HinesSight

The least we owe them is a tear

If I was the parent of one of the 37 children killed by the Israeli bomb that hit the Lebanese town of Qana last night, the least I’d expect from the citizens of the country whose President and Secretary of State see no need for a cease fire that would have saved the lives of those innocents is this:

A tear. Better, lots of them.

Have we forgotten how to cry?

Sometimes it takes a talented writer to remind us of what it means to be human. (Are you paying attention, George and Condoleezza?). I’ve just finished reading “God Laughs & Plays” by David James Duncan, author of “The River Why.”

I invite you to read this excerpt. And weep.

Duncan is telling the story of a nurse, Gerri, who went on her fourth mission of mercy to Iraq in May 2002.

Before this recent trip—amid all the American flag waving and war rumblings—Gerri’s oldest daughter tried to persuade her to stay home. Gerri didn’t describe their discussion, but she did say that, after finally accepting Gerri’s sense of mission, daughter offered mother an old-souled piece of advice. “If you do go” she said, “be completely present, wherever you go.”

These words returned to Gerri in May 2002, in an Iraqi hospital virtually bereft of medicine and hope. While her group moved from bed to bed, Gerri approached a woman sitting next to her dying child. Gerri speaks no Arabic. The woman spoke no English. Trying to be “present” anyway, Gerri looked at the child, then at the mother, and placed her right hand over her own heart.

The Iraqi mother placed her right hand over her own heart.

Gerri’s eyes and the mother’s eyes simultaneously filled with tears.

The hospital was crowded. Gerri’s visitation time was short. She started to move to the next bed, but then remembered her daughter’s words: “completely present.” She and the mother were already crying, their hands over their hearts. There was nothing Gerri could do, despite her medical training, for the child. “How much more present,” she wondered, “is it possible to be?”

She stepped forward anyway. With no plan but vague allegiance to the commandment, “completely present,” the nurse without medicine stepped toward the bed of the dying child and inconsolable mother. She then put both of her hands out, palms up.

The Iraqi mother fell into her arms.

“If only this experience were unique!” Gerri told me. “But I can’t tell you, any longer, how many mothers I’ve now held in this same way.”

Her voice grew faint over the phone.

I heard: “…diseases that children would almost never die from in the U.S….”

I heard: “…medicine so basic…”

Then her voice faded, or maybe I drowned it out. I’ve never taken interview notes while sobbing before.

David Gregory pitches Bush a hard question. Whiff!

This morning I was drowsily watching President Bush and Prime Minister Blair answer softball questions lobbed at them by a passive press corps when NBC’s David Gregory woke me up with a fast ball pitched right over the plate.

“Mr. President, three years ago you argued that an invasion of Iraq would create a new stage of Arab-Israeli peace. Yet today there is an Iraqi prime minister who’s been sharply critical of Israel. Arab governments, despite your arguments for criticizing Hezbollah, have now changed their tune. Now they’re sharply critical of Israel.

And despite, from both of you, warnings to Syria and Iran to back off support of Hezbollah, effectively, Mr. President, your warnings are being ignored. So what has happened to America’s clout in this region that you committed yourself to transform?”

[Next day update: thanks to The Democratic Daily, you can watch Bush's exchange with Gregory here. And a more complete transcript of the Q and A can be read here.]

I give credit to Bush for calling on Gregory, whose gutsy questions at White House press conferences have led disgruntled neocons to put up a “fire David Gregory” web site. But he whiffed badly on the pitch Gregory threw him, a typically poor performance for the non-answerer-in-Chief.

Bush is good at taking practice answer swings. His set speeches often contain well-crafted rhetoric, sometimes even delivered well. However, he doesn’t know how to connect with a real live skeptical questioner standing right in front of him.

Whereas Blair is used to the give and take of those Parliament free-for-alls that I see on C-SPAN now and then, Bush almost always is kept in a cone of kiss-ass deference. Except for those rare occasions when a gutsy citizen or journalist speaks his or her mind. Like today.

It was interesting to watch the mental cogs churn as Bush stumbled his way through the non-answer he gave Gregory. Even though our President supposedly has great “people skills,” they’re not much in evidence when he responds to a independent-minded questioner.

Bush doesn’t seem to think about what he’s been asked and try to frame a response that will satisfy the other person. By contrast, you can see the wheels turning in Blair’s mind before he gives an answer. He knows that he’s been thrown a challenge and he wants to bat it back skillfully.

About all I heard from Bush were canned phrases that he pulled out of his platitude bin. He did start off by making a little bit of sense. A lot of sense if you’re a believer in the Apocalypse or Armageddon. Rather than seeking stability, now the U.S. aims to shake things up so that things will be calm. Except as Gregory pointed out, the Middle East is even shakier after five years of the Bush presidency.

