Goodbye, Albright & Raw

What a damned shame.

Kathe and I had a good time yesterday, going through the near-vacant Albright & Raw Rexall store, buying a few of their remnants of stock. Just a few items left in their storerooms, and then it's gone.

What a damned shame.

Still, it was fun, buying a pill bottle here, a cardboard box there. A bottle of scary-sounding asthma medication to give to Waldy.

But what a damned, ruinous, totally unnecessary shame.

Shame on George W. Bush, whose dingbat Medicare scheme destroyed independent drug stores like Albright & Raw.

Just a damned shame.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Corporatism. It's what's for dinner."\\

Lame, Yet Better Than Nothing

Adopt a penguin, get a sugar cookie cutter in the shape of one.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Probably more than you have done for penguins this week."\\

Still Still Here

Nerving myself up to go back to work. I think I'm ready. My doctor has released me to go back. But really, lives are in my hands, and I do take that responsibility seriously.

But I have to go back sooner or later.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Be strong. Be brave. Be grateful you've had as much recovery time as you've had already."\\

Still Here

Oops, sorry, let a few days go by without a post. Folks are liable to think I finally dropped dead.

No, but nothing much of other interest has happened, either.

Big item: the hole in my forehead is no longer pulsating visibly. Instead, I sometimes feel what I suppose is pressure building up against the tender new bone of the now-closed hole. It's a bit unnerving, although less so than that pulsating head business.

It would be interesting to see how many people immediately think "baby" and how many think "alien", and whether there's any sort of correlation there.

Refreshment of a Different Kind

Kathe and I poured oil into the heater's tank. With me still on light duty, we had to pour it into a tiny (2 gal. 8 oz. -- why such an odd amount?) can and make many, many trips up and down. Later, we walked downtown this morning, looked in at Browser's Books, made copies at Henderson's and had coffee at the Red Horse. A fairly heavy day, these days.

I dwelled obsessively upon the way that my cerebrospinal fluid is still making my forehead bulge with every pulsation. It kept my hat from sitting comfortably.

//The Magic Eight-Ball observes that "Pulsating cerebrospinal fluid is better than the other kind."\\

Something Else Refreshing

A post on something besides my damned brain tumor, because I'm sick of thinking about it.

Instead, let's consider things like:

The MIT Logo Folded From a Single Sheet of Paper

Note with interest the various stages in which the origamus's ontology recapitulates its phylogeny: at various stages, it resembles first an airplane, then a mother airplane nursing its brood, then the sword Steve Reeves carried in Hercules Versus the Goat Women, before finally taking on recognizable shape as a university emblem.

or maybe

The World's Biggest Moose

"Inside the mouth, between the teeth and the tonsils, you will find the gift shop."
Please note that the above is not a bit of silliness, but an actual fact, straight out of the voiceover on the video.

or else

Robot Violin Playing

Damn. Just look at that thing go, and try to keep in mind that it's real: a real five-foot tall robot, actually playing that actual violin.

or even

A Book Report

"It is my considered opinion that The Mill on the Floss would have been vastly improved by an alien invasion about half way through."

My first thought on this was that it provided useful impetus for fanfic writers. We can start with the question of what kind of aliens they'll be, whether existing or original, and what form their invasion will take. From there, we can move on to consider alternative venues, such as Silas Marner, Emma, The Mayor of Casterbridge and Wuthering Heights.

Or not.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Feeling better, are we?"\\

Staples Out

Well, that's refreshing. The staples are out, and Kathe and I are just back from Eugene, where a very kind and capable Physician's Assistant pulled them. Kathe suggested I have them gilded for the holidays, but I'm just as glad to be done with them.

Aside from that, it was practically an ordinary day, but then I'm still on that Fentanyl patch.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Keep on keepin' on."\\

Now, This is a Day More Like It!

Yesterday I felt kinda sorta okay, and counted it as a victory. Today I walked downtown with Kathe and looked in stores and stopped for a mocha and a danish, and felt pretty damned normal. I like being normal. Normal feels so good.

[Smile, smile]

But check in with me tomorrow -- who knows where I'll be by then?

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Cover all your bets."\\

Feeling Much Better Now (This Time For Sure!)

For the moment, anyway. It requires Fentanyl patches with liquid Morphine for backup, but the headaches are under control. Oh, well. My clients will just have to make do, I guess, until I am ready to go back to work. I certainly don't want someone with my current state of mind to be rubbing anybody's back, much less dispensing their medications.

If that seems like a harsh assessment, well, I've been forced to make a lot of those lately.

Anyway, I'm trying to get back on track, though maybe I just need to be patient. In the meantime, watch this space.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "The obviousness of the wisdom of long-term planning is exceeded only by the obviousness that there was not enough of it."

+168 Hours Or Something And Counting

God. What a mess. Talk about your lost week and then some.

Not too bad right after surgery, but then I started having worse and worse symptoms: headache, nausea, weakness, extreme sensitivity to pain, photosensitivity. I had to go back for three CAT scans before they were convinced that there wasn't something putting pressure on my brain*. Now the thought is that it's an "intractable migraine" brought on but not directly caused by the surgery.

Only the IV drugs seemed to have any effect -- possibly because my stomach was totally shut down. So, I'd go into the emergency room and get a jolt of phenergan or dilaudid and feel pretty good, and they'd send me home with a bottle of pills, and so on.

[I may have left something important out, or gotten something wrong, but that's the way I remember it right now]

The worst part of it all was that there was nothing to distract me from the pain, and nothing to pass the time. All I could do was lie there thinking about every last little detail of how bad I felt, and how long it was going to be until I could have another, and whether I was going to sleep at all, and if so, how would I feel when I woke up?

Right now, though, I'm on what appears to be a winning combination of 1) a three-day patch, 2) PRN liquid morphine and 3) anti-nausea suppositories.

This has been quite a disappointing week. Not at all what I'd been led to expect. Still, I seem to have survived it.

And there's still some time for the enjoyable parts of this sick leave: walking downtown, showing off my staples, &c.

And there are a lot of things to get done: decorations, postcards, getting a new watch (seems to have disappeared at the hospital), &c.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Take it easy."\\

+ 23 hours and Counting

So don't expect your usual high level of wqith and typingm bewcause I'm still loaded up with ... stuff.

But I wanted everybody to know that I'm still alive, and liable to stay that way.
I can do a decent coopy later when I'm up for it.

The good news is that this is not the sort of thing you can expectr fromme from now on -- I'm assured that this fuzzy head is merely tyhr result of bad medications and not (primarily) from the hole in my head which in am7y event is still pretty fresh.

Anyway, just wanted you yto know the most significant thing, which isa that 1) the CAT scan indicaties that the first scraping worked successfully, which means thwt won't have to go in and clean pout eh the rest later. and 2) although it was none of the interesting and unusual growths they thought iot was, it is benign, which means I am liable to live, or at least not get any wporse. Sounds good to me.

Kathe thinmks it' s stupid to leave this as is, as though this indicates something about thet state of my mind., OTOH., it alsop m,eans I won't have to go back and crtrect it all, and that sounds good to me right about now.

18 Hours and Counting

I'm at my parents' house in Monroe after dinner, using their computer and struggling with its unfamiliar keyboard.

Mom & Dad, Kathe and me, our son Waldy and his girlfriend Mary, my brother Tom and his girls, Linda and Andrea. Our daughter Biftu (aka Asnakech) was going to come from Portland, but she thought the family was gathering in Corvallis, and by the time the bus would have brought her to Corvallis we would have been long-gone to Monroe. So Biftu went over to her sister Sarah's house instead. Oh, well.

And all the while, the countdown continues: nine hours until I become NPO (not a big concern on the evening of Thanksgiving), fifteen hours until I check in at Sacred Heart, seventeen and a half hours until the drill bites in.

Am I boring you yet?

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Sometimes you bore, and sometimes you get bored."\\

38 Hours And Counting

As the clock runs out leading up to my surgery, I'm getting a flurry of unexpected calls from people wanting to schedule a massage.

So many people (and so much money) that I'd be tempted to suspect a pronoid* fantasy of people conspiring to hit me with a raft of money just before I go off work for awhile, except that these are mainly people I've never seen before.

