HinesSight

2005 Academy Awards highs and lows

Once again we enjoyed being a part of Jim Ramsey’s annual Academy Awards potluck party. Jim hosts this every year, which I guess is why it’s called an annual affair.

Some years the competition for the Most Awards Guessed Right prize has gotten pretty heated. We used to argue vehemently over rules, such as whether you had to fill out your guess sheet before the show started, or whether you could make a last second decision just before the envelope was opened.

A few years, I recall, some people made their guesses ahead of time, while others were able to adjust their pre-show choice as it became evident that a landslide (you can’t say “tidal wave” now, can you?) of Academy support for a particular movie was happening. When I finally won fair and square and got to take home the annual prize, I vowed that I’d never return it. It still is hidden away when nobody will find it, not even our dog. (I’ll bring it out briefly for a photo, to prove my Academy Awards acumen).

Last night I won again. But with just eleven correct choices. That’s not very good. Once I adjust for my rationalizations, however, I do much better. Quite a few times I had my pen poised intuitively over the box of the eventual winner, then started to think too much.

“Let’s see, Makeup. Lemony Snickett’s characters looked pretty cool. I’ll go with that. Plus, the liberal Academy members would never give an Oscar to Passion of the Christ. No, wait. That’s what everybody thinks: the Academy is anti-Christian. The Academy voters won’t want people to think that they are anti-Christian, even if they are anti-Christian. So for Makeup they won’t vote the way they want to vote, but against the way people think they will vote, just to prove that they aren’t prejudiced against a Christian movie, even though they probably are.”

When Lemony Snickett won, I realized that the Blink decision-making style has a lot going for it. Go with your gut feeling.

On the whole, my gut feeling about the 2005 Academy Awards was: too predicable and scripted. The assessment by Randy of R Blog that the show was over-controlled is right on. When Sean Penn, Robin Williams, and Chris Rock combined can’t produce a truly outrageous moment, the leash is on too tight. I long for the good old Academy Awards days when a streaker could dash naked across the stage, Oscar winners used their time on stage to make blatantly political statements, and at least a few acceptance speeches were truly spontaneous.

In his opening monologue Chris Rock noted that at the Academy Awards actors don’t act, whereas at musical awards shows musicians make music. I think that’s what viewers want to see, Chris: actors not acting, but behaving like the regular people that they are. Hillary Swank seemed genuinely natural, but most of the other big names acted like they were acting. Even Jamie Foxx struck me as having been well prepared for his supposedly off the cuff remarks. I liked how he spoke about his grandmother, but I had the feeling that he was working off a mental script: “Start with the usual thank you’s; end with the emotional material.”

Over all the years I’ve watched the show, I greatly admire the few Oscar winners who seemed to get out of their seats, walk up onto the stage, and speak from the heart in that immediate I’ve-just-won moment. The same goes for the hosts. The inspired unscripted remarks and jokes are much more memorable than the carefully planned aspects of the Academy Awards. This year there wasn’t much in the “inspired unscripted” category.

Laurel and I enjoyed the Bush-bashing parts of Chris Rock’s monologue. He also had some other nice lines, which can be read here. However, I have to agree with a USA Today writer that much of Rock’s material didn’t seem appropriate for the setting, and that the overall format of the Academy Awards sucked. The opening tribute to the movies was way too serious, and Rock’s interviews with black moviegoers was way too glib. And whatever happened to the entertaining skits and dance numbers? Even the performances of the best song nominees have turned pretty bland.

Watching to see what beautiful actress wears what sort of gown is always one of the best parts of the Academy Awards. Thankfully, the post-9/11 conservative dress style that was evident in 2002 has faded away. Whoever was sitting in Sidney Lumet’s box, she of the bounteous breasts and low-cut bodice, got some admiring comments from we Academy Award party attendees last night. Lumet has several daughters, one of whom is a retired actress who has appeared in some of his films. We figured she must be a daughter rather than his wife, but in Hollywood you can’t be sure.

Salma Hayek also was a joy, as always, to gaze upon. Can’t argue with Chris Rock when he said, "You won't be able to take your eyes off these next four presenters - Penelope Cruz and Salma Hayek." By the way, I apologize to Salma for spelling her name “Selma” in a 2003 Academy Awards post that has been getting some attention from Google searchers looking for “Selma Hayek Academy Awards.” (I note that “Selma Hayek” reaps 489,000 Google results and “Salma Hayek” 649,000, so obviously I’m not alone in confusing the spelling.)

Since my 2003 post contained no photos, I’ll offer Salma Hayek 2005 Academy Awards seekers more of a reward this time.

Images of the Salem Conference Center

Portlanders, you may snicker about the architectural quality of Salem’s brand new conference center, but the community open house today was well attended by wide-eyed capital city residents—me among them. Downtown Salem has seen quite a few store closings the past few years, so the opening of a combined Phoenix Hotel and Salem Conference Center is a welcome step toward rejuvenation of the city core.

I began my tour by contemplating the front of the center from across the street. Laurel thinks it looks like a piece of particle board supported by tinker toys. I agree. We read in the newspaper that the supports are intended to remind passers-by of fir trees. Even when I squinted, I couldn’t see the resemblance.

Close up they looked even more like tinker toys.

The lobby has a certain generic conference center look. We see the rectangular particle board theme repeated here.

The main ground floor meeting area is the Santiam River Room, I think. I’m not absolutely sure what it’s called because signs weren’t obvious and my tour was self-guided. I was hungry and figured that I’d be able to locate open house snacks faster on my own. Sadly, all I could find was some ice water. Maybe I should taken a guided tour after all, if the tour guided you to snacks. I’m pretty sure the musical group is from the Salem Chamber Orchestra. Three people are listening to them. That’s Salem.

I made my way upstairs to what I surmised is the Willamette River Room. The Salem Senate-aires singers were about to perform. As my eyes absorbed the décor, I kept thinking that Sly and the Family Stone should be on stage. The lights and carpet just seemed so late ‘60s/early ‘70s. I’ve read in the paper that “you’ll either love or hate the main upstairs room.” Yes. It begs for an extreme opinion. Fearful that I’d start having flashbacks stimulated by the glow lights, I exited the room before a firm love/hate decision of my own formed (I lean toward hate).

From the second floor lobby you have a concrete-building-filled view of the Salem riverfront. It's a crime against good urban design to have the butt-ugly Boise Cascade buildings clogging up so much of downtown Salem’s access to the Willamette River. Attempts to convert the area to more aesthetic uses (anything else would be more aesthetic, believe me) have failed so far.

So that’s my cyber-tour of the Salem Conference Center. The place wouldn’t be a big deal if it were in Portland, but it definitely is an important addition to Salem’s impoverished civic landscape.

The big controversy surrounding the opening of the center is whether its dearth of dedicated parking will force attendees to use the free downtown parking spaces, tying up spots that otherwise would go to people patronizing merchants.

