Rod

Years ago (less so recently) I participated in discussions on an Internet newsgroup, now defunct. There I saw certain quixotic libertarians argue, supposedly on principle, that they would never a visit a national park. So far as I can recall, their reasoning was that the government ought not to own any land, all land ought to be privately owned, and since the government has violated this “ought” by asserting eminent domain over national park land, they will therefore not visit a national park. Fearing, I suppose, the cognitive dissonance that would arise in them if they enjoyed an experience they knew involved a violation of a fundamental ought of proper human action, namely, taking something, land in this case, by force. (Never mind that history records no examples to the contrary).

I was pretty quixotic myself at the time. Many who know me would say I still am. Nevertheless, the above reasoning bothered me then, and still does. Probably because I like national parks, not because they’re “national,” along with everything that entails, but because there’s cool stuff to see there; I enjoy nature. Nothing unprincipled about that. Would I prefer to hand over my entrance fee to a private property owner rather than a park ranger, sure, I suppose, but that’s not the way things Is. The way things is, is that the government has claimed ownership to these lands, and if I want to see the land I have to pay the government. (Even if you don’t want to see the land, if you pay income tax you pay anyway, but forget about that for now).

So what’s a Red Rocks lovin’ libertarian supposed to do? Forgo the pleasure of observing natural wonders? That’s inconsistent with my moral imperative to do things that make me happy. So no, even while I happen to live in a world that arguably isn’t as it ought to be, it is what it is, and there’s nothing practically I can do about that in the margins of an individual life.

Oddly, what set me to thinking about this was a short, well-reasoned article re: What libertarians really think about big corporations.

Already, the usual fallacies have resurfaced. If you don’t want the government to run education, you must be against education. If you don’t want the government to run healthcare, you must not want people to get healthcare.

This misunderstanding is often summed up with comments like, “I’m not sure I’m comfortable with an ‘every man for himself’ society.” This springs from the absurd assumption that human beings never confer benefits upon one another except when forced to do so at gunpoint.

Date night at The Pour, a charitable wine ‘n foodie event for a cause we support. This year Beans Cafe will have prepared and served tens of thousands of plates of food for the less fortunate in Anchorage. Good thing the cause was good, ’cause the food ‘n wine… not so much.

Now this was good food. Huevos Rancheros with Hatch chiles prepared by the Happy Wife this morning, hand delivered to my comfy chair at kickoff. <Supplicant glance heavenward>. The first bite released the Capsaicin, like being wrapped in a Down comforter, insulation against a frosty morning outside.

Update: Dinner. Wild Alaskan Salmon (caught this summer) over orzo with a kale pesto, En Papillote (“in parchment”), before and after wrapping. Eighteen minutes @ 375^o
Paired w/Red Zinfandel.

Bigger.

Heard on National Public Radio this morning: “The current congress has passed six times less legislation than the infamous “do-nothing-congress” of 1947 & 48.”

She said it like it was a bad thing.

Does the journalist think herself wiser than former national luminaries?

This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.

– Will Rogers

No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.

– Mark Twain

I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.

– James Madison

The NPR piece continued by considering the preposterous proposal of outsourcing congress, making the remark of a modern luminary curiously prescient:

When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.

– P. J. O’Rourke

A friend asked in e-mail: Does it ship in a box, or is it the box?

The aurora borealis has been gushing lately.

Photographs by Leroy Zimmerman, captured this past week on Cleary Summit near Fairbanks, AK. Sent courtesy of Happy Wife’s brother, a proud Fairbanksian.

Go ahead, click an image to make it bigger.

Having read that kvetching against nuisances of the nanny state is pointless^[1], I felt momentarily complacent, lost my moral moorings, and actually warmed to the automatic deposit of $878 into my savings account by the administrators of the Permanent Fund Dividend program on behalf of the great state of Alaska. That’s right, free money, from the State, once a year — every year! — just for living here. Really it was $778, because I designated $100 be deducted and donated to a local outfit that succors abandoned dogs while they await adoption. You know what they don’t say: Scratch a Scrooge, find an altruist.

[1] Hat Tip John Venlet

Speaking of John, this made me think of you. A picture I took while riding my bike along the Fryingpan River near Basalt, Colorado last month. Correct me if I’m wrong, that looked like a darn good casting arc to this amateur.

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I call the Happy Wife baby so often it set me to wondering.

Note the high cheek bones already in evidence. Some early features of dainty youth are evanescent, others honed and shaped for nothing more than the sake of beauty.

In Alaska road signage is minimal. The reason: Leaving Anchorage there is one major highway going north, another going south. Both eventually bifurcate many miles outside of town, and I suppose one could get “lost” if they veered right instead of left at either point, but barring that let’s just say there is really no reason for a GPS up here. This too is something that makes the Happy Wife happy. She loathes a six lane interstate. Hates freeways. Fears complicated signage — stay right, merge left, exit 1/4 mile, bridge out. That kinda thing. She wants simplicity of direction, like this:

Even here the two-sided black arrow is pointless for all but the clueless. If the guardrail isn’t an obvious disincentive to those who may think going straight is an option, the sloshing water of Turnagain Arm one hundred feet beyond should be. I’m guessing it’s a cover yer ass sign erected by the D.O.T., something the police can point to when they’re pulling an RV full of tourists from a rushing tide: Didn’t you see the sign?

