Don't forget the massive mudslides that are blocking Hwy 26 just East of Sandy and further on up the mountain. They're saying there's a 2' deep layer of mud, rock and trees as long as a football field blocking the entire highway that could take weeks to clear.

I find it fascinating - and more than a bit frightening - that all you "around the water cooler progressives" are so interested in discussing the weather and apparently not interesting in discussing the mass murder going on right this minute in Gaza.

But back to the topic. I thought the Channel 8 reporters looked particularly spiffy this morning in their blue parkas out on the Sylvan hill, didn't you?

It would be nice if there were a little cleared on the shoulder to allow bikes to get through. It's not a bad route, if there weren't any cars. Close it except to locals back to Sandy and have a major rally. I'm sure the local businesses would appreciate the attention.

You can't underestimate how many times you think about what 26 would be like with no cars on it until you've tried to get from Sandy to Hood on bike.

I assume the state of emergency had nothing to do with the two fighters that took off in haste from the air base this afternoon (in the middle of an ice storm). Is there someone that follows stuff like that, i.e., when tactical air wings are scrambled to deal with airspace incursions?

Carla. A fair point. I don't claim expertise and I am not interested in submitting guest articles for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that my family income requires me to kiss up to "the man". I just listen to the BBC and wonder where the "beef" is on BO. My frustration comes from reading this site and waiting for discussions of current national and world events, and seeing weather, internal Oregon Democratic party news, and "fluff". Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the successful end of the Cuban revolution - an event that I would assume "progressives" worldwide would celebrate or at least discuss. Nothing on BO. After 8 days of continuous bombing, nothing on BO related to Gaza. We are coming up on 3 - 4 weeks after announcements, but to my recollection, nothing on BO directly related to Obama's cabinet choices.

Perhaps there is another site that has a northwest connection but is more focused on national / international events? If you tell me, I will go away - notwithstanding my love of Oregon.

Greg--

for national and international issues, Daily Kos is probably a better bet. More likely to come up with informed commentary (and yeah, okay, a lot of bloviated opinion as well).

Greg D. Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the successful end of the Cuban revolution - an event that I would assume "progressives" worldwide would celebrate or at least discuss. JK: What’s to celebrate? The replacement of one corrupt, blood thirsty dictator with another?

How do the human rights watch groups compare Castro to Batista?

Do the people have a higher standard of living than they would have had with out Castero?

Are there fewer journalists/ reporters killed/jailed?

Thanks JK

Greg,

You do progressives everywhere a disservice by attempting to defend a Hamas regime that is openly genocidal in its stated goals and aims, anti-democratic and scornful of basic human rights. To describe the hundreds of Hamas rocket crews, gunmen and assorted militant-minded persons killed in the past week as "mass murder" is grossly dishonest given the publicly stated aims of their organization. One can analyze Israeli actions and certainly find plenty to take issue with. But employing the hyperbole you're apparently fond of is not an honest way to go about that. Plus, as was also stated, this isn't the place for this discussion. Please educate yourself on the history behind this conflict before continuing to comment publicly.

I was on the next thread, not this one when I thought I wrote this here...

Hate to indulge the crosstalk, but it's become such a recurring theme... Maybe add after "progressive" in the blog statement, parenthetically, "however you define that". More than half the posts since October have featured progressives telling other progressives that they don't know what the term means (followed by wonderous elucidations) or that the other person isn't one. I totally empathisize- when I first read it and then saw a defense of some business-as-usual Dem policy, my eyes turned purple and started to ooze puss. In terms of setting expectations- and I think that's the entire issue- at present it only sets the expectation that we can constantly expect an injection of "you call this progressive?" from PO'd progressives. Or maybe say "desire progressive policy". Put another way, "progressive" is kind of like a twisted version of "porn". Very few recognize it when they see it, but most think they recognize when it isn't there. Neither actually make one a progressive, though.

