Pop shorting.

Awesome. The Bulletin just paid for itself: "Put newspapers to work in your garden."

I'm building paths around the 'wild' areas of my property, and this might just be the perfect solution. I always knew the newspaper was .....err, compost.

Just kidding, just kidding.

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Last week's entry about Monday being Stepfather's Day probably didn't make much sense. I meant THIS coming Monday, you know, the day after Father's Day....

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There you go. Look at all the public money Bend would be foregoing without a public transit system: "...Central Oregon's fledgling transit service stand to split about 6.4 million in state funding." The Bulletin, 10/16/10.

Maybe I'm wrong about all this; if we need a transit district, and I'm willing to accept that we probably do, then missing out on the public monies wouldn't be too smart. I still think they built the damn thing, and said, "There. We can't pay for it, but what are you going to do about it?"

Which is ... rude.

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How...appropriate....how synchronistic...how fateful is this? Apple I-Pad is denying acceptance of a graphic novel adaptation of James Joyce, Ulysses.

Wiki: "Since publication, the book attracted controversy and scrutiny, ranging from early obscenity trials to protracted textual "Joyce Wars.""

This following the deletion by Kindle of George Orwell, 1984. They went all Big Brother on their ass.

You couldn't make this stuff up....

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I find my position on 'extreme sports' for kids to be a bit uncomfortable. I'm usually the one who says, "Let kids be kids."

I think the difference is when I detect extreme 'pushing' on the part of the parents. Kids take chances, and this is probably a good thing. But it should be something they just do naturally -- and that sometimes I think they are given inordinate attention for taking chances -- and the more extreme the chances, the more attention.

And the kid pushes the envelope too far, maybe farther than he would left to himself. Losing limbs and becoming paralyzed or worse -- one such 'extreme' athlete was profiled in the paper a few years ago, and I noticed that every single picture had him doing something that looked really dangerous, and in every single picture, adults were watching approvingly.

Living your life through your kids is natural, I suppose. But some of these more extreme examples look artificially motivated to me.

"Go kid! Go kid! .....oops."

Linda uses the example of finding out later that our sons were climbing down the Crooked River Gorge to go camping. There would be two ways to respond to that: "Gee, aren't you daring. How fun that must of been!"

Or...."Do you really think that's a good idea?"