OFF TO WATCH BIRDS

Snow Geese (actually taken in Vermont, photo from www.marksbirdtours.com, but we will be seeing some of these birds tomorrow and Friday!) We like to go birdwatching, so we're heading south a few hours, to the area around Burns, Oregon to take in some of the spring migration. Some of the other birdlife we are likely to see:


American Avocet (www.gorp.away.com)


Cinnamon Teal (www.dneilsonphoto.com)

LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD

Little Red Riding Hood is skipping down the road when she sees the big bad wolf crouched down behind a log.

"My, what big eyes you have, Mr. Wolf."

The wolf jumps up and runs away.

Further down the road Little Red Riding Hood sees the wolf again and this time he is crouched behind a bush.

"My what big ears you have, Mr. Wolf."

Again the wolf jumps up and runs away.

About two miles down the road Little Red Riding Hood sees the wolf again and this time he is crouched down behind a rock.

"My what big teeth you have Mr. Wolf."

With that the wolf jumps up and screams, "Will you knock it off!!? I'M TRYING TO POOP!!!"

BAD POETRY FOR YOU

My daughter is traveling to France.
I hope we've left nothing to chance...
She's disorganized,
And not worldly wise;
Her parents are crapping their pants.

I'll transport my darling young flower
To Portland - we'll leave in an hour.
She'll be there for Sunday,
Her group leaves on Monday;
On a jet airplane she will cower.

She doesn't like flying in planes.
When she gets there it's likely to rain.
It sure won't be funny:
She sure burns through her money...
It's fiscal good sense she disdains.

At least she'll be there with a group
To eat her frog legs and snail soup.
But my nerves are all jangled,
My stomach feels strangled...
So worried I think I will poop.

She'll only be gone for eight days
And I'm sure we will all be amazed:
She'll return from the east,
She will be in one piece,
She'll owe her friends money... we'll pay.

There once was a man from La Grande,
Who at an old urinal did stand.
The wall said, "I fear
The joke isn't here!
Look down, the joke's in your hand!"

Tonight I'll eat dinner with friends
At a place where the beer never ends
By the end of the night
I should be quite a sight;
And I'll wish I was wearing Depends.

And so, to you dear faithful few,
For two days I bid you adieu.
Tonight: drowning fears
In some pitchers of beers,
I'll be back sometime Monday. Whoo-hoo!

FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO WERE WONDERING....

J. Marquis has started a new weblog, entitled "Major Conflict". This replaces the now-departed "Are We There Yet?", a much beloved blog for all time.

Stop by and check out "Major Conflict"! It's great!

I have also considered doing something like what J. has done. I've even considered doing a blog that doesn't involve politics at all, but I'm not sure I could easily pull that off. Anyway, change can be a good thing for all of us once in a while, so...

While I don't have the guts to totally change my weblog yet, I have changed its name. But only for today!

Cheers!

IRAQ: IT'S FINALLY STARTING TO MAKE SENSE

I have always believed that the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) crap Bu$hCo feeds America (and the rest of the world) isn't just about oil, but is rather about empire. When I read the following article (see link below) and looked at the graphic that shows where our military bases are in the areas adjacent to Iran, a major reason for our presence in Iraq comes into clearer focus. I think Bush and friends might like for us to keep thinking about the Iraq War being all about oil, and keep talking like those are the real reasons for our troops being in Iraq. I think that if we focus on oil as a reason, some of the worst truths aren't as evident. Not until we look at a map such as the following, anyway:

The AP graphic demonstrates very clearly where our major facilities are located. Guess which country we sorta surround? When you read the article, you will learn that these permanent military bases the U.S. is building in Iraq include such amenities as bus service, car dealers, and Burger King. Looks like we are there to stay.

Oil seems to be a very nice side benefit of the master plan, anyway...

Some conservatives, like Ronald Dumsfeld, like to compare the current Iraq war to earlier wars in which the U.S. has been involved. Well, here's yet another way World War II might be very different from the Iraq War: with WWII, didn't we build most of our military facilities in Europe AFTER the war? Looks like we're building some permanent facilities in Iraq DURING the Iraq War and gearing up for something much bigger which we plan to take on AFTER Iraq. Like, a military takeover of the entire Middle East, maybe?

