Clatsop County Matters

Time Out

2011-01-24T06:00:00.000-08:00

One of the missions of the Carton Family is community building. I intend to take the first step and demand some sanity. It is so easy to form an opinion and stick to it. This site among other local sites have taken their respective high grounds, planted their flags and fought tooth and nail for what they believe is right, shooting across the bows of the opposition. Editorial pot-shots are fun to write, but with every form of media taking pot-shots we find it is the public is caught in the crossfire. Nothing good comes from it, ever.

After the shooting in Arizona the nation seems to demand an end to the overly zealous rhetoric. I agree and see a desperate need for some calming on a local level. The Daily Astorian, Hipfish and North Coast Oregon are all guilty of fueling this flame and it is time they all step back, take a breath, calm down and become responsible sources for news that is reported objectively without bias. May the best outlet succeed and reap the rewards of satisfied readers and advertisers. Better yet, may they all succeed providing an atmosphere of objectivity.

There has been a lot of polarization over candidates past and present; those who have been in office and removed from office justly, or unjustly. It is history and it must be placed on a shelf and we need to move ahead.

We have new County Commissioners that have been elected by a majority of the citizens. If they have their own agendas, fine. Most voters were aware of their baggage and voted for them maybe because of their baggage and maybe just for “change.” Future history will expose them as heroes or villains of our time. They need the opportunity to fail or succeed on their own merits and accomplishments. It isn’t fair for the media to prop them up or tear them down, yet. If these elected servants do well they will get the chance to seek subsequent terms. If not they may be shunned or worse yet, recalled by the voters.

This is not a promotion of complacency, but rather one of understanding, compassion, fairness and perhaps forgiveness. We all need a fresh perspective and a fresh start. This becomes more of a task for everyone. If the people demand it, the media outlets will take notice and adapt their editorial platforms into one based in respect and tolerance for all opinions while raising the bar on objective and fair journalism.

Welcome 2011 - The Year of the Fly?

2011-01-18T23:31:00.000-08:00

We hear a new batch of larvae are about to hatch and just in time for the next batch of excrement to be shoveled by the new "transparent" board of county commissioners. 2011 should be a very interesting year.

Clatsop Co's Darkest Day Since 1980: Voter Apathy

2010-05-18T23:00:00.000-07:00

The Day The County Died

THEY CAME FIRST for the Industrialists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't an Industrialist.

THEN THEY CAME for the Loggers,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Logger.

THEN THEY CAME for the Gill Netters,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Gill Netter.

THEN THEY CAME for the Dairy Farmers,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Dairy Farmer.

THEN THEY CAME for the Longshoremen,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Longshoreman.

THEN THEY CAME for the land owners,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a land owner.

THEN THEY CAME for the business owners,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a business owner.

THEN THEY CAME for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up.

Transparency For All? AKA: What is the Daily Astorian hiding now?

2010-05-12T05:00:00.000-07:00

Another opportunity for Clatsop County citizens to show their political savvy and flout the self serving advice dripping from the jowls of the Astorian's arrogant editors has descended on us with the upcoming elections. Ballots are due May 18th, and while the Cartons have remained politically silent for quite a while now, it has come to our attention that a movement is afoot that we should bring to our fellow Dried Salmon County inhabitants' attention.

Many people have taken to the habit of writing in names of various Disney characters, or an in-law they have no particular love for, in opposition to someone they perceive as a shady character on a ballot. The problem with doing this is that no one sees the clever name that has been penned in except a tired ballot counter who has seen it all and no longer finds any amusement in it.

You want to truly hurt someone who is running unopposed? Don't vote for ANYONE, do NOT write in anyone, especially in the primaries when they have to run again in the regular elections in November. This is called an UNDERVOTE. If the UNDERVOTES are anywhere close to the number that actually vote for the person running unopposed it is HUMILIATING for that person. It tells their party that they are not bankable. It also tells others that they can run a successful write-in campaign against the person and that the person's political party isn't going to expend any money on him keep him in his seat.

So, say, for instance, a certain district attorney was perceived as being selfish, self serving, egotistical, criminally inclined, ethically challenged, vengeance bound, neurotic and bent on destroying all those who have ever opposed him on any issue thereby making it difficult to find anyone to run against him. One way to show that the public was done with a tyrant like this would be to give the public the knowledge of the UNDERVOTE.

It would be clearly understood that with a good showing of the UNDERVOTE a certain group of people would take that tally and be able to convince an attorney (even one from another area of Oregon) that beating such a publicly reviled creature is doable and there is monetary backing for such a venture.

Not that the Cartons are advocating that each person reading now, print this out and share with all your friends and neighbors this information, imploring them to leave the box next to the district attorney blank. We are not politically inclined these days. We are not advocating that you tell everyone to do this immediately, before it is too late and they waste their ballot.

Nor do we wish to remind everyone that the three one-trick-ponies, running against incumbent commissioners, who no longer have LNG to oppose, meet together often with Taylor and "chain" it all the way to Hood River, getting their marching orders for our area from people far removed from us and what profits those of us who have families and need wages here and now.

Far be it from us to remind everyone that while perhaps Bradwood may have left a $180,000 bill behind it was the groups these three come from who chased them away with what is finally being investigated as illegal activities by, so far: the IRS, the Oregon State Bar and the Marion County District Attorney's office.

And far be it from us to remind everyone that while there may be a small bill left behind 1) The commissioners have little to do with the day to day operations of running the county, bills collected and paid are the Manager's and Planning department's headache. Ask Ed Wagner why he allowed the bill to go so high 2) We still are waaaay ahead of 33 other counties in the state of Oregon in terms of being in the black rather than the red and that is due entirely to the practices set in place by the Commissioners four years ago.

The grapevine says the red team will be gathering their herd of retirees, trust fund babies and ssi disability retainers to attack the County Commission meeting on Wednesday morning while all the rest of us are at work. We don't see how the working class can be expected to take an early lunch at 10 am to get to the meeting and make our voices heard.

There is the option of writing a note telling the BOCC how we feel about the illegal maneuvers used to oust Bradwood out of the permitting process and asking if any of the three contenders or Rohne knew of Foster's involvement. Were they present at any meeting with political overtones where this state employee (Foster) was present? All four say they are all about OPEN TRANSPARENCY! Depending on how they avoid the question will show how they will avoid transparency once they are in office.

When emailing the BOCC with our letters, sending a copy of it to KAST, NorthCoastOregon, the Seaside Signal, Canon Beach Gazette, and the Daily Astorian is also something that we do not want to be accused of encouraging everyone to do.

So, in brief, the Cartons are still staying pretty quiet on the political front. We are not advocating for anything. Not us saying that you should UNDERVOTE in regards to the District Attorney, nor question Dirk Rohne, Scott Lee, Peter Huhtala, or Debra Birkby about how much they knew regarding Brent Foster's activities last year, nor email any media outlet to share your outrage. And definitely don't print this blog page out and share it with your neighbors, co-workers, family, friends, or plaster the town and coffee houses with it.

Clatsop County BOCC administrator@co.clatsop.or.us
Dirk Rohne drohne@co.clatsop.or.us
Scott Lee Scottleecommissioner@gmail.com
Peter Huhtala peterhuhtala@gmail.com
Debra Birkby birkby@charter.net
John Dunzer johndunzer@msn.com
KAST News Director Michael Desmond michael.desmond@nnbproduction.com
Seaside Signal Editor signaleditor@seasidesignal.com
NorthCoastOregon.com Editor editor@northcoastoregon.com
Cannon Beach Gazette news@cannonbeachgazette.com
Daily Astorian Editor editor@dailyastorian.com

The Misogyne of Steve Forrester

2009-10-30T04:45:00.000-07:00

It appears that ever since the death of his mother, Eleanor Aldrich Forrester, the editor and publisher of Clatsop County's one and only daily hard copy has run editorials and news stories degrading strong women in politics. Weak, ineffectual women earn his praises, in a paternal sort of way, but the strong willed, self-driven women continue to be debased and destroyed in his editorials and news articles.

The smear campaigns Forrester has led against Ann Samuelson adds one more woman to the bedpost above his desk. Like the college boys of old time frat houses, competing in acquiring the most trophies to show their power over the "lessor" sex, Forrester mops the floor with the lives of the women who appear to have more power than he will ever wield. Both Forrester and fhe old time frats use their weakest, and most unbending, member to thrust the most degrading acts they can fathom on those they consider impotent to stop them.

Now that he has finished raping the integrity of Ann Samuelson Forrester will set his phallic pen once again on Commissioner Roberts. Although men, too, sat on the NOAH board and it was in trouble before Roberts, as liaison from the County board, volunteered to serve on it, Forrester will train all of his venom and misplaced oedipal tendencies on Roberts.

It is sad to see the hatred this man apparently had for his mother played out in the public arena. And hatred it must be. One can only imagine how it felt to be out shined by a mother with the journalistic talent, innate abilities and focused drive of Eleanor Forrester. To be reigned in, corrected and edited, continuously, by her must have been a burning gall that, with her death, raged loose to match any tsunami that has ever hit this coast.

While it is with pity we watch a man embroiled in his own need for revenge lash out at the living , perhaps for the imagined acts of a departed mother, as a community we cannot and should not tolerate it.

Obviously, no one is left at the East Oregonian to reign in this man for his own good. For the good of the community its leaders must say "Enough is Enough!" We have lost too many fine women from public service. Too few are left in public office to allow the blatant smear campaigns to continue. The only thing that Forrester will understand is money. Cancel and refuse to advertise until he gets the psychological help he needs and the newspaper is no longer a tool used by a sick man bent on striking out, especially at a woman already dead.

16 comments:

Anonymous said...: She was an amazing woman, you would think that a grown man would celebrate having a mother like her...be proud...instead of what he does...and he has a friend that does the same...this post is incredibly well done, hard to read because of the emotions it emits, but well done.; October 30, 2009 6:38:00 AM PDT
Anonymous said...: You may have a point.
He endorsed Richard Lee over Cindy Price.; October 30, 2009 7:41:00 AM PDT
Anonymous said...: I just wish that more people would see this post - I know that I will definitely be linking to it everywhere I blog, and I hope everyone else will too! I cancelled my subscription to the Daily Astorian last year when I just couldn't stand his lies and made up news any longer, and I've encouraged many of my business friends to cease their advertising.

Money really IS all he cares about - and I sincerely think that especially in this last year, the man has lost a few marbles.; October 30, 2009 9:06:00 AM PDT
Anonymous said...: He certainly has squandered the reservoir of goodwill built up by his predecessors.; October 30, 2009 9:57:00 AM PDT
Anonymous said...: And let's not forget his comrad, Josh Marquis.; October 30, 2009 10:20:00 AM PDT
Anonymous said...: The editor does favor Marquis . I would love to see Marquis leave our County, but I feel for the people of Oregon. Our County has been worse off since he has been here, ask your neighbors or read "The smoking gun"!; October 30, 2009 3:42:00 PM PDT
Paul said...: Yes, he does. And now it makes sense as to why he endorsed Lee for the commissioner seat only to immediately turn on him. Forrester just couldn't bring himself to endorse as strong willed of person as Cindy Price. Since he owed Marquis, big time, for not endorsing his wife, he paid him back by then going after Lee with both barrels. Sick man, that's for sure.; October 30, 2009 7:36:00 PM PDT
Anonymous said...: Could it be that Marquis sort'a used some leverage to lean on Forrester--some sort'a blackmail to get Stevearino to play ball? Being Marquis is the top cop in the county, he wouldn't have any trouble digging up some dirt on anyone. That's Marquis style-playing dirty to get what he wants.; October 30, 2009 8:01:00 PM PDT
Anonymous said...: Isn't freedom of the press wonderful?; October 30, 2009 10:07:00 PM PDT
Anonymous said...: Yes, freedom of the press is a wonderful thing, except when one uses it to make up news...in order to sway a vote, for example. Making up the news against a county commissioner.

Forrester should be brought up on ethics charges by whatever board oversees the press...he's a horrible, horrible man; October 30, 2009 10:25:00 PM PDT
Anonymous said...: Steve Forrester: Minister Of Disinformation.; October 31, 2009 7:46:00 AM PDT
Anonymous said...: Steve Forrester: Minister Of Disinformation.; October 31, 2009 7:46:00 AM PDT
Anonymous said...: My take, Marquis loves the media, he knows the best way to go over the head of everybody else is to milk the media and as someone said and I paraphrase, Josh Marquis would walk over a bed of hot coals barefoot to get to a reporter with a camera and a microphone. In Clatsop county the Daily Astorian is the main media source. It's so much easier to prosecute someone in the press in this situation. Josh and Steve may not be two peas in a pod but put them together with a few political stratigerists who think they have something to gain.remember Josh did indicate in an email that he would teach the commissioners who voted to withhold his stipend a lesson. All that could equal big time shenanigans. -That and a $1.75 will get you a cup of coffee most places.; October 31, 2009 8:43:00 AM PDT
Anonymous said...: Anonymous said...
And let's not forget his comrad, Josh Marquis.

In the sometimes glorified Hollywoodized history of incoruptible District Attorneys committed to cleaning up a city of organized or rampant crime, a crusading fearless newspaper editor is often portrayed as the crime fighter's closest ally in rallying to rid society of its least desirable elements. What it seems we have here now, is quite the opposite. The District Attorney and the newspaper editor are the undesirable elements-joining forces to decieve the public with their lies and underhanded tactics to smear honest people, cause polarization among the people and create havoc in local government by sowing the seeds of mistrust and despair. To create a political and social climate of fear based on inimidation and greed. This marriage of Marquis and Forrester is detestable and evil. As long as we let it continue there will be no harmony or prosperity in our beloved county-only fear and chaos created by these men for their own selfish gains who care not for justice nor good will. It's time for the good people of the county to do something.; October 31, 2009 9:01:00 AM PDT
Anonymous said...: I looked back and Marquis said the KKK incident / editorial on Samuelson was "political"...so what does he do as our DA? protect us, or prosecute and hold accountable those that are really hurting our community, or play politics with the lives of those who have given to make this community a better place? I'd say after watching this last work of he and Forrester and their helpers he hurts much more than he helps.; October 31, 2009 11:13:00 AM PDT
Anonymous said...: And Josh Marquis actually THOUGHT he had what it takes to be a US Atty? That's rich. Josh's cohort, Forrester, is a sad, petty, mean little man with an embarrassing yet wildly evident "big fish, small peni$" complex. I guess they both are.

But let's also give a WTH to the Clatsop County "Dems." Let's give chair Larry Taylor and his bump-stumbling chowderhead followers a big hand for trying to toss a DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED FEMALE COMMISSIONER. Got something against women in office in Clatsop or no?

It would all be laughable if the colossal waste of money didn't make it border-line criminal1; October 31, 2009 2:24:00 PM PDT
Anonymous said...: Marquis didn't care that he was taking County money and refusing to account for it, as asked. USA does performance based budgeting. Wonder how Marquis got through the interview process on how he would manage the US attorney office w/o doing transparent performance based budgeting?
Marquis doesn't care about costing Clatsop Co a ton of money with his special ballot to get himself a clatsop co taxpayer financed fat salary package based on a judge's salary! Judge's total salary packages now $186,000+ marquis wanted, what, 90%? State only pays him $87,000 and the county tax payers would have to pay close to another $80,000 to make up the difference!
Marquis said he would take each of the commissioners who voted to make him accountable for his stipend down and when the electors in the county voted against his pay raise he vowed to make us pay as well. He will not stop until he has cost us all of the money he thinks we owe him.
The FACT that Wyden recommended him for the US Attorney job shows what Wyden thinks of people who use their office for revenge and political gain. Its A-OKAY! If Obama appoints him, it shows Obama thinks the same.; October 31, 2009 10:59:00 PM PDT

Liar, liar, community on fire

2009-10-26T04:30:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow evening a little over 8,000 voters make a decision for the rest of the county. Two commissioners who have committed no crime are in an election for a recall.

What are they charged with? The main complaint: "Not listening to the majority of their constituents" based on a broad, interpretive, statistical, reading of last year's referendum on a land use decision. The County Board voted 4-1 on a conditional land use decision permitting a pipeline to cross an acre of a private landowner's property that had been zoned OPR, which previously didn't permit pipelines.

Clatsop County's land use law permits pipelines through wetlands, through forests, through farmlands, but does not mention (or didn't until last year) OPR lands. Based on the fact that pipelines were allowed, conditionally, through such fragile systems as wetlands, the Board felt that conditionally allowing it through any other lands would be acceptable. The key word in this is "conditional".

Those opposing LNG howled. It is completely fine that they howled their disagreement. Disagreement is acceptable, it is even needed in order to maintain a balanced society. What isn't fine, what isn't balanced, is when lies are told that damage communities.

The lies started with telling people that pipelines could and would be put in parks where children played and people camped. Allowing conditional permits in certain zones would not allow that, and the person orchestrating the campaign knew it well enough since he had sat on the planning commission and currently sits on the recreational lands board. Auerbach's deliberate lies earn him nothing but disdain in the eyes of any honorable person in this debate.

They continued to lie to the voters by telling them that the issue had nothing to do with the Bradwood Project nor would it have any impact on the project adding, "Even people for LNG are against pipelines in parks." Within 10 days of the referendum being defeated Columbia Riverkeepers was writing to Federal and State departments demanding that the project be shut down because of the referendum vote, stating that the project would have to be altered now that an alternative pipeline route would have to be found. They wanted the permitting process to completely start over.

They lied to the voters when LUBA returned its decision. They promised voters that the Board was committing illegal or unethical acts in approving multiple land use decisions for the property owner's development. Columbia Riverkeepers challenged 23 of the decisions, another entity challenged 8 decisions for a total of 31 decisions that were asked to be overturned. On the day LUBA made its decision, upholding 29 of the decisions in favor of the Board, these people published a press release stating they had won and LUBA had overturned the Board's land use decision! A blatant lie. The newspaper refused to publish the truth that LUBA had merely remanded two decisions. A remand is for clarification. 50,000 pages of documentation had been done over a four year process and these people continue to say that the process was rushed through and decisions made were sloppy and without due process. Lies.

They continue to lie when they tell people that 67% of the county is against LNG, or even when they say 67% of the voters are against it. In reality, barely 39% of the voting population cast a ballot against the referendum and many of them thought it was merely about pipelines in parks, just as was shoved at them.

What makes these liars truly despicable is the total disregard they have for their fellow citizens. It would be different if these people were to give the voter the truth so that they could make up their own minds as to whether or not they want to sacrifice their money, their livelihoods, or their homes for the ideals that these people hold, but they don't give them that choice to freely make.

If the voter wants to pay higher prices for energy (and all that energy provides), now, in the hopes that everyone, including the renewables themselves, are wrong and that solar, wind and wave is a mere five years away (instead of a minimum 15 years for a mere 15% -or less- of the energy needs, as predicted) then that should be their choice. All of our choice. They should know the truth. We all deserve the truth. LNG isn't dangerous, dangerous pipelines will never be placed in children's playgrounds. Simply, in some people's opinions using LNG will delay people investing in renewable energy development.

But these people parading in red, wearing fish on their heads and shaking green signs have little respect for the intelligence of the average voter. They have been taught in their seminars that the average voter is too stupid to understand the "implications" of each land use decision. Too ignorant to comprehend the long term effect of a "bridge" to renewable energy. That the only way to make them understand is through emotion and the strongest emotion to hit them with at the ballot box is fear. Through fear mongering they want to pressure investors to pour money into renewable energy technology. They want their way and the end justifies the means.

If that is true then what the "average" voter should fear in this election is proving to these people that they are right. If these two commissioners are recalled these people will be coming for Warrenton City Council next and after that the Port. With each entity they will use fear and intimidation and pretty soon one group of people will be completely satisfied with life in Clatsop County. A fraction of 39% will be living the life they knew they could, they knew they deserved, when they moved here.

And the rest of us will be serving them.

Monday morning breaks with the knowledge that 8,403 people decide the fate of Clatsop County, tomorrow, whether they voted or not. More in this election then at any other time in the history of Clatsop County, every vote counts. Don't throw that ballot in the garbage. If you live in District 1 or 5 and go to work on Wednesday, don't be the one that says you didn't care to vote. This one IS relying on you. In last year's November elections two people won with a difference of under 5 votes. Think about it. Scrape the potato peelings off the ballot, slip it into an envelope (or go down to the election office at 820 Exchange St for a new one) and vote.

Der Kampf In Klatsop

2009-09-09T04:00:00.000-07:00

Ludwig Richter – Fight with the Dragon

While many are defined by what they support, there are a few that are known, almost exclusively, by what they oppose.

Fascist: noun, defined by what s/he opposes, namely individualism, rationalism, capitalism, criticism and conservatism.

Opposes: corporations, industries, individual endeavor.

Supports: significant government control over business, labor, media, individual liberties.

Strives for: the common good, the greater good, as defined by them.

Watching it in action: on the steps of public building and in the classroom, where Fascists accost one and all with a litany of lies, speaking to press they can control, savagely attacking opposing ideas.

When in the middle of a "war" the theory is to make the "other" subhuman. By doing so it becomes "okay" to viciously attack those who are not as "human" as you are. After all, they "deserve" to be attacked, they aren't human.

Fascists are humans. They do not deserve to be viciously attacked. They deserve to be identified. The public deserves to be fully informed and deserves to know information is being kept from them. No allusions to conspiracies, nor vague hints of scandal or gossip. Proof of actual information illegally kept from the public eye.

One local paper has done its utmost to turn public servants into subhumans, leading the charge of allusions. It is okay to viciously attack public servants at any level because, after all, they are not really human. It is okay to allude to a vague something, fill in the blank spots with whatever heinous crime a public official may have ever committed, because they aren't like you and I. They aren't really "human".

With a dearth of evidence "shenanigans" is repeatedly screeched across headlines and in news stories. Retracted later, small print, page 15. Fascist point made, who reads page 15?

Don't fascist support government? Why are they attacking these people? Fascist love only their own. All else must be destroyed or controlled. This is for the common good, the greater good. The good that only they have the capacity to understand and through their leadership it will save us all.

Saved to live in their world. Heaven or hell? No worries, Fascists will also tell you how you should feel about it.

It IS shenanigans!

2009-08-24T04:15:00.000-07:00

The second favorite word in the handbook of Daily Astorian typesetters, right behind "grassroots" as many can attest, is shenanigans. Everyone, according to the paper, is up to shenanigans, and the word must be used in a minimum of a half dozen stories a day.

It is a convenient word, since to most it just means "up to something" and after all, isn't everyone "up to something"? Doesn't news sell better if the reader gets the inside on what those "shenanigans" are? Does it matter to anyone that the shenanigans usually end up being nothing? Is there a breaking point when people say, "enough" and is the paper prodding until that point is found?

Amusingly, earlier this summer the self-righteous editor of the paper wrote an editorial criticizing people who turn to blogs for their news. According to Webb, bloggers don't have fact checkers, such as himself, to hold accountable for the content of what they publish.

