HinesSight

Why parking meters in downtown Salem will hurt businesses

Imagine what would happen if City of Salem (Oregon) officials told downtown small businesses, "We're going to put a 20% tax on your gross revenues. From now on you're only going to be getting 80% of the money that you've been taking in before. Deal with it." 

There would be outrage. A massive outcry. Businesses would do everything they could to stop the 20% tax from going into effect.

Which is exactly what is happening. 

The City of Salem admits that putting parking meters in downtown Salem would result in a "20% leakage" of visitors now using the free two-hour limit parking spaces. Leakage is a euphemism for those people will go elsewhere.

Here's how a 2012 Portland parking study discussed the standard practice of assuming a 20% bye-bye effect after parking meters are installed in a previously free-parking area.

Table 4 summarizes assumed revenue potential in the new metered parking area. Arriving at a conservative, yet accurate estimate for potential revenue generation includes several factors; one of the most important is “leakage.”

Leakage occurs after noteworthy changes are made within a parking system (e.g., moving from a free to paid parking environment) which alters habitual parking behavior. This does not mean these trips no longer occur, but rather occur in a different fashion, such as changing transportation modes or seeking out parking in an adjacent area, where parking is free.

Also, the implementation of paid parking can result in a reduction in average time stays as pay stations are more efficient and enforcement is improved. A common factor used to account for leakage in a revenue model is 20 percent, which further reduces net vehicle revenue hours from 1,624 to 1,299 “effective vehicle revenue hours.” 

So what this means is that however many hours people are parking now in downtown Salem, if meters were installed, those hours would drop 20%. Many fewer people would be spending much less time in downtown.

Really bad for businesses.

Salem doesn't have the variety of "transportation modes" that Portland has. Believe me, to avoid parking meters loads of people aren't going to jump on a bike, bus, streetcar, or Max line to get to downtown (especially since Salem doesn't have the last two, and barely has a functional bus system).

But seeking out parking in another area where parking is free... yeah, that will happen. And that place won't be the downtown parking garages.

After two-hour limits were placed on downtown parking spaces, use of the garages went down, not up. The garages aren't conveniently located for most downtown visitors, so likely the majority of the 20% leakage folks will head to Keizer, south Commercial, or elsewhere rather than stay in downtown.

I'm told that City Manager Linda Norris acknowledged this "20% leakage" at a City Council work session on downtown parking, probably on April 29. 

It's no wonder that fifty-five small businesses in downtown Salem supported the Stop Parking Meters Downtown campaign. They collected 40% of the 8,000 signatures that the campaign has gotten so far. Meanwhile, virtually no one is supporting the City's ill-considered proposal to install parking meters.

So complains Councillor Chuck Bennett, who represents the downtown area. Here's what he had to say in a recent Salem Weekly story:

He’s disappointed that the public and businesses haven’t paid more attention to the work of a Parking Task Force that he and Mayor Anna Peterson have led jointly since last September.   He says responses to the months of study the Task Force has conducted has been “few and far between.”

...Bennett is not sure why the community has not shown more interest in the Task Force or its recommendations.  He says he’s received “almost no comments.  I’ve probably got 5 or 6 emails on the matter from businesses.”  The city has additionally funded several outreach Open Houses, in the conference center and in a downtown storefront, that were sparsely attended.

Well, eight thousand people have spoken out about NOT putting parking meters in downtown Salem. As Stephen Colbert is fond of saying, "the market has spoken." 

Salem's citizens know a bad idea when they see one.

Making downtown visitors pay to park in order to fill a supposed hole in the City's poorly managed parking structure budget is a bad idea. Placing what amounts to a 20% tax on already struggling small downtown businesses is another really bad idea.

If an area is overly busy, way too many people jostling for too few parking spaces, then parking meters can be a parking management tool -- "rationing" spaces on the ability to pay.

But since downtown Salem already lacks enough visitors to keep businesses thriving, then reducing that number by 20% would be horrible. Even if it was less, 10-15%, that'd be bad.

I've never heard any small business owner in downtown Salem complain that too many people are clogging downtown streets and sidewalks. I guess this is why the City's Parking Task Force never asked small businesses what they thought about parking meters.

The truth would have interfered with the City's lust for more revenues, even if collecting that money hurts the viability of downtown. 

Lastly, here's something interesting. Installation of parking meters in British Columbia provincial parks caused the number of visitors to decline by... (take a guess).

Twenty percent. 

According to documents obtained by the Western Canada Wilderness Committee and Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society under the Freedom of Information Act, visits to 14 parks in southwestern British Columbia declined by 20 percent in 2003, when the meters were installed.

“The decision to put parking meters into parks was poorly thought out, poorly planned and poorly implemented,” Eva Riccius, a wilderness society ecosystem specialist, said Wednesday. “British Columbians should not have to pay to go for a walk in the park.”

Nor for a walk in downtown Salem.

 

Love this fat guy dancing video... inspiring!

Thanks to Lora Lamon of Salem's RJ Dance Studio for sharing this marvelous video. On her Facebook post Lora said:

All you guys who think you're too cool to dance . . . . get over yourselves. Here's a guy who is totally comfortable in his own skin. I laughed. I cried. I applauded. I LOVED IT !!

Yeah, me too. The fat guy is a really good dancer. And I bet, a really good person. He sure brought some joy into my life today.

 

Progressive reasons to oppose parking meters in downtown Salem

A proposal by the City to put parking meters in downtown Salem (Oregon) has some progressives wondering what side of the issue they should be on. Not surprising. 

Progressives/liberals, of which I am proudly one, often aren't of the same mind. Anyone who has been part of a progressive group knows that leading them is a lot more like herding cats, than sheep. Liberals are independent-minded and like to go in all kinds of different directions.

Which is a great thing. Better decisions happen when diverse views are put out, heard, considered, and argued before a preferred direction is chosen.

Recently I got an email from a progressive who said, "I'm a bit confused at the possibility of meters being taken on as a negative by many progressives." He was torn.

On the one hand, he liked the efforts of Stop Parking Meters Downtown.

The group has gotten over 8,000 signatures on a petition that would ban downtown parking meters, charge $1 to park in downtown's parking garages, and limit annual increases in the parking tax charged to downtown businesses.

My progressive correspondent liked challenging the City, since public input on the City's parking meter proposal was extremely limited. However, he said that he bikes to work year round and doesn't want to support further "auto-centric" policies downtown.

He ended his message with a wonderfully progressive sentiment: 

Those are my thoughts, Brian. I would be curious to know what your thoughts are about this issue and how you might challenge some of my views. I have an open mind.

Hey, me too.

If I heard some good arguments for installing parking meters in downtown Salem, I might change my progressive mind also. But I haven't. Here's a synopsis of why I oppose meters. For more detail, read my previous posts on this subject here, here, here, here, and here.

(1) Parking meters should be a traffic management tool, not a funding source. When an area is burdened with too many visitors in cars competing for too few parking spaces, meters can make sense. Modern electronic meters can charge different amounts at varying times of day. Thus parking meters can be used akin to "congestion pricing" on toll roads/bridges.

But the City of Salem is solely focused on using meters to raise money to pay for maintenance of downtown parking garages. So parking meters in downtown Salem would be used to keep free parking for cars in the garages by making drivers who use onstreet parking pay. Makes no sense. Which relates to...

(2) Big downtown retailers shouldn't get a big parking tax break while small businesses get a big parking tax increase. Recently the City more than doubled the annual minimum parking tax paid by small businesses, from $197 to $400. This was a blatant, and unsuccessful, attempt to coerce these businesses into supporting parking meters, since if meters are installed, the parking tax would go away.

On all businesses. Including large retailers like Penneys, which now pays a parking tax of over $40,000 a year.

The City's parking meter proposal would have Penney's pay zero, while also preserving free parking in the garages -- which primarily serve visitors to the large retailers like Penneys. Meanwhile, visitors to small businesses like restaurants, coffee shops, and the like would have to plug a meter to buy a $2 muffin or cup of coffee. For this and other reasons, the City projects a 20% decline in downtown visits by car. Really bad for the vitality of downtown, since suburban malls like Keizer Station have free parking.

(3) The City of Salem can't be trusted to reasonably discuss parking meters. This is obvious. Opponents of downtown parking meters have tried to engage City elected officials and staff. But the current leadership of the City is dedicated to lecturing, not listening; to making decisions first, and conjuring up reasons later; to shutting down public participation, not being the "public servants" they should be.

So the initiative to ban downtown parking meters was a necessary response to an unresponsive City of Salem.

Small downtown businesses recognize that at some time in the future, given certain conditions, with the right control over meter revenues, parking meters could be an element in policies to energize, enliven, and "green up" downtown. This is what the Streetscape plan is all about: making downtown more attractive to visitors by taking out a lane of traffic on some streets, making dedicated multi-use paths, adding sidewalk seating, etc.

But almost certainly this won't happen under the current City leadership. They're focused on keeping parking garages free and making onstreet parking paid. Which, as noted above, amounts to a big tax reduction for large retailers and a big revenue decrease for downtown small businesses.

(4) Listen to the people. I'm a believer in science, reason, and expert advice. Especially in certain circumstances. Global warming, for example. It simply isn't possible for someone to come up with accurate insights into global warming by experiencing the weather in their local area. That's why it is called "global" warming.

But the downtown parking meter situation is way different.

Consider: small businesses in downtown Salem live and breathe parking. Most of their customers arrrive by car. They know when people complain about not being able to find a space, or how difficult it is to find a space. They know how much they currently pay in parking taxes and what they get for the money. They know how many employees of downtown businesses park on the street, and how well the City is preventing this from happening so spaces are available to visitors.

The petition to ban downtown parking meters is overwhelmingly supported by downtown small businesses. The people who would be most affected by paid onstreet parking don't want meters installed. Likewise, the people who visit downtown also don't want meters -- as evidenced by the 8,000 signatures the Stop Parking Meters Downtown folks collected in a short time.

[Update: thought of another reason...]

(5) Downtown visits are good for the environment. As noted in (2), downtown businesses compete with "sprawl" businesses -- like those along butt-ugly and walking/biking-unfriendly south Commercial Street and Lancaster Drive. Plus horrendous Keizer Station, where you really need to drive to get to different parts of a freaking quasi mall.

