HinesSight

My annual Medicare wellness visit had its humorous side

Just to give you young'uns (meaning, anybody under 65) a preview of what you have to look forward to, here's some glimpses of how my annual Medicare Wellness Visit went today. 

First off, this really isn't a physical exam.

My primary care doctor did some perfunctory checking around -- listened to my heart to make sure it was beating, looked in my mouth to see if I had any teeth left, that sort of thing -- but a bigger part of the visit was a nurse asking me a bunch of questions before the doctor came in to the exam room about how I'm handling my 69 year-old activities of daily living .

One of my favorites was, "Have you fallen in the past year?" Which was followed by, "Are you afraid of falling?" I said No, and No.

But what I was thinking about was how I'd recently gotten up on top of our two story house and blown out leaves in the gutters with a Stihl backpack blower while walking along the edge of the roof. I couldn't resist mentioning this to my doctor, just to show how virile, brave, and studly I still am.

However, seemingly she was thinking of a different adjective, stupid, because she told me, "Maybe you should be afraid of falling."

I pretty much aced the other questions. It just was disturbing to be asked about stuff that could be in my decrepit future if I'm lucky, or maybe unlucky, enough to live that long. 

Like, "Can you fix your own meals?" And "Can you do the laundry?" Regarding the latter, I told the nurse, "Sure, but my wife doesn't let me, because I always screw up something, like shrinking her clothes or giving them a new tint by mixing colors together wrongly."

Another not-so-cheery question went like this: "So if you collapsed right now, with your breathing and heart stopped, should I try to resuscitate you with CPR?"

At first I didn't understand what the nurse was getting at.

"Are you asking if I think you know CPR?" I said. "No, I do know CPR. The question is whether you'd want to be resuscitated." I had to ponder this for a while.

My wife has told me that what happens with CPR on TV or in the movies isn't what usually happens in real life. Instead of people being brought back to life all happy and normal, supposedly many, if not most, victims suffer irreversible brain damage. So I told the nurse, "I'd have to think about this. I'm not sure."

That was a decidedly downer question.

After I left the doctor's office I couldn't help envisioning other questions that senior citizen me should have been asked that relate to activities of my daily living that have a heck of a lot more impact on my quality of life than whether I'm able (or allowed) to do the laundry. 

Like...

Are you able to grind marijuana buds and put the pot into the small receptacle of a vaporizer without spilling much on the floor?
Answer: yes. 

When you smoke weed in the bathtub at night, along with drinking a glass of red wine, do you ever feel a bit dizzy when you get out of the hot water?
Answer: damn right. That's a feature, not a glitch.

Do you remember to ask for the senior citizen discount in the check-out lane at Lifesource Natural Foods before your credit card is charged?
Answer: yes. Except when I don't.

When you're watching TV news in your La-Z-Boy chair and Donald Trump is shown speaking, can your fingers find the mute button on the remote control within five seconds?
Answer: absolutely. It's a reflex action.

Are you aware when you've told the exact same stories repeatedly to your granddaughter about how cool it was during your college days in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1960s -- Summer of Love, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, psychedelics, Vietnam War protests, flower power, etc. etc.
Answer: yes. And I'm going to keep telling those stories anyway.

Do you have any problem with hearing your wife when she is telling you that you aren't loading the dishwasher correctly?
Answer: no. I just pretend that I do.

Are you ever prone to cognitive errors such as believing that when the youthful Starbucks barista smiles at you after handing over a grande nonfat vanilla latte, she has the hots for gray-haired old men?
Answer: sure, all the time. Fantastical thinking is how I'm getting through my senior years.

"Mingling of the Tribes" effort could help to heal divisiveness in Salem

I don't know if this is a great idea, a crazy idea, a great crazy idea, or some other variety of idea (such as, worthless).

I just keep envisioning the notion of a citywide Mingling of the Tribes effort here in Salem that would bring people together in these divisive times to better understand our differences and foster respectful communication, while having fun in the process -- without trying to force agreements.

Back in March I took my first blog post crack at this idea in "Salem should have an annual political roast: 'A Mingling of the Tribes.'"

Nationally, politics is really divisive. Less so in Oregon. Here in Salem, we're kind of at a middling state of political tension. Intense nastiness rarely is overt, but under the surface irritations fester.

Conservatives, progressives, and everybody in-between (or something else) never are going to hold hands and sing kumbaya together.  But I've got a more realistic goal:

Local politicians and other community leaders get together annually for a good-hearted roast of each other and, equally importantly, themselves. 

...I sort of like this name for the roast: “A Mingling of the Tribes." By tribe, I mean a collection of like-minded people who normally hang out mostly with each other. Salem has many "tribes" with different political, cultural, religious, and other sorts of views.

So I like the theme of mingling, strange bedfellows, that sort of thing.

This morning, during my half-baked barely-concentrating daily attempt at meditation, I found myself thinking, a common occurrence when I'm trying not to think, about the Mingling of the Tribes idea.

