HinesSight

Best self-defense technique: run away!

After more than twenty years of martial arts training, I can confidently say that I've learned some highly effective self-defense techniques. 

My favorite: run away from trouble. Second best: walk away from trouble. Third choice: defuse trouble from where you are.

These approaches, of course, aren't what most people are looking for when they join a martial arts class. Punching, kicking, grappling, throwing, submission holds -- that's what sells in the worlds of karate, aikido, judo, tae kwon do, jui-jitsu, boxing, and such.

What's most effective, though, in the real world?

Not the dojo (training hall), boxing ring, wrestling mat, or wherever, but the parking lot, sidewalk, bar, walking path, or other locations where ordinary people are most likely to get into a confrontation with somebody who could do them harm.

Sam Harris, he of "The End of Faith" fame, has quite a bit of martial arts experience. On his web site, Harris has posted some interesting articles. The Truth About Violence discusses three principles of self-defense that make a lot of sense.

Principle #1: Avoid dangerous people and dangerous places.

The primary goal of self-defense is to avoid becoming the victim of violence. The best way to do this is to not be where violence is likely to occur. Of course, that’s not always possible—but without question, it is your first and best line of defense. If you visit dangerous neighborhoods at night, or hike alone and unarmed on trails near a big city, or frequent places where drunken young men gather, you are running some obvious risks. 

...Principle #2: Do not defend your property.

Whatever your training, you should view any invitation to violence as an opportunity to die—or to be sent to prison for killing another human being. Violence must truly be the last resort. Thus, if someone sticks a gun in your face and demands your wallet, you should hand it over without hesitation—and run. 

If you look out your kitchen window and see a group of youths destroying your car, you should remain inside and call the police. It doesn’t matter if you happen to be a Navy Seal who keeps a loaded shotgun by the front door.

...Principle #3: Respond immediately and escape.

If you have principles 1 and 2 firmly installed in your brain, any violence that finds you is, by definition, unavoidable. There is a tremendous power in knowing this: When you find yourself without other options, you are free to respond with full commitment. 

This is the core principle of self-defense: Do whatever you can to avoid a physical confrontation, but the moment avoidance fails, attack explosively for the purposes of escape—not to mete out justice, or to teach a bully a lesson, or to apprehend a criminal. Your goal is to get away with minimum trauma (to you), while harming your attacker in any way that seems necessary to ensure your escape.⁠

Notice: no mention of dramatic fighting techniques.

Not even Brazilian jui-jitsu is going to do you much good if you're attacked by more than one person and end up doing your submission hold thing on the ground while the guy's buddys hit you over the head with a baseball bat, then steal your wallet.

(See Harris' favorable, yet cautionary, take on jui-jitsu here.)

This is one reason why I've come to enjoy Tai Chi so much. After thirteen years of "hard style" martial arts training, I switched to Tai Chi about seven years ago. No regrets. Tai Chi can be a kick-ass martial art, or a great way to promote health through body-friendly graceful movement.

The flowing and circular moves of Tai Chi resonate wonderfully with Sam Harris' third principle: respond immediately and escape. In a Tai Chi class students learn how to meet aggressive force with receptive emptiness, deflecting and defusing an attack by moving flexibly with an opponent's energy.

Push away, then head in the opposite direction. Throw off balance, then run. Pull past, then head for a safer spot.

These techniques are simple; easy to remember; suitable for almost everybody. If attacked, don't fight. Run like hell. After throwing your wallet or purse behind you. This won't get you a role in a martial arts movie, or gain you cage fighting fame. 

But it could save your life, which is a lot more important.

(Here's a knowledgeable and well-written examination of Tai Chi's martial roots, Supreme Ultimate Boxing: Considering Tai Chi Chuan In Its Original Martial Context.)

Flying into Portland and Burbank shows why Oregon shines

In this 2012 session of the Oregon legislature, haters of our land use system once again are trying to kill it through a thousand cuts (HB 4095 being a prime example).

I urge each of these "pave it over" advocates to do what my wife and I did last Friday and today: take an Alaska Airlines flight into Burbank, California, then return to Portland, Oregon.

(Instead of Burbank, Phoenix would be an even better bad example of non-planning.)

From the air, it's obvious why Oregon's pioneering approach to protecting irreplaceable farm and forest land needs to be strengthened, not weakened. Those in the know say, it works.

Through property tax incentives, transferable development rights, and limited use requirements, the program protects and conserves farm and forest lands for agricultural and timber production. At the same time, the state establishes locally designated urban boundaries to both accommodate population and business growth while preventing urban sprawl onto rural lands. As a result, Oregon reports a high level of food and timber production. Its urban planning strategy incorporates public facility and public transportation plans, which the state notes are providing environmental benefits and cost savings by reducing reliance on automobiles.

A vision-picture, though, is worth all those words.

Flying into Burbank, on the other side of the Hollywood Hills from Los Angeles proper, I watched subdivisions slide by for many miles under our airplane's wings before we landed. The LA metropolitan area appears limited only by geography and designated state/national forests.

I grew up in California from age six to twenty-one, when I moved to Oregon to attend graduate school at Portland State University. In the late 50's and early 60's my mother regularly drove me from central to southern California to visit relatives.

I remember lots of orange groves and other farmland close-in to the Los Angeles metro area. Not now. It's solid sprawling urbanization, ever-so-obvious from our flight.

Contrast this with flying into Portland.

Arriving at noon today, the mostly sunny day allowed Mt. Hood's snow covered heights to sparkle above drifting clouds. Clear cuts, many made obvious by their snowy whiteness, showed that Oregon's forests produce lots of timber as well as bountiful recreational opportunities.

After the pilot announced, "We're beginning our descent into Portland," I concentrated on the view from the airplane window. Forests and farms passed by for quite a while, with small communities dotting the landscape. 

Mt. Hood remained directly to the east, straight out the window, with a beautiful stretch of almost completely natural landscape leading from beneath the plane to the slopes of the mountain. 

Then our plane banked to head toward the Portland International Airport. Briefly all I could see from the window was clouds and sky. When the plane went level again, now on a new heading...

Bingo! Suddenly city! Instant urbanity!

Oregon's land use system requires urban growth boundaries. That's why Oregon cities don't sprawl like those in other states do. There's city. And then there's country. Farm and forest land can reach right up to the city limits, as was evident from today's flight into Portland.

The beauty of Oregon blows me away every time I fly somewhere else, and return to Portland. That beauty is partly natural, and partly a result of our state's pioneering efforts to protect what we have from unnecessary and unwise over-development.

It's easy to see how successful our land use system is. Just fly into Burbank, then into Portland.

Young girls who dance like Tina Turner. What's up?

Today my wife, Laurel, and I got our first look at big-time children's dance competition. We spent most of the day watching the Los Angeles regionals of The American Dance Awards, held in Lake Elsinore, California at Lakeside High School.

Our four-year old granddaughter apparently was the youngest contestant, dancing in two six-and-under categories (small group tap and small group jazz).

We loved every moment of the dancing.

My daughter was fearful that we'd get bored with the all day competition. Early on she slipped me her car keys, figuring that Laurel and I would want to head someplace else while we waited for our granddaughter's dances, scheduled for 12:45 and 4:25 pm.

No way.

Aside from a lunch break, we were glued to our seats in the auditorium. After almost every performance I'd say things to Laurel like: "Wow!" "Amazing!" "Unbelievable!" "That looked professional!" "So cute!" and other exclamations of wonderment.

The dancers, mostly girls but also some boys, ranged in age from four to twenty-one. Their energy, skill level, enthusiasm, charisma, and overall watchability was exceptional. We expected to see some good dancing.

What we got was great dancing.