By contrast, downtown offers a lot of shopping, eating, and entertainment possibilities within a few compact blocks.

Strolling down one side of one block on Court Street, I can take a dance class, learn Tai Chi, buy a muffin, get my hair cut, eat meat'y or vegetarian food, have a beer, buy coffee, and do other stuff. In one block. Elsewhere I'd have to drive, park, drive, park, etc. a long ways, burning up fuel, to do those things.

Subsidies are everywhere in our economy. We subsidize farmers for not growing stuff; we subsidize the fossil fuel industry for wrecking the environment.

So I don't get the argument that "downtown parking has to totally pay for itself."

If a compact, vibrant, green (in both regards) Salem downtown is a benefit to society, offering an alternative to energy-inefficient sprawl shopping/living, why shouldn't onstreet parking be kept free to visitors, with businesses continuing to pay a parking tax? 

Yes, it'd be wonderful if everybody took mass transit, walked, skateboarded, or biked to downtown. But this isn't going to happen for a long time, if ever. So the cries that keeping onstreet parking free encourages an "autocentric" urban philosophy don't make sense to me. The auto is going to dominate travel in the Salem area for the foreseeable future. 

The question is: how, where, and how much are people going to travel by car? I'd much rather see people get in their increasingly common electric/hybrid cars (we own a Volt; great car) and park free in downtown Salem, a central location where they then can walk to various businesses and other places, than have Salemites heading to Commercial Street, Lancaster Drive, Keizer Station, etc.

It may not seem rational that people would burn up several bucks of gas to save a buck on downtown parking meters, but people aren't rational beings. That's why the City is projecting a 20% decline in downtown visitors if meters are installed. They will go elsewhere to avoid the meters. That'd be bad for the environment, though good for Exxon/Mobil.

As noted above, this is a synopsis of why, as a progressive, I oppose downtown parking meters. Read the above-linked posts for more reasons.

How to find your lost car keys

I learned a valuable lesson this week: how to find car keys. The method is simple. Order an expensive replacement key. Here's how I found this out after losing a key.

I can't remember exactly how much the parts guy at Portland's Mini Cooper dealership said a replacement key fob and programming would run me. About $450, my shocked mind recalls.

It used to be that you'd take your extra car key to a locksmith and get another key. Those days are long gone in the pre-electronic past. I enjoy being able to lock, unlock, and start my 2011 Mini without taking my key out.

However, we also have a 2007 Highlander Hybrid that uses an old-fashioned key that you actually turn to start the car. Compared to the pushbutton on my Mini Cooper, that feels akin to cranking a Model T.

We took the Highlander to central Oregon last week. So I did a lot of taking-my-car-keys-out, since I keep all my keys together. 

During one of my many taking-car-keys-out my Mini Cooper key fob somehow got disconnected from the ring to which it was attached.

I had a depressingly clear perception of this disturbing fact when we got home. I went over to the Mini to put a pair of dark glasses back in it, and after pushing the door lock/unlock button I was met with an unsettling silence.

The silence was broken when I unzipped my hip bag, took my keys out, and uttered a fervent F__k! as I noticed that the round Mini key fob wasn't there.

I checked the floor of the Highlander in the unlikely event the Mini key had come off while I was in the other car. Nope. No key. I then thought about all the places we'd been the past five days in the Sisters/Camp Sherman area where I'd taken out my keys to unlock or lock the Highlander.

Depressing. Impossible to check all those places.

Plus, I was more than two hours away from them. The only thing I could think of was to ask the person who cleans the cabin we share in Camp Sherman to check the inside of the cabin, along with the area where the Highlander was parked. 

After emailing her, she said that she'd make our cabin the first on her cleaning schedule the next day. Which I assumed meant sometime in the morning. Naturally she'd let me know if she found the key.

When noon came and went with no word from the cabin cleaner, I decided the time had come to look into ordering a replacement key fob. After I was connected with the Parts Department of the Portland Mini Cooper dealership, I said "Give me the price first, so I can start thinking about how large a second mortgage I need to get to pay for it."

As noted above, it was about $450, if I recall correctly. My brain has a way of blocking out bad news.

The guy told me that I'd need to send him copies of my drivers license and Mini registration in order for him to get started on the process of ordering a replacement key. I dutifully copied, scanned, and emailed the info to him.

Then I went into town to exercise and do some errands. Along the way I checked my iPhone for messages. There was voice mail from the cabin cleaner. I figured she was telling me she didn't find the key. 

But actually she had found it!

In the cabin parking area. So it had slipped off the key ring at the very best time and place: when I was using my keys the last time in central Oregon, in an area where someone we knew could come over and look in that place.

I immediately phoned the Mini Cooper parts guy. "Hold off on ordering that replacement key," I told him. "The key has been found."

"That always happens," he said. "No, it doesn't," I argued back. "Lots of times I've lost keys that were never found."

The parts guy explained.

"What I mean is, you wouldn't believe how often someone orders a new Mini key, has it programmed for their car, picks it up, and then calls me back after a while to ask if they can return the new key, because even though they thought they had looked everywhere for the lost key, it had turned up unexpectedly. But I have to tell them that the new key is theirs now; it can't be returned, because it was made just for them."

"Interesting," I said to him. "So it sounds like if I ever lose my Mini key again, I should order one from you. Then I'll find the missing key." He laughed. "I guess." 

"Does this work for everything?" I asked. "What if I lose my dog? Can I order a replacement dog from you, after which our dog will come home." "Maybe," he said.

We had a good time joking around, me especially. It felt really nice to know that I'd saved $450. Well, $430, after sending $20 to the cabin cleaner to pay her for mailing the key fob back to me, with $450 worth of USPS insurance. Plus some extra bucks for her excellent key-finding work.

And I learned something: if you ever lose one of those expensive electronic car keys, order a new one, but hold off on paying for it for as long as possible. Apparently the Jokester Key God (or whoever/whatever) will mess with your mind by arranging for the key to be found soon after you've ordered a new one.

Note: your results may differ. I'm just passing on what the Mini Cooper parts guy told me.

When we owned a Nissan Leaf with keyless entry and starting, somehow I also managed to lose that key. The Nissan parts guy told me I was the first person to ever order a replacement key from their dealership.

"I adore being special," I told him. "Thanks for letting me know." Never found that lost key. But it was considerably cheaper than the Mini key would have been, just $250 or so.

Guess the Jokester Key God only allows your lost key to be found after you've paid even more for a replacement key.

I get love for saving some wet iPhones

I've been blogging regularly for about ten years. That's about 100 years in Internet time, since most bloggers either haven't been at it for very long, or don't keep on blogging for very long.

Early on I learned that when I labor at writing something seriously profound on a meaningful subject, it isn't going to get much attention. Yawn, say the denizens of cyberspace. You're not a cute kitten video. 

Or a tip about how to save your iPhone if it gets dumped in water.

But hah!, last year I covered that base in "My iPhone speaker survives toilet water. Here's how." Some of what I suggested was stolen borrowed from other web sites. 

However, I had one tip that was pretty damn original: using a blow dryer.

The simple advice was to strip some cotton off of the end of q-tips, insert them into the headphone jack, rotate, and remove. I did this several times, with no success (other than getting the headphone jack really clean).

...These led me to a couple of other attempted fixes: inserting a credit card in the charging slot at the other end of the phone from the headphone jack, and blow-drying the headphone jack. I also blow-dried the charging slot for good measure.

I don't know what worked, one, some, or all of these fixes. Regardless, after the last blow-drying my iPhone had recovered it's soundability. Bliss!

...If you use a blow dryer, be judicious and don't run it too long.

I left my iPhone on a counter with the dryer on high pointing at it from about six inches way. When I checked back after a few minutes the metal phone casing was really hot. When I tried to turn on the phone, I got a "too hot to use; allow to cool" sort of message. After I waited a while, the iPhone worked normally, so maybe it was the final blow-drying that did it. 

Just don't overdo it, or you might have a bigger problem than a speakerless phone -- a cooked phone.

In a year and four months I've gotten sixty comments on that post. Many show how attached people are to their iPhones, and how happy/thankful they are when a drowned phone springs back to life. 

Here's some examples:

THANK YOU SO MUCH.

i love you i love you i love you i love you
the blow dryer worked and i love you so much

OMG I LOVE YOU SOO MUCH IT WORKRD:)))) thank you soooo much!! it was the q-tip! :)))) THANKS A BUNCHHH

Thank you, thank you! I had the unvortunate disaster of spilling a cup of water on my phone ad had this same problem. Thankfully after your tips (I think it was the hair dryer mainly) it is back to working order. Thank you again!

You are so great!!! Thank you so much!!!! 

best frekin tip ever!!!!!!!! u savedddd my iPhones sound life!!!!! thank u thank uuuuu!

thank you so much for your assistance!!!You just saved my IPhone4!!!THANKS!!!!

I know it's just my phone, but I feel like you just saved my life. Hahaha thanks so much!

Qtip worked in two seconds!!!! Thank you so much, you saved my phone and saved me $200!!!!

Bloody LEGEND!! My iPhone and I cannot thank-you enough; the hairdryer worked a treat :D :D :D

Oh my gosh! This post also helped me! I am so grateful to have found it!!! I was so disappointed in myself for breaking my phone. I feel much better now! Guess I wont be putting it back on the same ledge again! Thank you very much again! Oh and for me, it was most definitely the hair dryer!

Looks like you earned yourself a bunch of good karma from writing this article ;-)

Thanks so much. You are da man!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you so so so much for posting this! I can now breathe again... :)

God bless you sr. This work like a charm!!! Muchas gracias es lo mejor! You are the best for sharing this, you safe us all here big money that maybe we don't have and with hard work we buy phones that had the bad luck with water. Did I mention thank you ones again :)

THANK YOU THANK YOU I LITTERALLY SCREAMED AND STARRED JUMPING BEST TIP EVER THANK YOU!!!!

Looks like downtown parking meters are a no-go in Salem

Great news! Got this tonight from Carole Smith, of the Stop Parking Meters in Downtown Salem campaign: 

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

Congratulations!  We collected our 8,000th signature today!  Hurrah!

