A Day on the East Side

Yes, walking east of I-205, not very pretty.  But walking from here to the Post Office is one way to see every house, every building, every flowering tree, every storefront..

pic 1 - the Clock Shop.  This one in the window shows the earth, all its continents, and attempts to show the present time for each spot on the planet.

 

pic 2 - Plasma center parking lot is crowded today.  I can only guess that people need cash, and here is a place they are guaranteed to get it - selling their blood. 

 

 

 

pic 3 - several 'dancer' studios like this one.  Some gentlemen were leaving as I snapped this picture - they didn't seem to care, its not like I'm going to tell their wives or anything.

 

pic 4 - finally something beautiful.  Several antique stores crammed with consumer items. This one, on the opposite side of the street, always catches my eye when I drive by.  Walking, I can see the beauty of colored glass from days of old.  The pink sugar bowl reminds me of the green one I had from my grandma.

 Also, little houses which have retained their gravel driveways.  Houses turned into business storefronts, but were "updated" in the 70s with stonework-of-the-time (nothing uglier than that).  A few empty storefronts - like the Asian import/export shop on Stark Street - so new opportunities will occupy them.

Snow day!

Has it really been 7 months since my last post?!  That is alarming, I almost (almost) feel I should go to confession.  Father Ben would like that.

Today is Day 2 of the Snow Day Treks to different coffee shops in the neighborhood.  Yesterday was Songbird, and today, PastryGirl.  Pretty amazing that I can visit a different shop 2 days in a row and haven't even mentioned Bipartisan Cafe.

#pastrygirl on SE Stark in Montavilla

PastryGirl, I have discovered, makes a mean French Press.  3 minutes then the other patrons will advise you to slowly push the plunger down, so it makes a perfect brew (it does!).  Paired with a chocolate caramel creme pastry, whoa.  I can do this - even without my espresso I am ready for the afternoon!

someone has been sledding!

They have old issues of Martha Stewart there, and I could almost want to be domestic.  There are names for the different types of lamps (who knew?) and all about organizing those drawers (not interesting when you've been living out of laundry baskets for 5 months).  In fact I don't even see the need for a dresser at all.  Just those cute baskets I got at Ikea.  If Ikea has it, then I need it.

Anyhow the magazine of Martha was from Sept 2007 - I had to wonder - before or after prison?  She looked so confident.  Then I hope she still does.  Some amazing recipes in there, I almost want to ditch my Fred Meyer habits and visit a New Seasons.  Well there is not one within walking distance, yet, but I'm sure that will change.

An Expectation of Privacy, an Expectation of Freedom

When I stand at a bus stop, warming under a heat lamp, I don't have an expectation of privacy.  It is, after all, a public place.  Or sit at the park, I am there.  But my little communications, well..

I know, I've heard it - any email you send - be willing to have it on a billboard along I-5.  Or maybe thats just work emails, which can be subject to sniping re-broadcast. I get this, and should have no expectation of privacy at work.  I am using, after all, my employer's computer, bandwidth, heat, light.

Which is why I love my smart phone.  I don't need IT spying on me sending a message to my daughter.  Or to anyone else for that matter.  Or what internet sites I would search on my break - its all my private information.  Or is it?

Now The Government has it.  Who I talked to on my cell phone, which Facebook sites I am on, who follows me on twitter (thank you!), who I've sent email to.  Should I have an expectation of privacy?  Does my ATT carrier care about my 1st amendment rights?  Do I still have those?

I have been thinking about freedom recently.  Freedom to be respected as a human, as any human deserves.  Now what about this DNA thing - the Supreme Court decided that its "just like fingerprints".  Maybe next they will want a sample of my spleen, in case someone out there requires a spleen that is more worthy of me, they can commandeer me (from the sample they took when I was 5 miles over the speed limit) and determine someone else is more worthy than me?

When I think about freedom, or about my worthiness, I am reminded we are all made in His image.  All worthy of respect.  All deserving of freedom.  I am going to talk to who I want, tweet what I want, and live my life Today, and Every Day.

Food Stamp Nation

Thank you for cspan.  Today's stats for the food stamp program (known as SNAP - Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program):

In 2013:  $70 billion annually spent on food stamps, serving 47 million people
In 2008:  $35 billion annually spent on food stamps, serving 22 million people

How can this be considered any kind of recovery, when twice as many people are dependent on the government for their very life sustenance, food for them and their families ?

Part of the Farm Bill, food stamps is (in Yoda speak).  Why is that?  Well, you have agriculture subsidies, agriculture policies, and the part of USDA that deals with food stamps too, the Food & Nutrition Service.  So this way the Farm Bill has something for everyone - handouts for farmers in farm states, and food stamp transfer payments for inner city ghetto dwellers.  The red and blue beasts of the U.S. Congress all get to go home to the pride and tell their constituents they have brought home the slaughtered buffalo (ok borrowing from the nature show that was just on public television.  My husband found that scene disturbing, but I was racking my brain trying to find an analogy to my workplace - it will come to me).

In a symbolic gesture that no doubt has been tried with every Farm Bill, Senator Inhofe proposed legislation that would turn SNAP into a state block grant program.  Well yes, I've heard that before.  Back in the early 1980s when I worked for the FNS as a QC reviewer, yep the topic came up back then - enter into the Reagan era.

