Jack, where do you stand w/ Macpherson? Did you two know each other or work together at Stoel?

Also, do you think that Kroger, a relative outsider can win the AG seat? While an interesting race, most folks I have encountered seem to think MacP has it in the bag.

Your thoughts?

A union investigation?!

Jack, you're by far my favorite liberal.

Most people (albeit public employees) I've talked to are endorsing Kroger. Although the DA's Office here in town won't officially endorse anyone for obvious political reasons, there has been a lot of positive talk about Kroger around the courthouse, both state and defense side.
Should be interesting to see how the voters (not just attnys) respond in the next two months.

They are debating Friday at City Club. I haven't heard Kroger speak in person yet. Mac, nice guy that he is, can put you to sleep really fast.

Against that "lot of positive talk about Kroger around," (saaaay, Clerk06, are you a 'plant,' a shill, here for no apparent reason? ... except to say, "should be interesting to see"), get this: it looks like Kroger is an assigned infiltrator, sent by handlers to be 'their' toehold, beachhead, satellite office, 'their' franchisee in Oregon.

I am so 'loaded for bear' (as in, 'locked and loaded'), against this carpetbagging interloping GagMeWithAnEnigmaticFigure Groper Krogergoon. I mean, shoot, darn, ya' know what I mean?

Full disclosure: I once worked for Kroger, stocking grocery shelves, earning college tuition, and ... no relation.

Before I throw haymakers at the Empire State run-away renegade, first a few words about Macpherson. I don't know him much. Months ago, I met him and his dad, Hector, and I was so enamored to be speaking with The Hector Macpherson, asking him about the genesis of Oregon's Land Use Law, and the Public Access Beach Law, and Tom McCall, and what he, Hector, knew and remembered of all that ... that, well, I just used up my fair share of minutes with the candidate and sorta didn't ask him much. But, oh, the smile on his face, and pride for his father, there really wasn't much more I felt I needed to ask young Greg.

I mean, it's an Oregon thang. Krogergoon cannot touch that; never had it, never knew it, never will.

Here, it's about the land. And the water. And the air. And the greater spirit from the sum of the parts. We like that in our law enforcement figureheads. It's about the generations, living on the land. It's not about shouting how great you are, or what a foo fighter you are, or your white-shirted city-slicker legal-Knievel smartypants courthouse rodeo. Oh, my, no.

It's about quiet, hearing the waters melt and sally, hearing the wind whistle the pines, hearing folks out, what they got to say, how they're getting along. I like that I haven't heard 'all about' Macpherson. Word'll get around. Folks'll know.

In an exchange, recently, with another native of Oregon soil, I asked what folks were saying about the Attorney General contest, and was told a nonpolitical 'normal' person "didn't know there was one." And I said there was a name, Kroger, to be execrated and guffawed into exile. And I got a skeptical look like my opinion needed corroboration. And I said there was a name, Macpherson, to be voted for; and I got a rousing affirmation, "Macpherson -- why didn't you say so, no problem, consider it done."

So that's a few whiffs of what I know, in the air, on the wind, making the rounds about Macpherson.

Now, about this Krog dog. Who the heck is this guy? So, like, he's all Super Duper Prosecutor for the FEDERAL Government, right?, stationed in NEW YORK CITY!, ya' say, movin' and shakin' and got the world by the tail. So, one day, I don't know, in an idle moment, a little downtime, taking a breather, he goes, like, "what the heck," buys a bicycle, pedals across the country alone, randomly lands in Oregon, and says, 'okay, so I'm gonna get elected Attorney General in this strange place I never been before ... 'cause I really really really like it here.' Yeah, right, uh-huh. As if. I don't think so.

Who sent him?

And what's up with his personality if the domestic situation ain't got the 'significant other' bit going on, pardner, womens pets hobbies or otherwise, hmmmmm .... Tell us the part again how his Dad told him, 'you got 48 hours to clear out.' Better yet, just personally, between you and me and the fencepost, tell me his birthday.

