HinesSight

How the Rally to Restore Sanity changed me

I'm notorious for making resolutions that don't last, whether around New Year's or yesterday -- when my wife and I, along with some progressive friends, watched the Rally to Restore Sanity in its entirety thanks to CSPAN.

But after being immersed for three hours in Jon Stewart's and Stephen Colbert's inimical brand of political humor/satire, I think they may have permanently changed the way I look upon those with whom I strongly disagree.

Meaning: Tea Party folks, right-wing Republicans, religious fundamentalists, dogmatic moralists, climate change deniers, and other anti-science types who try to found social policies on feelings rather than facts.

They drive me crazy.

But this doesn't mean that they're crazy. It simply means that I've allowed myself to give them more control over my psyche than is desirable, if I want to keep myself as sane as possible.

In his closing speech to the hundreds of thousands of rally attendees, Jon Stewart said "We can have animus but not be enemies." Also, "If we amplify everything, we hear nothing."

He was referring to the media in that second comment. However, it applies to the voices inside our own heads also.

If I get outraged about every info nugget I come across in the newspaper, talk radio, cable news, or the Internet that conflicts with what I believe and want to have happen in the world, those mind-screams are going to drown out my quieter, saner inner speakings.

I used to be deeply conservative in my early teens, a holdover from my mother's Republicanism. She loved William F. Buckley and National Review. I grew up reading both. Republicans in those days were much more reasonable and less strident than the modern variety, though. (I can still remember Everett Dirksen's sonorous voice.)

So I can easily imagine having views that are the opposite of the progressive variety I hold onto now. Once in a while I'll be listening to an avid right-winger and briefly picture myself flipping to his or her side of the political aisle.

This helps me keep in mind that all of us believe stuff that makes sense to us. Of course, it will seem crazy to others with an opposite persuasion. This is a big part of sanity: doing our best to recognize that how other people see the world isn't under their control, as our own viewpoints aren't either.

Most Americans are moderates, which is how I consider myself. Yes, I call myself a progressive. I drive a Prius and a hybrid Highlander with a "Kitzhaber" sticker on the bumper (he's the Democrat running for governor here in Oregon).

When I moved to Oregon in the early 1970s, Tom McCall, a Republican, was governor. I recall liking McCall a lot. There's no reason -- here's that sanity thing again -- why I couldn't support certain Republican policies even though there's a "D" on my voter registration, or why the reverse couldn't be true for "R" voters.

We've got to get away from looking upon the Other Side as genuinely other. They aren't. They're simply Us with different ideas running through their heads.

Yesterday Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert skewered the notion that fostering fear, extremism, divisiveness, and militant I'm right and you're wrong is going to solve our country's problems.

When I do my 30-minute stairmaster workout at the athletic club, I no longer watch the six televisions lined up on the wall in front of me. Usually some are tuned to Fox News, CNN, or MSNBC. In the past I couldn't resist getting my head filled with the latest political jibber-jabber.

Now I bring along my iPhone 4, fire up the XM satellite radio app, and listen to POTUS over the club's wi-fi network. POTUS (Politics of the United States) is appealingly sane and reasonable.

As Brian Ross said in a review, this Sirius channel may the last refuge of balanced political journalism. It resonates nicely with my newly restored sanity. Here's how Jon Stewart summed up his Rally to Restore Sanity, and what it sought to accomplish.

 

 

iPhone 4 begs to be kept naked

I had my annual physical today. When my family doctor asked her obligatory mental health question, something like "How happy are you?," I heard myself saying: "I feel great. After all, I have an iPhone 4."

She typed something into her notebook computer. Probably I now have a diagnosis of excessive attachment to technology disorder. (Hey, that's fine. And entirely accurate.)

Here's what I've learned about my best electronic friend: she wants to be naked when she's touched by me. I wasn't sure about this for a while, so experimented with dressing her in various outfits.

Apple sent me a free bumper case to deal with the (for me) nonexistent iPhone 4 antenna problem. I tried it for a few days. The case felt plastic'y and interfered with the phone fitting properly in an XM Skydock.

I took it off.

Then I got a Tuneband, wanting to see if I liked exercising while listening to stuff on my iPhone. The armband fitted through a slot in a silicone case which I left on all the time. For a couple of weeks.

I enjoyed the case at first. It felt a bit kinky, like my beloved iPhone 4 had dressed up in a tight Cat Woman outfit for me.

She wasn't as willing to please with the case on, though. The phone would connect with the XM Skydock so I could listen to satellite radio in the car, but it wouldn't charge while in the dock. Ditto with a iPod/iPhone "clock radio" device in our bedroom.

I decided to ditch the silicone case.

Instantly I realized how right it is to feel the iPhone 4 without anything coming between us. Ah, the shiny sleek aluminum... the smooth glass... the rounded corners and gently protruding buttons.

Yes, I know that if I drop my darling, she's more likely to be injured now. I'm willing to take that chance. As is she, I know, from the wordless love talk I hear from her.

Rumi said in his Masnavi, "lovers want each other completely naked." My fingers never touch my iPhone while gloved. It is only right that my electronic lover be equally bereft of coverings.

Marijuana users can drive just fine -- vote yes on Prop 19

I learned many things during my college years (1966-71) at San Jose State University. One was that heavy marijuana users, a.k.a. "stoners," could drive just fine while under the influence.

I can personally testify to this. Oh, man, I sure can.

This fact is politically relevant since opponents of California's Proposition 19, which would legalize and tax marijuana in Oregon's neighbor to the south, are promulgating ridiculous claims about stoned drivers killing people if Prop 19 passes.

On average, a drunk driver kills someone every 45 minutes. Recreational marijuana use in fatal crashes will increase if Prop. 19 passes. It will be legal for a driver to get high right before taking the wheel. It will also be legal for passengers to smoke pot as they drive on the freeway or in your neighborhood.

Stand against the legalization of recreational marijuana. Keep California safe. Time is running out.

There are many myths about marijuana. One that's debunked by the Drug Policy Alliance is marijuana use is a major cause of highway accidents. It isn't.

How do I know? I'm alive.

And I never even got into any sort of auto or motorcycle accident while driving around the San Francisco Bay Area in various states of psychedelicized consciousness for the better part of two years during the most intense period of my getting high in college phase.

Me and my friends would zip up to "the City" in my 57' VW bug with smoke pouring out of the windows. Ditto when we'd drive over curving roads in the Santa Cruz mountains in the middle of the night.

I'd much rather be out on the road with people who have imbibed marijuana than with alcohol drinkers. If legalizing marijuana in California leads to more stoners and fewer drinkers, this will make the streets safer, not more dangerous.

Sure, some say that marijuana is stronger now than it was back in the 60's. The Drug Policy Alliance says this is another myth. Even if it isn't, my extensive experience with all sorts of pot varieties in my college days showed me that it's possible to drive safely no matter how stoned you are.

