When an armed and threatening power lands uninvited in our capitol, we don't meet him with tea and cookies!

How can Barack Obama win the Nobel Peace Prize when he's attacking the moon unprovoked?

Who said that? Gary Cooper? James Stewart? Henry Fonda? Eh?

This is a wonderful idea that Slash Films had. They're asking people to list their favorite movie scenes.

As the author mentions this is an intensely personal thing that says more about the person identifying the scene than it does the scene itself. Reading through other's suggestions I found myself subconsciously taking points away from folks who either a) didn't have much cinematic literacy (i.e. "The Dark Knight") or b) picked a scene that I might admit is great but was also inherently violent.

The scenes I tend to fixate on in films are usually scenes of hope or that are so emotionally resonant I have to fight back tears. Here's just a couple of mine...



Besides Chaplin's genius for some reason this scene reminds me of high school. Maybe it's just because he's imagining he's entertaining all the pretty girls when the reality is much sadder.



A tie for my favorite movie. This scene embodies the "live and love life" message of the flick so well.



I wanted to be Wesley soooooo badly. Robin Wright was just beautiful in this movie. "As you wish..."



Okay, I did put one action flick on my list but it's one of the best action flicks ever made. I couldn't find my favorite scene from Raiders though. The scene with Marion and Indy on the ship after they escape and he realizes that she's really what's important, not the ark is the one that gets me.



This scene is almost quaint in comparison to the reality of the senate but Kapra/ Stewart's call to remember the little guy and do what's right remains moving decades later.

Lastly...



The "kissing" scene from "Cinema Paradiso." Romance and a love of film all rolled into one.

What are your favorite scenes and why?

All dogs go to heaven because, unlike people, dogs are naturally good and loyal and kind.

This is a post about dogs. One dog in particular.

This last week I've been worried about my friend Lisa's puppy Chloe. The little gal was stricken with parvo and almost didn't make it. Lisa's ordeal in dealing with her worried kids and corporate vet brought back a lot of memories about the best dog I ever owned; Loey.

Loey was a Border Collie/ German Shepherd mix that looked like a black German Shepherd with the white Border Collie markings. He was a beautiful dog.

We adopted Loey while we were living in sin before we were married. He was a big part of our life and even came up during the priest's speech about marriage during the wedding ceremony: "sometimes love means a passionate hug and sometimes in means an argument where you find yourself sitting on the back porch pouring out your troubles to Loey," he said.

While he was still a puppy Loey got very sick and we took him to a nearby animal hospital. They immediately diagnosed him as having contracted the parvo virus and set about on a very aggressive, very expensive week long treatment. This particular vet had very poor people skills which is not something you want to deal with when your worried about your dog and, less importantly, your wallet.

One particular exchange with this guy went like this:

Me: "What are Loey's chances?"
Vet: "It's hard to say. Some dogs live and some dogs don't."
Mrs. Wormer: "Well doctor, some vets get paid and some vets don't. He dies we aren't paying you."

Did I mention that Mrs. Wormer kicks all sorts of ass?

Loey pulled through and lived to be a joy AND a pain in the ass for years to come. We moved from the suburbs with a tiny backyard to a country home on six wooded acres a short time after the parvo incident.

Once in a while Loey would get excited by some animal in the woods and spend the entire night running around the house barking, keeping us awake. During these incidents he seemed to completely lose his mind. He wouldn't come when you'd call him but would only stare at you from the darkened woods with those glowing eyes.

Once we had kids Loey became sort of a doggy uncle to them. When we were outside if one of the kids would start to toddle away he would run in front of them and stop, blocking their way. It must of been the Border Collie in him but he tended to herd us together when we were walking around the property.

My parents moved next door to be near their grandkids. Since the kids now consumed so much of our time and Loey was a bit neglected so he quickly adopted my dad as his new owner. He would spend days following my dad around or sunning nearby as dad tinkered on his cars. They went everywhere together.

I haven't written about this next part on this blog because there's still a lot of pain associated around what happened but I think in as much as Loey played a part that makes it so very relevant to how I feel about him even years after he died I'm going to see if I can get this out.

One night my dad called to say he was bringing up a pizza for dinner. At some point a while later we heard a strange noise outside the front door and rushed out to see what happened. My dad and collapsed on our front lawn after a massive heart attack.

The rest of what happened is pretty much a blur of surreal images and emotions. Mrs. Wormer and I took turns performing CPR on dad. It was January and pouring rain. It seemed to take forever for the fire department to get there. We kept having to shoo our kids back into the house because they were obviously upset and worried about grandpa. And then there was Loey...

At the time the dog was the last thing I was thinking about. But as I reflect back he was ever present that night. As the paramedics arrived and started working on dad he paced around them in circles, whimpering loudly.

Dad didn't make it.

There are more jumbled memories here. The EMT so gently reviewing all the stuff they'd tried and asking me if they could stop. The guys packing up their medical gear. My oldest who must've been seven-years old at the time curled on her bed saying "this is just a bad dream" over and over. The coroner arriving, again after what seemed like forever.

