Posts

Showing posts from August, 2008

It's TV

Image
     There is something about the old political conventions that can't be replaced.  Spontaneity.  They are so orchestrated , scripted, silly-slick that they are hardly entertaining any more.  Bad enough we have to endure sound tracks at ball games, political rallies, and weddings, now each campaign has to have a theme song, or an official group that hopes to embody the candidate's "message"  in a three minute sound byte.  Oh I know the history of political tunes and campaign songs.  I vaguely remember the "I like Ike" TV spots from 1956.  Something about what we've got now that's just too slippery.      Gone is all the drama of the roll-call votes.  Gone are the self-serving speeches about "the great state of ..." "Mr. Chairman, delegates to this great convention, the state of  (your choice), the only state in this mighty union to produce tomatoes all year long, the state of  Jonathan Knox, first printing press operator in the union,

River in the City

Image
Even for native Portlanders, the Willamette River conjures up that massive wide body that winds it's way through the city and divides the East from the West.  Some folks cross it multiple times each day.  It is perceived as everything from an open sewer to a "party" lake.  The murky sepia water has uncommon beauty at dusk, and often windblown, or sparkling in the last light of day can provide a romantic thought or two.  People walk and ride bikes over it, they jog and stroll alongside, and they fear it's chaotic, fickle currents.  But it's Portland's river, and it rhymes with dammi t-the Willamette.        Every great river has to start somewhere and the headwaters of the Willamette tell a different story.  I had no idea at the time, but 35 years ago when I drove my old VW bus down the Interstate and east through Eugene and Springfield to Lowell, Oregon, I was almost there.  I'd read a classified ad for a teaching job, and armed with nothing more than a co

Booked for Books

Image
     Lots of interest last week in the young woman from Wisconsin who was arrested and booked, then fined for not returning library books.  It's easy to see this as a major overreaction; but is it?  Sure her overdue paperbacks won't impact Western civilization as we know it, but she is forgetting something very important that does.      Apparently she ignored phone calls and a court date, and ultimately a law enforcement officer had to stop by her home and haul her in, cuffs and all.   A couple hundred dollars later, her picture in all the tabloids, a few TV/Radio morning show appearances, and she's back in her life of quiet desperation.   Here's what I want to say to her, and let me make it clear that even though my library record is fairly clean, I seem to remember a time or two when the temptation not to return a book reared it's selfish head.  The important thing here is that if we keep the books, others don't benefit from them.  It's called a library so

Portentous

Image
1. "Book losing words"    How many times can the reporters and correspondents at the Olympics ask the tired old question, How did you feel? In the aftermath of triumph or tragedy, all we seem to be getting these days is How did you feel winning, losing, falling, falling short, coming back, winning a medal, being here in Beijing, being an American, seeing the flag, hearing the anthem, accumulating all those medals, all those endorsements, all that wealth? How did it feel? Sometimes I think that most of those working journalists are too young to know that it's the question you never ask! They should have been better prepared. We're all "feeled out" having been asked how we feel when our homes are burning, when floods have destroyed our land, our possessions, and our dignity. We get asked for feelings when we come into money or go away to prison. Time for another line of reasoning. Push the question back, how do you think I feel? How do you feel

Eagle Eyed

Image
Sometimes the fishing is much better than the catching. It's been a slow summer in the catching department, but the fishing has been wonderful. I've been all over the Cascades in the last two weeks. A real reminder of why I live in Oregon. Last Tuesday I wandered up a narrow rough road for a few miles and landed at Three Creeks Lake. It's a rare eco-system that surrounds this little jewel; an alpine environment with patches of snow still on the ground in August! Sometimes I wonder how much longer places like this will continue to exist. Given how many ranches and large tracts of land are being sub-divided, how many little tracts of homes are springing up, jet skis in the driveway, BBQ grill and mountain view in the backyard, and how much the area is changing I sense the need to savor each day and be thankful what it brings. While float-tubing and probing the depths with nymphs and streamers, my eyes caught a flash of white in the vivid blue above. An eagle came buy

Who You Think You Are

Image
We want to believe.  It's in the blood.  Whether it is a way to confirm what we desire but fear might not be, or whether it's completely unconscious, people will believe, because they need to believe.      We need Barak Obama to be everything George W. is not.  Not as easy as it seems.  Certainly this Democrat is and will not be beholden to any corporate agenda.  Or is he?  He's already changed his position on off-shore oil drilling.  He'll command respect from our adversaries just because he's so different.  He's articulate for starters.  He's young, willing to listen to all sides of an issue, apparently free of scandal, and thinks deeply.  He's promise personified.  It's almost as if we would wish all things wronged in the last decade to be right simply with his election.  We want to believe.  It beats the alternative.  It works for gossip, for religion, for palm reading, and for astrology.  It is because we want it to be.      When Big Bown hit th