Democracy promotion, half-baked

In today's NYT online;

"After Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Bush and his aides decided that autocratic
regimes, particularly in the Middle East, fostered hopelessness that
led to the attacks on the United States."

Thus in part the justification for Pres. Bush's democracy agenda.
While the above surely contributes to the conditions that open a path
to extremism, the Bush administration failed to recognize an important
second component of US comportment in the world, one that was
essential to keep the administration's pronouncements about the value
of democracy from sounding hypocritical. The Bush gang failed to
realize that as a superpower and symbol of democratic structure, we
carried a heightened obligation to define and hold, indeed exemplify,
the moral high ground. Every foreign policy initiative that fails to
pass muster undercuts our ability to sell this way of life, and in the eyes of people around the world, lowers
democracy into the same pit as those autocratic regimes we cite as
stimulants to the cause of extremism.

How I Spent my Saturday

200 km (125 mile) bicycle ride yesterday. First of the San Francisco Randonneurs brevet series in preparation for a long ride this summer. Golden Gate Bridge to the Pt Reyes lighthouse and back. The day prior it rained all day, with more promised for Saturday, but we were largely spared. The was even some sun on the beach N of the lighthouse.



The hardest miles for me were between 40 and 70, in Pt Reyes park. Hills have been my strong suit in past years, but I've done so little hill riding in the last six months that they really sapped me this time. I stopped for a wonderful bowl of chicken, wild rice, and vegetable soup (cream!) at the Busy Bee Bakery in Inverness Park. That helped start my recovery, and a tailwind from miles 83-100 also helped. Around 5 or six hours into the ride my internal "furnace" was finally lit. As long as I fed in easily digestible food at regular intervals (for instance, 125 calories of vanilla GU gel every 45 minutes) my legs stayed strong.

The light on the SF skyline and the bridge were beautiful at just before 5pm when I returned. We live in a wonderful part of the world. A few more details of the ride here.

Highlight of today's sunday paper

Best article of the morning.

Thanksgiving at New Years

Big excitement at our table this New Year's Eve:


Thanksgiving to New Year's passes even faster than the whoosh of the rest of the year. So this New Year's it was good to have some time to recall the many good happenings of 2008 to our family. The kids, C and I pieced together an impromptu list over dinner.

Sailing in the Virgins with grandparents
June in Hawaii
sister-in-law Carol stayed with us over the summer
M debuted on the musical stage
H and M with new ipods!
H thriving in a new school
M trying the snare drum in band
C a happy interim librarian
C finished her second century on a bike
I got wrapped up in a camera fixation
with the cub scouts at Camp Cutter and at winter camp
Visits to family in RI during business trips to Boston
built a fence with the neighbors
went from two cars to one
bought no new bicycles this year
helped neighbors get married before prop 8 passed
had a joyful Election Day

Happy New Year to all

Shooting film again

Had some fun this weekend developing a roll of black and white film in my kitchen - first time I've developed film since I was a postdoc processing images off a fluorescence microscope. I used Diafine developer. Interesting that google searches for Diafine turn up several pages of photography-related sites and then pages of cell biology journal articles. Seem it's in wide use by bench scientists too! Film was Arista Premium 400 (alledgedly re-badged Kodak Tri-X) shot mostly at an EI of 800 or 1600 in low light, though one or two test shots done at noon in the California sun turned out well too. Quick scanning on an Epson V500 with standard negative holders, film somewhat curled, but turned out OK.

Recession thoughts

So what's the main cause of the current mess?

- living beyond our means over the last two decades (easy credit, excess consumerism)?
- heavily leveraged investment vehicles that became too large a part of our financial fabric?

that is, did the regular "us" cause this, or was it money managers who ruined our sandbox?

Thankful for the country, a balanced view

Author Junot Diaz on NPR this morning remembering his first Thanksgivings, and presenting a balanced view on how to consider a country's historical misdeeds with its triumphs.

Audio here