Uh, David, it’s an interesting period. Um, because, um, instead of having foreign policies based on trying to create a sense of stability, we have a foreign policy that addresses the root causes of violence and instability. Um, for a while American foreign policy was just this hope that everything was calm. Kind of manage calm. But beneath the surface was a lot of resentment and anger.

Sort of coherent. But then Bush meandered off down Platitude Lane. I couldn’t bring myself to transcribe the whole chain of gibberish. Here are bits and pieces of what he said:

…chasing down the killers and bringing them to justice…and make no mistake they’re still out there…and look, I fully understand some people don’t believe it’s possible for freedom and democracy to overcome this ideology of hatred…the notion of democracy beginning to emerge scares the ideologues…one of the challenges is to convince people that Muslims would like to be free…[some say] maybe it’s best to let them sit in these tyrannical societies…our foreign policy rejects that concept…I mean, there’s an unprovoked attack on a democracy…Why? I happen to believe because progress is being made toward democracies…I’m as determined as ever to continue fostering a foreign policy based on liberty, and I think it’s going to work…Unless we lose our nerve and quit.

Bush finally ran out of nonsense. He turned to Blair. However, Gregory refused to let his question go unanswered. Gregory blurted out something else (mostly inaudible). Bush looked even more irked than he was before. His blathering reached new heights of incomprehensibility. Some excerpts:

…but the reason why you asked the question is that terrorists are trying to stop that progress…they’ve just got a different tool to use than we do…they kill innocent lives to achieve objectives…and they’re good…they get on television screens and they get people to ask questions about, well, you know, this that or the other…they’re able to say to people, “don’t come and bother us because we’ll kill you,” and my attitude is, now is the time to be firm.

Amazing. Bush implies that David Gregory, along with anyone else who questions U.S. foreign policy, is a tool of the terrorists. Typical Bush administration strategy: when your message is being rejected by both the American public and the world at large, try to silence those who are pointing out this fact.

Lastly, I wonder if Bush listens to himself when he speaks. He said that terrorists "kill innocent lives to achieve objectives.” That sounds just like U.S. policy in Iraq.

My TV confessions

As a lapsed Catholic who hasn’t made a formal confession in some forty-five years, sometimes I feel the need to lay my sins bare. Blogosphere, serve as my virtual confessor, for I have committed some venial (and maybe mortal) television watching sins.

Fox News. I’ll start with my most shameful viewing act. During my morning cable news channel surfing I spend more time tuned to Fox News than CNN. My wife will notice and say (or scream), “Why are you watching that!”

Well, because Fox is energetic, youthful, and hip while CNN is lethargic, mature, and drab. Plus, in the graphics department Fox kicks CNN’s butt (I never get tired of watching that blue and gold capitol image rotate and change colors). Wolf Blitzer’s Situation Room looks old and tired compared to Shepard Smith’s G Block.

On the plus side, CNN has Carol Lin. This beautiful anchor can feed me the news anytime.

Meerkat Manor. I often think about the adage, “You only live life once; make every moment count,” as I’m sprawled on the couch, spending half an hour of my human existence watching an Animal Planet soap opera series about a family of meerkats—prairie dog-like critters who live in Africa amidst a bunch of cameras.

My wife is more of a fan than I am, but I got into following the trials and tribulations of the Whiskers family. Belatedly.

At first I “accidentally” erased all of the Meerkat Manor episodes that we had stored up for eventual watching, hoping that Laurel wouldn’t notice and I could use those digital video recorder hours for something truly life-enhancing.

Like, my much-beloved Reno 911. Check out the dry humor of Trudy making her sperm bank announcement. However, the show’s semi-improv style isn’t for everybody. Laurel would rather watch meerkats digging a burrow.

So You Think You Can Dance. This isn’t a new confession, because I’ve already admitted to my general infatuation with this terrific program, and my specific infatuation with Allison (Ivan too, but in a different way, especially since they’re no longer partners).

However, SYTYCD does take up a significant portion of my TV watching week (three hours), and I’ve heard people say that the show is overblown.

Indeed, the recently instituted format is irksome. Now that viewers decide, after watching the Wednesday night performances, which girl and which guy get booted each week, the Thursday night episode should last only about five minutes. Stretching the suspense to a full hour is, well, a stretch.

Thanks to my friend Randy at RBlog I was able to see a marvelous video of Heidi and Benji at the 2005 US Open Swing Dance Championships. Oh, yeah, they can dance. If Allison can’t win SYTYCD, either Heidi or Benji would be my worthy second choices.

Bush administration flip flop: now destroying embryos isn’t murder

Bush spokesman Tony Snow told us that Bush believes embryonic stem cell research is murder before he told us that it isn’t. Today at the White House press briefing Snow backed off the “murder” word, retreating to “The President has said that he believes this is the destruction of human life.”