I'll accept that this may not be true for everybody. But by and large, a marijuana user who has had "way too much" is going to be a far better driver than a drinker who has had "way too much."

If the No on Proposition 19 folks are so concerned about highway safety, they should be campaigning to make drinking alcohol illegal.

However, there aren't any good reasons to keep marijuana illegal. Just many reasons to legalize it. The No on Prop 19 campaign is deep into paranoia. They should chill out and realize they've lost touch with reality.

That's what not using marijuana will do to you. Scary!

My dismaying post-election forecast

A week ago I was feeling better about the upcoming election. Recently, though, I had an intuitive flash that got me politically down in the dumps again. Here's the thought process that ran through my mind:

In 2006 and 2008 the Democrats made big gains in Congress. And, of course, Obama became president.

But Washington remained dysfunctional. Gridlock and excessive compromising left every major policy area -- jobs, financial reform, health care, energy policy, immigration -- a shadow of the bright light that should have been cast upon our country.

So now the citizenry is pissed. They're angry at the party in power, the Democrats. So the "D" side of the aisle will be depopulated quite a bit after November 2 in both the House and Senate.

Likely the House will end up being controlled by Republicans, while the Senate and presidency remain in Democratic hands. Net result: more gridlock. Our nation's problems will continue to fester, while the rest of the world marches on more productively.

Come 2012, voters will still be angry since nothing much will have been accomplished. It's a tossup as to which party they'll be angrier at.

Maybe Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell's excessively honest recent statement, "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president," will come back and bite the Republicans in their political butt.

After all, it's almost treasonous for McConnell to declare that afer the election Republicans don't want to make the country better, but to make Obama's approval rating worse.

However, the Democrats might find that the burden of a do-nothing Congress is on their political backs. This could lead to an even greater Republican surge in 2012, whereas my first scenario has the Democrats bouncing back in a presidential election year, when Obama will win his second term.

Regardless, what I see happening -- sadly -- is that whichever party is saddled with the perception of being in power will bear the brunt of voter anger at the inability of Congress to deal with pressing national problems.

The plain fact is that Congress is broken, especially the Senate. When one idiot Senator can hold legislation up through arcane Senate rules, and a few idiot Senators can really hold legislation up via a filibuster, it is almost guaranteed that nothing much of vital importance will be passed the next few years.

And likely, even after that.

So we'll continue to bounce back and forth between one party, then the other, getting hammered at the polls. The reason won't be that most Americans have shifted their political allegiance. They've simply aimed their anger at our country's problems remaining unresolved at a different target.

What depresses me about this prediction is that little learning about what policies work better will ever take place.

For example, we won't know whether a universal single payer health plan would bring costs down and improve citizens' wellbeing, or whether unfettered insurance company competition would, because neither policy will be attempted. We'll continue to have a half-assed health insurance system that manages to combine the worst of both worlds, since if gridlock doesn't rule Congress, special interest compromising will.

Even more disturbing to me is the prospect (better termed certainty) of Congress failing to act on significant energy and climate change legislation.

I peruse the Climate Progress web site regularly. Recent posts have documented the dismal scientific understanding of almost all Republicans. Or at least, their unwillingness to put the health of our nation (along with the world) above petty politics.

(For proof, check out this and this.)

My tree house isn't crazy -- it's a work of art

The line between craziness and great artistry is, of course, exceedingly blurry. Thus when my wife said "You're crazy!" upon hearing of my plans for a treehouse, I anticipated that I was heading in the direction of a wonderful artistic creation.

Now, the prophecy has been fulfilled -- mostly due to Jim, a friend who also happens to be our housecleaner. (It's nice to have your home cleaned by someone who also can sharpen your chain saw blade, dig out deep tree roots, and build a tree house).

Since Jim has a granddaughter about the age of my own (three), and immediately shared my exuberance for constructing a structure that had no purpose other than fun, our planning for the tree house design went smoothly.

Especiallly after my wife walked away with a "whatever...," realizing that her attempts to interject some womanly practicality into the project were being met with two sets of male deaf ears.

Jim said he could get some peeler cores from a mill up in the Santiam Canyon where he used to work. I'm a bit vague about how peeler cores are produced; I do know they're the leftover round core of a log that has been used for other wood products.

I liked the idea of round supports and railings -- much more natural looking than rectangular boards, since trees are round, not square. We also agreed that getting up to the tree house should be along a board path that followed the sloping trunk of the leaned-over tree which called to me one day: "I should be a tree house!"

Here's how the tree house looks when approached from our house. Thanks to my "Forest Green" staining job, it blends beautifully into its surroundings -- barely noticeable from afar.

From the downhill side, the tree house reflects the union of man and nature. The dual trunks of the leaning tree are both under and over the structure. The tree house neither supports, nor is supported by, the tree, being simultaneously freestanding and an integral part of what nature has created.

Here we see how the trunks wind beneath the tree house, then soar upward above it. 

As summer ended and fall grew closer, I loved watching the tendrils of new ferns shoot from the mossy trunks of the tree. Before I stained the tree house, I washed the wood with deck cleaner, carefully putting plastic over the trunks to protect the living vegetation.

You can see that the ferns are happy living beneath the tree house. There are two coats of stain on the underside of the boards and peeler core supports. I also used a foam brush to get stain between the boards, which I've never done on a deck before.

About halfway through my quasi obsessive-compulsive crack-filling and staining -- for a tree house that is almost out of sight of our house, and won't attract many visitors besides me, I, and myself (along with my granddaughter, when she graces us with a journey from southern California) -- I realized that what I was working on wasn't a play house or any other sort of functional structure, but a work of art that could not be understood by anyone who applied mundane cost/benefit thinking to it.

(Translation: anyone means my wife, since she would frequently say, after I returned from an afternoon's stint of artistic expression, "That tree house sure is taking a lot more time to finish than you expected, right?" Wrong, I'd reply, wondering whether Michelangelo was married, and if so, whether his wife griped at him about how long it was taking to get that damn Sistine Chapel painted.)

I like how the tree is continuing to grow from beneath the bottom step. My artistic vision always was to have a walkway parallel the slope of the trunk, so visitors would have a "tree-climbing" experience. This is another example of how artists are not understood by those lacking their sensitivity, since my wife would say, "Why not just have a ladder going up to the platform?" (I assume she also would have told Michelangelo to draw stick figures so as to make his work simpler.)

One approaches the tree house as if on a stairway to heaven. Or at least, to eight feet or so above the ground.

The mats turned out to be desirable when I discovered how slippery the lower walkway section is, especially when wet. The slope of the tree made it steeper than the upper section, reflecting a philosophical life lesson that artists like me find unnecessary to put into words. (Except when I slipped on the unmatted boards, nearly fell with a gallon can of stain in my hand, and said "Holy f#@k!!")

Approaching the top, one has a sense of anticipation...

