HinesSight

How Salem's candidates and other local leaders look upon climate change

On Earth Day 2016, April 22, I asked 30 civic leaders in Salem three questions about climate change.

These were candidates running for Mayor and City Council in the May election (9 people); City councilors not running in this election (6 people); the Mayor, City Manager, and Public Works Director (3 people); Chamber of Commerce execs (2 people); top Statesman Journal and Salem Weekly staff (5 people); Marion County commissioners (3 people); plus KYKN talk show host Gator Gaynor and Salem Health CEO Cheryl Nester Wolfe.

Those folks were non-scientifically selected by me while I was sitting with my laptop at a south Salem Starbucks, thinking about who I should email my three questions to while sipping a grande Pike Place.

My email message and subsequent reminder message are in a continuation to this post, at the very end. I asked the same questions as I did in 2014, spurred by a Salem City Club talk by Jane Lubchenco. In a blog post at the time, I wrote about speaking with her after her talk:

Since Lubchenco mentioned climate change often in her City Club talk, I wanted to ask her if she could think of any reason why local public officials shouldn't be willing to say whether they agree with the scientific consensus about climate change/global warming.

"No," she told me. Which is the answer I expected, since she'd just said that science isn't political.

Science seeks to learn about the nature of shared reality, the world everyone inhabits -- conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats, religious believers and non-believers, everybody.

Lubchenco's talk spurred me to compose a message I'll be sending to Salem-area public officials. And other local leaders: newspaper editors/publishers; Chamber of Commerce executives; corporate and non-profit organization leaders; people running for elected office.

Before I discuss the 2016 responses -- and non-responses -- from the 30 Salem-area leaders, here's the results. A blank obviously means the person didn't respond with a YES, NOT SURE, or NO to the three questions I asked. 

So far, I've gotten responses from 10 of the 30 people. Six were candidates in the May election, which says something. (I'll let readers decide on their own what that "something" is.) I also got a narrative reply from Jan Kailuweit, who is running for the Ward 1 City Council seat against Cara Kaser.

Kailuweit said:

Thank you very much for the opportunity to respond. As I'm sure you've been able to tell from my Facebook posts, I'm deeply committed to reducing my carbon footprint. This is one of the reasons why I own an older home (the ultimate act of recycling, as opposed to building or buying a brand new home), why I'm a strong believer in a pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly infrastructure, and why I moved to downtown, so I can walk to the office. (Besides, not having to commute, I have more time for family and my car insurance gives me a sizable discount.)

Having grown up in Europe, which is much more densely populated and hence has dealt with pollution and waste reduction for many decades, I believe there is room for improvement in Salem. 

I trust my answer suffices for now.

I also heard back from Jason Tokarski of Mountain West Investment. He said:

Brian, thank you for inquiring of me on this subject. I have long wanted to better understand this subject and have looked for non-biased sources, but to this point have found nothing that I felt was informative without an agenda. Given that, I am not comfortable responding to your survey.

I thanked Tokarski for his directness, saying "I’m a big believer that it’s better to be honest about how we feel about something, rather than say what is politically correct or what we think people want to hear."

Which helps explain why I fondly look upon Warren Bednarz' "NOT SURE" about whether humans are mostly responsible for global warming. I disagree with Councilor Bednarz on some important local issues, and I don't agree that there's any doubt humans are causing global warming.

But I admire Bednarz for directly responding to the questions.

Almost certainly, some of the non-respondents are global warming deniers in one form or another. However, I suspect they're reluctant to admit this in a state and city where most citizens are strong defenders of protecting the environment. And there is no bigger threat to the habitability of our one and only Earth than global warming. 

A 2014 national Gallup poll about global warming found this:

Over the past decade, Americans have clustered into three broad groups on global warming. The largest, currently describing 39% of U.S. adults, are what can be termed "Concerned Believers" -- those who attribute global warming to human actions and are worried about it. This is followed by the "Mixed Middle," at 36%. And one in four Americans -- the "Cool Skeptics" -- are not worried about global warming much or at all.

