HinesSight

Why my mother wouldn't attend my high school graduation

Today my granddaughter graduated from Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana, California. I watched via a streaming video. The auditorium was full of proud parents, grandparents, and friends. My daughter sent me a photo of she and her husband with the new graduate.

This brought to mind a memory of my own high school graduation that has quite a bit of pain associated with it. Of course, after 59 years -- I was in the class of 1966 -- both memories and pain fade considerably. 

I'm still bothered by my mother's action though. Which was, choosing to not attend my high school graduation.

She was divorced and never remarried. So it was just her and me living together. My mother was an alcoholic who deteriorated during my junior and senior years in high school.

So there was considerable tension between us. I was having a lot of trouble with her heavy drinking, which caused her to ramble on about uncomfortable subjects from her bedroom while I was trying to get to sleep. Even with a pillow over my head, I could still hear her drunken tirades about me, relatives, and life in general.

The thing that caused her to say "I'm not going" was my reading her a speech I planned to give as my salutatorian address, since I had the second highest GPA in my graduating class.

I wish I'd kept a copy. I can't recall what was in it that irritated my mother so much. All I remember is that she strenuously objected to a mention of my view of current events that didn't fit with her deeply conservative perspective.

I wasn't at all liberal. When I went to college at San Jose State, I put a poster of Barry Goldwater on my bulletin board. My hippie roommate didn't object. Before too long, I had let my hair grow and was using marijuana just as he did.

But in high school, I still mostly adhered to my mother's Republicanism. Not completely, though, or she wouldn't have gotten so upset at my graduation speech.

I'm pretty sure that I was the only member of my class who didn't have a relative attend their graduation. While all my friends had a father, mother, or usually both congratulating them after the diplomas were handed out, I had no one. I drove alone to graduation. 

Of course, I survived. My mother and I grew closer after I went to college.

We weren't emotionally all that close, but she was interested in my studies and supported my decision to go to San Jose State rather than Dartmouth -- which my father and grandfather had attended, and it always had been assumed that I'd get a MBA from Dartmouth, then take over the family materials handling business as the oldest male heir. Echoing my mother, I said "I'm not going...to Dartmouth."

Still, seeing the photo of my granddaughter and her parents made me wish that my mother had been at my own high school graduation. But over the years I've learned that wishes are one thing, and reality is a whole other thing.

Conclusion of Handmaid's Tale inspires resistance against Trump's autocracy

I just finished watching the last episode of the final season of The Handmaid's Tale. It capped a wonderful story spanning six seasons of resistance by June Osborne (masterfully played by Elisabeth Moss) and many others against the dictatorial regime of Gilead -- a religious autocracy that forces women into becoming breeding machines impregnated by rapists who are Commanders of the regime.

It was a difficult series for me to watch. I came to it late, after the first five seasons had concluded. Sometimes I wanted to give up on the Handmaid's Tale. Often, or usually, it was bleak, dark, disturbing. Just when things seemed to be getting better for June and her fellow Handmaids, there would be a backslide into a fresh horror.

Which sums up how I and so many other Americans feel about Trump's second term.

Just as the malevolent rulers of Gilead took over most of the United States, aside from Alaska and Hawaii, instituting their un-American brand of authoritarianism, Trump and his cronies are seeking to take away our freedoms in favor of a MAGA autocracy in which truth is whatever Dear Leader says it is, and if you disagree, you'll be punished for that thought crime. 

That's why it was so pleasing to have the final episodes of The Handmaid's Tale be about a rebellion against Gilead. Sure, a central theme of the entire series has been rebellion and resistance. But those efforts didn't meet with widespread success until the last part of Season 6. 

In the ninth episode that aired last week, June was in desperate circumstances with a noose around her neck. Echoing a somewhat similar scene in Braveheart where "Freedom!" is screamed by a man about to be executed, June yells "Don't let the bastards grind you down!" That was a recurring message in The Handmaid's Tale.

