Happy Birthday, Baby!

What are the chances? On December 11, 1952, I was born in St. Vincent's Hospital in Portland, Oregon. On the same calendar day 69 years later, granddaughter Carlotta Eline Miller was born in McKenzie-Willamette Hospital, where I once worked.

So we will celebrate our birthdays on the same day as Sagittarians.

Generally-speaking, Sagittarians value independence and the ability to do what they want. They are adventurers, risk-takers, and have a sharp business and sports mentality. Sagittarius natives are known for their emotional intelligence, which helps them relate with others.

Buy, hey, nobody's perfect. With their big-picture, aspirational perspectives, Sagittarians can be blunt, careless and lack follow-through. But like me, Carly will be a fair-minded optimist and a lover of freedom with a zest for adventure. Spontaneous and fun, she'll have a keen sense of humor, make friends easily and connect well with others. 

Vaccination Hesitation

It has come to this: in the U.S., society is so divisive and untrusting, that we may never see an end to the COVID-19 pandemic, and it's a crying shame. "I'm not going to listen to what the government says," says one contrarian. From there, the excuses range from the sublime to the ridiculous.

"I'm not a sheep." "I'd rather die than comply." "I don't really hang around people anyway." "I call the shots." "I'm not a lab rat." And on and on. The fact is that vaccine hesitancy remains a stubborn obstacle in defeating the pandemic. Public service announcements, even bribes, simply aren't working.

Unfortunately, the political polarization has created a reaction of division and anger, which has fueled widespread refusal to take the life-saving vaccines. Other countries, particularly China and Russia, see the inability of the U.S. to bring the pandemic under control as a sign of weakness.

Sad fact: vaccine hesitancy is a direct result of divisive politics in this country. People now believe they are on their own and responsible only for themselves. This means an important source of vaccine hesitancy is loss of the idea of a common good. To beat the pandemic, attitudes must change.

Retro Revolution

Talk about strange bedfellows. When PRSA Oregon opposed a new governance proposal in 2017 to eliminate district representation on the national board, one of PRSA's fiercest opponents, Jack O'Dwyer, jumped on to the bandwagon. O'Dwyer has had a axe to grind with PRSA for years.

Some background: O'Dwyer, a longtime critic of PRSA, shared transcripts from the 1993 PRSA annual conference to criticize the speaker's ethics for promoting the use of advertising spent to influence editorials at major newspapers. The speaker subsequently sued O'Dwyer for copyright infringement.

In 1994, things really got ugly. When members wanted a copy of any PR-related document, including O'Dwyer's, they would call and it would be mailed to them for a fee. Jack got hot, claiming his own case of copyright infringement. O"Dwyer has been at odds with PRSA ever since.

So imagine our surprise when several of the PRSA Oregon leadership assembly delegates were quoted In O'Dwyer's as saying "hell, no" to proposals of the society's national board. Jack had even called several of us on our home phones for a quote. All refused. Then, it got worse.

"GonzoPR has cracked the PRSA Oregon website: In the city known for the Boston Tea Party and 'no taxation without representation,' PRSA will decide whether it should be a 'top down' or 'bottoms up' organization. Should leadership become highly centralized or grassroots?"

The by-law amendment to end district representation on the board failed, thanks to a diligent campaign by membership, and no thanks to Jack.

But just to be associated with someone who was so unsympathetic and hostile to an organization we hold in such high regard was, in a word, embarrassing.

Conference Interrupted

For the second year in a row, the Public Relations Society of America International Conference, scheduled this time in Orlando, Florida, reverted to virtual sessions because of COVID concerns. The pandemic has forced many conferences across the U.S. to go virtual or simply cancel.

The only instance of PRSA/PRSSA canceling its annual gathering was in 2005, when the event scheduled in Miami Beach, (held at the Hotel Fontainebleau, no less) was derailed when Hurricane Wilma battered Miami and South Florida for days before subsiding.

The Hotel Fontainebleau, of course, was featured in the movie Scarface starring Al Pacino in the title role. Despite the fact that the PRSA conference had been scrubbed, the PRSSA event was rescheduled a month later and I would have the opportunity to attend the student conference.

