Posted inSports

Oregon State football coach made a bad decision. But don’t we all?

Oregon State football fans, of whom I'm one, along with almost everybody who watched yesterday's OSU game against Arizona, are grappling with the astoundingly bad decision Jonathan Smith, the Oregon State coach, made at the end of the first half. Jonathan Smith This is how CBS Sports described the debacle. The game was a 27-24 victory by Arizona. While the game ultimately came down to that final drive, Oregon State's fate may have been decided much earlier when coach Jonathan Smith dialed up one of the most questionable calls of the year. The Beavers had the ball at Arizona's 16-yard…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Maine mass shooting and Israel war are both result of craziness

This evening the suspect in the killing of 18 people in Lewiston, Maine and the wounding of 13 others was found dead, apparently from a self-inflicted gunshot. Robert Card had suffered from mental illness, having been hospitalized for two weeks last summer. Reportedly he had been hearing voices. Well, while Card likely had some form of schizophrenia, what he has in common with the rest of us is substantial, for we all hear voices inside our head: our own. Card's voices may have told him that other people were out to harm him, so he needed to kill as many…
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Posted inBooks Philosophy Science

I don’t believe in free will. Here’s why.

Today the monthly Salon discussion group that my wife and I are part of spent quite a bit of time talking about free will. This is one of my favorite subjects, for after pondering quite a few books about free will, or the lack thereof, I'm highly confident that free will is an illusion. I can't recall exactly how our group started conversing about it, but for sure I spurred our conversation by saying that I've started reading Robert M. Sapolsky's terrific book, Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will. To give you a feel for his general view…
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Posted inSalem

Ron Eachus has died. He served the world well.

Thank you, Rachel Alexander of the Salem Reporter, for writing a marvelous tribute to Ron Eachus: Ron Eachus, "incorruptible" consumer advocate and activist, dies at 76. Here's some excerpts that give a feel for this remarkable man. Ron Eachus, a steward of civic life in Salem and former utility regulator known for his “bulldog-like tenacity,” died from a heart condition on Saturday, Oct. 14, while hiking in Bhutan. He was 76. Eachus worked for over 20 years as an Oregon’s public utility commissioner, earning a reputation as a fierce consumer advocate while helping steer Oregon toward a focus on energy…
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Posted inSalem Starlink Television

Five miles from Salem city limits, our neighborhood is unserved by broadband

Our neighborhood, Spring Lake Estates, is only about five miles from the city limits of Salem, Oregon's capital. So it isn't like we're in Outer Mongolia -- though when it comes to broadband access, we might as well be. For one of the things I learned by my phone conversation with a guy from the Oregon Broadband Office today, is that our neighborhood is unserved by broadband according to the federal definition:  An unserved location is defined as a broadband-serviceable location that the Broadband DATA Maps show as (a) having no access to broadband service, or (b) lacking access to…
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Posted inTai Chi

Death came too soon for Chris. So sad.

Today I heard about the death of Chris, a 46 year-old guy I came to first know during my Pacific Martial Arts karate days. Chris moved to the Portland area, but he'd return once in a while to take part in the Tai Chi classes that are now the focus of Pacific Martial Arts. He was engaging, positive, funny, and a pleasure to be around.  We were close in the way many men are: by sharing a love of a physical activity. I knew some things about Chris, but mostly I knew him through the martial arts classes we shared.…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Talking about racism in schools reduces bias

Here in blue Oregon, we're fortunate to have avoided the absurd laws in some red states, such as Florida, that make it very difficult, if not impossible, for teachers to talk about racism.  Obviously this head-in-the-sand approach doesn't do anything to combat racism. It just prevents open discussion that could reduce racism. Last year I came across an article in Scientific American that cites psychological research in concluding that it's best for students to engage in honest talk about racism. The article appeared in the November 2022 issue, though apparently it was published online in August. That issue has been…
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