HinesSight

Ranchers overly afraid of the big bad wolf

Oregon ranchers, who I’d think would be pretty tough guys, are scared to death of the mere possibility that a few wolves might one day find their way into this state. No wolves yet have crossed the border from Idaho, but the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission has been laboring on a plan to deal with them if they do.

The Oregon Cattlemen’s Association is freaking out about the plan, which is slated to be voted on tomorrow (December 1). They want ranchers to be able to kill wolves that even look cross-eyed at livestock, notwithstanding the fact that so far there are no wolves in Oregon and no livestock being threatened by the non-existent wolves. So it’s difficult to understand what the Cattlemen’s Association is so frightened about.

Yes, I realize that most of us grew up listening to the song, “Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?” If you’re a pig who lives in a house made of hay or twigs, and there’s a big-lunged wolf at the door, it’s reasonable to start quaking in your porcine boots. However, for the rest of us—which includes Eastern Oregon ranchers—wolves aren’t a threat to be much concerned about.

Check out these wolftrust.org statistics: Minnesota is estimated to have 2500 wolves. In the 22 years from 1979 to 2001, wolves killed 1200 cattle and 879 sheep. So each wolf killed less than one livestock animal per year. Idaho has only several hundred wolves. Oregon, zero.

So even if a few dozen wolves decide to come to Oregon, that’s no big deal for ranchers. Wolftrust.org shows that in states with wolves, predation from all types of animals (coyotes, mostly) accounts for only 1-2% of unplanned cattle and sheep deaths. Disease and severe weather kill hugely more animals.

Ranchers should chill about wolves and spend their energy worrying about other more serious problems. Like, how much longer is the public going to let them get away with welfare ranching?

Many ranchers in Oregon graze their cattle on public lands. According to the “Welfare Ranching” book, federal permittees pay only $1.35 per month to graze a cow-calf pair while the average monthly cost of grazing a cow-calf pair on private lands is $11.10. So us taxpayers should have a lot to say about what happens on public ranchland, since we’re the ones subsidizing the ranchers.

And I say, let the wolves alone. I don’t object to setting up a state-funded program to compensate landowners for wolf-caused livestock losses, but ranchers shouldn’t be able to kill wolves—whether or not a few livestock have been lost. That’s just the cost of doing business in a state that values wildlife and the environment.

I don’t see Oregon vineyards demanding that all birds be shot because they lose some of their grape crop to them. And I don’t see Oregon timber companies demanding that all deer be shot because they lose some young plantings to antler rubbing. So why shouldn’t Oregon ranchers accept that in the future they might lose a few cattle and sheep to some wolves?

Again, they’ve got other things to worry about. Like, as noted here, people are eating less beef for health reasons, the nasty environmental problems caused by cattle on public lands are becoming increasingly obvious, and more beef is being imported from other countries.

The big bad wolf should be one of the least of Oregon ranchers’ concerns. Let him be.

Transitional fossils do exist, you creationist crazies

Thank God for science, which came up with Prozac. I’m going to need a prescription soon if anti-science zealots keep getting me so anxious about where this country is heading. Three disturbing news items bit into my brain in the past 24 hours:

(1) Last night “60 Minutes” had a segment on the FDA’s religiously-based decision to reject an application to let Plan B, the morning after pill, be dispensed without a prescription. Scientific experts overwhelmingly voted to make Plan B over-the-counter. The religious right objected. Guess who won?

(2) On CNN this morning I read “Priests urge stem cell opposition.” Missouri Catholic dioceses are sermonizing against stem cell research that promises to find cures for spinal cord injuries, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and other life-threatening diseases. And these supposedly are advocates for a “culture of life”?

(3) Then I saw several anti-evolution letters to the editor in our local newspaper that pushed my crankiness quotient into the Needs Medication danger zone. It’s one thing to express your personal opinion on the Opinion page. It’s another thing to make factually false statements that many readers will take as the gospel truth.

To wit, Salem resident Arthur Birkby’s absurd contention that “Even Darwin's former advocates admit that there is no evidence of even a single transitional life form from one to another.”

Arthur, I wish that before you’d written your ill-informed letter to the editor, you’d gotten on a computer and done a Google search on “evolution transitional forms.” It took me just a minute or two to find a Transitional Forms page on the University of California Museum of Paleontology Understanding Evolution web site.

That page has photos of three related creatures: a land mammal with nostrils near the front of its skull, a beluga whale (alive today) that has its nostrils at the top of its skull, and the transitional Aetiocetus that had its nostrils at the middle of its skull.

That demolishes Mr. Birby’s “no evidence” line. Of course, this is just the University of California’s fossil experts speaking. Believers in creationism probably consider that the devil is using the Museum of Paleontology as his mouthpiece and the Christian Discovery Institute deserves to be trusted instead.

It’s amazing that creationist crazies can suspend their rational faculties to such a degree that they can say things like this statement I found on a Creation Science site:

There are no transitional links and intermediate forms in either the fossil record or the modern world. Therefore, there is no actual evidence that evolution has occurred either in the past or the present.

Aaaaaaggghhhhh! Just look at this guy’s references that he’s using to support blather like that. The pro-theory of evolution references come from publishers like the Smithsonian Institution, Time-Life Books, Simon and Schuster. The anti-theory of evolution references come from places like the Institute for Creation Research, Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., and such.

Who you gonna believe? I know what my answer is.

People like zoologist Kathleen Hunt who wrote a seriously researched Transitional Vertebrate Fossils FAQ that crushes the “there aren’t any transitional fossils” statement that, she says, keeps popping up in creationist propaganda.

In a “conclusions” section she summarizes her main point:

Creationists often state categorically that "there are no transitional fossils". As this FAQ shows, this is simply not true. That is the main point of this FAQ. There are abundant transitional fossils of both the "chain of genera" type and the "species-to-species transition" type. There are documented speciations that cross genus lines and family lines.

