HinesSight

Why Measure 37 doesn’t make sense

I realize that many Oregonians don’t want to be bothered with the details of why sound land use planning benefits everybody, and why Measure 37 is a disaster. I’ll keep things simple. Let’s talk lemonade stands.

It’s a hot summer. Every kid on the block gets the bright idea, “I’ll set up a lemonade stand on our lawn next to the sidewalk.” They all go to their parents for permission. The block is full of naysayers. “No way, kid. Find something else to do.”

Except for one accommodating couple: “Sure, honey. It’s fine with us if you sell lemonade.” The child starts her business. She does great.

Because she’s got the only lemonade stand on the block. All of the strict parents made it possible for the kid with permissive parents to make money. If there was a lemonade stand in front of every house, the limited number of cold drink buyers would be spread out among many competing sellers.

This isn’t rocket science. It’s basic economics. Which is why Oregon’s Measure 37 is founded on illogic. This law says that owners must be compensated when land use laws reduce the value of their property. Or, the laws have to be waived.

The big flaw in this logic is that the very land use laws that prevent people from using their property as they want to—putting ten houses on a five acre parcel instead of one house, for example—is the reason why their property is so valuable if those laws are waived.

Measure 37 proponents like to spout platitudes such as, “When a government regulation reduces the value of your property, you should be compensated.” What isn’t said, but should be, is: “That same government regulation also is responsible for increasing the value of properties.”

My wife and I live about five miles south of the Salem urban growth boundary. Between us and the Salem city limits is mostly farmland and homes on AR (acreage residential) parcels that aren’t suitable for farming.

Nearby, a Measure 37 claim has been filed on a 215 acre parcel that currently is zoned EFU (exclusive farm use). As noted in “Measure 37 hits close to our home,” the owners want to put 80 homes on the land. They believe that the land is worth $18 million with AR zoning compared to $650,000 with EFU zoning.

So they either want Marion County to give them $17 million and change, or waive the land use laws that are preventing them from selling 80 lots. Now, $18 million divided by 80 is $225,000. That’s pretty steep for a two or three acre rural lot, but is fairly close to the market price—especially considering that many of the lots in this proposed development would have nice views.

I can guarantee, though, that if Oregon didn’t have urban growth boundaries and other land use laws, small acreages would be selling for much less money because this state would have rural developments sprouting up all over. When I drive to Salem I’d be passing southern California-like sprawl instead of vineyards and Christmas tree farms.

Oregon’s land use laws limit the supply of rural acreages zoned for housing, so this increases the price per acre. Thus the only reason this Measure 37 claimant may make as much money as he thinks he will is because the laws he wants waived have produced the land value that he wants to reap.

In other words, most Measure 37 claims are parasitic. They’re sucking up benefits produced by the very land use laws property rights advocates hate so much. And in the process they’re reducing the value of neighboring properties. People in our area thought they could trust that EFU acreages would remain farmland.

With Measure 37, surprise! You can wake up one day, hear the sound of fir trees being felled, and find that your rural home is about to be surrounded by a subdivision.

I have sympathy for landowners who expected to be able to build a house on their property and then were stymied by a land use law. If all Measure 37 did was allow a residence to be built on a lot, even one zoned EFU, I’d have no problem with that. Nor would 1000 Friends of Oregon.

But most Measure 37 claims are by people who are trying to make money off of the land they own, not live on it. Like other financial investments, land speculation is risky. Markets change. Laws change. Economies change. Why should an investment in land be risk-free, which is what Measure 37 intends?

Back in the 80s my wife and I owned some limited partnerships. They were hot stuff in those days, because federal laws allowed investors to take losses and reduce their taxable income. Until the tax laws changed. Then our limited partnerships were much less valuable.

I don’t recall anyone claiming that the government should either reimburse them for the loss of value in partnerships they owned that was caused by a change in the laws, or give them a waiver from those laws. Yet this is just what Measure 37 does for land owners. It’s ridiculous.

In the upcoming primary and general elections, only vote for Oregon candidates who promise they’ll fix the flaws in Measure 37. This state is still livable, but the longer Measure 37 stays in effect, the less it will be.

Zen and the Final Four

Zen moments. That’s what I like the best about sports events. How they marvelously capture some of the deepest truths of life in living, breathing motion right there on my television screen.

Consider the men’s NCAA basketball tournament. Images from a couple of last week’s games are as fresh in my mind as if they had just happened. Take Gonzaga vs. UCLA in the “Sweet Sixteen” round. Final score: Gonzaga 71, UCLA 73.

A heartbreaker. I wanted Gonzaga to win. Badly. Mostly because UCLA already has won too damn many national championships.

Also, I couldn’t help but root for Gonzaga when their star player, Adam Morrison, has such a perfect back-to-the-70’s look (plus, appealing intensity; when I saw him bang the basketball three times against his head, hard, before he went to the free throw line I knew he was my kind of player.)

But at the end of the UCLA game Morrison was flat on his stomach on the floor, crying. And all because of a Zen moment in the final seconds.

Gonzaga had gotten possession back, trying, as I remember it, to protect a slim lead. One of their players had been passed the ball. A tall guy, he was holding it over his head. A teammate was right in front of him. He looked at him. He continued to hold the ball. He seemed frozen.

Then a UCLA player sneaked behind him and knocked the ball loose. UCLA scored. And that turned out to be the game. It hinged on one moment. A moment when I and just about every other Gonzaga fan in the country were screaming, “Get rid of the ball. Pass it!”

