It's Only Rock and Roll

This year, Santa Baby brought me two presents for Christmas, just what I had asked for: the DVD sets, available from PBS online, of the two Eric Clapton Crossroads Guitar Festivals.
I happened to catch most of both of them on TV (I'm sure they repeated many times), one last year in Chicago, one a few years ago in Texas. The DVDs are much expanded, four hours each.

I was amazed at how much I loved this music, much of it familiar to me, but not very. I’ve followed jazz rather closely over the years and would even go so far as to call myself an expert, though I wouldn’t make too much of a point about that. Rock and roll, on the other hand, I picked up mostly from tuning in to FM radio in the 60s and 70s without focusing too much on individual players or bands.

What interested me watching these programs is that I have a fairly low threshold for blues-inspired rock. Most of it has such a sameness that only the best of the best can keep my interest for much beyond a few songs. These live concerts kept me glued to the screen for hours. Jazz critic turned rock groupie Ralph J. Gleason said way back in the mid-60s that the musicianship of the best rockers rivaled that of the best jazz musicians. The free-love thing was probably what cinched the decision for him. It's about a lot more than just technique, though.

The Crossroads sets feature just about everybody who is still alive from those old days, and a good sampling of the best younger players out there now. A perfect example is the too-short set by Jeff Beck doing some stunning effects on guitar, all to good musical effect, and accompanied by a young woman on base who looks fifteen and soloed magnificently across some very complicated times and rhythms. Instant crush, so I googled “jeff beck’s base player” and discovered she’s 21-year-old Australian Tal Wilkenfeld. She’s toured England with Beck and Europe with Chick Corea, and I’m ordering her first album as lead, Transformation.

Other names from the Crossroads DVDs: B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Carlos Santana, Jimmie Vaughan, John Mayer, John McLaughlin, Jonny Lang, ZZ Top, Los Lobos, Steve Winwood, and of course, Eric Clapton. And many more.

If you’re about my age, (soon to turn 60), these songs are something of a soundtrack for our generation.

People who like this sort of thing are going to like this very much.

The New Normal in Iraq

I’m not at all encouraged about the security gains in Iraq. Most people would say that’s because I’m a liberal, anti-war blogger who hates George Bush, but that’s not true.

Well, yes it is true, but that’s not why I’m not encouraged. Remember, I supported the surge. You can time-travel back in my archive to January and still read why I thought we had a responsibility to Iraq to give it one last, best shot. So unlike other liberal anti-war bloggers who hate George Bush, I at least wanted to see the surge succeed. And to a limited degree, it has.

It’s great that violence is down by about two-thirds. Fewer Americans are dying. Far fewer Iraqis are dying. It’s possible, apparently, to send your kids to school, drive from one part of town to another—don’t push your luck here—or even go to the mosque for prayers without a high level of certainty you will be blown up or shot or have your head used for wood-shop practice with electric drills.

But let’s face it: Iraq is still one of the most violent and dangerous places on earth. No one would dream of booking a vacation there any time soon, except perhaps the entire Iraqi legislature, which once again is going on vacation rather than address any of the multiple benchmarks the Bush administration itself set to measure political progress. That was the whole idea behind the surge in the first place, to buy time for the government to begin to make progress in certain key areas, without which a lasting peace in Iraq, we all agree, is impossible.

This time, two months off sounds about right.

Last week, seven soldiers based out of Ft. Lewis, Washington died. That’s a big hit to take in a single unit. Casualties may be down overall, but our professional military continues to bear a terrible burden while the rest of us bear no burden at all here at home. Here in Oregon, 3,500 National Guard troops are on notice that they’re headed for Iraq in the summer of `09. Not `08, `09. The military needs to plan well ahead, and apparently it’s plans don’t involve much of a drawdown in Iraq.

Meanwhile, with amazingly little comment in the media, Bush and Al-Maliki have signed an agreement for permanent American bases in Iraq. Is this something we had to take care of right now, before we get too busy with cleaning out the rain gutters or something? (Today I’m cleaning out the rain gutters on the back side of the house. It means going up a two-story extension ladder and it’s scary, but I don’t have a list of things I absolutely have to get done before I go up, like, say, reach an agreement for permanent US military bases in Iraq. I do need to get a flu shot, and I have a call in about that, but I can get started on the rain gutters while I’m waiting to hear back.)

The new normal in Iraq is an immense improvement over the old normal of the last four, going-on-five years, but surprisingly, the same two-thirds of Americans who wanted us out of Iraq before the surge still want us out now. This surprises me because I thought some sign of progress in Iraq might translate into at least a small increase in support for George here at home, but it hasn’t. Bush has been too wrong for too long about Iraq, and apparently very few Americans have become convinced that he either knew what he was doing all along or somehow finally blundered into strategy that might lead to success.

What would encourage me is a huge diplomatic initiative to try to pressure the Iraqi government to use this relatively quiet interlude to make progress on some of its political problems. There seems to be no indication of that happening. Instead, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is in the Middle East trying to downplay the intelligence reports that Iran isn’t actually working on an atomic bomb anymore.

Only in the Bush administration would this be greeted as bad news.

More Kindling

A little more information out on the Amazon Kindle. Here's a review in today's Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/05/AR2007120502611.html?hpid=news-col-blog
Not entirely positive.