Hmmmm. So Bush vetoed a bill that would have allowed federal funding of embryonic stem cell research because this entails destroying human life. Yet it is OK if private funds destroy human life.

I’m with Steve Young on this one: murder is murder no matter who’s paying. Oh, except after the flip flop it isn’t murder. It’s “destruction of human life.” That apparently is fine, so long as a wink and a nod is given to the Christian fundamentalists whose support Karl Rove is counting on this November.

Ah, the smell of hypocrisy wafts over the Bush Administration’s rapidly decaying carcass.

Destruction of a microscopic embryo that will never become a human life is immoral, even if stem cell research could lead to cures for diseases that kill and afflict actual living people. However, pressing for an immediate cease fire in Lebanon is verboten, even if this would save the lives of many innocent civilians.

Apparently Bush’s reverence for life extends only to potential life that isn’t yet living. If you’re actually alive, fend for yourself, sucker.

The British daily “The Independent” makes you wish our newspapers truly were. A few days ago the paper told it like it is in “America’s domestic policy vs. America’s foreign policy.”

Yesterday US troops killed five people, including two women and a child, in the city of Baquba [Iraq] during a raid, claiming they had been shot at. At best it was a tragic error, at worst it spoke to the cavalier attitude of the US towards Iraqi civilian lives. Local police said that a man had fired from a rooftop at the Americans because he thought a hostile militia force was approaching.

While the eyes of the world are elsewhere, Baghdad is still dying and the daily toll is hitting record levels. While the plumes of fire and smoke over Lebanon have dominated headlines for 11 days, with Britain and the US opposing a UN call for an immediate ceasefire, another Bush-Blair foreign policy disaster is unfolding in Iraq.

Invoking the sanctity of human life, George Bush wielded the presidential veto for the first time in his presidency to halt US embryonic stem cell research in its tracks. He even paraded one-year-old Jack Jones, born from one of the frozen embryos that can now never be used for federally funded research, and talked of preventing the "taking of innocent human life". How hollow that sounds to Iraqis.

And to The Portland Freelancer. See “Thou shalt not kill unless George says it’s OK.”

There’s just 910 days and 6 hours of the Bush anti-life presidency left. The world will survive. I hope.

Images of Salem Art Fair 2006—I liked it hot

When we had no trouble finding a parking space yesterday just a few blocks from this year’s Salem Art Fair, I knew that Oregonians are indeed heat-weenies. And when Laurel started to complain about how hot it was even before we’d passed through one of the semi-voluntary gates, I knew that I was married to a true Oregonian (albeit one born in Illinois.)

The $5 suggested admission fee this year is semi-voluntary because it would be easy to walk around the barrier. However, some pretty fearsome Girl Scouts were manning, or rather, girling, the gate. I wasn’t about to chance incurring their wrath.

Right away I saw something that I wanted to buy and take home. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see how it would fit in our Prius. Too bad. I like flaming art. Especially on a 102 degree day. (I grew up in a part of California where that’s par for the summer course).

Being a horse lover who worries more about things than she wants to, Laurel seriously considered getting the “Sit loosely in the saddle of life” plaque. She worried about whether it would fit with our other decor, though. So it's a possible purchase when we return this evening to enjoy Dirty Martini. The music group, not the drink.

A few art fair booths had a “No photos” sign posted. I don’t understand why. Am I going to run home, print out this picture, and then reproduce this un-reproducible chair in my (non-existent) workshop? It was beautiful. And comfortable.

The artist didn’t seem to mind my taking a photograph of her work. I said, “It would be cool to have a whole house filled with colorful furniture like this.” She replied, “Let me show you some photos of my home.” As she thumbed through the album, I kept thinking, “Cool.”

The Salem Art Fair is mostly shady. No excuses, Oregonians. The Fair is on from 10-6 tomorrow (Sunday). Get on down to Bush Park and enjoy the best outdoor art fair in the Northwest. Even on a warm day.

There’s natural art in the shapes of the
old oaks. I love looking up at them. Hundred degrees and large oak trees. I felt like a boy again, back in the Sierra Nevada foothills.

While Laurel considers a purchase of wearable art, another man waits for his own female companion. A familiar scene. I’d say, “Great, here’s another clothes booth. While you’re browsing I’ll check out the men’s section. Oh, I forgot! There aren’t any men’s clothes here.” Or, at any other booth. Isn’t there a federal law against sex discrimination?

Lastly, I’ll continue the tradition of me sharing my most common view of the Art Fair.

Field mowing: my sweaty hell and heaven

I keep hearing of more and more people my age—late 50s, early 60s—who are moving to easy care condos with a few potted plants on the deck. Every year at field mowing time this seems like a damn good idea to me. And also, a horrible prospect.

