Sentence of Dave

The Wildest West

I'm sure I've been radicalized and brainwashed by a leftist-socialist-environmentalist media sphere, but Leah Sottile's sequel to Bundyville-- this "season" of podcasts and articles is subtitled The Remnant-- is once again an exceptional and compelling portrait of religious/anti-government/apocalypse/white-supremacist/conspiracy-theorist/hyper-patriotic/gun-toting militia folks that is so outside my purview it seems like science-fiction; this fits right into Tara Boyle's world of Educated . . . a much wilder West than most of us liberal Easterners can imagine-- and while the piece starts with an explosion in Panaca, Nevada and eventually finds itself in the "American Redoubt— the nickname survivalists and preppers have given Eastern Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming"-- the real home of this piece is the internet, where fact-free-fringe-theories and conspiracies persuade and propagate . . . a place that our President panders to . . . and while Sottile finally meditates on the intractable paradox:

how much tolerance do you afford the intolerant?

she also hears from rational people who believe that the government does have too much power, that after 9/11 the fear of terrorism allowed federal and local law enforcement to ramp up violence and surveillance on suspects and that this is a cycle that will only be met with more violence-- Sottile and I both think the answer may be sunlight, we have to just keep shining a bright logical light on all these fringe-apocalypse-fundamentalist-religious-conspiratorial extremists and their words and logic until they shrivel and decay, we've got to talk it out and keep talking, the government needs to be up front about what it's doing and what is happening, and we have to understand that there's going to be some explosions along the way and some radical extremism, which is part of the cost of having a country with a strong First Amendment, checks and balances in the government, and a sometimes too-powerful federal presence . . . that presence can drive people, especially people ready to be radicalized, out to the fringe-- events like Waco, and the shooting of LaVoy Finnicum and the Ruby Ridge siege; for me, it was absolutely shocking to hear folks proposing an all-white, all-Christian 51st state where the chosen could live out their days training and praying, waiting for the end-of-times . . . but maybe I'm too sheltered, living here in a tame, intellectual, multi-cultural town in central New Jersey, and I need a dose of the real American West, which is wilder than ever; Sottile brings up the fact that, of late, right-wing extremists have accounted for the bulk of the terrorism in the United States, and The Atlantic breaks it down:

"From 2009 through 2018, right-wing extremists accounted for 73 percent of such killings, according to the ADL, compared with 23 percent for Islamists and 3 percent for left-wing extremists . . . in other words, most terrorist attacks in the United States, and most deaths from terrorist attacks, are caused by white extremists . . . but they do not cause the sort of nationwide panic that helped Trump win the 2016 election and helped the GOP expand its Senate majority in the midterms."

META-Meta-meta

John Scalzi's novel Redshirts begins as a schlocky and ersatz Star Trek style space opera, but if you're familiar with Scalzi's satirical sci-fi humor then the encounters with ice sharks and Borgovian ground worms don't really hold water . . . and the book soon dives into meta-sci-fi, meta-fiction, meta-narrative, meta-characters, meta-plotlines, and the metaphysical . . . I would say that the meat of the book is more fun, it's totally wacky sci-fi (and sci-fi parody) and the three codas are more philosophical (and also-- surprisingly-- a little touching) and if you're a sci-fi fan looking for something fun and funny then this is the book for you (and if you don't know what the title means-- I didn't-- then check out this video . . . but it's a spoiler).

META-Meta-meta

No Where to Go But Up (Down?)

I'm trying to improve my mile time, and I just ran my baseline timed mile (and I'm so sweaty that I'm barely able to type-- it's humid) and while my Runkeeper said I kept a 7:58 pace, I'm pretty sure it took me 8:04 to run the four laps around the track . . . so now I've got to do six weeks or so of long runs and speedwork, and see if I can knock my time down; I think I'll be able to do it, because I'm tipping the scales at a post-double-vacation 195 pounds, so if I lose a few pounds-- which I inevitably will-- I will naturally cut some time from my mile time (perhaps 2.5 seconds per pound).

Go East Young Man

Peter Frankopan's The Silk Roads: A New History of the World resets the default narrative of world history, with Western Europe as the main character, and instead places the Mediterranean Sea at the center of the story; he argues that the most significant dynamic force in the last two thousand years has been the trade routes that connect the East and the West; this web of interconnected cities, ports, and trading hubs allowed for the flow of goods, services, ideas, religions, conflict, disease, technology, and tactics . . . his book combats what Edward Said termed "orientalism," the presumption that the Middle East and beyond is inscrutable and exotic, a place that lies outside of time, space, progress, and Western logic; the book is comprehensive, starting with the spread of Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism along the Silk Roads (before 600 A.D.) and ending with the West's modern political misadventures in Iran Iraq, and Afghanistan, and the economic rise of China, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, and Uzbekistan . . . over here in the West, we've got to strap ourselves in for a new world order, with the East becoming more significant than ever-- both economically and politically-- the British Ministry of Defense sums it up tidily: the period of time until 2040 "will be a time of transition" with challenges such as "the reality of a changing climate, rapid population growth, resource scarcity, resurgence in ideology, and shifts in power from West to East."

