Surgeon General: So Much For Sanjay

The dreaded "personal reasons":

Television news celebrity and surgeon Sanjay Gupta will not be the nation’s top doctor, after pulling out of consideration for the post.

“Sanjay was under serious consideration for surgeon general. He told us he was going to withdraw for personal reasons. We hope he stays involved in public service,” said an Obama administration spokeswoman.

I'm not that disappointed. I wasn't that in love with Dr. Gupta as SG.

Let's get someone with a little less celebrity in there, please. Now, just who would be smart enough and passionate enough and largely responsible for the win for the good guys in the last election? It's right on the tip of my tongue ... who could it be ...

"K" Line No Longer Coming To Call

Global shipper drops a big stone in Portland's transPacific shipping access pond:

As many as 90 Portland longshoremen who service a "K" Line vessel each
week will lose that work, along with significant numbers of truck
drivers, warehouse workers and freight forwarders. Exporters who ship
everything from peas to compressed hay could lose sales.

And those are your ripples. Dominoes all down the "K"-line.

That route was only established last year, when things were doing well.

How's that globalism working out for y'alls?

Jobs? The Bush Hangover Continues

US unemployment at 8.1 percent. Haven't see that sh*t since the 1970s.

Oregon unemployment at 10.8 percent.

Lost over 600,000 jobs last month.

WHEEEE!

Novick for Gov?

Yeah, I'd vote that. He's tough and speaks courageously.

The Oregonian: Dropping Comics? Did We Say That?

The Oregonian can cut staff, merge the Monday Metro into Section A, give sections goofy names like "How We Live" (apparently "Living" was too vague), and nobody complains.

Threaten to dump comics, though, and the villagers line up with torches in front of 1320 Southwest Broadway:

The response: more than 9,500 votes in our comics survey, almost 1,000 e-mails and about 400 letters. Your votes and your letters reaffirmed the importance comics have in the newspaper and how much you depend on them for a few moments of levity in these difficult times. Thanks to all who participated, and thanks for the heartfelt and thoughtful responses.

For now, we're not changing a thing.

For my money, the good news is that Portlanders showed taste in voting up Pickles, Cul-de-Sac, Bizarro, and Non Sequitur. We are baffled that fewer people liked Ziggy and Cathy than Close To Home, which, in our books, is far and away the worst-drawn and least funny comic in synidication today. While we aren't surprised that Ziggy and Cathy scored low, we were surprised they scored that low, and we don't understand why so few people like Edison Lee ... it's like Pearls Before Swine with you guys.

Anyhow, it occurred to me that they could have saved themselves some strife. After all, every time they've vouchsafed rethinking the funny pages, they've always had the villagers at the door and near-riot conditions in Portland.

Well, you know what they say about people who don't learn from history. I'd also remind that the second time 'round history repeats itself, it's as farce ... which would be appropriate.

I'll let P.Bhat, Tha Oregonian's editor, have the last word:

And if we ever bring this up again, just feed us to the crocs in "Pearls Before Swine."

Consider it done.

The rest of you: Just be thankful this isn't the Post-Intelligencer.

You See? I Told You Twitter Makes You Stupid.

"It Books"? Publishing a dead-tree collection of tweets, fahgawdsake?

Put a fork in us. We're done.

Doesn't seem a fair exchange for losing a respectable non-fiction imprint, but what do I know? Mom always said there'd be days like this.

So Long, (G.I.) Joe's?

This is the worst news I've heard since they lopped off the "G.I." part.

Joe's Sports & Outdoor filed for Chapter 11 reorganization Wednesday, seeking to keep its stores and Wilsonville-based headquarters open until it's sold -- possibly within 30 days.

The Oregon retailing icon, bought by the equity firm Gryphon Investors of San Francisco in 2007, has no immediate plans for layoffs and will cover its 1,600 employees' salaries and benefits through a potential sale, said John Mangan, a Joe's spokesman.

And here's a cogent POV:

"Joe's forgot about the common guy who went in to buy a decent pair of work gloves," said Gary Livingston, a construction company owner and longtime customer. "Since it was bought, the store changed the product line, and now, everything is high end."

