HinesSight

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 see the projected blue state/red state map of the United States where the size of each state is proportional to its electoral college votes.

This gives a whole different impression than the geographic blue/red map we see all the time. The thing is, a lot of red (Bush) states are pretty big yet don’t have many people. On Dr. Wang’s map the country looks evenly divided—which, of course, it is.

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 I had to figure out what he was just joking about. I couldn’t remember any genuinely citationable offenses we had committed at Black Butte Ranch. (And even if I could have, I darn well wouldn’t admit to them in this posting, now that I know the Chief’s fondness for Googling.)

So I looked through the “recreation” category of HinesSight for just-joking-offenses. It didn’t take me long to locate the post that caught Chief Zaccaro’s eye, for along with an incriminating photo I had said:

“Since I’m an avid writer and reader, naturally I didn’t pay attention to any of the large, clearly lettered signs plastered along the length of the corral fence. When Laurel returned and saw me patting a horse she pointed out this message. I then made Miss Goodie-Two-Shoes-Always-Do-What-You’re-Told express some of her wild side. But she didn’t want to show her face, in case the Black Butte Ranch police read weblogs.”

I wrote back to the Chief and told him that I was prepared to testify against my wife if there was a substantial reward in it for me. In fact, I was also prepared to testify against myself if this would double the reward.

Sadly for my pocketbook, but happily for my marriage, Chief Zaccaro replied: “Your ‘reward’ is that you get to come back and enjoy the ranch again.” OK, fair enough. This is my kind of policeman—a weblog reader with a warm sense of humor.

If he ever catches me speeding in Black Butte Ranch, I’ll remind the Chief of his saying that I like so much: “Your citation will be forthcoming….Just joking.”

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’ in the regular season before they went belly up in the playoffs against the Yankees. This week, Damon declared they were down on ‘Cowboy Up’ and instead were just ‘idiots’ with bad hair and slovenly uniforms who were out for fun on the field. ‘We're all idiots here,’ Ortiz said. ‘We all have fun. We all hug, kiss, grab, whatever.’

Unfortunately, one of the “whatevers” is a curse of modern-day athletics: pointing skyward in a God-praising gesture after scoring a touchdown, making a tackle, hitting a home run, striking out a batter, whatever [linked article is Google cache, to avoid registration]. Watching Red Sox players engage in this irritating ritual was the only fly in the ointment of an otherwise enjoyable World Series.

The worst example I saw featured an individual sky-pointing as a Red Sox “idiot” (in this case, a term richly deserved) rounded the bases after a home run, followed by a communal sky-pointing after he reached the dugout. He and a few other Christian teammates crouched, bent their heads together, and then pointed a bunch of index fingers at, presumably, where they think heaven lies.

I never saw God similarly thanked after a Red Sox player struck out or made an error. The idea that God is aiding the fortunes of one team, and not the other, is obviously ridiculous. Given that, in the big scheme of things, major league sports also is ridiculous, this sky-pointing business wouldn’t be a big deal for me except…it reflects an overall attitude among a disturbingly large number of Christians that God plays favorites.

George Bush clearly feels that God has chosen him to bring freedom to the Middle East, and that the United States has a special God-given mission in the world. This is no different in kind from a baseball player believing that God wanted and enabled him to hit a baseball out of the park, or to strike out an opposing player. Yet if God has the power to bring things that people consider “good,” then God also has the power to bring “bad” things.

In one of his sermons Meister Eckhart put it nicely: “Now I hear you ask, ‘How do I know that it is God’s will? My answer is that if it were not God’s will even for a moment, then it would not exist. Whatever is must be his will. If God’s will is pleasing to you, then whatever happens to you, or does not happen to you, will be heaven.”

Last night I found Johnny Damon’s first inning home run to be the epitome of genuine athletic good character. The long-haired Damon didn’t raise a finger, or even display much emotion. He simply ran around the bases with his head down. When he got to the dugout he exchanged a few hugs and high-fives with his teammates, but he looked like a calm, centered man who knew that all he had done was hit a first-inning home run in a baseball game that was a long way from being decided. And it is a game for God’s sake, not the Second Coming.

Thank you, Johnny, for acting like a real Christian, whether or not you are one. I hope your attitude rubs off on your ebullient sky-pointing brethren.

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 certainly was with me. Notwithstanding the annoyingly cheery video that we were shown about the patriotic nature of jury duty, how our presence was assuring that the Republic Would Stand, blah, blah, blah, the mood in the jury assembly room for those three hours was seriously sullen.

Until the last of us were released at 11:30 am, having been told that the trial had been put off because new evidence had been discovered and the defense needed more time to consider it, the only happy people I saw were the four prospective jurors who were told they had been let go for some undisclosed reason after the judge/attorneys had seen their forms.

At that point I regretted not having been convicted of a felony in the past eight years, and failing to write down “using the Internet to research the manufacture of barely legal synthetic psychoactive drugs” on the “special interests” line of my juror information form. Instead, I sat and sat, and read and read.

As luck would have it, today’s Statesman-Journal had an item about prospective jurors in the Robert Blake murder trial being asked if they could be available for five months, and being told that few excuses not to serve would be accepted. That was cheery jury room reading.

Only slightly more positive was a chapter from a science book, “The Universe Next Door,” that I had brought to help while away the hours. I learned that the Many Worlds idea in quantum theory says that at every moment reality splits into countless parallel universes, each inhabited by a slightly different version of the reality we are experiencing now.

All this happens because of the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics. So in one universe I was called for jury duty, and in another universe I wasn’t. In one universe I was called for jury duty and had to serve, and in another universe I was called for jury duty and didn’t have to serve.

This was all theoretically interesting, but the hard cold fact was that the only universe I was aware of at the moment had me sitting in a bleak juror meeting room on an uncomfortable chair. The universe in which I was at home leisurely eating my breakfast and watching CNN was nowhere to be experienced. I kept tapping the heels of my shoes together and wishing that the Good Witch would take me anywhere but into another jury pool. No luck.

Looking back at the experience with as optimistic a gaze as I can muster, it was just three hours of my life that I’ll never have back again. On the plus side, I got some reading done. I enjoyed an excellent bag of seasoned almonds from the Courthouse coffee stand. I think I get $10 plus 20 cents a mile, which should reap me a $14 check. Subtracting $1.29 for the almonds, I came out well ahead. Not quite minimum wage, but more than $4.00 an hour for my time.

This guy has a much darker view of jury duty than I do, though I empathize with his outlook. There’s something un-American about telling people who haven’t done anything wrong, “Failure to respond to the jury summons may result in a warrant being issued for your arrest and your having to show cause why you should not be held in contempt.”

When I read that, I thought: “Cause? I’ll show you cause. You’re asking a lazy, semi-retired writer who stays up until midnight to show up in downtown Salem at the time he usually stumbles out of bed. Case closed.” In my own universe, at least.

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 Salem, a whole 20 minutes away).

I wasn’t feeling much better by 6:00 pm, when I arrived at Pacific Martial Arts for my Tai Chi class. I had spent most of my driving time rehearsing answers to attorney questions if, god forbid, I got to the jury selection stage tomorrow.

