HinesSight

Dancing cockatoo shows that birds can boogie

Browsing through some news web sites this morning, it was nice to come across a story that made me smile rather than frown (as swine flu and economic headlines do).

For the first time, apparently, scientists have proven that an animal can dance to music. Snowball, a cockatoo, performs to various tunes. This video of him grooving to the Backstreet Boys was the first one I watched.

Loved it!

I wish our dog could do half (heck, a tenth) as well. And that I could put a video of her on You Tube that would get over 2,150,000 views.

Unfortunately for our family pet's fame, researchers analyzed more than 5,000 You Tube videos of "dancing" animals.

In the end, only 33 videos really seemed to show creatures moving with a beat. There were 14 different species of parrots and one elephant species.

It seems that only species capable of imitating sound can keep a beat. Dolphins are going to be studied to see if they can aqua-dance, since they're capable of learning vocalizations.

I don't think they'd be as engaging as Snowball, though. Here's another video of him dancing, this time to Huey Lewis. I love how he throws his head around.

Jeez...I didn't win "sexiest vegetarian" contest

Oh, man, I'm so bummed. Laurel picked up the newspaper yesterday and pointed out that PETA's Sexiest Vegetarian Next Door contest had a male Salem finalist.

And the guy wasn't me. The reason must have been that I didn't enter.

 Heck, what would have prevented a sixty year old who's been a vegetarian for almost four decades, and is still able to flaunt a beefcake tofucake photo like this from winning the contest?

Oh, here's an idea: ageism.

I carefully inspected the photos of the male and female Sexiest Vegetarian Next Door 2008 contestants. Well, "carefully" actually only applies to one of the categories -- which featured this winner.

But I did zip through the bio's of the 16 male finalists and learned that the eldest was just 40. Forty! Are there no sexy vegetarians older than that? 

Hopefully PETA will include a Senior category in its 2009 contest. I'm working on losing a few pounds and doing some extra weightlifting just in case. (Plus, figuring out how to use Photoshop, probably my best bet.)

Poking fun (gently) at Harley riders

I'm putting this post in my blog's "humor" category because Harley Davidson motorcycle riders take their bikes pretty damn seriously, and I don't want to tick off any of the brothers or sisters.

Anyway, I used to have a motorcycle myself – a Yamaha Seca II – until my old lady (what I called my wife during the period I owned a bike, which helps to explain why I no longer have it) told me so many times that I was going to kill myself on it, I got afraid that I really would have a serious accident, become paralyzed, and have to spend the rest of my life listening to a tape player she'd put next to my ear that said, in an endless loop, "I kept saying that you were going to kill yourself and you almost did, you fucking idiot."

So I have a fondness for two-wheeled motorized transportation. I've even (shush…don't tell my wife!) been eyeing on the Internet a Suzuki Burgman 650 scooter set up as a trike. Pretty cool.

Now, a Japanese scooter isn't a Harley. You can tell, because a Suzuki Burgman 650 is (1) a lot quieter, (2) less expensive, (3) more reliable, (4) safer, and (5) more practical.

That said, there's nothing like a Harley. I say that without ever having ridden a Harley. I have, however, seen lots of Harley riders – and not all of them have been sipping lattes while their bikes are parked outside the downtown Salem Starbucks on a weekend.

Today, for example, there was an influx of Harley Davidsons in the ever-so-charming central Oregon town of Sisters. The Sisters Bead Stampede was this weekend; maybe that drew them.

I doubt it, though, given the look favored by most of the Harley riders. I didn't see a single delicate bead necklace – mainly lots of leather, studs, chains, and similar macho paraphernalia.

Which, I hasten to add, looked just fine on them.

My "hasten to add" comes in part from memories of going to college in the San Jose area in the late '60s and early '70s when the Gypsy Joker motorcycle gang ("club," if any Gypsy Jokers read this post) was highly visible. Since I drove a '57 VW bug with peace symbols plastered all over it, one of my goals – still extant – was to stay on good terms with tough-looking dudes on Harleys.

That said, there's something about the Harley Davidson culture that is, when you think about it, something to think about.

How's that for a bold criticism!

Actually I'm not critical of Harleys, though I do find them obnoxiously noisy at times. But, hey, each to his own. While I'm more attracted to a high-powered Japanese scooter, I can understand the appeal of the Harley mystique.

This guy, however, doesn't think much of it. His "Why a Harley Davidson Isn't a Real American Motorcycle" is a no holds barred critique of both the bike and those who ride them.

One Harley rider looks like another, pretty much, yet they all claim that they are 'individuals'.  Seeing a group of Harleys go past is like watching a cut scene from the movie "The Stepford Wives".   They're all identical, they look alike, and they all ride the same thing; junk.

