Counting Presents, Pt. 1
I flew out of the blocks in 2003 with this blog, blending new material with edited versions of previous posts I'd done in Internet forums over the year prior to becoming a blogger. Here are what I think are some notable excerpts from the first few months:
3/31/03
Lacking a true smoking gun, there's no way a majority of Americans would think the Bush Administration let 9/11 happen. It simply Does Not Compute with a dominant meme, that Americans are generally the good guys. And as interesting and suspicious as the timeline & behavior of Bushco is, re: 9/11, I still don't think (trying to look at it as rigidly as a lawyer would) that the smoking gun is yet there. Perhaps one would appear, were Congress to get serious about investigating it all, but that's highly unlikely. For one thing, I don't think a lot of congressfolk, whether Repub or Dem, want to fuck with that powerful "we're the good guys" meme. Bad for business, donchaknow.
***
4/1/03
I
The liberal welfare state, post-New Deal, has been historically disempowered by a lack of pragmatism, and by promising more than it can deliver. As a result, conservatism too often seems the result of disappointment with liberal promises, and ignorance (via corporate propaganda) to the effects of an unpoliced free market.
Liberalism in general remains scarred by the effects of idealism set forth in the '60s and '70s, a kind of rhetorical flourish (think LBJ on poverty, RFK & MLK on the war, Carter on energy policy...and later, Clinton on health care) that underestimated the power of right-wing and corporate resistance.
II
As you go higher up the power chain, there has long been a concerted attack on marijuana use. And while companies have legitimate concerns about drug addiction threatening workplace production, the biggest reason pot gets tagged as "demon weed" is the enlightened detachment -- the awareness that a workplace really isn't as valuable or important as it thinks it is -- that pot use can cause among what one might still call the prolétariat.
***
The question of "Do you make your own luck?" is a fascinating one, and not open to easy answers. But I notice that many societal achievers tend to turn off critical thinking on the matter, settling for ego-driven belief in a hero narrative, with each of them as the hero. Some use the "God is my co-pilot" addendum to this narrative, which may have an even more corrosive societal effect.
I think there's a long tradition of propaganda that greatly emphasizes a Horatio Alger hero narrative vis-à-vis economic accomplishment, and that downgrades the factors of luck and providence. In such an environment, it's no wonder that a good number of those who've "made it" believe that by putting themselves on a pedestal as examples of having the right stuff, they've already done all they really need to do.
On one hand, you can write it off as a kind of terminal immaturity -- simple folk who fell hook, line and sinker for the Big Lie. (Been goin' on since at least the Roman Empire, I suppose.) But when there is a grossly disproprotionate valuing of the wealthy, the insular hero narrative becomes, I think, a luxury we can no longer afford to let rich people have.
III
The Naderite view of "It has to get worse before it gets better," no matter how much a heartless abandonment of those affected by differences between Dem or Repub, is still in a long-term sense perhaps the only real hope that progressives have.
Doesn't mean I'll ever vote Green again, but I fear we are on the brink of a truly New World Order here, where my country is fully transformed into an imperialist plutocracy that's immune to change via the ballot box.
US presidential elections now function in a kind of postmodern, small-d democracy, a voting process ironically similar to that used by the United Nations.
There remains a vote -- and the concept of American democratic government remains, if anything, a potent marketing tool -- but a shadowy coalition of corporate, religious and military interests have developed a de facto veto power over the democratic process, if the will of the voters do not serve those interests. And the Republican base, for whatever it may lack in voting numbers and demographic potential, makes up for it by being an effective servant of that "shadow coalition," more so than Democrats.
IV
A majority of Americans buy the media line on Bush, primarily due to what I call Uncle Walter Syndrome. Too many Americans have a deep need, to the point of absurdity, to generally believe what they're being told by the mainstream talking heads.
Not only has there been a long-term residual effect from long-gone TV journalists like Cronkite and Howard K. Smith, who actually did possess some impressive credibility, but also the corporate media has for years forcefully advertised itself as upholding the Murrow/Cronkite/Smith tradition of fairness and balance.
This bloated self-promotion, for most thinking people, has clearly become a bald-faced lie. But for those who still need to believe their TVs -- be it from insularity, laziness or plain ol' stupidity -- the media hype is something they are all too willing to buy into.
V
How very much the dry drunk is Bush, getting his rocks off on bourgeois Christianity and Hollywood war mythology.
I suppose when the Orwellian clusterfuck is so pervasive, it even messes with the leaders' sense of reality, then there's hope the leaders will eventually break down and/or overreach, leaving a vacuum that more responsible leaders can fill. But of course the crucial question is, "At what cost?"
