community Choral Artists of the Tahoe Area). In five short years they have brought together an orchestra and chorus that I would put up against any orchestra I've heard in New York, Chicago, or San Francisco, and it's all local talent and all volunteers. When my friends in other cities ask me if I don't miss the cultural advantages of living in a city I just laugh quietly – we have the Reno Phil, the Lake Tahoe Music Festival, opera, ballet, plays and most of all we have TOCCATA. We are very fortunate, and don't tell those city folks because if they find out, they'll all move here and we won't be able to get tickets.

TOCCATA's next performance is over Easter Weekend when they'll do the Bach St. Matthew Passion, a perfect accompaniment to the Easter holiday. Here's my advice – go to that performance, join as a supporter of TOCCATA, and take a minute to thank James and Nancy and all the players and singers for making this a world-class place to live, music-wise.

HuffPo Column 11 – The Enemy Within: Republican Fundamentalism Confirmed

What do Islamic fundamentalists have in common with the far-right core of the Republican Party? And what do your average, non-extremist Muslims have in common with the (slim) majority of the GOP who are not right wingers?

The answers, of course, is obvious - the first two treat their worldview as the only correct, God-given view and treat anyone who demurs from this as worthy of any sort of attack up to and including destroying them, and the second pair remain silent, as in Burke's admonition that "all that is needed for evil to triumph is for good [people] to remain silent.

As reported elsewhere on HP, The Daily Kos, a liberal/progressive blog, employs a very reputable and neutral polling organization called Research 2000 to do polling for them on a weekly basis and posts their results no matter what they show, including demographic information about those polled.

Recently they posted the results of the Daily Kos/Research 2000 Republican Poll 2010. For this poll, conducted between January 20 and 31, 2010, the interviewed 2003 self-identified Republicans by phone. This was a random sample selected by random variations of the last four digits of phone numbers. The margin of error was 2%, which means that there is a 95% probability statistically that the true figure for all self-identified Republicans would fall within 2% plus or minus of the sample's results. Interviews were conducted in all 50 states plus the District of Columbia - 11% of respondents were from the Northeast, 42% from the South, 22% from the Midwest, and 25% from the West.

So here we have 2003 people, selected at random who identified themselves as Republicans and were willing to answer poll questions over the phone. Now it's axiomatic in the polling business that you only get answers to the questions you ask, and I don't know who designed these questions - let's say, worst case, they were designed by the Daily Kos, and so the questions reflect liberal/progressive concerns about Republicans, and don't tell the whole story, only that which reflects those concerns. Nonetheless, the answers are what they are. It's a long poll, so I'll just highlight some of them here. For the full set go here.

Under the heading "Obama and America," we find that 39% of those surveyed say Barack Obama should be impeached with 32% saying no, and 29% not sure. Really? For what? The Constitution is pretty clear - high crimes and misdemeanors is the criterion. Can anyone point out even one thing he's done in the past year that qualifies? But 68% of Republicans (±2%) say he should be impeached, or at least it's a possibility.

Maybe this will shed some light on why: 63% said yes to "do you think Barack Obama is a Socialist, with 21% saying no and 16% not sure. Seriously? 79% of those surveyed don't have a clue what Socialism is?

And the grand prizes: 36% believe Obama was not born in the US and 22% aren't sure, and 24% believe Obama "wants the terrorists to win" and 33% aren't sure. This is not just being divorced from reality, it's having left reality far, far behind.

There's a lot more - on Issues (anti-union, anti-immigrant, pro-death penalty), gays, (anti-serving in the military, anti-same sex marriage, anti-benefits for gay couples, and astonishingly 73% against openly gay men and women teaching in public schools with 19% unsure). Schools (anti-sex education by a slim margin, but overwhelmingly for public schools teaching that the Book of Genesis explains how God created the world).

The last category was women, where some of the results were surprisingly encouraging - 76% with 11% unsure said that marriages are equal partnerships and 86% with 4% unsure said women should work outside the home. But then it all goes horribly wrong: "Should contraceptives be outlawed?" 31% yes, 13% not sure. "Do you believe the birth control pill is abortion?" 34% yes, 18% unsure. "Do you consider abortion to be murder?" 76% yes, 16% unsure.

And finally, "Do you believe that the only way for an individual to go to heaven is through Jesus Christ, or can one make it to heaven through another faith? 67% Christ, 15% other faiths, 18% unsure.

All of which leaves me wondering - exactly what America do these people live in? Not the America of Jefferson, Adams, Madison, and the Constitution, apparently.

