Like the next generation of replicants, “Blade Runner 2049” has some new gadgets, but it doesn’t measure up to the previous model. It’s dialed up the dystopia and alienation to epic levels, but the heart that pounded in the original “Blade Runner” is hard to find. Brace yourself for the third movie in the trilogy. …
Wouldn’t it be a fairy tale, if Mr. Jeff sessions could get to live for FREE in some of the beautiful public housing he spent his career building? Retirement is so expensive, he deserves to take a load off and relax amongst his peers playing all kinds of games and activities. He will meet so …
I had a moment tonight remembering what real journalism feels like. A United States can’t elect a Donald Trump unless they have been inoculated by a critical mass of Opioids and click bait. Yes, The New York Times has a slant. All papers have an audience and a point of view. I am not in …
For those of you who didn’t follow the Portland Trail Blazers last season, their biggest story was their February trade for Jusuf Nurkic, the Bosnian Beast and the West Coast’s answer to New York Knick sensation Kristaps Porzingis. With his shooting and rebounding, Nurkic turned around the Blazers’ season, helping them to an 18-8 record …
After a gambler saw his losing streak continue, he then used multiple, modified assault weapons to kill 58 people and wound 546 in Las Vegas on October 1st. The Orange President of the United States of America (OPOTUS) president reacted by saying the issue should not be framed in political terms. I do not recall …
HELP, IS THIS ALREADY A SCI-FI STORY? In the year 20xx, a super computer at Cambridge finally becomes self aware. Our worst fears that such a computer will destroy our civilization comes to pass, but in a twist humanity itself is spared. The computer gains consciousness and becomes immediately aware of the evil, manipulation, and …
When I go back to Jamaica, one of my goals I am sending the mysterious German manager Lennart Tacke, is filming myself playing my Bond song at Goldeneye. Of course I haven’t written my Bond song yet. But I told Scott Rowe I would pen such a tune for our Brighton band Sherlock Soul. It’s …
I came across this passage last night while reading Tim Weiner’s book, One Man Against the World: The Tragedy of Richard Nixon. The next paragraph is verbatim (page 68). “We tried every operational approach in the book, and committed our most experienced field operatives to the effort to get inside the government in Hanoi,” CIA …
This last week, I happened to remember that Peanuts creator Charles Schulz lived in Santa Rosa, CA, so I did a quick search to check on the fate of his home and museum. The museum, with the bulk of Schulz’s original artwork and memorabilia, is intact, but his home was totally destroyed with his widow …
It’s a GIGANTIC lie that Donald Trump supports the Troops and here’s why: The Face of our modern US Military is an African American woman. When you look at the numbers it’s staggeringly obvious. African Americans only comprise 13% of our population of the United States. Yet Black Women comprise 30.1% of all women in …
World-renowned cultural historian, author and longtime friend of East Portland Blog, Pat Thomas, will soon be coming to Portland and Seattle to celebrate the release of his new book, Did It! From Yippie To Yuppie: Jerry Rubin, An American Revolutionary. Did It has received many excellent reviews and write-ups, including this article in one of …
I am thinking about writing an absolutely chilling Halloween story called THE CHOSEN. It is an only barely dramatized version of what happened to my friends, but thankfully not my immediate family, as RIGHT WING & RUSSIAN BOTS began to scour the internet for victims. Throughout 2016 I watched as these BOTS zeroed in on …
I think I may have figured out how Americans of Indigenous Eurasian ancestry, such as myself, have confused the Jewish God Jesus with all our lost but only half forgotten Gods of War. This has something I have wanted to say for quite a while, but this has reached a boiling point. And traveling to …
Here’s a question that troubles me, ever more as 45 awkwardly ass smacks the drums of War as a creepy Game Show host that gets to pick the wrong door. Who cares about the Troops more? The person that supported sending our young men and women to fight in Iraq or Afghanistan, or the person …
“Damn The Torpedos” was one thing… but the album after that, and the one after that… we got into the 80s and there was nobody – metalheads, punks, New Wavers, “old folks” – who didn’t like Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. You and your buddies got into your car one night, you put in “Long …
