HinesSight

Kulongoski caves in on Measure 37

Laurel and I were appalled to read in yesterday's Oregonian that Gov. Kulongoski is on the side of those who want to completely dismantle our state's pioneering land use laws. Kulongoski has aligned himself with Oregonians in Action, ignoring the advice of 1000 Friends of Oregon that it is better to do nothing about Measure 37 this legislative session rather than making an already bad law worse.

Senate Bill 1037 would allow transfers of new development rights when Measure 37 claimants sell their land. Measure 37 was supposedly about letting people build a single home on their beloved acreage, not selling out to developers who want to build a subdivision on farmland.

1000 Friends of Oregon is urging people who care about Oregon to contact Kulongoski and state Senators and tell them to stop SB 1037 in its tracks before it runs over our beautiful environment. Learn more about this issue here.

100 Friends of Oregon says, "Shockingly, the proposal to roll back our community and land protections is supported and being advocated for by Governor Kulongoski." Shame on you, Governor. I don't know why you're doing this, but whatever your reason is, it's wrong.

[Update: here's a more extensive view from a blogger about Kulongoski's new love affair with the pave-it-over Oregonians in Action property rights zealots.]

I survive giving blood

I surrendered my blood-giving virginity last Monday at the Courthouse Athletic Club here in Salem. Somehow I’d managed to get well into my fifth decade without donating blood. And I would have kept my record going if it weren’t for a misunderstanding that made me appear to be more selfless than I really am.

I was lifting weights on a Nautilus machine when a youthful, attractive, perky female athletic club employee (is there any other kind?) approached me with a clipboard in hand. “Would you be interested in donating to support the Courthouse blood drive?” she asked.

My mind zeroed in on the word “donating.” I pictured myself handing over a ten dollar bill at the front desk on my way out to help pay for cookies and juice that would be given to the poor souls who were getting their life-blood drained.

“Sure,” I replied. “I’d be glad to help.” “Great!” said the Perky One, placing the clipboard on my lap. “Here are the times that are available. Which one would be best for you?”

I now realized that I was going to be one of those poor souls, but it was too late to back out without looking like a total wimp. “2:00 pm should work for me.” “Great, you’ll get a reminder call Sunday evening.” Which I did, foreclosing the possibility of pretending that I’d forgotten about the appointment.

The blood-drawing was in a glassed exercise room on the main floor. I was pleased that passers-by would be able to look in and admire my compassion in action. But before I got to lie down on one of the reclining chairs I had to pass through the double gauntlet of first reading a binder full of material about who should and shouldn’t give blood, replete with admonishments such as “if this applies to you, get up and leave the room right now,” then going over the same sorts of questions with a nurse.

After repetitively uttering the mantra of “No,” “No,” “No,” to a seemingly endless series of queries about my lifestyle, health, global travel, and so on, I began to feel almost embarrassed at how staid and boring my life was. I hadn’t spent a lot of time in Africa or England. I’d never injected myself with illegal drugs. I’d never gotten a tattoo. I’d never paid anyone for sex.

As the questions continued, I began to wonder how many prospective donors were turned away for one reason or another. There were just two of us in the room; I’d been there for over half an hour; and the clipboard schedule had a name written in every ten minutes. I proudly walked out with this sticker. Maybe if a guy admits to having been with a prostitute and has to go home to his wife without giving blood, they let him wear a sticker also as a cover story.

I had no problem with the blood-letting once I got past the inquisitive nurse. I dutifully squeezed a rubber ball every few seconds, helping to speed the blood out of my artery. The needle nurse did all she could to make the process as pleasantly disguised as possible, telling me to look away when the needle was inserted and placing the collection bottle outside of donor view.

So I had no firm conception of how much blood I was giving. For some reason that detail wasn’t prominently featured in the pages and pages of documents I’d just read over. After I was done and had been given an outrageously large cookie to munch on, the needle nurse said that I should take it easy for 24 hours or so.

“I usually walk the dog for about a mile every evening,” I said. “Do you think it’s okay if I do that tonight?” “Well, I’d make it half a mile,” she answered. “After all, you’ve lost a tenth of your blood.”

A tenth! What the hell! I thought. That sure seemed like an awful damn lot.

However, it turned out that I felt fine and only reduced my physical activity a tad. After all, I had to go out and show off my “Be nice to me. I gave blood today” sticker to as many people as possible. I wore it for several days, in fact, wanting to suck as much sympathy out of the experience as I could.

I should have picked up a few extra for when I need to return something and have lost the receipt.

Nice review of my book, but...

