Posted inEntertainment

I should get a gold medal for watching the Olympics

It's not easy watching the Vancouver Winter Olympics from my couch. I've undergone a lot of struggles the past few weeks, or however long the Olympics has been going on (seems like forever).Just in case NBC presents gold medals for TV viewers, I wanted to state my case for one. (1) My wife doesn't care about sports in general, and the Olympics in particular. This means that when I sit down to watch my DirecTV recording of the evening broadcast, which runs 3 1/2 to 4 hours, at regular intervals I hear "Is it over yet?"This disturbs my deep concentration…
1
Posted inSalem

Why Marion County government needs improving

Last night I spent a surprisingly enjoyable two hours at a debate about the pros and cons of a proposed Marion County (Oregon) home rule charter, which would enlarge the Board of Commissioners from three to five and make other changes to county government.Have a Voice Everyone describes what this is all about. We in Marion County will vote on Ballot Measure 24-292 in May. I think it's a great idea. But I'm sure the large audience at the debate included many people on both sides of the issue. The questions submitted in writing to the three panelists certainly reflected that.…
No Comments
Posted inCurrent affairs

Portland police are dangerous incompetents

It was infuriating to read the headlined first page story in today's Portland Oregonian: "Documents detail Campbell death." Now we know a lot more about how the Portland police killed a man who was distraught over his brother's death and was walking outside of an apartment at the behest of an officer, unarmed.Officer Frashour is the trigger-happy cop who shot Campbell in the back. Officer Campbell was communicating with Campbell through voice and text messages.Frashour was not wearing an earpiece to listen to radio communications but said he had his radio microphone on his lapel. He said he wasn't part…
No Comments
Posted inCurrent affairs

Great reason for trying terrorists in federal court

An excellent article by Jane Mayer in The New Yorker, "The Trial," points to a terrific reason for trying Al Qaeda terrorists in the court system rather than military tribunals.According to Kate Martin, the director of the Center for National Security Studies, in Washington, the military can’t simply grab suspects inside the U.S. and hold them without charge or a hearing. “It violates the Constitution, which extends to everyone inside the U.S.,” she said. “You can’t be seized without probable cause. You have the right to due process, and to a trial by a jury of your peers—which a military…
6
Posted inCurrent affairs

Portland police responsible for killing an unarmed man

Finally. A Portland (Oregon) grand jury had the guts to say what was obvious to everyone but the city's police department: officers are killing mentally disturbed people unnecessarily because their training is deficient and communication is lacking.A grand jury found Aaron M. Campbell shouldn't have died on Jan. 29, but was killed because of critical police errors, including no central command, lack of communication between officers and training that teaches officers how to shoot without key decision-making skills. The conclusions were contained in a three-page letter the jury released Thursday. "As a group, we are outraged at what happened at…
No Comments
Posted inHome life Humor

What I don’t know about women

I've been married for 38 years to two women (not at the same time, sequentially). If I'd been engaged in any other activity for that length of time, such as restoring '57 Chevys, I'd expect to know a lot about it.But the female psyche is a bottomless pit of mystery. Which is a big part of the reason women are so alluring.  Since tomorrow is Valentine's Day, I thought I'd celebrate by sharing some, just a fraction, a tiny bit, of what I don't know about women and male-female relationships. This is my way of honoring the half of humanity…
No Comments
Posted inCurrent affairs

Northwest to Fox News: “It’s WARM this winter!”

Fox News has been ridiculing Al Gore for saying that global warming is real when it's been snowing so heavily in the Washington, DC area. Stephen Colbert made fun of Fox News in return.After showing clips of Fox News correspondents explaining that the weather is burying Al Gore's "hysterical" theories, Colbert joined in on the ridiculous logic, deeming it "simple observational research: whatever just happened is the only thing that is happening."Using the same rationale as Fox News, Colbert couldn't help but point out that, due to it being nighttime, the city was covered in darkness. "Based on this latest…
8
Posted inCurrent affairs

Wanted: a few bipartisan Republican patriots

Republicans talk a lot about patriotism, but the "R's" in Congress don't practice it these days -- which happen to be the 400 or so days since President Obama took the oath of office.Patriotism is putting your country before your own interests. Patriotism is doing what needs to be done to make the United States stronger economically, militarily, culturally. Patriotism is asking "how can I help to make things better?" not "what's the best way to stop Obama and the Dems from passing any significant legislation?"Fortunately, people are becoming increasingly aware of the dangerous game Republicans have been playing. As…
2
Posted inCurrent affairs Salem

Pushy progressive joins coffee shop conversation

I hope it was a sign of the times in the West Salem Starbucks this afternoon. I'm tired of the Democrats in Congress passively putting up with Republican lies. If it's true what Obama said during his campaign, We are the change we have been waiting for, then what interrupted my coffee house debate with a long-time conservative friend is a positive omen.We were avidly discussing the current state of national politics. I'd taken serious exception to my friend calling Obama a socialist. "That's just a word," I said. "What has he done specifically that could be called socialist? I…
1
Posted inSustainability

Climate change scientist absolved of email wrongdoing

Ah, it's so satisfying to be proven correct. Especially when it's global warming deniers who are being proven wrong. Back in November I said, based on obvious evidence, that the hacked emails from a climate research center at the University of East Anglia would prove to be a big bunch of nothing.Indeed, an independent examination of the emails showed no fraudulent actions by the researchers. Since global warming is real, this is to be expected. What reason would there be for a researcher to make up fake facts when there are so many true ones?Now, another nail in the coffin…
9
Posted inCurrent affairs

