IT'S NOT FAIR, PART ONE

This entry is a bit along the lines of Lisa’s last entry, but a little different. In my case it’s disgust over a couple of fairly widespread ideas that some folks hold that really bug the hell out of me. I may have done entries on this earlier, I know I’ve thought about it. If I’m repeating myself, sorry. And my description of the hullabaloo of the attempts to tweak Oregon's land use laws is not exhaustive by any means. It would probably take an entire book to do it justice.

Number one. Back in the mid seventies Oregon put in place some fairly strict land use regulations. The idea was to protect farm and forest land from uncontrolled development. We didn’t want to end up as LA north. It was basically a one size fits all set of rules, and the way they weren’t handled wasn’t always fair. But, hey as we’re told from the age of five on, life isn’t always fair.

Having said that, Oregon is not an easy state to build in. Except for Astoria, on the mouth of the Columbia and Bend, just east of the Cascades, all the large cities, and I mean ALL of them are in the Willamette Valley. And most of them are between Salem and Portland. One set of rules for valley area and another for the rest of the state probably would have been a good idea. Heck seventy five percent of the state doesn’t have to worry about sprawl because it’s too dry, too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter and too far from anywhere else for almost anyone to want to live there. It’s the other twenty five percent that’s causing the problems.

And I have to agree that some of the irritation could have been averted if a way had been found to handle “set asides.” After the owner buys a house or a business the local city or county decides that some kind of easement is needed. Forflood control, or greenway, or something, that in the opinion of the elected or appointed hired help, that is needed to protect a flood prone area, help wild life, etc. Basically the land owner is told, it’s still your land but you can only do certain things with it and we aren’t going to pay for the use of it. Some of these situations could have been handled with a little more tact and probably would have gone a long way to defusing some of the irritation.  

The problem, as it was sold to voters when the land use laws were amended three or four years ago, was that people who bought property (speculated really) before the laws were passed couldn’t do what they intended to do when they bought the land. So, measure 37 was put on the ballot to correct this. The wording the ballot measure was basically let me use the land the way the law said I could use it when I bought it or pay me for the “lost value” due to land use restrictions. Never mind that there are twice as many people living in Oregon now as there were in the fifties and sixties. Never mind that most of the new growth is in the Willamette Valley. (because it’s the only part of the state that’s anywhere near level or has any water to speak of) Never mind that other people have built houses, farms, and vineyards since the land use laws were passed, had certain expectations based on the law, and would see their land values impacted, too. Repeat after me, “once you open a can of worms…….” Many of them are also saying “it’s not fair” too.

And I have to admit that this has impacted people in my own family. My great grandfather moved his family to Oregon in the late 1800’s. He bought property in the Newburg area. When he died the farm was subdivided between three sons. My granddad lost his farm in the twenties. The last of three pieces was sold recently after cousin Ernie passed away several years ago. The remaining section was too small to subdivide under the rules and too large for any single remaining member of the family to buy the others out. Or at least that’s what I’ve been told. I suspect that if any one of them had wanted to farm the place something could have been worked out with the others. Heck, Ernie hadn’t farmed the place for years. He’d leased the land to somebody else to work.

Anyway, we were shown ads with tearful oldsters who only wanted to build an extra house or two so their kids could live near them. Or they’d planned to sell the property as a retirement nest egg.  Three guesses who paid for the ads. The timber companies, the real estate companies, and developers looking for new land to build on. After all large scale developers are in business to build things and the real estate people are in business to sell them. And the land use restrictions have been making it harder to make a buck. But, hey life isn’t always fair is it?

One of the first things that caused a lot of screaming from supporters of the measure was lack of portability. After all it was sold to the rest of us as “I want to do …….” Not I want to sell the land to somebody else to do, whatever. You’d have thought a bunch of long tailed cats had been turned loose in a crowded rocking chair factory from the caterwauling when that little detail came up.

Anyway after a couple of years of court challenges, 37 was upheld and the claims started pouring in. Incidentally, there were no provisions in the ballot measure for any kind of verification of loss of property value claimed or any funds set aside to pay these claims. And at least one claimant has admitted that they don’t really know if their land is worth what they’re asking but “hey I might as well try to get as much as I can.” And if you can get enough people bidding on a tract in certain parts of the state, the sky is pretty much the limit.

