Wayward Landlubber

It used to take a long time to get a controversial issue before a legislative body. You had environmental requirements to be considered, legal issues, land-use, and concerns for over-taxing water and sewage installations. This was not that long ago within my political memory. At some time around the 1980s, this changed. Thanks to generous campaign donations to conservative groups in the political underworld, and a political party willing to kiss the ring of a president who can threaten their political future, the government supposedly, of the people, is now wholly in the greased palms of a conservative Supreme Court and members of both parties who mostly infest the right.  This is not just a national issue. It applies to local governments as well. Even in blue states. Which brings us to the proposed Data Center in SE Salem near the county jail. Not yet two weeks ago word emerged of a proposed Data Center. It has the stink of a done deal. Many of us speaking before you tonight do no...

There will be no fancy speeches from our side to honor Lindsey Graham. Yes , it would be nice to say a nice thing about a politician from either side of the law, once they no longer require a skeptical eye, but that's not gonna happen, not today, not for this guy. Sure it's a decent thing that Sen. Graham did by supporting the arming of Ukraine even though the president of his party feels a closer kinship to Vladimir Putin, the guy who had Ukraine attacked. But that is insufficient for praise. One good thing is not enough to drag the political decency equation to the other side. Lindsey Graham may or may not be a closeted gay. I do not care where he gets his love or whether he pays for it. His party, the Republican party, makes life miserable for men and women who share an affection for people of the same sex. Lindsey has never gone to their defense. It is even more dire for those whose sexual organs may not conform to the way they feel about themselves. They are literally a ha...

It happened nearly 50 years ago; only a couple months into my 27th year. I was in the process of failing to find a a crew position on a sailboat heading west to Hawaii. I wanted to feel three, possibly 4 weeks of sailing on a beam reach, a friendly currant adding to the knautical miles traveled. What could possibly go wrong? My first postcard invite fell thru, my next postcard will also fail but I don't know it yet. This was before email. Crew positions were applied for through the USPS after answering an ad from a yachting magazines. I was sitting on a bench in Marina Del Rey, the bronze statue of the Helmsman under a line of date figs off in the distance to my right. Before me in the bay, young people were renting  small sailboats named Sydney Sabots. Flat prow and stern, about 9' long, jibless spritsail and center-board. I was enjoying a burrito from a food cart when an old man approached the bench I was sitting on and sat down at the other end. I nodded to him and we return...

4th of July means fireworks. Every adult, myself included, becomes a kid around fireworks. We look forward in anticipation for that day when fireworks displays will be going off once the sun goes down. In my early years 4th of July meant a family reunion at my grandma Ramsay's house in Molalla where the cousins would get together and play games and attendthe carnival, while the uncles parked cars in an unused piece of land behind grandma's house for fair-goers, rodeo-goers, or for the big parade. Meanwhile the aunts took over the kitchen and came up with scrumptious pies. Oh there were meals as well,  but those pies. And those three nights of the 4th of July weekend were rewarded by a spectacular pyrotechnic display. Later in about 4th or 5th grade I learned (or rather survived, a fundamental lesson in what makes a solid propellant, and what makes a huge bang, thanks to a used Estes rocket engine tube and my dad's 12 Guage shotgun shells. Over time a childhood friend, Lonni...

Recently I wrote an essay reflecting on passive aggressive behavior. Old age being a time for reflection, I'm going to reflect on more things. Those of you who know me have probably asked yourself, "when is he going to bring up the Reflecting pool at the Lincoln Memorial?" You know me too well; I'm a walking cliche'. Unless you have been in a coma you probably know that the Goomba who Trump hired on a no-bid contract pooched the project,  not just fixing the leak in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool but making it worse. Floating islands of algae covered the reflecting pond between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial, once the reflecting pond recieved its water. Two former presidents joining with the other 44 to do a collective metaphorical forehead slap on the 47th president. To be fair, this was an ongoing issue but has been controlled better by other presidents even during the Great Depression. To compound the problem, National Parks workers were...

