running the 'hood

"am i the first old guy to go past here?"

this was a good day, mostly.

the magnolia run the bluff 10k, absent in 2013, came back strong this year. the course passed right by our house, which would've been convenient had i decided to bail after 2 miles.

thankfully it didn't come to that.

the top finishers put up a sub-5:40/mi pace, which is moving pretty quickly for a neighborhood 10k. especially in this neighborhood, which is built on some respectable hills.

i was not among the top finishers.

technicality: let the record show i finished first...among the old guys (50-59). there's something to be said for that, but i'm not sure what.

more importantly, i established a PR for the 10k distance, 7 seconds faster than my time at the columbia winery 10k in august. that course was flat as a pancake, flat as a board, flat as the globe at the offices of the flat earth society. which is to say, pretty flat.

so, a new PR on an un-flat course is kind of gratifying.

about mile three (at the top of a semi-long climb), my stomach started to protest. and i thought, "it's a good thing i didn't eat anything this morning, because i'd be seeing it again." i also knew i'd feel better five minutes after i stopped, so i stayed focused on my turnover and tried to stay out of my own head. surprisingly, this worked pretty well for the next couple miles.

which brings us to the part that wasn't so good...

with about a mile to go, i saw my friend jon and his dog go-go, who had been running ahead of me from the start. go-go (a big boxer and surprisingly strong trail runner) was clearly distressed, and plopped down at jon's feet. he picked her up and tried to urge her along, but she wasn't having it and plopped down again. actually, "collapsed" is the word that went through my head, and i had a really unpleasant flashback to the moment one of our big golden retrievers went down a few years ago. that didn't end well.

jon and go-go.
(photos by glenn tachiyama.)

"jon, do you need help?" i asked as i approached. "no, she's just overheated. thanks, though."

i kept going, but didn't feel good about it. turns out go-go ended up in critical care for "extreme dehydration." the vet gave her IV fluids and plasma overnight, and this morning jon reported that she was coming home and "should be back to 100% soon."

***********

with a half mile to go, i felt surprisingly strong. my stomach was no worse, and my pace was as good as i had any right to expect. coming around the last turn to the finish line, i could hear someone behind me, and decided i didn't want to be passed this late in the race. i crossed the finish line at as close to a sprint as i could manage, smiling. 

all of which brings us back to where we started...it was a good day.

***********
magnolia run the bluff 10k

44:48 (7:14 min/mi) ~ PR
31/175 (overall)
1/8 (m 50-59)

家に来なさい !!

japan is a long way from seattle.

and when the missus journeys there on business for nine days, she may as well be on the moon.

recent discoveries about japan:

• text messages must swim to get there; it can take days for them to arrive
• an 18-hour time difference (plus two busy schedules) makes phone contact nigh impossible
• there are beer vending machines in japan. beer vending machines!
• at the monkey park it's the people who are caged

"aww, look at the cute human. she's almost simian!"

other things i know about japan:

when the missus is there, i sleep a lot less. i go to bed later and get up earlier, trying to keep the wheels on our life.

when the missus is there, getting a mortgage refinanced is a lot more complicated.

when the missus is there, completing a tax return takes much longer than the CPA (who is heading to fiji) has time for.

when the missus is there, i have to clean out the litter box.

it's that last one i enjoy the least.

no matter which of us is gone, nine days is a long time ~ especially to be unreachable halfway around the world. but, this is what we've signed up for, what with our corporate careers (such as they are) and our insatiable expenditures.

and by that i mean, the children.

mid-meeting call from loving daughter: "can you sign me up for ski bus, because sign-ups have started and it's really filling up fast."
me: "not right this second, i'm in a meeting."
ld: "oh, and can we get mexi food for dinner?"
me: "goodbye."

later...

text to loving son: "do you want me to sign you up for ski bus this year?"
ls: "yeah, but only if i get new skis to go along with it."
me: ...

i'm not sure i could survive a tenth day. hurry home, loving wife.

half full...

