HinesSight

"Salemia" could be a lot funnier than "Portlandia"

Yesterday I survived -- no, thrived -- my audition for a part in "Salemia," Salem's answer to "Portlandia" -- an Independent Film Channel series that casts a quirky eye on lifestyles in the city that is an hour drive to the north and lightyears distant on a Hipness Distance Scale.

After the casting call went out, I got excited about appearing in a video series that will poke both gentle and finger-in-the-eye fun at our excessively boring city. (There's some controversy over how to pronounce "Salemia." To me, it has to be Sa-lame-ia.")

But then I remembered all the times I'd watched aspiring dancers audition for So You Think You Can Dance. And how the judges would ridicule those whose dancing skill self-evaluation was wildly out of whack with reality.

I thought I could act. What if I was so wrong, the Audition Meisters threw me out of the room after a cursory look, leaving me to tearily skulk my way out of downtown Salem's IKE Box past other auditioners who'd be thinking, "there but for my talent, goes me."

I'm happy to report that none of my fears came to pass. Mike Perron and David Jenkins were exceedingly polite, friendly, conversational, and most of all, funny. They're a comedic odd couple, with the emphasis on odd (in the very best sense of the word).

One of them would have an idea about a Salemia sketch. Then the other would run with it, carrying it onward into deeper humor territory. These guys are good. I mostly sat across the table from them, my eyes darting back and forth from witty gibe to clever observation and back again, like I was at a Comic Tennis Match.

Robin, David's wife, womaned the audition sign-up table. After mine was over, I couldn't resist talking with her, hoping she'd offer up some insights into her husband. She told me that he was pretty much always that way, seeing the humorous side of wherever he looked.

That's a great talent.

Life can be tough: unforgiving, painful, hard to deal with. Being able to smile and laugh at the right moments (wrong ones too) helps us to handle what we're rather not be dealing with.

Such as, a overly boring city. Named "Salem." I'm looking forward to the production of Salemia. Even more, to watching the episodes. If I get a part, great. If not, I'll cheer Salemia on from my blogger sidelines.

(Though hopefully Mike and Dave will realize that my many years of blogging have enabled me to support my Inner Actor by drawing on the emotions of those writing experiences, notably including outrage, intense outrage, and outrageous outrage. Along with, egocentric opinionating, ridicule, and self-aborption.)

Watching the most recent episode of Portlandia last night, I kept thinking, "Salemia could be a lot better." Here's the main reason:

The saying, Keep Portland Weird, is truthful.

Portland is weird in many wonderful ways. Once in a while Portlandia manages to successfully satirize those quirks, such as in the opening episode where a hipster couple grill their restaurant server about how happily the chicken they're considering ordering was raised.

Problem is, most of the time Portlandia is absorbed in its own self-reflective cinematic weirdness. It's sort of satirizing itself, which isn't funny. Meaning, typically the sketches don't make fun of some green/ environmental/ progressive/ cultural Portland excess, but are over-the-top in their own right.

Like, in the most recent episode, the mayor asking the main characters to form a baseball team, which they do in a wholly unrealistic manner. Or the sketch where the stars are chefs getting photographed for a magazine story, and start posing in increasingly bizarre ways.

What's that got to do with Portland? It was good acting, but ultimately uncomedic -- except in a "that was really weird" sense. Again, Portland's weirdness is getting lost in Portlandia's own weirdness, causing the original premise of the series to be forgotten.

Salemia can learn from Portlandia's failings.

There's plenty to laugh about in Salem. I should know, having lived here for thirty-four years. No need to conjure up jokes when a city is filled with can you believe this? quirks that beg to be highlighted satirically.

Photos of pro-union rally at Oregon capitol

Wow, I'm energized!

Today's Rally to Save the American Dream in Salem, a.k.a. "We are WI," got me fired up to defend truth, justice, & the American way against any and all enemies -- notably Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and his Republican cronies, the Koch brothers.

Here's some photos of the event, which was mirrored in every state capitol across the United States.

There was a lot of love expressed toward Wisconsin from Oregonians.

Looks like your best chance of getting interviewed by a media type is to wear an attention-getting outfit.

Many stout-hearted, hard-working union guys and gals were standing up for their Wisconsin brothers and sisters.

I resonated with this sign, since I wish the Tea Party would get flushed down the political drain.

Impressive. A little girl who can speak some German and make a rally sign -- though she almost ran out of room for "Cheesehead."

An initial Salem Statesman Journal story said "several hundred" people were at the rally. I'd say it was more like a thousand.

Some union dogs dragged their owners to the rally.

This dog had an impressive response to a "down" command. It went as flat as possible.

On the sidewalk across the street from the capitol steps, a long line of people waved signs at passing cars, eliciting many supportive honks.

A couple of girls made a clever "I love teachers" sign.

Here's Laurel, my wife, with her hot-off-the-magic-marker sign.

Organizers urged people to wear red and white, Wisconsin colors. Many did.

Somebody apparently had the perfect flag sitting around, waiting for a Wisconsin rally. Or maybe they whipped it up on a sewing machine.

Here's Delana, a friend of ours, with her oh-so-positive sign.

This was the only scuffle I saw at the rally. Maybe the little dog was a Tea Party supporter. No human counter-protesters showed up, so far as I could see.

Government spends my money better than I can

Today I gave our 2010 tax info to our CPA. In a few weeks we'll learn how much we owe the federal and Oregon governments.

My wife and I won't be thrilled with writing out the checks, but deep down we're pleased to do our part to "promote the general welfare" -- one of the six goals our founding fathers set out in the preamble to the United States Constitution.

See, Tea Party types, your interpretation of what it means to be a proud American is historically twisted. Cutting taxes isn't mentioned in the preamble. But promoting the general welfare is.

And how is that done?

By voters electing representatives who will decide how best to spend money raised through taxation. For example, last year our duly elected Congresspeople chose to pass a groundbreaking health care reform law that will bring tens of millions of people into the health insurance system.

That's great. It's the much-needed and democratically-determined law of the land.

My wife and I are happy to have some of our money go to fund implementation of the reforms. We're similarly pleased to know that our taxes are going to help cure the sick, educate children, provide food to the poor, and aid poverty-stricken nations where countless people die needlessly.

Among the crazy things I hear coming out of the mouths of right-wingers these days, one of the craziest is "Citizens can spend their money more wisely than the government can."

Huh? Have these people ever gone to a mall and watched what shoppers buy? Much of the time, crap.

Stuff that will used for a short time, then discarded. Stuff that the buyers don't really need, but get an urge for, so they whip out a credit card. But even if these goods fulfill some individualistic desires, they are very minimally (if at all) "promoting the general welfare."

Almost everybody is selfish, and I certainly include myself in everybody. Left to my own devices, I donate some money to charity and I volunteer to help other people. However, government is needed to do what we self-centered humans aren't willing or able to do on our own: genuinely promote the general welfare.

Groups usually make better social policy decisions than individuals can. That's why dictatorships fail and democracies thrive. That's why corporations have a board of directors rather than a solitary CEO.

When people get together and seriously ponder what's needed to make their community better, a wiser outcome will result than if each person acted on his or her own. Pooling resources to support a shared goal is how our country built the interstate highway system, went to the moon, conquered polio, won several world wars, and accomplished so much else.

By definition, a democracy will promote the general welfare. That is, if legislators and leaders are freely elected by informed voters, the resulting laws/policies should reflect what the citizenry desires. If not, the next election will restore balance to the system.

So there's no such thing as "having our country taken away from us," as so many Tea Party types have been screaming. They simply don't like what democracy has wrought, and how the general welfare is being promoted.

Everyone, from the most radical conservative to the most progressive liberal, should do their best to smile while they're preparing their tax returns and paying their taxes. Yes, I know it's difficult. Last night, when our dining room table was covered with financial papers and my calculator was heating up from overuse, I wasn't dancing with joy.