Unfortunately, because it preceded Christmas, air travel was brutal. It was by far the most lengthy, complicated flight I had ever witnessed. After leaving Eugene, my United flight lagged on the tarmac in Denver, causing me to miss my connecting flight to Miami. It would be a very long day.

Instead, I was placed on an American Airlines flight to Orlando, then Miami. I arrived at the Hotel Fontainebleau at 2 a.m. without my luggage, tired and bedraggled. Hastening to the lobby bar for a drink, the bartender says: "your shirt sucks." I was taken aback.

I apologized for my disheveled condition as the bartender served me a rum and Coke. He said, "no, it's the message on your shirt," a University of Oregon logo. "Huh?" I asked. "You see, I'm an Oregon State University Beaver." We both laughed. "No hard feelings," he noted. "My name is Carl."

We became friends after learning we both attended the same high school in Portland. That week, he would detail the sordid underbelly of Miami Beach, a hotbed of crime, drug trafficking and shady characters. Meanwhile, I spent most of the week at the conference without my baggage.

Conference highlights included meeting Betsy Plank, a woman pioneer in the field of public relations, and otherwise spending time with the executive team of the UO chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America, exploring Miami Beach and visiting "Mango's Tropical Cafe," a risqué bar.

Bird Of Paradox

Available now at Amazon: Bird of Paradox: The Seasoning of Birdie McInness, a coming of age story set in Portland, Oregon.

The story follows the adventures of Robert Cameron McInnes, known as "Birdie" to friends and family.

Birdie learns the ying and the yang of life itself, a balance on a pendulum between the poles of providence and misfortune. Herewith is a taste of the narrative from the prologue:

Robert Cameron McInnes was basically just like every other kid growing up Catholic in 50s and 60s America. Yet, in many ways, he was unique. The nuns called him “Bert,” but everyone else knew him as “Birdie."

The eldest in a family of five, Birdie attended grammar school at Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow (0LPS) parish, just like all the other Italian-American and Irish-American youth in his neighborhood. The “parish” was an all-inclusive term that meant priests, nuns, clerics, congregation, school and staff.

These young Christian soldiers were – by and large – serious about their schooling, and many were actively involved in other traditions and rituals of the Roman Catholic Church. Some, like Birdie, were altar boys – those young servers who assist the priest in conducting Mass while attaining a certain degree of proficiency in the lost language of Latin.

At OLPS (bottom photo), Birdie experienced his first taste of the type of draconian discipline administered by the Catholics. Brother Gerard, the parish advisor for the Altar Boy Society, like other members of the Franciscan Order, subscribed to the twin Catholic concepts of distributing guilt and.when necessary, corporal punishment.

The altar boys were an ambitious lot. Many were also members of the Boy Scouts of America, which was in its heyday at the time. Many played sports and some, like Birdie, had newspaper delivery routes as well.

In addition to serving Mass at the parish church every morning, they assisted parish priests with Mass at an earlier service at a monastery nearby at the ungodly hour of 6 a.m. Sometimes it seemed if only the cloistered nuns, who were basically imprisoned at the monastery, and a few devout senior citizens, attended. 

One morning, Birdie overslept and, having to choose between serving Mass and delivering the morning edition of The Oregonian, he chose the latter. “It’ll be okay,” he reasoned to himself uncomfortably, assuming the other server would pick up the slack.  Big mistake. At the next meeting of the OLPS Altar Boy Society, retribution would be swift and brutal.

“McInnes, stand and follow me,” barked Brother Gerard at the very beginning of the meeting. Birdie’s heart leapt into his throat. What followed was the most serious upbraiding Birdie had ever yet received from an adult in a position of authority, at least up to that point in his life.

Brother Gerard had Birdie reduced to tears for the serious offense of missing the early Mass, and altar boys on the other side of the door could hear every word. When it was over, Birdie asked Brother Gerard if he could clean up a bit before facing the others. “No,” growled the sadistic cleric, firmly. “Get back in there and sit down.”

Birdie returned to his seat, eyes red and swollen, and his ego shattered more by humiliation in front of his peers than anything Brother Gerard had said. The stout, muscular cleric had accomplished two tasks at once: he had disciplined an errant altar boy and sent a clear message to all others in the room who might be so careless as to miss a scheduled Mass: “Don’t even think about it.”

