Gobblers!

Most times when I open the backdoor for the dog, especially when she'd rather lay on her back and beg for a belly-rub, I'll tell her "go get 'em!" on the off chance there's a squirrel out there who needs a chasing up a tree. This morning, I let her out with a "go get 'em!" and there is immediately chaos.

Turns out there's a rafter of turkeys back there. Most got away, but two got trapped on the roof. I have a very well behaved dog, but it is difficult to call a dog off of a turkey on the roof. Must be primal.

I got some snaps of turkeys sitting on a wire and as soon as I remember how to get them off my phone, I'll post them.

I Will Fight You

Who are these idiot Emerald readers who voted Taste of India a better Indian restaurant than Evergreen? I mean seriously?

Reading Obituaries

The other way I knew I was getting old was my increasing suspicion that it was in fact Paul who was the cooler Beatle.

Let's Pray for No Injuries

Those who love me know two things about me, I love letters to the editor that babble on about how the modern college sports fan isn't nice enough to the other team and letters that find ways to blame the Bush administration everything, no matter how tenuous.

The first type of letter usually falls into the "back in my day" category, something like "back in my day, everyone was just there to have a good time. Why, if an opposing player lost the onion off his belt, the game would stop and the whole crowd would help find it before the game could resume." These stories were at least plausible when I was young and the author could theoretically be talking about sporting events in the 1920s. But then the 1936 Olympics changed everything. From then on out, sports have largely been about competition.

The second type of letter I love is usually from a lefty liberal sees connections between mundane life events and the larger world around them. Every freakin' minute is a teachable moment. These letters usually describe some every day situation, "I was riding my bicycle down the street and I ran into a pile of leaves in the bike lane. Forced to swerve, I almost fell," and then they make a sudden leap to larger forces at work. "I couldn't help but think that if the Bush administration didn't support Israel and the slaughtering of all those very innocent Gaza Strippers, then people wouldn't be so callous about where they put their leaves." That these people actually do make these connections is why I hate love and fear them.

Well, one of you all must have gone and told William A. McConochie about my twin letter-related loves, because this is what I found in today's Register Guard:

Poor sportsmanship brings loss

Are the Oregon Ducks suffering from bad karma? What goes around comes around.

For years Duck fans have blatantly booed and insulted visiting teams at Mac Court and Autzen Stadium. On Jan. 17, coach Ernie Kent was ejected from the basketball game against Washington State University for misbehavior. Our players fouled the Cougars repeatedly, giving them 28 free throw opportunities. The Cougars set records, making all 28 of them, for 28 free points. We lost the game by 12 points, 74 to 62.

If we hadn’t fouled and given away 28 points, the score would have been 46 to 62 and we’d have won. Do our university and community teach winning at any cost, even breaking the rules?

We’ve seen the effects of this policy in the George W. Bush administration. Human rights and human dignity are swatches from the same cloth. Let’s treat our athletic opponents with respect and dignity and see what happens. At 0 and 6 in Pac 10 men’s basket­ball, we have nothing to lose by trying a new approach.

William A. McConochie

Eugene

As Tom Cruise said to Timothy Hutton, "It's beautiful, man. Beautiful."

EW Letter of the Week

I'm sure that many of us of the Generation X have burned an evening or two discussing just why the fuck it is that we decided to would a good idea to get ourselves all pierced and tattooed up. We may have even commented on the hilariousness of our own hypocrisy as we watched the younger kids take an innocent little rebellion to such extremes that we find ourselves saying "Now why the hell would anyone want to go and do that to themselves for?"

I've always been partial to the "societal rejection" theory that argues that we were attempting to not just reject societal norms, but we were basically attempting to reject society before it could reject us and, therefore, provide a ready made excuse for what would surely be our failure to achieve anything in this fucked up world. Lord knows, it is better to think that no one loves you because you have 18 metal studs in your head than it is to think no one loves because you are unloveable as a person.

If class was destiny, then I was born to be a timber worker. I can probably count on one hand the number of older male relatives of mine that didn't earn their living working with lumber. Those that know me probably find the picture of me working in a lumber mill ridiculously incongruous, but then I imagine that all kinds of blue collar jobs are held by men that would/could/should have been something else. Hell, I doubt that my dad at sixteen was looking forward to a life of manual labor. Which, of course, was exactly where I was at that age. Fortunately for me, the northwest timber industry was collapsing about that time and timber wasn't really much of an option, but that only meant that I had no future, rather than an unlimited one. (On a side note, if the spotted owl had to be wiped out as a species so that I didn't spend my life in a mill, so be it).

So how does the son of a mill worker rebel? (Ed: By doing really well in school and getting into Harvard and having the old man tell you he loves you when you graduate at the top of your class? No.) Perhaps by rejecting macho working-class culture by getting his ears and nose pierced. Nothing like a little feminization to tweak the old man. (On another side note, I fully recognize that these tweaks and body modifications are also a desperate attempt to gain the attention of the distant father figure. I also recognize that this ground has been covered better elsewhere. I'm going to get to my actual point soon). We also took the badass tattoo and repurposed it by decorating ourselves with fish, nonsensical symbols, and, in some cases, Warner Bros. cartoon characters.

Anyway, my point being that multiple piercings and tattoos were about rejection. Defying cultural norms. Saying "Fuck you!" to The Man in many, varied ways, especially before the man could say "Fuck you" to us. And being piercings and tattoos, they were very public expressions of alienation. Which is to say, in no way was getting oneself pierced or tattooed a call for understanding and acceptance.

Which leads me (finally) to my point and this week's Eugene Weekly Letter of the Week. Now, I recognize that is has been some years since I drunkenly got myself tattooed and that I am coming dangerously close to yelling at someone to get off of my lawn, but either the kids today are very different than we were or Taylor Snow has missed the point entirely.

ANTI-TEEN BIAS

One of the problems in this town is discrimination against teens. Not just any teens, teens with piercings and tattoos. At the LTD bus stop one morning a man talking to me said, “Kids with facial piercings and tattoos are bigger troublemakers than kids who do not have them.” I think that it’s stupid that people say things like that.

Please look beyond the piercings and tattoos. I’m just a kid. I don’t have a criminal record, and I’m not looking to rob you. I know plenty of kids my age who have piercings, kids who don’t get into any trouble whatsoever. People should get to know someone before they judge them. Labeling kids just isn’t fair. Eugene would be much better off if people didn’t judge other people by their appearance. It’s unkind and disrespectful to judge someone by what they have or don’t have on their face.

Taylor Snow, Eugene

All I am saying is that you cannot get yourself all tatted and pierced up and then complain that people don't take you seriously.

Oh for Lunch

I ordered a "basic carnitas" burrito. I got a "bean and cheese amigos" burrito.

These are two very different burritos.

And Another Thing

Just because I order my sandwich with no mayo does not mean that I want or need extra mustard.