Cracked Window

After closely following the mainstream media’s superficial coverage of the presidential campaign, I’m not surprised that much in Rolling Stone’s damning new portrayal of John McCain’s life and career isn’t widely known.

The piece feels like a hatchet job but only because the sheer volume of negative information is so shocking. I’ve read some of it elsewhere but mostly in bits. To see it aggregated in a single piece is jaw dropping.

For about the tenth time in a week, I’ve been hit up for money by the Democratic National Committee. Solitictors call me on the phone, send me emails, corner me outside the grocery — you name it.

This evening, a nice but persistent young woman came to my door to ask again. When I told her I’ve given several times to Barack Obama, she said: “He just raised $51 million in July.” As in he has enough, so how about spreading it around to all the other Democrats running for office.

Her approach irked me, and she knew it. Yes, she’s working for a worthy cause and has a tough job, but that’s hardly the approach to take.

My irritation faded a short time later when I found this “story” about Obama’s half-brother, Cooter, threatening to derail his campaign. Sadly, some people will believe it. Obama needs all the money he can muster.

Easily distracted, I am. Especially when I find a web site based on an idea brilliant in its simplicity and stunning in its execution.

Welcome to Constant Setting, featuring a single photograph taken in a place where the sun is setting at the moment you view it. (As I write, the fiery sky of Bora-Bora is one click away from filling my screen.) You also can get a map of the locale. Read more here about the concept, summed up in the tagline: Simply because the sun is always setting.

When I rise in the morning, I’ll watch the sun go down — somewhere, and start my day with wanderlust.

Not often do I read about a sixteen-year-old boy and immediately wonder what he will do doing thirty years hence. I hope I’m around long enough to see how life unfolds for Zac Sunderland, who’s attempting to become the youngest person to sail solo around the world.

Zac’s departure two months ago from Marina del Ray in California escaped me. Now I’m following his progress via his blog and its link to Google Earth, which vividly pinpoints his location and route.

When I was sixteen, I had trouble driving a car straight. Too many decades later, I’m living vicariously through Zac as he battles the contradictory demons of storms and no wind in the middle of the Pacific — alone but so very much alive.

Some news stories I can’t get out of my head. They keep reverberating with questions.

Take the post-mortem wishes of two men, one an astronaut wanting to return to space, the other an actor astronaut wanting to go there for the first time.

When I spotted this trash can with a message today on Northeast 28th and Couch, I immediately thought of its broad theme: Portland’s intense recycling and reuse ethos.

Now I realize it might be a so-obvious-it’s-subtle hint: look inside, stupid, and get rich. Or maybe part of a treasure map, and the long shadow points the way.

Tufts of white fluff drift over my goldfish pond, on the way somewhere. Escapees from a cottonwood tree perhaps, fanning out on this cloudless and cool Portland morning. Another pastoral moment deep in the city.

From my neighbors’ century-old linden tree comes an incessant chirp. Beneath the shroud of limbs, I can’t see the bird but its notes are familiar: distress.

A silent bird comes into view, a juvenile Cooper’s hawk on a thick limb. Its head bobs down then up, pauses, then resumes. Each movement frees little white feathers that join a wind-blown procession toward the pond.

Spying me, the hawk lifts off, baby bird brunch in its beak, and disappears through the green canopy.

The other bird, hidden, still chirps, each note now a lament for what’s been lost.