We need 5,688 verified signatures to get placed on the May Primary ballot.  We collected 40% more signatures than we need - just to be safe.  

THE BIGGEST CONTRIBUTORS were the 55 downtown businesses who collected signatures in their stores.

The DOWNTOWN BUSINESSES COLLECTED 40% of all the signatures gathered.  We could not have succeeded without your help.  We cannot thank you enough for your help and commitment to help the initiative petition succeed.  This is your success.  You did it. Good job. Wow. 

INTERESTING FACTS:

35% of signatures were collected by volunteers at local events (Saturday Market, Wednesday Market, World Beat, 4th of July)  

25% were collected by paid signature gatherers (We spent $1,350 for 135 hours of paid signature gathering)

We used about 10 reams of paper (all stationery items totaled $770)

We spent $380 on ads and signage

We used over 140 clipboards (most donated by Cooke Stationery)

We spent $379 on postage stamps (letters to property and business owners)

We spent $1,430 on legal fees (two attorneys)

We lost over 10 dozen pens

HOW WE RAISED MONEY:

We raised $1,200 on our Indiegogo campaign

We raised about $1,800 through private donations from property/business owners and customers

We received about $3,400 in in-kind donations

We cannot even begin to calculate the number of volunteer hours spent to collect the 8,000 signatures.  We hope none of us ever have to do this again in our lifetime.  

WHATS NEXT: 

At the end of this week, we will submit our signature sheets to The City Recorders in Salem and Dallas. The City Recorders will forward the petitions to the Polk and Marion County Elections office for verifcaiton.   

The Election officials will take a "sampling" of our signature sheets and check each name to make sure the signer is registered to vote, their signature matches their voter registration signature, and each signer lives in the City of Salem.  They also check to make sure each sheet was properly signed off and dated correctly by the signature gatherer. 

If the Election officials find we do not have enough signatures, we still have at least 2 weeks to collect the remaining signatures.  

Once we have enough signatures to be placed on the ballot, the City Recorder is required to take our petition to the next City Council meeting.  The City Council can vote to adopt our petition in full, or create a competing ballot measure. If they do not adopt our petition, it will be placed on the May Primary ballot for every Salem citizen to vote on.

It is illegal for the City to spend any funds to oppose an initiative petition.

SUMMARY:

A successful initiative petition is the most embarrassing action citizens can take against their elected officials.  That's one reason we moved our petition to the May Primary ballot.  Four city councilors and the Mayor have to run for re-election in May 2014.  Our petition will be on the same ballot.

Even if the City Council votes to install parking meters today, if the citizens vote in favor of our petition in May, the citizens vote will overturn the City Council vote.  We can win. How about that. 

My customized Intex River Run tubing approach

You're a genius! I say that a lot to myself. Sadly, I don't hear it nearly as often from other people.

But during a recent visit to central Oregon's Metolius River, a place we come to regularly, a couple of fellow tubers noted how I'd made an addition to the River Run tube that they also had been using on the cold river (48 degrees at the spring-fed source; not a whole lot warmer downstream).

Genius, they told me. And I don't think it was just their beers-on-a-hot-day talking.

I've walked up and down the banks of the Metolius for many years, over fifteen for sure. During that time I've been surprised by how few people float down this National Wild and Scenic river. 

Part of the reason is that wild and scenic rivers are, well, wild. When a tree falls across the Metolius, it stays there. No one cuts it up so boaters can get through. So scouting the river is a must before boating down it. Log jams can be really dangerous.

But another reason is that the water is freaking cold.

Realizing that, yet wanting to rediscover the joys of my childhood tubing on a swift mountain river (I grew up in Three Rivers, California, where the Kaweah River flows from snow melt in the Sierras), I pondered how to keep my 64-year old butt mostly out of the Metolius water.

Now, I'll admit that a friend suggested putting a smaller child-type tube in the middle of the large River Run tube. It was still my genius that recognized the wisdom of this suggestion. 

And my VISA card that bought a Floatie swim ring, which plays nicely with the RIver Run. I made six runs down various stretches of the Metolius while I was there, during pleasingly (for an ex-Californian) 90 degree-plus hot weather.

My butt was mostly out of the water, though not entirely. Just enough to keep cool, not enough to, um, freeze my butt off.

The Floatie is well made. It can be easily blown up by mouth. It has two valves which don't let air escape when you stop blowing (need to squeeze the bottom of the valve to let air in). I like how the yellow Floatie matches the tubing paddle that I wisely decided to purchase along with the River Run.

Wisely, because the River Run is much larger than the inner tubes we Three Rivers kids used in the 50's and 60's. It is almost impossible to paddle with your hands or kick with your feet while sitting in the River Run. 

So the paddle makes it possible to maneuver pretty well. I was able to alter course in the Metolius as needed, though an inner tube isn't a highly maneuverable water craft. Heck, much of the joy of tubing is being unable to control exactly where you're going. 

I enjoyed bumping into a riverbank, spinning around, and then heading downstream again. I'd forgotten how much fun tubing down a wild mountain river can be. Old tubing feelings quickly returned while on the Metolius. 

Note my blue life jacket. Never wore one as a kid, naturally.

Here in Oregon they aren't required for tubers, only for boaters. Which makes some sense. Also, some nonsense. A kayaker, who is required to have a life jacket or other flotation device, is going to be able to handle rapids and other swift currents better than a tuber.

Yet tubers don't have to wear a life jacket.

Explains why, every year, some tubers drown in Oregon. I wore one, in part because I've had someone who works for an area rafting company tell me that the Metolius is considered a more dangerous river than its rapids otherwise would class it as, because of the very cold water.

Turning to the River Run tube...I love it!

Handles make it easy to carry. On my run downstream from the Camp Sherman store to the stream gauge box upriver from the Allingham bridge (about 8/10 of a mile), I had no trouble carrying my inflated tube, paddle, and life jacket back up the riverside trail for another run.

Also: cup holders, back rest, rope around the outside. Sweet. Before buying my RIver Run i read some of the Amazon reviews. Almost all are highly positive. A few are hilarious. This is my favorite:

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

 

78 of 87 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars AWWWWW SNAP!!!, March 23, 2011

By 

C-Teezy (East Coast Representin'!) - See all my reviews

= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:3.0 out of 5 stars 

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: Intex River Run I (Toy)

I HAD A GREAT TIME IN THIS TUBE
I was also admittedly drunk, but whatevs. The river was hella low, and i got stuck on some rocks several times, but this tube was like "AWW NAW HELL NAW" and i just scootched right over top of all them rocks and sticks and nonsense. The cupholders and handles were perfect for my can o' wine and my Nalgene o' Bootlegger. Not gonna lie, I threw up in the river, but I don't blame the tube. A few people had other brands of tubes, and their tubes popped, but luckily, i had brought an extra one of these already inflated. Ironically, these were the same people who were dissin on these vinyl tubes because "canvas wrapped is sooooo much better." WHERE IS YOUR CANVAS GOD NOW??

I don't know where the tubes are now, i think they might have gotten thrown into a bonfire, but if i ever feel like pukin in a river again, this will be my method of flotation. It inflated and deflated super fast, but it was bulky to carry back to the pick-up point.

Final word -- If you need a tube: BUY THIS JENK RIGHT HERE

UPDATE: May 20, 2013 --

I STILL STAND BY THIS WHOLE REVIEW.
NO REGRETS.
Except for the Bootlegger. That was a mistake.

I still love these - I got another set of these same tubes after the first ones got burnt up and I will be pukin on the river again this summer.

Listen up, because this next bit is important: I didn't realize how truly amazing these Intex River Runs were until i went on an unplanned river day and had to BORROW a tube. It was one of those plain black jobbies. How pedestrian. AND IT WAS HORRIBLE (insert Grumpy Cat face). Those black tubes get sooooo hot. The backs of my thighs and elbows got burnt with the heat of a thousand suns everytime i shifted. I had no backrest so I actually had to HOLD MY OWN HEAD UP the entire trip.

That part might sound ridiculous, but compare it like this: lying on the couch vs sitting on one of those exercise ballsto watch TV. And the stupid nozzle groped me in inappropriate places. I don't know how many adult beverages I lost because i didn't have a cupholder or a mesh bottom. We had to hold onto each others shoes because we didn't have the ropes. Everytime we went through any kind of rapids i fell out of my tube because i had no handles. When I fell out one time, I scraped my b-hole on B-Hole Rock (nobody else calls it that, I started calling it that after i scraped my b-hole on it). It made me miss my Intex even more. My first river trip of the year is this coming weekend and I'M SO EXCITEDDDDD to use this tube again.

Intex River Run is still my Jam.

 

Mayor Anna Peterson shows what's wrong with Salem city government

Ooh, the Mayor got a bit testy tonight! The truth hurts.

Tonight, via CCTV, I watched the City Council hearing on downtown parking meters.

In her testimony, an opponent of this ill-advised idea correctly said that the City's Parking Task Force didn't allow citizens to speak at their meetings, forestalling a collaborative approach to downtown parking problem-solving.

Which, if you read the state's guide to how parking policies are supposed to be developed, is a big no-no. Stakeholders of all varieties have to be intimately involved from the outset. 

Astoundingly, after the woman finished her testimony Mayor Peterson took the microphone to self-righteously say that yes, indeedy, people were able to have their say at meetings of the Parking Task Force.

They just had to keep their mouths shut and put what they wanted to say in writing like good little boys and girls, after which copies would be distributed, and, no doubt, used to line litter boxes and fill recycling bins of City staff and Task Force members.

Astounding. City of Salem elected officials and lead staff truly are clueless about how to do effective planning and policy analysis.

They don't understand that citizens are able to tell the difference between genuine "public servants" who are truly dedicated to serving them, and politicians/bureaucrats who are merely going through the motions of public involvement.

Don't trust City of Salem to manage downtown parking

Tomorrow the Salem City Council meeting includes a public hearing agenda item dealing with downtown parking policies:

b)  Parking Management Vision and the Parking Task Force Recommendations – Ward 1 – Councilor Bennett - CANDO (UD)

Watch out, Salem citizens! Beware! Blindly trust no city official!