VI
George W. Bush channels a hybrid of Andy Griffith & John Wayne as successfully as Clinton channeled a mix of Elvis and JFK, and finds himself tailor-made for playing a protector figure, despite his "dyslexicon" and shady past. Just as long as he never strays too far from the Rove script.
***
4/12/03
The images of Iraqi civilians killed or maimed by errant bombs and gunfire really got to me. And while I realize there's an upside to rooting out the evildoer Saddam's regime, I am distraught (though hardly surprised) that the mainstream focus is not on the grotesque price in innocent life that is being paid, nor on the failed diplomacy that preceded this war, but rather on maintaining a "pizza and fairy tales" narrative about the always righteous, always altruistic American liberators.
***
4/19/03
Television has long made a persuasive case for Andy Warhol's dictum "In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes." And even at age eight I could detect how TV propped the Everyday People up into the spotlight, side by side with the rich and glamorous. What I didn't know then, is that this was more about deceptive marketing than authentic egalitarianism. But for quite awhile afterwards, it seemed natural to believe that I could be a TV star too.
***
5/11/03
When the egg hatches, it's a great moment of release. Just as it seems that the mother will take back the egg after Horton does all the work, the unexpected creature that hatches is a cute flying elephant, one that is very fond of its longtime protector, Horton. Both Horton and his new "son" have bonded, and his mother remains a stranger to her child.
As a parent of two bright children, I have plenty of happy, even joyful, moments. But also, I have a decent number of Horton "loyalty test" moments, where the hope of ultimate payoff remains just that, a hope. Misunderstanding, personal weakness, feeling tied down...all must be worked through with a strong sense of loyalty and commitment to the children. One dreams that someday, when the eggs are fully hatched and the children fully grown, the satisfaction will come close to that which Horton felt at the end of the cartoon.
***
6/3/03
Many journalists, most through little fault of their own, are stymied by a world where "news" is processed as an economic and political tool. Data is manipulated to serve the interests of the media owners, and only secondly (if at all) is it used to adequately inform the public.
The majority of journalists take what they produce with a grain of salt, figuring that the partial truth exposed is better than none at all. Others who form an increasing minority not only are aware of the lies and half-truths, but also actively encourage them, in order to curry favor with their bosses. In a third category are those who fall for the "We are the sacred scribes" hype that surrounds the media, and thus overestimate both their information sources and their journalistic acumen.
***
6/9/03
...the seminar dream keeps recurring. In it, I'm visiting an est/Landmark seminar, intrigued by the goings on, drawn in by the enthusiasm and discipline that accompany the group's trademark brand of personalized philosophical inquiry. And, by the promise of a victorious "transformation," in which the outside world seems powerfully affected by one's commitments and languaging.
Thing is, in the dream I'm always there as an anonymous bystander. Seen and not seen. Taking it all in until...the "hard sell" begins. When the group gauntlet comes down, and one gets the message that transformation isn't primarily reflected in philosophical epiphanies or personal accomplishments outside the seminar. It is, rather, a matter of being able to successfully "enroll" others into the est/Landmark courses. All transformation, in essence, flows from supporting the established enrollment strategies, which typically are aggressive and even confrontational, not to mention very white collar-centric.
(In my recent dream, I happened upon a personal memo to the seminar leader from someone higher up in the organization. The first sentence read: "Work the room, hold stories.")
It's at the "hard sell" point of the seminar dream that I typically start to bail --which is something easier said than done in a real-life seminar, where they'll go the extra mile trying to coax or shame you into staying. Sometimes I'll fly or float away; other times I will sneak out the door. And just about always, there's a tinge of regret as I leave, that I've been wishy-washy and duplicitous.
***
6/26/03
Some hard-drivin' workers, through bad luck or bad timing, are bound to come up short. But hey, the bootstrappers have an answer for that, too: for those tough times, there's always Christianity.
What a wonderfully diverse life the social Darwinists offer us. All roads lead to Sunday School and the Men's Wearhouse.
***
7/1/03
For all its bombast, Greenwood's anthem has, in spots, enough skilled subtlety to be the envy of any GOP political spinmeister. Anti-PC notions are offered in somewhat ambiguous code; shades of problematic meaning turn almost imperceptibly on a single word or phrase. And as usual, the warm fuzzy blanket of Old Glory, sewn by a loving and just God, is a sturdy and transcendent mythology.
Love it or leave it, "God Bless The USA" is an awesome reflection of the perennial nationalistic impulse to whitewash and obfuscate. Not just in America, but anywhere. All done in the name of the homeland...or, in this case, "her."