Once again it hit me that what bothers me the most about the state of our country today is the divisiveness. I readily admit that I've contributed to this in my progressive zeal to change things. Conservatives do the same thing, divide.

There's got to be a better way. That way isn't going to happen at the national or even state level. If it is going to happen, it will have to happen at a local level where people can meet face-to-face and talk eye-to-eye. 

I realized that I'd like to go beyond the original Mingling of the Tribes idea that I talked about in the March blog post, yet still include the roast notion. 

I envisioned a community-wide ongoing effort with a goal of getting different "tribes" in Salem to understand each other better, to communicate with each other more effectively, while still feeling free to fight for what one believes in fairly, respectfully, truthfully, and vigorously.

An image that came to mind is football teams eating together before a bowl game and exchanging back-slapping hugs after the game. During the game they battle. Before and after, they mingle. A time for each. 

I'd love to see the Statesman Journal and Salem Weekly each get behind a Mingling of the Tribes effort.

I have ideas for how this would go. But almost certainly how anybody thinks it would go isn't how it would actually go. The goal would be to spark some collegial fires in Salem and not worry overly much where or how they spread.

Web site. Facebook page. Community events. Videos. Neighborhood association presentations. And yes, an annual roast. Lots of possibilities. 

My wife is a retired clinical social worker who was a psychotherapist in private practice. She knows a lot about how to guide people who vehemently disagree on certain issues to interact positively with each other. I'm sure she'd be glad to advise on the Mingling of the Tribes idea.

I'm not thinking only politically.

Salem also has divisions along economic, racial, ethnic, religious, geographic, cultural, sexual preference, and other sorts of divides. There are countless opportunities to get people talking with each other who strongly disagree on specific issues, yet almost certainly agree on many others, including the basics of living in a complex, often-frustrating world.

Anyway, I just wanted to share these rough ideas that came to me today for what they're worth. Which may not be much. This Mingling of the Tribes idea may be too crazy to pursue. It just feels right to me, especially at this time in our country's history.

Our retirement community conundrum continues

Channelling Kermit the Frog a bit, "It's not that easy being green growing old."

My wife and I are in our late sixties. We've been trying to figure out where we should live for quite a while, certainly since I wrote "I'm 65. Where's my 'Aging Hippie' retirement community?" back in 2013. (For all my posts on this subject, including this one, scroll through this blog's Retirement Community category,)

We've toured five retirement or continuing care communities in the Northwest, four in Oregon, one in Washington: Hillside in McMinnville; Panorama in Lacey, Washington; Touchmark in Bend; Mary's Woods in Lake Oswego; and most recently, Capital Manor here in Salem. 

There's a signed "Wait List Agreement" from Capital Manor sitting by my laptop at the moment. I was all set to take it over to the salesperson yesterday, but then emailed her, saying we needed a few more days to think about forking over $5,000 to get on a waiting list for a three-bedroom house.

It isn't the money that created qualms, since all but $500 of the $5,000 is refundable if we changed our minds about Capital Manor. 

Rather, it's the quandary of what retirement-living path we want to head toward -- knowing that whatever decision we make, life may have a different future in mind for us. (Not that life actually has a mind, we're irreligious.) 

When we met with the Capital Manor salesperson last Wednesday, I arrived at her office first, since my wife and I drove separately.

As we were waiting for Laurel to show up, I shared my usual commentary when we visit a retirement community. Proving that my memory is still pretty damn good, what I said was almost exactly what I wrote last year in "Why it makes sense for seniors to postpone living in a retirement community."

The bold-faced parts are quotes that I disagreed with from a story that amounted to a sales pitch for retirement communities. 

(1) "There are advantages to making the transition at a younger age." This assumes that seniors know the future. Which, of course, nobody does. I don't know how long I'm going to live, or what the cause of my death will be. What if I moved into a retirement community that I wasn't really wild about because I envisioned myself growing old and infirm there -- then died in a head-on crash with an out-of-control semi on the freeway a year or so later?

My last thought would be, "Shit, I shouldn't have moved, because I could have spent my last year happier in our rural home, rather than in the retirement community, and now I'm about to di..."

Us baby boomers came of age in the live for the moment 1960's.  Now we're in our 60's. Planning ahead is fine. However, so is enjoying life right here, right now. Finding the balance between planning for a possible future, and living in the reality of the present moment, this is a central dilemma for seniors.

Our leaning is toward now, a more vibrant reality than could be.

...(3) Moving when you're younger and more able-bodied also allows for the opportunity... To be with older and less able-bodied people in a retirement community. This is a fact.

My stock line when we talk with a salesperson who has just shown us around a retirement community is, "Thanks for the tour. You've got a nice place here, but I'm freaked out by how many old folks we saw."

That's meant to be humorous. But I'm also serious. 

