This is trying to be a photo of Portland's Waterfront Park in the early morning hours when the geese gather in large numbers to pack the lawn with goose turds. That's the Willamette River in the background flowing beneath the Marquam Bridge.
And it is that photo, but it's of very poor quality because my camera phone is a piece of junk. Maybe I need to "accidentally" drop it down a nice concrete stairwell soon so I'll be forced to get a replacement with a better camera.
The sun was nowhere to be seen over the 4th of July in Lincoln City, but I think the sun is overrated anyway. I'd rather stare at the sea even if I have to do so through a scroll of fog and mist.
Here's a recent photo of the newest cat in the house, Columbus. I still call him Cabbage right up until I pass out from how cute he is.
Gena the leopard gecko has blossomed into a beautiful teenage lizard.
Like all teenagers, she has a knack for getting herself into dramatic situations.
It's been a veritable coon's age since I last blogged upon the new cat, Columbus, and I thought it would be good to assure my six readers that the two cats are getting along swimmingly. Wilbur (shown here licking himself) has not only suffered Columbus to live, but has tutored him in the dark housecat arts of capturing, killing, and eating spiders; begging for yolks at the sight of hard-boiled eggs; upholding a strong sense of entitlement vis-a-vis canned cat food; chewing on houseplants; getting in the way of people's footfalls and then playing the aggrieved victim when he's kicked or stepped on; and generally sitting where he shouldn't and sleeping when he shouldn't.
The other cat news is that I don't call him "Columbus," but rather "Cabbage" or "Land Orca." Columbus remains his official name, but I recognize no authority that binds me to the use of that name.
So there he was, taking photographs during the javelin event, when he felt a sharp pain in his leg.
What could he do but keep taking photographs? And scream?
(via)
Andrew Sullivan and Wonkette have posted these additional photos (link, link) of Barack Obama's visit to Portland that gives some idea of the sheer scale of the crowd.
The cynical wag in me would say something like this: the people of Portland turned out in massive numbers to see Barack Obama, not wishing to miss an opportunity to see one of these racial minorities we've heard so much about. That cynical wag writes lame jokes that even Jay Leno would turn down and should keep away from this precious, precious blog.
Barack Obama: bigger than the Beatles in Portland.
Sigh. The cat's name shall be ... Columbus. Acting in his capacity as li'l Cheney, my son cast the deciding vote to break a 9-9 tie in favor of "Columbus," giving it a one-vote plurality over over "Get off the table." The winning cat name finished three votes ahead of my favorite, "Drake." I feel like the li'l Bernie Sanders of this cat-naming Senate -- full of conviction but born to the wrong hour of history.
The one vote margin of victory should stand as a ringing validation of all the things your civics teacher -- in my case, Wayne "Four Pockets" McCarty -- told you about the importance of voting: namely, that it is fucking futile. This was the clear subtext of what he/she read to you from the teacher's edition of the textbook in a dispirited, sleepy, possibly drunken monotone, and it was right.
Still, thanks for voting.
There are still several days of voting to go on the naming of the new cat, even as "Columbus" becomes more and more fixed.
I plan to attach the runner-up name to the dinosaur, so every vote counts. Vote early and vote often!
Tyler Cowen has touched off a vicious flame war with his musings on the virtues of taking photographs as a means of supplementing, if not prospectively constructing, memories. Andrew Sullivan responds:
Sometimes, being there, without mediation, without worrying about whether one day it will be forgotten, just being there is what matters. Life is now; and when we obsess about storing it for the future, we forget to experience it in the only way we truly can: in the present. [emphasis in original]From across the sea, Norm Geras responds to both Sullivan and Cowen:
[E]ven if it is true that recording the event - taking photos, taking notes - while you're there obliges you to pay attention in a way you otherwise might not, it doesn't always follow that your memory of it will be more vivid. The process of recording can itself get in the way of observing with full concentration. It can also happen that the record you have made itself becomes your memory of it, displacing images or aspects that might otherwise have remained with you.OK, OK, it's not a flame war at all, and there's nothing approaching viciousness. Sometimes I exaggerate for effect, other times simply because I can.
