PACIFIC OCEAN SALMON GENE MAPPING:

"In their study, the OSU scientists found that about 5 percent of the fish caught off the Oregon coast originated from the Klamath basin. About two of every three fish caught during the research - which included testing in June, July, August and September - came from California. Most of the others were from Oregon's rivers, primarily the Columbia and its tributaries, with the exception of a small percentage of fish from British Columbia and Alaska."

It's pretty clear that if the Sacramento River is going to start permanently having trouble kicking out chinook, the West Coast trollers are history. This is the second year in a row of no troll fishery. The third year in a row of drought in California. California Governors won't be looking to save Oregon trollers so much as big agricultural campaign contributors in their home state.

Although a symptom of the problem with the lack of salmon is most folk don't know the difference between a troller and a trawler. Huge difference. In a nut-shell, trollers keep the king salmon they catch and then sell them, whereas the trawlers dump theirs over the side dead. It gets better: the trawlers in the OR/WA whiting fishery and the bottom trawl fishery are allowed to keep dumping kings and the trollers have to sit in port idle since there isn't enough for both.

In Alaska, the trawlers catch much more chinook than the trollers, and again, dump them all overboard. The runs of these beautiful big salmon are so hammered by the trawlers that the few returning aren't enough for the Western Alaska Natives and the Canadian Yukon Natives to get traditional winter food.

My NICU Nurse And I

An Oregon Nurse's Association Christmas party I attended with my wife recently has prompted me to shed more light on the NICU nurses in the Rogue Valley. There was a recent documentary on the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit challenges and daily routine in the Rogue Regional Hospital run by Asante in Medford where my wife works and has worked for many years. She spent many years on night shift and now is on day shift, sometimes as a favorite charge nurse. I can't say enough good things about her and her work.

I will say that it is a unique skill set these nurses have, to fight for lives of mostly premature infants and other very sick babies. Monitors going off all the time demanding some kind of response, performing near-surgical interventions, administering just the right combinations of medications and keeping track of everything involved very precisely. Not to mentions the gentle and caring feeding and other nurturing tricks and emotional support of their charges. And the emotional support and advice given the new parents.

Teamwork is essential. Even though the nurses are the point of the spear, there are neonatologists, the doctors of this specialty, respiratory therapists, eye doctors that come in to check the newborns, other specialists, other support staff, hospital management, and union folks.

That last one brings me to the more personal side of this occupation, and in particular, the Rogue Regional Medical Center NICU nurses, of which I'm becoming more familiar all the time. I'll take the Christmas party at the Mountain View Winery, put on by the ONA, as a prime example. One can hardly help but think that there should be a reality show featuring the dramatic and stressful work and destressing activities of these nurses. In a word, these are fun people.

There was a band at the gathering Saturday night and irrespective of the generous tip Terry had me leave for the band, and the wine steward, the band was sorry to see the NICU nurses leave. I'm sure our table was the most happening place in town that night. One party wasn't enough fun, they had to join their occasional co-workers, the OB nurses, for the fun they were having at a more public venue. Of course it didn't hurt that the ONA footed the bill for dinner and unlimited libations from the best that Mountain View had in their cellars.

The drummer commented that it was a special pleasure to play for such a lively, and also good looking, bunch. I totally agreed on all points. The husbands were there as well, and that is another key to these girls' success. The men are all supportive of their administering angels to almost a fault. We can see best what they go through day to day. It takes two to do this job. Although I know plenty who are single, often because they are just too busy for the prerequisites to hooking up and maybe feel they are too busy for the maintenance work afterwards. It's a sad situation for both the nurses and the Mr. rights that just haven't appeared.

The night shifts, like the day shifts, are twelve hours long, but additionally screw with the circadian rhythms. This is not good for their health by any stretch. It looks to me like a slow grinding down process. There is a high incidence of breast cancer among the NICU nurses. Terry and I joke that God must have gotten a good laugh, putting an allopathic practitioner together with a natural remedy kind of guy. Although when I came along about ten years ago, she stopped getting malignant moles on her skin. And she's losing weight she gained as one result of working night shifts for a dozen years.

We pretty much eat like Tibetan monks anymore. Me more so. But Terry is coming around. My chiropractor diagnosed me with gluten and caffeine intolerance a few years ago, and that abstinance has been rubbing off on her too. I've started to grow big gardens to get away from the GMOs and bug sprays, etc. My research to help her has led me to drink a tall glass of slightly warm water with sweetener and 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda first thing in the morning and again at night. I rinse my teeth after brushing with colloidal silver and swallow it to also keep any disease germs from replicating. These things help Terry when she needs the extra boost Even though she usually thinks about a pill first, I can get her to take something natural more and more, because it works, is cheaper, and has no side-effect.  