It's depressing for me to see old people getting around with walkers, and sitting at card tables playing something-or-other on a nice warm sunny day. I realize that this often is what happens with increasing age. But since my wife and I are pretty darn healthy at the moment, and don't feel as old as our driver's licenses say we are, we look upon retirement communities with a decidedly wary eye.

Capital Manor is a continuing care community. Meaning, they offer nursing home, memory care, hospice and other services, in addition to being a retirement community. '

The catch is that continuing care communities have something in their contract that is akin to a pre-existing condition exclusion in an insurance policy. You have to be able to live independently when you buy in to Capital Manor. This makes sense, because otherwise people would wait until they needed nursing home care, or whatever, before they signed up to join a continuing care community, thereby vastly increasing the cost of caring for the pool of residents.

But the real problem for us is what I said in (1) above. 

We aren't wild about the independent living homes at Capital Manor, or any other retirement community we've visited. Where we live now is much more attractive and comfortable. Plus, we have nature trails and a lake right outside the doors of our rural home on ten acres.

So moving into a retirement or continuing care community entails a gamble on our part that we'd live long enough, and head downhill physically or mentally enough, to need the health care services that such a community provides. And these services would have to be better than what we could obtain by "aging in place" in our own home.

It's a tough decision. We're leaning to sort of splitting the difference by more avidly looking into the possibility of buying a house inside the Salem city limits and selling our rural house. 

Our goal, and it may be kind of difficult to achieve, is to find a house in town that has the same vibe as our much-beloved rural house. That is, the house and its surroundings should have flavors of naturalness, trees, relaxed, walkable, dog-friendly, large windows, and as quiet as possible, given the realities of city life.

A realtor is coming to our house next Monday to look it over, give us a sense of what we could get for it, and advise us on how to move forward with our plans.

Of course, we're going to have to tell him that our plans are flexible.

We have no interest in moving just for the sake of moving. A new house has to scream Yes, Yes, Yes to us, not I'd be OK, probably. So far no retirement or continuing care community has spoken to us in that fashion, which is why we're leaning toward finding an easier-to-maintain house in Salem.

I love my Allbirds shoes. They make my feet smile.

I'm a man who adores lightweight comfortable shoes. Being a 69 year old man, I also need my shoes to be supportive. Not in a psychological sense, but as in arch-support. 

My newfound shoe love is called Allbirds. 

They're made of wool. I'm unsure why they aren't called Allsheep.

The "Our Story" page on the Allbirds website talks a lot about merino wool, and mentions sheep, but there's nothing about birds, except for this about the founders (isn't "bird" Australian slang for "woman"?:

After careers in professional sport and biotech, our wives brought us together. We bonded over birds and beers, and a shared dedication to asking “why” and “what if” a lot. We joined forces to build a brand and business that makes better products in a better way.

Anyway, after I heard about Allbirds I checked out some reviews. See here, here, here, here, and here. They were so positive, if not ecstatic -- most comfortable shoes ever! -- I decided to get a pair of both the Runners (laces) and Loungers (no laces).

Great decision. I've worn them every day for several weeks, the Runners outside and the Loungers inside our home. Here's my happy feet.

Allbirds Runners

Allbirds Loungers

You'll see a touch of blue in the right Lounger shoe.

Even though the Allbirds were very comfortable with the stock insert, I put some Neutral Core Sport inserts from the Walking Company in both pairs, which made them even more comfortable, in my highly personal opinion. 

I can truly say, along with others, that these are the most comfortable shoes I've ever worn. They make my feet smile. It's partly the soft wool, but the soles also play a large part. They're flexible, yet still supportive.

I've been wearing Abeo Lite shoes from the Walking Company because I can't stand heavy shoes. Well, on the lightness front the Allbirds Lounger beats Abeo Lite, while the Allbirds Runner is just a touch heavier. Here's the tale of the scale (with original inserts). 

A Walking Company Abeo Lite shoe weighs in at just under 9 ounces.

The Allbirds Runner shoe weights a bit more than 9 1/2 ounces.

And the Allbirds Lounger is a way-light 8 ounces. 

Read the reviews I linked to above if you want lots of detail about the marvels of Allbirds shoes from people who know a lot more about shoes than I do. 

All I really want to say is what I've already said: I love Allbirds shoes. They're super comfortable. 

Plus, I've gotten some great comments on them from friends who like both how they look and how they feel. My shoes have gotten patted a lot. 

Lastly, Allbirds come in some creative packaging. The shoe box that arrived in the mail didn't need to put into an extra box, because it was its own box. Kind of difficult to describe; easy to see.

Allbirds box, one shoe goes in each side.

Allbirds box folded up 

Here's how I feel about my atonic, underactive, neurogenic, screwed-up bladder

Regarding the title of this blog post, in two words, IT SUCKS. Big time. 

Before I elaborate on this, let me address what I tell myself, and what my wife tells me: there are many worse health problems. 

For sure.

Aside from not being able to pee properly without the aid of self-catheterization -- not fun, but better than getting kidney failure from a backed-up bladder -- I'm basically a pretty damn healthy 69 year old guy. 

