But leave it to Adams; the guy could make free ice cream sound stupid.

The Oregonian’s website quotes Adams as follows. Italics are mine.

“The mayor said on Friday he’d announce the exact date and location today. The December date, Adams said, should draw plenty of gun owners who may be looking for extra shopping money for the holidays.”

Yup, the greenest city in America has a new economic stimulus plan. Maybe we should cut out the middleman and just let people use the guns as legal tender. Pistols as point-of-service payment.

The ad campaign practically writes itself: “For everything else, there’s Smith and Wesson.”

The city that prides itself on its green approach to life is hugely wasteful when it comes to that paper stuff called “money.”

392 Business System Software Implementation Audit FULL(2)

If a private business operated this way, its creditors would be holding a fire sale right now.

And, here are some good answers to the question, What’s Obama Done for Me Lately?

“On election night 2000, when Byrd, then 83, was reelected with his largest margin ever — a 78% majority, carrying all 55 counties and all but seven of the state’s 1,970 precincts — he remarked: ‘West Virginia has always had four friends: God Almighty, Sears Roebuck, Carter’s Little Liver Pills, and Robert C. Byrd.’ (He later dropped Sears from the list, complaining about inadequate service on a heater.)”

Most new fiction is deeply flawed. A five-line letter from Ronald Reagan to his old actress friend Kitty Carlisle Hart is worth $6,100. Whales and dolphins are as smart as we are, and probably nicer. Congo is still the rape capital on earth. Congress still has absolutely no balls when it comes to regulating Wall Street. Our cellphones are built with materials that are obtained at human cost. Author Danielle Steele and legal pot growers in Colorado work harder than the rest of us. Camile Paglia says “female Viagra” pharmaceuticals will not cure the sexual malaise blanketing America.

It seems so clear:

Send sexually disappointed whiners to witness real problems in Congo.  Sell collections of witless Presidential missives as e-books in order to fund the increased cost of cruelty-free cellphone manufacturing. Deploy the hyper-prolific Ms. Steele to the pot-growing operations for one week. Swear in Ms. Paglia, stand her up in front of Congress, and let her spell it out for them: No balls, no glory.

If that last thing doesn’t work, vote for a whale or a dolphin next time.

It’s ingenious, really. It requires local cops to grab anyone who looks suspicious and demand proof of citizenship. Simple, but brilliant. The last time a state took this kind of well-thought out initiative was back in the day when public restrooms in the South were marked WHITE and COLORED.

All this whining about violating the Constitution is silly. That Constitution applies to REAL citizens, not people who sneak across the border determined to live debauched lives of mowing lawns, cleaning toilets, picking fruit or babysitting white kids. Surely any citizens detained by mistake will understand that it is all for their own safety and well-being.

And the claim that local police are not equipped to administer such a law is simply not true. Who better to pick out sneaky illegals than the armed guy or gal who already protects the streets terrorized by these roving, Spanish-speaking law breakers?

Instead of hissing our disapproval, we should be grateful that Arizona’s lawmakers are willing to live with the occasional delay when they call 911 after a rape, burglary or armed robbery. (We’ll be right with you ma’am, we just need to finish the paperwork on this Garcia fellow.)

The only reasonable criticism of this new law is that it doesn’t go far enough. Why not require all non-citizens to attach a badge of sorts on their clothes? Something easy to spot, like a star, maybe. In a bright color like yellow or pink. It’s not high-tech or expensive. Anyone, even someone who doesn’t speak English, can understand this requirement.

And here’s the beauty part: We already know it works.

A story by Katie Zernike ponders polling of resentful Tea Party supporters.  I am ashamed of these fellow citizens; their racism, their short-sighted, self-serving demands for a return to the so-called  “real America” — code for a class system that keeps them snug and well-fed while shutting others out:

“In the poll, Tea Party supporters …were almost unanimous in their dislike of President Obama. Overwhelmingly, they said he does not share the values most Americans live by and does not understand the needs and problems of people like them. They are significantly more likely than Republicans or the general public to say that too much attention has been made of the problems facing black people, and that the policies of the Obama administration favor blacks over whites and the poor over the rich or the middle class.”

Then I turned to the obit page and saw that another highly visible figure in the civil rights movement has died: Benjamin L. Hooks. age 85. Hooks, who headed the NAACP for many years, was a minister, businessman and the first African American to be named a judge in Tennessee’s criminal courts. He was also the first to be appointed to the Federal Communications Commission. Hooks struggled to keep issues of civil rights in the forefront when Americans began to take the gains of the 1960s for granted. He wasn’t the most compelling public voice in the movement, but to look at his life and work is to understand the crucial changes wrought by Americans who would no longer tolerate Jim Crow.

