evolution story

Art by Dylan, almost 6 years. Fascinated by snakes.


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Visit

We walked into the heart of the old neighborhood this afternoon, where for the most part she grew up.

Neither of us knew what to think. She last lived there 11 years ago, and this was her first time back.  Many things had changed, some remained the same.

She saw that 23rd Ave. Books was now a beauty shop called "Pinky's."

She was disappointed about that.  Perhaps it is my fault.  I introduced her to books, as did her mother. The day was a little sad in the pinkish light, in the absence of one of her favorite stores.


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Snake Charmer

Great dinner and visit with the Minnesota clan on its western tour.

The little guy checking out a future grad school is focusing currently on a study of snakes, their habits, habitats and customs.


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Clark's Blog

Tom Clark's ongoing, selected series of photo essays w/text documenting the Gaza disaster should not be missed.

Clark has constructed his series from the work of a group of photogs on the scene and the testimonials of an array of journalists, poets, and regular citizens, past and present.

The Berkeley-based writer is providing an unflinching look at the daily devastation, carnage and horror of what is transpiring--with no end in sight--in Gaza at this time.

Warning: Many of the images are beyond the pale, just like the massacre itself.


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Waste

The destruction of a neighborhood.


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Menu Fixed

I'm making potato salad for the first time in years.

I made too much of it when I was in the back-of-the-house during my failed career in the restaurant trade.

(I could give you the names of three joints where my salads and prime rib rocked the world before the vicissitudes of ownership fucked up my reality.)

That's right folks, food is political and I ain't Anthony Bourdain.

I have a secret garlic and herb blend that will spank it up, celery, black olives, onion.  Some folks prefer their pot salad on the dry side; I tend to load it with the mayo because I'm from white trash roots and that's the way things are.  I peeled the pots this time. Russets. I usually leave the skins on, but not sure how that would fly.

I debated red or white pots.

Got my eggs boiled.  Dill relish.

Old school, baby.

Keepin' a little aside for the five year-old.  When I was his age I hated onion.  I'll bet he does, too.

Got corn on the cob. Real sweet butter.

Got penne and vodka sauce fixings.  Salad ingredients.  Chicken thighs for a fake (stove top) barbecue using a nice hickory sauce.

Melon.

Will get cake, ice-cream and fresh bread when needed.

Buddy Dooley's Insane Kitchen, prepping in advance for full-flavor, left-over taste.  Oh yeah...


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Prep

Getting ready for the family tomorrow, finally coming down from the maternal-side reunion in Seattle.

Food to buy, cooking to attempt, cleaning to finish, gifts to organize.

Think I'll throw something in the crock pot to keep things simple. Or a spaghetti feed?

I eat at my desk because it's usually just me and my shadow here, but I've set up a dining table in my small pad for this occasion, which projects well for the future when I start my monthly potluck over the fall and winter.

I've decided to do that.  Be a test to see if anyone shows or if my profound presence keeps them away.

Table could double as an art table as well, as I'm mulling a return to water coloring.  I go in and out of the colorist habit.  Back in the day I actually sold quite a few watercolors around the old neighborhood.

Well, I badgered people to buy them and a few made the purchase just to shut me up.

Right now it's darn muggy and warm in here.

But I'm not complaining.  It's summer time.


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Good Eye

Seattle Waterfront photo by Stella Claire

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Two Letters from Yohocoma

(Yohocoma is a Portlander who comments regularly at Common Dreams)

I broke down and went to a rally and "march" in support of Gaza on Thursday evening here in Portland, OR. I say "broke down" because I think these events are vastly insufficient, but I wanted to see the scale of support for Gaza and anger at Israel in this city. This one was somewhat better attended, maybe 500 people, about half of them Arab or Muslim I would guess. A lot of PSU students, which is where the organization for the rally came from. Many are very angry, and at least one speaker had friends or relatives being killed in Gaza.

