Grounds for Appeal

The Doser thinks that Judge Steven Maurer performed a clearly reversible tantrum in the closing part of the Worthington manslaughter case. The newspapers, mercifully, did not report the event - but it appeared on Channel 8 evening news on July 15.

Sonia Sotomayor

The Doser finds little to complain about with regard to the appointment of Judge Sonia Sotomayor. However, The Oregonian can't find the targeted article and picture in its records so The Doser will have to describe it to you rather than link you to it. Your attention is called to The Oregonian of July 14,2009, Page A5. There is a picture of Judge Sotomayor standing before the Judiciary Committee. (One need not say anything about the puerile fumblings of the Rep. members of the committee.) What one must observe is: Judge Sotomayor holds her head like a person who has been doing too much studying. She is already getting, or will soon get, the pain her posture will cause. The Doser wants her to stand up straight so as to be comfortable in bringing what she will bring to the Supreme Court.

Council can't compromise with reality

The 39th Avenue brouhaha in Portland reached a sort of "resolution" which demonstrates how unanimous the Portland City Council can be when there is relatively little at stake for them. In this case there were two issues at stake: 1. A group wanted to honor Cesar Chavez 2. A group didn't want to go through the expense and effort of a name-change. Both could have been granted their wishes if the City Council had, simply, named the new Tri-Met, foot traffic bridge across the Willamette: The Cesar Chavez Causeway.

Missed the signals.

There was this family that had a dying baby. They were determined to rely upon God, and not physicians, to heal the child. A grocery checker said to the mother: "I'm sorry your child is so ill, what does the doctor say?" The mother said, "We don't believe in doctors, we know that God will heal our child." The Postman said one day: "I know you must be terribly worried about your sick child, what is the doctor doing for her?" The woman said:
"We don't believe in doctors, we know that God will heal our child." A nosy neighbor looked over the fence one day and said: "I think you ought to change doctors, your child isn't improving at all." And the mother said "We don't believe in doctors, we know that God will heal our child." When the mother got to hell she asked the Devil why she had been sent there. The Devil said, "Because you killed your own child, dummy." The woman said: "But we were convinced that God would save her." The Devil says,"Well, what do you expect, God sent the grocery clerk, the postman and the nosy neighbor."

Twixt a rock and a hard place.

The right-of-the-aisle, sensible Republicans (the ones who think of themselves as 'middle-of-the-road') must be very discouraged nowadays. The front-runners for 2012 are: totally discredited Newt Gingrich and totally uncredited Sarah Palin. PS: The Republican Party is 155 years old today.

Foiled again.

The Doser was reading in The Oregonian about some folks going to a camp in Eastern Oregon in order to watch the stars. (Better viewing, there, out of the city lights and smogs.) For an instant The Doser almost had a grip on the clincher that would awaken anti-evolutionists from their medieval doze. The point was to call attention to how long, at the speed of light, it took the shine from really distant stars to reach earth. It could be, for some, a longer time than the Bishop Usher 6000 years plus 2009 years for the event of creation. But, then, The Doser's hopes were dashed! They can't be convinced that stars are that far away from us....... Something to do with those stars actually being little holes poked in the firmament.

World but a stage.

It has been only 234 years since our country got its act out in front of the world's foot-lights. We have produced many plays - some dismal failures, some of minimal usefulness but a few of worthy, memorable quality. Some of our plays ought to have died in New Haven and, doubtless, some worthy productions did not get a full-enough run. Be that as it may, even the most dissatisfied of us players aren't walking out on the company and it is heartening to have new hopefuls coming in seeking roles all the time. It is a time when the costs for new production are slow in coming, some theaters have gone dark and many actors are out of roles. Yet The Doser is not alone with the certainty that we'll be putting on competent,notable,classics again soon.

Not full health care.

Apparently, Sen. Ron Wyden got his heart before the course. Pres. O'Bama deems universal medical coverage to be too radical. The Doser finds it hard to think of a group of people not worth medical care.

Shades of self

This message,from Elon James White, threw some light on a core ignorance of the Doser. The thesis of White's article is that black people do not have common black-people thoughts and feelings. He ended his revelation with the following statement:

"I hope that my message is clear. After reading this, the next time you talk to a Black person you can feel comfortable in now knowing with every fiber of your being that you have no clue what they think or feel based on their skin color."