Easy enough to say when you’re not on the court. As I wasn’t either in the Washington vs. Connecticut Sweet 16 game. Final score: Washington 92, UConn 98. The game was closer than that. It was a squeaker until the very end.

Here the Zen moment came when a Washington guard stole the ball in the final minute. He had a clear path to the basket. He looked at the basket. And then he passed the ball. Right into the hands of a UConn player. Who dashed down the court and scored. Game over, for all practical purposes. The TV announcers said, “He should have gone to the rim.”

Yes, that moment of indecision was costly. Watching a basketball game from the serenity of my couch, it’s easy to recognize those Zen moments when excess cogitation leads to a bad outcome. I can see that if a player had just acted naturally, doing what he knows so well to do—get rid of the ball when you’re being double-teamed, head for the rim when the lane is open—his team likely would have won, rather than lost.

But who am I to judge? I, like most people, am equally prone to over-analysis. How often in my life have I intuitively known what must be done, and failed to do it? Lots. Basketball games are merely a highly public stage on which familiar everyday dramas are played out.

A moment comes. And then it goes. In the instant of that coming and going, opportunity. Seize it, and it’s yours. Hesitate, and it’s gone forever. In a basketball game there may just be a few of those memorable moments. Zen says that in life at large, every moment is memorable.

Yesterday in the sports section I read about Glen “Big Baby” Davis’ decisive 3-point shot in overtime that sent LSU to the Final Four. He said:

It’s called thinking without thinking. The opportunity was there to make the shot. Most of the time when I’m shooting 3s, I’m thinking about it too much. I was just in rhythm. I felt it was a great shot and I made it.

Thinking without thinking. Seems with “Big Baby” we’ve got a Zen master in the making here.

Victory declared in the War on Blackberries

I’m pleased to report that, to coin a phrase, major combat operations in the HinesLand blackberry war ended today. Victory is ours! Well, mine, since my wife handles the mopping up and reconstruction duties, while I take care of the heavy duty combat.

My last dispatch from the War on Blackberries was November 2004. In that communiqué I said, “We will not rest until every last offshoot of the Himalayan Blackberry evil-doers has been brought to justice.” Indeed, we, by which I mean me, haven’t.

After the battlefield shifted to our newly-acquired five acres, as reported in “We buy some really expensive blackberries,” I sprayed the invasive terrorist vines repeatedly, advancing the liberated zone some twenty feet at a time—the distance my three-gallon sprayer would reach.

At times I despaired that the war ever would be won. The enemy was tenacious. And prickly. Blood was shed more than once, until I figured out how to pull vines out of tree branches without whacking myself in the nose.

Killing was the easiest part. Crushing the dead blackberry bodies into the earth was the toughest. I was committed to avoiding collateral damage. Sometimes innocent brush, Oregon grape, and ferns were found living in the midst of the evilgrowers. I carefully distinguished the good and the bad, the smooth and the thorny.

This afternoon, after a final two-hour climatic battle in a light rain, I stood at the top of a slope and surveyed the war zone. Every enemy combatant had fallen. Some had been alive when I hacked them off and would try to rise again. But while they could sprout, they couldn’t hide. Laurel or I soon will spray the shoots into oblivion.

It will take a while for the native population to return to the homeland that the despicable invasive Himalayan Blackberry has occupied for decades. In Oregon, though, rebirth naturally follows death. Rain and a mild climate will hasten the renovation of the blackberry-free fields. The dead vines will rot and desirable vegetation will rise.

In the lower part of the property I’ve been working on, a large Oak tree fell a few years ago. We let it lay, in part because at that time we didn’t own the lot on which most of the tree fell. But mostly because we believe in letting nature act naturally.

The dead wood eventually will return to the earth. As the Oak begins to decay, moss and ferns are thriving on it. Rural landowners who rush out with a chainsaw and chipper to tidy up fallen trees are missing out on a lot of mossy ferny beauty.

But I’ve got no problem at all with anyone who wants to make a blackberry thicket into a dead zone. There is no such thing as a good Himalayan Blackberry. They all deserve to die.

Except for those in a neighbor’s field come August when the sun is hot and the berries are ripe.

Bush national unity government hypocrisy

Of all the B.S. that comes out of the Bush administration’s collective mouth, there’s one phrase that deserves the Ultimate Heaping Pile of Crap Award: “Iraq must form a national unity government that governs from the center.”

Good god. This comes from a president who has been one of the most divisive in U.S. history.

He was elected in 2000 by the narrowest of margins, one Supreme Court vote. He was re-elected in 2004 because of 60,000 votes in Ohio that went his way. The Shiites in Iraq, who number about 60% of the population, have a much more valid reason to say “We’ll do things our way.”

Yet Bush shamelessly urges Iraqis to form a national unity government even though his own administration doesn’t tolerate any dissent from the fundamentalist Christian/neocon party line.

His secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, says that the Iraqi government has to govern from the center. Last time I looked, the United States government was tilted way over on the right, notwithstanding the dissatisfaction of a clear majority of citizens with Bush’s policies.

Iraq Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari and his cronies probably enjoy a big laugh every time they hear Bush blab on about the necessity of a national unity government that shares power with political and cultural minorities. “When has that ever been seen in the USA since Bush got into office?” I imagine them chortling.

And what’s even more hilarious is to go back into time and remember Bush’s 1999 promise: “I’m a uniter, not a divider.” Hasn’t happened. Not in the slightest, except for a brief moment after 9/11.

