HinesSight

Salem City Club examines struggles of local journalism

Today's Salem City Club program featured two local journalists, Les Zaitz, editor of the Salem Reporter, and Dick Hughes, who used to be the editorial page editor for the Statesman Journal and now is a freelance journalist.

The title of the program was "The Truth -- An Endangered Species?" But since journalists deal in the truth, and local journalism is struggling, Zaitz and Hughes made clear that the question really is whether local newspapers and other news sources are endangered.

Hughes started off by sharing some disturbing statistics. (Hopefully I've got them mostly right, since I'm just a blogger with terrible handwriting who now has to try to read his scribbled notes.)

Fifty-six percent of people say they aren't willing to pay for online news. Since 2005 a quarter of the nation's newspapers have been lost. Oregon has lost a lot; I recall it was a third. The Statesman Journal recently laid off education reporter Natalie Pate, having cut newsroom staffing by two-thirds. The pages of the Statesman Journal are laid out in Phoenix, Arizona. The Statesman Journal is printed elsewhere, which helps explain why our daily newspaper contains news that is mostly a day late.

Zaitz began his remarks by saying, "We're all in trouble. Any questions?" Thankfully, he expanded on that conclusion. 

Zaitz noted that media are a check on government power. When government controls information, it controls the people. Sadly, though, only 34% of the public trusts the media, with 38% not trusting the media.

There's a political divide here. Seventy percent of Democrats have some trust, while five-sixths of Republicans don't trust the media. Gosh, I wonder how they came to that conclusion. Methinks it has a lot to do with the guy Biden defeated in 2020.

Another reason this number is so low, Zaitz theorized, is that cable networks have betrayed America. Their mission is to present our country as being in a constant state of crisis, as that keeps people returning for their latest dose of gotcha journalism, which is always looking for scandals and corruption.

Zaitz sees the New York Times and Washington Post as contributing in their own way to the downfall of journalism, since he considers that opinions enter into their news stories. I subscribe to both the Times and Post, and sort of see what he's getting at, but I find that the line between a reporter engaging in wise analysis (good) and biased opinionating (bad) to be blurry.

There are fewer journalists than ever in this country, Zaitz said. That means fewer editors also, and reporters need to work with editors for a quality product. This is one reason journalists are making more mistakes now. 

Since journalists believe in truth, accuracy, and fairness, mistakes bother them. Journalists should be transparent, admitting to mistakes when they occur. Zaitz urged people to let a reporter know if they got something wrong. 

In the question and answer period, Zaitz and Hughes agreed that it's a problem when Google, Facebook, and other internet news sources borrow stories from newspapers and other media without paying for them. 

Zaitz noted in response to a question about the Salem Reporter's effort to get documents from the City of Salem about a payment made under suspicious circumstances to a retiring police department employee that charging an exorbitant amount for public records is almost the same as denying the request.

I asked a question of Hughes about why the Statesman Journal did away with the opinion section completely, even though seemingly that section would largely write itself through letters to the editor and guest opinions.

Hughes said that the newspaper's reasoning could have been that people don't want to be told what to think, though this strikes me as an exceedingly lame excuse, given that no one is forced to read opinion pieces, just as my wife never reads the sports section.

I find the lack of an opinion section to be a huge loss for the Statesman Journal. I still pay $10 a month for an online subscription, since 33 cents a day seems about all the Statesman Journal is worth these days.

As Hughes said in response to another question about reading things you disagree with, sometimes you agree with what you read on an editorial page and sometimes what you read makes your blood boil. Which is as it should be.

But not in Salem, since neither the Statesman Journal nor the Salem Reporter has an opinion section. That's one reason why I have an online subscription to the Oregonian.

A core message of Zaitz and Hughes is that when it comes to news, basically you get what you pay for. Journalists can't work for free. I'm pleased to pay for a subscription to the Salem Reporter because it does a good job with local news. I'm less pleased to pay for an online subscription to the Statesman Journal, because it falters with local news.

So whenever possible, pay for the news you're getting. If everyone comes to think that they should be able to get news for free from the internet, that really will be the death knell for local journalism.

Saffron Supply Company lives on in new location

A few days ago the Salem Reporter had a story about demolition beginning on the building that used to house the Saffron Supply Company and Union Gospel Mission. 

That saddened me. At the time I'd forgotten that Saffron Supply wasn't going out of business, but had moved to 1450 Front Street NE. Indeed, the Saffron Supply web site now shows their new location. 

That makes me happy. 

