No, Thursday's Out....

I ran into a former dance class friend at the grocery store last week, and asked what she was up to.  “Nothing,” she said. I asked if she had been dancing anywhere. She said, “Not yet. COVID. And the flu.” Turns out she lives with her mom. Neither of them has had COVID, nor the flu. And she believes this is because they go nowhere, do nothing. I sympathized, “Oh, is your mom not able to get vaccinated?” She said, “There IS no vaccine.” Ah. Mostly, I wanted to get my potato and go home. But I wanted to be cordial, so I asked what she meant. She meant that people who got vaccinated still got COVID. She didn’t care about “mild” versus “severe.” Besides, the bug was constantly mutating. It was such a flashback. I’d forgotten about that brief stretch when we thought a COVID “vaccine” meant something that would protect us completely. After a bit more discussion, we parted amicably. But I’ve been thinking about her and her mom.   I hope they are equally happy holed u...

The most-audited class at Portland State is Geology of the National Parks, taught by Prof. Emeritus Scott Burns.  I read an article about it a year ago, but it’s offered only Spring term, so I couldn’t take it until now. Most-audited means that National Parks has more Senior Adult Learners (people over 65, who can take one class per term FREE) than any other class. There are also way more auditors than Geology students. Out of 50 or 60 people, only ten took the midterm (that’s real students plus a few auditors who take midterms even when they don’t have to.(Not me.))     When he is lecturing, Prof. Burns will look into the room and say, “It’s all basalt to you,” and then he will focus in on one of the real students and say, “But to YOU, it’s (this type of basalt, or that type).”   And he is a total enthusiast, throwing slides onto the screen and saying, “Beautiful! Just beautiful!” He plays rock music that talks about “rock,” which is to say, he tells Geology Dad...

You may recall Rep. Andrew Clark (R-Georgia), who described the January 6 assault on the Capitol as “a normal tourist visit.”    But over four days in DC last week,   Rick and I (and we do identify as normal tourists) could not find a single “Storm the Capitol” tour, not open admission, not timed entry, not reserved tickets, nothing. I’m going with those who called Clark’s comment a “bold faced” lie, that “gravely contradicts” the events of the day. ( Okay, just to quibble, I prefer “bald faced,” which is still the most popular term, but apparently “bold faced” and “bare faced” are catching up.) I mean, there are some photos of Clark barricading the door against rioters, which I hope he doesn't do for normal tourist groups.  The tourists we did see were admirable, friendly, charming – little families, big tour groups, solemn veterans, bellowing grade school teachers (“If you FEED the ducks they become LESS WILD, and that puts them in DANGER!”), frolicsome teens. ...

The 1,000th Wordle Word was not “SCROD.”  You probably didn’t try it. But I did, because as soon as I pulled the word “scrod” out of the dim recesses of my memory, I realized it was five letters long. Such are the times we live in.  As it had five letters, I had to know if Wordle believed in it. Was SCROD even a thing? It was! It wasn’t the answer, but the New York Times had heard of it! Scrod came up because we are headed to the East Coast in a bit, and we were trying to think of things we could eat there that we can’t get in foodie Portland (where one can get almost anything). I recalled that my Grandma Celia – who lived in Brookline, Massachusetts, and who I met a bare handful of times - had once confessed she was partial to a nice piece of scrod.   Since I had never seen scrod out here, perhaps it was a regional delicacy. Rick said, “What’s scrod?” I said it was a fish. Rick asked what type of fish, thereby driving me into the arms of Wikipedia. And it’s not a f...

I had high hopes, after the Oregon Senate passed bill 1583, that our fair state would outlaw the banning of school library books for discriminatory reasons (discussions of race, two penguin daddies, and so forth). But my hopes were dashed when Republicans in the Oregon House let the bill  stall out  in committee.  And that's it. The bill doesn't wait until the next session, it just dies.  One argument against 1583 was that since it passed on party lines in the Senate, it shouldn't do the same in the House, because then people in red school districts would feel it had been shoved down their throats by blue folks.  Wow. I don't recall worrying about party-line votes much when the other party was in the majority.  Also, we are apparently supposed to feel good that, when 36 titles were challenged in Canby , only one was eventually banned: Lolita. I realize Lolita has been banned all over the world. It's shocking. Yet somehow, the moms who challenged it (and Bel...

The old household desktop, which lives in the kitchen, is where Rick watches a lot of hobby videos, sans headphones. They are mostly about woodworking, hunting, fishing and the like. Most of the narrators are male, and I assume most of the audience is too. I generally tune them out, but some get interrupted by VERY LOUD ads, such that the other day I heard an angry male voice in the kitchen shouting, “WHY does everybody wear ponchos, when THEY DON’T DO ANYTHING???!?!?!?” I jumped, and then thought, Geez, we yell about the oddest stuff now. Also, I am one of everybody, and I do not own – or wear - a poncho. I wanted to nominate the poncho phrase for inclusion in The Living Dictionary under “begging the question,” because I know that “begging the question” is not the same as “raising the question.” But then I did a little Googling. The false premise - the “Why does everybody (do something everybody doesn’t do)” part of the poncho comment – apparently does not qualify as begging...

From the Pew Research people, this week, 71% of Americans believe that "their side" is losing. Theories: 1) This is because it is human nature to notice When We Are in the Slow Line, but to fail to notice When We Are in the Fast Line.  We expect to win (or at least to tie), and it doesn't get our attention. But being at a disadvantage is a sign of vulnerability - the hungry saber-tooth-tigers are circling just beyond the campfire light! Eeek!! 2) This is because we Americans are the pawns of (fill in the blank: social media, Fox, merchants of outrage of one stripe or another) who only TALK ABOUT when we are in the slow line, in order to keep us all riled up, because outrage attracts eyeballs, reposts, etc. 3) (variation on 2, or on both of the above) We just like being upset and self-pitying. 4) We all have different definitions of losing. (So? This one doesn't seem to explain much. I am tossing it out there in case you have some brilliant analysis that I didn't i...