moving moving moving

this morning was a sad morning. it was my last morning enjoying convenient public transportation from home to work. cubeland on the fifth floor of the empire building in downtown st. paul was razed this morning. the air tastes like dust, not good dust like topsoil dust, but indoor dust, which is probably made up of dead dust mites, tiny hairs, sloughed skin cells, and skanky city dust. now i'm sitting at my makeshift desk. tomorrow we relocate to oakdale near the confluence of 94 and 694/494.

on an unrelated note, i haven't sinned since may 30, 2003.

I-80 take me home

nebraska was the good life.

schultz's wedding was fun. posed pictures are ridiculous. i was forced to grab the lapels of my tux up above my nipples. i rebeled to this unnatural pose by making sure my smile featured both upper and lower rows of teeth. i saw the legendary troy conyers. we both slipped up and swore several times in the catholic church. i argued that i wasn't really cursing because i was quoting somebody. when troy asked who i was quoting, i had to admit that i was quoting myself. troy decided that it was okay as long as the original quote did not occur in a church. if you saw schultz's ring, you would think it was an ankle bracelet. he’s a thick guy.

my dad's brother vance died thursday november 18 and the funeral was monday, so it was nice to be there for that.

i saw josh cramer. we hung out at the reno bar. we reminisced. if two words that you have never heard sequentially are going to come out of someone's mouth, that mouth will probably be josh cramer's. peeps were discussing where two people had lived relative to each other and cramer ended the lively conversation with a definitive "caddywampus bitch." for those of you who know and are interested in the fate of the three-testicled brian litz, he is alive and well. litz sells used cars during the day, works at a bar during the night, and has promiscuous sex with many anonymous and extremely obese women later on at night.

in other news, i ate a lot of food.

while i was home, my parents referred me to an essay on pieter bruegel the elder's sixteenth century painting, landscape with the fall of icarus. my dad has a sort of encyclopedia set of artists, with a book devoted to each artist, so i actually got to see the painting. the focal point is a ploughman, head down, ploughing his field on a hill in the foreground of the painting. further down the hill a shepherd is gazing ponderously off into the distance. the background contains a flourishing city and a calm bay. a large merchant ship is sailing on your right hand side. in the water near the merchant ship you can barely perceive the legs of icarus just before they submerge into the water. i don’t know much greek mythology, but i know icarus escaped imprisonment on wings of wax, flew upward, but too near the sun, which melted his wings and sent him hurtling down toward his death in the sea. think of icarus what you will. in the painting, nobody gives a shit about icarus. as some of you may not know, i was hanging out with the ploughman in a pub later that month, and i told him what had happened, because he hadn't seen it in the vulpine news. the ploughman appeared to have the inclination to say something, but in the end he shook his head and shrugged his shoulders, and then looked down into his tenebrous beer.

national 3d cross country meet results
regional teams:
7. stolaf
8. carleton
11. nebraska wesleyan
14. wartburg

congratulations to bucy, fulton, and richards. does anybody know what happened to sam hauck. i wouldn't expect viscosity and thermal breakdown in november, but it looks like he blew up, which could have cost stolaf 70 points; however, they still edged cross-town rival carleton.

congratulations to steve and yarrow. the williams men finished 9th and williams women finished 1st.

and lastly, i would like to congratulate to missy buttry and liz woodworth on their 1-2 finish and their awesome porn names.

outkast's andre three thousand says we need a glass of cold water to chase the hate away.

nebraska 20 - colorado 26
nebraska finishes the season with first losing record since my dad's sophomore year in college.

vikings 27 - yagwars 16

woodspice

two things

first. i had to buy some deodorant because the building i work in keeps our office at 77 degrees, no shit. do you know what 77 feels like to my body in november in minnesota. my body says 86 and sunny. naturally, me being a man uber alles, i don't want my armpits to smell like roses. that's why i bought woodspice, a deodorant cloying of man musk (actually sage and lemongrass, but don't tell anyone).

second. if you're feeling down, visit rather good. i recommend giant bee. and you might recognize we like the moon from the quizno commercials.