It may seem like hyperbole to equate Gilead with the Trump administration. But really it isn't. Our country is facing a clear and present danger. Not from a foreign enemy. From the enemy of freedom, justice, and our Constitution who currently resides in the White House.

Things are going to get worse before they get better. There will be moments, many moments, when it seems hopeless to resist Trump. After all, he has the power of the presidency behind him, along with Republican control of both houses of Congress and a majority of the Supreme Court that often supports his authoritarianism.

Like June and the other resistance fighters against Gilead, we have to keep on combatting the Trump administration in any way possible. This will vary for different people, depending on our unique circumstances. What's most important isn't the specifics of our acts of resistance, but the determination to keep fighting no matter what, just as June did.

Today The Atlantic had a great piece by Adam Serwer, "The New Dark Age: The Trump administration has launched an attack on knowledge itself." Here's how it starts out. The parallels with the Handmaid's Tale, where books were burned by Gilead and women were forbidden to read, are striking. 

The warlords who sacked rome did not intend to doom Western Europe to centuries of ignorance. It was not a foreseeable consequence of their actions. The same cannot be said of the sweeping attack on human knowledge and progress that the Trump administration is now undertaking—a deliberate destruction of education, science, and history, conducted with a fanaticism that recalls the Dark Ages that followed Rome’s fall.

Every week brings fresh examples. The administration is threatening colleges and universities with the loss of federal funding if they do not submit to its demands, or even if they do. The engines of American scientific inquiry and ingenuity, such as the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, are under sustained attack.

Historical institutions such as the Smithsonian and artistic ones like the Kennedy Center are being converted into homes for MAGA ideology rather than historical fact and free expression. Libraries are losing funding, government-employed scientists are being dismissed from their jobs, educators are being cowed into silence, and researchers are being warned not to broach forbidden subjects. Entire databases of public-health information collected over decades are at risk of vanishing. Any facts that contradict the gospel of Trumpism are treated as heretical.

These various initiatives and policy changes are often regarded as discrete problems, but they comprise a unified assault. The Trump administration has launched a comprehensive attack on knowledge itself, a war against culture, history, and science. If this assault is successful, it will undermine Americans’ ability to comprehend the world around us. Like the inquisitors of old, who persecuted Galileo for daring to notice that the sun did not, in fact, revolve around the Earth, they believe that truth-seeking imperils their hold on power.

By destroying knowledge, Trumpists seek to make the country more amenable to their political domination, and to prevent meaningful democratic checks on their behavior. Their victory, though, would do much more than that. It would annihilate some of the most effective systems for aggregating, accumulating, and applying human knowledge that have ever existed. Without those systems, America could find itself plunged into a new Dark Age.

Here's why an Oregon softball runner was called out twice for leaving a base early

I'm really happy that the University of Oregon softball team is headed to the 2025 College Women's World Series after winning twice over Liberty this weekend in a super-regional matchup in Eugene.

But there were two plays in the first game on Friday that left both the announcers and me wondering, What the heck was that all about?

In each case, Kai Luschar, Oregon's lead off hitter who is noted for her speed and ability to steal bases, was called out after appearing to steal a base following a challenge by the Liberty head coach.

Here's a video that shows the first time Luschar was called out, which cost Oregon a run. I've set the highlights video to begin at the 2:50 mark, which is when the play begins; it ends at 3:50 when the umpire announces that Luschar is called out and the announcers say "What did we miss?"

Well, what they missed was a barely noticeable tiny jump Luschar took off the bag, after which her foot recontacted the bag before she started running to home base after a nicely performed squeeze bunt by a teammate. Here's a screenshot from the video that shows this:

This also appeared to be the reason she was called out later in the game at first base, as described in a story about the game.

For the second time in the NCAA Tournament, the Ducks faced a tied scoreline and a chance to walk it off in the bottom of the seventh.

But for the second time in this game, Liberty challenged a call that would’ve advanced Luschar. The umpires said once again that she left early and it was the third out, sending it to extra innings.

“We’re gonna look back on film and see what’s going on,” Luschar said. “It’ll be fixed tomorrow.”