One out of state timber company that had bought out a small local company tried to put in a claim to develop nearly thirty thousand acres in the coast range. That was one of the claims that broke the camel’s back. It has beenwithdrawn, by the way. I know what the press release said, but I suspect that someone from the company came out and actually looked at the property involved. The company is headquartered back east and most of those thirty thousand acres probably looks pretty vertical to somebody not familiar with the state. Most of the coast range valleys are short, narrow, and ten or twenty miles of narrow, curve filled roads from anything that looks like a store, or much of anything else, now that I think about it. Lots of miles of roads with a drop off on one side, a mountain on the other and no, I repeat no, shoulders.

Anyway, last session the state legislature finally rediscovered it’s balls, sort of, and put a measure on the November ballot to fix some of the flaws. It green lights the small scale claims that were used to sell measure 37 in the first place. It also sets up a case by case framework for larger claims. For those the  current owner will have to prove the land is worth what they’re asking for in lieu of the right to develop, take the availability of water and the impact on roads and schools into consideration, and if there is any justice force the developer to shoulder the cost of building the infrastructure needed for the new development.

Of course we’re being hit with the “it’s mine and I should be able to do what I want with it.” God, so many Oregonians sound like a bunch of spoiled brats. Hell, the land wouldn’t even be available if we hadn’t stolen it from the Native Americans in the first place.

After all, I’ve felt for a long time that “it’s not fair” that mom and I should have to subsidize the building of roads and sewer lines so a company whose business is to build mall space or houses and hope they can sell them and make a profit on it don't have to foot the bill themselves. Or, that unlike Washington, developers aren’t charged a surcharge on each lot to help build new schools for the new families coming in, and so on, and so on, until we reach infinity. But then, (all together now) “life isn’t always fair, is it?”

Geez, this got long and it's just number one, so I'll have to say……to be continued. (don't worry there's only two or three things that have really been bugging me every time I run across them) ;-) I mean besides the war, over population, the war, the Current Occupant, the war...............

SMALL COMPLAINT

Oregon PBS did a little companion documentary to go along with Ken Burn’s documentary on WWII. I watched about half of it and had very mixed feelings. It was a series of interviews with Oregonians who were living in Oregon during the war and either worked stateside or were in the service. That part is interesting. But, the series had an unfinished feeling to it. The stories tended to skip around from the beginning of the war to close to the end. From home front to battle field without following any kind of time line or attempt to put the story in context.

 

The production jumped from stories about Japanese Americans who found themselves interned for the duration at the beginning of the war to a soldier who found himself fighting in Luxemburg. There was no attempt to say when he was in Luxemburg or where the little duchy is. It’s sandwiched between Belgium, France and Germany by the way. And I’d guess the fighting took place sometime between D Day and VE Day. I guess my inner obsessive compulsive would appreciate a little more clarity please. I haven’t watched much of the Ken Burns series for pretty much the same reason.

 

Although I did get a kick out of a story in the Oregon documentary about a nutrition expert who donned boots and stagged pants to see whether or not loggers could do their jobs eating peanut butter sandwiches instead of meat. He decided they couldn’t so the loggers were entitled to bigger meat rations. From stories I’ve heard about the depression years in Oregon I suspect that a lot of logs got cut on bean power. Or out of season venison and elk.  Dad had a few stories about that too. Most of the old game wardens would look the other way if the hunter was feeding a family and kept it on the QT.

 

And there was the storyhe told about the feed store owning member of the local draft board up in the Newburg-Swiss Home area who boasted that he’d make sure all the Catholics would be drafted. Three guesses as to the leanings of most of his customers. He wasn’t in business at the end of the war.

 

Frankly the WWII section of Peter Jenning’s series on the 20th Century, the companion documentary to Band of Brothers, or the old Thames TV/PBS series The World at War are far better, in my not so humble opinion.

HEROES IN OTHERS EYES

There were several things that prompted that last entry. It’s partly the date, partly watching the mini-series again. It’s definitely a Sunday afternoon not before bed time program. And partly something I ran across while checking the availability and price of Ken Buns new documentary series. You know how Amazon gives you suggestions to go with what you were looking for in the first place? Well one of them was a film that Clint Eastwood directed, Flags of Our Fathers. It was released earlier this year and apparently tanked at the box office.

It’s about the grinding, bloody battle for Iwo Jima and follows the men who raised that famous flag when the battle was over. And it follows them back to States for a War Bond fund raising tour. I haven’t seen the film but from the description it’s an examination of our need for heroes, who gets tagged and how some of the “heroes” think of the label.

