Fairweather

[video:youtube]eEhQ5nauXgY

Not sure that any other species forgoes the kill and sets it up again like this. I'm probably wrong, though. Cats playing with mice? (God help me if I have to put cats in the "agency vested" column.) Wolves are almost certainly way up there, and the analogy with Orcas has been made for centuries. As for your Irish nurture/nature thing, I agree it's compelling. But don't forget that a human newborn is one of the most helpless creatures on the planet. My guess is that there are hard phenotypic protocols that control behavior at birth, and then there are genes--maybe even ortholog code--that control how we interpret the social data we start accumulating at birth. If I had to guess right now, I'd say we humans are a 50/50 mix of nurture-nature. To go beyond this on the nature side, it seems to me, is a dark path that leads to a place my own European ancestors dabbled in not too long ago. Going back to my crappy BIOS/RAM/Hard-drive analogy, maybe the hard-wired cultural differences you describe on the nature side are akin to the way we process data--say, an Intel chip versus an ADM processor. Same bios/board instructions, same data inputs, slightly different interpretations hardly noticeable to anyone but "the other." Just spewing here.

http://matrix.static.nationalgeographic.com/video/places/regions-places/polar-regions/orca-juvenile-training-lex/

Hard to say. The current belief is that we're pretty much blank slates at birth with a few exceptions like crying, and smiling. The imprinting and manipulation begins almost immediately, however. A good book on the topic--still relevant, IMO--is The Social Construction of Reality, by Peter Burger and Thomas Luckman. It's pretty standard fare in most social science graduate programs; you'd probably like it.

That's really cool. I was 14 when the rendezvous took place and it was the most excitement I'd had since Apollo 13 blew a tank a few years earlier. I hate to say it, but the geopolitical world was a much more understandable place back in the days when you and I lived on the brink of a nuclear holocaust.

You were, indeed, exposed here. Humans see animal intelligence and emotional range through a very narrow lens. We don't see most of what they do in the wild, our experiments are simplistic, and we've only crudely deciphered a tiny fraction of their languages. Adaption, nature's analog for distributed artificial intelligence, can seem like cognitive prowess - during his recent visit my biologist nephew told me of a spider that preys on other spiders than can mimic over 50 different kinds of prey when pretending to be stuck in its prey's web. Even a polar bear, the most imaginative predator in the world, hasn't been observed to have as many tricks up its sleeve (although it comes close). Adaption sans higher intellect falls pretty short, however, when you observe, as I did in Vancouver several years back, 3 orcas after a marine show delicately balancing their last fish on their lower lip so they can tease the seagulls - presenting the fish, fading back - before gifting those fish to the seagulls in the end. It was the last part that really got me - lots of species play, but these animals have a strong sense of fairness that extends across the boundary of species - even a prey species no less. That's amazing. Or, perhaps, those orcas were practicing some less than amazing seagull catch and release because they weren't hungry and had some time to kill. Maybe they were inviting those seagulls to become lunch next time. It would be great to be able to ask them. We will eventually figure out how to communicate with orcas and the like. It will be interesting to hear their thoughts on their captivity and circus stardom. At first glance, I'm a skeptic--after all, the behavior you describe is similar to that of an Angler Fish. But there are a few videos of pods cooperating in threes and more to create waves to wash seal pups off of small ice floes. And in at least one instance, they place a doomed seal pup back up on the ice as a training exercise for the young Orcas in the pod. Not to get all philosophical, but this is clearly a social construction post-priori. In other words, a Border Collie will herd sheep--even if he's never seen one. It's phenotypical behavior. It's in his code--the code that sits in his BIOS chip, for lack of a better analogy. But this Orca behavior is being learned and passed on, and this puts them in a higher category, IMO. I'm convinced. The documentary also presented MRI scans that show enormous emotional centers in the Orca brain, and a heartbreaking segment where an entire pod tries to defend their doomed pups in Puget Sound (in 1970) while the SeaWorld bastards perform a combo kidnap/murder. Finally, if language lies at the center of culture--as most social scientists believe--then these whales really are more than simple mimes looking for a meal or a booty call. I'd probably put elephants in this higher-ordered category too. They imprint learned behaviors on their young, cry for their dead--and often bury them.