My friend Michael Broschat is also an early owner and has a first-impressions review on his blog here. http://www.michaelbroschat.com/MontlakeBlog/DisplayBlog.aspx

Mary continues to enjoy her Sony e-reader and went to the site last night and bought a few more books. I still think the e-versions should be cheaper than they are, but they're definitely cheaper than paper, especially if you order online and pay shipping.

Me, I'm going over to Amazon and ordering the two books Broschat discusses. I'll have to wait a few days for them to arrive, but I have a shelf of recent purchases I haven't got to yet.

Amazon Kindle (?)

Sometime about a year ago, Mary and I were reading in bed before going to sleep. I had a paperback with print slightly smaller than usual and realized that type size has gradually become the first factor in determining whether I read a book or not. This book seemed promising, but after a few minutes, I knew I wasn’t going to put myself through the squinting concentration required to read it.

I like to end my day with nice big letters and wonder if sometime in the near future I’ll be limited to Dr. Seuss.

I realized, and said so to Mary, that all the technology is already here to remedy this problem, and since we aging baby boomers pretty much rule the world anyway, I was surprised some kind of reading device aimed at us hadn’t hit the market. I had a vague notion that I should call somebody about this and maybe I could get in on some of the cash that would flow to the inventor.

Mary and I started talking about it and came up with a short list of features we’d like to see. The e reader should be about book size, obviously, though I leaned towards something a little larger, say 8 ½ by 11. It would be thin and lightweight, probably with a cover that folded open to protect the screen.

The most important feature would be that type size would be adjustable. I could read jumbo letters, and someone else could read the same book in smaller print at the push of a button.

The screen should have a paper look and feel to it rather than a screen feel. I was sure this was possible. It should be readable in any light, from full sun to darkened room. No reason I should have to turn a light on if Mary’s sleeping and I want to come up and read in bed.

Obviously, an e reader would need books, but I assumed it would be easy to create the text equivalent of music sites such as Napster. Publishers would be happy to let us access electronic versions of best sellers, as long as they got a fair purchase price. Also, I know that at least the Guttenberg Project is digitizing thousands of non-copyright protected books, available for easy download. If I ever decide to try reading Moby Dick again, I could carry it along with correspondingly cetacean-sized print. I might even finish it this time.

I had a few other ideas. Pages, of course, would be turned at the push of a button, but there should be a way to mark pages for easy retrieval. I was a Lit. major, after all. Ideally, there should even be a way to mark on pages, an electronic stylus of some kind that would allow underlining and short comments in the margin. And it goes without saying that a computer-based reader like this would be able to hold hundreds and even thousands of books, a whole library in a small, portable package.

Of course, it was only a short time later that Sony announced the release of its Sony Reader. I was clear that they had someone listening in our bedroom. I was a little annoyed that the product had come along so fast I didn’t get a chance to claim some kind of credit for it. On the plus side, it made for one of the few holidays when I felt confident of my present for Mary. I bought her the Sony Reader for Christmas, and she loves it.

You can read more here: http://www.learningcenter.sony.us/assets/itpd/reader/

Now, the competition has stepped in from an unexpected place. Amazon.com started off selling books online, though now it’s become so genericized that I rarely visit its site anymore. There’s something about even an online bookstore that doesn’t go well with laundry soap and pet supplies. But Amazon is now offering its own e reader, named the Kindle. Not a great name, but it has some nice features.

Foremost of which is free wireless access to the Amazon catalog. As I understand it, you can just jack in anytime, anyplace and buy a book. I don’t know if Amazon has its whole catalogue available or not, but it shouldn’t be too long. Plus, you can access major newspapers and magazines.

You can read about Kindle here: http://www.amazon.com/ Watch the little film that explains it.

This still isn’t perfect. For some reason, Kindle won’t read PDF files, and I’m guessing it won’t read plain text either. It seems clear that Kindle is going to be linked to the Amazon product line. That rules out Guttenberg and amounts to short-term thinking in my view. My ideal e reader is going to be able to store and retrieve anything I can find online, just like any laptop can do.

In fact, add a small keyboard and some PDA features like a calendar and address book, and the reader and laptop will merge and become as one, the only real difference being size and layout. A laptop is a work station. A reader is for recreation and comfort. When somebody brings out the perfect blend and drops the price a hundred dollars, I’ll buy one.

Throw in a cell phone, camera, and GPS. They could have this out in two weeks. I should get a cut.

The Bitch

John McCain will survive “the bitch.” That’s unfortunate. If anything, this whole ugly little incident will give his campaign a boost.

More and more, when it comes to politics, I feel like I need to explain, “I’m not actually from here.”

Unlike George Allen, who watched his reelection campaign for the US Senate melt down after his “makaka” comment was caught on film and Youtubed, McCain didn’t say the bad word himself. He even recovered somewhat and assured everyone he respected Hillary Clinton. But he did laugh, and he did say “That’s an excellent question,” and he didn’t comment that calling a presidential candidate “the bitch” is inappropriate.

Should he have? Of course! If somebody called Larry Craig “the faggot,” wouldn’t we expect any major candidate to object loudly? Do we even need to ask what an appropriate response would be to calling Barak Obama “the nigger”?

So here’s an intimate look inside the Republican party in 2007. You can get a big laugh by calling Hillary Clinton “the bitch.” You can get another big laugh by joking “I thought she was talking about my ex-wife.” Lots of seemingly reasonable commentators will explain why this is no big deal.

But it is.

And the woman who said it? Whoo! What a bitch!