Those Cool Skeptics, 25% of the adult population, lead decidedly to the right of the political spectrum: 80% are Republicans/lean Republican; 65% are conservative and only 9% liberal. Conversely, 76% of the Concerned Believers are Democrats/lean Democrat.

Thus it wouldn't be at all surprising if a good share of Salem's conservative leaders are skeptical about the scientific consensus on global warming. I just wish they'd be up-front about this, because it would make policy debates more fruitful in this town.

For example, one reason liberals oppose the planned billion dollar Third Bridge across the Willamette is its contribution to increased carbon emissions. But if conservative leaders in this town deny global warming, yet won't admit this, it is difficult to have an honest discussion about the pros and cons of the Third Bridge. People talk past each other, rather than with each other.

Lastly, I'll note that Michael Davis, executive editor of the Statesman Journal, told me he wouldn't respond to the survey because Davis doesn't like what I've written and said about him. Well, I readily admit that I'm a frequent and strong critic of what Salem's daily newspaper has become under his leadership.

But as Jane Lubchenco told me (she was Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminstration from 2009-13), there is no reason local public officials shouldn't be willing to say whether they agree with the scientific consensus about climate change/global warming. I'd add, local private leaders who take part in policy discussions also.

Whether you like the person asking questions about global warming shouldn't matter. However, in Davis' case it did. 

So if anyone else wants to contact the people who haven't responded yet to my survey, and ask them the same three questions, please do. The questions are in the continuation to this post that follows. Email me any responses you get, and I'll update the global warming survey results.

(The email addresses of those who haven't responded are publicly available. But if you can't find them, email me and I'll send you the ones you want.)

Here's the messages I sent out:

How Salem's "built environment" affects our well-being

Yesterday Dylan Chavez, president of the Salem Chapter of the AIA (American Institute of Architects), gave a fascinating Salem City Club talk about Influence in Design, "the nature and significance of architecture in our community."

His slide presentation included interesting observations about what's good and bad in Salem's built environment.

To semi-quote Madonna, we are material beings living in a material world -- not ethereal entities who can float through life blissfully unaffected by the physical stuff that surrounds us. 

Likewise, Chavez said that architecture is the background in which we live. Why does it matter? Because the background influences our behavior, both actions and feelings. 

He noted that even though we are the same person, we're going to be affected differently by going into a church rather than a biker bar. Or being in Salem rather than in Las Vegas. In a similar fashion, architecture is shaped by society while also shaping it.

Lancaster Mall

This is an overhead view of Lancaster Mall (the mass of connected buildings in the upper left of the photo I took with my iPhone). I'm pretty sure Chavez said that the scale of the image is the same as the view below of downtown Salem.

Downtown Salem

The large dark areas surrounding Lancaster Mall are parking lots, surrounded by roads. Downtown Salem also has parking, but it is mostly onstreet or in parking garages.

Chavez used a laser pointer to indicate a walk of similar length between your parked car and a destination at either downtown Salem or Lancaster Mall (top two images in his slide, as above).

How is that walk going to feel to you? How enjoyable will it be? This is the power of the built environment, of architectural/design decisions. 

Downtown, Chavez said, you're going to be walking through an area with lots of interesting things to see. Like people sitting at sidewalk tables -- image at bottom left. 

But at Lancaster Mall (and, I have to add, dreadful Keizer Station, a horribly-designed shopping center), you're going to be staring at a vast expanse of bare boring pavement. Or a mixture of boring pavement and boring cars. See image at bottom right.

During the Q & A period, Chavez was asked about making trees an integral part of parking lots so they're more attractive. His answer opened up my mind to a different way of looking at this, since I've always thought, along with the questioner, that more trees in parking lots would be a good thing.

Maybe so. Assuming that a big parking lot already exists, and the trees replaced some parking spaces.

