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Friday 6.06.03

Women we love, Part I: Call him silly and sentimental, but there is no denying that Worldwide Pablo has fallen under the spell and sway of she who just might be the most impossible, improbable and imperfect girl in the universe.

Yes, it's Martha. Martha Stewart.

He cannot explain his fascination for America's domestic diva, but in his defense, Worldwide Pablo points to his lifelong affinity for matching bath towels, state-of-the-art kitchen utensils and any recipe than involves diced rosemary. She's a triple threat, that Martha: bed, bath and beyond, to steal a phrase. Is there any better read than Martha Stewart Living magazine? WWP thinks not.

The recent events in the life of our problematic protagonist do not dissuade Worldwide Pablo in his adoration of She Who Has Taste. (If you must, read about it here, here or here.)

WWP takes refuge in the more temperate web link, her majesty's new and personal non mea culpa website.

Women we love, Part II: Worldwide Pablo hereby makes a second embarrassing confession (in the same day, no less, of avowing allegiance to the Domestic Goddess herself), this one about his admiration of another simultaneously adored and vilified idol.

Yes, it's Hillary. Hillary Clinton. (Excuse me, that's Hillary Rodham Clinton to you, thank-you-very-much.)

Say what you will about the former first lady, but Worldwide Pablo finds her enigmatic, elegiac and emblematic, all at once. Americans might prefer simple icons (does the XX chromosome in the White House come to mind?), but WWP likes them the same way he likes his red wine: complex, layered, tragic, and, well, even imperfect.

Now comes her fateful autobiography. Perhaps the most startling revelation: After the president's confession of sexual infidelity, and during a vacation on Martha's Vineyard, no one wanted to spend time with our nation's 42nd president. Oh, except Buddy, the dog.

Ouch!

In times like this, Worldwide Pablo consults with the master of all things conjugal: The Chairman of the Board himself, Mr. Frank Sinatra.

Sing along with WWP, now:

I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn and a king
I've been up and down and over and out and I know one thing
Each time I find myself layin' flat on my face
I just pick myself up and get back in the race.

Thanks, Frank. Even in death, you're still The Guy.

God and gays. Good grief! Time and space prevent Worldwide Pablo from expressing the full measure of his disappointment with the seemingly never-ending wrangles in American Christian churches over homosexuality. Memo to the religious right: Get over it!

After all, just what did Jesus say about homosexuality? The answer, of course, is nothing. WWP thinks that if the subject were actually so important , the man from Galilee might have spoken up on it. But no, he just frittered his time on Earth, nattering on and on about such apparently irrelevant topics as love, inclusion, God’s kingdom, forgiveness, judgment of others, hospitality, kindness, sacrifice, salvation and eternal life. WWP guesses that some folks just don’t have the time to trifle with such pesky topics, do they?

Click here, here or here to see some of the depressing things some are doing in the name of the Lord.

Check it out: One of Worldwide Pablo’s favorite blogs is “Whatever,” by John Scalzi. WWP checks out this digital delight daily. (A permanent link has been added in the Blogosphere section on this page.)

Friday surprise, Part I: With all the talk about outlawing spam on the Internet, WWP thinks the folks at Hormel would be worried that their canned meat product, Spam, might be taking a hit. But no! The product is more famous and more popular than ever. And no one is having more fun with than the folks at Hormel. Recipes, trivia, merchandise galore, a museum – even a “Spam Mobile” – are byproducts of the Spam mania. You can even send Spam, yes real Spam, on the Internet. Be sure to check out the delightfully goofy “Spam in Time.” Who says corporations can’t have a sense of humor?

Friday surprise, Part II: Yet more topical playing cards are making the rounds. Look at who is the Queen!

Thursday 6.05.03

Stop, you're helping me too much! (Part I): Is there anything more infuriating than the charade of Congress's recent attempt to help the poor? A last-minute change to the $350 billion tax cut bill, signed into law this week, scrapped a credit for nearly 12 million children in low-income families (yes, 12 million children – one in six of all American children under 17, according to the U.S. Census). The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a budget watchdog group, reports that a last-minute maneuver skewed benefits originally intended for the poor to, voila!, the wealthy. The bill does provide a tax credit of up to $400 per child – but families with annual incomes between $10,500 and $26,625 were completely cut out of that benefit in the final compromise draft passed by Congress." Care to guess who was left in?

Worldwide Pablo wonders: Is this the real meaning of "compassionate conservatism"? If so, how sad. (And, some would say, predictable.)

Stop, you're helping me too much! (Part II): A friend of Worldwide Pablo reports that at least one Oregon senator is less than happy about the new tax bill. He writes:

"Last week I put together a meeting of local religious leaders and Senator Ron Wyden. We talked about this during the meeting. He seemed to think that there wasn't much that could be done given the current state of affairs in Washington. He actually referred to this last-minute change as under-handed, manipulation by very crafty, deliberate, sinister elements in Congress. (He mentioned U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney by name.)"

