HinesSight

Black Butte Ranch roads have lessons for Salem streets

Salem, like almost all cities, isn't a pleasant place to drive around in. The exceptions are quiet residential neighborhoods where the speed limit is low, 25 mph or a bit higher, and the streets are narrow with plenty of trees.

That's why the roads in central Oregon's Black Butte Ranch, where my wife and I have owned a 1/4 share in a vacation house for about four years, can teach Salem streets some valuable lessons.

Wikipedia says that the permanent residents in Black Butte Ranch only numbered 366 in the 2010 census. But "During the peak tourist season, the population, including guests who do not own property but are renting residences within the community, is estimated to rise to 5,000."

That's considerable. and the many residences in Black Butte Ranch require the same services as any other place. Trash trucks. Construction equipment. Fire engines. Everything that a community of just about any size needs its roads to accommodate.

Yet driving around Black Butte Ranch is highly pleasurable, as is bicycling. Here's some photos taken near our house that explain why.

The speed limit is 25 mph. There aren't any painted lines on the roads, except for bike paths that sometimes run along a road. And in places there are delightful tree islands where the road splits around them. 

I love how there aren't any reflective markers on this side of the trees to warn drivers of what's ahead.

There aren't any reflective markers on the other side of the trees either. Whenever I approach these trees, I'm jolted into increased awareness of my driving, a very good thing.

Same is true of not having lines down the middle of the road. When two vehicles approach, each has to adjust to the other -- rather than assuming that if I'm on my side of the road, everything is fine.

Behold! Cars do just fine driving on a low speed limit road with no lane markings, no side of the road markings, and large trees in the middle of two traffic lanes.

Lastly, most of the pedestrian/bicycle paths are separated from roads. (See bike path on the left.) This makes walking and biking around Black Butte Ranch safe and pleasurable. 

Obviously it wouldn't be possible to transfer how Black Butte Ranch handles its roads and bike paths directly to Salem. But it sure would be nice if the City of Salem adopted the same basic principles:

-- Keep speed limits as low as possible
-- Preserve trees and other aspects of nature whenever possible
-- Have dedicated bicycle paths wherever possible rather than painted lines on a road

Oregon is becoming a climate change hellscape

We're not quite there yet, thankfully. Oregon hasn't transitioned from a wonderful place to live into a hellscape -- "a harshly unpleasant place or environment."

But the handwriting is on the global warming wall.

Today my daughter, Celeste, her husband, Patrick, and my granddaughter, Evelyn, arrived to visit us at the Black Butte Ranch house that we have a 1/4 share in. 

They're from southern California, though Celeste was born and raised in Oregon. 

Chatting with them as we ate pizza and salad outside at the charming Lakeside Bistro, I pointed out how little snow there is on the Three Sisters mountains, and the smoky haze that probably is coming from a giant Klamath County wildfire in southern Oregon.

Both the missing snow and the wildfire are related to the drought conditions facing Oregon,

The snowpack is much below normal, with less precipitation overall and with what does fall in the mountains being abnormally tilted toward rain rather than snow. The Klamath region is in an exceptional drought. The Oregonian story linked to above says:

Trees, brush and other fuel in the area are so dry that embers can immediately ignite them in the full sun and even in the shade, Saalsaa said.

“It’s a very scary fire,” he said. “It’s moving so fast it’s creating its own weather climate.”

The wildfire has grown from 16,814 acres on Thursday to 47,554 acres Friday, 76,897 acres Saturday and 143,607 acres by Sunday morning.

Yesterday I drove from Salem to Black Butte Ranch in central Oregon. This was the first time since the massive Santiam Canyon wildfire in September 2020 that I'd been in that area.

It was shocking to see how little remains of Detroit. I also was surprised at how the views had changed from Highway 22. With so many roadside trees burned in the wildfire, then removed, the landscape was much more open. Detroit Lake was considerably lower than usual, given the drought.

While eating dinner, I told my daughter and her family that this has been a disastrous weather year for our part of Oregon.

First came the wildfires in the early fall of 2020. Here's how I described this photo in a blog post.

Yesterday I took this photo at 9 am while standing in our almost pitch black driveway. 

Smoke from what now is called the Santiam Fire was so thick, blown by the east winds in the direction of Salem, where I live, that the sun was completely obscured. All that could be seen in the sky was an eerie red glow. Later in the day it was still strangely dark, which made me think darkness at noon.

Then came the February 2021 ice storm. We were without electricity for 12 days. Along with so many other people, our property suffered a lot of tree damage. We've still got quite a bit of debris to clean up on our ten rural acres.

Last month Oregon broke all-time high temperature records. And not by a little, by a lot. Salem hit 117 degrees, the same as the record high in Las Vegas.

It's damn clear that the climate is changing due to manmade greenhouse gas emissions.

The most disturbing thing is, the worst is yet to come. Oregon has endured gigantic wildfires, a highly destructive ice storm, and record-breaking temperatures in just the past ten months.

But by and large the world has just been giving lip service to tackling global warming.

So it looks like things are going to have to get much worse before politicians, policy-makers, and the general public wake up to the need to dramatically alter humanity's carbon footprint.

Yellow jackets and forecasts say weekend will be HOT

Before sharing how damn HOT several weather forecasts are saying the coming weekend in Salem will be, this sign my wife put up yesterday speaks to how yellow jackets are viewing our highly unusual weather.

We're used to yellow jackets causing problems on our rural property during the summer. But we rarely, if ever, see them acting aggressively before late July or August.

That's when I wrote "Killing yellow jackets in their hidey-holes," my detailed description of how Laurel and I normally deal with yellow jackets.

Yet here we are in late June with Laurel getting stung as she walked to our front door, spurring her to warn delivery people to leave packages in our carport until we deal with the yellow jacket nest.

Global warming is very real.

Yellow jackets getting irritable a month earlier than usual is just one of a great many signs that temperatures are steadily rising, with extreme weather events like heat waves becoming increasingly common.

Like what Salem and the rest of the Pacific Northwest have to endure this coming weekend, and the beginning of next week. Forecasts differ about how hot it will be, but the consensus is HOT. 

Here's what the National Weather Service forecasts for our location: 102 on Saturday, 107 on Sunday,  100 on Monday.

The Weather Channel app has an even scarier forecast: 105 on Saturday, 115 on Sunday, 99 on Monday. That's insane! Yet possible. 

And here's what my AccuWeather app is showing: 104 on Saturday, 113 on Sunday, 101 on Monday.

AccuWeather says the record high for Salem on those days is: Saturday 103 (set in 2006), Sunday 99 (set in 2000), Monday 101 (set in 2008). So we could have record-setting heat on all three days, and almost certainly on Sunday.

Last year was a really bad fire season in Oregon. With all of the state experiencing drought conditions, this heat wave, and possible thunderstorms in central and eastern Oregon, threatens to make 2021 an even worse wildfire year.

Keep this in mind if someone tells you not to worry about global warming. But in one sense they're correct. We shouldn't worry about global warming; we should be terrified of it. 

And demanding that our elected officials at the local, state, and federal level act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as rapidly as possible before our planet heats up so much as to be barely habitable for humans.

No mask, no problem -- only if you're vaccinated

Obviously there's a lot to like in today's CDC guidance that fully vaccinated people don't have to wear a mask or socially distance both indoors and outdoors, with some exceptions.

We're tired of Covid restrictions. We want life to get back to normal. We're weary of being afraid of coming down with COVID-19 just because of breathing some infected air.

Governor Kate Brown wasted no time in saying that Oregon will follow the CDC recommendations. 

Today the CDC issued new guidance for lifting mask and social distancing requirements for fully-vaccinated individuals. It is yet another sign that, if we all continue to do our part, the pandemic is coming closer to an end.

Starting today, Oregon will be following this guidance, which only applies to fully-vaccinated individuals. That means Oregonians who are fully-vaccinated no longer need to wear masks or social distance in most public spaces.

Sounds good. But a Willamette Week tweet contains a caveat.

Well, to adapt the (somewhat erroneous) "Houston, we have a problem," Salem, we're going to have a problem. 

Lots of people here don't want to be vaccinated, resist wearing a mask in indoor public places, and bristle at being told what to do Covid-wise.

So I sympathize with stores, restaurants, and other businesses who try to make sure that everyone who enters their establishment without a mask has been vaccinated. 

If they simply ask people at the door, "Are you fully vaccinated, with two weeks having passed since your last shot?," there's no way to tell whether someone is being truthful.

If they ask for a completed vaccination card, many people won't have it with them. Or they could brandish one of the fake cards that are available online.

If they decide it's too much trouble to check their patrons' vaccination status, this undermines the ability of fully vaccinated people to not wear a mask.

Why? Because no vaccine is 100% effective at stopping a Covid infection.

When vaccinated people are together, the risk of coming down with COVID-19 is minimal. But throw in a bunch of unvaccinated people, and the risk rises. (Though perhaps to less than 1%.)

Right now I'm going to be reluctant to go maskless in a store.

I'd rather go through the small discomfort of wearing a mask than increase my chance of getting sick. When most people in the Salem area are fully vaccinated, upwards of 70% ideally, I might change my mind.

I'd feel fine going maskless in a store if I could be sure that all the other customers also were vaccinated.

But unless Oregon mandates some sort of foolproof vaccination passport, a low probability, I'd rather wear a mask and be safe, than not wear one and be (hugely) sorry I got COVID-19.

The frustrating thing is how much easier it would be if everyone would just get a damn Covid shot. They're safe, effective, and widely available now. No waiting. No cost. 

Yet here in Salem we've got a thriving community of irresponsible people who ignore Covid public health measures and wrongly feel that they have a right to put others at risk by not wearing a mask or socially distancing.

The Peoples Church has the dubious distinction of having the largest workplace outbreak in Oregon, 87 cases so far. Yet the pastor vows to keep on with packed, maskless, in-person services. 

Yay, Salem! We're #1 in COVID-19 religious idiocy.

Goodbye, print Statesman Journal and Oregonian. We went digital.

Today was a day that I never thought would arrive -- the day my wife and I decided to stop getting home delivery of the Salem Statesman Journal and Portland Oregonian.

Given our age, early 70s, we grew up reading newspapers printed on dead trees that crinkled when you turned the pages.

Laurel and I both like print newspapers. 

But we also like seeing the Statesman Journal and Oregonian in the paper box at the end of our driveway. And increasingly, that wasn't happening.

Our neighbors reported the same thing was happening to them. So even though I registered a complaint every time this occurred, which was often, the delivery still was erratic.

Plus, for four years I've subscribed to the online editions of the New York Times and Washington Post. 

I find it easy and pleasant to read those newspapers on my computer, iPad, or iPhone.

So it finally dawned on me that I could do the same with the Statesman Journal and Oregonian, though neither has a web site as clean and easy to navigate as the Times and Post.

Thus today I phoned customer service at the Oregon newspapers and changed our subscriptions to digital only. 

That resulted in big savings. The Statesman Journal went from $59 a month to $10. The Oregonian went from $54 to $23. 

Bottom line: instead of paying $113 a month for the two papers, now we're paying $33 -- $80 a month less. 

It felt like a bittersweet moment, talking to the customer service people. I've gotten home delivery of the Statesman Journal for 44 years, ever since moving to Salem from Portland in 1977.

Holding a newspaper in my hand as I eat breakfast has been a part of my life for much longer. As long as I can remember, actually. 

OK, as a kid I probably focused on the comics. Which is still one of the favorite parts of the Oregonian for my wife, in large part because of Pearls Before Swine, a pleasingly acerbic comic strip.

After I switched to digital only, I couldn't find the comic strips on the Oregonian's oregonlive.com site. I also couldn't find the TV sports listings that I frequently refer to in the print paper. 

But after logging into my Oregonian account I found the e-newspaper that looks just like the print newspaper, insofar as a paper on a screen looks like a printed paper.

That solved the problem of comics and TV sports listings. (The Statesman Journal also has an e-edition, but I prefer the Oregonian for everything other than the few Salem stories in our local newspaper.)

So right now I have no regrets about going all-in on digital newspapers. Should mention that I also subscribe to the digital Salem Reporter for about $8 a month.

Thus I'm getting a healthy dose of daily news for not a whole lot of money per month: $15 New York Times, $15 Washington Post, $10 Statesman Journal, $23 Oregonian, $8 Salem Reporter -- $71 a month total.

That's just $12 a month more than I was paying each month for Statesman Journal home delivery. Going digital is a lot more cost-effective, for sure. 

I suspect print newspapers will become extinct before too long. Us baby boomers probably are the last generation to have a longstanding love affair with holding a print newspaper in our increasingly wrinkled hands.

Young people probably can't understand that infatuation, having grown up with smart phones and other electronic devices in the same way us old folks grew up with paper, pencils, and slide rules. 

(Google "slide rule" youngsters, if you have no idea what I'm talking about.)

Tree cleanup guys are the new Salem-area heroes

Ah, what a difference it made to my mood having tree debris from the recent ice storm cleaned up from our rural south Salem yard.

We'd done a lot of picking up small branches ourselves. And I'd been able to cut some larger limbs with my small 16-inch chainsaw.

But there was no way I could handle the big limbs from a giant oak that fell on our lawn. That required a bigger chainsaw and younger muscles than I possess.

So for almost three weeks my wife and I have been staring at a mass of tangled branches whenever we looked out of our living and family room windows.

That was disturbing, in part because one of the branches had landed on one of our favorite trees, a large Japanese Maple with purple leaves, leaving only a jagged remnant of the trunk.

Every time I looked in that direction, I'd think of the tree that no longer was there -- how beautiful it was for so many years, and how long it will take for a replacement tree to reach the size it was.

Thus it lifted my spirits today when Noberto Flores and his crew came out with a wood chipper and chain saws to deal with our branch mess. 

We've had Noberto do a lot of work on our property: pruning, dead tree cutting, walkway renovation, putting pavers and a retaining wall in our dog yard, removing brush around our house for wildfire purposes.

But I don't think I've ever been as happy to see Noberto as I was this morning. He did most of the chainsaw work himself, while his guys hauled stuff up to an area near the chipper.

Here's photos of what their hard work produced.

I neglected to take "before" photos. So just envision lots of downed trees and branches and you'll have a sense of what we've been looking at since the ice storm.


Or imagine these piles at the turnaround area of our driveway scattered across the 
"after" photos above.

Noberto even was able to get what's called a widowmaker branch down from one of the two large fir trees that overlook our house. 

I have no desire to make my wife into a widow, given what that would mean for my remaining life span (zero), so every time I walked under that branch I wondered if I'd hear a crack before it fell.

Noberto threw a line over the top of the branch, then was able to pull on it until it hit the ground. Not on my head, or anyone else's head, an excellent outcome.

After he'd cleared our top priority area, Noberto and his crew turned to the many oak trees that surround our house, looking for broken branches.

They found a lot today, so the chipping is going to have to wait for their next visit, maybe tomorrow.

Here's Noberto working in a tree near our well enclosure.

I don't like to stand on the top of a tall ladder, especially when it is against a tree. However, Noberto has been doing this work for many years, so he's confident in what he's doing, while I'm not. 

During his lunch break I thanked Noberto for making our yard look more or less normal again. I told him that even though we have many trees on our natural ten acres, thousands, I'm sure, it hurts to lose a tree that you love.

He agreed, noting that in the city people may have just one or two large trees on their lot. If one of them was lost in the ice storm, that's a big emotional hit -- way bigger than we've endured, given that we're surrounded by trees in all directions.

Seeing a fallen tree laying in your yard for days on end is sort of like having a dead body in your living room. You want to start forgetting about the death, but that's tough to do when the deceased is so visible.

So many thanks to all of the tree crews, both private companies and public workers, who have been working so hard since the ice storm to restore some normalcy to our hard-hit area of the Willamette Valley.

You're deeply appreciated. 

PGE tree clearing crew were artists at what they do

Yesterday a Portland General Electric (PGE) tree clearing crew was working in our neighborhood prior to the restoration of power following a massive ice storm.

We and our neighbors had been without electricity for 11 days at this point. So it was a joy to finally see PGE repair activity occurring.

Laurel, my wife, had noticed a PGE truck in the driveway of our neighbor to the south on Lake Drive in rural south Salem, where a tree was in contact with an electrical line.

She walked over to talk to the crew to make sure that they knew about a similar situation on our property. Some large branches were leaning against the line that leads from a power pole near our house to the house just north of us.

After she showed the crew chief where the problem was, he walked back to his truck and led the other two crew members to the location.

I decided to watch them do their tree clearing thing. The photo below shows part of the tangled maze of branches that had come down in the ice storm. Our neighbor's house is visible on the right.

The fence between our properties was intact, though a gate had been knocked loose. 

The other two members of the crew followed the chief's lead. I was impressed by the light-hearted energy of all three PGE employees. It was late in the day, about 4:30 pm. They'd been working long hours for many days. 

Yet they joked around, kidding each other. It was apparent that they had a lot of respect for the crew chief -- well-deserved, as I'll describe below.

It turned out that the crew chief, whose name I didn't get, had worked for Elwood's Tree Service before PGE. My wife and I have used Elwood's often on our ten acres. The crew chief remembered coming out to our property several times.

I didn't take photos of the initial part of the tree clearing effort.

That started with the crew chief picking up a rope with a loop at the end, swinging it around his head like a cowboy steer roper, and throwing it high up toward the end of a large branch, or tree, that was leaning against the electrical line.

He got the loop over the top of the branch on the first try. Really impressive. Then he threw the rest of the rope over the line. From there he and a crew member were able to pull on the line and get the branch, or tree, to topple safely. This is the crew chief.

That left a couple of other branches that were leaning against the wire. If you look closely the wire is visible about a third of the way from the top of the photo below, angling upward.

It was interesting to listen to the discussion as to how to deal with the branches. One of the crew members pointed to a branch and suggested they do that one first. 

But the crew chief said, no, no. Thinking several moves ahead like a chess master, he pointed out how difficult it would be if they dealt with that branch, then the other one. I didn't follow the conversation all that clearly, since I was standing a ways distant.

What impressed me was how the crew chief was able to size up the various aspects of the branch problem and quickly figure out the best approach. 

The photo below shows him using a long pole saw to remove a "hanger," I think they called it, that was keeping the large branch dangling on the wire.

I then made a video of the final stage of the branch removal. At one point you can see the dangling branch pushing the wire back and forth. My wife was watching from closer to our house.

She could see our power pole swaying, which shows how heavy the branch was. I was worried the electrical line was going to break, but they must be pretty darn strong, since it didn't.

This wasn't an easy job. There was no way to get a truck with a lift anywhere near the electrical line, so all they had to work with was a chainsaw, rope, and the long extension pole. 

Since a PGE guy in a truck had told my wife that power can't be turned on to a house if a branch is touching the line, we were deeply appreciative of the tree crew doing what they did, when they did it -- an hour or so before power came back on in most of our neighborhood.

We had to wait for power until this morning, along with three other homes in Spring Lake Estates.

Ice storm conversation highlights

Tonight our monthly Salon discussion group met via Zoom.

Laurel, my wife, was able to host the meeting even though electricity is still off in our rural south Salem neighborhood, thanks to our generator and the Starlink satellite internet system.

Not surprisingly, most of the conversation centered around the recent ice storm and resulting power outages. We all shared our stories of how we're coping.

Here's some themes that emerged in the course of our 100 minute discussion.

How to prepare for no electricity. Some people favor going the green route. Others the fossil fuel route. Since we live in the country, with our nearest neighbor quite distant, I extolled the virtues of our 7,000 watt Honda generator, which naturally runs on gasoline.

One downside of a generator is noise. They aren't quiet, though smaller Honda generators make little noise. We have a transfer switch that enables various outlets/devices in our house to switch over to generator power when a cable is attached to an outside connector. The generator also powers our well pump.

But a generator isn't great to use in a city, unless you like annoying your neighbors. So the city dwellers in our group talked about solar-powered battery options. Of course, if there isn't much sunlight, recharging would be problematic. Tesla offers large batteries that can connect to their electric cars, if I have this right. 

On a smaller scale, there are batteries (we have a Goal Zero one) that, once charged, can power a cell phone, computer, and such for quite a while. 

