gasoline prices, and other options

i wish there were more options for travel, such as amtrak service in eastern oregon, but nonetheless solutions are based on lifestyle. since gas costs $3.60 per gallon, i stretch for ways to not support oil companies. today, the price of oil was $105.56 per barrel. i find it sadly humorous watching gas at the pump prices increase with the price of oil, yet not seeing gas prices decrease with the price of oil. for instance, last week, when oil went under $100 per barrel, gas prices did not go down. kind of like taxes i guess, the price can only go up not down. i know the companies say it takes months before that gas makes it to your car. but if you follow the prices of crude oil long enough, you will find that to be hogwash.

like my other consumer feelings recently, i do not complain about gas prices. i don’t feel consumers have a right to complain. like other products, the price is only as high as people are willing to pay. if people refused to pay $3.60 per gallon, prices would go down. if people would refuse to pay over $1 per gallon, i am sure oil companies would find a way to get it to us for $1 per gallon. i cannot fault oil companies for pushing gas to $3.60 per gallon when they are making a killing. i would charge that much if i were in the business too. for my part, i do not buy gas any more than i have to. work is a 23 minute walk from my house. i know well because i have walked every day this week. as far as going out of town, i have taken the bus the last few times or car pooled. my expenses for gasoline this month have been pleasantly low.

though transportation options are few and far between, i can manage. last weekend, i went to la grande remarkably cheap thanks to the la grande arrow. i have taken greyhound, but it is the biggest hassle and rip-off. it crosses oregon only twice per day. and while it leaves directly from downtown, it is cost prohibitive. a one way trip to la grande (45 miles) is $22. even when i drive my 12 mpg beast of a car, the gas only costs me $16. it is not like greyhound is exactly hurting for business, either. the bus is nearly full everytime. they make a killing off those runs. and when i wrote to ask if there were any frequent commuter discounts they said no. well, forget greyhound. just a short jaunt out to the rez, i can catch the shuttle to la grande, for a whopping total of $2.

two dollars?!?! are they kidding? there were five people on the shuttle. the arrow surely loses money. most likely it is subsidised by tax money. in other words, the people who don’t mind paying $3.60 per gallon for gas, also don’t seem to mind paying more money via taxes so that i don’t have to pay for gas. tax money put to good use, imagine that, a real community service.

put this into a couple more laughable perspectives... five of us got a ride to la grande for less than half of what greyhound would have charged just one of us... while waiting to take the shuttle, i drank 2 microbrews, ate 10 chicken wings, left a tip, and then paid a shuttle fair. all together i spent $6 less than a greyhound ticket to the same destination and didn't have to wait in their freezing shed.

take into account the lessons of the oil companies and greyhound and the message seems to be, the more you charge and the less you provide the more people want to buy. i, for one, would rather not support senseless endeavors. guess i am not a typical consumer. it pays to search out options for sure though. if i can get away with not buying gasoline out in the middle of nowhere, anyone else can get away with it anywhere.

thought for the day

"all men are created equal." or let's say for modern day political correctness, "all creatures are created equal."

two things at work have come into make me take a deeper look on this issue.
during a training class, i was told many things that we hear attributed to a source have been altered such that they either mean something completely different or are not from the definitive source they are attributed to. such as people saying the bible says (fill in the blank). the instructor said, "history is a big hobby of mine. once i heard someone quote the bible, but what they were actually quoting was abraham lincoln." then today an end-times prophet was complaining about being treated fairly. to which i said "all people are equal." he said, "well, no. but all people should get an equal chance."

so, i have come to a fundamental flaw with the declaration of independence. the second paragraph starts with this sentence, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

now, i am thinking...people like to say everyone is equal as if it were gospel. does it ever say in the bible that all people are created eqaully? or have others mapped the ideal from the declaration or some other document? it is certainly obvious that not all people are equal. otherwise, we would be bored playing games. imagine playing rummy! we would all tie each other all the time. put me on a baseball field and i am no albert pujols. i am not even bob uecker. and looking at things like congenital disorders, it appears that people are not created equally at all. so why does the declaration say we are? and what else are we supposed to believe those founding crackpots that ever expected us to believe such crap?

sure, everyone deserves the same opportunity at life. but who is to say when people have blown that chance? i believe this is a personal case by case basis. the politics of who people encounter and how events shape people will naturally dictate when we've lost our chance and how many chances we get. that's hard to say knowing how many times i have been effed over, but everytime i am down people always say, "things happen for a reason." just accept things and endure, but the "equality" people get is really just priveledge when you stop and think about it.

what the government giveth, the government often taketh away. and that illusion of men being equal has been taken away early and often. so, do we have a "right" to life, liberty or happiness or any of the other crap we have been promised as well? those things are priveledges, we should be thankful when we get them but to expect them is a little naive. the bible doesn't say everyone is equal, and even if it does, that is only a promise when we get beyond.