Ah, the summit. But can there be an end to anything? A large limb darts through the boards, reminding us that on whatever artificial belief structure we stand, natural reality punctures our pretenses and leads our gaze upward.

Where we see...more.

The deck boards curve around a protruding fern-strewn trunk, since we must blend with nature's ways.

I smoothed on the crack filler with a gloved finger, rather than a putty knife. This left bumps and ridges that often are indistinguishable from natural irregularities in the lumber. Where a lesser mind would see poor construction work, an elevated vision like mine recognizes... artistry.

Descending to ground level, we are reminded that on a tree house fallen leaves are decorations, not nuisances (up to a point, since too much of anything can be too much).

Standing back in the woods a bit, admiring the finished tree house, I am drawn to Thoreau's words in "Walden."

Most men appear never to have considered what a house is, and are actually though needlessly poor all their lives beause they think that they must have such a one as their neighbors have.

...I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily, when the furniture of my mind was all undusted still, and threw them out of the window in disgust.

How, then, could I have a furnished house? I would rather sit in the open air, for no dust gathers on the grass, unless where man has broken ground.

Is Tea Party anger filtering into neighborhood groups?

Until last night I'd thought of Tea Party craziness as being mostly confined to the national and state levels.

But after attending a meeting of our rural south Salem (Oregon) neighborhood association last night, I'm wondering if that sort of free-floating irrational anger is making its way into deeply local concerns.

I've been the secretary of our association for many years -- almost twenty. In the not-so-good old days, soon after we moved into this area, some of the neighborhood association meetings were so vehement, people would almost come to blows.

Then the hotheads departed, or got older and a bit wiser.

For a long time we've had a pleasurably neighborly neighborhood group, a board of directors with members who have divergent political views and personalities, but who come together to make our community a better place.

After all, maintaining the common property (riding/hiking trails and a lake) doesn't have anything to do with conservatism or liberalism, Republican or Democrat, or such. I'm a Suzuki scooter-riding vegetarian Prius-driving Democrat who gets along great with a Harley-riding meat-loving pickup-driving Republican board member.

A recent election, though, brought some fresh faces to the board of directors. I don't know exactly what these two guys' political leanings are, but they strike me as quintessential Tea Party types.

Last night's meeting went on for three and a half freaking long hours. I think this is a record for the hundred or so neighborhood association board meetings I've attended. Since I had to take notes for the minutes, I almost had writer's cramp by the time my watch showed 10:30 pm.

The main reason: an astounding amount of anger, negativism, and criticism from the two Tea Party'ish guys. This was their first board meeting after being elected. It didn't take long for them to question whether a homeowner's association should even exist.

Amazing.

They run for the board of directors so they can try to dismantle the organization that is charged with maintaining the common property that makes our neighborhood so livable.

This is just like Tea Party candidates who are running for Congress so they can do away with the federal government, which is illogically bizarre. If you don't believe in people coming together to pool their money and effort so they can do things together which individuals can't on their own, why would you become part of the government that you hate so much?

Why not simply do your own thing? Why so much anger at people, like me, who value the common good rather than rampant "me, me, me" separatism?

It was interesting, and also more than a little disturbing, to watch the Tea Party philosophy in action at such a neighborhood level. These guys like living in our community, but they dont' like spending money to keep it livable (again, just like the crazy "Keep government out of my Medicare!" attitude).

Mark Morford's recent column is called "I am outraged! Are you not outraged?" This is right on:

It all adds up to one conclusion: We are so wildly, stupidly free, it's rather hilarious. And savagely ironic. Because you can also say it culminates in perhaps the ultimate expression of Outrage USA, the single place where all such screeching congeals in a shrill, silly little group, signifying nothing.

It's called the Tea Party, that gaggle of terrified, white, middle-aged men whose actual slogan is "mad as hell." What are they mad about, exactly? They have no idea. What do they want to do to change it? No clue. From whence does their timorous fear and dread come? They can't quite say. Perfect.

Lars Larson flunks neuroscience and common sense

Revealing that I haven't reached a state of enlightened ego-loss, I'll admit to a reason why I listen to conservative Portland talk show host Lars Larson fairly frequently:

I feel superior when I do.

Because Larson, like most other right-wing public airwave pundits, is both amazingly ignorant of modern science and deficient in common sense.

Case in point -- a discussion he had today with a caller who was trying to equate an innate propensity toward homosexuality with an innate urge to abuse children sexually.

Larson believes that gayness is learned, a lifestyle choice, which is ridiculous.

Yet he was trying to twist the argument that child abusers are driven by factors (including heredity) outside of their control to buttress his position that both homosexuality and child sexual abuse would have to be tolerated by society if these behaviors were found to be determined, rather than a result of free will.

I guess Larson doesn't realize that most neuroscientists consider that everything we do is determined. That is, there are causes for what brains do. Human consciousness isn't controlled by a free-floating "soul" or free will generator.

Almost certainly Lars Larson won't be reading Sam Harris' new book, "The Moral Landscape," since (1) it is written by a noted anti-religion atheist and (2) Harris has a Ph.D. in Neuroscience, so he deals in scientific facts.

Here's an excerpt, in case Larson reads blog posts:

While viewing human beings as forces of nature does not prevent us from thinking in terms of moral responsibility, it does call the logic of retribution into question. Clearly, we need to build prisons for people who are intent upon harming others. But if we could incarcerate earthquakes and hurricanes for their crimes, we would build prisons for them as well.

The men and women on death row have some combination of bad genes, bad parents, bad ideas, and bad luck -- which of these quantities, exactly, were they responsible for? No human being stands as author to his own genes or his upbringing, and yet we have every reason to believe that these factors determine his character throughout life.

Common sense, Lars. Use some common sense.

Cute little chipmunks and ferocious large lions each do what comes naturally to them, as do humans. We too are animals -- just more complicated animals, with bigger brains capable of more sophisticated behaviors.

If we're walking down a trail and a chipmunk runs straight at us, it makes sense to smile and let it do whatever if feels like doing. But if a lion is charging, we need to take steps to defend ourselves.

Larson was blathering about how, if some behavior is innate (natural), it has to be accepted. Huh?

Hurricanes are natural. So are many, if not most, diseases. We humans don't sit back and say "Whatever..." when such undesired entities come our way. We fight back, doing what is necessary to protect people and property.

Ditto with innate/natural behaviors like being sexually attracted to children. Pedophiles have to be controlled, just as rogue lions do. But homosexuality is chipmunk'ish. There's no harm in gays acting naturally: being attracted to members of the same sex.

Common sense, Lars. Use some common sense.

I'm feeling better about Dem election chances

Do you feel the shift in the political wind? I do.

Hopefully it isn't a product of wishful thinking, a desire to escape the hurricane that many pundits say will blow Democrats off of the political landscape on November 2.

I don't think it is.

