Sometimes These Blog Posts Just Write Themselves

On Friday the Today Show ran a Cadillac commercial.  Now normally I would not have paid the slightest attention to it, for there will never be a Cadillac in my future, but for some reason I actually paid attention to the words.

I copied down the narrative to share here because it seemed overtly suggestive to me.  I imagine the demographic the ad agency is going for is the "age 61-80 active seniors imagining kinky sex in the roomy backseat of our status symbol automobile" crowd.

Actual quote:

 

“Everywhere you look there’s legroom, leather, and wood.”

 

 

A Day of Firsts

[image credit Greencastle Flyers running club]

On Saturday for the first time is probably 7 or 8 years I ran a road race; this one was a local 5 miler, the 2013 Martin's Mill Covered Bridge Challenge.  I only ever run trail races nowadays, and very few of them.  But this race was close and I just felt like it.  Plus it crosses the now-closed-to-traffic bridge at about Mile 4, which is way cool.

When I looked over the app I noticed that for the first time I would fall into the last age group, 61-69.  The last age group.  Now, that's a bit disconcerting.

The final first this day was that I managed to actually win said age group, with a smoking hot time--wait for it--of a mere 45+ minutes!  My shoes practically ignited from the friction. 

Of, course, the depth of the 61-69 field was small; in fact, I don't recall seeing any other old guys around, so maybe I was the age group. 

Nevertheless, I am happy to admit that it was a cool experience to snag the trophy.  The victory was all the sweeter because I was able to share it with my good running buddy Jody, who unexpectedly showed up to run the race with me. So technically I had a pacer--hope they don't strip me of the trophy when this gets out!

 

Cats in Art: Raminou Sitting on a Cloth (Valadon)

From my continuing weekly Sunday series of cats in art. I'm using some ideas from the coffee table book, The Cat in Art, by Stefano Zuffi.

This is part 5 of 7 of a multiweek study of the cat art of Suzanne Valadon. A French painter (1865-1838), she had quite the interesting life (summarized from Wikipedia):

Suzanne Valadon became a circus acrobat at the age of fifteen, but a year later, a fall from a trapeze ended that career. In Paris, she pursued her interest in art, first working as a model for artists, observing and learning their techniques, before becoming a noted painter herself. She modelled for Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (who gave her painting lessons) and Pierre-Auguste Renoir....Valadon frequented the bars and taverns of Paris along with her fellow painters, and she was Toulouse-Lautrec's subject in his oil painting The Hangover....Valadon painted still lifes, portraits, flowers, and landscapes that are noted for their strong composition and vibrant colors. She was, however, best known for her candid female nudes. A perfectionist, she worked on some of her oil paintings for up to 13 years before showing them....A free spirit, she wore a corsage of carrots, kept a goat at her studio to "eat up her bad drawings", and fed caviar (rather than fish) to her "good Catholic" cats on Fridays....Both an asteroid (6937 Valadon) and a crater on Venus are named in her honor.

 

Image credit Wikipaintings, Raminou Sitting on a Cloth, 1920, Suzanne Valadon, oil on canvas, held in private collection.

 

 

So, as we did last week, we see the kitty Raminou, who must have figured prominently in Suzanne Valadon's life, since he appears by name in the title of at least three of her paintings.

 

Raminou--which, by the way, seems to have no English translation--looks eager and interested in human interaction in this painting.  Or maybe he's just ever-so-pleased to be sitting on that ever-so-fine piece of cloth. 

 

There's a kind of game the bride and I play with our cats: you place something new on the floor or on the bed, anything new, and the cats are powerless to resist sitting or laying on it.  They just can't help themselves, and while of course they know their catness is being exploited and manipulated, they just don't care.

 

I bet to get Raminou to pose, Suzanne Valadon made a big deal out of placing this cloth on the chair or table (I can't quite make out which).  Whereupon Raminou promptly hopped right up there and looked insufferably pleased with himself.

 

 

Where I Run: Compensate Much?

[image credit Gary]

The founding fathers who named the features and local governmental entities near Mercersburg, PA, seemingly had something else on their minds.

This shot is along Church Hill Road just east of town.  I've run by here a couple times.  This site will be on the route of the Flannery's Pub Run half marathon to be held on 13 April, right near the start, about a third of a mile into the race.

 

 

Local Homophobia, Reversed

[a courageous young woman, 16 year old Tiffany Bechtel, vice-president of the newly approved Gay Straight Alliance club...image credit Chambersburg Public Opinion]

Well, at least the official school board position was reversed last week (27 March), though I doubt the underlying homophobia was.

Back on 1 March I blogged about the 5-4 decision by the Chambersburg School Board to not allow a Gay-Straight Alliance club in the high school. This vote despite the warnings of the board's solicitor and pleas from students to allow the club. 

Then the ACLU threatened a lawsuit and the board backed off--or at least one formerly opposed member backed off--rendering the revote a narrow 5-4 approval of the club.

The local Chambersburg Public Opinion newspaper reported:

Board member Carl Barton reversed his initial vote on Feb. 27, when he helped reject the club. Also voting to approve the club Wednesday were Anne Boryan, Philip Miracle, Kim Amsley-Camp and Joan Smith.

Board President Stanley Helman and members Norman Blowers, Joe Tosten and Fred Rice did not vote to approve.