People accuse me of being passive-aggressive. Yeah, so what? Is it better to be aggressive-aggressive? Or maybe you think I should  just be simply passive. Like republikkkons are, as they watch an 80-year-old supremely passive-aggressive guy turn their party into a cliche' of comically stupid/corrupt government. The guy who Trump hired to paint the Lincoln Memorial could have stepped out of  Central Casting, or the Soprano's. A short, fat, Italian-American with a fat cigar a bulky manilla envelope in their breast-pocket, and you don't want to know what's in the waistband under his suit coat. Vincent Pastore or Steve Schirippa.  Yeah, I know I'm a smart-ass; I'm a cynic, thats what we do. I'm not here to analyze myself, others can do that whether I approve or not. But I have developed my cynicism over seven decades of living life and noticing people who I admire for their activities on behalf of those who aren't insiders in some passive-agressive financia...

I don't know exactly how to write; it's a mystery to me. It's not that I don't write, I do. It's just that the process remains a mystery to me. Some people outline what they write. Some create a block diagram. There are other tactics I've been told about, but I'm  too lazy. So I write in a style and manner in which I have become comfortable. Mostly I write satire.  Political satire, because I'm lazy. Nothing says lazy like picking up a turd dropped by a Republican candidate and dropping it in the alphabet soup of presidential shenanigans. And the turds abound in this group of stooges. There are many ways to express yourself in writing. Fiction, history, humor, satire. I'm told there are physicists who write, though it's a mystery to me what they write. I write because I have something to say. Something others don't care to hear. So I put my thoughts in writing so I can, from some future promontory tell people who didn't want to hear that,...

I DONT THINK WE'RE READY.. Mass media has made people, who's grasp on reality is tenuous at best, too confident in their ability. I recently saw where a post asked about Alexandria Ocasio Cortez' support if she ran for president. Naturally, one of our maga moron's contributed his two cents worth, the very penny no longer distributed by the treasury. "I don't think we're ready for AOC," he opined. And there you have it. A not very bright human who's only qualification to be a Podcaster is his affinity with maga, gives us his assessment of Alexadria Ocasio Cortez' fitness for running for public office. "I don't think we're ready for that". Perhaps he was thinking that he was thinking. Perhaps he doesn't know what qualifies as thinking.  Funny thing, in a popular democracy, where democracy is allowed to be practiced by those not at the power centers, people who pay close attention to the discussions, and the legislative quali...

I have a secret internet activity. Something that has grown in dimension and intensity, since i started my internet activity. I used to feel awkward about it, embarrassed even. No, not that one! I'm a troll. I click on comments initiated from right-wing nut jobs. What's a rightwing nut job, you ask? Good question. It's like how Justice Potter Stewart described pornography, "I know it when I see it". If you come onto the screen with the insulting over-confidence of a watcher of websites populated by young, white, and dim-witted males in muscle shirts, you are almost surely a RWNJ. If your opinion is regarded by you on the same intellectual level as science, or medicine, or economics, you are an RWNJ. You are the kind of guy that will peer over the shoulder of a portrait artist on the street, and say, "I think you should make my old lady's lips fatter".  Where is that line between spirited discussion and verbal war? It is at the level of wit. It is the...

My dad used to call them marble bags. Those white briefs that, once we are potty-trained, become our big-boy pants. Tighty-whities. At some point, as we eagerly approach adultery, some of us start looking farther afield on the underwear rack. Boxers wait for our approach. Pillow-slips. Instead of wrapping our nether areas in soft cotton, boxers fit like a loose swimsuit. Cotton in various colors and designs, sitting crisply inside your jeans. I started wearing boxers when I was 18, just short of that day I would enter adultery. Over the years underwear became made with rayon thread. First came bikini briefs, nestling things somewhat more closely. And for a while, I wore them; enjoyed them. But we gain weight and the rayon loses its elasticity. And the lifetime of those tight marble-bags are somewhat less than a penurious individual might desire. Who wants to spend money on something that can't be seen? Another advantage to boxers is, on a crisp winter day, and far from the ski lodg...

