Sampler Platter 05.16.09

League of Women Voters (4.00 / 4)

What is exactly is the League of Women Voters?  I've been thinking of joining it because they're one of the most successful and prominent election reform groups out there, but I'm looking on their website and it seems like they do a lot more than just election reform.  It would be helpful if someone could explain it in language that isn't from an "about" page, if you know what I mean.

Vote for yourself at www.ni4d.us!

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by: rossl @ Sat May 16, 2009 at 16:58:53 PM UTC

your're to young to remember (4.00 / 4)

boy I sound like my mother...

but the league of women voters used to moderate the presidential debates. They are a non partisan group that used to be a big deal.

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by: LeeN @ Sat May 16, 2009 at 18:07:54 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I actually did know about that (4.00 / 3)

I read a book about the presidential debates a few months ago.  Good book... I didn't really watch any of the debates except during the primaries because of it.

They're not a big deal anymore?

Vote for yourself at www.ni4d.us!

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by: rossl @ Sat May 16, 2009 at 18:30:31 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

They still do, don't they? (4.00 / 3)

They also put together those really big voters' guides...

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by: JayinPortland @ Sat May 16, 2009 at 19:06:38 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Now (4.00 / 3)

the "Commission on Presidential Debates" hosts the presidential debates - which is why they're such a sham.  It's basically an organization controlled by major parties in order to ensure that no one else gets in and that no tough questions are asked.

The League still hosts a lot of local debates and does a lot of advocacy, that's why I thought they're still pretty important.  On their website I just saw that they do a lot more than I thought they do, so that's why I was asking.

Vote for yourself at www.ni4d.us!

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by: rossl @ Sat May 16, 2009 at 21:55:59 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Ah that's right, thanks... (3.67 / 3)

I knew they (The League of Women Voters) still sponsored local debates, wasn't sure about Presidentials.  Now I remember the name of the presidential group...

I attended a Congressional debate sponsored by the LWV in 2004 for a guy I worked for, Steve Brozak in NJ-07, against that smug little bastard (and now former-Rep; unfortunately, he was succeeded by another R last year...) Mike Ferguson in Cranford (or was it Westfield?  Scotch Plains, maybe?  I don't even remember, lol...), NJ.

I think they also sponsored one of our Dem Primary debates here in Oregon's US Senate race last year (Merkley / Novick and a couple others...), but I'm not sure about that one since I decided not to attend...

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by: JayinPortland @ Sat May 16, 2009 at 22:51:29 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Web Help Requested: Posts/Comments needed (4.00 / 4)

Hey everyone, my friend Martin from The Progressive Electorate is going on vacation and I'm hoping to get him some site traffic while he's gone. Can I trouble any of you to post a blog on his site http://www.progressiveelectora... It can be anything about an elected official, a campaign, or a political issue.

If you don't have time to crosspost a blog (and it could be anything you've written in the last two weeks) maybe you could just click over and read an article? I suggest this one

Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak with  Anthony Woods , who recently announced that he will be a candidate in the California 10th Congressional District (East Bay Region of Northern California) special election for which a likely fall date has not yet been confirmed. This seat is being vacated by Ellen Tauscher who has accepted a State Department post as Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security.

I did not lead with any number of descriptions that could easily describe Anthony Woods because I don't think that this impressive young man can easily be typecast. He's got an impressive academic background as both a West Point graduate and Harvard Kennedy School of Government graduate. He was raised by a single mother without having insurance until he was 18 years old. Anthony also took a courageous stand and was honorably discharged from the military under the "don't ask don't tell policy"  after earning a Bronze Star for two Iraq deployments. Oh and he's also just 28 years old and was raised in the district of which he wishes to serve. Both of those are very important in my eyes because of his energy and his desire to come back and help when he could be anywhere in the world right now.

 

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by: Curtis Abbey @ Sat May 16, 2009 at 17:20:13 PM UTC

Nice piece, thanks... (4.00 / 2)

That district (CA-10) is right next to the 9th.

Oakland!

:)

If I come across something, I'll write it up over there; but to be totally honest, I've been sickened by politics for a couple years now.  Broke out of my "shell" last year to work for Jeff Merkley (Oregon Senate, we won!), Chris Smith (Portland City Council; we finished 5th out of 5 in the Open Primary, but only like 7 points out of 2nd place for the runoff) and Sam Adams (Portland Mayor, foregone conclusion); but my cynicism is back in full force these days...

