Category: Opinion

April 1, 2020 – April Fools Day or Census Day?

April 1, 2020 /

I was going to write about something completely different today. I didn’t even realize that it was going to be April Fools Day or Census Day yesterday. After my son kept me up half the night with pranks, I figure it is best to take the one day in ten years to discuss it’s significance. So today I will compare and contrast the Census vs. April Fools Day.

The Census is one of the few activities that our federal government activates that is actually prescribed in the Constitution. I am not sure what exactly the data is used for with the exception of counting for distribution of Representatives in the US House. History of the Census execution can be read from this link.

From Wikipedia: April Fools’ Day or April Fool’s Day (sometimes called All Fools’ Day) is an annual custom on April 1 consisting of practical jokes and hoaxes. Jokesters often expose their actions by shouting “April fools” at the recipient. Mass media can be involved in these pranks, which may be revealed as such the following day. The day is not a public holiday in any country except Odessa in Ukraine, where the first of April is an official city holiday.[1] The custom of setting aside a day for playing harmless pranks upon one’s neighbor has been relatively common in the world historically.[2]

And now, back to the Census. Several years ago there was some controversy. There was to be a question about whether you were a citizen or not. I just filled out the form today and I can say that particular question was not present. There were very few questions… who lived at my address, what was their names and birthdates and what was the ethnic background.

The first race question was whether you identified as ‘Latino’ or not. Which I do not, but my wife and kids yes. Then the follow-up question is what particular country/tribe/etc do you identify. I chose French because that is my largest contributor. But for my wife and kids, they also needed to answer that question before I move on. I really don’t understand… the previous question identified as a Latin American Latino (Not Puerto Rican, not Spanish, not South American).

Back to April Fools day. There is a lot of pranking going on at my house. Waking up to ‘Fart Bombs’, my wife is waiting to pull a bathroom prank on the kids right now. I like a good laugh, but I really am not into pranks of this nature. I think that it is just kind of wasteful energy.

Back to the Census. Speaking of wasteful energy, how many ways do we need to count people? Isn’t everyone supposed to fill out a tax return? Names and birthdays are included. I am relatively sure that the very few people that do not fill out a return or are claimed on a return are really on the margin, are these the people that are going to fill out a census form?

Back to April Fools Day. Still waiting for the prank to happen. I have been enlisted to act surprised.

Back to the Census. The way I read the instructions, I was to claim that my exchange student lived at this house, as of April 1. He is defined as non-related resident. Why is this counted?

The Census hired a bunch of people that can no longer do what they were supposed to do, because of quarantine. What were they supposed to do anyway? The form is online. I was mailed multiple notifications that it was required that I participate. The only option I saw was to login to a website. I get that not everyone has online access. But, now what?

Happy April Fools Day or is it Census Day?

March 18, 2020 – Life under quarantine: Day 3

March 18, 2020 /

Life for the last couple of days has been different. I would say that it has been difficult, but that is not true… it is time for a new normal. We are fortunate in that preparedness is our lifestyle so our pantry is full. I love to cook so I frequently go the grocery store to pick-up items for more exotic/lavish meals. That doesn’t mean I don’t know how to use the basics or substitute or modify accordingly.

In our area, school has been closed until April 28. I am not the biggest fan of our education system, in fact I think that we can do a lot better. However, we have a big problem. We have hosted an exchange student from Spain since August. Now that the remainder of the school year is up in the air, his program has decided to end prematurely and they are recommending all students return home.

It is more like ‘Peace Out – good luck if you want to stay cause we are out of here’. There is a program release form that we must fill out today if our student is staying, otherwise he needs a flight back to Spain. Most exchange students are leaving and our coordinator is worried that re-entry may be months delayed if he doesn’t leave immediately. But the short of it is that they are dropping all liability after today.

The problem is that if this academic year is not considered complete by Spain, that he may have to re-take his Junior year. We don’t really want him to leave pre-maturely but I understand the geo-politics and if we are stuck at home for six weeks anyway it could be quite difficult. My initial reaction was wait and see but that is when school was only out until April 1.

We are fortunate again in that my wife already worked three days a week from home. Now that has shifted to full time at home until the end of April. But, with everyone at home unexpectedly it is a difficult environment to be focused, let alone productive. I have been intrigued by the concept of un-schooling, self directed learning and goal setting. I am looking at opportunities to incorporate this downtime into something positive for the kids and family as a whole.

