Persuasion, Perseverance, and Patience

• The LO/KPOJ "Lost Limerick Challenge"

  This morning's Oregon news limericks, as written by me, read by quizmaster TJ of Loaded Orygun, and answered by Carl, Christine, and Paul on the KPOJ 620AM's Carl + Christine show, are posted at LO.
  
  And I could be wrong about this--time was short, so things went by [...]
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  Posted: November 30, 2009, 9:59am EST
  

• This week's StS is up

  The weekly round of up All the Oregon News That Fits TM is posted at Loaded Orygun.
  
  Where were you when the E.coli news broke last night?
  
  In the zone?
  Across the river from the zone?
  Nowhere near the zone and wondering what the BFD is about?
  [...]
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  Posted: November 29, 2009, 5:09pm EST
  

• Sunday morning toons: Special "Edward Everett Horton-est" edition

  What are you thankful for this week? For some suggestions, let's jump into Daryl Cagle's toon round-up.
  
  p3 Picks of the Week: Mike Luckovich, R. J. Matson, John Darkow, Michael Ramierz, Steve Sack, Henry Payne, Adam Zyglis, Milt Priggee, [...]
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  Posted: November 29, 2009, 7:00am EST
  

• The unforgiving minute

  
  Overheard last night:
  
  
  If you could get a translator to follow Brandon around, and translate what Brandon says into what Brandon is trying to say . . . it'd blow Shakespeare out of the water!
  Minute's up.' [...]
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  Posted: November 28, 2009, 2:37pm EST
  

• Saturday tunes: "Here's how to be an agreeable chap"

  From 1967, Dusty Springfield sings the original High Maintenance Woman's Anthem:
  
  
  [...]
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  Posted: November 28, 2009, 11:36am EST
  

• Happy birthday to one of the most trusted journalists in America

  For many people, simply replacing laddie-boy wannabe Craig Kilbourn as host of "The Daily Show" would have been service enough. But not Jon Stewart. That's not an achievement to rest on--it's an achievement to build on.
  
  The moment when all doubt was removed regarding Stewart's value to America:
  
  [...]
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  Posted: November 28, 2009, 10:03am EST
  

• If you're reading this on your personal device while standing in line somewhere for Black Friday

  . . . then this advice is reaching you too late. Sorry.
  
  [...]
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  Posted: November 27, 2009, 9:28am EST
  

• "It was almost as if they were . . . organized!

  "Alice's Restaurant" is still a tradition around here for today, but on the p3 Thanksgiving dinner table of media, this remains the free-range turkey and home-made dressing.
  
  [...]
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  Posted: November 26, 2009, 7:53am EST
  

• Oceania has never been at war with Eurasia. Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.

  Ladies and gentlemen, former Bush press secretary--and, as of this week, Obama appointee to the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which is responsible for all non-military US government's international broadcasting, such as Voice of America, TV Marti, Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia--Dana Perino, explaining to the world that [...]
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  Posted: November 25, 2009, 6:51pm EST
  

• Adjust your metaphors accordingly

  When Lou Dobbs began hinting he might run for president, my friend, colleague, and longtime p3 correspondent Doctor TV invoked the "First Turn at the Indy 500" principle (first developed for the prospect of a Rick Santorum presidential run) as a reason for throwing five bucks to his [...]
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  Posted: November 25, 2009, 9:22am EST
  

• Packing a lot of chewy conservative goodness into 16 words

  This morning, the Crooks and Liars blog page has an ad for a front group called Generation Hope:
  
  
  Two things struck me about this ad. First, it describes the USPS as run by "Government Bureaucrats;" second, by implication it invites the reader to [...]
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  Posted: November 24, 2009, 10:58am EST
  

• The LO/KPOJ "Lost Limerick Challenge"

  This morning's Oregon news limericks, as written by me, read by quizmaster TJ of Loaded Orygun, and answered by Carl, Christine, and Paul on the KPOJ 620AM's Carl + Christine show, are posted at LO.
  
  And here's an extra one, for p3 readers. Fill in the blank with [...]
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  Posted: November 23, 2009, 9:58am EST
  

• The unforgiving minute

  
  Seriously. I ask you.
  
  Where could Rupert Murdoch find someone whose notions about innovation and the internet are sufficiently retrograde to make them worthy of partnering with him and the News Corp?
  
  Oh yeah. Here.
  
  Minute's up.' [...]
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  Posted: November 23, 2009, 6:23am EST
  

• Sunday morning toons: Special "Cold War revisited" edition.

