So we thought plastic was on its way out? California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, New York, Oregon and Vermont have banned plastic bags. To encourage reusing bags, some areas require merchants to charge customers for paper sacks.
Oregon and California have also limited the use of plastic straws. Not so fast says the covid-19. Just as we’re getting used to bringing our own cloth bags to the grocery store, plastic manufacturers think they may have found their savior in the pandemic. The plastics industry is lobbying hard to overturn bans on single-use plastics. They argue that disposable plastics are the best option for safety and the general well-being of population during this crisis. (Plastic is “disposable” only in the sense that after one use it’s thrown away, out of sight until it turns up in the ocean or elsewhere.)
In the short term, this may be the way to go. In the long term, as John Maynard Keynes said, we’re all dead. But a plastic bag takes as long as a thousand years to decompose. At some point we’ll have to face up to that reality. And what to do with medical waste is another growing long-term problem.
What does the current occupant of the White House have in common with John Quincy Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison and George W. Bush? They all were elected president after having lost the popular vote. In the 2000 election, Al Gore received over a half-million more votes than Bush. In 2016, nearly three-million more votes were cast for Hillary Clinton than the winner. As we all know, the only votes that count are those cast by the Electoral College.
Fun fact: According to the Brookings Institute, the fewer-than-five-hundred counties that Clinton won nationwide combined to generate sixty-four percent of America’s economic activity in 2015. The more-than-twenty-six-hundred counties that Trump won combined to generate thirty-six percent of the country’s economic activity last year.
Gore lost the Electoral College vote when the Supreme Court stopped vote counting in Florida, giving the state’s decisive electoral votes to George W. Bush.
The appeal of seceding from the Union did not die at the end of the Civil War. (Note: the Confederacy lost.) Secession fantasies of leaving the U.S. to form a new country have morphed into schemes to form a new state — the “State of Jefferson” has been agitating for that since 1940 — or separating from one state and joining with another.
The latest is “Greater Idaho.” Denizens in the politically-conservative rural parts of Oregon are gathering petitions to remove themselves from the tyranny of the state’s Democrat-majority government and join with deep-red Idaho. Part of eastern Washington and northern California have joined eighteen Oregon counties in the effort. The proposed boundary for Oregon would be the northwest corner of the state: Portland to Eugene and from the Pacific coast to the east side of the Cascade mountains. Bend, apparently infested with Californians beyond redemption, would remain within Oregon, as would most of the people and economic activity.
The state of Washington suffers the same rural-urban resentment. Not long ago, aggrieved non-Seattle-area voters managed to get Initiative 976 on the ballot. If passed, it would cut funding for voter-approved transit projects in King County (Seattle). The irony is that King County taxpayers subsidize the rest of the state. A recent report documented that sixty-three cents of every tax dollar collected in King County is spent elsewhere. As a Seattle Times columnist put it, “The entire state is mooching off King County, not the other way around.”
On the Federal level, more tax money flows into red states than they pay; blue states pay more tax than comes back into their states. Possibly more lately since the recent tax-cut legislation included provisions inflicting pain on states whose voters preferred Hillary to the current occupant of the White House.
Which brings us to the Cascadia Independence Movement. Various groups propose secession from two countries, the United Staes and Canada, to form the Republic of Cascadia. The new nation, comprising British Columbia, Washington, Oregon and maybe northern California — possibly some of Idaho and Alberta — is based on the idea that as its own sovereign state this bioregion and economic sector would do better on its own. The eastern border might be somewhere between the Cascades and the Continental Divide.
The urban-rural, conservative-progressive, subsidizer-moocher, gun lover-weapons regulator dichotomies are not directly addressed in the various manifestos, though.
Coronavirus has upset the travel industry. Fear of disease has resulted in restrictions on travel into the United States. Guess what — already fewer foreign travelers were coming to the U.S.
Traveling around the world has been increasing… prior to pandemic angst. Nearly one-and-a-half-billion people traveled internationally in 2019, six-percent more than the year before. But almost two-percent-fewer people visited the U.S. The number of visitors from China is down more than five percent since the advent of trade wars. The Chinese government has also warned its citizens about American gun violence and robberies.
The ever-changing list of travel restrictions has made entering the U.S. more difficult for everyone. An attorney at an international law firm specializing in U.S. immigration put it thusly: “Travelers must be ready for increasingly-hostile questioning from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents about the nature of their travel and itinerary while in the U.S.” People entering the U.S. should expect to face “law enforcement” culture at the border. They should also be prepared to have their electronic devices and data on phones and laptops examined.
Business travelers particularly are avoiding trade shows, expos, conferences and in-person sales calls. Since the current occupant of the White House took office and issued travel restrictions, many have decided that the increased hassle and time required to enter the country are not worth it.
Trump/Putin lickspittle Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) said that instead of panic buying and clearing shelves at supermarkets, people should instead visit their neighborhood pub. “It’s a great time to just go out and go to a local restaurant,” according to Nunes. “Likely you can get in easily.”
“If we kill all the owls, for example, someday we’ll be up to our ribcages in mice.” – Republican Governor Tom McCall
Tom McCall Waterfront Park borders the Willamette River as it flows along downtown Portland. The park opened in 1978, replacing Harbor Drive, a semi-freeway that separated the city from the then severely-polluted river. Waterfront Park was given its name to honor Tom McCall who served two terms as Oregon’s governor, from 1967 to 1975. Gov. McCall’s enduring legacy is his advocacy of land-use planning and his anti-pollution leadership.
