"I didn't believe he was going to die."

Faith-healing "mom" confessed on the stand to the crime charged . Just like the old Perry Mason days! She said: "I didn't believe he was going to die." She knew he was sick enough that she should be feeling some concern about whether he was going to die or not and she didn't believe he was going to die. She's not defending her conduct, as The Oregonian interpreted her statement. She was confessing that she believed that God would heal her son. That's the point of the criminal trial.

Success on parole.

The Doser has been critical of the penal system in the past but maybe unjustly. Note with what success Martha Stewart has made her way on the outside, even though she is an ex-con.

Post it before it's too late.

Well, it's early in the morning when a person is not protected by the comfy rationales the later hours provide. The Doser is willing therefore to ask a question that is going to show how dumb he is. The idea came out of the news that explains that corporations can now buy government benefits and personnel without restraint. (Something about assuring the corporations the Constitutional rights of human citizens. ) The urge to get a comforting rationale in place is already cutting in! It has been sixty years since The Doser took a course in accounting. (Incidentally, accounting was a course that he didn't understand very well.) If the Dosage is not blurted out soon, full common sense about not saying it at all will kick in. Here goes;

What if corporations were required to buy governmental favors with money taken only from net-profits-available-for-dividend-and-bonus-distribution rather than as a cost-of-doing-business?

Reason Sarah Sought More Remunerative Employment?

Bristol Palin has asked $1750 per month child support from her former fiance for the support of their child. Levi Johnston, age 19, Bristol's former fiance, is not mentioned as being employed. He has had a substantial income in the past - giving interviews criticizing the Palins. The Doser calculates that boy is being asked to pay $20,000 per year child support. He'd better get a paper route, or something. Though, of course, it is easy enough to criticize the Palins, Levi has probably sold all that he is likely to learn about them. The Oregonian points out that Bristol, doubtless also unemployed, has heretofore provided almost 100% of the child's income.










'

High-tone hijab?

A posh country club in a posh part of the Portland, Oregon, area is unwilling to let guests wear jeans on the premises. The Doser would like to know what other code restrictions the Oswego Lake Country Club has. Kitzhaber probably wears jeans to claim an association with blue-collar people. Does one assume that the kitchen workers, grounds-keepers and caddies at this fastidious club are not permitted to wear jeans also? So they have old-timey rules. The Doser wonders if they also have prudish rules and maybe even bigotry rules.

Manners and respect.

Manners is a widely accepted set of conducts proper at this time. It is a behavior that takes into account the other persons around. Respect is another matter. It is time-related too, but it applies the manners expectations of the other person. Thus, for a person who is twenty-five, it is currently mannerly to address a contemporary by first name immediately. It shows lack of respect, however, to address a person fifty-five years one's senior by first name immediately.

Someone did something senselessly egregious. The person used a gun to destroy some windows and lenses of the historic Cape Meares light house.

The Cape Meares light house is an Oregon heritage location and many people, including The Doser, have surely had life-directional experiences there.

"It's on the end of the continent. It's make it here or throw it in."

"What would it be like to be on tempestuous seas, out there, and come into the recognizable pattern of the Cape Meares light house?"

"That thing's there doing its job no matter how lousy conditions are."

"Wow - this is a bigger world than I thought it was."

"What a majestic, stand-up, useful, historic place with a view all-the-way-to-forever."

"Those lenses were brought all the way from France when France was much farther away than 13 hours."

"Probably the artistry that went into the making of those lenses contributed to the Hubble space-craft."

"Here I am in the face of this distance, this wind, this driving rain, those oppressive clouds, and I'm facing into it all just like that light house."


The candidate for tar and feathering who did that cowardly, destructive, miserable act must not have had any of those experiences.

Old Age Test

The Doser is about to tell you how to find out if you are really old or whether it's all in your mind. You are really old if you always moisten the plastic bristles of your tooth brush as you routinely did when they were natural bristles that had to be moistened.

Major Breakthrough in Ecumenicity

It is The Doser's experience that Christians don't talk much about God but, on the occasions they do, it would be a major ecumenical breakthrough to refer to him as Allah.

Gone Too Far.

The Doser believes that the media have expanded a worthwhile privilege into an unwarranted license. The public has the right to know if a politician has his hand in the cookie jar. The public does not have the right to know about the private life of public figures unless it is shown that their private conduct directly effects their public performance.

And, on that point, every adult knows that telling one lie in one situation does not prove that the person is a liar in every situation. The way, therapeutically, you can check this out is this: Have you ever told a lie? Are you a liar or a person of principal? (If, of course, you tell yourself you've never told a lie, you are a liar.)

The way the media have gotten away with this canard is that we readers are so separated from the people they snoop on that we we have no personal feeling - or knowledge - that they are actually OK in most matters but were over-extended on this one.

We are spending a great deal to maintain convicted criminals and prospective convictees in our jails, penitentiaries and probation and parole programs. We stray around among the peripheral issues ignoring the basic penal issues. The Doser cites some of the meanderings: What rules shall we make regarding prisoner amenities, i.e. provision of televisions, law books, writing facilities, computer access etc.? What rules are okay regarding the handling of inmates that act out. What rules about activities like television and exercise. How about handling of the matter of visitations. Shall inmates be limited to post cards for correspondence with the "outside?" Why should inmates be denied the privilege of voting? And on and on! The basic issues are: What are the purposes of incarceration and how are we doing in achieving any of those purposes?

Battered Boater Endures Storm

A valiant sailor endures serious danger and discomfort because of the failure of the rescue services function. Well! A person with unrevealed boat experience, with a sizable unfamiliar vessel, in presumably unfamiliar waters, presumably without a current chart of the area, presumably ignoring the serious weather indications, single-handed into an expected gale area and ran aground. He suffered difficulties before being hauled out of his situation. The ordinary result of such conduct results: investigation of the conduct of the emergency responders!

Sweet Victory.

We are all in a flap! We are under counter-attack from the enemy! In our own country! It's not called war, when it occurs here, it's called terrorism. The Jihadists know that they can't win against us by killing us all - because they can't kill us all. They are realistic enough to know that, by disrupting our lives and our living process, they have done as much as they can with their counter-attack. On that assessment, they are just beating us to death. We are running around like chickens with our heads cut off - blaming, explaining, modifying everything,burning the President in effigy,vowing to avenge. That's the victory for the Jihad that they could not have hoped for.

Somebody to Blame.

Several young men in their cups were cavorting on a Portland, Oregon, Tri-Met train platform as the train moved into the station. By chance, one of the young men slipped between the rails of the train and, by the most amazing chance, was not injured by the train that passed over him. The television commentator, speaking of the matter, said that "...the Tri-Met driver was not at fault." This clearly demonstrates how desperate we are to find somebody at fault for every untoward event.