However, in case any parents of certain eight and under girls were sitting behind me, I want to explain why I laughed (not very loudly, but almost uncontrollably) during some of their performances. I wasn't laughing at their dancing, which was terrific.

What almost brought tears of hilarity to my eyes was the sight of little girls doing a highly credible impersonation of Tina Turner shaking it. 

Now, I'm old enough to have seen Tina Turner perform in person at the Winterland in San Francisco sometime in the late 1960's. At least I think that's where it was. Much of the 60's is a brain-blur to me, for reasons that should be obvious.

Young people can get a taste of Turner on You Tube, which includes being able to watch Beyonce perform "Proud Mary" at a Tina Turner tribute in a fashion that does Tina proud.

 

Today I was awestruck at how little girls just a few years older than my granddaughter could dance so Tina Turner/Beyonce'ish -- complete with "big girl" makeup, costumes, and pouty demeanor. At first my mind bounced back and forth between wow, that's so wrong! and wow, that's so right!

It didn't take long for me to settle in on so right!

The little girls clearly were enjoying themselves. They were getting to play dress-up on a big stage in front of an appreciative audience. They obviously had practiced long and hard. There wasn't anything remotely lewd or sexual about their dancing.

I just kept thinking, "Wow, you've come a long way, baby." Back in my California childhood days, few kids danced at all. We were forced to learn some square dancing during P.E. in high school, all prim and proper. 

Nobody would have believed that in 2012, girls eight and younger would be made up with lots of eyeshadow, blush, and lipstick, then shake their child bodies in glittery, skimpy outfits like twenty year-olds at a nightclub. But, hey, why not?

The kids I watched today were having fun. No matter what their age, it looked to me like the music they were dancing to, and their dance moves, were what they wanted to do. Sure, their dance instructors did most or all of the choreographing. They know, though, what appeals to children nowadays. 

Hip-hop culture, and it's jazzy variants, seemingly has spread to every dancing age group. I say, great. The dances I watched today brought smiles and energy to my social-security eligible body. Keep it up, kids. 

If you want to dance like Tina Turner, go for it. Even if you're five years old.

OSU setting traps to kill wildlife needlessly

Why, Oregon State University?

Why would you contract with the federal government's animal killing machine, Wildlife Services, to indiscriminately set traps for fawns, racoons, coyotes, dogs, cats, and any other creatures able to crawl under the OSU sheep farm fence?

Predator Defense is asking. My wife and I are also. There are much better ways to protect livestock than by killing wildlife and endangering family pets. 

There are numerous alternative non lethal practices available and used world-wide to keep sheep and lambs safe besides killing wildlife, including the use of “New Zealand fencing,” hot wires around a fence line, the presence of guard dogs or llamas, OSU staff shedding and/or corralling the lambs at night, and a human presence in fields and pastures.

Watch this short video of what's going on at Oregon State University. Then take action to stop the needless killing.

 

James Huffman wrongly attacks Oregon land use system

I'm surprised how badly James Huffman, a dean emeritus of the Lewis and Clark law school, misinterpreted the highly successful Oregon land use system in a misguided opinion piece in today's Oregonian.

"Keep the messy politics: rule by government experts is a recipe for tyranny" reflects the overblown rhetoric of the sky is falling! Tea Party types. They see left-wing dangers, conspiracies, and constitutional threats hiding in the shadows everywhere.

Only problem is, when you ask them to specifically point them out, providing factual examples of dictatorial, tyrannical government over-reaching, they get tongue-tied. Why? Because their scary hobgoblins exist only in their own minds.

Huffman believes that "experts" (eek! knowledgeable people! frightening!) are controlling Oregon's land use decisions. Not the elected officials who hire and manage those experts. Not the voters who put those elected officials into office. Not the legislators who passed the land use laws those experts implement.

The Oregonian editorial board suggests a siren to warn when "legislators try to take over management of the state's natural resources" (“Water, trees and politics,” Feb. 16). On the opposite page, columnist Dave Lister describes how voters in Clackamas County are taking over bridge projects, urban renewal districts and light rail. Maybe there should be a siren to warn of such voter interference, as well. 

How dare the elected representatives in Salem interfere with expert management of state-owned forests or Columbia River water! And surely the transportation and land-use planners know better than the voters of Clackamas County. 

But wait. Don't we live in a democratic republic? Doesn't all government authority, at all levels of government, derive from the people? 

Yes, Mr. Huffman, it does. And that's exactly what is happening in Oregon: government agencies are carrying out the will of the people regarding land use decisions. 

Huffman doesn't offer up any examples of rogue "experts" doing nasty, illegal stuff. Professional planners act in accordance with laws, regulations, ordinances, and such. If they do something outside of legal bounds, those acts can be challenged in court.

Having read a number of Huffman's Oregonian opinion pieces about the evils of land use planning, I can confidently say that what he really is disturbed about is the very ideal that he extols: government authority derived from the people.

Senate Bills 100 and 101, which brought Oregon's land use system into being, were passed by a democratically elected state legislature, at the urging of a democratically elected Republican governor, Tom McCall.

Since, opponents of land use planning have tried to dismantle our state's demonstrably effective approach to preserving farm and forest land, while allowing room for cities to expand in a thoughtful fashion.

The people have spoken, most recently in 2007 with the passage of Measure 49 -- which markedly scaled back the "pave it over" aspirations of Measure 37 by a vote of 62% in favor. This rankles Huffman, who was strongly against Measure 49, opposing it via a misleading mailing. 

After it passed, Huffman criticized democracy and the "tyranny of the majority." His dream is to have activist judges declare Oregon's voter-approved land use laws to be unconstitutional.

So it's bizarre that Huffman is now inveighing about a fantasized tyranny of experts when he has expressed such a strong desire for a tyranny of judges to step in and do away with Oregon's highly popular land use system.

If there's any tyranny Oregonians should be concerned about, it's the tyranny of extreme government-haters like Huffman who want our state to return to an archaic pioneer mentality where anybody can do anything they want with their property, regardless of how this affects other people, neighboring landowners, the environment, or irreplaceable farm and forest land.

Dog adoption update: Oh, no, we've got a dingo!

It's Day 2 of our dog adoption saga. Reality is setting in. Pooka is doing fine. Much more relaxed and well-behaved than we expected (aside from just trying to eat a leaf from a houseplant). 

However...

I'm convinced that the rescue shelter was wrong when they billed her as a Shepherd/Lab mix. Pooka clearly is a dingo! Well, maybe "clearly" is too confident a conclusion.

 

Check out the evidence, though. This is a dingo.

 

 

 

And this is Pooka, our new dog. A still shot doesn't do credit to her dingoness, since as she skitters around the house in a semi-slinking fashion, her mouth is open wide in a decidedly dingo'ish expression.

Sure, Pooka has a German Shepherd'ish face also. I still think she's 99% dingo. Great... Where are we going to get kangaroo carcasses? 

We adopt a dog. Lovingly, likingly, happily.

My wife, Laurel, is a dog "LOVER." I'm a dog "lover": lower case; hold the boldface.  That's why I'm waiting for her to come home with a dog we've adopted from a rescue shelter in Gig Harbor, Washington.

Gig Harbor.

A three hour, thirty-eight minute drive from our south Salem, Oregon home according to Google Maps. Which is about two and a half hours more than I was willing to journey to look at another potential family animal companion after our previous long-distance excursion to a Florence dog shelter ended pet-less.

"This is crazy," Laurel said, as we were returning home from Florence. "We just spent six hours driving to see a dog that turned out to be maladjusted." 

"Yes," I replied. "Ginger turned out to be too fearful and untrusting. From now on I'm willing to drive an hour or so to check out a dog. Let's keep looking from Portland to Eugene, no further." 

