2012 conventions 2012 election 2013 session arts arts and culture author ballot measures basketball bomb books boy scouts budget bullying business charlie hales children clackamas climate change coal college courts crime culture culture club democrats drugs economy education environment family film fluoride food gay rights guns handguns health health care health insurance high school history housing immigration internet kitzhaber law legislature lgbt literary arts living marijuana marriage media medicine mental health military minor parties mohamed mohamud movies music native americans news newspaper obama olympics oregon our town parenting pers photography police politcs politics port portland portland business journal president prevention public safety religion republicans rnc romney rural salem sam adams sandy hook schools science shooting sports suicide supreme court taxes technology terrorism theater third parties transportation union university of oregon washington wildfire women

That is what Zipcar is all about. My last car got rid of me in 1999 and I have not owned one of my own since then. But I have access to all kinds of cars, trucks, vans, etc. The longer I go, the less I need a vehicle of my own, but there is just no other way to pick up a yard of compost, or pick up someone at the airport at 2am. And there are always those times that you need it.

posted 4 years, 5 months ago
view in context

I'd like us to have a society based on something other than our economy. I don't know what that would look like, but many of our problems would solve themselves if the dollr were not always our bottom line.

posted 4 years, 5 months ago
view in context

My background is in ecology and this is like watching simplified agriculture and forestry systems fail because they lack any sort of diversity or stability. We have a few HUGE businesses in key areas that "can't afford to fail." Why?

What we need is many, many small banks and companies so that no single failure brings down the whole system. And I don't see that happening yet.

With the government we have, I don't see how we can expect to have them do anything but pour money in at the top to prop up the very system that is the problem. They should be bleeding money out of these huge companies and putting money into small banks and businesses, and local communities.

posted 4 years, 6 months ago
view in context

Just because research information doesn't support your view of how the world works, doesn't make it wrong or useless as long as the research itself is not flawed. It is a valid part of the whole picture and if you aren't willing to look at the whole picture, you will never be able to fix the problem or manage the resource.

posted 4 years, 6 months ago
view in context

Normal is so over-rated.

posted 4 years, 6 months ago
view in context

The subject of the 'pregnant man" was one that caused me some consternation.

As I understood the story at the time, he deliberately did not complete the transition because he knew he wanted the opportunity to have children. The pregnancy was planned and carefully prepared for, and the only reason he outed himself was because he was about to be outed by a tabloid anyway and wanted to control the story to some extent.

It all sounded very well adjusted and logical to me. Why give up the chance for something you truly want if you don't have to? And at the same time, why have children when you are not ready, or stay a woman when it isn't your reality?

posted 4 years, 6 months ago
view in context

In response to the last caller. If he believes the surgery should be illegal because it is unnecessary then we will need to make all other forms of elective cosmetic surgery illegal as well.

posted 4 years, 6 months ago
view in context

I have also thought that the double majority was a stupid idea in and of itself, for the same reason. People who don't vote should not control the outcome of any measure. However, I would be more inclined to accept it if it were coupled with some sort of qualifier like, "if you have not voted in three successive elections then your tacit no vote doesn't count." But then I think that people who have not voted in 2-5 years should be kicked off the rolls all together unless they can show just cause.

posted 4 years, 7 months ago
view in context

Refinancing your mortgage, no matter how reasonably, is no good if you don't have a job. And we cannot go back to an economy that is held up by an insane housing market.

posted 4 years, 7 months ago
view in context

I was not super impressed with either one of the candidates during the debate since I hate it when people don't answer the question that was asked.

