A DUCQUE’S EYE VIEW
It’s Not About
Winning
No one wins in a strike. The employee loses money. The employer loses productivity. Resentful feelings and harsh words are not easily erased. This is particularly true when public employees strike. After all at some level they chose a career in public service because they wanted, well, to serve the public. That doesn’t happen during a strike.
So why is the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 2936 considering a strike? As far as I can tell it has as much to do with respect and parity as it does with wage increases and insurance benefits. Times ARE tough and government funding has experienced severe cuts. The cost of health insurance HAS skyrocketed out of control. We all know first hand just how true this is.
But if it’s time for governments to cut spending, how come there are non-AFSCME county employees who haven’t received wage freezes or health insurance benefit cuts? Why have the Coos County Commissioners paid over $200,000 to an out of county law firm since March, 2002 to consult on labor issues?
The last contract between
Excuse me. I thought it was common knowledge that the receptionist who answers your phone gives the customer his first impression about your business. And isn’t it true that behind every successful executive is a dynamic administrative assistant? Is it not valuable to you when you get assistance in obtaining your marriage license, passport or court date? Some AFSCME members are mental health workers who provide crisis intervention, counseling and consultation. Some are health care workers who provide educational resources regarding birth control, STDs, low cost mammograms and breast and cervical cancer. It is AFSCME employees who help develop and coordinate the County’s Disaster response plan.
Steve Allen makes $63,552 yearly (an $8,772 raise in approximately a year and a half.) The Commissioners make $57,504. Solid Waste workers received a 2.5% wage increase. Sheriff’s Union Teamsters received a 2 to 8% wage increase. County department managers currently make between $53,580 and $78,830. No manager has had to take a cut in health insurance this year. The average clerical employee earns about $20,000 year. Many have take home pays of less than $1,000 a month. The highest paid AFSCME employee, in middle management, earns about $48,000 after ten years of service.
I don’t begrudge a penny of anyone’s salary. Like it or not, the way of the world we live in is managers do make more money than those who do the “grunt work.” The reality of public service is you often get paid less than if you worked in the private sector. What I don’t understand is why every public employee can’t share the hardship in poor economic times? It seems grossly unfair to me that those who can afford it least are carrying the financial burden for the rest of the County’s higher paid workers. It doesn’t have to be this way. When SWOCC had to look at cutting insurance recently they chose to cut at the top first.
On
December 22 AFSCME leaders left
responses in employee mailboxes (no cost to taxpayers) reassuring them.
“AFSCME
2936 has no authority under our constitution or otherwise to fine
members. Had
we such authority we still would not use it to take money from our
co-workers, even
if we disapprove of their conduct.” No
public employer in
Negotiations
between the County and
AFSCME Local 2936 have been going on since April. But
instead of getting closer to agreement
My
conclusion is: It is
Union members are not allowed to engage in public forum discussions about union business on County time, but if you have questions or comments you can email Jan Long, AFSCME Local 2936 President at gardner567@yahoo.com.
Steve
Allen wrote in his letter to
AFSCME employees, “Please contact Steve Allen at (541) 396-3121, ext
249 if you
have additional questions.”
What Is It About Those Whales?
December 22, 2003
Whales
have long been a source of wonder and inspiration to mankind, and the
In a few
short
days the last Christmas present will be unwrapped and the last Hanukah
candle
lit, but the kids will still be out of school.
Relax, in addition to the after Christmas sales there is also
“Whale
Watching Spoken Here” (WWSH) to the rescue.
Your offspring might grumble about being dragged away from their
new
computer games, but they will remember their first sighting of a gray
whale migrating
long after the “in” toy of 2003 is forgotten.
