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 inHome life

Two ways (among many) our dog controls me

Some people worry about artificial intelligence becoming so powerful, devilishly smart computers will rule humanity. I've got a more pressing immediate problem: I'm under the control of our dog, and I'm powerless to do anything about it.  ZuZu looks innocent, doesn't she? Well, let me tell you, looks deceive. Particularly when it comes to canines. ZuZu is a master manipulator. My wife, Laurel, is a volunteer at the Willamette Humane Society here in Salem, Oregon. She's got the exalted rank of a "blue" walker, which means she can handle the most difficult dogs. If I volunteered there I can't imagine…
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Posted inWeb/Tech

Don’t trust Google’s “security issue found” alert if you use Apple Mail

Google caused me a lot of frustration last night. I got an email from Google that warned of a security issue. After I dealt with it, I couldn't use Apple Mail to access my Gmail account.   Bottom line: don't trust a Google security alert if you're a Mac user. Here's the disturbing details of what happened to me. First, I got this email from Google. At first I thought this could be a scam. But after Googling "Google security issue found on your account" I became convinced that the email message really had come from Google. So I decided…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Moderation in the pursuit of justice is a virtue. Usually.

Today I came across a letter written by Martin Luther King while he was in jail. It criticizes "white moderates." That got me to thinking about Barry Goldwater's saying about moderation. Interestingly, King and Goldwater seem to have something in common, though their political views were very different. King: First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate,…
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Posted inHome life

For us, this is a fatal flaw of continuing care retirement communities

My wife and I are almost 70. We're still trying to figure out what we want to do in life. Or rather, the rest of our lives. I've written about our quandary in numerous blog posts, such as: I'm 65. Where's my "aging hippie" retirement community?Our retirement community conundrum continuesNew York Post features us in story about hippie retirement communitiesWhy it makes sense for seniors to postpone living in a retirement community At the moment we're still living in our non-easycare 3200 square foot, multi-level house on ten acres in rural south Salem, Oregon. We're thinking more seriously about moving…
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Posted inPhilosophy

Aliveness is a pretty damn good goal while being alive

You and I are alive. I know this to be true, because I'm writing what you're going to be reading, and writing/reading require being alive. The question is, how alive are we?  Pretty clearly, aliveness comes in degrees. At one extreme, someone in a coma is living, yet just barely alive. Maybe not at all.  Most of us would say that there's a point at which life isn't worth living. This is why so many people have a living will, durable power of attorney, do not resuscitate instructions, and such. But there's also the question of aliveness in what we…
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Posted inHome life Humor

Here’s another dark, twisted, and funny Christmas letter

If you like dark and twisted Christmas letters, and I sure do, you'll love this one that just came from one of my wife's friends. She has a great sense of humor. I changed the names to protect the innocent, aside from my wife's name, Laurel. A previous Christmas letter by the same person that's also darkly funny can be found here.  The Dreaded Christmas Newsletter So who wants to be a millionaire? I will soon be one, but I think I must die first. My liquid assets amount to $27 in the bank, but my house is fast approaching…
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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 inHome life

Contacting Amazon via chat worked great for me

Maybe this isn't astonishing news, but in the past I've had difficulty contacting a human at Amazon who could help with a vexing problem. So I wanted to share what worked well for me this evening. I'd gotten an email from Amazon saying that I was being charged for some tire chains that I'd returned, but hadn't been received by Amazon.  Having checked on the return status several times, I kept seeing "In Transit." Amazon had already refunded me the cost of the chains after the return shipment had been logged in via UPS. But since the chains must have…
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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 inHome life

Behold: the 2017 Laurel and Brian Hines Christmas letter

Yes, we're still writing a Christmas letter. This year, like most years, it is darkly humorous. Hey, depression can be fun! (Especially when you're not depressed.) We are offering it up in two formats.  PDF: 2017 Laurel and Brian Hines Holiday Letter Download 2017 Christmas Letter PDFJPEG: (below)                    
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Posted inHome life

A bone scan, my doctor’s lifestyle advice, a nighttime walk in the country

Somehow the three things in the title of this blog post fit together. I'm just not sure exactly how. Like a perfectly completed jigsaw puzzle? Like a random pile of old car parts in a junkyard? Like pants and a shirt that sort of match, and sort of don't? I had my third bone density scan last week. Osteopenia was the diagnosis after the first one some five years ago. Not as serious as osteoporosis, but a step in that direction. A few days ago someone from my doctor's office phoned to tell me the results. Well, not the real…
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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

Gun nuts are like children playing with light-sabers (but more dangerous)

I'm hugely enjoying Kurt Andersen's book about how our country became the world's #1 purveyor of kookiness. "Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire" is filled with right-on observations. Andersen chronicles our nation's love affair with fantasy from 1517 up to the near-present -- which is where I am now in the book.  Today I read the Gun Crazy chapter. The following excerpt is one of the best descriptions of gun nuttery I've ever come across. Andersen is a hunter and gun owner, so this makes his characterization of gun wackos even more believable. Andersen writes: One set of fantasies has had…
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Posted inHealth Humor

My annual Medicare wellness visit had its humorous side

Just to give you young'uns (meaning, anybody under 65) a preview of what you have to look forward to, here's some glimpses of how my annual Medicare Wellness Visit went today.  First off, this really isn't a physical exam. My primary care doctor did some perfunctory checking around -- listened to my heart to make sure it was beating, looked in my mouth to see if I had any teeth left, that sort of thing -- but a bigger part of the visit was a nurse asking me a bunch of questions before the doctor came in to the exam…
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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 inHome life Retirement community

Our retirement community conundrum continues

Channelling Kermit the Frog a bit, "It's not that easy being green growing old." My wife and I are in our late sixties. We've been trying to figure out where we should live for quite a while, certainly since I wrote "I'm 65. Where's my 'Aging Hippie' retirement community?" back in 2013. (For all my posts on this subject, including this one, scroll through this blog's Retirement Community category,) We've toured five retirement or continuing care communities in the Northwest, four in Oregon, one in Washington: Hillside in McMinnville; Panorama in Lacey, Washington; Touchmark in Bend; Mary's Woods in Lake…
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Posted inHome life

I love my Allbirds shoes. They make my feet smile.

I'm a man who adores lightweight comfortable shoes. Being a 69 year old man, I also need my shoes to be supportive. Not in a psychological sense, but as in arch-support.  My newfound shoe love is called Allbirds.  They're made of wool. I'm unsure why they aren't called Allsheep. The "Our Story" page on the Allbirds website talks a lot about merino wool, and mentions sheep, but there's nothing about birds, except for this about the founders (isn't "bird" Australian slang for "woman"?: After careers in professional sport and biotech, our wives brought us together. We bonded over birds and…
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Posted inHealth Living with a catheter

Here’s how I feel about my atonic, underactive, neurogenic, screwed-up bladder

Regarding the title of this blog post, in two words, IT SUCKS. Big time.  Before I elaborate on this, let me address what I tell myself, and what my wife tells me: there are many worse health problems.  For sure. Aside from not being able to pee properly without the aid of self-catheterization -- not fun, but better than getting kidney failure from a backed-up bladder -- I'm basically a pretty damn healthy 69 year old guy.  I wouldn't trade my bladder problem for, say, cancer, heart disease, or loss of a limb. And I've no doubt that people with…
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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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