If any country desperately needs a national unity government, it’s the United States. Hopefully we’ll get one in 2008.

Debra Lafave doesn’t deserve jail time

Let’s get real. Men and women are different. Boys and girls are different. When Debra Lafave was 23 she had sex with a 14 year old boy who was her student. Big deal. She should get a slap on the wrist, not jail time.

Which is pretty much what happened. Today the remaining sex charges against Lafave were dropped, leaving her subject just to three years of house arrest and seven years of probation. Good.

There’s a lot of people (translation: “guys”) in the blogosphere who think she deserves a medal. I wouldn’t go that far, but when this 57-year-old saw her interviewed on Fox News this afternoon, my inner 14-year-old said, “Wow! She’s hot! Whatever teacher wants to do with me, bring it on.”

This also is the basic theme of “Living out every teenage boy’s fantasy” and similar blog posts here, here, and here. The honest male point of view, absent artificial political correctness, is: “When a gorgeous 23 year old woman has sex with a willing 14 year old boy, that’s a gift, not a crime.”

Note the important proviso, “willing.” And I’ll admit that willing or not, there are some psychological risks involved in teacher-student sex of this sort. I just don’t believe that they usually are very great. We’re talking boys here, not girls. A male teacher having sex with young female students is a completely different thing. Remember: boys and girls are different.

It’s being reported that “A psychiatrist who examined the teenager told the judge at a previous hearing that the boy suffered extreme anxiety from the media coverage of the case and does not want to testify.” That’s why the remaining charges were dropped, to protect the boy.

If Lafave and her student had never been caught, the boy would have been a lot better off. The trauma he’s suffering from all the media attention is far less than the trauma (better termed “joy”) he received at the hands, and other body parts, of Debra Lafave.

The age of consent in many countries is 14 or less. If Lafave and the boy had been in Germany, Canada, or Mexico their conduct would have been censorable but apparently not criminal. Here, as with many other issues, perhaps the United States has something to learn from the rest of the world.

L.A. Bratz and Salem Sherpas

The current issue of The New Yorker has a to die for article about Los Angeles shopping and fashion. By “to die for,” I mean that I’d sell my soul to the Literary Devil if I could write as well as Patricia Marx, author of “To Shop and Drive in L.A.”

She captures the L.A. scene beautifully. My daughter and her husband live in Hollywood, so I have a passing familiarity with the vibrant southern Cal lifestyle that is poles apart from what passes for life and style here in staid Salem, Oregon (see my “Wide-Eyed on Rodeo Drive”).

I particularly liked Marx’s anthropological descriptions of some of the female fashion “tribes” that she, an East Coaster, observed during her week long investigation of L.A. shopping.

On Robertson, the sidewalk is jammed with pairs of women with long straight blond hair, all of whom look like Bratz dolls grown up. They wear tight jeans and either flimsy camisoles or little tops by T-Bags or Juicy Couture. Owing to the differential of their stilettos, the women are all precisely the same height. Regulations appear to require that those taller than five feet eleven wear flat thong sandals by Bernardo. The women seem to be shopping for items identical to those they are wearing.

…On the way to put money in the meter, I sidle past a clutch of girls standing outside of Lisa Kline (136 South Robertson). Each is talking on her cell phone, chewing gum, and drinking juice. They wear aggressively short flared skirts and cashmere hoodies that match the color of their Uggs. These are the Elves. I have seen them in other parts of town, too. Unlike the Bratz, the Elves are allowed to have brown hair. Generally speaking, they are in their teens or early twenties, but don’t be surprised if, occasionally, you see an old Elf. Aghast, yes, but surprised, no.

…Ahead of me in line is a woman in her late twenties who is wearing a little bit of everything: ripped-up and resewn vintage cashmere; a cotton tank top; a Balenciaga jacket; embroidered jeans; and a sheer skirt. Her hair looks undone, to say the least. If there weren’t three carbon copies of her nearby, you’d swear she had just run out of a burning building after hastily throwing on as many heirlooms as possible. Call these girls the Drip Paintings. Their look may appear accidental, but it is the result of excruciating attention.

In L.A. you find females attired as Bratz, Elves, and Drip Paintings. In Salem such spectacular creatures are few and far between. Sadly. When a movie lets out here a mass of blue jeans and white t-shirts heads for the parking lot. There’s isn’t a single blond stilettoed flimsy-camisoled Bratz in the whole crowd. Trust me. I’d notice.

In Oregon’s cold rainy weather months (October through June, basically) you do see a lot of Sherpas. These women look like they could be dropped off on a high Mt. Everest base camp and survive just fine. Bulky Pacific Trail jacket. Practical warm gloves. Hiking boots. Ski cap.

If the Taliban ever manage to take over our state and institute a strict Islamic dress code, the Sherpas won’t have to alter their wardrobe; if they were wearing a burqa, they’d be showing more skin.

On the other end of the spectrum, and thank god for other ends, are the Beachies. They don’t consult the calendar or the thermometer when they get dressed. Life’s a beach. Every day is warm and sunny, even if its 28 degrees and snowing. Flip flops. Shorts. T-shirt. The male equivalent substitutes tennis shoes for the flip flops.

Like the female Beachie, he’s not about to wear a jacket just because an Oregon monsoon has turned the Fred Meyer parking lot into a lake. He saunters along, rain plastering his hair, grooving along to what I always assume is Jimmy Buffet playing on his Ipod.

