Overheard on campus

Him: "I can't believe you're dumping me in front of Bexell!"

Her: "Well, you spend more time here than you do with me."

Bexell Hall is the building where the School of Business is based. For some reason, as tragic as this doomed young romance may be, I couldn't help but laugh.

SNOW!

In the 16 years I've lived in Corvallis, off and on, I don't remember it snowing and sticking in November. Snowing? Maybe a bit. But I woke up this morning to find the ground covered. Too bad I can't find my camera! (Hey, it's early.)

So far, no school closures listed on the Valley Info site or the school district site. It would be ridiculous if the schools were closed, at least on the valley floor, but valley residents tend to overreact to little sprinklings of snow.

Including me, really. Snow! Yay! Time to fit in a snowball fight before we all rush off to school. Enjoy it for the 15 minutes it lasts.

Pictures of the New and Improved™ Avalon Cinema

This post is long overdue. My apologies to the Turners for procrastinating like a champ.

The remodeled Avalon Cinema is colorful, right down to the Jackson Pollacky floors. Their movies tend to be quite colorful as well. And soon, very soon (so their website promises), they will provide a lovely glass of wine along with their popcorn.

The rest of the pictures can be found here.

Why I love Bob's Auto and Towing

I used to always take my car to London Automotive. Dean London was a hoot. His shop wasn't the cheapest in town, and his regular customers knew better than to try to have anything repaired during elk season, when Dean was off killing things for sport and closed down his shop. But he was honest and never repaired things that weren't actually broken. A few times, I had a first opinion elsewhere and then took my car to Dean, only to have him laugh and say, "Oh, they're trying to charge you an extra $300." He replaced an entire engine for me once for about $500. It was disappointing to move back to Corvallis and find out not only that Dean had retired, but that some jerkish relative took over who is apparently a typical sleazebag mechanic who will fix things that aren't broken for a little extra cash.

So I've been without a regular mechanic for the past few years, trying different places, hoping to find someone I could trust. I use oil change coupons from Firestone and regret it most times. I took my car in a few years ago to have the starter replaced, which they did, only to find out that there was a problem with the battery and the starter was fine. They cracked a friend's windshield when they jerked open the hood with the wipers pulled out. I don't go there anymore.

Meanwhile, I've had AAA road service forever, and every now and then, I've had to call for something stupid, like locking my keys in my car or running my battery down. Not often, but it happens. Here in Corvallis, if you call AAA, Bob's Towing sends out a truck. They are invariably friendly, even when you have to call on Thanksgiving because you hit a pothole and blew your tire and then discovered your jack was broken. (When I say "you" I mean "me." That was a fun way to spend the holiday!) The gentleman that helped me out Thursday refused my offer of a tip, despite the fact that I offered first cash, then beer.

A while back, I was pulled over because my brake lights weren't working. My other lights were fine, but the brake lights were kaput. I replaced the fuse and it didn't work. Firestone offered to take a look... for $36. On a whim, I called AAA and asked if they recommended anyone in particular for repairs. Don't you just know it? Bob's Towing also has a garage. They took a look for free, and rewired my entire brake light apparatus for less than that same $36. Recently, they fixed a friend's flat tire for free. Another time, I needed something minor done and they couldn't squeeze me into the schedule, so they referred me to G & J Tire, which did the job the same day. (They are also AAA recommended and seem to be trustworthy, but I've only gone there once so far.)

As I was waiting in my car for the Bob's truck to arrive, I realized I should probably give them a mention. I need my brakes repaired in the next month or so, and now, instead of rifling through the phone book trying to figure out who to take a chance on next, I'll just go to Bob's. They seem like good people. The best part? They don't treat me like a gurl. (Nothing I hate worse than having some jerky mechanic treat me like an idiot because he thinks women can't possibly know anything about cars. When I was young and broke, I used to do my own tune-ups and oil changes. Now I'm entirely too lazy. But I'm still not a car moron.)

Happy Thanksgiving!

If you know anyone who is going hungry today, please point them in the right direction. Several places are offering free Thanksgiving meals:

Big River Restaurant from 1 to 4 p.m. Vouchers are available at Community Outreach.

Novak's Hungarian Restaurant in Albany, starting at noon. The Novaks have been hosting a free turkey dinner for years and years now.

Albany's Helping Hands homeless shelter is also hosting a dinner from noon to 1 p.m. Guess you'd better eat fast!

Oddly enough, Stone Soup apparently isn't providing a free meal until the weekend. Guess they figure someone else can pick up the slack, since they consistently provide meals throughout the remainder of the year.

