Between The Rails

Good morning gentle readers I hope you are looking forward to yet another installment of my adventures on the transit rail system of Northwest Oregon. It was a cloudy drive up today without the low lying fog that I enjoyed so much yesterday. But I did see a couple of interesting things on the way up. The first thing that I noticed was a hot air balloon floating through the sky. What I find interesting about the hot air balloons as a whole is that from the ground they seem to drift along so silently. But when they release gas to inflate the balloon and to keep it aloft it is really quite a noisy process.

The other thing I noticed was a semi truck with an open trailer full of chickens. That is correct, you heard me. The trailer was full of cages of chickens and they were white chickens. That was a surprise let me tell you. I know it makes sense for them to be transported that way but I do not know if I have ever seen a full chicken transport before.

hmmmm, lets see in legal news we had a hate crime at the house this week as our black button quail Onyx appears to have killed our white button quail Milky. Needless to say the wife and I were saddened by Milkys passing. We are still not sure what caused the violence we think overcrowding may be an issue in the cage. But, we have not had problems like this before. But when we saw Onyx go after another bird we caught her and put her in isolation. So we are trying to figure out what the correct response should be. I am thinking we have have her make little tiny license plates.

But, on to my observations about todays passengers. The couple with the Christmas dog are not here and they have been replaced by what apears to be a young business woman. She reminds me of the Cake song about "short skirt and a long jacket". I wish I could remember the name of the song. But, she is wearing a brown skirt and a matching brown jacket and appears to be headed to the office. A bit furthur down the car is a young hispanic fellow wearing a Southpole sweatshirt and baggy pants. He is bald and has his labret pierced (the space below the lower lip and above the chin). He is bald and if it was not for the peircing he would look like your sterotypical latino gang banger. I have no real way to tell aside from his clothing. The rest of the train appears to have the usual people. There is a blonde lady with short hair that the last two trips has had to literally run for the bus when the train stops. I do not think she has been successful in catching her bus. I think she asked the conducter to go faster today.

The car is pretty quite today. The passengers seem content to sit and look outside the window or close their eyes. It is very green outside and that is nice to see and there is a chill in the air. But the temprature in the train car is comfortable for me. Which probably means that it is cold for others. It will be interesting to see the leaves change color as we move into the fall. I need to start taking some pictures to document the changes.

In political news the Surpreme Court is hearing a case today a campaign finance and freedom of speach. It is going to be interesting to see how this plays out because depending on their ruling it could undo, I believe, two decades worth of campaign finance law including the, much hated by conservatives, McCain-Feingold act. Right now the issue is a 90 minute film that a conservative group wanted to put out during the last Presidential primarys attacking Hillary Clinton. The problem with the film was not the content but it was how the film was funded. Had the film been funded by a PAC, political action committee, it would have been fine but it was funded by general funds funds from a union and that is illegal under the present set up. But as long as corporations are thought of as individuals there seems to be a hook to challenge the ruling.

I personally think that there should be limits to how much anyone can give to a candidate. It matters not to me if they are an individual or a group. I think limiting the amount of money serves to level the playing field and take some of the strength away from the incumbent who may have greater access to funding because of the connections that they have made while in office.

Well that is it for today. I hope you have a good one.