Hold themselves accountable? Fact checker? Shenanigans!!! Does he recall that word? A word that his reporter, in his newspaper, supposedly quoted one Eric Schmidt of saying in reference to our board of county commissioners. A word Eric Schmidt, with the Association of Oregon Counties, vehemently denied using and which the Daily Astorian, finally and with great reluctance, buried a retraction deep on a back page. Maybe those aren't the kind of "facts" Webb bothers himself with.

Does his boss do any better? According to a port commissioner Forrester supposedly found out, through his reliable sources and connections, that NOAA would never leave Seattle and that the port should quit throwing good money down the drain chasing a pipe dream.

Relying on the newspaperman's expertise for digging up the "truth" doing his homework and all his "fact checking" CEDR recommended to the port to back off going after the NOAA contract. After sinking $35,000 or so in consultant fees to get the project off the ground the port dropped the idea of bringing the NOAA fleet to Astoria, how can you fight with reason? If NOAA will never leave the taxpayer is going to be plenty pissed at seeing all that money spent.

And then the contract goes to Newport! Opportunity sails right past the mouth of the Columbia River, once again. Now where's the shout of SHENANIGANS? Oh the paper shouts it! Shenanigans, look over there! It was the county board that lost the NOAA deal, and mostly just the commissioners who are looking at a recall. Shenanigans! Look over there at NOHA and lets blame that on a commissioner! Shenanigans! One of the commissioners is challenging the petitioners on her recall. Oh, damn, they can only get a picture of her sitting on a bench and talking to people when they come up to her.

BUT WHERE'S THE REAL SHENANIGANS??? Where's the headlines of SHENANIGANS when a newspaper editor and publisher lies to keep a fleet out of the town, in fear that it might bring in another daily paper? Where's the headlines of SHENANIGANS when the same man continues to lie to his readers to keep out any industry that may allow the area to grow and prosper?

Can one man be so petty and small to keep a region destitute solely so he can maintain his own sense power? Maybe, for once, his shenanigans have gone too far and given the choice of his paper of lies or no paper at all people will choose: no news is good news.

Sheriff Bergin to Arrest District Attorney Marquis according to Daily Astorian

2009-02-09T04:00:00.000-08:00

That is, according to the Daily Astorian anyone who is doing something illegal can suffer legal sanctions, no one is above the law and if a district attorney is doing something illegal he can expect to be arrested by a sheriff in any county, even Clatsop.

So what if the rest of the story isn’t as interesting as the headline, it got people to stop, take a look, read the article and maybe slap down seventy-five cents for the paper. At least, that is what the Daily Astorian is betting on. While its stories have little content and can only win an award if running against its sister newspapers in competitions that its owner contributes monetarily to, the Daily A can boast of its superfluous headlines, causing one to look twice and even give it a hard third blink before a slow wag of the head shakes off the incredulous realization that the editors are once again trying to pass off their words as a full blown “news” story.

Kroger says LNG can be stopped … if the company transporting it does something illegal. That's it. A big, "Do you think?" to the Daily Astorian and a logical conclusion that one would think that Kroger’s argument is pretty weak as he goes in front of the Ninth Circuit Court. One would think Kroger would say something like going through the Ninth Circuit would delay the construction which could put the Bradwood project in a permanent downward spin, investors dropping out. But Kroger didn’t say anything like that. Wonder why?

Sidebar: Could be that going to the Ninth Circuit doesn’t stop anything. Appealing the FERC permit doesn’t stop Bradwood. The permit stands as granted until the end of the trial. The time line for appeals is notoriously long. In Raich vs Ashcroft, Raich appealed in March 2003. While the Ninth Circuit had a decision by December of 2003 their decision was appealed, first for reconsideration and then to the Supreme Court with a decision in July 2005.

How many headlines do you think the Daily A can pull out of a long recess like that? Kroger takes on USA? Kroger fights the good fight while economy tanks? What headlines will look the best to a governor wannabe? If Marquis becomes the next US Attorney for Oregon will he continue writing for the Daily Astorian? Some say he'll have to given what he'll be making. When VandenHuevel took over for Foster the quality of articles went down in the Daily Astorian regarding LNG. VandenHuevel doesn’t do quite the job Foster did but Webb is the same old sloppy editor never catching poor research or letting little white lies slip through in the interest of saving a headline.

What kind of headlines do we have to look forward to in the future? Astoria Set to Slide Into River (if the Cascadia subduction zone starts shaking things up). Clatsop County will burn to the ground (if predictions for rising temperatures hold true). Webb’s fingertips must itch at all the stories he has had to bypass because of his paper’s commitment to Forrester’s warped philosophies and debts.

DA Uses Pubic Office to Oust County Commissioner was a headline that Webb had to have wept at passing up. Sheriff’s Secret Service Keep Dossiers, Private Citizens Probed by Agents, another one he had to let go. Democrats Paranoid Elite Control the Party Line, No one’s crossing; Jewell Witch Hunt: Season Open; Sheriff Closes Shelter, tells freeloaders to go home; the list of real headlines that Webb passed on is immeasurable.

Truth is more bizarre than fiction. The stories the Daily Astorian is keeping in its vault are much more interesting and factual than the sensational lies they make up to keep control over the local populace and vote. Too bad for those who want to know the truth, too bad for those revolted by human hubris, too bad for those whose lives have been destroyed by lies. But what the hell, it’s all just entertainment.

Kulongoski's Duplicity

2008-10-01T16:47:00.000-07:00

Governor Kulongoski must be called out on his duplicity. Any responsible editor, any responsible politician, any responsible citizen of Oregon would take the time to call this man on the carpet for his consistent duplicity in dealing with the public on the subject of energy.

In one breath he tells the media that they must take on the responsibility of educating the public. The media needs to be in the forefront at giving the public the information of where Oregon is really at in regards to how much energy is consumed, where that energy is coming from, what energy is immediately available, what energy resources will be available in the immediate future and long term. His goal, according to Kulongoski, is affordable, reliable, energy. In the next breath, Kulongoski cowers and hides behind his own lies.

Kulongoski’s goal is politically motivated. Pure and simple. Whether or not he wants to run for governor again, his allegiance is to his party and not to the people of Oregon. His mouth says whatever is convenient for the moment. He has allowed the working class of Oregon to be taken political hostage by groups of ecological extremists whose philosophies will be Oregon’s downfall. Ecological extremists who use Oregon as their playground while their business interests, their incomes, their other homes, are elsewhere. In states that have realistic energy plans, realistic business opportunities, realistic land use laws, realistic growth.

It takes courage to stand up to the extremist groups, the shrill voices that feel it is their right to misinform as many people as they want, as often as they want. Kulongoski chooses, instead, to champion their cause. He wants to ensure that their right to misinform is respected. While Bradwood Landing has gone through one of the most vigorous and open hearing processes in the history of siting an LNG terminal, Kulongoski has misinformed the public that FERC has rushed the process, and he publicly calls for a "full rehearing."

Can this man be so ignorant? Can he ignore 54,000+ pages of notes detailing the process that has gone into getting the permits for siting the terminals at Bradwood Landing? Calling this amount of work “rushed” when he tells the people of Oregon that he will ensure that they have reliable and affordable energy is a blatant example of his duplicity. It is an example of how he will enable the extremists to hold the working class of Oregon hostage in the political power struggle over energy.

While Oregon very well could have been in the forefront showing how a nation moves gradually, and, therefore, smoothly, purposefully and steadily towards renewable energy from a heavy reliance on fossil fuel it will now be in the forefront of the nation on how extremists use political terror to manipulate a governor while crushing the working class. Oregon will be the welfare state, with all either relying on state subsidies to keep the renewable energy plants operating or food stamps to keep themselves going.

The Internet Connection

2008-09-04T05:30:00.000-07:00

Click above to see our first newsletter.
Print it out, take it to work, mail it to your friends.

Occasionally we will put together a newletter. Our half-assed attempt at bringing you some hardcopy, REAL news, representing a range of topics that are traveling the blogosphere.

This one is about, yep, LNG! Get the lowdown that the Daily Astorian doesn't have the brains to tell you, the Signal doesn't have the man power and the Gazette doesn't even know we're in the same county!

Print it out, bring it to work, mail it to a friend. You never know if your blog's in it!

Remember to think about it. Do you want to leave your land use options open, or do you want to limit your land use rights even more? Do you want a strong transmission infrastructure for energy and technology, or do you want one so encumbered by land use laws no energy company, green, reusable, or otherwise will never want to come here? Do you understand what the job of the Board of County Commissioners is, as a quasi-judicial "court" and what your vote is doing to that process? Think about this. We're voting yes, make your vote COUNT!

An Aboriginal Nation's Surrender

2008-08-16T12:57:00.000-07:00

A sovereign nation of aboriginals were given checks for lands stolen that have never been cashed. In their pride they refused, a deep understanding that by cashing those checks they would have accepted to become a part of this government. They hadn't. They were independent. They were free. And they knew it.

Eighty years later this same nation has a new generation, so dislocated from its heritage, from its culture, that it sells their way of life that is the very truest definition of who they are as a people, for a government hand out. Hunters and gatherers at your heart, core and soul - whose charge is stewardship of the resources of this very land - what does the present stewardship of the land have that safeguards it? Where are the salamanders? The tree frogs? The bees and butterflies? Where are the fish? By what right do you forfeit it? On whose behalf do you surrender?

Yet, these Indians, the first stewards, the natural stewards, the only stewards, are given fish sticks for ceremonies and told that they will be allowed "government" recognition, if they eat the handouts and keep their mouths shut. They can have their bingo parlors and their casinos, painted fish on their chips, a made up language with made up stories.

And the white men praise the little Indian boys who sign, and clap one another on the back. Good boys, they say, good boys! Let’s smoke the pipe of peace, and pass the bottle of lightening. The occupiers smile and the paternals smile back. No one notices the tears shed by the maternals. Who notices the woman’s tears? The woman’s memories of where the fish runs are, where the best wapato roots lay, where the bones of ancestors rest?

The impostors come with their braided hair. They wa-wa and wear leather. They play politics and follow “government criteria.” And fat white men in newspaper offices praise them and life is good. For them. For awhile. Until they die. And there is no tomorrow, for those who don’t. But it doesn’t matter. The Chinooks have a bingo parlor and maybe a casino. They have forgotten how to fish and white men always like to gamble. There is a government payroll for a few at the top, and maybe a reservation to drink on for those at the bottom. The average lifespan for an Indian woman on a res is 54. This is good. She doesn’t have too long of a life to remember what was, or suffer what is, or watch what her children become.

The Time for Socialism Has Come

2008-08-07T10:38:00.000-07:00

Either by turns in the economy or by personal misfortune, we often find ourselves in a pickle while trying to maintain a life style; even modest life styles. There are very few people that are able to walk through life without financial care.

Americans have always been known to lift themselves up by their boot straps and this is commendable, however one could wonder if this is the most civilized way of living. Through fiction we are promised that money will no longer be used in the future, which must surely agitate those who believe in less government. Centralized goods and services would be considered as government handouts to the extreme by a population that wants to see all goods and services privatized.

The anti government people have found disappointment and abundant reasons why our government doesn’t work. Oddly, being a government of the people, for the people and by the people; this reflects poorly on the citizenry. Those who complain about the government failing are not doing enough to remedy the problems. There is a lot of them out there and one would think that a population of that size should be a force to reckon with and would have solutions at the ready.

Getting back to the haves and the have nots and especially those who suddenly find themselves struggling in a sea they never anticipated swallowing them. Is there anything that a government could do to make all of its citizens more secure?

There are countries in Europe that embrace Socialism where the needs of their citizens are met from cradle to grave. All medical, educational, transportation needs are met. Even in retirement the needs are met weather one chooses to live at home or in a facility. Imagine a life where the government pays students to stay in school through graduate school. It pays doctors very well to take care of their patients. Residents never have to worry about if they can afford the medicines they need to live healthy lives.

As stated earlier this all comes from the feared Socialism. The evils of Socialism were drummed into our heads all through the Cold War. If we start down that path we would be giving up our freedoms, our God (gods) and we would soon be living in box like, gray room apartments that are illuminated by a single 25 watt light bulb.

The European model of Socialism never looked like the Soviet model. It is based on a high tax rate, around 50 percent. Most people in the United States presently pay around 18 to 25 percent in income taxes. Would it be worth it if the citizens were to pay 50% and never have a care from cradle to grave? If this question already has a negative answer in your head, consider the present economy and what your chances of retirement are. Where will you be living if health becomes an issue? How will the present economy with down turning financial markets change how you will pay for your childs education? Wouldn’t this all be a lot easier if you paid it up front and shared the burden? Wouldn’t we be a more productive society if we spent less time worrying about how we are going to accomplish all we are expected to do in society? Wouldn't there be less crime if basic needs were met?

Energy Wars

2008-07-14T23:20:00.000-07:00

In four years approximately two hundred people have spoken out at local hearings and in letters to the paper against siting LNG holding tanks at either Skipanon or Bradwood. Two hundred people told the media, their legislative representatives, the governor and the Federal Energy Regulation Commission that the local board of county commissioners in Clatsop County refuse to listen to the majority of their constituents in working through the process.

Out of a population of 36,000, with 21,104 being registered voters, 200 people have declared themselves "the majority"! We will forego the obvious conclusion of what kind of math they were doing.

This group of people have ignored the fact that the county commissioners and the City Council of Warrenton "heard" that 20,904 people didn't have the same concerns. Yet, still these 200 still claim rights over the top of 20,904 people who chose not to speak against LNG, against neither Oregon LNG's project nor Northern Stars.

Now, this same group wish to isolate Clatsop County, completely cutting it off of access to the outside world's options of technology or energy, saying they do so "for our own good."

Using scare tactics, half truths and outright lies the group will do whatever it takes to keep Clatsop County small and "manageable". Industry and technology to be kept out, service and tourism companies in.

The same group that quotes the Oregon Dept of Energy report that LNG isn't needed ignores the rest of the dirty little secret. ODE says LNG isn't needed because 146 new nuclear plants are to be built in the next decade.

What would you rather see in Warrenton or Bradwood, two LNG holding tanks or nuclear plants? Which is more of a terrorist target? Which has a larger "blast" zone? If the government sites a nuclear plant here do you think a referendum that they can't cross a few parks will stop the Feds?

Don't worry about that, the protesters will tell you. "We'll fight the nuclear plants, too! And we'll win, like we did against the LNG plants."

Which will leave us right back where we started, with rising energy costs and dirty coal fueling our electric plants. We won't have access to the solar, wind or hydro power because of this group's opposition to 4-131, voting no and forbidding the transmission of any of that kind of energy to cross our county and enter our homes, even if these options were ready within the next decade which they won't be.

Measure 4-131 must be passed to keep ALL options open to ALL Clatsop County citizens. The West Coast States must have the same options and access that the East Coast and Southern states have to safe, clean and reasonably priced fuel and energy sources. The east has three LNG terminals, the south has three terminals and the west has nothing.

LNG protesters, Common Sense, CFOG, or whatever name they go by next are striving to eliminate options, take away choices, shut down and out the average citizens, those living paycheck to paycheck. A vote of yes on measure 4-131 in September takes back what is our right, it maintains our options, leaving them open to be exercised on a project by project basis.

Write Governor Kulongoski and FERC today. Tell the governor that we want our options left open. We are tired of his bowing to special interest groups. Ask him if he is going to guarantee the nuclear plants will be built and what are his plans to ensure they will be? We want equal access to the energy that the east coast and southern states have access to. We want the option to fuel with LNG or CNG as other green technologies are worked out. This is the true common sense approach to our energy problems and no one is going to do it for us folks. Senators Johnson, Wyden and Smith, Reps Boone and Wu have all but declared themselves completely against LNG. They are listening to the minority voice because, right now, those are the voices screaming the loudest.

Twenty thousand-nine hundred and forty of us haven't opened our mouths. Now is the time. Write, email or call the governor, Johnson, Wu, Wyden, Smith, Boone and FERC. Tell them LNG is a viable option that you don't want taken away. Don't shut us out in the cold, don't allow us to be isolated at the mouth of the Columbia River with no options, no alternative energy, no voice.

FERC is supposed to be making a ruling on whether or not to allow Bradwood to proceed sometime this week. Governor Kulongoski has recently written to FERC asking them to delay their decision, after Bradwood has waited three years for it, until more people have a chance to complain. Kulongoski and Oregon's Attorney General have both said they will use whatever means available to stop Bradwood, which means denying them state permits. Your voice is needed NOW, if you want to see this LNG and stable energy costs any time in the neat future. Fax you letters to reach the governor before FERC makes its decision. FAX: 503.378.6827

Contact FERC here.

Weakly To Weekly

2008-05-27T09:23:00.000-07:00

There has been self indulgent back patting sessions at the Daily Astorian and the East Oregon Publishing Company over their series on climate change and the environment. It seems disingenuous for a business that uses gross amounts of pulp, fuel and natural resources to call all the other kettles black.

If the Daily Astorian wanted to walk the walk they should reduce their newspaper to a weekly publication. Consider all the paper they use and all the fuel they use to distribute this paper five days a week. This came to mind after looking at the Daily Astorian the other day. There was local news on the front page, maybe 1/10th of page 2 had any local content, 1/3 of page 3 had local content, and page 11 had 80% news. Summing it up there was slightly more than two pages of local news of which one quarter was fluff.

I recently read through a copy of the Chinook Observer, a weekly paper which is owned by the same company as the Daily Astorian. This paper had substance and a good professional look about. It contained a weeks worth of news which seemed much more substantial than the Astorian and its scant daily effort even when all five days are combined.

The Astorian can counter and say their readers need the news on a daily basis, where in actuality it is the Astorian that needs the daily ad revenue from five day a week publication. This paper is obsolete moments after they publish. Their online presence is more useful for up-to-the-moment news, though the effort of northcoastoregon.com, with a smaller staff and fewer resources out-scoops the local standard on a daily basis.

The Astorian may also be afraid to disturb the steady stream of biased journalism and propaganda that they use to dictate their vision to the readers along with the manipulation they inflict upon the local political climate.

The Daily Astorian will probably never reduce their production to save the environment or to put out a better publication. It is a shame. How long can they suffer a declining readership before they decide something needs to be changed?

Respectfully Submitted

2008-05-17T14:48:00.000-07:00

Political blackmail has been discussed since there has been politics, essentially since man has begun living in tribes. Human relations, being what they are, power is hungered for often more than wealth. The meaning of wealth changes. Power is power and the weaker then human being is that seeks power the more often the tool that human will use is fear.

Much like an animal, the weak human has learned that fear is a tool that can be wielded by anyone of any stature, as long as one has no scruples. Just start our slow, using fear against the weak and defenseless, to get a feel for it. How far can you push people in fear before they they are cornered and lash out? What can you use to protect yourself against repercussions? Who do you look to as an ally (even if temporary)? Who do you target as an enemy? How long before you can take down bigger foe?

Using fear as a lever for respect is the way of the weak. The way of the strong is through earned. It is slow and often goes through a process of being earned and loosing it and being earned again. It is the hard road, where people misunderstand good intentions, where the percentage of failures far outweighs the percentage of successes. It is the way of those who, actually, are not striving to be respected, it is merely a bi-product of the life they are leading. It is what makes the good leaders.

Strong people earn respect not because they want it, nor see it as a tool to use to defeat an enemy, but as a natural part of life that is everyone’s just due. Strong people respect everyone. Low and high, poor and rich, minority and majority, all not only deserving of respect but also receiving it. Strong people do not say, “Everyone, except for …” They say, “Everyone, including …” Strong people look for a way for everyone, including the weak, to come out ahead, to prosper. Strong people know that a community is as strong as its weakest member and they don't rid of the weak, they help to make them strong.

As you put your pen to the ballot this weekend think about that. Do you vote for a weak person to lead, or a strong one? Do you vote for someone because of what they are against or because of what they are for? Do you vote because of fear or because of strength? Do you vote for someone to lead you into a future, or because they say they must guide you out of a past?

If there is only one name to vote for and you do not know the name, or if you do know it and know it to be that of a weak person, leave it blank. Let me repeat that. LEAVE IT BLANK. Do NOT write in any name. If the individual running for that position gets less votes than the number of ballots turned that is called an under vote and it sends a clear message to the candidate that ran that the people are not pleased with their conduct and they had better learn to do better as leaders and it sends a clear message to someone who was thinking of running for the position that they would have had a chance.

Use your ballot wisely, think about the future of the county. Tourist economy? Trade economy? Someone who is looking for a diverse economy? Should city folk run the county? Should the county have more say in the cities? Is the sheriff deserving of your vote, or of anyone’s vote? Do you know the judge? What do you know of that candidate for commissioner? Enough to vote for them? Leave it blank if you don’t know. Leave it blank if they didn’t convince you. Don’t vote out of fear. Vote for strength, not weakness.

One more thing, look at the ballots. See how many people are running unopposed? See how many get on water districts, fire districts, even some school districts completely unopposed? Now listen to the whining voice on the radio, complaining, complaining and complaining about this that and the other that is wrong, wrong, wrong with our cities and our county because of “cronyism” or the “good ole boy” system.

Remember these ballots, filled with all those people running unopposed. Cronyism and good ole boys? Or lack of people willing to put their names on ballots or on volunteer forms? Those whiners on the radio? Most have never run or volunteered. A few have tried one or two things and then dropped them because they didn’t get the instant respect they thought should be theirs.

The volunteers and elected officials that are there, year in and year out, are there because they did dare to put a name on the ballot or on a volunteer form despite nasty press and new, troublesome, ethics laws. They allowed themselves to be scrutinized by the media and now by you. Remember that much and vote for those who have EARNED respect, not those who have frightened you into giving it to them.

The Political Economy of Fear

2008-04-07T10:39:00.000-07:00

“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety,” wrote Benjamin Franklin. Attempting to gain security by sacrificing liberty is also a foolish action, is ACLU’s stance, because it only increases the potential for harm. A short while ago a very dangerous action took place right under the noses of the people of Clatsop County and very few chose to even blink.

Our United States Constitution guarantees each of us to be secure in our persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures. The Fourth Amendment guarantees that we “shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

The US Supreme Court (US v. Katz 389 US 347) has made it clear that this core privacy protection does cover government eavesdropping. The law takes account of the need for emergency surveillance but the need for quick action cannot be used as a rationale for going outside the law. FISA allows wiretapping without a court order in an emergency; the court must simply be notified within 72 hours. In cases of espionage. In cases of public safety. And always, at some point, public disclosure.

Ironically, in August of 2003 the City Council of Astoria, Oregon, became the 150th local government body in the U.S. and the eighth in Oregon to declare their city a ‘civil liberties safe zone.’ Astoria’s resolution directed Oregon’s delegation to U.S. Congress to work to repeal all laws that threaten civil liberties and requested the City Manager to instruct city employees to continue favoring practices and policies protecting rights and liberties guaranteed by the Constitution.

Even more ironic the very people who, so avidly and angrily, screamed for the Patriot Act to be renounced by our local governments cheered when a local agency revealed it had turned over a list of names of people to be interrogated by an Oregon Department of Justice (ODOJ) investigator not once but twice within the last year! But these people, these “lovers” of social justice, so hated the man being hounded they felt it was okay for his civil liberties to be violated. They not only looked the other way at this barbarous act they used its rancid drippings to inflame public sentiment against the man.