But as I was driving to our CPA's office this afternoon and listened to a woman who called in to a talk radio show, I felt really good about where our taxes are going.

"I have a serious disease that requires surgery every couple of years to remove growths inside my body," she told the host. "I'd be dead if it weren't for Medicaid." That's just one specific story about what it means to promote the general welfare. There are countless others.

Thanks to taxes. Glorious, wonderful, patriotic taxes.

 

 

Republicans' overreach will result in voter backlash

Recent actions by Republicans are giving me a serious case of outrage. When the House voted to cut off funding for Planned Parenthood, that was just plain idiotic. As Ruth Marcus says:

House Republicans voted to increase the number of abortions, raise federal health-care costs and swell the welfare rolls.

That wasn't their intent, of course, and certainly not their stated policy. But it is the predictable and inevitable impact of their twin moves to eliminate funding for the federal family planning program and strip Planned Parenthood of all federal money.

If anything, this assessment is understated. The sharper, and still accurate version, would be that Republicans voted to let more women die from breast cancer, cervical cancer and AIDS. How's that? The family planning programs also provide cancer screening and HIV counseling to millions of low-income and uninsured people.

Let's be clear about one thing. Almost none of this money went for abortions. The only federal funding for abortion involves the thankfully low number of situations in which poor women seek abortions for pregnancy due to rape or incest, or when their own lives are in jeopardy. In 2006, the last year for which figures are available, the federal government paid for 191 such abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

So even though defunding Planned Parenthood supposedly is about deficit reduction, actually the motivation of Republicans is purely political. They're playing to their far-right base, which views abortion as against God's will -- even though it is constitutional and legal according to the laws of our secular land.

Aside from the few lawful exceptions noted above, Planned Parenthood doesn't use any federal money to pay for abortions. Yet Republicans want to punish women by denying the organization any financial support at all, even for family planning (which reduces abortions) and cancer screening (which saves lives).

Crazy.

Logically, next House Republicans will vote to deny all Medicare and Medicaid funding for any hospital or other medical care provider which performs abortions, even though paid for privately. This is just what they're trying to do to Planned Parenthood: punish the supposed "sin" of abortion by stripping the sinner of all federal support.

Then there's the equally irritating actions of Republican Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin.

Like most people, I rarely pay much attention to unions, since their influence and membership has dropped a lot over the past few decades. But Walker has woken me up to the danger of further pushing American workers into semi-slave labor status.

Just as with his House Republican brethren, Walker talks as if his sole concern is saving money. We're supposed to believe that this is why he wants to decimate unions' collective bargaining rights and ability to organize. Clearly, though, he's really out to destroy unions.

Today David Sarasohn, a columnist for the Portland Oregonian, had a great column on this subject.

Despite the repeated claims of Gov. Scott Walker, this isn't a fight over saving money to deal with the state's financial crisis, a change likely to happen in every state. The public employee unions have largely accepted the governor's financial terms, and the total comes to just $165 million in a two-year Wisconsin shortfall of $3.6 billion.

The crucial elements here are the demands that unions lose collective bargaining power on all issues except wages, and that the state stop withholding union dues and require repeated elections to keep public employee unions certified. The goal is, in the near future, to remove the unions as a political force.

(The exceptions here are police, firefighters and the state troopers, all of whom supported Walker in the last election. They can remain political players.)

The goal here isn't to try to protect services by reducing costs; it's to keep public employees out of the way of cutting services.

Hmmmm. Methinks I see a pattern here.Republicans saying one thing and doing another. Claiming they're into preserving the public's pocketbook while working to destroy organizations that people support.

That's a risky strategy.

I'm confident it's going to backfire on the "R's" come election day in November 2012. Voters wanted jobs, jobs, jobs when they cast ballots in 2010. But so far, Republicans are solely focused on making their political wet dreams into reality.

Ooh, no more Planned Parenthood. Ah, unions crippled as a source of Democratic Party support.

Only problem is, a Gallup poll found that 61% of Americans oppose weakening the collective bargaining rights of public employee unions. And 66% of women support Planned Parenthood as a provider of birth control pills and other forms of contraception.

So by overreaching, Republicans are going to find that they've overstepped the bounds of what voters called for in the midterm elections -- which was much more about getting politicians to work together on solving our country's problems than eliminating federal funding for important health programs and destroying unions.

I also want to say, thank you, Republicans, for firing up the Democratic base.

Progressives were demoralized after the mid-terms. Now they're marching by the tens of thousands in Wisconsin and working like crazy to make sure that the Senate doesn't go along with the House budget package.

If Republicans had played their cards right, they could have cemented the support of moderates and independents. However, by pandering to the wacko wing of their party, they've vastly increased the chance of seeing their electoral gains vastly diminished or even reversed completely in 2012.

How to (almost) enjoy your colonoscopy

I don't know if it's possible for anyone to say "my colonoscopy was fun," unless they're a masochist. I've had three now, two regular's and a virtual, the most recent a few days ago.

None of them was enjoyable, except in this sense: I know that I'll feel much better getting colonoscopies rather than colon cancer. So like I said in a previous post, don't think twice about having the procedure if you're over 50 or otherwise in a high risk group.

Once you're scheduled for one, I've got some tips for making your colonoscopy more pleasant. Some of what I've learned may be peculiar to me, so take your doctor's advice a lot more seriously than mine. These are just some suggestions, based on my experience.

Shop around for a provider. I talked about this in my post where I advised people not to get a colonoscopy in Salem, Oregon, where I live. Again, that's my opinion, mostly based on the insistence of the one and only provider of the procedure in my town to make patients go through a two-day colonoscopy prep.

Recently a friend told me that Salem Gastroenterology Associates made her do this, even though her procedure was scheduled for the afternoon of the third day. So she couldn't eat solid food for over two and a half days. That's highly unusual, based on the research I cited.

Thus if you don't feel comfortable with a provider in your area, look farther afield. I drove to Tualatin, a suburb of Portland, for my two regular colonoscopies because I really like how the folks at Gastroenterology Associates of Oregon treat me -- as a human being, not just a patient.

Usually the doctor knows best. That said, once you've chosen who you want to perform a colonoscopy on you, trust them. It's fine to ask questions and do your own Internet research. But in the end, it's wise to assume that health care professionals are going to know more than you do.

After my first regular colonoscopy, the doctor found a benign polyp. He also said that the colon prep/cleansing wasn't very good in one area of my colon. That's why he wanted me to have a repeat procedure in two years, rather than the usual five or so. I thought of arguing with him, since I wasn't eager to have another colonoscopy so soon. I didn't, though.

Now I'm glad.

The gastroenterologist, Erik Van Kleet, found another polyp in the area that wasn't properly prepped last time. He removed it. Since it was flat, he couldn't see it during the first colonoscopy. I'm also glad that I didn't argue with the clinic's physican assistant when he told me that I should start the clear liquid diet at 5:00 pm, two days before the procedure.

That added eight hours or so of no-eating to my prep schedule. It was worth it, though, to get a clean colonoscopy this time. (I can understand why, in special circumstances, a more than one day prep is called for; my gripe with the Salem clinic is that they required a two day prep for all patients, since usually this isn't necessary.)

Follow the prep instructions, but don't deny yourself. Most people who have had colonoscopies find the prep period to be more distasteful than the procedure itself. I agree. Being a vegetarian, I'm used to grazing frequently. And getting rid of the colon contents by drinking a gallon of laxative stuff isn't my favorite thing to do.

However, when I told a friend I was getting a colonoscopy and angled for some no eating sympathy, he said, "I went on a 21-day fast once." That shut me up, especially since the photo above shows what I bought to get me through about a 1.5-day "fast" where I could consume clear liquids for most of that time.

