polymania

I'm excited - today I'm going to suit up and play my first baseball game in at least 23 years.

Neighbor Nick, who I often go birding with, is also a baseball player and coach. He frequently plays in spring and fall leagues, managing his own team and also coaching his son Nick Jr. in little league. He approached me about a week ago asking if I'd be interested in playing in the fall league, which is generally a bit less hardcore and has a shorter schedule. I couldn't turn that down - I've been wondering what it would be like to get out there and face some live pitching after all this time.

Yesterday I went to the local batting cages and did 6 sessions with "medium" and "fast" pitching. After struggling through the first one, with lots of whiffs and chopped grounders, I finally started making some good contact, and getting the sweet spot on the ball, and driving it. Surprisingly, I felt that I was seeing the ball better in the fast-pitch cage than in the medium one. Nick did tell me that the pitching speeds in the league will be between 55-85. 85? God I hope not - that's pretty fast.

I'll be playing today, as well as the next two Saturdays. If it goes well, who knows, I may play again in the spring. It's like tryouts.

tags: baseball

This makes me sick:

By passing the Military Commissions Act, the United States Congress has, in effect, given its stamp of approval to human rights violations committed by the USA in the “war on terror”. This legislation leaves the USA squarely on the wrong side of international law, and has turned bad executive policy into bad domestic law. Amnesty International will campaign for repeal of this act and fully expects the constitutionality of this legislation to be challenged in the courts.

In the “war on terror”, the US administration has resorted to secret detention, enforced disappearance, prolonged incommunicado detention, indefinite detention without charge, arbitrary detention, and torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

Thousands of detainees remain in indefinite military detention in US custody in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay. Congress has failed these detainees and their families. President Bush has defended the CIA’s use of secret detention and in the debates over the Military Commissions Act, members of Congress have done the same. This policy clearly violates international law.

Damn right it does. And remember, when an international treaty is ratified, it automatically becomes US law as well. Maybe Congress should bother reading that annoying Consitution they're constantly braying about.

(Note: When Amnesty International sees fit to send out an urgent press release about newly passed laws that violate basic human rights, you really should take it seriously. They know of what they speak.)

This bill is odious to me on so many levels, it's hard to know where to begin. First is that the Congress has once again abdicated its responsibility for oversight of the Executive Branch, and that it has done so for short-term political reasons. Whatever bluster that the Republicans made several years ago about rights to privacy and the intrusion of government into areas it shouldn't go is now moot, as they have completely surrendered whatever integrity they had left just to allow Bush the ability to define "outrages upon human dignity". John McCain, who gets so much "straight talker" mileage with the traditional media, is perhaps singularly responsible for shifting these goalposts. Of all people he should know better, but I guess his torture happened long enough ago that he's forgotten and is now more concerned about shoring up rightwing hardliner support for his obnoxious presidential ambitions than these silly rights protocols.

Secondly, for all the talk that Bush made about wanting more "clarity" in the law, the Congress has passed a bill that is in fact quite unclear about the extent to which the law applies. The political appeal of the bill is to make it seem that the Republican Party is going hard after "aliens" and "enemy combatants" - basically, "terr'ists". But the law could apply equally well to US citizens, especially with its suspensions of habeas corpus. (Think that's not true? Think again.) The military dictatorship of Argentina back in the '70s and '80s became infamous for "disappearing" people they considered troublemakers - and sadly, the door is now open for similar things to happen here. Even if that's not the real intent of those who approve this bill, it disgusts me that they cannot see past their own short-term political futures to realize what an affront this bill is to the core principles that make (or made?) this country great. What kind of freedom do you really have when the government reserves for itself the option of making you "go away" with no legal recourse left for you to resist?

Thirdly, I'm disgusted at the fact that 12 Democrats, including putative Democrat Joe Lieberman signed on to this travesty. Another one of them shamefully enough is my own Senator, Ken Salazar. When an opposition party can't even muster opposition to one of the gravest threats ever posed by an out-of-control legislature since the passing of the Alien and Sedition Acts, I begin to wonder whether Democrats winning back the House or Senate in a month will make any difference. Where's the spine? Where's the integrity? Why not stand up for what you believe? And if torture and suspension of that quaint notion of habeus corpus is what you believe in, why the hell should I vote for you? This is one reason why I just cannot sign on with the Democratic Party, as much as I am disgusted with Republicans. They just never seem to learn.