Here's the link to Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLQGWpRVA7o

The End of the American Century

I might be going at things a little backwards. Most people concerned about our involvement in Iraq are probably looking for something positive to agree with. There isn’t much out there, ranging from the president’s most recent iteration of “stay the [ever-changing] course” to the Democratic rebuttal: “pull out now,” or “at least pretty soon.” Both options seem to offer great risks and only minimal chance of success.

When neither extreme offers an answer, reasonable folks look for someplace in the middle to find a compromise. This is happening in Congress as moderates from both parties try to build consensus around a plan for accelerated withdrawal that falls somewhere between Bush’s acknowledgement that his plan has large numbers of Americans in Iraq for decades and the anti-war Dems’ plans, which would have the troops home for Christmas, or at least Valentine’s Day.

For me, all sides seem to offer some compelling arguments, but only when they’re attacking the other sides. In other words, it seems clear to me that no matter what we do, it’s going to turn out badly. In other words, we’re pretty much fucked here.

To the Iraqis, “Oops.”

Imagine this as a platform for one of the dozen or so presidential candidates: “I promise [insert sound bite that substitutes for a complex military and political strategy], and I believe the results will be disastrous for the United States and for Iraq. Still, that’s what I plan to do.” But if you add up all the stark assessments of recent days, it’s hard to believe much of anything else. Petraeus, for all his confidence in the surge strategy, won’t project anything further than about a year out. Such projections, he concedes, have been unreliable in the past. Additionally, he’s afraid he just can’t say if the war in Iraq is making America safer.

This is a far cry from reaching Berlin by Christmas. Now that was a war that lent itself to calendar references.

What’s clear to me, and to most Americans, is what an unqualified disaster Iraq is right now. What seems unclear, or possibly just unacceptable to most everybody else, is that there’s nothing we can do about it. In fact, all sides make compelling arguments about how bad it will be if we do what the other side wants

Does this make me a pessimist? Probably, but maybe not entirely.

For a few years now, I’ve been thinking of these later years of my life as “The End of the American Century.” It’s coincidental that our American century happened to occupy roughly the 20th century and the end of a millennium, but it feels fitting somehow that the new millennium is going to look very different from the last one, America-wise. This suggests that the American empire was remarkably short lived. The Mayans, after all, had three thousand years, and they didn’t even have the wheel. We had everything from Silly Putty to manned space flight and we could barely squeeze out a century.

None of what I’m suggesting is particularly farfetched or even cynical. It’s obvious in Iraq, as it was in Vietnam, that American military power is unsuited for and ineffective against determined little insurgencies. But that can and should be seen as a good thing. We might even come to feel some gratitude to Bush 43 for so clearly illustrating in so short a time that American military domination is no longer an effective tool of foreign policy. In the end, if we want to have much influence on the world stage, it’s going to have to be as one nation among equals. The best hope for Iraq might be an international effort to rebuild, not destroy. We might try to get something started on that.

Or not. In any case, Iraq’s future is beyond the influence of American military determinism, as is the future of, say, Iran and Syria. The fundamental neocon principle of projecting American power abroad has been shown to be more than just a failure. It might, dare we hope, be America’s last such failure. In its place might arise a new American foreign policy of cooperation for mutual benefit, not premised on military threats. The possibilities are quite exciting, really. We’d just have to be patient with the rest of the world if they were suspicious for awhile.

American economic dominance also pretty much ended with the stroke of Y2K. The smart money for the new millennium is on China and India, but the millennium is still just a baby. Again, cooperation instead of domination might lead to possibilities that are difficult to visualize but not that farfetched. Imagine a significant part of our military budget going into education, and it’s possible to see an American economy that can still compete with the rest of the world. And imagine an economic theory based on cooperation rather than competition.

Personally, I think capitalism and competition are way over-rated.

If we weren’t spending all of our time and effort on world domination, we might be able to do a better job at home on some basics such as true universal health care, which by itself could save more lives than a dozen wars on terror. We might turn our creativity and determination toward developing energy sources which are cheap, clean, and entirely renewable. This would eliminate the risk losing Middle East oil.

Wouldn’t if be fun to thumb our noses at the sheiks and sultans? We could do the wave from coast to coast and find a way to hook that up to the grid.

The end of the American century does not necessarily mean total social collapse, as happened to the Mayans. Just as most countries have adjusted reasonably well to a post-colonial era, America could adapt well to a post-imperial era. We could be like France. Okay, Denmark then, but warmer.

But collapse is possible, as Jared Diamond documents in his book of that title. It could be triggered by an oil crisis, climate crisis, credit crisis, or an as-yet unidentified crisis. Like the Mayans, it could happen very quickly. In the end, perhaps our future depends on our ability to rethink ourselves into a new paradigm.

The American Century is over. Long live the new world order, whatever it turns out to be. Despite my tendency towards cynicism, I’ve been thinking of the last few years as a beginning.

My Summer Vacation

The weather begins a subtle but perceptible change that tells me fall is almost here. Afternoon temperatures are still in the mid-80s, but nights are cooling off faster. With nighttime lows in the 40s, the house is slightly cold as I write this. Sometime in the next few weeks, I’ll start turning on our geothermal heat overnight to take the edge off the morning chill.

Around the neighborhood, leaves show the first signs of turning, and the pear tree in our backyard is already dropping fruit and leaves.

Summer went by so fast that it’s hard for me to believe it’s almost over. It seems like only a few weeks ago that I turned in grades for the three classes I taught spring term and immediately left on a five-day motorcycle trip. Travel throughout the Northwest occupied most of my time this summer, and I’ve been gone more than I’ve been home.