Yes, Portlanders, you can park free for as long as you like in downtown Salem. Plus, most of the time you can park in the same block as the business you’re going to. At least there are a few things Salem can feel superior to Portland about.

Confessions of a Trail Blazers anti-fan

I’ve found a new way of enjoying the Trail Blazers: root for them to lose. Yes, I’ve become a rabid anti-fan of Oregon’s one and only big-time professional sports franchise.

I enjoy the televised games even more than I did when I was a positive-fan. Call me perverse, but there’s a special joy in watching a detested team lose that isn’t there when an admired team wins. It’s sort of like watching NASCAR races just for the wrecks, yet more guilt free—because nobody gets hurt when the Blazers lose.

You can save quite a bit of time if you’re an anti-fan rather than a fan. I’m really only interested in the Trail Blazers’ fourth quarter, for if they’re going to lose, this obviously is when it’s going to happen. Fans want to see how the team plays throughout the game because they genuinely care. Since I only care about seeing the Blazers embarrass themselves with another loss, my viewing time is considerably compressed.

I generally turn on the TV near the end of the first half to check the score. If the Trail Blazers are behind by a goodly amount, as they were yesterday (Lakers game), I rub my anti-fan hands together in anticipatory glee: “Ah, this could be a good night,” I mutter to myself.

I don’t want to give the Blazers too much attention, even negative, so I try to wait until about eight minutes are left in the fourth quarter before I settle onto the couch for what I hope will be another satisfying Portland loss. Last night’s game was tense. When Stoudamire got hot, hit a couple of threes, and brought the Trail Blazers back to within three points of the Lakers, I started to sweat.

It was a nail-biter down to the final seconds. When Abdur-Rahim’s three-point try bounced off the rim as the buzzer sounded I jumped to my feet. “Yes! There is a god!” Joy is another Blazers loss. I knew that I’d be sleeping like a baby that night with a big anti-fan smile on my face.

In case I sound like a degenerate, twisted Oregon Sports Scrooge, I want to assure you that I root sincerely for the U of O Ducks and OSU Beavers to win. Also my graduate school alma mater, the Portland State Vikings (who I hope will get into the NCAA tournament and put the state’s big boy college teams to shame). So it’s just the Trail Blazers who have earned my disdain.

I’m not alone, according to an interesting Blue Oregon post by Kari Chisholm, “Blazers: Still not fan-friendly.” He reports on an analysis that shows the Blazers ranking #26 out of 29 NBA teams on the question, “Are fans getting what they deserve from their hometown team?” On the issue of fan relations, the Trail Blazers were a highly deserved #29 out of 29.

Way to go! We’re #1 in fan dissatisfaction!

Kari shared a follow-up post after, horror of horrors, he actually went to a Blazers game—the same Lakers game I saw on TV. He estimated that at least a third of the crowd was rooting for the Lakers, which means I have a lot of anti-fan company.

I simply don’t care about any of the players on the current roster, with the possible exception of Joel Przybilla. He’s got a great last name and plays hard, but hasn’t been on the team long enough to be much of a positive offset against my inherent dislike, or at best, apathy, towards the other guys.

Back in the good old days of 1977 things were a lot different. I moved to Salem from Portland that year and was overjoyed to find that the cable TV system here had all the Blazers games on for absolutely free. I had some great times that championship season bonding with Bill Walton, Maurice Lucas, Dave Twardzik, Lionel Hollins, and the other members of a team that oozed character on and off the court.

This year I’m also looking forward to the NBA playoffs: to the Trail Blazers not being in them, I mean. The season’s prospects appear promising so far. A few more home court losses and this anti-fan can start to relax.

Karl Rove, Plato, and anti-AARP ad

This great Bizarro cartoon, "Karl Rove and Plato," was included in yesterday's post. But it deserves to be featured on its own--especially since today The American Spectator neo-cons are following so faithfully in Rove's footsteps with their bizarre anti-AARP ad.
(Click on the preceding link to see the ad animation, which I don't seem to have been able to include in the image below.)

CNN reported that The American Spectator has pulled their "AARP hates the troops and loves gay marriage" ad because they just wanted to see how liberals would react. Would liberals go crazy or debate social security issues rationally? Well, the crazy reaction this ad is getting befits its obvious craziness. What do the images have to do with social security reform? Nothing.

This is so typical of conservative smear campaigns. Tell a lie often enough and people will start believing it. I think they've bitten off more than they can chew with the AARP though. As some commenters on The Daily Kos link above are saying, many members of the AARP are part of the "great generation" who fought wars to really defend the United States. Calling the AARP anti-troop isn't going to help win these folks over to Bush's side on social security reform.

Here's an interesting proposal from The Left Coaster about how to make Karl Rove and the Republicans pay for the anti-AARP ad.

Global warming: the big truth

Our Oregon weather is way too weird. In mid-February I shouldn’t have to water willow cuttings Laurel planted by scooping dribbles of water out of a usually full creek. In mid-February I shouldn’t have to be turning on the sprinkling system to keep our plants from drying out. In mid-February the thermometer outside our front door shouldn’t say 58.6 degrees.

But all this is true. So far this month Salem has gotten .43 inches of rain instead of the normal 3.73 inches. The average high for today is 52, not the actual 59. I’ve lived in Oregon for thirty-four years. I know that I shouldn’t be mowing our lawn in mid-February. Yet I did.

A few years ago I wrote a tongue-in-cheek post called “Global Warming…The Big Lie.” I was joking. Global warming is real. As this article is titled, “Here's the proof, Mr President.” Oceanographers analyzed more than seven million recordings of ocean temperatures from around the world. They compared the rise in temperatures at different depths to predictions made by two computer simulations of global warming.

Bingo. Right on. No doubt about it. Man-made greenhouse gases are the cause of observed changes in ocean temperatures. One of the researchers, a marine physicist, said: "We've got a serious problem. The debate is no longer: 'Is there a global warming signal?' The debate now is: 'What are we going to do about it?'"

Damn right, Mr. President. Good question. One thing you could do is send a federal employee out to do the watering for me. My left shoulder has been giving me some problems, and it wasn’t helped by carrying around lots of buckets of water. And if our well goes dry, you could pay for drilling a new one.

Again, I’m kidding. Actually, I’m not blaming Bush for Oregon’s dry spell. I want to save my Bush-Blames for problems that can be tied more directly to his screw-ups, of which there are many to choose from. What I do blame Bush for is not acknowledging scientific facts. Global warming is just one of many instances where the Bush administration politicizes science, choosing to ignore or downplay scientific studies that aren’t in tune with a neo-conservative world view.

There is room to disagree about the meaning of global warming and what should be done about it. The March 2005 issue of Scientific American has a fascinating article called “How Did Humans First Alter Global Climate?” William Ruddiman, the author, presents compelling evidence that starting about 8,000 years ago our human ancestors began contributing significant quantities of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere by clearing forests and irrigating fields to grow crops.