The Doser is reading Blackmon Slavery by Another Name - which, The Doser mused, seemed to give a believable explanation to why "black people seem, mysteriously,to be unable to succeed in the American system like other peoples (Asiatics in particular),newcomers who take to our system and succeed quickly in it." (The Doser confesses he actually said such a thing.) Well, that means the Doser just flat-out flunked the awareness test. That means the Doser rates high on the bigotry scale. There isn't, according to White's article, any group of black people. Just like the Doser is not a member of a white people group just so no black person is a member of a black group. With blacks, just as it is absolutely so as it is to whites, there is no way to say, "Every white person seems to........." No, just NO!

So, does this realization further the "cause of the black people?" Well, no, since there are no "black people," so they don't have a "black peoples' cause." How can they even be thought of to have a "cause." It does further the Doser's climb from bigotry, however.

President O'Bama has signed into law the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. He has taken come flack from those who note the inconsistency of being a smoker and signing such a bill. No flack from the Doser on that one: it demonstrates, even more persuasively, the horrendous power of tobacco.
This legislation (not to mention the suet that stuck itself to this popular bill) has several effects. Among those that seem the most valuable to the Doser are noted as follows.:Gives FDA power to regulate tobacco; requires manufacturers to reveal the contents of tobacco products; provides for a biennial Health Department inspection; protects nicotine from the zeal of the FDA.The Doser gives this one a hearty Μπραβω! Tobacco products cause the death of 400,000 Americans annually and the killing process is both expensive and painful. It is the number one preventable cause of death in America. "Preventable" because it can be prevented by one or two straightforward actions: 1. Don't start. 2. Just quit. Number one is so easy - number two can be desperately difficult.

Rubbing money on it helps.

A Portland family will become almost millionaires with the settlement, as yet tentative, for the death of their mentally-ill adult son. It is unlikely that any of the settlement relates to the cost of support for people who were reliant upon the deceased. Thus, Portland people will be paying a very large part of that amount for what are expected as punitive damages and costs of litigation if the case goes to court. As one of the commissioners remarks: "... we live in a litigious society." The Doser says that our legal system, in that it allows only money damages for torts, is archaic and dumb. Even dumber in the case of torts against public offices and officers. It is tolerated only because nobody has come up with a more sensible procedure. We exacerbate the problem by believing that somehow blame for every disliked event must be assigned. (For example, people are already lining up a drug-prescribing doctor to take the fall for the death of our talented twit.)

Reason can, actually, prevail.

In Portland, perennially ailing baseball is jettisoned in favor of possibly viable soccer. No expense is needed to build a stadium. The next nit-wit scheme the City of Portland can let go of is the idea that 39th Avenue needs to be re-named. Nobody is saying that Cesar Chavez should not be honored - what many are saying is: "Name a new project after the honoree rather than disrupt a passel of people to do it." The Doser is encouraged.

Fasoli, fasoli yematei sakouli.

The Doser got a cordial note from Michelle O'bama asking him to put some action where his inaugural day resolves were. As a result of technical advances recently made, and as a result of the O'Bama administration facility in using them, one is enabled to respond with action to the Kennedy rhetorical question "ask what you can do for your country" The Doser was pleased to be provided with a well-organized presentation of possible "doings." The Doser's letter from the O'bamas is being sent under separate cover.

God not at fault.

A religious couple are going to trial for manslaughter and criminal mistreatment relating to the death of their 15 month old baby. The doctors say that the child could have been saved with antibiotics. The couple refused medical aid and held to the idea that God would intervene. Most parents would do "anything" to save the life of their child. Few of them would let the child die for an opinion. The Worthingtons did.

From a religious point of view, what was going on there? Were the couple testing the power of God to heal their child? Or were they testing their opinion that God could be prevailed upon by their beliefs and actions to heal their child? Anybody who believes in God posits God's power to do anything. So, presumably, these parents were not testing the ability of God to heal their child. The test they were making was of their religious opinions - and whether they were sufficiently strong to persuade God to heal the baby. To believe that is not standard religion but belief in magic.

So,then, from a parental,legal point of view, what was going on there? How does depriving their child of needed medicine compare with other parental neglects? Let us say that it comes into the parents' heads that, though they have food, it would be a test of their opinions to leave the provision of food for their baby to God. Or, let's say their child tears out the seat of his trousers at school and comes to his parents to have them mended. Or, if they see their child suspended over an abyss with only a weakening thread preventing his death. Or if the child takes up a dangerous habit like smoking. Or, as a toddler, their child is trying to run out into traffic. Would they also leave these ordinary necessary parental actions to God?

The Doser considers them to be, at least, guilty of manslaughter and criminal mistreatment.