Actually, there are three groups - the right wingnuts, the mainstream, and the Republican politicians. The group best positioned to make a difference in the party are the politicians. Maybe Markos Moulitsas, creator of the Daily Kos, said it best, though. Those politicians are "beholden to conspiracy theorists who don't even believe Obama was born in the United States, and already want to impeach him despite a glaring lack of scandal or wrongdoing. They think Obama is racist against white people and the second coming of Lenin. And if any of them stray and decide to do the right thing and try to work in a bipartisan fashion, they suffer primaries and attacks. Given what their base demands -- and this poll illustrates them perfectly -- it's no wonder the GOP is the party of no."

Bonanza Column 171 – Republicans are Strange

The Daily Kos is a liberal/progressive blog, and if that's enough to disqualify anything they say in your eyes, just skip reading this or skip to the comments section and post your weekly accusation that I'm a Communist and should "go back to Roosha, boy, or New York City, one" (a shout out to Kinky Friedman).

On the other hand, if you're interested, the Daily Kos employs a very reputable and neutral polling organization called Research 2000 to do polling for them on a weekly basis and posts their results no matter what they show, including demographic information about those polled. Last week they posted the results of the Daily Kos/Research 2000 Republican Poll 2010. For this poll, conducted between January 20 and 31, 2010, the interviewed 2003 self-identified Republicans by phone. This was a random sample selected by random variations of the last four digits of phone numbers. The margin of error was 2%, which means that there is a 95% probability statistically that the true figure for all self-identified Republicans would fall within 2% plus or minus of the sample's results. Interviews were conducted in all 50 states plus the District of Columbia – 11% of respondents were from the Northeast, 42% from the South, 22% from the Midwest, and 25% from the West.

So here we have 2003 people, selected at random who identified themselves as Republicans and were willing to answer poll questions over the phone. Now it's axiomatic in the polling business that you only get answers to the questions you asked, and I don't know who designed these questions – let's say, worst case, they were designed by the Daily Kos, and so the questions reflect liberal/progressive concerns about Republicans, and don't tell the whole story, only that which reflects those concerns. Nonetheless, the answers are what they are. It's a long poll, so I'll just highlight some of them here. For the full set go to http://tinyurl.com/kospoll.

Under the heading "Obama and America," we find that 39% of those surveyed say Barack Obama should be impeached with 32% saying no, and 29% not sure. Really? For what? The Constitution is pretty clear – high crimes and misdemeanors is the criterion. Can anyone point out even one thing he's done in the past year that qualifies? But 68% of Republicans (±2%) say he should be impeached, or at least it's a possibility.

Maybe this will shed some light on why: 63% said yes to "do you think Barack Obama is a Socialist, with 21% saying no and 16% not sure. Seriously? 79% of those surveyed don't have a clue what Socialism is? Even Rachel Maddow, who is no Socialist herself, but is pretty far left, considers Obama a centrist.

And the grand prizes: 36% believe Obama was not born in the US and 22% aren't sure, and 24% believe Obama "wants the terrorists to win" and 33% aren't sure. This is not just being divorced from reality, it's having left reality far, far behind.

There's a lot more – on Issues (anti-union, anti-immigrant, pro-death penalty), gays, (anti-serving in the military, anti-same sex marriage, anti-benefits for gay couples, and astonishingly 73% against openly gay men and women teaching in public schools with 19% unsure). Schools (anti-sex education by a slim margin, but overwhelmingly for public schools teaching that the Book of Genesis explains how God created the world).

The last category was women, where some of the results were surprisingly encouraging – 76% with 11% unsure said that marriages are equal partnerships and 86% with 4% unsure said women should work outside the home. But then it all goes horribly wrong: "Should contraceptives be outlawed?" 31% yes, 13% not sure. "Do you believe the birth control pill is abortion?" 34% yes, 18% unsure. "Do you consider abortion to be murder?" 76% yes, 16% unsure.

And finally, "Do you believe that the only way for an individual to go to heaven is through Jesus Christ, or can one make it to heaven through another faith? 67% Christ, 15% other faiths, 18% unsure.

All of which leaves me wondering – exactly what America do these people live in? Not the America of Jefferson, Adams, Madison, and the Constitution, apparently.

Bonanza Column 170 – IB and the Community

Sometimes I don't understand our community at all – other times I think I get a glimmer or understanding, but mostly it's a mystery to me.

