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dpatrick's comments:
on Stun Guns
Mr. Salisbury sounds like a saint. What a kind, gentle person. My heart goes out to him for his horrific and unbearable loss.
posted 3 years, 4 months ago
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on Stun Guns
Stupid people do stupid things. Sounds like we need to hire smarter police officers. Reminds me of the case in Gresham a year or so back, when a concerned mom called police because her son was behaving badly and waving a knife around. The police came, saw the knife, felt threatened and killed him. DEAD. Forever. Because he was a kid waving a knife around. I'm so lucky my own parents never called the police on me. They might have killed me, oh, about a hundred times. WTF? Who are these idiots using deadly force on people? Take their F-ing guns away---take them away from everyone, and we'll all be safer.
posted 3 years, 4 months ago
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on Measure 67
In 1931 when the tax was first levied, a cup of coffee was 3 cents. Ten bucks in 1931 would buy some $325 in consumer goods today, or pay for over $420 worth of unskilled labor. Moreover, $10 represented $770 in terms of nominal GDP per capita, or $1,888 as a relative share of GDP. From that perspective, $10 probably seemed like a steep, but not unreasonable tax to pay. Today, barriers to entry in business are vastly lower than they were in 1931, and the protections afforded are much greater. $150 seems like a terrific bargain for corporations.
(Dollar values derived from www.measuringworth.com)
posted 3 years, 4 months ago
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on Reporting Abuse
I once witnessed and confronted a woman abusing one of two children she was with as they walked down the street. I was driving on East Burnside a couple of years ago when I heard the woman yelling angrily at the girl I assumed to be her daughter. As the yelling grew more intense, I became concerned, and stopped my car to see if I should render aid. At one point, the woman screamed, grabbed the girl’s hair, and used it to catapult her into the street. A passing mail delivery truck swerved to avoid the girl. If I had had a cell phone with me at the time, I would have called the police. Since I didn’t have a phone, I wasn’t sure what to do. After all, as an individual I have no authority in the matter, and confronting the three of them together could be problematic for the kids. Rather than confront them, I shadowed them in my car, following closely to see where they went. My intent was to determine the address where the abuser lived, and then report the abuse to the appropriate authorities. I did not hide the fact that I was following them, and they soon became aware that they were being watched. After following them for about twenty minutes, the woman had the children stand aside and approached my car. She confronted me to ask why I was following them. She said that I was making her nervous, and that she and her kids were frightened. She threatened to call the police. At this point I encouraged her to yes, please call the police, whereupon I would be happy to explain what I was doing and why I was doing it. When the police arrived, I said that I would ask them to call DHS, because I was concerned for the health and safety of the children in her company. I asked her if they were in fact her children, and told her that I had witnessed her abusive behavior. I also indicated that I could probably find another witness by seeking out the mail man who had been driving past when she had thrown her daughter into the street. At this point, the woman became very concerned, and asked me not to report her. She apologized, and seemed genuinely remorseful. Although it was not entirely satisfactory to me, I didn’t pursue the matter any further; doing so would have required me to be much more aggressive and taken a considerable amount of time. She refused to provide her name or address, and I had not been able to determine where they lived; what more could I have done?
posted 3 years, 4 months ago
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on Red Light Cameras
These cameras are rife with comic possibilities:
"Whenever I find one, I like to disguise my license plate and drive through wearing a Richard Nixon mask."
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on Sam Scandal
1. Who in Sam's office expressed concern?
2. Did they express this concern to you, i.e. the press>?
3. Who do YOU, personally have sex with?
4. Who were YOU, personally, having sex with in 2005?
5. I'm really hot, and I look older than I am. Will you have sex with me?
6. I'm really, really hot, and I'm totally in love with you. I am so attractive to you, personally, as to be irresistible, and I'm throwing myself at you. Now will you have sex with me? I'm really good! I promise I won't tell anyone! Please?
posted 4 years, 4 months ago
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on Language Lessons
I don't know how to respond while being polite.
[b][i]Perhaps you edited out all the rude stuff. Your comments seem perfectly polite. Thank you for that. [/i][/b]
Clearly you didn't get the sarcasm and in addition you made so many incorrect assumptions and leaps from my post(s?) it is hard to even respond. I would say it is just my poor writing, but I have to assume part of it is you. That you are reading my words with a conformist mentality.
Yes, I was referring to languages other then your first language. [i][b] I got that. I was being sarcastic, too.[/i][/b] I said nothing to indicate I reject multiculturalism. You approached what I wrote with the cliched view that everyone who doesn't agree with the importance of learning another language must be a xenophobe and closed-minded---when the exact opposite is true. You might look at my other response above.