Friday, September 21, 2007
My Old School
Earlier this year, the Portland School District tore down the building that housed my high school, Adams High, from 1969-81. The building also housed Whitaker Middle School for 20 years, from 1981-2001, before being evacuated by the district due to concerns about radon and toxic mold that had built up in the 1960s-era facility.
Fortunately for Adams alumni, images of the school survive online, in at least two YouTube videos. One or more are from clips from Gus Van Sant's 2003 film Elephant, which was filmed on the Adams/Whitaker campus. Imagine a teenage Greg walking the halls of the school building, full of youthful vim and vigah. Or, okay, don't.
And below is what's so far the only appearance of my image on YouTube, in a video tribute to the school done by an Adams grad. (There are some shots of the building demolition in there as well.) I'm at 2:59, in a picture with the speech team. A shot of my 16-year-old self is not the pic I'd have chosen to present to the YouTube world, but I don't have much control in the matter.
Adams was a high school borne of 1960s intellectual adventurism. It was an open and liberal-minded campus, with "schools within a school" that served the individual education needs of students.
During the school's early years there were problems in integrating with the community, and in seeming too politically radical to both Portland school adminstrators and parents in the Adams neighborhood. When I arrived there as a freshman in 1976-77, a lot of the sense of liberal experimentalism had died down, but there was still enough for me to personally find refreshing. If you came there to learn responsibly, the teachers treated you pretty much like an adult, and gave you a solid base of knowledge to work from.
There's not been a school before or since where I flourished more, and I even got to be a central figure in what was probably Adams' last politically radical moment, in 1979: I wrote an editorial in the school newspaper wondering why the Portland Rose Festival, to that point, had never chosen a black Rose Festival queen.
The editorial drew written condemnation from the Festival, but the Adams staff voted to stand by what I wrote. The controversy was covered by The Oregonian newspaper and local TV newscasts in June '79; the next year, the city's first African-American Rose Festival queen was chosen. It was tempting to take some credit, but really I'll never be able to say for sure how much influence that I, or the then-emerging "Black United Front" activist movement in the city, had on the choice. In any event, those were heady times.
Due to problems with redistricting and the lingering effects of bad feeling from the early years, the school's enrollment dwindled to the point where, when I graduated in 1980, it had one of the lowest enrollments of any "big" high school in Oregon. Adams closed in 1981, not long after being the subject of a Newsweek story with the headline: "The School That Flunked."
I'm grateful to Gus Van Sant for filming Elephant there, and think it apropos that a building which began as a part of the educational avant garde ended in what you might call the cinema avant garde. Particularly because of the film's subject matter: what lurks in the mysterious souls of students, prior to a Columbine-like massacre on campus. That's a topic the original braintrust who formed Adams (some who were Harvard-trained educators) would likely find fascinating. And maybe a bit depressing, in that the '60s utopian vision of a progressive curriculum didn't make enough of a difference to keep high school culture from drifting toward moments of violent chaos.
Earlier this year, the Portland School District tore down the building that housed my high school, Adams High, from 1969-81. The building also housed Whitaker Middle School for 20 years, from 1981-2001, before being evacuated by the district due to concerns about radon and toxic mold that had built up in the 1960s-era facility.
Fortunately for Adams alumni, images of the school survive online, in at least two YouTube videos. One or more are from clips from Gus Van Sant's 2003 film Elephant, which was filmed on the Adams/Whitaker campus. Imagine a teenage Greg walking the halls of the school building, full of youthful vim and vigah. Or, okay, don't.
And below is what's so far the only appearance of my image on YouTube, in a video tribute to the school done by an Adams grad. (There are some shots of the building demolition in there as well.) I'm at 2:59, in a picture with the speech team. A shot of my 16-year-old self is not the pic I'd have chosen to present to the YouTube world, but I don't have much control in the matter.
Adams was a high school borne of 1960s intellectual adventurism. It was an open and liberal-minded campus, with "schools within a school" that served the individual education needs of students.
During the school's early years there were problems in integrating with the community, and in seeming too politically radical to both Portland school adminstrators and parents in the Adams neighborhood. When I arrived there as a freshman in 1976-77, a lot of the sense of liberal experimentalism had died down, but there was still enough for me to personally find refreshing. If you came there to learn responsibly, the teachers treated you pretty much like an adult, and gave you a solid base of knowledge to work from.
There's not been a school before or since where I flourished more, and I even got to be a central figure in what was probably Adams' last politically radical moment, in 1979: I wrote an editorial in the school newspaper wondering why the Portland Rose Festival, to that point, had never chosen a black Rose Festival queen.