The interpretation of that fact I leave up to you. I have outlined five possible models above, and have explained why I think some of them are better than others. You might disagree with my conclusions, and you can choose the one you think is best, (or even develop another one). But you cannot simply say that there are no transitional fossils, because there are.

No, you can’t say that, Mr. Birkby. But you did. And you won’t be the last to speak the untruth. The truth will win out in the end, though.

Feed the Portland vegan!

At this culinary moment it’s most appropriate for me to ponder the sad plight of Stephen Philip Marshall, a vegan prisoner in Multnomah County’s Justice Center jail, whose request for meals with no meat, eggs, or dairy products has been turned down.

Outrageous! The chant “Feed the Portland Vegan! Feed the Portland Vegan!” echoes in my not-yet-out-of-the-sixties brain as the smell of a Now & Zen wheat gluten Unturkey cooking in our oven wafts through the house (we ate Thanksgiving dinner at the home of some friends and today I got an irresistible craving for our traditional holiday fare).

As the Portland Oregonian reports in “Cuisine is lean for vegan in county jail,” the jail will only provide special meals for religious or medical reasons. Marshall isn’t religious but believes that killing animals for food is cruel.

So do I. Guess I had better stay out of jail if I want to keep my weight up, though I’ve been a member of an organized religious group that espouses vegetarianism, so probably I’d have better luck getting a non-meaty meal from my captors.

It’s ridiculous for a jail to make a distinction between religious and non-religious motivations for sticking to a vegan diet. The last time I ordered a special meal on an airline (back in the days when they actually served meals to passengers) I wasn’t asked why I wanted to eat vegetarian.

Hopefully a prisoner support group aiding Marshall, the ominously-named Anarchist Black Cross Network, will plead his case on the basis that government shouldn’t discriminate on religious grounds.

Marshall’s morality is founded on a religion of one, his own sense of right and wrong. Why should that count for less in the eyes of the Multnomah County jail than another religion such as Buddhism? The number of adherents shouldn’t determine whether one faith is deemed worthy of special meals and another faith isn’t.

Seemingly Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito would be on Marshall’s side, since he wrote an opinion arguing that an evangelical group had the right to provide information about after-school meetings on the same terms as secular groups.

OK. If what’s permitted for a secular group should be permitted for a religious group, then by the same reasoning a diet allowed for a religious individual should be allowed for a secular individual.

Along these lines, the One True B!x has an interesting take on individual versus institutional morality in his “the only thing that matters is what we do” post—which is an extended take on a comment he left on my recent rant about intelligent designers being out to Christianize America. Here’s an excerpt:

As I said in my comment on Hines' post (and restated here), I think freely choosing to live a life in which you are respectful, considerate, and aware is more powerful (more beautiful, really) than doing so because some higher power told you it was the right way to be -- let alone doing so because you fear being punished by that higher power.

Personally (and that's what all of this comes down to, in the end, for all parties), I find the capacity for choice, and not hopes or fears about what might or might not come after this life, to be a motivator more worthy of the notion of "dignity."

Right on, brother. Feed the Portland vegan!

Laurel swears she’ll never make another pie. Again.

Our Thanksgiving Eve tradition continues: cursing, confusion, and clutter fill the kitchen as Laurel labors to make an apple pie that, precisely 365 days ago, she swore would never darken her culinary door again.

Yet, it did. We have been invited to share Thanksgiving with some friends. They are doing most of the cooking but gave us a few choices about what we could bring to the table. Salad. Rolls. Dessert.

Laurel told them that she’d bring dessert. More precisely, an apple pie. And not a store-bought pie. A home-made pie. The stage was set for disaster.

Last night I initially watched the drama play out from a safe distance. Me and my newly wi-fied laptop were happily blogging away on a table near enough to the kitchen to vicariously share in the pie-making experience, but not so close that I’d feel drawn to actually help out.

Apple preparation via our nifty slicing and coring machine went smoothly enough. Act I of “Laurel Makes a Pie” always does. That’s when the actors come on stage, establish their roles, and get set up for the climactic scene where dastardly whole wheat crust meets the lovely lady with a pie pan.

Every year Laurel forgets how much she despises the pre-made crust that she buys, every year, from the natural food store. Hope (or memory loss) springs eternal as she spoons the apple slices into the bottom crust and then tries to mold the top crust into the appearance of a pie.

It always falls apart. First, the crust. Then, Laurel’s composure. The sound of mildly irritated mutterings start to intrude into my blogging-focused brain. They morph into louder obscenities.

I look up from my computer and see that my wife has begun to pull off the top crust onto some waxed paper where, she dreams, it will be possible to reassemble it.

I know that this won’t happen. Yet the annual kitchen Kabuki Play must take its stylized course. We must each act out our assigned parts, Laurel, me, the crust, until the final curtain falls.

The cursed crust, of course, cannot be pieced together. It has to be formed into a ball and rolled out. Even then, the whole wheat crust remains recalcitrant, an evil (though healthy) force that maintains its malicious power even when caged in a hot oven.

For in its death throes the crust still manages to commit one last act of malevolence: allowing the bubbly filling to spill over onto the bottom of the oven. “Oh, no!” Laurel screams, turning on the light and peering through the closed oven door.

The words are familiar. I heard them last year. I ever so gently suggest that placing a baking pan beneath the pie might have been a good idea. Just as I said last year. Ah, I so love Thanksgiving traditions.

While the pie was baking (and bubbling) Laurel made another crust from scratch. “Why didn’t I do this the first time?” she asks. “My crust always turns out better than the store-bought crust.” True. As always.

I take over the apple slicing/coring chore. Juice and shredded peelings begin to litter the floor. It all feels so right, so déjà vu’ish. I’ve been here before and I’ll be here again. It’s the wheel of life, turning.

It takes us a while to get the second pie in the oven. We’re afraid of setting off the smoke detector, so we keep opening and closing the oven door, letting a manageable amount of the black cloud escape each time. We open an outside door and the kitchen window.

