Posted inHome life

Another great reason to get married on St. Patrick’s day

Nine years ago I wrote about what a terrrific decision we made when Laurel and I got married on St. Patrick's Day. It's our 14th anniversary today. We had the smarts to get married on St. Patrick's Day in 1990, which means that as soon as I start seeing mention of green beer in the newspaper or on TV a small still voice in my head starts speaking... “Anniversary, anniversary, anniversary.”  The mathematically inclined will be able to calculate from the above that... today is our 23rd anniversary! I don't believe that number entitles us to any particular sort of…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Ryan budget shows Republican commitment to unreality

I've got to give the Republicans credit.  Now, having written that warm-and-fuzzy sounding first line, I'm faced with figuring out what I should give them credit for. Hmmmm... I'm stumped. Is it the late night hour? Lack of caffeine?  Perhaps. But much more likely is the fact that the only recent accomplishment of the not-so-Grand Old Party is its undying commitment to unreality.  Republicans are really good at not comprehending what is real. Faced with a clear consensus about human caused global warming among 97% of the world's leading climare scientists and obvious planetary effects... Republicans say, "not happening." Faced…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

U.S. conservatives are much more anti-science than liberals

False equivalency is the refuge of those who fail to understand the difference between 0 and 1. Meaning, there's a lot of different differentness between having nothing of something, and having a totality of something.  One-tenth, for example, is a lot closer to zero than nine-tenths is. Yet this is just about how I see the anti-science biases of liberals and conservatives in the United States.  Sure, liberals have some wacky notions. Many think vaccines cause disease and that genetically modified foods are poison from Monsanto. (There may be some truth in both propositions, but not much.) However, when we…
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Posted inWeb/Tech

Google Reader is going away. Panicky, I buy Reeder.

I love Google Reader. I return to it many times a day on my MacBook Pro. So it was more than a little disconcerting to learn that Google Reader is in its death throes. On July 1, it makes a final exit. Rest in peace. I'll miss you, my friend. I really liked how simple you were to use, and how you appeared as a web page. I've never used another RSS reader. Heck, I barely know what RSS means. Unduly panicky, given that I have more than three months to find a replacement way of easily keeping track of…
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Posted inSkateboarding

Shred Oregon makes a true video: “Skateboarding is Transportation”

I'm a senior citizen who gets around on a skateboard. Well, longboard actually. That's a skateboard which is -- get ready for a non-surprise! -- longer. But almost all of my longboarding is on trails in Salem (Oregon) parks. Usually I land paddle my way along for five to seven miles.  For other skateboarders/longboarders, their boards are a principal means of transportation. Kudos to Shred Oregon for making a video that will help to educate people, including policymakers, of this fact.  "Skateboarding is Transportation" should be required viewing for city councilors, county commissioners, state legislators, and others who make decisions…
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Posted inHumor

I want to be reincarnated as a cat. Or a street performer.

Though I don't expect any afterlife to follow my death, here's a request in case reincarnation rules the post-last-breath roost: If I'm headed downward on the evolutionary ladder, being a cat looks like a lot of fun. I'm already messy in the bathroom, like to tease dogs, and am prone to spilling coffee. Watching this video, I realized I'd be a great cat! (Plus, I can look ever so innocent when I've done something wrong.)   Alternatively, if a human body is in my karmic cards, I could see myself being this street performer guy. I like being the center…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Clackamas County commissioners don’t understand meaning of “contract”

Well, a majority of Clackamas County voters decided they wanted a no-nothing Tea Party type, John Ludlow, to head up the Board of Commissioners. They're getting what they deserve: a guy who doesn't understand the meaning of "contract" -- a simple word that most people grasp.  An agreement between two or more parties, especially one that is written and enforceable by law.  An agreement enforceable by law. That's what Clackamas County and Tri Met have in regards to an extension of light rail to Milwaukie. But Ludlow has set the County on a collison course with a court case he is…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

More gun regulations, fewer deaths. Study of states proves it.

I accept your apologies, gun advocates. In quite a few posts on this blog, I've been stating the obvious: controlling the availability of guns produces fewer gun deaths. After all, guns kill people. People don't kill people.  (The number of bare-handed murders is hugely less than the number of murders by a gun.) But I've gotten quite a few comments from defenders of unfettered gun availability who ignore research proving my point. Hopefully a new study will come closer to convincing them that while they're free to believe what they want to, they aren't free to make up their own…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

For progressives, defense cuts are positive side of sequester

On the whole it's stupid to make across-the-board spending cuts to much of the federal budget. That's what the sequester legislation does, which both parties and Obama agreed to.  Stephen Colbert likened this to someone trying to lose weight by using a scalpel to slice 2% of his poundage off over his entire body. The image was appropriately gruesome.  I don't like the sequester either, in large part because Republicans have come to like it. Anything that shrinks government, they're for. Even if the programs and services being cut are valuable, necessary, and desired by the citizenry. But many progressives…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Just do it: read Steven Brill’s TIME expose of medical costs

It took me two nights of bathtub reading to get through the 26,000 words of Steven Brill's masterful cover story in TIME magazine: "Why Medical Bills are Killing Us." It was time with TIME well spent. Do it. If you haven't already. Read the story. You'll never look upon the health care system in the same way again. Most likely in this way: If you aren't already convinced that hospitals (both non-profit and for-profit), drug companies, and medical device manufacturers aren't dedicated to screwing over the American public, Brill's expose will make you scream: You bastards!  If you were already convinced,…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Salem

David Withnell omits facts about protest at Dodge dealership

A few days ago I saw some guys holding a banner on the sidewalk in front of Salem's Withnell Dodge dealership on Commercial Street. Couldn't read the banner as I drove past. I figured it was some sort of advertising for the dealership. Nope. It was a protest by the Pacific NW Regional Council of Carpenters. I learned this via a February 27 letter to the editor in the Statesman Journal from David Withnell. On Jan. 23, 2013, I showed up for work to find three people in front of my Dodge dealership with a 50-foot banner stating, “Shame on Withnell…
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Posted inSalem

Oh, no! Medical care facility planned for Salem’s riverfront.