“You ask if I could be a fair juror? Why, of course. I’m a firm believer in the law of karma and have even written a book about it, Life Is Fair. Free will is an illusion, so I’m ready to vote ‘not guilty’ no matter what the evidence is. It wouldn’t be fair to the accused otherwise, since karma made him do whatever he did.”

As the Tai Chi class started I was still cogitating about some blatantly racist and sexist back-up comments, in case the karma angle wasn’t enough to get me rejected as a jury member. Half present at the class, and half absent as I fast-forwarded my life to tomorrow , I semi-sleepwalked my way through Part the Wild Horse’s Mane, White Crane Spreads Its Wings, Playing the Lute, Repulse Monkey, Grasp the Sparrow’s Tail, and other poetically named moves.

Amazingly, given my pre-Tai Chi state of mind, I found myself feeling better almost instantly. It wasn’t that I had stopped thinking about jury duty—I still was. But somehow the flowing (well, for me quasi-flowing) movements got me to feeling, “No matter what happens at the Marion County Courthouse tomorrow, it will be all right. I’ll survive. And I might even like it.”

I’m now convinced that Tai Chi is a great way to relax and center the mind. It isn’t just the physical moves. It isn’t just being distracted from worries by concentrating on something else. I often do something physical or otherwise distract myself when I’m in a bad mood. These approaches don’t help much to raise my spirits. Tai Chi did. I’m a believer!

I had considered learning Tai Chi for a long time. I’m glad that the moment finally came. If you’re similarly standing on the edge of the Tai Chi stream, wondering whether you should test the waters, I encourage you to dip a toe in. You might find a Needle at Sea Bottom that is just what you’ve been looking for, or Wave Hands Like Clouds and fly to the heavens.

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 with the sun setting and the dumpster completely filled. At this point I was still in my neatest and tidiest stage: boards and other lumber on the sides, buckets of junk in the middle, old bicycle wheels interlocking and overlapping vertically, small trash thrown over larger trash to fill voids.

It was generally agreed by my co-workers that this was the neatest dumpster they had ever seen. I basked in their compliments, which stimulated me to redouble my efforts to fill the dumpster as near to capacity as possible. It was great to discover a talent that I never knew I had: junk arranging.

Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to think of any way that I can profit from this hitherto unrecognized artistic ability. I can envision me starring in some sort of performance art perhaps, but the logistics of getting the dumpster and sufficient trash to various theatres seems overwhelming. So this probably was a one-time exhibition of my talent to an admiring audience of six.

Well, not so admiring by the middle of the afternoon. I began hearing muttered comments from the people hauling junk out of the basement, up a flight of stairs, across the carport, and to me and the dumpster. “You’re doing too good a job,” they’d say, taking a look at how slowly the cavernous interior was filling up.

Such is art. You can’t please everybody. I had to follow my greasy, dirty muse. But when I started carrying stuff up the stairs myself, I began to empathize more with my co-workers. Stuff started to be thrown in at random, and the dumpster doors soon were able to be closed upon my now-hidden handiwork.

Tomorrow my artistic expression will be hauled away. I like to think that as the trash truck operator dumps his load, he will take a glance at the patterns of the descending junk and think to himself, “How lovely. This is a dumpster to be remembered.”

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? Maybe this altered the ecological conditions, allowing more water to flow over the oak’s roots during the winter.

Whatever the reason, the plain fact was that we now had a fallen large oak being held up by another equally large standing oak. Not being complete tree fools, we realized that it wasn’t good for Standing Tree to be supporting the burden of Fallen Tree. Yet not being completely tree wise, we waited a week before phoning Elwood’s Tree Service, by which time a large branch of Standing Tree had cracked under the weight.

And Fallen Tree still was being supported by the now diminished Standing Tree. Fortunately no new damage transpired before the Elwood’s guys arrived. They unleashed their chainsaws and climbing gear and soon had the problem reduced to just what we had requested: Fallen Tree cut into several chunks so we could walk past it; firewood compatible limbs cut into 16 inch rounds; and the remaining tree debris piled up.

Piles there were. Four or five of them, almost as tall as me. You don’t realize how many branches and twigs an oak tree has until they are all lying on the ground. When something substantial falls down around you, it leaves a mess.

Not just trees, of course. People, relationships, businesses, finances, beliefs, conceptions—these too, when they collapse, don’t do so neatly. It isn’t that something is there, and then suddenly it is gone. Everything leaves a trace, a litter of physical or psychic debris that has to be dealt with.

Laurel and I stared at the brush piles, wondering what to do with them. They were unsightly and unnatural. Our first thought was to burn the brush. But complications quickly came to mind. We’d have to wait for the right day, a day when the brush would catch on fire but the countryside wouldn’t. Tarps could cover the piles. Yet we’d have to look at the tarps each time we walked by. They’d remind us that what we wanted to get rid of was still there, now even more noticeable than before.

And burning would leave a large black hole in the grass. It would pollute the air. It would smokily scatter most of the organic material in the tree debris across the skies, and leave the rest concentrated as black chunks of charcoal in the middle of our carefully de-blackberried and re-treed field.

“What would the Tao do?” I asked myself. There had to be another way. A natural way. An immediate way. Trees fall in the forest all the time. Nature doesn’t use tarps or burn piles to get rid of the debris. Nature lets lay what has fallen down. Dead stuff soon decays into material for live stuff. I had been looking on the brush as a problem to be disposed of, rather than as a gift to be made use of. I needed a change of perspective.

Standing in front of the largest brush pile with my small Stihl chainsaw in hand, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. I simply trusted that if I started making the best use of the fallen limbs, whatever that use might be, the end result would be just fine. Which it was.

I cut up twiggy branches into manageable lengths and scattered them around close by: under trees, next to a fence, in the hole made by Fallen Tree's upheaved roots. Because we leave our property natural, there was no lack of places to throw some natural debris. When limbs already are on the ground, adding some more barely makes a discernable difference.

Keeping things too neat leads to untidiness being a problem. My scattering wouldn’t have worked if the oak tree had fallen in a neatly mowed field. But it lay in the midst of other trees and brush, so tree returned to tree, and brush to brush.

Moderately straight limbs were lopped of twigs, becoming trail markers.

Other limbs were cut into kindling. The large oak rounds were stacked for drying. Next summer they should be ready for splitting.

I enjoyed placing the rounds with the most attractive mossy, ferny bark on the outside of the pile, so we can see them as we walk past.

At the end of the day all the brush piles were gone. And the debris that I had scattered hither and yon was barely noticeable. I had learned how not to burn. In an afternoon I had dealt with a seemingly difficult problem—how to get rid of the damn brush—that turned out to be easily handled once I stopped considering it so much of a problem.

Life, in the guise of Fallen Tree, taught me a few things. Messes are mostly in the mind. Nature makes use of everything. Death and destruction are fodder for life and creation. Letting things lay usually is best. Renewal comes in its own fashion. It doesn’t have to be forced. There’s no need to burn what doesn’t belong. Let it find its own place to decay, and you won’t go wrong.

Fallen Tree left me with a chunk of itself that screamed
: Listen! Do you hear what I’m saying?

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 the fir tree, metallically whispering, “Please, may I stay? I like it here.”