I really appreciate an Amazon reader review that's titled, "All my life I've been looking for a book like this."

But I do wish that the "suck" in the first sentence could have read "such." That is a typo, I hope.

Starving children. Who gives a damn?

Two days ago ABC’s Nightline was about the crisis in the central African nation of Niger, where several million people are in danger of starvation—including 800,000 children. I didn’t want to watch the program when it first ran. I didn’t want to see the faces of dying children.

Last night I did. I forced myself to watch the recorded episode, which centered on video reports by the BBC’s Hillary Anderson. I saw starving children covered in sores, too weak to move or even drink water. I saw a family cooking a rat, their only meal of the day; the image of an emaciated child eating a single bite of rat isn’t going to leave me soon. I saw people eating rotting carcasses of cattle that were covered with flies and maggots.

And I saw myself learning the truth about a catastrophe that I had been reluctant to open my eyes to. Along with most of the rest of the world. A United Nations food aid official said that his agency had been warning other countries about the Niger crisis since at least the end of 2004.

Little was done. Now it’s too late to save many people, even though emergency food shipments have begun to be sent (probably not coincidentally, just a few days after BBC and ABC put faces on the heretofore faceless who are starving in Niger).

Nightline told viewers that they could go to the show’s website and find links to aid organizations if they wanted to donate money. That’s great, but after seeing all those images of starving children my more honest emotional reaction was: “That’s bullshit.”

The UN representative was begging for a few million dollars to help the people starving now. He said that a $100 million revolving fund for food aid would save countless lives, enabling the UN to get aid into a country before the crisis became as severe as Niger’s. A billion dollars in such a fund was his wildest dream.

That’s how much money the United States Congress wastes in a couple of lines of a pork barrel bill. That’s how much money this country fritters away every few days in Iraq and Afghanistan. Americans like me shouldn’t have to dig into our checkbooks so that food can be sent to starving children in Africa. We already pay plenty in taxes. If you asked citizens where they’d prefer to have their tax money spent, there’s little doubt that saving starving children would be at the top of the list.

So, what gives? I don’t know. All I know is that it’s horribly easy to ignore human suffering such as that going on in Niger right now. Most of us like to believe that we’re loving, caring, compassionate, spiritual people, but really, we’re not. We love and care for the few who are right around us, but we don’t give a damn about millions of people starving in Africa.

I blame myself for letting children die. And I blame you too. We sit on our hands instead of doing something. However, I don’t blame us nearly as much as I blame those who have the power to truly do something: President Bush, Prime Minister Blair, and all the other politicians and government officials who spout platitudes such as “I respect the culture of life” while letting a child die needlessly somewhere in the world every three seconds.

1…2…3 Die 1…2…3 Die 1…2…3 Die 1…2…3 Die 1…2…3 Die 1…2…3 Die

That was one of the messages of “The Girl in the Café,” an HBO film about—of all things—a romance in the midst of a G-8 summit. The girl gets to go to the summit after meeting an older British bureaucrat. Rather unrealistically, she is able to bluntly and passionately speak her piece about global poverty to high-ranking officials before, entirely realistically, she’s thrown out of the proceedings.

We need more people like her. Real people, not HBO people. People who aren’t afraid to speak up and tell the truth: 800,000 children and several million adults are at risk of starvation in Niger. The world is looking elsewhere, just as I did the evening of the Nightline program, for two simple reasons: (1) we don’t give a damn; (2) it’s too painful to know the truth, because then we’d be confronted with the blunt fact of our don’t-give-a-damnness.

A hundred years from now, hopefully sooner than that, the let-them-die world of 2005 will be looked upon in a fashion akin to how we perceive the let-them-be-slaves world of the American South of 1855. People of the 22nd century will wonder, “How could citizens of that time be so insensitive, so unfeeling?”

I don’t have an answer for them. What I do know is that it sickens me to watch our nation’s President and Congress bend over backwards in a yoga of hypocrisy to try to prolong the suffering of a single brain-dead woman (Terri Schiavo), while turning away from an opportunity to save tens of thousands of human beings who would have a full life ahead of them.

If they weren’t starving.

My daughter buys a Hollywood house

If you think that it’s expensive to buy a home in Oregon, particularly in Portland and Bend, take a look at the listing for the Hollywood house that my daughter, Celeste, and her husband are in the process of buying.

$849,000. Two bedrooms, two baths. 1300 sf. Built in 1922. Whew!

