Victorian Square in Sparks, Nevada: a public plaza with no public

Early on an autumn morning I walked around Sparks (contiguous to Reno) a bit, just the area around the Nugget casino. The Nugget is about the biggest thing in this low-rise town; the original casino and one of its newer hotel towers are pictured below.

Across the thoroughfare is what seems to be an extensive public area, called Victorian Square,

with a bandshell-like gazebo.

But alas, the constantly-flowing music comes from speakers mounted on the lightpoles, and the only other living creatures I saw were a man picking cans out of a garbage bin, and a lonely pigeon.

The lack of pigeons emphasized to me the lack of public use, since wherever people congregate outdoors for any period, pretty soon they start dropping bits of food. When pigeons can’t find any reason to flock around, then the area is really unused.

But there was a sundial showing the correct time, just in case you’d hocked your watch and lost the money the night before.

If I’d been there a month earlier, on a Thursday between 4 and 9 pm, I could have caught this event:

The sign promises a “family activity park”––whatever can that be? Probable answer: one without “adult activities” like drinking and gambling. (I’m so behind the times, when the TV tells me a movie contains “Adult themes” I always have a micro-instant of thinking, Oh, it’s going to be about philosophy, or honoring one’s commitments, or solving world problems.) Anyway, as far as I could see the plaza itself included no play structures, no kid-sized statuary of animals to swarm over and sit on, no tile chess boards, no fountains, no picnic tables, few green areas to sit by…in fact for a while it seemed designed with the idea of clearing a defensible space around the casino where machine guns could command an open line of fire. Or it may be a disembarkation place for gamblers arriving by bus from California.

Along the edges there were a few survivors of the older buildings that must have been cleared for this big paved plaza area. One was the Victorian Penny Park Casino, closed.

And an old brick building, maybe a former hotel, with a vivid exterior including painted roses under the windows.

Looking back toward the Nugget I spotted these women: a few other wanderers who’d gotten bored and turned to stone? no, it’s a really incongruous effort at public statuary.

I didn’t cross the street for a closer look, but a good guess would be that they are either four of the muses, or figures representing Nevadan history and industry. The two female figures in the middle seem less than pleased: one gathers her skirts up as if recoiling from her surroundings, while the other has a melodramatic “You’re breaking my heart” look. The third is holding something bulky to her stone bosom, probably part of the day’s take from the casino, while the last (on the left) stands erect, leg akimbo, and has thrown back her outer garment. Her I can place, with the aid of a taxi sign seen later; she’s inviting you to the world-famous, umm, museum that is nearby.

Terrorism begins at home

Hamas patrols beaches in Gaza to enforce conservative dress code

From today’s Guardian newspaper (UK) comes an article worth reading about the efforts of Hamas to “Islamize” the Gaza area of Palestine, where they are the elected government, by controlling dress and behavior–––especially of women, of course. Ownership must be maintained!

It began with a rash of unusually assertive police patrols. Armed Hamas officers stopped men from sitting shirtless on the beach, broke up groups of unmarried men and women, and ordered shopkeepers not to display lingerie on mannequins in their windows.

Then came an effort to force female lawyers to abide by a more conservative dress code, and intense pressure on parents to dress their daughters more conservatively for the new school term. Last week police began enforcing a new decree banning women from riding on motorbikes.

For the first time since Hamas won Palestinian parliamentary elections nearly four years ago, the group is trying to Islamise Gazan society. In public, Hamas leaders say they are merely encouraging a social moral code, and insist they are not trying to imitate the religious police who operate in some other rigid Islamic countries. But to many it feels like a new wave of enforcement in what is already a devoutly Muslim society.

Asmaa al-Ghoul, a writer and former journalist, was one of the first to run up against the new campaign. She spent an evening with a mixed group of friends in a beachside cafe in late June. After dark, she and another female friend went swimming wearing long trousers and T-shirts. Moments after leaving the water they found themselves confronted by a group of increasingly aggressive Hamas police officers. “Where is your father? Your husband?” one officer asked her. Ghoul, 27, was told her behaviour had not been respectable. Five of her male friends were beaten and detained for several hours….

