Posted inHome life

Our electric car cup is full with a Leaf and i MiEV

OK, we don't actually have a Nissan Leaf or Mitsubishi i yet. But I've finally been able to reserve a place in line to buy one of these cool electric cars, something that wasn't possible until recently. While we were on a Maui vacation last month I read in the Honolulu paper about how Hawaii was going to be one of the first states where the Mitsubishi i MiEV would be introduced. (This car is just called the "i," a strike against it. Anything that costs almost $30,000 should have more than one letter in its name. Plus, "i" doesn't…
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Posted inFamily

On Mother’s Day, searching for one honest moment

My mother died in 1985. I don't think about her very much. She's in the back of my mind, but rarely appears front and center. This morning, though, I wanted to devote some of Mother's Day to memories of her. That turned out to be difficult. Almost instantly I got into some pretty weird reminiscing. My mother, Carolyn HInes, was a complex person. As am I, I guess -- or I would have kept my Mother's Day thoughts simple. She divorced my father when I was four, as I wrote about in "One hour with my father." (That's the total…
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Posted inHumor

Portland just #3 in pot-smoking — light up, PDX stoners!

This is embarassing for Oregon. Our largest city, supposedly oh-so-Green Portland, ranks behind Tallahassee, Florida and Boston, Massachusetts among the "greenest cities for marijuana enthusiasts." So says The Daily Beast in its annual survey of pot use. Next year, Portlanders, go for #1. The way the Trailblazers are going, you've got a lot better chance of being tops in pot-smoking than in professional basketball.
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Indiana’s defunding of Planned Parenthood makes it a “crazy state”

I'm sorry to do this, because several relatives on my wife's side of the family live in Indiana. But I have to. Today I'm adding Indiana to my unofficially official list of right-wing crazy states. Governor Mitch Daniels and the state legislature have decided to pull all federal funding for Planned Parenthood, even though no federal money pays for abortions and Planned Parenthood's family planning services prevent many more abortions than the organization performs. This illogic and general nastiness puts Indiana in the same league as states like Arizona, Texas, North Dakota and other parts of the country that make…
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Posted inPhilosophy

Sea turtles teach me a mindfulness lesson

Boogie boarding on the left side of Maui's Napili Bay, while waiting for waves I watched a bunch of large sea turtles feeding in the shallows of a reef that I also was interested in -- to avoid running into, as the turtles have hard shells and can handle waves that break over shallow rocks, while I can't. When their heads popped up I imagined they were looking at me curiously. "What kind of fish is that, gray headed with a big flat blue fin that keeps it on top of the water?" But given how many other boogie boarders…
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Posted inRecreation

Eating vegetarian on Maui — our favorite dining spots

My wife and I have come to Maui almost every year for several decades. Being vegetarians (but not vegans), naturally the many seafood and steak restaurants don't interest us. Good veggie food does, particularly if it is local and organic. Since we always stay on Napili Bay, we're most familiar with vegetarian dining on the Lahaina side of Maui. Which, sadly, isn't as veggie-friendly as the funkier areas of the island such as Paia. Here's some of our favorite places to eat vegetarian on Maui: -- Whole Foods Market and Down to Earth Natural Foods, Kahalui. These are our first…
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Posted inSalem Strange Up Salem

#Salemia tweets show need to strange up Salem

Check out another Strange Up Salem post on my blog that's dedicated to weirding up Oregon's excessively blah capital. "Salemia video aims to Strange Up Salem" is the last of my three Salem Weekly columns that made it into the blogosphere rather than print. Here's some excerpts: In early February “Salemia” touched off a craze among Salem’s Twittersphere. It all began when filmmaker Mike Perron tweeted, “Salemia. Opening scene: five hipsters fighting over a half smoked cigarette outside Chelsea's place...” ...Keep Portland Weird is a rallying cry for residents who want to preserve their city’s uniqueness. Since I feel an…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

“Birther” weirdness shows how Republicans deny reality

I'm optimistic about the future of the United States. But one fact makes me cautious about being wildly optimistic: about half of Republicans (maybe more) won't accept facts. Working together to solve our problems requires that both political parties look upon clearly evident aspects of reality with the same fact-accepting eyes. Then we can have a vigorous debate about how to change the way things are now, so they can be better in the future. But when Republicans refuse to accept obvious truths, this creates a gulf between reality-accepters and reality-deniers which keeps them so far apart, policy discussions are…
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Posted inSalem Strange Up Salem

How stranging up Salem is a job creator

Over on my Strange Up Salem blog I've put up another marvelously persuasive post that uses the example of Trader Joe's to show how strangeness is a key to economic development -- not to mention the secrets of the cosmos. Check it out. Here's a sample: Bottom line: A place and the people who live there are intimately intertwined. If we want Salem to be a more interesting and lively place, we have to cultivate those qualities in ourselves. Free enterprise is adept at filling voids. When there is unfulfilled demand for new and different, a.k.a. strangeness, individuals and businesses…
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Posted inRecreation

Maui’s Napili Bay is my “On Golden Pond”

I don't remember a whole lot of specifics about "On Golden Pond." The basics of the movie remain with me, though: every year an aging couple returns to the same vacation spot, a house on a lake. My wife and I don't have a lakeside home. But over the past twenty years we've made almost annual visits to Maui's Napili Bay, renting a condo for ten days or so. I understand the allure of going to different places. However, I'm more of an "On Golden Pond" guy. Nothing stays the same -- not us, not a place, nothing in the…
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Posted inStrange Up Salem

