This week's letter of the week offers another view on the current financial crisis and finds an interesting culprit behind the collapse - you and me. We're not sure if we totally agree with the premise.
Bread & Circuses for All
Posted inOpinion
Step Aside, Senator
After hearing so much in the news about the Supreme Court and our Senators in D.C.
Posted inOpinion
Stop Face Paint Discrimination
As a regular reader I find your advice and opinions on our surrounding area quite to the point and very sound. For this reason I come to you with a simple story of basic acceptance.
Posted inCulture
The Animal Dialogues: Uncommon Encounters in the Wild – by Craig Childs
Craig Childs, out talkin’ to the animals.The operative word in the title of this book is "Dialogues." Craig
Childs doesn't just observe and report on 34 different animal species.
He has conversations with them, albeit unconventional ones. Consider
this passage in which he's followed a raven into a desert canyon only
to find himself in the midst of dozens of ravens: "'Listen to us!'
cried the ravens. 'I don't speak your language,' I called out,
exasperated. Hearing my voice, the ravens only became more infuriated.
I was disoriented, watching them dive around me . . . 'Listen to us!'
they kept crying. 'This is not your place!'"
But besides artful
descriptions, the author does his research and knows his subject matter
well. In the same essay I also learned that ravens can follow another
creature's gaze, sometimes cooperate with wolves in making a kill, and
have even been seen pulling in a baited fishing line with their beaks
and then stepping on the slack line over and over until they've
"caught" a fish. Childs’ writing often gives the impression that he
himself is some sort of permeable membrane at the border between
scientific fact and poetic mystery. His sharp eye for observation is
matched by his taste for experiences that cannot be explained or
familiarized. In this he's a direct literary descendant of the great
Loren Eiseley.
Posted inOutside
Quit Nerding Up Football
I've been asked by the Left Field department to share my views on
fantasy football and I'm glad to do it because fantasy football is
eating up sports fans and turning them into soulless statistic chomping
geeks.
Last Sunday, I was jumping up and down in my sweatpants,
spilling PBR Light (I'm watching my figure) all over the place as
Atlanta Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan sent a 26-yard bomb spiraling
into the hands of receiver Michael Jenkins, who stepped out of bounds
with one second left.
Posted inOutside
Missing Moose and Gator naps: The Natural World road trip report
A stranger to Central Oregon, but common to Florida, the American Alligator. You'd think any Oregonian with a grain of sense would wait until
January to fly off to Florida for a week or so but my son, Ross, called
me last March and said, "Pop, for your birthday, I'm going to give you
an all-expense paid week in Florida. Come on down!"
Well, this and
that got in the way for us to make it happen; two things that were
significant. The first being that my wife, Sue, went to work on a
summer-long contract with the National Park Service to do a butterfly
census in Lava Beds National Monument in Northern California. The other
being a new job for Ross, who is a Lt. Col. in this man's USAF Reserve.
Sue
finished her contract on Labor Day, and Ross, who started out his
career with the Air Force as an F-16 Instructor Pilot, and whom, like
many service men and women, has done tours in the Middle East, recently
took command of the 482nd Operations Group at Homestead AFB in Florida.
Posted inOutside
All in the Family: Climbing an extended family tree and the nature deficit disorder
October snow on the WifeTHE WIFE
Of course, we have the confirmed Bachelor in our midst. And
everyone knows the Three Sisters. But, as holiday party season
approaches, it can be good to embrace long lost relatives. So, are you
familiar with the rest of our Cascades family?
Last weekend, a
small group of friends decided to climb the Wife. If you haven't
visited the Wife, it's probably because there is no trail that leads
you to her. She plays a little hard to get. To access the Wife, we
parked at the Devil's Lake trailhead and hiked the trails to Wickiup
Plains. Fall was evident in the brisk air, red groundcover and
snow-covered hills. The Plains are enjoyable because of the open vistas
of South Sister with the Rock Mesa Obsidian Flow in the foreground.
When we reached the PCT, we could spot the Wife to the northwest and we
started to cross-country. Soon thereafter, we lost sight of her because
the clouds closed in and cold rain began to fall. We passed a small
group of hardy deer hunters camped near the base of the Wife and prayed
for the deer when we spied their hoofmarks a few hundred yards later.
We headed clockwise around the base of the Wife and upward. It's a bit
of a scramble to get to the top (which would have been a piece of cake
without my arm in a sling and six inches of snow), but we arrived and
enjoyed a quick lunch of breakfast leftovers from McKay Cottage, brown
rice sushi and organic ginger snaps in the wet flurries. Slip-sliding
back down the snowy slope, our return was uneventful and it made for a
nice 10-mile roundtrip adventure -followed by the hot tub and hot chai,
of course.
Posted inCulture
Is the Force Strong with This One?: Star Wars The Force Unleashed
Using the force since 1977.When the demo for Star Wars The Force Unleashed was released it looked
like an incredible game. The thing I hate about demos is that they can
set you up for disappointment if the game doesn't live up to the
preview's promise. As a result, my approach to this game was one of
caution. The story is sandwiched between episodes three and four and
tells the tale of Darth Vader's "secret" apprentice. The story line of
the game is certainly not Shakespearean, rather it's a fairly
straightforward read that adds a bit of spice to the Star Wars canon.
Unlike most Star Wars games, this one takes a darker road, beginning
with the protagonist. (That means main character, gamers. - editor)
The
game drops you in Darth Vader's dark shoes/boots on the Wookie plant of
Kashyyyk. After destroying trees, throwing around Wookies and taking
out the ineffectual Jedi whom the Wookies can't protect from your
badass dark side, you stumble on a child prodigy. Following the
Jedi/Sith mandate of a Master and apprentice, Darth trains the boy on
the ways of the dark side. The grown apprentice, named Starkiller, (the
original name that Lucas wanted to use for the Skywalker family) is
then sent out into the universe to follow his master's commands.
Posted inCulture
Puppy Love: Peter Sollett again captures awkwardness in Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist
Oh, how awkward.It took five years for director Peter Sollett to follow-up his sparkling feature debut Raising Victor Vargas with his adaptation of Rachel Cohn and David Levithan's novel Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist. And while the road along the way surely was littered with Hollywood-typical stories of aborted projects and collapsing funding, he should take comfort in this: He has now established himself as cinema's reigning genius of awkward young love.
Maybe a filmmaker might consider it problematic to be so pigeonholed. It becomes too easy to ignore the other facets of someone's talents, like when Quentin Tarantino became "fast-talking, pop-culture-referencing super-violence guy" and the world conveniently ignored his profoundly moral humanism. But it can also mean that a talented director gets to keep working. And when you've seen something as effortlessly charming as Raising Victor Vargas followed up with this sweet little keeper, you want Sollett to keep working.
Posted inCulture
BendFilm Roundup: Diverse films capture wide range of audiences’ attention
The New Year Parade shows strong at BendFilm.BendFilm's list of movies once again can be summed up in one word:
Diverse. That seemed to be the overriding theme of almost every movie I
saw
The New Year Parade (Best Director Award, Tom Quinn) was
perhaps the most interesting, focusing on a divorce and the subsequent
fallout of family and friend alliances. The context is South
Philadelphia and its marching band orchestra. Using actors and plain
ordinary people gave it a forceful character study of good people, bad
reactions and even worse relationships.