<$BlogRSDURL$>

Ramblings From the Ragged Crumbling Edge Of The Reality-Based Community

Friday, July 15, 2005

Never One Around When You Need One 

...think of this number: 641. Now think of this number: 329. The first number? That's the number of State Police on Oregon's highways in 1980. The second? That's how many are out there today. The proposed 2005-2007 budget calls for that number to be further reduced by 20. No wonder people are driving like idiots around here!

...I realize that people have varying views about having police hanging around when they're out cruising. Personally I don't mind them at all because: A) I had occasion one time to really need a policeman whilst on Oregon's highways and biways and there wan't one that could be available for a few hours and 2) I tend to drive within the allowable tolerances of whatever the heck "Basic Rule" means, so they don't pay any attention to me anyway. I happen to drive a certain stretch of Central Oregon's Highway 97 twice a day, five days a week, winter and summer, all year long, regardless of road conditions. There are some craaazy people out there and they all seem to be running late for some appointment that it apparently is worth risking their lives (and mine) to get to on time. There are simply far too few State Troopers to allow themselves to be suffciently visible to encourage folks to slow down. Providing a law enforcement presence that provides for public safety is supposed to be a core responsibility of government, but for a variety of reasons the state can no longer afford to redeem that core responsibility. There's all sorts of blame to go around: Measure 5, Measure 47, the "Kicker" refund coupled with a recession, the generally obsessive objection of Oregonians to taxation in all its forms, and maybe even two or three other culprits, all of which have forced far greater burdens on Oregon's budget than the current system can handle. As a result, in an era where the constant chatter is all about "safety" and "security", we have virtually half the forces we did 25 years ago to handle traffic volumes that have far more than doubled in the same period. As a result, those drivers unrestrainted by the helpful suggestions offered by the roadside speed signs have no particular incentive to heed those suggestions anyway because they know, expecially out here in the rural part of the state, that any encounter with a patrolman and his ticket book is just rare bad luck rather than the product of some particular enforcement strategy, and we are less safe as a result...

...it's not the fault of the State Police; they have to play the hand they're dealt (did I mention that I faithfully donate to the various Police assistance groups every time they call? Faithfully? It's no big deal. Just something that I do. Every time. Even if they call at dinner. Faithfully. Lots of money. Really...). In the meantime, because of the lack of will, to put it politely, on the part of the legislature's leaders to actually take meaningful measures to fix Oregon's screwed-up taxing structure, we're left to stay out of the crazy peoples' way and hope for the best...
Posted by: Jack K. / 1:12 PM 0 comments

Dude, Call Social Services Next Time! 

...William Crutchfield of Snellville, GA, was said to be deeply concerned about the rough times he was going through. Faced with crushing debt, no clear way to pay it off, and at risk of losing his home, he apparently finally saw a glimmer of hope based on the recent federal trial of Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph. The Federal government could take care of him! So, the other day, he pumped seven rounds into his mailman in order to commit the federal crime of killing a federal employee so he could go to federal prison for the rest of his life, free of worries and debt. Then he drove to the local police station and turned himself in...

...yes, given my employment history I do, in fact, have some problems with this approach. Aside from that, the postman is exceedingly fortunate that he survived the episode, although his life has been radically altered by this fruitcake; along with everything else, the postman - Earl Lazenby - is now as a result of his wounds a Type I diabetic, unable to produce insulin. He will have to go through all the life changes that this sort of diagnosis, which doesn't normally strike 52-year-old men, will require (and, trust my word as the father of a Type 1 diabetic child, these changes are big). If ol' William would have stopped and devoted a little bit of critical thought to the issue, this whole tragedy could have been avoided; there are a host of federal crimes not involving shooting at one of my coworkers that would send him to jail for as long as he felt necessary. Lazenby himself, from his hospital bed, suggested bank robbery with an empty weapon...