WWSH
is a volunteer whale watching
program that was started in 1978. In
that year the late Don Giles of the
While
WWSH volunteers are only
available 45 hours of the year, whale watching can be done other times
as
well. The southern migration season is
from December to February, usually peaking on the
Whale watcher equipment is pretty basic. Dress warmly in layers for the weather and bring a camera and binoculars. You might find yourself wanting to stay for a while, so a snack and water is also a good idea. The best whale watching conditions are in the early morning before the wind picks up and causes whitecaps that can be confused with a “blow” (vapor, water or condensation blown up into the air up to 12 feet when the whale exhales.) A calm ocean allows for easier viewing, so avoid days during or right after storms. An overcast day that minimizes glare is ideal. Favorable vantage points are high coastal headlands that jut out into the ocean. Gray whales tend to hug the shore line anyway. They will stay as close as they can to navigate around these points.
Scanning the horizon searching for a blow gives one a certain perspective. A gray whale is roughly the size of three African elephants. And yet from your shore watch it appears to be but a speck. This realization makes me feel small and my problems less important. At the same time, I feel connected to a larger whole. Philosophizing is a good way to pass the time while you wait and watch for traces of a whale. Patience is the watchword. Whale watching takes time. In that time you can feel the rhythm of the waves, observe the shorebirds, smell the breeze and otherwise experience the marine environment. You can meet people from all over the world who also are on the quest of glimpsing a gentle giant.
Usually when you finally spot one, others are nearby. They tend to travel in groups called “pods.” First you track the pattern of the blows. That’s when the reflection ends and the excitement begins. As you spot their range and anticipate the surfacing you start to see whale parts, usually the head or back. Sometimes you can see the majestic tail called a “fluke” of an individual when it stands on his head in shallow water or prepares for a deep dive.
Magnificent. Incredible. Awesome. You will wish you’d saved at least one of these adjectives until you saw your first whale breach. Witnessing 13 meters of mammal emerge 50% to 75% out of the water is beyond the scope of my vocabulary. You won’t be lucky enough to see breaching every trip. But if you see one breach, chances are he will do it again and/or inspire his pod pals to breach also.
A
column about whale watching
wouldn’t be complete without mention of Keiko the famous orca who died
December
12. Keiko resided in
Keiko’s story of captivity and release touches
us all. I remember my consciousness
being raised when I saw “Free Willie.” I
am grateful for the environmental questions about wild vs. tame that
his life
triggered. Sometimes I ponder these same
kinds of issues in my own life as I look at the choices I make to fit
in with
societal expectations and repress my own free spirit.
But that’s another column……….. Goodbye
Keiko. We will
miss you.
Happy
Hanukah. Merry Christmas. Happy Solstice Everyone
(Today is as dark as it gets. We have the hope of a bit more light every day from now until June.)
Confession of a Single Girl
Although I love
living in
All this is in way of justification of why I tried Internet Dating services. I personally knew a couple of women who had found love this way, one who is still with the guy two years later. Maybe she should be writing this column, but she’s probably home “cuddling by a warm fire” or “walking hand in hand on the beach.” Besides she only corresponded with one guy, and that was the last day before his subscription ran out, so she’s really not as experienced as I am.
For those of you who haven’t been there and done that, there are plenty of dating services to choose from including Match.com, Single Friends, Yahoo Personals, American Singles, Eharmony, Lava Life, Tickle and they keep on propagating. There are a lot of lonely people out there. Each service lets you write a free description of yourself and your dream guy, but charges you to initiate correspondence with another client. Some let you reply to others for free and some charge you if you want to respond when someone notices you. Your profile consists of a mixture of checking boxes, and creative writing about your inner thoughts and outer personality with a clever “headline” to pull it all together. Checks are made for decency, but not accuracy. Photos are optional, and not necessarily current.
I spent some time listed on several different services waiting to see what happened. Then I paid for a month on one service that had given me the best prospects during my trial. Later I bought another month’s subscription on a different service. I didn’t want my photo on display so I didn’t get as much action as I might have (or maybe I got more?) All totaled I probably emailed 30 or so guys, talked on the telephone with about half of those and met exactly seven. Some of the seven graduated from “meetings’ to “dates” but no mutual chemistry. One of the seven was a total jerk. (See pointer #5.) After that I was done. I got my money’s worth, but I found it to be too consuming of my time and emotional energy to continue.