The next day, the Oregonian barely covered it, giving the fact of the 2+ hour event a perfunctory mention on its web site. There is certainly no organized or significant criticism of the role of the local Jewish community, or of the leadership of the Jewish Federation in Portland, in supporting the slaughter.

Life goes on very much like normal in dumbass insulated Jewish suburbia - the big concern is getting the kids to Jewish summer camp or making it to next Tuesday's Israeli Folk Dancing event, and they want all this bother to be over so things can return to "normal".

These are the kind of people I live among.

                                      ***

I forgot to add: one of the speakers at the Thursday Portland rally was a representative of a PSU organization attempting to get PSU onboard with BDS. She reported on a meeting (or email exchange, I can't remember) with the university president, Wim Wievel, on this.

He adamantly refuses to involve the university in Israel BDS, making the typical claim that academia is on a higher plane of existence and international academic exchange shouldn't be sullied by base political matters. Right, as if academia isn't another human institution, and a vector of influence that isn't already sullied by all kinds of political and obnoxious crap, like tight integration with the US military in many fields.

The student representative also pointed out that Israel has destroyed or shut down many Palestinian academic institutions on all levels. Pretending that refusing to act against Israel or even criticize it in the academic arena is reflective of some kind of purity, is stinking hypocrisy.

Wievel is actually worried about offending his rich donors and damaging the university's "connections", and about being seen, within his elite club, as a guy who helped open the floodgates. That's the moral context of almost all executives in the nation's universities.


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Ryan's Apocalypse

Astonishingly ignorant or just mean?

These people won't be happy until feudalism is returned from the Dark Ages and hundreds of American Gazas arise from the ruins.

Without mention of jobs or higher wages, the only two legitimate ways to combat poverty, Ryan seeks a mandate for the complete annihilation of the poor.

This is the most dangerous man in America.


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Peace Congress?

We'll see who buckles this time. Honestly, I'm shocked.

Largely symbolic, it's a start.



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Corporate Kiss

Ask a simple question and get the run-around:

Hello Terry Simons,

Further to your email, I'd love to help you, but unfortunately, I'm so sorry that we do not have the facility to discuss Amazon's internal information with our customers.

However, in this case, I'd like to inform you that you may be able to find the information you're looking for, through your publisher. I'm sorry if this doesn't help, I wanted to share this and provide any alternative that can be offered in this case.

We understand the importance of how our authors use our services, and I would like to thank you for writing in to us, it is your feedback that helps us continue to improve the services and selection we provide.

We are always looking for ways to make Author Central more useful to authors, and we do have a team relentlessly working on the feedback that we receive, so I've taken this as feedback and passed this to our Author Central team for consideration from my end as well and rest assured, I'll be absolutely sure to address this as a matter of high priority with the appropriate team within our company.

Thank you so much for your understanding and patience in this matter.

We look forward to seeing you again soon.

Best regards,
Aruna G

As the kids say, LOL.  BTW, I did mention that I'm the publisher, but this is obviously a form letter slightly edited for the purpose of a kiss-off.


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"Stop the Madness"

A second look.  Buddy Dooley's outrageous plea for sanity.


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Baseball Evening

Seattle's Robinson Cano breaks up Bartolo Colon's perfect game bid with two out in the 7th. Singled to left.

Colon had retired 20 straight.

MLB.com was carrying it live.  Tonight's free game is Dodgers vs. Pittsburgh.


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PAC-12 Media Day

I shouldn't say anything because I'm a horrible public speaker myself, but I've never heard a football coach as bumbling as Oregon's Mark Helfrich when he opens his yapper.

I simply cannot listen to the guy.

Chip Kelly was fluent, if smug and deplorably arrogant.

I miss Mike Bellotti.  The guy was smooth and smart, which may explain why he was chosen to work for ESPN as a broadcaster after leaving Oregon.


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New But Unimproved

CommonDreams, my favorite aggregate site for all the news that's tits, has a new design.