And they’re happy to have found it. As they should be. It’s a cute house, nicely redecorated by the current owners. It’s just hard for me to get my head around the idea that this Hollywood house is selling for quite a bit more than double the assessed value of our 3,000 sf South Salem home that sits on five rural acres.

Portland home prices appreciated 11% last year. But that’s nothing compared to what’s happening in L.A. Last night Celeste told me that the Hollywood-area condo they bought three years ago has sold for 74% more than they paid for it. That’s amazing: an average of almost 25% a year.

I hope the southern California housing boom isn’t about to go bust. But even if it does, Celeste and Patrick were able to sell at the peak and buy at the peak. Plus, they’ll be living in their house, no matter what. It’s short-term speculators who likely will be hurt the most in a housing crash, not long-term homeowners.

Best of all, Celeste told me that "It's only two minutes to the hottest clubs!" If they ever get depressed about sinking LA home values, they can easily drink and dance their worries away.

We’re all jihadists

Over on the Church of the Churchless today I wrote about how “We all believe in jihad.” I had intended to rant here about how outrageous it is that Karen Minnis and the Oregon House Republicans are hijacking the political process by not allowing important bills like SB 1000 to come up for a vote.

I guess I did a bit of that just now: ranting. But just a bit. For when I looked into my Karen Minnis-hating heart and realized how, in my darker moments, my fantasies about what should happen to right-wing ideologues were growing uncomfortably jihadish, I decided to switch gears and consider how we’re all jihadists.

Meaning, we all strive; we all desire; we all believe that something desperately needs to be changed in the world out there. The difference between us and the suicide bombers is one of degree, not of kind. For more along these lines, you can read my post.

Our dog’s play date

Serena didn’t have to find this cute boy Basset Hound through an online service like Dog Play Date. No, she picked Sam up the old-fashioned way while on a walk with Laurel and brought him home.

We were pretty sure unattached Sam belonged to a neighbor. But nobody answered the phone when we called them, so Sam and Serena had time to get better acquainted in the dog yard. Laurel and I chaperoned their first date.

They started off with some dancing.

Then had their first kiss.

After that, things started to heat up pretty fast.

The sexual tension was palpable.

Yet, whew!, they ended up just being friends.

Images of Basic Rights Oregon SB 1000 rally

Yesterday, after my Tai Chi class in downtown Salem, I walked a few blocks down Court Street to the Basic Rights Oregon rally on the steps of the Capitol. Laurel came directly from home and caught up with me on the sidewalk, matchingly dressed for the occasion, per usual. I’d told her that pre-rally info had suggested wearing the official SB 1000 t-shirt or other light blue attire. I stuck with basic black, figuring black goes with anything.

A basic message at the rally. Who can disagree? Well, apparently the unloving Republican House Speaker Karen Minnis, who is refusing to even bring SB 1000 up for a vote. There are a lot of misconceptions about this bill to authorize civil unions. This “Top 5 Myths About Civil Unions in Oregon (and everywhere else)” piece clears things up.

It was moving to feel the passion at the rally from LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, queer/questioning) people who would be helped by SB 1000. It struck me that progressives get most enthused about real live human beings in need. So at a progressive rally you can stand next to an actual gay, poor, or sick person (to offer just a few examples). You can’t do that at a conservative rally in support of an embryonic stem cell, prayer in schools, tax breaks for corporations, or such.

By the way, this was the first time I had heard the LGBTQ nomenclature, which sort of reminds me of LSMFT (“Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco”)—a jingle from the dark ages when cigarettes were good for you. When I got home I did some Internet delving into the meaning of LGBTQ, which seemed to be logically inconsistent or redundant.

Doesn’t “queer” encompass “gay” and “lesbian”? And hasn’t “gay” come to be virtually synonymous with homosexual, making “lesbian” unnecessary? GBT seemed to cover the bases, rather than LGBTQ. Still, I tried to burnish my politically correct credentials by studying an article about gay, lesbian, and queer theory. I read that queer theory involves a “radical deprivileging of the status of gender in traditional discourses.” Whatever.

Governor Kulongoski was surprisingly energetic and impassioned. He seems to be the stealth governor to me, unnoticed and ineffective, but SB 1000 is one issue he’s stood up for. I liked it when he said, “The most basic right is to be you who you are.”

Equality. That’s what it’s all about. Real simple.

A United Church of Christ representative reminded us that basic rights is godly as well as worldly.

The rally felt genuinely patriotic to me. Wasn’t this country founded on the very principles of SB 1000? Freedom for all, religious independence, equality in the eye of the law—that sure seems red, white, and blue.

