Photos from a friend in Maryland.
(Click on photo to enlarge.)
(Click on photo to enlarge.)
Monday, November 5, 2007
No admission for this event
"Gate C22" by Ellen Bass
from The Human Line. © Copper Canyon Press, 2007.
At gate C22 in the Portland airport
a man in a broad-band leather hat kissed
a woman arriving from Orange County.
They kissed and kissed and kissed. Long after
the other passengers clicked the handles of their carry-ons
and wheeled briskly toward short-term parking,
the couple stood there, arms wrapped around each other
like he'd just staggered off the boat at Ellis Island,
like she'd been released at last from ICU, snapped
out of a coma, survived bone cancer, made it down
from Annapurna in only the clothes she was wearing.
Neither of them was young. His beard was gray.
She carried a few extra pounds you could imagine
her saying she had to lose. But they kissed lavish
kisses like the ocean in the early morning,
the way it gathers and swells, sucking
each rock under, swallowing it
again and again. We were all watching —
passengers waiting for the delayed flight
to San Jose, the stewardesses, the pilots,
the aproned woman icing Cinnabons, the man selling
sunglasses. We couldn't look away. We could
taste the kisses crushed in our mouths.
But the best part was his face. When he drew back
and looked at her, his smile soft with wonder, almost
as though he were a mother still open from giving birth,
as your mother must have looked at you, no matter
what happened after — if she beat you or left you or
you're lonely now — you once lay there, the vernix
not yet wiped off, and someone gazed at you
as if you were the first sunrise seen from the Earth.
The whole wing of the airport hushed,
all of us trying to slip into that woman's middle-aged body,
her plaid Bermuda shorts, sleeveless blouse, glasses,
little gold hoop earrings, tilting our heads up.
from The Human Line. © Copper Canyon Press, 2007.
At gate C22 in the Portland airport
a man in a broad-band leather hat kissed
a woman arriving from Orange County.
They kissed and kissed and kissed. Long after
the other passengers clicked the handles of their carry-ons
and wheeled briskly toward short-term parking,
the couple stood there, arms wrapped around each other
like he'd just staggered off the boat at Ellis Island,
like she'd been released at last from ICU, snapped
out of a coma, survived bone cancer, made it down
from Annapurna in only the clothes she was wearing.
Neither of them was young. His beard was gray.
She carried a few extra pounds you could imagine
her saying she had to lose. But they kissed lavish
kisses like the ocean in the early morning,
the way it gathers and swells, sucking
each rock under, swallowing it
again and again. We were all watching —
passengers waiting for the delayed flight
to San Jose, the stewardesses, the pilots,
the aproned woman icing Cinnabons, the man selling
sunglasses. We couldn't look away. We could
taste the kisses crushed in our mouths.
But the best part was his face. When he drew back
and looked at her, his smile soft with wonder, almost
as though he were a mother still open from giving birth,
as your mother must have looked at you, no matter
what happened after — if she beat you or left you or
you're lonely now — you once lay there, the vernix
not yet wiped off, and someone gazed at you
as if you were the first sunrise seen from the Earth.
The whole wing of the airport hushed,
all of us trying to slip into that woman's middle-aged body,
her plaid Bermuda shorts, sleeveless blouse, glasses,
little gold hoop earrings, tilting our heads up.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
AARP Driver Safety Program Courses
AARP Driver Safety Program Courses
Test Your Driving IQ (Click here.)
Did you know that the correct hand positions on the driving wheel are not 10 and 2 o'clock but are now 8 and 4 o'clock, to accommodate airbags?
Learn this and more from the AARP Driver Safety Program courses. These lessons, available in the classroom and online, help 50+ drivers refresh their safety skills. The classroom course fee is $10, and the online-course fee is $15.95 for AARP members. For information, call 1-866-231-0216 or click here.
Learn this and more from the AARP Driver Safety Program courses. These lessons, available in the classroom and online, help 50+ drivers refresh their safety skills. The classroom course fee is $10, and the online-course fee is $15.95 for AARP members. For information, call 1-866-231-0216 or click here.
Test Your Driving IQ (Click here.)
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Spring forward, Fall back
Before you go to bed tonight be sure to remember to set your clocks back an hour. (The official time of the change is 2:00 AM Sunday, November 4, 2007).
For more than you ever wanted to know about Daylight and Standard time, click here.
Friday, November 2, 2007
Gnome, sweet gnome
Elaborate prank leaves Oregon officers in custody of gnomes
11/1/2007, 8:16 a.m. PDT
The Associated Press
Police want to find the rightful owners.
"We need to get them out of here," Capt. Richard Harrison said. "Every time I leave my office they're sitting in my chair, working on my computer. I can't seem to get rid of the darn things."
There will be a public viewing Tuesday.
"If they come here and they can identify it," Harrison said, "we're more than happy to let the gnome go home."
After that the gnomes, and any other ornaments, will be sold at auction.
11/1/2007, 8:16 a.m. PDT
The Associated Press
SPRINGFIELD, Ore. (AP) — A number of gnomes have taken sanctuary at the Springfield police station.
