RoguePundit

Luring European Tourists to Oregon

The decline in the dollar in relation to both the Euro and the pound has made the U.S. a bargain tourist destination for many Europeans.  Oregon is trying to attract some of them. 

Nearly 48 million Europeans will discover Oregon via their televisions when the European Travel Channel, in partnership with Travel Oregon, airs the 15-part series, "Oregon Uncovered." The show, to debut January 2009, will feature the attractions, people, and experiences of our state. The European Travel Channel film crew began shooting the series in Portland in October 2007 and will wrap in Southern Oregon in September 2008.

The European Travel Channel series captures the compelling essence of Oregon and features each of Oregon's seven distinct tourism regions. Mount Bachelor, Powell's Book Store, Multnomah Falls, landmarks on the Coast, historic Jacksonville, Kam Wah Chung museum and wineries in the Willamette Valley, Washington County and the Columbia Gorge are just a few stops on the film crew's spring agenda. The show will run for three years showing twice weekly in primetime spots in Germany, United Kingdom, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, France and Italy.

...

To achieve full coverage of the state for the Travel Channel series, Travel Oregon is sponsoring seven of the 15 episodes. Other sponsors include: Central Oregon Visitors Association, the Convention and Visitors Association of Lane County, Metro Portland Regional cooperative partners (Travel Portland, Washington County Visitors Association, Oregon's Mount Hood Territory and South Columbia County Tourism), Oregon Coast Association, Central Oregon Coast Association, Florence Chamber of Commerce, Reedsport Chamber of Commerce, Southern Oregon Visitors Association, Astoria Chamber of Commerce, the city of Seaside, Tillamook Creamery Association, Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde, Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce, Running Y Ranch, Travel Klamath, Klamath Tribes, and the Kla-Mo-Ya Casino. Primefilmsites is producing the series in cooperation with Black Diamond Productions of the United Kingdom and Travel Channel Europe.

I've lived in both Las Vegas and Orlando, so I'm keenly aware that boosting tourism is a double-edged sword. 

FYI, the original press release misspelled Kla-Mo-Ya, reversing the a and o.  Bet the Klamath Tribes were thrilled.  Plus, the bottom of the Travel Oregon website still shows the "Oregon. We Love Dreamers" slogan.  How embarrassing.

Random Nature #161

Unusual Harvest:  The Chinese government was unpleasantly surprised by the recent unrest in Tibet, especially with the Olympics just a few months off.  Tibet has been experiencing strong economic growth, but that hasn't soothed the long-simmering tensions.

A surge of government spending on infrastructure in recent years and strong growth in Tibet's tourism industry (made easier by the new infrastructure, especially the rail link, which was opened in 2006) have helped the region's GDP growth rate stay above 12% for the past seven years. In 2007 it was 14%, more than two points higher than the national rate.

Incomes have been rising fast too. Officials predict a 13% increase this year for rural residents, a sixth straight year of double-digit growth. Urban residents enjoyed a 24.5% increase in disposable income last year. Robbie Barnett of America's Columbia University says a new middle class has emerged in Lhasa in recent years.

Tibet has enjoyed double-digit economic growth for seven years running.  But, many Tibetans feel that the increasing number of Han Chinese immigrants are making disproportionate gains.  Plus, inflation is eating significantly into the improved incomes.  There are also concerns that the gaudy figures are rather lumpy in the countryside. 

Incomes may have been growing fast on average, but in the countryside averages have been skewed by soaring demand in the rest of China for a type of traditional medicine known as caterpillar fungus. Tibetans in rural areas where this fungus grows have seen their incomes rocket (and fights have broken out among them over the division of fungus-producing land).

Yes, that's where I was going with this intro.

Vegetable Caterpillar:  Despite "vegetable" in the title, Cordyceps is a genus of parasitic fungi that preys predominantly upon insects.  The species in question, sinensis, targets the caterpillars of a few species of bat moths (genus Hepialus)--the same genus as the swifts we have here in North America (photo of the common swift here).  The bat moths which are killed by the fungus live at high elevations--at least 6,000 feet, but more commonly from 11,000 - 15,000 feet.  Most are found in SW China and neighboring regions in the Himalayas.

