mattp

Jay, I could spend hours on your homework assignment here, and the results would be as dmuja suggests above, that we go to war for (1) resources, (2) geopoolitical "influence" and (3) where American lives are at stake. There will be few examples of any war we undertook for humanitarian reasons, despite Fairweather's apparent assertion that those were our motives in Vietnam (I guess he was assuming fighting communism there was for their beneifit not ours). But I'd actually be interested to see you state a coherent position here. What do YOU think is the prospect for a free Tibet? What do YOU think our government should do about it? Take off that pimple face and stop throwing spitballs and tell us what you think. See if you can take a stand in a clear fashion where you can't back peddle out of it if somebody questions something you write.

As far as I know, Tibet doesn't have any oil or other seriously strategic resources. I suspect our government is not likely to get involved.

I don't know, Fairweather. I am no China expert but I don't see them lacking "balls" in a way that would lead me to think they wouldn't arrest him. They seem pretty well determined to hold on as best they can to Tibet and Taiwan and Hong Kong and don't they control Inner Mongolia, too? More than anything else, they seem to think they can largely ignore Western reactions while they pursue their regional ambitions.

That was exactly my point, Mr. Cocoa. We tend to adopt causes or positions based on a sniff test without bothering to or in some cases even having the ability to really research the issues and ponder the broader implications of this or that campaign. I'm not sure Mr. Schell's five year old ideas are the be-all and end-all on this topic but he certainly made me think there may be more behind the story and broader issues at stake than I read in the Seattle newspaper.

muja, I'm not arguing there is anything right about what the Chinese are doing. Ask my dear friend Fairweather here: I'm as much of a knee jerk liberal as anybody and some of my best friends are yuppies who drive Volvo's. I found Schell's arguments quite convincing, however. I'm not suggesting you take the bumper sticker off your car but I do think it worthwhile to engage in some introspection.

Yes, that is what I heard him to say. I've changed my post above to try to correct the apparent misstatement you note. He spoke about how, in his travels and interviews, he found NOBODY in Tibet who wanted to wage a resistance movement or who thought there was any real prospect of success in such an effort. In a nutshell, he said, the Chinese say they aren't leaving, the Tibetans seem resigned to this, and the Dalai Lama isn't even calling for China to leave. This doesn't make it right in some ultimate moral sense, but the fact is that the whole idea is largely fueled by Western yuppies who drive volvo's and imagine Tibet as the mystical kingdom featured in the film Shangri La. Why aren't we campaigning over East Timor? Or ... And as Sovereign points out: you probably see as many free tibet bumper stickers in Seattle as you do free Iraq. What's up with that?

I saw Orville Schell lecture about Tibet five or six years ago. I think he told a pretty clear tale about how we've romanticized Tibet and the "Free Tibet" movement is a little naive, but it IS sad what the Chinese have done. He also pointed out that among Tibetans there has been little in the way of any strident widespread call for autonomy, and, for a host of practical reasons, he suggested that there is little prospect for a Tibet free of Chinese control. Here's an old interview: frontline

Well put. Its hard to understand voting for him the first time, but the second time???

My window that was problematic was a relatively large one, with a dark brown cladding, on a south facing window. Kidd has several viable theories re: the problem I experienced.

In a prior house I installed pella Metal clad sash windows in a second floor remodel and one very quickly warped so that it stuck when opening. It would still open, but was a slight nuisance. I never worried much about it, but I'd be hesitant about them in the future. I've been told that metal cladding over wood is problematic because the metal and the wood expand and contract at different rates. Don't know if this is so.

Hey porter: can you set it up so any exchange of posts involving TTK, Fairweather, and KK ends up in their own "lets bash each other" forum? Starting with Fairweather's entry into this very important discussion, these I hate you posts don't even have enough relevant content or intelligent thought to be called "spray."

Dawg, more power to you if you really thing it is going to make the world a better place. I have a hard time seeing how preaching to the cc.com spray club about how climbing has gone to the dark side and [insert latest exciting climbing accomplishment] is pathetic or telling us we are all supporting the vantage-ization of every crag in the universe unless we stand in line behind your shining example is really going to change even a small bit of reality on this earth. It gives us good fodder for an old fashioned bait and bash, though.

Spare me the indignation about my reference to your religion, Dwaynedawg. I bet you've brought that into the discussion over a hundred times with your feaux rabbi bit. Of late, I tend to less frequently engage with you than I used to. Carry on, but don't try to use the "if you don't like my arguments, don't read them" dodge. You probably are not going to get much sympathy from most posters around here if you draw some fire from a clearly misguided sport climbing apologist like Bill Coe, or if you have a post shipped from a climbing thread to spray.

Kind of like you with all your Bush-hating commentary. It is kind of a lot like that. Just as clearly as I am wasting my breath to tell you what a crook George Bush is, and you find it annoying, I'd say Dwayner is largely wasting his breath and annoying lots of people around here when inserting the same argument into so many discussions all the time. I may be misunderestimating just how disruptive or offensive my political arguments really are, but I think there is a difference in that DwaynerDawg is probably annoying a lot more folks around here than I am and in a manner or with regard topics that are central to the purpose of this board rather than a distraction that the site owners have conciously put on the bottom of the page - even if that is where you like to reside.