Somebody apparently collected 75 lawn ornaments from around town and then, on the night of Oct. 17, placed them meticulously on and around the lawn of one house.
Among the plastic and porcelain geese, deer and frogs are gnomes, such as a weather gnome outfitted with a rain gauge.
Somebody apparently collected 75 lawn ornaments from around town and then, on the night of Oct. 17, placed them meticulously on and around the lawn of one house.
Among the plastic and porcelain geese, deer and frogs are gnomes, such as a weather gnome outfitted with a rain gauge.
Police want to find the rightful owners.
"We need to get them out of here," Capt. Richard Harrison said. "Every time I leave my office they're sitting in my chair, working on my computer. I can't seem to get rid of the darn things."
There will be a public viewing Tuesday.
"If they come here and they can identify it," Harrison said, "we're more than happy to let the gnome go home."
After that the gnomes, and any other ornaments, will be sold at auction.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
FIRE AND WATER: TWIN CHALLENGES
FIRE AND WATER: TWIN CHALLENGES
By Neal Peirce
But is there any move to move homes away from the areas where a century of firefighting has left many forests choked and overgrown, thick underbrush creating tinder-box conditions? Apparently not. Most homeowners vow that they’ll stay in the fire-prone areas, or return to rebuild on the charred foundations of their former homes.
Across the continent, “exceptional drought” -- the National Weather Service’s worst category -- impacts Georgia and its neighboring states. Water levels fall so drastically in Lake Lanier, the 38,000-acre North Georgia reservoir that supplies water to almost 5 million people, that the lake may dip into its storage capacity dregs in less than four months.
But Georgia limps along without a state water plan. No one wants to talk about water rationing. In suburban rings around Atlanta, sprouting new subdivisions don’t have to prove a long-term water source before developers plunge into construction.
“We’re growing faster than our water resources. We have a shortage, not only in drought, but when it’s raining,” says Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin. A stiffer assessment comes from Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.): “Georgia has been sleepwalking. The Atlanta region has the most rapid growth rate in the history of urbanization. But Georgia’s never done an assessment of its water capacity.”
In California, there’s praise for the professionalism of last week’s fire-fighting effort. President Bush rushed to send federal firefighters, aircraft, grants for temporary housing and repairs, plus funding to clean up debris.
But the myopia about the future seems profound. Climate change is already having an apparent impact, with a 1 degree Fahrenheit temperature rise across the West. “Megafires” are sprouting; fire seasons far longer than just 20 years ago.
Natural watersheds, warned California Forestry Director Ruben Grijalva last June, are being seriously encroached. With baby boomers and others constructing large houses up and over the canyons, man-made structures and paved surfaces are expanding rapidly, increasing surface runoff during storms. That leads, in turn, to more soil erosion and less water for trees or vegetation. The inevitable result: more fires, whether intentional or accidental.
Plus, the raging fires themselves release significant quantities of greenhouse gases. Smarter land use planning for the fire-prone areas tops Grijalva’s list of solutions. But instead, notes Bill Fulton of Solimar Research in Ventura, “We Californians are trying to fireproof ourselves” by building houses with buffers and fire-retardant construction materials. Press attention last week focused on how that tactic actually protected some subdivisions. Though Fulton notes the obvious: smart land use planning is an infinitely superior solution; “subdivisions in highly flammable forests don’t make much sense.”
And it’s not just a California problem. This year, Idaho and Utah have seen their largest wildfires in the last 50 to 100 years: Arizona, Colorado and Oregon registered their record years in 2002, and Texas in 2006, Tom Swetnam, a University of Arizona-based scientist, told a congressional hearing last week. Over 8 million acres of forest and shrub have burned across the West this year, second largest number in history, behind 2006.
There’s now a “flame zone” of states suffering persistent drought and susceptibility to faster, hotter, more erratic wildfires, intensified by global warming, says Blumenauer.
Repeatedly, he notes, Congress faces calls for disaster supplemental funds. “Our hearts go out every time. But it’s really governmental malpractice,” he insists, whether the issues are fires, floods, reinsuring homes on constantly pounded barrier islands or letting people relocate in New Orleans’ low-lying, hurricane-prone Ninth Ward. “We never seem to tie the pieces of causation and prevention together.”
And it’s all but sure to get worse, he notes, with rising temperatures and an expected 100 million more Americans by 2043. “Government has promised more than nature can deliver; we’re using our resources to protect a status quo that is not protectable.”
Assuming Blumenauer’s right, what to do? One possible idea: Congress could create a new set of federal watershed basin authorities, not to dictate to state and local governments but rather to sit down at the table with them to balance risk and investment. Negotiating, perhaps, reasonable levels of federal construction funding in return for state and local agreement to focus on prevention, careful planning, adaptation to the immutable forces of nature and climate change.
Including, Catherine Ross of Georgia Tech suggests, accords on building and maintaining critical infrastructure -- the base of state, regional, national competitiveness.