Over at Daily Kos, you can find a reader diary or two trying to reassure us all that in the end, this bill won't amount to anything because of its blatant unconstitutionality, and that either a new Democratic congress would quickly vote to reverse it or that the Supreme Court would throw it out upon its first challenge. I'd love to believe all that, but as I mentioned before, when 34 House Democrats and 12 Senate Democrats sign on to something as repugnant as this, I'm not confident that these bedwetters would suddenly switch their votes around when their own party takes over. (This of course assumes that such a takeover is a sure thing, which it hardly is.) In addition, I also have doubts that the highly politicized Supreme Court, whose conservative voices frequently blather about "interpreting" the Constitution as opposed to "legislating from the bench", won't simply punt on this issue out of concern for their favorite party's near-term political fortunes - they did it before in 2000 in Florida, and surely the stakes seem similar to them now.

What an awful day for this country. It certainly qualifies as one of those issues where, "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention."

tags: human rights, Geneva Conventions,

Cindy and I went on a hike today to Crosier Mountain. The trail is in the Roosevelt National Forest not far from Estes Park, and is about 7 miles round trip. With the fall color beginning to kick in, and with a cold blustery storm system having just blown through a couple days before, conditions were ideal for a beautiful day in the Ponderosa Pine between 7 and 9 thousand feet elevation.

From the summit rock outcrops, we had fantastic views of the Front Range and the high peaks of Rocky Mountain National Park, including Longs Peak. There'd been snow this past week above about 11,000 feet, although it began melting in the midday sun. Mount Evans was also visible, and was particularly wintry-looking. Visibility was great also in the direction of the plains, and we could see Fort Collins, Loveland, and Greeley quite clearly, and even some of the limestone buttes out on the Pawnee Grasslands, 50+ miles distant. And very far away to the south, we even saw Pikes Peak. All in all, the region we call the Front Range was looking mighty fine today.

On the hike back, we started talking, of all things, about TeeVee. That would seem like such a prosaic topic amidst all the aforementioned beauty and awe-inspiring vistas. But I brought it up as we traversed a part of the trail that passed through a particularly dull portion of Ponderosa Pine saplings, all about 15-20 years old, and very uniformly and densely distributed so that you could see nothing but these young, vulnerable trees. This section was about three-quarters of a mile long, and appeared to have been either heavily burned two decades ago, or clear-cut. Either way, it had turned into a rather depressing monoculture of trees, although based on the pileup of needles on the forest floor, it probably won't be long before this area goes up in another firestorm.

Anyway, back to TeeVee. We're huge fans of Lost, and we've just begun watching Season 2 on DVD via Netflix. We began talking about the intricacies of the show, and tried to make sense out of the myriad of clues, hints, motifs, and suggestions that make for a typical Lost episode. (Don't worry, no spoilers here.)

After a while the conversation got a little more "meta", and began discussing our concerns about how the show might end, and what has concerned us in the past when watching heavily arc-driven TV shows. For example, we were rather disappointed with the way Alias ended in its fifth year, after it's first two seasons were so much fun and so well-written. Given that Lost and Alias have the same creator, it's reasonable to wonder if Lost will also run out of gas before long. And can it stay engaging and taut to the end?

Back in the late 90s we became fans of the arc-driven sci-fi show Babylon 5. "B5" as we called it was something of a breakthrough show in that it was really the first sci-fi show besides Star Trek to find an audience, and it did so by portraying a universe riven with intrigue and not as idealistic as the Gene Roddenberry-inspired one. Instead of stand-alone episodes, a real story arc permeated the show, and in fact creator James Straczynski planned out the entire show from the beginning, knowing that after 5 years the show would end. Although the show had lower-grade production values and got bounced around a bit among networks, it did lay the groundwork for a new attitude toward TV series', one that allowed for more story depth and the possibility that important characters may actually (gasp!) die.

