Posted inCurrent affairs

Oregon cougars (and voters) not getting a fair shake

Pop quiz: how many people have been killed by a cougar in Oregon? Is it (a) 126, (b) 18, or (c) none. From all the hysteria over "managing" the cougar population (which really means needlessly killing them), you'd think the answer would be greater than zero. But it isn't. No one has ever been killed by a cougar in Oregon. Many people have been killed by hunters. So if we're really concerned about protecting human life, there should be a thinning of the ranks of hunters, not of cougars. As I've noted before, the Oregon cougar plan is based on…
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Posted inMeasure 37

Oregon legislature finds common ground on Measure 37

Something remarkable happened in Hearing Room B of the Capitol tonight. Twenty eight supporters and opponents of Measure 37, including Laurel and me, testified on legislation proposed by the Land Use Fairness Committee. Every single person disliked Senate Bill 833. At one point a committee member observed, "Finally, we've brought everyone in the room together on Measure 37." As the Oregonian reported, SB 883 would give state and county agencies 540 days to process Measure 37 claims filed between October 15 and December 5 of last year, rather than the current 180 days. SB 833 also would fast-track claims for…
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Posted inSalem

Visualize a Trader Joes in Salem, Oregon

Come on, let's do it: manifest a Trader Joes in Salem. "The Secret" says it's possible through the Law of Attraction. Thoughts become things. Now, I'm skeptical that The Secret really works. But if everyone who reads this post thinks, "There will be a Trader Joes in Salem, Oregon," hopefully your believing will overwhelm my skepticism and a local store will fill the TJ-gap between the Portland area (six) and Eugene (one). [See *** below for another approach.] However, I'll rain on my own parade. Rumor has it that Trader Joes researched Salem and concluded that our semi-fair city wouldn't…
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Posted inMeasure 37

Is freeze on Measure 37 claims dead?

Gov. Kulongoski reportedly has pronounced SB 505 dead. Which means, subdivisions would be free to sprout on irreplaceable Oregon farmland while the legislature takes its time considering Measure 37 reforms. That'd be a disaster. I hope today's Statesman Journal story is a premature burial of SB 505. If I learn more about the fate of the bill, I'll post an update. If anyone can cast more light on the prospects for SB 505, comment away. Here's the brief piece by reporter Steve Law: In comments to reporters on Thursday, Gov. Ted Kulongoski said that his proposal to put a freeze…
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Posted inHome life

My Oregon snowstorm survival story

Thank god, I made it through this morning's storm. Bojack.org's Storm Center 9000 has been ably reporting on how the Portland area has been surviving this wintry mix of rain and snow, with temperatures plunging to the high 30s and winds peaking in the 'teens (Bojack says there was a gust of 14 mph at the airport. Wow!) Here's how it went in south Salem. I woke up, rubbed my eyes, and looked out the window. Whiteout. Everything was blurred together, indistinguishable. Then I remembered to put on my glasses. The storm came into focus. A chill went up my…
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Posted inScience

Global warming doubters deserve to be scorned

Al Gore did a lot for me last night when "An Inconvenient Truth" won an Oscar for best documentary. We'd just finished watching the movie on DVD. He'd already inspired me to do more to fight global warming. But my passion was still on simmer. Hearing Gore repeat nine words from the movie raised the heat of my activism: "It's not a political issue. It's a moral issue." Driving home from the Academy Awards party where I won the trophy for picking the most winners (including documentary feature and original song, thanks to "An Inconvenient Truth"), I turned on the…
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Posted inSalem

Salem’s Paragon Construction lives up to its name

Thank you, Paragon Construction, for helping to heal us. About ten years ago we had our downstairs bathroom remodeled by an incompetent company that just about drove us insane. As I wrote in our 1996 Christmas Letter: Laurel…was able to maintain her equilibrium during a seemingly endless series of delays, mixups, and screwups by using a time tested therapeutic tool for stress reduction: almost daily, she would calmly step into the center of the yet unfinished remodeling project, making a sacred space by pushing aside the myriad tools and pieces of sheet rock that littered the floor, then fold her…
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Posted inMeasure 37

Oregonians in Action spreads lies about Measure 37

An acquaintance of ours just got a phone call from someone who tried to get her hysterical about SB 505, the reasonable bill that would temporarily put Measure 37 subdivisions on hold while fast-tracking claims for single-family homes. She was told that SB 505 is going to stop all development under Measure 37, forever! You can bet that Oregonians in Action (OIA) is behind these lies, because the Land Use Watch blog has called them on their falsities. Which are still being spread. The SB 505 summary tells the bill like it is: Except for written demands for compensation for…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Entertainment

West Point dean condemns “24” torture scenes

Even though I'm a progressive, I love "24." Torture away, Jack, I'll say to myself as my man, counter-terrorism agent Jack Bauer, shoots a bad guy in the knee and screams Talk! But now I'm looking at the show in a new light. The dean of West Point says that "24" isn't just entertainment. It's taken as real by our soldiers around the world. And that's hurting the American military. In a fascinating The New Yorker article, "Whatever it takes, Jane Mayer writes: This past November, U.S. Army Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan, the dean of the United States Military Academy…
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Posted inScience

George Taylor is a loser, not a winner

I couldn't agree more with a beautifully written and thoughtfully argued letter in today's Salem Statesman Journal, "Climate theory not a winner." The fact that I wrote it just adds self-centered luster to this shining rebuttal of the newspaper's ill-considered awarding of a Weekly Winner prize to an OSU climatologist, George Taylor. In my first three sentences, I establish the foundation for demolishing this editorial travesty: On Friday, Feb. 9, George Taylor was a Statesman Journal "winner" for challenging the conventional science about global warming. I assume the editorial board will next applaud those who still believe the Earth is…
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Posted inNeighborhood