Numerous local media sources reported that an ODOJ agent had received a list of names of local people from the Sheriff specifically to interrogate regarding their interaction with one man. No media source could tell its readers who had filed the complaint nor what the complaint was regarding. The Department of Justice first denied an investigation had taken place and then said it wasn’t an investigation but merely an “inquiry”. It doesn’t matter what it was labeled, folks. The fact is the agent got a list of names of people to interrogate from one of our law enforcement agencies regarding a legal citizen and no one, apparently not even the citizen, to this day know why the agent was here! Despite the fact that the Department of Justice has stated that, “Someone asked us to investigate a complaint that proved to be unsubstantiated.”

Someone? Who??? No paper trail, even though state law says there must be one. How did the Sheriff know whose names to give to the agent? Apparently, no media thought to ask him. Think about it, if this were you. If you picked up the paper tomorrow and found out that the sheriff had given an agent a list of names of people to interrogate about you. Wouldn’t your first question be, “How come the SHERIFF has such a list?” Then the next question, “Who is charging me with what?” Personally, myself, I would be more worried about the sheriff having a ready made list of people to question about my associations, lifestyle and viewpoints that he promptly handed it over to another law enforcement agency and, apparently, there is no enforceable law to keep him from doing just that.

Oregon law states that no enforcement agency can collect or maintain information about the political, religious or social views, associations or actions of any individual, group, association, organization, corporation, business or partnership unless the information was collected in a criminal investigation or reasonable grounds exist to suppose that the person is involved in criminal activities. Not violations, not parking tickets, not a building code violation. Criminal activity as defined by law. The Sheriff has repeatedly stated that the commissioner was not being investigated by his department. Why hasn’t anyone asked the sheriff the obvious question: “Why did you have a list of people to give the DOJ agent?”

Where are the voices of outrage? Silenced. The attorneys in Clatsop County silently allow this to happen, frightened to speak or else be aligned (and maligned) with the commissioner who was thrown to the jackals? Where is the Astoria City Council now? Silenced. Afraid they will be the next to be “investigated” by one man, sitting in an office, with a direct line to the Attorney General’s office?

When you go, once again, to hear the orator recite Niemöller’s First They Came, can you honestly hold your head up high? What price did you pay for this recall? What price did you pay for the imagined “safety” of the river? What price did you pay for your silence?

It’s your fear now, bought and paid for. Own it.

The New Anger Movement

2008-03-26T08:00:00.000-07:00

People have remarkable memories. Some memories and bitterness linger on for generations. Armenians to this day have strong dislike and or hate for the Turks. There have been factions in the Arab world who have a thousand plus years of hating their neighbors. The Jews have been the whipping post for generational hate as well. The French and the English have been at odds for years.

Closer to home, though World War II has been over sixty years, I still occasionally hear anti Japanese or German sentiment from Americans. Though slavery ended over a hundred and fifty years ago, there is still a residual bad feelings not only from relatives of the slaves that are six or seven generations removed from those horrors, but also from the relatives that are six or seven generations removed from the confederacy. The confederate flag is still flown with pride in many southern states in a pissed off defiance.

There is a generation who are still bitter that George Bush was appointed President by the Supreme Court, and they are bitter that he won the election four years later. There are people still bitter about Richard Nixon.

People carry the hurts and the scars of their childhood right up until the day they die. We carry anger for things that have happened to our families, friends and neighbors. Yet we wonder why election losers remain bitter. Every body is pissed off and it doesn’t go away when an election is over. Professional politicians say that they are able to shake it off and accept their loss, but somehow I think those polite days of politics are long over. Fanatical supporters carry the torch using the Internet as a weapon of slander and defamation. Failed campaigns take on a life of their own with the monsters that reside within the faithful. “Game over / move on” is a lost concept and has been replaced by spite, revenge and ill will that is sometimes carried to the grave.

This new unforgiving nature calls like a crow for a new field of psychology; political anger management psychological therapy. There are so many who are in need of this therapy. A key to the therapy would be to get the opposition to better understand any possible benefits of opposing proposals. One doesn’t need to embrace the concepts, but they should use reasoning to see that the concepts will do some good somewhere down the line as they were envisioned.

Polarization of a Community: Us vs Them

2008-03-22T02:34:00.000-07:00

As one watches the destruction of one’s community the need to know who is at the core of it materializes. Who is it pulling the strings that is triggering this to all happen? Who benefits the most to have an elected official thrown out of office? Who benefits from public humiliation? Who benefits from the hatred dripping from once kind mouths that shriek at those who oppose their viewpoint? Who stands to benefit from spreading lies that someone’s a crook, someone else a thief, another corrupt? Who does their best work with lies, innuendo and gossip?

The process called polarization causes neutral parties to take sides in a conflict. Individuals on either side of the conflict take increasingly extreme positions that are more and more opposed to each other. As parties move toward these opposite "poles," they define themselves in terms of their opposition to a common enemy. Slowly at first and then more rapidly "distorted perceptions and simplified stereotypes emerge" while trust and respect diminish. Parties refuse to negotiate and assume more rigid positions.

Polarization is caused by a number of related psychological, sociological, and political processes. Damaging the relationship between the adversaries, as conflict escalates, is the emergence of enemy images and stereotypes. Important lines of communication and interaction that are normal to peaceful relationships are cut off, and trust diminishes. The more each party involved attributes their grievances to the other side, they more often they likely to reduce the number of non-conflictual relations and interactions that they have with the other party.

Adversaries become increasingly isolated from each other, and all inter-group communication is channeled through more antagonistic lenses. As the parties begin to have fewer and fewer ties to individuals from the other group, they begin to feel freer to employ more severe actions against that group. There is a tendency of the participants to “win” the bystanders to their side, often forcing people to chose with the "with us or against us" mentality, aggravating group isolation and polarization. The conflict intensifies as more people are drawn into the conflict.

Those who would normally urge moderation and attempt to mediate the conflict are recruited by participants in the controversy, and forced to take sides. The moderate position is not tolerated with their proponents ostracized at best, or seen as traitors to the cause at worst. Further segregation, as the process continues, results in relationships with outsiders becoming increasingly hostile and competitive.

The polarization of this community is heart wrenching. Watching once good friends turn their backs on one another, families raked over the coals, and people's reputations destroyed is more than a community should stand for. Smart, intelligent people allowing themselves to be led, to be pulled apart and destroy their own community. Who will be left standing? That’s what we should be asking ourselves.

What If?

2008-03-03T06:54:00.000-08:00

What happens if they get their way?

Let us consider what will happen if CCFOG gets a toe hold in local politics. Let’s say they successfully unseat Richard Lee. They will demand and probably get someone to replace him who may appear moderate on the surface, but will pupate into a Commissioner they desire. They will then pursue removing Ann Samuelson, which they (CCFOG Members) have already started trying to remove her from the School Board in Jewell, thus tarnishing her accomplishments. Not that any accusations of any wrong doing have any basis in reality. It is a propaganda war where the first shot is often the one that is noticed most.

Riding this wave, momentum builds for Burr Allegaert, a major contributor to measure 4-123 and a member of CCFOG, who is running against Patricia Roberts in District 2. Candidate Dirk Rohne, known for a Josh supporter gets a bump in Knappa. After they take down Samuelson the finally go after Hazen.

This is the way it is mapped out, but they will accomplish what they want with a simple three to five majority on the Board. What happens next is that the stipend will be restored to Josh. Though his workload has dropped he will get more staff to not handle what they already don’t have. It will be a good day for the County Police as well.

Next, Scott Derickson will made very uncomfortable and he will probably be forced to seek employment else where. Though the BOCC is not an agency that should regulate or impede business they will throw up road blocks to stop all aspects of the LNG industry, which will land them in major trouble with the federal government and will be brought to court by the LNG industry, ending up wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal battles that they can not possibly win.

The planning department can continue making up their own policies on a whim and serve or not serve anyone they wish. If you hope for approval there will be a line for you to wait in to kiss the ring.

Joe Gamm will be given a courtesy office in the 800 Exchange Building and exclusive rights to the news. Forrester will be able to print anything he wants. If it's not true, he can make it true with a few phone calls. The people will be lulled into a false sense of security because the Daily Astorian will tell everyone that everything is OK.

The BOCC will once again enter the dark ages it was in under the Westbrook administration where the public had little say and little time in which to say it. Questions were never addressed and citizen concerns were ignored as per instructions of Blair Henningsgard the then council. You will hear the name Baghwaddi Podar again. A FOG of bitterness, revenge and retaliation will come over the county until the voters return to their senses in future elections.

This recall campaign is unreasonable and unacceptable. The charges against Lee are made by a group who has been out for Lees blood for a long time. Lee has not been charged or even investigated for any crime, though one of two people with the capability in the county did ask the DOJ to investigate and the Sheriff stated that he didn't do it.

There is a black hole at the center of these unreasonable spiral arms of this recall campaign. The spiral arms need to be careful not to be sucked into this black hole because if they ever want to be taken seriously in this county again, distance should be gained, quickly.

What Is Justice?

2008-02-18T13:10:00.000-08:00

What concerns society is conduct, not opinion: if only our actions are just and good, it matters not a straw to others whether our opinions are mistaken.

Sir James Frazer, Psyche's Task [1909]

When Socrates is convicted of rejecting the gods of the city and corrupting the young he makes a compelling argument for justice. He explains why he must stay in prison and accept the death penalty, rather than escape and go into exile in another Greek city. He puts forth his idea that he has acquired an overwhelming obligation to obey the Laws of Athens because they have not only made his entire way of life possible it is to them he owes the fact of his existence. Through these Laws it made it possible for is father to marry his mother thereby making their children legitimate. Once born these same Laws required his father to care for and educate him. The way in which he flourished throughout his life has been due to these Laws.

What was most important to Socrates, though, was the fact that the relationship between the individual and the Law was not coerced. Once the individual had grown up and was able to judge for himself how the city conducted its business he could chose whether to stay or to take his property and leave. By staying this implied an agreement both to abide by the Laws as well as accepting the punishments that they mete out. This is a good description of an implicit contract, implied by his choice to stay in Athens even when he was free to leave it at any point. He determined that the Laws were just when he was flourishing. He felt he couldn’t now contend that the Laws were unjust when he was no longer flourishing.

When someone chooses to live somewhere with complete knowledge of the conditions under which they live and when they have complete freedom to leave, they have entered into the type of implied contract that Socrates felt he had entered into. A just man is, in Socrates' viewpoint, one who recognizes his obligation to the state by obeying its laws. Because the state is morally and politically the most fundamental entity it deserves the deepest respect and highest allegiance. Knowing this just men act accordingly. Socrates goes on to argue in another essay that justice is more than merely obeying laws in exchange that injustice won’t be done as a consequence. The just man has a well regulated soul which makes him a happy man. This leads to a win-win situation in which the individual is receiving a benefit (happiness) and society is receiving a benefit (just men who do not commit injustices). True justice is more than the simple reciprocal obedience to law. Justice begets just men which begets more justice.

Justice is a two pronged process. It is not just doing something merely for the expected recompense but something which requires the effort of well-regulating oneself. It goes beyond doing just things but truly being a just person. When one accepts to live somewhere, to do a specific job, and has the freedom to leave true justice requires not only abiding by the Laws of where one lives or works but in self regulation. One not only acts just, one is just.

This is justice. Obeying the Laws in of the place where you chose to live when you had the choice to leave and regulating yourself to be law-abiding. This combination leads to both happiness and justice. It is with just people we create a just society, we do not force a just society onto the people.

The New Junkies

2008-01-31T07:40:00.001-08:00

It is somewhat frightening when one considers the unhealthy diet that most Americans have adopted these days. Incidents of obesity and diabetes are drastically on the rise to the point where these two conditions are becoming something most Americans have to look forward to, and all to often it is a condition that manifests itself in children in middle school and high school.

Though diabetes can now be controlled pretty well with medical intervention the underlying fact is that it will one day it will kill those with the condition. They may go blind. Circulation problems may one day cause them to lose a leg or two. Their kidneys may eventually fail.

Just because you can eat something it doesn’t make it food. Products that are bad for you are priced to encourage those with little money to buy them. Just because you can buy something is a grocery store doesn’t mean they should be eaten.

What would happen if certain unhealthy foods that lack useful nutrition to humans were excluded from eligibility for payment with food stamps? If you were on food stamps and suddenly faced with the fact that you can no longer buy snack cakes wouldn’t you consider providing fruit for a snack to your family instead?

It is difficult to change the shopping habits of people, but if we were to give a responsible nudge to those on a budget to make better choices, we could help prevent diet based disease down the road which will lessen the burden of the tax payers.

It may sound easy on the surface, but you can bet that Hostess and Frito Lay will lobby this action to death. They may even add vitamins to their products to make them more food like, but nothing they can do can possibly turn that stuff into food.

If food stamps were only able to buy unprocessed meat, eggs, bread, dairy, fruits and vegetables; an epidemic health crisis among the poor may be stopped and reversed.

How about if we take this a little further? How about making it so school lunch rooms are only allowed to vend unprocessed nutritious food. The government runs or subsidizes all sorts of food programs across the country. It’s amazing when you consider just how many there are out there from Head Start to VA Hospitals. Everyone in the military has to eat. It would be to the long term advantage of the government to stop pushing processed foods.

I understand that there are those who will say the government should get out of the free meal business, but the fact is that will never happen, and even if it does move food responsibility over to one of the “thousand points of light”, the government still has oversight and control of what is placed into the mouths of recipients. They need to lead the way to get America off junk.

Sea Fog Threatens Livelihood of Coastal Community Once Again

2008-01-24T22:04:00.000-08:00

Over 2,000 ships lie scattered at the mouth of the Columbia River. Each holding crews between 10 to 300, their people dead, or if lucky merely their livelihoods destroyed as they pulled themselves out of the raging surf, many remaining on the shores shipwrecked, struggling to stay alive. The Pacific Graveyard is littered with the bones of many a nautical old timer, sage captains and novice deck boys alike, blinking lights luring the desperate to what appeared to be safe shore; sea fog shrouding shifting sands, sharp rocks, and crashing waves. Too late, the desperate found the false lights belonging to Wreckers, far worse than pirates, using the fog and lights for the Wreckers’ devices. In the end the Wreckers’ pockets full, the desperates’ pockets as empty as their eyes.

Long gone are the days when fog would ground the fleets and leave this community dependent on its capricious whims for its economic survival. We no longer need to worry about fog, our economy diversified and growing. No false lights of Wreckers luring us astray. A storm blowing means we depend on our neighbor for a borrowed hammer, a shared generator, a pot of coffee and a game of gin rummy. But now, once again, a forecast of an unnatural event has come in and it isn't the winds we have to worry about, nor the frozen pipes.

While the weather man is predicting icy blasts of Nordic frost for the area this weekend we heard a blanket of fog, its tendrils weaving up from the blinking lights of the Cannery Pier Hotel, quietly blanketing the nooks and crannies of the city, filling some heads with doubt and others with visions of undeserved grandeur. The fog seems to have entered the minds of many, and, like the psychedelic mushrooms that grow so well in many areas of the damp rain forest, causing them to believe they are the center of the universe and all must bend to their will or suffer the dire consequences.

The Son of Sam’s 4-123 has begun its labor pains. It is hoped that it is premature, coming much too early to be saved. In attendance, ripping it from its womb, are the wet nurses of the Columbia Pacific Alliance for Social Justice. Justice, to their mind, can best be served, by depriving the constituents of their right to allow their duly elected commissioner from serving out his term. They want him recalled and to have someone appointed in his place, their plan enforced, their agenda addressed, or consequences must be suffered, by all.

That’s right, appointed. Those living in district three won’t be allowed to vote for someone to replace their commissioner; they merely get to vote to toss him. Then this Group (they have designated themselves a group with a capital “G”), who have already threatened the remaining commissioners with similar retaliation if crossed, will continue their goal of dominating the board -and our county- with their will, their say, their vision. This they have avowed on their website.

Is their vision good? Is it bad? Who is to say? We won’t get a chance to VOTE on it to know, ever. In the back of our minds will be the knowledge if we don’t vote as the Group tells us in their daily paper, they will recall the person we voted for, and they will appoint the person they intended to win.

Clatsop Citizens For Open Government, CCFOG, are rolling the fog over our heads. This is their vision of open government. Telling us ahead of time, tongue in cheek, that the fog is coming. Blowing their horn, waving their lanterns, laughing at us. They have no intention of opening up the government process, their intention is to close it down. They have ninety days to do it. Friday and Saturday, January 25^th & 26^th are their target dates but they can drag it out until April 22nd. It is no mistake their acronym can be pronounced sea fog. Their intent is death for our community (our consequence for an earlier defiance?), left to fend for ourselves as the shipwrecked once did, and profitable only for their chosen few.

The New Face of Clatsop County

2008-01-19T12:57:00.001-08:00

The face of a community is important. For many that is one of the reasons they oppose LNG corporations putting even one terminal on the lower part of the river, it ruins the face of the community, in their mind.

For many the Riverwalk in Astoria is the face of the community, showing an eclectic community, loving the outdoors with an artistic bent. There are those who still cling to the days of yore looking wistfully to the mooring basins, in their minds eye each berth full of fishing vessels or looking out to the river where rafts of logs from old timber stands are gently pushed to market by tugs.

With a shudder many of us turn our faces from a spreading mall, the word making our shoulders shrug and noses lift. What is the face of Seaside? Cannon Beach? All of it is Clatsop County and whatever face you don’t want certainly you do want it to have one, or even two or three. So, have you googled our county lately? If a business has, they won’t be pleasantly surprised.

We now have a new face of being unprepared for disaster. You felt proud of our abilities during the storm? Not the Daily A! Suddenly, after 200 years of sustaining all sorts of disasters and catastrophes, it has dawned on our daily paper and one of our commissioners that our disaster mitigation plan isn’t finished yet. Funny, it wasn’t finished after last year’s storm, (or the year before that or that or that) but our lone commissioner that’s publicly bitching out the county manager while posing for the editor of the Daily A, didn’t notice the lack of the mitigation plan then. No one had. Why? Because, it really doesn’t matter, all that much, in the grand scheme of things.

Will a project or two have to wait to get funding? Possibly, but so will half a dozen others for lack of something else. It’s not that big of a deal, because it was already being taken care of and no one thought it was a big deal until the Daily A manufactured the story. What is a big deal is when the area’s only daily newspaper writes it up as a big news story and puts it out on the Associated Press as a big news story and suddenly, that is what Clatsop County is known for. How many businesses will want to move to the area if they think they will be hampered with costly building delays while waiting for mitigation plans to be put into place? Thank-you, Daily Astorian, for manufacturing the news and giving our area its new face. It wouldn’t be so bad if the news was real and it was an actual problem to be contemplated and resolved, but the fact that it’s being made up is irksome.

This is the same paper bemoaning the county commissioners approving zone changes for LNG corporations to move in. It seems that this newspaper’s editor doesn’t want any growth, any new businesses or industry whatsoever, and it will do its best to make sure growth doesn’t happen whether it means maligning individuals or a county as a whole.

What is ironic is not so long ago the Daily Astorian’s editor complained, "Deceit is in the saddle. The Wall Street Journal too frequently carries business news that befits a supermarket tabloid. Our president is using deceit for the third time in his career to smear an election opponent. We stand on the edge of a very slippery precipice.” One wonders how he looks in the mirror when he shaves in the morning.

Adieu 2007, A Toast to 2008

2007-12-30T15:04:00.000-08:00

This year started with a commentary on the forums so what better way to end then with another commentary on the forums? We lost the Astoria Citizen's Journal forum and KAST Coastwatch forum finally got away from the annoying VOY layout. We were amused and flattered to see that they used our "matters" headings in their board topics, too. We copied some things from the Rust forum, adding our own touches and KAST copied us. If it ain't broke why fix it?

We can still claim title to the longest continuous running open membership forum in the county. Whether or not that is a title that holds any merit it does mean we are persistent and useful. That is most obvious in the recent elections when the ballot measure for 4-123 failed. The forums played a major role in getting information out when the media, namely the one and only daily newspaper, was dismally lacking in accurate reporting or blatantly lying.

NorthCoastOregon.com is undergoing a metamorphism right before it's readers eyes. One moment it is a typical blog chronicling the life of the writer, the next it is a commentary on local news, the next it is reporting news long before the other outlets are aware of the topic.

Bloggers in the area have kept one another, and the public at large, informed of many facts that would otherwise have been kept from them by those who deem us too naive to understand, to small to matter, or too inept to appreciate the finer points of politics. To this day the Daily A has not explained how it is that the Committee to Retain the Independence of the Office of District Attorney mailed out $2600 worth of newsletters without having any printing costs associated. At 21 cents per flyer that's close to 12,500 of those two paged, double sided flyers that were sent out. The bloggers know only one source that has the capacity to print out 25,000 double-sided pages and write it off. Hey, Daily Astorian you want to explain how come you didn't report that expenditure? Uh, Larry? Uh, Sky? Uh, Steve? Uh, Josh?

The forums aren't always right, we've had a loopy woman posting as a commissioner. We've had a disgruntled former resident move back east and post lunatic threads polluted with sexual innuendos. We've had the dodgers, the thought police, threats of libel, threats of exposure, threats of laptop confiscation, grammar and spelling monitors, flame wars, rhyming wars, punsters, warped thinkers, finger pointers, SHOUTERS, and a day or two or three with no posters at all (horror of horrors)!

Though people are piecing their lives back together after the storm, I suspect that times are good at the moment. It is when we are agitated that the forums are in their peak use. There are things that are coming to a boil under the surface for a great many topics. Expect to see action on the forums in the coming year.

A few people feel betrayed by the County Commissioners, stating that they have overlooked the citizens' concerns for public safety by voting for LNG, seemingly for economic growth. The cry of "recall, recall, recall" is always in the air. The Daily Astorian continues with its arrogant editorializing and omissions of reporting real news. A few feel betrayed by the Port Commissioners, each of the city councils, as well as the college board and other school boards. There will be an election in May, politics usually lights up the boards.

Our forums have developed, evolved, become better or dropped off the charts. The people have become better communicators or stopped communicating. Some people have hopped from board to board chasing people away, some people have hopped from board to board chasing ideas down. Some people have online avatars distinct from themselves, a few post only as themselves. Some say they abhor those posting "anonymously". ROTFLMAO! As far as we can tell, everyone has posted using an avatar at least once. If it is good enough for Benjamin Franklin, in order to get a point across that otherwise wouldn't be listened to merely because it came from him, then it is good enough for us.

A toast to the year behind and all those with the courage to share their thoughts and comment on others'. A toast to those forums that continue to grow, providing an outlet to the community. A toast to the leaders who take the time to read, sort through the emotions, listen to their community, and find their way to the answers. A toast to the new year ahead. May we find our way together. Building a community, our voices uniting.

Do you hear what I hear?

