Category: observations

chilly, hilly, and done

I completed the 2004 Chilly Hilly Classic this morning: 33 miles of scenic Bainbridge Island. It was both chilly and hilly, though less of the former and more of the latter than I expected.
(I borrowed this graphic from the page linked above.)
ch_elevation

It was really well organized, as anything with 3000 attendees has to be. I took the first ferry (the 7:45 sailing) and came back on the 12:20, finishing about 11:30. Given the number of people and the terrain, it took about 3 hours. I ended up walking part of a couple of the steeper grades (on the elevation graphic, the two climbs before the midway rest stop defeated me, and I hoofed it for the middle third of the Baker Hill Rd ascent).

It was a great look at Bainbridge, though I’m sure we saw very little of it. The riding was a little hairy at times (my top speed on a downhill was 36 mph, but there were always others pedalling into it and hugging the drops for every bit of speed, some uneasy riders and a lot of unannounced passing, no “on your left”), so it wasn’t always possible to look around.

My first club/group ride and I learned a few things: enough to want to do more.

<update> The Times has a story with pictures:

The Seattle Times: Local News: Cycle season wheels in at Chilly Hilly.

another take on “The Passion . . . “

I just heard part of a review of the new Mel Gibson movie that brought out a viewpoint I hadn’t yet heard. The fact that the reviewer had 12 years of Catholic education helped inform his experience, I think. He knew the story, in other words.

Rather than get into the whole notion of guilt or who did what and why, the reviewer (Robert Horton on KUOW) saw this new movie as a continuation of Gibson’s work portraying anti-authority figures (Mad Max, the Lethal Weapon series).

The presence of a charismatic rebel threatened the two competing power elites — the high priests and the Roman governor — and I’m sure they didn’t care who got rid of him or how (shades of Thomas á Becket’s martyrdom)[1]. Seen that way, it seems like an interesting concept.

The reviewer also pointed out/warned about the intensity and upfront presence of the violence: he saw it as senseless in that it didn’t further the story. Isn’t the senselessness of torturing and crucifying a political dissident part of the story? Other than some silliness with a fall from a bridge, broken only by the chains binding the hero, it seems to follow the written book(s) pretty closely.

fn1. As pointed out here, there’s no real chance of determining who bears responsibility for a 2000 year old crime. It seems we’ve had enough trouble in recent years sorting out the Holocaust, and we have living witnesses in that one.

more on the creative class diaspora

All are equal before God. On Earth….
Wages of hate – anti-gay attitudes damage the economy – conversely, Gay-tolerant societies prosper. Will GOP anti-elitism and the US religious right make the U.S. a 3rd world country? Paul Craig Roberts argues that we’re on the fast track, and a Carnegie Mellon study (title link) shows that culturally repressive attitudes in America are driving away the "Creative" class. Virginia Postrel defines this class differently (manicurists and stone cutters) but in Richard Florida’s "Creative Class War" (recently on Metafilter), "America is no long attracting creative workers from abroad because it is seen as an intolerant society". More than artists and programmers are shunning the US – scientists are staying away too. In the US, meanwhile, a bifurcation – Americans are geographically self-segregating, choosing to live with those who hold similar beliefs and values. [metafilter.com]

a message from Lovingway United Pentecostal Church

DenverPost.com – LOCAL NEWS:

“We never intended to hurt any people,” he said. “I never dreamed we would be inciting hatred for Jews.” The message “spun out of control,” he added.

How did Pastor Maurice Gordon think that putting “Jews Killed the Lord Jesus” on a reader board outside his church would be viewed as “intended only to instigate discussion and debate?”

defense of . . . . racism?

EmptyBottle.org: Compare and Contrast:

Here’s George Bush’s recent speech.

Here’s the same speech, with the following substitutions :

* “Marriage” becomes “whiteness”
* “the same gender” becomes “a brownish color”
* “the union of a man and a woman” or “the legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife” or “a union of a man and woman as husband and wife” becomes “racially superior”
* “a husband and wife” becomes “white people”

This trumps any of my half-baked commentary . . .

Read it to get the full effect.

thinking about books

Ed Felten is concerned that a survey of University presidents on what books they feel their undergrads should have read is a little thin on the sciences.

In a later post, he explores the great books tradition in the liberal arts vs the need to stay current in science texts: Shakespeare doesn’t age, while Darwin’s work has (due to the nature of science as the pursuit of knowledge).

I look forward to his list and discussion of the books submitted by readers. I think there is a “science deficit” in education, and it may account for the misunderstandings and controversies over the teaching of natural history, space exploration, cosmology, etc.

Perhaps this will be a Western Canon, only with science texts that show both the universal facts that haven’t changed and the evolution of scientific thought.

a new Technorati plugin

chaotic intransient prose bursts: An evolved Technorati plugin:

An evolved Technorati plugin

Adriaan is prolific, to say the least. I hope to try this plugin in place of the one I have been using, if he can assure me it won’t block pages from rebuilding when the Technorati server is busy.

From his caveats, I note the the server will kick back a message that your API key is wrong when in fact the server is busy. Surely, that can be worked around (compare the ctime and mtime of the technorati files and make an educated guess as to whether it’s changed lately?). In any event, if the plugin will just let pages get rebuilt, that would be fine.

crossing from urban to rural

On a ride today, from bustling Kenmore, at the northern end of Lake Washington, to Marymoor Park, at the northern end of Lake Sammamish, I was surprised to see a coyote cross the trail as I rode through the farmlands of Woodinville and Redmond. I had heard there were some encroaching on the various outlying areas, but this was the first one I have ever seen. I had always thought they were more nocturnal or at least were most active in the dawn and dusk times. Of course, a February day in western Washington can feel like one long dusk, so perhaps they’re out all the time right now.