Posted inBooks Current affairs

Sam Harris’ “Free Will” says liberals understand role of luck

It's pleasing to my progressive self when modern science confirms one of the foundations of Democratic/liberal political philosophy. Such as, that we humans don't have free will. It's an illusion. Such is the message of Sam Harris' captivating new book, the pleasingly short (66 readable pages) "Free Will." Harris is a neuroscientist whose first book was "The End of Faith," which brought him a lot of well-deserved attention.  I hope "Free Will" reaches even more people. On my other blog I've talked about the dizzying joy of being freed from a belief in free will, and how free will is…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Sustainability

Sneaky land use shenanigans in 2012 Oregon legislature

I don't think I've ever used "shenanigan" in a blog post, but I'm bringing out that word to describe what happened to HB 4095 at the end of the 2012 Oregon legislative session. a devious trick used especially for an underhand purpose tricky or questionable practices or conduct  Yeah, that's what "passing" a bill through hidden backroom budgetary machinations rather than in an open deliberative legislative vote is -- a shenanigan.  HB 4095 was an attempt to begin dismantling Oregon's successful land use system by allowing counties to band together and come up with regional definitions of farm and forest…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Sustainability

Oregon’s environment survives GOP attacks in 2012 session

Whew. That's my one-word environmentalist reaction to the end of Oregon's first ever regular "shorty" legislative session in an even-numbered year. My wife and I were afraid that Republican efforts to undermine our state's land use, endangered species, and forest management laws would succeed in the speeded up craziness of an abbreviated session -- where public hearings often were a sham and last minute deals on important bills were the norm. But overall, I'm happy. My biggest personal concern was HB 4095, a totally unnecessary bill that would have allowed three southern Oregon counties to essentially opt out of the…
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Posted inHumor

Channeling my inner Jean Dujardin, I still look like me

Damn! I tried so hard! At the West Salem Starbucks today, to let out my inner Jean Dujardin, the marvelously expressive French actor who I loved watching in "The Artist." (And who won the Oscar for Best Actor this year.) A friend brought the January issue of Salem Weekly. It had a column that I'd written. I think he asked me to autograph the page to provide some literary amusement to his cat when the newspaper is put under fresh kitty litter. He also wanted to see how well the iPhone 4 camera works. So I handed over my phone and…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Religions shouldn’t get unfair business advantages

Reading over some piled-up Oregonian's, I just came across a letter from a Salem resident, James M. Schultz, about the debate over whether religious institutions should have to comply with the same laws and regulations that govern other businesses. Great letter, Mr. Schultz. I hadn't thought about the "competitive advantage" argument -- just how absurdly unworkable it would be if every person or organization could claim an exemption from laws on moral or ethical grounds. Here's the February 25 letter to the editor: Regarding the current debate over religion and insurance coverage for contraceptives, the First Amendment says, in relevant…
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Posted inSalem

Salem’s lack of “cool” loses 180 jobs to Portland area

No big surprise. Not to those of us who have lived in Oregon's capital city for a long time, and gotten to know why its nickname is So-lame. Yesterday Statesman-Journal reporter Michael Rose laid out interesting details of how Salem is losing a bunch of jobs to Lake Oswego, a city on the edge of Portland.  Download Holiday Corporate Office to Leave Salem  One of Salem's most successful, homegrown businesses is headed to the Portland area with 180 good paying jobs in tow. Holiday Retirement, the owner and operator of retirement communities founded by the late Bill Colson, is moving…
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Posted inTai Chi

Best self-defense technique: run away!

