Killing Squirrels in Lake Shastina

As we were walking the dogs the other day we passed a neighbor's house which has always had a remarkably neat yard. Never a pine needle or leaf on the lawn, all needles raked to bare dirt, etc.

So as we approach I noticed the owner standing in the yard in an odd pose: arms at his side with one slightly behind. He was staring upward, toward the top of a pine tree in the yard and the only thought that occured to me at the moment was why I could not see both of his hands if he was standing like that.

Then I saw the butt of a rifle in his right hand extending beyond his body, as if he was hiding it. A few paces later I heard a pop and a squirrel fell out of the tree and was flailing around on the ground. The man walked quickly over to the squirrel and put the rifle to its head and I heard another pop.

Evidently the squirrel was eating a pine cone and dropping the shards or whatever you call them, onto the lawn and damaging the man's idea of a clean lawn. I had seen the cone's 'leaves' for lack of the proper word scattered around the tree as we passed.

So it's okay to shoot them in our subdivision? I mean, it's odd enough that somebody would have to shoot a squirrel because it's making a 'mess'. But do I want bullets flying around the 'hood?

True, it may have been a pellet gun, or even a B-B gun. But they break windows and put out eyes too. Are there any CC&R's about this?

The Leap to Cheap

The graphic pretty much says it all. Consumer spending is a frightenly large part of our economy. When we slow our buying Wall Street shudders.

So the producers of consumer goods hire expert marketing firms to press every one of our buying buttons. It's scary how well these companies know us. What aromas, what slogans, what colors, what graphics seem to trigger our spending.

It's an art form, really. And mega-companies are born and die on consumer whims, the vagaries that are generated and nurtured by the marketing and advertising firms who plumb our psyches.

But there is a revolt afoot. It is fueled by the simple lack of money in our wallets and it is worrying the marketing people. Frugal is in and the tide seems to be going out. This is not good for marketing people and sadly, perhaps a wake-up call for our country as well.

Maybe we should be based on making things and creating ideas instead of building Hummers or importing Gucci purses. Maybe we should try to return to being exporters and not importers. You know, kind of like China is.

PS: sorry for the lapse in articles. We've had problems with Blogspot and are changing to a new format so this doesn't happen again.

The Brooklyn

This pub in Seattle is your classic oyster bar / steak house. The bank of ice behind the lady shows the days oyster, clam, and mussel specials and at any given time the Brooklyn offers a minimum of a dozen different species of oyster.

I realize many people either cannot or prefer not to think about oysters. They are after all best appreciated raw, on the half-shell. Accompanied by vinagrette, shaved horseradish, and sauce as pictured below. I think those are glasses of Chardonnay behind which is suggested but they may be candles, I'm not sure.

We ordered the appetizer mixed dozen and each type was listed in the menu with the same fruity descriptions they use with wine . . . "briney, with a buttery aftertaste" and so on. My favorite was the Rainier from Hood Canal. Large, salty, and fullsome.

Now I'm from the East Coast where they invented oysters. My dad taught me that TRUE oyster lovers do not even chew them, that would be gouche. The favorite in Boston was the Blue Point oyster and they are small, best enjoyed with a dip in butter. I still remember the glaze in Dad's eyes when he had a plate of them.

So, but, the Rainier would likely choke you it enjoyed in this manner and besides if I tried to claim oyster prescedence based on the ole blue blood clambake thing I might not have left the Brooklyn in one piece.

So anyway, since I cannot find a single oyster bar in Northern California except in Eureka on the coast, the Brooklyn is a fond memory that I shall cherish for some time.

"Short" Sale __ The Ultimate Oxymoron

We are on the verge of closing a short sale escrow and how they came up with this term is a wonder. I realize it technically means that the bank agrees to accept less than the seller owes, that's fine. But "short" certainly does not mean short "time".

For example take our short sale from hell. We opened the escrow in October last year. We have been going round and round with them, let's call them bank X, ever since. In another week that will make 8 months.

First it was the asset management company that X hired to clean out these problem mortgages. That experience was agony. Our 'rep' was a bill collector. He harangued, belittled, yelled, and threatened just as if we had defaulted on a car payment. For weeks on end something extra had to be performed before they would agree to close ___ some new form, a "missing" doc (which had been sent three or four times), a new rule the bank had implemented. Everything was our fault, or the buyer, or the seller, or the buyers agent. The asset management rep never erred. This went on for months.

Finally, I gave up screaming at him and called bank X directly.

