Posted inCurrent affairs

“If America were Iraq, What would it be Like?”

This is a great question, ably answered by Juan Cole in a posting with the same name on his web site, Informed Comment: Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion. Cole is a history professor at the University of Michigan. Noting that the population of the United States is over eleven times that of Iraq, he starts his essay by multiplying statistics from Iraq by that number. “Thus violence killed 300 Iraqis last week, the equivalent proportionately of 3,300 Americans. What if 3,300 Americans had died in car bombings, grenade and mortar attacks, machine gun spray, and aerial bombardment…
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Posted inNeighborhood

We buy really expensive blackberries

Here’s a look at some of the blackberries that we just agreed to buy for more money than you'd believe, along with impressive quantities of poison oak. We couldn’t pass up an opportunity to purchase the five-acre lot next to us when Mary, the owner, offered to sell it. We had a nice visit with Mary and her sister this afternoon and worked out an amicable deal that was sealed with a handshake. Crafty real estate wheeler-dealers that we are, naturally we had never walked over quite a bit of the property that we agreed to buy. And we only…
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Posted inHome life

Bikers for Aristotle…Why Not?

I love those passing moments that stick in your mind. Hardly any moments do. Most moments are, by nature, momentary. But once in a while an instant in time seems to reflect a lasting truth, something to be grokked for its wisdom potential. For example… Last night, sitting around after my martial arts class, I hear someone say the word “curry” while I’m putting my sandals on. Instantly I have an uncontrollable urge for Indian food. Conveniently, there is an Indian restaurant just a few doors down from the Pacific Martial Arts dojo. I order a couple of dishes plus…
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Posted inNeighborhood

Cougar sighting/land use win

Two news items for south Salem’s Spring Lake Estates residents: a cougar has been sighted nearby, and Marion County Planning affirmed the denial of the lot line adjustment that Laurel and I have been fighting on behalf of our neighborhood. and the environment. On the cougar front: I just got a call from Carolyn Davidson, who heard from her neighbor Jenny Bennett, who was told by some guys painting her house that they saw a cougar roaming the farmland next to Spring Lake Estates. So I agreed to pass on this word to other people in the area, both directly…
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Posted inFamily

West Hollywood condo for sale

OK, it’s unlikely that I’m going to find any buyers for a West Hollywood condo via my Oregon weblog, but I figured I’d take a stab at helping out my daughter and her husband. Theirs is the 950 Kings Road, #244 listing at $429,000 under "current listings." I figure that a percent or two should flow my way if I broker a deal, which would get me started nicely on a Mini Cooper S purchase. Celeste and Patrick, if you’re interested in moving from L.A. to Sisters (Oregon), I found a nice home for you at the same price. Doesn’t…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Ms. Kerry staffer and Miss America

Last night I got to enjoy two sides of female twenty-something accomplishment and attractiveness. First we went to a Kerry house party at Bill and Pat Dixon’s home in south Salem, the highlight of which was a spirited “Carry Oregon!” presentation by Kelsey. Kelsey is a paid staffer for the Democratic Party in the mid-Willamette valley. She explained that because of campaign finance laws, their slogan says “Carry” rather than “Kerry.” So you don’t need to call in about the misspelling, though Kelsey said that many people do. If she’s a typical Kerry/Democratic Party staffer, Bush and the Republicans have…
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Posted inEntertainment Philosophy

“Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring”

If your fantasy is to live an exceedingly simple Buddhist life on a floating temple in the middle of a beautiful lake, this movie is for you. Set in Korea and spoken in Korean (with English subtitles), it was reviewed in Spirituality and Health magazine, which demonstrates its uplifting credentials. However, Laurel was disappointed that the SSFWS DVD we rented didn’t match her expectations. She thought that the movie would be non-stop Buddhist inspiration, languorous images of water lilies, meditative chanting, strolls through unspoiled nature, that sort of thing. Yes, SSFWS has much of this, but the central theme is…
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Posted inPhilosophy Recreation

The clouds speak to me

During a Metolius River walk with Serena this afternoon I paused to lay on my back in the grass and see what the passing clouds had to say to me. Right away it was evident they could read my mind. Yes, I do have a question. Might as well ask the Big One: What is the meaning of life? And the next cloud that came by had the answer: “I” Hmmmm. Quite profound. Hindus say, “Atman (soul) is Brahman (God). Moses was told by God, “I am that I am.” I am God, the clouds tell me. I like it!…
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Posted inBooks Current affairs Writing/Weblogs

Bumper sticker wisdom

Here’s some bumper sticker/wooden sign wisdom that I picked up in several artsy-crafty Sisters stores yesterday: “My greatest fear is that there is no PMS, and this is my personality.” “If life were logical, men would ride side-saddle.” “Isn’t a smoking area in a restaurant like a peeing area in a swimming pool?” “My wife keeps saying I never listen to her…or something like that.” “If I want to hear the pitter-patter of little feet, I’ll put shoes on my dog.” I started paying more attention to this pithy literary genre because I was looking for a way to entertain…
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Posted inHome life

Junkyard dog, No! Samurai canine, Hai!