Jello, vegetable broth (I bought way too much, but it was on sale), white grape juice. Adding up the calories in this stuff, I realized why I didn't lose much weight during my so-called fasting period. Plus, I tanked up in the two hours prior to the 5 pm "no more solid food" deadline on Wednesday (my colonoscopy was scheduled for 10 am on Friday).

At 2:30 I had a large slice of cheese pizza. At 4:00, after I exercised, I ate a peanut butter and apple butter sandwich on whole wheat bread that I'd taken to the athletic club. Then, at 4:20, I managed to stuff down another large slice of Straight From New York pizza before I went to my Tai Chi class. Not surprisingly, I wasn't very hungry all that evening, so starting my liquid diet at 5:00 pm on Wednesday rather than late that night wasn't a big sacrifice.

And as noted above, it worked better for me, according to my doctor. As did a split preparation schedule, in which I drank half of the laxative stuff early Thursday evening, and half early Friday morning (the day of the procedure). Even though I had to wake up at 4 am or so on Friday, I found that drinking eight 8-ounce glasses of the stuff at two different times was more pleasant than chugging the whole gallon all at one go. 

Bliss out during the colonoscopy itself. Once it comes time for the actual procedure, relax. The worst is over. You're on the home stretch. Now comes the genuinely fun part. At least, that was my experience this time, which I wrote about on my other (more philosophical) blog.

As I was getting prepped for the colonoscopy, a nurse told me they were using propofol now. I could expect a much quicker recovery time, with few if any side effects. Once the propofol drip is stopped, the patient wakes up almost instantly.

The name of the drug sounded sort of familiar.

It should have, because this was one of the drugs that was being used by Michael Jackson when he died. It's white appearance leads it to be called "milk of amnesia" (for the benefit of some foreign blog readers, milk of magnesia is an over-the-counter drug commonly used in this country).

...After being wheeled across a hall into the endoscopy room, I was positioned on my side so I was facing a large monitor that soon would be showing my innards. The doctor would be looking at it as he performed the colonoscopy.

Some pleasantries were exchanged with the doctor and the nurses. Then the nurse anesthesiologist said she was starting to inject the propofol. For about fifteen seconds I felt completely normal. I was mildly concerned that the sedative wasn't working.

Next thing I knew, the nurse was telling me "We're all done."

My instant intuitive reaction was disappointment. I was disturbed to be back in everyday reality. It had been a lot more pleasant wherever I'd been, consciousness wise. I sort of felt like I'd jumped into ice water after basking on a warm beach.

Doing some Googling on propofol before writing this post,  I learned this sort of reaction is why the drug is illicitly used non-medically.

There are reports of self-administration of propofol for recreational purposes. Short-term effects include mild euphoria, hallucinations, and disinhibition. Long-term use has been reported to result in addiction.  

I felt completely alert and awake. The only side effect, so far as I could tell, was that feeling of I wish I could have stayed in that pleasant propofol place longer. My first words to the nurse were, "I had some nice dreams. Mostly of having a colonoscopy, but with absolutely no pain, as if it was happening to someone else."

I had a great time during the actual colonoscopy, mostly because I wasn't really there -- just a minimally aware blissed-out me was. Ask your colonoscopy provider if they use propofol as a sedative. And if not, why not? I liked it much better than what was used at my previous colonoscopy.

Bottom line: don't be afraid of getting a colonoscopy. As with most anxieties in life, our worries about what will happen almost always don't come to pass to the degree that we anticipate.

Some aspects of the procedure, like the sedative, may even make you say, give me more. So, enjoy, best you can.

And always keep in mind that no matter how unpleasant a colonoscopy procedure may be at times, it's a heck of a lot better than getting colon cancer.

2009 Suzuki Burgman 650 Exec for sale in Salem, Oregon

[Sorry, no longer for sale.]

Spring is almost here -- in western Oregon, at least. Our bulbs are blooming, and it's going to hurt when I can't ride my much beloved 2009 Suzuki Burgman 650 Exec scooter during warm weather this year. But I've got to sell this beauty. (click on photos for larger images)

So says my wife.

If it was up to me, I'd keep the Burgman after my recently-ordered 2011 Mini Cooper S makes its way from England to our carport. However, my wife has put a limit on the number of "boy toys" I can keep in our cramped garage, so the scooter has to, well, scoot.

I've always wanted a Mini Cooper, so now that I'm 62 and on the Social Security gravy train, I decided to fulfill my dream. The Burgman has been a lot of fun, a lot, bringing a smile each and every time I ride it. Whoever buys it will both get a great deal, and loads of two-wheeled enjoyment.

Some particulars: about 3800 miles on it at the moment; never had a problem with it; the scooter has never been laid down or in an accident; it's had all scheduled maintenance. And there's pluses...

l've got an XL Clearview shield on the Burgman, as I wanted less wind noise/buffeting (the screen is clear and has a vent). However, I still have the stock shield, on the left in the photo above, and a Large Clearview (tinted and with a vent) that I used for a while until I decided an XL was better for my six-foot body.

The two Clearview screens cost about $280 each. I'm including them in the asking price. Which, since I can hear you asking, is $7,500. 

The Burgman is in almost perfect condition. I researched prices for 2009 Execs via a NADA Guides search and found the average retail price was $7,428. For $7,500  I'm throwing in two additional screens that cost $560, along with a $135 Airhawk seat cushion (air-filled; makes for a much more comfortable ride).

Plus, there's a year left on a three-year maintenance agreement that I purchased with the Burgman when I bought it from Cycle Country here in Salem.

I was told that the next service (due in June, I believe) is the most expensive. The agreement is transferable to the new owner, so that's a significant additional value included in the $7,500. If the new owner doesn't live near Salem, it might be possible for me to have the final service done before the scooter is handed off.

My email address is [email protected]  Contact me if you're interested in the 2009 Suzuki Burgman Exec, including your phone number. Assume that it is still for sale unless you see a big red SOLD at the beginning of this post.

If you aren't familiar with how great these scooters are, do some research and likely it won't take long before you get an itch to buy a Burgman.

Some advice, because I want the buyer to be happy with my scooter: it's a 650, not a cute little Vespa. It'll go over 100 mph. It's heavy, so a small woman might find it too daunting. The Burgman 650 has been described as a motorcycle disguised as a scooter, which is pretty accurate. It's faster than a lot of motorcycles, yet without the noise, vibration, and need to shift gears.

And the Burgman 650 Exec has anti-lock brakes, a huge plus.

To stop, I just squeeze on both hand levers as hard as I want with no danger of unsettling the "bike," as is the case with a motorcycle or scooter that doesn't have anti-lock.
 
To go, I just turn the throttle on the right handlebar. No shifting, ever -- unless you want to (the Burgman can be shifted manually via buttons, but I've never had a reason to do this, other than to play around with the feature a few times.)

The underseat storage is great. I can easily store my helmet and jacket, plus gloves and dark glasses, when I make a stop. No need to carry all your gear around in stores, or wherever. I've found that I can even cram my helmet, protective jacket/pants/gloves, and boots under the seat. So I can head off in shorts and sandals during the summer, then come back and gear up without needing to carry anything around.

This is the instrument panel, showing the mileage as of today. I like the high-tech look. If you want a retro, chromed-up bike that can be heard coming from blocks away, get a Harley. But if you want super-fun, reliable, safe, stylish, 44 mpg transportation, get a Suzuki Burgman.

Hey, I've got one for sale. $7,500. Contact me: [email protected]

Here's a few additional photos. (No, the dog doesn't come with the scooter.)

 

Testifying at the Oregon Legislature can be oh-so-frustrating

Last Tuesday it happened again.

