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The INDEPENDENT, June 19, 2008
The
INDEPENDENT
Published on the first and third Thursdays of each month by
The Independent, LLC, 725 Bridge St., Vernonia, OR 97064.
Phone/Fax: 503-429-9410.
Publisher Clark McGaugh, clark@the-independent.net
Editor Rebecca McGaugh, rebecca@the-independent.net
Mentor Noni Andersen
Printed on recycled paper with vegetable based dyes
Opinion
Where did all the birds go?
Three years ago, in June, people enjoying Vernonia
Lake could see hundreds of Red-winged blackbirds,
and it was common to see both Blue and Green
Herons, along with a changing array of ducks. The
songs of the blackbirds would ring out from all around
the lake as you strolled along.
This year, there might be 30, maybe, Red-winged
blackbirds around the lake. Is this the result of some
natural dieback? Some natural catastrophe? No, it’s
the result of a man-made catastrophe. The first year
KUPL held their fishing derby at Vernonia Lake, they
had to work around the birds and find natural openings
in the reeds to fish from. Last year, it was decided by
the event committee in charge that there needed to be
more openings, more access for more people to be
able to fish during the KUPL fishing derby. The result
was that committee members and public works em-
ployees took weed-whackers to the reeds. Then, the
pumps ran night and day to bring the lake level higher.
The result was fewer blackbirds. The reason – black-
birds nest in the reeds, about a foot to a foot-and-a-half
above the water line. Last year, those weed-whackers
said they didn’t find any birds, just empty nests. Would
you hang out in a nest being shaken by a weed-whack-
er, let alone the noise those things make? Didn’t think
so. And, once the water level rises a foot, where does
that leave the nestlings? Right, under water.
It was pointed out to the city last year by a number of
people that Red-winged blackbirds are a protected
species under the Federal Migratory Bird Act. The re-
sponse, “oh, didn’t know that. So sorry, won’t happen
again.”
This year, it not only happened again, but happened
at a much greater level, and just when the birds were
nesting. The grass was cut down to the reeds beside
the lake, the reeds on the grass side have been cut
twice, the reeds near the already artificial openings
were cut further back and the water level was raised.
The result – only 30 or so blackbirds. They have
found the lake inhospitable for two years running, even
though they should be protected.
Particularly this year, with spring as cold as it has
been, nesting has been delayed and then decimated.
Will the blackbirds be allowed to nest at the lake
again? We hope so.
Out of My Mind…
by Noni Andersen
Fiscal (in)sanity was the topic of last month’s
column. In it, I related how the Democratic
House had passed a bill to raise taxes on “hedge
fund” managers and their ilk, and to use that rev-
enue to offset tax relief for less affluent taxpay-
ers. The White House rejected that idea, of
course. More explanation is needed, however.
In 2001, the Republicans “solved” the reces-
sion caused greatly by the dot.com-bust, with
huge tax breaks to the very rich, and by cutting
interest rates so American corporations could in-
vest in production.
In 2002-2006 they did invest, but not for job
creation. The low-cost money (1-percent to
banks) was used to offer easy-to-get mortgages
with initial rates that encouraged people to think
they could afford to borrow, and homeowners
with existing mortgages were enticed to refi-
nance. The financial wheeler-dealers then “bun-
dled” shaky mortgages with more valuable IOUs
and sold these bundles around the world.
In 2007-2008 financial institutions around the
world started discovering that billions (maybe tril-
lions) of the IOUs were essentially worthless.
Most of the administration-protected hedge
fund managers are in the economic top one-per-
cent (1%), some of them taking home more than
a billion dollars a year. The number of U.S bil-
lionaires increased from 186 in 2001 to 415 in
2008. In that same time span, their net worth in-
creased from $186 billion to about $19 trillion.
The salary of a full-time federal minimum-
wage earner in 2007 was $12,168.
So, individual mega-buck earners are doing
very well, but how about corporations? Some
numbers can put this in perspective:
Before taxes, corporate profits were $719.2
billion in 2001, $1,769.5 billion in 2008.
After taxes, corporate profits were $503.8 bil-
lion in 2001, $1,351.9 billion in 2008.
Pharmaceutical companies did even better,
with profits of about 18.5% of sales income,
compared to 3.1% for other top-500 companies.
Remember, Bush and company’s Medicare drug
benefit law prohibits Medicare from bargaining
for lower prices.
Bringing the numbers down to earth, where
most of us reside, let’s look at fossil fuels (aver-
ages used are national, not state):
Average price of a gallon of home heating oil
in 2001 was $1.40, in March 2008 was $3.39.
Average price of a gallon of gasoline in 2001
was $1.47, in March 2008 was $3.14.
Portion of our liquid fuels imported in 2001
was 52.75%, in 2008, it is 60.38%.
Exxon/Mobil profits in 2001 were $7.9 billion,
in 2008 it is $36.1 billion.
In his memoir The Age of Turbulence , Alan
Greenspan wrote “I am saddened that it is polit-
ically inconvenient to acknowledge what every-
one knows: The Iraq war is largely about oil.”
Does anyone still wonder why the administra-
tion fought so hard to prevent public knowledge
about who was on their Energy Task Force?
Sources: Congressional Budget Office, Center on
Budget & Policy Priorities, U.S. Dep’t of Labor, Stan-
dard & Poor, ourfuture.org, hightowerlowdown.org