I first started going to Saffron Supply after my wife and I moved in 1990 to a house in rural south Salem. It needed a lot of work, including drainage from the gutter down spouts. 

That required multiple trips to Saffron Supply, where the helpful staff pointed me to the flexible plastic pipe, both perforated and non-perforated, plus connectors, that I needed to accomplish my rainwater flow improvement job.

This photo I found on the Saffron Supply Facebook page of their old location captures the wonderful spirit of this pleasantly old-fashioned hardware store. 

In 2004, soon after I started this blog, I wrote about a plumbing-related visit to Saffron Supply in "I'm the king of the world!" I called it that because my handyman skills are limited, so when I'm able to accomplish a repair, I get excited!

This is how the post started out. 

King of the world, that’s who I am all right, in my own mind at least (where it counts). For I have replaced a rusted-out leaking drain on our laundry room sink, notwithstanding my normally plumbing-challenged handyman skills. There was something tremendously fulfilling about successfully dismantling the decrepit parts and installing the fresh new parts, adding the dollop of plumber’s putty, tightening the, um, whatever-you-call-its that needed to be tightened, turning on the water, and hearing the water run down the drain with nary a drip.

The list of those I’d like to thank for enabling me to achieve this marvelous accomplishment is short: the great guys at Saffron Supply in downtown Salem, that’s the beginning and end of it. This is the sort of place that can’t be allowed to disappear in the shadow of all the Lowes, Home Depots, and the like. I shamefully admit that I have a fondness for the bright lights, neatly stocked shelves, and cheerful employees at the Lowe’s store here in Salem.

But when you don’t know much about plumbing, and are carrying a plastic bag filled with a bunch of dirty, broken plumbing parts that no longer are plumbing for you, a place like Saffron Supply is where you want to be. It looks like it hasn’t changed much in decades. Wooden bins are filled with mysterious plumbing and electrical parts. When you pay, a pad is pulled out and you get a handwritten paper receipt. No women were in evidence, either staff or customers. I was careful not to wear a batik shirt last Wednesday, knowing that I would be entering the plain denim world of Saffron Supply.

Like a real man, I forthrightly admitted my ignorance right off the bat. I held up my bag of parts and said, “Whatever all this stuff is, it isn’t working any more.” I then made a concise plea for help, making sure that I threw in the phrase “plumbing-challenged” several times. The Saffron guy then took over. He walked over to one of the wooden bins, pulled out a shiny new thing-a-ma-bob and said, “This is what you used to have.” Wow! So that’s what it used to look like thirty-three years ago when our house was built! He then grabbed various other connectors, seals, and what not, and put together a perfect replica of the drain that used to drain before it stopped draining.

So thank you, Saffron Supply, for staying in business. The helpful expertise of your staff is what Salem needed in the past, needs now, and will need in the future. Your history is impressive. Wow, since 1910, 112 years. Here's a screenshot from the Saffron Supply web site. 

I love Twitter. Elon Musk, not so much.

When people ask if I'm going to cancel my Twitter account now that Elon Musk is in charge of the company, I say, Absolutely not. Then I explain why.

I love Twitter. It's one of the first things I check on my iPhone when I wake up in the morning. It's one of the last things I check before I go to bed. 

But I rarely use Twitter directly. I use a third-party app (Tweetbot) that collects tweets from the individuals and organizations that I follow, then presents them in a clean easy-to-use format.

I never see tweets from anyone I don't follow. I never see ads.

All I see is topical, interesting, provocative content from a wide range of knowledgeable commentators, mostly liberal in their politics. I also get tweets from organizations, including the Portland office of the National Weather Service, TripCheck (problems on Oregon highways), and the Kyiv Independent for up-to-date news about the Ukraine War.

Twitter is a marvelous way to keep informed on just about any subject that you're interested in. When economic news breaks, like a fresh inflation report, Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman shares tweets in my feed about how he sees that news.

I could give many more examples of why I adore Twitter. Now, I realize that people who use Twitter itself, not a third-party application, probably encounter more annoyances, such as ads.

But for me Twitter is very similar to Facebook. Apart from ads on Facebook, I don't see content from anybody that I don't choose to follow. So the argument that I should give up on Twitter because some Twitter users engage in hate speech or misinformation makes no sense to me.

The same thing happens on Facebook. Or any other social media platform. Since I don't follow people on Twitter who engage in hate speech or misinformation, I never encounter tweets with those qualities.

