Local economist Ed Whitelaw and two of his cohorts at ECONorthwest (Philip Taylor and Bryce Ward) have unearthed an amazing and important statistic about Lane County’s economic landscape. In an essay published in last Sunday’s Commentary section, they showed Eugene-Springfield professional workers work fewer hours than their colleagues in almost any other metropolitan area nationwide.

Historical records show that this trend has been constant for more than a generation. When coupled with our lower average wage, that group’s wealth lags far behind most other metropolitan markets.

Whitelaw is an economist, not an anthropologist. I am neither, so I can pretend to be both and offer a possible explanation.

Normal becomes whatever we all agree is normal.

For example, my neighbor Bob recently was complaining at a neighborhood gathering about his morning commute from south Eugene to downtown. Traffic is an easy topic for commiseration, but Bob wasn’t getting much traction. While he spun his conversational wheels, I counted noses. There were 17 of us seated on assorted lawn chairs that Sunday evening. “Bob?” I asked, “Do you realize you’re the only one here who reports to a boss in an office every day?”

We all laughed as others checked my work. Three consultants, six self-employed, four students, one telecommuter, two semi-retired, and Bob. My neighborhood is not a scientific sample, but that’s not my point.

For a while, none of us noticed that Bob’s 9-to-5 is not our commonality. More importantly, when we did notice, nothing seemed wrong — except possibly to Bob.

University of Oregon professors have long understood they earn less than their colleagues at other universities. The gap has been sardonically embraced with the phrase, “We get paid in scenery.” Along with trees and mountains and plenty of water, that scenery includes self-employed, underemployed, and just-barely-employed — without shame.

In most other places I’ve lived, anyone not working 40 hours a week had either a secret disability or a disabling secret. If your work week wasn’t like Bob’s, you weren’t normal. Eugene has accepted work as necessary but not central to its identity.

Most Americans live to work. Eugeneans work to live.

Eugene’s lifestyle can evoke a culture shock. University of Oregon Journalism Professor Ed Madison came here from a large city. He once remarked to me, “People here sure love their scarcity.”

Put another way, people here have been getting by for so long, it’s all they know. We make and do less, so we make do more.

Let’s return to some economic numbers. National economists have marveled that housing starts are up 27.7 percent this year, and yet construction jobs are up only 2.9 percent. They attribute this to what’s called “labor hoarding.” Rather than lose good workers during slow periods, employers keep them on the payroll, often with reduced hours, even if there isn’t enough work to keep them busy.

Labor hoarding has become part of our way of life. Employers keep more workers than they need. Workers accept fewer hours than they’d like. It’s a vital part of our scenery.

I’ve asked people about this for years. Some businessmen tell me the Vietnam War protests of the 1970s convinced local economic leaders to keep a low profile. “Students took over the city’s culture,” one business titan told me, “and they never gave it back.”

Assigning causality to a culture is risky business, because there’s never a single force that produces such a constellation of consequences. But let me suggest one anyway.

Whitelaw’s essay mentioned the debilitating effect of alcohol, but I’m interested in another inebriant. Marijuana.

It’s not much debated whether people mellow under the chemical influence of THC. And it’s certainly not debatable that its use is more accepted here than in most other places. What happens next is what intrigues me.

Once it takes root, our altered state of normal continues without its original cause. We aren’t all high when we smile at strangers, invite a person with two items in the grocery line to move ahead of us, or pass a resolution when the board chairperson asks, “Everybody cool?” It’s just normal.

And normal looks like a contact high.

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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a column each Friday for The Register-Guard and blogs.

Monday is Earth Day. My first visit to Oregon gave me my most intimate encounter with the earth. One May night in 1979, I experienced how cradled we are in this world.

I came to Oregon that spring to read long books and hike long trails. If you’ve ever tried to make your way through an unfamiliar Russian novel, you know how “wilderness experience” applies to both. We would read challenging literature, and just when we wanted to give up understanding, we students and our three professors would lace up our boots and head into the wilderness.

Our longest hike was a three-day trek into the Three Sisters Wilderness Area. By the second day, we were as far from civilization as most of us suburban kids had ever been.

Midday, I left our base camp for what I thought would be a three-hour hike, following a river to a waterfall and back. My daypack had an extra pair of socks, my rain poncho, and a carrot. In my pocket, I had my compass and a map.

I got lost. I was counting on the river to guide me, but the brush along the water was too thick. I hiked higher up, where the scrub thinned, keeping the sound of running water on my left. I knew when the river forked, I would be near the falls and then it would be time to turn back.

I missed the fork in the river. I also missed dinner, and I was beginning to lose daylight. The terrain was taking me up. I could read my compass but the map no longer made any sense. I began calling for help, four times from each spot, once in each direction.

Snowy patches reflected enough light to keep me going, but soon I couldn’t tell if the dark splotches ahead were ground or water. I had no flashlight or matches. Wet boots would be asking for frostbite. So I stopped and looked for a place to rest until daylight returned.

I found a fallen tree, half hollowed, laying between two saplings. What remained of the large tree was shaped like a cradle. Its center was filled with sawdust softness. There were no bugs. For the next few hours, that was home.

I loosened my boots. I stretched the poncho over me, tucked under my head and pinched against the saplings with my knees. The carrot on my chest worked like a center tent pole.

I cannot describe the mixture of fear and comfort I felt in that tree trunk.

I didn’t dare sleep. Slowing metabolism invites frostbite. So I played a game to stay awake. I listed everything I was thankful for that started with A, then B, then C.

I was on F when I heard what sounded like footsteps, very nearby. The harder I listened, the less I understood. Step, step. If the scrunching sound was a person, I should make some noise. Step, step. If it was an animal, I shouldn’t. Step, step. But the animal could probably smell me, so why not take the chance? Step, step. Unless that might frighten it. Then scrunching sound stopped.

I remained perfectly still, listening. What I heard was perfect silence.

Slowly I began to relax and returned to my alphabet of gratitude. On H, the footsteps returned. I stopped to listen. The footsteps stopped too. It happened again at J or K, or possibly both.

I wondered how it knew what I was feeling. Comfort brought footsteps. Fear brought silence.

Then I noticed my carrot had slipped, and it all made sense. The scrunching sound was made by my eye lashes brushing against my poncho. As I relaxed into my list of thankfulness, my eyes opened and closed — “step, step.” Then fear — no motion, no sound.

I smiled, then laughed. I lifted the poncho to see light on the horizon. I had made it through the night, with over half the alphabet to spare.

I retraced my steps and made it back to base camp before others awoke. I probably compared my night to some Russian novel over the breakfast campfire. I wish I had looked back to see that cradle one more time.

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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a column each Friday for The Register-Guard and blogs

Our nation has proven that Rock, Paper, Scissors should and will be won by Paper. The Rock of military might and the Scissors of economic efficiency cannot compete with the Paper of enumerated rights contained in our United States Constitution. Even after 237 years, understanding and defending that Constitution remains vital. Oregon can be proud of its contribution this week.

Oregon’s Classroom Law Project has been providing curriculum and competition for high school students since 1983. This week, all 50 states sent their best teams to Washington, DC to compete in “We The People.” The program tests students’ understanding of our Constitution’s roots, history, and modern applications.

Grant High School in Portland won this year’s nationwide competition. Last year’s winner was Lincoln High School, just four miles west of Grant.

South Eugene High School teacher Stan Paulic has taken two teams to the state competition. “During my first year at South, CLP sent me to the nationals in D.C. as an observer teacher. I got to see the best in action and found the whole event quite inspirational.” In a follow-up conversation, Paulic used the word “thrilling” three times.

Students are drilled by judges, attorneys, and professors in a setting that resembles a Congressional hearing. In less than 15 minutes, they must cite case law, historical precedent, and modern repercussions of several Constitutional tenets.

Here’s a sample question: Due process of law is often referred to as the “bedrock of civil liberty.” What are the essential requirements of due process included in the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and in what ways, if any, do they constitute the “bedrock of civil liberty?”

(Let’s pause for a moment here and be astounded — and deeply grateful — that there are high schoolers wrestling with questions like this one.)

Consider the contrasts.

Last week the United States Senate admitted that a five-year program to end the government’s strategic helium reserve would miss its implementation deadline — for the third time. Senators agreed to prolong the program, but Oregon Senator Ron Wyden pledged, “I intend to watchdog this very carefully.”