One more night in my own bed....

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Why wait until the last minute?"

*Opposite of paranoid.

60 Hours And Counting

Kathe and I had dinner at Izzy's with my parents and Uncle Charles, as well as Aunts Pat and Sandra. A sort of pre-Thanksgiving, since Charles won't be at the main gathering at my parents' place on Thursday.

The time of surgery fast approaches, will I or nill I.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "3600 seconds per hour. Not just a good idea, it's the law."\\

Still Waiting

Tonight is my last shift of home-care work. No more night shifts, and no day work at the activity center. I may get a call or two for a massage (I hope so), but otherwise there isn't much to do except show up at my parents' house for Thanksgiving, sleep overnight at my Aunt Pat's place in Junction City, and check in at Sacred Heart in Eugene at 0600 Friday morning, to be prepped for surgery at 0730.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Fear is the mind-killer."\\

I'm Scared

In the morning, Kathe and I will be going to Eugene to meet with the anesthesiologist who'll be conducting me through the Ivory Gate. Tonight, I sit and wonder if the thingie in my brain is as innocuous as all of the doctors seem to think.

I've never had a really good memory, but now it seems bad enough to actually scare me.

Months ago, I told Kathe that it was my understanding that X was blue. A few weeks later, I said, "Of course, you remember when I said X was red, right?" We had a rather heated discussion on the subject. It was unpleasant, and not the sort of thing a person is likely to forget under normal circumstances.

And yet, the other day I said to Kathe, "I don't know why anyone would think X was blue. I certainly never said so." She had to remind me of our previous discussion, at which point it all came back to me -- but how could I not think of it whenever the subject of the color of X came up?

This is scary. Or am I just reading too much into an ordinary lapse because I'm already afraid of the surgery? I don't know.

//The Magic Eight-Ball

Poor, Poor Religious Right

"Kathe, I notice that people are making a big fuss this year over how the Religious Right have little to choose from among Republican candidates, as though this were something new."

"If you're the Religious Right and you're limiting yourselves to Republican candidates, you're bound to wind up disappointed."

"Exactly. Oooh, I must go make a blog post, I just thought of a wonderfully snotty turn of phrase."

"By the way, I don't think you've mentioned that you now have a firm date for your surgery. I think the last time you mentioned it, it was still 'we think the 23rd' and you said 'Get back to me when you know for sure.'"

"Gee, I thought I'd mentioned at least once that my surgery is now definitely set for Friday, November 23rd at 7:30 AM. But if not, I'd better mention it today."

[15 minutes later]

"So anyway, that wonderfully snarky turn of phrase was:

It must be pretty discouraging to be a member of the Religious Right these days, having to choose between unpalatable contenders like Rudolph Giuliani and Mitt Romney, or a wretch like Mike Huckabee, who's foul in quite different ways, and besides would lose to Christopher Dodd.

But what else is new? At least since Ronald Reagan, every Republican candidate has painted a picture of himself as a titan with a fiery red white and blue halo, a Bible in one hand and the nuclear button in the other, a gay man crushed under one foot and a teenaged girl under the other. And every one who's been elected has delivered Babylonian corruption and Pharaonic incompetence.

It's as though every Democrat had billed himself as the new JFK and then...

Oh, right.


//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Souls bared on Larry King Live may be smaller than they appear."\\

Lest We Forget (As Usual)

"Hello?"
"Hi, Waldy. You're at our place, right, making lunch with Food Not Bombs?"
"Yeah."
"Could you do something for me -- I forgot about doing it before we left for Meeting."
"Sure."
"Could you go to the corner by the bedroom door and get the flag and hang it out?"
"Okay."
"Great. The Stars and Stripes, not the peace-symbol flag. It's Armistice Day*."
"Okay."**

I made it through Meeting without any abnormal reactions, so I guess that makes it a good week.

* It just now occurred to me that by calling just before Meeting, I caused the flag to be hung out at 11:00 exactly. How traditional.

** Waldy is a man of few words.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Remember."

Still Waiting Patiently

So, surgery on the 23rd, still haven't received anything in the way of information about how to prepare for surgery, still no hour set for surgery (the previous one was going to be 9AM, check in at 7 -- makes sense, since my day will be ruined anyhow).

Anxiety is definitely having an effect on my quality of life: headaches, chest pains, acid reflux in my mouth in the middle of the night -- tons of fun.

And a good time is had by all, thanks to my bad temper, gloom and fuzzy-headedness, which allow me to share the wealth with Kathe and other people around me.

Weirdly, the only times I really feel like myself are when I'm at work. I guess my work-self doesn't know he's about to have surgery.

And speaking of work: any mid-Valley resident who reads this should be aware that I will be working right up until surgery, including my massage practice, so by all means don't hesitate to call for a massage appointment between now and Thanksgiving. I could use the money, for the time while I'm off work recovering.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "I'm not saying anything. I don't participate in spam."\\

Guess What?

NOTE: The following is not an actual transcript, just the gist of the conversation put in a form I thought would be enjoyable. The person I spoke with made a small error but corrected it at once and was professional throughout. No disrespect or misrepresentation is intended.

[Phone rings]

[neutral voice, not knowing if it will be friend, massage client, bad news] "Hello, this is John Burt."

[chirpy voice] "Hi! Your surgery has been approved, so we can put you on the schedule now."

[icy voice] "I thought I had been on the schedule for November 20th. For a couple of weeks now. All my plans were based on that."

[abashed voice] "Um, oh, I see, I was thinking you were one of the ones just approved. Yes, here, the doctor is having a family emergency, so his surgeries are being rescheduled. I think I can get you in for the 23rd, the day after Thanksgiving."

[pleasant voice] "I see. Well, thanks for the update. Let me know when a firm date is set, and I'll make plans accordingly."

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, [portentous voice] "The best laid plans...."\\

[Update: Surgery will definitely be on the 23rd. Plan all visits, massage appointments, &c. accordingly.]

Boom

Sorry, I'm not feeling like being a responsible liberal today.

Or even a Quaker.

Don't mind me, I'll be feeling better soon.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Ka-Blam."\\

Do Your Job or Get Out of the Way, Nancy!

Congress would like to restore at least part of the Consumer Product Safety Division, which used to do such a good job of keeping unsafe products off American shelves.

Unfortunately, CPSC chair Nancy Nord is opposed to Congress giving her a bigger budget, more staff and more enforcement powers. God forbid she should be invited to actually do her stinkin' job!

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Heckuva job."\\

[The 2007 Supplement to The Meaning of Liff defines "nord" as "v., p.t.: To have deliberately left a task undone. Contraction of 'ignored'."]

I Talk Funny

Awhile back, I noticed that I seemed to be speaking some dialect of English of unknown origin:

When I complete a task successfully, I say "Good-good." There are forms of English in which this is standard, but I've never lived around people who said it.

When someone thanks me for help, I don't say "'Tweren't nothin'" or "No problem," I say "Always-always." Gee, where did that come from?

There are more examples, but they'll have to wait for another time. I can't recall them right now.

[Update, 6 November: I still can't think of any of my other peculiarities of speech, except for a tendency to say "on offer" instead of "available" or "for sale". That's a Britishism, I think.]

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, //"Speak and be counted."\\

Free Elections [Take One]

Immense effort is currently being expended to ensure that people who are not U.S. citizens or otherwise not entitled to, do not vote in U.S. elections.

Not that there's been a big problem with this. Or even any problem. But the matter must be vigorously prosecuted.

Especially against Democrats.

Meanwhile, considerably less energy is being expended towards ensuring that legitimate votes, once cast, actually get counted.

Funniest thing.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "I'm not laughing."\\

Gargoyles

From: John M. Burt (john_m_burt@hotmail.com)
To: backfence@news.oregonian.com

To the Back Fence Columnist:

When you pass on to V.D. of Tigard directions to Portland-area gargoyles so he can show them to his visiting grandchildren, don't forget to mention that the most famous local gargoyle, the Doyle Owl, is missing.

Hopefully,

John M. Burt

[No quote is available from the Magic Eight-Ball today. Anyone knowing of its whereabouts should contact me at once, or at least put up a video on YouTube.]