Well, with a few exceptions. When Donald Trump was on Twitter, I followed him off-and-on just to keep up on the crap he was tweeting about. It's easy to unfollow people and organizations, so when Trump got too annoying, I'd ditch him. Then I'd follow him again when I felt like it.

Since I'm a happy Space X Starlink satellite internet customer (was fortunate to be a beta tester of the service, which works great for us), I've followed Elon Musk on Twitter for quite a while. He's always been quirky, along with brilliant.

After buying Twitter, Musk has become irritating in many of his tweets, but I still follow him for the entertainment value. 

There's been a lot of discussion among the people and organizations I follow about whether they should stick with Twitter or migrate to a different platform. Most are staying put, for pretty much the same reasons I am. 

I have to admit, though, that Elon Musk runs the risk of ruining Twitter.

His politics seems to have tilted decidedly rightward. There's nothing wrong with that, of course. However, if Musk persists in allowing Twitter to be a haven for bigots, racists, and militant extremists, I worry that Twitter could enter a death spiral as advertisers jump ship and Musk's investment stops being financially viable.

What's perplexing is how someone as obviously intelligent as Elon Musk can be so ignorant about basic facts. Like the nature of the First Amendment and freedom of speech. 

Recently Musk got pissed off at Apple for suspending the company's advertising on Twitter. He viewed that action as anti-free speech, whereas actually it was very much in line with free speech. As an excellent story by David French in The Atlantic says, the First Amendment only speaks about government, not private actors.

Here's an excerpt from Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson don't understand the First Amendment. If you aren't familiar with the reference to "Twitter files," this relates to today's release of internal Twitter communications regarding a New York Post story about Hunter Biden's laptop.

The First Amendment regulates government conduct. It does not regulate private actors. The text of the amendment itself says that “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.” That restraint on Congress has since been extended to apply to the U.S. government at all levels—local, state, and federal.

Activists have tried to argue that large social-media companies essentially function as the government, citing a line of cases that treat private parties as government actors when the private parties perform functions that are “traditionally and exclusively governmental.” Examples include running elections, private prisons, and so-called company towns.

But, as the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently explained, “hosting speech on a private platform … is hardly ‘an activity that only governmental entities have traditionally performed.’” Social-media companies are not the government.

This means the First Amendment protects Twitter, the Biden campaign team, and the Democratic National Committee. The “TWITTER FILES” released so far do not describe a violation of the First Amendment. Instead, they detail the exercise of First Amendment rights by independent, private actors.

One can certainly agree or disagree with the way in which they exercised those rights. Twitter’s decision to delete pornographic pictures of Hunter Biden was entirely justified and appropriate. Its actions to suppress the New York Post story about Hunter’s laptop were far less defensible. But they were Twitter’s decisions to make, and no amount of misguided rhetoric can transform a Twitter story into a government scandal.

Oregon's football loss to Oregon State hurt a lot

In sports, as in other aspects of life, there are losses that sting more than others. When a team you want to have win loses, the pain of that loss depends on various factors.

For me, it has much to do with the familiar adage, "They left everything on the field." Meaning, the team did all that it could to win. Maximum effort. Minimum mistakes. Playing hard. Playing smart.

If both teams leave everything on the field, I view that as a great game, one that neither side deserved to lose, but one team had to (unless the game is soccer, which sometimes ends in a tie).

But yesterday the University of Oregon football team lost to Oregon State in a fashion that left a lingering bad taste in my fan-mouth. They did leave something on the field: energy, wise decisions, good coaching, a will to win.

ESPN describes the ugly (if you're an Oregon fan) conclusion of the game.

CORVALLIS, Ore. -- — Isaiah Newell ran for the go-ahead touchdown with 8:11 remaining, and No. 22 Oregon State took advantage of critical mistakes in the fourth quarter by No. 10 Oregon to rally for a 38-34 victory Saturday.

The Beavers (9-3, 6-3 Pac-12, No 21 CFP) trailed 31-10 late in the third quarter and 34-17 early in the fourth, but the Ducks (9-3, 7-2, No. 9 CFP) gave their rivals a short field on three consecutive possessions. Oregon State converted all three drives into touchdowns without attempting a single pass.

"I felt like we won the Super Bowl," Oregon State receiver Tyjon Lindsey said.

Oregon missed out on a spot in the Pac-12 championship game when No. 12 Washington beat Washington State later Saturday. No. 14 Utah won a tiebreaker and will face No. 5 Southern California on Friday for the league title.

