Posted inDogs Home life

Dog kissing: the slobbery truth

Who says the passion has to go when people are in their mid 50s? Why, every evening around midnight there are two bodies entwined on the rug in our family room. The kissing is noisy and uninhibited; the pillow talk sweet and sentimental. “Who’s got the cutest little tummy in the whole world? You!...Who’s my special sweetums? You!” I never get tired of hearing my wife coo these words, which are regularly interrupted by the sound of lips enthusiastically pressing against soft flesh. This raw display of affection usually takes place while I’m brushing my teeth in a nearby bathroom.…
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Posted inMeasure 37

Measure 37 struck down

O Joy! We will be doing some celebrating tonight. Judge Mary James has ruled that Measure 37 is unconstitutional. You can bet that there will be much wailing and knashing of teeth from Oregonians in Action. They'll try to get a clone of Measure 37 on the 2006 ballot, but I'm betting that real Oregonians will see through their B.S. this time around and vote for the 1000 Friends of Oregon alternative. This is a happy day for everyone who loves Oregon.
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Posted inCurrent affairs Home life

Masks to protect against avian flu

Here’s some things to look out for if you, like me, decide to go online and order some surgical masks to have on hand in case the avian flu mutates into a human strain and our streets start looking like this photo. As ABC News reported recently, “Bird flu concerns make masks hot commodity.” This story says that to be effective, masks should have an “N95” rating: “This means that the respirators filter out at least 95 percent of airborne particles during testing using a ‘most-penetrating’ sized particle of 0.3 microns.” That also was the advice on an OSHA web…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

The dark side of faith

Over on my Church of the Churchless weblog I wrote yesterday about how religion is bad for societal health. In this post I discussed a study which found that religious democracies exhibited substantially higher degrees of social dysfunction than societies with larger percentages of atheists and agnostics. A Los Angeles Times editorial called this “The dark side of faith.” We’re seeing that side much more clearly now in the United States. The forces of darkness, masquerading as fundamentalist Christianity, are trying to get us to deny realities revealed by science, treat homosexuals as second-class citizens, get government involved in private…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Science

Listen to the Dalai Lama, science-fearing Christians

This is my fantasy: that fundamentalist Christians will read the Dalai Lama’s new book, “The Universe in a Single Atom,” and be converted to his enlightened attitude toward science and spirituality. James Dobson, just say the word and I’ll be happy to mail you a copy. I bought this book to give to myself on my birthday, which was last Friday. I’ve just started reading it, but by page three I already was cheering the Dalai Lama’s words: My confidence in venturing into science lies in my basic belief that as in science so in Buddhism, understanding the nature of…
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Posted inHome life

Female doctors do it better

It’s my 57th birthday today. Already I’ve gotten a couple of special presents: a finger up my ass and some Flomax samples. And it’s just early afternoon! Maybe I shouldn’t have scheduled my annual physical for October 7, but that was the best appointment day available when I phoned my new doctor’s office a few months ago. On the advice of my live-in health advisor, Laurel, I switched to her female family physician from my previous male doctor. Laurel believes that doctors should listen to you and express an interest in your problems. That hasn’t been a big consideration for…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Federalist Papers nailed Miers’ nomination

In 1788 Alexander Hamilton foresaw the danger that a President might try to nominate someone like Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. That is, someone who came from the President’s state, who was personally allied to him, who was so pliable as to be the “obsequious instrument of his pleasure” (dear God, please send me such a woman; who knew the Federalist Papers had such an erotic ring?). Hamilton thought that a President would be ashamed to do this. As Bush should be. Here’s an excerpt from the History News Network’s instructive article, “What Did the Federalist Papers Say About…
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Posted inMeasure 37

1000 Friends of Oregon on right track with Measure 37 initiative

Laurel and I were thrilled when we found out today that 1000 Friends of Oregon intends to submit a 2006 ballot initiative that would mitigate the harmful effects of Measure 37, which allows selected property owners to ignore land use laws. This isn’t an abstract issue of property rights for us. We live in a rural area south of Salem that has been designated a “groundwater limited area.” Expert hydrogeologists have concluded that, by and large, five acres is needed to support a single well. If development becomes denser than that, existing wells will be threatened and could go dry.…
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Posted inEntertainment

The Aristocrats: a movie about the world’s funniest joke

Well, according to Wikipedia, publicity materials for “The Aristocrats” actually was where the term “world’s funniest joke” was used. Regardless, after seeing the movie last Saturday night I’m not sure the joke deserves that appellation. But it surely is one of the most disgusting and obscene jokes in the world, which makes it damn funny. I laughed out loud a lot during the unrated movie’s 87 minutes. Laurel was her usual outwardly stoic self, as was the couple about our age next to us. Most of the Salem Cinema audience was considerably younger. And they laughed even more than I…
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Posted inEntertainment

No! Tell me it isn’t so!