:/

Maybe I'll write about my own race.  Heh.  I'll let youze know what it's for when I begin fundraising...

:)

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by: JayinPortland @ Sat May 16, 2009 at 19:18:08 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Im watching a fight from Oakland tonight (4.00 / 2)

Andre Ward versus Edison Miranda. Ward is the hometown kid and olympic gold medal winner. Miranda has a really good record. It should be an interesting fight. It's on Showtime tonight at 9ET

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by: Curtis Abbey @ Sun May 17, 2009 at 00:25:07 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Go, Oakland! :) (4.00 / 2)

Damn, I just looked up both of them and realized I'm years older than both.

Hope you don't mind if I ramble here.

Heh.

Don't have Showtime, but I'll check out who won later tonight.  Again, let's go Oakland!!!

Anyways...

Background information - I am probably the biggest College Football fan in America who's never lived in The South, and I started to feel "old" about a decade ago when I realized that I was older than pretty much all of the kids I watched in those games.

Now?  Shit, I'm older than most of the guys I'm watching in NFL / NBA / MLB / NHL games, let alone college!  Much older than all of them...

:/

I played baseball.  I was a great catcher.  Gary Carter was my idol.  I still remember Game 6 of the 1986 World Series, watched it on the floor in my parents' bedroom...

:)

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by: JayinPortland @ Sun May 17, 2009 at 00:49:53 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

And... (4.00 / 2)

...just for the hell of it (I'm feeling nostalgic!), I want to mention that Tim Teufel and Jesse Orosco were two of the coolest baseball players I've ever met.

:)

And even though he was mostly a Yankee (did play for the Mets for a few games, though...), Rick Cerone was a cool guy, too (and he's also from Newark).  I met him while working on the Newark Bears Riverfront Stadium back in 1998.

Rickey Henderson played for the Newark Bears in 2003, but I never met him.  Rickey knows Rickey's cool, though.  Because Rickey says.  Rickey knows what Rickey does...

:)

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by: JayinPortland @ Sun May 17, 2009 at 01:10:20 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Ughh... (4.00 / 4)

From the school foods piece -

Today, in a hearing before the House subcommittee on Healthy Families and Communities (part of the Committee on Education and Labor), Felton repeated his spiel. Nutrition standards that restrict food and beverage sales, he said, "could substantially reduce revenues that local schools need to support athletic programs and other activities that promote the overall development and well-being of all students."

I'm not a doctor of nutrition or anything, but if they're truly concerned about students' "overall development and well-being", well...what would be a better place to start than leading them down the road towards healthy eating habits?

Yeah, I know - apples and carrots don't bring in the sponsorship dollars like Gatorade and PowerBars do...

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by: JayinPortland @ Sat May 16, 2009 at 19:04:09 PM UTC

yeah that was just killing me (4.00 / 3)

that in order to fund the kids' exercise they need them to eat junk food? That's really backwards.

"I can understand someone from Iowa promoting corn and soy, but we are not feeding the world, we are feeding animals and soft drink companies." - Jim Goodman

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by: Jill Richardson @ Sat May 16, 2009 at 22:24:20 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

let them eat pate (4.00 / 1)

"If God were to appear to starving people, he would not dare to appear in any other form than food." - Mahatma Gandhi

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by: Miep @ Sun May 17, 2009 at 05:56:58 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Like a train wreck... (4.00 / 2)

I just couldn't avoid looking in on the comments at the first Alternet piece.  I knew exactly how it'd go, and well...

That's what happened there, as always.

How hard is it to find the middle ground there?  We seem to manage well on that here, don't we?

(extended-length creative expletive session...)

I'll never understand the "debate" that always occurs on that topic - there's a very clear middle ground between swilling and gorging on Big Macs and Tyson chicken 4 or 5 times a day, and vegangelicism.

I'll admit, though - I have fun reading the comments on those articles, if even for nothing more than chuckling at self-righteous morons at their most ignorant...

:)

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by: JayinPortland @ Sat May 16, 2009 at 19:50:41 PM UTC

I remember when USDA changed the definition of a farm (4.00 / 4)

saying that a farm is now any premises where $1,000/year is or normally would, or even could be generated from agriculture. I think they ought to take away that definition and in its place use any agriculture operation being run commercially. Under the current definition, my dad's garden, a 50'X100' city lot in Portland, qualifies as a farm, even though he only grows for himself and doesn't sell anything. He could easily generate $1,000/year of gross receipts, and that land has been used continously as a personal use garden since 1920 at least by my father's family.

