Posted inHealth Salem

Dr. Vinay Prasad zaps fellow physicians at provocative Salem City Club talk

"Maybe 40% of what doctors do is mistaken." That was one of the first of many OMG! zingers medical provocateur Vinay Prasad, MD MPH, flung at us at today's Salem City Club presentation, rather drily titled Evidence Based Medicine: Weighing the Evidence for Effective Health Care. But not one moment of his talk was boring. In fact, it was one of the most interesting and entertaining City Club talks I've experienced. And I've been to many of them. Prasad is a great speaker: funny, caustic, informed, blunt, spontaneous. I found what appears to be a very close version of his…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Salem

2019 Salem Women’s March is January 19 on Capitol Mall

People of Salem and surrounding areas, here's my strong advice for what you should do from 11 am to 3 pm on Saturday, January 19. Attend the 2019 Salem Women's March on the Capitol Mall.  My wife was an organizer of the first 2017 Salem Women's March. We loved it.  In 2018 we went to the rather weirdly named Salem Womxn's March. We loved it also. (See below for the photo/video web pages I made of the events.) Here's how the 2019 Women's March is described on a Facebook event posting: The Third annual Women's March in Salem is scheduled.…
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Posted inSalem

South Salem grocery store shopping carts rated

First off, please resist the temptation to think, This blogger guy has too much time on his hands. That thought denigrates the important subject of this post -- how I feel about the shopping carts at three stores in south Salem (Oregon version, not to be confused with the copycat Salem in Massachusetts; sure, the Massachusetts Salem came first historically, but we Oregonians consider ourselves superior to every other state because... well, just because). Yes, there are more important issues in the world. But I'm the designated weekly grocery shopper in our two-person household, our dog being incapable, or unwilling,…
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Posted inSalem

Salem Weekly closes down. Sad day for our town.

Today, being a subscriber to Salem Weekly, I got a letter from our alternative newspaper that said the paper is being closed down, effectively immediately. I'll share my thoughts about this following the letter. Download Salem Weekly letter I feel a sense of loss, yet also thankfulness. A.P. Walther, who I assume wrote this letter, has been the tireless force that's kept Salem Weekly up and running since its birth in April 2003 as a monthly. Wikipedia describes the origins of the paper. I remember with fondness the Coffee House Cafe, a marvelously funky and welcoming place. The Salem Monthly traces…
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Posted inSalem Sustainability

In a warming world, we’re all responsible for Hurricane Florence

Living as I do on the West Coast, in Oregon to be exact, it's tempting for me to be thankful that we don't get nasty hurricanes like Florence, which has dumped an astounding amount of rain on North Carolina and neighboring states, and killed 11 people so far. Florence already has set rainfall records and left tens of thousands of people in shelters and more than 1 million homes without power. Officials confirmed at least 11 deaths, including one Saturday in South Carolina. But Gov. Roy Cooper (D) and other officials repeatedly warned Saturday that although people might think the worst…
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Posted inEntertainment Salem

Photos of 2018 Salem Art Fair & Festival

I hugely enjoyed today's Salem Art Fair visit.  Here's photos, and commentary, of what caught my eye (and also my stomach) this afternoon. I share photos of my Art Fair purchase, a coffee mug with an unusual bumpy glaze. The Art Fair is a great $5 bargain, especially since this also pays for entry to evening entertainment. I'm probably returning tomorrow.
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Posted inSalem

Photos of what caught our eye at the 2018 Salem Tour of Homes

Yesterday Laurel and I visited the 2018 Salem Tour of Homes. Here's photos of what appealed to us when we visited seven of the more expensive homes in south Salem.  As much as we enjoyed the "eye-candy" of various architectural features, I end the Adobe Spark web page with these thoughts: So in the end, as happens every year we visit a Tour of Homes, we return home -- our minds filled with visions of what we'd like to have in our house, but also happy to know that what we do have has helped make us happy for the past…
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Posted inSalem Strange Up Salem

Universe to Salem: “When in doubt, let it out!”

I rarely channel the Universe, because I'm usually dubious that it has a message for me, or anyone else. But the recent toxic algae water crisis here in Salem must have caused my cosmic connection to become more finely-tuned, since I'm picking up a communication for our city from the Universe that's coming in loud and clear. When in doubt, let it out! After all, the numero uno problem with how the folks at City Hall handled the cyanotoxin water tests was their mistaken decision to keep the initial positive test results to themselves, instead of immediately telling the public,…
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Posted inEntertainment Salem

Shout! is a hugely enjoyable Enlightened Theatrics musical

Whether or not you were there in the 60's and early 70's (I was) to groove to tunes such as "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'" and "Son of a Preacher Man," you'll love Enlightened Theatrics' Shout! The Mod Musical at the Grand Theatre in downtown Salem.  I saw Shout! last night at a preview performance where the five women who sing, dance, and act with marvelous professionalism came back on stage after the show in street clothes to respond to questions from the audience, along with other members of the production. What blew my mind further, which was already…
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Posted inHome life Salem