After more than twenty years of martial arts training, I can confidently say that I've learned some highly effective self-defense techniques.  My favorite: run away from trouble. Second best: walk away from trouble. Third choice: defuse trouble from where you are. These approaches, of course, aren't what most people are looking for when they join a martial arts class. Punching, kicking, grappling, throwing, submission holds -- that's what sells in the worlds of karate, aikido, judo, tae kwon do, jui-jitsu, boxing, and such. What's most effective, though, in the real world? Not the dojo (training hall), boxing ring, wrestling mat,…
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Posted inSustainability

Flying into Portland and Burbank shows why Oregon shines

In this 2012 session of the Oregon legislature, haters of our land use system once again are trying to kill it through a thousand cuts (HB 4095 being a prime example). I urge each of these "pave it over" advocates to do what my wife and I did last Friday and today: take an Alaska Airlines flight into Burbank, California, then return to Portland, Oregon. (Instead of Burbank, Phoenix would be an even better bad example of non-planning.) From the air, it's obvious why Oregon's pioneering approach to protecting irreplaceable farm and forest land needs to be strengthened, not weakened.…
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Posted inEntertainment Tango/Dance

Young girls who dance like Tina Turner. What’s up?

Today my wife, Laurel, and I got our first look at big-time children's dance competition. We spent most of the day watching the Los Angeles regionals of The American Dance Awards, held in Lake Elsinore, California at Lakeside High School. Our four-year old granddaughter apparently was the youngest contestant, dancing in two six-and-under categories (small group tap and small group jazz). We loved every moment of the dancing. My daughter was fearful that we'd get bored with the all day competition. Early on she slipped me her car keys, figuring that Laurel and I would want to head someplace else…
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Posted inSustainability

OSU setting traps to kill wildlife needlessly

Why, Oregon State University? Why would you contract with the federal government's animal killing machine, Wildlife Services, to indiscriminately set traps for fawns, racoons, coyotes, dogs, cats, and any other creatures able to crawl under the OSU sheep farm fence? Predator Defense is asking. My wife and I are also. There are much better ways to protect livestock than by killing wildlife and endangering family pets.  There are numerous alternative non lethal practices available and used world-wide to keep sheep and lambs safe besides killing wildlife, including the use of “New Zealand fencing,” hot wires around a fence line, the presence of…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Measure 37 Sustainability

James Huffman wrongly attacks Oregon land use system

I'm surprised how badly James Huffman, a dean emeritus of the Lewis and Clark law school, misinterpreted the highly successful Oregon land use system in a misguided opinion piece in today's Oregonian. "Keep the messy politics: rule by government experts is a recipe for tyranny" reflects the overblown rhetoric of the sky is falling! Tea Party types. They see left-wing dangers, conspiracies, and constitutional threats hiding in the shadows everywhere. Only problem is, when you ask them to specifically point them out, providing factual examples of dictatorial, tyrannical government over-reaching, they get tongue-tied. Why? Because their scary hobgoblins exist only in…
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Posted inDogs Home life

Dog adoption update: Oh, no, we’ve got a dingo!

It's Day 2 of our dog adoption saga. Reality is setting in. Pooka is doing fine. Much more relaxed and well-behaved than we expected (aside from just trying to eat a leaf from a houseplant).  However... I'm convinced that the rescue shelter was wrong when they billed her as a Shepherd/Lab mix. Pooka clearly is a dingo! Well, maybe "clearly" is too confident a conclusion.   Check out the evidence, though. This is a dingo.       And this is Pooka, our new dog. A still shot doesn't do credit to her dingoness, since as she skitters around the…
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Posted inDogs Home life

We adopt a dog. Lovingly, likingly, happily.

My wife, Laurel, is a dog "LOVER." I'm a dog "lover": lower case; hold the boldface.  That's why I'm waiting for her to come home with a dog we've adopted from a rescue shelter in Gig Harbor, Washington. Gig Harbor. A three hour, thirty-eight minute drive from our south Salem, Oregon home according to Google Maps. Which is about two and a half hours more than I was willing to journey to look at another potential family animal companion after our previous long-distance excursion to a Florence dog shelter ended pet-less. "This is crazy," Laurel said, as we were returning…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Salem

Statesman Journal should dig deeper into Courthouse Square

A few days ago I suggested some issues the Salem Statesman Journal should unleash some investigative reporting on. Among them was numero uno: (1) The role of the three current Republican county commissioners in letting construction defects at Courthouse Square go unattended to for so long, until the building was declared unusable. Cracks, settling, and such were evident early on. Whenever this has been noted in stories about Courthouse Square, the questioning of commissioners on this subject isn't pursued by the reporter. Why not? I appreciate how Michael Rose, the SJ reporter who has done some fine work on uncovering…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Sustainability

Oregon cougar hunting bill is dead. Long live cougars!