Worldwide Pablo is disappointed, but sadly, not surprised.

The ultimate "home" room: While he's on the topic of homeless children, allow Worldwide Pablo to direct his readers' attention to the dilemma of homeless children and public schools. Increasingly, homeless children have been "mainstreamed" into public schools, as federal law dictates. It's been a happy result, with encouraging results and school districts across the nation increasingly embracing the idea. Worldwide Pablo wishes it were always so in Multnomah County, where instead the Medieval Education Front lobbies that homeless children should be taught in quarantined classrooms, so as not to "infect" the "regular" children. The Front (not it’s real name, duh) is rather active in bringing threat of lawsuits against those who employ their First Amendment right to disagree, so he is chary of posting more on the subject here. However, those who wish to learn more about the subject will find a willing scribe elsewhere. (Hint: A link to this scribe's website can be found on this page … just scroll down and look on the right side of the screen.)

What’s all the fuss about? Worldwide Pablo has received a number of queries about his contretemps over the Federal Communications Commission's blank check to mega-media outlets. WWP shan't dwell on the topic, but let this, at least, be said: You’d think it would be a conservative value to want increased competition, not less. No?

Now for some fun: Worldwide Pablo has been entirely too serious of late. Here now, some purely fun items follow.

An idea worth exporting: Oooh, shirtless football players. Who knew? Check out the Shirtless Australian Football League. [Thanks, Mark P.]

Boys will be boys: Here now a web log (or "blog," as they are known) about that guy-thing obsession. It's "adult" material, to say the least. Don't say that Worldwide Pablo didn’t warn you.

News of the weird: Okay, here’s another one just for fun. Imagine all the burritos they will have to sell to pay the bill.

More weirdness: Yes, Worldwide Pablo knows that this page looks funny. For reasons he cannot discern, the art work has gone missing on this page (and most others at WWP). He has his Internet doctor looking into it.

Wednesday 6.04.03

Election 2004? Now, would that be next year? To the surprise of Worldwide Pablo and fellow court followers, the administration announced on Monday that it wants out, out!, of the abortion case now winding its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Conventional wisdom ordains that the current administration, no fan of reproductive rights, would sign onto the case, urging the Supremes to take a stand on it, presumably to strike down reproductive rights. (Nevermind that a liberty as personal as reproductive rights should be a conservative point of view, but WWP digresses…) Imagine, then, the shock of the religious right on Monday noon when Obedient Servant Theodore Olson, aka Solicitor General of the U.S., begged off the case.

What's up with that?, WWP asks. Turns out, it's no mystery at all: Opposition to reproductive rights is a huge voter turnoff (and has been for over a generation), and even W and the Radical R's get it. It's a case study of duplicity in the extreme.

Ozone? What ozone? Is it any wonder Americans are confused about environmental protection? Even the outgoing EPA administrator, Christine Todd Whitman, cannot bring to her lips the words that most Americans can: "The Earth is warming up, and we're responsible for it."

As the inestimable Ed Spivey Jr. points out, people in Washington say one thing but often mean something completely different: “In announcing her departure as head of the Environmental Protection Agency (motto: You Breathed Yesterday, So Why You Gotta Breathe Today?) Whitman explained that she merely wanted to rest, to read, and spend more time with Ari Fleischer's family. At first glance, her appreciative and positive resignation letter seemed fairly standard for Washington. But if we read between the lines we see a frustrated bureaucrat determined to leave the nation's capital before she has to explain global warming to her boss one more time.”

In an effort to better understand D.C.-speak and the way it often obscures the truth, Spivey has an “official translation” of Whitman's resignation letter.

Tuesday 6.03.03

Pet Peeve, Part I: As Worldwide Pablo’s readers know, among his greatest pet peeves is the consolidation of the news and entertainment media in the U.S. On Monday, the Federal Communications Commission raised WWP’s blood pressure yet again by granting the communications industry lobby its fondest dream: government-sanctioned media conglomeratization. The new rules allow increased market dominance by such communications titans as Disney, Viacom, Fox, et al., both locally and nationally, and paves the way for increased cross-ownership of newspapers, cable companies, radio and television stations, and other new media such as radio satellite broadcasting.

There is no shortage of reasons to be concerned about these mega-mergers (the loss of local control and local programming for starters). Worldwide Pablo raises his eyebrows with no small amount of suspicion and mistrust at the FCC’s intention of “stimulating competition.” The mergers-and-acquisition sharks are already beginning to circle, according to the Washington Post.