This is the same Mayor, City Manager, City Council, and City staff who have brought you a string of poorly thought-out and poorly-implemented decisions. Including, but not limited to...

-- Cutting down five healthy beautiful trees in front of the downtown U.S. Bank building for no good reason.

-- Giving the go-ahead for an unneeded, unwanted, and unpaid-for $700 million Third Bridge that will do nothing to fix downtown traffic problems.

-- Allowing redevelopment of the downtown Boise Cascade property in a way that is utterly unlike the original mixed-use vision.

Now, this gang that can't shoot (sound policies) straight wants Salemites to believe that recommendations of a Downtown Parking Task Force which never involved downtown businesses or residents in its deliberations, and was solely focused on raising money to pay for dubious deficits in parking garage budgets, should move forward.

Hmmmm. If downtown parking meters were so necessary to vitalize downtown, wouldn't you think that downtown small businesses would be clamoring for them? 

Instead 61 downtown businesses -- count them, sixty one -- are supporting a petition drive to Stop Parking Meters in Downtown Salem.

These business owners live and breathe downtown parking. They know what goes on parking-wise from morning till night, seven days a week. If downtown visitors were overwhelming the area, if the Historic District was over-filled with activity, if meters had to be installed to manage excessively high demand for parking spaces -- I think those business owners would know about it.

Instead, thousands of people have signed the Stop Parking Meters initiative petition. I see signs supporting the petition in windows and on countertops all over downtown.

This should be sending a strong message to the City of Salem: pause; reset; think again; you're on the wrong track.

Recently the Oregon Transportation and Growth Management Program put out a Parking Made Easy: A Guide to Managing Parking in Your Community document. I haven't read it thoroughly, but after browsing through the document it looks to me like the City of Salem is making a lot of mistakes.

I can say this with more confidence than I would have a few months ago for this reason: after the City of Salem approved US Bank's request to cut down those five large, healthy, beautiful trees mentioned above, I've been investigating how this atrocious decision was made.

The City has been charging me for the public records requests I've been making. I think I'm up to a total of almost $450 now (I'm appealing the City's denial of my fee waiver requests, since they are in the public interest). 

It's been money well spent. I've learned that as bad as the tree-removal decision looked to me at the outset, the more I learn about what went on behind the scenes, so to speak, it appears even worse. 

Laws were ignored. Facts were ignored. Public involvement was ignored. So who wasn't ignored? Special interests and politicians.

Because the same thing seems to be happening with Third Bridge planning and the Downtown Parking Meters proposal, there's good reason to conclude that the City of Salem has some serious systemic problems. Somewhere along the line City officials appear to have forgotten that they are public servants. 

Yes, I realize this might sound ridiculously old-fashioned, the notion that elected officials and government employees would put the general interest ahead of their own interests and special interests. Well, I'm cutting-edge in some regards, and old-fashioned in others. 

It bothers me when people who citizens trust to lead them in the right direction don't do their job. Competent organizations always are concerned about whether they are treating their "customers" well. I like it when an airline, store, or online enterprise asks "How am I doing?"

I don't get a sense that the City of Salem cares about that question. My experience, and that of many others, is that City officials are a lot better at talking than listening, at dictating than receiving ideas, at pursuing a rigid strategy than flexibly adjusting to changing conditions.

So my advice is: watch out for what happens with the parking meter proposal.

At the City Council meeting tomorrow there will be a lot of warm, fuzzy assurances that nothing firm has been decided; we're just exploring options; we're open to fresh ideas. I wish I could believe City elected officials and staff.

But after learning how decisions are made at the City of Salem these days, I've got some very good reasons to be skeptical about reassuring words that are at odds with disturbing actions. 

Elizabeth Warren makes great case for Glass-Steagall II on CNBC

I'd love to see a Hillary Clinton/Elizabeth Warren presidential ticket. Whoever the GOP chose as a vice-presidental candidate, Warren would demolish in debates.

Have a look at how she makes CNBC anchors appear as economically amateurish as they are.

 

Warren is talking about the importance of restoring the firewall between savings and investment activities of banks through a bill being referred to as Glass-Steagall II.

Makes a lot of sense. Why should banks be able to play risky investment games with money people have in FDIC-insured savings and checking accounts? That seems horribly wrong.

If banks want to take big risks, they should do it with shareholder funds. Or private funds belonging to investors who understand how their money is being used.

Government shouldn't be propping up the infamous Banks Too Big to Fail.

Split up their savings and investment activities. Then, if the investment side makes big bets that turn out poorly, it can go ahead and fail -- while the side that makes ordinary loans/mortgages with ordinary savings money can continue on its much less risky way.

Seven impressions of 2013 Salem Art Fair

Today my wife and I headed to Bush Park for one of our favorite summer activities, the Salem Art Fair. Here's some impressions we had of this year's event.

(1) Compared to the typical pre-$5 admission charge Friday crowd (we always go on that day of the Friday-Sunday fair) attendance seems lower. But we're fine with the fence, gates, and money takers.

If someone isn't willing to pay five bucks to attend the fair, they don't understand the value of what the Salem Art Association is offering. Plus, children under 12 are free, and there is no charge to get in from 2-5 pm on Sunday, the last three hours of the fair.

(2) The Salem Art Fair isn't the Oregon Country Fair, which we went to the preceding Friday. Nor should it be. Different strokes for different folks who live in very different sorts of towns. Salem never will be as wonderfully weird as Eugene, or Portland.

Still, I wish there was more artistic creative spontaneity at the Salem Art Fair, which is abundantly evident at the Oregon Country Fair. How about some street performers here and there? Encourage costumes, with prizes for best visitor dress-ups? Some strolling Art Fair improvisational greeters?

(3) Please, more and better tasty, healthy vegetarian food. We always eat lunch before we go to the fair, because there is nothing other than snacks that we enjoy eating there. By contrast, I make sure that I'm really hungry before I enter the gates of the Oregon Country Fair in Veneta. Wonderful imaginative food of all varieties abounds there. The Salem Art Fair could do better in this regard. 

(4) The overall vibe is terrific. Organizers do a wonderful job. Friendly volunteers and staff abound. Honest ones also. After about fifteen minutes at the fair, Laurel and I were at the end of a line of booths near the gate where we had entered. A fair staffer, seemingly a security guy, walked up to me and said "Are you Brian Hines?" "Yes," was my easy-to-come-up-with answer.

"You dropped your wallet on the grass there," he told me, pointing. "A Salem Parks employee found it and took the wallet to lost and found." Sweet! I hadn't even noticed that my wallet was missing. But before too long I would have. Must have absent-mindedly tried to put it back into my hip pack after paying for admission without looking where the wallet was being placed. On the grass, obviously.

When I walked by the information booth later in the day, I was greeted with "Hi, lost wallet guy, how's it going?" I told them that, amazingly, so far I seemingly was still in possession of my stuff, though not of my mental acuity. I mentioned that the positive side of losing personal items at the fair was that I could find my car by following a trail of dropped keys, wallet, veggie snacks, and such. "Just like Hansel and Gretel," a volunteer said. "Exactly," I replied. Nice moment

(5) We liked how many new artists there were. Could be wrong, but it seemed like the proportion of first-time booths and old-time booths was tilted more toward fresh faces. It must be a difficult decision to choose between tried and true artists who have been at the fair for quite a few years, and new artists who may or may not appeal to visitor tastes. I think the Salem Art Fair is doing a good job in this regard.

(6) My wife and I always wonder if the high-end artists (some pieces sell for $2,000 or more) make enough money for the fair to be worth their while. Salem isn't Sausalito. The average income here likely is much less than many other places where the high-end artists exhibit their stuff. Frequently we'd say to each other, "Wow, that's beautiful. But how many people in Salem either can afford it, or have a house where it would look good?" Hopefully more than I think, for the artists' sake.

(7) I really admire artists who have a booth at an art fair. I'm sort of an artist, being a writer. But I'm not aware of people ignoring me. The masses who are cluelessly uncaring about my literary creations are hidden from my view. However, at the Salem Art Fair some booths are filled with people admiring the art, while at other booths the artist sits alone on his/her chair. 

Showing that I have at least a semblance of compassionate Buddha-nature (not much, but a little), I'd make a point of slowing down when we walked past a deserted booth, wanting to show the artist that we cared enough about the art to look carefully at it -- though admittedly not enough to walk into the booth for a closer examination.

I also have learned to not make critical comments about art until we are out of earshot of a booth; a few times I've semi-loudly expressed a negative opinion about a piece to my wife, then walked around a booth partition to find the artist standing there. Oops.

Of course, if I had a dollar for every comment left on one of my blog posts that notes the idiocy of my writing, I'd be able to buy the expensive works of art that I ogled today.

This is my favorite kind of blog comment...

Today I got a comment on one of my posts that started off with the best lead sentence ever: 

This is the first intelligible writing I have found on the internet today.

Dude, love you, man. Or woman. Whoever. 

That is exactly what I think about my own writing whenever I publish a blog post. But sadly, I rarely have someone echo my own thoughts so precisely. 

Here's the entire comment, which concerned my Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law applied to Trayvon Martin also post.

This is the first intelligible writing I have found on the internet today. If we put race aside and look at the real facts, which were, Zimmerman followed, got out of his car with a loaded already engaged firearm, got into an altercation, and shot an unarmed teenager just yards away from his home. That's all we do know. You made so many clear points here I was wondering why no one else seemed to state exactly what you did.

Pleasingly, I noted that today President Obama echoed the central theme of my post:

Obama: "If Trayvon Martin was of age and was armed, could he have stood his ground on that sidewalk? And do we think he would have been justified in shooting Mr. Zimmerman, who had followed him in a car, because he felt threatened. And if the answer to that question is at least ambiguous, then it seems we need to rethink [Stand Your Ground] laws."

Here's the way I put it:

There Martin is, walking along, minding his own business, when a guy starts following him in an aggressive, intrusive manner. Eventually they get into some sort of altercation. At some point Martin realizes George Zimmerman has a gun. 

Florida's Stand Your Ground law says you don't have to flee if you fear for your life, or if you are threatened with bodily harm. You can defend yourself on the spot. 