BTW, can't we agree that the opposite is worse? When local news organizations that have the ability to do nothing but echo someone else's news present a world story like it's coverage? I really think this is knowing your limits, not ignoring or spinning. Yes, the BBC is a wonderful broadcast service. It's blog sucks large green donkey phalluses, though. Once, after two weeks of scholarly debate about what made homo neanderthalis different from Cro-Magnon man, the whole thing was nuked because someone said "George Carlin" (commercial ref).

This is a blog, not a broadcast service (and why, why isn't there a comparable, local, internet nightly version thereof???). Blue Oregon Newsmagazine. Yup.

The most interesting part of that news was the part saying there is no law to notify homeowners they are in a high risk slide area.

The most interesting part of that news was the part saying there is no law to notify homeowners they are in a high risk slide area.

Being an old fart, I remember the Christmas flood of '62. Went down to the Morrison bridge and went down one of the stairways. Wish I had a camera, the "Water Ave." Street sign was sticking up about 2 feet above the water. Now that was a flood!

Ahh, but you were lucky.

Is this one of those "open comment" threads? Or is there a way to explain the drift from Clackamas County floods to Cuba to the Gaza Strip? A way that does not involve hallucinogens, that is?

Greg D--your standard would have The Oregonian turning its Metro section into "Metro Havana" or "Metro Gaza City" or "Metro Baghdad" or....This is very explicitly an Oregon-centric blog, so why in the world does a posting about floods in Oregon get your knickers in a knot? The Oregonian on Saturday has an article about flooding damage in Estacada, including the library: a center for the community and now the center for considerable distress. Were you around in ca. 1993 when the joke about our local news coverage was "If it matters to Oregonians, it's in the Washington Post"?

I'm sorry if floods bore you, although I have a feeling that if it were a matter of floods in, say, southeast Asia, you'd be all over this blog and The Oregonian for inadequate coverage.

Neither news coverage not people's interest in the news are zero-sum games: being interested in, and concerned about, floods in Oregon does not mean that one does not care about what's going on in the rest of the world.

And finally, as Ms. Axtman noted, you are free to contribute a guest column to Blue Oregon.

Obama has identified his daughters repeatedly with Israeli children, while never having uttered a word about the thousands -- thousands -- of Palestinian and Lebanese children killed and permanently maimed by Israeli attacks just since 2006. This allegedly post-racial president appears fully invested in the racist worldview that considers Arab lives to be worth less than those of Israelis and in which Arabs are always "terrorists."

The problem is much wider than Obama: American liberals in general see no contradiction in espousing positions supporting Israel that they would deem extremist and racist in any other context. The cream of America's allegedly "progressive" Democratic party vanguard -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Howard Berman, New York Senator Charles Schumer, among others -- have all offered unequivocal support for Israel's massacres in Gaza, describing them as "self-defense."

And then there's Hillary Clinton, the incoming secretary of state and self-styled champion of women and the working classes, who won't let anyone outbid her anti-Palestinian positions.

Democrats are not simply indifferent to Palestinians. In the recent presidential election, their efforts to win swing states like Florida often involved espousing positions dehumanizing to Palestinians in particular and Arabs and Muslims in general. Many liberals know this is wrong but tolerate it silently as a price worth paying (though not to be paid by them) to see a Democrat in office.

Ali--you raise some interesting points, none of which has anything to do, however, with floods and landslides in Oregon. Please submit a guest column to flesh out your points and let people comment on them.

Greg D sez: I am not interested in submitting guest articles for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that my family income requires me to kiss up to "the man"...My frustration comes from reading this site and waiting for discussions of current national and world events, and seeing weather, internal Oregon Democratic party news, and "fluff".

Greg D: As for your frustration and your characterization of Blue Oregon, as I write this, there are articles here regarding newly enacted legislation, energy and the environment, poverty, urban planning, race relations....Does it really need saying that contributors write about what they want to write about? There are many Blue [fill in state name] blogs out there, and none of the ones I've looked at would satisfy your criteria. Other blogs would, obviously.