Ya' know, about this 'meth' thing. I been lookin' at stuff in a new perspective I got from the Susan Komen Foundation, talking about breast cancer, talking about sending a lot of money donated to them, to someplace else doing 'research' to 'find a cure.' And they started talking, that maybe the thing to do is less about finding a 'cure' and more about finding a 'cause' -- We know what it does, where does it come from?

So I been trying to visualize some hypothetical mucho loco drug domo in the barrio, low-riding down the aisles of the local RiteAid Cosco one day, and he spots a bottle of pseudophed on the shelf, and slaps his forehead, 'ay caramba!, I been waiting for this. Now I can take a mixture of 500 milligrams of 2.3 nanomole HCl, with 1.22 grams of 8.9 nanomole sodium acetate trihydrate, and 250 milligrams of 5% Pd-BaSO4, in 95 milliliters glacial acetic acid and 5 milliliters water, shaken on a Parr apparatus for about an hour, under a hydrogen atmosphere (intial psi of 40-45); and when the uptake of hydrogen ceases, filtrate and 50 milliliter wash the catalyst, combine the filtrate and water washings and evaporate to dryness under reduced pressure, so that the remaining oil dissolves in 50 milliliters water acidified with concentrated (pH 1) HCl; then that acidic aqueous solution can be washed with 100 milliliters of chloroform, then made basic (pH 12) with 10% NaOH; and then that basic aqueous solution can be extracted with 225 milliliters of chloroform, and the combined extracts washed with 100 milliliters water and dried over magnesium sulfate, so that evaporation of the CHCl3 under reduced pressure yields the product as the free base, which, converted to the HCl salt in ethereal HCl, and the salt recrystallized from ethanol-ether, gives a granular white solid. Ay chihuahua, having us some fun tonight.'

And ya' know what? I just can't picture it. Somehow, I don't think that's the scene where it came from that started the 'meth epidemic' destroying the lives of homeless, ne'er-do-wells, rabble-rousers, liberals, social misfits, artists outcasts heavy-metal rockers, and such as would not enlist in the National Guard and/or would tell others not to; turning all those types into tweakers, expendable and tossable into the dustbin of the disaffected, doomed to quick demise in Dubya's diabolic desecration of American democracy. KnowWhatIMean,Vern?

On the other hand, just incidentally in personal experience, which included some semesters in the scholastic acme of the academy of Science, (I majored in Electrical Engineering at MIT; I didn't go the distance but, hey, just try getting in there, and besides, there were some big bucks waved under my young nose for me to just leave school and come to work -- and there were multiple bidders! ... yet at least I can read and, if I wanted to, (I don't), perform, the above reagents procedures), and all the ChemEng (Chemical Engineering) majors I ever met, got scarfed up after graduation and disappeared into exclusive high-paying jobs they couldn't talk about somewhere near Langley, Virginia. KnowWhatIMean,Virginia?

Now, why would the CIA want to inflict a herd-thinning meth epidemic on the dregs and recalcitrants of society, hmmmmmm ....?

Yeah, KrogerFEDERALgopher, ex-Marine Intelligence operative, is all, like, let's get some tough love going and some $pending in the million$, set up the medical experimental mind-correction and ways we know are 'cures,' and get these poor poor poor unfortunate bastards into treatment, by the bushelful. But, I don't know, it just seems to me we might think first of asking, 'where'd this stuff come from,' and maybe, just maybe, cut it off at the source. Line-item veto the CIA budget. Then gather 'round the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of our teeming, the homeless, and the tempest-tost, and see if we can figure out some treatments for brains on terror.

I know what I mean. Kroger ain't from around here. Things look different here. He doesn't seem to see that.

Why is it unsurprising the Portland powerlust Police hail Krogergoon as their man? Seig hiel let JTTF, (Jesus Take The Fall).

He certainly has the p.r. machine cranked up, though, full blast, running around everywhere, 'going like a barn afire.' Oh, I guess the latest cliche is 'hair on fire.' Either way, I wonder who set the fire.