It seems like we are willing to fight about anything based solely on our opinions, the opinions don't need to be informed by any facts, and we don't feel very much need to listen to each other. Granted it's hard to listen when the communication is like this one: "Why don't you post constitution Progressives go find your own country and quit wrecking ours?"

Apparently I'm something called a post constitution (I assume this means post-Constitution rather than someone with the constitution of a post, but I'm not sure) Progressive. OK. I don't understand post-Constitution – we're all post-Constitution. That document was adopted in 1789, so anyone who was pre-Constitution would be 221 years old. Progressive? Why do people think I'll be insulted by being called something (along with Liberal, leftist, etc.) that I've said I'm proud to be. And what is the name-caller? Regressive?

Finally, why should I go find my own country, and who said this one was yours? I was born here, my parents immigrated here, and I honestly believe that this is my country as much as it is "yours." Actually, the Constitution kind of guarantees that, doesn't it?

Or the person who picked up on one small piece of personal disclosure in a column and decided that "because your Dad lost his business due to "change" you think workforce housing will solve the economic woes of main street???" which is nothing even related to what I said.

Case in point: the IB program. I have said repeatedly that, while I'm kind of naturally inclined to support it, I have serious questions and think a rational, fact-based dialogue is needed. Writers (mostly anonymous) online have attacked me for favoring IB (what part of "have serious questions" is not clear to you?). Just for fun, how about trying listening?

The Washoe County School District is on record favoring IB even though they won't fund it. In listening to both sides of the debate, a couple of things have become clear to me. First, very little of the debate is fact-based. Either or both sides may have facts to bolster their argument (note:" IT'S A U.N. PLOT!!! Is not a fact – it's an opinion, same for" IT WILL ATTRACT LOTS OF STUDENTS!!!"), neither brings them to bear in what dialogue there has been. Second, no one is listening to anyone who is not on their side. Third, a genuine dialogue, including people listening to each other, is desperately needed.

As I mentioned in a previous column and as was announced in the paper last week, the Bonanza has proposed to sponsor a forum for that dialogue. The ground rules of the forum will be that all presentations by panelists must be based on citable facts and that audience questions will be screened to ensure that they are requests for information, not arguments for a position. The original date for the forum, February 9^th, is now in question due to conflicts we were unaware of, but if we can get the panelists, it will happen sooner rather than later.

I guess the question is what do both sides want? Do they want to defeat the other side or to inform the community? The way it looks now is that we are going to have IB in any case – the School District has approved it and the money has been raised or is close to being raised. So as a community, do we want this to be one more bone of contention dividing us or do we want to really look at what it could do and what it is that professional educators find so valuable in it?

Of course, we can all decide that we know better than the experts in any case and don't have to listen to them – after all, we pay them to educate our children – that means we're smarter than they are, right? After all, isn't the golden rule "he who has the gold, rules?"

Let's try to have an informative, civil dialogue. Whaddaya say?

Huffington Post Column 9 - The Presidency May Be Post-Racial, but is it Post-Political?

I came to President Obama's first State of the Union speech prepared to be disappointed. I mean really prepared -- I seriously considered skipping it. I expected politics as usual and a continuation of what has seemed to be the President's waffling on taking a strong political stand against the nonsense being put out on the right from the far right to the so-called moderates, and I felt that if that was what happened it would break my heart.

Nonetheless, I did watch, and what I saw seemed to me to be something different. The President seemed to take on all comers -- from the Republican obstructionists to the Supreme Court to his own faint-hearted party. The strong stands he took on jobs, the economy, health care reform, don't ask-don't tell, etc. pleased some and left others sitting on their hands, but, from my point of view, that's good. My biggest concern was that he would continue to try to please everybody or go so polar that he pissed off only one side.

When Obama made his unequivocal statement on eliminating don't ask-don't tell, the Joint Chiefs in the front row were, to a man, stone-faced. Good.

When he rebuked the Supreme Court for the incredibly bad Citizens United decision, Justice Alito did a modified Joe Wilson which escaped no one's notice. Good.

When he spoke of health care reform, the Republicans sat on their hands while their leadership, Boehner and Cantor, smirked and whispered, presumably something disparaging. Good.

And when he basically told the assembled houses of Congress to grow up and start thinking about the country rather than their parties' election chances, a lot of people didn't like it. Good.

