-
Posts
12061 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Everything posted by mattp
-
I’m sorry to offend you, Jay. As you sit smugly behind that keyboard of yours throwing in those little barbs and bits of bait, just for fun and in the spirit of cc.com, you gotta expect some knee jerk liberal latte sipping suv driving birkenstock wearing pseudo intellectual such as myself to bristle once in a while. It drives me to a frenzy, and I spend hours looking up the definition of "intellectualism" and re-reading Franz Fanon to come up with the answer to your jab at liberals, intellectualism, the notion that poverty causes terrorism, or whatever. You're good at this: I think you revel in it. So I'm sorry but only a little bit sorry. By the way, you should try some Birkenstocks some time. I haven’t had a pair for years but they are the most comfortable footwear there is and pretty versatile - equally at home on the office carpet or while trekking over the snow at 17,000 feet (ask a German tourist). They're the perfect compliment to your spring wardrobe.
-
Nope. Here it is: There certainly is an anti-intellectual reaction against "pointy head" intellectuals or those who reside in the Ivory Tower or whatever, and I'm guessing this is the cartoon character you like to bash, but the word intellectual does not substantially imply out of touch or impractical or -- oh my god -- liberal or whatever connotation those who wage the anti-intellectual campaign may be applying to try to get Americans uncomfortable with smarts or information. At the root of it I think the anti-intellectual campaign is not populist as it purports to be, but really almost the opposite: the idea is that smart and informed people cannot be trusted so therefore you should not listen to anybody who may be intelligent or educated but instead just vote with your gut. I suppose Liberals could play this card, but I'm not sure they do nearly as much as conservatives who, when George Bush said Iraq attacked us on 911 and we should invade Iraq, they were saying "listen to the man" even though anybody who was smart or who actually knew about the situation was saying the premises for the ware were questionable at best and the war plan was poorly conceived. These folks were often branded "antipatariotic," but just as often they were dismissed as the intellectual elite who read the New York Times. Another example: if Teddy Bear Bush says there is no such thing as global warming, even though virtually every scientist who has studied the matter for the last 20 years says it is real, we should all rally around Mr. Bush because what do those intellectuals know? That one worked for how many years? Whether you can find where liberals have used this canard or not, the result is kind of the same: the message is "don't think!"
-
Is this the intellectual equivalent of "Where's Waldo?," where the Waldo in question is a coherent argument? Try taking a hit on the inhaler between sentences next time. After reading your missive, I'll attempt to paraphrase a bit for the sake of clarity. "All people of conscience should support regulations that force poor people, especially in third world countries, to pay artificially high prices for food, clothing, and other consumer staples in order to satisfy the ideological strivings of vastly more fortunate North American parlor activists like me, and I don't care for people who suggest otherwise." How's that? But what about the folks who wear Birkenstocks and sip Lattes? Don't they get a vote? He's got a point about your anti-intellectual schtick, in my opinion. What exactly is wrong with being either educated or intelligent - the core of Webster's definition of the term? In attacking the "ivory tower" or whatever it is (that is Fairweather's whipping post, I think, and maybe not yours) you often seem to reduce the whole thing to a cartoon just like railing about the ininformed opinions of those who wear Birkenstocks and sip Lattes.
-
Wow! I guess we really are in the doldrums. We've reached a new low around here if none of the Bush apologists who hate SUV driving latte sippers will bite on this!
-
The Carbon River approach has in the past been an OK way to go (in my minority view the preferred approach to Liberty Ridge) but I think it got some pretty severe damage as well.
-
KK, in my view you and your buddy Stout may have a point about Mr. Gore's energy consumption. I say "may" have a point because I really don't know how his energy consumption compares with others of his social and economic class, or whether he has undertaken any effort or made any personal sacrifice toward energy savings. Certainly, to suggest that somebody who speaks out about global warming is immoral or whatever your suggestion is if they don't live green or pursue a modest lifetyle is silly - if that is what you are saying. However, I'm curious: are you saying that you don't believe that our release of CO2 is causing climate change or are you just beating a drum to get a reaction?
