cancellara wins again!

fabulous race

blogging against theocracy

as i continue the weekend's readings--and they are countless and massive--i realize that i am not surprised, and i am elated, to see the beauty of the posts that so many of my blogging compadres have shared. right now, i'm in the midst of a wonderful post by tengrain, at mock, paper, scissors. just reading these is no light undertaking, yet it is quite worthwhile, and i urge you all to do this, to see how passionately is felt the necessity of returning to the true spirit of the founders' call for the separation of church and state, and how insidious the intrusion of relgion has become over the last twenty years or more.

regular readers of the comments section of today's sermonette know how i feel--and how some of my readers feel--about religion. but this weekend's observations are not about religion, per se. rather, it is an attempt to direct attention and discussion to how injecting one's religious views and beliefs into the governmental process is harmful to everyone's right to believe and observe whatever they want.

consistent with my feeling that learning can come only from listening, i urge all of you to go to mock, paper, scissors or to blog against theocracy as launching points. read their posts and then follow to just one link more. read, comment, and then reflect.

[this is good stuff, and it can be done as you follow milan-sanremo.]

uncertain, mixed, or lost messages

i was coming home just now, in my car [old volvo wagon with five-bike yak rack on top, a few liberal-type stickers on the back] with the bright black on yellow SEE BICYCLES sticker behind, and as i slowly came around a late-model vw with a two bike yak rack on it, the driver [seriously, i didn't recognize him] held his left hand by his window, bird on display. not a FUCK YOU, waiving it in my face, but a casual GO TO HELL bird.
i have no idea what you meant. sorry dude.
MYSTERY EXPLAINED [see comments]

give a kid a fish, and he'll eat it

teach a kid to fish, and he'll ask you for a bike.

[click on photo and imagine you are there]

.....

and when you DO give a kid a bike, he'll be

happy for a lifetime.

jack and the magic bean bus

chapter 22 - a fresh of breath air

Jack was lying inside Mr. Karras’ musty duffle bag but he wasn’t running out of fresh air. No, there had never been any fresh air in the duffle bag to begin with. Not a moment too soon, the zipper buzzed open and Jack scrambled out onto the garage floor, gasping for breath. He lay there panting like a shipwreck survivor who had just reached shore.

Standing over him were Mr. Karras and a person whom Jack could only guess was his wife, Mrs. Karras. Mr. Karras stood lean and tall, with an angular jaw line and sharp eyes sheltered under bushy eyebrows. Mrs. Karras looked just as fit but was shorter, with twinkling eyes and a kind smile.
They both stared at Jack for a few moments until Mrs. Karras wrinkled her nose at Jack and said with a smile, “You smell like a goat, dear.”
Mr. Karras burst out laughing as he caught Jack up by the hand to lift him onto his feet. “I’m sure being stuck in my musty Ragbrai duffle bag didn’t help matters, but you must have quite a story to tell, kid.”

The pressure had been building inside Jack for too long, and he was about ready to burst. “Uh, could I use the bathroom?” he asked. It had been a long and bumpy truck ride since breakfast.
This brought another fresh round of laughter and a hearty slap on the back as they ushered Jack inside and showed him to the bathroom. Mrs. Karras had already sized up Jack’s situation and called in through the bathroom door a few minutes later to say that she had set some fresh clothes outside the door. Jack took the hint. In the three days since he had left the orphanage, Jack had washed up when he could but he hadn’t showered.

It felt good to be clean again, and when Jack finally came out of the bathroom, he found Mr. and Mrs. Karras in the kitchen about to have lunch. Mrs. Karras set plates of sandwiches, chips, and carrot sticks in front of Jack and Mr. Karras, along with a plate for herself. There was barely enough space left for the newspaper Mr. Karras had been reading, but he managed to thumb through it while holding it off to one side.
“Is that the Des Moines Register?” asked Jack.
“It sure is,” said Mr. Karras, flipping the paper closed so that Jack could see the banner. “I’ve retired from being a full-time writer except for the usual Ragbray columns, and we moved clear out here to Colorado for some peace and quiet, but I still subscribe.”

“Did you say Ragbray?” asked Jack.
“As a matter of fact I did,” said Mr. Karras firmly, and he bit down on a carrot stick that snapped in half and sounded like a rifle shot. “Everyone else pronounces it the wrong way. Donald Kaul and I invented the ride across Iowa, and I came up with the acronym RAGBRAI to name it.”
Mr. Karras continued, “The last two letters A and I put together make a long a sound in the English language. Take “brain” and “braid” for example. There’s no eye sound in them. And yet people keep trying to say Ragbrye year in and year out. I’ve given up on everyone else. Say it however you want to, but I’ll choose the correct pronunciation.”

Then Mr. Karras turned his attention back to his lunch while muttering something about Don Quixote tilting at windmills.
An awkward silence followed. Jack hadn’t been expecting the stern grammar lesson and didn’t quite know what to say. He glanced at Mrs. Karras, who smiled and said, “It’s true. Everyone else says it the wrong way, and that will probably never change.”
Mr. Karras paused from eating and flipped through the paper, then folded the pages back, and handed it to Jack. “There’s a story about you here.” As Jack began reading, Mr. Karras turned to his wife and said, “The weather forecast is for snow tonight, and the temperature is already dropping. Our first winter storm of the year is early, and it looks like a big one.”

to be continued...

[a serial by little orphan dbax]

garbage in, garbage out

item 1: i rolled my dumpster to the curb this morning. big deal? so does everyone else on 48th street? well, maybe, but this is the first time since long before i broke my collarbone in january. the last time i took my "pay as you throw" mini-dumpster to the curb was sometime in december. how do i know? well, for one, the huge snowfalls of the now-ended winter blocked the gate at the end of my driveway, and i didn't need to take it out before i broke my wing, and couldn't thereafter. some landscaping now that the ice has left the surrounding area allowed me to roll the brown buddy of mine out front, filled with an odd assortment of genuine trash and decaying crap from the basement, and before tip-off of drake-western kentucky, the coffin for my cast-offs will be back in place for a few more months.

my smaller green recycling basket, which sees much more action, sits more conveniently on my front porch during the winter months.

.....

item 2: i don't like the proposed recycling plan which allows residents simply to put everything recyclable into one roll-away container and then have us pay to have someone else sort it.

.....

item 3: another reason to think before you drink is this news item. in brief, a giant coffee chain has long had this tipping policy: throw cash into a tip jar, and the shift supervisors get it to share. it doesn't go entirely to the baristas who take your order, make your beverage, and set it on the counter for you to pick up. "...spokeswoman Valerie O'Neil said the company planned an immediate appeal, calling the ruling 'fundamentally unfair and beyond all common sense and reason.'"

[some folks think that, as supervisors, the "salary" they receive should be sufficient compensation.] this policy, coming from the mega-corporation which as recently as last month shut down ALL stores for a THREE HOUR training session, during which they taught the baristas how to make coffee beverages.

now, i realize that in this sequence, it would appear that perhaps the initial corporate tip policy was justified. i would suggest, however, that the true coffee lover would see this whole sordid affair as perhaps a reason to reflect on where one buys one's coffee and coffee beverages.

i love youtube

the folks at the aristocrats always post the best music, and because i don't know how many of my readers actually visit the places i have linked, i'm going to share this one with you. this video is so outstanding for so many reasons, not the least of which is my suspicion that this performance is from a morning talk show, like merv griffin or something, judging from the look of uneasiness on poor janis's face at the end of the song.

thanks, blue gal.