i will be away on assignment until november 29. jude has agreed to write on my behalf while i am gone. just for the record jude, i think you're a love lover. sometimes i say things i don't mean.

administer the discipline to me, hard

i just read that kmart and sears are combining forces to form the third largest retailer behind wal-mart and home depot. on that note...

i watched frontline on pbs last night. is wal-mart good for america?

wal-mart was born in the 1950s with sam walton's five and dime store. sam walton's formula: buy cheap, sell for less, and make your profit on high volume and fast turnover. wal-mart had 38 stores in 1970. now every week 100 million shoppers enter its 3400 stores. wal-mart had $256 billion in sales last year. that's one IBM, one hewlett-packard, one dell computer, one microsoft, and one cisco systems, with $2 billion left. in the past we had pennsylvania railroad, u.s. steel, and general motors, now we have wal-mart headquartered in bentonville, arkansas.

wal-mart has incredible efficiency and amazing logistics. wal-mart uses barcode data to its fullest potential. managers can monitor sales by time and by any product variable (color, fabric, size, etc.). wal-mart kicks ass as a business machine, but do machines have feelings.

how did wal-mart rise to power. people voted for wal-mart with their dollars, not just wal-mart, but big box retailers in general. as a result, manufacturers no longer sell to thousands of retailers, instead, like in the case of rubbermaid, 5-7 retailers represent two thirds of sales volume. big box retailers have incredible power, which has shifted production from push production to pull production. in push production manufacturers decide what to produce and then try to get retailers to buy and sell the products for them. in pull production retailers observe what is selling and then tell manufacturers what to produce and when. wal-mart doesn't negotiate on manufacturer prices. for example, rubbermaid needed to pass the cost increase of resin (raw material) on to the consumer. wal-mart said no. let's review the manufacturer's choices: accept wal-mart's price or see your products disappear from wal-mart's shelves. remember, wal-mart is about 25% of the retail market. so how do manufacturers acquiesce to wal-mart's price demands. they move production to china.

today wal-mart has 6000 global suppliers, 80% of which are in china. remember wal-mart's "buy american" campaign in the late 1980s. that was nice. then sam walton died in 1992 and wal-mart stock started to slide down. my precious, no, not the stock price. wal-mart increased profits through importing merchandise with huge profit margins, as in 60-80% profit margins versus 18-20%. chinese workers earn 25 to 50 cents per hour. cheap labor is cheap.

market forces, free trade, right. the u.s. signed an international trade agreement with china. china joined the world trade organization. maybe not free trade. the last remaining television manufacturer in the u.s. filed a court case against china for illegally dumping below market value. wal-mart sided with china. the manufacturer argued that china's currency valuation is too low, china has unfair labor standards, and the chinese government subsidizes like a mo-fo. the manufacturer won the case and import duties were imposed. duties saved the day. but can duties win the war.

china is the largest exporter to the u.s. economy in virtually all consumer goods categories. wal-mart is the largest retailer in the u.s. economy in virtually all consumer goods categories. china and wal-mart make out in public, and that's gross. at the long beach port in california, china ships $36 billion to the u.s. and the u.s. ships $3 billion to china. fair and balanced, like fox. americans have the income to buy, the chinese don't. the u.s. exports cotton and imports clothing, exports hides and imports shoes, exports scrap metal and imports machinery. hmmm. pray to the smiling curve.

for whom does the smiling curve smile

china: wrong part of the smiling curve

other stuff:

frontline focused on shenzhen, a rice field twenty years ago but now a city of seven million that will soon be the world's third busiest port. shenzhen is located by hong kong and macao. macao has the most desirable casino real estate in the world. but that's another story.

wal-mart has a strategy called opening price points. select advertised items have crazy low prices and will beat the competition, but other items don't necessarily have the lowest price. lure customers into the store with the crazy low prices on select goods and use these opening price points to establish the perception that all wal-mart products are cheaper than the competition's.

frontline didn't talk at all about wal-mart employees, wages, benefits, unions, etc. if you want to read a shitty but popular book about low-wage jobs, read "nickle and dimed" by barbara "all i want is a sinecure" ehrenreich. congratulations barb on you big fucking expose.

in other news. i read that there is an article in nature about how humans evolved to run. i read an editorial that compared colin powell to the guy who follows elephants around at a circus and picks up their shit. i don’t know if it fits, but it’s a good analogy.

