Posted inCurrent affairs

Geekiest electoral-vote predictor site

I’ve made the rounds of quite a few sites that predict the outcome of the presidential race. My favorite, because it is the geekiest (and consequently, most believable) is the geekly named "Electoral College Meta-Analysis." It’s the product of a Princeton professor whose specialties are biophysics and neuroscience. Dr. Wang says that he makes heavy use of probability and statistics in analyzing complex experimental data, so I’m ready to believe his regularly updated meta-analysis of state polls. Especially because today he is showing Kerry over Bush, 281 to 257 (with undecideds included). If you visit his site, scroll down to…
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Posted inRecreation

Police do read weblogs

Sender: “Black Butte Police” Subject: “Weblogs” This header definitely caught my eye as I scanned my Outlook inbox for new email messages. What had I done? And why was the Black Butte Police force coming after me for doing it? I skipped past the daily deluge of plaintive missives from the Kerry campaign, Democratic Party, and MoveOn.Org to click on this mysterious communication. The message was short: “By the way, we do read weblogs! Your citation will be forthcoming….Just joking. Gil Zaccaro, Chief Black Butte Ranch PD” I was immediately appreciative to Chief Zaccaro for adding “just joking.” But now…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Philosophy

Please God, no more sky-pointing

Last night I decided that a total eclipse of the moon was more common than the Red Sox winning the World Series, so I dashed inside at 8:00 pm to finish watching the real wonder of the evening. The last innings were as satisfying as I had hoped. For while my Red Sox fandom only began eight games ago, when they were down three-zip to the Yankees, it has been as genuine as it has been brief. It’s easy to like a team that calls themselves “idiots.” The linked article says, “Last year's Red Sox used the theme ‘Cowboy Up’…
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Posted inHome life

Well, that was fun

Getting there right on time and then waiting for three hours. Uncomfortable chairs. Having to fill out forms that ask personal questions. Outdated reading material. Other people being called while you sit…and sit…and sit. Why, I found that jury duty is just like going to the doctor. Except you go to the doctor because you have a problem that needs to be fixed. With jury duty, the problem is that you are there and you want to be somewhere else. At least, this seemed to be the case with all of my fellow jury duty selectees this morning, and it…
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Posted inHome life

Tai Chi cures jury duty blues

Tai Chi, it works. After a month of once-a-week classes, and some episodic at-home practicing, a real test of Tai Chi’s efficacy came this evening. For at 5:10 pm I listened to the recorded message at the Marion County jury duty office. And at 5:11 pm I was seriously bummed out. “Those called for jury duty on Tuesday, October 26 with numbers from 1 to 315 are to report by 8:00 am.” My number is 75. Bummer! 8:00 am. Double bummer!! I’m usually not even out of bed by then, much less meditated, showered, fed, dressed, and drived (to downtown…
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Posted inHome life

I go dumpster diving

I spent about eight hours yesterday dumpster diving. Or, more accurately, dumpster loading. With a few other folks I helped a friend get rid of lots of unwanted stuff that was clogging up her carport and basement. My job ended up being the trash arranger. People would leave junk on the end of the industrial-sized dumpster, and I’d walk back and forth with loads of discards, carefully placing material for maximum space utilization. This is me and my dumpster early on in our relationship. We got to know each other much more intimately as the day wore on, which ended…
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Posted inHome life

The Tao of tree debris

Into everyone’s life a long-standing large oak someday will fall, either literally or metaphorically. And likely, more than once. For whatever lives will die. What seems so strong, so dependable, so firmly rooted that we can count on it to be a lifelong faithful companion—at any moment it may topple over (hopefully when we’re not leaning on it). A few weeks ago one of our ancient oaks, perhaps several hundred years old, fell into the branches of a neighboring oak tree. Growing in a semi-wetland, its roots rotted. Several years ago we had cleared the area of blackberries. Who knows?…
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Posted inHome life

Harmony finds a home

I’m pleased to report that Harmony, my art purchase at the Sisters Harvest Faire, has found a home. Harmony has been migrating from outside to inside, from vertical to horizontal, and doesn’t seem to have minded all this instability. Of course, what else would you expect from Harmony? Laurel, though, hasn’t come home yet from an all-day workshop in Portland. Since she is the final arbiter of art placement both within and without the Hines household, an end to Harmony’s wanderings is not yet guaranteed. My plan is to remain silent and let Harmony herself gently announce her presence on…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Political potpourri

I really have to start getting my mind focused on more important things in life, like the Red Sox - Yankees game tonight (every fall I briefly become a baseball fan for the seventh game of championship series). But first I’ve got to share a potpourri of political postings. Wow! Maria Shriver must have taken the pledge at Votergasm.org, which I talked about yesterday, one step further. Votergasm wants people to withhold sex from non-voters, but Maria reportedly did the same for a husband who told people to vote for the wrong person. Arnold Schwarzenegger is saying that “Bush has…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Sex for voting

The folks at Votergasm.org have come up with a brilliant idea that is sure to sway the swing(ing) voter. If you choose the “American Hero” option when you take the Votergasm Pledge, this is what you commit to: I pledge to have sex with a voter on election night and withhold sex from non-voters for the next four years. OK, sign me up, since Laurel mailed in her ballot today. Votergasm offers two other options for the less patriotic, and reveals a hitherto hidden Constitutional right in a “disclaimer” section: Per the U.S. Constitution, children conceived on election night are…
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Posted inEntertainment

“Saved!”