-
No doubt we're showing some real double standard here. After all, we've probably done more than any other nation and maybe the next five put together to violate international treaties and international law and to destabilize the Middle East in particular when it comes to weapons and war in recent years. Some of our right wing friends call it "hate america first," but the reality is we are regarded with fear and suspicion by much of the general public throughout the world, from New Zealand to Scandanavia - not just among the Islamic or middle east nations. A quick google search yields the suggestion that we have violated or ignored the following (some were agreements we have not ratified, I think, so "violated" may not be the correct term): (1) the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), (2) the Treaty Banning Antipersonnel Mines, (3) the convention against torture (4) the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), (5) a protocol to create a compliance regime for the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), (6) the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, and (7) the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM). Also, there is plenty of information suggesting the U.S. is also not complying with: (8) the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and (9) the Chemical Weapons Commission (CWC). Our efforts to undermine and subvert the United Nations, too, are deplorable. Some put forth a viable argument that we need a strong military presence around the world and are justified in using our superior weaponry to our advantage, and that may or not be so. Further, I'm sure there is room for argument over what our obligations have been with respect to some of the above-listed treaties, or whether we are in technical violation of some of them. However, the U.S. clearly does not stand for or stand by any sense of the rule of law, non proliferation, promoting world peace, or whatever else theese various treaties and agreements are intended to promote. Any complaints from the Bush administration about some other nation's ignoring the rule of international law or violating their treaty obligations is clearly hypocritical.
-
Colonial Creek provides easier access to the Snowfield area than the Pyramid Lake trail when there is a good snowpack.
-
Yup. Jar of Flies was my favorite of theirs. But Best of Seattle? I dunno. For a great CD, I liked Badmotorfinger at least as much as Jar of Flies and I did see a pretty damn good Nirvana show! And then there's Tad. I never saw the 'bone. (Jimi, born here perhaps, was not really a Seattle guy - was he?) (Heart? You've got to be kidding.)
-
Colchuck Lake or some place around Cascade Pass wouldn't be bad if you were not counting approach time and the effort required to get your camp there, but on the other hand there are a lot of cool "roadside" climbs that you might consider where the drive time between objectives might be less than the hiking time associated with setting up your tent at Colchuck Lake or somewhere near Cascade Pass and persuing day trips from that location. Big Four's North Face, Hall Peak, and Lake 22 headwall are all very close to each other and would make great winter objectives in the right conditions. The Alpental Valley climbs are all very short on the approach hike, and could easily be climbed one after the other or combined with a climb along the Mountain Loop Highway or something near Leavenworth in consecutive days. Shuksan is nearly a roadside objective as is Mount Baker. And while we're at it, Colonial and Drury Falls and Mt. Index are pretty impressive and don't require much of an approach hike by Cascade standards. If you want high quality routes that are literally side by side and which are not a long distance from the car, I'd say the Liberty Bell group, N. side of Stuart, Colchuck Lake cirque, or the N. side of Shuksan and NW side of Baker would all be good choices.
-
On a related note: check this out Seymour Hersch reports Bush secretly funding terrorists with Al Queda connetions
-
Damn pippetors. I'm looking forward to reading what you have to say. Between us, I bet we can solve this thing. (And, by the way, my own response time may be a bit slow for the next several days.)
-
Generally when one is "practicing" lead climbing, it is done on top rope. The "leader" places gear and clip a line that you are trailing into that gear, all while protected from decking by the top rope. Without a top rope, you are actually lead climbing--with all of the potential for accidents/injury/death that come along with leading. That is "generally" how it is done today, and I have always found it slightly odd. While it is certainly true that this is a safe way to practice leading, I think that not long ago it was very rare to see anybody doing this. When I was a pup, you followed until you felt ready to try leading. You learned how to place nuts and decide where to place them by following, and finding which ones were easy or hard to remove, watching your partner to see which ones caused rope drag, or whatever. Instead of "practicing" leading with a top-rope, you waited until you reached a point where you felt ready and then you went out to lead climbs where the pro was generally agreed to be more or less straight forward. If you misjudged a situation, you had to hold on and figure it out or you had to downclimb back to a point of security. While the modern method of practicing on a toprope is obviously safer in the sense that you described, I would not posit it as the only responsible way to learn to lead and I think it provides less opportunity for the beginning leader to develope judgment and psyche if they rigidly cling to a system where all risk and exposure is eliminated. Any organized club group should probably do as you suggest. One who may be learning from a friend who is serving more as a mentor may not need to avoid a "real" lead until they've climbed "x" number of pitches in the fashion which you describe.
-
JayB: you complained that I wasn't addressing your arguments, and over the weekend I did exactly that. Cat got your tongue?
-
For a general mountaineering axe, I would go no shorter than 60 cm, and I believe 70 is more standard for good reason. Walking on glaciers, poking crevasse edges, and self arrest are far higher priority items than convenience on steep snow and ice climbing for most general mountaineering. A 50 cm tool is, in my opinion, dangerous for performing self arrest. 60 may even be a bit short. For technical climbing, a 50 cm axe is a good tool. It depends on what you are planning to do.