It was agreed that having a working fireplace or wood stove is a great idea, though you need a decent supply of wood. A pellet stove can be installed either as a freestanding stove or as a fireplace insert. They require electricity, but not a whole lot. Just a few hundred watts, I believe, which could be supplied by a small outdoor gas generator and an extension cord.

With all the fallen trees and branches from the ice storm, many homes have a plentiful supply of wood. Having that available to burn during the next power outage is a good idea, assuming someone has a fireplace or wood stove.

Independence versus reliance on society. Most of our group lives in single family homes, while several live in apartments. One of the apartment dwellers made an interesting point.

Rather than everybody figuring out on their own how to survive without electricity, that effort would be better spent on working on a societal level to make it less likely that power outages will occur. For example, electrical lines could be underground rather than strung along poles next to or under trees.

Amazingly, several people who were children in Europe during World War II said that power never went off during air raids. I couldn't resist saying, "Sounds like PGE wasn't operating in England or Germany." 

Their point was that it is possible to make electrical systems much more resistant to outages. In modern Europe, virtually all power is underground. And people recalled that in their younger days, power outages seemed to be less common than now. The rise of giant profit-driven utility companies could be a reason for this.

I said that today I'd talked with a neighbor during an afternoon dog walk. He told me that he'd worked for a citizen utility in Iowa akin to Salem Electric. Ice and snow storms are common in Iowa. When they occurred, crews from citizen utilities in neighboring states would rush in to help.

A balance needs to be struck, I guess. Each of us should prepare for a power outage, and we also need to urge politicians to spend tax money on measures to prevent outages from occurring. Personally, I'd like to see PGE broken up into a bunch of smaller citizen-owned companies like Salem Electric. 

One of our members lives in West Salem. She said her power was restored just a few hours after it went out. Me, I have PGE and am still waiting for electricity to come back on eight days after the storm.

Staying in touch with others. My wife and I are stressed from our lengthy power outage. But we felt much better after our group meeting this evening. We humans need other people. Isolation is bad for all sorts of reasons.

A couple in our group live in a close-knit neighborhood. After the storm hit, they said that phones (land line variety, since cell phones weren't working well, if at all) were ringing many times a day as a neighbor would either express a need of their own, or what someone else needed.

In this fashion people were able to band together to help each other get through the ice storm aftermath. Those with chain saws aided those who didn't have one. People who had something to share gave it to people in need of it. Self-reliance is fine. Community support is even better.

For a few days after the storm hit, our cell phone coverage was almost nonexistent. We had to walk up our long driveway to get a decent signal. For almost a week, our land line phone didn't work. This produced a feeling of isolation in us.

Which gets back to the notion that our society needs to invest in ways to keep people connected, both during emergencies and at other times. 

Cellular systems should be made more resilient so cell phones aren't useless after an ice storm. Ditto for internet systems like the one offered by Comcast. I noted that it made a big difference when our Starlink satellite internet system continued to work just fine after the storm.

It felt good to be able to keep up with the news, Facebook, Twitter, and such. For several days we couldn't talk to people by phone. Keeping in touch via broadband raised my spirits in the ice storm aftermath. Yet many people in the United States don't have access to fast broadband.

PGE getting well-deserved ice storm criticism

First off, I want to say that I'm as thankful as anyone for the PGE crews that are working to restore power to the hundreds of thousands of Oregonians who are without electricity after the recent massive ice and snow storm. 

But I'm a believer in the middle way: give credit where credit is due, and assign blame where blame is due. PGE deserves some of each.

(PGE stands for Portland General Electric, not to be confused with PG&E, Pacific Gas & Electric, a Calfornia utility.)

My main gripe with PGE is their decision to stop giving estimates for when power will be restored to an outage area. My wife and I lost power around 8 pm or so last Friday, February 12. 

When I reported the outage via the PGE phone line that night, the automated message said that power could be restored at 6:30 pm on Saturday. On Saturday, the message said 6:30 pm on Sunday. On Sunday, the message said 8:45 am on Monday. On Monday, PGE stopped providing any estimate of when our power would be restored.

That's crazy. You'd think that as more information was learned about outages in Oregon, PGE would have more accurate estimates of when people would have electricity back. But the opposite happened.

That's highly unusual.

Living as we do in rural south Salem for the past 31 years, we've experienced many power outages. Not once has PGE failed to provide an estimate for when power would be restored. Often that estimate was inaccurate, but it sure makes us feel better to know that our neighborhood is on a schedule for repair work.

This screenshot shows what PGE currently is reporting for our address -- four freaking days after our power went out.

Let's decipher this lack of pertinent information, which so far as I can tell is similar to what PGE is reporting for most people in Oregon who lack power.

First, the cause wasn't heavy snow. It was ice. If you think this is a minor quibble, look to the bottom diagram that leads from "Power Out" to "Power Restored."

PGE makes it seem like after a crew was dispatched, the cause was determined. Well, it doesn't take any investigative work to figure out that the ice storm in our part of Marion County caused the power outage. 

The real question is what happened during the ice storm that caused the outage in our area of 503 customers affected. I can only speak about our specific neighborhood of about 95 customers in Spring Lake Estates.

Every day I walk our dog past a downed power line on Lake Drive, our street.

I can see that a big tree near 10161 Lake Drive collapsed the power line when it fell during the storm. The line snapped. Part of the line is on the ground. Some of the line is suspended about six feet over a Lake Drive lane.

I've talked with a PGE employee who answers the downed power line option on their phone system. I've told her what I just said above. I've pointed out that the poles on both sides of the downed line are intact, so seemingly it would be pretty easy to reattach a line between the poles.

Yet so far there's been no sign of any PGE activity in our neighborhood. 

So what's up with that "Crew Dispatched" item in between "Power Out" and "Cause Determined"? It's clear that dispatched means something different in power company lingo than in ordinary English. 

To most people, including me, when someone is dispatched to a problem, like a police officer responding to a 911 call, it means a human being is in motion to handle whatever needs to be dealt with. But here's how Duke Energy defines that term.

Dispatched/Assigned: A repair crew has been assigned to restore service and will proceed to the location as soon as the crew is available. Enroute: The crew is on the way to make repairs. Onsite/Arrived: The crew has arrived at the location where repairs are needed.

PGE must use the same definition, since like I said, there's been zero sign of repair activity at the downed lines even though a crew has been dispatched. So it appears that our neighborhood outage is on a PGE list for some repair work at an undisclosed future date.

When will our power be restored? PGE says in the screenshot, "Not available at this time." Could be tomorrow. Could be next week. Could be a month from now. 

If PGE knows, they sure aren't telling. And that irks a lot of other people besides me. 

The Portland General twitter account has been sharing tweets like this one from this morning.

I enjoy swiping right on my iPhone and reading responses from Oregonians. Some thank PGE for working to restore power. Others are critical. Here's a sampling of those.

Regarding that last tweet from Poonam, this morning I called the PGE outage number and waited on hold for 12 minutes until a live human being came on the line.

He was polite, unrushed, and refreshingly open with me. I appreciated that a lot.

After he listened to my gripe about PGE not having any estimate for when our power would be restored, and talking about how difficult it is for rural residents lacking generators who have wells that don't function without electricity, he said that he agreed with me. 

Here's how I described our conversation in a post this morning on our neighborhood's Facebook page.

I talked with a PGE customer service guy a little while ago. I expressed my frustration at how PGE no longer is giving estimates for when power will be restored to an area. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday there were estimates. Starting Monday, those stopped.

 

He agreed with me that it would be good if PGE could just say something like, "Our best guess is that your power will be restored in a week if everything goes as planned." He said he'd pass my concern on to a supervisor.

 

I mentioned that a PGE spokesman has said it could be "many days" before power is restored to everybody. OK, but what does that mean? FIve days? Two weeks? A month? Two months? it's hard to plan to survive this outage without at least a general sense of how long our electricity will be off.

 

The PGE guy said that major transmission lines are a big problem. Those need to be fixed before power can be restored farther down the line. I came away feeling like I'd been heard, though we still have no idea when Spring Lake Estates will get power back.

 

Lastly, being a progressive, I rarely agree with Republican politicians. But state House Republican Leader Christine Drazan has an excellent idea, according to the Oregonian. The Oregon legislature shouldn't resume until all Oregonians have power.

 

Oregon House Democrats have been discussing with Republicans whether [to] resume operations Wednesday. The caucus and some caucus members have used social media to express their concerns and share information to help Oregonians affected by power outages.

 

Drazan said Tuesday the focus should stay there. “We need to keep our focus on serving constituents and the most vulnerable while we await power to be restored. Our work in the legislature should come back online once the power does.”

 

UPDATE: I've gotten some comments on Facebook about this blog post that spurred me to write this response:

 

I said in my blog post that I respect the crews who are working. It's PGE management I don't respect. If you'd read my post before commenting on it, you would have seen that I made ZERO criticisms of the crews working to restore power.

 

I live in a rural area where everyone has wells that need electricity to work. So many people don't have water. I read their comments on our neighborhood's Facebook page. They're very disturbing. Naturally my wife and I have offered to provide water to people, since we have a generator.

 

It is much more difficult to plan for dealing with this outage when PGE persists in not providing even a rough estimate of when power will be restored. Many people out here have livestock, like horses, llamas, and goats. They need water also.

 

When PGE keeps people in the dark, communication-wise, it hurts peoples' ability to cope with the physical dark every night without electricity. 

Our dog is enjoying no electricity. Me, not so much.

Out here in rural south Salem, Oregon, we've been without electricity for two days after a big ice storm caused trees to topple and electrical lines to crumple.

My wife and I sleep in different bedrooms. We have a wood stove, but the heat from it doesn't reach to where I sleep.

I toughed out the first night without electricity, though naturally my room was much colder than usual, Last night I decided that I'd sleep on a blow-up bed. I put it in the living room, which is close to the wood stove in our open-plan house.

Our Husky mix, Mooka, greeted me in the morning. (She sleeps in an area close to my wife, so Mooka gets up when Laurel does.) It took our dog about three seconds to decide that the best greeting would be to jump on the blow-up bed, with me in it.

Since, Mooka has rarely left the bed. It's her new favorite place. So at least our dog is enjoying what comes with no electricity.  Me, not so much.

Being a modern liberated couple who disdain traditional sex roles, we've been equitably sharing the additional work that comes with non-electrical life after an ice storm.

After we get up, Laurel brings in firewood from outside to keep the wood stove going that day. Then she makes a fire with newspaper, kindling, and small pieces of wood. After that, she tends the fire until it is going nicely and starts to heat the house.

Me, I go out to the carport and turn the start key on our generator. Then I make my breakfast and relax, having done my part to keep our household running smoothly. Like I said, Laurel and I share household chores equitably.

Oh, forgot to mention that last night Laurel found the box in our garage that the blow-up bed was in, brought it inside, plugged in the pump, filled up the bed with air, and made the bed with sheets and two blankets.

I then turned down the bed coverings before I went to sleep. Again, we have a 50-50 marriage.

However, when it comes to outside work, I do 100% of the tasks when it comes to using our Stihl backpack blower and chainsaw -- both of which came in handy the past few days given how many tree limbs came down in our large yard during the ice storm. 

Yesterday I saw that the quart of chainsaw bar oil was almost gone. So this morning I set out on a mission to drive into Salem and get more bar oil, along with filling up two empty five gallon gasoline cans in case we need to use our generator for another few days.

There was a bit of a line at the south Salem Shell gas station I always go to. The attendant said that people had seen on the news last night that a long line had formed at a Woodburn gas station after the ice storm.

He added, "There's plenty of gas, though." I noted that the same thing happened with toilet paper last year when Covid lockdowns led to panic buying, quickly adding that I really did need gasoline for our generator. He agreed.

I neglected to mention that when toilet paper became available again last spring, or maybe it was early summer, I went overboard and bought so much that we're still using it up. The attendant made fun of someone he knows who acquired such a supple of toilet paper, it had to be stored in their garage.

Which is where we keep some of our supply -- another thing I didn't mention.

When I went to Ace Hardware for the bar oil, I immediately noted that the parking lot was unusually full. When I got inside, a line of people waiting to check out extended almost all of the way to the back of the store. 

Soon I found myself at the end of it, clutching a gallon of chainsaw bar oil. 

This wasn't panic buying. It was people getting what they needed to cope with the ice storm. The guy in front of me with the baby carriage had bought a chain saw. I heard him tell a salesman that he needed one long enough to cope with a large tree that had fallen down.

When I got home, I did some additional driveway blowing, branch hauling, and chainsawing of branches. Well, until the chain fell off my saw, which not surprisingly put an end to my chainsawing.

I'm pretty clueless about chainsaw maintenance, so my plan is to take it in to Ace Hardware tomorrow, a Stihl dealer, and hope that even though chainsaw sales have been brisk, chainsaw repair and tuneups won't take all that long.

Regarding tonight, I'm going to do my best to avoid having to sleep on the dog bed while Mooka sleeps on the blow-up bed. A handful of dog treats should do the trick at luring her off my bed -- my go-to dog training device.

Photos of the Great Salem Ice Storm of 2021

l've lived in Oregon for 50 years. I've seen plenty of freezing rain. But I've never experienced anything like the ice storm that struck northwest Oregon yesterday. 

Here's photos that I took this morning as my wife and I surveyed the damage to our property in rural south Salem, which was considerable.

The ice was amazingly thick. Up near Lake Drive this twig had ice the width of my index finger, about 5/8 of an inch. 

The walkway outside our front door was littered with fir branches. Trees and shrubs were bending over from the weight of the ice.

There was a certain beauty to the ice. But the damage it did to our yard was anything but beautiful. 

The saddest sight was seeing several large limbs that had fallen from a white oak that was more than two hundred years old, according to an arborist. It's the centerpiece of our yard. Hard to believe that it had survived so long, only to be decimated yesterday. Hopefully it will survive, though I have my doubts.

The oak branches littered the lawn in front of our deck. We'd heard loud crashes while watching TV last night. (We have a generator, as our power had gone out.) It was too dark to see what had happened. In the morning, we knew.

Some oak branches, along with other tree debris, had fallen near and into our water feature. A bird bath was frozen.

A bird feeder was festooned with icicles.

The brush and trees on the path that leads to Spring Creek were a vision in white. But after I'd seen what the ice had done to the big oak, I looked upon the whiteness as malevolent. Of course, nature doesn't have intentions, so that doesn't make sense. I still felt that way, though.


Imagine how much force it takes to split a thick branch from the trunk of a tree. Ice is powerful.


Last year we had a fairly large oak removed from our dog yard because it was so close to our house -- a fire danger, with branches overhanging the roof. I was glad we did this, since it could have caused considerable damage if the ice had caused it to topple over. 

We were fortunate to not have any large branches strike our roof or deck. Not as fortunate was a beautiful large purple-leaved Japanese Maple that was struck squarely by one of the heavy fallen oak branches. All that is left of it is the dark piece of trunk in the middle of the photo. Sad. It was my wife's favorite tree in our yard.


Many branches from two tall firs at the bottom of our driveway were scattered about. But the firs did much better than other trees with the ice, probably because fir branches bend so easily. Oaks are strong, but rigid. "Be like water," I recall Bruce Lee saying. Good advice for both trees and us humans.


A bunch of branches were strewn around the turnaround part of our driveway. 


Brush near the upper part of our driveway was oozing ice.


Since our driveway is "Y" shaped, I had two choices as to where to park my Subaru Crosstrek near Lake Drive. (Our steep driveway is partly shaded, so I was worried that freezing rain would linger on it, making it difficult to get out after the storm ended.) Not surprisingly, I chose a location with no overhanging branches. Turned out our driveway wasn't icy at all, strangely.

It was great that the two tall firs that tower over our house made it through the ice storm with minor damage. I was sleeping in a room that could be under them if they toppled over, a thought that occasionally went through my mind last night.

Seeing the large oak in our back yard so damaged is a recurring pain. It is entirely possible to have an intimate relationship with a tree. I know, because I've had many conversations with what I've called my Old Friend. 

Take the Salem Climate Action survey, though it is strange

I urge you to take the Community Survey that is part of the process for preparing a Salem Climate Action Plan. I believe you have until November 4.

However, having just taken the survey myself, be aware that it is decidedly weird. Much of the survey has little to do with the climate, or actions aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, or with the planning process. 

For example, early on a question asked me how often I did the following: work on a community project, attend a public meeting discussing town or school affairs, attend a political meeting or rally, attend a club or organizational meeting, volunteer, attend faith-based services/meetings, participate in some other community involvement activity.

It's difficult to discern what this has to do with the Salem Climate Action Plan. 

Further, it seems obvious that people who take the time to complete the Community Survey are more concerned with what is going on in Salem than the average person. So in no way will this survey tell us much about the community activities most people in Salem engage in, leaving aside the question of why this is relevant to the Climate Action Plan.

The Community Survey page on the City of Salem web site does describe the purpose of the survey. 

As a valued member of the Salem community, you are invited to take this survey so that your perceptions and opinions about Salem can be used to better understand Salem’s strengths and vulnerabilities in relation to the changing climate. Your insights are important to us - your responses will help inform the development of Salem’s Climate Action Plan. We appreciate your input in building a city that is resilient to climate change.

OK, but this language set off some warning bells in the political cynicism part of my brain, which, given my age of 72, has a lot of historical material to work with.

City officials haven't been leading the charge for Salem to join other cities in Oregon with a Climate Action Plan. The City Manager, Mayor, Public Works Director and other high-ranking officials ignored this until progressives on the City Council and 350 Salem OR pressed for a Climate Action Plan.

Ten days ago the City Council approved greenhouse gas reduction goals for Salem, a major step forward and a laudable accomplishment of 350 Salem OR.

So when I completed the Community Survey, under one write-in question I said that climate change deniers should have zero influence on the Climate Action Plan, because the greenhouse gas emission goals already have been determined by the City Council.

What remains to be determined is how to achieve those goals in Salem, not whether the goals should be achieved. 

That's why I found the language explaining the purpose of the Community Survey to be worrisome. It talks about the need to  "better understand Salem’s strengths and vulnerabilities in relation to the changing climate." Huh? That makes no sense. 

What needs understanding is how to reduce Salem's carbon emissions, most of which come from the transportation sector. Hence, driving less in more efficient vehicles (battery powered, ideally) for shorter distances is going to be necessary.

The goal is to do our part to slow down and ultimately stop the changing climate, not to determine how the changing climate will affect us. Likewise, the last sentence, "We appreciate your input in building a city that is resilient to climate change," is even more perplexing.

The primary purpose of the Climate Action Plan shouldn't be to make Salem "resilient" to climate change.

It is to reduce carbon emissions in our city that are contributing to climate change. Sure, a secondary purpose could be to find ways to cope with the bad effects of climate change. But resiliency is a code word for adapting to climate change, rather than taking strong action to combat it.

Now, maybe the strange questions in the Community Survey and the worrisome language in the description of the survey aren't really an indicator of how city staff are viewing the Climate Action Plan.

I'm just worried that these are signs of city officials trying to water down the impact of the Climate Action Plan.

Salem Reporter editor wants ideas about how to end divisiveness. Here's mine.

I give Les Zaitz, the editor of Salem's online-only news outlet, the Salem Reporter, a lot of credit for raising good questions in a commentary today, "Salem has to find a way to restore civility, to turn aside the meanness."

After talking about some of the issues that foment divisiveness in our city -- Black Lives Matter protests, student activism with the Salem-Keizer school board, COVID pandemic -- Zaitz asks for ideas.

Nothing in my decades of journalism has prepared me to manage so many crosscurrents at once. I feel like I’m in a row boat trying to cross the Columbia River bar in a raging gale.

With your help and together, we’ll find a way to safe harbor. We have to.

Unless we find a way to do so, Salem is in for even rougher times. Together, let’s find a way to arrest the meanness and anger. Let’s find a way to work together to repair our community – its government, its schools, its businesses and the health of its people.

Share with me your worries about where Salem is headed. Share with me who should be leading right now. Share with me what information Salem Reporter can provide to help you be of service to our community.

None of us can give up. None of us can retreat. None of us can afford to stay sidelined.

Salem, let’s stop the behavior tearing us apart and work, instead, to find shared values and solutions. At Salem Reporter, we’re ready to be your partner.

Les Zaitz is editor of Salem Reporter and can be reached by email at [email protected].

Here's my initial response to the three share with me requests Zaitz lays out. I'll email them to him, as requested. I invite you to share your own ideas with Zaitz.

