Lewis and Clark called the island, "Waptatoo" after the arrowroot plant growing there and  eaten by the Native Americans living there.

The island was known for a time as "Wyeth Island": Nathaniel Wyeth operated a trading post there. 

Portland Office of Transportation
Good health in Portland--bicycling
Portland United Mountain Peddlers

Watch for a new biking map of Forest Park

Look under the north-bound onramp to I-5 at Terwilliger Blvd.  It's a segment of Trail #4 of the SW Urban Trails system.

The statistical nature of our world was one of the discoveries of science which remains merely magical to many.  Lottery and casino operators take advantage of those for whom that magic remains invisible, yet to be mastered.   Perhaps, too, they have yet to see the harmful lure of the desirable drawing their attentions away from the undesirable.  PAP.

So much may remain mere magic rather than powerful knowledge.  For example, temperature and heat are two of the 19th century's powerful statistical tools that stubbornly remain in deep shadows of human minds, mysterious concepts that get confused with mundane meanings illuminated only by flickering candlelight or no light at all.  Temperature is a parameter in a statistical distribution, and heat is energy transferred solely because of a temperature difference.  Both are usually confused with each other and mean little more than a sensation we get from receptors in our skin.  Understanding...

And then there was the declaration by the news media in November 2000 that statistics ceased to apply in Palm Beach Co. Fla where an exit poll was found not to correctly inform of the outcome of a crucial vote.  At least, very few seemed to recogize that we need to know why.

Bees navigate with their perception of the direction and strength of the polarization of the sky's blue light.

Birds see the profound color shift (huge variation in ultraviolet) in sunlight as the sun moves higher or lower in the sky.  We don't see it because we are blind to ultraviolet.  We do or don't get sunburned and don't understand why.

The color vision of birds is vastly superior to that of human for reasons that humans must apply their sharpest mental tools to comprehend...and we can never experience bird color.

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(Charles) Edwin Markham
poet -- born in Oregon City, 1852
Author of "The Man With a Hoe"

Judge Phillip A. Marquam
land developer -- moved to Oregon, 1851

a major player in the mystery of the up to 95 impossible blocks shown on most city maps

Most U.S. citizens measure their weight in pounds and their height in feet and inches. Some U.S. citizens can easily convert their weight to kilograms and their height to meters--especially if they know that a meter is 39.37 inches and a kilogram is 2.205 pounds.  Becoming able to make such conversions is one of the most important first steps toward understanding science.

Its understanding of evolution is one of science's most important insights.  Obesity used to give an evolutionary advantage.  But the world is not simple and changes happen.  Simplemindedness is a dangerous human failure to follow the human evolutionary paths which have led to science, our most potent product of evoltuion, and our most powerful response to change. Science recognizes that seeking disconfirmations is absolutely necessary and that ignoring disconfirmations in favor of pleasant confirmations is a "fatal error" in information use.  Obesity is powerfully encouraged by advertising, a profession based on passionate pursuit of pleasant confirmations.  And so advertising, our most prevalent form of propaganda, has become a poision to science.  It teaches that PAP is acceptable. 

New regulations for murals are currently being considered that will encourage artistic expression and discourage what a  majority of the public perceives as blight in most billboards.

Watch here for further developments.

The walkers in the picture are at mile 24.4, approaching Germantown road.  MAP