The editorial drew written condemnation from the Festival, but the Adams staff voted to stand by what I wrote. The controversy was covered by The Oregonian newspaper and local TV newscasts in June '79; the next year, the city's first African-American Rose Festival queen was chosen. It was tempting to take some credit, but really I'll never be able to say for sure how much influence that I, or the then-emerging "Black United Front" activist movement in the city, had on the choice. In any event, those were heady times.
Due to problems with redistricting and the lingering effects of bad feeling from the early years, the school's enrollment dwindled to the point where, when I graduated in 1980, it had one of the lowest enrollments of any "big" high school in Oregon. Adams closed in 1981, not long after being the subject of a Newsweek story with the headline: "The School That Flunked."
I'm grateful to Gus Van Sant for filming Elephant there, and think it apropos that a building which began as a part of the educational avant garde ended in what you might call the cinema avant garde. Particularly because of the film's subject matter: what lurks in the mysterious souls of students, prior to a Columbine-like massacre on campus. That's a topic the original braintrust who formed Adams (some who were Harvard-trained educators) would likely find fascinating. And maybe a bit depressing, in that the '60s utopian vision of a progressive curriculum didn't make enough of a difference to keep high school culture from drifting toward moments of violent chaos.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Celebrity Bowling
One more trip on Greg's Dreamland Express™...
I'm at the Oregon History Museum in, uh, Vancouver WA. On one wall of the museum is a big display about a musical about Oregon history that Danny Kaye was working on before he died. He only finished five songs, and the song titles are listed on the wall in big letters. One of the them is called "Oregon Song."
The musical was planned to be called Muddy Water or Muddy River (I can't recall which), and the wall has a big screen which is showing a video made by the museum of what appears to be a muddy river, with Kaye's demo of the song "Muddy Water/River" in the background. There are also blowup prints of lyric sheets that Kaye was working on for the musical.
Most of the time in the dream, it's understood that Kaye has passed away. However, at some earlier point, I understand him to be an "Artist in Residence" at the museum, and even see him (or his ghost?) walking on one of the staircases in the museum building.
***
After leaving the set of Iron Chef, having helped cook fish and hot dogs, I go to buy several books, including two biographies of Bob Hope.
Then I become a WWE bad guy, who has just left the arena after being banished for "punishment." This is happening at a mall (where I purchased the books, perhaps), and one of my fellow WWE wrestlers says I'm going to get roughed up a bit. Maybe this was all being filmed for the show.
The wrestler grabs my arm and puts a needle through my hand. I ask if it's morphine or heroin, and he says quietly, "It's just something to get rid of the pain."
The wrestlers there start beating up on me, but the drugs make me so happy that I'm pleasant to be around, so pleasant that no one wants to beat me up anymore. The wrestlers let me walk happily around the mall...and then my son, when he was one or two and still had some baby fat, looks at me like he doesn't recognize me and turns away. I'm reminded of this.
But I'm still happy, dammit! Happy enough to blend in with a yuppie couple who are joking with each other as they walk out the mall door. And happy enough to lift myself off the ground and do one of my favorite things, dream flying. Sadly, this time, I find it hard to keep the gravity from pulling me down.
No flying over Portland this time. Any kind of dream flying, actually, is getting rarer as I age.
Still, once grounded in this dream, I remain happy enough to roll down a hilly road like a roller coaster.
***
It's 1962 Day here in Holodeck Land.
I see Perry Mason's apartment, where he lived in 1962, in the Park Blocks near Portland State University.
Portland's KPTV Channel 12 (now Fox 12) has shown Perry Mason episodes at noon ever since 1969, and the channel has sent a film crew to the Park Blocks to film a new black-and-white ending credits sequence for the B&W episodes of the 1957-66 series. The letters forming the names of the cast and crew are placed on different sides of Perry's apartment building.
I go into a meeting room at the apartment complex, and I see Phyllis Diller appearing at an autograph show. I tell her I saw her cameo in the film The Aristocrats. It seems like maybe she hardly remembers it.
Near the large meeting room is a holodeck ride that my brother Mike and I decide to go on. We ride a motorcycle/skateboard ramp down into a narrow crevice where the holodeck signal is centered.
After the ride, back in the meeting room, I sing a karaoke version of Joey Dee and the Starliters' "Peppermint Twist." As I'm singing, I hear the Joey Dee version in my head, and it creates the illusion that I'm singing just like him. As I look around at the diminishing enthusiasm of the audience, I remember that I am not Joey Dee.
