Posted inHumor

My favorite dark, twisted (and funny!) Christmas letter

Laurel, my wife, has a friend with a deliciously cynical sense of humor. Every year Nancy, which may or may not be her real name, sends out "The Dreaded Christmas Newsletter."  And every year I rejoice when I read it. It's always my favorite Christmas letter. Somehow I feel much better after reading her twisted outlook on life, than I do after perusing someone else's description of how much they enjoyed their overseas travels, visits with the grandkids, and the joy of growing older. I guess it takes the pressure off when Nancy shows me the lighter side, which, strangely,…
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Posted inMeasure 37 Salem Sustainability

Marion County commissioners owe us an apology

By "us," I mean hundreds of people in our rural south Salem neighborhood who vigorously opposed a 217 acre Measure 37 subdivision proposed to be built on high value farmland that threatened our ground and surface water (wells and community lake). My wife and I led this fight. By "commissioners," I mean Patti Milne and Sam Brentano, Republican county commissioners here in Marion County who did everything they could to approve the Ridge View Estates development. Janet Carlson, the third commissioner, was on the losing end of several 2-1 votes. Carlson, by and large, believed in applying the law to…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Salem

Progressive activists — an unsleepy side of Salem

This afternoon my open house fears turned out to be unfounded. Since I figured that I wouldn't know anyone at the gathering but the hostess, new Salem resident Laurie, my ever-anxious mind envisoned awkward moments standing around with a glass of wine in my hand, wondering what I was going to talk about with strangers other than the weather and if the Ducks were going to triumph in the Rose Bowl tomorrow. I should have known better, because after moving to Oregon from the Boston area, Laurie has found a home among Salem's activist progressive community. She's been a part…
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Posted inHealth Home life

Do my telomeres look longer? (I’m taking astragalus)

About four years ago I shared my supplements list with a mildly- to un-interested world. Seems like a good time to do it again, since there's been some Big News in the non-prescription nostrums I take every day to keep disability, disease, and death at bay. I've gone from 22 supplements to 19. Gone are two algae oil sources of DHA and EPA, as I've replaced these with Ultimate Omega fish oil. Even though I'm a vegetarian, I decided that consuming fish oil was OK, karma-wise, since there doesn't seem to be an equally good non-animal source of omega-3 fatty acids.…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

More bureaucracy, please. The United States needs it.

Conservatives would have us believe that this country suffers from an excess of government regulation, bureaucracy, and restrictions on free enterprise. Not true, as evidenced by how successful the German auto industry is. High profits. High wages. High involvement of the government in corporate affairs.  In 2010, over 5.5 million cars were produced in Germany, twice the 2.7 million built in the United States. Average compensation (a figure including wages and employer-paid benefits) for autoworkers in Germany was 48.97 Euros per hour ($67.14 US), while compensation for auto work in the United States averaged $33.77 per hour, or about half…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Dump Go Daddy — I did it two years ago

Tomorrow is Dump Go Daddy Day. If you've got a domain name registered with GoDaddy.com, or some other Internet relationship with Go Daddy, I hope you'll ditch this company.  Two years ago I flew the Go Daddy coop for Dotster, and haven't regretted the move. My reasons were different from why people are dumping Go Daddy now -- mostly because it supported a really bad proposed law, SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act, but it really is more like a Stop Free Speech Act). Pleasingly, Go Daddy lost about 70,000 domains last week. May the Go Daddy exodus continue. Here's a…
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Posted inSalem

Another restaurant-reason why Salem drives me crazy

Geez. As if I needed any more reasons why Salem, a.k.a. "So-lame," keeps disappointing my health-conscious, vegetarian, organic, ethnic-food loving self. A few days ago the Portland Oregonian reported that a mere forty miles or so to the north, in oh-so-cool Bridgeport Village, a vegan restaurant called Native Foods has opened.  Need evidence that plant-based eating has gone mainstream? You'll find it at Bridgeport Village, where this outpost of a small California chain of vegan restaurants opened in November, smack in the middle of the suburban shopping center's busiest crossroad. The vibe is family friendly, as is the accessible menu…
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Posted inPhilosophy Salem

Plant magic mushrooms on your grave for loved ones to enjoy

I haven't spent much time envisioning how I'd like my dead body to be disposed of. But after listening to an episode of Philosophy Talk today, "Is Nothing Sacred Anymore?," I've got an interesting psychedelic option to consider. Here's what a member of the audience said: Hello, my name is Jay Monk. I'm from Willamette University. And first I'll apologize for the asking of this question about a taboo, but I really want to know what your thoughts are. If hypothetically, for my burial, I'd like to be buried in a plot of land that has been inoculated with psychedelic…
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Posted inFamily Home life

Our unreal (really!) 2011 Christmas Letter is unveiled

Every year I struggle, for a whole fifteen seconds or so, to come up with a theme for our Christmas Letter -- which we call, with marvelous political correctness, "Holiday Greetings from Laurel and Brian." Once again it was easy to identify a zeitgeist for 2011. Unreal. Such has become our favorite way of handling reality: treat it as illusion.  [Legal disclaimer: this only works with brain-stuff such as emotions, worries, fears, and such. Ignore a red traffic light and your results almost certainly will differ.] So here's our totally unreal 2011 Christmas Letter, a.k.a. Holiday Greetings. Read it and…
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Posted inHome life

Mailing Christmas cards still feels right to me

I'm a techno guy. I've got an iPhone, MacBook Pro, Roku, and Apple TV. Plus two blogs and Facebook/Twitter accounts. But today I mailed the last of my Christmas cards. Yes, mailed.  As in where you pick up a card and envelope from a box, write your name and maybe some personal thoughts on the card, fold over a photo-filled Holiday Letter that you and your wife composed, place it inside the card, put the card inside the envelope, seal the envelope with a lick of your tongue, write the address of the person you're sending it to as legibly as…
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Posted inUncategorized