I started watching the game in a balanced frame of mind. I'm a fan of both the Oregon Ducks and the Oregon State Beavers. At first I had the attitude that I'd be equally happy no matter which team won. 

But as the game went on, I realized that emotionally I was more attached to an Oregon win. After all, that way Oregon would play in the Pac-12 championship game against USC. Oregon State narrowly lost to USC in the regular season. I wanted to see how Oregon would fare against the Trojans.

And even if Oregon lost to USC in the championship game, there was a good chance USC would be in the national playoff top four teams. This meant Oregon could play in the Rose Bowl on January 2, which would be way cool.

So I found myself hoping that Oregon would manage to eke out a win against Oregon State even as the Beavers were mounting a furious comeback that I found inspiring.

The blame for the loss falls on a lot of Oregon shoulders. However, sports writer John Canzano singled out Coach Lanning for some special blame, and athletic director Rob Mullens for some extra-special blame.

Oregon did a lot wrong on the way to losing this game. The Ducks had a punt blocked, they botched a second punt attempt, and Lanning decided in the fourth quarter that going for it on fourth down and 1 from his own 29-yard-line was a good idea.

It was a lousy idea.

Especially when you consider Lanning made a similar error from his side of the field, just two weeks earlier in losing to Washington. This time, he wasn’t doing it against a porous defense. He was trying it against the Pac-12’s best run defense, while holding a three-point lead, and with his quarterback hobbling.

Bo Nix was tossed for a one-yard loss.

The play foreshadowed another bad loss — the game itself.

...I’m still trying to wrap my head around what we saw at Reser Stadium. Oregon State deserves big-time credit. I wrote about the Beavers unthinkable path to victory in my post-game column.

Smith’s team demonstrated exceptional resilience. It overcame terrible officiating and three turnovers. It endured a horrendous start to the second half and walked off winners. But the focus now is on the hand-wringing currently going on at Oregon.

The Beavers overcame that massive second-half deficit against the youngest coaching staff in major college football. They did so with only 60 passing yards. Blame Dan Lanning for some of it? Sure. He was reckless. But the big-dollar donors at Oregon did not. Instead, they turned their post-game ire toward the athletic director who hired him — Rob Mullens.

It wasn’t just a lost football game on Saturday. The Ducks let a potential Rose Bowl slip through their fingers. They saw millions in revenue evaporate. They lost recruiting advantages, took a brand hit, and were embarrassed on television.

The donors don’t really blame Lanning. They expected growing pains. It’s not his fault he was put in charge. One of them compared the Oregon football operation to a $200,000 Bentley, handed to an inexperienced driver. Do you blame the young driver for dinging up the car? Or the person who gave him the keys?

“It was fraught with risk,” said one booster.

The donors are instead focused on Mullens, the AD, for hiring a coaching staff that looked in over its head on Saturday. They blame him.

Said a second long-time UO donor: “I’m not even mad about the game. I’m mad that it was predictable and the person in charge allowed it to be.”

Well, both Oregon and Oregon State have one more bowl game to play. One projection has Oregon in the December 28 Holiday Bowl against North Carolina, and Oregon State in the December 30 Sun Bowl against Louisville. 

Not bad. But for Oregon, way worse than what would have been if they'd left everything on the field yesterday.

My liberal defense of Yellowstone, the Paramount show

When it comes to my TV watching, I care a lot more about entertainment than political correctness.

This explains why liberal me, who was unalterably opposed to the Bush administration's use of torture during the so-called War on Terror, could cheer on Jack Bauer in the 24 series when he'd use the cord of a table lamp to shock a suspected terrorist into divulging details of a dirty bomb threat.

It also explains why I'm a huge fan of Yellowstone, the Paramount series now in Season 5, even though a TIME magazine story asked a pertinent question in its title: "Is Yellowstone a Red-State Show? According to Fans, the Answer Is Complicated."
Download Is Yellowstone a Red-State Show? It's Complicated | Time

Well, not to me, for the same reason 24 wasn't a right-wing torture-loving show.

Yellowstone is a gripping tale of a ruthless ranching family who use means both fair and foul to protect their property from developers who want to make Montana into a playground for wealthy people with few ties to the state.

It's a lot like Succession. But Succession is about well-off urban people engaging in devious behavior and family disputes, while Yellowstone is about well-off rural people engaging in devious behavior and family disputes.