As they gingerly zipped the bag shut, put my dad's body on the stretcher and moved him into the hearst Loey started to wail mournfully, something I'd never heard him do before. A sad punctuation on to our awful grief.

I hadn't thought about how Loey reacted in years until my friend's puppy got sick and I started reflecting on my own dog that had parvo. I'm not a PETA guy, but I do believe after Loey's reaction to my dad's death that dogs do have an emotional connection with us, that it goes beyond the pack instinct. Their emotions may not be as complex as ours but they are there.

As for Loey- he lived a few years more but continued to have hip joint problems common in German Shepherds. His ability to move around and quality of life slowly decreased. One day he disappeared and wouldn't come when we called him. After two days of worried searching a neighbor called and had found Loey lying in his creek, barely alive.

Our vet was a gentle soul who told us Loey wouldn't walk again and we should consider saying goodbye. Though we've had to make this call before with pets this decision was agonizing. Eventually we decided that it was the best thing to have him put to sleep.

As I said goodbye I leaned over him and whispered in his ear "take care of dad when you see him."

I'd like to imagine that's what he's doing right now.

Sometimes a baby's gotta do what a baby's gotta do.

This last weekend upwards of 50,000-60,000 teabagging douchebags descended on the streets of Washington D.C. to loudly voice their anger at the results of the last election.

We're all aware that a good portion of the clowns that were marching were there in response to Glenn Beck's "9-12 Project" of which the goal, according to Beck, is to return the country to that unified spirit of purpose we displayed immediately following the attack on the World Trade Center.

I'm always amused by the generally accepted view that those on the right are generally more prone to logic while those on the left are easier swayed by their emotions. This paradigm seems so superficially wrong, so upside down as to be laughable.

Conservatives aren't logical. They're simply lacking in emotional maturity and any sense of empathy. They're stuck in adolescence, unable to see past the end of their own nose.

Some conservatives like William F. Buckley or George Will are better able to hide that emotional immaturity than their ideological soul mates. They bury their childishness in their writings under a blizzard of vocabulary or statistics. At their hearts they're nothing but five-year old boys angry because they were picked last for dodge ball.

In the days following the September the 11th attacks all Americans regardless of political stripe were frightened, confused and angry. I recall myself wanting the U.S. to lash out violently at whomever was responsible for the attacks. Eventually we sobered up and realized the complexity of the situation demanded better of us (the Bush administration and it's supporters never did.)

At it's heart the 9-12 Project is a pining for the days when the conservatives weren't the only illogical, angry, frightened or immature group of people in the country. It's a plea for angry truthiness, a longing for shared stupidity.

Beck and his supporters don't like being the only kids in the playpen.

You see, it would be this mat that you would put on the floor... and would have different CONCLUSIONS written on it that you could JUMP TO.

I've been struggling with this all morning. It's a vile accusation about a very unfunny subject. But that's really not the point, is it?

Conservatives like Beck have pushed the envelope in their discourse to the point that objective reality itself is under assault and any sort of bullshit they want to make up becomes part of our actual political conversation. Death panels. Birth certificates. Vince Foster. This nonsense is discussed on our Sunday news programs.

While this may be beneath us it's how politics are fought these days. Not on policy, a playing field in which right-leaning politicos will always be outmatched.

It won't do us any good to stick to the high moral ground if the other side is going to cheat and get away with it. It's time for bloody knuckles, wrestling in the mud trench fighting.

I think we really need to get over our need to play fair if we really care about this country. The other side is killing America. Besides; people like Beck deserve a little taste of their own petard.

Kirk Douglas... Van Gogh... ear.

A little example of why I love Portland...

Yesterday I took a break from work and walked the block or so from my office to the greatest used book store in the world. In the course of that one block journey...

...I passed a pair of beautiful women pulling along a wiener dog on leash...

...listened to the guys in front of me talk about Star Trek...

...stopped in front of the book store to talk to a pair of young ACLU volunteers working to promote gay marriage while...

... a few feet away a street fiddler was playing "Yesterday" by the Beatles...

...laughed at the surreal moment that occurred when our conversation (and the fiddler) were interrupted when one of those "sculpture vans" where an artist has turned a vehicle into a work of art drove by. In this case it looked like he'd created a miniature city on the roof of his van. If this wasn't weird enough he was hanging out the driver's window using a monkey hand puppet to yell something.

Did I mention our city slogan is "Keep Portland Weird?"

Goodbye Teddy

I sit here muddling through a sense of disbelief that Ted Kennedy has passed away. It certainly comes as no shock under the circumstances. It's just that the image of him being wheeled into the senate to cast the deciding vote in the health care battle has been seared into my imagination. It's clearly the only thing he was holding out for.

Bouncing around the web a bit I see the haters on the right are wasting no time in hating on the man. Over at fark the freepers have invaded the RIP thread expressing sentiments that the "baby killer could burn in hell." The Kennedys collectively as a family seem to have a unique place among American liberals in engendering the anger bubbling from their lizard brains.

I've never really understood this anger. I've tried, I really have. The philandering and drunkenness conservatives rattle on about seem almost quaint when considering the tales of republican politicians chasing around congressional pages these last twenty years.

