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May 27, 2005

On Separation

Moon wonders what our culture's germ phobia really says about us:

Decks instead of porches. Television instead of book circles. The internet instead of coffee houses. How many layers must we place between each other before we lose all sense of other people? And how much of an impact will this endless intermediation have on our essential humanity? How is it that those things so many of us search for these days entail the abandonment of so many other things?

May 25, 2005

Old School Cycling

This is what I'm talking about:

More info here.

May 24, 2005

Coffee

For some time, I had been purchasing coffee beans at La Prima's cafe in the Strip District. The beans were almost always freshly roasted, and it gave me an excuse to stop on the morning commute, drink an espresso, and thumb through the New York Times. The beans weren't cheap, but they weren't terribly expensive (cheaper than Starbucks), and I felt good about giving our money to a local roaster. A few months ago, we became members of the local food co-op, and I kicked around the idea of ordering coffee there. Being members, we received a 20% discount(!) on special orders, but I didn't want to give up my precious and tasty La Prima. Then, when bean supplies in the house were dwindling, Jen picked up a pound of Dean's Beans Moka Sumatra. Goodness. I had assumed it was a bit pricey, being tasty, organic, and free-trade, but it wasn't. In fact, it was the cheapest coffee the co-op sold. A few days later I placed our order for five pounds of the stuff. Finally, last Friday, we got the call that our coffee was in. Total cost for five pound of freshly roasted, organic, free-trade coffee? $31.

May 23, 2005

Two Moments*

Water falls down, down over rocks, splashing into a pool below us. Spray douses us, and the mist becomes a rainbow in the Spring sunshine. The sound of the waterfall is deafening, and we shout to make ourselves heard. I tie into the already damp rope and slip into my climbing shoes, doing what I can to keep the soles dry. I check and re-check the knot at my harness, then reach up and grab the first chalked holds. They are dry. I'm cautious until my rope is safely clipped into the first bolt, then I relax a bit. The rock is crisp and dry despite the spray from the waterfall, and soon I settled into rhythm of movement. The roar of the falls, which I assumed would make me a bit nervous, instead causes me to focus on the rock around me. My world is narrowed to the circle of rock around me. Moves flow into one another, and it isn't until I clip the anchors that the world snaps back into focus.

* * *

Sunlight trickles through the canopy of pine needles. Sounds are muffled by the gentle din of the waterfall. I'm surrounded by green -- tall, old trees, some pines, and little seedlings, some only a foot or two tall. The rhododendrons are beginning to bloom, their bright pink flowers a sharp contrast against the shiny green leaves. I'm sitting on a bed of browning needles, back resting against the trunk of old tree, itself resting against the tall expanse of sandstone. The boy is sitting on my lap. He's been rustling in the layer of fallen leaves below a roof in the cliffline, and they cling to his fleece shirt and his mop of hair. He is quiet now, flipping the pages of Brown Bear, Brown Bear, pointing to the duck and the bird and the cat. Soon enough, the boy's energy returns, and he's off, digging in the leaves with a red shovel, and running up and down the trail.

* Work in progress.

May 20, 2005

Politics, and Vacation

I posted an entry over yonder about this NYT article.

We're heading to the New River Gorge for three days for some climbing and camping fun. Pictures will be forthcoming.

May 17, 2005

Rally News

Sebastien Loeb easily won the Rally Cyprus last weekend, after both Marcus Gronholm and Petter Solberg failed to restart the rally after terminal engine damage. Privateer Manfred Stohl took a surprise second place (the first time in several years a privateer has crack the podium), and Markko Martin won his battle with another privateer, Henning Solberg (yes, Petter's brother) for third place. Loeb now leads the championship by 11 points over Solberg and Martin. Despite Martin's humility thus far this season, claiming he doesn't really have a shot at the championship, he's really the only driver besides Loeb and Solberg with a shot at the moment. Solberg or Loeb have won every rally thus far, but Martin has consistently placed in the top five, also permitting Peugeot to hold the lead in the manufacturer's race.