"you, paparazzi. see this face?
this is my cranky face."

i don't like getting up early.

and i hate being cold.

one might think these would be significant barriers to running trail races some 30 months in a row.

to be fair, not all those races were run in cold weather, but the getting up early part is a constant.

and yet at least once a month i roll out on a weekend morning, dress in the dark, gently kiss my snoozing wife, and shuffle toward the door ~ more or less ready to run.

my brain objects.

"you could be sleeping in, dope..."
"i could, but i'll regret it later if i don't go now."
"it's gonna be cold. you know it's gonna be cold."
"see the bag? the bag is full of layers. polypropylene layers, down layers, short sleeve layers, long sleeve layers, vest layers, hat layers. we've got layers for every possible contingency, including donner pass."
"remember the time it rained the entire race and you forgot a rain layer?"
"shut up."

it's become a thing, this streak i'm on. i didn't mean for it to become a thing, but it has. and so i have events lined up for the next four months (which, for those who keep track of such things, are the coldest months on most calendars in the northern hemisphere).

if i were smart, i would have scheduled events in warm-weather places for those months.

"mile 12. i'm warm."
(photos by takao suzuki.)

ha ha, no.

i've begun plotting an exit strategy.

the current plan is to get to 36 consecutive months, declare victory, and sleep in until july.

***********
the tehaleh half marathon is a very civilized course winding through woods, greenbelts, and quiet residential lanes. there are sections of rocky single track that are challenging, and a few manageable climbs ~ but overall the course is fast and runnable. 

despite this, i did manage to roll an ankle ~ twice ~
along the way. no permanent damage was noted, fun was had, and there was a nap in the afternoon.

as always, the folks at evergreen trail runs did an excellent job, putting on an event accessible by runners of every ability.

***********

tehaleh half marathon

1:54:44
15/68 (overall)
2/5 (50-59)

business models

there is a debate, in some quarters, over "the standard of beauty" in society.

in one corner you have the health and beauty industry, which tells us "beautiful" is rail thin and body-fat-free. most humans don't fit this description, but trying to achieve this look has led some to "extreme makeover: anorexia edition" behavior.

in the other corner are people who insist beauty is independent of outward appearance. "let's not use models as the standard of beauty!! we are all beautiful because we are."

to wit:

both corners miss the point.

models, no matter their description, exist for one purpose: to sell you something.

and countless millions have bought it. 

free advice: never believe a model. 

below are the only measures of beauty that count:

1. are you healthy?
2. do you feel healthy?

own that ~ take responsibility for that ~ and no other standard will matter.

share the road

ambling, meandering run in the rain.

i could've gone faster, but there were lots of snails and slugs on the trail.

faster feet (and wheels and beaks and claws) may find them.

but not mine. 

different measures

"if you want different results, you have to do different things."

~ somebody

i have a hard time letting go.

this is a symptom of refusing to quit because, you know, quitters quit, and no one likes a quitter.

or something.

so i hang on, and hang in, and persist, and do many silly, useless things rather than do the smart thing. which would be to step back, take a deep breath, and perform a ritual (metaphorical) amputation.

"One of the hardest lessons in life is letting go – whether it’s guilt, anger, love or loss. Change is never easy – you fight to hold on and you fight to let go. But oftentimes letting go is the healthiest path forward. It clears out toxic thoughts from the past. You’ve got to emotionally free yourself from the things that once meant a lot to you, so you can move beyond the past and the pain it brings you. Again, it takes hard work to let go and refocus your thoughts, but it’s worth every bit of effort you can muster."

~ Marc and Angel Chernoff, "1000 Little Things Happy Successful People Do Differently"

"free yourself from the things that once meant a lot to you."

it can be done. i have, in fact, done it.

but it ain't easy...

first-world weird

"be the ball? i can't even see the ball."

i have a recurring nightmare that will get no sympathy.

some people have anxiety dreams about walking around naked, or showing up to class and it's finals day and they haven't studied, or being chased but unable to run away.

those sound familiar, right?

i have stress dreams about playing golf at pebble beach.

i know, boo hoo.

the theme is always the same. somehow i'm at one of the hallowed cathedrals of golf (a game i used to play with some enthusiasm), and i'm completely unable to hit the ball because i haven't touched a club in years. most often it's late in the day and we're trying to hurry around the course before dark. of course there are groups behind us, also wanting to finish, completely exasperated by my incompetence.