Why it’s so tough for older folks like us to leave their beloved country home

My wife and I moved to our house on five non-easy-care acres in rural south Salem way back in 1990. We were about forty then. The couple we bought the house from were in their mid-60's.  When we asked them why they were selling, they said "It just has gotten to be too much for us to maintain." Well, we're now pushing 70. (I'm pushing harder than my wife, but she's not far behind.) And a while back we bought the empty lot next door, so now we have ten acres to maintain. So why aren't we moving to a…
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Posted inSalem

Photos of cherry blossoms on Salem’s capitol mall

It was a beautiful day in the neighborhood... of the cherry blossoms on the Capitol mall. Lots of people were enjoying the blooming profusion this afternoon along with me, my wife Laurel, and our dog, ZuZu. Here's photos of our excursion, viewable by clicking on the image below. As I say in this Adobe Spark web page, ""This was the first time I'd photographed cherry blossoms. What I learned is that just when I began to think that one bunch of blossoms looks like all the rest, a change of perspective showed me that this wasn't true.
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Posted inEntertainment Salem

Enlightened Theatrics continues to knock productions out of the Acting Park

In case you aren't a baseball fan, the title of this blog post is a big thumbs-up to the quality of the plays and musicals the Enlightened Theatrics folks have been gifting Salem through their Grand Theatre productions. I feel bad that my wife and I went to see their most recent play, The Foreigner, only last night -- which was the next to last performance, the last being a matinee this afternoon. So my praise of the cast is intended to help spur people to go see the next Enlightened Theatrics productions, as shown above.  The highest praise I…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Salem

Bridging our Divide meeting was a mind-opening experience

I'm a left-leaning atheist. Last night I had pleasant interactions with a Christian conservative. That was the goal of the Bridging Our Divide meeting at the IKE Box: to get people to listen to those with differing political views with empathy, respect, open-mindedness. Here's part of how the Bridging Our Divide web site describes their mission (they're based in Portland, but hold meetings around the country): Bridging Our Divide is working to promote constructive dialogue across political and ideological divides by creating forums for conversation.   Our work is focused on hosting Community Dialogue Events and Common Ground Debates in various…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Salem

2017 Salem Women’s March in words, photos, videos

Wow, in the course of writing about the 2018 Salem Women's March, which looks like it will be a Womxn's March for reasons I'm unable to fully fathom, I just realized that I never put up a blog post about the 2017 Women's March.I must have been so eager to share the Adobe Spark page I made of that event -- words, photos, videos -- on Facebook, that I forgot to do the same in a blog post.  So... enjoy. It's fitting that I'm doing this on Christmas day, since the 2017 Women's March was a huge gift to Salem.…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Salem

“Intersectionality” can be dangerous left-wing tribalism

I'm a liberal. Which is why I support liberalism. Meaning, in this context, open-minded discourse about the nature of reality where all views are welcomed, so long as they're backed up by reason and facts.  The interesting thing is that liberals can act in illiberal ways. Of course, so can conservatives. But it's more shocking and surprising when liberals try to shut down discussion of certain topics because they've bought into a dangerous tribalism that views one side, their side, as possessing all goodness and truth, and the other side as being all bad and wrong. Recently I had a…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Salem

Everybody should be able to talk about anything (just about)

We live in strange times. They got a bit stranger for me yesterday, after I wrote a post on my Salem Political Snark blog, "Salem should have another Women's March, not a Womxn's March." Among other things, I talked about how using Womxn rather than Women didn't seem to be a wise idea, especially since the 2017 Salem Women's March was a huge success, and people thinking of attending the 2018 event would be confused by a word that is both unpronounceable and unfamiliar. I said: My biggest concern, though, is how featuring "Womxn" in the name of the event…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Salem

“Mingling of the Tribes” effort could help to heal divisiveness in Salem

I don't know if this is a great idea, a crazy idea, a great crazy idea, or some other variety of idea (such as, worthless). I just keep envisioning the notion of a citywide Mingling of the Tribes effort here in Salem that would bring people together in these divisive times to better understand our differences and foster respectful communication, while having fun in the process -- without trying to force agreements. Back in March I took my first blog post crack at this idea in "Salem should have an annual political roast: 'A Mingling of the Tribes.'" Nationally, politics is…
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Posted inSalem

Breaking news about Salem “Watergate” scandal

YES, SALEM, OREGON HAS ITS OWN "WATERGATE" SCANDAL. City staff aren't adequately watering downtown hanging baskets. So says my informant, who would go nameless if I didn't say it was Carole Smith, a downtown business owner and resident. I have broken this story in hopes that a Floral Pulitzer Prize will be mine. (Well, mine and Carole's.) Click below to view our exposé. Be warned: some of the photos are graphic, showing horribly mistreated vegetation.
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Posted inEntertainment Salem

Next Fall is a great Enlightened Theatrics play. Go see it!

Main point of this review: There's five days left to see Enlightened Theatrics' current production, the play Next Fall. Get your tickets. Now. The last shows are Wednesday-Sunday, November 8-12. My wife and I loved Next Fall -- one of the most enjoyable plays we've ever seen. There's even a two-for-one ticket offer that likely still holds: Next Fall is about a gay couple who bicker, argue, make up, break apart, drive each other crazy, help each other be sane, cry, laugh, and otherwise display all the strengths and weaknesses of every other long-term committed couple, homosexual, heterosexual, whateversexual. Having…
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