The sham of the Initiative Process is that the rank in the gatherers of signatures are swelled by people needing a quick job, needing to tide themselves over from one job to another, who could care less about the Initiatves they are gathering signatures for.

The tell tale signs are there. I can not abide anyone who has a half dozen or so issues they are gathering signatures for. And the worst line I hear, again and again, is…

“Just to get it on the ballot”.

I have witnessed someone go through item after item on a clipboard, bluster out the title of the ballot initiative, get a skeptical and slightly confused look on the would be signer — to say “I don’t understand what this issue is all about”, and then slyly wax out “Just to get it on the ballot.” As though, once on the ballot, the person will take a long time to carefully read the language of the law, weigh the issue, and make an educated vote — because it is… on the ballot.

And I witnessed this scene: a signature gatherer asks for a signature on… I believe it was “Affordable health care”. The would-be-signer says “I already signed that one.” The gatherer asks “When?” The signer says “Two weeks ago.” As so happens that was May, this is June, and so he says “Sign this anyway. They don’t throw it against us if you get a repeat signature every out of the calendar month.”

This is a cynical calculation indeed.

If you’ve ever looked into signature gathering, you’ll get queasy on the process. A two-week term of service. Gather at least five signatures every day, and you will get paid a relatively decent amount. Then you’ll either be kept on or let go, depending on how far above this minimum you go.

The troubling consideration I have in my mind is that Oregon’s political reputation sort of hinges off of a couple of Initiative-brought laws that stub their middle finger out at the federal government. Doctor Assisted Suicide, most notably.

So what are you going to do? It’s done some good. But most of the initiatives we’ll get in November are going to suck eggs, and some of them will pass.

“The cops here are nice here. The cops in Texas are mean. That’s because this is a Union state. Texas is Bush Country.

The people in Oregon aren’t open. They’re all in their own little world. Texas is different — I say ‘hey!’ They say ‘hey’. Here, everyone just avoids you, hands in pocket, shoulders shrugged.

I think I’m going to become a male stripper, or a Jigalo. My name will be ‘Rusty Bones’. ‘Hey! My name is ‘Rusty Bones’. Chick-a-lick-lick boom cha!

I’m an anarchist. But I’m not like these other anarchists. They all form into an Anarchist Army, and when you do that, somebody ends up at the head of the Anarchist Army, and who’s this leader? A goddamned dictator! Supposed anarchy. I’m not like them. I even voted for Bush. I voted for Bush because he’s the best chance of completely destroying this country. I wish I could vote for him again for a third term. Actually the person I want most is Reagan. Reagan. Now there’s a guy who can destroy a nation!!”

I would suggest that his professed views make him not an anarchist but instead nihilist.

I don’t understand it. I watched a guy put a Sketchers shoe up on a fire hydrant, then crounch down, and using his cell phone take a photograph of the Sketchers Shoe on a fire hydrant. Somewhere there’s a phograph of the scene online? Or a whole slew of Sketchers shoes on fire hydrant photographs?

Never mind. That’s something that’s been jiggling in my mind for a couple weeks now. More political in nature are these notes left all over the city — unusual for these things, about a third of a page — saying

“Impeach Bush.
Vote Democratic.”

Surely you jest. Two things: this is not on the Democratic agenda. I’m not saying anything one way for or against such a notion, but even when Russ Feingold came out for a “Censure”, the Democrats avoided the notion like the plague. What’s weird is that the Democrats seem to be a bit dancy around the notion, Nancy Pelosi settling on the “Subpena power” jab, read the article in the New Yorker. Which you can read as either\ a sop for the most rabid “Impeach him” part of the constituency or a practical matter of fact “technically you can’t prejudge the case” tact.

Leaving aside that, I’ll grant you that if there is a Democratic Congress, there is a greater chance that President Bush could be impeached. Unless you believe that Dennis Hastert’s buns are bursting in a bigger bunch over William Jefferson’s office being raided (There’s a Constitutional Crisis you say, Hastert?). But how does this work from this location? I guess there is actually a state by state mode of Impeaching a President. That is, for all practical purposes, as slim as it seems, the better chance in the signs telling you to “Vote Democratic” to “Impeach Bush” than the re-election of Representatives Wu and Blumenauer. To put it simply: those are the two districts I see these posted to. Two safe Demcrats. Wu may theoretically be vulnerable sooner or later (though it seemed like he should have been last time, and yet he won by 20 points). A vote is meaningless in changing Congress. The signs do not compute.