Despite the encouraging sign of actually speaking to a pleasant human being this did not turn out well. Each person who answered was apparently transferred the next day to a different desk because not only were no calls returned but "that person no longer works here" and "no, I do not know where he/she is now". It even got to the point where, if I got demanding, the person would give out a phone number that when dialed, yielded "we're sorry, the number you dialed is no longer in service."

At the last, just this week, I finally landed a "team leader" at bank X who assured us she had not only the power but the desire to wrap this up. When I asked for her phone number (my caller ID showed 972-526-0000) she explained she was training people and had no assigned desk or phone. And when I called the main number nobody knew where she was or how to leave a message. I did eventually have someone else call us to say that she was out on vacation and that he would be happy to finish what she had begun. Unfortunately however he had reviewed the file and discovered many and several errors in it that prevented him from signing off on it. The entire deal would have to be done over again from the top down.

This is a dark, black hole. Living things get sucked into this and are not seen again, at least in their normal, healthy state of mind. We in the business have heard horror stories about short sales and now we are come to believe them. My hope is that is was just this particular bank in our case. That other banks are organized and actually motivated to sell a home that is in distress.

There is no explanation I can offer to explain why a bank or asset company would intentionally stall and prevaricate as they both did with us. I can imagine the asset rep being on commission and trying to glean every nickle out of the deal but why purposefully delay every single step? It did indeed seem premeditated and to the detriment of every one ___ the sellers, the buyers, the agents, even the bank. I keep seeing our billions in bailout money floating in and out of their windows and wondering why they can be training and no one is learning anything.

Day Two. Of Two.

We said goodbye to our son along with 50 or more of his friends on Thursday and now it is done. Some of his ashes will go under the flowering crabapple tree that we planted in our yard in his memory and we will enjoy looking at that for a long, long time.

Sympathy cards are coming in the mail and we are touched. People from all over are taking the trouble to say how sorry they are. Some never even knew Pete but their tenderness and caring warms us.

I still cry a little, like when I write stuff like this, and I don't trust my voice right now. He was such a happy part of our lives, especially when he was at the top of his game. He was a natural __ smooth, conversational, always ready with a good joke. His smile in fact is one of the great memories we and others have of him.

Sally and I feel transformed. Each day feels different now. This may sound stupid but even the colors and smells are new. The "pressing" stuff doesn't seem nearly as urgent somehow and the little beauties seem much more noticeable. We heard from several parents during this experience who had also lost a child and now we feel close to them. There simply does not seem to be anything as sad.

Signing off on this now. He would want us to go on and love the life we have left.

So typical of him.

Writing an Epitaph for a Son

Sometimes parents lose a child . . . war, auto accident, drugs. I don't know if it matters how but if they leave suddenly or violently it simply feels wrong for a child to die at all. Unjust somehow, because parents like everybody else, age and die in their time. It's the natural course of things. But not before our kids. THEY still have years left. Adventures to have, loves to cherish, children to treasure.

Sally's mom for example is 100 years old and needs to die. She has lived a full and exciting life outlasting two husbands and one of her own children yet she lingers on, no longer in command of her body or her mind. If she actually realized the quality of her life right now she would be embarrased and sad, but the dementia and senility prevent that and so she just goes on living because she has no choice.

But we lost our son last week and like all parents who suffer this, we are changed forever by the sudden loss. Pete was 48 years old and had battled depression for the last two or three years (like his wife Pamela we didn't spot it at first, it took time to reveal itself). Before, Pete had a productive and exciting 16 year sales career and he was on top of the world . . . traveling to trade shows, going to high-end training classes in far-away places, golfing with business associates, and of course, fishing.

Pete loved to fish. He even owed a Bayliner at one point but even near the end of his sales career he would go out on Lake Siskiyou almost every day after work. He would bring fresh trout or bass home and he was a master at the barbeque, his specialty being brined chicken or turkey.

But then an old neck injury raised up from his past and serious pain became a part of Pete's daily life. At the same time pressures from new work responsibilities suddenly grew hard to the point where his work career began to turn from fulfilling and challenging to overwhelming and impossible. That's when his emotional health began sliding downhill. He grew distant and troubled, often missing family events and showing increased signs of unhappiness. And his physical health deteriorated at the same time . . . the neck pain grew steadily harder to endure, he was diagnosed with mild emphysema, and even contracted MRSA.

The demons in his mind created unbearable anxiety and fear to the point where he became a danger to himself and he went three times to the mental health floor at Rogue Valley Medical Center. Each was a frantic drive to Medford which probably saved his life at the time. Electro-shock treatments, psychotropic drugs, intense psychiatric therapy, even acupuncture. He tried them all.