Of course there's Mary Jo. The thing that's always struck me about that is how odd it is to listen to people who wouldn't cross the street to help a poor person, who could care less about the financial circumstances of the middle class, who cold care less about the young bodies ripped apart in pointless wars rail on and on about the life of a secretary killed decades ago as if she was a member of their own families.

They would never admit it but I suspect this anger comes from the fact that John and Bobby and Ted really cared about the weakest members of our society and tried to use the instruments of government to make those people's lives better. In this sense the Kennedys embodied the truest sense of christian charity in a way conservatives could never understand. That's why the Kennedys drove conservatives crazy. Despite all their flaws they were still better men than the Ronald Reagans of the world.

I hope Ted is somewhere right now drinking a whiskey with his brothers. Thanks to all of 'em for trying to make America a better place.

You know, Mr. Thatcher, at the rate of a million dollars a year, I'll have to close this place in... 60 years.

In response to the same sort of budget shortfalls plaguing most other states this July the Oregon legislature passed a $700 million dollar tax increase which was signed by Governor Kulongoski. The first was an increase in the state income tax by a couple of points on single filers making over $150,000 and joint filers making over $250,000. The second was an increase in the corporate minimum tax which has remained at $10 since the 1930s. The state raised that tax to a whopping $150 dollars.

Predictably the state's conservatives went nuts. Kevin Mannix, who is one of the resident Oregon gadflies that makes a living through abusing the initiative process, jumped into the fray.

Mannix usually focuses on "public safety" initiatives but really he's just your standard right wing anti-government crank who'll take up any cause that will hurt the state. Within just a few hours of the governor signing this bill Mannix had initiative signature gatherers on the streets in an effort to have voters overturn these increases.

I was accosted by one of these signature gatherers on my way into our historic Multnomah county library the day after the bill passed. He asked me if I wanted to "help turn back the governor's tax increase on small business." What followed was a minor kerfuffle between us.

I confirmed that he was paid to gather signatures and not a volunteer, but he told me he would volunteering anyway because this was a "good measure." I asked him how he thought a tax increase of $140 bucks was going to hurt small businesses and he countered that I must of never had to struggle running a small business. I pointed out that even with the tax increases the state was facing huge budget cuts and wondered if he'd been following what had been happening in California. He hadn't.

The conversation ended with him letting me know that I "didn't get it" and me telling him he should be ashamed trying to gather signatures for a measure in front of a public building that more than likely would be shut down if that initiative passed. I told myself as I went into the library that at least I'd wasted his time and maybe prevented him from actually collecting a signature or two while we argued.

A few days later Mrs. Wormer and I were walking into a Dollar Tree and another one of these clowns stepped in front of me.

"Would you like to help us stop the governor's tax increase on small businesses?" he asked.

"Go fuck yourself," I told him.

As Mrs. Wormer squeezed my hand and hurried me into the store all the guy could say was "wow."

Wow indeed.

The ship is in ship-shape shape.

I watched a bit of the ridiculous Specter townhall and wasn't surprised that senator tool tweeted this bullshit shortly after the meeting...

"1000 people came to tell me what was on their minds and I have a message to take back to DC loud and clear."

So Specter thinks the folks we ought to listen to when it comes to the very complicated issue of health care in America are the children throwing a tantrum supported by organized opposition from insurance lobbyists? The "message" he's taking back came from DC to begin with. Moron.

I was afraid this would be a product of the townhall rioting. Blue Dogs and other pro-insurance industry congressmen are going to use the right-wing primal scream as cover to torpedo the public option and kill reform.

I think it would be a good time to kill the townhalls. Nothing good has come of them.

You're a mean father, you'll never give me anything I want! And I won't go to school till I have it!

You have one of those unruly 8-year old children for which Ritalin may be a good idea. The child is disrespectful of the rules of the house, insists that everything goes their way and has no respect for your things. Just recently the little monkey broke your heart and your grandmother's china set playing frisbee in the house.

Having had enough you put your foot down and send the child to his room for a time out.

He stomps up the stairs, slamming his bedroom door. Now you're forced to listen to him kick his feet against the wall of his room as he screams "I hate you!" and "I wish I'd never been born!"

Resigned to tough love you go back to your newspaper. Your only worry is that out of the corner of your eye you can see your husband glancing up the stairs and fidgeting. It's clear he's wavering even over this relatively minor form of discipline. You suspect that at any moment he'll run up the stairs, fling open the door of your son's room and tell the little monster "we didn't mean it." He is the weakest link.

To the bottom of your soul you know that if you give in to the tantrum you'll only reinforce the bad behaviour and make it worse. You'll probably also force a situation in the future where the discipline is going to have to be much, much worse to be effective. Perhaps you'll even need to get out THE BELT.

It's a terrible situation to be in made worse because your husband doesn't have your back and just wants to be liked.


(If you haven't guessed the situation above is pretty analogous to the health care debate as it stands now. The child is the political right, the time out would be the election, the tantrum would be the industry sponsored townhall riots and the wavering husband would be Obama/ Reid. )