Posted inSalem

Why can’t Salem be more like Bend?

Or…Portland, Eugene, Ashland, Corvallis – any number of Oregon towns with that special something that Salem so sorely lacks. Laurel and I cruised around Bend one day last week. Our first stop was the NorthWest Crossing development. We were charmed. We were involved with the effort to convert Salem's Fairview Training Center property into a sustainable mixed use development. So far it hasn't come to much, aside from the admirable progress of Pringle Creek Community on a small portion of the site. NorthWest Crossing reminded us of what Salem lacks, because it incorporates many of the elements of the Sustainable…
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Posted inSalem

Ah, the “joys” of country life

If you live in the city, probably you have fantasies about moving to the country. Quiet. Open spaces. A laid back lifestyle. Bliss. Yeah, sometimes. But not when your well pump gives out on the Friday before the long Memorial Day weekend and you're visualizing what it'll be like to live without running water for longer than you want to. Which, it turned out, was about half an hour. That's when the newness of washing hands and dishes from one of the emergency water containers we keep on hand wore off. When I lived in cities, I can't recall ever…
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Posted inSalem

Belly dancers show need to shake up Salem

Beauty. Artistry. Color. Diversity. Energy. Passion. Not words usually associated with downtown Salem, Oregon. But yesterday Silverton's Raks Sarama belly dancing troupe, performing at a First Wednesday celebration, showed that this sleepy city has potential to wake up. In my You Tube video (embedded below) you can hear a conversation between me and a fellow progressive friend, Frances, where I extol the virtues of my Flip Video camera. Before that, Frances told me that she'd just been extolling the virtues of Lloyd Chapman, who is running for mayor against the incumbent, Janet Taylor. She ran into some Taylor supporters and…
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Posted inSalem

“Subdivided” points to ugliness of Salem

Sometimes, well often, when I'm driving around un-beautiful Salem, Oregon, I look at the atrocity of Commercial Street, Lancaster Drive, or the shuttered stores of downtown, and think "Who the hell foisted this ugliness on us?" It's amazing, really. We've gotten so used to the sterility, car-centeredness, garish billboards, utilitarian strip malls, treeless parking lots, and people-devoid sidewalks of the typical American town, the monstrosity of it all has left us numb to truly noticing it. That's why it takes a documentary like "Subdivided," which Laurel and I saw a few nights ago at Salem's Progressive Films Series, to open…
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Posted inSalem

Starbucks wants to be my new best friend

It's sort of touching, those signs that have popped up in every Starbucks store. "We're your neighborhood Starbucks." Well, actually you aren't. I live at least seven miles from the nearest Salem Starbucks. And that's the way this rural resident likes it. If I want a friend, I'll get a dog. In fact, I have a dog. Pretty much all I want from Starbucks is a skinny venti vanilla latte a couple of times a week. However, atmosphere does matter. When I have a latte choice, I head for a locally owned place like the Coffee House Café. I like…
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Posted inSalem

A newbie Democrat sees Obama in Salem

Oh, yeah. Now I've really jumped into the Democratic deep waters, after a lifetime of swimming around as an independent. Today I made a pilgrimage to see the reason I became a Democrat: Barack Obama. He came to Salem this afternoon. An hour late, but he made it. Guess I can't complain (though I do on the video below), since it took me several decades to make myself into a Democrat – and someone who cares enough about a presidential candidate to go to quite a bit of trouble to hear him speak. It turned out that Laurel and I…
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Posted inSalem

Obama coming to Salem – I got tickets!

Below is some video of an enthusiastic crowd in downtown Salem today, waiting to snap up tickets to Barack Obama's appearance in our normally sleepy city on Friday. The Coffee House Café must have done some bang-up business. Proving that laid-back counter culture types also can have business sense, a nicely tattooed employee worked the line (which stretched most of the way down the block). As you'll see, I was desperate to cover up the corporate latte that I'd just bought at a nearby Starbucks. That's where I heard about the ticket giveaway, which led me to head down the…
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Posted inSalem

Size matters with county commissioners

Is five preferable to three? Absolutely. Personally, I think seven is even better. But last night I learned that no Oregon county has more than five county commissioners. It's hard to imagine that a meeting with the geeky title of "Marion County Governance in the 21st Century" would be as interesting as it was. Before I headed off to the Salem Public Library to attend this Friends of Marion County forum, I considered taking along a super-sized latte to be sure I stayed awake. But it was surprisingly engaging. The reason for the get-together was to explore the pros and…
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Posted inSalem

Suddenly I felt very old

Damn you, Coffee House Café! You're one of the few hip, happening, alternative gathering spots in downtown Salem. And I'm a hip, happening, alternative guy who frequently stops in for a latte. I enjoy having my drink prepared by a tattooed, pierced, black-clad barista with an attitude, a pleasing contrast with the staff at the squeaky clean Starbucks down the street. During the day I feel like I fit right in at the Coffee House Café. Beard. Longish hair. Impeccable '60s counterculture credentials. Progressive politics. We're on the same radical wavelength. But last night I realized that our relationship has…
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Posted inSalem

Starbucks sucks with its high priced wi-fi

Being a frequent Starbucks customer, I've noted laptop users in the ubiquitous stores tuning in to what I assumed was free Wi-Fi. After all, these days even the most humble coffee house usually offers a complimentary Internet connection, so why wouldn't this corporate giant? Greed, I guess. Because after my router decided to stop routing this morning, I packed up my ThinkPad and took it with me to the West Salem Starbucks, where, after chatting for a bit with friends, I opened it up for some well-deserved Internet access. Well-deserved, because my habitual grande nonfat vanilla latte sets me back…
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Posted inSalem

Radio Free Salem offers hope to Oregon’s gray zone

Praise be! Help is on the way for the oppressed residents of Salem, we who have the misfortune of living in the depressing I-5 gray zone between the bright spots of Eugene and Portland (along with Albany and Woodburn, but Salem is the capital of mid-valley ho-hum ness). The December Salem Monthly asks "Could 88.5 FM be the new home of a community radio station in Oregon?" It will, if aspiring community radio station operator Karen Holman succeeds with her FCC application for a non-profit radio license. Holman is a chemistry professor at Willamette University. I hope she brews up…
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Posted inSalem

Oregon is a nasty place to live, really!