...Crutchfield is probably going to get his wish, but in the meantime he had better hope that the Federal prison system doesn't treat men the way the New York City prison system has been treating women. For years the system has been requiring that all women entering its Rikers Island facility submit to full gynecological exams or get sent to isolation. Who knows why the hell they thought they needed to do this, but they did. A class-action lawsuit was filed, settlement was reached, and it appears that this bizarre little bit of business will cease. The City's attorney said these had been required by law and referred all questions to the Health Department which, seeing opportunity in silence, declared itself unable to comment for the moment. William Crutchfield might be given to taking a second look at his situation if he had to face this sort of medical prospect. Contemplating a full proctological examination by a large clumsy fellow with exceptionally big hands who's in a hurry to be somewhere else might just have led William Crutchfield to a serious reevaluation of his options. Fortunately for him, such a program doesn't seem to be in place, although I'm aware of a few people who would be more than happy to help implement one in Mr. Crutchfield's case...
Posted by: Jack K. / 7:15 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Playing Hardball In the Open 

...in politics, people tend to play rough and play for keeps, and if you're the sensitive, trusting, honorable, idealistic type it's probably best just to stay up in the grandstand and not get down onto the field. Usually, though, most of the rough stuff happens at least somewhat out of the public eye; it's one thing to give some guy a good kidney shot just to teach him a lesson, but getting caught in the act in the broad glare of daylight can turn the whole storyline against you and lead to unpleasant unintended consequences. This story about heavy-handed politics, paybacks, and the municiple airport in North Bend, Oregon, could turn out to be just such a case...

...the story first came to light two weeks ago in an Oregonian story, but it's now been carried to a broader state-wide audience courtesy of an Oregon Public Broadcasting radio piece that I heard just this morning. Republican State House Majority Leader Wayne Scott, in snuffing a broadly popular effort by Democratic Rep. Arnie Roblan to secure a $25 million expansion of the North Bend airport to aid the economic development of the Coos Bay/Northbend area and the Oregon south coast, might be playing a little rougher that usual, but what is striking is the fact that we know about and that his spokesperson is willing to admit the reason for bottling up the effort. It's certainly not unusual to lay the whip to the minority party and maybe even gain a little political benefit to boot, but Rep. Scott has thrown that all away by letting himself appear to be little more than some cheap political punk whose little tantrum has almost assured that the Coos County Republican party need not bother itself with finding an opponent to campaign against Rep. Roblan for the next few election cycles.
"The reason my opponent couldn't deliver on his campaign promises to adequately fund the schools or bring vital improvement to our airport was because my increasingly unpopular, out-of-the-mainstream, rigidly conservative party, which lost its Senate majority and probably couldn't win an unopposed election for Governor with some of our recent candidates, blocked it. Thank you for your vote."

...yup, that's the speech I'd want to give...

...making political predictions is usually something one would expect only from fools, drunks, or people who already have in their pockets confirmed flight reseverations to some far distant place...but what the heck; let's tippy-toe out near that crumbling edge anyway. Rep. Scott's little gambit is only one more example of the House Republican leadership's implementation of a strategy that appears to have - for them - a pretty shaky risk/reward ration. Scott's boss, House Speaker Karen Minnis, has now sent the House on two three-day holidays, ostensibly because there's precious little business to do but actually - and clearly - as a pressure tactic to force Senate Democrats to accept the House school budget proposal. As has been pointed out by House Democrats, that light workload is a product of Republican refusal to hold hearings or floor votes on Senate-passed legislation, some of which passed with bipartisan support. Some of the items on that light work load list that could be voted on, such as legislation dealing with methamphetamine problems, may well not be addressed in this session and would have to be carried over to the next session two years from now, since the Oregon Legislature only meets every other year (insert your joke about that being more than enough [here]). While their stand in the haggling over the last one percent of the schools budget may seem principled to some, the fact that your neighbor's meth lab won't be addressed may make it seem less so to you, as may the fact that these little holidays will cost the state's taxpayers 168 thousand dollars, which - put another way - would nicely cover an upgrade of the archaic computers in my children's underfunded school. Going on the lam to stop action in your chamber of the legislature usually only looks heroic if you're the minority. Openly monkeywrenching the system when you have control over some component usually doesn't pay off quite so well, and Republican House leaders may find to their discomfort and surprise that in 2006 voters could have more questions about airport work denied and economic expansion foregone and meth labs ignored and health care diminished that they do about who won a dispute over one percent of the public school budget...
Posted by: Jack K. / 7:42 AM 0 comments