Farming, as far as I'm concerned, is a commercial activity. Anything else is homesteading, gardening, etc. All are important, and it's particularly important, at least in my opinion, to include small acreages of any size in that if the production of the land is being sold for profit and an actual agricultural business is being operated, as official farms.

I'm involved in a land use process where in we are designating Urban and Rural reserves in the Clackamas, Multnomah, and Washington counties in Oregon, I sit on Clackamas county's reserves Policy Advisory Board. Urban reserves will be areas that cities and Metro will be able to expand into, Rural reserves will be areas that are protected from urbanization in order to preserve them for open spaces, agriculture and to keep the cities in the counties from growing together. One of my primary arguments for encouraging small scale ag is that:

#1 - it's a lot easier to get into commercial ag if you can buy 6 acres that has a home on it and start small, especially for someone who has never farmed themselves and who wants to do something other than commodity corn, soy, cotton, etc.. It's much less expensive, you can live where you're farming. In Oregon, you can not build a home on acreage that is zoned exclusive farm use (EFU) unless you gross $80,000 in farm receipts the previous year, and even if you do, it's almost cost prohibitive to build a home on a large acreage. System development fees, aquiring potable water, sanitary septic system, etc.

#2 - Keeping the small acreages near the urban centers open is easier to do if people have incentive to do so. One way to do that is to make small scale farming profitable. If a person is operating a small acreage as a farm, and they're not in an EFU zoned area, they can apply for agriculture rates for their property taxes as long as they show a certain ammount of gross receipts/year in sales. I think in my area I have to show $300/year for 2 or 3 years to get the ag rate for property taxes for the land in ag production. I can do that with 25 laying hens. The ag rate for land is conseiderably lower than the residential rate, but ya gotta show income, and operate as a business.

#3 - Farming a small acreage allows a person to have another job, which gives one a safety net in case of a crop failure, etc. It also helps a person to properly capitalize their farm business. Making a go of farming right of the bat without having a back up  source of income is very difficult, personally I wouldn't do it unless I had at least $40,000 in the bank and everything paid for. The number one reason for small business failures is under capitalization, and when you're farming, you could very well go for 6-8 months with no income, but lots and lots of expenses. I know, ask me, that's what I'm going through right now. If it wasn't for the contracting business, I'd be up a creek right now, as it is I'm down to my last $300 untill I get paid for a couple of jobs, which will give me enough to pay bills for the next month. It's still going to be a month or so before I have any crops to sell, and while I've sold a few plants out of the green house, because my greenhouse is so small, I kind of need to use the plants myself to plant for cash crops. Plus there are some licensing issues, not the least of which is if I get a nursery license today I'll have to buy another one on the 1st of July as they expire on the 30th of June and Oregon doesn't prorate them. Oh, I could sell up to $250 worth of plants without the license, but then I'll do myself out of plants for myself.....

#4 - One is more likely to find small acreages near urban areas than large arcreages. In addition to those urban areas providing back up jobs for begining farmers, they also provide a customer base for what ever crops the farmer is producing, be it nursery stock, vegetables, flowers, etc.. The closer the customer/farmers market, the less it'll cost a person to get their crop to market and the more profitable that crop is. Also, prices may be higher in an urban area than the rural one. For instance, here in Mulino, Oregon, the going rate for range hen eggs is $3/dozen. In Portland and Lake Oswego however, the prices range from $4 - $5/dozen.

In addition to all of that, if you're not operating as an agriculture business, and USDA calls you a farm, now you're subject to commercial regulations and USDA isn't going to differentiate you as a hobbyist, home gardener, or homesteader from a farm with thousands of acres in production and shipping internationally. That's just wrong, and that's one of the big reason USDA is having problems with pushback on the NAIS and why Rosa DeLauro ran into so much push back on her bill HB 875. It's not usually the big producers and are the problem, it's the little guys who are not in business who get their back up when government tries to regulate them like a business.  

Regarding locavores as elitists - explain to me how supporting local business is elitist....

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by: Joanne Rigutto @ Sat May 16, 2009 at 20:34:48 PM UTC

Great comment... (4.00 / 2)

And yeah, eggs - I pay $5.50 a dozen up here.  But of course, you and Sara Reed have been kind enough to share...

Thank you, again!

