HinesSight

BP, here's a foolproof way to stop your oil spill

(Disclaimer regarding this blog post title: by "foolproof" I mean the dictionary definition of impervious to human incompetence. Given British Petroleum's past misdeeds involving the Gulf oil well disaster, they are arguably capable of superhuman incompetence.)

This morning, as I was sipping my first cup of coffee, my freshly caffeinated brain came up with one of those brilliant ideas that pass so frequently through my cranium -- and which, sadly, often (if not always) fail to receive the acclaim from others that they so obviously (to me) richly deserve.

I'd learned that BP was moving on to yet another attempted fix, after the "top kill" approach had failed, as had previous efforts to close off the flow of oil and gas from the deepwater well.

In a flash, an intuitive vision popped into my mind. It was so obvious! So clear! Why had all those BP engineers and scientists failed to see what I was contemplating?

Before I describe my genius solution, I should relate my qualifications for coming up with a foolproof oil spill-stopping plan that has eluded the highly trained and educated experts in the hire of BP.

After moving into my first post-college apartment, I made bookcases out of bricks and boards. That taught me a lot. I learned that heavy square things lie flat on a carpet, and that two squarish rectangular things fit together nicely.

Recently I've been honing my mechanical aptitude by playing Finger Physics regularly on my iPhone. I'm up to level 8. I've relearned my previous lesson: If you want to win by stacking geometric shapes in a stable fashion until they reach a line, squarish things fit well on top of each other.

So it's freaking obvious, BP.

All you need to do is make a big solid block of the heaviest thing in the world (since I missed taking chemistry in high school or college, I'll call this substance "Heavynarium" and let the not-so-whiz kids at BP fill in the details).

Then you lower it on a big strong chain from one of your ships, guiding it with your fancy robots, until it is directly over the oil leak. Release the chain, the Heavynarium sinks like the stone that it is, and bingo, problem solved.

(BP, contact me via my email address in a link above and I'll tell you where to send my check; since the spill is going to cost you well over a billion dollars, I'm thinking a 1% Genius Solution fee sounds about right. I think that's $10 million; assume you guys have a calculator to check my math.)

Now, I'm sure the technocrats who are wedded to complex solutions are going to nitpick my plan apart. They'll say, "But what about the five-story blowout preventer that's sitting over the well?"

No big deal.

The block of Heavynarium should crush it into almost nothing. However, I guess BP could push the blowout preventer out of the way with one of the Navy's largest submarines that's been equipped with a bulldozer blade on the front.

(Tip to BP: film the submarine ramming the blowout preventer, put the clip on You Tube with some heavy metal music accompaniment, and you'll be a long way toward getting back in the good graces of America's youth.)

Another likely objection from the boo-birds: what if oil keeps on leaking from around the edges of the Heavynarium block? Answer: put another block on top of the first one. All BP engineers need to do is play the first level of Finger Physics and they'll see how this is done.

Super-fast setting cement also could be used to plug edges. This was used by the guys who installed our new locking mailbox. BP, I can find out what they used and tell you after I get my $10 million.

Now, it's possible that I'm not the first person to come up with this brilliant solution. I consciously avoided Googling "put big heavy block over oil spill" until now -- since I didn't want my foolproof idea to be diluted with someone else's foolish alternative.

Wise decision. Because Google informs me that this guy has been hawking his big concrete block notion to stop the oil spill. Well, I spent a few seconds scrolling down his web page and wasn't impressed.

He's got diagrams and instructions for where to put the block on the blowout preventer and how it should be shaped. Way too complicated.

I say make the block square, out of Heavynarium, and dump the freaking thing right on top of the well after all the pipes and stuff are pushed out of the way by the bulldozer submarine.

(I am, though, willing to give the other guy $10,000 from my $10 million commission just to avoid any hurt feelings.)

Final episode of "Lost" left me lost (not surprisingly)

My wife and I have watched every episode of "Lost" during its six seasons -- which got increasingly confusing the past few years, and not because of our early senility. As Wikipedia puts it:

At the heart of the series is a complex and cryptic storyline that spawns numerous unresolved questions.

Yeah, no kidding.

Even after we finished watching "The End" episode last night, Laurel and I looked at each other and engaged in our traditional post-Lost viewing interchange: "Jeez, what was that all about?" "I have no idea."

We aren't Lostaphiles. We don't obsess over details of the show or study Lostpedia ("currently 6,897 articles dedicated to ABC's hit TV show Lost").

We just got drawn into the series early on and kept on watching even when we'd given up all hope that the mysteries of the island would ever be revealed in a satisfying way that made sense. 

My biggest fear all along was that the Lost writers would conclude the series with something like "it was all a dream." The finale came close enough to this dreadful cop-out of an ending to leave me disappointed.

Well, halfway. Emotionally I liked the ending.

As churchless as I am (evidence: my other blog), I was happy to see the main characters reunited in some sort of afterlife after they'd earned the right to move on from some sort of purgatory into some sort of further post-death evolution.

(With "Lost," it's hard not to use terms like some sort of a lot, because nothing is ever clearly defined.)

However, I would have preferred a less religious'y finale.

When we got to the last fifteen minutes of our DVR recording and I saw that everybody was assembling in a church with stained glass windows, I got a sinking feeling that the writers had gone with a rather predictable feel-good wrap up that wouldn't offend our nation's Christian masses. 

Granted, for some reason the church had a display of the symbols for all of the world's major religions (including Taoism, which to me is more of a philosophy than a religion).

But the notion, as explained by someone who was a writer for the show, that we have soulmates with whom we must connect in a certain fashion before we can bust out of purgatory and enter The Light strikes me as a trite fusion of theological dogmas and New Age woo-woo.

The conceit that the writers created, basing it off these religious philosophies, was that as a group, the Lostaways subconsciously created this “sideways” world where they exist in purgatory until they are “awakened” and find one another. Once they all find one another, they can then move on and move forward.

In essence, this is the show’s concept of the afterlife. According to the show, everyone creates their own “Sideways” purgatory with their “soulmates” throughout their lives and exist there until they all move on together. That’s a beautiful notion. Even if you aren’t religious or even spirtual, the idea that we live AND die together is deeply profound and moving.

Moving, yes. Profound, no.

After six years of busting my butt watching the show (by which I mean, sitting on a soft couch), I expected much more of a mind-blowing ending. Instead, I felt like I'd been presented with a cuddly white Shih Tzu to hold on my lap.

"Aw, it's so cute!" That was how the finale of "Lost" struck me: heartwarmingly adorable. I wanted Oh, my god! I can't believe it!

Instead, as the closing credits rolled I wasn't sure what to believe.

I understood that the main characters had been reunited in death so they could move on to a better afterlife. But when their crashed plane was shown on the beach with no living people around, both my wife and I felt this meant that everybody had died instantly, and the whole six years of "Lost" episodes had taken place in a purgatory of some sort.

However, I was disabused of this notion in a seemingly credible Lost Finale Explained blog post.

THEY WERE NOT “DEAD THE WHOLE TIME”

I don’t know why people are having trouble understanding this, as it is CLEARLY explained in the final minutes of the finale episode by Christian Shephard (Jack’s dad). The original Oceanic 815 plane crash happened. Everything on the Island through seasons 1-6 happened. The “flash sideways” universe introduced in season 6 was a sort of stop-over point between life and afterlife (referred to here as the “purgatory universe”).

