HinesSight

Blog blast from the 2005 Statesman Journal past

Tonight Laurel, my wife, found a clipping from the August 12, 2005 Statesman Journal. Wow, there I was in the "Got Blogs?" story by Angela Yeager, looking 16 years younger than I do now.

Naturally my first thought was, I've got to write a blog post about how blogs were looked upon back in 2005. 

Yeager did an excellent job at capturing the excitement of the Dawn of Blogging. Below you can read her entire story, which I was pleased to capture with my halfway decent touch typing skill.

My second thought was, I wonder if Google still looks kindly on my blog post about washing lettuce that Yeager mentioned in the story. Sadly, that post has disappeared from a "wash lettuce" search. At least, I gave up looking for it after going through 10 Google search pages.

But the post lives on in all its 2004 glory. So you can still check out "American Splendor/I learn to wash lettuce." Hey, that post has faded from Internet fame, but I bet it still is the only blog post about washing lettuce to mention comic book artist Robert Crumb.

Regarding the other bloggers mentioned in this piece, www.williambragg.com still exists. Way to go, William! Hopefully college student at the time Stacy Austin is still blogging, but I have no way of knowing for sure.

Here's the Statesman Journal story.

Brian Hines has written and published several books during the past 15 years, but felt his work was disappearing into a black hole.

The Salem resident has found another way to reach a much wider audience with his words -- through his two Internet blogs, HinesSight and Church of the Churchless. 

Blogs, or web logs, started in the early 1990s as an offshoot of Web sites. Most were just personal diaries where bloggers could post their intimate thoughts and feelings.

But as Internet popularity rises, so has the use of blogs to do everything from covering political events to posting favorite recipes. The uses are endless, and the popularity of blogs is skyrocketing.

How many people are blogging is a question of debate. A site such as Technorati, a service that tracks blogging topics and trends, estimates that there are 12 million blogs worldwide, up from 100,000 in 2003.

BlogHerald, another blogging tracking site and news service, estimates there are 60 million bloggers.

Hines, 56, said his blog grew out of his growing frustration with the publishing world. He moved to Salem with his wife, Laurel, and the couple reside in a 10-acre country setting south of Salem with their dog, Serena.

His books, including a 2004 meditation on the Greek philosopher Plotinus, seemed to disappear as soon as they hit the shelves.

"The silence is deafening," Hines said over an ice tea at his home.

"With blogs, you write something that takes maybe a day and then it's gone. It belongs to others then. And unlike a novel, within minutes you have instant feedback. You realize you've touched someone."

Hines estimates he gets about 1,000 page views per day on his HinesSight blog, which is daily reflections from his life on "HinesLand," his nickname for his home.

HinesSight is where readers can go to find Hines writing about everything from the best way to get rid of yellow jackets, to the dog parade in downtown Salem, to arguments with Laurel on the proper methods of washing lettuce.

One of the big draws of blogs over a regular web site is that blogs register much higher on search engines such as Google.

For instance, type in "wash lettuce" on Google, and the second highest hit is Hines' blog on his lettuce washing debate with Laurel.

Hines' other blog, Church of the Churchless, takes on more serious subjects such as spirituality, meditation and faith, and only gets several hundred page views a day.

For a writer such as Hines, blogs are heaven sent.

"The frustration of writing books is you spend so long on one piece of work, and then you have to depend on someone else like a publisher to get it out there," he said.

"With a blog, for free or for $100 a year, you've got the whole world at your fingertips."

Citizen journalism
Frustrated writers aren't the only people who use blogs though. Bloggers were at both the 2004 Republican and Democratic National Conventions last year, writing every detail of the political parade on their blogs. This kind of citizen journalism is rising quickly -- resulting in conservative blogs, liberal blogs, blogs for anarchists, Libertarians, Greens and everyone in between.

A search on Orblogs.com, a site where Oregon-based bloggers can register, turns up hundreds of entries. Amateur film critics post their reviews of movies they've seen, music lovers list favorite songs to download or albums to check out and members of the Pacific Northwest Fiber Bloggers post pictures and tips on their latest knitting projects.

If you have an interest or political view, you are guaranteed to find a blog somewhere by someone who shares your view.

Then there are people such as Salem resident William Bragg. A traveler sho works for Willamette Academy, Bragg, 37, and his wife Jeani Bragg, moved to Salem in 1999 so she could take a job at Willamette University. He started his blog, www.williambragg.com, as a way to stay in contact with his friends all over the world.

"I'm just really bad at staying in touch with people," he said.

"I have friends and family everywhere, so it was just an easy way for people to drop in when they wanted and see what was going on with me."

Bragg said he doesn't get too personal on his blog -- the site is too easily Googled.

He posts funny articles that he thinks his friends might be interested in, and sometimes posts on his own favorite subjects -- youth issues, education and the Boston Red Sox.

His entries on the Red Sox were so easy to find that when the team won the World Series last year, he was called by East Coast newspapers to comment because they needed a fan living in the West.

