Russell Shaw's Brainstorm Central

A Victory For Racial Harmony

Most of the media seems to have missed this, but vapid though it is, the whole "Justin and Kelly" phenomenon is an example of interracial harmony. Justin Guarini, nee Bell, is the son of Eldrin Bell, a former Atlanta chief of police and an African-American. Indeed, Justin's birth name was Justin Eldrin Bell.

I take great encouragement that a young man of partial African-American descent, and a young white lady from rural Texas can have an onscreen romance of sorts, and nobody notices. Insipid as the movie is, the fact that this has been ignored even by the more conservative elements of popular culture represents the kind of quiet victory for racial tolerance that would have made Martin Luther King, Jr. proud.

MeetUp Now, Get Beat Up Later

Well, scrape me off the ceiling if Dean ever gets elected, but about all this Democracy Now, AlternNet, Move On.org, MeetUp stuff, I am reminded of the great Michael Moore line: "a bunch of folks, town by town, talking to each other in the basement of the local Unitarian church."

These organizations are certainly worthy, but they are led by people who know little about political reality. They are feel-good therapy at best, and self-delusional at worst. I give them credit for trying, but in terms of getting someone in who is electable, things need to get a lot worse than they are, and the Democrats need to find someone who can extend beyond the base. And that's where some leftists -- and I am one -- get into the political self-masturbatory zone.

Throughout this century, a delusion of left-leaners has been that people who do not vote represent a constituency that could be motivated by the right campaign, the right candidate, with the right message. That assumption has been a core belief of everyone from Eugene Debs, Norman Thomas and Henry Wallace to Eugene McCarthy, Jesse Jackson and Ralph Nader. Ain't gonna happen. Never has, never will, at least in numbers large enough to matter.

Sorry, I just don't think Dean is electable, at least in 2004. He's McGovern, waiting to happen. Presidential elections are not national. They are local. For good or evil, remember Florida.

It's The Family, Stupid !!

On affirmative action -- today's Supreme Court decisions did not go far enough. I am in favor of mentoring programs, enhanced funding for schools in poorer neighborhoods, open admissions to junior colleges, etc., but insofsar as giving some students an edge in university admissions because of ethnicity...I do think that so many of the root causes that lead to grade inequality speak to the current social fabric. I agree with precious little of what he says, but I remember reading a passage from a book by Larry Elder, in which he wrote that he was in a mixed black/Asian neighborhood in L.A. As I paraphrase it, ten black students were outside, horsing around, break dancing, and about 10 Asian kids of the same age were in there studying. It breaks my heart, but he has a point. We break the cycle by addressing parenting issues...tax breaks to employers who stay in the city rather than move out to the burbs, away from the bus lines, public and private initiatives to remediate the heartbreaking and continuing crisis in the African-American family.

How To Cook a Chicken "Chest"

Gag me with a spoon about the Court's 6-3 decision for library censorship -- even Breyer. Now, isn't it hypocritical that some of the same -- many of the same -- pro-censorship people are those who are the most ardent flag wavers and family values types? Ask them why they fly the flag and they say "freedom." This decision is not pro-freedom or pro-family. It seems to me that noxious decisions such as this one set the tone for local jurisdictions to deny access to Internet sites they do not like.

Also, this hurts public health ...someone researching breast cancer or a chicken breast (or for that matter, shittake mushrooms) recipe on FoodTV.com. Or what about a high school student preparing a report on leading corporations? Would the Web site of Matsushita Electronics be blocked?

The "Serenity Prayer" -- Edited and Expanded With My Additions In Italics

Goddess, grant me the serenity to accept the things and people I cannot change,
The minds I cannot convince,
The circumstances I cannot control,
The hearts I cannot win,
The judgers I cannot dislodge,

Courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to not being deluded by red wine buzzes to know the difference.

Feel Of Dreams

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined."

--Thoreau

Definitely On Track

We rode the Crooked River Railroad's Crooked River Dinner Train this weekend. When I get around to posting those pictures, I will have photos from every currently running, regular and currently scheduled, standard-gauge, passenger-carrying intercity, municipal, and tourist rail line in Oregon and Washington state. By "regularly scheduled," I am including tourist lines with at least six runs per year. For inclusion, train routes also must run on public land, or at least cross one or more public thoroughfares. You will find photos from all of these trips on my Photo Gallery page soon.

Still, my work along these lines (pun intended) is not yet complete. After Labor Day, I will need to shoot the Banks-Rockaway Pacific Sunset Coastal Train. Despite the notification on their Web site, this line will not start running until then.