Bratz, Elves, and Drip Paintings vs. Sherpas and Beachies. L.A. has us beat fashion-wise. Score is about a million to one. But I’m happy to live in a fashion wasteland. Nine times out of ten, when I go out the front door I’m wearing my black REI “windpro” fleece jacket.

Nobody snickers at me when I pull up at valet parking. Probably because there isn’t any in Salem. Take that, L.A., land of the perpetual $5 restaurant parking charge.

On the downside, I recall this story my daughter told me shortly after she had moved to L.A. from Dallas, where she had worked for Neiman-Marcus. A fellow N-M employee who was relocating to southern California came to visit her. She took him to a bar near some beach.

On the way, he was telling Celeste how he was hoping to maintain a long distance relationship with his Dallas girlfriend. When they walked in the door of the bar he took in the bevy of beautiful, tanned, lithe, blonde girls who are as common in L.A. as weeds and said, “Hmmm. This is going to be more difficult than I thought.”

Blumenauer’s Iraq plan makes great sense

Driving home today, I heard Earl Blumenauer interviewed by Tom Parker on Portland’s KPAM. Congressman Blumenauer described his plan to phase U.S. forces out of Iraq. I don’t see how any rational person could disagree with it (but naturally Parker, a conservative, did).

Blumenauer’s bill has the unfortunate title of “First Step to Redeployment Act of 2006.” I wish Democrats would learn the value of pithy evocative phrases, which Rove and company use so well.

Anyway, the title is the most awkward aspect of Blumenauer’s plan, the basics of which he described simply and clearly:

The Iraqi people don’t want us in their country.
The American people don’t want us in Iraq.
Our presence there is exacerbating ethnic and secular tensions.
It’s time to redeploy American troops, beginning with the National Guard.
Bush and the Pentagon keep telling us that Iraqi forces are ready to start defending their country.
Let’s see what they can do.
Until we begin to stand down, the Iraqis won’t make a serious commitment to stand up.
Tough love is needed.

To his credit, Parker engaged in a civil discussion with Blumenauer. He kept saying, “But we can’t abandon the Iraqi people.” And Blumenauer kept replying with an unarguable response: “The Iraqi people don’t want us there. Shouldn’t they be able to make their own decisions now that a Parliament has been elected?”

Kudos to Blumenauer for helping to stimulate intelligent national debate on our Iraq policy. If all Democrats could start making as much sense, it will be a sweet election this November.

Democrats need to grow some balls

I’m not usually a prayerful sort of guy, but I’m falling on my knees for this entreaty: “O blessed Tao, dear God, compassionate Buddha, send us some Democrats with balls. Big ones. Clanging ones. Hurry!”

It was painful, and also hilarious, to watch the Daily Show last night. Paul Hackett, the Iraq war veteran who ran for the House in a solidly Republican district and almost defeated Jean Schmidt in an August 2005 special election, was featured. Hackett has balls.

Thus naturally he was unceremoniously dumped by the Democrats after he announced that he’d challenge incumbent Ohio Senator Mike DeWine. The Daily Show skewered Dem ballslessness by contrasting Hackett’s blunt straight talk with the circumlocutions of a pollster who blathered on about all the reasons Hackett wouldn’t be the best candidate.

I can’t stand it any more, this Democratic reluctance to stand up for anything other than being Republican-lite. A Daily Kos rant I ran across today, “Being Liberal Means Having Balls,” captures my disgust perfectly. I too am ready to vote for anyone with a progressive leaning who has some big ones.

If that means voting for an Independent like Ben Westlund, who’s running for Oregon governor, so be it. If that means voting for a Green party candidate, so be it. If the Democrats aren’t going to run on a ballsy platform—saying it like it is and sticking to their guns—then screw them. They deserve to lose.

As the Daily Show pointed out, that’s just what the Democrats have been doing: losing. Yet their reaction to being a powerless political party is to act even more powerless. They seem to believe that if they do nothing, Bush and the Republicans will self-destruct.

That’s delusional. Karl Rove and company are too smart to let that happen. They’ll pull some balls out of the bag before November and smash the Dems over the head with them. Again.

It’s like Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown. Grab the political football, Dems, and kick it as hard as you can. Don’t worry about rules, goalposts, strategy, or playing nice. Just kick the damn thing! For once.

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd sounds much the same theme in “What’s Better? His Empty Suit or Her Baggage?” I’ll include it as a continuation to this post for those who don't belong to Times Select.

I don’t know much about Barack Obama, but on the basis on Dowd’s column I’m willing to place him in the lightly populated “Democrats with balls” group. Hillary Clinton? Nope. She’s ballless. And not because she’s a woman—these sorts of balls aren’t physical.

Like so many Democrats, Clinton moves in whatever direction she senses the political winds are blowing, not where her own moral compass tells her to go. To do that, she’d need balls.

The Portland “boom!” An alien cover-up?

Saturday night, around nine pm, a mysterious loud boom was heard in the Portland area. Laurel and I happened to be at a friend’s condo in Sellwood at the time. All five of us in the room were startled by the sound.

The condo owner, Mark, went out on the patio and listened for more booms. I thought it might be an earthquake. So did Laurel. But Channel 2 news says the boom wasn’t caused by an earthquake. Or Mount St. Helens. Or, likely, thunder.

The KATU story theorizes that a meteor or military jet was the most probable cause of the boom, which was heard from the coast to the Cascades. Maybe. But…

I’m suspicious that, according to Google News, so far the Channel 2 story has been the only media report about the boom. And nothing is showing up on a Google Blog search either. I think I know what’s going on. I’ve seen this sort of thing before: right here.

