Beach level view at Mayan Palace

The Ponderer -- 3 days in Yelapa - what could he be thinking

up the river by horseback

photos from the jungle ...yelapa

Catie looking out our patio at Mayan Palace

Day 1 in Mexico - on the pier at Los Muertos waiting for water taxi to Yelapa

Canby's favorite pub - Wild Hare

Toes

Casper

A Tail of Two Cats

I am cute



I am nuts

Canby: a very married place

Canby demographic distribution of age

What happened 15 years ago to generate so many boys?

Multimedia message

Big hole outside my office

Multimedia message

Happy 11th Birthday Catie - we love you

Demonstrate 'progress' -- Get out of Iraq

I want the U.S. to demonstrate the same progress as England
Tony Snow thinks its ok when England 'cuts and runs' but Democrats are encouraging the enemy with talk of withdrawl.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The White House said Britain's announcement Wednesday to pull about 1,600 troops out of Iraq was proof of progress.
White House spokesman Tony Snow said the move by British Prime Minister Tony Blair "indicates that there's been some progress in Basra," in southern Iraq, where UK troops are deployed.

Pelican Brew Pub: Onion rings & Brew -- More beer art

Congressional Debate on Iraq: Dear Republicans -- let's remember something

I've been listening to CSPAN this week.
I am glad to live in a pluralistic society with varying views.
But I tell you, this Republican jibberish that it is wrong and hurtful to even speak about a different Iraq policy -- or worse, that it hurts the country!
Godamit.
Our sacred founding was based on debate, discussion and dissent.
It is our heritage. It is our right. It is our duty.

Why did Americans die in Iraq?

By chance, I turned to CSPAN yesterday, just as Rep. Jim Moran was speaking on the Iraq resolution:

Mr. MORAN of Virginia. Madam Speaker, I would like to paraphrase a poem that Rudyard Kipling wrote upon the death of his son in World War I that seems particularly apt to the war in Iraq:
When they ask why the young men died
Tell them it's because the old men lied.
Madam Speaker, when the White House announced 4 years ago the U.S. military would attack Iraq under the guise of the global war on terrorism, there wasn't one single uniformed military officer who believed that Iraq was part of a global war on terrorism. Saddam had had nothing to do with the 9/11 attack.
Saddam wasn't harboring any al Qaeda cells that did attack us. In fact, they understood that starting a new war would distract us and limit us from accomplishing our immediate need to eliminate Osama bin Laden. Saddam was a vicious, secular, despotic dictator, but he saw al Qaeda as a threat to his control, and al Qaeda viewed Saddam as an enemy of their religious extremist world vision.
The U.S. Intelligence Community knew that there was no clear evidence that Saddam was a threat to the United States. There was no failure of our professional Intelligence Community, but there was an abysmal failure of our political leadership.
So how did we get to this point? First we were scared with the threat of Saddam's arsenals or weapons of mass destruction, al Qaeda training camps, an Iraqi meeting with the 9/11 hijacker, mobile labs, aluminum tubing, yellow cake uranium. But there were no weapons of mass destruction, Madam Speaker.
The training camps didn't exist. Mohamed Atta never met an Iraqi agent in Prague. The White House knew, before they informed us about the mobile labs, that our experts had determined that they were not in any way related to chemical or biological weapons. Likewise, the aluminum tubing was bogus information. Well before the so-called yellow cake uranium from Niger was cited as evidence at an attempt at nuclear armament, our Intelligence Community had informed the White House that it was a hoax.
Yet we were told repeatedly by the President and the Vice President that Saddam was a threat to global stability, that there was a direct connection between Iraq and al Qaeda and September 11. We were told in the buildup to the war that our troops would be greeted by the Iraqis as liberators, being offered flowers in the streets. This was propaganda that the State Department warned the White House not to believe, but they nonetheless peddled it to the Congress and to the American people.
We were told that to liberate Iraq was to spread freedom and democracy, to keep oil out of the hands of potential terrorist-controlled states. We were told that the war would pay for itself with Iraqi oil revenues. Yet all we have done is to finance our enemies, the insurgents and Iranian Shiia interests.
After Baghdad fell, we were told that America had prevailed, that the mission was accomplished, that the resistance was in its last throes, that more troops were not needed. As things went from bad to worse, we were told of turning point after turning point, the fall of Baghdad, the death of Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay, the capture of Saddam, a provisional government, the trial of Saddam, a charter, a constitution, an Iraqi Government, elections, purple fingers, a new government, the death of Saddam, all excuses for triumphant rhetoric while the reality on the ground continued to worsen.
We were told, as they stand up, we would stand down. We would stay the course. Now we are told that there is a new course, but it is in the same misguided direction. Falsehood after falsehood unravels each day, with the morning paper reporting even more deaths.
Now the American people are being asked to put 20,000 more sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives into the line of fire, and into the dead zone between the sectarian sides of a civil war. A message was sent to President Bush on November 7, 2006. This surge of more troops into Iraq defies the will of the American people.
But this is a new Congress. We will no longer be cowed by leaders using 9/11 as a political ploy against sensible people who oppose the administration's failed Iraq policy. Today for the first time since the war began, Congress will go on record opposing the President's failed Iraq policy. Some will argue that it is a nonbinding resolution, that it will not have the impact of a law, that it will not stop a roadside bomb or bring a single soldier home to their family. But the President understands what this resolution means. It is the beginning of the end of this wrong war of choice