Four years after I blogged, "Why have a public hearing if you don't want to hear the public?," the Oregon Legislature's House Judiciary Committee held an excruciatingly inept, slanted, and frustrating public hearing on three bills that would drastically limit citizen involvement in land use decisions.

Yesterday, fellow hearing sufferer Kris Bledsoe wrote a terrific piece for Blue Oregon, laying out details of how committee co-chair Rep. Wayne Krieger (R-Gold Beach), who hates land use planning, threatened her when she asked why she never got a chance to testify.

In "A Formal Complaint for Deaf Ears," Bledsoe said:

By the end of the hearing none of the individuals who were opposed to the bills had the opportunity to testify. I was frustrated and seriously disappointed. When the hearing was closed I went up to Representative Krieger to voice my disappointment. I was angry and my voice was louder than my usual very soft voice but by no means loud.

He immediately said, "geesh you people!" I am not certain what group he was lumping me with but I knew this insult was not deserved. He was very disrespectful. I told him that I had been told each speaker would have a limited time so others could speak. He said who ever told me that was wrong. He, himself, had said that at the beginning of the hearing. When I told him that he threatened me by telling me he was going to call the police.

Let's be perfectly clear. No one would ever consider me a threat. I am a 60 year old arthritic small statured woman. He was on the other side on the desk from me. I was at least three feet away from him and he was on the other side of a big piece of furniture. I, of course, stopped talking but was quite bewildered. It is not okay to disagree with a State Representative?

Krieger indeed was a disaster. He started off the hearing by saying that emotions can run high when the subject is land use; lots of people had shown up to testify; so testimony would need to be limited to a few minutes so everybody could have their say before the committee.

He then proceeded to ignore himself, launching into an emotional rant about how unnecessary appeals held up some development in his district, then letting the few proponents of HB 2181, HB 2182, and HB 2610 blab on for much longer and more often than the much more numerous opponents, of which I was one.

What irritated me the most about this "public" hearing was how so many of the committee members obviously liked to hear themselves speak rather than listen to the people who had come to testify -- many of whom had spent hours preparing their testimony and driving to the Capitol.

Mini (and maxi) speeches about the horrors -- gasp! -- of allowing people the right to challenge land use decisions which affect them took up much of the hearing time. Again, legislators, why do you hold public hearings if you don't want to hear from the public?

Take me, for example. I'd worked on written testimony for quite a while the day before the hearing. It's pretty damn good, if I say so myself, which I am.
Download 2-15-11 Land Use testimony

My wife and I have led several fights against developments that threatened water supplies in our neighborhood, which is officially designated a groundwater limited area. We filed one appeal to LUBA (Land Use Board of Appeals) on our own. Another, we had the help of attorneys hired by our area's Keep Our Water Safe committee.

So I was eager to tell the House Judiciary Committee what a crazy idea HB 2181 is. This bill would make citizens liable for attorney fees of a land use applicant if they lost a LUBA case. But insanely, the reverse wouldn't be true: ordinary people and local governments couldn't get attorney fees from a would-be developer if they won.

This proposed tilting of the scales of justice is outrageous.

I suppose it's fitting that a public hearing on bills that would dramatically curtail citizen involvement in land use legal proceedings was chaired by a guy who was out to curtail citizen testimony on the legislation.

If you're afraid of letting ordinary citizens have their day in court, you're going to be afraid of what they have to say in a public hearing.

But here's the thing, Rep. Krieger and your fellow land use system-hating Republicans: it's exceedingly dangerous to try to make Oregon's courts into your political ally. If I'd gotten to testify, I was going to tell you how our neighborhood's Keep Our Water Safe committee is supported by liberals and conservatives, Republicans and Democrats, pickup-owning hunters and Prius-driving vegetarians.

What unites us is a committment to preserving our property rights against a 43-lot subdivision that would add that many wells to an area where homeowners already are finding their faucets going dry.

Also, a belief that the almost $40,000 people have donated to our fight, and the countless hours volunteers like my wife and I have put into this battle, will end up being worth it -- because even though land use decision-makers may make mistakes along the way, Oregon's courts almost always produce fair rulings after the appeals process has run its course.

The three bills being considered by the House Judiciary Committee threaten this perception of fairness.

Rep. Krieger and his allies are trying to achieve through unfair legislation what they couldn't win at the ballot box in 2007, when Oregonians strongly affirmed their commitment to protecting farm, forest, and groundwater limited land by passing Measure 49.

I hope the Judiciary Committee has another public hearing where the many people who were denied a chance to testify are allowed to do so. I also hope that Rep. Krieger loses his fear of 60 year old arthritic women who ask him a question after a hearing.

Because our Oregon legislators should never stop listening to the people who pay their salaries and whom they serve. Ever hear the term "public servant," Rep. Krieger? You didn't act like one last Tuesday.

1000 Friends of Oregon prepared some clear and cogent letters in opposition to the three bills being considered by the Judiciary Committee. Learn more about why the legislation is such a bad idea:
Download 2011-HB2181
Download 2011-HB2182
Download 2011-HB2610

Democratic state legislators leave Wisconsin to stop union-busting

Oh, way cool! This is so Egypt'y. Thousands of protesters camping out at the seat of power to thwart an evil leader's nefarious rule.

And now... Democrats in the Wisconsin State Senate have reportedly left the state to prevent a quorum, and hence a vote, on the Republican Governor's horrendous union-busting legislation.

Meaning, the state police can't come after them. If any of the senators need a hideout, give me a call. (Oops, guess I should have kept this a secret.)

"Salemia" casting call gets my Inner Actor excited

Oh, man, I want it so bad -- a role in the "Salemia" series that local filmmaker Michael Perron and his posse are planning to make as our city's answer to the Independent Film Channel's "Portlandia."

The Salemia notion started off as a Twitter craze, but is morphing into something more. What that turns out to be is limited only by Perron's wonderful creativity and sense of humor, which is on full display at his You Tube home.

As alluded to below, my top strategy for getting a part in Salemia isn't my acting ability, but my fawning ability. Along that line, check out some of my favorite Michael Perron videos: "Last Call," "Dog Business," and "Bird Identifyin'."

(Perron is a genius. It's a crime that many of his You Tube videos only have 50 or so views, while one of mine has over 21,500. I want to worship at his feet and learn how to make quality videos that are so artistic, they attract little attention.)

Yesterday a casting call went out for would-be Salemia actors. I urge you to get involved, but only if you aren't angling for the CRUSTY TRANSIENT (60s) role. That's me! Just look at the photo above. Doesn't it absolutely scream crusty transient? And I'm 62!

When I learned about the casting call, I rushed to whip out an email to Michael Perron, saying in part:

Here's why you need to cast me in "Salemia, the only-on-You-Tube movie, unless Salem Cinema gets a cameo role in it."

(1) My fawning blog posts about Salemia are top-ranked on a Google "#salemia" search right now. (Look quickly before Google changes its mind about the ranking.) You need me for publicity, because my Fawning Intensity will rise substantially if I have a part in the movie. See: http://bit.ly/i4Q9Ne

(2) I'm 62. It'd be age'ist if you don't have a Social Security recipient in the flick.

(3) I've got a Oregon-generic longish gray hair, short gray beard, fit-but-aging baby boomer, "bring back the '60s," look that often leads people to say, "Don't I know you from somewhere?" To which I reply, "Probably not, but you know guys who look a lot like me." Hence, you'd be getting a universal Platonic form, not just an individual person, if you cast me.

(4) I had a starring role in my Junior Class play in high school. I can dig out a clipping from a 1965 issue of the Woodlake, California weekly newspaper if you want proof.

(5) My dog and wife are available for crowd shots, just so long as they don't upstage me. Dog is a highly attractive Shepherd-Lab mix who oozes a charismatic Oregon vibe. Same with my wife, aside from the Shepherd-Lab mix part, and I'm not just saying that because this is Valentine's Day and I'm going to read this email to her after I finish writing it (though that could be one teeny-tiny reason).