My dad was a car guy. He lovingly washed his car each Saturday. When I became tall enough to reach the middle of the roof, he paid me $15., a handsome some them, to wash it. Every season, he applied Turtle Wax rubbing it lovingly into the outside of the car and buffing it away with a chamois. Water beaded up on the paint of dad's car like wax on a candle. Similarly, he was a shade-tree mechanic and did his own brake jobs, tune-ups, etc. We could be traveling down the road and he would say, "Hear that, Larry. My right-front tire needs air. This was in the era when tires had inner-tubes and white sidewalls. Before radial tires. That gene did not live long in my body. Outside of the $15 for washing the car.  Cars in those days were caressed by owners in the way AR-15s are caressed today in Republican circles. Gasoline was 39 cents/gallon. It was leaded. Nobody bought regular, and service stations offered not only service, but were staffed with mechanics, not cashiers. Cars In tho...

I borrowed this title from a book written by Jennifer Welch and Angie Sullivan, two podcasters whom I like listening to. I have not read it, which puts me on the same footing as Republicans, but I'm old and have been political since we were seeing lights that did not exist in the tunnels of Vietnam. It is here that I must reveal that i once wrote a letter to the editor of the Oregon Statesman, when I was 14 years old. A time, I must plead, when young men are not known for their subtlety. In this letter, which was published, I called Wayne Morse and Mark Hatfield "worms in the bowels of government". Within the next 4 years my outlook changed. It took me some 40 years to hike up the trail to the Wayne Morse farm, with my ex-wife where i apologized to the bronze plaque comemorating our greatest Senator. A Senator who could not abide the Republican party of his day, which is being repeated in todays Republican party. The great old party is smothering the Grande Old Party.  Co...

Many of you know that I have for nearly 2 years been a volunteer at my County Democrats office. Some of you might suspect that I occasionally think deeper than what comes out of the right side of the political spectrum, not a real high bar, though the limbo stick would be more to my liking. Some of you might have entertained the thought that, when it comes to sandpaper, I'm with the heavier grit. So on frequent occasions I'm forced into one of the subtler Philosophical conundrums. Recently I was asked, while at the Dems table at Saturday Mkt, if I believed in Jesus. I demurred at first but admitted that I was an atheist who for a long time agonized between agnostic and atheist. Okay, it wasn't agony, I just thought abit. When they had left I was advised by someone I respect that I should have not engaged the religion question. I understand. I was asked straight out. I demurred but could not disengage. I told the truth. I will chew on that for a while, but I'm comfortabl...

All great advances are at best a mixed blessing. Civilization for tens of thousands of years was spread, not by nice people knocking at the door of you yurt purporting to save your soul, but at the edge of a sharpened sword, scimitar, spear, or arrows launched from a galloping horse. Later, as civilization advanced, the killing power of the weapons we used to spread civilization advanced with it. Sometimes the leaders of those civilizations could be somewhat trusted. Others, whose motives could not be trusted, used the new weapons technology provided to accrue power beyond what they were allotted. That is the dilemma that now confronts us.  Ukraine, a country fighting an invasion from a bigger and more powerful neighbor, illustrates the qualities of advanced weaponry to fight off its attacker. Russia was convinced Ukraine could be conquered in a matter of days. They had powerful tanks, a great Navy, and an inexhaustible supply of young people to risk death and injury in a quest to ...

 What could possibly go wrong? No worries, folks Big Tech has got you covered. Can't write a complete sentence? Tech has got you covered. Artificial Intelligence is purporting to be the great 21st Century blessing to mankind. It can drive your car, write your term paper, guide your drone. It can even help maga to rite gooder. Or so we are told.  Here's the problem; there's no responsible human in this operation and I'm not convinced that machines can be relied on for compensation when they mess up. I do admit that finding responsible humans in the tech industry is an extraordinary challenge. And they have not yet achieved a perfect record. Will they ever? Technology billionaires are confident they will. Technology billionaires stand to be well compensated by success in those fields. Those of us who remember watching 2001:A SPACE ODYSSEY, possibly stoned, remember the HAL 9000 computer. And we can't get that warning out of our minds. Of course many of us struggle in ...