My first trip was to a BMW motorcycle rally in John Day. I’ve belonged to the Oregon BMW riders for over twenty years and have many friends in the club. Although I haven’t owned a Beemer for some time now, they still let me tag along and only slightly give me a bad time because I ride a Honda.

Shortly after getting back from the rally, I left again for Laguna Seca and the world motorcycle grand prix races in Monterey. These are the best riders on the fastest bikes in the world, and Laguna Seca draws tens of thousands of enthusiastic riders every year for the races and the festival atmosphere that goes with them. I was out for two weeks, making my way down through the redwoods and the Oregon and California coast. Usually I camped alone, but I also stayed with friends in Santa Cruz and met another friend and his sister in Big Sur, where we camped during race weekend. It was a great trip and I was out for two weeks.

As soon as I got back, I started setting up our little travel trailer and Mary and I left for another two-week vacation on Orcas Island in Washington state’s San Juans. We took four days getting up there, staying on the northern Oregon Coast. On Orcas we did the usual tourist things. We rented a kayak and took some lessons and an evening tour around the island. It was good fun, but I was a little surprised that I didn’t fall in love with it. I thought I was going to have to buy one.

I was more excited to rent a sailboat and take it out solo for a great afternoon in a brisk wind on East Sound. I sailed quite a lot on Klamath Lake when we first moved here twenty-three years ago but reached a point at which the limits of lake sailing dimmed my enthusiasm. I don’t doubt, though, that if I lived on the coast I’d soon be back into it.

For the most part, we spent our vacation enjoying the spectacular scenery and the good fun we always have together.

We got back from the San Juans a few days earlier than I expected, which made me realize I could still make it up to Portland for a meeting of Honda VFR riders. I hang around an internet discussion site devoted to this bike, and the Pacific Northwest subgroup was hosting its third annual get-together. After only two days at home, I expressed an interest in going up and got an invitation from the organizer to stay with him, so I hooked up with two other riders from Southern Oregon and made the trip.

There were about fifty guys, and my host Tim and his wife put on a magnificent barbecue, and all of us had a great evening of food and motorcycle talk. The VFR goes back to the mid-80s Honda superbike race machine, and the street version is now in its 6th generation. It’s widely celebrated in the motorcycle press as the best all-around sport touring bike ever made, and although there is plenty of competition now from other manufacturers, it’s still regarded as a superb and spirited sport tourer. It exaggerates but not too much to say it has a cult following.

The next day we made a group ride up to Windy Ridge to view the Mount Saint Helens spectacle. Mary and I were there a year or two after the eruption, and although there are visible signs of recovery, the immense power and devastation of the blast are still quite apparent.

Still, our stop was brief. Being motorcyclists, we were more interested in the power we were sitting on, and during the day we put in about 300 miles of scenic and spirited riding. I was rather proud to be able to stay with all but the fastest riders. (I believe in the Goldilocks principle of motorcycle pacing: people who ride faster than I do are riding too fast; people who ride slower than me are riding too slow. I like all my rides to be just right.)

Now it’s time to settle in at home and start to slowly catch up on all the deferred maintenance of my life. Mary is back at school and students return tomorrow. By choice, I’m not teaching this fall. I am taking a couple of classes: Spanish and Tai Chi. I look forward to being a student for a few weeks again.

It remains to be seen whether the community college will have any classes for me winter or spring, or if I’ll feel like taking them on. For now, I’m content to settle into fall, the cool and colorful season that invites us to wander aimlessly through our external and internal landscapes.

A Day at the Races

I had my best year ever at the races at Laguna Seca, despite the heartbreak of our American hero Nicky Hayden's early crash, totally not his fault. Hayden is the reigning world champion in a sport that is second only to soccer in popularity worldwide: motorcycle roadracing. In his own country, he's virtually unknown, except to a hardcore cadre of race fans like myself and the 54,000 other fans at the race last Sunday.

After winning at Laguna the last two years, this year doesn't count on my scorecard, and I'm hoping he can win it next year and I'll call it a triple.

I spent two weeks on the road, camping every night or staying with friends. I travelled 2,500 miles and spent less than $1,500 total, including race tickets and a couple of souvenirs. I don't think it's possible to have such a fun vacation for much less money.

The VFR was a great ride, even with about a ton of gear strapped on. I've never been known to travel light. The Honda sport-tourer is consistently rated one of the best bikes in the world and has won many award as Bike of the Year from cycle magazines. After seven years in the saddle, I still love it like it's new out of the box.

The Laguna Seca facility continues to learn and improve after some serious crowd management problems in recent years, compounded by 100-degree temperatures last year. There were lots more shade areas, plenty to be able to find shade between races if I needed a time out. Also, they had giant "fog" machines for cooling off, which proved unnecessary this year as temps only made it to the upper 70s. Perfect! It's important to be able to cool off when I get overheated.

Crowd traffic was also much improved as they opened the track for fan crossovers after races, eliminating the bottlenecks. It was also very cool to stand in turn one, look down at the starting grid and up at the blind hill they hit at close to 200 mph. It barely looks like a turn from off the track, but many riders say it's the most intimidating point in the race, despite the famed corkscrew. And you could see the tracks of the bikes, about a foot wide, every rider hitting the perfect line on every lap. Amazing.