This was supposed to be a glimpse into the personal lives of the NICU nurses here, but that's maybe more that I can bite off. Besides I'm more of a technical writer. I would like it to get some more treatment sometime, preferably in video format, because of it's importance. There are 20 million kids who are looked after by NICUs in the U.S. every year. Most of them would die without 24/7 NICU nurse care. There aren't enough doctors for this demand and no lay people would know how to do even routine care on a new arrival at a birth weight of a pound and a half. The NICU nurse is trained specifically for the job. Terry says she doesn't know how to care for big people and doesn't want to. Her whole being fits the demands of this job to a 't'. Like most of the others she is tough and confident in her skills when she needs to advocate for the patient. Sometimes to other staff, including doctors, that aren't doing the direct care, and have other ideas for immediate interventions. And they have to be the most gentle and skilled when threading a tiny tube through a preemie's vein to deliver drugs right to the heart. It's a highly specialized field. Some NICU doctors might think the nurses are there to help them, some nurses might feel it's the other way around. But here in the Rogue valley I don't think anyone harbors these thoughts; it's a team effort.

Terry's first job as a nurse was at Los Angles County Hospital, you know the one they used the picture of at the start of the TV show, General Hospital. I was relieved when she backed off her desire to be on the transport team here. The transport team here goes with the ambulance and airplane to pick up kids from other Southern Oregon and Northern California hospitals. She had described rushing a baby to a hospital that was 'coding,' through Los Angeles traffic at 80 mph in the dividing lane. It's an adrenaline rush, but the satisfaction of saving a life in the most direct way, in the back of a vehicle, was very satisfying. I've only helped save one life, a man that flipped his truck on Hwy 101. His truck was burning and he was strapped in upside down. Got him out with 20 seconds to spare, very satisfying, but only one. I can imagine the satisfaction these nurses have saving thousands. I noticed right away when I met Terry that she likes adventure like I do and is one to jump in and get the job done.

A group of the NICU nurses and a NICU doctor get away on scrapbooking retreats on a regular basis. I think Terry orchestrated this. No guy wants to be involved in this, take my word for it. They have their own way of letting off steam, and it's a wonder of the world. The nurses do a lot of things to let off steam. I'm really only familiar with my nurse however. She regularly goes to bunko parties, bible studies, get-togethers with friends and family, road trips, and conventions. Much of this includes other nurses. They're a pretty tight group. They seem to have only one speed, full bore ahead. Work hard and play hard, that seems to be their motto.

The nurses have code words to help keep an emotional even keel. Terry uses 'badly behav'n' for, stopping breathing, heart stoppage, or some other life threatening emergency. The preemies under a couple pounds she calls 'the littles.' The ones out of the real danger zone, but too little to go home, she calls the 'feeders and growers.' These last ones are what she coined as the 'snow-pack,' or, the patient population that remains fairly steady. Their hospital in Medford built a four million dollar addition for the NICU to better serve the growing regional population, and sometimes they push the upper limits of the expanded capacity. It takes 60 nurses to make the NICU work here. To be clear, it's the only one in a large radius.

I offer this blog post as a toast to Terry and her fellow nurses since I didn't offer one with wine the other night. I really enjoyed meeting the night shift and their hubbies Saturday night. It was epic, and in my mind, marketable in itself. I know the hospital management wouldn't view it that way, especially since their union meets across the table from them on occasion. Three cheers to the NICU nurses of the Rogue Regional Medical Center.

Trust the farmers not the chemical companies

What can you say about a two to one vote to ban the growing of Genetically Modified Organisms in Southern Oregon? And how does that relate to the self-described 'trusted leaders' in the area who endorse GMOs? Is it that these 'trusted leaders,' as they call themselves, are out of touch with their constituents, or did the big biotech companies just find it easy to influence them to try influence the vote in their direction? Either way it's not pretty.

First you had the Jackson County Administrator, Danny Jordan, very publicly saying that enforcement of a ban on using GM crop seeds would cost the County over $200,000 a year. He even threw in the scenario of the taxpayers having to dig up whole fields and treating the dirt to get rid of the chemicals and plant parts of GMOs. Where did that come from? Other counties in the country that have passed GMO bans don't experience any cost to the taxpayer. He did say in his public announcement of the dire costs of a ban, that it may possibly cost nothing. But the opponents of the ban focused entirely on costs to the taxpayer.

Nor did the Medford Mail Tribune balance his statements with his 'no cost' statements. The MT went so far as to write special articles that will go down in the annals of snark journalism for even thinking that a ban on GMOs would be appropriate. And of course the MT uncategorically recommended a 'no vote' on the measure to ban GMOs. What makes them experts in the field?

And then you had the Chamber of Commerce recommending a 'no vote' as well. That happened just after they hosted 'a presenter' at a special Chamber Board meeting. Chamber members were incensed at not being consulted on such a declaration. I've seen that a lot in Alaska where a blanket fishermen's group will issue press releases that favor the more affluent of their membership and harms many of the family fishermen and communities. Many of their 'member organizations' don't even have anything to do with fishing, but the total number of member groups are always cited. I've been writing about this for years.

In fact I just came back from North Carolina where I collaborated face to face with a prominent fisheries writer there. My question to her was, why did you quit? I all but stopped writing about this stuff as well. The answer is that it is a closed system and there is no talking reason to the folks who are manipulating it for their benefit. I've always gone by the maxim that you have to go around the problem. Armies do that all the time via 'flank attacks.' It's only logical because these folks get so entrenched and use partially interested allies to full advantage.

