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Fifth Friday Footnotes, Follow-ups and Far-Flung Fripperies:

• So is it settled? Is Eugene Celebration dead? Both its website and Facebook page still instruct us to “stay tuned” and “check back” for 2015 details.
• Every place seems to be getting some other place’s weather this summer. This summer’s heat has shifted from a condition to be passively endured to an assault we must actively resist.
• Seven thirty is the new 8 PM.
• Bottom line: Modern life requires more comfort than comfort food can provide.
• If you can’t be on time, at least be worth the wait.
• Summer is peak season for boding. Almost nothing really happens but lots of things bode.
• Should I look both ways before crossing a one-way street?
• Are there still settlers anywhere on earth? Or has every place now been settled?
• I love waterfront architecture because you can’t quite decide which is the front door.
• Many of us track our days not with appointment calendars, but with pill cases.
• The number to watch in the global warming trend is not the big one. Afternoon heat matters less than the lack of overnight cooling. When the low temperature for each day rises, heat is building its own momentum.
• I’d rather deepen my days than lengthen them — unless I can do both.
• Am I the only one who can’t find anything to like about Haggen’s grocery store takeovers?
• The worst personal hellscape offers us some pleasure, so we feel no urge to leave it.
• I’m folding more things into thirds — I sympathize with the half-nots.
• Individual-sized watermelons are hurting America. Every day brings us one less opportunity to share with our family, friends and neighbors.
• We should have suspected something when every website’s response button was labeled “submit.”
• Democracy is engineering its own demise. Efficiency was never its strong suit.
• Boston has withdrawn its bid for the Olympics. Hey, Vin! Eugene 2024?
• Take a “No Destination Road Trip.” Just pick a direction and go. You might discover that the arriving mattered less than the departing.
• President Obama’s stirring eulogy in South Carolina gave us a glimpse of what an amazing former president he might become.
• We’d understand the Middle East better if we considered all the underlying factions separately: religious, ethnic, linguistic, political, economic, tribal and generational.
• Or, there’s this. Social upheaval can be predicted best by measuring the percentage of young single males in the population.
• Which protests do you think business tycoons fear more: “Fight for $15” or “Occupy Wall Street”?
• Success is easily confused with purpose, like chocolate is confused with fudge. One ingredient — no matter how necessary — cannot replace the recipe itself.
• One reason young people aren’t voting may be that they’re paying attention. Their votes often won’t change the outcome, so this habit of citizenship doesn’t develop.
• What other social trends have accompanied the wane of the male undershirt?
• Americans like hiring “fresh faces” to inhabit the White House. (Only George H.W. Bush was familiar to all Americans, since Nixon.) But they blanch when confronted with the lifetimes of experience represented by military brass.
• We say we like governors because of their executive experience. It’s more likely that citizens in 49 states see a face with which they are not yet bored.
• Why can’t extension cords spool neatly? New insulating materials will offer more flexibility. It sure would tidy up my living room.
• I thought class was defined best by income, but I was wrong. Divide income by effort; the higher the quotient, the higher the class.
• Policy makers must learn that people won’t naturally care about their public outreach processes until after it’s too late. Process is boring. Product has drama. Outreach must be tailored for how much people will care — not how much they do care.
• As multi-national companies grow in wealth and influence, loyalties will be tested. Will people align themselves first as citizens or customers?
• I hope that varnisher never darkens my door again.
• Give a man a fish and he’ll need tartar sauce. But teach a man to fish, and he’ll need a pole and a reel, a boat, hip boots, lures, a tackle box, a depth-finder, a silly hat … And a bumper sticker that says, “A bad day of fishing is still better than a good day at work.”

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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a column each Friday for The Register-Guard and blogs.

Tags:   comfort food4 Comments