Very few Harleys are truly fast or powerful. Most are just loud rattletraps, over priced dealer wannabes or pieced together hope it works tomorrow wonders. They are paper tigers, all show and no go. You can get a hundred pounds of chrome on one of those motorcycles straight from the factory. Matching leather everything as well, even down to the little official HD logo which is oh so important to this flock behavior mindset. Studded, braided, polished, painted, chromed, but ... it's all flash.   It's all custom parts and paint, all jury rigged and low tech. In anything else but a Harley, the extremes that most Harley owners go to would be considered tacky and tasteless, and probably laughable.

… I think I've finally figured out just *WHY* Harley Davidson motorcycles are so popular...   Harley Davidson isn't a motorcycle company, it is a cult religion.  You don't ride a Harley Davidson so much as you worship it.  You and every other little acolyte.  A Harley Davidson is a rolling altar to mediocrity, you bend your knees and you pray to a pagan idol of chrome and leather for the pitiful life that you glean from it.  That is the only way that I can see why so many people are so clueless when it comes to motorcycles.   They can't stand on their own, they aren't tough enough to be individuals, so they have to reinforce their own self image with artificial constructs.  Joseph Campbell would have a field day with the average Harley owner, I think that Harley Davidson is another of the 'masks of God' that Campbell once talked about so richly, or one of the supposed nine thousand names for God.

Harley Davidson.  It's not a motorcycle company.  It is a pagan cult religion for brain dead trend humping fashion lemmings.

Ouch. But remember, Harley owners, those aren't my words. And keep in mind: this is a "humor" post.

Baby boomers confront the big “boom,” death

I'm going to be sixty this year. I keep thinking that some sign of the "golden years" should have popped up by now. Instead, growing old sure looks a lot more like ashen gray then luminous.

Worse, it ends in black. Death. That's the worst part of aging: dying.

On the other hand, for some people it's the best part. They're so miserable from sickness, loneliness, pain, suffering, poverty, and what not, death is a relief.

For everybody else – those who want to keep on living – it's an unwanted intrusion into the pleasant pursuit of existing. Which seems a heck of a lot better than the alternative.

Faced with the need to choose a category for this post, I ended up with "Humor." That's how I'd like to be able to look upon death: as a joke.

The Grim Reaper is too tenacious to be pushed away. But by laughing at the bastard at least I'd get some satisfaction from not taking the S.O.B. seriously.

Some years back an acquaintance told me a story about how her husband died. He had a brain tumor. OK, bad news.

But the good news – no, the great news – was that the tumor was in a part of the brain that controlled his understanding of death. So he was being killed by a disease that took away his ability to know he was dying.

Dear Tao, give me that brain tumor when it's my time to go.

The woman said they'd go to the doctor and he'd be told a dismal prognosis, that he didn't have much longer to live, and it wouldn't faze him a bit. They'd leave, walk down the sidewalk, and he'd say "Let's get an ice cream cone."

His health was good until it wasn't. Then, bingo, he was dead, not knowing he was dying.

People tell me all the time, "I'm not afraid of death." I invariably reply, "Well, I damn well am." Geez, I couldn't even finish reading Michael Kinsley's terrific The New Yorker article, "Mine is longer than yours," when he started rattling off statistics about baby boomer longevity.

I got to that part just before going to bed. Didn't want to have death nightmares. So I saved it for the cheerier light of day.

In 2004, the most recent year for which there are final figures, life expectancy at birth in the United States was 77.8 years. That's 75.2 years for males and 80.4 years for females. But if you've made it to sixty your life expectancy is 82.5 years: 80.8 for men and eighty-four for women. (In Katha Pollitt's recent book of essays, "Learning to Drive," there is a vicious one called "After the Men Are Dead.")

Well, unless something untoward happens in the next few months, I'll make it to sixty. Kinsley's "But" sounds like it's supposed to be a preface to cheerier news. But come on: 80.8 years is just twenty-one more birthdays for me.

Laurel and I have been married for eighteen years, and it seems like we just got married a little while ago. Time flies faster when you're getting closer and closer to death (a cosmic joke that's becoming increasingly unfunny).

Here's another factoid from the article. When can you expect, on average, one person in your family or social circle to die every year?

With some heroic assumptions, we can come up with an age when death starts to be in-your-face. We will merge all sexual and racial categories into a single composite American. We will assume that there are a hundred people your age who are close enough to be invited to your funeral. Your funeral chapel won't fit a hundred people? No problem.

On average, half of them will be too busy decomposing to attend. As Max Beerbohm noted in his novel "Zuleika Dobson," "Death cancels all engagements." And why a hundred? Because it's easy, and also because it's two-thirds of "Dunbar's number," of a hundred and fifty, which is supposedly the most relationships that any one set of human neurons can handle. We're crudely assuming that two-thirds of those are about your age.

