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Baby Blogging and Vote By Mail

This is why I haven't been around much in the blogosphere... too busy in the babyshphere:

Leena Avani Karmarkar was born on November 3rd, 2006.  On our way to the hospital while I was laboring, I made my husband pull over at a mailbox so I could send off my ballot... I always wait until the last minute on things.  But, hey, I got to vote.  Had I been in another state, it's likely I would have never made it out on November 7th to vote since that was the day we came home from the hospital.  It made me think of all the women across the country who didn't get to vote because they were either giving birth or coming home from the hospital with a new baby.  I appreciate Oregon's Vote By Mail system more than ever. 

And, how happy we were to bring our baby home on such a great day!  The victories in Oregon and nationally made us feel hopeful for Leena's future.  I felt lucky that my vote was part of those victories.

Ron ain't no farmer

With a baby about to pop, I've had little time for tending to this blog and I doubt I'll have time after she's born.  But this whole "Ron Saxton is a farmer" thing just got my goat to the point that I had to sit down and defend the real farmers out there (like my mom) because when someone like Ron claims he's a farmer he insults farmers and the back breaking, sunrise to sunset work they do.  Sitting in a downtown Portland law office, while being a shareholder of a farm operation does not make someone a farmer, as Ron seems to believe and misleadingly states in our voters' pamphlets. 

Of course all farmers are shareholders in their operations, but the converse is not necessarily true, even if they do supposedly show up "once a month" to shovel some dirt.  Hey, I show up at my mom's apple farm to help her several times a month.  Am I a farmer?  My fingernails look too good for me to even consider such a claim.  When I told my mom over the phone that Ron has "farmer" listed as his first item under "occupational background" in the voters' pamphlet, I swear I heard the coffee she just took a sip of spray through her nose as she nearly choked on it.  For those of you who know my mom and have been out to her farm, you know she's what we all would call a farmer, a real one.  She's even got a stub of a thumb from a farm accident to prove it.

If you're not sure what a real farmer looks like, just head down to the Portland Farmers' Market on a Saturday morning and you'll spot them out.  I doubt you'll see any of them looking as clean cut, polished and trimmed as Ron.  Even if they do take the rare opportunity to polish themselves up, their hands are a dead give away.  Sorry, Ron, but farmers don't have manicurists.

But lo and behold, suddenly Ron wasn't so involved in "his farm" after all.  With new information surfacing about the substandard migrant labor facilities at "Ron's farm" during the 80s and 90s, suddenly Ron "was a pretty distant partner" according to a shareholder and actual farm operator who gave an interview to the big O to defend Ron.  Little did he know he was exposing Ron as the faux farmer he is.  The shareholder added that Ron was "never really a factor" in the farm's operations.  If Ron was a distant partner and never really a factor, then I say Ron is not and never was a farmer.  And that fact certainly shouldn't take him off the hook for being part owner of an illegal migrant labor camp, even if he was owning it from his downtown Portland law firm.

My true American status, before and after

Who are true Americans anyway:  a) rural citizens living in the heartland or b) big city dwellers living in high rise condos?  The answer is, a, rural citizens living in the heartland, of course.  That's easy.  But don't ask me why it is that they are true Americans while Americans living in America's cities are not.  I can't answer that.  It's just one of those simple facts that we feel in our guts... right?

My own history on this topic is not so cut and dry, unfortunately.  My personal conundrum has to do with the fact that I was born in a rural community in the heartland.  In fact, I was born in one of the most uber true American states you can imagine: South Dakota.  Furthermore, my parents had to race from a town so small there was no hospital (which made it an even truer American town) to a somewhat larger town, Belle Forsche (ooh, but that's kind of French sounding) that welcomes you with a large sign which reads WELCOME TO THE GEOGRAPHICAL CENTER OF THE NATION.  I mean, how much more American can one get?  I was dripping red, white and blue the day I was born!

I now live near downtown Portland in a condo with my husband, who happens to be Macaca.  This definitely disqualifies me from being a true American.  But I'm trying to figure out exactly at what point did I stop being a true American.  What complicates the situation of my true American status, or lack thereof, is when I was twelve we moved from red, white and blue South Dakota to Eugene.  Eugene isn't exactly a large un-American city.  It's more of a medium sized town, but it's not a rural town in the heartland.  So was I still a true American when we moved to Eugene, or did my status simply weaken?  It's kind of a gray area in my life and I'm not sure what to tell people when they ask me about the history of my Americaness. 

