PITY POOR PORTLAND … it seems almost anytime we have a controversy in Davis, someone drags the beautiful city of Portland into the argument … happened just the other day in the contentious discussion over whether to allow food trucks to roll into Davis … one local restaurant owner quickly pointed to Portland as an example of where food trucks had put the “mom and pop” eateries out of business …

I’ve been to the same parts of Portland as the author of those comments and have not encountered the boarded-up storefronts, but I have stood in long lines for all sorts of wonderful delicacies being dispensed by the food trucks … apparently, “choice” is not a good thing … nor is competition …

Food trucks, so the thinking goes, should not be allowed in Davis if they even slightly threaten existing restaurants … maybe we should make that rule retroactive by 20 years and see what our beloved downtown would look like now … for unexplained reasons, the right of “mom and pop” to make a living is superior to the right of the guy driving the food truck to make a living … and the people should have no say in this tug of war … you do not have the right to eat food out of a truck, period …

They have food trucks in Winters, Woodland, Arbuckle and Knights Landing, not Davis … if you want food trucks in your daily life, move …

RULE BENDER … given that the Red-Headed Girl of My Dreams is a Billings native, we spent part of Saturday afternoon screaming at the TV as the Billings Little Leaguers battled Huntington Beach in the Little League World Series “American” championship game … alas, it was to no avail, as the kids from Big Sky Country were crushed in the final … interestingly, this was billed as a double-elimination tournament, and Billings entered the game undefeated while Huntington Beach had one loss, that a 1-0 defeat to Billings three days earlier … somehow, though, this was deemed the “championship” game, even though Billings was never defeated twice …

I realize this is just Little League baseball, but if you’re going to keep score, apparently it matters who wins and who loses … Billings, as it turns out, was the only team in the entire tournament eliminated with just one loss … clearly, TV dictates this schedule, which explains why the ABC commentators failed to mention the unfairness of it all … my sweetheart is considering a lawsuit to defend the honor of her hometown …

SPEED TRAP … I was driving south out of Woodland the other day — please don’t ask me why I was there — and came across a highway sign on Road 102 that said “END 50 SPEED LIMIT” … now, that might give the unaware motorist the impression it was time to step on the gas and take it up to 65 … unfortunately — is that a red light in the rear view mirror? — the speed limit inches up to only 55 … why even bother to “alert” a driver that the 50 mph limit has expired if he or she can barely increase their speed without risking a violation? …

RAINY DAZE … I was reading one of those “car review” columns that was so laudatory that it may as well have been written by the manufacturer … and, one of the things this soccer van offered that is so helpful to those of us who attempt to drive our highways in winter, was “rain-sensing windshield wipers.” … now, with all due respect to technology, if I can’t tell when it’s raining all by myself, I shouldn’t be behind the wheel …

— Reach Bob Dunning at [email protected] College football fans can access Dunning’s new college football blog at [email protected]

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