Well, my resolve was firm. Laurel's lasted as long as it took her to come across an ad for a Shepherd/Lab mix with a pretty face on PetFinder. Our current 12 year old dog, Serena, also is a Shepherd/Lab.

Great combination.

You get the smarts of a Shepherd, but without the guard dog edginess, along with the laid back personality of a Lab, but without the blah monochrome color and binge eating. (Sorry, Lab lovers, but most of your breed is overweight.)

So after filling out a highly detailed adoption questionnaire and talking about Star numerous times with Saving Paws of Washington staff, Laurel decided to head up to Gig Harbor today -- a nine hour canine adoption quest.

Star, who likely will become "Pooka," arrived here about half an hour ago. Understandably, she's a bit wary of us humans (particularly me), but hit it off with Serena right away, judging from the tail wagging, play-bowing, and such. Here's some photos of Pooka getting acclimated to the room where she'll sleep with Serena.

Kind of a family Shepherd/Lab resemblance between Serena and Pooka. Face, at least. Serena is quite a bit bigger, fluffier, and we must say, more beautiful than Pooka. But Pooka has her own sort of petite feminine charm. 

Ah... so alert, so intelligent, so dignified. Our baby!

Some wariness evident between Mature Top Dog Serena and Young Newcomer Pooka. But they'll soon sort out their relationship. 

I don't think it'll take too long for Pooka to settle in and feel at home. It's better that she's timid and shy at the moment rather than fearful and barking, as the Florence no-go dog was. 

Thank you, Saving Paws people. Laurel is LOVING our new dog, and I, per my canine wont, am liking her. Like will turn into love soon, I'm pretty sure, once Pooka realizes that she's in a stable situation, not the changeable and stressful past few weeks she's gone through.

On February 2, Pooka was turned in by someone, likely the previous owner, to the San Bernadino County Animal & Control in southern California. She was spayed and vaccinated the next day, February 3. Then Saving Paws staff picked her up (along with her mother and a sister) on February 6 and drove her up to Gig Harbor.

A twenty-two hour drive south and back north, according to Saving Paws. That's dedication. And love. Reportedly the San Bernadino shelter doesn't keep dogs too long before sending them to Dog Heaven. 

So we've got our "rescue dog." Be thankful, Pooka, as I'm sure you will be. Life is going to be pretty darn nice for you on our ten rural acres, full of squirrels, deer, bunnies, and other smells/sights galore. Just got to get you over this initial Where am I? hump. 

Here's a positive sign: Pooka clearly loves blogging. She must sense that I'm writing about her and wants to stay close to me. Of course, the leash tied around a chair leg probably has something to do with that also. 

 

Statesman Journal should dig deeper into Courthouse Square

A few days ago I suggested some issues the Salem Statesman Journal should unleash some investigative reporting on. Among them was numero uno:

(1) The role of the three current Republican county commissioners in letting construction defects at Courthouse Square go unattended to for so long, until the building was declared unusable. Cracks, settling, and such were evident early on. Whenever this has been noted in stories about Courthouse Square, the questioning of commissioners on this subject isn't pursued by the reporter. Why not?

I appreciate how Michael Rose, the SJ reporter who has done some fine work on uncovering how the Courthouse Square debacle resulted in an unusable newly built building/transit mall in the heart of downtown Salem (Oregon), responded via some Twitter messages.

But Rose failed to point out any of his reporting that was focused on what I said above: why didn't county commissioners Sam Brentano, Patti Milne, and Janet Carlson immediately deal with the construction problems that became obvious even before Courthouse Square opened in 2000, and which were even more obvious throughout 2002?

In one of his stories,"Courthouse Square's Red Flags," Rose led off with:

When cracks appeared at the tops of columns during construction of Courthouse Square in 2000, the defects were taken seriously by Melvin Mark Development Co., a Portland firm hired as a project manager.

The cracks were in critical locations beneath the bus mall at Courthouse Square. Melvin Mark wanted to be "absolutely certain the structural integrity of the bus mall has not been, and will not be, compromised," the company stated in a Feb. 18, 2000, letter to the project's architect.

Melvin Mark recommended getting a second engineering opinion about the cracks. Marion County and transit district officials agreed, according to a February letter from Melvin Mark to Arbuckle Costic Architects.

That second opinion was never received. In fact, it was never even sought.

Instead, Mike Hayford, the structural engineer who designed Courthouse Square, was summoned by county and transit officials. He proclaimed in a July 11, 2000, letter that the cracks were "cosmetic in nature and need only be patched and or epoxy-injected."

Ten years after Hayford's assurances, city building and safety officials ordered the evacuation of the Courthouse Square office building and the closure of the adjoining bus mall. Engineers now say the cracks were a symptom of structural problems that a shot of epoxy didn't cure.

Download Courthouse Square's Red Flags

In 2000, current Marion County commissioner Patti Milne was in office. Yet to my knowledge the Statesman Journal has never reported why she and other county officials ignored the warnings of the Courthouse Square project manager, instead trusting the guy who was reponsible for designing the building.

The Statesman Journal has tirelessly dug into records of the Willamette Educational Service District and demanded that the state make public personal information of every PERS retiree.

So I'd like to see the newspaper be equally committed to laying bare every bit of written and email correspondence to and from Marion County officials, elected and otherwise, regarding construction defects apparent in Courthouse Square from February 2000 onward (cracked walls and concrete pillars, settling paving stones, leaking windows, etc.).

Also, to interview those officials. What did they know? When did they know it? Who decided to ignore the problems? 

This isn't the first time I've asked these sorts of questions in a blog post. Here's some excerpts from my 2010 "Lessons of Salem's Courthouse Square debacle."

Who says nothing interesting ever happens in Salem (Oregon)? Well, I do, a lot.

But ever since it was reported that recently constructed Courthouse Square -- a building that houses most county offices, along with the downtown transit mall -- is in serious danger of falling down, things have been popping in the local newspaper.

Today the Statesman Journal ran a bunch of stories and opinion pieces about this debacle. The $34 million building, which takes up an entire block, is being vacated as quickly as possible. It might not be repairable.

Yet it opened just ten years ago, in 2000, when one of the three current Republican county commissioners, Patti Milne, was in office. The other commissioners came along a bit later, Janet Carlson in 2002 and Sam Brentano in 2003.

All of them are open to the eminently justifiable criticism that they fiddled around while Courthouse Square came ever closer to falling to the ground.

Somehow I suspect that if three Democratic commissioners had overseen this massive waste of taxpayer money (structural problems became apparent in 2002, but were never effectively addressed), the Chamber of Commerce-dominated Statesman Journal would be a lot harder on the politicians in charge.

Now, I'm not saying that news coverage decisions at the Statesman Journal are related to editorial positiions. However, many readers of the newspaper believe this is the case. So I'm not saying, but other people do.

It's a fact that the Statesman Journal editorial board endorsed Patti Milne for re-election in 2010 over her Democratic opponent, Jason Freilinger, who made Milne's "fiddling while Rome burns" attitude toward Courthouse Square part of his campaign. 

And it's a fact that the Statesman Journal editorial board opposed a citizen initiative to add two commissioners to the Marion County Board, and make the commissioner positions non-partisan. This was intended to improve decision-making on the currently over-cozy board, where two people control important county policies.

My main point, though, is that the public deserves to know why construction defects at Courthouse Square were brushed off as unimportant for so long by county officials when they first became apparent. 

Heck, whenever my wife and I have work done on our home (like new windows being installed), we always check out the quality of what we paid for. If there's a problem, we contact whoever did the work and make sure it is fixed.

The Marion County commissioners, all of whom are still in office, didn't do that when Courthouse Square started to fall apart as soon as it was constructed. Since it now looks like it could cost more to repair the project than it cost to build it, and some $20 million is still owed on Courthouse Square, the public deserves all the facts about what went wrong.