We’ve got about a dozen grassy areas on the five acres surrounding our house that need an annual mowing. Reasons: reduce fire danger, aesthetics, keep brush from growing in. Side benefit: gain insight into the adage, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

This is a unpleasant job. My attitude hasn’t changed from two years ago. Except, I now own a new DR Field & Brush Mower which, while possessing some nifty improvements, definitely seems heavier than the old one.

That isn’t inconsequential with the sort of mowing I have to do. We’re not talking about walking around in circles, methodically felling long pasture grass. No, I’ve got to make countless sharp changes of direction to miss the countless trees on our property that we’ve planted to satisfy the Green urges of Laurel, a.k.a. Janie Appleseed, my beloved wife.

Even after an hour of wrestling the mower in hot sun around those frustrating obstacles, I still love her. But I hate the trees.

When they were smaller I’d fantasize about rolling right over the bastards and vastly simplifying my field mowing life. However, now most of them are too big to cut down that way. Plus, Laurel would notice the absence of an eight-foot fir. Believe me, I’ve given a lot of thought to this while in the depths of my field mowing hell. She’d notice.

So I yank the mower this way and that, getting as close to their trunks as I can. Hopefully it scares the S.O.B.s. The mower has a reverse gear. But usually I abjure it for short backups. It saves time to pull the machine backward with muscle power. It also uses more energy.

I figure that so long as I can handle this job, I’m not ready for the retirement home. Or the condo with a few potted plants. There’s a genuine satisfaction (I hesitate to call it joy) in tackling the same physically demanding task at the same time every year in just about the same climatic conditions.

It lets me know that, at the age of 57, my bodily capacity isn’t so different from how I was at 47. That’s reassuring. And any seeming difference from last year I can chalk up to the heavier mower.

Laurel sometimes says, “You know, we could always hire someone to do the mowing.” Strangely, I hate the idea of giving up a job that I hate to someone else. For one, I know that they couldn’t do it as well as me.

I know the lay of the land, how you can cut the grass on that steep area by locking the differential, taking a running start, careening up the slope until the wheels are spinning and the front end starts to lift, then backing down with the brake on, trying to avoid running yourself over.

Then, doing it again. Until the slope is done.

As we get older, there’s a tendency to take things easier. I’m trying to resist it.

There’s a point when my mowing hell turns to heaven. It’s when my shirt is soaked through with sweat, the water bottle strapped to my hip is empty, my socks are filled with burrs, my arms are bleeding from limb scratches, and I’ve told the trees how I feel about them by running through every creative string of obscenities in my repertoire.

Bliss.

I’m hot. I’m dead on my feet. I’m dusty. And I feel undeniably real. There’s a reality to my blogging, to my meditating, to my talking with friends, to my Tai Chi, to my watching “The Daily Show.” And then there’s the fucking reality of spending six fucking hours under the July sun mowing fields filled with fucking trees that take a fucking lot of energy to miss.

It’s just so fucking wonderful.

I feel like the luckiest guy in the world. I know that there will come a day—when I’m 70, 80, 90, some day—when I can’t do this any more. But Laurel will have to pry that DR mower out of my hands. Hopefully they won’t be cold and dead.

But there would be worse ways to go. I wouldn’t mind taking my last breath holding onto the handles of my longtime DR companion, out in a hot field with sweat rolling down my face, cursing those trees.

Which, as I’m sure you know by now, I dearly love.

Bush believes embryonic stem cell research is murder

Take a look at this eight-cell human embryo. Does it look like a person? Would using it for stem cell research, rather than destroying it, be murder? President Bush believes so. That’s why he’s going to veto the stem cell legislation passed by Congress.

Today White House Press Secretary Tony Snow was asked by a reporter, “Can you remind us why the President believes that it is more appropriate for stem cells to be thrown away than to be used in this case for medical research?” Snow’s answer:

What the President has said is that he doesn’t want human life destroyed…The President believes strongly that for the purpose of research it is inappropriate for the federal government to finance something that many people consider murder. He is one of them.

That’s insane. If this is true, why aren’t the staff of in vitro fertilization clinics being prosecuted? Hundreds of thousands of excess embryos are in frozen storage at these clinics. Discarding them is common. Using the embryos for stem cell research could result in countless actual human lives being saved. To me, that’s pro-life.

And also to Oregon Senator Gordon Smith, whom I rarely agree with. But on this issue Sen. Smith and I see eye to eye. Here’s what Smith had to say on the floor of the Senate today:

I believe it would be a tremendous loss to science and to all humanity if we choose to hold back the key to unlocking mysteries that have long mystified scientists and physicians. That is why it is so important that my colleagues cast a vote in favor of HR 810, a very pro-life vote.

