Graphic Firing Table

Since late winter I've been dealing with muscle tremor. First my left leg - occasionally, then steadily - now my left hand. I saw a neur...

Four years ago my father, the man I always called "The Master Chief" in this place, died . My mother, his wife, lingered on anot...

It was almost six years ago when we last had to take leave of one of the cats that have the run of this place, and I still have a small emp...

In a dim, dirty hostess bar on a sultry backstreet in the Pham Ngu Lao district of Valhalla, a bunch of the tattered shades of the boys from...

Look, people. Death is all around you. We're BORN owing God - or Nature, or whatever - a death. As my old drill sergeant used to say,...

Well, my father died in...well, it'd be wrong to call it "his sleep"; it was the "sleep" of the hinterlands of life,...

My father - the "Master Chief" for those of you longtime readers - is in his late eighties and has been slowly fading into the sor...

A friend of mine - who is an intelligent, genuinely decent, loving and compassionate woman - sent me a link to this : "The face on this...

I opened up my Facebook today to find out that Robin Williams has died, probably by his own hand, probably after losing a fight with his own...

So after our busy Saturday we had a fairly busy Sunday. I took the Boy and his pal to Lasertag and then out to Beaverton to give a basic ri...

Readers of this blog are probably familiar with my appreciation for the films of the Studio Period. One of the most intriguing and at the ...

Fascinating little piece of governmental incunabula: did you now that you can get the "Atheist" symbol on your Veteran's Affai...

As she curled up in my lap for the last time what seemed louder than everything else - louder than the sound of the children asking their mo...

Eleven years ago today I lost you. Once you were the darkness that consumed the center of my heart. Once I would have given everything ...

I really try and avoid the horrible celebriphilia that runs mad through everything in American pop culture. You know when you read something...

He married the Joker. Did you "eeep!" a little when you saw the grin-rictus of Death on the mug of Callista "I screwed anothe...

I think you know how much I hate zoos . To me they're like animal prisons, and, sure enough, the prisoners/animals have similar patholog...

The first cool tendrils of autumn thread into the late summer air in Portland. I'm reminded again, in the turning of the season, of the ...

It's not a very peaceful spot. The entire plot is beneath the I-5 interstate overpass that flies the monstrous steel, glass and rubber t...