it's awful.

i wake up tired and stressed, wondering what the hell that was about. 

but i suppose it's better than being chased by monsters.

action seeking opportunity

my daughter and i gave five bucks to a homeless-looking guy on the corner. he handed her this...

anybody need an IT guy?

will run for wine

this race.

i ran a little race on saturday.

i needed some kind of organized event to keep my streak going (now at 28 months, but who's counting), and the columbia winery 10k was it.

it was my first non-trail event in a long time. the last one was the lake chelan marathon, which was september 2013. apparently i like trails.

anyhoo... columbia winery. a fundraiser for seattle children's hospital.

the course, in part on the sammamish river trail (which i run often), was flat and fast. much faster than i'm used to running.

this trail.

on unpaved trails i generally run 9- to 11-minute miles. saturday i ran at a 7:15 minute/mile pace. not fast compared to most, but for me it was moving right along.

turns out it was good enough for a PR at the 10k distance.
***********

this wine.

no, i didn't drink wine afterward. it was 9:30 in the morning.

but i did notice columbia makes a grenache rosé, which i am going to have to check into.

***********
results:

44:53
35/331 (overall)
2/6 (50-54)

mad poetry

People will forget what you said
People will forget what you did
But people will never forget how you made them feel

~ maya angelou

***********
i'm standing here cycling through the many ways robin williams made me feel.

and i keep coming back to one that has been true for years: awe.

when i was much younger, it was enough that he was outrageously funny, in a runaway high-speed train sort of way. i mean, i laughed at the humor in his standup operatics (you absolutely cannot call them "routines"), but it was the delivery ~ the topical theatrics, the manic digressions, the painfully profound wisdom, and the nuclear thread fusing them together ~ that dilated your brain.


even back then, i didn't think of him as a "comedian." the word is too small to describe what he did. and though the G-word is overused and underdelivered, robin williams was a genius of some sort. "mind-bending," maybe. or "effortless" or "profane" or "pure" or some other word that escalates "genius," because that word isn't big enough, either.

that's what we saw onstage or onscreen. a preposterous expression of writing and stagecraft and camera work and editing and a thousand other details. it was like watching a fiercely intelligent blowtorch.

behind the scenes, maybe "distraught" or "stricken" or "broken" was more apt.

***********
as the years swept by, i thought williams' best performances were when he wasn't being funny. the inexorable craft he demonstrated in moscow on the hudson. the agony of the fisher king. the vulnerability in dead poets society and good will hunting. the rage of good morning viet nam. and what dreams may come...that one still leaves me, uh, emotionally compromised.

he had the benefit of brilliant writing in those roles, but it was the all-in fearlessness he brought to them that will always stay with me.

***********
i was stunned the day i heard robin williams had died. i knew he had brawled for years with depression ~ but i guess i thought that fight was behind him. then i read he was in the early stages of parkinson's disease. it's tempting to write, "...and it all made sense." but it didn't. not really. 

no more so than anything else in this life.

today, the shock is wearing off. 

but sense of loss rolls on.

***********
"We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. Medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. 

"To quote from Whitman, 'O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?' 

"Answer. That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play goes on ~ and you may contribute a verse. 

"What will your verse be?"

~ from dead poets society

***********

his was one hell of a verse...

outrage + us

dear barry,

as you probably recall, you and i shook hands back in 2006. twice, in fact.

it was out in front of the chicago tribune building, where you had just met with the editorial board. there was a camera crew outside, to whom you gave a couple minutes, and then you worked the pedestrians and passers-by a little bit.


those people really liked you. they smiled and encouraged you to run for president. we shook hands on your way up the street (i said something clever like, "nice to meet you, senator."), and then again as you worked back the other way. no idea what i said that time, but maybe you remember.

in the months leading up to the 2008 election, i campaigned for you and raised money for you. i believed you would lead the anti-bush administration, that you would be the guy who would swing the pendulum from the batsh*t-crazy right back to the left.

and don't get me wrong, you've done some extraordinary things. for one, you turned around an economy in total meltdown. and i really appreciate obamacare, not to mention the supreme court justices you've appointed. they will make a huge, positive difference for a lot of people for a long time.

having said that, barry, you and i can't hang out together any more.

because of this:

twisted.