Clearly I’m not an expert at this, and I didn’t find love in cyberspace, but here are some pointers that worked for me:
1) Write your profile as an exercise in self awareness. You might be surprised at what you find out about yourself. Present yourself in the best possible, but honest light. Describe the parts of yourself that would make you want to meet you.
2) If you’re paying, email anyone who seems remotely interesting. I found that some of the slickest profiles were written by players who’d been at the scene for awhile and, last I checked, are still there. They didn’t seem to be looking for real women. On the other hand some of the triter, slightly misspelled profiles that I passed by on first reading were written by really nice guys. You just don’t know until you interact. Then you can be picky.
3) It’s okay to correspond with several guys at once. Most of them will peter out, no pun intended, so don’t just focus on “the one” unless you’ve met him a few times and there is chemistry. Don’t set yourself up for disappointment. We’re visiting FantasyLand here.
4) No expectations. Your correspondents are probably writing others and are just as unsure about this whole dating stuff as you are. FantasyLand is populated by folks with foibles just like us.
5) Listen to your gut. If someone seems to be pushing, or you don’t feel absolutely comfortable giving him your real email address, your phone number or meeting him, don’t do it.
6) Although appearance might be a low priority, let’s be honest, it does count for something. If you don’t have pictures posted for the world to see, it’s a good idea to exchange when you decide to meet. Not only does it help you recognize your “date,” it also prevents disappointment. I didn’t know I was that superficial, but one of the many things that I discovered early on is that I am.
7) As an avid reader of mysteries I found Internet Dating to be the ideal place to practice my detective skills. Check him out before you meet him. Find out where he works; see if you have mutual acquaintances. It’s not stalking if you talk to him about it. And besides, he wants to know the same stuff about you. Please review Pointer #5 and reveal only what you choose.
8) When you decide to meet someone it should be in a public place and at least one of your friends should know where you are, who you’re with, and expect a report afterwards. Choose an activity that sounds fun to you. The most common seems to be meeting for coffee or lunch because it is inexpensive and time limited. I did that twice before I realized I’m uncomfortable sitting with a stranger where I might run into someone I know. How do you introduce him? So I suggested walks or picnics after that.
9) I made a half hour rule. If I was going to all the trouble to meet someone I gave it a half hour before I wrote him off. At the end of the half hour, if I thought he wasn’t for me I told him so. And since there’s nothing I hate more than a guy who says he’ll call but doesn’t, I solicited his honest impression of me as well.
10) Don’t take any of it personally. I think a lot of us are still in the thinking about or wanting to be ready for love stage. When it’s meant to happen, the Universe will manifest the one for you (and me.) Internet Dating is just one way to get closer to that place. For now, some of us just need a pen pal or a friend or a fling. In retrospect I don’t believe I was ready to move on from my last relationship, but the experience brought me closer to knowing who I am and what I want in my next.
So,
I’m still single but it was cheaper
than therapy and not as smoky as a bar. Plus,
I have a few new guy friends that I made along the way.
Cheers
From Coos County
Dec. 07, 2003
"where everybody knows your name here and
they're always glad you came here"
In
Boston or San Francisco, you may have your one special bar or espresso
spot, but on the southern Oregon coast everywhere is like living in the
set of Cheers.
One recent morning I had a whole list of places to go: recycling
center, post office, library, bank and grocery store. My errands
always take twice as long here as they did when I lived in
No
doubt part of my small town experience can be attributed to the fact
that I'm gregarious and have lived here for over nine years. But
I was the same extrovert in
My
favorite baristas and bartenders knew my name in
No, I think it's more the pace and the sense of place we have here. There is something extraordinary about knowing the world’s largest ocean is just to the west of you.
Nor
are we all clones. I could never have imagined such an unlikely
combination of rednecks and artists, loggers and environmentalists,
retirees and the unemployed such as the groups of people we have
populating our coastal community. Yet it is this odd mix of folks
I see at my weekend breakfast café. Liberals
and libertarians argue politics at my lunch bistro. The
regulars at the Grill where I go for happy hour wear both white and
blue collars. In my urban days, I stuck to my "own kind."