I don't like it.

The old one had better functionality with everything scoped down in front of you.  Pick and choose the interesting stories, peruse the links, focus.

The "improvement" is missing in the new and improved website. They've gone for big, a big picture on the front page, big flash, big names (with pictures).

It's rambling, glitzy, soft.

Humbug!

Oh well, the world marches on without me again. I'll read my beloved site and pine for the old format as a new generation jumps aboard.

My philosophy will change of course if I ever decide to redesign RBPD. If I do that it'll be a stroke of genius, necessary, and a bold move to attract new readers.


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Jimmie Dale Gilmore

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Hank

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American Friends

The Anti-Americans (a hate/love relationship) from CNAM on Vimeo.

A funny and insightful look at America's "friends."  I'm not sure this has any value-impact but it is entertaining in a television sort of way.


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Sales Record?

Sold four more of my latest, The Children of Vaughn, in recent days.

Gangbusters, I tell you.

Thanks to all for taking a chance on this book. Hope you enjoy it.

I'd appreciate any comments you have about it, pro or con. Direct them to my email (see the sidebar) or comment at its Amazon page.


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The Kiss I Never Desired

The Yahoo onslaught otherwise known as its Kiss promotion is getting on my nerves.

I'm getting several emails a day about a concert I'm supposed to watch. Saturated by pleading to watch the show of a lifetime, regular condolences for having missed this big event. First I was to watch it live!  Then I had an opportunity to atone for missing it!  Why did I miss it?!  What is wrong with me?! Etc.

What crap!

I never deliberately listened to Kiss, and I probably couldn't name one of their tunes if you played it for me.

I've heard of one of the bandmates, but I likely couldn't pick him out of a lineup of other prefab rock stars of their genre and time.

I did, however, once meet one of the band's original dressers. Dixie was the sister of my friend Joe and she came out to Portland from New York once to visit him. I ended up drinking all night with her and my buddy at Seafood Mama's in the old neighborhood. Turns out she had a lot to do with the makeup thing Kiss is famous for.  I'm thinking she may have been a designer of "the look" in part.

Hey, it was show biz. Nothing more, and Dixie was paid very well. She'd also embraced the lifestyle and would later go into rehab before leaving the industry.

Dixie had previously been Anthony Quinn's dresser. She said he was, unsurprisingly, a prick.

Joe's brother was also in the music business, having been the road manager of Foreigner when they were big.

I never listened to them, either.


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Masterpiece/Karen Black

Perhaps the greatest actress of America's 1970s, and perhaps one of the greatest of all time.

Directed by Bob Rafelson.

Watch it while you can.  It'll likely come down soon.


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Game of the Day

Watching a little of the free MLB game of the day this morning my ears perked when I heard the announcers describing Texas Ranger Colby Lewis' last start, when he gave up 11 earned runs (13 total) in two innings against the Angels.

He's doing much better today.

I flashed back to a time in Little League when I started a game with similar results.  I was 9 years old and couldn't control my pitches. When I did get them across they were smashed all over the ballpark. I couldn't get the third out in the first inning for the life of me.

I started crying.  I can remember it like it happened yesterday. Awful.  Finally, the coach came out to the mound and pulled me.

I never pitched in Little League again.  I was too scarred, traumatized.

I closed a varsity game when I was a freshman in high school, however.  I can't forget that one either because of two things that happened.

After giving up a hit to the lead-off hitter in the seventh, I neglected to pitch out of the stretch to the next hitter.  Fortunately the runner didn't pick up on it and steal second.  My coach came flying off the bench and chewed me out at the mound.

The hitter grounded into a double play and so I stood there one out away from my first (and only) high school career save.

I struck the third batter out with a fastball down (heh) the middle of the plate, and suddenly everybody was congratulating me, which more or less confused me.

You see, what I hadn't realized throughout the ordeal was that I was pitching in the seventh (high school games are just seven innings, or they used to be). I had no idea. I'd lost track of the proceedings and had been quite shocked to even get into the game.