As always, the cheap seats, which is your own folding chair and a pair of binoculars, make for the best seating. Coming prepared is the difference between a spectacular day or a long ordeal. I try to come prepared and learn a little more about track survival each year.

Again this year, squid traffic was bad off track. I was turning into a freeway offramp in light traffic and was bumped from the rear by a guy riding two up. I gave plenty of signal and was to the right in my lane, so have no idea how he made that mistake other than just following too closely. He may have been trying to pass me on the inside, a common riding offense down there. But no harm.
Also, on the way back to my campground at Big Sur, a squid passed a line of bikes plus me and the truck in front of me going into a turn during triple digits and then some. An oncoming car appeared and he had to ride the double yellow between them. One of the dumbest moves I've ever seen on a bike, but not too different from other stunts I've observed. These people are putting MY life at risk. There were other lesser incidents, but again, no harm.

In contrast, everybody I talked to at cafes and gas stations was terrific. The excitement of the races brings out the most knowledgable and dedicated race fans on the coolest bikes. I just love it! My friend Keith, who I meet up with and camp with, brought his 41 year old sister, who is a NASCAR fan but has a crush on Italian Superstar Valentino Rossi. She said she couldn't believe how friendly everybody is compared to NASCAR events. She liked the diversity of the crowd. She tried hard to get a Rossi autograph but couldn't quite hook up. She did get one from some guy named Mick Doohan! Mick was world champion when I was living in Tokyo, and I'd watch the races with Japanese announcers on TV and it would sound something like "haji mashita goojie MICK DOOHAN des kamoto sanoma MICK DOOHAN!!!!"

I'd leave again tomorrow to do it all again, but have to wait another year. Hell, I'm sixty years old and the last time I had so much fun was when I was a kid and the Dodgers moved to L.A., where I grew up, and beat the Yankees in the World Series in four straight games. I had thought life was pretty much down hill from that point on, but Laguna is a close second, and my guy didn't even win.

Quite simply, Laguna Seca is the premier motorcycle event in North America, and the track finally has worked out all the kinks that have existed in the past.

It's like the pilgrammage to Mecca. If you love motorcycles and racing, God wants you to go there at least once.

What, Are We Stupid?

Today’s Oregonian features an editorial endorsing a really bad idea: humanitarian visas for tens of thousands of Iraqis. Oregon’s scrappy Democrat Peter DeFazio has sponsored a bill in the house calling for a free pass for 50 thousand Iraqis. Oregon Republican Senator Gordon Smith called and raised him 20 thousand.

The reasoning is humane. We created a mess over there and some Iraqis came to our assistance. They were the good guys who now face certain reprisals as our war strategy melts down. We owe them safe transit and haven, just as we did the tens of thousands of Vietnamese who served us as we retreated out of Vietnam in the 70s.

Mary and I sponsored two of those Vietnamese refugees in 1979, so it’s not as though I’m immune to these arguments. But how much damage from the Bush war can we reasonably be expected to mitigate? The Oregonian was in editorial support of “preemptive war” when I thought anyone with half a brain could see what a disaster it was going to be. Perhaps the editors feel guilty.

I feel a lot of things, but guilt isn’t one of them.

We’ve already paid with over 3,500 American deaths, the squander of hundreds of billions of dollars, and the crushing of America’s standing as part of the community of nations. Iraqis have paid much more, and they’ll continue to pay much more. But the mostly foiled bomb plot in Britain last week makes a good case to me that we should be admitting fewer Middle East immigrants, not more, regardless of their skills, education, or level of risk at home.

I’ve never believed the absurd argument that we must defeat the terrorists over there or they will follow us home. On the other hand, I don’t think it’s a particularly good idea to invite them to dinner, and there is simply no way in the world we could adequately vet tens of thousands of displaced Iraqis. Al-Qaeda, get in line! Doctors move to the front of the line! Await further orders when you arrive.

I’m tired of paying for Bush’s mistakes and being told we have a moral responsibility to pay more. If we want to bring 70 thousand Iraqis to the U.S., send them all to Crawford, Texas and let George make barbeque.

More realistically, we should be taking steps to help at-risk Iraqis resettle in parts of the Middle East where at-risk Iraqis are already settling, primarily Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. And we could pressure our good friends the Kuwaitis to open their doors. And Egypt. Saudi Arabia. Whatever.

So, call me racist. I’m happy to have twelve million illegal immigrants who are already here. I wish them well. I’m inclined to agree with those who say next step is to seal the border. It might not be perfect, but when the ship is sinking, you plug the leak, then you start to bail.

But at this time, I believe it makes every reasonable sense in the world to severely restrict immigration from any part of the world where polls show that the majority of popular opinion supports Al-Qaeda and direct terrorist attacks against America.

What, are we stupid?

The Devil in My Backyard

The Washington Post ran a series of articles on Dick Cheney last week. I’ve been reasonably sure for the last few years that Dick Cheney is The Devil, so I was interested in what the Post had to say.

No surprise that Cheney is the most powerful Vice President in history. No surprise, either, that he’s also the most secretive. The lead author of the Post series said on the McNeal-Lehrer report the other night that what was surprising was the scope of Cheney’s activities.

I’ll say! The final article focuses right here where I live in the Klamath Basin and ties into a story I’ve followed closely for seven years. Dick Cheney’s been in the thick of it all along, though this is the first time he’s been tied by name to events here. I’m afraid to look under my bed for fear of what I might find. So far, it seems that’s the only place he hasn’t left any footprints, at least none documented in the Post articles.

