We spent the day yesterday in Astoria, Oregon, with Steve. He’s doing counseling and some administrative work while teaching out there, and it looks like it might be a place where he spends some time.

Steve is doing well, even seems to be thriving. He has studied the history of the area for teaching purposes, and so was a good tour guide. He took us out to see an early twentieth century shipwreck, and then later to Fort Clatsop.

Clatsop was not at all what I expected. It was tiny – a small fort housing 34 men, one room for the two captains, and four each housing eight men. It’s a reconstruction based on notes- they haven’t found any remnants of the original. They are generally sure of the area, but not the precise location. It’s probably long been farmed under.

Three of our kids are out here in the Pacific Northwest – two daughters in Portland. Another was visiting while we were here, so it was almost a family reunion, missing only Annie, who is working in Billings. It’s beautiful country. We have thought now and then about moving out here, but realized that the rainy winters would get to us after a while.

I’ve been depoliticized while out here, hardly caring about writing here. I’ve got something going with Budge down below – maybe. He wants to set me straight on three things: tariffs, unions, and minimum wage. All are bad for workers, he says, and furthermore, he has the numbers to prove it.

I did mention that minimum wage workers have not lately commissioned any studies on what might be good for them, so we are pretty much stuck with the conservative economists and think tanks to determine how best to care for them. The thrust from that sector seems to be that low wages and no unions are the best salve for their wounds.

Who am I to argue?

I guess I’m never really depoliticized. But I have decompressed. We’re going into Portland today to shop. I looooooves me some shopping. For lunch we’re going to find a Whole Bowl – I looooooves me some of them them beans and rice. And we’re looking for a Nike factory outlet. I looooooves me some of that overpriced sweatshop stuff. But in the end, I am justified buying Nike shoes because I know that tariffs, minimum wages and unions only produce bad outcomes for working people.

From Dave Budge:

Mark, when are you going to answer the questions about tariffs, unions and minimum wages? That’s your run and hide m.o. I’ve asked you several times.

From me:

Bring it over to my place. We’ll have at it. I’ll set aside special space for you later today.

I’m not exactly sure what questions I am supposed to be answering, but I think it has something to do with tariffs, unions and minimum wages harming working people. I’ll wait.

Hiking on Thursday.

Click here

Click on the above link to be taken to a song called “Broadcast Blues”. The singers are anonymous.

Here’s why: Sue Wilson has made a movie of the same name, Broadcast Blues. I haven’t seen the film yet, as it has not been released, but it has had great success at various film festivals, and I’ve listened to her interviewed (click here, scroll down to October 11). As I understand it, the film is a riff on AM radio in America, a one-note tune if ever there were one, and dominated by right-wing giant Clear Channel.

Clear Channel owns 58 “blow torches” (50,000 watt stations) in the largest markets in the U.S., and over a thousand stations in total. It is the reason why the right wing dominates the airwaves. It is not popular demand. It is monopoly ownership.

Originally, before release, the theme song for Broadcast Blues was going to be Bruce Springsteen’s “Your Hometown”. Wilson had written permission to use the song. However, the Boss had released a new album and was embarking on his 2007-2008 Magic Tour, and backed out of the deal. His people told Wilson that if Bruce played in her movie, he would risk pissing off Clear Channel.

Clear Channel, in addition to controlling most radio stations in the country, also controls most concert venues. With that kind of power, they cannot resist flexing the political muscles (power corrupts …). Just as they shut down the Dixie Chicks for being politically impudent, so too are they powerful enough to shut down The Boss.

Of course, Springsteen is no profile in courage. I’ll never hear him again with the same ears. “Born in the USA” was a great song. Maybe The Boss is just a dog who’s been beat too much.

Wilson searched around for another song to replace Your Hometown, but could not find another artist willing to take on Clear Channel. In the end, she found several volunteers who were willing to record an original tune, but only anonymously.

A commenter calling himself “Lizard” at 4&20 Blackbirds put up the following, which is a quote taken from another place. Apparently it is a concept widely understood in economics – even Malthusians use it. But for this purpose, it is used to describe the dynamic between Democrats and Republicans in our faux-democratic system.

