Posted inCurrent affairs Sustainability

Time for public officials to “come out”… about climate change

Global warming is causing massive changes to the Earth's climate. Humans are responsible for most of the warming.  This is the consensus of 97% of the world's climate experts. Anyone who doesn't take these facts seriously is a danger to humanity. Here's a quote from Elizabeth Kolbert's book, "The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History." I found it in an Amazon reader review when I was trying to decide whether to order the book. (I did order a copy.) "If you want to think about why humans are so dangerous to other species, you can picture a poacher in Africa carrying an…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Salem

Marion County and City of Salem stuck in “Reefer Madness” fantasy land

Here's another great example why the Republican Party, and right-wing conservatism is general, is fading away as a cultural force. The conservative-led Marion County (Oregon) Board of Commissioners and Salem City Council are talking up bans -- or severe restrictions -- on medical marijuana clinics.  Download Marion County takes stances against marijuana clinics Download Salem City Council hears about medical marijuana dispensary plan Wow.  Medical marijuana is legal in Oregon. So are clinics where people with a medical marijuana prescription can buy their medicine without going onto the black market or growing their own (tough to do if you're a…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Marijuana

Blumenauer rips Drug Policy official on marijuana cluelessness

This should be must-viewing for the Salem City Council and Marion County Board of Commissioners, which are considering ill-advised restrictions on medical marijuana clinics -- totally legal here in Oregon, as recreational marijuana also should be. There's a lot of ignorance about marijuana among Patti Milne and other county commissioners. Likely also among city councillors.  Download Marion County takes stances against marijuana clinics Download Salem City Council hears about medical marijuana dispensary plan What's needed is honesty, not clueless prevaricating, like a federal Drug Policy demonstrates in this video. Oregon congressman Rep. Earl Blumenauer does a great job holding the…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Salem

Salem’s “State of the City” not as rosy as Mayor Peterson spins it

Today I heard from someone who had some disagreements with a Statesman Journal preview of Salem (Oregon) Mayor Anna Peterson's upcoming State of the City address. Download Salem's spending future You can read what this person said below. I share his/her skepticism. Especially regarding Mayor Peterson's attempt at a "united" spin. Actually, no way has she presided over a collaborative, consensus-building, citizen involvement-based administration. Instead, Mayor Peterson, City Manager Linda Norris, Public Works Director Peter Fernandez, and most city councillors have done their best to ignore public input, facts, and expert advice in favor of top-down bureaucratic policy-making. Five notable examples: …
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Posted inCurrent affairs

CBO: Obamacare will let people decide how much they want to work

The title of this blog post is accurate. But you won't see it on Fox News or other right-wing sound machines, which have been screaming falsities today like, "Obamacare to cost 2.3 million jobs over 10 years." Not true.  The Congressional Budget Office report that has gotten Affordable Care Act haters into such a mad dog frenzy actually has good news for the country: now that most people have access to affordable health insurance that isn't tied to employment, they have more latitude to decide how much to work.  Full-time. Part-time. Not at all.  Matthew Yglesias offers up some fictional,…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Oregon one of most liberal and non-religious states

This is a big reason why my wife and I can't think of any other state we'd rather live in: "Oregon one of country's most liberal and least religious states: Gallup poll" From Jeff Mapes at the Oregonian: Oregon once again has a notable spot on two new charts from Gallup, the venerable polling organization.  The pollster found that Oregonians continue to identify themselves as one of the most politically liberal states in the country -- and one of the least religious. It's not surprising that Oregon would be at the top of one list and at the bottom of the other.  Numerous…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Entertainment

Jesus explains to Sarah Silverman when life begins

Finally. We've got a divine revelation that settles a vexing abortion rights question. "Jesus, when does life begin?'" "At forty." (laughter) "The fertilized eggs aren't people. People are people." ... "But, people who believe fertilized eggs are people are people too. You have to love them." Done. Settled. Finis.  Jesus Christ, son of God, had this interchange with Sarah Silverman. I know, because I've seen the You Tube video.  And we all know that everything on the Internet is true. Watch. And believe.  
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Obamacare is doing just fine. And will do even better.

The rumors of Obamacare's demise have been greatly exaggerated. Every month the news gets better. And we've just started the 2014 open enrollment period, which runs until March 31. Ezra Klein has a good factual overview of what is going on with the Affordable Care Act in "The death of Obamacare's death spiral." Obamacare haters have been fantasizing about the prospect of few young people signing up for coverage. Which explains why they've been running deceptive ads aimed at discouraging younger folk from getting health insurance, an act that borders on malevolence. What kind of morally deficient person believes it…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Salem

Geoffrey James tells City of Salem how to save $30 million

A few days before Christmas Architect Geoffrey James gave Salem, Oregon taxpayers a great present: $30 million. Well, let's call it a potential present, because this is how much James believes a City of Salem bond levy could be reduced if some viable alternatives to the City's proposal are pursued. The project under discussion is a new police facility and seismic retrofitting of the Civic Center. Plus the City wants to tear down the current Council Chambers and construct a new Chambers close by.  James, a founder of Salem Community Vision, describes a better way in a December 20 guest…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Marijuana

Marijuana legalization creeping closer to Oregon

Oh, yeah, the times are definitely a'changing here in Oregon. High times are coming soon to Washington state, which legalized adult marijuana sales/use last year. Willamette Week has reported news of considerable interest to those of a cannabis-consuming bent in northwest Oregon: the would-be sellers and growers in Clark County, a mere crossing of the Columbia River away from Portland. I'm 65. I've been used to marijuana being illegal my entire life, obviously. I still feel a pang in my '60s heart (the decade, not my age) when I remember driving with similarly stoned friends in my smoke-filled '57 VW…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Salem, Oregon is really several cities: well-off and struggling

I live in south Salem. Well, rural south Salem, above five miles from the city limits. Yet I can drive to downtown in about 20 minutes.  Where, if I go north or east, I'll reach a whole other sort of city: much poorer than the well-off enclaves of south and west Salem.  Several recent stories by Hannah Hoffman (nice job, Hannah!) in the Statesman Journal have cast much-needed light on Salem's income disparities.  The first one was "Salem shows vast income gap." Here's a PDF version for when the story falls into the paper's archives. Download Salem shows vast income…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Philosophy

Naive realism is wrong. We don’t see the world as it really is.

