“Choose Memorial Well” (Saturday, 15 January)
Tom McCall’s family has suggested that any intended memorial be contributed in his name to either the Nature Conservancy or the 1000 Friends of Oregon. Such contributions would be altogether fitting, since these organizations represent two of his widely disparate passions.
It is important, though, that we understand the fundamental differences between the 1000 Friends and the Nature Conservancy, so that we can adequately decide how we would like to remember Governor McCall.
The Nature Conservancy is a private organization which purchases tracts of land so that they may be removed forever from the threat of development. This is laudable; individuals, including corporations and organizations, have the right to control their property as they see fit. The Nature Conservancy is an excellent way for committed environmentalists to put their monies where their mouths are.
The 1000 Friends of Oregon, on the other hand, is a cheerleader group for the state Land Conservation and Development Commission, which is dedicated to restricting the peaceable disposition of private property.
So choose well. How shall this stellar figure of Oregon’s history be commemorated? As an advocate of voluntary cooperation, or as a champion of government interference?
update 180109: Thomas Lawson McCall, Oregon’s Governor from 1967 to 1975, remains dead. I never spoke to him, but I did see him once, and cooked his lunch. I was working the grill at Herpy’s (“When you’re a whole lot more than a canker sore!”) late morning in autumn of 1974 when I saw a sleek road cruiser with Oregon plates reading “1” pulling in to our lot.
Counter Lass said, “Is that…?‘
I said, “Yeah. Look’s like the governor’s limo is in our parking lot.”
Manager SS raced out from the back, and just about wet himself as he fawned over The Gov. Since Counter Lass and I were simply going about our jobs, she taking orders and calling them back to me, and me filling them, we acted like he was another customer in our crowded lobby. “They don’t recognize you, sir!” simpered SS. Then he came back and supervised my work, making sure that the Holy Hefty Gut Bomb was not being sabotaged before it reached the Exalted Palate.
It was all very sad, mostly, but a little bit funny, too. Counter Lass and I just smiled and shook our heads sadly, Mr Tom politely endured it, and his aides cringed at manager SS’ performance.
As far as I know, I’ve encountered three of Oregon’s governors. The above mentioned Mr McCall, Mark Hatfield (when he was Oregon’s delegate to the US Senate, at which time we actually spoke a little as I shook his hand and thanked him for his valiant but futile effort to block draft registration), and Vic Atiyeh (at the Oregon State Fair, where we merely made brief eye-contact and said “Howdy,” or “Salaam,” or “Some Such.”)
“We are no threat” (Friday, 9 September)
In an Associated Press story buried on page 21 of the August 7th Gazette-Times (“Marijuana hunting lawmen upsetting residents”), state and federal goons attempt to justify their siege of Trinity County (California) by insisting that “their methods are both legal and professional.”
“Legal and professional.” That description can just as easily be applied to the Soviets’ recent shooting down of Korean Airlines flight 007, or to the Nazis’ slaughter of European Jews. A profession, after all, is what we do to pay the rent, and the law is simply the will of the local government. There is ever a yawning gulf between law and morality.
If an appeal to decency won’t cut it, let me put it in practical terms.
Dear taxpayers: Last year you spent over two hundred mega-bucks in your desperate attempt to stop me from smoking marijuana. It didn’t work. Next year you’ll spend even more; your hired muscle will harass my suppliers, confiscate his property, and possibly kill him as he tries to preserve his liberty and livelihood.
You might even catch me and put me away for a few years. I still won’t stop, any more than you gave up your beer during Prohibition. Just how long do you plan on slamming your head against this particular brick wall? To paraphrase the bumper sticker slogan, “I’ll give up my roach clip when it’s pried from my cold dead fingers.”
Imagine for a moment that the above was written by your son, whose children could be orphaned when he is abducted by the law, or by your workmate, whom you would never suspect of this “vile deed.” Better yet, pick one of your five nearest neighbors. He smokes pot. Shall you condemn him, too? Whose hedge clippers will you borrow while he’s in prison?
Give up this senseless crusade, neighbor. Not only do we surround you, but we are no threat to you or your chosen lifestyle.
update 180109: correspondent ST (GT 9/23) asks, “How does one surround five? Must have been sucking on one of his pot joints when he figured that one.” [heavy sigh] Pot joint? First of all, the proper term is Jazz Cigarette. Get hep to the scene, ST! And now for a little math (sorry drug warriors, I know it’s not your forte.) One doesn’t surround five. One in five doesn’t mean that one surrounds five. In a village of, say, a hundred, one in five means that, if they’re very careful about it, or they just happen to be standing in the right place at the right time, twenty CAN surround eighty.
ST’s seven paragraph screed includes advocating the death penalty for “drug pushers” (me at the Quikk Stopp) and an indictment of humanism, pornography, and the Supreme Court. And he imagines that I smoke reefer as an expression of “‘civil disobedience’ as it is called by the felons who vandalize industry and are idolized by ‘fifth column’ peace marchers.” To the extent that it compels people to bother me I care what they think, but as long as they’re willing to leave me alone I don’t give fuck all for their tender sensibilities. “Civil disobedience”? Please. I smoke it for fun.
“Campaign of corruption” (Friday, 21 October)
To what new depths of depravity will the Gazette-Times descend next in its seemingly endless quest for sensationalism? Last spring we were assaulted by a full-page profile of a local (gasp… shudder) homosexual. This summer it went even further when actual photographs from a nudist convention were published. As if those weren’t disgusting enough, last month the front page was given over to porno king and pot-tax advocate “Spliff” Haschoiel.
Having sufficiently softened up this pure thinking and self-righteous community with its insidious subversion, the GT delivered it coup de grace when, on October 14, a full page glorification of the “pleasures” of gambling was printed. The poor misguided dupes who were pictured probably thought they were having fun as they invited organized crime, narcotics, and prostitution (which everybody knows goes hand in hand with gambling) into Hoskins.
“But wait!” you say, “It’s just bingo!” Just bingo indeed. Now do you see how effective the GT’s campaign of corruption has been? It has actually made people think that organized gambling can somehow be respectable.
What next, GT? Wine tasting? Free speech? Free enterprise? Living peacefully and minding your own business?
Please do not cancel my subscription; I’m having too much fun being outraged.
update 180110: Cards and letters and calls, oh my! Sometimes my comments would touch a nerve. Once, in response to my criticism of official thuggery in the prosecution of The War on (some) Drugs, a local cop and former classmate of mine (taking no pains to disguise his voice) called the house to advise me to think hard about who’s protecting my family. (“That would be me, Sean.” -click- )
My favorite response (outside of abject fawning praise) came from an apparent fan of church bingo who opined that if I was “speaking tongue in cheek” then I ought to “bite [my] tongue.”