I wouldn't trade my bladder problem for, say, cancer, heart disease, or loss of a limb. And I've no doubt that people with more serious medical problems than a FUB (fucked-up bladder) have good reason to tell me, Dude, consider yourself lucky.

Look, I know all this. Yet I'm still seriously pissed-off at not being able to pee.

I've described my urinary retention travails in previous posts in this blog's "My Peeing Problem" category. Most recently, I had a third urologist tell me that, to put this in non-clinical terms, I'm screwed. 

Not for a while. Not until drugs, or surgery, or pelvic floor therapy, or whatever, does its thing. For the rest of my life. My bladder, I've been told, has decided to go on strike for the duration. 

Well, more accurately it's on a perpetual work slowdown. I can still pee a little bit, but not nearly enough to keep up with what's coming into my bladder. So four or five times a day I use a catheter to do what my bladder no longer can handle: getting rid of urine.

As a journal article puts it, this is the Other Bladder Syndrome: Underactive Bladder.

Mostly people talk about needing to go too often. Indeed this was my problem until about six months ago. I had a mildly enlarged prostate that I thought was being treated adequately with Flomax and Avodart. 

I'd have to get up several times at night to pee, then go back to bed. On long flights I'd head to the lavatory more often than most of the other people on the plane. During intermission at a play I'd visit the restroom... just in case.

Belatedly, I now realize that I should have paid more attention to some increasing problems. Like, taking longer to get a urine stream going. And a few times, not being able to pee at all for a few hours, even though my bladder was full. 

Live and learn, as they say.

Unfortunately, I learned too late and am now suffering the lifelong consequences. As one urologist told me, the progression of BPH, an enlarging prostate, can occur so slowly, so gradually, it is like the proverbial frog being boiled in water.

If the heat is turned up slowly, it's hard to tell what's going on. Until you're cooked. Which, apparently, my bladder is.

Frustratingly, I've been told by several urologists, "You don't have a prostate problem; you have a bladder problem." But when I've pointed out that it must have been my prostate problem that led to my bladder problem, I basically have been told that it really doesn't matter what the cause was -- my bladder has stopped working, regardless.

So one reason I'm writing this post is to urge men to go to a urologist sooner rather than later. Don't ignore symptoms like taking a long time to get your urine flow going, or not being able to pee at all for a few hours even though you really need to go. 

I thought I was OK. I figured the medications I was on for BPH would take care of my prostate problem. I had no idea that an enlarged prostate could lead to a non-functioning bladder. 

Like I said before, I was an idiot.

I ignored signs of impending urinary function doom because, well, just because. It wasn't that I tried to fuck up my bladder. That just happened, and now I've got to deal with a majorly sucky situation for as long as I live, according to three urologists.

An old friend had a favorite saying: No one's life is ever completely wasted. They can always serve as a horrible example to others. 

I'm hoping that by yelling loudly enough through my blog, and maybe other social media, I can reach at least a few other guys who might otherwise ignore the "gradually boiling frog" of what could become a serious bladder condition. 

I don't like my catheter-filled life, yet I've got no choice now but to deal with it. Other men with an enlarged prostate who are at risk of developing acute urinary retention that could turn into chronic urinary retention -- my fate -- you do have a choice. 

Don't follow my horrible example.

Do what I didn't do. Make an appointment with a urologist. Get checked out. Don't think that just because your family doctor has prescribed some prostate medications that seem to be working OK, you'll be able to pee pretty much normally for the rest of your life.

I thought that. I was wrong. And now my life sucks. Don't follow in my idiotic footsteps. Be smarter than me. In another post I'll explain exactly how my life sucks. For now, just believe me. It does.

(There are various terms for an under-functioning bladder: atonic, neurogenic. This Medscape article has lots of information about a neurogenic bladder. I forced myself to read it even though it was depressing. But if you want to motivate yourself to avoid getting a screwed-up bladder like mine, take a look at "Neurogenic Bladder.")

Breaking news about Salem "Watergate" scandal

YES, SALEM, OREGON HAS ITS OWN "WATERGATE" SCANDAL.

City staff aren't adequately watering downtown hanging baskets.

So says my informant, who would go nameless if I didn't say it was Carole Smith, a downtown business owner and resident. I have broken this story in hopes that a Floral Pulitzer Prize will be mine. (Well, mine and Carole's.)

Click below to view our exposé. Be warned: some of the photos are graphic, showing horribly mistreated vegetation.

Five observations about Ed Asner's show, "A Man and His Prostate"

Last night my wife and I saw Ed Asner perform "A Man and His Prostate" at the Elsinore Theatre here in Salem, Oregon.  

It's an entertaining reading by Asner of what a different Ed, Ed Weinberger, wrote concerning what he went through after he collapsed while on a vacation in Italy. Since I'm not going to describe the show in much detail, you can read a review to learn about it. 

What I want to do is share five observations of A Man and His Prostate based on my personal experience of being also a man, with a prostate, who has had prostate problems of his own.

