Huck the Fuskies

Yes, Register Guard, Yes!

What this town needs is more paeans to the Lane County working-class life of the '50s and '60s written by multi-millionaires.

I remember when Eugene was known as the timber capital of the world; it seemed as though log trucks were on Sixth and Seventh avenues all the time. How things change.

In my youth, not many kids went to college after high school. They would get a job working at a sawmill, in the woods or at a plywood plant starting at maybe 15 to 20 cents per hour less than a journeyman’s wages — just like their dads, brothers, granddads or neighbors. They could support a family, own their own home, buy a camper and help send their kids to college.

Starting out at the mills meant working swing shift from 4 p.m. to midnight, or the graveyard shift from midnight until 8 a.m. A millworker’s wife might work in the summers at a cannery in Eugene or Junction City, and maybe she’d pick crops for the local farmers.

Life was good.

Oh, life was good, Avon. A man could give up whatever hope he had of living a comfortable life by dedicating himself to forty years of back-breaking labor. He could look forward to becoming a journeyman after some years and get raises of maybe 15 to 20 cents more than he earned when he started. He could look forward to years of not sleeping with his wife in bed at night. If he was real lucky, maybe his mill would be purchased by another outfit and he could go out on strike to fend of cuts to his pay. If he prayed real hard, maybe his kids could see their names on the tree at the mall at Christmas time.

Oh, and the ladies! What luxury they had spending their summers working in a cannery or maybe picking crops for a local farmer. I don't have to tell you, Avon, that there is nothing a woman loves more than performing physical labor in the hot sun. And you forgot the kids! The halcyon days picking blueberries for 10 cents a flat out in Leaburg. The hours spent at the string bean vines instead of the ol' swimming hole.

Yes, it was nothing but non-stop upward mobility for Lane County's working classes. Too bad the relentless consumption of our forests, the very consumption that kept those jobs plentiful and low-wage, lead to the day when trees were too small to be run though your mills. Too bad mill owners spent decades taking profits and giving them to the Republican party, instead of investing in new equipment. Too bad free trade meant that our raw logs went to China to be processed, while cheaper Canadian timber drove you out of the lumber markets here. all those damned hippies ruined it with the socialism and environmentalism.

Good times, indeed.

I 8 U

No matter how many beers you drink, what good movie you watch, or how much snuggling you do with the wife the night before, when you wake up all your problems are still right there. I'm talking the big ones here: the economy, the weak-ass president we have, swine flu ummm...Nancy Pelosi knew about some aspect of the Bush torture regime but didn't do anything about it, like call for Congressional investigations which totally should never happen, but maybe she should face a Congressional investigation for not calling for one, am I right here people?

You wake up on Saturday and all the world's problems are still right there.

Then you read the letters section of the Register Guard, and some kind soul has taken the time to solve all of our problems. Read. Understand. And know that everything is going to be alright.

Look for a new economy

As soon as the tax and interest and unemployment rates all level off at 8 percent and lower, the economy embarks upon a long extended era of clear sailing such as no civilization on Earth has ever known.

History never predicted people would suddenly envision such an outcome.

Clear seas, clear sailing, a powerful economy quickly restarted and firmly under control. All the parts still in place and functioning. All the people striving together, fulfilling their potentials. The sounds of song and laughter spilling out beneath the nighttime skies.

An old economy grinds to a stop. The abstract details of a new economic era stretch before us, like the first turns highlighted on a GPS readout, outlining the beginning of the next leg of the journey.

Personally, I am keeping a watch to see the tax rate and interest and unemployment rates all come together at 8 percent and lower.

For me, that is the first sign of entering the new economy.

Nancy I. Campbell

Yoncalla

As my good buddy Lex might say, Boom!

Lower the tax rate from 36% to 8% (or lower!) and you are going to have some good times on your hands. No more government waste, no more bloated bureaucracy, no more, well anything from those fat cats in Washington.