And I don't think I'm just being paranoid here:

http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11072377/

MARCH MADNESS

QUICK NOTE FROM A PROUD DAD

This weekend Kit, Kelly and I went to Portland to watch Katie (my 17-year-old high school junior) participate at the state championships with her mock trial team. There were 20 teams in all, with schools of different sizes there. The La Grande team went up against 19 other teams, and finished in the 5th-7th range out of the 20 teams. In their three rounds, they faced larger schools from West Linn, West Salem and Grants Pass. Grants Pass finished fourth; GP is a town which I think has about 25,000 people nowadays, and about 40,000 in its area. The schools which finished 1st through 3rd were all from the Portland metro area. The event is run by a group called the Classroom Law Project, and all participating teams are trying the same case.

Katie did a great job as her team's star witness. She didn't crack under intensive questioning from a couple of pretty good student prosecutors.

If all the team members return next year, La Grande definitely has a shot at the top four; the team has only one senior. He will be missed, but there a couple of young women who are sophomores, and they did wonderful work giving opening and closing arguments.

Snave is a proud daddy. This is the first time any Evans (or anyone from Kit's half of our family, for that matter) has ever made it to a state tournament in anything, ever! Having one of our daughters compete as well as she did against tough competition makes me glow all over.

Katie is more interested in mock trial for the acting opportunities than she is for experience toward entering the world of law, but who knows what next year will bring!

GOP MYTHS MIGHT BE GOOD FOR THE CONSERVATIVES TO SMOKE IN THEIR PIPES

GOP myths might be good for the conservatives to put in their pipes and smoke. As Bush continues to fail, Americans are realizing more and more that much of the bullcrap getting fed to us by the right wing really is just that...

bullcrap!

Considering other recent poll results similar to the ones below, I submit the following as evidence which may support my assertions:




These latest poll results are, in part, from that bastion of liberalism, The Wall Street Journal. I am sure they asked left-leaning questions and tried to make Bush look as bad as they could. If nothing else, The Journal must have provided some "fairness and balance" in the face of the undoubted bald-faced liberal questioning by the minions of NBC.

But awwww, why do they have to report this kind of stuff? We should be feeling sorry for Dubya. He needs our support at a time when our country is at war! Heh... That's what John McCain seems to think, anyway, based on what he said at the recent GOP straw poll. The guy is a real joker.

Anyway, Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart and Republican Bill McInturff conducted this NBC/WSJ survey.

From Mark Murray, NBC News (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11843383/):

"According to the poll — which was taken of 1,005 adults from March 10-13, and which has a margin of error of plus-minus 3.1 percentage points — 61 percent disapprove of Bush’s handling of the situation. Moreover, 57 percent are less confident that the war in Iraq will come to a successful conclusion, which is a seven-point increase since December. And 61 percent say the United States should reduce the number of troops there, while just 31 percent want to maintain the current troop level. "

"Republican pollster McInturff puts it this way: 'It is hard to pivot … when every day the core decision in your presidency is Iraq” — and the situation there appears grim.'"

"Looking ahead to the midterm elections in November, the poll shows that 50 percent prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress versus 37 percent who want it controlled by Republicans.

McInturff says it’s a “problematic environment” for the Republicans. 'You are working harder as a Republican [candidate] because you are pushing uphill.'"

"But Republicans still have some advantages — beyond their campaign cash and the small number of competitive races this fall —that could benefit them in November. In the poll, they hold the advantage over Democrats on Iraq and homeland security. (However, Democrats have the edge on health care, the economy, taxes and ethics in government.)"

Snave's notes:

Ya hear that?

People seem to think the Democrats have the edge on ethics in government! Now THAT's something all the "moral values" crowd should put in their pipes and smoke.

Democrats are also perceived as having the edge in the economy and (gasp) TAXES... ! This may suggest a tendency for people to think the GOP is mismanaging things, and that maybe the fiscal conservatives should put their "Democrats are wasteful big spenders" crap in their pipes and smoke that, too. Same with the "tax cuts" stuff.

