HinesSight

What’s wrong with McClellan being “disgruntled”?

As someone who's been a disenchanted employee, and also a whistle-blower of sorts, I don't get how White House defenders are trying to discredit former press secretary Scott McClellan's tell-all book.

They're saying that McClellan is "disgruntled," as if this defuses his explosive criticisms of the Bush administration. Well, yeah, of course he's disgruntled. He feels like he was lied to. Along with most of the rest of the country.

It's been framed as a choice between being (1) a great American, or (2) disgruntled.

How about changing the "or" to "and"? Scott McClellan is a great American and disgruntled. Staying silent about the spewing of propaganda crap isn't the mark of patriotic greatness.

I'm also puzzled by how puzzled Bush apologists are about McClellan's book, "What Happened" (which has garnered 56 Amazon reviews so far and is #1 on the best seller list even though it hasn't even been released yet).

The current press secretary, Dana Perino, is puzzled. So, she says, is President Bush. I guess they can't understand how someone could put loyalty to the truth above loyalty to an ex-employer.

The "ex," of course, explains it all to simple-minded Bushies. Bob Dole has called McClellan a "miserable creature."

"There are miserable creatures like you in every administration who don't have the guts to speak up or quit if there are disagreements with the boss or colleagues," the five-term Kansas senator wrote to McClellan. "No, your type soaks up the benefits of power, revels in the limelight for years, then quits, and spurred on by greed, cashes in with a scathing critique."

As if the Bush administration is open to criticism, or welcomes displays of dissent. If every federal employee who disagreed with Bush's policies quit, there wouldn't be anybody left to run the government.

Today on conservative talk radio I heard blather about how McClellan spoke differently about the Iraq war and other issues when he was press secretary than he does in his book. Thus, he can't be trusted.

Bizarre. Haven't any neo-cons heard about an ability that normal human beings have? It's called changing your mind.

Like when you believe something is true, then find out you were deceived. A national poll shows that President Bush's credibility sank even further after people watched an interview with McClellan.

(Only good news for Bush: when his approval rating hits zero he'll have nowhere to fall.)

Dancing with the klutzes

OK, that's sort of harsh. I really shouldn't call these dancers "klutzes." Especially since they're my wife and me, and I need as much self-esteem as I can manufacture for myself.

But every time we go out to practice at the RJ Dance Studio Tuesday "hit the floor" open dances, I realize both how much we've forgotten of what we've learned, and how distant we are from the Dancing with the Stars standard (aside from a few stars who are as klutzy as we are, notwithstanding their professional partner).

Here's the thing about ballroom dancing though: even when you think I can't be having fun, you are! I haven't figured out why dancing is so enjoyable. Probably never will. Joy is joy. What else to say about it?

Which isn't going to stop me from more saying, naturally.

Theory 1: Most of us spend our days (and nights) trying to project a positive image to the world. We worry about how we look, what we say, what we do. It's impossible to take dance lessons, or practice dancing, without making lots of mistakes – usually in full view of other people. So it's liberating to embrace a "what, me worry?" philosophy of life.

Theory 2: Men and women are different. (Award me a Nobel prize for Obviousness.) Modern American feminism and political correctness have blurred many of the differences. Ballroom dancing draws them out. Men lead and women follow. This feels natural on the dance floor. Elsewhere, not so much. But there's a place for the "Me Tarzan, You Jane" attitude, the man taking charge and the woman being swept along.

Theory 3: Primal evolutionary memories are stirred up when we move to music. No longer leaping to the beat of sticks against logs around a tribal bonfire, we still resonate with ancestral rhythms. This white guy doesn't exactly boogie, especially not to Latin music (I jive more to Tango, Waltz and Foxtrot). Still, once in a while I feel myself moving to the beat of a primordial drummer.

Often when I mention ballroom dancing to someone, they'll say "I/we have always wanted to take lessons. Just never have gotten around to it." Well, do it. I can almost guarantee you'll enjoy ballroom dancing more than you think you will.

A final Dancing With the Stars observation: keep in mind that these two minute routines are choreographed to the hilt. The stars and their partners rehearse the moves for many hours.

The skills they exhibit are real, for sure. But this isn't ballroom dancing, where the man is leading unpredictably and the woman has to follow moves that she can't anticipate. That's trickier than choreographed dancing in many ways.

Septic tank additives aren’t necessary

To add or not to add? This is one of the big questions for anyone, like us, who lives in a home with a septic tank.

For many of the eighteen years we've lived in rural Oregon, we've dutifully added enzymes to aid the tank's digestion of our waste. Whenever we've had our tank pumped or a line unclogged, the workmen have pushed an enzymatic additive, saying it'll help keep our septic system healthy.

But is this true? After some Google research today, my conclusion is…No.