I honestly do not believe that the system failed Pete, though many think that when it comes to a loved one who did not respond to treatment. The doctors did what they could but the fact is that medical science still cannot define the true causes of depression and anxiety disorder and therefore they are limited in how it can be treated.

In the end nothing worked. None of the anti-depressants, the therapy, the family support. It now seems inevitable but none of us wanted to admit that possibility. How could we? He was our son.

But he did. He left a note asking our forgiveness and explaining that he just could not continue the suffering anymore.

If you knew Pete or share a loss like this you are warmly invited to a celebration of his life beginning at 12 noon Thursday May 20 at our home at 5225 Muskrat Road in Lake Shastina.

It's Adding Up

After several sessions with the evening news it seems the following conclusion is inescapable: business in this country has gotten big enough to control our government. Automobile, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, insurance, mining, banking . . . they all have grown so massive that they can influence and direct the governments (not just the Fed but state and regional, too) whom we elected to protect us.

What else can explain why governmental bailouts seem to disappear into thin air and the consumer on Main Street who uses a company's product (car, food, drugs, mortgage) sees absolutely no change in his or her plight? The phrase "corporate arrogance" was coined to fit times like these, when company giants pretty much write the rules they operate by. Their Golden Rule is to maximize their net profits.

Many of the watchdog agencies that were created to protect our public health and safety are staffed and led by people retired from the same banking, agricultural, and pharmaceutical industries they are charged with regulating. Talk about conflict of interest.

Which is how a coal mine can still be operating with 122 safety violations this year alone. And why a car company can continue in business after hiding safety defects.

What's to be done?

Be Advised

Actually, pleading (the search word I used to find this image on Google) does not apply here. The topic I'm trying to address is how to avoid a nervous breakdown when trying to buy an REO or short sale home. Begging does not work in this environment. Hopless submissiveness is better but I couldn't find a picture of that.

The problem is that the pricing on these homes is so low that buyers become much more compliant and far less demanding than in a normal purchase where the buyer is dealing with a real person who may actually live in the home. It's the idea that there probably are other buyers lined up for this bargain and if you don't agree to the seller's demands and way of doing business the seller will just drop you and go on to the next buyer.

For example the seller bank chooses the escrow company. To most buyers, this seems innocent enough but it ends up costing you the buyer not only extra time but more money as well. Buyers have the right to choose their own and normally it is a local one but these big banks are powerful and when you try to exercise that right and keep the escrow local they just refuse and threaten to go on to the next buyer. Don't quote me on this but most of us out here in real estate land suspect collusion and so do the lawyers so a law got passed requiring seller banks to provide a form stating that you have this right. All they had to do was to take a small step sideways (offering to pay the title insurance) and it bypasses the law very neatly.

So here you come, the thirsty buyer looking for a real deal. The price is fantastic so what do the terms matter? Here is where the rubber meets the road. Suddenly a 30 day escrow becomes a six month nightmare. Oops, the closing costs are more than expected (most of these banks won't even SIGN a purchase offer, they will only sign when the deal is in escrow . . . way too late to ask questions.)

So, beware. Expect much more paperwork. More delays. More games. There is a price for the steal you thought you had.

Out of Control

Like many Americans we applied for a modification to our home mortage. We originally had Countrywide but you know what happened to them, and the guy with all the gold chain and the tan who is basking somewhere warm on his multi-million dollar golden parachute. So B of A now holds our mortage and since we have a 7% loan we thought why not ask for a modification. Rates are down and we are hearing how all the banks are trying to help the struggling homeowner.

So we asked. Last September. Today we got a packet requiring everything but our DNA. Due by April 15. We applied six months ago and now have 3 weeks to comply. But wait, it gets better __ the next days mail brings an "escrow account notice" from the same friendly people in B of A's load modification department.

We did not have an escrow or impound account with our mortgage. Lenders sometimes require one (if you made a small down payment for example) so that the property taxes and home insurance bills can be taken car of by the bank in order that the lender is protected from liens on the home if these bills are not paid by the homeowner. Thus for the borrower who has an escrow account attached to his home loan, taxes and insurance are added onto the monthly mortgage payment.

B of A had apparently decided that by the mere act of asking for a loan modification, we were a bad credit risk and without telling us, created an escrow account all on their own. This sentence was buried in the notice: "BAC Home Loans Servicing, LP is required by law to inform you that this communication if from a debt collector." Huh? A collection agency is after us? Where did B of A go all of a sudden? No phone number is shown and the mailing address in Los Angeles is appended with "Remittance Processing" so don't bother writing a complaint to that post office box.