Scary Halloween Picture

Yes, there's actually a reason for this image.

Shakespeare's Sister posted a picture of a tarantumunk. One of the commentors imagined sending that pic to the Pet Tribute Creations site. I created my version of a Pet Tributes image, and here it is.

Is this image blasphemous? I don't think so. All God's creatures, and all that.

Of course, the tarantumunk can hardly be called one of God's creatures, can it? Hmmm.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Not every reason is a good one."\\

Don't Pick on Peru

The Peru Free Trade Agreement is a bad deal for working people in the U.S., but it's a disaster for working people in Peru.

So why is anybody for it?

Well, not everybody works for a living, you know.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Follow the money."\\

Mass Extinction -- Our Bad

Urge your Senator to support the Global Warming Wildlife Survival Act.

Because polar bears need love, too, or anyway, they need a piece of ice to sit on.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Think."\\

What Now?!

For cryin' out loud, can't I catch a break? It's still three and a half weeks until the surgery for my brain tumor, and now I have to stagger out of Meeting with a painful sense of pressure in my chest with referral to my neck and jaw!

Well, the EKG and the blood chemistry they did at Immediate Care were all normal-looking. The X-ray says my heart is a bit on the big side, but then so is the rest of my chest, so I'm not taking that as a bad sign.

Good thing. It'd be a sorry comment if my heart couldn't take the strain of a Corvallis Quaker Meeting.

Probably it was just some sort of digestive mishap -- lots of coffee and stress lately. I'll try these sample Protonix tablets and see how my innards respond.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Lub-dup, lub-dup...".\\

Re-Constitution

I'm working at my night job as a caregiver, sitting at my client's computer (with, ahem, his permission, of course), looking out a row of picture windows. Since I'm writing on my blog, that means I'm also in the lookout tower atop my own house, a couple of miles away. Either way, I've got a great view of the predawn Willamette Valley.

The eastern light fades from blue to greenish-yellw to orange to a most exquisite and peculiar dark red. Fog lies on the Valley floor, looking so substantial that it's hard to believe how it will burn off once the sun hits it.

And here I sit pondering the current administration and its ineffectual opposition.

I don't know how other people feel about it, but I like our Constitution, and I think it would be a good idea if we went back to living by it.

There was a time when saying that would have made me a conservative.

Or maybe I am one. I could live with that.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "You are what you are. Whatever that is."\\

Torture is Bad

It was a good morning for Kathe, and Ghu knows she needed one. It was

1) A clear, mild Autumn day -- Kathe's favorite time of year.

2) The OSU Homecoming Parade went right by the house, with all the things a parade should have to earn her favor: horses and marching bands (only two, but they were pretty good).

3) The OSU band made the unusual choice to play "Fat Bottomed Girls", a song that is almost as close to her heart as a certain fat-bottomed girl is to my own.

On another topic: Um, did I mention already that decent people don't commit torture, or condone it?

Just checking.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Check and double check."\\

Mostly About Me

I've been forced to think about myself lately, and I find that in some important ways I am not at all the man I thought I was.

I have always thought of myself as an analytical person with a scientific view of life, but recently I've found that some long-held opinions about people and things around me don't hold up under logical scrutiny. It would appear that quite often, I form a vague impression about something and then bumble along acting on that, ignoring evidence that the object (a person, a device, a way of folding towels) was quite different from what I presumed it to be.

How did I fail to miss something so basic about myself? It would appear that I presumed that because I was an atheist and read science fiction, that automatically made me clear-eyed and perceptive. It's a miracle that I didn't become an Objectivist.

I clearly need to develop some perspective on life, and quit relying on my own impressions of everything, including the impressions that I often accept uncritically from books and from the people around me.

I also need to pay some attention to the fact that it's been a long time since I was entirely sure I was an atheist.

Elsewhere in the news:

# I may or may not be attending my parents' Thanksgiving dinner in Monroe, and I may or may not be up to much, two days after surgery. In any event, there won't be any Thanksgiving at Blackberry House this year. Our son Waldy and his girlfriend* Mary have been invited to join in the gathering in Monroe, as have our daughter Biftu (aka Asnakech) who lives in Portland. Our son Tes, last sighted in Portland, could also come if he wants. So could our daughter Michu (aka Mestowet), if she were crazy enough to try to fly in from Texas, though if she had any such notion I'm sure she'd have told us by now.

* "No I'm not!" -- Mary

# I have now scraped the grass completely off the corner space where I intend to plant a rock garden. The ground slopes steeply down from the utility pole, not well-suited for an unanchored rock surface, so I believe I'll make at least one terrace, probably held back by a retaining wall of loose red bricks.

The soil, like most of the soil around the house, is mostly clay, but there's a small rim of good healthy dirt alongside the curb. I hope that in the spring we'll be able to restore the daffodils that used to grow there. There are still plenty of cut ends of roots in the clay, so I expect there will be plenty of sprouting for me to discourage before I finally put down the layer of crushed rock and then begin decorating it with pretty rocks and broken crockery.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "It's not all about you, but some of it is."\\

Keeping it Simple

How's this for simple:
Tell college students, "If They Bomb Iran, You Get Drafted".

And you know that this time, the people who killed the Equal Rights Amendment won't so much as blush when they start drafting women anyway.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "The pricks of conscience do no affect the conscience of pricks."\\

Surgery Scheduled: 20 NOV 2007

I just this minute got off the phone with Dr. McGirr's assistant, and my surgery is now scheduled for 9:00 AM on 20 November 2007*, at Sacred Heart in Eugene.

Kathe will stay at my aunt Pat's place in Junction City. We're looking forward to that -- we haven't seen it yet.

There. I said I'd let you know more as soon as I knew more, and now you know everything I know.

And when I know more, I'll let you know that, too.

*I may or may not be able to make Thanksgiving at my parents' house in Monroe.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Blessed be."\\

Subependymoma

Gonna Have Surgery...Someday

I've been waiting rather anxiously for word from my neurosurgeon's office about scheduling surgery. Waiting and waiting for the Motorola Q phone in my pocket to ring. Last night at close to 1 AM, my phone informed me that I'd just received a new voicemail thanks to Sprint, my wireless provider. The voicemail was from a call that the neurosurgeon's assistant had placed to my phone at 9:30 the previous morning (at which time the phone was in my pocket, charged and turned on.

I called back the next morning, and just now got an answer (on our house phone): they're still waiting for approval from Blue Cross/Blue Shield, who apparently need to be persuaded that this so-called surgery isn't just recreational trephination.

Why, yes, sometimes it does indeed suck to be me, thank you for noticing.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "We all have our frailties."\\

Gonna Have Surgery

I told everybody I'd tell more when I knew more. I guess I know a little bit more now.

I saw Dr. McGirr this afternoon, and it looks as though I definitely need to have surgery.

Well, then, let's do it.

I still don't have a date scheduled, but it looks as though I'll be in Sacred Heart in Eugene for three days or so, and then have a recovery period more or less long.

So, keep me in your thoughts, and I'll let you know more when I know more.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "So far, so good."\\

The Fortunate Mr. Gore

Al Gore has a global audience and high approval, and he does all his campaigning and fundraising on his own schedule. I'm sure he's better off doing what he's been doing the past six years, than he would be if he'd been President.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Been kinda hard on the rest of us, tho...."\\

Something Nice

I'll let you know more when I know more. In the meantime, somebody did something rather nice or me.

I work three half-days a week at the Grace Center for Adult Day Services, most recently this Thursday. To my surprise, the staff presented me with a copy of Tom de Haven's novel It's Superman!

I think I'm supposed to read it while I'm laid up recuperating but
1) it's too good. I opened it and was drawn in immediately
2) life is too uncertain. Eat dessert first.

After all, after the surgery, I may not be able to read all those big words any more.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Stop that, John. Not everyone who reads this knows about your sense of humor."\\

We Can Haz 21st Senchry?

Ever since Barack Obama announced he was running for President, I've had this odd hopeful feeling that the past six demented years have only been a temporary aberration, and that soon the real 21st Century would begin.

After all, practically every science fiction film that doesn't have a woman as President to show it's the near future has an African American President. So with either Barack or Hillary, we'll be showing strong signs of having finally arrived in the future.