RIP ODB

reading update

i finished "all the kings men" by robert penn warren. it's a story inspired by the real huey pierce long, governor and then senator of louisiana. long was known for his dictatorial control of louisiana. he campaigned under the slogan of "every man a king, but no one wears a crown." true to his word, he soaked the rich.

i finished "as i lay dying" by william “mississippi” faulkner. a mother of five dies. the family takes her forty miles away to another county to be buried. the book is told in stream of consciousness style by 15 different narrators in 59 chapters. each chapter is narrated by one character.

i finished cat's cradle by kurt vonnegut. it's about religion. it's funny, but maybe not funny if you are religious because you don’t think religion is a placebo. anyway, vonnegut creates a religion (bokononism) and weaves a good story.

i read a book review of “the empire has no clothes: u.s. foreign policy exposed” by ivan eland, a guy from the libertarian cato institute. it sounds good.

from the nytimes

exercise can result in microscopic muscle tears, which can lead to inflammation. white blood cells repair the muscles, releasing chemicals that signal soreness. so.

from the september issue of american journal of sports medicine
1. stretching does not prevent muscle soreness
2. massage does little to improve recovery after eccentric muscle use

post run eating
"There is some evidence that consuming protein and carbohydrates in the immediate period after exercise may decrease subsequent muscle damage, but that research is in its infancy," said Dr. Tarnopolsky. "What has been fairly well established is that eating food in the post-exercise period is better than starving.”

and if a peculiar norwegian cross country runner asks you if he can compensate for running by training for cross country skiing, you can cite dr. tarnopolsky: "It's all about sport specificity."

whose house

congratulations mac. third place among miac teams at the region meet. stolaf and carleton took one-two overall. bo was 14 seconds away from an individual birth to nationals.

7. Macalester
20 Bo Rydze, Sr 26:05 5:15
28 Eric Olson, Sr 26:20 5:18
41 Roscoe Sopiwnik, Jr 26:41 5:22
55 Dylan Keith, So 27:04 5:27
60 Nate Crider, Fr 27:11 5:28
85 Matt Wegmann, Fr 27:38 5:33
104 Tim Stendahl, Jr 28:17 5:41
Time = 2:13:20 Places = 204

nebraska 3 – oklahoma 30
hey, they beat the spread.

minnesota politics

minnesota had the highest voter turnout in the nation at 77.3%. in minneapolis 78% of the voters didn't chose bush. the elections gave the minnesota house an extreme makeover. the democrats gained 14 seats, closing the republican majority to 68-66. democrats control the senate 36-31. governor tim "small testicles" pawlenty has started harassing native american owned casinos in an attempt to squeeze money out of them and into state coffers. pawlenty has been forced to do this because he apparently needs money but refuses to raise taxes. i emailed pawlenty and said "why don't you cut some programs, is it because you're a huge pussy." pawlenty emailed back with a timorous "yes."

tim "duplex" pavlish

marye and i helped tim move a few things to his new house on saturday. the place is nice. the inside is very new. tim is inhabiting the first floor. enter the front door, take a right into the right half of tim's floor. from front to back you have living room, dining room, bedroom. in the living and dining areas the floors are wood, the walls are yellow, and the ceilings are high. the windows are long, six feet maybe, and let in the winter sun. the only bathroom on the first floor is in tim's bedroom. if you are over 250 pounds, you can’t take a shit there. the left half of the first floor houses tim's spacious kitchen, where tim will be training for an appearance on iron chef. to the left of the kitchen is the laundry room. now for the upstairs. enter the front door, high knees, up, take a right, up some more and there you are. a bedroom occupies the front quarter of the second floor. it has a big closet and space for a desk. the middle half of the second floor is split with a living room on the right and a kitchen on the left. the rear quarter of the second floor has a bathroom on the left and bedroom on the right. tim has one renter already, a bibulous cousin. tim is also friendly with the neighbors already. a little too friendly if you ask me. friday afternoon tim had just finished toweling off after a shower and was walking into his bedroom when suddenly his 82 year old neighbor marge scared the bejesus out of him. “hi tim, i see that you’re naked. anyway, i brought some cake and icecream for you.” “marge, jesus!, i mean, thanks. how about you wait in the dining room.” the point of this story is that if you go to visit tim and the door is locked, he still might be home. marge is cool though, she has a basketball hoop. sometime tim and i will play her in 21.

