Category: What the…?

Some people will probably think it’s sour grapes for me to criticize the Oregonian‘s Community Writer experiment because I wasn’t chosen for it, but really, that’s not a problem. As I told the editors in my application letter, I credit the Oregonian with prompting me to start my blog, because I was frustrated with spending lots of time writing letters to the editor that were never published. At least here, I can pretend someone reads them besides me.

No, what struck me about the batch of fifteen writers announced today is that except for the 12-year-old middle school student and the 19-year-old Oregon Journalist of the Year, none of them had lived in Oregon their whole lives.

And while I’m no spring chicken, they seem pretty, well, old. The median age of the group is 53. That means that half of the writers are 53 or older. As a matter of fact, nearly three-quarters are in their mid-40s (45) and beyond. I would have been at the bottom edge of that cohort myself if chosen, but if I’d noticed that most of the other writers were older than I was, I think I might have mentioned it in my first guest column.

The only data provided about the writers is their age and the number of years in Oregon (or Vancouver, in one case), and it’s entirely possible that some of them were born here, left for a while, and came back, so I’m not going to make the mistake of saying that there are no Oregon natives among the (considerably) over-20 group, but most of them haven’t lived even half their lives in the state. Based on their age and the number of years in the area, the median percentage of their lives spent in Oregon (or Vancouver) is 46%. In fact—with the exception of the two youngest Community Writers—none of the group has lived more than three-quarters of their life here. This means that even someone who was born here around 1955 (making them the median age of the group) spent about 28 years somewhere else (if they had lived here the median percentage of the group).

I have to say that I’m rather surprised that the Oregonian wasn’t able to find even one writer older than 20 who met their standards and who’d lived in the state their entire life.

From SCIFI.COM‘s weekly email newsletter:

Friday February 30

at 10/9C

The unexpected return of an old friend spurs the Atlantis team into a race against time to save a missing teammate.

I wonder if they were as shocked as I was that February had 30 days?

Another fantastic show by The Hives last night at the Roseland, fronted by The Donnas.

Watching The Donnas set reminded me that it was almost exactly 22 years ago that The Pandoras came through Eugene promoting their album Step Pretending. I was still doing radio part-time at KRVM, and interviewed the band live. I’ve still got my individually-signed posters and album cover.

Hello,

Thank you for your interest in becoming a Community Writer. We appreciate the time and thought you put into preparing your materials. After reviewing approximately 150 applications, we’ve decided on a new group of 15 writers. We’re sorry to say you’re not among them.

Again, thank you for your interest.

Sincerely,

Bob Caldwell, editorial page editor

George Rede, Sunday Opinion editor

I’m hardly surprised that Bob Caldwell and George Rede didn’t pull my application for Community Writer out of the stack — I’ve made more than my share of comments about the quality of the Oregonian Opinion pages over the years — what really startles me is that out of all the people writing their opinions in this state that they only had 150 applications.

I put Google Analytics in place on the site a week and a half ago, and relatively quickly it logged visitors from almost every state in the Union.

Except for Mississippi, Idaho, Vermont, and Montana. I’ve been waiting for one of those to drop for days now.

Since Eartha Kitt was just in town…

Jeez. You watch a movie and write about it and then one of the actors has to go and die a couple of days later.

Roy Scheider’s character in Marathon Man is murdered halfway through that movie, but even as a government agent carrying diamonds for a Nazi war criminal he turned in one of his workmanlike performances as a sort of everyday guy in a strange situation. While he was never exactly an action hero, he had a lithe, snakelike speed that made him believable in movies like Jaws where his physicality was needed to stay alive.

I don’t remember seeing Jaws when it came out—I was only in my early teens—but my guilty Roy Schieder pleasures were from the period when he was trying to build on the great success of Spielberg’s film but not quite hitting it.

I will admit this here and now, since Barbara doesn’t read the blog: I loved All That Jazz. Barbara hates the movie because of Bob Fosse’s reprehensible personality and I think she feels it absolves him too much, but I’ve had a copy of the soundtrack for thirty years and even though I haven’t listened to it for twenty, I probably remember it by heart.

Then there’s Blue Thunder, the inspiration for the execrable TV series “Airwolf.” But I have that soundtrack too.

I’ve got a post that’s sitting on my hard drive about the French classic film Wages of Fear, which William Friedkin remade with Scheider in the starring role as Sorceror. Gotta bump that up on Netflix.

Here’s to Roy Scheider. Never let the sharks get you.

I suppose this could nominally be called a haiku, since does mention a season…

Cold and flu season

Pay no attention to the

Worldwide pile of birds

From City News Notes and Queries (Reprinted from the “Manchester City News”) (1885), my great-great-great-great grandfather may make an appearance.

The late Mr. Shirley was in the habit of saying that the descendents of the Plantagenets must now be look for among the humbler classes of Englishment named Plant; and the Times, in reviewing a book on geneaology some time ago, said that a turnpike collector of that name in Buckinghamshire had derived in lineal descent from the royal family in the Plantagenet lines. Some hundred and fifty years ago [c. 1735] there was a William Plant living at Winsford, in this county (Cheshire), who also claimed a royal ancestry. In 1829 his grandson, Uriah Plant, published a curious volume of “the principal events” in his own life; a book rarely met with in these days, for it was of no public interest, although noticeable as having been printed at Middlewich.

We can only be thankful Middlewich printed it.

Five years earlier there’s this from the Stockport Advertiser Notes and Queries (10 November 1883):

In an old document now before me, I see the name of William Plant, of Winsford, in Cheshire, who also claimed a royal ancestry; and he had a son, Samuel Plant, who lived a hundred years ago at a place called Lach-Dennis, near Northwich, but who afterwards removed to Wincham. His fifth son, Urian Plant, published in 1829 a curious volume of “The Principal Events” in his own life; a book rarely met with in these days, for it was of no public interest, although noticeable as having been printed at Middlewich.

By an odd coincidence, we stayed overnight in Stockport before flying out of Manchester airport last October. Either the same person was writing and recycling responses to inquiries or we’ve got a 120-year-old case of plagarism on our hands (the earlier Stockport response begins with the bit about “Mr. Shirley” verbatim).

At least someone found it useful. From Jonathan Rose’s The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes (2001):

Uriah Plant (b. 1786), a wheelwright’s son, affirmed that “My uncertainty about the truth of religion not only increased my sense of its importance … but gave me a habit of thinking, a love of reading, and a desire after knowledge.” As an office boy and bookkeeper in Leicester he organized a discussion group devoted to religion and, over six years, spent “only” £21 10s. 9d. on books, mostly second-hand. He fearlessly read across the spectrum of theological opinion, including The Age of Reason, and opposed the suppression of antireligious literature. Later he joined the Wesleyan Methodists without completely accepting their dogma, noting that Wesley in “The Witness of the Spirit” was rather more liberal than some of his followers.

Music is often

Funnier than you think

The Doctor is in.

January 2008

24–26

Paideia event: Dr. Demento

Dr. Demento returns to Reed with lecture and music presentations:

January 25: Musical Comedy in the 21st Century
Funny music is flourishing under the radar, and Dr. Demento is not just talking about Weird Al. We listen to and watch some of the most hilarious and creative examples of recent years.