Wayward Landlubber

I cry in movies. It has been an embarrassment at times. It happened in movie theatres or on the TV screen in the days before room-size flat-screens. It happens today. There was a time, when my son's were 10 and 7. I rented John Wayne's, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon at Blockbuster. Remember Blockbuster Video Rentals?  John Wayne and I have a complicated relationship, but this was one of my favorite movies of his, with director John Ford.There's a scene: captain Brittles, the stolid cavalry soldier who rose through the ranks, is retiring. One last campaign. As he rides out to his troops prior to leading them out the gate of the fort, someone from the ranks, Harry Carey Jr., apologizes, and presents captain Brittles a gold pocket watch. "There's a sentiment sir", says another, maybe Ward Bond, and Captain Brittles opens the case and reads it.  I cracked up, tears welling in my eyes and Quinn, my eldest, laughed at me,  then hugged me. That scene represents one of man...

Back in the 90's, I was reading a book on Spainish and Portuguese cooking. There was a chapter on why pork and seafood are so commonly combined in some of their most famous dishes. Food is history, especially in places with a longer history than ours. According to this book, this practice began about the time the Umayyad Caliphate invaded Europe across the Strait of Gibralter between the 7th and 8th century. A great, or not so, Turkish/Muslim invasion that did not end until it reached Belgium. A side note, when they abandoned Belgium they left behind these beans which most of us can't  go a day without. Ahh, coffee, which is probably spelled kave on the southern Mediterranean basin. So why the unnecessary 'F'?  Back to my story.  It was very important for the good people of the Iberian peninsula to know if their guest was from God's party or were from the dreaded INFIDEL, the Jewish or Muslim faith. They were no different than Republicans today, maybe more polite. T...

There was a theologian in the first half of the 20th Century named Reinhold Niebuhr. He has a pretty good reputation for being a philosopher, as well as theologian, something that separates him from the kind of theology practiced by today's Republicans. Where I became interested in him was when Barack Obama and John McCain both said nice things about him during their presidential run in 2008. Things have changed massively in not yet a generation. Niebuhr said of democracy that it is the "approximate solution to an intractable problem" . He uses the word approximate; not proximate, which gives it a stronger nuance. To approximate, to come close. Intractable, to have difficulty solving. That pretty much describes the way democracy has been practiced for at least the 20th Century in this and other nations where democracy is practiced by people who are interested in governing; not ruling. That quotation hides a lot of turbulence. It is performed in either legislative democrac...

Villainy is afoot! People who follow Islam are coming here by the tens, maybe dozens. Some of them are fleeing theocratic oppression in their own country's. Many of them have advanced science degrees and other talents we could use to rebuild our country from the despotic theocracy that has ruined us. We don't yet know how to distinguish between the Muslem adherents who are devout and those whose connection to Islam is merely cultural. We do not know this distinction because the better-thinking among us believe in that part of Constitutional law that allows for a separation between church and state. The other 35% or so wish to choke us on the version of Christianity that the podcasters in muscle shirts wish to impose. The same podcasters in muscle shirts that are responsible for climate change doubt. Islam, as well as Mormonism and Hindu religions is a mystery to us. We'll hell, the way some of us practice Christianity is a mystery to some of us. What is Sharia? Beats me. I ...

She will be 1 year-old sometime in November, exact date  unknown. Lulu and I are still working things out. Being a cat, that means that Lulu expects me to mind her. Being a male human, I'm mostly confused. She is the first rescue cat I've raised from kittenhood. She's the first cat I've raised that doesn't need me for comfort.  It's not that she ignores me. I believe that she loves me...on her own terms. I try to give her the space she needs. My window stays open most of the time so she can climb trees and come and go  as she wishes. If she can't get out when she wants, she jumps up on my chest and dips her head. But she will not allow me to pull her into my embrace. When she's of a mind, she will jump up next to me and bump my tablet aside to make patty-cakes against my bicep. Soon, as I smooth her fur her nails begin to become annoying. Not painful, but annoying. I move my free-hand between her paws and my arm with the gentle admonishing, "no claw...

I don't know if Data Centers will be the huge mistake many of us believe is inevitable. What I do know is that A I has some serious negatives and no proper oversight. In addition, the corporate entities who are building these spaces are not practicing the necessary courtesies of oversight that a municipality affected by the many dangers concomitant with data centers can anticipate. Among the questionable business practices are non-disclosure agreements: a wonderful opportunity to pull the wool over the public's eyes. Add to that, the unrestricted demand for potable water, which may pollute the watershed with "forever chemicals", the noise, the effects on wildlife in the area, and the not too remote possibility that this could turn out to be a thing which we mere humans cannot control.

