Posted inDogs

Free kittens with purchase

I am so happy that our dog neither (1) knows how to read, nor (2) has a credit card. If both of these things were true, Serena’s account would be maxed out to the limit with buys from this Salem establishment.
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Posted inNeighborhood

Salem escapees head for Portland’s Sellwood area

Sellwood neighborhood residents: notwithstanding the title of this post, you don’t need to lock your doors and keep a baseball bat near at hand. The Salem escapees I’m referring to are utterly gentle souls, Mark and Lynda. They’re friends of ours who recently bought a Sellwood condo on the Willamette River. I ran into Mark yesterday at Salem’s one and only decent natural food store, LifeSource. Mark said that they had started moving into the condo on Saturday and should be finished this coming weekend. So they’re short-timers. Just a few days left on their Salem sentence. That’s the way…
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Posted inHome life Recreation

Trail rides turn tame

It’s Laurel’s birthday today. She’s not too old to go on a Black Butte Stables trail ride with her cowboy, and that’s all I’ll say about her age. Except, Laurel looks a lot younger than her XX years. Also, those XX years haven’t brought her hugely proficient arithmetic skills, because up until a few weeks ago she thought that today she was going to be XX + 1. When I pointed out her math error, Laurel was greatly relieved. “All year I thought I was going to be XX + 1,” she said. “Wow! You’ve taken a year off of…
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Posted inMiscellany

Salem friend second in National Senior Spelling Bee

Congratulations to Bill Long, a friend and fellow Salemite, for placing second—once again—in the 2005 National Senior Spelling Bee. As Bill notes in his “Speller’s Diary,” the national winner, David Riddle, also won the 2005 Oregon Spelling Bee. Hey, what is a California attorney doing in an Oregon spelling bee? Isn’t there a state law against such a thing? If not, there should be. But Riddle does seem like a deserving champion. Anyone who can spell “mulligatawny” (a soup) correctly gets a bow from me. Well, Bill can take heart in being the poster boy for the 2005 National Senior…
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Posted inRecreation

Belly-dancing and fast food in Sisters

In the course of meandering along the Sisters Art Stroll this afternoon we encountered belly dancers entertaining passers-by—most of whom stopped passing, as did we, to watch this contrarian bit of cowboy town culture. Sisters is special. It’s sort of central Oregon’s Cannon Beach—a town with character, wise business signage and design rules, and artistic flair—while Bend is growing uncomfortably akin to Lincoln City, a minimally planned sprawl of malls, dense slow-moving traffic, and garish fast-food restaurants. Picking up a copy of Sister’s weekly newspaper, The Nugget, we saw that the city council voted 3-2 to reject a proposed ordinance…
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Posted inBooks Philosophy

My satori is near at hand

Clearly my final enlightenment—satori!—is near at hand, for I have bought a book that will lead me there: D.T. Suzuki’s “The Zen Koan as a means of Attaining Enlightenment.” The clerk at Salem’s Book Bin was suitably impressed with my purchase, telling me “We hope you’ll come back after your enlightenment and share your realization.” I said, “Absolutely. I plan to charge $8 for this dispensation of wisdom, which will enable me to realize a 50 cent profit from buying this $7.50 book.” Obviously my spiritual motives are pure. So pure that a humble part of me continually whispers, “Brian,…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Writing/Weblogs

Blogging retrospective

I’m in a look-back mood today… The position I took in “Religious zealots run amok in Terri Schiavo case” has been proven to be absolutely correct, now that the results of Schiavo’s autopsy have been released. Schiavo was brain-dead and blind when Frist and other Christian fundamentalists were claiming that she could recognize people and follow a moving balloon with her eyes. Memo from God to Earth: Science, including neurology, is how you learn about creation—faith is a crock of shit when it comes to knowing reality. (When She speaks through me, God likes to use earthy language to get…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Writing/Weblogs

Political blogger bumper sticker quiz

Here’s a can’t-miss quiz for you. Match this blogger’s car with the political weblog that he or she contributes to. Is it (A) The Oregon Republican Party’s Journal, or (B) BlueOregon? (enlarge the photo by clicking on it to read the bumper stickers). Answer is here. Yes, this car belongs to Trey Smith, BlueOregon contributor who was the Socialist Party candidate for Governor in 1998 (I like Trey’s statement in the election guide under “Prior Governmental Experience: none”—to my mind that’s an excellent qualification.) Trey is someone who definitely doesn’t need to go to a How to feel free to…
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Posted inHome life

Baby robin and headless dog

Laurel is a published photographer—with help from me. At Laurel's request I sent her “Feed Me!” photo of a begging baby robin off to the Salem Statesman-Journal and it was printed today in the Click! section where interesting reader photos are featured (no online access, I'm sorry to say). It doesn’t look as good in black and white as it does in color, and I wish the newspaper had taken my advice and cropped it as it appeared on my weblog posting. Still, it’s a great shot that required some stealthy sneaking to capture. Congratulations to Laurel. I’m envious, of…
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Posted inEntertainment

MTV Movie Awards

We watched every minute of the two-hour MTV Movie Awards show last night (except the commercials, naturally). This is a yearly cultural duty for me. At the age of 56, and growing older by the second, I don’t want to become a old fogy who is out-of-touch with what’s happening (though my very use of that archaic term indicates that I probably am). Nonetheless, rap performances usually make me hit my digital video recorder’s “forward 30 seconds” button repeatedly until the rapper is off the screen. However, I managed to watch all of Eminem’s “song,” or whatever it is you…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Humor and facts demolish homophobia

Humor is a great way of revealing the idiocy of bigotry. The next time somebody says to you, “If gays are able to marry, it will destroy the institution of marriage,” respond with “How true. That’s just the point a woman made in ‘How my Marriage was Destroyed by the Homosexual Agenda.’ You should read this revealing essay.” It’s a great piece of satire. Here’s a sample: Constance turned on the radio in the kitchen to the Christian AM station we always listen to, and that's when our family's fate was finally sealed. The Lord's news update was saying that…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Is killing cougars a wildlife service?