The winds have died down. The rain has stopped. I've taken the chain saw out of my car, which I drove around with for the past three days, ready to cut my way through roads blocked by fallen trees. Things are starting to get back to normal in the Northwest after the biggest Pacific storms in a decade roared through. Here in south Salem we did fine. No power outages. No flooding. Just a bunch of fir branches blown loose by the 45-50 mph winds. But elsewhere in Oregon and Washington havoc ruled. Many roads are closed, including the I-5…
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Posted inMeasure 37 Salem

Salem’s newspaper gets an “F” in journalism ethics

In the past two days I've learned a lot about the Salem Statesman Journal's concern for journalism ethics. Bottom line is, they couldn't care less. My ethical eyebrows got raised when I noticed that a draft editorial about Oregon's Measure 49 contained absolutely zero information about what this soon-to-be-voted-on ballot measure does. Yet the editorial endorsement was "no." Unbelievable. How can a newspaper run a content-free editorial about an important statewide vote? How is it possible to say you're against a piece of legislation without describing it? After exchanging lots of emails with the editorial page editor, Dick Hughes (who…
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Posted inSalem

Salem sinks further into mediocrity

Ah, Salem. It's sad how you're never able to rise above the moniker of "Oregon's boring capital city." Today's Statesman Journal had three stories on the front page that demonstrated how far Salem has to go before it's worthy to be considered anything more than an I-5 gas stop between Portland and Eugene. First, there's "Lefty's Pizzeria on State Street closes suddenly." I didn't go to Lefty's often. But I knew that it was one of the few places in Salem where you could enjoy live blues, jazz, and comedy. Believe me, if you live in Salem you're used to…
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Posted inSalem

Here’s why Salem is so depressing

For a brief moment, oh so brief, the headline in today's Statesman Journal gave hope to my terminally depressed Salem mind. I've pretty much given up hope that Salem ever will be anything other than the bland, featureless, fast-food loving, strip mall adoring, second (or third) class city that it is now. But my heart fluttered with unfamiliar optimism when I read: Keizer Station a boon to area economy. More stores set to open; grocery store is a possibility Grocery store is a possibility. Why, that could mean…dare I hope?...no, not in Salem…maybe, though…be optimistic…keep reading…they might be referring to……
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Posted inSalem

Qwest, I’m waiting for DSL…still waiting…

I'm seriously seeking DSL in our south Salem neighborhood, now that I've tasted the faster broadband life at our cabin in Camp Sherman. Yes, Camp Sherman, a hamlet of several hundred full-time residents in central Oregon that is as beautiful as it is isolated. Five miles from Highway 20. Ten more miles to Sisters, the nearest town of consequence. Yet one of our cabin co-owners just arranged to have Qwest DSL installed. So now when we're in Camp Sherman I can sit down with my laptop, facing Ponderosas and the Metolius River, out in the middle of nowhere, connecting to…
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Posted inSalem

Salem Art Fair is unfairly female centric

Men, it's time to stand up for our rights. We've been second class art fair citizens for too long. I'm tired of seeing those Homo sapiens with XY chromosomes looking bored like this… While the XX's are happily browsing a few feet away from them like this… Now, these female Salem Art Fair'ers happen to be Laurel, my wife, and Rita, a friend from Seattle who visited us this weekend along with her husband, Ron. So they aren't associated with the bored-looking men in the first photo. But Ron and I were right there at the waiting bench with these…
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Posted inSalem

Oregon elected officials shouldn’t make land use decisions

A lot of weird stuff goes on in Salem. We're the home of the state legislature, mental hospital, and penitentiary – each of which is filled with certified crazies. Now the Salem City Council is joining the crowd that makes me think What the @#$%&! ??? when I open the newspaper. Last week the Statesman Journal headline was "Editorial prompts delay on development decision." The not-so-savvy city attorney, Randall Tosh, got it into his head that publishing an editorial or sending an email about a land use issue constitutes ex parte contact (a communication to a decision maker made outside…
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Posted inMeasure 37 Salem

Salem Monthly publishes what Statesman Journal wouldn’t

[Next day update: I'll give the Statesman Journal credit for printing my letter to the editor today, "Well users have property rights too." I'd rather have had 500 words than 200 words to make my case, but thumbs-up to the S-J for giving me this smaller soapbox after they rejected my bigger one.] This is why we need alternative news outlets. So stuff that's too edgy for the mainstream press gets out of the street. In the case of my Measure 37 subdivision opinion piece, out into the blue Salem Monthly boxes sprinkled around downtown. I picked up a copy…
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Posted inSalem

Salem’s Sustainable Fairview looks less Green now

My wife and I were early investors in Sustainable Fairview Associates (SFA), the group that took over the 275 acre former Fairview Training Center property. We had high hopes that a model sustainable community would sprout in Salem—which sorely needs some Green pizzazz to offset this not-so-fair city's deservedly bland image. As I said in my "We check out of Sustainable Fairview" post, about a year ago we sold our shares after a bittersweet and often frustrating relationship with the management of SFA. Nonetheless, we still had high hopes for the 246 remaining acres (one chunk was sold to Pringle…
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