Oregon cougar hunting bill is dead. Long live cougars!

Great news for those who value wildness, ecological diversity, and sound science (rather than hysterical fearmongering).

We just got an email from Predator Defense saying that HB 4119, the bill to repeal the twice-passed citizen initiative which bans cougar hunting with dogs, is dead in the 2012 Oregon legislative session.

GREAT NEWS!

GOVERNOR KITZHABER HAS INFORMED REP. SPRENGER, THE SPONSOR OF THE BILL HB 4119 TO REPEAL MEASURE 18 AND BRING HOUND HUNTING OF COUGARS BACK, THAT HE HAS NO INTENTION OF SIGNING IT!

PLEASE CONTACT THE GOVERNOR AND THANK HIM FOR STEPPING UP TO THE PLATE FOR OREGON VOTERS AND COUGARS.

http://governor.oregon.gov/Gov/contact.shtml  503-378-4582

Portland State "Electric Avenue" flash mob

Finally -- my glancing at the usually boring PGE Home Connections email blah-blah-blah paid off. Nissan Leaf owners that we are, I was curious to read "Cost savings drive buyers to EV's." (electric vehicles)

That led me on to a You Tube video of the flash mob excitement when charging stations opened up on Portland State University's Electric Avenue: "a street dedicated to showcasing electric transportation technology — thanks to a unique partnership between the university, PGE and the city of Portland."

Cool. Nice dancing to an entirely predictable song.

 

Funny... nothing like that happened when the City of Salem had some EV charging stations installed in downtown parking areas. Could it be that Salem is, gasp!, less excitingly, energetically green than Portland? (Yeah, it sure could be.)

"Let just one woman speak" (about contraception)

 

 A 1 1/2 minute video of the Republican effort to squash the voices of women and uncrazy Catholics shows how outrageous G.O.P. attempts to politicize basic preventive health care has become.

The photo above shows who Darrell Issa (R-California) believes should command women's birth control decisions.

Watch how Democratic Representatives urge the committee to "let one woman speak."

 

Suggestions for Salem Statesman Journal investigative reporting

Investigative reporters are a dying journalistic breed. This was a message I heard while driving around town, listening to POTUS on satellite radio (terrific thoughtful non-wacko programming for us political junkies).

Reportedly a television station in southern California went from over a dozen investigative reporters, to precisely zero in just a few years. This is part of a general decline in investigative journalism.

Including at newspapers, where employment and income are dropping also. So I can understand why our local major newspaper, the Salem Statesman Journal, has limited resources to dig into stories that need in-depth truth excavating.

I just wish the Statesman Journal would choose its gotcha! targets differently. My wife and I have been surprised by how much time and energy the newspaper put into its recent jihad about the Willamette Educational Service District.   

Sure, there were some serious problems with management of the ESD. But fifteen stories and editorials about this? Assigning a reporter to the story for sixteen months?

There's got to be more important local issues to unleash an investigative journalist on.

I'll suggest some. Maybe commenters on this post can suggest others. As a regular reader of the Statesman Journal, my overarching suggestion is that the paper needs to be more even-handed in its treatment of public employees vs. politicians/private sector.

Observing how the news and editorial "slants" of the Statesman Journal have evolved over the past ten years or so, a reasonable conclusion is that the newspaper is reluctant to take on the Salem and Marion County power structure/elites, who not coincidentally happen to be major advertisers.

On the other hand, the paper was eager to release detailed personal information about PERS (Public Employee Retirement System) retirees, including names and final salaries, for reasons that were decidedly unpersuasive. Indeed, totally lacking in my opinion.

So if the Statesman Journal wants to show that it isn't marching to a conservative and corporate drumbeat, it should turn its investigative journalism attention to some issues that aren't getting the attention they deserve. 

Such as...

(1) The role of the three current Republican county commissioners in letting construction defects at Courthouse Square go unattended to for so long, until the building was declared unusable. Cracks, settling, and such were evident early on. Whenever this has been noted in stories about Courthouse Square, the questioning of commissioners on this subject isn't pursued by the reporter. Why not?

(2) How the Marion County commissioners and county Legal Counsel could get some important land use decisions so horribly wrong. Proof: reversal of the decisions by a Circuit Court judge. Citizens have the impression that the Legal Counsel is supposed to follow the law, not political whims of the commissioners. Is this true? Or does the Legal Counsel improperly kowtow to the commissioners?

(3) The abrupt dismantling of Salem Futures, an effort to improve the city's planning. I can't recall any stories about this in the Statesman Journal. Other cities in Oregon are much further along in stimulating innovative mixed use neighborhoods, while Salem lags. How much better off would Salem be if Salem Futures had been allowed to continue, rather than being squashed by a newly conservative mayor and city council?

(4) Downtown has much potential, yet never gets over the "could be..." hump. The well-deserved reputation of downtown Salem is that of a boring, semi-deserted, uninteresting place to visit. Talk of an entertainment district keeps arising, then subsiding. What role do hidebound, Chamber of Commerce-influenced, traditional values play in keeping downtown Salem, well, down? 

(5) The site of the former Fairview Training Center was bought from the state by a group which promised to develop the 200 acre+ property into a model sustainable mixed-use development. Only a small portion has begun to be developed, even after many years, while Wilsonville's VIllebois (which also was state property bought at the same time for a private sustainable development) has prospered in comparison. What's going on with Fairview?

If anyone else has investigative reporting suggestions for the Statesman Journal, share them in a comment. More the merrier.

PETA warns women about screwing a vegan guy

Geez, I didn't know that us vegan/vegetarian men were so dangerously erotically powerful.

But thanks to PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), I've learned the truth about BWVAKTBOOM, "Boyfriend Went Vegan and Knocked the Bottom out of Me." Have a look.

 

Is it true? Of course! You've just learned about this via a blog post on the Internet. Don't you believe everything you come across in cyberspace?

(This woman has a different attitude, but she writes for Slate, which is almost mainstream media. So trust the PETA video; go vegan/vegetarian -- sexually safely, though.)

House GOP and Schaufler holding Oregon health care bill hostage

This is how politicians drive citizens crazy and get super-low approval ratings.

Republicans in the House of Representatives, along with quasi-Democrat Rep. Mike Schaufler, have blocked approval of Oregon's health insurance exchange, seemingly in an attempt to get some crappy bills passed by holding this much-needed bill hostage.

The state budget isn't affected by the health care bill. Billions of dollars in federal funding is at stake. Competition between insurance companies, supposedly a GOP priority, will be greatly enhanced. 

But since the health care bill is so good for Oregon, Schaufler and his Republican buddies want to make sure that some bad bills are passed before giving up on their hostage-taking.

Democrats protested that the exchange would be funded by federal money as well as insurance fees, and would not affect the state budget. Rep. Peter Buckley, D-Ashland, said no questions had been raised in earlier committee hearings, and said he was "confused" and had "great sorrow ... that our process is moving in this direction."

"I just hope as we're doing this vote and others going forward that we're making it on the merits of the bill in question and not in the hopes to take bills hostage to trade them for other things," said Rep. Jefferson Smith, D-Portland.

Yeah, me too, Jefferson. But I'm pretty sure Schaufler is thinking of HB 4095, along with other "pave it over" bills that would trash protections for Oregon's farm and forest lands, when he said this:

Rep. Mike Schaufler, D-Happy Valley, said he would support the motion because he wanted to make sure bills creating jobs, regarding timber and water policy, passed the House before the exchange does.

I sure hope Gov. Kitzhaber and Democrats in the state legislature hold firm on their principles. Make the Republicans and Schaufler vote against the health care bill. Hold them accountable for the horrible effects of losing out on a chance to markedly lower health costs in Oregon and insure many more people.

Don't allow hostage taking.