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 hurt my sex life,” because of his endorsement of Bush at the Republican Convention. But the dry spell reportedly was just two weeks, not the four years encouraged by the Votergasm folks.

My own activist wife had a No On Measure 37 letter published yesterday in the Salem Statesman-Journal. Naturally it makes great sense, as contrasted with the measure itself. If this collection of bozo ideas somehow becomes law, Oregon can look forward to spending hundreds of millions of dollars on new state and county bureaucracy that will be needed to process the claims of a few property owners who want to change farmland into industrial wasteland, and otherwise subvert Oregon’s land use laws. So read Laurel’s letter, then vote No! on 37.

Michael Moore’s event at the Salem Fairgrounds Monday night was inspiring and entertaining, according to Laurel. I decided to go to my Tai Chi class instead, feeling that I needed to get more in touch with my center than with my left side. Laurel liked how Moore invited in the several dozen Bush/Cheney protesters and applauded them as they were allowed to march around the hall with their signs. That was such a refreshing contrast with the Republican squashing of any opposing opinions at their campaign events. Conclusion: liberals are inclusive, conservatives are exclusive.

We got to watch Jon Stewart’s now infamous appearance on Crossfire last Friday. I thought that Stewart was admirably courageous to spend most of his time criticizing the show. Not surprisingly, hosts Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala had a different opinion, and, from what I’ve heard from them this week, they spent about a nanosecond pondering Stewart’s critique before rejecting it out of hand. But this New York Times piece on the controversy by Alessandra Stanley (registration required) gets it right:

The transcript of Friday's "Crossfire," and the blog commentary about it, popped up all over the Internet this weekend. Mr. Stewart's Howard Beal (of "Network") outburst stood out because he said what a lot of viewers feel helpless to correct: that news programs, particularly on cable, have become echo chambers for political attacks, amplifying the noise instead of parsing the misinformation. Whether the issue is Swift boat ads or Bill O'Reilly's sexual harassment suit, shows like "Crossfire" or "Hardball" provide gladiator-style infotainment as journalists clownishly seek to amuse or rile viewers, not inform them.

Lastly, thanks to the Site Under Construction weblog for pointing me to an election-year junkies dream website, Electoral-Vote.com. This site compiles state and national polls into a composite electoral vote prediction that is updated daily, I believe. It also has other seemingly unbiased election-related news and commentary. Best of all, at the moment the home page is showing a projected 291 electoral votes for Kerry and 247 for Bush.

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 eligible for gigantic interest-free loans from the U.S. government, and special t-shirts.

There’s a handy R-rated nine-step guide to meeting up with a fellow pledger if you aren’t already in a Votergasm-compatible relationship. And don’t pass up Ass or Trunk? An Interactive Stereotyping Game where you look at photos of pledgers and rate how Democratic or Republican they look.

This non-partisan web site reassures us that even with all the divisions splitting up the citizenry, there is a common ground that unites almost all Americans: sex.

“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 led by the arch-praiser Hilary (played by Mandy Moore) and swaying hands raised to the heavens, I couldn’t help but recall my own moments of feeling so very special, so very happy that I and my fellow believers in whatever knew the truth about God and everyone else was so, so, deluded.

“Saved!” is an entertaining movie about what happens when one of Hilary’s inner circle, Mary (Jena Malone) starts to have doubts. The trouble starts when her boyfriend tells her that he thinks he’s gay. Mary has a chat with Jesus about what to do, and Jesus says that she should have sex with him. No, not with Jesus, with her boyfriend. Which she does. This leads to a visit to Planned Parenthood, and soon Mary’s neatly patterned Christian life starts to seriously fray around the edges.

Who responds in our head when we speak to Jesus or God? That’s one of the excellent questions raised in “Saved!” In the movie young and old alike often pray for guidance. It’s pretty clear that the answers they hear come from themselves rather than any divine source.

I always figure that if God wants to talk to me, the supreme being is damn well omnipotent enough to speak in an unmistakable manner that I won’t be able to confuse with my own voice. So when all I hear are weak little bleatings that sound suspiciously like something I’d say, “Yes, my beloved Brian, you certainly do need a new computer, and it is My Will that you go out and buy one,” I know that it’s me making the noises in my head.

When the people in the movie start having doubts, after previously believing that they’ve been saved by their faith in Jesus and the Bible and now know just what is right and what is wrong, they become a lot more likable—both to others and, more importantly, to themselves. The quirky independent characters, the gay, the Jew, and the iconoclast kid in the wheelchair (Macaulay Culkin), who were originally shunned by the Christian zealots, turn out to be the most “Christian” of all, even the Jew, Cassandra.

Those who don’t really know what to believe are the true believers. That’s the message I came away with from “Saved!” Whatever “God” is, he/she/it is too mysterious to be comprehended by normal human cognition. Those who accept Mystery and the darkness of their own unknowing are much closer to God than those who have faith in falsely black and white articles of faith.

The scariest thing, of course, is that the current President of the United States is one of these misguided true believers. Ron Suskind of the New York Times describes George Bush’s “faith-based presidency” in a great recent article, “Without a Doubt.”

Suskind quotes Jim Wallis, a minister who met with Bush in the White House: Faith can cut so many ways. If you’re penitent and not triumphal, it can move us to repentance and accountability and help us reach for something higher than ourselves…But when it’s designed to certify our righteousness—that can be a dangerous thing. Then it pushes self-criticism aside. There’s no reflection.

Where people often get lost is on this very point. Real faith, you see, leads us to deeper reflection and not—not ever—to the thing we as humans so very much want. Easy certainty.

May we all be delivered from easy certainty, the plague of genuine spirituality. No one is saved who isn’t really standing high and dry on the farther shore. Absent that, we’re all drowning in ignorance about what lies beyond physical existence and would be much better off if we simply admitted it.

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 our Marion County precinct, #788 I think, Vote for Kerry! There, now I can tell MoveOn Pac (an offshoot of MoveOn.org) that I’ve been doing the best I can.

Which isn’t much. But earlier today, while Laurel was making more calls and I was taking my late afternoon nap, I attuned my dreams to course messages throughout the surrounding countryside, sending out Kerry positive vibrations to all of the undecided or wavering voters.

Admittedly, this is quite a stretch from what we were asked to do at our volunteer training last Friday. The gung ho MoveOn staffer said that we should drive around and make personal visits to the people on our list, most of whom we don’t know from Adam or Eve. Laurel and I immediately had a strong “oh no we won’t” reaction to this idea, as did several other rural residents at the training.

“Git the shotgun, Ma, and let loose the Rottweilers. I spy a blue Toyota Prius comin’ down the driveway, probably filled with god-damn tree huggin’ Kerry lovers who want us to piss away our vote on that a-hole.” That’s the welcome that we envisioned from many of the people in our area, which, judging by the count of Kerry (3) and Bush (9) lawn signs extending the five miles from the Salem city limits down Liberty to our house is pretty solid red country (and one of those three signs is ours).

Plus, country people aren’t used to unexpected visitors. In the fourteen years we’ve lived here we’ve had exactly zero trick-or-treaters. Just one or two school fund-raising requests. A handful of Jehovah’s Witnesses. A doorbell ringing after dark would freak us out, as it would many other isolated rural folks.

