Do you think that it is a parent's responsibility or that of the landlord to keep a four year old from falling out of the window of a rented apartment? A Multnomah County, Oregon, jury thought it to be the responsibility of the landlord - by awarding the parent a $560,000 judgment! Sounds like another "hot coffee in the crotch case" to The Doser.

Not a mash letter.

The O'bama administration has been drafting a letter to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
It is the subject of a number of weeks of hard, careful work. The Iranian President knows that it is coming and he has stated that it will be read. The Doser thinks this sort of initiative is a hopeful one. (A similar overture should be made to Cuba.) Only self-righteous, narcissistic administrations can believe that we should not even talk with other governments. Iran is mindful of the twenty-six years of Shah rule that ensued from the last intervention of the US. Nobody gave us the world to run. We should make every effort to live in it with the other tenants. The Reps. will want to take the position that, just talking with a nation which has very different goals than ours, borders on treason. Good that O'bama doesn't subscribe to that notion! Because of its uncertainty regarding our intentions, it seems likely that Ahmadinejad will be reading the letter for indications of true change.

Don't come back, Rod.

The Doser can fully understand that Illinois would like to see the last of Rod Blagojevich but wasn't there something, somewhere, about a Bill of Attainder?

NRA sponsored slaughter.

Another well-regulated militia-man killed two youngsters and injured five others. Compliments of the NRA right to bear arms program. The Doser hasn't heard of the NRA "militia -men" protecting the country or anybody else - ever. The one-sided battle happened in Portland, Oregon. The youngsters were standing together on the curb and the "militia-man" commenced fire with his new NRA-enabled hand gun. The Doser intends to look into this sort of "well-ordered" rampage, shooting spree, massacre, to try to discover what social advantage inclines so many people to support the NRA.

Good News

The Oregonian, in its January 27, 2009, publication, took a few, hesitant, very welcome, steps toward selecting more encouraging news. The Doser believes that we will begin to recover if we look up from our settled preoccupation with our current horrors. These were Portland area stories reported: (1) Portland Police officer, Gedemynas Jakubauskus, risked his life and saved a woman from a burning building. (2) The Metro Council and the Portland City Council are finally showing some good sense by thinking of putting a toll on the Bridge for Vancouverites. (3) Mayor Sam Adams decided to try to bury his repletely examined "past" under productive work for the City of Portland. (4) Even our dour Steve Duin wrote an "upper" about the Tualatin, Oregon, citizen process to oppose "city hall" on behalf of Tualatin community supporters, Jason and Fay Lee.

She loves me; she loves me not.

Researchers have made a major discovery! They have come upon a workable love potion. This is a break-through toward solving the ancient problem: "why doesn't the one I love, love me?" It is said that this discovery also has the potential of leading to the development of an anti-love potion. It's characteristic of us that we have found the un-needed solution before the needed one.

January 25, 2009

The prosecutor asked for a sentence of 56 years for Daniel Nesta, the gangster on whose criminal trial The Doser sat. The defense attorney argued that ten years would give him enough punishment. The judge sentenced him to 30 years in prison with parole possible after 15 years. The judge spoke of giving him an opportunity to develop a "constructive life." "Mister" Nesta, as the attorneys called him during the trial, will be 37 years old on the earliest date he will emerge. An idealistic friend of The Doser's excoriates the entire current reality and wants to blame the failure of "Mister" Nesta's uprearing for the problem. The Doser, however, is satisfied with the idea that "Mister" Nesta will be out of circulation for a while, perhaps, even, not being rendered more vicious by the penitentiary experience.

Al Jazeera probably doesn't feel as hopeful about President O'bama's administration as some,including the Doser,do.

Fertilizing the productive field

It appears that the CEO of Bank of America is willing to take the risk of improving his ownership position in this federally supported business.

Enjoy what you have.

The London buses are carrying a sign by a person that wants to see other than evangelical Christian signage on the buses. She has posted this message: "There's probably no god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." The expected outrage has not been public.