And now: Doris Lessing has won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Tell me this isn't shaping up to be a century we can be glad we lived in it.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "At least by comparison with the 20th."\\

Big News, as Promised

As promised, an important piece of personal news.

It turns out Arnold was wrong: it is a tumor.

The other day, Kathe sent a small group of friends a link to a study that said sex is actually good for a headache. I hit "reply all", as I usually do, and said that while that had generally been my experience also, the other day I'd had an orgasm* and i had caused the whole left side of my face to light up with pain, a spasm that had faded to leave behind a headache that lasted more than 30 hours.

I didn't think much of it myself, just an anomaly, but one of the other recipients urged me to go get a brain scan. They didn't find anything that would explain that sudden pain, but quite by chance they did find something growing in my brain's right ventricle.

It's most likely (touch wood) a subependymoma, a growth of the membrane cells lining the ventricle. It might be various other things, but all of them are benign things(touch wood). Apaprently it's not displaying any of the marks of one of those nasty malignant brain tumors you hear about (go buy a carved wooden finger ring).

Right now, we're looking for a neurosurgeon who does this kind of operation, preferably endoscopically. When my doctor first told me what i had and where it was, I pictured bloody gloved hands prying my brain hemispheres apart like buttcheeks. I knew it wasn't really done that way, but after seeing some of the actual surgical options, I'd have been willing to settle for that. But really, I want the endoscopic job if I can get it.

That's about all I know right now. I'll let you know more when I know more myself. In the meantime, please hold me in the Light.

* I didn't think such a reference was indecent, so long as I didn't go into details.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Even in here, there is a light, and I will hold you in it, John."\\

Pending Notification of Family

If you are a personal friend of mine, please call me. All others, watch this space.

Why They Love Us So Much

http://www.sydesjokes.com/link/funnyclip000003.html

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "*sigh*"\\

Yes, On The Damned Table

The impeachment of Dick Cheney.

Damn right.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Damn right."\\

My Little Cthulhu

There, I climbed up to the lookout tower and blogged about something before the end of the month.

True, there are more pressing things to blog about than My Little Cthulhu, but something is better than nothing.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Well, some somethings are better than nothing, anyway...."\\

Don't Look at Me

I wasn't one of the tens of thousands who wrote / telephoned / e-mailed Congress to get the worst bits removed from the misbegotten Lieberman-Kyl Amendment.

It's been a very difficult, unpleasant month, and I didn't do much of anything. I didn't even write this Saturday afternoon post until Sunday evening (no wonder the lookout seems even shakier than ever -- it's doubly imaginary).

But I'm so glad that we aren't at war with Iran.

Yet.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "At least, not officially."\\

Thank You, Adoptive Mothers

Mothers who adopted orphaned children in Botswana, Jamaica, Cambodia and Lebanon get a special letter of thanks from thepetitionsite.com

And by the way, Kathe gets a special thank you from me: Thanks for Waldy, Michu, Biftu and Tesfaye.

//The Magic Eight Ball says, "Give credit where credit is due."\\

Why "Kucinich Doesn't Have a Chance"

"Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel have low poll numbers -- because we don't include them in our polls."

Yep, that would explain it, all right.

The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Suspicions confirmed."\\

Uh... Yeah

Here's an idea: Maybe Congress, instead of perpetually going back and froth about drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, should instead decide once and for all to make it, like, a refuge for, y'know, wildlife.

Just a thought.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "There have been worse ideas."\\

Stiff-Necked, Inflexible, Intolerant

Come on, is it really necessary to be so insistent about this "equality before the law" stuff? Do we really have to be, you know, equal equal? All of us?

Well, yes. We do.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Yes."\\

Unmashed Radishes

Food Not Bombs cooked in our kitchen again, as usual, even though the Fall Festival was running in the park. They left us a huge bowl of radishes and a challenge to do something with them.

Reasoning that radishes are basically just a kind of turnip, we decided to eat them mashed. We microwaved them, which seems to have been a mistake, since they came out chewy rather than mashable.

Ah, well, live and learn. If we ever have occasion to try it again, we'll steam them.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Food is life. Treat it with respect."\\

Blog Like a Pirate Day

Ask me teh blog like a pirate, will yeh? Why, I'll have ye known that I blogged like a scourge o' the sea afores ye knew which end of a cutlass teh hold, ye hornswoggled bream!

Aye, 'tis a day fer piracy in word, which is a buggerin' welcome change from piracy in deed, o' which we've had far too much o'late, as well as sundry other offenses 'gainst the laws o' man an' God.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Oy, such a tzimmes you made out of pirate dialect, it shouldn't be read by a Tsarist!"\\

Good Ideas

Such as

Education for all -- even girls.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Good idea."

War Made Easy

The title of the film is War Made Easy. The subtitle is How Presidents and Pundits Spin US Into War. The question is, why do we keep falling for it?

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Good question."\\

Roofing

Most of the roof has been replaced in the last few years. One of the trickier sections has just been finished, done by Kathe and me, with the extremely valuable help of Peter, a student living next door, who made a first-rate human fly as he dangled from a rope nailing up shingles.

Soon comes the rain, but by golly the roof is sound at the northeast corner.

Not So Special

The Project For a New American Century, the group which provided the theory for which the Bush 43* Administration is the practice, is not really so unusual.

There are groups all over the country, people who sit down and talk about their big plans for reforming the world and/or saving civilization. They sit around and talk and give presentations, persuading one another that their Big Plan is foolproof, the most obvious thing in the world. PNAC was typical of such groups.

The big difference is, they got a country to play with, to test out their grandiose agenda.

Test it to destruction....

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Not quite, but getting there."\\

Alberto the Torturer Flees

I sat in the lookout tower last night and watched the beautiful full Moon in its splendor, and said to it as I often do, "Wait up for us, lady, we'll be back."

As the early-morning Sun warms the lookout's little glassed-in space, I feel at least a hint of hope that this country may yet recover from its current miasma of corruption and despair and reach into space again: Alberto Gonzales, one of the more conspicuously plague-addled rats, has deserted the sinking shi*.

Call your Senators and your Representative, let them know that he'd damn well better not make good his escape.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "From your lips to Allah's ear."\\

I Don't Know

I don't know what to do with myself.

I flunked out of nursing school in the third term. I audited the second term the next year, in order to be re-admitted to the program for the third course. But I didn't pass the skills test.

So now I've done nothing at all about getting back into school or about trying some other career path for the last six months and now it's time for school to start again and I'm not prepared -- academically, emotionally or financially -- to go back to LBCC or to Chemeketa Community College in Salem (the next-nearest nursing school, and allegedly more supportive than LBCC).

So what now? I don't know.

I surely don't know.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Do not despair."\\

|| John says, "What do you know?" ||

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "I do what I'm made to do."\\

Colonoscopy Today

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "What fun."\\

[Update: I survived :-) ]

Doubling Down

Philip Atkinson's answer to the failure of neo-conservatism:

Double all the bets and have faith that it will work this time.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "There is a word for repeating one's actions and expecting different results."\\

Sad Anniversary

Today marks the 30th anniversary of the death of an unique entertainer who changed our culture forever.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Also Elvis."\\

The Benefits of Procrastination

The scaffolding was delivered Friday, and with the help of Peter (a neighbor we've hired for the job), we got it assembled. The shingles had already been delivered, and with Peter's help we got them raised to the attic.

We were going to start tearing off the shingles on Saturday, but we were feeling lazy by then and didn't get started on it, instead doing less intense work like cutting up tree trimmings and doing laundry.

We feel better about that slacking now, seeing as how it rained most of last night.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "And are you going to tear off shingles today?"\\

Hello Again, Motorola

In response to my post about my Motorola Q phone, I received a very encouraging-looking e-mail from Matthew Greenberger at Motorola, saying he couldn't imagine why I was having such trouble with the phone, and offering a readable, detailed, illustrated set of instructions for sending e-mails.

Unfortunately, every time I go to Sprint's web site and try to log on to change the settings on my account, I always get "not available at this time1" when I try to move on to Step Three of Five.