That one word difference, urban vs. rural, seems to be a factor in the reaction to the two shows by media elites. The TIME story says:

Since 2018, Yellowstone has become one of the most-watched scripted dramas on cable, often out-drawing shows on major networks. January’s fourth-season finale had over 9 million viewers the night it aired (excluding those who streamed it later), nearly double the number that watched the Season 3 finale.

By comparison, the Emmy-winning, critically acclaimed HBO drama Succession,which tells a similar story about a wealthy family fighting to hold on to its place in the modern world, drew 1.7 million on all platforms (including some 600,000 watching on cable) for its third-season finale a few weeks earlier.

But who is watching Yellowstone? That’s a question that tends to perplex people who write about TV for a living.

When the show’s fifth season debuts on Nov. 13, it will likely dominate the ratings yet again, all while drawing little attention from major media outlets or the people who hand out awards (it has been nominated for one Emmy.) Rotten Tomatoes links to 10 critic reviews for its fourth season, versus 141 for Succession’s third.

Recently I saw a post in my Facebook feed from someone who said that they'd watched the first episode or two of Yellowstone Season 1, but didn't like how violent it was and what a jerk Rip, the ranch foreman, is.

I left a comment on the person's post saying that I've watched every episode of the first four seasons and love Yellowstone, noting that I hope they'll give it more of a try, because the characters are complex. How they appear in the initial episodes isn't how they look as we learn more about them.

This excerpt from the TIME story resonates with me.

While it’s true that a lot of big hit shows have only a minimal presence in the larger popular culture—no one’s handing out Emmys or writing weekly think-pieces about NCIS: Hawaii, after all—it sure feels like Yellowstone should be discussed more.

Its star, Kevin Costner, is an Oscar winner. Co-creator and showrunner Taylor Sheridan wrote the critically acclaimed movies Sicario and Hell or High Water. His stories tackle corporate greed, class conflict, racial identity—all topics that usually get cultural commentators excited.

Republicans who support candidates vowing to protect faith, family, and the Second Amendment could certianly be drawn to Costner’s John Dutton, a rugged Montana ranching magnate who pines for the good old days and uses brute force against his political enemies. But the show does not seem to be trying to actively court that crowd.

Yellowstone’s premise is in line with classic nighttime soaps like Dallas, in which nearly every character has a little bit of angel and a little bit of devil in them, and where the stories sometimes dispense with logic to get to the next cliffhanger.

The issues Yellowstone raises about land stewardship and big business are relevant, but the plots are more about romance, violence and feuds—all played out against a gorgeous Montana backdrop.

One reason I find Yellowstone so refreshingly different is its seemingly mostly accurate portrait of life on a giant ranch. My wife largely likes Yellowstone for the horses. There's an amazing scene of the cowboys rounding up hundreds of horses, galloping full speed with the herd down a steep slope.

Directing Yellowstone requires a different set of skills than directing Succession, for sure. Ditto for the actors. The men and women who display some astounding riding skill, not to mention the skill of the horses they ride, aren't going to be found in a typical Hollywood casting call.

I also admire how multi-talented the ranch hands are. They can hunt, fish, train horses, mend fences, drive huge horse trailers, rope, fight, cheat, lie, play poker, murder, and a heck of a lot more besides. Those men, along with a few tough women, are the sort you'd want to have on your side.

Sure, they do a lot of nasty stuff. But that's a positive feature of Yellowstone, not a reason to dislike it. I enjoy shows where every character is a mixture of good and bad, light and dark, morality and immorality. 

Because that's human nature. It's just a matter of degree. We're all the conniving yet admirable characters of Yellowstone, even if we aren't starring in our own TV series.

Yesterday Oregon's Bo Nix inspired everyone hobbled by a problem

My wife doesn't like watching sports. I've tried to explain to her that what makes a game especially interesting to me isn't what's happening on the field, but what's going on in the lives of certain key players.

So a football game, say, isn't just a bunch of guys running around bashing each other. It can also be a drama of sorts if you follow the teams closely enough to understand the main characters.

Yesterday's game between Oregon and Utah was a great example of this. Sure, I was pleased that Oregon pulled out a 20-17 victory. But it was how the win came about that made it so compelling and satisfying for me.

The hero of the drama was Oregon quarterback Bo Nix. He'd gotten injured the week before in a disappointing loss to Washington. Details of the injury were lacking. Something to do with his leg or foot.

It was unclear whether Nix would be able to play in the Utah game -- an important game, since the winner would have a clear path toward playing in the Pac 12 championship, which likely would mean a Rose Bowl berth.