(1) Funny to hear about, not so amusing to experience. Weinberger's writing and Asner's performance are wonderfully light-hearted.

It was great to view the humorous side of a prostate problem. But I can pretty much guarantee that when Weinberger was experiencing his prostate travails ("two hours from kidney failure" due to urinary retention, we learn) there wasn't nearly as much amusement in them.

This isn't a criticism of the show, nor of the copious laughter that accompanied Asner's reading. It's just an observation that if someone with a serious prostate problem is overly sensitive, they might find that parts of the show hit an emotional tender spot.

(2) Flomax isn't as scary as Asner's side effects bit proclaims. Asner said Flomax, a commonly prescribed drug that makes it easier to urinate, "has more side effects than a divorce." 

That's certainly true. As regards potential side effects, at least.

But virtually every prescription drug comes with a disturbingly long list of possible side effects. Asner correctly said that dizziness is one of them, and I did indeed experience some dizziness after I took my first Flomax and got out of bed that night to, naturally, pee. 

But my bout of dizziness lasted only one day. Since, I haven't noticed any Flomax side effects. Your results may vary, of course. And I have to admit that this statement about Flomax on the Drugs.com site is worthy of making a joke about. 

Flomax may impair your thinking or reactions. Be careful if you drive or do anything that requires you to be alert.

(3) My doctors always have done a digital prostate exam at my annual physical. Ever since I turned forty or thereabouts, I'm pretty sure I've always gotten the not-so-fun digital, as in finger, prostate exam that plays a pretty prominent role in A Man and His Prostate.

By its absence. Weinberger, as read by Asner, complains to his doctor (during a phone call after he was admitted to a Florence hospital) that he'd never gotten a finger up the ass in the many years they've had a doctor-patient relationship. 

This surprised me. I've always figured that men of a certain age get their prostate felt by their doctor through the rectum wall as a matter of course. I wrote about my experience of this after switching to a woman physician in "Female doctors do it better."

Naturally I was curious as to how the most intimate and least favorite part of a middle-aged male annual physical exam would go. I’m pleased to report, just fine. This was the first time that my prostate had been examined by a female doctor and I can confidently say that, based on this sample of one, women do it better.

More gentle, for sure. Smaller fingers are nice. More communicative too. This was my first prostate exam where I got a running verbal commentary from the doctor: “Hmmmm. Feels pretty normal. Regularly shaped. Just about normal size. Well, let’s make that a normal size for men your age who have a somewhat enlarged prostate.”

Great. A prostate exam is the only time you don’t want to hear from a female who is inspecting your genital area that you’re larger than average. Maybe Flomax will get me nearer to normal.

(4) There's good reasons to either get, or decline, a PSA test for prostate cancer. Actually the mention of a PSA test only came up after Asner's reading when a Salem Health (sponsor of the local show) physician talked about the importance of screening for prostate cancer, which is a major killer of men. 

I've gone back and forth on getting a PSA test after the United States Preventive Services Task Force recommended in 2011 against getting the test in most cases. I talked about this in "Why I still decided to get a PSA test" and "My prostate is featured in the AARP Bulletin!"

My basic feeling, which is still my current feeling, is that the results of a PSA test provide information that either can be accepted or ignored depending on a man's personal circumstances. The test isn't very accurate, but a positive result should lead to consideration of other sorts of tests than point to whether a prostate is cancerous. 

(5) Asner's worries about impotence after prostate surgery were amusing. My favorite part of the show was near the end, when Asner relates Weinberger's anxiety about not being able to get an erection following surgery (even after viewing Italian porn on his hotel room TV), with his wife arriving the next day. 

He has the bright idea that a massage with a "happy ending" is called for. And it would be for his wife -- an oft-repeated statement that always got laughs from the audience. 

Eventually we learn that there was indeed a happy ending to this tale, though not the one initially envisioned. 

Now, I'm no expert on impotence following prostate surgery. However, I do know that low dose daily Cialis has been approved by the FDA as a treatment for men who have both an enlarged prostate and erectile dysfunction at the same time. 

Just an observation, along with the four others that I've listed.

Bottom line: if you have the chance, go see A Man and His Prostate. Ed Asner is going to be 88 in a few days. It was inspiring to me, a comparatively young 69 year old, to see Asner perform the show so competently and vigorously. 

Hey, Congress, don't take away my state and local tax deductions

These days the Republicans in Congress and the White House are adept at doing stuff that irritates my sense of fairness. But usually it doesn't directly affect me. Or at least, not much.

For example, attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act upset me because of the horrendous impact this would have on millions of people who have insurance through Obamacare. Yet since I'm on Medicare, repeal wouldn't have meant much to me personally.

The tax reform efforts that are making their way through the House and Senate committees are different, though. One thing that grabs my attention is the proposal to do away with deductions for state income taxes and local property taxes. 

I live in Oregon. Oregon doesn't have a sales tax.