Each person in this “purgatory universe” created a reality for themselves based on their lingering issues in life – that which they could not “let go” of. For Jack it was Daddy issues; Kate, the guilt of murder; Sawyer, the quest to find “Sawyer” and be a better man; Sayid, the unrequited love of Nadia; Charlie, looking for something “real” in his hollow life of fame, etc…

Everyone was still attached to their Earthly concerns (we’re getting very Buddhist here, bear with me) – but when they made contact with those people they’d met on the Island, they remembered the journey and growth they had experienced because of the Island, and could finally understand the connections and “purpose” brought into their damaged lives by being there. With that greater understanding of themselves, they were each ready to “leave” or “move on” to the next phase of existence – i.e., the true afterlife.

Well, I'm ready to move on to other TV shows. "Lost" started out as an adventure filled with gripping mysteries. When it became apparent that the writers weren't going to resolve mysteries, but merely pile more on, I began to lose interest in "Lost."

The final episode didn't do anything to rekindle my once vibrant enthusiasm for the show. It began strong and ended up weak, like so many other series.

A vegetarian kills a squirrel. And cries.

I haven't eaten a bite of meat in over forty years. Yet today I killed an innocent animal.

A gray squirrel, which I mistook for a not-innocent California ground squirrel -- who are continuing to drive us nutty (their newest trick is chewing voraciously on the bark of several much beloved trees in our yard, which could kill them if they're girdled.)

When my air gun arrived last year, I talked about how bad I felt when, as a pellet gun toting kid, I shot a songbird.

Today was no different when I found that the smallish squirrel that had been eating seeds on our lawn was a young gray squirrel -- I couldn't see the white patch on its belly, and its fur wasn't as darkly distinctive as that belonging to mature members of its species.

After I shot the squirrel, it struggled for life until I finished it off. Burying it in the brush, I kept saying "I'm sorry, I'm sorry" while tears flowed. I don't cry often. But the anguish of causing pain to an animal who didn't deserve it overwhelmed my emotional circuitry.

Animal suffering is a central theme of Jonathan Safran Foer's "Eating Animals," a book that I downloaded onto my laptop and read as a Kindle for the Mac test. (Verdict: pretty unsatisfying experience; but that's another subject.)

Foer says, "On average, Americans eat the equivalent of 21,000 entire animals in a lifetime." Since I only ate animals up to the age of 20, one quarter of a normal life expectancy, I've got about 15,000 unslaughtered animals on the plus side of my karmic account.

So maybe I shouldn't feel so awful about slipping up on the gray squirrel kill -- especially since it met its end in a much more humane manner than chickens, pigs, turkeys, and other animals raised on factory farms do.

If you're a meat-eater, I dare you to read "Eating Animals." After all, If you're going to be responsible for killing 21,000 animals during your lifetime, you should know how they're raised and slaughtered.

Here's an excerpt from a review of Foer's book:

As in Dante, Eating Animals’s most powerful moments come in hell: Foer’s depiction of the factory-farming system is brutal and thorough—strong enough, I imagine, to win some converts.

He describes genetically freakish animals, some of whom can’t walk or mate, living in tiny cages in windowless sheds, suffering ritual mutilation and sloppy slaughtering (many of them end up getting boiled or skinned alive).

Unprofitable babies are immediately disposed of: electrocuted, thrown into a chipper, bashed headfirst into a concrete floor, or (in the case of irrelevant male dairy calves) sold to veal farmers. Slaughterhouse workers go crazy with sadism; toxic lakes of manure poison the environment.

None of this is new, but, as Foer puts it, “we have the burden and the opportunity of living in the moment when the critique of factory farming broke into the popular consciousness.”

The sheer brutality of the system seems to have pushed our centuries-long stalemate to a tipping point: Factory farming has become its own most powerful counterargument. And that transcends all cutesiness.

As Foer’s guide at the turkey farm tells him, “The truth is so powerful in this case it doesn’t even matter what your angle is.”

No time or inclination to read "Eating Animals"? OK, then take just a few minutes and read Elizabeth Kolbert's review in The New Yorker. It might make you pause at the meat counter before throwing your usual package of animal into the grocery cart.

Americans love animals. Forty-six million families in the United States own at least one dog, and thirty-eight million keep cats. Thirteen million maintain freshwater aquariums in which swim a total of more than a hundred and seventy million fish. Collectively, these creatures cost Americans some forty billion dollars annually.

...Americans also love to eat animals. This year, they will cook roughly twenty-seven billion pounds of beef, sliced from some thirty-five million cows. Additionally, they will consume roughly twenty-three billion pounds of pork, or the bodies of more than a hundred and fifteen million pigs, and thirty-eight billion pounds of poultry, some nine billion birds.

Most of these creatures have been raised under conditions that are, as Americans know—or, at least, by this point have no excuse not to know—barbaric.

No, I'm not going to "get over" Measure 24-292 defeat

Today Blue Oregon, our marvelous state's numero uno progressive blog, published a Guest Column by yours truly: "Marion County charter change loses, but isn't lost."

A commenter took the all caps typographic approach favored by right-wingers, saying "YOU LOST, GET OVER IT!" My response:

Michael, why should I (or any other supporter of the Measure) "get over it"? If a basketball team loses 77-23, are they supposed to give up the sport? Or do they practice harder, find a different game plan, and expect to win next time?

And if the other team played dirty, they'll take steps to be sure the rules are followed in the next game.

Scooters more popular in Europe (sadly)

Some friends of ours, TIm and Jan, just got back from Europe. Today Tim, knowing of my scooter obsession, sent me a photo he took in Florence, Italy.

He said, "This picture was taken on a street that runs along the Arno river near the Uffizi museum and Ponte Vecchio."

Bellissimo!

I was in Florence for a few days back in my college days (1968). I don't remember seeing such a beautiful display of two-wheeled art. If I returned, I'd probably spend much of my time staring at scooters rather than other artistic treasures.

Tim and Jan said that scooters are much more common in Europe than here in the United States. I need to think about emigrating.

Today I rode my Burgman 650 into Salem for my Tai Chi class. I saw only three motorcycles on my 50 minute drive (one a police bike). No fellow scooterers. If I lived in Europe I'd have a lot of fellow two-wheeled travelers.

Including some semi-crazy ones.

Before I bought my Burgman I enjoyed watching a short You Tube video of a guy riding the same model into Vienna, not entirely sanely. I don't ride like this guy, but I can understand the attraction of zipping through traffic on picturesque narrow European streets.

Watch and imbibe the high-speed scooter spirit.

Tapis Rouge adds extra Ah! to Cirque du Soleil

Somehow my wife and I have missed out on seeing a Cirque du Soleil performance in our sixty-something years. Last night we remedied this hole in our life experience by driving up to Portland in an unseasonably cold rain to see Kooza.

After deciding to make this an early birthday present for Laurel, I had to decide whether to fork out $250 ($125 each) for the Tapis Rouge option. Browsing some Cirque du Soleil reviews, I saw that that some people loved it. Others thought it was a waste of money.

Our conclusion: loved it!

An emotional reaction which, I'll have to admit, came easier to me knowing that we didn't pay anything for Tapis Rouge. The reason owed to my originally buying Tapis Rouge-enhanced tickets for the 4 pm performance yesterday.