"...before I came into office I was very clear that in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 we did some things that were wrong.  We did a whole lot of things that were right, but we tortured some folks.  We did some things that were contrary to our values.

 I understand why it happened.  I think it’s important when we look back to recall how afraid people were after the Twin Towers fell and the Pentagon had been hit and the plane in Pennsylvania had fallen, and people did not know whether more attacks were imminent, and there was enormous pressure on our law enforcement and our national security teams to try to deal with this.  And it’s important for us not to feel too sanctimonious in retrospect about the tough job that those folks had.  And a lot of those folks were working hard under enormous pressure and are real patriots."

barry, you're a constitutional law professor. you, more than most, know words have power and meaning. you know this, and yet you just stood up before the whole wide world and said being afraid is an excuse to do unconscionable things. 

you just said that when people are working hard under enormous pressure, anything goes. 

and you characterized a pack of ravening war criminals as "real patriots."

does pointing all this out make me "sanctimonious"? if so, i don't care. because defining-down sociopathic behavior as "patriotism" is more than just grotesque. it guarantees that the same thing will happen again in some future crisis. it also ensures the same behavior will be practiced against america ~ because what's legit policy for the US is legit for everybody else.

i hate to state the obvious, especially to the constitutional law professor in the room, but we're either a nation of laws, barry, or we're not. we either walk the talk, or we don't. (and if you ever want to use the phrase "american exceptionalism" with a straight face, you don't let the war criminals off the hook because they were stressed out.)

"we tortured some folks." 

seriously? you make it sound like the bush administration hazed a few pledges at a fraternity party. 

what really happened is that the united states officially adopted a policy of "...international kidnappings (euphemistically called "renditions") of terror suspects, including completely innocent people the CIA snatched off the streets of global cities, as well as from the backlands of the planet and "rendered" into the hands of well-known torturing regimes (with the help of 54 other countries) and the setting up of a network of "black sites" or offshore prisons where anything went, the CIA tortured up a storm. And it did so at the behest of the top officials of the Bush administration, including the president and vice president." 

barry, i could go on and on, but what would be the point? you know all of this, in gruesome detail. and we haven't even mentioned the war ginned up for no good reason whatsoever.

i don't get how you can shrug all this off, like it's nothing. sorry, i can't. or maybe more accurately, i won't. 

if that makes me sanctimonious...i guess i'll just have to learn to live with it.

chucka-nuts

well...that was hard.

the chuckanut mountain marathon is described as a course that "...will test runners' skill on narrow and technical single track trails, long climbs and descents, a shorter steep climb, with some beautiful views from the Chuckanut Ridge, Fragrance Lake, and Lost Lake Trail. Course has about 4,525 feet of elevation gain."

all true, but it doesn't quite capture the, uh, focus required to take advantage of all the beauty.

chuckanut is a beast.

there's a lot of steep vertical on the course, which makes for a lot of compartmentalization. no point in looking all the way up there (squints at some theoretical top of a burly climb), when the steps right in front of your face will do.

several times i thought of a line recently shared by a very wise ultrarunner, john morelock, in reference to the riders in the tour de france: "All they can do now is drop their eyes and drag themselves on up the mountain." it was a very useful reminder, as was one of my go-to kicks in the behind: 

"you're not puking and nothing's broken, so get going." ~ vivian mcQueeney

despite the many rigors, i didn't really blow up until the aid station at about mile 17.5. within a few minutes of leaving there, my stomach went bad, my proprioception started to fail, and my head went all foggy. maybe i was dehydrated, i don't know. sitting here today, slightly less foggy, i still don't know. and i certainly didn't know at mile 18 or 19 or 20...