Easy to do in a complex federal system? No. But there has to be a better formula than we have now. It’s obvious: this century is already too dangerous to keep sitting on our hands.
By Neal Peirce
Could there be a pattern here?
The San Diego and Los Angeles areas are hit by a raging series of high-impact wildfires -- the worst in the state’s history. Many of the blazes coincide with areas already scorched in 2003 by fires that themselves were declared California’s worst ever.
The San Diego and Los Angeles areas are hit by a raging series of high-impact wildfires -- the worst in the state’s history. Many of the blazes coincide with areas already scorched in 2003 by fires that themselves were declared California’s worst ever.
But is there any move to move homes away from the areas where a century of firefighting has left many forests choked and overgrown, thick underbrush creating tinder-box conditions? Apparently not. Most homeowners vow that they’ll stay in the fire-prone areas, or return to rebuild on the charred foundations of their former homes.
Across the continent, “exceptional drought” -- the National Weather Service’s worst category -- impacts Georgia and its neighboring states. Water levels fall so drastically in Lake Lanier, the 38,000-acre North Georgia reservoir that supplies water to almost 5 million people, that the lake may dip into its storage capacity dregs in less than four months.
But Georgia limps along without a state water plan. No one wants to talk about water rationing. In suburban rings around Atlanta, sprouting new subdivisions don’t have to prove a long-term water source before developers plunge into construction.
“We’re growing faster than our water resources. We have a shortage, not only in drought, but when it’s raining,” says Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin. A stiffer assessment comes from Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.): “Georgia has been sleepwalking. The Atlanta region has the most rapid growth rate in the history of urbanization. But Georgia’s never done an assessment of its water capacity.”
In California, there’s praise for the professionalism of last week’s fire-fighting effort. President Bush rushed to send federal firefighters, aircraft, grants for temporary housing and repairs, plus funding to clean up debris.
But the myopia about the future seems profound. Climate change is already having an apparent impact, with a 1 degree Fahrenheit temperature rise across the West. “Megafires” are sprouting; fire seasons far longer than just 20 years ago.
Natural watersheds, warned California Forestry Director Ruben Grijalva last June, are being seriously encroached. With baby boomers and others constructing large houses up and over the canyons, man-made structures and paved surfaces are expanding rapidly, increasing surface runoff during storms. That leads, in turn, to more soil erosion and less water for trees or vegetation. The inevitable result: more fires, whether intentional or accidental.
Plus, the raging fires themselves release significant quantities of greenhouse gases. Smarter land use planning for the fire-prone areas tops Grijalva’s list of solutions. But instead, notes Bill Fulton of Solimar Research in Ventura, “We Californians are trying to fireproof ourselves” by building houses with buffers and fire-retardant construction materials. Press attention last week focused on how that tactic actually protected some subdivisions. Though Fulton notes the obvious: smart land use planning is an infinitely superior solution; “subdivisions in highly flammable forests don’t make much sense.”
And it’s not just a California problem. This year, Idaho and Utah have seen their largest wildfires in the last 50 to 100 years: Arizona, Colorado and Oregon registered their record years in 2002, and Texas in 2006, Tom Swetnam, a University of Arizona-based scientist, told a congressional hearing last week. Over 8 million acres of forest and shrub have burned across the West this year, second largest number in history, behind 2006.
There’s now a “flame zone” of states suffering persistent drought and susceptibility to faster, hotter, more erratic wildfires, intensified by global warming, says Blumenauer.
Repeatedly, he notes, Congress faces calls for disaster supplemental funds. “Our hearts go out every time. But it’s really governmental malpractice,” he insists, whether the issues are fires, floods, reinsuring homes on constantly pounded barrier islands or letting people relocate in New Orleans’ low-lying, hurricane-prone Ninth Ward. “We never seem to tie the pieces of causation and prevention together.”
And it’s all but sure to get worse, he notes, with rising temperatures and an expected 100 million more Americans by 2043. “Government has promised more than nature can deliver; we’re using our resources to protect a status quo that is not protectable.”
Assuming Blumenauer’s right, what to do? One possible idea: Congress could create a new set of federal watershed basin authorities, not to dictate to state and local governments but rather to sit down at the table with them to balance risk and investment. Negotiating, perhaps, reasonable levels of federal construction funding in return for state and local agreement to focus on prevention, careful planning, adaptation to the immutable forces of nature and climate change.
Including, Catherine Ross of Georgia Tech suggests, accords on building and maintaining critical infrastructure -- the base of state, regional, national competitiveness.
Easy to do in a complex federal system? No. But there has to be a better formula than we have now. It’s obvious: this century is already too dangerous to keep sitting on our hands.
RAPSU GENERAL MEMBERSHIP MEETING, NOVEMBER 1, 2007
Floyd Sklaver, docent of the Portland Art Museum, gave a very interesting review of the new exhibit by the printmaker, Chuck Close. His presentation included the various types of grids and media that Close used in his art work and a description of the process he used in producing his work. The exhibit runs through January 6, 2008. Floyd uses an interactive style that members enthusiastically respond to.
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