I enjoy reading your stuff, but as a former Washington, DC news producer, I must say phone calls to Congressional offices answered by clueless interns is usually not the way to go.

Portland was right to take to the street, en masse, being civil and correct the whole way.

Unfortunately, Iraq has the second biggest oil reserves in the world, as the U.S. builds the biggest embassy of any country, anywhere, in Baghdad. The original cost was over $100,000,000,000 just for the embassy. Now, it's looking like double. For a building and a very tall fence and about 5,000 troops to guard it 24/7.

So, getting back to American Idol. If W got on TV tonight and said "America, if you want to watch American Idol, you're gonna have to go to war" there would be lines in the morning at boot camp.

But if the President says "cut back on the gas", even if he doesn't really mean it, what does America do?

Fill it up, baby, and make sure to top it off!

I, too, wonder about the power of the image of thousands protesting any more.

This administration confesses to not paying attention to anything the media might decide to run with (except as they might have to spin it).

How many of the participants are there thinking their presence will matter to those in power?

If power is all this administration understands, that that is the language we must speak with. Elect a non-Republican Congress. Donate a day of your wages (or at least wages equivalent to the time you might spend at a demonstration) to a candidate who speaks for you.

As for the plea for more local involvement, I for one, have no idea where to start. Legislature? Metro? Council? School Board? Every single entity seems to just be teetering.

R

I can't see how that is at all complimentary.

Not the "take to the street, en masse" either.

Karol- If I tell you a secret, don't let anyone know I told you...OK?

I hide in my basement with the blinds pulled on American Idol Nights...I too act in public as though these kinds of shows are undignified and beneath contempt.

I even peeked at Wife Swap last night...that was really trashy. Wow, I loved it!

Now please, don't tell anyone.

Hailing from California, where legislative races are almost as expensive as congressional races, and where Democrats have a majority in both houses, I can confidently tell you that liberal outrage is just as strong in this state, and with similar results. California Democrats love to get mad about school funding, and while certain (read rich) areas deal with under funded schools through parcel taxes, most of California's kids are not getting anything close to the education they deserve.

People call Social Security the third rail of American politics. If that's true, then Prop 13 (which limits the increases in property taxes if home values go up) is the third rail of California politics. If legislators had the balls to try to modify prop 13 to achieve its intended purpose (to avoid taxing people out of their homes) while still paying for good schools, the Democratic voting public of California would have a sh*t fit.

Simply put, it's not just Oregon. People vary rarely take as much action as their speech would imply. Politics is broken because legislators everywhere are too tied to monied interests to be willing to pass the kind of progressive legislation we saw in the age of our fathers (or in my case, grandfathers).

Democrats in California had a huge battle to pass a gay marriage bill, only to see it vetoed by Arnold. There's no chance they'd try the same thing on a bill which would modify Prop 13, even though there are probably just as many people who would support that as did support the gay marriage bill. Nobody likes to be the guy that raises taxes, but someone has to be.

A start would be for Oregon to pass a bill which would provide healthcare to all children. Once we can keep kids healthy enough so they can go to school, we can start talking about actually funding schools to make them educated enough to be productive citizens.

To bring this back full circle, a few weeks ago in a story about Washington State, Steven Colbert referred to Oregon as "California's Canada." Made me laugh out loud!

And, I second the notion that we call our reps. Mine even calls back!

Don't watch TV. We unplugged it months ago and it will stay that way. Lot's of good books out there. BTW Randy Leonard, does writing to the local government people do any good? I sent the Mayor and you along with a 70 others a letter last July and only one elected person had any thing to reply. Sounds like maybe you guys are spending to much time hiding in the basement. Never did hear from the mayor. Guess he was in Taiwan at the time. M.W.

It was the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. Bush was giving a speech is still going to be a great success someday. The only alternative message was from demonstrations by people against the war. Public demonstrations end the isolation of people and joins them with others who share their beliefs and empowers them to believe they can do something about a problem. Public demonstrations that bring people together are really the only way to build a movement.

Don't turn off the TV. Just get rid of it - its really just a variation on the constant use of hallucinogenic drugs. Of course, without TV, you will have to accept the fact that you are completely out of touch with "reality" in the 21st century.

Too right!!