in other news, i went shopping for schultz’s wedding gift at target on sunday. i bought him a sponge bob square pants soap holder.

great garb

pictures from halloween are finally online. first we have tim pavlish displaying his check from the bocce tour, then the angelic marye, tim fondling his bocce ball, host matt gabrielson resting his beer cup on his huge godly rack, me as the new batman, cowboy and sub four minute miler luke watson, matt's favorite toy (don't worry it's not toxic), jason lehmkuhle as a hooters girl, slash (liz's boyfriend charlie) and sponge bob, some of team minnesota (spot the olympian), matt indulging the kimono clad liz connors, tommy trojan man, and sponge bob pissing off the edge of the deck. good times.

i support hierarchy

"Winning the Oil Endgame offers a coherent strategy for ending oil dependence, starting with the United States but applicable worldwide. There are many analyses of the oil problem. This synthesis is the first roadmap of the oil solution-one led by business for profit, not dictated by government for reasons of ideology. This roadmap is independent, peer-reviewed, written for business and military leaders, and co-funded by the Pentagon. It combines innovative technologies and new business models with uncommon public policies: market-oriented without taxes, innovation-driven without mandates, not dependent on major (if any) national legislation, and designed to support, not distort, business logic."

the rocky mountain institute is a good site to visit.

check out the healthy forests web site. on an unrelated note, the senate passed a resolution allowing only "best yet" brand foods to be served in the congressional cafeteria. when bill frist was questioned about the resolution he replied "why not."

testimony of secretary of the interior gale norton before the house committee on resources on the arctic coastal plain domestic energy security act of 2003.

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wiki

A wiki is a website that allows a user to add content, as on an internet forum, but also allows that content to be edited by any other user. the term wiki can also refer to the collaborative software used to create such a website.

A wiki enables documents to be written collectively in a simple markup language using a web browser. Wiki software originated in the design pattern community as a way of writing and discussing pattern languages. The Portland Pattern Repository was the first wiki, established by Ward Cunningham in 1995. Cunningham invented the wiki name and concept, and produced the first implementation of a wiki engine. Cunningham named the term wiki for the "wiki wiki" or "quick" shuttle buses at Honolulu Airport.

A number of jargon terms have emerged in the wiki community.

WikiGnome: A friendly editor participating in a wiki by contributing helpful little edits and additions without much noise. Obviously, this can be seen as a role adopted more or less occasionally by a person who may or may not be otherwise active on the same wiki.

WikiFairy: Another friendly contributor working to beautify pages on a wiki.

WikiGremlin: Roughly the opposite of a WikiGnome: somebody wreaking havoc and perpetrating sometimes intelligent but always mischievous and malicious edits. Clearly a variant of vandalism.

A common defense against persistent "vandals" is to simply let them deface as many pages as they wish, knowing that they can easily be tracked and reverted after the vandal has left. This policy can quickly become impractical, however, in the face of systematic defacements born out of anger or frustration. As an emergency measure, some wikis allow the database to be switched to read-only mode, while others enforce a policy in which only established users who have registered prior to some arbitrary cutoff date can continue editing. Generally speaking, however, any damage that is inflicted by a "vandal" can be reverted quickly and easily. More problematic are subtle errors inserted into pages which go undetected, for example changing of album release dates and discographies on Wikipedia.