(6) I've contributed quite a few Tweets to the #Salemia cause, some of which even have been understandable by people other than myself.

I look forward to hearing from you. If I don't get a call back, it's good to know that Oregon has an assisted suicide law, not to put any pressure on you. (However, I just watched your video where an endangered species bird is killed with a rock and eaten, so angling for compassion and empathy probably isn't a viable Please Cast Me approach.)

Well, I'll have to wait and see.

My daughter and her family live in Hollywood, so if I'm rejected for Salemia I'll be able to identify with the many depressed, addicted, alcoholic, without-hope actors down there.

Of course, this would only be my first casting call rejection, so probably I'll need to return to more Salemia auditions in order to cultivate a True Artistic Sensibility of fuck them all, they can't recognize real acting if it bit them in the ass.

And I can always watch, and re-watch, and re-re-watch, my own short subject that I starred in, wrote, and mostly filmed. It's genius. (Like you, Michael Perron.)

Meet the talented (and funny) guys behind #Salemia

I hope the fawning title of this blog post gets me a role in a "Salemia" production being planned by Twitter-meme founders Mike Perron and David Jenkins -- even if it just appears on You Tube.

(The competing "Portlandia" is on the IFC cable channel, which isn't exactly highly watched either.)

Gino Corridori, a local cameraman for Portland's KATU, put up a well-done, entertaining interview with Mike and David on, where else, You Tube. Check out hIs "#Salemia: What's it all about?" blog post on the Salem KATU site.

I was thrilled to see one of my OregonBrian #Salemia tweets scroll by on the screen during the video. And also encouraged to see that Salem, bland as its reputation is, has hidden comical creative treasures like Mike and David lurking in the sleepy shadows. (Fawn #2).

My only critique of the video is that the sound could be louder. There's a lot of Social Security recipients like me here in Salem. Turn up the volume, guys! Have a look:

 

For more samples of the clever #Salemia tweets that have been burrowing out of the often-twisted minds of bored residents, head to my blog post of a few days ago.

Republicans go bat-shit crazy on global warming

I'm not sure what the origin of the term is, but calling Congressional Republicans bat-shit crazy sounds so right to me. They're acting insane on many issues, but global warming is where their disconnect from reality reaches its zenith.

I've never seen a political party in this country go so far astray from facts. We're not talking here about a difference of opinion, a philosophical dispute, or a questioning of which data are more accurate.

No, the freshly empowered Republicans who have taken control of the House of Representatives are purely and simply lying. So I'll amend my description of them into bat-shit crazy liars.

This is even more objectionable, because I can excuse craziness.

We all go a bit (or a lot) outside of the sane range from time to time, especially under extreme stress. I can understand how the spectre of Barack Obama -- all rational, calm, cool, and collected -- could push hot-headed right-wingers into saying crazy stuff.

But it's become clear that Congressional Republicans like House Energy chair Fred Upton are consciously lying about global warming. Only two years ago he said, "Climate change is a serious problem that necessitates serious solutions."

Now, Upton is claiming that global warming isn't manmade. That's a lie. A bat-shit crazy lie. So says the highly respected and independent National Academy of Sciences in a 2010 report.

As part of its most comprehensive study of climate change to date, the National Research Council today issued three reports emphasizing why the U.S. should act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and develop a national strategy to adapt to the inevitable impacts of climate change. 

The reports by the Research Council, the operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering, are part of a congressionally requested suite of five studies known as America's Climate Choices.

...The compelling case that climate change is occurring and is caused in large part by human activities is based on a strong, credible body of evidence, says Advancing the Science of Climate Change, one of the new reports. 

While noting that there is always more to learn and that the scientific process is never "closed," the report emphasizes that multiple lines of evidence support scientific understanding of climate change.  The core phenomenon, scientific questions, and hypotheses have been examined thoroughly and have stood firm in the face of serious debate and careful evaluation of alternative explanations.

"Climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for — and in many cases is already affecting — a broad range of human and natural systems," the report concludes. 

I've lost all respect for Congressional Republicans. Reluctantly, really.

My mother was an avid lifelong Republican. I grew up reading National Review and William F. Buckley. Back then (the early '60s), conservatives were intelligent, thoughtful, and respectful of both science and opposing views.

Now, the Washington D.C. variety have turned into truth-denying morons.

They don't even claim to put forward alternative facts that would purportedly explain why 2010 was the hottest year on record (tied with 2005) and the past decade was the hottest ten years ever, while carbon dioxide spewed out by humans has increased in amounts that predict this much global warming.

The bizarre behavior of Republicans would be amusing, if the need to develop alternative energy sources and reduce our nation's carbon footprint wasn't so pressing. The world's oil supply obviously is limited. Peak oil, when production plateaus, is near at hand, if not already here.

Yet the non-geniuses in Congress with an "R" after their name want to preserve multi-billion dollar subsidies for oil companies while slashing funding for alternative energy research and development of renewable energy supplies.

Fortunately, they're on the wrong side of public opinion.

Americans strongly support protecting our air and holding polluters accountable

Seventy-seven percent of the public—including 61 percent of Republicans—oppose efforts in Congress to block Clean Air Act updates for carbon dioxide, smog, and other pollutants according to a recent National Resources Defense Council poll.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the EPA needs to do more to hold polluters accountable and protect our air and water.

A recent USA Today/Gallup Poll showed that of the eight actions Congress could take this year, Americans most favor an energy bill that provides incentives for using alternative energy (83 percent).

The vast majority of Republicans—as well as a majority of Americans—oppose the Newt Gingrich plan to dismantle the EPA. More than 75 percent of the respondents oppose congressional efforts to limit the EPA’s authority to enforce the Clean Air Act.

So Republicans are being doubly crazy. While denying scientific facts about global warming, they're also ignoring public opinion about how to deal with climate change. That'll come back to bite them in the next election.

Regence BlueCross of Oregon: incompetent beyond belief

Yesterday my wife had another frustrating encounter with the Regence BlueCross of Oregon bureaucracy. (Previous ones have been blogged about here, here, here, here, here, and here.)

This further convinced us that people who claim government-run health care would be more inefficient and mistake-prone than the current mostly private system never have had much to do with an insurance company.

There is no way, absolutely no way, that any public organization could be more difficult, irritating, and time-consuming to deal with than Regence Blue Cross of Oregon is. And here's the scary thing: Regence likely is better than truly malevolent for-profit corporate insurance giants.

On the positive side, we just whipped Regence's ass. I'll save the gloating for another post, where I'll share the details of how we (well, mostly Laurel, but I helped some) won an appeal of Regence's wrong-headed decision to drop Restasis, a dry eye medication, from its formulary.

We challenged Regence and won, after several levels of appeal that ended up with an outside expert physician agreeing with us that Restasis is medically necessary and Regence had no valid reason for dropping payment for Laurel's prescription.

Yesterday Laurel phoned Regence to find out when her coverage for Restasis would start up again, and if (as we expect) Regence will be paying us back for six-plus months of our paying the total cost for this spendy medication.

Here's the sorry step-by-step tale of how our much-vaunted "best health care in the world" insurance system responds to a simple consumer question:

(1) Laurel calls the phone number of Patty Nelson, a Regence Blue Cross of Oregon employee in the Member Appeals department. Nelson has been corresponding and talking with Laurel about her appeal. Laurel hears a busy signal.

(2) Laurels hangs up and dials Regence Customer Service. She's told that Nelson no longer works for Regence. Laurel asks to talk to someone else in Member Appeals. The Customer Service rep has no idea how to reach the Member Appeals department.

