Friday, April 30, 2010

Ruh-Roh!




















Watched the testimony on McNeil Lehrer last night before bed, and was struck by the whole High School Student Council aspect of the elected representatives grilling the 'smart kids'. Both sides of the table were condescending. Sheesh. The Blankfein photo sent me to the imagetubes for a familiar face. Need to darken those eyebrows!

From Valerie MacEwan:

Greenfield dismisses the unflattering analogies that liken Washington to an "elitist men's club; a recklessly run business; and a den of every know public and private vice, including lechery, larceny, pride, sloth, dissembling, and, above all, the lust for acquiring power and wielding it cruelly and carelessly" and chooses instead to compare Washington to high school. Nobody, Greenfield claims, ever gets over high school, a "preeminently nervous place." The basic social codes, those which define the imperatives for acceptance and popularity, consists of strict confines created to assure one's capacity to please and to "be associated with the right people" as well as to "impress and be admired by the vast, undifferentiated rest."

Greenfield justifies her comparison:

Now consider this settlement's profoundly high school nature. It is psychologically fenced off from the larger community within which it makes its home, free--like irresponsible youth--of all but the minimal obligations of citizenship to that community, and absorbed to the exclusion of all else in its own eccentric aims and competitions. And the high-school-like feel political/governmental Washington takes on by virtue of all of this is intensified by certain givens of its existence... One is the only-passing-through nature of so much time spent here...

She goes on, describing the terms "underscoring the fixed period of time for which people in both the legislative and executive branches have been sent to do their jobs," comparing the vacation schedules of Washington to a high-school academic year, and finishes her justification with the ultimate comparison -- freshmen and senior status.

Washington dissects the media, the politician, "the policy dingdongs on the seventh floor" and the social elite.




Thursday, April 29, 2010

Multnomah Falls




Tim Yuan in town for business, we got together for dinner - Thai Noodle a la Brian - then drove out to Multnomah Falls to do something touristy. The Gorge was great, windy, blustery, and rainy by the time we returned to Portland, but lots of bright sunbreaks before the sun set. Welcome to Oregon!

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

子曰


知之为知之,不知为不知,是知也。


Thursday, April 15, 2010

Friday, April 9, 2010

Shreiking Harpys
















This screen shot from Mock Paper Scissors, sent me to look for these on the imagetubes.























Here is the video from Crooksandliars. I could only listen to a few seconds of the noise.


Cat Boys Pictures, Images and Photos

Sean doesn't look too happy in this picture.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Fort Stevens Job Interview





Interviewed for Park Ranger position at Ft. Stevens State Park today. Went really well. They'd be silly not to hire me. Then went for a long bike ride on the beach, but found no glass floats. Did find pumice and surpentine. Saw crows, red shaft flicker, juncos, golden eagle, cerlews, gulls, jays, and mosquitos, and heard frogs. Driving back to Astoria, I stopped to get a picture of a heron. Flew away as I snapped the shutter.



Monday, April 5, 2010

Thich Nhat Hanh












Let us live [so] that all living beings realize that they are all brothers and sisters, all nourished from the same source of life.

Let us live that [so] that we ourselves cease to be the cause of suffering to ach other.

Let us … live in a way which will not deprive other living beings of air, water, food, shelter, or the chance to live.

With humility, with awareness of the exiatance of life and of suffering that are going on around us, let us live for the establishment of peace in our hearts and on earth.


I edited out the verb ‘pray’, and replaced with ‘live”. boc