Dumping Johnboy aside for a minute, this bigger picture thing about topsecret intelligence spies running amok in America, on Americans, deserves some consideration to be integrated into the worldview with which most of us get the way we get what's going on. There's a lot to consider, and it helps to put a couple books in your brain to kinda set the context. (Here's a primary reference work. See also: 'The Craft of Intelligence,' by Allen Dulles [1965].) But let's look at a single thread in the tapestry, here.

That would be 'drugs.' Starting where the pre-CIA powercrazies, called the OSS, got the idea that drug addiction can be used by the abstinent drug pusher to control people's lives.

Let's let the pusher tell the story. He is Lt. Col. Fletcher Prouty, special missions pilot in the WWII Allied High Command, and if flyboys have a Brotherhood of the Right Stuff, he and Chuck Yeager must be the identical-twins leaders of the pack. This is the man you want to have your back.

1944, late in the war. The drone of a double prop cargo flight on a dark night, longhaul out of Cairo, bearing niner zulu, somewhere off the coast of Pakistan, at about 10,000 feet over the Indian Ocean. Bojack to Fletch, come in ... there is a big story about drugs and the war. When we were joined by the British and Chinese to drive against the Japanese through Burma, it was our responsibility to pay the troops. I was with the Air Transport Command in Cairo then. We sent a transport plane every month with the Finance Officers to Burma so they could physically pay the troops with cash.

These men had "foot-lockers" full of cash: American for the Americans, British for the British and foot-lockers packed with small white envelopes of heroin to pay the Chinese. That was the customary Chinese "pay".

We knew where the American and British currency came from; but we did not know, positively, where the heroin came from. But the Army finance men did, and they never gave up the contacts. Since we were in Egypt we believed that it came from Turkey where we had easy access at the time. I flew people to Turkey many times.

As the Burmese campaign progressed and drove the Japanese easterly to the Pacific, and the end of the war came along, these Army Finance officers continued paying the Chinese with heroin. But by that time Gen Li Mi of the Chinese had moved to the north and controlled northern Thailand and northern Burma and their drug supply.

As you know the war against Japan ended Sept 2, 1945 and our support of the Indochinese, Ho Chi Minh then, began on that same date. There never was a time when our troops weren't there and when the Army finance officers did not need plenty of heroin. They moved their drug contacts right into the warfare of Vietnam. Did you ever hear about the Nugan-Hand Billion dollar Bank? [Ask google.] Mike Hand was a CIA man and Frank Nugan was Australian.

As the Chinese were withdrawn from Indochina and Americans began to come in we continued to get heroin from Ben Li Mi's resources and heroin became plentiful in Vietnam. This continued to be an enormous business through to the end of the warfare in 1975.

By that time the drug trade was big business, and continues to be, supported by the military and the CIA with their drug importing allies. ... (There's more story if you click to read it.)

Find on a googlemap Thailand, Burma (now 'Myanmar'), Bengladesh, and Nepal - Tibet. All are named in recent news items. It's like 'we' never left.

Consider the reports that say, during these 6 years of occupation of Afghanistan, opium production there has increased from zero, the last year the Taliban controlled the region, to north of $6 Billion market-value in Europe, (by some estimates -- call google), under US Special Forces/CIA administration, uh, I mean, Coalition of the Swilling.

And in recent news, Columbia (SA) which principally exports cocaine, accused activist contingency groups of crossing its border and organizing farm workers, disrupting its plantations; and then sent a satellite-guided missile deadcenter into a group camp in Ecuador. I wonder where they got the satellite guidance. (No, I'm kidding, I don't wonder at all, and neither should you, dear reader.)

This year's Bushbutcher budget has $500 million lined out to give to Mexico's Calderon, for drug eradication assistance; that would be, 'eradicating' any competitors, or squeaky-wheel federales who need some grease to turn their heads and look the other way.