Quarantine in our current practice means limiting non-essential interaction. So, no friends or social gatherings or extra cirricular activities like church, boy scouts or trap team. We also cannot take advantage of this time for travel or site-seeing. What we are doing is family games and movies after the work day. In our climate, spring can be pretty iffy. Right now it is beautiful and time to do garden prep and walks around town. I think that we will try to get out into local nature during the workday to give my wife some quiet time.

I will probably be putting some effort into project oriented learning for the kids, more on that in a later post. For now, remember that there will be life after this so take note on what works and what is lacking so that during the summertime you can make adjustments to prevent this from being a difficult time in the future.

March 13, 2020 – Follow up on politics

March 13, 2020 /

Remember back on February 26, I wrote about how things will happen whether we get wrapped up in them or not? Well guess what? Since the legislature was dismissed and the cap and trade bill could not be passed, the Governor has decided to accomplish it through administrative regulation.

For all those people who were worried about this bill being passed, fear not. This is the kind of state that we now live in. So, you can protest, write your representatives, post on social media and so on but you are much better off doing something better with your life than worrying about politics.

February 26, 2020 – The rise of political idiocy and why you shouldn’t care

February 26, 2020 /

I still pay for the newspaper, I have always read the newspaper. Even when I was in grade school, I would look forward to the afternoon delivery. In college, I subscribed to the daily newspaper. When I was living in South Carolina, I was getting two newspapers because the local one only came twice a week. I wanted to see what was happening, I like the feel, I like the coalition of advertisements and I particularly think it is the best aggregator of local news.

That being said, when I woke up on Tuesday, I saw two headlines. The first one was “GOP senators walk out again” and the second one was “Trump piñata draws ire of far-right”. I read the articles and I did a lot of thinking yesterday – which is partly why I didn’t get a post in. I was thinking that this might warrant a more proper essay than a blog post.

I took a lot of notes and did quite a bit of research yesterday, but I think that this post will be a bit more succinct. Let me try to explain the situation of the walk-out first. Oregon requires a quorum in the senate to be able to vote on bills. Our senate has one short of a super-majority of democrats which means that legislation tends to pass in block form by party line. Oregon is also a part-time legislature, which means that there is a year session and there is a one month session the second year.

What is happening is that there is a set of bills that the democrat party is trying to pass which is related to ‘Cap and Trade’. This means that each entity (business, person or otherwise) is allowed by law some sort of carbon emissions maximum. If that is exceeded then you are taxed in an excise fashion for the overage and there is an offset where you can pay to plant trees to mitigate your excessive carbon.

The republicans have literally left the state (enforceable jurisdiction) to prevent a quorum from occurring and thus passing the legislation. This tactic was also used at the end of the full year session in 2019. There was a lot of name calling, threats of arrest etc, to the point where one local senator was barred from entering the capitol and he subsequently apologized. He was dismissed from this particular vote by the senate president.

There has been a lot of sword rattling from the governor Kate Brown stating “The Senate Republicans who walked out of the house are not against climate policy, they are against the democratic process”. Which to some degree is true, I suspect that this tactic will be used again given now that this is the second time this has been done in the last year.

The Statesman Journal states Democrats “have been given a mandate by a majority of voters to pursue climate change”. Here is where I think things are going off the rails and where history, demographics, geography all intersect.

The second headline was about a local bar setting up a piñata of Trump on Presidents day and running a theme entitled ‘Not My President’s Day’. Once local conservatives found out they started writing fake reviews in order to tank the overall rating of the bar and now both sides are mad about the situation.

The history lesson and deeper conclusions needs to wait for another post. For now, lets talk about a couple issues. One is that since the 1990’s Oregon is now a state where politics are completely controlled by the Democratic party. So, no matter how you vote, it doesn’t matter. The majority is becoming increasingly emboldened and radicalized. The riots over a Wallstreet, the dually elected president, the destiny comments, etc. are telltale signs of the future direction of the state.

There is a theory that getting caught up in the political dichotomy by picking one side or the other fuels the rise of extremism. By spending your time defending one sides actions over the other allows both sides to manipulate the population as a whole.

The use of the term Fascist gets thrown around all to often. The term has been propagandized and applied far beyond what is reasonable. We have the tools to change our government, but we don’t have the will or the desire because we live in the political dichotomy.

By far and large, we probably agree on more items than we disagree. Within my circle of associates, I am sure that we would disagree vehemently on political items. Heck, even my wife are opposites. But, there is very little I can do to change what is happening in Salem or Washington DC. And truthfully, there is very little the president or the governor have done to change my life.

One things for sure, this government does not reflect my values and we sure aren’t getting closer to more freedom. Those are the things that are important to me. So, I will move on to bigger and better things.