But in the end I was satisfied because there are real, important and substantive differences between the two of them. This time, just like the other debates, neither one struck out and neither one hit it out of the park. What that means for me is that you have to look at the two men, what they want to do, whether you think they can do it, and whether that is what you want done, which is why we should be deciding anyway.

posted 4 years, 7 months ago
view in context

I agree that a shorter campaign would be a relief and I like the idea of equalizing on air time, although I don't know how you would control third party ads. The thing that bugs me most is the massive simplification of issues that goes on and then blaming one candidate for the whole thing (Gordon Smith's war... Jeff Merkley's furniture... etc)

But, in the end, the ads annoy me without affecting how I vote. At most they make clear to me who is running in any particular race. I take voting seriously, but I admit that I don't do my serious research until I get my ballot. I figure that by then anything relevant that was going to come out has come out.

posted 4 years, 7 months ago
view in context

For some, no safeguards and no reason is adequate. The concept itself is unacceptable and always will be. For others the law is not broad enough and the safeguards are onerous.

In the end, for all of us in the middle, each voter has to decide for themselves whether the safeguards are adequate by their standards. Washington, as a state, will decide based on what a majority of voters "feel" because it is not an issue of logic.

posted 4 years, 7 months ago
view in context

For me the problem is that I don't see the "bail out" solving the problem, just making it possible to limp along with the same flawed system we have now. Banking, social security, health care, oil dependency, education, and on, and on. We don't seem to fix anything until it actually breaks, even when we see disaster looming.

It is like living in a house with a crumbling foundation and having people yell for spackle so they can fix the cracks in the wall.

posted 4 years, 7 months ago
view in context

It is like listening to drug addicts say, "I won't steal to get my drugs, I'll just trash my house, so it's OK, because I have to have them."

We actually need to get off oil world-wide, not figure out how to make it cheeper.

posted 4 years, 8 months ago
view in context

The problem with lowering the price of gas again is that people always seem to go back to "behavior as usual." They talk about "we need to change", but everybody always seems to mean somebody else.

posted 4 years, 8 months ago
view in context

I think prices should be higher for exactly the things that are happening now, driving less, using alternative transportation, new technology development, etc. But I wish it would happen more slowly and more steadily. Sudden steep bumps up and down mostly effect the people who can afford it least.

posted 4 years, 8 months ago
view in context

My own experience is that I got practical, biological, information from my school, but if there was any depth, it missed me because "I" didn't feel they were the appropriate people to be deciding those things for me. I also didn't feel my peers were appropriate guides. I got my values from my parents and they taught us to be self reliant, balanced, and to know & face the consequences of our own actions. As a teenager, I did not feel I was ready for any of the consequences of sex, physical or emotional, so I didn't do it. My sister, with the same parents and the same school, made different choices, but took appropriate measures and didn't get pregnant.

I just don't think "information" is wrong. Knowing how to use a condom was not encouragement to use one for me -- especially since it included all the ways it can be used wrong, making it an ineffective tool.

posted 4 years, 8 months ago
view in context

But you are lumping evangelicals into one pejorative category. I know some who I agree with on many subjects and others who I'm totally divergent from. Being "evangelical" is not the divisive issue for me. Heck, I know a fair number of environmental evangelicals that I consider to be WAY out there. I don't judge all environmental people (or myself) by them. I'm just saying that they shouldn't be excluded because of it and they have been so the effort to include them deliberately is a somewhat balancing gesture, like affirmative action. Pandering would be way different.

posted 4 years, 8 months ago
view in context

I guess we just can't agree. I can except that their religion, whatever it is, is a fundamental driver in how they make their decisions and I DO judge the decision itself on it's own merits, and some religions (or whatever) based on their overall tenets, but I don't see why someone should hide or be ashamed of what motivates their choices especially if those choices are positive ones.

I think it is just as bad to lump all christian groups together as "christians" or all faiths together as "religion" and dismiss them because of WHY they believe what they believe.

posted 4 years, 8 months ago
view in context

I agree that any individual religion shouldn't be able to "codify" their specific beliefs into the laws of the nation. But is it any better to exclude them because they have faith or beliefs? And they have felt excluded. That is why they have voted for people that made them feel included, even against their own interests.

posted 4 years, 8 months ago
view in context