It wouldn’t be the last time Birdie experienced Catholic justice. They didn’t refer to these clerics as “soldiers of Christ” for nothing. But the altar boys, at least the errant ones, would nonetheless have their payback behind the scenes, munching on communion hosts and sipping cheap Thunderbird wine surreptitiously in the sacristy after hours.

EVs Transform Auto Industry

Increasing instances of forest fires, heat waves, floods, hurricanes and melting glaciers are all symptoms of climate change resulting from greenhouse gases, with the biggest single source being gasoline-powered vehicles that produce more than a quarter of the country's total emissions.

The world's scientists warn that catastrophe is nigh and that we are close to a point where climate change will become irreversible. It's clearly time to stop debating with those who would ignore the facts and take action to dramatically cut greenhouse gas emissions immediately.

One way to begin reducing carbon dioxide levels is to increase the number of hybrid and all-electric vehicles in the marketplace as soon as possible. The new administration has set an ambitious goal for the transition to electric vehicles. By 2030, half of all vehicles sold in the U.S. should be electric.

It's been a long road to the development of electric vehicles. In the 1960s, Eugene Water & Electric Board received an electric vehicle, a Renault, as a demonstration project. By the 1990s, the utility was operating an electric Ford Ranger and two smaller vehicles called "Gizmos" (below).

Today, however, both hybrids and all-electric vehicles, such as the Tesla, are catching on as charging stations begin to proliferate in this country, allowing the vehicles to "refuel." A rapid shift from fossil fueled engines to electric vehicles will be an essential step in mitigating climate change.

Diminishing Season

Once upon a time, backcountry aficionados could anticipate summers of wandering the wilderness areas of the West in search of peace, solitude and perhaps a few photographs. No more. That was 20 years ago now, as climate change has led to perennial forest fire smoke obscuring the atmosphere.

This year, the Bootleg Fire in Southern Oregon spotted by a USFS lookout on Calimus Butte, primed by months of drought and a record heat wave, has become the largest in the U.S. this season, burning over 400,000 acres of forests as a towering cloud of smoke reaches airliner heights.

Talk about apocalypse now. Heat waves are becoming more prevalent, and forests are incinerating everywhere, from California to Siberia. Summers that seemed unusually hot are becoming the norm. That alone is reason enough to to move quickly to reduce greenhouse gases now.

But there's so much more. Unprecedented floods in Europe, devastating monsoons in India, lethal "red tide" killing marine life off the coast of Florida, leaving dead fish reeking on beaches, and an iceberg nearly the size of Puerto Rico has broken off from Antarctica.

The situation is drastic; the greater our emissions of heat-trapping gases, the higher the temperatures and the greater the health risks. Last year was the warmest on record. The atmosphere is reacting to the weakening of the jet stream, causing increasingly uncharacteristic weather conditions.

Yes, it has been hot, and scientists expect if will get even hotter unless drastic action if taken to deal with greenhouse gases. How hot will depend on what is done to affect climate change. Meanwhile, backcountry adventures will be limited by forest fires, and Mother Nature is incensed.

Sandford And Company

As one of many denizens of the Aldo Leopold Society, I was hired by the godfather of the Lake Wenatchee Ranger District, Paul Sandford (top row, third from right). Paul, the longest-serving employee on the district at about 40 years, passed away June 5 from the effects of Parkinson's disease.

Born in Manchester, New Hampshire on December 31, 1939, Paul grew up in Tacoma, Washington, and married Zona Odegard in 1962. Paul for numerous employers, including the Boeing Corp., in the Puget Sound region before applying for a position on the Wenatchee National Forest.

As lead Recreation Technician on the Lake Wenatchee Ranger District starting in the early 1960s, he helped establish many new campgrounds with campsites and trails on the district. He was also the snow survey ranger and developed numerous snowmobile trail systems and off road vehicle trails.

Early in his career, Paul helped with maintaining trails, along with wilderness management, on both sections of the Glacier Peak Wilderness and the Alpine Lakes Wilderness residing within the Lake Wenatchee Ranger District. He also worked in fire prevention and suppression and fall burning.

