Though i love to bash tabloid national news as of late, jack has beaten me to it.

So in other news, a new city of eugene budget committee season kicked off today at our local library. Goal? To start getting ready for the budget that will be coming out in several months, to make amendments, and approve it. We have a different model this year: budgeting for outcomes (BFO), created by PSG. The goal of BFO is to connect budget line items with measures to evaluate the efficacy of these line items. Over time, ideally this makes changes to the budget easier and more tied to what measurable benefits that line-item achieves. My worry currently is that i’ve started hearing back channel information that there have been problems in the past with implementation.

What else to watch for this budget season?

• The size of this year’s deficit. The forecast is it will pull our “rainy-day” reserves (aka general fund reserves for revenue shortfall) from $6mil to $1.3mil. The year before it was at $12mil. In rosy times, we should be adding to the reserve.
• The process. Any additions we make, can we make them in the context of a balanced budget? Many additions in previous years come from this rainy day reserve.
• The forecast’s property tax assumptions. There are two key factors: the growth rate of property tax assessed (4.8%) and the collection rate on this (95%). The increase in assessed property tax includes the almost-guaranteed 3% (due to M50) and 1.8% in the new property tax revenue stream from new construction. The worry is that new construction has already slowed. The collection rate is dependent on people paying and this rate dipped to around 85% in the 80’s during the housing slump then. We are already getting news of increased foreclosures in lane county — and the main culprit, the subprime problems at the national level are only making things worse. Though the years of double digit housing price increases haven’t helped. I could go on about the lack of regulation that led to these subprime loans being deemed safe investments, and the bailouts for the chief offenders.
• Mike Clark will join the bus project, then become our biggest donor — not in that order.

On Monday February 4th the Legislature will convene for it’s first attempt at an annual session.

Please join Senator Bill Morrisette, Senator Floyd Prozanski, Representatives Paul Holvey, and Phil Barnhardt tomorrow, Tuesday January 29th for a Town Hall meeting to discuss plans for the session, the UO basketball arena, Oregon’s finances, and anything else on your mind.

7:00PM
Tuesday, January 29. Tomorrow!
Hilyard Community Center

2580 Hilyard St, Eugene, OR 97405

The topic of the new arena should be a spicy one.

For a sneak peek at a rendering of the proposed basketball arena, click HERE.

I give them a few points for realism here. The people walking inside wearing lots of green and the ominous cloudy skies!

The vivisection of what makes news into a CNN headline.

Take a tragedy: Five people die in a car accident. And slowly massage the words. Five people die in a BMW accident. Five people die in a BMW accident off an elevated airstrip. Five Killed When BMW has Accident Off Elevated Airstrip. “5 Killed When BMW Flies Off Elevated Airstrip, Hits Top Of Tree”. That’s where the local news station took it. I can still basically understand that a tragedy took place when a car drove off an elevated airstrip.

To fit the CNN profile, we need to go further: 5 Die when BMW flies off elevated airstrip. And finally “Five die when BMW flies off runway.” How creative. CNN chooses the funny little pun about “flying off” and “runway.” Cute little word trick to capture a little more attention to a story where five people died. Trivialize the accident and get a few more readers curious if this was a flying BMW and how it would fly off a runway. The local affiliate uses a similar play on words but at least calls it an elevated airstrip so the crash makes a bit more sense in context.

And this is how we are informed from one of the main sources of news in our country. They take their solemn duty of educating our voting populous lightly. There are many less sensational stories that we need to learn more about, and that we can do something about. For example, hospital-acquired infections kill nearly 100,000 people annually in the US. On average that’s 273 dying each day — or 55 BMW accidents daily. CNN making this a priority could literally save thousands of lives a year just by cutting that number by 2%. If they replaced all Spears/Ledger stories with this, that wouldn’t be difficult; they could give it a Fox slant like “The War on Dirty Hands”.

CNN. We are listening. Choose your news wisely.

photo: Time

With apologies to Thanksgiving, I would have to say that MLK day is probably the only federal holiday that I take the time to sit down and reflect on the meaning of the day and what an important voice his was. 

Here is a link to a speech recommended to me (thanks Rose!) that contains the written text or play the audio to hear it below.

In his “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence” speech delivered at New York’s Riverside Church on April 4, 1967 — a year to the day before he was murdered — King called the United States “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.”

Hope everyone had a great MLK Day.

On May 20th, voters in Lane County will have an opportunity to cast their ballots in an election that will have repercussions in the next 4-8 years. No, not the Presidential Primary Election, which no doubt will be long since decided by voters in Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan, South Carolina… and about 40 other states who vote prior to Oregon.

It’s time to elect our City and County leaders. I know the Eugene and Lane County elections, but not all the other city and other governing bodies making choices this May. Please add who is running in YOUR community — be it Springfield, Veneta, Cottage Grove, one of the dozen+ school boards, fire districts, and so on — in the comments and discuss.

Meanwhile, expect a vigorous race for North Eugene County Commissioner — currently held by Bobby Green (who has not yet declared if he will seek another term). Local businessman Rob Handy, who has been involved in the Eugene Neighborhood Leadership program for over 5 years, has tossed in his hat for this seat. I predict Green will run again, rather than take on Kitty Piercy for Mayor of Eugene (where she is considered fairly tough to beat). While I don’t know much about Green’s background, I’ve heard his decisions tend to be “more roads for more cars” regarding transportation, fewer protections for riparian areas and streams. He got some heat last May with a failed second attempt to raise county taxes.

The other County seat up is South Eugene — currently held by Pete Sorenson, who has indicated he will run for another term. No opponent has declared opposition, though someone may come forward.