However, Chavez pointed out a fact that he was pretty sure of: the City of Salem requires a parking space for every 250 square feet of a building's space. Given that a parking space is about 200 square feet (20 X 10), this means that parking is going to take up almost as much square footage as a building itself.

"Do we need that much parking space?" Chavez asked. Should a parking lot be planned around rare events, like Black Friday shopping sprees? He said that adding trees to a parking lot increases the size of the lot, given the above-mentioned City of Salem requirement. 

So Chavez got his audience thinking about the bigger picture -- whether we need giant parking lots at all -- in addition to the smaller question of whether trees make giant parking lots more palatable. 
 
Lastly, here's a slide that shows per capita income over time (1990-2011) for Salem, Oregon, and the Portland/Beaverton/Vancouver metro area. Salem is the bottom line; Oregon is the middle line; Portland metro area is the top line.

In 2011, Salem's per capita income of a bit less than $35,000 was about $8,000 less than the Portland metro area per capita income of about $43,000. Chavez noted, "This leads some people to say, Salem can't afford nice things." He then said that we also need to look at the cost of housing, though.

This slide shows the median sales price of homes in Portland. Darker the color, the more expensive the home.

I jotted down that Chavez said the overall average price of a house in Portland is around $500,000. But I was taking notes hurriedly, and could be wrong about this. Whatever the amount is, the price is Salem is much lower.

Here's Salem's median price map.

The Willamette River is on the left. Mission Street angles downward across the lower right of the map. Most of Salem is the same color as far-southeast Portland, with some fairly large swatches of dark green (lowest priced homes) that are missing in Portland.

Chavez said that the overall average price of a home in Salem is about $300,000. Or maybe $200,000, though I ended up scratching out whatever I first jotted down and ended up with $300,000. Again, whatever the price is, it's around half of what people are paying in Portland.

So even though us Salemians/Salemites (I'm a big fan of the first term for us; see my Strange Up Salem column) have quite a bit less money than Portlanders, we also pay much less for housing.

I guess the implication is that we can afford nice things, so long as they don't cost as much as the nice things in Portland.

"The True Cost" film shows need for fair global trade

Some of the 2016 presidential candidates -- notably Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders -- make it sound like global trade is a bad thing. They talk about bringing jobs back to America and even forcing manufacturers like Apple to make their products in the United States. 

In discussions with fellow liberals, I've questioned the wisdom of this negative attitude toward international trade. 

I'll argue that while global trade agreements have caused some jobs to be lost in this country, overall international trade (a.k.a. "globalization") has been positive for the world as a whole. Many millions of people have been lifted out of abject poverty in Third World nations.

So I enjoyed watching "The True Cost" last night at Salem's Progressive Film Series. 

This is a story about clothing. It’s about the clothes we wear, the people who make them, and the impact the industry is having on our world. The price of clothing has been decreasing for decades, while the human and environmental costs have grown dramatically. The True Cost is a groundbreaking documentary film that pulls back the curtain on the untold story and asks us to consider, who really pays the price for our clothing?

Filmed in countries all over the world, from the brightest runways to the darkest slums, and featuring interviews with the world’s leading influencers including Stella McCartney, Livia Firth and Vandana Shiva, The True Cost is an unprecedented project that invites us on an eye opening journey around the world and into the lives of the many people and places behind our clothes.

There's a lot I could say about the movie, which touched me deeply. It was heartbreaking to see the working conditions in Bangladesh factories where clothes are made on the cheap. But I want to focus on one thing that wasn't spoken about in "The True Cost."

Reversing the globalization push that has led clothing manufacturers to make their wares in developing countries. 

The filmmakers were critical of how cotton is grown with nasty chemicals, how factories mistreat their workers, how environmental pollution spews from unregulated clothing factories, how wasteful the "Fast Fashion" trend is, and such.

But there wasn't any mention of closing down the Third World factories and bringing clothing manufacturing jobs back to the United States. This ship has already sailed, by and large. It may adjust its course, but it isn't making a 180 degree turn in the opposite direction.

