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Showing posts from February, 2012

Two Choices

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Like millions of others, I watched the 84th Academy Awards last night. For the first time since I can remember, I watched it by myself. Just the way circumstances played out this year. In a way, it was advantageous to be without the hoopla of any party or the confusion and bantering of the fashion police. Quite civilized, I might add. But even though I marked my ballot and kept score, I was really keeping score of something else besides the Oscar winners. This year I began by counting some of the adjectives used to describe the experience. This wasn't a random game of some former English teacher. Not quite. What I was interested in was which of the three words most people use to describe something they deem out of the ordinary was used most. Thee was a clear winner: "amazing." I would have had money on that one if possible. "Incredible" was a distant second. Bringing up the rear was a smattering of "wonderfuls" and "unbelieveables.&quo

Wandering Wolf Part II

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We've been here longer. We predate your written records. You with the guns and money. You who build fences and slaughter for other reasons. We predate you. Our math was the arithmatic of necessity. Take away only what yo need. Add to the sum total of all things in harmony. Know why you multiply. Divide when it is time. Your fearful army is saying we kill their cattle. Hardly. We take elk first. Cattle only if we must. The numbers are truth tellers. More cattle die from natural causes. Or coyotes, or weather, climate and conditions. They die from lightning or drought, flood and fire. We take a few only when survival is at stake. Thousands die each year never having been close to one of our number. The places you call Montana and Idaho are the worst. Pompous, self-appointed leaders blaspheme our heritage, those who support our right to that heritage,and anyone who would embrace a tree. We embrace trees too. The money handlers with lightning sticks will not survive. Their time h

Wandering Wolf

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Here's an excerpt from a piece I started during a workshop with Heidi Durrow the author of The Girl Who Fell From the Sky. Heidi was the guest presenter at the annual Oregon Writing Project Renewal Day this year. We were working with character and looking at how certain elements can develop character. We also applies various descriptors of our own personality to the characters. Since I've been fascinated by the ongoing story of OR-7 the tagged wolf who has made his way over 700 miles from Eastern Oregon to Northern California. The researchers think he's looking for a mate. The ranchers thinking he is after their cattle. By late afternoon, I was well beyond the little valley. Beneath the deep green and rust of this new landscape, my charcoal coat appeared ashen. It worked. There had been a burn that scarred the hillside for at least 10 miles. I fit in here and decided to spend the night in relative safety. The change in landscape held my thoughts until the last

Racing Now

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A good political battle for the nomination is often referred to as a horse race. "We've got an old fashion horse race here," the pundits often say. Fair enough. Some of these contests are hard fought, neck and neck, with one candidate eking out a win. It would never surprise me if a photo finish was ever required to separate the winner from the rest of the pack. Not sure how that would go, but after "hanging chads" and all manner of recounts, it just seems plausible. So why not apply a few of the necessities of a good old fashion horse race to this year's Republican contest. Let's start with the way horse racing announcers speak. Believe it or not, some of the more widely know horse racing announcers are flat out among the best entertainers out there. I'm not referring to Oaklawn Park's Frank Mirahmadi and the way he calls a race imitating everyone from Rodney Dangerfield to his fellow colleagues. Frank is great and certainly entertain

Best and Brightest

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I spent half the day at a middle school in SE Portland yesterday. That should be required for anybody elected to public office. It should be required for anybody who would write anything about education reform. It should be required for all taxpayers, especially those with no children and those who will never have children. This is what I saw. I went to observe a beginning teacher whose mentor I have become. I saw her energy and her patience. I saw her overcrowded classes. Imaging being the only one in the room with 35 6 and 7th graders. They move and dart at such a pace that one pair of eyes can't even begin to keep up. They clap their hands, they are eager...for most anything. (That is good) They push and shove each other. They chew gum when they shouldn't. They pull hoodies over their heads when they shouldn't. They sneak food. (all students do this) They need to go to the bathroom, need to get a drink of water, need to express every thought, every sudden

Hanging Koan

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Most people don't notice them. Probably because they never look above themselves all that often. But they are everywhere and have been for decades. You see them in urban ghettos and suburban sprawl. They are on desserted phone wires and near mountaintops. Tennis shoes, sneakers, gym shoes...hanging on phone wires, on streetlight wires, on traffic light wires...twisting in the wind or shining down at night. They are evident. Urban folklore abounds. They supposedly have been used to mark territory. Gang turf, drug dealer's turf, the spot marked. But the evidence just isn't there because sneakers hang overhead in all sorts of neighborhoods. They hang where no gangs exist, where no dope is sold, where you'd least expect them to be. Wonder how long it would take you to find a pair in your neighborhood? Some say it's a different kind of ritual. The purveyors of urban legend say they function as rites of passage. First sexual experience, all manner of ini