Barton read a statement prior to asking the board to rescind the previous vote. The board voted to rescind the decision by a 5-4 vote.

"There is no question that this board has a right and responsibility to approve and regulate non-curricular clubs," said Barton. "Like any other action of the board, a decision to approve or not approve can sometimes be followed by revelations that come to light only after the vote and challenge original assumptions upon which the decision was made."

Barton also said there is a need at CASHS for both a multicultural society and a GSA.
 

A big round of applause for Carl Barton and his changed vote, as well as to Anne Boryan, Philip Miracle, Kim Amsley-Camp and Joan Smith for their approval votes.

A big chorus of boos for Stanley Helman, Norman Blowers, Joe Tosten and Fred Rice, champions of bigotry.  They knew the vote had to pass, else the ACLU would rain fire on their heads.  They also knew that Mr. Barton's changed vote would mean the club would pass, thus they could still cast a meaningless NO vote with the minority...and maintain their "principles" and street creds with the local homophobic community.

Well played, but karma's a bitch, you know?

 

The Major Run That Wasn't

[image credit Gary]

Did you ever have a major run that wasn’t?  When you were all primed, prepped, and ready to go, and circumstances or fate conspired against you?

That was my yesterday.  I had planned a longish 20+ miler, using “my” trail and shelter (Reese Hollow) as a base of operations, and to be run largely on the Tuscarora Trail.

But first I had to do wound care of a family member (I volunteered so obviate the need for a home health care nurse to come in daily).  Next Mister Tristan (the 5-year-old human being, not the blog)  asked if I’d sit and snuggle him awhile. Then on the way to the trail, approaching from a different direction, I ran afoul of poor road signage (really, getting off course wasn’t my fault!) followed by a major road detour around a closed bridge that added 15 minutes to the trip.

The nail in the coffin was when I got to the trail and found the cable gate impassable.  It’s a long uphill (a mile) to where I was going to park and start my run.  As an overseer I have a key to the cable gate but so do renters who can use the Little Cove Cabin…and they locked the cable up wrong so that I could not open the gate.  Per attached image, the padlock on the right should have been through the hole on the opposite end of the short flat bar from the left padlock, not through the hole at the very end of the cable (this is actually a pretty ingenious arrangement for a gate that two separate entities access).

So I wound up spending an hour making multiple phone calls to report the situation and attempting to remedy it.

Bottom line?  I had a time window in which I needed to fit my run, and when the day unfolded as it did, the window had closed and I could not make Plan A happen.  Sure, I could have done a modified shorter run but when the planned one blew up, I was mentally done.  I threw in the towel and opted not to run at all.  Plan B was not an option--a modified run just no longer felt right, like a premonition that if I went ahead there would be some other obstacle or issue that I’d encounter, and if it occurred way up in the backcountry I could be seriously screwed.

 

 

Bush to Baghdad?

This post is actually a serious proposal, although it may come off as tongue-in-cheek.

March 2013 marked the 10th anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq.

There have been many, many retrospectives and analyses over whether the Bush administration lied about the real reasons for the war, whether that war was a good idea, how it was managed, etc. 

But by and large, 10 years later, most senior Bush administration officials remain unapologetic over the war, even while most Americans now view it as a mistake.

However, I have heard relatively little from the Iraqis themselves.  I'm sure their commentary is out there, but not making it into U.S. consciousness.  Perhaps here they have not been afforded much of a venue for making public comments.

So that is one of the reasons I am asking President Obama to tap former president George W. Bush to head up a special diplomatic mission...to Iraq.  Think of it as a listening tour or a series of town hall meetings, across the length and breadth of Iraq, to explain our justifications for going to war in 2003 and to listen firsthand to the Iraqi feedback.

After all, if you are going to throw this nation's blood and treasure into something like a large scale war, doesn't it deserve a full accounting to flesh out all the lessons learned to avoid repeats of any errors?

Of course, former president Bush could not refuse, for when a sitting president asks a former president for help, the answer is always, "Yes, Mr. President."

To assist Bush in his diplomatic mission, an entourage of experts would be required who were instrumental in war planning and management: Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice, Alberto Gonzales, George Tenet, Colin Powell, John Yoo, Paul Wolfowitz, and John Brennan, just to name a few.  Oh, and some generals, and the key cheerleaders in Congress at the time.  Plus there would be other individuals and disciplines not named here whose expertise should be represented as well. 

The press corps must, of course, include Judith Miller and Thomas Freidman of the New York Times as the senior correspondents.

Security would be provided by Haliburton or X-something.

It would be an interesting mission.

 

Shorts or Tights?

Although it's April Fools Day (I never know whether an apostrophe is called for there), I am woefully uninspired today.  And this is a legitimate post.

The real running question today is whether to go with shorts or tights, as the temp is about 40F.

I used to use the freezing mark of 32F as the dividing line between shorts and tights, but as my pace per mile has slowly raised over the years, so has that temperature threshold. I now use the 40F rule of thumb.

But I do know this, and often use it to argue in favor of tights when the temp is on the bubble: whenever it's 50-50 on tights vs. shorts and I opt to play it safe and go with the tights, I can say that I never have regretted the decision.  Unlike wearing too much on my torso, I have never had the sensation that my legs felt too hot.

For a strong recommendation of Race Ready tights, see my post of a couple months ago (disclaimer: I have no financial interest).