We Wont Get Over It.

So you want us to get over it.

We saw how for eight years, you spit in Obama's face, when he tried to reach out to you.

We saw how you refused to help him help the country time and time again.

We saw how you went out of your way to insult him and demean him and to paint him as an alien to this country.

We saw how you refused your constitutional duty in helping him fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court.

We saw how the Republican FBI director interfered in the election to benefit the Republican candidate.

We saw how your candidate colluded with the Russians to interfere in our elections for his own benefit.


We saw how you elected for president the very man who called into question our president's citizenship. 

We are not going to get over it. We're not going to OK with it.

"Coastal, Urban Enclaves" among other meaningless cliches

If I read one more article about “coastal elites, clinging to their urban enclaves" vs the vast red spaces of "authentic, real” America, I’m going to take up smoking again.

There seems to be this notion out there that land mass equals democracy, that acreage is somehow what counts in our democracy, not the people who live in it. Democracy is not "One Sagebrush, One vote." It’s not "One Rattlesnake, One Vote." It’s not "One Tractor, One Vote." It’s not "One square mile, One Vote." Democracy is "ONE PERSON, ONE VOTE," Whether they live in Hoboken or Flat Rock Idaho. One. Human. Being. One. Vote. Each state consists of the people that live in it, not its geographic features. There's no constitutional requirement that for something to count as "real" American it has to be smack dab in the geographic center of Kansas, surrounded by hay bales and cows. Even in the reddest of red states, the majority of the population is confined to comparatively tiny slivers of land. They’re called Cities. You may as well look at a map of Texas and say that all Texans living in Houston, Dallas and San Antonio are “clinging” to their little island enclaves surrounded by the vast, so much more consequential empty spaces of the "real"Texas!

So, all you journalists out there, this habit of thinking is beyond stupid. Knock it off.

To Sell or Not to Sell the Elliott State Forest?

The Oregon land board has yet again delayed making a decision on whether to sell or now sell The Elliott State Forest. Oregon really needs to keep this land, disconnect it from the common school fund, and learn how to manage it in new ways that benefit more Oregonians than just a few local timber interests. We should cease thinking of revenue in terms of logging only. But what always seems to be lacking is imagination. We just keep doing things a certain way because that’s the way they’ve always been done. We have a mindset that is stuck in 1930.