As a result, the article says, “human beings kept the planet notably warmer than it would have been otherwise—and possibly even averted the start of a new ice age.” For analyses of the changes in the earth’s orbit that produce ice ages predict that one should be at hand. In fact, Ruddiman argues that without human activity the next round of glaciation would already have started.

So on the whole maybe global warming is good for humans. And maybe it isn’t. Some parts of the world likely will benefit from global warming, and some will suffer (like low-lying islands). Instead of rejecting the Kyoto treaty and hiding our scientific head in the sand, Bush should have the United States participating in a worldwide debate about the effects of global warming and what should be done about it.

Instead, this cartoon from “Funny Times” sums up the Bush administration’s attitude toward truth—including the scientific variety. I’d find it more amusing if I wasn’t sore from carrying all that water around today.

Sustainable Fairview update

It’s been a while since I’ve written about Sustainable Fairview, the 275 acre sustainable development that is being planned here in Salem on the site of the old Fairview Training Center. Laurel and I are investors in Sustainable Fairview Associates (SFA), the group that bought the property from the state in 2002 and since has been planning how to make Fairview into a model mixed-use Green community.

Currently, one 30-acre parcel has been sold by SFA to a local company, Sustainable Development LLC. Initially another local developer, Chris Jones, planned to buy this parcel, but that deal fell through.

An article by Randy Gragg in last Sunday’s Oregonian about Opsis Architecture had a mention of plans for what has come to be known in SFA circles as the “North 30.” The article says that Opsis, in the person of James Meyer (an SFA consultant), “is at work designing the first phase: a 30-acre, 200-home subdivision in which 20 of the homes will be ‘zero-energy,’ producing as much power as they consume.”

That sounds great. In the past I’ve been a critic of how SFA has gone about planning Sustainable Fairview (here’s one example, and here’s another). But even with all the missteps and missed opportunities, I’m on the edge of becoming a strong believer in the project.

I have to say “on the edge” because SFA is at a crossroads, and it’s uncertain what direction Sustainable Fairview will be moving toward. Logically, the basic choices SFA has are (1) to keep selling off chunks of the remaining 245 acres to various developers, or (2) to find a “master developer” willing and able to take on the challenge of moving the entire remainder of the project from Master Plan to Green Reality.

Laurel and I strongly favor the second option. I believe most of our fellow SFA investors do also. There are about 150 acres earmarked for residential uses and about 95 acres earmarked for other uses—such as a Village Center and other sorts of commercial development. We’d like to see these mixed-uses not get unduly mixed up by having residential and commercial land sold to different developers.

This approach would seem to be at odds with the integrated ecological planning that is one of the hallmarks of sustainable communities. And practically speaking, we’re afraid that once the prime hillside residential land is sold (the acreage getting the most interest from potential buyers), it will be difficult to find a developer who wants to take on the more difficult task of renovating or removing the many old buildings on the lower condo/commercial part of Fairview.

Still, no matter what happens with Sustainable Fairview the 275 acres are going to be developed in a much Greener fashion than would have occurred if a traditional developer had gotten his/her hands on this unique property. The only question is how Green Fairview will be, since the zoning code and CC&Rs require a baseline commitment to sustainability. How high above that foundation will Fairview be able to rise? This remains to be seen.

I’m hopeful that one day Fairview will be featured in articles such as this “The Best Places to Live” piece from Organic Style. It starts this way: “Meet the latest coast-to-coast phenomenon: communities built around a love of nature, respect for the planet, and old-fashioned neighborliness. Build it and they will come: That’s a perfect description of these 10 environmentally friendly communities—from Portland, Oregon to New York City—described on the following pages.”

The Portland project is The Henry, 123 condominium apartments in the Pearl District. The article says that it was named for Henry Weinhard, owner of the brewery that once stood where The Henry does now. OK. Whatever works is the rule when it comes to naming.

Early on I gave some thought to a new name for “Fairview.” “Sustainable Fairview” doesn’t do much for me. I figured that a community committed to a bold, fresh approach to living and working sustainably needed a fittingly exotic name.

Terramore came to mind: love (amore) of the earth (terra). However “Fairview” ends up being called, by its current or another name, may the project become a emblem of just that: love of the earth. God knows, Earth needs all the love we humans can give it.

The Beatles said: “In the end the love you take is equal to the love you make.” That’s about as poetically succinct a description of sustainability as you could find.

Never expected to find that on a CD

“Where did this CD come from?” Laurel said a few minutes ago. “I saw it sitting next to your CD player in your hospital room,” I told her. “When I packed up your stuff I threw it into the bag.” “I’ve never seen it before. It’s not one of my Successful Surgery CDs. They’re the only ones I took to the hospital.”

Ah, a mystery! The CD had no identifying information on it apart from a hospital patient property label, the same as a pre-op nurse put on Laurel’s CD player that she took into surgery with her.

I began to theorize that it contained secret medical information that was supposed to self-destruct after the operation, but which mistakenly fell into our hands via a sympathizer at the hospital who wanted us to know that the Department of Homeland Security had used her hysterectomy as a ruse to implant a monitoring device that would transmit details of her liberal Bush-bashing conversations to black-booted listeners dedicated to quashing all anti-neoconservative dissent.

My fingers trembled with excitement as I put the CD into Laurel’s computer. Windows told me that it contained “mixed files” and I’d have to choose programs to open them. Yes, just as I expected. Probably the files were encrypted, but we could enlist the aid of radical computer geeks who would be eager to help us uncover this nefarious government citizen-spying program.

However, when I double-clicked on what looked to be a video file, Windows Media Player obediently started up.

“Oh my God!” we exclaimed in unison. We were shocked. It was way more graphic that what we were used to seeing on the TV show “House,” which illustrates medical problems by sending the viewer on a tour through, say, a patient’s blood vessels and into the beating heart.

That was a simulation; this was real. We were looking at the inside of Laurel: pulsating oozely organs being pushed aside by the laparoscopic instruments, one of which obviously was a camera. I was hoping to see the whole operation, but there was only about 75 seconds of video footage plus four stills of unknown internal organs (sadly, Laurel isn’t wild about the idea of me posting them on this weblog; I’ll ask again when she is in a more exhibitionistic mood).

It’s kind of strange that nobody told us that a CD memento of Laurel’s surgery was being given to her. We found the videos fascinating. More squeamish patients might want to fortify themselves with a few glasses of wine, or whatever, before seeing what lies within.

A whole other world, that’s for sure. Surgeons know this world; for most of the rest of us, skin-deep is as far as our visual understanding of ourselves goes. I’m listening to Laurel talk to a friend on the phone about our CD discovery. “It’s pretty weird to look at the inside of yourself,” she says. “It’s pretty gross.”

Yes, yet also fascinating. Watching the video this vegetarian kept thinking, “We’re made of meat!” That’s obvious, I know. But comparing the actuality of Laurel’s insides with what I picture my own bodily interior to be like, I realized that my imagined Inner Brian is far neater and tidier—intestines over here, liver over there, a place for everything, everything in its place—than the messy reality.

