Chris Dudley, Candidate

Except for his two NBA records for consecutive missed free throws, Chris Dudley’s basketball career was remarkably unremarkable in that he utterly failed to distinguish himself as an exceptional player. He sure as hell didn’t lead the Portland Trailblazers to a comeback championship season. That begs the question, if he can’t lead a basketball team to a comeback, how does he expect to lead the State of Oregon to a comeback? It doesn’t take a genius to figure out which is the more difficult task.

Nor am I inspired by Chris’ campaign rhetoric, which consists of nothing more than the same old nonsense Republicans (Democrats have their own brand of nonsense) recycle through every election. Cutting spending will not create jobs, and cutting taxes will not create jobs, so where are all those jobs he promises coming from? Does he not understand that cutting taxes and cutting spending will further deepen Oregon’s recession? Does he not understand that the national economy has a profound effect on Oregon’s economy, and that George W. Bush was driving that particular bus when Oregon’s economy tanked? Does he even suspect that a national economic crisis must be addressed at the national level, and that anything he proposes to do at the state level is only political posturing?

Nothing I saw in the campaign propaganda available on his Web site convinces me that he even has a clue about how to fix what ails Oregon. Sure, he gets a few of the most minor things right, but he gets almost all of the major things wrong. Newsflash, Chris! Doubling down on the very policies that got us into these economic and environmental crises is not going to get us out of them. Your new ideas need to be new, not recycled Republican bullshit that’s been around since at least the ’60s.

What I find most offensive, though, are Chris’ egregious distortions and outright lies regarding former Governor John Kitzhaber’s record. The verifiable truth of the matter is that Oregon’s economy was among the fastest growing in the entire country under Kitzhaber’s leadership, and it only turned south after Bush took office.

Without apologies to Chris or anyone else, I simply don’t find in Chris Dudley a candidate I can support; too little experience, too many uncertainties, and too much bullshit.

Q >>>

Dim Bulbs & Bright Ideas

The warm feeling I get whenever I’m yet again reminded that morons still occupy—and exert undue influence in—the higher levels of government hierarchy is not, in reality, related to the warm fuzzies, but is more akin to “heat of anger” of the kind that has a high probability of ending in homicidal violence. Are you following this, Representatives Krieger, Esquivel, Garrard and Schaufler?

What these geniuses want to do is register the bikes of Oregonians who are over 18 years old. Using the same fee schedule as applied to cars—$54 every two years. Making bikes more expensive to register than motorcycles. Killing incentives for people to ride bikes. Hindering efforts to clean up the environment, get a handle on global climate change, and achieve energy independence. Leaving the originators of this ill-conceived plan open to the criticism they so richly deserve.

The problems with H.B. 3008 are varied and many. Not only does this bill suck like a Dyson on steroids, if it becomes law the potential for unintended consequences is huge. What if, on your morning commute across the Hawthorne Bridge, you found your way impeded by hundreds of horses and riders? And think of the parking problems that would ensue once all those horses and riders reach their downtown destinations. Okay, not too likely a scenario, I admit, but hey, anyone twisted enough to zoo bomb on a fixie at midnight is probably twisted enough to swap out a bike for a horse just to prove a point.

Might not bicyclists, forced to pay the same rate as automobile drivers for the right of access to the state’s network of streets, roads and highways, begin to insist on their right to unrestricted lane use? If you thought that following some oblivious twit traveling at 55 mph in the passing lane was slow, how are you gonna feel when you find yourself following an obstinate cyclist, who’s only trying to make a point, at 20 mph? Can you say “road rage”? Can you say “murder”? Can you say “guilty, your honor”? Can you say “how do I get this shit out of my grill”?

Are all of the possible unintended consequences of the negative kind? Not necessarily. There’s a slim possibility that we’ll see a decline in identity theft as professional identity thieves rush to fill the burgeoning market for identity forgers. Picture, if you will, the senior citizen bike rider who’s just been detained by an overzealous traffic cop. “Honest, officer, I’m only 15-and-a-half. Says so right there on my learner’s permit.”

There’s a better, more equitable way to fund the public thoroughfares we all depend on. Rather than dump a disproportionate amount of the burden on bicycles that cause relatively little damage to road surfaces—compared to their four-wheeled counterparts—and which, unlike their four-wheeled counterparts, put exactly zero carbon emissions into the atmosphere, legislators should rethink the whole concept of vehicle registration.

A “one size fits all” vehicle registration fee schedule is not the ideal method for raising money for roadway maintenance; it has a tendency to punish frugal people and reward extravagant ones. A far better method would base its fee schedule on vehicle weight, which is the primary causative factor in road surface destruction; the higher the weight, the higher the fee.

All vehicles, including motorcycles, bicycles, skateboards, rollerblades—in effect, anything with wheels—should be weighed “light,” i.e., without operator, passengers or cargo, to arrive at the appropriate fee for each specific vehicle. A progressive fee schedule would be determined by weight brackets, say in 100 lb. or 500 lb. increments, and fees assessed accordingly.

And, as a concession to all vehicle owners, the State of Oregon could make an allowance for each vehicle—say the first 100 lbs. for free.

Sounds fair to me.