So likely if Trayvon Martin had beaten Zimmerman to a pulp, even killing him with his bare hands, Martin could have gotten off by claiming that he thought he faced death or bodily harm -- just as Zimmerman did, garnering a "not guilty" verdict that absolved him of manslaughter or murder.

As noted in my previous post, Martin wouldn't even had to prove that he truly did face death or bodily harm; all that is necesssay is thinking that you are.

This shows the absurdity of Stand Your Ground laws. In this case, either Zimmerman or Martin could have used that Florida law to escape punishment. But Martin died in the altercation, so only Zimmerman got to claim self-defense.

Martin clearly could have also, though, if he had lived and Zimmerman had died.

After all, Zimmerman was the guy who got out of his car with a gun and followed the teenager in the dark. If a guy with a gun is following you in a threatening fashion, you certainly have a right to defend yourself.

Thus Stand Your Ground laws reward the survivor, not the deceased, even if the survivor was the person who provoked an altercation. Just tell a jury "I feared for my life," and you can get away with murder. Literally. 

Florida's "stand your ground" law applied to Trayvon Martin also

Driving around in my car today, listening to political talk on satellite radio, I kept hearing people say, "Trayvon Martin had a right to 'stand his ground' also." Makes a lot of sense.

There Martin is, walking along, minding his own business, when a guy starts following him in an aggressive, intrusive manner. Eventually they get into some sort of altercation. At some point Martin realizes George Zimmerman has a gun. 

Florida's Stand Your Ground law says you don't have to flee if you fear for your life, or if you are threatened with bodily harm. You can defend yourself on the spot. 

So likely if Trayvon Martin had beaten Zimmerman to a pulp, even killing him with his bare hands, Martin could have gotten off by claiming that he thought he faced death or bodily harm -- just as Zimmerman did, garnering a "not guilty" verdict that absolved him of manslaughter or murder.

As noted in my previous post, Martin wouldn't even had to prove that he truly did face death or bodily harm; all that is necesssay is thinking that you are.

This shows the absurdity of Stand Your Ground laws. In this case, either Zimmerman or Martin could have used that Florida law to escape punishment. But Martin died in the altercation, so only Zimmerman got to claim self-defense.

Martin clearly could have also, though, if he had lived and Zimmerman had died.

After all, Zimmerman was the guy who got out of his car with a gun and followed the teenager in the dark. If a guy with a gun is following you in a threatening fashion, you certainly have a right to defend yourself.

Thus Stand Your Ground laws reward the survivor, not the deceased, even if the survivor was the person who provoked an altercation. Just tell a jury "I feared for my life," and you can get away with murder. Literally. 

Hit men must be carefully studying Florida's Stand Your Ground law and the Zimmerman trial. It's a great way to murder someone legally.

All you have to do is confront them in a private place where there aren't any witnesses, then shoot the person. Make sure you bang your head on the ground several times and punch yourself hard enough to break your nose. Then claim that you feared for your life -- naturally leaving out the inconvenient truth that you initiated the encounter and were the aggressor.

I just signed a petition to boycott Florida tourism until the state's Stand Your Ground law is repealed. Its too dangerous to visit Florida when anyone can kill you for no reason other than their claim that they feared death or bodily harm.

Which gets me back to my post about free will and the justice system.

Neuroscientists know that we humans are crappy at identifying the reasons why we do something. We're clueless about the many unconscious causes of our behavior. Yet we make up explanations for our actions because we are meaning-seeking animals who hate to say "I don't know."

I'm not claiming that considerations of motivation never have a place in legal proceedings. But by and large, I believe that the objective facts are a better guide to whether someone should be punished for a crime.

In the Zimmerman case, the jury should have focused on who was the aggressor here. As noted above, both Zimmerman and Martin could claim that they feared death or bodily harm. Yet the juror who has spoken about the deliberations only mentioned Zimmerman's right to self-defense, not Martin's.

Plus, she ignored Zimmerman's behavior that initiated the confrontation.

COOPER: Because of the two options you had, second degree murder or manslaughter, you felt neither applied?

JUROR: Right. Because of the heat of the moment and the Stand Your Ground. He had a right to defend himself. If he felt threatened that his life was going to be taken away from him or he was going to have bodily harm, he had a right.

COOPER: Even though he got out of the car, followed Trayvon Martin that didn’t matter in the deliberations. What mattered was the final seconds, minutes when there was an altercation and whether or not in your mind the most important thing was whether or not George Zimmerman felt his life was in danger?

JUROR: That’s how we read the law. That’s how we got to the point of everybody being not guilty.

Disgusting. Seemingly the jurors ignored Martin's right to defend himself from a man with a gun who was following him around in the dark. The jury sure appears to have committed a travesty of justice.   

 

Zimmerman jury instructions raise question of free will

I'm bothered by George Zimmerman's jury giving him a "not guilty" free pass after he killed Trayvon Martin. However, this morning I also was philosophically perplexed -- along with bothered -- after reading an AP story in our local newspaper about the jury instructions. 

Despite a clamoring by some for a conviction against George Zimmerman, jurors acquitted the former neighborhood watch leader of all charges, leaving many to wonder how the justice system allowed him to walk away from the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin.

Part of the answer is found in the 27-page jury instructions on two matters: justifiable use of deadly force and reasonable doubt. Jurors were told Zimmerman was allowed to use deadly force when he shot Martin — not only if he actually faced death or bodily harm, but also if he merely thought he did.

...but also if he merely thought he did. Wow.

This casts us into some deep neuroscientific/neurophilosphical waters. I'm not qualified to swim around here, but I've done quite a bit of wading, having read numerous books about how the brain works, including how old ideas about free will are being impacted by findings of modern science.

By and large the American legal system is still stuck in the scientific Dark Ages, so to speak. It is assumed that unless someone is certifiably mentally ill, that person basically is reponsible for his or her actions. 

Yet the Zimmerman case illustrates a contradiction here.

The jury instructions regarding deadly force are founded on an assumption that a thought in one's mind -- I'm in serious danger! -- which causes the firing of a gun and the killing of a young man is reason enough for justifying deadly force.

What happened to the notion of free will? Free will means that I can do whatever I want, that circumstances don't determine my actions, that I am free to fire a gun, or not fire a gun, regardless of whatever transpires inside my mind or outside in the world.

Last year I wrote a post, "Sitting in a jury box, I deny free will." I included some passages from a book by Richard Oerton, a British lawyer who wrote "The Nonsense of Free Will."

The idea of free will is central to the criminal law, and the judges quite clearly believe that the offender might, by exercising his own free will, have refrained from committing the offense of which he has been convicted and any other offences on which their view of him is based.

...So don't we have something of a contradiction here? Why does a judge assume that someone who has proved dangerous in the past will go on being dangerous in the future? If he might, by exercising his free will, have avoided his past crimes, why might he not, by the same means, avoid any future ones, so abstaining from behavior which is not only destructive but self-destructive?

...If free will existed it would mean that, although our personality may be determined, this determined personality does not determine our behaviour because free will allows us always to transcend it.

...But if free will did exist, with anything like the implications just described, then it would invalidate pretty much the whole of psychology, psychiatry, criminology, sociology and any other science or system you can think of which concerns itself with human behaviour.

...Of course, offenders differ from one another in their mental states, doing so to an almost infinite degree, and these differences should be reflected in the way in which they are treated by the penal system, but there are causal explanations for the crimes of all of them, free will affects none of them, and retributive punishment is not something which any of them deserves or from which any would benefit.

Now, in Zimmerman's case he ended up being judged a non-offender. However, considerations of free will still entered into the legal deliberations. Confusedly. 

The jury instructions allowed a "not guilty" verdict for either objective or subjective reasons. Solid objective evidence of Zimmerman facing death or great bodily harm was, of course, lacking. The only people who saw the encounter between Zimmerman and Martin were the two men. 

Martin is dead. And Zimmerman never testified.

So we're left with shaky tesimony regarding his state of mind during his confrontation with Martin. Who knows what thoughts were in Zimmerman's mind? No one other than Zimmerman, and it is impossible to confirm his state of mind.

Further, it is well known that conscious thoughts aren't the main determinant of our actions. Many unconscious influences play a larger role. Neuroscience knows that the reasons we give for doing something never comprise the entire explanation of why did you do it?

So this jury instruction regarding deadly force is both perplexing and disturbing. It reminds me of how so many police officers have gotten away with murder (literally, in my opinion) after shooting a suspect who actually posed no threat to them.

Here in Oregon, the rule is that if a police officer believes he or she is at risk of death or bodily harm, using deadly force is justified -- even if a review of the objective facts shows that the person was unarmed and non-threatening.

We're in a confusing nowhere land here, caught between outmoded notions of free will and modern understanding of how the brain works. 

My attitude is that the legal system needs to move away from an assumption that people are responsible for their actions -- at least in the traditional free will sense.

George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin for certain reasons. Those reasons didn't pop out of his unfettered free will. They were part of his genetic makeup, his upbringing, his life experiences, the circumstances of his encounter with Martin, and much else.

The jury instructions reflect this in the ...but also if he merely thought he did language. Doesn't matter where the thought "I'm in danger" came from. If it was in Zimmerman's mind, not guilty! 

Which helps explain the outrage at the jury's verdict. Our justice system holds drunk drivers, drug users, thieves, embezzelers, and other sorts of criminals responsible for their actions -- no matter what thoughts were going through their heads at the time.

Yet the Zimmerman judge told the jury that the defendant could walk free if a certain thought was in his mind, no matter what the objective circumstances were. Meaning, even if Trayvon Martin wasn't a danger to Zimmerman, if Zimmerman thought Martin was... bingo, not guilty!

What about a drunk driver who hit a pedestrian, yet thought "I'm sober enough to drive." Why isn't that person not guilty? Or what about a thief who steals because he thinks "This is the only way I can provide for my family." Why isn't that person not guilty?

Our legal system needs to come to grips with the question of free will. In part George Zimmerman is free today because a jury felt that he killed Trayvon Martin for reasons that made sense to Zimmerman, even if they appeared indefensible from an objective perspective.

Yet countless other people are in prison because of the objective nature of their actions. Their thoughts about why they did what they did were irrelevant.

