On April 26, after finishing my folk show on KMUN, I headed over to see the County Clerk about changing my voter registration from Pacific Green to Democrat temporarily, so I could vote for Bernie Sanders for president. [Read More]
Addicted
Last Saturday, the mainstream media reported with glee and fanfare that the world had signed a climate change pact that would save itself from certain destruction. [Read More]
It’s all about the Salmon
It’s probably not too much of a stretch to say that we revere salmon in these parts. Not in the same sense as the Native American population, but salmon certainly are given preference over their non-human predators, and their preservation as a species is codified in many of our laws. [Read More]
All Things Must Change — Eventually
Most Sundays (though this week it was Saturday), I talk with a German friend of mine, Volker, using the wonderful Skype software. Because we talk via our devices and not the phone, the “calls” are free (except for the Internet charges we pay in any case).[More…]
Rabbinical Reflections on the Season
Once again, here we are, in the juxtaposition of Jewish and Christian redemption and renewal holidays – Passover and Easter, respectively – and I find myself acting in two plays, one of which tells the Old Testament story of Joseph in musical form. [Read more]
Some Local Bad News
Three things. First one is a letter I received from Shawn H. Zinszer, Chief, Regulatory Branch, Army Corps of Engineers, for the Commander, Jose L. Aguilar, Colonel, District Commander. It was dated September 8, 2014 and was sent via snail mail from the Army Corps’ Portland district office. It was in response to an email […]
Art & Physics: Parallel Visions in Space, Time, and Light by Leonard Shlain
Last summer, I started reading Art & Physics on the recommendation of my son, who actually read it at the suggestion of a teacher a few years ago. Bottom line – get this book, even if you only look at the pictures. There’s a lot of great art in it, and the illustrations explaining the physics concepts are excellent. [Read more]
Supreme Consensus
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) recently ended its latest term with a flurry of important decisions, including the much-discussed (and ridiculed) Hobby Lobby case, ruling that women could be denied contraceptive coverage under the Affordable Health Care Act if their employer stated that they were religiously against contraception. As in so many […]
My Oregon Primary Ballot – What a Joke!
Our ballots arrived in the mail on Saturday, May 3, giving us plenty of time to mull over the choices for candidates and ballot measures for the May 20th primary election. Usually, I don’t even take the ballot out of the envelope until a couple days before the mail-in deadline, but this time, we’ll be gone, so I just took a look.[Read more]
Cancer and Climate Change
Recently, a friend of mine sent along a link to a post on the blog Nature Bats Last (what a great name for a blog!), asking me to forward this post to my son (which I did). A couple of days later, my son sent me an email asking if I’d read the piece, and how depressing it was. Well, it took some time, but I finally sat down last night (after finishing filling out financial aid forms for my college-bound son this week) to finish reading this very long and heavily referenced post. [Read More]