Strange Up Salem — what it’s about

Over on my new Strange Up Salem blog I've shared a version of what would have been my first Salem Weekly column (see here for why I'm publishing my paeans to strangeness in cyberspace rather than on newsprint). Check out "Strange Up Salem! You know you want it." It isn't only for those of us who want Oregon's capital city to, as I say, become more than a blandburger sandwiched between the spiciness of Portland and Eugene. My grandiosity extends way beyond that. At one point in my life I worried about being considered strange. Now, I consider it a…
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Posted inSalem Strange Up Salem

Why I’m not a Salem Weekly columnist

Oh, man. I could almost taste my Pulitzer prize -- leaving aside the minor details of (1) whether a Pulitzer is given for alternative newspaper column writing, and (2) the questionable edibility of whatever the Pulitzer folks give out as awards. Regardless, I came so close to becoming a columnist for Salem Weekly, which actually is published bi-weekly, but alternative publications shouldn't be held to obsessive-compulsive journalistic standards. That's part of what attracted me to the notion of writing for Salem Weekly when publisher A.P. Walther phoned me early in 2011 and said he wanted us to chat. Soon we…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Salem

Oregon legislature starting to look giddy

Hanging around the Oregon capitol building, waiting to testify at a legislative hearing, isn't my idea of fun. But the two hours I spent there this afternoon gave me some interesting insights into a political world that I observe rather rarely. I arrived at Hearing Room C, where the House Agriculture and Natural Resources committee was to meet at 3 pm, about twenty minutes early -- wanting to be one of the first to sign up to testify on House Bill 2871. (It has to do with how Metro deals with urban growth boundary expansion in the Portland area. I…
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Posted inHome life

How we stopped a robin’s pecking at window glass

My wife and I have been battling robins at our rural Salem, Oregon home for many years. Almost every spring some crazed robin will obsessively peck at our bedroom windows, which are conveniently (for the bird) located next to a large oak tree. The robin will sit on a branch, seemingly getting more and more irritated at another robin which has the gall to invade his territory during mating season. Of course, the other robin is his reflection in the glass, which makes it pretty damn difficult to chase the intruder away. Back in 2003, I wrote about my frustrations…
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Posted inSalem

Scared male: the question I didn’t ask of two feminists

Feminists usually aren't all that scary to me. But tonight I wimped out on asking a question of two who teach at the Oregon State University Women Studies program. We were into the Q &A and guest speaker portion of the Salem Progressive Film Series showing of "Killing Us Softly 4," a documentary about advertising's image of women. Sexy, skinny, silent, and childish is, of course, promoted over sexless, fat, assertive, and mature. The movie showed the filmmaker, Jean Kilbourne, giving a talk. As she made a point, we saw photos and videos illustrating how advertisers present an image of…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

You win, NY Times — I’ll pay for your damn digital subscription

About a month ago I was disturbed to learn that the New York Times was going to start charging for online access. Yes, the NYT is a great newspaper, with terrific content. On my laptop and iPhone I read several stories every day. But $15 a month? That seemed like a lot. So I resisted signing up for an online subscription plan for as long as possible. Which turned out to be April 8. That's when I reached my monthly allotment of 20 free stories. I was faced with 22 days of going New York Times cold turkey until May…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Health

Republicans seek to end Medicare with no debate

You'd think that killing Medicare as we know (and love) it would require some serious open discussion. But nope, not in the brave new world the House Republicans have brought us. Paul Ryan's proposal to force seniors to buy private health insurance that would pay an ever-decreasing share of their medical costs was announced last week. This week the House is expected to vote on a 2012 budget resolution that implements Ryan's voucher-based Medicare overhaul. No hearings. No debate. No opportunity for citizens to express their opinions on ending the current Medicare system. It's the political version of wham, bam,…
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Posted inHealth Home life

I’m saving money with a Canadian pharmacy

As a U.S. citizen, here's my bottom-line experience with ordering a prescription drug from a Canadian pharmacy: I'm saving hundreds of dollars a year, and the quality of the generic drug seems just as good. So, what's not to like? Well, only one thing so far. The drug I'm getting is Dutasteride, the generic version of GlaxoSmithKline's Avodart, a prostate shrinking medication. (Like I said before, a prostate exam is the only time a man doesn’t want to hear from a female who is inspecting his genital area that he's larger than average.) The Canadian pharmacy I'm using is called…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Government shutdown averted — Republican wrongness remains

Damn! Bad blog post timing. I was all ready to get a good rant going about Republican willingness to shut down the federal government in order to prevent women from getting Planned Parenthood health care, then I see that a deal apparently has been reached. Well, there's no reason to waste a rant, so I'll fire up my outrage as if Boehner hadn't come to his senses. After all, it won't be long before social conservatives and Tea Party types find another opportunity to display their anti-women ridiculousness. Cutting the budget is one thing. Slashing Planned Parenthood's family planning, cancer…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Progressives are on the way up — in Oregon and elsewhere

Maybe it's the Starbucks grande coffee talking, but who cares? Today this progressive is feeling pretty damn good about where the political winds are blowing -- in Wisconsin, here in Oregon, and in the whole country. I remember how down Dems and left-leaning independents felt last November when the 2010 midterm tsunami wiped out "D" control in the House of Representatives, substantially narrowed the Democratic Senate majority, and put right-wingers in control of many governorships. Such as Scott Walker, in Wisconsin. Yet his union-busting overreaching has begun to backfire. Last night I obsessively kept refreshing the AP election results for…
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