I never pitched in a game again, but I may have been the luckiest relief pitcher in history.


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Regulation? Who Needs It?

Who hasn't paid big bucks for a 5 cent overdraft?

Start here if you want to understand how regulation became a plaything for the bankers and how a weak reform act failed.

In other words, nobody is willing to take on the bankers.  Woe unto us.


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Good Questions

"Americans who sit idly by and make no attempt to address and alleviate problems of poverty in our nation openly display their lack of patriotism. They also reveal an absence of  historical and moral understanding, and of personal maturity, self-respect and dignity.

"Do Americans who ignore the plight of homeless veterans really support the troops?  Can we march in parades, waving flags and pretending to be patriotic, while we continue to ignore our growing homeless population--even when we know that the causes of homelessness can strike almost anyone at any time, no matter their strength of character?

"What kind of nation is it that can claim to be the greatest nation on earth and a beacon for freedom and democracy, while millions of her own citizens live in open squalor?  Why are there homeless veterans in America? Why are there homeless seniors and children in America? Why is anyone homeless in America?  You decide."**

A friend of mine is taking initiative and plans to work with the vets.

I thank him. We should all thank those whom take the right initiative.  We might help support this organization while we're at it.

And this one.


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**Unfortunately I have misplaced the source of this quote.  Sorry. 

For the Innocents

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Darwish

Thanks to TC at his Beyond the Pale.

Mahmoud Darwish.

More.



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Yes!

The family is in Spokane headed to Seattle!

That's the grandson riding his dad.


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Senses of Cinema/Making a Film

Fellini in his own words.






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Clever

Don't Shred On Me.

Very nice.



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Exceptional Futbol

Hey, who won the World Cup anyway?

I kid.

These guys kid, too.


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Nice Mention

A nice mention by CD of The Children of Vaughn.  CD also happens to be working on an intriguing set of memory-notes at his new, post-retirement blog.

Hey, I sold three copies of COV yesterday! Movin' like pancakes at a Rotary Club fundraising breakfast.




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Open Carry

This is a good one.

It reminds me of the time hundreds of guitar-wielding protesters gathered in Pioneer Square in Portland during the Iraq War to sing "Give Peace a Chance."


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Laughing Stock

The hubris of this family is astonishing--and nauseating.

Where's the lesbian daughter during these confabs?  Is she embarrassed at all by the madness?

Or have the others told her to stay away?

Cheney needs to take a trip abroad and see what happens.

It was pretty clear early on why the Obama administration wouldn't touch Cheney and his crowd. Turns out he had a few things in store for the world himself.


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On the Road

My daughter, her husband, and my grandson are on the way to Seattle. Driving, I-94 and 90.

Be safe, kids!

Now I am getting excited.



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The U.S. "Liberal Media"

Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land from Global Information Services on Vimeo.

This excellent documentary discusses how the U.S. corporate media protects Israel while demonizing Palestinians via obfuscation and an appalling disregard of historical context.

For Truth Seekers only.  If you're squeamish, be careful.

Chris Hedges extrapolates.


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Perspective

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R.I.P. Charlie

(Lee Santa Photo)

"His jazz career crossed seven decades, with barely a moment of obscurity. He was in his early 20s in 1959, when, as a member of the Ornette Coleman Quartet, he helped set off a seismic disruption in jazz. Mr. Coleman, an alto saxophonist, had been developing a brazen, polytonal approach to improvisation — it would come to be known as free jazz — and in his band, which had no chordal instrument, Mr. Haden served as anchor and pivot. Mr. Coleman’s clarion cry, often entangled with that of the trumpeter Don Cherry, grabbed much of the attention, but Mr. Haden's playing was just as crucial, for its feeling of unerring rightness in the face of an apparent ruckus."

Charlie Haden has died at 76.