In the City of Eugene, Bonny Bettman, Chris Pryor, Betty Taylor, and Andrea Ortiz, in addition to the Mayor, are facing another election. So far only Ortiz and Mayor Piercy have stated they will run again, though Taylor was heard saying “When people ask when my term is up, I say four years from next January” which sounds like a campaign slogan to me.

In Eugene politics, Bettman and Taylor tend to ally with one another consistently, often opposed by conservatives (though the position is non-partisan) Mike Clark, Jennifer Solomon, George Poling. Ortiz and Zelenka, though clearly more progressive than not, have swung depending on the issue to join with the conservative block (less often) or the liberal block (more often). Chris Pryor, registered as a Democrat, often votes with the more conservative threesome. Piercy has voted with the progressives more often than not, but wants to avoid being the tie breaker when she can.

So young voters — what should we be looking for in a local candidate? Are we content with the incumbents up for re-election (Green, Sorenson; Pryor, Ortiz, Bettman, Taylor) or is there a progressive candidate out there that could steal our hearts and minds?

Logging & Taxes: How are we affected?
Friday, Jan. 11, 11:50 a.m.
Downtown Athletic Club

Take an in-depth look at the structure of the timber tax with our speakers,
Tim Hermach and Bill Barton from the Native Forest Council. They’ll outline
their areas of concern.

This meeting will be broadcast on KLCC (89.7 FM) on Monday at 6:30 p.m. Past
City Club meetings are shown on Cable Channel 21 (OPAN) on Thursdays at 6
p.m.

City Club’s Friday meetings provide gallery seating and lunch service.
Gallery seating costs $3 (free to members). Lunch may be purchased.

Dan Savage Confirmed For Rebooting Democracy!!!
By Matt Davis on Mon, Jan 7 at 4:00 PM

Are you excited about Rebooting Democracy starting this Friday, yet?
I am. I’m pissing myself. Right here, right now. There it goes…a little trickle of pee, down my leg, showing how excited I am. ABOUT REBOOTING DEMOCRACY. Why? Because not only is The Bus Project’s conference a weekend-long opportunity to network your socks off, featuring workshops, trainings, issue panels, big name speakers and of course, did I already mention, the chance to network your socks off? It is ALSO going to be M.C’d by The Stranger’s very own sex-ually pol-it-ic-al

SAVAGE: Show up to hear him speak, or just to oggle his pecs. Either way he’s a winner…

I’m going to be there because Mr.Savage makes me feel just a teensy bit gay. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But if you’re political at all, whether you’re new to Oregon or looking to get re-elected, you should, frankly, be here for the sake of your career. And If the $95 3-day student pass sounds pricey to you, the organizers say they’ve got lots of scholarships available to get you in. In other words, if you’re broke, call ‘em. If not, call ‘em anyway, and try pretending! I don’t care how you get there, just get there if you can. Or, just come for the

POLITIPALOOZA: IT WILL GIVE YOU AN ELECTION!!!

Once again: It’s local.
It’s everybody who’s anybody in politics. It’s a chance to get off your lazy hipster ass and get involved in 2008, a pivotal fucking year in politics not just here, but everywhere. Why the hell wouldn’t you want to come on down? You don’t know, do you?! You’ve got nothing—am I right?

So: Come.

Where the majority rules, the country was fooled the first time. Though many of us were against any preemptive war from the beginning, our country chose differently. We are nearing a similar juncture, part Iraq, part Vietnam. When you can’t get a green flag for war, do two things: (1) get permission to attack if they attack us at any level (2) make it as likely as possible for some attack to occur.

This is the same thing i wrote about five months ago in august. And it referenced that step one was already basically complete.

Step 2 got a little further in the last few days. Iran boats ‘harass’ US Navy. If they had done anything whether sanctioned or not, that likely would have triggered a counterattack, and the start of the Iran war. If we had attacked out of uncertainty, that likely would have triggered the start of the Iran war. With step 1, we already have the permission because the iran revolutionary guard is a terrorist organization.

Lastly Bush talked about the incident today more like a game of chicken than our United States delicate foreign policy.

Bush called the incident “a very dangerous gesture” by Iran and warned the Islamic republic against any escalation.
“We have made it very clear, and they know our position, and that is: There will be serious consequences if they attack our ships, pure and simple.” “My advice to them is: Don’t do it.”

I wanted to share some of the favorite “Featured Headlines” I’ve seen on the internet recently:

    * Girl’s fake essay wins Hannah Montana tickets
    * Sweet surprise: Lost ring turns up in fudge
    * Foul-mouthed customer leaves big tip
    * $2 filing cabinet yields big dividends
    * Man refuses to take out trash for a year
    * Woman dons bikini for icy New Year dip

Did these come from the Onion?  Wrong.  Sadly, these are from CNN.

It is appalling how much sensationalism and celebrity news has taken over all mainstream media.  If the story doesn’t jolt you for a second and then slide off your brain, it won’t get shown.  Any story requiring any amount of thought or showing real world issues won’t play to the attention deficient masses.

When I went to CNN headline news the other day to get some coverage about the Iowa caucuses, Larry King and Anderson Cooper were too busy dissecting the Britney Spears meltdown.  (I wish I were kidding!)

Based on all of this, (and this article) I am going to stop using CNN.com to get my news and switch to MSNBC. 

CNN.com
When it was worth reading: When the only other option was TV

Why you must stop: It’s not news, it’s sensationalist stories that don’t constitute world-changing news. The site’s headlines, often with invitations to “watch this,” have long been fodder for Gawker. The front page looks like an “oddly enough” section. So either take that to its logical conclusion and read full-on trash, or switch to a real news site.

Replace with: MSNBC for better (not perfect) mainstream headlines.

For a laugh, I also highly recommend Fark-Politics!