Basic rights, a family affair. It’s always struck me as absurd that the right-wingers say they want to defend the institution of marriage by denying it to a good share of the United States population. Huh?

Toyota Highlander Hybrid not so green

Well, let me qualify that statement: the just-out 2006 Highlander Hybrid SUV is plenty green, for you need an awful lot of the green stuff to buy it. I asked for a price quote from the Internet sales force at our local Toyota dealer and got this reply:

“A 2006 Toyota Gas/Electric Hybrid Highlander V6 4WD Limited with FE (federal emissions), NV (navigation), CF (floor mats/cargo mat set) and all of the great standard features...Your Capitol Auto Group Internet Price $ 44,049! The Limited Hybrid Highlander can also be ordered without Navigation for $2,000 less.”

Stylistically critiquing this message, I would suggest that Capitol Toyota dump the exclamation point after the price. While in a different context it could suggest enthusiasm, here it seems ironic. As in: “You asked for a special Internet price. Well, here it is: we’ll sell you a Highlander Limited without a navigation system for $42,049, a price that includes a couple of thousand dollars of extra dealer profit over the already outrageous MSRP of $39,855!”

Gosh, thanks a lot for the price quote. Laurel and I were early adopters of the revamped Toyota Prius, being sixth in line to buy one from Capitol Toyota in September 2003. We got the Prius for the MSRP, about $23,000. And we’ve been averaging 46 mpg in mixed city/country driving. That’s a no-brainer, to buy the Prius.

But I told the Toyota salesman who gave me a Highlander Hybrid brochure and showed me the silver loaded Limited sitting on their lot, “Buying this car is a real brainer.”

I mean, you’ve got to think a lot to justify paying a premium of $5,000 (according to this review) for the hybrid version of the Highlander compared to a comparably equipped gasoline model. Since the AWD hybrid only has an EPA rating of 31/27 mpg (the higher number being city driving, where hybrids use the electric motor more) it would take forever to save $5,000 in gas.

A New York Times article, “Hybrid cars burning gas in the drive for power,” points out that new hybrid cars are sacrificing mileage for acceleration and power. The electric motor is billed as an add-on to an already large gasoline engine, giving you extra zip with some marginal gas savings—maybe just a few miles per gallon.

Driving back and forth to central Oregon recently we got 24 mpg in our 1999 Volvo XC wagon. Someday we want to replace it with a hybrid SUV. But it doesn’t seem to make sense for us to get a 27 mpg hybrid Highlander that is priced thousands of dollars over what we’d pay for a comparable SUV that gets about the same mileage.

I think Toyota and the other auto manufacturers don’t only have a drive for power in their new hybrids; they also have a drive to line their pockets with the green stuff. That’s not the sort of Green we’re looking for in a car. Our Volvo is looking pretty good to us at the moment.

Universist talks with Lars Larson soon

At 4 pm PST (in a few minutes, that is) word is that a Universist representative will be on the (ugh!) national Lars Larson show. I just got an email from the Universists telling me that this appearance has been moved up to today instead of tomorrow because of Bush's forthcoming Supreme Court nominee announcement.

More info is on the Universist website, including how to listen to the show on the Internet. Locally, you can listen on KXL 750 (just don't make it a habit--normally I can't stand Lars' right-wing rantings, but I'll be interested to hear him speak with the broadminded Universist guy).

P.S. I just figured out that locally Lars' national show is broadcast from 10 to 12 pm, according to the KXL program guide. My slug-slow dialup connection can't handle streaming audio even (much less streaming anything else) so I'm unable to tell whether the Universist guy is holding forth on the national show right now. Will wait till 10 tonight to find out, I guess.

Warning: Michael Savage is on KXL from 4 to 8 pm. Do not, repeat, do not listen to Savage unless you want your brain to explode. However, if you don't have a brain, you'll be fine and likely will enjoy his arch-conservatism.

Nike's Tiger Woods golf commercial

Watching the British Open last weekend, I was both transfixed and confused by Nike's golf commercial that shows Tiger Woods as a young boy, winning at St. Andrews. I have to agree with my friend Randy, who says on his blog that this is the best golf commercial ever.

Also, the most perplexing--unless you know the secret. How the heck did little Tiger Woods get filmed at St. Andrews? I didn't really believe that he won the British Open at age 5, but the commercial sure makes it seem like he did.

The secret to the mystery is revealed by Golfweek. Reality is whatever Photoshop, or its video equivalent, says it is.

Observing St. Andrews through my duffer eyes, I quickly concluded that if by some miracle I ever ended up playing the course, I'd have to carry along a bushel basket of golf balls to replace all my lost ones.