-
When we ally ourselves with one faction, because they will help us oust another faction, we often seem to end up wed to a government or opposition movement that doesnt' share our goals. It may well be very difficult to prevent small cell groups from hiding in the hills and building a network, but we chose sides rather than targetting the terrorists in the first place and now it would not be surprising if the current Afghani government may be less than effective or fully motivated to go after the terror network on their Pakistan frontier.
-
Whitehorse - Whitehorse Glacier. Shuksan - White Salmon Glacier (slightly more than just a "snow climb" at the top). If the road is open (probably not): Eldorado - East Ridge.
-
Your "argument" might bear pondering if someone here was actually arguing that terrorists come from poverty. I don't think they are. Saddam may have thought so, when he offered $25,000 to the families of anybody killed in a suicide attack, and it may well be that most of those who blow themselves up on a bus in Jerasulem or Haifa do in fact come from poverty. Notwithstanding your inconclusive postulation about the personality traits of terrorists it may be true that many terrorists in fact do come from poor backgrounds but we all know that Bin Laden was rich and the 911 guys were not poor villagers. Either way, the straw man you are taking swipes at is just that: it has not really been the argument here that poverty fuels terrorism - has it? I've said that going on a rampage in response to 911, invading countries that never attacked us and blithely triggering the killing of hundreds of thousands, setting up permanent camp in the middle of their oil fields, firing up a program of torture and detention that makes us look just as bad as our "enemies," and making speech after speech about a war of civilizations, calling it a crusade, and talking about Islamofacists is clearly going to motivate a significant angry backlash against the U.S. You have not directly disagreed, but argued about priviledged well educated elite who you state would seek to blow up bombs in the U.S. anyway. We've discussed elsewhere the fact that clearly a dramatic and at least partial military response to 911 was needed, but our actions in the last five years have not been calculated to reduce terrorism - at least our actions on the military and political front. Maybe some of the efforts to interrupt funding of terrist training camps have. It is my belief that we have taken a right turn, and are headed for more and escalating conflict on this war against terrorism. I would like to see a national dialog about this as we do in fact have a choice. We can still fight global terrorism and I believe we could probably work to secure our access to oil without the torture programs, without the rhetoric that smacks of the Roman empire and the crusades, and without making it our policy to invade and occupy countries that pose no threat to us, or to favor axis of evil rhetoric and threats of bombing over dialog and engagement with nations like Iran and Korea.
-
I suffer from Temporal Partisan Myopia? Get a grip. Now you're sounding like Fairweather or Sheaf Stout. I've slammed the spineless democrats on this board every chance I get and my premise in this very thread is that I'd like to see the archticts of this war held accountable but it would only do some good if it led to some discussion and movement AWAY from the partisan politics that have allowed this whole mess to be foisted upon us. Your suggestion that I have limited interest in your argument comes closer to the mark. I honestly do not believe it is a serious argument to claim that second generation immigrants are the ones who go to college and study revolution 101 while they drive the SUV's bought by the sweat of their parents' hard work or that the riots outside Paris were caused in significant part by the French welfare state, or that either of these things has anything to do with broader responses to American foreign policy as it affects the rate or intensity of international terrorism. I see it as an intellectual game with the end result being similar to calling all liberals latte sipping metrosexuals - and implying that this has something to do with the value or validity of their viewpoint - but little more. Meanwhile, I've been busy with work and have not had time to engage in all the fun so I'm relegated to looking at the board once a day and responding to the general tone rather than your ten brilliant mini-points of the day. I'll try and do better.
-
I wasn't arguing, JayB, because I see little point in debating your "arguments" as your basic premise is so whacked that there really is no argument. You seem to think our posture in the world has no impact on the recruitment or stimulation of terrorism, but I think our foreign policy actually does. Either way, I think attacking countries that pose no threat to us and have not attacked us, and kidnapping people for torture in secret prisoners is not the way to go. You apparently think it is. Arguments about whether or not the rage about cartoons in a Scandanavian newspaper or riots in the suburbs of Paris prove your point that the bad guys just hate America are way wide of the mark.
-
I don't get your Hamlet reference, heer Jay, but I think my crude synopsis of what you stated is really not as far off as you are trying to suggest. Anyway, I agree with the above quote: I have never argued that we are going to stop terrorism by adopting this or that foreign policy. Our current actions in Iraq are certainly adding fuel to the fire, though, and I think the baldfaced cynicism of those who say "the ends justifies the means" and "f*ck the rest of the world if they won't go along with us" is truly undermining any shred decency we may have held as a nation and, in a real way, our own democracy suffers along with our International image. And what is this critique of my argument style in light of your constant refrain about latte sipping metrosexuals?
