Posted inScootering

Scootering at 40 degrees. Loving it. Must be addicted.

Let's consider the evidence for a man (let's call him Brian, for lack of a less realistic name) being addicted to riding his oh-so-beloved Suzuki Burgman scooter.It's December 5 in western Oregon. The temperature is forty degrees, and falling. He's sitting in a south Salem coffee house, enjoying a nonfat vanilla latte after riding eight rather frigid miles so he can use the French Press wi fi to blog about scootering in forty degree weather.Makes perfect sense to me. (Of course, I'm he.) I can't think of a better way to spend a sunny afternoon than riding my scooter. Cold,…
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Posted inHome life

A real fan doesn’t bet with an Oregon-OSU point spread

At first I had the title of this post begin with "A real man..." But I don't want to insult a friend (who would go nameless, if I didn't reveal that it is Hans) who demanded that our $10 bet on the giant University of Oregon - Oregon State football game tonight include a point spread.I'm betting on the Ducks. Hans, on the Beavers. Last Sunday, when we got together at the Beanery coffeehouse to negotiate the deal, I argued eloquently that a real fan has so much confidence in his team, he doesn't need the crutch of a point…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Anti-tax zealots show disdain for Oregonians

Talk about un-compassionate conservatism. A front-page story in today's Salem Statesman Journal reports that the group opposing modest increases in taxes on Oregon corporations and high-income individuals is blissfully unconcerned about...Prisoners being released, teachers being fired, in-home care for seniors being slashed, newly hired state troopers being laid off, and other cuts in essential services that will hurt people in this state."If these measures do not pass, the world as we know it will not come to an end," said Pat McDonald of Oregonians Against Job-Killing Taxes.No, Pat, your world of big business lobbyists won't be affected. You'll get a…
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Posted inWeb/Tech

Apple’s tech support is delicious (and not in India)

Yes, my wife and I paid more for our Apple computers (MacBook Pro and an iMac) than a PC would have cost.But when something goes wrong with our machines, we're in capable hands with AppleCare tech support. It's by far the best in the business, according to Consumer Reports.Dream on, PC users, about what I experienced this morning when I made a call to figure out a couple of problems with my wife's new iMac.Within a few rings the 800 number was answered. OK, not by a real person. However, the automated voice recognition system was snazzy, crisp, and clear.…
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Posted inHome life Web/Tech

More Apple love: an iMac enters our life

 Ah, there she is, so lovely. Sleek. Slender. Well-designed. Responsive to the touch. Fun to play with.It's no wonder both my wife and I have fallen in love with her -- though this Apple iMac resides on Laurel's desk and mainly is her techno-toy.Observe the lack. Of cords, because the keyboard and Magic Mouse are wireless. Or of a desktop tower, because Apple crammed a 500 GB drive and the rest of the computer innards into the slim 21.5 inch LED display.We'd change our dog's name to "Apple," but she already responds nicely to "Serena." Otherwise, we're steadily embracing all…
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Posted inTango/Dance

Ballroom dancing restores yin-yang balance

Guys, if you need a reason to take ballroom dance lessons, here it is: the woman has to do what you want. You lead. The woman follows. End of story.Until you get off the dance floor. Then your relationship goes back to normal. But as our instructor likes to say, "On the hardwood, the man holds the remote control; once a couple leaves the studio and steps on the rug, anything goes."Well, over 99% of the time I hold the remote control at home also. And I do the car driving about that percentage as well. It just seems natural…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Sustainability

Climate research email hack shows global warming is real

It looks like the stolen emails from a climate research center at the University of East Anglia are a classic example of "the dog didn't bark." That is, the big news from this peek into the private professional correspondence of climate scientists is that there is no big news. Yawn: the appropriate reaction to finding out that scientists get irritated at global warming deniers who refuse to face facts, and talk about the best ways to get across the message that global climate change is for real.One of the first and best reactions to the email server hack came from…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Portland police can’t handle a 12 year old girl

You'd think that members of the Portland (Oregon) police force would be embarrassed that several of their brethren weren't able to handle a combative 12 year old girl. An officer shot her at close-range with a beanbag gun, even though several men had her down on the ground and were trying to wrestle her into submission.But no, per usual the police union is all upset that Officer Christopher Humphries, who shot the girl, has been suspended pending an investigation. Humphries also has been disciplined for his role in the death of an unarmed mentally man. Watching a security camera video…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

U of O squashes great “I love my ducks” video

Quack! That's the sound of an offended Oregon Duck football fan, who's turned off by the Rose Bowl buzz kill inflicted by the university when it demanded that a great student-made video be removed from the Internets. Of course, this heavy-handed attempt at censorship didn't succeed. I just watched the video on the Oregonian web site, where sports columnist Ken Goe correctly says that the University of Oregon got it all wrong. I Smell Roses @ Yahoo!7 Video Goe tells the sad story of how this video got squashed because -- horror of horrors! -- the Oregon Duck mascot appears…
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Posted inHome life