Literally a jack-of-all-trades, Paul assisted in various wildlife management activities with osprey nest surveys, wood duck nest boxes and common loon nesting platforms on Lake Wenatchee, as well as helping staff locate and assess cultural sites of the Wenatchi band of the Yakama Nation.

Paul had a great work ethic, worked well with people and loved the outdoors. Most importantly, he was a great mentor to many of his younger colleagues and being a friend to one and all. He resided for 30 years in Plain, Washington and worked for the USFS for 37 years.

Two among many of my favorite stories of Paul: After four trees had collapsed on a hunter's trailer in Riverside Campground in November, 1978, killing all four people inside, Paul was instructed to fall all potentially dangerous snags within 100 feet of each district campground.

That job would fall to me and a colleague, but Paul -- an expert faller -- would first demonstrate for us how to cut down a large but dead tree in the Grouse Creek Campground on the lower Chiwawa River. The tree with a dead top was 38 inches in diameter at its base, and Paul administered the cut.

Once the face cut was complete, Paul started the back cut, with his trusty assistants applying wedges to help the dead fir fall in the right direction. What nobody anticipated was a rotten core as the tree started to "barber-stool" off course, smashing the outhouse into smithereens.

We all laughed because of the outcome, but nobody, even an expert faller like Paul, could have predetermined the extent of the rot in the core of the tree. With a sheepish grin, Paul recovered from the incident and laughed along with the rest of us. Fortunately, no one was hurt.

On another assignment, we were instructed to bushwhack up the Napeequa River, a river system that lies entirely within the Glacier Peak Wilderness to locate and destroy a squatter's cabin on federal land. The forest was primeval and the going difficult, but Paul led the way.

Later, Paul provided a key recommendation that helped me secure a position as public relations coordinator at McKenzie-Willamette Hospital. Paul was always smiling, and a gentleman to be admired. I always felt better after spending time with Paul (second row, far left), and I will miss him.

The Last Season

The formidable Sierra Nevada mountain range, whose granite spires parallel the Pacific Ocean, runs north and south for more than 400 inland miles. The southern part of the range features the highest peaks, including Mt. Whitney (above) the tallest peak in the continental United States.

Few improved roadways cross the Sierra Nevada range in this vicinity, which has been set aside Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park. Wilderness areas occupy most of this park, which is essentially pristine roadless backcountry covering approximately more than 1,300 square miles.

Backcountry rangers patrol this remote wilderness area, a backpacker and climber paradise during the summer months. The Last Season by Eric Blehm tells the story of Randy Morgenson, a legendary ranger who patrolled the backcountry of the High Sierra for more than three decades.

The book is a story of a wild man with remarkable vision and devotion to protecting the wilderness. Well-known for his skills in finding lost souls in the High Sierra, he was involved in a number of search and rescue missions over his tenure. Then one day he went missing himself. Some excerpts:

"The average tourist might have pegged (wilderness rangers) as a mingling of mountaineers, dirt-bag climbers and aging hippies. But make no mistake. These were America's finest backcountry rangers -- special forces, if you will -- disguised as an army of misfits."

"Some held degrees in forestry, geology, computer science, philosophy or art history. They were teachers, photographers, writers, documentary filmmakers, winter guides, academics and adventure seekers who, for whatever reason, were drawn to the wilderness."

In the backcountry, they were on duty 24 hours a day as wilderness medics, law enforcement officers, search-and-rescue specialists and wilderness hosts. On good days, they were 'heroes' called upon to find a lost backpacker, warm a hypothermic hiker, chas away a bear or save a life."

"On bad days, they picked up trash, tore down illegal campfires, wrote citations and were called 'assholes' simply for doing their jobs. On the worst days, they recovered bodies. The park service often refers to them as 'the backbone of the NPS.'" Most "were college students or recent grads."

Part mystery, part biography and part Park Service procedural, the author probes the mysteries of Morgenson's disappearance while weaving in a story of the ranger's lifelong devotion to wilderness with a compelling account of the search-and-resuce efforts to find him. A must read for wilderness lovers.

Darkness Before Dawn

Back and forth we go into the "extreme risk category" in Lane County and throughout Oregon, just as businesses are starting to recover during a spring that promised the beginnings of a return to normalcy. Examples of frustration and resistance to state-mandated restrictions are pervasive.

