The GOP has a knack for invoking desperate times, which invariably call for desperate measures, as a last-ditch effort to sell the unpopular and damaging policies they’ve espoused for more than a hundred years. Of course, this approach is considerably more problematic when times are good: take the 2000 election, when George W. Bush [...]
Until today, I was pretty depressed about the political season; now my mood has perked up considerably. In the aftermath of Santorum being labeled, once again, “a solid #2,” and reading headlines like, “Mitt Romney, Ron Paul Face Awkward Moment After Emergence of Santorum,” heck, maybe this crummy election will be good for some laughs [...]
It’s impossible to escape the breathless (and brainless) reporting of the sad, sad, spectacle that is the Republican Presidential primary, but what’s most painful, not to mention infuriating, is watching the media treat it as a serious exercise, when it’s anything but. Last week the New York Times bothered to run a two-page foldout on [...]
When I walked into the Bureau of Development Services, finding it packed as usual, I filled out my form to place in the first of five boxes, and settled in for a long wait. The plans I was submitting were for an extensive remodel, a rebuild, really, of a house that, had it not been [...]
As we approach the 2012 elections, I have to admit grudgingly sympathizing with the poor Republican contenders on some level; everywhere you look, one (hilarious) presidential aspirant after another has to deal with the fact that large blocs of their party hates them, for one reason or another. The reasons, to a sane person at [...]
There was this annoyingly triumphant song we used to sing in school about what a keen place Oregon was back in 1915 or so, and even as a kid I thought it was weird. The chorus ended with, “Forward on and on… Hail to thee, land of heroes, my O-re-gon.” Never mind that the lyricist [...]
I recently read a ridiculous “analysis” of the 2012 election that stated, not entirely incorrectly, that it amounted to a contest not of political philosophies but of purchasing preferences: Cracker Barrel vs. Whole Foods. Great swaths of data were trotted out about the voting habits of those residing near one or the other of these [...]
The jaw-dropping lack of accountability prevalent among our elites, no matter how enormous and damaging their quite public failures, has led seemingly reasonable people who ought to know better to, virtually en masse, unintentionally embrace the ludicrous farce that in my family we call the Gravy Boat Theory. Only with them, it’s a lot less [...]
Whenever I’m working out of town, it’s always a treat to listen to a different lefty talk station; when I was in Napa over Thanksgiving I tuned in daily to Green 960, a San Francisco-based Clear Channel station which, though lacking any local programming, has a good mix of national shows I don’t generally hear [...]
Here’s a Portland picture I found at Digby, and it’s my old bank branch, where they used to retroactively explain their many fees to me. Nice to know somebody’s got their back.