Two days later, three high-schoolers from a little school near St. Louis argued whether minority rights are helped or hindered by lobbyists. “Think about the corn growers — there are only 350,000 of them and … they practically run America,” claimed Kaylie Duke.

In a rare example of bipartisanship, Congress debated and passed legislation allowing a commemorative coin marking the Baseball Hall of Fame’s 75th anniversary to be a few thousandths of an inch smaller than the original law required. The amendment was two sentences long, but it saved the U.S. Mint from having to purchase new equipment to accommodate the law’s original mandate for size and shape.

Students debated whether drone warfare represents an unconstitutional expansion of executive power, why Congress has all but abdicated its constitutional authority to declare war, and which ideals articulated in our Bill of Rights drew inspiration from the Magna Carta.

Across the street, the United States Congress had just completed a hurried fix for the Federal Aviation Authority’s “across the board cuts” required by the so-called sequester law. Was it any coincidence that the law’s amendment, designed to halt flight delays, was drafted and then signed into law just hours before our nation’s lawmakers were high-tailing it to the airport for this week’s recess?

Who was learning to win at Rock, Paper, Scissors and who was counting the minutes until recess? Close your eyes and tell me you can guess which group is not a bunch of petulant teenagers.

Also consider this. The sequester was designed to be so ugly and inconvenient that it would force Congress to devise a more sensible budget solution. For once in Washington, doing nothing would not be the most attractive option. Not only did lawmakers still choose to do nothing, their piecemeal fix for a single agency demonstrated that they cannot even do nothing well.

If we could hand over the government to these high schoolers right now, we might see acne medicine subsidies immediately added to the Affordable Care Act, but I cannot believe we wouldn’t be better off.

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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a column each Friday for The Register-Guard and blogs

Portland citizens this week went to the polls and came to their senses. The rest of the country should follow their lead. They turned their noses at fluoridated water. But the lesson is not about fluoride. It’s about trusting our noses.

In an age where government power is increasingly matched with stealth, citizens are being left with no better response than the broad skepticism tinged with paranoia that reversed Portland’s plan to fluoridate its water. “Something doesn’t smell right.”

Governments too often believe they know best. The pesky citizens who disagree are assumed to be uninformed or misinformed. This is not a new problem.

The troubling trend is for government to withhold information altogether, hoping not to arouse citizen suspicions in the first place. If voters remain unaware of how much control is being exerted over their lives, no one will be punished for any abuses.

The swirl of ill winds blowing in Washington D.C. — dubbed by Jon Stewart as “Hurricane Scandy” — has buffeted the Obama administration for the past two weeks. IRS officials targeted conservative groups applying for tax exemptions. The State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency swapped talking points to avoid blame for an assault on an embassy. The Justice Department secretly scooped up phone records from the Associated Press and email from a Fox News correspondent.

The inquiries have begun, but early moves point to secrecies piled on top of secrecies. Attorney General Eric Holder is recusing himself and refusing to answer questions. IRS official Lois Lerner has invoked her Fifth Amendment right, refusing to answer questions from a Congressional subpoena. The president is insisting that Justice Department attempts to identify a leak of classified material is warranted, although they didn’t seek a warrant.

We’re reminded often that it’s not the crime; it’s the cover-up. But more and more, the cover-up is itself being covered up. Candidates and press secretaries refuse to comment on hypotheticals. Once the matter is no longer hypothetical, they remain silent because of the pending or ongoing investigation. Once the investigation concludes, they ignore questions about what they call “old news.” They’ve assembled their own invisibility cloak.

Two bombings in the past month — one in Boston, another in Louisiana — quickly identified the accused with the help of a wide web of video surveillance cameras.

Drone warfare has accelerated the use of so-called “signature strikes.” These are lethal bombings based not on any knowledge about any of the targeted victims, but based solely on a pattern — signature — of behavior that looks nefarious to a drone operator in Omaha watching a video feed.

Stop and consider. A twenty-something soldier in the Midwest is authorized to bomb a gathering of men in the Middle East because they left their mosque through the back door. Or drove away in what looks like a caravan. Or stopped for tea at a cafe known to have connections with gun runners. All without knowing any details about his victims. Press the button. Boom. Then to Arby’s for lunch.

We used to ask, “What did they know and when did they know it?” That’s becoming quaint, as government races toward omniscience. Virtually everything is knowable, but only in retrospect.

Information is power, and we’re entering a dangerous time when government is trawling for more information to add to its power, while limiting the citizens’ ability to be informed about those actions. Behind the twin shields of state secrets and national security, government power is compounding itself.

President Reagan summed his Soviet negotiations as “trust, but verify.” Our government now is telling its own citizens, “trust us but you cannot verify.”

Portland residents finally articulated for us an appropriate response to these cloaked attempts to make us safer. It was championed first by the craft breweries that make Portland proud, but it was picked up quickly by the Pacific Northwest’s unique breed of liberal libertarians.

Denied the information they felt they needed for a reasoned response, they voiced their skepticism with a “signature strike” of their own at the polls, refusing a colorless additive to their water. They raised their glasses, voted no, and proclaimed, “It doesn’t pass the smell test.”

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Don Kahle blogs.

Tom Ward and Scott Clarke met when they were students at the University of Nevada in Reno. Although (or possibly because) Clarke worked for a company that serviced photocopiers, he found himself drawn to originals. Ward was an original, and still is. He traverses Nevada as “Lonesome Tom” with his guitar and sometimes a band. His website claims that booking him for a live performance is “SURPRISINGLY AFFORDABLE!”

Ward had an original idea about Reno that has helped Clarke make sense of Eugene in a new and inventive way. Both cities have developed a specialty that draws on and reconfigures its land’s longer legacy.

Nevada is known today first for gambling, but its Anglo heritage is in mining. Ward pointed out how gambling and mining are similar. Reno’s economy continues to rely on extraction. Its practice has shifted from extracting gold from terrain to extracting it from tourists, but the underlying values haven’t changed. Whether the booty comes from a hole in the ground or a hole in the pocket — either way, there’s no point in leaving any behind. It won’t make more gold. You can only make more holes.

So it’s not surprising that visitors often leave Reno feeling ruined. They binge until they’re broke.

As Clarke continued his education, he left Reno and arrived in Eugene. He must have used Ward’s insight to intuit this place. Ward saw Reno was built on extraction. Clarke found Eugene to be committed to cultivation.

The two cities’ currencies have different colors. Reno trades in glistening gold. Eugene settles its accounts with green — literally. When local professors are called on to explain why they accept salaries lower than their colleagues in other towns, their practiced response is, “we get paid in scenery.”

If Crayola filled its biggest box with nothing but green crayons, it couldn’t match Oregon’s hues and shades of lush. That’s the Oregon known to Oregonians, but it’s not the deepest impression of this place held by the rest of the country.

They know Eugene to be one of America’s fabled college towns. Whether “Animal House” was fact or fiction hardly matters. Bluto’s toga party may not have happened here, but it could have.

Students come to Eugene to grow up. Families move here to raise their children, attracted by good schools, safe neighborhoods, and calm streets. Toga parties notwithstanding, Eugene is known to be laid back, nurturing, and tolerant of people who use words like “notwithstanding.”

Our national reputation for education and experimentation is well established, but also of recent vintage. We’ve been a college town for only about as long as Reno’s been a gambling town. Again the reputation is rooted — literally — in what was already going on in this place.

If Reno and Nevada is extending its economy of extraction, Eugene and Oregon must continue its climate of cultivation. Before we began churning out architects and attorneys and anthropologists, we were producing logs and lawns and legumes.

Maybe its the trees that line the ridges around us, but people feel protected here — able to set their roots or reach their ambitions. Students set the tone, but it’s true for the rest of us as well.

Cultivation and extraction draw from different values and they result in different practices.

Cultivation posits sustainability. Whatever you pull out of the ground, you intend it to become a habit. You expect to return to that same patch of ground over and over again. In the case of some trees, those return trips might be decades or centuries apart, but the value is the same. Take what you need, and leave enough behind so it can replenish itself. Then wait.

Ruined or replenished? Extracted or cultivated? Stripped or nurtured? We know the difference, and we know what a difference it can make.

Whether you spend this weekend working your garden or congratulating graduates, understand that the two activities are more alike than different. Each is fundamentally optimistic. Each is rooted in this place.