Yes, working conditions in developing world factories need to be much improved. The employees need to be paid more. Environmental regulations need to be made stricter. Global trade, though, isn't a bad thing. 

This is the message in a Vox piece I came across today, "Free trade critics love to cite this economist. But he actually thinks trade is essential." It presents a nicely-balanced look at international trade.

Here's some excerpts:

Gordon Hanson is an economist at the University of California San Diego, and you'd expect him to be a fierce critic of free trade. He's a co-author of perhaps the most famous study showing the downside of trade for American workers, which concluded that exports from China in the 1990s and 2000s cost the US a huge number of manufacturing jobs.

Yet Hanson is anything but anti-trade. Those job losses, Hanson told me, were inevitable so long as rich countries were willing to trade with relatively poorer countries like China. Those poor countries needed trade, Hanson argues, in order to fuel the massive declines in extreme poverty we've seen since World War II.

"Exports were what allowed China to grow," Hanson told me. "We haven't seen poverty fall dramatically in any country that kept itself closed."

In other words, there was a trade-off: Rich countries lost a significant number of jobs, but poor countries gained enormously. What follows is a transcript of our conversation about why this had to be the case, edited for length and clarity.

[Following are Hanson quotes]

...We haven't seen a country that got rich, and we haven't seen poverty fall dramatically, in any country that kept itself closed. That openness is a necessary condition for development, [though] it’s not a sufficient condition.

[The export-driven growth story] was especially true in the countries that were particularly good in manufacturing, because those are the sectors where you're going to be employing lots and lots of labor. So as you engage the global economy, you're going to see this dramatic improvement in the standard of living. That was the story for East Asia. It’s also been mostly the story for Southeast Asia.

...The US, along with Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia, and other similar countries, built the global trading system through multiple rounds of negotiation for the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT), which then morphed into the WTO in 1994. Countries that liberalized said, "Okay, we're now going to join the global community of trading nations." They could join the WTO and benefit from access to markets for all those other WTO members.

If you want to think about the aspects of the US trade policy that mattered most for poverty reduction, it was that component. The bilateral deals had been much less important, in part because we're making bilateral deals with countries that had already liberalized quite a bit. NAFTA mattered, but what the US did through the seven or eight rounds of GATT and WTO negotiations over 40 years mattered much, much more.

...I think the fair statement to make is that trade is a necessary but not sufficient condition for poverty reduction.

There are plenty of countries that have fully liberalized their markets and haven’t seen big reductions in poverty. I don't think economists would say, "Trade globalization is the magic bullet. You do this and you're going to see massive reduction in poverty in the country." The evidence just doesn’t support that.

I think the evidence also doesn’t support the idea that you can have massive reductions in poverty without globalization. We just haven't seen it.

I think we've come to realize that when you talk about development, trade policy is one of many changes that need to happen in a society to allow income growth to occur.

Tom Huth talks about how marijuana makes life better

I love Tom Huth's paean to the benefits of daily marijuana smoking in his New York Times piece, "How Getting High Made Me a Better Caregiver." 

I've ordered his soon-to-be-released book: Forty Years Stoned: A Journalist's Romance. Huth clearly is both an excellent writer and an astute communicator of the joys that cannabis brings.

Here are some excerpts from his NYT essay.

I enjoyed how, right off the bat, he speaks about something marijuana users don't say often enough: experiencing the world while high often (or usually) brings people MORE in touch with reality, not less.

Santa Barbara, Calif. — I’M 74 years old, and I have smoked marijuana almost every day since dinosaurs roamed the earth in the early ’70s. When my awareness is heightened, I’m on my game — the best I can be at thinking creatively, making decisions, focusing on my work, seeing the big picture ... and caregiving.

For 20 years my wife, Anne, has struggled gallantly against the physical, cognitive, emotional and spiritual depredations of Parkinson’s disease. For the first 15, I took care of her myself. Now I have lots of help. Either way, enjoying a hit or two on the pipe every couple of hours has granted me tens of thousands of sweet clemencies that keep me from burning out as a caregiver.