…After years of reflecting on this issue, it has become increasingly clear to me that being pro-life means protecting both the sanctity and the quality of life. By allowing research on stem cell lines derived from unused IVF [in vitro fertilization] embryos, we could forge a path that will one day lead to cures for some of mankind’s most dreadful medical maladies.

…I do not believe that religion and science are in conflict on this issue. I believe that one of the great gifts of the United States, the best example of the United States to the world, is our pluralism—religious pluralism. It is something that we see in absence, tragically, in too many places of the world

You see blood running in the gutters of the Middle East as we speak, because of sectarian views which are held to the point of murder. We therefore do not serve the public well by taking the narrowest theological positions and trying to impose them on public policy. We should be open enough to include other considerations of ethical ideas, of scriptural interpretations, and scientific hope.

…I believe this is an important debate, and if it’s vetoed, another election will occur. Another chapter of American democracy will be opened. And ultimately the will of the American people will be reflected in our policy. I believe that the sooner, the better.

Absolutely. Come November voters are going to remember which party favored saving human lives, and which party favored saving the bizarre theological speculations of right-wing Christian fundamentalists.

Camp Sherman threatened by Jefferson County

If you love Camp Sherman and the Metolius River, you need to help defend this beautiful piece of Oregon. For the Jefferson County Board of Commissioners is determined to cast aside Camp Sherman values in favor of zoning changes that would foster ticky-tacky development.

As the Friends of the Metolius put it in their July newsletter:

For twenty-five years Camp Sherman folks have worked for sensible, sensitive land use planning for the private land in the Metolius Basin. They have sought rules which would produce development that was small scale, low key, conservative, deliberate, that was protective of the natural values. The proposed revision of the Jefferson County zoning ordinance would severely restrict that approach.

Friends of the Metolius has put together a Save the Metolius web site with everything you need to know about the horribly flawed development plans that Jefferson County is trying to foist upon the Camp Sherman area.

Print out, sign, and mail in their petition to the County to stop the rezoning process until genuine local citizen participation takes place. Read a sample letter to the county commissioners, then write and send in your own plea for them to reconsider their ill-considered plans for the Metolius Basin.

What’s at stake here? Gregory McClarren, president of the Friends of the Metolius, spells it out:

By the end of spring 2006, I believe “war was declared on the Metolius,” one of Oregon’s crown jewels, by the county commission. The proposed revision of the Jefferson County Comprehensive Plan would undo nearly 25 years of protections for the Metolius Basin’s unique charms, open space, and pristine water quality.

Camp Sherman would end up with a greater density of homes and tourist rental accommodations, stream protections would be scaled back, and the unincorporated rural character would be allowed to become more urbanized to help fulfill urban housing needs.

To add insult to injury five parcels in the Basin ranging in size from about 20 acres to over 640 acres would be designated as “eligible and available for destination resort siting,” further increasing loss of wildlife habitat, threatening water quality, and diminishing the Camp Sherman character.

Five large destination resorts. Just what Camp Sherman and the Metolius Basin doesn’t need. Laurel and I are one-fourth owners of a cabin on the Metolius that sits on leased Forest Service land. We love the river. We love Camp Sherman. We love the wonderful rural friendliness and eccentricity of the area.

Especially the Camp Sherman store, where even if everybody there doesn’t know your name, they act as if they did.

It seriously galls me that the Jefferson County commissioners are ready and willing to sacrifice what makes Camp Sherman unique. The Bend Bulletin editorial board says that the commissioners could use a nanny, given how childishly they’ve been handling the Measure 37 claims process.

I’d add, ditto for how they’ve been handling planning for the Metolius Basin. So tell the commissioners how you feel about the prospect of changing the Camp Sherman area much for the worse. That’s what I’ll be doing myself, first thing tomorrow morning.

Blogs or books, it’s cool to comment

These “Pearls Before Swine” comic strips humorously address the sad state of the blogger who doesn’t get comments. I know just how the goat feels.

It’s cool to get blog comments. Or, reader reviews. Last month Boudewijn Koole of The Netherlands made my day when I noticed his lengthy Amazon review of my book about Plotinus. The ending made me smile:

Altogether this is a very valuable introduction into the original philosophy of Plotinos. Not difficult to read, nor does it reduce to meaninglessness the sometimes profound or complex questions that can be posed. On the contrary, this book is often elucidating and inspiring. Very much recommended.

Thank you, Boudewijn. We’ve connected across two continents, which is the beauty of the Internet. You also have inspired me to get off my lazy commenting/reviewing butt and do more connecting of my own.

For someone who loves to get comments on my blogs, I don’t leave many on other peoples’ postings. Usually I don’t even think about it. My mouse finger clicks on another link and, zip, I’m off to somewhere else in cyberspace, having lost the opportunity to say what touched me about the post I just read.