If you don’t have a garden or a graduate to remind you, you still can look around you and see more shades of green than most people can even imagine.

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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a column each Friday for The Register-Guard and blogs.

I stood at the corner of Broadway and Pearl, watching people duck in for their midday coffee. Caffeine could help me accomplish my mission. I was looking for an answer to my question.

I trudged across downtown, and into the recently constructed downtown library. I knew the voters had recently resisted budget cuts that would have curtailed some library services. The circular staircase beckoned me upward, bathed in natural light from above.

There I met Eladia Rivera, a reference librarian. She could answer my question!

“How is Eugene, Oregon similar to Boulder, Colorado?” I asked.

Rivera didn’t hesitate. “I suppose they’re both green, in more ways than one. Of course, they’re both college towns.” Then she paused. “But I don’t really know, because I’ve never been to Eugene. I hope to get there someday.”

University of Colorado has 26,500 undergraduate students, plus 6,000 more in its graduate schools. That’s about 30 percent more than the University of Oregon’s student population. Boulder’s total population is 99,000, giving it double Eugene’s density of university students. By that measure, Boulder is twice the “college town” as Eugene.

I walked back to my car, which I parked a few blocks from the library to avoid having to pay for parking. I was still looking for any similarities between the two towns.

Some residents resent Boulder’s tallest building complex, because it obstructs some of the area’s natural beauty. Building such a tall student housing complex must have made sense at the time. They should consider draping its top floor with “Peace on Earth” during the holidays.

I happened by a scale model of the solar system, but its scale was one tenth what we have in Eugene. Pluto is a couple blocks from the sun, instead of several miles.

My next stop was the daily newspaper, located in an industrial park on the edge of town. Erika Stutzman, editorial page editor for the Boulder Daily Camera, invited me into her second-floor office. I posed my question to her. She leaned forward. “I don’t really know. I’ve never given it any thought.”

“We’re both known as liberal towns, I suppose, but that seems to be changing here. Our city council recently passed a city ordinance that requires grocers to charge ten cents for every grocery bag. It was just implemented a few weeks ago and it’s not as popular as you’d think. People here are concerned that the poor can’t afford their groceries.”

Their solar system model is smaller but their bag fee is bigger. I pressed on.

“It used to be,” Stutzman continued, “that any tax increase would pass here, especially for buying more open space. But now we’re starting to hear from people that enough is enough. People are starting to insist that they be able to use the open space for recreation. Mountain bikers want access. People want dog parks. The liberal alliances might be breaking down.”

Space is at a premium in Boulder, thanks to their “blue line,” which forbids home-building above a prescribed elevation. Stutzman: “If IBM wanted to build a campus-style industrial development, it can’t happen in Boulder. There’s no room. They’ll build in Broomfield, where land is cheaper.”

Eugene doesn’t want to build out; Boulder won’t build up. Both constrictions are simple dotted lines. That was almost a similarity.

I asked if Boulder was getting better or worse. Stutzman claimed no opinion on the question, “… but I will say this. I grew up here. Since the 1970s, all the other towns around us have grown. Traffic is worse.”

Stutzman widened her view to the state. “Coloradans love to vote. They want to vote on everything. But the initiative process has made the state a mess.” (I confessed to her that Oregon pioneered the voter initiative in 1902.) “We had an anti-tax activist who made all kinds of trouble. But he’s is in jail now, convicted of tax evasion.”

Oregon’s tax-evading anti-tax activist is out of jail and on probation. The sun was setting behind the mountains and I still hadn’t found any similarities. I drove their congested Baseline Road on the edge of town and left, admitting defeat.

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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a column each Friday for The Register-Guard and blogs….

Eugene offers several shots from the starter’s pistol, declaring the official beginning of summer. By any measure, the race has now begun.

For almost a generation, the Willamette Valley Folk Festival (now called the Willamette Valley Music Festival) was the official start of the season. (May 11) Students dancing on the sometimes muddy lawn behind the EMU graced many newspaper section fronts over the years, declaring the end of a soggy spring and heralding the season ahead.

Lately our summer has sported from an earlier start, marked by the Eugene Marathon. (April 28) Others insist the summer cannot begin without hot dogs, so they prefer the opening of the Emeralds’ short season of baseball. (June 14)

The last of the holdouts are giving in this weekend, taking their cue from Maude Kerns Art Center’s Art and the Vineyard Festival. Its 30th annual appearance began yesterday and continues through Saturday.

What causes some to wait so long to admit that summer has begun? They can’t let go of the idea that summer should be warm, sunny and dry. Oregonians often suffer through long stretches of “June gloom” — the term refers both to the weather and how it affects our mood. Things don’t look safe from disappointment above until July.

I grew up in the Midwest, so I don’t expect summertime to be dry. Late April suits me fine. I grew up where summer began when the mounds of snow piled under parking lot light poles melted completely, so my standards are liberatingly low.

The only way I can think to improve our summers might be to import lightning bugs, but I’m told they prefer humidity. Our mothers always gave us mayonnaise jars to procure our prey, with air holes perforating the lid. I’ve learned to get along without the bugs, the humidity, or the mayonnaise (with occasional lapses).

Each of our popular starts of summertime have this in common. Each beckons us outdoors. Whenever we choose to start our summer, we all define it the same way. Summer is when you stop being cooped up indoors and you get outside for some Vitamin D and whatever else the skies have to offer.

Chambers Communication Corporation President Scott Chambers argued for years with the Nielsen Company that their television ratings in our market were worthless for summertime, because everybody was outside gardening or goofing off. People in the rest of the country may be huddled by their air conditioners or watching sports on TV, eager to answer some telemarketer’s survey questions, but not here. I’m sure he was right.

From now until the Ducks’s first home game at Autzen Stadium (August 31), Lane County boasts a steady stream of outdoor events. Next weekend is the Oregon Country Fair (July 12-14), then Eugene Symphony in the Park (July 20), followed by the Lane County Fair (July 24-28) and Faerieworlds at Mount Pisgah (July 26-28).

If you must go inside, we mustn’t forget the Oregon Bach Festival (continuing through July 14), and there’s always the Oregon Festival of American Music (August 6-11), and the Eugene Celebration will be indoors and out (August 23-25). The Ems’ last home game is the next day. (August 26)

There’s plenty more going on throughout the summer, but this isn’t the calendar page. Nor is it an advertisement, reminding you to buy the larger bottle of sunscreen lotion.

I gathered together some of the biggest crowd-pleasers to demonstrate a larger point. We’re fortunate to have a tons of offerings, virtually every weekend until school resumes, featuring plenty of local talent and a wide range of local interests, under what will almost certainly be blue skies and moderate temperatures.

We’re lucky to be here. Breathtaking abundance has always been the hallmark of our region — fishing, then farming, and now festivals.

Whatever your tastes and entertainment rhythms, you should get outside and enjoy yourself. If that makes the work of some air-conditioned telemarketers more difficult, well, that just adds to the pleasure, doesn’t it?

And if somebody breeds a humidity-resistant firefly, you’ll find me in the grocery store’s mayonnaise section.

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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a column each Friday for The Register-Guard and blogs.

U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley wants to change how Oregonians think about financing higher education. He wants to institute a program where students “pay it forward.” They would receive free tuition in return for slightly garnished wages through their work life, which would be returned to fund the university they attended.

Merkley is a smart guy, so I’m sure I must be missing something. Getting something free today (tuition) in return for small payments stretching far into the future doesn’t sound like paying it forward as much as paying it backward. It sounds less like a ground-breaking education finance formula and more like a payday loan come-on.

Wimpy always told Popeye, “I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.” Merkley’s model looks like a Wimpy solution to education funding. But maybe there’s something here we can work with.

First, it must be said that University of Oregon students are ahead of this curve, without ever being asked. Or, more precisely, they were asked and they consented. They were asked in 2012 to “pay it forward” by accepting a hike in student fees to finance an expansion in the Erb Memorial Union, knowing full well that the improvements will be in place in 2016, after many of them have completed their degrees.

That’s “paying it forward,” in the literal sense. Every current upperclassman deserves to have his or her name on a plaque inside the facility. At least then they can tour the facility as alumni and see their contribution was recognized.

Merkley now is trying to scare up federal funds to get his “pay it forward” program off the ground in Oregon and a few other states. But this effort belies the truth about the concept. It’s not really “pay it forward.” It requires a sugar daddy in DC to get it started.

