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roboturkey's comments:
on Getting Back to Work: Entrepreneurs
Starting one's own business is invigorating, exciting, possibly enriching, and DIFFICULT! There is a distinctly Darwinian element to beginning a business. Many fail very quickly when the owners realize how much work it really takes.
Another segment of start-ups eventually waste away and fail because the basic idea proves not to be a sustaining spark plug for economic success, or the owners just aren't that good at running a business.
A smallish percentage succeed and thrive, usually because the owners are willing to climb a very sharp learning curve and put the effort into the business that it requires. Sometimes that means years of nonstop work to get established.
In my opinion, the the best inspiration to begin any enterprise is the fact that even though a small percentage of start-ups succeed, they comprise the part of the US economy that is having the most fun and figuring out how to be independent in an increasingly homogenized and standardized culture. Successful small business owners are exceptional people and usually it is no accident that they make it. It is through consistent effort and the ability to sacrifice and meet challenges. That may seem overly dramatic, but it is true.
For those who can make a small business succeed and thrive AND have fun doing it, the rewards in terms of mental health and satisfaction are immense and priceless. But the cost to get there should not be underestimated by those itching to try to launch any sort of start-up.
In my opinion, starting a business should remain a very dificult and risky proposition. Those who cannot perform or operate a business are weeded out and competition tends to make those who remain sharper and better able to continue.
posted 2 years, 11 months ago
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on Failing Graduation Rates
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posted 2 years, 12 months ago
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on Failing Graduation Rates
According to this (state-by-state percentage graduation rates):
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cr_baeo_t1.htm
Oregon is at 67%, but IOWA is at 93%. Just find out what Iowa is doing and do that. Could it be that simple? Probably not, but there is something compelling in the higher number that should be compared to whatever Oregon is doing.
Actually, the basic high school model of having a community disgorge its young people into centralized buildings for a whole day for 9 months out of the year is pretty dated. A century-old model that is failing us. We are living in a Happy Days world.
For teen agers, access to information is no longer filtered primarily through the schools. No wonder many are choosing not to waste time moving around all day in a high school building like rats in an experiment.
posted 2 years, 12 months ago
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on Downsizing as a Senior
great topic.
In a society that values accumulation of progressively more expensive and larger possessions, it is truly a wise individual who begins downsizing and designing a living arrangement that remains manageable as they age. I know many seniors who have happily adjusted to smaller, safer, and more convenient living space.
I have also worked with many estates and seniors where the aging individuals remain in a living space that they treat like some sort of museum that they cannot imagine changing or shrinking. They literally carry the burden of their possessions with pain and aggravation.
Many times the burden of downsizing a home stuffed with stuff falls on children or friends. Planning with documents and discussion with family before hand can help ease transitions.
Also, families should realize that there are actually very few possessions worth passing to family or people they know. The most treasured items are letters and photos. Most of the other "stuff" in an estate gets sold to strangers or donated to charity. Might as well distribute that earlier.
posted 3 years ago
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on Internships 101
Internships are a sensible way for newbies to test out a profession or work environment without making a commitment to stay for a career.
I had the chance to intern as a research assistant with professors at my college. Time spent in that capacity was extremely valuable and I found my professor/supervisors to be true mentors.
I assisted in checking hundreds of background reference citations. Not the most scinitllating work, but I saw that it was necessary for the publications involved, and it allowed me to meet some of my professors' peers who wound up being good references for me.
posted 3 years ago
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on Tea Party
maybe Oregon has a different election cycle than the rest of the country?
I don't really think you are two years behind the rest of us, though.
posted 3 years, 1 month ago
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on Tea Party
The new-ness and crazy energy of the tea party naturally attracts people who are jaded and bored with politics as normal. The initial energy of any petite "revolution" or movement is exciting. The tea party kind of catches that energy from old white Republicans and people who never had any patience for regular politics.
Governing is a difficult, complicated process. The basics of state government are budgets and public services. The more detailed you get in studying government, any flash and excitement gets covered by committee meetings, lengthy drafts of complex dcuments, and, compromises to meet the needs of competing points of view.