Best I can understand, Ruschar was called out by the video replay officials because in collegiate softball a runner has to remain in contact with the base until the ball has left the pitcher's hand. In these two cases, Ruschar made her tiny jump before landing on the base and taking off for a steal.

Given the rule below, which I found in a post on X about the play, as soon as Ruschar lost contact with the base she was deemed out, even though the umpire on the field didn't notice her tiny jump each time she did it. 

Oregon softball team was inspiring in winning regional over Stanford

Whenever the University of Oregon softball team makes the post-season, I look forward to watching them even if I didn't see any of their preceding games.

Baseball appeals to me also, but softball -- a woman's college sport -- is more entertaining for me, partly because a game moves along more quickly given the lack of annoying pick-off moves by the pitcher (in softball a base runner can't get a lead until the pitch is thrown) and a game lasts seven innings instead of nine (even shorter if a team is ahead by eight or more runs after five innings due to the run-ahead rule).

This year the Oregon softball team got the #16 seed in the first round of the NCAA tournament. That enabled them to host a regional match-up in Eugene featuring four teams: Oregon, Stanford, Weber State, and Binghamton. 

After Oregon beat Weber State in their first game on Friday, I was looking forward to them kicking Stanford's butt in their second game on Saturday afternoon. Unfortunately, Stanford did the kicking, winning 14-1. This meant that Oregon needed to win three games in a row to come out on top in the regional double elimination tournament.

Saturday evening I fired up my ESPN+ subscription and watched Oregon defeat Weber State, knocking them out of the tournament. Now the Ducks had to beat Stanford twice on Sunday. The first game against Stanford yesterday went well for Oregon. They won 15-5 in six innings after the run-ahead rule was invoked.

That set the stage for a fantastic night game against Stanford. I was ready to cheer the Ducks on, figuring they'd do well given their previous blowout. The first inning, though, made me think that the game wasn't in the cards for the Ducks.

What happened in the bottom of the first was that Stanford had loaded the bases with two outs. When the Oregon catcher camped out under an easily playable foul ball, it looked like the inning would end scoreless. However, the ball popped out of her mitt, giving the batter another chance.

Which the Stanford player made the most of, hitting a grand slam home run that made the score 4-0 just like that. A story in today's Oregonian tells the inspiring tale of what happened next.

Dez Patmon’s walk-off three-run home run punched Oregon’s ticket to host an NCAA Super Regional.

Patmon, who scored the game-tying run after a leadoff triple in the sixth, crushed the first pitch she saw in the seventh to send the No. 16 seed Ducks to a 10-7 comeback win over Stanford in the Eugene Regional final Sunday night in front of a berserk 2,448 at Jane Sanders Stadium.

...Emma Cox, who had a costly error that led to a grand slam in the first, hit a two-run home run in the bottom of the third to make it 7-5.

...“We had some miscues today in both games that could have took us out of it and it didn’t,” Oregon coach Melyssa Lombardi said. “These guys were so on a mission to get what they want. To watch them come together as a team and compete on every pitch was amazing. To me, this was the last little piece that I’ve been waiting on for this team — they have it — they needed to know that whether we’re up, we’re down, it doesn’t matter. These guys can go do and get what they want.”

...The Cardinal loaded the bases with one out in the first. Lyndsey Grein got a pop out to second and had the third out with Economides popping up in foul territory, but the ball went off of Cox’s glove. One pitch later, Economides smacked a grand slam to left.

“There’s going to be tough breaks in any game,” Cox said. “I’m thankful for my coaches and my teammates who pulled me through it. They said, ‘Nope, you’re coming along with us. We’re getting you through.’ If it wasn’t for them, I don’t know where I’d be.”

Lombardi said the freshman catcher’s mental toughness is beyond her years, which allowed Cox to avoid getting down after the drop out in foul territory.

“Sometimes things happen and that’s what I love about this team, is that if something doesn’t go our way, we have your back and to see her reset and move and to hit a bomb and be crucial in this game,” Lombardi said. “I feel like if she’s a young freshman I don’t know if she resets. But she’s not.”