Anyway, the answer is sixty-three. If a hundred Americans start the voyage of life together, on average one of them will have died by the time the group turns sixteen. At forty, their lives are half over: further life expectancy at age forty is 39.9. And at age sixty-three the group starts losing an average of one person every year. Then it accelerates. By age seventy-five, sixty-seven of the original hundred are left. By age one hundred, three remain.

Me, me, me! It'll be me, one of the three!

That's the first thing I thought when I read this. The second thing was, Everybody my age feels the same way.

So, we'll see. It's a lot like "Survivor," one of my favorite TV shows. (For obvious reasons, I love its name.) Everybody schemes to make it to the final three, but most get thrown off the island before the finale.

Only difference is, in the game of life we all end up losing. Unless we can forget about the competition.

The last boomer competition is not just about how long you live. It is also about how you die. This one is a "Mine is shorter than yours": you want a death that is painless and quick. Even here there are choices. What is "quick"?

You might prefer something instantaneous, like walking down Fifth Avenue and being hit by a flower pot that falls off an upper-story windowsill. Or, if you're the orderly type, you might prefer a brisk but not sudden slide into oblivion. Take a couple of months, pain-free but weakening in some vague nineteenth-century way. You can use the time to make your farewells, plan your funeral, cut people out of your will, finish that fat nineteenth-century novel that you've been lugging around since the twentieth century, and generally tidy up.

Me, I'd prefer to not know death is coming at all. A flower pot could still make a sound just before it hits me. Sleeping and not waking up while still in perfect health: ideal.

But not now. Sometime after 100. Two of you can join me.

“Stuff White People Like” mostly right

Thanks to a friend, Randy, I now know that I'm white. He told me about "Stuff White People Like," pointing out to me #35 in the full list.

The Daily Show/Colbert Report. Yes, I'm a habitual viewer.

Thing is, I've watched so much of Stephen Colbert, like him I no longer see race. So I'd forgotten that my wife and I are white until I browsed through the ninety-one stuffs and realized that I liked a lot of them.

Scoring high on half of the first ten pretty much proved that we're white.

#1. Coffee
#2. Religions their parents don't belong to
#6. Organic food
#8. Barack Obama
#9. Making you feel bad about not going outside

Well, actually #9 just shows that I'm married to a white woman. Because I'm cool with someone staying indoors, blogging away on a laptop, watching sports on TV, taking a nap, whatever.

But Laurel is always telling me that I should get out in what for some reason she thinks is the "real" world. Nature. As if my IBM Think Pad isn't natural.

In fact, she did this just a few minutes after Randy had sent me his email, and I'd been able to scan the list of stuff white people like. I read #9 to her.

I figured she'd recognize that by feeling good about all the time I spend glued to a computer or television screen, she'd be embracing a multi-ethnic consciousness rather than her white indoorphobic attitude.

Indeed, this time she didn't raise a blonde eyebrow to my "No thanks" in response to her "I'm going for a walk. Do you want to come?"

Maybe we're not as white as I thought. After all, we've never watched The Wire (#85) and sushi turns us off (#42).

However, we've got a Toyota Prius (#60) and we're vegetarians (#32). Yeah, we're white.

Hilarious and telling: “Four short crushes”

If you've ever fantasized about that stranger in line in front of you at Starbucks, imagining in the space of 30 seconds how wonderful your life is going to be together once he/she turns around, your eyes meet, and a cosmic connection is forged that will last forever (or at least, until the next morning) – and who hasn't? – you've got to read Paul Simms' marvelous The New Yorker piece, "Four Short Crushes."

A sample to entice you:

Another restaurant dinner with my boring girlfriend, another lecture about how I never really listen to whatever she's yammering on about.

But how can I listen—how could anyone?—when across the room, alone at a table, reading the newspaper and nursing a glass of white wine, is a silent confection like you?

You, with your jet-black hair (like a latter-day Veronica from "Archie") and your skin so pale that the bubble-gummy pinkness of your pouty lips seems almost obscene, especially when you scrunch them up the way you do every time you lick your forefinger and turn the page.

And I know you see me, too. Your first glance betrayed a glimmer of recognition—as if you knew me but couldn't remember from where—followed by puzzlement, your eyes entreating me to silently remind you, which I couldn't do at the time because my current girlfriend was staring across the table at me, apparently waiting for my answer to some kind of relationship question that I thought was rhetorical.

I suspect this is the same Paul Simms who was the producer of the equally hilariously creative "Larry Sanders" show. Regardless, Four Short Crushes is a great bit of writing. And profoundly insightful into both the male and female mind.

Unibloggal is happy to realize that guys think like this too. Yes, I can assure you that they do. As further evidence, Jonathan has shared his own Simms-inspired writing about a fast food restaurant encounter.

As for me, last Sunday I went into my customary 7-11 to buy my customary Oregonian. An attractive 20-something girl was behind the counter. She didn't look like she harbored older man fantasies, but, hey, you never know. And can always hope.