Pot is my refresh button. It restores my innocence, makes the familiar look fascinating. Not all of the time, no. But enough of the time. I’m a sunnier companion when I’m high. I have more to say even when Anne can’t muster a reply.

I also really liked the passages below.

I started using marijuana and psychedelics like LSD and mescaline when I was a student at San Jose State College from 1966-71. Back then, and maybe still now, San Jose was known as the armpit of the San Francisco Bay Area. Yet like Huth, I found that getting high made the ugly look beautiful.

Or at least, awesome. Huth writes:

Often I took Anne on road trips, to stimulate our aging brains. In the mornings, while she meditated in our motel room, I hiked around the neighborhood, through the parking lots of strip-mall America. The terrain was always shockingly disabused of its natural character.

But I took those walks stoned. So one setting was just as compelling as the next: marching through the shadows of the KFC bucket and the Arby’s hat, then back into sunshine again, through the Toyota dealer’s lot — the Camrys posing with their doors flung open like a chorus line — past a payday-loan shop, a Cracker Barrel, an abandoned Kmart, a pawnshop, a Petco, their parking spaces separated by paltry no-man’s-lands of spoiled grass.

Before Anne got sick, I was a travel writer who got sent away on expeditions to New Guinea and Madagascar. Now, working the seams between one mall and the next, I didn’t have to go to the ends of the earth to have experiences that would open my eyes. Marijuana excels at helping the wanderer see beauty in the ordinary.

Huth ends with some wise words.

As marijuana moves toward legalization, advocates are rebranding it as a medicine. Esoteric cannabinoids are isolated in labs to treat specific ailments. Investors are debating the venture-capital opportunities. Our old hippie habit is being turned into a medicinal-industrial complex.

Only one subject is missing from the conversation: the marijuana high. That’s strange, because it’s still why most tokers toke — not to cure anything worse than boredom, but to wake themselves up, to feel inspired and transported and elevated by glimpses of an all-consuming all-is-wellness.

The real healer, to me, isn’t some compound extracted in a laboratory. It’s the stoned state itself: that lyrical disorientation, that rush of wonder and possibility.

Have I revealed my secret plan to sway Salem's May election?

Usually a question mark in a blog post title or newspaper headline means the answer is "No." But sometimes it is "Yes." 

That's why question marks are so marvelously mysterious! 

Check out today's post on my Salem Political Snark blog, "My (not so) secret plan to sway Salem's May election." No question mark there.

Of course, if I wanted to fool the Chamber of Commerce and others who want to keep Salem's political system just the way it is -- benefitting the already Rich and Powerful -- naturally I'd point them in the wrong direction.

Unless I didn't.

Anyway, my favorite part of the Salem Political Snark post is this sentence that was prefaced with "Politically, Salem is in a stale rut. In one long sentence, here's what this town needs to get away from:"

The Chamber of Commerce grooms right-wing people to run for local public office by getting them onto City of Salem committees and urging them to get involved with neighborhood associations, then these people run for office and, not surprisingly, get endorsed by the Chamber's Board of Directors, after which the Chamber's Political Action Committee supports them with lavish (for Salem) amounts of money, and this -- combined with the usual editorial page endorsement from the Chamber-friendly Statesman Journal newspaper, along with low voter turnout in May primary elections where local races usually are decided, allows the conservative Chamber candidates for Mayor and City Council to be elected in a liberal-leaning city.

Check out Salem Political Snark

For a long time I've written about local Salem, Oregon political issues on this blog. Recently I started a new blog, Salem Political Snark. That's where new posts about Salem politics can be found. If you're a Facebook user, give the Salem Political Snark Facebook page a "like." Then you'll get new posts in your Facebook feed. Scroll down for new HinesSight posts.

Photos of Oregon's beautiful Drift Creek Falls trail

A few days ago, Laurel, the family canine (ZuZu), and I headed off to a place here in Oregon we'd never been to before -- Drift Creek Falls.