“Wildlife Services.” The name of this USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture) agency has such a nice ring to it. It conjures up a picture of distressed animals being tended to by kindly government employees. “How may I serve you today?” a needy deer or bear is asked when it gets to the front of the Wildlife Services clinic waiting line. The home page of the agency’s website tries to convey this sort of benign image. The reality is much different, as Laurel and I described on a “Coyotes don’t need killing by USDA Wildlife Services” page that we put up…
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Posted inHome life

Oh God, I’m shrinking!

Today I was pleased to find HinesSight listed on BlueOregon’s “Blogwire” of progressive Oregon blogs. However, I’m feeling really regressive at the moment, having discovered that I’m shrinking. In my baby book I found a chart, prepared by yours truly, of how I progressed to a height of 6 feet 1 ½ inches by June, 1967 when I was 19 years old. Now, at the age of 56, I’ve regressed to 6 feet ½ inch. I’m back to where I was at 17 years old. When I made this chart I never figured that I’d be adding declining entries. It’s…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Philosophy

Sweating and crying through the National Spelling Bee

There was quite a bit of sweating and crying going on during the National Spelling Bee finals today. Not so much among the contestants—they mostly were calm and composed. I was the one with jangling nerves and teary eyes during the competition. I’d never watched the National Spelling Bee before. I needed some mindless TV entertainment to pay bills by, so I channel-surfed my way to ESPN. It took me a long time to write the checks once I got hooked on the highly mindful spelling competition. I couldn’t take my eyes off of the children who strode one by…
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Posted inWriting/Weblogs

PostSecret, a confessional blog

A NYTimes.com article, “Bless Me Blog, for I’ve Sinned,” pointed me to the PostSecret weblog where anonymous 4x6 confessional postcards are displayed. They’re wonderfully creative and moving. You need to see the artwork pasted on most of the cards to get the full impact of the PostSecrets. But here’s a sampling of words: “My older sister has tried to kill herself three (3) times. Sometimes I wish she’d succeeded.” “I make up fantasy stories because my real life sucks. And now my fantasy life is starting to suck, too.” “Sometimes I think that other people are reading my thoughts so…
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Posted inFamily

My daughter redeems her hiking-self

After poking some fun at my daughter, Celeste, for letting Laurel and me leave her panting breathlessly in our dust during a hike in L.A.’s Runyon Canyon, I’m pleased to report that Celeste redeemed her hiking-self yesterday. She and husband Patrick flew up to spend what I had hoped would be a pleasant sunny Memorial Day weekend in Oregon. Pleasant it was; sunny it wasn’t. Nevertheless, we took them up to the Little North Santiam trail, guided by William Sullivan’s recently updated great book “100 Hikes in the Central Oregon Cascades.” Though Celeste and Patrick had looked wonderfully fit and…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Oregon House Republicans score a triple outrage

Before Laurel and I enter into our mellow yin Memorial Day weekend mood, it was balancing to experience some yang outrage this morning after reading a Statesman Journal story: “GOP sidesteps public on hunting bill.” I’ve got to hand it to the Oregon House Republicans. It isn’t easy to score a triple outrage, but they managed to do it through an amendment to a bill that would let counties overturn statewide voter-approved restrictions on cougar and bear hunting. A House committee approved the bill without advance notice, undoubtedly because if environmental and animal-rights activists had known about this move ahead…
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Posted inEntertainment

Carl’s Jr. Paris Hilton ad

Driving around in the car yesterday we heard a couple of talk show hosts, KEX’s Mark and Dave, tackle a pressing question: Is the new Carl’s Jr. “Spicy Burger” Paris Hilton ad soft-core pornography or savvy marketing? Though we hadn’t seen the ad, we figured that if the Parent’s Television Council disapproved of it, we’d like it. And then—praise God!—last night the ad appeared while I was watching a recording of the final two-hour “24” episode. After several watchings of a scantily-clad Paris Hilton washing a Bentley and chomping on a burger to the tune of “I love Paris in…
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Posted inRecreation

Getting the newspaper in Camp Sherman

I’ve taken over getting the morning newspaper when we’re at our cabin in Camp Sherman. This used to be Laurel’s responsibility. She'd drive to the store before going for a walk with Serena, our dog. But with my new Taoist sensibilities, I figure it’s more real for me to be riding my bike in the cool central Oregon air than sitting on my butt at the kitchen table, waiting for the newspaper to appear, drinking coffee and reading, in a Tao Te Ching book, about the benefits of living more naturally. It’s a whole two miles to the Camp Sherman…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Philosophy

God must be a Buddhist

Laurel and I are finding it difficult to practice Christian compassion. First problem: we’re not Christians. Second problem: it’s hard to be compassionate toward Christians when so many of them act like fools. Case in point, our nation’s Christian-in-Chief, President Bush. He is threatening to veto legislation that would loosen restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Bush calls himself pro-life, but he doesn’t want to promote research that promises cures for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other degenerative brain and nerve diseases. Bush’s own Christian compassion is constrained inside the tiny box of Christian fundamentalism, where crazy ideas are…
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