What else is left, at least railroad-wise? Mostly, we are looking at railroads that concentrate on limited fall foliage runs. To that end, I hope to post some shots from the fall runs of the Cochran-Garibaldi Oregon Coast Explorer, the North Pend Oreille Valley Train Ride in far northeast Washington State , and the Toppenish, Simcoe & Western Railroad down the road from Harrah to White Swan, Washington.

One more route: the Tacoma Link Light Rail starts running August 22. I plan to be there!!

Hail Hail, Sahalie Falls

If you visit Oregon, and have a few days, go there. Was there on Sunday. Still awestruck. Look for pictures on my Photo Gallery soon.

You Gotta Have Heart

Have just read that Bill Frist -- that's distinguished cardiologist and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist-- owns stock in artery-clogging donut maker Krispy Kreme.

Doesn't that strike you as a little counter-intuitive?

Homeless In The Heart of Affluence

Last night I saw a bedraggled, presumably homeless person sitting on a bench just outside the Whole Foods store in Portland's fancy Pearl District.

A forest of $400,000 condos, owned by rich single lawyers, luxuriously vested Intel employees and day-traders who got out before the gold rush ended overlooked this poor guy.

Shoppers, by the extrapolated demographics of the neighborhood loyal Democrats who would be expected to have sympathy for this homeless man, streamed out of Whole Foods, their bags packed with the finest fresh foods.

Something about seeing that homeless man there is still getting to me. By his presence at the location I just described, he inserted himself right at the epicenter of rich Portland liberal -- excuse the expression -- Ground Zero. His being there was almost a form of marketing. Perhaps he saw a potential target market of donors, and set himself up on that bench right outside Whole Foods.

But still, nobody stopped to hand him anything out of their bountiful grocery bag. Truth be known, I was one of those who failed to stop.

I, and my contemporaries that evening, are not better people for having failed to do so.

Fallen Raines

As a veteran journalist, and as someone who writes fairly often for two of the leading four national newspapers, I feel qualified to weigh in on the "resignation" of New York Times editor Howell Raines.

Raines' firing came as a result of his bending over backward to protect the system of racial preferences that nurtured Jayson Blair, as well as his imperial, unresponsive attitude and non-communicativeness.

As to the former, I am all in favor of diversity. I wrote an online course on Diversity In The Workplace. This course should be available soon.

Still, as a white person who did not graduate with a journalism major from a prestigious college, I have always had strikes against me. Yes, there have been injustices and indignities, but none of my forebears owned slaves.

With reference to non-communicativeness, I am dealing with that now with one of my editors. So I know how frustrating that can be to someone just trying to do their job.

Good riddance.

Fly The Flag? Then Keep Your American Workers!!

If you are an executive of a company that is laying off American workers in order to boost your stock price by shifting manufacturing or customer support overseas, you do not have the right to display the American flag in your lobby, or on your office walls.

I have a built-in radar detector for hypocrisy. This sure fits the bill.

Martha Stewart, Stocksucker

So Martha Stewart got indicated today.

Although I do not know her personally, there is a lot that has filtered out about her I do not like. The bossy, demanding control freak that intimidates the armies of underpaid 24 year-old lassies and 44 year-old sycophant gay men in her employ. She really appears to define the word "shrew."

Still, the indictment strikes me as an act of political and class warfare persecution. There are many who have done worse. The right-wing straight arrows who run Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission do not cotton to rich, self-made, Democratic women.

Mourning Lisa

Watched the season finale of "Six Feet Under" absolutely spellbound. Didn't even look down at my pizza for missing a nuance.

I predict that Lisa's death will be the first death scenario of the new season.

Have thought about it some more, from previous post...

You remember the sheriff's deputy saying they I.D'd her by her dental records. They found the car intact, which eliminates auto accident. She did not walk into the sea...given the amount of time that elapsed between when she was first reported missing and the time her remains were found, she would have either washed out to sea and would have decomposed in that time interval. A suicide would not have left her so disfigured that she could only be identified by her dental records.

So, I am thinking, she may well have picked up a hitchiker who killed her and dragged her off. Or the hitchiker might have killed her further up the road, where the car was found, north of the beach where Lisa took that cell call from Nate, . Remember that she was alone when she took Nate's cell call. Perhaps Lisa picked up a hitchhiker in between the two beaches (the one where she took Nate's call, and the one where her car was found). While he or she was riding with Lisa, the presumtive killer drank a Dr. Pepper, and then when they stopped off at the beach where the car was found, he or she dragged Lisa off.

OK, do any of you remember the name of the county the sheriff who called Nate was from? That might be a clue.

One more thing: although I do not identify myself in the pro-life (or anti-abortion) camp, I cannot interpret the image of Claire seeing her aborted baby with Lisa in the afterlife as anything but a pro-life statement...