I was riding the Max-line the other day, and I overheard a conversation between two relatively elderly, but not that old, women.

“It’s great that Spring has come, and we have such nice warm weather now.”
“Yes. But there’s one thing I don’t like about the Spring.”
“What’s that?”
“The Un-Clothed Women.”
“What’s that?”
“Un-Clothed Women.”
“Oh, well. You’ll get used to that.”
“I never do.”
The other woman walked off the Max on the next stop, leaving her to utter, more or less to the world at large “I believe in Modesty.”

I was very much tempted to interject somewhere in the conversation, from across the aisle, “Hey! It works for me!”

I witnessed the aggressive tv shlock journalism of Fox 12 News a few days ago.

The camera-person was carrying the camera, walking backward, as a shop-owner was running right at it, in outrage. The effect of the camera-work was pretty obviously to create hyper-dramatic “outrageous” vaguely chilling and claustophobic television footage.

The entire scene looked staged beyond belief. The shop-owner was storming outside her store, speed-walking to the street corner, where she pointed and made loud gestures at broken pieces of concrete.

It’s a Fox 12 Exclusive, I guess, following Meth Watch 2006: Watch for the story of — Portland’s Killer Street Pavement.

There’s a group of animal rights activists, PETA and “Animal Liberation” types, protesting in front of the Optometrist downtown, bloody signs in hand. My best guess on why they are in front of the Optometrist is that next door to the Optometrist is a place that sells furs.

I overhear this conversation. “Why are you doing this to me?”, regarding a sign with a mutilated cougar. “It makes me sad. I’d think it makes you sad too.”

Hour later, nobody is around. Except for a young woman dressed as a cow.

I had to do a double-take, but a double take does nothing for me in making sure I saw what I saw, as I was double-taking a moving target.

It was a white Ford pick-up. On the front window, written in soap were the words, “White Power.” I imagine the stickers on the back-window as being vaguely familiar symbols to the cause of Racism, but it’s easy to picture my mind going wild a bit due to believing that I saw the words “White Power” scribed into a pick-up truck.

I trust they were rolling through town to a “Tualatin Skins” meeting, and are now on their way back to their home to Klamath Falls.

Graffiti found on the floor of the “Police Monument” at Waterfront Park in Portland, Oregon:

(a little doodle of an alien in its flying saucer)

I am out of plutonium on
my way to Mars. That’s the
only reason I had to stop
on Earth. So now I must plan
the liberation of such
radioactivity. Then I’ll
finally deliver Jewsus to his
planet of
DE FEC TION So
Do rev- olu- tionizing
the con-cept of being
So TIL then START
SOME MOTHERFUCKIN CHANGE

Who and why, I do not know. The handwriting of the final few lines were / are pretty well rushed, suggesting the perpetrator was getting a bit paranoid at being caught.

There’s a KATU camera out by a shopping center — complete with the requisite Salvation Army bell rigner in front of the store– that I’m walking by — nevermind which one. I shuffle about, trying to avoid being shot by the camera. Paranoid? You bet! I can’t really figure out why KATU is shooting here, but figure they’re just trying to get some stock footage of the “Wacky Holiday Scene.”

Then I hear the words “Hello, Mr. Mayor.” Yep. There he is — Mr. Tom “Don’t call me Harry” Potter, our Communist Overlord of the city of Portland (replacement of our Fascist Overlord in Vera Katz.).

I toss my hand out, and shake his hand. For whatever reason, I say “I voted for the other guy,” then wonder why the hell I said that.

Harry Potter smiles and says, “Nobody’s perfect.”

I didn’t tell him that by “other guy” I meant Extremo the Clown, but never mind.

Graffiti spotted:

“Where is John Galt!?!”

The graffiti response:

“Gee, Ayn. I don’t know.”

I contemplate scribbling my own graffiti, something to the effect of “I hear he was killed in a train-wreck. Supposedly caused by bureaucratic incompetence, but really it was intentional homocide because Galt/Rand is a pompous ass.” I didn’t, because I’m not entirely clear on the going ons of Fountainhead.