*

"By challenging the arguments and ideas of our allies, we make them think about improving their own democratic discourse. Next time they'll come back with better discussion tools, not just talking like tools. Well, that or they will just punch us next time." -Eric Klinker

*

2004 Federal Tax Rates

Single

Taxable income is over: But not over: The tax is: Plus: Of the amount over
$0: $7,150: $0.00: 10%: $0
7,150: 29,050: 715.00: 15%: 7,150
29,050: 70,350: 4,000.00: 25%: 29,050
70,350: 146,750: 14,325.00: 28%: 70,350
146,750: 319,100: 35,717.00: 33%: 146,750
319,100: 92,592.50: 35%: 319,100

Married Filing Jointly

Taxable income is over: But not over: The tax is: Plus: Of the amount over
$0: $14,300: $0.00: 10%: $0
14,300: 58,100: 1,430.00: 15%: 14,300
58,100: 117,250: 8,000.00: 25%: 58,100
117,250: 178,650: 22,787.50: 28%: 117,250
178,650: 319,100: 39,979.50: 33%: 178,650
319,100: 86,328.00: 35%: 319,100

effective federal tax rates 1979-2001

it's a pickwickian blog... sometimes

login, inc. met its october revenue goals, so we had lunch paid for by the boss. however, because of that lunch, i don't have much time to write.

it is 77 degrees in my workplace. what do you think about that. it makes me angry.

my dad finished harvest last week. soybeans yielded slightly below average but corn kicked ass, above 200 bushels per acre.

i will be driving down to nebraska on friday november 19. schultz's wedding is on saturday november 20. i am in the wedding. it will be fun. then i will be in nebraska enjoying the good life until i return to minnesota on sunday november 28. i am disappointed that i won't be able to run the living history farm race and disappointed that i will not be able to stay at the ritz household. it breaks my streak of three lhf races. stupid weddings. kidding.

it was close, 51-48, that's close

i read an article about supernovas. the theory is that supernovas evolve in double star systems, where one star becomes a white dwarf (one of the densest forms of matter) and accretes matter from its larger partner star until it hits the chandrasekhar limit, at which point degeneracy pressure cannot support the star, thus creating a type 1a supernova. but how does it happen. is the supernova a deflagration or a detonation. the answer is both. the star burns like a candle and then detonates, creating heavy elements. like my astronomy professor at mac asked us one day, is your outfit supernova-free. probably not. are you wearing a ring, do you have a zipper on your pants, do you have a filling in a tooth, are you wearing a watch, are you concealing a glock. thank you supernovas. anyway, the resulting thermonuclear explosion means the end of the white dwarf and sends its partner star speeding across the universe.

i don’t know if you saw the news last week that dutch filmmaker theo van gogh, who was widely known for his mocking criticism of conservative muslims, was murdered by a young muslim who had sought to make contact with militant groups in the past. well, monday in eindhoven a bomb damaged a muslim elementary school, in what authorities say they believe was intended as an act of revenge for the killing of van gogh. not good. van gogh was due to release a film about pim fortuyn. remember jean-marie le pen from france, that guy was crazy too.

and did you see the news about the upheaval caused by floresians, miniature people found to have lived on the indonesian island of flores until just 13,000 years ago. floresians stood about three and a half feet tall and had tiny brains, but they made sophisticated stone tools that demonstrate high intelligence. are floresians descendants of homo erectus, or are they descendants of homo sapiens downsized by island selection in an environment lacking predators but also lacking food sources. or maybe floresians are unrelated, like neanderthals.

good article by david brooks: the values-vote myth.
who will it be in 2008: candidates begin to jockey for 2008
this article was okay: bansai, debunking the kamikaze myth

demographics is destiny. liberals have fewer kids. liberals are a dying breed.

families join evangelical churches as a refuge against the septic tide of popular culture that threatens to carry away their children.

god, gays, guns.

am i an elitist.