A few weeks after I ordered them, I got a phone call from an exceedingly pleasant and competent Cirque du Soleil employee who had an admirably appropriate French accent. I felt like I was talking with the maitre d' at a high class restaurant.

He apologized for the inconvenience, regretting that he needed to inform me that not enough people had signed up for Tapis Rouge at Friday's 4 pm performance, so it wouldn't be available.

However, he would be pleased to cancel our order and give us tickets to the 8 pm show with Tapis Rouge thrown in at no cost. Would this be acceptable? Absolutely, I told him. Getting back to Salem at midnight was worth $250, for sure. This was a classy move by a guy who works for a classy outfit.

I say this because we weren't disappointed by any aspect of our Cirque du Soleil experience -- and neither Laurel or I are shy about complaining. From picking up our Tapis Rouge'd tickets at Will Call, which earned us free close-in parking, to zipping out of the crowded parking lot much more quickly than we expected, we give Portland's Kooza four thumbs up.

We got to Cirque du Soleil a few minutes before seven. Even though the show started at eight, there already was a pretty long line of eager Kooza-goers waiting for the doors to open.

A small band of Tapis Rouge'ians had a shorter wait outside of our special tent. Promptly at seven we entered the VIP world behind the blue curtain. After getting an ID tag on a ribbon to wear around our neck that distinguished us from the common folks, a glass of champagne was proffered -- which I happily accepted. Along with an offer from a woman to take a photo of Laurel and me, which we picked up at intermission.


After that we enjoyed the other eats and drinks. All complimentary, of course, using "complimentary" in the sense of pay $125 then everything is free. The vegetarian food offerings were limited, but tasty. We had no problem filling our plates with fruit, melted cheese/mushroom toasted bread, and other appealing animal-free snacks.

The Tapis Rouge tent has its own shopping area, naturally. Laurel was attracted to a few classy clothing items, until she looked at the prices. I got a two-CD set of "Solarium Delirium" for a reasonable $15, music inspired by the Cirque du Soleil repertoire. (I listened to some of it today: nice in the European techno/world beat style that I like.)

We headed to our seats about 7:45. I won't attempt to describe Kooza, which is pretty much indescribable. Some people have done their best on Yelp, so you can check out their reviews. (A 2008 Kooza show in San Jose has more reviews, as does a 2009 show in San Francisco.)

I found it deeply moving. And that wasn't just the champagne talking. Kooza shows how human artistry, creativity, and athleticism can be expressed at a very high level -- often literally, as with the tight-rope performers and Wheel of Death (a.k.a. "gerbil wheel") guys.

Watching the show, I had a strong urge to dress up in a crazy looking outfit and do something dangerously artistic. Unfortunately, no ideas came to mind, which explains why I was sitting in the audience and not standing on stage.

At intermission we strutted by the hoi polloi waiting in long lines for their cokes and bags of popcorn, flashed our badges, and returned to the good life in the Tapis Rouge tent. I was poured a glass of red wine, then filled a plate with various sweets. Laurel said, "I could get used to this."

For sure.

Naturally Tapis Rouge'ians have their own restrooms, albeit high-end porta-potties. Reading reviews of shows in other towns, long restroom lines at intermission was a complaint of quite a few women, so this is another plus of going the VIP route if you can afford it.

The reviews I read left me with a few questions that do nothing to temper my enjoyment of my show, but still have me wondering...

Are the people picked from the audience to take part in an act actually chosen randomly? There's theorizing that these are plants, as some people claim to have seen the same audience members on stage at different shows.

When a mistake is made -- a tightrope walker slipped attempting a trick, grabbed the wire with his hands, made his way back up, and then retried the trick successfully -- is this part of the show? As above, some people have seen the same oops occur at the same point in an act repeatedly.

Well, my feeling is that I went to Kooza to be amazed. Also...fooled, in a sense. The show projects a fantasy world marvelously effectively. If there are some fantasies within the fantasy that I couldn't recognize, more power to the Kooza creators.

We'll be back next time Cirque du Soleil comes to Portland. And likely in the Tapis Rouge tent again. A few times a year it's fun to irrationally splurge.

(Though if you add up the value of Tapis Rouge benefits -- parking, wine, food, dessert, souvenir photo, no bathroom lines -- the cost approaches the sphere of rationality.)

Opponent's lies keep Marion County charter change alive

Some elections put an issue to rest; others keep it alive. I'm betting that last Tuesday's defeat of Marion County's Measure 24-292, a citizen initiative to reform county government, will turn out to be a great example of how a loss will turn into victory.

Today's opinion piece by Dick Hughes, editorial page editor of the Salem Statesman Journal, points to a reason why. In "These Oregon candidates should be honored -- or ashamed" he gave out a Worst campaign award.
Download Statesman Journal Worst Campaign award

Worst Campaign

The anti-Measure 24-292 "Protect Public Safety" misinformation.

The Marion County charter amendment had nothing to do with law enforcement. Rather, the measure deserved defeat for other reasons. Voters obliged overwhelmingly.

I wonder whether the inane opposition signs and fliers actually created sympathy for the proponents, possibly helping their cause. Maybe this would be a good research project for a social-science class.

Hughes gets it mostly right.

The main opponents of the Measure (Salem Chamber of Commerce and the current county commissioners) resorted to exceedingly sleazy tactics and outright lies rather than debating the merits of the charter change straightforwardly. 

As I said in one of my posts about Measure 24-292, this "misinformation" (Hughes chose a bland word for "lies") is a gift that will keep on giving for what I hope will be an ongoing effort to bring increased openness and accountability to county government.

Whether it passes or fails, a Marion County citizen initiative which got on the May ballot after almost 6,000 citizens signed petitions to improve county government, has served one important purpose:

We've learned how far the existing power structure in Marion County is willing to stretch ethical bounds in order to keep the political system running along in its dysfunctional special-interest-favoring way.

If you want to know the ethics-stretching details, check out:

"Marion County District Attorney Walt Beglau skates on thin ethical ice"
"Chuck Adams likely behind deceptive Measure 24-292 letter"
"GOP flack Chuck Adams sleazes up Marion County charter change campaign"
"Taxes and Marion County charter change: no worries"
"Marion County charter change: desperation breeds deception"
"Facts and fictions about Marion County charter change"
"Marion County commissioner plays the 'you lie' card."

This is why Hughes also got it wrong.

Voters in Marion County didn't get an honest debate on the charter change initiative. They weren't approving of either the performance of the three current Republican commissioners (as Commissioner Patti Milne tried to spin things after the election) or the structure of county government.

Since the special-interest backed opponents of the Measure were able to outspend the proponents 3-1, and outsleazed them by about 100-1, voters were "treated" to deceptive campaign literature, lawn signs, and letters to the editor that claimed the Measure would slash the Sheriff's Department, raise taxes, and generally ruin the world as we know it.

None of which was true.

Key elements of the Measure were to increase the number of commissioners from three to five, elect them on a non-partisan basis by district (rather than countywide), and eliminate the elected county treasurer, transferring those duties to professional staff.

It's virtually certain that Hughes is dead wrong when he implies that the No on 24-292 falsehoods generated quite a few "yes" votes for the Measure.

The reverse is much more likely: people were taken in by the lies and thought they were voting to protect public safety and head off higher taxes -- which as Hughes correctly said had nothing to do with the Measure.