The relatively high interest rates keep the poor people, who obviously don't know how to manage their money, from borrowing any to buy goods they don't really need, but also makes sure that those who do loan money - to the right sort - make a healthy profit. This encourages leading - smart lending - and big profits.

The relatively high unemployment rate means that people will work for the wages they deserve, not some over-inflated wage gained by the government manipulating the labor market by working for low unemployment. And once those government workers hit the pavement looking for honest work, wages are going to plummet to what are their natural, moonlight-dancing levels.

Oh happy day indeed!

EFCA Spells Doom For US All

In addition to all the other wastes of bailout funds we've been reading about, it appears that some of those funds are going to fight the Employee Free Choice Act*. Yay, bailouts! Well, for me it is not the bailouts per se, I still agree that the government had to do something to prevent the collapse of the financial markets. Unfortunately, that means propping up the same cocksuckers who got us in the mess in the first place. The same cocksuckers that still decry government interference in the market. The same cocksuckers that argue that government handing them billions of dollars with no strings attached is the nationalization of the banking industry. In other words, cocksuckers.

It makes sense that the titans of industry and finance oppose EFCA. If workers have the right to sit at the table and negotiate (!) their wages and benefits, it is possible that profits will go down. I mean there is plenty of evidence to show a unionized workplace is a more efficient, productive workplace, but let's leave that aside for a moment. So profits will go down and the titans are opposed. Except that there seems to be a bit more in it for them. Like Islamo-Fascisist-Liberal-Terrorism, EFCA, apparently, is a threat to the very fabric of our society.

"This is the demise of a civilization," said [founder of Home Depot Bernie] Marcus . "This is how a civilization disappears. I am sitting here as an elder statesman and I'm watching this happen and I don't believe it."

The demise of civilization. Jeebus!**

What would this EFCA do, anyway? EFCA would make it easier for employees to form a union if they want one, it would increase the penalties on employers that break labor law, and it would provide for binding arbitration if the two parties can't agree on contract in 120 days. That really does sound like the end of everything. This law gets passed and you have employees (!) sitting down with their bosses as equals (!) and bargaining -- not thanking, but bargaining -- for wages and benefits. Why, that's one step away from living in caves, cracking oysters on rocks just to stay alive.

Thank God our tax dollars are being used to stop this wicked, wicked law from ever inflicting middle class comfort on our citizens.


*Shouldn't "American Rights at Work," the AFL-CIO's pro-EFCA website, come up higher than eighth in a standard Google search? This is a propaganda war for fuck's sake, let's pull out some stops here.

**For those Francophiles in the audience, Marcus also said that EFCA must be fought to prevent the US from being turned into France, where, one assumes, he believes there is no civilization.

Oh Lord, Do I Still Hate Intensely Dislike These Slimy Bastards People

Because there are Bush loyalists in the news whining about the "cheap shots" Obama took in his Inaugural Address, I'm going to use the occasion to say that of all the late-day "he really did a great job" bullshit the apparatchiks are pushing, my favorite is [aside from the worst terrorist attack in the history of the United States] he kept us safe!

That pretty much sums up the Bush administration in a nutshell. In order to find anything to praise about the man, you have to overlook the blatantly obvious.

He cut taxes! [And destroyed the economy on an epic scale.]

He expanded Medicare! [Through a program that is not working for seniors, but is enriching private health insurance companies. He also managed to stop price controls on pharmaceuticals, meaning that only those who live in the United States pay wildly inflated prices.]

He improved schools with No Child Left Behind! [The calls for reform of this law are loud and universal, with states refusing still implement it. And there has been no magic increase in test scores.]

He got money for AIDS in Africa! [Darfur.]

He liberated Iraq! [And only 750,000 Iraqis had to die for him to do it! You know the old saying, better dead than Iraqi.]

I'll also note that while everyone from the Bush administration is quick to predict that Obama will weaken our security and if there is a terrorist attack in the next eight years (well, any time in the next 16 years, let's say), then it is Obama's fault, 9-11 was, of course, Clinton's fault.