One young blonde turned middle-aged redhead becomes like my groupie. We go to a nearby room, get sopping wet, and then we kiss and embrace. A big red spot on her ribs is pulling my ribs in against her like a magnet. I'm enjoying the kissing, but thinking to myself, "If this is the new kink, then I'm not crazy about it."
The redhead says that this is a new kind of sex, and "people today are having more sex than ever." I reply, "I think people had the same amount of sex as today, over the last 20 years. They just had to be careful about AIDS." I notice that the more I talk, the drier and less engaged she seems.
The dream ends with a production number in the meeting room, and Phyllis Diller gets the last line, followed by her trademark laugh.
I wake up and start laughing myself.
1/2/07
11/17/06
9/7/06
10/5/05
10/2/05
3/31/04
2/20/04
2/9/04
1/5/04
12/1/03
One more trip on Greg's Dreamland Express™...
I'm at the Oregon History Museum in, uh, Vancouver WA. On one wall of the museum is a big display about a musical about Oregon history that Danny Kaye was working on before he died. He only finished five songs, and the song titles are listed on the wall in big letters. One of the them is called "Oregon Song."
The musical was planned to be called Muddy Water or Muddy River (I can't recall which), and the wall has a big screen which is showing a video made by the museum of what appears to be a muddy river, with Kaye's demo of the song "Muddy Water/River" in the background. There are also blowup prints of lyric sheets that Kaye was working on for the musical.
Most of the time in the dream, it's understood that Kaye has passed away. However, at some earlier point, I understand him to be an "Artist in Residence" at the museum, and even see him (or his ghost?) walking on one of the staircases in the museum building.
***
After leaving the set of Iron Chef, having helped cook fish and hot dogs, I go to buy several books, including two biographies of Bob Hope.
Then I become a WWE bad guy, who has just left the arena after being banished for "punishment." This is happening at a mall (where I purchased the books, perhaps), and one of my fellow WWE wrestlers says I'm going to get roughed up a bit. Maybe this was all being filmed for the show.
The wrestler grabs my arm and puts a needle through my hand. I ask if it's morphine or heroin, and he says quietly, "It's just something to get rid of the pain."
The wrestlers there start beating up on me, but the drugs make me so happy that I'm pleasant to be around, so pleasant that no one wants to beat me up anymore. The wrestlers let me walk happily around the mall...and then my son, when he was one or two and still had some baby fat, looks at me like he doesn't recognize me and turns away. I'm reminded of this.
But I'm still happy, dammit! Happy enough to blend in with a yuppie couple who are joking with each other as they walk out the mall door. And happy enough to lift myself off the ground and do one of my favorite things, dream flying. Sadly, this time, I find it hard to keep the gravity from pulling me down.
No flying over Portland this time. Any kind of dream flying, actually, is getting rarer as I age.
Still, once grounded in this dream, I remain happy enough to roll down a hilly road like a roller coaster.
***
It's 1962 Day here in Holodeck Land.
I see Perry Mason's apartment, where he lived in 1962, in the Park Blocks near Portland State University.
Portland's KPTV Channel 12 (now Fox 12) has shown Perry Mason episodes at noon ever since 1969, and the channel has sent a film crew to the Park Blocks to film a new black-and-white ending credits sequence for the B&W episodes of the 1957-66 series. The letters forming the names of the cast and crew are placed on different sides of Perry's apartment building.
I go into a meeting room at the apartment complex, and I see Phyllis Diller appearing at an autograph show. I tell her I saw her cameo in the film The Aristocrats. It seems like maybe she hardly remembers it.
Near the large meeting room is a holodeck ride that my brother Mike and I decide to go on. We ride a motorcycle/skateboard ramp down into a narrow crevice where the holodeck signal is centered.
After the ride, back in the meeting room, I sing a karaoke version of Joey Dee and the Starliters' "Peppermint Twist." As I'm singing, I hear the Joey Dee version in my head, and it creates the illusion that I'm singing just like him. As I look around at the diminishing enthusiasm of the audience, I remember that I am not Joey Dee.
One young blonde turned middle-aged redhead becomes like my groupie. We go to a nearby room, get sopping wet, and then we kiss and embrace. A big red spot on her ribs is pulling my ribs in against her like a magnet. I'm enjoying the kissing, but thinking to myself, "If this is the new kink, then I'm not crazy about it."
The redhead says that this is a new kind of sex, and "people today are having more sex than ever." I reply, "I think people had the same amount of sex as today, over the last 20 years. They just had to be careful about AIDS." I notice that the more I talk, the drier and less engaged she seems.
The dream ends with a production number in the meeting room, and Phyllis Diller gets the last line, followed by her trademark laugh.