This has been obvious to students of how society works for a long time, so in about 1991 I proposed a trade association concept among Alaska fishermen to let them determine their fate for themselves. It was fought tooth and nail for fifteen years before the Governor just administratively got the ball rolling through what they now call the Regional Fisheries Development Association program. You could insert 'Farm' in that as well. Is what happens is the individual fishermen, or farmers, vote to organize one, they all get taxed a little bit to keep it running, and they vote all the time on how to run their industry. The almond growers and the Florida citrus growers did this very thing. The benefit was that they got away from big corporate control and developed new consumer-friendly products and marketing that made these famous success stories. And it's no surprise that the nay-sayers of this kind of collaboration were never vindicated.

A Regional Farm Development Association would probably have made the whole county measure on GMOs unnecessary. They would have solved the problem for themselves in a democratic fashion. And they would have fleshed out the science of the matter better than the editors of the Mail Tribune I'm sure.  And I could wax eloquent on how folks with some sort of soap-box don't like other folks getting on their own soap-box, especially democratically produced soap-boxes.

You sure won't see Rep. Richardson, Rep. Esquivel or Sen. Burntsugar, who represent my area, being on the right side of history in farm politics. They have voted against local control by farmers. Can you imagine how regressive Richardson's policies would be if he were elected governor in the fall? These guys need to take Southern Oregon Media Group's advice to 'Connect With Your Customers.' Obviously, with a 2 to 1 vote against their opinions, they have some serious catching up to do, if they indeed intend to. Can you say, thorn in our side. Europe is redrafting policies full bore with the recent voter rebellion over there. I guess that's the way it's going to have to be here too.

Enter the Citizens' Review Initiative on the GMO Measure here in Jackson County. A group of random citizens were selected by an Academic group, started by a National Science Foundation grant, to study the underlying parameters of the issue. No real recommendations were forthcoming out of the pre-vote process, but some good questions were. Some of these questions came out in a survey right before the vote. The survey was endorsed by the ever-popular Oregon Sec. of State, Kay Brown. Now, the Medford Mail Tribune is basically crying foul because the survey made people think. And it wasn't sent to everyone in the county either. What's wrong with cutting through the propaganda, mostly by the pro-GMO folks, and trying to make it a fair vote. Looks to me like it was a resounding success. This is what I was talking about with the Regional Development Association concept.

Since the big chemical/GMO seed company in Jackson County wouldn't sit down and talk with the local farmers, a ballot measure was the only way to go on short notice. Remember it was the organic farmers whose rights were being abridged by being contaminated by GMO pollen, not the other way around as was widely reported by the GMO industry. The organic farmers were having to plough under their crops, not the other way around.

We need more Citizens' Initiative Reviews, not less. The process had early success, and that's why it was used here. But I guess that's not a popular notion with the 1%. We probably need to use these tools to vet our politicians too and not rely on the local newspaper for their 'trusted advice.' The only thing the Mail Tribune, the County Administrator, the Chamber of Commerce and some of our local politicians failed to do was say 'trust me' with a German accent.Maybe that's the way the Swiss biotech giant here in Jackson Co., Syngenta, said it and these folks bought it. Wow.







Enter

GMOs and Apple Pie

Yeah, the pro-GMO folks here in Jackson County want us to believe the lost opportunity to make more for the few of them is worse than the harm to all the rest of us. And they simply manufacture harm to themselves and the taxpayer. They make the tradition of farming out to be a kind of terrorism that war needs to be waged on.

The framers of our constitution found the rights of aristocracy to be repugnant, so they wrote in protections for everyman. We here in Southern Oregon need to keep our eye on this ball. The only red herring pro-GMO folks haven't pulled out of their tackle box is that it is a partisan issue. And maybe too, the use of paid 'experts.' Oh, wait, I think they have being doing that in the Mail Tribune: a big-shot rancher writing for Syngenta. And of course, the 'economic impact report' of the CEO of the County.

That's how they did it in Alaska. To get their 'rights to the fish,' never mind about anyone else's rights to them, the big companies paid Eastern Washington State University over $200,000 to provide a economics professor to massively confuse the issue in their favor. When they reframe the issue, you're a dead duck. Just don't go there. When they reframe the issue in public, like in the Medford Mail Tribune yesterday, it's easy to suck in a lot of folks. (Read the little book,'Hypnotizing Maria'). Come to think of it, I've never heard the expression, 'Say the truth loud enough and long enough and eventually they will all come to believe it.'

Sure, we are bound to be influenced by the charm of the aristocrats; just keep your rights in mind when in the voting booth. If you have to, tie yourself to the mast and put wax in your ears. Homer knew about influence peddling thousands of years ago. It's the stock-in-trade of many a politican, and of course all lobbyists and PR men and women. There is a whole industry of deception. Like one anti-GMO bumper sticker I have says, 'GMOs, We Don't Buy It.' Let the buyer beware, whether on a wholesale or retail level I say..

