Further Media Consolidation a Bad Idea

Nearly six decades ago the question of America’s media; newspapers, radio, and an emerging television broadcast medium, came before the Supreme Court in a case involving the First Amendment. The Court ruled that, "the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the welfare of the public; a free press is essential to the condition of a free society."

In consideration of the SCOTUS ruling, the FCC adotped a cross-ownership rule that barred common ownership of a broadcast station and a daily newspaper in the same market. The rule was designed to promote two of the Commission’s longstanding goals in broadcast regulation – competition and diversity of information sources. The Commission first adopted the rule in 1975, when there were approximately 1,700 daily newspapers, 7,500 radio stations, and fewer than 1,000 TV stations. Three national commercial broadcast networks that had a combined prime time audience share of 95%.

Despite the recognition that a diverse media landscape was essential to American democracy, the profit imperative dictated another direction, so that by 1983, 50 corporations controlled a majority of American media. Now that number is six. And Big Media may get even bigger, thanks to the FCC’s consideration of ending the rule preventing companies from owning a newspaper, and radio and TV stations in the same city.

Ignorance of the Extreme Risk Protection Order Law May Be Fatal

Most people have heard the expression, ignorantia juris non excusat, although perhaps not in Latin. Broadly translated it means, "ignorance of the law is no excuse." But there’s another expression from Roman law, ignorant lures nocet, which means, "not knowing the law is harmful." In the case of Extreme Risk Protection Order Laws, that’s a better fit.

I wrote a Guest Commentary for the Yakima Herald, published Sunday September 10th, that asked the question, “Why aren’t we using our 'red flag' law?” The commentary spoke to our failure to effectively implement the Extreme Risk Protection Order law (RCW 7.105.100), especially in Benton and Franklin counties. The ERPO law has been in effect in Washington for over five years, and to say it has been used only sparingly is an understatement. The biggest impediment to the law's employment is the public’s ignorance of its existence. The League of Women Voters of Benton and Franklin counties is working to change that.

Sheriff's Deputy Ryan Clinkunbroomer

The critical importance of raising the public’s awareness of so-called 'Red Flag’ laws was brought home once again just recently, when a Los Angeles sheriff’s deputy was shot to death by Kevin Cataneo Salazar, whose family said he struggled with mental health issues, including “schizophrenia,” and wouldn’t take his medication. Law enforcement arrested the man and confiscated "several weapons" from his home. This case is eerily similar to the 2021 case of Ryan Kaufman here in Kennewick, reexamined in a February 2023 Tri-City Herald article by Cameron Probert.

Like Washington, California has a ‘Red Flag’ law, the court-issued Gun Violence Restraining Order (GVRO). This temporarily suspends a person’s access to firearms when they are found to pose a significant risk to themselves or others by having access to firearms, even if they obtained them legally, as the suspect in the deputy’s murder is said to have done. Only if the suspect had been evaluated by a competent behavioral health authority and certain conditions were documented, and if this was reported to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (“NICS”), might a gun dealer have refused to sell a firearm to the suspect.

'I want you to know that my son has schizophrenia and delusional perceptions and the police know this.'

Marle Salazar, mother of Kevin Cataneo Salazar, the killer of Los Angeles County sheriff’s Deputy Ryan Clinkunbroomer told this to reporters in Spanish. But her son had no record of being involuntarily committed to a mental institution, and only the police were in a position to address the situation Mrs. Salazar described to them. According to Mrs. Salazar, they told her son they couldn't help him.

It should come as no surprise that people are reluctant to have family members, especially children dear to them, involuntarily committed for mental evaluation, let alone hospitalization. But the tragedy is that 46% of people who die by suicide had a known mental health condition. Firearm deaths associated with mental illness are nearly always suicides, and a suicide attempt with a firearm is almost always fatal.


Suicide deaths are typically impulsive acts, and are the number one cause of firearm related death in the U.S. According to the Washington State Department of Health, in Washington over a 5-year period, 76% of firearm deaths were suicides. Don’t want to have a family member committed? At least remove their access to firearms. Petition for an Extreme Risk Protection Order, or ask your local police to do it.


Learn more about Extreme Risk Protection Orders:


In Washington, here:
https://protectionorder.org/erpo/faq-extreme-risk-protection-orders.html


In Benton County, here:
https://www.co.benton.wa.us/pview.aspx?id=873


In Franklin County, here:
https://www.franklincountywa.gov/591/Domestic-Violence-Civil-Protection-Order


Por instrucciones con formularios en español:
https://www.courts.wa.gov/forms/?fa=forms.contribute&formID=113


Remember, ignorant lures nocet, not knowing the law is harmful. In the case of gun violence, it may be fatal.

