Action Commentary

I took a break from the so-called cease-fires, traffic jams and mattress sales last weekend by spending a day at the 2014 Clark County Fair. If there’s anything that needs to be reinvented, this was it. I know. 250,000 consumers along with their amusement-oriented offspring attended the event. But while I enjoyed gawking at the […]

“THE ISRAEL-GAZA CONFLICT” is how the networks bill what’s transpiring in that corner of the world. While the phrase “cease-fire” is repeated quite often, the scenarios which most personify the situation are the moving pictures of Palestinians parading dead bodies through the streets of their bombed-out landscape. Hamas resorts to such ploys because their combatants […]

Remember these lyrics? “There’s something happening here. What it is ain’t exactly clear.” Buffalo Springfield made them famous back in 1967. They came to mind last week as the Mass Media tried to convert the opening of Vancouver’s first reefer joint in “quaint” Uptown Village into a transcendental event, even equating it with the end […]

I DON’T LIKE BIRDS ANYMORE. See, my boss “let me go” the other day. He explained that “tweets” have rendered me expendable. You know, those 140-character text messages on Twitter, an on-line micro-blogging network which is exemplified by a blue sparrow. Or is it a swallow? The rationale cited was, Why should we pay you […]

THE WORLD CUP kicked off to global fanfare in Sao Paulo on June 12. One billion people around the planet stopped what they were doing to take it in. In America, 100 million fans will tune in the Brazilian matches. I watched the wonderfully colorful Opening Ceremony on KUNP, the UNIVISION affiliate in Portland. You […]

You’ve probably heard about the 40 US military veterans who dropped dead whilst on a “Wait List” at the VA Hospital in Phoenix, AZ; it was two-years long. But do you know about the “Wait List” for subsidized living quarters at the Vancouver Housing Authority? It’s six-years long. They say 747 Clark County citizens are […]

One nice thing about BLOGS is that you can “publish” what’s been “rejected.” I have a cabinet full of such material. Here’s a piece from 1996, but who knows if the monument is still there: I went to the “Groovy Grand Opening” of Ontario Mills Mall in Southern California last week. The Inland Empire Bulletin […]

BEFORE THE MASSES became addicted to television around the middle of the 20th Century, newspapers by and large announced the big stories of the day, i.e.: LINDBERGH FLIES THE ATLANTIC (1927); WALL STREET LAYS AN EGG (1929); BONNIE & CLYDE RIDDLED WITH BULLETS (1934); OAHU BOMBED BY JAPANESE PLANES (1941); NIXON & KENNEDY MEET FACE-TO-FACE […]

The post MURDER + MYSTERY appeared first on Action Commentary.

AS I REFLECTED on a KPTV transmission from Battle Ground, WA concerning a 36-year-old man who slashed his mother’s throat with a 12-inch butcher knife, I could only hope that PROJECT X arrives in the Portland-Vancouver market soon. Because I’ve had my fill of the televised gore adorned with pleasantries that passes for “local news” […]

The post PROJECT X appeared first on Action Commentary.

YOUR NEWS STARTS RIGHT NOW. We took the southbound AMTRAK “Cascades” from Portland, OR at 2:25 p.m. Feb. 22. During the voyage, we were subjected to a continuous blast of frigid air blowing out of the vents in our “bedroom.” The lighting didn’t dim, either. At supper time we went to the Dining Car and […]

The post HOW WAS YOUR STAY? appeared first on Action Commentary.

REG FULTON passed away on Oct. 28, 2013. A friend of mine who was the composer's neighbor in San Francisco gave me the news. You probably never heard of […]