This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

This is one of three departments I run with a free hand to manage as I see fit.

The others are the Department of Good Quotes Worth Remembering, and the Department of “Just Saying.”

This blog means, for example, that today, I won’t write much about election results.  Except:  (1) glad Christine Drazan won the Republican primary for governor, setting up a three-way race among women – Democrat Tina Kotek and Independent Betsy Johnson; (2) my friend Tobias Read lost big to Kotek, which raises a question about what the current State Treasurer will do next; (3) the Statesman-Journal was delinquent for not focusing as much as it should have on the interesting race for City of Salem mayor. 

Unfortunately, friend Chane Griggs ran a good race, but lost.  I would have voted for her, but I live just outside Salem’s city limits.

And, writing this blog means I will not write much more, at least for now, about what I now call the “gun safety” issue.  The more I read about action – and inaction – in Congress the more I fear “we” will not do anything about guns…again.

Further, I remain frustrated that Oregon Independent candidate for governor, former State Senator Betsy Johnson, is expressing her strong support for guns.  She may pay a political price for that strong support in Oregon, but who knows. 

Urban Oregonians may favor gun safety, but not rural Oregonians.  Johnson even told the Oregonian newspaper that she owns a machine gun, though it is “stored safety” and has not been fired for 25 years.

So, without further ado, here are my new pet peeves, none of which rise of level of my support for gun safety:

USE OF THE WORD “PROGRESSIVE” TO DESCRIBE SOME OF THOSE INVOLVED IN POLITICS:  This is a standard pet peeve for me – and I have cited it in previous blogs.

But, in this campaign season, it grinds on me when anyone uses the word “progressive” to describe those with a liberal bent.  Often, what liberals want does not represent progress.  It represents retreat. 

Conservatives can be for progress, too.

So, I say stick with the labels “liberal” and “conservative.”  They’ll do just fine, even as labels.

PLURAL PRONOUNS AND SINGULAR NOUNS:  In all kinds of writing, including in major newspapers where copy editors ought to know better, folks use plural pronouns when singular ones are accurate.

An example:  The committee did “their” work late into the night.  The pronoun should be “its.”

USE OF THE TERM “CENTER AROUND:”  Think about it for a moment.  Centering around something is impossible.  The phrase should be “centered on.”

When usually competent writers make this mistake, I cringe.

FITTED SHEETS:  I was prodded to write this blog when my wife showed me a “Pickles” cartoon the other day.

I think the author manages a satellite that sits over our house!

This time, he wrote about problems with fitted sheets.  You can’t fold them.  They come undone in the middle of the night.  Your mattress is too big for them.

Or, you end up in the morning in a body bag.

So true.

My approach:  I let my wife fold all the fitted sheets.

HAVING TO FOLD TOWELS IN THIRDS:  Speaking of another “folding” issue. 

A long time ago when my brother was getting married, I was asked to speak at the dinner before the wedding. 

I advised my brother to get ready for some realities in marriage, one of which was the requirement “to fold towels in thirds.”

More work than I want, then or now.