There's  a tiny island in the Pacific Ocean near, speaking relatively in ocean distances, the Cocos Island. At one time this tiny island, the third smallest island in the vast Pacific, was a wealthy paradise. A wealthy gated community thousands of nautical miles from any other island. A community that needed no gates. Or walls. The perfect place for the Republican wishing to remain genetically undiluted. I make no mention of being deluded. Few people have ever visited the Island of Nauru, there are no airports, the best way would be to go by boat. Sailboats, because of the vast distance. It's wealth was at one time in guano. Birds have been visiting that island, and others, where they would nest from their long ocean journey, gorge themselves on the fat fish, and evacuate this orgy of digestion on the rich hillside of the island. Guano is rich in nitrogen. There were so many birds who had stopped by Nauru, over the millenia, that for a couple centuries great sailing barges, the...

I've been on Facebook for a fair amount of time and have something of a profile. I'm also quietly proud that I like to troll righties. Some would say that I shouldn't take advantage of someone as stupid as maga. They would have been right in a more amenable time. That is not now! The blatant lies and disinformation from the right must be countered, lest they multiply out of control. Lest they further damage our future. As evidence let us talk about Pizzagate, as if it was a thing, like Watergate.  According to the story the maga underworld spread in 2016, Hillary Clinton and John Podestra ran a child sex ring from a basement in the Ping Pong Pizza Parlor. I didn’t make this up. A young man from Maryland packed up his assault style rifle and drove to Ping Pong Pizza to save those children. After firing a round in the floor, which fortunately did not go pinging around Ping-Pong Pizza and into some child's ribs, it became apparent there was no basement to run a child sex r...

Everyone in this room has some memory of the post WWII period. We saw the war photo's and newsreel footage of the desperate people fleeing the homes they grew up in. Abandoning their friends and relatives, that some might possibly live to carry on the family name. We saw the movies and television shows that re-enacted the horrors of that war, and we saw the movies and television shows that mocked the Nazi soldiers. Many of those people seeking refuge found a pleasant place in this country, and others. They became the leaders who are turning their civic efforts over to this newer generation. They were the writers and humorists that helped us forget the events that we fought to escape. It's not as if the horrible humans that live in every nations underground networks did not exist. But the people we elected were, generally, a better quality of human. Even at one time, Republicans. The racists and fascists might attain a mayorship in certain areas of our country, or a Governorship...

Micheala Schiffren has the Yips. I can only wonder about how that feels. I have never achieved that level of pretty-goodness to have ever experienced the yips. But it must be a thing because I read a book one time about a pitcher in baseball who suffered from the Yips. It seems to be common to sports,  where the player is under the strong gaze of the fans. Pitchers, mostly. Football players don't seem to suffer from the yips. Skiers, ice skaters, boxers, MMA, maybe even Crickett, though nobody seems to know how it's played; is it the bowler or the bowlsman? Or the batsman and Robin? I don't know, most people have fallen asleep before the match is completed. Do the yips have legs? Is stage-fright the yips? Writers Block? Do ballet dancers get the yips? Imagine the male member of the duo with a big catch in the program. Knowing that in a few measures of the musical score he's going to catch the ballerina as she leaps in some pas de du, or whatever it is, into the outstret...

I used to work with a conservative, back before maga, when Donald Trump was a mere celebrity, not celebrated by me. His name was Scott. I was not a BFF with Scott. Besides being a conservative who could define the word, Scott smoked cigarettes at a time when non-smokers rights were not honored. We shared a couple drinks one time and he told me that he had been a member of the Weather Underground back in the 60s. The Weather underground was the extreme version of the weathermen. He was in love with Ronald Reagan when I new him. That's pulling some neck-snapping G forces. Like a black, hispanic, or female on ICE. It was our good fortune that neither of us worked closely together, me having a difficult time keeping my mouth shut. I have not seen Scott for some 40 years, so I can't say if he is now maga.  I was not inactive during the 1970s. I had the good fortune to be declared physically unfit for military service, thanks to a booklet given out at anti-war rally's with the ti...