Steven Colbert did a satire piece on a real U.S. Army top secret group that in the ’70s and early ’80s was planning mind warfare and said they killed goats by bursting their hearts through staring at them. In his segment, Colbert said about the Manual they used, “it promised to train soldiers to predict [...]
This spring it will be 20 years that I’ve been knocking down walls, putting them back up, painting, tiling, wiring, installing kooky lighting systems, and planting everything I could get my hands on. Nothing is nicer than seeing the evidence of this all over town, and even in Seattle, LA, Brooklyn, and Connecticut, and [...]
Atwater Place, a condominium project in the South Waterfront district near downtown Portland, will tomorrow be auctioning off 40 of the 150 or so units it has failed to sell, at prices starting at a bit less than half of what the 60-odd original buyers paid just two years ago. It’s another victim not just [...]
Other blogs may claim higher lineage, but this particular blog owes its existence, basically, to the funny pages. Had it not been for the fact that the funny pages created a Darwinian struggle for the morning newspaper amongst the four of us children that was already well-developed by the time I, third in line, became [...]
I’m late in providing this because professor Cassel was talking fast and my notes were insufficient to provide an accurate reporting of all the legal details on why America can still legally abuse detainees due to: limitations in international treaties/laws; congressional bills like the Patriot and Military Commissions Acts; classified documents and directives; DoJ and [...]
I’ve gotten to the point where if I hear another TV gasbag or teabagger /American extol the virtues of the Free Market one more time, I am going to have to do something desperate. Please, somebody show me some evidence. The Chicago parking meters don’t have to count. While many businesses are innovative, thrifty, and [...]
“Where have all the flowers gone?“ (2007, w/ Peter & Paul) “Puff, the Magic Dragon“ (2007, w/ Peter & Paul) “Follow Me” (1971) “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face“ (1970) “Early Morning Rain“ (1966, w/ Peter & Paul) “Blowin’ in the Wind” (1966, w/ Peter & Paul) h/t Jim Montague “Because All Men [...]
For many years, my sister gave me gift subscriptions to New York Magazine, and I became an avid fan. Michael Woolf’s credulous boom-goosing was balanced out by Michael Tomasky’s scathing investigative journalism, and their ongoing coverage of the Rudy Chronicles was worth the price of admission. Then, in the wake of George Bush’s “election,” they [...]
The project I’m working on now is something of an oddity, as they go. It’s a 1923 English Tudor, located in the hills above Northwest Portland, next door to some longtime clients (See “Urban Oasis) who recommended me so highly that the owners just told me to outline what needed to be done, present a [...]
It was inevitable, really. After nearly ten years of a dominant and domineering political party governing with an iron fist, unfailingly promoting the most violent, punishing, and ruthless answers to every question, Americans have become very skeptical and cheap about doing anything other than hurting people, even themselves. Cynical ploys to convert inchoate resentments into [...]