Handing over my two dollar bills, enjoying the extra time with her that making change for the $1.50 purchase brought me, our eyes met. She smiled, surely recognizing in my mature, yet still vital, visage the promise of a depth that her wet behind the ears boyfriends could never offer her.

Placing two quarters in my palm with more than the usual convenience store intimacy, she told me, "Have a good day, honey."

Honey! Yes! Our relationship was speeding along even faster than I could have imagined! Except…

In the next instant I recalled her previous check-out encounter. Another guy, this time a "See ya later, darling." Suddenly my honey lost most of its sweetness.

But not all of it. I enjoyed the taste of her words for the rest of the morning.

“Draft Kevin Durant” a blog of beauty. But sort of gay.

Now, don't get me wrong. There's nothing wrong with loving Kevin Durant, who may or may not the Portland Trail Blazers' first NBA draft pick (and #1 overall, since they overcame 1 in 20 odds to get the top spot in the lottery).

It's just that this guy's Draft Kevin Durant blog can't help but set off a Gaydar signal. But there's no doubting his devotion to Durrant and his distaste for Greg Oden, the presumptive favorite to be picked by the Blazers.

I hugely enjoyed browsing through his hilarious over the top posts. Who knew that "seven footer" Oden was really so short where it counts? Now the "truth" is out.

I liked the Draft Kevin Durant blog a lot better than Greg Oden's blog. Pretty lame. Even worse, apparently its real.

I've been thinking that the Blazers should draft Oden. However, I've had my eyes opened through the Durantaphile blogger. I can hardly wait to see what additional dirt comes out about Oden.

He could be the anti-Christ. At the least, he's clearly not who he is supposed to be--a 19 year old. I suspect a close look at his birth certificate would show he's pushing thirty. Why should the Blazers draft a guy who's only got a few years of playing time left?

Google offers free broadband access! Sign up now!

Oh, my god, Google, it sounds too good to be true. Free in-home wireless broadband service.

But Gmail is free. So is Page Creator. So is lots of Google stuff. Got to read more.

Hmmm. The installation instructions make sense. I'm no do-it-yourselfer. But I could handle the set-up.

On to the FAQs.

Damn! We live in the country.

Can I use TiSP if my home uses a septic system?
Sorry, but no -- TiSP requires the use of a central sewer system to connect your home to the Internet.

Oh, well. I'll hope for a v. 2.0.

If sixty is the new forty, aren’t twenty year olds newborns?

I've been in a good mood ever since I heard the words "Sixty is the new forty" on my car radio a few days ago. I was on my way to a Tai Chi class. Eric, a classmate, had recently told me that he'd celebrated his 41^st birthday.

Being 58, I felt like an old codger when he said that. I would have tried to kick Eric's butt to make myself feel better, but Tai Chi'ians are supposed to go with the Tao flow. Plus, Eric has a black belt and is 17 years younger than me.

But not really. I did some Googling today, and found it's true that sixty is the new forty (if it's on the Internet, it's got to be true).

That makes me 38. Hah! Take that, Eric, I'm three years younger than you!

Unless…forty is the new twenty. And damn it, that's just what Google says. So Eric is actually 21, which means he had his eight-year old daughter at the age of 13. Way to go, guy, you're precocious.

Having time on my hands, now that I'd shaved twenty years off of my life, I went on to ponder today's actual twenty year olds. If 60 is the new 40, and 40 is the new 20, then 20 must be the new newborn.

Hmmmm. Suddenly this whole two-decade aging shape-shifting wasn't making as much sense as I wanted it too. So I decided to turn my Googleish research back toward my end of the life spectrum.

And soon felt better. Because I learned that indeed fifty is the new thirty. Also, eighty is the new sixty (this octogenarian had it as "sixty is the new eighty," but at least she's blogging at 80), and ninety is the new seventy.

Strangely, I couldn't find any Google proof that seventy is the new fifty. Hopefully the mention that I just made will be indexed so I can refer to my own post when I turn seventy and want to confirm that I'm actually twenty years younger.

The only bad side to all this is that Osama bin Laden, who just turned fifty, is really thirty. Hopefully living in caves and being on dialysis makes him an exception to the rule.

An A.C. Nielsen survey found that most people consider that the 60s are the new middle age. That's fine with me, being just two years away from that previously geezer-sounding decade.

However, I didn't like the finding that the 40s are the new 30s, and the 30s are the new 20s. That cheats me out of ten years of youthfulness.

I'm going with the really good news: sixty is the new thirty. Heck, why settle for forty? I'm 28!

Hilarious Oh Holy Night renditions

God, I love Google. Through its magic I found a belly laugh-producing video rendition of “Oh Holy Night” after hearing it played on a radio talk show this evening. Callers-in begged the host to never, ever, play it again.

Funny. I liked it. But then, this guy sings humorously better than I sing seriously.

