You may have noticed I’ve been slacking about this blogging thing. I’ve been distracted by a nice little thing called “summer”, which is the fairest month in Oregon. I also haven’t been skating at all, which has got me a little grumpy.

I’ve taken a little time away from reading and engaging about Portland Public Schools, and despite the fact that the Winter Hawks have a new coach, I haven’t found the time to read, comment or blog about that, either. I should be back in full force with the blogging and skating soon. Until then, enjoy your summer, and I’ll see you at the rink and the school board meetings soon.

TTFN

I don’t know why, but it’s been a Portland tourist weekend. Today we took the MAX down to PGE Park to catch a Beavers game. In the second inning, here comes a foul ball right toward me. I had just told my kids how funny it is to see grown men fighting over foul balls. Now here comes one right at me. I put my beer down. I stand up. Sweet Jesus, it’s coming right at me. Kinda low. But right at me. The wife, she’s down talking to somebody, which is good, I think, because she’s always concerned about errant pucks and balls at sporting events. So I’m thinking all this and here comes this ball. I should mention that when I’ve played ball, it’s always been infield. I have a real hard time judging fly balls and getting under them. Yeah. So here it comes, kinda low, and whack! Right in the groin, mere millimeters from the family jewels. The crowd goes “Oooh!” I say “I’m all right!” ButI didn’t come up with the ball (a kid in the row ahead of us got it, which is cool).

Then the guy two rows ahead points out that my beer spilled. D’oh! There goes $6.50 worth of cheap American beer spilling down the bleachers. I’d only had a couple sips.

Yesterday. I took the kids on a tour of Portland’s quasi-transportation toys, the Aerial Tram via the Portland Streetcar. The Aerial Tram connects two disparate parts of the Oregon Health & Science University. It’s got a vertical rise of 500 feet and takes about five minutes to ride. It’s kind of a joke, really. It was built with a big chunk of Portland tax money, came in grossly over-budget, and its promises of privacy to neighbors in the Lair Hill Neighborhood were shamelessly broken. The view is best from the top anyway, so save your four bucks and drive to the top and have a look. The streetcar, which operates at an average speed just slower than an 80-year-old granny out for a constitutional, is also a joke. It’s not a transportation system, it’s a tool to spur condo development (like those bastards need any more subsidies from Joe Sixpack). I’ll change my tune it they ever run it to the East side like they keep talking about, but honestly. Not so good. Thanks to Vera Katz and her erstwhile protege and would-be Mayor Sam “the Tram” Adams for all the shiny toys.

But the kids had fun, and that’s all that matters. Isn’t that what it’s all about?

My beer league team skated to a 6-2 defeat in the semi-final round of the playoffs last night, ending our “spring” season. I’m nursing nothing worse than a bruised arm from a nasty cross check in the first period. The season had to be extended by a week, because of some rescheduled games due to unforeseen scheduling conflicts—like Easter and an annual figure skating event.

The league is run by the rink (not my usual rink), and while the facility is real nice, modern and clean, I don’t care for their attitude, not to mention their scheduling ineptitude. I shan’t return.

So my 7-week off season has begun. See you in September, hockey fans!

I’d like to introduce my good friends Antonio Valle del Rio and Benson Williams, both from the hockey heartland of Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota. But they’re not here to talk about hockey. Oh no. Election ’08 is in full swing out on the prairie, and Benson just returned from a trip to Iowa City where he “happened to casually run into a Joe Biden rally in the Ped Mall on the way back from dinner one night, and then caught the Bill and Hillary show down at the river the next day. The campaigns are really gathering steam there.”

So my first question to these two astute political observers (I answered this one in my intro):

What criteria do you have for endorsing/supporting a Democratic candidate?

Williams: That question would seem to require a clarification up front as to what I might mean when I say “endorse/support” a candidate for president in this country. For me – and I would imagine all of those participating in this forum – this is more complex than it sounds. It reminds me of the polls taken in the lead-up to the Iraq war that purported to show an overwhelming percentage of Americans “supporting” the invasion. At the time I thought: these people aren’t processing this issue anywhere close to the extent necessary to “support” it. All they are doing is going along with it, and in so doing excepting themselves from the responsibility that would naturally be entailed by full-blown support.

Having said that, I’ll most likely end up supporting whichever Democrat that wins the nomination by voting for him/her. In the meantime I ask myself: How can my insistence upon rigorous benchmarks for endorsing a presidential candidate actually have an impact in this Miss America contest? With everyone else judging the candidates on their beauty, poise and evening apparel, what does it matter that I demand from them the admission that our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are fighting an energy war (Kucinich) or the recognition that the entire global economy is hanging by the thread of the dollar as it gradually loses it’s position as the World Reserve Currency (Biden) or the intention to grant all vets diagnosed with PTSD 100 percent VA disability benefits (Gravel). Unfortunately, these kinds of benchmarks go against the forward social motion required to engender large-scale change, and so I will have to be satisfied with the more abstract: in order to garner my endorsement (for now), a Dem candidate must go beyond the analgesic assuaging of our depression, and affirm for us what we all know on some level of consciousness — that we live in a sick, unbalanced society that is poisoning our country and the whole world, and the only way out is to do the one thing that Americans fear doing most – taking responsibility for it.

