Baptizing Chu

Kathe and I went to Portland over the weekend to attend the baptism of Chu Taylor, the second Asian child to be adopted by my longtime friend Francine deGrood Taylor and her husband Calvin Taylor.

By accident, at first we walked into the wrong church in a neighborhood impressively thick with them, and saw a poster with one of my favorite quotations, "Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words." When we finally found the right church, we got to hear Calvin playing the tune commonly known as "Morning Has Broken". I was struck by the coincidence: both the quote and the song are attributed to Francis of Assisi. So okay, he's still big, that's no surprise.

We also dropped off some comics to be assessed at Karen's Comics, and found it to be a very enjoyable experience. Karen and her husband are good people, and I was glad to have made their acquaintance and glad to have found a "good home" for the comics.

And we found a coffee shack to add to our collection. I'll post a report about it on the coffee shack blog as soon as I can figure out how to download the photos from my new phone.

Library Books, 11 April 2008

Children of the storm [cass/book] / by Elizabeth Peters. Title April 14, 2008

Doctor Who, the complete third series [DVD] / a British Broadcasting Corporation production ; Canadian Broadcasting Corporation ; CBC Television ; produced by Phil Collinson. Title April 15, 2008

Inside straight / edited by George R. R. Martin ; assisted by Melinda M. Snodgrass and written by Daniel Abraham ... [et al.]. Title April 15, 2008

Monsters / Charlie White ; introduction by Sally O'Reilly ; interview by Benjamin Weissman. Title April 15, 2008

Graphic classics. Vol. 14, Gothic classics / edited by Tom Pomplun. Title April 18, 2008

Wormwood, gentleman corpse. Vol. 01, Birds, bees, blood & beer / created, written and drawn by Ben Templesmith. Title April 18, 2008

Confessions of a blabbermouth / written by Mike Carey & Louise Carey ; illustrated by Aaron Alexovich. Title April 18, 2008 8. Dead@17. 01 / written & illustrated by Josh Howard. Title April 18, 2008

Earthian. Vol. 03 / art and story by Yun Kouga. Title April 18, 2008

Ads to icons : how advertising succeeds in a multimedia age / Paul Springer. Title April 25, 2008

Fell. Vol. 01, Feral City / written by Warren Ellis ; illustrated by Ben Templesmith. Title April 29, 2008

Powers. Vol. 05, Anarchy / created and produced by Brian Michael Bendis and Mike Avon Oeming ; color art by Peter Pentazis. Title April 29, 2008

Blue pills : a positive love story / Frederick Peeters ; translated from the French by Anjali Singh. Title April 29, 2008

Welcome to Tranquility. Vol. 01 / Gail Simone : writer ; Neil Googe : artist. Title April 29, 2008

The books of magic. Vol. 07, Death after death / created by Neil Gaiman ; writer, ; illustrators, Title May 08, 2008

James Sturm's America : God, gold and golems. Title May 08, 2008

Shiny beasts / Rick Veitch with Alan Moore and S.R. Bissette. Title May 08, 2008

Storeyville / [Frank Santoro]. Title May 08, 2008

Tellos. Vol. 1, Reluctant heroes / story Todd Dezago and Mike Wieringo. Title May 08, 2008

Tellos. Vol. 2, Kindred Spirits / story Todd Dezago and Mike Wieringo. Title May 08, 2008

With the light. 01 : raising an autistic child / Keiko Tobe. Title May 08, 2008

The saga of the bloody Benders : the infamous homicidal family of Labette County, Kansas / written and illustrated by Rick Geary. Title May 08, 2008

Note: Just because I choose to make this information public doesn't mean I approve of anyone snooping in other people's library information.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Create no easements at this time."\\

Poisoning Gophers in the Yard

I went to my parents' house today, as I do on Wednesdays lately, to help my father with his physical therapy. Mostly, I walk alongside him while he goes up and down on his property, and do small things around the house in between walks, so he can rest.

Today, I dug up gopher mounds while he rested after our first walk, and buried burning Giant Destroyer cartridges in them, so that their noxious outpourings of oxides of sulphur and carbon could have their chance to kill the critters.

Dig, poke around, find the gopher run, light a cartridge, stick it in, bury the whole mess, repeat. I repeated eight times altogether.