I get a kick out of reading customer reviews, especially the one and two star ones. At least one of them definitely didn’t get it. For one thing, the bulk of the fighting in the Pacific was done by the marines, not the army. At least the service they belonged to right. Makes me wonder if the reviewer saw the film. And he complains about how these men kept “whining” that they weren’t heroes. They weren’t in their own eyes. They did a job. They were part of a team. And I wonder how it felt to safe at home making speeches to raise money while your buddies were going through the next meat grinder and the next.

Mom had a high school class mate who joined the marines. He died on a beach in the Pacific. He died on Tarawa. Just another battle in the history books. Another flag on a box.

And anyone who knows classic country music knows what happened to Ira Hayes. If you don't, do a seach for the Ballad of Ira Hays. Damn, I’m outta here.

HEROES

I think I’ve mentioned before that I’m a fan of the mini series Band of Brothers. It’s a hard series to watch, and not because the action in the film is about as close to real combat as most of us will ever get. These men were closer to each other than any blood brother could ever be.

 

Tomorrow is September 11, actually is on the east coast. There will be a lot of speeches about heroes tomorrow and I wonder if we really understand what a “hero” is. It’s a word that’s been tossed around a lot the past few years. Mostly by people who have an agenda to satisfy. Funny thing is, you don’t hear it much from the men and women in uniform. It’s the civilians with those agendas. Especially some individuals who never wore a uniform when they had the chance. They seem quick to provide others with the chance to earn the label they never earned for themselves.

 

There’s a documentary that goes with the mini series. Interviews with the men from Easy who still are still alive and willing to tell their stories for the camera. Sometimes they have to stop, after all these years the memories are still too fresh. D Day, the days after, Brecourt, Carentan, Bastogne, Market Garden, Landesberg, names the rest of us know only from history books or paintings.

 

There is a common thread that runs through all their stories. They don’t claim the label of hero for themselves. It’s always someone else. The brother that died at Monte Casino a few days before one man jumped on D Day. The men who never made it out of the planes. The soldiers who never even made it ashore. The heroes for these men were the brothers who came home under a flag or who rest under a marker somewhere in Europe.

 

At end the former company commander remembers a letter from a comrade. The writer’s grandson had asked “were you a hero in the war, grandpa?” “No, but I served with a company of heroes.”

 

So, while the word hero is being tossed around tomorrow, please take a moment to think about who your heroes are and why. We had a neighbor who served from day one to the end of WWII. He never talked about it much. He fought his way across North Africa, Italy and Southern France.

 

And while we’re at it, let’s remember those who could have earned the title and never seized the opportunity. They had better things to do with their time.

Tags: Band of Brothers, Heroes, WWII

SEPTEMBER 11

With the anniversary of September 11 two days away, I’ve run across some interesting information. I don’t know if either of these earlier September dates have been mentioned in the press.

 

I came across both of these other September 11’s in Arundhati Roy’s collection of essays, War Talk. The first is September 11, 1922 was the date Great Britain announced its mandate in the former Ottoman province of Palestine. This followed the Balfour Declaration that supported the establishment of a homeland in Palestine for the Jewish people. Part of the original madate was subdivided into what is now Jordan.

 

I haven’t been able to confirm that date of the 11 for this. I have found two references that confirm that the announcement was made in 1922 and that it occurred in September. One is in the Wikipedia entry on the Palestine Mandate and the other is in the book A history of the Arab Peoples. A passable history book on Arab Islam and the history of the area into the mid twentieth century. Passable, I never managed to finish it but it’s a fair reference as long as you double check. (I like Amazon because of the reviews. The book has been out since the nineties.) Just a personal comment. Of course the author is biased. I never met one that wasn't. That's probably why the title is A history rather than The history. I've also noticed that people usually complain of bias when the author doesn't agree with them, not when he/she does.

 

The other September 11 occurred in 1990. On this date, the first president Bush announced the decision to go to war with Iraq for the first time. Interesting.

EXPERTS 2

I suspect that when Ms. Lappe was discussing experts she meant the ones who have managed to get a degree or some sort of certification that can be presented to prove that they’ve successfully passed the tests to prove that they know what earlier experts knew.

There are other kinds of experts. They don’t have degrees, they haven’t been certified. Their area of expertise may not be very wide. They know a river because they’ve fished it, worked by it, live by it, maybe took a boat down it a time or two.

