Sorry for the late update.

So, if you hadn’t heard, the mayor of Silverton, Oregon is the first openly transgendered mayor in the United States of America.  Of course, this has attracted critisism of the worst kind: The Westboro Baptist Church, the God Hates Fags protesters.  Four of these people flew out here to protest the mayor of Silverton.  Those four were met by one-hundred and fifty counter-protesters from the town of Silverton.  It makes me proud to live in a state where even the small towns refuse to turn a blind-eye to the type of bigotry the Westboro Baptists Church has become famous for.  When a town of 7,000 people loans only counter-protesters and does not bolster the number of bigots, that is an amazing victory against this horrible hate-mongering.

Posted by Wes Mueller on 11/24 at 09:26 PM  •   •  permalink

I haven’t found anything that I have a significant amount to say about.  Hillary Clinton looks like she’s going to be accepting the Secretary of State position.  If I find something later, I’ll do an update.

Posted by Wes Mueller on 11/21 at 02:38 PM  •   •  permalink

I’ll be writing my blog from home later tonight as my browser is crashing regularly right now.  Sorry about the delay.

Posted by Wes Mueller on 11/19 at 12:59 PM  •   •  permalink

When it comes to internet providers, there aren’t many shows in Portland, Oregon.  Sure, the edges of the city as well as the suburbs have access to a variety of providers, but the closer you get to downtown, the less options you have.  Internet service in Portland is largely provided by two companies: Comcast and Qwest.  These two companies offer your basic cable and DSL speeds, both have upload/download caps, and Comcast has been known to try to regulate certain types of traffic that comes through it.  These two companies run as each others only opposition in the downtown area, and it is not to the benefit of the customers.

Once you leave the downtown area and head to the edges of the city you find a different service, Verizon FiOS.  For the same price as Comcast you get speeds that are nearly twice as fast.  The service runs through fiber optic lines (hence the name of the service) which seem to carry a more consistent speed than its cable and phone line counterparts.  Qwest offers a faster service in various areas of Portland, but again as you get closer to Downtown you are less likely to be eligible for the service.

Now we have Comcast, with largely a lack of competition, getting ready to offer “Premium” services:  Bumping their speed up to the fastest Qwest already offers in some areas for about $20 more.  Yet if you want faster internet in the Downtown area you are going to be forced to go through Comcast for these speeds.  Comcast seems to have a monopoly on the Downtown area, an area which is certainly tech savvy with the creative-class-filled Pearl, Alphabet and Nob Hill Districts.  Portland needs to find a way to break this damaging monopoly and get better and cheaper services to Downtown.

Posted by Wes Mueller on 11/17 at 01:22 PM  •   •  permalink

I want to apologize for not posting yesterday.  I don’t know why I forgot to, I just did.  I’m trying to be a little more diligent, honestly.

I’ve been working on learning how city government works, as it’s not really a subject I’ve focused on in the past.  I spent all my time looking at the national level, where I honestly believe no individual citizen can affect change, rather than looking at our local level where I think a citizen’s abilities to change their surroundings is a little more significant.  I’m changing that focus now, as I said Monday, and I’m pouring my attention into our city’s structure.

Portland, Oregon is the last large city in the United States that has a city commission government.  What this means is that Portland is run not by a mayor with a city council under them, but by a group of commissioners who share an equal amount of power.  The mayor in this form of government is basically another commission member with a symbolic title.  The four commissioners and mayor make up the city council, who acts as the executive and legislative branch, as well as a quasi-judicial branch.  In Portland there is a sixth elected official, the city auditor.  The auditor works towards ethical and transparent government activity.

Each of the commissioners and the mayor are assigned different responsibilities and titles.  What I find strange is that the titles assigned to a commissioner do not necessarily denote what they work with.  For example, the Commissioner of Public Works doesn’t always have any public works bureaus in their portfolio.

Overall, I find our system of city government to be interesting, and I think it’s fascinating that we have a system of government that is unique to us as far as large cities go.

Posted by Wes Mueller on 11/13 at 02:27 PM  •   •  permalink