If you’re in the mood for another gut-splitting “Oh Holy Night,” I recommend Eric Cartman’s electrifying performance on a South Park episode.

United States, Canada, and Mexico to merge

Thank god Oregon is a lot closer to Canada than Mexico. I hate beans! Hopefully I’ll be able to continue my usual eating habits after the elites merge the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.

I learned about this scheme from a web site, Middle American News, so it must be true. I believe everything I find on the Internet.

Thank you, MA News. I’ve got something to look forward to now. I like the idea of being Canadian, but don’t want to move somewhere even colder and rainier than Oregon. Serve me up the New World Order! (just be sure to hold the beans)

I didn’t know strangling was part of poker

Last night I played poker for the first time since high school. And thus also for the first time without being drunk. I learned a lot about five-card draw from our poker-savvy neighbors, Tim and Jan.

From the other player at the table besides me, Laurel, I learned that it isn’t a good idea to take almost all of your wife’s chips on the last hand of the game. Unless you enjoy being strangled when the chips are redeemed.

I’m considering becoming a poker pro. At nine p.m. I put in $5. At ten fifteen I got back $8.65. That’s almost a 75% return on investment. In a bit over an hour. At this rate I should be a gazillionaire within a few weeks after I start playing poker professionally.

First, though, I humbly recognize that I need to do a little fine-tuning on my game. For example, my crutch last night was a print-out that Tim kindly provided me of winning poker hands in rank order.

Whenever I had what seemed like a good hand, I’d lean over and check where, say, three of a kind stood in the grand poker order of things. I have a feeling that I won’t be able to get away from that when I turn pro. At the least, it might lessen my mojo with the other players.

Leaving aside such minor barriers between me and poker playing stardom as my current shaky knowledge of what constitutes a winning hand, it’s evident to me that the cosmos is on my side.

I was up only a few chips until Jan announced, “It’s after ten. This will be the last hand.” I looked at my five cards. An ace of clubs and king of spades seemed worth keeping. I discarded the other three cards.

Picking up the replacements, I almost screamed “Wow!” Then I remembered something about a poker face. Three deuces. The Poker God is great!

Tim and Jan quickly folded, leaving me mano a womano with Laurel. I suckered her in with a quarter (blue chip), then threw in the big guns (two black chips, one dollar!) when I could tell that she had taken the bait.

With a smile she threw down her cards. Two pair. I smiled bigger and showed her my three of a kind. Laurel reached for the chips. Tim and I simultaneously grabbed her hand.

“Three of a kind beats two pair,” we told her. Laurel couldn’t believe it. She figured that four good cards should beat three good cards.

What a neophyte. I felt so superior. I’d learned that three of a kind beat two pair a whole thirty minutes previous, during one of my frequent perusals of the cheat sheet.

Vegas, here I come. As soon as I strengthen my neck muscles. From my experience, that’s important if you intend to play winning poker.

Request to be added to U.S. Terror Targets

Dear Secretary Chertoff:

Today I noted with considerable satisfaction that the Department of Homeland Security includes a petting zoo and popcorn factory in your list of potential U.S. terror targets. Great work.

I’m pleased that you’re thinking outside of the box when it comes to outsmarting the evildoers who wish to do us harm. What greater threat to the American way of life could there be than blowing a floppy-eared goat to smithereens, or striking a blow at our God-given right to chew noisily on overpriced snacks while watching a movie?

My only concern is whether you have overlooked any significant targets in Oregon, where I live. For example, my home office, which is occupied by me. It’s been reported that there are 840 Oregon targets. I tried unsuccessfully to find a list of them in your report, “Progress in Developing the National Asset Database.”

But then I slapped myself on the side of my head and said, “Duh, dude! Homeland Security isn’t going to publish a shopping list of U.S. terror targets. Then Al Qaeda would know exactly where all of our petting zoos and popcorn factories are.”

Sure am glad that you’re in charge of Homeland Security rather than me. Guess I haven’t learned how to get inside the heads of the terrorists yet.

I would, though, like to suggest that my office seems to be at greater risk of attack than many of the sites included in your database. If you’d be so kind to send a staffer out, I can show them what I mean.

My laptop is the nerve center for the HinesSight weblog, where I have fearlessly published images of the Muhammad cartoons, undoubtedly drawing the attention of crazed jihadists to myself.

Admittedly, I’m no Salman Rushdie. However, we can’t discount the possibility of a blog fatwa having been issued on HinesSight and my other anti-fundamentalist weblog, Church of the Churchless. And it’d make sense to attack my writings right at the source: me.

So I’m requesting some Homeland Security protection. Three operatives should do the trick, per this suggestion. Naturally they’d need to be by my side 24/7. I’m thinking that my wife could sleep downstairs with the dog so there’d be room in our bedroom for my security.

Speaking of dogs, I have a tremendous idea for your department. Homeland Security is stretched thin given all the threats we’re facing. There aren’t enough bodies—human or canine—to protect every petting zoo, popcorn factory, and anti-Islamic fundamentalism blogger in America.