My worries about where Salem is headed. First, my optimism: if Donald Trump is prevented from inflicting a second term on the country, and Joe Biden becomes president, this will help a lot to tamp down the anger, helplessness, and sadness so many people feel today. 

A basic problem, both here in Salem and nationally, is that the Republican party has tilted rightward much more than the Democratic party has moved leftward. So I reject any notion, which seemed to be somewhat implied in Zaitz's piece, that both sides of the political spectrum have to meet in the middle in a kumbaya moment. 

The stark reality is that most Americans favor core progressive/liberal policies. Locally, there's no doubt that Salem is a liberal town. Results of the past two presidential elections demonstrate this, as does the fact that six of the eight city councilors are progressives. 

But Mayor Bennett leans conservative, and City of Salem leadership definitely can't be accused of being raging liberals. Conservatives also dominate the Salem-Keizer school board after Oregon Right to Life and other conservative groups pumped loads of money into the last low-turnout election for school board members.

Two Latinx candidates ran for school board seats, but well-funded right-wingers beat them. Those candidates would say, "The school board has nobody who looks like me." It still doesn't. This goes a long way toward explaining the frustration of Latinx student activists with the current board.

So there's a disconnect between the progressive attitudes of most people in Salem, and the conservatives who still exercise a degree of power in this town out of proportion to how their ideas and policies are embraced by citizens.

Until power is returned to the people rather than special interests (placing limits on contributions to campaigns for local office would help a lot), anger among those who are on the outside of the halls of power looking in will continue.

Who should be leading right now. Ideally, a Mayor who isn't Chuck Bennett. As noted above, Bennett is more conservative than the city he is mayor of.

Plus, Bennett lacks the passion and charisma needed for effective leadership. Much like City Manager Steve Powers, Bennett is adept at maintaining a low-key don't-rock-the-boat persona that is better suited to calm times rather than the turbulent one we are in now. Hopefully a better mayor than Bennett will be elected in 2022. 

Until then, the progressive city councilors will do their best to fill Salem's leadership void.

A big problem, though, is that the City of Salem has a strong city manager/weak city council model. So City Manager Powers could be a strong leader, but that isn't either his personality or management style. The progressive city councilors, being elected officials, are better suited for leadership, but they lack the "army" to back them up.

They aren't paid. They have no staff. They have no real media presence other than Facebook. Thus those who should be leading Salem toward a desirable future aren't, and those who want to lead can't. 

How Salem Reporter can be of service to our community. First, and most obvious, keep on doing what you're doing. Salem Reporter is doing a great job at covering stories that the Statesman Journal isn't, or is doing a poor job with.

Beyond that status quo, here's a few ideas.

If possible, do more in-depth investigative reporting on local issues, especially concerning city government. For example, I've tried to cast a light on some disturbing goings-on with Urban Renewal funds. Too often Urban Renewal has become a sort of slush fund that benefits the already rich and powerful, not the general interest.

I believe Portland has an independent Urban Renewal agency that is insulated from local politics. Digging deep into how Urban Renewal money is used in Salem could help inform how wisely and appropriately these funds are being spent.

I'd like to see more vibrant and inclusive opinion writing in Salem. Most of what is on the Statesman Journal opinion page these days is boring and safe, not provocative and edgy. Salem Reporter has no opinion section at all, aside from occasional commentaries like the one Zaitz has written.

A while back a fellow activist and I spent some time planning an online opinion forum we were calling Salem Soapbox. It never got off the ground, but the idea is still worth a test flight: offer a place where anyone can submit opinion pieces about issues they're passionate about.

Sure, there would need to be a selection process and some editing. Not every opinion would warrant being spoken from the Salem Soapbox. We simply felt that there should be a way for the voiceless in Salem to have a voice, for issues to be debated, for comments to be submitted.

Regarding comments, Salem Reporter doesn't allow them on stories. There's pros and cons regarding this. Having been a blogger for seventeen years, with tens of thousands of comments on my posts, I fully realize how difficult it is to tread the line between free speech and inappropriate speech. Still, it is something for Salem Reporter to consider.

Lastly, I'll pitch an idea of mine that, like so many of my great ideas, has gotten nowhere in the Great Wide Skeptical World: have an annual roast of sorts where people on opposite sides of a political, religious, or whatever spectrum come together to have fun, drink, raise money for a good cause, and bridge divides.

I've described this idea in a couple of 2017 blog posts:

Salem should have an annual political roast: "A Mingling of the Tribes"
"Mingling of the Tribes" effort could help to heal divisiveness in Salem

Spots that make me smile on our ten acres

Laurel, my wife, and I live on ten acres in rural south Salem. For thirty years I've had a love/hate relationship with our property. After moving here in 1990, we've done a lot to improve both the land and our house.

But it's a damn lot of work. And at the age of 71, I find that maintaining what we've got isn't as enjoyable as it was when I was 41. Yesterday I finished mowing some grassy areas with a walk-behind DR Field Mower. It isn't the worst job I've ever done. I just can't call it "fun."

However, as I mowed various parts of our property I'd notice things that would bring a smile to my mind, if not to my sweaty face. After I finished, I grabbed my camera and walked around the ten acres, looking for more of nature that raised my spirits.

Here's the Adobe Spark web page result, the photos and some commentary.

Marion County and Oregon still seeing lots of new COVID-19 cases

This wasn't a cheery sight to see in my email inbox today, the latest Oregon Health Authority update about new COVID-19 cases.

Those 178 cases statewide are the most in a single day since the pandemic began.

Which means Marion County isn't going to enter Phase 2 of reopening tomorrow.

Like everybody else, I want things to get back to normal as quickly as possible. But this isn't going to happen so long as new infections keep occurring at a rapid rate. So please, people, wear a mask and maintain social distancing. Many people in Salem aren't doing this. 

Here's a letter to the editor in a recent issue of New Scientist about wearing masks that I liked a lot.

From Lloyd Timberlake,
Ridge, Maryland, US

Jessica Hamzelou's excellent piece on the science of the protective effects of face masks against the coronavirus inevitably didn't touch on unscientific, but important, aspects of masks, which the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now recommends we wear in settings like grocery stores.

Masks are a form of theatre, saying, "I am playing the role of a responsible citizen." They are a uniform expressing serious solidarity in the war against the pandemic. 

They are also a polite way to say: "Stay away from me. You don't know whether I am wearing this mask to protect me from you or you from me."

Perhaps most importantly, President Trump won't wear one. So they must be an excellent idea.

Starlink, save us from our rural broadband hellscape

My wife and I have a third-world broadband speed even though we live six miles from the city limits of Oregon's capital, Salem. Right now -- 7:30 pm on a Tuesday -- I'm "enjoying" a download speed of 5.8 Mbps and an upload speed of .71 Mbps.

That's crappy, because the only broadband available to us is CenturyLink DSL, brought to our house via a copper phone line and, I'm guessing, a team of low-paid internet elves who shovel the content of web sites and streaming services into the phone line as slowly as possible, and with frequent breaks.

Like last night, when I fired up Apple TV to see what HBO Max had to offer and was met with a spinning ball when we tried to watch a program, which would play for a few seconds before the spinning ball returned due to our slow DSL being even slower than usual.

I've spent a lot of time trying to find an alternative broadband provider. None exists. At least, none that I'd consider using. 

In addition to living in a rural south Salem neighborhood lacking cable TV or fiber optic providers, our house gets poor cellular reception. So cellular internet isn't an option. Alyrica, a fixed wireless provider, came out to our house last year and flew a drone around in an attempt to find a sightline to their cell tower from the top of tall fir trees next to the house.

No luck. And today I got an online rejection from Peak Internet, another fixed wireless provider. Here's the message I got after supplying our address. "Thank you for your interest in Peak Fixed Wireless service. If your location is in green, you may qualify for service." 

Sadly, our house is where the orange marker is, quite a ways from the green. 

This week I emailed Danielle Gonzalez, the broadband access staffer with Marion County. She helpfully provided me with a link to a list of internet service providers in our zip code, 97306, which includes both rural areas and an area in the Salem city limits. None of them serve our neighborhood, aside from CenturyLink.

(We used to have satellite internet via WildBlue before I talked Qwest into bringing DSL to our neighborhood in 2008. It was slow and went out in rainy and stormy weather, which is frequent in Oregon. So I'm not interested in HughesNet or Viasat, the only current satellite internet providers.)

Gonzalez said she'll send me the name and phone number of a local CenturyLink manager in charge of broadband once she learns who this is. I've been told by CenturyLink that fiber optic exists along Liberty Road until a few miles north of us. But I'm suspecting that CenturyLink doesn't want to spend the money to extend fiber optic to our neighborhood of several hundred homes.

So that leaves me in despair, trapped in a rural broadband hellscape with only one hope: Elon Musk's Starlink satellite system.

It shouldn't be this way, since fast broadband (in contrast to our 6 Mbps broadband) is a necessity these days -- for businesses, home or otherwise; for online learning; for entertainment, streaming videos, games, and such; for writers/bloggers like me who need to upload large files with photos.

Just as every American should be able to get quality healthcare, so should every American be able to get quality broadband. That neither is happening shows how screwed-up our society is. Government isn't functioning as it should, so people have to rely on private enterprise to fill unmet needs. 

But so far no private enterprise has been willing to meet the need of our neighborhood for an alternative to slow DSL. Hopefully Starlink will be our savior. 

Starlink ultimately will use thousands of low-orbit satellites to provide internet access everywhere in the world, naturally with the focus being on broadband-lacking areas. As of late April 2020 the word was that beta testing would begin in about three months, with public beta testing in about six months.

The initial beta test will apply to those located in “high latitudes,” Musk added. To date, SpaceX has said that Starlink service will initially be made available to customers in Canada and in the northern United States in 2020, with additional service expansion to follow to other parts of the world throughout 2021. On Twitter in response to a question about whether Germany counts as “high latitude,” Musk said that it does, indicating beta service at least may be available in more markets than the U.S. and Canada ahead of next year.

Well, Salem, Oregon sits on the 45th parallel. Sure looks to me like that should count as the northern United States, though the center of Germany is about 51 degrees north. 

Regardless, I hope Starlink turns out to be as good as it looks to be. I'm encouraged by the fact that Elon Musk's Tesla cars are a big success, as is his SpaceX rocket. Reportedly the cost would be about $80 a month, which I'd pay gladly to get a broadband speed nearly equal to fiber optic.

For now, I endure with DSL. Maybe we'll be able to stream HBO Max tonight. Maybe not. I look forward to the day when those "maybe's" are a memory, not reality. For us, and also for lots of other people with no current broadband choice. 

It’s the space race, but unlike the 50s, this race’s goal is to connect the world—including rural areas—to the internet. Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet project aims to bring affordable, fast internet to underserved parts of the US and the world.

The Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC’s) 2016 report found that 62 percent of Americans have only one choice for “fixed advanced telecommunications capability.” And when they looked at rural areas specifically, the number of Americans stuck with just one internet service provider (ISP) to choose from rose to 87 percent.

SpaceX president and chief operating officer Gwynne Shotwell said that while existing ISPs are improving, it’s still hard for them to reach rural areas. But “Starlink . . . will cover all parts of the globe.”

Photos of George Floyd protest in Salem, Oregon

Here's photos and a video I took at today's George Floyd protest at the Capitol mall. I was deeply moved by thousands of people coming out to protest the murder of Floyd and others at the hands of police officers. I used an Adobe Spark web page to share the images.

Salem, we're all in this together. So please, wear a mask.

I feel better when I shop at Trader Joe's and LifeSource Natural Foods than at Fred Meyer. The reason doesn't have anything to do with the stores' prices, selection, ambience, or anything like that. 

It's because Trader Joe's and LifeSource require customers to wear masks. Fred Meyer doesn't. 

I have a feeling of We're all in this together when everyone around me -- grocery store staff and customers alike -- are wearing masks to protect ourselves and others from being infected with the coronavirus. 

This graphic from the East Alabama Medical Center shows why my feeling is justified.

Wearing a mask does a lot to protect someone who carries the virus from transmitting the COVID-19 virus to someone else. And wearing a mask also does a lot to protect a healthy person from having the virus transmitted to them from a carrier.

That's the clinical or public health reason for wearing a mask. But this graphic comes closer to expressing why I enjoy shopping at Trader Joe's and LifeSource more than at Fred Meyer.

I could quibble with Andrew Cuomo's choice of words, because I prefer "care about" to "respect." However, his sentiment is right on.

When I see someone walking into Fred Meyer without a mask, and many people are doing this, I can't help but think that either they are clueless about COVID-19, or they simply don't care about helping to protect others from getting the disease, along with themselves, of course.

This is an area where science and philosophy are saying the same thing. 

Often I hear public health experts say, "An infection anywhere is an infection everywhere." Why? Because the COVID-19 virus doesn't care much about borders. It can travel halfway around the world in a day by hitchhiking in the body of an infected person who may not show any symptoms.

Likewise, until every state in our country gets the coronavirus under control, each state will be at risk of a COVID-19 recurrence by infected people traveling around the United States.

Individualism has its merits.

However, the notion that each of us is an island unto ourselves doesn't match up with reality. Everything and everybody is highly interconnected. Causes here have effects there. None of us is capable of being self-sufficient. Even the most ardent survivalist requires supplies and equipment that come from sources other than themselves.

And in a pandemic like what we're going through now, individualism can be deadly. It leads people to wrongly believe that they can prosper by going their own way. No need to wear a mask. No need to socially distance. I'm going to do my own thing.

Well, do your own thing made more sense in the 1960s than right now. 

In the nineteen sixties, "do your own thing" became a common expression. It meant to do whatever you wanted, without feeling guilty.

I was a college student in the San Francisco Bay area from 1966 to 1971. I and my fellow hippies did our own thing, guilt-free. However, what we did was a minimal risk to others. When I ingested LSD, no one else was going to have a psychedelic experience. By contrast, not wearing a mask today does increase the chance of other people getting sick with COVID-19.

Look, I understand that we Americans tend to believe ours is the greatest country in the world and we don't need to adopt the practices of other nations. But I sure like this passage in a story from The Atlantic, "Face Masks Are In," which describes how masks are viewed in East Asian countries.

The president [Trump] seemed to be implying that a masked country couldn’t be our country — that such a sight would be alien and alarming, and thus hopefully a short-lived ordeal. It was an expression of the stigma long attached to mask-wearing in the Western world, unlike in many Asian countries, where those who don’t wear masks during public-health crises are the ones who are stigmatized.

While an American might walk into a grocery store these days and view the proliferating number of masked shoppers as crushing confirmation that the apocalypse is nigh, someone in Hong Kong or South Korea might see the same scene as an uplifting indication that the community is coalescing to fend off catastrophe.

Hong Kong mask wearers in 2003 at the height of the SARS epidemic

Toilet paper leads to a realtor. I love blogging!

There's a lot to like about predictability. But life would be boring if everything happened as we expect it to happen. Also, that wouldn't be life. It would be something else, something boringly mechanical.

So I enjoy a mixture of order and chance, consistency and surprises. 

Virtually every day I write a post for one of my three blogs. That's orderly. But I never can predict what will result from my writing. That's the chance'y aspect.

Back on March 21, I wrote "Grocery shopping in Salem in the Coronavirus Era," noting that my wife and I had both struck out on finding toilet paper on our shopping expeditions. 

A few days later a woman emailed me with suggestions about where to find toilet paper in Salem, adding that she'd begun to explore an old school "family cloth" approach where flannel is fashioned into a toilet paper substitute if all else fails.  

As happens with me disturbingly often, I failed to reply to her message right away. Then the message sank deeper into my inbox, eventually becoming out of sight and out of mind.

Until yesterday, when I finally resurrected the toilet paper message in my newest attempt to eliminate unanswered emails.

My reply started with my usual "belated thanks for...", observing that eventually we'd been able to find toilet paper. The woman responded with her own thoughts, which included a mention that she and her husband had bought a historic house last year. That led me to ask some questions about the house.

And so it went, a pleasant exchange of emails with someone I had never met in person, but who'd reached out to me with her toilet paper suggestions.

I enjoyed looking at some photos of their home, which led me to send a message about how my wife and I periodically window-shop houses for sale in Salem, realizing that likely one day our home on ten acres in rural south Salem will become unsuitable for our steadily aging bodies to maintain.

That stimulated the woman to share the name of a realtor that they liked a lot who worked with them on selling their old home and buying the historic home. Which led me to call the realtor today, Bridget Welborn of HomeSmart Realty Group.

I know nothing about HomeSmart. I just liked the idea of talking with a realtor who came recommended by someone i'd just had a pleasant email exchange with. My wife and I have spoken with several realtors over the years who other people had liked, so I figured, why not give Welborn a call?

I'm glad I did. 

She was nicely low-key. I explained that we were simply wanting to start an exploration of homes in the Salem city limits, preparing for the possibility that one day we'll be serious about buying one. Welborn listened to my description of what sort of house we were looking for, and what parts of town appealed to us (south Salem, basically).

Who knows what will come of this? No one. Certainly not me. 

I simply enjoyed the seemingly random nature of how I was put in touch with realtor Welborn. I'd been vaguely thinking that my wife and I should get back to doing some planning about where we'd go if, for one reason or another, our current house stopped being right for us.

Maybe that day will never come. Maybe it will. Life is uncertain. All we can do is be open to possibilities, keeping our options as flexible as possible. Getting to know a realtor and getting pre-approved for house financing makes sense to me.

So that's my tale of how toilet paper led to a realtor. Where things go from here is unknown. However, my wife and I have enjoyed looking at a bunch of listings Welborn has already sent us. We'll refine the desired-house criteria that I told Welborn about doing our conversation today.

Then... who knows? 

Oh, the thoughts I have while grocery shopping during the COVID-19 pandemic

In case someone out there is interested in what goes through my mind during my weekly grocery shopping expedition here in Salem, Oregon during the coronavirus crisis, and why wouldn't there be, here's a pretty accurate glimpse of my thoughts last Monday.

[Note: my wife and I already had some N95 masks that we got during the Fukushima nuclear plant scare following the tsunami some years back when radiation was crossing the Pacific.]

Getting into my car: OK, check my protective gear. N95 mask. Three pairs of lightweight garden gloves. Hand sanitizer. Disinfecting wipes. Plastic bag to put used gloves in. Yup, all there. Time to fire up the Subaru and head out.

Approaching Trader Joes: Sure hope there isn't a huge line to get into the store. Leg has been hurting from damn sciatica. Don't want to stand for long time.

Entering Trader Joes parking lot: Oh, boy. Just six people in line. Sweet!... No, wait. Shit. Line goes around the side of the store. Just have to tough out the standing. Now, mask on. Gloves on. Ready to rumble. 

Trader Joe's social distancing line: Check time. 1:50. See how long it takes to get in the door. Geez, forgot my cap. Sun is warmer than I thought. Just April. Must be global warming. Not many people with masks. Oh, there's some. Old folks like me. Good to see Trader Joes employees in masks. Ah, made it in. Just took ten minutes. Not bad.

Returning to car after Trader Joes shopping: Damn, touched door unlock button with my gloves on! Where's a disinfectant wipe? Got to take gloves off without touching outside of them. Tricky. Ah, did it. Now put them in plastic bag. Clean door with wipe. Got to remember to take gloves off before touching door.

Fred Meyer parking lot: Need fresh pair of gloves. Pull mask up. Still got grocery list in pocket? Yes. Time for second grocery shopping trip.

Inside Fred Meyer: First, need salad mix and bananas... Wait, what's in that guy's shopping cart? Big package of toilet paper? OMG! OMG! Could it be?... Oh, no, it isn't. Brawny paper towels. Still, go for it. Paper towels hard to find also... Yes, wow, so many packages of Brawny. One to customer...fine with me. Maybe now we can stop tearing paper towels in small pieces whenever we need one.

Returning to car after Fred Meyer shopping: Focus, focus, remember -- gloves off before touching door handle. Dude, you remembered! Senility hasn't arrived just yet. Still, dab on some hand sanitizer just in case before pressing start button.

Entering Starbucks parking lot: Must reward myself. Went to three stores, Trader Joes, Fred Meyer, LifeSource. Hard day grocery shopping. Not really enjoyable anymore. But paper towels! Hope not long line in drive-up lane... OK, kind of long. Who cares. Craving grande decaf nonfat vanilla latte... Fire up iPhone Starbucks app. Hold up so barista can scan it. Ah, good to hear "hope you're having a good day." Actually, I am. Paper towels!