Go East Young Man

The Mountains of Kentucky?

Last night was my first night sleeping at home in a while . . . we were on two vacations, back-to-back, and while they were both epic and excellent, it was good to wake up early to a quiet house; I did have a weird dream last night, and while I normally never talk about dreams, the significance of this one is so obvious that I have to summarize it-- but I won't go into all the surreal and stupid details: the dream began mirroring reality, we arrived home from our two vacations but then it veered into the absurd . . . I totally forgot we had planned another trip, we were heading to the mountain of Kentucky-- are there mountains in Kentucky?-- and it was going to be a ten hour drive and then there was a lot more driving during the vacation, and we had to pack lots of winter clothes, and there was snow . . . and I was really upset that I had planned another vacation after two straight vacations, and this vacation was pretty much all driving, in the mountains . . . and I'll readily admit that this is a real first-world-problem dream, where the monster under the bed is a vacation.

The Mountains of Kentucky?

Trust My Kids: Head into the Spider-Verse

My kids have been telling me to watch this animated movie where a bunch of oddball spider-folks from different dimensions fight a behemoth-sized villain named Kingpin-- they said it's even better than The Incredibles-- and they were right . . . it's just come on Netflix so we watched it together at the beach (they did offer some helpful commentary, as they've both seen it multiple times) and, despite the clunky title, Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse is top-notch, it's artistically beautiful and dynamic, at times it's quite deep and emotional, it's very funny, and the voice acting is awesome.

Trust My Kids: Head into the Spider-Verse

Running: Yuck

I do a great deal of exercise: basketball, soccer, tennis, rollerblading, biking, lifting, calisthenics, dog-walking, beach-cart pulling, stone-stealing, rock-pilfering, etcetera . . . but I have not done a great deal of straight ahead running of late and so-- in order to empathize with my children, who are both playing high school soccer and will be doing a lot of running this summer (the goal for varsity players is to run a 6:15 mile) I am trying to improve my mile time; I have yet to run a timed mile, but I'm guessing it will be around 8 minutes, but I've done a couple of runs at the beach and it's been brutal; I got a little Runkeeper app on my phone, ran for 33 minutes a few days ago, and today I did some dreaded intervals (6 x 200) and when I get home I'm going to go to the track and get a baseline number and then see if I can improve it by the end of the summer-- to do this, apparently you need to run long and slow at least once a week and you need to do intervals once a week-- the rest of the time you can exercise how you wish; I don't know if anyone else has had this experience, but I'm a really active person, despite this, running just kicks my ass, it's totally different than any other exercise-- I played basketball for two hours a couple days ago with my brother and the cousins and that wasn't as hard as running for 30 minutes, time becomes distorted and torturous when you're running . . . I once ran a marathon, so I'm assuming it will come back to me, get easier, but if it doesn't, then I guess I'll take up golf.

Running: Yuck

Cat-egorical Imperatives

Two rules I should learn sometime:

1) never do my wife's laundry;

2) never give my wife advice on how to toss a corn-hole beanbag.

Cat-egorical Imperatives

Two rules I should learn sometime:

1) never do my wife's laundry;

2) never give my wife advice on how to toss a corn-hole beanbag.

Bonus Features!

I just noticed today that my backpack has a secret waterproof string bag-- attached to the inside of the pack with a string!-- and then my brother's girlfriend pointed out that our new beach cart has a secret side pouch and velcro tie that srves as an umbrella holster; I will utilize both these bonus features tomorrow.

Bonus Features!

The Wrong Ratio

Aristotle would have been critical of our usage of time today: this morning we played tennis for an hour and then we watched tennis on TV for five hours, the Federer/Djokovich Wimbledon final was both awesome and interminable but we certainly didn't need to rush home to watch it.

The Wrong Ratio

From the Pacific to the Atlantic (which seems pretty pacific)

My family heroically conquered the ultimate first world problem yesterday-- we got back from an epic adventure in Central America and then managed-- on a one day turnaround-- to repack and head to the Jersey shore; while both trips have saltwater in common, this vacation couldn't be more different than our previous one: our trip to Costa Rica was all about nuclear family togetherness, fifteen action-packed days of it, but now that we've moved from the warm waters of the tropical Pacific to the brisk sea breezes coming off the Atlantic, I no longer have to keep track of my wife and children-- they might be at the beach, they might be at the arcade, they might be eating hot dogs and ice cream, they might be at the surf shop . . . I don't know nor do I care; this trip is about extended family interaction . . . or lack thereof; I ran the beach this morning, alone, and then went rollerblading-- wearing my new visor-- and I was alone, of course, no one in their right mind would come anywhere near me, then I went swimming all by my lonesome; we had some family time with my brother and all the kids while we watched Wimbledon, and now I'm on my own again-- alone in this big beach house, napping, reading a book about the spread of trade and religion on the silk road, and getting a little anxious because I've been left to my own devices and that has happened in weeks.