putting the cart before the horse

i often get carried away with frivilous things, but i am trying my darndest to control it.

the thing which is probably my biggest pet peeve is how people will complain about things being the way they are even when things are the way they are because of the people that complain about them. in other words, in most cases, when there is something a person doesn't like about the world, it is in their control to change it. but, they don't. they accept it and only complain rhetorically.

for example, an basic phone bill costs $40-$50. should it cost that much? no. the major cell phone companies have re-couped investments years ago. there is no way my having a cell phone is costing at&t anything, yet they charge me out the wazzu once i send more than 200 texts in a month. consider this, i can use skype to do a video conference call anywhere in the world for free. yet i must pay a minimum of $42.99 per month just to have the freedom to make a simple phone call whenever i want.

so, why do cell phone bills cost so much? because people are willing to pay any price and addicted to talking on the phone and status symbols or whatever. the same thing goes for cable television. many people pay $50, $60. $70 or more per month for cable television. and then always complain about how much the cable bill is and how there is nothing worth watching on any of the 500 channels. i mean, it's really quite simple. if you don't agree with the system, don't support it. i get fed up with tv after about 5 minutes of watching it. so, just try and guess how much money i have spent on cable tv ever? try to guess how much i have spent on tv's in my life? yeah, the answer is $0. soon, i will have a solution to the phone issue and i will update here when i finally figure it out.

anyway, panda had me watching documentary's this week. they were all good for what they were, mostly as tools for awareness.
future of food
the yes men fix the world
the garbage warrior

among the three, the garbage warrior was most amazing.
but, the point rasied in each of them was that every single person on this planet is in control of what they spend their money on and who they support. i get sick of saying that i get sick of hearing people say that wal-mart puts the little guy out of business. i will continue to say it. wal-mart is not the problem. the people that shop at wal-mart create the problem. wal-mart only exists to the point that people allow it to. even more repulsive to me is, in small towns like mine, people say they have to shop at wal-mart because there is no where else. the same thing with gasoline prices. people complain endlessly. however, the problem only exists because the community at large got duped into making such things necessity by ever supporting them in the first place. and every "yeah, but..." answer to the problem just furthers to make it a reality. where there is a will there is always a way.
it will never make sense to me because i know that if i do not need to shop at wal-mart, there is really no absolute necessity about it for anyone. my town has three grocery stores: albertson's, safeway and wal-mart. i don't shop at any of them, but i don't starve to death. there will be a forthcoming blog about how i avoid shopping at chain stores, even though there are only chain stores in my town.

i know it will alienate people to say, but until each individual person becomes responsible and only buys what they need and from who they believe in, there is no credibility in complaining about "the system". problems are never the fault of a system. problems are the fault of the people who buy into the systems. if you, as the consumer, say no to the things you abhor, there will be nothing wrong with the system. don't accept things as they are. do something about it!

rabble rouser hour

my "rabble rouser hour" show airs saturdays 12pm-3pm pacific time on keol la grande. this show will continue in the saturday slot through out the month of march. dj panda will be there as time permits - cross your fingers. in la grande find us at 91.7 fm. in internet land, stream us live at http://cast.eou.edu

if you are tuning in on-line from a different time zone, here are some other time zone equivalents... enjoy the show! i can tell you tomorrow's show is gonna drive the winter out of eastern oregon.

2pm-5pm saturday in kansas city
3pm-6pm saturday in gainesville
8pm-11pm saturday in ireland
9pm-midnight saturday in vienna
5am-8am sunday morning in japan
6am-9am sunday on the gold coast

the wisconsin 14

if you haven't received this by email, i request your attention for a single minute to the moveon.org appeal to show support for the wisconsin workers who are having all of their rights stripped away. i belong to the same union they do and am pretty worried about the unions ability to do anything. the new governor of wisconsin has basically told the union to screw off. i wonder if he was voted in because of election promises to end the union and give slave labor conditions to the people that work for him? welcome to north africa, i guess. the people in libya right now have more of a voice than the people of wisconsin.

below is the text from the moveon.org website and the link to sign the petition.
thanks!


The Wisconsin 14 — the brave Democratic state senators who left the state to stop the Republican attacks on workers—are under increasing pressure to return to Wisconsin. And as soon as just one does, Republicans will be able to jam through their terrible bill.

Unfortunately, there have been credible reports over the last 24 hours that this is imminent.

These senators have been away from their homes and families for almost two weeks now, at great personal cost. It can't be easy. That's why we need to show them that they have the support of millions of progressives nationwide -- and that we're counting on them to stand strong.

