Posted inBooks

“But What If We’re Wrong?” Great question. Great book.

Browsing through the terrific bookstore in Sisters, Oregon -- Paulina Springs Books -- I knew that I'd buy Chuck Klosterman's newest literary offering as soon as I saw the upside-down title on the front cover. But What If We're Wrong?  I've been wrong about so much, so many times, over so many years, this theme immediately resonated with me. Turning the book over, the subtitle was almost equally appealing: Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past.  I already do this in a certain sense, since I'm unable to keep up with the magazines that we subscribe to.…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Philosophy

Common facts are the bedrock of democracy — which Trump is blasting away at

There's a lot of reasons to detest what President Trump is doing to our country. What's most concerning, though, isn't any specific outrage -- destroying health care, denying global warming, tearing apart the social safety net -- but his general attack on shared reality. If people can't agree about the basic nature of the world we all live in together, it isn't possible to even discuss the problems we face, much less agree about what needs to be done about them.  About a week ago I wrote about "On Tyranny," a little book that packed a big punch. This is…
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Posted inSalem

Photos of 2017 Salem WillaMutt Strut — adorable dogs!

Here's what my camera captured at last Sunday's Willamette Humane Society WillaMutt Strut event at Riverfront Park. The family dog, ZuZu, and I completed the 5k walk, though not in anything approaching record time. But if I could subtract all the moments ZuZu spent sniffing dog pee (and who knows what else) instead of walking, our performance would look a heck of a lot better. 
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Posted inBooks Current affairs

“On Tyranny” is a disturbingly great read for these Trumpian times

On Tyranny by historian Timothy Snyder is a small 126-page book that I read in about ninety minutes. But it's impact on me was huge.  Yes, good things come in small packages. And in this case, only cost $5.26 (from Amazon).  Snyder never mentions Donald Trump by name. But his frequent references to "the president" make it clear about the tyrant he's warning us about.  This is the most astounding thing about Snyder's book: that he wrote it.  Now. After Trump's election. To alert Americans to the danger of tyranny arising in our liberal democracy that, until recently, was generally…
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Posted inHome life

Hines home as seen by a drone

Recently we had Exos Aerial Imaging take some drone photos/videos of our rural south Salem property. I've shared the images in an Adobe Spark page. We realize that one day a city house likely is in our future. But if you look at these images, you'll realize why it's tough for us to imagine living anywhere but the place we've called home for 27 years. 
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Posted inSports

Oregon’s softball team shows how far women’s sports has come since 1966

I just finished watching the Oregon softball team come from behind in the final inning to beat Kentucky and advance to the Women's College World Series.  It was an amazing game. Since I was recording it, and the Ducks were down a distressing 5-2 at the end of the sixth, I figured there was little chance a comeback was in order. So I acceded to our dog's wordless demand and took her for a walk just before the seventh inning got underway. Returning home, I settled in to watch the final inning. The end result -- four runs scored in…
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Posted inHome life Web/Tech

First day with Pictar iPhone camera grip: I’m impressed

I was a Kickstarter supporter of the Pictar camera grip for the iPhone, which isn't really an accurate name for the gadget, since in addition to being a grip it also offers an easy way to control the basic iPhone photo features while adding new ones through some software magic. Having recently gotten my Kickstarter reward, I tested it out on a dog walk here in rural south Salem, Oregon. Before sharing some of the photos I took and my first-impression review of the device, here's what the Pictar grip offers: Well, you don't get an iPhone with it, obviously.…
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Posted inHome life Retirement community

A big burn pile reminds me why we’re not in a retirement community

My wife are I are at an awkward age (which keeps getting awkwarder). I talked about this three years ago in "Too old for ten acres and a big house -- too young for retirement living." I guess you could call us tweeners. Senior citizen variety. At 65, my wife and I are beginning to find that the joy of maintaining our large 1970's era house on ten rural acres is beginning to wear thin. So we've started to think about where we'd like to move when and if we really want to. But only a year later in 2015…
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Posted inBooks

Life lessons I’ve gotten from the “Gray Man” novels

Last year I wrote my first blog post about the Gray Man, "Lessons for living from a fictional assassin, the 'Gray Man.'" Now I've read two more books in the six-part series about Court Gentry, so it's time to update the life lessons I've absorbed from the astoundingly engrossing novels. What I said last July still holds: But something about the Gray Man appeals to me on a deeper philosophical level. Again, this is weird, because the fictional Court Gentry seemingly isn't much like the real person Me.  Seemingly.  This excerpt from "The Gray Man" points to the main thing…
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Posted inSalem

Images of Salem March for Science — Earth Day 2017

Check out the Adobe Spark page where I share photos and a video of today's Salem March for Science on the capitol mall -- plus some commentary on the event. My wife and I hugely enjoyed the inspiring speakers, signs, and wonderfully geeky chants. 
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Posted inSalem