With only one-third of county residents vaccinated, it's time for a greater percentage of the population to receive their Pfizer, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccinations. In the interest of a return to some semblance of normalcy by summer, we must pull together for the common good.

Priority Earth

Earth Day, an annual event established on April 22 in 1970 to demonstrate environmental protection, has grown from a national event to an international event. U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson, Democrat from Wisconsin, is the founder of the event to create awareness of an environmental ethic.

In the 1990s, the city of Eugene and numerous other local agencies and organizations in Lake County founded Earth Day Oregon, which became an annual event held at the River's Edge Plaza at Eugene Water & Electric Board promoting environmental programs and practices.

In 2020, over 100 million people from around the world observed the 50th anniversary of Earth Day in what was described as the largest online mass mobilization in history. This year's focus is on climate literacy, responsible forestry practices and the benefits of environmental education.

Now, President Joseph Biden has pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions by nearly half by 2030. The United States is rejoining international efforts to fight global warming, after four years of climate denial by the previous administration, and is promoting conservation and renewable energy.

Lady Lookouts

In a recent feature on "The History of Lady Lookouts" in The Smithsonian Magazine, author Dina Gachman notes that "women broke the glass ceiling on fire lookout positions almost as soon as the job was created, spotting smoke from towers on high peaks in the remote wilderness."

Initially, men like Jack Kerouac garnered attention to the job with books like Desolation Angels, highlighting the season he spent on Desolation Peak in the North Cascades.

But by the time I worked for the U.S. Forest Service in the 70s and 80s, women maintained a clear majority among seasonal fire lookouts in national forests.

Just three years after the Forest Service had created the job, Hallie Morse Daggett (above) became the first female to serve as a Forest Service fire lookout, blazing a trail for "many lookouts." In her first year on the job, she reportedly spotted 40 fires, with only five acres burned.

In a year that many have struggled with feeling isolated at home, living in a small, exposed cabin thousands of feet above the wilderness in remote locations might not exactly sound like a good time. It's definitely not for wimps. The job can be grueling, lonely and at times, incredibly stressful.

Having spent time as a lookout myself, I understand why some sought the position as a way of life. My only lookout assignment was on Antelope Mountain on the Prairie City Ranger District on Malheur National Forest. The gig was short-lived; I spent most of my time as a wilderness ranger.

The majority of lookouts, however, were staffed by women. Many were college students. Most were also artists, musicians and writers, who practiced in their downtime. One friend, a lookout on Dixie Butte, was skilled at weaving and had her loom packed to the site to work on her various projects.

Training consists of fire prevention, and lookouts are shown how to use an Osborne rangefinder. They are instructed on radio code and how to maintain the tower, and then sent on their way. It's not the type of position that requires others to motivate. As a lookout, you're basically on your own.

At times the job can be harrowing, especially during a lightning bust when lookout towers are particularly vulnerable. Lookouts are particularly valuable during lighting storms because airplanes cannot fly in a lightning storm, so the job still serves a vital function.

Imagine this scenario. Storm rolls in, rain pelts the tower horizontally, lightning flashes, thunder booms, and you're hunkered on a stool with glass feet to avoid electrocution should lightning strike the building. A frighteningly difficult situation that is not for the faint of heart.

See No Evel

In 1974, working for the Forest Service in Prairie City, Oregon, a friend asked if I would be interested in venturing to Twin Falls, Idaho to watch motorcycle daredevil Evel Knievel leap across the Snake River canyon on a motorcycle. Naturally, I said "yes" and we made plans to go.

Evel Knievel, a daredevil motorcyclist who staged self-promoted events for a living, "is probably the only man in history who has become very wealthy by trying to kill himself" by jumping cars, trucks and other obstacles on his motorcycle, noted Johnny Carson when interviewing Knievel. 

In an era of outrageous characters like Muhammad Ali and Elvis Presley, Evel Knievel stood out. After years of jumping cars and busses, he would now jump the Snake River Canyon, and we would be there to witness the unusual event. So we drove from Prairie City to Twin Falls.