Oregonians are better than that. What others identify as self-reliance is not so solitary or selfish as many suppose. We understand that living off the land is easier when the land we’ve been given is so lush and abundant. We take care of Mother Earth here because we see clearly that She started it.

Dating back to the tradition of the potlatch, people of this land have not found it hard to look forward, especially for the sake of the next generation. Abundance gives us confidence about the future.

It’s not surprising that U.S. Rep Peter DeFazio offered a hard-headed alternative during the health-care coverage debate. He wanted to allow young people to not “opt in” for health care, so long as they signed an affidavit acknowledging their choice and the responsibilities it entails. They would then become ineligible for the traditional emergency room charity care that has too often become the norm in the recent past.

Giving people the option of taking care of themselves is something of a lost art in Washington, D.C., but Oregonians can play a role in reversing that trend. Health care may not be the best place to plant that flag. Higher education funding might be a better arena.

Here’s how we can do Merkley’s concept one better, and fund our children’s higher education in a more self-reliant way. Allow Oregonians to voluntarily forego their annual Child Tax Credit on federal income taxes, choosing instead for the government to invest that thousand dollars each year into a dedicated college fund in that child’s name.

The Oregon College Savings Plan offers a plan that is similar financially, but different psychologically. This modification of Merkley’s plan would allow parents to use money before they’ve ever seen it, investing a credit instead of writing a check.

Paying it forward is a sound concept, but allowing parents to pay it forward for their children in this way is simpler, more honest, and as self-reliant as we know ourselves to be. Not every child will take advantage of their parents’ sacrifices on their behalf, but that’s always been true. If they don’t choose college, they’ll have another way to honor the choices their parents made, by making the same sacrificial choices for their own children.

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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a column each Friday for The Register-Guard and blogs.

On Saturday morning, the stage was set at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. for a battle of titans. If it had been promoted like a professional wrestling match, it would have been billed as “The Unstoppable Force against The Immovable Object.”

Willamette Valley’s Honor Flight program brought 50 World War II veterans for a long-planned visit to the WWII War Memorial. Their busses were escorted by a local group of veterans on Harley-Davidsons. A smattering of onlookers showed up to see what might happen. I was among the smatter.

Normally this sort of visit wouldn’t be remarkable. Honor Flight programs around the country have been providing these opportunities to veterans for years. The local chapter’s planning for this weekend began in April.

Nobody had planned for the government to be shut down, or for the shuttering of the war memorials to become a rallying point for both Republicans and Democrats. Any veteran will tell you that fighting a war always requires improvisation. As boxer Mike Tyson famously quipped, “Everyone has a plan, until they get punched in the face.”

Denying 80-year-old veterans an honorable visit to their memorial was that punch. Politicians scrambled to save face. U.S. Rep. and Tea Party darling Michele Bachman was outside, shaking hands in campaign-rally mode. U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio was there too, but less conspicuously.

Republicans have seized on the closures as evidence of creeping tyranny: “How dare the President refuse to allow the people to visit their own monuments?” Democrats have tried to remind voters that Republicans are responsible for the government shutdown in the first place.

Wheel-chaired veterans who remember storming the shores of Normandy to liberate France were not deterred by some yellow “Do Not Cross” police tape. Government buckled quickly against this unstoppable force. Arrangements were made to allow park rangers to welcome these visitors as the special guests they were.

On the sidewalk outside the memorial, Bachman shook every hand, smiled for every camera, and insisted that she was fighting every day to protect our freedoms.

“Yesterday, we parked my car in the lot we always use,” she regaled. “The lot was marked closed, but we had our car with Congressional plates and we parked where we always do. They wrote us a parking ticket for 250 dollars!” She paused for effect. “We’re gonna fight it.”

If anyone was shocked at the juxtaposition of fighting World War II and fighting a parking ticket, they didn’t show it.

Meanwhile, DeFazio was inside the memorial, giving a flag and a certificate of appreciation to each veteran in the group, posing for photos and hearing quick stories. At an opportune moment, Willamette Valley Honor Flight Assistant Director John Brooks sidled up to DeFazio with a request.

“Mr. DeFazio, thank you for being here,” he said, “but I’ve got 100 people here and many of them have special needs. Is there any way you could arrange to get the bathrooms opened?”

The unstoppable force was confronting another unstoppable force. DeFazio excused himself from the photo-ops and walked straight to the park ranger monitoring the entrance. They had a quick conversation about keys, departments, security and maintenance.

DeFazio pivoted to one of his aides and said, “We’ve got to go back to the office and that’s the first call we’re making.” I lost sight of the indefatigable Congressman — another unstoppable force — after that, so I never learned whether his call came before nature’s for those veterans.

After years of pushing a wheelbarrow and a pooper scooper behind the Eugene Celebration parade’s slug, DeFazio is no stranger to the inglorious work of Congress.

He’d told me earlier that morning, “All I’ve been able to accomplish this week has been keeping Timberline Lodge open. Even though it’s run by a concessionaire, the feds wanted it closed because they couldn’t monitor their contractors. But if they closed it, they’d have to send security, so it made no sense.”

While Bachman was protecting basic rights (which must include parking), DeFazio was meeting basic needs. Unless you were up close, you could be forgiven for not seeing the difference.

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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a column each Friday for The Register-Guard and blogs

I feel sorry for U.S. Senator Ron Wyden. His position on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence gives him access to classified information that is not available to the general public, or even to many of his colleagues in Congress. He has plaintively warned about privacy intrusions for years, but is forbidden by law to divulge the causes of his concerns.

In 2011, Wyden objected to the reauthorization of Public Law 107-56, better known as the PATRIOT Act. Here’s what he said from the floor of the Senate: “When the American people find out how their government has secretly interpreted the Patriot Act, they will be stunned and they will be angry.”

Since then, we’ve gotten a taste of what Wyden knows, thanks to documents stolen and shared by security analyst Edward Snowden. Speculation abounds about our government’s secret intrusions into our daily lives. As the saying goes, “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.”

Poor Wyden has been characterized as the canary in the mineshaft, but he’s in a more difficult position than that, because he can’t say what he knows. Dead canaries keep no secrets. Wyden is more like a cat with the canary in his mouth. Replace the grin with chagrin.

He wants to open his mouth widely and say to anyone who will listen, “I know this looks like a canary in my mouth, but please notice that the canary is dead.” He’s a lawmaker quietly outraged — stunned and angry — at the law. He’s a whistleblower where whistling is forbidden.

When Wyden is speaking before a bank of reporters’ microphones about privacy issues, he hints at some secret message, like a prisoner of war being videotaped by his captors. He wants you to know he’s alive and well, but also something else that’s maybe more important.

Is he tapping a message in Morse code, as he’s speaking from the podium? Can his body language be interpreted as a crude version of semaphore? Does he reposition his lapel flag pins to spell words he’s not allowed to utter?

He gets occasional opportunities to interview military and intelligence officials under oath. He tries to get them to put on the public record details that he already knows, but is bound by oath not to reveal. If he had used his University of Oregon law degree to become a prosecutor instead of a community organizer, he might succeed better at getting the truth out of his witnesses.

Watching him navigate between what he knows and what he can say looks like very hard work. It reminds me of science fiction characters who travel back from the future, nervous about changing how history unfolds because it might cause a rip in the fabric of space and time continuity.

The history that’s unfolding in front of us might be as dire as that, but we can’t be sure — even if Wyden can.

A computer center is being built in the desert that can store as much information as humanity has ever produced. The FBI was caught executing a “sneak and peek” against a Portland attorney. Drones are being deployed to watch over people and then bomb them if somebody doesn’t like what they see.

Secret FISA courts operate with no citizen oversight, and maybe with no meaningful oversight at all. Special ops forces execute missions anywhere in the world with unnerving efficiency. They refer to their work orders as “f-cubed”: find, fix and finish — replacing due process with split-second decisions.

Military efficiency and democratic deliberation are pulling us in opposite directions, but only Wyden and a few others know the details.

In Jeremy Scahill’s documentary “Dirty Wars” about the rising reliance on secrecy in war and peace, Wyden is the only elected official willing to speak on camera. The most chilling moment of the film came when Wyden was asked a question and he had to turn to an off-camera adviser and ask, “Can we say that?”