There was a book published awhile back, the von Hoffman Brothers' Big Damn Book of Sheer Manliness, which asserted that Corry's Slug and Snail Death was by fare the yard-care product with the manliest name. I have to contend that Giant Destroyer exceeds even Slug and Snail Death for sheer manliness, although admittedly Corry's has the spiffier package.

So, we'll see whether I got all the gophers with those eight sticks, or whether we'll need to go after them again. Personally, I'd rather just persuade gophers to only come up alongside fences and garden walls -- if they would just do that, we could probably live in peace with them.

And my father's health continues to improve, as evidenced by how much longer the walks we're taking are getting.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Try not to take too much pleasure in killing animals in their homes with poison gas -- it's no more good karma than it is good taste."\\

New Coffee Shack Blog

Kathe and I have started a new blog, devoted to the coffee shacks of the Pacific Northwest, or anyway of the mid-Willamette Valley.

Every time we stop at a new coffee shack, with the owner's permission we photograph the building. We also collect any punchcards or other memorabilia. And we have a mocha, and review it for quality.

One day, we might just do the coffee table book we've been talking about for years, but in the meantime we've got the blog, and some digital pictures to put on it.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Be kind in your reviews."\\

Now It Can Be Told

At this late date, I suppose there's no harm in revealing that in the Spring of 2001, I was flown to Washington DC to consult with President George W. Bush on Middle Eastern policy.

I don't know why they asked me -- I'm not in any sense an expert on the subject -- but then the Bush Administration hasn't been especially noted for its good sense.

Still, they asked, so I did my best.

So there I was, sitting across the Oval Office desk from George W. Bush, and he told me what he had in mind.

"We're going to transform the entire Middle East with a bold initiative, starting in one country and then moving on, domino after domino. But first we have to establish a beachhead."

I nodded, beginning to get excited.

"That's a bold move, all right. Well, the obvious choice is Israel, which is practically a U.S. client state. Persuading them to grant meaningful sovereignty to the Palestinians, and providing the Palestinians with the support they will need to build up a viable country, will be quite a challenge, but --"

"We weren't thinking of Israel, actually."

"Oh. Well, the obvious second choice is Egypt, where the government is closer to a functioning republic than any of the other Arab countries...."

I stopped as I saw him shaking his head.

"Oh. Well then you must be thinking of Saudi Arabia, where the U.S. has almost as much influence. They're a long way from democracy, but I suppose it could be possible.... But that's not what you had in mind, either, is it?"

So he told me: it was going to be Iraq.

I didn't bother to tell him that was about my seventeenth choice.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "That was unkind, John."\\

