Posted inCurrent affairs

Oregon is not a high tax state

Repeat after me, conservative politicians and right wing talk show hosts: “Oregon is not a high tax state.” Again: “Oregon is not a high tax state.” Good. Now say it on your own. Over and over. And don’t let me hear you say the opposite this election year, because it isn’t true. Yesterday I didn’t like writing checks and sending them off to the federal and state governments. But when I licked the envelope that went to the Oregon Department of Revenue it made me feel better to know that Oregon ranks 36th out of the 50 states in state…
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Posted inHome life Philosophy

On Easter, we worshipped at the altar of remodeling

We didn’t have to leave our house to have a holy experience this Easter. Laurel and I spend the morning tidying up the newly tiled “Dog Room.” Some people would call such an area the “Family Room,” but as we revealed in one of our Christmas letters, our life revolves around the original Wonder Pet. At night Serena sleeps in her dog crate. Or on the futon. Her choice. Now, if she has to urgently pee or poop the mess will be on tile rather than carpet. That actually was a prime consideration in our plan for remodeling the Dog…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Oregon cougar plan a slap in the face to voters

In 1994 Oregonians passed Measure 18. It forbids sport hunters from using dogs to track and kill cougars. Yesterday the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission passed a plan that will allow federal hunters to use dogs to track and kill cougars. Not problem cougars that are threatening people or killing livestock. No, potential problem cougars. Cougars that are just hanging out, not bothering anybody. To me that sure sounds like killing cougars for sport. Slap! How does it feel, Oregon voters, to have a state agency say to you, “Thanks for telling us how you wanted cougars to be managed.…
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Posted inEntertainment

It’s obvious who should replace Rumsfeld

CNN reported today that retired Maj. Gen. John Batiste has called for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation, saying: We need a leader who understands team work, a leader who knows how to build teams, a leader that does it without intimidation. It’s obvious who should replace Rumsfeld: the marvelous troika of Ling, Ming-Ming, and Tuck. “What’s gonna work? Teamwork!” Talk about effective utilization of minimal forces. I've watched quite a few episodes, and these three little creatures are always fully capable of dealing with complex situations involving baby animals in trouble. In five minutes, max. They'll work, if not for…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Home life Tango/Dance

The Tao of Tango explains why politicians stumble

Life is a dance. I’ve just finished reading a little book, “The Tao of Tango,” that has some good insights about why we stumble. Both Taoism and Tango are all about yin and yang, following and leading, female and male energies. When these dualities aren’t balanced, missteps occur. Harmony goes down the drain. Shit happens. On our little personal dance floor of life, these stumblings are of little consequence except to us and those few with whom we come in contact. But when you’re a political leader, falling over your feet can bring a whole nation to its knees. Or…
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Posted inScience

Bad week for creationists and intelligent designers

Evolution was on the march last week, crushing the creationist crazies and intelligent design dogmatists. Will they now give up their anti-science jihad? Not likely. Unfounded religious beliefs are addictive, like other drugs. They relieve the anxiety that comes from living in a complex, mysterious, uncertain world. When the unknown can be banished with the wave of a faith-filled hand, that’s damn appealing. It's wrong. But still appealing. Myself, I prefer reality. And that’s what evolution is: real. More evidence of this has arrived via two breakthroughs: a transitional fossil that shows how fish evolved into land animals has been…
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Posted inHome life

Baby carrot community shaken to roots

Nice headline, if I may say so myself. Which, since this is my blog, I am. I should clarify, though, that by “community” I basically mean “me.” Nonetheless, this is a big story for baby carrot crunchers: the King of Baby Carrots, Robert Grimm, died recently. At age 54. Of a heart attack. When I saw this in TIME’s “Milestones” section I almost choked. On a baby carrot. I eat a lot of baby carrots. My wife makes me. At the age of 57 I still need babying. “This is why,” Laurel tells me, “married men live longer than single…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Blowing off a Democratic fundraiser

Sorry, guy, when you phoned this afternoon and asked for a donation to the Democratic cause you caught me at a testy time. That’s why I ranted, “A pox on both the parties! More and more I’m moving to the center. Independents rule!” I understand why you hung up on me so quickly. You were looking for my Democratic wife and assumed that I was a kindred political spirit. Which, usually I am. But not to the extent of donating to the Demowussycratic Party. I’ll leave that to Laurel. I told the fundraiser that the Democrats are better than the…
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Posted inEntertainment