A lot of anger over the opponent's lies will live on for a long time. Channeled properly, this will energize efforts to pass a reincarnated Marion County charter change.

Here's a possible path:

(1) Election law violation complaints need to be filed against Walt Beglau, Marion County District Attorney, and the Salem Chamber of Commerce political action committee that generated false material statements in mailings to voters.

(2) Strong campaigns have to be waged to unseat two of the three current commissioners: Patti Milne and Sam Brentano. Jason Freilinger has an excellent chance of defeating Milne this November. That will be half the battle. Maybe more, in regards to a charter change, because the third commissioner, Janet Carlson, is considerably more open-minded, non-dogmatic, and rational than the other two. She might reconsider her opposition to Measure 24-292.

(3) Once two commissioners who favor improving county government through a home rule charter are on the Board, another Measure can be drafted and put to a vote of the people under authority granted under state law to a county Board of Commissioners.

Under this scenario, a home rule charter proposal similar (if not identical) to Measure 24-292 will have a much greater chance of being approved by Marion County voters. Since the Board of Commissioners will be behind it, as I believe occurred in Clackamas County, supporters of the Measure will have a much more visible platform from which the proposal can be explained.

And opponents won't be able to engage with impunity in the same sorts of falsehoods as they did this time.

The Statesman Journal did a poor job of communicating accurate facts about the Measure to their readers. Chamber of Commerce lies weren't challenged or analyzed. When county government is supporting the charter change, it will be a lot more difficult for a sleazy political action committee to spread untruths without much of a challenge.

I'm enthused about this approach to passing a home rule charter akin to Measure 24-292. Since the Measure was defeated this week, Marion County will continue to have just three commissioners. Two people form a majority that can draft a charter change and submit it to voters.

In the course of debating the Measure, Patti Milne and Sam Brentano were fond of saying, "If people don't like how county government is being managed, they can vote us out."

Thanks for the suggestion, Patti and Sam. There's an excellent chance voters are going to take you up on the offer.

Election night in Oregon -- off to a Marion Co. Dems party

I haven't been to many election night get-togethers in my life. Here comes another one. Laurel and I are about to leave for the Marion County Democratic Party, um, party at the Grand Ballroom in downtown Salem. We relished a Measure 49 victory back in 2007 there. Hopefully tonight will bring similarly good progressive electoral news.

But whether or not Chuck Bennett wins the race for Salem Mayor, and Measure 24-292 passes (an effort to reform the county charter that would enlarge the Board of Commissioners from three to five, make the members non-partisan, and elect them by district), I'll be applauding those who put in the time and effort to make a difference politically.

On both sides, really. I wish elections were more like sporting events. People take significant football games, like a national championship, really seriously. Fans pay a lot of money to attend the event, dress up in team colors, then yell and scream in support of their favored team for hours.

Then...half of the crowd is going to leave disappointed. Almost always, though, they exit the stadium shoulder to shoulder, getting along fine, maybe even with fans of the winning team extending a "good game" or "your guys played hard" to the other side. This shows that taking a competition seriously can co-exist with warm-hearted sportsmanship.

Politics in this country usually is a different sort of game, unfortunately. I can't picture advocates for opposing candidates or ballot measures sitting in the same room and watching the results come in (though from a Blue Oregon report it looks like this happens in Lane County; if so, good for the R's and D's down there).

So we'll soon be with like-minded folks, going through some ups and downs as the vote numbers filter in after eight o'clock. I'll add an update to this post when we get back tonight, sharing how up and how down I am with the election results so far.

[Midnight update: Yeah, ups and downs. The crowd at the Grand Ballroom was disappointed that Chuck Bennett lost the Salem mayor's race and Measure 24-292 was voted down -- after being outspent three to one and out-lied by a much larger proportion.

People were talking about the Marion County District Attorney, Walt Beglau, facing an elections law violation after he made demonstrably false statements in a No On Measure 24-292 letter. There's winning fair, and there's winning through falsehoods.

The sleazy campaign run by the current county commissioners and the Salem Chamber of Commerce has energized efforts to replace Patti Milne and Sam Brentano, who led the lie-fest that caused lots of voters to check "no" on the ballot. I talked with someone who said that quite a few people he knew were confused by the District Attorney letter, which was filled with half-truths, untruths, and outright lies.

On the national level, things turned out great for Democrats. The special election in Pennsylvania to fill Rep John Murtha's seat was won by a Dem. Even Fox News got it right: 

Mark Critz, a longtime aide the late Rep. John Murtha, edged Republican candidate Tim Burns in a special election Tuesday to take his boss's old seat. Many political handicappers viewed the race as a bellwether for the mood of the electorate and a preview of how the midterm elections could go this fall.

Guess people in Pennsylvania aren't so upset about health care reform and Obama's supposedly socialist policies after all.

And I'm suspecting that Democrats will continue to do well here in Oregon in the fall general election. Watching John Kitzhaber and Chris Dudley comment on their primary wins on the 11 o'clock news, Kitzhaber looked like the adult in the room -- which, as he said, is who Oregonians want to lead their state, not a complete newcomer to politics.]

Check out new Apture site/search bar

You'll see an Apture site bar appear when you scroll down the page now. Try it out -- pretty cool. Highlight a word or words. Click on "search." You'll get results from my blogs, Wikipedia, Google, You Tube, Amazon, and more. Web sites found via a search can be browsed from within this blog if you're using Safari or Chrome. Close the browsing window by clicking the "x" and return to the post you were reading. You can share a post via Facebook, Twitter, or email by clicking on the icons. Enjoy.

Salem's Clockworks Cafe stimulates my Steampunk soul

And I didn't even know I had one! A Steampunk soul, that is.

But I must, since I enjoyed my day-after-grand-opening visit (Saturday) to Salem's newest coffeehouse -- Clockworks Cafe and Cultural Center, which is in the old Blue Pepper location on Commercial Street.

Steampunk, for all of those old fogies who aren't as hip to what's happening as this 61 year old is (hey, I rode my big Burgman 650 scooter to the cafe, way trendy), has something to do with mixing old and new. 

OK, I'm vague as to what it is.

But I was familiar enough with the term to be able to utter a few moderately sensible sentences to the Clockworks Cafe barista after I complimented her on the decor and she told me, "We're Steampunk inspired."

Which involves a lot of gears. Connections. Interacting elements. I enjoyed the philosophy on a flyer the barista handed me.
Download Clockworks Cafe in Salem

We are all Clockworks. Individual gears, with our own style, look, feel, and function. Alone we are distinct, special, and unique. But it is only by coming together that we truly make the hands of time move forward.

Together we become more than the sum of our parts. Only by combining our talents, our abilities, our minds and our passions, can we create true forward movement. In other words, the clock only turns when the gears work together. We are Clockworks.

Absolutely. And I tick better when caffeine is flowing through my circuits.

So I'm pleased to report that my habitual expresso order, a 16 oz nonfat vanilla latte, was nicely prepared. The barista and her coworker said they'd been practicing heart-shaped latte swirls that morning.

I saw an attractive pattern in my cup, as befits an artistically inclined coffeehouse, but couldn't call it a heart. I'm looking forward to seeing how my lattes evolve on future visits.

I'm sure they'll happen. The Clockworks Cafe has all the ingredients I need for a pleasant coffee house experience.

