Green Violet

As part of my Be Zen Clear And Free, I’ve been going through the detritus of digital clutter (with another eye peeled for the physical-realm clutter). So here are several posts on various Themes.

Tour de Fat is in Boise today

Winn says it’s a “stop and smell the roses kind of festival, with bikes and beer.” His favorite sporting event of the day is the Slow Ride. [...] Two Boise organizations, Southwest Idaho Mountain Biking Association (SWIMBA) and Treasure Valley Cycling Alliance (TVCA), will reap the financial benefits of this year’s tour visit.

Xtracycle is the forward-looking bicycle

Built to carry everything, all your transportation needs (maybe, nearly) on two wheels. You’re free.

Fans take victory ride with Olympian Kirstin Armstrong

Boise residents proud of Kirstin’s achievements. Would that it prompts more locals to the bicycling route!

Why do Republicans hate bicycles so much?

Decrying bicycles as an antiquated solution, I’m sure they’d prefer anything that takes individual control out of your own hands. Yeah, people don’t, but people can effect widespread societal change.

This is an awareness test…

Brilliant ad from England. Please do check it out. Amusing as well as enlightening.

Maureen Dowd on Obama’s tour of Middle East.

That old skill that Obama honed at the Harvard Law Review of listening until everyone at the table felt they had been heard (and agreed with) is coming in handy on his presidential dress rehearsal. [...] The Angry One can try to paint The One as having bad judgment. But who is being advised by Kissinger, the man who helped keep us in Vietnam and get us into Iraq?

My family car is an SUB and I love it

On my new “sport utility bicycle” I can cart groceries, take my kids shopping, haul a barbecue grill and make a margarita. [...] “To test whether I could abandon my four-wheel behemoth, I spent a week trying to do my errands using my new SUB. I aimed high right out of the gate: the family grocery trip to Trader Joe’s.” (Article has movie, too, and link to Xtracycle.)

What’s next for product placement?

In the US, Rupert Murdoch’s Fox network has struck a deal with McDonald’s, which has bought the right to have two cups of their branded frappuccino appear on the desk in front of the anchors on Fox 5 News.

In Italy, non capiscono “recycling”

For years, it’s been a national embarrassment. Over the past year, it’s spiraled into a crisis damaging Italy’s image all over the world: the heaps of garbage lining the streets of Naples.

The stench alone has kept many visitors away. It began more than 14 years ago, but flared up last year when official dumps were declared full. Residents with no options simply dumped their trash along streets and sidewalks.

[Berlusconi]: “Just think: 60 percent of the total garbage collected in this area is made up of packaging, which is recyclable. So for this we have an education program which will start in the schools and will reach the whole population.”

In the Washington Post, an article on “The Impassive Bystander“. We - most markedly when in a group - shrug off responsibility for helping. Two recent examples to be added to Kitty Genovese, et al.

And from NY Times: the push up is the “put up or shut up”, “got it or don’t”.

Based on national averages, a 40-year-old woman should be able to do 16 push-ups and a man the same age should be able to do 27. By the age of 60, those numbers drop to 17 for men and 6 for women. Those numbers are just slightly less than what is required of Army soldiers who are subjected to regular push-up tests.

I strongly believe that when we are ready to learn, the teacher appears, whether they take the form of a fictional character or a real-life, personal contact. I think I was ready to learn something from Pai last week, that I wasn’t ready to accept when I first encountered her story.

From this article, from this writer.

The sweet and perfect fruit, the banana, is in in danger of demise.

Not long after Panama Disease first began to kill bananas in the early 20th century, United Fruit’s scientists warned the corporation was making two errors. They were building a gigantic monoculture. If every banana is from one homogenous species, a disease entering the chain anywhere on earth will soon spread. The solution? Diversify into a broad range of banana types.

The company’s quarantine standards were also dire. Even the people who were supposed to prevent infection were trudging into healthy fields with disease-carrying soil on their boots. But both of these solutions cost money – and United Front didn’t want to pay. They decided to maximise their profit today, reckoning they would get out of the banana business if it all went wrong.

The Long Now views things a bit differently than one typically does in this hyperkinetic world. There’s a well-kept-up blog, seminars, and memberships and everything.

Isabella Rossellini has concocted some delightful minute-long videos on the sex life of insects. Very well worth a watch.

Making the email rounds, these observations (nature’s pharmacy) recall the medieval doctrine of signatures to me.

(ta to interesting blogger within whose site I found a copy of the meme)