Video on Treating Back Pain with Various Categorioes of Medication

Michelangelo Buonarroti - Drawings

 

If you suffer from more or less constant back pain, as I do, you may find this video on how to treat the pain helpful. It is presented for the lay person, it is simple to understand, and concise. It is presented by Dr. Zinovy Meyler, a physiatrist with over a decade of experience specializing in the non-surgical care of spine, muscle, and chronic pain conditions. He is the Co-Director of the Interventional Spine Program at the Princeton Spine and Joint Center.

This is a transcript of the video

Different medications used to control back pain fall into different categories. Now, the broad spectrum of the categories can be broken down initially into the way we take the medication itself. So, oral medications, those that can be used as topical medications, and those that need to be injected.

So, to talk about the oral medications, which are more commonly used as an initial treatment. Over-the-counter medications that control the pain, such as Tylenol, can be used to control the pain itself. Now if we are to actually employ the use of the anti-inflammatory and pain control, we can seek the aid of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications. The most common ones are ibuprofen, naproxen, and the common brand names are Aleve, Motrin, Advil.

The other medications that can be used are steroids. If there is a lot of inflammation that causes the back pain, oral steroids can be employed. Now, generally, we don’t like to use oral steroids for a variety of reasons – they don’t tend to help pain that is axial, or in other words pain that is limited to the actual back without radiating into the extremities. So, we are actually using the steroids very sparingly because it has systemic effects - although minimal, but it does - and as with any treatment, we try to minimize the systemic effect or any side effect by achieving the highest yield in terms of relieving pain. So, steroids can be used, but are not commonly used.

Another type of medication is narcotic medication. Now, narcotic medications are opioids and they are used to dissociate the patient from the pain. They are usually used for severe, acute pain. They are meant to be used for a short period of time, such as the initial injury, or initial trauma, or initial onset of the most acute pain or they can be used in post-operative pain control. Another group of medications are muscle relaxants. Now, muscle relaxants are used to decrease the tone of the muscles and the reason to use them is because in many cases of back pain, muscle spasm is what usually accompanies it.

Another oral medication that can be used to control back pain is antidepressants and a variety of antidepressants can be used. An example of those would be tricyclic antidepressants or antidepressants like Cymbalta.

So, there are certain medications that can be used by just putting it directly on the skin over the area that is affected and that can be helpful. The benefit of these medications is that it is directly applied to where the pain is and where the injury is. The medications are either anti-inflammatory or pure painkillers. So the pure painkillers are things like lidoderm patch, which is lidocaine that is slowly released through a patch through the skin and that can be applied to used to just numb up the area and reduce the localized pain. Another type is the use of diclofenac, which is one of the older non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications and that can be used in the form of a patch as a Flector patch or in the form of a cream, such as Voltaren or other formulations. The benefit of this is that it is localized and systemic absorption is quite limited. That limitation is the fact that it only penetrates a certain depth and so really the use is, to an extent, limited.

Another group of the medications are the medications that are injected and there are really two of the main ones that are used for back pain. One is non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medication that can be injected, such as Toradol, and that’s injected into the muscle and the effect is systemic - or in other words it affects the whole body - in reducing the pain and its anti-inflammatory action. Another one is anesthetic, which is anesthetic like lidocaine, bupivacaine, or any other form of an anesthetic that is used to numb up the area. That can be used either to break up a muscle spasm or to numb up an area so that other manipulations can be performed in order to relieve the pain.

Another medication that can be used as an injectable is a steroid. A corticosteroid, as opposed to an oral corticosteroid, goes directly to where the problem is. So, it doesn't have to be systemically absorbed - it bypasses the systemic effect - even though it is systemically absorbed to a small degree, but it bypasses the major systemic side effects and its concentration doesn't have to be diluted by all the processes that have to happen in our body in order to get that medication to the source of the pain.

So, that really is a general overview of the medications we can use in controlling, and relieving, and in treating back pain.

The Salmon are going extinct and we won't be far behind

Coho salmon, here in full vivid spawning colors. One of many species of wild Pacific salmon in danger of extinction. (Jessica Newley)

I remember when I was younger -- around the time of the Spanish Civil War -- I used to listen to my parents and their friends talk with no little animation, about how the world was “going to hell in handbasket.” I never understood what that meant. What was a handbasket, and how did one go anywhere in a "basket," let alone to hell? On top of that, I didn’t think things were so bad when I was growing up in Los Angeles, California (the fact that World War II was going on during my early childhood seemed to have escaped me).