Valle del Rio: Can I say the most charismatic liar with the most stuffed war chest?

Himself: Hey, you can say whatever you want…. That’s why I invited you, you old sarcastard.

Okay, next question. The Democratic front-runners can generally be described as centrists. We’ve got this sort of illusory diversity, with Clinton representing women (despite her lack of feminist bona fides), Obama representing black America (though he is neither a product of the civil rights movement nor descended from the African slaves who built this country), and Edwards representing working people (though he made his fortune as a trial lawyer). It’s a picture of Republican-style tokenism.

None of them endorses single-payer health care, and of course none of them advocate a departure from neoliberal economic policy. And they’re all about as anti-Bush, anti-war as your average Republican presidential candidate (John McCain notwithstanding). Is there a role for progressive social democrats in the Democratic party? If so, what is it? If not, where do we go from here?

Stay tuned for part 2, and feel free to join the discussion.

I know, it seems too early to be talking about the ’08 presidential election. But don’t forget, the primaries are piling up at the beginning of the year, so everything is coming early. I’ve been enjoying watching the Republicans run from Bush. Not sure what they’re running to, but this just adds to the fun. The Democrats have been less fun to watch, and far more predictable. I haven’t been a Democrat since ’84, and I’ve been critical of the post-Keynsian economic policies of Democrats and Republicans alike.

With ’08 the Dems’ to lose, you’d think the field would be a little more interesting. But no, we’ve got a troika of centrists in Clinton, Obama and Edwards leading the pack. There’s the speculation that Gore will step in, shaking things up a bit, but have we forgotten his abysmal ’00 campaign? And what about a third-party spoiler? Could there really be a three-way race between New Yorkers Clinton, Giuliani and Bloomberg? Delicious speculations, folks!

Anyway, I’ve invited two old friends to join me in a virtual round table to discuss the ’08 presidential primaries and election. We may do both the Dems and Republicans. I’ll be looking for a Democrat I can endorse. He or she will need to meet certain criteria, such as support for single-payer health care, ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, requiring free-trade agreements to have meaningful environmental and labor protections, and ending or rewriting No Child Left Behind. So far, I’m not aware of a viable candidate that meets these criteria.

Stay tuned!

Once in a while it’s fun to check the server logs and see the search terms that bring readers to a blog. On the one hand, it brings your not-so-humble blogger down a few pegs to see that his recipe for cholle or his review of Judy Park’s performance of Rach 3 with the Portland Youth Philharmonic is of much greater interest to the world than any of his views on hockey or politics.

That’s okay, because when it comes right down to it, I’m probably more passionate about food and music anyway (I just don’t have as much to say about them).

But when I noticed my piece about Vicki Phillips yesterday got at least one visit from someone at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, I had to smile. (I extend a sincere welcome to the folks at Gates, and invite them to participate in the discussion if they care to refute anything written here.) They didn’t get here by way of Google, but I decided to check my Google juice on some key search terms, like “Vicki Phillips Gates”. Hey, not bad! I’m the fourth result, just after Gates, PPS and the Oregonian, well ahead of metblogs, the Portland Tribune and Willamette Week. Sweet!

But it’s even better when you search for “Vicki Phillips Gates Broad”: this blog is the first result.

It must drive the spin doctors absolutely bonkers that they can’t control their image any better than that.

They seem to be learning, though, at least on the local level. Witness comments here and on Terry Olson’s blog by the likes of PPS PR person Sarah Carlin Ames, PPS school board member David Wynde and Portland Schools Foundation executive director Connie Van Brunt. I personally welcome them to this exciting and new (to them) arena for democracy in action, and hope their friends at Gates will join in as well.

Taking a cue from Wacky Mommy (whom I mostly love out of her clothes), I give you thirteen garments and accessories I have loved throughout the years.

1. striped Osh Kosh overalls when I was a preschooler

2. my Chicago Black Hawks pajamas from the grade school years

3. a puka shell necklace when I was in 6th grade

4. a t-shirt that said “Brass Power” when I was in 7th grade (I played trumpet)

5. a whole string of black concert Ts, starting with Cheap Trick

6. then there was Heart,

7. AC/DC,

8. and Alice Cooper (and probably one or two I can’t remember from when I was a budding rocker in my early teens)

9. my pocket Ts, blue jeans, work boots, tool belt and safety glasses from the summer I worked in the scene shop for summer rep in college

10. my Mr. Zog’s Sex Wax t-shirt from when I was a young adult (which I still have)

11. my work boots from when I worked produce in the 90s

12. my “More Hockey Less War” shirt from the Left Coast Hockey League

13. my stripedy pajamas I stole from my wife and wear when I snuggle with my kids

Happy fathers’ day; our raspberries are ripe!