Of even more concern to Worldwide Pablo is the growing and perhaps irreparable disconnect between the FCC and the people it purports to serve: the American public. WWP recalls when this federal agency actually engaged the public and furthered public service. (He is a product of public television, after all.) Incredibly, the FCC enacted the new rules without telling the public (it was leaked to the public by a defiant FCC board member), without public input (though nearly 1 million letters, emails and other messages bombarded the FCC headquarters) and in defiance of public opinion (public support for the measures is estimated at a paltry 1 percent). WWP joins the chorus of Americans – left and right, Democrat and Republican – who believe the problem is not the quality of our communications choices, but the quality of our communications regulators. The watchdog has become a lap dog.

Here’s how to do something about it.

Pet Peeve, Part II: Comes now the incredible news that the branch of the U.S. military that brought us the Internet is now working on a project that would produce a multimedia record of everywhere you go and everything you see, hear, read, say or touch. The military claims the project, called “LifeLog,” is not for spying, but rather to help advance the field of “artificial intelligence” (as in the science fiction movie). Yeah, right. There are so reasons to doubt this claim, Worldwide Pablo does not know where to begin. Decide for yourself.

Pass the sauerkraut, please: [Vegan warning: Meat article to follow.] Worldwide Pablo and the housemate sat down Monday night for a rather unusual dinner: sausages of their own making. As readers learned earlier (see below), the home-made brauts were the result of their own grinding and gristing at a Saturday sausage-making soiree. Two varieties resulted: chicken (with rosemary) and pork (with sage). Verdict: That country singer cum sausage-maker has little to worry about. WWP’s meat is yummy enough, but, he concludes, when it comes to sausage there can never be enough, well, fat. Next time: less herbs, more fat.

Watch out, 24-Hour Fitness: WWP is on his way.

Monday 6.02.03

Making sausage, Part I: "There are two things you don’t want to see being made—sausage and legislation." This mindpicture-provoking metaphor is attributed to Otto von Bismarck, the 19th century German chancellor. Bismarck lived nearly 120 years ago, so the connection between sausage making and lawmaking may seem a tad stale. But WWP thinks the “link” remains fresh to this day. Proof? Even as you, gentle reader, peruse these pages, the solons of Oregon – those Sisyphuses of Salem – are striving to solve the budget dilemma that has eluded generations of Oregon lawmakers, namely, the need for a fair yet stable system of tax revenues.

Friends, it’s beginning to look a lot like sausage-making.

Increasingly, it seems to Worldwide Pablo (and so also to nervous legislators, apparently) that there will be no solution until Oregonians rid themselves of their addiction to the so-called “kicker” refund, the annual harvest-time orgy of check-cashing that occurs whenever the state’s revenues exceed 2 percent of the forecast. No other topic jerks the knees of some fiscal conservatives faster than the kicker refund. The usual cries: “Put more of your money in your pocket.” “That’s our money to begin with.” “Operate the state like your household budget and send the money back to the taxpayers.” Blah blah blah.

Worldwide Pablo, himself a fiscal conservative, asks: If the kicker funds are “our money,” what about all the other tax revenues? Aren’t they “our money” too? Why, then, not return all of it? Wouldn’t that be the most obvious balm for overburdened taxpayers? (At least that’s where that “logic” extends.)

And what of the malarkey about operating the state’s treasury “like a household” budget? Worldwide Pablo knows of no “household” that returns unanticipated income to its source. No, instead, most households in this position, WWP’s included, spend it on long-planned household needs (or desires), or better yet, save it for a rainy day. Unhappily, neither of these is likely to happen in Oregon – at least until Oregonians disengage themselves from the anti-public service hypnosis that passes for policy debate these days at the capitol. Consider this your gentle reminder, dear reader, that you, the “public,” must be heard on this issue, and soon, lest we find ourselves on the downward spiral to Lars Larson’s fondest hope: Mississippi-style public education.

For a clearer picture of the kicker funds, click here. Worldwide Pablo advises you to hold your nose.

Making sausage, Part II: Sausage-making isn’t just for legislators, you know. Worldwide Pablo learned this for himself over the past weekend, when he attended a combination wine-tasting/sausage-making party with several friends. (Yes, the real sausage – the kind one consumes with sauerkraut and mustard.)

At first blush the thought of grinding pork butts into tiny sausage casings (please don’t remind WWP of their provenance) whilst sipping on a nice pinot or tempranillo was a tad disconcerting. WWP once thought sausage came from the grocery store meat case, in little silver tubes emblazoned with photos of long-forgotten country singers. Not so. Sausage is real, and making it turns out to be arduous, creative, challenging and, in a word, fun.

Tonight WWP dines of the results of all that chopping, grinding, oozing and slinging. Expect a review in tomorrow’s installment. WWP promises to post the photographs of the weekend’s little braut bash soon. Meanwhile, amuse yourself at one of the Internet’s many offerings out there in Wienie World.

Read something about it:

(WWP’s Top 5):

The United Methodist Church

First UMC, Portland OR

Oregon State Bar Bulletin

Andrew Sullivan

Reconciling Ministries Network