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Pastimes : The Boxing Ring Revived -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (3599)	1/9/2003 4:17:47 PM
From: The Philosopher	Respond to of 7720

Your opinion has been recorded.

To: TimF who wrote (3599)	1/11/2003 8:18:56 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 7720

Maybe because the Oregonians are smart enough to recognize the false dilemma or "Accedpt tax increases (or forgo tax cuts) or all these popular and important programs will be slashed." I spent an hour at the DMV last week renewing my driver's license. I was expecting it to be much worse than it was. An hour rather than half an hour is not that onerous. I read the other day that Richmond is rethinking the cuts at the DMV. I always thought that move was from the "close the Washington Monument" school of politics. You might be amused by the reason I had to go to the DMV rather than renewing on line. I tried to do it on line but the web site didn't like my answer to the question about wearing glasses to drive and kicked me out telling me I had to show up in person. They gave you three choices and said to pick the best one. I think that the options were ill conceived. Anyway, when I finally got my turn at window 12, the only one doing license renewal, I was first asked to take the eye test. I took off my glasses, passed the test, and then put my glasses back on. Then the woman took me through a series of questions, one of which was whether I wear my glasses when I drive. I said that I did. She didn't like my answer. By way of background, I have needed reading glasses since I was in my early forties. At that time I decided to deal with the problem by getting bifocals, which had only the most minor distance correction, and wearing them all the time just so I'd always have my reading glasses when I needed them. I also have UV protection in my glasses. I do not need glasses to drive. I do need them, however, for reading maps or labels on cans at the grocery store so I wear them when I drive except when I drive to the pool where I would have to take them off and possibly lose them. Back to the woman at window 12. She said that if I wore my glasses to drive, she'd have to put that on my license. Which means that I would get a ticket for not wearing them, so I said I didn't want that. Then she told me that if she put "no correction" on my license, I would get a ticket if caught wearing them. She said she knew of someone who did. 45 bucks plus court costs, it cost her. Is that silly or what? I started to give her an argument but finally just said that I understood her advice but to please put "no glasses" on the license and I'd take my chances. Just like the web site questions, they don't seem to grasp the notion that people might wear glasses for reasons having nothing to do with seeing a road sign or a child playing in the road but simply for UV protection or reading. Bizarre! It's enough to turn you into a libertarian. <g>

To: TimF who wrote (3599)	1/15/2003 12:23:23 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Respond to of 7720

Maybe because the Oregonians are smart enough to recognize the false dilemma or "Accedpt tax increases (or forgo tax cuts) or all these popular and important programs will be slashed." Politicians do that a lot, any time there revenue is going to go down they say that it will mean the most vital and or popular programs will be cut rather then cutting less vital programs including their own pet programs and finding other ways to reduce spending. AH YES! Ain't that the truth! That sort of thing was THE favorite attack with the anti crowd when Prop 13 was on the ballot in CA. Double, even triple (???- -a midnight to 8 AM school day?) sessions at schools, parks shut down, libraries gone, multi-hour police and fire response times. The works. It passed anyway. Some opponents in gov't actually carried out part of the threat- -cutting back library hours. When after a couple of years there was no counter-revolution, they figured out they were only hurting the librarians by cutting their pay and restored full service.