We camped overnight at a designated campsite provided by the Sawtooth National Forest. More rangeland that forest, we awoke the next morning for the big event surrounded by grazing cows. Packing up our camp, turns out we were just a few miles from Jackpot, Nevada.

Heading north to Twin Falls, we encountered a crowd that would rival that of Woodstock or any large concert, and with the whole world watching on television, Evel Knievel was preparing his water-powered rocket cycle to fly across a chasm in his gutsiest attempt to cheat of death yet. 

The first thing we noticed was that the angle of the launch chute seemed too sharp at about 70 degrees. We estimated that he might make it high enough but perhaps not far enough. When the rocket cycle ignited, the chute immediately opened, diminishing ithe speed of the rocket.

Yet Knievel made it across the river. However, the prevailing winds floated the chute down into the ravine, where he practically landed in an awaiting boat. It was then that we spotted the black and white bulls-eye target some daring souls had painted on the north side of the canyon.

Needless to say, we were disappointed at the poor showing by the white-suited, star-spangled banner adrenaline junkie from Butte, Montana. "I'll bet he had that scam all figured out from the beginning," noted my companion with disgust. "What a total butt job."

Afterward, we motored back to Prairie City to spend a few days in the Strawberry Mountain Wilderness, where I was working as a backcountry ranger. That sojourn into the southernmost of the Blue Mountains would turn out to be the highlight of the trip.

Dominating the scenery the head of the John Day River is Strawberry Mountain, elevation 9,044. The wilderness itself varies between 3-5 miles in width and is 18 miles long, and includes such mountains as Pine Creek, Indian Creek Butte, Strawberry and Rabbit Ears.

We approached the wilderness from the back side through the Logan Valley. With five glacial tarns, including High Lake, the ecosystem is extremely diverse and includes five of seven of North America's life zones within its boundaries. The wilderness also includes spectacular views in every direction.

Later that year, I left Prairie City for good. The next season I would be working on the Lake Wenatchee Ranger District on the Wenatchee National Forest in Washington. But we'll always remember that ill-fated attempt by Evel Knievel to jump the Snake River Canyon in Twin Falls, Idaho.

Point Roberts

When is a peninsula an island? When it's Point Roberts, Washington. The area is about as remote a location as can be in the lower 48 states. Point Roberts appears like it should be part of Canada, but the small strip of land lies just south of the 49th parallel, which makes it part of Washington State.

The only way to travel to the rest of the U.S. is via the 24-mile drive through Canada. Unfortunately, due to U.S. and Canadian COVID travel restrictions, no one drives in or out of Point Roberts, vaccinated or not, despite the fact there's only been one reported case since the pandemic began.

They've tried a ferry, but because of rough seas, the boat often can't make the crossing over to the mainland. In spite of the difficulties of access to and from Point Roberts, the residents seem to have survived so far without doctors, medical facilities, veterinary clinics or even drug stores.

Canadians who own homes and properties in Point Roberts have also been shut out. They've become accustomed to crossing the border for cheaper prices on eggs and milk at the oversized grocery store in Point Roberts. Talk about being wedged between a rock and a hard place!

Texas Two-Step

As if Texas hasn't had enough natural disasters like hurricanes and drought, a polar vortex recently unleashed a frigid Arctic blast, terrorizing Texans and overwhelming the state's energy grid, initiating power outages and creating a humanitarian crisis for more than one million people.

To add insult to injury, the unusual storm made a mockery of the state's politicians and its much vaunted independence. Right-wing talking heads like Tucker Carlson on Fox and even the state's governor, Greg Abbott, have blamed the outages on wind power and the so-called "Green New Deal."

Carlson called windmills a "silly fashion statement" and noted that "green energy means a less reliable power grid." Worse, Abbott, who one would assume knows better, said that "the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal." Both statements are, of course, complete hogwash.

Texas generates only 25 percent of its electrical energy from wind power, with the rest coming from thermal sources like gas, oil and coal generating facilities. The real issue is the state's dubious energy grid, called the inaccurately named Electrical Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT).

As public relations coordinator for Eugene Water & Electric Board, I attended an enlightening conference sponsored by the American Public Power Association in Texas in the late 1990s in Austin. The city's public utility was recognized as a national leader in the development of wind energy.