No comment on whatever you mean by kissing up to "the man", although I have to wonder what sort of retribution you could face by penning an opinion piece about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

Greg D:

If you have something constructive and worthwhile to talk about on the topic (Gaza), by all means submit a guest column.

But don't include any criticism of the Democratic Party if you want to be published.

The problem is much wider than Obama: American liberals in general see no contradiction in espousing positions supporting Israel that they would deem extremist and racist in any other context. The cream of America's allegedly "progressive" Democratic party vanguard -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Howard Berman, New York Senator Charles Schumer, among others -- have all offered unequivocal support for Israel's massacres in Gaza, describing them as "self-defense."

That's because they took their "thirty pieces of silver" from the Israeli Lobby and sold whatever was left of their soul.

I find it fascinating - and more than a bit frightening - that all you "around the water cooler progressives" are so interested in discussing the weather and apparently not interesting in discussing the mass murder going on right this minute in Gaza.

That's because people can understand the hardships involved in having to make detours when roads are blocked and what it is like to have streets and homes flooded. Things like seeing buildings blown up and women and children slaughtered are beyond their comprehension.

Then there is the factor that these progressives around the water cooler aren't all that progressive. "Progressive" and "Democrat" are not always synonymous.

Ali Abunimah

American liberals in general

Yes, lets all just fit into some tidy little box defined by you.

Please educate yourself on the history behind this conflict before continuing to comment publicly.

Right on, David. Let me suggest Googling for "Uri Avnery" "Gideon Levy" "Amira Hass" (all Isralis) and "Robert Fish" (Gentile) and "Palestine" and "Gaza"

Corrections: Right on, David. Let me suggest Googling for "Uri Avnery" "Gideon Levy" "Amira Hass" (all Israelis) and "Robert Fisk" (Gentile and Middle East foreign correspondent for over 30 years) and "Palestine" and "Gaza"

Other suggested reading: "Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-1998" by the Israeli historian Benny Morris.

The interest and concern over Oregon's weather has to do with much more than what the news bunnies are wearing on Sylvan hill. Ill advised ways that both state, businesses and individuals have typically prepared for consequences of our winter weather are wreaking widespread havoc. What seems now to be yearly, excessive snows and rain that have led to flooding are causing people to lose their livelihood, and in some cases, their lives. Poor planning is costing many millions of dollars.

It's very troubling to read things such as the article in the O today about Estacada's public library. They built an apparently beautiful structure only 2 years ago, near a pond (and a river too, I believe I read), knowing that danger of flooding was more than an outside possibility. Today's O article quotes an Estacada resident (I'm parphrasing)'the aesthetics outweighed the threat'.

Well, I place a high value on aesthetics, too, but 'high' off the ground is what the library building should have been. The library was insured for flooding, but someone's going to be paying...ultimately, all of us, for that kind of oversight. I can just imagine how the Estacada Library's insurer is going to regard the prospect of insuring the library against flood damage in years to come.

We live in a flood zone. What do you expect?

TLG

It's raining out right now: discuss - blog. How will this affect driving? Carla, thoughts?

When will the libertarian lurkers set up their own blog so they can regale each other with fantasies about their laissez-faire utopia, let each other know about when their Ayn Rand book group is meeting next, and so on?

Mr Bodden: Perhaps you will submit that guest column about Palestine. Seriously. As for me, I just fired off a letter to the editor to The Oregonian on the topic. You see, my brain has room to think about both local and international affairs.

In the meanwhile, it would be nice if we quit slamming the writers here for writing about events and issues that some readers consider parochial. And I would insist that Ms. Axtman's posting here is in fact not at all parochial: it could be rather readily tied into issues of land-use planning, flood control, and how changing climate (and a changing hydrological cycle) may affect the built environment. You, dear reader, gets to connect the dots.

BOHICA: No one said "all". What about the term "in general" don't you understand?

Feeling guilty?

Ali,

No I'm not feeling guilty as I am a proud member of Veterans For Peace and have been working for many years on the issues of war and peace and its effects in all countries of the world not just the P-I issue. It is just one of many.

<h2>War is the enemy.</h2>