Posted inPhilosophy

I get myself thinking (and also, not-thinking)

This morning I kept hearing echoes of what I wrote in yesterday’s posting, “One thing the world desperately needs now is less religion and more spirituality.” I’m part of the world, so I’m talking about me. Before my habitual morning meditation-time I walked to a bookcase, searching for some spiritual inspiration. My eyes scanned the shelves holding the many books I’ve accumulated over the past thirty-five years or so: I’ve got several feet of Zen Buddhism, about the same of Rumi/Sufism, a yard of Sant Mat teachings in various guises, lesser but still substantial shelf space for mystical Christianity, Judaism,…
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Posted inEntertainment

The Triplets of Belleville

Wow. Last night we saw “The Triplets of Belleville” at Salem’s one and only “art house,” Salem Cinema—an Italian soda/truffle oasis in the Coke/popcorn desert of our local movie-going options. I loved the song from this animated movie that was nominated for an Oscar, but the snippet from “The Triplets of Belleville” that was shown at the Academy Awards doesn’t begin to do justice to the amazing originality of this artistic creation. As Ebert notes in the linked review above, this is a movie that you can’t neatly categorize in the usual “X meets Y” fashion, as in horror flick…
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Posted inWriting/Weblogs

Thank heavens: there is a God!

News item I just noticed…“'Dawn of the Dead' debuts with $27.3 million, dethroning 'Passion'” And, no, I haven’t seen “The Passion of the Christ.” My distaste for the movie is based on utterly sound philosophical grounds, discussed previously in my “Plotinus and the Passion of the Christ” posting. Since my book about Plotinus, a marvelous 3rd century Greek mystic philosopher, is about to be published, you will find me shamelessly using every opportunity to work, and rework, Plotinus into this weblog. My (probably vain) hope is that these humble meme-seeds somehow will cause interest in Plotinus’s admirably non-religious approach to…
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Posted inFamily

Paris Hilton and I become more intimate

A belated public thank you to Isaac (I’ve already thanked him via an email) for giving me some genealogy education—and, most importantly, for increasing the intimacy between me and Paris Hilton. As noted in a comment on a posting a while back, Isaac assures me that Paris and I are second cousins, not third cousins. Where I had gotten confused—and you have to admit that this genealogy stuff is indeed confusing—is that Conrad Hilton’s parents are my great-grandparents, whereas they are Paris Hilton’s great-great-grandparents. So I was looking at things from Paris’ perspective, kind of a scary thought, rather than…
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Posted inEntertainment

“Wonderfalls” is wonderful

Here’s a Friday evening TV watching tip: the second episode of “Wonderfalls” on Fox. I wasn’t expecting much last night. But Laurel had noticed that the pilot episode was being repeated, and the show got a positive mention in the newspaper’s television section yesterday. Both of us liked it a lot. Original, quirky, honest, philosophical. A recurring theme in the first episode was “embrace your destiny.” And also, “what is real?” Can animal figurines talk? Are you crazy if you can hear them? Are you crazy if you can’t hear them? Why do things happen the way they do? Is…
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Posted inHome life

Newspaper likes Laurel more than me

Yes, yesterday the Salem Statesman-Journal published a letter to the editor from Laurel about land use issues, putting it smack dab in the middle of the main Opinion page, so the signature “Laurel Hines” leapt out at you. By contrast, ten days ago my own letter about gay marriage was relegated to the bottom of the second Opinion page. Oh, well. I get to use this weblog to trumpet my own horn, so it is fair that the newspaper gave a more prominent position to Laurel. All this recent letter-writing got me to thinking about how we’ve become more active…
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Posted inHome life

14th anniversary–take that, Dr. Laura!

It's our 14th anniversary today. We had the smarts to get married on St. Patrick's Day in 1990, which means that as soon as I start seeing mention of green beer in the newspaper or on TV a small still voice in my head starts speaking... “Anniversary, anniversary, anniversary.” The photo above shows two people who had known each other for about eight months before they got married. And I proposed to Laurel after only about three or four months. The exact date is lost to my memory, probably in part for psychic protection reasons, because the proposal was embarrassingly…
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Posted inSustainability

Seriously seeking special setting

Before I leave my Sustainable Fairview subject for a while (see posting below), I want to share some P.S.’s. Yesterday I heard from a fellow SFA investor who sympathized with my frustrations, but said that he still hoped to live at Fairview one day and form a community with like-minded people. Well, that’s great. I hope that his dream comes true. However, special settings that attract special people require a special mindset for their creation. The soul of Walt Disney still is felt in Disneyland. The soul of John Bogle still is felt in Vanguard. The soul of Conrad Hilton…
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Posted inSustainability

Sustainable Fairview Associates—a cautionary tale

Tonight, once again, I’m going to enjoy not being at a meeting of the investors in Sustainable Fairview Associates (SFA), the group that is trying to convert 275 acres in Salem into a sustainable, aka “Green,” development. Back in January I wrote about why I don’t like to attend the SFA meetings. I just re-read that posting, and was pleased to see that I predicted Howard Dean’s demise and John Kerry’s/John Edward’s rise on the basis of a single criterion: With whom would I like to remain in a room? Last Saturday, at noon, a bunch of guys and me…
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Posted inEntertainment Home life

Larry David would be proud of me

Tonight is this season’s last episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” a must-see for Laurel and me ever since a friend, Randy, recommended this HBO show to us. Randy, quite reasonably, told me once that he is Larry David, personality-wise. However, I, starting from a lower rung on the in-your-face-take-me-as-I-am ladder, am only now—after several seasons—finally starting to feel that I am becoming Larry David. One could argue, of course, whether this is a good thing. If you don’t watch “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” or if your home is a cultural HBO wasteland bereft of this show, the “Sopranos,” and “Six Feet…
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Posted inNeighborhood Sustainability