Livingston and others said the company -- previously known as G.I. Joe's -- has moved too far from its retailing roots. And they hate the new name.

Well, the idea was maybe to improve GIJoes right out of business anyway. Mom always said there's trouble in town when the equity firms show up.

242 Oregon Cities, 242 Mayors, One Blog

In the comments to the post about the unicorns, a commenter billing himself as orygone posted a response and I followed the link back to his blog.

What an amazing thing this is, my friends.

The blog Oregon's Sesquicentennial is celebrating said occasion by visiting each one of Oregon's 242 cities, contacting all of Oregon's 242 Mayors, and getting an autograph from each one.

Sounds like a tall order, but a fun one. Worth Following.

Go here!

Ever Wonder Where The Payday Lenders Went?

They're still in that reddest of red states, the state that has the highest consumption of pr0n per capita, Utah.

And they're having an eerily-similar discussion to the one we had before our lege got sane and stepped in:

Representative Laura Black (D) - Sandy, introduced legislation to cap the interest on a payday loan at 100%. That attempt died in committee on Tuesday, March 3, 2009 on a party line vote.

The average payday lender in Utah currently charges more than 500% annually! Who takes out payday loans? Those struggling to make ends meet, that’s who. The rich, or even members of the middle class, don’t take out payday loans. Those living paycheck to paycheck and coming up against a medical or other emergency take out payday loans.

Of course, since Utah is still largely Republican, they're going to have a tougher go.

I wonder if they've thrown out the "freedom of choice in financial services" red herring yet?

The Sam Video: Sometimes You Have To Back Off Aways To Look At Things ...

If Brian Hines is any indication, then about fifty miles should be about right to get some perspective on it:

Dudes, you all need to get out more. Spend some time on Comedy Central, where my wife and I hang out a lot. Laugh more and judge less. Loosen up.

Neither the world, nor Portland, is coming to an end because the Mayor, a city commissioner, and rock star Storm Large had some fun making fun of Adams' gayness for a Portland tradition, Candidates Gone Wild.

We couldn't have said it better. Brian Hines has nailed it here.

Read the whole article. It's instructive. And be glad you don't live in Salem.

We need to get over this one, or it's going to reflect more on the complainers than the complained-on. Indeed, it may already be doing so, if you've read the comments over at Jack Bog's Blog.

Brain-Free Republican Lawmakers

It's what you get when you govern by talking points.

The Mike Malloy Radio Network?

Finally getting to hear some fresh Mike Malloy, which is as welcome as it is portentious.

What he's saying strongly suggests that the NovaM/On Second Thought shake-out isn't over yet.

At the beginning of the show, he alluded to that, after the snowstorm in Georgia that took them off the air on Tuesday, they are back, but they also had to do battle with people who don't want to see him on the air, and that now he and Kathy Bay (his wife and producer) are on thieir own-no Air America, no NovaM, no On Second Thought.

He's been ID'ing himself as being on the "Mike Malloy Radio Network".

As usual in radio, nothing is explained thoroughly.

Any thoughts, anyone? Any scoops?

The Tweety Congress

I'll take the contrary view here.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer re-snarks Sen McCain on a tweet mocking the Oregon Solar Highway and it's a Twitter War?

There's only two remarks there. Of course, Earl's does win the "Nuke 'em From Orbit–it's The Only Way To Be Sure" prize. Sen McCain should know better than to lead with his chin like that.

But I've read the tweets from Rep Earl during the President's address to Congress and aside from the remark about Teleprompter Jindal, I found it all kind of banal.

Sen McCain's tweets, which include such semi-inscrutable awkward stabs at wit such as 150,000 for lobster research - similar to lobster managment?, see the sea turtles on your $238,000 Polynesian Voyage, and $900,000 for fish management - how does one manage a fish..., some of these bon mots separated by an hour or more, just leave me unimpressed.

Now, I don't want to be hating on Rep. Earl–I'm a huge fan. And I guess the thing about Twitter is it's all so immediate! But it just seems to be making the idea of knowing it all right now seems so pointless.

I think Twittering makes you kind of stupid.