(1) Good coffee. Check. They serve Stumptown. Another Salem blogger who wrote about the cafe says Stumptown interviews prospective coffee purveyors to make sure they're worthy of the brand.

(2) Comfortable seating. Check. I took my photos while sitting on a nice soft chair, watching a couple converse on some centrally located sofas. 

(3) Wi-fi. Check. Naturally this is a must for bloggers like me who enjoy writing a good share of their posts outside of home (and their pajamas/sweatpants).

The barista and I chatted for quite a while, since the place wasn't humming with customers at the moment. As reported by our local newspaper, she told me that the cafe was a non-profit venture of the Culture Shock Community Project. 

Given Salem's overly sleepy reputation, I liked what I read on the Culture Shock Myspace page.

The Culture Shock Community Project is a non-profit organization dedicated to one thing: empowering and sparking a vital and vibrant community!

We believe in community; an active, cross-cultural, creative, expressive, direct, heart-pounding, supportive, local community. We believe in what it means to be a part of a community; the Me to We relationship. We believe that a community needs to breathe fire from its lungs; that it needs to constantly grow and evolve to the changing world around it, but that it also needs to be tied to the earth’s “village values” that have defined what being a part of a community is for ages.

We believe in pushing boundaries, breaking barriers, starting conversations, launching ships, making waves, doing good, digging deep, building bridges, lighting fires, and shattering ceilings. We look at a whole community and ask; what makes a community “VITAL” – Art & Music, Community Service, Sustainability, Going Local, Living Healthy, Multi-Culturalism; and HAVING FUN!

See - We live in Salem Oregon! And we are proud of that fact. Salem, Keizer, and the Mid-Valley are full of far more excitement, creativity, art, culture, energy, community, vitality and spirit than we often notice. But it is time we stood up and said: This is our community; it is great, and we aim to make it even better!

Appealing enthusiasm. I've lived in Salem for thirty-three years. One of my favorite activities is putting the town down. (Examples: here, here, here) I also love to quote myself.

That said, I've no doubt that Travel Salem will be able to attract conventioneers to the area.

Groups such as the Bland Lovers Association and People for the Abolition of Excitement will come here like moths drawn to gray. Also, the Watching Paint Dry discussion circle.

If I sound critical, it's because Salem deserves to be criticized.

Along with every resident whose tastes are so strip mall, big box store, and fast food'ish, the rest of us are doomed to mediocrity when cool businesses reject the area after a marketing study.

That's what I've been told turns Trader Joes off when they considered coming to Salem: the lack of  cultural creatives -- who are willing to spend money on healthy, organic, cutting-edge, innovative items.

So kudos to the Clockworks Cafe and Culture Shock Community Project for bringing some energetic youthful creativity to downtown Salem. That's mucho appealing to my wife and me.

Best argument for acting fast on climate change

Spring has finally sprung here in Oregon. It's warm and sunny.

Which reminded me -- after a wintry focus on health care reform -- that Congress now has to get serious about passing climate change legislation.

To fire up my enthusiasm for saving humankind from catastrophe, this morning I reached into the on deck section of my bookcase for a book that I bought last year but hadn't started to read yet.

Love it!

I'm already four chapters into Greg Craven's "What's the Worst That Could Happen?" (short answer: a freaking lot) Craven is a high school teacher at Central High School in Independence, Oregon -- just 20 minutes from our south Salem home.

His You Tube video about why we need to deal with global climate change (a.k.a. global warming) went viral. You can see why millions of people watched the video by doing so yourself on Craven's web site.

His refreshingly different approach to the problem is encapsulated in this classroom'ish drawing. Craven isn't so much concerned with the science of climate change, as what are the consequences of four scenarios for humanity.

Global warming either is false or true. And we either will take urgent action to deal with global warming, or we won't. Each of these four possibilities leads to different outcomes.

One is super-nasty: global catastrophe!

That's what happens if global warming is true, and we don't do anything to slow our carbon emissions. The probability of global warming being true is high. Peeking ahead in the book, it seems that Craven gives "True" at least a 75% chance, given how much larger he makes that row of his diagram compared to the "False" row.

If you knew that your house had a 75% chance of burning down while you were living in it, wouldn't you do something? Fast.

You'd buy fire insurance. You'd check the wiring. You'd make sure the fireplace was in good working order. You'd cut the tall dry grass in your yard. You'd get fire extinguishers.

You sure as heck wouldn't say, "I'll take my chances on a fire not happening. It isn't certain that my house will burn down. So I'll assume that it won't."

This is almost exactly analogous to the risk of global climate change. There's horrible consequences if it is true and we don't do anything about it. That's why people buy insurance -- to guard against catastrophe, even when it is a low probability.

With climate change, the risk is high. Certainly a lot higher than that enunciated in Dick Cheney's 1% doctrine:

If there's a 1% chance that Pakistani scientists are helping al-Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response. It's not about our analysis ... It's about our response.

Tom Friedman points out that climate change also is a weapon pointed at humanity's head, with a disturbingly large chance of it going off.

When I see a problem that has even a 1 percent probability of occurring and is “irreversible” and potentially “catastrophic,” I buy insurance. That is what taking climate change seriously is all about.

If we prepare for climate change by building a clean-power economy, but climate change turns out to be a hoax, what would be the result? Well, during a transition period, we would have higher energy prices. But gradually we would be driving battery-powered electric cars and powering more and more of our homes and factories with wind, solar, nuclear and second-generation biofuels.

We would be much less dependent on oil dictators who have drawn a bull’s-eye on our backs; our trade deficit would improve; the dollar would strengthen; and the air we breathe would be cleaner. In short, as a country, we would be stronger, more innovative and more energy independent.

But if we don’t prepare, and climate change turns out to be real, life on this planet could become a living hell. And that’s why I’m for doing the Cheney-thing on climate — preparing for 1 percent.

Makes sense. Hopefully Congress will do the same. Fast.

Dog and cat videos show humans how to live

We humans are animals. That's a fact. Biologically, we're members of the Kingdom Animalia. Dogs and cats are our kissing cousins (in a sense).

Today I came across two You Tube videos featuring a dog and a cat that made me realize how much other animals have to teach us.

Since for most of my life I've shared a home with dogs and/or cats, I already knew this. But these videos had a special message for me -- maybe because I'm becoming increasingly attracted to wordless wisdom, the lingua franca of pets and us.

Last night my wife said she'd read about "street dogs" in Greece who had taken part in the demonstrations that are commonplace in that country. Firing up Google this morning, I found this video of "The Legendary Athens Greece Riot Dog."

What struck me was how this "dumb" animal seemed so much smarter than the angry groups opposing each other. Frequently the dog is shown standing between the riot police and the demonstrators, looking doggishly detached, pleased to simply be part of things.

In short, a Taoist sage.

This is the way of life of the sage who has reached a higher point of view, a perspective from which the relativity and polar relationship of all opposites are clearly perceived. These opposites include, first and foremost, the concepts of good and bad which are interrelated in the same way as yin and yang. Recognizing the relativity of good and bad, and thus of all moral standards, the Taoist sage does not strive for the good but rather tries to maintain a dynamic balance between good and bad.

The dog does a great job at that. He wags his tail at police and protesters alike. I only wish I could be as accepting of disparate points of view.

Then, a perusal of my Twitter feeds led me to one of those million-plus-viewed viral videos. The Tweet said that this video of a cat attending to an injured fellow feline had made the person cry. 