I mean if you moved from, say, Watertown, S.D. to  San Francisco, that's easy to explain:  You were a true American while living in Watertown, but living in San Francisco totally disqualifies you.  It's a sudden change, and the longer you live there and the closer you live to the city center the less American and the more, ummm, French you become.

Maybe one day I'll solve this conundrum I've been in for so many years now.  Perhaps I'll read somewhere that Eugene was never, or will it ever be, a place where true Americans live.  Then I will know for certain that when I was twelve and we left South Dakota for Eugene I was no longer a true American. 

Our baby will be half Macaca

After reading all the press about Sen. George Allen's racial slur and bullying of S.R. Sidarth, a native Virginian of South Asian decent, my husband, a native of India, said, "I'm no longer going to classify myself as South Asian or Indian.  I'm Macaca." 

So I asked him, "What does that make our soon to be born baby girl?"

"She's half Macaca," he said.  Of course!

Half Viking, half Macaca.  She'll be so confused.

This blogger is expecting

The husband and I are expecting a baby girl the first week of November.   I was sicker than a dog in the first trimester, but all is well now.  It's kind of hard to blog when you feel like throwing up on your keyboard, and there was something about staring at a computer screen that made me even more nauseated.

The due date is November 5th, which just happens to be the first Tuesday in November of 2024 when she'll be turning 18, a midterm election.  I turned 18 in 1984 and my mom drove over to my dorm room at the University of Oregon and brought me to our polling place so that I could participate in my first election.  I remember it vividly.

And what will the world be like by 2024?  Will we be turning back global warming?  Will the husband and I have saved enough for her college education?  And what kind of education will she get before going to college?  Will she sit in over crowded classrooms or will the state of Oregon figure out that we need to provide our children with a world-class education in order to compete in tomorrow's economy?  These things have always mattered to me.  I wouldn't have started this blog had they not.  But now they suddenly matter even more.

RFK Jr.: "Was the 2004 election stolen"

Rolling Stone Magazine has just published Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s article on how the 2004 election was stolen.  The evidence is damning and RFK Jr. has done a thorough and complete job on documenting it all.  A must read.

Note to Eugene activists: Whole Foods is not Wal-Mart

Let me begin this post with a full disclosure:  I run a small gourmet food company in Portland and Whole Foods Markets carries my products in all of their Northwest accounts.

There I said it.  Whole Foods has been bery bery good to me.  And it's not just my local bidness that they've been good to, but to many of my fellow Northwest small bidness owners in the industry.  But you would never guess this fact if you had attended a public hearing in Eugene recently about the proposed Whole Foods in the forgotten downtown of Eugene.  It sounds more like it was a hearing based on a Wal-Mart proposal than Whole Foods.  There was fierce opposition to it.

Local activists believe that a new Whole Foods will shut out local mom-and-pops and that they won't support local business.  But Au contraire, Whole Foods is well known for it's local support.  It is stores like Wild Oats that shut out local businesses by purchasing only from large corporate distributors who purchase only from large corporate vendors, thus shutting out small local businesses like mine.  Whole Foods, on the other hand, builds relationships with local distributors who carry local products.  They even buy direct from local vendors, which many large grocers would never do in a million years.

As far as other local grocery stores are concerned, many do see an initial drop in sales when a Whole Foods moves in, but eventually things stabilize, just as they have in the Northwest district in Portland where one can witness the fiercest competition between natural/specialty food stores in the nation.  Within a one mile radius, we have Food Front, Zupan's, a remodeled upscale Fred Meyer, City Market, Trader Joes and Whole Foods, all of which have a good share of business.  Many of these stores, particularly the local ones like Food Front, had to make some changes in order to compete with Whole Foods, and those changes have made Food Front a better place to shop. 

And there is another factor here:  Whole Foods pays their employees well.  They bring good jobs to local communities.  So when you add all these things up, and let me remind you what they are (WF buys from local food vendors and distributors, their presence improves the competition and they provide good paying jobs and career opportunities) Whole Foods is a net gain for communities.  Hopefully, Eugene activists will come to realize this once they see the fruits of a Whole Foods.