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Michael Ruppert/Collapse

Michael Ruppert.

Ruppert's last interviews.


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Live Fast, Play Faster

Like the the Bee Gees, who played a completely different style and were much more successful and mainstream, they lived fast.


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Knife in the Water

I don't think this is quite as great it is made out to be, but it is Polanski's first, so that counts for something.

A rough start, but once the filmmaker begins his work on the boat the images just become the more fascinating.

The dialogue gains impetus and becomes more profound.

The jazz soundtrack is hypnotizing as well.

From a film history perspective, it's an interesting pre-glimpse, before the leap to R. Polanski's mature films.


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The Survivor/White Rabbit

Grace was a sensation.

An old friend of mine lived next door to her in San Francisco, which I thought was very cool.  When she became even more infamous for saying "motherfucker" on national TV, she won my heart.

She was the first one! To cuss, that is.

A painter now, she is 74, a survivor of alcohol and LSD and America.

Grace was very sexy and knew how to sing.

An interesting point in this video is that she couldn't hear herself on the Woodstock stage, and finally gave up to sing the song as it must have felt to her.

Technology must have taken care of that problem years ago.


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Pilger

"In the arts, hostility to political truth-telling is an article of bourgeois faith. 'Picasso’s red period,' says an Observer headline, 'and why politics don’t make good art.'  Consider this in a newspaper that promoted the bloodbath in Iraq as a liberal crusade. Picasso’s lifelong opposition to fascism is a footnote, just as Orwell’s radicalism has faded from the prize that appropriated his name.

"A few years ago, Terry Eagleton, then professor of English literature at Manchester University, reckoned that “for the first time in two centuries, there is no eminent British poet, playwright or novelist prepared to question the foundations of the western way of life”. No Shelley speaks for the poor, no Blake for utopian dreams, no Byron damns the corruption of the ruling class, no Thomas Carlyle and John Ruskin reveal the moral disaster of capitalism. William Morris, Oscar Wilde, HG Wells, George Bernard Shaw have no equivalents today. Harold Pinter was the last to raise his voice. Among the insistent voices of consumer- feminism, none echoes Virginia Woolf, who described 'the arts of dominating other people … of ruling, of killing, of acquiring land and capital'”.

The indomitable John Pilger telling it like it is.

However, in defense of talented but unknown and struggling artists everywhere--and every culture has them--who may indeed possess radical-humanistic worldviews that attack the status quo and corrupt power--it is not true that they do not exist.  Like the poor, because they are often one and the same, they simply have nothing to offer the stakeholders.  All they lack is eminence.  But that is a deliberate and planned construct of obliterating power.


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Synchronicity

What's nice about this is that I got it all right in my chapter on Bing and Kurt Russell's Mavericks in The Children of Vaughn.

Here's a link to the Netflix preview of the movie based on the Mavericks' Portland run, 1974-77.


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Frazzled or Nuts?

I have to laugh.

I met up with CD for coffee today.

He blamed my "frazzled" personage (in the dramatic or fictional sense) on sleeplessness, which is only partially true.  I did have a rough night.  But...

No, CD, that is just how I roll most of the time!

Nice session, though.


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Proportionality

Read it and indict.

The con.

More War Crimes brought to you in the name of "peace."

And the perspective of Common Dreams.


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Immigratiion

Real life.

Real art.

Sin Nombre from george flores on Vimeo.


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Such a Night

Perhaps if the fellow down the hall who was fighting with his girlfriend last night--all night--tuned into a little Dr. John he'd understand.

Dude, if you kill her there'll be no more nights "under the moonlight."

You'll meet up with "Jim" again in jail.

Such sweet confusion, under the prison lights...


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Dammit!

(it ain't funny at 3 a.m.)

I'm up, though I shouldn't be.

A crazy fight, some couple down the hall.

Why do people fight at 3 a.m.? In a crowded apartment house?

Because they're senseless, that is why.