Today on Sirius' POTUS I heard the communications director for a Hispanic organization say that the voters she represents are getting more engaged in the election, and are ready to vote against those who are into immigration reform-bashing.

And the Daily Kos Senate Snapshot now has Democrats holidng onto 53 Senate seats, up one from the 52 that has been projected for some time.

Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight has the Dems ending up with 52 Senate seats, but he also sees some recent positive signs for Democratic candidates.

Here in Oregon, I'm still more than a little anxious about Kitzhaber's chances. Polls show the governor's race essentially tied, as is the Congressional contest in my district between Schrader and Bruun.

My prediction is that Kitzhaber and Schrader will bring home wins for the "D" side. It'll be a long return-watching night, though, with each winning by only a percentage point or two.

On the whole, I'm surprised by how optimistic I am about the upcoming election.

A few months ago it looked like a washout for the Democrats. Now, I'm expecting more of a heavy rain that will lead to some erosion of progressive power, but nothing that can't be won back in 2012 when voters realize that the newly elected Republicans don't have any workable ideas for the country, just "no, no, no's."

"Aquitania" -- a great Willamette U theatre production

Until last night I'd never been to a play at Willamette University. After seeing "Aquitania," I'm pretty sure I'll be returning to the university's terrific remodeled theatre.
Download Willamette University Theatre story

I've bemoaned the lack of support for the arts here in sleepy Salem, Oregon, but I guess I need to do more moaning at the guy I look at in the mirror every day, since my wife and I haven't been taking much advantage of Willamette U's cultural opportunities.

For a long time we had season tickets to Pentacle Theatre. Then we gave those up and started going to Salem Repertory Theatre productions, which were more modern, edgier, and thought-provoking. Unfortunately, we discovered SRT shortly before it shut down for lack of support.

That won't happen to the Willamette University Theatre Department, I assume, which is good news.

Because the production of "Aquitania" was highly enjoyable: great acting, singing, set design, and costuming. Best of all, while driving home I said to my wife, "I liked the play a lot, but I didn't really understand what was going on."

Which was the point of the play, so I guess in a way I did get it.

"Aquitania" messes with your mind, being set in a mythical (yet also real) place, where the characters deal with magic (and also reality), drifting back and forth through time (unless the whole play is the dream of the young girl playing a board game, who also is the heroine who learns from the girl what she once knew but has to remember again).

I recycled my program in a box in the theatre lobby, so I'm unable to praise certain actors by name. I'll simply give special kudos to the three beautiful singers and whoever played Gano, the bad guy. All captured my attention whenever they walked on stage, for excellent high-talent reasons.

Curious about the origins of "Aquitania," and why a Google search didn't turn up much info about the play, I learned that it is the creation of Stephen Legawiec, who founded the Ziggurat Theatre Ensemble to "explore the relevance of myth and ritual to a contemporary audience."

Legawiec is the author of -- wow -- 26 plays. Judging from "Aquitania," which is both intellectually challenging and artistically pleasing, he's a deeply creative guy. Hopefully Legawiec is still creating (the last production of Ziggurat was in 2007).

 

How to sell expensive stuff to someone like me

If you're a salesman (oops, salesperson) who deals with spendy items like appliances, autos, computers, or such, here's some advice on how to close a deal with someone like me:

Don't act like a used car salesperson.

Or even like a new car salesperson. Forget whatever sales techniques you've learned on your own or had drummed into you by your boss. Simply act like a normal human being and treat me the same way.

You need to take this advice seriously, because there are a lot of people like me nowadays. We're used to buying stuff over the Internet, where one click (think Amazon) gets us a generous discount from list price, terrific customer service, and no-hassle returns.

Since I can do this with cheap items, I'm not going to put up with a bunch of crap when I go looking for more expensive merchandise.

Unfortunately, though, I've found that some salespeople still act like I'm arrived from the farm in my horse and buggy to learn what this new-fangled thing called a "Model T" is and how it works.

Look, sales dudes and dudettes: by the time I've entered your establishment to take a look at Spendy Item X, I've researched it up the wazoo thanks to the great god Google. I know how much it costs, what it does, and how the new version of X differs from the old version.

Since I'm focused on X rather than the A to Z inventory of other spendy stuff you sell, I may very well know more about the item than you do.

So when you tell me something that I know isn't true, I start to wonder why I'm talking with you. It's better to admit that you aren't familiar with all of X's features than to pretend you're more knowledgeable than you evidently are.

Also, don't try to sell me what I don't want.

If your product is good, it will sell itself. Spend some time in an Apple store and see how little selling the "salespeople" do. They basically sit people down with an Apple gadget and let them try it out, answering any questions they might have.

Recently I told a salesman that I was interested in the new version of Spendy Item X. He tried to tilt me toward the old version, repeatedly (once was enough, thanks) mentioning some rebates and financing incentives that reduced its price.

Well, there's a reason Old X is being pushed on customers rather than New X. I suspect in this case the salesman was under some pressure to get rid of old inventory that wasn't going to look as attractive once New X appeared.

I kept telling him why I liked the fresh features in New X, and didn't find Old X appealing. He kept telling me how much money I could save by getting something I didn't really want -- not a great sales technique.

Again, think Apple.

Try to find a discounted iPad (believe me, I've tried to do this). They're all the same price, even at "discount" stores. Yet they're selling like crazy. When the next even cooler version of the iPad comes out, the old one likely will go down in price. But until then the iPad is being sold on its buzz as a great product, not through sales gimmicks.

I don't expect a salesperson to be my new best friend. However, I also don't expect to be treated like a robot who will extract his VISA card after a psychological buy button has been pressed.

There's a difference between us humans and robots (in their current comparatively crude guises): we can tell when we're being treated robotically. I don't mind being sold something so skillfully I don't even know I'm being sold.

How could I mind? I'm not aware of the sales job.

That's why the best salespeople are like Taoist sages: natural and unaffected. Once I start thinking about the techniques that are being used on me in an over-eager attempt to make a sale, I'm much less likely to buy the item, because I don't like to be overtly manipulated.

If there's price competition on Spendy Item X, simply give me your best price. If you don't, you'll likely find me walking away. Yes, I realize that some people like to haggle and bargain. I'm not one of them.

Like I said, I'm used to firing up the "Shopping" link on Google searches and seeing a list of prices for what I'm looking for scroll down the page. I don't always choose the cheapest price, because customer service and a solid business reputation also are important to me.

But I don't feel like playing extra "what's the price?" games when I'm face to face with a salesperson. Just tell me what your best price for Spendy Item X is, so I can decide whether to accept your offer or keep looking elsewhere.

Sisters, Oregon divided over real estate development

Since my wife and I are part-owners of a cabin in Camp Sherman, Oregon -- about fifteen minutes from charming Sisters (the town, not siblings) -- we follow the political goings-on in Sisters as best we can.

