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Tony
the Tiger Tuesday, October 7: Arnold Swarzenegger wins his first elective office, and Tony Corcoran resigns from the Oregon Senate. On balance, there is a net decrease in the toughness of America's politicians. Arnold may be "the Terminator," but Tony is "the Terminator Stout." (I stole this nickname from a beer at McMenamins, where Tony and I used to compare notes on our political campaigns in 2002). Whether it's challenging conservatives or standing up for underprivileged kids, Tony has never backed down from a fight. In 1999, when I was president of the South Lane Family Relief Nursery, our program faced a significant loss of public funding. We knew that bad ideas were floating around the Legislature, including a proposal to make drastic cuts in programs that help low-income children. The Relief Nursery was on the verge of closing its doors when we called Tony. With his own background as an orphan in Ireland, Tony understood better than any other legislator that all children need a fair chance. Tony agreed to help us make our case to the Legislature, and the next thing we knew, our funding was secure for the following two years. A lot of people in Lane County have similar stories to tell about Tony Corcoran. He has been a steadfast advocate for schoolchildren, veterans, seniors, and poor families without health insurance. In 2003, Tony was the only Senate Democrat who voted against the budget package, insisting that the state was neglecting its obligations to the neediest Oregonians. One of Tony's greatest accomplishments was beating Cedric Hayden in a close Senate race that no other Democrat could have won. Vying to represent rural Lane and Douglas counties, Tony had the hardest race of any Democratic Senate candidate in 1998. At the time, Tony was serving in the Oregon House. He could have easily retained his House seat that year, but the state Democratic Party convinced Tony that he should take a chance on the Senate race. Tony's victory gave the Democrats the momentum that we needed to end the Republican dominance in the Senate. Long odds never discouraged Tony. When he first ran for the House in 1994, he squared off in the primary against the popular mayor of Cottage Grove. Because Cottage Grove was the biggest city in the district, most observers thought the mayor would win. But Tony was a tireless campaigner, and he knocked on all but a few hundred doors in Cottage Grove. He won the primary by a couple hundred votes. "Good thing I didn't visit those last 200 voters, or I probably would have lost," Tony would later joke.
Tony was a great mentor for young candidates like me. When I ran for county commissioner, Tony watched me debate my Republican adversary Ed Kemp. I argued strenuously with Ed, and then Tony pulled me aside to give me some advice. He said I was being a little too tough on my opponent. (Too tough for Tony Corcoran? That's like Rasheed Wallace chiding a teammate for being too hard on the referee!) Even though I snickered, I heeded Tony's advice. This guy wrote the book on effective campaigning. Tony is one of a kind. He'll be a tremendous asset to the Employment Appeals Board, but you can't blame the Lane County Democrats for wishing that Tony will return to politics one day. Let's hope that the Terminator Stout echoes the Terminator's most famous phrase: "I'll be back." Tom Lininger is a law professor and former county commissioner.
Holy
Days In case you haven't consulted a Hebrew calendar lately, we are in the middle of Sukkoth (pronounced Sue COAT). Even though Sukkoth is also known as The Festival of Booths, this holiday has nothing to do with John Wilkes or Shirley. According to sacred texts, one week after the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, Jews are instructed to build roofless, open-air booths outdoors and hang out there all week pondering the greatness of the universe. Sukkoth may very well prove the biblical origins of other booth-based phenomena such as the Country Fair, Saturday Market and drive-thru espresso. A Sukkoth booth, called a Sukkah (rhymes with hookah), is a simple structure made of sticks and boughs. Jews around the world add their own cultural variations for decorating the Sukkah. In desert regions they use fronds from the date palm, in Spain they use olive branches, in the Northwest we use blue tarps. We sit inside the Sukkah and reflect on our ancestors' departure from slavery in Egypt and how they had no place to live while they wandered in the desert. They pieced together makeshift structures with whatever they could devise, which is how duct tape was invented. Inclusiveness and diversity are big themes of the holiday. We are supposed to welcome the stranger, because we were once strangers in a strange land (if you can grok that). The idea is to sit in our Sukkah and think about freedom and faith and life's great mysteries, such as the purpose of our life on Earth — beyond opening doors for cats. We contemplate the impermanence of our dwellings, the eternal nature of the source of life, and why this holiday doesn't take place before the rainy season.
My unlawfully wedded wife and I made a lovely Sukkah and decorated it with corn stalks. Last night we sat there under the stars and prayed for acceptance and respect for all beings while migrating slugs left slime trails on our socks. Meanwhile, apparently to honor this holiday of extending a welcome to strangers, a coalition of 22 right-wing and religious fundamentalist groups have declared Oct. 12-18 "Marriage Protection Week: A Week Dedicated to Preserving the Sacred Institution of Marriage." This coalition's way of celebrating inclusiveness for all beings is to codify the prohibition on same-sex marriage. Their big push now is amending the U.S. Constitution to say that marriage in the U.S. shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. It's silly. Most of them have to be old enough to remember Bob Dylan telling us that the times they are a-changin'. Can't they get onboard with the marriage equality zeitgeist? It doesn't seem to be hurting The Netherlands or Belgium or British Columbia or Ontario (that's Ontario, Canada, lest you thought the southern California airport city was miraculously ahead of its time). How is heterosexual wedlock threatened by welcoming gay and lesbian couples into the institution of marriage? Why should anyone care who chooses to spend the rest of their life arguing over which way to load the dishwasher? Why should only opposite-sex couples be entitled to unite in holy matrimony? That's a right everyone should have — if they so choose and if they are blessed to find a partner who doesn't mind the way they stack cereal bowls.
Sukkoth tradition teaches us to strive for godliness, to dedicate our every effort to increasing compassion and bringing peace. At a time when war and suffering plague the world, we shouldn't squander our limited attention spans on this stupid "Marriage Protection" smoke screen. It's so much more productive to bundle up, experience the elements, ponder the cosmic one-ness of it all, and connect with friends and strangers. When you come back inside you can log on to www.hrc.org/millionformarriage/index.asp and sign the petition to support equal marriage rights. And then you can change your socks. Writer Sally Sheklow lives in Eugene with her partner of 16 years and would like their marriage legally recognized already.
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