Quick Hits: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

Kari Chisholm

After the long weekend, here's a rundown of news items you may have missed. Dive in and discuss:

• Dear Portland Business Alliance, stop trash-talking Portland business. And stop making up numbers when you do. That's the essential message of an op-ed in Sunday's Oregonian by five prominent academics and economists. Their complaints? First, that the PBA cherrypicked the timeframe of their study that suggested Portland was on par with Cleveland or Pittsburgh (rather than Seattle or Denver). Second, that they compared counties - rather than metro areas - which makes comparisons unreliable. And third, their analysis was just plain wrong:

Still, even the claim that Multnomah County is facing a unique jobs crisis is not just misleading, it's simply wrong. Over the last economic cycle, Multnomah County has experienced fewer job losses than the comparable counties in Denver and Minneapolis, and about the same decline as in Seattle. Portland's central business district has, by a wide margin, the lowest vacancy rate of the four cities.

• Susan Nielsen had a powerful commentary, urging the Legislature to end the double-standard on parental responsibility in faith-healing cases. I've been encouraged by the recent prosecutions of parents who refuse medical treatment for their children -- but Nielsen is right: Oregon law needs to be absolutely clear. It's good to see bipartisan support (from Rep. Carolyn Tomei, a Democrat, and Sen. Bruce Starr, a Republican) on this issue. (My view: If you want to refuse medical treatment for yourself as an adult, go right ahead. But children have human rights, too - and parental rights stop where the child's right to life-saving medical care begins.)

• Speaking of the Sunday editorials, did anyone else find it odd that the Oregonian buried 'em behind the obits page in the Metro section - rather than in a stand-alone "Opinion" section, as they typically do? (Another step in the strange downward slide of the Oregonian's opinion of its own editorials, I think. I've long wondered why the daily editorials are in Metro, instead of the front news section - where most major dailies put 'em.)

• Senator Jeff Merkley is standing up for consumers - and asking the FCC to think carefully before approving the Comcast/NBC merger. In particular, he notes that the merger would make Comcast both a pipeline to the net and a major content provider - giving them a conflict of interest that would harm net neutrality.

• No, there's no hard evidence to suggest that Portland is a major hub for child sex trafficking. That's the important message of an analysis by the O's Nikole Hannah-Jones. Of course, as Senator Ron Wyden noted Friday, no matter what the stats show, there's critical work to be done. That said, it's good to know that the "Portland is America's sex-trafficking capital" line is as much BS as is "Portland has the most strip-clubs per capita" (which is utter nonsense - there are at least four cities in Oregon that are higher, not to mention others around the country.) The best bit of hilarity from the O story? That Diane Sawyer reported on CBS News that there are 100 strip clubs on 82nd Avenue alone. Seriously. (That would mean one every 128 yards from Killingsworth to Johnson Creek. Yeah.)

• And finally, for the most boring - but perhaps most useful - item today: The Statesman-Journal's Peter Wong has a great summary of the major points you need to know about the state budget. Just the basics, but enough to give you a clear sense of the challenge before us. For example:

In rough proportions in the current cycle, 52 percent goes to education. The largest chunk, 40 percent of the overall total, goes to aid to school districts. Of the rest, about 25 percent goes to health care and human services — most of it to match federal grants, and much of it to pay doctors, hospitals and community agencies — 17 percent to public safety and the courts, and the rest to all other agencies.

By Kari Chisholm Jan. 17, 2011