Here's what the fungus does to its victims (which have a two-year life-cycle).

During the winter, the fungus grows inside the body of the caterpillar, feeding off of its body and absorbing its nutrients.  The mycellium invades and eventually replaces the host tissue, while the elongated fruiting body sprouts from the caterpillar, and releases the fungus' spores into the air...

Here's a picture of a dead caterpillar, with the fruiting body at the top--extending from the caterpillar's head (from this link).

The nocturnal caterpillars reside in vertical tubes in the soil, emerging to dine upon grasses.  But, a parasitized caterpillar dies above ground, allowing the infectious spores from the fruiting body to spread in the wind.  This clip shows that phenomenon via other victims of various Cordyceps fungi.

It will soon be harvest time for the dead caterpillars and their bounty.

Properties:  The caterpillar fungus first achieved notoriety beyond the world of herbal remedies a few years ago.

The Cordyceps sinensis craze first started in 1993 when two female Chinese athletes, within the span of a week, shattered the world records for track & field's 1,500 meter race, 3,000 meter race and 10,000 meter race.  Such unprecedented performances raised immediate suspicions.  Steroids and other performance enhancing drugs were tested for but the subsequent results came back negative. 

Their coach eventually admitted that he'd been giving the women a secret elixir comprised of vegetable caterpillar and tortoise shell.  So why didn't these and other women he trained keep winning?  Well, supposedly...

Due to a number of reasons, mostly associated with personality conflicts between Ma and his track stars (he refused to let them grow their hair, to keep much of their prize money or to keep the luxury cars they won as prizes on the world track circuit, for example), virtually all the women refused to stay in Ma’s camp and they all went independent. No longer having access to his secret Cordyceps recipe, all of the stars have lost their dominating athlete prowess. In 1995, a year after leaving Ma, only one of the former superstars qualified for the National Team which represented China at the World Championships.   

Curious.  Nonetheless, vegetable fungus is highly valued in Chinese medicine.

The wonders of Cordyceps sinensis have been known in China for at least 1,000 years, where the mushroom is recognized as a national medicinal treasure, a precious and virtually sacred tonic.  As a health supplement, it is known to increase energy and vitality.  Cordyceps is one of the safest medicinal foods.  The mushroom is used to treat liver diseases, cancer, angina pectoris, cardiac arrhythmias, bronchial problems, anemia, tuberculosis, jaundice, emphysema, infertility, and sexual dysfunction.  In traditional Chinese medicine, Cordyceps is believed to nourish the yin, boost the yang, and invigorate the meridians of the lungs and kidneys. 

As per a couple of those treatments, vegetable fungus is said to be a natural Viagra.  It's also advertised in the U.S. as something that will help cravings and thus promote weight loss. 

Strong demand and the grueling and limited harvest (in places like rural Tibet) had the price of natural Cordyceps over $4,000 a pound last year.  There are also laboratory-grown types of Cordyceps available (examples here, here, and here).  That's a whole 'nother topic.

Seven Feathers Expanding

Seven Feathers in Canyonville (between Grants Pass and Roseburg on I-5) is easily the largest casino in Southern Oregon.  And, it's about to get bigger.

What started as a bingo hall in 1992 and has evolved over the years to a Vegas-style casino with all the trimmings will undergo yet another expansion, totaled at $40 million.

By this time in 2009, the South County playground, Seven Feathers Hotel and Casino Resort, will feature 154 new hotel rooms, a day spa and a 250-seat buffet.

The hotel has been operating in excess of 90 percent the past five years, according to Bruce Schoneboom, general manager of Seven Feathers. He said the expansion was spawned by long waits in the current 24-hour restaurant and the fact that the hotel turns away 1,200 reservation phone calls per month.

“We feel very, very good about the additions we are bringing on board within the next six months to a year,” he said.

At a groundbreaking ceremony Thursday, Sue Shaffer, chairman of the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians, said not only will the expansion contribute to building Seven Feathers as a premier destination resort, but the project will also furnish more than 100 jobs.

Last I blogged about the Cow Creek Band, their various businesses--the biggest being the casino--employed over 1,100 people.  The Tribe has made a number of sound business investments in recent years. 