:)

Btw - did you see this article from a couple weeks ago?  Any thoughts?  Washington County seems to be having the most problems of our three...

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by: JayinPortland @ Sat May 16, 2009 at 21:12:11 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

That's a good article (4.00 / 1)

I think that Spiesschaert is correct when he said that if he grew what people use locally they'd be more interested in preserving his farmland. He's a commodity farmer and according to his article, none of the crops he grows are sold locally, even the corn he grows is shipped to Japan. I don't fault him for growing commodity crops for export. Large farms operate on a different model than small farms, and it's been that way for a while. It's only been recently, in the last 20 or so years, that someone with an acreage the size that he has, has markets suitable to that level of production.

One of the problems I see is that as far as population goes, everything is oriented to openended growth. Increase in population, increase in industry, increase in development, etc. ad infinitum. That will work untill you run out of land and the population densities grow to the point that people are like rats in an overstocked cage.

Unfortunately all the big planners haven't figured out how to maintain a stablized model.

I'll give you an example of a stabilized model. My farm is 6.67 acres. Right now I'm growing, and will continue to grow my farming business for the next few years if we stay where we're at, which is my goal. I can grow my farming business to a certain point beyond which my land won't be able to support it. I know the limit of what I can do here, and my goal is to reach that limit, and there after to maintain at that level of production. That's my model. If I do it right, I can make a lot of money out here on this small acreage, and I should be able to farm full time. Demand will continue to grow untill it too hits some kind of limit and while I won't be able to meet that increasing demand, I'm not interested in doing that. Others can take up the slack and that will help to provide incentive for people to farm small acreages, etc.

As Spiechaert says, if he was growing crops that were sold locally people might be more interested in defending his ability to farm instead of developing it, but when you're growing like he is, for the commodities market, it takes a lot to switch over to growing other crops for other markets. It's very difficult, and in some cases very expensive to do that, so it can be problematic for a farm to switch.

Regarding the second article you linked to, one of the problems I see with the report cited in the article is that it's for a 7 county area and included Clark county in Washington state. It's difficult to base a decission on growth for a single county, such as Clackamas county, as it is, for a 50 year period, and even more difficult if the report includes projections for a whole 7 county region.

One of the things I like about the resrves process is that we're using many more elements to project where growth can or should happen in this process than have been used in the past for determining where and how far an urban growth boundary should be expanded. In the past only soil types were used. In the resrves process we look at not only soil types, but topography, infrastructure such as sanitary sewer, water availability, roads, etc.. For instance, while Mulino is right on Hwy 213, a major arterial - I know, our farm is right on the highway - and you would think that it would be an ideal location for developement, especially for housing and industry, we don't have the water and sewer capacity to support all of that. But because of our location in relation to transportation infrastructure, the hamlet of Mulino still needs to be protected by being designated as a rural reserve even though development would be incredibly expensive.

One of the other issues I see is creating 'bedroom' communities for the existing developed areas where there is a lot of industry. Industry needs pretty much the same kind of topography that larger scale farming needs, that is, flat land or lands with minimal slopes. Generally, those are the lands that have the best soils. So there is conflict there. If there isn't the industry providing jobs for people in the outlying areas where people would like developement, then all you do is create bedroom communities for people creating increased pressure on the existing roads, etc., or you have to build insanely expensive public transportation infrastructure that increases, in many cases, peoples' commute times.

For anyone who would like to get the report referenced in the second article, you can visit Merto's reserves website. You can also read about what's going on in the counties involved in this process.

Jay, if you're interested in the process, if it doesn't conflict with your class schedule, you should go to the regional steering committee meetings. They're open to the public and are usually well attended by the public. Our county councilors who are Core4 members attend those as well. Public comment is always taken at the meetings, and from what I've seen, they pay attention to the comments.

I think that as far as land use planning goes, this is one of the most open and responsive to the public processes I've seen in government ever.

Regarding locavores as elitists - explain to me how supporting local business is elitist....

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by: Joanne Rigutto @ Sun May 17, 2009 at 16:06:06 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

pate vs. dog food (4.00 / 4)

Makes sense.  It's like in those commercials where people can't tell Pizza Hut or Carl's Jr. grossness from something they'd otherwise label "gourmet".  Those always make me laugh.  Now it's dog food vs. pate?  I can only imagine what's next...  

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by: Snaketruck @ Sun May 17, 2009 at 00:38:54 AM UTC