Previously posted at BlueOregon

As I got on the #19 bus to come home yesterday afternoon, a new mom was folding up her stroller while her mom, a new grandmother, held the baby. When I say “new,” I mean the baby could not have been more than a week or two old. The original noob. The sight of this threesome was particularly poignant to me at that moment. Only minutes earlier, I had delivered my baby to his grandmother’s care. But there were a few differences.

My baby, my younger son, is 19; and, on Friday, he had completed basic training at the Coast Guard Training Center, Cape May, NJ. I flew out Thursday so I could be there for the ceremony (and I spent most of the ceremony wondering where the hell he was; I did not realize he was playing trumpet in the band!). We then spent the weekend in Baltimore and Washington, DC, discovering an amazing pizza joint and seeing some of the nation’s iconic monuments — and, we think, that was Dick Cheney leaving the White House in the small motorcade.

In three days, Jesse reports for duty to the USCGC Midgett in Seattle. Then, in mid-January, the Midgett heads up to Alaska to patrol the dangerous winter seas, not for those nasty Russians a certain governor has been keeping her eagle eye on but for hapless fishermen trying to make a living while surviving the ocean that provides that living. This is no childish endeavor; this is man’s work (and, of course, in the Coast Guard, woman’s work). Coast Guard basic training is eight weeks of hard work and ugly monotony; he made it out with flying colors and has no personal doubts about his ability to perform as a member of Midgett’s crew.

I don’t either: I know he’ll do great. Nor do I have doubts about the abilities of my first baby, my older son who will be going to Iraq next year. I don’t like that Alex is an excellent soldier or that he has no qualms (that I know of) about doing that "duty." But he is proving himself to be a man, a grown-up, an adult who has made his own choices and is now living them out. Had I known my baby would grow up to make this choice, you know for damn sure I would have done a lot of things much differently over the years. But that’s the problem: We have no idea where our babies are going to go. They just go, and while we do our best to prepare and guide them, they are the ones who make the choices and live their lives.

originally originally posted at BlueOregon

In 1968, when Nixon completed his comeback and subjected the nation to an additional 4 years of the Vietnam War and the worst attack on the Constitution seen to that point, some people still believed in hope. Not many, but still: The decade had begun with Camelot, moved through the Summer of Love and was on the verge of landing on the moon. Kissinger was about to ram realpolitik down our throats and pop culture would soon slide into the over-produced vacuousness that would take Nirvana’s emergence from a garage to shock back into another reality. Nonetheless, people hoped for a better world: peace and love and understanding. Hope, the desire to believe in a better world, was still a vialble concern, but its relevance was fading fast.

“This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius … let the sun shine in….”

I had turned 12 just days before Election Day 1968. Momentous though the year was, I had not been paying that much attention to events. I knew Bobby and Dr King had been assassinated; I figured out that the wrong person had won the election. What concerned me most, however, was how very unhappy and alone I was. I didn’t know from hope back then: my parents would soon be divorced and by Election Day 1968, their unhappiness was already breaking my life apart. In the coming years, I would grow more miserable, then I would find Jesus, and eventually I would learn that I would have to find myself.

It was, more or less, the typical angst that was part of growing up at the end of the 20th Century. In time I would get my act sufficiently together and figure out how to be happy, how to be productive, how to make things better rather than just drift along. But hope? I never gave it much thought. My christianist indoctrination, not to mention the low-level depression that ruled much of my life as my family disintegrated, had taught me that humans were flawed, failed and futile. I have had to bust my metaphysical ass to learn new beliefs, but simply rejecting that philosophy did not automatically instill an attitude of hope.

Ask me where hope comes from, I could not tell you. Like truth, or love, that’s one you’ll have to find for yourself. What I am confident of, however, is that hope does not come from outside of oneself. I believe hope is a manifestation of the right combination of beliefs and perspectives within one’s own heart and mind. If you look out on the world and see hope coming at you, think again. What you see is not hope: what you see is a reflection of hope. Whatever form that hope takes for you.

The Bus won 11 of its 12 targeted races on November 4th, and that includes some amazing victories: Judy Stiegler, Brent Barton, Nick Kahl, Greg Matthews and more. Yet one race did not work out for us, and it's one we probably put more energy, work and love into than any other. Jim Gilbert was "the" candidate for many at the Bus. I went to Silverton four different times myself to walk for Jim, and I was not alone in spending that much time there.

So why did we lose this campaign (HD 18) when we won so many other tough races? We won in Bend, we won in East Multnomah County, and we won in Clackamas County. But in this contest that covered rural areas of Clackamas and Marion counties was the one that slipped away.

So, first, the numbers:

In Clackamas County:

Jim Gilbert . . . . . . . . 4,202 42.54
Vic Gilliam . . . . . . . . 5,424 54.91

and in Marion County:

Jim Gilbert . . . . . . . . 4,188 45.75
Vic Gilliam . . . . . . . . 4,956 54.13

(approx. 95% of the ballots counted)

Wilsonville Mayor Charlotte Lehan appears to be a breath-taking idiot:

"We could become a lot bigger," she said. "We're not effectively using our land. The idea that the population is going to double, so we have to double the UGB (urban growth boundary) is just absurd. We can become more dense."

Sprawling suburbs such as Wilsonville, with a population of 17,000, could pack in more people by developing taller buildings -- even five or six stories would do, Lehan said.

"Wilsonville could be 30,000 easily, or 40,000 or 50,000, probably, and hardly notice itself," she said.