The "liberal media" mantra is also quite smokeable... especially considering that a right-wing publication co-polled Americans to get the above 37% "approval" rating.

If voters continue to wake up to the realization that the Bush administration and its spin machine control large groups of voters by lying to them outright, and by making them afraid, they might get wise to the tactics and get tired of it all. How does the word "backlash" sound? It especially sounds nice when it's GOP backlash against a GOP administration!

Also... shouldn't it be called a "disapproval rating" if less than half the respondents approve of the POTUS? Just wondering.

Sure I'm being a real snot here, but I'm just in a pissy mood this evening. Hope you're enjoying it too! Heh...

I'M TIRED OF MY GENERATION TAKING SO MUCH FLACK

Thanks to David for the following:

Boomers: The Real Greatest Generation
Who contributed more -- the heroes of World War II or the revelers at Woodstock?

By Leonard Steinhorn
The Washington Post, Sunday, February 19, 2006

It makes the headlines nearly every day, and the tone is usually resentful: Beware of those soon-to-retire baby boomers, all 80 million of them, who are about to place a huge burden on the rest of us. The first of this whiny, entitled generation are turning 60 this year, and they'll be demanding even more special treatment in old age than they've gotten the rest of their lives.

But imagine if the generation getting ready to retire wasn't the baby boomers, but the World War II generation -- or the Greatest Generation, as it's popularly lionized. No one would be calling those Americans a burden or a drag. If they were retiring today, we'd be writing columns full of praise for their sacrifice and discussing what our nation owes them and how it's our moral duty to support them.

Why the different attitudes toward these two generations? Why is one idealized as heroic and giving, while the other is disdained as self-indulgent and taking? It's time to reassess. The true test of a generation should be what it's done to make America better. And in that regard, boomers have an important story to tell. It's a story about a more inclusive and tolerant America, about women's equality and men's growing respect for it, about an appreciation for cultural diversity too long denied, about a society that no longer turns a blind eye to prejudice or pollution.

The boomers' problem is not that they haven't accomplished a great deal; it's that we take their accomplishments for granted and don't give them any credit. But if we look more closely at the legacies of both the boomers and their parents, we might see that the boomers are a far more consequential group than many admit. We might see, in fact, that they have advanced American values in ways the Greatest Generation refused to do.

Today, no one questions what the World War II generation gave to America, and that's as it should be. Its members sacrificed their lives and futures to defend our country. They were heroes then, and they deserve our continuing gratitude. But the reality few acknowledge is that, mission accomplished, they returned home to preside, by and large without complaint, over an American society vastly inferior to the one we know today.

Our view of the 1950s is clouded by nostalgia. We have a Norman Rockwell image of that era, one of tightknit neighborhoods and white picket fences. But for too many Americans, this was no golden age. In the storied years of the 1950s, we told women to stay home, blacks to stay separate, gays to stay closeted, Jews to stay inconspicuous, and those who didn't conform or prayed to a different God to feel ashamed and stay silent.

Greatest Generation blacks who fought Hitler were forced to sit behind German POWs at USO concerts, and when they returned home the new suburban neighborhoods -- emblems of the American Dream -- were closed to them. Even baseball great Willie Mays couldn't find a house to buy when the Giants moved from New York to San Francisco in 1957 -- until the mayor intervened. Just as Jews anglicized names and decorated Christmas trees to fit in, blacks tried to straighten their hair and bleach their skin by using fiery, painful chemical products with names such as Black-No-More. For them there was nothing warm or nurturing about that era.

It was a time when men with beards seemed subversive and women in pants were questioned by police, and when the Organization Man ruled the workplace. Children thought to be gay were sent off for psychiatric treatment and even electroshock therapy. As for those who spoke up for the environment, they were irritants in a nation that was on the march and viewed smog alerts and clouds of soot as simply the price of progress.

Women of that era found themselves trapped in an apron. Want ads were segregated by sex -- a practice The Washington Post didn't end until 1971 -- and it wasn't unusual for a description of the perfect "girl" to be "5-foot-5 to 5-foot-7 in heels." Judges ridiculed female attorneys as "lawyerettes" in court. A woman's job didn't count for much, as credit bureaus typically denied women their economic independence.