Which mostly is through reading The Nugget, the town's weekly newspaper, though we also get insights from a business owner who we're on chatting-terms with. The Nugget always is an entertaining read.

The regular "Sisters sheriff's calls..." column is a favorite of ours. Here's some entries from the October 6, 2010 paper which reflect the laid-back nature of the area.

A deer got caught in a metal gate. A deputy used a tire jack to spread the bars and free the deer. The deer was uninjured and the gate took only minor damage.

A woman complained that another woman who is dating her ex-husband drove by her house twice. She realizes that's not a crime, but she wanted it documented.

We love Sisters.

It got revitalized through an astute decision decades back to make the town artsy, craftsy and Western-themed. Solid zoning and sign control (even the McDonalds blends in with the rustic atmosphere) makes Sisters a terrific place to spend a few hours, or days, shopping, eating, and playing. A host of festivals and other special events draw visitors from near and far.

Pretty damn impressive for a town with only about 1,800 residents (so says the sign on the edge of Sisters). Yet like most everywhere in the U.S. these days, Sisters is struggling to attract more jobs and economic development.

Reading the Nugget, I've learned that a slate of traditional "build, build, build" city councilors was elected several years ago. Now there's a counter-slate of candidates running in the November election who want to take a wiser approach to economic development.

This divide within the Sisters citizenry reflects a broad choice that many towns in Oregon are facing as they wrestle with the apparent need to balance livability with job creation.

I said "apparent," because this really isn't a balancing act. Livability goes hand in hand with jobs, especially in an attractive state like Oregon. It's crazy to think that the only thing people care about is money when they're pondering where to locate a small or large business.

Quality of life is a big factor in location decisions. If Sisters sacrifices its charm on the altar of short-sighted real estate development, the town will self-destruct its long-term economic viability.

This is the message that Mike Morgan shared in a great opinon piece in the October 6, 2010 issue of The Nugget. It should be required reading for every city councilor and county commissioner who believes in the "if we rezone it, or build it, they will come" economic development mantra.

Here's some excerpts:

We need new people on the Sisters City Council to effectively address economic development. There is a huge difference between economic development (vitality) and real estate development. The current council advances real estate development without understanding that econmic development must occur first. There must be significant demand before lenders will fund new development projects.

It's counterproductive to develop more property when inventory is high and occupancy low. This community doesn't need more homes, retail storefronts, or commercial buildings; there is little demand for improved property and to create more for a quick profit is shortsighted. Developing excess inventory drives down all property values and invites unsustainable competition for existing businesses; everybody loses except the contractors, real estate agents, landowners and others that profit from real estate development.

Economic development in this community cannot mean looking for companies to move operations here; that's not going to happen. Land costs too much, homes cost too much, rents are too high, and there's no significant workforce. Any company interested in moving operations to Central Oregon will go to Redmond, Madras, or Prineville. In the past 10 years Sisters has lost Weitech, Multnomah Publishing, O'Keeffe's, and DesignWorks. To think we can get new or existing companies to move operations here when we can't keep the ones we have is fantasy.

Economic development in this community requires getting people to move here that are retired or can bring their job with them. This is a great place for high tech companies to hide a few of their best scientists, engineers, and programmers. Once here they would create good jobs for the support services they require. This is a development model that has been used successfully in places that offer a high quality of life and good schools. We need to be recruiting people, not companies.

...I urge all voters to go about town and count the number of vacant store fronts, vacant offices, vacant homes, and vacant lots where improvements were made and abandoned. Will more of the same cure the economic ills of this community? Will more competition for existing businesses be good or bad for the community as a whole? Are you better off today than you were two years ago?

Any candidate supported by the political action committee, Citizens for Sisters, is beholden to special interests that benefit from real estate development. This PAC does not have broad community support. Go to https://secure.sos.state.or.us/orestar/jsp/CEMainPage.jsp and enter Citizens for Sisters then follow the links to campaign finance activity. Study the list of donors then ask yourself if you want this PAC controlling your city council.

I did just that. Among others, Citizens for Sisters is being funded by...

Central Oregon Association of Realtors
Re/Max Realty
Dutch Pacific Properties
Kallberg Construction
3 Sisters Partners, LLC

If I lived in Sisters, I wouldn't want my town being run by city councilors who are beholden to real estate developers. I'd be voting for Weed, Holzman, and Shepardson -- judging from what I've read about them (see here and here). 

If you care about our planet, don't vote for Dudley

I could almost hear the increasingly hotter Earth breathing a steamy sigh of relief when the newest Oregon gubernatorial poll came out today. Rasmussen Reports has John Kitzhaber ahead of Chris Dudley 48% to 46%.

Dudley shouldn't be this close, given his disturbingly lukewarm support, or outright disdain, for environmental issues. Oregonians are proudly green (not referring to school colors, Beaver fans). We want our state to remain a leader in job-creating sustainability.

But like the Oregon League of Conservation Voters says, "Oregon can't afford a governor who's not sure about global warming."

Last week, at the KGW/Oregonian gubernatorial debate, Chris Dudley once again dodged the ball on global warming. When asked directly by The Oregonian’s political writer Jeff Mapes whether he believed global warming was caused by human activity or not, Dudley said "...I don't know how much is man-made and how much is natural..."

It’s quite troubling. First, we have a candidate for governor essentially denying one of the most important environmental and economic problems we face—as a state, as a nation, as a planet. Second, if Dudley is questioning the role of human activity in the current global warming crisis, a view very much at odds with that of most Oregonians, what’s his energy policy going to look like?

Among the multi-point plans Dudley repeatedly listed in his talking points (but barely elaborated on), he did not once mention a plan for the intersection of energy, the economy and the environment—a stark contrast from John Kitzhaber, who has long been an environmental champion in Oregon, and who is proposing a statewide weatherization project that will develop a burgeoning local industry and create thousands of jobs, while at the same time addressing… yep… global warming.

There are lots of reasons to vote for Kitzhaber. Protecting Oregon's environment for future generations is one of the best.

I want my three-year-old granddaughter (who, sadly, lives in southern California) to grow up seeing my state's natural beauty protected and, hopefully, enhanced. We can't afford to have a know-nothing governor -- Dudley -- lead Oregon in a nowhere direction for the next four years.

There's some more entirely justified Dudley bashing on the Daily Kos.

GOP candidate for governor Chris Dudley is looking vulnerable on an issue that helped take down GOP Sen. Gordon Smith back in 2008, the environment.

This week, Stimson Lumber, Dudley's largest campaign donor (to the tune of $235,000) was hit with nearly $15,000 in fines for "failing to comply with hazardous air pollution standards, failing to operate an air quality control scrubber properly and discharging wastewater into Scoggins Creek." Not a huge fine as far as environmental fines go (barely a drop in the bucket to what they've spent on Dudley), but nonetheless showing failure to comply with environmental standards. Given how deep in the pocket of industry--particularly timber--Dudley is, then the revelation that he's a climate change denier makes sense.