Why we can feel good about living in Salem during the COVID-19 pandemic

It's difficult to maintain a positive attitude these days, given the constant reminders of the COVID-19 outbreak here in Oregon and just about everywhere else in the world.

(Except Antarctica. So far.)

So I thought I'd dredge the corners of my mind for reasons we're fortunate to be living in Salem right now, rather than somewhere else.

Of course, I readily admit that some of what follows is by no means unique to Salem. But since I'm not in those other places, but here, I'm including those bits of positivity anyway.

(1) Just the right size. I'd hate to be living in a super-dense city, like New York. Practicing social distancing and avoiding surfaces that could have the coronavirus must be much more difficult when millions of people surround you. It'd also be worrisome to live in a rural area that is a long ways from hospitals and doctors. Thus Salem seems to be in a sweet spot, size-wise. Large enough, but not too large or too small.

(2) Marion County ranks #4 out of  36 in ability to hospitalize the elderly. Since I'm 71, and my wife is about the same age, we're in a high risk COVID-19 group. The Portland Business Journal ranked Oregon's 36 counties on how equipped they are to hospitalize their elderly population, using criteria such as the number of ICU beds per 1,000 people 65+. Pleasingly, Marion County ranked #4. Multnomah County is #1.

(3) Volunteerism is strong here. As elsewhere, admittedly. But people in Salem seem eager to make lives better for others by volunteering their time, money, and energy. Since my wife is a long-time Willamette Humane Society volunteer, along with many others, I know that "others" definitely includes dogs and cats. Today the Statesman Journal is reporting that Salem Health is looking for volunteers to sew 10,000 masks for health care providers. I bet they'll find those volunteers. 

Salem Health is asking for volunteers to sew nearly 10,000 mask kits for nurses and other care providers. 

Salem Health staff have created and bagged mask-making kits — enough for nearly 10,000 masks — that include surgical paper fabric, instructions and a bag for the finished product.

Those interested in helping need a sewing machine; white thread; scissors or a rotary cutter; and a yardstick, straight edge or cutting mat.

(4) Grocery stores are doing their part in difficult times. Whenever I go into a grocery store in Salem, I'm impressed with how energetic, positive, and helpful the employees are. They're working long hours under tough circumstances. I wish there was a tip jar at each check-out line so I could do more than just say "thank you for what you're doing." And many, if not most, stores are offering seniors and those with compromised immune systems a chance to shop during the first hour after opening. Much appreciated. 

(5) We aren't in India. A few days ago Prime Minister Modi announced that all 1.3 billion Indians are supposed to stay in their homes during a 3-week total lockdown. (I wrote about this on one of my other blogs.) Wow. And that lockdown happened with just four hours notice, leaving very little time to look for essential supplies.

Gov. Kate Brown's "Stay Home, Save Lives" executive order is mild by comparison. And Salem has plenty of pleasant places for walkers and runners to exercise. I'd go crazy, or crazier than I am already, if I had to stay in my home for three weeks. 

Grocery shopping in Salem in the Coronavirus Era

Here's a report from the front lines of people venturing out to do some grocery shopping in what I've come to think of as the Coronavirus Era. 

By "people," I basically mean me. But I'll start with a second-hand report from my wife, Laurel, who headed out in the morning in a (futile) search for toilet paper and facial tissue.

Laurel was staring at the completely empty shelves where toilet paper used to be at the south Salem Fred Meyer store. A man walked up and said, "Wow, what happened to the toilet paper?" Naturally she said that it was a result of the coronavirus outbreak.

"Oh, that's a scam," he remarked. Which left my wife speechless, because she missed an opportunity for a snappy comeback. Like, "Dude, you've been watching too much Fox News."

So it's disturbing that there's even one person in Salem who doesn't understand how important it is to take the outbreak seriously, which means social distancing and taking other precautions to avoid being infected with COVID-19, for the good of both yourself and other people. 

I headed out to do our main weekly grocery shopping in the afternoon, following Laurel's return. Though she struck out on paper products, Laurel was successful in getting bread and some other must-have's.

Since my wife has asthma, she wore a mask and gloves when she goes into stores. And since I both fear and love my wife, which happens after thirty years of marriage, I was pleased to obey her command that I also wear a mask and gloves.

I found an N-95 mask that we'd gotten during the Fukushima nuclear reactor disaster in 2011, when some low levels of radiation were projected to reach the United States. Since I'd never tried it on before, my first reaction was, Wow, this isn't very comfortable. Yet many health care workers have to wear a mask for a lengthy time every day.

Pulling into the Trader Joe's parking lot, I also found myself thinking that I was going to look kind of strange with my mask and gloves. But that thought didn't last long, being replaced with the realization that whatever helps keep me and Laurel free of the coronavirus is a good thing, strange or not.

And I then noticed that there was a line of people waiting to enter Trader Joe's.

To reduce the risk of social contagion, friendly employees were letting a shopper into the store only when someone left the store. It only took about ten minutes for me to reach the head of the line, where I asked a question spurred by a sign that said it was only possible to buy two of any item.

"Um, I like to have your small container of yogurt every day, so I need seven to get me through the next week. Would it be OK to buy that many, or do I need to get one or two large containers of yogurt?" The reply was, "Don't worry about it. You should be fine."

Which I was.

Trader Joe's also had put green tape to show where people were supposed to stand when waiting in line for a cashier. And once my groceries began to be rang up, there was another piece of green tape where I was to stand during that process. So only when I had to put my credit card in the reader was i close to the cashier, which makes a lot of sense.

When I got back to my car, I could hardly wait to lower my mask to chin level, in part because I quickly realized that wearing dark glasses with the mask on made my glasses fog up. Some health care workers must wear glasses, so there's got to be a trick to combining a mask with glasses that I'm not aware of.

Fred Meyer was my next stop.

All went smoothly there. I ended up getting more than was on my list, because as I wandered the aisles I'd see something that we use regularly, like coffee filters, and think that I should get some in case there's a shortage in the future, even though we don't need that thing right now.

Not a great idea, since this is how shortages happen -- people fearing that a shortage is going to happen. But understandable, especially given the desolate look of the aisle where paper towels, facial tissue, and toilet tissue usually grace the shelves. Zero. Nada. Zilch. 

But hey, I've got plenty of coffee filters! And, yogurt. Sadly, neither of which are suitable for wiping my butt.

My final stop was Lifesource Natural Foods.

All seemed pretty normal there, aside from the change to the bulk foods department. Now you can't put bulk stuff in a plastic bag yourself. Instead, two Lifesource employees were doing that in an efficient manner. I only needed salted mixed nuts, so getting them was quick and easy.

Yesterday my wife and I had less positive results with our first attempt to order groceries online, then pick them up outside the store. Laurel ordered quite a few things that were shown at being available at the Sunnyside Roth's. But by the appointed time to pick them up, every item but paper towels wasn't available. 

(At least paper towels are closer to being toilet paper than coffee filters and yogurt.)

Same thing happened with some hand sanitizer that i'd optimistically ordered from Lifesource after seeing it available on their web site. I got an email saying that the order had been cancelled, since that item was out of stock. Some friends of ours have had success with local online ordering, though. So I guess it depends on what you want and how much in demand it is.

We're appreciative that so many stores are earmarking an early time for at-risk people to come in, like at 7 am. Being over 70, we might take advantage of that at some point. Especially if toilet paper continues to be in such short supply. It was good to see that Fred Meyer is only allowing people to buy one item of paper products like toilet paper. 

But when there is zero available on the shelves, one is a very lonely number.

After criticizing its construction, Salem Health Rehab Center helps my sore leg

My right leg has been really painful, so yesterday I got a physical therapy referral from my family doctor.

The letter said that I'd been referred to Orthopedic Physical Therapy at 755 Mission Street. I'd never heard of that name, and I couldn't remember any physical therapy clinic near that address.

All became clear when I called the phone number on the referral. I'd been referred to the Salem Health Rehabilitation Center that was constructed a few years ago.

Amazingly, I was offered an appointment with Michael that very afternoon. (Must have been a cancellation.) 

"Do you know where we are?" the appointment person asked. "Not really," I told her. "We're on the site of the old Blind School, next to the adaptive playground."

Ah, I thought, this is the Salem Health facility that I'd criticized so vociferously in some 2014 blog posts such as: "Save ancient trees and Howard Hall from Salem Hospital's greed" and "Salem Hospital construction likely kills majestic White Oak." 

Representatives of the blind community have said that five times their attempts to negotiate a compromise with Salem Hospital over Howard Hall were rejected. Likewise, professional architectural renderings that show it is possible to save most of the ancient trees on the property, rather than cut them down for a barren parking lot, have been rejected out of hand by the hospital.

If you care about preserving trees and historic buildings, take a few minutes to learn about what will be lost if Salem Hospital gets its greedy way.

...It is evident in the top photo that construction activity was taking place all around the White Oak.

This tree was several hundred years old. My wife and I have a similarly-sized White Oak near our house that is about 250 years old, according to an arborist from Elwood's Tree Service (we use Elwood's for tree work on our ten natural rural acres).

The tree that developed the split lived for centuries through countless wind storms, ice storms, heavy rains, and drought. Yet Salem Hospital apparently wants us to believe that soon after heavy construction equipment worked around the tree for weeks on end, the split just coincidentally happened.

I'm still bothered by how Salem Health handled the demolition of the Blind School and the unnecessary destruction of many old, beautiful, large trees to make room for a parking lot. 

But I was impressed by how attractive the Rehabilitation Center is, both inside and out. 

So a lot of good has arisen from Salem Health's disturbing construction activity. That's the way of the world. Rarely is an issue completely good or bad, positive or negative, productive or destructive.

And I've got to say that with my sore leg, it was nice to be able to park close to the Rehabilitation Center rather than having to deal with Salem Health's parking garages. I also liked seeing children enjoying themselves in the adaptive playground.

Michael Bragiel, the physical therapist I saw on such short notice, was a delight.

Personable, energetic, humorous, knowledgeable, and... young. I told him that people his age can explain that their leg pain was caused by a skiing accident, or whatever, whereas often people my age (71) have little or no clue about why their leg is acting up.

(I have my guesses, notably that my habit of using my laptop while sitting on a non-ergonomic bar stool at our kitchen counter finally caught up to me, leg-pain-wise.)

After Michael checked out the strength of my legs and did some prodding and poking of my body, he concluded that I could continue exercising so long as that didn't make the leg pain worse. I only was given one nerve stretching exercise to do a couple of times a day.

Thus I came away grateful that the Salem Rehabilitation Center exists, and that it is filled with such caring, competent staff.

I just wish Salem Health had been more responsive to the concerns of the blind community about what Howard Hall meant to them, along with modifying its plans for the Rehab Center parking lot so many or most of the existing large trees could have been saved, especially the majestic White Oak.

"Salem is a really friendly town." So says a couple considering moving here.

Last Monday my email inbox presented me with an interesting message, which said in part...

Brian Hines:

So, my wife and I are exploring Salem as a place to retire... from crazy, CRAZY Silicon Valley.   Two days before Christmas, just at this moment we're sitting in our AirBNB living room in South Salem, exploring by cyber-means what we've been doing by car and by shamelessly accosting locals on the street, in coffee houses, and at Northern Lights for the past week. After seeing a million prospective houses in West and South Salem, our real estate lady took us to Pringle Creek Community and we're hooked.

They'd found me via my Strange Up Salem Facebook page. Or maybe my blogs. Regardless, they offered to buy me a beer or coffee so they could talk to me about Salem -- an offer I couldn't refuse.

So on Tuesday morning, Christmas Eve, I met up with them at the French Press on south Commercial. When I arrived, they were talking with a couple at the next table, who had moved to Salem fairly recently. 

We covered quite a bit of ground in the 90 minutes or so I spent with the Silicon Valley couple. Early on they told me how impressed they were with the friendliness of people in Salem.

While waiting in line at the Northern Lights movie theatre, they found it easy to strike up conversations with other people. That doesn't happen in Silicon Valley, they told me, theorizing that because people work such long hours there, when they have free time they aren't much interested in chit-chat.

I enjoyed listening to them talk about what they liked about Salem. Those of us who have lived here for a long time (in my case, 42 years) often take the good things about Salem for granted, while focusing on what we don't like. 

Salem really is a friendly town.

Like a fish who fails to notice the water that surrounds them, I'd just become accustomed to the friendliness of the city that I've called home since 1977. The couple noted that people here stop for cars trying to merge into heavy traffic, another sign of friendliness.

Now, I'm not sure whether this couple has made a final decision to move to Salem, though it sounded like they were leaning in that direction. I told them that Pringle Creek Community, the environmentally-friendly development on the old Fairview Training Center property, seemed like it would be a good fit for them.

After all, no matter how friendly a city is, it isn't all that easy for retired people to make new acquaintances. They liked how Pringle Creek Community offered a built-in social network, with various activities offered to both those who live there and the surrounding neighborhood.

Anyway, let's keep Salem friendly. That's good for those of us who already live here, and it's also a good way of attracting people who are thinking of moving here.

Misfits belong in Salem's theatre community (and elsewhere)

Misfits don't fit in. Except where they do. Like, in Salem's theatre community.

There was a lot to like about today's City Club program, "On Stage: Salem's Vibrant Theater Community." But what I'm going to focus on is one thing Lisa Joyce, executive director of Pentacle Theatre, said.

She told us that misfits find a home in theatre, because everyone is welcome there.

I absolutely loved those words. And now, having written that five word sentence, I'm having trouble explaining why. So for the moment I'm going to take a detour around my personal feeling about misfits and return to it later in this blog post.

Elsewhere in her presentation -- Jay Gipson-King of the Chemeketa Community College theatre program and Vincenzo Meduri of Enlightened Theatrics also spoke -- Joyce talked about how Pentacle Theatre had put on some plays that explored LGBTQ themes.

She noted that some audience members had expressed concern about those gay-friendly performances. I was curious about this, so spoke with her after the City Club program concluded.

Joyce told me that it seemed to be a generational thing. Meaning, it was a few older Pentacle Theatre attendees who felt it wasn't right to present homosexuality as acceptable, since they apparently thought this was an unnatural "lifestyle choice." Which, of course, it isn't.

Young people, she said, have a different attitude toward LGBTQ people. And the theatre community, she added, is a haven for gays. So that was one aspect of what she meant by misfits.

Salem, along with American culture in general, has a way to go before all forms of gender and sexual identity are accepted fully. Narrow-minded churches are partly to blame, since gay youth are told that they are sinners bound for hell if they don't change to become god-fearing heterosexuals.

Which is impossible. Even for an accomplished actor. Life isn't a play. We can temporarily embrace a role for a theatrical production. But we can't change the essence of who we are.

So it's fitting that Salem's theatre community embraces misfits. Joyce, Gipson-King, and Meduri all talked about how being part of a theatrical production has so many wonderful benefits. 

Being part of a diverse team. Trusting yourself and others. Being fully present in the moment. Embracing difficult emotions. Understanding that there are no stars, just different people doing a wide variety of essential jobs -- acting, directing, set design, costume design, lighting, sound, makeup, ushering, marketing, and so much more.

But back to misfits.

I don't know what it is about that word, misfits. Every time I've typed it, I've felt something well up inside of me, a strong emotion that defies easy expression.

Well, Lisa Joyce spoke to me about how being part of a theatrical community has helped LGBTQ people come out as who they are, rather than disguising themselves behind a facade of societal normality. So maybe if I simply let words spill out of me right now, they'll say something authentic about my own sense of being a misfit.

Which goes way back, as strong feelings often do. Understand: I'm not equating my life with that of a gay person, or a person of color, or an otherwise marginalized person. I'm an old white heterosexual guy, with all that entails.

However, I was raised by a divorced alcoholic woman, my mother. It was tough, especially in my teenage years, when her alcoholism took a turn for the worse. I felt different inside, like I was a stranger in a strange land of children who had two more-or-less normal parents.

So that was my first taste of feeling like a misfit. I'll skip ahead fifty years or so to right now. 

Where, just as in my high school years, I appear normal on the outside, but feel like a misfit on the inside. Why? Because a bit over two and a half years ago my bladder decided to go on strike, for reasons that aren't exactly clear -- but the result is: having to, as the saying goes, pee in a "differently abled" way.

Namely, by using a catheter, a plastic tube thing that I insert into my urethra five times a day. (I've written about my condition so rarely, I couldn't even spell "urethra" correctly at first.)

This isn't something that I feel comfortable talking to people about.

At first I was clinically depressed, even somewhat suicidal, after learning that I'd have to do the catheter thing for the rest of my life. Since, I've written a few blog posts about my bladder problem, but by and large only my wife knows about the many struggles I've gone through.

So I feel like a misfit, even though my rational mind says things to me like, "Many people have worse medical problems" and "You should feel lucky that you're otherwise healthy."

Still, I feel like I don't fit in the big wide world of people who can go into a restroom at a restaurant, movie theatre, or wherever without it being an adventure (sometimes it is difficult for me to insert a catheter, a problem common to many men who have to use one).

Thus I avoid lengthy meetings, movies, gatherings, and, yes, theatrical productions, where I feel trapped by the uncertainty of not knowing whether a bathroom visit is going to have a happy or disturbing ending.

Anyway, I've explained a bit about why that word "misfit" resonated so deeply with me when I heard it today. I know what it is like to outwardly look like one sort of person, and to inwardly feel like another sort of person. 

Of course, I believe that all of us, at least at one time or another, feel like we don't fit in.

My bladder problem just has given me a much better appreciation of what it is like to have a permanent attribute of one's self that isn't easily shared with other people. So when Joyce spoke about the theatre community welcoming misfits, I immediately resonated with her words.

Misfits of the world, may we all live long and prosper. And look forward to a day when that word falls into disuse, because everyone is viewed as fitting in. 

Why eating at In-N-Out Burger is morally wrong

Today an In-N-Out Burger restaurant has opened in nearby Keizer, Oregon, sending waves of feverish delight through the taste buds of people willing to spend hours in line to buy the main food offering... dead cows.

I consider this to be morally wrong, having been a vegetarian for most of my life. So my objection isn't to In-N-Out Burger itself. What bothers me is that most Americans are so uncaring about the suffering they're producing by eating meat and fish.

Understand: there's a variety of good reasons to be vegetarian or vegan. It's a healthier way to go. It's better for the planet. But my main motivation when I became a vegetarian in college (I'm 71 now) was that I didn't want to kill conscious beings that suffer for no good reason.

If you've read this far, maybe you have at least a slight openness to that argument.

Perhaps you're an animal lover, with a dog and/or cat in your home that you are confident enjoys sensations, feelings, and such just as you do, albeit in different ways. You would feel bad if someone caused the family pet to suffer.

Well, cows have sensations and feelings also. And I'm going to present a scientist's arguments for why it is immoral to cause any living being to suffer or die without a good reason. 

(Since almost everybody in the United States doesn't need meat/fish to survive, killing animals for food isn't a good reason.)

Here's quotations from the final chapter of Christof Koch's book, The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness is Widespread but Can't Be Computed. Koch is the president and chief scientist at the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, following twenty-seven years as a professor at the California Institute of Technology.

My lifelong quest is to grasp the true nature of being... I now know that I live in a universe in which the inner light of experience is far more widespread than assumed within the standard Western canon. This inner light shines in humans and in the denizens of the animal kingdom, brighter or dimmer, in proportion to the complexity of their nervous system.

Integrated information theory predicts the possibility that all cellular life feels like something. The mental and the physical are closely linked, two aspects of one underlying reality.

...I want to end this book by moving from the descriptive to the prescriptive and proscriptive, to how we should think about good and bad and to a call to action.

Most importantly, we must abandon the idea that humans are at the center of the ethical universe and that we bestow value on the rest of the natural world only insofar as it suits humanity's ends, a belief that is such a large part of Western culture and tradition. We are evolved creatures, one leaf among millions on the tree of life.

...We must cure humanity's narcissism and our deep-seated belief that animals and plants exist solely for our pleasure and benefit. We need to embrace the principle that the moral status of any subject, of any Whole, is rooted in their consciousness, not solely in their humanness.