“Saved” is one of those damn-the-hypocrites movies that is most enjoyable when the viewer doesn’t consider that the hypocrites being damned might well include himself or herself. Laurel and I certainly enjoyed watching fundamentalist Christians get skewered in this newly released DVD. But adhering to the adage, “He who is without sin, cast the first stone,” the film also made me consider to what extent I believe I myself am saved (leaving aside the more basic question of “from what?”), and others aren’t. When I watched the student assembly in American Eagle Christian High School, filled with “Praise Jesus!” calls…
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Posted inHome life

Motionless with MoveOn Pac

I’ve got fifteen minutes to kill while our traditional Sunday whole wheat spaghetti dinner is cooking, so I’ll use it to assuage my motionless-with-MoveOn Pac guilt. Right now Laurel is on the phone fulfilling her volunteer duties, making phone call after phone call to registered voters in our precinct who have been identified through some mysterious computerized process as possibly leaning toward Kerry, but not particularly likely to vote. I hate to call strangers. I don’t even like to call friends all that much. I like communicating via weblog postings and email much better. So if you’re a voter in…
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Posted inPhilosophy

I become a Taoist

I’ve decided to convert to Taoism. In accord with the spirit of my new faith, I’m taking my conversion pretty lightly. Probably I’ve always been a Taoist. Probably everyone is. But who cares whether what I just said makes any sense or not? This is the nice thing about Taoism. One of the early Taoist sages, Chuang Tzu, is called the “genius of the absurd.” He’s famous for saying that he dreamed he was a butterfly, then awoke and was himself again. But he didn’t know whether formerly there had been a man dreaming he was a butterfly, or if…
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Posted inMiscellany

Don’t pass up these great Internet gifts

Thank you, o gloriously generous Internet! For today I received two great gifts from you: (1) a free download of the beta Google Desktop Search, which is so wonderful I would say I am speechless, if it weren’t for this posting; and (2) a link from a fellow Oregon blogger that led me to The Smoking Gun story, “O’Reilly Hit with Sex Harass Suit,” which contains marvelously explicit descriptions of the sexual fantasies Bill O’Reilly purportedly shared with an unwilling staffer. The Google gift seems to work precisely as promised. After this teeny-tiny (for what it does) 400kb download installed…
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Posted inMiscellany

Microsoft, why can’t you get it right?

Oh, Microsoft, why is our relationship so strained? After I praise your XP SP2 update, yesterday you let me down with a muffed security fix. Optimistically, I had turned on the “automatic updates” feature, and noted that some large files were being downloaded via our slow dial-up connection. When I tried to shut down my computer, I was met with an “updates will be installed upon shutdown” notice that I had never seen before. Still optimistic, I went ahead and clicked “shut down,” after which I gazed upon an endlessly recurring loop of installation messages, as described by my fellow…
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Posted inEntertainment

“Mean Girls”

Last night we enjoyed watching “Mean Girls.” Curled up in our Camp Sherman cabin around our substitute for a campfire, a TV/DVD combo that another owner blessedly added to our broadcast TV-less entertainment options, this movie stimulated Laurel and me to reflect upon our own high school years and compare them to how “Mean Girls” presents modern high school life. “Mean Girls” is about, not surprisingly, a bunch of mean girls who are obsessed with looking good and preserving their social status. Led by a Queen Bee, Regina, “The Plastics” (as they’re called by other students with the eyes to…
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Posted inRecreation

Suttle Lake has survived

We hiked around Suttle Lake in central Oregon today, all 3.7 miles, and have photos to prove that while the B & B Complex fire may have scarred the area, its beauty survives. Last fall we attempted the same hike but were stymied by “trail closed due to fire damage” signs. A lot of work has been done since then on the trail that circles the lake, for which we’re most grateful. As soon as we parked the car and walked to the lakeshore we could tell that Suttle Lake was still its beautiful self. In places the fire went…
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Posted inRecreation

Images of the Sisters Harvest Faire

Generally it’s my policy not to purchase anything in a store that calls itself a “shoppe,” or attend an event that bills itself as a “faire.” But Laurel and I make an exception every October for the Sisters Harvest Faire, which fills several blocks of this charming central Oregon town with over 200 juried vendors of handcrafted quality arts and crafts. Last year’s HinesSight posting about our visit focused on how little attention our dog, Serena, got from Faire visitors even given (1) her natural adorableness, and (2) the blue bandana that I had affixed to her neck to give…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Bush’s “Need some wood?” instant web site

Proving that liberals are way tuned in to the Internet, Bush’s “Need some wood?” comment during tonight’s debate has spawned an instant www.needsumwood.com web site. Laurel heard the site mentioned on Air America while driving home this evening and, thankfully, remembered that “some” was spelled just as Bush probably thinks it is, or we never would have found it. Like many debate watchers I couldn’t understand what Kerry was getting at, and seemingly Bush didn’t either. Apparently in 2001 Bush did indeed get $84 in business income from his part ownership of a timber-growing enterprise. But this certainly wouldn’t make…
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Posted inMeasure 37

Funniest truth in the Voter’s Pamphlet

If you read nothing else in the Oregon Voter’s Pamphlet, be sure to treat yourself to a smile and check out the last “argument in favor” of Measure 37, the horribly ill-conceived attempt to trash our land use laws and Californicate Oregon. This is an inspired use of humor to reveal the ghastly truth about Measure 37, cleverly infiltrating the “for” section of the arguments for and against. The sponsor of this “$$$ Make Money Fast With Measure 37! $$$” is Peter Bray, who promotes a must-see “Get Rich Quick With Measure 37!” web site in his argument. It’s clever,…
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