I wake up and start laughing myself.
1/2/07
11/17/06
9/7/06
10/5/05
10/2/05
3/31/04
2/20/04
2/9/04
1/5/04
12/1/03
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Beer Buddy
Lately, when I want to wallow in pain, I find it useful to focus on George W. Bush's words to his friends earlier this year:
Friends of his from Texas were shocked recently to find him nearly wild-eyed, thumping himself on the chest three times while he repeated “I am the president!” He also made it clear he was setting Iraq up so his successor could not get out of “our country’s destiny.”
He's Emperor Bush and you're not. And he's still got enough enablers in the media and on Capitol Hill, that you're not going to take his precious war away from him while he's still the Decider, polls be damned.
So we wait for him to leave, and hope and pray that it doesn't get much worse in the next 16 months. If we luck into getting a Democratic president in '09, then maybe just maybe we can insert some needed maturity into the national discussion about Iraq.
I remember getting into a mini-debate online with the late great blogger Steve Gilliard, about how the Biden/Kerry/Clinton ideas of limited troop drawdown in Iraq, based on specific benchmarks tied to new efforts at building an international coalition to address the Iraq quagmire, were preferable to just pulling our forces out of there.
I respected Steve's view that it's too late for the US to achieve some measure of victory or securing of the peace in Iraq -- if, really, any kind of positive outcome was ever possible, given the reckless and corrupt nature of the Bush/Cheney White House. I also figured that the value of a troop pullout increases in direct proportion to the collective resignation people feel about the Iraq war ever getting out of the hands of murderous Republican neocon thugs. But I maintained that the US still has a moral obligation to at least try to broker a solution to the Iraq problem, even if any attempted solution (including pulling out, and certainly including the Bush plan of "staying the course") has a significant chance of failure.
I continue to hold this view, and also acknowledge that each day we stay in Iraq with leaders like Bush in charge decreases the chances of any solution working, even a draft. Put someone like Rudolph Giuliani in charge in '09 (a distinct possibility), and who knows how the hell long we'll be stuck there.
If Dems catch a break in '08 with Hillary/Obama/Edwards, or maybe in '12 or '16 with someone like Jim Webb, then at some point a Democratic president will likely try to forge a new path and broker a compromise. One could be thankful for at least that, although if the unavoidable longshot plan for stability doesn't work, guess who'll be blamed for "losing Iraq"? Hint: It won't be the guys who started the needless mess in the first place.
Lately, when I want to wallow in pain, I find it useful to focus on George W. Bush's words to his friends earlier this year:
Friends of his from Texas were shocked recently to find him nearly wild-eyed, thumping himself on the chest three times while he repeated “I am the president!” He also made it clear he was setting Iraq up so his successor could not get out of “our country’s destiny.”
He's Emperor Bush and you're not. And he's still got enough enablers in the media and on Capitol Hill, that you're not going to take his precious war away from him while he's still the Decider, polls be damned.
So we wait for him to leave, and hope and pray that it doesn't get much worse in the next 16 months. If we luck into getting a Democratic president in '09, then maybe just maybe we can insert some needed maturity into the national discussion about Iraq.
I remember getting into a mini-debate online with the late great blogger Steve Gilliard, about how the Biden/Kerry/Clinton ideas of limited troop drawdown in Iraq, based on specific benchmarks tied to new efforts at building an international coalition to address the Iraq quagmire, were preferable to just pulling our forces out of there.
I respected Steve's view that it's too late for the US to achieve some measure of victory or securing of the peace in Iraq -- if, really, any kind of positive outcome was ever possible, given the reckless and corrupt nature of the Bush/Cheney White House. I also figured that the value of a troop pullout increases in direct proportion to the collective resignation people feel about the Iraq war ever getting out of the hands of murderous Republican neocon thugs. But I maintained that the US still has a moral obligation to at least try to broker a solution to the Iraq problem, even if any attempted solution (including pulling out, and certainly including the Bush plan of "staying the course") has a significant chance of failure.
I continue to hold this view, and also acknowledge that each day we stay in Iraq with leaders like Bush in charge decreases the chances of any solution working, even a draft. Put someone like Rudolph Giuliani in charge in '09 (a distinct possibility), and who knows how the hell long we'll be stuck there.