Purebred trained German Shepherds are great for patrol duty when you can get them. But there are lots of mixed breeds who could pass for a German Shepherd. I have one of them. The main problem with enlisting these sorts of dogs to join the war on terror is their ears.

A Shepherd mix like our Serena usually is going to have droopy ears. A dead giveaway. Here’s how we get around it: implants! I’ve got a design in mind for an ear perker-upper that could be implanted with some minor surgery, then controlled with a radio device.

I hear a knock at the door. I peer through the peek hole. An Islamic terrorist is standing there, disguised as a UPS driver. I call for the dog, whip out my remote control, and form German Shepherd ears. Opening the door a crack, she sticks her head out. And the terrorist runs for his van.

Sweet.

Under separate cover I’m submitting my budget for the minor R&D that will be needed to make the ear perker-upper operational. I promise: we’ll get this done for under $20 million. Our vet is eager to start work. As are many of my relatives.

Sincerely,

Brian Hines
Oregon Terror Target

Panexa. Ask your doctor for a reason to take it.

I’ve got to get me a prescription for Panexa. It should only be taken by patients experiencing one of the following disorders: metabolism, binocular vision, digestion (solid and liquid), circulation, menstruation, cognition, osculation, extremes of emotion.

I qualify! And I’m not going to worry about the small percentage of squirrels who take Panexa and suffer from Excessively Floppy Tail Syndrome (EFTS). On the human front, the Panexa web site reassures me about the drug’s side effects:

Most patients (2%) tolerate treatment with PANEXA well, especially when compared with prisoners of war of comparable size and weight. However, like all drugs, PANEXA can produce some notable side effects, all of which are probably really, really terrific and nothing that anyone should be concerned about, let alone notify any medical regulatory commission about.

Most side effects of PANEXA, or their sufferers, are usually short-lived, and are rarely so fatal that the remains can no longer be identified, provided good dental records are available.

But seriously…this spot-on parody should remind us of how seriously, horribly, amazingly, disgustedly screwed-up the U.S. health care system is. Over-priced and over-dangerous pharmaceuticals are just a small part of the larger problem.

Which is, Americans pay much more for medical care than other industrialized countries, yet we’re less healthy. Over on R Blog my friend Randy points out that recent studies have found that people in Canada and England are healthier than us. They’re also satisfied with their health care systems, notwithstanding all the talk in this country about long waits to get treatment and rationing.

Medical tourism is a new symptom of how sick U.S. health care is. As TIME magazine reports in “Outsourcing Your Heart,” lots of patients are going to Thailand, India, Mexico and other countries for treatment. A heart bypass in the U.S. that costs an insurer at least $55,000 (the “retail” cost is $122,000) can be had for $12,000 in Thailand. And there’s little or no evidence that the quality of care is any less overseas.

But the Bush administration believes that everything is fine. It’s touting medical savings accounts. These are a handy way for people to put money away to pay for health care that is far too expensive and demonstrably ineffective in promoting health.

However, the U.S. health care system does do one thing well: funneling massive amounts of cash to politicians so they’ll keep the highly profitable system just as it is. Failing the public and enriching corporations.

Microsoft is my inscrutable Zen master

In a desperate attempt to make lemonade out of the Windows lemon, I’ve decided to look upon Microsoft as my Zen master.

Perhaps I will be able to attain satori through my frustrating struggle with the baffling enigmas of Windows XP in much the same fashion as Hui-K’O cut off his left hand in his search for the Way. That is, the psychological maiming that my Microsoft Zen master makes me endure may be the prelude to recognizing the futility of human logic in seeking the ultimate.

Which for me, in computer terms, would be to have an operating system that actually operates. Reliably, safely, simply. My seeking for such, however, is a manifestation of clinging. So Microsoft regularly shakes up my ego-centered desire for stability and sensibleness.

Consider the Windows Update Zen teaching that I was given last night. Having heard that a slew of patches to fix critical security flaws in Windows and Office had been released, I fired up my wife’s computer to carry out an update for her.

Laurel’s laptop runs Windows XP with Service Pack 1 (SP1). When SP2 was released I tried to install it on her computer. Two times I came face to face with the blue screen of death. After each near death experience I was able to get things going again by restoring a full backup from an external USB drive.

Not surprisingly, that soured me on SP2. So I’ve been dutifully ignoring the Windows Update pleas to install SP2, choosing only the critical security updates for SP1. After the new updates were installed yesterday, a new message popped up in the system tray: after October 10, 2006, Windows Update won’t support SP1.

Ah! How marvelous is the inscrutability of my Microsoft Zen master. Staring at the message I was reminded of Tokusan’s famous declaration: “Thirty blows of my stick if you have something to say; thirty blows just the same if you have nothing to say.”

