Brilliant, beginning to end.
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Category: Personal Page 15 of 59
Andrew Leonard highlights a bit of inanity from the Competitive Enterprise Institute (a “libertarian” thinktank):
The Competitive Enterprise Institute is unhappy with the suggestion that we should try to drive less.
From an e-mail alert:
Tuesday is World Car-Free Day. That means you’re supposed to walk, or bicycle, or take a bus, to make some sort of anti-car, anti-prosperity statement. Good luck getting to and from the grocery store. Even more fun if it rains (and can you imagine if this day were scheduled in the dead of winter?). The fact is, the automobile plays a major role in making our lives happen — it empowers all of us to get where we need to go (not to mention respond to emergencies).
The stupidity implicit in CEI’s attack on the idea that there might be some merit in sensibly minimizing our car use is staggering.
It may well be that the folks at CEI aren’t stupid. But they almost certainly think their audience is (and, well, I’d say that most libertarians are fairly selective about where they apply rigorous thinking). Leonard goes on:
The point of exercises like World Car-Free Day is to encourage us to be less unthinking in our auto dependence. If it’s a sunny day, why not ride a bike, or take a stroll? Stretching your legs conveys its own reward. And you know what, if there isn’t a grocery store within walking distance of you, maybe there should be.
It’s not for everyone. Hell, as he notes, it’s not even possible for everyone. But the idea of Car-Free Day is to give it a chance. He closes with something that might be meant to be a bit of snark, but may well be the real point of disagreement:
CEI complains that World Car-Free Day is “anti-prosperity.” If their idea of prosperity is living in the suburbs where you have to drive miles to get to the nearest McDonald’s, I guess they are right. But World Car-Free Day really is “pro-good life.” A life in which we use our bodies instead of burning fossil fuels, reside in livable neighborhoods instead of sterile deserts of tract housing, and enjoy the wind on our face instead of the hum of the air conditioner.
The car-bound suburbs have become something of a cultural norm, in the US. And anything (like, say, cycling) that invokes city life – with its lack of space, rampant crime, and scary diversity – is automatically accepted as something to be attacked. But that only works so long as it’s left as an abstract. Once the specific is experienced – the walk to the bar, the grocery run on a bike, the ease of just locking your bike up – it’s much harder to discount. Don’t believe me? Try it.
Strafe, Set It Off I Suggest, Y’all
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Da_Tfg2AyY8[/youtube]
LL Cool J, Around the Way Girl
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipGFdFIfJ3Y[/youtube]
Kilo Ali
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImihdnYXADk[/youtube]
That’s the title of this article in the latest issue of Outside magazine. The subject – the manipulation of photos – is something I’ve long thought about, but had given more consideration this year, as I started posting photos I’ve heavily processed. What made this article particularly interesting to me was the subject matter. The author created a composite photo of surfing on Oahu’s North Shore that reflected “how surfing feels to me. Not how it is.” Which is almost exactly the issue I struggled with in composing photos when I was there in March. The photo above isn’t manipulated in any meaningful way – it’s pretty much the light that fell on my camera’s sensor (there’s a slight vignetting added at the corners). But it doesn’t really capture the sheer kinetic energy that was at the center of everything, that afternoon. The manipulated composite in the Outside article? Does. So which is really telling the truth?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3wRZ3ODKWo[/youtube]
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: 10 Downing Street <number10@petitions.pm.gov.uk>
Date: 2009/9/11
Subject: Government response to petition ‘turing’
To: e-petition signatories <number10@petitions.pm.gov.uk>Thank you for signing this petition. The Prime Minister has written a
response. Please read below.Prime Minister: 2009 has been a year of deep reflection – a chance for
Britain, as a nation, to commemorate the profound debts we owe to those who
came before. A unique combination of anniversaries and events have stirred
in us that sense of pride and gratitude which characterise the British
experience. Earlier this year I stood with Presidents Sarkozy and Obama to
honour the service and the sacrifice of the heroes who stormed the beaches
of Normandy 65 years ago. And just last week, we marked the 70 years which