Going right here will take us home, to our primary residence, while left leads to what we hope (!) will soon become our second home.

Sneak preview: View From The Porch.

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Cut back those pesky alders and the view of Resurrection Bay, I think you’d agree, could center a man. If not also impoverish him. But as the Happy Wife correctly pointed out, we shouldn’t save everything for the future. What if The Future doesn’t arrive? An important point I was unfit to refute. I admit to possessing a feature of fiscal conservatism that has limited my ventures, probably since the time I was a baby. And so it happened we traveled south this weekend to greet the house inspector who confirmed our belief that the place had “good bones”, although he did find an issue or two that will need to be addressed. Nothing I suppose is ever perfect, and that should not be the enemy of the good.

Video proof for the sake of posterity.

The unequivocally worse call by a “referee” in an NFL game — ever.

Victim: Packers.

 

You ask, why the scare quotes around referee? Because on the evidence many are incompetent to referee an NFL game. Reportedly, some have been fired as referees in the LFL, that’s right, not even competent to call a game between women dressed in bras and panties.

Sheesh.

A while back I wrote about a letter to the editor I sent to our daily rag. In a follow-up comment to that letter published on the paper’s website, I replied and said…

“Frequently, the people who shout at cyclists to get off the road aren’t even being inconvenienced in the least, they just seem angry.”

An article at Salon provides a theory of why — something called the affect heuristic. Can you imagine such a thing? People using emotion rather than reason to drive their decisions?

I woke up from my nap today. Waking up is a good thing. Consider if sleep were not reversible.

…

It’s been raining in Anchorage — and I mean biblical rain —  since we returned from Aspen. It feels weird to experience so much water you begin to fear it. Not a serious fear mind you, like something you don’t understand or think you can’t predict, for instance coming face to face with a grizzly bear. No, this feels more like a rational fear based in respect. Ordinarily water is good, life giving, refreshing, etc. But when’s there so much of it the rivers and streams rise and water carries people and property away. That’s kinda scary.

Speaking of bears — in Aspen the local bears saunter into town to sleep in trees. I’ve seen bears in Alaska climb trees, for sure, even had one of my Airedales tree a bear years ago, but I don’t think bears sleep in trees in Alaska.

Aspen Momma bear and three clubs sleeping in:

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Day one of riding we cycled from Aspen up to a place called Maroon Bells. The Bells were shrouded in clouds but the lake was beautiful, and while there we spotted a bull moose enjoying a drink at the far end of the lake.

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We descended from Maroon Bells, but instead of returning to Aspen we turned and climbed up to Castle Creek. A mere 1600′ (or so), but it felt harder than that, probably because it was day one and the climb to Maroon Bells had been equal in elevation. Pictured: Me and Happy Wife with our friends Dave ‘n Cindy. Dave had recently completed a cross country mountain bike adventure from Laramie, WY to Chama, NM. Hard to believe he’s in his sixties. After a bite to eat at the sag wagon, we descended back down the same road we’d climbed to Aspen, a road with three week old asphalt. Unless you’re a road biker, you can’t appreciate how sweet that was. I spotted a coyote on the descent.

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Day two most of us climbed up to Independence Pass, the continental divide (12,095′). If you ask me that was a very challenging 4200′ of climbing over 20 miles.

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Day three we enjoyed a morning descent from Aspen to the town of Basalt, CO. From there we climbed up to the Ruedi Reservoir. I got caught up in a pretty fast pace line with five other riders but fell off the back about three miles from the summit unable to sustain their pace. The last mile or two was pretty steep, but nowhere near as hard or long as Independence Pass. Another beautiful day in any case.

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Day four we intended to cycle up to Snowmass, CO for breakfast, about twenty miles from Aspen, but Owl Creek road was closed by the Sheriff.  They told us it was for a “medical emergency”, but it turns out some nut with a gun was hold up in a house threatening to shoot passersby. The standoff lasted hours before he finally surrendered to police. I opted to cycle back to Aspen, meet up with the Happy Wife and leisurely pedal about town. We stopped at a sanctuary devoted to John Denver, located on a piece of property he had purchased years ago before his death, intending to conserve it. Happy Wife got weepy reading the lyrics in stone.

Paragliders were a frequent site over Aspen.

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The next day we packed up and drove to Longmont (north of Denver) to hang at Dave ‘n Cindy’s house for a few days before returning to the Greatland. Gracious hosts they were. While there, we drove to Estes Park and visited Rocky Mountain National Park, where Elk were easily seen, and the next day Happy Wife went Kayaking with Dave on a lake nearby their house.

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What vacation should be.