Posted inCurrent affairs

Election night in Oregon — off to a Marion Co. Dems party

I haven't been to many election night get-togethers in my life. Here comes another one. Laurel and I are about to leave for the Marion County Democratic Party, um, party at the Grand Ballroom in downtown Salem. We relished a Measure 49 victory back in 2007 there. Hopefully tonight will bring similarly good progressive electoral news.But whether or not Chuck Bennett wins the race for Salem Mayor, and Measure 24-292 passes (an effort to reform the county charter that would enlarge the Board of Commissioners from three to five, make the members non-partisan, and elect them by district), I'll be…
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Posted inMiscellany

Check out new Apture site/search bar

You'll see an Apture site bar appear when you scroll down the page now. Try it out -- pretty cool. Highlight a word or words. Click on "search." You'll get results from my blogs, Wikipedia, Google, You Tube, Amazon, and more. Web sites found via a search can be browsed from within this blog if you're using Safari or Chrome. Close the browsing window by clicking the "x" and return to the post you were reading. You can share a post via Facebook, Twitter, or email by clicking on the icons. Enjoy.
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Posted inSalem

Salem’s Clockworks Cafe stimulates my Steampunk soul

And I didn't even know I had one! A Steampunk soul, that is. But I must, since I enjoyed my day-after-grand-opening visit (Saturday) to Salem's newest coffeehouse -- Clockworks Cafe and Cultural Center, which is in the old Blue Pepper location on Commercial Street. Steampunk, for all of those old fogies who aren't as hip to what's happening as this 61 year old is (hey, I rode my big Burgman 650 scooter to the cafe, way trendy), has something to do with mixing old and new. OK, I'm vague as to what it is. But I was familiar enough with the…
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Posted inSustainability

Best argument for acting fast on climate change

Spring has finally sprung here in Oregon. It's warm and sunny. Which reminded me -- after a wintry focus on health care reform -- that Congress now has to get serious about passing climate change legislation. To fire up my enthusiasm for saving humankind from catastrophe, this morning I reached into the on deck section of my bookcase for a book that I bought last year but hadn't started to read yet.Love it! I'm already four chapters into Greg Craven's "What's the Worst That Could Happen?" (short answer: a freaking lot) Craven is a high school teacher at Central High…
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Posted inPhilosophy

Dog and cat videos show humans how to live

We humans are animals. That's a fact. Biologically, we're members of the Kingdom Animalia. Dogs and cats are our kissing cousins (in a sense).Today I came across two You Tube videos featuring a dog and a cat that made me realize how much other animals have to teach us. Since for most of my life I've shared a home with dogs and/or cats, I already knew this. But these videos had a special message for me -- maybe because I'm becoming increasingly attracted to wordless wisdom, the lingua franca of pets and us.Last night my wife said she'd read about…
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Posted inRecreation Sustainability

Camp Sherman forest thinning project — my photo tour

I felt some trepidation when my wife and I saw this sign as we got to Camp Sherman (central Oregon) last weekend. We're part owners of a cabin along the Metolius River that sits on leased Forest Service land. Forest fires are an ever-present danger. Several have burnt large acreages in the Camp Sherman, Black Butte Ranch, and Sisters areas in recent years. Wildfires used to naturally control the density of vegetation, but now that humans control fires, the forests are way overgrown. We know this. But when we heard rumbling early Monday morning and went out to the edge…
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Posted inPhilosophy

Stepping from hard pavement onto soft earth

Every day the dog and I take a evening walk. Sometimes it's a two-mile loop on paved roads in our rural neighborhood. Other times we head off on paths on our property that lead to a trail around a lake.I'm always struck by how different it feels to take even a single step on hard asphalt or concrete, compared to walking on much softer dirt or grass. I'm jarred by the one, relaxed by the other.Nature is, well, natural. So rather paradoxically, the relaxation I'm talking about is marked by an acute alertness, just as the jarring I feel as…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

If Newsweek goes under, I’ll be bummed

I swing both ways. I subscribe to both remaining weekly news magazines, TIME and Newsweek. And I'm an avid consumer of online news. Well, let's make me a tripartite swinger, because I also read two newspapers every day, the Salem Statesman Journal and the Portland Oregonian. I find this to be a balanced news diet, the weeklies being an important part of my nutrition.Now Newsweek is up for sale. It, along with TIME, may not survive. Call me old-fashioned (I still read books made of paper), but I find this highly disturbing. Newsweek necessarily has transformed itself from a communicator…
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Posted inHumor Web/Tech

Ellen DeGeneres iPhone parody touches on the truth

Apple officials are upset with Ellen DeGeneres for her all-too-true parody of an iPhone commercial, which shows that as easy as it is to use, it isn't that easy.The Apple guys need to get a humor implant. My wife and I each have iPhones and we frequently experience the sort of stuff DeGeneres does. Laugh on.
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Posted inCurrent affairs Salem

Chuck Adams likely behind deceptive Measure 24-292 letter

Today the leading political blog in our great state, Blue Oregon, published a post that I submitted last night: "GOP flack Chuck Adams sleazes up Marion County charter change campaign."I'm pretty proud of sleazes up. Already Google has the Blue Oregon post as the first hit for this term, which hopefully will go viral as an action word for what sleazes do.It came to me in an intuitive flash as I was trying to think of a way to describe the highly deceptive letter that was signed by Walt Beglau (Marion County District Attorney) and mailed to county voters last…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Salem

Marion County District Attorney Walt Beglau skates on thin ethical ice

Whether it passes or fails, a Marion County citizen initiative which got on the May ballot after almost 6,000 citizens signed petitions to improve county government, has served one important purpose:We've learned how far the existing power structure in Marion County is willing to stretch ethical bounds in order to keep the political system running along in its dysfunctional special-interest-favoring way.A few weeks ago a neighbor gave me a "No on Measure 24-292" letter that had been sent out by two Salem Chamber of Commerce bigwigs: CEO Mike McLaran and board member Dick Withnell, who owns several car dealerships. It…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Wow! Obama must read my blog.