Sometimes the ease of finding a certain subject can be misleading. Bragg said he commented on his blog one time about a guy participating in Klingon Karaoke who had the name Jigar Mehta. People who were searching online for a Miss Norway contestant from Iran who was disqualified for acting in porn movies ended up on Bragg's site, much to his surprise. A fellow blogger clued Bragg in -- apparently "jigar" is also a term for a sexy Iranian female.

Bragg says he also uses his blog as a way to post his photography, which has started to gain some attention. 

He said he has had exhibits at coffee shops in Salem, but also is getting nice feedback online.

Freedom of expression
While his own blog is not updated daily and is more for fun, Bragg says he has friends who are blogging professionally. Some bloggers are finding advertisers for their blogs, or ask people to donate money to them.

And some are getting co-opted by corporations. Bragg said he has a friend who used to write a daily blog about the bands he loves. That music lover still writes that blog -- but now is getting paid by a record company to talk up bands signed to that particular label.

Bragg thinks the democracy of  blogs will only continue to make them popular.

The accessibility can't be beat. Sites such as Blogger.com are free, while ones such as Typepad cost $5 to $9 per month.

"There's nothing romantic about what I'm doing and what other people are doing," Bragg said. "A lot of it is ego. But I think any new form of communication, especially one that gives access to those who wouldn't have it otherwise, is positive.

Hines said he sees a danger when people are only getting information from blogs that agree with their particular life perspective.

For instance, a self-professed liberal such as Hines can post comments on a conservative blog, but he said his comments are deleted immediately.

Staying connected
College students also have found a home on blogs, where they can post personal information, as well as write about their interests.

Stacy Austin, 21, is a political science major at Oregon State University. She writes a personal blog, as well as one related to her summer internship with PolitiCorps, a division of the progressive organization Oregon Bus Project. Austin said she has been using computers since she was 7 and sees blogs as a natural extension of the Internet.

"In the future, blogs and Web sites will be synonymous," she said.

"People always ask me, 'Why do you blog?' You can't really understand unless you blog yourself. They build a community. People who build blogs feel connected. People who read my blog tend to be female and in college. I've had fathers e-mail me and say I remind them of their daughter, that reading my  blog is like connecting to their kids."

Hines said those kinds of connections is the reason that blogs will continue to proliferate.

"In a way, it's a gamble because you're opening yourself up," he said.

"On the other hand, you see these aspects that everyone has strange ideas and no one is 'normal.' You start to realize that the weirdest thing is to be completely normal. It can be a profound experience to realize you are not alone in this world."

Watching Oregon State basketball is my happy drug

It's a natural high -- watching the Oregon State men's basketball team pull out six unlikely victories,  starting with the PAC-12 tournament.

UCLA. Oregon. Colorado. Those underdog wins produced a PAC-12 tournament championship, the only way Oregon State was going to make it into the NCAA March Madness.

Unable to see Oregon State play during the regular season because I'm stuck with DirecTV, which refuses to carry the PAC-12 Network, I became a big admirer of how the team was able to covert their underdog role into top dog wins.

Then came the NCAA tournament.

Tennessee. Oklahoma State. Loyola Chicago -- today's victory. Once again, Oregon State wasn't favored to win any of those games.

They won all three, propelling them into the Elite Eight round, one Monday win away from becoming the only March Madness 12th seed to make it into the Final Four.

I've become a calmer Oregon State fan.

During the PAC-12 tournament I'd get really nervous near the end of a game, because I couldn't believe the team was going to pull off the upset, though I really wanted them to.

Today I watched Oregon State's slow start, glacial really, in a fairly relaxed fashion. Oregonian sports writer John Canzano put it nicely in his column today.

If you closely followed Oregon State’s dismal start to this season, you probably recognized Saturday’s game as a perfect metaphor. Slow start, encouraging middle, and lethal finish. The Beavers couldn’t get easy shots early. They could barely get the ball in bounds, really. But just like this season, something shifted midway through, and Tinkle’s team took control.

Ethan Thompson, a senior guard, deserves much of the credit for the win over Loyola Chicago. Whenever he had the ball, my nervousness ratcheted down a notch. 

Thompson makes very few mistakes. He's cool, calm, collected. When he's fouled, he hardly ever misses a free throw, looking even at the end of a close game like he's playing for fun in his back yard.

Jarod Lucas, a sophomore guard, is more erratic. Lucas usually plays solidly, but at times he gets a bit frantic, especially in comparison to Thompson's steadiness.

Today Lucas hit a three near the end of the game that, as the cliche goes, put a dagger into Loyola Chicago's comeback hope. He's a confident shooter, as befits his record as the third leading scorer in California high school history.

Then there's forward Warith Alatishe.

He's a highly entertaining player. Alatishe's jumping ability is amazing. He's a terrific rebounder and makes scoring over opposing players look easy, because he's shooting from such an impressive jump-shot height.

Center Roman Silva is the jumping antithesis to Alatishe. I don't recall ever seeing Silva leave the ground. Of course, when you're 7' 1" you don't need to do a lot of jumping to score or rebound. 