Anyway, for those concerned about Laurel’s recovery process, she’s doing great. Under my marvelous in-home nursing care I’m confident that her return to near-normalcy is going to be faster than the usual six weeks.

Greetings from Room 2502, Legacy Emanuel Hospital

Laurel’s hysterectomy surgery today was successful, and I am happily blogging the news from her room in the Family Birth Center wing of Legacy Emanuel Hospital in Portland.

Down the hall a bunch of firefighters (subtly identifiable by the “Portland Fire Dept.” on the backs of their jackets) are congratulating a woman who I initially assumed was the wife of a firefighter. Bad sexist Brian! She could, of course, be a firefighter herself.

Regardless, there is a certain pleasing symmetry here. One woman is recovering from having her uterus removed from her body in Room 2502, while a few doors down another woman is celebrating the removal of a body from her uterus. I hear a Disney song in my head: “The circle of life….”

At this moment Laurel is talking on the phone to her sister in Indiana, sounding perfectly normal. She isn’t feeling much pain, thanks to morphine and a skillfully performed laparoscopic surgery. The operation only took about two hours, on the low end of the surgeon’s (Dr. Philippa Ribbink) estimated ETA.

It went so fast, I had barely settled into the Family Waiting Area (after checking into a nearby hotel, eating lunch, and taking a short nap) before Dr. Ribbink walked in, green scrubs and all. I couldn’t help but be a little nervous, since I had observed this scene both in countless movies and also in the fifteen minutes or so I had been sitting in the Waiting Area.

In the two real-life doctor-relative conversations I had heard, the news wasn’t particularly positive. Complications had arisen in one surgery; it wouldn’t be over for several hours more. Results from a biopsy were being awaited in another case; the man’s wife would have to stay in the hospital overnight before learning if another surgery was needed.

So it was a relief to have Dr. Ribbink sit down next to me and say, “Everything went great. We left in her ovaries—they looked fine. Laurel is awake. She’ll be moved from recovery to her room in about an hour.” And so she was. It looks like she won’t be here long. Ribbink just visited and said that Laurel probably will be able to go home tomorrow.

Hooray! The Legacy Emanuel staff are treating Laurel (and me) wonderfully. However, at $X,000 a day, where “X” is an unknown but scary number, we’re both more than happy to spend tomorrow night at home—where the nursing care by yours truly is decidedly less skilled yet appealingly free.

We are hugely impressed with Legacy Emanuel. This glowing review comes from two people who usually find that the American health care system leaves a lot to like. Such as, competent compassionate health care. Often “competence” and “compassion” seem to be qualities that can’t coexist in the same medical professional. We’ve encountered technically proficient doctors who had a horrible bedside manner. We’ve experienced warm friendly doctors who knew less about a medical condition than one of us did.

Legacy Emanuel is richly stocked with physicians and nurses who swing both ways—with competence and compassion. From the pre-op procedures, through the operation itself, to the post-op care Laurel is getting at this very moment (she’s getting ready to take her first steps, another poetic moment in the Family Birth Center), every person we’ve dealt with has been highly professional and also highly human.

We couldn’t help but notice that all of these people have been of the female variety—aside from two orderlies who wheeled Laurel from the recovery room to the Family Birth Center. Surgeon, anesthesiologist, nurses, admissions clerk: all women. I told the anesthesiologist, “You seem to be running an all-female operation here. Is this hospital run by the Sacred Society of Amazons?” (Actually, I think Legacy Emanuel is Lutheran).

Thankfully, Laurel and I haven’t spent much time in hospitals, either as patients or visitors. Maybe most hospitals provide the same sort of high quality care Legacy Emanuel does. But I doubt it.

When we told friends that Laurel was going to have an operation here, a disturbingly large proportion said, “Thank heavens you’re not going to be admitted to ______ Hospital. The care there is ______” (a close approximation of the missing words can be derived by substituting the home town of this weblog for the first blank, and any suitably derogatory term for the second blank).

A few minutes after Laurel was wheeled into Room 2502, we were greeted by a pleasant young woman who said with a smile, “Hello. My name is Georgina. I’ll be your nurse, along with Heidi, during your stay this evening.”

We felt like pampered diners in an exclusive French restaurant. And when we get the bill from Georgina’s employer, that feeling will seem even more real.

Measure 37 hits close to our home

For a lot of people, Measure 37 is a legal abstraction. For us, it means 215 nearby acres of farmland may become a subdivision. These rolling hills along Liberty Road about five miles south of the Salem city limits currently are zoned EFU (exclusive farm use).

If the Measure 37 applicants have their way 80 homes will be built and 80 wells will be dug in an area that already is designated as €œgroundwater limited. I call that eventuality AFU (all...up; you can guess the rest of the acronym).

Recently we got a phone call from a neighbor who adjoins this proposed development. He told us that the main spring which feeds the creek that flows into Spring Lake isn'€™t flowing this year. And it didn't flow last year. A long-time resident of our area said that this is the first time in thirty years the spring has gone dry.

The cross-hatched area on this map is the proposed Measure 37 subdivision. The AR (acreage residential) area below is Spring Lake Estates. Our two lots form the triangle (^) in the bottom left corner of the map.

The lots in our part of Spring Lake Estates average about five acres in size. Hydrologists say that five acres is needed to support one well in this SGO-5 (Sensitive Groundwater Overlay-5 acres) area of the south Salem hills.

But some property owners have been allowed to partition their lots into parcels as small as 1.5 or 2 acres. Quite a few of the lots immediately below the crosshatching have come into being through this sort of partitioning. We and other concerned Spring Lake Estates residents have tried to stop Marion County from allowing these small lots.

Mostly, we'€™ve failed. The county has ruled that lots near the boundary of Spring Lake Estates, where AR zoning adjoins EFU zoning, will have enough water because houses can'€™t be built on farmland. Yet now the county is being asked to approve a Measure 37 waiver that would put 80 homes and 80 wells on the same land that, it was assumed, would remain undeveloped and supply much of the water for people on the edge of Spring Lake Estates.

I realize that all of this zoning/land use talk can sound dry and complicated. It comes down, though, to some simple facts. The springs that feed Spring Creek lie along the AR-EFU boundary line. Those springs already have dried up, probably partially because of a lack of rainfall and partially because of the extra houses that have been built nearby on newly partitioned lots.

Without Spring Creek there will be no Spring Lake. This is common property that belongs to all 86 property owners in Spring Lake Estates. Everyone who lives here loves Spring Lake. And if push comes to shove, I think people will fight for Spring Lake (it has senior water rights).

Adding 80 homes in an area where groundwater already is in short supply is crazy. The zoning and planning in our rural south Salem neighborhood was predicated on the small acreage lots being balanced by surrounding farmland. Yet now the Measure 37 applicants, Leroy and Jean Laack and Margaret Rainone, want to be exempted from the land use rules that protect the livability of an area where hundreds of people already have homes.