Now I've received a phone call at home from Mr. Greenberger. Gosh, sounds like he's serious about straightening this out.

Okay, I'm not working tomorrow morning, so I'll call him back during business hours.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Wear a sword, but be ready to accept a pleasant surprise."\\

Dear Motorola

Dear Motorola:

Recently, my wife and I dropped our T-Mobile account in favor of Sprint. Not that we were greatly enamored of Sprint, and not that I was dissatisfied with my T-Mobile BlackBerry, but because T-Mobile was giving us a hard time about adding phones for our two grown sons and one son's girlfriend to our account.

So, I chose a Motorola Q for my phone, so that I could send and receive text messages and e-mails, and have lived to regret it.

I was unable to use the e-mail function. I set up a special account for the phone and confirmed via our desktop computer that it was functional. I set up service on the phone, and could compose messages. But I couldn't send messages from the phone on that account.

Your web site contains some pretty advertising, but doesn't offer much in the way of help, although I did eventually find a phone number tucked away in a corner.

A tech support person was able to walk me through the procedure, and I found that there was nothing wrong with my phone or with Sprint's connection -- it was merely that the Q's e-mail system is needlessly complicated in a bizarre and counter-intuitive fashion, involving the use of an entirely separate menu simply to send an e-mail after it is composed.

I am grateful to the technician who patiently explained the ludicrous Q e-mail system, even though he was not very familiar with it himself, but I am appalled that Motorola would design a machine that is so user-hostile and cumbersome.

At my earliest opportunity, I will be ditching my Q, and it will be a long time before I ever consider buying a Motorola product again. Also, I will be sharing my experiences with anyone who will listen.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "You might even blog about it."\\

Expat Airways

Dear People of Iraq:

Just in case you had some doubts about what the U.S. occupation authorities think of you, let us introduce you to Expat Airways.

We'll be happy to tell you about it, which is a good thing, since you won't be experiencing it for yourselves.

That's right: we're going to Jim Crow you in your own country.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Any questions?"\\

Can We Make Small Cars Safer?

If you think about the amount of oil consumed by private automobiles, one of the first ideas that comes to mind is building smaller cars.

If you think about building smaller cars, one of the first things you think of is what happens when your small, lightweight car is blindsided by an F-350 or an H2.

If you think (out loud) about ways of reducing the danger to people riding in small cars, one of the first things you'll hear (also one of the second things, and third things...) is "You can't repeal the laws of physics", meaning that a small vehicle colliding with a large one will always suffer more for it. As Sancho Panza says, "Whether the stone hits the pitcher, or the pitcher hits the stone, it's going to be bad for the pitcher".

True, you can't repeal the laws of physics. But you can always change the traffic laws.

Suppose we simply posted separate speed limits for vehicles under and over 3,000 pounds? 35 mph, 20 mph. 25 mph, 15 mph. And so on.

If that law were rigorously enforced, deaths of people in small vehicles would drop, I guarantee it. Not only would drivers of humungamobiles be burdened with less kinetic energy, but many of them would discover that they didn't really need to drive the Explorer to the office after all.

Is there a downside to this that I'm missing?

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "What is the measure of a man(hood)?"\\

No Big Surprise

I ran into Dick Cheney in the men's room at Jaleo the other day and asked him if it were true that he was regularly violating the laws of quantum physics. He just gave me that weird half-paralyzed sneer and snarled, "Yeah. And what are you gonna do about it?"

God, I hate that laugh of his. I don't know how they edit it out of his speeches on TV, but I'm glad they do.

//The Magic Eight-ball says, "Well?"\\

Man, I Miss Shakesville

It's only been a couple of days, but the denial of service attack on one of my favorite blogs is really getting on my nerves.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "So much so that it's driven you to post at your own blog for once, apparently."\\

Thank You, Hwy 34 Towing

My thanks to Highway 34 Towing for getting our poor van back to Corvallis. In honor of the occasion: my first-ever picture post (which would make more sense if you had met the driver, who really did look like Dreadstar in his hoodie, honest). Doubtless I'll be cat-blogging in no time (or will once I get a cat).

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Sometimes enthusiasm is excusable."\\

Well, Good For Them

"Hi, John. Your former classmates are graduating, and having a party tomorrow. We'd like to see you there."

"Gee. I'd like to. On the other hand, I feel kind of as though I've finally healed up after the hysterectomy, and now I've been invited to a baby shower."

"That's understandable. But when are we ever going to be together again?"

"I'm over forty and my kids are grown, I suppose I don't have to do anything I really don't want to do. But maybe I really do want to go to this."

"Besides, Corporal R.N. is being sent back for a second tour in Iraq right after graduation."

"Oh, dear. He deserves a kind word at the very least. It's a disgrace on all of us that all that nonsense is still going on."

"Okay, see you there."

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "It's remarkable the things people really do want to do."\\

A Little Here, A Little There

I make a living (or close to one) by a variety of things: I'm an in-home caregiver, serving the needs of people who can't take care of everything themselves, but don't want to move into a care facility. I work occasionally at a daytime center for adults (mostly old people) who need some degree of assistance. I'm a writer, when I can force myself to do it (and can force myself to submit it to editors), and on rare occasions I get paid for it.

I like to think of myself as a massage therapist, but I don't make much of my income from it. Still, massage is something I do, and I make some money at it when I can. I have a studio at home, and I work from a clinic downtown, and I also make house calls.

The other day I was offered a rather unusual house call: to a house in the country, near Toledo. That's nearly an hour's drive, normally outside my range, but the client was someone I'd seen before, and she offered to pay extra for the mileage,and Kathe liked the idea of using the house call as an excuse for a quick trip to the coast.

We figured we'd go to the client's house together and she'd read int he car while I did the massage, and then we'd go past Toledo and on to Newport, then head home in time for me to work a night shift at a client's house in Corvallis.

What actually happened was that after my appointment, we drove into Toledo and tootled around a few blocks, enjoying glimpses of its unique character (creative architectural use of the hilly terrain, sculpture made from old industrial components). We were about to get back onto the highway and continue to Newport when the van started shaking horribly and parts literally fell off it.

We went into one of the only businesses open in Toledo on Saturday, a tavern called Holy Toledo!, where a very kind and helpful woman named Jackie helped us get our bearings and let us use her phone (no cellular service in Toledo).

Since there was no tow truck available, I drove with great care (Kathe following on foot, picking up bearings and nuts that fell off the left front axle) to the only auto shop in town that was open on Saturday. Incredibly, they were able to diagnose the problem as a damaged CV shaft and install a new one, all in time for us to drive back to Corvallis for my night shift. I called the home-care agency just to be on the safe side, so they could start trying to find someone who could work the shift for me, in case I couldn't get back in time.

We went and had lunch at one of the only restaurants open on Saturday, and came back to new bad news: as soon as the mechanic had tried to drive the van on its new CV shaft, the van tore it apart as it had the last one. Apparently the fault is actually in the transmission. Oy.

So, back to Holy Toledo!, where I called the agency and told them I probably couldn't make the shift after all, and Kathe and I tried to find a bus or car rental agency that could get us back over the Coast Range, and failing that (which we did), to find a friend who would come all the way to Toledo and drive us home. Incredibly, we did. Thanks, Dinaz!

We got back just about when my shift would have started, but the agency had already replaced me for the night, and I was just as glad I didn't have to work tonight.

On the way home, a migraine crept up on me and did me a world of hurt. I was in pretty bad shape by the time we got home, but at this point I feel pretty good, and look forward to a good night's sleep.

What crept up on Kathe during the ride was something less amenable to treatment. All along the way, she made observations like, "This is where the Pig Lady's house used to be" or "The road used to run up there, and down where we're driving was a lovely little hollow", or "There was a garage over there, that had been a blacksmith's shop, it was really charming". By the time she'd seen the straightened and sanitized highway a second time, she was depressed. The new Highway 20 to the coast may be faster and safer, but a great deal has been lost in the process.

So: a different day from most, but it had its good points. We have decided that we'll definitely go back to Toledo in order to intentionally explore it.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Go on a weekday."\\

From Pandagon, I followed a link to a guy who compares online cartoonist Chris Muir with Bill Mauldin.

Chris Muir? Bill Mauldin? Hoo boy.