He clearly gets no joy from “I told you so.” He’d rather just tell us so, but he can’t.

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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a column each Friday for The Register-Guard and blogs.

Please, Mr. President, take a real vacation.

I’m sure you’ve had time to relax on the golf course and enjoy an evening or two with old friends during your couple of weeks at Martha’s Vineyard. Necessary, but not sufficient.

These outings provide diversion, but not release. You cannot do what a true vacation allows. You cannot lose yourself. You cannot vacate. If you did manage to lose yourself, there’s an entire squadron of Secret Service personnel on the other side of that door, ready and able to go find you.

If you ask some of the business tycoons who are your neighbors this week, they’ll tell you how valuable they find it to take a break once in a while, to let the spring come unsprung. And they are managing enterprises somewhat less complicated than the World As We Know It, which is your daily responsibility.

I once had a newspaper publisher tell me why he hired his best people to work the night shift. “I’ll give it all I’ve got, all day long,” he said, without an ounce of resentment, “but after 8 PM, the biggest decision I’m making is ‘red or white?’” Many insist that their only real opportunity to think deeply comes when their toes are in a pool and their phones are turned off.

And they don’t work from a home office!

When you campaigned for president, you said your goal would be to have a presidency that “changes the trajectory of America,” like Ronald Reagan’s. The media grabbed hold of the next phrase, which suggested that Bill Clinton’s presidency had been something less.

Reagan knew how to step away from the pressures. Whether it was horseback riding in California or napping upstairs in the White House, he wasn’t the workaholic that all our recent Democratic presidents have been.

He also was shot. Remember when Alexander Haig proclaimed, “I’m in charge now”? That became the lead in Haig’s New York Times obituary, but the point here is that Reagan, for a short time, was not in charge. By his own account, those moments “not in charge” changed him. He returned to the White House with a deeper resolve.

Sometimes you don’t know what you’ve got until you let it go, even for a brief time. You’ve got the most important job in the world. We all hope you’ll have a long life ahead to reflect on what you could accomplish. But reflecting doesn’t have to wait until after it’s over.

Focusing on the task at hand is essential, but limiting. Every decision is linked to what came before and what likely will follow. There are no starting or ending points. Everything must be continued, all the time. (That was your complaint against Clinton’s less-than-consequential tenure.) Managers strive for incremental improvements. Leaders plant a flag in the future.

Hand off the nuclear football to Vice President Biden for a few days. We’ve learned to call them “mental health days” — where you don’t know what’s not working, but something is definitely out of whack. That sort of break might give you what Reagan experienced on that operating table in March 1981.

Freed from “the tyranny of the urgent,” your famously deep thoughts will waft away from “what now?” and “what next?” — and toward “what for?” How would you like to be remembered? What would you like to try to change, not a little bit at a time, but all at once?

Would the son of a Kansas woman and a Kenya man like to address racial tensions in Missouri and America? Would the former Harvard Law Review president like to set a policy directive for drones in warfare that the world will follow? Would the Constitutional Law professor like to force Congress to again accept responsibility for declaring America’s wars? Would the father of two young girls like a legacy built around gender equality? Would the former community organizer like to organize some specific aspect of community?

These are questions to be answered first by the man you are, not the position you hold. They can’t be answered from your home office.

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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a column each Friday for The Register-Guard and blogs

Assuming U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley wins reelection in November, there are five reasons for Oregon Democrats to feel encouraged, even though Republicans seem likely to gain control of the United States Senate.

1. GOP Control is Unlikely to Last More Than Two Years

Projecting beyond the current electoral cycle is always hazardous, but simple arithmetic allows some speculation. As senators accrue seniority and stature, their seats become more secure. Obama’s 2008 victory paved the way for about a dozen first-time Democratic senators, including Merkley. They’re defending their seats for the first time in 2014. In 2016, the hot seats shift to the GOP freshmen who benefited from the 2010 Tea Party revolt.

Add to that the difficulty Republicans have had in recent presidential campaigns and you won’t find very many conservatives who are looking forward to 2016.

2. Filibuster Will be Further Weakened by Republicans

Sen. Merkley deserves some credit for making significant and strategic noise about filibuster reform. In response, Majority Leader Harry Reid weakened the filibuster on his own terms. Senators don’t like it when their traditions are trifled with, so Republicans naturally complained. But there’s a deeper tradition in politics and schoolyards — revenge. If the Republicans control the Senate in 2015, you can be near certain they will give the Democrats even less minority power, paying them back for diminishing minority power in 2013.

In an age when it’s become so difficult to get anything done in Congress, the brake lever of the filibuster won’t be missed, at least not by those who believe in and hope for productive legislating in Washington, DC.

3. Vetoes Would Sharpen the National Debate

President Obama has vetoed exactly two bills in almost six years, fewer than any full-term presidents since 1850. Obama may lose control of the Senate precisely because he asked his allies to do his dirty work of rejection. Sen. Reid has refused to schedule votes on any bills the president didn’t want on his desk, denying senators opportunities to align their votes with their constituents. Many of those senators have struggled to defend their record.

Vetoes are clarifying. Just ask Oregon Governor Kitzhaber, who earned the nickname “Dr. No” for vetoing more bills in the 1990s than any other Oregon governor. But look at the consequences. Kitzhaber is cruising to reelection and the party he opposed has been shut out of power for two decades. Obama and the Democrats likewise will benefit from a steady stream of vetoes against Republican bills that lack popular appeal.

Gridlock will continue, but the lock on the grid will move from Sen. Reid’s passive vote scheduling to the Oval Office’s active veto power. Better optics.

4. Republicans May Revive Earmarks

Republicans will do what they can to gather the two-thirds majorities they will need to override those vetoes. Watch them quietly revive earmarks. It was a noble experiment to eliminate these costly riders that allowed legislators to fund pet projects back home, but it hasn’t worked.

As it turns out, funding a namesake aquarium or building a bridge to nowhere are the favors senators most like swapping. Bringing earmarks back would be an admission that the gears of government need the lubricant of money. That’s an admission more easily gotten from Republicans than Democrats.

5. Oregon Senators Have Powerful Seats

Sen. Ron Wyden is the current chair of the Senate Finance Committee. Merkley recently joined the Senate Appropriations Committee. If you believe that money is power, Oregon has not had this much power on Capitol Hill since the Packwood-Hatfield era ended two decades ago.

Our senators may not be able to wield much of that power during the next session of Congress if they are in the minority, but fewer obstruction tools for the minority and more freedom to fund local projects could pay off for Oregon in 2017.

If a Democrat wins the White House and brings back a Democratic majority in the Senate in 2016, we might be looking at something close to a perfect vision for Oregon as we head toward 2020.

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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a column each Friday for The Register-Guard and blogs

Oregon Democrats did not suffer the drubbing that the party took nationwide on Tuesday. In fact, Democrats could find a silver lining in this week’s red horizon if they look at Oregon’s recent political history.

“The scene in Salem isn’t going to change much,” lobbyist Doug Barber told me over lunch on Wednesday. “Democrats are likely to pick up a seat or two in each chamber. Incumbents had a good year — especially Democrats.”

That includes our incumbentest chief executive ever, with Democrat John Kitzhaber heading into his fourth term as governor.

Our delegation to Washington, D.C. likewise will be unchanged. None of those races ended up being particularly close either. Rep. Peter DeFazio has endured a sequel to his own version of “Groundhog Day,” defeating challenger Art Robinson again, again. And Sen. Jeff Merkley’s race ended up offering much ado about nothing, once the Koch brothers lost interest in his opponent.

U.S.S. Oregon is “steady as she goes” in the turbulent waters of voter disaffection that capsized Democrats all across the nation.

If the scene in our state capital won’t be changing much, quite the opposite will be true in the nation’s capital. President Obama will have to learn how to use his veto power. His best tutor would be Governor Kitzhaber.

Obama has so far vetoed fewer bills than any full-term president since Millard Fillmore — only two, and both for technical reasons. In fact, if you want to lay blame for this week’s Democratic losses, you can point to the president’s collusion with now-outgoing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Reid refused to schedule votes for any bills that the White House didn’t want to sign. This gave Democrats the appearance of a united front against Republicans, which became the club the challengers used to pummel the incumbents.

In state after state, the attack lines were the same. “My opponent has voted with Barack Obama 98 percent of the time….” That argument could be made effectively and universally only because the votes were few and so, united.