Save your money and let nature do its thing. Mag Ruffman, the Tool Girl, says:

There are 1200 products on the market for use in septic tanks; some contain biological agents like bacteria, some contain enzymes, and others use chemicals as their active ingredients. Extravagant claims have been made for many of them. The truth is, there are more helpful bacteria in a single poo than you'll find in most biological septic preparations. Enzymes have not been proven effective in controlled tests.

What I found was that those selling septic enzymes are enthusiastic about them. But people without a financial ax to grind mostly said they aren't necessary, and can even be harmful (see here, here, here, and here).

The state of Washington has banned septic tank additives. Here's an excerpt from a Department of Health publication:

In 1993, the Washington State Legislature found that " most additives do not have a positive effect on the operation of on-site systems, and can contaminate groundwater aquifers, render septic drainfields dysfunctional, and result in costly repairs to homeowners. It is therefore the intent of the legislature to ban the use, sale, and distribution of additives within the state unless an additive has been specifically approved by the Department of Health."

In 1994, the legislature added, "Chemical additives do, and other types may, contribute to septic system failure and groundwater contamination. In order to determine which ingredients of non-chemically based additive products have adverse effects on public health or the environment, it is necessary to submit such products to a review procedure."

Approved products merely are certified to not be harmful. There's no evidence they're effective. Apparently septic tank additives might be useful only in some special circumstances:

The beneficial effects of biological additives on the septic system are still being debated, but two benefits may ultimately be identified. Based on available literature, enzymatic products might have the ability to reduce the amount of oil and grease in the septic tank. Second, under septic tank bacterial "die-off" conditions, slight reductions in the amount of effluent solids have been achieved by using additives.

On the downside, this article says that additives can clog your drain field by pushing solids up to the surface of the tank and then out into the soil.

Bottom line: almost always, septic systems don't need additional enzymes or other additives. We're going to stop using them.

Ah, the “joys” of country life

If you live in the city, probably you have fantasies about moving to the country. Quiet. Open spaces. A laid back lifestyle. Bliss.

Yeah, sometimes. But not when your well pump gives out on the Friday before the long Memorial Day weekend and you're visualizing what it'll be like to live without running water for longer than you want to.

Which, it turned out, was about half an hour. That's when the newness of washing hands and dishes from one of the emergency water containers we keep on hand wore off.

When I lived in cities, I can't recall ever turning on the tap and having nothing come out. When you're on a well, that can be a frequent occurrence.

Electricity goes off – no water. Pump breaks – no water. Pressure tank system malfunctions – no water.

And no fun.

Nothing ruins a three day holiday like no water for the house. So I ran to the phone and dialed the number for Bello Pump & Well Service, who had left a helpful sticker on our equipment to remind us that they'd replaced a previous pump.

There's nothing like hearing a well guy answer the phone and tell you, "I'm in your area. I'll be there in a few minutes." Bella, Bello Pump.

Some testing revealed that likely our pump was the problem. It couldn't be replaced until the next day, so we roughed it overnight.

But this morning, there Rich Bello was, armed with a piece of equipment that his father had made the last time our pump needed to be pulled – a device made from a wheel that fit over the casing and helped roll the flexible (and heavy) 200 feet of continuous pipe out of the well.

Bello Pump & Well Service is a family affair. I like how their Yellow Pages ad says "Owner present on all jobs…Richard and Paul Bello, owners, workers, YOUR PUMP MEN!"

Not quite accurate, because Rich brought his wife and oldest daughter along to help out. One drove the Bello SUV up our driveway, slowly pulling the well pipe as the rest of us helped guide it out. Felt like a community barn raising. Except, not so much when I sat down and wrote Rich a check.

But I was happy to do it. Getting competent, friendly, and prompt well service on a weekend is priceless. Well, not really. I don't want to give Rich unreasonable financial expectations next time we need him.

It took quite a while to drain the orangey irony water that filled up our well after all the work that'd been done on it (our water needs to be heavily treated, as is common in marine sediment aquifers in the south Salem hills). And it looks like we still have an intermittent circuit breaker problem.

That's how country life goes. You learn how to deal with problems that city folk don't have.

Walking the dog late in the afternoon I met a neighbor driving home. When he asked, "What's new?" I had a pump tale to tell him, adding that days like these make visions of a downtown condo look appealing.

"I know what you mean," he said. "But dealing with challenges keeps rural life interesting. I've learned a lot about how to fix things since we moved out here."

True. It doesn't take much for me to reach my level of mechanical incompetence, though. Especially when the problem is 200 feet underground.

That's when you need a well guy. If you're in the Salem area, make that a Bello guy. (And maybe a gal, though I got the impression that Rich's daughter had other career choices in mind once she's finished with school).