This happens with bills in Congress all the time -- one reason, among many, why people are so fed up with what goes on in Washington, DC. The last thing we need is for the Oregon legislature to become as dysfunctional as the federal Congress.

Scalia says religious groups have to follow the law

Amazing. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia agrees with President Obama and other progressives about something: that religious organizations which enter into commercial activity have to follow the same laws everybody else does.

We have never held that an individual's religious beliefs excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that the State is free to regulate. On the contrary, the record of more than a century of our free exercise jurisprudence contradicts that proposition.

When followers of a particular sect enter into commercial activity as a matter of choice, the limits they accept on their own conduct as a matter of conscience and faith are not to be superimposed on the statutory schemes which are binding on others in that activity.

Just like I said. When you get to nominate another Supreme Court justice in your second term, President Obama, keep me in mind.

I'm clearly qualified, along with an evident majority of people of people in this country who believe that contraception should be available under their health insurance plan to employees of organizations run by religions which provide services to the general public. 

Untold story of Salem's "Singing in the Rain" flash mob

Today, hundreds of people assembled in Salem for an almost unheard-of happening in Oregon's capital city: to do something creative, semi-spontaneous, and fun. We danced to "Singing in the Rain." Ironically, it was a nice day.

As a blogger, I have a duty to disclose the untold story of this event. You won't find this in the Statesman Journal, which is going to do the usual mainstream media thing -- reporting news in an unbiased, objective, big-picture fashion.

So if you want to see professionally taken photos of people taking part in "Singing in the Rain," which was wonderfully organized by ace S-J fashionista reporter K. Williams Brown and nicely choreographed by American Ballet Academy's Annie Joslin, head over to Mainstream Media Land (video of the dancing still to come.)

But if you want a personal, subjective, focused look at the event, this post is for you -- the person, subjectivity, and focus naturally being on ME. (Hey, this is a blog. What else would you expect?)

I practiced a lot for "Singing in the Rain." Not only did I watch the Joslin/Brown instructional video several times, I even wrote down the basic moves in a 1-8 sequence. Last Monday I went to the Clockworks Cafe for some training from Joslin, which was attended by a pleasingly diverse group of people.

However, it was disturbing to find myself learning the dance beside a five year old girl who clearly thought she was way superior to me just because (1) she was wearing sneakers with lights that lit up when her feet moved, and (2) knew the moves a lot better than I did. 

Even so, we became close, bridging the 58 year gap between us, mostly through me bumping into her with distressing regularity as I screwed up my steps.

The rest of the week, I practiced for Saturday's "Singing in the Rain" event. Not so much the dance moves, but how I was going to maneuver myself into a good position for the video that K. Williams Brown told us about at the dance practice.

Anticipating that it could possibly go viral on You Tube, I spent quite a bit of time thinking about how to get myself noticed in the video without looking like a geezer jerk who squeezed into the front row of dancers even though he couldn't really do the moves all that well and lacked young-kid cuteness.

My plan: to wear something colorful; to place myself in the second row, or thereabouts; and to stand behind short dance-savvy children who, surely, would be in the front row. 

The plan didn't exactly go awry.

But so far, based on the still photographic mainstream media recording of the event, it didn't go as well as I wanted.

Here's what happened, courtesy of the Statesman Journal photography department, which I'm assuming allows its images to be shared under a Creative Commons license if I were to read the fine print on its web site, which, as a rogue independent blogger, naturally I'm not going to do.

My first mistake was standing way over on the left side of this photo. (I'm the tie-dyed sweatshirt gray-haired guy about three rows from the front.) I was perilously close to the sloping gutter of Chemeketa Street, which didn't help with my dance style. Camera angles also were going to be a problem.

Nonetheless, carefully cropping this photo results in a focus on...ME!

Looking good, dude. Right out of the '60s -- both the decade and the Social Security eligible age. Sadly, another S-J photo failed to capture a clear closer-up view of my "Singing in the Rain" hipness.

 

This is a great shot of my tie-dyed left arm (center right in the photo, just above the head of the cute pink-clad kid).

But my face is almost totally obscured, owing to two serious miscalculations on my part: I'd figured that the little kids in the front row would be by themselves, not accompanied by their mothers; and I assumed that photographs would be taken directly from the front, not the side. 

So even though I'd carried out my plan and positioned myself behind short kids in the front row, a rather tall adult woman interposed herself between me and the camera angle. Curses! I still went ahead and cropped the photo for my self-centered satisfaction.

Looks like I'm patting Mom on her head. Though now that I look at the photo more closely, it seems that another bare armed person also was between me and photographic fame. So double-curses!

Maybe there's a quasi-Buddhist lesson here: my most distinct appearance in a Statesman Journal photograph came when I wasn't trying at all to stand out. After "Singing in the Rain" was over, and most people had left the area, break dancers who'd been featured in the event stayed and showed off their stuff on the stage.

There I am, tied-dyed me, watching them with more than a little wide-eyed amazement. Great dancing and athleticism.

 Nice watching posture, Brian. Relaxed, calm, appreciative.

l'm looking forward to seeing the video of "Singing in the Rain." I was concentrating so much on doing the dance moves semi-correctly, I couldn't watch what was happening on the stage. If I'm visible in the video, great. 

If not? Well, it should be obvious from this blog post that I don't look upon the world as being All About Me. Just largely.

[Late night update: Statesman Journal web site now has a video up of "Singing in the Rain," a.k.a We Love Salem. Whew! I'm brightly visible, more or less, on the left side from 14 seconds to 32 seconds, after which Debra Seeck and partner do their thing. My wife and I have taken dance lessons from Debra. Nice job, D.]

[Even later update: Checking to see whether the corporate masters of the Statesman Journal would permit the Singing in the Rain video to be on You Tube, rather than just on the S-J web site, I found a video of the Salem Cypher Breakdancing Group doing their thing after performing at the event. Best of all, the camera faces tie-dyed ME! After I walk up after the first few seconds. Have a look. These guys are great.]

 

Wolf-phobic ranchers need therapy, not HB 4158

Eastern Oregon ranchers, my wife and I want to send you some healing thoughts: You don't need to suffer from your fear of wolves. Really. Breathe in...breathe out. Embrace reality. You're safe. There's no wolf at the door. Little Red Riding Hood is a fairy tale.

Unfortunately, so far the ranchers and other wolf-phobic Oregonians haven't gotten the therapy that they need. House Bill 4158 is evidence. Introduced in this month's mini-legislative session, it "allows killing of wolves to address depredation of livestock."

I guess the sponsors of the bill, which was introduced at the request of the Oregon Cattlemen's Association, were so busy locking their doors and putting in wolf-proof security systems they didn't take time to find out that the Oregon Wolf Plan already allows for killing of wolves -- but only after non-lethal preventive measures have been attempted.

Earlier this year, wolves lost federal Endangered Species Act protection via a congressional budget rider. Shortly after, Oregon Fish and Wildlife ordered the killing of two additional wolves in response to a series of livestock losses blamed on the Imnaha Pack. Following those killings, some members of the pack dispersed, leaving just four members, two of which were the target of the most recent kill order. Under the state wildlife agency’s management, Oregon’s wolf population has dropped from 21 to 14 this year due to lethal control, poaching, dispersal and the accidental death of a young female after Fish and Wildlife staff fit her with a radio collar.

Some of the groups involved in today’s lawsuit had originally supported the management plan as a compromise because it required landowners to adopt nonlethal measures before lethal control could be carried out. The groups, however, have become increasingly frustrated by the wildlife agency’s willingness to shoot wolves in response to political pressure from powerful livestock industry interests, including the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association.

As the above excerpt from an October 2011 Center for Biological Diversity press release points out, the Oregon Wolf Plan permits killing of wolves as a last resort. Which is as it should be. Wolves still are an endangered species under Oregon law. They are highly beneficial to ecosystems. 