Here'€™s all it takes to ask for $17,355,000 from Marion County under a Measure 37 claim. A couple of pages, plus some supporting documentation. The applicants figure that the land is worth $18,000,000 without those nasty land use regulations, while now it is valued at only $645,000. Hence, give us a check for the $17+ million or waive the regulations.

What a farce. There's no easy way to tell what the 215 acres is worth as a subdivision. It certainly isn'€™t $18 million. The applicant came up with that figure by multiplying an average sales price of $225,000 per 2-3.5 acre lot by 80 lots. Voila, a value of $18 million. However, the cost of development hasn't been factored in: attorney and surveyor fees, road construction, planning, marketing, and so on.

This ridiculously inaccurate estimate matches the inherent ridiculousness of Measure 37 itself: Voters were told that government should compensate people for a reduction in property values caused by land use regulations, but the backers of Measure 37 never intended that such compensation would occur. Instead, they wanted Measure 37 to be a vehicle for dismantling Oregon'€™s successful land use planning system.

And they also falsely implied that most applicants under Measure 37 would be individuals who wanted to build a single house on land that the government had €œtaken away from them.” Now we'€™re seeing the truth come out: attempts to build 215 acre subdivisions on farmland.

Today Laurel learned from Marion County that there are some problems with the application and that it might not be approved. We can only hope.

Words, actions, and Mean Kitty

Given all the guilt I expressed in my previous post about whether buying our dog a Mean Kitty toy and Valentine’s Day card was injurious to the Third World, I was happy that Serena enjoyed playing with her new friend this morning.

To make myself even happier, I decided to transform my guilt into action. A donation went off to UNICEF. Now I could feel good that we were giving more to needy overseas children than to our spoiled American dog.

Then I had to deal with my Third World lack of computers while I was recycling mine guilt. I found a British group called Computer Aid International that bills itself as “the world’s largest non-profit supplier of computers to developing countries.” Though not an IRS-approved tax-exempt organization, it is possible for Americans to make tax-deductible donations that will reach Computer Aid International through a go-between group, CAFAmerica.

Ah, now Valentine’s Day was looking brighter. I had taken a few small steps toward mending my broken heart—by which I mean the division between the feelings that I express in words and the feelings that I express in actions. Like so many other people I talk a much better game than I play it.

Last Friday night Laurel and I went to the monthly meeting of our Salon discussion group. Currently everyone in the group could be described as a “good liberal.” We talked about social inequality, how outrageous it is that a deposed CEO of Hewlett-Packard could be given tens of millions of dollars for doing a lousy job.

Talk, talk, talk. I’m so good at talk. I can say it is horribly unfair that the wage gap in America between CEOs and the lowest-paid workers is much larger than it is in Europe. But I thoughtlessly keep on enjoying my own standard of living that is so much higher than that of billions of people in the rest of the world.

At some point, hypocrisy kept hid under the lid of rationalizations can’t help but bubble out. I think I’m starting to hear some sputtering from the flames. A $100 donation won’t do much to equalize the pressure between my high-minded thoughts and my lowly actual actions.

It helps though.

Yes, Americans do give dogs Valentine’s Day cards

Dear Third World student who is using the Internet to research the question, “Do Americans really give Valentine’s Day cards to their dogs?”: I am pleased to be able to provide you with an answer.

Yes.

And not only a card, but also a present. Total cost: $2.99 for the card plus $5.49 for the “Mean Kitty” toy equals $8.48. If this is more than the average daily income for workers in your country, I’m sincerely sorry. Really. We Americans don’t realize how good we have it.

It bothers me that our dogs have a higher standard of living than many people elsewhere in the world. It also would bother our dog, Serena, if somehow I could communicate to her the concepts of “standard of living” and “elsewhere in the world.”

This is Serena on her futon bed where she sleeps each night in her own downstairs room. Once again, if this is bigger and nicer than your own room, I’m sorry.

Possessing a dog brain, Serena doesn’t even know what Valentine’s Day is. Which raises the question, “Why get a dog a Valentine’s Day card?” I’m not sure. If I thought about this at all seriously, I’d be sending off a $8.48 check to UNICEF instead.

I learned here that the first Valentine’s Day card “was sent in 1415 by Charles, duke of Orleans, to his wife while he was a prisoner in the Tower of London.” I doubt that he had any inkling that, some six hundred years later, people would be sending Valentine’s Day cards to their dogs.

We’re a great country, for sure. Yet we’re also a wasteful country. We give unneeded gifts to our pets and we discard lots of stuff that is needed by others around the world.

Yesterday I took some old computer equipment to a recycling depot. Two large boxes were filled with monitors, computers, printers, and such that probably mostly still worked. I added my own outmoded equipment to the pile. I thought of how happy a poor student in a Third World country would be to have what I didn’t want to have anymore.

But it was just a thought. And the next day I bought my dog a Valentine’s Day card.

Warm greetings from a American who wishes he and his country had different priorities (there are lots of us; hopefully we'll start making our wishes into reality before too long).

Why men don’t share their feelings

“How’re you doing?” says Dennis as I walk into the Pacific Martial Arts changing room. Instead of replying with my habitual robotic “Fine, how’re you?” I have a crazy impulse to actually tell him. I’ll share my feelings!

“Well, my feet have been tingling for about a week. I don’t know what’s going on. I’ve got an appointment to see a doctor tomorrow.” Without missing a beat (appropriately: Dennis is a drummer) I hear, “You’ve got a brain tumor. No doubt about it. You’re going to die.”

For the rest of our hour and a half training session, whenever I stop to check on how my feet are doing Dennis again says, “Oh yeah, you’ve got a brain tumor. Your time is up.”

Sensei Warren, our regular martial arts instructor, came in late. After telling him my tale of tingling feet I got a marginally better prognosis: “You’ve got diabetic neuropathy. No doubt about it. You’re going to lose your feet.” And I don’t even have diabetes.

Now, I know both Dennis and Warren care a lot about me. They demonstrated their manly concern by telling me that I’m either going to die or lose my feet. If one of them had given me a big hug and said “Don’t worry, everything is going to be all right,” I would have begun to worry that he had a brain tumor.

If I want sympathy, I’ll tell my troubles to my wife. From my marital arts buddies I get camaraderie and support that isn’t expressed in words. Dennis taught the class that evening. He started off by saying, “Let’s work on kicks tonight since your feet are giving you a problem.”

Which is what we did. For almost an hour. The unspoken message was, “Your feet are OK. Suck it up. This is no big deal.” That’s pretty much what the doctor said the next day: “Your feet look fine; I’ll do a blood test anyway; call me in a month if you’re not better.”

Rob Becker’s one-man “Defending the Caveman” show wonderfully explains this whole male communication thing. Laurel and I saw Becker perform some years ago. We laughed throughout the show, as did the whole audience, men and women alike. Lines like the oft-repeated “Men are assholes” got fervent applause from both sexes. You can’t resist clapping your hands when you hear the truth.

