Posted inCurrent affairs Web/Tech

I’m enjoying Bluesky after my disillusionment with Elon Musk’s X

A few days ago I took the social media plunge into the pleasant waters of Bluesky, having become increasingly disillusioned with X (formerly known as Twitter).  After Elon Musk bought Twitter and almost instantly renamed it X, because that's his favorite letter, I found this irritating, but not enough to make me leave X. The positives seemed to outweigh the negatives. I use Twitter, X, and now Bluesky for the enjoyment I get from following quality observers of our local, state, and national political scenery. They're up to date on what's going on. I learn a lot from the links…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Health

Constant worrying about Trump is a threat to your health

Like many millions of Americans, ever since Trump was elected president on November 5, a mere twelve days ago that seems like much longer, I've been consumed with anxiety about what this means for the United States and the world. In short, nothing good. Or at least, very little that is good. Naturally I'm speaking from my perspective as a Democrat who heartily supported Kamala Harris. I realize that Trump supporters feel differently. But I'm speaking to those who, like me, see Trump as a threat to democracy, the environment, equal rights, justice, the economy, Ukraine, and so much else. …
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Posted inFood and drink

Trader Joe’s has brought back the Turkey-Less Stuffed Roast for 2024!

Thank you, Trader Joe's!!! Those three exclamation marks don't begin to describe the joy I felt when I learned that the Breaded Turkey-less Stuffed Roast has returned for 2024 holiday eating, after being discontinued in 2023.  In November 2023 I sadly wrote, "Bummer! Trader Joe's Breaded Turkey-less Stuffed Roast discontinued for 2023." That post started out with: Oh, Trader Joe's, I'm so disappointed that you have put a piece of metaphorical coal in my vegetarian stocking this 2023 holiday season by discontinuing your marvelous vegan Breaded Turkey-less Stuffed Roast -- which is the favorite meatless alternative of its kind for…
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Posted inHealth Home life

My wife’s shoulder replacement surgery is helping me be a better person

When it comes to being a caring, compassionate person, I'd say that I'm about average. I know people who are much more caring and compassionate than I am, and I also know people who are considerably less caring and compassionate. So I've got room to grow in this regard. However, at the age of 76, I pretty much figured that I was set in my ways and wouldn't be improving my caring and compassionate quotient any time soon. That was before my wife, Laurel, had shoulder replacement surgery. More accurately, reverse shoulder replacement surgery. The difference between a reverse prosthesis…
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Posted inSports

Oregon football pulls out an exciting win over Ohio State

My heart still hasn't recovered from the closing minutes of Oregon's thrilling 32-31 victory over Ohio State in a battle of #3 versus #2. After tonight, Oregon should be the second ranked team in the country, maybe even close to the top spot, a major accomplishment given the mediocre play from Oregon in its first two games. Sports writer John Canzano captured my feeling exactly in his "The Bald Faced Truth" substack post (I'm a subscriber) as the talented Ohio State quarterback took the field in the last few minutes of the game, needing only a field goal to pull…
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Posted inHealth Salem

Regence and Salem Health are in an annoying contract dispute

Recently I got a not-so-cheery letter from Cheryl Nester Wolfe, President and CEO of Salem Health Hospitals and Clinics. She informed me, along with many thousands of other people in Salem who get their health insurance through Regence Blue Cross Blue Shield of Oregon that Salem Health's contract with Regence expires on December 31, 2024 and "despite repeated attempts to negotiate a new contract for 2025, Regence refuses to agree to fair market terms." Wolfe put most of another sentence in boldface to draw attention to it. This means that as a patient, you will likely be responsible for a…
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Posted inGrowing older Home life

My 76th birthday has me thinking about sending death letters before I die

For a while I've been pondering the notion of sending death letters to friends, family, and other people important to me -- not letters to be delivered after I die, but while I'm very much alive, not even sick.  This idea has gained strength as I approach my 76th birthday. That sounds damn old to me. Which, it is. My sister died at 71. My mother died at 73. My father, almost entirely absent from my life, died at 73 (best I can estimate; I'm not sure about the exact age). So while I'm pretty healthy at the moment, having…
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Posted inHome life Web/Tech

Verizon outage today was irritating for several reasons

It was a stressful morning in the life of my wife and I, two retired people who usually enjoy a relaxed morning of breakfast, browsing of online news sources, and watching our dog nap after her first meal of the day. But today we had an electrician coming over to install two ceiling fans, and my wife, Laurel, came into my bedroom as I was just getting up, saying "My phone isn't working; I need to use yours to tell the electrician that if he's delayed, to text or call you, since he won't be able to reach me." Looking…
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Posted inTai Chi

Some life lessons from a Tai Chi seminar

I've been practicing Tai Chi for nineteen years, having embraced this internal martial art after twelve years of karate, an external martial art.  In a 2021 post, "Internal martial arts have a lot to teach us," I quoted from a book by Ron Sieh: Typically the martial arts are characterized by how they arrive at power: the external, by muscular effort; the internal, relaxed and effortlessly. All "karates" are considered external, and most of the Chinese arts, plus Judo, Capoeira, and Kali, are lumped into the external category. T'ai Chi Ch'uan, Hsing I Ch'uan, and Pa Kua are the Chinese…
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Posted inSalem