Coincidence? Or something more...wonderful. I choose the more, that President Obama reads my blog and uses my words to inspire the American public. Check out the evidence:Last night, I wrote a post called "Gulf oil spill shows why government is important." I said:But hopefully people will take away a larger -- and marvelously simple -- message from this mess: government is us. The collective "we care" side of us.Today, President Obama gave a speech at the University of Michigan on the theme of defending government. He said:President Barack Obama took aim Saturday at the angry rhetoric of those who denigrate…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Gulf oil spill shows why government is important

Ah, delicious irony. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal now is begging for government assistance as the BP oil spill threatens his state's fisheries, shipping, tourism, and coastal environment. This is the same guy who said this in response to a speech Obama gave to a joint session of Congress:We place our hope in you, the American people. In the end, it comes down to an honest and fundamental disagreement about the proper role of government. We oppose the National Democratic view that says the way to strengthen our country is to increase dependence on government. We believe the way to strengthen…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Salem

Marion County commissioner plays the “you lie!” card

Republicans are strangely fond of calling people they disagree with liars. I say "strangely," because Republican politicians certainly are as prone to lying as their more progressive counterparts.Yet rather than debate the merits of a policy issue, their tendency is to resort to ad hominem name-calling -- which fans the flames of our already incendiary public discourse.Today, in a front page story, the Statesman Journal reported that Marion County (Oregon) commissioner Sam Brentano considers the people who are backing citizen initiative 24-292 to be "liars."Brentano and the two other commissioners, Janet Carlson and Patti Milne, have spoken against the home…
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Posted inWeb/Tech

How to fix your iPhone wi-fi location

I love my iPhone. But it bugs me when I'm at home and I fire up some cool app, like Siri, which needs to know my current location to function correctly, and it thinks I'm many miles away -- down in Albany, Oregon -- rather than where I actually am, rural south Salem.A bit of Googling shows that my wi-fi router apparently is being mislocated. Turning wi-fi off results in accurate mapping, but our AT&T signal is crappy at our house. So now my location-based iPhone app won't work quickly or reliably.Here's a fix, which I learned about here.(1) Go…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Boycott Arizona and all the other crazy states

We need to boycott crazy states. "Crazy" admittedly is in the eye of the beholder. But since this blog reflects my view of the world, I'm calling the crazy shots:Arizona, because it just passed a "show me your papers" anti-immigration law that even a Kansas editorial board called unworkable, likely unconstitutional, and clearly inhumane.Kansas (sorry, editorial board), because the Board of Education tried to introduce intelligent design into the state's curriculum. Plus side: this brought us the Flying Spaghetti Monster theory of creation.Texas, because its equally wacky Board of Education has rewritten history to suit the political leanings of its…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Health

Abortion laws show Oklahoma Republicans hate freedom

What happened to Republicans standing tall for defending our "land of the free"? We have a national election in 2008, Obama is freely elected, and now right-wingers are fond of calling him a tyrant.Huh? A tyrant is someone who takes control by his own means, not under constitutional power. Which precisely describes attempts in the not-so-great state of Oklahoma to take away the constitutional freedoms of pregnant women. Reading our local newspaper this morning, my wife called out to me, "This is disgusting. You're not going to believe what's going on in Oklahoma." Well, I ended up believing it. But…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Salem

Taxes and Marion County charter change: no worries

Opponents of Measure 24-292, the Marion County (Oregon) charter change, have been using scare tactics in an effort to preserve the county government status quo. I guess they think government is working so wonderfully, we, the people, shouldn't try to improve it. Well, polls show that most citizens want more control over government. They're tired of politicians working for special interests, rather than the general good.One of the be scared! approaches of some No on 24-292 folks is to claim that the Measure will lead to increased taxes. On page 27 of the Marion County Voter Pamphlet that came in…
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Posted inHome life

I’m strangely proud of my Starbucks gold card

This is my Starbucks gold card. I haul it out of my wallet and show it to people whenever it seems appropriate. And also, when it isn't.On the front it says: "Brian Hines  Cardholder since 2008"Wow! That's two years ago. I deserve this prestigious card! Well, semi-prestigious, considering all I did to get it was use my old Starbucks rewards card 30 times.At least that's how I believe it came into my adoring hands. Starbucks says so, thus it must be true. I'm a cult member. I've even joined the Starbucks Passion Panel. What that means is, periodically Starbucks emails me…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Salem

Marion County charter change: desperation breeds deception

Wow! When ordinary people try to make the government that their taxes pay for work better, the big money guys who profit from the status quo get frantic.In the Salem Statesman Journal today there was another bunch of desperate untruths from Dick Withnell, a Salem Chamber of Commerce board member -- adding to the stack in a letter that I debunked recently.The business interests opposing improvements to county government must be super-scared of Measure 24-292, a citizen initiative to be voted on in May that would enlarge the Board of Commissioners from three to five members and elect commissioners by…
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