So to keep state government going we have a high income tax: for couples the rate is 5% up to an income of $6,700, then 7% up to an income of $16,800, and 9% on income between $16,800 and $250,000 -- after which the rate is 9.9%. Obviously Oregon's income tax is quite regressive, since a rate in the 9% range hits every couple with an income between $16,800 and a gazillion dollars.

Our property taxes also are high.

They are restricted, capped, or something I don't really understand owing to several citizen initiatives that passed many years ago. Regardless, property taxes obviously are particularly high in cities like Portland that approve lots of bond measures.

My wife and I live in a rural area, so our property taxes are lower. Still, we're paying over $500 more a year now after voters approved a school bond in the May 2017 election.

Now, I'm no tax expert. But I just spent about twenty minutes Googling the question of state and local tax deductibility, so I know more than I did before researching this topic.

What I found doesn't change my sense of unfairness at the efforts in Congress to either markedly scale back the deduction for state income and property taxes, or eliminate it entirely. 

A CNN Money piece irked me the most, "There's a loophole in GOP's plan to kill the state and local tax deduction." It says that while individuals won't be able to claim these deductions, most pass-through businesses would. 

But tax experts have spotted what appears to be a big exception to the repeal: The owners, shareholders and investors in so-called pass-through businesses would still be allowed to deduct their state and local taxes in full.

The provision allows the deduction if the state and local taxes are "paid or accrued in carrying on a trade or a business ... [or on expenses related to] production of income."

As for everyone else who currently takes the SALT deduction? Sorry, Charlie, no can do.

Pass-throughs make up the majority of U.S. businesses. They take the form of sole proprietorships, LLCs or S corps. And those with an ownership stake in them pay taxes on the entity's profits on their individual returns.

So for them, under the House bill, state and local taxes could be treated as a business expense on their personal return. That would include President Trump, who typically structures his businesses as pass-throughs.

But ordinary employees of such businesses would still be barred from taking the deduction against their wages.

This is ridiculous. Some people would get to deduct state and local taxes as a business expense, while ordinary employees and retired folks like us wouldn't. 

There's a good argument to be made that not allowing the deductibility of state and local taxes, SALT, is double taxation. Sure, a piece by the Tax Foundation argues otherwise. But if those arguments are valid (and I don't think they are), then the deduction for state and local taxes should be eliminated for everybody, businesses as well as individuals.

The Tax Policy Center has good information on this subject, noting that while 29% of federal returns overall claim the SALT deduction, higher income households are much more likely to claim a deduction for state and local taxes. So politically, the suburban voters who just gave Democrats big wins in yesterday's elections would be hit the hardest by a tax reform bill that axes this deduction. 

Lastly, an opinion piece by a tax expert, "The GOP gets a big part of its tax plan backward," makes some good points about the relative wisdom of allowing deductions for state versus local taxes. 

The House Republican tax plan proposes repealing much of the state and local tax deduction, allowing individuals to deduct up to $10,000 of local property taxes but eliminating the rest of the deduction. This gets sound tax policy precisely backward. Smart tax reform would allow taxpayers to deduct what they pay to states — and would end the deduction for local taxes.

...Understanding that the state and local deduction is in fact two deductions is important because states and localities fund very different things.

Local taxes typically benefit those within relatively homogeneous localities in a way that is similar to a purchase of private goods. When residents pay local taxes, those taxes fund local schools, parks and recreation, police and fire agencies, and so on, that provide a relatively direct benefit to those paying the taxes. Wealthy individuals benefit from their local taxes in much the same way they benefit from purchasing a membership to a private club. No one seriously argues that a membership to a private club should be deductible, yet in effect that is what the deduction for local taxes allows.

State taxes, on the other hand, are less like private purchases because states spend a significantly higher percentage of their revenue on redistributive programs, such as state welfare programs, funding for poor school districts and health care for low-income residents. When wealthy individuals, who gain the most benefit from deductibility because they pay higher marginal tax rates, pay state taxes, that cost looks more like a charitable contribution than a membership in a private club, and so a deduction is more justified.

Therefore, smart tax policy would allow taxpayers to deduct the cost of state income taxes while eliminating the deduction for local property taxes. As it happens, because local taxes account for approximately half the overall deduction, this change would raise approximately $500 billion over the next decade.

Instead, House Republicans propose doing just the opposite. By retaining deductibility for local property taxes, their approach would continue to disproportionately subsidize wealthy, country-club-like localities, albeit to a smaller degree for the wealthiest towns and cities because of the $10,000 cap. And by eliminating deductibility for state taxes, the tax plan would end the federal government’s subsidy for state governments, which spend a significant percentage of their revenue on redistributive programs.

So at least maintain the deduction for state taxes, Congress.

However, I'd be even happier if the whole tax reform effort failed, because it's mainly a giveaway to corporations that are already doing just fine, while screwing over many middle class people with either a minuscule tax reduction or even a tax increase.