From the beginning, I have wanted to believe that Obama knows what he's doing, that he has a strategy, and that he has been steering a clear -- if not transparent -- course in his first year. What I saw last night was confirmation of this. Obama is way past being the first Post-Racial President -- he wants to be the first Post-Political President of the modern era. Our greatest presidents -- Lincoln comes to mind -- have put the country's values and welfare ahead of politics. They have, in the best American tradition, done what was right, not what was politically expedient or personally preferable. They did not take us into wars trivially, but did not hesitate to fight when honor and principle demanded it. They did not pander to popular opinion but did the hard things, in JFK's words, "because they are hard." They did not attempt to prearrange how history would judge them, but did the right thing and let history worry about the judgment - FDR and the New Deal, Truman and the atomic bombing of Japan to end the war.

Arianna Huffington wrote that she thought the speech was focus-grouped within an inch of its life - that it was designed to have one applause line for every group; she calls it a "pander-palooza." With all due respect to she who allows me to be read, I disagree. Pandering would have been playing to the crowd both in the chamber and at home -- promising big, introducing in the audience people who were out of work, lacking health insurance, trying to pluck the strings of sympathy in the hearts of the larger audience. In his speech, Obama was a statesman rather than a politician -- to call out those who are acting in something other than the public interest and to demand action, partnership, and change.

Maybe I just don't want to give up the dream. Maybe I can't confront how disappointed I will be if, in the end, Obama turns out to be more like Carter than he is like FDR or Lincoln, but I don't think so. I think what I saw last night is the harbinger of a sea change in the Presidency and in how we are governed. At least I hope so.

Bonanza Column 169 – If We Don’t Change Our Direction…

The report commissioned by the Washoe County Department of Community Development that was issued in December could not be more clear or more dire in its implications for Incline Village and Crystal Bay. The independent consulting firm that carried out the study lists ten findings in its report, the first of which is that "Housing is out of reach of most of the Incline Village/Crystal Bay workforce." In addition to finding that affordable housing is scarce and getting scarcer, the study documented what has been known anecdotally for some time – the population of year-round residents and families with children is declining, and in the finding that is perhaps the most obvious, the report concludes that lack of workforce housing is detrimental to the local economy.

As you drive around the community, notice the number of empty commercial properties and notice the attrition of small businesses here. Unlike resorts and casinos, small businesses depend on a year-round local workforce and, perhaps more importantly, year-round local patronage. A resort or casino can hire seasonal help and can plan for predictable slack seasons – as long as tourists come the resorts and casinos will survive.

When I was growing up my father owned a small retail clothing store in a town that, when I was born, had 25,000 people. His clientele were working-class folks and his stock was work and casual clothes and shoes for the whole family – remember shops like that? Up until World War II, that town had a booming economy. Just prior to the war two-thirds of the leather gloves produced in the world were made there, and the war kept the boom going. In the fifties, though, glove and leather manufacturing moved to Europe, particularly Italy, and the town's economy began to decline, along with my father's business. I remember long, difficult conversations between him and my mother about how hard it was to stay in business, and eventually he closed it and went to work in one of the early crop of discount stores that decimated main streets all over the country.

Most small businesses operate on thin margins and have a tough time when business falls off for any reason. The current recession has exacerbated that problem; we've seen businesses close here and we'll see more close in the coming months, with no commensurate opening of new businesses. Soon our community will consist of the three R's – Raley's, Restaurants, and Realtors.

Predictably, there will be those who will oppose workforce housing or other changes, wanting to keep the community as it was ten or fifteen years ago. Equally predictably, there will those who will decry any attempt to plan or change as a (Washoe County/IVGID/Obama/communist/environmentalist/socialist/liberal/ neoconservative/fascist – pick one) plot. And, at the Community Forum a couple of weeks ago there were those who attempted to redefine the issue to one they could more easily argue against. No such nonsense should be allowed to stand.

Affordable workforce housing will not turn this community into a metropolitan area or even into South Lake Tahoe (whatever that means). As Heather Segale of TERC pointed out, conversion of current land use for housing use can be done in a way that actually contributes to the environment. Most importantly, it will change the character of the community, and I think that's a good thing. This area, famously referred to in the Wall Street Journal a few years ago as "Income Village" needs to change to remain viable as a community. Those who decry any change are missing a couple of salient facts: First, a community is a living thing, and living things change or die. Second, it will change one way or the other – we will, intentionally and with planning make it attractive to young families and to small businesses or it will become more like Squaw Valley or Northstar – a community of vacation homes built around recreation facilities.

Two well-known aphorisms come to mind – the first rule of holes is "if you find yourself in one, stop digging." And in the words of Prof. Irwin Corey, "if we don't change our direction, we're liable to get where we're headed."