  [Updated: See "Have a nice day, okay then!" below.]
  
  Today is the 46th anniversary of the assassination of JFK. Tomorrow will be the 46th anniversary of the broadcast of "An Unearthly Child," the first episode of "Doctor Who." (It was four episodes long, the story was about cavemen, and [...]
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  Posted: November 22, 2009, 11:59am EST
  

• Saturday tunes: I want to be the one to walk in the sun

  26 years later, this song still cracks me up.
  
  [...]
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  Posted: November 21, 2009, 3:08pm EST
  

• Hope and despair

  Saturday, 10:10am: Coming home from Farmer's Market, I realized my front tire was low. This is the tube I bought in a vulnerable moment from The Bike Shop We Do Not Name. First time I'd been in there since a bad experience about 6 years ago. The presta valve has [...]
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  Posted: November 21, 2009, 2:28pm EST
  

• The unforgiving minute

  What Katha Pollitt said:
  
  Hey, Peter [Beinart], Representative Stupak and your sixty-four Democratic supporters, Jim Wallis and other antichoice "progressive" Christians, men: why don't you take one for the team for a change and see how you like it?
  
  For example, budget' [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 10:54am EST
  

• Quote of the day

  Tim Fernholz at TAPPED, on conservatives' complaint that everything they don't like is "socialism:"
  
  When unemployment eventually does lead to revolutionaries actually seizing the means of production, will the GOP be at a loss for words? [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 9:43am EST
  

• A sudden roar in the open sky--

  A streak of gray and a cheerful "Hi!"
  A loop! A whirl! A vertical climb!
  And once again you know it's time--
  For Rocky and his friends!
  This is a true story:
  
  Back around 1989-1990, a friend and I found out that six VHS tapes of Rocky and [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 11:11pm EST
  

• On gibberish

  Laugh if you want, but this is something I've actually wondered about.
  
  Pretty much all English-speaking Americans know how to make gibberish in other languages--not to be understood, but simply to indicate to the other person that we're pretending to speak a specific foreign language rather than, say, undergoing [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 3:23pm EST
  

• Clemens to Puzo to Blount: A triple-play of American letters

  Who knew that one of the classic lines in "The Godfather" was cribbed from Mark Twain?
  
  In an essay from the early 1980s, Roy Blount, Jr., describes touring Mark Twain's "High Victorian Gothic dream house" at 351 Farmington Avenue, in Hartford, Connecticut:
  
  Nineteen mostly crepuscular but [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 12:10pm EST
  

• The LO/KPOJ "Lost Limerick Challenge"

  This morning's Oregon news limericks, as written by me, read by quizmaster TJ of Loaded Orygun, and answered by Carl, Christine, and Paul on the KPOJ 620AM's Carl + Christine show, are posted at LO.
  
  And we wound up once again with extra limerick, so you can play [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 10:38am EST
  

• Sunday afternoon toons: Special "Jedi mind trick" edition

  What I told you was true... from a certain point of view.
  
  (Obi-Wan Kenobe, explaining to
  Luke Skywalker why he had lied
  to him about his father's death)
  
  In the Jedi spirit, the following statements about this week's p3 toon review are also true:
  
  America honors its [...]
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  Posted: November 15, 2009, 1:00pm EST
  

• Saturday tunes: "A worrisome thing"

  
  
  I've heard her nephew is somewhat talented too.
  
  ' [...]
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  Posted: November 14, 2009, 11:25am EST
  

• If only he'd been Mr. Fee-Fi-Fo that day, or Billy Banana or Aunt Yoohoo instead of Peter Peanut

  Last week saw the death of TV writer David Lloyd who, during the 70s, 80s, and 90s, Lloyd wrote award-winning episodes for . . . well, hell, damned near everybody
  
  Mr. Lloyd was an astonishingly productive writer by series television standards, not only generating scripts on his [...]
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  Posted: November 13, 2009, 5:27pm EST
  

• The unforgiving minute

  A brief history of the wall of separation:
  
  John F. Kennedy, 1960: The separation of church and state is absolute. My church will not dictate my policy decisions.
  
  Mitt Romney 2008: The separation of church and state is relative. My church will dictate [...]
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  Posted: November 13, 2009, 11:56am EST
  

• After all the harm he's done, why draw the line there?

  I'm not going to become a Fan of the Facebook page called "If Joe Lieberman filibusters health care, I will donate to his opponent." (It was started on the 9th of November and this morning it says it has 13,000 pledgers, and an estimated $650,000 in pledges.)
  