2007-12-12T21:38:00.000-08:00

Will our local media dare to commend the wisdom of 6,666 wise voters as this storm has devastated our county’s revenue? The choppers hum overhead carrying personnel to assess the damage to our county owned timber with many saying as much as half of our forest disappeared and with it the revenue that may take decades to replenish.

As explained by many opposed to 4-123 measure counties need the option to remove the stipend in case of a natural catastrophe. Wahlah! A natural catastrophe! Half of our forest is wiped out. Where would that money come from for the next five years to pay for 4-123 now? Bank loans? Options taken away for the greed of one man and his accomplice the local media.

Our county commissioners have multiple tasks now, of bringing the county back together after a devastating campaign to malign their characters and a horrific storm that has taken away the county’s main source of revenue. In the horizon is the ability to make up for that revenue by allowing the LNG industry a toe hold which could bring the immediate reprisal of a recall campaign against at least one of the commissioners. As in the 4-123 campaign it will be led by the local daily paper’s editor using his paper with biased reporting, slanted editorials and yellow journalism while he armchair quarterbacks the running of the county.

The destroyed revenue must be compensated for. County manager Derickson has been warning of a decline in timber revenue in the near future, which is why the two staff positions in the District Attorney’s office were added on a contingency bases, the devastation of the forests has now accelerated the problem. The public could use, and the commissioners deserve, good and accurate reporting at this time. Too bad that the Daily Astorian has proven itself incapable of providing either.

If local outlets begin putting the Daily Astorian next to the National Enquirer in the checkout lines will Forrester get the idea that he and his paper are no longer trusted to impart news and have become a curiosity along the lines of locals suspected of having alien’s babies and sitings of Elvis Presley? Will he then get the message that we want, need and deserve better then he has been providing us? Or will someone finally step up to the plate and provide us with an alternative to his daily joke? Hell, at this rate the high schools could rotate providing us more accurate local news.

Humble pie, cow pie or eating crow, however one slices it you can bet Forrester will refuse to eat it. He can dish it but he can not take it or even smell it, even when he is stepping in it.

Fine Tuning Elections

2007-11-23T08:11:00.000-08:00

As each election passes we find things that seem to need some fine tuning. It is said that democracy begins when people show up. How is it that turnout can be so poor when most items on any ballot involves money? Are people that convinced that their vote doesn’t count? Here in Oregon it is so easy to vote, being all of our ballots are mail-in ballots. There are no special trips to a polling precinct, though there are drop off sites for those who do not wish to invest in a postage stamp to practice their right to vote.

One problem with voting by mail is that the public has way too much time to sit on their ballots. In the recent election ballots were being received by the voters on October 19 giving them nineteen days to vote. This is far too much time that spans three full weekends. Many people will mark their ballots when they receive them while there is still three weeks for situations and opinions to change. Another reason it is too much time is that people may misplace their ballots. Also fierce and expensive campaigning gets bumped up during this period making issues a financial popularity contest. Two weekends should be sufficient, and eight days would be even more preferred.

Next, it would be nice to see some limits on campaign spending. The tobacco industry spent an obscene amount of money countering measure 50. The Governor has even stated that big tobacco bought the voters in Oregon. How about a plan where each side of a campaign can spend no more than their opponent? This will put under funded campaigns on a level playing field with special interest groups with deep pockets.

This may be easier said than done in most cases because there are often Political Action Committees that raise fund in support or opposition of several measures on the ballot. Asking for cohesion between like minded camps is a recipe for disaster as well.

Another problem is, let’s say that no one put up any money to promote a measure. This would mean that the opposition could not put up any funds either. It will be difficult to find a solution to campaign financing, and financing is the major obstacle to getting the word out in many instances.

Sometimes even well funded messages don’t have legs to stand on. Take for example Clatsop County Measure 4-123. The Yes side raised $7,268, which was $477 more than the No side with $6,791. The Yes side spent $8,139.93, which was $1,014.76 more than the No side, which spent $7,125.17. Both campaigns are now in debt, Yes by $871.93 and No by $334.17. The side that raised and spent the most in this instance lost this election.

Next, why is it that the primaries in two or three states dictates what two main stream candidates will be in the run for President? There should be one primary day for all fifty states. It is also time to do away with the electoral college.

Finally, it would be good if campaigns and polls were prevented from calling people who have telephone numbers listed on the National Do Not Call List. Campaigning by phone is a telemarketing call no matter how one looks at it. Polls are often campaign calls in disguise. Campaigns have invaded our front doors, our televisions, our radios, our mail boxes, our print media, and pop-up boxes on the Internet. We should have at least one safe harbor where they can’t get to us.

The dramas of our lives

2007-11-18T23:48:00.000-08:00

Tuesday evening, Nov. 20^th, at 6 pm Mr. Marquis will be tempted by yet another opportunity to present to the Clatsop County Board of County Commissioners the performance measures which were due last winter, on March 8^th. In a gesture of goodwill, and to show those who are beginning to doubt his intelligence, he should show that he does, indeed, value the efforts that these commissioners are making in bringing this county into the 21^st century in providing their community with a fiscally transparent government. However, is this Tuesday evening the best time to do so?

Of course, it would be juvenile to expect the immediate self gratification of monetary compensation for performing the task that the rest of the departments complied with eight months ago. Even the newly hired department head for the Health department doesn’t expect a raise with his first compliance of expected duties. However, how much can one expect from the man who has put this county through the hell that he has for the last half of a year?

Sadly, it can be expected that if Mr. Marquis does, indeed, present his performance measures to the CCBOCC Tuesday evening it will be with full drama. While he could simply send this addendum to his budget through the County Manager, one can bet when he does finally get around to it he will be sure to have media present, his colluding commissioner will be ready to immediately make a motion to reinstate the stipend, Mr. Marquis might even have two or three people signed up to speak on the matter and will ask that the CCBOCC immediately make a decision. Joe Gamm will stand ready to interpret every raised eyebrow as a sign of drunkenness or vindictive anger.

Mr. Marquis, give the citizens of our community a break. Be a true Rotarian, man. Get your performance based measures done (and if you're going to use a bunch of statistics at least explain how they relate to staff time spent on a case and in front of the third judge) and present them, quietly, with no drama, to the County Manager, so they can be reviewed by the budget committee to see if they do indeed meet the requirements as set forth in the budget guidelines and so they can make their recommendations to the CCBOCC. Don’t grandstand. Don’t be a victim. Don’t encourage your cohort commissioner, Sam Patrick, to further participate in the
unethical behavior of colluding with you.

Sam, if he has colluded with you about when he plans to make a presentation, please recuse yourself.

Do you think either one of them can resist the drama? One can hope, can’t one?

Divided We Stand, United We Fall

2007-11-15T06:50:00.000-08:00

That, should realistically be the way the saying goes. Whether you view yourself as part of a corporation, a family unit, a community or a nation – you are truly considered a "part" of those units and those groups are only as strong as their weakest link.

For instance, these past several months has seen this community ripped apart by the ego of one man. Damage has been caused to the citizens of Clatsop County by this individual and his maniacal following of "minions" to the point that it undoubtedly will take an Herculean effort to overcome if he does not do the right thing and plan his exit strategy soon.

As much as we like to think of ourselves as individuals, very few people will be remembered that way. What we leave behind, for most of us unless we are outstanding in a freakish way, like Vincent van Gogh or Adolph Hitler, will be what we did do or did not do as a society,nation or culture as a whole.

This person responsible for this division locally will undoubtedly be but a blip on the radar screen of the common Clatsopian's conscience in the coming decades, but being as he has been here doing his best to pit himself and "his flock" against the rest of the world for the last 14 years, it may take another 14 years for us all to get the bad taste out of our collective mouths.

For The DA and his trusty sidekick The Editor, however, it is still not over. Up next on their agenda appear to be continuing deviciveness in the form of recalls of Commissioners and more "humor" editorials which have to be irking at least the majority of voters who have now said "no" officially.

The Many Losers of The Campaign

2007-11-08T08:17:00.000-08:00

Frankly I am glad, yet surprised that Measure 4-123 failed. The “Yes” people had all the advantages in this campaign. They got their signs out first. Their signs were placed at the most visible real estate locations in Astoria. Josh got hours of free time on the Lars Larson Show. He got good air time on KAST. The Daily Astorian, I mean The Daily Marquis, gave him press that others couldn’t buy. His name and photo appeared above the fold on way too many occasions. They gave him positive editorials and vilified the County Commission. They rarely printed letters of opposition. In one case Patrick Webb called an opposition writer and tried to convince him his opinion was wrong and denied knowledge of any wrong doing by the DAs wife. They refused to run an ad from the opposition even when the opposition had documentation to substantiate their claims.

The “yes” side ran more ads in print and on the radio. They campaigned long and hard and were better organized than the opposition.

With all the lies and misstatements and free press and promotion stacked in their favor they still lost, so far by 46 votes. The only possible turn around could only come if 49 of the fifty uncounted ballots are for the Yes side, but that is statistically unlikely to happen.

Many comments seemed to make this a contest between a dislike for Josh or Commissioner Lee, however we can only hope that the voters saw through this fog and voted on the unwise nature of changing the County Charter.

Though the election was close there will still be fall-out that will continue to be seen in upcoming elections. Betsy Johnson, who always had bi-partisan support, lost a lot of respect in our County. She got personally involved in the will of the people to protect their county charter. She could have done so much good for the situation on the State level, but chose to side with Josh on a local level. It will cost her.

The Clatsop County Democratic Party had been hurt by Larry Taylor’s commitment of the Party’s backing of Josh. It would have been acceptable if this were a partisan issue where the philosophy of one Party was up against an opposing Party, but Larry committed the support of the entire Party, which alienated many members and caused some defections. New Party leadership is in order there and efforts should be made to mend fences with those they offended and gave “Cold Shoulders” to.

The Commissioners have had their reputations soiled by a lot of innuendo. They will need to step back up to the plate and get on with the business of the County and rebuild the trust that was undercut and eroded by the campaign. They simply need to hold Josh’s feet to the fire and get the performance measures they wanted and consider reinstating the stipend only if they get what they have asked for. Another problem this may bring to the surface is that if he reports true statistics it will reflect that his office is over-staffed and there will need to be a correction to bring it in line with reality. This provocative remedy will once again bring out the showman in Josh and he will accuse the Commission of punishing him, further dividing the community.

Josh is finished. He speaks of the County Government setting their underwear on fire while he is walking around with soiled underwear himself. He ran a very dirty campaign. He is an officer of the court and he lied openly on several occasions. He lost his election as President of the National District Attorneys Association. His wife lost her election for County Commission and he lost 4-123. His bitterness is more than obvious and he’s left the County divided and it will not be able to heal until he is gone. If he has one ounce of compassion for healing this community he should look for employment elsewhere. Unfortunately, I don’t think his ego will allow him to back down. There are just enough supporters to make him think everything will be fine if he just sticks with his message. His message is flawed and can no longer be trusted as a truthful elected official or Officer of the Court. He needs to work as an ADA somewhere (not here) and learn how to behave and be humble. He needs to learn how to do his job without the media.

Freedom From The oPRESSion

2007-11-02T11:33:00.000-07:00

Patrick Webb, managing editor of the Daily Astorian, recently refused the advertising of the opponents of Ballot Measure 4-123. Why? First he stated that what the advertisement claimed wasn’t supported. When the supporting documentation was offered he then stated that the Daily Astorian didn’t allow opinion advertising.

WHAT? All these past weeks' political ads have been opinions. Ads claiming that flyers opposing Ballot Measure 4-123 were “lies” were someone's opinion. Ads claiming that county commissioners “lied” about Mr. Marquis were opinions. Ads claiming that the department head lacked the ability to do a performance based budget were an opinion. Advertising is opinion based. Obviously, Patrick Webb is a liar, in our opinion. Does this make the newspaper he manages fraught with lies? Definitely, in our opinion.

Freedom of the press is a constitutional right and one which, supposedly, is a cornerstone of the basic principles of our country. Irresponsible freedom is a corruption of those principles. There is little difference between a dictator forcing a paper to print what he wants and a newspaper editor slanting news and accepting advertising in a fashion that the readers only hear one side of all issues. Especially when a community has no competing daily, hard copy, news source, the damage done is that of a tyrant with the absolute control of censorship.

The very freedom that the press has for so long, the world over, labored to obtain for itself, it now jealously keeps all for itself. The Daily Astorian’s tyrannical hold over information, complete censorship over all that it deems in opposition to the opinion of its editors, and complete disregard for the rights of the citizens to hear all sides of all issues is the act of a group of people who have no love for a free community.

Every once in awhile everyone has the opportunity to step forward and say, “Enough!” Today, in Clatsop County, everyone has two opportunities. First, put down the Daily Astorian. Call 503-325-3211 and cancel your subscription, or tell them you will not buy their paper again or subscribe again until their policies have changed. Tell them that for one week you will not buy their paper to show the power does not lay with them but with YOU the reader. When you pick up the paper again it had better have changed. If it hasn’t, put it down again for another week. Second, do not vote in the way it has encouraged you. If a ballot measure is good it will be back in the spring. As of Oct 31^st a little over 6,700 ballots have come in to the local election office. With 20,865 registered voters in Clatsop County 14,000 people are left to cast their ballots.

Think about your future, think about our future. And while you are at it, think about freedom. Freedom of the press and especially, locally, freedom from the press.

A Voters Obligation

2007-10-17T16:48:00.001-07:00

I recently found myself in the company of a local politician who was speaking with a constituent about a local issue. It was obvious that this politician was against what ever they were talking about and so was the constituent. However, the constituent was against it because of the person who was bringing this matter to the voters.

I was very impressed to hear the politician tell him, “You are against this for the wrong reason.” Rather accepting this person’s support on the issue, the politician schooled this fellow why his thinking was unacceptable. It was the issue in question, not the person who brought the issue forward.

This got me thinking about how often the voters are side tracked away from issues, and sidetracked away from what is right or wrong by being presented with issues that have little or nothing to do with the issue being voted on.

Think back to the OJ Simpson trial. The country was sucked up by smugness and theatrics, but what the whole trial came down to was, did the prosecution prove without a reasonable doubt that he was guilty? It was obvious they did not. Spectators felt cheated because the jury followed the instructions of the court and answered that question, the only question they were asked to answer. In the minds of the spectators it became a racial issue and being able to afford justice. It became vengeful and divisive in the eyes of the spectators, but in fact, they jury got it right. The best comment about the situation was that the prosecutors framed a guilty man.

This is the basis for the sad state of politics as well. People are groomed to pick winners, not near winners. Third party candidates are often shunned no matter how good their ideas are. They are called spoilers because they shave some votes from the party their ideology comes closest to representing. They take away votes that would put the more popular candidate over the top often handing the win over to the other party.

Too many people vote for one candidate not so much because they are the better candidate, but because they will prevent others from getting the votes. You will hear them called the lesser of two evils. How often have you heard someone say, “I’d vote for them, but they don’t have a chance.”

Ralph Nader spent days talking about this on his last campaign. People would say that voting for Nader took a vote away form another candidate. Nader was correct. It is still one vote, and had it gone for Nader it would have counted for Nader.

In a few weeks we will be asked to vote on Measure 49 which will rewrite the previously passed Measure 37. The framers of this measure seem to think that government needs to regain some control over land use issues. One side is now stating that if passed you will lose all your land rights. The other side is saying that all land will be gobbled up by greedy developers. In reality neither is true.

There is also Measure 50 which is billed as the tobacco tax. One side says that this tax will provide health care for 100,000 children in Oregon. The other side says that only 60% of this money will be used for that purpose and that it will change the constitution. If the intent is to make smoking unaffordable this tax will collapse upon itself. The issue is in reality if we should tax tobacco users to pay for children’s healthcare and the administration there of. Is this fair?

Finally here in Clatsop County there is measure 4-123. This measure if passed will require Clatsop County to pay a direct salary to the District Attorney based not upon performance measures, but rather upon the pay of circuit judges. This will supersede the present pay scale for District Attorneys making our District Attorney the only one in the state being paid this way and also giving him a higher salary than the Attorney General or the Governor. This is the issue. Do you want this to happen or not? Don’t consider if you like how he is doing his job or even if you don’t like how he does his job. Don’t consider if he gets great press from the Daily Astorian or his involvement in the community. Don’t consider if you like or dislike the County Commissioners. Don’t consider if this measure was brought about by spite.

As a voter you are only being asked, like a juror, if the County should add to the salary of this State employee without this employee having obligations to the County other than what is provided by law.

If you can un-cloud your judgment and vote for the exact interpretation of the issue at hand and if the issues are right or wrong, then you have done your duty as a citizen by casting an honest vote that will work for the betterment of the community.

Red Herring: The Fallacious Argument

2007-10-10T16:03:00.000-07:00

As we look at the raging discussions and flame war over ballot measure 4-123 we see that a quick review of what we learned in high school about debating is desperately needed. Being on the rather lazy side tonight I think a quick visit over to wiki is in order. A cut and paste job should do for a refresher course.

A fallacy is a component of an argument that is demonstrably flawed in its logic or form, thus rendering the argument invalid in whole. In logical arguments, fallacies are either formal or informal. Because the validity of a deductive argument depends on its form, a formal fallacy is a deductive argument that has an invalid form, whereas an informal fallacy is any other invalid mode of reasoning whose flaw is not in the form of the argument.

Beginning with Aristotle, informal fallacies have generally been placed in one of several categories, depending on the source of the fallacy. There are fallacies of relevance, fallacies involving causal reasoning, and fallacies resulting from ambiguities.

In philosophy, a formal fallacy or a logical fallacy is a pattern of reasoning which is always wrong. This is due to a flaw in the structure of the argument which renders the argument invalid. A formal fallacy is contrasted with an informal fallacy, which may have a valid logical form, but be false due to the characteristics of its premises.

Recognizing fallacies in actual arguments may be difficult since arguments are often structured using rhetorical patterns that obscure the logical connections between assertions. Fallacies may also exploit the emotional or intellectual weaknesses of the interlocutor. Having the capability of recognizing logical fallacies in arguments reduces the likelihood of such an occurrence.

Ignoratio elenchi (also known as irrelevant conclusion or irrelevant thesis) is the formal fallacy of presenting an argument that may in itself be valid, but doesn't address the issue in question. "Ignoratio elenchi" can be roughly translated by ignorance of refutation, that is, ignorance of what a refutation is; "elenchi" is from the Greek έλεγχος, meaning an argument of disproof or refutation.

This, dear reader, is where we are at with our friend District Attorney Marquis, and his justification for wanting Ballot Measure 4-123 to succeed. District Attorney Marquis rightly claims that a district attorney needs to be independent from petty politics. District Attorney Marquis correctly asserts that a district attorney is not answerable to county commissioners. District Attorney Marquis justifiably evokes that he will never give special treatment to anyone in a position of power. District Attorney Marquis solemnly promises to never allow his state office to be dictated to by anyone and to treat rich or poor, high or low, equitably.

The problem with his argument is that it doesn’t address any current issue. The Board of County Commissioners against whom he is ranting has never attacked his office. District Attorney Marquis has not been asked nor cajoled to give them special favors nor threatened regarding the prosecution of relatives or friends. He hasn’t been verbally assaulted nor publicly chastised for prosecuting a case by any one of the commissioners nor has he been asked nor told to leave any group alone or to stop prosecuting any types of crimes.

District Attorney Marquis has built a fallacious argument so that the public will be diverted from the truth. In order to do this he does have to have the help of powerful friends in the media and in the government, ala Joseph McCarthy. Does he? Who were the first to rush to his defense? His best friend, the media, where he knows how to milk a sensational non-story for all its worth. His next group of friends in legislature. Too bad they weren’t so good that they could have passed his bill through on the state level but since he had scratched their backs quite vigorously they were reminded of their mutual obligation, scratched back and passed the buck.

District Attorney Marquis never proved his first and main argument. His office was never attacked, he was never asked by the Board of County Commissioners to treat them specially, nor was it intimated to let a friend off. Plainly and simply he was asked to do performance based budgeting and he bristled that a bunch of country hicks implied that he owed them something in return for the stipend they paid him.

While the Board of County Commissioners certainly could (and probably did) do that, they didn’t have to waste time looking for information in the other county departments and they shouldn’t have to. The commissioners are paid $800 a month to be administrators not babysitters. When they ask for a specific job to be done either it should be done or they should have the right to hire the person who will do it. The BOCC cannot fire a district attorney, but they do not have to pay for services our county is not receiving. The voters of Clatsop County should not be duped by a red herring argument and should demand proof of any alleged nefarious behavior of the sitting commissioners. Subsequently, they should throw out that argument completely, and look at the measure as it is stated.

The measure calls for a state employee to be compensated by the county’s dollars whenever that state employee’s salary is not the same as another state employee’s. Local duties, services or responsibilities are not tied to the new salary. This pay is solely to make up the difference between what the state says a district attorney is worth and what an individual says a district attorney is worth. That is it. Legally, the measure means nothing more and just as few can remember how Marquis got two members of his staff four years ago, three years from now this Ballot Measure will be a vague memory and few will remember why it is we are stuck paying a state employee a set salary that is higher than his own boss, the Attorney General’s.

Honesty from District Attorney Marquis, in admitting to throwing a red herring to the very voters who will be deciding on this issue, is as rare as, well, as rare as human rabies.

At What Price Progress?

2007-10-02T08:08:00.000-07:00

Having strolled through the once-small-beach-town of Seaside recently, it was observed how overwhelmingly developed the area has become.

The TrendWest WorldMark resort or "over-sized vault-like coffin structure" literally blocks out the sun where once an amusement park used to be enjoyed by the youth of Clatsop County. It appears that every nook and cranny in the town has squeezed out yet another coffee shop, boutique or "faux" antique mall or another condo development. No space is wasted (by developers standards) and nary a green space is to be seen anywhere. Barring those who have made a profit in land sales, longtime Seaside residents must be oblivious to what has gone on around their town over the last 10 years. More believably, perhaps they have all cashed in and left the area. Over a very short period of time it appears that several condo developments have sprung up from nowhere and it may come as no surprise that as a result of the quest for the almighty dollar (or in this case the room tax dollars that go to the city) there exists literally no affordable housing in the Seaside area.

Whats a bit puzzling is that although there seems to be rampant unchecked growth featuring what looks to be thousands of rooms available for a fee, it appears that many new businesses already have their “business for sale” signs out or the precursor, the 50% clearance sale signs. The rooms in most of the edifices to the almighty tourist buck looked mostly vacant and except for the people who were attending a convention of some kind, the town was pretty dead.What was once a ‘small’ funky little beach town of our youth, has now blossomed (or you could say withered) into a summer “tourist-resort-village” with literally no character left intact. The very same atmosphere that evoked ‘vacationing pleasure’ for visitors years ago no longer exists.

This is not an isolated transformation by no means, however. It happens around the country when places become too quaint and desirable for their own good. Just wished it hadn’t happened so ‘close to home’ and hadn't in effect priced people out of their own hometown.

The Black Sheep in Office

2007-09-24T10:29:00.001-07:00

Rabble-rousers, Contrarians, Black Sheep, Turds in the Punch Bowl, or how ever you may see them, it seems this describes one member on each of the three most powerful Boards in the County right now. The three Boards are the County Commission, the Port Commission and the Clatsop Community College Board of Directors and the members of all three are elected.