How many ways can Salem, Oregon depress me? More than this resident of 35 years can imagine, even after all that time.  I'd never imagined that a giant white "Ross Dress for Less" sign would uglify the brickwork on Salem Center, greeting downtown visitors coming across the Center Street bridge with Welcome to Tackiness Land.  Yet what I never imagined has come true. And when plans for the industrial wasteland on the riverfront just south of downtown that used to be a Boise Cascade plant were first revealed, I never imagined that what was billed as a wonderful "mixed use"…
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Posted inEntertainment

Michelle Obama shows off “Evolution of Mom” moves

It's been a good show business week for the First Lady. Last night she announced the Oscar for Best Picture via satellite from the White House. I thought she did a better job than many of the "real" presenters, including a curiously distracted Kristen Stewart. (In Stewart's defense, she arrived on crutches, so probably was in pain while onstage.) Earlier, on Friday, Obama rocked some dance moves with a cross-dressing Jimmy Fallon on his show. I'm sure happy her husband beat Mitt Romney. Could Ann Romney have pulled off what Michelle Obama did?  Watch and marvel at some damn good dancing.…
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Posted inSalem

Ross Dress for Less sign in downtown Salem is an abomination

Usually I shun the word "abomination." Sounds too Old Testament'y. As in fornication outside of wedlock is an abomination.  Not true. But here's a genuine abomination: the Ross Dress for Less sign that was recently installed on Salem Center brickwork.  Walking up Liberty Street, this is the garish sight that meets your eyes as you reach Center Street. A disgusting large white sign that is way larger than the moderately attractive Salem Center sign above it. The sign clashes with everything around it. Including the red brickwork. Approaching downtown Salem from the Center Street bridge, the abomination is doubly abdominable…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Clackamas County’s strange rail phobia

Don't know if this condition is an official psychiatric diagnosis, but lots of people in Clackamas County (Oregon) sure seem to have it: an irrational fear of trains.  Secondary related symptom: an irrational fear of highway transportation congestion caused in part by a lack of trains. Such is the strangeness of thought disorders. This one just happens to have manifested in a majority of those voting in recent Clackamas County elections, along with a majority of county commissioners.  Watching the malady manifest from Salem, a southward rail-lacking point where we'd love to have light rail to Portland and high speed…
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Posted inSalem

Willamette Week reports status of Oregon weed scene

Nice overview in alternative newspaper Willamette Week of how marijuana is getting more and more mainstream in oh-so-green Oregon. (Thanks to Jack Bogdanski for cluing me in to the stories via a blog post, since it's tough to find copies of WW down here in not-cool Salem.) I found "You're Not High in Portland Until... 28 things to do when stoned in Stumptown" particularly entertaining. Someday I hope the reporter will write a similar piece about Salem. Likely it wouldn't take too long. If he or she gets to 3 things to do, I'd be amazed. Ride Riverfront Carousel... stare…
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Posted inHome life

How to check out a possible Craigslist scam

Yesterday my wife was thrilled to get a quick response to our Craigslist "for sale" posting of a UV sterilizer for a pond. When she showed it to me, I thought Scam! I'd seen suspicious responses like this before, when I'd listed my scooter for sale. Hello! let's do like this, actually now I'm not in town for now, I came to visit my son so i wont be able to meet with you but am ok with it and let me know the last price ok, I'll proceed in issuing a Check out to you and when you received the check , I will…
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Posted inSalem

Salem’s riverfront development looking better, but not great

If you're a Salem, Oregon area resident who isn't regularly reading the Breakfast on Bikes blog, you should be! It's not really about bicycling, though it partly is. Many, if not most, of the posts are focused on how our sometimes-fair city needs to improve alternative transportation and mixed use options. Today's blog offering is an excellent overview of what's happening (and what isn't) with the re-development of the old Boise Cascade industrial property along Salem's riverfront: "Proposed Apartments for Boise Site Turn Backs on Park." I agree with the overall conclusion.  It's great news that things are heating up…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Marijuana

Kaufmann crushes Marquis in KGW marijuana debate

Sure, I'm biased. I want marijuana to be legalized in Oregon. This made good sense before Washington, our neighbor to the north, made pot legal last November. Now, it makes even more sense -- since soon a good share of Oregon's population will be within an hour's driving time of state-sponsored marijuana stores. Recently KGW TV held a "Straight Talk" debate on marijuana legalization between Roy Kaufmann, spokesman for the unsuccessful Measure 80 campaign that would have made pot legal here, and Josh Marquis, Clatsop County district attorney. I liked how both Kaufmann and Marquis were respectful, well-spoken, and generally…
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Posted inWeb/Tech

NYT Tesla test drive makes me happy we got a Volt

Since we were not-so-happy owners of an all-electric Nissan Leaf before we sold the car and leased a Chevy Volt (battery powered, with back up gas generator), I"ve been following the fascinating tale of a New York Times automotive reporter's test drive of the $101,000 Tesla Model S sedan with considerable interest. The title of the story wasn't good news for Tesla's marketing efforts: "Stalled Out on Tesla's Electric Highway." Nor was the story itself. John Broder relates the horrors of trying to drive the Tesla, which has an estimated 300 mile range, between charging stations 200 miles apart -- seemingly…
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