Hello. Brian to Oregon: Is there anyone out there who hasn’t yet been taken over by the alien mothership that landed Saturday night and has managed to erase from almost all Oregonians any memory of the moment when The World Changed Forever?

I am still myself. At least, I think I am. Not sure about my wife and dog. But they’ve always looked strange to me. Especially the dog. If you remember the boom and are still fully human, please leave a comment so I can know I am not alone. Of course, I’ll need some proof that you are not one of Them.

I will remain at my blog post for as long as I can. My wife just got home and asked if I wanted her to bring me a snack. “Sure,” I said. But this could be a ruse. Just took a bite of celery. Tasted normal. But that’s exactly how they’d want the changeover to look. Normal.

Everything is starting to make sense now. For years an advance guard has been paving the way for the mothership. He’s never looked or acted like a normal Homo sapiens. Something has seemed strangely off with him. Now I know why.

City Council shooting Salem in the foot

Here’s an open secret: Salem, Oregon is an unappealing city. Here’s another: the Salem City Council is determined to keep it that way. Crazy. Salem already is crippled by poor planning, lack of creativity, and a boring downtown. Yet the City Council is busily engaged in shooting the city in its foot to hobble it even more.

As I said in “Salem City Council knows zilch about sustainability,” state planners have rejected Salem’s land use policies as being inconsistent with good mixed-use development. Rather than doing the right thing and fixing the plan, the City Council is appealing to the state Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA).

That’s a waste of money. Also, a waste of all the time and effort that went into the Salem Futures planning effort. The Statesman-Journal editorial board agrees. Today’s paper says that “Effective land-use planning is key to Salem’s future.” Right on.

This isn’t rocket science, befuddled City Council members. Just think about where you like to go when you’re on vacation or driving through a new town. “Wow, take the next exit, dear! Look at that sprawling subdivision…and the strip mall. And…oh my god, it’s a bunch of big box stores! Wal-Mart. Target. Costco. It’s all so…beautiful.”

No, my friends. This isn’t reality.

What you actually do is stop in Sisters on the way to Bend because the stores are so unique, there’s a strict “Western only look” zoning code, and no garish signs. Or, on the coast, you drive right though butt-ugly unplanned Lincoln City and head for oh-so-charming Cannon Beach, where you can have a pleasant time walking around downtown and not take your life in your hands to cross a four-lane highway.

The Statesman-Journal editorial is fine as far as it goes, but it omitted mention of downtown Salem’s notorious lack of vitality. Finally some of the boarded-up buildings are being renovated, but there’s not much to draw people to the city’s core.

Several times a week I go to a Tai Chi class on Court Street. Mondays Laurel and I now go to a tango class at 7:00 pm. So for the past few weeks I’ve been looking for something to eat when Tai Chi is over at 6:00 pm and I’ve got an hour to kill. The first coffee house I went to said, “We’ve stopped serving food.” The second one told me, “We’ve shut down the stove, but it’s still warm and we’ll make you a hot sandwich if you can wait a while.”

I look at my watch. It’s 6:15 pm, not midnight! But in downtown Salem the sidewalks roll up really early, so it might as well be. Mostly those sidewalks are inhabited by street youth after the sun goes down, and they aren’t big spenders. If people actually lived downtown, things would be different.

But, ooh, that would mean mixed-use planning, and the City Council doesn’t want to have anything to do with evil commie socialistic bureaucratic anti-free market planning. So the City Council fiddles with its LUBA appeal while Salem burns.

And bores.

“Assassination Tango” and our inner Argentinas

After a friend heard that Laurel and I were taking tango lessons, she suggested that we watch “Assassination Tango,” a 2003 movie starring, written, and directed by Robert Duvall.

The tango scenes were marvelous, so far removed from the shuffling around that I’ve been able to master in a few lessons that to call what I’m doing “tango” is a stretch. Still, I could recognize a few moves that are (minimally) in my repertoire, such as the ocho.

I learned from another review that in real life Duvall studies tango with Luciana Pedraza, who in the movie plays Manuela, an Argentine tango dancer who gives lessons to John J. (Duvall)—a New Yorker who is in the country to kill a wealthy general.

Googling deeper into the movie, I uncovered another connection between fact and cinema fiction: Pedraza, 31 years old when the film was made, is (or was) the girlfriend of 72 year old Duvall.

My reaction is, “Way to go Robert!” However, I just told my wife what I’d learned about their May-December relationship and she said, “That’s disgusting, a forty year age difference!” Actually, it’s forty-one years, but I didn’t want to tell Laurel this and make her even more disgusted.

For some reason I don’t find anything disturbing about a much younger woman being attracted to a grizzled old guy. (Could the reason be that I’m a guy who is getting increasingly grizzled and old? It’s a theory.)

“Assassination Tango” has its faults, as the Ebert review points out. I enjoyed the movie, though, and not just for the amazing tango dancing. The dialogue sounds genuine, like how people actually talk. Now that I know Duvall and Pedraza have a thing going in real life, I can see why their conversations in the movie seem so unforced.

There’s one scene in a coffee house that appeared especially natural. In an interview Duvall said that it was minimally rehearsed and, like the rest of the movie, apparently partly improvised. Here John J. and Luciana are getting to know each other after he has watched her dance a few times. They chit-chat for a bit, then John J. gets more serious:

John J.: “If I was a younger man, living here…I’m just theorizing…Do you think I’d have a chance?”

