The Last Word

Yes, I think the election season is a disastrously overlong distraction. If people’s interest in it can be used to get them to ask their heroes to lead on important matters — such as asking Bernie Sanders to rally the Senate for the Iran agreement or against the TPP — then that’s a nice silver lining. If people want to get drunk watching Republicans debate rather than some other poorly conceived tragicomedy on TV, what do I care?

Okay, you've been assigned to read all of them this weekend, but if you can't bring yourself to that level (not blaming you), as least try this short essay by David Swanson.

Makes a world of sense to me.


TS  

Golden Boys

Call it "tradition."

While a student at Oregon, I made sure not to miss a college football game in the early '70s (even at the expense of not studying on Saturday for a Monday quiz).  Since then, I've always followed the careers of ex-Ducks in the NFL.

Since then I've watched the stars come and go, never up close like I did in my college years.  I'm not a booster in that sense, don't give money for access.  I don't call the coach at home in the middle of the night and bitch about the play-calling or the losing streak.

But I follow the players' post-Oregon careers.

I'm looking forward to watching Mariota try to make his mark in the league this year, just as I have in the past with Fouts, Miller, Akili Smith, Kellen Clemens, Joey Harrington, etc.

None of the others won the Heisman like Mariota, though Fouts is in the pro Hall of Fame.  The others didn't have a lot of success, though Clemens has been in the league for a decade.

Be interesting to see what happens.


TS

Progress?

Bernie tweets some good stuff last night, including a few words re: the MIC.

Good to hear.

More, please.

TS

Weekend Assignment

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to read all of it, even if your reptilian mind is incapable of grasping the truth.

Remember, you are not stupid.  You're just uninformed. (Chances are you have been conditioned, brainwashed by the lesser media--television, Fox News, celebrity manufacture, Huffington Post, Yahoo, etc., etc.  Are you prepared to lose your mindlessness?  Raise your hand!)

Then, on Monday, you give me a report.  I won't question you, but you should tell me whether you enjoyed yourself or had an unpleasant experience with the material.

Once you've filed your report you may go outside and play.  Do not climb on the fence and sit there. Move around, explore, experiment.


TS

My Influence

My email exchanges with the Bernie campers persist.

They request money, I write back with a poignant reply.

What I say is never acknowledged.  What I believe hasn't a chance.

Bernie,

You have to start talking foreign policy points.  You must get over your support of the MIC.

I like you Bernie, but I want more out of you in terms of dismantling the armaments industry, military contracts, drone strikes, and hegemonic lunacy.  Needed:  a new, moral worldview.

Can't help you until I hear more, though I support you.

Go Bernie!!

TS

Essay

Republicans are the designated whipping boys for Reaction covering a wide swath of political culture, thought, and activity in America. The content is obvious, summarized as the militarization of advanced capitalism as it seeks to maintain its unilateral course of global supremacy, the effort breaking down in a world of decentralizing power relations, and thereby forcing America to ever greater extremes of action in order to keep its place.

What would your day be like without some Pollack for perspective?


TS

The Word

Senator Bernie Sanders has sparked a strong grassroots response in his run for the Democratic presidential nomination on social and economic issues. At the same time, he has given short shrift to foreign policy, military spending and war. That approach should change.

I’m among millions of supporters who are enthusiastic about the clarity of his positions in taking on Wall Street, corporate power and economic inequality. But we also need Sanders to be clear about what he would do as commander in chief of the world’s leading military power.

Amen, brother.  Norman Solomon on Sanders and foreign policy.


TS

The Economics of Courage

First, he told Diane Sawyer, his new BFF, that he didn’t like Obama except for one single thing–and guess what that might be!–“He was the first to say ‘transgender,’ I give him credit for that, but I’m not a big fan, I’m more on the conservative side. ”

This seemed to completely astonish Sawyer–but it’s hard to see why, after countless Republican politicians have been outed as cross-dressers; Jenner is building on a long and rich tradition there, and it’s fun to imagine her trading fashion and make-up tips with J. Edgar Hoover.

Warning:  If you're very politically correct, John Eskow's recent piece at CP might upset you.


TS

Nachos

Here's a secret about how to live frugally.  I'm doing it right now, and a basic lesson in survival is how you prepare tasty food to eat.

(Warning:  this recipe is not healthy because its salt content can kill you.)

I'm making nachos for dinner.  I've cooked off a pound of beef (chicken nachos or any other variant are for someone else), but the secret is I've seasoned the beef with Weber products, a garlic and herb mix, and Cajun seasoning.

They're the cheapest seasonings on the market aisle, so I make do.

Chips, olives, shredded cheddar mixture, tomatoes, lettuce, salsa and sour cream.

