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May 20, 2006

The Work

From Bill Kauffman's Look Homeward, America:

As (Eugene) Debs, (Carolyn) Chute & (Mother) Jones understood, the ennobling work we do is seldom renumerated in greenbacks. Bearing and raising a child, cultivating a garden, just being there for a sibling or friend to lean on: this "work" is compensated in a currency far more valuable than Uncle Sam's paper. This, in fact, is the work that should be honored on Labor Day. The work we do for "nothing." (For everything, really.) The work that enriches us as human beings; that binds us to our families and our neighbors; that shrouds even the most commonplace of lives in glory. This is work whose coin, whose only coin, is love.

May 19, 2006

Rain

Today will mark the seventh consecutive commute that has included rain at some point or another. I have ceased to care. Part of this new-found carefree attitude is my discovery of White Lightning chain lube. I had, for as long as I could remember, used the standard Cross Country lube, a viscous synthetic blend that can handle the wettest condition. It's only drawback? It's ability to stick to chain also meant it was a magnet for road grit. After just a single ride in the rain, my drivetrain sounded like it was lubricated with sand. Cleaning the chain was a messy process, one that required removing it from bike and dousing it with Simple Green, which only remove some of the grit and lube. I hated the process, but I hated the drivetrain noise even more.

Enter White Lightning.

It's a parrafin-based lube, and it's been around forever. I don't why I've ignored it (probably because I've been too cheap to buy it since I've got a perfectly good bottle of Cross Country at home), but last week, after the multi-flat disaster, I picked up a bottle at the shop. I was instantly impressed. It goes on easily, and cleans up with nothing more than a wipe of a rag. And while most folks say it's not the best choice for wet conditions, it has performed admirably this week, keeping my drivetrain clean and quiet. Yes, I wipe down the chain every night and apply a new coat, but I was doing that anyway, without the same effect.

But this post isn't about chain lube.

My bag has been wet for days. It's not that the cargo has gotten wet, but the exterior has been damp, never really drying out from the day's commutes. My shoes are the same. The bike has performed well, given the abuse. I removed the bottom bracket and cranks on Monday evening and applied a fresh coat of grease to all the threads, and that seemed to quiet the little creaks. I'm beginning to think I should sell the winter beater, as the Steamroller has proved its mettle in nasty conditions--perhaps just build up a set of "beater" wheels and call it good. Who needs two bikes anyway?

I thought perhaps I'd have a dry road home, but dark, dark clouds have been hanging just over the tree-tops all day. The roads are still dry, and that means there is still hope.

May 15, 2006

Reactionary Radicals

I received my copy of Bill Kauffman's book, Look Homeward, America this weekend, and managed to get halfway through it between parties for Sebastien and a trip to the ER at Children's Hospital (ruptured eardrum, yah!). Kauffman's rollicking style is a pleasure to read. Kauffman sets out to examine reactionary radicals and front porch anarchists through American history, focusing his energy on folks like Eugene McCarthy, Patrick Moyihan, Dorothy Day, Grant Wood, and Wendell Berry (among others). Kauffman doesn't shy away from imperfections, forgiving the occasional foray leftward (especially around the time of the New Deal). Kauffman isn't out to (re-)discover a movement, or even a sensibility--he simply shares the stories of men and women who, in his opinion, embraced the community-oriented, decentralized way put forth by people like Thomas Jefferson as the vision of what American should be.

I'll likely write a longer review when I'm through the book. I did find this morning, via Daniel Larison, that Kauffman and friends from ISI book and Reason, have a blog, Reactionary Radicals.

May 13, 2006

Boy on a Bike

This is what I saw for nearly two hours yesterday afternoon:

The boy never stopped for a minute. The pace at which he picked up the whole bike riding thing was pretty amazing.

May 11, 2006

Rain

4:45PM: It's been raining most of the day. I really don't look forward to riding in the rain. It never stops me, but I'm filled with a feeling of impending doom, especially today, given that I've forgotten to put the mudguards on the bike (I realized this halfway across the 62nd Street Bridge this morning). I will be absolutely soaked by the time I get home. No matter. No sense fretting about the inevitable.

5:20PM: I always seem to ride better in the rain. I've been feeling a bit heavy in the legs this week, but the water tap-tapping on my helmet and splish-splashing on my feet distracts me. Riding through the Pine Creek Valley, I wonder aloud if we do indeed get rain for the next week if I'll be able to ride to work by the start of next week. The creek is already swollen from today's downpour, its brown water churning quickly over the rocks. Even over the din of the rain on my jacket, and the whir of tyres on wet pavement, I can hear the water crashing down next me.

5:30PM: As I pass the Chevy dealer in Etna, traffic forces me pick a poor line through a patch of large gravel on the road surface. My rear wheel catches a golf-ball-sized stone, and within ten meters I know what's happened. I've flatted. This would be bad on any day, but today, after a flat earlier in the week took my last spare tube, it's really bad. I will be walking the final two miles or so home. Normally I may be upset, but what's the use? What good would that accomplish? Instead, I simply unfasten the chin strap of my helmet and begin my walk. A block later, Brad, another frequent alleycat organizer who also works north of the city at the Dirt Rag offices, pulls up next to me and offers a spare tube. I thank him profusely but decline, reasoning that the walk was superior fiddling with my recalcitrant rear tyre on the sidewalk in the rain. He nodded knowingly, and after our goodbyes he was on his way.

6:00PM: I hosing off my bike in the narrow corridor between our house and the neighbors. This is only the beginning of my work for the evening. I'll be replacing the blown tube, cleaning the chain, and re-lubing the drivetrain. Given the forecast, I'll be doing the latter task tomorrow night, and Monday night, and Tuesday night...