Manuela: “A chance for what?”

John J.: “With you.”

Manuela: “Well, you have it now.”

John J.: [looking surprised] “Wha…What?”

Manuela: “Welcome to Argentina, my friend.” [both laugh]

John J.: “O.K.” [changes subject, starts talking about coffee]

This transcript doesn’t do justice to the subtleties of the scene. When I watched the movie last night I thought, “That girl is a natural actress. It doesn’t seem like she’s acting.” Well, she isn’t a professional actress, but she sure can act.

“Welcome to Argentina, my friend.” A great line.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if life in general, and the United States in particular, was a lot more like Manuela’s Argentina? I’m not talking about a world where attractive young women are open to the advances of much older men, but a world where almost anything is possible—where rigid societal rules and mores don’t limit people’s natural inclinations.

This country isn’t that “Argentina” where life is embraced exuberantly, all sides of it. In a scene where John J. meets Manuela’s family, her mother and father talk about the tango philosophy. “It’s about life,” one says. “And death,” adds the other. Everything. Nothing excluded.

Gays. Straights. Believers. Atheists. Blacks. Whites. Native-born. Foreign-born. Young. Old. Women. Men. White-collar. Blue-collar. Progressive. Conservative. All real. All part of life. And death.

I’m getting tired of politicians, or anybody, who focuses on what divides us rather than what unites us. Or who puts restrictions on what is allowed rather than expanding the range of personal choices.

I want to live in “Argentina.” Not the country in South America, but the borderless land of laughter, dance, and free expression Manuela welcomed John J. too. That place isn’t far away for any of us. We just need to let our inner Argentinas out.

Is it possible to love “24” too much?

My week now centers around Jack Bauer and the rest of the “24” cast. As Monday evening approaches my heartbeat quickens. A rosy glow of anticipation brightens my cheeks. I begin to feel the titillating thrill that accompanies the righteous killing of terrorists.

In short, I am in love. And though I know there should be no limits on love, I sometimes wonder: “Do I love too much?”

Plus, what’s up with me loving Jack Bauer? Usually I’m not attracted to those strong, quasi-silent types (even though Jack’s expertise with computers means he could easily solve my intermittent Windows XP shutdown problem—especially if he brings super-geek Chloe along—which is a pretty good foundation for a serious relationship).

I felt better after I checked out Michael Sean Blogs’ “Jack Bauer Body Count” series. For then I realized that other “24” fanatics put my passion to shame.

Cautionary note: if you recorded yesterday’s two-hour special and haven’t watched all of it yet, like me, use caution in reading the Jack Bauer Body Count Episode 11 & 12 post. I scrolled down into the Episode 12 section by mistake and now know stuff that I wish I didn’t.

However, this won’t stop me from enjoying the hour of “24” that I haven’t seen yet, because I know that Jack Bauer is capable of modifying the space-time continuum and changing the content on my digital video recorder.

I know this because I’ve read The World According to Jack Bauer. It’s hilarious. But I didn’t laugh while I was reading it, because Jack doesn’t like to be laughed at, and, as one of the entries on this page puts it, “Simon Says should be renamed to Jack Bauer Says because if Jack Bauer says something then you better fucking do it.”

Here are some other entries:

Your attraction to Jack Bauer in no way affects your sexual orientation.

Men are ok with their wives fantasizing about Jack Bauer during sex; because they are doing the same thing.

Due to Jack Bauer, no one looks forward to the weekend anymore, they look forward to the weekend being over, and watching 24 on Monday.

Jack Bauer once forgot where he put his keys. He then spent the next half-hour torturing himself until he gave up the location of the keys.

Jack Bauer was never addicted to heroin. Heroin was addicted to Jack Bauer.

Jack has inspired me to do some sleuthing of my own. I’m starting to make some connections. It’s all beginning to come together. Can’t tell you what “It” is yet, because if I did Jack would have to shoot me.

But I can reveal this: in the February 27, 2006 issue of TIME magazine there's a revealing photo of Dick Cheney.

It’s obvious. He is Mike Novick, chief of staff (and chief slimeball) to President Charles Logan. The shifty smile gave him away.

The country is in danger. We don’t need to worry though. Jack is in charge of the situation.

(As contrasted with El Presidente. See my "George Bush is no Jack Bauer" post. Though there are some seeming similarities--both adore torture--the differences are much more striking.)

Academy Awards 2006: Beauty and the Beast

With Buddha-like compassion for the Googlers who are searching today for “Salma Hayek Academy Awards 2006” and finding my outdated 2005 photos of The Perfect Platonic Form of Woman, I offer a vision of Salma 2006.

Who was, as always, one of the highlights of the show for me. And many millions of other men too. One of the lowlights was the Oscars’ repeated admonition to see movies in movie theatres rather than at home on DVD. That just made me more determined to avoid over-priced popcorn and talkative seat-neighbors whenever I can.

Those who follow my performance at Jim Ramsey’s annual Academy Awards Potluck Party (who must number in the ones or twos) will be saddened to hear that this year I got second prize in the Most Awards Guessed Right contest.

I think I over-prepared. I usually avoid searching out predictions of award winners by supposed experts. However, a few days ago I noticed that a New York Times critic had offered up his opinion of who the winners would be and I paid more attention to it than I should have.