And they barely affect the bottom-line of ranchers. 

To keep this in perspective, consider some of the stats: In 2011, wolves killed 25 cows, while 55,000 were lost to weather, disease and thieves in 2010. In the rare instances in which livestock are lost to wolves, ranchers are reimbursed at fair market value by Oregon taxpayers.

So there's no need for HB 4158. It's a solution in search of a problem. The Oregon Court of Appeals has put a stay on the planned killing of wolves, persuaded by clear-headed environmental groups that conserving wolves under the state endangered species act isn't fostered by killing them.

HB 4158, in a marvelous display of double-speak, says that notwithstanding all that endangered species stuff in state law, "the conservation of wolves in Oregon may include the killing of wolves to address the depredation of livestock by wolves."

Kill them to protect them. These ranchers sound like wife-abusers: "Honey, I'm hitting you because I love you so much."

Again, if a wolf, or wolves, can't be stopped from killing cattle after preventive measures have been seriously attempted, my understanding is that the Oregon Wolf Plan already allows for the Department of Fish and Wildlife to shoot them under special rare circumstances.

But ranchers basically want a "shoot on sight" rule. Not all, thankfully, but enough of them to cause the Oregon Cattlemen's Association to sponsor HB 4158. To them the only good wolf is a dead wolf. Well, like I said, those ranchers need to get some therapy. 

As Oregon Wild says, "Wolves have been vilified." For no good reason.

With wolves, old myths die hard and antiquated ideologies persist. It’s taken us 50 years to shift our mind-set from extermination to tenuous acceptance, and it will likely take another 50 years for Oregonians from all backgrounds to embrace the return of wolves. In the meantime, we should all remember that wolves are just another animal trying to make their home in Oregon.

Rep. Dennis Richardson, "spam king," gets mine in return

After getting several unwanted email "newsletters" from the Oregon legislature's unchallenged Spam King, Rep. Dennis Richardson, tonight I followed the Golden Rule and sent him one of my own.

Richardson used a public records request to get hundreds of thousands of personal email addresses from the state computer system. Well, give spam and you deserve to get spam. 

Here's the email message I just sent to the Spam King. Subject: "Great offer."

Rep. Richardson, thanks for sending me another of your unwanted emails. I've sent you a "DELETE" request, but wanted you to enjoy some spam email from me. Since you've chosen to send hundreds of thousands of Oregonians your own personal spam, I figure you must like getting spam emails just as much as you enjoy sending them. 

Golden Rule, you know. Do unto others…

Glad to oblige. I'd like to give you a special offer on my book, "Return to the One," which is about the teachings of an important Greek philosopher, Plotinus. You'll have to order it from Amazon at full price. Hey, you're into job creating, and this is my horribly-paid job now that I'm retired -- writing. 

However, if you mail me the book copy that you've purchased, along with a postage paid return envelope (use book rate, it's cheaper), I'll be pleased to return you a signed copy that you can proudly display in your legislative office waiting area.

I'm sure you'll enjoy the inscription: "For Dennis, the spam king. I'm so happy to be writing something to you, rather than getting more spam crap FROM you. Warm greetings, Brian."

It's been fun exchanging spam with you. Briefly. But like I said, I've asked you to take me off your Spam Mailing List, so it looks like our spam'y relationship is over. Farewell, Dennis.

            -- Brian 

HB 4095 hearing shows dysfunction of 2012 Oregon legislature

Wow. This 2012 short session of the Oregon legislature is even more screwed-up than sessions usually are. And that's saying a lot, giving the dysfunction evident in normal legislative deliberations.

This is the first even-year session, as Oregon has done away with the archaic practice of having the legislature meet every two years. A lot needs to be accomplished in 35 days, but some (translation: mostly Republicans) are doing their best to focus on pet dream bills rather than on pressing immediate priorities.

Case in point: HB 4095, which Republicans have introduced before in different guises. It's an attempt to gut Oregon's highly successful land use system, which 62% of Oregon voters supported in 2007 by saying "Yes!" to Measure 49.

Doesn't matter to Republicans, who have this bizarre notion of "two Oregon's" in their democracy-fearing minds. Meaning, statewide votes don't count, because people in the Willamette Valley have no understanding of the supposed unique specialness of what lies geographically beyond.

So HB 4095 is an attempt to carve off three southern Oregon counties, Josephine, Jackson, and Douglas, from the statewide land use system.

Republican sponsors of the bill want politicians in these counties (just nine county commissioners) to be able to redefine "farm" and "forest" land so subdivisions and shopping centers could sprout where crops and trees grow now. 

After listening online this morning to the audio stream of the House Judiciary Committee hearing on HB 4095, I'm glad I decided to stay at home rather than testifying again against the bill, as I did on Monday. It was infuriating to hear how citizens were treated by Republican legislators, and how eager these legislators were to short-circuit what should be an open, transparent, and thoughtful bill-making process.

The charade of a public hearing reminded me of the Seven Deadly Sins, albeit with different names owing to the special nature of iniquity in the 2012 Oregon Legislature. (I've only got four; got to keep this blog post halfway short.)

Disrespect. On Monday the Republican co-chair complained about how most opponents of HB 4095 lived in the Willamette Valley. Today several people came up from southern Oregon to testify against the bill, including a Douglas County farmer who informed the committee that the Douglas County Farm Bureau successfully urged the Oregon Farm Bureau to oppose this threat to family farming.

But at first the Republicans didn't want to allow anyone to testify about the bill in general. They just wanted to hear testimony on some amendments that put off implementation of the bill until 2013. "So what if people drove for hours to testify at 8 am?," they said. "We legislators have a lot to do and can't take time to hear from the public." Fortunately, wiser minds prevailed and some people (but not all) got a few minutes to testify -- universally, I'm pretty sure, in opposition to HB 4095.

Hypocrisy. One legislator threw a mini-tantrum about how, if HB 4095 made it out of this committee, it would go to the Joint Ways and Means Committee, as apparently all bills in this short session will. He probably was upset that Democrats have a 13-12 advantage over Republicans on the Ways and Means Committee.

Also, that the $600,000 price tag of this bill will look ridiculous given that proponents of HB 4095 weren't able to provide a single perusasive reason why it is needed, given that rezoning/re-mapping of farm and forest land already is permitted under existing land use laws. The legislator wanted HB 4095 to be heard by a substantive committee.

But the House Judiciary Committee shouldn't be handling land use bills either. I've been told that HB 4095 ended up here because it had a better chance of getting out of committee (this "pave it over" concept has been rejected by committees who deliberated in a full legislative session, so proponents are hoping to ram HB 4095 through in as sneaky a fashion as possible.) Live by the sneak, die by the sneak.

Duplicity. Few had seen the amended HB 4095 before arriving at the hearing. Not even most of the legislators on the House Judiciary Committee. One plaintively said, "Shouldn't we know what we're voting on?"

Amazingly co-chair Rep. Wayne Krieger (I believe it was; couldn't be sure since I only had audio to go by) told his colleague, in effect, "Don't complain. Health and education bills are being pushed through the legislature this session, and nobody knows what these bills will do either. So deal with it."

Again, wow. Other legislators are trying to ramrod bills into passage without informed deliberations, so the House Judiciary Commitee is proud to do the same.

So what if only lobbyists such as Dave Hunnicutt of Oregonians in Action get to see amendments ahead of time? (In fact, it was noted that Hunnicutt apparently wrote the amendments.) So what if environmental organizations representing the majority of Oregonians who favor protecting farm and forest land were shut out of the process? Just trust us. And the Oregon Realtors Association, which is one of the few supporters of HB 4095.