By asking for a better interest rate in other words that would lower our monthly payment, our mortgage bill will now be $300+ more each month until or unless they grant that lower rate and there is no assurance they will. Or that they will even respond before Christmas. And, if we did agree to all this and paid the $300 each month, can you imagine what it would take to get it refunded and back to us paying our own property taxes and insurance? Would we be alive to see it?

Big companies apparently get to make their own rules. Big drug makers, big health insurance conglomerates, big banks wield so much clout in our government that the rule of law doesn't mean much to them anymore. Last night on the evening news we learn that 16 million Americans are behind on their mortgages but only 168,000 have been given loan modifications to help them stay in their homes. If I remember right, the law requiring lenders to offer help has been on the books since last fall and now, six months later only 1% of those who need the help got it. This really sits well on top of that visual image of the lady who is the CEO of one of the major banks who answered a Congressman's question that her salary was $7 million.

We Need Some Carpenters

When he was trying to fix our health system LBJ once said that any jackass can kick down a barn but it takes carpenters to build one. Now here we are again, braying and kicking and no progress made. Party politics is to blame, the elected officials having long since lost sight of the ball . . . being responsible to those who voted for them.

The news reported that the machine of this country is the middle class ___ the small business owner, the factory worker, the office clerk ___ and that while their income had risen 20% over the past 10 years health insurance had gone up 133%. Housing costs, food, fuel, and a bunch of other necessities had also risen far more than income. The engine that drives our economy, people like you and me, is sinking.

AARP Editor Jim Toedtman remarked that "for today's legislators, short-term pain for future gain is a non-starter." He gives three reasons:

1. it's election year and all 435 House seats and 33 in the Senate are up for grabs. Everybody is about getting re-elected, not fixing the issues we all face.

2. polital payback; both parties are carrying grudges from when the other one held the majority. All this while US soldiers in Afganistan, Pakistan, and Iraq are giving up their lives; 14 million people need jobs, and 30 million Americans lack adequate health insurance.

3. special interest money; the big spenders are the health insurance industry, trial lawyers, and the food and beverage industry. These guys killed legislation which would have required employer-provided health insurance, limits on medical malpractice lawsuits, and a 3 cent per bottle tax on soft drinks to combat the national obesity crisis. Respectively.

Toedtman's bottom line: it's the house of politics that needs rebuilding. Bring on the carpenters, there's lots to do.

Food, Inc. ___ the movie

We rented this DVD from Netflix and it was an eye-popper. Engineering crops and animals which are processed in food "factories" according to the multi-national companies who control the market, feeds the world. "I've yet to hear why it's bad that we can raise more (chickens, beef, corn, etc.) faster, using less land, and do it cheaper" one spokesman said. As one farmer observed "If I can sell a hen in 47 days instead of 3 months it's more money in my pocket. That's a no-brainer."

Sounds really teriffic, like science has solved global population pressures on our food supply.

To accomplish this massive assembly line production however, requires centralized planning and control. Heavy and pervasive control. Cargill and a half dozen multi-nats own or control 80% of our farmland and the huge fast food chains are their biggest customer by a long stretch. Which is why we grow so much corn. The list of foods that contain corn or fructose is virtually the entire menu for all burger joints.

The fed has subsidized commodity crops (those that can be stored like corn & wheat) since the Depression, a fact that almost invented fast food. When you can buy a cheeseburger for less than a head of broccoli what does a budget dictate? The current epidemic of diabetes and overweight people in this country is directly related to the fact that food high in calories, salt, and fat is cheaper to buy and faster to get than fresh foods that cost more and take precious time to prepare but are better for your health.

The family farm has been on the skids for decades while this centralization was realizing its potential. Despite the recent interest in organic veggies, free-range chicken, and grass-fed beef, most Americans (and the entire world's poor) cannot afford this kind of healthy food and are forced to consume the unhealthy stuff churned out by these mega-farms.

It can get very unhealthy, too. There have been several e-coli outbreaks which have caused widespread hospitalizations and even deaths. So strong is the meat industry's grip on the federal regulators however that the FDA was stopped in court __ that's right, they were sued __ from shutting down meat plants with records of repeated contamination problems. One victim's family campaigned to overthrow this ruling with a law (Kevin's Law, after her dead six year old) which has been stalled by the meat industry lobby for almost a decade after the child's death from e-coli poisoning.