For example, my heart was with “Crash” for Best Picture, but I went with the conventional wisdom favorite, “Brokeback Mountain.” That failure to trust my intuition was costly, as I only ended up two correct guesses behind the winner. Who, reaping home court/TV advantage was the party’s host, Jim.

Here I am, trying to look Buddha-like content with my second-place trophy while my heart (and right hand) longs for the first-place prize. Oh, well. There’s always next year. And, I can only hope, another photo of Salma Hayek in a low-cut dress.

Kudos to MTV.com for recognizing that Salma was the “standout” of all the beautiful women who appeared on the Academy Awards stage last night.

Salem City Council knows zilch about sustainability

It wasn’t a surprise. In today’s Salem Statesman-Journal this headline hit my eyes: “State rejects city’s review of land-use policies.” A shock it was not: the Salem City Council is notoriously tone deaf when it comes to singing tunes of sustainability and environmentalism.

But even though my expectations of council members are low when it comes to all things Green, the lack of understanding of Council President Jim Randall still was shocking. I read:

The Salem City Council thinks that a voluntary, market-based approach with minimal planning is the only way to promote dense mixed-use development of the sort proposed by the Fairview development in South Salem, Council President Jim Randall said.

My wife and I are investors in this development, Sustainable Fairview. We know a lot about it. And we totally disagree with the notion that a “voluntary, market-based approach with minimal planning” is the way to foster further dense, mixed-use development akin to Fairview.

This definitely wasn’t how Sustainable Fairview came to be. The project flowed out of intense state, city, and community planning. It required a complete rezoning of the 275 acres that used to comprise the Fairview Training Center to assure that development would proceed in line with principles of sustainability (energy use, wastewater management, de-emphasis of auto transportation, and so on).

Here’s how the Sustainable Fairview web site’s “Planning and Development” section describes the history of the project:

The Fairview Master Plan is consistent with Oregon’s most forward-thinking visions and goals for sustainable development. From its inception in 2001, Sustainable Fairview Associates (SFA) used the Governor's Quality Development Objectives, the City of Salem’s long range planning effort, Salem Futures, and the Governors Sustainability Executive Order as guidelines for its development program. Likewise, SFA has relied on local, regional, national and international expertise in planning, engineering and design (see Land Planning Team).

Finally, community charrette and numerous public forums were used to both inspire and refine the elements of the plan to be innovative, yet practical and economically exciting for the city in which we live. The Fairview plan has generated development of new mixed-use zone ordinances and aspires to be a model for facilitating new development patterns that create a strong sense of place and community.

Jim Randall and the rest of the Salem City Council members need a crash course in land use planning and sustainable development. Otherwise Salem is going to continue to have its land use policies rejected by the state, which, entirely appropriately, expects that local jurisdictions demonstrate at least minimal competence in planning.

[Next day update: A few additional thoughts, spurred in part by Max’s comment that Salem planners don’t have a supportive environment. Absolutely. I wasn’t being critical of the professional planning staff, who I’m sure could come up with a great mixed-use vision for Salem if they were working for a City Council and Mayor who valued sustainability.

Salem is a backwater. It’s frustrating for me to have lived here for 29 years and see an area with so much potential remain the ugly duckling to Portland and Eugene’s swan. By and large Salem’s civic leaders have precious little imagination, creativity, and daring. Their motto is, “Even if it’s broken, why fix it?”

Concerning market-based approaches to mixed-use development, a phrase from my old Systems Science program days comes to mind: “discounting the future.” Meaning, a bird in hand is worth two or more hiding in the brush that you aren’t aware of yet. So the future is given less value than the present. Making money now is a higher priority than investing in the future.

That’s an incredibly selfish attitude, especially over the long run. The “present” I’m living in is going to run out, almost certainly, before the present of my daughter does. So the world I’m helping to form now is going to be the world she inherits. If that world isn’t capable of sustaining human civilization, then I’ve failed her.

This is what sustainability is about: assuring that future generations have the same opportunity to live a good life—or an even better life—as we have now. That takes planning, because the free market discounts the future. It is present oriented. Make money now. Consume limited resources now.

So Jim Randall’s idea that limited or non-existent planning is going to result in a positive sustainable future for Salem is ridiculous. It likely flows from two sources: (1) ignorance of what sustainability means and how important it is, and (2) a political unwillingness to embrace planning even if he overcame that ignorance.

Sad. I just hope that Salem voters will recognize how poorly they are being served by the current City Council and kick as many members as possible out in coming elections.]

[Further update: Sustainable Fairview Associates (the group developing Fairview) has sent a letter to Mayor Janet Taylor and the Salem City Council that emphasizes the need for planning in support of mixed-use development. Hopefully it will help open some minds.
Download sfa_city_council_letter.pdf

The letter is mentioned in today's Statesman-Journal story, "Board rejects using Salem Futures outline," about the Council's ill-advised decision to throw away hundreds of thousands of dollars and countless volunteer hours that went into the Salem Futures planning effort.]

Urgent warning about The Wonder Pets

I just finished watching the debut episode of The Wonder Pets on Nickelodeon Jr. (yes, this 57 year old has too much time on his hands). I have an urgent warning for pot smokers and, especially, any users of psychedelics (do they still exist?).

Do not, repeat, do not watch The Wonder Pets if you aren’t prepared to laugh your guts out. That almost happened to me just now, and I’m not even high on anything (except life, ha, ha).