City of Salem Streetscape Committee aims to vitalize downtown

Last Wednesday I managed to drag my retired body and mind to an astoundingly early 9 a.m. meeting of the Streetscape Committee at the Urban Development office in downtown Salem.  Carole Smith, an early and ongoing proponent of streetscaping downtown (see the web page I made about these initial efforts) is on the committee. After learning from her about the exciting plans being discussed by the group, I wanted to attend the committee's second meeting to see for myself what they were up to. In short: great stuff.  Streetscaping the Historic District would be wonderfully transformative for downtown -- which…
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Posted inSalem

First Wednesday photos show need to lose lanes on Liberty and Commercial

Downtown Salem would be much more attractive to out-of-town visitors and locals alike if Commercial and Liberty streets lost some lanes.  (Other streets too, but my focus here is on Commercial and Liberty.) Fortunately, there's a decent chance this could happen. Yesterday a City of Salem Streetscape Committee chaired by Urban Development Director Kristin Retherford had its first meeting. Carole Smith, a committee member, shared notes with me about what happened. Smith and other Streetscape proponents came up with some initial concepts several years ago. You can check them out on a Downtown Salem Streetscape web page I made (which…
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Posted inHumor Salem

Free tickets got me loving Capitol City Theatre comedy club (and Grant Lyons)

Thanks mucho to Los Angeles-area comedian Grant Lyon who got me off my lethargic ass and into a Salem gem that I've been meaning to check out, but hadn't until last Saturday night, the Capitol City Theatre (tagline: serious about comedy). Here's me and Grant after the show, posing in front of some important information. Salem Has a Comedy Club. A good one too. I really appreciate Grant emailing me his free ticket offer. Grant  said that he likes to offer them to local bloggers in towns that he visits. Which, after Salem, was a 7-hour drive to Sacramento.  Yeah, stand-up…
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Posted inHome life

Our dog is spreading fake news about us. Ignore her ASPCA complaint!

I have no idea how it happened. Best I can figure, our dog ZuZu somehow hooked up with a pet psychic who was able to channel her obviously outrageous thoughts about us into a letter that was sent to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. So now my wife and I are on the receiving end of a serious-sounding complaint from the ASPCA. I'm going to respond to our dog's ridiculous accusations in this blog post, but I'm worried that the damage to our animal-loving reputation is beyond repair -- thanks to our oh-so-innocent looking family pet,…
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Posted inHumor

Lewis Black’s profanely funny Elsinore show lightened my Trump-depression

Last night my wife and I saw comedian Lewis Black do his thing at Salem's Elsinore Theatre. His profanity-laced, darkly-intense, rant-filled brand of humor was strangely healing for us and the other mostly-liberal audience members. I'm a big fan of Black's appearances on The Daily Show, where it seems a miracle that the top of his head doesn't pop off from the display of steaming outrage. (Click here for a comparatively mild example.) I was wondering how Black would act during a lengthy stand-up show. Answer: pretty much the same, but more entertainingly. He's adept at handling shout-out comments from…
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Posted inRecreation

Our weirdly bad Caravan Tour experience at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park

Understand: except for one experience, my wife and I loved our recent visit to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. But that One Experience was so irritating, I jumped at the chance to complain about it when an emailed visitor satisfaction survey arrived in my inbox today. I've done some Googling to see if anyone else who took a Safari Tour to see animals in the quasi-wild from the back of an open-sided truck had ever experienced the weird event we, and the other people on our Caravan Tour, did.  Didn't find anything.  So it may well be that our…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Publicly defend your incompetent president, Trump voters

With every passing day, Donald Trump's astounding incompetency to serve as President becomes more obvious. His lies, blunders, and disrespect for the office he won with the aid of Russian meddling in the 2016 election make it perfectly clear that Trump is on track to be the worst president in our nation's history. His dismal approval rating, 43% as of yesterday, is an accurate reflection of the low regard most Americans have for our Idiot In Chief. By comparison, Barack Obama had an 62% approval rating by March of his first term in office.  I proudly voted for Hillary Clinton.…
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Posted inHome life

I hate it when my wife is right (also, I love it)

The roofing company guys took a look at our leaking roof while my wife, Laurel, was away. Then I took the dog for a walk. When I came home, Laurel had returned. She asked, "How did the roof inspection turn out?" I said, "I've got some disturbing news about that. Well, more accurately the news is disturbing for me. You were right." Now, I readily admit this is a common occurrence for me, as it is for all husbands. When we disagree about something, especially when it involves our home, my wife often is right. (She'd substitute usually for often,…
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Posted inSalem

Read my expose of the City of Salem’s Park Front LLC urban renewal grant

Over on my Salem Political Snark blog I've posted an in-depth critique of how City officials handled a large grant to T.J. Sullivan (an ex-city councilor and current Chamber of Commerce vice-president): "Disturbing facts revealed about $749,000 Park Front urban renewal grant." Here's how the post starts out. You can read my entire Investigative Blogging Masterpiece by clicking on the image below.-------------------------- After making a public records request to the City of Salem for documents related to approval of the $749,000 Park Front LLC grant, and reviewing what I got, I'm even more disturbed by how this grant request was…
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