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I have much to be thankful for. Great family, great friends, a job I don't hate, going back to school, and an election year that didn't suck. ;) I'm also thankful for you, my tens of readers! Now... what are you thankful for?

Farmers' market ends Saturday

Alas, that time of year has come. This Saturday will be your last chance to take advantage of the wonderful Corvallis farmers' market until mid-April. There will be indoor winter markets a few times throughout the cold season at the Benton County Fairgrounds, but getting a weekly fix of fresh, local fruits and veggies is more difficult at this time of year.

There are a few more options, however. As always, the First Alternative Coop is the best option in town for finding locally-grown organic produce. You don't have to be a member to shop there, but it's worth the fee to join if you can. We finally did last year (Thanks mom!) and the Owner Appreciation Days alone make it worthwhile. I'd still rather buy directly at the farmers' market, but at least I don't have to buy waxed imported apples and E. coli-ridden spinach during the cold months.

Richey's Market is also a good bet for local produce and meat from local farms. Local doesn't always mean organic, however, so if you're a stickler, stickler with First Alternative.

By the way, if you'd like a prioritized list of what items should be purchased organic all the time versus items that can be nabbed at Safeway in a pinch, Consumer Reports has a fairly good list with explanations. Over the past two years, we have gradually converted over to organic almost entirely, and have further moved toward "deep organic" instead of the "shallow organic" items found in most grocery chains. I've found this to be much simpler (and significantly less expensive!) when I buy locally-grown items, so much so that next year, when the farmers' market opens back up, Corvallist kid and I are going to take the "100-mile challenge" for a month and only eat food that is raised or grown within 100 miles from our house.

I would love to adopt this as a permanent policy, but I would miss bananas and chocolate way too much, and Corvallis kid might shrivel up without an occasional coffee. Still, becoming a locavore and eating mostly within one's food shed is a worthy goal. Living in the bountiful Willamette Valley makes this fairly sacrifice-free. And tasty!

Insert your own "Field gets plowed" joke here.

A couple of weeks ago, Shawn Field was convicted of torturing and murdering his girlfriend's daughter, Karly Sheehan. Wednesday, Judge Janet Holcomb sentenced him to 46 years and 5 months in prison without the possibility of parole. It's enough, especially considering how he'll be treated in prison, where there's an odd hierarchy of acceptable crimes. Killing kids doesn't win you any popularity awards.

Karly was only three when she succumbed to the beatings inflicted by this jackass, while his biological daughter, Kaitlyn, listened from another room. The poor girl ended up testifying against her own father, all 10 years of her, clutching a teddy bear and crying.

I don't know the people involved, but it doesn't matter. These tragedies affect people far outside the inner circle of family and friends. I heard that the radiology technician who had to x-ray little Karly's broken body to survey the damage wept throughout the procedure. She was a tiny little thing.

Several studies show the number one risk factor for child abuse is simply having an unrelated adult male living in the home. Most of the time, the perpetrator is a step-father or mom's boyfriend. As a mom who brought an unrelated adult male into the home after much soul-searching and surreptitious evaluation of said male with Corvallist offspring, I become even more angry when I hear these types of cases, especially when the mom suspects there is a problem and doesn't immediately throw the guy out. You do what you can to protect your kids, I don't care how much you think you're in love.

In this case, Sarah Sheehan was told by a social worker, in no uncertain terms, not to spend the night at Field's house if Karly was with her. She left her daughter in this monster's care anyway. She'll have to carry that burden. That may be more difficult than the sentence Field received.

Finally, I don't understand Field's parents. I understand that love for one's child is unconditional. But they insist he isn't guilty. This is a man who, at 16 years of age, came up with a plan to kidnap the mother of one of his friends to raise money to go skiing in Aspen. He was previously arrested for beating the hell out of his first wife. At what point do you accept that maybe Junior isn't the sweet little thing you thought he was? I wouldn't wish this on anyone, but I wonder how many times they were called about their son and rushed to his defense. "My little angel" syndrome seems more prevalent these days.

Conversations with Restaurant Workers

We rarely eat fast food these days, but Corvallist kid wanted fish and chips from Jack in the Box earlier this week when we were in a hurry, so I found myself at the drive-through speaker, having an argument with a disembodied voice.

Corvallist: "Just an order of fish and chips, please."

JITB: "Chicken sandwich?"

C: "Fish and chips, please."

JITB: "Cheese and dip?" (Corvallist kid starts giggling at this point.)

C: "FISH. F-I-S-H. And CHIPS."

JITB: "Do you want fries with that?"

C: "Not extra fries, just the chips part of the fish and chips."

JITB: "No, chips are different. Do you want fish and fries or fish and chips?"