There are three justifications for being admitted to the privileged rank of subjects. I call them the sentience, experiential, and the cognitive criteria. 

Emotionally, we most easily resonate with sentience in others. We all have a strong instinctual reaction when we see a child or a dog being abused. We feel something of its pain; we empathize with it. Hence the moral intuition that any subject capable of suffering ceases to be a means to an end and becomes an end in itself.

Any creature that has the potential to feel distress has some minimal moral standing -- foremost the desire to be and the desire not to suffer.

...The experiential justification for the idea that species other than humans ought to be considered intrinsically valuable subjects is that any entity with an inner point of view is precious. Phenomenal experience is irreplaceable in a universe devoid of extrinsic purpose.

It is the only thing that really matters. For if something does not feel, it does not exist as a subject. A corpse and a zombie both exist, but not for themselves, only for others.

A third justification for this grounding is cognitive ability, having beliefs and desires, a sense of self, a sense of the future, of being able to imagine counterfactuals ("If I hadn't lost my legs, I could still climb"), the potential to be creative. To the extent that animals have such advanced cognitive abilities, they have rights.

However, I am against justifying moral standing purely on the basis of cognitive skills. First, not all humans possess such abilities -- think of babies, anencephalic children, or patients in a vegetative state or in late-stage dementia. Should they have lesser standing and fewer rights than able adults?

...Of these three justifications, sentience is in my view the most powerful one for why creatures that can suffer deserve special status. Because I can imagine myself being left alone, starved, or beaten, I feel sympathy or empathy with the other.

...The New Testament reminds us in Matthew 25: "Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." The Czech writer Milan Kundera in his novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being generalizes this moral stipulation to all creatures:

True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power. Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test... consists of its attitude toward those who are at its mercy: animals.

The Buddhist attitude toward sentience mirrors this view. We should treat all animals as being conscious, as feeling what-it-is-like-to-be. This must inform how we behave toward our fellow travelers through this cosmos, who are defenseless before our fences, cages, blades, and bullets and our relentless drive for Lebensraum. [living space]

One day, humanity may well be judged for how we treated our relatives on the tree of life.

We should extend a universal ethical stance to all creatures, whether they speak, cry, bark, whine, howl, bellow, chirp, shriek, buzz, or are mute. For all experience life, book-ended between two eternities.

Salem, we need to keep our local hardware stores alive

I'm a guilty Amazon Prime shopper.

Meaning, I buy a lot of stuff from Amazon because the selection is so great, as are the prices, and I usually get what I want in a few days, sometimes the next day. But I realize that local stores are at risk of going under with the steady rise of online shopping.

Hence, the guilt. Because I buy many books from Amazon, and have done so for a long time, I'm still feeling guilty about the demise of Jackson's Books way back when.

However, after reading a New York Times opinion piece about hardware stores suffering from Amazon competition, I had a pleasing sense of it won't be me that drives our local stores out of business, since I'm a frequent shopper at the south Salem Ace Hardware off of Madrona Street.

Still, the story got me worried. Here's how it starts out.

On Ninth Avenue in Manhattan, not far from where I live, there’s a small neighborhood hardware store called Chelsea Convenience Hardware, which is distinguished by its unlikely display of dozens of Russian nesting dolls in the storefront window. Inside, tools and supplies are piled to the ceiling, and when you enter, the owner, Naum Feygin, an immigrant from Boris Yeltsin’s Russia, looks up to ask you what you need.

The “convenience” in the store’s name is no misnomer, for the place is extraordinarily efficient. It is cheaper and faster than ordering from Amazon and offers expert advice that reduces the risk of buying the wrong thing. It is all too easy on Amazon, for example, to buy halogen bulbs that don’t fit your lamp base; Mr. Feygin has spared me many such headaches. And the store’s small size is a virtue: Unlike at Home Depot, you can be in and out in 10 minutes.

Nonetheless, Chelsea Convenience is set to close at the end of November, another casualty of rising commercial rents and competition from e-commerce. The closing is of no great economic significance, other than to Mr. Feygin. But it is a microcosm of the forces reshaping the United States economy, often paradoxically and for the worse. Why is a less efficient, less personalized and more wasteful way of buying screws and plungers — ordering online — displacing the local hardware store?

Tim Wu, who wrote the piece, offers up a variety of answers to that question. A concluding paragraph encapsulates a primary reason.

The fate of Chelsea Convenience shows, in its small way, that business and capitalism can be at odds — that the drive for immense capital gains can drain the life out of human-scale business. For entrepreneurs, the American economy, with its extreme centralization, is becoming more like the Soviet economy Mr. Feygim left behind.

l grew up in a small central California town that had a small hardware store akin to the Manhattan store Wu writes about. It was crammed with items, but somehow the owner could quickly find what a customer wanted amid all the chaotic messiness.

Downtown Salem's Saffron Supply is much more organized than that, but that store is pleasingly old-fashioned. I wrote about it back in 2004 in "I'm the king of the world!" After describing how the Saffron Supply staff helped me replace some plumbing parts, I ended with this passage.

The only awkward moment during my visit to Saffron Supply occurred when, in an effort to express my gratitude while the guy was writing up my purchase, I blurted out to him and several co-workers, “I could never get this sort of service at Fred Meyer or Lowe’s. You better never go out of business.”

There was no response at all to my comment, just a quick glance or two in my direction. I felt like maybe I was treading on sensitive ground. “Oh God,” I thought with more than a touch of remorse, “what if they are on the verge of going out of business?” Then I was brought back to the present moment.

“Would you like a bag?” “Sure, thank you.” My nine dollars worth of parts were put into a paper bag, the top carefully folded over, the handwritten receipt placed inside. It all felt really real. May Saffron Supply survive and prosper, and continue to produce kings of the world.

Along with other hardware stores in Salem. 

A few days ago my much-beloved Stihl backpack leaf blower wouldn't run properly. I'd gotten it in 2006, and have done a crappy job of maintaining it, so I should feel lucky it lasted this long. I decided it was time to get a new Stihl blower.

I phoned the South Salem Ace Hardware. They assured me they had a variety for me to choose from. When I got to the Stihl department at the back of the store, the guy standing there asked if I wanted to talk with the Stihl specialist.

"Absolutely," I said. Less than a minute later a tall lanky man appeared who, not surprisingly, expertly guided me through the Stihl leaf blower options. He told me that he had the same model I was considering, and liked it a lot.

Like me, he was familiar with the leafy deluge that comes with having many large oak trees on one's property.

And he pointed to a slightly less expensive leaf blower model that he said his neighbor bought, but was unhappy with, because it doesn't handle moist leaves very well, while the model he recommended had enough power to blow both moist and wet leaves.

I told him, "I'll buy it." He then said that for the modest price of a gallon of pre-mixed 50:1 fuel, I'd receive double the warranty period. To which I replied, "Great. Let's do it." 

He then pulled the Stihl leaf blower off the shelf, grabbed a fuel can, and took me outside the front door. 

There he added fuel, primed the blower, and started it up, giving me a few tips about how to use it in the process. After paying for the blower and driving home with it, I spent a pleasant 20 minutes or so testing it out, finding that it seemed both a bit quieter and more powerful than my current Stihl backpack blower.

Here's a photo of my new leaf blower friend. I spent two hours with it yesterday, finishing up the leaves that have finally stopped falling in our large rural south Salem yard. (In case you hate gas-powered leaf blowers, I've explained why using one is a necessity for us.)

I'd never buy a leaf blower from Amazon, of course.

But I have bought pre-mixed fuel from Amazon. For some reason I hadn't thought that Ace Hardware would carry TruFuel, but now I know that they do. So that's an item I'll be buying locally from now on. I don't want Salem's hardware stores to befall the fate of most of our book stores, driven out of business by Amazon.

Electric vehicles are the future in Oregon

I walked into today's Salem City Club program, "Charging Ahead: Is Oregon Ready for Electric Vehicles?," feeling positive about electric cars. I walked out feeling super excited about them. 

Which made me pleased that I'd put down a $2,500 deposit on the upcoming Tesla Model Y, a hatchback version of the popular Model 3 that I'm seeing a lot of here in Salem. 

Jessica Reichers got my enthusiasm ramped up with her kick-off presentation. She's with the Oregon Department of Energy. 

She noted that there's a lot of jargon associated with electric vehicles, EVs. ZEVs are zero emission vehicles. They don't emit any exhaust gas, so a fully electric vehicle would be a ZEV. As would a bicycle, of course. Reichers described four types of electric vehicles.

(1) Fuel cell. (no fueling stations exist in Oregon so far)
(2) Battery electric. (no gas engine at all)
(3) Plug-in hybrid. (goes for a while on electricity, then shifts to gas engine/generator)
(4) Hybrid. (doesn't need plugging in)

These are some of the advantages of fully electric vehicles. Plug-in hybrids, such as the Chevy Volt (we've leased three Volts) share the advantages to a large extent. 

The main disadvantage for many people is range anxiety, worrying you will run out of battery power on the road. Plug-in hybrids and hybrids don't have that worry, but they also aren't zero emission. With many more ZEVs expected in Oregon, our state has to keep up with the need for charging stations. 

Currently we have enough, according to Reichers. Tesla owners are especially fortunate, since Tesla has Superchargers on major highways that can charge a vehicle much more rapidly than Level 2 (240 volt) chargers. Many people get by with using regular 120 volt charging overnight at home.

For me, as for most people attracted to electric vehicles, a prime motivation is acting to preserve our one and only planet Earth for human habitation. Global warming produced by human-caused greenhouse gas emissions is real, getting worse, and poses a major threat to civilization. 

This slide showed the environmental benefits of electric vehicles. The transportation sector is the biggest contributor to Oregon's greenhouse gas emissions.

Many electric vehicles qualify for the $7,500 federal tax credit. Of course, you have to pay at least that much in federal taxes to benefit from it. Some electric car manufacturers, such as Tesla, have sold so many vehicles, the federal tax credit has gone away wholly or in large part. This example is for an all-electric Hyundai that qualifies for several incentives.

Fuel is another obvious source of savings, since electricity here in Oregon is quite inexpensive compared to some other parts of the country.

Yes, part of the electricity in our state comes from fossil fuel sources, coal and natural gas. This slide shows how PGE, Pacific Power, and Salem Electric (part of COU/BPA) stack up, carbon emission-wise, if used to power an electric vehicle. All are much less carbon-intensive than an Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicle.

The other City Club presenter was Joe Wachunas, an electric vehicle information consultant with FORTH, a non-profit based in Portland whose web site has a lot of valuable information. FORTH offers test drives of electric vehicles. 

He showed this mildly-depressing slide of electric vehicles as a percentage of new car sales. Just 2% nationally, about 4% in Portland, yet 21% in San Jose, California and a whopping 48% in Norway -- which shows that electric cars work just fine in cold weather.

Lastly, this slide debunked a criticism of electric vehicles that I've heard from skeptics. Namely, that the carbon emissions involved in making the car and its battery outweigh the emissions that aren't produced in operating the car. 

Actually, even with battery manufacturing included, the life-cycle global warming emissions for electric cars are less than half of the emissions for a gasoline car.

After the program, we got to see electric vehicles that City Club members had brought to the meeting. There was a good variety: Jaguar iPace, Chevrolet Spark, Chevy Bolt and Volt, Tesla S, Honda Clarity, others I can't remember, and...

City Councilor Chris Hoy's Tesla X. I'd never seen an actual Tesla X, so this was a thrill for me. I got to sit in the driver's seat and peruse the "romantic" mode (or whatever it's called) that features a relaxing fire on the giant touchscreen. 

Even better, Chris demonstrated how his Model X can dance. If anybody you know says that electric cars are boring, show them this video.

 

Salem Climate Strike 2019: my photos, videos, commentary

Here's photos and videos I took at today's student-organized Salem Climate Strike event on the steps of the Capitol building, plus my commentary. Really inspiring to see so many young people standing up for preserving our one and only Earth for human habitation.

Fairview Woods approved by Salem City Council

It was good to see the Salem City Council vote unanimously last night to reject an appeal of the 14.1 acre, 16 lot Fairview Woods development. 

Eric Olsen of Olsen Design & Development has been working on this project for several years. The Woods currently is a heavily treed parcel at the top of the old Fairview Training Center property in south Salem. It's filled with ivy, blackberries, and trash left by homeless people and others.

As Olsen discussed at the City Council hearing (I watched via the City of Salem's Facebook feed), The Woods was a difficult design challenge. 

Olsen's Fairview Addition development basically surrounds The Woods. Olsen became interested in the 14 acres when he realized that the owners of the property wanted to develop it, and if he didn't do this, someone else would take control of The Woods and possibly do things with it that weren't desirable for the people who live in Fairview Addition.

So what he came up with was a way to save most of the trees and allow public access to the property by having only 16 lots on the 14 acres -- with the lot sizes ranging from .3 acre to 1.1 acre. Here's a map from the Fairview Woods Refinement Plan.
Download Fairview Woods Refinement Plan

The green dots are trees. The white rectangles are illustrative home sites. The black lines are the private roads in The Woods. Olsen explained that the roads need to be private because if they were public and built to City of Salem standards, their width would require many more trees to be removed, along with wrecking the look and feel of The Woods.

Olsen said that the roads will be shared by vehicles, pedestrians, and cyclists, as narrow roads at the Black Butte Ranch and Sunriver resorts in central Oregon are. 

The large green area at the top of the curve of a road is a public Oak Park. 

Homeowners in The Woods only will be able to fence in 4,000 square feet of their lot, leaving the rest of the lot open for wildlife to meander through. A Homeowner's Association will help assure that no one cuts down trees unnecessarily. 

A central assertion of the person who filed the appeal of The Woods Refinement Plan that was the subject of last night's hearing was that the Master Plan for the Fairview property needed to be amended to make it compatible with the refinement plan.

But Councilor Tom Andersen, along with others, noted that aside from Pringle Creek Community, all of the development that has occurred on the Fairview property has deviated considerably from the original Master Plan.

Since my wife, Laurel, and I were members of Sustainable Fairview Associates during the time the Master Plan was being worked on, I know that this plan was a rather grandiose vision for the property, not a realistic blueprint for its development.

Laurel and I have been following goings-on at Fairview after we sold our shares in Sustainable Fairview Associates. Fairview Addition appealed to us enough to warrant putting down a deposit on two lots adjacent to The Woods, though we ended up deciding to stick with our non-easycare ten acres in rural south Salem for a while longer.

Now we're interested in Fairview Woods. It's tough to think of moving from where we are, but it's also difficult to envision us staying where we are for the rest of our lives, given that we're both now over 70 (not much over!).

Pleasingly, someone who lives in Fairview Addition testified last night that he surveyed other Fairview Addition residents about what they think of the plan for The Woods. I recall he said that 15 people responded, with 11 in favor of the Fairview Woods Refinement Plan, two neutral, and two opposed. 

The Morningside Neighborhood Association also approves of the plan for The Woods, albeit with some concerns that I believe have been addressed by Olsen Design & Development. 

I feel that Eric Olsen has done an excellent job of balancing the goal of preserving as many trees and as much open space as possible on the 14 acres, with the goal of having this development pencil out financially. My wife and I have talked with Olsen a number of times in recent years. I find him to be an honest, straightforward, caring,, creative developer -- the best kind.

Here's the tree preservation plan for The Woods. Being a proud tree-hugger, I like what I see.

Hopefully it won't be necessary to remove too many additional trees. In part this may happen because the location of the home sites shown on the map above are illustrative, not actual. Regardless, most developments in Salem preserve a much lower percentage of trees, being denser with wider roads.

CarMax to open store in Salem in February 2020

I love CarMax. My wife and I have sold three of our cars there, getting a better price than was offered by local dealerships here in Salem, Oregon.


So I got excited when someone told me that they'd seen a sign near the I-5 freeway saying that a CarMax store was coming to town. It's taken more than five years for this to happen since a February 2014 Statesman Journal story by Michael Rose was titled, "CarMax on the course toward Salem location."

CarMax Inc., a giant in the used car business with 130 locations nationwide, has started laying the groundwork for a Salem dealership.

City records show that CarMax has filled a land-use application to partition property in the 365 to 395 blocks of Lancaster Drive SE, near the Santiam 11 cinemas. CarMax is interested in building on two vacant parcels that face Interstate 5.

I didn't find any mention of an upcoming Salem store on the CarMax web site, so I emailed their media relations department a few days ago. They said they'd get back to me soon, which they did. Here's the breaking news.

Hi Brian,

Thank you for your interest in CarMax. We are pleased to confirm that CarMax does indeed have plans to open a store in Salem, and we are looking forward to providing customers there with our simple and stress-free used car shopping experience. The location is slated to open in February of 2020.

Store Details and Hiring

The Salem location will be the company’s 3rd store in the state of Oregon. CarMax typically invests between $10 and $25 million on each store location depending upon the size of the store and its capabilities (service operations, reconditioning, auction services, etc.).

We anticipate hiring approximately 10-15 associates for this particular store and anticipate carrying inventory of about 100-150 used vehicles on the lot. CarMax maximizes customer choice by offering a large selection and by making our nationwide inventory of nearly 50,000 vehicles available for viewing on our website, www.carmax.com,  as well as our mobile app.

Upon request by a customer, CarMax will also transfer most used cars among the company’s 200+ stores which allows customers greater access to a much larger selection of inventory.

About CarMax
CarMax, the nation’s largest retailer of used cars, revolutionized the automotive retail industry by driving integrity, honesty and transparency in every interaction. CarMax continues to innovate and is currently rolling out an omni-channel experience, providing customers the option to complete transactions entirely from home, in store, or in a seamless combination of both. 

CarMax has more than 200 stores nationwide, and during the latest fiscal year sold nearly 750,000 used cars and 450,000 wholesale vehicles at its in-store auctions.  With more than 25,000 associates, CarMax is proud to have been recognized for 15 consecutive years as one of the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For®.  For more information, visit www.carmax.com.

Thanks again for reaching out, and we hope you’ll have a chance to shop at the store.

CarMax Public Relations

If you're not familiar with CarMax, it offers no-hassle car selling and buying. I've never bought a car from CarMax, but I'm familiar with the selling process -- which is marvelously efficient and pleasant, two words that don't describe my experience with getting offers from dealerships in Salem.

As the CarMax web site says, there's no haggling and no pressure. Here's how the process goes when someone wants to sell CarMax a vehicle. I'm assuming the buying process is equally smooth.

We've made an appointment ahead of time, since currently the closest CarMax store is in Beaverton, off of 217, and we want to be done before Portland-area rush hour traffic starts (of course, "rush hour" is just about any time of day now).  There's another store in the Portland area, but nowhere else in Oregon. So Salem is fortunate to be getting one.

It takes about 45 minutes for a car to be driven and inspected. The CarMax employees who do this are experts. I watched them do their thing when I took my Mini Cooper S in for an offer. My wife has handled the Toyota Highlander and Chevy Volt offers.

Then you get an offer sheet.

The price on it is a take-it-or-leave-it offer. As noted above, we've taken it on each of the three cars we've sold to CarMax, since the price was considerably more than what Salem dealerships were offering, even dealerships of the brand we were trying to sell.

Sure, if we sold the car on our own, there's a good chance we could have gotten more money. However, I've sold quite a few cars on my own, and it's never a pleasant process. Generally either nobody responds to an ad for weeks, and/or I get lowball calls from people who say "I see you're trying to sell your _____ for $15,000. Would you accept $7,000?" 

No. I wouldn't. 

The CarMax purchase offer is good for a week. If you decide to accept it, you simply bring the car to CarMax and walk up to the Business Office counter.

Then an employee quickly and courteously prints out the paperwork, and you're on your way with a check within half an hour or so, after they take a look at your car to make sure everything is out of it, and it's in the same condition as when the offer was made.

CarMax will even buy cars that are being leased, as was the case with the Chevy Volt we sold to CarMax this month. It can shift cars around the country, matching supply and demand, so that's part of the reason for CarMax's success.

But there's more to it than that.

When I complimented a CarMax employee on how smoothly their customer experience operates, she said, "We're always looking for ways to improve." I'm hoping that with CarMax coming to Salem, this will put pressure on local dealerships to improve the ways they sell and buy vehicles. 

Believe me, there's a lot of room for improvement. 