Next Fall is a great Enlightened Theatrics play. Go see it!

Main point of this review: There's five days left to see Enlightened Theatrics' current production, the play Next Fall. Get your tickets. Now. The last shows are Wednesday-Sunday, November 8-12. My wife and I loved Next Fall -- one of the most enjoyable plays we've ever seen.

There's even a two-for-one ticket offer that likely still holds:

Next Fall is about a gay couple who bicker, argue, make up, break apart, drive each other crazy, help each other be sane, cry, laugh, and otherwise display all the strengths and weaknesses of every other long-term committed couple, homosexual, heterosexual, whateversexual.

Having seen other Enlightened Theatrics shows, we expected the acting to be superb. Indeed, it was. 

But what blew me away was how natural the six actors were.

Never, not once, did I think "That line sounded like self-conscious acting" (a thought I often have even with famous actors in big-budget films). The dialogue seemed 100% real. And we had great front row seats, so even a whisper of inauthenticity wouldn't have escaped us.

This speaks volumes about both the quality of the actors being showcased in Salem by Enlightened Theatrics and the directing ability of home town director Vincenzo Meduri. 

We Salemians are super-fortunate to be able to see a play like Next Fall for a reasonable price, not to mention being able to buy popcorn that doesn't cost more than the ticket, and be able to eat it in my seat (before the play started, not during, I hasten to add). 

Wikipedia tells me Next Fall first opened off-Broadway in 2009. So it must have been written by Geoffrey Nauffts sometime sooner.

Now, I'm not gay, and my understanding of what it means to be gay today is almost entirely based on hearsay, not direct conversations with gay people. So maybe my feeling while watching Next Fall -- things must be better now, aren't they? -- is wrong.

Like I said, the acting was entirely natural and believable.

I just couldn't help but wonder whether two forty-something gay guys would have so much trouble today coming out to their parents. (Well, actually only one of the guys in the play has this problem; the other has his own problems, some Woody Allen'ish as regards his obsessive health anxieties.)

One thunderous compliment I can extend to the cast and crew of Next Fall is that I heard my wife laugh out loud at least once. This is almost unheard of for Laurel at a play, as she, like me, is almost entirely prone to inaudible inward amusement. 

So congrats to Nauffts and Paul Bright (Adam) for the line that got Laurel laughing -- as I recall, Adam's mention that someone's guilt over gay sex struck him as akin to the guy dressing in leather and flagellating himself with a whip, which Adam notes is "something that I'd like to see."

Sin-related guilt has a big role in the play.

Adam is an atheist. Luke, his live-in lover, is a Christian. Their discussions about religion aren't so much theological as relational, which makes them way more interesting. In fact, my main after-play question concerned whether Adam viewed Jesus or another gay guy as the central intruder into his loving relationship with Luke.

Which was fitting, for the play is so subtly written, there's little room for rooting for one character over another. Sure, since my wife and I are atheists we felt that Adam mostly got the better of Luke when they argued over religion.

But the Director's Note in the program is spot on.

At this very moment in our country and in our world, we are continually being forced to pick a side. We are pressured to divide ourselves based on differing opinions and beliefs... This way of thinking has permeated so deeply within ourselves that we as a civilized community have forgotten what it is to empathize with anyone or anything that is different from ourselves.

...I hope this production gives our audience a chance to really examine what it means to choose a "side." I hope this production creates a dialogue about empathy and how we communicate with each other. I hope audiences gain courage to continue to live in truth and peace, and I look forward to our audiences leaving with a greater appreciation for their own loved ones.

Life is short and precious and love is the greatest gift we can give.

Nicely said, Vincenzo Meduri. 

Today at least 26 people were killed in a Texas church shooting. Listening to news of this tragedy on my car radio, I heard these sorts of sentiments from people in the small town where the murders occurred.

"Trust in faith." "Know that they're with God." "So many prayers are going out to the community." "May God comfort them all."

Ordinarily I'm annoyed by religious proclamations like these. My atheist mind, which works quite a bit like Adam's, will think such things as If God has the power to comfort the living, why didn't he use his power to prevent the 26 deaths?

But having seen Next Fall the night before, and being moved by how religious faith -- even if misguided -- supports believers in dealing with tragedies that otherwise would make no sense to them, I was more understanding of those who looked to God in a time of horrible hurt.

This isn't my way. However, there are lots of ways.

In Next Fall Adam and Luke managed to find common ground that transcended their Christianity and atheism. As Meduri said above, love was the key. 

(A New York Times review of the off-Broadway production, "Love With a Proper Atheist and Other Leaps of Faith,"  is well worth reading.)

More misguided cougar and wolf hysteria strikes Oregon

Oh, my! Lock the doors and keep the children inside! A cougar may have killed a house cat in Seaside, Oregon. So all student activities at Seaside Elementary School were moved indoors. 

Which is ridiculous, because while cougars may kill cats (so will dogs, of course, and much more often), a cougar has never killed a human in Oregon. 