I guess I’ve never done a food review on this blog (judging by the fact that I just had to add a “Food” category). But my coworker this morning pointed out that maybe I was born on the wrong continent when we were discussing where to go for lunch.

“I was thinking India Direct. Or maybe Lentil Garden,” I said. That’s when he made his comment. I responded that no, maybe I just chose the wrong continent to be vegetarian on. But luckily the Indians came and saved me from baked potatoes and salad bars.

I work in the “Silicon Forest”, the western suburbs of Portland, Ore., home to major Intel and IBM plants and offices. There is a pretty good-sized South Asian population here, and a handful of Indian restaurants. Some great, some okay, some, eh, not so great. India Direct is my default lunch destination, for reasons I will describe below. If you’re ever in Beaverton, be sure to stop by and check it out. India Direct is actually a grocery store with a lunch counter in the back.

I describe it as a lunch counter, but it specializes in vegetarian “chaat”, or snack foods. Don’t be put off by that, though; these are some serious snack plates, different from what most Americans think of when they think of Indian food.

My favorite is aloo tikki cholle, potato patties fried on a griddle, smothered in cholle (garbonzo bean curry), two kinds of chutney and topped with shredded daikon radish and cilantro. An alternate version of this is available, samosa cholle, which has two samosas (deep fried pastries filled with potatoes and peas), smashed and smothered in the same manner.

Another favorite of mine is the Masala Dosa, a crepe-like roll-up of spicy potatoes and onions served with chutney and a bowl of sanbar (soup). They also do a special “crazy chaat”, a cold dish with chips, potatoes and garbonzos smothered with yogurt and chutneys.

Hungry yet? I’ll keep going. A favorite quick meal after playing lunch-hour hockey is the cholle batura, which is basically fry-bread served up with cholle and Indian pickle.

If you’re really hungry (and you’d have to be to not be satisfied by the samosa cholle), you can get one of three thali plates. The all-India thali includes cholle, dal, the vegetable of the day, roti (bread), rice, raita (yogurt) pickle and desert. The regular thali has dal, veg of the day, raita and pickle. The sadhu thali is just dal, rice and yogurt.

Sounds good, eh? But the real treat is the price. All of the “chaat” items are under $4.00. Add a cup of chai (tea), and you’re well-fed for under $5.00. That’s unheard of these days, unless you’re talking fast food. And this is some quality stuff, cooked up before your eyes by Lisa, a very talented and friendly Mexican woman.

She doesn’t speak much English (or Hindi, from what I’ve heard), but she speaks Indian food just fine. Some days she makes an extra spicy sauce, and will add it to your dish. Be careful of this. I love spicy food, but she’s got a hidden sadistic streak. “Spicy?” she asks, smiling innocently. Spicy is an understatement. (We’ve had some awkward conversations in Spanglish about Mexico and the fact that her special red “chutney” is really a Mexican style red sauce.)

The proprietor knows me by name, and is always friendly and welcoming, which just adds to the list of reasons India Direct is my workplace cafeteria. Wacky Mommy gets jealous of me always eating this yummy food, so I bring it home for dinner quite a bit. The only thing I don’t like about India Direct is that they’re closed on Monday. Monday’s are tough.

Appetizer
What do you consider to be the ultimate snack food?

I’ve really been getting into the fried Indian salty snacks lately, but man are they bad for you. So I guess you can’t call them the ultimate snack food. Instead, how about carrot sticks? Low calorie, high in soluble fiber, and sweet and tasty.

Soup
On a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 as highest), about how popular is your last name?

According to namestatistics.com, it’s on the low end, probably a one or two.

Salad
Who is your all-time favorite sitcom character, and why?

Considering I hate sitcoms, er… well… Barney Fife. Don Knotts was a comic genius.

Main Course
Do you shop online? If so, name some sites you like to browse for goodies.

Yeah, sure, especially for hockey gear, since there are only a few shops in Portland that sell it (for ridiculous prices). I’ve got a list of about a dozen hockey shops where I compare prices, but it most often comes down to HockeyGiant.com. It’s that or drive up to B.C., which isn’t exactly a day trip from Portland.

And, of course, I shop at Left Coast Hockey to test the goods I’m selling to support this site.

Dessert
Fill in the blank: I think ___________ should be ___________.

I think coffee should be strong and black. I also think George W. Bush and Dick Cheney should be frog-marched out of the White House. Skate blades should be sharp. Ice should be hard and smooth. Education, housing, employment and access to health care should be considered a basic human rights. Lord Stanley’s Cup should be in Canada, not in Anaheim where nobody gives a rip. Marijuana should be free and legal. Dogs should be leashed. Children should be loved. Gardens should be nurtured. Public education should be fully funded. Food should be spicy, fresh and healthy. Art should be passionate. Life should be lived as a work of art. That is, life should be lived passionately.

Have a great weekend.