Hood House will provide housing for five homeless Salem women

There's so much wrong going on in the world, it's refreshing to be able to report on something very much right.

Russ and Delana Beaton, long-time advocates for the homeless here in Salem, Oregon, have created an innovative housing opportunity for five previously homeless women.

The Beatons are members of a monthly discussion group that my wife and I belong to, so we've been kept up to date on the progress of their Hood House -- named for the street it sits on in northeast Salem.

Here's how Hood House was described by Delana in an emailed invite to last Tuesday's open house.

Last December Russ and I purchased a five bedroom two story home at 1160 Hood Street NE to be used to house five women age 55 and older who have low fixed incomes and have been priced out of market rent housing.

 

It has taken many long months of extensive renovation and dealing with a variety of challenges. But, finally, Hood House is ready to receive its first occupants. The whole home is scrubbed, painted, furnished and decorated.  Kitchen and bathrooms are renovated and upgraded. ARCHES is actively looking for women to refer under their Coordinated Entry System (CES). 

 

We are excited and hope you can come to our Open House to show friends of Hood House how it looks now and what will welcome the first five women.  This will be permanent housing and will be their home.  I will facilitate a weekly house meeting for processing concerns that might arise.  We plan to take dinner in weekly at the same time.

 

Open House will be Tuesday, July 30, from 3:30 - 5:30 PM.  Light refreshments will be served.   Hope you can come!

Not only could I come, so did my iPhone. It was great to see Mayor Chuck Bennett at the open house, along with City Councilors Chris Hoy and Cara Kaser. Other councilors and City officials may have come before or after my visit. Here's photos of Hood House, along with my commentary.

I believe the house was built in the 1920s. Or maybe 1940s. Regardless, it used to be in much worse shape than it is now. Looks very inviting from the sidewalk. 

Inside the front door the Beatons had put up a sheet giving credit to everybody who made Hood House possible. Reflecting their wonderful humility, they'd put their own names way down at the bottom. But of course Russ and Delana deserve the bulk of the credit for this creative way of providing a place to live for five homeless women.

Here's the Mission Statement of Hood House. Click to enlarge. I'll also share the statement below.

It is the mission of Hood House to create a comfortable, attractive, affordable, and safe home for five women, each of whom is age 55 or older, and is of limited financial means. Each woman will have a separate, private and lockable bedroom. All common spaces -- kitchen, living room, dining room, family room, bathrooms, laundry room, front porch, back deck, and lower patio -- will be shared and managed cooperatively by the residents. Hood House is permanent housing, not transitional.

At our last discussion group meeting, Delana had shared the tale of the Too Low Microwave. When an inspector from the City of Salem came by, the Beatons were told that the recently-installed microwave was six inches too close to the stovetop.

So the cabinets above the stove had to be cut down at considerable expense. That was just one of many hurdles Delana and Russ had to overcome to make the dream of Hood House a reality.

The living room is adjacent to a nice covered rear deck. The floors look great. Now. It took a lot of work to remove whatever was on top of the wood, the details of which I've forgotten.

This is one of the bedrooms.

Here's another bedroom. Some of the furniture was donated. But I'm pretty sure the Beatons found most of the used furniture at thrift stores and other places. The energy and enthusiasm they put into this complex house renovation project was amazing.

I'm 70, younger than Russ and Delana are. But whenever they talked about what they had to do to get the house ready for occupancy, I got exhausted just listening to a description of all that work.

Another bedroom. Being sort of matching-impaired myself, I was impressed with the coordinated color scheme in each bedroom, as well as the whole house.

After someone brought flowers and set them on a table, I was struck by how well they matched a piece of art in the front room. (My iPhone's camera had trouble dealing with sunlight streaming through the window.)

The cake was delicious. And the message is going to bring smiles to the five women who end up living in Hood House.

Lots of people have lots of opinions about how to deal with Salem's homeless problem. It's super-inspiring that Russ and Delana Beaton, who already have been putting in many, many hours of volunteer service to homeless people, decided to go one big step further and bring Hood House into being.

Photos of the 2019 Salem Art Fair & Festival

The Salem Art Fair & Festival always is hugely enjoyable. During our Friday visit, when I took these photos, I believe my wife and I spent more on food than on art, but, hey, artistry is involved in the food booths.

This year I was told the secret of the So Cheesy food truck/food stand, but if I divulged why their grilled cheese sandwiches taste so good, I might be punished by the So Cheesy gods.

Click on the image below to behold the Adobe Spark web page I made, complete with compelling commentary on the photos.

Here's my petition supporting LBGTQ rights in Salem

Please sign this petition I just started to support the Salem Human Rights Commission in its stand against the City of Salem leasing a building from the Salem Alliance Church to temporarily house the public library.

Click on this link to the Care2 Stand up for LGBTQ rights in Salem! petition.

The church rejects same-sex marriage and considers same-sex sex to be a sin. The Commission is calling on City officials to find another location for the library while renovations are made, even if that location costs more and is less convenient.

Photos and videos of 2019 World Beat Festival

As always, today I hugely enjoyed the World Beat Festival at Riverfront Park. Good news is, there's another day to enjoy it -- Sunday. Here's photos and videos of my festival experience.

Photos and comments on 2019 Salem Tour of Homes

Every year my wife and I enjoy going to the Tour of Homes here in Salem for a couple of reasons.

First, it's fun to see cool features in expensive homes that our 1970's era home lacks, like walk-in closets. Second, we like to criticize design choices that strike us as abhorrent, hopefully out of the earshot of the builder.

Here's photos I took last Saturday at the 2019 Tour of Homes kickoff weekend. I've added some commentary that ranges from complimentary to snarky. We only went to four of the 21 homes.

The Tour continues through June 23rd: weekends noon to 6 pm, weekdays 6 pm to 9 pm.

Why we sold our Highlander to Carmax rather than Capitol Toyota

Buying and selling cars isn't my favorite thing to do. Usually there's some degree of frustration involved. Yesterday was no exception.

My wife and I did our best to trade-in our low mileage 2014 Highlander XLE as part of our purchase of a 2019 RAV4 Hybrid, but Capitol Toyota engaged in some tactics that were irritating enough to cause us to decline the purchase offer and head to Beaverton's Carmax instead -- where today we sold our Highlander for $600 more than Capitol Toyota offered, and with much less aggravation.

Our Highlander in the final stage of the CarMax process

I chatted some with the Carmax employee who finalized the sale and gave us a check for $22,000. After I complimented her on how efficient and organized the Carmax appraisal/offer/sale process is, she said, "We strive continually for improvement. We're always asking ourselves how we can do things better."

So this blog post is offered to Capitol Toyota in the same spirit. 

(Note: it's as long as it is not only because I'm wordy, but because our salesman said, as have other salespeople I've talked with, that the survey we'll get from Toyota about our sales experience needs to be 100% "exceptional," or he won't get proper credit for the sale. That seems crazy to me, since without honesty, surveys are meaningless. But he says that salespeople are held responsible for every aspect of a sale, even those they have no control over -- as you'll read below.)

We've bought eleven cars from the Capitol Auto Group over many years. Today I joked with Kelly Stewart, who manages the Subaru dealership now, about how I wished we'd gotten a card punched with every car purchase, since it sure seems like we should be getting a free car at this point.

Kelly has sold us most of the cars we've bought from the Capitol Auto Group: Toyotas, Subarus, Chevrolets. We like him a lot. But he wasn't involved in yesterday's haggling, which helps explain why we walked away from Capitol Toyota tired, hungry, and irritated at 8:30 pm last night.

UPDATE: Seeing the Capitol Auto Group slogan on the RAV4 when I went out to get the paper this morning reminded me that no, we didn't get our way on the parkway last Thursday.

As described below, I wasn't able to get a trade-in offer in the early afternoon even though I'd made an appointment with our salesman to do just that. And on our second trip in the late afternoon it took almost three hours to finalize a deal, even though I'd emailed and texted to Capitol Toyota the prices that we wanted for the RAV4 and trade-in of our Highlander and asked that Capitol Toyota do as much as possible before we arrived, given that we had a sick dog and my wife had gone through a long tiring day.

Yes, we ended up buying the RAV4 Hybrid for $500 over the wholesale invoice. That basically matched the $1,597 Consumer Reports Car Buying Service discount that Gresham Toyota offered for a 2019 RAV4 Hybrid in Limited trim. It was how we got to that point that exasperated my wife and I.

At 1 pm yesterday I took our Highlander to Capitol Toyota for a trade-in appraisal after we learned from the salesman we'd been working with that our RAV4 Hybrid had arrived. We'd waited almost four months after putting down a $500 deposit in early February for the car we wanted, which was before the 2019 RAV4 had been officially released.

Given that it had taken me less than five minutes to come up with a Kelly Blue Book trade-in value for our Highlander, I figured it would be a brief and simple process to get an offer from Capitol Toyota. However, that isn't what happened.

Instead, after talking with his Capitol Toyota supervisors, our salesman told me it wouldn't be possible to get a trade-in offer until we negotiated the RAV4 Hybrid purchase price. That surprised me. I didn't like being told, "We'll work with you on finding a balance between the trade-in offer and purchase price."

Rather, I said, "I agree with Consumer Reports that a car buyer should get separate prices for the cost of a new car and a trade-in offer. That keeps things simpler and cleaner." 

Our 2019 RAV4 Hybrid in the Capitol Toyota lot, along with some of my finger

Now, the RAV4 Hybrid Limited that'd come in had everything that we'd ordered, except for the interior color. It was two-tone, rather than black. (Toyota doesn't make cars to order for some reason; so an "order" really is a customer request, not a certainty, as I wrote about previously.)

Since my wife needed to see the RAV4 to make sure she liked the interior color, there was some uncertainty in the early afternoon yesterday about whether we'd actually be buying the car. But I don't see why this would prevent Capitol Toyota from giving me a trade-in offer, especially since I'd been clear that I wanted to get separate prices for the RAV4 and our trade-in.

Before continuing with my trade-in tell of woe, here's my central problem with how Capitol Toyota sells cars: the ordinary salespeople have no real negotiating authority. Meaning, they have to disappear into a back room to talk with supervisor types, then return to tell you what those unseen people want.

This is old-style car-selling. It's not quite as bad as the "Gosh, I'd love to give you this deal, but my boss is in a bad mood today, so the price is going to have to be higher than what we discussed," but it's disturbingly close.

When I bought my Mini Cooper in Portland, I was told that Mini only sells cars at the sticker price. OK, that made things easy. When I bought my GTI from VW of Salem, I was told that the dealership offers a standard discount from the sticker price. That also made things easy.

And when we'd bought some Capitol Auto Group cars fairly recently from Kelly Stewart, things went easy because Kelly was both the salesperson and the manager who approved sales. So we only had to deal with one person.

What aggravated my wife and I when we went back to Capitol Toyota at about 5:45 pm yesterday was how ridiculously long it took to get some simple prices for the RAV4 and our Highlander trade-in. I'd told the salesman in a text message several hours before we arrived the prices that I thought were fair, and asked him to do as much as possible before we came in.

He knew that our dog is in the late stages of chronic liver disease.

Capitol Toyota is pleasingly dog-friendly, but our dog already had sat on the showroom floor once that day, when I sat around waiting for a trade-in offer that never materialized. And my wife had spent the afternoon walking dogs at the Humane Society, then driving to Sweet Home to look at a possible second dog, given our current dog's limited life span.

But it took over two hours for us to get a price for our Highlander and the RAV4. I give credit to our salesman, who kept telling us, "I don't know why it is taking so long" and "I've told the guys in back that you're tired of waiting and need the prices."

Meanwhile, our dog was lying tiredly on the showroom floor, and my wife was dreaming of the dinner that she hadn't eaten before we left home.

Finally a guy that we'd never met before materialized at our table with a sheet of paper and some annoying words. "You probably could buy 100 RAV4s, right?" I said, "No, we can buy one RAV4, and we've been sitting here for a couple of hours waiting to find out how much it will cost us."

He pointed to the wholesale price and said "We'll give you $500 over invoice." OK, I thought, that should have taken ten seconds to calculate.

Then he pointed to a trade-in price of $22,400 (as I recall; we never got an offer sheet), which was crossed out, adding, "But we want to offer you $1,000 less." So, $21,400. I peered more closely at the offer. I told him that this showed our car was in Fair condition, then pointed out that it didn't have any of the Fair criteria listed on the offer sheet. Like, rust spots.

In my view, I said, the Highlander was in Very Good condition. But surely not Fair. 

The guy from a back room who we'd never seen before didn't attempt to explain the appraisal. He just listened as I said that in my view the Highlander was worth about $24,400, then disappeared again, apparently to talk with another manager/supervisor. Meanwhile, our salesman sat with us and tried to explain why the offer was so low (Capitol Toyota certifies used cars, etc).

I appreciated the explanation.

However, sitting there for several hours, tired and hungry, with a sick dog who deserved to be comfortably at home with us, not lying on a hard showroom floor, put me in a bad mood -- which again, was a rare Capitol Toyota feeling, since our car buying process had gone so smoothly when Kelly Stewart had been handling things.

Eventually the guy from the back room returned and told us that the $21,400 offer was the best they could do. I said, fine. We appreciated the offer to hold our check for the RAV4 purchase until after we went to CarMax the next day.

We'd been promised by the guy from the back room that it only would take another half hour to finish up the RAV4 purchase. But it was more like an hour, after which my wife, dog, and I were even more tired and hungry. Another back room guy handled the sale paperwork.

He gamely tried to sell us add-on's like an extended warranty. I was going to refuse them regardless, per Consumer Report's advice. Having endured the Games Car Dealerships Play for almost three hours, I refused them more quickly and curtly, for sure.

By contrast, everything went super-smoothly at CarMax. Yes, we only got $22,000 for our Highlander, $600 more than Capitol Toyota had offered. It was worth it, though, both monetarily and psychologically.

I felt that our Capitol Toyota salesman had treated us fairly and courteously. However he was powerless once the guys from the back room got involved. Which is a crazy way to sell cars. I'm sure some people are OK with waiting hours at a dealership to do something that should only take a few minutes.

I'm not. Neither is my wife. Buying a car should be a pleasant experience, especially when it costs a bit over $38,000, as our RAV4 Hybrid did. As noted above, CarMax continually works at improving the car selling/buyihg experience for its customers. 

Based on what happened with us yesterday, I think Capitol Toyota should emulate CarMax.  

That said, we did enjoy getting a tour of the RAV4 Hybrid basics from our salesman this afternoon, after we returned from CarMax (in Beaverton). And our new car seems happy in our carport. I look forward to writing about it once we get to know the RAV4 a bit better.

June 1 update: I just sent this email to several Capitol Auto Group managers. Took out our salesman's name.

Since I said in this blog post that I wrote it in the spirit of helping Capitol Toyota, and Capitol Auto Group, improve, I wanted to share a link with you guys. I don’t have our salesman's email address, just his phone number, so if one of you could forward this message to _____, that would be great.

https://hinessight.blogs.com/hinessight/2019/05/why-we-sold-our-highlander-to-carmax-rather-than-capitol-toyota.html

 

As you can read, my wife and I had a frustrating experience Thursday after the 2019 RAV4 Hybrid we’d ordered in early February finally came in.

 

I want to stress that _____ did a good job, and we have no complaints about him. It was back-room supervisors/managers who made the car-buying process so frustrating, which resulted in us selling our low-mileage well-maintained (all at Capitol Toyota) 2014 Highlander to CarMax yesterday in a pleasingly quick and efficient fashion.

 

Kelly and Nate, when we’ve dealt with you, things have gone pleasantly fine. Thursday was a Capitol Auto Group exception. But our experience raised questions in my mind about some general dealership issues. Such as:

 

(1) After customers have established a good relationship with a salesperson, it seems wrong to have them cut out of the loop at the end of the buying process. Meaning, it was clear that _____ had no authority to do some simple things - like give us a trade-in price — after he disappeared for a while, apparently to consult with supervisors. This sort of thing is irksome to customers like us, and it is different than how other dealerships I’ve bought cars from do things. Like Mini of Portland and VW of Salem.

 

(2) We’ve heard, from _____ and other salespeople, that it is very important to them to get “exceptional” ratings across the board on every question in a post-purchase Toyota survey. Apparently the salesperson is held responsible for all aspects of customer satisfaction, even though they aren’t able to control much of the purchase or trade-in process.

 

Honesty is crucial to satisfaction surveys, since otherwise they’re next to useless. Why does Toyota and the Capitol Auto Group continue with this “survey game” where anything other than 100% satisfaction leads to a penalty for a hard-working salesperson? It puts customers in a tough spot. Should we be honest or should we deny a salesperson we like from getting a bonus and good marks?

 

(3) I  realize that some car buyers must like to haggle, or Capitol Auto Group wouldn’t have the policies it does. But it seems to me that increasingly, people aren’t willing to put up with the Games Car Dealerships Play. You should consider moving to a “no-haggle” approach like many of your competitors have.

 

As an aside, when I was chatting with the CarMax staff person who handled the final stage of our Highlander sale, she told us that she and her husband recently bought a new car from a dealership where they had to wait five hours to complete the deal, even though a price already had been agreed to.

 

Would anyone buy an appliance from Lowe’s if they had to wait five hours (or three hours, as we did Thursday) to complete a fairly simple transaction for a purchase?

 

      — Brian

Photos of Willamette Humane Society Food Truck Frenzy

Here's photos of today's Willamette Humane Society Food Truck Frenzy that a friend and I took. Theme: cute dogs! Plus a cute llama. Oh, there's some people in the photos also.

Battery X-Change guys made me feel like less of a fool

I give two thumbs up to Battery X-Change on the corner of 17th and Center Street.

One thumb is for selling me two hard-to-find batteries for my mower at a good price. The other thumb is for making me feel like less of a fool after I managed to fry the first battery they sold me within a matter of hours.


My battery saga is a good illustration of why small locally-owned stores need to be patronized, because without them Salem would be much diminished.

It began when I turned off my DR Field Mower, a walk-behind mower with a 16.5 hp Briggs & Stratton engine that I use for both lawn and field mowing on our rural south Salem property. After getting a snack, I went back to the mower and turned the key so I could finish cutting a couple of small fields.

But it wouldn't start. Total silence. Not even an attempt at a start. That perplexed me, since the mower had started completely normally earlier in the day.

My first thought was that the neutral switch had gotten unplugged, since this was the reason the mower wouldn't start one time last year. However, as far as I could tell the neutral switch (which prevents the mower from being started in any gear but neutral) seemed properly connected.

The next thought that popped into my not-very-mechanical mind was that the battery could be dead. I didn't have a battery tester, but I went out and bought one at an auto parts store. It seemed to show very low amps. So I phoned Country Home Products in Vermont, which makes the DR Field Mower.

They told me that, sure, they could send me a new battery for a mere $60.

It would take about a week to get to me, though. I said that the grass was growing like crazy here in Oregon. Couldn't I pay extra for faster shipping? I could -- a seemingly crazy $68 for two-day air. Batteries are heavy, but  that still seemed overly expensive.

After complaining about the delivery time and cost, I was given the phone numbers of a couple of places here in Salem that might have the battery I needed, which isn't a common size.

Neither place had the battery.

However, one of them suggested I call Battery X-Change, which once I heard the name, I realized I should have tried right away. The guy who answered the phone at Battery X-Change checked after I gave him a part number and said that he was pretty sure they had the battery.

Which turned out to be the case. I walked out with a new battery for $48, considerably less than Country Home Products would have charged me.

Then things went downhill.

I installed the battery. The mower still wouldn't start. My next (reasonable) idea was to hook the battery up to the trickle charger that I use to maintain the mower battery during the winter. But the following morning I had another idea: check the battery charge with the tester I'd bought the day before.

The tester had large clamps made for car battery terminals.

The mower battery had small "terminals" that fit slide-on engine wires. I could barely fit the large clamps on the small battery. Worse, as I was adjusting them, the clamps touched -- producing an impressive POP, a bright flash of light, and a display of sparks.

That left the terminals half burnt off, not long enough to attach the starter wires.

So another trip to Battery X-Change was in order. I explained my stupid mistake to a different employee than had sold me the battery the day before. Pleasingly, he said "Hey, let me tell you what I did one time."

His story involved something like 100 batteries the size of mine, all connected together for some industrial application. He cut some wires that contained both a live and neutral wire. The tool he was using caused a short that melted the tool and created a way more impressive electrical display than I'd experienced.