Out From The Library, as of 21 March 2008

1.	This book contains graphic language : comics as literature / Rocco Versaci. Title	March 31, 2008
2.	Ex machina. Book 03, Fact v. fiction / Brian K. Vaughan, writer ; Tony Harris, pencils ; Tom Feister, inks. Title	April 03, 2008
3.	Overstreet comic book price guide / Robert M. Overstreet. Title	April 03, 2008
4.	Queen & country. Vol. 08, Operation Red Panda : report of proceedings / compiled by Greg Rucka ; illustrated by Mike Norton and Steve Rolston. Title	April 03, 2008
5.	A distant soil. Vol. III, The Aria / Colleen Doran. Title	April 03, 2008
6.	Batman : Hush. Volume two : Hush / Jeph Loeb, writer ; Jim Lee, penciller ; created by Bob Kane. Title	April 03, 2008
7.	Edmund and Rosemary go to hell : a story of our times with (hopefully) some hope for us all / Bruce Eric Kaplan. Title	April 03, 2008
8.	Freud for beginners / Richard Appignanesi & Oscar Zarate. Title	April 03, 2008
9.	Lost at sea / Byran Lee O'Malley. Title	April 03, 2008
10.	Paintings of you / writer, Mia Paluzzi ; artist, Mia Paluzzi, Chris Delk. Title	April 03, 2008
11.	Silverfish / David Lapham ; greytones by Dom Ramos ; lettering by Jared K. Fletcher. Title	April 03, 2008
12.	The early years of Mutt & Jeff / [by Bud Fisher] ; edited by Jeffrey Lindenblatt. Title	April 03, 2008
13.	Blue Beetle. [Vol. 02], Road trip / John Rogers & Keith Giffen, writers ; Cully Hamner, Rafael Albuquerque, ... [et al.], artists ; Guy Major, colorist ; Phil Balsman, Pat Brosseau, Jared K. Fletcher, letterers. Title	April 14, 2008
14.	Batman : bloodstorm / writer, Doug Moench ; penciller, Kelley Jones ; Batman created by Bob Kane. Title	April 14, 2008
15.	Children of the storm [cass/book] / by Elizabeth Peters. Title	April 14, 2008
16.	Good as Lily / written by Derek Kirk Kim ; illustrated by Jesse Hamm ; lettering by Jared K. Fletcher. Title	April 14, 2008
17.	Romeo and Juliet / by William Shakespeare ; adapted by Richard Appignanesi ; illustrated by Sonia Leong. Title	April 14, 2008
18.	Graphic classics. Vol. 14, Gothic classics / edited by Tom Pomplun. Title	April 18, 2008
19.	Invincible. 08, my favorite martian / created by Robert Kirkman & Cory Walker. Title	April 18, 2008
20.	Wormwood, gentleman corpse. Vol. 01, Birds, bees, blood & beer / created, written and drawn by Ben Templesmith. Title	April 18, 2008
21.	Cairo : a graphic novel / written by G. Willow Wilson ; art by M.K. Perker ; lettered by Travis Lanham. Title	April 18, 2008
22.	Confessions of a blabbermouth / written by Mike Carey & Louise Carey ; illustrated by Aaron Alexovich. Title	April 18, 2008
23.	Dead@17. 01 / written & illustrated by Josh Howard. Title	April 18, 2008
24.	Earthian. Vol. 03 / art and story by Yun Kouga. Title	April 18, 2008
25.	Tramps like us. Vol. 14 / by Yayoi Ogawa. Title	April 18, 2008

Now We're Getting Somewhere

Awhile back I suggested that once we have either an African American or a woman as President, the real 21st Century can begin, and this Godawful mess we've had since 2001 will shrivel up and blow away.

Now comes this headline: SPACEWALKERS ASSEMBLING GIANT ROBOT.

Hey, all right! Now, about those rocket packs....

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "John, I thought that initial remark was just a joke."\\

Hypochondria

The other day, I noticed that the place where the neurosurgeon opened my skull is decidedly flat under the scar.

Is it hypochondria that makes me think that today it's actually indented, or did I just not notice it before?

Is it hypochondria to think that the recent extreme stress in my life is causing me to develop hypochondria?

The Courage of George W. Bush

George W. Bush displayed more courage than I would have expected of him when he vetoed the torture ban. I would have expected him to just quietly ignore the whole matter and then gone right on torturing. But no, he actually went on record as endorsing torture. That did indeed require a certain measure of courage.

The kind of courage, that is, that it takes to order someone he's never met to torture people he'll never see. But as far as that kind of courage goes, he has more than I would have expected.

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

I'm Glad I Have His Genes

My father is 77 and has had a series of major health problems in recent years, but right now I'm visiting my parents' home at Bellfountain near Monroe, and appreciate what I've seen of his improving condition.

I'm making use of my massage experience and half-formed nursing skills to assist in his rehabilitation. I've been supervising his stretching exercises and inspecting his shoes and walkers, but by far the most important thing I've been doing for him is simply walking over the grounds with him.

My parents' house sits halfway up one side of a long narrow valley, and they own the land from the roadway down to the bottom and up the opposite side to the ridgecrest, one of several similar properties in the valley. When they bought it in 1989, the opposite hillside was forested and the bottom was pasture. They undid the drainage that had been done years before and restored a pond and wetland that was much as it had been before the land was settled. Later on, they re-drained part of the wetland in order to plant more trees for the sake of income in later years, but there is still a substantial pond, and migrating birds still stop there.

When Dad was 73 and recovering from a hip replacement, he said, "I guess I'm just about able to hobble around the house now. Some people would say that's enough at 73."

