What happened, indeed.

What people have trouble realizing about McClellan is that working in the White House is the most unreal, hermetically sealed life imaginable. Nothing comes in that isn't vetted 100 times before the lowliest intern gets to touch it. So it doesn't surprise me that it's taken two years for him to detoxify and start seeing things clearly. The amusing part, of course, is the howling from the hyenas who have to keep telling themselves that W is a great president ... otherwise, what the hell were they thinking? Power corrupts completely, utterly, down to the cellular level. On the other hand, talk about piling on. McClellan's book, while probably pretty tasty for what it is, doesn't really break a lot of ground for those of us who were outside the bubble living in the reality-based world. Sometimes, bad deeds are very handsomely rewarded.

Question: Should we invest in a restaurant?

Five years later, I still get angry

Back in the saddle after a week off, most of which spent with my darling sister Susan, who wanted to teach me to ski but instead helped me shed my fear of my Singer Stylist. We even made curtains for the kitchen that look freakin' awesome ... Monday, I spent TWO hours shopping for fabric for curtains for our master bedroom; I am now developing something of a vision for that space. It's going to be beautiful when I'm done ...

Larry Pollard is part of that mad pack of Mike Peterson's Durham neighbors who long ago drank his Kool-Ade, and I would throw David Rudolf into that group. They suffer from the colossal madness of wanting to believe that it's more likely an owl killed Kathleen than a husband who was a pathologically angry drunk trolling for gay sex on the Internet while his wife paid the bills for the household full of lazy, selfish adult children. Oh, no, Mike didn't have any motive to kill Kathleen ... And shame on The N&O for giving Larry a drop more ink.

Election night

Again, we broach a heresy bordering on the Albegensian (love that word!), but I don't give a rip about elections anymore. Used to be that I loved every minute of it ... turns out, I've discovered, that politics is my father's passion ... not mine. I used to hunger for every scrap of political gossip, again, thanks to Dad. Used to sit up late and follow the returns ... Dad, too. Funny how so much of my own career really wasn't rooted in my choices at all. I wanted to please him. I wanted him to be proud of me. I picked journalism in sixth grade, that's true -- but it sure helped that Dad loved it and even told me once that he was the assistant sports editor of the Warren Tribune-Chronicle when he was 16 (in 1938). Amazing. I sure have learned a lot about myself through this process of writing my parents' story. Maybe that's why I wanted to do it in the first place ... Susan is arriving tomorrow, so Scribbler will be snoozing until Tuesday. Have a nice weekend.

Blog post management

OK, Rule No. 1: Don't post one item to another blog. Tends to make things very confusing for everyone concerned. Fortunately, the delete key is functional. ... Yesterday, I finished the first rough draft of the essay for Mom and Dad's book. After six months of thinking about it, worrying about it, delaying it ... it's a draft. I feel such lightness in my heart today. I think it's pretty good, and Jesse said so, too. I'm going to put two copies in the mail today and we'll see what happens. Should be interesting.

Back in Nawth Kak-a-Lak-ee

One of my best pals from my days at The N&O, G.D. Gearino, is now out on his own, but he has been all over the most recent developments at our professional alma mater, which you can see at his blog, http://www.gearino.com. One of Dan's great strengths is to see deeply into a situation, and so here. He has gathered up and read some relevant SEC documents filed by Mother McClatchy so you don't have to. His report on its obvious, acute distress makes everything much clearer ... I'm sorry to say. ... Where is our hero? Who can take our hands and lead us from the forest? Well, of course, we are the only ones who can do that.

More room for gloom

Just had a "stand-up" with the business team; our fearless leader informs that things are even worse than anyone thought. Makes my fretting about the distribution of O 3.0 very small. At the same time, I feel like an autoworker in Detroit: You know you're building stuff that people aren't buying, or they buying fewer of them, and yet no one in the glass offices seems a) to understand that and b) have any clue about how to stop the hemmorhage. It's grim. And we're all moving through our stages of grief in our own sweet time ... Meanwhile, my sister Susan is coming to visit; she's going to miss the 95-degree day tomorrow, but it will be reassuringly in the 60s by her arrival Wednesday. Can't wait to see you, sweetie.

Writing assignment

The parental units are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary 30 August. We're throwing a party for them. We want to have a little commemorative booklet/program. I've been thinking about the text, wanted to do a nice long survey of their lives together. But my brother and sister say: Less is more. Go easy. Stick to larger themes. Frankly, I think they're right ... maybe 500 words or so for the program, more for the essay I'll write later. Sometimes, it's best to take the path of least resistance ... especially where my dear family is concerned.

I got my head stuck in the cupboard

Batts used to do a hilarious cover of the old Monty Python routine about Mary Queen of Scots ...

Had a nice talk with my old buddy Marjie last night. She's getting out of the business as soon as the right bus comes along. I told her I thought that was a great idea. "I wish you could say that you were sad that I'm getting out." "Honey, can't do that. This is a good thing." ... Perhaps the rising tide of bad industry news (N&O laid off five editors through buyouts today) has shaken me, but I'm finding my compassion fatigue is getting harder to shake off. Another horrible earthquake, in China. Photos of little feet lost amid piles of concrete. Desperate, hungry people looking for the dead. It's beyond numbing. That is the kind of news that once made my blood race in my ears. Not anymore. And I don't think it's became I'm middle-aged, although I'm sure that's a factor. I just think that my art must do more than point and stare. My art should explain, give meaning, shed light. Somehow, even in these dark days of newspaper, I believe that will survive.

