The Ojai Post

For what it's worth, what do you think of the idea of having an open thread all the time, at or near the top of the page or other visible location? As I recall, some "open threads" only have a few comments before they disappear off the visible page. How long they remain visible is a matter of chance...is there a way to change that?

Or maybe everything is fine as is, since Tyler responds so quickly!

An Irish Toast:

May you have warm words on a cold evening, a full moon on a dark night, and a smooth road all the way to your door.

Here's another I like:

Here’s to you and yours,
And to mine and ours,
And if mine and ours ever come
Across you and yours,
I hope you and yours will do
As much for mine and ours,
As mine and ours have done
For you and yours!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows you are dead.

"To Love oneself, is the beginning of a life long romance"
Oscar Wilde

"I can resist anything except temptation."

Oscar Wilde

I love a good martini, but one at the very most. Two, I'm under the table and three - I'm under the host.

Dorothy Parker

(Technically not an Irish toast, but appropro enough considering all the tipping of the glasses today... :)

May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields and,
Until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

That said, looks like it's time to boycott the Summer Olympics, all corporations that continue to advertise during the olympics, and Chinese manufactured goods because of the atrocities happening right now in Tibet. I'm going to email the marketing divisions of several corporations I deal with to admonish them to cancel any and all advertising they may have bought during the Summer Games in China.

And what is the State Department doing taking China off its Human Rights abuse list just as they begin attacking Tibet again! Is Condoleezza Rice totally delusional? She actually said: “China is no longer a human rights offender”. I guess in her case if we're no then China must not be too.

boycott China!! I'm with you spk. Don't expect the US govt to do or say a thing about this travesty. It is/has been irrevocably corrupted by transnational sociopathic despots. vote with your eroding dollar.

"It is high time to ask whether it is really any scandal, any deplorable inconsistency, for a human being to be both angel and animal with equal devotion... Not to cherish both the angel and the animal, both the spirit and the flesh, is to renounce the whole interest and greatness of being human, and it is really tragic that those in whom the two natures are equally strong should be made to feel in conflict with themselves. For the saint-sinner and the
mystic-sensualist is always the most interesting type of human being because he is the most complete. When the two aspects are seen to be consistent with each other, there is a real sense in which spirit transforms nature: that is to say, the animality of the mystic is always richer, more refined, and more subtly sensuous than the animality of the merely animal man."
-Alan Watts

this was just the most divine thread...
and then spk comes in with his anti-China reminder.
oh well...
anyone notice Bear Stearns collapsed?
or that the new NY gov admitted to an affair?

you gotta lov open threads.

and BIG YES to Suza suggestion to keep Open Threads OPEN ALL the time

Big Greatings from Austin, YX
THE LIVE MUSIC CAPITAL OF THE WORLD!!

probably moving here.
Ojai (and California) so boring and stuffy by contrast.
please keep the ocean clean for when i come visit

y'all come visit!!

Clearly risking disdain by El Anonimo for posting something that may or may not jive with his particular mood of the moment (was that meant to be a snarky comment? I can't always tell) -

Can anyone recommend a good place to register a website domain name? My niece wants some info and I am clueless when it comes to this type of thing. She was considering GoDaddy.com. Any thoughts or suggestions?

And p.s. Snarky El - how's the real estate market out in Austin these days?

go daddy is cheap and excellent.
just avoid all the "extras" they want to tack on.

Real estate is of course the name of the game here as it is in california.
I'm buying a condo for 1/2-1/3 what it would cost in our lovely valley.
But of course I would have a choice of 100 clubs any evening to hear music (and yes I hate country music)
Best thing?- I could walk or bicycle to most of them

Thanks El.

Re: Austin - I know tons of people who have moved there over the last couple of years. It sounds like a wonderful place - I'll have to check it out one of these days!

Mr. El A,
Your "punch" and humor will be sorely missed on this blog. A respite from the same old (dreary) progressive fodder.

El A,

There's plenty of other threads musing on various other less weighty topics. The open thread is for everything, including mass killings by a country that is hosting the Olympics this Summer. Once again I am struck by your peculiar indifference and your stereotypical baby boomer self-absorption.

Check yourself, spk, your ageism is showing.

LTOR- you wont believe it here.
There is no way to be prepared for Austin.
It's kinda like if they had made San Francisco the capital of California in 1967 and it stayed that way.

Throw in a dash of southern hospitality,
throw out all pretentiousness
throw in a blinding thunder shower like we had this afternoon
and you've got fabulously freaky Austin

I have friends who sold their house in Ventura about three years ago (while the going was good) and bought a palace in Austin. Last I heard they love it there! Plus there is a great yoga community. And water (rain). So you go ahead and relocate just so long as you don't abandon your Post friends stuck here in square Ojai.

Can't you just see the headline:

El Anonimo Abandons Ojai for Austin!

EA
trust me, you be in for a serious bitch-slap if you think Texas is fabulously freaky
keep the rose-colored glasses & do NOT leave city limits!!

I never plan on leaving Austin except to spend Mid June to mid Sept in some Caribbean paradise.
Oh and of course I'll come back for annual Mardi Gras party in Ojai and 25 Anniversary of ojaipost.

i love you guys.
i would never abandon Ojai!