It's not far, about 90 minutes from Salem, where we live. And quite a bit of that time was spent going the 10 miles or so to the trailhead from Highway 18, mostly on a very curvy, narrow, yet (thankfully) paved Forest Service road with a few gravel areas. 

Bring $5 with you for the vehicle fee at the trailhead, if you don't have a Recreation Pass.

The round trip from the trailhead to the falls and back is only 3 miles, 1.5 miles each way. It's an easy hike on a smooth well-traveled trail. We encountered all sorts of people -- all ages, all fitness levels, dogged and dog-free.

We picked a good day to go. Unusually warm and sunny for early April. Laurel and I aren't at all conventionally religious. But looking up, I felt a sense of natural secular sacredness.

Looking down, also. Western Oregon has been in a dry/warm spell, so the forest wasn't as moistly lush as it'd be in a more rainy period. Still, the ferns looked wonderfully fern'y.

A creek. Good place for the dog to get a drink.

Which required some leaping over a log. Well, actually it didn't. But ZuZu preferred the water on the other side of the log. Probably, from what I know of our dog's mind, because it was on the other side of the log.

A Zen-ish rock pile had been left in the water. 

Between the creek and the falls, the trees become larger.

Ah, finally! The 240 feet long suspension bridge. 

The bridge barely sways. Just enough to be interesting. 

On the other side of the bridge, views of Drift Creek Falls beckon.

Continuing down the trail, you can get down to creek level. Spring or fall would be the best time to make this hike. The falls must be much smaller in the summer.

Through my magical powers, during our spring visit I was able to make the falls temporarily small enough to fill my water bottle. It didn't take long!

The coast is just a few miles away. So after the hike, we drove the short distance up Highway 101 to Neskowin. ZuZu made friends with the dog in the far background. Some racing around the beach left her in a tongue-hanging-out mood. 

Then, ZuZu was in a sit down mood. 

There's a lot to like about Oregon. Mountains, waterfall, ocean, beach -- all within a short distance. And Neskowin Beach was pleasingly uncrowded. (I think the small white dot on the right side of the photo is a person, though.)

New posts on my Salem Political Snark blog

For a while I'll continue to plug my Salem Political Snark posts here on HinesSight, where I've done my political ranting until recently. 

Eventually I hope that HinesSight readers interested in local politics get into the habit of making Salem Political Snark a regular visit in the blogosphere.

Giving the Salem Political Snark Facebook page a "Like" is a good way to keep track of new Snarks if you're a Facebook user. Feedly is another good way. 

Anyway, here's two new Salem Political Snark posts:

"My artistic critique of 2016 Salem political yard signs"
"Mean-spirited letter to editor cheapens Salem mayoral race"

Retired folks need friends. Nature provides some for us.

I've written quite a bit about the quandary my wife and I have -- or will have one day -- about leaving our house on ten non-easy-care acres in rural south Salem, Oregon. 

(See here, here, here, here, and here.)

Age wise, we're in our late sixties. Which also happens to be the decade we were in college, the '60s. So, yeah, we're flower child, ex-hippie baby boomers. 

We're somewhat worried about eventually being socially isolated out here in the semi-boonies, about six miles from the Salem city limits. 

What if one or both of us can't drive? What if one or both of us can't handle the stairs in our multi-level house, or isn't able to walk on the dirt paths and sidewalkless streets in our neighborhood?

Well, I remember a Rumi poem that says something like, "My friend, one cannot build a dwelling out of if." Meaning (if it is possible to attribute a definite meaning to Rumi), reality is something different from what might be.

Right now we love our property. Certainly we'd like to be closer to more human friends. But moving into town, or into a retirement community, doesn't draw us at the moment. 

One reason is the friends nature provides for us. Laurel and I are far from being animists. Still, the trees, flowers, water, and other manifestations of Mother Nature we meet up with every day on our walks mean a lot to us.

