Shortly after I got home yesterday, I received a message from the city of Portland that, until further notice, I and some 135,00o other westside Portlanders and suburbanites ought to boil our water before using it. This being only the second time such an order has been issued here in our admittedly short history, I [...]
CHNN’s managing editor has been clamoring, seemingly for weeks on end, for something – anything!!! – on Silvio Berlusconi, the 21st century’s first world-class, hair-plugged, near octogenarian diva, major domo buffo – and now! - criminal defendant, with a prostitution charge stuffed inside a grab bag of official abuse allegations in his capacity as Italian [...]
Admittedly, as a simpleton myself, I can only present simplistic arguments against the all-encompassing, truly revolutionary ideology of the American right. They know there are known unknowns that I don’t know about; and I know I don’t know about them. Nolo contendre. Anyway, when one does at least realize that nothing – not credit card [...]
Ted Koppel, one of the last eminences of the old broadcast news era, weighed in some days ago on the never-ending debate about how things just aren’t as august as they used to be (whenever that was) when it comes to informing the American people (instead of just yelling at them). Koppel targeted Fox News [...]
From the Oil Spill Commission (OSC), 10/28/10: “We have known for some time that the cement used to secure the production casing and isolate the hydrocarbon zone at the bottom of the Macondo well must have failed in some manner. That cement should have prevented hydrocarbons from entering the well.” – snip – “We asked [...]
I guess one of the most depressing things about getting older is realizing that, just like Grandpa used to say, (or, in my case, my crazy grandmother, Etta…), since one’s youth, things really have indeed gone downhill. Growing up in Oregon in the 60′s and 70′s was a little bit like living in the socialist [...]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeXrMRf25U8 It makes no difference what anyone says about flying these days because you just have to suck up all the airport rules, or don’t fly. Tell me about it. Having flown last week-end, just before the little terrorist wannabe tried to detonate something between his legs on a flight into Detroit on Christmas Day, [...]
I saw my VA health man the other day, to talk about my meds – including weighing the pros and cons of going on a cholesterol-lowering drug; plus I asked for an eye exam and had blood drawn. Everything looks good. I’m in the pink. On the way out the door, I got a couple [...]
Since I’m going to LA next week, I’ve been dropping into the LATimes website more often, and scrolling past the usual horsemen of LA apocalypse, like wildfires and, well, rain, it seems there’s always a story about another water main break, some of them quite spectacular. Of course, this depressing phenomenon is familiar in many [...]
Several items in the news both here and nationwide remind me that in today’s America, we will only throw good money after bad; spending precious funds and actually getting something for them in return is considered risky, wasteful, and a woefully inappropriate response to our straitened circumstances. And how, pray, did our circumstances become so [...]