Mother's Day

Never thought I would be the recipient of a handmade card from my child. Sunday morning, though, amid my pile of running clothes, lay a little piece of paper, with a heart and a Hello Kitty and a "You're the Best!" and "I love you." Wow. I feel so honored to have the chance to live with this interesting, intelligent, funny, talented, beautiful young woman and to offer whatever I have to offer her. I think she's really remarkable and will do amazing things. I told her yesterday that she is the best gift I've ever gotten. I am so happy for her and so proud of her: She even got a big huge raise at work! And she was really excited about that! ... Got the grass cut and now I'm envisioning the front garden as I dream of it. It's going to be beautiful ... and grass-free!

What's old is new again

So the boss sent me out this morning to cover Obama at a Beaverton software company. I was not to write a story in the conventional sense. I was to "blog" the event -- meaning writing a string of at-the-moment briefs to give readers the feel of being on the scene. I could only laugh ... it's just like what we did at UPI during national political conventions, when Arnie Sawislak would sit at the UPI desk on the podium and write a "running" of the convention, meaning a moment-by-moment, telegraphy color story. Fortunately, thanks to dear old Blogger, I have had a little practice lately with the whole blog thing, and the "tool" we use for the newspaper isn't terribly different -- except that it balked at my photos (probably with good reason). Otherwise, I filed 12 times, and it was a blast. The wave of the future, my friends. ...

You go, girl

When the home team is ahead, it forfeits its end of the ninth inning. When there's a few seconds left on the clock, the quarterback takes a knee. In other words, in team sports, if someone is going to win without any question, even before the game is officially over, the loser has to give up. That's the "rule." And the boys in the yakking section believe it ought to apply to politics. What a fun story this is, that the woman is telling those boys to stick it in their ears, she's marching on, she'll take the debt and the arrows and the hassle and the headaches and loose-cannon Elvis and the constant sexism and insults ... and she's marching on. A lot of people, my sister the Ph.D. in history among them, have become completely knee-walkin' on Obama-ade and believe that if they personally can shriek at Hillary loud enough, she'll slink away. Frankly, I just don't see how this fantastic story hurts anyone ... except the people who don't like it. What a story.

The more, the merrier

Fascinating that the chattering classes keep insisting on discipline and order in politics, as if those are cardinal virtues. A presidential campaign, ideally, is a messy business because it's a human business. The Democrats have registered record numbers of voters in 2008 precisely because there's a "race" for the nomination between a black man and a white woman. (The advantages of a Harvard Law grad as president vs. a Yale Law grad quite escape me; they're both pledged to maintain the status quo.) Increased primary registrations generally lead to increased general election registrations, which will lead to a higher turnout overall. Isn't that what's important? Don't we want everyone to participate in democracy? The Gasbags already have way too much sway over the process (as Elizabeth Edwards so brilliantly described in The New York Times 10 days ago). They want everything nice and neat and tidy so they can make their dinner reservations. I say: Bring on the mess. It's a much better story that way.

Today's work

Got a pretty interesting story: a nail-salon owner. For her, the American Dream smells like nail polish remover. And that's the problem ... while that industry has exploded in growth over the past 10 years, no one is watching what's happening to the workers who are exposed to acetone and a hobo's bag of other nasties. Fascinating stuff. ......

Dear Reader: I don't worry about you

Yes, in the church of American journalism, it's heresy akin to the Albigensian. But for a writer, readers shouldn't even enter the equation. Why? Because worrying about what readers will want is an editor's big, honkin', pointless mind-game. Because what a "reader" wants from art is what anyone wants from art ... some reasonable explanation for the madness that surrounds us. The art of writing -- hell, the art of anything -- is what's conceived, nurtured and given life in the artist's head, then through her hands and onto paper, where it's cradled and groomed and polished till it blinds with its gleam. If that jewel refracts the universal, readers will reach for it with both hands and treasure it forever. If that jewel really is just a lump of coal, well, readers will burn it for heat, and then it will be gone. The Universal. That's what it's about. Readers want it. And, frankly, so do I. ...

Perils of the newsroom

Phone call comes in. It's from the lobby front desk, which usually means that someone with a gripe wants a reporter at The Oregonian to do something about ... oh, I don't know: taxes, immigration, the Fed, the aliens. Sigh. OK.

I pick up the phone: A woman starts telling me that her filters are filthy, that she can smell smoke, no one will do anything for her. How did you get put through to me? I just asked for someone, she said. She ranted on and on, and I figured: What the hell. You never know when the next big story is coming from. So I went to the lobby and found a heavy-set woman in her 50s with graying braids and a wheelchair that she used as a pushcart. She lives in an apartment tower in The Pearl. She smells smoke all the time in her apartment, she says, as fat tears roll down her face. She even had a box full of old furnace filters. Oh, woe, no one listens to her; she hands me a stack of papers from doctors, neighbors, etc. Why yes, she says, she IS on disability from a car accident 20 years ago that left her a brain injury and "some memory problems." I said: Do you think your brain injury could be causing you to smell this? No, she said, no, no no. (gulp -- usually, that means yes, yes, yes). Then, the money quote: I tell her that I can call the Housing Authority of Portland. She replies, "They'll just tell you that I have a dirty apartment."

OK. That may well be. And it may be that she's got a terrible smell of smoke in her apartment. I don't know. And I don't know if there's even a story there. She is a parrot lady ... just the kind of noble loser that I usually fall for. But today ... not so much. Poor thing.

AKA International Workers Day

Scene: Laurelhurst Park
Time: 0645
Experience: This is the prize, my friend -- the spring-dawn air that fires jets of pleasure straight to the neural net, the bird song that is the only perfect tribute to itself, the enrapturing green of redwood and flowering cherry and Doug fir and rhododendron, graced by manifold blossom neons. Once in a while, a dog would look up, and even he was startled by the sheer right-now. The path rolled under my feet with no effort on my part, as if the first day of May all by itself wanted to carry me into a new state of mind. I still can't believe we're living in Portland, Oregon.

I hope your day is going well, too.