Being anti-science might be a vote-getter in some states, but not Oregon. We're smarter than the rest of the country. Also, better looking, and our terrific homegrown wine/beer help make us that way (or at least feel that way).

Dudley, though, is marching right in step with the Republican party line. The National Journal has a great piece by Ron Brownstein, "GOP Gives Climate Science a Cold Shoulder."

Are these the people we want running the country, or Oregon?

When British Foreign Secretary William Hague visited the U.S. last week, he placed combating climate change near the very top of the world's To Do list.

"Climate change is perhaps the 21st century's biggest foreign-policy challenge," Hague declared in a New York City speech. "An effective response to climate change underpins our security and prosperity."

The danger was no longer just distant thunder, he suggested, warning that the recent devastating floods in Pakistan heralded the sort of extreme events that will become more common in a warmer world. "While no one weather event can ever be linked with certainty to climate change," he said, "the broad patterns of abnormality seen this year are consistent with climate-change models."

William Hague is not a holdover from the left-leaning Labor Government that British voters ousted last spring. He's not even from the centrist Liberal Democrats who are governing in a coalition with the Conservative Party of Prime Minister David Cameron. Hague is one of Cameron's predecessors as Conservative Party leader.

His strong words make it easier to recognize that Republicans in this country are coalescing around a uniquely dismissive position on climate change. The GOP is stampeding toward an absolutist rejection of climate science that appears unmatched among major political parties around the globe, even conservative ones.

...Indeed, it is difficult to identify another major political party in any democracy as thoroughly dismissive of climate science as is the GOP here. Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, says that although other parties may contain pockets of climate skepticism, there is "no party-wide view like this anywhere in the world that I am aware of."

It will be difficult for the world to move meaningfully against climate disruption if the United States does not. And it will be almost impossible for the U.S. to act if one party not only rejects the most common solution proposed for the problem (cap-and-trade) but repudiates even the idea that there is a problem to be solved. The GOP's stiffening rejection of climate science sets the stage for much heated argument but little action as the world inexorably warms -- and the dangers that Hague identified creep closer.

This is why it is so important that Oregonians vote for John Kitzhaber. We can't have this state embrace the anti-science, anti-environment GOP idiocy that Chris Dudley stands for.

Ommwriter is a cool Zen'ish word processor for blogging

Does this post of mine seem more Zen-like than usual? It should.

I'm composing it on Ommwriter, a minimalist word processor that I came across today via one of the blogs I follow which keep track of what's happening in the oh-so-cool world of Apple.

I was intrigued by the mention of a text editor which starts you off with a utterly blank screen. A few clickable options appear to the right when you stop typing and move your pointer outside of the (resizable) writing box.

You've got a few font options, a few type size options, some choices about what sort of screen to stare at while you write (I'm looking at a solid background which slowly changes colors in a relaxing manner), a variety of choices for both background sound and keyboard-press sound (I've turned off the background sound so I can better hear the chirp that accompanies each character I type, much like the old days of a clickety-clack typewriter), and some options for saving what you write.

This morning I first downloaded a free version of Ommwriter. After playing with it for a while I decided to fork over a few PayPal bucks for the Dana II version, which has some extra options.

The Ommwriter folks want a minimum payment of $4.11, saying that monetary gifts which end in a "1" are auspicious, so they ask that whatever you give them, make it end with "1."

I semi-generously sent them $5.11.

 I appreciate what they've created, and the intentions behind Ommwriter. Technology can be complicatedly overwhelming, even when fashioned by Apple. Ommwriter takes me back to my high school and college days when I wrote (a lot) on a typewriter -- a manual at first, then an electric.

Without, of course, the frustration of having to get out Whiteout or correction tape when I made a typing mistake. But with the appealing memory of looking at a plain page that gradually filled with my thoughts, no special formatting required (or, possible).

For a blogger like me, there are pluses and minuses to Ommwriter. Based on this initial writing experience, Ommwriter is more pleasant to use than the TypePad text editor where I usually compose my posts.

I like the ever-changing color of the "paper" I'm writing on, and the intriguing sounds I hear as the rhythm of my typing changes. (When you're in the flow of writing, you can tell by the sound as well as by the sight of characters materializing on the computer screen.

But I'll have to copy this text, paste it into the TypePad text editor, and then add some formatting (links, boldface/italics, maybe a photo).

I usually do this as I go along, but it does interfere somewhat with my train of thought -- which has been known to come to screeching stops. Plus, I always proofread my blog posts before clicking "publish," so this time I'll do my formatting thing at the same time.

If you're a Mac user, check out Ommwriter. It's a good buy at free or $4.11. (Reportedly a Windows version is in the works.)

I Googled around to see how other people liked Ommwriter. Mostly, a lot. You can read their thoughts here, here, here, and here.

And here's a You Tube video that shows Ommwriter in action.

 

Tall firs crush our solar energy dreams

We finally got a solar energy guy to come out and see if our house was suitable for rooftop panels. But the result wasn't what we'd hoped. 

When Chet of RS Energy (who works with Solarize Salem, the group I'd contacted for an assessment) pulled into our driveway, I told him, "Look, we've got two hybrid cars and a Kitzhaber sticker on our Highlander Hybrid. We're ripe for solar."

I also said that we were appreciative of him being here, since I'd contacted quite a few solar energy companies and had only gotten a few responses -- with no one being interested in actually checking out our house.

Probably, I surmised, they take a look at a Google Maps satellite image of our address and rule us out of solar, sight unseen, given the woodsy nature of our surroundings.

But I'd wondered how anyone could tell how tall the trees around the house were from an overhead view. Chet told me that at first glance our house looked fairly suitable for solar panels, but he needed to check out the sunability with his gadget.

After he did, his first words said it all: "The naysayers were right."

The main reason was these damnably tall and wide firs at the end of our driveway. That round white glow in the left of the photo is the sun, a view of which is what solar panels need to do their energy-generating thing.

Chet said that we got a "70" (whatever that means), while the incentives needed to make solar panels financially feasible kick in at "75."

Given how much my wife loves trees, and how many she's planted on our property, I was surprised to hear her ask Chet which trees would need to be cut down to get up to 75.

He pointed at the firs, but immediately said that it wouldn't make any sense to get rid of them. "They shade your house in the summer," he pointed out. "Plus, it would cost a lot to cut the firs down. Almost always it's better both environmentally and economically to keep trees than to cut them just to qualify for a solar incentive."

That made sense. The notion of eliminating some beautiful large greenhouse gas-reducing firs in order to do something positive for the environment is unduly paradoxical.

So we'll put our solar panel dreams on hold for now. Maybe eventually the technology will evolve, and/or the cost will come down, to make our "70" score a go rather than a no for solar energy.

Chet did say that we'd be a good candidate for a solar hot water heater. However, our utility room, where our current water heater is located, is two floors down from the roof, so quite a bit of piping would be required.