Plumbing the depths of groundwater

Laurel’s environmental activism was instrumental in placing two stories about Marion county groundwater problems on the front page of the Statesman-Journal yesterday and today. Laurel talked a lot with the reporter who wrote both stories, the first being “Problems with wells run deep in the mid-Valley” and the second, “Groundwater-zone ruling not far away.” Laurel stimulated the Statesman-Journal’s interest in this issue by mailing the newspaper a copy of a critical letter she had sent to the Marion County Planning Commission, in which she berated the Commission for ignoring the advice of professional land use planners and hydrologists who recognize…
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Posted inEntertainment

The Housekeeper

When Laurel glanced at the cover of the DVD movie, “The Housekeeper,” that I brought home recently she said, “I can see why you want to watch this.” I was offended. True, the cover shows a beautiful curvaceous young woman, wearing every man’s fantasy of a “cleaning uniform,” posed provocatively on her side, smiling sensually. But the reason I chose this French sub-titled movie went far beyond the cover image. All the way to the back cover, which summarized the plot. The aforementioned housekeeper, Laura, is hired by a balding man in his 50s, Jacques, who has separated from his…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Homosexual marriage letter printed (barely)

For the benefit of local residents who didn’t notice my letter to the editor that was printed in the Statesman-Journal today way down there at the very bottom of the second page of the “Opinion” section, here’s a link to my profound musings about the economic benefits to Oregon of making this state a “heaven” for homosexual marriage (in case that link disappears from the S-J web site, here’s the letter as I submitted it.) Perhaps the humble placement of my letter was karmically produced, since I stole Laurel’s ideas, wrote them up, and signed my name to them. Late…
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Posted inEntertainment

Panic setting in…can’t breathe…

Oh, my God! I couldn’t believe it! I thought I’d become inured to all of the horrible news in the world. But when I saw the headline on the CNN web site, I knew that Laurel and I now had to face something that would catapult us into a new category of fear and trembling: loss of Comedy Central on our Dish Network receiver, which means…NO “DAILY SHOW”! The only bright side in this nightmare is that the Portland CBS station is still on the air, not being owned by Viacom—with whom Dish Network is having a pissing match. So…
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Posted inRecreation

Just what we don’t need

Thanks to Randy Smith for sending me a link to a New York Times online story that is exactly what Laurel and I feel central Oregon doesn’t need right now: a glowing description in a widely read national newspaper of the Sisters/Camp Sherman area. We love our (shared) cabin on national forest land bordering the Metolius river in Camp Sherman. We also love going to Sisters, about fifteen miles away, whenever we visit the cabin. About the only thing we don’t love about the area is how fast central Oregon is growing. So hopefully readers of the New York Times…
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Posted inBooks Philosophy

“I” for an “eye”

Last night we watched an hour and a half Oregon Public Broadcasting fundraising program about the photographer Jim Brandenburg, blissfully shortened through the magic of our PVR (personal video recorder), which took out all the fundraising moments. Brandenburg is a highly successful nature photographer who felt burnt-out after twenty years of traveling the world and working for National Geographic and other magazines. Searching for a way to rekindle his passion for photography (and, we must presume, life), he decided to do something amazing—for a professional photographer, at least. Rather than taking hundreds or thousands of photos a day and culling…
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Posted inHome life

Return of the King (mattress)

It’s nice to know that after fourteen years of marriage Laurel can still get me breathing heavily in our bedroom. Also, on the stairs leading down from our bedroom…in the living room…and in the guest bedroom way at the other end of the house. Yes, that was quite an encounter between Laurel and me after we torn off the sheets and got all sweaty with a mattress. Next time, though, I’m hoping that we encounter each other on a mattress, rather than on other sides of a mattress. For we have begun the quadrennial (approximately) ritual of finding a better…
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Posted inMiscellany

Google hath forsaken me

Oh, Google, why hath thou forsaken me? I worship daily at your throne, www.google.com, and praise you far and wide. Soon after I set up this new home for HinesSight I entered your good graces, and you indexed me (Google be praised) at http://hinessight.blogs.com. Now I have fallen from your favor, and my heart is sorely troubled. What must I do to please you, oh Great Google? Well, I think I’ve already answered my own question through a visit to the Google web site. Apparently Google doesn’t like “mirror” sites in which several URLs point to the same content. Since…
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Posted inPhilosophy

Heresy is heretical

Last night Serena and I took a walk in the dark on a (rare) rainless Oregon night. Down the trail, across the creek, through the woods, around the lake, and back home. One mile. Many inspirations. The moon was almost full. Not a cloud in the sky. Sparkling stars. Symphonies of frogs croaking in the distance. Few signs of humanity: me, of course; Serena’s red flashing LED collar; some house lights; occasional sounds of a passing car. Mostly, Serena and I experienced nature as it is now, absent people, and as it must have been, then, before Homo sapiens evolved…
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Posted inEntertainment Philosophy Plotinus

Plotinus and “The Passion of the Christ”

This is the first time I’ve commented on a movie without having seen it. But I’m pretty sure that Laurel and I won’t ever see “The Passion of the Christ,” so I might as well throw in my two cents now rather than later. We’d probably see the movie if either (1) we were Christians, (2) the film had a significant spiritual message, or (3) we relished watching people get tortured. Since none of these things is true, Mel Gibson will have to get along without our $16, or whatever outrageous amount Regal Cinemas is demanding for entry these days.…
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