...all i knew was, suddenly everything was harder, and i still had a long way to go. running along the spectacular chuckanut ridge i stopped, probably half a dozen times, to self-assess or just collect myself, but nothing enlightening came of it. there was no epiphanous thought other than, "these miles aren't gonna run themselves." so, i kept going.

there was an aid station mile 21-ish, and in retrospect i wonder if i was looking kinda lousy. "are you doing okay?" asked one of the very nice volunteers, looking me in the eye. "yup," i said, looking him back in the eye. i'm not sure why it seemed important to do that. i mean, it's not like he was going to drag me off the course (at least, i don't think so). either way, he seemed to believe me, as i slurped down a couple orange sections.

meanwhile, another runner sat next to the aid table, his head down, looking like he might've recently thrown up. the volunteer called down to the finish line, requesting a ride for the guy, at which point i said, "thank you," and trudged away. "don't sit down," i reminded myself. "whatever you do, don't. sit. down."

inconvenient tune playing on endless loop in my head for many miles (thanks, brain!): 

You asked me

How long I'd stay by your side
And so I answered
With only just one reply

Til the casket drops
Til my dying day
Til my heartbeat stops
Til my legs just break
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa
Whoa, whoa, whoa,
Til the casket drops

such a happy little slogging tune!

chuckanut mountain thoroughly kicked my behind this time around. and as i was finishing the last couple miles i was thinking i would never want to run it again. that thought didn't last 24 hours. sitting here now, i'm already thinking what it will take to do better next year. there will need to be lots more hill repeats, that's certain. and maybe a better race day plan than, "____."

maybe bring along some ginger for the belly issues, which should let me hydrate more effectively, which should keep me from feeling like i'm stroking out. 

there. it's a plan.

***********

arbitrary, unsupported theory: this course has a lot more than 4500 feet of elevation to it. or, maybe i'm just a big baby.

***********

update: post-race, upon hearing my travails, a concerned mrs. spaceneedl asked if at any point i considered dropping from the race. she thought it might've been the smart thing to do.

full disclosure: i did think about it. but i never considered it. as long as i was conscious, i was going to finish.

reason #infinity why she's the smart one in the family.


***********

update II: according to my garmin data, the elevation for 31 miles was just over 5900 feet.

snake bit

"it's just a half marathon..." i said to myself. 

ha ha. i am so dumb.

i mean seriously. by now i've run enough trail events to know not to take anything for granted. to know that there's no such thing as "just a half marathon."

and to know that you don't leave your legs on the trail during an 8-mile group run the day before the race.

oh, yes. i did that.

***********
the course description for the rattlesnake ridge 13.1 says, "elevation gain: about 2700 feet." what it doesn't say it that the majority of that gain is in the first 5-ish miles. so if you left your legs somewhere in discovery park the day before, you might find yourself thinking, "i am a terrible runner. this is so runnable. i should totally be running right now," while you hike as quickly as possible. 

so, as beautiful as the course and the day turned out to be (and they were gorgeous), my crabby attitude completely sabotaged the occasion.

***********
saturday flashback: the group run was great, in that it was the first time since sun mountain that my legs actually felt healthy. in fact, it felt so good to feel so good that i was falling over myself to seize the day (even if it was the day-before). 

and by falling over myself, i mean literally. 

fall #1: stepped in a hole in the dunes above the bluff. whump. sand, all up everywhere. 
fall #2: tripped on a root so cleverly disguised that it was nearly invisible even after i picked myself up off the trail and looked for it. 

falling down is funny, really. especially when you're not the guy who fell down. twice.

***********
i didn't fall down on sunday.

which i certainly could have done, many times over (and don't think that the thought didn't occur to me ~ many times over). the footing was tough in places, especially on the long descent to rattlesnake lake. lots of roots and rocks and lines of fall and, oh yes, the hoards of happy day-hikers heading up the hill.

"runner!" they'd sometimes say as we were trying to pass by without brushing, bumping or otherwise bulldozing grandma and baby hortense. other times no one said anything, and we slowed to weave through the sun worshipers and nature appreciators appreciating the sh*t out of the entire trail.

administrative note: as during most trail events, the rattlesnake mountain trail is not closed for the race. and i'm not saying it should be. i'm just saying, "holy sh*t, i hope i don't run into anyone or break my leg on this lovely downhill sprint and maybe i should slow down even though that's not so easy momentum and inertia-wise..."

i didn't fall down on sunday, and i don't believe i caused anyone else to fall down, either. any day i can say that, it should be considered a good day.