So, the CIA drug-thread mainline stretches from 1944 to today, from Singapore to Singapore (or wherever), and in between is documented chemistry wizardry in 1950s LSD, 1960s STP (to say the least), 1970s too (with the added curiosity of microbiology miracles the likes of which no one ever saw before, coming from somewhere around the 1976 germ-warfare labs in Angola that showed up in the immaculate gestation of AIDS Patient Zero, 1980, a PanAm 'cabin assistant' on the Cairo - Montreal - New York billeting), and on, 1980s 'crack' cocaine epidemic (look up the chemisty of making 'crack,' sometime), 1990s meth(ephedrin) plague, and -- who can forget? -- 2001's inexplicable anthrax arrests ... oh, wait, 'they' haven't arrested anyone yet.

And, out of nowhere, comes to Oregon this James Bond-looking guy -- "I biked in from New York" -- all talking rough and tough what he could do to cure the 'meth-edemic.' Hey, how about investigate the cause, at its origin?

And who are you, anyway? When us taxpaying citizens ever want some historic bang for our buck, and totally be astonish-entertained, zero out the CIA budget line overnight -- yank the purse strings tight as a garotte, and watch which ordinary-seeming people in the town, suddenly start choking and go looking for a paying job.

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One more jab, I can't resist. The 'brass plaque' gig at Lewis & Clark College is, perhaps, supposed to confer some accreditation to The Stranger in town. I'm not so sure. The story going round is that Monica Lewinsky slept there.

Whoever she was. Federal Government potentates probably never heard of her, way out here. Plus, (or minus), it's a small 'private' school.

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Oh, one more. The best for last. I met Kroger and talked with him awhile, maybe ten minutes, listening to his bio, places, dates, until it dawned on me to ask, "Oh, hey, so you were in the New York US Attorney's Office, then, in 2001, when Nine-Eleven Op happened. What was that like, where were you ...?" And he said, "I can't talk about that." And I said, "Would you like to hear an interesting fact?" And he said, "I can't listen to you speak, if you say one more word about 'that'." And I said, "This'll just take a second." And he turned his back on me and walked away.

Right then, I knew this guy is not his own man, and is here obeying orders.

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Folks might not know that a plain Oregonian is not allowed to speak with the State Attorney General, in officio. I found out when I naively went to ask Hardy Myers something. It ain't about 'security;' it's about who has legal standing. And you and me don't. The prosecutor's chamber is a bunker without aperture. H o o w w wever, since I had come all that way, the 'greeter' said, m a a y ybe there was a backdoor backroom backchannel, no promises, but stand around a minute and see what happens. So, soon, some suit came walking up and asked me what I was there for. That's all he said. I spoke my piece. He didn't blink, he didn't smile, he didn't acknowledge in the slightest a single word I said. A few days later, I saw in the news, the crime I thought was going on had stopped, and sanctions had been put in place to prevent it happening again. And it hasn't, in the years since.

Say what you may, about inattentive 'Hardly Matters,' but I believe he's got a pulse, and an ear to what's blowing in the wind. Myers endorses Macpherson as successor, and I hear that.

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Macpherson's website (but not Kroger's) announces the following, and further.

Portland City Club Attorney General Candidate Debate
Fri., Mar. 28, 2008
Location: 614 SW 11th Ave, Portland, OR
When: 12:15 PM
Ends: 2:15 PM
General seating is free for members and $5 for nonmembers, and is available at the door on a first-come, first-served basis.

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What's the chance any Portland Police Association 'meanies' make the scene? (Hint: starts with a 'z.' Ends with a 'z.' Several dozzzzzzzen z's in between.)

Jack, thank you very much for the bandwidth. You are Mr. Big. (May the 'hysterical bloggers' never catch sight of you, though.)

Gil, if I had seen your Comment before I set mine, I might have included some self-deprecating humor attempts comparing and contrasting 'nice guy' styles twixt 'Mac' and me as to which one is mor e e ffec . tiv e . .. ..Zz ...ZZZzzzzzzzz

Tenskwatawa:

Run, don't walk, to your nearest mental health professional. They have a bevy of new, anti-psychotic drugs.

Pick one & use it.

Thanks Jack, for allowing Tenskwatawa bandwidth to contribute.

"this (PPA) endorsement is not exactly a plus in my book". I'm afraid I'm cynical enough to agree.