Sign me up for hope

http://www.barackobama.com/

Support your troops, help bring them home

I did the least I could today -- I called my two U.S. Senators.
I said that I watched the news in sadness this morning as the President called for cuts to the needy and elderly in order to pay for more war.
My vote -- if I had one: bring them home, all of them, now -- and hold the biggest homecoming we have ever held for returning soldiers.


And if you have an opinion you wish to share with your Senators:
Sen. Gordon Smith
121 SW Salmon Street, Suite 1250
Portland, OR 97204
Phone: 503.326.3386
Fax: 503.326.2900

Sen. Ron Wyden
1220 SW 3rd Avenue
Suite 585
Portland, OR 97204
(503) 326-7525

Standing united

From local writer Loree Harell

Of course I was proud of both kids for coming home with straight A's. It's easy to admire those qualities in your children that exceeded your own. But at the same time, I shared another emotion with the kids. Not just pride, but unconditional love and acceptance. For my parents, it was easy (easier) to love me when (on those rare occasions) I did get all A's -- or won a speech tournement. It was harder -- and I knew it, for my parents to love and accept me when I fell short of their expectations. It cut like a knife. I can still feel some of those hurts.
So in the celebration of these report cards, I also shared another message: there will come a day when you won't have all A's, a time when you make a mistake, a time when you hurt me or yourself -- a time when you really screw up.
The most important thing to remember is that on that day -- your mom and I will love you, accept you and be as proud of you as we are today.

On a slightly different slant -- the words of writer Loree Harell -- to the parents of young girl, though it applies to boys as well.




Please, somehow don't demand
that your daughter obey you
against her will
because if she learns that
too well,
she will obey others
against her will.

Teach her to trust
what her body knows.
It does know,
and will tell her,
through the hormone scream,
what is right
for her.

Don't require
that she need your approval.
She will need everyone's.

Teach her to believe
what she knows to be true.
Even when it doesn't match
what you want,
what you want for her.
This isn't about you.

Know she will make mistakes,
that she will know
when she has, and that
the only mistakes that matter
are the ones that hurt her,
not the ones that disappoint
you.

Don't make her pay
for how you were at her age.
She is not you.

Remember this is not your story,
it is hers.
She gets to write it,
she has to edit it finally,
to know what to take out, and
what is essential and can't be changed.
It is pure gift of trust
when she asks your feedback
on the draft.

Know that sometimes
she will make you nuts,
hurt you, make you mad,
show all the good sense
of a wombat on acid.
Trust her anyway.

Don't forget
this is a whole human being,
not an appendage of you.