A hybrid hot water heater probably would be a better idea. I've seen these advertised in The Oregonian newspaper recently. They work on the heat pump principle, sucking heat from the surrounding air and using it to help warm water.

They cost about $2,000, but there's a 30% federal tax credit through December 31. However, Energy Trust of Oregon hasn't given a stamp of approval for hybrid hot water heaters yet, so there's no state tax credit.

Delving into a footnote on the Energy Trust hot water heater page, I found:

Note 2: Heat pump water heaters remain an emerging technology in the Pacific Northwest. While heat pump water heaters in theory surpass the Energy Factor eligibility requirements for an Energy Trust cash incentive, there are technical concerns about the design of some models for cool climates. None has demonstrated proven performance in our climate zone to be eligible for an Energy Trust water heater incentive.

So I guess we'll hold off on saving the Earth more than we are now until there's more evidence that a hybrid hot water heater will work well in western Oregon.

New Apple TV is a winner with me

Should you buy the recently released $99 Apple TV gadget? Of course, it's made by Apple!

Am I qualified to give this advice? Of course, I've had it for a whole day, and have used it for a whole hour or so!

Do I, or you, need Apple TV? Of course, it's made by Apple!

There -- I've already answered the key questions about Apple TV (which isn't a television, but a little black box that streams content from the Internet and/or a computer to a TV via a broadband connection).

Two of the questions had the same answer. I wish the third did also, but I'm not made by Apple. Sadly, because if I was, I'd work a lot better and be much more fun.

Since my wife and I are iPhone, iPod, iMac, and MacBook Pro owners, I had to think for about fifteen seconds before ordering the new Apple TV on the day it was released. I wasn't all that sure about what I'd use it for. However, as with almost all things Apple'ish, I was confident that once I got it my needs/desires/cravings would expand to include whatever the heck it was Apple TV did.

(You may be wondering, as I am, "Why isn't an iPad in that list of the Apple products you own?" Beats me. I'm sure we need one.)

Yesterday I connected the Apple TV to our bigscreen television via a HDMI port. Apple doesn't supply an HDMI cable, so I had to wait an entire day after the Apple TV was delivered to get one before firing the device up. It's a testament to my 60-something maturity that I was able to handle the delayed gratification.

Which turned out to be even more delayed, because I was shocked to find that the installation didn't go perfectly smoothly.

After I entered our wi-fi password the Apple TV seemed to recognize our broadband network. But after I laboriously (more about this below) clicked in our Netflix log-in information for a test run, I was met with a screen that said something like "connecting to network."

The Apple TV never did, though.

I said "laboriously" because I had to enter username and password info by pecking my way through a menu of letters, numbers, and symbols arranged alphabetically, not in a QWERTY-keyboard fashion.

An Engadget review of Apple TV takes the product to task for this irritation. Ditto, me. The remote control buttons also were a bit too small for my hand, so I'd often find myself heading in the wrong direction on the onscreen alphanumeric layout.

So re-entering the username and password was less fun the second time around. After I got the never-ending "connecting to network" again, I went to my laptop and put in a help request with Apple.

Our phone rang in less than a minute. Apple has great tech support. When I told my tale I heard, "Hmmmm. I've never heard of anyone else with this problem. I'll need to talk with someone else."

Great. It's nice to be special. But not in this way.

Fortunately, all it took was resetting the Apple TV back to its factory setttings to get the device connected with our wi-fi network. From then on, I was a happy Apple TV camper.

Netlix has an amazing amount of free movies and TV shows available for immediate streaming. By "free," of course, I mean at no extra cost beyond your usual monthly Netflix monetary damage.

I got hooked on "24" only in its last few seasons. So my first Netlix move on Apple TV was to see how the first episode of the first season of "24" looked on our television. Answer: great. As did some movies that I clicked on from the extensive Netflix selection.

So far as I could tell, every TV show or movie available directly from Apple came with a rental cost. That's why Apple TV makes more sense for those who are Netflix users, though there's plenty of other reasons to get the gadget.

You Tube, for example. I had a good time watching cute cat videos that popped up on the "most viewed" category. It was more fun seeing them on a big screen TV than on my 13 inch laptop.

Browsing through a vast list of Internet radio stations also was enjoyable. If I ever decide to become a fan of Latvian folk music, or whatever, my Apple TV will be happy to meet my needs.

It also was cool to search You Tube for "brihines" and see almost all of my videos pop up on the Apple TV screen (a few were missing, for some reason). Now I have a great way of getting rid of visitors who are overstaying their welcome: all I have to do is sit them down on our couch and make them watch some You Tube home videos. When they see I have 38 of them, suddenly they'll say "Oh, I didn't realize how late it is."

I'll end with the bottom line of how I feel about Apple TV: it opens up a whole new world of non-productive time-wasting, which is both enticing and somewhat scary.

Scrolling through the world of free Netflix offerings, along with the even vaster universe of You Tube'osity, I realized that it'd be possible to spend a lot more time in front of our televison.

That is neither a good nor a bad thing. On the whole, I've found that what Apple entices me to do is usually beneficial for my wellbeing. For example, I never expected that my cell phone would be happily used almost entirely for stuff that didn't involve talking with other people until I got an iPhone.

So I expect that Apple TV likewise will fill a void in my life that I didn't know existed. Buy one, and feel more whole yourself.

Older motorcycle riders, don't be scared by statistics

Uh, oh -- that was my reaction when I went to get The Oregonian newspaper last Tuesday. Prominently displayed on the front page (if I recall correctly) was a headline about older motorcycle riders getting into more accidents.

Since my wife isn't wild about my Suzuki Burgman 650 scooter obsession, arguing that it's too dangerous to ride around on fewer than four motorized wheels, I figured that Laurel wouldn't make a distinction between "motorcycle" and "scooter" when she read the story.

I was right. But to my wife's credit, the only reference she ended up making to it was, "I hope you read about older guys getting into accidents."

My response: "Yes, I did. It was interesting. But I didn't learn anything new."

I already was aware that the average age of motorcyclists is increasing, as baby boomers rekindle their love affairs with this marvelously enjoyable means of transportation, and that older riders are more likely to be injured or die in an accident.

But...

I stand by my blog post of last year, written shortly before I picked up my Burgman: "Motorcycling is as dangerous as you make it."

Before deciding to get back into riding, I studied motorcycling accident statistics (didn't come across scooter-specific data, which probably are mixed in with motorcycles).

They can be pretty sobering and scary.

Motorcyclists were 35 times more likely than passenger car occupants to die in a crash per vehicle mile traveled in 2006 and eight times more likely to be injured, according to NHTSA.

Here's the thing, though. Those figures are on average.

They include motorcyclists driving drunk or stoned, not wearing a helmet, speeding like crazy, lacking protective gear, unlicensed to drive a motorcycle, those who haven't taken a motorcycle safety course, and such.