Monday, July 11, 2005

Putting the Torch to Ronald McDonald 

...just a friendly bit of advice. If you sprinted out of the McDonalds at which you are employed, late and in a hurry to get on the road and over Santiam Pass to whatever destination is on your schedule, and you still have your uniform on, drive through Sisters, Oregon, in the dark, late at night, at the absolute legal edge of the speed limit. In fact, don't stop in town and don't even sit very tall in the seat. Your safety may be at risk otherwise, because, at least at the moment, it appears that there is somebody in Sisters who has strong feelings about anything McDonalds appearing in town...

...the debate over the introduction of "formula food" restaurents in Sisters has been raging for a little while now. Sisters prides itself on the particular ambience that it tries to exude, which you can explore here if you would like, and there are some residents who are powerfully opposed to the advent of what they see as the sort of common, plastic, unoriginal symbolism that the introduction of a gas station containing a convenience store and - more importantly - a fast food joint would bring to the feel that they have been trying to create in their town. Unfortunately for them, the city council voted to allow the development. Unfortunately for the developers, who were almost done constructing their new business, somebody apparently decided that recalling the offending city councilpersons wasn't just quite as expedient as setting the ol' construction calender back to zero...

...this is just a wild guess, but I would imagine that this sort of approach probably isn't going to forestall the appearance of the Golden Arches in Sisters. In fact, I know people - some of them are typing into a weblog screen right now, in fact - who would probably react in a rather negative fashion to someone taking an extra-legal approach to their personal property and would respond in every tit-for-tat exchange to the point where those Golden Arches would be visible with the unaided eye from the International Space Station. The people of Sisters have the right to ban "formula food" places like Mickey Dee's if they so choose, and they even have the right to take political action against city council members who don't seem to share their views; recall, after all, is almost a sanctioned sport in Central Oregon. That's where the action should be; once various agents start burning things down, the risk is created that those on the other side of the argument might just decide that open season has been declared on properties to which they object, and that really isn't the way things are supposed to work in a democracy. In the meantime, however, just to be safe, don't wear your McDonalds uniform if you're going to be around the Sisters area. Somebody out in that part of God's Country apparently doesn't like you very much...
Posted by: Jack K. / 9:10 PM 0 comments

Sunday, July 10, 2005

The Rove Review - Shifty Words and Fancy Dancing 

...so now we know what we know. Courtesy of a Newsweek revelation of a Matthew Cooper e-mail, we know that Karl Rove told Cooper that "Wilson's wife" was a CIA employee who actually authorized Joseph Wilson's trip to Nigeria that led to the editorial that trashed Gee Dub's claims about Nigerian yellow cake uranium that placed a critical piece of his claim about the absolute grim true badness of Saddam's Iraq that could any moment lead to Condi Rice's infamous "mushroom cloud" sprouting in its deadly glory somewhere in the US. There are some other things we know, too, but time will only tell whether the half-bright pretty boys and girls in the MSM will actually figure out...

...the first thing we know is that Karl Rove is a liar, because he told Cooper that Valerie Plame authorized her husband's trip to Nigeria on behalf of the CIA. Valerie Plame wasn't in a position to make such an authorization, and it was higher authorities in the CIA that were looking for an envoy to make that snooping-around trip...

...the next thing we know is that Karl Rove is a liar and - more to the point - a traitor to this country. He has constantly made a point of playing at the margins of truth, saying that he never told anyone that Valerie Plame was an undercover CIA agent or that he used her name, the implication being that he had no involvement in her outing. As Cooper's e-mail - which was prior to the initial column by that other noted traitor and administration stoolie Bobby Novak - clearly shows, Rove told Cooper that it was Wilson's wife, WHO WORKED FOR THE CIA IN THE AREA OF WMD, who played a central role in Wilson's being selected to go to Nigeria. One little problem, Karl ol' sweet cheeks Snoogums sugar-pie: nobody knew up until that moment that VALERIE PLAME ACTUALLY WORKED FOR THE FRIGGIN' CIA!!!