Portland's newly-elected Mayor, Sam Adams, said some years ago that he was just mentoring Beau Breedlove, a young intern in a municipal office. That was a lie. He said, then, that he had not had sexual relations with Breedlove. He has,now, said that he had a romantic relation with him before the lad turned 18 but didn't have sexual relations until after he was 18. Since he has not been completely forthcoming on other parts of his account, one has doubts about this juvenile issue. Mayor Adams had "come out" quite some time before this "event," so that sort of self-protection was not involved. The Doser wonders. That's the problem with lying. There are grades of lying: He wasn't lying to protect someone. These could have been self-enhancement lies. Or were they to conceal a misdeed? What should Mayor Adams do now? What, if anything, should the people do now?

Yes.

Yes, we will.

Good after bad?

In "the Depression," FDR ordered the banks to close. He didn't ask the people to buy those loser operations. Sometime later, some of the banks opened - and the fringe banks did not. This process put the loss on the people who had been operating and benefiting from the banks. Unfortunately,those who had been doing business with them also lost. Does anybody know that pouring money into these losers will work better.

Derth of Heroes

Maybe this explains why we don't have any heroes any more.The recent event was this: a highly-skilled, experienced airplane pilot saved the lives of over a hundred people by his quick-thinking, capable reaction to a terrible difficulty. Everybody says: "It was miraculous!" The Doser noticed the same thing a week or so ago. Many hard-working, overtime runway workers made it possible for planes to land in Portland, Oregon,during our recent vicissitude. People said: "It was a miracle!"

Dose of Penology

The Doser yesterday completed jury service on the criminal case: State of Oregon v. Nesta. It was a two-phase trial - first, trial of the crimes and, then, recommendations on the sentencing. Nesta was convicted in the first part of,among other things, Robbery and Aggravated Assault. The crux of his conduct was that he shot the unarmed lap-dance cashier (who was lying on the floor) six times during the course of the Robbery. The DA asked for the sentencing recommendation phase so that the judge, if she wished to do so, could impose a heavier than "standard" sentence. One of The Doser's questions is: how are we doing with our criminal justice system? Nesta is a narcissistic, 22 year old gangster, only part of a percentile short of being a psychopath by definition, a loser with a long history of over-reacting with excessive violence. He is a non-supporter of his "intimate other" and their child, no history of job performance, in and out of custody since teen-age. At the trials, he seemed pleased that a group of "other world people" were recognizing him for the major baddie that he thinks he is. What in the world do we believe that a long term in prison is going to do with Nesta?

T

Misplaced Enforcement

Those murderous drug cartel people are establishing their nefarious bases of operation on United States soil! Though there is room for all, they are greedy and want to establish non-competition areas. That, of course, means that each have to kill off numbers of their rivals in order to insure their market share. That just adds another big burden to the assigned task of our drug enforcers. The Doser thinks we've got this all backward. Of course, venal men will come to supply us as long as we want the illicit drugs. Our current drug enforcement plan is to stop the "venal men." If we really want to stop drug trafficking, however, it is necessary to stop our use of it. Since it seems unlikely that we will move away from our drug habit voluntarily, it follows that our own drug demand is where we need to put in our drug-enforcement strokes.

Golden days.

Were it not for the risk that they cause bystanders, few would try to stop our local gangsters from killing each other. In the past, a violent aggressor with a bad attitude toward another violence-prone person would have it out early in the morning in a deserted park.

Not really "in."

If the Doser were a citizen of Illinois, he would be bitterly dissatisfied with the seating of Gov. Rod Blagojevich's appointee. A well-known fact is that the US Senate is about as cliquey as a high school sorority. That will translate into Illinois having an inoperable junior Senator if Burris is seated.

Chutzpah

Talk about chutzpah: Edwardsville, Alabama, a municipality of 194 souls is thinking big.

What can we do?

President-Elect O'bama hasn't given us what we, the people, should do in this demanding situation. The only request is that he's made is for us to stand still while an enormous increase of the enormous US debt us laid on us. He's probably saving recommendations for our action to be made in his inaugural address. The "can do" is already beginning to seep out at the bottom.