Huffington Post Column 9 – What Did Massachusetts Really Mean?

Much, probably too much, has been made of the results of the election for the Senate seat that many of us thought Ted Kennedy would occupy forever, and definitely too much has been written about it. Nevertheless, I'll add my voice to the mass.

I've been a vocal Obama supporter from his entry into the race, and I remain so. At the same time, I wonder if, to use a phrase I first heard on The Daily Show, he might not be the victim of "the subtle racism of high expectations." (By the way, if you haven't seen Jon Stewart's mock interview with Larry Willmore about "Negroes aren't magic" you can find it here).

In point of fact, Obama has accomplished a great deal, much of it very important, in his first year, but he has not (a) passed universal health care, (b) turned the economy around on a dime, or (c) created 100% employment, none of which it was even remotely reasonable to think he would do, yet we thought it – maybe not all three, but many of us, myself included, thought one or two of those or expected other miracles.

At the same time, if you campaign on "the audacity of hope" and "change we can believe in," you have to be responsible for the expectations you create. We dared to hope for miracles, and we set the bar for change we could believe in at least at water from a rock, if not loaves and fishes.

However, that doesn't mean that we should lower our expectations or that the President should back off. Some say the Massachusetts vote was a repudiation of the President, but that's not what the polling says – it would be accurate, I think, to say that the vote was a vote against the status quo, a vote against the slow pace of economic change, a vote against joblessness, while the President remains personally popular. If anything, the message of the vote was "give us the change you promised."

Some say the vote was about health care, and it's true that Martha Coakley included support for the public option, while Scott Brown ran as the 41^st vote against reform. As I write this I'm listening to Chris Matthews grilling Howard Dean on this issue and insist that the vote was an anti-health care vote, but in order to do that he is having to insist that it was a one-issue election, ignoring all the other issues. Polling indicates, however, that Obama voters who voted for Brown or who stayed home did so because they want stronger health care reform.

There are also Democratic voices now that are calling for the President to back off, to go slow. Nothing could be a worse course of action. If Obama is going to avoid a nationwide repeat of Massachusetts in November, he must lead and lead strongly. Pass health care with a public option by using reconciliation. Launch an all-out campaign to create jobs – push the unemployment rate below 5% by November by any means necessary. Shake up Homeland Security and make it effective, get a new TSA director who will transform it from Thousands Standing Around to an effective security agency.

In other words, Mr. President, translate the fire of the campaign that gave us hope into action that gives us change, and do it now. And the next person who compares you to Jimmy Carter? Take him to the woodshed on your own behalf and on behalf of your office. We need your leadership now more than ever.

Bonanza Column 168 – Which Side Are You On?

As I've said elsewhere (http://tinyurl.com/y8pls4n), we are fighting a new kind of enemy, one we are ill-equipped to defeat.

For one thing, the playing field isn't level. We play by rules that include honor, humanity, justice, and decency. The enemy knows none of these – they will say anything, do anything, hurt anyone in the name of their ideology and what they call religion. They will lie, cheat, and distort the truth to fit their view of the world, and they don't care who gets hurt or how many people die as a result of their actions.

So how do we fight them without ourselves becoming them? This has been the critical question any time people who are committed to human values go up against others who have no such commitment. It would be easy if we were willing to be like them – to lie, distort, even kill in the name of our view of what is right, but then we would be no better than they are.

And, given our values, we can't even shut them up – to do so would violate the values we hold most dear – freedom of speech, the right to a speedy trial, to confronting your accusers, and on and on. So what can we do? They say we should be like them – that the ideals on which this country was founded only apply to those whom they favor, and can be waived for those they deem enemies. Set aside for a moment that to do that would cost us our soul, if we tried to do it to them they would hide behind those exact ideals that they so willingly abrogate for others.

By now, you may be suspecting that the enemy of which I'm speaking isn't Al Qaeda or Hamas. I'm talking about the extremists in this country who, have cynically turned one of history's worst natural disasters to their own political ends.

I'm talking about Pat Robertson, television evangelist, who, hours after the quake hit said publicly that "[the Haitian people] got together and swore a pact with the devil if he would get them free of the French," and "the Devil said OK." Understand this was not a metaphor or imagery on Robertson's part – he stated it as historical fact and went on to say that, as a result, Haiti has been cursed ever since.