Travis Hill, director of hospitality operations for the Umpqua Indian Development Corporation, spoke in detail about the spa and hotel suites, which will cost patrons $175 to $225 per night. The hotel suites will be 600 square feet with two 42-inch plasma TVs in each room, a wet bar, minibar and jetted hot tubs.

Hill said the River Rock Spa will be ideal for wedding parties, with a full salon offering manicures, pedicures, body wraps, massages and facials. A wet and dry sauna, a soaking tub with a rain shower and a sunless spray tanning booth top off the creature comforts. “We’ll cater to the men as well,” he said.

Guests will be welcome to sip champagne in terry cloth robes while they are pampered.

The Gathering Place, a 250-seat buffet restaurant, completes the expansion with choices of Spanish, Italian, American and Asian food, along with salad and dessert islands. The restaurant is scheduled to open sometime this November.

Other highlights include two outdoor courtyards, an expanded video arcade, increased housekeeping facilities and, most important, a glass walkway connecting the hotel to the game floor.

I know a number of people who've helped make the addition possible...it's part of the reason they live paycheck-to-paycheck. 

Tracking Mail

It's too bad that the following might inadvertently help improve the delivery of many types of junk mail.

When post offices try to improve their service they sometimes send an electronic probe through the mail. This typically consists of a small motion sensor which records the time of day whenever the letter containing it is moved. This can show that a letter might have languished somewhere for hours, but exactly where that was may remain a matter of conjecture.

The GPS Letter Logger should change this. It is a device that uses the satellite-based Global Positioning System to find out exactly where it is. The probe takes advantage of the way that the electronic circuitry needed to build a GPS receiver has shrunk in recent years. Not only is that good in itself, it also means the equipment needs less power, and hence the batteries can be smaller as well. Small GPS trackers of this sort are already used to locate things like delivery trucks, and to find objects that have been stolen, such as cars and high-value consumer products. But a bit of modification was needed to build one thin enough to fit into an envelope and then withstand being stuffed into sacks, thrown into delivery vans and run through automated sorting systems that shuffle letters at the rate of 12 a second.

The article said that the battery lasts about a week.

Usually, a GPS tracker transmits its position using a radio or mobile phone connection. The US Post Office did not require this, in part because mail often travels in aircraft, and transmitting devices are supposed to be switched off during take-off and landing. Not having to transmit also helped to keep the Mail Logger small.

The Letter Logger was developed by TrackingTheWorld, a company based in Burlingame, California. To travel undetected in the guise of a standard business letter, the device needed to fit into the most commonly used envelope (a number ten in America, 4-1/8" x 9-1/2"). It had to contain no part thicker than a quarter of an inch and be capable of a little bending. To complicate things, it also had to work in the vertical position, which is how letters travel in automated sorters. This means the circuit board would be edge-on to the sky, the worst position to pick up the satellite signals needed to triangulate its position. Moreover, the device needed to be capable of doing all this while inside buildings and vehicles.

The Letter Logger can be programmed to check its position every few minutes, over longer intervals, or only when an in-built motion detector senses movement, says Jude Daggett, of TrackingTheWorld. The journey log is stored on a standard micro-SD card to make it simple to use without any special software. This allows the log to be read by a laptop computer and displayed as a journey on Google Earth. The inability to transmit does not greatly detract from its usefulness: if the probe’s log showed, for instance, that the envelope it was inside crawled along Interstate 405 before turning off to Los Angeles International Airport where, after a short delay, it suddenly zoomed off to Phoenix Sky Harbour, then it most probably went airmail.

Popular Science named the Letter Logger its "Invention of the Month" in February.  Wish I could find some place that noted how much the system costs.

Automated Salmon Mutilation

Hatchery salmon are supposedly inferior to the wild types.  That why a number of folks are fine with clipping or amputating the adipose fin of hatchery salmon...the fish need a scarlet letter before being released as free-range salmon.  Sometimes the clipping is done for science, but most of the time it's a simple management technique.  Well, not always simple... 

Suck one roughly 3-inch fingerling through a series of plastic tubes into a 44-foot trailer. Take video to determine its size within one-tenth of a millimeter.