So what are the roots of the man to man interaction style that was so much in evidence during my martial arts class? Why is it that, as a reviewer of the play says: “Among men, ‘loser’ and ‘butthead’ are terms of respect and admiration. There are comments that occur between two females that can never be spoken between guys over a beer. The phrase ‘what are you going to wear?,’ regardless of the context, is the harshest of insults.”

We have to turn to evolutionary psychology for answers. The central theme of “Defending the Caveman” (which is playing in Portland Feb. 17-19; go see it) is summed up in this excerpt from a review:

The differences [between men and women] mostly revolve around our disparate social roles as evolved over the countless millennia we lived as a society of hunters and gatherers. Men were the hunters. They went out in a group, focused on one single, solitary goal: the kill. It might take them all day, quietly waiting in ambush, but eventually their goal would be accomplished and they could go back home and defend the cave.

The women were the gatherers. They noticed everything about them, gathering both food and other details that would help them gather more things then and in the future. Then they went home and gathered more information from each other while the men stood guard.

So men’s brains are tuned by evolution for goal-oriented teamwork: hunting a mammoth, scoring a touchdown, fighting a war. Unnecessary conversation, such as discussing how a man feels about his tingling feet, is a distraction from the task at hand. You don’t want to miss the attack of a saber-toothed tiger because you’re having a group hug.

Women’s brains, on the other hand, are tuned for more diffuse communal tasks: gathering fruits and vegetables, caring for children, maintaining a home. As sexist as this may sound in today’s “Girl, you can be whatever you want to be!” culture, it seems unarguable to me that there are strong gender differences hard-wired into our genetic heritage.

Listen to the lively conversation as an audience leaves “Defending the Caveman.” People instinctively recognize the truth whereof Rob Becker speaks. It’s liberating for both sexes to be reminded that men are men, women are women, and never the twain shall completely meet.

Laurel and I used to get together with a couple, Faith and Michael, who shared common interests with us. Most of the evening Laurel and Faith would chat by themselves, while I’d converse with Michael. Then, after they went home, we’d compare notes. Our conversation would go like this:

“Gee,” Laurel would say, “I feel so bad that Michael’s mother is in the hospital. Hopefully she’ll recover from the cancer. I wonder how he’s coping, especially with the new health problems he has. How does he feel about all this?” “I haven’t a clue” I’d reply. “I had no idea his mother was ill or that Michael was ailing. Those subjects didn’t come up.”

“Well, what did you talk about?” Laurel would ask incredulously. “Why, about the philosophy of science, like we usually do. We had a great conversation.” Which was true. It just didn’t include even a smattering of communication about such insignificant and unimportant details as what is going on with our personal lives. We had much bigger fish to fry. We were engaged in deciphering the mysteries of the universe.

Yet, at the same time I learned a lot about Michael, as he did about me. Not by explicitly sharing touchie-feelie stuff, but simply by him being him and me being me as we talked about things that were important to us.

We would zero in on a philosophical question (“Are the laws of nature objective aspects of reality or manmade creations?”) and try to track it down. Often Michael would go one way and I’d go another way, but we were engaged in a common hunt for truth that brought us close together in a fashion that most women would never understand.

For men, feelings don’t have to be verbalized to be felt. Nonetheless, with Valentine’s Day coming up it is wise to remember that cavegirls have a different perspective on how their needs are met than cavemen do.

I feel your Google pain

Burnside skateboard park blogger, via Orblogs I noticed your “Google can kiss my …” post where you complained that the Great God Google had dropped you from page 1 to page 23 on a “burnside skatepark” search.

I feel your pain, my friend. I’ve also written about how “Google hath forsaken me.” I too have wandered in the search engine wilderness, wondering if I ever would be found again.

Hearing of my difficult times, several Oregon bloggers took pity on my poor weblogged soul and linked my site to theirs. Eventually I returned to Google’s good graces, though the reason for my temporary exile seems different from yours. Still, though the ways of Google are deeply mysterious, we do know that links are loved.

Clearly, it is an affront to all that is good and Googley to have a blog called Burnside Skatepark so far down in the "burnside skatepark" search engine rankings. I hope this mention helps. Maybe some other bloggers will similarly give your blog a Google charge.

Skate on. At the end of the day, Google (and everything else in the world) will do what it has to do and you’ll do what you have to do. That’s the only way for you, or me, to stay sane.

I'm 56 years old and have never skateboarded. But some 46 years ago I used to attach roller skates to my shoes and zip around our flat concrete California carport. Different times; a lot different technology; hugely different topology.

I convert to Firefox

Here’s a photo of Serena, our dog, modeling the official Firefox cap that I bought along with Firefox/Thunderbird CDs and manual from the Mozilla store. Serena doesn’t look too happy with Firefox, probably because Laurel and I were screaming “stay, stay!!” at her while I tried to get the right camera angle to show off the logo. But I am.

I love the free (if you download it) Firefox web browser. The February 2005 issue of PC World gave it a “Best Bet” award in a battle of the browsers review article. It got 4.5 stars (out of 5) vs. Microsoft Internet Explorer’s 3.0 stars. I took my first big step away from the Evil Microsoft Empire after reading one news story too many about a newly discovered vulnerability in IE for which I should immediately download patches to protect my computer.

My Macintosh-using sister loves to forward me PC-bashing items like Mark Morford’s “Why Does Windows Still Suck?” essay. Good question. Morford’s other equally good question is “Why the hell do people put up with this?” Habit, I guess. Internet Explorer was working for me, so I put off the move to Firefox until my habitual inertia was overcome by my ever-increasing Microsoft irritation.

The move went smoothly. Firefox copies over all of your IE bookmarks, cookies, and what not. I haven’t had any problem logging in to any password protected site that I was accessing with IE. I’ve found a few web sites that don’t display cleanly in Firefox, so I still use IE once in a while. Another reason to keep IE handy is that the PC World article says Firefox won’t work at all with IE-only sites such as Microsoft’s Windows Update (what a surprise).

My biggest gripe with Firefox is that it doesn’t have a right-click “refresh picture (or page) with full quality” option. I use a web accelerator because of our slow dial-up connection. It degrades images to speed up the loading of web pages. It’s nice with IE to be able to click on a single photo that you want to view crisply rather than fuss with changing the accelerator settings to improve the image quality of an entire page, or turn off the accelerator entirely.

But this is a small price to pay for all the pluses of Firefox. I like the tabbed browsing feature that lets you open up multiple pages in the same browser. The “find” command in Firefox is much superior to IE’s. And you can download free extensions to Firefox that further enhance its abilities. I’ve added on Adblock, Google bar, and Autofill. Adblock is particularly enjoyable. I never get tired of right-clicking on an ad and making it go away permanently. Adblock also takes care of annoying Flash animations. One click and Poof!, they’re dead.

Get Firefox. You won’t be sorry.