I'm talking about the mouth that roars – Rush Limbaugh – who the morning after the earthquake said "this will play right into Obama's hands" – that the President will use it to "burnish their credibility with the black community, both light-skinned and dark-skinned" (the last is a shot at Harry Reid). Limbaugh went on to say we should give no aid to Haiti, that it will just "make them lazy" and speaks the words "compassion" and "humanitarian" as if they were something foul in his mouth.

To a lesser extent, I'm talking about commentator Brit Hume who had the gall to publicly tell Tiger Woods that he should give up the Buddhist faith in which he was raised and turn to Christianity.

When there is a new outrage committed in the name of Islam by the likes of Al Qaeda, people here are quick to ask where are the moderate Muslim voices – why is there no outcry from within Islam against these extremists? In the same vein, I ask where are the moderate Conservative voices crying out against these heartless idiots?

Be clear, if you identify yourself as a conservative, Limbaugh, Beck, and their ilk say they are speaking for you, and if you don't disown them, then that claim will stand. If you are a Christian, Robertson and Hume claim to be speaking for you. Where is your voice?

As I said, this is a new kind of enemy, but like the enemy outside, they will not be defeated until people of good will for whom they claim to speak and act stop quietly acquiescing and speak out against them. This week they have proclaimed their inhumanity in your name – will you let it stand? Which side are you on?

Tahoe Ticker Column 20 – Pat, Rush, and Haiti

In my column in the Bonanza this week I poked a bit of fun at how easy the Right is making it to criticize them and bemoaned the lack of any intellectually serious conservatism.

And that was before this week when, in the immediate wake of the devastation in Haiti, Pat Robertson from the Christian Right (which, as I've said, I believe is neither) and the ever-reliable Rush Limbaugh on the political (read "wing-nut" right) made statements so unbelievable that, if they weren't so heartless and devoid of humanity, would get them laughed off the air.

In case you missed it, Robertson said, apparently in all seriousness but without a shred of supporting evidence, that in the early 1800's Haiti gained its independence from France by making an agreement with the Devil and all their trouble since have been a result of that. So I guess from Pat's point of view, those Haitian slaves should have just obeyed massa in France and not gained their independence, and the bravery of Toussaint L'Ouverture and his slave rebellion could not have been sufficient to break away on their own.

Really? The Devil? And I guess Pat's God is cruel enough to just keep making the Haitians miserable from time to time rather than either forgive or destroy them for it. Seriously.

Then we have the mouth that roared. Limbaugh has actually said (a) Americans should not give for Haitian relief – "it will just make them lazy," (b) the only reason Obama cares about Haiti is to curry favor among African-Americans ("both light-skinned and dark-skinned" in a side shot at Harry Reid), and (c) Obama took three days to respond to the Christmas Day attempt by the underwear bomber (Fruit of the Boom?) in which no one was injured or killed and that needed some investigation of what happened, but responded to the Haiti earthquake where thousands were killed and injured and millions left homeless (and by the way, let's forget that W took six days to respond to the shoe bomber).

The total lack of humanity in Robertson's and Limbaugh's statements, the cynical twisting of a natural tragedy to their own political ends is sickening. That people still listen to these clowns is mystifying. Thank God for the millions of dollars in aid and the volunteers who have mobilized to help the Haitians. If they had to depend on the right wing-nuts in America, they'd be seriously screwed.

Bonanza Column 167 – The Idiocy on the Right

Writing a weekly column for the Bonanza plus a bi-weekly piece on TahoeTicker.com and frequent pieces on Huffington Post, I'm normally hungry for things to write about and scour the local, state, and national news to find items that can stimulate a column in one place or another.

So you'd think that in a week like we just had I'd be happy as a dog that fell into a bowl of gravy. We have Rudi Giuliani (Mister noun, verb, 9/11) saying there were no terrorist attacks on Bush's watch, we have McCain's campaign manager, Steve Schmidt, revealing that La Palin pulled "can I call you Joe?" because she couldn't be trusted to get his name right (and with that still referred once in the debate to "Senator O'Biden), RNCC Chair Michael Steele having a meltdown in his relationship with the party, and more.

All that ought to be great column fodder – I could probably do columns in all three places and not run out of material, and for local color there are the several emails I get each week that state with unwavering certainty that the IB program is a Communist plot, as well as those that are certain it's a violation of church/state separation because it must be religious – after all, it's called Baccalaureate!