Pete’s Mountain vesting case goes to court

Measures 37 and 49, which modified Oregon's land use laws, mostly are out of the state's consciousness after the hotly contested successful campaign to pass Measure 49 last November.

But not out of mind for those concerned about large Measure 37 claims which hope to be deemed vested ("grandfathered in," basically) because they were far enough along with development before Measure 49 came along.

A court case on the Tumwater at Pete's Mountain project just concluded two days of hearings. Read all about it in the West Linn Tidings: "Tumwater is in the judge's hands."

Ralph Bloemers, a Crag Law Center attorney who is representing our neighborhood in another Measure 37 subdivision case, is quoted in the story. He argued against vesting on behalf of a group of Pete's Mountain residents.

I was pleased to read that there were six state attorneys defending the case. Meaning, the state Department of Justice opposes a vested rights determination.

As it should.

The Goal One Coalition has asked the Department of Land Conservation and Development to yank vesting decisions from counties because so many vested rights applications are being rubber-stamped without regard for the common law.

While the Tumwater at Pete's Mountain case is being heard in district court, the same vesting issues are in play in cases heard by a county hearings officer or board of commissioners.

Such as whether the expenditures a Measure 37 claimant has made are a significant fraction of the total cost of development. A ratio of 1:14 (or 7.1%) is a frequently cited figure – based on case law.

There also are legal precedents about what expenses and costs should be included in the numerator and denominator of the ratio. And judging from the West Linn Tidings story, these are being argued about in the Pete's Mountain vesting case.

The attorney representing the owners of the property, Charles Markley, asserted that the total cost of development doesn't include building homes on the 41 lots in the subdivision. The Department of Justice attorney argued otherwise, correctly.

Development rights for Measure 37 claims aren't transferable. So it isn't possible to sell bare land to a buyer, who then would build a home on the lot. The claimant needs to sell a home along with the lot, which means the total cost of development is much more than the cost of building roads and other infrastructure.

Yet somehow the Pete's Mountain owners are saying that the whole project will cost only $3,285,000. Since they claim to have already spent $1,342,280, that's over 40% of the total cost – way above 7.1%.

Not so fast, says the Department of Justice and concerned neighbors of the project. What about the homes that would need to be built on the lots?

Here's where we see the games Measure 37 claimants like to play in vesting cases.

Speaking in defense of the landowners, Markley said if the court wants to include the value of homes that could be built in the future his estimate of the value of those homes and land would be about $15.5 million, which means that 8 percent was invested before the effective date of M-49.

This means, by my calculations, that 41 homes supposedly could be built for $12,215,000 ($15.5 million minus $3.285 million), or $298,000 a house. And how did Markley arrive at that figure?

Well, it's no coincidence, for sure, that 8% is a teensy bit above 7.1%, the ratio frequently used in vesting cases as an indication that substantial expenditures have been made on a development. But is it reasonable?

The Department of Justice attorney, Stacey Posegate, didn't think so.

But Posegate told the judge that the properties (from one to two acres each) are designed for high-value homes that would have a value of between $30 million and $40 million, bringing the percentage below the court-tested amount.

That translates into a per home cost between $732,000 and $976,000. I'd say that's a more reasonable reflection of the housing market in that area.

Heck, the nascent Tumwater at Pete's Mountain web site speaks of "Estate home sites." I don't think many people would consider that a $298,000 house on a 1-2 acre Pete's Mountain lot deserves the title of "estate."

Here's how a West Linn real estate broker described Pete's Mountain: fancy.

I live and [in] West Linn (5 years now) and I am also a real estate broker. West Linn does tend to be more pricey, but there are older areas of the city where the homes may not be as well-kept. Some of these homes get purchased and then fixed up, but it takes time for the whole neighborhood to turn over. Some of the older areas are Bolton, Cedaroak, Robinwood and Sunset. There are many fancy areas also: Barrington, Hidden Springs, Parts of Tanner, Pete's Mountain.

Hopefully the district court judge won't be fooled by the low-ball $298,000 home construction estimate. His decision will be made by May 30, according to the newspaper story.

Oregon’s non-religious voters go for Obama

Way to go, Oregon pagans, freethinkers, humanists, Buddhists, Wiccans, agnostics, atheists, and sundry other spiritual iconoclasts.

You did a lot to give Obama a big win.

From CNN:

Obama also won big in another category: among those voters who say they do not have a religion, or have another religion outside of Catholicism, Protestantism, and Judaism.

Nearly 30 percent of Oregon Democrats said they were not religious and those voters went for Obama by 21 percentage points, 60 percent to 39 percent. And among those voters who listed "other" as their religion, a group that made up 10 percent of the vote, Obama won by 42 points, 70 percent to 28 percent.