Silva is an appealing throwback to an earlier basketball time -- when centers played with their back to the basket and used guile to score rather than athleticism. He's a solid defender and contributes a lot to the Oregon State team, though Silva isn't a flashy highlight reel player.

Like all great teams, Oregon State is much more than the sum of its parts, the individual players. The team has excellent chemistry, buttressed by fine coaching. 

I love watching them play. After each win, I feel really good. Not just because Oregon State won, but how they won.

With teamwork. With determination. With energetic defense. With clutch offense. With solid free throw shooting. 

Monday they play either Syracuse or University of Houston for a trip to the Final Four.

Win or lose, Oregon State has become the Cinderella team of the NCAA tournament, a huge accomplishment given the preseason prediction that they'd end up at the bottom of the PAC-12 standings.

Trump's inept Covid response killed about 400,000 people

It's been clear for a long time that Donald Trump caused many thousands of Americans to die needlessly because of his astoundingly inept response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

What's been in question is how many. 

Thanks to Andrew Akteson, a UCLA professor, we now have an answer: nearly 400,000 deaths could have been avoided if the United States had done things differently and better.

That's an astoundingly tragic number. 

Not all of those unnecessary deaths are Trump's direct responsibility. But most are, since he oversaw our country's Covid response when strong public health actions could have markedly reduced the death toll.

Here's an excerpt from a Washington Post story, "A better pandemic response might have saved hundreds of thousands of lives -- and Trump's presidency."

One year after the coronavirus pandemic began, the United States has been reshaped in remarkable ways. One of every 600 people alive at the beginning of last year has died of covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. Millions more have been infected with it, with some part of that group enduring lingering symptoms. Millions of people remain out of work.

The ship is turning. Multiple massive economic support packages have passed — the most recent by the Democratic-controlled Congress and White House. Millions more people have been vaccinated against the virus than have contracted it over the past several months. But there’s still the nagging question: What could have been different?

Such questions are hard to answer in real time, depending on the slow gathering and analysis of information. But we're starting to find some answers, including ones that offer a pointed political lesson.

It’s likely that the government’s response to the pandemic led to hundreds of thousands of deaths that could have been prevented. And it’s likely that the pandemic response cost Donald Trump the presidency.

The first point is a particularly contentious one. In the past, there's been analysis comparing the U.S. response to other countries, finding it lacking. Last summer, for example, researchers compared the American response to other countries, showing how their more muscular approaches tamped down the relative death toll.

More recently, research from Andrew Atkeson of the University of California at Los Angeles determined that implementation of robust efforts to halt the spread of the virus last May — widespread testing, mask mandates — could have held the country’s death toll below 300,000 in total.

His model estimates that the country will reach 672,000 deaths overall as vaccines are rolled out, one of every 490 Americans alive at the beginning of last year. That’s a gap of nearly 400,000 deaths.

Trump didn't embrace such mechanisms.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were recommending the wearing of masks as early as April of last year, but Trump declined to do so. That helped bolster a partisan response to the pandemic, with Trump advocating for states to stay hands off — largely, it seems, out of concern that reductions in economic activity would hurt his reelection bid.

Trump is the worst president the United States ever has had. Thankfully, many, if not most, of Trump's destructive actions will be undone by the Biden administration and a Democratic congress.

However, what can't be undone are the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people who are no longer with us because of Trump's horrible decision to downplay the seriousness of COVID-19 and failure to implement a competent national response to the pandemic.

Everyone who voted for Trump in the 2016 election also bears some responsibility for those deaths. After all, it was an open secret that Trump disdained science and had no interest in making government a better servant of the people.

So when the pandemic hit and we needed a president who embraced science and a robust government response, all we had was a man in the White House who acted like a clown.

Which would have been funnier if almost 400,000 people hadn't died for no good reason because of Trump's antics.

Oregon State men's basketball team is heart-stopping fun to watch

Whew!

My heart rate has slowed down enough to enable me to share some praise of the Oregon State basketball team that just beat Oklahoma State -- getting Oregon State into the Sweet 16 round of NCAA's March Madness.

Their first win in the tournament over Tennessee was wonderfully satisfying.

Tonight's win was even better, in part because Oklahoma State has Cade Cunningham, a great player who might be the #1 pick in the NBA draft.

Oregon State is a delight to watch.

The team has great chemistry. When a starter is faltering, or in foul trouble as Ethan Thompson was in the first half against Oklahoma State, a reserve steps up big time.

After Oklahoma State made two three-pointers in quick succession, one after a turnover, it seemed like this might be a close, but not quite game for Oregon State. 

But even after a 18-point lead dwindled to just three points near the end of the game, Oregon State pulled things together and ended up with a 80-70 victory.

Ethan Thompson was supremely solid in the final minutes. He made free throw after free throw as Oklahoma State fouled in a desperate attempt to make a comeback. 

Thompson also handled the ball really well when Oregon State needed a steady hand against the Oklahoma State press. 

It was a great day all around for Oregon State. I watched the women's basketball team win their NCAA tournament opener against Florida State by a score of 83-59.

And the University of Oregon men's and women's teams play tomorrow. Almost certainly an Oregon team will lose eventually, but right now our state is looking good in the NCAA tournaments.