Tyson is one of the big four meat giants and they control poultry farmers with contracts that dictate how the hens are raised (huge sheds with no light which makes them more docile). If a farmer tries to open the sheds to the sunlight his contract is cancelled. Tyson threatened all the farmers visited by the film crew with this consequence if they allowed the cameramen inside the sheds.

The FDA is charged with regulating our food supply for our public health but many of its leaders come from the industries it is supposed to govern. The classic fox guarding the hen house story. And so strong is the agricultural lobby there is little hope this will change.

Instead the producers suggest, it can change from the bottom up, pointing to what happened to the tobacco giants who wielded the same power. Enough doctors and public health advocates pestered Congress long enough to effect change. So in this instance the producers hope that the general public will get educated about what damage the factory foods are doing to our health and start buying the grass-fed, free-range, and organic alternates. If enough of us do this over time while also avoiding fast food, WE become the major consumers, not the golden arches.

This means reading labels, using farmers markets, buying meat and veggies that are grown locally not shipped in from Iowa. Pay a little more for fresh and grass-fed meats (corn-fed beef was hundreds of times more likely to contain e-coli) and protect your family's health.

Note; I should have taken notes but the story was too good to pause. There is much more to learn from it and it connects very well with Michael Pollan's (very short) paperback, Food Rules. And by the way we are not vegan or food purists in any way. Although we have a big garden and bought a (open range) beef half we still buy and eat pizza, chicken pot pie, and sometimes even visit the local Burger King.

Job Description for a Congressperson

In a Barbara Walters interview yesterday President Obama said he would rather have an effective single term than hope for two mediocre terms in office. He went on to say that many politicians feel their job description is to get re-elected and spend correspondingly less time on the business at hand.

We seem to be in the age of professional politicians now, men and women whose "job" is to keep their job rather than to represent the electorate who put them there. I am no student of political science which I consider to be an oxymoron anyway, but I thought representative government was supposed to reflect the wishes of the people.

Yet the founding fathers were all wealthy and educated, not farmers who volunteered a month a year to serve in Congress as some idealists dreamed. How could they? Most colonists had no education at all, not to mention the time and broadness of mind to dream up a form of government and write a constitution.

So how can we have "representatives" who truly do what the word means? In the pure sense a congressperson from Georgia would oppose taxing tobacco for example, despite worldwide evidence that tobacco use is harmful. He is after all, representing his constituency ___ the voters who elected him. This apparently is where we get all the pork in the current health reform bill (and most legislation).

I applaud Obama for saying what he did. His candor is the biggest reason I voted for him. FDR was in a similar situation and faced similar challenges. Many of his programs didn't work either, but in both cases they tried. They acted. And without a proactive leader I'm not sure that our economy would not have slid further into trouble.

The main thing I would like to hope for at this point I think, is to quit the party bickering and get down to business. Address the issues, not the electibility. Stop voting in party blocks and get back to representing Main Street. We were doing that before, weren't we?

Apples and Oranges

Sally didn't like this title but I did because it comes in two layers. When people say you can't compare two things because they are different, like apples and oranges. But you also remember scenes from the Great Depression like this one that show unemployed people selling apples. And you see them again today, in The Other Great Depression, selling sacks of oranges from their vans and trucks.
Same suffering, different fruit.

Auto Dealerships vs Joe's Garage

If any reader has an opinion on this I'd like to hear it. The question is this: should you take your car to an OEM dealer or use a generic repair shop? There must be good reasons for each but we own a Hyundai and there is no dealer this side of Medford so for us anyway the question is very relevant.

Despite assertions to the contrary I have trouble imagining a small shop that works on all makes and models having factory training for my car. In fact, cars seem to be getting impossibly complex and it seems almost necessary to specialize in a brand. Perhaps independent shops can do better with older models rather than new? After all even I could change the spark plugs on a 235 Chevy in-line 6 but when I need to change them on my Hyundai it will cost $128. Good grief I told the guy but he said that on todays cars you have to remove most everything on top of the engine just to get to them. The truth is I can look into my engine compartment and I can't even SEE the spark plugs.

And then there is the issue of parts. We've had regular oil changes done by local shops but even that simple job had a problem. Seems the OEM oil filter comes with two "O" rings and either was installed wrong or they used an after-market filter that only came with one "O" ring. Not a serious problem, just an irritating drip. But it wasn't until we took it to the Hyundai dealer in Medford that we learned why.

There is of course a cost difference, too. Our latest service, the 30,000 mile one, caught my breath at $458. Especially when I learned that a local shop could have done it for about half. But would it be the same, do you think? Would they get the wrong oil filter, or miss checking a sensor, or not have the manual or software for the service thereby making their version of it priced about right?