Another part of the Farm Bill is the commodity food program.  My short stint at another non-lucrative profession working at the Century High School kitchen saw this up close.  Large (free!) batches of commodity chicken nuggets, cheese, and other commodities.  So the U.S. government pays for these excesses, which in turn are distributed to schools.

OK back to food stamps.  I am more than disheartened that the food stamp rate is so high.  The answer is not "family wage jobs" or "higher minimum wage" or "lets feed the kids breakfast every day too".  The answer is not more dependency on the government.

The answer might be victory gardens that each kid, each family, can cultivate.  Each community.  Each food stamp card should be given with a garden tool and a packet of seeds.

I have always thought it would be better to hand out sacks of rice and beans than food stamp cards.  But I suppose anything can be turned into a trading currency - hey, I'll sell you these 3 bags of rice for that bag of cocaine.  But that is a subject for another day.

Maximize Shareholder Value

That is what we learned in business school.  That is the mantra of corporations.  That is the mantra of capitalism.

I guess our Governor has gone off to learn about other ways of structuring society - the Happiness Index and all.  And my Unitarian friends are investigating socialism.  ok.

My country, the global world order, and every country striving out there to better the fortunes of its citizens, every nascent democracy, they are all striving for capitalism.  Yes, it can ravage and dehumanize people.  Yes, when taken to excess (have we seen this?!) it exploits people, it exploits those at the top too, who must chant the mantra "maximize shareholder value", as if nothing else matters.

Sure, if corporations are not held liable for destroying the health of its workers.  If they are not held liable for their "externalities", whether its injecting toxic chemicals into the groundwater to frack for some more shale gas, or just plain scraping off boat paint and letting it drift into the Columbia River (sorry, state secret here).

Yes, we need regulation.  Oregon needs legislation.  Bangladesh needs legislation.  Egypt needs legislation.

But when all is said and done, capitalism survives.  So lets not blame Apple for "working hard and playing by the rules", hey, where have I heard that one ?  They did as capitalism does, and maximized shareholder value, storing $100M of profits in Ireland.  Because its legal.  Because it maximizes shareholder value.  Because the IRS permits this.  If we citizens don't like this - then write to your elected representative and encourage change.

ok, back to my ipod.

Revenue Forecast, Tea Leaves

I am used to economists being pessimistic.  Or not agreeing.  That I expect.  What I don't expect is optimistic economists at the end of the fiscal year.  Here are some more tea leaves that leave me thinking..

* When asked by a Legislative oversight committee whether the recent increase in capital gain tax revenues was propotionately spread from rich to poor (what do you think??), the economist responded with "it is an issue of fairness".

Now excuse me, but the homeless guy at the bus shelter probably doesn't have a 401K, or a nice tidy stock portfolio.  Is this the latest entitlement that I didn't yet hear about?  Cell phones aren't enough, but we need to give away stock so everyone is part of the modern financial system - its only fair right?

Anyhow, I have never heard an economist use the word "fairness", I guess I thought they were about measuring objective reality and forecasting, not trying to pass public policy social judgement.

* The group, which is a forecasting arm of state government, praised the Legislative revenue office for their assistance.  Nice to be helpful and all.  And I guess when it comes to something big like a state economic forecast, you need to collect all views, and they certainly have the data.  But wait.  A Democratically controlled legislature, a Democratic governor, well it all leads to a certain spin on the "forecast" of the future doesn't it.

The presenter even mentioned that one of his advisors thought there was a 0% chance of a recession in 2014.  Really?  Since when are economists so rock solid sure about things?

Like in that movie "Zero Dark Thirty", where she says she is 100% sure that Bin Laden is in that house in central Abbotobad, Pakistan.  Then she recants, saying "oh, ok, 95%, I know certainty makes you guys crazy".

Someone spiked these economists cause they were too optimistic to be praticers of the dismal science.

Real Life African Wildlife Tales

Elephants today.  But fewer, and where are the poachers?  And who is cracking down on them?  And who is enforcing these laws?  And who is educating the children to care for these creatures?

To some African countries, tourism is the #1 economic story.  Tonight a contingent of African visitors came to our local World Affairs Council to meet and greet with Portland citizens.  We heard about campaigns to educate kids, some of who had never seen the wildlife of their nation (this was in Tanzania).  We heard about the relatively low level civil servant park ranger who had a tough time competing with organized para-military poachers who intimidated them, ran roughshod over them, and poached elephants, rhinos (this was in Zimbabwe).  We heard about efforts to protect national parks, and incentives for communities to protect their areas which were in some cases conservation areas (this was in Zamibia).

We heard about how the press, while reporting on poaching incidents, was not doing a public service but actually helping glorify the poaching and the wild sums the poachers gained with their illegal acts (this was in Botswana).  CITES enforcement might be a global protocol, but sometimes within individual nations it is hard to gain traction.

Is this a topic on the African Union's agenda?  Not today.  Hope, one local resident asked ?  Yes - the visitor delegation, sponsored by the U.S. State Department (as a seed initiative from Ms. Hillary Clinton, formerly Secretary of State) was able to meet one another on their 3-week trip to the U.S.  Many of their organizations were sponsored largely by Non-Governmental Organizations, many of these from the U.S.

Our little Zimbabwe Artists Project, a co-sponsor (rah!).  The gentleman from Botswana ended his wildlife tale saying, when your grandkids ask what is an elephant..  and you had a chance to stop the poaching, what will you tell them ?