I find the whole lefty "I have no TV" or "get rid of your TV" thing rather silly and inane and tedious and occasionally unwarrantedly pompous, personally.

Thanks b(exclamation point is broken)X, I usually get

labelled a "righty". M.W.

"I find the whole lefty "I have no TV" or "get rid of your TV" thing rather silly and inane and tedious and occasionally unwarrantedly pompous, personally."

B!x - how can you criticize anyone as pompous, tedious or inane? Your blog was all those things in spades.

TV defines the world you live in - where do you think Red and Blue states came from? Why is it you think not owning a TV is "lefty"? In fact, what belief system do you have that you didn't get from watching TV. My guess is there isn't any. At least none has shown up in any of your writing.

Not owning a TV doesn't make you anything other than a little bit out of touch with reality.

BTW B!x, I read your stuff pretty regularly and what I wrote abover implies it was only pompous, tedious and inane. That isn't true. A lot of it was also informative and a useful independent perspective on local Portland events. It was a valuable contribution to the community and its too bad it wasn't economically viable for you to continue with it.

Michael- If you want to be successful in writing letters, write them individually to the person you are sending it too.

We receive literally hundreds of letters per week, that are Xeroxed off to George Bush on down to us. When you send out 70 letters, you fall into that category. We do not have the resources to answer those kinds of mass mailing letters.

We do, however, answer every letter or email that is addressed to me with that is a specific request for help, information or advise.

I also attempt to respond to every civil post I run across on local blogs.

People from other cities like to put-down Portlanders (and Oregonians) so that they don't have to seriously consider their rather unique point of view. I run into this all the time, all over the nation. Oregonians have a slightly different way of looking at the world, because our government has historically run things differently, with different results. So, we see that urban growth boundaries can work, but that they bring challenges. We see that light rail can work, but it needs to be connected to land use. We see that new streetcar systems can be built, but only as a part of a public-private partnership. We support assisted suicide, with a straight face and not as a Kevorkian joke.

All of this can be extremely challenging to the world-view of people from other places, especially places like New York and California that pride themselves on being the liberal one, and have a hard time accepting that some green, mostly rural state up in the Pacific Northwest could possibly have already figured out a better way to do things. This can lead to people from those places making a joke out of the Oregonian or his/her worldview, in an attempt to belittle that state's success by putting it down.

Freud would probably have some meaningful conclusion to draw from this.

Personally, I gave my T.V. away because it was taking up too much living room real estate, and I got tired of all the commercials. Now, I have a projector that I used to watch DVDs sometimes when I still want that relaxation moment over a bowl of popcorn. Escapism? Yes, but there are no commercials, and I have the control -- the power!! -- of completely choosing the programming myself.

Thanks for correction, Kari. My CNN friends in the Green Zone (and DOD) tell me they're hearing as much as $100,000,000 (including troops 24/7) for the big Baghdad Embassy, with the ribbon-cutting set for mid-May, 2015. Mark your calendar.

"A trillion here, a trillion there, and pretty soon we're talking about real money"

The late, great Sen. Everett Dirksen (if he was alive, instead of spinning in his grave)

Dang!

Make it $100 Billion. $100 Billion. $100 Billion.

From the folks doing the work in Baghdad, with the estimate doubling every two years.

Thanks for the tip Randy and as Karol suggest I was trying to deal with a local problem, but got nowhere. Put in a good deal of research as well. Us working stiffs can't always take the time off to get to Cityhall so I thought mailing to you folks would be the way to go and along the way I mailed to others whom I thought might have an interest in the issue, but I was unable to follow up. Life happened. And I moved. Portland is too expensive for some of us to live in, but the issue is still unresolved and plenty of people are still impacted negatively by the problem. And I'm suppossed to be "civil"? In the early '90s I wrote to you and all members of the state legislature and I got plenty of replies. Even got a positive one from you. Thanks. Yes I wrote to each member individually, but you all got the same letter. This last letter I thought it was important to let the Mayor and members of the City Council knw that I had written to a group and whom the members of that group were. On these blogs I usually keep my tongue firmly planted in my cheek and some will tell you I have my head elsewhere, but so be life. BTW I don't have the TV plugged in because the cost of cable is too high and the rabbit ears don't work where I now live.

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