Mostly the campaign focuses on what women wear. One startling poster decries the trend for young women to wear their headscarf along with tight jeans as a “satanic industry 100%”. It shows a red devil holding an image of a fashionable young woman and recommends a fuller, less glamorous head covering, counselling: “The right hijab is your way to heaven.”

Asked about his attitude to those few Gazan women who do not cover their hair, Abu Shaar said: “We tell them it is an essential element to being a Muslim. Wearing the headscarf is as essential as prayer.

If you think my comment about maintaining ownership goes too far, note the enquiry of the police officers, “Where is your father? Your husband?” and the beating of the male companions. Women must not be allowed out in public without their owners being present to control them. Men are responsible for the behavior of “their” women, their wives, daughters, sisters; if they do not exercise that control, they may be punished too, a powerful example to other men. The excuse for honor killings, of disobedient women, even women who have been raped, is that these “immoral” women bring upon the family dishonor which can only be washed clean with their blood.

Some women are resisting the increased Islamization in Gaza:

When the Hamas-appointed chief justice, Abdel-Raouf al-Halabi, ordered a new uniform for all lawyers, which for women meant a headscarf and a jilbab – a full-length robe – he had not counted on the temerity of the response. Nearly all of Gaza’s 150 female lawyers already wear headscarves, but they challenged the ruling on the grounds that it had no basis in law. The chief justice was forced to back down.

“It was absolutely illegal,” said Dina Abu Dagga, a lawyer who has covered her hair since she was at university in Cairo.

It was not the chief justice’s right to change the dress code, she said. Under Palestinian law, that power rested with the lawyers’ union.

“We’re not against the hijab. I wear it myself,” she said. “We’re against imposing it and restricting our freedoms. Today you impose the hijab, but tomorrow it will be something else.”

But, unlike the lawyers with their union, most women do not have a “place to stand” in order to resist safely.

We are obsessed with terrorism, since 9/11. But only when it is directed against a national government. When women are threatened, murdered, and repressed, that is terrorism too: the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion (Merriam-Webster). What is more political than the subjugation, by fear and violence, of one portion of a population?

As politicians well know, religion can provide the best justification for terroristic acts, since they are being performed at God’s behest. Once a behavior (like not wearing a headscarf, or wearing one that is too revealing) has been linked with the devil, anyone who fits the description is risking their mortal soul, and endangering the entire society by their example. As Barry Goldwater famously said, “Extremism in defense of virtue is no vice”. Or “If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out”; much easier if it is someone else’s eye, or even your own daughter. [image below from a painting by John Singer Sargent, A Spanish Woman.]

If Babbage HAD built his “Difference Engine”

Here’s a funny comics-version, from 2D goggles. Actually it is about mathematician Ada Byron Lovelace (1815 – 1852), but we all know that women never get top billing!

The comic was made for “Ada Lovelace Day”, to promote a film (to be offered to local stations by PBS) about this remarkable woman, and the film-makers need our help:

letters of support from people who have been influenced in some way by Ada and who are willing to help publicise the film, be a part of the interactive website, perhaps show the film, or contribute in any other way.

Rosemarie says, “I need letters from people stating how important a film like Ada is and how they through their networks can help to publicize the film. It would be great if the women have organizations they work or belong to. If they are software developers or computer experts, this would be great. It would be best if they were Americans, as the NSF (National Science Foundation) is American.”

If you’re not American, letters would still be useful of course! The deadline is the end of October.

Please write to:

Rosemarie Reed
On the Road Productions International, Inc.
310 Greenwich Street, 21F
New York, NY 10013
Or email Rosemarie directly, rreed40148@aol.com.