No kidding. There's more emotion in the first thirty seconds than I could comfortably handle. But I managed to watch the whole thing.

This is life. Human life. Cat life. Every sort of life. It begins, and it ends. When death approaches, it usually hurts. Sometimes a lot.

I can't know what the cat is feeling. But I know what I felt watching the cat attend to it's injured companion. I can't put that into words -- yet I'm sure you understand what the feeling is, because we've all lost someone deeply cared for.

The cat is in Turkey. Some Googling led me to a web page about the cat story that I couldn't read, not being particularly fluent in Turkish. Thanks to Google Translator, I sort of could.

And learned that the injured female cat didn't survive. Sad. But that's life as it often is: sad. We try to paper over the hurt with trite greeting card sentimentality, reassuring religious platitudes, and other means.

I think the cat expressed what life is about more honestly.

Camp Sherman forest thinning project -- my photo tour

I felt some trepidation when my wife and I saw this sign as we got to Camp Sherman (central Oregon) last weekend. We're part owners of a cabin along the Metolius River that sits on leased Forest Service land.

Forest fires are an ever-present danger.

Several have burnt large acreages in the Camp Sherman, Black Butte Ranch, and Sisters areas in recent years. Wildfires used to naturally control the density of vegetation, but now that humans control fires, the forests are way overgrown.

We know this.

But when we heard rumbling early Monday morning and went out to the edge of the road to see what was going on, our environmentalist hearts still beat a bit faster when we saw what was coming out of the land on the other side of the road from the cabins.


I waved to the driver of the truck as he went by. I felt good that the logging industry was getting some much-needed work in these lean economic times. It seems that stimulus dollars are responsible for the increased thinning in the Camp Sherman area, which is being done by Melcher Logging of Sweet Home.


Later in the day, Laurel and I went for a walk near and through the area being thinned. This section near Forest Service Road 1419 hasn't been touched yet. Or at least, not recently. There are lots of small trees -- good candidates for thinning.

A Sweet Home paper's article about Melcher Logging has a right-on quote from Scott Melcher's younger brother, Robbie (Scott runs the company).

Robbie Melcher said that working in the Camp Sherman area puts them “right in the middle of the environmentalists. It’s a pretty high-profile area.”

Yes, we're two of them Prius-driving, latte-sipping, Obama-voting greenies. By and large, Laurel and I are on board with thinning projects like this one. So is the environmental movement in general, as evidenced by an Oregonian story about a similar Melcher project near Sisters.

There's a clear demarcation where the thinning is supposed to stop. This tag faces into a butte that we like to climb for exercise and the view. It was good to see that it's off limits to tree-falling.

A bit past the butte this cool machine, a Timberjack, was cutting down smallish trees with ridiculous ease.

Transformer-like, it latches onto a tree with a fiendishly complicated "mouth," and bites it off. (The tree slanting to the right is its current victim.)


Then somehow the Timberjack also is able to strip the tree of its branches and cuts the trunk into suitable lengths. Way cool.


Further down the path I came across this machine, cleverly disguised as a big pile of branches.


The grabber thingie picks up branches that the Timberjack has cut and puts them on the back of the machine. Also way cool.


Then I came to a large pile of logs. How did they get there? 


Here's the answer. Another machine that looks like it'd be a lot of fun to play with. It runs around the forest and picks up the stripped logs that the Timberjack has cut, then piles them neatly in this storage area.


What isn't so neat is the damage all this equipment is doing to the area, which used to have only some walking/biking/riding trails and some minimal traces of long-unused dirt roads. I hope the Forest Service requires Melcher Logging to smooth out and reseed these tracks.


Here's a giant pile of branches waiting to be retrieved by the Picker-Up Machine (I'm a bit vague on the technical names of the equipment).


Nearing the Forest Service road again, the benefit of the thinning to the cabins along the Metolius is evident. All of this vegetation now won't be fuel for a forest fire.


This Timberjack was being worked on when I walked by, so I could snap a good photo of it. We've got ten acres of largely wooded land in rural south Salem. I'd love to have one of these. I have no idea what I'd do with it, and my wife wouldn't let me drive it onto our natural property anyway, but it'd look great parked somewhere.

I've got to remember not to take LSD and then go for a walk in the woods while thinning work is being done in the area. (Here's a You Tube video of a Timberjack walking machine that is definitely something you don't want to encounter while on psychedelics.)

These stacks along the road show the basic thinning strategy: cut smallish trees and strip the branches, which leaves the trunks. I'm not sure what all this will be used for. Melcher says firewood and chips, among other things. Maybe some will be used as biomass fuel (a plant is being built in Eugene).


This felled tree was bothersome to us. It's a mature Ponderosa. My wife called the Forest Service office in Sisters to ask if it was supposed to be cut down. Hopefully it was.

The Sweet Home newspaper article mentions Ponderosa's with a diameter of 8 to 16 inches as being thinned in early projects. This one looks to be much larger.

[Update: Laurel called the Forest Service office again this morning. She was told that trees up to 25 inches in diameter can be cut down. Wow. That sure seems excessive. The staffer said that cut trees of that size might have diseases or other problems, but they could be healthy.]

[Further update: Steven Orange, the Forest Service guy overseeing the thinning, stopped by our cabin to answer our questions and address some concerns. I feel a lot better about the work now. Orange was impressively knowledgeable about forest health.

He assured us that Melcher is one of the best logging companies he's ever come across and is highly diligent about doing the thinning as the contract requires -- even going beyond the call of duty when an environmental issue demands it. We learned a lot during our 45 minute conversation with Orange.

I showed him a photo of the large cut Ponderosa that we were concerned about. He said that it likely was a "hazard" tree which needed to be downed with a chain saw. Orange clarified that only Ponderosas 16 inches and less across (four feet or so above the ground) are being thinned, unless a larger tree is unhealthy or a danger. Pines, I believe, could be cut up to 25 inches.

He pointed out that the Timberjack only can cut trees up to 24 inches in diameter, so this puts a limit on what gets removed. Laurel asked how the crews decide what trees to cut, and what trees are left. Orange told us that Melcher Logging is so skilled at thinning, and has done so many similar projects, they have a very good sense of how much wood should be left standing.

When Orange checks their work with a prism of some sort, he said that usually Melcher is better than 90% accurate. And when they err, it is on the conservative side. We talked about the fact that a logging company with a desirable long-term Forest Service contract isn't going to do anything controversial to jeopardize it. So all in all we're reassured that the Camp Sherman thinning project is being conducted correctly.

Orange showed us on a map where previous thinning projects around Camp Sherman have been conducted, so we could see how the area has recovered after a couple of years. Next visit, we'll do that.]

Stepping from hard pavement onto soft earth

Every day the dog and I take a evening walk. Sometimes it's a two-mile loop on paved roads in our rural neighborhood. Other times we head off on paths on our property that lead to a trail around a lake.

I'm always struck by how different it feels to take even a single step on hard asphalt or concrete, compared to walking on much softer dirt or grass. I'm jarred by the one, relaxed by the other.

Nature is, well, natural.

So rather paradoxically, the relaxation I'm talking about is marked by an acute alertness, just as the jarring I feel as I walk on a hard artificial surface is marked by a certain somnolence.