Leaving aside the ability to draw worth a darn, or the ability to combine words and images to create an impact (maybe even a laugh)...

This guy really has no clue who Bill Mauldin was or what he believed in, does he?


This is as bad as that clown who tried to claim Johnny Cash as a conservative.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "No, it's worse."\\

Dear FCC

Dear FCC:

Please don't give our airwaves to AT&T.

I really think that would be a bad idea.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Consider history."\\

Action Figures? Bosch!

Hieronymous Bosch action figures.

Thereby proving that you really can find anything on the Net.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Your search for prophecy and snark is at an end."\\

Employee Free Choice Act

The name sounds suspiciously benign.

But it turns out that it actually does make it easier for workers to organize.

Sounds good to me. Union members working union jobs is one of the foundations of the country where I was born.

The country I sincerely hope to return to one day.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "You're so conservative."\\

Save Crisis Pregnancy Centers

Most crisis pregnancy centers perform noble service to women in difficult circumstances, women who often have nowhere else to turn. But they are in danger.

They're in danger of becoming like the worst of their kind: deceptive, manipulative, abusive operations that prey on the vulnerable.

Support legislation that can save crisis pregnancy centers from their own dark side, so they can continue to serve women instead of preying on them.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Who, me? I'm just a plastic ball with a floating doodad inside, what are you asking me for?"\\

The Paranoid Is Out To Get Us

WankNetDaily has issued a dire warning which is entirely correct.

Thereby demonstrating that even a clock which has one hand stopped and the other one moving intermittently, with a dial hand-painted with fourteen numbers including "umpteen" and "george" and not including "seven", is still right twice a lustrum.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Warning: do not attempt further metaphors until you have healed up from this one."\\

Pro-Life Legislation

That is, legislation which is in favor of real human lives, not hypothetical future ones.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Outlook dubious, but do it anyway."\\

Offshor Drilling -- Why Rush?

What's the hurry to drill for oil offshore?

We'll need that oil much more dearly in thirty years, and the extraction technology will be safer and more reliable than it is now.

So: No rush.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Consider your options carefully before acting."\\

Bush Derangement Syndrome

The term "Bush derangement Syndrome" is widely used online, but most people aren't using it correctly. As a public service, I'm reprinting here the definition of BDS from the DSM-IV (Derangement Syndromes Marketplace In Vienna):

Bush Derangement Syndrome: The inability to rationally assess the Presidency of George W. Bush.

Stage I: Belief that jointly impeaching Bush and Cheney would do the country more harm than leaving the administration in power (Equivalent to believing that the Holocaust was an elaborate hoax).

Stage II: Belief that someone other than Bush was the Worst. President. Ever. (Equivalent to believing that Bob Barker is stealing one's mail).


Stage III: Belief that Bush is an honorable and patriotic man who has made some mistakes (Equivalent to believing that drinking tea brewed in a lead-lined pot will cure lung cancer).

Stage III: Belief that tax cuts for the rich, abolishing the estate tax, privatizing Social Security, invading Iraq, detentions without trial, torture and unlimited Presidential power are the keys to peace, freedom and prosperity (Equivalent to believing that a boy has never wept nor dashed a thousand kim).

//The Magic eight-Ball says, "Gremlins eat red lemons."\\

Focus, People, Focus!

Focus on the Family is a toxic organization. Parents in non-heterosexual or non-nuclear families have fairly described it as "Your Family in Our Crosshairs".

But then there's the Focus on Family Health Act, which is different. Very, very different. As in, it's actually good for families.

I don't know about you, but I'm defintiely in favor of things that are good for families.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Thanks for clearing that up.\\

You Could Vote "No"

If you reall wanted to, you could vote "no" on the question, "Should Vice President Dick Cheney be impeached?"

Yes, you could.

If you wanted to.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Yes."\\

What You Mean, "They", White Man?

"They've been at war over there for hundreds of years". You hear that often enough, as an excuse for not taking a position on the present condition of the Middle East. Sometimes it's even "thousands of years".

Now it's certainly true that since its founding, Israel has seen five wars and sixty years of intermittent terrorism, and that before that Jewish immigrants to Palestine suffered (and engaged in) further decades of violence. And of course it's true that the modern borders of the Middle East were drawn in the aftermath of a vast and terrible war that had seen the destruction of the Ottoman Empire, in ways that seem almost calculated to cause further wars.

But is it really fair to describe the Middle East as some sort of cesspool of perpetual warfare? Has the region been at war for more years out of the past hundred, or five hundred, or five thousand, than, say, Germany, or Central America? I don't think history shows any such thing, and I think that to say so is simply to counsel despair.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "What is said a thousand times may still be false."\\

Support the Troops, Please, Mr. President

Mr. Bush, don't veto the military funding bill. Don't cut off our troops.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Actions have consequences."\\

Terrorists struck on American soil today, but the news media don't care much.

The terrorists were the wrong religion.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Do the right thing."\\

Banana Guard

Kathe sent me this.

The black dog of depression has been trying to walk between my feet lately, so I really needed to see something this funny.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "I'M SORRY, I CAN'T HEAR YOU! I HAVE A BANANA GUARD IN MY EAR!"\\

Summer Begins on April 28th

Impeachment Summer, that is.

Impeachment is off the table and rolling all over the floor, and starting to climb the walls.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Forecast calls for bright, clear weather."\\

Impeach Them, Already

Plain and simple: this is the worst administration in the nation's history, a disgrace upon a great nation.

It's time to start cleaning up the mess, starting with the removal of the President, the Vice President and all their various roots and branches.

I don't agree that it's time for revolution. It's merely time for congress to carry out the function it was designed to perform under conditions like these.

Investigate. Impeach. Convict.

//The magic eight-Ball says, "Do what is called for. Not an atom more nor a particle less."\\

Global Climate: I'll Save You the Trouble

There is no need for you to read anything about global climate change from inhabitants of the Conservaverse. Here is a summary of their writings over the next thirty years:

1) It's all a hoax. The climate isn't changing.

2) The climate is changing, but...
2a) The changes are all beneficial.
2b) It's caused by natural cycles or ocean currents or sunspots or something (anything) other than human activity.

3) The climate is changing, and it's a greater disaster than anything within human history, but...
3a) There's nothing we can do about it.
3b) Doing something about it would cost too much.
3c) Let the hungry people of the Third World sacrifice before comfortable Americans have to.

4) The climate is changing disastrously, and we could have greatly reduced the damage if we'd acted promptly and with a reasonable caution, but...
4a) It's too late to do anything about it now, so let's just party until the end.
4b) Someone else should have taken the initiative, not the wealthiest and most advanced nation on Earth, not the nation that puffed itself up as a shining city on a hill with a mission from God to reform the world.
4c) We were all for doing something about it, we could have prevented all of this, if those pesky Democrats hadn't gotten in our way.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "You already know how I feel".\\

A DIme's Worth of Difference

In 1971, Oregon became the first state to require a five cent deposit on all carbonated drink cans and bottles. The transformation of landfill use and roadside litter was an example for the nation.

Today, the deposit is still just a nickel, and people are drinking a whole lot of bottled water, bottled tea and non-carbonated energy drinks. Updating the law shouldn't be difficult, should it?

Except that the retailers of bottled drinks are fighting it with every dirty trick they've managed to figure out since they failed to stop the original bottle bill, and failed to stop it in a dozen other states.

If you're an Oregon resident, let the Legislature know that you're not buying the retailers' humbug campaign against the renewal of the Bottle Bill.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Yes*"\\
*Note: This answer has been used 47 times before.

Congress Can Still Act In Support of Our Troops

Don't let anybody tell you there's nothing Congress can do to respond to George W. Bush's act of contempt in vetoing the troops' bill.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "By 'support', I take it you mean 'Treat them like human beings instead of expendable video game characters'."\\

How Many Wolves

Until recently, there was a question as to how many of Idaho's wolves might be killed if their endangered status were revoked by Bush appointees at the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

Now we know for sure, because Idaho Governor C.L. Otter (or "Butch" as he would like to be known for poll-taking purposes) says he would organize the extermination of wolves down to the last fifty pairs.

