Posted inCurrent affairs

I scream at the TV during the Republican presidential debate

Well, I've got to give credit to the GOP and the Fox Business Network for this: last night they got this proud progressive involved in Republican presidential politics. OK, briefly involved -- for as long as the debate went on. And my involvement consisted of me loudly yelling at our television when I heard one of the candidates say something especially stupid or wrong. Which was frequent. PolitiFact has put together a partial truthfulness scorecard of what was said by Trump, Carson, Rubio, et. al. They didn't fare well on the truth scale. Nobody got better than a "Half True." Florina…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Salem

My advice to Cherriots bus system: be true to Salem’s values

Tomorrow is the one week anniversary of last Tuesday's disappointing defeat of the small (.21%) payroll tax that would have paid for much-needed improvements to Salem's behind-the-times Cherriots bus system -- which lacks late evening and weekend service. Cherriots faces some tough choices now. As do others in this town who care, or claim to care, about creating viable, appealing, modern mass transit options in Salem.  Two recent letters to the editor in the Statesman Journal did a good job of summing up the situation. Defeat of transit tax ruined Salem's chance to shine What a sad day for Salem.…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Daylight savings time should be permanent — no more “fall back” time change

Ah, this is the horrible day Daylight Savings Time ends. Time for another speaking of truth to the few people in this country who think it's a good idea to have the sun set an hour earlier in the already depressingly-early-sunset seasons of fall and winter. Last spring I shared the reasons for making Daylight Savings Time full-time in "Let's make daylight savings time permanent." Excerpt: In my extensive personal research regarding this issue, which includes (well, totally encompasses) brief conversations with friends and asking a plumber who is working in our house right now how he feels about daylight…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Salem

Salem faces an existential moment: vote on mass transit payroll tax

Recently I was talking with someone about the November 3 ballot measure vote on a small (1/5 of a percent) payroll tax to support much-needed improvements to Salem's underfunded Cherriots bus system. Including evening and weekend service. I said, "This is an existential election." Followed by, "Well, maybe existential isn't the right word." And then, "No, I can't think of a better word -- existential it is." Though back in college I used to be an admirer of Sartre -- I loved "Being and Nothingness" -- I don't really mean that Salem voters should be wearing a beret, drinking expresso…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Salem

More evidence that Salem Health violated IRS rules on political donations

Last Thursday I filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) against Salem Health, the parent company of Salem Hospital. You can read all about it in "Salem Health hit with IRS complaint for $50,000 anti-payroll tax PAC donation."  Also, in a piece recently published by The Lund Report: "Salem Health Hit with IRS Complaint Over Political Gift Giving." I've heard from a few people who question whether Salem Health really did anything wrong when this tax-exempt organization gave $50,000 to the Create Jobs PAC set up by the Salem Chamber of Commerce.  My answer is, only the IRS…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Salem

Salem Health hit with IRS complaint for $50,000 anti-payroll tax PAC donation

Hey, filing a complaint against Salem Health with the Internal Revenue Service isn't my favorite thing to do. But I was pleased to spend several hours this afternoon working on Form 13909, Tax-Exempt Organization Complaint (Referral) Form. I did this after some other citizen activists laid the groundwork for the complaint. They discovered that Salem Health, the parent company of Salem Hospital, seemed to violate IRS rules when $50,000 to defeat the mass transit payroll tax ballot measure was donated to the Salem Area Chamber of Commerce's Create Jobs PAC (political action committee).The Create Jobs PAC was organized as a…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Salem

Statesman Journal vs. Willamette Week — investigative reporting pissing contest

On Sunday, October 11, the Salem Statesman Journal finally engaged in some serious investigative reporting. Problem is, the theme of the stories that took up five full pages in the front page section was... Criticism of Willamette Week's investigative reporting on the Kitzhaber email scandal.  I found this bizarre, given that the Statesman Journal -- the newspaper in Oregon's capital city -- had done essentially zero original investigative reporting of its own during all the uproar in late 2014 and early 2015 that led to Governor Kitzhaber's resignation. Plus, under executive editor Michael Davis, the Statesman Journal has been asleep…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Family

Conrad Hilton’s godson urges you to vote “YES” on Salem business payroll tax

Yeah, I admit it. The title of this post arguably is citizen activism clickbait. I want to grab the attention of voters here in Salem, because it is really important that the issue on the November 2015 ballot -- whether to pass a small payroll tax to fund much-needed improvements to this town's Cherriots bus system -- PASS.  Hopefully I'm using my godfather's name not in vain. Here's my baptism certificate, for anyone who doubts my Catholic pedigree. If some people decide to vote "Yes" on the payroll tax as a result of this endorsement from Conrad Hilton's godson, it's…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Hateful Obama protesters didn’t represent Roseburg

l've been bothered by the photos and stories of right-wing Obama-hating wackos protesting our President's visit to Roseburg. President Obama came to speak with the families of those killed in the horrific Umpqua Community College shootings.He didn't politicize the event, though he certainly would have been within his rights to call for steps to prevent gun massacres like this from ever happening again. I was reassured to come across this message from a Roseburg resident on a local radio web site. Addressing the national media, Peggy Long says a large percentage of the Obama protesters came from out of town. They don't represent…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

My bold (and probably wrong) 2016 President/VP matchups

With the first Democratic presidential debate coming up next week, and two Republican debates already done and gone, it seems like it's time for me to go out on a limb and predict who will be each party's nominees for President and Vice-President. Naturally I'm doing this for bragging rights in case -- wonder of wonders -- I actually turn out to be right. In case I'm wrong, which is much more likely, I'll either do my best to forget that I ever wrote this post, or take solace in the possible fact that I got one or two of…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Science

Some thoughts are like a rainbow, but others are more grounded

After about three months, I'm continuing to enjoy my daily morning Headspace guided meditations. (I've blogged about Headspace before, here, here, and here.) Today I heard Andy Puddicombe -- the Headspace founder who does the guiding -- talk about how thoughts are like a rainbow. Meaning, they are insubstantial, coming and going, while the "blue sky" of the mind is the ever-present backdrop to thoughts and feelings. In We Are Not What We Do, Puddicombe says: Sure, we have responsibility as to whether we choose to engage the thought and take it to the level of speech or action, but…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

More guns, more people killed by guns. It’s obvious!