In
We
have a trust in ourselves and in each other that I hadn't experienced
since I left
There's
also a sense of caring. In metropolitan areas you learn how to
avert your eyes when you see a homeless person. Not here.
Last year all our local government and social service offices were
flooded with calls because one woman with a shopping cart was camping
out in
Growing into the Coos mentality was not an overnight epiphany. It took me a good two or three years to figure out where my place was in town. The local politics and attitudes can be hard to absorb. To really know others and make friends takes time. Yet, through my newcomer years I had the forest and the Pacific to nurture me. At some point I realized that we here are a part of our natural surroundings – rough edges, but all embracing.
So
today, on the Anniversary of Pearl Harbor Day, as we pray for peace in
Nov 30, 2003
Tomorrow it will be December and the holiday season is upon us. Whatever your religion or attitude might be towards Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza or the Solstice, chances are you will be invited to share at least one big meal with family, friends, co-workers or maybe just people who feel sorry for you “being alone this time of year.” I further predict that however festive the celebration is, there will be invisible elephants in attendance as well.
The “elephant in the living room” is a phrase derived from Jill Hastings’s 1984 book about denial in the field of alcoholism. Today I’m broadening the term “elephant” to refer to any issue not being discussed openly which impacts your holiday meal. Elephants come in all shapes, sizes and colors. They can be big critters like addiction and abuse, death and divorce, unemployment and poverty. They can also be smaller idiosyncrasies like food preferences and preparation, table manners, crazy relatives and boring conversationalists.
My purpose in today’s column is NOT to rally my readers to gear up for confrontation. Please don’t go off half-cocked especially since I suspect a lot of you are my friends and family, and might be eating dinner with me some day. I believe confrontation or “intervention” can be positive, but deciding when and how to confront is absolutely an individual decision. If you plan to shoot an elephant down, you’re going to need some foresight that I’m not capable of offering via cyberspace. There is a fine line between politeness and denial. You must identify where that line of demarcation is for yourself. Timing and thoughtfulness count for everything when and if you choose to take on an elephant. One of my biggest remorseful remembrances was when I told a dear friend over dessert and in front of several others, that we were all sick of her know-it-all attitude. In identifying one elephant-lite, I displayed my bigger elephant mouth. I reacted instead of acting. I spoke out of impatience instead of from love. This is a good example of how not to handle your elephant annoyances.
What I would like to do instead today is to provide a platform to review, renew and redo our own roles and feelings. For the astrology aficionados in the crowd, Mercury will be in retrograde from December 17 to January 6. I’m told that means communication between others is more difficult than usual, while our internal self focus is heightened. So this is an excellent time for us to examine our own elephants. Plus since there is already so much to do over the holidays, December might not be the best time to take on a project of redecorating somebody else’s living room.
We all take on roles in groups: life of the party, black sheep, fix-it man, parent, child, talker, wallflower, worrier, helper, or princess to name a few. But do you understand why you have donned that persona? And is that role still who you want to be? We developed our psychological defenses for protection. Don’t let anyone tell you that you don’t need protection once in awhile. But do you still need the same kind of protection to the same extent as when you first developed it? Or is it getting in your way now?
A huge factor in holiday celebrations is the remembering of past. For some people Christmas can never live up to their childhood wonder. Others live in fear that past trauma and drama will repeat itself. Whichever end of the spectrum you lean towards, there’s a lot of expectation involved. Those shoulds will trip you every time. This is 2003, not 1983, and you can only do so much. Nor are you the same person you were as a child, or even the one you were last year. I guarantee that while this season will have some of the same traditions from past celebrations, it will also be uniquely its own. Treasuring this knowledge gives me and you the freedom to make conscious choices and minimize those expectations. Here and now consciousness is a major step in inviting your old elephants out of the shadows. By acknowledging them, YOU have the power to dismiss them or wear them proudly.