It is not at all clear to many observers why President Elect O'bama picked Rick Warren to deliver the inaugural prayer. (The level of expression on the subject does provide proof positive that high-level politicians live in a very contention-ridden atmosphere.) There has been evangelical support for Warren's appointment . It is quite unlikely that O'bama supports much of the social postioning that Warren stands for. For example, Warren has been recommending abstinence rather than condoms to Africans in their fight against AIDS. Warren is repletely on record in opposition to gays rights and abortion, two opinion positions that are the opposite of O'Bama's. The Doser's position is unchanged: if Warren sticks to business (invoking God's blessing on the event, requesting wisdom to be given O'bama in his administration of this very tricky patch etc. etc.) it ought to be OK. But, if Warren gets over into his ultra-conservative opinion areas it will not be OK.

Morbidly obese Mormon Winston Blackmore or Creston, B.C. is charged in British Columbia with marrying 20 women. The Doser also gained weight after marriage. It's difficult to imagine the effort required to carry around the fat caused by 20 marriages.

Smitten in Bend

Though it has not been proved by trial in court, it appears that (then) seventeen year old David Lee Simmons had to do with his (then) fourteen year old girl friend. Regrettable, The Doser opines, but not such an utterly uncommon conduct that the lad should be singled out for a two-year criminal hassling. Such was not the opinion of the Jefferson County District Attorney who punished Simmons without indictment and generally used his office to harass him for two years. That should give Jefferson County, Oregon, swains a reason to reflect on their ways.

Dire situation.

The Doser sees a problem with efforts to achieve truce/cease-fire/cooling-off period/peace in Gaza-Israel. All of these efforts are trying to solve an old impossibility: trying to reconcile an irresistible force to an immovable object. Gaza considers every "resolution:" how will this benefit the process of getting them out of there. Israel considers every "resolution:" how will this work to solidify our position here.

He's My Boy.

Dynastic aspirations and historical continuity aside, The Doser does not think the world can stand a Jeb-Bush Iraqi War.

Portland is Literate - Sometimes.

Portland has, for the second time, been included in the top ten on a nationwide survey of "Most Literate Cities."

This survey of the "Ten Most Literate Cities" was made for the years 2004-2008. The procedure was designed and conducted by Dr. John W. Miller.

The survey relates only to cities with populations in excess of 250, 000 (There appear to have been 71 US cities of that size in 2008.) The survey method considers several research categories relative to the number of people living in the city. The categories are : number of bookstores, educational attainment, internet resources, library resources, newspaper circulation and periodical publishing resources.

The cities that read themselves into the Top Ten is of interest . Over the time period surveyed, the cities that appeared in the top ten included Minneapolis, Seattle, Pittsburgh, Madison, Cincinnati, Washington DC, Denver, Boston, San Francisco, St. Paul, Atlanta, St. Louis and Portland. Seattle and Minneapolis vie, regularly, for first place. Washington, DC is a solid middle-field contender as is Denver.

In 2008 nine of the also-ran cities were in Texas. with four cities in the bottom ten. Those four were: Arlington, San Antonio, Corpus Christi and El Paso. California had ten cities among the also-rans with four in the bottom ten of the list. They were: Santa Ana, Anaheim, Bakersfield and Stockton.

Portland tied for tenth place in 2008. It was in position ten in 2006.

The Doser, of course, is convinced that Portland is not rated higher because of Powell's Book Store which counts for only one bookseller. (Except in gem-class worth, of course.)

Firming up.

"Firmwear" is "in" for men! Or "around" rather than "in." Women call them girdles but they aren't girdles, they are "Firmwear."

Scrip

California is beginning to issue scrip rather than make payments. It will be a clear indicator of confidence, or lack thereof, to see whether merchants will accept scrip for payment for purchases - and, if so, at what discount.

Roland Burris

The Doser thinks Roland Burris (71) is long-in-the-tooth to be a totally suitable US Senate-appointee. In other respects, however, he seems a good choice. The problem, of course, is the appointer not the appointee. Burris would do better if, instead of thrashing around demanding his rights, he would simply say: "I'm a suitable appointee for the US Senate regardless of who may appoint me."