Meaning, I can't assume that I know what's coming up on a dirt or grass path. Roots obtrude. Rocks obstruct. Vegetation entangles. Slopes can be slippery. On the road, I can daydream my way along, confident that the step I just took will be like the one coming up.

Which is, of course, not the way life goes.

We humans like to construct structures -- both outside in the world, and inside our minds -- that attempt to tame nature's wildness, smooth the cosmos' rough edges, straighten what is excessively crooked to us. 

It's sad to think that in our age of urbanization, not everybody has the chance to walk on an uneven natural path that I do. It's the best (and cheapest) therapy that I know. Unfailingly, I'm reminded that what supports me at every moment can change at any moment.

Asphalt roads are a deception. So are concrete sidewalks. Though physically real, they offer up a psychological illusion: that humankind can make life's journeying smooth, predictable, and relatively bump-free.

Browsing through the April 2010 issue of Scientific American today, I came across an article that started off with, "Early humans living about one million years ago were extremely close to extinction."

Analysis of ancient DNA shows that there may have been only a maximum of 55,000 proto-people alive back then. Another study points to only 2,000 humans being alive 70,000 years ago, likely because of massive droughts.

So, yeah, life is a bumpy path -- whether looked at from the big long-term picture or our own small individual viewpoint.

I enjoy being reminded of that whenever dog and I set off down a rough trail. I have to keep myself aware of where my feet are stepping next. I can't take for granted that I know how secure the next place I plant a foot will be.

Yesterday I was blogging away in my favorite wi-fi'd coffeehouse when I felt a tap on my shoulder and heard a "Hi, Brian."

There was an acquaintance, who I can easily call a friend -- someone I got to know when we took some classes together, but hadn't seen for quite a while. We'd had some philosophical conversations. So we easily bypassed chit-chat and jumped into Meaning of Life stuff.

"When you knew me before I was a devout Christian," he said. "I've been going through some changes. Now I feel comfortable with not being certain. It's a big weight off my shoulders."

Amen to that, brother, I thought. I was in the midst of writing a post for my other blog called "Atheists and agnostics are open-minded." So our conversation was right along the wavelength I already was on.

It's tempting to imagine that life can be along a well-defined line on solid ground from here to there. Roads and sidewalks promise this. So do religions of all sorts, not just the monotheistic varieties. (Buddhism, for example, claims to have a Way to nirvana or enlightenment.)

Well, maybe.

But every time I feel my foot sinking into a cushion of pine needles, sliding on some pebbles, or bumping into a tree root, I have a sense that this is the way life really is under the thin artificial surfaces we humans plaster over the natural world.

Uncertain. Continually changing. Out of our control.

And also:

Beautiful. Harmonious. Wonderfully walkable.

If Newsweek goes under, I'll be bummed

I swing both ways. I subscribe to both remaining weekly news magazines, TIME and Newsweek. And I'm an avid consumer of online news.

Well, let's make me a tripartite swinger, because I also read two newspapers every day, the Salem Statesman Journal and the Portland Oregonian. I find this to be a balanced news diet, the weeklies being an important part of my nutrition.

Now Newsweek is up for sale. It, along with TIME, may not survive. Call me old-fashioned (I still read books made of paper), but I find this highly disturbing.

Newsweek necessarily has transformed itself from a communicator of what's happening to an interpreter and analyzer of current events. By the time the magazine comes in the mail I already know what the week's main news has been.

But Newsweek's stable of writers (Fareed Zakaria, especially) do a great job of looking at things more broadly than most other news sources do. They're into understanding, not just mere facts.

Again, old-fashioned.

Today's trend is for people to cull through blogs, cable news, web sites, and such for their own tailored news mix. Conservatives have their sources; progressives have theirs; and never the twain shall meet.

Newsweek has been a balance to this yin-yang dichotomizing.

Sure, I could find alternative points of view to those I favor on the web. But I don't search them out. When I page through Newsweek, though, I'm much more inclined to read a column by George Will, say, which I'd likely skip if I saw it elsewhere.

The New York Times story about Newsweek's potential demise explains why we need this magazine:

“The era of mass is over, in some respect,” said Charles Whitaker, research chairman in magazine journalism at the Northwestern University school of journalism. “The newsweeklies, for so long, have tried to be all things to all people, and that’s just not going to cut it in this highly niche, politically polarized, media-stratified environment that we live in today.”

...Slowly, though, cable news programs grew in number and popularity, and the instant news of the Internet rendered weekly summaries stale almost by definition. And the notion of a cultural common ground that Americans could all share was changing.

...Both Time and Newsweek were aggressively redesigned. Time, in 2007, changed its publication date from Monday to Friday and added more analysis. Newsweek, in 2009, more or less ceased original reporting about the week’s events, and instead ran essays from columnists like Fareed Zakaria and opinionated analyses.

Mr. Whitaker of Northwestern said that editorially, the magazines’ reinventions had not worked well. “I don’t think Time and Newsweek, in this transformation, had enough of a distinct voice to capture the fancy of anyone in this incredibly polarized political environment,” he said.

Well, they captured my fancy. I'm over-dosed on polarization.

Newsweek and TIME are some of the last bastions of thoughtful, balanced, mainstream current affairs reporting and analysis. If we lose them, it'll be sad.

Nobody talks about, or cares, who is on the home page of the Huffington Post or The Drudge Report at any passing moment. But getting on the cover of the national news magazines still counts for something. As do the articles behind the cover.

Ellen DeGeneres iPhone parody touches on the truth

Apple officials are upset with Ellen DeGeneres for her all-too-true parody of an iPhone commercial, which shows that as easy as it is to use, it isn't that easy.

The Apple guys need to get a humor implant. My wife and I each have iPhones and we frequently experience the sort of stuff DeGeneres does. Laugh on.

Chuck Adams likely behind deceptive Measure 24-292 letter

Today the leading political blog in our great state, Blue Oregon, published a post that I submitted last night: "GOP flack Chuck Adams sleazes up Marion County charter change campaign."

I'm pretty proud of sleazes up. Already Google has the Blue Oregon post as the first hit for this term, which hopefully will go viral as an action word for what sleazes do.

It came to me in an intuitive flash as I was trying to think of a way to describe the highly deceptive letter that was signed by Walt Beglau (Marion County District Attorney) and mailed to county voters last Saturday.

Via email I've asked Beglau if he wrote the letter, or if someone else did.

Either way, the DA is responsible for the false statements in it -- including the ludicrous claim that a costly special election will be needed if voters approve the Measure and add two members to the Board of Commissioners.

Beglau wrote the description of the Measure that appears on the May ballot.

So he should know that section 12 C (vii) of the Measure says: "Commissioners shall be elected by plurality vote at the first general election held in November following the adoption of this Charter." 

I suspect that Chuck Adams is behind the letter. His firm has gotten over $35,000 from the Chamber of Commerce's political action committee (PAC) which is leading the fight against a more accountable, efficient, and effective county government.

Adams is notorious for dirty tricks.

In 2006 an Oregonian blog reported how he got hit with a lawsuit for setting up a PAC that falsely accused a man running for state representative, Rob Brading, of promoting child pornography -- just because Brading served on a Library Advisory Board which didn't even control the filtering of library computers.

Rob Brading's campaign has sued to stop Friends for Safer Libraries from sending out campaign mail saying the Democrat "is responsible for children viewing internet porn in our county library."