Just like last year. I expect, just like next year.

The second pie looks great. You’d never mistake it for store-bought, and that’s the way it should be. Natural. Irregular. Organic. We decide to freeze most of the first pie. Have to sample it though.

Yum! Excellent. The crust, though undeniably evil, is as flaky and light as a whole wheat crust can be. As we sit down to enjoy an always-enjoyable episode of “Lost,” the spirit of thanksgiving settles around us.

The neighborhood deer are thankful that they’ve got an extra pile of apple cores and peelings to eat today. And we’re thankful that the smoke detector never went off, which would have necessitated a hasty “Just cooking a pie” phone call to Honeywell Security.

More tradition: last Thanksgiving I shared some cartoons for carnivores. Figured I might as well mention them again. If you’ve got a turkey on your table, please thank it for giving up its life for your pleasure.

Intelligent designers are out to Christianize America

Advocates of intelligent design aren’t really scientists. They’re theologians. And they’re determined to root every last vestige of non-Christianity out of American culture.

That’s the conclusion I’ve come to after reading the first three chapters of a book that has been sitting on my “to read” bookshelf for three years. I picked up “Signs of Intelligence” a few days ago, wanting to learn from intelligent design proponents—not critics—what this movement is all about.

An editor of this collection of essays is William A. Dembski, one of the few real scientists who believes in intelligent design. He’s a professor of Science and Theology at Southern Seminary in Louisville. Not exactly Harvard or Stanford. (Dembski has a weblog that is worth checking out to gain some insights into his philosophy of life and science).

The other editor of “Signs of Intelligence” is James M. Kushiner, publisher of Touchstone magazine, a Christian journal that bills itself as providing a place “where Christians of various backgrounds can speak with one another on the basis of shared belief in the fundamental doctrines of the faith as revealed in Holy Scripture and summarized in the ancient creeds of the Church.”

Gee, that reassures me that Kushiner is exactly the sort of objective, unbiased scientific truth-seeker who should be at the forefront of a movement that is trying to tell schools what to teach about the origins of life on earth. Scanning a list of his Touchstone articles, you get the clear impression that he loves Jesus, dislikes homosexuality, and is committed to science only insofar as it supports his faith.

People who accept the gospel of intelligent design try to claim that their movement isn’t religiously motivated. I don’t believe them, especially after reading Nancy Pearcey’s essay “Design and the Discriminating Public.”

Ms. Pearcey’s academic credential is a M.A. from Covenant Theological Seminary. That qualified her to contribute to the book “Of Pandas and People,” a supplemental biology text advocating intelligent design. Apparently she didn’t get the memo from ID Central about toning down the religiosity of this supposedly purely scientific alternative to the theory of evolution. For she writes:

On both sides of the issue most people sense instinctively that there is much more at stake here than a scientific theory—that a link exists between the material order and the moral order…Our view of origins shapes our understanding of ethics, law, education—and yes, even sexuality.

If life on earth is a product of blind, purposeless natural causes, then our own lives are cosmic accidents. There’s no source of transcendent moral guidelines, no unique dignity for human life. On the other hand, if life is the product of foresight and design, then you and I were meant to be here. In God’s revelation we have a solid basis for morality, purpose, and dignity.

…At stake in this controversy is which worldview will permeate and shape our culture. Design is not an esoteric question relevant only to scientists. Design, especially as it relates to God creating the world, lies at the heart of all that Christians believe.

I find this attempt to Christianize science extremely troubling. More bluntly, it’s disgusting. I love science. I spent two years completing all the course requirements for a Ph.D. in Systems Science. For ten years I worked in health services research, trying to distinguish fact from fiction in the complex world of health planning. And I’ve written a book about how mysticism relates to the new physics.

Given my interest in what I like to call “spiritual science,” you’d think that I’d have warmer feelings about the intelligent design movement. A few weeks ago a conservative friend expressed surprise when I trash-talked intelligent design theory. “But you believe in it!” he said.

No, I don’t. Not the way it’s being pushed by Dembski, Behe, and the Discovery Institute zealots. I’m very much open to the idea that intelligence pervades the cosmos. This notion lies at the heart of classic Greek thought, including Platonism and Neoplatonism. I’ve also written a book, “Return to the One,” about the teachings of Plotinus, a 3rd century Greek mystic philosopher.

Plotinus, like Plato, considered that nous (variously translated as “intellect,” “intellectual principle,” and “spirit”) is the immaterial foundation of this physical world. This is akin to how most mathematicians believe that mathematics isn’t a human invention, but somehow exists independently on a higher plane of reality.

So if the intelligent design folks wanted to focus on the “intelligent” aspect of their philosophy and minimize the “design” aspect, I’d look upon their movement more favorably.

The older I’ve gotten, the more Taoist my spiritual beliefs have become. Taoism, like Neoplatonism, finds order at the root of reality, but it isn’t a personal, theistic, designing order. It is impersonal. Just the way things are. In her book “Taoist Mystical Philosophy,” Livia Kohn says:

The Tao is the one power underlying the universe; it makes things be what they are; it causes the world to come into being and decay again. It is the foundation of all, the source of life and being, from which we all come and to which we all return. The Tao is organic in that it is not willful, it is not a conscious active creator, and it is not personal. The Tao is nature, yet it is more than mere nature, it is the essence of nature, the inner quality that makes things what they are.

If any religious philosophy deserves to be associated with a scientific conception of how intelligence pervades the cosmos, Taoism and Neoplatonism have a much better claim than Christianity. This is part of what makes the intelligent design movement in this country so galling to me: the ID advocates are trying to convert science into a cultural force for promoting Christian dogma.

Currently science unites all of humanity. There is no Christian science, Muslim science, Jewish science, Hindu science, or Buddhist science. There is just science. The intelligent design zealots don’t like this. They want a Christian science. Or, at least, a theistic science where Christians, Jews, and Muslims can argue over whose personal God is doing the intelligent designing.

Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, Neoplatonists—they and anyone else who believes in a universal impersonal intelligent power can’t play in the intelligent design clubhouse. Neither can atheists, agnostics, pantheists, or other deniers of a personal God who willfully caused the creation and everything in it to come into existence.

Another essayist in the “Signs of Intelligence” book, Jay Wesley Richards, reveals that the ultimate goal of the intelligent design movement is to change the way all science is practiced. Naturalistic science is to become theistic Christian science.

Here’s what Richards has to say about the grand design of intelligent design:

So how is ID relevant to Christian apologetics? ID can be extended. We may envision its extension as a set of concentric circles, encompassing ever-larger swathes of nature within its explanatory domain…If intelligent design theory exposes the inadequacy of materialistic explanations in the natural sciences, it will deflate this assertion [that scientific progress has made Christian belief obsolete], and could contribute to a renewal of Christian belief in the twenty-first century.

These intelligent design guys are scary. Their words may sound fairly moderate, but that’s because they’re trying to disguise (thinly, admittedly) their real goal: to make the United States, and the science practiced in this country, overtly Christian.

They must be fought in every courtroom, every classroom, every public forum. The divine Tao deserves to be defended.

WildBlue satellite internet rescues us from dial-up

After many years of suffering through 24 kbps dial-up internet “surfing” (more accurately, “slogging”), we got a WildBlue satellite system installed last Wednesday.

It’s working great. I just logged on to three speed tests. Ground Control says I’m getting 556 kbps download, PCPitstop’s satellite bandwidth test says 576 kbps, and SpeakEasy clocked in at 579 kbps down and 151 kbps up (WildBlue is two-way satellite, no phone line involved).

Real-world wise, yesterday I downloaded a 10.9 mb virus/spyware scan update through SystemSuite, the excellent utility system that replaced my piece-of-crap Symantec software. Via dial-up it used to take me over an hour to get a download of that size. With WildBlue it took me a bit less than two minutes.

A download time calculator told me that this translates into about 775 kbps. We’re signed up for an “up to 1 mbps download” plan and one of the speed tests I’ve conducted over the past few days actually came up with a 1.05 mbps result.

Cable internet folks won’t be impressed (like my friend, Jim, who works for Comcast and told me today that 1.5 mbps was hot stuff for cable internet several years ago; now speeds are much higher). But I’ve been reading the newspaper while waiting for the CNN and NY Times web sites to sloooooowly load each morning, so 500-1000 kbps is joy for me and Laurel.

We got WildBlue through D&D Satellite in Salem. And in sort of a strange fashion. I’d been regularly checking the WildBlue website for dealers in our area. My interest in WildBlue has been strong since May 2004, when Qwest let me know that DSL would never be coming to our neighborhood because it would cost too much to get service way out here in the hinterlands, a whole five miles from the Salem city limits.

After writing about my dark fantasies involving Qwest supervisors and a Lucy Liu-led band of samurai sword wielding yakuza, I decided that WildBlue would be my backup to Lucy Liu.

But there never was any sign of a dealer in our area. I phoned WildBlue and kept getting vague answers about when service would be available in Salem. I emailed WildBlue and never got a response. I emailed Digital Connex in Portland, the only WildBlue dealer currently shown for Oregon, and never heard back from them.

Then, as a last resort before I turned to a competing satellite internet provider like Starband, I decided to call D&D Satellite to see what they knew about WildBlue. “Hello,” said the guy who answered the phone, “how may I help you?” “I’m interested in WildBlue,” I said. “Yes, we’re a dealer” he told me.

“What!” I screamed. “You’re a dealer??!!” It turned out that D&D had only been a dealer for a short time, but it still mystified me that WildBlue was keeping this a secret. That made more sense when I learned that D&D Satellite works through Plumas-Sierra Telecommunications, which is an offshoot of the Plumas-Sierra Rural Electric Cooperative in northern California.

So we’re GotSky customers with a WildBlue system. I’ve told this tale for the benefit of other people who, like me, have been waiting for a WildBlue dealer to pop up in their area. Check with GotSky because it doesn’t look like WildBlue central is publicizing some dealers who have chosen to associate themselves with Plumas-Sierra.

The installation went very smoothly. We’ve got a satellite dish on our roof that is a bit larger than our DISH network television equipment. A modem the size of a large book sits under a desk. It’s connected directly to my wife’s computer. I get WildBlue in my office downstairs (and also thoughout our house) through a LinkSys wireless router hooked up to the modem.

Installation and equipment cost $334. We’re paying $69.95 a month for the Select Pak plan on a two-year contract.

Getting high speed internet in our rural home makes the cost worth it to us. I’m saving a lot of time each day, though this is somewhat offset by my new broadband-enabled addiction to Google Earth and flying around the world.

[Nov. 29 update: our current speed is clocking in considerably higher at a bit over 1 mbps down and 175 kbps up. It could be that our subscription hadn't been upgraded to the 1 mbps plan when I wrote the post above. At first we signed up for the 500 kbps plan but right away I got greedy, wanting more, and phoned GotSky to upgrade--which may have taken a while to go into effect.]

Gary Hart on keeping religion out of politics

Recently I saw an interview with Hart on Fox News where he made some wise observations about how religion screws up the political process.

Listening to him speak, I recalled how unfortunate it was that Dukakis rather than Hart was the Democratic nominee for president in 1988. That photo of Donna Rice sitting on his lap sunk his campaign. Otherwise, this intelligent and articulate former Colorado senator might well have won.

Myself, I’ve argued that religious values have no place in politics. In the interview (a portion of which is transcribed below) Hart basically agrees, though obviously neither he nor I would say that religious people have no place in politics. He has written a short book, “God and Caesar in America: An Essay on Religion and Politics.”

Hart says that it’s fine to be both religious and political, so long as you’re able to remain politically flexible. In politics you have to offer up good reasons for why you hold a particular position; in religion you don’t. Unswerving absolutism generally is considered to be a religious virtue, but it is a political vice—cutting off all possibility of finding a middle ground.