This is not how federal governance is supposed to work. Senators and Representatives are sent to Washington to look out for their citizens’ best interests — not what is expedient for their political party’s leaders.

Vetoes shine a light that backroom bottlenecks cannot. The nightly news seldom leads with what didn’t happen that day, so Reid’s refusals went unnoticed by most Americans. Vetoes will attract more attention — and that might be good for Democrats.

Kitzhaber can show Obama how it’s done. He vetoed so many bills during his first two terms as governor in the 1990s that he earned the nickname “Dr. No” — but notice what has happened since.

Kitzhaber’s veto binge clarified issues for Oregon voters. Republican legislators voted for bills and the Democratic governor refused to sign 200 of them, often with a news conference explaining why. Republicans have not won a single executive branch office or controlled either legislative chamber in Salem since.

Only the chief executive can claim to be speaking to and for all voters. Legislators will and should compete with one another for their piece of the pie, but the whole pie is the purview of the president or governor.

If Obama can learn to veto legislation as effectively as Kitzhaber did, Democrats may see his last two years as more consequential than his first six.

Obama must speak clearly, briefly and often about why he’s refusing to sign into law various items on his opponents’ agenda. He also must accept that occasionally an otherwise loyal lawmaker may break ranks to represent his or her constituents. Some of his vetoes may even gather the two-thirds majority necessary to become law without his signature.

Democratic leadership has resisted this scenario because they believe it makes the president look weak. Kitzhaber has shown there is life after vetoes, for the politician and especially for his party.

Voters deserve a better understanding of what each party stands for. Vetoes are good for that. President Fillmore refused to use his veto power. And no one ever heard from the Whigs again.

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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a column each Friday for The Register-Guard and blogs

If I were an executive for Monsanto or Dupont, I wouldn’t be feeling very good about Oregon right now. After pumping millions and millions of dollars into a campaign to defeat a statewide referendum that would have mandated labeling of GMO products, the outcome of the election remains too close to (officially) call.

At last count, Measure 92 was being defeated by a few hundred votes. It’s unlikely that a recount will change the outcome, but that reassurance is cold comfort to those who watch from corporate suites and spreadsheets.

When the battle shapes up as money versus passion, and you’re on the money side, you want to win an election like this one resoundingly. You want to win going away. You want your adversaries to be grateful the contest is over. You don’t want them itching for a rematch, because they’ll bring it to you.

I was accidentally given a front-row seat to the current vote-tally drama of Measure 92’s fate. Even though several statewide polls and pundits declared Measure 92 as defeated, those who campaigned for it did not give up. Advocates have very nearly defeated Big Money, Big Business, Big Agriculture. And that’s a Big Deal. Their immediate response was “We’ll win eventually.”

This is not always the case. Campaigns can be all-consuming. After an election has been lost, the campaign often dies. But when the ideal being fought for never takes a back seat to the fight itself, as with the de-stigmatization of marijuana use, advocates build on lessons learned from each previous campaign.

Labeling genetically modified organisms was first suggested to Oregon voters in 2002. It got thumped at the polls. This time around, it’s still too close to call. A month after election day, the game’s still not over. We’re in GMOvertime.

For the first time, the state published a list of citizens whose ballots had been cast but not counted. They may have forgotten to sign the back of their envelope. The signature may not have matched their voter registration. They may have changed their name or address. In those cases, voters have 14 days to remedy the discrepancy or deficiency and still have their vote counted.

My son received a postcard informing him that he had forgotten to sign his envelope. It happens to the best of us. That signature on the back can naturally feel like an optional afterparty, like getting a sticker that says “I voted,” or grabbing a cookie from the hospitality tray on the way out the door. Too soon for most of us, they’ll probably match the saliva that sealed the envelope with voter-provided DNA on file, but for now we still use signatures to prevent fraud.

My son forgot. Then he forgot again. He meant to stop in at the Lane County elections office to fix the problem, but time slipped away.

Almost two weeks after the election was supposedly over, my doorbell rang. Three young people with clipboards or iPads stood in the dark, asking if my son was home. He was. They chatted on the front porch for a minute or two. Upshot: after determining that his vote would likely be in their favor, they helped him get his vote counted.

Measure 92 advocates did this thousands of times, all across the state. They reduced their margin of not-yet-defeat from thousands to hundreds. It may not end up changing the outcome in 2014, but it may very well alter the trajectory into the future. Even if they’ve lost, they’ve not been defeated.

In a runners’ world, this is known as “pushing through the tape.” Coaches teach runners to finish strong by imagining that the last step after each race defines the first step of the next.

Whether Measure 92 succeeds or fails, its advocates finished strong, and they’ll be spoiling for a rematch. Money doesn’t multiply itself as easily as passion when a race ends up being this close. Don’t be surprised if you’re asked for your signature to get a similar measure on the ballot very soon.

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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a column each Friday for The Register-Guard and blogs

It was dark. It was late. What I remember most was the clatter.

I sprang from my bed to see what was wrong, but on the roof remained only sleigh tracks and hoof marks. I was glad I bought reindeer-safe, organic roof moss retardant, or that clatter might have ended with eight loud thumps.

Then I saw something had been left behind. It was a list. Here it is.

Kitty Piercy (nice) — for giving those who would like to follow her as mayor of Eugene plenty of time to talk themselves out of it.

Uber ride-sharing service (naughty) — for not playing nice with Eugene or Portland or really with anyone, giving the nascent “sharing economy” a black eye.

Otto Poticha (nice) — for waging an all-out campaign to save the old Eugene City Hall.

Eugene City Council (nice) — for not saving it.

Michael Gottfredson (naughty) — for not getting out enough to see how imperiled his presidency of the University of Oregon had become.

Scott Coltrane and Frances Bronet (nice) — for stepping in to give the state’s flagship university some stability during a time that would have been tumultuous even without an abrupt transition in Johnson Hall.

Allan Benavides (nice) — for convincing the Chicago Cubs not to replace the front office staff when taking over the Eugene Emeralds from the San Diego Padres.

Capstone Collegiate Communities (naughty) — for racing to open their downtown housing complex in time for the school year, sacrificing quality of construction and clarity with contractors to meet their unrealistic timeline.

Joey Harrington (nice) — for setting the eventual stage for Marcus Mariota’s non-campaign to win the Heisman Trophy. If Marcus has been compared to Jesus, Joey played John the Baptist.

Mark Helfrich (nice) — for never becoming part of the story, which can’t be easy when you’re the highest paid employee on the state’s payroll.

Marcus Mariota (nice) — see separate sheet for additional information.

Vin Lananna (nice) — for aiming so high that he’s not certain he’ll always succeed.

Springfield City Council (naughty) — for aiming so far south that their urban growth boundary expansion probably won’t succeed.

The Register-Guard (nice) — for continuing to publish daily, hiring new reporters, and expanding its on-line presence — when other newspapers are resorting to Draconian cuts and click-bait schemes.

United States Veterans Administration (naughty) — for taking forever to settle on a location for their Lane County clinic, finally being built now on Chad Drive.

Karsten Rasmussen (nice) — for seeing the long-term value of a land swap between the city and county on 8th Avenue, opening the way for a possible expanded farmers market.

Rick Wright (nice) — for allowing activists to lead the Civic Stadium preservation effort.

Lane County Historical Museum (naughty) — for not doing enough to preserve public ownership of Eugene’s downtown Post Office.

Paul Weinhold (nice) — for leading the University of Oregon Foundation into uncharted territory, finding inventive ways to support the university’s mission while also building the foundation’s investment portfolio.

James Fox (nice) — for leading the University of Oregon Library’s successful effort to keep Ken Kesey’s collected works and papers archived in Eugene.

Jack Roberts (nice) — for failing forward.

University of Oregon Board of Trustees (naughty) — for learning late (and awkwardly) the difference between a private training session and a “training” designation used to keep their dealings private.

KRVM-FM (nice) — for keeping real variety in music.

Café Yumm (naughty) — for not developing a pizza recipe, using their signature sauce. Somebody figured out how to use pesto — so how hard could it be?

Bill Hulings, Storm Kennedy, and Mark Lewis (r.i.p.) (nice) — for not only staying in Eugene when their performance talent could take them anywhere, but choosing also to work here, to the delight of local audiences.

Paul Westhead (nice) — for going away quietly.

Peter DeFazio (nice) — for not going away.