Bad vibes. Hey, I'm a child of the '60s -- both the decade and, now, my age. A woman opposed to HB 4095 testified about how her eyes had been opened to how the Oregon Legislature operates after coming to hearings this week. She was disgusted at what she saw, previously not being familiar with what goes on in the not-so-hallowed halls of the Capitol.

I know what she means. Whenever I go in there to testify at a hearing, the atmosphere feels creepy. It's a place where lobbyists, politicians, businesspeople, and other "suits" feel comfortable. Ordinary citizens don't. For good reason, because little is done to welcome them.

As noted above, at the beginning of today's hearing the Republican co-chair tried to stop people who had come a long way from testifying at all on the substance of HB 4095. Then he made an absurd mini-speech about how he was disturbed at how previous testimony had impugned the motives of bill proponents, and he didn't want to hear any more of that sort of stuff today.

Oh, gosh. Sorry, teacher. Rap my knuckles. I'll forget about free speech and the first amendment. Forgive me for exercising my right to express my opinion about a stupid, expensive, unnecessary bill aimed at doing away with Oregon's highly popular land use system.

Fortunately, people ignored him. They spoke their minds. Forcefully, respectfully, factually.

They weren't intimidated by Republican attempts to ramrod through this poor excuse for legislation. It was approved on what I think was a 6-4 vote. Hopefully the Joint Ways and Means Committee will give HB 4095 the death that it so richly deserves.

Don't base land use laws on "two Oregon's" myth

"There are two Oregon's," said Rep. Wayne Krieger (R-Gold Beach). "The Willamette Valley and everywhere else."

[Update: Glancing at the notes I took at the meeting before the paper went into recyling, I see that I jotted down "Rep. Esquivel" next to the two Oregon's mention. So, probably was him. But I'm sure Krieger endorses that notion.]

Waiting to testify on House Bill 4095 at a Judiciary Committee hearing this morning, I thought, What is he talking about? Two Oregon's? That notion is untrue and divisive.

Unfortunately, it's also an assumption that underlies a lot of bad legislative proposals, mostly initiated by Republicans who have an almost paranoid fear that people who live in the Portland Metro area or the Willamette Valley don't understand the supposedly unique needs, values, and worldview of Oregonians who live elsewhere in the state.

Again, not true. 

Quite a few fellow testifers, along with me, took issue with Rep. Krieger in the course of our three-minute-limited remarks to the committee. Several people noted how they'd lived many years in southern or eastern Oregon before moving to a rural area in the Willamette Valley.

I said that in our rural neighborhood that's about six miles from the Salem city limits, property owners opposed to a subdivision which threatened our wells and surface water didn't think of themselves as Republicans or Democrats, conservatives or progressives.

We neighbors all agreed that land use decisions should be made fairly, through an open and transparent process, using facts and the law rather than personal political views. 

Only a few people at the hearing testified in support of HB 4095. Someone representing the Oregon Association of Realtors, for one. Dave Hunnicutt of Oregonians in Action, for two. And a woman who used to farm in Josephine County.

It's a bad bill. I submitted some brilliant (in my humble opinion) written testimony which can be marveled at by clicking on the link below.
Download HB 4095 testimony Feb 2012 

In the couple of minutes I had to summarize my opposition to this attempt to allow county commissioners in three southern Oregon counties to redefine what constitutes productive farm and forest land, I focused on how unwise it would be to politicize our state's land use system.

I said, "People in our neighborhood who bought property and built homes figured that adjacent farm land wouldn't be arbitrarily rezoned by some county commissioners who ignored facts, basing their decision merely on a feeling that construction of a subdivision should be allowed."

I'm sure the same is true of most people everywhere in Oregon. We don't want politicians messing around with rezoning farm and forest land unless there's a good reason to do so. 

Short-term economic problems isn't one of those reasons. A woman opposed to HB 4095 (who farms in the Willamette Valley) spoke movingly of how, fifty years from now, we'll regret losing irreplaceable farmland through short-sighted actions today.

Others said that Southern Oregon's high unemployment isn't going to be solved by allowing developers to pave over farm and forest land. I'm pretty sure Jackson, Josephine, and Douglas counties aren't running out of homesites, small acreages, and industrial land. People need jobs; taking farm and forest land out of production will be a step backward in this regard.

State law, via 2009's HB 2229, already allows counties to re-map inaccurately designated farm and forest lands. Meaning, if a parcel isn't truly suitable for farming or timber production, its designation can be changed.

Oregon's land use goals allow for a lot of flexibility. In 2007 over 60% of Oregon voters affirmed their desire to preserve farm and forest lands through their passage of Measure 49. As someone testifying in opposition to HB 4095 said, these are "industrial" lands -- job-creating and income-producing.

But the proponents of HB 4095 want clusters of counties to be able to come up with their own definitions of farm and forest land. Huh? I don't get it. 

Do crops and trees grow under different biological rules in southern Oregon? Are the laws of nature somehow different there? Again, Oregon's land use laws already allow for considerable flexibility, based on geography, soil types, and such.

Opponents of our state's highly successful efforts to preserve "resource" (farm/forest) lands and keep cities from needlessly sprawling onto them want to dismantle our land use laws. HB 4095 is a step in that direction.

Hopefully it will be voted down by people who reject the notion of "two Oregon's."

If you live in Oregon and want to express your opposition to HB 4095, 1000 Friends of Oregon explains how to do this:

Why 1000 Friends opposes this bill: HB 4095 could allow sprawling subdivisions on lands that have been in continuous farm or forest use for generations. This bill would, for example, allow LCDC to craft a definition of agricultural and forest lands that would allow counties to redesignate all lands near highways and urban growth boundaries (UGB) as "non-resource," even if they are still in active production.

Since most Oregon cities are located amid the state's most productive resource lands, protecting farmland around them is a fundamental mission of Oregon's land use program.  Increased uncertainty for farm operators near UGBs will cause them to decrease investments in their lands, bringing valuable agriculture land out of production and making farming even more difficult for their neighbors. Furthermore, taking farms and forest lands out of production will cost Oregon jobs.

The bill would also add unnecessary complexity to the land use program. If Southern Oregon counties require a new definition of agricultural and forest lands specifically reflecting the usability of such lands for resource uses, current law provides the means to do so. Also, re-mapping of lands that do not meet the definition of agricultural land or forest land is already possible under HB 2229, passed by the Legislature in 2009. However, no county has taken advantage of that authorization. This bill is not only bad policy, it is simply unnecessary.

Status: The House Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing on this bill at 8:00am Monday, February 6.  Please contact the co-chairs of this Committee and your own legislator to tell them you oppose this bill. You can reach co-chair Rep. Jeff Barker at 503-986-1428 or [email protected], and Co-Chair Rep. Wayne Krieger at 503-986-1401 or [email protected]. You can find your own legislator's contact info on this page.

Wanted: dog just like ours, but much younger

My wife wants to get another dog, even though our current canine companion, Serena, is still very much alive at the age of twelve -- though admittedly slowing down. (But isn't that to be expected given that she's 80+ in dog years?)

Recently Serena helped me survive the Great Salem Snow-pocalypse of 2012, so I feel a lot of loyalty toward her. Plus, I believe in the adage that worked great during my child (singular)-raising years: don't allow you and your spouse to be out-numbered.

One little child, two large parents. That's a fair fight. Yet even then the kid often wins. Same deal with dogs, in my opinion. Let two or more of them into your house, and they'll form a pack. The humans are doomed. Whatever they want, they'll get.

Which admittedly, describes my Omega dominance position with both my only-child daughter and our current only-dog; but I imagine how much more Omega'y I'd have been with multiple children and dogs putting me in my place.

However, my wife sees things differently.