Here’s another perspective on Hart’s views about religion and politics. And here’s an excerpt from the Fox News interview:

Interviewer: You write, “Organized religion that seeks to occupy political power loses its purity and purpose.” How so?

Hart: Well, politics is the art of compromise. I think we all know that. We have liberals and we have conservatives, and the way you govern the country is to get the two together somewhere in the mainstream middle. That’s part of the reason the government isn’t working very well these days because of people demanding their own agenda.

Religion is about absolutes. Right and wrong, good and evil, and so forth. If you try to impose absolutes on a system of democratic compromise, you simply grind the process to a halt. The religious right has taken over much of the Republican Party both in its domestic and foreign policies. And I think that’s part of the reason why it’s very difficult to govern the country these days.

Interviewer: Right. But you say “impose absolutes.” But let’s say you’re just influenced by your own personal religious beliefs and you are in a position of government. Is there anything wrong with that, using your faith to guide you?

Hart: No, no, no. In the essay I absolutely encourage people of faith, of all faiths, to get involved in politics. That’s not the issue. It’s when one wing of one religion, in this case fundamental Protestantism, inserts itself into the operations of one party, in this case the Republican party, and demands the right to select judges and approve appointees to office.

And domestic policies, for example using taxpayer dollars through so-called faith-based organizations or churches. Probably, almost certainly, a violation of the First Amendment. That’s the difference. As I say in the essay, my own evangelical Christian upbringing influenced my decisions very strongly and my values and principles. And they did throughout my life.

I think its ironic that that church, or my religious training, which caused me to become a progressive Democrat caused others to become conservative Republicans.

Another man satisfies my wife

Hey, I’m cool with it. I know that I can’t meet all of my wife’s needs. So it didn’t bother me when another guy came to our house yesterday and spent all afternoon doing stuff that made Laurel ooh and aah.

I wish I could have given her all that pleasure on my own. But I’ve still got some macho self-esteem left, since I’ve convinced myself that it takes a real man to call the plumber.

Who arrived right after lunch. First, he installed a replacement kitchen sink faucet, tearing out the old Moen that I had managed to reverse the hot and cold directions on. Ooh! Laurel liked it. A lot.

My first reaction was that it was creepy. But then, I can’t stand snakes. It looks like a cobra to me. And when its head comes out of the fixture to become a sprinkler thingie, it really looks like a cobra.

I’m so traumatized, given my snake phobia, that probably I won’t be able to ever wash dishes in the sink again. Or so I hope. Unfortunately, I’m married to a psychotherapist who doesn't display as much compassion toward my mental problems as she should. I may need to seek a second opinion.

Then came the aah! This was a surprise for me, but the other two members of our home fix-it manage a trois pulled off the stunt smoothly.

I went down to my office for a few minutes and by the time I got back to the kitchen the plumber was unpacking a new garbage disposal that he just happened to have in his truck after Laurel had just happened to mention to him that the old unit had been getting stuck quite often.

Sure. Whatever.

The guy dutifully showed me how the old disposal stopped turning instantly after it was shut off, which meant, he said, that the ball bearings were shot. I appreciated that he was trying to involve me in the replacement process, but I recognized that the two of them were going to do what they wanted with or without me.

So I meekly said, “Sure, go ahead and put in a new one,” trying not to notice that the plumber had already started to take out the old garbage disposal before I’d opened my mouth.

When it came to replacing another faucet in our upstairs bathroom, the thrill began to wear off for Laurel. Not that the plumber did anything wrong. It was just that, as soon as the fixture had been installed, she second-guessed her decision to go all stainless steel rather than getting something with a gold accent to match the trim.

Me, I couldn’t care less. This is “my” bathroom (using the term “my” extremely loosely when it comes to decorating decisions) and I didn’t even know that I needed a new faucet.

I rather like this one though. Laurel thinks it is too large for the sink, which it may be, but the shape appeals to me. I hadn’t realized before how phallic a faucet and base can appear.

Meditating on it while I brush my teeth has helped make me feel like a man again. Until the tile guy comes to the house. But that’s another story.

I pick up a hitchhiker

I started to pull over as soon as I saw her raise her hand and gesture at my car. A thirty-something woman in a long dress standing all alone on the side of Liberty Road five miles from Salem. I had to stop.

My first thought was that she had car trouble and needed help. But there wasn’t any car in sight. I rolled down the passenger side window.

“Oh, thank you for stopping,” she said. “I’ve been here for 45 minutes. I need a ride into town so I can catch a bus to go for a job interview.” “Hop in,” I told her. “No problem.”

As she settled into our Prius I realized that this was the first time I’d picked up a hitchhiker since the ‘60s when I drove a VW bug and was a lot wilder and crazier. Still, I couldn’t believe that no one else had stopped for this gentle-appearing soul.

“Even some of my neighbors passed me by,” she told me. “It must have been because you’re so scary looking,” I said with a smile. She was nicely dressed and clutching a purse. Not exactly the sort of woman that you should be afraid of stopping for on a rural road, especially on a sunny afternoon.

Her car was beyond repair. She and her boyfriend had tried to keep it going but now it had a major axle problem. They’d had to call a tow truck driver several times. She said that the driver finally said, “I’m tired of coming all the way out here. I’ll try to find you a cheap car from our repo lot.”

She was looking forward to picking up a $200 Ford Fiesta. She had put $100 down and needed to work for a week before she could pay the other $100. “They told me that it runs fine. It has a broken window, and you have to start it with a screwdriver, but I can live with that.”

She had left home three hours early to be sure she got to the job interview on time. It would have taken her twenty minutes to drive there. “It’s really more of a job orientation at T-Mobile. This is my third interview with them. I’m pretty sure I’ve got the job. It pays $10.20. That’s so much better than minimum wage. I’ll be so happy if I get the job.”