Sometimes Boards consist of like minded people who make big errors because of their like mindedness. It is always exciting when there is one person on a board who seems to have the purpose of stirring up the dynamics of the board itself. Though, at times it does seem counter productive if not destructive, but it can be viewed as a check and balance of any organization.

Karen Mellin holds this seat on the Clatsop Community College Board. Though it isn’t true at all, she is held responsible for the failure of the recent College Bond Measure because she raised issues her constituents raised with her. Her relationship with the college board and the President are still strained.

Bill Hunsinger holds this position on the Port Commission. His scrappy demeanor set the commission on its ear because of his unwillingness to see the Port run as it had under the previous Commission and with the previous manager. He is also willing to take discussions out side.

Pam Patrick holds this position on the Board of County Commissioners. Sam was viewed as somewhat a team player until the Board cut the stipend of the District Attorney. It was at that point his passions for his vision of public safety over ran his programming of good sense. Since then he has become more disagreeable and petulant. He refuses to voice a vote and now must be called on. He pioneered a campaign to not only pay the District Attorney from the County budget, but to pay him more than the stipend paid him in the first place.

If speculation is allowed and if there were a hypothetical election tomorrow what would happen to these candidates?

In Karen Mellin’s case, sadly I don’t see her running for another term. It takes a lot of positive energy to withstand the pressure she has been getting from the other board members after the bond failure. She has support from her constituents; however continuing to work with a board doesn’t respect her may be a bit much to take for another four years. Her term ends in 2009.

Bill Hunsinger would not only run again, but would easily win again. He’s just getting started.

Depending on who runs against him, Sam Patrick may have a hard time holding onto his seat. He will have the support of his constituents who feel the County should pay the District Attorney, but it seems that support may not be enough to put him over the top. Also Sam seems to be along for the ride, not championing any special projects or opinions. He is a Commissioner without vision and does little to represent his district. He doesn’t even vote unless prompted to do so. Adding to his political mistakes; his incoherent ramblings on youtube should make voters question his logic and judgment as a leader.

Whether you view these three Board members as black sheep or turds in the punch bowl, they can be viewed as the ones who screw everything up or the ones who prevent rubber stamping of things without question.

Another Vinyl Village

2007-09-17T08:17:00.000-07:00

Being aware of their mortality, it seems that it is a matter of importance that humans plant some sort of flag or monument on this planet to seal their identity with the future.

Listening to and reading the local news about some rather monumental projects are being approved and slated for construction, one begins to realize that this has always been and will always be.

Only in recent history have we have become secure enough with our present situation that we can afford the luxury of being against the development of an industrial fuel (LNG) facility, and we can be against river-front condominiums. In years past any development seemed to be welcomed because it would provide jobs and places to live. It was as though the land you owned was yours, but after people got the notion of zoning your land became part of the community and everyone wants a say-so in your plans of development and stewardship.

In Oregon, Measure 37 virtually repealed or at least made land use claims able to be appealed. We saw land owners realize that they had dodged a bullet, so they went out looking for profit while the getting was good. Community members saw the development of the farms and forests in their community and realized that Land Rights Measure 37 was a bad idea so they drafted Measure 49, which will be on the ballot in November.

On one hand one may think that land ownership is an entitlement to do what you like, yet on the other hand established community values and lifestyle. It is one thing to buy a house next to a landfill, and it is something else entirely to own a home on land that has been recently purchased with the intention of turning it into a land fill. The question is if land owner right are a higher priority than the rights of the community that predates the proposed use.

Getting back to the idea of a monument that was mentioned earlier, it becomes apparent that each year we are finding the foot prints of buildings are becoming larger. Every year there are more buildings and more parking areas utilizing precious space. We have a limited amount of space and one day we will run out and we will have to come up with creative means to continue.

Let us for example look at one piece of history. The old Astoria High School up on 16th and Jerome became obsolete at one time, so they moved the campus to an area that had room to grow. But someday with the growth of population here, that campus may become inadequate. At that point they may no longer be able to find the land to accommodate their needs, so the next Astoria High School may no longer reside in Astoria.

Urban sprawl is happening here, and one day it will become an urban squeeze where there is so much infrastructure that it will not only become unmanageable, but it will all become problematic when structures become obsolete. Take for example the Empire State Building. As historic as that building may be, it is obsolete. How are they going to replace it? When our river front is full of shops and condominiums how will they be removed without impacting other shops and condominiums and most of all the river?

The sad thing that happens with urban squeeze is that the opponents become more vocal and the land owners become greedier. The divide in ideology becomes greater and it destroys a community that once had consensus. We create yet another Vinyl Village.

Name of This Game

2007-09-03T20:44:00.000-07:00

Cooperate. What is one of the first things we want our children to learn? When we are trying to get something done and as quick as we build something or clean something they are tearing it down or dirtying it up, “Why won’t you cooperate with me?” we ask. We make play dates for them so they will learn to cooperate with their peers and then in their first year of school learning to cooperate with the other children, the teacher and the administration is a priority subject.

We have sports programs at all levels promising to teach our children cooperation where they learn how to work with one another toward a specific goal, overcoming obstacles together, helping one another identify problems and overcome them with the objective being that the whole team comes out ahead, the winners, along with the boosters, the rooters and the school or district they represent.

Cooperate. An integral cornerstone of life. While “superstars” can make watching an event more lively for audiences, most often when that “superstar” doesn’t know how to be a team player, when he doesn’t appreciate the whole team and play for the benefit of everyone involved, his pompous attitude and scornful actions quickly deteriorate the morale of all who come into contact with him.

These superstars, even if they are the sole point scorers, usually end up being traded or walking out on the team. What eventually becomes apparent is that they don’t care about anyone or anything but their own aspirations and how they look to the rest of world. The day to day grind of making a team work best for everyone is lost on them. They have little or no comprehension of what obligation means when it pertains to what they owe or whom they owe it to. Their debit column is only filled with what is owed to them, what they feel they deserve, what they see others have and what they want.

Cooperate. A foreign word to most of these types of superstars, unless they can spin it to mean, “give me what I want.” It is a word that causes them to wince and glare or roll their eyes. These types of superstars don’t cooperate. In their mind The Star does not negotiate or acquiesce. He knows his worth and does not back down for anyone, anything or any reason. Those not appreciating the star affectionately, adoringly and with appropriate alacrity will be remembered and dealt with accordingly.

Who thinks of themselves as the superstar in our night’s sky? Who insists on twinkling alone, without acknowledging the whole team effort it takes to keep a county running in peak performance? Who refuses to acknowledge the presence and importance of each squad having its own specialty, its own importance, and its own reason for being a part of the team? Who thinks there is only one answer, only one way to resolve the conflict, their way or no way? Reflect and then look for a cooperative answer to this perplexing problem -for the good of our whole community.

Performance Management

2007-08-30T21:45:00.001-07:00

According to the Oregon Progress Board Key Performance Measures many states are initiating statewide performance management initiatives to ferret out under performing activities and find ways to stretch their resources. While robust statistics remain elusive, there is a growing body of evidence that performance management makes a difference. In 2001, at the start of the states’ most recent fiscal crisis, a bipartisan group from the Kennedy School of Government exhorted public-sector executives to embrace performance management, calling it among the most powerful of a limited number of tools available to advance an organization’s priorities. Using a report by Accenture (a global management consulting, technology services, and outsourcing company) Oregon was able to grasp a better understanding about the process of performance management.

Oregon recognizes roadblocks to performance management. When asking asked about performance budgeting in the public sector it was found that one key roadblock is that Executives have not found a clear, comprehensive way to measure value. Because most states do not have an articulated strategic plan, executives are unable to define their priorities. The diversity of state government stakeholders and the different (and sometimes far-flung) services provided within agencies may put the needs of different populations served by an agency at odds and drive the agency in completely different directions. Without a handle on the state’s priorities decision-makers are ill-equipped to determine what better performance even means. Further, different agencies often have conflicting missions—one striving to expand Internet services, for example, and another trying to cut technology spending. Maximizing value means striking the right balance, which involves judgment. Once the very definition of success involves a subjective judgment of this sort, it becomes more difficult to measure and open to political manipulation.

Another roadblock is a fundamental lack of understanding of the concept of performance management and inadequate management skills impeding progress. The root of the problem often can be traced to the way agency leaders are chosen. In most states, the people who lead the organizations are political appointees who have been selected based on what they did, or what they will do, for the governor—not because they had specific expertise in leading and managing organizations. To assume these people will willingly embrace a performance management system, develop strategic plans and then monitor performance when their career track continues to be completely built on politics is, at best, optimistic. “Sometimes the people driving the politics aren't the same people who know best how to manage government day-to-day, and it's an interesting dynamic,” explains Jim Chrisinger of the Iowa Department of Management. “It's hard to keep everything aligned when some of the key people toward the top don’t accept it as a priority. I think there are some lessons to be learned from what's happened at the local government level, where there's been more of a split between the political side and the management side. I could argue there ought to be a professional COO of state government. I think it’s an interesting model; we just haven't taken it to that level.”

Other roadblocks include that when they do develop performance information, political realities prevent executives from using it. One of the most fundamental challenges to successful performance management at the statewide level is the fact that decision-making in government is based on power, not a rational analysis of the facts. The nuances of political relationships and the vital importance politicians and appointees place on managing perceptions make it difficult to implement objective report cards. What to measure, how to measure, and what to do with the information are highly charged decisions. And these choices can inspire particularly intense debate when the results might not be good—precisely when performance management promises the largest benefit. Performance reports have the potential to point out programs that are not succeeding, which can threaten the legislators who have nurtured them as pet projects. “You’re goring their ox,” as one executive in Oregon explains it. “These are the programs they supported for years, and we're telling them that they're not effective, and there are other programs where we should be putting our money.” Unfortunately, politics often overrides cold, hard facts.

While these problems may seem insurmountable the report continues on an upward note. Despite the challenges, a number of organizations have made real headway on the road to effective performance management. Certain practices came to the fore among these successes, including: Concentrate on performance management at the agency or team level rather than statewide level. Focus on setting goals and performance expectations to guide measurement. Support, but do not drive performance management initiatives with new technology. Use legislative and regulatory mandates to create a consistent, cross-administration push. Understand that performance management is an iterative process.

Focus on setting goals and performance expectations to guide measurement. Performance management initiatives can get bogged down under the weight of extensive and detailed measurement —documenting exactly what happens at every single stage of the process and why. Agencies tend to fall into this trap when they view performance management as an externally imposed exercise rather than an effective way to make things better. When the focus is only on the process, any obstacles can become showstoppers. In contrast, when agencies focus on the end goal—performance improvement— they begin to see that processes can be changed and obstacles overcome. That is why some leading states are making concerted efforts to develop concise, overarching statewide performance goals as a starting point.

Support, but do not drive performance management initiatives with new technology. Getting the agency’s IT environment under control is clearly essential for performance management; it provides, in a timely manner, the kind of information people need to get the performance management job done. In fact, IT reform will often ignite performance management initiatives.

Understand that performance management is an iterative process. Once the foundation pieces are in place—the goals, the expectations, the technology and the legislative and executive support—then states can begin to work on the process itself. California CIO Clark Kelso likens the start-up process to pulling off a bandage: “You've got to do it in one quick pull. You can't stretch this out over three to five years. You have to decide: ‘We’re going to do performance- based budgeting. We're going to start next fiscal year. We know that that first year's performance-based budget is going to be very rough. We're not going to have all the information we need. We're not going to have all the metrics. We're not even probably going to have a very good baseline completed. But we just have to decide we're going to do that.’ And then, the second year, you know that it will get better.” The idea is to start small to effect change. Identify a few strategic priorities and find the indicators you can influence at a broad level. Recognize that wholesale agency transformation is unlikely to occur quickly, but over time small effects will add up.

As states consider their own paths toward high performance, they will undoubtedly question how best to use performance management as a tool of greater efficiency and effectiveness.
We [the Accenture Institute for High Performance Business] identified a number of emerging practices among the leaders that we think will be critical:

Be explicit about value.
Set high-performance aspirations.
Use performance management practices to focus and energize the entire organization.
Remember that leadership at all levels is crucial.

Performance management is a difficult journey. The good news for performance management champions is that it gets attention in times of budgetary shortfall such as the states are experiencing now.

Courtroom Protocol: The Does & Don'ts

2007-08-09T12:53:00.000-07:00

An adolescent teen spirit was allowed to observe the courtroom procedure Monday morning as a decision was made on a petition, a petition cast in the hopes that two sides of an important issue would finally make it into media. The teen was allowed, by her supposed guardian (the elderly looking male with her), to make vile hand gestures at elected County officials and mouth obscenities. A casual observer must wonder about the guardian and come to the conclusion that he must be unschooled in courtroom procedure and protocol.

Would that were true, but alas, the guardian with his adolescent were none less than the District Attorney, Joshua Marquis with his wife Cindy Price, who spent the time flipping off the Chair of the Board of County Commissioners and mouthing, "F*ck-you" at him. In nodding appreciation, Steve Forrester, the owner and editor of the only local daily newspaper, looked on. It was apparent that even this petition would not garner an even handed reporting of the events unfolding in the drama that is community life across the United States, land of the free, home of justice and often run via little town media.

Outside, a deluded woman paced the sidewalk with a sign proclaiming "Let us vote" beseeching people for the opportunity to vote for an independent District Attorney. Her pathetic lament showed her blinded to reason, intent on finding others to share her lunacy. She supports a petition which she says will make the district attorney "truly free." One free from being bound to the capricious willy, nilly politics of the local atmosphere. In her passion she forgets the District Attorney is an elected official paid by the state of Oregon, already as free as one can get, and still live here, from local affairs.

Inside the spacious second-floor courtroom people sat listening, most trying to ignore the outbursts of ill manners by the adolescent, hoping that the local paper would go against custom and for once print an accurate accounting of the proceeding. Our County Commissioners who attended graciously acknowledged the presence of each person that caught their eye with a nod or a wave, ignoring the cold eyes and defiant looks of those who took umbrage at the audacity of doing their duties as commissioners.

The Commissioners patiently waited and after a startled look at the District Attorney's wife's frantic antics, with a shrug of "what do you expect from an ex-employee of a porn magazine," went back to watching the proceeding. The action being a forgone conclusion, their presence added credence to the reason for the proceedings having to take place. A call to media for fair representation to both sides of the issue. All knowing it probably is in vain but willing to give the local media another opportunity to be just and fair.

Too soon it was over. The good, reliable, retired attorney's efforts perhaps in vain, but most perhaps not. While the local media mutt weaved his way back to his den to convince himself that he was a good and honest journalist the eyes of Clatsop County have begun to open wider. The extra weekend this garnered allowed many to discuss openly and frankly what this "Petition for an Independent DA" has, and will, cost the tax payers.

Frivolous measures on a ballot are not appreciated by tax payers, they cost money. Those putting them on the ballot are remembered, especially when the tax payer is reminded who they are. Being forced to compensate a state paid elected official, who was instrumental in crafting the petition to amend the County Charter, won't sit well with the tax payer either.

While those who opposed the petition, in the hopes of saving the tax payer money, had no choice but to take this to court, one wonders if they aren't more than satisfied that this is going to the ballot.

The next few months are going to be interesting, very interesting indeed.

Accountability

2007-08-06T16:19:00.000-07:00

Those who hold themselves accountable for their own actions are people we should all try to emulate in our own way.

While this is not intended to target any individual or situation, this whole debacle with the Clatsop County's elected DA and his attitude towards the county officials exemplifies 'what NOT to do'.

If you make a mistake, fix it and don't make excuses. Really, people will think more of you for having done so. You are being damaged yourself, by not fixing mistakes, even if you cannot readily see it at the time.

In your life if you are asked questions that you do not have the answers to, or are unsure, please admit that you don't know and that you will get back to the person with the information later. People will not mind, honestly. Shooting from the hip and being wrong can destroy a person's credibility pretty darn fast.

If you hurt someone, apologize and try not to do it again. Even if it was unintentional, you should always apologize and make a point to analyze just what happened, so the hurtful behavior is not repeated.

If you happen to get caught in a lie, no matter how small, please admit it, briefly apologize if warranted and move on. Never believe that you have gotten away with something by not getting caught in a lie. It will catch up with you in one form or another and you are the person who will be damaged the most.

If in your life you break something, albeit someone's heart or someone's tangible possession, please fix it or replace it. This will have it's rewards later in life, as you will come to find out.

Don't lay blame on others for something you have done. Some people have made a lifelong habit of casting blame on everyone but the person in the mirror.

This message is not meant to admonish any one, but rather to remind us all to be more aware of our actions, and (hopefully) to stop and think about whether we are being good role models that others that may look up to.

Are you a good role model for yourself and if you were to die tomorrow, would you be proud of your recent actions that people will remember you by?

Those are the questions we must ask ourselves on a daily basis to keep things in check and keep our lives 'purposeful' as well as being an example for our children for those of us that have them or are around them enough to form an impression.

Which Side Are You On?

2007-08-02T08:17:00.001-07:00

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This simple law of physics translates well into everyday life. There is nothing that happens in our lives that this law doesn’t apply to. Every event starts a chain reaction which creates a Mobius Strip where the equal and opposite thing comes about.

Let’s say for example a criminal activity takes place. Wanting to prevent another criminal activity in the same location a gate or a door will be fitted with a lock and a camera will be installed. Next time the crime is committed elsewhere more locks and cameras will be installed.

To get ahead of the curve and in the name of proactive measures we suddenly see everything caged and locked with cameras pointed everywhere trying to prevent crimes. In order to get access one often needs to be “Buzzed in” and sometimes even “Buzzed out” in order to leave.

The card keys that open your hotel room are linked up to a database where your activities can be tracked. It inn keeper can find easily find out what times you entered your room or any other room that card key has access to such as the entrance after hours, the exercise room, the pool or sauna. You were on camera from the moment you drove into the parking lot and are on camera until you enter your room; that is if you close your blinds.

If you go grocery shopping, you are on camera the whole time as well. If you use your rewards or customer card they know who you are and what you purchased. The cameras were placed there for security but are actually being used to detect consumer patterns or stated in another way, to spy on the customers.

It was the threat of crime justified the installation of cameras but what they’ve in effect done is turn our world into a minimum security prison where we are the inmates. We are locked in or locked out and we are nearly always on camera when we leave our homes. Our activities are often limited so as not to perpetuate criminal activity.

Some people say they feel safer living in a society where everything happens within the view of a lens. Some people feel safer in prison than they feel when they are free. Some criminals will commit a criminal offense just so they can go back to prison. It is home to them.

As for yourself, what your limits are? Banks have been using cameras for years. Many businesses such as Fred Meyer have large monitors mounted above their entrances just to let you know you are on camera every where you go in their store. Police cars are outfitted with cameras and there are traffic cameras and weather cameras also lacing popular places people pass through and visit.

Would you like being on camera in your coffee shop? How about in the changing room? How about on the street at Sunday Market? How about in the theater? How about being on camera on the River Walk? How far does it need to go before you feel like you are a prisoner in your own society?

It is doubtful that we will ever be able to get the Genie back in the bottle. We are living in a time where we are all presumed guilty at birth as though we really were born with what Catholics call “Original Sin.” Remember, America is the Land of the Free, unless we surrender all of our freedoms. Is it possible that one day “Trust Zones” will appear, where shops and neighborhoods take the necessary measures to rid their areas of spy equipment and people will be able to live free again?

The Myth of the Good Old Days

2007-07-26T09:18:00.000-07:00

It is easy for anyone with a sense of history and memories of a gentler time to think fondly of a return to the good old days. Our fantasy can be derailed if we realize what would really await us if we returned to the time of yore.

Our sunny ideas may illuminate the good things, but there were bad things as well. Let’s look at things 50 years ago. Though you may have the romantic idea that the world was full of Ward and June Cleavers and gasoline went for cents per gallon, the reality is that racism and lynching were rampant. Automobiles were unsafe with hard metal dash boards and no seat belts. Politics were corrupt and the news media rarely brought things to the surface. Much of the American moral compass was pointed toward the puritanical. Music was available only on radio, reel to reel tape or vinyl. Calculators were called slide rules or abacus. Electronic equipment used vacuum tubes that needed to be replaced from time to time.

Now let’s take it back 100 years. Unless you lived in the working part of town it was rare to hear an engine. Your shoe leather was your transportation unless you were fortunate enough to have a horse or other beast of burden. If you didn’t fall prey to polio, tuberculosis, small pox or consumption, some simple infection could snuff out your life in two weeks. Medicine was very primitive. There were no antibiotics. Heating your home was labor intensive with wood or coal and it was dangerous. Homes were not insulated and there were no building codes. Safety was not a feature in any home or product that went into the home. Most homes still did not have indoor plumbing.

This begs one to pose the question, “Are these the good old days?” While some complain about paving paradise, demand for products and services by all are fueling the steam rollers. We like the convenience of microwaving our cooling beverages. We love the newest communication technology and getting the fastest most reliable internet machines is a must. We love the latest gadgets because they do seem to make our lives easier. All this demand opens our arms to embrace the doors of the discount big box industry which is reshaping consumer habits and targeting the consumers in us all. Our land marks are changing and becoming recognizable to all who move here or just pass through because it looks similar to elsewhere else.

One can only imagine what conveniences and inconveniences await us in the decades to come. It will surely be that these times of transition will one day be the Good Old Days to some who are living here now. Others will view it as the beginning of our down fall to homogeny.

Stewardship

2007-07-23T01:32:00.000-07:00

Stewardship is an action. It is when someone has the responsibility for taking care of another person's property or financial affairs. Looking into the past we see that stewardship first was the responsibility given to household servants to bring food and drinks to a castle dining hall. Later, the term came to indicate a household employee's responsibility for managing household or domestic affairs. Now we have environmental stewards, financial stewards and product stewards.

Stewardship is an ethic that embodies cooperative planning and management of many resources with diverse organizations, communities and others to actively engage in the interest of long-term sustainability, and often expansion or protection, as the ultimate goal(s).

When we vote for our commissioners, our council members, and mayors we are voting for stewards. People we trust to make decisions, with our resources, on our behalf. In this day and age our stewards are still our servants, our public servants. They are not our private servants. While we do have the duty to watch their stewardship, it is after all our resources, we also have a duty to not micromanage our stewards. We should realize that these resources are everyone’s and while we may know that we know what is best, these stewards often have a more holistic viewpoint. They are hearing a cacophony of voices that they must listen for a rhythm to, choosing which voices are blending well with one another and at which times to add in the next voice to bring out the best harmony, given what they have to work with. Sometimes it appears to be a no win situation, yet they are still required to find a way through, to hear the best offered, and if they don’t they know they will hear about it.

Throughout the most recent episode with the District Attorney we were reminded when this community was first trolled by the LNG companies. The Daily Astorian wouldn’t give those opposing LNG the time of day until, finally, one of the reporters who had done her research forced the issue and began doggedly following the controversy. For the longest time it appeared that the pro-LNG voices shouted over the top of the anti-LNG voices, with the Daily Astorian cheering the former side on. It was only on the forum message boards and individual blogs that one came to the understanding that there was major opposition to the LNG faction.

