She's a comin' down!

Looks like the end is near for an icon of our region.

Anyone familiar with northwest Oregon, southwest Washington knows exactly what this is a picture of. It's the Trojan Plant. Actually, it's the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant, but anyone who grew up in Rainier, OR (as I did) knows that they really made giantic condoms. Ok, so maybe that was one of our more lame urban legends, but the joke never got old.

Today's paper annouced that the 499 foot cooling tower is to be imploded next May. What a sight that will be! Surrounded by a river to the east, marshy wetlands to the west and trees and hills everywhere else, Trojan seems so out of place. Actually, to me it is very much in place.

Having grown up in Goble, I spent my entire childhood living within 5 miles of the place. According to the map on the first page of our Pacific Bell phone book, we lived in the red zone of death. On occassion, the rather quiet tranquilty of our rural home would be interupted with a loud siren that was a test of the reactor breach emergency alert system. And this was all very normal to me.

Our family had friends who worked at Trojan. My dad and I got a personal tour of the place when our friend Rick worked there. Our school district was practically funded by the plant. The visitor center held our annual science fairs. My cousin and I often rode our bikes down to the parks at the site, which really were very pretty, and we even used to fish! Nope, I never caught a 3-eyed trout, just some lame-ass carp. One summer some friends of mine and I rode around the bike paths at the park so we could raise money or Cystic Fibrosis, something from which my best friend's oldest brother suffered. Trojan, in many respects, is a mainstay of my childhood.


Trojan has been at the center of a battle with environmentalists ever since its conception. I'm not going to go into some lengthy speech about how nuclear power, when used and maintained properly, never creates acid rain, kills salmon, or alters the natural state in which it operates. Obviously, I just lied. I just hope that those people who watch the tower fall next May and celebrate its demise remember that a lot of jobs and good crumbled with it. I also hope that maybe they will take some of this energy of theirs and focus it on other types of power that cause far greater damage to the environment. Wouldn't it be nice if these same people got on the government's case about building a fish ladder at Grand Coulee Dam, which would reopen over 1/3 of the Columbia River tributaries to salmon?

So what will I think next May? I'll be there, somewhere, within view, my camcorder, and my lawnchair. Why wouldn't I be?! When was the last time 499 feet of man-made engineering came crumbling down in Goble, Oregon? It's gonna be a fun sight to see!

Gun-totin', meat-eatin Lefty

They've got Rush, Slant Head, and Lars "dumbass" Larson.

We've got Big Eddie.

Ed Schulz is his name. He's a "gun-totin', meat-eatin'" lefty. He's a progressive talk show host that has gone national. He works out of a small broadcast office in Fargo, ND. He likes to hunt, fish, and watch the Vikings try to stay out of the "toilet bowl." And he's on OUR SIDE.

Big Eddie, as his listeners call him, has one of the fastest growing audiences (if not the fastest) in the United States. He spends his time defending progressives and liberals. He supports the work of the democrats, but he does not let blind loyalty stop him from asking the Dems the tough questions either. He believes the war in Iraq was sold to the American people based on lies. He believes in a woman's right to choose. He isn't afraid to admit when he's wrong.

Most importantly, he doesn't screen his phone calls. Lefties and Righties call in to his show, and he let's them talk. He may respectfully disagree with some of them, but as long as they respect him they get to say their piece. What a breath of fresh air: a talk show host with a political slant who let's the opposition say their piece. Perhaps the neo-cons could learn this lesson.

To hear Big Eddie in action, check out this clip from this morning on MSNBC as replayed on Ed's show this afternoon.

http://audio.wegoted.com/podcasting/120805MSNBC.mp3

Smells like high school

I have officially reached F.U.B.A.R.

This last couple weeks of school have been hell. Of course, I've done it all to myself.

Anyone who has ever gone to college knows the feeling. You get so busy with life that your studies fall behind. This was my semester to do just that. The only problem is I slacked off for about a month. Ok, that's not the worst part. The fact that two of my classes are distance learning courses in which I watch the classs lectures on DVD, and I haven't in over a month, that is the worst part.

Tomorrow is the last day of the semester. Whereas in Spring 05 I felt confident that I was getting 2 A's and a B, this semester I'm getting at least 2 incompletes and possibly a third. Not exactly something to be proud of for sure. My only saving grace from getting that third incomplete, in my class called Rise and Fall of Rome, is that I get 20 pages worth of take-home exams completed by Sunday night. Sounds simple, right? Not when 75% of them consist of essays.

So, here I am, cramming about a month's worth of info into my brain over a 48 hour period so I can write a bunch of essays. Strangely enough, I've been having flashbacks of high school. In high school I would've thrown in the towel and said 'fuck it.' Well, I'm about to dive back into my materials on the Romans. Somewhere along the way, I hope to learn: who the second greatest emperor was (other than Caesar Augustus), figure out what Plutarch thought of the Gracchi Brothers, define a single cause of the fall of the Republic, and lastly identify 8 different terms and figures.

Ah, school.