you have a nice face

the venerable and vulgar eric klinker, the recently converted and baptized kris johnstone (former coworker of mine), and the big fundamentals traveled down to ames, iowa, friday night to partake in the pre-game festivities of the iowa state - nebraska football game. we enjoyed ingurgitating quarter beers, savoring toothsome gyros, watching toothsome women put their christian values in motion on the dance floor, micturating in public, and of course, provoking the common species of choleric homophobe found prowling the ames bar scene.

iowa state 34 - nebraska 27
why do bad things happen to righteous people.

from today’s read of the news

here are some criminal justice stats from 2003:

1,470,045 state and federal inmates
2,212,475 inmates when city, county, and juvenile inmates are added to state and federal inmate population

state and federal inmate percentages
44% black
35% white
19% Hispanic

10% of african american men ages 25-29 are in prison.

a note on campaign finance:
In total, this year's races for Congress and the White House are estimated to have cost roughly $3.9 billion, about a third more than they did four years ago, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign spending.

the more you know:
three in four americans say if iraq did not have wmd or support al qaeda, us should not have gone to war. to read about this and other amazing misconceptions by the american public visit the program on international policy attitudes.

environmentalist?

okay tim of the fourth estate, i want to figure out exactly why you want to protect the environment. let’s start a dialogue, although i will run roughshod over you and anyone who supports the environment.

tim, you made a lot of claims in your blog, but not as many claims as assumptions.

1. drilling ANWR is bad

why should i care about the arctic national wildlife refuge. you say anwr will be ruined. ruined for whom. ruined for caribou and marmots. ruined for tundra.

2. forests should not be logged.

why should forests not be logged. maybe you would retort that logging destroys flora and fauna. why are flora, fauna, and landscape so important to you. is it the aesthetic, the value you give it. surely you don’t believe in intrinsic value. do you have a nature calendar featuring seal pups in november and maggots putrefying them in december.

3. global warming is bad.

it isn’t that bad. and remember, humans are the great ameliorators, we can change and fix in a hurry if forced.

if you want to reduce emissions, buy a fuel efficient car or travel less. but i like to travel. write to xcel energy and minnegasco and tell them that you want to buy renewable energy. recycle, reduce, reuse. cut down your materialism. make purchases that reflect your values. seventh generation is a great company. do you buy their detergent, dish soap, or toilet paper. where do you buy your food. do you choose organic or pesticides. do you have energy efficient light bulbs. have you read about the energystar program on the department of energy web site. have you weatherized your house. do you donate to the trust for public land or the nature conservancy. i don’t have the money. you always have the money, it just depends what is more important. vote with your dollars. your money is their profit. without the preservation of values in consumption, there can be no values in production.

i want a cabin on the lake. i want a cabin in the pristine wilderness. if you universalize my decision, there would be no wilderness. there would be cabins on every lake and covering every site with a buena vista. i want to preserve nature for me, not for other people.

what the hell do you mean by greater good.
what distinguishes you as an environmentalist from a republican, besides your vote at the poll.

pictures

i plan on bringing pictures to work tomorrow and making them available via shutterfly, so here's my trial run.

pictures

let me know if you can see the pics and if it takes forever to load.

you think you know me

okay, time for a little biography of my religious upbringing for all you pagans out there.

i had been going to GRACE UNITED METHODIST CHURCH before i was two, playing under the pews. i wasn’t baptized until age six. i was confirmed in junior high. i went to church every sunday and wednesday. i learned the old testament: genesis, exodus, leviticus, numbers, deuteronomy, joshua, judges, ruth, first book of samuel, second book of samuel, first and second kings, and the chronicles too, ezra, nehemia, esther, job, 150 psalms, and the proverbs too, eccelsiastes next, then the song of solomon, isaiah, jeremiah... i can't remember any more. i learned the new testament: matthew, mark, luke, john, acts, romans, first and second corinthians, galations, epehsians, phillippians, colossians, first and second thessalonians... i can't remember the rest. my mom always read the bible to me and my sister. we covered most of it, then i read it again myself. numbers was my favorite. i kid.