***********
my attitude improved during the long downhill, possibly because i was moving at a more reasonable, gravity-assisted pace. then came the bottom of the hill, where you might think, "ha, i survived and i'm done!" and, like at sun mountain, you'd be wrong. 

still to go was an interminable, flat-ish 3-mile out-and-back on the snoqualmie valley trail, which seemed to go uphill in both directions. you could see a loooong way down this section of old railroad right-of-way, and even though there were runners heading back from it, the turnaround point stubbornly refused to appear. this may have been symptomatic of my once-again deteriorating attitude...but i don't think so. i think someone was having fun, moving the sign farther and farther down the trail, just to see who they could make cry.

***********
accord to the results web site, at some point i did cross the finish line. i'm not still out there, so clearly i stopped running, eventually.

i made (at least) two mistakes this day that i will endeavor not to make again:

#1: don't run the race the day before the race
#2: don't get so caught up in your "time" and "where you finish" that you make it impossible to enjoy a day that is impossible not to enjoy.

i mean, seriously.

***********
rattlesnake ridge 13.1

mental difficulty: extraordinary
perceived exertion: more than sun mountain 50k
rattlesnakes seen: 0
fun had: 0

2:26:44
26/96 ~ overall
3/9 ~ 50-59

crossing two bridges

i've worked in healthcare for a long time.

i can walk into a hospital and unblinkingly head to a cadaver lab, participate in what goes on there, and walk back out with a purposeful stride.

i drink later, but on the way in and out: purposeful.

walking in with a loved one who's about to become a patient? my gait loses all certainty. i can't find my way through the byzantine hallways. my brain goes to a slow, low-functioning place.

including two sky bridges thirty feet above minor ave. and marion street, the path from the physician's office to the surgical center is less than a quarter mile, but like the hallways in the overlook hotel, it goes on forever.

i'm breathing shallow, wary and uneasy and apprehensive. i'm used to being able to do something about something, somehow. here, not the case.

mind you, that's what's going on on the inside. what's going on on the outside is all bonhomie, all the time.

"so, just to be clear, i should NOT lose the earrings? don't. 'don't' lose the earrings. got it."

"hi, donna. so, how's your hand hygiene? i wasn't going to ask, but this sign says you want to be asked. mine? mine is awful. i just went for a swim in the MRSA lab."

"she's strong. her first baby came out sideways. she didn't scream or nothin'."

"you know, if you're asleep when the anesthesiologist gets here, she'll be thrilled. 'she's already asleep? awesome, i'm going golfing.'"

me: want to recline your seat?
her: nope.
me: you sure?
her: yup.
me: ...
me: want to play with the sharps container?

then she is asleep, and i'm standing watch. activity swirls by in the hall, full of purposeful people. i know that feeling, and it would come in handy now. doesn't matter. it's my watch, purpose enough.

after an interminable wait, the anesthesiologist glides in, and now we're awake and all-business. question, question, answer, answer. caveat, advisory, question, answer.

"all right, then, if you'll come with me...

doctor and patient walk toward serious-looking doors, and a chatty nurse leads me toward a bright, spacious family waiting area. daytime tv yammers on the set next to me, and i remember that daytime tv sucks. i wouldn't have thought it possible that it could be more brainless than evening tv, but somehow it manages.

people walking by outside look through the windows at those of us on the inside. people push other people in wheelchairs. cars pull up, load fragile passengers, and drive away.

there's a starbuck's logo on the sign marking the main entrance to the hospital. there's a starbuck's logo. on the sign. marking the main entrance. to the hospital.

i look up, look around, and it occurs to me that from where i am right now, i have no idea how to get back to the car, in a parking lot, in a different building.

all i remember is crossing two bridges...

***********

the doctor comes into the waiting area, and tells me everything went great. this and that, what to expect post-op, no worries, oh, and happy birthday.

i wasn't expecting that. and because it caught me off guard, my stoic slipped, just for a moment.

me (small smile, eyebrows up): "thank you."

the tears stayed in.

the new normal

"Just drove by Otto Miller Hall on my way home from work and completely broke down. I live less than a mile away, and drive by or run by there daily. This was a place I spent hours taking classes, studying for exams, and visiting friends. It was a place I always felt safe. Now, one person has taken all that away."