A whole new cat has been added to the household biomass, tentatively named "Columbus" by my son after his penchant for exploring his new habitation. I am holding out hope that we can edit that name with the passage of time, but I suppose it could be worse. "Blacky" or "Socks" would have been worse.
His ears are too big for his head, and his head is too big for his body. In short, I believe his ears are already fully-grown.
I hope he turns out to be as intelligent and perceptive as our previous tuxedo cat, Thelma. I think I hope that.
He's mercilessly adorable.
I demand that this clock tower (the Custom House Tower), now located in downtown Boston, be disassembled brick-by-brick and reassembled in Portland.
I demand it!
Boston is a beautiful city, especially when the weather cooperates.
Isn't it interesting that the non-specialist, generic, garden-variety prostitutes have their own designated entrance at the Massachussetts State House?
I am mortally certain I am the first person ever to turn that sign into a joke.
You can go whale-watching in Boston? I wouldn't have thought so, but yes you can. We got some really good looks at a small group of humpback whales we were harrassing with our whale-watching boat in the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary.
Whales are neat.
Skyline.
New Old South Church and a piece of the Public Library.
For once, the White House didn't lie! The infamous Cheney in mirrored sunglasses photograph doesn't depict Cheney drooling over a naked woman but over his own hand, which begs the question: for Dick Cheney, is the sight of a naked woman more or less erotically charged than the sight of his own hand? I am just asking.
So, to state the matter as plainly and dispassionately as possible: Dick Cheney is a despicable chickenhawk and a war criminal who [hearts] the sight of his own hand.
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I've gone and done it --- I've logobama'd myself.
Make your own Barack Obama style logo!
Bats like this one are dying en masse in the northeastern United States for unknown reasons. This could be very good news for midges, mosquitoes, and other flying insects that the bats hunt with such amazing grace. Oh, to have the power of sonar but for a day, adding it to our strong tendency to find patterns:At a more general level, humans are extraordinary open-ended pattern detectors, because we so compulsively inhabit the cognitive niche. Art plays with cognitive patterns at high intensity. The pleasure this generates is an essential part of what it is to be human and matters both at the individual level, for audiences and artists, and at the social level, for the patterns we share (in design, music, dance, and story). The pleasure art’s intense play with patterns affords compels our engagement again and again and helps shape our capacity to create and process pattern more swiftly. Perhaps it even helps explain the so-called Flynn effect, the fact—and it seems to be one—that IQs have risen with each of the last few generations: perhaps as a consequence of the modern bombardment of the high-density patterns of art through television, dvds, music and iPods, computer games, YouTube and the like.
Flynn effect notwithstanding, Noah Feldman appears to have spent too much time ignoring patterns and admiring Shariah and not enough time inquiring as to its legitimacy, as Noah Millman points out: Islamism in the Muslim world is a populist and reactionary movement. And populist reaction does not lead to his ideals of an enlightened clerisy that “checks” abuses of power. Literalism, obscurantism and pedantry are endemic features of populist, reactionary religion which is best understood as a feature of modernism rather than of traditionalism. One of the ways that fundamentalism, a reactionary response to modernism, absorbs modernism is by subverting traditional meritocratic authority – thus, preachers will appeal to the lowest-common-denominator believer by appeals to prejudice and simplistic interpretations, and authority is increasingly derived not from expertise (evaluated by other experts) but by authenticity (as perceived by the crowd).
The furtherance of Shariah is the furtherance of the rule of law? I call batshit.
It is not my business how George W. Bush celebrates Easter. It is not my business how he and his wife dress up to celebrate Easter. It is not my business if the person in the bunny costume is Laura Bush. It is not my business if George W. Bush is sober in his private moments with someone in a bunny costume. It is not my business if the photographer framed this photo this way to hide the fact, if it is a fact, that George W. Bush is not wearing pants.
It's not my business.
(H/T Portland Mercury)