Portland police kill another unarmed man

If I lived in Portland (Oregon), I'd be extremely wary of calling 911 if a mentally troubled person was causing a disturbance. Recently a policeman shot an unarmed man in the back. Distraught over his younger brother's death, witnesses say Aaron Campbell was complying with police orders, but still was struck by beanbag rounds.Ryan Pannell, who watched the shooting from his second-floor Sandy Terrace apartment, said it appeared that Campbell was cooperating, walking backward toward officers with his hands behind his head. He thinks police made the situation worse. "By his actions, he (Campbell) just did what anybody would have…
5
Posted inSalem

Talking to a street person opens my mind

Stereotypes: we're all prone to them. The worst kind are unknown to us, prejudices that aren't obvious because they seem so reasonable. I was looking for a place to park my Burgman scooter in downtown Salem yesterday. Heading for the Beanery, my favorite independent coffee house, I started to pull into a motorcycle parking slot across from the Salem Center Mall.Until I noticed that a guy who looked like a derelict was sitting a few yards away, his back against a building's wall, holding a cardboard sign that asked for help. A distressingly familiar sight these days.I kept going. Circled…
3
Posted inCurrent affairs

Obama is the grown-up, but will Republican kids behave?

Like I said yesterday, President Obama put on a remarkable performance at the House Republican retreat in Baltimore. I watched the entire Q and A session. (For highlights, go here.)Together with his State of the Union address, which was similarly energized and honest, Obama has gone a long way toward soothing my anxious progressive psyche. I finally recognized the leader who was so appealing during the 2008 campaign, yet has been so blah most of the time since his inauguration. When he spoke with the House Republicans, it was crystal clear who was the adult politician in the room: Obama.…
9
Posted inCurrent affairs

Obama schools Republicans in bipartisanship: must-see video

Wow, President Obama nailed House Republicans at their retreat today in Baltimore, where he met with them in an amazing session -- which thankfully was televised in its entirety. I had a lot of trouble viewing the question and answer part of the meeting on C-SPAN. Probably its web site got overloaded. But Daily Kos TV has a nicely functioning video, plus a transcript. This is terrific political entertainment. Obama makes the House Republicans look immature, obstructionist, and incompetent.Enjoy: Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Here's how the Huffington Post characterized the meeting:President Obama…
6
Posted inWeb/Tech

I want to love the Apple iPad and iBooks, but…

At 10 am yesterday I was glued to my MacBook Pro, watching Engadget's live-blog feed from the Apple event where the long-awaited iPad tablet was announced.I fell in love immediately. Or, was it just a passing lust?Today I'm trying to figure out whether iPad and me are going to have a long-term relationship, or whether my instant attraction to her was a passing thing. Ms. iPad is unavailable at the moment. Reportedly it's going to be a couple of months before I could bring her home and start feeling her up (the iPad is like an iPod Touch or iPhone…
13
Posted inMeasure 37

Measure 37 vesting cases reach Oregon Court of Appeals

It's been a couple of years since Measure 49 was approved by 62% of Oregonians in November 2007, putting the brakes on the Measure 37 train wreck that threatened to demolish the state's pioneering land use system. Most property owners who made a claim under Measure 37 to be exempt from land use laws that applied to everybody else -- to put a bunch of houses on high value farmland, for example -- have taken advantage of a provision in Measure 49 that allows them to have three home sites on six acres of their least productive farm or forest…
1
Posted inCurrent affairs Entertainment

Obama needs to channel his warrior “Avatar”

Fresh off of seeing Avatar last night in mind-blowing 3-D, I'm hoping that President Obama will rock my psyche in a different -- but related -- way next Wednesday when he gives his first State of the Union address. Fight for what you believe and take on the freakin' bad guys! This is one of the Avatar good guys, Jake. He was a crippled paraplegic soldier who regained his kick-ass capabilities when his mind was melded with the artificially created body of a Na'vi lookalike. The Na'vi are the indigenous people of Pandora. Slender. Graceful. Intelligent. Attuned to nature. Spiritual.…
No Comments
Posted inWeb/Tech

Fabulous fantasy feature set for the Apple tablet

Beautiful! Mark Morford nails his lust list of desirable features for the long-rumored and apparently about-to-be-announced Apple tablet. Bring it on!Here's some of Morford's entirely reasonable wishes (he's speaking directly to the tablet). On the topic of health and happiness, it would be tremendously helpful if I could, say, hold a given food item in front of your gleaming screen and have you instantly reveal, via an intricate array of special sensors, the exact nutrient value, fat quotient, caloric assessment, global carbon footprint, potential colonic damage and overall dietary necessity of said comestible, along with exactly how amped or sluggish,…
No Comments
Posted inCurrent affairs

Raising Oregon taxes will be good for our state

A couple of new polls suggest that Oregonians are about to raise state taxes on high income citizens and some corporations by passing Measures 66 and 67. Support for the measures may be slipping, though.I hope they pass. Oregon is a low tax state, as I noted several years ago. This recent cartoon from the Eugene Register-Guard demolishes the ridiculous anti-tax argument that people and businesses will shun Oregon if state taxes are hiked slightly.William Yaeger, an Oregon State University economist, did a fine job of pointing out the benefits to the state's economy of passing Measures 66 and 67…
5