~ from a post on FB

***********

every day another refuge is breached, another sanctuary defiled. and every day decent people retreat, saying, "nothing can be done."

home-grown terrorism is now normalized because "there's nothing we can do about it."

and because lots and lots of americans believe...

"your dead kids don’t trump my constitutional rights."

~ actual quote by some idiot hero of the lunatic fringe and go-to-idiot for idiot media quotes after this week's ho-hum terrorist attack

random premise: if these attacks were being perpetrated by brown people in robes, rather than by white american males, no one would be saying "nothing can be done."

just a guess here that the response would be different because brown people in robes are scary and bad, but white males with guns, well, they're the real americans.

again, just wild speculation, but if the scary/bad people were killing kids at schools every other week there'd be a fucking manhattan project underway and trillions of dollars would be in the process of being spent, and a massive media campaign would be running to convince people that "something can be done, and by god we're doing it."

instead of, you know, not.

because, guns. and 'murka.

***********
Seattle Mayor Ed Murray opened with, "Friends, we have been here before:..."

Our police are to be commended for their quick response.
The emergency medical staff performed in an exemplary manner.
The students reacted and performed as they had been taught.
One student, a building monitor, went beyond the call.
The nearby hospital was professional and did all they could.
...
Tonight, just another name, someone unknown, on the beads.
...
I am just so happy we have enough shootings so people of all walks of life are becoming better at behaving properly when they hear gunshots.

~ john morelock

now we know

just yesterday i asked "who's next?"

who will be the next victims of berserk gun violence in our bloodthirsty country.

now we know.

this is the campus at Seattle Pacific University, where 4,000 students and teachers go to learn valuable lessons about science and philosophy and the arts and where to hide during a mass shooting.

this is the scene this afternoon in front of the gym where my daughter (and dozens of other young girls and their coaches) practice gymnastics.

by sheer, blind chance, the girls were not yet at the gym today when seven people were shot.

right. fucking. there.

fuck this.

killing time

today, as i type, this memorial sits a half a block from our house.

it sprang up this weekend for molly conley, a girl who will never turn 16.

molly no longer lives in the house across the street from us, because she was shot and killed one year ago. on her birthday.

we never met her, but we know her mom, a smart, plucky woman who is, at once, unblinkingly dauntless and utterly destroyed by the loss of her daughter.

she takes her place next to the father whose son was shot and killed a couple weeks ago in santa barbara; the loved ones of three people shot and killed in myrtle beach two days later; and those of seven people shot and killed in chicago last weekend.


over the past several years americans have been conditioned to fear many things, most of which are statistically little or no threat. but because people are afraid, they do dumb things ~ like buy more guns.

it says here that more than 450,000 people in washington state have a permit to carry a concealed handgun. over 100,000 of them are women, and the growth rate for women getting those permits is double that of men.

the refrain among those quoted in the story was the same: "i'm taking responsibility for my safety and protecting myself and refusing to be a victim."

which is to say, they've drunk the NRA kool-aid.

the fact is, more guns equals more shootings and more deaths. 

and women who carry guns for "self-defense" actually increase their odds of being shot.

yay, logic. yay, fear.

americans are outrageously susceptible to well-funded propaganda. if a story supports the cowboy image we've cultivated for generations, by god we believe it. if we're told that guns make us strong and safe and personally responsible, we rush out and buy tens of millions of them.

so we can kill each other (and ourselves) to the tune of 32,000 gun-deaths a year.

ignorant, fearful, and indoctrinated is a toxic combination that has poisoned the american well.

and we just can't seem to stop drinking from it.

"Picture any bragging, gun-wielding gang banger, swaggering cowboy, mafia kingpin, big game hunter, vengeance-seeking action hero, open-carry doofus or would-be mass shooter you like. Now remove the gun from the picture. What do you have? That’s right: Another nervous schlub standing there, looking lost."

~ mark morford