Go Daddy Super Bowl ad too racy for Fox/NFL

What is this country coming to? Fox and the NFL cancelled the second showing of Go Daddy’s Super Bowl ad that featured the buxom woman at a congressional committee hearing whose “wardrobe malfunction” and sexy dance satirized Janet Jackson’s memorable 2004 halftime appearance.

I’m a happy GoDaddy.com customer, using them for domain registration and web site hosting. Their customer service is excellent and their sense of humor admirable (I love their logo). Bob Parsons, the Go Daddy CEO, tells the tale of the ad cancellation on his weblog. He’s getting virtually universal support from commenters on his post who, at the time I looked, were all male.

So what? The ad wasn’t sexist, but satirically sexual. When I told my resident female, Laurel, about the cancellation, she gave me the quote above: “What is this country coming to?” Sunday evening we watched a TV show that was billed as a battle between top-rated Super Bowl ads over the years and top-rated ads from other countries. Almost universally we found the non-U.S. ads to be funnier, sexier, edgier, and more compelling.

I don’t know how effective the Go Daddy ad was (it barely mentioned what Go Daddy does), but it definitely was entertaining, eye-catching, and provocative. Most likely any European TV network would have happily broadcast the ad as many times as GoDaddy had the (big) bucks to pay for it.

By itself, this act of censorship may not seem to be a big deal. But it reflects a disturbing trend in the United States away from freedom of expression and toward a tyranny by the easily-offended. This year we had to watch a quasi-geriatric Super Bowl halftime show with not a single female performer in sight—just an aging Beatle and his all-male band who sang familiar hits from decades past.

Yes, the fireworks were cool. Yet the hottest part of the Super Bowl, aside from the football action, was the Go Daddy ad, and it got frozen by timid Fox/NFL executives. They must have seen the ad ahead of time, for most of it was broadcast on the Sunday evening show that Laurel and I watched. So why pull it at the last minute?

My suspicion is that emails and phone calls flooded in after the first showing from the censorship-loving religious right. Whether or not this turns out to be true, the Go Daddy ad episode is evidence that it’s time for a serious discussion of whether this country is turning its back on the First Amendment.

Not hysterical about hysterectomy

After a lot of soul-searching, Laurel has decided to have a hysterectomy. Recalling what I knew about Hippocrates, at first I thought this meant she would never get hysterical again, like she does when I fail to properly clean dirty dog paws before letting Serena into the house or neglect to rinse food residue from the bottom of the kitchen sink into the garbage disposal.

But, after whacking me on the side of my head for my patriarchal ignorance, Laurel explained that it isn’t a “wandering uterus” that is creating problems, but a uterus that gives her debilitating menstrual cramps. So it needs to go, since she’s tried every other treatment option known to womankind.

(An aside: we were watching a PBS “Now” episode last night; a woman being interviewed said something like “never in the history of womankind has....”; she said it so smoothly my mind didn’t register the unfamiliar language for several seconds, until a “what, womankind??!!” popped out of a surprised macho corner of my psyche.)

I don’t understand the whole mysterious area of female problems very well. When Laurel talks with her middle-aged women friends about menopause, estrogen, progesterone, menstruation, cramps, hormone balancing and so on, I feel like someone from the dark ages who’s been transported into a Perl programming seminar. The words being spoken are vaguely familiar, but I have just the barest understanding of what they’re talking about.

Extending the computer metaphor, my impression is that the female reproductive system is a lot like the Windows operating system. It’s hellishly complex; it’s unreliable; no one really knows how it works; often the best you can do is patch it up (literally) and hope the damn thing doesn’t crash.

In Laurel’s case, she needs hormone replacement to relieve some pretty nasty symptoms of menopause. But if a woman stays on hormone replacement she may very well keep on having periods for the rest of her life. If horrible cramps come with the periods, then the same hormones that are relieving menopause (or post-menopause) symptoms and providing future health benefits also are enabling the continuation of pain from dysmenorrhea.

So, assuming I’ve managed to explain the situation halfway accurately, that’s what led to Laurel and me sitting in Dr. Philippa Ribbink’s exam room yesterday, having a pre-op conference. Dr. Ribbink is associated with the Everywoman’s Health Center at Legacy Emanuel Hospital.

No doctor in Salem performs the sort of laparoscopic hysterectomy Laurel is going to have. That’s why we ended up with Dr. Ribbink, who is marvelously competent but looks to be only about twenty years old to our born-too-long-ago-for-Bush-to-cut-our-Social-Security-benefits eyes (which is just about the only bright side to having a birth date in 1948 or 1949).

I liked how every time Dr. Ribbink talked about a possible complication of the surgery, she’d lean over and strike her knuckles against the wood edges of a cabinet I was sitting next to. My mother used to do the same thing, “knock on wood” to ward off untoward consequences and bring good luck. It was nice to see a 21st century medical wizard engaging in some pre-scientific folklore.

Laurel had several pages of questions to ask Dr. Ribbink, who acted as if she had all day to spend with us—a welcome change from the usual rushed, impersonal doctor-patient consultation. I had just a single two-part question: “Do you play music in the operating room? If so, who gets to choose what is played: you or the anesthesiologist?”

Since we’re fans of Fox’s “Nip/Tuck,” and the two plastic surgeons in this TV show always have music playing when they operate, this was my subtle way of making sure that “Dr.” Ribbink was who she claimed to be, and not a sophomore at Reed College who was acting out some sort of weird medical care performance art. Fortunately, I got some convincing answers.

“Yes, we always play music. The anesthesiologist usually plugs in an Ipod right away. Most of the time he or she chooses the music. I have a veto if it is the ‘Sound of Music’ soundtrack or such, but most of the time I let them play what they want.”

Another sign that we were talking with a real live doctor is that we left Emanuel with no clue about what this whole shebang was going to cost. Who cares? After our deductible is met, our insurance will pay 70% of the bill, though the remaining 30% still will amount to about a jillion dollars, more or less.

After we left Dr. Ribbink’s office Laurel went through the pre-op procedures at Emanuel’s Diagnostic Center. While she was engaged with getting an EKG, chest x-ray, and blood work, I practiced my pre-op napping in the center’s waiting room, preparing for playing my part when the big day comes on February 16 (Happy Valentine’s Day, Laurel! Here’s your present: two days in the hospital!”).

Laurel is doing her own mental pre-operation preparations. Every day she listens to a CD called “Successful Surgery” that contains guided imagery intended to reduce complications and promote quick recovery. A 2002 article in the AARP magazine said that Blue Shield of California sends members a similar tape as studies have shown “that patients who listen to the tapes experience less anxiety before surgery, and less blood loss and pain after surgery.”

Dr. Ribbink said that Laurel will be able to listen (via headphones) to an associated music track during the surgery that supposedly reinforces the affirmations in the patient’s mind during the actual operation. Interesting.

They also should have a guided imagery CD that the person who opens the bills, namely me, can use to prepare himself for the day a final post-op statement comes from the Legacy Emanuel accounts receivable department. That's when I'll need relief from blood loss (a fainting brain), and pain (when I wake up and think of our impending checkbook balance).