Cheney - "No one saw the recession coming"

In an interview with the Associated Press in his waning days in office, US Vice President Dick Cheney is quoted as saying "I don't think anybody saw it coming". His statement was in reference to the current global economic crisis.

Further to this statement, he defended President George W. Bush's economic record, stating that he saw no reason for the President to apologize for not foreseeing the economic turmoil.

In all fairness, who could have seen the recession coming?

I mean, who could have foreseen that decades of unlimited tax cuts for the rich, coupled with a decline in real wages for everyone else, could have negative consequences?

Who could have foreseen that the intentional destruction of the American manufacturing base through "free trade" agreements could be anything but beneficial?

Who could have foreseen that the deregulation of the financial sector could lead to corruption and fraud?

Who could have foreseen that an economy based on consumption and debt could do anything but keep growing?

Who could have foreseen that a service-based economy would be unproductive in the long run?

Who could have foreseen that the removal of protections for workers, the Wal-Martization of jobs, and the destruction of the social safety net would reduce confidence in the economy?

Cheney is right. Absolutely no one serious could have foreseen any of this.

That's Bullshit! Bullshit!

I enjoy analyzing the ratings given to movies by the fine folks at Comcast. (How are these ratings determined? Is there one guy? A woman? A team of people? Maybe a leader and interns. Do they argue? Are there legendary debates and arguments about certain movies? Love affairs? Hatreds? I imagine it so, although I have been watching a hell of a lot of House recently.) Anyway, the ratings. Of course, I notice them most often when I disagree with the rating. For some reason I feel a fair amount of outrage when a movie receives a ranking lower than what I think it deserves. Yes, this is what I save my outrage for. I recognize that this makes me a poor human.

Why are we here today? What is my current outrage? Before we get to that, let me reach back to last week. It's a Wonderful Life was given four stars. Fine. Not my favorite movie, but I recognize it's a Christmas classic beloved by millions. I feel the same way about Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz. However, somehow A Christmas Story was deemed unworthy of four stars, being relegated to three star status. Return of the Jedi status. This is wrong.

Red Dawn. Red Motherfucking Dawn. How many stars? Not the greatest movie in the world, sure, but a genuine 1984 classic. I was looking for three stars, would have accepted two stars, because it's pretty, well, not great. You know where I am going. One star. How in the name of Siskel do you give Red Dawn one star? The fact that is still being shown 24 years after it came out, by definition, gives it classic status.

Alright, Match Game is on. My rage subsides.

BOOM! and Bust

It occurred to me this morning that Republicans don't fear returning to a 19th-century boom-and-bust economy because their constituents either believe that they are well off enough to ride out a bust, or that they have nothing to lose. The first group surely includes many that have no idea what a bust economy actually looks like, while the second group has clung to the twin life preservers of guns and religion for so long they think that they can ride out any storm.

In sense, the Republican opposition to the auto bailout makes perfect sense. Of course their main demand is huge concessions from labor. A reasonable observer would ask exactly what more the UAW could give. Wages in Detroit are close to to parity with foreign auto manufacturers in the South (who killed American car companies? Maybe the anti-labor policies and massive tax breaks for foreign automakers established by Southern legislatures had something to do with it), there is a plan in place to move the legacy health care off the books, the 95% pay rule is gone...what more is there to give? Of course that is the reasonably informed person. The nationalistically informed person knows that UAW killed the car makers because that's a story that just writes itself, and in the US today reporters don't have the time to do anything but stories that write themselves. (Plus any story that doesn't ape Republican talking points is immediately branded tripe from the liberal media, which influences editors across the country).

What is particularly galling is that not only are Democrats not loudly pointing out that the GOP is in favor of killing a major American industry in favor of turning those plants over to some other company, but they seem to be struggling to make sure that everyone notices that they are perfectly willing to sell out environmental interests , not be particularly vocal in their support of the auto workers who built those goddamn companies, and seek to compromise whenever possible with Republicans.