then i matriculated to the most pagan of institutions. one of the courses i took my first semester at dear old MACALESTER was cultures in conflict, taught by professor overman. one book that made a huge impact on me was “christians as the romans saw them.” i read books about paganism and i also purchased a bible containing the apocrypha, which i knew nothing about because protestant churches generally exclude the apocrypha. martin luther rejected the books due to some verses that seemed to contradict his views, especially a verse in second maccabees which alludes to purgatory: "it is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from their sins". by the way, the word APOCRYPHA, from the greek "hidden", refers in general to religious works that are not considered canonical, or part of officially-accepted scripture. such works are often believed not to have been "inspired" or to be in some way "less inspired" by divine processes or entities, such as holy wisdom or the holy spirit. am i inspired. hmmm. most works that are considered apocryphal in the hebrew bible were written in languages other than hebrew, such as greek or aramaic.

from the apocrypha i read the books of judith, esther, and first and second maccabees. judith dresses up all skanky and cuts off the head of an invading general. esther is a brave queen who prevents the genocide of jews. first maccabees tells the story of the conquest of palestine by the greeks under alexander the great, the attempt by the greeks to impose greek culture on the jews, and the jewish revolt against that domination. it’s not as exciting as it sounds. second maccabees focuses on the jews' revolt against antiochus and concludes with the defeat of the syrian general nicanor in 161 bc by judas maccabeus. catholics and orthodox consider second maccabees to be a canonical and part of the bible, while protestants regard it as apocryphal. most jews, while not considering it to be scripture, consider it useful as a historical supplement to first maccabees, but reject most of the doctrinal innovations present in the work. on a side note about MARTYRS, it should be known that the long descriptions of the martyrdoms of eleazer and of a mother with her seven sons (2 macc 6:18-7:42) caught the imagination of medieval christians. several churches are dedicated to the maccabeean martyrs, and they are among the very few pre-christian figures to appear on the catholic calendar of saints' days. the book is considered the first model of the medieval stories of the martyrs.

and moving right along. the summer after graduating from macalester i read the KORAN. it was repetitive and boring and i was provided no succor from the all clement. my reading of the koran provided me with good insight on the contrast between, on one hand, the intellectual analysis of text and, on the other hand, the indoctrination from growing up with religion, and the acting out of meaning and cultural observance of religion in everyday life through prayer, worship, fellowship, holidays (looks a little like holy days doesn’t it), etc.

would i recommend reading the bible. no. but, as the big fundamentals, i always believe that it’s good to know the basics.

i would recommend a few books of the bible. job is a good one, an exercise is theodicy, the reconciliation of the co-existence of evil and god. ecclesiastes is a good short read. it’s place in the bible always makes me laugh. everything is utterly senseless. i wish i was special. also, if you are named after a book of the bible, you should read that book. habakkuk should read habakkuk. jude should read jude, it’s the fourth shortest book in the bible. paul, you have your work cut out for you because you should read all the letters of paul. that goes for those of you named saul too. does anyone know why.

it's bush by a hair

people are crazy and i don't know why, so i asked god. god suggested that i talk with him more often. god also suggested that i study religion, especially christianity, and the constitution. i read the constitution the other night. its complete text is under C in the complete set of 1993 world book encyclopedia's that i picked up for twenty dollars at the hastings, nebraska, library book sale in the city auditorium in 2002. i joked with god about how the 18th amendment was the worst idea ever. i asked god why bush won the election and why the cornhuskers suck this year. i expected god to say that he was on bush's side and that's why bush won. but god must have seen the clever trap i had laid for him and quickly answered "because he got more votes and because they score less points." i said, damn god, i was ready to hammer you because i know you support the huskers but the huskers suck. why do the huskers suck if the huskers have a lot of christians on the team and the state is full of christians. we hate gays more than southerners and we are more zenophobic than southwesterners. how could you let a team like usc win, or any team from florida ever. blah blah blah

anyway,
here are results from my home county in nebraska:
adams county
bush 70%
kerry 29%

here are results from arthur county in nebraska:
bush 90%
kerry 9%
us house district three: osborne 97%

in other news

i am reading "ontogeny and phylogeny" by stephen jay gould. the book is a dry review of reproduction theories that have since been proven false. the main theory was recapitulation, which basically purports that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.