Over the next few days, I’ll write up a few of my own posts and see if I can explain my understanding of the local story. It’s complicated.

It begins and ends with water.

Klamath Lake is Oregon’s largest lake, running about thirty-five miles long by ten to fifteen miles wide. In addition to the lake, we’re surrounded by wetlands and wildlife refuges, a mere fraction of what existed a hundred years ago, but still impressive. The basin is a main stop-over for migrating birds on the Pacific flyway. We host the largest winter population of bald eagles in the lower forty-eight, which come here to feast on the waterfowl. In summer, I’m always delighted to see the return of the white pelicans, our city mascot, from their winter stay in Mexico. Smart birds! And beautiful and majestic in flight. This is a magnificent place to live.

The view from my front porch, with the Klamath River and Mount Shasta in the distance

But water in the basin is a scarce commodity, and everyone who has an interest in it is always fighting everyone else for their fair share and maybe a little bit more. The lake itself, despite its size, is shallow and warm, and its health depends on adequate water levels even in the dry summer months. Despite its marginal environmental conditions, it’s home to record-size trout, often running over twenty pounds. It’s also home to two endangered species of sucker fish. The Klamath Indian Tribes, which hold treaty rights for fishing and hunting, depended on the sucker fish for food until recent years. They voluntarily stopped fishing when the sucker was declared endangered, but they’ve been willing to go to court to fight for lake levels that will contribute to its survival.

There are Indians downriver, too, at the mouth of the Klamath River. For countless generations the Hoopa Indians of Northern California depended on salmon runs to sustain their culture, and salmon runs depend on adequate water flows so they can swim upriver to spawn. Both commercial and recreational fishermen also depend on the salmon. At one time, the Klamath River salmon fishery was second on the West Coast only to the mighty Columbia itself. Today, native Klamath River salmon are also endangered.

Add basin agriculture into this already delicate balance. The Klamath Project, a Bureau of Reclamation project, diverts lake water to The A Canal, from which water is drawn to irrigate the fields of over a thousand family farms. And they really are family farms, too. So far, the Basin has been able to resist the spread of corporate farming, for whatever reasons. Many of the local farms go back for three or more generations.

In my next post, I’ll talk about what happened in 1991, when federal agencies cut off water to the Klamath Project to protect the endangered suckers.

Meanwhile, for homework, read Marc Reisner’s Cadillac Desert. If you have a little more time, you can read John McPhee’s Basin and Range for extra credit.

The Impossible Dream

http://world.honda.com/message/impossibledreams/cm/

Addicted to Speed

I got my first ticket as a kid of eleven. I had a bicycle fitted out with a lawnmower engine, and about the first time I rode it more than a block from home, a cop made a U-turn on a busy street, hit his lights, and started bearing down on me.

“Run!” my friends yelled. I probably would have just sat there and waited for the LEO to arrive, but when I heard that word I gunned it and took off, cutting through alleys and back yards and working my knowledge of the neighborhood to compensate for my horsepower disadvantage as the cruiser shot up and down side streets trying to cut me off.

I’ve never done it since, but I’ve got to say there’s a certain thrill in trying to elude a police officer in hot pursuit.

I almost made it, too, when I ducked into a friend’s open garage and pulled the door down behind he, but Officer Obie saw me and, to say the least, he came out of that cruiser so angry you’d have thought I’d robbed a bank and was shooting over my shoulder as he tried to bring me to justice. In the end I was written up for riding an unregistered motor vehicle and evading a law enforcement officer.

I’ve observed that LEOs have virtually no sense of humor when we stop to have a discussion of my driving habits. I remember I had to go to court with my dad, though I don’t remember what the sentence was. What could they do? I was eleven! Take away my license?

No, actually, that would have to wait until my sixteenth birthday when I got a license in the morning and promptly lost it that very afternoon when I got busted for going fifty in my parents Chrysler in front of the cute girl’s house a few blocks over. That would be fifty in a twenty-five. Pop! My second ticket, back in court with my dad, and I had to wait another six months before I could drive again. You’d think I would have learned.

But not, because like just about every motorcyclist I hang with, I’m addicted to speed. I love going fast. If motorcycles didn’t go fast and corner like the best roller-coaster I’ve ever ridden, I’d give them up and take up a hobby like model railroading. But they do go fast and there’s nothing I love more than sitting on top of one, tucking in low behind the fairing while I atomize about thirty dollars worth of rear tire behind me in a mad burst of acceleration, and—this especially—leaning into a turn fast enough to put the bike over at an angle that seems to defy physics and certainly common sense.

How fast? Well, a capable modern sport bike on a straight, open county road with no traffic just starts to feel planted and exciting at about a buck twenty. My bike, considered rather sedate by superbike standards, has a top speed of 155. I've never ridden it that fast. It will go from zero to sixty in a little over three seconds, again, rather slow by superbike standards but faster than virtually any car on the road, no matter how much you pay for it.

Corner speeds vary depending on the corner, of course. In tight twisties I can work the tires out to near the edge of their tread at speeds as low as maybe forty. Big sweepers get fun somewhere between 80 and 100. These numbers seem to indicate shocking irresponsibility to non-riders, but sitting around the campfire with my riding buddies, I might say something like I crossed the Klamath Marsh road at about a hundred and elicit little more than vague grunts of acknowledgement.