So we weren’t eager to go tooling around to farm houses with our MoveOn clipboard in hand, whether or not the voter inside was identified as someone amenable to Kerry’s message. Laurel has been getting a lot of “I’m for Bush” responses. But she also has talked with some genuinely undecided people who listened attentively to her vote for Kerry pleadings.

I admire what she’s doing. But, to borrow some phrases from a well-respected source, “We all want to change the world…Well, you know we’re doing what we can…Don’t you know it’s going to be all right…all right, all right.” Yes, it will be all right November 3, regardless. I do hope, though, that it will be all right in the Beatles’ sense, and not in the other sense.

[P.S. on Monday morning: today's Salem Statesman-Journal has a commentary by local columnist Jeanine Stice called "Fed up with partisan voters, swing voter seeks solitude." After writing about the frustration of being bothered again and again by clipboard toting advocates for one candidate/cause or another, she ends her piece with:

Since I'm paid for opinon, here's one: Let swinging voters enjoy their swing. In short, let us rest in piece. The more you ask me to support a cause, unless you can make me laugh, the faster I'll run the other direction. I like the word "independent." I value privacy. I'm not worried about the erosion of privacy under the Patriot Act. I've had more encroachment on my right to privacy by door-knockers. Just let me listen to the dog barking, the leaves falling and my boys playing on a Sunday afternoon.

Thanks for the thoughts, Jeanine. I feel better now about taking a nap yesterday instead of phoning people like you.]

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 now there was a butterfly dreaming that it was a man.

I feel just as confused much of the time. So, rather than worry about it, by embracing Taoism I’m converting a liability into an asset. Taoism, I read today in my formerly unread copy of “Myth and Meaning in Early Taoism” (by N.J. Girardot), is really big on chaos, hun-tun. Chaos is the root of order. Chaos and cosmos are two inseparable sides of the same pancake of ultimate reality.

I don’t quite get everything Girardot is saying here, but I sure like the “grinning gulf” image: Chaos as grinning gulf, the yawning dawn of creation, is therefore the very basis of a cosmogonic process that manifests itself in the gestalt of a trinitarian form—a formless form that because of its emptiness mysteriously links the uncreated one and the created two into a meaningful whole.

He goes on, less intellectually now: The gulf spontaneously created by the primal grin of formless matter is the empty source of the light and sound of created nature and human culture. It is not, however, polite to grin with a gaping mouth at a formal banquet….Even though there are times when a gentleman may feel a sudden urge to scratch and yawn, the ritual rule of civilized decorum rests on the idea that it is the idea that it is the appearance of cool control that counts. Taoists, as I will try to show, tend to grin somewhat idiotically while slurping their soup.

Now, this is a religion-that-isn’t-a-religion for me. Grinning idiotically. Slurping soup. Right up my alley.

Last week I went shopping at the south Salem Roth’s Vista Market. I selected some peaches and grapes. I paid for them at the checkout counter. I was given a credit card receipt that, suddenly, filled me with amazement. I had never realized before how the Vista Market receipt came in three pieces, one to be signed and returned, one plugging discount gas in Stayton or somewhere, and one for me to take home.

I was fascinated with how the two pieces I was given held together so delicately, clinging to each other by one fragile receipt corner. How rare! How marvelous! A VISA receipt of such delicacy! I walked out of the store mesmerized by the marvel that I couldn’t stop staring at.

Crossing the parking lot to my car, I suddenly had a strange feeling. Was I merely a shopper returning home with a two-part receipt, or was the receipt meant to bring me home with some shopping? I turned around, only to run into a green-jacketed Roth’s bagger running toward me.

How felicitous, this meeting! She was holding a bag of fruit, and I wanted a bag of fruit. Great is the Tao.

Am I an increasingly forgetful old fart, or am I a nascent Taoist sage? I’d rather consider myself the latter than the former, which helps explain my conversion to Taoism. Chuang Tzu tells a wonderful story about the benefits of forgetfulness:

Take the case of a drunken man falling from his carriage: though he may suffer injury he will not die. His bones and joints are the same as those of other men, but the injury which he receives is different: his spirit is entire.

He knew nothing about getting into the carriage and nothing about falling from it. The thought of death or life, or of any alarm or affright, does not enter his breast. Therefore he encounters danger without shrinking from it. Completely under the influence of the liquor he had drunk, it is thus with him.

How much more would it be so if he were under the influence of his Heavenly constitution! The sagely man is kept hid in his Heavenly constitution and therefore nothing can injure him.

Ah, to be spiritually drunk 24 hours a day. I’ve got a ways to go. I’m still remembering things that I’ve forgotten. When I get all of the way home without my groceries I will have attained more to Taoist wisdom, and when I can’t recall whether I went shopping or not I will be further on the Way.

Got to keep working on my idiotic grinning. Taoism asks so much of me.

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 itself on my computer, it spent an hour or so cataloging emails, cached Internet pages, and other files on my hard drive. I then was able to get Google search results for my own computer in exactly the same fashion as Google does for the entire Internet.

This is just so cool, I can’t praise Google Desktop Search enough. It comes up with the search results almost instantaneously, no matter what combination of terms I tried to stump it with. The results are categorized by “emails,” “files,” and “web history” (plus “chats,” if you are an online chatter, which I’m not). It is much faster and more flexible than Outlook’s email search feature; ditto compared to the Windows file searching process.

In my opinion Google Desktop Search is a must for every Windows XP and Windows 2000 user (the only operating systems it works with, so far; plus, you have to be using Outlook/Outlook Express and Internet Explorer 5+). Try it out and be amazed.

You’ll also be amazed to read the lengthy complaint filed against Bill O’Reilly that is accessible from the link above. The Smoking Gun kindly has pointers to the more provocative pages of the complaint, saving those of us who just want to read the “good stuff” from wading through boring legalese.

If it was anybody but O’Reilly who was the subject of this complaint, I’d feel somewhat guilty about being privy to a man’s sexual fantasies (and also behavior, given what Andrea Mackris claims in the brief). However, O’Reilly treats guests on his radio and TV programs with such contempt, and is so irritatingly arrogant and self-righteous, I found myself gleefully reading page after page of Ms. Mackris’ allegations.

Maybe the allegations will turn out to be unfounded. Maybe Mackris and her lawyer really were trying to unfairly shake down O’Reilly and Fox for $60 million, as another story on The Smoking Gun web site reports (Fox first filed a lawsuit against Mackris, which led to Mackris’ complaint against O’Reilly). Whatever the truth of this matter really is, I’ll bet that O’Reilly turns out to be less pure than the No-Spin Angel he presents himself as.

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 Windows sufferer IanG who posted this plaintive query in a Microsoft Windows update discussion group:

I downloaded SP2 last week, upon shutting down my computer last night the shutdown screen started displaying "Installing update 1 of 3" and alternating this text with "Do not turn off or unplug your computer" - I haven't and it's still doing this 15 hours later! Any ideas?

This posting came from page 2 of 368 pages of queries concerning XP2 and security update problems. Earth to Microsoft: If you can’t reliably write software for installing your updates, what makes you think users are going to be confident installing the updates themselves?