Sorry, Dawg, but that is not a valid dodge. Where you make a good point, some commend you. Where you are simply being a pest, many condemn you. With few if any exceptions, the only posters on this bulletin board who have ever argued "if you don't like my posts you don't have to read them" have been those who were widely condemned for being obnoxious and most here believed they were deliberately so. You may find it amusing to continually "explain" how climbing has been taken over by the devil or the top performers in the sport are in your mind no more than a joke, but that'd be like having some of cc.com's loudest Athiests campout inside your synagogue or maybe at your office or lab or your golf countryclub with signs proclaiming that Zionism is wicked and Raindawg is the biggest offender. You might ignore them the first day or two but it would grow old if they persisted. The 500th time you enter the same conversation between the same individuals with the same message that is generally if not directly dismissive of most others involved you are not some freedom fighter carrying the banner of hope.

I think he's painting too extreme of a picture and it undermines his argument. Joseph's reply to Blizzard had a lot of good points, but where he says that those who disagree with him are united in advocating unrestricted bolting, presumably everywhere, or where he talks about developing new routes as an insatiable thirst as if there is a sickness behind all of this, he loses credibility. Where, earlier in the thread, he argued that overnight some time in the 1980's everything about the sport suddenly changed when the gyms opened up, I think he is incorrect. Climbers, and climbers who do and who do not get involved in these debates, and climbers who pursue new routes or have no interest in it, come in all different shapes and sizes.

I didn't claim anything of the kind but, now that you bring it up, I will also once again suggest you are overstating your case. Yes, there are a small number of climbers who get "bitten by the bug" and focus all or much of their effort on new routing, but "insatiable thirst?" Rapists?

Joseph: is anyone really advocating unrestricted bolting? Even those clueless self-absorbed consumptive gym climbers for whom you have such contempt? You are making some good points here but I think you are overstating your case.

Mt Vernon: tonight. Our presentation of pictures depicting the fun and games in rock climbing up around Darrington will follow the monthly business meeting of the Club at 7 pm. We will meet at the Skagit Valley College, Ford Hall, Room 120. campus map

These guys say: go to Mt. Vernon tonight and see slides of Darrington. Summertime is fast approaching and we're looking forward to another season.

Come out to see some of the new and some of the old tomorrow night.

The whole damn sport is a contrivance. There was no reason to climb Mt. Blanc in 1786 and no “need” to start specializing in crag climbing around 1900. We climb crags by a set of rules that we made up to keep the game interesting. Specialized shoes are OK, but we don’t use specialized extensions of our hands. We use ropes as a safety net, but specifically define varying degrees of physical assistance from the ropes as different types of a climbing “accomplishment.” Why is a redpoint different from an onsite? Because we define it that way. Given this, I think it is fair for Pope and Dwayner to say “I’m not that impressed,” but really they are talking about themselves and all of this is really as much of a discussion about how we like to play games on this bulletin board as it is about this awesome climbing feat.

I'm sure most here will disagree but I think the term "alpine" has always involved something more than just rock climbing. Generally, this means there is some snow and ice involved but certainly there are some long or complicated rock climbs that are in a mountain environment that have the added value that I'd consider them alpine - especially where there are complex descents required or the needed technical skills in some way overlap with mountaineering. I've often said that the simpler standard rock climbs routes in the Bugaboos, for example, are not really "alpine." The line (for me) is somewhere between Surf's Up, which is a rock climb that you approach on glacier, and the Beckey Chouinard, with a long climb and descent of the other side of the peak, over a schrund, and onto steepish snow. Most people, I think, carry an ice axe of some kind on the BC; nobody does so on SU.

Yes the map shows lots of little discontinuous pieces and that doesn’t seem to be in the spirit of the Wilderness Act as I have come to appreciate it. I don’t think saving small parcels of land from logging has historically been the intent of the Wilderness Act and wonder if that is the best application of the law and whether incorporating areas with roads and campgrounds into new wilderness areas is good for the long term sanctity of the act as a whole. At one time, after the Spotted Owl when the NW Forest Plan was new, it looked like we might see broader protection of our forests but Clinton signed into law the salvage rider and the Forest Plan, Winter suggests, wasn’t or isn’t doing the job. The Bush administration certainly launched a more direct assault on our public lands, cutting funding and increasing privatization and, more to the point, directly attacking the roadless area rule. Has Wilderness area designation become the ONLY way to preserve wild land? If so, will this mean that Wilderness areas will be “saved” while anything else is “up for grabs?” Will we lose management flexibility for recreation planning in areas that we’d like to preserve but are also prime recreation areas -- particularly in places close to the urban centers? On the other hand, may we see the sanctity of wilderness degraded if wilderness areas regularly include small parcels, areas with roads and campgrounds, or very active and popular recreation ares?