(3) Laurel is transferred to several other people, none of whom know how to contact anyone in Member Appeals, which apparently is in some sort of underground bunker that is a secret even to other Regence staff. She ends up talking with a supervisor in Customer Service, Corey.

(4) Corey puts Laurel on hold for a long time. Eventually Laurel is told that Corey was unable to reach Member Appeals. So Laurel is transferred to Pharmacy Services.

(5) Someone in Pharmacy Services tells Laurel that she should talk with Kathleen McNulte, a manager who deals with appeals. When the number she's transferred to rings, the answering message doesn't mention McNulte, saying just "Medical Affairs" -- which is only for providers. The message says that messages can't be left at this phone number, because it is no longer in service.

(6) Laurel decides to press the option for providers, something about medical services triage. This gets her disconnected. Dialing the number again, she reaches Customer Service -- which is where she freaking started 40 frustrating minutes previously.

(7) A while later, Laurel tried again. Again she was transferred by Customer Services to Pharmacy Services, where she spoke with a supervisor. This time she was put on hold for about an hour, while she put the phone on speaker, fixed and ate lunch, and did other stuff.

(8) The Pharmacy Services supervisor refused to give Laurel her phone number. No one at Regence offered to search for the information she needed and call her back. Each person insisted that she stay on the line. Finally Jan from Pharmacy Services came back and said that the person she needed to talk to wasn't in today, so she will call Laurel tomorrow morning.

(9) The next day, Jan did indeed phone Laurel. She said that Regence is trying to figure out what Laurel's winning of the appeal means. The information is being "loaded into the system" (even though the overturning of Regence's denial of Restasis coverage occurred several weeks ago). Laurel was told that no name, phone number, or address of anyone at Regence who is working on her case could be given to her.

Supposedly Laurel will get a letter about all this...eventually.

On the other hand, public employees at the state Insurance Commission have been most helpful, available, and competent. Laurel was told by one of them that Regence has had big layoffs lately, and is working with a "skeleton staff."

Funny, our insurance premium hasn't gone down. I wonder where the money from all the cost savings is going. Probably into CEO salaries.

"#Salemia" sets off capital city Twitter frenzy

Wow, something exciting finally is happening in Salem! Twitter aficionados are tweeting about how un-exciting Oregon's capital is, using the "#Salemia" tag.

I first caught sight of #Salemia on my Twitter feed without knowing what it meant. When I read the tweets, I wasn't sure whether they were for real, or a joke -- which, of course, speaks volumes about Salem's well deserved reputation for being a blandburger sandwiched between spicy Portland and Eugene.

Later in the day I came across Salem blogger Emily Grosvenor's post, "The rise of the #Salemia meme." Thanks to her, I learned what this is all about.

What’s the deal with all of the #Salemia hashtags being typed out by Salem’s most active Tweeps?

The short story is that my filmmaker friend Mike Perron decided it might be fun to envision what a Salem-centric version of the Fred Armisen pet project “Portlandia” might look like. “Portlandia” is an online web series, conceived, written and starring Armisen, that skewers some of the more ridiculous hipster pursuits and lifestyle choices of a city where everyone seems to be a bike messenger/barista/struggling artist/tattoo landscape.

I just spent an enjoyable half hour or so browsing through all of the "#Salemia" tweets that a Twitter search was able to turn up (some of the earliest ones may not have been available, according to a Twitter message).

Below are my favorites, naturally including the three posted by me (oregonbrian) in a burst of #Salemia enthusiasm that swept over me last night. For a while I couldn't stop thinking about ways to capture Salem's boring'osity in 140 characters or less.

Then I got worried that I'd never be able to stop, since there'd be no end to this project. I've lived in Salem for thirty-three years, so have a lot of blah stored in my memories to tweet about. Thus I decided to let others carry on with exploring the further reaches of #Salemia.

The selections below range from most recent to least recent. Some of the best tweets hit the Twittersphere right off the #Salemia bat, so I urge you to read all the way through this list (or start from the bottom and read up).

---------------------------------------------------

PerronBrothers RT @scriptdave: Salem-Keizer School District students learn about the Oregon Trail. Not the pioneer trail, but the food stamps card. 

emilygrosvenor New York Times feature 36 Hours in Salem only features must-hit pawn shops. 

PerronBrothers Drug dealers happy to return to Courthouse Square. Say goodbye to temp jobs at Honeybaked Ham. 

scriptdave In keeping with Portland's "Keep Portland Weird" mantra, Mayor Anna Peterson's staff purposes "Keep Salem Stagnant." 

PerronBrothers Transient snatches $10 worth of beer from Safeway. K-9 Unit rolls out. $1,000 search ensues. 

MnLs To boost tourism, City exploits "Bush" Park, erects statues of GHW and GW, converts Bush House to "G-Dub's Folksy Cowboy Funhouse." 

scriptdave Salem Hospital builds sky tram to help patients locate parking structure.

scriptdave Struggling artist enraged when crayon drawing on butcher paper at Willamette Burger Company is not displayed on wall. 

scriptdave WU Freshman confused why Court Street Dairy Lunch isn't opened for dinner.

oregonbrian Statesman Journal publishes editorial not cleared by Salem Chamber of Commerce. Publisher immediately replaced by Dick Withnell.

oregonbrian National Guard called out for crowd control after opening of 148th Subway Restaurant in Salem creates frenzied joy among locals.

oregonbrian Woman in persistent vegetative state at Salem Hospital makes miraculous recovery after being moved to Portland.

SalemFM WordOfMouth Bistro hires waiting patrons as Valets. Wait time for brunch cut down to 75 minutes.

PerronBrothers Courthouse Square closing "really sucks" according to local meth dealer who considers selling door to door.

GinoCorridori A pet clothing store opens next door to the souvenir shop in the new commercial wing of the state hospital.

KandN Boise Cascade ruins make national top ten list of "best places to Rapel up and Down Walls".

KandN Salem Man discovers Douglas Fir wood fiber is secret ingredient in ALL fast food. Giving new meaning to being a "Tree City".

BillFarmer Train no longer stops in Salem due to lack of pedestrians to hit

KandN West Salem destroys Marion Street Bridge. Changes name to East Rickreall.

GinoCorridori Salem man lost 4 days in Keizer Station parking lot. Saves himself by smoke signal from burning tires. Never gets to Round Table.

aaronjamesyoung fourteen coffee shops open successively in the same location, each lasting about a month and a half

aaronjamesyoung restaurant next to shopping plaza is demolished to make room for... another shopping plaza (oh wait, that's real)

MelinaTomson City of Salem converts hole in the ground left by Boise demolition to a tent city aptly named the hell hole.

GinoCorridori Jerry Seinfeld signs on to play @perronbrothers in #salemia, another sitcom about nothing.

MelinaTomson City of Salem buys the Meridian for $1 and converts to Section 8 housing

GinoCorridori A grassroots campaign in the state penitentiary elects prisoner to the city council.

MelinaTomson Homeowner converts meth lab to grow lab and gets community improvement award.

GinoCorridori CCTV televises Muchos Gracias City Hall grand opening.

MelinaTomson @LaCapitale opens up and Salemites get confused when the word French is used to describe it, and it isn't followed by fries.

MnLs In an effort to combat sex-trafficking reputation, City changes nickname from Cherry City to Cougar Town. Curves memberships soar.

teqstar Man ventures out across U.S. by car. After many wks, he travels back to hometwn just to be cutoff in traffic 1st time since leaving

scriptdave Marion County DA sends Eugene residents to Oregon State Hospital in an attempt to make Salem the second largest city in the state.