After some thought, I decided to write a letter based on my experiences giving books to kids at the food pantry, and the unabated gender gap I see in kids’ interest in science and math. Sure, the older kids are computer users, but computers are fun personal devices; they still display an aversion to math and science, especially the non-biological sciences. A few boys get drawn in by technology, but I don’t see it in girls. [I have a small sample size, I admit, and it is a rural area.]

Who was Ada Lovelace?

Ada Byron Lovelace was the daughter of Lord Byron (his only legitimate child); she married a nobleman, and was part of the social whirl of that class, dancing and entertaining. [Photo below from Wikipedia]

Wikipedia tells us that

During a nine-month period in 1842-43, Lovelace translated Italian mathematician Luigi Menabrea’s memoir on Babbage’s newest proposed machine, the Analytical Engine. With the article, she appended a set of notes. The notes are longer than the memoir itself and include (Section G), in complete detail, a method for calculating a sequence of Bernoulli numbers with the Engine, which would have run correctly had the Analytical Engine ever been built. Based on this work, Lovelace is now widely credited with being the first computer programmer and her method is recognised as the world’s first computer program.
However, biographers debate the extent of her original contributions. Dorothy Stein, author of Ada: A Life and a Legacy, contends that the programs were mostly written by Babbage himself. Babbage wrote the following on the subject, in his Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (1846):

I then suggested that she add some notes to Menabrea’s memoir, an idea which was immediately adopted. We discussed together the various illustrations that might be introduced: I suggested several but the selection was entirely her own. So also was the algebraic working out of the different problems, except, indeed, that relating to the numbers of Bernoulli, which I had offered to do to save Lady Lovelace the trouble. This she sent back to me for an amendment, having detected a grave mistake which I had made in the process.

The level of impact of Lovelace on Babbage’s engines is difficult to resolve due to Babbage’s tendency not to acknowledge (either orally or in writing) the influence of other people in his work. However, Lovelace was certainly one of the few people who fully understood Babbage’s ideas and created a program for the Analytical Engine, indeed there are numerous clues that she might also have suggested the usage of punched cards for Babbage’s second machine since her notes in Menabrea’s memoir suggest she deeply understood the Jaquard’s Loom as well as the Analytical Engine. Her prose also acknowledged some possibilities of the machine which Babbage never published, such as speculation that “the engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent”.

The Difference Engine becomes reality after 150 years

Babbage never built his mechanical computer, but the London Science Museum did make a working version. It was finished in 1991 for the 200th anniversary of Babbage’s birth.

A view of “some of the number wheels and the sector gears between columns”

Difference Engine model photos source.

Ada Lovelace, “The Right Honourable the Countess of Lovelace”, gave birth to three children (the firstborn was named Byron), and died at 37 of uterine cancer and being bled by her doctors.

Let’s support that film, with letters or emails to demonstrate demand for stations to show it! Here’s the email again, rreed40148@aol.com.

More about girls being turned off to math and science

Feminist Chemists cites a 2008 study by the American Mathematical Society:

In elementary school, girls do as well as or better in math than boys. In middle school, girls with an inclination for math begin to lose interest and fall behind, mostly due to peer pressure and societal expectations. Throughout middle and high school, social stigma and lack of appropriately challenging educational opportunities for the mathematically precocious becomes a hard reality in most American schools. Consequently, gifted girls, even more so than boys, often camouflage their mathematical talent to fit in well with their peers.

A study published in June by the National Academy of Sciences found

“It’s not an innate difference in math ability between males and females,” says Janet Mertz, a UW-Madison professor of oncology and one of the authors of the article that analyzes and summarizes recent data on math performance at all levels in the United States and internationally. “There are countries where the gender disparity in math performance doesn’t exist at either the average or gifted level. These tend to be the same countries that have the greatest gender equality.”

