I'm going to have to go political on you again. Apologies in advance if I get a bit dramatic here, but this really frosts my fritters.
The Senate is supposed to vote this week on whether to amend the United States constitution to outlaw burning, flagellating, or otherwise desecrating the national flag. The House has already passed this bill, so if the Senate follows, the amendment will go to the states for ratification. The debate thus far, and the campaigns for and against that will inevitably ensue if the bill is passed are just about the most egregious and collosal waste of time and money that I can possibly imagine.
What does protecting the flag have to do with the proper role of government? What possible justification can there be for spending taxpayer money on this effort, which will do nothing, NOTHING to improve the lives of anyone in this country? As for the veterans who sensitivities this law would supposedly protect, I would hope they would be insulted by the suggestion that they were fighting for a piece of cloth or an abstract symbol. They fight for the idea and ideals that it represents. Those principles are worth fighting for because they cannot be undermined simply by an act of disrespect. In fact, they are made stronger by it. The truths which we hold self-evident shine all the more brightly when contrasted with falsehoods. As long as we allow the flag to burn, it will never be consumed. It is only when we try to smother the flames that the smoke gets in our eyes and blinds us.
</rant>
I just returned from St. Louis, Missouri, where I taught my first Scottish country dance workshop. The Highland Mist Scottish Country Dancers invited me to be their guest instructor for the weekend. This marks not only my first workshop teaching experience, but the first time I have ever been paid to teach Scottish country dancing. The workshop seemed to go quite well and I had a great time. Several people said they hoped I'd teach more workshops, but that will depend on whether anyone asks, me, I guess! There is a lot of work involved in the preparation (I estimate I put in 10-12 hours of prep time for about 5 1/2 hours of teaching time), but it's fun to teach to a fresh audience. I enjoy the opportunity to travel, too, though I didn't get to do much sight-seeing. I've been to St. Louis twice now and I still haven't seen the bloody arch! My hosts did take me to see the historic town of St. Charles, where Lewis and Clark started their big expedition, which was interesting.
The workshop weekend marks the beginning of a dance-intensive period. Next Saturday we are off to dance camp at Pinewoods, this time for two weeks! I can't wait! (See my post from last year to find out why). This year should be even more fun, because three other people from our local dance group will be there, and two other good friends from Wisconsin, including thenisaid. After we return, we launch right into rehearsals for the Minnesota Renaissance Festival. Over the course of six weekends in August and September, our group does over 50 half-hour performances there.
Bring it on!!!
According to an article in today's Pioneer Press, gated communities, popular for many years in other big cities, are finally starting to take hold here in the Twin Cities. Definitely not my style, and I hope, for the sake of the future viability of the area, that it doesn't appeal to many others, either. According to the article, Minnesotans have long resisted these kinds of developments, but it seems that attitudes are now changing, primarily due to fear of crime. Asked about the appeal of gated communities, one resident quoted in the article replied as follows:
"Ask that family that was walking in Uptown to dinner," responded Greg Olson, who lives and sells real estate in Bearpath [a gated community in Eden Prairie], referring to a 25-year-old student killed by a stranger in March while walking with his mother in Minneapolis.
I recently discovered another fun way to waste time on the Internet:
Browsing StateMaster, a web site which uses U.S. Census Bureau, FBI, and other statistics to compare the states. You can find out, for instance, which state has the most restaurants per capita and where people eat the most fruits and vegetables. I thought the chart showing the prevalence of poor mental health was particularly interesting. I suspect is says more about which states have good mental health care available, along that doesn't stigmatize mental health problems (i.e. which states' people are likely to seek care for mental health issues), than it does about the actual numbers of people with mental health problems.
Found the following story on page A19 (the inside of the last page) of the StarTribune newspaper this morning: "Canada arrests 17, Foils terror attack. The Associated Press story reports that Canadian police successfully captured a group of suspects who had amassed 3 tons of ammonium nitrate and other bomb-making materials, three times the amount used to blow up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Police also found a cell phone wired to a detonator, camoflague uniforms, and other suspicious material. Don't know about you, but that seems like kind of big news to me. So why was it buried on the last page of the section? Is it a knee-jerk reaction to the fact that the story is about Canada? Apparently, the Strib editors don't think it is as important to us as a new law requiring carbon monoxide detectors in homes, parents worrried about whether a new vaccine against a rampant STD will somehow send their infants a message that premarital sex is okay, sewage problems, or whether the anti-Christ will be revealed on 6 June 2006, all of which appeared on today's front page. Okay, I admit that the latter could potentially be big news, but personally, I've never considered the Book of Revelation to be a reliable source of hard news.