"We all do crazy stuff at times," he said. And then proceeded to just charge me $30 rather than $48 for the second battery, adding that I could keep the first battery for jump-starting a dead mower battery, or whatever.

Now, it turned out that my mower still wouldn't start after I'd fully charged the second battery. That led me to phone a neighbor friend who is way more mechanical than I am. He did some testing and found that the neutral switch was defective. After bypassing it, the mower started fine.

The original battery was at least four years old, so it likely would have needed to be replaced soon anyway.

Thus I'm pleased that I was able to get a new battery (two, actually) locally, even though I probably didn't need one at the time. I'm also pleased that my first inclination that the neutral switch was the problem, was accurate. I just didn't know that it was broken, not disconnected.

Bottom line: the guys at Battery X-Change were helpful, competent, and made me feel better about my battery-frying mistake. Head their way if you have a battery problem. You won't regret it.

Express yourself! City Club talk on Salem art scene was inspiring.

I'll begin with the end. Of talks by two art-encouragers here in Salem, Sandra Burnett of the Salem Art Association and Carlee Wright, producer of Press Play Salem. 

After listening to Burnett and Wright speak yesterday at a Salem City Club meeting on "The Crucial Role of the Arts in Our Community," I got to ask a question. It went something like this.

Carlee, I heard you say "express yourselves." As someone who writes almost every day, I know that I feel better when what is inside me is expressed to the outside world, and I then get responses from people about what I've written. But there has to be more to why people embrace art than this. Hopefully you can give me a fuller answer than what I've just said.

Now, I've got to confess that I don't remember much of what Wright said in her response to me. It certainly was in line with my question, as was Burnett's reply to me. I recall that one or both of them said it is indeed nice for artists to get responses from others about what they've created.

Leaving the City Club meeting at the Willamette Heritage Center, I walked down the stairs with Chris Hoy, a Salem city councilor.

Chatting with him about the talks, I said that when my wife and I go to the Salem Art Fair, we're careful about what we say about booth art, since occasionally we've made a negative comment, then saw that the artist was sitting on the other side of a partition. Hoy said that he's a photographer who has had his work exhibited.

"Do you hang around and listen to what people say about your photos?" I asked him. "Sometimes," Hoy said. That spurred me to observe that often I don't read Facebook comments after I've shared a link to a blog post I've written, because the comments can be both mean and uninformed.

Hoy and I then agreed that because art springs from the mind of someone, and is a personal expression of how they see the world, it feels much more problematic to critique someone's art face-to-face with them, while social media and online communications in general facilitate more negativity and nastiness because the other person isn't there in cyberspace.

So expressing ourselves can be risky.

If we only sing in the shower, the risk is minimal. If we choose to get up on stage and sing in front of an audience, there's the possibility of getting only a smattering of applause. Or even some boos. (Of course, we need to remember that just as we're entitled to share our creative impulses, other people are entitled to respond with their own reactions.)

Yet we humans still love to express ourselves.

Burnett said that this gives us a sense of how we stand in time and place. I agree. I suck at drawing, painting, and music, but I've always enjoyed writing. Partly it is because I never know what I'm going to say until I see it on my laptop's screen. The words come of themselves, though they come from me. 

A deeper part of me that I'm not really aware of until I make an effort to create a blog post, book, Christmas letter, or whatever. When what is within comes out, it's pleasurable. Not orgasm-like pleasurable (unfortunately). More like when you really need to go to the bathroom, and what is demanding to come out with such urgency does, there's a sense of relief. 

Until the next urge arises.

Carlee Wright, shown above in an artistic photo that the Great God Google Images bestowed upon me, said that she had an urge to share her love of all things art'y in Salem after her days at the Statesman Journal ended. Appealingly, she went counter to the digital trend and decided to produce a -- gasp! -- paper publication, Press Play Salem.

The publication is attractively priced: free. It's advertiser supported, so pick up a copy and support the advertisers in turn.

I liked how Wright talked differently about the oft-heard geometry of Salem: the nothing-much that sits an hour from Portland, Eugene, the coast, and the mountains, where you really can do something. Not true, she said. "We are the center, not an hour away from everything." 

Adding, "I often hear people say that I don't want to go to Portland, fight the traffic, find a place to park, and pay an exorbitant ticket price. It's so convenient to go out here in Salem!" Which is absolutely true. Three hours of parking is free in downtown Salem, and it isn't difficult to find a space on the street or in the parking garages.

Burnett shared her own take on the arts via a slide presentation. I learned that the Salem Art Association is 100 years old in 2019, though it began under a different name in 1919. The Salem Art Fair started in 1949, so it is now 70 years old. (Just like me! Can I get in free?)

She presented interesting information about how cultural events boost the Salem economy, noting that we have ten cultural institutions in this town. Burnett said that when corporations decide whether to come to Salem, they view the arts/culture scene here as part of the livability standard that has to be met.

Lastly, I like the new logo of the Salem Art Association. It's, well, artistic.

First day report on Salem's plastic bag ban: I not only survived, I thrived!

Monday is my habitual weekly grocery shopping day, this being my role in our marriage. Today, April 1, coincided with the first day of Salem's ban on plastic bags at large retailers. 

Which didn't affect me at all, given that I carry around six Trader Joe's reusable bags in my car, typically bringing two bags into each of my trifecta grocery shopping destinations: Trader Joe's, Fred Meyer on south Commercial, and Lifesource Natural Foods.

Naturally, when the checkout person at Trader Joe's asked me how my day was going, I said "It's exciting to be here on the first day of the plastic bag ban. Of course, you guys don't use plastic bags, just paper, so I gather nothing has changed for you."

I couldn't resist adding:

"However, the ban is going to take away from my judgmental satisfaction when I'm in a checkout line at Fred Meyer behind someone buying $150 or so of groceries, and the checker puts a zillion (more or less) plastic bags into their cart, with like four items in each bag. I feel morally superior with my reusable bags in hand. I find this as irritating as the women who spend an hour (more or less) searching for exact change in the depths of their purses."

Our brief conversation ended with me blurting out a bit of quasi-philosophical wisdom.

"The way I see it, if I'm not getting annoyed at something, I'm not alive." Pleasingly, the Trader Joe's checkout person agreed -- though maybe it was because she didn't have time to disagree with me.

Plus, I got an absolutely free Trader Joe's reusable bag, which must have been in honor of the plastic bag ban.

At Fred Meyer, I also brought up the plastic bag ban when asked how my day was going.

Since I was at the store where many times I"d noticed people sucking up over a dozen plastic bags to put their groceries in, I repeated my comment about how this irritated me, adding, "I bet plastic-bag-customers are going to be thankful for the ban when they realize how many fewer bags they have to carry into their house now that they have to use either reusable bags or paper bags."

The checkout person said that she's glad plastic bags have been eliminated. "They tear easily," she told me. "And they don't stand up like reusable bags do," I noted.

I didn't hear any enraged Fred Meyer customers fuming about the goddamn City Council taking away their precious plastic bags.  In fact, as I wheeled my cart away I could hear the woman in line behind me speaking positively to the checkout person about the plastic bag ban. 

Councilor Tom Andersen was featured in a KGW TV story last night about the upcoming rollout of the plastic bag ban. Andersen spoke about the environmental benefits of the ban in this video.

Youth mental health focus of gripping City Club program

In retrospect, I was crazy to consider not going to today's Salem City Club program, "Oregon Youth: Crisis in Mental Health."

Fortunately I had the good sense to attend the meeting and hear two people from Liberty House, a child abuse assessment center, plus a South Salem High School counselor. 

I'll end this blog post by talking about my own long-ago mental health problems in my high school years.

First, though, here's some of what I remember from the presentations by Alison Kelley, CEO of Liberty House; Neda Grant, program manager of Liberty House's Hope and Wellness services; and Ryan Marshall, counselor at South Salem High School. 

I didn't take any notes during their talks, in part because they all were such great speakers, and had such compelling information to share, I wanted to listen wholeheartedly to them. So while I may not have gotten what follows exactly right, I'm confident that I've captured the spirit of their messages.

Maybe the most important thing I heard was this: if a youth confides in you, having the courage to tell you about a problem they're having, don't say "I'm so sorry." Instead, say "I'm here for you." 

Marshall said that often it isn't until 45 minutes into a counseling session that a student has enough trust in him to reveal what is really going on in their life. So keep this in mind if a troubled youth is willing to speak with you, even haltingly, about what's bothering them. 

Grant shared compelling anecdotes about what parents do right and wrong. She related a decidedly unhelpful thing a father said after his child talked about a problem: "Put your big-girl panties on and deal with it" (or words to that effect). 

We all know how obnoxious teenagers can be -- typically forgetting, of course, that once upon a time we adults acted very much the same. But often this seemingly recalcitrant behavior is masking an underlying mental health problem. Which leads me to break my intention to leave my personal story for the end, since I can offer up a good example of this.

My high school years (1962-66) included a period when my alcoholic mother was drinking heavily. Here's an excerpt from a previous blog post of mine that I wrote on a Mother's Day.

Since my clearest memories of my mother are from when I was older, the drunken, mean, angry moments that I can easily recollect got all mixed up with happier moments when I tried to ponder what my mother meant to me.

A pain in the ass. Like when, during my teenage years, she'd yell from her bedroom into mine when I was trying to go to sleep, muttering nasty alcoholic crap that I couldn't tune out even with a pillow over my head.

It got so bad, when I'd drive home from a date with my high school girlfriend, who had a pleasingly normal family, I'd pass a liquor store and think "I should throw a rock through the glass and steal some stuff, just so people would know that seemingly well-adjusted star student Me actually is screwed-up beyond belief but I do a damn good job of hiding it."

Even now, reading what I wrote brings some tears to my 70 year-old eyes.

Our teenage years are formative. We're struggling to make the transition from being a child to being an adult. A part-time guidance counselor in my high school, who also was my tennis coach, called me in to his office once to ask how my mother was doing.

Not well, I knew for a fact. But I said nothing about the pain I was in, and the counselor left it at that.

Students in the Salem-Keizer School District have more mental health services. However, the City Club audience was told that compared to other large districts in Oregon, Salem-Keizer doesn't have nearly enough counselors. Hopefully the 2019 legislature is going to address youth mental health by providing more money in this area.

After the program ended I asked Kelley if she considered that there actually were more disturbed youth now, or if mental health problems were simply not recognized previously. Her answer was clear: now is worse. 

And a big reason is social media and smart phones. The iPhone was introduced in 2007. Since, smart phone use among youth is ubiquitous. This produces problems that didn't exist before. Here's some examples that I recall.

-- "Sexting" (sending sexy/nude photos via text messages) begins as early as eight years old. A girl may be pressured by classmates to send a naked photo of themselves. Then they hear, "You're fat, ugly, and should kill yourself." Sadly, some students do. Or at least seriously consider this.

-- At a party, youth may communicate by text even when they are sitting next to each other on a couch. This seems decidedly weird to my senior citizen mind. However, at my athletic club I see young people obsessively clicking away on their smart phones while on a weight machine, while old folks like me have the quaint idea that exercising should be Job #1 in this setting.

-- Everybody wants to be popular in high school. Now, though, social media like Instagram make this quantifiable. If a student doesn't have 500 followers, they may consider themselves unliked. Or even worse, unlikeable. Too often, youth substitute distant relationships in cyberspace for intimate relationships in real life.

In her presentation, Kelley talked about how problems at home translate into youth mental health problems.

Divorce and death in a family, for example. More disturbingly, sexual abuse and drug problems. Some parents even give their children marijuana edibles to quiet them down. (But I have to note that legal weed apparently hasn't led to more marijuana use by young people in Oregon.)

Parents may expect either too little or too much of their children. Regarding the latter, it's important that youth be given sufficient time to relax, do nothing, enjoy free time. Too many students have almost every moment scheduled with either school or after-school activities.

Lastly, during the Q&A part of the City Club program a question about mindfulness training was asked. Kelley responded that this Eastern/Buddhist approach to being directly aware of what is happening with us, typically using the breath as a focus of attention, can be very useful for distracted/anxious/worried youth.

I heartily agree, having meditated every day for about 50 years. Some time ago I embraced mindfulness meditation and have found it helpful for keeping me mentally healthy.

More or less, at least. (A small dose of craziness adds spice to life.)

LifeSource Natural Foods has a great response to my blog post

I really appreciate the prompt response from LifeSource staff after I sent them a link to the blog post I wrote yesterday, "I love LifeSource but recent changes are disappointing." 

Matt Trickey, the bulk department manager, emailed me this morning with some insights into the challenges that LifeSource Natural Foods faces -- along with most other locally owned stores in Salem. 

I feel considerably more sympathetic to LifeSource now.

It isn't that what Matt said is totally new news to me. I just hadn't fully understood how difficult it is for LifeSource to compete against grocery stores that are jumping onto the organic/natural foods bandwagon, yet have hugely more financial resources and buying power than LifeSource.

Anyway, here's what Matt sent to me, after getting his permission to share the message publicly. 

Brian, thank you for the link to your blog post. I'll give it a read and bring it up with my managers so we can discuss it together.

   

We value your perspective, and we do agree that we have made some changes to our store in response to consumer trends in the natural foods industry. We are indeed trying to stay viable and relevant in a rapidly changing landscape.

In a sense, we have been very successful in our promotion of organic and non-GMO foods. With that rapid growth, we have seen these categories become adopted by mainstream retailers and online retailers alike. However, competition in mainstream retail strongly favors large businesses with financial leverage we will never possess.

 

Online retail behemoths have drastically rewritten the retail narrative to the point where long established brick and mortar stores are metaphorically crumbling in economic despair.

 

We once occupied a niche in Salem that allowed us to grow and flourish, but this niche has become so attractive to larger investment interests, that entire chains of natural food stores have cannibalized each other to the point of assimilation into the single predominant online retailer.

 

(Whole Foods ate Wild Oats, and now Amazon has eaten Whole Foods.)

 

As you can probably imagine, this presents a formidable challenge to LifeSources'  viability as a small retail business. 

   

Long past where most business owners would have sold a flourishing business to investors, Alex has remained true to his values, to the people of Salem, and to the people who run this business on a daily basis.

 

For example, Marie and I have certainly enjoyed the very special privilege of growing our family in the relative economic stability of this business. We have always been aware, though, that it is a precarious and tentative market niche, and we have been very conservative with our finances as a necessity of prudence.

 

During my tenure at LifeSource, I have seen the many struggles and changes to the business as our niche market has been overtaken by much larger economic forces, and I am very aware of the challenges facing all independent natural foods retailers.

   

At no other time has the market viability for small retailers been this precarious, yet we continue to seek new opportunities to serve Salem, and stay relevant to those who share our values. LifeSource was envisioned and established as a model of sustainability, and we are at a crucial point where we can only hope the community will still find value in our vision as we persevere in this endeavor.

 

Thank you for your continued belief in a brighter future for LifeSource. We will certainly give serious consideration of your perspective as we do our best to continue to serve the community.

 

Sincerely,

Matt Trickey

Bulk Department Manager

on behalf of everyone at

LifeSource Natural Foods

 

This photo is from a 2014 Salem Is profile of Matt, "Producing Happiness."

I love LifeSource, but recent changes are disappointing

This is a "tough love" blog post, because I've shopped a lot at LifeSource Natural Foods ever since it opened way back when. Three or four times a week I go there.

But changes LifeSource has been making cause me and my wife to be a bit less satisfied with the store.

I readily admit that those changes probably are profitable for LifeSource. However, they go against the grain of my longtime vegetarianism -- which began about 50 years ago while I was in college.

(Along with other students of a crazed Greek yoga teacher, we started the second health food store in San Jose, California in 1970.)

Basically, I think LifeSource is going overboard on the "natural" part of its name to the detriment of "health." Natural foods aren't always healthy. And some healthy foods aren't completely natural. 

Here's some specifics of what concerns me about the direction LifeSource is going. Again, I'm speaking as someone who hasn't eaten a bite of meat or fish since 1968, and is pretty well informed about nutrition.

Deli offerings. In the early days of LifeSource, they almost always had tofu and brown rice in the deli/takeout section of the store. Now, macaroni and cheese (full-fat variety) is common, while tofu and rice have almost completely disappeared. When I asked about this a few months ago, I was told that many people nowadays believe they are allergic to tofu.

But I doubt that's the whole story.

Now I'm much less likely to get something from the deli/takeout section, even though I peruse it often. My suspicion is that LifeSource has learned what their customers are most willing to buy, even if that isn't the healthiest food to eat.

OK. The market has spoken. That's capitalism.

However, it leaves health-minded vegetarians like me and my wife without the choices that we used to enjoy. Even the walnut loaf that was common in the deli last year has been missing for quite a while. But chicken breasts are a daily feature, I'm pretty sure.

Which gets me to...

Meat has multiplied. In the early days, I believe LifeSource had nothing with meat in it. Then warning signs appeared: "contains meat." Eventually there was a small meat section. Now there's a really big meat section. 

I understand that most people believe that meat can be part of a healthy diet. In small doses, I agree.

However, even if meat is "natural," that doesn't make it healthy. Or good for our planet. There's much evidence to support the contention that being a vegetarian or vegan is both healthy for people and for the environment. 

Almost every story about global warming that I read in one of the science magazines I subscribe to says that raising animals for food is one of the most carbon-intensive things that humans do. Thus eliminating meat from one's diet is one of the best actions an individual can engage in to reduce carbon emissions -- along with not flying.

As the meat section at LifeSource has steadily enlarged, other areas of the store had to be reduced. Such as...

Alternatives to meat have dwindled. Back when I became a vegetarian, there were no meat substitutes like there are today. No veggie burgers. No flavored tofu or tempeh. You had to make your own vegetarian meals, being careful to find good sources of protein.

LifeSource used to have many varieties of tofu and tempeh. Now that section has dwindled considerably in size. I used to enjoy the teriyaki tempeh strips as an alternative to tofu, both of which are alternatives to meat. Now I'm pretty sure there is only unflavored tempeh at LifeSource.

And shockingly, today I went to get a package of "beefless ground beef" for the vegetarian tacos I'm about to make for dinner, but found that apparently LifeSource no longer carries this vegetarian staple. So I drove back to Trader Joe's, where I'd already shopped before going to LifeSource, in order to get some.

Other items are lacking. I suppose most people feel aggrieved when a store stops carrying a favorite item, wondering how the heck someone decided to discontinue this marvelous product. That feeling just has been happening more frequently with me at LifeSource. 

As noted above, meat alternatives are becoming less common, while meat items are becoming more common.

The bread section seems smaller now, with fewer whole wheat varieties that we much prefer, though I could be wrong about this. Not a big deal, but today I also saw that one of our favorite jams, Oregon Growers strawberry rhubarb, was no longer on the shelf, with another brand seemingly replacing it. 

And rather strangely, when I tried to custom order a case of Loma Linda Little Links from LifeSource, rather than getting it via Amazon, at first I was told that they don't carry anything from Loma Linda because it doesn't meet their standards.

I don't know what the offending ingredient in Little Links is: corn oil? hydrolyzed soy protein?

Regardless, I can guarantee that Little Links are considerably healthier than lots of items sold by LifeSource. But while my custom order was taken, I never got it, so I had to resort to getting my Little Links via Amazon.

I'll end by noting that LifeSource Natural Foods still is a big favorite of ours. It's a very pleasant place to shop, with friendly employees and a great selection of items.

Not as cheap as Fred Meyer and other stores that carry organic items (LifeSource's prices for organic raspberries are much higher than Fred Meyer, for example), but my wife and I are happy to pay a bit more to support Salem's premier locally owned natural food store.

And we appreciate the 10% senior discount. 

We just wish LifeSource would tilt a bit back in the direction of "health." It's hard for me to believe that I'm the only LifeSource customer longing for tofu and brown rice to return regularly to the deli/takeout section. Doesn't have to be there all the time, of course.

But once in a while would be nice. (Note: my wife just told me that she bought tofu from the Deli section at lunchtime recently. I usually go to the store in the evening, and I don't recall seeing tofu available in the Deli for many months, if not years.)

Photos of Salem Women's March 2019

Here's photos I took today at this year's Salem Women's March. My wife is the "cover girl." (Or "cover woman," I hasten to add.) The 2019 Women's March was just as inspiring as the 2017 and 2018 marches. Lots of creative signs, which I feature in the photos.