Align probiotic seems to work for me

There comes a time in a blogger's posting life when he says to himself, "How much do visitors to my blog want to know about my digestive system?"

This is a question that separates the self-absorbed blogger who believes that the world is interested in the most intimate and mundane details of his body, mind, and soul (namely, the true blogger) from the faux variety.

I've made my choice: to lead the reader deeper into the bowels of me.

Though my digestive story isn't all that interesting. I've simply noted that my late-50s body doesn't handle food with quite the same alacrity that it did when I was younger.

Which isn't a big surprise. My body doesn't do many things as well as it did years or decades ago. But eating is pretty central to my life, as is getting rid of what's been eaten.

In the good old digestive days I never thought about what entered my mouth and left the other end. Whatever I felt like eating, I ate. End of story. When I got into my late '50s, I began to notice that food's effects became less predictable.

Being a vegetarian, my fiber-heavy diet has always made it easy for me to put in regular reading time in the bathroom. But there can be too much of anything, and occasionally I'd find myself making more visits than I wanted to.

Enter Align, a slickly marketed Procter & Gamble probiotic product. I've been taking a capsule daily for a bit over a month, and it seems to have smoothed out most of the wrinkles in my intestinal life.

I already was a daily yogurt consumer. I also was taking another supplement of beneficial bacteria, Kyo-Dophilus. However, when I read about how the active ingredient in Align, Bifidobacterium infantis, had been proven to be effective in a controlled study, I decided to give it a try.

And have been happy with it.

It seems overpriced ($29.99 for a month's supply) but, hey, it's made by a giant capitalist corporation that packages 28 small capsules in foil blister packs stamped with the days of the week and puts them in a fancy box with a breathlessly positive brochure.

Procter & Gamble supplies a "Personal 4-Week Progress Chart" where the user of Align can record his or her digestive trajectory: Great!, Good, Occasionally bothered, Often bothered.

I wasn't sure what to make of the brochure's description about what to expect in Week 3.

You should be experiencing a noticeable improvement in your digestive health – in fact, some people may be noticing you are doing something new.

God, I hope not! The last thing I want is to be broadcasting the state of my digestive health to the world. Except…oops, I'm doing just that right now.

(This isn't anything new, though, having already shared the depths of my intestinal soul in another post about my virtual colonoscopy.)

Oregonians go to political extremes

Thanks to Blue Oregon, I now better understand how my state can be so politically contradictory.

We've voted for the option of assisted dying if we're terminally ill. That sounds progressive. We also handily approved a ban on gay marriage. That sounds conservative.

A nifty analysis of the state's voters ("Oregon: Swing State or latte-drinking Prius-driving lesbian commune?") casts light on how we can swing both ways.

[Personal note: this Salem resident does drink lattes and drive a Prius. However, I'm not a lesbian.]

It turns out that liberal Oregonians are really liberal, and conservative Oregonians are really conservative. Based on exit polls from the 2004 presidential election:

So the liberals in Oregon are as liberal as any in the country, whereas the conservatives are as conservative as any in the country. This is how you wind up with the weird political soup wherein Oregon has decriminalized marijuana but has also passed a gay marriage ban, or how it allows assisted suicide but also has one of the nation's lowest effective tax rates.

[Legal note: in 1997 possession of up to one ounce of marijuana was un-decriminalized and now is a misdemeanor.]

So what we have here in Oregon are voters on the left and right who are as extreme as those in any other state. Thankfully, in this progressive's opinion, the liberals outnumber the conservatives – resulting in a political climate that is moderately leftward leaning.

The average Kerry voter nationwide had a Liberalness Score of 6.20 -- just slightly left of center. However, in Oregon, the average Kerry voter was a 7.17. This, as it happens, is the highest score in the country; the Kerry voters in Oregon were more liberal than the ones in Vermont (7.11) or even the District of Columbia (6.97).

Meanwhile, the average Bush voter nationwide had a Liberalness Score of 2.58 -- pretty darn conservative. But in Oregon, the average Bush voter was a 2.01 -- very conservative. And guess what? That is the lowest Liberalness Score for Bush voters anywhere in the country. The Bush voters in Oregon were as conservative as the ones in Tennessee (2.02) or Utah (2.15).

This keeps things interesting in Oregon, to say the least.

My wife and I were heavily involved in the campaign to pass Measure 49 in 2007, which fixed the excesses of Measure 37 (approved in 2004), which was a response to Oregon's passage of pioneering "green" land use laws in the early '70s.

At hearings and meetings on Measure 49 we'd see rabid environmentalists sitting side by side with equally rabid proponents of unregulated development. Measure 49 staked out some common ground, but it was a battle.

Oregonians, after all, go to extremes.

On the plus side (assuming extremism is a negative), we grow some quirky political characters in the deep blue and deep red cultural soil of this state.

