Ridge Run 2010

I do this neighborhood 10k, the Ridge Run, every Memorial Day, since 1983.

Last year my time was 53 minutes, even. This year my time was 58 minutes and 20 seconds.

So I took almost one extra minute per mile.

But look at it this way:

Last year I was 22nd out of 61 males aged 55-59. This year I was 20th out of 61 males aged 55-59.

So I moved up 2 places.

The difference, I think, was the weather. Last year it was 60F. This year it was 80F and very humid.

So I ask you, in a verse:
Was I better? Was I worse?

Day of Remembrance

I watched our neighborhood Memorial Day parade today.

On the military side, there were some vets, and a high school ROTC unit. The ROTC group looked very disciplined. The vets looked like ordinary guys.

We also had the local pro-peace group, with the "Support our troops - bring them home" message. I think the Quakers were involved. The pro-peace people have a characteristic look. To me it looks like a mix of moral righteousness and fear. I've seen this look at most antiwar protests I have observed.

I always wonder about the fear I perceive. I suspect it may be that the acceptance of pacifism, as an outlook, is actually fear-inducing.

Does announcing that you will never rebuff a violent attack
leave you worried that someone might just take a whack?

Beach Fun

Showed some young boys how to:

1) dig a hand-sized tunnel between two holes in the sand.

2) dig to the water table - which is lake level.

It's crucial that beach building techniques are passed on to the next generation!

Wet sand sets
and is best for building castles.

Dry sand flies
in your eyes and gives you hassles.

Spill Defies Kill

Top flop:

In a demoralizing setback, BP engineers said Saturday that the "top kill" effort to stem the flow of oil gushing from a well a mile beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico had failed and that after consultation with government officials they had decided to move on to another strategy.

As environmental disasters go, it's titanic.
Even though the oil is all natural and organic.

Russian Authors Are So Cheery

Do they have an Anna Karenina station too?

The opening of a Moscow Metro station named after Fyodor Dostoevsky has been postponed after complaints that murals decorating the platform walls are too depressing. The images, drawn from the 19th-century novelist’s works, could prompt depressed commuters to kill themselves, critics say.

It's hard to really relax
as the train clacks by on steely tracks
and you contemplate dying by ax.

What a Catch

This four-year old risks his neck
when he chooses to misbehave,
but before he hits the deck,
a shopkeeper makes the save.

Elderly Or Not, He Took His Shot

Here in Chicago, an 80 year-old army vet shot and killed a burglar this morning. It sounds like the vet had a pistol, in defiance of our handgun ban.

And it sounds like he will NOT be prosecuted for the offense, which would be a misdemeanor anyway. That's usually how these cases are handled.

The vet's son spoke out against our current ban:

"That's an open door for people like this suspect to enter people's homes, especially [the] elderly. They can prey on them," said Butch Gant.

The victim had a gun.
The burglar's days are done.

Robert W. Service

In the comments to a recent post, brought up Robert Service, who wrote some very popular poems, many set in the icy wastes of the Yukon.



He is not trendy among scholars. He died in 1958.

I was looking at his Wikipedia entry, and came across this:

Service is also noted for his use of ethnonyms that would normally be considered offensive "slurs", but with no insult apparently intended. Words used in Service's poetry include jerries (Germans), dago (Italian), pickaninny (in reference to a Mozambican infant), cheechako (newcomer to the Yukon and Alaska gold fields, usually from the U.S.), nigger (African-American), squaw (Aboriginal woman), and Jap (Japanese).

In other words, he sometimes writes like Clint Eastwood talks in Gran Torino.

Which now that I think about it, is probably part of the reason he is not trendy among scholars.

The Cremation of Sam McGee is probably his greatest hit. He uses an interesting rhyme form. Here are the first 2 "regular" lines:

Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam ‘round the Pole, God only knows.

At first it just looks like a rhyming couplet, but if you read it aloud you immediately realize that each line has 2 internal rhymes as well. Complicated. But he made it sound easy.

Robert Service could tell a story so well, and move it so smoothly along,
that when it turned odd, you didn't shout "God! This narrative's truly gone wrong."

Instead you just listened about ice that glistened and someone who laughed in the flame,
and when it was done, you thought "That was fun," and saw why he has lasting fame.

Intermission

Cottony seeds
caught in the wind
glowed as if gold
under the street light.

They sweep over cars
hovering boldly
hoping for haven
deep in the night.

Role Reversal

I saw Alicia Reese doing Electra tonight, while Anna Weiler played Angry Chorus Girl.

The actresses switched their roles.
The characters carried new souls.

The Electra Variatons

I read this in a beautiful review of Dream Theatre's Electra:

On top of which, Menekseoglu pulls in elements from all three tragedians—Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides—both to develop this retelling’s fullest dramatic impact and to create the most feminist Electra ever. The women of his Electra are dangerous daughters and granddaughters of Leda and Zeus. Even when they look their meekest, they should never be underestimated.

Somehow, I hadn't realized, or didn't remember, that we had versions of the Electra story from all 3 of these classic Greek tragedy-writers.