If Dems catch a break in '08 with Hillary/Obama/Edwards, or maybe in '12 or '16 with someone like Jim Webb, then at some point a Democratic president will likely try to forge a new path and broker a compromise. One could be thankful for at least that, although if the unavoidable longshot plan for stability doesn't work, guess who'll be blamed for "losing Iraq"? Hint: It won't be the guys who started the needless mess in the first place.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Center of Attention
Even though I've started to go almost completely into nostalgia mode here as we wind things down, focusing on past posts and completing past ongoing features -- kind of ironic for a blog called "Wrapped Around The Present," eh? -- I couldn't let today's news about Greg Oden go uncommented on, since you'll notice if you scroll down a bit that I've made more than one comment about how he's my home team's Great Hope for the future.
To be a longtime Portland Trail Blazer fan is to know several moments of deep disappointment, over a lengthy period that started during a Blazer game in Portland I attended almost 30 years ago, in February 1978, when MVP center Bill Walton went down with an injury which ended his regular season. As dispiriting as Oden's season-ending microfracture surgery is, as Blazer misfortunes go it's actually down the list a bit, at least so far. And there are silver linings: he's still quite young (19); he seems to have a good head and heart; the specific repair on his knee, as these microfracture procedures go, was relatively minor, and could well prevent a worse injury in the future (Blazers GM Kevin Pritchard said today that Oden likely could've played this year, but at significant long-term risk); and the Blazers without Oden at center still have enough decent players to play respectably in a tough conference.
They'll likely be scrappy and competitive enough to avoid being a joke, but probably not good enough to be a Western Conference playoff team, and missing the playoffs again would put them in a position to perhaps get another quality rookie in next year's NBA draft. So the team and Oden remain headed in the right direction I think, and Oden's surgery could end up being a blessing in disguise, although it's clearly possible that this ultimately changes Oden from a potential Hall of Famer to another good-but-unspectacular big man, as Arvydas Sabonis and Kevin Duckworth mostly were during their Blazer years.
I hear the talk about the team being cursed, and certainly understand why Blazer fans would feel spooked. I recall that Walton, who helped lead the team to its only NBA title in 1977, played only once more in a Blazer uniform after the game I attended. He played in Portland's first game of the 1978 playoffs, and was injured again, this time for the rest of the playoffs and the entire next season. The '78 team, only a couple months earlier touted as perhaps one of the best ever, was decimated by injuries to Walton and other players and lost in the first round to Seattle; by the end of that next season, Walton had expressed his desire to quit the Blazers over how they treated his injuries, and he signed with another NBA team.
The team's quest for a quality center to complete what was, most seasons, a solid nucleus of players, led them to take a chance in the 1984 draft and choose center Sam Bowie over guard Michael Jordan. As I've mentioned before, people don't really get when they mention how foolish Portland supposedly was to pass on Jordan in favor of Bowie, that even if the Blazers had drafted MJ, he wouldn't have been nearly as good a fit in Portland with that team (featuring Clyde Drexler, who Jordan might've battled for the mantle of team leader) and that coach (Jack Ramsay, who might've dared to -- gasp! -- not right away make Jordan the center of the offense) as he was with Chicago. With Da Bulls he could be Da Man fairly soon, and he played on what for him must've been a more appealing big-city stage. He'd have likely given Portland three or four seasons at most, then would've been off to a bigger market and fatter contract.
Two years after drafting Bowie, the team knew quality when it saw it and drafted Sabonis from the USSR, at a time when scouts were calling him one of the most talented centers (particularly as a passer) they'd ever seen. Eventually Sabonis, bound behind the Iron Curtain for too long, did play for the Blazers from 1995-2003, but he'd had a major injury by that point and was past his prime. Had he played for the Blazers from 1990-92, the likelihood of that Drexler-led team, and not the Jordan Bulls, being the dominant team of that period would've increased. And when the Blazers did go to the conference finals during the Sabonis years, in 1999 and 2000, he performed admirably but didn't have quite enough juice left to overcome stiff competition in the paint like Shaquille O'Neal, Tim Duncan and David Robinson. This wouldn't have meant nearly as much had the team not gone ice cold (and encountered some bad officiating) in the fourth quarter of Game 7 of the 2000 Western Conference Finals, a game they were well on the way to winning...but I don't really want to talk much about that, as it's still uncomfortable to think about and frankly I'm tired of writing any more about the "cursed" Blazers at this time.
Even though I've started to go almost completely into nostalgia mode here as we wind things down, focusing on past posts and completing past ongoing features -- kind of ironic for a blog called "Wrapped Around The Present," eh? -- I couldn't let today's news about Greg Oden go uncommented on, since you'll notice if you scroll down a bit that I've made more than one comment about how he's my home team's Great Hope for the future.
