Poll this! Investigate that!

Among the many troubling aspects of this election have been the over-the-top negative ads and the news analyses that transform polling results into reality.

If these ads are so effective, why isn’t Coors running negative ads about Bud? Or Cherrios slamming Wheaties?

Maybe corporations know that tearing down the competition only turns off consumers. Do I really need to drink beer? Especially since they started the beer-belly wars?

And given a choice between “The Breakfast of Steroid-Using ‘Chumpions’” and “the Little Round Nothings,” I’ll opt for eggs.

The corporations obviously see this as destructive of the marketplace. So why don’t the geniuses running the political campaigns see negative ads as destructive of democrary?

Then there are the pundits who pontificate on the results of elections that haven’t been held. If they can do that, why don’t they tell us about what’s going to happen after the election of 2012? Why weren’t they telling us about the “rise” of the Tea Party on election eve in 2008?

I suppose that last one is an honest question. The folks who brought us this recession (and are profiting mightily from it) must have known that the lumpen would be pissed. An obvious strategy was to capture the anger and put it to work to keep shifting the money to the rich.

Tell me again: what does extending tax breaks for the wealthy have to do with cutting the deficit?

And remind me: why should insurance companies NOT be required to cover folks with pre-existing conditions?

The media need to stop spending money on talking heads and hire (or rehire) investigative reporters.

The sleuths might start with this timely query: Just who is really financing the Tea Party? And why? And how about the sequel: what do they have up their sleeves for 2012? Whatever it is, you can bet it is in the works NOW!

Sam Adams' expiration date

As I teased open a new box of Wheaties, I paused at the “shelf life” message on the top near the flap,

The chance observation was two weeks ago, long before Mayor Sam Adams and his former lover Beau Breedlove resurfaced in the news.

Honest.

“Better if used by …” began the label, and here the computerized packaging machine had stamped “23OCT09” followed by an 11-character alpha-numeric lot identification. Things can go horribly wrong, even with the Breakfast of Champions.

How odd, I thought. Could the mere tick of the clock at midnight on 23OCT09 make my Wheaties worse or "un-better"? Certainly in all those months in their box, the flakes had gone through a slow, even decline. These things don't happen overnight.

Each day, minute and second in the life of my Wheaties made them worse.

So if the flakes get a tad worse between 23OCT and 24OCT, so what?

It would seem that Adams faced a similar conundrum, in reverse, with regard to Breedlove’s 18th birthday back in 25JUN05.

Here we really must pause. Inquiring minds can no longer contain themselves: Is “Beau Breedlove” really, REALLY Adams' ex-lover’s name or did it come from FOX News or central casting? Have the movie rights been inked? Come to think of it “Sam Adams” rings a bit hollow too.

Okay, back to the thread….

To Adams, Breedlove, at age 17, came with his own label, “Under penalty of law, do not bed until … 25JUN05.”

After repeatedly lying about ever partaking of Breedlove’s bedly charms, Sam now tells us he waited until the expiration date on Breedlove’s status as a minor.

Right. And I’m going to throw out my Wheaties on midnight 23OCT09. As my wife reminds me, I have sunscreen that dates from the Clinton presidency.

Nature has this unfortunate habit of not fitting into our rigid, legalistic schedules and deadlines. Wheaties, Grape Nuts and Cheerios deteriorate slowly over time. Human beings mature sexually and emotionally at their own, madding pace. Give someone a name like “Breedlove” and who knows what might happen …

I don’t know about Sam, but if he were of my Wheaties frame of mind, we the People of Portland might doubt whether he paid too much heed to the warning on Beau’s label. Given that Adams lied to us more than once (and on more than one aspect of this tabloid escapade), is there any reason to believe that he would have paid much attention to mere words and warnings?

My Search for Oregon

My breakfast eating habits have changed significantly since Texan Jon Wolf bought a Frosted Flake shaped like Illinois for $1350 on eBay.

News trivia like this usually becomes part of my ever-expanding, useless unconscious. This story, however, sticks with me, partly because I’m an Illinois native (Rockford, if you must know) but mostly because I eat Wheaties, which often bear an uncanny resemblance to states of the union and carpet stains.

Prior to the Wolf/Illinois/flake story, I alternated between Cheerios and Wheaties for breakfast. But whoever heard of a Cheerios shaped like anything other than a miniature inner tube or dwarf donut or a, well, a Cheerio?

Now post John Wolf, I partake mostly of Wheaties, and slowly, with great deliberation.

The other morning, for instance, I caught a glimpse of what promised to be Texas peeking out of my Wheaties heap. “Bingo!” I thought as I extracted it only to find that what I thought would be the panhandle of the Lone Star state turned out to look like the large freckle on the top of my right hand. These things happen with age, brown spots that is, not Texas near-misses.

States with panhandles (Idaho, Florida and Oklahoma, for example) are unlikely to show up in my cereal bowl. Others are also problematic. Massachusetts’ Cape Cod, for instance, wouldn’t survive being jostled around in a Wheaties box. Alaska’s Aleutian chain would be impossible. And Michigan, of course, would have be in two pieces. The Olympic Peninsula is Washington’s undoing.

Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada have too many straight edges, er, I mean borders.

The narrowness of Tennessee, California and Kentucky make them unlikely, flake-wise. (And let’s have no California flake quips here. This is serious business.)

I do keep a sharp eye out for the most likely candidates: Ohio, Iowa, Kansas, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Mississippi, Missouri, Alabama, Indiana, Wisconsin, Colorado and both Dakotas. Wyoming probably should be on the list but every time I think I have spotted a Wyoming I am reminded of Dick Cheney and no price on eBay is worth that.

Right up there at the top of my flake-state search is our beloved Oregon. The only problem with finding an Oregon flake is that I would want to keep it and probably travel around the state showing it off. “Hey, lookee here! See what I found!” I’d exclaim on the streets of Boring, Bandon, Burns and Bend.

Knowing Oregonians, they would indulge me. They’d say nice stuff like “Oh, yeah, that’s really interesting,” or “That’s swell. Have a nice day,” or “Cool.”

But one thing I wouldn’t want to say here in my adopted home state is: “Hey, anybody want to buy this Wheaties flake shaped like Oregon for $1,350?”

Oregonians are too practical to buy Oregon-shaped flakes. If they saw one, they might just eat it. That’s one of the reasons I like the place so much.

Finding Oregon in my breakfast cereal also reminds me that, no matter where, when or how I discover it, this place is priceless.