Out of the Darkling Wood

Better Deduction Than Many I Could Name...

I've been watching DVDs tonight for the first time in several weeks. And my cat Montano is on it. Whenever I use the remote, he gets extra alert and stalks all over the living room floor. Finally I realized: he thinks it's the laser pointer, or possibly the laser pointer's big brother, and is looking for the red dot to chase. The shapes are in fact similar, and it's a better bit of reasoning than some of my noisier customers engage in.

Why, yes, Men at Work, I can...

I woke up from a nap this afternoon to genuine thunder, and I'm typing this with a smile. It's quite rare in the Pacific Northwest - we get lots of rain, but the very complexities of air movement that make for these wonderful cloudscapes get in the way of big cumulus masses. So it's with great pleasure that I hear the thunder.

Picture of the week: Spring flowers

I have a new .Mac gallery of spring flowers up. Of these, this riot of colors and textures is my favorite. So that's my picture of the week.

Dr. James Dobson and me (well, my family)

Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family et al has been in the news rather a lot lately, and there's been a great deal of discussion about his views on family life. As it happens, I got to see what he was actually like as a father back before he was a really big name on the national scene. This was, hmm, pause to count on fingers...the early 1980s, and my younger brother was in a Boy Scout troup with Ryan Dobson, the Dr.'s son. That was at the Church of the Nazarene, in Pasadena, California.

Ryan was possibly the most spoiled, least self-disciplined kid I've ever encountered.

The Dobsons made more or less endless excuses for his bad behavior. One camping trip was hours late departing because Ryan had broken his fishing rod - he'd been standing on it and pulling its ends up until it broke, and his parents wouldn't let the trip leave until they went out and bought him a replacement. Another was equally late because of a very long argument between the scoutmaster and his parents about the appropriateness of the junk food and comic books he wanted to carry along; his parents finally reluctantly agreed that there was such a thing as a sensible weight limit...and then tried pressuring other boys in the troop to carry the excess so that Ryan wouldn't have to do without any of what he wanted to bring. And it went like that.

There came a point when our mother flat-out refused to carry Ryan in her car. The church is, or at least was at that time, off a very busy and curving street, with a steep driveway down to the church. (When I was in driver ed later, the trainer used it as an example of wretched visibility.) Mom is and always has been a careful driver, taking extra time and needing her full concentration at tricky spots like that. One time I was riding along with a bunch of scouts in the back seat, and just as she was preparing to pull into traffic, Ryan started firing off a cap gun right behind her. She didn't actually have an accident from sheer startlement, but it was close. I don't now remember if she pulled back in and unloaded Ryan right then or if she completed that drive and spoke with his parents and the troop leaders later, but her message was simple: he couldn't ride with her anymore, because that just wasn't safe. His parents proceeded to make excuses for him, and I do particularly remember that they were down on Mom for discouraging his creativity and about the importance for kids of exploring. Mom stuck to her, er, guns, and Dad backed her up, but it was a real souring point, and later they heard that the Dobsons made at least some effort to get the family tossed out of the troop.

Partly because of that whole mess, and partly because of the usual growing up and changing priorities, my brother dropped out of that troop and then out of Scouting. The folks we knew at the church had the usual moving-on sorts of things happen, and then I went to college in the Pacific Northwest, and the Dobsons moved out of my sphere of experience altogether.

I have no idea what they may have done before or since, or much of anything about what they were doing with their daughter at about the same time, or how Ryan has turned out, or anything like that. I make no broad claims of any sort. But I do claim on the basis of my experience this: in those years, the Dobsons weren't practicing anything like what they were already preaching.

Into the Woods Again

And then there's spring

And I have brought back the evidence.

Weeks 73-76 in Review

Wow. Long dull time, to be honest. My weight's been down as low as 281 and up as high as 292, but mostly around 284-5. Holding ground. I seem to finally be pulling out of my slump, with writing for PDF publication going on (slowly, but going) and some interesting writing offers and a little bit of walking. And some neat reading lately - reviews forthcoming, I hope.

Tuning Out as Self-Defense

Part of what's made this winter down time so bad for me is a deep sense of...despair is probably the right word, over the situation of the world. I won't go into any details now - it would just set me off again. But I see the situation as both bad and without any viable hope of redress. That double-barrelled combo is particularly bad for me, as I can deal with a lot of junk as long as it feels like I've got some constructive step. As it is, I've been spiralling around and around like picking at a scab, wading into endless scrutiny and debate none of which really matters much. The details of the next scandal are not going to suddenly change my overall appraisal of most issues, after all - I know what I want to see happen, I just need to see anyone worth supporting in the effort to make it happen.

So I'm in the midst of another of my periodic purges of weblogs and other sources of news and commentary. I'm scaling way, way back, and putting the big emphasis on individuals and groups who are actually achieving things I want to support. I'm not out to deny any realities here, just to focus so that I don't keep making myself pointlessly depressed and neglecting my own personal-scale obligations so much. My being isolated and not writing enough will not help improve the status of liberty or justice, after all.

We'll see if this helps.

Weeks 71 & 72 in Review

Holding steady at 284 or so, shifting up some and down a little. This has been a long stalled period...but then I see that I went through the same thing last year, too. There may just be a seasonal component to it.

In any event, I am beginning to climb back out of the pit. I had a wonderful social day this last week with a friend visiting from out of town. He came in for a couple days of job interviews, and then we went out to Vashon island to scope it out, since he thought he and his wife might well want to live there if interview leads to job offer. The last time I was on Vashon was when I was in college, and it was fun - I really love the ferry rides in Puget Sound, and Vashon is, well, like a lot of the cool semi-rural areas sprinkled all through the nodes of real urbanization in Puget Sounds. 2-5 acre lots, many areas that just won't get developed, little clusters of shops and businesses.

And the views. Holy cow, the views. It was a ridiculously beautiful day, with Mount Rainier in picture-postcard-perfect clarity, the Olympics and Cascades both lit up with snow-capped grandeur, the Sound deep blue and ruffled by gentle breezes. I could not have wished for so good a day.

I was tired all over again after the one day out, but it was so worth it!

Week 70 in review

<i>Finally</i>, things are starting to change for the better.

My weight's up a bit, to 284, simply through lack of exercise. But the exposed soil molds down the street are now de-exposed, covered over by fresh sod and pavement. I'm having the massive histamine flushes that I always go through once accumulated crud can clear out, and more energy. Back to exercise!