Posted inScience

Putting things in perspective

A few nights ago, when I was just about at the peak of my feeling-sorry-for-myself bell curve, since we’ve had to put up with snow/ice/power outages for a couple of weeks now, I picked up two science magazines that helped me put things in perspective. In the November 22 issue of New Scientist (a great weekly science magazine published in Great Britain, so you get a continental, meaning liberal/anti-Bush, perspective in the editorials) I read the cheerily titled piece, “Doomsday Scenario.” Here I learned that all of humanity’s advances during the last 10,000 years have occurred during wonderfully temperate, and…
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Posted inDogs

Kinky sexual behavior

With a title like that, I’m pretty sure this weblog posting will be read. Especially accompanied by the titillating (to dogs, at least) photo of Serena and her new canine boy-toy, Rocco. Yesterday, in freezing weather, made worse by an even-more-freezing wind chill, I dedicated myself to capturing this rather rare animal behavior: a spayed female humping away on a neutered male, who, by his expression, is either in a state of erotic pleasure or, more likely, complete bemusement. So here we are, with several inches of snow/ice on the ground, and freezing rain coming down right now, and we’ve…
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Posted inHome life

Goddess, hear our prayers!

Woke up this morning to alarm clock beeping…no reason to set it, except to be up in time by noon to watch Rose Bowl…no, didn’t set it…slumber thoughts slowly awaken: electricity is off, again!...then on, then off, then on, then off…now on, perhaps the Electricity Goddess has heard our prayers…must pray harder…would offer first-born son if had one…will you take a daughter, Goddess? Name is Celeste, lives in North Hollywood (just kidding C.; actually have offered to loan you to Goddess until cold weather is over)…already being blamed by Laurel for this snow event, just like last time: “You were…
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Posted inHome life

I’ve found my true love

It took almost all of 2003, but on December 30—yesterday at 5:00 pm—I found my true love. And the greatest thing about it is that Laurel embraced her also. A threesome! Cool! Also hot, because sparks fly when you touch her in a certain way. Her name? Electricity. Along with tens of thousands of other people in the mid-Willamette valley, we lost our power about 3:00 am early Monday morning. We got it back at 5:00 pm Tuesday afternoon. So we had some 38 hours to ponder how much Electricity does for us, and how under-appreciated she had been in…
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Posted inHome life

A sign we’ve been married 13 years

This is indeed a sign that our marriage is well into a second decade—when I went into Morlan’s Plumbing last month, ordered a “whisper quiet” Panasonic bathroom exhaust fan, and said, “It’s a Christmas present for my wife.” Strangely, the Morlan employees seemed surprised at this, and even told me that this was the first time they were aware of a ceiling fan being a gift. Well, they don’t know Laurel, and how sensitive she is to loud noises. She carries ear plugs in her purse, and puts them on in a theatre whenever a movie sound track rises above…
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Posted inEntertainment Home life Sustainability

Holiday catch-up

Oh, my, ten days since my last posting—must be almost a HinesSight procrastination record. In my defense (as if I need one; heck, it’s my weblog, and I can do what I want with it, but the Protestant ethic is hard to get rid of), the holidays spread stress, along with good cheer. In my experience, the good cheer starts about now, the weekend before Christmas, by which time we start to get out of the preparing-for-Christmas mode, and begin entering the actually-enjoy-Christmas mode. Anyway, here’s my attempt to catch up on the trajectory of our mid-December life: Artificial tree…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Accurate Doonesbury reporting

Laurel is a big Doonesbury comic fan, as am I. But she was unaware, until I pointed it out to her, that the Doonesbury series about Schwarzenegger’s investigation of himself, seeking to find out whether he truly groped women who didn’t want to be groped, was absolutely based on truth (click on dates before and after the link above to get the full Doonesbury take on the story). The governor of California really is investigating himself, which goes to prove the cliché that truth is stranger than fiction. For additional confirmation, check out this recent CNN story on the subject.…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Not proud to be an American

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Old anti-war chants keep going through my head, as true for Iraq as they were for Vietnam. “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many children are you going to kill today?” Answer, for Bush, nine. How much more United States wrought terror are we willing to condone?
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Posted inHome life

Gordon

A few hours ago I went into the Courthouse Athletic Club’s karate room, where for nine years I used to train with some great guys and gals—and where I still like to work out several times a week, enjoying the wood floor and the memories. When I started to take my shoes off, and put my sweat towel down, I saw a sheet of paper on the counter with Gordon Waite’s photograph, and a caption “In Memoriam.” Gordon was a good karate buddy. He died unexpectedly Thanksgiving morning, at the age of 72. That is just so wrong. And yet,…
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Posted inEntertainment

“Bad Santa” strangely compelling

We got ourselves into the Christmas spirit, Laurel and Brian style, by going to see “Bad Santa” last night. Since the reviews of this movie had emphasized that no one should see it who expects to be uplifted or inspired, naturally it was tops on our Must-See Holiday Flick list. Our sense of humor tilts decidedly in the direction of wry dry cynicism, so a movie that stars Billie Bob Thornton as a drunken, womanizing, thieving Santa is right up our alley. We also love HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and Comedy Central’s “Reno 911”—when we’re not watching PBS or listening…
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Posted inNeighborhood

‘Twas the night before Thanksgiving

Yes, it was the night before Thanksgiving, and where else would Laurel and Brian be until 7:30 pm but at a hearing on the proposed Nielsen lot partition that has occupied so much of our time (mainly Laurel’s, for she is the Groundwater Protection Activist of the Year, without question, in Spring Lake Estates at least). Wednesday was the long-awaited remand hearing, remanded, that is, from the state Land Use Board of Appeals and the Marion County Board of Commissioners. Right off the bat we observed something strange: the Nielsen’s hydrologist, Nick Coffey, was nowhere in sight. And he never…
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Posted inWriting/Weblogs

I’m a publisher!!!

