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ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY DOES THE WORK OF TWO

The entertainment industry is where you go with time to kill and you don’t workout. Pick up a book, a screen, go to a play. The last one, go to a play, is different because now you have to make plans for your anticipated spare time, which means scheduling, which is another word for work. […]

CONSISTENCY OVER TIME FOR THE WIN

Consistency over time is not over-rated. Not under-rated either; some people call it a life-style. Others call it a habit of boring people. Well, if the name fits . . .

GENTLE SUGGESTIONS FOR GOOD TIMES

Who doesn’t make gentle suggestions? Call it good manners if you know the difference between a request and an order. ‘Would you please help me?’ instead of, ‘Get over here and make yourself useful.’ This happened recently:

COLD WAR HISTORY FOR BABY BOOMER BEGINNERS

The Cold War? Even the name sounds dismissive. Are today’s students reading it and thinking, ‘No one got killed like a Hot War so what’s the big deal? Wasn’t it more peaceful after WWII?’ I know I did. But history isn’t about picking and choosing, hunting and pecking. It’s about the slow roll of time […]

GET TO THE WRITING POINT

People who feel like their head might explode in the middle of the night because their brain won’t calm down need to get to the writing point. No writer has ever felt the internal pressure in their mind because they’ve already gone over things. Gone over, and over, and over, and over. Let me rewrite […]

HOW TO GROW A SENSE OF WONDER IN PORTLAND OREGON

Most of the time a sense of wonder in Portland means a painful memory from the days of old, of Meier and Frank downtown and the Georgian Room for tea. The place had a special aura during the holidays. The painful part? It hasn’t been there for years, Meier and Frank and the Georgian Room, […]

UNCHECKED SPEECH, GUARDED WORDS

If you’ve heard unchecked speech, then you know guarded words when someone says them. One might be a raving crack-head angling for another piece of the rock. The other might be a priest in a confessional. Each has their place, sometimes more than one place. There’s only one problem: If they switch back and forth […]

ADULTHOOD MISUNDERSTOOD, AND THEN … ?

You’d think adulthood misunderstood would come from some kid with ideas on who they’d want to be. But, noooooo. It’s the adults. If it were a kid, they’d have time to figure things out after a misunderstanding. What if it’s a baby boomer? What’s their excuse?

NORMAL HUMAN NEEDS. NORMAL?

Normal human needs seem pretty obvious? They aren’t much different than the other animals in the jungle. Air to breath. Clean water, shelter, clothing. The basics.

NO KITTY GENOVESE FOR YOU

Would an Oregonian save Kitty Genovese? A few years back a little boy in Portland, Oregon was accidentally left on a train platform. He made it home safely with his dad. A young woman stayed with him until his father returned, just a bystander who saw what happened and took time to care. Those few minutes ended happily; it […]