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.