Yesterday, a friend and I ran the Gold Country 5K. It was my second 5K so far this Spring, which is the first year I have run any timed race since 1986. I ran 29:04 in my first race a little over a month ago, and improved my time to 28:35 in yesterday's race. It's still a far cry from my high school pace, but a twenty year break will do that to you.
I have had ambigous feelings about running as a fitness activity over the years. My dad was an avid runner when I was a kid. This was during the late 1970s and early 1980s, when Jim Fixx and his book popularized jogging for the masses. I remember going out with my dad. We would start out together, then he would take a longer route, while I'd take a shortcut and we'd meet back at the house around the same time. Even then, I didn't exactly like running. I found those outings rather tortuous, to tell the truth, but I did it because I liked doing stuff with my dad and it made him proud of me.
I was generally pegged as a brainy nerd type as a kid, but I had a few dsitinctively non-nerdlike personality traits and the dogged , though mostly fruitless pursuit of athleticism was one of them. Over the years I tried a lot of sports -- softball, basketball, diving, downhill and cross-country skiing, gymnastics -- at which my performance ranged from poor to mediocre at best. I stuck with running longer than any of the other sports I tried. I'm not sure why, because I never did actually enjoy it. The fabled "runner's high" has remained entirely theoretical and mythological for me. The best part of going for a run is how good it feels when you stop! So how can I explain what kept me joining the cross-country running team from 7th grade all the way through my senior year in high school?
Obviously, my dad was a major factor. I loved cheering him on in the many races he entered, including three marathons. If there was a one or two-mile "fun run," as there often was for the kids, I would frequently participate in that. It was something I could share with my dad, and it was cool getting an official race t-shirt. Inspired and encouraged by my dad, I joined the cross-country team in 7th grade with my best friend Kara. After a year or two, she lost interest, but some masochistic urge kept me coming back for more. Of course it helped that the boy I had a crush on was on the team as well, but I like to think it was my own persistence that was the main factor. I actually put in some pretty serious effort. In high school, the season started before the school year began, and one year, I even attended grueling week of "running camp" the team organized. We stayed in a big cabin somewhere in Monticello (just outside the Twin Cities) and ran two or three times a day. Although I was never varsity standard, I did eventually work my way to a respectable "middle-of-the-pack" rank. One of my proudest high school moments came at the end of the season my junior year, when I earned a letter for cross country running. Our coach, a nerdy (but extremely fit!) math teacher known to one and all as "Kleyman," paid attention to everyone, not just the varsity runners, and took care to keep a lot of fun and variety in our practices. It's to his credit that the team usually had over 100 members every year.
I finally dropped out of cross-country halfway through the season my senior year. I had always wanted to be in the school musical, but rehearsals conflicted with the cross-country team's practices. For some reason, a lot of the kids who went out for cross-country were music and drama types, so Kleyman was frequently battling to keep from losing his best runners to the lure of the stage. He didn't like to lose anyone for any reason, but everyone knew he harbored a special disdain for those who chose the musical over the team. That's why I didn't tell him when I decided to audition. I didn't want to miss my last chance to be in the show, I didn't think I'd really be missed much, but I underestimated Kleyman. I got a part, but before I could break the news to Kleyman, he found out somehow. I'll never forget the evening he called me up at home to tell me how disappointed he was that I would drop out of the team. Although I loved being in the musical and have never regretted my decision to take that opportunity, I felt horrible to think I had let him down.
That was 1986, and I didn't run again for almost 20 years. Well, I did try to get started again several years ago, but gave up when I developed knee problems a few weeks later. Then this Spring, for reasons unknown, I was suddenly taken with the desire to hit the pavement once again. I was getting bored with the elliptical machine at the gym, and the balmy Spring weather and proximity of the idyllic paths around Minneapolis's Chain of Lakes lulled me into thinking that this time would be different. In some ways, I was right: things are different this time. Recent improvements in shoe technology seem to be holding the knee problems at bay for the time being, and weighing thirty pounds less than I did at the time of my last attempt makes a difference, too. I know now, too, that running is no longer something I will be able to share with my Dad, and that makes me sad. I'm pretty sure he's still proud of me, though. One thing hasn't changed, however: the best part of running is still stopping. Guess I'm just a glutton for punishment.