Today I watched Turtle Tuck, Linny the Guinea Pig and Ming-Ming Duckling save a dolphin trapped in a fishing net and a chimpanzee stuck in an orbiting space capsule. The music and songs are addictive. Sample lyrics:

“Wonder Pets, Wonder Pets,
We’re on our way
To help a baby chimp
And save the day.

We’re not too big
And we’re not too strong
But when we work together
We’ve got the right stuff

Gooooooooooo Wonder Pets!
Yaaaaaaaaaaay!”
(Note: it seems like “strong” and “stuff” should rhyme; maybe I need a hearing aid.)

Plus, the animals come up with some pretty deep insights that can be taken on many levels. Even if you’re not high. For example:

“Whoa, we’re in space.”
“There sure is a lot of space in space!”

And:

“Wonder Pets to baby chimp: do you hear me?”
“He doesn’t hear you, Linny!”
“Baby chimp: take that banana out of your ear!”

Check it out. But only, repeat only, if you’re drug free. Otherwise you might never return from Laugh Land.

Abortion rights and property rights

Why aren’t conservative brains exploding from the crazy contradictions in the Republican party line? I mean, how is it possible to believe that government can’t tell you how to use your land, but government can tell you how to use your body?

Recently we learned that abortion rights are being challenged in South Dakota and property rights are being upheld in Oregon. Conservatives were thrilled. But if the right to use your land as you see fit is sacrosanct, why isn’t there a similar right to use your body as you see fit?

I don’t get it. Dave Hunnicutt of Oregonians in Action says that Measure 37, the property rights measure that has been upheld by the Oregon Supreme Court, “provides every property owner in Oregon with the exact same right: the right to use your land in the way that you could when you acquired it.”

Though my wife and I consider Measure 37 a travesty against all that is right and good with Oregon land use planning, for the sake of argument I’ll temporarily agree with Hunnicutt that whatever laws applied at the time a person acquired his or her property should guide the use of that land—even if land use laws are changed subsequent to the acquisition.

And per Measure 37, I’ll also agree that if government wants to enforce new laws on that person’s property it’s “pay up or shut up” time. That is, government either has to compensate the owner for the lowered value of his or her land that was caused by those restrictions, or waive the new laws.

So I hope Oregonians in Action is going to be consistent and lobby hard for the abortion rights equivalent of Measure 37 if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade. After all, the Roe v. Wade decision has been the law of the land since 1973. Every woman who has become sexually active during the last thirty-three years has lived in a country bound by that ruling.

Thus conservative property rights activists should agree that these women have the right to use their bodies in the way that they could when they acquired sexual maturity. Hey, I’m just quoting the gospel of Dave Hunnicutt here, not some progressive abortion rights argument.

South Dakota wants women to bear children that were conceived as a result of rape or incest. Well, how much should those women be compensated for this intrusion by government on their freedom to use their body as they desire? A million dollars? Ten million?

I was raised by my mother, a fervently conservative Republican. But her conservatism was of the old-fashioned William F. Buckley variety: keep government out of our lives insofar as possible. Today my mother would be called fiscally conservative and socially liberal. Back in her day she was just called a conservative, because Republicans weren’t into imposing rigid moral standards on citizens. They believed in leaving people alone.

I long for a return of real conservatives who support the right of a woman to control her own body with the same fervor that they support her right to control her own property.
-----------------------
Next day update: I knew I’d get some comments from people who thought that the difference between abortion rights and property rights is that another living being, a fetus, is involved in the first instance but not in the second instance. And, I did.

These commenters are missing the point. Two points, really. (1) The idea that there are “two bodies” involved in an abortion is subjective and open to question. What is a human? When does live begin? Is a fetus conscious? Does it feel pain?

Most people rely on religious answers to these difficult questions. An individual may believe in a particular religion such as Christianity, but governmental laws shouldn’t be based on religion. Our Constitution forbids that. So it makes sense that every individual person should be free to answer ambiguous moral questions in his or her own fashion.

Some moral questions aren’t ambiguous. Murder of a living breathing person obviously takes the life of, well, a living breathing person. Aborting a small number of cells that have not yet achieved living breathing status is much different. So abortion can’t be equated with the “crimes against the person” that one commenter cited.

(2) The commenters don’t seem to understand that, contrasted with abortion rights, property rights unarguably do involve other human beings. There’s no doubt about it, whereas there is a doubt when it comes to abortion. I know this directly, because I’m a property owner who lives next to other property owners.

What they do with their property affects me. And what I do affects them. By contrast, a woman who has an abortion, or not, doesn’t affect me at all. Or, so minimally I don’t notice (welfare costs might go up if an unwanted child is born, but I’ll just pay a miniscule share of this increase).

So this is the crazy thing about the conservative mindset: It doesn’t recognize that how a person uses his or her property really does affect other people, whereas how a woman uses her body really doesn’t affect other people—except insofar as they feel moral outrage if she does something with her body they don’t approve of.

This is the illogic of Measure 37. It presumes that land use occurs in a vacuum, that your right to use your property as you see fit doesn’t affect my right to use my property as I see fit. That’s plain wrong. Near us there is a Measure 37 claim that wants to put 80 homes on 240 acres. Eighty more wells in an area where existing wells already are going dry.

Yet the property rights zealots say, “That person has a right to do whatever he or she wants with the land. It doesn’t matter how other people are affected. This is a free country.”

My point is that if you think that way, then you also should say, “A woman has a right to do whatever she wants with her body. It doesn’t matter how other people are affected. This is a free country.”

Be consistent, conservatives. That’s all I ask.