Can the tea party supply us with actual leaders? Perhaps, however, there are no elected "tea party" people yet. There is no coherent "tea party" philosophy other than collections of random slogans and the odd reference to the U.S. Constitution. Maybe the tea party process will produce somebody who can enter government and be effective at some level instead of just disruptive.
I do not count among these potential leaders Mrs. Palin or Mrs. Bachman, who are just Republican opportunists trying to run out in front of a parade and claim they are leading it.
posted 3 years, 1 month ago
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on Cracking Down on Heroin
good comment Steve. we tend to ignore the effectiveness of methadone clinics.
posted 3 years, 1 month ago
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on Cracking Down on Heroin
I don't know what the chain of cause-and-effect is exactly, but it seems that as long as we as a nation are propping up a narco-state (afghanistan) that is the biggest producer of opium poppies, there is going to be an ample supply of heroin.
How complicit is our foreign policy in supporting the international heroin supply?
What is the source of Portland's street heroin?
posted 3 years, 1 month ago
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on Turf Wars
A good vegetable garden using raised beds and decorative boundaries can be an absorbing hobby. Over the years you get better and better at growing veggies, and home-grown produce tastes great. I wonder if our veggie gardens take more water than a grass lawn would. Once you get a composting area, the gardens, the gardening shed, and all the rest, the yard definitely becomes garden-centric and takes on a look of its own.
We have a front lawn shaded by big maple trees that we don not spend much time on. It is not the best looking front yard, but the shade is good for the summer and we do not use any chemicals on it.
posted 3 years, 1 month ago
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on Mental Health and Homelessness
THis is a vital topic. A significant number of daily street arrests are of mentally disabled people who wind up without care and medication on the streets, or self-medicating with alcohol or street drugs. The area jails need to be holding areas for these people and that is not their purpose.
Budget cuts and closures of subsidized mental health providers have been an issue for a long time. We treat the mentally challenged as expendable and force the homeless among them to live without meds or counselling. When tragedies happen we pay attention for a while, but soon we treat them like they are invisible.
I suggest talking to a commander of one of the area jails as a starting point to get a handle on how large the mentally challenged jail population is. Custody officers are called on to do what medical/psychiatric professionals should be doing.
posted 3 years, 1 month ago
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on The Fight Over Sugar Beets
OK kiddies, gather around. Elvis left the building topicwise many years ago.
Let's say you eat tofu...soy is the most studied, modified, genetically engineered crop in the world. And all you soy eaters depend on the lab as much as the soil for your protein.
Corn? you are kidding me. The great midwest has been growing GM corn for decades.
Same with wheat, sorghum, all the nuts, wine, hops and fruit in the Willamette Valley, and any other crop that requires a farmer or agri-corp to invest heavily in the risk of growing food. If you are literally betting the farm on the crop you are growing, you surely want some science on your side.
PLEASE get some knowledgable brain-heavy folks from the state universities on this show to inform this conversation. Most applied genetic technology is sound and tested and is making it possible for a galloping world population to feed itself.
There is no food except Frankenfood. If you feel hinky about insecticide and fertilizer, grow your own edibles from seeds in your own garden. You will get produce that tastes great and is as healthy as you can grow it. The PROBLEM is that here we can have fresh produce for maybe 4 or 5 months. THe rest of the time we depend on the farmers who feed us all.
We depend with our very lives on the ag people being able to grow, process, and store edible and nutritious food. Let's give them some room to work and an occassional "thank you".
posted 3 years, 1 month ago
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on Homeless Man Shot to Death by Portland Police
It is a good exercise to compare incidents of use of lethal force with other departments. Some have less and some have more. SO what?
The issue is what happens at the point of contact and whether or not you will allow sworn peace officers to use deadly force WHEN JUSTIFIED. If your jurisdiction arms your street enforcement officers and expects them to respond wihtout quibble to all emergency calls as a matter of duty, then sooner or later one of them will face a situation where their judgement and training tells them to use deadly force. By all means, investigate the incidents formally and thoroughly. Even the investigators will need to make a judgement call and hopefully some of those second-guessing the street officer will have experience in similar situations.
