Sizzler Special

Went to Ashland for a long weekend this past week. Ashland is such a funny place. It has a hippy history (as so many cool Oregon towns do) but due to the tourism generated by the Shakespeare Festival that runs for 9 months out of the year, there is a fair amount of wealth there and the housing market is out of control. Worse than Seattle. Regardless it hasn't lost its "hippie charm". Yes, I had a beans, rice and tofu burrito while I was there. Twice. If you're ever there, spend some time in Lithia Park. It is right down town and has this great creek running through it that you can wade in, etc. Got home on Monday night in time to catch up on a little Sunday Times reading before The Daily Show at 11:00. Two things in the paper that were of interest to me. First, I really love the column in the local section on Sundays called 'How your U.S. Lawmaker voted'. Not only is this title very Letterman-esque, but it is really interesting to see how our our state's members of Congress voted on the major issues of the week. One that was of interest to me this past week was the new FDA commissioner. The Senate confirmed (by a vote of 78-16!) some guy named Dr. Lester Crawford. What struck me most is that the guy is 67 years old. Come on...retire already! Isn't there anyone out there that isn't able to take advantage of the Senior Early Bird special at Sizzler that might be a bit more "current" (god forbid!) for this job? Apparently, his confirmation would have happened a long time ago if our "liberal" senators would just accept the FDA's desire to NOT sell the morning after pill over the counter and shut up. Kidding. Of course Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray voted no on our friend Lester. Rock on girls! I did watch the Daily Show only to see that Jon Stewart's guest was some right wing senator from Pennsylvania (very uncharacteristic of Jon) who has written a book called "It Takes a Family". This guy is off his rocker. He thinks that the government needs to make some sort of legislation about only married men and women being able to raise children. Any other combination is "not serving the future of our society". All this after the nomination of John Roberts last week. Guess I should go and see about getting me some kids. Maybe at the Ballard Market???

Stay tuned for the second item of interest from the Sunday Times...it is a much happier topic.