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for keeping business in town. And if I had a Ford or Chevy or Dodge I wouldn't be writing this. So back to the top, is there a difference?

100% Chance of Rain

Don't you love it? "100% CHANCE"?? I mean, 100% is a done deal isn't it? THERE WILL BE RAIN. This is now on my favorite oxymoron list, right up there with political decency, civil war, and all that.

But speaking of weather, there is a great weather website that has no ads, it's the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration and the adress is www.wrh.noaa.gov. You can put in any location but you can also bookmark our area so that when you want a week's forecast, you get it right away. There is probably a way to put this on your desktop too, but I haven't got that far yet.

There are a great many features in this site, such as forecast discussion which is the meteorologist's narrative of what is coming our way. The text has special terms in boldface which means you can click on them and get a definition. "Trough" for example means an elongated low pressure area not associated with a circulating low pressure system which typically brings a "front", another definition.

We find this site particularly helpful with winter coming on because we can enter a destination or waypoint and see what we're getting into. Then we cross-check www.dot.ca.gov/dist2 which is Siskiyou County to get the Cal Trans road conditions.

This site gives not only chain requirements but you can also view the roadway from their remote cameras which is very helpful if you are headed to Medford and going over the Siskiyous because there is a camera at Hilt and one at the summit.

Of course all of us in Lake Shastina also benefit from "The Wall". This is an orographic (look that one up) 'curtain' which forms at the upper end of the Sacramento River canyon roughly between Mt. Shasta and Weed. I checked the precip records once and this is how I recall them: Dunsmuir had 54+ inches, Mt. Shasta 36", Weed 26, and Shastina 16. The moisture fell to the ground as it rose up the canyon.

As residents of the Shasta Valley know, one can clearly see a weather wall to our south when a storm is in progress . . . it may be raining or snowing like crazy in Weed and points south while we might experience wind and partly cloudy skies.

This is one of the biggest reasons we moved here. After 33+ years in Mt. Shasta we got REAL tired of drifted snow so deep we could not even get to work some days. We found the almost-snowless conditions of Lake Shastina particularly appealing after shoveling our roof in 2001 for the third consecutive year.

So yes, we had a 50-year snow storm a couple years ago of a foot or so but I'll take the wind any day.

Cash for Clunkers or Money Out the Window?

This old wreck is what I thought they meant with this car program so it was a surprise when my friend Ted who works at a local automobile dealership described some of the vehicles they were taking in. You see he knows that I am waiting for the economy to get better so I can get a pickup truck. We used to have one, back when gas was reasonable and real estate was better. But like many folks we downsized and I'm still impatient that I can't get up into the woods and find those airplane wrecks.

Ted was saying that really well-cared for trucks and cars were turning up. He described one gorgeous-sounding 4x4 Ranger which was unsettling because it was so close to what I'm hoping to buy someday. I guess it's gas mileage was bad enough to earn $3,500 for the owner under the program towards a newer truck. It's good looks and excellent mechanical condition did not matter, which is bad enough.

But then he explained that they destroy the engine by pouring some super-bad stuff into the crankcase and then running the engine until it siezes up and thereby ruins itself, rendering the vehicle worthless. It's VIN number can never be used again which apparently is the point of the whole thing . . . delete the guzzlers and sell hybrids thus creating automotive jobs and stimulating consumer spending.

But good grief, and this is the old yankee in me, why pay me to destroy something that works just fine?!? Take the rusted Olds that smokes and gets 5 miles per gallon sure, but a nine year-old truck that's working just fine? Who thought up this dumb plan?

Readers, your input is welcome. Surely I'm missing the point here.

St. Kilda

St. Kilda is a group of rocky islands west of Scotland in the Outer Hebrides, the westernmost part of the British Isles. The main one is Hirta and this is a photo of Village Bay where the small population lived. The island has been inhabited since about 2000 BC. Vikings may have settled there later although not permanently.

The island group is on the receiving end of the North Atlantic weather systems which makes landing on the islands dangerous, especially in winter. The highest recorded wind speed (198 mph) in Britan was recorded here. The only visitors were trawlermen seeking refuge from storms in this small bay. Life was primitive to say the least and the people were subsistence farmers / hunters for centuries in near total isolation from the outside world. None could read or write and the only spoken language was Gaelic. Most, adults and children, were barefoot and hygiene was poor.

The isolation defines this story. The people were crofters for the past 600 years, paying rent to MacLeod of MacLeod, the laird (chief) of the Scottish clan that owned the islands. They harvested the abundant nesting sea birds for their feathers and oil which they traded to the owner for the rent he charged them. The meat they salted for eating during winter when boats could not land to bring supplies.

