For me, it happened a couple of months ago. I was at a birthday for one of my daughter’s little playmates and the mother was lamenting a poor turnout. “I facebooked everyone just yesterday, and they had other things going on already,” she said. The very next day someone else mentioned facebooking about something. Talk …
One of the many missions of this blog (five year missions) is to bring Philippine pop culture to East Portland. Thus, I present the Jollibee bee dancing his little stinger off. Never has a mascot, or a bee, danced so gleeful-ly. Jollibee is the Philippines’ No. 1 fast food chain and has recently opened restaurants …
While browsing Boing Boing (boingboing.net) last week, I ran into this blog entry: “The Dream of the 90s is Alive in Portland” — a hymn to one of America’s greatest towns — “where zines, slacking, good coffee, social consciousness, public transit and all the other sweet fantasies of the 90s are still alive.” It features …
The politics of that last few years have had their particular rancor and tone not because of Pres Obama or Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid, but because of a political party gone off the rails, leaving the Democratic party to be its own loyal opposition since the Republicans have ceded the field. Leaving me with …
“Ground is too hard… if he wanted a proper burial, he should have gotten himself killed in the summer.” How many times in the past few years have I seen a film, and by the time I got home wanted to see it again? Not many… but I’m going to catch an encore of True …
So much gets presented as a challenge to President Obama, but his leadership style really asks more of his base and the American people: patience, a sense of history, an understanding of the modest limits of politics and our governing institutions. Obama seems to have these—do we? – Lawrence Spaulding Now, doesn’t that feel better? …
Matthew 1:18-25 (New King James Version) Christ Born of Mary Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: After His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not wanting to make her a …
Haley Anderson produced this public service announcement for a class in Public Policy. It’s excellent and she is on to something. Domestic violence is by far the most common felony in every jurisdiction in the country (and probably the world) and yet whenever there’s talk of crime rates, crime crackdowns, or getting tough on crime, …
Be Counter-Cultural: Practice the Twelve Days of Christmas, by Chris Erdman, Celebrity Guest Blogger
. The Twelve Days of Christmas are largely forgotten today. If they are remembered, they’re remembered as a song about “Lord’s a leaping,” and “partridges in a pear tree.” The Twelve Days, December 25-January 5, are the true Christmas, the Christmas not of preparation for a single holiday, but of opening our hearts increasingly to …
. My 4 year-old daughter Alissa screams “I want to waatch teeeeveeee nowwwww!” and I say “You were mean yesterday when I turned the tv off, so no teeeveeee, todaaaayyyy!” and I insist she comes with me to the hardware store to find a 3/8″ compression to 1/2″ pipe adapter hose for the sink, the …
. . The words, Brill Building, are synonymous with songwriting in the way Hollywood is equated with movies or Detroit used to be associated with cars. I received a message yesterday from LA-DSH urging assistance for an upcoming documentary about Colony Records, a unique music store located in that iconic building which was the site …
Within the last year or so, multimedia artist, Barbara Trentalange, had a baby. Balancing motherhood with creative expression, she completed a series of paintings titled, “Baby Napping Series.” “I started the series because I needed to be quiet around the house while my daughter napped,” says Trentalange. “Since I couldn’t write and play music (which …
. Please, please, please tell me that you are not ready to be co-opted by the naive and even dangerous view that is being adopted by too many already that the tax cuts/unemployment benefits deal that Pres. Obama just worked out with Republican leaders is somehow a bad deal, that he got rolled, or that …
. . I watched this movie last might. Loved it. Saddam didn’t like the physical act of headbanging because, according to one of the musicians, the movement is similar to when Jews pray. Saddam wanted men to have short hair. The musicians later persevered under Occupied Iraq, but checkpoints, snipers, tanks, unemployment, and overall risk …
I have a lot of friends and acquaintances who are not on Facebook. Some have quit, some never joined. A large portion of them seem to infer that they are too superior to join Facebook, that Facebook is only for “people with no lives” or that Facebook is somehow evil. Facebook is neither good nor …
This 1958 Stan Freberg audio file satirizes the overcommercialism of Christmas. It begins with Mr. Scrooge calling a meeting of important “advertising people” to find new ways to tie products to Christmas. One advertiser talks of depicting a more rugged Santa smoking a preferred brand of cigarette. In the ad, Santa has “both sleeves rolled …
I must admit, I had assumed Portland would be the last place on earth for a Christmas-related terror attempt: . Somali-born teen arrested in car bomb plot Feds supplied dud in sting at downtown Portland, Ore., Christmas tree lighting ceremony PORTLAND, Ore. — A Somali-born teenager plotted to carry out a car bomb attack at …
. . I was saddened and dismayed last night to watch “Nightline,” one of the cherished news shows of my teenage years, and see how much it has changed. During a week of critical and frightening news coming out of Korea, when two nations with huge armies and powerful allies stand at the brink of …
Here’s a classic Ambrosavage Thanksgiving cartoon, back in time to make you laugh: . .