I could easily understand her words, but her voice had the intonation of a deaf person. Indeed, she told me that her new hearing aids were much better than her old ones. At a previous call center job she kept having to raise her hand for a supervisor because she couldn’t make out what a customer was saying. She had been born nearly deaf.

“Voc Rehab has been so helpful to me,” she said. “They gave me $100 to buy some new clothes. And I have a bus pass. They’ve been great.”

I asked her where she wanted to be dropped off. “There’s a bus stop by the Liberty Inn. I can get a bus to downtown from there, then get a transfer to where T-Mobile is. I have the address.”

It turned out that we had a mutual friend, Ted, who used to live in our Spring Lake Estates development. Ted is in assisted living now. She washes Ted’s clothes every Thursday evening for him. I gave her my name. She said she’d say hello to Ted for me. I left her at the bus stop.

I felt shitty. Horribly guilty. I needed to mail some stuff, then I was going to go to Best Buy to buy a router for the broadband satellite Internet connection that is going to be installed Wednesday. It’ll cost us $69 a month. That was close to what she had left to pay on her $200 car that she needed to get to her $10 an hour job.

After leaving the post office I drove back to the bus stop. She was still there. “How about if I give you a ride to T-Mobile?” I said. “I’ve got to go to Best Buy and I’ll be driving right by there.”

She was deeply appreciative. “The orientation starts at 3:30. I just looked at the schedule and my transfer leaves at 3:09.” “That’s cutting it close for a job interview,” I told her. “It’s better to get there too early than too late.”

We found the T-Mobile building. “Oh, look,” she said excitedly as we turned down the call center’s street. “There’s a covered bus stop with a seat. That’s so great!”

I kept thinking that this morning I had spent half an hour researching Honda generators on the Internet. We already have a generator to keep our well, refrigerator, and such running when the electricity goes out. I wanted a better one, something quieter, easier to start, with inverter technology so I could keep on using my computer and watch TV.

The sophisticated 7000 watt generator I was considering costs $3295. We could afford it. This woman was getting out of my car and thanking me profusely. She had almost nothing to her name. I hoped that she couldn’t see the guilt streaming out of my pores.

I thought about driving to an ATM, getting $100 out, and telling her that this was a loan so she could get her Ford Fiesta a week early and not have to hitchhike into town to catch a bus at 6 in the morning. But I sensed a lot of pride in her. It didn’t feel right. I kept my mouth shut.

“Wish me luck with getting the job,” she said. “Luck, I wish you,” I told her. She smiled and headed toward the T-Mobile front door. I drove off to Best Buy.

Thinking…I’m so glad I stopped to give her a ride…We’re so damn fortunate…There’s so many people out there struggling to just get by, whose dream is to purchase a $200 car that you start with a screwdriver, who spend hours waiting at bus stops to get to a $10 an hour job…We aren’t aware of them, we who zip by the bus stops in our 2004 Prius on the way to buy a broadband router for our $69 a month Internet connection that we’ll keep going with a $3295 Honda generator.

There’s something seriously wrong with our country. And me. I don’t know what to do about it. Or if I really even want to do anything about it. I want everything that I have now. Plus, more.

I’m selfish. I carefully titer my charitable impulses, giving just enough help to people less well off than me to keep my guilt at a level that won’t interfere with my own happiness. Once in a while, like this afternoon, the real world breaks through my protective progressive bubble. I get a glimpse of what it’s like, really like, for those at the bottom end of the income ladder.

It’s tough to see. On my way to Best Buy I shed a few tears.

Randi Rhodes is an embarrassment to progressives

I’m a progressive. Yet it’s painful for me to listen to Randi Rhodes, Air America’s equivalent of Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage. She’s an embarrassment for progressives.

Rhodes routinely is uninformed, shrill, and rude. This wouldn’t be such a problem for the progressive movement if there were a wide variety of appealing liberal radio voices. But there aren’t, for the airwaves are dominated by conservative talk show hosts.

The rantings of Limbaugh and Savage appeal to rabid right-wingers, just as Rhodes is the darling of unabashed lefties. On the right, Tony Snow and Sean Hannity are more moderate in tone. So are Ed Schultz and Al Franken on the left.

However, since Randi Rhodes is one of only a few progressive radio presences, her failings cast a considerable shadow over the entire Democratic/liberal side of politics. Plus, the Randi Rhodes show is broadcast in prime radio time, 3 to 7 pm.

I wish she were on from 1 to 5 am when hardly anyone would hear her. During the few minutes that I’m able to listen to her before my finger jabs another preset button, I worry that she’s driving moderates away from the progressive cause in droves.

Here are a few examples of Rhodes’ irritating incompetence:

(1) Last week I heard her blathering on about how great it was that Democratic governors were elected in Virginia and New Jersey because these were red states that didn’t elect Democrats. Except, Tim Kaine (Virginia) and Jon Corzine (New Jersey) succeeded Democratic governors.

I knew that just from glancing at election results in our (crappy) local newspaper. A national talk show host should be a lot better informed about politics than I am. But Rhodes wasn’t. That’s inexcusable.

(2) Even more inexcusable, before the election Randi Rhodes got Tim Kaine mixed up with his Republican opponent, Jerry Kilgore. As the “RaisingKaine” blog points out, Rhodes devoted quite a bit of air time on her show to trashing a Democratic candidate who was in a close race. The Kaine supporters were confused by a blog entry critical of Kaine that supposedly was written by Rhodes. The RaisingKaine folks said:

Well, my colleagues and I were totally confused and dumbfounded by this, so we listened to the August 10 show in the archives on your website. Unfortunately, it turns out that this WAS you, NOT an imposter, and that you actually read these comments and attacked Tim Kaine — who you must have confused with Jerry Kilgore, right?!? please?!? — ON THE AIR! Look, we can be charitable and say that you were busy, distracted, and totally confused, that you or one of your staffers thought this blog was pro-Kilgore for some bizarre reason.