Nobody wants to be average. Especially when it comes to staying alive and healthy.

So the most informative (and inspiring) web site I came across in my motorcycle accident statistic research was this one: an article by James R. Davis called "Beating the Odds Requires that You Act ABNORMALLY."

Davis talks about how the risks of motorcycling can be reduced markedly by going against the grain of what gets riders injured or dead.

That's why I have a white scooter, wear a white full face helmet, always wear complete protective gear, have green day-glo striping on my jacket, drive a scooter with antilock brakes, rarely drive at night or in the rain, don't speed or take turns too fast, don't ride after drinking alcohol, and -- vitally important -- retook the Team Oregon training class before I started my scootering.

Reading the Oregonian story, I didn't find any facts that made me scared to be riding regularly at my increasingly ripe age (I'll soon be 62). For example:

As ridership took off, so did the number of fatal crashes, shooting from 29 in 2002 to 51 last year. Crashes spiked from 337 in 2002 to 842. Up to a third were not licensed to drive a motorcycle. But in nearly half, no other vehicle was involved, says Michele O'Leary, ODOT's motorcycle safety program manager. The rider just made a mistake.

The Oregonian examined the crash reports and interviewed the investigating officers of the 33 deaths so far this year, and found a startling number could have been avoided. Running red lights, rear-ending and colliding with cars claimed several lives.

But more than half of the riders died after they left the roadway or missed a curve on a clear, dry road. Several suffered horrifying injuries usually after striking a tree, roadside sign, utility pole or boulder.

Thus the risk of riding a motorcycle or scooter can be reduced by about 50% just by not being stupid, inattentive, or figuring that your handling skills are better than they really are.

Doing the sorts of common-sense risk-reduction things I mentioned above cuts down on the chance of gettting in an accident even further. However, no matter how careful a rider is, there's no getting around the fact that driving on two wheels is going to be more dangerous than getting around in a four-wheeled "cage" (as motorcyclists like to refer to cars).

Also, a lot more fun.

Which is why I ride, along with most motorcyclists and scooterers -- aside from those who can't afford a car and simply need a low cost means of transportation.

Back when I worked in health planning and policy research I became acquainted with the notion of balancing the quality and quantity of life. This often comes into play with living wills, where a person has to indicate how he or she feels about this sort of tradeoff.

Most people consider that extending the sheer quantity of life via time spent hooked up to a respirator, feeding tube, and such isn't worth the suffering and distress if one's quality of life is dirt-poor.

Similarly, virtually everybody is willing to take some risks in order to get more enjoyment out of life. Whether it is horseback riding, bicycling, getting on an airplane, or even driving to the weekly meeting of a knitting circle, doing something rewarding entails some risk-taking.

Today a guy came up to me as I was preparing to get on my scooter after having coffee with friends at the West Salem Starbucks. He said that he was thinking of getting a Burgman 650 and wanted to know how I liked it.

"I love it," I told him.

And proceeded to tell him more than he perhaps wanted to know about my replacement windscreen, a recently purchased seat cushion that makes my butt happier, how I'm able to store all of my riding gear under the seat, the joy of anti-lock brakes and automatic shifting, etc. etc.

My core message, though, was how riding this maxi-scooter has put the fun back into driving around, just like when I first got my driver's license at 16.

Getting someplace is secondary to simply experiencing the joy of open-air riding -- being in touch with the scooter, the air temperature, sounds, sights, the texture of the road, other vehicles, everything that is less lively when encased in a car (even a convertible).

I told the guy that I can't believe I'd get more enjoyment from any other sort of $10,000 purchase. Even a $150,000 Maserati, I said, wouldn't be as much fun to drive as a $3,000 motorcyle, because there's no comparison between four and two wheels.

It sounded like he was on his way to becoming another Suzuki Burgman 650 happy rider. I hope so. Life is short. The risks of motorcycling and scootering are well worth the rewards, because most of the risk factors are within the rider's control.

So if you're older, like me, and thinking of getting a bike my advice is in tune with Nike's: "just do it."

Why Chris Dudley is wrong for Oregon

Last night's televised debate between Chris Dudley and John Kitzhaber was my first chance to see Dudley in an unscripted setting. I already felt like I knew Kitzhaber fairly well, since I met him quite a few times when he was president of the state Senate back in the '80s and I was working on health policy issues -- one of Kitzhaber's core interests.

I moved to Oregon in 1971, when Republican Tom McCall was governor. I liked McCall a lot. So the notion of having a (R) after the name of the person who leads Oregon isn't automatically reprehensible to my admittedly (D) centered psyche.

(However, I've been an independent for most of my voting life, having registered as a Democrat in 2008 in order to be able to vote for Obama in the primary.)

And with some chagrin, I'll admit to having a bit of fondness for George Bush when I saw him debate Al Gore back in 2000. I didn't vote for Bush, but I thought he was a lot more centrist than the next eight years showed him to be. Unfortunately, Bush pre-election was a very different guy from Bush post-election.

Watching Dudley last night brought back those memories. Dudley is likable. He talked in a way that could appeal to many moderate voters. But I kept having the feeling that he was putting forth a unauthentic persona.

Dudley clearly was heavily scripted. He had a lot of trouble answering questions that he wasn't prepared for, like the one about land use and desirable/undesirable development. Not surprisingly, Kitzhaber's web site declared John the winner of the debate.

But the post-debate analysis included some quotes from independent analysts who dissected the candidates' performances in a succeeding televised hour. Here's what David Sarasohn of The Oregonian said:

It struck me as I was listening that you could listen to everything that Chris was saying and there is no proper nouns. There is no reference to any single factual place, person or thing. There is a series of talking points and he has about four answers which he rotates in response to particular questions but it would be hard to point to something and say ‘this is a place he feels strongly about and this is something he wants to do.’

This is why Dudley is wrong for Oregon, and Kitzhaber is right. Our state doesn't need platitudes and talking points. It needs concrete, solid, considered, wise action to deal with a host of problems: economic, environmental, social.

I was impressed with Kitzhaber's ability to think on his feet and draw upon an obviously deep knowledge -- of state government, of what's worked and hasn't worked in the past, of the different regions of Oregon.

Dudley seemed disturbingly shallow by comparison.

Like George Bush, he appeared to be a guy who'd be fun to have a beer with (especially at a sports bar). It wouldn't be enjoyable to spend four years with him as Governor, though. I suspect that, also like George Bush, he'd transform into a right-wing Republican soon after taking office, which would put him at endless odds with what almost certainly will remain a Democratic state legislature.

Oregon doesn't need gridlock. Again, we need action on a host of fronts, which John Kitzhaber is much better suited to supply, given his experience, knowledge, and demonstrated commitment to this state.

(For some other reactions to the debate that resonated with me, check out BlueOregon and the Oregon League of Conservation Voters.)