PerronBrothers The "Duck In" on State Street hopes to reopen. Waiting for Muchas Gracias customers to stop ordering Goddamn Oregon burritos.

scriptdave The Salem Airport returns non-stop shuttle service to PDX.

kidcapitale Trader Joe's finally opens to overwhelming crowds but soon closes because "the wine was too expensive"

scriptdave Employees at LifeSource Natural Foods protest arrival of Trader Joe's by building a wall of tofu and humus around building site.

scriptdave County also changes motto from "Where Good Things Happen..." to "Where Good Straight Things Happen..." 

scriptdave Polk County changes name to President James K. Polk County for fear of being confused with popular gay street in San Francisco.

scriptdave Blogger discovers Re/Max building on Hawthorne hasn't been occupied in years. City plans to demolish & rebuild @ Courthouse Square.

PerronBrothers City Council votes to go *off the grid*. Pitches out all GPS and remote sensing data. Realigns city map with Mesopotamia overlay.

PerronBrothers City of Keizer fire bombs Salem Library. Salem residents forced to pay $500 per Keizer library card. Take that, bitches!

scriptdave Keizer Station relocates to Albany. City of Keizer vanishes after becoming insignificant.

scriptdave Statesman Journal increases readership by 2% following addition of page 3 dedicated to hipster emos.

ChrisHaganSJ Man with Decemberists ringtone receives call downtown after 6 p.m. Arrested for noise violation.

scriptdave @perronbrothers banned from Cinebarre after sneaking in Word of Mouth bistro burger and bottle of Seagram's 7.

PerronBrothers Salem-Keizer administrator wakes up with slight hangover. Sees snowflake. Announces SNOW WEEK. NO SCHOOL.

scriptdave Parents take autistic child to Vacuum World for birthday. Owner displeased when family only purchases Oreck bags. (True story.)

MnLs Due to state economic crisis, capital city is forced to sell City Hall; converted into a giant Muchas Gracias shortly thereafter.

scriptdave Mormon missionaries mistake Salem Capitol for Mormon temple. Baptisms for the dead in capital mall fountain are quickly halted.

scriptdave Founder of Salem Film Fest takes 30 minutes to introduce a 10 minutes short, leaving audiences comatose.

scriptdave Activists shut down Union Street Railroad Pedestrian Bridge due to pedestrian dander contaminating Willamette River.

PerronBrothers Downtown businesses blast The Book Bin for not stamping *First Wednesday* reminders in the 1/2 price 2011 calendars.

scriptdave The grand opening of a third Adult Shop within city limits brings out an army of gym teachers and former mayor Janet Taylor.

MnLs Visitors mistakenly believe zombie apocolypse has hit the town because shops close and streets empty before dark.

scriptdave Oregon Glove Company on 12th Street receives first customer in two decades. Shop attendant confused & closes store indefinitely.

PerronBrothers Regulars angry that they must wait for a 4:30 pm table after Olive Garden wins "best Italian restaurant" again.

scriptdave Pregnant woman enraged when King's Donuts closes early for the day. Spends afternoon ringing necks of ducks at Mission Mill.

scriptdave Unemployed father of three attempts to buy shells to end life at the Wal-mart on Turner Road. Wait, this sounds familiar...

Sean_Hollenhors 22yr. old woman choosing the right pajamas for going to Winco. At 12:30 in the afternoon.

scriptdave @perronbrothers Hipsters move to park under Center Street Bridge and wait with homeless to get free food from Adam's Rib.

PerronBrothers Flashback: Two sad people attend the candlelight vigil of the closing of TommyJohns (the one patron and John).

kidcapitale A couple of meth heads scratching tickets at a lotto deli.

PerronBrothers Salemia. Opening scene: five hipsters fighting over a half smoked cigarette outside Chelsea's place... 

David Leung shows the subtle side of Tai Chi

Along with Eric and Connie, two Tai Chi classmates (we study with Warren Allen at Pacific Martial Arts here in Salem), I thoroughly enjoyed Master David Leung's workshop today at Cafe Noir -- which was sponsored by Oregon CHI.

I'm a firm believer that chi/qi is stimulated productively, and easily if you have about $2, with a good cup of coffee. Cafe Noir didn't disappoint. Their locally roasted Tico's Coffee was terrific.

But this wasn't the only way my mood was elevated during Leung's presentation. He was energetic, entertaining, and exuberant in a charming Chinese manner. Leung's English also is excellent (I think I've used up my "E" words for this paragraph).

He teaches at the Leung Martial Arts Academy in Eugene, which features instruction in several styles: Yang Tai Chi, Wing Chun Kung Fu, Chen Tai Chi, among others. Master Leung demonstrated these three, showing their similarities and differences.

Intensity, concentration, mindfulness.

These qualities shone forth in everything Leung did, whether talking or moving. Along with relaxation, flowingness, and humility. His Wing Chun is blindingly fast. Humbly, he said that he used to be a martial artist "hot stuff," but now is just "warm stuff."

Well, I can tell you that no bad guy would want to meet up with this 5' 2" slender man in a dark alley. After his presentation, Eric and I stayed to ask some questions. Eric's involved a "needle at sea bottom" application that involved a Chin Na (joint lock) move if someone grabs your wrist.

Eric and I are much larger than Master Leung. But when he showed us the technique close up and personal, we both were on our knees almost instantly. (The trick was using three fingers to press on a nerve, rather than using your whole hand to produce the lock.)

That was cool. Yet I found Leung's philosophical observations to be even cooler. Here's some fairly accurate, though not always word for word, recollections based on the notes that I took.

Most people don't see the mutiplicity of what the universe is all about. They focus on what is black and white.

A tiger will flee from a badger, if the badger is committed to saving his life.

If someone is opposed to me, I can fix their heart, not kick their butt.

We must fuse the body with spirit/consciousness.

My success is built on the shoulders of giants.

There are physical transformations, and also transformations beyond the physical.

Change happens from within. We need to get into our internal body.

There is an essence behind this art. Raw power can easily backfire.

A key is doing all things without thinking. My punch throws itself, with no anger, no excitement -- just work.

I've been learning Tai Chi for over six years, after about twelve years of hard style martial arts training. Yet watching and listening to Master Leung reinforced what I never fail to remember:

What I know is hardly anything, compared to what there is to learn.

Master Leung started off the demonstration portion of his workshop with a "this is how lots of Tai Chi looks." He proceeded to do (or "play," in Tai Chi parlance) a fairly short Yang style form. To most people, and even to me, it looked like pretty damn good Tai Chi.

Flowing. Smooth. Graceful. Harmonious.

After finishing the form, Leung pounded his ribs and stomach, saying "But real Tai Chi comes from here." He then proceeded to play the form again, in a much more energetic fashion -- yet not faster.

It reminded me in some ways of what little I've seen of Drunken Style Kung Fu, a subject I alluded to in a post on my other blog. Outwardly, it looked like Master Leung would sway, jerk, move erratically. But inwardly, it was evident that he was fully in command of what he was doing.

(Or perhaps more accurately, what he was doing was in command of him.)

My post-workshop question for Master Leung was this: "Is Chi/Qi natural and physical, or supernatural and immaterial?" He told me that Chi is bodily, though related to mind, noting that he teaches psychology. I said, "But mind is part of the brain, and the brain is physical, so Chi also must be physical." Yes, Leung replied.

This fits with how I've come to view Qi. It's the subtle aspect of Tai Chi and other martial arts. Also, of life. It's the energy that lifts us from the mundane into the shining. (Which relates to another recent blog post.)

Upon returning home from the workshop, I wanted to find out how old Master Leung is. It took me a bit of Googling, but the answer eventually popped up: 61, or thereabouts.

Hey, I'm 62. I can only hope that I'll be as youthful as Master Leung is one of these days, notwithstanding the fact that we're almost exactly the same age. What's he's got is what we all can have: inner energy.

It's just a matter of channeling and expressing it. Caffeine helps, but Chi/Qi is the real deal.