Cyprus produced one rather shocking change -- Francois Duval's fate with Citroen. Duval was positioned for a points score in Cyprus, and with Solberg and Stohl ahead, he would score more manufacturer's points for Citroen (privateers cannot score points in the manufacturer's championship). Duval, however, had a huge off on SS11, ending his rally. This was the third shunt and retirement for Duval this season, and Citroen was clearly not pleased with the youth's progress. Even before Loeb pulled on to the finishing ramp in Cyprus, there were questions as to whether or not Duval would stay with the team. With the Rally Turkey only a few weeks away, Citroen had to nominate its points scoring team by 6:00pm yesterday. The final word? Carlos Sainz would come out of retirement to drive the second works Xsara for Citroen in Turkey. Management would not comment further on Duval's status with the team, or even if the Belgian would drive a third works Xsara in Turkey. Further complicating matters, Duval split with co-driver, Stephane Prevot, after their shunt in Cyprus, leaving Duval precious little time to gel with a new navigator.

May 16, 2005

Thank You, Kieran

Especially for question #1.

May 15, 2005

Dichotomies, False or Otherwise

Over the past week, I've been talking about intelligent design, evolution and the fracas in Kansas with a co-worker (hi, Glen!). What I've noticed is that the loudest voices in this situation (the Kansas situation, that is) ask us to choose -- you're either an evolutionist or a religious person. Contemporary politics does much the same -- you are either a conservative or a liberal. There is little room for alternate ideas, or the middle way. We are a society that desire cultural warfare -- we want to draw a line in the sand. And though both sides would have us believe it's only the other side that does it, it happens everywhere. Conservatives? Well, they support the family, but also support the invisible hand of the Market that forces us to work longer hours for less pay. Liberals? Remember Robert Casey?

This isn't to say that compromise is the best and only solution. But, we are asked everyday to compromise our beliefs. In the ID/evolution debates, labels are set by both sides, and you are expected to fall to one side of the fence or the other. Anything less and you are "compromising" your beliefs. The Religious Right would have Christians think there is simply one side of the issue -- evolution, as currently taught, is un-Godly. Creationism, and its philosophical extension, intelligent design, is our only choice. But ID is not science, really. There aren't scientists in the lab or the field doing ID-specific research -- they are testing the limits of evolutionary theory. But, point this out loudly in the current debate, and, as a Christian, you'll be branded a liberal, and possibly a heretic.

Politically, we are boxed into the same corner. Examine our choices as Christians. You can vote for the Republican party, and feel good about yourself for supporting a pro-life administrator, but hate yourself for their disregard of the environment and their idolatry of the marketplace. Alternately, you can vote for the Democratic party, sacrifice your pro-life vote, support a greener stance toward the environment, and keep the market on a shorter lease. We can't form a coherent ideology founded upon our faith because we are encouraged to be single issue voters. We are asked to compromise our beliefs in the name of not compromising our beliefs.

So here we are. The cultural wars leave us on the razor's edge of dichotomies -- right, wrong, or otherwise. We're being asked deep, nuanced questions, and we're expected to give a binary response. Anything less than that binary answer, and we're not standing up for our beliefs. I'm not advocating relativism -- actually, quite the contrary. There are right and wrong answers to many of the questions we are being asked -- unfortunately the list of answers we're presented with often doesn't include them.

May 13, 2005

Rally News

I haven't written much about the 2005 campaign thus far, but after a tumultuous day in Cyprus, I thought I'd pass along a few bits of news.