Somehow, someway the Democratic leadership seems to have internalize GOP talking points. They still seem to see themselves as the party-out-of-power that needs to prove the American people that we are capable of governing the county and the best way to do that is be Republican-lite whenever possible. For fuck sake, the GOP controlled the House for 12 years and the Dems are still acting like they own the place. Let's show some freakin' spine. What's the point of passing an auto bailout if it's basically going to conform to what the GOP wanted in the first place? What the GOP wants is not good for working people or America. Haven't we fucking learned that by now?

Beer Me a New Phone

Sprint has apparently decided that the University of Oregon is one college campus that they don't need to have coverage for. This results in my Sprint-brand phone constantly playing a chime to tell me that it is searching for service. This happens enough that I cannot shut the phone off, because in the middle of the process it comes back on to chime me that it is searching for service. Given that I have no service, taking the battery out seems to be the only wise option, but it makes the $120 phone bill seem kind of silly.

Ah, technology.

[Update: My phone has reacted to my taking the battery out to shut it up, then putting back in when I realized I can just mute the phone, by shutting itself off and turning itself back on every 10 seconds. It chimes when it does this. This is not enough time to get to the mute setting. I have decided to treat it like a 3-year-old and just let it keep chiming until it tires itself out. It's a little embarrassing in public, yes, but anyone who has ever had a Sprint-brand phone will understand, and anyone who hasn't can go fuck themselves, because who are they to judge?]

I Can't Shoot, If I Don't Have Target

Since The Right Wing Professor has gone into some sort of post-election depression and is no longer providing me with material, I have to cast about for a new wingnut target. Ideally it would be someone low-level enough that I am not just copying and pasting C&L or SN!, but also someone who put out decently coherent crank on a regular basis. Some of you may remember that I love the hell out of Marie Jon, but she only writes once a week and my fascination with her is more along the "I can't believe someone gets paid to very, very incoherently recite talking points" than it is with her arguments. (On a side note, this is pretty awesome, but I don't want to get tangled up with the religion too much, it's a maze you can't get through.)

Lex seems to have dropped the NW Republican from his regular reads list and it was always more of a linky thing than an point-and-make-fun-of thing for him, so I hope he doesn't mind if I have a go at making NWR my bête noir for a bit. My hesitancy is that NWR doesn't really do comments well, as the lefties that comment seem a bit unhinged and he deletes comments, so I imagine that the good ones see the dustbin. I guess we'll find out.

If you have any other suggestions, drop them by.

A Post Wherein I Take the Guise of a Left-Wingnut

If we are supposed to be worried that Obama is a secret Muslim plant, who will destroy America from the inside should he be elected president, then isn't is fair to wonder if the North Vietnamese didn't brainwash McCain and set him up to be a plant to destroy America from the inside should he be elected president?

McCain does seem to want to replicate the policies from the most disastrous presidency we've had since 1932, so why am I not hearing more about McCain's potential subversion?

I'll Boycott Anything!

I'm joining in the Wonkette boycott, even though I only have the vaguest idea what is going on. On the recommendation of Goff. Any friend of Goff's is a friend of mine (with the obvious exceptions).

Screw them all!

Fuck You, Too

An item in today's Register Guard informs us that Arizona considers Oregon their "second rival" behind ASU. They desperately want to beat us this week. It seems we ran up the score on them in 2001, putting up 63 points, apparently hurting their feelings. Also, in the past couple of years we've picked off three of their verbal commitments.

Here's why I don't care and fervently hope that we kick Arizona's collective asses on Thursday.

I hate, hate, and tremendously dislike Mike Stoops. Mike Stoops is the head coach of the "Wildcats." Stoops became Arizona's head coach in 2004. He was previously an assistant under his brother, the also-hated Bob Stoops, at Oklahoma. As you may know, Oklahoma is in the Big-12 conference. The Big-12, in my humble opinion, is the most over-rated conference in the history of the world. I hate every Big-12 team on principle. Recently, Nebraska made it to the 2002 championship game after losing to Colorado, denying the Ducks a shot at the title. We demolished the Big-12 champion Colorado, proving that the conference was way over-rated and that the Ducks should have been in the title game. I'd also like to point out the over-rating of the Big 12 could result in the Ducks being jobbed out of the title game this year as well.