CPAC: White Dopes On Punk

Mittens!:



Samuel "Joe The Unqualified Plumber" Wurzelbackhoe wonders where he is:



Photos actually by Jeff Malet and ripped off from here (please don't sue me, jus' having a little fun here)

Who They Should Be Quoting

Too often, when looking for expertise on public policy, the "go-to" regional think tank is the Cascade Policy Institute, which is actually sad.

The Cascade Policy Institute hates you. Typically they are for anything that give business a regulation-free hand; they dress like conservatives and usually talk like some odd hybrid of Conservative Republican and Libertarian. But they do it oh, so reasonably, so you can't just tune them out.

The real organization that the news should look to, in my opinion, is the Oregon Center for Public Policy. In so far as policies and politics popular amongst the power elite over the last twenty years has favored the powerful and wealthy at the expense of the working class, OCPP, a Silverton-based organization realizes that too few people speak on behalf of the people in our society who ussually get given the short end of the stick and are told to like it. From their core principles document which can be viewed in full here:

• Stand with the poor. We search for solutions that benefit all Oregonians, but always with a special focus on the interests of the low-income.
• Economic justice. We believe in the equitable distribution of the economy's benefits.
• Good government works.
  We believe that government plays a necessary and positive role, and we
  are vigilant and critical in pursuit of improved effectiveness and
  efficiency.

I believe as they do. And they do a hell of a good job in articulating that making sure that the counting in the poor (which, if we let things be, most of us will be soon) isn't just good sense or some form of elite nobless oblige but an ironclad prerequisite for a country that isn't rotting from the inside out (kind of like what America is doing right now, thanks to the tender mercies of the Republican party).

Any set of wonks with a good heart who comes out of a little Oregon town does just fine by me.

They're some of The Good Guys.

Doing Something About the $10 Corporate Minimum Tax

It looks as though the 75th Oregon Lege is poised to do something about the absurdly-low $10 Corporate Minimum Tax.

Governor K has introduced two bills–HB 2119 and HB 2070–that take steps to address the problem.

HB 2119 establishes a new higher minimum for C Corporations only that do $50,000 or less in sales Oregon of $25, with a progressive scale topping out for businesses doing $1,000,000 or more of $5,000.

HB 2070, as defined by Associated Oregon Industries:

proposes to replace the current $10 corporate minimum tax with a New
Hampshire-style business activity tax.  Under this proposal, a minimum
tax would be imposed on C-corporations at a rate of 0.2 percent of the
corporation’s “enterprise value tax base,” defined as the total of the
corporation’s employee compensation, interest and dividends. 
Corporations with less than $100,000 in gross receipts would be exempt
from this new minimum tax.

Either way, corporations would pay the higher of the two tax rates.

In related news, Associated Oregon Industries hates you:

AOI’s board-adopted policy position supports an increase in the
corporate minimum tax from $10 to $300, but does not support a tax
increase on business as substantial as either proposed by HB 2070 or HB 2119.  AOI will therefore oppose both bills.

So suck on that, Mr and Mrs Oregonian Working Person. Take your unfair share of the tax burden or we'll get you a shorter chain. See if we dont!

In Other News: Chuck Sheketcoff writes at Blue Oregon that Oregon, as you might have guessed, the second lowest business taxes in the nation. So, the next time someone complains to you that the tax burden for business in Oregon is just so huge, point 'em over there. Or maybe just look at 'em funny and back away slowly.

I Visited Members Of The Entitled Class Today

Or, as I like to call them, my family.

People who know the price of everything and the value of nothing like to moan and complain all day about how expensive PERS retirees and the poor are and how they're destroying the state and how maybe they don't deserve what they have coming to them.

I'd like to introduce you to a couple of people.

One's my mother. She worked for more than two decades with the developmentally disabled in the Oregon State system, at Fairview. Now, the system assisting the mentally and physically disabled is and was flawed, to be sure. People are still arguing over whether or not closing the Fairview Training Center and Dammasch State Hospital was a good idea. But for the majority of her working life, my mother was in the thick of it and she did a lot of good, not only caring for people in the State's charge but also taking her own time outside of work and helping foster a child or two as far away as Coos Bay.

