Wetand News

Our democracy is threatened. It is threatened by rioters using violence as a political tool, by individuals intimidating politicians through aggressive home visits, by Presidential debates where name calling and incivility rule, by the loss of a sense of physical safety that is a necessity for a civil society, by destructive hyper-partisanship, and by the suppression of freedom of speech and diversity of viewpoints . There are few better examples of the suppression of freedom of speech and viewpoint diversity than the recent partisan actions by the management of KNKX, and this blog will review this issue.  I will discuss the termination of my weekly weather segment because of KNKX management’s unhappiness with my personal political free speech in social media.  And I will demonstrate the extreme hypocrisy of their actions, with their leadership’s use of nearly identical language for their own political advocacy. Freedom of speech and respect for viewpoint diversity is the foundation of

James Madison, the primary author of the U.S. Constitution, knew that all democracies had a serious vulnerability . A vulnerability revealed by his study of how democracies fail, and discussed in several of his writings, including Federalist No. 10. James Madison Madison found that most democratic societies were ended by mobs , or what he often called factions .  Such mobs or factions, often representing the majority, inevitably attempted to suppress differing viewpoints, gathered state power to themselves, and used intimidation against opponents. He noted that democracies rarely die from outside attack; instead, they die from the dominance of an unfettered majority, which often falls under the control of an authoritarian leader or leadership group. Madison attempted to design the new Federal government of the United States to lessen the potential for such mob power. Power was divided between the States and the Federal government.  In the Federal government, power was separated into t

  Public radio station KNKX is in trouble.   Last month, KNKX Director of Content, Matt Martinez resigned.    Online access to the station is plummeting.   KNKX news content has become highly politicized. Racial and identity politics has made deep inroads into the station.   Diversity of viewpoint is being suppressed.   And a new social justice reporter is spreading anti-Israel tweets. Resignation at the Top   A month ago, Matt Martinez, Director of Content for the station, resigned abruptly, leaving a highly powerful/responsible position to become a producer at On Being , a non-profit Minneapolis podcast producer.    There was no official announcement of his leaving KNKX.   Over the past five years, Mr. Martinez has supervised all station content including news, music, on-air production, and web offerings.   During that time, the newly reborn station has suffered steady declines in on-air ratings and online traffic.    But most seriously, Mr. Martinez took the station in a po

Climate hype is profoundly damaging the environment and society; the evidence for this is compelling and discussed in this blog. I have always been an environmentalist, worried about the protection of our natural environment. And I am concerned about global warming and its effects on humanity and the health of the planet. Thus, I have become increasingly apprehensive about apocalyptic climate change hype, which is profoundly damaging the environment of our region and undermining the well-being of many. Picture courtesy of Cristian Ibarra Santillan Damage to the Northwest Environment from Climate Change Hype There is substantial damage being done to the Northwest environment from the unfounded hype found in the media, some politicians, and several activist groups.  Consider a few examples: Wildfires and Lack of Forest Management.   Prominent politicians in our state and some media/activist groups have stated that climate change (a term used to mean human-caused global warming) is the p