Dr. Vinay Prasad zaps fellow physicians at provocative Salem City Club talk

"Maybe 40% of what doctors do is mistaken."

That was one of the first of many OMG! zingers medical provocateur Vinay Prasad, MD MPH, flung at us at today's Salem City Club presentation, rather drily titled Evidence Based Medicine: Weighing the Evidence for Effective Health Care.

But not one moment of his talk was boring. In fact, it was one of the most interesting and entertaining City Club talks I've experienced. And I've been to many of them. Prasad is a great speaker: funny, caustic, informed, blunt, spontaneous.

I found what appears to be a very close version of his talk on You Tube. So if you find my summary of what Prasad told us today piques your interest, check this video out. His talk starts at about four minutes in.

Later in his talk Prasad noted that there's no way to know exactly what percentage of medical care is ineffective. So it could be less or more than 40%. Regardless, it's a lot. 

If you're thinking that this makes him less than universally popular among his fellow doctors, you'd be correct. After his talk I asked him how his presentation is received by other MDs. He told me that in Europe and Canada he gets a standing ovation. But in Texas, say, speaking to cardiologists, Prasad said he'd get boos.

Which speaks volumes about the sorry state of our American health care system. Or more accurately, non-system. As is well known, we spend way more on health care than other comparable countries yet have health outcomes that are worse. 

There are many reasons for this, but paying for costly medical services that don't provide any real benefit is a major contributor.

Prasad noted that we have a bias toward believing in continual technological process. He showed a slide of an old Model T next to a Tesla Model T. Now, this was the only error I recognized in his talk, since I couldn't find any sign via the Great God Google that a Tesla model with that initial actually exists or is planned.

But it is conjecture, so some apparent Prasad literary license is fine with me.

His point with the auto analogy is that we can see how much cars have progressed since the Model T era. Ditto with computers, cell phones, televisions, and so much else. But with health care we can't discern progress with the naked eye. Controlled studies are necessary.

And these frequently demonstrate what the title of a book he's co-authored refers to: Medical Reversal. This is when doing something is found to be no better or worse than a prior standard of care.

Examples: routine hormone replacement therapy for post-menopausal women and steroid injections for certain spinal problems. Regarding the latter, a a controlled study where half the patients got a salt water injection revealed that both groups felt better.

Which points to the power of placebos. And a question I asked during the Q & A period.

It went like this: "If both steroid and salt water injections benefit patients with back pain, please comment on the ethical issues surrounding placebos, since doing away with ineffective treatments seems like doing away with a witch doctor a tribe believes in, and who makes them feel better."

Prasad's answer made sense, though it raises additional questions. He said that a medical treatment shouldn't be more costly than a placebo, and also shouldn't be any riskier than a placebo.

And he correctly pointed out that bottles of pills marked "Placebo" can be bought on Amazon, since it has been found that even when people know a treatment is a placebo, it still provides benefits to many.

Publication bias is one reason why ineffective treatments get so much attention. Journals like to publish reports of positive findings involving new forms of medical practice. So studies that show something doesn't work, or is a review of the effectiveness of an established medical practice, don't get as much publicity.

Prasad said about doctors, "A lot we learn because someone senior to us taught that it works." In other words, doctors believe in their own experience -- much of which surely shouldn't be trusted, because it isn't based on solid science. 

Again, the 40% figure is just a guesstimate. But Prasad told us that the actual percentage of ineffective treatments in medicine is much more like snow in Chicago than a massive California earthquake. Meaning, it happens frequently, not rarely.

Even randomized clinical trials came in for some criticism, since companies funding them often hope to make billions of dollars by getting a new drug, device, or whatever approved. So they put considerable effort into increasing the odds that a clinical trial will show that their innovation is effective.

I'm vague on how this is done. But if you peruse Prasad's impressive web site, you'll find countless (almost) papers, articles, and other material to read on a wide variety of subjects. The News and Media page has some profiles of Prasad.

I enjoyed "Did he really just tweet that? Dr. Vinay Prasad takes on Big Pharma, Big Medicine, and his own colleagues -- with glee." Here's how it starts out:

Dr. Vinay Prasad is a professional scold: He takes to Twitter each day to critique this cancer drug as ineffective, or blast that one as overpriced, or dismiss the clinical trial of another as completely irrelevant.

So it’s a bit of a surprise to catch him at the bedside of an elderly man with lymphoma, laughing gently with his patient as he inquires about his day — and painstakingly explains a potent drug’s unpleasant side effects.

Prasad’s empathic bedside manner — and generally affable mien — is at stark odds with his digital persona as a caustic crusader for the principle that solid scientific evidence, not hope or hype, should guide how we as a society spend $700 billion a year on health care.

Just 34, Prasad has become an influential voice in the medical community through his prolific, high-impact publishing, a steady stream of media cameos, and — of course — his vociferous Twitter presence. Among his main arguments: Drug costs have spiraled out of control. Conflicts of interest run amok in health care. We don’t have any idea how well new cancer drugs and diagnostics work, thanks to ill-designed clinical trials. And more than half of all practiced medicine is based on scant evidence — and possibly ineffectual.

Needless to say, such positions haven’t won him many close friends among pharma companies — or even among some fellow doctors. He doesn’t much care.

2019 Salem Women's March is January 19 on Capitol Mall

People of Salem and surrounding areas, here's my strong advice for what you should do from 11 am to 3 pm on Saturday, January 19. Attend the 2019 Salem Women's March on the Capitol Mall. 

My wife was an organizer of the first 2017 Salem Women's March. We loved it.  In 2018 we went to the rather weirdly named Salem Womxn's March. We loved it also.

(See below for the photo/video web pages I made of the events.)

Here's how the 2019 Women's March is described on a Facebook event posting:

The Third annual Women's March in Salem is scheduled. There will be educational and promotional booths from 11 AM to 3 PM. The Rally with speakers will start at noon and the March at 1 PM. There will be food and coffee trucks available.

Salem-News has a story about the march, "Salem Women's March 2019 is coming up." 

Thousands of women from Salem, Eugene and surrounding areas will rally and march in Salem, along with thousands of women in cities across the country and the globe on Saturday, January 19, 2019 as part of the third annual Women's March.

“The Women’s March is not just a March, it is a movement and it has shown its power to change political outcomes and the direction our society is going,” said Debbie Miller, President of the organizing Board for this year’s Women’s March in Salem.

The event is from 11 a.m. through 3 p.m at the Oregon State Capitol Steps/Mall on Court Street.

Women will march in support and solidarity with other women and supporters to remember and solidify the power and the influence that women built by taking to the streets in 2017 and 2018, bringing particular attention to equity in healthcare, wages, and power.

“Not only are a large portion of national leaders ineffective, but they are also destructive to the welfare of their constituents.

"We must make sure they never feel we think their selfish, greedy and amoral behavior is seen as normal. So, we take any and all opportunities to rise up, making ourselves visible and heard all the way to D.C.,” said Joan Warnock, Secretary of Women's March Salem.

SPEAKERS:

-- Professor Wendi Warren Binford: Director of Willamette University Clinical Law Program
--  Danielle Meyer: Chair of the Salem Human Rights Commission and KMUZ Community Radio program host
--  Shelaswau Bushnell Crier: lawyer, teacher at Willamette University, member of several state advisory committees and served as VP for Salem-Keizer NAACP
--  Jennifer Hofmann: Americans of Conscience blog creator and writer
--  Sarah Bennett: Homecare Worker-activist in campaign for care workers rights

For more information or questions on logistics, including accessibility, email: [email protected]

If you missed the 2017 and 2018 marches, or even if you attended them, live (or relive) the great spirit of those days via these Adobe Spark web pages I made of the events.

South Salem grocery store shopping carts rated

First off, please resist the temptation to think, This blogger guy has too much time on his hands.

That thought denigrates the important subject of this post -- how I feel about the shopping carts at three stores in south Salem (Oregon version, not to be confused with the copycat Salem in Massachusetts; sure, the Massachusetts Salem came first historically, but we Oregonians consider ourselves superior to every other state because... well, just because).

Yes, there are more important issues in the world.

But I'm the designated weekly grocery shopper in our two-person household, our dog being incapable, or unwilling, to perform any useful chore other than lying on her back and wagging her tail in a Pat Me signal.

And I consider that a quality shopping cart is an important contributor to the quality of my shopping experience. So I've taken photos of the carts at Trader Joe's, Fred Meyer, and LifeSource Natural Foods -- my habitual three grocery store stops -- and will comment on my feelings about each.

(Strangely, I Googled "grocery store shopping carts rated" and didn't find any hits on the first few results pages similar to this post. So either I really do have too much time on my hands, or people who care as deeply about the quality of shopping carts as I do don't have blogs.)

Trader Joe's has excellent medium size shopping carts. I like the energetic color. There's very little difference between the carts. Meaning, none I've used has had a bumpy wheel or other deformity. And there's zero problem pulling them out of the stack of carts, unlike the carts at the next store, which would go nameless if it wasn't called Fred Meyer. 

Also, I've never found a used napkin, grocery list, plastic bag, or other leftovers from a previous shopper in a Trader Joe's cart. Either shoppers at this store are more neat and considerate than shoppers at other stores, or an employee clears debris from the carts (I'm guessing the former).

This is a Fred Meyer shopping cart. I was kind of disappointed that it looks so good, because until recently Fred Meyer had some horrible carts. I was looking forward to insulting them, but it appears that Fred Meyer has replaced the bumpy, squeaky, misshapen, disgusting carts that used to irritate me. 

That said, there's still some things that irk me about the carts at Fred Meyer, though maybe the new carts don't have this particular drawback: getting stuck in the line of carts. Usually this was due to a strap on the fold down thingie at the back of the cart getting attached to the cart in front of it. 

After yanking on the handle of a cart and finding it stuck, often I'd move on to another row of carts because I didn't want to take the time to unstick it (needed to save my time to write a blog post about how this irritates me).

Also, Fred Meyer has more stuff left in its carts than any other store I visit regularly. I'll throw away an advertising circular, but I draw the line at a used facial tissue or other obnoxious leftover. So even with the new carts, Fred Meyer is at the bottom of my ratings. The gray color is too utilitarian for my taste (cheapest color, though, according to a purveyor of shopping carts).

LifeSource Natural Foods has my favorite shopping cart. It is very similar to the Trader Joe's cart, but I prefer the calming green color. Nice fit for a store that has "natural" in its name. 

The carts are high quality with no discernible problems. I feel good pushing one around, using my non-patented "leave it and walk" technique that I also use at Trader Joe's and Fred Meyer.

It doesn't make sense to me to push a cart down the length of an aisle just to pick one item off a shelf and put it in the cart. Instead, I prefer to leave my cart at the end of an aisle, then walk to get the item and bring it back to the cart. This keeps the aisle free of one more cart, though I have to admit it leaves another area filled with an extra cart.

So overall my shopping cart ratings are:

(1) LifeSource Natural Foods
(2) Trader Joe's
(3) Fred Meyer

Salem Weekly closes down. Sad day for our town.

Today, being a subscriber to Salem Weekly, I got a letter from our alternative newspaper that said the paper is being closed down, effectively immediately. I'll share my thoughts about this following the letter.
Download Salem Weekly letter


I feel a sense of loss, yet also thankfulness.

A.P. Walther, who I assume wrote this letter, has been the tireless force that's kept Salem Weekly up and running since its birth in April 2003 as a monthly.

Wikipedia describes the origins of the paper. I remember with fondness the Coffee House Cafe, a marvelously funky and welcoming place.

The Salem Monthly traces its origins to a coffee house in Downtown Salem, Oregon known as the Coffee House Cafe. Dating back to the mid-1990s, the Coffee House Cafe served as a popular meeting place and hangout for Salem's youth culture. In its later years of operation, the cafe began publishing a newsletter to engage customers in Salem's community and cultural affairs. Inspired by the reaction to the cafe's newsletter, cafe owner, A.P. Walther decided to start up a publishing operation for an alternative newspaper in Salem, Oregon.

The main thing I want to say is: Thank you, A.P., for your 15+ years of service to Salem by serving as Salem Monthly's/Weekly's publisher.

I know that for that much, or most, of that time you also was the artistic director, advertising salesperson, and deliverer of copies downtown via your bicycle, which towed a cart filled with papers.

The first time I saw you cycling along on a publication day, I thought, How marvelous! The Statesman Journal publisher sure doesn't hand deliver copies of that newspaper to downtown boxes.

Equal thanks go to Helen Caswell, the chief reporter for Salem Weekly.

I don't know when Helen started writing for the paper, but I know it has been for a long time. The Salem Weekly "Our Authors" page says that Helen moved here in 2008.

It's an open secret that Helen used several pseudonyms to disguise the fact that sometimes (many times, I'm sure) she wrote almost all of the stories in Salem Weekly.

Here's the email addresses for A.P. Walther and Helen Caswell.

[email protected]
[email protected]

I invite you to share your own thanks for their exceptional service to our community over so many years. Some other Salem Weekly writers are listed on the above-mentioned "Our Authors" page.

Here's a photo I found of Helen and AP on Google Images. It's a screenshot from a You Tube video of a CCTV program, The Valley View.

I love both Helen and AP, though I can't say I was close friends with either of them. It's just that every encounter I had with them was wonderfully positive. I don't believe in God, nor in souls, but these words come to mind: They are two sweet souls.

For a couple of years I was fortunate to have been able to write a Strange Up Salem for Salem Weekly. The deal was that I didn't want to be paid, and I also didn't want someone telling me what to write, or to edit the column. AP kept both bargains. 

When AP first contacted me, asking  if I wanted to write for Salem Weekly, early on he told me, "Brian, I'd prefer if we mainly talked by phone. I'm dyslexic, and it is difficult for me to write email messages." (I'm pretty sure AP used the term dyslexic; if not, sorry for giving you a mistaken diagnosis, AP.)

That moved me. Gosh, a publisher of an alternative weekly who finds it tough to write. So admirable! 

And that wasn't only the only hurdle AP had to overcome during the time I wrote the column. Several times he'd tell me that an issue couldn't be published on time, because there wasn't enough money to cover printing costs. But somehow AP would find enough cash to get Salem Weekly back on track. 

As for Helen, she'd send me nice email messages about many of the Strange Up Salem columns I wrote. Helen was unfailingly positive -- never saying a bad word about a column, even though some of them deserved more than a few bad words.

Anyway, I'm so grateful for what AP Walther and Helen Caswell have given Salem. I'd say, there are no words. But I've just written 677 of them, so that'd be a lie.

In a warming world, we're all responsible for Hurricane Florence

Living as I do on the West Coast, in Oregon to be exact, it's tempting for me to be thankful that we don't get nasty hurricanes like Florence, which has dumped an astounding amount of rain on North Carolina and neighboring states, and killed 11 people so far.

Florence already has set rainfall records and left tens of thousands of people in shelters and more than 1 million homes without power. Officials confirmed at least 11 deaths, including one Saturday in South Carolina.

But Gov. Roy Cooper (D) and other officials repeatedly warned Saturday that although people might think the worst of the storm is over, the volume of rainwater it will drop in the coming days will cause flooding not seen in a generation — if ever.

But actually I should be feeling more emotions than just thankfulness. Like, sadness, guilt, and anger. Why? Because scientists know that human-caused global warming is making storms like Florence considerably more powerful, and hence, more deadly.

Since I'm a human who has contributed to rising greenhouse gas emissions by the simple fact of living in an industrialized nation for the past 69 years, I feel sadness because people are dying from weather events exacerbated by higher temperatures. 

I feel guilt because I know that even though my wife and I do our best to live in an environmentally-wise manner, there's more that we could and should have done to reduce our personal carbon footprint.

And I feel anger because I know that our country's president, Donald Trump, is doing his best to dismantle Obama-era efforts to reduce greenhouse gas pollution, including withdrawing from the Paris climate change accord.

Before I talk about what I, and everybody else who cares about our one and only Planet Earth, should do to help reduce the chance of more storms like Hurricane Florence, I need to address people reading this blog post who question whether global warming really has made Florence more deadly and destructive than it would have been otherwise.

Here's some links, and excerpts from each, for your perusal:

Hurricane Florence is a climate change triple threat
In this sense, the sometimes fractious debate about whether we’ll see more or fewer storms in a warmer world is somewhat misplaced. What matters is that there is a consensus we’ll see stronger and worse flood-producing storms – and, in fact, we’re seeing them already. That brings us to Hurricane Florence: a climatologically-amplified triple threat.

...Some headlines have reported that Florence is a warning of what is to come. But in reality, it is a warning of what has already arrived. Far worse is to come if we don’t get serious, in a hurry, about acting on climate change.

Global warming didn't cause Florence, scientists say, but it's making hurricanes more intense
A warmer world makes for nastier hurricanes. They are wetter, possess more energy and intensify faster. Their storm surges are more destructive because climate change has already made the seas rise. And lately, the storms seem to be stalling more often and thus dumping more rain.

Hurricane Florence's Slow Speed is Ominous
According to a paper published earlier this year in the scientific journal Nature, hurricanes are now moving more slowly across the Earth than they once did. From 1949 to 2016, the speed of tropical cyclones worldwide over land decreased by 10 percent.

In the North Atlantic, where both Harvey and Florence originated, hurricanes have slowed some 20 percent in their track speed. (This study did not account for 2017’s slow storms, including Harvey.)

“Storms can get worse without getting more intense” if they’re slow moving, James Kossin, the author of that paper and an atmospheric research scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told me at the time.

...The paper did not formally attribute this effect to human-caused climate change, but scientists have long hypothesized that tropical cyclones will move more slowly in a warmer world. That’s because a warmer world will have more stagnant, slow-moving air masses, which will stall out storms of all types around the world.

A global slowdown of tropical-cyclone translation speed
As the Earth’s atmosphere warms, the atmospheric circulation changes. These changes vary by region and time of year, but there is evidence that anthropogenic warming causes a general weakening of summertime tropical circulation.

...The unprecedented rainfall totals associated with the ‘stall’ of Hurricane Harvey over Texas in 2017 provide a notable example of the relationship between regional rainfall amounts and tropical-cyclone translation speed.

Hopefully these stories have convinced any global warming skeptics perusing this post that climate change is making storms like Florence more powerful. Or at least that this is such a distinct possibility, it makes sense to reduce greenhouse gas emissions just in case.

(An analogy: if you smoke cigarettes, science can't say for sure that you will get lung cancer. But science can say that if you smoke, your chance of getting lung cancer is much higher than it would be if you didn't smoke. Thus most people these days have decided not to smoke, being aware of the probabilities.)

What to do, then? Here's some suggestions.

(1) Vote for Democrats. Facts shouldn't have a liberal bias, as the saying goes. Unfortunately, though, they do -- since most Republican politicians at both the federal and state level have become either global warming deniers, or global warming minimizers. Meaning, they either say that global warming isn't happening, or if it is, there isn't much we can do about it.

So make sure that you cast a vote for Democrats in the upcoming mid-term election. And after that, in the 2020 presidential-year election. It isn't much of an exaggeration to say that the habitability of our planet for humans depends on this, given the degree to which the United States contributes to greenhouse gas pollution.

(2) Make global warming a local issue. Where I live, Salem, Oregon, recently elected progressives on the City Council were successful in making a citywide greenhouse gas inventory part of the Strategic Plan that guides City Hall priorities.

The progressives also have stalled an unwise proposal for a billion dollar Third Bridge across the Willamette River that would increase considerably carbon emissions in Salem. Now the bridge idea needs to be killed off entirely by the City Council and better transportation options embraced.

(3) Do little things, since they add up to big things. It's easy to become disheartened when the Trump administration, Big Oil, and other despoilers of the environment are working against efforts to slow down global warming.

But there are many bright spots, including a report that "a group of almost 400 of the world’s leading investors, controlling over $30tn [trillion] (£23tn) in assets, have agreed to work together to back initiatives to combat climate change and help meet the objectives of the Paris agreement."

That's great. 

However, everybody who isn't one of the world's leading investors also can do something to reduce their carbon footprint. Ride a bike more. Drive less. Become a vegetarian or vegan. Recycle. Instead of flying, vacation close to home. (Check out "25+ Ways to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint.")