The Greatest Generation largely accepted and defended this status quo. Even in the 1990s, polls showed Greatest Generation majorities continuing to resist racial intermarriage, working mothers and laws to protect gays from discrimination. Through the late 1980s, a majority of white respondents in national polls even said they would vote for a law allowing a homeowner to refuse to sell his home to a black buyer.

In other words, if most Greatest Generation Americans had their way, American life would have remained frozen in the '50s. They were not the agents of change that built the far more inclusive, tolerant, free and equal America we have today.

That task fell to the boomers, who almost immediately started breaking down the restrictive codes and repressive convictions of the Greatest Generation's era. From the moment pollsters began recording their attitudes in the 1960s, boomers stood diametrically opposed to their elders on the core issues of race, women, religious pluralism, homosexuality and environmental protection. They saw an America that was not living up to its ideals, and they set about to change it.

But this is a story that rarely gets told. In part that's because the media prefer the dramatic or the epic, which leaves out a great deal of social change. In part it's because we remain fixated on the '60s, as if boomer history ended there. Yet nearly four decades have passed since the '60s ended, and the ways in which America has changed are so far-reaching and fundamental that they have transformed how we live as profoundly as any war or New Deal.

Today, we see minorities and women contributing to society in ways that would have been unimaginable just a few decades ago. Diversity and pluralism are now moral values, bigotry and sexual harassment no longer get a free pass, and ethnic boundaries once considered impermeable are breaking down in media, society and personal relationships. Half of all teens now report across racial and ethnic lines -- and 90 percent say their parents have no problem with it.

Discrimination against gays? Increasingly prohibited. Domestic partner benefits? Increasingly accepted. Men sharing housework and child care duties? No more raised eyebrows. Toxic runoffs and belching smokestacks? No longer tolerated. The command and control workplace? On its way out.

So natural and comfortable are these new norms that most of us take them for granted, as if it's always been this way. Because we live in a changed America, we tend to forget what it was like before boomers agitated for change.

Boomer-bashing has become a virtual cottage industry. They're labeled "the worst generation." They're accused of infantilism and self-promotion. One Web site described them as "a plague of self-centered locusts."

Part of what drives this vitriol is an implied criticism that boomers are soft and overindulged because they never sacrificed in a Great War or Depression. But millions of boomers fought bravely in a war their parents handed them, and millions more risked arrest, uncertainty and ostracism for protesting what they believed to be the pointlessness and duplicity of that war. There's no reason to believe that boomers wouldn't have fought Hitler as nobly as their parents did, and boomer antiwar protesters said as much at the time, distinguishing between what they saw as the just and necessary war against fascism and the misguided, deceptive and morally ambiguous war in Vietnam.

As for the well-worn condemnation of boomer materialism, the truth is that materialism is nothing new in America, and boomers are far from the first and only generation to face this charge: It was conspicuous consumption in the 1920s and keeping up with the Joneses in the '50s.

Boomers certainly haven't solved all of society's problems, and they've created a few as well. But if we held the World War II generation to the same standard, the word "greatest" would never come to mind. Even if we're not a perfect America today, in so many ways we're a better America. And for that, we owe the baby boomers our thanks.

Snave's note: AMEN.

WHICH LEVEL OF HELL SUITS YOU BEST?

Take the test and find out! It's at http://www.4degreez.com/misc/dante-inferno-test.mv

I did, and apparently I am in the most danger of dwelling in Level 6 - The City of Dis:

"You approach Satan's wretched city where you behold a wide plain surrounded by iron walls. Before you are fields full of distress and torment terrible. Burning tombs are littered about the landscape. Inside these flaming sepulchers suffer the heretics, failing to believe in God and the afterlife, who make themselves audible by doleful sighs. You will join the wicked that lie here, and will be offered no respite. The three infernal Furies stained with blood, with limbs of women and hair of serpents, dwell in this circle of Hell."

Also, I will probably go to hell because I have committed all of the seven deadly sins, but my ratings for them are as follows, in order:

Sloth - very high
Gluttony - high
Lust - high
Greed - medium
Pride - medium
Wrath - low
Envy - low

Check up on your seven deadly sins at http://www.4degreez.com/misc/seven_deadly_sins.html

Thanks to my daughter Kelly for alerting me to these tests. She is in danger of dwelling in levels 5 and 7.