. He wasn’t the greatest of all time, but he may have been the prettiest. Mark Knopfler’s solos, in Dire Straits and elsewhere, were/are always the most melodic, the clearest, the brightest, the kind you’d most like to take home to Mum. He had/has at least four personas, all of them entertaining: the mellifluous athleticist, …
. . The 1978 concert movie “The Last Waltz” was unusual for a couple of reasons. One, it was directed by Martin Scorsese and two, it was a farewell show for an enormously popular group that had all it’s original members living, no real drop in popularity, and no band members with outstanding warrants (no …
. . Fifteen years after Cicely’s moose bid farewell and strode into the night, “Northern Exposure” remains one of the most original shows ever to grace the small screen. From 1990 to 1995, quirky characters in a remote Alaskan town wrestled with profound questions about identity, community and love. NX featured no cheap laughs and …
The story of Rahab is found in Joshua 2 and 6:22-25, click here for Joshua 2 or here for Joshua 6:22-25 or see below. I’d like to see women in the Old Testament (OT) portrayed as more valuable (there are exceptions), than just inventory in a man’s lineup of marriage options. How awful to be …
Here’s some thoughts. 1. As obvious as this sounds, write like crazy for your high school newspaper no matter how lame it might be. If it’s lame, become an editor and strive to write investigative stories about things above and beyond the call of scholastic journalism: teen life, abortion, bullying, gay and lesbian struggles, suicide, …
. . Today’s New York Times has a fantastic article about a city in Northern Vietnam rightly becoming popular with tourists from all over the world: . In Northern Vietnam, a Region of Beauty and Ethnic Traditions MY first glimpse of the place that some call Vietnam’s Shangri-La came on a brisk spring afternoon as …
. . Portland has a new television Station and it’s number 36. Better Life Broadcasting Network, a 3ABN affiliate, has begun broadcasting free over the air on KEVE, digital channel 36-1. Viewing KEVE may require redoing the channel scan feature on your digital television or converter box. Programming is free and an antenna is all …
The language spoken, there’s a little talking toward the end, is Tagalog, but all the writing around the video is Arabic. Perhaps it’s a bored Pinoy in Saudi entertaining the kids back home: . . Manny Pacquiao’s house in U.S. – MTV Cribs The Dancing Jollibee Bee
The following article can be found at Salon.com: Are “The Real Housewives” really flesh-eating zombies? Why do Bravo’s trussed-up middle-aged stars have so much in common with “The Walking Dead’s” rotting corpses? Click Here. Funny, how true the comparison of zombies to Real Housewives is. The “Real” word in the title is like a joke. …
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia – Portland actress hits it big in trashy bar comedy, by Steve Stav
. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia? How scandalously profane! My favorite episode has to be the one about “freedom” at Paddy’s, where Danny DeVito’s character is allowing a Chinese poker game in the basement that soon devolves into Russian roulette. I get a kick out of how most of the actors are married to each …