Isaac Laquedem

Eight years (two terms?) of blogging

It's been eight years since my first post on this blog. In that time I've been fortunate to have at least three Portland councilors stop by to comment, to have broken one piece of local news in advance of any of the regular media outlets, and to have had a few of my ideas show up in public debate.  The high point of this alternate life is not, however, any of my blog posts, but having my submission to a Willamette Week limerick contest read onstage by Storm Large.

If 1300 posts later my blogging pace is slowing down a bit, it's not because I'm running low on stories to tell -- the good citizens brave (or foolish) enough to become public servants create raw material faster than I can retell them -- but because I'm discovering that I'm rapidly becoming part of The Good Old Days myself.

Happy birthday, Venerable Mom!

And congratulations and best wishes on having achieved (not without one or two glitches along the way, but a lot of fun and good times and whimsy also) the years of strength!

I like Frank, who is smart enough not to want his old job back

This latest Oregonian story on Mayor Adams's troubles gave me a certain nostalgia for the Frank Ivancie years, though he's unlikely to head north from his home in sunny southern California to reenter our political scene.  During Hizzoner's four years as Mayor, as I recall, the police bureau was quiet, snowy arterials were sanded, and construction on the area's first light rail line started.  Despite the recession that plagued most of his term, he helped recruit overseas businesses to come to the area (NEC, for example).  The City's main public works project of the time, the Portland Building, came in pretty much on time and on budget.  Not a bad legacy.

A G.O.C. explains why J. McC. picked S.P. as V.P. for the G.O.P.

A Genial Old Codger of my acquaintance, who was a fighter pilot in the Korean War, offers an intriguing explanation of why Senator McCain picked Governor Palin as his running mate.  "Fighter pilots," says the G.O.C., "learn that they have to take risks to survive, and they're willing to take risks."  He suggests that Senator McCain has kept that trait, and, seeing his campaign falling behind that of Senator Obama, was willing to take a risk on a political unknown to revive his campaign -- in effect going for the big political gamble rather than the surer thing.

Maybe an old infantryman would have picked Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison instead...