Posted inCurrent affairs Entertainment Sports

I loved the Olympics opening ceremony, including drag queen part

When I first heard that the Paris Olympics opening ceremony was going to be held on the Seine River, with boats carrying the parade of nations, I thought that this could be a big mistake by the organizers. Why not respect tradition and have the ceremony in a stadium, like it always has been? Well, my thought was the mistake, not the decision to have the opening ceremony on the Seine. I recorded the lengthy ceremony. My wife and I are only partway through it, but we've loved what we've seen so far, and I know that we'll love the…
No Comments
Posted inSalem

Bound Salem Weekly issues now can be seen at Willamette Heritage Center

Salem Weekly, our city's much-beloved (and for some conservatives, much-hated) alternative newspaper that published from April 2003 to October 2018 still lives on in a certain sense -- thanks to Jim Scheppke, a retired librarian who led an effort to have almost all of the Salem Weekly issues professionally bound, then donated to the Willamette Heritage Center, where they can be reviewed by the public. Yesterday afternoon some people with ties to Salem Weekly and the binding project met at the Willamette Heritage Center to admire the volumes. We chatted about how much Salem Weekly meant to us, expressing thanks…
No Comments
Posted inCurrent affairs

I wish Biden could have heard what my Democratic group said about him

This afternoon the monthly Salon discussion group that my wife and I are part of gathered in a member's living room. Right away, a topic of conversation sprang up, because it was at the top of everyone's mind. Should President Biden withdraw from the presidential race? We spent about an hour talking about this. The discussion was vigorous. Everybody had something to say about the question. And in the end there was a clear consensus. All eleven of us felt that Biden should withdraw.  Everybody in the group is a Democrat, though naturally we disagree about many political subjects. The…
No Comments
Posted inCurrent affairs Sustainability

If you don’t like the record-breaking Oregon heat wave, don’t vote for Trump

It's been a rough four days here in the Willamette Valley, as well as in much of the rest of Oregon. Record high temperatures have been set on multiple days in many locations, sometimes breaking previous records by not just a little, but a lot.  Today it was 104 degrees in Salem, where I live, according to my car's thermometer. Tomorrow is expected to be just as hot, with temperatures in the high 80s and low 90s for the following six days. This isn't normal. The average high for today in Salem is 82, so we were 22 degrees above…
3