Let me repeat that unless you missed it.

NOBODY KNEW SHE WORKED FOR THE CIA!!!!

...as far as anyone knew, Mrs. Wilson was an energy industry consultantfor the consulting firm Brewster Jennings, which itself was a CIA cover asset which is now as worthless as radioactive dirt to the agency. But nobody knew that at the time. As far as Rove's useless, dirty cover comment that he "didn't know her name, didn't leak her name" is concerned, this is all a hammered together backstory that is somehow supposed to convince a jury that a just world would make him come before. He didn't have to use her name, for God's Sake! Joe Wilson wasn't some crazed hermit dropout living in a previously unmapped lava tube out here in Central Oregon; he was a former Ambassador living in a suburb with neighbors and had a history and a biography that my children could discover on the Internet with only a child's googling skills. Rove gave Cooper, prior to any public revelation of the truth of Valerie Plame, everything that was necessary to destroy her cover and ruin her usefulness to the CIA and - just perhaps - put her live personally at risk. His revelation to Matthew Cooper was nothing more than part of an effort to put the lash to Joe Wilson and show just how rough things could get if he didn't shut up and get out of the way of the effort to launch George W. Bush's Grand Nation-Building Adventure in Iraq. Sadly, for both the Wilson's and the country, Cooper wasn't bright enough to figure it out, probably in major part because that whole Big-Time Major League Hot-Shot "Time Magazine-Reporter-With-Deep-White-House-Contacts" gig is such a powerful brain-sucking drug that it just overpowers any sense of critical thought or journalistic integrity...

...it's times like these that make me so very glad that I finally shrugged off all those powerful "All The President's Men" enticements back there in the early '70's that actually caused me to originally major in journalism and turned instead to a degree and career that simply causes me to have frequent and uncomfortable conflicts with the left-hand side of the progressive movement. Forget about Novak; he's a "commentator", a flack for a particular political movement who has been shilling for the protection of the rich and the tight, stern parental control of the actions of everybody else for longer than a good portion of the nation's populace has been potty trained. The true shame is people like Cooper and Judith Miller, who draped themselves in the mantle of the fourth estate as alleged protectors of the ordinary person's right to know what the hell was going on inside the centers of power but instead, in one way or another, got hooked on that sublime yet brutal sweet drug of access and suddenly found it OK to even listen to Karl Rove's sweet nothings without bothering to check a couple of simple facts and say "Wait a Minute! Mrs. Wilson works for WHO?!?"

...we know what we know. What we know is that Karl Rove revealed to a Time Magazine correspondent information about the employment of an enemy's wife that nobody knew at the time, that he sure as hell shouldn't have known at the time, which served no purpose other than to cause harm to that enemy and his wife. I almost don't want poor old Karl to have to frog-hop into some courtroom in a frumpy orange jumpsuit to answer charges. I almost want Karl to be out there, free and tall and proud, a true icon of this presidency: the man willing to destroy the career and threaten the life of a woman he never met and willing to destroy an entire CIA operation solely for the purpose of punishing an opponent that was causing his personal meat puppet in the Oval Office a spot of trouble. Karl Rove, now that he's out running around shooting his mouth off, should become the poster boy for the Bush Administration on the strength of what we actually know to be his actual care and concern for this country. It's important for Americans to know what today's Republicans actually stand for, and their overpowering desire to destroy lives and careers of anyone who disagrees or gets in their way is a good place to start. We know what we know, but it's about time that everybody knows....


Correction to an error I just noticed: somehow in all the excitement I got kerfluffled in the Miller/Cooper NYT/Time continuium, so I fixed it to reflect Cooper's employer and source of the e-mail...

...AND as Val so kindly points out in the comments, it's NIGER, not NIGERIA...and, no (embarrassed foot shuffling), I didn't know they were different...

(cross-posted at Ruminate This)
Posted by: Jack K. / 7:13 PM 0 comments

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?