“The American political system, since at least 1968, has been operating like a ratchet, and both parties — Republicans and Democrats — play crucial, mutually reinforcing roles in its operation. The electoral ratchet permits movement only in the rightward direction. The Republican role is fairly clear; the Republicans apply the torque that rotates the thing rightward.”

“The Democrats’ role is a little less obvious. The Democrats are the pawl. They don’t resist the rightward movement — they let it happen — but whenever the rightward force slackens momentarily, for whatever reason, the Democrats click into place and keep the machine from rotating back to the left. Here’s how it works. In every election year, the Democrats come and tell us that the country has moved to the right, and so the Democratic Party has to move right too in the name of realism and electability. Gotta keep these right-wing madmen out of the White House, no matter what it takes.”

If you came to this website today because you like my inability to economize on words, you came to the wrong place. He nailed it.

“Big Swede”, a man who causes me no shortage of pain as he shoots his sling shot from across the room – remote and vaguely related reference here, a YouTube there, here a link, there a link, everywhere a link link – put up the following post at Electric City Weblog in a thread about OBama’s receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize:

Chinese Human Rights Activist Hu Jia – imprisoned for campaigning for human rights in the PRC, not as worthy as Barack Hussein Obama.

Wei Jingsheng, who spent 17 years in Chinese prisons for urging reforms of China’s communist system. — not as worthy as Barack Hussein Obama. (Not to mention the symbolic value of awarding a Chinese dissident on the 20th Anniversary of the Tianenmen Square Massacre.)

Greg Mortenson, founder of the Central Asia Institute has built nearly 80 schools, especially for girls, in remote areas of northern Pakistan and Afghanistan over the past 15 years – not as worthy as Barack Hussein Obama.

Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad, a philosophy professor in Jordan who risks his life by advocating interfaith dialogue between Jews and Muslims, also not as worthy as Barack Hussein Obama.

Afghan human rights activist Sima Samar. She currently leads the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and serves as the U.N. special envoy to Darfur and is apparently also not as worthy as Barack Hussein Obama.

Now I’m no fool, or at least not that big a fool. Swede would not be putting up salivating praise for these people had it not been an opportunity for him to savage Obama. But I like it nonetheless. It brings us closer together – Hu Jia, Wei Jingsheng, Greg Mortenson, Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad, and Sima Samar are indeed more worthy of recognition than the man brought to power in the U.S. by a pretty face and a slick ad campaign and who is carrying on its war-making activities.

Greg Mortenson is from Bozeman, MT, and is co-author of the book Three Cups of Tea, which recounts a K-2 mountain climbing expedition that led to near-tragedy. Separated from his group of climbers and exhausted, he was nursed back to by the villagers of Korphe, in Pakistan. Mortenson was charmed by their hospitality, and pledged to raise funds to build them a school.

As so often happens, this side trip became his life’s highway. So far he and his organization, the Central Asia Institute, have built 131 schools that focus on educating young girls.

We attended an event of his in Bozeman while we lived there, and a much larger event at Red Rocks Auditorium in nearby Morrison, Colorado last month. It’s an odd sort of event, as it is surely put together to raise money. But Mortenson is shy and retiring, and so allows his thirteen year old daughter, Amira, to do most of the talking. She’s a natural showman.

He does not ask for money – this ain’t no Billy Graham revival. He merely celebrates life and people. He Skyped in people now in school who got their start in his brick and mortar classrooms. It’s wonderful to see young people brought to life, their little lights afire with knowledge and ambition. Education will do that to a person.

If you want to send him a check … well, send him a check. He’ll use it wisely.

Mortenson is a truly humble and caring man. His work is ongoing. He’s done so much more to foster peace in this world than Barack Obama that the Nobel Peace Prize Committee ought to be disbanded and replaced with a group of humanitarians, people less drawn to political glitter and more to true people of peace, as listed by Swede above.

PS: Since it is Swede I am dealing with here, I cannot help but note that his “communist” China is now also “capitalist” China, and that the two walk hand-in-hand on the beach like young lovers. If you cannot explain the contradiction, perhaps you can internalize it? Cognitive dissonance does a body good.