With this debacle with District Attorney Josh Marquis’ treatment and disdain of the budget committee and the commissioners the forum message boards is the only place where one understands the magnitude of anger and distrust that the average person has for the district attorney. Through these forums what comes through is the frustration of the clearly biased "news" reporting by local media. The ridicule that the district attorney has held the commissioners up to, commissioners elected by the constituents in the county to steward their resources, is the true “spit" and "slap" in the face of every single person in Clatsop County.

They are our stewards, entrusted with our resources. When does the trust start? What does that trust look like? When and where does it end?

What Support?

2007-07-19T08:16:00.000-07:00

Ever since our troops entered Afghanistan and the subsequent invasion of Iraq, one of the signs of required patriotism was to show some sort of support for the troops. Rather than be deemed unpatriotic, many choose to qualify what they were feeling by stating that they do support the troops, but not the cause for which they were fighting.

This statement is becoming the wide spread sentiment now that the wars and the leaders are becoming more and more unpopular. The heart of the problem may be that not enough Americans have sacrificed anything more than higher gasoline prices and longer lines at air ports in these conflicts. It is easy for people to reconsider their opinions when they are merely inconvenienced.

During World War II every American felt the effects of the war. The war machine required much form its people. There was fuel and food rationing. Items were collected for recycling for the war effort. War Bonds were a patriotic investment. Though there was a draft, most Americans joined the military freely. Women and persons with deferments filled the industrial positions vacated by those who were serving in the military. On the dark side, ethnicity decided who was assigned to internment camps. There was no escape from that war.

This time around troop support means that you buy a magnetic ribbon that was made in China, and you slap it on the ass end of your SUV so you can see it every time you pile groceries in the back or fill the over sized gas tank with Middle East fossil fuels. The President prescription for supporting out country during the time of war is his instruction for the people to go out and go shopping.

There are sadly over 3500 families that have lost their loved ones and many thousands more who have life long disabilities due to injuries. These are the people and their families making the real sacrifices in this war. It is an insult to their integrity and sacrifice to throw on a magnetic ribbon and think that you support them.

If you want to support the troops, sign up to do some volunteer work that will directly benefit them. If you don’t want to commit some time to them you should at least remove your magnetic ribbon. It is an insult.

.08

2007-07-16T08:36:00.000-07:00

Every week there are several people who get arrested for driving while under the influence of intoxicants in this county. Multiply this with the number of people who get arrested around the country every week and you will see an epidemic that just isn’t going away.

Though more recent statistics are hard to find, in the year 2005 there were 488 automobile fatalities in Oregon of which 177 were alcohol related. 36% of the fatalities were alcohol related. Of these 177 alcohol related fatalities 139 were by people who had a blood alcohol level above .08%.

The interesting thing about this statistic is that 38 of the fatalities were caused by people with an alcohol level lower than .08.

The question that needs to be posed here is: Why is any level of alcohol is acceptable while behind the wheel? Is it the bar and restaurant lobby that prevents a zero tolerance policy? As a driver I would like to drive on roads where I could be somewhat assured that the traffic heading in my direction doesn’t harbor someone with a mind and reaction altering substance.

There is presently equipment available that prevents an individual from starting the engine if it detects any alcohol on their breath. This isn’t fool-proof since a non imbibed person can lean over and blow into the meter. This logistical problem could easily be remedied. If law makers and the auto industry are so proactive on safety issues, why isn’t this now standard equipment on all vehicles?

Granted, one problem with the device is that it only tests for alcohol and there are lists of intoxicants that can impair driving. There are legal and illegal drugs, but for now alcohol is a big problem that can be dealt with. People need to learn that it isn’t acceptable to have a glass of wine with dinner and then expect to drive a vehicle that is larger than some houses in third world countries. It doesn’t sound like much and most people can legally drive after one glass of wine though it is morally wrong. It is a problem where minds need to be changed to understand that even one glass before driving isn’t acceptable by our society. It is sad to sacrifice even one life to this legal mistake.

Alcohol alters the mind and it gives some people more courage. Having a .08 limit encourages people to test their limits. Having a zero tolerance sends a much stronger message where many people wouldn’t think of driving after using alcohol based mouthwash.

This is not to re-initiate a temperance movement. People should be free to enjoy, medicate or poison themselves as they see fit. However, it becomes unacceptable when elements are mixed to create disaster for those who are innocent.

The Haves and the Have-Nots of our Community

2007-07-10T11:12:00.000-07:00

Imagine you are one of the 'fortunate' residents dwelling in our community who was born here, whose grandparents and greats, possibly even your great-greats etc were reared here as well.

Suppose that you eventually inherited a beautiful home on the hill, on the beach or lake, were lucky enough to have all the right GOB or GOG connections to get you into a top employment situation right out of high school or out of college without necessarily being qualified for such a position. Or, perhaps, your family may have passed along a successful business to you, which only added to the mystique of your 'family name'.

Life goes on for you here and after you do your 4 or 5 year stint in Eugene or Corvallis you eventually marry well, spew out a brood of above average looking children, who will continue to want for nothing throughout their whole lives. They will be the next "golden children" of the community. You, yourself, were one of those “fortunate ones” who were never “second string” in sports, got invited to and had the best birthday parties, hooked up with the best dates for prom and were possibly in the homecoming court.

You were given more chances to succeed in school than any of the “outsiders” (defined in this town as someone who was not born here), you were spared discipline at school or enjoyed a “lesser version” than others and you also possibly had a throng of 'hanger-on' friends who only hung out with you because their parents told them it would ‘serve them well’ to cement ties to your family for the future and any opportunities it may bring through this relationship.

However, living in towns and hamlets in our county, in places that are invisible to you, there is another type of resident of our community. These residents may have family ties here or may be new to the area. One thing doesn’t change, though. These same people who are living amongst you, though they may reside out of your view: in apartments, in 'not so desirable' neighborhoods (by your standards), or perhaps living in cars, transitional housing or campers, are equally viable citizens of our community.

Though the "haves" of our community are always receiving the public accolades, the newspaper and magazine feature articles, and the media attention for their so called 'good deeds', those "invisible" residents of our community are really who make up the backbone of our county.

For instance, look at the flourishing businesses in Astoria and in the rest of the county that did not exist just 15 years ago. We do not mean to imply that some of the old family "names" of the towns do not donate their share to worthwhile causes. There are several that have and continue to do so. We are just illustrating that proportionally it may be the 'have not's' who make this community run the way that it does.

Though these "non-chosen" of our county are the least equipped to do so, they give to their community in many ways including donated time and services, some even working in minimum wage jobs (which may as well be looked upon as donating their time). Further, these same people and families who have come from the "outside" or who were not lucky enough to have been born here have brought and shared with us a wealth of talent, love for the area and diversity that we could not now envision our county without.

Our hats are off to you, the little recognized and unsung people and families that make up the backbone of our community. Thank you for caring.

A Moment to breathe

2007-07-05T13:55:00.002-07:00

Sometimes quietly, and other times embarrassingly loud, they live among us. The people we don't really want to be, and sometimes wish we didn't know, but most often are secretly grateful for. This poem made me think of them and how they are changing our community this year. For better or worse, they move us ahead.

The Rest of Us
Mark Smith-Soto

speaking truth to power is all right for heroes.

it's easy for them to sit at the front of the bus

and look out the window while the bus driver yells

and the rest of us squirm and sweat in our seats,

how sweet those bitter yelled words to heroes, how

they feel the lash like the smile of God upon them!

they lie down in front of the tanks, they stand up

to the firing squad, they hold their hearts in their hands

and laugh in a place deep inside with all of us watching,

we who quiver to strike out, scared to catch duck flu,

to take off our shoes outside the temple and walk in

singing - all of us unready, unwilling, unraveling at

stray dogs, salmonella, panhandlers, fundamentalists, rabid

squirrels, ugly shoes, bad breath, shingles, and love -

how are we supposed to say stop it, stop it! stop it!

when we are afraid to stop in dark places, afraid not

to stop and be polite to the corner santa claus,

to the president, the dogcatcher, the dentist.

is it any wonder when we hate them, the heroes, is it

any wonder we hang them from hemlocks, tear off

their halos, let loose on them the wild dogs

of our hateful admiration? they make life so hard

with their secret smiles beyond any comfort or pleasure,

their prideful steps beyond any arrogance, their

awful aloneness that doesn't need us - don't they see

how difficult they make it for us, how we would like

to give them a loan, a medal, a charitable foundation,

anything, if they would only stop being themselves

for a minute, and just give us a chance to breathe!

What We Did Ask For From our Commissioners: Rebutting the Daily Astorian's defense of District Attorney Josh Marquis

2007-07-02T12:11:00.001-07:00

A rebuttal to the editor of the Daily Astorian in his article defending his friend, District Attorney Joshua Marquis, Something we didn't ask for: Cutting DA’s salary sends a very strange and negative message

Staying within their norm of biased reporting, reflected in its editorial 28 June 2007, the Daily Astorian has, once again, dismally failed its community.

First, the District Attorney sends a message through his friend in one of the editor's opening paragraphs: When Marquis eventually retires from the job, what will the county commission do? If the commission continues to deny the county stipend, the job will attract a lower caliber of lawyer. If the commission decides: Well, he's gone, so let's continue the stipend, it will prove there was something personal in all of this.

A statement which shows, in and of itself, that Marquis is delivering edicts through his friend. He certainly hasn't given any interviews out saying he plans on staying here until "retirement" however that statement was merely made to stave off the accusations that he is merely biding his time until something better comes along. Next, he presupposes no one is going to beat him at the next elections. Seriously, a big mistake. Finally, it ignores the paper's own reporter. While it most often is what the rest of us do, it doesn't bode well when the paper's editor does so as well. Reinstating the stipend will prove they give the next District Attorney the opportunity to prove her/himself fully capable of cooperating with the board of commissioners, conducting themselves as mature, fully functioning department heads.

According to the Daily Astorian's own staff reporter: Commissioner Roberts ... In a memo to the board Wednesday, Roberts said she had "carefully weighed" the public's input before casting her vote, but was looking out for "proper fiscal management." She said she expects Marquis to "clearly differentiate" between his state District Attorney duties and his responsibilities as county department head, "work to improve communications with the budget committee," and comply with all county financial policies. "Speaking for myself, I cannot support reinstating the supplement until the District Attorney shows willingness and demonstrates progress on these issues," she wrote.

Here, clearly stated, is a way for the DA to get his stipend back, yet the Daily Astorian editor ignores this option. Perhaps reflecting the DA's own opinion of his obligation to the requests of our commissioners?

The editor goes on to rant, This decision devalues county law enforcement. Specifically, commissioners should bury any notion of asking voters for a new jail. Why would this editor completely devalue the hard work that the rest of the law enforcement community has accomplished with the commissioners? Why ignore everything that the commissioners have approved in the budget? And why build a jail if it is proven that the District Attorney has been manipulating the system so that people who shouldn't BE in jail are being FORCED to take plea bargains as they accept the deals their public defenders, being paid $34/hour w/o benefits, quickly urge them to take so they can fill the hour in more equitably? Our jails are full of people who MAY have had better options or may not even be guilty of the crime they are being forced to serve a term of imprisonment for if a wiser, more discriminating district attorney had been in place. The results have led to a waste of our resources in jail space, money, court time and staff management.

The editor rambles on, to the beat of the Marquis' drum, Commissioner Jeff Hazen's surpise attack in the County Budget Committee introduces an element of unpredictability, which is poison to the political process. The first rule of politics is: Don't surprise. Many inside and outside county government will wonder whether they can rely on what commissioners, and particularly Hazen say. Really? A total surprise, eh? Then WHY did part time, unpaid, freelance reporter Tryan Hartill know there was a definite possibility that this was coming up? Could it be because it's on the chopping block every year? Maybe both Forrester and Marquis could use Mr. Hartill as an adviser to help them understand the finer points of politics, of budgets, of cooperation, of responsibility to ones community? Of simply being willing to ask questions, admit to being wrong and do what's right?

We would like to very stringently state here that Mr. Hartill has NEVER aligned himself with any side of this controversy and our using him as an example here is purely because he did, indeed, publish the point that the stipend may very will be discussed at an upcoming budget committee meeting. For first Marquis to bewail he was blind sided, and now the editor to join the caterwauling shows an extreme amount of stupidity of two people who should know better than to put it on public display. If someone looking from the outside in can figure out the stipend will be a topic surely someone on the inside, who deals annually with their own budget, knows the stipend is always "on the block".

The editor's argument spins away from him. He argues: Commissioners have also violated the second and third rules among politicians: Don't pick a fight you don't need or a fight that leads nowhere. And don't let it get personal. The public did not ask commissioners to take this action. The Daily Astorian exhaustively interviewed commission candidates Jeff Hazen, Ann Samuelson and Richard Lee in the last election, and this topic never came up. Now it has become the biggest thing Hazen and Samuelson have done. It will mark their terms in office. Where is he getting his rule book? HIS reporters exhaustively interviewed someone? Yes, we've seen fine examples of that process. The public didn't ask them to take that action? Yes, we did. We asked them to be stewards of our money, or our trust, of our future, of that which we ourselves are unaware of taking place within the borders of our community, to the best of their ability. You think family after family weren't dancing the night of June 27, 2007? And if you think they were the "criminal element" it is you who are sadly mistaken. It is the families who have lived here generation after generation who have been caught up in nets that the DA casts and but for their money their own would have had the fate that so many indigent, having to rely on the $34/hour attorney, have had to suffer.

Marquis is several cuts above his recent predecessors. He is a smart prosecutor. Ever read what was said about Nifong, especially by his close friends? Do it. And then read Marquis' profile. Marquis wants people to fall into the fallacy of association regarding Leonhardt and previous DAs, does he like the comparison to Nifong? The editor is slamming many of the former District Attorneys and their staff. Clatsop County has benefited from his skills. Commissioners perhaps underestimate the variety and seriousness of the crime that Marquis and his office prosecute. More serious cases in our courts range from murder to sex abuse to elder abuse to the "collector" phenomenon of animal abusers. There is a steady flow of drunken driving cases. Looking at crime through the Marquis' glasses? We have to pay the price of his insolence when the sensational, and extremely rare, crimes mentioned have more than one lawyer capable of prosecuting them and the rest were/are daily occurrances that Gerttula, Faber and past DA's handled routinely and certainly any one of the present prosecuting deputies, or those attorneys who have escaped that office, could easily handle. The Kittles case was, as are all collectors cases, a colossal waste of money. It got Marquis a lot of publicity, costing the county hundreds of thousands of dollars. How long did she serve without any psychiatric help for what is now known to be a serious mental condition (which incarceration exacerbates and certainly does not make the person ready to re-enter society)? This is the example chosen of why we should be content with Marquis? It serves as one of the many examples of his ineptitude as a District Attorney and why he should remain a second chair with someone else at the reigns, holding him tightly under control.

The editor's final sorry attack: Lacking the foresight of good chess players, commissioners Hazen, Samuelson and Patricia Roberts have taken this dispute to a place that none of us need. The local criminal defense bar is getting a big laugh out of this circus. The DUII defense industry must be ecstatic. But the bottom line is this: Clatsop County voters have been given something they didn't ask for. The chess game is far from over, sir. You count the pieces on the board with your eyes wide shut. Richard Lee, Jeff Hazen, Ann Samuelson, and Patricia Roberts have taken us exactly where we asked them to, towards a responsible accounting (fair and irrespective of that person's prominence, influence or standing) of where our money is going and what it has been used on. It is not an open check book for a media gadfly who collects his articles as if they were notches on a bed post.

Josh Marquis WASTES money. We have asked our commissioners to steward our money. While the $13,500 may not have a huge impact our budget it did say to many of us that our commissioners are doing what they can to call to the public's attention this man's often irrational, noticeably belligerent, and borderline hostile behavior. His lack of ability to provide a performance based budget, to wield the power of his office to the benefit our community, to bring justice to both sides of the law with wisdom, compassion and discretion is something which had to be checked. And it was.

Italicized phrases are excerpts from The Daily Astorian, an editorial and an article.

The Death Penalty

2007-06-28T12:12:00.001-07:00

In 2006, fifty three death row inmates had their sentences carried out in fifteen states. All but one received a lethal injection. One prisoner in Virginia was electrocuted.

It sounds barbaric enough that so many people were executed in this country last year, but making it worse twenty four of the executions took place in the State of Texas.

As of June 21, 2007 there have been twenty five executions in seven states. Again, Texas leads the charge bringing home seventeen of them. Today there are presently 429 inmates on Death Row in Texas.

Prosecutors may lead the charge and bang the drum that the death penalty is a deterrent, but this is simply untrue. Science has shown that most people who are able to commit the heinous crime of murder are actually missing something in their brain that does not relate an incident with a consequence. Nor are they able to feel empathy. If the death penalty were able to deter offenders there would be no one on death row.

On average over the last 15 years states without the death penalty had 29.38% fewer murders than states with the death penalty. It almost seems like the death penalty invites and encourages people to kill.

Another reason often cited by supporters of the death penalty is that the death penalty is less costly than life imprisonment. However, this is far from the truth. According to Spangenberg and Walsh in the Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review, "The death penalty is not now, nor has it ever been, a more economical alternative to life imprisonment." In fact, a study conducted by the New York State Defenders Association showed that the cost of a capital trial alone was double the cost of life imprisonment. The January 5, 1997, Miami Herald estimated that the true cost of each execution is approximately $3.2 million, or roughly six times the cost of a life-imprisonment sentence.

Is justice or revenge the force behind this barbaric practice? It seems that a cycle is created when government promotes death, be it in the form execution of inmates or be it the people we send our soldiers off to kill in war. We accept taking life as a national norm. But what happens to the people we teach to kill? How do we un-train them once the conflict is over? Our tax dollars pay for every war and every lethal injection. We are fueling the fire. Movies and games treat death so lightly that audiences have become immune to the disgusting reality removing empathy from yet another generation.

How safe are we in a society where cold blooded behavior is not only a way of life, but endorsed on many levels by the government. How safe are we in a society when every citizen can be wrongly convicted with faulty evidence by over aggressive prosecutors and have their life taken away from them by the government? It happens all the time.

In the past 30 years, 123 inmates were found to be innocent and released from death row. DNA evidence is shouldering the burden of proof to the dismay of aggressive prosecutors that use economics as a reason for sloppy evidence analysis. The burden of proof is falling on the defense rather than the prosecution.

After a ten year national moratorium on executions between 1967 and 1977; there have only been two executions in Oregon: September 6, 1996, Douglas Franklin Wright and on May 16, 1997, Harry Charles Moore.

Here is a list of states that do not have the death penalty: Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia.

Much of the information in this article may be found at http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/

Extra! Extra! Read All About It: Does your daily let your down?

2007-06-25T14:41:00.000-07:00

Thanks so much Daily Astorian for bringing us a complete, unbiased picture of the problems between the DA and the county commissioners. NOT! It is frustrating and the reason why I canceled my subscription years ago and read online the pages I can get to. Your bias is a sad representation of the level journalism can sink to when given the opportunity to be the main source of written media in a small community. You have betrayed the trust of your community over and over again!

This was sent to us recently from someone who typed it into the comment box of the Daily Astorian. It is doubtful that it will appear on their pages, in print or online, any time soon. A chronic problem in small communities which has one newspaper is that the paper has no fear of losing its revenue, it is the only advertising source. The only need it has is of maintaining a base of readers. Subscribers are a potential magnet for potential advertisers, but many times a paper without significant subscriptions will obfuscate and write, “reaching a readership of 60,000 people in the such-and-such corner” meaning that the area has a combined population of that many people in three or four counties who may or may not purchase the paper over the counter or out of a paper box. Misleading potential advertisers is small potatoes compared to the harm of damaging businesses, reputations and people’s lives.

The tragedy at the Astoria Aquatics Center is another example of the poor reporting and editing of the Daily Astorian. Tom Freel, a newscaster and commentator with KAST radio station, writes on his blog Coast Watch, "When did you guys decide to report rumor as news?" He decries the reporter’s shoddy work at taking merely one account of the witnesses to the tragedy to portray as the full truth. The Daily Astorian reporter wrote: "She blew her whistle and jumped into the pool," Hartman said. She said it was only then that other lifeguards ran out of the pool office. Once Kim was out of the water, Hartman said she watched two female lifeguards begin performing CPR. She said they should have continued until paramedics arrived, but instead, "They stopped and went in back and started to cry." Freel commented: Lifeguards stopped CPR (because she was apparently revived at that point, you don't send dead people to the hospital). Actually paramedics do as would all businesses that had someone seemingly just expire on premise. No one except a doctor is qualified to pronounce someone dead, even if they have been dead for days. But Freel was not reporting, he was commenting on his blog, sponsored by KAST (tackle responsibility of radio to its community at a future date).

When a small community has one traditional daily, news source, its accountability should be held to the highest standards. Akin to doctors, school teachers and law enforcement it holds in its hands the life blood of the people it is supposed to provide information to. It is a vital component of setting a climate in a community. That climate can be one of unbiased fairness, mutual trust, open and frank consultation on all levels and in all matters, child centered, outward looking, upward oriented, neighbor-to-neighbor friendly, future based. Or the climate set can be one of prejudice, dogged predetermined outcomes, materialistic gain, sensationalism, selfish motivational advancement.

Does art imitate life or does life imitate art? When people read headlines falsely proclaiming “The community comes out to support DA” do they bury their own doubts, reaching for a bottle of their drug of choice to help them forget or do they reach for their keyboards and turn to a website to find that they are not alone a whole battalion of people know as they do that there is more truth out there then the Daily Astorian, or any small community paper, has the courage to print? More and more people don't bother reading the paper version and turn to the electronic page to find the opposing viewpoint, the frank consultation, the good, and often wonderful side, of their communities.

While it is sad and disappointing that our own local daily has such shoddy reporting and editing, it is because of this disappointment that new and wonderful writers have emerged. More people are feeling free to ask more questions, more people in public offices are being held accountable for their actions, more people are reaching out to become involved and more neighbors are becoming friends. Even in the smallest communities the computer age is drawing people closer while adding a whole new opportunity of becoming involved. All dailies should beware as their day draws to an end.

Water, Water Everywhere and Not A Drop To Drink

2007-06-21T09:06:00.000-07:00

Though our sky, rivers and our beings are full of water most of the year it is easy to be lulled into believing that our water supply is an infinite resource. Most of the United States is projected to have adequate water supplies until at least 2025, but if the sciences collide this prediction may diminish drastically in the next 18 years.

Over 70% of our Earth's surface is covered by water. Although water is seemingly abundant, the real issue is the amount of fresh water available.

• 97.5% of all water on Earth is salt water, leaving only 2.5% as fresh water.
• Nearly 70% of that fresh water is frozen in the icecaps of Antarctica and Greenland; most of the remainder is present as soil moisture, or lies in deep underground aquifers as groundwater not accessible to human use.
• < 1% of the world's fresh water (~0.007% of all water on earth) is accessible for direct human uses. This is the water found in lakes, rivers, reservoirs and those underground sources that are shallow enough to be tapped at an affordable cost. Only this amount is regularly renewed by rain and snowfall, and is therefore available on a sustainable basis.

