On 9/9/2006 in downtown Portland, Oregon, a long line formed under the scaffolding at the “open during construction” Macy’s store. Questioned why she was waiting in line, the lady at the front told me they were giving away gift certificates. Then the stares and the “are you gonna move” inquiries began, and I carefully backed away from the front door, through the windows of which I could see the massed, overdressed staff ready to start the day.

In other news Paris was arrested after attending a party Dave Navarro gave for “brain tumors”. http://tinyurl.com/enyhg and was sabatoged http://tinyurl.com/ewz3o all in one week!! Can’t wait to see what she has in store this week 🙂

Jessica and I had dinner up in the northwest area of Portland and then stopped by downtown later in the evening–I took a photo of the Pioneer Courthouse Square and its late evening visitors.
[photo taken 9/8/2006]

Gordon Brown will be Prime Minister of Britain within one year. The actual date is the stuff of opaque Westminster maneuvering, but the plan is for Tony Blair to leave 10 Downing Street before the end of 2007, so it is time to consider the man that will govern America’s closest ally until at least 2009. Brown is a Scottish member of parliament who has served as the Chancellor of the Exchequer for Britain since Blair took power in 1997. From that position Brown has held enormous sway over domestic policy, managing the budget and tax process. While Blair’s foreign policy has become enormously unpopular, with Iraq and Afghanistan both straining the resources of British armed forces, Britain has seen an uninterrupted period of economic growth and stability under Brown. Consider the growth trends in America in the last 5 years as compared to Britain, in the second chart: Gordon Brown has managed to help maintain stability and growth in Britain even while raising some taxes and pouring large amounts of money into government spending to improve the NHS and other essential public services. Certainly his tenure has seen some controversies about efficiency of new spending and the tax credit system, and America’s growth is now at a higher rate than Britain’s, but after the ERM disaster and other economic problems under John Major and Margaret Thatcher what the British economy has seen under Brown has been a great improvement. Would Brown provide as effective leadership on foreign policy and other prime ministerial duties as he has on the economy? Many expect a major departure from many of Blair’s policies but this is far from certain. The reality is that Brown may be more “Euro-sceptic” and more pro-American than Blair. And that means something–if Blair has any real vision for Britain’s future (other than him hanging out with celebrities) it is Britain as a loyal, protected crony of America. Brown may decide that this deal has gone so far along that there is no point in trying to reverse it. One major benefit of Brown replacing Blair is that it might revive the Labour party in the polls. Brown is just as “New Labour” as Blair but he does not have the level of lost trust with the British people that Blair has suffered over Iraq. Many are tired of Blair’s constant moralizing and hype and spin. Clownish, authoritarian fear mongering and overzealousness and fealty to the Bush administration (like the infamous “forty-five minutes” and the shootings of Jean Charles de Menezes and Mohammed Abdul Kahar as well as the Downing Street Memo) has often gone too far and Brown may at least moderate that problem, perhaps simply to due to electoral considerations. His dour style also may not complement George W. Bush the way Blair does at media events. Labour has built a powerful electoral machine that has won three consecutive elections, and whatever other political reasons factored in, it is because they offer the best alternative for the British people. Gordon Brown should be a model to the Democrats as they try to build a sustainable and popular domestic platform to win the House and Senate back. [photo: AFP via Yahoo; chart of US GDP growth: web.stratfor.com; chart of Britain GDP growth (unlabeled): statistics.gov.uk]

If you haven’t been to Oregon, you have to go! Dan and I visited Portland, Mt. Hood, Crater Lake and Medford.

• Portland is an up-and-coming city for young people, though we can’t quite figure what the main industry is there in terms of jobs and working.
• Mt. Hood is spectacular–as you can see by Dan’s photo–and the surrounding area of orchards is charming. Some local girls at a Seattle’s Best coffee shop recommended the Alpine Slide at the backside of Mt. Hood. It’s a Fiberglass slide, about 200 feet long, and you slide down it on a little “sled.”
• Crater Lake is mind-blowing. Once a majestic volcano, it imploded and sunk into the ground below, creating a crater. Over the years, the giant crater filled with snow and rain, and it’s now the deepest lake in the U.S. The national park that it’s in has lots of camping and hiking spots, and the views from every angle are breathtaking.
• Medford was a little halfway town (in my opinion) with lots of fast food restaurants and strip malls. We did find the Dutch Brothers coffee stand, which had rockin‘ coffee and quick drive-up service. Medford is about 10 miles north of Ashland, OR, home to Southern Oregon University and Shakespeare festivals.

Jessica and I bought some fresh country apples near the base of Mount Hood on our way through Oregon, and then continued down through Crater Lake National Park with its steep edges and smoke from the current “naturally occurring controlled” forest fire. On this drive back from Seattle we stayed in the buzzing yet relaxed city of Portland the first night and Medford in the Rogue Valley the next night, and we just got back to San Francisco.