Sort it using computers, water jets and flapping plastic ports into one of six tubes. Guide the tiny fish into an "AutoFish" machine that holds the fish still and quickly slices off its adipose fin.

Take another video to make sure the fin came off right. Send it back through another tube into the hatchery pool.

Repeat 15 million times.

Some like to claim that the fish feel no pain when the fin is clipped.  Yet, a number of hatcheries anesthetize the young salmon with things like tricaine methanesulfonate or spearmint oil (mixed with ethanol for dispersal) before clipping them.  From it's website...

The AutoFish System is a cost effective way to handle juvenile fish rapidly without the use of anesthetic or human contact.

The AutoFish can also inject Decimal Coded Wire Tags into the snouts of the fish.  Returning to the original article...

The automated trailers cost $1 million apiece; operating costs of fish marking in federal hatcheries alone run $1.5 million a year.

And the program has its critics, most significantly Native American tribes. They question the benefit to wild fish of marking nearly every hatchery salmon and steelhead in dozens of Washington and Oregon hatch.

Fishery managers say the congressionally mandated program helps fishermen distinguish hatchery fish from wild fish, expanding the potential take of hatchery fish.

Expanding the potential take?

Losing a Few Hours of Bottled Water Production

Crystal Geyser Alpine Spring Water beat Nestle to the punch.  It's busily making money bottling water from a spring in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest near Mt. Shasta.  Some of that water is exported to Japan...which certainly isn't a very green thing to do with a natural product. 

Closing the plant unexpectedly for a few hours sure is expensive.

A Montague man who pled guilty to felony charges of calling in a false bomb threat while employed at the Crystal Geyser Bottling Plant in Weed was sentenced last Wednesday in Siskiyou County Superior Court.

James Murphy, 37, has been ordered to serve six months in jail, provide 200 hours of non-compensated community service, serve three years felony probation and provide a sample of his DNA for submission to the California DNA database.

On Oct. 23, 2007, an anonymous 911 call was made reporting a bomb in the plant's warehouse. The Crystal Geyser plant was then evacuated and closed for six hours while a search of the facility was conducted. No explosive device was found.

"The cost to shut down the plant for six hours was $197,070,” Siskiyou County District Attorney Kirk Andrus said. “Crystal Geyser is not seeking restitution, which they have every right to."

Murphy is a moron.

Murphy reportedly told Weed Police that he made the false threat because he wanted to go home early that day.

During the investigation, Weed Police were able to trace the 911 call to a telephone within the bottling plant.

"Weed police officer Jim Cummings wrote down what was said in the 911 call," Andrus said. "He then had each of the employees read it back to him. He was able to determine that Murphy, who was acting very nervous, had placed the call."

It was his first offense. 

Moving USFS

The U.S. Forest Service is part of the USDA.  But since harvesting our national forests is only a small portion of the responsibility any more, maybe USFS would be better located within the Department of the Interior, which is where one finds the BLM, National Park Service, and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.  Some in the Congress are studying that possibility.

At the request of the House Appropriations subcommittee on interior, environment and related agencies, the Government Accountability Office this month began examining whether it would make sense to move the Forest Service to Interior's purview. The subcommittee has jurisdiction over both agencies.

"The public perceives them as being very similar," said Robin M. Nazzaro, director of the Natural Resources and Environment group at GAO, which is conducting the study. "They've just asked us to look at, could any money be saved, and would it result in a more efficient, effective and coordinated management of federal lands and the natural resources?"

...

"Today the evolution of our forests has gone away from production and more towards preservation, and it seems to me that the natural move has made it over under the umbrella of the Department of the Interior rather than the Department of Agriculture," Rep. Todd Tiahrt (Kan.), the top Republican on the subcommittee, said at a Feb. 12 hearing on the agency.

This idea has been discussed periodically for decades.  As one might expect, the agencies themselves are being non-committal on the subject.

Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), the panel's chairman, believes such a move would help shore up the Forest Service's budget and align agencies with similar missions, said his spokesman, George Behan.

"You have more recreational campground areas in the Forest Service than you do even in the Park Service," Behan said. "So there's a logical reason for considering it. However, the question has to be asked, 'Is it the best thing for each agency and for land management?' "

Right...move USFS to DOI and more money magically appears.  And how's National Park Service funding been doing in recent years?  Nevertheless, the transfer is certainly an idea worth considering. 