2024 Salem Art Fair is much improved from 2023

The Salem Art Fair and Festival is on an upward trajectory, according to my decidedly personal opinion. After going to the fair every year since I moved to Salem in 1977, enjoying the shady setting under the large oaks in Bush Park, in 2022 the fair had to move to a big grassy field with little shade because the oaks were being damaged due to soil compaction. The title of my July 15, 2022 blog post expressed how I felt about the change: "Salem Art Fair better for trees in new location, but not as pleasant now." It was uncomfortably…
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Posted inSports Television

Watching Oregon – Boise State football game on Peacock was miserable

Last night wasn't pleasant for me, football-watching-wise, for a couple of reasons.  One, the Oregon football team played a crappy game against Boise State, an opponent they were favored to beat by 19 points, but ended up winning 37-34 on a last second field goal. This follows their crappy initial game against Idaho, a team they were expected to beat by around 50 points, but won by only 24-14. Two, the Oregon - Boise State game was on Peacock, NBC's streaming service. We subscribe to Peacock for entertainment, so I had no problem accessing the game at 7 pm via…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Another school shooting shows there’s only one reason: too many damn guns!

Today four people were killed and nine wounded at a high school in Georgia by a 14-year old student there.  According to Wikipedia, as of August 31, so far in 2024 in the United States a total of 527 people have been killed and 1,755 people have been wounded in 432 mass shootings. (Defined as at least four people killed or wounded in an incident.) So this school shooting wasn't anything special, sadly. School shootings just get more attention from the media. I watched some of the coverage as I exercised this afternoon, then listened to MSNBC and CNN discussions…
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Posted inSports

Good news: DirecTV has Big Ten Network. Bad news: How Oregon played.

Today started off on a high note for me, college football-wise. I was thrilled when, in the morning, I set my DirecTV VCR to record the 3:30 pm Oregon State vs. Idaho State game on The CW (channel 32) and the 4:30 pm Oregon vs. Idaho game on the Big Ten Network (channel 601).  While that may not sound like a big deal to football fans who don't use DirecTV -- we live in rural south Salem, Oregon, where there's no cable options -- those of us who suffered through many years of not getting the Pac-12 Networks due to…
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Posted inHome life Neighborhood

In 2024 we see very few bees and yellow jackets in rural south Salem, Oregon

We've lived at our house on ten acres in rural south Salem, about six miles from the city limits of Oregon's capital, for thirty-four years. This has been an unusual year for us as regards the bee and yellow jacket population. We've seen very few of each on our property. Almost none. Typically we have several natural bee hives. We have flowering plants in our yard that were chosen to appeal to bees. In 2024, though, the bees never showed up. Same with yellow jackets. In past summers, when we'd eat breakfast on our deck some yellow jackets would appear…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Joe Biden’s speech at the DNC was met with love, and also relief

President Biden deserved the warm welcome he received at the Democratic National Convention tonight. The cries and signs of "I love Joe" were heartfelt.  However, as I watched his speech here in Oregon, where it was over well after midnight East Coast time and 9:30 or so our time, which seemed like a crazily late time to showcase what amounted to Biden's farewell to the nation as Kamala Harris is poised to enter the stretch run of her presidential campaign, I keep thinking that a big part of why Democrats love Joe is that Biden had the good sense to…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

LGBTQ people may not be born that way, but they’re formed that way

The Sunday New York Times had a great idea in the opinion section of the August 4, 2024 issue: have some of their columnists debunk a bit of conventional wisdom in their circles. Here's how it was described. Our world is more connected than ever. But it's never been easier to find yourself shepherded into a comfortable herd made up of close friends or political allies, your social set or professional peers. And those herds are the perfect environment for groupthink to thrive, to allow dubious beliefs or weak arguments to masquerade as unquestionable truisms. We asked nine of our…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Entertainment

I watched The Handmaid’s Tale to learn what reelecting Trump would be like

It was a tough job, but I had to do it -- watching every second of every episode of the five seasons of The Handmaid's Tale, a show that I wasn't interested in when it aired from April 2017 to November 2022, but which grabbed my attention this year for a couple of reasons. One was that I'd seen Elisabeth Moss in The Veil and was captivated by her acting. She's the lead character in The Handmaid's Tale. Another was that I wanted to see what lessons The Handmaid's Tale had for our current political situation, where Donald Trump is…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Relax, today’s big stock market decline is no big deal

If you're like me, someone with money invested in the United States stock market, today wasn't fun. All the major market indices dropped considerably, following a couple of declining days last week.  The S&P 500 was down 3.0%, the Dow 2.6%, the NASDAQ 3.4%. I don't believe one-sentence descriptions why the stock market rises or falls are worth much, including today's "the market is worried about a possible recession." This doesn't begin to capture the complexities of why markets around the world had a tough time today. For example, lots of investors had borrowed money in Japan, because that country…
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Posted inBooks Growing older

Oh, no! Just learned that yuppies were baby boomers. I’m crushed.

Since I was born in 1948, naturally I've always considered myself to be part of the baby boomer generation. And since I went to college at San Jose State University from 1966-71, the height of the Flower Child movement in the San Francisco Bay Area as well as elsewhere, and I embraced marijuana, psychedelics, long hair, and other trappings of that movement, naturally I've always considered myself to be a hippie who just happens to look now like the old man that I am. What I've never considered myself to be is either a yuppie or the generation that spawned…
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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…
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