I vow to change my ways. Tomorrow, when I next venture into the blogosphere, I’ll leave a comment or two. I’ll remember how much I enjoyed a brief eleven words from someone who left a comment yesterday about “My grocery list system, a gift to the world.”

Darn good list. I’m a list man myself and I’m impressed.

My friends, pass on praise (or criticism) when it is deserved. Writers will love you for it. A few minutes ago I began to atone for my dearth of Amazon reader reviews by submitting a 5-star review of Linda Hess’ “The Bijak of Kabir.”

Published in 1983, mine is only the second review. I’ve read the book twice and have enjoyed it immensely. I’ve quoted from it on my Church of the Churchless weblog, yet until now never thought of sharing how much I like it.

I’m pretty sure that one day Hess will read my words. I hope she smiles.

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

Bush administration disrespects Wiccans

What’s the deal, President Bush? Your administration touts the importance of religion, yet the Department of Veteran Affairs refuses to put a religious symbol on the memorial for a decorated soldier killed in Afghanistan.

A Wiccan symbol. Sgt. Patrick Stewart of the Nevada National Guard is the first Wiccan killed in combat. But 1,800 Wiccans are on active duty in the armed forces. And applications for the use of the pentacle on grave markers have been pending for nine years.

I hope the several hundred thousand Wiccans in this country bring down upon Bush whatever karmic consequences he deserves for disrespecting this exemplary nature-based religion.

I’ve got a fondness for Wicca. The Belief-O-Matic test, which suggests what religion a person should consider practicing, ranks “Neo-Pagan” second on my list—right after “Unitarian Universalism.” So I guess I’m an Emersonian sort of Wiccan.

Make sure that five-pointed star within a circle is approved soon, President Bush. We pagans are reluctant to bring out the big guns, but we’ll call on the Big Man Upstairs if we have to.

My grocery list system, a gift to the world

I’m hugely proud of my grocery list system. I’ve worked on it for many years, evolving it into a highly refined state. It’s time to offer it to the world. Behold The Hines Household Grocery List!

Click on this thumbnail and let it enlarge (erotic, isn’t it?) so that we can examine the fine points together.

Now, the main use of this list is for my weekly shopping expedition. I’m the designated grocery hunter. I bring back the bulk of the supplies. My goal is to get everything on the list and to waste little time on getting anything that isn’t on the list. Fast and efficient, that’s me in the grocery store.

(See “Moral angst in the grocery store.”)

My wife, Laurel, is the grocery gatherer. She likes to wander around a store looking for interesting new items. To me, that’s an appalling idea. I’ve got better things to do with my life than shop. Like, spending an hour on my laptop writing a blog post about shopping.

This list is in a three-column Word document format. It’s divided between the two stores that I mostly shop at: LifeSource Natural Foods and Fred Meyer. Items in each area are arranged roughly by aisle.

I say “roughly,” because fairly recently both of the stores chose to disrupt my grocery shopping system by remodeling. I had to go through an agonizing period of reshuffling the items into new aisle groupings. Believe me, retirement isn’t stress free.

What’s on the list are our frequently bought items. The bold faced items are generally bought every week. Note the brilliance of my system—how much time it saves. Most of the 1000 discarded grocery lists featured at grocerylists.org are handwritten.

People still living in the dark ages of grocery shopping simply write down what they need, and then go buy it. Yet it’s quicker to circle a regularly-bought item than to write it out. Plus, with the bold faced items, not even circling is required.

However, it pains me to note that a system is only as good as those making use of it. Even though I have instructed Laurel in the Hines Household Grocery List system, she persists in doing her own thing with it. If I die prematurely of a heart attack, this will be the reason.

For example, observe how the first six bold faced items on the LifeSource list are circled. I’m quite sure that is not my doing. The “Fuji (a few)” by Apples is in Laurel’s writing. And is totally acceptable as a clarifying comment, though my focused grocery hunting brain prefers unequivocal instructions such as “(4)” rather than “(a few).”

What isn’t acceptable is the “Butter Buds” written in at the bottom of the Fred Meyer section. Blank spaces on the list are for additional items not on the list. Additional! About a third of the way up the Fred Meyer list you can clearly see “Butter buds.”

It drives me crazy, absolutely insane, to get to the last Fred Meyer aisle, plunk salad mix (broccoli slaw) into the shopping cart, then glance down and see something written in that should have been circled on the list. As I roll my way back to the butter bud aisle, I feel astoundingly sorry for myself.

Of course, I guess I could have glanced at the bottom at the list to see what was there when I entered the store. But I enjoy feeling like a grocery shopper martyr.

Invariably, when I get home and shake the list in Laurel’s face, demanding to know how such a travesty could happen, she shrugs her shoulders and says, “I looked for butter buds but couldn’t find it. So I just wrote it down.”