In today’s Bend Bulletin, in an AP story called “Microsoft releases security updates,” I read: Stephen Toulouse, a security program manager at Microsoft, said people who had Service Pack 2 and are also using Office XP didn’t correctly receive the update because of a problem with the installer.

Yes, Stephen, I know. I have SP2 and Office XP. Doesn’t Microsoft? Wouldn’t you have checked the security update installation on a computer with SP2 and Office XP before you released it? Good god…

Notwithstanding my personal success with installing SP2, you might want to read this PC World article before taking the plunge yourself. It says that 9% of those who installed XP2 had moderate problems, and 4% encountered difficulties that made their computer difficult or impossible to use.

Not good enough, Microsoft. Keep trying. I’ve turned off “automatic updates,” which got my own computer back to working after I exited the endless loop of installation messages. From now on I’ll decide when to install a security update, not you, Microsoft.

Power to the user, not Microsoft! (in my dreams…)

"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 see through their superficial charades) latch onto a transfer student, Cady, ably played by Lindsay Lohan.

Cady has been home schooled and raised in the African bush country by her zoologist parents. This offers several opportunities for the movie to make humorous parallels between how jungle life resolves questions of hierarchy and competition for mates, and how the “tooth and claw” world of high school accomplishes the same ends.

For example, in one scene Cady sees Regina flirting with a boy she has fallen for. Cady thinks to herself, “this is how it would be settled in the jungle,” and has a fantasy of leaping over the cafeteria table, painted fingernails at the ready, fiercely wrestling to defeat Alpha Female Regina.

In real high school girl life, of course, the wrestling is much more verbal than physical, as the movie shows. Cell phones, call waiting, and three-way calling are used to great effect as The Plastics jockey for position within their fashionable clique. At first Cady joins them only with the intent to learn their secrets and undermine their power, but eventually she falls under the Mean Girl spell and becomes one herself.

Early on in the movie Laurel observed, “Boy, we sure didn’t have any girls in my high school who looked like that.” Ditto for me, sadly. And even if my small central California high school had girls so beautiful and so exquisitely groomed, 1960s dress rules wouldn’t have allowed the low-cut tops and high-cut skirts displayed in “Mean Girls.” Ah, if I’m to be reborn, may I do my learning in a school with a much more relaxed dress code rule.

That detail aside, the clique-driven high school social structure depicted in the movie sure seemed familiar, though the variety of cliques in “Mean Girls” far exceeded those in Woodlake Union High School. The main cultural divide in my high school was between the Anglos and the Hispanics. We Anglo boys, though, didn’t call fellow students of Mexican heritage “Hispanics”—much rougher names were the norm. And the unfavor was returned to us. About all the Spanish I picked up in high school had to do with locker room sexual insults directed at my mother, madre.

Looking back, naturally I’d act differently, just as I hope Larry, who made a career discovering my locker combination and stealing my gym clothes, would do the same. But being boys, our quarreling was acted out either physically or exceedingly directly verbally. “F__k you!” “No, f__k you!” Such was the sophistication of most of our boy vs. boy banter.

One of the central themes of “Mean Girls” is that young females (and often older females too) use language and social interactions in a much more complicated fashion to compete with each other. Cady learns that “I love your bracelet!” can mean just the opposite, depending on who is saying it and what her motives are.

“Mean Girls” forcefully points out the power of cliques, how they keep high school students confined through both external and internal pressures. Like a modern-day caste system, you can only eat at certain tables in the cafeteria reserved for “your kind.” And if you break the clique rules of conformity (such as, for “The Plastics,” wearing the wrong outfit on a certain day of the week), then you run the risk of being rejected by your caste.

Cady, while mathematically astute, chooses to flunk calculus because being smart isn’t compatible with being beautiful and sexually desirable in the high school social equation. I remember falling into the same deluded trap myself, though for boys of my era the incompatibility was between being smart and being athletic. Actually, I was both. But my high school athletic career was limited to tennis, because I had convinced myself that this was the only sport a guy with glasses, near straight-As, and high test scores should play. And my classmates reinforced this belief.

I vividly remember a day in my junior year when the wall that erroneously separated “brain” from “brawn” in my mind was shown to be exceedingly flimsy. In gym class, wearing tennis shoes and without the benefit of starting blocks, we were getting timed in the hundred yard dash. One by one we ran down the track. I think my time was 12.1 seconds, not bad given the circumstances.

One of the last boys to run was a senior, Jerry, a “jock.” Quarterback of the league champion football team, a letterman also in baseball and basketball. When he finished the PE instructor, who also was the coach of the football team, yelled out to him, “Time, 12.1 seconds, same as Hines!” Everyone laughed. Jerry wasn’t amused. I got challenged to a mano-a-mano race.

We lined up. We ran at the word “Go!” We ended up…neck and neck. Crossing the finish line with Jerry running like crazy right at my side, I immediately had the feeling, “I’m not the person that I’ve been telling myself I am.”

I’m still trying to figure out who I am. And I don’t really believe that being able to run fast has anything to do with my essential self. But that moment in my high school gym class helped me realize the message that “Mean Girls” preaches, and which all of us, even us 56 year-olds, still need to take to heart: You can’t raise yourself up by knocking others down, and, even more, you can’t raise yourself up by knocking yourself down.

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 all the way to the edge of the lake, but in general the trees and vegetation that immediately surround it are much more green than gray.

Well, not only green this time of year, red and golden also. We were afraid that all of the red leaf maples along the shoreline had been burned up. Thankfully, most of them were still alive and kicking color.

Serena found this hike much more fun than walking around on a leash at the Harvest Faire (see yesterday’s posting). We managed to coax her back from chipmunk chasing for a red leaf maple photo opportunity (don’t worry, the chipmunks are quicker than she is; plus, they can climb trees and she can’t).

This is a fire-blackened snag lying in the water. You can see a mixture of living and dead trees on the other side of the lake. A friend told me that when he took his Japanese in-laws on a tour of this area they were inspired to create some artwork of the blackened forest. Yes, death by fire is as much a part of nature as is the vegetative life that we normally celebrate.

It just takes a different eye to appreciate it. I haven’t yet developed that eye. When Laurel and I looked away from Suttle Lake, up the slope that the fire came down, we didn’t like what we saw.

Still, it is a law of nature that sometimes things are up, and sometimes things are down. These geese bobbing for food at The Lodge at Suttle Lake end of the lake reminded me of that. Geese bottoms and geese heads were equally in evidence as we walked by.

The resort is in the midst of an impressive building boom that we were told should be completed by Spring 2005. A new several-story Cascadian Style lodge with a great room overlooking the lake is described in the brochure we were given. They serve lunch from 11-4 every day except, sadly, Monday. Next time we’ll take our hike on a day that lets us feast on pizza rather than power bars during our halfway around-the-lake break.

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 her an extra artistic Faire flair. This year I tried to lower my expectations for “What a beautiful dog! Can I touch her?” exclamations.

Still, as noted in the October 2003 posting, I had a feeling that a spiffier bandana might do the trick. So Laurel managed to find a Western-themed bandana with cacti and donkeys, perfect for the Western-themed town of Sisters. In this photo Serena is bereft of admirers, but we had just gotten to the Faire and word hadn’t yet spread that the Dog of Dogs had hit town.

