Ben Douglass Digest

 [ Catch and Release: An Oregon Life in Politics. AuCoin, Les. Corvallis: Oregon State University Press. 2019. 258 pages. ISBN: 978-0-87071-973-8 ] From the Back Cover: In 1974, at the early age of thirty-two, Les AuCoin became the first Democrat to win a US House seat in Oregon's First District. He was one of the post-Watergate reformers who shook up an insular, autocratic Congress and led fights for affordable housing, "trickle-up" economics, wilderness protection, abortion rights, and nuclear arms control. In the 1980's, the Oregonian called him "the most powerful congressman in Oregon." In this compelling collection of life stories, AuCoin traces his unlikely rise from a fatherless childhood in Central Oregon to the top ranks of national power. Then came a painful defeat in one of the most controversial races in US Senate history, against incumbent Bob Packwood. A fly fisher, AuCoin uses "catch and release" as a metaphor for succeeding and lett...

[ The Joshua Tree . Cabot, Robert. New York: Atheneum. First Edition. 1970. 242 pages. Library of Congress Catalogue Number: 78-103073] From The Inside Cover: At the heart of Robert Cabot's remarkable first novel stands a Joshua tree of the High Mohave Desert. The novel's design centers on a meeting, mediated by the Joshua tree, between old Will of the legendary West and young Lily of today's California. Will Spear: born on the Volga, escaping oppressions to a free life in America - cowpunching, hunting, prospecting, living with the Walapai Indians, mining in Death Valley, ranching in the Mohave - he lives out his convictions of rebellious freedom even as his family leaves him and the desert is threatened with death. Lily Tocca: from her wild childhood in the northern California mountains, forced into suffocation, unable to conform, finding drugs, finding despair, finding love, reaching the high desert, she receives the legacy of Will's uncompromising freedom. Their exp...

 As the world cracks, deeply, decisively, Under stress of madness, Fanaticism, Covid-19, et.al... (The Pathos of Things imprisons me) I want to go back to another time And sit drinking espresso and noshing Bagels & cream cheese at a sidewalk cafe', On a warm and lazy Sunday morn In Athens, discussing with fervor History, the Odyssey and Greek Civil War With the poet Cavafy, even for A brief moment in time.