WHAT DOES IT REALLY MEAN?

No, not life... I'm not capable of thinking at such high levels at the moment.

I'm thinking more about all the opposition to Bush's Dubai port deal, especially that coming from within his own party.

Being cynical, especially when it comes to matters right-wing, I have to believe the GOP guys are doing some of what we all predicted a while back:

They are distancing themselves from the president so they will be electable in the fall. They see "national security" as an issue they have controlled since 9/11/01, and they don't want to lose out to the Democrats here, so... unlike the president, they are paying attention to the polls. America tends to think this ports deal is bad, so the GOP pols are doing what Americans seem to want them to do: oppose Dubya and the administration.

I believe they are doing the right thing. Even though it will ultimately steal some of the Democrats' thunder, the POTUS needs to be opposed in as many cases as possible. If he knows his own party doesn't think he's doing the right things, what can he possibly do to keep his power during his last 2+ years in office?

I shudder to think of the possibilities...

MY FAVORITE THINGS ABOUT THE OSCARS LAST NIGHT

These are more or less in order:

1. Ben Stiller's award presentation: it was so dumb I couldn't stop laughing. It was by far my favorite moment from the show.
2. The gay cowboy montage. Seeing all those old clips in a new light was well... enlightening!
3. "Crash" winning "best picture": it will give the rightwing talkers a LITTLE less to complain about today. Sorry to look at it that way, because all I hear about "Brokeback Mountain" is great. I look forward to seeing it this week, as it is actually here at our local theater! Anyway, I think the victory by "Crash" might actually allow for a little less gay-bashing today.
4. Steven Speilberg's reaction to Ben Stiller's suggestion that through Stiller's special effects he was blowing Spielberg away (the producer laughed and mouthed something to the effect of "No you're not!")
5. Numerous times when the audience seemed to be uncomfortable with Jon Stewart's humor. Too edgy? Nope, I'm sure most of them deserved to squirm. Let's bring him back to be master of ceremonies again next year.
6. George Clooney getting nominated for three awards, giving frank comments about leftists in Hollywood, and winning for "Syriana". I agree that Hollywood doesn't dictate what happens in American, but that it is rather a reflection of America.
7. Joaquin Phoenix only really smiling in about 10% of the instances he was on camera.
8. Philip Seymour Hoffman's acceptance speech was great, nervous and heartfelt.
9. Jon Stewart jokingly accusing Itzhak Perlman of "finger synching" on Perlman's violin-playing, and Perlman's bemused reaction.
10. Salma Hayek's dress. This probably should be somewhere farther up the list. I believe she has outstanding fashion sense.

There may have been other moments I have forgotten about, but all in all I actually kind of enjoyed the show this year. Usually I find it to be a real slog, but this year I found it more entertaining. Maybe that was due to Jon Stewart making things a bit less predictable.

HOLLYWOOD ROCKS!!

J. Marquis of "Are We There Yet?" makes an excellent comment over at his blog. Click on the link to get there. An excerpt:

"The conservatives need to put their money where their mouth is. Make a movie that condemns homosexuality. Make one about Roe v. Wade. Make one about why we need a military budget that equals the next 18 countries combined. I dare you."

I responded with the following comment there, which I have added to here:

Right on, J. You said it better than I ever could right there. They do love to talk about how we on the left whine and whine and never have any ideas about what to do to solve the problems we "whine" about. This is the way they are with Hollywood. They whine and whine and whine some more about how awful, how "liberal" Hollywood is, how filmmakers have a "queer agenda", etc. ad nauseum... but you are right: for all the money they have, they don't make movies, or at least they don't make good ones. I noticed when they pathetically attempted to counter "Fahrenheit 9-11" with their own slam on Michael Moore, and they titled it "Fahrenhype 9-11"... I'm pretty sure it was a straight-to-DVD release. I didn't watch it, but it sure looked like quickly-generated Bush-apologist claptrap, anyway... plus, it was relegated to the $1.99 bin pretty quickly. Of course Ahnold hasn't been making movies lately, although his antics could make a good plot for a black comedy of sorts. Anyway, they don't know how to effectively counter films like the ones Michael Moore makes. Instead, they counter with "fat jokes".