Laurel spent much time deeply contemplating one of her favorite wonders of life: earrings.

Serena seemed to like this “booth” most of all. When I saw her heading for a red fire hydrant, I feverishly grabbed my camera, hoping against hope that I’d be able to snap the perfect dog cliché. And though it isn’t entirely evident (Serena is a she, after all), she did it!

We didn’t have enough room in our house, or money in our bank account, to bring home a wooden sculpture of a rhinoceros or a bear playing golf, but I sure wish we did.

My big art purchase was a metal stepping stone with the Chinese ideogram for “Harmony.” When we get home I have big plans for it outside my office window. Green moss springing up in the cut outs? Or white pebbles?

The Tao will guide me. Along with a female voice which could well say: “You’re not planning to leave it there, are you?” Of course, perhaps the All-Wise and All-Powerful Tao is the female voice. So would Laurel have me believe, and so indeed it may be.

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 him a “small business owner” whose overall high income shouldn’t be taxed at a high rate, as the web site points out.

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, funny, and right on the money, so to speak.

With just a few carefully chosen photos and some pithy well-written commentary, Bray cuts to the core of what Measure 37 is all about: allowing a few landowners to make lots of money by screwing the environment and the interests of most Oregonians.

If Measure 37 passes, god forbid, Oregon citizens will be footing the bill (hundreds of millions of dollars a year, likely) to implement a law that will turn farmland into subdivisions, open beaches for all into gated vacation spots for the wealthy, wetlands into wastelands.

If you need more convincing to vote against Measure 37, head to the “Take A Closer Look” committee website: www.takeacloserlookoregon.org. Don’t confuse this with the www.takeacloserlook.com URL that I initially tried, as this redirects you to a site that urges you to take quite a different sort of closer look. Interesting and intriguing, surely, but definitely unrelated to land use issues.

“Sustainable” Fairview: is it really?

Today’s Salem “Statesman-Journal” has an article about a Friday-Saturday open house at the 275 acre Sustainable Fairview property. I’m glad to see any hint of openness from Sustainable Fairview Associates, the LLC that Laurel and I are members of, and which I’ve criticized in various posts (under my Sustainability category) for not understanding either (1) what “sustainability” really means, or (2) how to manage a mixed-use development of this scope, regardless of how sustainable it is.

If you go to the open house and walk around the property, you’ll see a lot of interesting old buildings and beautiful natural land. But you won’t see any sustainable development because it hasn’t happened yet. Betwixt abstract architectural plans and concrete construction lies the mysterious realm of Management/Implementation, the connecting link between theory and practice, vision and actualization.

This is where the rubbery concept of “sustainability” hits the firm road of reality. And this is where, sadly, Sustainable Fairview Associates is still muddling through. I say “sadly,” because I deeply want to see this project succeed. Good examples of wise natural resource use are sorely needed, especially since the Bush administration isn’t providing us with any.

Who is it, though, that needs how to learn to use natural resources more wisely? It isn’t Nature. The Earth is never anything but natural; the laws of nature know exactly how to act naturally. They don’t need courses in general systems theory to form viable feedback and communication loops, or respond creatively and flexibly to changing environmental conditions.

No, it is people who are the problem. We don’t face an environmental crisis. We are facing a human crisis, a crisis of people who don’t know how to live naturally—either with Nature, or more importantly, with themselves and their fellow human beings. This is one of the points Fritjof Capra makes in his excellent book, “The Hidden Connections: Integrating the Biological, Cognitive, and Social Dimensions of Life into a Science of Sustainability.”

Capra, by the way, is speaking in Portland on this subject November 19 as part of the Science, Technology and Society Lecture series.

Back when I thought I could help Sustainable Fairview Associates (SFA) learn how to manage better and be more sustainable, I put together a bunch of excerpts from the “Life and Leadership in Organizations” chapter of Capra’s book and handed them out at a SFA member meeting. I pithily indicated how this supposedly sustainable organization really wasn’t going about things in any sort of sustainable fashion.

Sustainability isn’t a thing. It isn’t a solar panel, a permeable road, a living system wastewater treatment facility. Sustainability is a process, as interactive, flexible, responsive, and creative as life itself. This is a fact that Sustainable Fairview Associates hasn’t yet realized, but Capra has. Take a look at what I put together and you’ll see what I mean.
Download capra_summary.doc [If you have Word, click "normal" under View on the toolbar if the document looks abnormally large, as it does for me]

For example:

“(11) We might say, following Thoreau, “In Weirdness is the Preservation of the World.”
The emergence of novelty is a property of open systems, which means that the organization needs to be open to new ideas and new knowledge. Facilitating emergence includes creating that openness—a learning culture in which continual questioning is encouraged and innovation is rewarded. Organizations with such a culture value diversity and, in the words of Arie de Geus, ‘tolerate activities in the margin: experiments and eccentricities that stretch their understanding.’ (p. 123)”

I clearly remember the moment at which I knew that SFA was ridiculously far away from being a “learning culture,” as Capra puts it, and so was equally far away from being a sustainable organization capable of competently managing a sustainable development.

We were a couple of hours into one of the most disturbing meetings I’ve ever attended. Concerned members of Sustainable Fairview Associates, me included, were trying to open up a dialogue with the management of SFA about where the project was heading, and why things were so closed-up, secretive, rigid, uncreative, non-responsive to obvious opportunities.

After I had made some impassioned comments about how we needed to form a close-knit community of people—individuals both inside and outside the room—who wanted to make Sustainable Fairview a success, one of the SFA officers turned to me and said, “Brian, from the beginning we never wanted your involvement; we just wanted your money.”

As an investor I was shocked, because this wasn’t the sales pitch that I heard when SFA was trolling for people willing to buy shares in this venture. But as someone hoping that SFA would be managed well, regardless of whether I personally was to be directly involved in the project, I was even more dismayed. This comment indicated a complete lack of understanding of what makes an organization alive, which is the hallmark of sustainability. Another excerpt from my Capra paper:

“(4) Community, openness, tolerance of new ideas, learning, adaptability: these are the signs SFA is really alive.
This led De Geus [author of The Living Company] to conclude that resilient long-lived companies are those that exhibit the behavior and certain characteristics of living entities. Essentially he identifies two sets of characteristics. One is a strong sense of community and collective identity around a set of common values; a community in which all members know that they will be supported in their endeavors to achieve their own goals. The other set of characteristics is openness to the outside world, tolerance for the entry of new individuals and ideas, and consequently a manifest ability to learn and adapt to new circumstances. (p. 105)”

Well, it is never too late to learn, and I hope that Sustainable Fairview can survive its shaky un-sustainable youth and adolescence and grow into a genuinely sustainable adult development. Head for the open house tomorrow and Saturday and see for yourself the potential of what could spring up here in Salem.

Feel the fear and install SP2 anyway

A Windows XP Service Pack 2 CD arrived in the mail from Microsoft a few days ago, but I had left it on the dining room table until this afternoon, fearful because of past malevolent Microsoft experiences that if I so much as touched it my computer would stop working.