“Big Love” and semen scraping dragonflies

Laurel and I have become fans of “Big Love,” the HBO series about a Salt Lake City polygamist and his three wives. From my male perspective, the most interesting aspect of Big Love is the central question asked on the show’s web site: “Think having three wives is a dream come true?” We’re an episode behind in our watching, but I’ve seen enough of Bill’s life with mature first wife Barbara, shopaholic second wife Nicki, and youthful sexpot Margene to be pretty certain of my answer. “No.” Bill has triple the sexual variety of the typical husband. However, he also…
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Posted inScience Sustainability

Global warming is real. Debate over.

If you have any doubts that global warming is real, read the April 3 TIME magazine cover story and “Be Worried, Be Very Worried.” The evidence is in. The debate is over. Global warming is happening. Humans are the major cause of it. And we’re heading for disaster. Yes, there are still global warming deniers like Oregon climatologist George Taylor. But he’s been outed by Willamette Week and I haven’t heard any “global warming is a myth” craziness from George lately. Maybe he’s turned to arguing that creationism and intelligent design are fact, while evolution is fiction. Or that the…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Immigration reform brings strange days

Strange political days have dawned when I turn on my car radio, hear arch-conservative Michael Savage ranting about how awful it would be to give amnesty to twelve million illegal aliens, and say to myself, Right on, Michael! Like I’ve said before, the right is right on immigration reform. And by “right,” I mean the rightest of the right. Not the Arlen Specter sort of Senate moderates, but the fire breathing House Republicans like Dana Rohrabacher who said people should be able to “smell the foul odor that’s coming out of the U.S. Senate.” It is indeed foul when Democrats…
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Posted inMeasure 37

Why Measure 37 doesn’t make sense

I realize that many Oregonians don’t want to be bothered with the details of why sound land use planning benefits everybody, and why Measure 37 is a disaster. I’ll keep things simple. Let’s talk lemonade stands. It’s a hot summer. Every kid on the block gets the bright idea, “I’ll set up a lemonade stand on our lawn next to the sidewalk.” They all go to their parents for permission. The block is full of naysayers. “No way, kid. Find something else to do.” Except for one accommodating couple: “Sure, honey. It’s fine with us if you sell lemonade.” The…
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Posted inPhilosophy

Zen and the Final Four

Zen moments. That’s what I like the best about sports events. How they marvelously capture some of the deepest truths of life in living, breathing motion right there on my television screen. Consider the men’s NCAA basketball tournament. Images from a couple of last week’s games are as fresh in my mind as if they had just happened. Take Gonzaga vs. UCLA in the “Sweet Sixteen” round. Final score: Gonzaga 71, UCLA 73. A heartbreaker. I wanted Gonzaga to win. Badly. Mostly because UCLA already has won too damn many national championships. Also, I couldn’t help but root for Gonzaga…
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Posted inHome life

Victory declared in the War on Blackberries

I’m pleased to report that, to coin a phrase, major combat operations in the HinesLand blackberry war ended today. Victory is ours! Well, mine, since my wife handles the mopping up and reconstruction duties, while I take care of the heavy duty combat. My last dispatch from the War on Blackberries was November 2004. In that communiqué I said, “We will not rest until every last offshoot of the Himalayan Blackberry evil-doers has been brought to justice.” Indeed, we, by which I mean me, haven’t. After the battlefield shifted to our newly-acquired five acres, as reported in “We buy some…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Bush national unity government hypocrisy

Of all the B.S. that comes out of the Bush administration’s collective mouth, there’s one phrase that deserves the Ultimate Heaping Pile of Crap Award: “Iraq must form a national unity government that governs from the center.” Good god. This comes from a president who has been one of the most divisive in U.S. history. He was elected in 2000 by the narrowest of margins, one Supreme Court vote. He was re-elected in 2004 because of 60,000 votes in Ohio that went his way. The Shiites in Iraq, who number about 60% of the population, have a much more valid…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Debra Lafave doesn’t deserve jail time

Let’s get real. Men and women are different. Boys and girls are different. When Debra Lafave was 23 she had sex with a 14 year old boy who was her student. Big deal. She should get a slap on the wrist, not jail time. Which is pretty much what happened. Today the remaining sex charges against Lafave were dropped, leaving her subject just to three years of house arrest and seven years of probation. Good. There’s a lot of people (translation: “guys”) in the blogosphere who think she deserves a medal. I wouldn’t go that far, but when this 57-year-old…
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Posted inSalem

