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There's no difference between the Worthingtons and some meth cook

posted 2 years, 10 months ago
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Simply drive out Highway 26 and open your eyes. Having driven every road over the coast range many times over the last four decades, I have personally seen the carnage that OUR forests are enduring first hand. 

I'm not against commercial timber harvest. I live in the middle of commercial timber land. I've worked in the mills and forests, but what is being done in our forests is not just unsustainable, it's irresponsible. 

And where are these logs going? The claims of all these jobs is vaporous at best. Here on the west side of the Cascades - the ENTIRE coast range area - the vast majority of small mills have closed long ago. Claims are made, but where are the mills? Drive across the bridge in Longview and look down at the Weyerhaeuser log dock. 

Open your eyes Oregon. Get out and SEE for yourself the great the "stewardship" of the "cut it all now" State Forestry/Timber Industry alliance.

posted 2 years, 11 months ago
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I'm concerned about treatments for "addicts". While I don't dispute the stories of actual addiction and the anecdotal accounts of recovery through various methods, there's also an incredibly manipulative, fraudulent and lucrative underbelly to the rehab industry. 

Here's my anecdote, a typical story: I got a ticket for marijuana possession - about a quarter of a joint. Although this didn't involve ANY driving offense, I faced a MANDATORY two year suspension of my driver's license in addition to a potental $500 fine. Rather draconian, in my estimation. BUT... without even seeing a judge, the court clerk offered me "diversion" and "treatment"... so far so good. 

Then I got into the "treatment" scam part of this. Every time I turned around there was another $100 plus charge tacked on the nearly $300 cost of even entering the diversion program. What did this treatment consist of? Talking to somebody about politics or music, essentially. The "counselors" were sure to get the fees up front, but then didn't really seem interested in following up on any "addictions". Of course, I thought this whole thing ridiculous in the extreme. I don't have any problems with pot, other than its illegality. How are they going to "treat" that? A: They're not. They have no intention of doing so, nor a desire to do so. Nor could they. 

Treatment is fine for people who ARE addicting to something. But basically bribing someone to have to go that route for meaningless little half roach pot possession busts is simply a "full employment" for rehab industry strategy.

I've heard plenty of stories from DUII drivers who were sent to treatment only to be treated as a cash cow to be run through the system, to think that my story is unique. 

The whole rehab system needs to be evaluated, and the large proportion of frauds that operate under the mandate of the state with captive "clients" needs to be weeded out. I have no problem with effective, efficient treatments. But that appears to be the exception, rather than the norm

posted 3 years, 2 months ago
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Without the popular arts - in particular, the vast pool of musicians - in this city, we'd still be waiting for the next housing bubble to lift our timber based economy out of the dump - much as Portland muddled through its first century of existence. Damn near everything that makes this city as "livable" as its reputation claims can be traced to an active music and arts scene that brought the much praised, but mostly poorly compensated "creative class" into this city. Very little of the governmental money actually makes it to any of these people, but it does foster an overall facade of "support for the arts" that DOES end up getting people out into the venues where these people toil for $50 a night. 

posted 3 years, 2 months ago
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I've been a chief steward of a large public employees union. The police union official is exhibiting false, screaming hysteria. There is NO connection between Adams lying and the city being able to discipline an employee. NONE.

Plus, when has the police union EVER let ANY attempted discipline stand against ANY officer, no matter how flagrant the violation of public trust - up to and including needless, senseless deaths? EVERY time the police union appeals and EVERY time they win.

It's ridiculous to hear this guy crying his crocodile tears.

posted 3 years, 4 months ago
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First ... NO... NO NO NO NO ... DO NOT SALT THE ROADS....

I spent a lot of money on my car. It costs a lot to maintain. I do not want a rusted out hulk like those you see from areas where they do salt.

And you smug jerks from the east coast... get your butts back there, and leave this beautiful state to us natives. Take your salt idiocy with you. The city hasn't been "shut down". They've closed the schools a little more than usual, but it's because of idiots like those calling who are always second guessing the school officials that has caused this paranoia on their part; damned if they do, damned if they don't.

I'm sick of this smug crap though. This happens so rarely that it simply doesn't make sense to invest in the equipment, only to have it sit idle four out of five years. We're already in enough trouble. Invest in schools and parks and other things. Let it snow. If you can't drive in it. Stay home. If you are from the east coast, take your smug b.s. back there and leave us alone.

posted 3 years, 5 months ago
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I live in rural Oregon. I have for 36 years. Not even "in town" like some of these supposedly "rural" commissioners. There are a lot of reasons for why the resource extractive rural job opportunities have dried up. Many of them have nothing to do with State or Federal timber policies; policies that were enacted after rapacious over cutting during the Reagan era appalled a huge majority of ALL Oregonians. Many of these jobs were simply "shipped overseas", whether by trade policies, or lost to short term timber land speculation by out of state timber giants. Jobs have been cut back due to automation at mills, or a shrinking housing market, or obsolete plants that extractive industrial giants had refused to update for years. The jobs that remain - once unionized family wage jobs with benefits and rights - have been transformed into grunt labor, poorly paid sweat shop jobs that nobody can afford to take if they have a family or a mortgage or are older than 30. I had one of those unionized jobs.

But it had NOTHING to do with timber harvest restrictions. Take a look as you drive over 26 on your way to the coast and tell me that they're "not allowed to log". It's hogwash.

The caller that mentioned the nature of people who rise to power in the vacuum of rural politics had it spot on. Many of them are in the pockets of land speculators and developers, or in some cases they ARE the well connected would be real estate tycoons. And yes, many of them are far right wing Republicans with grudges and a festering sense of both resentment and entitlement. I've lived out here in far Columbia County and watched this for going on four decades.

There's no REAL rural/urban divide. It's a divide between those who think they "own" the land and are entitled to despoil our state for their own personal gain, and the rest of us Oregonians who understand the beauty of this place we live deserves protections from quick buck sharp operators.

posted 3 years, 9 months ago
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The premise that marijuana use by adults for any reason is something that the state has any reasonable right to punish is as ridiculous as it is futile. Legalize use by adults and tax it reasonably enough to keep the black market at bay. This would render the false, hair splitting distinctions between medical and recreational usage moot. It's nobody's business if I simply want to get high, whether or not my back hurts when I desire to do so.

posted 3 years, 9 months ago
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The problem that both John Foote and, of course, Josh Marquis illustrate is the all too common attitude among DAs that all defendants are "guilty until proven innocent". Josh - a frequent editorial writer and self appointed mouthpiece for prosecutors - even opined in an Oregonian editorial that the police don't stop someone unless they've done SOMETHING wrong. (paraphrased). Both he and Foote exhibit the hubris of prosecutorial infallibility, when even to the most casual observer the opposite is much closer to the truth.

posted 3 years, 10 months ago
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""I am not so sure that the "Minority Music" scene in Portland has made the national scene"...

two words: Mel Brown

... and that's just ONE place to start your education concerning "minority music" in Portland.

posted 4 years, 2 months ago
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