Alternately, we can be less charitable and simply conclude that you attacked Tim Kaine without even knowing who he was, let alone the difference between a Democrat (Tim), a far-right Republican (Jerry Kilgore), or a hole in the ground. Frankly, though, it would be utterly shocking if a leading Democratic radio host hadn’t heard of the #1 Governor’s race in the country this year! With all due respect, have you been hiding in a cave the past few months or something?

I can only wish. In a cave off the air.

(3) Recently I heard Rhodes talking in her misinformed fashion about avian flu. She was musing that the avian flu scare had been fabricated by the Bush administration for some nefarious reason. Rhodes even suggested that avian flu might be generated in government labs to distract attention from Bush’s political problems.

Amazingly, she said that because Bush had just given a speech about the potential danger of avian flu, now she wasn’t going to worry about it because the truth is always the opposite of what Bush says. That’s flat-out irresponsible, given that independent public health experts from the World Health Organization and elsewhere consider that an avian flu pandemic is a real and present danger that could kill millions of people worldwide.

(4) Lastly, Randi Rhodes got my First Amendment hackles up when she started talking about Scooter Libby’s 1996 novel, “The Apprentice.” She said that it contains a scene where a young girl is raped by a bear. According to a piece in the New Yorker, “Scooter’s Sex Shocker,” this is true. Libby wrote:

At age ten the madam put the child in a cage with a bear trained to couple with young girls so the girls would be frigid and not fall in love with their patrons. They fed her through the bars and aroused the bear with a stick when it seemed to lose interest.

OK, that’s shocking and crude. But Libby wrote a novel, for christ’s sake. This is fiction, not reality. Yet Randi Rhodes screamed, “Libby is a child abuser! He should be put away!” (or words to that effect)

Yes, he should be put away. Not for his writing though. For obstruction of justice and perjury, assuming he is found guilty. You would think that a progressive would be championing free speech, as repugnant as it might be to some.

This is America. You can say what you want here. Randi Rhodes can too. I just wish she wouldn’t. For the sake of the progressive movement.

A real man will call a plumber

Well, that’s the spin I’m putting on my phone call to Judsons Plumbing yesterday. To be honest, I feel totally emasculated. I finally had to admit that fixing a leaky kitchen sink faucet was beyond me.

After my first quasi-successful fix-it attempt it took me a week to come to this conclusion. By “quasi,” I mean that I got the single-handle Moen faucet back together after disassembling it down to the cartridge and then not being able to figure how the damn thing came out.

With some struggle I was able to get the faucet into working order again, aside from the minor detail that the hot and cold water directions were reversed. I told my wife that this was a positive, not a negative, as you always hear that people should stimulate their brains by trying new things as they get older to reduce the risk of getting Alzheimer’s.

However, after several days of either scalding my hands when I wanted to rinse them, or starting to wash dishes in cool water, the notion of calling a plumber began to grow on me. After fifteen years of marriage Laurel knew better than to press the subject, recognizing that this was a sensitive area for me—risking my manhood by asking a professional for help with a simple household repair.

She’d merely say things like, “I’m starting to get used to turning the handle to the right to get hot water. Probably by the time the cartridge gives out completely it will seem absolutely natural to me.”

I tried to garner psychological support on the Internet. I read Doug’s tale about how he tried to replace a Moen faucet cartridge and got in over his head. I poured over Kent’s discovery that he needed a Moen Core Puller, whatever the heck that is. I also took heart when I saw Kent’s mention that he worked on motorcycles yet still had problems with a Moen faucet repair.

“Hey, maybe real men actually do call plumbers,” I began to think. I pondered Kent’s manly advice:

So what's the point of this story and what does it have to do with motorcycling? That's pretty simple really. It's lessons learned about doing things yourself instead of paying an expert to do the job for you. Before beginning a job asking yourself some basic questions can save a lot of grief.

--Have you done a repair like this before?
--If you've not done the repair before, have you done one in the past that was similar enough to prepare you for the current task?
--Do you have the mechanical skills needed to complete the job?
--Do you have the manual/instructions for the job?
--Do you have the correct tools?
--If you don't have the tools, is it more economical to purchase the tools, or pay someone to do the job that does have them?
--How long will it take you to do the job, and would it be more economical to pay someone that has the knowledge and equipment that enables them do it efficiently?
--Is help available if you run into trouble and need advice?
--Do you have a back up plan if you find you cannot complete the job?
--Finally, do you have a blacksmith hammer when all else fails?

My answer to each of these questions was “No” or “I have no clue.” I reached for the phone and dialed Judsons before I lost my nerve.

“Judsons. How may I help you?”
“I need some plumbing assistance.”
“What’s the problem?”
“We’ve got a leaky faucet.”

At that point I envisioned the woman putting me on hold while she ran into the Judsons break room and regaled her fellow staff with the customer story of the day. “Hey, you won’t believe this. A guy just called and wants help with a simple leaky faucet. What a weenie! What a wuss!”

As unlikely as this scenario might be (after all, home repair-challenged men are the bread and butter of a plumbing company like Judsons), I found myself starting to babble to the woman about Doug and Kent and core pullers and how I got the faucet disassembled and (more or less) put back together.

Then I became uncomfortably conscious of my male defensiveness and shut up. She said “Would next Tuesday work out for you?” “Sure.”

Hanging up the phone, I went upstairs, turned on the TV, and grabbed the remote control. Switching channels whenever I pleased, I began to feel like a man again.

At least, until Tuesday.

Let's clean up the (Oregon) House

On this mini 2005 Election day, it’s not too early for me to be anticipating the joy that I’ll feel when, 365 days and a few hours from now, I go out to get the newspaper and read “Minnis defeated—Dems take back Oregon House.”

Yes, I realize that in clean, green Oregon, politics isn’t supposed to be personal. But Karen Minnis, the oh-so-Republican Speaker of the House, sets herself up for personal attacks with her penchant for playing the Red Queen.