have passed since the British government declared its willingness to take
up arms against Fascism and declared the outbreak of World War Two. So I am
both pleased and proud that, thanks to a coalition of computer scientists,
historians and LGBT activists, we have this year a chance to mark and
celebrate another contribution to Britain’s fight against the darkness of
dictatorship; that of code-breaker Alan Turing.Turing was a quite brilliant mathematician, most famous for his work on
breaking the German Enigma codes. It is no exaggeration to say that,
without his outstanding contribution, the history of World War Two could
well have been very different. He truly was one of those individuals we can
point to whose unique contribution helped to turn the tide of war. The debt
of gratitude he is owed makes it all the more horrifying, therefore, that
he was treated so inhumanely. In 1952, he was convicted of ‘gross
indecency’ – in effect, tried for being gay. His sentence – and he
was faced with the miserable choice of this or prison – was chemical
castration by a series of injections of female hormones. He took his own
life just two years later.Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing
and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt
with under the law of the time and we can’t put the clock back, his
treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance
to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and
the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted as he was convicted
under homophobic laws were treated terribly. Over the years millions more
lived in fear of conviction.I am proud that those days are gone and that in the last 12 years this
government has done so much to make life fairer and more equal for our LGBT
community. This recognition of Alan’s status as one of Britain’s most
famous victims of homophobia is another step towards equality and long
overdue.But even more than that, Alan deserves recognition for his contribution to
humankind. For those of us born after 1945, into a Europe which is united,
democratic and at peace, it is hard to imagine that our continent was once
the theatre of mankind’s darkest hour. It is difficult to believe that in
living memory, people could become so consumed by hate – by
anti-Semitism, by homophobia, by xenophobia and other murderous prejudices
– that the gas chambers and crematoria became a piece of the European
landscape as surely as the galleries and universities and concert halls
which had marked out the European civilisation for hundreds of years. It is
thanks to men and women who were totally committed to fighting fascism,
people like Alan Turing, that the horrors of the Holocaust and of total war
are part of Europe’s history and not Europe’s present.So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely
thanks to Alan’s work I am very proud to say: we’re sorry, you deserved
so much better.Gordon Brown
If you would like to help preserve Alan Turing’s memory for future
generations, please donate here: http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/Petition information – http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/turing/
If you would like to opt out of receiving further mail on this or any other
petitions you signed, please email optout@petitions.pm.gov.uk
This was the morning view I had for a couple of weeks:
And now I’m back in DC. As you might imagine, such a transition takes a bit of time. I’m working on pieces about diving, cycling, and Australia overall. Just asking for a bit of slack, to recover.
Sydney sent me off with a perfect spring day. People all over the place, enjoying the crisp blue sky and a bit of sun. Couldn’t have asked for better. It’s always hard to finish a good trip, but a fantastic final day does make it a bit easier. Thanks, Sydney.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuXLElEDEKI[/youtube]
I can’t get to sleep
I think about the implications
Of diving in too deep
And possibly the complications
Especially at night
I worry over situations
I know I’ll be alright
Perhaps it’s just imagination
Day after day it reappears
Night after night my heartbeat shows the fear
Ghosts appear and fade away
Alone between the sheets
Only brings exasperation
It’s time to walk the streets
Smell the desperation
At least there’s pretty lights
And though there’s little variation
It nullifies the night from overkill
Day after day it reappears
Night after night my heartbeat shows the fear
Ghosts appear and fade away
Come back another day
I can’t get to sleep
I think about the implications
Of diving in too deep
And possibly the complications
Especially at night
I worry over situations
I know I’ll be alright
It’s just overkill
Day after day it reappears
Night after night my heartbeat shows the fear
Ghosts appear and fade away
Ghosts appear and fade away
Ghosts appear and fade away
