OPINION
Happy 140th In Oregon, February 14 is more than Valentine's Day. Sunday was this state's birthday. The occasion offered the chance--amid red roses, dark chocolates and sweet hearts--to meditate on who and what we are as a state, where we've been and what we can become. Serendipitously, last weekend also marked the arrival of the latest edition of the Oregon Blue Book on the World Wide Web. As a result, you can now find the 1999-2000 version at www.bluebook.state.or.us. Printed copies won't be available in bookstores for at least another month. The Blue Book, for those who aren't acquainted with it, is a state treasure. In words and graphics, it holds several of the keys to understanding how Oregon operates and what makes this place so special. Perhaps more important, it embodies the fundamental quality of public life here: The apparatus of the state government is remarkably open and accessible. Want to know the origins of the initiative, referendum and recall? In the Blue Book's Elections and Records section you'll learn they were adopted at the turn of the century and quickly came to be known--and imitated--around the country as the "Oregon System." Curious about who lives here now or what our population will look like in the next millennium? See the Changing Demographics area in the Government Finance section. There you'll learn, among other things, "Recent migrants tend to be younger, better educated and over-represented in professional occupations." At the same time, "They have lower incomes than longer term residents." Interested in the historical base of Oregon's economy and how that's changing? Search out the Blue Book's Economy section, which states, "By one measure, Oregon has one of the fifteen most diversified state economies in the nation." Want more detailed information on virtually any aspect of the state? You can access all manner of timely and thoughtful agency records and reports via live links located on the Sources of Information page in the Economy section. You can view dozens of scenic images from all over or look through the outcomes of statewide elections, including voting patterns, dating back to the days of the provisional government in the 1840s. The Blue Book's most important elements, however, are saved for last. These are the full text, including amendments, of the Oregon Constitution and a vivid history of the state written by Terence O'Donnell. "From the estuaries and rain forests of the coast," O'Donnell recounts, "to the valley--lush, humid, almost tropical--to the interior with its distances and skies and tingling sage-scented air, [prehistoric Oregon] was a landscape of ravishing variety, as it is today. "There is one respect, however, in which it was a profoundly different place from now; it was silent. The only sounds were the sounds of the place itself." These days, particularly here in the northern reaches of the Willamette
Valley, the sounds of the place itself are pretty much muffled by the
noises of human endeavor. Those of us who make the noises came here
by intention: This was no stopping-off point on the way to somewhere
else. What we've sought is what we've found: a life-giving landscape
in which each individual can still make a decisive mark.
For the first time, the state's Archives Division supervised the Blue
Book's publication, paying special attention to how it would work on
the Web. File sizes have been carefully controlled, so that www.bluebook.state.or.us
loads quickly. - - - - - - - - - - - -
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