In the 2005 legislative session she repeatedly refused to allow the House to vote on bills that had passed the Senate, often with significant Republican support, just because Minnis wanted to brandish her imperial scepter and intone “The Queen has decreed, this shall not pass.”

Democracy, representative government, bipartisanship? Not in the House Republicans’ playbook.

It’s time—way past time—to get adults in charge of the Oregon House of Representatives. We’ve had to suffer through a childish legislature for too long. It’s embarrassing that this state has a House Speaker who throws temper tantrums when she doesn’t get her way and swears like a longshorewoman at colleagues who disagree with her.

The Oregon House Democrats have issued a challenge: work 10 hours for Democratic candidates in 2006. That isn’t much, really, considering the payoff. Most Oregonians got screwed by Queen Minnis in the last session. A final tally puts the score at 24 for House Republicans and special interests, 0 for the interests of average citizens.

I moved to Oregon in 1970. I remember when Republicans in this state brought Oregonians together to fashion innovative solutions to our problems. I remember the bottle bill, wise land use planning, keeping beaches open to the public. I remember Tom McCall and Mark Hatfield.

It’s been a long time since I’ve had any similarly pleasant memories of the present-day Oregon Republican leadership. They’re divisive, addicted to power, and dance to the tune of special interests. We need to show them the door in 2006.

Take the challenge.

Support Apathy, Nihilism, and Despair

Finally! No more naked wrists for me. I’ve found some rubber wristbands that spout a message I can get behind. I just ordered them and can hardly wait to share an honest philosophy of life with the world.

Others can wear what they like. I’m declaring my allegiance to the curmudgeon side in the battle of the bands.

Outraged at flu shot shortages

While standing in line for a flu shot yesterday I had plenty of time to work up a major case of Irritation at Bush, the CDC, vaccine manufacturers, and anyone else who was responsible for the hour I spent shuffling along a lengthy line of tape stuck to the floor at south Salem’s Oak Tree Pharmacy.

I had plenty of company. About forty people had beaten me to the clinic when I got there at 11:30 am, half an hour after the starting time. I figured that I’d beat the noon rush. I hadn’t taken into consideration the fact that most of my flu shot compadres were quite a bit older than my 57 years and weren’t constrained by working hours.

White hair, Medicare cards, walkers, canes, and wheelchairs were evident in abundance. I felt sorry for the infirm elderly who had to stand outside on the sidewalk on a cold rainy day for fifteen minutes before being able to enter the warmth of the store and spend another forty-five minutes inching to the head of the line.

I’m not blaming Oak Tree Pharmacy or Maxim Health Systems (a.k.a. FindAFluShot.com). The clinic was well organized and staffed. I’m appreciative that I was able to get vaccinated, especially since Maxim announced today that it is canceling all of its flu shot clinics after November 6 at retail locations. The press release said:

“We know the demand for vaccination is higher this year and currently there is simply not enough vaccine available to continue our retail programs,” said Steve Wright, National Director Wellness Services for Maxim Health Systems. “We understand the frustration that some have experienced in trying to get vaccinated against the flu this year. Here at Maxim we certainly share that frustration and would prefer to keep all clinics open and help people get vaccinated, but this is not possible at this time.”

Do you remember how Kerry bashed Bush prior to the 2004 election for last year’s flu shot shortage, saying that it was typical of his policy blunders? Well, nothing has changed. Bush was re-elected and is still blundering along. The GAO (Government Accountability Office) says that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reacted sluggishly to flu vaccine shortages, and the same thing is happening again.

While the CDC offers assurances that there is no shortage of vaccine this year, flu shots are hard to find. Doctors in New York can’t get vaccine. The American Academy of Family Physicians is asking its members to document problems with getting vaccine that had been ordered. Shipment delays have caused clinic cancellations nationwide.

My own family doctor told me that she hasn’t been able to get the 400 doses that she ordered. She said that she’s talked with other private practice doctors who are in the same boat. They can’t figure out why Fred Meyer stores and other large retail outlets like Safeway can get vaccine while primary care providers can’t.

The Bush administration believes in free markets. But there’s a good reason why it’s called public health. The private sector can’t be counted on to provide necessities for the public good. That’s why we have public police and fire departments, public schools, and public health departments.

Bush recently announced what has been called a feeble flu plan. If you like how the federal government copes with hurricane disasters, then you should love Bush’s half-assed plan for coping with an avian flu pandemic, which candidly states ''It is unlikely that there will be sufficient personnel, equipment, and supplies to respond adequately to multiple areas of the country for a sustained period of time."

Disturbing news. But highly believable. The Bush administration hasn’t yet been able to figure out how to get normal flu vaccine to Americans who need it. If an avian flu epidemic hits the United States, a lot of people who voted for Bush in 2004 are going to pay for that mistake with their lives. That may sound harsh, but it’s the truth.

“Where’s the outrage?” asks a blogging physician in private practice who doesn’t like having to tell his patients that no flu vaccine has arrived this year. Good question.

I tried my progressive best to raise the consciousness of my fellow line-standers yesterday, but my efforts to relate Bush administration blunders to the current flu vaccine shortage fell on mostly deaf ears. Eventually, though, I’m confident that dots will get connected and this equation figured out: Bush administration + bird flu = disaster.

Estrogen, it's what men lust for

Science has confirmed the obvious: “Men just want someone young and pretty.”

So says evolutionary psychologist Nick Neave about research which found that women with higher levels of estrogen were rated as more attractive, healthy, and feminine-looking than those with lower levels.

A feminine face is rounder with gentle features, big eyes, small nose and big lips. It’s an indicator of reproductive fitness, according to the researchers. Evolutionarily speaking, beauty helps men identify women who will bear them large numbers of children.

Not that this is Bill Maher’s conscious motivation. But his inner caveman is wordlessly screaming, “Reproduce! Pretty and young!” Bill clearly is listening.