The way the pros played the infamous 17th hole looked particularly nightmarish. Their tee shot has to go over a shed just to the left of an impressive (and large) hotel. I'd be confident in my ability to hit the shed or hotel, but not the fairway.

Just looking at the layout of the 17th sends chills up my slicing spine.

My view of the 2005 Salem Art Fair

Yesterday Laurel and I went to the always-wonderful Salem Art Fair & Festival in Bush Park. It’s fairing through the weekend, closing Sunday at 6, so if you live around here, don’t miss it.

Per usual, most of the time my view of the fair looked like this.

And, for variety, this.

Then, for a real change of scenery, I got to watch Laurel buy a jacket instead of earrings.

My artistic goal this year was to buy a coffee cup. I found that there are many more artists who sell earrings and women’s clothes than coffee cups. I finally found one I liked as we were almost ready to sit down and listen to music.

As soon as I bought something for myself, the fair seemed a lot more fun. Merely shopping seems to be a mood elevator for women; for men, it’s buying. Now that my credit card was warmed up, I wanted to keep the action rolling.

A photograph of a Taoist monk by King Wu caught my eye. I had seen it at last year’s fair and liked it then. I liked it even more now. I bought an 8 X 10 to add to my King Wu collection of China photos. Now I have four. He’s a great photographer. Read his story of the photo--fascinating.

I caught a glimpse of three Red Hat ladies zipping along. They were moving so fast I could only snap a photo of them from behind. Too bad. I liked their fiery look.

It’s always a treat to plop down on the grass, eat a vanilla sundae with whipped cream and blueberries, and soak up the ambience around the main stage.

Pepe and the Bottle Blondes put on a great twilight show. Especially the blondes. But once in a while I looked at Pepe too. I enjoyed his sense of humor. “You know how it is when you lean back in a chair and feel like you’re about to fall over? I feel that way all the time.”

Me too, amigo.

Lars Larson tells half the story (again)

Portland’s right-wing talk show host Lars Larson is notorious for spinning half-truths. And that’s on one of his good days. Usually he’s only able to reach the quarter-truth level, or less.

Last month I heard Lars railing on about how an Astoria boy supposedly was attacked by a cougar. If those damn tree-hugging, gun-hating, cougar-loving liberals have their way, he frothed, cougars are going to be killing Oregonians like flies.

Not likely. As I’ve noted before, a cougar never has attacked a human in Oregon. And I’m pretty confident that no cougar attacked the Astoria boy, Drew Weil, either. The local newspaper (Daily Astorian) reported that “The big cat leapt toward him, slobbering on his shorts and grazing his left leg with two teeth before it ran off.”

Slobbering on his shorts? Give me a break. I’ll give Drew high marks for coming up with a creative story, though. Not just once, but twice. Lars Larson conveniently didn’t mention that Drew said he saw the cougar again five days later.

Now, in Lars’ defense, I may have been listening to his show in between the supposed first and second sightings. But I’m willing to bet that Lars has never told his listeners about the even less credible second “attack,” where police found no evidence of the cougar.

There’s no report of any objective evidence of the first attack either. Paw prints, for example. Nonetheless, Drew’s mother has put up a website where she discounts the possibility that Drew made up his story and castigates state officials for not doing more to take care of their cougar problem.

“What problem?” I imagine Fish and Wildlife officials concluded. No cougar, no problem.

The moral is—as if you didn’t know this already—don’t believe everything you hear on talk radio. Especially right-wing talk radio. Especially, especially, the Lars Larson show.

Blow-drying dog paws

You might think that we have reached a new level of pet pampering, given our new habit of blow-drying Serena’s paws several times a day. She does seem to like it. And we do pamper her.

But we’re doing this on the advice of her vet, for on three paws she has some sort of bacterial infection —that first appeared to be a fungus among us (ah, it feels good to write those words; I don’t get to use that wonderful term often enough). We’re reluctant to give her antibiotics, so are trying to clear up the problem by reducing the moisture that breeds bacteria.

By the way, as my fingers were poised over the keyboard to begin writing this post synchronicity popped up in the guise of a phone call from a Pet Medical Center employee. She wanted to know how Serena’s paws were and if we had any questions about her treatment.

Never in my life have I gone to the doctor and then gotten an unsolicited callback from his or her office enquiring about my condition. One day may all Americans receive as good health care as our dog enjoys.