As I said in "Danger warning! -- people and dogs sighted in Salem park," what Seaside school authorities really should be concerned about are adult men and family dogs roaming around near the playground.

I've done some research to quantify the relative risk of being killed by (1) a person, (2) a dog, and (3) a cougar. These United States statistics cover 2001-2010, the previous ten years.

There were 162,230 homicides during that decade, an average of 16,223 per year. In 2010, ninety percent of the killers were men, according to the FBI. Fifty-three percent of murder victims were killed by someone they knew; a quarter were slain by a family member.

The lesson: if you spot a man in a park, be fearful. Especially if you know him. Males you've met before are the most dangerous killing creatures any human will ever encounter. 

Dogs are considerably less likely to kill you. Still, 263 people were slain by dogs over the last ten years, an average of 26 per year. 

What about cougars?

Most people are more afraid of cougars than of their fellow humans or dogs. But they shouldn't be. Cougars killed just 3 people in the United States from 2001-2010. That's an average of .3 per year.

So you're 54,000 times more likely to be killed by a person (probably a man) than by a cougar. And you're 87 times more likely to be killed by a dog, than by a cougar. This is why, if you value your life, people and dogs should be feared much more than cougars.

Unfortunately, irrationality reigns when it comes to wildlife. Why? Seemingly because they're wild. We're used to seeing men and dogs in parks. Cougars are rare, so people freak out when one is sighted.

Then there's the case of the hunter in eastern Oregon who shot and killed a wolf, claiming self-defense. His story is highly suspicious, for a number of reasons.

For one thing, he admits that at first he thought he saw three coyotes moving around him. Then he claims that one of the animals ran at him. Supposedly fearing for his life, he shot and killed the animal, which turned out to be a woif -- which can't be killed by hunters in Oregon unless it is a case of self-defense.

The man's story started to unravel when it was revealed that his bullet entered the side of the wolf and exited the other side. So the wolf couldn't have been running at him when it was shot. 

The pictures and police report paint a different picture, according to wolf advocacy group Oregon Wild... Steve Pedery, the nonprofit's conservation director, said in an email that he'd like to see further investigation of the hunting incident. He's not convinced the animal was running at the hunter, and questioned why the wounds are on the animal's side. 

"How can a wolf that is moving away from someone be a threat?" Pedery said, "and why would ODFW [Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife) sign off on a report that is directly contradicted by the evidence?"

A commenter on the original Oregonian story, "Go Figure," makes some great points.

According to information and photos described by KGW, the wounds on the animal are inconsistent with the description of the wolf running toward the shooter. Instead, it seems the wolf was running away from the shooter at an angle, the bullet having entered mid-body and exited through the front of the animal at the left shoulder.

"The wolf has what appears to be an entry [wound] on her right [side], midway between the hind quarters and front shoulder. A larger exit wound appears to exist near the front left shoulder of the wolf."

If the hunter was fearful of being attacked by coyotes (he said he assumed they were coyotes until closer inspection) that were surrounding him at close range, which would prevent shooting toward all of them, a quick and reasonable first response would be a warning shot into the dirt. And, indeed, the hunter describes the animals he did not kill, which were protected wolves, immediately ran away after his one shot.

Western United States wild wolf attacks on an adult human who is not running (1) in mild weather, (2) in an area of plentiful game, (3) with no record of the wolves becoming habituated to a human population, or (4) being fed in the area are, to the best of my knowledge, unheard-of. That should have cast doubt on the hunter's story of being targeted by a group of wolves as if he was prey.

In any case, the evidence does not match the story, and the story is inconsistent with not wanting to harm animals he was not hunting. It seems likely that he may have poached a protected wolf, then, upon conferring with his buddies, hatched a cover story to try to avoid responsibility for an illegal kill. Certainly, based on the description of the photographic evidence alone, further investigation is warranted.

For sure, further investigation is warranted. Wolf attacks on humans are extremely rare. 

Despite what The Onion might have you believe, wolf attacks are exceedingly rare. In 2010, a fatal wolf attack in Alaska marked only the second documented case ever of a wolf killing someone in the wild. There are some 77,000 wolves in North America. The first-ever confirmed case of fatal wolf attack in the wild in North America occurred in 2005, when Kenton Carnegie was attacked by a pack of wolves in Saskatchewan, Canada.

In 2006, the San Francisco Chronicle found evidence of only 27 non-fatal wolf attacks on humans in North America. Most of those cases involved rabid wolves, which are themselves exceedingly rare, according to the Chronicle.

So it's very, very unlikely that the hunter, Brian Scott, actually was attacked by a wolf. Probably what happened is that Scott thought the animals were coyotes, decided to shoot one of them, and then made up a story after realizing he had killed a protected wolf.

We've got to get beyond irrational fairy tales about Big Bad Wolves. Just as with cougars, wolves are hugely less of a threat to humans than other people and dogs are. Live and let live should be our basic wolf and cougar policy, not shoot on sight.