That brings me to another Southern Oregon issue; we are being led to believe one gubernatorial candidate is about neck-to-neck in the campaign with the current governor, simply by dissing the incumbent. I don't buy the 'tied in the polls' business any more than I do the business that the incumbent is responsible for a bunch of IT geeks screwing up so bad on a major state computer system. And a local politican, who is a Doctor, and promoted re-tooling health care, is being painted as the sole culprit with the same brush. Can't have it both ways, guys.

It becomes not amazing after awhile; you finally realize there are lots of folks out there that have shucked their empathy a long time ago. And that there are going to be plenty of recruits to replace them. Discounting, of course, military personnel who are hired to hang up their empathy with their civies when they enlist. Political writers go on and on about this stuff, to even extrapolate it out to Armageddon. And there is another old saying that says you should keep laboring until that time. So, I guess there is going to be a lot of head-butting to come. And it's no mystery, to the spouses of the folks who are doing the head-butting, about who is empathetic and who isn't. That's as far as I'll go down that rabbit trail. Some like Ayan Rand become famous for espousing a lack of empathy and others like Billy Graham become famous for promoting empathy.

I guess in these contests where the public gets to decide issues, it's one side's job to clarify the issue and the other side's job to muddy the waters. Personally, I don't think these are partisan, sectarian, or any other 'ian,' issues, but I do think they are issues of empathy. And you aren't going to change anyone's empathy level any time soon. So if you don't have anything you want to make transparent, you just have tricks.

That brings to mind a fellow pilgrim I met in Florida at a Bob Dylan concert long ago. Later on, he came through the little Alaska town I was in, heading for the construction camps of the Alyeska Pipeline project. He was from good New York stock and had even flown small planes, but he'd been on the streets too long and frankly, looked like death warmed over. But he told me "I may not have a trade, but I have tricks."

Maybe that's what bothers me about institutions of higher learning; you don't come out of them with a trade. You are expected to parlay a partial trade, with a generous dose of tricks, into a living. But most people don't have a bag of tricks, especially if you have a large streak of empathy for your fellow man. It's a 'Catch 22" with no end in sight. And to be quite honest to my kids, I admit to not sticking with a trade while harboring a large dose of empathy. Not that I don't have skills, I just can't bear to be a trickster and I don't espouse being one.

I guess 'social entrepreneur' would describe me best. There just isn't a lot of money in it. That's why I'd rather throw fertilizer into the salmon streams to make it better fishing for everyone else than go fishing for the last fish myself. Speaking of that, I was heartened that the local television news channel did a piece on the Coastal Conservation Association's work to spread the salmon and steelhead carcasses from the Lost Creek Dam hatchery out into Southern Oregon creeks. It's natural and extremely beneficial, that's the way stocks of fish flourish. I've thrown my share of carcasses into creeks in recent years with them. Kudos to the CCA folks.

Although, I wouldn't mind help pioneer more commercial fisheries, one in particular in Alaska, to get my wild side 'fix' once again. My last adventure up there, helping turn an old Alaska State ferry into floating fish factory, was short lived. And definitely more looking out for the rest of the crew than myself. But sure was fun, even though I lost ten pounds in a couple of months due to shivering. Note to self, don't go onboard any more dead ships. The one I have access to now is the most capable small cruiser I've seen. Just need someone interested in doing something like coastal research or exploration to get me going again. And maybe spare me from this Catch 22 in the valley here and becoming any more cynical than I already am.

I just don't see the solution for keeping folks from sending this valley to heck in a hand-basket. I wish the family farmers a lot of luck, they are going to need it before their Measure to ban genetically modified organisms from being planted around here comes up for a vote in May. Expect to see a lot more tricks to take away their right to farm the way God meant crops to be grown. And you can't expect any help from the State; they were the ones we had to fight to let us throw carcasses into the creeks the way God meant that food system to work too.

Is what the gubernatorial candidate from this valley should do is have at least one plank in his platform and that would be to point out that his opponent threw the whole state under the bus and took away citizens' right to decide for themselves how bad they wanted GMOs living in their midst. But a hefty chunk of the voting public doesn't know much about GMOs, so it's far from a motherhood and apple pie issue. Although, in Washington, the bio-tech companies wanted the state to grow GM apples. They got turned down flat. The message was clear; don't mess with apple pie. What about our apple pie around here?

GMOs or Healthy Babies

"This is the first study to reveal the presence of circulating PAGMF in women with and without pregnancy, paving the way for a new field in reproductive toxicology including nutrition and utero-placental toxicities." When I read this kind of thing I get a little touchy because my wife is a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit nurse, and I'm like the canary in the coal mine when it comes to toxic substances in food. And I have two children with cerebral palsy that nobody knows how they got that way at birth. I guarantee there a lot of broken kids out there, whether it is acknowledged by politicians or not.

I'm limiting my diet so much I'm feeling like a monk these days. Less like an Italian monk with their Christian Brothers brandy and more like a Tibetan monk on a mountain top. People in my immediate circle are having issues with food too, like in emergency room visits. This is about the last thing I needed to get a roto-tiller going on the little farm plot of my two offspring. Community garden here we come! Well, maybe just for the circle of gluten intolerant and other intolerant friends. No pun intended.