Gender bias and expectations are not the only thing we have to worry about. It’s not just girls––boys are losing interest too, according to the AMS research:

”The U.S. culture that is discouraging girls is also discouraging boys,” says Janet Mertz, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of oncology and the senior author of the study. “The situation is becoming urgent. The data show that a majority of the top young mathematicians in this country were not born here.”

[NOTE: While Janet Mertz was one of the authors on each study, the PNAS and AMS studies are two different projects. The latter, published Oct. 10 in the Notices of the American Mathematical Society, was a comprehensive analysis of decades of data on students identified as having profound ability in math (Science News Oct. 13, 2008). The other study was published June 1, 2009 in the Proceedings of the National Academy. It looked at US and international data on students of all levels of ability, to answer three key questions: "Do gender differences in math performance exist in the general population? Do gender differences exist among the mathematically talented? Do females exist who possess profound mathematical talent? The answers, according to the Wisconsin researchers, are no, no and yes." (Science News June 2, 2009).

You may remember the remarks of Lawrence Summers in 2005 (he was then President of Harvard, and is now an economic adviser to President Obama), to the effect that innate differences between men and women might be one reason fewer women succeed in science and math careers. These two studies would support the conclusion that if innate differences do influence women's lack of success in these fields, the differences are not in mathematical ability. Maybe we should look at “innate differences” in aggressiveness and willingness to withstand unduly competitive or even hostile treatment from colleagues and superiors. Or at insecurity and discomfort, innate or not, which arise in male academics and administrators when females display ability, competence, and promise. A few decades ago women rarely appeared in symphony orchestras unless they played the harp; auditions behind screens changed that! Did our musical ability transform itself overnight? Probably not. ]

[Photo from another good article on the AMS study]

Send an email for Ada and our kids, and consider how you yourself might interact with kids about math and science. Take a trip to the Science Museum if you are fortunate enough to live near one, read a book together, in general don’t act as if math and science are boring geek fare. Even if a lot of it is beyond you, as higher math seems to be beyond me, that doesn’t have to be true for the kids you know. Since I was in college, math has become much more important in biological sciences, ecology, even social sciences like history, so if I were a history major today I would probably need to take at least an introductory statistics class.

We all need to model a respect and interest for learning, to the kids around us. Kids start out as voracious learners: have you tried to learn another language lately? Hard, right? Babies do it, and young kids pick up second languages easily. They’re always learning, not just skills and processes but attitudes too, so let’s not convey bad attitudes about learning, reading, thinking!

Listening to what people say: no victim “deserves it”

Recently I’ve noticed, in reports of crimes against persons, an abhorrent phrase that seems to be commonly accepted: people being quoted as saying that the victim “didn’t deserve this”. Who does deserve being beaten, raped, or murdered? Ah, but maybe this person did deserve a beating––but was murdered instead. No, too subtle.

Was I imagining it? I googled “didn’t deserve to die”, the strongest usage, and quickly came up with half a dozen different instances.

Then, on the front page of the Oregonian a week or so ago, I saw this one: a driver with a blood alcohol level “approaching .30” ran his car up onto a sidewalk in broad daylight and pinned a pedestrian against a utility pole. As the drunk tried to drive away he hit the pedestrian two more times. Oh yes, and the pedestrian was blind and carrying a white cane. The driver was chased and boxed in by other drivers. Since his arrest, he had been trying to make a good impression: visiting the badly injured man, publicizing his own past volunteer work (performed while he was a bank exec), all that sort of thing. The article reported on his appearance in court for sentencing, definitely an occasion to choose one’s words carefully. What did he say, in his attempt at an apology?

“He didn’t deserve it. It was all my fault.”

Good to know that the blind man didn’t actually deserve being run over three times, we were all wondering about that.

What’s going on here?

According to my unscientific survey the phrase is used at least as often by the relatives of victims, as by those accused of the crime in question. So I conclude that this represents a general societal attitude, which tacitly regards some people as deserving to be harmed or attacked by others.