However, it doesn't take long to think of why network execs would be resistant to this kind of creative freedom. Heavy story arcs discourage new viewers, who require time and annoying exposition every episode to get them up to speed. Also, stories that have an end mean that there's a definite limit to what a studio can make moneywise off its initial investment in production and marketing. A show that runs 7, 8, or 10 years (think MASH, ER or Seinfeld) gets a lot of mileage out of the effort put into creating it, whereas a studio that has to keep inventing new material year after year finds itself struggling to establish any presence on the air. But a show that runs so many years can often only do so if the stories being told always guarantee a return to "normalcy" at the end of each show, to ensure that new viewers keep coming aboard and are not intimidated by not knowing some complicated backstory.

So what has saved the day for artistic expression in TV, and has allowed for more arc-driven series? Three letters - D V D. When you can continue to snag viewers on DVD even after a show ends, you still make money. This way, the writer/creator gets to tell more of the story they want, and the studio now has a new revenue stream from the buzz that said story generates - everyone's happy. 10 years ago, before the advent of TV on DVD, shows like B5 had an uphill climb to convince any major network that their story was worth telling. Now, complex story arcs are fairly common - if a viewer really wants to get on board 2 or 3 seasons into a series, no problem - just buy or rent the DVDs from the first season, and you'll get caught up in no time.

But really, we don't watch much TV. Honest.

tags: hiking, television shows, Lost, writing

You often hear about someone seeing the Virgin Mary in a waffle or a hedgerow. And when you actually see a photo of what is getting the true believers all excited, it turns out to be rather underwhelming. I mean really, you have to squint and tilt your head just right just to maybe, just maybe see what these people think they're seeing.

Well, finally I have seen a vision of Jesus that stares right back at you. It is one of the most convincing apparitions ever, and I think it is a real sign of Jesus' love for all of us.

But don't just take my word for it. See for yourself.

(Hat tip to Pharyngula.)

tags: Jesus, religion, apparitions

I've generally stayed away from this topic (and most others, judging from my dearth of posts - heyoooooo! [rimshot]), but I had to include this one. Firedoglake is one of my favorite new online reads - I've been following it for about 4-5 months, and it is a whipsmart, passionate and articulate political blog.

One of the regular contributors TRex sounds off and tells it like it is:

Every time I am forced to listen to George W. Bush speak, I can feel my I.Q. dropping. His speech is a kind of thought-killing force field that emanates his mouth. Watching him attempt to complete a sentence or to speak off the cuff is like watching a drunk carry a crate of broken glass across an icy street. He doesn’t so much speak English as mud-wrestle it.

Whatever you think of the man, you have to admit, the assessment is still spot-on.


tags: Bush, politics

If there ever were something to really get me on board the whole "war on drugs",
this story from the San Francisco Chronicle would be it:

The discovery of 22,740 marijuana plants growing in and around Point Reyes National Seashore last week wasn't only the biggest pot seizure ever made in Marin County. It was an environmental mess that will take several months and tens of thousands of dollars to clean up.

The crops seized on the steep hillsides overlooking Highway 1 were planted by sophisticated growers who cleared vegetation, terraced land, drew water from streams through miles of irrigation hoses and doused acres of land with hundreds of pounds of fertilizer and pesticides.

Such operations are turning up in greater numbers within state and national parks throughout California. Federal officials estimate the state produces half of all the marijuana seized on public lands nationwide.

...

Cultivating marijuana on land managed by the Park Service, the National Forest Service and other agencies is a multibillion-dollar industry. So far this year, authorities have found more than 940,000 marijuana plants growing on state and federal land in the Golden State. With the harvest season beginning, officials expect to find more pot farms and surpass last year's haul of 1.1 million plants.

Federal officials believe as much as 80 percent of the marijuana on public land is grown by Mexican drug cartels that have turned to places like Point Reyes National Seashore, Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park and Whiskeytown National Recreation Area in this era of tightened border security; growing the drug here is far easier than smuggling it in. The plants found in Point Reyes last week were valued at around $50 million, Dell'Osso said.