Social security: There goes Bush again

In 1980 Ronald Reagan skewered Jimmy Carter’s attack on his Medicare policies with four words: “There you go again.” Somebody—no, everybody—needs to say the same to George Bush, adding on a few words: “There you go again, trying to conjure up a Social Security crisis just like you made up an Iraq weapons of mass destruction crisis.”

You can fool us once, but you can’t fool us twice or thrice. I don’t like being lied to. It infuriates me. Understand: I like to listen to opinions that differ from mine. I was more or less happily watching Fox News yesterday while exercising on a Stairmaster at an athletic club. But three minutes before my workout was over I angrily took my headphones off.

Fox played a clip from a speech by Bush where he spoke about Social Security facing “bankruptcy.” Then footage of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid came on: “There’s no Social Security crisis,” he said. “Social Security is solvent until at least 2042.” What made me so irritated was a Fox correspondent’s comment: “Reid is wrong. In 2018 Social Security won’t be able to meet its obligations. The crisis hits in 2018, not 2042.”

Pure and simply, that’s a lie. Bush and Fox News are lying about Social Security. It’s possible that Bush truly believed that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq because the information conveyed to him by our intelligence agencies was so bad. But there’s virtually no disagreement about the actuarial facts of the Social Security trust fund.

As this TIME magazine article makes clear, what happens in 2018 is that the money paid out in benefits will begin to exceed the money collected in taxes. But this isn’t a problem because Social Security has been accumulating surpluses for decades. Those surpluses are tucked away in U.S. Treasury bonds, ready to be redeemed when baby boomers like me and Laurel are eligible for benefits.

So, where’s the problem? Salon blogger Scott Rosenburg clearly describes how Bush’s Social Security “crisis” is almost entirely self-manufactured:

“There was a federal budget surplus for a while under Bill Clinton, but George Bush decided that that money was ‘ours.’ The Feds should have been saving for that rainy-retirement day, but instead they went on a tax-break bender (and they picked and chose which of ‘us’ got the most back). So come 2018, the federal government won't have the cash on hand to make good on those trust-fund bonds.”

Here’s the bottom line: if the U.S. Government can’t come up with the cash to redeem the bonds held by Social Security, then this country is facing a full-blown catastrophe, not a mere crisis. For supposedly U.S. Treasury bonds are the safest investment in the world. Foreigners hold trillions of dollars of U.S. bonds, making us the world’s largest debtor nation. Japan alone owns $720 billion. Defaulting on these bonds would ruin the U.S. credit rating, likely setting off a worldwide economic meltdown.

If you’re Japan’s central banker, what would you think about the Bush administration saying that Social Security faces a crisis in 2018 because the government can’t afford to redeem U.S. Treasury bonds held in the trust fund?

Rosenburg says, “Try using that argument on the bank that holds your mortgage or your credit card account! ‘Oh, yeah, I know I said I'd pay that money back, but it's really just meaningless paper, you know, and I already used the money for other stuff that I believe in. We've got a crisis.’”

It wouldn’t bother me if Bush was being honest with the American people: “Back in 2000 I told you that we could have massive tax cuts and still run a budget surplus. I was wrong. I screwed up. Now we’ve got to fix things so Social Security can meet its obligations after 2018. This won’t be easy. Either benefits are going to have to be cut or taxes will have to be raised. I got us into this problem, but I’m going to need the bipartisan help of every citizen to get us out of it.”

If Bush would say that, I’d turn up the volume on Fox News rather than turn it off. I’d almost feel compassion for the guy. Heck, we all screw up. Almost all of us overdraw our checking accounts at some point, or go over our credit card limits. Honesty from Bush would beget some compassion and forgiveness.

What I can’t tolerate is being lied to. The facts about Social Security are completely at odds with the one-sided message Bush is promulgating. There isn’t a crisis; Social Security isn’t going bankrupt.

The real crisis is our President’s rapidly disintegrating credibility. The real bankruptcy is Bush’s willingness to drain his policies of any factual foundation in order to pursue self-serving ideological ends—an “ownership society” where, if the neo-conservatives have their way, our economy will be so poor there won’t be much to own.

I’m out-pararazzi’d

When I opened up the February 7 issue of Us weekly, I understood why People never took up my offer to sell the photo of Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake hiking in Hollywood’s Runyon Canyon that I took January 23 (see “Wide-Eyed on Rodeo Drive”).

Apparently celebrity magazines prefer close-up shots like this:

To my slightly more distant treatment:

Probably long-lens equipped professional paparazzi realize the truth of this “Where celebs really hang out in LA” piece, which presciently says, “At nearby Runyon Canyon Dog Park, you might find William H. Macy taking his pooch for a little fresh air or Cameron Diaz jogging on the trails.”

Or, they should add, “Oregonians like Brian and Laurel Hines looking for celebrities jogging on the trails.”

Speed up the Second Coming

Laurel and I found the “Christ Is Coming Very Soon!” advertisement in today’s Salem Statesman-Journal newspaper most interesting. We read it carefully, especially the eight compelling reasons why the Second Coming is right around the corner.

It struck me that all of us, Christian and non-Christian alike, should be doing what we can to hasten Jesus’ return. For the faithful, this will mark the fulfillment of prophecy. For the unfaithful, it will be pretty darn interesting, to say the least—the adventure of a lifetime, if not eternity.

Practically speaking, there isn’t much that most of us can do to pump up four of the eight reasons for Jesus’ coming back to Earth. Israel’s rebirth has happened. Famines, violence, and wars aren’t easy to control, though with Bush's re-election at least one of the three is primed for Second Coming success.

Increasing earthquakes—not possible with present-day technology. Increase in both apostasy and faith: whatever your religious or non-religious conviction, it appears you’re helping out in this area.

So it seems that our focus should be on the other four reasons. These are areas where everybody can do something, big or small, to help assure that the Second Coming will really come.

There’s no substitute for individual initiative when it comes to good works, so the links below are simply some suggestions to get us pointed in the right direction. Which means…

(1) Keep morality plummeting. It’s difficult to pin down immorality, but sex, drugs, and rock & roll are some fine traditional places to look for immoral inspiration.

(2) Keep the explosion of travel and education happening. Plan a trip. Educate yourself. According to the ad “two key conditions…for the Second Coming are that ‘travel and education shall be vastly increased’ (Daniel 12:4).”

(3) Help cults and the occult to prosper. I’d have to get a free report to learn exactly what a cult or the occult is, but I’m pretty sure my Church of the Churchless weblog qualifies as “counterfeit spirituality.” Visit it and speed Jesus’ return.

(4) Help support the New World Order. The ad says that “increased centralization of world financial and political power is a prelude to the soon-coming world power system in the hands of ‘Antichrist.’” Since you can’t have Christ without the Antichrist, please do what you can to support the New World Order.

Thanks for your assistance with encouraging the Second Coming. If it really happens, maybe I can point to this posting as proof of my good intentions and get a little respite from the Last Judgment.