And, finally, a profile of Eddie Feibusch, the undisputed king of zippers, reminds me that this is also a land of opportunity, imagination and very good stories.

The piece by Ralph Blumenthal describes the indefatigable 86-year-old:

“He sold a zipper for Margaret Truman’s wedding gown when Miss Truman, the president’s daughter, married Clifton Daniel in 1956, he is proud to say. He sold zippers to Nike for Tiger Woods and Roger Federer. And a prison in North Carolina called for a zipper for Bernard L. Madoff. Why? He doesn’t know.

New York City’s garment industry once had lots of zipper shops, some bigger than his, Mr. Feibusch says. But little by little they relocated, to China, India, Costa Rica. Then came the Sept. 11 attacks. ‘They couldn’t get their goods in,’ he said. “That was the end of the business.’

But not for Mr. Feibusch, a prewar refugee from Vienna who overcame not just the Nazis but also Velcro…”

1. Whoa! Do people actually binge eat in their sleep?

2. Do people do this in poor countries, or just in places where there’s a lot of extra food sitting around?

Epstein’s good reporting and respectful treatment of this makes one take it seriously:

“Consequences of nighttime eating can include injuries like black eyes from walking into a wall or hand cuts from a prep knife, or dental problems from gnawing on frozen food. On a deeper level, many sleep eaters feel depressed, frustrated and ashamed. Upwards of 10 percent of adults suffer from some sort of parasomnia, or sleep disorder, like sleepwalking or night terrors. Some have driven cars or performed inappropriate sexual acts — all while in a sleep-induced fog.”

There’s another thing I wonder about: Why don’t such nocturnal wanderings include chores? Does anyone fold laundry while sleepwalking? Clean out the spice cabinet? Give the dog his ear drops? Vote on health-care legislation?

Wait, nix that last question. I know the answer. 212 members of the US House of Representatives sleepwalked through a vote on March 21. Fortunately 219 of their colleagues were wide awake.

I know that some people worry that changes in insurance regulations will erode the coverage they already have. I’m convinced that out-and-out racism plays a role and that some opponents are more interested in seeing President Obama fail than taking care of their neighbors.

But these things don’t explain the fiery anger, the bold willingness to stand up in front of the entire world and say NO to better care for more Americans, including millions of children, hardworking adults and folks with chronic conditions that can be labeled “preexisting.”

Barbour’s now much-quoted remark about guns turned the light bulb on over my head:

“I do not believe the United States government has a right, it has the authority or power to force us to purchase health insurance any more than, in the name of homeland security, they can force every American to have to buy a gun,” the governor said.”

Setting aside for the moment that this statement is historically inaccurate (look up the Second Militia Act of 1792 in which folks were indeed required to go forth and get guns), Barbour’s sound byte speaks volumes. On some level these opponents simply do not believe that decent health care is something every person needs, therefore they see no reason to create laws that ensure its delivery. They see health care as an option, a luxury; something that people elect to have, like the premium cable package.

Here’s what I’d like to see: A running ticker like the ones in Times Square that report stock prices. Only this one would chart each visit to a doctor or medical facility by an elected official who votes on health care measures, state or federal.

We’ve got some miles to go before these changes to our health care system and insurance industry are really “historic” as is being said. For now, it’s a live battle.

There’s plenty of good news, however. Reform that gets more kids covered or keeps folks with preexisting conditions in the fold is long overdue. Somewhere, the late Sen. Ted Kennedy can be proud.

One big worry, it seems to me, is the continued reliance on the workplace as the host for insurance.

Obviously it makes sense for most people to get coverage through employers, but alternative models would put new safety nets in place. We’ll have the infrastructure to do this. The new reform package includes a plan for health-coverage exchanges/marketplaces where consumers not covered by employers can “shop” for their insurance. Why not expand this plan?

One way to do that: Create small renter tax credits and allow taxpayers to cash ‘em in for coverage plans in those new marketplaces.

My neighbors down the street are a case in point. Yes, they will be helped by the new reforms–with a chronically ill adult, a young-adult employed part-time and a child, they have several vulnerabilities addressed by the plan just passed. But they aren’t out of the woods yet. The head of the household is retired, so traditional employer-based coverage is not in place. He is not old enough for Medicare yet.

Because the family rents a house, they don’t get the tax break that we get for paying interest on a mortgage. Now that the American dream of homeownership at any cost has proven to be something of a nightmare, perhaps it’s the ideal time to revisit a structure that rewards only “owners” versus reliable renters–and to do so in a way that allows people like my neighbors to have a real stake in their health care coverage.