Tony Blair has overestimated his remaining support and is now slowly losing a power struggle with his planned successor as prime minister, Britain’s chancellor Gordon Brown. Yesterday the two held two confrontational meetings but the sniping still reached a fever pitch on both sides in a spectacle that terrified the new Labour faithful. Martin Kettle sees it as a destructive event for the party:

“Brown is taking a fantastic risk in mounting this coup. If it fails, like the forerunner attempt in May did, he will have caused mayhem in the Labour party with no reward. If he overcomes his caution and sees it through this time, though, he could be winning a pyrrhic victory. And by ousting his one-time ally, he may achieve something that until now seemed wholly impossible – stirring up sympathy for Blair.”

Calling it all a “coup” is an illustration of the extreme tactics Blair will employ, as he still dreams of a sendoff of grandiose visits before retirement. As the Guardian reported:
“An internal Downing Street memo detailing the strategy for handling Tony Blair’s departure from office was leaked yesterday.
Titled “Reconnecting with the public – a new relationship with the media” and published in the Daily Mirror, the document apparently suggested a number of headline-grabbing events, including appearances on Songs of Praise, Blue Peter and the Chris Evans show on BBC Radio 2.
Visits to 20 of the most striking new buildings since 1997 was another goal.”
The prime minister is not only unsympathetic but also deeply unpopular in Britain. No groundswell of support will rise for the instigator of the war in Iraq, the increaser of university fees, the introducer of 28-day detention without charge (shortened from 90 days as Blair wanted), the politician who wants unprecedented ID cards for all British subjects, the PM that couldn’t help but undermine Brown politically with changes in planned dates of departure and conflicting announcements about how long he planned to stay.
Blair will leave office with great credit for reviving British public services, at least to some extent, and a few other accomplishments including a strong economy. But Brown had much to do with many of the successes. Now Blair is undermining his legacy by trying to hold on as long as possible out of contempt for Gordon Brown. His speech today was seen as a move toward the door, but what does within a year really mean? As the (London) Times Online reports:

“Tony Blair finally confirmed today that he will leave Downing Street within the next 12 months, earning himself a breathing space in the face of calls from his own party to hand over power sooner rather than later.
The Prime Minister made his announcement at a school in St John’s Wood, north-west London, the day after eight members of the Government resigned in a coordinated protest at his refusal to name the date for his departure.”

But can Brown pull Labour back together and beat David Cameron and the conservative party? Peter Wilby is doubtful:

“What happened to the Tories in 1997 could easily happen to Labour in 2009 or 2010. Because Brown will be a better premier than John Major, and because there will be no policy divide as deep as Europe, there won’t probably won’t be a landslide. But Brown, I think, will still lose.”
Tony Blair should resist the temptation to continue releasing the hounds (like his junior Blairite MPs and Peter Mandelson) on Brown and instead step aside immediately.
[photo: Reuters]

When the presidential candidate on the left of the political divide is named president by a court, it conjures bad memories for many Americans. So what about when such a court ruling sends a right-wing president into power in Mexico? From the Guardian:
“Mexico’s highest electoral court has confirmed that the conservative governing party candidate, Felipe Calderón, has won the country’s disputed presidential poll, throwing out the argument made by his leftist rival Andrés Manuel López Obrador that the election was so unfair it should be annulled. An emotional crowd in the capital’s great Zócalo plaza – the headquarters of Mr López Obrador’s protest movement – greeted the ruling with anger, defiance and some heartfelt sobs.”
The court did agree that there were flaws in the election:
“The complaints included President Fox’s use of the state apparatus to favour the governing party candidate during the campaign, as well as negative advertising that compared the leftist candidate to Venezuela’s controversial President Hugo Chávez. The magistrates identified some of these as problematic but did not consider them serious enough to question the legality of the election”
So the court decided in favor of Calderon (by a 7-0 vote as compared to the 5-4 split in Bush v. Gore) and the innauguartion is set for December 1. But Obrador doesn’t see it that way:
“The former mayor of Mexico City did not give any immediate public reaction, although in recent days he has made it clear that this is far from the end of the story. In speeches foreseeing the adverse ruling, he has begun to transform his claims of fraud into an active challenge to the legitimacy of the country’s institutional order.”
Is Obrador right to continue challenging? It’s not clear, but an American on the left after seeing the 2000 and 2004 elections could be forgiven for thinking that he might have a point.
[photo: AP]

