Posted inCurrent affairs

Oregon DEQ continues to coddle polluters

I'm pleased to see that Oregonian columnist Steve Duin is still firing bulls eyes at an admittedly easy target: how the Oregon DEQ looks the other way when well-heeled permit violators run afoul of environmental rules. In his "Permitting and protecting the polluters," Duin describes a situation that's distressingly similar to what happened in our neighborhood when a Measure 37 subdivision said "rules, what rules?" and the Department of Environmental Quality meekly replied "whatever…we don't care." Back in November Duin wrote a column about my frustrating fight to get DEQ to do the right thing, "At DEQ, the refs swallow…
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Posted inMeasure 37

Measure 37 vesting cases heating up

After Measure 49 was passed by Oregon voters on November 6, land use issues have largely fallen away from the state's attention. But now attempts by Measure 37 claimants to show they're vested (basically, "grandfathered" in), and not subject to Measure 49, are heating up the land use burner. Down Medford way, three property owners have sued Jackson County for more than $20 million, saying their Measure 37 constitutional rights have been trampled. Medford resident David Smith, a member of the newly formed Citizens for Constitutional Fairness, said the dollar amount that property owners say they've lost after the passage…
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Posted inHome life

Flip Video Ultra is my new joy toy

Who says money can't buy happiness? Not me, for sure. Because $179.99 just bought me some considerable gadget-fueled joy in the person (or rather, plastic and metal) of a Flip Video Ultra. My good karma was kicked off by a recent Mark Morford column. He started off his rant about a bizarre Tom Cruise video with: Here is something you can do. Set up that nifty little Flip Video camera you got for Christmas just over there next to your couch. I didn't read the rest of the column. Instead I thought, "Hey! I didn't get a nifty little Flip…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Tax cuts don’t pay for themselves

All of the Republican presidential candidates are competing to see who can spout a big lie about tax policy most convincingly: tax cuts pay for themselves. Common sense says that's absurd. So does economic research. But that doesn't stop the Republican know-nothings, some of whom also disbelieve in evolution, from ignoring the facts. What got me going on this was hearing disgraced former Rep. Tom DeLay holding forth on conservative talk radio today. He claimed that tax cuts generate increased revenue for government. I thought, hogwash. But I hadn't done much research on this, so fired up Google this evening…
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Posted inHealth

Behold: my sacred supplements list

OK, I don't actually worship the supplements that I consume every day. So it's arguable whether they're sacred to me. But I sure spend a lot of time genuflecting in their health-giving direction. I've decided that it's time to share my supplement list with a not particularly interested world. However, likely there are some supplement geeks in the blogosphere who share my fascination with finding just the right combination of concoctions for optimum well-being. Which sort of is like the quixotic medieval search by alchemists to turn base metal into gold, because no supplement can hold back the inexorable tide…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

How Yugoslavia reacted to King’s death

I was in a communist country when Martin Luther King died on April 4, 1968 – Yugoslavia. Back then it was called the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Tito was in power. Along with a couple of dozen of other San Jose State College students, and a few professors, I was spending my second sophomore semester taking classes in Zadar, a picturesque town on the Adriatic sea. As you can imagine, it was quite a culture shock. For both us and the locals. Into a regimented traditional society comes a bunch of hang-loose long-haired hippie college students from the epicenter…
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Posted inMeasure 37

Measure 49 forms being mailed out

You know you're a land use junkie if…you spend a Saturday night pouring over forms being mailed to Measure 37 claimants, so they can choose what to do under Measure 49. Yes, that describes me. I had to see whether Willamette Week spoke truly when reporter Nigel Jaquiss said the form is "29 pages long, and not what most claimants are likely to regard as simple." I found that Willamette Week is way off base. The packet being sent to Measure 37 claimants apparently is indeed 29 pages long (can't be sure, since "draft" is stamped on the copy WW…
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Posted inMeasure 37

Playing attorney on a Measure 37 vesting case

It's fun to play make-believe, even (or especially) when you're 59 years old. Yesterday I tried to make a Marion County hearings officer believe that I knew as much about Measure 37 vesting as a real attorney. And I did a pretty darn good job. My wife, Laurel said so, which proves it. "You sounded like a lawyer," she told me after I testified. Ordinarily I wouldn't take that as a compliment. But since I was arguing that a Measure 37 claim wasn't far enough along to be exempted from Measure 49, which fixed many of the flaws in Measure…
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Posted inHome life

Buyer beware with Penguin Windows

Thank God, or Tao, for Oregon's "Buyer's Right to Cancel" law. It just saved us from a pushy Penguin Windows salesman, who somehow talked us into signing a contract for some vastly overpriced (though seemingly high-quality) replacement windows. I wasn't going to mention the company's name in this buyer beware post. But after reading a bunch of comments from people who had remarkably similar bad sales experiences, I decided to say it like it is: Penguin Windows engages in annoyingly high-pressure sales tactics. Which, unfortunately, are pretty damn effective. Laurel and I generally are resistant to salesman B.S. But the…
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Posted inMiscellany

Two days with a Chinese laptop, the Lenovo Y510

Ah, how things have changed. I remember when "Made in Japan" was a synonym for "Piece of Crap." Now two hybrid cars from the land of the rising sun, a Toyota Prius and a Highlander, are our trouble-free transportation. And China? It used to be several large rungs below Japan in the quality category. Just a few years ago I never would have guessed that my new laptop would say "Made in China" on the bottom of it. But it does. I just bought one of the first U.S. computers that are newly available in Lenovo's "IdeaPad" lineup. As I…
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Posted inEntertainment