I'm going to write a book about my experiences in this place.  And it isn't going to look good for a few of the honchos who run things.

I know from experience that top brass doesn't want to hear about it. Maybe things will change if they read about it.  And others do too, like the guys pulling the marionettes' strings.

Eh, probably not...


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Detritus Maximus

I recently found these. I haven't collected them yet.


Words Battered in a Bar

When your eyes
glazed over
was that you or me?

God knows I
would approve of it
if you knew Gramsci,

And did not readily
confuse him with
the “poet” Versace,

An able man
I guess, but not quite
up to the task

Of leading a charge
through the fire of history,
or humanity’s discontent.

You and I should part
as we arrived and look
for something less contrived.

Love may yet
find us—
outside this dive.


A Laceration Before Dining

I have no
claim to sainthood
and it is true I don’t
like many people much
and occasionally use
such as a crutch
to touch upon the
cruelty of mankind
and whatever else there
is that makes us blind—
and of course I’ll
live with that if
you don’t mind very much—
which reminds me—isn't it
nearly time for lunch?


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Hedges On Sports & Militarism

"The heroes of war and the heroes of sport are indistinguishable in militarized societies. War is sold to a gullible public as a noble game. Few have the athletic prowess to play professional sports, but almost any young man or woman can go to a recruiter and sign up to be a military hero. The fusion of the military with baseball, along with the recruitment ads that appeared intermittently Saturday on the television screens mounted on green iron pillars throughout Fenway Park, caters to this illusion: Sign up. You will be part of a professional team. We will show you in your uniform on the Jumbotron in Fenway Park. You will be a hero like Mike Napoli."

Mr. Hedges nearly always gets it right.

Nike U. in Eugene is a leader in the conflation of sports and militarism with its annual "honor the troops" theme in its spring game, a trend started by the loutish Chip Kelly and carried forth by the mousy new Field Marshall, Mark Helfrich.

When Buddy Dooley says "freedom" is a con, he's talking in part about this growing cancer on the consciousness of America.

Indeed, it is now so prevalent that it rather negates freedom while promoting mindlessness--the "blindness" of our citizenry.



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I Am Brazil

The Round Bend Press World Cup Occasional Blog got the sense knocked out of it today.

When I picked myself up from the pitch I was down 5-0.

In one 18 min. stretch I made four horrible typos resultant of my inability to stop the onslaught of mixed metaphors that kept slipping past my defenses.

In the end, I quit.  Simply gave up the ghost. Gave up the post.

Then I started crying, and I could hear my fellow bloggers crying as well.

The dream was suddenly over.  I'd written seven poor paragraphs and a single, meaningless one reflecting on the Will to Power and "the death of God."

I thought of poor Nietzsche, kicked to the curb in the same manner by the cruelty of his countrymen, descending into madness.

I closed my document with the stains of my tears, uncertain of my future as a futbol blogger.


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First Reviews/ The Children of Vaughn

This reviewer knows the game:

"What a fun read!  Idiosyncratic, well written, entertaining journalism. Definitely belongs in the Portland libraries and noticed by the area press.

Well done, sir."

Thanks, K.C., you old cuss.

This on top of Charles Lucas' comment: "You have a way with words.  So why don't you write a novel and make some money?"

Working on it, Lucas.  Working...

And RP Thomas of Talent, Oregon, who said..."it's fucking good..."

RP has been a fan since 1969.  True story.


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RBP World Cup Occasional Blog #9

Today was a perfect day for futbol.

I had to scarcely awaken to notice Argentina scrub Belgium clean like someone scouring a long-neglected bathroom.

I tuned in late, as usual, because I had to go to the grocery store (twice) and then confront the dilemma of my bathroom, which I did nothing about in the end except promise myself I'd get to it before my daughter and her family arrive from Minnesota for a vacation in a couple of weeks.