If that doesn't square with your idea of wildlife protection, you might want to say so now.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "What is it with you people, anyway?"\\

Remember That Medicare Drug Benefit Thingy?

It's still a mess.

Just thought I'd mention that.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "You might want to mention it to someone, too."\\

Targeting Unethical Pharmacists

Wal-Mart has decided to require its pharmacists to behave ethically, even when filling prescriptions brought in by -ugh- women.

It would be good if Target did the same.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "This is a subject close to me, since I look so much like a pill."\\

I Changed My Mind

The President is highly competent and performing heroic service to the nation, and furthermore, he really was elected honestly. Both times.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "April Fool."\\

No, YOU'RE an Anti-Semite!

I see by Monday's Oregonian that Christopher Alden's production of Wagner's Flying Dutchman is playing in Portland. Apparently it depicts Captain Vandervecken and his crew as victims of the Holocaust, on the grounds that 1) the Flying Dutchman is the Wandering Jew and 2) Wagner was "a notorious anti-Semite and a darling of Hitler".

The matter of Wagner and anti-Semitism is something of a pet peeve of mine. The matterof Wagner and Hitler is an even bigger one. Reviewer James McQuillen writes that Alden's construction doesn't "hold up to very close scrutiny". That's putting it generously.

First of all, Wagner's anti-Semitism consisted largely of saying that if German Jews wanted to be accepted as Germans, it would help if they spoke German and wore German clothes. Considering that many of his contemporaries wouldn't have been satisfied even by their converting to Christianity, he was hardly the worst enemy German Jewry had in the 19th Century.

And let's not forget we are talking about the 19th Century, as in well before the rise of the Third Reich. Wagner never met Hitler, and there's no indication that the admiration would have been mutual. In fact, let's look at the Wagner operas that Hitler loved so much: did he ever understand them?

The Ring of the Nibelungs cycle can be summarized as, "A man renounces human feeling for the sake of power, and enjoys success for awhile, but in the end loses everything." Hitler did that.

The Flying Dutchman is the story of a man who damns himself by his own self-importance, disguised as obsessive devotion to duty. Hitler did that, too.

How does this sound for a production of the Flying Dutchman: Vandervecken is an unreconstructed Nazi who refuses to admit that the war is over, much less that he was on the wrong side. His U-boat surfaces at a modern-day coastal town, his threadbare uniform contrasting horrifically with the commercial fishermen and tourists. His crew, assembled from a variety of justly-lost causes, are equally out of place in their ski masks, Confederate flags and bomb-belts.

In order to be saved, Vandervecken must strip off the rags of his perverted "duty" and go to his bride as simply a man.

That's a Flying Dutchman I would like to see, and I wouldn't be surprised if Wagner would like it, too.

//The Magicv Eight-Ball says, "You're as much entitled to speak for Wagner as anyone else."\\

The Resemblance is Remarkable

Okay, I'm not going to be re-admitted to the nursing program at LBCC. That's just how it's going to be.

It's remarkable how much my current state resembles the feeling of having a long hank of my intestines torn out. Sometimes it doesn't hurt at all, until I move just wrong.

I'll get over it. The gauze packing will come out eventually.

That's life.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "You can tell for sure it's life, by the pain."\\

One More Parade

One More Parade
by Phil Ochs

Hup, two, three, four, marching down the street
Rollin’ of the drums and the tramping of the feet
General salutes and the mothers wave and weep
Here comes the big parade

Don’t be afraid, prices paid
One more parade

So young, so strong, so ready for the war
So willing to go and die upon a foreign shore
All march together, everybody looks the same
So there is no one you can blame

Don’t be ashamed, light the flame
One more parade

Listen for the sound and listen for the noise
Listen for the thunder of the marching boys
A few years ago their guns were only toys
Here comes the big parade

Don’t be afraid, prices paid
One more parade

So young, so strong, so ready for the war
So willing to go and die upon a foreign shore
All march together, everybody looks the same
So there is no one you can blame

Don’t be ashamed, light the flame One more parade

Medals on their coats and guns in their hands
Trained to kill as they’re trained to stand
Ten thousand ears need only one command
Here comes the big parade

Don’t be afraid, prices paid
Don’t be ashamed, wars a game
World’s in flames, so start the parade

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Yeah, sure. Why not?"\\

Testing, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9....

The final in Nursing 102 was challenging, even if I did take it last year. Oh, well, I passed it. And the next day, Wednesday, came the "skills challenge".

Demonstrate all of the skills that were taught to me last year, in Nursing 101 and 102. All correctly. In a single block of time (just over four hours, as it turns out).

Well, it's over now. And in a few days, I'll find out whether everything I've done so far was worth the doing.

And no, please don't tell me "you did your best". This isn't a piano recital, for crying out loud.

Anyway, I'll know soon enough.

In a few days.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Look at the sky this evening."\\

Still True, Still a Good Idea, Still Needed

Still True: Violence against women is a particular problem, requiring particular attention.

Still True: Ann Coulter is beneath contempt.

Still a Good Idea: A bill calling for the removal of barriers to voting by qualified citizens.

What a concept.

Maybe this really is a new Congress.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Maybe."\\

Peace Through Peaceful Means

What a concept.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Couldn't hurt to try it."\\

Ding-Dong, the Witch Has Stubbed His Toe

Scooter Libby has been found guilty, guilty, guilty.

Not that severe a blow to the Bush gang, but at least it's something.

I'll tell you, though, if it had been Rove, my headline would have read, "The Witch Has Taken a Hard One in the Ding-Dong".

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Don't be coarse."\\

That's Enough, Ann Coulter!

We've been patient with you, and you have only pushed our limits harder.

Enough.

Go away.

We don't want to play any more.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Enough is enough."

Ethiopia is Close to My Heart

Not surprisingly, since three of my four children were born there.

Alas, Ethiopia is, in its own way, as frustrating and heartbreaking a country as my own beloved U.S.A. So much that is wrong, so much that could be made right if only people would work together to right it.

But there are bright moments.

Like the story of Abay Amassu

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Life goes on."\\

Moral Standard

S.B. 373, the Oregon Legislature's proposed Renewable Energy Standard Act of 2007, is a start, at least.

And let's face it, that other thing is called "non-renewable" for a reason. As in, it won't be there forever?

I think we should take a staunchly conservative approach to energy, by which of course I mean relying on renewable energy before anything else.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Prudence, indeed dictates...."\\

Still True, Still A Good Idea

Still True: Free choice does indeed save lives.

Still True

Wal-Mart is still able to surprise me with its sleaziness.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Don't be so surprised."\\

I Feel Good Today

Largely because I did fairly well on a test this morning.

Not spectacularly well, but better than the last one (which was still adequate). If I can keep this up, I should finish this term's audit with a respectable grade and be re-admitted to the nursing program.

So far, so good. So far, so good. Just keep on pluggin' away. Don't worry about what you could've done better last week, and for God's sake don't worry about how you're going to pass the NCLEX. Just stick to what you're doing right now.

Elsewhere in the news,

The Boxer-Sanders Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act of 2007 looks very promising. It also makes me feel good. We're supposed to be wary of "feel-good legislation", but I can tell you I'm ready for a change from the feel-bad 109th Congress.

Signing MoveOn's petition to Congress to urge them to remind President* Bush whose job it is to declare war made me feel good, too.

Finding out that the Administration's intelligence findings on Iran's nuclear program were (ahem) flawed didn't make me feel good, exactly, but at least it's getting some publicity before the war, this time.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Seek serenity and clarity."\\

Things People Send Me

Kathe's son Jake sent me this, about unusual houses: http://www.2spare.com/item_72903.aspx

Wes Clark sent me a link to a petition to forestall the invasion of Iran: http://www.stopiranwar.com/

Kathe sent me the secret key to the universe: http://www.timecube.com/


Universe Today sent me their regular weekly space exploration newsletter: http://www.universetoday.com

MoveCongress sent me an update, too: http://www.movecongress.org

The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids invited me to e-mail State Senator Frank Morse about kid tobacco freedom: http://tobaccofreekids.org

Kathe sent me a link to our favorite online comic strip, an episode based on my favorite quote from leonardo da Vinci: "Mathematics is the alphabet in which God has written the Universe."