Another day, another mass shooting. This time, right here in Oregon.  Time to face facts. And get political. Not later. Now! Obama got it exactly right today. I've boldfaced parts of what he said that I especially liked. And, of course, what's also routine is that somebody, somewhere will comment and say, Obama politicized this issue.  Well, this is something we should politicize.  It is relevant to our common life together, to the body politic.  I would ask news organizations — because I won't put these facts forward — have news organizations tally up the number of Americans who've been killed through…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Marijuana

Marion County might ban marijuana businesses — secretly

[September 26, 2015 update: Yes, the Marion County Board of Commissioners did prohibit marijuana businesses in the unincorporated parts of the county, aside from "grandfathering" in two currently licensed medical marijuana dispensaries. A vote in the November 2016 election will determine whether the prohibition on marijuana businesses continues. If it doesn't, the 3% tax on recreational marijuana sales passed in another ordinance will go into effect.  Here's what the county Public Information Officer, Jolene Kelley, told me when I asked what happened at the September 23 meeting. Attached are the two ordinances the commissioners approved on Wednesday. Ordinance 1358 "opts out"…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Republicans, including Fiorina, lie in their presidential debate

Though I'm a proud progressive, I readily admit that Democrats, and liberals in general, shade the truth at times.  But Republicans, and conservatives in general -- they often engage in total eclipsing of the truth, blanking out virtually every semblance of factual reality.  The New York Times editorial board tells it like it is in "Crazy Talk at the Republican Debate."  Eleven presidential candidates had three prime-time hours on the national stage on Wednesday to tell the American people why they should lead the country. Nobody forced them to be there. They were there freely, armed with the best arguments they…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Salem

Basic facts about Oregon’s early sales of recreational marijuana

Today I got an email message from a friend who'd been contacted by someone who thought I had my facts wrong about early sales of recreational marijuana in Salem, and Oregon as a whole. That "someone" (I don't know who it was) wrote to my friend: I think he got the dates wrong for the early sales of pot.  Legal sales from rec dispensaries can begin on Jan 4 2016 if i am not mistaken... meaning that early sales (from medical dispensaries) would go from Oct 1 to Jan 4.  Brian would have you believe from his blog, that the City Council's action would ban…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Salem

Are Salem City Council votes predetermined prior to meetings?

It's an open question, the title of this blog post. But this is something people have been talking about for a long time here in Salem, Oregon, because it sure seems like important policy decisions often are voted on with very little discussion or debate between councilors at City Council meetings.Today I emailed the message below to Kacey Duncan, the Acting City Manager, and other city officials. After last Monday's city council meeting, I figured it was time to ask some pertinent questions that revolve around whether the City of Salem is complying with Oregon's public meeting law. The way…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Marijuana Salem

Salem City Council might ban marijuana sales — secretly

News flash: without any warning to Salem's citizens, the City Council might move to ban recreational marijuana sales at its Monday (August 31) meeting.  Here's a PDF version of this flyer; feel free to share far and wide Download Hey Salem PDF I find this outrageous, like so much the Mayor and right-wing council majority is doing these days. My outrage is as much about the disturbing lack of public notice and transparency going on here, as the absurd notion that recreational marijuana sales should be banned in a city whose citizens approved Measure 91 by 53% to 47% in…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

History shows it’s possible for Trump or Sanders to become president

Don't get too excited by the title of this blog post, fans of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. I'm not capable of arguing how it is that these guys could buck the odds and become President of the United States. (As we'll see, nobody is.) Rather, I want to share some passages from a chapter, "The Secret of Success," in historian Yuval Noah Harari's fascinating book, Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind, that remind us how unwise it is to think that anything is impossible in this wild and wacky chaotic world of ours. I read the chapter this morning.…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Religion

Religious views have no place in fetal tissue debate

I don't believe in God. But I sure do believe in keeping God out of all social policy discussions, including the recent debates over fetal tissue research. And not only God -- all supernatural notions based on unsupported faith, no matter how sincerely held they may be.  Over on my Church of the Churchless blog I've been arguing that religion has no place in politics and policy-making since 2004. That year I wrote "Religious values have no place in politics."  Consider abortion, stem-cell research, and gay marriage—three issues that are commonly considered to comprise the core of “values-based” voting in…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Marijuana

Rural Oregon bans marijuana shops, then wonders why its economy sucks

Oregon has a well-deserved national reputation for being progressive/liberal. But everybody who lives here knows that this only reflects the vibe in western Oregon, the eastern part of the state (except Bend) being way behind the times. Thus even though arch-conservative Glenn Beck recently named Portland the worst city in America -- which means it actually is one of the best -- he could go to most places in rural Oregon and feel right at home. Case in point: Oregonians legalized recreational marijuana last November by a comfortable margin, passing Measure 91 56% to 44%. But in its wisdom (ironically…
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