The Overton Wall

There's been a lot of talk lately about the Overton Window, the range of generally acceptable opinions and positions, the positions which will allow people, even if they disagree with your position, to at least take you seriously.

To say, "Welfare eligibility should be further restricted" is within the Overton Window. To say, "Welfare recipients should be given six months to find jobs or go to concentration camps" is outside it.

One of the great concerns people have is that the Overton Window keeps moving, and it moves according to the statements and actions of a relatively small number of people. When President Richard nixon announced that he would go to China to meet with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, the Window moved to meet him. When it was revealed that Justice department lawyer John Yoo had written a secret memo providing a rationale for torture, the window moved.

But what happens to a pundit, candidate, blogger or water-cooler sachem, who misses the Overton Window?

Obviously, s/he hits the Overton Wall [my own coinage -- I Googled to make sure].

I hereby predict that Sharron Angle, Christine O'Donnell and most of their TEA Party classmates in the 2010 election are aimed squarely to the right of the Overton Window, some of them by as much as 45 degrees, and they are going to hit the Overton Wall good and hard.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Normally, I'd wanr you against making bold predictions, but in this case, I'll just suggest that a wise man would make some popcorn."\\

Changing Habits

I have problems concerning material possessions. These manifest in various ways.

Over decades, I accumulated a large quantity of comic books. I always insisted that I was a reader, not a "collector", and that I kept the comics only so that I could read them again later.

And I did, sometimes in immense quantities. I still have fond memories of the months it took me to run through a complete (including reprints) set of the Legion of Super-Heroes.

But I kept the collection together for many years in a way that made it clear that I felt as though giving up any part of it would diminish me.

Then one day I realized that I simply didn't feel that way anymore. In fact, the existence of comics shops made me feel more comfortable about passing comics along to others who would appreciate them. It felt less like giving up a part of myself and more like releasing something back into the wild.

For years I carried money, checkbook, checks to be deposited and bills to be paid in a nice big zippered bank bag. I carried it around in my backpack for quite a long time, long enough that the bank that issued it no longer exists. Now, it's wearing out, and I need to replace it with...something.

Meanwhile, my back has been aging along with the rest of me, and I am being dragged toward carrying my stuff through other means than one big bag that I carry everywhere. So rather than look for another bank bag, I was shopping for a fanny pack like unto Kathe's, a good solid one that won't wear out in a single season.

As it happens, my mother had one she didn't use anymore, one she bought in Tunisia, made of leather. Couldn't ask for better, and I like the label [orange on black, with a little propellor plane and the brand name "XY", so I guess it's made for boys :{) ].

I still feel kind of bad about getting rid of the worn-out bag, though, but I discovered that I would feel better about it if I could keep a picture of it. Weird, I know, but I'm not too proud to use a crutch when I need one.

I couldn't find a picture of a purple bank bag online, though, nor of the Oregon State Bank logo. So I recolored a blue bag and recreated the logo from a sort-of-similar font by tweaking the letters, and here it is.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Use what works for you."\\

[I will add the photo of the bank bag as soon as Blogger gets over its spell of not having an "insert picture" button.]

Pastor Jones

Text of a message Kathe and I sent out this morning:

Pastor Jones is back in the news today (first he says he will, and then he won't), and we have decided to donate $20 to the local mosque for the express purpose of providing a copy of the Quran to someone who wants or needs it. We'll inform our local newspapers, also, in the hope that other non-Muslims will follow our example. Maybe we can out-weigh the "pastor's" destruction, for a net increase in the number of Qurans.

We are pretty damned short of money, but we will find $20 in our budget for this purpose, and we hope to persuade some of our friends to do the same.

Considering that "Pastor" Jones' church-and-used-furniture business only has about fifty members, our "action" may be bigger than his.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Comparisons are odious."\\

Things I saw This Morning

While on my way over to look after Uncle Wesley this morning, I saw a couple of things that made me smile.

One was a woman picking up plums from the northernmost tree, the one with the especially juicy plums. I invited her to use the plum picker standing on our porch.

As I do invite everyone to do -- we don't have the energy to use our plums for anything this year, so please do come get them. Likewise the apples, and the filberts if the squirrels had left any.

The other was a group of...was it cats? No, as I got closer I saw it was five half-grown raccoons, crossing Monroe near 14th, and scurrying under the porch of a frat house.

How nice to see thriving urban wildlife -- and how nice that they aren't thriving under our porch.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Never pass up an opportunity to smile."\\

A Core Sampling

Samaritan Health Services (or as we like to call it, The Very Big Medical Corporation of the Mid-Willamette Valley) is building a new physical therapy facility just north of the intersection of Kings Boulevard and Walnut Boulevard. They graded the soil, poured concrete for the walkways, and drilled holes in said concrete for the planting of handrail support posts, and that's where Kathe and I come in.

The drilling resulted in many small cylinders of concrete being drilled out and tossed aside, and the other day we stopped by and collected a couple of dozen of them.

We're not sure what we are going to do with them: Lay them down corduroy fashion in a walkway? Set them upright like teensy pillars? Bury them until only their circular tops show, and use them as pleasingly symmetrical accents to the irregular slabs we lay down on our walkways?

But we'll think of something, as Arthur C. Clarke said of David Bowman.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "To think is not enough -- one must act."\\