Now Oregon hosts Liberty next weekend in a super-regional two-out-of-three tournament in Eugene. Naturally I'll be watching and rooting for the Ducks, who deserve to go to the Women's College World Series -- which they will if they beat Liberty twice.

Be sure your Starlink power supply matches what your dish needs

I've been a user of the Starlink satellite internet system since January 2021, when I became a beta tester.  I've learned a lot about Starlink over the years, but there's always more to know. 

My message in this post is simple: if you're having a problem with your Starlink, be sure that the power supply is properly matched with your dish. I discovered this the hard way recently.

It all started when I came home in the late afternoon and found that our Starlink broadband had gone offline. Usually restarting the router solves the problem.

That didn't work. I tried other suggestions on the Starlink app on my iPhone, which I could only access with our dreadfully slow cellular connection, just 1-3 Mbps at best. We have a Verizon range extender, but it requires an internet connection. 

I reset the router to factory settings. Didn't work. I switched the router with another Starlink router I'd installed downstairs to form a mesh network for better coverage. Didn't work. Sometimes the router would connect with the dish on our roof, but almost instantly the connection would be lost. That told me the problem likely was with the router, not the dish. 

I'd put in a support request with Starlink, but aside from what looked like a canned response based on the key words in my request, I couldn't contact a real human being. Starlink is a technical marvel but its support can be lacking, as it can take days to get a response. That night I decided to order a new Starlink router from Amazon. The delivery was to be the next day between 5-10 pm.

As soon as 5 pm arrived I started opening the front door frequently to see if the new router had arrived from Amazon. At 7:30, it had. I ripped open the box and replaced the old router with the new one, then waited for the good news.

Sadly, there was bad news.

A red light appeared after several minutes, a sign that the router couldn't connect with the dish on our roof, which happens via a cable. I reset the router. The same thing happened. Now my frustration was really extreme. I'd been convinced that the problem was with the router, not the dish. If the dish needed to be replaced, that was going to be more expensive and take more time.

Still, I started to look at how quickly I could get a new dish, either from Starlink or a local reseller. Staring  at the list of things to purchase on the Starlink web site, I noticed that a DC-DC power supply looked like the AC power supply of our current third generation dish, which is considerably smaller than the power supply that came with the new router I'd just bought. (Starlink used to have a separate power supply for the dish and router; now the dish gets its power from the router.)

That led me to what turned out to be a great idea: use the old power supply with the new router. When I did that, bingo! Almost an instant connection. I'd been correct that the old router was the problem. But I'd assumed that I should use the power supply that came with the new router, which apparently didn't have enough oomph (technical electrical term) to power our dish.

This is the Starlink router that I got from Amazon. 

This is the power supply that came with the router. The output is 30.0V.

This is the power supply that came with the Gen3 dish. The output is 57V. As noted above, I figured that I should use the power supply that came with the new router. After all, the Amazon listing said that the router was compatible with the Gen3 dish. Which it was. But the power supply that came with the router wasn't. At least, not for our Gen3/Version 4 rectangular kickstand dish. 

The day after I got our Starlink working again, I heard from someone at Starlink support that they'd concluded that our router had a hardware problem, and that they'd send me a new router. Of course, I'd already gotten a new router from Amazon, but I was grateful for the Starlink router that arrived in a few days, as now it could be a backup.

There wasn't a power supply in the box that came from Starlink support. Today I tried to order the 57.0V output power supply (UTP-232C) as a backup, but it wasn't available to order. Apparently the only way to be able to buy one is to put in a support ticket, which I've done.

It seems strange that the current router for the standard dish comes with a smaller power supply that, for our dish at least, wasn't strong enough to power both the router and dish. I'm not sure why. I got one of the first Gen3 dishes. Maybe it had a larger power requirement than dishes manufactured later. But this is just a guess.

Anyway, the lesson is that if you're unable to get a new router to connect with your standard Starlink dish, be sure that you're using the correct power supply -- which may not be the power supply that comes with the router.