I tread very carefully here, but I have been getting…how can I say this? I have been getting interesting feedback from my conservative friends and acquaintances about what happened in Vegas. I am not throwing anyone under the bus here (Charlottesville & Nice has loaded that saying with unnecessary imagery). What I am driving at …
Eating from your yard tip ~ There is a pepper for everyone from sweet bell peppers and sweet banana peppers on the mild end and habaneros and ghost peppers on the hot end of the spectrum. Where to start? My grandson demands jalapeño peppers on his pizza and loves a who can eat the hottest …
OK I will say this, to put Las Vegas and the firepower we all heard echo in a historical perspective: As the automatic crack of a machine gun fire rang into my ears at a handful of rounds per second, I asked myself with little practical knowledge of American arms, if that was the sound …
I am not going to comment right now on the insane machine gun slaughter at a country music concert in Vegas, or tell you yet what Tom Petty means to me. But I will head into work to trim that sweet legal erb and keep getting a little smarter and laughing out loud a little …
Do you think our military might be dangerously overextended if we can’t ‘invade’ Puerto Rico and help what is inevitably going to be our 51st State? The National Guard should not be in Iraq and Afghanistan. That is a sign of Imperial stupidity. Folly in every sense. Sun Tzu would have some interesting things today …
Real Question: can you recall via living experience or historical knowledge, a President so incapable of doing, or even knowing the basic functions of his job? This isn’t even a Partisan question. Here’s part II: If your party has a President that is shame f_cking both the pillars of your party’s alleged ideals, as well …
At what point do you feel like people are going to just anonymously start destroying self driving cars? You know, peacefully, without harming humans, only corporation. Will Uber & Lyft tint the windows so protesters will not know if these vehicles are unoccupied? With the tradition of populist uprisings in the United Kingdom and France …
I’m sure that an editor or two – and possibly a few peeps – might be curious as to my thoughts on Hugh Hefner’s passing. And so, on a borrowed laptop while on vacation, here goes: One has to be of a certain age, startlingly enough, to realize the influence of Hefner’s Playboy magazine in …
Eating from your yard tip~ If you haven’t already done so this is a good time to fill your herb cabinet with your favorite kitchen herbs for cooking this winter. As a general rule it is best to harvest herbs mid~morning after the dew has dried and before the heat of the day. This is …
Eating from your yard tip ~ the fennel seeds are turning brown and ready to harvest! Fennel is in my top five favorite herbs. I carry a container of fennel seeds in my purse to ease coughs, upset tummies and freshen up breath. All parts of fennel are edible. Some people get upset because their …
Yesterday, the NPR show Fresh Air featured the legendary spy novelist, John Le Carre. Over the course of the interview, Le Carre offered some interesting perspectives on the current investigations of the Trump campaign. If nothing else, the interview is worth a listen solely for the opportunity to hear a cultured and authoritative English voice …
The versatile eggplant is sliced, cubed, mushed, breaded, stir fried, baked and fried all around the world except up in the far northern tundra. Maria Baher-Olomi bakes sliced eggplant then serves it with a yogurt and spearmint sauce. My Joy of Cooking cookbook is marked to open on page 74 baba ghanoush (roasted eggplant dip). …
My recent NFL post included the following: Speaking of which, NFL owners made a very short-sighted decision with their blacklist, informal or otherwise. Somehow, they appear to have forgotten that 75% of NFL players are black, with many of them having likely experienced firsthand the issues with law enforcement that Kap had protested. Two weeks …
Photos posted today in The Atlantic of wildfires in the West. Portland residents may be particularly interested in those of the Eagle Creek fire along the Columbia River. The first two, taken from the Washington side of the river across from Cascade Locks, are quite dramatic. https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2017/09/wildfires-rage-across-the-american-west/538977/ – Chuck Strom
Eating from your yard tip ~ there are many basils with different tastes, colors of leaves and flowers. I have it on good authority from two elderly tipsy Italian women that purple opal basil is the key to a good marinara. Both the basil flowers and leaves are edible. A traditional basil pairing is tomato, …