Goodbye, print Statesman Journal and Oregonian. We went digital.

Today was a day that I never thought would arrive -- the day my wife and I decided to stop getting home delivery of the Salem Statesman Journal and Portland Oregonian.

Given our age, early 70s, we grew up reading newspapers printed on dead trees that crinkled when you turned the pages.

Laurel and I both like print newspapers. 

But we also like seeing the Statesman Journal and Oregonian in the paper box at the end of our driveway. And increasingly, that wasn't happening.

Our neighbors reported the same thing was happening to them. So even though I registered a complaint every time this occurred, which was often, the delivery still was erratic.

Plus, for four years I've subscribed to the online editions of the New York Times and Washington Post. 

I find it easy and pleasant to read those newspapers on my computer, iPad, or iPhone.

So it finally dawned on me that I could do the same with the Statesman Journal and Oregonian, though neither has a web site as clean and easy to navigate as the Times and Post.

Thus today I phoned customer service at the Oregon newspapers and changed our subscriptions to digital only. 

That resulted in big savings. The Statesman Journal went from $59 a month to $10. The Oregonian went from $54 to $23. 

Bottom line: instead of paying $113 a month for the two papers, now we're paying $33 -- $80 a month less. 

It felt like a bittersweet moment, talking to the customer service people. I've gotten home delivery of the Statesman Journal for 44 years, ever since moving to Salem from Portland in 1977.

Holding a newspaper in my hand as I eat breakfast has been a part of my life for much longer. As long as I can remember, actually. 

OK, as a kid I probably focused on the comics. Which is still one of the favorite parts of the Oregonian for my wife, in large part because of Pearls Before Swine, a pleasingly acerbic comic strip.

After I switched to digital only, I couldn't find the comic strips on the Oregonian's oregonlive.com site. I also couldn't find the TV sports listings that I frequently refer to in the print paper. 

But after logging into my Oregonian account I found the e-newspaper that looks just like the print newspaper, insofar as a paper on a screen looks like a printed paper.

That solved the problem of comics and TV sports listings. (The Statesman Journal also has an e-edition, but I prefer the Oregonian for everything other than the few Salem stories in our local newspaper.)

So right now I have no regrets about going all-in on digital newspapers. Should mention that I also subscribe to the digital Salem Reporter for about $8 a month.

Thus I'm getting a healthy dose of daily news for not a whole lot of money per month: $15 New York Times, $15 Washington Post, $10 Statesman Journal, $23 Oregonian, $8 Salem Reporter -- $71 a month total.

That's just $12 a month more than I was paying each month for Statesman Journal home delivery. Going digital is a lot more cost-effective, for sure. 

I suspect print newspapers will become extinct before too long. Us baby boomers probably are the last generation to have a longstanding love affair with holding a print newspaper in our increasingly wrinkled hands.

Young people probably can't understand that infatuation, having grown up with smart phones and other electronic devices in the same way us old folks grew up with paper, pencils, and slide rules. 

(Google "slide rule" youngsters, if you have no idea what I'm talking about.)

Been married for 31 years today. But I'm not great at proposing.

In 1990 Laurel and I got married on St. Patrick's Day, March 17. Great decision.

I've never forgotten our anniversary, not even once in the past 31 years, because an image of green beer always makes me think, "Time to get flowers and a card!"

Shock (not). We looked much younger when we were much younger. Our wedding was at the house we'd bought a few months before in Spring Lake Estates, where we're still living.

My only regret about our wedding was how I'd botched my marriage proposal. On the plus side, it was spontaneous, though I'd been thinking about it for some time.

On the negative side, the proposal was so wishy-washy, Laurel paused for a few seconds after I'd stammered out what I had to say, then said, "Um, are you asking to marry me?" 

Naturally I responded with an emphatic "Yes!"

Not to excuse how I screwed up what could have been a much more magical moment for Laurel (she hadn't been married before), but the proposal was an improvement from my first marriage.

That took place when I was 22 and still in college. I don't recall ever proposing to Sue.

Somehow the decision to get married just happened -- unless the psychedelics I'd taken in my college years caused me to blank out on how we ended up getting married in a Palo Alto park by the crazed Greek Christian yoga teacher we'd been taking classes from, with sitar and tabla players from the Ali Akbar Khan School of Music.


Laurel and I got married in a more traditional fashion -- albeit by a Unity minister who we'd only met once before, and who had to keep referring to a piece of paper to make sure she had our correct names.

The cake had a leaning tower of Pisa feel to it. No big deal, though we were a bit nervous about the whole thing falling over before it could be eaten. Which didn't happen.

Metabolism myths about diet, exercise, and weight loss

Science rocks. It's by far our best way of understanding reality. 

But most of us, me certainly included, often are prone to embracing folk wisdom rather than science when it comes to losing weight.

I'm six feet tall and 178 pounds at the moment -- though sadly, my long-term trend (I'm 72) has been to lose a bit of height and gain a bit of weight. 

