It Rains in Oregon

The brilliant voters of Oregon re-elected the incumbent governor yesterday, and today he reminded them what a good job they did with their votes.

"It's been raining in Oregon for millennias [sic]," he said, when asked about the dire effects recent heavy rains and flooding have had on the state and its people. He went on to explain that as he remembers it, the Wilson River has gone up and down (he's a sharp one), and then blamed news networks for portraying the weather as dramatic. All this because he was asked to react to the fact that people's houses are being sawn in half by rivers, others are falling off eroded cliffs into the ocean (where visitors have also recently been swept out to sea), rivers have changed course, and highways have been washed away. I guess he doesn't see this as dramatic. He's right! It's shameful to act like that's news. The news networks should just shut up and say "Hey, it's Oregon. It rains."

Too bad he didn't voice this nonplussed attitude yesterday morning. But with people going to the polls with the mindset "I'm not very supportive of Kulongoski, but it's better than the other guy," maybe it wouldn't have even made a difference. "The other guy?" Clearly you're a fount of political wisdom, man. You can always recognize a keen voter as he who only knows the name of one candidate: the incumbent. But I guess if you live in a state where only 40% of the citizens vote anyway, you're lucky to read someone's "why I voted" quote at all. Generally you just get to read the sound of wind whistling, and that's really boring.

So cool, another four years with the guy who claims he's responsible for lottery funds going to education even though voters with memories as sharp as the Governor's should remember we voted for that ourselves (a good 8 years before this Governor took office). I guess that sort of allocation of responsibility is akin to assigning the news networks with the blame for people drowning on flooded roads.

Thank goodness I won't be here all that time. I'd hate to get swept away in all the rain, since apparently there's no pity for anyone silly enough to think someone could protect people or their homes from the rain and wild water in Oregon. I hope I don't get a cold, either.


Oh, and as an end note, I thought it was interesting that the people at the coast who are suffering their just desserts (according to Kulongoski) for not knowing that it rains in Oregon, the people whose homes are teetering on sandy cliffs, have tried in the past to get permission to shore up their cliffsides to protect their homes. They were told their homes were not in imminent danger, and therefore such measures would not be allowed. It's not until the property is actually falling that you can take measures to protect it. And if their homes, by some miracle, don't follow the backyards that have already collapsed into the sea? Once the lands has fallen and stopped falling, no more protective measures will be allowed---until it actively starts falling again.

That's logic!