I must admit, I've read of all of Aristophanes, the classic Greek comedy-writer. But I'm weak on the tragic Greeks.

So I've now read Sophocles' Electra and Euripides' Electra. And I'm in the middle of re-reading Aeschylus' The Libation Bearers, which tells the same basic story.

And I asked myself, why hasn't anyone put the 3 plays together in one book? Oops. Someone has.

How easy, then, to study
the changes in this bloody
drama as each man
reworks it to his plan.

The Mental Game

Discover recently ran article entitled "The Brain: Why Athletes Are Geniuses". The title is hype, but does draw attention to the fact that a lot of athletics involves unusual neurological abilities:

Even a sport as seemingly straightforward as pistol shooting is surprisingly complex. A marksman just points his weapon and fires, and yet each shot calls for many rapid decisions, such as how much to bend the elbow and how tightly to contract the shoulder muscles. Since the shooter doesn’t have perfect control over his body, a slight wobble in one part of the arm may require many quick adjustments in other parts. Each time he raises his gun, he has to make a new calculation of what movements are required for an accurate shot, combining previous experience with whatever variations he is experiencing at the moment.

Many of them take easy classes in college.
But they do excel at one form of knowledge.

Heil in Style

The 18ft high posters of the Nazi leader advertise a line of clothing for young people and adorn street corners and bus stops in Palermo, Sicily's biggest city.

The ads show the Fuhrer in a lurid pink uniform, with his swastika armband replaced with one bearing a bright red heart, above the slogan "Change Style – Don't Follow Your Leader".

As you might guess, this ad has upset many.

Even in pink,
he still has a stink.

15 CM = 6 INCHES

From the bizarre death department:

A young mother died after doctors failed to spot a 15cm-long toilet brush handle embedded in her buttock.

She was drunk and fell on the toilet brush which somehow impaled her butt. And doctors - from 2 hospitals - took 2 years to figure it out.

And when they did figure it out, she died when they tried to remove it.

Did she have health insurance? Yes, national health insurance. In England.

Her husband says:

I think it was probably down to the hospitals trying to save money and doing things as cheaply as possible.

Lives can be lost
controlling cost.

Still Standing

I'm not content with the famous version of this quote any longer:
What does not kill us... maims us or makes us stronger.

Electa by Sophocles

I finished reading Electra by Sophocles. Liked it. Very moving in places.

I find myself liking Sophocles best of the 3 extant ancient Greek tragedy writers.

He is also said to have commented on his peers. He remarked that Aeschylus did the right thing in drama without knowing what he was doing, and, comparing himself to Euripides, he commented, "I portray men as they ought to be, Euripides as they are."

The tension between the real and ideal
shows as opposing streaks in the Greeks.

Simon Says

Roger L. Simon writes about Chicago:

Someone named Daley has been the city’s mayor since somewhere in the Early Paleolithic Age. Chairman Mao didn’t last as long.

We had a Mayor Daley when I was a kid. And we have one now. They are father and son. That much is true.

But in between we elected our first woman mayor, Jane Byrne, and our first black mayor, Harold Washington. What are they, chopped liver?

No matter what you hear
about our imperfections
I want to make one thing clear:
we do in fact have elections.

Bipartisan Scandal Round-Up

Republican:

After non-abstinent action
with Ms. Jackson,
Congressman Souder
is suddenly taking a powder.

Democrat:

Also, as you may have heard,
Mr. Blumenthal "misplaced" words.
Now he's gone from war time hero,
to someone whose time in 'Nam was zero.

Rand-slide

From Louisville, KY:

Rand Paul defeated Republican establishment favorite Trey Grayson in the GOP primary for U.S. Senate, a closely watched race that was a key test of the tea party movement's strength.

After starting as the underdog, Paul won with 65% of the vote.

It's interesting that his win was so big, since he's a very libertarian Republican, very far from being a social conservative in many respects.

I admit I haven't followed the race, I'm not up on the nuances, and I'm weak on Kentucky politics. I have no idea how he'll do in November.

But it's nice to see the GOP
run a candidate
who wants to go on a chopping spree
against the creeping state.

Obama's Aunt Gets Asylum

Obama's aunt, who was ordered to be deported by a judge in 2004, has finally won asylum.

"The asylum process is confidential and she wants to keep it that way," her attorney Scott Bratton told the Associated Press today. "She doesn't want people to feel sorry for her."

So don't expect to find out too much about the decision. We do know that she beat the odds:

Of the 343 applications from Kenya in 2008, only 60 were granted asylum.

The case does show how spottily we enforce our immigration laws. She was ordered out by a judge.

Instead she simply stayed.
Now that choice has paid.

It's not that we don't deport anyone. We do. One government estimate I see for 2008 is 234,000 deportees. Of course, some of those return. I'm not sure how the government handles the counting of the repeat customers.

I imagine Obama's aunt had better legal help this time around. Obama says he didn't help her. But I bet someone somewhere decided that she was deserving of support.

High profile cases
win benefactors' graces.