Viewed from the outside, most people (me included) feel that what Zimmerman did was wrong. However, the jury was allowed to consider the inside of Zimmerman's head as being highly relevant to his innocence.

Distrurbing. And perplexing. 

Photos of wonderfully weird 2013 Oregon Country Fair

Friday Laurel and I made our annual pilgrimage south from staid sleepy Salem to the wonderfully bizarre, creative, and energetic Oregon Country Fair in Veneta-- one of the wonders of the world. 

(Including extra-terrestrial worlds; can't believe there is anything like the Oregon Country Fair anywhere in the universe.)

Here's some photographic glimpses of what we encountered. 

Soon after entering the Fair, we came across these two girls performing a charming "butterfly dance" to a group's music. Video recording isn't allowed at the Oregon Country Fair. Wish it was. The girls were enchanting.

These guys appeared to be shopping for an addition to their already impressive outfits at one of the many craft booths lining the Fair's shaded treed pathways.

I saw an unusually tall girl making her way through fairgoers.

When she passed me, I understood the source of her tallness.

Here's Laurel, my wife, with her blue hat and Most Colorful Backpack at the 2013 Oregon Country Fair. The girl next to her just had an attractive back.

In the mottled sun of a tye-dye booth, this guy looked like a fair-going human chameleon blending in with his environment.

So did my wife.

Kids often travel in style at the Oregon Country Fair. 

Mr. Video, or whatever he was called, is behind the picture frame -- a real live video game character. The kid in the lower left corner manipulates a joystick that "controls" Mr. Video, who yells out feedback to the game-player. Highly creative and entertaining. Only at the Oregon Country Fair...

People of all sorts take the opportunity to show their stuff.

I found some of that "stuff" more enjoyable to observe than other varieties. But, hey, it's all good.

Over at the Main Stage area this girl was demonstrating some skilled hula hoop moves to rockin' music. Loved to watch her. Had no idea what it's possible to do with a hula hoop.

Best alternative to the usual "Pick Up" sign ever. 

The booths blend harmoniously with their natural surroundings. This display looked like a colorful clothes river cascading out of the forest.

Perfect bathroom karma! While doing my, um, thing, I heard the sound of a parade approaching. Just had enough time to rush out of the stall and fire up my camera.

Laurel and I loved this tree. Couldn't capture the oak's full width and height in a single photo. Amazing tree.

Laurel, pausing along a tree-lined fair lane.

We took a break and sat on a bridge bench next to a man who seemed to be an Oregon Country Fair regular. People would say "Hi Ducks Guy!" to him. Major Oregon fan, obviously. Blended in well with the green foliage.

I call this photo, "Woman Contemplating Necklace Purchase." Ah, the concentration, the focus. Laurel, my wife, often has been told "you look like Joni Mitchell." True.

Just another Oregon Country Fair-goer. After a few minutes at the Fair, "normal" is redefined to mean whatever. I love the oft-seen banner at the Fair: yes, yes, yes.

Near the end of our time at the Fair we paused to watch an animated accordionist sing and play in a beautiful tent setting. Usually don't find accordian-playing too enjoyable, but this guy was great.

Leaving the fair, we encountered a Bug Man. First photo I took was before the wings unfolded. Glad I waited around to catch the full extended glory.

When the wife's away... this old guy goes wild!

Oh, yeah. I may be almost Medicare-eligible, but when my wife goes away on a four-day family reunion trip, I still know how to let loose and get it on! 

(That sounds like a '60's term, "get it on," the decade, not the age; can't be sure; at my age I'm forgetful about everything except how damn old I am.)

And you know what? I don't even mind if my wife reads what I'm about to say. Hey, we've got that kind of marriage. She knows that as soon as she heads off to the airport, I'm going to... party!

Senior citizen husband style.

The first thing I do is let the dirty dishes accumulate in the sink. For as freaking long as I feel like it. No more rinsing, putting them in the dishwasher right away, and wiping the stainless steel sink dry. Like I've been trained.

This wild beast is busting free of his matrimonial cage! The dogs and I are in control of the homeland, now. With me in control of the dogs. Sort of. 

Laurel, my wife, left me with three pages of written instructions about how to take care of the dogs. The exact same dogs I've lived with for so many years.

Granted, our oldest dog, Serena, has an eye problem that requires twice-daily drops and an antibiotic. I did need some instructions about her treatment, since Laurel has been taking care of that. But come on, three pages!

That seemed ridiculous.

Until one morning I went down to the "dog room" where they spend the night on a futon and in a cushy dog kennel, glanced at their water bowl, and thought uh-oh. Bone dry. That was item #26, or whatever, on the three page instruction list.

Well, the dogs were still alive. Not even panting. That vindicated my I'm In Charge decision to only pay attention to the crucial items on the Dog Care Instructions. LIke giving them food, water... Oops. OK, let's switch subjects.

To my wild and crazy nights. 

The first evening Laurel was gone I began to fulfill a desire that my wife is incapable of satisfying: watching movies with a lot of violence and action scenes. I checked our Netflix queue for films that I'd put on the list, but which never got watched because they didn't meet my wife's Cinematic Acceptability Criteria.

Basically, no gratutious violence and no mindless car chases, explosions, or other action scenes. Which meant that I'd never watched Mission Impossible -- Ghost Protocol or Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Swedish version).

It felt great to sit down with the dogs and stream both via Netflix during the four nights my wife was gone.

What I liked the most was the silence: no female voice saying, "Turn the sound down; I hate to listen to torture scenes." Or, "That's impossible; nobody could survive a crash like that and not be seriously hurt." 

Which saved me from replying irritatedly, "The movie is called Mission Impossible for god's sake! If I only wanted to see realism I'd just live my boring real life and not watch movies." Or, "The guy deserved to be tortured; he was an asshole who got what he deserved from Lisbeth Salander."

Blissfully, the dogs weren't disturbed at all by the movies I watched each night.

What bugged our youngest dog was the 4th of July fireworks that were set off before, during, and after the 4th by people choosing to celebrate our nation's declaration of an inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness by making our dog Zu Zu extremely unhappy with loud booms that went on, and on, and on. 

I'd sleep with ear plugs, something Zu Zu couldn't do. When I woke up and got out of bed, I did what I always do: leave the bed unmade. 

Returning to our bedroom in the evening, I always was semi-surprised to find the bed still unmade. I'd figured that the Bed Fairy took care of this. I made a mental note to tell Laurel, when she got back, that the Bed Fairy must have hitched a ride in her suitcase, because there was no sign of her now.

Ditto for the Kitchen Fairy, but I didn't really believe in her -- because I knew that Laurel and me equally shared clean-up chores in that room of the house.

Still, I guess I had been misjudging our relative contributions, since during the four days I relished doing half of what I usually do to keep the kitchen clean and picked-up, it seemed like the kitchen was eight times as messy. 

Somewhere along the line I must have made an arithmetical error in calculating our domestic duties contributions. However, I didn't feel like wearing out my brain thinking about what it could be. Needed to save my attention for the evening action-movie-watching.

Along with taking care of the dogs.

My four day return to carefree bachelorhood was marred by the constant sense of being a single father. Of demanding canines. They bugged me more than usual, probably because they missed Laurel. 

I'd be relaxedly sitting in the bathtub, soaking in hot water, reading People magazine, sipping a glass of red wine, and Zu Zu would come in to the bathroom, then lie down on the mat next to the tub. She doesn't do that typically. 

So as much as I wanted to feel free of marital and "parental" responsibilities, I never could shake the feeling that two pairs of dog eyes always were looking at me, wordlessly accusing.

Mommy takes us for longer walks. Mommy checks us for burrs better than you do. Mommy doesn't forget to fill our water bowl. (Ouch, too true.) Mommy rubs our tummies more often. Mommy tells us a story before bed.

After a couple of days I thought about checking to see whether there is a respite service for temporarily single dog "parents." The pressure of constantly being the care-giver was beginning to wear on me. I fantasized yelling at the dogs "Fix your own dinner; you know where the pantry and refrigerator are!" like I did when my teenage daughter would lie on the couch and moan, "Dad, I'm hungry!"

But then I realized that our dogs don't have fingers and haven't been trained to use the can opener. 

So my Wife's-Away Long Weekend turned out to not be as wild and crazy as I'd hoped it would be.

Plus, I dutifully cleaned up the house before Laurel got home. What I've learned is that if I tidy things up as well as I can, my wife will walk in the door, take a quick glance, and say "Did you do any cleaning while I was gone?" 

Not sure what her reaction would be if I left the house looking like it did most of the time she was gone. Start looking for a divorce lawyer, maybe.

Sarah Slamen slams Texas legislators for trashing women's health

Ah, I so love to see ignorant self-righteous Republican legislators get what they deserve from a woman who is mad as hell at her gender being treated like dirt, and she won't take it anymore.

The You Tube video of Sarah Slamen's cut-short testimony before a committee of the Texas legislature poised to ramrod through a horrendous bill that will prevent many thousands of women from getting necessary health care resonated with my activist soul.

The committee chair interrupted her testimony, apparently because the truths Slamen was speaking were too painful for those sensitive right-wing ears to hear. (Her Twitter handle is @VictorianPrude.)

 

Of course, those Texas legislators have no problem causing pain to women who want to get a perfectly legal abortion from a perfectly safe medical facility. They can dish it out, but don't want to listen to people tell them what the nasty consequences of their anti-women legislation will be.

Which includes the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the 55,000 strong organization that represents 90% of ob-gyn physicians in this country. Check out their "Open Letter to Texas Legislators: Stay Out of Our Exam Rooms." 
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This is how the open letter starts out:

All eyes are on Texas again this week as the fate of a far-reaching measure to restrict abortions and close many abortion facilities faces its last days of debate. Unlike almost any other issue, abortion generates strong feelings on all sides. This is true within our own organization, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), and we respect that our 58,000 members have deeply held personal beliefs on this topic.

While we can agree to disagree about abortion on ideological grounds, we must draw a hard line against insidious legislation that threatens women's health like Texas HB2 (House Bill 2) and SB1 (Senate Bill 1). That's why we're speaking to the false and misleading underlying assumptions of this and other legislation like it: These bills are as much about interfering with the practice of medicine and the relationship a patient has with her physician as they are about  restricting women's access to abortion. The fact is that these bills will not help protect the health of any woman in Texas. Instead, these bills will harm women's health in very clear ways.