But transforming bureaucracies is easier said than done, and one reason is that the mere talk of it often generates anxiety among entrenched interests with something to lose, said Don Kettl, director of the Fels Institute of Government at the University of Pennsylvania.

...

"Changing organizational structure creates political battles among people who will worry about the role and nature of the organizations," Kettl said. "Moving these organizations around is never an easy thing. . . . Different organizational structures can make things better, but the process of moving boxes is a lot harder than just drawing organization charts."

That's for sure.

Random Nature #160

Geothermal Cracking:  Last fall, a small town in the southwestern corner of Germany was trying to be green.  It's still sinking.

The problems began when, as part of the refurbishment of the town hall -- built in 1546 -- the council decided to heat the building with geothermal power from deep below the earth's surface. In September last year an Austrian company sunk seven geothermal probes 140 meters into the ground.

Not long later, the first cracks began to appear, and the number of buildings whose facades have cracked open has risen steadily. At last count 68 buildings in the town center have been damaged. The cost of repairs, the mayor said, will run into six figures.

The damage has been caused by parts of the town sinking into the ground -- very slowly. To measure movements in the earth beneath Staufen, officials have set up 30 monitoring points. While some areas of the town have sunk by up to eight millimeters, other parts have actually risen by a few millimeters.

Most are assuming that the new geothermal project is to blame.  The structural engineer hired to investigate can't rule out natural causes, but...

According to Breder, when the geothermal probes were sunk into the ground, the contractors came across confined groundwater. It is possible, he said, that the digging might have reduced the water's pressure and caused some of it to trickle away. As a result, the earth's surface could have sunk.

Breder added that although it was fairly common for geothermal projects to cause very minor damage to buildings -- especially ones with structural problems -- the damage to buildings in Staufen was unusual. "I have never encountered anything like this -- not to this extent," he said. "Also colleagues who I've spoken to about this have not seen anything like this."

Sometimes when we remove water from the ground, we learn that the structural integrity of the ground was dependent upon that water.  The most dramatic examples of this tend to be sinkholes.

Foundation:  The definition of a sinkhole has been a moving target.  It's common nowadays to see road subsidences and large potholes referred to as sinkholes.  Since Florida has more sinkholes than any other state, let's start with the following:

Today, sinkholes in the state of Florida are defined by statute as “…a landform created by subsidence of soil, sediment, or rock as underlying strata are dissolved by groundwater. A sinkhole may form by collapse into subterranean voids created by dissolution of limestone or dolostone or by subsidence as these strata are dissolved.”

That means, the rock that lies beneath the soil and sub-soil (often clay) upon your property can be literally dissolved as groundwater moves through the rock profile.  As changes in groundwater movement and amount of available groundwater wear the rock away, cavities can form where the fissures widen enough to meet.  While the cavities are filled with water, they remain able to support the weight of the soil above because of the pressure the water exerts on the top of the cavity.  In the dry months when they can drain, the ground above breaks through and forms a hole.

As you may have guessed, insurance is why Florida defines sinkholes...property coverage for them now comes at a premium.  The definition is rather limited, focusing only upon bedrocks that can be dissolved by water.  Plus, it doesn't address the fact that sinkholes can occur quite gradually or be rather dramatic--like the ones we see on the news.   

Most of Florida sits on limestone, which is alkaline.  When rainfall or acidic surface waters percolate down to the limestone, the rock dissolves, creating hard water and holes.  Droughts and wells can lower the level of the groundwater, helping to cause collapses.  But sinkholes can form other ways as well.  The Dead Sea has a number of them near its shoreline because its sediments are soluble in the inbound fresh water.  Plus, sinkholes can be formed as water flows through soils, taking the finer particles and leaving the larger stuff. 

The causes of sinkholes and road failures can sometimes be rather similar. A critical aspect of road design--and the subsequent construction and maintenance--is keeping water away from the foundation...the earth and gravel underneath.  Not filling cracks in the asphalt is a great way of speeding the failure of a section of pavement via the resulting potholes.