You can quit protecting her now.
She has already made mistakes you don't know about.
She will make more.

Let's try this again.
This person is whole.
You can no longer mold her,
not with your anger or violence or shunning
or shame. This person is whole.
But if you can find the love
to stand with her as equals
together, she will ask you
to help polish the edges
and walk next to her home.

She is better, she is stronger
than you dared believe.
Trust her.

Catie doesn't need to help Claire with bites from her sister's birthday cake.

Bryn is the queen on her birthday

Will this be me at 82?

We sent out a notice for a public meeting.
Here is one reply.

Capt'n Joe goes clam hunting

Belize: here we come

The Oregonian is accepting photos in its annual travel photo contest. First place is a trip to Belize.
Three catagories: I will enter this one in Oregon places.
Titled: Reflections on clamming

Will I ever talk again?

Drat.
A cold.
I had been doing so well for so long.
A cold carries psycho baggage for me for a couple of reasons.
Back when I was in radio it meant going to work and sounding like crap.
That always created a sense of anxiety.
Perhaps an irrational sense of anxiety. When I was a little boy, I picked up a book on legendary sports broadcaster Red Barber. Among his hundreds of stories was the tale of broadcasting one time with a cold.
During the middle of his broadcast, his voice cracked.
Then -- nothing, just squeaking air.
He went to a nationally recognized throat physician who said he might never talk again due to the strain of broadcasting with a cold.
For 90 days, he was instructed, he must not try to utter a word.
Finally, slowly, his speech returned.
I thought of that story every time I felt an itch in my throat.

More recently, the first touch of an illness sparks terror of a disturbance in the force.
This is based on the theory that one's physical health is a portal to one's inner health.

''Oh my god, I have a cold -- my chakras must be out of alignment!"
I need to relax -- no, I am stressed, no relaxed, oh my god, I must be more stressed than I realized. Oh my god, I must be unaware…..oh no my internal monitors are askew ...arggghhhghhh.''

So here I am, sipping CALM tea from TAZO and trying to center.
Trying to imagine my white blood cells playing a Ms. Pac man game with viral bad guys.
Do do do
Doo do doo
Doodle le doodle le do.

Snow and light at the cabin

Catie looking out the snow fort

Snow fort

Multimedia message

Snow closes schools - fun on 9th street- 1.16.06

Ricky catches a falling flake

Weekend at the cabin - Catie's snowman on the deck

Elk crossing on 3 rocks road

Rick in cabin meadow

Snow comes to the cabin

Reflections on the Dream - 2007

Today is an important day.
A day to remember our core values.
A day to remember our dreams.

To live...
As Dr. King said…

in a nation where our children they will not be judged by the color of their skin

but by the content of their character.

And if I may, also suggest, to not be judged by where they call home.

When the citizens of Clackamas County opened their arms and their hearts when news that Katrina survivors may need shelter,

There were voices that judged us -- not by our character, but by where we lived, by the color of our skin.

Voices that suggested we would not be appropriate hosts to fellow humans in need.

Let me say -- as a proud Clackamas County resident,

I took exception.

I am proud of Clackamas County --
For its beauty
For its collection of small and diverse communities.

For the lack of hesitation to open its arms to others in need.


We are -- as President Carter noted -- NOT a melting pot

but a beautiful mosaic.

Different people,

different beliefs,

different yearnings,

different hopes,

But let us share in the dream.

Too little, too late - Congress, time to do your job

Top Ten Features of Bush's New Iraq Plan


10. Make the war best two-out-of-three

9. Blame it on that crazy New York gas leak

8. Convene blue-ribbon study group; ignore recommendations

7. Consult with Rumsfeld, who's now working as a casino greeter

6. Sit on ass until January 2009; let Hillary figure it out

5. Send Cheney to Baghdad with a shotgun

4. Tax cuts for the rich

3. Put Giants coach Tom Coughlin in charge of enemy, watch them collapse

2. Raise money for escalation by robbing Mick Jagger's apartment

1. Dig up Saddam and execute him again

The dream of my childhood realized - an old fashioned Christmas