The complaint, filed by attorney Jeff Merrick in Multnomah County Circuit Court, alleges the political committee and consultant Chuck Adams are responsible for "a false statement of material fact" in violation of state campaign finance law.

Adams is a longtime paid consultant to House Speaker Karen Minnis, a Wood Village Republican being challenged by Brading for the second time this fall.

"There has to be a bottom to the campaign attacks. And this lawsuit will define what is Oregon's bottom," Merrick said. "The point is, somebody's got to stand up to this vicious kind of baloney."

Well, if Adams did write the letter that Walt Beglau signed, both he and Beglau could face another lawsuit for violating Oregon election law (Beglau might also be in violation of State Bar ethics standards).

It's telling that the Salem Chamber of Commerce would hire one of the state's sleaziest political consultants to fight a citizen initiative that got on the ballot after more than 5,800 voters signed a petition to improve county government.

This is exactly why Measure 24-292 is needed: currently special interests, not the public at large, control the Board of Commissioners. With a three member Board, two people can run county government.

And since they are elected countywide on a partisan basis, it's difficult to hold them accountable for their actions. The Measure requires that commissioners be nonpartisan and elected by district, which threatens the Good Ol' Boy scheme the Chamber of Commerce likes so much.

Last Saturday my wife and I spent three hours walking around a neighborhood in central Salem, north of D Street and south of Market. We handed out fliers that accurately described Measure 24-292 and asked people to vote "yes" on it.

Our legs got tired. I forgot my water bottle and got thirsty. But it was satisfyingly honest volunteer political involvement. When we got home, we found the Walt Beglau letter in our mailbox, a deception paid by the $41,800 in cash contributions raised to defeat the citizen initiative.
Download Big Government No Way report

As the saying goes, Saturday was a great example of speaking Truth to Power. We and our fellow canvassers in support of the Measure relied on old-fashioned walking around, telling voters truthfully what the initiative would do for them.

The opponents sent out a mailing filled with untruths. They could pay the Postal Service to distribute their falsities owing to large contributions from powerful people:

$12,000 from Kevin L. Mannix, PC, a Salem attorney and (failed) Republican candidate for statewide office, including the Governorship.

$5,000 from Dick Withnell, a Chamber of Commerce board member who owns several car dealerships.

$2,250 from Mark Shipman, a Salem land use attorney who has represented clients seeking to build a Measure 37 subdivision on high value farmland -- which was approved by the Board of Commissioners over the recommendation of Marion County's Planning Commission and independent water experts.

$2,500 from Larry Tokarski, a real estate developer.

Hopefully the citizens of Marion County will see through the deceptive arguments of these opponents and vote to approve the Measure. Sleaze deserves to be defeated.

Marion County District Attorney Walt Beglau skates on thin ethical ice

Whether it passes or fails, a Marion County citizen initiative which got on the May ballot after almost 6,000 citizens signed petitions to improve county government, has served one important purpose:

We've learned how far the existing power structure in Marion County is willing to stretch ethical bounds in order to keep the political system running along in its dysfunctional special-interest-favoring way.

A few weeks ago a neighbor gave me a "No on Measure 24-292" letter that had been sent out by two Salem Chamber of Commerce bigwigs: CEO Mike McLaran and board member Dick Withnell, who owns several car dealerships.

It was filled with untruths, which I debunked in this post. Withnell followed up with an equally deceptive opinion piece that was published in the Statesman Journal (which gets big bucks from Withnell's frequent and large ad buys.)

Now, a letter from Marion County District Attorney Walt Beglau arrived in our mailbox yesterday.

The envelope looks marvelously official. And it is marked Important. The return address shows that it came from Walt Beglau, Marion County District Attorney, 1110 Commercial St SE, Salem OR 97301.

Which must be the offices of the Marion County DA, right? Wrong.

That's the address of the Salem Chamber of Commerce. I guess this is who the Marion County District Attorney is working for these days, rather than the citizens who elected him.

Funny thing, though: Walt Beglau doesn't mention the Chamber of Commerce at all in his letter.
Download Walt Beglau letter

Nor does he say that anyone other than himself is responsible for the letter. Someone has to fire up Google and type in "1110 Commercial St SE, Salem" to learn that the Chamber of Commerce is behind it. And almost surely paid for the mailing.

Which, we're told way down at the bottom: "(not paid for at taxpayer expense)" However, we're not told who did pay for it -- which seems like a legal oversight to me. But, hey, what do I know?

I'm not a lawyer. Or the District Attorney.

Who I'd call up tomorrow and ask about the legality of the political mailing, if it wasn't the DA whose name is on the letter.

(Well, I might give Beglau's office a call anyway, if only to see whether they're still at their county phone number, or whether everybody in addition to Beglau has moved over to the Chamber of Commerce.)

Given the deceptive nature of this letter, not surprisingly the contents are equally truth-deprived. 

(1) Beglau says Measure 24-292 fragments our community into five politically driven districts. But those districts will elect non-partisan county commissioners. And both Salem city councilors and Marion County's state representatives already are elected by district. I haven't heard anyone complaining about that fragmentation.

(2) Beglau says the estimated cost to expand the Board of Commissioners from three to five members, add staff, and hold a special election will cost $500,000. But the estimate of the Measure sponsors actually is that it will save almost $272,000. And no special election needs to be held. Beglau isn't telling the truth.

(3) Beglau says that the $500,000 (which isn't an actual expense) will come from the public safety budget. Another deception. The current county commissioners were the ones who eliminated 14 full time employees in the Sheriff's Office, without cutting their own staff. Measure 24-292 has no impact on public safety. Again, it will save taxpayers money according to the sponsors of the Measure.

So where is Walt Beglau getting his erroneous information? Apparently from his current work place: 1110 Commercial Street, the Salem Chamber of Commerce. 

Question: why is the Marion County District Attorney writing political letters for the Salem Chamber of Commerce? Doesn't he represent all of the citizens of the county, not just big business interests, like Dick Withnell's?

On the home page of the DA's web site, I found this quote from Walt Beglau:

"I believe that everyone should be held accountable. Justice must always be public, accessible and fair. Everyone is entitled to be treated with dignity and respect."

OK. We need to hold Beglau accountable. 

Join me in calling him at 503-588-5222. Ask if Walt Beglau is back from his stint at the Salem Chamber of Commerce.

If so, speak with him about the ethics and legality of the county District Attorney sending out a political letter that doesn't identify who paid for it, or sponsored it, and is filled with untruths.

Maybe Beglau will open an investigation into himself.

Wow! Obama must read my blog.

Coincidence? Or something more...wonderful. I choose the more, that President Obama reads my blog and uses my words to inspire the American public.

Check out the evidence:

Last night, I wrote a post called "Gulf oil spill shows why government is important." I said:

But hopefully people will take away a larger -- and marvelously simple -- message from this mess: government is us. The collective "we care" side of us.

Today, President Obama gave a speech at the University of Michigan on the theme of defending government. He said:

President Barack Obama took aim Saturday at the angry rhetoric of those who denigrate government as ''inherently bad'' and said their off-base line of attack ignores the fact that in a democracy, ''government is us.''

Cool. Us great minds think alike, I guess. Unless Obama is channeling my thoughts.

If so, here's another one for you, Barack: the federal government puts a free 3G iPad in every home to stimulate the economy (and my e-book reading). You can start with rural south Salem.