At this point, he had punched "fish and chips" up properly on the screen, so I said what he had was fine. When we reached the window, the now-embodied voice collected my money and I couldn't help myself.

C: "Fish and chips means fish and fries. Chips is just British-speak for french fries."

JITB: "No it doesn't. Chips are like Ruffles. We also have potato wedges, and some people call those chips, too."

C: Blank stare.

JITB: "The potato wedges are awesome. You should try them."

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On another morning this week, I treated myself to breakfast at Elmer's, since nobody else in my house was awake. I had a quiz in one of my classes, so brought my textbook to study.

When I went to the counter to pay for my food, the cashier took one look at the title of my text and her eyes grew really wide. "That looks like an interesting book," she said. I guess most people don't read "AIDS and STDs: A Global Perspective" over breakfast. I was sorely tempted to muster up a really nasty-sounding cough, just to see if she would faint. Instead, I just said something lame, like, "Yeah, it's for a class."

Alpha Gunner Rho

On October 14th, Dennis Sanderson was collecting cans out of a dumpster in an alley off of fraternity row, off of NW Van Buren Avenue. He's homeless, but harmless, making his usual rounds to pick up a little cash to further damage his liver, but not breaking into cars or anything like that. I'm pretty sure he's the guy I found rummaging through my recycling bins a couple months ago. I heard a noise, went outside and asked this gentleman what he was doing. He said he was collecting cans, unless I would rather he stop. He was polite enough and I basically said carry on.

Apparently, a frat boy named Joshua Grimes decided to handle a similar situation differently, and shot Sanderson with a .22 caliber gun. Luckily, he hit Sanderson in the leg and there was no lasting physical damage.

First question: Fraternities allow guns on the premises? Color me surprised. In an era where suicide is the third leading cause of death for people between the ages of 15 and 24, and with all the media coverage of suicide on university campuses, I'm really surprised that guns are hunky dory at any campus-affiliated residence. In fact, there was a suicide at another fraternity a block away less than a month ago. We can discuss second amendment rights for a few hours, if you'd like, but really, universities set all sorts of limits on what students can or can't do while attending school.

Second question: How is it possible that nobody at the fraternity heard a gunshot or was willing to come forth with information about the incident? The police served a search warrant early Thursday morning and found the gun. Gotta love those future leaders of America. Which leads me to my...

Third question: Why does the Gazette-Times' coverage of this same event focus so heavily on reactions of members of other fraternities and people who weren't involved? They're all ready to defend the fraternity and talk about how nice these young men are, how there is no "circle the wagons" approach. Maybe that's true, maybe it's not, but the article seemed a bit lopsided.

Thank you voters, thank you Argyle Winery.

We opened up a bottle of our local favorite, Argyle Brut, last night to celebrate what must be considered a successful election day, even if the Dems don't win the Senate (still too early to call). I wouldn't mind a little gridlock. It would be preferable to what we've faced in recent history.

I know it doesn't directly concern Corvallis, or even Oregon, but I think my favorite election result of all was watching Rick Santorum get the boot. You go, Pennsylvania.

In Benton County, voter turnout was a whopping 74%. That is a great number, although it would be nice if all the folks who took the time to register actually bothered voting.

I was very happy with local and statewide results. Frank Morse beat Mario Magana, but Frank Morse is not horrible. Not my first choice, but not horrible. The only measure I voted for that didn't go my way was the insurance/credit measure, and that's an issue that doesn't make my top 10 list for Oregon priorities anyway.

I completely forgot to mention the two Corvallis-specific measures. I voted for both the school levy and updating the city charter to reflect support for diversity, and both have passed. I was very happy about the school levy, after the last one got smacked down.

Diana Simpson handily beat the write-in candidates, garnering more than 50% of the vote and tallying up more support than the three other candidates combined. Some friends and I actually did write in Randy Hiner... for all the Benton County Soil and Water Conservation districts. Oddly enough, each of those races is showing 200+ write-in votes, despite the candidates running unopposed.

Heading off to class quite sleep-deprived today, but giddy!

My only complaint about our mail-in ballots...

... is that I miss the little "I voted!" sticker. That tiny little flag sticker granted me with a feeling of superiority for at least a couple hours, as I sneered down on people walking the streets without stickers. Bah! Those people don't value our democracy!

Okay, maybe not.

But folks, with our unique vote-by-mail system, it's not enough to register, it's not enough to rant on a weblog, and it's not enough to sit down and fill in all the little bubbles on the ballot form. You actually have to make sure that the ballot reaches its destination in time to be counted. For those of us in Benton County, it means that the ballot must either make it to the courthouse or one of the official drop boxes by 8 p.m. this Tuesday. You can't mail it Tuesday afternoon and hope the postmark saves you. Your vote will not be counted.