Dad was a logger and he loved to tell stories about the job. During the late fifties and early sixties trained foresters went around the units telling the loggers to pull all the logs out of the rivers because it was bad for the fish and it was assumed that all the logs in the river were the result of trees being cut and allowed to fall into the streams. They pretty much ignored the guys who told them that some of those logs had been there for years and the best fishing was usually near the fallen logs.

Out came the logs, away went the fish partly because there were no shady places to hide, and no still places for insects to lay their eggs. So a few years later the forest service came back and said to put the logs back in. For the record, I don’t believe in logging next to streams, believe logging should be done very carefully, that a tree that’s allowed to fall on its own and rot is not wasted, and that clear cutting as it’s currently done is an abomination.

We had a nice little dust up last year between a forestry grad student at OSU and about half the faculty of said forestry school. The student was part of a study on recovery after a fire. Hehelped author a report that showed evidence that a forest will recover just about as fast if it’s left alone as it would if salvage logging took place. You would have thought that he was advocating drowning puppies and kittens. See, a lot of funding for the forestry school comes from the logging companies. And logging companies sell logs. That's another funny thing about the experts who get interviewed in the media or act as spokesmen for the status quo. Many were trained at schools funded by industry donations, have tenure on faculties at those schools, or work for think tanks funded by those industries.

I'll be the first to say that we need people with expert knowledge. The current administration is sad proof of what happens when party loyalty is put above needed expertise. We just need to remember that the expert opinion may come with a built in bias and that not all experts have degrees or certificates. Some of them have dirt under their fingernails and callouses on their hands. They may not dress very well and they may not even speak our language. Doesn't mean they don't know what they're talking about if they could just be heard above the din of Fox News, political pundits, and the development at any cost crowd.

And I’ve noticed that the current administration will defer to “expert” opinion only when it agrees with the programs it’s pushing.

Never mind that abstinence only programs don’t work any better than any other sex ed program. Never mind that teaching to the test is geared to turning out good little cogs for the corporate machine. Never mind that people who actually live in other countries don’t really want to shop at WalMart. Never mind that the farmers who actually farm the land in third world countries just might know what grows best on their land. Never mind that these people would just as soon grow the food they eat instead of growing crops for export cash so they can then buy imported food. The list is endless.

One of the events that helped crystallize the Mahatma’s beliefs involved a famine in the Bihar province of India. Haven’t found an exact date but probably the late teen early twenties. Most of farmers were tenant farmers and they were required to plant part of their land in indigo for the dye. It was part of their rent payments. And many of the landlords were British. When chemical dyes came on the market, the market for indigo collapsed and the landlords refused to take the indigo when the rents came due.

Instead they seized the farmers’ food crops and livestock when they didn’t have the money to pay the rent and when there were no more crops or animals to take, the farmers’ seed, tools and other possessions were taken. The situation blew up in the governments' face, Gandhi spent some more time in jail using the time to plan on how to kick the Brits out of India and an agreement was reached to allow the farmers to plant part of their land in crops that couldn’t be taken.

And curiously, India which our elected hired help never really supported because the first government’s policies were a bit too “socialist” for out tastes, is doing fairly well. Well enough to be targeted by WalMart and the big multi national ag comapanies at least. While Pakistan, the result of the partition of the sub continent, has gone from dictatorship to dictatorship usually with US support. The country also appears on the verge of blowing up in our faces. As you sow has never been truer.

From academic experts to indigo, how’d that happen? Except to say that India is the next big market the capitalist experts have in their sights and many of the peasant groups are mobilizing to help each other find another way to go. They are the ones with their sandals on the ground. They are the ones that will get ground under the wheels of the “progress” the academic, European American experts are so “expert” at.

For the record I'd like to say that if India or any other country actually wants the Wal Mart shopping experience they have the right to try it. Personally, I'd rather be smeared with honey and staked out on an anthill, but hey that's just my opinion. But, it should be an Indian company, run by her people, with the profits staying in India. Not a bunch of American carpet baggers pulling everything they can out of another country.

EXPERTS

Also starting to reread Frances Lappe's Diet for a Small Planet. She had an interesting take on experts in her introduction. The experts we find quoted in the mainstream is almost automatically a servant of the status quo. That's what he or she is an expert in. It's very hard for them to think outside the definitions they are used to. They aren't likely to look for a new way of doing things because then they wouldn't be an expert anymore. Takes a lot of guts to say "hey, I don't know everything. What can you teach me?"