As soon as I stared watching the game it was clear that while Nix was the starting Oregon quarterback, he wasn't his usual self. Unable to run at all well, Nix was limited to either handing the ball off or standing almost stationary as he looked for a receiver on a pass play.

The announcers said that Nix looked like he was at about 50%. He couldn't plant himself on his injured right foot, which made it tough to pass with his usual accuracy. Still, Nix led the Ducks on several scoring drives and they ended the first half leading 17-3.

I recall the announcers saying that if Oregon ended up winning the game, Nix's gritty performance while injured would go down as one of the best of any quarterback this season, maybe even deserving Heisman Trophy consideration. 

Watching Nix hobble around on a cold night in Eugene, keeping Oregon ahead as Utah staged a strong second half comeback, I found myself rooting for him to tough out a win in part because he was showing how someone can have an injury, or health problem (physical or mental), and perform their duties well in the face of that adversity.

Sports writer John Canzano said it well in a post-game column emailed to his readers, of whom I'm one. Some excerpts:

I don’t know if you saw Bo Nix play football on Saturday night. The University of Oregon quarterback wasn’t his typical, mobile self. He rushed for -3 yards, in fact.

On one play, UO offensive coordinator Kenny Dillingham sent Nix in motion out of the backfield.

I watched.

The Autzen Stadium crowd watched.

Nix was a decoy. The plan was to snap the ball to a running back. But as the quarterback with an injured foot trotted in motion toward the sideline, Utah’s defenders didn’t move. They turned their heads and watched like the rest of us.

Nix looked like guy making his way across an icy crosswalk on a cold winter night. I half expected a Boy Scout might run on the field and help him across the formation.

It was Oregon 20, Utah 17 on Saturday night. Nix was gutsy, playing with one bad wheel. He threw for 287 yards, a touchdown and one interception.

...We’ve seen a lot of great things from quarterbacks over the years at the University of Oregon.

Justin Herbert, throwing missiles.

Marcus Mariota, slipping linebackers.

What we hadn’t ever seen was Ducks’ quarterback pretty much stand stationary for four quarters, throwing darts around the field. Then, late in the fourth quarter, needing to ice the game, Nix faked a hand off, ran, and dove two yards for a first down.

Said Lanning: “We asked Bo right before that play if we could run the play knowing that the two options were to hand it off or for him to keep it and he said ‘absolutely.’ That guy’s got heart.”

...We’re all in a struggle against our limitations. That’s life, isn’t it? The Ducks were resilient on Saturday. We watched Oregon stumble around the field, exploring the edges of those limits. Nix’s performance wasn’t smooth and easy. It was gritty and authentic. It was essentially a wince. I suppose that’s why I couldn’t take my eyes off it.

Beautifully said. Being 74, with several annoying health problems that limit me somewhat, I resonate with what Canzano said: We’re all in a struggle against our limitations. That’s life, isn’t it?

For sure.

After being able to easily run around a track, sometimes we reach a point where diving two yards is all we can do. But then we can get up, maybe with the help of a friend, and dive two more yards. Metaphorically speaking, I mean.

Thus when we see someone like Nix do so well in his own struggle, that encourages the rest of us. Yesterday I felt like I wasn't watching just a football game. I was watching life play out on a football field.

If you can't read this blog post, it's Typepad's fault

I was one of the first people to start blogging with Typepad, way back in 2003 or 2004. Definitely 2004, but I sort of remember using a different blogging service in 2003, and that I copied those first posts into my HinesSight blog on Typepad when I switched to it.

Now I'm super-frustrated with Typepad for the first time in those 19 or 18 years. Until now Typepad has been quite reliable. There have been brief outages when it was offline, none lasting more than half a day or so to my best recollection.

However, at the moment Typepad has been offline for all practical purposes for three freaking days. With no end in sight. By "all practical purposes," I mean that I just timed how long it took this HinesSight blog to load incompletely. (The title and right sidebar aren't showing up at all.)

Answer: 3 minutes and 45 seconds. If this wasn't my blog, I would have given up after just 30 seconds or less, since I would have figured that the blog had been deleted or wasn't available. No wonder that my page views have taken a big tumble.

This debacle started with an innocent sounding October 19 message on Everything Typepad, the blog Typepad uses to communicate with its customers.

On October 22nd, Typepad is going to be migrating data to a new data center. At the time of migration, we will have approximately a four-hour maintenance window starting at 12:30AM United States Eastern Time. During this time, your blogs and photo albums will not be available online, but you will still be able to access your Typepad account.