This went on for generations. The small families all lived in one tiny area of the gale-blown isle (Hirta) called Village Bay. With a population never more than 200 souls everyone knew everyone else and they depended on eachother almost to the extent of being a single organism.

Then religion arrived. In the late 1600's Scotland was in the throes of a religious upheaval. Fundamental protestantism spread to Hirta and was embraced to the extent that productivity suffered. Subsistence living leaves no room for days off work but church services changed that and life became even harder. To make up for the hours lost in church, families worked into the early morning hours plucking the birds and preparing the oil before retiring. The stone hut in the foreground of the photo is a "cleit", the sod-roofed shelter St. Kildans used to dry the turf they used for fires and to dry the bird meat they used for food.

Then came the tourists. Brits by now had heard about the 'primitives' on this forgotten isle and they became curiosities. Soon the islanders were selling blown puffin eggs and the knitting they did during the dark winter months.

Enter money.

The islanders had for generations depended on eacth other. Every morning for example the men would meet in the street and decide what to do that day. (They were a talkative folk and the meeting sometimes lasted all day, with no action coming from it at all). There was no "boss", pure democracy ruled.

The seabird slaughter was always shared .... the elderly who could not climb the cliffs to catch the birds still got an equal share. Feathers and oil were for barter, to pay the annual rent to the owner of the isle.

But the population (rarely over 150) began to decline and reached a critical mass when there were not enough young men to harvest the birds. More and more the young men were supporting the older parents and some began to leave in search of a better life. As a result, fewer children were born each year and tetanus killed many. Working age men died too on the cliffs and from the boats, and the elderly and infirm suffered even more.

So in August of 1930 the Scottish government evacuated the entire village to the mainland where, unused to working for money, unaccustomed to living apart in different villages (with the man gone all day), and surrounded by English, not Gaelic-speaking strangers, the 36 survivors from Hirta struggled to make sense of it all.

Their (government) homes were better than the "black houses" on Hirta certainly. For the first time St. Kildans had running water, toilets, electricity, and dependable heat. But much of this went unappreciated by the islanders so drear was their longing for the simple island life.

All efforts before the evacuation to enable them to survive proved fruitless due to the intransient attitudes subsistence living had created. For example the little farming that was done was communal. Each family had several 3 by 25 foot strips of land to cultivate. Not very efficient in the unforgiving climate and soil conditions of Hirta, Stac Lee, and the other rocky prominences.

Even the Soay sheep, wild since time immemorial were "herded" by dogs who had their teeth filed or pulled to prevent damage when they finally grabbed their prey. Many sheep simply jumped off the cliffs to avoid brutal capture. Yet, when evacuation loomed most owners drowned their dogs rather than have them put to sleep humanely such was their limited willingness to accept new things. According to Tom Steel author of "The Life and Death of St. Kilda" (and producer of the BBC documentary "A Far Better Place"), this parochial mentality may explain the islander's sudden willingness to take the strict religion of the time so much to heart.

But cragsmen though they were, reality won out. Feathers became obsolete when cotton took over pillows. Gannet oil lost out to petroleum. Subsistance died and a money economy became the way of the world. A few McDonalds and Gilleses lived on but when this book was published (1988), most native St. Kildans were gone.

Google it. There is a big heart-felt story here.

Composition__A Lost Art?

Had an eye-opening talk with a buyer who is a professor at COS, a Ph.D. in fact. He has been here since '01 and got a rude awakening about educational standards when he started. He had a standard 15 question exam with ten of the fifteen questions being of the essay or critical thinking type.

"We don't do that here" he reports being told. "You have to do multiple choice or true false questions." "Why?" he asks. "Because we are open enrollment and since we can't reject applicants and since they can't write a complete sentence, we must adapt to current conditons."

Well, when I went to school composition was important. Being able to express yourself in writing sort of equalled whether or not you could think clearly. I attended the University of California in Santa Barbara and Berkeley, and so did Sally. In fact I followed her there. But I digress.

All the classes were huge; 2 or 3 hundred of us listened (and took copious notes) to famous people like Edward Teller (H bomb) and Eugene Burdick who wrote (The Ugly American). And then we took 3 or 4 hour long passing exams which were COMPLETELY essay form in the famous Blue Books.

These were 32 page lined composition booklets that you had to buy and bring to the tests to write your answers in and give to the professor. They were what, maybe a nickel? But the pressure ! You felt like you had to fill the darned thing up to pass.