I kept my eye on the CD, looking for signs that it was possessed. But I didn’t see any green vomit dripping from the cardboard mailer, nor hear any guttural chanting in Latin when we were in bed and the house was quiet. I read the “Before installing SP2” guidelines on the Microsoft web site and dutifully checked my computer for spyware, then backed up my files to an external hard drive.

I was mentally prepared for disaster as the SP2 CD whirred away, loading countless mysterious files to god knows where, and doing god knows what to my operating system. Then the big moment came when I was asked if I wanted to restart the computer now, or later, to complete the installation. It was like the executioner saying, “Should I let the guillotine fall now, or would you prefer to wait a few minutes to be decapitated?”

Since I wasn’t going to be able to relax until the outcome of the installation was evident, I figured that it was better to know the ghastly truth as soon as possible, so I could start finding a way to uninstall SP2 and repair the damage that I was confident it had wreaked on my previously flawlessly-running Emachines laptop.

Imagine my surprise when the damn thing restarted just fine, albeit more slowly than usual the first time owing to several queries about whether I wanted the Windows firewall left on, and what not. I nervously checked to see if my Internet connection still worked. Yes. Could I get email? Yes. Was the Internet Explorer pop up window blocker compatible with the Google toolbar blocker? Yes, IE apparently took charge and did the blocking before the toolbar had a chance.

Of course, I need to sound like a lawyer and say: “Your results may vary. There is a risk of complications in every software upgrade. Consult your computer professional before deciding if SP2 is right for you.” But so far I’m impressed that Microsoft seems to have produced a smooth-running XP upgrade. I’m not backing off my previous “Microsoft sucks” position, but I’m entirely ready to admit that Microsoft is sucking less in this instance.

As long as I’m on the subject of software that sucks, I might as well say how happy I’ve been to get every piece of Symantec crap off of my hard drive. No more Norton Antivirus. No more Systemworks. And my computer is working better than ever.

Lots of people have told me over the years that Systemworks is more likely to screw up your system than fix it or maintain it. I believe it, now that I’ve become a happy SystemSuite 5 user. SystemSuite 5 got a top rating from PC World some issues back, so that led me to take the plunge and dump Symantec. SystemSuite seems to be better designed, though not quite as easy to use as the Symantec products. But I’d rather do a little bit more thinking on my own if that causes my computer to crash much less.

The only annoying thing about SystemSuite 5 is that the frequent antivirus updates have to be downloaded in their entirety each time, about 4.5 MB worth, which takes over half an hour on our slow dial-up connection. But this probably is a cleaner way of installing new antivirus definitions than the Norton a-few-at-a-time approach. I heard that a friend’s computer got filled to overflowing with Norton Antivirus files that just kept being added on to the existing files, rather than overwriting them. He ended up with many GB of extraneous antivirus definitions, something that won’t happen with SystemSuite 5.

Ranting reaps a review

Proving either that ranting results in a rapid response from the cosmos, or, more likely, that magical thinking is alive and well in my twisted mind, after yesterday’s posting I was pleased to find an email from the Radical Academy waiting for me when I turned on my computer this morning. My book had been reviewed!

My fingers were trembling slightly as I clicked on the link to Dr. Jonathan Dolhenty’s review. For while I have been eager to have “Return to the One” reviewed, naturally I was envisioning positivity at the end of the Review Rainbow, not negativity. Thankfully, a quick read through Dr. Dolhenty’s thoughtful analysis of my book about Plotinus allayed my anxieties.

He ends with these words: I highly recommend "Return to the One" to all those interested in the philosophy of Plotinus, the general history of Western philosophy, religious philosophy, or mystical philosophy. The subject is interesting and important and Brian Hines' prose is crisp, concise, and easily understood.

Well, I may have to revise my potential (and so far utterly unrealized) sales projections. As noted in the posting below, I’ve been considering that this book would appeal to enthusiasts of mysticism and Greek Philosophy. But, hey, if we open the door to “the general history of Western philosophy” and “religious philosophy,” a lot more readers could enter in.

The Radical Academy is an interesting website. On the home page it says, We discuss traditional philosophical, moral, and religious questions; contemporary political, social, and cultural problems and policies; current scientific and technological issues and speculations; challenges to the "conventional" wisdom, "popular" ideologies, and "accepted" paradigms of our culture; and the application of commonsense realistic principles to all human affairs.

Dr. Dolhenty lives in Port Orford, so the Radical Academy has Oregon roots. He is President and Webmaster of the Academy and its parent organization, the Center for Applied Philosophy.

A lot of people would consider a Center for Applied Philosophy about as useless an enterprise as you could think of, especially since it has a significant emphasis on classic Western philosophers. And a lot of people would be mistaken.

I’ve been re-reading what Thoreau has to say on this subject in his “Reading” chapter in Walden. Maybe one day the New Age Retailer reviewer who declined to write a review of my book because it was “not relevant to today’s issues” will read Walden’s words and change his or her mind:

The oldest Egyptian or Hindoo philosopher raised a corner of the veil from the statue of the divinity; and still the trembling robe remains raised, and I gaze upon as fresh a glory as he did, because it was I in him that was then so bold, and it is he in me that now reviews the vision. No dust has settled on that robe; no time has elapsed since that divinity was revealed. That time which we really improve, or which is improvable, is neither past, present, nor future.

…I aspire to be acquainted with wiser men than this our Concord soil has produced, whose names are hardly known here. Or shall I hear the name of Plato and never read his book? As if Plato were my townsman and I never saw him, --my next neighbor and I never heard him speak or attended to the wisdom of his words. But how actually is it? His Dialogues, which contain what was immortal in him, lie on the next shelf, and yet I never read them. We are under-bred and low-lived and illiterate.

…How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book. The book exists for us perchance which will explain our miracles and reveal new ones. The at present unutterable things we may find somewhat uttered. These same questions that disturb and puzzle and confound us have in their turn occurred to all the wise men; not one has been omitted; and each has answered them, according to his ability, by his words and his life.

Since “Return to the One” was published I’ve been told by several people, “I’ve started your book, but I haven’t been able to get past the opening chapters. It’s heavy.” Well, yes, it is. And also exceedingly light if you allow yourself to soar with Plotinus’s spiritual vision. At the risk of sounding like George W. Bush, I’ll say that “Reading a classic philosopher is hard work. You have to be steadfast.”

Thoreau: To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object. Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written.

I get an exclusive interview with myself

It’s been three months since my non-fiction book about Plotinus, a 3rd century Greek philosopher, was published. So I thought I’d catch up with myself and provide an exclusive update to my HinesSight weblog readership about what is happening with “Return to the One.” I found Brian outside, enjoying an unusually warm October Oregon day on his deck.

Me: Thanks for taking the time for this interview.

Brian: No problem. I’ve managed to fit you in between reading the Oregonian sports page and taking my Sunday afternoon nap. Always got time for someone I’m so close to and admire so much. Fire away.

Me: Well, let’s start with how book sales are going. Are they meeting your expectations?