So when I sat down to write on this foggy Saturday afternoon it was with a certain sense of anticipation – glee, even. But then, as so often happens to what used to be called "ink-stained wretches," I went blank. If you know me at all you know I'm not often at a loss for something to say, so this struck me as odd. It wasn't that I couldn't decide which of the low-hanging fruit to pick, it was that none of it interested me all that much – it was all too easy – if I might mix metaphors (and kingdoms) it was like shooting fish in a barrel.

The Right in this country is just making it too easy. When Cheney says that the President refuses to use the term "war," or Mary Matalin says he refuses to use the word "terror" and then TV shows run clip after clip of the President using both those terms as far back as the campaign and as recently as last week, when Giuliani makes a statement so egregiously stupid, when the infighting is so blatant and petty as that between Schmidt and Palin or between Steele and almost everybody, it takes all the fun out of it.

Come on, you Righties, stop stealing my job! Stop making it so easy. With Goldwater, Reagan, even Nixon, heck, even McCain, there was at least intellectual challenge. You had to think, to reason, to marshall arguments and evidence. With you guys it's like beating up the wimpy kid on the playground – you can do it, but there's no satisfaction in it and it leaves you feeling uneasy about yourself.

The right wing of the Republican party seems intent on making itself just as irrelevant as Trotskyites on the left did in the '30s, and the cause is the same – a demand for strict, blind adherence to an ideology that is intellectually bankrupt and maintains itself by insisting on its theoretical underpinnings even when they are shown to be inaccurate and corrupt. So we are presented with the spectacle of people simultaneously calling Obama a Communist, a Socialist, and a Nazi, with an insistence that anything the government does is bad while accepting Social Security and Medicare, just to name a couple.

And I predict we'll see it locally when someone has the temerity to suggest that, to survive as a community will require things like affordable housing, the development of an economic infrastructure that will support middle and working class residents, and, yes, an educational program in the schools that will attract people to the community.

Please – where is the 21^st Century's William Buckley? Where is someone who will present a conservative philosophy that doesn't depend on "it's so because I say it's so" and third grade level logic? They must be out there – I know intelligent people who are social conservatives, economic conservatives, or even who are both, and who are embarrassed by the likes of Limbaugh, Beck, Palin, et al., but who, like the great mass of Muslims, who are good, intelligent people, have allowed a few self-proclaimed ideological purists to cow them into silence. Meanwhile, I guess shooting fish in a barrel is better than not fishing at all.

Huffington Post Column 8 – It’s Time We Recognize We Have a New Kind of Enemy

A lot has been written about the Christmas Day terrorist attempt aboard a Detroit-bound flight, and there is no question in my mind that it was a security failure of biblical proportion. I think HuffPost blogger Taylor Marsh summed it up very aptly:

Let's see, a young Nigerian male, whose flight originated out of Lagos airport on the continent of Africa, a notoriously iffy security proposition to begin with, reportedly buys a one-way ticket, paying in cash, with his father (chairman of Nigeria's FirstBank, the oldest bank in the country, with offices in London, Paris and Beijing), notifying the U.S. embassy in Nigeria that his son has been radicalized, warning the U.S., with the young man attempting a terrorist attack that was foiled by sheer sweet luck

In the wake of the event, for a few days at least, airport security was tightened up, with attendant long lines and increased personal searches, and passengers on flights were made to sit, bookless and iPod-less for the last hour of their flights, and heaven help anyone who didn't make it to the bathroom before that hour. There are already signs that this increased security is lightening up, and with good reason – it was a massive overreaction to begin with.

I wonder, though, if we don't need to rethink our whole approach to security in a number of ways.

It seems to me that behind our thinking there is an unarticulated expectation that we should and can be 100% secure, if we just do enough. That thinking may be a holdover from a world that no longer exists.

In 1941, the attack on Pearl Harbor was a shock to Americans – no foreign enemy had assaulted our shores since the British in 1812, and, with two oceans between us and Europe and Asia and friendly powers at our north and south, we felt we were unassailable. The advent of air warfare changed all that and we recognized that we were not so secure any more. Through the cold war of the 1950's and the foreign wars of the rest of the 20th Century we were more or less alert to the possibility of attack, and even expanded our attention to include air hijackings (mostly to Cuba, for some reason).

Finally, 9/11 drove it home – this is a new world. The assault on our shores is not from an army, navy, or air force, but by a new kind of enemy, one who attacked stealthily, in small numbers, and without apparent regard for the deaths of civilians or even for their own death. This took the guerilla warfare that defeated us in Vietnam to a whole new level of danger and frustration for a government and military that was not versed in fighting such an enemy.