Water in Clatsop County is a commodity that is not taken for granted by those who are on a well that has brown water, a well that dries up in August, or those who want to build a new home where water meters are no longer available due to a lack of infrastructure to support more customers.

Local water boards are under constant pressure to not only supply water to all its customers, but this water needs to be clean and safe and adhere to federal guidelines. They also need to regulate the acidity of the water so as not to dissolve lead from the joints in plumbing that were assembled before silver solder was mandated.

The water boards also need to see exactly how much water they have and how much they can reasonable take from their source. They also have to responsibly add to their infrastructure when allowable.

Water sources must be pristine and protected. Astoria is studying running an electric generator with its water output. Other water districts should be encouraged to do this as well.

Citizens should take an active part in their local water works. They should see where their water comes from so they will understand that water is a finite resource, and realize that a climate change could bring about major restrictions in its use. We should consider conservation methods every day. Rarely is the word “drought” ever mentioned here in Dried Salmon County. Though if one happens we will all feel the effects; not just those who rely on water for business, such as fish processors, car washes and nurseries.

Spin

2007-06-11T09:14:00.000-07:00

As an observer of what is written on our forum and on other local outlets for free speech, I find it interesting how each outlet has a like-minded audience with the editorial position of the particular outlets foundation.

The participation in these forums is most interesting for several reasons. It seems that there is a core of writers who will post their opinions on all forums while others will stick to one or two of them exclusively that share their mind-set.

Though it’s not a forum in the traditional sense, the North Coast Oregon blog seems to lead the pack when it comes to objectivity and respectful replies from those who comment there. This is not to say that opinions don’t get heated, they do, but cooler heads seem to prevail.

KAST posters are for the most part, in lock step with their mind-set with the philosophy of the radio station with some disagreeing opinions from the outsiders. It appears nothing is removed from this forum because of content even if in opposition with the base.

Clatsop County Matters and Astoria-Rust blogs and forums have both historically opposed LNG and have often held views counter to those often expressed by the current District Attorney. Their forum writers seem to inject a sense of humor into the often heavy topics. These two forums also do not censor content.

Finally, the Astoria Citizen's Journal forum has a hand full of like-minded contributors with few opposing points ever making it to the surface. Accusations have been made that the administrator deletes posts and topics not to his liking, and that isn’t an unheard-of practice in most forms of journalism.

An editorial is a hold-harmless rule in journalism. The news that is reported should be unbiased, however the news media is allowed to let their hair down when they call what they write an editorial opinion.

Recently, Paul Mitchell, General Manager of the New Northwest Broadcasters aired an editorial on his radio stations. This editorial was aired several times a day with out an explanation of the rebuttal process for opposing viewpoints. I don’t believe that there is a rebuttal process in place even today. If they were to allow rebuttal it should be an in kind rebuttal. Airing an opinion for everyone to hear several times a day and providing the only opportunity to call into a call-in talk show a half hour every morning or to post a reply on a write-in forum isn’t a proper rebuttal.

The Daily Astorian on the surface provides a space for rebuttal, but raise your hand if you’ve ever had one of your Letters to the Editor passed over and never printed. I find it odd that in the last few weeks how many letters were published in support of the District Attorney and how few were printed in opposition. When one reads the local forums it seems that a very small minority shares support for the District Attorney. Does the Daily Astorian ignore letters contrary to their editorial philosophies?

Blogs and blog forums have a small fraction of the audience that radio stations or newspapers have. However their earnest attempt at democratic free speech needs to be acknowledges and appreciated. They are the best kept secret in information and opinion dissemination where the people can actually be involved and ask questions. They may even be able to find answers.

Future Outlook for Dried Salmon County Seniors

2007-05-31T18:50:00.000-07:00

Undoubtedly you have read or heard that our beloved county as well as a couple of its cities have been designated by magazines, television and other commercial ventures as the #1 or in the top 10 destinations for people to retire and live out their final years.

But, are we ready for them to come? Or, for that matter, are we ready to take care of ourselves in this county as we age? Concerns we have center primarily around the livability factor after the influx of retirees relocate to the area buying property up and after all of the locals who are 'pimping out' our county have made their fortunes, thus padding their own nest-eggs thus ensuring they are able to remain here and live comfortably. However, for the rest of us, the future may look more bleak.

A harbinger of what is to come in the City of Astoria is the 'domino-like' string of condominiums and luxury living establishments that will soon be lining the edges of our beloved riverfront. Condos that will be out of financial reach for most locals let alone local seniors. Currently there is very little if any affordable housing available throughout the cities of our county and this will probably worsen in the future. Sure, there are some assisted living facilities dotting our communities, but they also are far being within financial reach of all of our local seniors and what of the people who just want to live in an apartment or remain in their own homes because they cannot afford to move? This is segues into the next component of senior needs - transportation.

Local transportation, while better than it used to be in this area, still leaves much to be desired. We understand that the local bus system is subsidized heavily just to keep it going, but what if those funds go away? What will our seniors do then? Their needs for transportation are not for frivolous joy rides. Transportation is necessary for them to be able to attend medical appointments, access social services, and also for shopping and other daily needs that we who drive take for granted. Though many of us think that we will be driving into our 80's and 90's, think again. With liquid gold the price that it is now, we may not be able to afford it and, frankly, some seniors just need to not be on the road as drivers. Much easier to convince grandma to hang up her keys if there is a user friendly transportation system that will work for her needs and still allow for independence. Think of the fatal and severe auto accidents that have occurred in this county over the past 10 years or so. Many involved senior drivers who should not still hold valid licenses and be driving.

Challenges in shopping and gathering ones daily needs may be at the forefront and it would be nice if there existed more opportunities for 'downtown shopping' in our communities. Where neighborhood grocery stores were once plentiful in this county, now we are relegated to having to use the "big" stores. Even as a younger person, Fred Meyer and Safeway can be a daunting and totally frustrating experience, but just try to imagine experiencing all of that as a senior.

What can be done to alleviate these hurdles that exist for today's seniors and will probably only be compounded in the future when we reach senior-hood?

Socialised health care would be a start (a topic we will save for another day), as would more low income affordable housing in urban areas. However the housing needs to be accompanied by easy access to local services and/or excellent transportation systems.

As we don't see these things happening anytime soon, perhaps if people started working on these issues now, they may be in place by the time we reach our 'so called' golden years.

Business as Usual

2007-05-19T07:14:00.000-07:00

Traditionally the Republican Party has been known as a friend of big business or even anyone with a business interest. The Democrat Party is generally known as a friend to labor unions and the workers. Though this division seems somewhat natural and necessary for balance it in actuality is most detrimental to the American economy.

As product pricing follows the laws of supply and demand, our labor markets swing with the same pendulum. If there are a lot of people in your profession who are prepared to work, the pay may be lower. If you provide a specialty service that few others can provide, you are paid more.

There are areas of the country where fast food workers are paid over ten-dollars per hour. Not only are they paid much higher than the national average for their McJobs, but they are also transported to and from work every day, which is usually from the inner city to the suburbs. Kids in the suburbs just won’t do that sort of work for that sort of wage.

Recently the City of Seaside has gone through some trauma because the affordable housing is converted into higher cost condominiums. These apartment complexes housed many of the people who are doing minimum wage tasks in their community. Over seventy units have been converted and are no longer available to these workers.

The owners are trying to maximize their investments and make a profit while they are able. However there are now at least seventy individuals or families who can no longer afford to reside in Seaside. This may not sound like much in the grand scheme of things, but next time you are in a large group, count heads and see just what 70 people look like.

Yes, many of the low wage jobs are filled by students who can only work part-time, but consider how many positions seventy people hold. What would happen to the motel industry in that town if all the housekeepers left? Let’s say all the fast food and convenience stores workers could no longer afford to be employed there?

In order to attract good employees or even warm bodies, the local businesses will have to shell out much more than minimum wage just to keep staffing at a minimal level. While a few people try to maximize their investments in real estate, every business will have to pay for the loss of affordable housing. This cost will be passed onto the consumer.

There is a cause and effect here that transcends any ideology that Republicans or Democrats have cooked up. It is hard enough for a small business or a minimum wage employee to survive with the outside forces tugging them in every direction and emptying their pockets.

With oil companies taking in billions of dollars of profit every quarter, the trickle down economy harms both small business and workers. It is believed that everything finds its own level in Capitalism. Unfortunately this level where all things are equal rarely comes into play with these unrealistic profits.

The pendulum is still in motion. Though it is doubtful that those on the bottom of the food chain will ever get ahead; those further up the food chain will have to pay more to maintain the status quo. Affordable housing and services will need to be provided to attract individuals and families to work in the service industry. Businesses will end up paying one way or another to meet the goals of their business plans. Rather than jump through all the hoops and watch the funds diminish with each transaction to patch the holes that prevent employees from living and working in the same town. Wouldn’t it make better sense to pay a fair wage and offer a health plan up front? This will create a work force that will be loyal and will have a vested interest in the community where the business is located.

There is a lot to be said for businesses who embrace this concept. As consumers, think of a business you frequent that has a constant turn over. Each transaction is made with a new inexperienced employee. These employees are never there long enough to understand the customers. Compare this with a business you may frequent that has retained the same staff over many years who not only remember your name but remember your history and what sort of purchases you have made in the past. One might think this is unimportant in a convenience store or a fast food restaurant, but it is important in any business, even a Kool-Aid stand.

The lack of a common ground of the Democratic and Republican platform on issues of labor and industry will keep the nation divided and keep class wars on our doorsteps. Maybe the rich will gain more wealth, but this lopsided gain is harming the health of our country, states and towns. If this stalemate continues it will harm our future as the divide grows wider.

Conflicts of Interest

2007-05-05T00:00:00.000-07:00

In Clatsop County a recurring topic of debate is conflict of interest. Conflict of interest between a public official and his/her “regular” job. Conflict of interest between two spouses when one is a judge and another is the city attorney. Conflict of interest between government employees “using” office time for private business.

Over and over again we have public officials who have to make a choice. Will the outcome of the decision before me give me an undue advantage? We want it to influence their lives. We want it to impact them just as much as it impacts us, but not more and not less. If it is good we don’t want them to have it better than us. If it is bad, we don’t want them to have it less.

How is it that these people, who we elected a mere matter of a few years, or even months, ago suddenly change into people who must be watched with suspicion? Perhaps it is the nature of the beast. We are raised with these ideas of ignobility. Thoughts like “the nature of the beast” and “original sin” are common threads most of us are familiar with. Absolute power corrupts absolutely and the root of all evil is the love of money. Success is looked at with a degree of suspicion, especially when it is in someone who is perceived as “flaunting” it or “suddenly” coming upon it. Carpet baggers are the worst of all people especially carpet baggers with money that aren’t sharing it by opening a series of small businesses that fail, one after another.

Perceptions are very important. In small communities where at the age of 50 you are still be referred to by a “y” at the end of your name or as a junior, one error in judgment can haunt you for decades, depending on who you are. Ask Julie Leonhardt.

Conflict of interest is about perceptions. Each year what is perceived as wrong and to what degree changes drastically. Recently the Daily Astorian reported a drug bust in which an “arsenal” of guns and ammunition was found in a home along with drugs and paraphernalia. The horror of Latino nationals being involved along with “Mexican Mafia” was a topic of conversation and news for the local rag for days.

Not even 20 years ago one of our own from the upper crust was caught after an intense six month long DEA investigation. When the agents burst through the door the man greeted them with a sub-machine gun in his hands. He had over twenty guns in his private “arsenal” along with all of the appropriate ammo. He also had cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and an assortment of prescription drugs bagged and ready for sale. The man was arrested, the DEA agents packed up and moved on to another county. Six months later the man opened a logging business. His first client? The then district attorney. After the next election Julie Leonhardt was the new DA. Conflicts of interest … never ending.

Convincing

2007-04-26T09:01:00.000-07:00

New ideas presented to people are often rejected before being processed fully. In the old days religious dogma was the idea that was promoted most. Strong arm tactics were used in the Crusades and the Inquisition. Holy wars are wars of ideas and dogma.

Later the Jesuits took a somewhat gentler approach while trying to convert the populations of Asia, South America and Africa. Though it was softer, it still used elements of bribery, violence, intellectual superiority and belittlement.

Those times are thought to be the dark ages of brainwashing and mind control, but seeming harmless brainwashing techniques still take place today. The techniques are based upon fear, greed, guilt, ego and psychotropic rewards.

How else could a country convince so many of its children to sign up and risk their lives in military service to fight a war in the Middle East where the geography and culture is so distant from anything these children have ever known? If you think this is an exaggeration, consider all the times the President and the administration have mentioned the word “terror” while speaking in public. A day never goes by without its utterance. Greed comes into play when they boast of signing bonuses and paid education benefits. Playing to the ego there is the “Army of One” and “Be All That You Can Be.” Finally if you ever visit a Job Fair or County Fair in this county the military has displays that dwarf all other. A few years ago at the Fair Grounds the military used the entire arena to display trucks, tanks, climbing walls, mobile bridges and cool technology. They had rooms where the children could play video games and some games are even given away as prizes. There were all sorts of free gifts handed out in an attempt to indoctrinate these children into an early acceptance, which adds up to easier future recruitment.

Children are also the targets of brainwashing with subliminal and not so subliminal product placement in TV shows and movies. They are the targets of cereal, candy, soft drink and toy companies. This is constant assault and the children haven’t a chance to escape unscathed.

It’s not just children. Males at 18-25 years of age are the golden cash cows for most of corporate America. But what is being sold to people above that age? Mostly luxury items, medicine, politics and philosophy.

Here in Dried Salmon County you are presently being sold on a number of things. First there is LNG plant. The LNG industry is trying to sell their plans for development by sending out faux watercolor pamphlets in the mail. They try to brainwash us that it is safe and good for our county, the river, the wild life and the world and it will provide jobs.

We are being told that we need to replace Port Commissioners. We are being told that we need a new college. The tools that those in the selling seat are using on us are fear, greed, ego, and guilt. Oddly, no one is giving psychotropic rewards, yet.

Dried Salmon County Commissioners: Highlights

2007-04-19T01:16:00.000-07:00

Though our collective historic memory goes back only so many years, let us revisit some highlights that several of the past County Commissioners have brought us. Please be mindful of the fact that many of these past and sitting commissioners do so while simultaneously holding down another job or owning a business and generally have busy lives. Some have contributed greatly to our county by their service to the county in what is technically a “volunteer” position.

Helen Westbrook, who served two 4-year terms with a 4-year break in between, represented District 5. Westbrook, who served several years at the Board’s Chairperson, was a tireless champion of parks and resource preservation, animal rights and the rights of County’s seniors. Though seemingly abrupt at times to the outside observer on occasion, her heart was in the right place in regards to the constituents she served during her two terms. She was a “get down to business” type of commissioner. Those that have worked with her closely describe a very caring, compassionate and methodical person when describing Westbrook’s work ethic.

George Kiepke, another past Chairperson of the Board, served one and a half terms before resigning early from his District 3 seat. Kiepke was a diligent supporter of labor and had a keen understanding of union issues not only as they pertained to him in his paid position at a local paper mill where he was, we believe a union officer, but also as a Commissioner.

Tim Gannaway, was someone you would have expected to bring some ‘prayer’ to the table as a Commissioner, but not so. Gannaway was his “own” thinker while he served District 1 for one four year term on the Board. From what was observed, he came to meetings well prepared (sometimes overly so) and well read on all of the subjects to be discussed. Now, he was one for going off on a tangent from time to time, and it was probably just the “scientist” in him that wanted to know every “facet” of every aspect of every decision. Nothing wrong with that, and definitely better than someone who “wings it.”

Lylla Gaebel, represented District 1 for a full 4 year term and we believe was vice-chair at least some of that time. Always the bridesmaid and seemingly never the “bride,” Gaebel was very active on many local and statewide groups concerning her ‘pet issues’, those of communications, emergency management, transportation and economic development. Abrasive at times to both fellow commissioners as well as the public, she was a hard working commissioner who dedicated a lot of her time and energy into the job. Woe be to the person that crossed her on the wrong day or on one of her issues!

Sam Patrick, who is currently in the middle of his second 4 year term representing District 4, also served on the Clatsop County Planning Commission prior to his stint on the Board. Patrick has served at least one year (that we remember) previously as the Board’s Chair. Ever the tireless retired corrections deputy, Patrick appears to relish in questioning issues from all possible angles, many angles which never would have occurred to anyone else but this Commissioner. Some have been pretty far ‘out there’, but a few have been right on. Usually playing devil’s advocate on most issues, Patrick has been and continues to be a strong supporter of law enforcement issues, emergency management issues, and has a keen interest on timber and economic development issues and has served on several state advisory committees.

Current Chair Richard Lee, who is at the beginning of his second 4 year term, came to the Commission as a Board appointment due to the resignation of previous District 3 Commissioner George Kiepke. Not one that flies ‘under the radar’ Lee usually appears a “face value” elected official. You may not agree with him, but that’s a different story with a different remedy, if you so choose. Most know that Lee is definitely ‘pro-business’ and not overly ‘pro-government’ and always looks at things from a “business-person’s perspective.” Lee has had the honor of being designated as the Chair for the past 3 years by his fellow Commissioners.

Patricia Roberts was appointed in August 2004 to the Board to complete Bob Green’s early retirement as a Commissioner representing District 2. As someone who has worked in the housing and design industry, she has become a voice as the liaison to both of the North Oregon Housing Authority and the Clatsop county Housing Authority, is involved heavily with the Clatsop County Historical Society and the Lower Columbia Preservation Society, as well as being a strong advocate for federal recognition for our area as a ‘gateway’ destination. Never quick to make a decision as a Board member without looking at issues from a myriad of angles, Roberts appears to be a careful and cautious public official who always admits when she was wrong and is not afraid to hold off on a controversial vote to allow for more information that is needed to enable her to make a decision.

Bob Green, retired businessman, served District 2 nobly for almost two full 4 year terms before health reasons forced him to slow down a bit. He was doggedly determined in regards to making sure that land use issues were fairly applied to all, not only the wealthy and those with the most lawyers accompanying them to the meetings. He was not afraid to get right into the fray if he thought he was right on an issue and would bird-dog it all the way through to completion. Though some have described him as the personification of ‘cantankerousness’, Green had a firm grasp on what was right for Dried Salmon County and the residents who call it home. Thank you for your service, sir.

Thanks to all of you who have stepped up to serve.

Presidential History

2007-03-24T10:07:00.001-07:00

It is interesting to review the Presidents of the last century and see what sort of experience led them to the White House. We have to look back to Hoover to find what we would now consider the least experienced candidate. Hoover was appointed a minor cabinet position, the Secretary of Commerce, as a reward for supporting Harding. He lacked experience, but was able to be elected into the highest office.

Since then we have had Roosevelt who was a Governor, Truman who was a Senator and a Vice President. Eisenhower was a General, but one that was steeped in politics through his entire military career.

Kennedy was in Congress and the Senate. Johnson was in Congress and was Vice President. Nixon was in the Senate and a Vice President. Ford was in Congress, the Senate and was a Vice President. Carter was a governor and a Senator. Reagan was simply a Governor. George H.W. Bush was in Congress, Senate and was a Vice President. Clinton was a Governor as was George W. Bush.

As Americans, are we demanding our Presidents have past political experience? If so, why? Couldn’t we be better off with someone who was successful in running a big business? How about a seasoned diplomat? How about a clear thinker who knows how to resolve issues? Religious leadership seems to have fallen by the wayside with past candidates such as Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Pat Robertson. Is the American political party machine unable to accept presidential candidates who haven’t paid their dues to politics?

Ralph Nader never had a chance, nor did Perot nor would Trump, nor would Gates. The unpaid political dues of Giuliani will be his doom. Being a former Mayor and a US Attorney may not be quite enough to push him over the top.

As voters it is time to consider what qualifications are important to us to place a candidate in the White House. The race is on. Unfortunately the voters will only see what the major parties want us to see.

Is it possible that we will live to see the day when a political past hinders all candidates? Are Americans ready to try someone who would be considered out of the norm for that position? Will we elect someone who delegates well? Or will we elect a decider?

Sadly, who ever gets elected will face an up hill battle. They will more than likely win with fewer than fifty-percent of the population behind them. Other politicians will be left behind to lick their wounds and wonder if their characters were now beyond repair for a future run at the office.

Those who are not elected usually return to politics and continue to be scrutinized for the rest of their political careers. Those who were in business when they ran return quietly to the business world without consequence and continue with the success they fostered before throwing their hat into the political arena.

Past Presidents always seem to get a pass in politics. Maybe because they have been there and paid their dues and can no longer influence change on the level they once could. This elevates them to elder statesmen. Who would have thought that Nixon, Ford, Carter, Johnson and Reagan would be elevated to this status while they were in the White House.

As always, we hope that we will choose a leader who will lead us into peace and prosperity. As we vote we hope our ballots are cast for the betterment of humankind. If we don’t have this hope, we would be rendered hopeless in very troubling times. For now, we can only hope that the correct candidate for our times surfaces. We hope that things will be better for us and for the generations to follow. All we ask for is hope.

Dried Salmon Co. Prison Blues

2007-03-09T10:31:00.000-08:00

A while back I was taking an online Criminal Justice class and was amazed at how many of my cohorts were already in the system or its edges: as officers or reservists, prison or security guards, parole officers and case workers. Within the first two weeks I was labeled: bleeding heart liberal. A tag that was strange. I have never been in trouble with the law, never had a friend who was. I have never done any illegal drugs. I am not tolerant of people of who incessantly whine about being a victim of circumstances. I was, therefore, startled and appalled to meet the shining white custodians of those who found themselves on the wrong side of the system. The side that doesn’t get to decide when to go home when the door clangs shut, when to leave the light on, when to kiss the wife, the husband, the child good-night.

These radiantingly self-rightous custodians, one and all, referred to those who were behind the bars as less than the rest of us, those of us on "this side" of the bars. It was their jobs to make the criminal suffer for their "crimes against humanity" those who were making life, "harder on the rest of us". They were full of these cliches, these shining white guardians of our virtuous society.

I say I was frankly appalled! What makes a criminal a criminal? At its most basest point? It is when an individual does an act which a society has determined to be detrimental to society as a whole. While society may need laws to govern interactaction with one another a careful balance must be maintained between those laws which protect and the freedoms that those laws can suppress, oppress, depress. Look at Iran and parts of Iraq where teaching certain parts of society about specific subjects can get you the death sentence. Those who choose to violate this law are seen as the most repugnant of society, are sentenced the harshest terms and sent to the meanest prisons. Can’t happen here? What was Ruby Ridge? Who was Malcolm X? What happened to the Chicago Seven/Eight? Are we so naive that we believe that only those famous incidents were the mistakes?