No matter how close you look, though, there will be a point where you have to trust the people you handed guns to and gave the authority to answer your emergency calls. At some point they have control of the situation and you don't.
The outcome, like this one may be tragic and horrible, but don't blame the organizations of first responders who you expect to show up and face down the really rotten and broken parts of our society.
It is not the job of the PD to do social work or mental health counselling. If we as a society chop budgets and eliminate social programs that would otherwise address the issues of the marginalized people in our cities, we can't expect the stress on the system to somehow result in idealized all-purpose-all-talented street officers.
posted 3 years, 1 month ago
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on Homeless Man Shot to Death by Portland Police
Choose:
Portland PD officer responding to a duty call.
Bloody guy with a knife approaching the officer close enough to cause lethal harm to the officer.
Simple Q: whose side are you on?
This is a terrible tragedy. A man died from the action of a peace officer using deadly force to protect himself. But you have to decide whose side you are on.
posted 3 years, 1 month ago
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on Water: From the Bottle or the Tap?
This has been so since the settling of the US West. Study the water appropriation laws in Colorado or Utah for a good example of how water allocation has already been debated and compromised as a limited resource. Also, I am disappointed that today's show did not consider how cities like Denver, Phoenix, LA and Las Vegas have made livable cities in very arid water-scarce areas. The Denver water diversion tunnels and water reclamation system is truly amazing (although Denver water tends to taste bad).
Here in the feral PacNW we have the great luxury of surplus fresh water and that can make the topic of water scarcity seem fresh when academics or outsiders start noticing that water is what it is.
posted 3 years, 2 months ago
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on Water: From the Bottle or the Tap?
Unless you have a permitted water well, the regulated utility you pay for water is "selling" it to you, which is equivalent to buying it from a "public" corporation. Even if you banished any sales of water in pre-packed containers you would still have to charge folks for the cost of installing, maintaining and regulating the utility.
Why in the world is it somehow the "fault" of someone buying a liter of pre-packaged water in Portland that a huge swath of the third world is too disorganized to figure out plumbing and water filtration?
posted 3 years, 2 months ago
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on Water: From the Bottle or the Tap?
Seems like the perfect product to me. You bottle a resource for a tiny fraction of what you can get for it retail, then supply snappy advertizing and the prolls fork over gigantic profits to legally acquire your product.
This is Junior Achievement writ large. The fair return to the State of Oregon is whatever tax or tarrif is placed on the retail sales price, corporate profits, and container fee.
posted 3 years, 2 months ago
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on Water: From the Bottle or the Tap?
Is there an issue here? What fussbudget cares about who buys water from which market?
Bottled water is just "normal" water sold at a tremendous premium in convenient cheap plastic bottles, as compared to just toting safe tap water in whatever canteen you choose.
Inform folks about the price difference clearly. Bottled water is many multiples more expensive than safe tap water.
Once that is understood, consumers can make the choice for pre-packaged convenience or fill-up-yer-own. Water bottles can be recycled, so what's the fuss about packaging?
This discussion is really about the shape and material your canteen is made out of. I prefer a trusty old rectangular military 1 liter plastic canteen. It fits well in a pack or briefcase and doesn't roll around the floor of a moving car.
posted 3 years, 2 months ago
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on Police Oversight
A vigorous civil bar with competent attorneys experienced in civl rights and police misconduct litigation may be the best counterbalance to the current tendency of police departments to overreach their authority.
In our region, enforcement officers are well-trained and professional. However, the budget stress on departments is resulting in cutbacks that are causing the coping talents of street officers to be stretched to the limit. There are going to be more incidents of abuse as this trend continues.
The cop on the street is ultimately responsible for his or her conduct, with civil lawsuits brought as necessary to define the boundaries of acceptable police conduct. The cities and counties will pay the judgements and departments will revise their training to address patterns of abuse.
posted 3 years, 2 months ago
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on Questioning the Census Boxes
Has the US Census ever thought of privatizing the task? I think that if the constitutionally required information is obtained, why can't this be turned over to a corporation that already has a national reach?
posted 3 years, 2 months ago
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