In other words, “you’re screwed either way.” For the Way lies beyond logic. Microsoft is trying to lead me beyond the narrow confines of the rational mind.

I guess.

How else can I fathom the Windows XP koan I’ve been given? If you upgrade to SP2, the computer will stop working. Stick with SP1 and soon you will be unable to get new security updates. Eventually a cyber-attack will succeed, and the computer will stop working.

Tigers above me. Tigers below me. Mice gnawing on the vine that holds me. How sweet is the strawberry within my reach! Microsoft, thank you for enabling me to experience a Windows XP Zen story.

This is, of course, only one example of the many marvelous Zen lessons that Microsoft teaches me. Recently on my new ThinkPad laptop I have been encountering the wonderful utterance, “spooler subsystem app has encountered a problem and needs to close.”

Every time I read these words I am struck by the mystical genius of Windows. Words cannot point directly at the truth. They can only gesture in its direction. We must discover the Way ourselves, not through another.

Sure, Microsoft could have directly told me, “for some reason none of your printer drivers can be found; check your USB connections or restart the computer.” But how would I grow through such a common sense explanation?

Does a dog have Buddha nature? What is the sound of one hand clapping? All things return to the One; what does the One return to? What is a spooler subsystem app and why does it need to close?

Through such koans, may all sentient beings attain enlightenment. Except Macintosh users.

The Portland “boom!” An alien cover-up?

Saturday night, around nine pm, a mysterious loud boom was heard in the Portland area. Laurel and I happened to be at a friend’s condo in Sellwood at the time. All five of us in the room were startled by the sound.

The condo owner, Mark, went out on the patio and listened for more booms. I thought it might be an earthquake. So did Laurel. But Channel 2 news says the boom wasn’t caused by an earthquake. Or Mount St. Helens. Or, likely, thunder.

The KATU story theorizes that a meteor or military jet was the most probable cause of the boom, which was heard from the coast to the Cascades. Maybe. But…

I’m suspicious that, according to Google News, so far the Channel 2 story has been the only media report about the boom. And nothing is showing up on a Google Blog search either. I think I know what’s going on. I’ve seen this sort of thing before: right here.

Hello. Brian to Oregon: Is there anyone out there who hasn’t yet been taken over by the alien mothership that landed Saturday night and has managed to erase from almost all Oregonians any memory of the moment when The World Changed Forever?

I am still myself. At least, I think I am. Not sure about my wife and dog. But they’ve always looked strange to me. Especially the dog. If you remember the boom and are still fully human, please leave a comment so I can know I am not alone. Of course, I’ll need some proof that you are not one of Them.

I will remain at my blog post for as long as I can. My wife just got home and asked if I wanted her to bring me a snack. “Sure,” I said. But this could be a ruse. Just took a bite of celery. Tasted normal. But that’s exactly how they’d want the changeover to look. Normal.

Everything is starting to make sense now. For years an advance guard has been paving the way for the mothership. He’s never looked or acted like a normal Homo sapiens. Something has seemed strangely off with him. Now I know why.

Israeli anti-Semitic cartoon contest: I love it!

While Muslims are rioting and killing to protest cartoons of Muhammad, an Israeli guy has sponsored an anti-Semitic cartoon contest (only Jews may enter):

Amitai Sandy (29), graphic artist and publisher of Dimona Comix Publishing, from Tel-Aviv, Israel, has followed the unfolding of the “Muhammad cartoon-gate” events in amazement, until finally he came up with the right answer to all this insanity - and so he announced today the launch of a new anti-Semitic cartoons contest - this time drawn by Jews themselves!

“We’ll show the world we can do the best, sharpest, most offensive Jew hating cartoons ever published!” said Sandy “No Iranian will beat us on our home turf!”

I love it. Muslims of the world, observe. And learn.

When I heard Sandy interviewed on NPR’s Fresh Air program last night, the contrast between his civilized response to an Iranian newspaper’s competition for cartoons on the Holocaust, and the crazy riots in the Islamic world, was striking.

As far as I could tell, so far Sandy has only put this single anti-Semitic cartoon submission up on his web site. He’s promising more, so check back to see if other Jew-bashing cartoons drawn by Jews have been posted.

On Fresh Air Sandy described another submission, which I recall went like this: A man is looking at a used car. He asks the salesman, “How many Jews will this car hold?” The salesman says, “Lots. You can get two in the front seat, three in the back, and six million in the ashtray.”

The NPR interviewer obviously was shocked. So was I. When was the last time you heard a Holocaust joke? She asked him how Jews are responding to his anti-Semitic cartoon contest. Sandy replied that overwhelmingly, they think it’s a great idea (check out the comments on his blog).

Laughter is one of the best responses to the closed-minded Islamic fundamentalists who are deeply offended by a few cartoons of the Muhammad, but take lightly all the atrocities committed in the prophet’s name. The cartoon above, along with many others, can be found on a great compilation of professional cartoons about the Muhammad cartoons.