The Republican bullshit about wanting small government and respecting individual freedom is really getting tiresome. These Texas legislators would be a lot happier if the United States was run by a Christian Taliban. 

There's only one silver lining in the shameful display being put on by the Texas legislature. Like Slamen says in the video, their up-front outrageous attacks on women's health are turning off the very voters -- young, female, minority -- that the Republican Party needs to win elections.

Old white conservative men are dying off steadily.

Yet that's the only demographic group that is going to applaud back-to-the-coat-hanger era misogynistic anti-women legislation. The Republican Party has morphed into a hotbed of hatred, ignorance, and religious fundamentalism.

Good luck winning national elections on that platform, GOP.

No Third Bridge finally gets some Statesman Journal attention

Finally. Better late than never. This was my "glass half full" attitude toward a front page story and lead editorial (regarding different subjects) in the Salem Statesman Journal today.

The story, "Building Support to Stop Third Bridge," focused on the three leaders of No Third Bridge, a grass roots movement aimed at stopping city leaders from wasting $700 million of taxpayer money on another bridge across the Willamette River.

This was the SJ online comment I left about the story:

Good story. But there are more facts to tell about this unneeded, unwanted, and unpaid for looming $700 million waste of taxpayer money. 

It was telling that Peter Fernandez, City of Salem Public Works Director, said he supports all the much cheaper alternatives put forward by the No Third Bridge folks -- including, I assume, retrofitting the current bridges to withstand the "big one" earthquake that is a matter of when, not if.

So basically Fernandez is a No Third Bridge supporter! Welcome on board the stop-the-bridge train, Mr. Fernandez. Why? Because the only thing Fernandez said in support of spending the $700 million isn't true: "the future indicates we need that new crossing."

Ooh, I love vague philosophical pronouncements. Who is that "future"? Can we interview the future? No. 

All we have are present-day evidence of flat or declining traffic loads across the current bridges, clear trends away from cars and toward alternative means of transportation, definite signs that young people and baby boomer types favor living in walkable central mixed use areas, not the sprawling suburbs the City and Chamber of Commerce are looking at in their way-back-when glasses.

The future will be different from today. That's why it is called the future, not the present. What Salem builds today will help shape that future. Salem should be creating the future it wants, not rely on vague fact-free notions of The Future forcing us in a certain direction. 

Visit No Third Bridge on Facebook and learn more about why this project needs to be stopped before it bankrupts taxpayers and damages Salem's livability.

I had something to do with today's story, since starting in May I urged Statesman Journal executive editor Michael Davis to do more and better reporting about the Third Bridge.

To his credit, Davis told me that he would run a front page story focusing on the opponents. I gave him contact information for the No Third Bridge leaders.

But I hoped and expected that the story would run before the City of Salem public comment period ended on June 21. Kind of hard for the public to express their opinion on the most expensive public works project in Salem's history if they don't understand both the pro and con sides of the bridge issue.

Well, that's water under the bridge, so to speak.

Reporter Tracy Loew did a good job introducing Statesman Journal readers to the many reasons why it doesn't make sense to build a hyper-expensive Third Bridge. I'm looking forward to more stories from Ms. Loew, an investigative reporter. 

There's lots to investigate here. The No Third Bridge folks offered up some ideas:

A nice profile of the leaders of the NO 3rd Bridge effort in the Statesman Journal today. Let's hope it leads to more investigative journalism on the 3rd Bridge.

There was a recent article in the S-J that stated that investigative journalism was their highest priority. We haven't seen nearly enough investigation during the seven years that the 3rd Bridge has been under consideration.

Here are some things the S-J could investigate:

- Why was the River Valley subdivision approved in West Salem just a few years ago when it is directly in the path of the Salem Alternative plan for the 3d Bridge?

- How come only three of the eight recommendations of the 1998 Bridgehead Engineering Study that would increase the capacity of the existing bridges have been built?

- Why did the City install a stoplight at the end of the Front St. exit ramp from the Center St. Bridge that backs up traffic on the bridge at peak hours?

- It is true that peak hour traffic on the existing bridges has not increased since 1995?

- How would building a 3rd Bridge downstream from Salem in the Willamette River floodplain increase the risk of flooding in the City?

- Who are the members of the Third Bridge Alliance and what motivates them to want to spend hundreds of millions of tax dollars to build a 3rd Bridge?

- What are the chances that any state or federal money would be made available to build a 3rd Bridge in Salem, or would the entire bill come to us?

- How much, exactly, has been spent to plan the 3rd Bridge since 2006 and where have those millions gone?

The editorial was about an ill-advised proposal by the City of Salem to install parking meters in downtown Salem. It followed a belated meeting by the Statesman Journal editorial board with Carole Smith, Eric Kittleson, and Stephen Perkins -- leaders of the Stop Parking Meters Downtown initiative campaign.

Back in May the Statesman Journal editorialized in favor of moving ahead with downtown parking meters after only talking with proponents of the proposal. (I can't find this first editorial on the SJ web site; have asked online staff for help in locating it, as I'd like to contrast the two editorials).

Pleasingly, today's editorial takes a much more cautious, analytical, and public involvement-needed tone.

Interestingly, it is titled "Don't err in parking meters for downtown Salem," though the SJ editorial board did just that when it rushed to judgment on supporting parking meters in that first editorial before getting all the facts and hearing opposing viewpoints.

Salem Breakfast on Bikes has a good analysis of the Third Bridge story and parking meters editorial. Check out "Parking Meter Editorial and No Third Bridge Front Page Piece Show Contrasting Approaches."

Better late than never, the paper finally ran a piece on the N3B group.  Its timing, of course, is curious:  Long after the City Council deliberations and vote, long after the information might have served the public interest for this milestone. 

The approach in the piece, also less analytical and more personality-profile, differs interestingly from a sort of companion editorial on parking meters.

(It should be noted that the reporter behind the N3B piece previously worked in depth on WESD, and is an investigative reporter rather than features writer.  We can hope that her piece is just the start of more in-depth reporting!)

If the paper has seemed locked into the a priori conclusion and circular logic of "we need a bridge because we need a bridge," on the matter of parking meters, in their editorial today they show a significantly different spirit of inquiry, exhibit analytical curiosity and sophistication, and a willingness to innovate and experiment.

They also met with parking meter critics in a formal editorial meeting, a courtesy they did not extend to N3B advocates.

Yes. In fact, no Statesman Journal staff member talked with any Third Bridge opponents prior to the Salem City Council voting in favor of moving ahead with the project. I think No Third Bridge deserves a meeting with the editorial board.

Just as the editorial board changed its mind about parking meters after meeting with opponents, I'm pretty sure meeting with the No Third Bridge folks will cause some SJ editorial board members to look differently upon their "let's go for it" editorial in favor of a Third Bridge -- which, again, was written without learning the arguments against it.

Our dogs and their "mini-me" felt pet portraits (by Amelia Makes Art)

Today the Salem Statesman Journal's "Pet Click" feature ran an adorable photo of our dogs, Zu Zu and Serena. 

Here is how they looked in the paper.

And here is the SJ web site version.

Laurel, my wife, posed them with their "mini-me's" -- felt art portraits/sculptures marvelousluy fashioned by Amelia, of Amelia Makes Art.

Interestingly, Amelia does her animal art thing (also cats, pigs, horses, maybe others) close-by, in northwest Portland. We can highly recommend her to anyone who wants a unique "portrait" of a pet. 

This was Laurel's birthday present.

She instantly fell in love with Amelia's work after she took a look at her web site. Amelia wanted photos of our dogs from as many angles as possible. Then she fashioned felt figures of Zu Zu and Serena and emailed us some photographs to review and comment on.

We thought she had Zu Zu with too much gray under her muzzle. Amelia made the change. Soon after we got mailed a box with the dog art. As I suspected, we couldn't wait for Laurel's birthday to open it. 

The felt figurines grace a shelf between our kitchen and living room. I'm still amazed at how well Amelia captured not only the appearance of our dogs, but also their personality. That's artistry!

Serena, on the right, is a 13 year old Shepherd/Lab/whatever mix. She usually doesn't prick her ears up, but Laurel managed to get a photo of her doing that. So now Serena is forever immortalized with alert ears.

With her German Shepherd'ness, Serena is more dignified and reserved than ebullient Zu Zu. Zu Zu is a three year old (probably) mutt of indeterminate breed origins. We got her from a Portland shelter after being brought to Oregon from eastern Washington.

They can almost be taken for a mother and daughter. We love them both -- the real live dogs and their wonderful mini-selves.

Thank you, Amelia. We know that Serena won't be with us physically for much longer. But your dog art will help keep her vividly alive in our minds. 

Check out the Amelia Makes Art page of Happy Client Photos -- of dogs with their dog art. We're going to take better photos of our dogs to send to her. This is one of my favorite Happy Client Photos:

If you set off loud fireworks, you're terrifying dogs

Here's a simple fact, lovers of loud fireworks: your enjoyment is being bought at the price of animal pain. Many dogs are terrified of fireworks. So also, I'm sure, are wild animals -- deer, birds, raccoons, etc.

On behalf of our dog, Zu Zu, I just want you to be aware of what you're doing when you set off loud fireworks. I can't inject a sense of compassion into your fireworks-loving brain, though I sure wish I could.

I just want to speak for the stressed-out dogs who can't write a blog post.

And even if Zu Zu could, (she's a pretty damn smart dog) for most of yesterday, July 4, she couldn't have, because she was busy trembling, shaking, anxiously running around the house, hiding in the indoor kennel-with-a-curtain I made for her.

There are lots of dogs like our dog, canines terrified by fireworks.

So I can virtually guarantee that if you live in a populated area, and you're setting off loud fireworks, you're causing severe distress to some dogs. Maybe many dogs.

We live out in the country. Most houses are on several acre lots. Nonetheless, the fireworks started going off early in the afternoon on July 4 and didn't stop until after midnight. 