Unsurprisingly, Sebastien Loeb leads the event after the first leg, but every factory team has suffered significant problems. First, Peugeot's Marcus Gronholm, who expected to compete for victory this weekend, retired during the very first stage. Loeb's teammate Francois Duval had throttle problems, leading to several time penalties. Mitsubishi's Gilles Panizzi suffered gearbox problems, dropping him well down the timesheets. Petter Solberg, who was the only driver with Loeb in his sights, suffered turbo problems, prompting his retirement prior to the leg's final stage. Thanks these problems, the current leaderboard is peppered with privateers, with Manfred Stohl holding second place, and Henning Solberg in third. Peugot's Markko Martin is fourth, with Ford privateer Antony Warmbold within striking distance in fifth.

Solberg will attempt to restart the rally on leg two, suffering a five minute time penalty. With the leaderboard as it is, however, Solberg should have no problems pulling into the points, and perhaps even fighting for a podium place, which is absolutely critical for his title chances. Gronholm, however, will not restart, as the damage to his 307 was deemed terminal. Loeb will also have two challenging days ahead of him. He will be walking the fine line between not pushing enough and potentially losing focus and pushing too hard and suffering a fate similiar to his rivals.

Burkeans, Traditionalists, and Neo-Cons

Crooked Timber's Henry gets the discussion started by examining where the current crop of Neo-Conservatives stand in relation to their political forebearers, Burkean and/or traditionalist conservatives. Related to this, I started writing a response to this essay by Mark Henrie in the lastest New Pantagruel tracing the political, philosophical, cultural, and religious foundations of Traditionalist Conservativism, but I was never able to complete it. The CT discussion, however, has rekindled my interest. First, I highly recommend Henrie's essay. It is long, but it very clearly lays out what it means to be a big-C Conservative. You will note that the current crop of little-c conservatives bear little resemblence.

I found myself nodding in agreement with many of the notions put forth by Henrie -- an emphasis on community and family, and social good. Then there is the economic perspective -- a "third way" between capitalism and socialism as defined by Wilhelm Roepke, with the Market bound within social institutions to avoid the inevitable pitfalls of the Market, consumer materialism and social instability. Despite his snarkiness about the 1990s under Bill Clinton, Henrie sounds unconvinced of the Neo-Cons desire to bring democracy to the Middle East. Henrie also believes that the current emphasis on national defense is compatible with Conservative thought -- I stopped nodding my head here, though it had more to do with my own feelings toward national security matters rather than any commitment to Conservativism.

Back to Crooked Timber. I guess in my own partially-informed way, I've been waiting for this civil war as well. What I wonder, however, is whether the Traditionalist Conservatives will strike out on their own and attempt to wrestle power from the Neo-Cons in the Republican party to bring more continuity to the party's platform. Despite my interest in Conservative political philosophy, I can't quite bring myself to be a Republican, as the party's corporatism and near-religious commitment to Darwinist economic policy (ironic, no?) doesn't sit well.

May 11, 2005

ID v Evolution

Honestly, I've not followed the "debates" in Kansas between evolutionists and proponents of Intelligent Design theory. Others have already commented on it, and I don't think I have much to add to the discussion, but I did come across this article by William Saletan on Slate. As he usually does, Saletan takes evolutionists and, more generally, liberals to task:

It's too bad liberals and scientists don't welcome this test. It's too bad they go around sneering, as censors of science often have, that the new theory is too radical, offensive, or embarrassing to be taken seriously. It's too bad they think good science consists of believing the right things. In the long view—the evolutionary view—good science consists of using evidence and experiment to find out whether what we thought was right is wrong. If they do that in Kansas, by whatever name, that's all that matters.

May 10, 2005

Crunchy Conservatives

Via Gideon Strauss I found this National Review essay by Rod Dreher on crunchy conservatives -- that is, conservatives who don't fit well into the current Republican mold due to their rather, um, liberal views on things like the environment and the Market. I've found myself captivated by this line of thought (generally through exposure to the Pantagruelists), and as I've mentioned before, it's ultimately this sort of resistence that will change culture, not the will of the Legislature.

May 05, 2005

And There Goes My Day...

The Spring 2005 edition of The New Pantagruel was released today, with plenty of tasty articles to consume.