Brian: I’ll put it this way. “Return to the One” is a wonderfully-written, extensively-researched, skillfully-edited book about a philosopher who is recognized as one of the greatest mystics and metaphysical thinkers in Western history. My book is inspiring, profound, and easier to read than any other book about Plotinus. It describes a highly persuasive, scientifically compatible, non-religious system that is as close to a universal spirituality as you’ll find anywhere.

Me: So, book sales must be…

Brian: Absolutely awful, naturally. The book is staying on the downhill side of Amazon’s million ranking, but not by much. Embarrassingly, according to Amazon my out-of-print book, “God’s Whisper, Creation’s Thunder,” is selling better than “Return to the One.” And I note that Mitch Albom’s “The Five People You Meet in Heaven” is #24, while my book is, well, it’s too depressing to say. That’s one difference between the Albom book and my book. Another difference is that I can pretty much guarantee that none of us really is going to meet five people in heaven, while I am quite confident that we are indeed going to encounter the One after death, because the One is what is really real.

Me: Are you surprised by how poorly your book is selling?

Brian: No. As I say in the book, most people don’t want to know the truth about what lies beyond the world that we know now. They want to remain with their own comfortable beliefs about what happens after death, what “heaven” and “God” are like, all that stuff. So religious writings that reinforce existing beliefs naturally are going to be more popular than mystical writings that say, “You’ve got to find out the truth for yourself.”

My intuitive pre-publication projection was that maybe 5% of readers are interested in mysticism, and maybe 1% in Greek philosophy. Since my book is billed on the back cover as “Greek Philosophy/Mysticism,” I multiplied 100 million potential readers by 5% and got 5 million. Then I multiplied 5 million by 1% and got 50,000 possible sales to aficionados of mysticism and Greek philosophy. But somewhere along the mathematical line I must have omitted a zero multiplicative term, because zero is much closer to actual sales than 50,000.

Me: How much publicity has the book gotten? Maybe that is the problem.

Brian: “Maybe”? For sure. The publisher and I have sent pre-and-post publication copies out to lots of reviewers. So far, nada, nothing. I do feel, however, that I’m able to track the review copies through used bookstores that have “Return to the One” for sale. For example, if I send a book to a reviewer with an address on Broadway in New York City, a few weeks later a used book will pop up for sale—guess where!—at a bookstore near Broadway in New York. I like to fantasize that the clerk from the New York Times Book Review glances at my book before she plops it down on the store’s used book buying desk and says to herself, “This looks pretty interesting.”

Me: It doesn’t sound like reviewers have been very kind to you.

Brian: They haven’t been kind, and they haven’t been unkind. The nastiest thing about book reviewers is that often you don’t even get a rejection letter. They just ignore you, which is the cruelest cut of all. I did hear back from the “New Age Retailer” folks, though. They said in an email: “This is to let you know the reviewer who read ‘Return to the One’ by Brian Hines decided not to review the book. He found the book a bit dry, not relevant to today's issues. I regret to say we will not publish a review on this title.” I loved the “not relevant to today’s issues” comment. Hey! Understanding the nature of reality is relevant to today’s issues, New Age Retailer!

Me: You seem bitter. Does it bother you that reviewers aren’t giving your book the attention you feel it deserves?

Brian: No, not exactly. It bothers me that reviewers and publishers didn’t give my book the attention it deserved. If I had been able to get “Return to the One” published by a more mainstream publisher, maybe my sales wouldn’t be languishing. But I’m not alone in having such a “are all you guys idiots?” attitude toward book publishers. A friend recently turned me on to a great web site by Ashland author Gerard Jones. It’s amazing. And often hilarious. He includes actual email correspondence between he and countless agents and publishers. This is one of the publisher pages. Scroll down and you’ll have some good laughs, especially if you’re a writer. Take a look at his agent pages and you’ll learn why it’s so important for a writer to have a good vocabulary: you need to have a wide variety of swear words at your command to be able to respond appropriately to the fools who, sadly, so often end up evaluating book proposals at publishing houses.

Well, it’s almost nap time.

Me: OK. Let’s end with a quick peek at your next book project.

Brian: Given my experience so far with “Return to the One” I’m strongly leaning toward something with more popular appeal. “The Five Pets You Will Meet in Heaven” is my working title. It has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?

DMV license renewal horrors

I’d been dreading going for my first over-55 license renewal, since the notice said that an eye test was required. For though my optometrist had assured me that my contact lens-assisted vision was better than DMV requires, more and more I’ve been using the “go past it and turn around” approach to finding unfamiliar streets.

“We’re supposed to turn right on Cranberry Street,” Laurel will say. “OK,” I reply, straining to read the letters of signs that used to be much larger twenty years ago. I can only assume that budget cuts have forced cities to put up smaller street signs, and also make the lettering less sharp. So I look more for the appropriate length of the name: “Cranberry, Cranberry; nine letters; that street name is too short, can’t be it.”

This approach works at low speeds, but over 45 miles per hour or so the sign generally whizzes by too fast for either Laurel or I to make a positive ID with our aging eyes. “That was Cranberry!” we say in unison, as I search for a place to turn around.

I need to emphasize, in case anyone thinks that I’m a Mr. Magoo, that in the end I had no trouble passing the DMV eye test. I was a bit nervous, though, waiting for my apt Take A Number of #48 to come up (I was born on October 7, 1948, so this is a reminder that just six days remain for lavish gifts to be bought and delivered for my birthday celebration).

Walking into the DMV office made me feel like I’m sixteen rather than almost fifty-six. Watching the actual sixteen year olds fidgeting as they waited for their driving test stimulated some sort of post-traumatic stress reaction in me. Also, flashbacks. I fantasized about being singled out for special DMV attention.

“#48, over here; you’ve been selected to take a driving test in this 1957 Volkswagen Beetle with a slippery clutch, just like the car you failed your first test in back in 1964; let’s see if you can pass a special Driving in San Francisco scenario: you are stopped at a red light in the middle of a steep hill; a taxi with a large American flag decal on its windshield driven by a tough looking cabbie pulls up two inches behind your 'End the War Now' sticker festooned rear bumper; you have to put the car in gear, take your foot off the brake, and get through the intersection without hearing, ‘Hey, hippie asshole! You owe me a new bumper!’ To make the test more realistic we’ll get you stoned first, and fill the backseat of the VW with five hysterically laughing potheads.”

When my number was called, reality was a relief. I was even happy to stand in front of the blue backdrop for my photo. I had planned ahead, after all. I had washed and blow-dried my hair. I had trimmed my beard. I had put on a favorite dark blue batik shirt. I knew that I’d be looking at that photo for eight years, so I put on my best lips-closed smile, affecting a philosophical look that said, “This man may be almost fifty-six, but he is young at heart and wise in spirit.”

Well, that was supposed to be what the look said. When I was handed my new license a quick glance offered up a different message: “This is a wino loser Willy Nelson look-alike (minus the ponytail), fallen on hard times, picked up for questioning after being found unconscious behind the Food For Less dumpster.”

The good news, I guess, is that every time I look at my driver’s license I’ll see a person who looks older than I’ll actually be when it has to be renewed again in 2012. So if all goes well at the DMV eight years from now, I’ll walk out of the door feeling younger.

Uh, oh, I’ll be 64 then. You know what that means: Another flashback.