Some of the invisible elephants at the table will be loved ones who can’t be with you this year. Maybe your adult children are developing their own traditions in another state. Or you’re still raw from a recent divorce and it’s the ex’s turn to get the kids. We all have relatives and loved ones who have died. I think it’s impossible to get through the season without remembering those not with us a few hundred times. The question here is figuring out how to embrace their memory and still take care of ourselves in the present. It’s important to be honest with yourself about when you need alone time and when you need to reach out. It’s way too easy to get trapped at a party you don’t want to be at or to cry yourself to sleep because you can’t make yourself pick up the telephone and connect with someone. The answer here is to be as kind and gentle with yourself as you can be. It’s normal to miss people you love or have loved. Bereavement is always most poignant this time of year. But it’s also totally okay to let go of the pain for moments, even hours, then days at a time and create new memories and make new connections. We don’t replace those who have gone before. We honor them by valuing them enough to want to have others in our life to help fill the void they have left.
There is no greater test of the independent, healthy single than learning how to be a guest at somebody else’s holiday function. While our own family might have been dysfunctional, it was familiar. We knew which uncle would get drunk and embarrass which aunt. We knew to expect sister would bring home a different guy every year and everyone pretended that brother wasn’t gay. We knew who made the world’s best stuffing and who closely guarded a recipe for inedible mincemeat pie that no one wanted. There was a routine established to the merriment. They might not be pretty elephants, but they were our elephants.
However as a guest, you might not know quite where you fit. You wear a fixed smile while everyone laughs hilariously at some inside joke. You pretend not to notice the host kids farting, turning over furniture and pulling the cat’s tail. You give perky answers to prying questions about why you are alone this year. You wonder why you are alone, and wouldn’t it have been better for you to stay home and not inflict your deficiencies on others? Nay I say. Being a guest is good practice for you to let go of old elephant roles and to try on new attitudes and practices. Not only is it a free meal, it’s therapy.
Enjoy the season.
May your personal holiday season provide joyful light in the
winter darkness.
The Magic of Mushrooms
Nov. 23, 2003
“Thank goodness for the potatoes, but thank God for mushrooms!” David Arora
Fall
is a great season for those of us blessed to live in the
But by far my favorite part of autumn is mushrooming. There is still time left to grab a copy of David Arora’s book, All That the Rain Promises and More and head for the trails. Unless you have a trusted and experienced guide with you to point out the edibles, do NOT eat wild mushrooms. Those glorious red-capped-with-white-spotted specimens can kill you. Those bright-orange-glow-in-the-dark flimsy flowery looking things can give you diarrhea that makes you wish you were dead. A book will not substitute for the subtle hands-on training you need to learn this craft.
It
is definitely worth doing whatever it takes to become friends with
someone knowledgeable about mushrooms. Once you’ve tasted cream of wild
mushroom soup you will never go back to
Not eating mushrooms doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy them. Choose a foresty trail, slow down, look down and smell the duff. It’s all about habitat. You want soft ground, with rich dirt under trees and ferns. ‘Shrooms are social creatures. When you see one kind look around a little and there’s another and another and another. Various species of mushrooms resemble flowers, candy corn, coral, stars, vegetables and turkeys. Honest. They come in red, yellow, pink, purple, ivory, gold and silver as well as the omnipresent brown (AKA as just another little brown thing.)
The scientifically minded can spend hours classifying species. The artistically inclined can use mushrooms to dye fabric. Hallucinogenic mushrooms have long been a part of Native rituals. Mushrooms also have their place in Chinese medicine and aromatherapy.
You
don’t have to go far to find them either. A
half-hour break to stroll around
While all of the above is true and I do know how to identify and cook several edible specimens (yes, my friendship is worth having) this isn’t why I go ‘shrooming almost every weekend from August to December. For me mushroom hunting is a combination spiritual experience/Easter egg hunt that takes place in a fantasy novels setting. The forest looks different from trail level. I literally get down and dirty. I crawl and I sniff. I get lost. I emerge from the forest with twigs in my hair, mud on my knees, and a smile on my face. The world is beautiful and so am I.