WTF does Saxton mean by a business "hassle tax"

Kari over at Blue Oregon has put up an excellent post about GOP gube candidate Ron Saxton and his anticipated move back to the center after the Oregon GOP primary.  Kari mentions that the "issues" page on Saxton's current website is being "updated" but Kari has the cached link to Saxton's "issues" page from the GOP primary.  Those of us who placed bets on this are waiting to collect our money... although, betting on Saxton's jump to the center from the right didn't have much risk to it, so most of us will only be collecting about 10 cents in winnings, so don't get too excited.

One thing I'm trying to figure out, and perhaps someone can help me on this, on Saxton's cached "issues" page is something he calls a "hassle tax" on bidness:

...I will change Oregon 's harsh regulatory climate and reduce the "hassle tax" associated with doing business here.

Does anyone know what the "hassle tax" is?  Is it the $10 corporate minimum tax (the lowest in the nation) that all incorporated bidnesses doing bidness in the state are required to pay?  I'm the owner of a small S-Corp in the state of Oregon and I've gone through my Oregon corporate tax forms and am trying to figure out what the "hassle tax" is.  Is there an extra schedule on the S-20 form that I'm missing?

The false argument against privacy

I keep reading letters (scroll to bottom of page in the link) to the editor in the O that support the NSA's warrantless spy operations with a stupid and dangerous argument.  The argument goes something like this:  Hey, credit card companies do it, phone companies do it, pharmaceutical companies do it... for cryin' out loud, everyone has information about all of us... you can purchase it, you can look it up on the Internet, it's all over the place.  So what's the big deal if the government collects all the same info on us?

I'm certainly not thrilled that all these corporations know that I watch The Office every Thursday night and that I grocery shop at Food Front and New Seasons Market, or that I make financial contributions to the Bus PAC, but do I want the government to know that?  Look, the government is not, I repeat NOT a corporation.  There seems to be some confusion between the two these days.  Corporations are NOT put in place by and for the people.  The government is.  The government's duty is to uphold the Constitution, which has a Bill of Rights.  In that Bill of Rights there is the Fourth Amendment, which advocates of presidential authoritarianism seem to think is dated, or perhaps "quaint."

I wonder if those who believe the false argument that government collection of personal info is no different than corporate collection of personl info, and therefore harmless to the state of our constitutional democracy, will feel the same way if H.C. becomes president with Democrats in control of Congress.  Hmmm... I wonder.

No fan of Qwest, but when it comes to govt. spying...

I'm always bitching about Qwest and have been checking out some VOIP companies like Sun Rocket to replace my Qwest service, but I have to say when it comes to the massive NSA spy program, Qwest's refusal to participate in it without a FISA warrant is truly commendable.  Out of all the nation's largest telecommunications providers Qwest was the lone holdout:

According to sources familiar with the events, Qwest's CEO at the time, Joe Nacchio, was deeply troubled by the NSA's assertion that Qwest didn't need a court order - or approval under FISA - to proceed. Adding to the tension, Qwest was unclear about who, exactly, would have access to its customers' information and how that information might be used.

...Unable to get comfortable with what NSA was proposing, Qwest's lawyers asked NSA to take its proposal to the FISA court. According to the sources, the agency refused.

...The NSA's explanation did little to satisfy Qwest's lawyers. "They told (Qwest) they didn't want to do that because FISA might not agree with them," one person recalled. For similar reasons, this person said, NSA rejected Qwest's suggestion of getting a letter of authorization from the U.S. attorney general's office. A second person confirmed this version of events.

...Unable to reach agreement, Nacchio's successor, Richard Notebaert, finally pulled the plug on the NSA talks in late 2004, the sources said.

Wowza!  I guess the potential for a massive class action lawsuit outweighed a lucrative illegal government contract.

Who are the Sugar Daddies of Oregon's delegation

A great new wiki, Congresspedia, has been set up to help inform the public about who's who in the US Congress.  Everything from family background, schooling, political history and top political contributors can be found on every member of Congress.  Each member's page has a link titled "Meet the Cash Constituents" where you can find out who has the most influence over our representatives.