It is probably too late to safely put the ballot in the mail, unless you take it directly to a branch of the post office before the end of the business day on Monday. True, mail generally only takes a single day to get from one house to the next in town, but if you miscalculate the time the mail carrier comes, you miss out. But you do have other options. You can take the ballot directly to the courthouse, or you can drop your ballot off at one of these convenient locations. Two of them, the drop box outside Wells Fargo in the Winco shopping center and the one behind the courthouse on 5th Street, can be accessed 24 hours a day.

As of Friday afternoon, 36% of Benton County voters had already returned their ballots. If you're in that other 64%, please make it your priority to turn that ballot in today or tomorrow. Don't wait until the last minute, because we all know that life is unpredictable.

Measurama!

Finally, here are my thoughts (and intended votes) on Oregon's 2006 ballot measures.

Measure 39: YES.
This is the anti-Kelo measure. It prohibits the government from seizing private property with intentions to pass it on to another private party. In other words, this means your quaint little house can't be seized and razed in order to build a Walmart. Sometimes it's necessary to seize private property in order to expand the interstate, or fix an awful blight problem (East St. Louis could be entirely condemned and turned into a park and it might be for the better). But it should not be the government's right to seize someone's home with the sole purpose of building a strip mall or more expensive housing simply to increase tax revenue from that stretch of land. I voted against Measure 37, because there should be zoning and land use regulation, but I am completely in favor of Measure 39, because it is an entirely different animal.

Measure 40: NO.
This measure would require that Oregon Supreme Court and Court of Appeals judges be elected by district. This makes sense for county judges, but not for judges who serve the entire state. The measure would also make it easier for voters in the judges' districts to recall judges, without necessitating a state-wide vote.

Measure 41: NO.
This measure would increase the Oregon income tax deduction to the level of the federal deduction. It's a way to cut taxes without actually saying, "Hey, we're cutting taxes." This particular measure would cut state revenue by $151 million in the current tax year, increasing to $430 million by the 2010 tax year.

Measure 42: YES.
Resounding yes on this one. Measure 42 prohibits auto insurance companies from using credit scores when calculating insurance rates. Insurance is mandatory, but insurance companies are not required to disclose how their rates are calculated. Insurance rates should be calculated based on driving record. I understand starting a 16-year-old with a high-cost policy because of lack of driving experience, but for someone like me, with 20 years of excellent driving (one fender-bender when I was 16, not a ticket or accident since), my rates should be superb. However, because I believe in living within my means and not bothering with credit cards, my FICO score is not as high as that of friends who rack up ridiculous credit card debt. I don't have bad credit; I just don't use credit. Meanwhile, a friend who has had three accidents (her fault -- she tailgates like a fiend) in the past decade pays lower premiums than I do, simply because she tends to carry about $15K in debt on her credit cards. How does this make sense?

Measure 43: NO. (Long explanation, but this one is most important to me.)
A thinly-veiled attempt to whittle away at Roe vs. Wade, this is the 48-hour parental notification law for 15 to 17-year-old girls seeking abortion. Consent is already required for girls under 15 in Oregon. The proponents of this bill claim they simply want to provide support for teenagers during this difficult decision-making process. In reality, they hope that parents will convince the girls not to have abortions.

I have a 13-year-old daughter. I have held many discussions with her about the consequences of sex, the importance of waiting for the ability to make mature decisions rather than hormonally-fueled ones, as well as extensive discussions on contraception and disease prevention when she eventually reaches the point where she feels she is ready. She knows my values and views. She is a damned responsible kid, and I trust her to make good decisions in this regard, but I sleep better at night knowing she has backup knowledge just in case...parents aren't in the vicinity when these decisions are being made, after all. If, despite my best efforts and her best intentions, she finds herself pregnant before she is 18, despite my hope that our relationship is solid enough that she will willingly come talk to me, she may not feel she can. I want her to have this option, even if it means I know nothing about it.

Then there are all those other girls who genuinely have something to fear by telling their parents. Girls actually are kicked out of their homes, disowned, in some cases abused. Even in healthy families, sometimes the girl feels as though the disappointment will be too much to bear. Sometimes they hide pregnancies. Sometimes they commit suicide. These things happen anyway; but removing this option will only make it that much more difficult for girls who feel they can't tell their parents.

I consider myself pro-choice, but not pro-abortion. I think the "My body, my choice" argument is a weak one. It's much more involved than that. But, unlike the pro-life rhetoric suggests, there aren't many women who actually treat abortion casually. There aren't many women who wait until the second trimester, let alone the third. It can be a brutal decision or an easy one, depending on who you talk to, but sometimes it is the best choice for the situation. It is not a decision that should involve the government in any way, not even for a 15-year-old.