Portland is poised to elect Sam Adams as the first openly gay mayor of a major United States city. He's currently on the city council, along with Randy Leonard.

Willamette Week, an alternative weekly in Portland, recently put up an unedited interview with Leonard that is hilarious. The guy can always become a standup comedian if he tires of politics. I loved Leonard's riffs on how Adams is faking being gay because that polls well in Portland.

Yeah, but not in most of the rest of the state. Remember: we go to extremes. Have a watch. And a laugh.

Randy Leonard's Raw Interview from dalas verdugo on Vimeo.

“Ooh, it’s hot!” Oregonians are heat wussies.

Days like today, I feel so superior to most of my fellow Oregonians. I grew up in central California, where for much of the year a temperature under 100 degrees is considered a cool day.

So here I am on May 16 in Salem, Oregon – enjoying a record breaking heat wave for this date. The thermometer in my car read "100" when I was downtown this afternoon.

Ooh! Wow! One single freaking day with a three digit temperature and the local news is filled with tips about how to survive.

Hydration. Sunscreen. Wear a hat. Don't exert yourself.

Oregonians are such wussies. Of course, I've lived here myself for 37 years. But those 15 years in California, from age seven to twenty-two, trained me to be a macho man when it comes to a bit of heat.

A few days ago, when the temperature was still in the high 70s, I walked into a Starbucks and ordered my usual nonfat vanilla latte. I never get asked this question, but that day the barista said "Do you want it iced?"

"Good god, no," I told her. "I could be crossing the Sahara Desert and I'd still have my latte hot. It's just wrong to drink it cold."

Probably she'd been making iced drinks all day long for Oregonians who worried about suffering heat exhaustion as they walked a few steps from their air conditioned office or car into the air conditioned Starbucks.

When I was a boy (ah, how I look forward to my one year old granddaughter getting a bit older, so I can use these words much more frequently), all summer long I'd ride my bike to see my friends in Three Rivers, California.

They weren't down the block. There weren't any blocks in this rural hamlet nestled in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. I had to pedal miles to get to my best friend's house. Mostly in over 100 degree weather. Up and down those foothills. On a three speed.

No problem. So now I say to heat, "Bring it on. Show me your best stuff."

Today I stood in the sun for a while, waiting for my car to be washed at Car'l B Klean, while inferior Oregonians cowered in the shade under an umbrella. I leaned on a railing, skin blazing, feeling like Leonardo deCaprio in "Titanic."

I'm the (non-wuss) king of the world! On hot days in Oregon, at least.

Shocking news! Cable “news” isn’t news.

Yesterday the TV truth hit home as it never had before. CNN, Fox, MSNBC – they aren't really news organizations, because what they peddle is mostly subjective fluff, not facts.

The West Virginia Democratic primary election is what drew me to this conclusion. It was something I already knew, but which hadn't sunk deeply into my consciousness until I spent most of the afternoon working on some windows with the television tuned to CNN.

It was unbelievable how an endless stream of pundits, reporters, political hacks, and elected officials could take a few crumbs of new information and turn them into an three layer cake of supposition, frosted with a heavy topping of speculation.

Let's see: last week, after the North Carolina and Indiana primaries, the general cable news consensus was that Clinton was done for. Obama essentially had the nomination sewed up. The remaining six contests were just a matter of going through the motions.

Obama picked up a net gain of thirteen delegates on May 6. Then a bunch of superdelegates jumped onto the Obama bandwagon, putting him into the lead in that category also.

Polls predicted that West Virginia would be a Clinton blow-out. And that's what happened. She won 20 delegates and Obama won eight.

But from a large share of the blather on CNN you would have thought that the Democratic presidential race had changed completely.

Oh my god! Exit polls showed that many Clinton voters wouldn't support Obama in the general election! Poor, undereducated white voters in Appalachia weren't voting for Obama! He's doomed!

There was no new news presented, other than a confirmation via the actual results of what the pre-election polling had predicted. Yet the spin doctors, who, distressingly, included CNN anchors such as Wolf Blitzer, made a huge deal out of all this nothing.

The May 5 issue of Newsweek reported a new poll on how voters see Obama, Clinton, and McCain.

When asked "Which of the following presidential candidates shares your values?" 51% said that Obama did. Clinton got 49%, McCain 47%.

When asked "From what you know of the candidates, which of them, if any, do you think looks down on people like you?" 25% said that Obama did. Clinton got 32%, McCain 26%.

When Democrats were asked "Who do you think is most likely to defeat John McCain in the November election?" 46% said Obama and 38% said Clinton.

When Democrats were asked, "Who do you think best understands the problems and concerns of people like you?" 46% said Obama and 38% said Clinton.

Yet listening to CNN, I was told over and over that somehow the West Virginia primary showed that Obama has huge electability problems.