Such a reckless statement ignores a part of the Oregonian article that seems not to matter to the mayor:

A Metro analysis estimated the Portland area alone will require $27 billion to $41 billion in infrastructure improvements to accommodate population growth. That means new or improved sewage treatment and water distribution systems, roads, schools, public buildings, energy plants and parks.

Yes, there is plenty of room for growth in Oregon, and we can do a lot of it vertically. We do have plenty of water — as the article notes, the Columbia and Willamette are largely untapped sources — but when the full range of needs are examined, doubling of the Portland Metro area, as is predicted to happen by at least 2060, will have severe affects we will not be ready for.

No one is ever ready for the world changing.

We have arrived at a critical juncture in the 2008 campaign. With so many huge issues suddenly arriving in the same time and space — war, economy, politics — it’s possible they may all collapse and create a black hole that swallows up the entire galaxy.

At least the super-collider did not destroy the planet.

Or did it?

The possibility, which I happily steal from the great Douglas Adams’ “The Restaurant at the End of the Universe,” is that what some people feared about the super-collider actually did occur. The fear was that starting it would result in a cataclysmic physical event that would destroy the world, and possibly beyond.

here is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

Can we say that did not happen? To use Adams’ whimsical idea, I think it’s possible that the super-collider did indeed end the world as we knew it. What we now inhabit is an alternate universe in which the super-collider did not break the world.

It just bent it.

In the aftermath of the meltdown of financial markets, as the media has called it, progressives and even some conservatives are putting the blame on the banks, mortgage developers and other speculators. No question: Those who sought to make billions in profits by gaming the system deserve the bulk of blame. They tried to get something for less than nothing, and now they are trying to increase their profits even further via a $700 billion bailout. This can’t be allowed, of course, but progressives have to demand that their partners in this crime be held accountable as well: the public, people who sought to get more than they could afford.

The American public can be blamed for much that has gone wrong in our country over the years. Let’s begin with the basics: They are stupid and proud of it. How many people educate themselves about the issues affecting their lives? How many listen to a balanced set of news sources, if they listen to any news at all? How many study an issue, just one single issue, in order to vote for the candidate who actually does represent their view on that issue and not the one with the most persuasive ads? Since we know that few in this country can raise their hand in the affirmative to these questions, we have to accept that sad, horrifying fact: Our country’s leaders are elected by stupid people.

Of whom, we also know, only a minority vote. Yes, we’ll have a large turn-out for the presidential race, but for all the other races? The “down-ticket” races, from Congress to state legislature all the way to local water district? The further down the ballot you go, the fewer voters you’ll find. And yet so many of these races have a tangible impact on people’s lives. School boards and even water districts make decisions that affect people in ways they can identify on a daily basis (or could identify if they were not so stupid).

How amazing, two decades after we crushed the USSR into oblivion with the simple and very American tactic of out-spending them, we are now faced with having to nationalize the foundations of our financial system in order to avoid joining the Soviet Union on history's dust heap.

This is an actual case of irony, by the way, unlike so much else that is merely coincidence or just goofy-wierd.

This is also deja vu of the worst kind. We've been down this road plenty of times before. Huge corporations run amok, the federal government "regulates" wth a wink and a nod — or in the case of the Bushies, with as much assistance to the corporates as possible — and it all falls apart. Straight to hell in a golden handbasket. Now, under the rules of capitalism, to which corporations give the greatest of lip service and little else, these businesses should die off and be replaced by others more fit to be part of the great enterprise. Given that we do not, in fact, live in a capitalist society, this is not possible.

If the banks and financial institutions fail, there is nothing else to take their place. And in the same the sinking Titanic sucked under anyone too near it as it went under, the banks will destroy far too many innocent people. Not to mention lead to a global depression that would dwarf the 1930s and possibly lead to World War IV.

So we have, sad to say, no choice but to bail out the fuckers. We do have options within that sad circumstance, however: No golden parachutes. Severe limits on CEO compensation. More help for homeowners and small businesses. Strict regulations that force these businesses to serve and devour customers.

We have, for all intents and purposes, nationalized these industries. Regulation could have made that unnecessary, but the hard-right idealogues won those battles. Too bad for us all. Now let's use the opportunity to not merely fix the immediate crisis, but fix the whole mess for the long-term.

For the citizens of this country who are picking up the tab. And under Bush, of course, that means: not the rich. Let's fix that, too.

I respect the right of voters to choose to support who they will. I’m ok with losing an election based on the will of the voters. What I’m not ok with, besides stolen elections, is the when the will of the voters is based, as far as I can tell, on substance as solid as runny oatmeal. The same substance that has replaced many voters’ brains.

Explain to me how an indefensibly unworthy person is named McCain’s running mate and he suddenly becomes a better candidate in many voter’s eyes. He hadn’t been stupid enough yet? Willful enough? All they were waiting for was to make sure he wouldn’t pick Romney or the Jew? The one thing a potential president actually does prior to taking office, and McCain gets it this wrong — and prospers?

As much as I believe in democracy, I am that cynical about the people upon whom democracy depends. Even here in Oregon, there’s been a “Palin Bounce.” I do think that Oregon has a more civil political climate than most places, but we don’t necessarily have fewer voters incapable of having their preferences yanked around by superficial political stunts. Last year, the tobacco industry bought an election by spending millions. Voters knew the ads were pure propaganda, but they still let themselves be deceived. Not the first time; won’t be the last.
But honestly. Sarah Palin?