The sorrow of sowing invasive deer food

Laurel likes deer. She also dislikes barren slopes filled with dead, decaying blackberry vines. So last year this combined like and dislike led her to sow deer food on part of our property. Fortunately, not a large part. Big enough, though, for us to spend much of yesterday and today pulling up the damn stuff. Laurel thought that it would only come up once. Since this vegetation, a "deer greens" blend of brassica and purple top turnip, isn't very attractive, that was the hope when it sprouted and grew rapidly. The deer liked it. We didn't, so hoped that it'd…
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Posted inScience

Climate models undermine global warming skeptics

Along with the usual blather I hear on right-wing talk shows, there's a fresh falsity being spread over the airwaves: computer climate models are unsophisticated attempts to mirror changes in the Earth's weather and shouldn't be trusted. This isn't true. So don't believe global warming skeptics like George Taylor, who isn't Oregon's state climatologist but likes to pretend that he is. I heard Taylor spout his uninformed criticisms of climate models on KPAM's Victoria Taft show. Since those models show both that global climate change is going to be an increasingly serious problem, and that humans are responsible for a…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

OSU stiffs Kulongoski on “state climatologist” title request

A week ago Oregon's governor, Ted Kulongoski, made a reasonable request of Oregon State University: stop calling George Taylor the state climatologist, since no such position exists. Taylor uses that title because he took over many of the duties the actual state climatologist used to perform before the position was abolished. That's like saying you're married to a divorced woman because you're living with her and otherwise filling the role of the spouse she used to have. Legally, you're not. In the eyes of the world, you're not. But OSU won't relinquish the fiction that George Taylor speaks for the…
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Posted inWriting/Weblogs

Bloggers, you’ll love Word 2007

Oh, my god, I'm in love. At first blog post. I just installed Word 2007, which I bought at Amazon for a reasonable $90 (upgrade price). Right away I wanted to see if the blog publishing feature worked as promised. It did. Appropriately, my first Word 2007 post was about Shakira's "Hips don't lie" Grammy performance last night. She's beautiful. So is Word's new blogging capability. I write my posts in Word. I don't like to use TypePad's online editor. One glitch and all your writing can disappear. Plus, I like to have a backup of posts on my laptop.…
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Posted inUncategorized

Shakira shakes at 2007 Grammys

Ah, a great way to renew the day. If, like me, you missed last night's Grammy Awards show, and saw mention of Shakira performing "Hips don't lie" in the newspaper, and thought damn, I wish I'd seen her, there's no need to fret. Thanks to Lelo in Nopo, I found a video of her singing and hip-shaking at ShakiraMedia. Enjoy. I sure did.
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Posted inCurrent affairs Science

Relax, right-wingers: George Taylor isn’t being fired

When the person who calls himself the Oregon state climatologist is compared to Galileo, it’s obvious that right-wing paranoia has gone over the edge. The headline of today’s Oregonian story (“To governor, Oregon has no ‘climatologist’”) might lead conservative conspiracy theorists to believe that Gov. Kulongoski has ordered George Taylor to disappear into the dungeon where he keeps state employees who disagree with his policy on global warming. Actually, the truth is much milder. Kulongoski wants Taylor to stop using the title of “state climatologist” because there is no such position in state government. That’s a fact. George Taylor isn’t…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Science

Facts about George Taylor and the “state climatologist”

Here, finally, are some solid facts about the Oregon state climatologist position that supposedly is occupied by George Taylor, who minimizes both global warming and the impact humans are having on global climate change. For well over a week I’ve been waiting for answers from the Oregon State University (OSU) News and Communication Office to my questions about Taylor and the “state climatologist” title that he holds. Patience pays off. I just got a couple of emails from Mark Floyd. At the end of this post you’ll find, verbatim, the first message he sent me. After I read it, I…
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Posted inMeasure 37

Measure 37 shouldn’t be a guarantee to get rich

It’s often said that Measure 37 pits neighbor against neighbor. True. But this ill-considered effort to trash Oregon’s land use laws also pits testifier against testifier. I learned that yesterday afternoon as I fought my way through a crowd of people trying to sign up to speak before the Joint Committee on Land Use Fairness. Fortunately, I found myself standing behind a diminutive friend, Frances Chapple, who makes up in assertiveness what she lacks in stature. She helped clear the way for me to the sign up sheet. I got on the first page and waited for my two minutes…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Leave God out of the Super Bowl

Before I write this post, I want to thank the holy Tao for inspiring me. There’s nothing of me in what I’m about to say—it’s all Tao. Without you, the everlasting source of my yin-ness and yang-ness, I wouldn’t have been able to blog about God and the Super Bowl. If you like this sort of praise be! sentimentality, you must have loved how the Indianapolis Colts’ coach and owner brought God into their post-game remarks. Driving around tonight I heard right-wing talk show host John Gibson ranting about the progressives’ distaste for such God talk. Gibson claimed that the…
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Posted inHome life

Death on a power pole

You just never know what the day will bring. Especially if you’re a squirrel. Who must have heard our front door open,and sensed a dog begin to come out. Who made a fatal choice: to run up a power pole instead of an oak tree. Life. Death. Not much separates them. One moment you’re frisky and bushy-tailed. The next instant you’re popping, crackling, and smoking on top of a power pole. Flaming too. Or maybe it was the pole that was briefly on fire. Regardless, it was exciting enough to warrant calling 911. I was told that if a power…
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