Well, with all those hours to fill before and after the election results filtered in, the cable news channels had to say something. So they just made stuff up, because reporting the actual results would have taken just a few minutes.

I'm a news junkie. But the overdose of punditology I imbibed yesterday may have permanently changed my desire to keep on getting my fix from television. On the Internet, at least, I can choose the blather I want to expose myself to.

What Survivor, the TV show, says about the election

We're fervent fans of CBS' Survivor. Haven't missed an episode, ever. Not once in sixteen seasons. We put so much time into the show, I like to discern Big Truths in the machinations that go on between the contestants.

I'm not a Clinton supporter, but the Fans versus Favorites contest on a Micronesian island that concluded last night was a good omen for her.

First, the women ruled. Everyone in the final four was female. The girls were way more devious than the guys.

That's why this is called a "reality" show. Cirie talked about how her mother said that women might not be able to beat men physically (pointing to her biceps), but they could always beat them here (pointing to her brain).

It was painful to watch the last episodes. Trusting male after trusting male fell into the webs of trickery these Black Widows spun out of sweet talk and false promises.

Hopefully neither the voters nor the superdelegates will do the same. You never know, though.

Take the case of Erik, a nice guy who got wound around the finger of Natalie. She was billed as a "personal trainer." Her bio says that she also is a bartender. Yeah, I can believe it. She knows how to handle men, with or without a drink in their hand.

Erik strains and sweats to win immunity. He's on the chopping block to be voted off the island, being the odd man out with the four women.

I was excited when he won the immunity necklace. Now the females would have to eat one of their own at tribal council.

But the women hatch a scheme to make Erik feel that unless he gives the immunity necklace to Natalie, they won't trust him – so he'll be voted off eventually anyway.

Natalie is reluctant to even try this line out on Erik. "Who would believe that?" she asks her conspiring sisters. "Give it a try, Natalie," they urge her. "Use your feminine wiles."

Dear god, it was painful for me, as a man, to watch Erik cross his fingers (dude, nobody does this anymore, especially not 22 year olds) after handing over the necklace in an astonishing display of naiveté.

Which, in short order, resulted in him having his torch snuffed on a 4-1 vote. So much for trust. Everyone watching could see it coming but Erik.

Barack, pay attention. Don't believe what Hillary's camp is telling you, no matter how good it sounds. If you take her on as your vice-president, make sure she's on a short leash (ignore how sexist that sounds).

The crowning touch of reality came when Parvati beat out Amanda in the final tribal council and won the million dollars. Laurel and I both cried out "No!" when the 5-3 vote was announced.

Amanda, the beauty queen, was cool, calm, and collected. A schemer, sure. But basically straightforward. Parvati was a shameless flirt, coming on to guys and girls alike (one comment on the Survivor message board opined, "Natalie voted for Parvati because she wants to sleep with her").

So who comes out on top? The woman who will say or do anything to win, forming and breaking alliances with anyone and everyone if it helps her get what she wants.

I can reluctantly accept Parvati winning Survivor. But equally schemy Hillary winning the Democratic nomination… nightmare.

That'd be too much reality.

Oregon Supreme Court affirms Measure 49

Good legal news for those who love the naturalness of Oregon, rather than unneeded subdivisions on prime farm and forest land. Last Thursday the state Supreme Court ruled on the Corey case.

The decision affirmed that Measure 49, voted in last November by a wide margin, trumps Measure 37 – which Measure 49 fixed. Oregonians in Action, plus others who favor the rights of a few Measure 37 claimants over the property rights of the many, had been hoping that Corey v. DLCD would overturn Measure 49 in some fashion.

But the position of the Department of Land Conservation and Development was affirmed by the Supreme Court.

In the end, we hold only that plaintiffs' contention that Measure 49 does not affect the rights of persons who already have obtained Measure 37 waivers is incorrect. In fact, Measure 49 by its terms deprives Measure 37 waivers -- and all orders disposing of Measure 37 claims -- of any continuing viability, with a single exception that does not apply to plaintiffs' claim.

Thus, after December 6, 2007 (the effective date of Measure 49), the final order at issue in the present case had no legal effect. It follows that resolution of the issue that the Court of Appeals decided in Corey and as to which we allowed review -- whether the Court of Appeals or the circuit court has jurisdiction to review DLCD's final order respecting plaintiffs' Measure 37 claim -- can have no practical effect upon the parties: If the order at issue has no continuing legal effect, then neither party can gain anything from review in either forum. The case is moot.

It's sort of strange that Oregon's largest newspapers didn't cover this story. I learned about it through the Medford Mail Tribune ("Ruling backs Measure 49 over 37") and the Albany Democrat Herald ("Supreme Court ruling backs county's actions on land use").