Oregon taxes are low compared to other states

Ah, vindication. Confirmation. An Oregonian story: "Oregon tax burden remains in bottom third of states, new report says."

No matter how you slice or dice the numbers, Oregonians bear a smaller tax burden than people in most other states, according to a new state report.

When all charges are considered, including federal taxes and fees, Oregon's share was $7,663 per person in 2008, the latest numbers available. That ranks 33 out of 50 states.

...Warner's staff has looked at the impact of the tax increases imposed by last year's measures 66 and 67. "It didn't change the relative rankings," Warner said.

That's what I've been saying. Oregon is not a high tax state (see here, here, here, and here).

Will this stop the lies of Lars Larson, Victoria Taft, and other right-wing talk show hosts in this state? No.

But now it's clearer than ever that they're not telling the truth when they rant about high taxes driving businesses out of Oregon.

DeFazio offers Tea Party'ish solution to health insurance mandate

Brilliant! Genius! Marvelous!

Those were my thoughts as I read an editorial in today's Salem (Oregon) Statesman Journal, "DeFazio offers a common-sense solution" -- to the possibly unconstitutional mandate in the Affordable Care Act that everyone have health insurance.

Oregon Rep. Peter DeFazio has a sensible proposal to fix the most controversial part of the federal health reform, the requirement that everyone buy insurance.

His idea: Make people put their money where there mouth is.

People who object to the health-care insurance mandate could sign a waiver, guaranteeing that no one else would be stuck paying their medical bills. Not the government. Not hospitals or other health-care providers.

People signing those waivers would relinquish their rights to enroll in health-care exchanges established by the reform law, to file medical bankruptcy if their bills got too big and to receive Medicaid coverage.

Sounds logical, doesn't it? If people believe a mandate is an unfair government intrusion in their lives, they could relinquish their rights to government assistance.

This should be wildly popular with the Tea Party folks who were newly elected to Congress. They're always calling for government to get off people's backs. If DeFazio's proposal becomes law, any citizen could say "no way" to the mandate to purchase health insurance.

Of course, they also would be saying "no thanks" to Medicaid, government-promoted health care exchanges, and the ability to declare bankruptcy if unpaid medical bills get too large.

Genuine libertarianism, plain and simple.

Those who don't want government telling them to buy health insurance shouldn't run for help to government programs/laws when their decision to go bare, insurance-wise, comes back and bites them in their oh-so-sick butt.

DeFazio has a full description of his proposal here. A letter to his fellow members of Congress ends with:

Join me in the common-sense fix that resolves not only the constitutional questions of the individual mandate, but also provides a workable remedy for those who do not want more federal intrusion into their lives. If they waive their right to the federal health care backstop, then they alone are burdened with their future healthcare costs.

It'll be interesting to see how many Tea Party types will walk their anti-government walk, rather than just talking their talk, by agreeing to take full responsibility for their own medical care costs -- no matter what happens to them.

My bet: very few.

Federal judge shows why health insurance mandate has to stay

Conservatives are crowing over a federal judge's recent ruling that the requirement to purchase health insurance in the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare) is unconstitutional.

But Judge Roger Vinson's ruling actually showed that what Republicans have been claiming is false: it isn't possible to repeal the health insurance mandate and leave other more popular parts of the law intact.

Vinson came to the legally questionable conclusion that the mandate is unconstitutional. He then went further, saying that the entire Affordable Care Act should be struck down even though only this one part of it fails to pass constitutional muster. (In his opinion; about a dozen other judges have ruled otherwise.)

Why? Because the requirement that everyone in the United States have health insurance is central to the success of the other provisions in the law.

Unlike Judge Henry Hudson’s December ruling in a separate lawsuit filed by the state of Virginia — which struck down the individual mandate but left the rest of the law alone — Judge Roger Vinson ruled that the mandate is so central to the rest of the law that it can’t be overturned by itself.

“This Act has been analogized to a finely crafted watch, and that seems to fit. It has approximately 450 separate pieces, but one essential piece (the individual mandate) is defective and must be removed,” the judge wrote.

“There are simply too many moving parts in the Act and too many provisions dependent (directly and indirectly) on the individual mandate for me to try and dissect out the proper from the improper, and the able-to-stand-alone from the unable-to-stand-alone."

That's exactly what the Democrats and health policy experts (along with insurance companies) have been saying.

Republicans, for example, want to preserve the Affordable Care Act's prohibition on discriminating against people with pre-existing conditions.

However, this can only be done if there's a universal mandate to have health insurance, because otherwise many people will wait until they are seriously ill before they buy a policy -- which, as I've noted before, would be akin to allowing a homeowner to purchase fire insurance after his house has burnt down.

So I'm actually encouraged by Vinson's ruling. It points to a fact that I'm confident is going to become more and more evident: for all of the Affordable Care Act's flaws, it is a well thought-out first attempt at fixing our seriously broken health care sytem.

If an activist judge, or repeal-minded Republicans, try to throw out central parts of the law they don't like, they're going to find that aspects they do like are going to fall by the wayside also.

Are insurance companies going to applaud if a serious attempt is made to repeal the mandate, while keeping the ban on denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions?

No. The screams of their lobbyists will be heard echoing through the halls of Congress. Bet on it.

 

Feds are looking into Salem's Courthouse Square scandal

A front page headline in today's Salem Statesman Journal blared in big letters:

Courthouse Square
Million$ in Federal Money:
Pay It Back?

Appropriately, federal officials are wondering what happened to the $9.8 million in grants that Salem-Keizer Transit used to pay for its portion of the now completely unusable Courthouse Square project.

The feds are asking the local transit district this question: What will become of federal investments in the Salem bus mall?

The 10-year-old Courthouse Square bus mall and office building are so poorly designed that engineers say they're dangerous. And a sizable chunk of the $34 million used to build the ill-fated project came from the federal government.

...The outcome may depend on whether the transit district can demonstrate that it exercised proper due diligence in overseeing the use of federal dollars, as well as its response when Courthouse Square's problems became known. A forensic investigation — which is funded by Courthouse Square's owners — has just begun and will seek to uncover how and why so many things went wrong.

Hopefully both the feds and the private investigation will take a close look not only at the shabby construction techniques, but also at the shoddy way the Marion County Commissioners oversaw Courthouse Square once problems began to surface.

As I noted in "Lessons of Salem's Courthouse Square debacle," each of the three current Commissioners was in office when, just a few years after Courthouse Square, structural defects became evident.

Yet it opened just ten years ago, in 2000, when one of the three current Republican county commissioners, Patti Milne, was in office. The other commissioners came along a bit later, Janet Carlson in 2002 and Sam Brentano in 2003.

All of them are open to the eminently justifiable criticism that they fiddled around while Courthouse Square came ever closer to falling to the ground.

Somehow I suspect that if three Democratic commissioners had overseen this massive waste of taxpayer money (structural problems became apparent in 2002, but were never effectively addressed), the Chamber of Commerce-dominated Statesman Journal would be a lot harder on the politicians in charge.

...why are we Marion County citizens stuck with owing $20 million on Courthouse Square even though the building is unusable, and the commissioners have agreed to settle with the architects/contractors for only about $1.8 million?

It sure seems like our "thrifty" Republican county commissioners have just dug taxpayers an $18.2 million hole -- not counting all the money it's going to cost to rent space to house county employees for a long time.

Experts now estimate that it will take more money to repair Courthouse Square than it cost to build the damn thing in the first place. Yet somehow the Statesman Journal editorial board has never criticized the Marion County Commissioners who stood by and did almost nothing as the project crumbled.

Ideas for what to do with the Courthouse Square block are being tossed around. Several letters to the editor have suggested, "Tear the whole thing down, make it a public square, and then erect a plaque that memorializes the politicians who wasted $34 million of taxpayer money."

Sounds like a great idea.