Since I'd like to get to about 175 pounds and know how difficult it is for me to lose even a few pounds, I was eager to read the front page story in the February 27 New Scientist issue, "Metabolism Myths: Seven Things We Get Wrong About Diet and Exercise."

The author, Herman Pontzer, has impressive credentials. Here's the bio on his Amazon page.

How did the human body evolve, and how does our species' deep past shape our health and physiology today? Through lab and field research, I investigate the physiology of humans and apes to understand how ecology, lifestyle, diet, and evolutionary history affect metabolism and health.

I'm also interested in how ecology and evolution influence musculoskeletal design and physical activity. Field projects focus on small-scale societies, including hunter-gatherers and subsistence farmers, in Africa and South America. Lab research focuses on energetics and metabolism, including respirometry and doubly labeled water methods.

(He's written a recently released book, Burn: New Science Reveals How Metabolism Shapes Your Body, Health, and Longevity.)

These are the Seven Metabolism Myths in the New Scientist story, along with excerpts. Some surprised me. Some didn't. Bottom line: if you want to lose weight, likely you've got to reduce calories. There's no short cut.

Remember: the boldfaced headlines are myths. 

(1) Exercise burns through calories and boosts metabolism. It is the bedrock belief of pretty much every workout routine featured in magazines: exercise more, burn more calories. In the short term, it is correct – you burn energy while you are exercising, and if you start a new workout routine, you will burn more calories, at least in the beginning. But recent studies show just how dynamic and adaptive our metabolisms can be.

...Daily expenditures measured for participants in exercise studies routinely increase at the beginning of a new workout regimen, but those gains diminish over time. Their bodies adapt, so that within a few months, the daily energy they burn is only marginally higher, and sometimes exactly the same, as before they started working out. The boost is a bust.

(2) Exercise will make you lose weight. Even those who do manage to increase the amount of energy they burn through exercise typically still find it hard to lose weight. A recent review of 61 exercise studies, totalling more than 900 participants, lays out the grim evidence that will be familiar to many.

Weight loss often starts off well at the beginning of a new exercise regime, but it fades over time, so that a year or so later, the weight lost is a vanishing fraction of what we would expect from all the calories burned through working out.

...The reason for this is frustratingly simple: when you burn more calories, you eat more calories. You might not mean to, of course, but that is the problem. The complex systems working subconsciously to regulate your hunger and satiety do an exceptional job of matching energy intake to expenditure. 

(3) Your workout programme isn't succeeding unless you are losing weight. Not losing weight? Don’t give up! Exercise might not change the number on your bathroom scales, but that isn’t what it is for. Humans evolved as hunter-gatherers, and a heavy dose of physical activity was an inescapable part of the daily routine for more than 2 million years.

Our bodies are built to move, and there are good reasons why the Hadza avoid heart disease and diabetes, despite the fact that they burn the same amount of calories as sedentary people. Regular exercise keeps our hearts healthy, our muscles strong and our minds sharp, especially as we age.

Intriguingly, recent studies suggest that the metabolic adjustments that frustrate weight loss are a big reason why exercise is so good for us. My lab and others are working to track down the precise nature of these changes, but it seems our bodies respond to increased daily activity by reducing the energy expended on other tasks.

(4) Calories don't matter. Gaining weight is fundamentally a physics problem: when we eat more calories than we burn, those extra calories pile up as fat. Since it is futile trying to boost the energy we burn each day with exercise (or superfoods, or ice water, or the latest gimmick), the primary cause of being overweight or obese is clearly diet. We gain weight because we eat too much.

Yet counting calories has become passé. We are told it is the types of foods we eat, or the way that we eat them, that get us into trouble, and that the “calories in, calories out” view of the world is for suckers. Low-carb evangelists tout ketogenic diets – which rely heavily on fat, rather than carbohydrates – as a way to lose weight without cutting calories (some even claim you can eat more). Intermittent fasting fanatics promise much the same.

...If you are attempting to lose weight, the trick is to find a diet that you can maintain without feeling miserable. Foods high in protein and fibre tend to make us feel full. It also helps to avoid crash diets that can cause our clever, evolved metabolisms to hit the brakes and reduce daily energy expenditure.

(5) Humans evolved to eat a Paleo diet. Striving to eat the kinds of foods our ancestors ate makes intuitive sense. But emulating ancient diets, the idea behind the fashionable Paleo or “caveman” diet movement, in which people eat similarly to how our ancestors did in the Palaeolithic era, isn’t as straightforward as it might appear.

Cast your mind across the dizzying array of cultures on this planet, and consider the staggering variety of foods we eat. Clearly, there is no single human diet today, and it would be laughable to claim otherwise.

...Hunter-gatherer diets are (and were) just as diverse as diets in industrialised populations, with lots of variety among groups and through time in the proportions of meat and plants, fat and carbs. Some diets, particularly those of Indigenous people in the Arctic, are meat-heavy; others, especially in warmer climates, are plant-heavy. 

(6) A slow metabolism dooms you to obesity. Like most other biological traits, the amount of energy burned in a day varies from person to person. Daily energy expenditure in two people who are the same age and sex, and have the same lifestyle, can easily differ by 500 calories or more. Surprisingly, that variation in energy use doesn’t predict someone’s weight.