When I am kneeling on the floor with a blow-dryer, dutifully warming each of Serena’s infected paws to a suitable temperature, not too hot and not too cold, just like Goldilocks would have wanted, I can’t help but think of the Discovery Channel program that we’ve been watching in bits and pieces: “Living With Wolves.”

Serena is a close relative of the wild wolf, but her pampered pet status makes this lupine ancestry seems more distant than it really is. Wolves don’t repose on futons; Serena does. Wolves don’t have a dinner prepared for them each night that features dog food topped with finely chopped broccoli and parmesan cheese; Serena does.

However, an interesting recent article in TIME magazine, “Honor Among Beasts,” describes how an ethologist discovered that there is lot more going on in dog play than is readily apparent. Marc Bekoff’s research found that the familiar “play bow” (hind end up, forelegs stretched forward, eager expression on face) is common to wolves and coyotes as well as dogs.

Further, the play bow is just the beginning of a complex series of interactions between playful animals. The article says, “Canine play is actually a complex social interaction in which the participants constantly signal their intentions and check to make sure that their behavior is correctly interpreted. Dogs that cheat—promising a playful bite but delivering a harsh one, for example—tend to be ostracized.”

This is right in line with the theory of evolution, which predicts that animals other than humans also would have some form of morality, albeit more rudimentary than that of Homo sapiens.

Thus it really isn’t so strange to treat our pets like people. In the grand scheme of evolutionary history, they’re not that far removed from us.

Pure White House B.S.

As if there ever was any doubt that the Bush White House is composed of 100% pure bullshit, the final proof has arrived. More details can be found here and here.

Images of 2005 Marion County Fair

This year Laurel volunteered to serve a stint at the Friends of Marion County booth at the Marion County Fair. There wasn’t a whole lot of action going on at the booth last Thursday afternoon, but I still was deathly afraid that someone would stop and talk to me while I sat in Laurel’s chair as she was taking a restroom break. No one did. Laurel herself ended up spending more time talking to the friendly folks at the Democratic Party booth next door than to fairgoers interested in learning more about Measure 37 and land use planning.

Underwhelmed with the lethargy inside the Columbia building, I headed outside for a quick tour of the rest of the Fair, snapping a photo when a Fair-feeling struck. There’s something about a ferris wheel that grabs me. I think it’s the notion (and motion) of being effortlessly raised to the sky, heavenward, assuming that’s where heaven lies.

Fair food smells are intoxicating, bringing back lots of childhood and early adulthood memories of the time before I knew so much about cholesterol, trans-fats, and all that. But you can’t go back again. I decided to wait to eat until I got back in my car and could grab some soy nuts.

I fantasized bringing home a giant blue gorilla. Give it to Laurel. Say “I won it for you, honey!” She’d jump into my arms, all excited. Dream on. In reality, she’d frown and say, “Where do you think that is going to go?!” I kept my quarters in my pocket (well, probably it would be dollars now--haven't played an arcade game for a long time).

I don’t know how many fairgoers thought about Plato’s parable of the cave—the things of this world being illusory shadows of the truly substantial Forms—but I did.

The petting zoo kept me captivated for quite a while. There’s always something going on. Like a head butt.

And a woman’s straw hat about to become a sheep snack (a petting zoo volunteer jerked the animal away just in time.)

And puppy wrestling, a crowd favorite.

The animal-human conviviality in the petting zoo was quite a contrast to the nearby animal jail. I can’t imagine that this longhorn enjoys coming to the Fair. Of course, I don’t know. Maybe he does. Something different to do. It’s hard to tell what cattle are thinking or what sort of mood they’re in. I just got the feeling that he’d much rather be out on the range. So long as it wasn’t a range where nasty stuff goes on.

Look at our yard, please!

We are slaves to our beautiful yard. Don’t get me wrong: we love our servitude. Up to a point.

It’s just that the older we get, the crazier it seems to be to lavish so much time and effort on maintaining Garden Poet-created landscaping that, mostly, just Laurel and I see.

For we are not the most social of human beings. We rarely entertain (except ourselves) and our rural neighbors are entirely out of sight. Thus when I divide the work we put into the yard by the number of people who visually enjoy the fruit of our labors, the result is miniscule.

However, it dawned on me that if I post these photos, and X number of people look at them, hopefully getting at least a glimmer of “ah, nature” from the images, then our yard’s enjoyment cost/benefit ratio has improved to that degree.

So, enjoy.

Saddam Hussein didn’t attack London

Early indications are that an al Qaeda group is claiming responsibility for the horrific London bombings. Whoever turns out to be the culprit, I’m willing to bet that it isn’t Saddam Hussein. He’s in jail. Osama bin Laden isn’t.