Typepad support will be available during the maintenance period to answer any questions, and we will be posting updates to Twitter - https://twitter.com/typepad - and on Everything Typepad - https://everything.typepad.com.

Note that Typepad staff don't update their customers via email, just via Twitter and Everything Typepad. Downside of that is most people don't use Twitter (I do), and the Everything Typepad blog is only accessible if Typepad is functioning, which it hasn't been all the time lately.

On October 22 an optimistic Everything Typepad blog post appeared.

Typepad's planned migration has successfully been completed. We appreciate everyone's patience during the maintenance window. If you feel you may be encountering an issue related to the migration, please reach out to us by opening a ticket within your Typepad account at Help > New Ticket.

For problems accessing your Typepad account, you can email [email protected] or use the form here.

Again, note that the support email address, [email protected], obviously only works if Typepad.com is operating. Which, soon it wouldn't. Because...

On October 28 this Everything Typepad blog post appeared.

Typepad will be conducting further maintenance this coming weekend to address lingering issues as part of the continued migration to the new data center. During a window from 9:30 pm U.S. Eastern Time on Saturday, October 29 (01:30 UTC on Sunday, October 30) to 9:30 am U.S. Eastern Time on Sunday, October 30 (13:30 UTC on Sunday, October 30), there may be periods where Typepad blogs are down. The Typepad Support team will be monitoring throughout the maintenance period and will post updates on Twitter at https://twitter.com/typepad and here on Everything Typepad.

OK, that didn't sound too horrible: a 12 hour window from 9 pm on Saturday, October 29 to 9 am on Sunday, October 30 when there could be periods that Typepad blogs were down.

Problem is, that 12 hour window has become a 72 hour window, with no end in sight, since it's now 9 pm on Tuesday (PDT) and I'm gambling that I'll be able to publish this blog post, and that other people will be able to read it.

Typepad hasn't updated their Everything Typepad blog since October 28, so I have no idea what, exactly, went wrong with the migration to the new data center. All I know is that based on many Twitter comments, lots of bloggers in addition to me are deeply irritated on how this mess has been handled.

Late on Sunday, Typepad tweeted that the migration had failed and it was being undone.

So that's the sad tale as it stands now. Typepad's Twitter person is doing the best they can, but it seems like they're handicapped by not getting reliable information from the technical engineering staff, or they're not allowed to communicate what is really going on, or nobody on Typepad has a clue about where to go from here.

Either way, it's a tough situation all around. 

On my end, this episode has shown me that while at times I toy with the idea of giving up writing a post for one of my three blogs every day, now that I haven't been able to do that, I realize how much I miss it. That's why I'm taking a gamble on writing and publishing this post, even though I'm unsure how many people will be able to read it, given Typepad's problems.

Maybe you're wondering why I don't move to another blogging service. Here's the reason. 

In my 19 years of blogging I've written 7,403 blog posts that have gotten 82,093 comments. Yeah, I'm addicted to blogging. When I started, I never thought about using my own domain name/URL. So all of those posts are attached to a Typepad domain name/URL.

Even if I could copy all those posts and comments into a new blogging platform, Google would have the posts under the Typepad URL. So I'd lose 19 years of Google indexing, which I find extremely valuable, since Googling my own blogs usually is the only way I can find what I've written on some subject. 

So I'm tied to Typepad, even as it frustrates me big-time with the botched migration to a new data center. I just hope things get back to normal with Typepad soon.

The good news is, I feel better tonight having written this post. Which is why I love to blog: it's therapy for me, getting what's inside of me outside, where I can deal with it better.

Why this blog didn't show up for 36 hours

From about 9 pm my time last Saturday night to around 9 am today (Monday) Typepad, my blogging service, was offline due to scheduled maintenance that had problems. Typepad has undone the changes, but some images and the name of this blog still aren't showing up. Hopefully things will be completely back to normal soon.

How a single stink bug cost us $430 today

Bloggers like me have to choose our subjects to write about with care.

Until noon today, I was pondering between a $300 million Salem bond measure, advice on who to vote for in the midterms, and the increased risk of nuclear war due to Putin's Ukraine threats.

But after Tim Paquin of Precision Garage Door Service diagnosed what had caused our garage door opener to stop working, I realized that this was my chance to contribute to the accumulated store of knowledge regarding garage door opener repairs.

In short, consider that a stink bug is the culprit. Here's what Paquin found after taking a look inside the opener in a quest to learn why it had no electrical power.