We all breathe a collective sigh of relief!

Suza, you had a good idea with the open thread, but it quickly became very boring. How DID we go from Ojai concerns to Austin?

How DID we go from Ojai concerns to Austin?

Um...because "Open Thread" means "Open Thread"?

Question to Lisa Snider:

Hi Lisa, you usually and unfailingly come across as extremely balanced, fun and fair-minded. So I am just wondering why you closed down the Phone Book Wars thread in the first place? If one reads between the lines, to me it seems a bit obvious that you have a particular point of view and slant, which of course is your right. (And don't we all. It would be a dull day indeed on the Ojai Post if that was not the case.) And I know it must have been aggravating not to get the kind of replies that you were expecting. But the addition of the last post without the Ojai Post readers' ability to comment comes across as you heavy handedly trying to have the last word.

Why not just let the thread play itself out. I think I know at least a tiny bit about the backstory - and many readers expressed a true eagerness to get to the bottom of things. Wouldn't it behoove Julie's side to have someone explain just what happened? That being said, I have always supported the original book a) because they are local and do indeed support local businesses and b) the burden of proof should be on the later version to prove beyond a doubt that their product and services were supreme and far exceeded the value of the original - the outcome being that customers would naturally switch their loyalty. (That is the essence of competition.) If that were the case, we wouldn't still have two books (and two substantial checks to write out each year!) 4-5 years later.

Questions were asked and raised by your thread, but definitely not answered. I'm sure there is a rational explanation for your decision, I'm just trying to let you know how the whole thing comes across - at least from my point of view. Hope you understand.

I respectfully agree with what LTOR wrote above.

This year I'm not advertising in eiher phone book because, at the moment, for me the cost outweighs the benefit. It has nothing personal to do with either party.

From a customer point of view, two phone books are only as good as one if EVERYONE lists in both books OR if one phone book can assure customers that EVERYONE is listed in their edition.

Otherwise, for example, customers who want to check out every math tutoring service for their child feel compelled to look through the yellow pages of both books.

When I go to call my plumber or manicurist and don't find them listed in one directory, then I have to hunt for them in the other one. The books maybe designed to take up less space, but now we need two of them.

The main purpose of a local phone book is to find ALL the local piano tuners in one convenient place, right? The menus and trolley schedules and coupons are nice, but what I really want is to find the number for all the dog groomers in one spot.

So no matter the good reasons that may exist for having two local directories, the fact remains that unless every business takes out two listings or one of the books can claim their book has every listing that their competitor has, it means customers must now be prepared to browse through two books.

There. I said it as best as I can!

Thanks Lisa (and LTOR)! --Suza

Like LTOR, I'm curious to know why you suddenly closed the Phone Book thread when it was such a lively community conversation.

Thanks, all, I have no intention to express bias either way and you're absolutely right - I thought the thread was done, it's back up now.

I think the point that was trying to be made above that this is the OJAI Post, not the Austin, Texas Post.
There are plenty of local issues to be discussing without going on and on about how nifty Austin is. If y'all like it there so much, hit the road, and leave more space for those of us who care enough to put some serious time into making our glorious valley a better place. Give up? Get out.

What is a Social Artist? If that is someone who likes to tweak society should the artist be surprised if society tweaks back? Am I a bad person if I commute to a job, buy clothes and food in a store and eat meat?
I'm not passing judgements I'm just asking

comment page for EFJ vid is malfunctioning. Sorry about that.

Has anyone noticed the recent spate of gang activity in Meiners Oaks-Rice Road area? Has it moved from Drown/Waite/Fox Street to the West side? Have the local cops let their guard down? Quite a scene in MO Thursday afternoon with cops detaining hoodlums at gunpoint at Jolly Kone. Good grief. MO is not safe in the afternoon, let alone night. Used to be just an occasional pot smoker. Never see any violent pot smokers.

Give up? Get out.

Don't like this blog? Hang out somewhere else.

I continue to be baffled by those who make mean-spirited personal attacks here while under the cloak of anonymity. Ojai has at least one connection to Austin, other than a regular commenter who recently moved there. BST Research, based here in Ojai, just open an office in Austin. A friend of mine who has worked for the company for a number of years recently moved there for a promotion. And I also like hearing from El A about his new home. His is not an unusual story - folks are leaving in droves to find more affordable housing.

This is so surreal. I can't tell if these people are kidding or not: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaP9eiWuX3s

All I can say is wow. Will I am for Obama and that's the best they can do for McSame? wow.

This can't be real!

You gotta be kidding.

Please tell me this is a bad clip from Saturday Night Live!

OK. A little more digging has revealed a little more background. It would seem that the It's Raining McCain video is a parody (hopefully) of this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWwyjmSbJPs , and that video is a parody of the subject matter of this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyyBGjKAsf4 , which is a bit of a send-up of the original song from Bridget Jones Diary.

Seen as a parody, the McCain video is funny. Taken seriously, it's a bit creepy, especially the part about "teaching angels to rearrange the vote".