"The curse causeless does not come" is what they say. The study referenced above is talking about what we put in our bodies, in particular GMO food, and what it's doing to fetuses. Remember, Bt toxin is built right into GMO corn to kill the bugs that may try to eat it. If it will kill bugs, what is it doing to fetuses that start out about the same size? Every study that comes out about GMOs just raises a lot of red flags, and in the case of European scientists, show the damaging effects to mammals who eat it.

It's amazing too, how campaign cash can lower the red flags in a hurry. Tens of thousands of dollars are pouring into Jackson County now to defeat the referendum to ban GMOs in the county. Our own legislators, Rep. Esquivel and Rep. Richardson, tout the magnificence of GMOs like pied pipers. I hope they have comparably leathery consciences for the carnage that appears coming. It's a local issue, why does outside money get to influence the outcome? Richardson is a smart guy, why is he running for governor when the voters outside the Rogue Valley don't know him, and why is he supporting the proliferation of toxic foods in the one spot in Oregon that the big biotech company Syngenta craves? Lots of questions that probably won't get answered in this politically correct, litigious, and self-serving climate.

The city of Grants Pass has a slogan on a sign across their main street that says "It's the Climate." I suppose some of our politicians would like to have one in Medford that says, "It's the Climate for Big Business." Well, newsflash, the small farmers were here first. Go get your campaign cash somewhere else if you just have to have another power trip at election time, and keep your noses out of things that you know nothing about, apparently.

There is huge potential in Jackson County to supply food that is free of all the toxins besetting our food supply. This is the only place in the country that has a chance to grow food free of being contaminated by invasive and toxic plant forms. These small farms could grow to very large proportions and employ thousands, to supply a country desperate for clean food for them and their babies. Not to mention the fact that Crater Lake could be supplying plenty of good water for good food for forever, as the other bread-baskets dry up further south.

Just saying. Not only doesn't the local paper connect the dots, they will put the pro-GMO hype in an article about farmers organizing to protect their farms from Syngenta. That Mail Tribune article just flabbergasted me. I doubt very much any Syngenta farmer was there at the organizing meeting of conscious farmers to be interviewed.

The vote on banning GMOs to where they came from will be in May, hence the flood of money from the biotech crowd. They like to grow sugar beets here for the seed, then send the seed around to grow the crops. My farmer friend, John Finley, in Kodiak, Alaska was one of the first, if not the first, organic farmer in Montana once upon a time. Until he heard about the gold mine in Kodiak called king crab. He said that the valley he was in, near Missoula, had been intensely cultivated in beets for twenty years. Now the soil is so depleted it just lays fallow with a few cows wandering around.

Same thing in the Missoula Valley. They called Missoula the 'Garden City' at one time for all the crops, especially beets. There was a large sugar beet processing plant there. Now not much of food value grows out of the ground and the plant is shuttered. Beets seem to have a way of depleting the heck out of an area. Think about how substantial a sugar beet is. That's a lot coming out of the ground to produce such a big organism. Well, there's another red flag for Sal E. and Dennis R. to haul down.

Let me see how to summarize the risks GMOs pose to our area: depletion of the soil maybe irreparably, reduce the local work force through industrial monoculture, cross-breed with organic crops so farmers lose their markets and devastate that thriving industrial sector, contribute to a growing regional and national health problem through toxins and sugar consumption, (when the FDA starts to warn the public about the connection of sugar to cancer, Syngenta will up and leave anyway) cross-contamination of wild plant species, possibly affecting wildlife too, the bee pollinator populations have dropped 70% and the finger is pointing to pesticides sprayed on GMO crops for one.

These risk factors are all provable in varying degrees. Not like the GMO lobby saying the County would have too hard a time enforcing the ban. 64 other distinct governmental districts around the world don't seem to have a problem doing it. Are we just stupid or something? The only thing we would be stupid in, is to believe the shills that are trying to foist GMOs on us. Remember, there are no scientific studies that say GMOs are good for you, but quite the opposite and more are being performed all the time. Do the right thing folks.

Cheers and Jeers

This format has been on my mind for a few years and now I've forgotten most of what I wanted to say. But an article on the environmental score card of local politicians spurred me into action. Another reason is that I occasionally volunteer to help the ODFW and the Coastal Conservation Association fertilize Rogue River tributaries with excess dead adult salmon from the Lost Lake hatchery. The benefits to the stream ecosystems, especially the baby salmon and steelhead are obvious, but I haven't heard a peep from any of our leaders or the media on this selfless program. And I'm sure this one compendium isn't all that I have or will find of interest around here.

Cheers; to the people who are working to extend the removal of invasive plants infestations along Bear Creek. The creek is a premier recreational area, including the paved bike path that extends from Central Point to Ashland, mostly along Bear Creek. Very few places allow you to walk down to the creek to look for spawning salmon or just sit and enjoy the motion and gurgle of a liquid, living vein of Southern Oregon.