All of the above might suggest that I’m a cocky and irresponsible rider, but I try not to be. Most of the miles I ride are at a moderate touring pace, and I try to always keep something in reserve in case I run into the bit of stray gravel in a turn. In traffic I’m so defensive people begin to think I have a complex, and in wet conditions I ride so slow I’m in danger of being rear-ended by a street sweeper. And I know when I’m over my head, which I always am when I get with a bunch of the really fast guys. I’m happy to let them ride on ahead.

In fact, I’m basically a chicken, which is a big part of the reason I hope to be celebrating my 60th birthday in a few months. Still, in the end, I love motorcycles mostly because I’ve never outgrown my love of speed. If I had to ride a cruiser, I’d quit riding.

And all the guys I ride with—those conscientious, upstanding citizens; taxpayers and church-goers; doctors and lawyers, LEOs themselves; teachers and preachers and accountants; sensible, responsible individuals every one of them—they’re addicted to speed, too. We love to complain about inexperienced kids who ride way over their limit and give us a bad name with John Q. Public. In the end, if we encounter one on the road, though, we see if we can take him. We can’t help ourselves.

May we all live so long as to one day be able to talk about how we finally outgrew it. In the meantime, the most fun I can have in a single day usually involves going fast on two wheels.

User-Whee!

The state legislature has finally lanced a pustule on the ass of the Oregon body politic. By a vote of 18 to 11, the state senate voted to cap interest rates on consumer loans at 36 percent. The bill goes into effect July 1st.

I sure wish I could make 36 percent on anything, but for a decade now, Oregon’s payday loan sharks have been charging—but wait, you really have to take a guess on this.

How much do payday loan businesses need to charge to be able to stay in business: 100 percent? 200 percent? 300 percent?

Mais, non! Payday loan sharks need to charge 500 percent(!) interest just to stay in business. At 500 percent, they seem to be just getting by, which is why we now have more payday loan shops in Oregon than McDonalds.

A typical loan is about $300 and is made to a poor person who also happens to be stupid. They would use the money for discretionary items such as food and rent or to fix their car so they could get to work at their minimum wage job.

Some of them were Oregon lottery addicts, so in a way the PD loan industry was subsidizing state government, and I guess my pension, for that matter. Thanks!

Thing is, the loan would be due in a few weeks, and since Citizen Stupid doesn't have any more money now than he did then, he would pay a big fee to roll it over for another few weeks.

Where’d he get the money for the big fee? Why, right next door at another PD loan shop! You can see how poor money management skills, crap jobs, and a low IQ could combine to produce what people in the PD loan industry refer to as “clients.”

This has been an issue in Oregon for several years now as the newspapers have picked up on how the scam works and how many families and individuals it has forced into bankruptcy. It all started in the late 90s when the legislature lifted the cap on legal interest rates to adjust to the quickly rising loan rates. Instead of adjusting the usury definition upward, though, they just eliminated it.

Within minutes, signs went out on shop fronts, and loan sharks who used to work from street corners got to move indoors.

This detestable practice was allowed to continue for a decade because the sharks quickly formed a professional association and started lobbying and because Oregon Republicans have become so ideology-driven they don’t know a turd from a truffle anymore. “Let the market work,” one of them said in arguing against the new bill. There would also be a market for contract murder if we legalized it, but fortunately, that one hasn’t come up this session. No question it would have Republican support.

“Industry” spokesperson Steven Hanson said “These politicians don’t care about the small Oregon business owners who are going to be on the street. They ought to care about the consumers.”

Poor babies!

Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

Toast the troops!

My friend Ed Robinson passes along a link to this website.

http://www.sixpacksforsoldiers.com/

I’m never quite sure what “support the troops” means, but this seems as good a way as any.

One of the small but telling ironies of this nasty little war is that our troops on the ground are not allowed to consume alcohol. No stopping by the enlisted men’s club for a cold one after a tough day of routing out terrorists. There is no Miller time in Iraq, this out of sensitivity to the Muslim prohibition against alcohol.

So as we’re over there fighting for their freedom and ours here at home—so it is hoped we will believe—our own troops are forced to conform to the tenets of a faith not their own. I think that’s wrong. I think commanders should have the balls to say to the locals, “Hey, we’re infidels! We’re drinking us some beer! Get used to it!”

Wanna bet those suits in the embassy find a way to smuggle in some liquid refreshment?

Dog Trouble

I posted a few months ago about a run-in Mary and I had in a campground when walking our dogs. That incident involved two pit bulls, but these encounters aren't uncommon, and I'd say I have some kind of incident maybe one in five times I go for a walk.

I took my two Jack Russells for our short, neighborhood loop today and got rushed once again by three big ones up on Loma Linda. One of them is very aggressive, though I think it’s a bluff charge. Still, it scares the hell out of me. I swing my walking stick and yell at them, and they circle and try to make rushes back in. All the time I’m holding my own two on leashes in one hand and trying to keep them out of it. Jack Russells would attack a grizzly, but they wouldn’t last a few seconds, even as tough as they are, against bigger dogs.

So I told the guy who finally came out it wasn’t the first time and would he please keep his dogs under control, and he said “I didn’t even know they were out here.” There are too many good comebacks to that, and I just kept walking.

I looked at cattle prods at a farm supply store once and decided against it because they’re big and I’d feel stupid carrying one around. Still, I wish I could think of a way to drop a dog in its tracks when this happens, leave it twitching and stunned for a few minutes.

I might have another look at cattle prods.

You Can't Make This Shit Up

I don't do bumper stickers for the most part. Last one I had, that I recall, was in 1964 and it said "Dizzy Gillespie for President." Wish I still had it.