[i][b] You say that you don't reject multiculturalism. So I misinterpreted your meaning when you state that you don't need a new language to "get all cultural and cozy up to others so I can further my worldview." Unless you are doing this in some sort of pantomime, then you must be relying on your correspondent's knowledge of English. In which case IT is the foreign language. The other possibility is that you choose not to speak with anyone at all, but gain your cultural insights through non-linguistic means, such as architecture or cuisine. While interesting, such appreciations of other cultures strike me as incomplete. Thus I continue to assert that even though you believe yourself to be accepting of multicultural viewpoints, your understanding of them is less profound than you realize. Also: in no way did I mean to imply that everyone who doesn't agree with the importance of learning another language is a xenophobe. My wording was quite specific. I was referring to you and people like you. By that I mean people who believe they have a more profound understanding of things than they actually do, but who nonetheless do not hesitate to produce lengthy discourses on the correctness of their viewpoint. Happily, this latter subset of people is but a small minority. Most people who think they know more than they actually do are content to keep such ideas to themselves. Perhaps they are protected by a subconscious self-awareness of their ignorance--a word I use non-pejoratively to mean lack of knowledge in a passive sense, and not an active rejection of learning.[/i][/b]
A good grasp of philosophy. [i][b] Is that it? What about mathematics? Science? Economics? [/i][/b]
I feel you should be slower to suggest that I am ignorant, single-minded and without curiosity---perhaps, these rushes to judgement are what lead to war. [i][b] I enjoy one advantage that you do not. I learned another language as an adult. So I know what it's like to speak only one language, and I have some idea of what I didn't know about and could not conceive of before acquiring my second language. And although I hold a master's degree in it, I know that my understanding of it is far from perfect. Even after living for two years and attending college in that foreign language, I appreciate that I will never achieve a complete understanding of the culture. Do you assert that you can appreciate the culture as fully or more fully than I can without the burden of learning the other language? [/i][/b]
I'm sorry, but there is no nice way of putting this, and I hope I am not making the same mistakes you made above---I think you don't have the type of intelligence required to understand my view. This doesn't make you a bad person---just different from me. I'm also sorry, that even though we speak the same language we still can't understand each other. Would a linguist help? Or are there some barriers that language can't bridge? [i][b] I'm relieved to know that I'm not a bad person simply because I lack the intelligence to understand you, and bow before your obviously superior mind. I apologize for my lack of ability to empathize or understand you, and thank you for your gentle kindness towards me by indulging my lack of intellect and gracing me with your valuable insights and experience. Perhaps when I'm older i will come to understand the depth of your wisdom. Or perhaps such wisdom will come to me only after I have fully mastered English.[/i][/b]
posted 4 years, 9 months ago
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on Language Lessons
Languages are not "matter-of-fact." On the contrary, they are all about "getting muddled up in the syntax and semantics" of human interaction. They provide the framework for our ideas, thoughts and expression, and are the very foundation of our information age. You incorrectly assume that most people speak only one language. While that's true for the 4% of the world's population that reside in the US, it is the exception in the rest of the world. Not only does the majority of the planet speak a language other than English as their native tongue, most of the world's population speak more than one language as a matter of routine in their daily lives. If, as you seem to desire, you spent more time studying English, you'd learn that English itself is an amalgamation of numerous other languages, and owes its incredible richness to the cultural diversity of its many speakers. English has proven able to accept and incorporate their ideas and expressions into itself. How ironic that you, someone who rejects such multiculturalism, should benefit from it by speaking a language that is nothing if not multicultural.
Third paragraph (since I'm rebutting your remarks by paragraph): Just out of curiosity, if linguistic intelligence and a good memory are not good indicators of overall smarts, what are?
To say that languages are divisive is height of ignorance. Yes, they evolved in physical isolation, but they didn't [i]cause[/i] the isolation! And although many people have no desire, need or aptitude to learn another language, your dismissive and flippant attitude on the topic is counter productive and even dangerous. It is people like you, who have no curiosity or interest in other cultures, who are smug and comfortable in their own single-minded way of thinking, and who do not accept or cannot even conceive of alternate viewpoints, who take reckless and stupid actions like leading a nation to a war they do not understand and cannot win.
Your last paragraph is an exclamation point of ignorance: Those who would boycott the Olympics in protest against an oppressive political regime are the very ones who would benefit MOST from learning Mandarin. Their protests, spoken in Chinese, will not fall on deaf ears. (Unless, of course, they are your ears.) Funny!
posted 4 years, 9 months ago
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on Language Lessons
posted 4 years, 9 months ago
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on Language Lessons
posted 4 years, 9 months ago
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on Language Lessons
posted 4 years, 9 months ago
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on Hurrah for the Red, White and Blue
As a young man, I had the great good fortune to travel in Europe and elsewhere, and everywhere I went, people were happy to meet me, and always curious about America. Many of them shared with me the vision of a shining city on a hill, a beacon of liberty, calling to the poor, huddled masses, and I had a sense of pride, strength and also responsibility that went along with how lucky I felt to come from such a special place.
Today, that pride has been replaced with shame. I have not ventured beyond our borders, now, for many years. I have contacted friends abroad with messages of apology, with assurances that those in power today do not reflect the America that I once knew. I have felt the need to apologize for the scandals, atrocities, incompetence, stupidity, arrogance and, it so pains me to say, evil that has poured forth from those in power here, with names such as Abu Graib, Guantanamo, and worst of all, Bush.
Immediately after 9/11 I remember how very humbled and proud I felt to hear the expressions of support and love that poured out from people all over the world. I wept on seeing news footage the Queen of England singing the Star Spangled Banner at St. Paul's Cathedral, and cried openly to read the headline in the French newspaper, "We Are All New Yorkers."
Today I cry openly at all the goodwill squandered by our leaders. I weep at their betrayal of our former allies by their ignorance, arrogance and downright stupidity.
The greatest expression of patriotism I feel today is the tremendous sense of shame I feel for the loss of the America I knew in my youth. An America that I fear I may not live to see again.
posted 4 years, 10 months ago
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