Jeers; to Rep. Dennis Richardson who scored 17 out of 100 on environmental issues. Rep. Sal Esquivel - 12, and Sen. Hermann Baertschwiger - 0. All three have voted to permit biotech company GMO plantings in the Rogue Valley to the detriment of all the small family farmers. These small farmers make up 95% of the agriculture related purchases at the Grange Coop, for instance. Not to mention U.S. Rep. Greg Walden who also scored 0 on the environmental report card.

Cheers; to Sen. Alan Bates MD who scored 87. It's men like him that have created the outdoor paradise we all enjoy here in Southern Oregon. But I can't ignore the fact that he is vastly outnumbered and now has a challenger for his position, one who just cites 'job creation', that famous buzz word. It wouldn't be so bad if some concrete action was cited, but most job creation is by small business and that is now being largely accomplished to a large degree by older people with health insurance. Thanks to State Sen. Alan Bates' considerable work in the Oregon health care arena.


Jeers; to the land owners on Evans Creek who have refused to dismantle dams on their property. They block salmon and steelhead passage to their former habitat in the miles upstream from the unused dams.

Cheers; to the Jackson County Fuel Committee and all the volunteers, mostly in Ashland, who provide split firewood for free to needy folk.
Jeers; to the folks who stole my kids' firewood supply. They are in wheelchairs and can't cut their own. The thieves also swiped their garden hose and weed whacker for tending the producing garden.

Cheers; to all the hard working folks who are improving so many of our roads around the Rogue Valley with minimal disruption to traffic.

Jeers; to the contractor who didn't pave the shoulder of the road on N. 10th Street in Central Point so my kids had to drive their electric chairs out in traffic. And now can't access Central Point from their new house because of the cluster that is supposed to be access to E. Pine Street from N. Hamrick, keeping them isolated from their own downtown.

Cheers; to all the people who worked to take out the three dams on the Rogue River that were so detrimental to rebuilding the runs of salmon.
Jeers; to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife guy who talked the Fall Chinook Advisory Committee members into accepting a norm of only 50,000 fish where the run had been averaging around 100,000 fish. Lots of estimates put the historic run size at many times the size of recent runs. What's with the low expectations when everyone else is shooting for lots more. If the river had a semblance of it's former glory when outdoor writers and Presidents fished the Rogue, we'd have economic development galore. One king salmon is estimated to be worth $300 to the economy.

Jeers; also to the Legislature for not making the water rights holders on the Rogue put small enough screens on their intake pipes to keep out the small outmigrating salmon and steelhead.

Cheers; to the Affordable Care Act and the Service Employees International Union for now providing my kids' caregivers with health care coverage and a three dollar an hour raise. And to the local Division of Disabilities Services folk who orchestrate these changes into reality for my kids' hard working staff, which translates into better care for Alicia and Morgan and all other disabled Southern Oregon citizenry.

Cheers; in regards the 'fish tosses,' especially to a couple of Coastal Conservation Association officers, Chuck Fustish, the ODFW Volunteer Program Manager, and the staff of the Lost Creek Dam hatchery .

Cheers; to the GMO Free Jackson County organizers and volunteers for getting the word out about the importance of the organic agricultural sector of our economy. Some of which have had to plough under crops that got contaminated by crops of a foreign biotech corporation who secretly started planting genetically modified crops in the Rogue Valley.

Jeers; to our Jackson County Commissioners who are sitting on the fence on this issue, and even dodging the issue by saying they need more information. I would say organic farmers ploughing under valuable crops because of contamination by a foreign corporation's crop, is information enough. Not to mention the 'officially' unknown affects on human health and the unofficial known deleterious effects. You could say some folks have lost their minds, but like in Canada where this kind of thing is rampant, it was a slow clever infiltration by the ethically challenged. This is not a Dem. vs Republican issue, other parts of the world have their Gengis Khan types and their Golden Horde is sometimes large and sometimes small.

Cheers: on a much happier note, the downtown restaurant and wine tasting establishment called 'Capers,' in the old Woolworth Building, is now serving wild caught Alaska Copper River king salmon. A culinary peak has been scaled for the first time in the Rogue Valley. Of course I'm from Alaska and urged them to go for the best. In their tradition of winning the culinary contests in Downtown Medford recently, they have now arrived in my very marine slanted book. For my birthday in September I did have the best meat and potatoes of my life though, and I told Ron so.

Jeers; to a unnamed restaurant in Medford that served me Alaska trawl caught turbot that posed on the menu as sole. Turbot has a chemical in it that turns the flesh into mush no matter what you do before it's frozen. The Fisheries Industrial Technology Center in Kodiak has been trying for decades to solve the riddle. I guess the big processors just thought they'd foist them on the market anyway. I was good and kept my mouth shut at the restaurant for my wife's sake, even when the cook came out and asked me how I liked it. They knew they got duped, just didn't know exactly how.

Just like the folks in China having things stir-fried in 'gutter oil,' or Americans getting disease from eating the 'new wheat,' GMOs, and other such 'gutter foods.' Let the buyer beware. Oops, can't do that, at present there is no way to tell, even in this most 'advanced' country of ours. One Chinese man being interviewed for the video on 'gutter oil' said it can't be helped because everyone is out to scam everyone. Give them a few more years and they will have 'advanced' scammers like in the U.S. and not just scoop up the offending food from the city drains, but make it in labs and call it progress. Or you could couch it in terms of 'the bigger the lie, the easier it is to get away with it,' and with big money behind it, just that much easier.

