Tag Archives: John Foote

A Lesson for Harvey’s Girls

The last thing the Harvey Weinstein Pile-On needs is a mewling #MeToo hashtag so females everywhere can easily climb on board. If women want to be taken seriously, they should turn to the example of someone like Dee Dee Kouns. She learned through the worst kind of tragedy how to fight injustice. Her 26-year-old daughter, […]

Passing the Kleenex

When the 11-year-old girl in Stevensville, Mont., didn’t want to have sex with her grandfather, he would sit on the couch and sulk. “He would … pout if he didn’t get what he wanted. … He’d wait to see if I could come out and look at him and feel sorry for him, but I […]

The Universe of What’s Possible

Frank Rizzo, tough cop and former Philadelphia mayor, coined a phrase that has become a popular myth: “A conservative is a liberal who’s been mugged the night before.” No, a liberal who’s been mugged is probably still a liberal – but with an appreciation for what it’s really like to be mugged. This is a […]

The Stats on PEW’s Credibility

Nothing exposes crime statistics like an honest rap sheet. Consider the “26 percent” of Oregon prison inmates that the PEW Center on the States has found to be “low risk” and driving up the costs of incarceration. Who exactly are these 26 percent? Considering that Oregon doesn’t incarcerate most felons, what crimes are these “low-risk” […]

Spinning the Numbers on Public Safety

When did think tanks start doing our thinking for us? Here in Oregon, Gov. John Kitzhaber and his legislative leaders have hired the Pew Center on the States to tell them what to do about public safety. The Pew Center on the States has been getting a lot of favorable publicity since it began its […]

UPSET? Try Getting MADD

The Portland Public School District is like a dysfunctional family that has decided the answer to its problems is to remodel the living room. And Oregon’s Commission on Public Safety is like an investor who is contemplating moving money out of the one account that is paying dividends. These two entities are engaged in the […]