I get all sorts of stuff in my e-mail. What's in yours?

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Outlook hopeful."\\

Fat Tuesday, Ash Wednesday...Lye Soap Thursday?

This year, I notice something I didn't on the occasion of previous Mardi Gras(es): people wearing strings of beads, even though they were going about their regular lives (work, school, library) without any other hint of festivity.

It reminded me of 14 February 2006, when I noticed lots of people wearing red, as though they'd gotten their Saint Valentines mixed up with their Saint Patricks.

Oh, well. I suppose it's a sign of a vigorous culture, that new practices and observances are appearing.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Remember what I said the other day about priorities?"\\

Woman-Free Dollars

Okay, Susan B. Anthony, you've had your dollar. Sacagawea, same for you.

Now get out of the way, because it's time for men to be honored.

The U.S. Treasury will shortly begin issuing one-dollar coins in new designs, five different per year, to commemorate the 39 (and counting) dead Presidents.

Whether he was President for 31 days or twelve years, whether he saved the nation or nearly destroyed it, each former President will be honored (sometimes for the tenth or twentieth time).

Women who contributed to the nation's history will have to move to the back of the queue.

We will be honoring James Garfield ahead of Clara Barton.

William Howard Taft ahead of Harriett Tubman.

Gerald Ford ahead of Rachel Carson.

Oh, yes, and Richard Nixon will finally get his portrait on a piece of U.S. currency.

Richard Milhous Nixon.

Some time around 2015, innocent children will be paying for cartons of milk with coins bearing the portrait of Richard For God's Sake Nixon.

Instead of Amelia Earhart.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Consider your priorities carefully."\\

We Can End This War

Congress can end it, and we can make them do it.

They can cut off funding for the war, leaving President* Bush with only three choices:

Withdraw the troops (in which case, good).

Stage a banana-republic defiance of Congressional authority (in which case, also good: a nice clearcut case for impeachment).

Order the troops to stand and fight, without food or fuel or ammunition (in which case, also good: an absolutely imperative case for impeachment).

We need to do this. The madness has got to end.

We can't just let it go until 2009. We need to do this now.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Unequivocally yes."\\

Clean Living

After reading Peni R. Griffin's comment on my post from the other day, I feel a little like the nephew in the old joke:

"Uncle, you smoke, you drink, you stay out all night -- it's not healthy!"

"Let me tell you, nephew, one day my doctor is going to tell me, 'You have to quit drinking, you have to quit smoking, you have to quit staying out all night, or you're going to die,' and then I'll quit smoking and drinking and staying out all night, and live to be an old man. But you? What will you say when your doctor says to quit smoking and drinking and staying up late, or else you'll die?"

"Well, I'll say that I've never smoked, never drank, and I'm always in bed by ten."

"Yes, and your doctor will say, 'In that case, there's nothing I can do for you'."

Peni said to eat fruit instead of refined sugar (and no artificial sweeteners, which only increase the appetite for carbohydrates), take the stairs instead of the elevator, bicycle and walk instead of driving.

Darn, I already do all of those.

I love fruit. I make sandwiches that are two slices of sandwich meat and six leaves of lettuce, and I don't like mayonnaise.

I used to drink soda pop, lots of it. And never diet, because artifical sweeteners all taste like poison to me. These days, I drink coffee. Lots of it. With sugar and milk.

Oops. Double darn, there goes the coffee.

Instead, I'm drinking cold black tea, unsweetened. It's bland and slightly bitter, but I find I like that better than just water. And it definitely doesn't have any refined sugar in it.

Oh, well. Kathe reminds me that the difference between slowly growing fatter and slowly growing leaner is only a few hundred calories a day. Maybe I can do this.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Signs point to yes."\\

Eggplant

I did an eggplant on my way to school today. Biking toward the bridge out of Corvallis, I skidded on a patch of frost and landed on my egg.

I don't know how much my helmet did for my brain, but it did wonders for my forehead, seeing as how I didn't need to wipe it off my chest after I limped home.

And I did limp home, rather than get back on my bike and stay the course. I also landed on my left knee and both hands.

Nope, I took the bus. And I didn't load my bike on the bus's rack so I could ride back, either.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Wimp [Just kidding.]"\\

Riding Halfway

Recognizing that my belly isn't going to get any smaller on its own, I've resolved to bike to school. So far I'm averaging an hour and twenty minutes, which isn't dazzling by any measure, but it gets me there.

To reduce the amount of time I spend biking, I'm riding the bus back to town in the afternoon. I now know how to work the pull-down bike rack, and am no longer a source of amusement to my fellow commuters.

I'd like to lose about thirty pounds. Or so I suppose -- I haven't actually weighed myself recently. The prospect is simply too depressing. Oh, well, I'm doing something about it, anyway. Now let's see if I'm doing anything effectively.

Unfortunately, the most noticable effect so far has been little twinges that hint at the return of my carpal tunnel syndrome, which hasn't bothered me in years.

Well, we'll see.

The only route to LBCC is, alas, alongside Highway 34. Not the safest route, especially where the road narrows going over the ominously named Owl Creek Bridge. But, so far, so good.

I really must take a broom with me sometime, to clear the rocks and brush trimmings from the margins of that bridge, since the rough terrain makes it harder to stay out from under the trucks going by.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "This is the post that will get all the comments after John gets squished."\\

[John says: Eight-Ball, you do know that you have the reputation of having the gift of prophecy, don't you?]

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "I'm not superstitious, myself."\\

So Far, Not So Good

Well, the first exam of my audit of Nursing 102 didn't go as well as I'd hoped. My initial score was 80 out of a possible 100, with 75 as the minimum passing grade. I'd been trying for at least 90. The next one.

Much worse news waited for me at home, but that's personal. Those of you who know me that well have probably already gotten an e-mail. Anyway, not the best day of the year.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Never think you've seen the worst of the year until it's over."\\

John McCain

It's strange how people can acquire a reputation, good or ill, that is entirely unmerited.

Not just a little bit of distortion, but the kind of reputation where millions of people believe the exact opposite of the truth on a significant matter.

Like Jimmy Carter, whose Presidency foundered on his obstinate insistence on sticking to his set policy (the Shah, the hostage crisis, the Olympics), being dismissed as "indecisive".

Or Ronald Reagan, whose cut-and-run behavior in Beirut convinced Osama bin Laden that Americans were all cowards, being remembered as a tough guy.

Or John McCain acquiring (not by accident, mind) a reputation as a maverick, an independent thinker, unafraid to stand up to orthodoxy, when he's really a complete and utter tool.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Skim milk masquerades as cream."\\

Advertising Makes it Happen

Lately on otr.net I've been alternating episodes of Jack Benny with The Inner Sanctum.

[So tell me: what sort of church is it where its Inner Sanctum doubles as a broadcast studio? I guess I can see it, but it does seem a bit weird.]

Last night I experienced something that is not very common in my experience: a hankering for some gelatin. I had located a couple of packages of Safeway generic, wondering when we'd bought gelatin at Safeway (and how we'd wound up with some sugar-free, which nobody at this house would want), when it occurred to me that I'd been influenced by Don Wilson's corny plugs for Jell-O on the Jack Benny show.

Seventy-year-old commercials, still working their spell.

Well, what the heck. The rest of the show is still good, so why shouldn't the commercials be, too?

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "There is nothing to be concerned about. return to your regular activities."\\

She's In

And Hillary Clinton is not intending her run for President as a symbolic act, a protest or a bid for the Vice Presidential nomination. She actually plans to win.

She probably won't do any worse than her husband, which is to say she'd be better than Bush, Bush, Reagan or Nixon.

And speaking of Nixon: let's get over this "unelectable" business. After Nixon, ity should have been obvious that there's no such thing as unelectable.

That said, the prospect of another President Clinton reminds me of the "history lesson" in Harlan Ellison's "A Boy And His Dog", in which the succession of Presidents went "Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy...." I don't think a list that runs "Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton..." is any improvement. Especially since there are more Bushes than there are Clintons.

Obama will do, I reckon. I know I'd enjoy seeing him mop up the floor with Tom Tancredo.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Life goes on."\\