Posted inCity of Salem Salem Police Department

Patriot Prayer holding May 1 rally in Salem’s Riverfront Park

The right-wing wackos are coming back to Salem!   Well, judging from this notice, most never left our area, they've just been silently cooking up fresh conspiracy theories to keep their reality-denying minds firmly at home in Crazy Town. Newsweek had a story about the rally yesterday, "Far-Right Patriot Prayer Plans Oregon Return Alongside GOP Rep. Mike Nearman."  The far-right group Patriot Prayer is planning a return to Salem, Oregon, in May to hold a gun rights event. The rally is being promoted online by the group's leader Joey Gibson and is scheduled to take place on May 1 at…
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Posted inSalem-Keizer school district

NAACP calls on Kari Zohner to end her school board campaign

The Salem-Keizer NAACP is calling on a candidate for the Salem-Keizer school board, Kari Zohner, to drop out of the race after she trashed the memory of George Floyd following the conviction of the police officer who murdered him, Derek Chauvin. The NAACP issued its statement Wednesday night. “We understand and support the First Amendment right to free speech. However, this hateful rhetoric is founded in racism and has no place in the auspices of the Salem-Keizer School board or any elected office. We must hold our leaders accountable and make clear that this behavior will not be tolerated in…
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Posted inCity Council Police reform

Derek Chauvin conviction just small step toward police reform

I'm glad that I was in my car, listening to CNN, when the judge read the jury verdict in the Derek Chauvin case. As I heard the judge say "guilty of second degree murder," "guilty of third degree murder," "guilty of manslaughter," my right arm made the same happy motion upward as the arms of the women below. But right next to this Washington Post headline story was a disturbing story of a police killing of a 16 year old girl in Columbus, Ohio, "Ohio police fatally shoot teen girl just before Chauvin verdict: 'This stuff just never ends.'" This…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Police reform

Police budget should be cut to pay for crisis response team

City Councilor Vanessa Nordyke is pushing for Salem to have a crisis response team similar to the CAHOOTS program that has been successfully used in Eugene since 1989.  Here's a description of CAHOOTS, courtesy of the White Bird Clinic. 31 years ago the City of Eugene, Oregon developed an innovative community-based public safety system to provide mental health first response for crises involving mental illness, homelessness, and addiction. White Bird Clinic launched CAHOOTS (Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets) as a community policing initiative in 1989. The CAHOOTS model has been in the spotlight recently as our nation struggles…
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Posted inCity of Salem Trees

No-notice tree removals make Salem resident angry

It hurts to see a tree company truck pull up in front of your house, then watch workers remove a beloved street tree -- all with no communication from the City of Salem about why the tree needed to be destroyed. This happened to Heather, a resident of the Morningside neighborhood. The tree that was removed is the middle one in the photo below.  Heather told me in an email, "Survived the wild fires, survived the ice storm, didn't survive the City of Salem." Here's an email that Heather sent to Mayor Chuck Bennett on April 13. Yesterday the city…
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Posted inPolice reform

Let’s stop talking about “accidental” police shootings

Another day, another black man "accidentally" shot and killed by a police officer.  BROOKLYN CENTER, Minn. — The suburban Minneapolis police officer who fatally shot a 20-year-old unarmed Black man during a traffic stop Sunday apparently meant to fire a Taser but instead made an “accidental discharge” from her gun, the police chief said Monday. This is stretching the meaning of accidental beyond the bounds where the word makes sense. An accidental discharge of a gun would happen if, say, it was lying on a table during an earthquake with the safety off, fell, hit the floor, and somehow the…
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Posted inSalem-Keizer school district

School board chair Chandragiri insults student journalist

Hard to see how this action by Salem-Keizer School Board chair Satya Chandragiri is anything short of flat-out outrageous.  Eddy Binford-Ross is editor-in-chief of South Salem High School's paper, the Clypian. After getting national recognition for covering Black Lives Matter protests last year, she spent months researching and writing a tell-all expose of how screwed-up the school board is, "Scandals, Special Interests and Dysfunction Plague School Board." Binford-Ross won a richly deserved 2021 Oregon High School Journalist of the Year award. She was set to be recognized at the April 13 school board meeting. But Chandragiri decided to put off…
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Posted inPolice reform Salem Police Department

So senseless: Salem police kill suicidal man

It's not as infuriating as the George Floyd murder by a Minneapolis police officer, but I'm still deeply bothered by a Salem police officer, Clinton Sealey, killing a suicidal man, Natzeryt Viertel. Neighbors say that Viertel struggled with mental health issues. He was threatening to take his life. He had a gun. That shouldn't be a death sentence. The Salem Police Department failed Viertel. He should have gotten help from the police, not bullets in his body. Almost certainly Chief Womack and others in the department will find excuses for why Viertel was killed. But those excuses won't bring Viertel…
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Posted inNational politics Political philosophy

I agree with an Ayn Rand objectivist on some things

Exciting day! (But since there isn't much excitement in my life, I get excited about small things.) This afternoon I had a pleasant talk with somebody I'd never met before. Doesn't matter where or how. I'll focus on the what of our conversation. After some introductory chit-chat, this guy said "I'm an objectivist."  "Tell me about it," I said, having a vague memory that this had something to do with the philosophy of Ayn Rand, but not being sure. Perhaps because I'd mentioned working in health planning back in the 1970s and 80s, he told me that objectivists aren't big…
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