Recently some Oregon sun came out after a spring rain. I took some iPhone photos on a morning walk with our dog, ZuZu.

Down by the creek, a trail we've worn through the woods beckons both the canine and her companion.

There's some massive cottonwoods along the creek. During the 26 years we've lived here, they've become more massive'y. But so slowly, they seem to be unchanging. 

I grew up near Sequoia National Park, where there are really large trees. But if I get close enough to the cottonwoods, I can feel a sort of Giant Sequoia vibe.

Nearby, there's a tree I call "Tusker." It's got a long bare limb that sticks out near head height. So far, Tusker has been kind to me. I'm pretty sure the tree is friendly. The tusk must just be for show, maybe to impress the ladies.
 
The trail that leads to the community lake is on an easement through our property, so it's more heavily traveled. Mostly by us. We rarely encounter other people. Nature, though, always says "Hello" wordlessly.

Along the lake trail, I always enjoy meeting up with this charming mossy stump. It makes me feel better about growing older and mossier myself. 

On the way to the dog Stick Play Area, where ZuZu likes to play "Throw the stick, then I'll pick it up and run away from you, instead of bringing it to you," we walk through a field of something with purple flowers. (I'm vague about vegetation names.) A brown dog butt shows ZuZu leading the way.

Looking up on a sunny spring day, I like how the new bright deciduous leaves play nice with the older more reserved evergreens. 

Returning back to our house from the dog walk, our human-made pond area has its own natural charm. Laurel, my wife, has done a great job with plantings here. A bubbler and waterfall add motion and sound to the scenery.


This is my little Taoist/Zen area by our driveway. The Oregon Grape are flowering yellowishly right now. The twin fir trees were just babies, by comparison, when we moved in back in 1990. 

I hope we'll remain in our home long enough to see the firs grow much larger. Regardless, they're part of the friends we've made with nature who won't be forgotten. 

Especially since I now have this blog post to muse over if, Tao forbid, I'm ever sitting in a rocking chair at a retirement home. 

Is calling the Salem City Council a "clown show" too harsh? Nyah.

Last night I spent 3 1/2 hours of my increasingly short senior citizen life at one of the most irritatingly unproductive government meetings I've ever seen -- a Salem City Council meeting (or maybe a work session) on plans for a new police facility.

You can read all about it over on my new Salem Political Snark blog.

I wrote much of the "Salem City Council struggles with police facility and earthquake-safety questions" before the meeting, knowing that I'd want to focus on watching the Villanova-North Carolina national championship game when I got home.

Then I updated the post on my laptop while sitting in the City Council chambers once I felt like I had a good sense of how the meeting was going to end up.

I left at 10 pm, about fifteen minutes before the meeting ended, because I was seriously worried that either my head was going to explode, or I was going to snap and start screaming This is a clown show!, which would have led to me being escorted out by the police officers in attendance, further delaying my watching of the Final Four game I'd recorded.

But as noted in the Salem Political Snark post, I watched the final part of the meeting today on a CCTV video. The vote on a final motion was just as meaningless as I thought it would be. 

So, yeah, clown show is a pretty damn good description of the current Salem City Council. Which is why I'm supporting Carole Smith for Mayor, and Cara Kaser, Sally Cook, and Matt Ausec as new city councilors. 

Salem Chamber of Commerce brain implants: an April 1 confession

Oh, man.

I got so involved with writing on my new Salem Political Snark blog about what happened today at a highly emotional Chamber of Commerce news conference, I almost forgot to share the post on HinesSight. 

I'm really proud of "Salem Chamber of Commerce admits to using brain implants to control this town." 

This is something that I've strongly suspected for a long time, along with other close observers of this town's political scene. 

Didn't have proof, though. Until a momentous day, April 1, 2016, when Chamber CEO Dan Clem decided to come clean about the brain implants. 

Check out my post about what he said, along with how Mayor Anna Peterson and Statesman Journal executive editor Michael Davis feel about being newly-brain-implant-free.