Measure 44: YES.
This measure expands the Oregon Prescription Drug Program to include all Oregon residents. The only argument against this measure states that prescription drugs are necessarily expensive so that pharmaceutical companies can continue research and development. Aww, those poor drug companies, with their 18.5% profit margin. They already spend about twice as much on marketing than R & D, and a lot of R & D is done by the National Institutes of Health and university programs, then simply tweaked for patents by Big Pharma.

Measure 45: NO.
I already discussed the perils of term limits when I endorsed Peter DeFazio.

Measure 46: NO.
This measure would amend the state constitution to allow campaign finance reform laws. It is intended to supplement....

Measure 47: NO.
I am generally in favor of campaign finance reform, but this is a badly-written, overly-complex law that will be struck down by the Oregon Supreme Court. This is one measure where the adage, "Keep it simple, stupid," would have gone a long way.

Measure 48: NO.
This final measure would amend the state constitution so that legislative appropriations would be limited to the percentage increase in state population plus inflation. This is a TABOR measure sponsored by wealthy out-of-state interests who think setting arbitrary limits on government spending will eventually lead to a utopian low-tax society. Sorry, pal. Someone has to pay for repairs if London Bridge falls down. In Colorado, the effects of a similar measure have been detrimental, with education funding dropping to its lowest level in 40 years. I know we have pork-happy folks in Congress, but I'd rather vote against them individually than tie their hands if a good idea comes along that needs some extra fundage.

Putting the "goober" in gubernatorial

I originally wrote this a week ago, but Blogger has been giving me fits, and for some reason it wouldn't publish properly. Time to try Ye Old Cut and Paste.

Let's get this out of the way right up front. I'm not voting for Ron Saxton. This is a man who has stated he is against any law banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, lest that become a "back-door approach" to legalizing same-sex marriage. He believes in punishing the children of illegal immigrants by kicking them out of school. He is adamantly anti-tax, pledging to cut the capital gains tax and repeal the estate tax, but promises to increase pay for teachers and expand arts and physical education programs in schools, in addition to increasing money for higher education. All this while not raising taxes or instituting new taxes. Lots of reasons not to vote for this guy, but financial naivete and social bigotry are fairly high on the list.

That brings us to Ted Kulongoski, our incumbent moderate Democrat. Kulongoski has spent four years trying to keep his liberal base while simultaneously courting conservatives. He has attended every funeral for Oregon's soldiers who have died in Iraq, which is commendable. Other than that? He has an odd affinity for taxes that don't make sense for Oregonians. He has always championed consumption taxes over income taxes, most notably pushing for a sales tax, which disproportionately affects those with lower incomes and has been voted down repeatedly by Oregonians. His latest idea was to add a "fee" to automobile insurance to raise money for state police. That hardly seems fair. The police don't only serve people with cars. The burden should be shared across the board through our current system. I am not anti-tax, but I'm anti-stupid-tax. I prefer the income tax model we currently have, and obviously, since we keep raising a surplus, we're gathering enough money this way. Fine tune the regulations so we can use the money we're collecting more efficiently and effectively, but don't mess with something that works pretty well already.

So, that brings us to third party options. First, we have Mary Starrett, Oregon's own Ann Coulter. She signed up as the Constitution Party candidate primarily because Ron Saxton isn't pro-life enough. That's all I need to know to give her a big fat no.

I was considering voting for Libertarian candidate Richard Morley, until I found out that he is also very much in favor of a sales tax. I do love that he has the World's Smallest Political Quiz linked to his website, but taking the test only proves that I am not a Libertarian, after all. He's a better candidate than the first three I listed, but my views are different enough from his that I'll be voting for...

Joe Keating, Pacific Green candidate. I do not believe in voting for the "lesser evil" unless there is true evil involved. (I'd vote for Hillary Clinton over Dick Cheney or Karl Rove, for example; otherwise, I'll probably vote third party if she ends up with the Democratic nomination in 2008.) I believe in voting for the candidate whose views most closely match my own, whenever possible. That candidate happens to be Mr. Keating. My views don't match his 100%, but on the things that matter most to me (including education, environmental issues, health care and keeping the government out of social relationships and private decisions, etc.), he's closer than the rest. Plus, he's not your typical Birkenstock granola greenie. He's an Army veteran and former investment banker. Plus, he's from New York. If only I had time to ask him whether he preferred the Yankees or Mets. Ah well, he has my vote either way.