L.A. Bratz and Salem Sherpas

The current issue of The New Yorker has a to die for article about Los Angeles shopping and fashion. By “to die for,” I mean that I’d sell my soul to the Literary Devil if I could write as well as Patricia Marx, author of “To Shop and Drive in L.A.” She captures the L.A. scene beautifully. My daughter and her husband live in Hollywood, so I have a passing familiarity with the vibrant southern Cal lifestyle that is poles apart from what passes for life and style here in staid Salem, Oregon (see my “Wide-Eyed on Rodeo Drive”). I…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Blumenauer’s Iraq plan makes great sense

Driving home today, I heard Earl Blumenauer interviewed by Tom Parker on Portland’s KPAM. Congressman Blumenauer described his plan to phase U.S. forces out of Iraq. I don’t see how any rational person could disagree with it (but naturally Parker, a conservative, did). Blumenauer’s bill has the unfortunate title of “First Step to Redeployment Act of 2006.” I wish Democrats would learn the value of pithy evocative phrases, which Rove and company use so well. Anyway, the title is the most awkward aspect of Blumenauer’s plan, the basics of which he described simply and clearly: The Iraqi people don’t want…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Democrats need to grow some balls

I’m not usually a prayerful sort of guy, but I’m falling on my knees for this entreaty: “O blessed Tao, dear God, compassionate Buddha, send us some Democrats with balls. Big ones. Clanging ones. Hurry!”

It was painful, and also hilarious, to watch the Daily Show last night. Paul Hackett, the Iraq war veteran who ran for the House in a solidly Republican district and almost defeated Jean Schmidt in an August 2005 special election, was featured. Hackett has balls.

Thus naturally he was unceremoniously dumped by the Democrats after he announced that he’d challenge incumbent Ohio Senator Mike DeWine. The Daily Show skewered Dem ballslessness by contrasting Hackett’s blunt straight talk with the circumlocutions of a pollster who blathered on about all the reasons Hackett wouldn’t be the best candidate.

I can’t stand it any more, this Democratic reluctance to stand up for anything other than being Republican-lite. A Daily Kos rant I ran across today, “Being Liberal Means Having Balls,” captures my disgust perfectly. I too am ready to vote for anyone with a progressive leaning who has some big ones.

If that means voting for an Independent like Ben Westlund, who’s running for Oregon governor, so be it. If that means voting for a Green party candidate, so be it. If the Democrats aren’t going to run on a ballsy platform—saying it like it is and sticking to their guns—then screw them. They deserve to lose.

As the Daily Show pointed out, that’s just what the Democrats have been doing: losing. Yet their reaction to being a powerless political party is to act even more powerless. They seem to believe that if they do nothing, Bush and the Republicans will self-destruct.

That’s delusional. Karl Rove and company are too smart to let that happen. They’ll pull some balls out of the bag before November and smash the Dems over the head with them. Again.

It’s like Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown. Grab the political football, Dems, and kick it as hard as you can. Don’t worry about rules, goalposts, strategy, or playing nice. Just kick the damn thing! For once.

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd sounds much the same theme in “What’s Better? His Empty Suit or Her Baggage?” I’ll include it as a continuation to this post for those who don’t belong to Times Select.

I don’t know much about Barack Obama, but on the basis on Dowd’s column I’m willing to place him in the lightly populated “Democrats with balls” group. Hillary Clinton? Nope. She’s ballless. And not because she’s a woman—these sorts of balls aren’t physical.

Like so many Democrats, Clinton moves in whatever direction she senses the political winds are blowing, not where her own moral compass tells her to go. To do that, she’d need balls.

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Posted inHumor

The Portland “boom!” An alien cover-up?

Saturday night, around nine pm, a mysterious loud boom was heard in the Portland area. Laurel and I happened to be at a friend’s condo in Sellwood at the time. All five of us in the room were startled by the sound. The condo owner, Mark, went out on the patio and listened for more booms. I thought it might be an earthquake. So did Laurel. But Channel 2 news says the boom wasn’t caused by an earthquake. Or Mount St. Helens. Or, likely, thunder. The KATU story theorizes that a meteor or military jet was the most probable cause…
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