But I was in Hood River last weekend and found a very cool little alt.bookstore that had a lot of bumper stickers I liked. I bought a few and so far have only put one on my scooter. It says "Earth" in green letters, and you'd have to live in Klamath Falls to understand why that could be risky.

I got a good laugh out of one that said "You can't make this shit up" because every day I think that as I read the paper.

Here's a link to a Washington Post editorial by Dana Milbank.

You really can't make this shit up.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/23/AR2007052301446.html?referrer=email&referrer=email&referrer=email&referrer=email

Happy Anniversary To Us

Yesterday, Mary and I celebrated our 32nd Anniversary.

“Celebrated” is maybe not the best term. She worked late because of a parents’ night at school. I went over to a friend’s house and watched motorcycle races he had recorded from the weekend.

Great races! Le Mans in the rain.

I consider myself to be a very lucky guy to be married to such a wonderful person, still in love and more in love every year. Lots of marriages don’t last. Some that do aren’t so great.

What did we do to be so lucky? I’ve reflected on occasion that when we met, I was far from emotionally mature. I could have easily ended up in a terrible relationship. But it wasn’t just luck, either. We’ve both done a lot of work on ourselves and on our relationship. Somehow we managed to stay together long enough to begin to get it right.

We’ll probably do something special this weekend, but I did remember to buy flowers and a card for the day.

I also filled her car with gas. What a guy I am!

Venus, not de Milo

Mary and I enjoyed the film Venus last night at home. If for no other reasons, it’s a delightful portrayal of three aging actors, good friends and sometime enemies, in the final weeks and months of life. It illustrates beautifully why old age can be a wonderful thing, not in spite of the aches, pains, disabilities, impotence, and organ failure, but because of them. When a good bowel movement becomes the best thing that happens today, life has truly been reduced to the simple pleasures. It helps if you’ve learned a few lessons along the way.

I’m not nearly so old yet, but I can begin to see it from here.

Peter O’Toole is wonderful as the aging, lecherous actor, equal parts charming and creepy. Together with his two friends, played always with either bawdy or subtle comic undertones by Leslie Phillips and the laughably rotund Richard Griffiths, the film could have stood its ground on just that one theme. But it quickly develops into yet another variation on Pygmalion when Phillips takes in the young and rather coarse daughter of his niece as a nurse/caretaker. O’Toole goes to work immediately, but it’s lechery and not transformation that motivates him.
The plot thickens when the girl, called Venus by O’Toole, turns out to be as much a predator as he is. In the end, they’re all equal parts repellent, charming, and even lovable. More lessons get learned.

Splendid acting around and an interesting if disturbing moral ambiguity combined to keep us up past bedtime.

In real life, Richard Griffiths is quoted as saying, "If I had my way, all actors over 55 would be issued a 3-lb. wet salmon with which to slap the face of every young, beautiful, successful upstart. 'That's for being so lucky, you bastard!' I would shout. And then, hit them again, if you can." In part, that could serve as a summary of the film if you keep in mind that comedy is a fine tool for suggesting paradox.

The New Know Nothings

Stupid Republicans: The National Journal reports in its recent poll of Republicans in the House of Representatives that only thirteen percent believe that global warming is real.

It’s too bad that George Tenet neutralized the expression slam dunk. We need to send a few thousand climate scientists up to Capital Hill to explain to these yahoos that the case for human caused global warming is “irrefutable,” as resoundingly affirmed in the latest UN report, which followed similar conclusions from our own National Academy of Sciences and pretty much every one else who bothers to read the newspaper once or twice a week.

The number of climate reports with similar findings and dire warnings seems to grow every day. What we should do about global warming might remain a matter of discussion and controversy, but that it’s happening and human caused has been settled science for at least a decade.

Apparently, the only way to get a majority of Republicans to accept this is if we could find a link to Al-Qaeda. If Al-Qaeda were building a series of massive coal-fired power plants in the Iraqi outback, Republicans might agree to a surge of engineers to the region to install scrubbers or force them to change over to wind or solar, two things they have more of than oil. Arguably, the whole thing would demonstrate that Al-Qaeda is more crafty and dangerous than even the Bush administration imagined.

I’ve never agreed with much of conservative doctrine, but at least there seemed to be a doctrine there that was based on some kind of vision of reality. If you don’t approve of race mixing, you’re going to be opposed to racial integration. If you believe life begins at conception, I can understand your opposition to abortion. But when studies show that abstinence-only sex education has absolutely no effect on sexual activity among teens, what do Republicans want to do? Increase funding for abstinence-only sex education.

It’s too bad that “know nothings” has already been taken as a party name. Contemporary Republicans seem to be staying in office, albeit in fewer numbers, on a slam-dunk policy of “I don’t know nothing.”

Alvin Batiste Dies

One of my favorite jazz musicians has died. Alvin Batiste was perhaps better known as a teacher, but his album Late is absolutely terrific. It's one of those of the many hundred I own that gets played regularly.

He was a master on the clarinet, an instrument which was out of fashion for many years. And his music, though mostly in the mainstream, could move decidedly outside without leaving me behind. I hear a strong influence of Coltrane, but he always had his own voice.

He was 74 and died of an apparent heart attack just hours before a scheduled concert at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.

Think I'll rip Late tonight so I'll have it on my computer. I'm close to doing the iPod thing and will definitely want his tunes in my shuffle.