Back in my San Jose State College undergraduate days I took an Epistemology class. Don't remember much about it, aside from writing a paper on the subject of Zen and Naive Realism. Might even still have it tucked away in a storage box.  Today I came across that term, naive realism, again. I resonated with what psychologist Jonathan Haidt says in his fascinating book, "The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom." Each of us thinks we see the world directly, as it really is. We further believe that the facts as we see them are there for all…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Salem

Salem Health CEO gives interesting City Club talk

I made a good decision to join the Salem City Club.  What's not to like? Great historic meeting rooms at Mission Mill; excellent lunches by Loustic Catering; friendly members; and always-interesting presentations with an opportunity to ask questions afterward. Today Norm Gruber, President and CEO of Salem Health, talked about how health care is changing. I came away impressed. Gruber was appealingly honest about the screwed-up American health care non-system. Having spent about 15 years in health planning and policy analysis, and now being Medicare eligible, I had both a previous professonal and current personal interest in what Gruber had…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Health

Dave Dahl (Dave’s Killer Bread) needs compassion, not condemnation

According to newspaper stories, Dave Dahl, the founder of Dave's Killer Bread, went off his medication and got into trouble with the police after a woman called 911, saying he was having a mental breakdown.  If you think people would respond to Dahl's situation with compassion, you'd be mostly wrong. I've been amazed -- and disgusted -- at the outpouring of judgmentalism and holier-than-thou condemnations of Dahl from commenters on the stories. For example, here's some comments on a Salem Statesman Journal story about Dahl that irritated me: It looks like this lifer-to-be chose to throw away what may have been…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Salem

New downtown Salem parking policy needs enforcement

Downtown Salem, Oregon recently went from two-hour onstreet parking with the likelihood of parking meters being installed, to free unlimited parking -- thanks to a citizen petition that was adopted by the City Council after about 9,000 people signed it. Check out Stop Parking Meters Downtown for an update on how the City of Salem is implementing the new parking policy. In short, not well, according to Carole Smith. The petition the city council adopted on Oct 14th clearly required city enforcement to prevent prohibited parties from parking where they should not. The City Councilors pledged to “do everything in…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Health

Truth about Obamacare insurance policy cancellations

Lies and more lies. That's about all Republicans have been contributing to health policy discussions ever since the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, became the law of the land. Sure, the rollout of web sites where people can sign up for policies on the new health insurance exchanges has been rocky (to say the least). Criticisms are justified on this front. I can't understand how Oregon, which received lots of federal dollars to get Cover Oregon up and running, still has an unusable web site after a full month of non-operation. Embarassing. Disturbing. But in no way a fatal blow…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Salem

Citizens suggest better ways to renovate Salem Civic Center

Are there better ways for Salem's citizens to spend $70 million than what City Hall is planning -- a brand new police department building and a massive redesign of the civic center, along with seismic upgrades? Sure seems so. That's what I learned by spending my Friday night at a meeting sponsored by Salem Community Vision, a new group formed by some old-timers with a lot of experience in architecture, construction, urban planning, and community involvement.  As reported previously, local architect Geoffrey James came up with the idea for the meeting. Gene Pfeifer, a Silverton resident with 45 years of design/build…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

GOP poised to wreck world economy. Otherwise, have a nice day.

Tomorrow is going to be interesting. If all goes well, the Republican Tea Party crazies in Congress are either going to come to their senses or be bypassed (Boehner could allow a vote and pass a Senate bill with Democrat votes plus 20 or so moderate Republicans). But if Ted Cruz or some other wacko Republican Senator puts up a procedural roadblock, the Senate won't be able to pass a bill until the weekend to re-open the government and pay our nation's bills on time. By then, the financial markets could have taken a big tumble -- 10% or more.…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Salem

City Council hears from Stop Parking Meters Downtown leader

Here's a terrific letter that Carole Smith, one of the leaders of Salem's highly successful Stop Parking Meters Downtown movement, has sent to the City Council. The Council meets tomorrow, Monday, October 14, to decide whether the Stop Parking Meters citizen initiative petition should (1) be placed on the May 2014 ballot, where it likely would pass, (2) implement the initiative petition provisions immediately via changes to City ordinances, or (3) submit a competing ballot initiative for citizens to vote on. A City staff report lays out the supposed fiscal implications.  It also reports the results of a survey of…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Obama, stand firm on federal shutdown and debt limit

I watched President Obama's press conference today. He made a heck of a lot of sense. No, a hell of a lot of sense.  President Obama intensified his pressure on House Republicans on Tuesday, calling on them to “lift these threats from our families and our businesses” as the federal government remained shuttered into a second week and the possibility that the United States would default on its debts grew closer. Mr. Obama, holding firm to the position he first took more than a year ago, said at a lengthy news conference that he would not negotiate over the essential…
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