The latest issue of the Oregonians in Action newsletter had a dream…that somehow the pave it over advocates would wake up and find that a court had ruled that Measure 37 was still the law of the land.

It could be argued that the Court of Appeals' decision in Corey makes Measure 37 waivers a property right that cannot be taken from property owners without some form of compensation.

Fortunately for Oregon, the Supreme Court disagreed.

Belly dancers show need to shake up Salem

Beauty. Artistry. Color. Diversity. Energy. Passion.

Not words usually associated with downtown Salem, Oregon. But yesterday Silverton's Raks Sarama belly dancing troupe, performing at a First Wednesday celebration, showed that this sleepy city has potential to wake up.

In my You Tube video (embedded below) you can hear a conversation between me and a fellow progressive friend, Frances, where I extol the virtues of my Flip Video camera.

Before that, Frances told me that she'd just been extolling the virtues of Lloyd Chapman, who is running for mayor against the incumbent, Janet Taylor. She ran into some Taylor supporters and told them that Chapman was a better choice for Salem.

Amen to that.

I can't vote for Chapman since we live outside of the city limits. But I sure hope he wins, defying the odds against dislodging Taylor from her entrenched position as a defender of unplanned growth, reduced quality of life, and favoritism toward big business over the average citizen.

We recently got back from a Hawaii vacation where shopkeepers asked us innumerable times "So, where are you from?"

I got tired of muttering, "Salem, Oregon…it's pretty boring with not much going on…Portland and Eugene are a lot more interesting." Had to speak the truth, though.

It's sort of hard to put a finger on exactly what it is Salem lacks. Whatever it is, Janet Taylor and her hidebound city council aren't the ones to bring it to town.

Chapman promises to shake Salem up. And god knows, we need it.

Raks Sarama showed me that. It was great to see the sidewalk in front of the Salem Center mall filled with smiling clapping people rather than just a few moribund shuffling shoppers.

At the end of the video I include a dig at Hillary Clinton. Understand, I'm much more of an Obama lover than a Clinton hater. There's a lot to like about her.

However, this country needs to be shaken up even more than Salem does. More of the same won't cut it. That's why I'm for belly dancing in the streets, Lloyd Chapman, and Barack Obama.

Depression reigns if Clinton wins

I figure I'd better write this now, a few minutes before the Indiana and North Carolina polls begin to close, because later on I might be too depressed.

I'm a grumpy new Democrat, having changed my registration to "D" from non-affiliated a few months ago so I could vote for Obama in the Oregon primary.

I felt good back then. Now Obama v. Clinton is a game that's feeling way tired, way repetitive, way past its prime. The Democrats need to get it on against McCain, not themselves.

Clinton is really starting to irritate me, though at first (briefly) I was in her camp.

Obviously her supporters are equally piqued at Obama, because I just saw an exit poll where about half of Clinton voters in Indiana and North Carolina said they'd either vote for McCain or not at all come November if Obama gets the nomination.

Many more Obama voters – 70%, I recall – said they'd vote for Clinton if, god forbid, she's the nominee. See, we're more enlightened than Clinton supporters.

And that's another gripe I've got against her. Clinton is relying on winning over the uneducated, the clueless, the rednecks, the embittered, the unemployed.

That may be good politics. But I'll be damned if I want the future course of our county left in the hands of the people least qualified to make that decision.

If they're swayed to vote for Clinton by a promise of a $30 summer driving gas tax bonus, her pandering to the lowest common mental denominator just proves that Obama's call for a new style of politics is right on.

Last night Jon Stewart had a great The Daily Show segment on Clinton's gas tax proposal being dismissed as a screwy idea by so many economists, she couldn't mention one who favored it. Yet she still thought it was a good notion, because economists are elitists.

Stewart showed her face morphing into George Bush's. This sort of non-rational, anti-scientific thinking is just what we've had to suffer through for the past eight years.

And now Clinton wants to bring us more of the same. No thanks.

Hopefully Indiana and North Carolina will start to drive the nails in Clinton's coffin. Her time has come…to go.

Inside look at Statesman Journal election endorsements

Like making sausage, if people knew more about how many newspaper editorial boards go about deciding on endorsements, they'd be disgusted.

Today Salem's Statesman Journal, the newspaper in Oregon's capital, endorsed Hillary Clinton. That's no big deal. Here's why.

I have a better understanding than most of how this paper's editorial board works, because last fall I got hot and heavy into investigating how the Statesman Journal was able to justify endorsing a "no" vote on Measure 49 – a fix for Measure 37, which the newspaper opposed in 2004.

Go figure. My wife and I sure couldn't. Back in October I explained why the editorial board should get an "F" in journalism ethics. Dick Hughes, editorial page editor, wrote the "no on 49" piece.