Oh, man, I’m so excited. I’m a publisher! No, wait, I misspoke, and left off two exclamation marks: I’m a publisher!!! I can prove it. I have my not-really-framable piece of paper from the corporation commissioner that says I’m doing business under an assumed business name: Adrasteia Publishing. If I’d wanted to pay $10 more I could have gotten a rather cheesy only-slightly-more-suitable-for-framing certificate featuring a background photo of the Oregon state capital, but I decided thriftiness was going to be one of the hallmarks of Adrasteia Publishing—along with, hopefully, publishing (my own books, of course). After much exploring in…
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Posted inHome life

Prius update

I want to reassure those readers who have been anxious about the status of our Prius’ warning light, perhaps suffering through sleepless nights, or engaging in constant prayers to the Higher Hybrid Power on our behalf, that Priey has been returned to health, and we are enjoying the car a lot. As the post below posited, Marcus Aurelius’ advice was well taken, because it turned out that Toyota wasn’t out to drive us crazy by having a “check engine” warning light come on one hour after we bought the car. No, seemingly Toyota is trying to drive many 2004 Prius…
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Posted inPhilosophy

Marcus Aurelius and Microsoft

Recently I started reading The Inner Citadel by Pierre Hadot, which is a fairly scholarly commentary on Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations—retranslated by Hadot and Michael Chase. Marcus, you may recall, was the Roman Emperor featured in the movie “Gladiator.” He was shown writing (the Meditations, undoubtedly) in his tent during the campaign against the Germanic huns at the beginning of the movie. I had read Marcus (might as well call an emperor by his first name, since he isn’t around to throw me to the lions for impertinence) directly before, but Hadot provides a lot of meaty background information about the…
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Posted inHome life

One way you can help save the Earth

Here’s one way you can help save the Earth: buy our 1997 Honda CRV that will soon (tomorrow) be listed for sale in the Salem Stateman-Journal classifieds. By buying our wonderful SUV, with only 44,000 miles, you will be doing a lot to help us pay for the 2004 Toyota Prius that has arrived in the Port of Portland, and shortly will be delivered to the local Toyota dealer. When this happens, we’ve been told that we have 48 hours to cough up the money to pay for the car, or else it goes to the next person in line…
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Posted inDogs

Lust and longing at the dog park

Last weekend Laurel and I took the family pet, Serena, to the dog park at Minto-Brown Island. A “dog park,” for those not educated in canine arcana, is a place where dogs are allowed to run free, leashless, though still theoretically under the owner’s voice or psychic control. This was the third time, I think, that one of us had taken Serena to the dog park for some socializing. But this was the first time that I fully realized that the dog park has much social appeal for humans also. When we let Serena out of the car, she ran…
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Posted inScience

Still time to be part of the Elegant Universe

If you didn’t catch the first two hours of PBS’ “The Elegant Universe” with string theorist Brian Greene, the final third hour is coming up from 8-9 pm on Tuesday, November 4. We haven’t finishing watching the initial episode, but what we’ve seen has been great. I’ve read most of Greene’s book by the same name, and am passingly familiar with string theory. Still, there’s no substitute for special effects, and having complex physics/cosmology explained by an expert with a gift for communicating. Greene can write; he can talk; he’s likable and expressive; and he’s also a top-notch scientist—a rare…
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Posted inMiscellany

We interrupt this weblog…

We interrupt this weblog for some commercial messages. Well, quasi-commercial, since HinesSight is not supported by any dependable source of income, in the traditional writer’s spirit. I’ve just built up a small stack of items that are calling out to be publicized, and want to shut up those annoying little voices from the pieces of paper on the rug beside my desk. Plus, I want to stop rolling over them every time I push my chair away to get another snack, or take a nap, after laboring at my literary projects for the usual half hour or so at a…
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Posted inWriting/Weblogs

I’m dreaming of killing someone

Actually, several someones. My fantasy starts with the Fulton County (Georgia) school system, which recently expelled a high school freshman for writing a fictional tale in her private journal about a student who dreams she kills a teacher. I saw this girl, Rachel Boim, interviewed on CNN today. You couldn’t ask for a more intelligent, articulate, and mature 14-year old than Rachel—who undoubtedly surpasses the Fulton County school administrators in all of these qualities. When asked if she would write the tale again, given what has just happened, she wisely said, “Of course I would. It was just a story,…
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Posted inPhilosophy

God, save us from “God”

If you read Meister Eckhart, and I certainly recommend that you do, you’ll find numerous references to freeing ourselves of “God”—the false thing— so we can truly get in touch with God—the real thing (there are lots of translations of Eckhart, this Penguin Classics book is my favorite). Here’s an example, where Eckhart praises genuine spiritual poverty: I said before that a poor person is someone who does not even will to perform God’s will, but who lives in such a way that he or she is as free both of their own will and of God’s will as they…
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