Ron Wyden (nice) — for resisting every temptation to wear a lapel button that says, “I told you so.”

John Kitzhaber (naughty) — for slowing but not stopping coal trains traversing the state, peeving environmentalists but guaranteeing that the state’s naughtiest still will get something in their stockings this year.

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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a column each Friday for The Register-Guard and blogs

Today is Friday the 13th, and a month from now, we’ll have another. Two days of superstition rarely fall so closely together. Let’s Seize the Day(s) and consider how lucky we are — granting that luck comes in two flavors.

When random misfortune befalls us, we describe ourselves as “unlucky.” That’s proof enough for me that good luck is where we naturally begin. Bad luck is less than nothing — it’s only good luck lost. And so, reflecting on our collective misfortune can wait until March.

Look around you. The air is clear. The water is clean. The sky is blue. Well, two out of three ain’t bad. It is February, after all — the month everyone wants to pass through quickly. We’re glad they made it shorter than all the others for a reason.

But even in February, good luck is all around us. You have your list of favorites and I have mine. Lists don’t always make good reading, so I’d rather direct your attention to just one good luck charm that is available to all of us.

It’s invisible but not unseen. It makes very little noise itself, but its sounds are familiar to many. Its mission focuses on children, yet only our senior citizens witnessed its birth.

The Pacific Northwest never had an FM radio signal until KRVM-FM went on the air in 1947. Its operating license has been held by a single owner — the Eugene 4J School District. Kids — high school students and younger — have held the public trust, while learning to communicate clearly, show up on time, and build their confidence.

When the students should be sleeping or studying, adult volunteer deejays fill the chockablock schedule of diverse musical tastes that cover the gamut.

I love our public radio stations, and we have plenty of them, but KRVM-FM is a rare species in the genus. High school radio stations usually have low-wattage signals with a neighborhood reach. KRVM-FM is 15,000 watts, reaching the coast and the mountains. A Sheldon High School student may not be able to find Reedsport on a map, but her voice finds its way into Reedsport homes.

Somehow — remember, our topic today is luck — elected school board members have resisted the temptation to divest the school district of the radio station. Just imagine how many management consultants have advised how many superintendents to sell the station and use the money to buy more books! In a business as bruising as radio, with larger conglomerates buying smaller conglomerates, KRVM-FM has somehow held on, Keeping Real Variety in Music.

Who do we thank for this local treasure? Well, nobody. Or everyone. It just ambles along, powered by the passions of its volunteers and its listeners. It boasts no grand design, no lofty aspirations, except to keep doing what it’s been doing for 68 years.

It’s easy to miss the valor of “Just Showing Up” every day for decades. I like to think of the slow-and-steady ones as horizontal heroes. There’s not a moment when the heroism spikes to an amazing height — only a steady stream of sameness, stretching across time. There’s a courage to consistency.

KRVM Operations Manager Cambra Ward estimates that every week, adult volunteers contribute 150 hours to the station. Her guess is way low; I guarantee it. There’s just no good way to tabulate the moment of inspiration that happens in the shower, or the fascinating triptych of melodies that pop into a deejay’s head from the pillow, as if delivered by a dream that crossed over into the waking world.

On the other end, there’s no way to know how many people clean their garage or kitchen at a particular time each week because of the companionship they trust, coming from their radio. Or the gatherings that form around listening parties. Or the conversations that begin because of a comment offered over the air. Public trust, indeed.

We can’t know how much good has come to us, for how long, or from where. Some of our fortune is untraceable and incalculable. So we just call it luck and consider ourselves lucky.

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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a column each Friday for The Register-Guard and blogs

We’re in the midst of a profound unraveling. I’m not thinking about the upheaval we’ve been watching at the Oregon governor’s mansion, but even that is part of the civic centrifuge we’re witnessing.

We’ve always been told that we can count on only a few certainties: life, death and taxes, by some accounts; love and war, by others. These fundamentals are shifting under our feet, slowly but surely. Look no further than the daily headlines.

No need to discuss measles and vaccinations again. Everybody has their opinion fixed by now. But how did it return as an issue at all? Measles went away, but then came back. Herd immunity gave us a mathematical protection from an epidemic. Dissenters seemed harmless. Once we slipped beneath that numerical threshold, we found ourselves facing a possible crisis and a real panic.

We thought we were protected, because we were. Slowly that changed, until we weren’t safe any more. Small changes can evade our detection.

A British biotech firm wants to release millions of genetically modified mosquitoes in southern Florida. They’ve done it already in Brazil. They hope to slow the plague of dengue, which is migrating north as the planet warms — another possible epidemic knocking at our door. Other British scientists have plans to combine two women’s DNA during in vitro fertilization to sidestep certain genetic defects, giving the child literally three parents.

Have we really thought these remedies through?

On the other end of the spectrum, Facebook last week changed its policy and will allow users to live forever on its site. Simply designate a “legacy contact” who will be allowed to respond to new friend requests, update your cover photo and profile, and post on your behalf after you die. Death, where is thy sting?

Nothing focuses a person’s mind like death or a nation’s resolve like war, but even here, we’re erasing the lines we’ve been careful to color inside. How do we declare war against something not yet declared a country? The so-called Islamic State claims a caliphate for itself, but without borders or diplomats or trash collection. What exactly is our goal?

A mythical state cannot surrender a sovereignty it never gained, so how do we wage war against it? What would victory even look like? We can relax after they’ve stopped threatening us, but it could eventually return — just like measles did.

Taxes are no longer as clear as they were just a few years ago. Individuals who fail to purchase health insurance will soon be getting a bill from the Internal Revenue Service. Is that a fee, a penalty, or a tax? The Obama administration claimed it’s a fee, but the United States Supreme Court classified it as a tax. Now some of the subsidies provided by the Affordable Care Act are coming under similar scrutiny. What you call something can change what it becomes. It’s all getting very confusing.

Which brings us to now-former Governor John Kitzhaber. He’s not confused, he has claimed, but we are.

Details already are emerging about how his lawyers intend to defend him. Since Cylvia Hayes was only the governor’s girlfriend until last summer, and only his fiancée since then, she is not legally part of his household.

Even though she lived with the governor and identified herself as Oregon’s first lady, only marriage would make her a public official, binding her to certain ethics laws and disclosure obligations. The trouble here is that Kitzhaber also would like to claim confidentiality privileges that are afforded only to spouses. (Oregon does not recognize common law marriages.)

If he’d been trained as a lawyer and not as a doctor, he may have seen sooner the tightrope he was walking. But we’re walking it too. We’re fine with our governor cohabiting with his girlfriend because we’re modern, enlightened, tolerant people. Marriage doesn’t really matter, until it really does.

We keep throwing out the bathwater of distinctions, figuring the babies can fend for themselves. I’m not suggesting the bathwater doesn’t need changing — only that it’s the babies that really matter, if only because they end up looking a lot like us.

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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a column each Friday for The Register-Guard and blogs

Oregon Senator Bob Packwood led the news on February 25, 1988.

Democrats in the United States Senate wanted to pass some campaign finance reforms. Republicans were opposed. The Democratic leadership tried to force Republicans to filibuster their bill. Republican minority leader Alan Simpson of Wyoming repeatedly noted the absence of a quorum.

Republicans held 46 seats, enough to stop the Democratic agenda. They also wanted to save themselves the trouble of an all-night talkathon. Denying the body its quorum was the tactic they chose. Republicans met in the cloakroom and dispersed from there. Packwood returned to his office, locked the doors, and watched the proceedings on television.

Democrats realized they’d been had and so they relied on one of the Senate’s earliest rules to remedy the situation. Sen. Robert Byrd, a master parliamentarian, invoked “a call of the house” to reach a quorum.

That authorized the sergeant-at-arms to arrest any recalcitrant senators and bring them to the chamber so that work could resume. When Capitol Police came looking for Packwood, he was given up by his cleaning lady. His office door was forcibly opened (or broken down, depending on the news account) and he was brought into the chamber feet first at 1:17 AM.

The Senate didn’t much care for the image of one of their own being carried in against his will. They probably cared even less for Packwood’s grandstanding about the experience. “I rather enjoyed it,” Packwood told the Associated Press. “I’ve instructed four of my staff to get a sedan chair.”

Ouch.