I still don’t know where that particular phrase comes from, but I tend to agree with the sentiment now. Maybe people my age just get cranky -- feel as though nothing’s as good as it used to be. But maybe not. Maybe there’s something to that observation. I’ll tell you this – fishing’s not as good as it used to be. Here in my adopted state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest generally, native salmon are on the brink of extinction. So, that’s not a cranky old feeling. That’s a fact.

I’ll tell you something else. When I was growing up in Los Angeles back in the mid-Twentieth Century, you could smell the orange blossoms in the spring, and you could look up in the night sky and see the millions of stars, then wake up in the morning and see the San Gabriel and San Bernardino Mountains off to the East. Unless you think smelling exhaust fumes and squinting out with burning, red eyes at an orange-brown sky is a good thing, then I expect you’d agree things were better in LA back then.

But these are just my personal recollections. And they probably color my thinking about a lot of other things – like the way we live, the way we bring up our children, the way we run our country. Things like that.

It never would’ve occurred to me when I was graduating from the University of Southern California in 1961 that kids going to school today, Elementary School at that, would be searched for weapons because 12-year olds and younger are shooting each other to death. Come to think of it, it also never occurred to me that wealthy people -- investment brokers, celebrities, and the like -- would bribe test administrators and college coaches in order to get their kids into USC.

I used to worry about my kids when they were growing up in the Seventies and Eighties, but I will tell you, I never worried that they’d go to school one day and get gunned down by an 18-year old who bought two military-style AR-15s the day after his birthday expressly to go into an elementary school and murder children. As I recall, that was something like the 270th mass shooting in America in just the first half of 2022. But somehow, another 19 children slaughtered was just enough to pass a law on gun reform. Not a law that anyone who cares thinks is enough, but after waiting 30 years for something, well we hope it's the "slippery slope" that the NRA has been warning us about.

There’s been a lot of press over the years about efforts to get the entertainment industry to tone down the violence in films, television, and video games. I agree with that, and I’d add the Internet to the list. But the industry argues that there’s “no evidence” that the subject matter in these media influences people’s behavior. In fact, they argue that the films and television that they produce simply reflect society itself. You know, I don’t buy it. The biggest “e business” on the Internet is pornography and it isn’t there because it’s producers are simply “reflecting society.” It’s there because the scumbags of the world are out to make a buck any way they can. Pornography debases society and no one needs a statistical study to know that.

I’ve never watched a whole lot of television, but I’ve watched it for some fifty years and I’ll tell you what – in today’s television, from comedy to drama, almost nothing seems to be out of bounds. In the past, sponsors seemed to take some responsibility for the content of shows on which their name and product were advertised. Now, their primary concern is ratings. In other words, they’re interested in what percentage of their target audience is watching, not what they’re watching.

Corporate “social responsibility” seems to be on the decline generally. The late Senator John McCain once tried to get a bill passed that would’ve held executives personally responsible if their companies withheld evidence of product defects that resulted in injury or death. Members of the Senate beholding to industry special interests killed the bill. What’s worse, they were able to do this anonymously.

Frankly, I feel strongly that one of the greatest threats we face as a democratic society is the unchecked influence of corporate and other special interests on our government. When George W. Bush, in his preliminary debate with John McCain before the 2000 Presidential Election, said that he wouldn’t support Campaign Finance Reform, I decided right then and there that I wouldn’t vote for him – ever –and I didn’t. I’m sorry that he was ever elected president. Little did I know that not supporting Campaign Finance Reform would be the least of his faults.

Of course, I’ve got a lot of reasons for not voting Republican: I am in favor of the so-called "safety net" programs, like Social Security, Medicare, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). That makes me a socialist in the minds of Republicans.

I'm also in favor of everyone having "personal bodily freedom" That's my term for every human being having the freedom to choose what to do about their health and well-being. I know this is anathema to Evangelical Christians and the Republicans who pander to their religious beliefs, and panhandle for their campaign contributions, but overturning Roe v. Wade is wrong, and the rationale for doing so is stupid. "It says that from the very moment of fertilization, a woman has no rights to speak of. A State can force her to bring a pregnancy to term, even at the steepest personal and familial costs." This decision isn't the worst I've seen in my many years of watching one bad decision after another, but it's close, very very close.

Protestors attend the Bans Off Our Bodies rally at the base of the Washington Monument

Well, getting back to the safety net, I think we need to spend more money on education, not on the military (despite my 20 years in the Air Force). And I favor teaching science in our public schools, not hocus-pocus. George W. Bush wants creationism on the curriculum along side evolution. I say, “Nuts!”