in case your are wondering... recapitulation is the theory that an individual organism's development of successive stages resembles the series of ancestral types from which it has descended. ontogeny is the development or course of development of an individual organism. phylogeny is the evolutionary history of a kind of organism.

the scientists believed in evolution but belief in god turned them into teleologists, and from there the crazy theories abound. it’s hard to read about something when you know it’s bullshit. it’s hard to take it seriously and try to learn something that appears to have no use. hmmm. i felt the same way when i was reading “a brief history of western philosophy.” those peeps were brilliant thinkers, but what would they think now.

it's wet, damn wet...

4. Macalester
13 Bo Rydze, Sr 27:14.6
15 Roscoe Sopiwnik, Jr 27:25.2
23 Dylan Keith, So 27:58.7
24 Eric Olson, Sr 28:02.1
43 Matt Wegmann, Fr 28:26.0
48 Nate Crider, Fr 28:30.5
49 David Augustson, So 28:32.6
Time = 2:19:06.5 Places = 118

if you look at the results, the times appear astonishingly slow. i think everyone knew the times would be slow due to the wet fall, which produced a soggy course. the temperature was a nice fifty degrees. it was a little breezy. there was also some nice drizzle. congrats on the effort mac, but i won't congratulate you on your fourth place between st. thomas (115) and hamline (121) because i know you expected third. i'm not in a comfy armchair, but here it goes: it is difficult to place third if you don't have any top ten runners, the gap between 1-2 and 3-4 was a little bigger than i expected, and the number 5 runner was average. regions should bring redemption, if you believe in that sort of thing.

dan bucy took the lead immediately, followed by malcolm richards, kelly fulton, several jackasses, and the rest of the pack. the top three opened a lead quickly and the race seemed to spread out early on. outside the top three, runners looked more haggard than usual. the course really took a toll on the runners’ appearances, or maybe the runners this year are just uglier than in past years. but the top three looked smooth, working easy. malcolm took the lead from bucy just before heading into the last small loop. kelly fulton came out from under the stone arch with the lead, turned around, threw a large hammer at malcolm, which malcolm dodged but bucy took directly on the nut sack, and continued to blaze to victory. stolaf won easily and carleton won second easily, proving eliot, who approached people before the race to tout his predictions with the giddiness of the masturbating bear, wrong.

in other observations, i thought i noticed some changes on the course this year. i didn't think there were usually water stations at the conference meet but somebody handed bethel runner david borner a water bottle shaped like a cock. he proceeded to fade from 4th to 32nd.

the mac women took home fifth.

carleton was hosting the meet and took home the dishonor of shittiest finish line management ever. i came across a transcript on the carleton web site from a pre-race meeting about managing the finish line. here it is:

the women's 6k race is usually really spread out and when women finish they continue to charge down the chute. that's true. that means we can make our one and only finish chute two meters wide and taper it down to twelve inches after taking two steps across the finish line. good idea. hey, i have another idea. let's have a single file line of finishers that backs up twenty meters onto the course. yes, that would be hilarious, runners pouring on the surge down the finishing stretch only to have us tell them not to pass anybody else, just wait here please, just a minute. [chortling] they won’t know when to stop their watches, should i stop it now or should i wait until the line moves across the finish. yes, hilarious.

elections
i haven't really been paying attention to swing states and the electoral vote, so i took a look today. if kerry wins ohio, michigan, and wisconsin, i will be running around st. thomas with my willie hanging out. let freedom reign. free willie. i also looked at the senate races. three states with republican party incumbency are tight. five races with democrat party incumbency are tight.

aaron, did you see this article in the asian times. have you heard about it in japan. tokyo traduces history with toxic textbooks. basically, japan was trying to liberate asia from the west, and what japan did in world war two was not only morally right, but magnanimous.

jude, i have a halloween party experience that you should be yearning to hear about. i don't know when i will post about it. i want to build the anticipation.