The federal Office of National Drug Control policy estimates that growing 1 acre of marijuana damages 10 acres of land. Repairing that land is a costly, time-consuming process, and because the National Park Service does not allocate money specifically for the task, the funds come from each park's operating budget -- leaving less money for things like park programs and improvements.

"We have no budget for this," Dell'Osso said, noting that it is a problem "the powers-that-be need to start discussing."

...

Lt. Scott Anderson of the Marin County Sheriff's Department said the pot farm's similarities to those found in other national parks suggests it was the work of a Mexican cartel that probably employed undocumented immigrants.

The sites in Marin County are tucked away in remote canyons, sheltered beneath madrone and oak trees and surrounded by thick brush hacked away haphazardly. Trees have been stripped of their limbs to make room for the plants, leaving only a canopy of branches to hide the illicit crop.

Irrigation hoses as long as a mile each drew water from pools dug into the ground and fed by the springs and streams that course through the Tomales Bay watershed. The steep hillsides have been terraced, much like a vineyard, and are dotted with hundreds of deep holes that held as many as four marijuana plants apiece. The land is littered with empty 50-pound bags of fertilizer and gallon jugs of pesticide.

Investigators believe as many as three people tended each plot, and the amount of trash -- empty soda and beer cans, food wrappers, propane canisters and clothing -- suggests they'd been living there for at least several weeks but fled before officials reached the site. Authorities found animal traps, pellet guns and a rabbit hutch, leading them to believe the growers hunted for food.

With the last of the crops cleared away, park officials have begun assessing the damage. Once the trash is removed, the biggest priority will be protecting the land with straw and new ground cover to prevent the winter rains from washing it away. Beyond that, though, it's not yet known exactly what must be done to restore the land and what it will cost.

Sequoia-King's Canyon National Park has spent more than $72,000 during the past two years to clean up 81 cultivation sites that covered 10 acres, said Athena Demetry, a restoration ecologist at the park. Authorities have seized more than 100,000 marijuana plants within Sequoia-King's Canyon since 2004. The latest seizure came Aug. 9, when authorities found 2,152 marijuana plants growing within view of Moro Rock, a popular park destination.

Over the course of six weeks during the winter of 2005 and 2006, park rangers hauled almost 5 tons of trash and debris out of the park, removed 13 miles of irrigation hose, and repaired deep cuts and terraces made to 35 hillsides, Demetry said. Empty bags and bottles revealed the growers used at least 8,031 pounds of fertilizer, 15 pounds of rodenticide and 7.6 gallons of pesticide. An additional 80 grow sites still must be repaired.

...

Park rangers have for years stumbled upon small stands of marijuana, but the problem has exploded within the past five years and reached a point where they're having difficulty keeping up, Demetry said. Although individual cultivation sites rarely cover more than an acre, the growers have taken to scattering them over hundreds of acres to evade detection. That, she said, spreads the destruction over a far broader area, with far graver results.

"When we first saw them, we thought they were pretty small," she said. "But then we realized how many there were, and it became staggering. And there's a lot more out there."

I find it stunning that federal authorities are doing virtually nothing (i.e., spending nothing) to combat this, for all their rhetoric about fighting a "drug war". What that tells me is that they're not really serious about it, just like they're not really serious about fighting a "terror war". Not that I'm surprised by such insincerity, but still.

I will say though that stories like this make me even more amenable to the idea of legalizing and regulating marijuana. Doing that would create a legal, and more environmentally sustainable industry, and drive these cartel assholes out of our frickin' national parks. Yes, I know that's not terribly realistic in our currently puritanical society, but admit it - you know it would work. Sure, it would require some rethinking on a societal level about pot and what makes its use so stigmatized, but it pisses me off to know that drug cartels feel this free to use our national treasures, our natural birthright and the ecosystems for our wildlife for their own moneymaking ventures, and all virtually without interference from those who supposedly have a stake in the matter.


tags: war on drugs, cartels, marijuana, legalization, ecology