May 09, 2006

Food As Rebellion

Via Michael Dougherty.

Mother Jones has a profile of "Christian-libertarian-environmentalist-lunatic farmer" Joel Salatin. Two relevant quotes:

In Joel’s view, the reformation of our food economy begins with people going to the trouble and expense of buying directly from farmers they know—“relationship marketing,” the approach he urges in his recent book, Holy Cows and Hog Heaven: The Food Buyer’s Guide to Farm Friendly Food. Joel believes that the only meaningful guarantee of integrity is when buyers and sellers can look one another in the eye, something few of us ever take the trouble to do. “Don’t you find it odd that people will put more work into choosing their mechanic or house contractor than they will into choosing the person who grows their food?”

And

Shortly before I traveled to Virginia, I’d reread an essay by Wendell Berry in which he argued that reversing the damage done to local economies and the land by the juggernaut of world trade would take nothing less than “a revolt of local small producers and local consumers against the global industrialism of the corporations.” He detected the beginnings of such a rebellion in the rise of local food systems and the growing market “for good, fresh, trustworthy food, food from producers known and trusted by consumers.” Which, as he points out, “cannot be produced by a global corporation.” Berry would have me believe that what I was seeing in the Polyface salesroom represented a local uprising in a gathering worldwide rebellion against what he calls “the total economy.”

Why should food, of all things, be the linchpin of that rebellion? Perhaps because food is a powerful metaphor for a great many of the values to which people feel globalization poses a threat, including the distinctiveness of local cultures and identities, the survival of local landscapes, and biodiversity. When José Bové, the French Roquefort farmer and anti-globalization activist, wanted to make his stand against globalization, he used his tractor to smash not a bank or insurance company but a McDonald’s. Indeed, the most powerful protests against globalization to date have revolved around food: I’m thinking of the movement against genetically modified crops, the campaign against patented seeds in India (which a few years ago brought as many as half a million Indians into the streets to protest World Trade Organization intellectual property rules), and Slow Food, the Italian-born international move- ment that seeks to defend traditional food cultures against the global tide of homogenization.

May 08, 2006

Neocalvinism and the Church

The following is a response that the editors of Comment asked me to write following their series on Neocalvinism. It is slated to appear to in the June print issue of the journal.

Perhaps I am a skeptic at heart. Of the four essays published, I found myself agreeing most with Daniel Knauss' emphatic "No!" While at times I have been a hot or lukewarm follower of the movement (particularly Kuyper), Knauss' pragmatic criticism of Neocalvinism struck a chord, particularly his critique of the movement's ecclesiology (or lack thereof). Al Wolters had hinted at such things in his "What Is to Be Done..." essay. The Church, as an institution of cultural change, has been at best minimized and at worst forgotten by many in the movement. Perhaps this is a mutation of sphere sovereignty, or simply an ignorance of the traditions of the movement. Either way, it is a problematic position, and one I find rather ironic given the confessional, Calvinist foundations of the movement. The Church is not simply the house of worship--it is the community of believers, come together to worship, fellowship, and serve God.

This is not, however, a condemnation. In the discussions that have followed the essays, Gregory Baus, David Koyzis, and Byron Borger argue that Neocalvinism should not and cannot be separated from its confessional roots. Worldview, that which drives much of the Neocalvinist agenda, must flow from life within the tradition of Church, in communion with other believers. Without such a basis, worldview becomes little more than an intellectual exercise. This is where, perhaps, the Neocalvinists can learn from their co-belligerents in the Roman Catholic Church. A local parish can be heavily involved in the life of its community, and, in many communities, a parish is able to provide a level of support that the State, or even smaller non-denominational organizations cannot. And this is not a distortion of its mission--the Church is to be in the world, living out the teachings of Christ.

Along with Knauss, I wonder "what is to be done about the Church?" The Church, as Jacques Ellul states it in Presence of the Kingdom, lives "at the point of contact between two currents: the will of the Lord, and the will of the world." These days the Church struggles against the current of the world, and it is with the Church that we, as followers Christ, succeed or fail. Worldview may help us understand our relationship as Christians to our jobs, our education, and perhaps our government, but in the end, if that worldview lacks an ecclesial foundation, it is no different than the house built on the sand--and such a foundation cannot withstand the currents of the world. Yes, what is to be done about the Church? But perhaps that question is backwards. Should the Church (specifically the reformational denominations that are the true flag bearers of the Calvinism at the root of the movement) ask itself what is to be done about Neocalvinism? Is it time for the Church to rightfully take back what is hers?

May 03, 2006

Giro d'Italia

The Giro (the Tour of Italy) begins this weekend, with what appears to be the toughest parcours in several years. There will be several interesting story lines to follow:

* CSC's Ivan Basso will be attempting to win both the Giro and the Tour de France, a double that has not been achieved in the last decade.
* Discovery's Paolo Savodelli will be trying to defend Maglia rosa from last year's victory.
* Jan Ullrich will ride as a "tune-up" for the Tour. Ullrich is horribly out of shape thanks to an early season knee injury, and he'll be lucky to reach the finish, at least on his bicycle.

Though I'd like to see Savodelli repeat, I'd rather see Basso score the double, especially in what has become an era of specialization.

In anticipation of the race, I found this interview with 1988 winner Andy Hampsten (the only American to win the event), recounting his key attack on the Gavia. Even if you're not a cyclist, the interview is worth a read--the conditions were horrific, with sub-zero temperatures and snow.