Life’s little annoyances

What good is a blog if you can't rant on it? Hearing no reply from the cosmos except a no good at all! from inside my head, I shall rant on.Tuesday. It's grocery shopping day. I have a hyper-organized shopping list system. It soothes my left-brain soul to get everything on the list. And usually, not to get anything not on the list (my wife takes care of impulse shopping).I push my empty cart into the south Salem Fred Meyer. Organic bananas always are my first stop. They're behind the display of regular bananas. I angle toward them.But a 30-something…
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Posted inSustainability

I score a great photo at Crag Law Center benefit

It was a win-win night at the Crag Law Center "Wild Shots" benefit auction in Portland. With the purchase of only one -- count 'em, one -- raffle ticket (albeit for $25), I scored a beautiful Mark Gamba photograph. And Crag ended up raising quite a bit of money.Along with other professional photographers, and one amateur, Gamba had donated artwork for an oral auction. The grand prize of the raffle was being able to walk away with any photograph before the auction started. Here's Laurel guarding the photo I chose. Until benefit volunteers packaged it up, I didn't want to…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Health

“Health, Money, and Fear” shows weakness of reform bill

Last night I listened to a couple of Oregon physicians nail what this country needs to do to solve our health care problems. In short: a single payer system, Medicare for all.They convinced me that in many ways the health care reform bills being considered by Congress are going to move us in the wrong direction. I'd already had misgivings about this legislation; now I'm as worried that it will pass as that it will fail.Salem's Progressive Film Series, a class act, showed "Health, Money, and Fear" yesterday. You can watch the entire movie at OurAilingHealthCare.com. It was made by…
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Posted inTango/Dance

Bliss: front row seats at Champions of the Dance

Last month I bought myself a birthday present: front row center seats for Champions of the Dance, which we saw last night at the Hult Center in Eugene.Excellent ticket-buying decision. There's a time to be at least a few rows back in a large auditorium, so you can get the stage's big picture. But not for a professional ballroom dancing show which mostly featured one couple onstage at once.We hugely enjoyed Champions of the Dance. The quality of the performers didn't seem quite up to the level of the finalists in The American Ballroom Challenge, which we've watched on PBS…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Abortion rights get screwed by health care reform

Ridiculous. The health care reform bill passed by the House last weekend doesn't allow an abortion to be part of a benefit package bought by anyone who gets a government tax credit to help pay for the insurance.Put another way:Abortion would not be paid for in plans offered by a government-run insurance system. Also, people who took federal subsidies to buy insurance would not be able to use the money to buy such coverage.It's enough to make this progressive scream. Aaaarrrrrggghhh! And I'm not even a woman, nor a man of child-bearing capability.Along that line, I got a vasectomy before…
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Posted inScience

Live longer by slowing time down

Time keeps marching on. When I wrote my previous blog post, "How to make time slow down," I was 59. Now, I'm 61.Obviously I haven't been able to stop chronological time. Every year, on my birthday, my age meter advances a click. But we all know how time seems to fly sometimes, and drag at other times.None of us wants life to be a drag. However, the older I get, the more I want time to slow down. Perceived time, that is, because I know I can't do anything about those damn birthdays coming around every 365 days.Previously I quoted…
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Posted inEntertainment Philosophy

Life lessons from Michael Jackson’s “This Is It”

Whether or not someone has a philosophical bone in their body, he or she likely will enjoy "This Is It" -- a documentary featuring rehearsal footage of Michael Jackson preparing for a monumental concert tour.I do have philosophical bones. And they loved this well-reviewed movie as much as the non-pondering side of me.Over on my other blog I opined that "This Is It" is a great movie. Also, a terrific philosophy. We're always waiting for It to arrive in the future, or wondering what happened to It in the past.Meanwhile, life -- It -- keeps yelling "Here I am! Here!…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

How disappointed should progressives be about Obama?

It's another election day, albeit a rather low-key off-year one. I'm getting flashbacks to 2008, when it seemed like everything was going to be just fine now. With Obama our president for the next four years, wouldn't we get the change that we'd be wanting for the past eight? The way things have turned out so far, mostly not.Nothing Obama has done to date excites me the way his campaign did. Arianna Huffington nailed this theme in today's "Obama One Year Later: The Audacity of Winning Versus the Timidity of Governing." She made me think, right on, sister!Indeed, reading the…
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Posted inPhilosophy

What makes something “fun”?

Some would say that nothing is less fun than pondering the question, "What is fun?" However, I'm the sort of person who enjoys ponders, and fun is about enjoyment, so I'll press on.I got to thinking about fun recently by -- no big surprise -- having fun! This year Laurel and I broke our usual no Halloween costume habit. Salem's RJ Dance Studio invited people to costume-up at a Friday night open dance. So, we did.   Laurel was a creative vision in blue, accessorizing with a feather boa and over the top makeup. I took a more minimalist approach,…
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Posted inWeb/Tech

New CNN is ugly, confusing, and irritating

What could CNN be thinking? It's in last place among cable news networks. Yet CNN changes the look of its web site to make it painful to look at and almost impossible to find any real news on.I used to spend quite a bit of time on CNN.com. Now I take a glance, get a headache, and quickly click over to the New York Times and Google News.Big red banner. Big ads. Big headlines about nothing important (current featured story, "Groggy: excess sleep could be reason"). Small type size. Small focus on hard news. This all adds up to a…
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