Herbert nails it: America's sham democracy

I don't know whether the New York Times' Bob Herbert is channeling me or I'm channeling him. Maybe a few thousand of us are channeling each other. It's about time.

Will events in Cairo trigger our own "Hundredth Monkey"?

Herbert begins today's column, "As the throngs celebrated in Cairo, I couldn’t help wondering about what is happening to democracy here in the United States. I think it’s on the ropes. We’re in serious danger of becoming a democracy in name only."

Actually, it's worse that that, as he points out. We ARE a democracy in name only.

He concludes, as I have, that we need our very own bottom-up leadership from the streets.

We need a Tahrir square. Where will it be? And when?

Ripped City

I'm still aghast at that $66,000 that free-spending Blazermaniacs are willing to pay for a premium seat at season's worth of Trailblazer games.

And I keep running into comparisons. Yesterday it was college tuition; today it's what the average Oregonian makes in a year.

While our premium sitter shells out $66,000 for the season; it takes the average Oregonian two years ($33,000 per...) to make that much to live on — before taxes of course.

Maybe we should call it "Ripped City."

Costs compared: Blazer seat vs. a college degree

The $66,000 that rich Blazer fans are shelling out for season seats in the Rose Garden hasn't stopped gnawing at me since I wrote yesterday's post.

Now I'm seeing comparative numbers and weighing value and values.

Today we find on The Oregonian's front page that four years of college (tuition, housing and living costs) at Southern Oregon University goes for a relatively inexpensive $69,000. Surprise, surprise, a lot of talented high school graduates can't afford the price tag, just a shade over what those season Blazer seats go for.

Four years at Reed College works out to a whopping $192,000. If our fat-cat Blazer fan opted out of his Rose Garden "Premium" seat for three years, he could pay for four years, or a "classroom seat," at Reed for some worthy high school graduate.

What might our stay-at-home BlazerManiac-turned-philanthropist (yes, that's what I'm suggesting) do with his time? He could always watch the Blazer games on TV. There are some pretty good books out there. He might even take a course in philanthropy.

If enough premium seat holders walked away from the Rose Garden, the Blazers might find themselves in financial straits worse than the ones they are in now. Who knows, the Blazers no longer may be able to afford $3 million West Hills estates like the one Scottie Pippen recently sold.

Would that be all bad? $1 million will still put a tall roof over their lofty heads.

It’s a leap I know, but Mahatma Gandhi's saying comes to mind: Be the change you want to see in the world. And, yes, the “you” means me and you, as well as our premium seat holder, Pippen et. al.

Truth to tell, most of us have bought $66,000 seats (or their equivalent) at one time or another.

Choices the wealthy make

If you work to unscramble the news, if you strive to make sense of its seemingly disparate stories, truths often emerge.

Today's Oregonian noted the death of philanthropist Jean Vollum, the widow of Tektronix co-founder Howard Vollum. She and Howard gave away tens of millions of dollars. Such stories are heart-warming but the fail to mention the roles thousands of Tektronix workers played in earning the money that the Vollums gave away to worthy causes.

But never mind; that's not my point.

My point comes from connecting the Vollum story to another story, one about sports on the business page of the same Oregonian issue. It's about how the luck-of-the-draw Portland Trailblazers have set out to capitalize on their number-one draft pick and the hype surrounding it.

Turns out that the wealthy, in addition to not being like you and me, aren't like themselves.

On the one hand, a Jean Vollum can be giving money to the Mt. Angel Abbey, the Oregon College of Art & Craft and the Native American Center at PSU, while well-healed Blazer fans prefer to fork over megabucks to get up close to the pick-and-rolls, jump shots and trash talk at the Rose Garden. "Premium-priced seating" goes for...ready?....$66,000 a seat per season.

So here we have a class of folks who will pay for a well-situated seat at a season's worth of basketball games an amount greater than most Americans will earn in a year.

Taken separately, the Vollum story and the Blazer story are what we call news. Taken together, they offer a truth about values and choices.

P.S. Related — I'll leave the relationship to you — is the front-page story (same issue!) of how former Blazer Scottie Pippen took a hit on selling his 18,700-square-foot West Hills manor and estate for a shade under $3 million. The buyers are described simply as "Florida transplants," Razvani and Felicia Andreescu. If they hurry, they might still be able to pick up a pair of those "premium priced" seats at the Rose Garden. Then again, there's always Mercy Corps....