Well, I’m rambling, but I’m old and that’s what old folks do sometimes. Now let me tell you what I’m reading. I’m reading an article in my automobile dealer’s magazine, of all things, “Drive,” from Subaru. It’s telling me that today – Saturday, October 7, 2000 – 116 square miles of rain forest will be destroyed; 250,000 newborns will join the World’s exploding population; “at least” 1.5 million tons of hazardous waste will be released into our air, water, and land; Americans alone will throw away enough garbage today to fill the Superdome in New Orleans twice; some 40 to 100 species will become extinct.

I’m a cranky old guy that, like my parents before me, thinks things are getting worse rather than better, and this article is telling me that at the end of today, “the Earth will be a little hotter, the rain a little more acidic and the water a little more polluted…crowded cities will be more crowded and the air…will be a bit dirtier…the web of life will be a bit more threadbare. Tomorrow it starts all over again” Hey, this is my automobile dealer talking to me! Guess what I’m reading in Audubon magazine, for crying out loud!

And speaking of “drive,” I don’t like paying six bucks for a gallon of gas any more than the next guy, but drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Reserve isn’t an option for me. Haven’t we done enough harm to the environment? And half the "cars" I see driving around the Tri-Cities are trucks, or big SUVs. Either buy more fuel efficient vehicles, or buy electric vehicles. Or stop bitching about gas prices!

So here’s my plan: Vote the Republicans out of office – they had their chance and screwed things up royally. Let the Democrats screw things up for a change.

I’m also thinking about meditation. If I understand it, you sit there and try not to think about anything. Hey, that could help. When I told my wife, she said, ”Meditation, hell. You need medication!” She could be right.

Jon Phillips comments on an Op-Ed by Fareed Zakaria on the Israeli - Palestinian conflict.

In a Washington Post opinion piece, Fareed Zakaria argues that, "Israel doesn’t have any practical reasons to make a deal with the Palestinians." It doesn’t fear for its security. Israel’s economy is too strong, diversified and advanced to fear economic boycotts. According to Zakaria, "What is left is morality. Israel — a powerful, rich and secure nation — is ruling over nearly 5 million people [the Palestinians] without giving them political rights. This is an almost unique situation in a post-colonial world.”

 

The Gaza Strip is a 32 by 7 mile strip of land containing 1.8 million people,
one of the densest populated areas in the world.

Jon Phillips

Entirely true. But the logic of “morality” tends to be defined much more strongly along the lines of tribal and ethnic groupings — not by legal Nation State boundaries (Nationalism). The word “morality” comes from the same root as Mores — the ethno-cultural beliefs, practices, and behaviors of particular groups in societies. The mix of Mores vary from sub-culture to sub-culture depending on the degree plurality within a larger culture and society. To find the key to unlock a cultural door, one must find the overlap in Mores to generate empathy between two dissimilar cultures.

To be effective, those overlaps have to be resilient, potent, and exercised over considerable time to build confidence. Perhaps with the exception of assured total annihilation, if the only empathetic overlaps between groups are “breathing the same air and cherishing their children’s futures”, that is likely not enough to generate sufficient empathy between ethnic groups to achieve a nonviolent resolution. Of course, it’s always a place to start, but more than the notion of ultimate existence is necessary to create good will. There must be room for all sides to have significant hope in ongoing “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.

History suggests that the only way to achieve an equitable outcome in such a circumstance will be through principles of “nonviolence”, e.g., Gandhi’s nonviolent campaign in India, that over several decades ended British colonial occupation of a country of well over a billion people — without war. Martin Luther King and the US Civil Rights Movement in the US is another example — which still continues to this day in fits and starts since “structural racism” is more difficult to root out than overt racism in laws and regulation.

But the circumstances in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, plus the large diaspora of Palestinians as refugees in surrounding countries and elsewhere, that occurred with the Partition of Israel and later conflicts, is unique and complex. That uniqueness and complexity has created entrenched difficulties. Millions of indigenous people that are effectively Stateless and dramatic inequities that breed extraordinary hostility.

Hindu Indian culture is not like Palestinian Islamic (or Christian or Druze minorities — Druze is a unique monotheistic religion (circa 11th century) that claims Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, as it’s prophet) culture or Israeli Jewish nationalist or Jewish orthodox religious cultures. The violent protests by Arab Israelis (Palestinians that didn’t leave Israel in the Partition or thereafter) that erupted within Israel during this military conflict is a tell. The Arab Israeli culture is not the same as the Jewish Israeli cultures (nationalist or religious). Arab Israelis are a minority in Israel, but have their own political Parties and alliances within the Israeli government and society. There are also significant cultural breeches between Jewish Israeli groups, so Israel is far from culturally monolithic. The specifics of these sub-cultures define their Mores and thus, their innate and emotive empathies.