People with obesity have the same daily energy expenditure, on average, as those who are slim. That’s after accounting for body size, since a larger body tends to burn more calories per day simply by virtue of having more cells at work. If we don’t correct for size, people with obesity burn more energy. Weight gain and obesity aren’t products of a slow metabolism.

So why do some people find it easy to stay trim while others struggle? Although there is probably no single answer, a major factor seems to be the way our brains are wired. For most, weight gain comes on slowly over months and years, reflecting tiny errors in the regulation of energy intake.

The vast array of processed and engineered foods available to us overwhelms neural reward systems evolved to handle unprocessed wild foods. Our brains err on the side of overconsumption.

(7) Obesity and weight gain are a sign of personal failure. As powerful as our genes are, DNA isn’t destiny. Today’s gene pool is essentially unchanged from that of our great grandparents’ generation because genetic change is slow. They didn’t face a global obesity crisis. What’s different in much of the world is our environment, specifically our food environment – the access we have to specific foods.

In engineering our industrialised world, we have surrounded ourselves with foods that drive us to overconsume. The battle with obesity is often framed as a test of willpower, pitting the virtues of exercise and portion control against the vices of gluttony and sloth. New metabolic science says otherwise. Shops are stocked with ultra-processed foods, laden with added sugars and oils, symphonies of sweet and savoury that overwhelm our Palaeolithic brains.

...In wealthy countries, ultra-processed options often dominate the foods available in low-income neighbourhoods and those where the majority of inhabitants are from minority groups, contributing to inequities in health and nutrition. In low and middle-income countries, the growing dependence on ultra-processed foods has helped to fuel the global rise of obesity and related disease. 

Making daylight savings time permanent is a must, Congress

Tomorrow at 2 am Daylight Savings Time returns. May it never depart again. 

Late fall and winter already are depressingly dark. Losing an hour of late afternoon sun in November, when Daylight Savings Time ends, means that doing anything outside at that time is dreary, if not impossible. 

Fortunately, there seems to be a good chance Congress is going to do away with the twice yearly clock changeover. So says a LA Times opinion piece.

It’s nearly that time of year again when Americans reset their clocks one hour ahead, grumble about losing an hour of sleep — and wonder why on Earth we keep observing the outdated tradition of tinkering with time twice a year.

...But inertia is a powerful force. We keep doing it because we’ve been doing it. And with more important issues commanding the attention of Congress, lawmakers must find it a lot easier just to follow this pointless tradition than to take to the time to examine it.

Nevertheless, momentum is building nationally to dump this practice and stick with daylight saving time year round. (In the event you are confused — and many of us are — daylight saving is recognized for the eight months from March to November; standard time is what we revert to for the other four months.)

...Time may be running short for the clock-changing foolishness. This week Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) reintroduced a bill that would put the nation on permanent daylight saving time. It’s the third time he has proposed this change since 2018, when his state’s Legislature voted in favor of stopping the time shift. Earlier versions didn’t get very far. This time may be different, however, because Rubio has enlisted the support of seven other senators from both parties.

At the very least, Congress should allow states to decide if they want to remain on Daylight Savings Time. (Currently states can stay on standard time if they wish, but not on Daylight Savings Time.)

In 2019 Oregon's legislature voted to have our state be permanently on Daylight Savings Time. But Congress needs to act if this is to happen. 

Sure seems like this would be popular. Especially with people who enjoy getting out and doing something after work. Or, for retired people like me, going for a late afternoon dog walk in daylight.

There's tricks to chainsawing that I don't know

I'm a chainsaw middle schooler, I suppose. Meaning, I've learned quite a bit over the 25 years or so I've occasionally used a small Stihl chainsaw on our property in rural south Salem.

But in no way do I feel totally comfortable with a chainsaw.

A feeling that I was reminded of today when I tackled a challenging tangle of logs that had fallen during the recent ice storm on a common property trail that runs behind our property to Spring Lake.

Yesterday I had the good fortune to stop by Ace Hardware and discover that they finally had some chainsaws in stock after being sold out after the ice storm. I had my eye on a larger Stihl chainsaw with easy start and a quick chain adjuster that doesn't require tools.

So I walked out with an 18 inch MS 251 CB-E. It's in the foreground above, with my old chainsaw behind it. (I'd recently had Ace Hardware replace a broken chain on the old saw, and they flipped the bar as you're supposed to do, which is why the "Stihl" now is upside down.)

Reading the MS 251 instruction manual last night, mainly to learn about how easy start and the quick chain adjuster worked (really simply, pleasingly), I couldn't avoid seeing the many warnings in the manual about all the ways a chainsaw can kill or maim you. 

That led me to order the helmet with ear protection and a visor perched in-between my two chainsaws. Amazon offered next day delivery so I was able to use the helmet this afternoon. I'd always worn leather gloves and eye protection, but having the helmet on made me feel even better.

My wife walks to the lake most mornings. She said it was difficult to make her way through the fallen trees and branches. Though I didn't take a "before" photo, my chainsawing definitely made it a lot easier to walk this part of the path.