It's easy to follow the money trail, but follow the scammer trail and it takes you through WWII Germany, author Ayan Rand, etc. And you have lots of folks dropping smoke bombs on the scammer trail, like 'the gov'mnt did it.' Notice the biggest smoke bombs are dropped by folks IN the government.

Motorcycles and Economics

I saw my first electric motorcycle on the street in front of my house in Central Point the other day. It brought a smile to my face. Slipping quietly by with it's little headlight and flashing lights on the garb of the driver. Just conveyance, with no link to the oil industry, and no noise pollution. As I ramp up my agricultural leanings, this technology points the way to a more sustainable way of living with what the earth has to offer; magnetic and other metal materials, some plastics, and glass.

Back in the day I used to own an old 250 cc Harley Davidson made in Italy. That brought a smile every time I got on it as well and I've thought of finding another one. That might be a lost cause. I checked with the motorcycle and ATV boneyard out in Sams Valley, but they hadn't seen one in ten years. Knew a guy who restored them in Prescott Valley, AZ prior to the '90s when I was living there for a year with the family. He had some parts but nothing left restorable.

I had bought mine from a two-hitch Vietnam Vet and artillery officer who I did some skiing with in Colorado and drinking when I was at Oregon State University. I met him through a dormie hunting partner who is now the head of large ungulate game management for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife in Eastern Washington, Woody Myers. But Frank Miller was a swashbuckler and kind of an idol for me in those days. He had used that old Harley to race up Pikes Peak in dirt bike ralleys before the Japanese took over that venue. My wife's father used to test the first dirt bikes for Honda in Southern California and would take them on family holidays to the beaches of Baja California. Nowadays he rides a big Harley with his friends even though he is in his eighties.

But that 250 was great to zip out the road on Mitkof Island in Southeast Alaska and go for some 'hooters' 9grouse, sorry fellas) in the spring of the year. Took it to Yakutat in 1971 to get to work when I went up there to work in their new cold storage plant and rode it on the ocean beaches and logging roads. It had wide knobbys that got good traction on the soft sand. It didn't do well in the muskeg, mainly because of the muskeg ponds that would suddenly appear. No, I never went in a pond. I got the nickname 'Bronson' then because I guess I looked like the character in the TV series 'Bronson' who rode around in the hills with his motorcycle and did good deeds. I more recently met the daughter of the leading lady in that series when I was looking for a home care setting for my kids. She was running an adult foster home in Rusch. I thought that was ironic.

But as fate would have it, no motorcycles have come my way since 1970, except the BSA 650 I bought in London and used for a few months in about 1974. A friend in Kodiak has a collection of about fourty bikes, mostly older Japanese bikes. I found that there is a Association of older Japanese motorcycle owners. (Not older Japanese people, the bikes.) Thought about contacting him to buy one, but that electric motorcycle that zipped by the other day really got me thinking of going electric. They make them here in the Rogue Valley now, in a shuttered Walmart store they just move to from Ashland. The company is called Bramo. They started out making electric ATVs for farms and ranches, etc.

The interest I have in electric vehicles I suppose began during the years since the late 90s in Petersburg, Alaska where my two kids got their first electric wheelchairs. I remember an article about a shop teacher in Kenai, Alaska building an electric wheelchair that handled snowy roads and would lift his daughter up like a forklift so she could get things higher up. I've thought of all configurations for a more useful design for Morgan, who has great control of the joy stick that controls his Invacare electric chair. My latest is a electric off-road chair that could tow a mower on the little farm he is now renting in Central Point.

One guy out at a golf course is turning an electric golf cart into an off-road electric rig. Of course the advantage of electric is that you can sneak up on game animals better right from your ride. Hiking is a bitch when you get older and especially when carrying out the carcass. I have a case of macular degeneration now that I'm keeping at bay, but at the cost of not doing any strenuous exercise. I hate that. Weight lifters get it too, from straining so hard. The little blood vessels in the back of the eye start to leak and mess with your vision. You don't want that, let me tell you.

Now that my kids in wheelchairs are not just down the street from me, and hauling stuff on my bicycle out to their farm doesn't much appeal to me, maybe it's time for a motorcycle. The cost of a new electric one might be prohibitive for me for now, but I have my eye in that direction. Probably a more traditional motorcycle is in the cards for now. And it probably won't be a British Small Arms or a Harley Davidson, as much as I would love it to be. Although a combination road and farm vehicle would be nice. But nobody is making that one. Probably a low demand. Especially since some character in a comedic movie used one to get to work as a water boy for a football team.