Territorial positions are fully hardened in groups on both sides after many decades of conflict. Those positions now have the potency of cultural mythology added to them — they are part of the system of Mores and thus define ethnic moral positions. At this point, Israel has no where to go and no intent to surrender. SO... no peaceful solution is indefinitely viable that doesn’t result in two States or in a single State that has free and fair universal adult suffrage.

When one looks at the demographics and how they’re changing, it seems entirely implausible that a single State is possible — hence the underlying interest in the old concept of the “Two State Solution”. Other than this, the outcome seems to be an indefinite and chronic continuation of the status quo (Israeli nationalist’s concept of “mowing the grass” — which is an incredibly dehumanizing metaphor) or outright genocide, god forbid. Genocide is always a deal breaker unless powerful authoritarian governments, with few concerns about human rights, proliferate in some very unfortunate future and Israel became one of them. Again, god forbid.

In fact, the stability of the Israeli State may be in question, at some point in the future, if it remains a State dedicated to a specific ethnicity as opposed to ethnic pluralism. The current national concept is ethnically defined while including certain minority groups that are not part of that ethnicity. Hence, there’s a tendency toward an increasing implementation of apartheid government with respect to those non-Jewish minorities. If that tendency cannot be countered and it grows worse over time, then how can a true liberal democracy exist since mass violations of Civil Rights could eventually become inevitable? A potentially growing conundrum.

All of these difficulties taken together still doesn’t suggest that there is any other humane path to resolution except those achieved through nonviolence. Nonviolence ultimately relies on moral persuasion.

A New Endowment Established at Columbia Basin College Celebrating Earth Day 2021

Earth Day this year is April 22

 

To achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement and avoid catastrophic climate change we need to act with far greater urgency than we have to date. We must undertake climate change mitigation efforts now, not in the future, now, that are up to the monumental problems we face -- a rapidly warming climate, rising sea levels, more extreme hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods, mega droughts, and species extinctions that might one day include our own. On one front we see hope -- mayors of the world’s leading cities have emerged as strong and inspiring champions of the kind of ambitious climate action the world needs.

Richard Rogers, the multi-award winning architect, has talked frequently about sustainability and climate change, the growth and density of cities, and the architect’s role as problem-solver. He's said that, “The only way forward, if we are going to improve the quality of the environment, is to get everybody involved.”

It’s in this spirit that I recently endowed a scholarship at Columbia Basin College (CBC). Titled the “Badalamente Earth and Environmental Sciences (BEES) Scholarship,” it recognizes the crucial role community colleges play in serving the higher education needs of an increasingly diverse student population, and the role CBC in particular can play in contributing to an increasing number of students studying and ultimately working in climate change and related fields, particularly in the Pacific Northwest. Student applicants must demonstrate an interest in topics surrounding climate change, with the expectation that they will go on to complete a 4-year degree, and perhaps graduate work in climate science.

I have established the initial endowment for the BEES Scholarship with a $25,000 donation. Investment earnings from the fund and additional donations will be used to award scholarships to students pursuing environmental education at CBC. The more funds that can be raised, the more scholarships that can be awarded.

If you’re interested in donating to the BEES Scholarship, go to the CBC Network for Good donate page, specify the amount, and frequency of donation, then pull down the “Please select” drop-down menu and select “CBC BEES Scholarship.” Alternately, call (509-833-5647) or email (efishburn@columbiabasin.edu) Erin Fisburn at the CBC Foundation and tell her you’re interested in BEES.

Columbia Basin College, Tri-Cities, Washington

An Orphanage in Brooklyn

Brooklyn Orphan Asylum

 

My wife's father, Bernard Joseph O'Brien, was a "half orphan." At age 7 his mother, Margaret, was forced to place Bernard and his older brother, John, in the "Brooklyn Orphan Asylum." Bernard's father had died suddenly, and his mother was unable to care for her three girls and two boys, so the boys went into the orphanage. It was an imposing brick and stone structure in the "Modern English Gothic" style that looked like a kid's nightmare vision of an "asylum."

Brooklyn Orphan Asylum sat on Atlantic Avenue, between St. Andrew’s Place and Kingston Avenue in what is now Bedford Stuyvesant. Brooklyn had a lot of orphans and half-orphans in the 19th century, the result of immigration, poverty, disease, and misfortune. Half-orphans had at least one parent, like Bernard, but that parent was unable to care for the child. Bernard and John entered the orphanage in 1902 and spent the next seven years there. They left as teenagers and rejoined their mother and sisters, went to work, and helped support the family.