"Time enough for that when you're eighty-three," I retorted. Possibly I felt the remark hit too close to home, since Kathe has also had both hips replaced, but Dad was clearly pleased with my response.

In recent years, Dad has been too limited in his mobility, or too frail, or both, to walk over his property the way he'd like to, but just recently he's been making some impressive progress.

We walk down to the barn and poke around in the workshop on the ground floor, or go up the outside stairs to go over the books in the library there. On Monday, we went on past the barn to see how the occasional worker had been handling the slash from recent tree-pruning (answer: burning some of it in a couple of small piles, leaving more for small wildlife). The bridge over the creek is currently made up of rocky stuff that I'd be hesitant to go over in a truck, but once it's been filled in with some small broken rock I'm hoping to get Dad up to the ridge on a bright Spring day so he can look down on all his land at once.

The Voice of History

I am deeply troubled by the way that Republicans are treating the threat of global warming as though it were a fit subject for partisan scheming, and not an issue we should all unite behind.

Why, if they had done the same with the threat of war with the Axis nations, we'd have stayed out of the war for two years or longer, if not actually being caught flat-footed by a sneak attack.

Oh. Right.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "I don't care who was partisan first, John -- stop it already."\\

Do Antidepressants Work??

Answer: They work exactly as their designers expected them to: they help people who are suffering from a specific diagnosable brain disorder called Clinical Depression. They don't work on people who are "merely" having a bad year.

Sigh.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Don't despair in the face of human stupidity."\\

CH2M

In this case: Corvallis, Halsey, Harrisburg and Monroe -- to say nothing of Alpine, Junction City and various other towns, large and small, in the mid-Willamette Valley.

Kathe has recently started a new job, serving papers on people and appearing as a witness to official auctions (or more often, to the fact that no auction actually happened at such and such a place on such and such a date). In the furtherance of this mission, she is getting to know the various nooks and corners of the mid-Valley the way she used to know her mail route in Philomath.

When I have the chance, I ride along with her. We've made progress on our long-running project to review the coffee shacks of the Pacific Northwest (both their architecture and the quality of their mochas). The long periods of driving together have also allowed us to make some progress on other matters, too.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Take what you can get."\\

Dear National Review

Dear National Review:

Are you entirely sure that you want to remind the whole country that you* and the Communist Party USA were on opposite sides of the segregation issue -- and who was on which side, and stayed there . . . and stayed there . . . ?

Well, if you insist . . . .

* And when I say "you", I mean your entire staff back in those days (and more recently), most especially Mr. Buckley, as well as your official editorial policy.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "One man in the right is a majority of one. -- Thomas Paine, leftist activist"\\

Bush Liberates Cuba

In the tradition of the beloved Ronald Reagan, who tore down the Berlin Wall, Our Leader has succeeded in his efforts to topple Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

He has called for...

He has called for...

[ /sarcasm command breaks down ]

Good grief, he has called for open and honest elections.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Don't allow any poll watchers from Florida."\\

Honk for Impeachment

Because at least it's better than bleating for immunity.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Do what you can and leave the rest."\\

My Innards, My Poor, Poor Innards

My innards are very unhappy with me. Yesterday and again today. I was going to go to a job fair in Lebanon yesterday. I was going to go to work tonight. Instead, I stayed home. I went to bed early last night, and plan to again tonight.

I know I'm really sick, because I don't make a fuss about going to bed early.


Ow, ow, my poor innards....

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Drink plenty of fluids."\\

Knock 'Em Down!

Good grief.

I can just barely imagine what it feels like to a resident of Gaza to be on the right side of a bulldozer for once.


//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "It's like schadenfreude without the guilt."\\

ReCAPTCHA Vanishing Literature

Using CAPTCHAs to translate text which computers can't read.

What a cool idea.

Way cooler than using idle computers for SETI, even.

Almost as cool as having a robot for a best friend.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Take what you can get."\\

Sorry to Have Fallen Silent

I'm not writing anything here lately because

1) I'm pretty much recovered from the brain surgery.

2) Some things are happening in my life that are much worse than any mere brain tumor, and I'm not ready to talk about them in public.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Take care of yourself, John."\\

[UPDATE: I'd like to clarify that my current condition is not life-threatening. It only make me wish I were dead.]