“Hai,” that’s “yes” in Japanese. And that’s just what I’ll say if you ask whether my new best friend, Hero, is a genuine Samurai canine. Yes, he is. So no, don’t call him a junkyard dog, even though this is what a sadly mistaken Internet site terms him. Plus, Laurel told me that even the box he came in had his pedigree mislabeled. I didn’t notice this when the good folks at Sisters Cascade of Gifts (where we adopted him today) brought out the original carrier that he came from China in. It was too large for us to take…
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Posted inEntertainment

“Hero”

If you haven’t seen “Hero,” the marvelous Chinese martial arts movie, you should do it while it is still viewable on a big screen. Last night Laurel and I marveled at the cinematography of “Hero.” You’ll see things that you’ve never seen in a movie before, and probably never will again—unless Zhang Yimou directs a sequel. If you have an aversion to sub-titles, quash your qualms and buy a ticket anyway. Ditto if you usually stay away from martial arts flicks, because “Hero” is to the typical martial arts movie as “The Godfather” is to the typical gangster movie: in…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Who the Hell is “Undecided”?

The incomparable Mark Morford of SFGate.com has an interesting take on election polls in his column today. He asks, who the hell could be undecided between Bush and Kerry, given the stark differences between them? And, whoever they are, how the hell could they be swayed so easily after a superficial slick slogan-filled convention (whether Democratic or Republican)? Morford gets it just right when he says, “These polls are designed solely to mangle your head and confound your synapses and elate you and titillate you and then plunge you into instant despair and then yank you back out at the…
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Posted inHome life

My afternoon delight

Yeah, baby! I may be fifty-five years old, but most days I still take to heart the rockin’ message of “Afternoon Delight” (click here if you’re too young to know the tune of this classic song): My motto’s always been ‘when it’s right, it’s right! Why wait until the middle of a cold dark night?... Looking forward to a little afternoon delight. Absolutely. If something feels good at midnight, it’s going to feel just as good at three in the afternoon. That’s why I’m an inveterate napper, and why I’m not ashamed to call the pillow in our extra bedroom…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Four reasons to smile today

It was nice to enter cyberspace today and find four reasons to smile. (1) Bush’s Convention Bounce. Could be just a modest two percentage points, according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll. Factor in the margin of error and it could be nothing. I believe a few other post-convention polls found a bigger bounce. Given that most people already seem to have a firm idea about who to vote for, two points sounds more likely to me. Anyway, this is good news for recently down in the dumps Kerry supporters. (2) Lion Tops Tiger. You have to love it when Vijay…
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Posted inMiscellany

My own most embarrassing moment in sports

Like everyone else (except maybe some heartless Louisiana State fans), I’ve got a lot of empathy for the OSU placekicker, Alexis Serna, whose three missed extra points kept Oregon State from a stupendous college football upset yesterday over third ranked LSU. Oh, man, 22-21 in overtime. It was a great game that merits use of the overused cliche, “Neither team deserved to lose.” Alexis, I’ve been there with you, along with an awful lot of other guys and gals. When you threw down your helmet after the final missed kick and screamed in frustration, I screamed inside my head along…
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Posted inHome life Philosophy

Got a good fried cat recipe?

Here it is, Labor Day weekend coming up, nice Oregon weather forecast, outdoor eating time! And I can’t find a good recipe for fried cat. Damn. Been trying to figure out why Google, for once, has failed me. Best I could do was a song parody, and a warning that if you’re selling fried catfish, a partially burnt out neon sign isn’t good for business. I’m beginning to think that fried cat isn’t a very popular dish. But fried chicken…over a million search results, and plenty of recipes. Funny. Aren’t cats and chickens both animals? Aren’t both non-human? Don’t both…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Kerry needs to get cracking

Having CNN on while paying some bills has been a depressing experience. I probably should have been watching the Cartoon Channel, though the talking conservative heads at the Republican Convention certainly are equally amusing. I missed Zell Miller’s speech, but saw enough clips to realize how utterly mean-spirited and misleading he was. One commentator on CNN had a nice line: “With that speech he put ‘zealot’ back in ‘Zell.’” Laurel likes to believe that American voters will be influenced much more by facts than by rhetoric. I disagree. The hard-core voters on each end of the political spectrum clearly already…
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Posted inHome life

To: CEO, United Airlines

Re: Have you ridden in economy class lately? Dear Mr. or Ms. CEO, forgive me for not addressing you by name, but in this open weblog posting I purposely have avoided learning anything about you—such as your sex, age, religion, body type—so that you will be more impressed if the following guesses about some of your personal characteristics turn out to be true. I am assuming that you do some flying on your own airline. Isn’t this what CEOs are supposed to do these days, get down in the trenches with their customers and employees, and learn about the company…
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Posted inFamily

A wedding miracle: I dance!

There is something magic about every wedding, though Britney Spears’ Las Vegas escapade just sprung to mind, which demolishes the universal applicability of my topic sentence. Okay, let’s make it: There is something magic about almost every wedding, including Brook and Corey’s here in Indiana yesterday (Brook is Laurel’s niece). Laurel got to read a poem that she also had read at the wedding of Brook’s parents, Dee and Jerry, more years ago than any of them would want to remember. We worked on her delivery the night before. Laurel’s performance was great, in this drama coach’s entirely biased opinion.…
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Posted inFamily Recreation

Images of Indiana

Even with a bit of jet lag we’re pretty sure this is Indiana. I took some photographic evidence today to confirm that we’ve left Oregon. I’ve never seen a Kudzu attack in the Northwest. I thought that Kudzu was a purely southern botanical nightmare, but the tenacious tendrils around the attackee here, Jerry Pagac (husband of Laurel’s sister, Mardee), prove otherwise. Jerry is the director of state parks in Indiana, so you'd think he'd know better than to get so close to rapidly growing Kudzu. Hopefully this non-native nuisance can't grow in Oregon. It'd be the devil's twin if it…
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