Great news for those who value wildness, ecological diversity, and sound science (rather than hysterical fearmongering). We just got an email from Predator Defense saying that HB 4119, the bill to repeal the twice-passed citizen initiative which bans cougar hunting with dogs, is dead in the 2012 Oregon legislative session. GREAT NEWS! GOVERNOR KITZHABER HAS INFORMED REP. SPRENGER, THE SPONSOR OF THE BILL HB 4119 TO REPEAL MEASURE 18 AND BRING HOUND HUNTING OF COUGARS BACK, THAT HE HAS NO INTENTION OF SIGNING IT! PLEASE CONTACT THE GOVERNOR AND THANK HIM FOR STEPPING UP TO THE PLATE FOR OREGON VOTERS…
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Posted inSustainability

Portland State “Electric Avenue” flash mob

Finally -- my glancing at the usually boring PGE Home Connections email blah-blah-blah paid off. Nissan Leaf owners that we are, I was curious to read "Cost savings drive buyers to EV's." (electric vehicles) That led me on to a You Tube video of the flash mob excitement when charging stations opened up on Portland State University's Electric Avenue: "a street dedicated to showcasing electric transportation technology — thanks to a unique partnership between the university, PGE and the city of Portland." Cool. Nice dancing to an entirely predictable song.   Funny... nothing like that happened when the City of…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

“Let just one woman speak” (about contraception)

   A 1 1/2 minute video of the Republican effort to squash the voices of women and uncrazy Catholics shows how outrageous G.O.P. attempts to politicize basic preventive health care has become. The photo above shows who Darrell Issa (R-California) believes should command women's birth control decisions. Watch how Democratic Representatives urge the committee to "let one woman speak."  
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Posted inSalem

Suggestions for Salem Statesman Journal investigative reporting

Investigative reporters are a dying journalistic breed. This was a message I heard while driving around town, listening to POTUS on satellite radio (terrific thoughtful non-wacko programming for us political junkies). Reportedly a television station in southern California went from over a dozen investigative reporters, to precisely zero in just a few years. This is part of a general decline in investigative journalism. Including at newspapers, where employment and income are dropping also. So I can understand why our local major newspaper, the Salem Statesman Journal, has limited resources to dig into stories that need in-depth truth excavating. I just…
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Posted inHealth Humor

PETA warns women about screwing a vegan guy

Geez, I didn't know that us vegan/vegetarian men were so dangerously erotically powerful. But thanks to PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), I've learned the truth about BWVAKTBOOM, "Boyfriend Went Vegan and Knocked the Bottom out of Me." Have a look.   Is it true? Of course! You've just learned about this via a blog post on the Internet. Don't you believe everything you come across in cyberspace? (This woman has a different attitude, but she writes for Slate, which is almost mainstream media. So trust the PETA video; go vegan/vegetarian -- sexually safely, though.)
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Posted inCurrent affairs

House GOP and Schaufler holding Oregon health care bill hostage

This is how politicians drive citizens crazy and get super-low approval ratings. Republicans in the House of Representatives, along with quasi-Democrat Rep. Mike Schaufler, have blocked approval of Oregon's health insurance exchange, seemingly in an attempt to get some crappy bills passed by holding this much-needed bill hostage. The state budget isn't affected by the health care bill. Billions of dollars in federal funding is at stake. Competition between insurance companies, supposedly a GOP priority, will be greatly enhanced.  But since the health care bill is so good for Oregon, Schaufler and his Republican buddies want to make sure that…
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