If you're a fireworks lover, you don't want to know what went through my mind as I did my best to reassure our beloved dog, who is usually calm and relaxed, that her dog world wasn't coming to an end.

I'll just say that even though I'm not the most empathic guy (far from it), I'd feel terrible setting off loud fireworks that I knew were causing dogs and other animals to suffer. Knowing that would take away any pleasure I might get from fireworks.

Maybe you loud fireworks lovers don't care. Maybe you think you have a right to do whatever you want on July 4, even if it bothers animals. OK. Like I said, compassion can't be forced on anybody.

I just want you to think about what you're doing. Most people claim to be animal lovers. Most people wouldn't intentionally hurt a dog.

So why did loud fireworks lovers hurt my dog for most of the day yesterday? I'm asking for Zu Zu. But every person who sets off fireworks should be asking that question of themselves.

I don't get how people feel fine celebrating the day in 1776 when our founding fathers said everyone has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness by causing dogs and other animals so much unhappiness.

Oregonians are heat-weenies

OMG! Oh, the heat here in Western Oregon. Why, oh my my my, it got to 93 degrees here in Salem a few days ago. Well, maybe it was 95. 

I can't remember exactly. This senior citizen has been too busy land paddling his longboard skateboard five miles around the up-and-down trails at Minto Brown Park in 90-degree weather.

Takes me 40 to 45 minutes. Halfway through my workout I stop for a minute and take a few sips of water. Then I get back on my longboard.

No problem. 

I grew up in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. From June through August, or so, it was over one hundred degrees most days. As a kid I rode my three-speed bike all over the hilly roads of Three Rivers, California. 

Don't remember taking along a water bottle. Also don't remember many people complaining about the heat. It was just something that was there, something you accepted. 

I'm amazed at what heat-weenies most Oregonians who live in the Willamette Valley are. When it gets into the 90's, folks in western Oregon act as if they're stranded in the middle of the Sahara with no camel and no oasis.

The evening news on the Portland TV stations carries warnings about drinking lots of water, keeping pets indoors, watching out for elderly people. Guess that includes me, since I'm almost 65. 

Well, I invite you to watch me... exercising for miles and miles in the middle of the day when the temperature is a pleasingly mild (to us ex-Californians) mid-90's. 

When I got to the parking lot at Minto Brown Island Park I expected to find it full of cars. After all, this was a sunny clear late June day. But no, Oregon's heat-weenies apparently were staying inside in some air-conditioned safe room.

Today I went into a downtown Salem Starbucks before my 4:30 pm Tai Chi class to get my usual grande hot brewed coffee. Glancing at the labels on the coffee machine, I said "Well, I guess I'll have a Pike Place or... a Pike Place."

"Sorry," I was told. "When it is hot like this we usually only have one kind of brewed coffee, no light or dark blends. Most people want an iced drink."

Geez! It was in the 80's today! That IS NOT HOT! Hot is 110 degrees. Or the 129 degrees I think Death Valley reached recently. A day in the 80's is temperate, Oregonians. 

Drink your hot coffee. Downsize the giant water jugs you carry to get you through a short stroll in the park. Sit outside (with sun screen on). Embrace the sun and heat while we have it.

All too soon Oregon's heat-weenies will be complaining about the cold -- when it gets into the 40's -- and the snow -- when we get a sprinkling of half an inch. I enjoyed chatting with a clerk at a store who had moved here from Colorado about a year ago. She had the same opinion of most Oregonians as I do.

"In Colorado we get real heat and real snow," she said. "People here have no idea... no idea."

Delay in Obamacare mandate for large businesses not a big deal

It's always entertaining to watch right-wingers try to make an OMG! mountain out of some routine Obama action (or inaction, such as his being proven to have nothing to do with Benghazi talking points or IRS review of tax-exemption applications).

Now the outrage of the day is the Obama administration's decision to delay by one year implementation of the Affordable Care Act mandate that large employers provide health insurance.

Wow. One whole year.

And the decision only affects 1 to 1.5 million workers who are employed by a company with 50 or more workers that doesn't already provide health insurance. Whereas there are almost 50 million people without health insurance in the United States.

A piece by Ezekiel Emanuel, "Obama's Insurance Delay Won't Affect Many" tells the not-very-compelling tale.

On Tuesday, the White House announced that it would delay for another year one provision of the 2010 health care reform act. Larger employers will now have until 2015 before they will have to provide insurance or face penalties. The administration’s explanation is that it is listening to businesses’ concerns about getting their coverage ready in time, and trying to be flexible. But what people are really concerned about is whether this will make a difference in health care coverage and the progress of reform.

The short answer is no.

...Only about 200,000 employers have more than 50 workers. And the vast majority of them — 94 percent or more, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research and Educational Trust — already offer health insurance. Thus, fewer than an estimated 12,000 employers fail to offer health insurance and would be subject to the penalty. That means we’re talking about only maybe 1 or 1.5 million workers.

Certainly, for these workers, having health insurance would be a great benefit. And covering more Americans was a central rationale for the Affordable Care Act.

But not having their employers provide insurance doesn’t mean they have to wait much longer for coverage. In October, thanks to the Affordable Care Act, they will be able to buy insurance on the exchanges. They won’t have to worry about having a pre-existing condition, and they will receive an income-based subsidy to help defray the costs.

Tips: if Reeder isn't working for you after July 1

I've been using Reeder on both my iPhone and MacBook Pro to peruse blog updates, along with Google Reader when I'm at my computer.

After Google Reader died on July 1, I've had to turn completely to Reeder and The Old Reader, a web-based Google Reader look-alike. I like The Old Reader, but prior to July I found that Reeder updated feeds automatically more often than The Old Reader.

So I'd decided to make Reeder my main replacement for Google Reader. 

Only problem was, and it took me a few days to notice this, I wasn't getting any blog post/RSS updates. I was stuck in time on July 1. 

Call me clueless (always a reasonable thing to call me), but this morning I emailed Reeder support, plaintively asking why the feeds weren't refreshing. Then I told them "sorry, no need to respond."

Should have done my Googling first. Here's what got me back to Reeder functionality.

(1) The 3.2 Reeder iPhone update includes replacements for its previous Google Reader connection, Feedly being free. I didn't know that I needed to sign up for Feedly. Once I did, via the Reeder "settings" area, I was back in business.

However, I didn't see a way to automatically transfer over my Google Reader feeds. So I opened up Reeder on my Mac, clicked on "manage subscriptions," and then typed in the feed URL's I wanted Feedly to add to my account. 

(2) Reeder for the Mac, I learned, isn't functional at the moment. It has been pulled from the App Store until a new version is ready. This explains why I couldn't get it to update. For once, not because of my cluelessness.

Hope this helps others who are having trouble getting Reeder to be their Google Reader replacement.

I read Ezra Klein's reasons why he is going to bookmarks rather than replacing Google Reader. They make sense for him, but not for me. I like my blog post consolidator-at-a-glance, which likely will continue to be Reeder.

Stu Rasmussen's closet is a transgender thing of beauty

(Embedded video I had originally via USA Today was auto-play, irritatingly; I got so irritated by it playing I've linked to the Statesman Journal web page where the video can be watched.)

Like I said in "Salem to Silverton: a trip from boring to charming," Silverton mayor Stu Rasmussen is one of the many attractions of Salem's pleasingly eccentric neighbor-city. 

Rasmussen became the nation's first openly transgender mayor when he was elected in 2008. HIs popularity hasn't diminished; in 2012 he was elected to another term. 

A video tour of Rasmussen's closet shows why Stu Rasmussen is such an appealing guy who-likes-to-dress-like-a-woman.

Kudos to the Salem Statesman Journal for giving us an opportunity to walk in (or at least see) Rasmussen's shoes and other clothes for seven minutes.

Anyone who thinks that sexuality and gender identity is a simple male/female, Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve proposition needs to watch this video. 

I love how comfortable Rasmussen is with himself.

He and I are almost exactly the same age, being both born in 1948. We're different, yet the same. I have never talked with Stu Rasmussen, yet I feel like I know him well. He has the admirable quality of being who he is, rather than someone he is not.

I aspire to this, but have a ways to go. Stu, you are my role model. You would be a much better Geisha than I am, for sure. However, I think I'm capable of being whoever the heck I am just as authentically as you.

Thanks for reminding me of this. 

Even with my Ninja Fan, I don't look much like a Geisha

As noted in a post about my visit to the 2013 World Beat Festival here in Salem, I bought an $8 Ninja Fan at a booth in the Asia Pacific area. 

(this is the metal version of the plastic fan I got)

For a long time I've wanted a fan. My Tai Chi instructor knows a fan form, which looks really cool when he does it. The fan snaps open and shut in harmony with his movements. After all, fans can be weapons.

However, when I had a photo of me and my new fan taken by a Statesman Journal SJPix photographer while standing in the middle of a front-page background mock-up, I told the guy "Just a second; I need to channel my inner Geisha." 

The result, though, did not capture the air of demure coquettishness that I was aiming for. So this evening I went into our yard, held my iPhone at arm's length, and tried again on my own.

I leave it to the viewer of these photos to decide how closely I resemble a Geisha girl -- leaving aside extraneous details such as the fact that I am a 64 year old gray haired/bearded man.

We are talking inner essence here. 

If anyone has sufficiently bad eyesight, or good imagination, to see me as a Geisha, I am available for companionship -- if the price is right.

I am able to pour glasses of wine, open pop-tops, and pass around bags of chips with marvelous decorous ease, all the while pretending to listen to you talk about yourself while I think about what I'm going to do with the money you're paying me to do my Geisha gig.

[Update: forgot to mention that my Ninja Fan training hit a setback when, after coming home and snapping the fan open & closed once after buying it at the World Beat Festival, after which our dog with the best hearing jumped and ran for cover, my wife told me "You're not going to play with that in the house!."

Naturally my macho Ninja self said, "Yes, dear." 

However... we Ninjas do not "play" with our fans. Like I said, they are deadly martial arts instruments. Or would be, if I was skilled in using one, and had a metal fan rather than a plastic fan.

I'm beginning to realize that actual Japanese Ninjas and Samurai either weren't married dog owners, or had a relationship with their wives that wasn't founded on "Yes, dear."]