Colbert and Stuart are better without writers

After four days of seeing how Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart fared without writers after returning to the airwaves, I can issue my review: The Colbert Show and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (now called A Daily Show) are more entertaining without the writers. So even though my progressive sympathies are with those on strike, my TV watching sympathies say, "Stay away; let Colbert and Stuart keep on doing their own thing." I've always enjoyed The Colbert Show more than The Daily Show, because Stephen Colbert is more of a natural improvisational comedian. His interviews are terrific, filled with…
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Posted inTango/Dance

The one place where men always lead

From my male perspective, it's nice that there's still one place in this modern, egalitarian world where men always lead and women always follow. The ballroom dance floor. At least, that's the way it's supposed to work, as Lora (our RJ Dance Studio instructor) explained to us a few days ago. We're taking a beginning Foxtrot class. Laurel and I have taken quite a few classes from Lora, but most of the other Foxtrotters were new to dancing, so she went over the basics. Including this weird and wacky notion: the woman should do whatever the man wants – unless…
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Posted inTango/Dance

Argentine Tango could spice up Salem

[Update: Since I wrote this, Frank and Karen Davis have begun to organize an Argentine Tango community here in Salem. Check out their website for info about the Tango classes being taught by Elizabeth Wartluft of Portland. On September 3 the Salem paper had an interesting story about the classes.] Fellow Salemites, even though we live in Oregon's boring capital city, there's untapped passion in our rain-drenched souls. That's why we need to bring Argentine Tango classes back to town. Thanks to Peter Gysegem, of Corvallis, weekly classes were offered during 2006 – which Laurel and I started taking in…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

New Hampshire, give us the gift of Obama

It's been a long time since any presidential candidate has turned me on. I'm tired of saying about the Democrat, "Well, at least he's better than _____." That sort of faint praise, which is what I'd offer Hillary Clinton or John Edwards, isn't what this country needs or deserves after putting up with eight years of George Bush. Barack Obama is. So New Hampshire voters, please, pretty please with an Oregon fir tree on top, give my state and the rest of the county a tremendous gift next Tuesday. Another impressive Obama win. I've tried to get enthusiastic about Clinton.…
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Posted inPhilosophy

How to make time slow down

Time speeds up as you get older. Almost everyone I know says this is true. I sure do. And it's damn unfair. Why should children, who have their whole lives ahead of them, experience time moving more slowly than semi-geezers like me (I'm 59), who don't have anywhere near as long to live? I frequently feel like screaming, Hey life! Flip things around! Those kids should be the ones who sense time flying by, while older people get to string out the days they have left. One of my best friends from elementary and high school died recently. He was,…
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Posted inHome life

I’m the DSL King of the World!

Step aside, Leonardo DiCaprio. I'm the new king of the world – unashamed to appropriate one of the cheesiest movie lines ever. Because I deserve it. I, me, myself, Brian the Hines, was responsible for bringing Qwest DSL to our rural south Salem neighborhood after many would-be kings (including moi ) had tried and failed for years. At this very moment I am praising myself in a blog post that will be uploaded via wireless DSL, a vast improvement over our dreadfully unreliable Wild Blue broadband satellite service, which never saw a raindrop that it wasn't afraid to send a…
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Posted inSalem

Starbucks sucks with its high priced wi-fi

Being a frequent Starbucks customer, I've noted laptop users in the ubiquitous stores tuning in to what I assumed was free Wi-Fi. After all, these days even the most humble coffee house usually offers a complimentary Internet connection, so why wouldn't this corporate giant? Greed, I guess. Because after my router decided to stop routing this morning, I packed up my ThinkPad and took it with me to the West Salem Starbucks, where, after chatting for a bit with friends, I opened it up for some well-deserved Internet access. Well-deserved, because my habitual grande nonfat vanilla latte sets me back…
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Posted inTango/Dance

Salem Tango stimulated by a San Diegan

Amazing! Last night Salem actually seemed interesting for a couple of hours. We pushed aside the tables in the downtown Beanery coffee house and danced away on a nice wood floor while Tango music played over the sound system. It took a San Diegan, though, to wake up sleepy Salem. That would be Matt, the guy in the middle of the photo who distinguished himself by (1) being by far the youngest amongst us, and (2) actually knowing how to dance Argentine Tango. The rest of us ranged from rusty beginner/intermediates (Karen, in middle, plus Laurel and me, on the…
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Posted inMeasure 37

Measure 49 not threatened by Corey case

There's some wishful thinking going on in the little minds over at Oregonians in Action, who hope that Santa will bring them a Measure 49 demolishing (or at least, limiting) court case. Corey v. Department of Land Conservation and Development is a current favorite, grandiosely (and inaccurately) described in the most recent OIA newsletter under "Is There Hope on the Horizon for Measure 37 Claimants?" Short answer: almost certainly not. I say this not as an attorney, but as someone who knows how competent attorneys view the Corey case. Which is a long way from how OIA sees a ruling…
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Posted inUncategorized

Another agnostic Christmas eve

Well, just as newspapers reprint the "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" piece every year, I'll start my own agnostic tradition and link back to my 2006 post, "An agnostic Taoist on Christmas Eve." Not much has changed. We're still heading to a vegetarian buffet at Salem's Marco Polo restaurant tomorrow. We're still irritated by Salvation Army bell ringers, Christmas music in stores, and the prevailing cultural sentiment that if you don't believe in Jesus, somehow you're impoverished during the holiday season. That's ridiculous. We feel overwhelmingly grateful that unlike the vast majority of people in the world, we…
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