And therein lies the criticism that should be directed today, tomorrow, and the next days at President George W. Bush and his neo-con groupthinkers, whose obsession with overthrowing Saddam Hussein has diverted invaluable resources from pursuing Bin Laden and al Qaeda.

Al Qaeda attacked the United States on 9/11. Al Qaeda almost certainly attacked London on 7/7. It’s been proven that Iraq had nothing to do with the first attack, and I’m confident that the same will be the case with the second attack.

Just imagine:

What if Bush had spent 200 billion dollars over the past few years on destroying the al Qaeda network, rather than the Baathists in Iraq?

What if 150,000 American troops had been pursuing Bin Laden and his cohorts, rather than trying to pacify the Iraqi insurgency?

What if the United States had brought the world together to fight Islamic terrorism, rather than fostering international divisiveness through its invasion of Iraq?

What if? That’s the question in my mind today. I don’t hold Bush responsible for the London attacks, but I do hold him accountable for not doing all that he could to prevent them.

Secret of the Universe, Clue #2

It’s all starting to come together for me now. Oh yes, it surely is. For last night I had a second revelation to go along with Secret of the Universe Clue #1. Now, I just need to figure out what the “it” is that’s coming together.

Whenever we come to our cabin in Camp Sherman I take along my media box, a plastic container that I fill with videotapes, DVDs, serious non-fiction books, unserious mystery paperbacks, and every unread magazine lying around the house.

I never get around to perusing half the stuff in the box, but it relieves my anxiety to know that if there’s a nuclear war while we’re at the cabin, I’ll have enough entertainment on hand to distract me while the radiation does its lethal work. (I worry about strange things).

Anyway, last night I pulled out a stack of magazines from the bottom of the box, settled into a comfy chair, put my feet up on the ottoman, and started to read an issue of TIME. I learned that the insurgency in Iraq was growing stronger and movie studios were hoping for some summer blockbusters. Ho-hum. Familiar news. I glanced at the headlines and kept turning the pages.

I came to a story about Kerry’s campaign. Kerry’s campaign? Something suddenly seemed out of place in the space/time continuum. I took a closer look at the cover. I saw that the issue was from June 2004. It had sat unread in the box for an entire year. And the strange thing was, the national and world news themes were so similar to what is happening now, I didn’t notice that I was a year behind until the Kerry campaign story jumped out at me.

Then I heard that increasingly familiar Here’s-a-Secret-of-the-Universe voice speak to me inside my head: Each “will happen” you’re reading about has become a “has happened.” What will be, in 2004, is what was, in 2005. And next year will be the same.

In other words, right now I’m anxious about will happen during the next year. What right-wing judicial zealot will be appointed to the Supreme Court vacancy? Will there be a meltdown in the LA housing market just after my daughter and her husband buy their first house? Is Al Qaeda going to make good on its promise to strike the United States again? Will Measure 37 claims in Oregon make our rural neighborhood into a Salem suburb?

As soon as I heard the voice inside my head, I realized: “What I’m really worried about are possibilities, not actualities. Dire predictions of upcoming events in the June 2004 issue of TIME don’t concern me now, because I know what has actually happened.” Like Bush being re-elected. I don’t worry about that event happening because it has happened. Now I worry about will happen after his re-election. Like what sort of extremist he will try to get on the Supreme Court.

And so it goes. Every “will be” becomes a “what was,” transformed by the inexorable passage of time. If I could jump ahead and see myself sitting in the same Camp Sherman cabin chair a year from now, July 2006, everything that I’m concerned about happening will have happened. Or not. Whichever, the future will have become past. Frettings about unwelcome possibilities will have become mere memories of unchangeable actualities.

I wondered, “Then why worry? About anything.” I wondered about what I had just wondered about for a little bit more. Then I tossed the old news magazines away and started reading some current issues.

I thought about putting them back in the box and waiting to read them a year from now. But that seemed like cheating. So I read. And, once in a while, worried.

And so it goes.

Camp Sherman Independence Day parade

My vote for the nation’s most charming Independence Day parade goes to Camp Sherman’s 2005 bike trail event. This small central Oregon town is full of zany characters and beautiful scenery, both of which were on full display yesterday.

Laurel and I were riding our bicycles back to our cabin after attending the annual meeting of the Metolius River Forest Homeowners Association. Near the Lake Creek Lodge we encountered some paraders heading to the Community Hall that we had just left. They yelled, “Come join us!” We did, not wanting to pass up a parade.