She's more canine-savvy than I am. Laurel sees benefits in getting a much younger dog while Old Dog is still alive -- sort of like the Big Love polygamous philosophy where a cuter, more attractive young thing comes into the household as a "sister wife" and learns how to handle herself from Senior Wife.

So Laurel has been dog-shopping both on the Internet and during her volunteer stints at the Willamette Humane Society here in Salem. Given how much my wife likes dogs, this is akin to an alcoholic volunteering to make whiskey at a Jack Daniels plant; in each case, there's going to be a huge desire to bring some stuff home.

A few days ago, a dog at the Florence Humane Society caught her online eye.

When Laurel asked me what I thought about Ginger, I resorted to thinly-disguised irony in an attempt to delay the introduction of another dog into our household.

"That dog doesn't look like a Shepherd/mix to me. I think it's almost purebred pit bull. Ginger is a killer, no doubt about it. We'll have our throats crushed by that animal if we bring it home, for sure."

Didn't work. Laurel persevered, asking if I wanted to go with her to Florence to see the dog. More irony sprang to mind.

"Florence? Isn't that way down on the coast, near the California border? Sure, I'll go with you. I haven't seen the redwoods for a long time. And maybe we could make a side trip to San Francisco, since we'll be in the neighborhood."

Laurel, though, irritatingly resorted to facts, pointing out that Florence was almost due west of Eugene, just a two hours drive or so from our house. Reluctantly, after firing up Google Maps, I had to admit that she had a point. 

So today we drove to Florence to see Ginger, carting along a fold-up dog crate in the event we decided to bring Sister Dog #2 home. Serena, Senior Dog, came along, since we wanted to check out how she'd get along with Ginger.

As it turned out, not so well.

Ginger wasn't mean or aggressive, just barkingly fearful. Laurel and I appreciated all the time the Florence Humane Society staff spent with us in an outside dog yard as we did our best to begin to bond with Ginger. 

The conclusion: Ginger would be high maintenance for whoever adopts her. She's got a lot of potential. Problem is, poor "parenting" by her previous owner(s) has caused her to not trust people. Ginger is high-strung and a barker. We could give her a few occasional pats, but treats were the only reliable way we could get her to come close to us.

Plus, it sure looks like I was sort of right: Ginger isn't a Shepherd mix, so far as Laurel and I could tell. She has much more of a Great Dane'ish appearance.

We came home without Ginger. Serena, our aging Wonder Dog (here she is, much more youthful), was calm, cool, and collected with frenetic Ginger, leading us to think "We need a younger version of the dog we already have."

So we'll keep looking for Shepherd/Lab mixes with a beautiful look and a great personality. Or similar sorts of dogs. Hopefully Ginger will be adopted soon. She'll be a terrific pet for someone who's willing to put some time and effort into relieving her fearfulness.

And Ginger does have a semi-German Shepherd/mix'ish look at times. This was one of her calmer moments.

Shame! Komen for the Cure politicizes cancer

The Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation's outrageous decision to stop funding Planned Parenthood's breast cancer screening efforts is a case study in disastrous public relations. Overnight, Komen for the Cure went from "great public-spirited organization" to "handmaiden of right-wing crazies" in the minds of countless Americans.

Like me.

Until the Planned Parenthood defunding hit the Internet airwaves, I hadn't paid much attention to Komen for the Cure. A couple of times a year I'd see a positive story on the evening news about women (and some men) dressed in pink running together to raise funds and publicize the fight against breast cancer.

I'd think "What's not to like?" Now, I'm furious at Komen for the Cure. I've emailed them directly.

My wife and I will never donate to your organization again, and we will urge other families who have suffered breast cancer deaths to do the same. (My wife's sister recently died.) Your stand against Planned Parenthood is absurdly political, given how PP is dedicated to breast cancer screening. Shame on you. We'll now contribute in my wife's sister's name to Planned Parenthood. Why don't you just become an arm of the Republican Party, as one of your top executives apparently is?

I've also signed on to several organized email efforts aimed at pressuring Komen for the Cure to reverse their jihad against Planned Parenthood, including the Daily Kos campaign. Watching a self-serving, utterly unbelievable video explanation by the Komen founder and CEO didn't make me feel any better about the organization.

It just showed that in addition to Komen for the Cure being a tool of rabid Planned Parenthood haters, Nancy Brinker and other top leaders can't be trusted to tell the truth.

They're trying to claim that the decision to defund Planned Parenthood had nothing to do with pressure from right-to-life groups. That's B.S. A story in the Atlantic describes how a Komen official resigned after she learned about the planned cave-in to political pressure.

The decision to create a rule that would cut funding to Planned Parenthood, according to these sources, was driven by the organization's new senior vice president for public policy, Karen Handel, a former gubernatorial candidate from Georgia who is staunchly anti-abortion and who has said that since she is "pro-life, I do not support the mission of Planned Parenthood." (The Komen grants to Planned Parenthood did not pay for abortion or contraception services, only cancer detection, according to all parties involved.) 

...The decision, made in December, caused an uproar inside Komen. Three sources told me that the organization's top public-health official, Mollie Williams, resigned in protest immediately following the Komen board's decision to cut off Planned Parenthood. Williams, who served as the managing director of community-health programs, was responsible for directing the distribution of $93 million in annual grants. Williams declined to comment when I reached her yesterday on whether she had resigned her position in protest, and she declined to speak about any other aspects of the controversy.

But John Hammarley, who until recently served as Komen's senior communications adviser and who was charged with managing the public-relations aspects of Komen's Planned Parenthood grant, said that Williams believed she could not honorably serve in her position once Komen had caved to pressure from the anti-abortion right. "Mollie is one of the most highly respected and ethical people inside the organization, and she felt she couldn't continue under these conditions," Hammarley said. "The Komen board of directors are very politically savvy folks, and I think over time they thought if they gave in to the very aggressive propaganda machine of the anti-abortion groups, that the issue would go away. It seemed very shortsighted to me."

Well, the Komen board should fire themselves, along with Handel, Brinker, and everyone else who knowingly wrecked the Komen for the Cure "brand" in the name of anti-abortion insanity.

Insanity, because everybody agrees breast cancer is a bad thing. Planned Parenthood, though, is popular. Only 2-3% of visits to Planned Parenthood clinics are abortion related. So Komen for the Cure has thrown away a lot of good will. Now, every time I see a pink ribbon or other Komen symbol, I'll think "American Taliban." 

Abortion is legal. The Supreme Court has ruled that it is a constitutional right. Nonetheless, federal funds aren't used for abortions. And none of the Koben for the Cure funds which went to Planned Parenthood paid for abortions. They were used to prevent breast cancer.

But rabid religious right-wingers, who I like to call our American Taliban, are fanatics. They don't want anyone to give any money to Planned Parenthood, because since they mistakenly consider abortion to be an evil, everything that Planned Parenthood does is wicked according to their twisted fundamentalist minds.

Hopefully corporations which have been supporting Komen for the Cure will realize that pink is no longer a feel-good color. 

Check out list after list after list of Komen’s corporate sponsors. Do you think New Balance, Ford and Georgia-Pacific signed on for a public fight over Planned Parenthood? When Yoplait put a pink lid on its yogurt, did they do it to make it easier to boycott their products? Because that’s what’s going to happen. Unlike most boycotts, it’s easy to figure out which products you shouldn’t buy: anything that displays a pink ribbon with the Komen name.

(John and ABL have already posted about this if you’re wondering what I’m talking about.)

The backlash has begun.

And I think it'll keep on lashing. "A Painful Betrayal" tells it like it is. Komen for the Cure has stimulated a huge amount of utterly justified outrage. If Komen doesn't reverse itself, soon, the foundation is going to end up being a shadow of its former self.

Which would be unfortunate, because cancer is the enemy, not Planned Parenthood.