A compiled statement of support with your individual comment will be presented to the Wisconsin 14.

http://pol.moveon.org/wisconsin14/?r_by=26372-18838076-5IBx7Gx&rc=confemail

political correctness: "retard"

use of the word “retard” has been a longstanding debate for at least 10 years. i have been pretty ambilavent about the argument, but today is the march 2 movement to pledge to not use the word. and since it is the lead story on the oregon dhs website, i get to think about it again.

i never use the word, but that’s mostly because i normally don’t speak negatively about other people. i wouldn’t be anymore inclined to refer to someone as “stupid” or an “idiot.” if someone merits such titles, i hardly find it worth my time to even think about them much less give them the courtesy of attention.

my first college degree was in lingusitics and i spent three years teaching english in the ultra “polite” country of Japan. consequently, i comtemplated endlessly about grammar and appropriate speech. my second degree being in communication disorders, i have spent a good amount of time working with people who have disabilities and trying to correct speech processes. needless to say, i have been bored to sleep over such debates of politically correct word usage.

the focus of this debate is that the word apparently makes fun of certain people with genetic or developmental disorders. this is said to be the case even when the person being called “retard(ed)” does not have such a disability. purely speaking, “retard” means to stunt growth. so if i refer to someone as “retarded,” i am saying that their growth has been stunted. that carries no implication to any other person except the target of the comment, especially since people born with disabilities have been referred to as something other than “retarded,” such as developmentally disabled, for many years. the word fell out of use as an official label for people with disabilities mostly because it was being used in negative contexts. people leading this debate probably don’t want to hear it, but if the word is taken out of the contextual use for people with disabilities, then it is up for grabs for other contexts and the argument doesn’t really apply.

further consideration should be given to natural language changes and that cultures cannot be guided into any one particular direction. cultures develop on their own accord and, quite often, completely the opposite of what is advised by people in control. if you tell someone to do one thing, more often than not they will do the opposite. it seems pretty futile for me to tell someone they can’t say “retard” when i know that will make them more likely to say it if only because they know it gets under my skin.

if, as suggested, people take the word retard directly from the disabled population and map that onto someone they want to laugh at, then they will do that no matter what word is used for the disabled population. so, when language has changed to the point that “retard” is not relevant to the disabled population, then the pesty person that wants to berate someone through comparison, would simply insult other people by calling them “developmentally disabled” or whatever other term is in current use.

to me, prescribing word usage is completely in vain. more worthwhile would be a holistic effort toward what these r-word people are trying to do, which is to raise awareness about misrepresented populations overall. then, people can have greater knowledge and sensitivity. that way they can better make comparisons to know who they may be implicating in an insult. the need is to put the focus on shifting to an entirely different mindset and public education. merely stopping people from saying one word will not accomplish that.

in accordance with the march 2 campaign, i can “pledge” to not use the word, but that isn’t really asking me anything. on the same token, i won’t really advocate what others should say or do either. (in fact it is kind of ironic that, in this field, we are consistently supposed to provide for personal choice, to let other people speak and think for themselves.) while i don’t support use of the “r-word,” i think the argument is silly. people that prescribe what words should be spoken in what context are not a whole lot better off than people who laugh at other people. they both are wasting their time, because honestly there are much more important things to think about and goals to work toward.

i understand the feel good nature of this campaign and sorry to be a devil’s advocate for a seemingly good cause, but the reality of the situation is that this movement will do nothing to change the dynamics of how the public at large sees and treats disabled and misrepresented people.

resolution update

after the last blog about my new year's resolution to only buy local products from local merchants, i have some baseline statistics for the month of february.

three categories: products, services and gasoline (+ other car related expenses). i put my car in its own category because of the sheer amount of driving i had to do between baker city, la grande and pendleton and because i sort of think of it as a service, though it is traditionally viewed as a product.

gasoline/oil/car maintenance were 24% of my $ spent overall. becasuse i don't need to drive nearly as much that should be a lot less $ this month.

services were 43.7% of my $ spent overall.
rent/phone/utilities were 73% of the services category and 34% of $ spent overall, as is probably normal.
other services as percentage of service category:
tips: 6.4%
mail: 0.6% (i need to write to more peeps)
r/t bus ticket to portland: 20%

products consisted of 32.3% of my $ spent overall.
58 products were purchased from local merchants (totaling 59.6% of $ spent)
71 products were purchased from chain stores (totaling 40.4% of $ spent)

local products: 18 items, 21.6% of $ spent
pnw products: 33 items, 18.3% of $ spent
wetern region products: 24 items, 17.5% of $ spent
other products: 21 items, 9.3% of $ spent
second hand products: 5 items, 1.8% of $ spent
drinking/eating out: 29 items, 31.6% of $ spent


local product = produced within 200 miles of purchase point
pnw product = produced further than 200 miles but within the pacific northwest (oregon, washington, idaho, northern california, british columbia, alberta)
western region = produced outside of the pacific northwest, but within western u.s. (montana, utah, colorado, arizona, nevada, southern california)

my goal of buying local was mostly hampered by the fact that i purchased mostly food. considering there are only three grocery stores in town (safeway, albertson’s, wal-mart – screw all of those places!). to some extent, i have to give in. soon the farmer’s market will be here... but still, i will try to do better. this is just a beginning.