I haven't seen the family since too long ago, and I'm very anxious and excited, knowing I must wait to clean the facilities until just the right pre-moment, else I'll have too much time to sully the environment once more and cause my energy to be misspent.

And...and...where was I?

Oh yes, Argentina vs. Belgium.  When I finally tuned in this match was over.  Except it was not.  What I saw was typical for me--the last few moments.  And of course I was not disappointed, because in that short time Belgium was pushing hard to score and the Argentinians were holding on for their lives.

I would not have been disappointed if Belgium had put one in the net at that stage, which would have given even greater impetus to my viewing method, but in the end it didn't happen.  And for that I was grateful because I thought I was going to switch to a little baseball about then...

But guess what happened?  The Mariners were blacked out at MLB.com because they are in the Portland viewing market and Root has their exclusive broadcast rights whenever ESPN and FOX do not.

Which is bogus because the Mariners are not my team.  The Beavers were!

(The Mariners beat the ChiSox 3-2 behind the new goatee of King Felix.)

So I wandered back into the bathroom and thought about it some more, eventually deciding that I do indeed have a major task at hand.

I must look at my calendar and plan for this excursion into the unknown.

I fiddled around, doing other stuff, nothing major, killing my time and all of the regular time plus an extra 30 min. in the Netherlands vs. Costa Rica match.

Tuned in for the penalty kick phase of the game, which is most like the Kansas OT Plan in college football, I watched the very cocky sub-goalie of Netherlands trash-talking and taunting the Ricans time and again, before disappointingly blocking two penalty kicks in such fashion that his head swelled to a nearly bursting cloud of self-aggrandizement.

And I thought American football players were oft-times unsportsmanlike turds.

Well, what can you do?

I've noticed that Germany is now the favorite over Brazil to win it all, which sounds about right to the Round Bend Press World Cup Occasional Blog.

Without Neymar Brazil will likely take a step back.

I should quit here while somewhat ahead and go reappraise the bathroom situation.


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Red, White and Blue

Should I watch soccer today or go to the blues festival?  Maybe I'll just sit under a tree in the shade and leave everything alone.

The 4th is not my favorite holiday by a long shot.  In fact, I find it depressing.

I don't like fireworks.

There are a lot of things I don't like about the U.S. in general, and those things are revealed for the lies they are on this day.

I'd move out of the country if I could afford to.

I'd move to a place with a history I am completely ignorant of and sit under a tree in the shade, preferably near the sea.

I know too much about this place.  My intimacy with it takes all of its joy away.



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Blues Fest

The Portland Blues Festival starts on Thurs. at noon.

Of course you won't hear anything as raw as this, but we're not anything like we used to be, either.

Hooker headlined the first Portland festival.


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Essay of the Day/Noam Chomsky

"The administration of George H.W. Bush issued a new national security policy and defense budget in reaction to the collapse of the global enemy.  It was pretty much the same as before, although with new pretexts.  It was, it turned out, necessary to maintain a military establishment almost as great as the rest of the world combined and far more advanced in technological sophistication -- but not for defense against the now-nonexistent Soviet Union.  Rather, the excuse now was the growing 'technological sophistication' of Third World powers.  Disciplined intellectuals understood that it would have been improper to collapse in ridicule, so they maintained a proper silence.

"The U.S., the new programs insisted, must maintain its 'defense industrial base.' The phrase is a euphemism, referring to high-tech industry generally, which relies heavily on extensive state intervention for research and development, often under Pentagon cover, in what economists continue to call the U.S. 'free-market economy.'

"One of the most interesting provisions of the new plans had to do with the Middle East.  There, it was declared, Washington must maintain intervention forces targeting a crucial region where the major problems 'could not have been laid at the Kremlin’s door.'  Contrary to 50 years of deceit, it was quietly conceded that the main concern was not the Russians, but rather what is called 'radical nationalism,' meaning independent nationalism not under U.S. control."

The rest of what Noam the Great dishes here.

Put what he has to say up against this, and weep.


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