To be a longtime Portland Trail Blazer fan is to know several moments of deep disappointment, over a lengthy period that started during a Blazer game in Portland I attended almost 30 years ago, in February 1978, when MVP center Bill Walton went down with an injury which ended his regular season. As dispiriting as Oden's season-ending microfracture surgery is, as Blazer misfortunes go it's actually down the list a bit, at least so far. And there are silver linings: he's still quite young (19); he seems to have a good head and heart; the specific repair on his knee, as these microfracture procedures go, was relatively minor, and could well prevent a worse injury in the future (Blazers GM Kevin Pritchard said today that Oden likely could've played this year, but at significant long-term risk); and the Blazers without Oden at center still have enough decent players to play respectably in a tough conference.
They'll likely be scrappy and competitive enough to avoid being a joke, but probably not good enough to be a Western Conference playoff team, and missing the playoffs again would put them in a position to perhaps get another quality rookie in next year's NBA draft. So the team and Oden remain headed in the right direction I think, and Oden's surgery could end up being a blessing in disguise, although it's clearly possible that this ultimately changes Oden from a potential Hall of Famer to another good-but-unspectacular big man, as Arvydas Sabonis and Kevin Duckworth mostly were during their Blazer years.
I hear the talk about the team being cursed, and certainly understand why Blazer fans would feel spooked. I recall that Walton, who helped lead the team to its only NBA title in 1977, played only once more in a Blazer uniform after the game I attended. He played in Portland's first game of the 1978 playoffs, and was injured again, this time for the rest of the playoffs and the entire next season. The '78 team, only a couple months earlier touted as perhaps one of the best ever, was decimated by injuries to Walton and other players and lost in the first round to Seattle; by the end of that next season, Walton had expressed his desire to quit the Blazers over how they treated his injuries, and he signed with another NBA team.
The team's quest for a quality center to complete what was, most seasons, a solid nucleus of players, led them to take a chance in the 1984 draft and choose center Sam Bowie over guard Michael Jordan. As I've mentioned before, people don't really get when they mention how foolish Portland supposedly was to pass on Jordan in favor of Bowie, that even if the Blazers had drafted MJ, he wouldn't have been nearly as good a fit in Portland with that team (featuring Clyde Drexler, who Jordan might've battled for the mantle of team leader) and that coach (Jack Ramsay, who might've dared to -- gasp! -- not right away make Jordan the center of the offense) as he was with Chicago. With Da Bulls he could be Da Man fairly soon, and he played on what for him must've been a more appealing big-city stage. He'd have likely given Portland three or four seasons at most, then would've been off to a bigger market and fatter contract.
Two years after drafting Bowie, the team knew quality when it saw it and drafted Sabonis from the USSR, at a time when scouts were calling him one of the most talented centers (particularly as a passer) they'd ever seen. Eventually Sabonis, bound behind the Iron Curtain for too long, did play for the Blazers from 1995-2003, but he'd had a major injury by that point and was past his prime. Had he played for the Blazers from 1990-92, the likelihood of that Drexler-led team, and not the Jordan Bulls, being the dominant team of that period would've increased. And when the Blazers did go to the conference finals during the Sabonis years, in 1999 and 2000, he performed admirably but didn't have quite enough juice left to overcome stiff competition in the paint like Shaquille O'Neal, Tim Duncan and David Robinson. This wouldn't have meant nearly as much had the team not gone ice cold (and encountered some bad officiating) in the fourth quarter of Game 7 of the 2000 Western Conference Finals, a game they were well on the way to winning...but I don't really want to talk much about that, as it's still uncomfortable to think about and frankly I'm tired of writing any more about the "cursed" Blazers at this time.
Thursday, September 06, 2007
Blowed Up Real Good
1970s-era stadiums demolished, courtesy of YouTube:
Three Rivers Stadium
Veterans Stadium
Cinergy Field (Riverfront Stadium)
The Kingdome
I'm old enough to remember when these stadiums had the shine of the new and cutting-edge. I also recall when it was considered commonplace for cities to keep home stadiums for at least 40-60 years.
I suppose each of the replacement stadiums in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Cincinnati and Seattle are improvements, but still it feels weird how sports architecture in my lifetime has become so relatively disposable.
Get off my astroturf, you damn kids.
1970s-era stadiums demolished, courtesy of YouTube:
Three Rivers Stadium
Veterans Stadium
Cinergy Field (Riverfront Stadium)
The Kingdome
I'm old enough to remember when these stadiums had the shine of the new and cutting-edge. I also recall when it was considered commonplace for cities to keep home stadiums for at least 40-60 years.
I suppose each of the replacement stadiums in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Cincinnati and Seattle are improvements, but still it feels weird how sports architecture in my lifetime has become so relatively disposable.
Get off my astroturf, you damn kids.