For the other 99 members of what’s been called the world’s most exclusive club, that comment (and the related photo op) may have struck a bit too close to home. Not only did Republicans succeed in blocking the proposed legislation, but they made Democrats look bad in the process.

If the scene described sounds familiar to you, it may be because it was playfully but accurately portrayed in a melodramatic climax during season two of “House of Cards.” (Season three is being released by Netflix today.)

Now comes Sen. Jeff Merkley, also of Oregon. He and other reformers would like to see the United States Senate require a “talking filibuster” similar to Jimmy Stewart’s depiction in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

The United States Senate is famously proud of its traditions. Adherence to its own rules is only slightly less important than fulfilling its obligations prescribed in the Constitution. The filibuster rule dates back to 1806. Its practice began in 1837.

But the rule that (literally) ensnared Packwood is older than that.

The Senate originally dispersed in the summer as farm and harvest duties drew Senators back to their home states. Some couldn’t resist leaving before the summer recess began, leaving leaders without a necessary quorum. Without a quorum, nothing could be done.

In 1798, the Senate adopted a rule allowing less than a quorum to authorize expenses for the sergeant-at-arms to bring absent members back to the chamber. Those senators who had prematurely left town (or hidden in their office) could be chased down and brought back. They would be then obligated to pay whatever expenses the sergeant-at-arms incurred in returning them.

As anyone who watches C-SPAN closely can attest, the Senate floor fills for votes and empties for speeches. But the rule requiring senators to be in attendance is still on the books and can be invoked by any senator at any time.

“You cannot force senators to talk during a filibuster,” according to Bob Dove, who served as Senate parliamentarian from 1966 until 2001 and wrote a book on the topic. The Senator could simply say, “I suggest the absence of a quorum.” That would trigger a roll call. When that finished, the Senator could again notice the absence of a quorum and start the process all over.

Without a quorum, the only options available would be recess, adjournment, or compelling Senators to attend. In other words, the Senate could indeed require a Senator to talk during a filibuster, but not without also requiring 50 other Senators to sit and listen.

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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a column each Friday for The Register-Guard and blogs

Oregon may soon lift its ban on motorists pumping their own gas in the state’s least populated areas. Legislation would allow for the first time counties with fewer than 40,000 residents to keep self-service pumps turned on when no owner, operator or employee is around to dispense gasoline. It passed the Oregon House unanimously. The Oregon Senate this week made a few tweaks and passed it back to the House.

Oregon’s ongoing refusal to allow self-service gasoline is rich in romance. If you’re a glass-half-empty sort of person, you might view any change as a loss of one of Oregon’s quirkiest distinctions. Oregon has refused to allow motorists to pump their own gas for no good reason except that it makes us different from every other state — except New Jersey.

That’s not much of a distinction. Oregonians probably don’t care whether they keep that special bond with the so-called Garden State. New Jersey may love its gardens, but that’s only evidence for how much cultivation the state has accepted. Oregon, on the other hand, still has vast swaths of bare in the east and wild in the west.

It is on this point that the half-full sorts can see this proposed change as an affirmation of a different, more durable distinction Oregon can and should claim. If you drive east from here, you don’t have to go very far until you are in the middle of nowhere. No cell phone signal, no lights visible in any direction, no sign of anyone anywhere. That’s not only possible in eastern Oregon; it’s almost unavoidable.

I remember listening to the radio news the first week I lived in Eugene. The lead story of the day concerned a Eugene man whose parked car had been found on a forest road southeast of the city. Rescue crews had already fanned out from there, but authorities were concerned that the man may not have survived.

I listened carefully, because the story didn’t quite make sense to me. At first I thought the man must have been famous and the spot where he was last seen was far away. But neither was true. This was a regular guy. He could have been any of us. And the area where he was lost was very nearby.

I grew up in Chicago, went to school in New England, then worked for my first newspapers in southern California. I didn’t know there were places left in the lower 48 states where you could lose your way and also lose your life. (I suppose that could also happen to you in New Jersey, but your ill fate in that case would probably involve other people.)

Allowing tourists to get gas after dark in eastern Oregon isn’t likely to save any lives, but it could sure feel that way if you’re lost with a minivan full of exhausted children. Gas station owners in Oregon’s outback all have stories of coming to work in the morning, greeted by a groggy or sleeping motorist who literally didn’t know which way to turn.

If we get self-service gas for these regions, and then add a few strategically located vending machines for humans to refuel, we could enhance something that almost no other state can offer — nothing; long stretches of nothing on top of nothing.

I’ve heard experts speculate that there may be portions of the Coast Range that are so overgrown or craggy that they may never have been trodden by humans.

Think about that for a moment. If you’re determined and skilled, you might cut your way through some underbrush and stand in a place where no human has ever stood. That’s not something you could possibly accomplish in New Jersey.

Tom McCall famously bragged about Oregon: “Come visit us again and again. But for heaven’s sake, don’t come here to live.” Today’s advertising consultants would complain only that he used more words than modern attentions can span.

McCall’s campaign could be updated: “Oregon: Get Lost!”

That would be safer and easier if gasoline became more available.

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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a column each Friday for The Register-Guard and blogs.

Oregon is losing its love for bottle returns, but Lane County can lead the way to something better. Collecting cans for extra money has supported the homeless for decades. Isn’t it time we formalized that arrangement, saving ourselves some inconvenience along the way?

Oregon’s Bottle Bill led the nation in 1971, charging a nickel for every recyclable, then paying it back when returned. Oregonians quickly adopted the logic: “You can buy this soda, but you’re only renting its container.”

Nine other states have followed our lead. Almost every state now promotes recycling, whether they charge a deposit or not. Some states now have higher recycling rates than Oregon. In fact, Oregon’s redemption rate has fallen in the last year to a paltry 68 percent. I think I know why.

The Oregon Grocers Association has long sought to relieve its members of the task of collecting bottles and cans. Paying back those nickels was never cost-effective. Automation was the quick fix, but grocery store staff still had to service the machines when bins filled or chutes jammed.

In 2011, the Oregon Legislature approved regional redemption centers. A dozen BootleDrop locations have opened across the state, administered by the Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative. Only one has opened so far in Lane County (in Eugene on West Broadway, near Garfield Street), but more are on the way.

BottleDrop openings allow member grocers within 3.5 miles to limit the returns they accept at their stores. Many have simply closed their redemption rooms completely, hoping their customers will collect their nickels elsewhere.

Redeeming bottle deposits was never an enjoyable experience, but BottleDrop has made it much worse. Lines are long, giving you plenty of time to contemplate how else you could be spending your time. They do offer a quick drop service, but there’s a fee per bag, you can’t verify the results, and it’s still an extra stop.

Ask any dry cleaner how Americans respond when they have to make just one more stop when they’re out running errands. They find other ways.

If you get up very early on trash pick-up day, you can see for yourself what that other way looks like. Down-and-out entrepreneurs troll the streets, often with flashlights and makeshift carts, looking for nickel-worthy containers. Residents are happy to be relieved of the responsibility, especially when looking the other way points toward their pillow.

If your neighborhood hasn’t yet attracted these intrepid collectors, it won’t be long. Deposits will double to a dime in 2017 and the program will expand significantly to cover almost all bottles in 2018. This informal system seems to work better for many people than the one built by the state’s leaders. They’re not missing the spare change that redeeming them represent.

We can build out that system to help our most vulnerable residents, reclaiming our position as civic innovators.

Remember those barn-red newspaper recycling boxes that used to be on every street corner, supporting the Eugene Mission? Redemption rates for newsprint plummeted, so the Mission abandoned the program a few years ago, but we can recycle their blueprint for do-goodery.

Bottles and cans are much more valuable than used newspapers, so unattended drop spots won’t work. So how about this? Dari-Mart has nearly 50 locations, stretching north, south and east of its Junction City headquarters. They’d love to offer you a new reason to come inside one of their corner markets, if only out of neighborliness.

If each store became a secure drop site for donated bottles and cans, I’m sure St. Vincent dePaul or another social service agency could use the deposits to subsidize their programs for the homeless. Eugene and other cities could find ways to promote and support the effort.

Everybody wins in this scenario. Dari-Mart gets a steady stream of people stopping in. Those who serve the area’s homeless get an additional funding source. And you don’t have to stand in line to get your nickels back.

It’s not exactly what the Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative and state legislators had in mind. It’s better.

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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a column each Friday for The Register-Guard and blogs