-
Would a 50 foot snake really do it? Of course, then they'd have JayB as backup. You're either with us or against us, the ends justify the means, and there is a whole world of haters out there who just hate what America stands for so it doesn't matter whether we invade and occupy countries who have not attacked us, maintain secret prisons where torture appears to have at least at times become routine, and make speeches about how this is a clash of civilizations. Further, the naive evil liberals among us who drink fancy coffee don't deserve to call themselves American.
-
There is no one path toward radicalism, and you won’t find the same brand of anti-Americanism or any other sentiment on the American college campus as you will in a Parisian slum or a middle eastern training camp. You probably won’t find the same brand from one College campus to the next. However, we can still consider the obvious in considering the affect our actions abroad may have on radicalizing certain segments. Invading countries under false pretenses, being responsible for the killing of several hundred thousand civilians who never attacked us, and publicly stating to the world that we are no longer bound by the rules of international law and we are going to “take the gloves off” and torture people, and you are “with us or against us,” and this is a “crusade” is obviously going to produce some backlash. These actions threaten our society from within as much as without. What thinking American can really believe and trust that America is truly stands for good? All of this fuels a national cynicism that gives rise to the general idea that there is no morality in any of it so why even pay attention. JayB apparently believes that none of this has any effect because these hateful malcontents around the world are simply looking for an excuse to hate America and they are going to hate us no matter what we do so we may as well feel free to invade countries under false pretenses, blithely set of the killing of hundreds of thousands when it suits our purposes, and while we’re at it lets call everybody names including those liberals who might prefer to sip a latte while he drinks his Folgers. And this includes those who think America should be a force for freedom or who want to talk about pursuing peaceful means to solve world problems. They obviously hate what America stands for. JayB is not alone in this sentiment. We see it from several of our friends here at cc.com. Our national debate now is about fighting a war against terror, and the discussion here just as in Washington seems to contain the idea that there is or should be a choice between aggressively protecting America in a hostile world and some kind of isolationist or passive role in world affairs. With us or against us, and we must take the gloves off while nobody else better violate a treaty or support some faction fighting a battle outside their border or we should drop a nuke. Sad. (And, ChucK, he didn't specifically state Muslims are bad, but it has certainly been the general theme and sales plan in much the same fashion as he didn't specifically state that Saddam attacked us on 911, but they've tried to create that image every chance they had.)
-
Go back and read my posts here and in virtually every other thread on this topic, Mr. Stout. I have a tremendous amount of disdain for spineless and opportunistic politicians on the Democratic side of the aisle and I said that going along with the authorization force without real discussion of what everybody knew was (and was not) going on was a dereliction of duty.
-
I thought we had an interesting angle on the discussion here - and to me the central question is how events may unfold and whether any of this will lead to a true national dialog instead of just more of the same politics, but I can't resist taking this bait. The "left" did not support the war. The demonstrations against the war, not only in this country but around the world, were the largest demonstrations since the Vietnam era. A significant number like maybe 30% of the American public was against the invasion from square one. Those who voted to authorize Bush to negotiate based on having the authority to invade were mostly spinless opportunistic politicians. Not leftists and certainly not leftists with any conscience. Even the authorization itself was one step removed from actually authorizing war - they authorized further negotiation backed by the threat of the use of force - and I'm surprised they aren't trying to weasel out of their failure of leadership using that excuse now. I'm not saying that no Senator or Congressman could rationally have supported the war. But they are all a bunch of liars if they stand here and say that they were carefully analyzing the news and they actually believed the stated reasons for the invastion. And nobody stood up to say: WMD is not why we are dong this, but I'm for the invasion because I think blah blah blah. Second, it IS treason in any ordinary definition of the word to lead this Nation into what is predictably going to be a disaster, for reasons of personal greed. We don't really know how much Bush and his buddies were adding up their anticipated profits before this war, but they had to know it was going to turn out well for Halliburton and the Oil Companies. So far, they've offered no believeable justification for (1) invading, and (2) rejecting the advice of their own war planners as to how to do it right once they invaded. There may well be a good case for treason. In my view, we are destined to remain in the same rut of schizophrenic and groundless foreign policy operated from the back rooms as long as nobody in leadership has the courage to stand up and say: HEY FOLKS - THIS HAS BEEN A DISASTER AND NOT ONLY A FAILURE OF LEADERSHIP BUT A FAILURE OF DEMOCRACY AND WE WANT TO TALK ABOUT HOW TO TAKE AMERICA DOWN A DIFFERENT ROAD. Folks on the "right," and many on the "left" may disagree with such a proposal, but real discussion rather than BS is what is needed.