There is a country, though, that has lots of experience with this type of enemy – the State of Israel has, since 1948, been under siege in exactly this way, interspersed with conventional wars, and they seem much better at dealing with it than we are – maybe it's time to learn from them.

Israel has what may be the most effective border security in the world, particularly where air travel is concerned. Traveling to Israel I was put through rigorous screening on departure from the US or from points in Europe – in Frankfurt, for example, El Al departures were in a separated area of the airport, and had their own very thorough security.

On leaving Israel the screening was even more tight – usually a minimum of two interviews that were interspersed with trick questions designed to catch lies, and a very complete examination of both carry-on and checked luggage. An Israeli friend of mine was a security officer for El Al, and on one flight a gentleman sat next to me on the upper level of a 747 – this young, very muscular-looking fellow never took off his sport jacket, didn't read, eat or drink, and never took his eyes off the cockpit door. I might have been nervous if my friend hadn't told me enough for me to recognize the man as an air marshal.

I've asked Israeli friends what it's like for them to live under siege, and they are surprisingly relaxed about it. They are clear that the government and military are doing everything they can, and they recognize that even when terrorist attacks are frequent, the odds of any one person being in the wrong place at the wrong time are low, so they go about their lives calmly, albeit carefully.

Maybe we can learn from that – maybe profiling doesn't have to be crude and racially biased, but targeted based on real information and interviews, and maybe the alternative to profiling is not to treat everyone like a potential terrorist, subjecting the very old, the very young, and the infirm to endless inspection while others go through unmolested.

Maybe it's time to recognize that this really is a war – we may be at war against terror and terrorists, but they are also at war against us, and we're not going to find them all and kill them – we have to have more effective defense as well as spending billions on offensive initiatives that don't seem to be working.

Bonanza Column 166 – The IB Discussion Should be Fact, not Opinion

As I mentioned in passing last week, my column asking questions about the International Baccalaureate Program (IB) has garnered a considerable response. I've received a number of emails, phone calls, and pieces of literature and have met with a number of people on both sides of the issue.

The most common thing I've heard is along the lines of "I don't know much about it, but…" followed by an opinion pro or con. Some people are engaged in a genuine inquiry to find out about IB, but an alarming number seem willing to form an opinion based on either very little information, information they have heard or read but haven't checked out, or both.

There are some things "going around" that seem flatly untrue. For example, I've heard over and over again that the decision to move forward with IB was taken by the Reflective Task Force without consultation with the school Principals. The phrase I hear a lot is that this was an "end run" around the Principals. I haven't spoken with John Clark or Kathleen Watty yet, and I will, but on the face of it I don't see how this can be true when (a) both Principals were on the Task Force and (b) the Task Force voted unanimously to move forward with IB. Yet the conversation about an "end run" persists.

There is also a lot of what I consider nonsense going around. There is a website called truthaboutib.com that is apparently the project of a woman in New York who has made it her mission to torpedo IB programs wherever they are proposed. Of course, she has a perfect right to do this and I have no idea what her motives are beyond those she professes on the web site. However, I use the web a lot for research both for my consulting work and for my writing, and as a rule of thumb, I've concluded that websites called "The Truth About…" rarely live up to their name. TAIB starts by disclaiming any objectivity – they have a bias and are admirably up front about it. But then they claim to be presenting facts, many of which are either inaccurate, incomplete, or plainly untrue and that appeal without apparent substance to a right-wing political bias. Notwithstanding that, people here have cited TAIB in their concerns about or opposition to IB.

I think this issue is too important to leave to the dubious mercies of the usual IV/CB opinion-fest. It's one thing when there is a group that will listen and make the decision, à la the TRPA Board on Boulder Bay, but it's another when what is needed is for us to come together as a community to make a decision that will affect not the landscape but the lives of our children and grandchildren and the children of residents to come.

A lot of what is being said about IB can't be proved – proponents speculate that it will bring new, younger, residents to the area – they have some indices that suggest this may be so, but it can't be proved; we will have to rely on our best judgment in evaluating the claim. Likewise the concern that while we may raise the money to fund IB for some years, the money may not be there some years hence – who can say, really? Other claims can and should be evaluated as matters of fact, and facts and opinions are not the same – being sure something is true doesn't make it true, and in this matter more than usually we have to keep in mind the words of a friend of mine's bumper sticker – "don't believe everything you think."

What is needed is a means for a discussion where real facts can be presented and fact-based questions can be asked and answered. I'm working with the Bonanza to put such a forum together – stay tuned.