The connexion that came up in my mind was with a shift in moral education over the past three decades or so, which changed the focus from the person acting, to the person being acted upon, and from general principles of interpersonal behavior, to principles regarding certain groups. In an effort to end harassment of minorities and those perceived as different, we started teaching children and adults to avoid ridiculing this or that sort of person––overweight or gay, for example. Something needed to be done, to end these long-winked-at instances of bullying and cruelty, but how much better to emphasize a universal (and positive, rather than negative) approach of being polite and compassionate. Singling out groups creates assumptions that groups not named may be fair game. “Nobody told me not to call him names, he’s an Italian/left-handed/too skinny/a nerd!”

The general approach is better all around.

Some pragmatic reasons: It’s far easier, no need to remember who you’re supposed to be kind to this week. Like deciding that you are going to stop your car whenever a pedestrian is trying to cross, instead of having to make a judgment call on the fly each time. No type of person is accidentally omitted (though of course people who are dangerous, manipulative, etc., can and often must be treated differently). Those are points of persuasion for people not so much moved by moral considerations alone (to me it’s surprising how often there are practical reasons which could be used to bolster the “should/ought” arguments).

Moral arguments include: putting responsibility where it belongs, on the act-or instead of the act-ee; promoting human community rather than division; generally strengthening the moral rule which is one that makes human interchange run much more smoothly and harmoniously.

Then, from a different angle, there’s Shakespeare’s take what the just deserts of a human being, “poor bare, forked animal”, may be

Dept. of “No Comment”

A sign in the florist area of Albertson’s yesterday…

Changing the American Health Care system

I responded to an email from moveon.org today, which wanted me to sign a petition to my Senators and Representative stating:

Full petition text:
“I strongly believe that Americans should have the choice of a public health insurance option operating alongside private plans. This will give them a better range of choices, make the health care market more competitive, and keep insurance companies honest.”

My convictions on this matter are different from moveon.org’s and from the position that Congressional Democrats like Baucus are putting forth, and so in the area for appending comments to be sent, I said:

Actually, this petition misrepresents my beliefs on this issue, based on 63 years of observation.

The single payer option is what we must adopt. A separate “public health insurance option “ will burden the taxpayer with the most expensive patients while the private plans take the profitable healthy younger patients. We have let this happen with FedEx and the Postal System, and private charter schools and public schools. The tax-supported option ends up with the mandate of accepting the part of the market that is least profitable.

We all know that the health care mega-corporations and industry groups will promise *anything* now, like a person being waterboarded. Five years from now will they be so devoted to the health of every American? No chance. And once this process is over, we are stuck with it—there will not be the political will to make substantial changes for another generation or more.

Mind you, I don’t think there’s much chance of a single-payer option coming to pass. American politics runs on money, and who’s got more of it than the “medical-industrial complex”? Americans have more passion and energy to invest in American Idol than in their own health and survival.

What the US now spends on health care

Here are some interesting figures, from the National Coalition on Health Care, a non-profit coalition bringing together “large and small businesses, the nation’s largest labor, consumer, religious and primary care provider groups, and the largest health and pension funds”, with 2 former presidents as Honorary Co-Chairs, Bush the first and Jimmy Carter. So their figures are likely to be well-researched and certainly not wildly radical.

National Health Care Spending

In 2008, health care spending in the United States reached $2.4 trillion, and was projected to reach $3.1 trillion in 2012.1 Health care spending is projected to reach $4.3 trillion by 2016.1
Health care spending is 4.3 times the amount spent on national defense.3

In 2008, the United States will spend 17 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on health care. It is projected that the percentage will reach 20 percent by 2017.1

Although nearly 46 million Americans are uninsured, the United States spends more on health care than other industrialized nations, and those countries provide health insurance to all their citizens.3

Health care spending accounted for 10.9 percent of the GDP in Switzerland, 10.7 percent in Germany, 9.7 percent in Canada and 9.5 percent in France, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.4

footnotes refer to these sources:

1 – Keehan, S. et al. “Health Spending Projections Through 2017, Health Affairs Web Exclusive W146: 21 February 2008.