As most police departments are fond to point out, for every person who is caught and given a ticket usually 10 people go free. Conversely, for every person who we know about that is/was in prison for speaking out about injustice, or for their truth, there are ten more that we probably don’t know about.

Locally, I don’t believe that it is the duty, right or place of any person in the criminal justice system to further punish the people who society has deemed a criminal. Today’s criminals could be tomorrow’s revolutionaries, however, more than likely they’re just going to be your next door neighbor. I, for one, want them ready, willing and able to adjust back to “normal” society after “doing their time.” Our justice system, today, is not conducive to that. I hope whichever commissioner is sharing the job with the sheriff and the transition center manager keep in mind that it is our neighbors, friends and family members whose lives they are making decisions about. Decisions that most of us, naively, thought had already been made once –by a jury or a judge- but are now learning can be made over and over again, with verdicts and decisions interpreted willy-nilly.

A reminder to us all: If the United States had lost the revolutionary war, Washington, Jefferson and Franklin would be little more than curious footnotes, criminals in a poor attempt at a revolt against a great sovereignty. Did luck make them right or did right make them lucky?

The Party Should End

2007-02-26T15:04:00.000-08:00

Party politics should be much more of an issue than it presently is recognized to be. Politicians and voters contain themselves in groups of those sharing the same ideology. As this is good for inner-camp consensus building in one respect it is equally harmful and divisive to those of other opinions. Political parties choose opposing views and dig their heels in.

Voter registration records will tell those in a political race how hard they have to work to win an election. To candidates, they already have those who are declared to be on the Red team or the Blue. If the margin is close they try selling their message to registered independents.

During major elections one will often find articles regarding how unfair the two-party system. These articles focus on how another party doesn’t have a chance because the Reds and the Blues squeeze them out and prevent them from joining the debate. The inclusiveness issue may be the wrong direction to go in to gain political voice equality.

Let us consider ridding the nation of political parties. The outcome would be that anyone running for office would be standing upon their own platform. They would not have to yield their beliefs for the good of the party. They would not have to tow the party line just to get funding for their campaign. Another benefit would be that one person could not cast a shadow on an entire group.

Think of the problems that befell the Republican Party last year when several of their members were ousted from politics for their poor judgment or bad behavior. Democrats have had many black eyes in the past as well. These parties count on their good members raising their image.

However, what if there were no parties, just candidates with their own ideas? There are many Independents in politics. They have their own ideas and don’t have to run on the party line. People often find Independent candidates refreshing because they think outside the box, Jesse Ventura being the most visible in recent years. There have been candidates such as John Anderson in 1980 and Ross Perot in 1992 that were not only on the national stage but had garnered a good amount of support because they were out of the main stream of the two party candidates.

A government of the people, by the people needs people with good ideas and it is these people who have consistently moved this nation ahead. The problem is that everyone loves a party, and neither the leaders nor the members nor the voters will part with this long established political exclusionary line towing machine.

From the Ocean to Your Table

2007-02-13T00:52:00.000-08:00

From the ocean to your table the fisherman is the first link in bringing fresh seafood to you, whether it be in your home or the restaurant. The catch of the day could mean it was caught in the last twenty-four or forty-eight hours. It could mean that is was caught three days ago. Fresh from the river to your plate doesn’t necessarily mean what the consumer thinks it does.

Walking out on the dock of the mooring basin, gillnet boats line the docks like cars in a used car lot. The diversity is just as broad. You can see anything from a twenty-two foot gillnet boats to sixty foot trawler lined up in their slips. Many of these slips have been handed down father to son for generations.

I talked with J, a fourth generation Columbia River fishermen. J fishes off a bowpicker, meaning you pull, and set the net over the bow (stern pickers pull from the front). He has a cabin on it that he can use for a place to cook, eat, and sleep. The boat is made of fiberglass that he repairs, paints, and caulks yearly. He cleans the holds out after every trip to get the bacteria from the fish out. "Fiberglass is a lot more inexpensive to upkeep then the old wooden gillnet boats," J declared. "They would get slimey and were hard to repair if they hit something in the river." According to J, over ninety percent of all fishing vessels are fiberglass, now.

A gillnet is descriptive of the way a net is used. The type of net combined with the method used snares the targeted fish. The fish try to swim through the deliberately sized mesh openings (each net made to catch a specific species). They are unable to squeeze completely through these openings swimming forward because they catch their fins in the mesh. Once in this position, they are prevented from backing out due to the tendency for their gills to become caught. This effectively traps them. The size of the mesh, in theory, allows for smaller types of waterlife to get through the net or doesn't allow the larger species to get their heads caught in. Most often, however, the fisherman spends time throwing back things which are not his intended catch. If the unintended catch are sturgeon caught during salmon season a fisherman will often bring in a couple hundred of these during his drift. He will leave them on his deck until he leaves that area so that the fish aren’t caught over and over again in his net, endangering their ability to survive. Because the deck is very wet, and the sturgeon are very hardy, this method is better than tearing their gills, leaving them with little chance of survival as they are pulled from the net over and over again throughout the day. Another problem with drifts are the amount of logs and other debris caught up in them. Whenever possible, as the fishermen layout they try to avoid this debris, lifting their nets over and placing it around the river's refuse. Repair of nets costs time and labor and lost time on the river means lost money, often the only opportunity they have during a short season.

As there was no season when I visited with J, he explained the fishing to me. "You begin by laying out the net, and waiting several hours until you haul your net in. If the tide’s moving fast, haul your net in sooner. If it’s moving slower you wait longer. As you bring the net in you pull the fish out of the net, and throw them in the hold. If it is February or March and the fisherman catches a salmon with a whole adipose fin then that fish goes into the live box, a box of cold water used to keep salmon alive" [until it can be thrown back into the river at the end of the day after the danger of being recaught in the nets is passed].

J has been fishing the Columbia for over forty years. His father, grandfather, and great-grandfather fished the Columbia as did his mother’s family. He learned many techniques, which he said could bring in good hauls even in short seasons when the competition was fierce. These are techniques each fisherman has, and are closely guarded secrets ranging from when to lay out, to how often, and where. Some fishermen come in earlier on short openings, and others stay out longer. Each way has benefits, and drawbacks both to the freshness of the fish as well as the profit to the fisherman. "I like being on the river, sometimes I even love it," J said. "Especially the sky, either the blue of a real nice day or the stars shining out of a pitch black night." The relationship between the river and the fisherman changes as often as the tides.

When J brings his catch in many options are open to him. If he has the proper license he can sell directly to the public. "Most people think that’s the freshest way to go," J chuckled, "but often if the fisherman is selling for himself he’s stayed out long, and is after as many fish as he can get. He then comes in, and is sitting at the dock, selling the fish from his hold. These fish can be out of the water for 24 hours at this point." J argues that a fisherman is smarter using a wholesale broker who has a good client base. The fisherman will get less per pound but he will sell all of his fish to the broker. If he sells his fish himself he may get more per pound but he also may not get all of his fish sold.

With a broker waiting to purchase the fish as soon as the fisherman brings it in, the fisherman can afford to make a few trips bringing them in throughout the day. He wants to do this so his fish is the better, fresher looking, and will go for the higher price. These fish can be sold to the fish markets to sit in the deli case or in the restaurant to sit nicely on your plate. The other fish go to the canneries to be canned, they don’t need to look as nice and go for a lower price.

Conceivably, a fish can go from the river to the consumer’s plate in as few as twelve hours. From the fisherman to a wholesale broker to a retail broker to the fishmarket to the plate, all that’s needed now is a wedge of lemon, and a good side dish.

From the Mouths of Our Children

2007-02-05T12:10:00.000-08:00

We live in a world which grows ever more dangerous at a time when we have the most capacity in the history of the planet to keep our most precious resources, our children, safe. Yet, we still manage to cultivate children with the capacity to understand what an adult needs to hear.

'Be careful out there!" were the parting words of Michael, my permanent side kick for the past 10 weeks. One last thing I could learn from my stay at the Relief Nursery.
I began my practicum thinking I would be the provider of knowledge as the assistant teacher, instead I was the knowledge receiver from the nine other little assistants. These 'little assistants' were split up between the teachers, Sarah and Diane. Diane and Sarah would set goals for each child, then mark their progress through out the days, weeks and year. Some of these goals would include three word sentences or invite some one to play with them, with prompting from a teacher. The ultimate goal is to encourage the proper skills of communication so the child can function appropriately within society and prevent abuse and neglect. Often, times would arise of one child would take the toy from another and a scream or push would come of it. At this time the phrase "use your words" was offered. Then the child would say 'no!' or 'mine!' and who ended up with the desired object in the end was another story. The point was they should learn to express their feelings in a constructive way for their ages, in this case 18 months to 3 years old.

Because the Relief Nursery is directed towards at risk families, the intervention was not just with the children, but the whole families. This included at home visits once a week by Diane and Sarah. Here, other plans of reconstruction were made, supporting the ultimate goal of encouraging the proper skills of communication, and adapting to each family's needs at the time. I believe this multi-faceted approach is the most holistic way to insure healing of whatever wounds might be effecting each family. That way the children do not lose sight of 'using their words' and other positive skills learned. I think this support system is obvious in some children. I believe Gabby and her mother are an example of this.

The first day, children arrived one by one off the bus or dropped off by their parents. As each child entered they were greeted by Diane or Sarah and asked to put their coat in the cubby, which was directly in front of the door. After which they promptly went to their favorite toy or play area. The last arrival was not this smooth. As I was being guided through each play area by my first friend of the day, Amber, a great wailing was heard down the hall and to the door. I looked up startled and Amber said "Oh, that's just Gabby". Gabby's mother tried to comfort her, but to no avail. Thus her mother left and the wailing intensified. A small crowd of teachers and counselors tried to sooth the aching heart, meanwhile the class went on to the jumping room. Midway through the class the tear stained face would join in, and all attempts were made not to mention "mommy." However, with a classroom of toddlers that subject is hard to avoid!

One day in the jumping room, after reading the book 'No More Monkeys Jumping on the Bed' a call was made to the doctor (pretend doctor). It seems the snake Treven looks after (also pretend) took a liking to my neck. "Oh no," I would yell while holding the wound with my hand, "Call the doctor Gabby!" So she would pick up the phone, and I would prompt her to say 'Snake bite Teacher'. The sentence came out understandable with the exception of 'eacher' to replace my name. Then I would ask her what the doctor said. She would answer with a puzzled look. Then I would prompt, "Did he ask you to tell Treven's snake 'No bite Teacher'?" Her eyes widen and I nodded, then she yelled to the unsuspecting snake "NO BITE EACHER!" This was quite shocking to the snakes' owner as well, obviously being aware that Gabby was not a gabber. Both children being entertained with this, the scene was repeated many times. There she was talking and playing with another child, and I was able to be apart of it. I would try to 'use my words' to explain this feeling of honor and so much more, but it is too overwhelming.

Unfortunately, not every child in our class had this support. My first friend, Amber, slowly disappeared from classes. It started with her diminishing cooperation with others. From her sweet demeanor of sharing, to a slight taste for picking fights. But then her presence was all-together lost. It turns out that her parents were not calling her in sick and the bus would waste the trip there. Soon her bus privileges were lost and her parents were suppose to drive her to the Nursery, and they haven't made that trip yet. With the following week of not showing up her place in class was given to another child.

My sidekick, Michael, was a constant reminder that children are a work in progress. One minute he was using dolls and toys to act out violent scenes, then the next he was a crying puppy who needs shelter, I was often chosen to provide that for him. My time at the Nursery was usually spent with Michael. If I was found playing with another child I was quickly snatched away. I accepted that for most of the term, not wanting to inhibit any reaching out he might be doing, but it became apparent that I needed to encourage him playing with other children. So, as he approached me playing with Brandon one day and said "play with me!" I simply said "I am playing with Brandon right now, but you can join us if you like." Soon we were galloping around on our horses, wearing cowboy hats and calling each other 'partner'. I think Brandon was not completely aware of what we were doing, but Michael was happy with leading and Brandon was a good follower.

As I walked my 'partner' to his bus the last day at the Nursery and sat him is his seat, I explained that I was going home for the summer and would not see him anymore. He looked at me in disbelief. I thought he did not fully understand so I just said a cherry good-bye and took a step towards the door. Then I heard "Stop!" He looked around, as if waiting for the next sentence to pass by so he could quickly snatch it up, too. "Just stop," he said. I took a step back towards him, thinking how hard this good-bye is for both of us, however, making sure to give him time to answer without me putting words in his mouth. Then he warned "It is dangerous out there!" Is he reading my mind? "I don't think you should go." "Why?" I asked. "There is a great big monster over there!" "Ok, then I will go the other way." He thought about that for a moment, then suggested that I fight it for him. As I held back my tears I wondered how many 'big monsters' this little boy had to encounter in his short life. I told him I would take care of this one for him but I know he could get the next one. I wanted to confirm that there are grown ups out there who will protect him but at the same time I wanted to give him the power to protect himself, too. My eyes were filling past the point of being able to hold the tears back. All I could do, then, was give a pleasant wave. He nodded and read my mind again saying, "Be careful out there!"

Freebies

2007-01-30T13:03:00.000-08:00

So often one hears, "You get what you pay for" and "If its too good to be true, it usually is." So, it is with pleasure we offer this post to you, today.

Unclaimed property? You think you might have riches waiting for you but someone forgot to tell you about it? Those emails keep telling you that you, indeed, have millions waiting to be claimed by a distant relative that died without leaving an heir. All you have to do is pay them, up front, a finder's fee of ten percent of the treasure they have uncovered for you. Look it up yourself. According to the state's website the Oregon Department of State Lands (DSL) administers the Unclaimed Property Program for the state. To check for such assets as uncashed payroll checks, stock and bonds, safe-deposit box contents, insurance proceeds or refunds and bank accounts, search for your name here. In recent years, DSL has received an average of $25 million per year and has returned approximately $8 million per year to owners. All unclaimed money is held in the Common School Fund, and earnings from the fund are sent to all Oregon K-12 public school districts. All states run a similar program, so there is no need to pay a fee to anyone to find these riches for you. You do have to prove you are the person and your connection to the amount that is being held for you (i.e. an old utility bill to show you lived at the rental where the deposit has been waiting for you).

With a FAFSA filled out the government puts together a financial aid packages for anyone going to college. Whether you are 17 or 70 (or younger or older) the Free Application for Federal Student is the place to start regarding how to pay for it all. You may end up with a package consisting of all grants or one consisting of all loans. Most people are provided packages with a mixture of grants and loans. You decide which offers you are going to accept. APPLY NOW, the earlier the better to get the best chances of grants (which you never have to pay back) or great student loans (which you pay back AFTER you leave college and are provided at a very, very low rate). If you decide not to go to school that year your package is discarded, you are not penalized at all. You must apply for this package each year whether or not you accepted it the year before.

The Common Knowledge Scholarship Foundation is another source of potential money for education. Their website states, "Our Mission is to create scholarly (educational) and scholarship (financial) opportunities in which participants of all levels have a fair and equal chance to participate and be successful." Developed and administered at Nova Southeastern University, the Common Knowledge Scholarship Foundation (CKSF) awards scholarships to students through Internet-based quiz competitions. CKSF reward students for demonstrating what they know. There is no essay writing or long applications to complete. Students receive scholarship awards based on common knowledge and basic education curricula. The primary focus is to have an objective competition that rewards students who have well-rounded, practical knowledge, and not necessarily those with the highest academic standing.

If you don't have enough spam and are looking for extra cash for fun shopping you might try e-Rewards. Members can earn rewards, by taking online surveys, from a variety of well-known companies including American Airlines®, BLOCKBUSTER®, Borders®, Continental Airlines®, Delta Air Lines®, Hertz®, Hilton®, Northwest Airlines®, US Airways®, Zales®, and eBags® and other program partners. If anyone participates in this program, please let us know either here or write it up and publish it over at NCO. A writer over there, TH, has an idea to use a rewards system based actually on bartering using Clatsop County bucks. Looks interesting, it would be nice to have the local municipalities take hold of this idea and run with it. If they don't, TH will be waiting, patiently, for his time to come and run with all of his great ideas.

For anyone looking for something totally free there is The FreeSite.Com. This site has links to everything from freeware to kitchen appliances to dating services to sweepstakes. A safer bet, unless you like the spam, is to try our local Freecycle. It's an effort to keep our special unused and unwanted things out of landfill and putting them into the hands of people who want or need them. All items accepted, but they must be given away for free. For all of Clatsop County you can sign up here, and you can also sign up for Astoria's own freecycle.

Do you have any other freebies that have worked for you?

What Makes the River Run?

2007-01-16T02:08:00.000-08:00

Roll on, Columbia, roll on
Your power is turning our darkness to dawn
So roll on, Columbia, roll on

One only needs to look at the Grand Canyon to get a glimpse of what a river is capable of doing. The power generated by a millinea of roaring water, eating away at granite and stone, was coveted by man and with little regard for what he was doing to the whole eco system that it supported he took it, river by river by river. And the ecology of each spot was ravaged, the chain of events taking place devastatingly apparant to any with a discerning eye to see it. The discord of an eco system so out of balance it is evidenced by salamandars evacuating quicker than rats from a sinking ship.

There are violent uprising and changes in the earth’s movements throughout its billion+ years of existence and throughout that time creatures, great and small, have come and gone. Usually at a very gradual pace nothing has quite equaled what takes place when humans enter the equation.

A dam displaces water without creating another eco system of transference. Without using biodegradable materials, without allowing things to decompose and add to the silt and the rot of the river to grow and sustain further life then all that can possibly take place is permanent planting and restocking of a fish population that has no hope of sustaining its own multigenerational life. The problem has never been over fishing, it has been the wiping out spawning grounds, of breeders and broodstock and fishfood and healthy waters for it all to live in. It has been the deliberate manipulation of a species in trade for the all-mighty dollar.

And while we can weep for our fish it doesn’t end there. With each fish that doesn’t come back to the river, that doesn’t spawn, laying its eggs or fertilizing with milt, that doesn’t die with its stinking carcass sinking to the bottom of some isolated shoal, that is one less spot on the river that is not fertilizing life. It is not nurturing the ecological system that feeds all of this area and makes it rich in everything that we hold dear whether you like fish or have never had a piece of that rich, moist, delicacy with its slightly gray underside, caress your tongue or not. The fowl of the air, the plants in the fields that are eaten by you or the beef or the deer that you call dinner are sustained by that biomass in the river. And we are about to lose it all.

In exchange, someone, somewhere is about to make some moey. In return we will get to pretend for a little while longer that we have fish while someone makes pretend we have fish programs that are saving our salmon. They don’t tell you how these salmon will procreate without their spawning grounds or without a healthy river in which to do it, however they are sure if there could just be a few more limitations put on the fishermen then the whole species could be recovered.

We have sustainable energy. We have the wind, we have the sun. We have hemp, we have soy. We have geothermal power, we have biofuel. We need to close down our dams and take stock in our energy needs. We need to understand what our river’s purpose is. How we can live WITH the river as well as the life within it and the lives it sustains outside of it.

Vote wisely for those who understand that a dollar saved today, in finding cheap energy, may cost us ten dollars tomorrow in paying for the consequences of that short lived bargain. This is not the time to bring in corporations who preach one thing but do another and whose track record is opposite of what they promise or they have no track record at all. Our salmon are dying on the river and don’t let any con job tell you they are being poached! Aside from a new recipe, alongside an egg or two, the only poaching that occurs with salmon on the Columbia happens when someone steals a bad idea for a project from one corporation to the next.

Ollie'll Fix It

2007-01-03T23:01:00.000-08:00

In the movie 'Intolerable Cruelty' you see how "spinning the truth" can get to the point where the last person standing is spun (and maybe even perceived by many) as the one who is telling the truth. Now, it seems, that is where it appears the port is headed.

What we find most interesting, however, is that over three years ago (maybe even longer) on at least two of the local forums people were calling for an investigation of the port and its books. However, the people's complaints, concerns, frustrations and fears were pooh-poohed and ho-hummed while people with [supposed] "wiser" outlooks and more [imagined] "credible" names were given preferential treatment, their veiws and guidance given [undeserved] credence. What is the price tag of this folly? HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of the taxpayer's dollars in fines alone, not to even go into what it will cost if lng companies are not blocked.

The college bond was voted down and the college board wants to know why. They hired a consulting firm to do surveys of the people in the county to figure this out and quess what they discovered? Will, let's look at Astoria Rust, NorthCoastOregon.com, KAST's open forum, Astoria Citizen Forum, and our own forum. OH! For free we see that those voting against it are doing so because they don't like the locations and think the plains or airport hill would be a better location and one they could support or vote for, however, a donation from Nygaard makes them leery. Now, wonder what the ten of thousands of dollar survey says? Oh! It says the bond failed because of the site the board was pushing ... So, where's our cut of the money?

People write in to the forums. Especially now that we have such a nice cross section of them. There's not just one catering to a specific group but four diferent open forums plus NorthCoastOregon's wonderful version of news with commentary. Any person who really wants to take a pulse of our dried salmon community can begin by doing it for free, online, any night of the week. Clatsop County has come a long way from the times when the one forum was limited to the Daily Astorian's limited and short lived version.

The local forums are Astoria Rust, KAST CoastWatch, Astoria Citizen's, Dried Salmon (connected to this blog), and the online news source and commentary NorthCoastOregon.com We must say that these have the best and worst of the local people and that is really wonderful! While our local flavors range from the expected lutefisk to lefsa, smoked salmon to clovered honey, soon the conversations throw out a roasted asparagus or coffee and the savory aromas permeate the keyboard, making it easy to add in the spice of a Hispanic salsa peppered remark and flaming a Pad Thai comment aimed at a commisioner or a district attorney. A good civil servant sits at the table until the Baklava is served and splits the bill, having enjoyed a good conversation with new friends. A few flounce from the table early, not even bothering to leave a tip for the hard working wait staff.

Come visit and contribute, your voice is waiting to be heard!

Another One Bites The Dust (how original)

2006-12-29T23:30:00.000-08:00

As we put another year to rest we can't but help look forward and comtemplate what is ahead of us. Where will we be one year from now? Will we be in a warmer climate zone? Will we be building four new holding facilities for liquified natural gas? Will we be getting another college building proposal?

What will our new judge be bringing to the table? Will the DA resign? Will a mayor stay sober? Will jail overcrowding cause lawsuits? Will cloned salmon swim the river? Will we loose more grade schools? Will our cities merge to share services? Will the high schools share their students to give them the best education?

Will the voters speak out more, fear reprisal less and change the face of the county? Will people come out of the wood work to be heard, working together to get things done that weren't thought possible before? Will empty spaces in the middle of towns fill up? Will affordable housing become available? Will alcoholism and child abuse go down and AA and other abuse programs attendance go up?

Will each of us care about one another more and look for offense less? Will we vote for the person who cares the most for the people and not the one who cares the most for the dollar (unless its the dollar thats buying for everyone)? Will we, maybe not be zenophobic, look with great care on deals that look too good to be true brought to us by people with no ties or connections to our area?

Will this year bring change and will this change be for the best? It is with great excitement that we say goodbye to 2006 and welcome to 2007! May we all have a very good year.