George Clooney was saying he doesn't believe Hollywood "drives" American culture as much as Hollywood's films are a reflection of America. I agree with him. Filmmakers want to take on issues that are challenging, they want to stimulate thought, AND they want to entertain. A successful film does ALL those things and more, in my opinion.

Let the conservative Hollywood-complainers whine and whine some more. It's what they are best at. They obviously don't know how to make movies. They DON'T want to take on challenging issues unless it is to do so by silencing their opposition, they DON'T want to stimulate thought unless it's a fight-or-flight fear reflex or creating a voter reaction at brainstem level, and they DON'T want to entertain. In fact, they are probably mortified at the suggestion that somewhere somebody might be happy, having a good time, and heaven forbid, enjoying a movie.

I say: screw 'em.

Hollywood rocks! May it long be a bastion of creativity, imagination, intellect, and tolerance. Because it is that way now, we see very few conservative actors and actresses. The Hollywood-whiner conservatives would just want to put a lid on all the creativity, imagination, intellect, and tolerance because they possess few of those qualities and it makes them mad that they don't. I shudder to think of what Hollywood's films would look like if conservatives ever took over. Any of you remember the old educational films from the 50's we used to have to watch in school? I think they would probably look a lot like those. Instead of remakes of TV shows, we might see remakes of all the Shirley Temple films, or multiple bad remakes of "It's a Wonderful Life" and "Ben Hur". In the based-on-real-life film category, we would see films on the life of Terri Schiavo, and ones on Waco, Ruby Ridge and Elian Gonzales, replete with lessons about sanctity of life, big bad government, and other things they whine about. And you know what? They'd lose out on the business end of that kind of approach, because stuff like that would FLOP.

America knows what it likes. America knows it wants to see films like "Crash", "Brokeback Mountain", "Transamerica" and "Capote" as much as it wants to see films like "King Kong", "The Chronicles of Narnia" and "Star Wars"; as much as it wants to see romantic comedies starring Matthew McConnaughey and Sarah Jessica Parker; as much as it wants to see Michael Moore's films (which, whether one likes or hates Michael Moore, tend to do quite well at the box office). There is room in there for a wholesome family film, something great from Pixar, a sad remake of an old Disney classic (doesn't that upcoming remake of "The Shaggy Dog" just look awful?); and even room for a religious film from time to time, like Mad Mel's bloody Christ thing which I still have not seen, or for "The Last Temptation of Christ" which the Hollywood-whiner conservatives roundly criticized though few actually saw the movie (same thing happened with Monty Python's "Life of Brian").

Anyway, America knows what it likes. So conservatives, if you're going to whine, whine about something substantive, then go watch a movie. According to your leader, the more dollars you spend, the more you will help grow the economy and keep the terrorists from winning. And that should also include spending money at your local movie theater!

Here are some famous folks rumored to be Republicans:
Ronald Reagan
Sonny Bono
Fred Grandy ("Gopher" of "The Love Boat")
Fred Thompson (former Senator now on "Law and Order")
Bruce Willis
Sylvester Stallone
Kelsey Grammer
Pat Sajak
Ben Stein
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Bo Derek
Ted Nugent
Wayne Newton
Shannon Doherty
Delta Burke
Dennis Miller
Charles Barkley (former NBA star)
Leslie Nielsen
Lots and lots of country singers and NASCAR drivers