Unfortunately, the state's electrical grid, managed by the ERCOT, is woefully unprepared to manage a catastrophic blackout. Texas has consciously distanced itself from federal oversight to avoid federal regulation and maintains its own grid, unique in the nation.

Why is Texas the only state to manage its own energy grid? Well, probably because it's Texas, and they like to do things their own way. As a result of their so-called independence, the state is unable to acquire power from neighboring grid like the Western Area Power Administration (WAPA).

Ten years ago, a Texas  commission predicted that a catastrophic storm could severely impact the state's energy grid, but nothing was done. Fixing ERCOT will require actual governance by statewide leadership instead of blaming the sorry shape of their electrical grid on wind turbines.

Question Reality

"Question reality" was a popular slogan found on bumper stickers, typically positioned on the back of Volkswagen buses, back in the 60s. Popularized by hippie psychologist Timothy Leary, many have pointed out the fact that the phrase can be traced to the Greek philosophy Socrates.

The slogan focused on the counterculture movement, which opposed escalation of the Vietnam War, and supported the free speech and civil rights movements, Earth Day and other popular issues of the day. Later, a variation of that phrase on bumper stickers morphed into "question reality."

So it was interesting to participate in a Zoom session with students from the UO chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America as they interviewed public relations and advertising professionals, all recent graduates, in a question and answer session recently.

The final question, as posed to the professionals in attendance by the moderator of the Zoom session, was this: "What have you been doing, other than work, to navigate through the pandemic." To a person, they all responded with "reality television" like "The Bachelor" and others.

My "reality television" has been the news: the daily pandemic numbers (and now vaccination numbers), the presidential election and most recently, the impeachment trial. As I heard the professionals respond to the question, I couldn't help but think that the 24-hour news cycle provides plenty of reality.

There is, of course a certain paradox in the defense team for a reality-show president complaining about the use of visual images in the impeachment trial that  the longtime star of "Celebrity Apprentice" could appreciate. Perhaps it's just a case of "live by the sword, die by the sword."

First Draft, Second Draft

For anybody who writes anything, from a resume to a business letter (or an email) to a blog post to an epic novel, it happens. You awaken suddenly in the middle of the night and wonder aloud: did I spell "ignominious" correctly. Quite often, you'll realize that you did not.

That's why it's important to edit your document to determine that the content you've written is clear, concise and complete. Editing may involve changing words, correcting errors, or even revising parts of the document. The objective is to improve the quality of the final product.

Assuming that writers want to make a good impression on the reader, writing should be error-free and feature correct grammar and punctuation. Readers expect quality, so the writer should first and foremost avoid errors of all kinds, especially names and numbers.

Unfortunately, the sad fact is that errors are inevitable; everybody makes them. So how do you avoid errors in your writing? The key is copy editing and proofreading to improve the quality of the final document. But first things first. Before you can proofread, you must focus on copy editing.

Once a first draft is complete, the next step is to improve the readability and flow of the final document. You must copy edit for content, clarity, conciseness and coherence. Is the information complete? Will it be understandable to readers upon first glance? Is the document concise?

Editing for content means you have all the information required. Are names, dates, addresses and numbers accurate? What about enclosures, and more importantly, are they included with the document? Is the message consistent in the way the material is presented?

Names can be particularly problematic. Never assume anything when it comes to names. Double check the spelling. Once you spell somebody's name wrong, they will remember you, and not for the right reasons. Do you have the correct day with the correct date?

Is the document clear? Clear words say exactly what you mean, so use those that are familiar with your intended audience. Since words have different meanings to different people, use words that convey exact meaning when editing for clarity. Eliminate cliches and redundancies.

Finally, edit for conciseness, eliminating unnecessary words/ideas. Avoid modifiers like "I believe." Reduce the number of passive verbs by replacing them with more dynamic active verbs that help move a sentence. Substitute pronouns with more descriptive nouns.

As New York Times reporter David Vecsey wrote: "As a cub reporter, one of the veteran reporters pulled me aside and said: 'Look. Doctors bury their mistakes. Lawyers lock theirs up. But reporters print theirs for the whole damn world to see.'" Good reason to copy edit in advance.