After extensive exchanges of emails in which Hughes failed to offer me any substantive rationale for the newspaper's position, Laurel and I met with Hughes at a coffee house along with two other Measure 49 supporters who were similarly aghast at how the editorial's conclusion was marvelously unsupported by logic or facts.

It was quite a meeting. We learned a lot about how the editorial board decision making process works. Or, more accurately, doesn't work.

Most readers of a newspaper probably assume that an editorial board consists of a large group of people. More than four, at least. But that's how many are on the Statesman Journal board: four.

All are newspaper employees. In addition to Hughes, there's Brian Priester (President and Publisher), Bill Church (Executive Editor), and Barbara Curtin (Opinion Editor).

In the case of the Measure 49 editorial, Hughes told us that Priester stayed out of the debate, not having been in Oregon very long. So the "no" endorsement was made by three people, one of whom favored a "yes" vote. Thus one person ended up deciding the Statesman Journal's position, Dick Hughes (who also wrote the editorial).

Likely this is common. With some newspapers, the publisher calls the shots on endorsements. Again, one person. But when an editorial begins with "Our Viewpoint," as the Clinton endorsement does, readers are given the impression that "our" includes a representative group of people.

Nope. At the coffee house meeting we asked Hughes, "What happened to the community representatives on the Statesman Journal editorial board?"

Answer: Priester requested that they be removed in the summer of 2007 after he took over the reins of the paper. So there's no input from anyone other than Statesman Journal employees on editorial endorsements.

The Clinton endorsement editorial mentions a "divided Editorial Board" twice. I suspect it was divided right down the middle, two-two, with the publisher breaking the tie. If so, the endorsement again represents the position of one person.

The newspaper has a blog where draft editorials are posted prior to publication. Reader comments are requested, as they were with the Measure 49 editorial.

But Hughes explained to us that he was the only staffer who read the many comments submitted on the illogical "no on 49" draft. He didn't share them with the other editorial board members, reflecting the newspaper's lack of interest in community input.

Over and over Hughes told us that the Measure 49 editorial was opinion, not a news story. And I kept telling him that I recognized this, but opinion with no factual substance behind it shouldn't become a newspaper endorsement.

The Measure 49 piece was a travesty. There was essentially no connection between the conclusion – vote "no"– and facts supporting this recommendation. Because there weren't any facts. Just opinion.

That's a crappy way to run an editorial board. Which is why I wasn't surprised or disappointed to see the Clinton endorsement today, even though I'm an Obama supporter.

My expectations of the Statesman Journal are so low, after learning how the editorial writing process works from our meeting with Dick Hughes, that I no longer take seriously what newspaper employees publish on the editorial pages.

The Statesman Journal is a Gannett paper. And that's a whole other story, well told by Richard McCord in his book "The Chain Gang."

He documents how ethics and Gannett are two words that don't belong together, using as one of his examples how the Gannett empire drove newspaper competition out of Salem in a sleazy fashion.

So take Statesman Journal editorials for what they're worth: very little.

Maui tourists gone (mildly) wild

Proving that a man on a Maui vacation armed with a Flip Video and a You Tube account is an formidable cinemagraphic force, here are the final four videos in my 2008 Hawaiian Island oeuvre.

These follow my preceding works of tourist art: "Maui beach people: beautiful or not?", "Video tour of Kapalua zipline course" and "Having a whale of a good time on a Maui cruise."

Serious students of Flip Videography (assuming there are any) may notice an evolution in my style during our ten days on Maui. Myself, I can't. But often an artist can't recognize his own genius.

In "Maui's Lahaina Stables sunset ride" I explore the island's yin and yang: marvelous natural beauty coupled with increasingly annoying over-development. On my horse I walk (and jerkily trot) up to the lower reaches of a mystical West Maui mountain valley, pondering what Shangri La lies beyond our two-hour ride's reaches.

Shifting gears, a lot, to "Maui shopping in Wailea," I document my humble husbandly shopping demeanor: five steps behind Laurel, who rules the store browsing roost. My camera lingers on a shapely black-clad shopper (or more likely, store employee) who I would have followed more closely if not for a fear of "Security! I'm being stalked!"

"Snorkeling on Maui" actually is my wife's video creation. It features no narration, mostly because it isn't possible to talk with a snorkel in your mouth. This was filmed with the Flip Video underwater case. Laurel used no artificial fish food aids in filming her snorkeling on Napili and Kapalua Bays. Hence, the natural number of fish.

My final video, "Maui's Banyan Tree and Napili Bay," melds a stroll under a notable Lahaina attraction and a view of one of Maui's most beautiful beaches. The viewer is treated to a massive display of bird chirping at dusk and a cogent explanation of how we have managed to do a lot of Maui moving while vacationing on the same beach for 20 years.