2 – The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Employee Health Benefits: 2008 Annual Survey. September 2008.

3 – California Health Care Foundation. Health Care Costs 101 — 2005. 02 March 2005.

4 – Pear, R., “U.S. Health Care Spending Reaches All-Time High: 15% of GDP.” The New York Times, 9 January 2004, 3.

More about credit cards, debt, pyramids, and eschatology

My recent post “Why I’m canceling my Bank of America credit card” brought a comment pointing out that cancelling credit cards can adversely affect one’s credit score, perhaps making it difficult to borrow for cars and houses. That may well be true, but it seems to spring from a view of credit and debt quite different from mine. Rather than dump this on the hapless commenter as a reply, I’ll say it here.

First, the companies have no incentive to restrict credit, and I expect they’ll soon be back to sending out credit apps to dogs and kindergartners. When the banks lose money through extending credit unwisely, they raise rates on the rest of us to recoup. Worst case, as now, the taxpayers bail them out, they buy each other up, write off debt, get tax breaks for losses. So I think people can safely cancel all but one or two cards, and still be able to use credit to make major purchases.

Second, I’m hoping that ordinary people, who DO have an incentive to learn from the present debacle, may start restricting their debt to large necessary items. Cars and houses usually do require going into debt. But I’m old enough to remember life without credit cards; my mom had a metal “charge-a-plate” for Macy’s, and there was layaway at some stores, but no credit cards. If you wanted something you saved up for it. If you couldn’t afford to go out to dinner, you didn’t go. To those accustomed to incurring chronic credit-card debt for indulgences, such a life may seem a bleak prospect. But actually I recall very few people growing despondent for want of cruises, concert tickets, and designer handbags.

Back in the 1980’s when I saw items at an Oregon department-type store bearing tags that said “Want me? Buy me!” and a credit card logo, I viewed it as a dangerous & selfish attitude to cultivate. Along with it came the re-definition of human beings as “consumers”.

The present economic system is a pyramid scheme because it is predicated on continual growth. We do not live in a world of infinite resources and space, therefore neither population nor consumption/production can continue to increase forever. Business interests, and even the administration, expect increased consumption to get us out of this depression. If it does, it can be only a temporary fix.

I know there are a lot of optimists out there who say not to worry about dismal stuff like the economy, climate change, and all that, because the world is going to end in 2012 (Mayan Calendar theory) or “soon” (some Christian fundamentalist theories). But I just can’t be that optimistic. Call me crazy, but what if we’ve got those Mayan numbers just a little bit wrong? Or some translator introduced an inaccuracy into the Book of Revelations? What if God has changed His mind, and now thinks it might be amusing to see how His little creatures manage with these challenges? We just can’t know. Better to keep our eyes on the ball, as it were (in this case the planet & its inhabitants) and not count on the Umpire calling the game on account of End of Time.

Helping National Guard and Reservists “re-enter” after deployment

Sometimes local news should have a wider audience across the country.

Our US Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) has earned great respect in this state for his humane principles and competence at building coalitions to get things done in DC. Here’s an example from the Oregonian newspaper on an issue that, typically for him, is not at all parochial but affects all of us deeply.

Sen. Wyden proposes extending Guard pay

The Oregon lawmaker wants to give soldiers returning from war 90 extra pay days

Wednesday, April 08, 2009

JULIE SULLIVAN, The Oregonian Staff

When Oregon Army National Guard soldiers returned from Iraq four years ago, fewer than half had a job waiting.

Employers wanted to help. Within a week, the Guard organized a reintegration fair that offered an estimated 500 jobs. But not a single soldier took one.

It was too soon.

“They are not ready to leave a combat zone and seven days later, go back to work,” Brig. Gen. Mike Caldwell said.