Subsidence:  Mining occasionally gives water a short circuit into the ground.  Here's a curious instance that occurred earlier this month in Pennsylvania coal country.

According to Mick Kuhns, chief of the anthracite branch of the Office of Surface Mining in Wilkes-Barre, the hole was caused by the presence of an abandoned mine slope beneath the creek bed.

According to Kuhns, the opening was about 100 feet long and the width varied from 20 to 40 feet when it was first reported. He said it appears to have gotten larger, but he did not have the current dimensions.

...

Kuhn said that although the water from the Mahanoy Creek is flowing into the mine slope and beneath the ground under Mahanoy City, entering behind the former Kaier Brewery, it poses no threat to properties in the borough.

Although the diversion of water is not causing problems for property owners, Kuhns said the matter has to be taken care of so water does not react with minerals in the mines for an extended amount of time causing acid mine drainage.

He sure seems confident that erosive forces within the abandoned mine won't cause subsidence issues for those above the suddenly lost creek.  I sure wouldn't want to be within the potential angle of draw of any potential subsidences there.

Heavy rains had Mahanoy Creek flowing at a very abnormally high 10-12 million gallons per hour.  The creek devoted some of that energy to carving its way down into the mine...which now swallows all of the creek's water.  For obvious safety reasons, authorities have had to block off ready access to the creek and its hole.  As long as the water isn't flowing too aggressively (since it will need to be diverted), a contractor will start patching the hole in early April.

I just loved a quote from Kuhns in the most recent link...

“It’s preferred to keep surface water on the surface,” he said.

If this had occurred in a drier section of the country, I'd imagine someone would be trying to claim a silver lining...that the hole in the creek was helping to recharge the aquifer.   

A Day Delay

Sorry for the delay, but I'll post the next Random Nature tomorrow.  Things were just too busy today.

The Bio of a County Commissioner

The Daily Courier had a fascinating article today on the resume padding/falsifying of County Commissioner Jim (von) Raffenburg--formerly James Lynn Terry.  Rather than going blow by blow, let's just note the following:

Raffenburg's life is as enigmatic as the misspelled code scrawled under his signature on a 1992 Oregon voter registration card that reads, "without prejidice UCC 1-207."

The Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) is meant to bring the law of sales and commercial transactions in line nationwide. UCC 1-207 specifies that a person who performs a service under duress does not give up his rights. It's been used by members of anti-government and militia groups, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center...

Since Raffenburg hasn't exactly been forthcoming...

It's been 24 years since Olsen divorced James Terry. She joked that he got the keepsakes, while she got the check ledger. Searching through the pages of a long-gone past with the father of her daughter, Olsen paused when she found a September 1978 check for $20 written to the Foundation of Human Understanding in Los Angeles. Raffenburg was a "survivalist" back then, she said.

"He always wanted to go to Oregon," she recalled. "Jim would say, 'I hope the bomb doesn't end the world before we get there.'"

Inspired by a relative who moved to Oregon and heard the teachings of hypnotist-turned-talk-show-host-turned-religious-leader Roy Masters, the couple made their way to Medford.

Masters established the Foundation of Human Understanding in Los Angeles in the 1960s and moved operations to the Tall Timber Ranch near Selma in 1979. There, he held seminars promoting survivalism and predicted the collapse of government under the ever-growing burden of the welfare system. He encouraged followers to move to rural areas, arm themselves and run for public office.

Community members were concerned Masters would try to fill the Grants Pass City Council and the commissioners' office with his followers.

"I will," he told the Daily Courier in 1983. "It's already happening."

Raffenburg's connection with the group continued through the early '90s, when he obtained a real estate license, worked as a contractor and was employed by a real estate firm owned by one of Masters' sons, Koral said.

The Foundation for Human Understanding is a 501(c)(3) non-profit church organization, and Masters--now in his late 70s--is still its leader.  The FHU certainly isn't the only organization that's moved to rural Oregon and tried to usurp the local politics.  Remember Antelope and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh?  He's still alive, going by the name of Osho, and living in India. 

Raffenburg isn't running for reelection.  Sadly, Ellis is.  And on too many days, Toler (who has two more years) makes both of them look good. 

When it comes to government, we must not deserve much here in Josephine County...