This is, admittedly, a drawback of my system. The items aren’t arranged in alphabetical order, but by aisle. Some time ago I used to use a grocery list on a Palm Pilot that, if I recall correctly, could reshuffle the alphabetical list into aisle by aisle order. It was cool.

However, it was excessively techno-geeky for me. I could sense that other shoppers were thinking, “Look at that doofus using his Palm Pilot while he’s shopping.” Nowadays most people are talking at their cell phones, so I’d fit in much better.

Well, I think I’ve covered most of my grocery list bases. It isn’t copyrighted, and I don’t expect royalties if you use a modified version. Nonetheless, feel free to leave me in your will if you start using this shopping system and find that it changes your life for the better. As it will.

I was excited to see that grocerylists.org says that it is missing a list from Oregon. I’m just about to email my list off. It may end up in a book! My grocery shopper’s heart is fluttering.

See you at LifeSource or Fred Meyer. I’m the graying guy with an 8 1/2 X 11 well-organized shopping list in his hand, looking superior at the check out counter.

(I don’t know why you’d want to, um, check out the competition. But in the interests of grocery list brotherhood, here are links to My Grocery Checklist and Aisle-by-aisle.)

It's harder to support the troops

The sort of yellow ribbon magnet that I’d be willing to affix to my car would need really small lettering: “Support the troops, but not if they’re committing atrocities, or acting as if the Iraq conflict were a war rather than the occupation that it really is.”

Yes, it’s getting harder to support the troops. What bothers me the most is the attitude, promulgated from the President on down, that we’re engaged in an “Iraq war.” That was only briefly true. Now its an Iraq occupation.

Most of the insurgents that we’re fighting are home-grown, a nationalist reaction to a foreign occupying force. Yes, some are Al Qaeda. But its wrong to consider that every Iraqi who resists the American occupation is a combatant in the war on terror.

That leads to indefensible atrocities like Haditha. Now, I can hear neo-conservative apologists saying, “Don’t convict the soldiers before they’ve had a fair trial.” I’m not. The conviction has already taken place, because no matter what happened at Haditha, it is indefensible.

Either the soldiers knowingly killed innocent people. Or they unknowingly killed them, as the soldiers’ defense lawyers are claiming. They say that the troops entered a home where insurgents were thought to be hiding and went room to room, tossing in grenades and spraying gunfire without checking to see who was inside.

That was allowable under the rules of engagement. Apparently it’s permissible to kill indiscriminately when you’re at war. But if the Iraq conflict were to be considered an occupation, or a police action, it’s hard to see how what happened at Haditha is anything other than negligent manslaughter, if not murder.

What bothers me the most is how unbothered I’ve been about what’s going on in Iraq. Along with most other Americans. We read the news every day about another bombing, more civilian deaths, shortages of essential services, physicians and other needed professionals fleeing the country.

And then we turn the page. On to the comics.

This poem from the June 19, 2006 The New Yorker issue speaks to our distractions. I liked it a lot. Can’t say that I understand it. But that’s the beauty of poetry. Ambiguity.
---------------------------------
A PARTIAL HISTORY OF MY STUPIDITY

Traffic was heavy coming off the bridge
and I took the road to the right, the wrong one,
and got stuck in the car for hours.

Most nights I rushed out into the evening
without paying attention to the trees,
whose names I didn’t know,
or the birds, which flew heedlessly on.

I couldn’t relinquish my desires
or accept them, and so I strolled along
like a tiger that wanted to spring,
but was still afraid of the wildness within.

The iron bars seemed invisible to others,
but I carried a cage around inside me.

I cared too much what other people thought
and made remarks I shouldn’t have made.
I was silent when I should have spoken.

Forgive me, philosophers,
I read the Stoics but never understood them.

I felt that I was living the wrong life,
spiritually speaking,
while halfway around the world
thousands of people were being slaughtered,
some of them by my countrymen.

So I walked on—distracted, lost in thought—
and forgot to attend to those who suffered
far away, nearby.

Forgive me, faith, for never having any.

I did not believe in God,
who eluded me.

--Edward Hirsch

Metolius 4th of July

So here we are at our cabin on fireworks-free Metolius national forest land, carefully scheduling our visit so our loud-noise-phobic dog will escape the trauma of hearing booms and pops, and the early evening thunder has been enormous the past few days.

Serena has spent a lot of time trembling inside closets, defying her name.

There’s some profound philosophical message in this, but the 4th of July isn’t the time for deep thoughts. We spent most of the day walking around, enjoying the special character of this holiday on the Metolius River.

Some cabins are decorated patriotically.

There were low-key parties under the Ponderosas.

The parade down (and up) the river was something to quack about.