When we got to the Hall this woman stressed that the parade was completely spontaneous, notwithstanding the evident care with which many of the participants had festooned themselves and their bicycles. She explained that plans for an official street parade had fallen through because of bureaucratic nit-picking, such as requiring a permit and what-not, so the Camp Shermanites decided to plan an unplanned parade on the bike trail.

Lo and behold, lots of people just happened to show up at the same time on July 2—red, white, and blued—kazoos in hand, ready to “sing” (using that term in its most generous sense) “You’re a Grand Old Flag” at the parade staging area. An award for creativity goes to this woman’s use of blue Superman trunks as part of her patriotic outfit.

This man is ready to roll: Stars and stripes headband, check. Kids corralled in wagon, check. Beer in hand, check.

His children looked to be the parade’s king and queen. I liked how even their snack bag matched the color theme.

With a certain lack of discipline befitting the spontaneous, unplanned nature of the parade (a feature of the event that the unorganized organizers kept speaking loudly about, apparently in case a county official was lurking in the woods), we headed out—the only stated rule being “Keep on the bike trail, not the road.”

Not surprisingly, the paraders vastly outnumbered the onlookers. Like, several dozen to two. But these walkers obviously appreciated the surprise of encountering an Independence Day parade on the Camp Sherman bike trail.

If any one needed proof that the parade was unplanned, they only needed to observe the smiling confusion that resulted from the parade leaders heading onto a narrow single-track trail that even Laurel and I, Camp Sherman part-timers that we are, knew couldn’t be traversed by wagon-hauling bicycles. Quickly recognizing this, the free-floating parade managed to turn around and get back on the wider main bike path.

Reaching the Camp Sherman store, Laurel watched the paraders disband. Not knowing about the parade beforehand (it was spontaneous, remember), we were woefully underdressed for the red, white, and blue occasion. Next year we’ll be prepared.

Though the parade was unplanned, somehow it managed to reach the store shortly before 5:00 pm, just when the Camp Sherman Independence Day barbeque and music festivities were scheduled to begin. Since the menu didn’t feature much in the way of vegetarian food, we rode back to our cabin, had some snacks, and then walked back to the store with the family pet about an hour and a half later.

Serena made some new friends. And, no, she isn’t snarling in this photo. Serene Serena doesn’t snarl. She smiles with her teeth.

Our Camp Sherman day ended with us listening to country music and watching some young dancers in the light.

May every day be a Camp Sherman day for you, wherever you live, filled with a sense of community, quirkiness, and conviviality.

Happy Fourth of July. Be Independent.

Another Republican outrage

I didn’t want to start the 4th of July holiday weekend outraged, but the Oregonian’s front page story about Oregon House Majority Leader Wayne Scott’s political shenanigans set off “What a jerk!” fireworks in my mind.

As the story reports, Republican Scott refuses to have the House consider a bill that would upgrade North Bend’s runway and terminal because he wants to punish a freshman Democratic colleague for a school funding vote. The bill passed the Oregon Senate with strong bipartisan support, but Scott is majorly peeved at Rep. Arnie Roblan, a Democrat from Coos Bay.

So Scott, the House bully, wants to teach Roblan, the House new kid, a lesson about who’s boss. Jeez, Rep. Scott looks like he’s out of middle school, but he sure still likes to play childish games. “You dissed me, man! You gonna pay for that, sucka!” What a baby.

The sad thing is, he’s House Majority Leader, for god’s sake. Wayne Scott is the cream of the Republican crop. That’s pitiful. To me he represents the worst of divisive, nasty, my-way-or-the-highway American politics. He’s Oregon’s version of Tom DeLay, which is just about the most insulting thing I could say about Scott.

However, I did my best to come up with other pejorative phrases when I sent Scott a passionate email earlier today. I’m usually much more restrained when I write politicians about an issue. I think that what seriously tweaked me about Wayne Scott is that he blatantly admitted that his tiff with Roblan isn’t about the airport expansion issue. It’s all personal.

Roblan is doing his best to represent his constituents. All Scott cares about is shoring up his political power. I realize that quite a few readers of this weblog live in other states and also other countries, but I encourage you to send Rep. Scott an email, letting him know how you feel about this newest Republican outrage. Send a copy of your message to his boss too, House Speaker Karen Minnis.

Here’s what I told Scott. Getting my outrage off of my chest helped bring my mental fireworks down to earth. Now I can concentrate on enjoying the weekend and reflecting on what makes this country great. It sure isn’t Rep. Wayne Scott. (For political junkies, another article about this issue can be read here).