Don't want onions. No chilies, too hot.  No guacamole.  Have you checked the price of avocados lately?

Feast dinner and leftovers x2.


TS

Love My Bernie

I get fundraising appeals and the scoop from Bernie's team every day because I signed up.

I enjoy the material, because I like Bernie as far as he goes, but when I get an email I always write back to express my POV.

My insane objective is to counsel Bernie to go far, far to the left of his senatorial bliss.

Today, Bernie noticed that Jeb Bush is an idiot and minor-league in terms of women's health issues (the anti-choice propaganda is stewing again, proving the culture wars are unending). Lol, Jeb Bush, silver-spoon shyster (shyster was my mom's favorite name for anyone she loathed, ha!).

Anyway, my response to today's Bernie letter:

Bernie, Bernie, Bernie.  We need a socialist revolution.  That would include a massive cutback on the MIC, a reinvestment in infrastructure, housing, health, education, and a guaranteed income.

You go there, Bern, and you'll get my vote.  If you mention throwing your support to Hillary later, I'll write you off as a coward.  The Dems and Repubs must be overthrown for anything like equality to happen.

I'm broke right now, but I'll get back to you later.  Okay?

Love ya, Bernie


TS

Sluggish

Things are at a slow crawl.

I've been scouring websites for work.  I need a job, preferably online.  I haven't worked a physical job setting since 2008.

I broke my finger that year (crushed by a faulty lift gate) and settled with SAIF for too little.  I should have sued the company. Damn trucks were always under-serviced.

Simply a matter of a toxic work environment, a common and spreading thing--so ordinary that no one but the debilitated gives a damn.

Like that time in Albany years ago when a cop threatened to kill me. I should have sued the APD then as well.  All these years later and the cop industry still has some issues, doesn't it?

Every once in a while a nice cop will get a little ink for not being an asshole.  Cool.  But don't even contemplate being anything other than a robot when you're dealing with the power.

Guess I'm not very litigious, never have been.  Maybe a new opportunity will arise.  In fact, I've been thinking about suing my landlord for several months now.  I have my reasons.

Lots of stress right now.  That'll probably end when I die.

Sound familiar to you?


TS

The Grange Wars

As more and more grocery shoppers refuse to write-off the origins of their food as some unsolvable whodunit, a network of sustainability minded, locally oriented farmers are working to connect those people to calories from known sources.  For such farmers, and those in the communities that support them, the local Grange is a well-established ally. 

Jay Sexton is Master at Mary’s River Grange #685 in Philomath, Oregon. A member of that Grange for six years, he is also the current director of the Oregon State Grange Agriculture Committee, working to advance Grange policies and promote agriculture awareness. Reminding the general public that we all depend on agriculture for the food we eat has been no small part of the organization’s mission for the last 148 years.

“The Grange has an interesting history,” says Sexton, “not just with the ups and downs of membership, but with how closely it’s been tied to big agriculture.”

As small, personal battles are waged against the growing corporate menace and takeover of everything, consider the history and current life of the Grange.


TS

The "Traitors"

The siege of Knightsbridge is both an emblem of gross injustice and a gruelling farce.  For three years, a police cordon around the Ecuadorean embassy in London has served no purpose other than to flaunt the power of the state. It has cost £12 million. The quarry is an Australian charged with no crime, a refugee whose only security is the room given him by a brave South American country. His “crime” is to have initiated a wave of truth-telling in an era of lies, cynicism and war.

I have "liberal" friends, motivated by who knows what--likely a sense of security in an insecure world--who think Snowden, Manning and Assange are wrong-headed asses and "traitors."

I can't say I agree with them.

John Pilger states it better than I can, of course.


TS

Dog Days of August

The baseball season hits crunch time.

Football teams across the land begin to build for the year, pro and collegiate.

I'll get into the sports pages a little more in the coming weeks.

Of particular concern to Ducks out there, bandwagon idiots (aka those who know better than the coaches if something turns ugly) as well as the experts such as myself (one inclined to accept, indeed can relate to, imperfection)--who replaces Mariota in running Oregon's slick offense?

TBD.

TS

Dying

A note from CD informing me that a mutual friend of ours from long ago is dying.

It is always a drag hearing this sort of news, but it makes you pause and reflect.

He published a lot with CD in their Northwest Magazine days under Joe Bianco.  Last I heard he was a prodigious book buyer/seller, working independently with Powell's Books.

About five years ago, I asked him to publish with Round Bend Press. He wasn't interested.

One time 25 years ago he told my child's mother, Linda, that he had lung cancer.  Was he telling the truth back then or just projecting the future?  He did smoke, and we all know where that goes.

Bob is a realist, quoted by CD as saying he's "had a good run."


TS