State and federal officials say they’ve learned how to do it right. U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., wants to extend federal pay for National Guard and reservists for 90 days to ensure a “softer landing” when they return.

Oregon has posted some of the highest percentages of Guard members serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Another 2,700 are training to deploy Iraq in July.

Unlike the regular Army, where soldiers return to their stateside military jobs and bases, the Oregon Guard and reservists scatter to hometowns. They lose their military salary, and more than $600 a month in other hazardous duty and separation pay.

When Oregon soldiers returned from Afghanistan two years ago, fewer than half of them younger than 35 had a job waiting. The younger the vet, the worse the outlook, with nearly 65 percent younger than 25 unemployed.

“About 79 percent returned to poverty,” said Sgt. First Class (Ret.) J.D. Baucom, a career assistance liaison for the Oregon Guard. He’s concerned in today’s economy those numbers are bound to get worse.

Wyden said paying the Guard for up to 90 days after they return would give them time to rebuild their lives before hitting a financial wall.

“We not willing to sit around and watch soldiers go from the front lines to unemployment lines,” he said.

Oregon has led in veterans’ advocacy. The Guard’s re-integration program — launched by wounded Alsea and Albany infantrymen in 2004 — is a national model. In 2007, the Legislature created a new veterans hiring preference for public employees. Now it is considering extending that preference from 15 years to a lifetime and granting 15 days unpaid leave to spouses of deploying soldiers.

Wyden’s bill covers returning soldiers so it would help only a fraction of the 350,000 Oregon veterans. He met former service members at the IBEW Local 48 in Northeast Portland on Tuesday morning in part to highlight job opportunities in the building trades. One federal program, Helmets to Hardhats, has put more than 1,757 veterans nationally into union apprentice programs. Across the hall, three young military veterans had found union jobs a good match on their own. They said that learning discipline, attention to detail and the ability to work in a team in the service has helped them apprentice as commercial electricians.

“I tried college, but I was working full time and going to school full time and that didn’t work,” said Craig Enneberg, 28, of Sherwood. “This works.”

Still, veterans advocates — and veterans themselves — told Wyden that a far more targeted approach is needed. Among the suggestions:

Reduce paperwork. “If we can’t get through the process, how we can we ask a 20-year-old from eastern Oregon who doesn’t know where to call?” said Sgt. 1st Class Phillip Maas, who manages career assistance for the reintegration team.

Connect veterans. Ret. Master Sgt. Mike Eschete, who recently graduated from Portland State University, proposed a mentoring program using military retirees. “They speak a different language and understand a dimension that is invisible to others,” he said.

Educate gatekeepers at agencies. “Put someone in that position who gives a damn,” said Erik Burris, a 12-year veteran of the Navy. Burris said one state employment specialist, Rene Garcia, helped him.

But little else has helped Burris in this economy.

The 41-year-old aviation structural mechanic and flight deck troubleshooter in the Navy has been laid off from four jobs in Portland since 2002. Wyden invited him to the Tuesday meeting. He arrived in a stylish blue shirt and tie, his carefully clipped hair and leather organizer in hand. He handed a reporter his resume.

After being laid off from jobs in quality control, sales, tech support and as a contractor at Intel he hasn’t worked since January 2008. He keeps applying, whittling his three-page resume into a one page “cram ad” and checking 12 job boards online a day. He does all the family cooking for his wife, Jeanmarie, and their daughter and keeps the kitchen immaculate in their “inexpensive” 900-square-foot Tigard apartment.

“Home is what you make it,” Jeanmarie says.

“You lose your pride and a little bit of yourself every time you get laid off,” he says. “And we have so much to give.”

juliesullivan@news.oregonian.com

2009 Oregonian

Why not let your senators and representatives know that you support this? The following pages help you get contact information and send emails:

for US representatives; need to know your ZIP code + the four digit addition to it

this one works for both representatives and senators (also yields info for state legislators); use the search box at the left to get names, click on name, click on “Contact” tab above the person’s photo.