And who are the Cash Constituents of Oregon's delegation?  Let's start with the Senators:

Gordon Smith:  Top industries:  Forestry and Forest Products, Real Estate, Insurance, Law Firms, Food Processing and Sales, Securities and Investment, Electric Utilities, Oil and Gas, and many more.  Top contributors from these industries include Willamette Industries, National Association of Home Builders, Union Pacific Corp, Georgia Pacific Corp, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, International Paper, AFLAC Corp, American Bankers Association, and many more...

Ron Wyden:  Top Industries:  Law Firms, Pro-Israel, Health Professionals, Securities and Investment, Real Estate, Retired, Transportation Unions, Entertainment Industry, Hospitals/Nursing Homes, Public Sector Unions, Computers/Internet, and many more.  Top contributors from these industries include:  DLA Piper Rudnick, National Jewish Democratic Council, Association of Trial Lawyers, Teamsters Union, American Hospital Association, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Metro One Telecommunications, National Education Association, and many more...

And our Representatives in the House:

Rep. David Wu:  Top Industries:  Law Firms, Retired, Health Professionals, Public Sector Unions, Industrial Unions, Transportation Unions, Securities and Investment, Real Estate, Computers/Internet, Building Trade Unions, Education, and many more.  Top contributors from these industries include:  Association of Trial Lawyers, Intl. Brotherhood of Electical Workers, Wachtell Lipton et al, Machinists/Aerospace workers Union, American Fedn of St/Cnty/Munic Employees, National Education Association, Communication Workers of America, United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Teamsters, and many more unions...

Rep. Greg Walden:  Top Industries:  Forestry and Forest Products, Crop production and processing, Retired, Electric Utilities, Real Estate, Law Firms, Entertainment, Beer/Wine/Liquor, Livestock and many more.  Top contributors from these industries include:  National Association of Broadcasters, National Association of Realtors, National Beer Wholesalers Assoc., National Rural Electric Cooperative Assoc., Willamette Industries, National Auto Dealers Assoc., National Rifle Assoc.,  Georgia Pacific, Weyerhauser, and many more...

Rep. Earl Blumenauer:   Top Industries:  Transportation Unions, Real Estate, Law Firms, Public Sector Unions, Industrial Unions, Construction Services, Misc. Manufacturing and Distributing, Building Trade Unions, and many more.  Top Contributors include:  Intl. Brotherhood of Electical Workers, Teamsters Union, Association of Trial Lawyers, United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Amalgamated Transit Union, American Fedn of St/Cnty/Munic Employees, Laborers Union, National Assoc. of Realtors, National Education Assoc., Stoel Rives, Nike, United Auto Workers, and many more unions...

Rep. Darlene Hooley:  Top Industries:  Women's Issues, Public Sector Unions, Law Firms, Commercial Banks, Health Professionals, Real Estate, Industrial Unions, and many more.  Top contributors include:   Emily's List,  Assn of Trial Lawyers of America, American Fedn of St/Cnty/Munic Employees, American Federation of Teachers, Intl Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Teamsters Union, Laborers Union, National Education Assoc., Human Rights Campaign, American Bankers Assoc., and many more...

Rep. Peter DeFazio:  Top Industries:  Transportation Unions, Industrial Unions, Building Trade Unions, Public Sector Unions, Law Firms, Health Professionals, Air Transport, Misc. Unions, Real Estate, and many more.  Top contributors include:  Airline Pilots Association, Machinists/Aerospace Workers Union, Teamsters Union, Carpenters and Joiners Union, United Auto Workers, American Fedn of St/Cnty/Munic Employees, National Assoc. of Realtors, Assn of Trial Lawyers of America, Laborers Union, Intl Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and many more...

Want more info on these guys?  Just go check out Congresspedia, or contribute to the wiki if you have some factual and pertinent info about our representatives.

Add your "Thank You" to ThankYouStephenColbert.org

Most have you have probably already seen Stephen Colbert's wonderfully snarky, "has balls" performance from last Saturday night's White House Correspondents' Dinner.  If you haven't, a website called Thank You Stephen Colbert has been set up with all the video links.  You can also add your name to the Thank You Stephen Colbert list.