That stink bug must have really had a grudge against my wife and me, because the repair guy said that the bug managed to fry itself on the part of the circuit board that controls the power supply. 

At first I thought this was funny.

When I learned how much this damn stink bug was going to cost me, the hilarity of the moment was considerably reduced: $75 service call + $304 Linear circuit board + $99 operator service and programming - $48 senior discount = $430.

Sadly, there was no discount for a stink bug committing suicide on the very worst part of the circuit board to die on (from my perspective; maybe the stink bug had a glorious final exit).

Stink bugs have been an annoying part of our life here in rural south Salem, Oregon for quite a few years. It seems like forever, but a Wikipedia article says that they reached Oregon only in 2009. Mostly they cluster on our windows on warm days in late summer or early fall.

Some get inside. We've found that the BugZooka bug catcher, a wonderful invention that lets us suck stink bugs up with ease (unlike flies, they are easy to sneak up on) is the best way to deal with them. A BugZooka is kept handy in a corner of our house.

Stink bugs are adept at getting inside a house or garage. My wife had gotten rid of lots of them in our garage, but obviously we missed the one that cost us $430.

I guess I could ask our State Farm agent if they offer insurance for stink bugs that cause fatal damage to a circuit board, but I suspect their underwriting department doesn't have enough data to calculate the minute odds of this happening. 

Unfortunately, it happened to us.

Deep thoughts about OSU's last minute win over Stanford

My wife, Laurel, like lots of non-sports fans, can't understand the appeal of watching football games.

Or any games, for that matter, aside from the Puppy Bowl that's held every Super Bowl day for those who are more interested in watching young dogs run around on a playing field than grown men.

What I try to convey to Laurel, with decidedly mixed success, is that sports becomes as fascinating as a engrossing novel, movie, or TV show if you follow a team closely enough to know what a game means, and who the main characters in the drama are.

Drama is precisely the right word to describe yesterday's Oregon State University vs. Stanford football game held in Palo Alto. OSU was favored, but looked out of sorts for most of the game, while Stanford was playing great.

When the score was 24-10 at the beginning of the fourth quarter, I figured that the only reason I should keep watching was to see how bad the final score would be. However, OSU made a good comeback, trailing only 27-22 with 58 seconds left. 

So now I thought that I'd watch OSU come up just short, which would have felt worse to me than losing badly. I was tempted to stop watching the game and turn to the evening Portland news, but decided to stick it out until the very end.

Good decision. Because this happened. (The highlights video starts with the crucial pass play.)

An Oregonian story describes the amazing catch by Tre’Shaun Harrison. 

With the Beavers down by five points with just seconds remaining, quarterback Ben Gulbranson fired a pass toward the right sideline, looking for receiver Tre’Shaun Harrison.

As Harrison tried to haul in the pass, he snared it off of Cardinal defender Ethan Bonner’s helmet. Bonner and Stanford safety Patrick Fields, who was also covering on the play, seemed momentarily stunned that Harrison had made the catch, and by the time they started after him, Harrison was racing to the end zone for a 56-yard touchdown.

Here's a blurry screenshot from the video of the catch. Harrison is way up there in the air, grabbing the football off of the helmet of #13 Stanford defender Bonner.

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog post that mentioned sports writer John Canzano saying that Oregon State snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in their disappointing game against USC. 

And yesterday OSU snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. Same team. Way different outcome. In each case, all because of a single play. 

I felt amazingly good as soon as Harrison ran untouched into the end zone. Moments like this one are what make sports a great reflection of life, which obviously isn't all that surprising, since sports are part of life.

A back-up quarterback, Ben Gulbranson, was playing for OSU. The ESPN announcers said when he took over with 58 seconds to go that this was Gulbranson's chance to go down in Oregon State history as staging one of the great all-time comebacks for the football team.

When I heard that, I thought, yeah, right, not much chance of that happening. 

Yet it did. Which goes to show that just when things are darkest, it's possible that light will dawn. But the flip side is that just when things are brightest, it's possible that darkness will fall. In other words, we just can't tell what the future will bring. 

For most of the game, ESPN showed shots of really happy Stanford fans. After Harrison's touchdown, their demeanor changed markedly.

I felt sorry for them. A little bit. Mostly I felt joy that the team I wanted to have win, did, in such an astounding fashion with 13 seconds left to go in the game.

But there's always another game. Next time us OSU fans could be the ones with sad faces. That's the attraction of watching sports for me. You just never know. Just like life.