The MS 251 Stihl chainsaw worked fine after a few stalls, probably caused by it being brand new. It cut through fairly thick logs with no problem. However, I had some difficulty with the chain getting stuck -- my biggest fear when using a chainsaw (other than being killed or maimed).

This happened two times. It was near the end of a cut of a log that was laying either on the ground, or just barely off the ground, preventing me from making a cut on the underside. 

Here's a similar log that I had cut almost all the way through, then abandoned when I could feel the shifting large log start to bind the chain. Since it was laying on the ground and easy to step across, I didn't want to take the risk of having my new chainsaw get stuck on its maiden cutting voyage.

I'm sure there are You Tube videos that would show me how to deal with this issue. The photo above shows the basic problem. 

The instruction manual illustrated what I already knew from my previous chainsaw experience. When a log is curved, as this one is, you're supposed to make a first cut on what the manual calls the compression side.

Meaning, the side that is going to be compressed when the log is cut through. In this case that's the top of the log with the inward curving shape. Then you make a second bucking cut on the tension side, which would be the bottom of the log.

Problem is, the manual shows a log extending over a slope with the bottom of the log easily reachable.

In this case, I couldn't get the chainsaw under the log, since it is laying on the ground. So I left this log alone, being worried that if I tried to cut all the way through from the top, I'd have a stuck chainsaw.

Likely there's a fairly easy solution to this problem. I just need to find it.

Walking back to our house, I took some photos of downed trees on our property that show how long it is going to take to clean up all of the damage from the ice storm.

These trees on the easement trail await someone with a bigger chainsaw and more expertise. We can walk over and under them. Horse riders will have more of an issue with them.

Some redwoods we planted a long time ago (in background) did fine in the ice storm. Other trees, not so much.

There's a lot of damage along the creek that leads to Spring Lake.

Soon after the ice storm we cleared a tangle of branches that prevented us from walking across the creek. Getting them to a burn pile will take a lot more work.

This sort of sight is repeated all through our ten acres, except right around our house, which is looking pretty much normal with the help of Noberto Flores and his crew.

At least this downed tree is close to the field we use for burning in the spring and fall.

Laurel, my wife, has created some wood art in our yard by arranging cut pieces of large oak branches. The giant mushroom is fake.

We'll have plenty of firewood once the oak is seasoned.

Even after quite a bit of what went through a chipper has been spread around, there's still a big pile left.

The chips make for an attractive path, and don't seem to bother dog paws.

"The Great" is, well, great! Here's why I liked it.

My wife and I came late to The Great, an engrossing ten-episode series on Hulu that is (very) roughly based on the story of Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia. 

It was released on May 15, 2020. We discovered it last month after looking for something else on Hulu, noticing The Great, and having my wife say, "I've heard it's pretty good."

From that moment we watched The Great almost every night until we finished the last episode yesterday. Thankfully, Season 2 is in the works, because we loved the show.

It's like nothing else I've ever seen -- not on television, not on the big screen. 

There's so much to admire about The Great. Here's some of what kept me firing up Apple TV and clicking on Hulu night after night.

History, what history? Yes, there are aspects of The Great that are historically correct. However, the overall tone is wildly 21st century, not 18th century. The characters speak like people today, albeit with an even greater use of "fuck." 

At the start of every episode there's an asterisk next to the title that says, "An occasionally true story." That's accurate.

The Great doesn't look like I'd expect Russia in 1761 to appear, assuming I knew anything about Russia at that time. 

The accents are British English, by and large. The clothes worn by those hanging around the court of Emperor Peter often look quite modern. The sun always appears to be shining and it's warm enough to lounge around outside.

All of that contributes to the story of Catherine and Peter, who she has been betrothed to in an arranged marriage of sorts, rather than detracting from it. 

The craziness of The Great, the contradictions, the jarring confluence of olden times and modern attitudes and ways of speaking -- all that drew me in like a cinematic magnet. Endless surprises kept my attention glued to the TV screen for all 10 episodes.

Strong woman plus jerk of an emperor equals fascination. All of the actors in The Great are terrific. But Elle Fanning as Catherine and Nicholas Hoult as Peter are the most watchable.

They take different trajectories as Season 1 progresses.

Catherine starts off as a nice woman thrown into a marriage with an asshole of an emperor. Bit by bit she finds her inner empress, taking on some of the ruthlessness of Peter.

Meanwhile, Peter becomes increasingly likable, though by no means a nice guy. He finds his softer side, while Catherine hardens up. She isn't Russian, but realizes that if she wants to change Russia into a more refined and democratic nation, she has to become as tough as Russians are.

Catherine is a character that bears some resemblance to what I've seen before in movies. Peter, though, is unique, thanks to the astounding talent of Hoult.

Peter is Trumpian, though without Trump's most irritating qualities.

Yes, Peter is narcissistic, controlling, authoritarian, cruel, uncaring. Yet he also has a sense of humor, can laugh at himself, is open to suggestions, and appealingly transparent.