I've watched the video a few times now and have enjoyed it the second and third times as much as the first time.  Although the first time I did have to scrape my jaw off the floor due to the disbelief that some one could have the guts to pump out so much snark about Bush and his adoring, dutiful press lackeys right in front of Bush and his adoring and dutiful press lackeys.

And for all those press lackeys who are now talking and writing about it, claiming it wasn't funny, well, they're missing the point.  Colbert's performance wasn't FOR them, it was AT them.  But it was FOR us... something else the lackeys have failed to understand.

The truth about how legal immigrants feel

There seems to be an emerging myth out there that presumes legal immigrants in the US feel some animosity towards illegal immigrants.  The myth goes something like this: "I stood in line and followed the law.  They should too."  Even an article in yesterday's Oregonian added some fodder to this mythical fire:

...among Asians and African circles, in which the vast majority are legal migrants or refugees, opinions diverge: Significant numbers oppose legalization of the undocumented, saying it disrespects people who have entered the United States "the right way."

The phrase "significant numbers" obviously implies that a majority of legal immigrants feel this way, but the reporter of this article failed to provide any kind of background information to this supposed "factual" statement.  If the reporter, Angie Chuang, had done her research, she would have discovered that the opposite of her reporting was true.

Recent polls have shown that a majority of legal immigrants in the US support a path to citizenship for the estimated 11 to 12 million undocumented workers.  Many feel that the immigration debate directly impacts them since much of the rhetoric has become "anti-immigrant" in nature.  One poll (audio), co-sponsored by New American Media found that 76% of legal Latino immigrants support legislation that would provide a path to citizenship, while 62% of European and African immigrants support such legislation and 51% of Asians do.

Another poll (audio) found that a majority of legal immigrants oppose a crack down on illegals, they find the dogmatic rhetoric threatening, they have little animosity towards the undocumented and generally have positive feelings towards them.

My husband, a legal immigrant from India, falls into those majority opinions and like most legals, has great sympathy for them in that they all have fundamental things in common, such as separation from their families and native homes, which is a feeling that runs deep in America's immigrants.  Although my husband's views, on their own, are not representative of the legal immigrant community, it doesn't surprise me that these polls demonstrate that his views are in the majority.

Small biz owners rejoice the end of Mult. Co's 3 yr. tax

Some of you may want to throw tomatoes at me for saying this, but I'm glad as hell that the three year Multnomah Co.'s personal income tax of 1.25% is over.  For those of you who run an S-Corp or an LLC and operate your small bidnesses along with living in the county, well, you know what I'm talking about. 

To make a long story short, those of us who who file taxes under S-Corps and LLC's don't get taxed on company profits at the corporate level when we pay the feds and the state.  Instead we fill out what is called a schedule K-1, which passes on those reported profits to the companies' shareholders who then have to report them on their 1040s.  Most S-Corp and LLC shareholders are typically family members who work in the business or are a single owner.  As bidness owners of these entities we also compensate ourselves through payroll, dividends, and or other types of compensation.  No matter what the compensation form, it all ends up on our 1040s and individual state tax forms.

In Multnomah County the business tax works the same way, but instead of reporting it on a personal tax form it all gets shoved back onto a business form which is taxed at 1.45%.  When the Mult. Co. individual income tax was introduced in '03 for three years, those of us who were paying 1.45% to the county on compensation to ourselves as shareholders along with K-1 reportings ended up paying another 1.25% on those exact same amounts as individuals.  The same government entity, in this case the county, taxed us twice on the same money. 

Readers of this blog know that I'm a progressive liberal.  In other words, I understand that we have to pay taxes, as painful as they may be, in order to have a functioning, civilized society.  But sometimes I think small business owners, many of whom struggle to pay themselves something that would qualify as a middle class income, get the short end of the stick.  It's tempting to buy into the anti-tax rhetoric out there.  I'll refrain from that, but I can certainly understand why many small bidness owners tend to vote for Republicans who promise to cut their taxes.

John Dean analyzes W's presidential personality type

Are you wondering if Bush is an active/positive prez like FDR?  Or a passive/positive like Reagan?  Or passive/negative like Thomas Jefferson?  Or maybe he's an active/negative like Woodrow Wilson, LBJ and Nixon... John Dean has an insightful piece on where Bush falls and why we are in more trouble than we realize as a result of W's type.