Motley Blog

The educator Piaget talks about the abstract mind forming roughly during puberty. I started an alternative school at about that time in my life, and I have very clear memories of realizing that there was more than one way to do things in society. The school I'd left was the R.M. Nixon Elementary, after finishing 5th grade, in 1974, the year of Nixon's resignation.

But perhaps most important was the realization that one could change oneself - which I did, picking up whitewater kayaking and competing in same in the slalom classes. This is a clipping from the North Eugene High School paper by Rick Peacor.

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In the spring of my Junion High School year I went east to train with a former UofO physics post-grad employed by the Oakridge National Laboratories in Tennessee. Attending school in Oakridge was an experience unto itself. The city has the highest per capita of PHD's in the world. The school was certainly smart as well, but also managed to be regular winners of the State Football Championship (something my Oregon school was able to do the year after I graduated under Quarterback Gary Stott and a black running back, just about the only black in the school.) The school was big into partying as well. It definitely still had racial issues - being only about ten miles away from places where black churches had been bombed.

As a result of some of the extra credit associated with AP classes at this school I was able to graduate a semester early. I do still have some gaps in my math knowledge, advanced Trig, but the guy who spent three years in an alternative school basically doing nothing but socializing still scored a 700 on his Math SAT.

The picture was taken by my father, at a race in North Carolina Smokies hosted by the Nantahala Outdoor Center

Two things made my name right from the start as a 'red-shirt' freshman at the 1200 student liberal arts residential campus of Hampshire College. First was getting Hepatitis, contracted on a Mexico trip, within about a week of starting. I'd had sex the first night at school, and boy, I'll tell you, she wasn't happy - and rightly so. Thanks to an alert college nurse about 75 people got shots and no one contracted it.

Second thing was a bit of artistic writing, a fake suicide note (which I thankfully photocopied) posted on my dorm room door prior to leaving for the weekend. The Dean of Students was pretty steamed, was on probation for the year, though technically I'm not sure he had cause. No big deal, or so I thought.

As I recall it was the Brandeis place on the Cape via a second cousin - though I'd best check on that before dropping Supreme names. John Mitchell might recall better than I.

Two more great stories from that year, one more I'll tell here. See also this one.

Through my involvement with Hampshire College's pioneering S. African divestiture policy (first in the US - the year prior to my freshman year) I was able to attend several of the very early meetings of the trade organization, the SRI Forum.

Below is a letter to a Hampshire College Board Member, John Watts, a Texas born investment banker/lawyer. It concerns the board's selection of an investment adviser, post their divestment decision. This letter introduces my John Watts story, below.

I don't know Mr. Watts 'business' profile, but another Hampshire Board member, Gerald Levin, ended up running Time Warner for a time. Purely speculation, but presumably this guy had a hand in it, though I've no idea of the power career of this 1980's investment banker. He's perhaps best know on campus for giving a graduation speech shortly after the Reagan era fall of the Berlin wall. Quote "The wicked witch of the east, socialism, is now dead". No mention of who the wicked witch of the west was, or is, but I'd suspect he had something, or someone, in mind.

I'd been warned about Mr. Watts, presumably because of actions regarding some of the first generation divestiture activists. I only recall one conversation with him. It was about a mountain area in Northern Mexico that we had both visited. (Creel, Chihuahua - a base of Pancho Villa's and a favorite of mine).

Perhaps my big mistake was later suggesting Republican Dan Evans, former president of Evergreen, to replace the outgoing College President. Mr. Evans was a Senate Colleague of Brock Adams, a parent and also a Board Member. Speculating here, but I'd guess that Evans' quick departure from the Senate was Brock's doing (in hindsight, rightly) and Evans in Adams' career ending scandal (in my opinion likely wrongly).

I've got a theory about some of this, with some additional evidence - more current. Not sure if it all would hold up, but it is something that could be investigated.

Jori Adkins, Jim Merritt, and Apex Engineering have done some great professional work creating a 'post and beam' alternative to the ill-conceived Sounder 'berm' crossing of the Dome District in Tacoma and put it up on a website.

This stands in sharp contrast to the City's current position, as I hear it, that you can't use the area under the Post and Beam for anything. In addition the Sound Transit plan violates the City of Tacoma's Comprehensive Plan on both initial trail planning and the new but promising 'habitat corridor' designation which is designed to work well in denser areas.

Sound Transit does have a plan for a pedestrian connection - at 'A' Street, but this is basically a connection to nowhere, unless there is a major redesign of I-5 in this area.

Berms have construction problems as well - greater utility relocation is a very common place for costs to escalate and building close to the berm has issues with that structures 'load' profile.

Perhaps the biggest problem with the Sound Transit design is aesthetics - they are taking a rural rail design and plopping it down through the 2nd largest urban center in Western Washington. Imagine, if you will, a 20-40 foot high 'mountain' of dirt running down the middle of the street by your office - with a trash collecting fence.

The arrogance of Sound Transit in responding to this professionally prepared alternative isn't too pretty either. Not to mention also fiscally irresponsible.

I am reminded of my first publication, a compilation of research on the subject of Socially Responsible Investment - on the heels of an administration occupying expansion of my alma mater's pioneering South African divestment.

The Hampshire College Report on Socially Responsible Investment

Ed. by Doug Tooley,

April 1983.

Preface
In 1976, Hampshire College bacame the first school in the country to divest from companies in South Africa. This opened the door for us to a much larger idea, that of using investments to reflect our ethics instead of those of the capitalistic ideology.