Where was I? Oh, yeah, Mike Stoops. So he comes out of the Big-12 and immediately starts talking smack about the Pac-10 and how we're not ready from the smash-mouth Big-12 style and he's going to show us a thing or two and Arizona is going to become Oklahoma-west, etc., etc. In other words, I hated him from the first day.

I hate Mike Stoops because the fucker gave Oklahoma game film and tips before the Ducks played Oklahoma in the 2005 Holiday Bowl. Yeah, his brother is the coach of Oklahoma, but you do not help beat a fellow conferencee in a bowl game. It is not done. Except by douche bags. Which Mike Stoops is one. A douche bag.

I also hate Mike Stoops because EA Sports' NCAA 2005 (made in 2004) programmers also decided that Mike Stoops was the second coming and they made Arizona impossibly hard to beat in the game. This means that every time you play AZ, you have to be ready for the last-30-second-three-touchdown-comeback. Nothing is more frustrating that spending 45 minutes beating a team only to have the game force your running back to fumble twice and lose the game. Fuck you Mike Stoops and your friends at EA Sports.

For the non-Duck lovers in the crowd, feel free to hate Mike Stoops because he was a scab during the '87 football players strike. That he was obviously not good enough to continue to play real pro ball and had to spend years playing Arena football is small comfort.

I also hate Mike Stoops because he has a 16-28 record at Arizona, but has already received a contract extension for next year. It's not so much that he gets to keep his job, despite the obvious fact that he is a failure as a head football coach, it is that every fuking year I have to read some dumb-ass quote from Stoops about how this is the year AZ turns it around. Oh they're going to be tough this year. The offense is coming around. Best defense in the Pac-10 this year. There is a fine line between swagger and arrogance and idiocy. Stoops straddles the line between arrogance and idiocy while thinking that he is swaggering himself all over the place.

I hope we put up the triple digits on 'em. I know that's practically impossible, but that was always my goal when I played Arizona on the computer. If the game didn't randomly decide that my quarterback was going to throw an interception on every pass, I went for 100 just to do something about my impotent fury.

Your Opinion, Solicited

Everyone knows that I am a cynical son-of-a-bitch (how dare you talk about my dead mother that way!). So I need a ruling. In announcing a committee to investigate how Oregon colleges are staffed, Governor Kulonoski said this:

[The Commission will] Study the impact of the use of part-time faculty and graduate student employees on program quality and student success, and recommend a consistent definition to describe adjunct, contingent and part-time faculty.

How should we be reading "the impact of the use of part-time faculty and graduate student employees on program quality and student success"?

Positive toward part-time faculty and graduate student employees?
Neutral toward part-time faculty and graduate student employees?
Negative toward part-time faculty and graduate student employees?

Help a (union) brother out here.

A Small Reminder

This is why we hate the rich. Fuck 'em.

From the Wall Street Journal:

In a collision of the art boom, the wealth boom and the Baby Einstein approach to parenting, galleries and auction houses around the country report that children who aren't old enough to drive are building collections that include works by Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Camille Pissarro and Rembrandt. At Sotheby's in New York, an 11-year-old boy with blond ringlets waved a paddle last fall and successfully bid $352,000 for a Jeff Koons sculpture of a silver gnome. Some teenagers are flipping art for quick profits. A few grade-schoolers are even loaning works to major museums, including Houston's Museum of Fine Arts, a coup for a collector of any age.

Everything Is Socially Constructed

The NIE and GAO reports on the Iraq War said violence in Iraq is up. The CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency have said that violence in Iraq is on the rise.

They are all wrong.

The military will report next week that it is down. Violence is way down. They would prove it to you, but the data are, unfortunately, classified.