At the beginning of the season the baby channies are buff colored phallic shaped buds, a harbinger of many happy weekends to come. The first perfect, full grown chanterelle of the season, a cross between a trumpet and a flower, assures me that there is a purpose in our Universe. I feel like a child of the forest who has found gold. Pure joy.
It’s not all good though. The first patch of big ones we find inevitably triggers our dark sides. Mushroom greed rears its ugly face. The person who was my best friend when we started the hike transforms into my competitor. I once (accidentally) cut a friend’s pants trying to get one hiding under a fern. He made me promise: No cutting mushrooms that were touching someone else’s body parts. So now I just pinch them with my fingers if a person is in the way.
By mid-September we can relax and enjoy. There are enough for everyone. And since we also have the rule: Eat what you pick, there are enough to give away, freeze and dry. The chanterelles are golden then, much like the filtered autumn light. Everywhere you look is a new type of mushroom to try to identify. As we graze through ripe huckleberries on the trail we feel the primeval experience of being one with all the gatherers that have gone before us.
Sometime in October, a few weeks after the first real rains fall, the prize of all mushrooms is sprouting for those who know where to look. Americans call it the King Bolete; the Italians porcini, and the French cep. But to me it is divine. Plump like a pig, delicate like a fairy’s stool and sturdy like a baseball bat, I can’t find one without shrieking in delight. We have been known to hike miles over grueling terrain to our favorite bolete spot. Or sometimes you can find them in your neighbor’s yard.
For those who have really studied their stuff, October is also the prime time to find matsutakes, AKA pine mushrooms. Arora says they smell like a “provocative compromise between red hots and dirty socks.” This spicy, unique breed is particularly prized by the Japanese and the San Franciscans. Unfortunately pines also have the deadly legacy of being easily confused with the poisonous white amanita. I only have one friend with whom I trust enough to share a matsutake meal.
But in November we can have them all: chanterelles, boletes, pines, hedgehogs and lobsters. The weather can make them slimy and I’ve been caught in surprise showers but I don’t care. I must collect enough gold to last until next August. I didn’t move here for the mushrooms, but now that I’ve discovered them I don’t know how I could ever leave the area. Mushrooms have created a true Oregonian Ducque.
If It Could Happen To Bob…
Thursday the Thirteenth was a sad day in Bandon-by-the-Sea.
On that black November day the Policy Committee of the Oregon
Department of Public Safety and Training recommended Police Chief Bob
McBride’s certification be revoked.
His crime (for you non-locals or local
Rumplestiltkens) was committing five misdemeanor wildlife violations.
Oregon State Police devoted 15 months of their time to uncover
those. Bob had already been sentenced to a 36-month
bench probation, $3,145 worth of fines, 400 hours of community service
and banned from hunting for five years.
But apparently that isn’t enough.
The Policy Committee also deemed it necessary to take away the
man’s livelihood.
That’s the part that scares me. It’s not
that Bob made a mistake and should be punished. He
did and I think he should. It’s not that as a
police officer he should be held to a “higher standard” of the law than
the rest of us. I actually agree with that.
It’s certainly not that I’m a hunting
aficionado. Ask anyone who knows me, I won’t allow
a gun in my home. It’s not even that Bandon will
probably lose a great police chief if the recommendation is enacted.
I feel sad, not frightened, about that.
No, what worries me most is what does it
mean to the rest of us and our professions?
Bob is a bright and charming man with a
loyal and beautiful woman by his side. He has the
people skills and the wherewithal to pick up and start over; if anyone
can turn a midlife crisis into a challenge he can.
But what would the OSP find out about
you if they spent 15 months investigating? Maybe
you’re a doctor and refilled a prescription of a patient you hadn’t
seen in a year. Maybe you’re a lawyer and got a DUI
one night after a little too much celebrating. Maybe
you’re an accountant and let a few slippery deductions slide by.
Wrong doings and unethical? Yes.
Should we ignore? No. But, really, is it
worth fifteen months of your peers’ man-hours to investigate these
transgressions? Would your licensing board revoke
your certification to practice your chosen career because of your
misjudgment?
Wow, I don’t even want to think about
the answer to those questions.