  I'm waiting [...]
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  Posted: November 13, 2009, 10:28am EST
  

• A year later, and "push" predictions were pretty much spot-on

  Here's a bit from a p3 post from a year ago this week:
  
  How far to the left or the right will Obama govern?
  
  The answer, which I consider especially smart even by Digby standards, since I've been saying much the same thing since last spring: Obama [...]
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  Posted: November 12, 2009, 8:43am EST
  

• Portland and Portland Metro-West Drinking Liberally meet this week

  (Update: The Corvallis chapter meets Wednesday night, 11/11--see below for details.)
  
  (I still mainly associate with the Portland and Portland Metro-West chapters, but since I moved upstairs last winter, from Portland chapter host to field organizer for OR, WA, AK, and HI, I'm trying to work out' [...]
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  Posted: November 10, 2009, 1:27pm EST
  

• "If the allies weren't here the Wall would be gone by now."

  Circa 1963:
  
  "We can't give covering fire. That's the truth. They tell us there'd be war if we did."
  
  "It's nonsense," said the younger policeman, emboldened by the whiskey. "If the allies weren't here the Wall would be gone by now."
  
  "So would Berlin," muttered the elder' [...]
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  Posted: November 09, 2009, 3:43pm EST
  

• The LO/KPOJ "Lost Limerick Challenge"

  This morning's Oregon news limericks, as written by me, read by quizmaster TJ of Loaded Orygun, and answered by Carl, Christine,and Paul on the KPOJ 620AM Morning Show, are posted at LO.
  
  Fill in the blank in this law-and-order limerick with the word or phrase from this week's [...]
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  Posted: November 09, 2009, 10:29am EST
  

• Sunday morning toons: Special "Re-Imagining Mickey" edition

  This week's toon review covers a wide range: Remembering those who died at Fort Hood, the endgame for health care reform, Iran, Afghanistan, and some sort of week-long athletic competition that ended a couple of days ago. Plus another dose of classic animation history.
  
  As (almost) always, let's start [...]
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  Posted: November 08, 2009, 7:00am EST
  

• The unforgiving minute

  Good news! Health care reform won't prevent women from access to legal abortions*
  
  *If you happen to be Meghan McCain or one of the Bush twins.
  
  Otherwise, barring a miracle, no, not really.
  
  Minute's up. [...]
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  Posted: November 07, 2009, 1:48pm EST
  

• Saturday tunes: Want to give a concert pianist the willies?

  Sneak up behind them and whisper, "Rachmaninoff's third piano concerto."
  
  This is the first part of the first movement, marked allegro ma non friggin' troppo." After this it gets a lot nastier.
  
  This is a 1978 performance by Vladimir Horowitz, who first recorded the Third in 1930 and" [...]
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  Posted: November 07, 2009, 9:00am EST
  

• Remember, remember:

  
  
  [...]
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  Posted: November 05, 2009, 7:00am EST
  

• The LO/KPOJ "Lost Limerick Challenge"

  We have a double challenge today, but that has to wait for some important business:
  
  First of all, we're proud to induct Congressman Earl Blumenauer into the Hall of Mighty Oregon Political Poets. Congratulations and welcome, Congressman--coffee and sandwiches on the side table.
  
  This morning's Oregon news [...]
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  Posted: November 02, 2009, 10:00am EST
  

• Eggheads of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your yolks!*

  When I interviewed for a faculty position at the U of O, 'way back in the day, I pointed out that the salary was noticeably less than what I was making at the university where I was working (another public university of similar size), and noticeably less than the national' [...]
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  Posted: November 01, 2009, 7:58pm EST
  

• Sunday morning toons: Special "What will you do with your extra hour?" edition

  Last night (or this morning, or perhaps after you read this and remember), most of us set our clocks back, giving us an extra hour. We asked several of the people in this week's toon news round-up how they'd use that extra hour:
  
  Joe Lieberman will use it to [...]
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  Posted: November 01, 2009, 10:47am EST
  

• No!

  No sun--no moon!
  No morn--no noon!
  No dawn--no dusk--no proper time of day--
  No sky--no earthly view--
  No distance looking blue--
  No road--no street--no "t'other side this way"--
  No end to any Row--
  No indications where the Crescents go--
  No top to any steeple--
  No recognitions of familiar people--
  No' [...]
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  Posted: November 01, 2009, 12:01am EDT