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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Posted inCurrent affairs

Watch out for Republican “Ryancare” — it destroys Medicare

Soon we'll learn specifics of the Republican plan to destroy Medicare. Columnist E.J. Dionne has coined the term "Ryancare," since Congressman Paul Ryan is announcing the plan, and his Road Map for America's Future calls for moving health care for the elderly into a system where vouchers are used to buy private health insurance. Ugh. No way. Keep your damn hands off of Medicare, Republicans. I'll be eligible for Medicare in less than three years. I'm looking forward to this, being sick and tired of the bullshit our current private insurer, Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon, regularly piles on us.…
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Posted inHome life Salem

“Salemia” video starts shooting in Oregon’s capital

Hah! Deal with this, Portland, you snooty we're-so-much-better neighbor city to our north. You may have super greenness, nightlife, great restaurants, a thriving music scene, and Mt. Hood in your backyard, but as of today Salem -- yes, boring Salem -- has its own cinematic rival of the much-admired (also, reviled) "Portlandia." Well, more accurately "Salemia" is on its way, filming having started today. (If you're not familiar with the fascinating history of Salemia, all two months of it, I've bloggishly recorded it here, here, here, and here.) Having landed my dream role in this production, the Crusty Transient character,…
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Posted inHome life

No lavatory on plane — pretzels favored over beer

Oh yeah, flying is so much fun nowadays. Last Friday our Horizon flight from Portland to Burbank was delayed an hour while "a maintenance problem" was dealt with. That's all the explanation we were given by the gate announcer. But given what happened on our return flight, there's reason to suspect that the problem lay behind the door of the all-important tiny compartment at the back of the plane. Namely, the lavatory. For several reasons I'm a big fan of airplane lavatories. One, I'm 62. And even though I've reported that my age-related urge to pee has been reduced quite…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Philosophy

I’m outraged about outrage — let’s calm down

Aren't you getting tired of people being outraged about, well, everything? I sure am. And this means I'm getting tired of myself, because I've got a hair-trigger Outrage Gun that doesn't go a day without firing self-righteous bullets of condemnation. Driving around today, channel surfing among various satellite radio news/talk channels, plenty of topics pushed my outrage button. I can't stand Republican grandstanding on how Obama is handling the Libya situation. Right-wing talk show host Lars Larson said "The only good cougar is a dead cougar." Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is going ahead with his union-busting bill even though a…
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Posted inRecreation

Photos of our Hollywood Hills weekend

We Oregonians enjoy putting down southern California: so crowded, the freeways!, smog, too many people. Etc, etc. But whenever my wife and I visit my daughter and her family, who live at the bottom of the Hollywood Hills, I realize how much there is to like about this area. I wouldn't want to live there permanently, but for a weekend... delightful. This time we were fortunate to be able to stay nearby in a cute, quirky, "bungalow" owned by friends of my daughter. They gave us a discount on the usual rental price, which was much appreciated. So for a…
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