I'm an old Boomer. I got a late start in making my parents grandparents, so now I'm looking at 2 sons who are in no hurry to make me a pa-pa. Consequently I have a lot of waking ours to think about inconsequential stuff. In addition there's a good bit of consequential stuff to engage my mind, sometimes my wits. On November 4, or soon after, we will wake up to see the maga Republican con-game in its falling-down-the-basement-steps descent. No political party since Joseph McCarthy, and he was Republican in every sweaty pore,  deserves it more. There will be much that needs to be done that is "regular business" and there will be much to be done to unfuck what maga Republicans have fucked up since 2016. This will, by necessity, take many years to complete. Too many for most of us who don't understand such things, but have an enlivened sense of Republican injustice.  There was a period of 40 years, from 1955 to 1995 when America, through Democratic majorities in th...

When I was just a lad in the 1950s, this time of year we would often hear flocks of Canada Geese flying overhead in a kind of elongated upside-down V pattern; one leg longer than the other. Loud honks moved  unctiously through the lines of geese overhead.  It was a sign of fall. School will be starting soon, dad would be preparing for hunting season. That the area west of Woodburn where I-5 cuts through, used to be a lake. Canada Geese used to drop in to linger for awhile before returning to their migration. Over the years a small population of Canada Geese have become resident in the Salem area. Why not? There's grass seed fields, and  grain fields all over, without the bitter winter cold, and rivers, streams, and lakes, usually. Part of their adopted territory is in SE Salem, in the field where The Data Hyperstorage construction is planned.  I don't know if our resident goose population is ready to turn back to the nicer country from which it is named, it would be ...

I was listening to NPR about how AI is programmed to think. Some of our erstwhile citizens are afraid of programmed thinking, preferring to call it propaganda. Then they vote for the party where independent thinking is discouraged and wealth controls the propaganda. It's confusing. The guest was a code programmer for AI. According to this guest, AI is programmed to anticipate the next word you type. Sort of like the selected words offered at the bottom of your screen to make your writing better, if you bother to notice (if you bother to notice, you probably aren't a writer). That's good. A teacher looking over your shoulder as you write away. Most of us rarely notice it. What happens, though, if the writer has a large vocabulary at their disposal. What if they aren't maga? How does A I, or maga, know about words it doesn't know when they can't tell the difference between etymology and entomology? So far in its short life, A I has a mixed endorsement. It is being...

It is a somewhat less than noble quality in our nation these days, that wealthy people have Hedge Funds to improve their investment portfolio. What could possibly go wrong? Among those investments in heged funds, managed for a healthy share of the profits, is housing. I suppose the old way wasn't working out for the few dozen billionaire families.  My parents bought their first house in 1956. It was a big 2-story house with a wrap-around front porch and a large garden area in back, along with pear and apple trees. It was  purchased on the GI Bill for maybe $25,000. It needed a lot of work which took place throughout my grade school and high school years. My dad was a Teamster, driving Cement truck for Canby Readymix when they bought it. My mom was a housewife. After a few years the local Ambulance service needed a new owner. My parents purchased it out of civic concern, though given the time I doubt my mom had much to say. When my dad was working we had a call list of fire, po...

FREEDOM Everybody claims to want freedom, though few care to understand the nature of freedom. Some think freedom is not having another cabin in the same visual area. Some think freedom is not having someone telling you what to do. Some think freedom is being free to tell others  what your magic being demands of you. Some seek the freedom to abuse people whom they think should be subjects, some merely want the freedom to stand up against that which diminishes them. In truth, freedom, like liberty, requires dedication to an other group of beings, so that you both can find other groups of beings to rid the world of that which wishes to oppress you. Because there is nowhere in the galaxy where there is not some being who wishes to be a Supreme being. For a while we came close. It was a good idea 250 years ago and still today. We may take pride in continuing to pursue those lofty ambitions, even as we fell on our faces thanks to poor leadership. And it worked, sorta, until we stumbled ...

Defenestration has a rich history, far richer than the simple act of throwing a dude out a 4th-floor window might imply. The word comes from a Latin word, fenestre, meaning window. It seems to be in fashion in Moscow in recent years. At first it was merely people who had different ideas of government than those held by Vladimir Putin. In very recent times, the victims seem to be closely connected to the leadership of Russia. Why not? Using the oppressive tactics of your oppressor is quite satisfying. Maybe someday soon, we shall see a flying Vladimir Putin splat onto the cobblestones.    This eastern European tradition goes back to the late 15th Century and remained popular through the 17th Century. It was started in Prague, Czechoslavakia. It had a lot to do with the emerging Protestant Reformation that became the Hundred Years war. Though Protestanism surely must have been revolutionary, the good Lutherans prefered to call it reforming. Ya gotta like that. Never-the-less, fo...

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...