NPR reporter Lourdes Garcia-Navarro offered a report about Mexico that spoke of a “poisonous atmosphere in Mexico right now” as uncertainty looms over the presidential election between Calderon and Obrador. Garcia-Navarro says Obrador is “prepared to take this all the way,” mourns lame duck Vicente Fox’s last state of the union speech (blocked by protests), and reveals her bias by falsely claiming that Calderon’s PAN has a “majority” in the incoming Mexican congress. Garcia-Navarro has had a “very long, hot summer,” and it’s time for NPR to send in a better reporter as the story continues with, as she says, “one can predict, with almost certainty, a very difficult opposition.” For now, here is the reality as reported by the BBC:
“Mexico’s ruling National Action Party (PAN) has become the largest party in Congress for the first time.
But the final results of the 2 July elections, released on Wednesday, saw the party fall short of the outright majority required to govern alone.
The PRD came in second place, ahead of the Institutional Revolutionary Party which governed for more than 70 years.
The PAN and the PRD are involved in a dispute over the outcome of the vote for president held at the same time.
The left-wing candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has challenged the initial result, which found that conservative Felipe Calderon – of the PAN – had won by a margin of less than one percentage point.
The Federal Electoral Tribunal has until the end of August to rule on the legal challenges and until 6 September to name a president-elect.“
[photo: NPR.org]

I used to like Slate when it was owned by Microsoft before it was bought by the Washington Post and became a dumping ground for noted “gin soaked popinjay” Christopher Hitchens. Well here’s a note I found in a USA Today article about unofficial iPod tours:
“Slate.com posts art critic Lee Siegel’s downloadable tour of what he considers the most overrated and underrated paintings in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.”
Is Siegel any better at properly critiquing other people’s work than at characterizing his own? Let’s take a look at what Siegel wrote in the comment section of his own blog using a deceptive alias–via Daily Kos:
“Siegel is brave, brilliant, and wittier than Stewart will ever be. Take that, you bunch of immature, abusive sheep.”
Blogger Scott Lemieux offers this about the laughable dismissal of Siegal from his blog at tnr.com (the New Republic online):
“Really, Siegel’s blog was a national treasure–that level of onanism doesn’t come along every day. Now, the question is who will replace him: Ben Domenech? John Lott? Ann Coulter?”
Good question. Well it looks like they are going to try to bore us sheep for a while with something called “Open University.” This is from the site:
“To the best of our knowledge, this blog is unlike any other out there. It’s dedicated to thinking about not just the news of the day but also the news from the academy: Controversies in campus politics that warrant thoughtful discussion.”
Well it looks like they want to launch an online center for stoking controversey over Middle Eastern studies at Columbia and screwing Juan Cole’s career. Or something like that. Those Slate readers walking around the MoMA might be Hitchens fans who might anyway enjoy a dishonest, arrogant mouthpiece for power guiding them–anyway back to the “popinjay” bit–the man who used that term was George Galloway, MP for Benthal Green and Bow in East London. Mr. Galloway recently wrote in the Guardian‘s blog about the war in Lebanon:
“Practically the only person in the world who claims Israel won the war is George Bush – and we all know his definition of the words ‘mission accomplished’. Reports that the Hizbullah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, expressed regret this week at having underestimated Israel’s response to the capture of two of its soldiers were misleading. In fact, Nasrallah thanked God that the attack came when the resistance movement was prepared, as he was convinced Israel would have otherwise invaded later in the year at a time of its choosing.” How did this “time of our choosing” phrase become popular? I think George W. Bush used it to code “we’re going to Iraq” as a matter of when not if. Another language change, picked up by some media, is the recent repetition of “Democrat Party” instead of Democratic Party. This tactic is just a sad exhibition of typical Republican disrespect and arrogance (perhaps they have convinced themselves that this is a clever if Orwellian re-branding, but it just sounds unsophisticated to me). But an even more interesting media talking point is the strange overuse of the term “embolden.” It seems to me that the old horror story about “emboldening the terrorists if we leave Iraq” has been meta-projected by many media talkers and touts onto all sorts of non-Iraq-related matters. This passage appears near the start of a NY Sun article:
“Iran’s mullahs, emboldened by Turtle Bay’s waffling on the Lebanon crisis, are moving quickly to consolidate their gains and solidify their seat in the no longer exclusive nuclear club.” It can’t go over well when a club loses that clubby feel. But wait, there’s more. Here’s the title of the article:
“U.N. Actions Embolden Hezbollah”
So let’s just say that there appears to be a lot of embolde
ning happening on the Middle East scene. It seems that the idea that the enemy (or whoever) can be “emboldened” seems to imply an enormous amount of potential control, giving the ones who shouldn’t be doing the emboldening ability to affect the will and determination of the antagonists. Perhaps these antagonists need to be given more credit for being autonomous and not exclusively reactive in their motivations. What of other uses of this strange verb, not passive but actually active–but in a strange way. The Peublo Chieftain uses the term in an article about the arrest of fugitive Warren Jeffs: “Jeffs’ arrest should embolden law-enforcement officials in the southwest to further crack the iron-fist hold that Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints leaders have on their communities.”
So it seems to be all over the place, and I don’t really understand how such a strange concept as “embolden” is conducive to reason.
[photo: webshots.com]