Another response, predictably, is Muhammad cartoon online T-shirt sales. If you want to support free speech, and aren’t worried about being beheaded, head on over to these infidel merchants: Café Press, T Shirt Hell, Metrospy.

I liked this offering: “A Danish newspaper published my cartoon and all I got was this lousy Jihad.”

“Brian Hines’ of the world,” by Brian Hines

In the self-referential realm of the Internet, where I frequently use Google to search for wisdom on a subject and find something I’ve written myself, it makes perfect sense for me, Brian Hines, to blog about the other Brian Hines’ of the world.

Who, of course, I’ve learned about through Google. I skipped through the first eight entries that popped up on my “Brian Hines” search. For even though they pointed to some fascinating information about a brilliant namesake, that person clearly was me, and my quest was for not-me’s.

Which brings us to Denny Laine, who created the Moody Blues rock band in 1964 after inexplicably deciding to change his name and become an “a.k.a. Brian Hines.” For this shameful act I considered leaving him off of this tribute. However, since Laine is by all rights the most famous Brian Hines in the world, and starts off his bio with the honest words “Born Brian Hines…,” I am pleased to begin our tour of BH’s with a distinguished musician.

Our next stop is on the darker side of Brian Hinesland. For now we meet a 20 year old Red Cross volunteer, naturally named Brian Hines, who was charged with stealing almost a quarter-million dollars in debit cards intended for Hurricane Katrina victims. Not the way to get admitted to the Brian Hines Hall of Fame, Brian! Especially since your criminal exploits got so much publicity they run the risk of downgrading the Google ranking of legitimately notorious BH’s like, to pick a name out of the hat, me.

Sadly, we haven’t reached the bottom of the rotten Brian Hines barrel. Mention must be made of one Brian Hines, 26, who robbed the Waffle House in Lakeland, Tennessee. Bad enough, Brian, but to get caught through your face appearing on a security camera, that’s worse. If Brian Hines’ become criminals, for the sake of our noble name I plead with you: wear a disguise, guys!

Returning to positivehinesness, kudos to Brian Hines, actor, whose listed credits on a talent agency web site include a role in “Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles.” Hmmmmm. From our last two entries, there seems to be some sort of karmic connection between Brian Hines’ and waffles. To add to the eeriness, I’ve got a box of Van’s Organic Blueberry Waffles in my freezer (cue in Twilight Zone music, now).

Also in the creative/weird BH genre falls Brian Hines, Spite Magazine writer (at least, I think it is a magazine—hard to tell). The Spite website prominently features a “Win a Date with Brian Hines” offer. Judging from Brian’s photo your chances to win were excellent given the small number of entries that would be expected, though I’m not crazy enough to place bets on what turns women on.

Music seems to. So disc jockey Brian Hines probably is rolling in chick attention, notwithstanding his CPA-like appearance. Less successful in business was the United Kingdom Brian Hines whose “Brian Hines Chauffer Services Ltd” company is now listed as dissolved. Sorry, Brian, but even though a lot of people spell it your way, I really think you would have been better off with chauffeur, if only to have a better chance at nabbing the French tourist and picky speller markets.

We are nearing the end of our Brian Hines’ of the World tour, and it is fitting to close with a salute to the bread earners who may lack the flashiness of a rock musician, thief, or writer, but anchor our name in solid professional earth.

So sing out a hardy “Hines are fines!” to the hiring of Brian Hines as the national sales manager of Cellarator, a feed additive that, I’m confident, adds a lot to feed. And to Brian Hines, sales associate for Ameri/Star Real Estate in Sioux Falls, South Dakota (who, I’m sure, wishes he didn’t have to put a hyphen in his “brian-hines.com” email address, but must, since I, Brian Hines of Salem, Oregon am the proud possessor of the truly prestigious “brianhines.com”—which, I hasten to add, is always available for sale to any other Brian Hines who delivers a Mini-Cooper S to my driveway).

My apologies to all of the worthy, and unworthy, Brian Hines’ who I was unable to include in this compendium. Your story awaits another day when I have too much time on my hands.

Of all that might be said about my journey into the wonderful world of Brian Hines’ today, here is the strangest thing: my father was adopted. Yes, his parents were Polish speaking Germans who came to this country in the early 1900s to work on the railroads. His mother died in childbirth and his father took off, leaving him in the hands of some Hines’ from Boston.

I only spent one hour with my father in my life. He told me that, after diligent research, he learned that his birth parents’ last name was Müller. Thus in an alternative future my name would have been Brian Müller.

Go figure. What’s in a name, anyway?

War on men

(click to enlarge)

Now that the War on Christmas has died a seasonal death, why doesn't Fox News start talking about the War on Men? This photo my sister sent me from the Caribbean shows that it's an international affront against (half of) humanity.