I can’t believe it. Who would have guessed? Paris and Paris are no more. Their engagement is off. It will be tough, but somehow I’ll find a way to fill the hole that today’s CNN story left in me. I’d become attached to the marvelous symmetrical beauty of it all: Paris and Paris, blonde and blonde, filthy rich heir and filthy rich heiress. Now we’ll never know what it would have been like for their child to introduce his or her parents: “This is my mom, Paris. And this is my dad, Paris.” Plus, there’s a good chance they would…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

DeLay’s duplicitousness, Oregon’s openness

Ah, I’ve never used “duplicitousness” in a blog post, but I couldn’t resist. There just wasn’t another alliterative "d" word that I could put after “DeLay’s.” For yesterday I saw Tom DeLay interviewed by Wolf Blitzer on CNN. Now, I’m sure DeLay has some good qualities. He probably is kind to pets and loving toward his wife and children. I do my best to look upon him as a human being, flawed though he is (as are we all). Yet when he settled into his cocky, smirking, can’t-touch-me interview demeanor, I instantly loathed him. And what I heard next didn’t…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Philosophy

Where is the Christian outrage?

Good Christians, where is your outrage? Are you so meek and mild that you’re willing to tolerate the intolerance being committed in Jesus’ name? Will you continue to allow the most extreme right-wing fundamentalist sharks among you to flourish in the ocean of mainstream Christianity? I’m not a Christian, but I’m outraged by attempts to subvert both science and common sense in the name of theology that nowhere appears in the Bible. This is obvious manmade dogma. If I can speak out against these travesties, why can’t you, good Christians? Putting creationism in the classroom. The effort to get intelligent…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Sustainability

Oregon cougar sighting really a kitty cat

Fearsome! Here’s a KATU news photo of the “cougar” that was reported to be stalking around Fanno Creek Park near Beaverton on Thursday. It turned out to be Mittens, a large cat to be sure, but of the domesticated house pet variety. None the less, the man who spotted the animal, Drew Essig, "said he saw in the park wetlands a large cat similar to a cougar." It was described as larger than a pet and having a tail about 3 feet long. On Friday a KATU news team captured photos of both Mittens, the non-cougar,. and Essig, the non-cougar…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Army Corps of Engineers in denial

A picture is worth a thousand denying words. For several hours Fox News has been showing photos of a major breach in a New Orleans levee. Just now I watched a live news conference featuring an Army Corps of Engineers spokesman. Fox’s split screen had him on the left, with a televised image of water rushing through an obvious breach on the right. Here’s the interchange between he and a reporter: Brigadier General William Grisoli: What’s happening in the Industrial Canal is that we were able to repair in three weeks up to about a seven-foot level. We knew that…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Entertainment

TV reality, Texas reality

Proving that we’ve got our priorities straight, Laurel and I came back from central Oregon a day before we had planned so we wouldn’t miss the first episode of “Lost,” which began its second season last night. In Camp Sherman we have peace, quiet, and no TV. Here at home we have peace, quiet, and a TV. So it was a no-brainer to drive back to Salem yesterday in time to record Lost. We weren’t disappointed. I don’t follow the details of Lost like many fans do. Check out this discussion forum for Episode 1: “Man of Science, Man of…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Don’t top off your tank

Be a patriot. Be unselfish. Be strong. Don’t top off your car’s gas tank because you’ve heard that Hurricane Rita could bring us $5 gas and lines around the block. Panic and a “I’ve got to get mine” mentality is just going to make the gasoline situation a lot worse. Fill up when you usually do, not before. I wait until my tank is two-thirds to three-fourths empty. Please do the same. Stifle the urge to horde gas by rushing out to fill up. If everyone does this, a lot of the nation’s gasoline is going to be sloshing around…
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Posted inRecreation

Head of Jack Creek survives fire

The Head of Jack Creek near Camp Sherman is one of the prettiest places in central Oregon. Heck, anywhere. So even though we’d heard that the spring-fed source of Jack Creek had survived the B & B Complex fire, it was worrisome to see so many burned trees as we walked up from a nearby campground. But when we got to the charming bridge that leads to the Head area, everything looked great. These berries looked good enough to eat. We resisted the temptation, not knowing what they were. There’s fire damage around the Head of Jack Creek and a…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Sustainability

Hybrid car buyers beware

When it comes to the environment, George Bush is a scatological King Midas: everything he touches turns to crap. Well, in the case of the revised federal tax incentive program for hybrid cars, let’s give him some credit and call it half-crap. On the positive side, the new energy bill changes the current tax deduction for buying a hybrid car into a more valuable tax credit. As described on Hybridcars.com, after January 1, 2006 the present $2,000 deduction is going to become a tax credit whose value depends on a complex formula involving fuel economy and lifetime expected fuel savings.…
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Posted inFamily Recreation

Silver Falls State Park, rediscovered

Here we are, living in Salem, just 40 minutes or so away from Silver Falls State Park, and it took relatives visiting from Indiana to get our butts up there. Thanks, Jerry and Dee, who are shown here in front of the South Falls along with Laurel (who is Dee’s sister). This photo fulfills a promise to Jerry, who is making a career move after a lengthy stint as Indiana State Parks director. Jerry told me that he had Googled himself to find out what a prospective employer would learn about him, and my “Images of Indiana” post, which included…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Sustainability

Toyota on wrong side of Oregon auto emissions fight

Toyota, how could you? My wife and I own a 2004 Prius, and we’re on the waiting list for a 2006 Highlander Hybrid. Now we feel betrayed. For Toyota is a member of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which is supporting a lawsuit to stop Governor Kulongoski from adopting tougher California-style vehicle emission standards. We’d believed that Toyota was an auto manufacturer with Green credentials. Yet here Toyota is, a member of the Auto Alliance along with GM, Ford, and six other manufacturers. Honda and Nissan aren’t part of the alliance, nor is Volvo. So part of me wants to…
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