So, what is the solution for short highway rides and even longer trips on logging roads in Southern Oregon? I always joke about putting a Harley Davidson engine in Morgan's wheelchair to get him more speed. I'm sure he would like some kind of more power for his jaunts about town. The extra speed would have helped wheeling from his old place to ours down 10th street where they forgot to pave the shoulder of the road. He had to drive out in traffic at only seven mph. And they forgot the street lights in that stretch too. Alicia drove right into a parked car once and I think her shin is still smarting, if only in her memory. Fun stories for the grandkids. My one grandkid, Connor, will probably be driving an magnet motor hover vehicle in the year 2030. At least a magnet motor-boat, one of my next projects, after remodeling some rooms in our house and experimenting in permaculture on the little farm. And maybe getting the long term care wheelchair I have a patent on into production. Whew! Good grist for the job-creationist touting politicians around about as well.

Sure, I could go to one of their little dog and pony show innovator programs and give all my ideas away to some Californian with a big bank account, but that doesn't help this area. Or me and my family. Is what really is fulfilling is helping the community, like my wife was telling of her chipping in when a guy at check-out was short a couple of bucks. She said she caught the clerks eye and she just slipped the extra money over without the guy knowing. Lasting sweet taste. We need more of that. I'm about tapped out helping my kids with their special needs and doing the thing I like best, blogging and innovating. Someone else that has the heart for commercialization in the valley is needed. And not a heart for taking all the profits either.

Not to say I haven't found machine shops that won't do the work for a reasonable fee. There just isn't the incubator facility needed for small innovators, or some such mechanism for an innovator to pick business partners and not be made to feel like a sideshow or a golden goose. But if a politician is going to get elected on a platform of job creation, he needs to have a plan. It's way too easy to just spout the buzz words, 'job creation,' or 'economic development.' I know, because I used to work in economic development in bureaucracy before. As an entrepreneur too, I sure know what doesn't work.

I keep recalling the story of the ED type in Kingman, Arizona who was the essential ingredient in helping start 41 new businesses there. Kind of like Oppenheimer, who was the man with the plan to make an atom bomb. He had all everything in his head, like a one man Google Search. Serendipity does happen and businesses do get started, but more are going broke these days than starting it seems. Maybe someone will get it someday and start helping to put all the innovations that are on the shelf into the public domain.

I organized and did a one man Inventors Fair in Petersburg, Alaska right before moving to Oregon in 2000. It was amazing the number of people who had an idea under their hat in the little town of 3,000. Inventors and entrepreneurs however, are chronically loathe to divulge their ideas. There definitely needs to be a mechanism where they can select the help they need from a menu of advisors and angel funders without divulging the essence of their life's work to everyone and his uncle, including foreign manufacturers. There really are industrial spys running all over the place. The essence of their life can be snatched away in a heartbeat, even with a patent. A patent that is about as good as the paper it's written on, unless you have more lawyers than the next person, which most innovators don't. And the fear is that even if you go the Steve Jobs route, you could get fired in a heartbeat like he was. Something's gotta give.

One of my last stabs at staying in Alaska was to propose a 'business development office' to help the innovators and jump-start a light industrial sector in a predominantly fish harvesting and processing town. Reliance on one industry is risky, and who knows, maybe Fukushima will be fishing's death knell. Anything could happen. And in the agricultural world, if the big biotech companies are successful in putting all the little farmers out of business, and then GMOs are proven to even the most ardent supporters to cause serious health issues, which some researchers have already done, then it's curtains to the whole of agriculture for a time.

With all the risks aside, and just structurally speaking, I'm convinced a more local and extended family structure is better for business. More companies are buying back their stock, many are making their companies employee owned, and non-profits are sprouting like alfalfa in the spring. I've dabbled in forming corporations and an LLC for my wheelchair endeavor and every time it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth to put it mildly. There is no lack of people in an extended family who need work either. And by extended family I also mean trusted friends as well. Not that there doesn't need to be some structure however. But remember, corporations as a business model have only been around a very short time. There is also a very old form known as a 'Corporation Sole' in which the OFFICE is the head of it, not the person in the office. They exist all over, but not listed on State web sites because they are non-profits.

Well, here's a blurb about the subject of Commonomics. I thought was relevant to the topic, also since folks are getting more perturbed about corporations and government social engineering experiments. You've heard the term 'White Elephant.' It's an expensive government boondogle, usually undertaken for the sake of that nebulous term 'economic development.' That term should be scrapped; it doesn't imply any particular thing to be accomplished, so invariably  State and local ED jobs are just a way for folks to get a job in the business network they create.

"Aggregate counts of economic activity like gross domestic product, or GDP, give all activity equal value. The cultivating of an urban farm, which may involve little paid work and consume few bought materials, is less “productive,” in GDP terms, than paving that farm over.“When grain prices go up, that’s good for GDP but terrible for hunger,” says Joshua Farley, a professor in community development and applied economics at the University of Vermont. ”GDP is an excellent measure of cost; a terrible measure of benefit.”To even start a new conversation, we need new measurements. As the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) puts it, it’s time to start “measuring what matters.”

A small farm family is happy and well fed just like a well paid CEO. Or even healthier and have more leisure time and play toys than a nurse at a hospital like my wife. They get dirt under their fingernails, so what? Does that disqualify their labor output from the equation? And what of their smaller carbon footprint and lower impact, nay, even benefit to the ecosystem we all live in, even the CEOs and politicians who are trying for the reverse. Think locally made electric vehicles and fertilizer.