Like Trump, Peter is unashamedly himself at all times. But I liked Peter hugely more than Trump.

I think it's because you can see the humanity in Peter lurking below the surface, which isn't the case with Trump, who is a jerk all the way down.

Peter is somewhat conflicted about being Emperor of Russia, while I have no doubt that Trump would have zero doubts about being Emperor of the United States. At any rate, Peter commands the viewer's attention whenever he is on screen, as is the case with Catherine.

It's a wild and crazy court. I'm not saying that I'd like to be part of the emperor's court as shown in The Great, since in the long run it would be stressful and exhausting. However, they sure do have a lot of fun.

Assuming your definition of "fun" includes shooting inside the palace, having sex whenever, wherever, and with whoever strikes your fancy, prodigious drinking and eating, making the heads of your enemies a table decoration, and so on.

The excesses washed over me in a pleasing waterfall of decadence. There's never a dull moment in Peter's court, that's for sure.

I really liked the frequent exclamations of "Huzzah!," a catch-all outcry that has no real equivalent in English, with "Yay," "Hooray," "Right-on," coming closest I guess, along with the Marine Corps' "Oorah."

"Huzzah" became so appealing to me, I'd like to make it part of our language.

Peter and the rest of his court said it before smashing their glasses on the floor, as a gesture of solidarity, as indicating approval of something someone did or said, and in other intriguing ways. 

As I suspected, that term isn't part of Russian culture, according to the Russia Beyond web site.

“If you had a drink every time someone in The Great said ‘Huzzah’, you’d be drunk before the end of the first episode,” is a joke currently doing the rounds among Russian Twitter users.

And that’s not surprising - in the new (not so) historical comedy series about the Russian Empress, with Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult in the lead roles, this exclamation of delight comes at the end of pretty much every piece of dialogue.

In fact, “Huzzah!” is essentially the equivalent of the traditional Russian exclamation “Ura!” (the Russian for “Hooray!”), which usually denotes excitement, joy after achieving a set goal or defeating someone, or a war-cry. 

Here's the trailer for The Great.

Tree cleanup guys are the new Salem-area heroes

Ah, what a difference it made to my mood having tree debris from the recent ice storm cleaned up from our rural south Salem yard.

We'd done a lot of picking up small branches ourselves. And I'd been able to cut some larger limbs with my small 16-inch chainsaw.

But there was no way I could handle the big limbs from a giant oak that fell on our lawn. That required a bigger chainsaw and younger muscles than I possess.

So for almost three weeks my wife and I have been staring at a mass of tangled branches whenever we looked out of our living and family room windows.

That was disturbing, in part because one of the branches had landed on one of our favorite trees, a large Japanese Maple with purple leaves, leaving only a jagged remnant of the trunk.

Every time I looked in that direction, I'd think of the tree that no longer was there -- how beautiful it was for so many years, and how long it will take for a replacement tree to reach the size it was.

Thus it lifted my spirits today when Noberto Flores and his crew came out with a wood chipper and chain saws to deal with our branch mess. 

We've had Noberto do a lot of work on our property: pruning, dead tree cutting, walkway renovation, putting pavers and a retaining wall in our dog yard, removing brush around our house for wildfire purposes.

But I don't think I've ever been as happy to see Noberto as I was this morning. He did most of the chainsaw work himself, while his guys hauled stuff up to an area near the chipper.

Here's photos of what their hard work produced.

I neglected to take "before" photos. So just envision lots of downed trees and branches and you'll have a sense of what we've been looking at since the ice storm.


Or imagine these piles at the turnaround area of our driveway scattered across the 
"after" photos above.

Noberto even was able to get what's called a widowmaker branch down from one of the two large fir trees that overlook our house. 

I have no desire to make my wife into a widow, given what that would mean for my remaining life span (zero), so every time I walked under that branch I wondered if I'd hear a crack before it fell.

Noberto threw a line over the top of the branch, then was able to pull on it until it hit the ground. Not on my head, or anyone else's head, an excellent outcome.

After he'd cleared our top priority area, Noberto and his crew turned to the many oak trees that surround our house, looking for broken branches.

They found a lot today, so the chipping is going to have to wait for their next visit, maybe tomorrow.

Here's Noberto working in a tree near our well enclosure.

I don't like to stand on the top of a tall ladder, especially when it is against a tree. However, Noberto has been doing this work for many years, so he's confident in what he's doing, while I'm not. 

During his lunch break I thanked Noberto for making our yard look more or less normal again. I told him that even though we have many trees on our natural ten acres, thousands, I'm sure, it hurts to lose a tree that you love.

He agreed, noting that in the city people may have just one or two large trees on their lot. If one of them was lost in the ice storm, that's a big emotional hit -- way bigger than we've endured, given that we're surrounded by trees in all directions.

Seeing a fallen tree laying in your yard for days on end is sort of like having a dead body in your living room. You want to start forgetting about the death, but that's tough to do when the deceased is so visible.

So many thanks to all of the tree crews, both private companies and public workers, who have been working so hard since the ice storm to restore some normalcy to our hard-hit area of the Willamette Valley.

You're deeply appreciated.