“Vancouvria” — a great satire of Portland’s boring neighbor

I don't know who made "Dream of the Suburbs," a terrific Portlandia-inspired satire that flings right-on barbs at Vancouver, Washington -- Portland's yawn-inspiring neighbor city across the Columbia. Whoever they are, two thumbs-up to them. You nailed Vancouver! [Update: through brilliant detective work I clicked on the name of the person who uploaded the video and discovered it's... Brighton West. Follow on Twitter here.] Not that I've ever experienced Vancouver close up and personal myself. I've never felt a need to go there. I've got plenty of blah and boring right here in Salem. Along with an Old Navy store.…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

PolitiFact wrong about Medicare 2011 Lie of the Year

I'm disappointed in PolitiFact. The fact checking organization has given its LIe of the Year 2011 award to "Republicans voted to end Medicare." Today I emailed PolitiFact, expressing my disappointment with this choice: I've been a big admirer of PolitiFact. I read your site every day and often refer to it on my blogs, where I try to base my opinions on facts rather than faith. But your Medicare "Lie of the Year" is deeply disturbing. Over and over I heard Democrats and Obama say "Paul Ryan wants to end Medicare as we know it." But you left out "as we…
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Posted inSustainability

Oregon’s dry December — caused by global warming?

Climatologists predict that extreme weather events will become more common as human-caused global warming intensifies. So I've been wondering if the really weird December weather here in the Pacific Northwest has anything to do with global warming. There's a good chance that Portland will break the all-time record for least rainfall in December. I recall KGW meteorologist Rod HIll saying the record goes back all the way to 1876, or thereabouts. New research presented at a recent American Geophysical Union meeting suggests there could be a link between the unusually long-lasting high pressure that has keep storms away from Oregon,…
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Posted inWriting/Weblogs

Cranky old man gripes about social networking

Growing old sucks. As a 63 year old, I can tell you that the best thing about becoming Social Security eligible is getting monthly money from the government, paid for by the hard labor of people still working. Thank you, daughter! Otherwise, I'm still trying to figure out what's so great about the "Golden Years." Yes, I get a 10% senior discount at LifeSource Natural Foods here in Salem. That's one thing. Just about the only other obvious benefit of my geezer'ness is feeling freer to be a cranky old man, something that comes pretty naturally to me. So I…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Wyden-Ryan Medicare reform plan looks interesting

Knee-jerk reactions. They're a big part of what makes politics so dysfunctional in this country. We need to resist making snap judgements about the plan to reform Medicare unveiled today by Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon and Republican Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. Yes, that Paul Ryan. To progressives, he's evil incarnate. To conservatives, he's the second coming of Ronald Reagan. In truth, he's just Paul Ryan. A person. With ideas to improve Medicare. Which is who Ron Wyden also is. A person. With ideas to improve Medicare. Basically, by offering seniors a choice: stay in the current government-run…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

How to contact Lowe’s and complain about Muslim bigotry

Up to now my wife and I have had good feelings about Lowe's. But the company has pulled ads on a reality show about Muslims after caving-in to bigots. The North Carolina-based retailer last week withdrew its ads from the hour-long show that follows the lives of five Muslim families from Dearborn. The decision coincided with pressure from conservative issues groups including the Florida Family Association, which claimed the TV show was “propaganda that riskily hides the Islamic agenda's clear and present danger to American liberties and traditional values.” Here's a link to the contact us page on the Lowe's…
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Posted inBooks

Books are made to be highlighted and written in

Jeez, just what I needed...another outrage that demands my attention, energy, and blogging time to complain about. I've already got my hands full with climate change, cougar hysteria, Republican filibustering, and getting Cafe Yumm to come to Salem. Now I'm forced to react to an opinion piece in yesterday's Oregonian that was horribly, insanely, unforgivably wrong: Douglas Yocum's ridiculous "Spare the scribbles and leave those pages pristine." Is he serious? Is this a joke, a put-on? Don't ruin books by writing in them. More books probably are ruined at Christmas than any other time of the year. Instead of buying a…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Sustainability

Every nation agrees to cut greenhouse gases

What are global warming deniers going to do, now that every country in the world has agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions? OK, more accurately every nation has agreed to work on a future agreement that would commit them to binding greenhouse gas reductions. But that's still a heck of a lot better than doing nothing, a reason to smile about the Durban climate change conference. And it leaves those deniers without any place to lay their anti-science heads. One hundred and ninety-four countries signed on to the Durban agreement. That, Wikipedia tells me, is the entire roster of member…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Science

Science supports a progressive political agenda

Nice!  The voice that speaks inside my head couldn't do anything but agree with Alex Rosenberg's conclusion near the end of his book, "The Atheist's Guide to Reality:" modern science leads to a left-wing ideology. Like a lot else that Rosenberg says in his provocative book, this statement was jarring. Usually the scientific method is considered to be above politics. Scientists deal with objective facts about the world, while politicians mess around with subjective values. Yet Rosenberg perusasively backed up his words. This pleased me, given that I'm both a progressive and an admirer of science. I've always figured there…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Senate Dems should get tough on GOP filibustering

The bizarre Senate filibuster rule needs to be consigned to the Trashbin of Crappy Ideas. I got confused trying to make sense of the Wikipedia article about it. Which is why the filibuster is so wrong: democracy should be straightforward, transparent, easy to understand. Elections are won by the candidate who gets the most votes. Control of the House and Senate is determined by which political party has the most candidates elected. But in the Senate, majority rule is dumped in the crapper.  Nowadays it takes 60 votes, rather than 51, for the Senate to do anything significant, because Republicans…
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