This float was pretty cool.

I saw an eagle and its young in these natural sculptures. Don't you?

This isn’t dog abuse. Laurel was trying to get Serena's ears raised, because she always pins them back when a photo is taken.

We sure didn’t have to deal with any crowds today.

Oh yeah, you can do some serious relaxing here.

You want purple and mountain majesties? The upper Metolius has it. USA! USA!

Aside from Lyme disease and a drug reaction, we’re doing fine

For the first time, the dog and I are on our own at our Camp Sherman cabin. Laurel is off at a family reunion in Kentucky. So Serena and I are keeping things interesting by getting Lyme disease (me) and a Xanax drug reaction (dog). Or so I've diagnosed.

Hey, I’m looking at the bright side: it’s blogging material.

I was planning to write about how Lars Larson, the bozo conservative talk show host, thinks that the Surgeon General’s report on the dire health effects of second-hand smoke is a bunch of crap, because Lars took a glance at it via the Internet and has concluded that the 670 page study is, well, just blowing smoke. What an idiot.

But now that I have a disease to blog about, I’ve got to take advantage of it. For usually I’m abnormally healthy. When I get together with my fellow baby boomers I’m left out of the “let me tell you about my [fill in problem]” discussion. Which is just about all we late 50’s and early 60’s folks seem to talk about.

Finally I have my own story. About a week after our last trip to the cabin, Laurel spotted a suspicious growth on my back. “Oh my god, you’ve never had a bump in that place before. It’s irregular and discolored. You must have skin cancer!”

Well, I’m blessed with a wife who is exceedingly health conscious. And a bit prone to over-anxiousness.

Upon closer inspection with a magnifying glass, the “skin cancer” turned out to be an engorged tick. Following the instructions in a Lyme disease pamphlet we had lying around the house (Laurel is nothing if not well prepared) she managed to pull out the critter with some tweezers.

We put it in some alcohol. And I started researching Lyme disease. By email I asked the Oregon Lyme Disease Network for advice, saying that I probably picked up the tick while hiking or biking in the Camp Sherman area. I got a quick response from Theresa Denham, president of the network.

She told me that Camp Sherman has an higher incidence of Lyme disease than other areas and advised me to get the tick tested by the IgeneX laboratory. I sent the tiny demon off to them last Monday by express mail. Haven’t gotten the results yet.

My family doctor said that I should watch out for symptoms, most notable of which is a bulls-eye rash. This afternoon, after taking a shower, I saw what sure looks like that rash surrounding the tick bite. I’ll be seeking medical treatment tomorrow, for sure. The earlier antibiotics are given, the better. I was fortunate to have seen a tick, and to have been bitten in a clearly visible part of my body.

Of course, there’s a chance I don’t have Lyme disease. In that event, I’ll issue a blog retraction. But I’ll still be glad that I alerted people to the need to take precautions against picking up a tick.

There aren’t many reported cases in Oregon (here’s a national incidence map). However, an article in the Portland Oregonian discussed the controversy that is raging about whether under-diagnosis of cases (according to Lyme disease patient advocates) or mistaken self-diagnosis of cases (according to many physicians) is more likely to be happening.

Regardless, take measures to prevent tick bites. And know the symptoms of Lyme disease.

On the dog front, I can report that Xanax doesn’t do squat to relieve Serena’s thunderstorm anxiety. Yesterday, when the thunder started I gave her one 2mg pill. She spent several hours hiding in closets, under tables, and a desk.

Today, I maxed out the vet’s recommended dose (3mg, one and a half pills) and gave it to her about an hour before the thunder started. The difference was that instead of an anxious dog, I now had an anxious, stumbling, seemingly drunken dog. More interesting, to be sure, but no improvement.

This article by a vet about treating thunderstorm phobia points out some of the side effects of alprazolam (Xanax). I saw several of them this evening.

Serena definitely wasn’t herself. Not even her normal anxious self. In the space of a few minutes she first frantically tried to jump on top of me while I was sitting in a chair, then she curled up on the chair, almost instantly fell asleep, and started snoring loudly while I patted her.

I felt very paternal, sitting there with the head of a zonked-out dog in my lap, trying to soothe away both her thunder phobia and Xanax drug reaction. For a while I even forgot about my Lyme disease.

Which I might not have. When my wife phoned from Kentucky tonight she was incredulous about my self-diagnosis. “There are only a couple of dozen cases in Oregon each year,” she said. “You probably don’t have it.”

Well, we will see. Usually I like the feeling of being special. In this case, though, I’d be happy to be utterly commonplace.

(P.S. Forgot to mention that I'm going to try to find some herbal Rescue Remedy in Sisters tomorrow. It's supposed to work for dogs as well as people. Some dog owners say they've had success with it. Again, we will see.]