Thing about my mom is, she can't stop mothering. Some of our most vulnerable citizens are maybe a little better off because of what she cared enough to do. She was paid adequately for it and now lives on her PERS pension. She is far from getting rich on it. They have enough to keep from being homeless and live in an excuciatingly-modest, cosy, well-maintained manufactured home.

She wouldn't feel comfortable in a mansion anyway.

The other person is my nephew. He's a nice, smart fellow with a blazing quick mind but a lot stacked against him. He was rescued by the state foster care system which has placed him with my mom who, as I said, can't stop mothering. After a great many alternatives have been tried to help him get a grip on his emotional problems, he's on a medication and counseling program that have given him real hope. He's as happy today as I've ever seen a kid with so many odds against him.

And how can he do it? The Oregon Health Plan. Without which, I might add, at $800 a prescription, we'd have no chance of getting on it, and he might well eventually go into the state system as a problem, not as a potential success story.

So if anyone wants to come at me with how spending for state retirees and the OHP is a waste on people who don't deserve it, you'll get a deaf ear over it from me.

Do you think I'm too close to the problem? So what? I'd argue that you are too far away from it.

I like to think of it as my tax dollars at work.

I'm Not Feeling The Outrage Over The Sam Adams Video

The Sam Adams Affair Affair just refuses to be a simple matter. A lot of us-meself included-are looking at our Mayor through jaded glasses now.

But are things getting a bit bizarre? Maybe.

At his blog, Jack Bogdanski has linked to a video. This video is in poor taste. It shouldn't be viewed at work, by kiddies, or by anyone who is sober. Seriously. Here's the executive summary: It details the pursuit of then-Commissioner Sam by Commissioner Randy Leonard who's out to prove that Sam Adams isn't in fact, gay. He tails Sam and Storm Large (who is pretty much the hip hottie in street clothes) from his house to a coffee shop back to his house where the Mayor and the city's hottest girl singer act quite the lovey-dovey.

The switcheroo-gotcha punch line of this shaggy dog story is nothing if not Felliniesque. It's low humor, to be sure.

And it's presented by Scion.

Yes, I mean the car brand.

Anyhow, the blogger and a lot of his commenters are saying how it's a low for Portland. I'm not there with that. It's not that I approve of Sam ... I want him to resign ... but I'm already angry over the way he lied about a relationship that was well over the border into unethical (and may or may not have been illegal, depending on whose story you buy as to when it happens).

This video, actually, as made as party of the WW's "Candidates Gone Wild" show, where outrageous behavior for the benefit of the microbrew-besotted audience is the order of the night. At the time, we didn't yet know that Sam did what he did. As a matter of fact, we'd pretty much forgotten about Beau Breedlove.

We already have enough to be angry at Sam about. Why should I waste my time getting angry over this too? It just seems weird to me to get upset about this too. It's sound and fury that, if it doesn't signify nothing, at least it doesn't signify anything more.

If you wanna get het up about this, though ... hey, go to town. I'm not one to harsh your buzz.

How To Properly Apologize To Rush

My apology of a posting or two back to Mr Media hisself, Rush Limbaugh, was kind of off-the-cuff and do-it-yerself.

I am very in love with the DIY ethos, as it were.

But I've found out where I can do it right, the next time my transgressions (whatever it may turn out to be) cross The Leader Of The Republican Party the wrong way:

Visit the Secret Republican Apology Machine.

(h/t to Chuck)

How Can We Be Unhappy When We Have Unicorns?

Over at Blue Oregon, my go to site for stealing ideas for commentary keeping my finger on the pulse of what's going on in the progressive world of Oregon, it would seem a Business Week article has named ol' PDX, ol' cloudy-rainy-emo PDX, the number 1 most unhappy city in America.

You know what makes me unhappy? Magazines looking for copy by selecting a basket of arbritrarily-chosen metrics and rating them. Now that's American journalism for you!

Well, anything to avoid apologizing to Rush Limbaugh, I suppose.

But it would seem that we have the spirit of the unicorn around here. It appears that Portland is not only built on an ancient unicorn burial ground:



(there's a naughtier version at this blogger's place here)

... but also they've been taking an inscrutable interest in Portland politics. They've been to city council meetings:



... and to campaign photo-ops:



How can you possibly be unhappy knowing that there's unicorns among us?