And the following comes from http://perspectives.com/forums/view_topic.php?id=87113&forum_id=5, for what it's worth:
Alice Cooper, Wilt Chamberlain, Robert Duvall, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kelsey Grammar, Don King, John Malkovich, Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Tiger Woods, Pete Sampras, Jackie Robinson, Mickey Rooney, Jessica Simpson, Frank Sinatra, Ben Stein, Jimmy Stewart, John wayne, Tony Danza, Charlton Heston, Kurt Russel, Gene Simmons, Tom Selleck, Jerome Bettis, Pat Boone, Jerry Bruckheimer, Jeff Foxworthy, Bill Gates, Sammy Hagar, Lou Holtz, Bobby Knight, Heather Locklear, Peyton Manning, Dan Marino, Jerry Seinfeld, George Steinbrenner, Joe Torre, James Woods, Lara Flynn Boyle, R. Lee Ermey, Dennis Hopper, Karl Malone, Dave Mustaine, Nolan Ryan, Curt Schilling, Lynn Swann, Vince Vaughn, Marilyn Manson, Britney Spears, Charles Barkley, Ben Stein, Chuck Norris, Author Tom Clancy, Redskins Coach Joe Gibbs, Dixie Carter, George Lucas, Jean Claude Van Damme, James Woods, Kelsey Grammer, Mel Gibson, Norm McDonald, Pat Sajak, Richard Petty, Joe Pesci, Robert Duvall, Regis Philbin, Shannon Doherty, Brooks & Dunn, Sara Evans, Drew Carey, Pat Boone, Lee Ann Womack, Michael W. Smith, The Gatlin Brothers, 3-Doors Down, Adam Sandler, Ann Margret, Angie Harmon, Barbra Mandrell, Art Linkletter, Billy Bob Thornton, Bo Derek, Blind Boys of Alabama, Brad Paisley, Dolly Parton, Don King, Erika Harold, Fleetwood Mac, Freddie Prinze, Jr., John Travolta, Kid Rock, Kurt Russell, Lynrd Skynrd, Merv Griffin, Winona Judd, Shirley Temple Black, Tom Selleck, Tony Sirico, Jason Priestley, Jon Voight, Johnny Lang, Kathie Lee Gifford, Ric Flair, Steven Tyler of Aerosmith, Sean Hannity, Patricia Heaton, Daniel Rodriguez, Daize Shayne, Jaci Valesquez, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Ron Silver, Ricky Martin, Dana Glover ...

Some of the above are pretty obvious, others not so much, and who really knows how accurate it is... but that's quite a list. A long-enough list to suggest to me that Hollywood and the entertainment industry might not be as totally leftist as many of the whiners seem to like to say it is. It's the kind of list that Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly would tend to downplay.

A BUSY PAST FEW DAYS

I had an eventful past few days!

Wednesday afternoon I drove to Seattle, and that night I stayed as an official housepest at the home of David Downing (author of the fine weblog known as "A Fly On The Sill").

Thursday morning involved a commute to a conference on cochlear implants; it was held at the beautiful Edgewater Inn in downtown Seattle. I learned quite a bit about cochlear implants, and that is a good thing because I will have a deaf student on my speech-language caseload next year; he may be getting his implants this summer.

Thursday night David and I got together with J. Marquis of "Are We There Yet?" If you have been to David's blog lately, you will know more about what we did. I know I won't be a star anytime soon, but it was fun being filmed in lots of dark sepia-toned environments. The requisite drinking, prior to the filming, helped us mightily!

I pried myself out of bed Friday morning and made it to the second day of the conference on time (which required a major effort due to the previous evening's activities). After that was over, I met J. at David's house, we went out for some dinner, and then went downtown to see the Neil Young movie, "Heart of Gold" (a film by Johanthan Demme). I enjoyed it quite a bit... I'll probably write more about it during the next day or two. We found a Tower Records CD shop and spent a good while in there before heading off to J.'s palatial home, where I was greeted by Hank, one of the finest dogs in all of history. He appears to be part yellow lab and part golden retriever, and he has a great smile. Hank has an attractive new cockapoo friend named Tess; she tries his patience, but keeps him active!

Today was another early riser, and I drove four hours from Seattle to Pendleton, a town of about 17,000 people, an hour west of La Grande. I met the rest of my family there so we could watch Katie participate with her school's mock trial team in their district competition this afternoon. Their team won, and they get to go to the state tournament in two weeks from now! Katie was the "star witness", and her team was the defense. She did an excellent job facing tough questions from the prosecuting team. The La Grande group will face tough competition when they go to Portland on March 17, but I have a feeling they will do well! Katie is on cloud nine, to say the least.

Anyway, it is good to be back home.