So you wrote and you wrote and hoped it made sense enough to earn a B or better. The point isn't that it was in penmanship, a word not often used now, but that we were educated to express ourselves in writing. Not on the phone. Not in email. Not texting, but in words. Complete, full words which we had to check in the dictionary if we wanted high marks.

So to close the circle, we apparently are now accepting students who not only cannot do that but are not required to. My client-friend blamed the public schools for this but I wonder if it is more accurate to look right in our own homes and blame ourselves. How much reading and writing do we ourselves do? Do we value and urge those skills in our children?

An even larger question, and more bothersome is whether our society values these skills. How can we prosper and be a world power if our major vein of communicating is texting "R U OK?"?

Appraisal vs BPO vs CMA

All three of these terms are getting heavy play in this real estate slump so here's a quick overview from our perspective.

An appraisal in the formal sense can only be done by a licensed appraiser who is registered with the state and his professional association. Buyers normally pay for one as a condition of getting the bank to loan them the purchase money. Obviously the lender does not want to loan more than the home is worth and in fact inflated appraisals were one of the infection sites in the crash ___ crooked buyers made deals with bent appraisers to overstate the value so the bank would lend more than the home could sell for and the buyers would walk off with the cash difference, paying off the appraiser in the doing.

Now though appraisers are under tight scruitiny and the vast, vast majority are taking extra steps and trouble to insure their appraisals are bulletproof. This requires enormous skill, time, and experience and thus the result is the only one the lenders will accept. It is by far the most accurate and current measure of the market capturing as each one does even foreclosure prices.

A Brokers Price Opinion on the other hand is at the opposite end of the scale, often comprising no more than driving by a home and guestimating value. BPO's are the down and dirty, off the cuff estimate of home value used primarily between real estate offices to decide asking prices for homes that are abandoned or given back to a lender. In this increasingly more common situation cost is king ___ the lender is stuck with the place and does not want to spend any more than it has to so an appraisal does not matter until a buyer comes along and HIS lender needs to see how much the place is worth.

CMA stands for comparative (or sometimes "competitive") market analysis and involves an agent researching sales on the local Multiple Listing Service, or MLS. Sales have generally been considered the golden ruler when it comes to what home value is. After all, what a willing and able buyer paid should be the home's value, right? But the trouble now is that foreclosed homes are not on the MLS because they go to auction and they were not "listed" on the MLS in the first place. So a CMA won't show the (increasing number of) sales because they are off the MLS radar.

Appraisers can catch this though and that's why their work is worth the two or three hundred bucks or so that they charge. Some sellers are even starting to buy their own appraisals before even listing their home with an office although the figures are almost always less than what the agent's CMA will show and thus sometimes discouraging.

As will all these posts on real estate never take these opinions to the bank. Always, always see your personal tax, legal, or real estate professional before acting.

Yankee Make-Do

Here's the thing, much of what we make and sell to ourselves can't be fixed. It's patriotic actually because throwing things away and buying new ones keeps our economy alive. Build a whatzit but do not offer parts. Or, if you do, make the shipping and parts cost more than a new whatzit.

Consumer spending drives our economy but I sometimes wonder what the redeeming value is in manufacturing throw-away consumables. In this green age shouldn't we be making stuff that lasts? I mean, look at the Honda 90 trail bike. Ahead of its time. And discontinued because (I suspect) it worked too well and lasted forever if you took care of it.

But what do you do after you build a whatzit that is a) built so well that repairs are not needed for a long time and b) when a fix is needed parts are readily available? Well, think about it. You'd have to lay off your workers, close your plant, and disappoint your stockholders because you've satisfied the need and the demand has filled itself up. Sort of self-defeating.

The manifesto maybe sounds a little lofty but I buy it anyway. We have been sold on recycling so that we don't feel so bad about throwing things away. They're really not gone to a landfill they actually are reborn! I'm amused that we can pay ten or 15 bucks at Office Depot for them to haul our old computers off to be recycled (picture the Indian child melting out the gold in motherboards).

But I'd fix things even if it weren't "creative" or "challenging" for the simple reason that it's how I was raised (and perhaps where I was raised). I'm from the east coast you see, Yankee stock. We were decidedly middle class and my dad worked in the field of radio, designing and testing vacuum tubes for various military instruments. Unlike my mother though, he came from a less fortunate background and was not in the habit of buying things when they broke down. He passed on this trait to me, a college-educated kid who grew up during the (for kids) worry-free 50's and 60's.

So I'll spend ten bucks to fix a five dollar whatzit just to prove to myself once again that we're not doing this right.