Smart little fuckers, for sure. One of the few species that have ever been observed using tools, I've read somewhere. And those barrel rolls they do up at Muir serve no purpose but fun.

Did any of you watch the documentary Blackfish on CNN last night? I'm not a big animal rights guy, but I've believed for a long time that Orcas and a few other species belong to a much higher order of sentient beings. The presentation was compelling and sickening at the same time. The bastards at SeaWorld and similar parks should be jailed the same as any other kidnappers and violent abusers.

None of the conveniences you list insult traditions or diminish the sense of accomplishment felt by those qualified to do these climbs sans superfluous and unnecessary accoutrements. What's more, all of the conveniences you describe are widely accepted or were, at one time or another, vetted by a much larger community. Nice try.

A simple act of Congress would be a good start: Thou shalt not create, sell, or legally bind a farmer to purchase a seed incapable of reproducing itself in a natural or ordinary agricultural setting.

Anyhow, I just want this woman to GO AWAY!

This whole thing is little more than The Jungle part CVII.

I thought it was closed to bikes part of the year. Rob/FW - Let me guys know if you are down for a november ride there... It's usually closed to bikes by now, but they've extended it because of the dry weather. We rode east tiger last weekend, but even then, we were on borrowed time. Not sure where you guys live nowadays; I'm still in the Tacoma area. Tiger TH is 36 miles/50 min from my driveway. Duthie is ok too if it's close for you guys, but I'm more interested a hill climb than a playground. Come to think of it, isn't Smith Rocks kind of like Duthie? A "built" environment? I mean, in a way? Ya know? I wonder if they allow campfires and tobacco?

It will have to be MTB. I don't like to ride on pavement that other people paid for. Is Tiger still open?

I like the suggestion, but you're basically asking people to replace laws with morality. Never gonna happen. Plato played out this same thought exercise in The Republic about 2500 years ago and (some say) satirized its folly. I'm not a big fan of laws these days--particularly, like you say, laws for the sake of laws. Here in the US it's a popular expression to boast "we are a nation of laws!" This is, at the same time, admitting our failures since laws would be largely unnecessary in a moral society.

As a dedicated birdwatcher, I most sincerely believe all these climbers and their shiny bolts and drills are scaring off my viewing opportunities and permanently damaging the park's environment. By God, I'm gonna write a letter to someone who can do something about it! (Ok, now I see how this works. Hey, it's easy!)

Oh geeez, Rob. Now you're mad. Let's get together for a bike ride and we'll try to work this out.

You two better check with Ian Eyemalegend-Itzmypark to make sure these uses are appropriate.

No problem, Proletariat. Forgive me for thinking someone so grounded in a particular political belief would have at least a basic grasp of its historical and philosophical underpinnings. I'll go ahead and put you in the "boutique" column for now.

You're right, that's the best one. The paraglider is a close second, IMO. Not sure how a couple of these pics can be considered standout though--particularly #3 (boring) and #14 (blurry and routine).

A bit of shameless salesmanship here: Nate, I have a couple of setups I'm parting with--a low end (180cm Fisher "tour extremes" w/ Silvretta 404s) and a heavier combo (173cm Black Diamond Kilowatts w/ Marker Barons). Skins for the latter. Also have a pair of Garmont Axon AT boots size 27.5. PM me if you're interested. As for advice, I think it's been well covered already. Hope you have fun up there! (ps - the plastic climbing boots/silvretta cage binding combo is bad, bad, bad. you will hate skiing forever if you start out this way.)

Are you serious?

For the most part, I have no idea what you're babbling on about, and neither, I suspect, do you. Stop the presses, capitalism is cyclic. We could always go back to the 74% top marginal tax rates of the late 1970s--and the stagnation you seem to recall fondly. You remember the 70s, don't you? Great times. Particularly for the inner city. I'm not saying that I'm whole hog on board the neolib ship of state, but maybe if you and your fellow tools would stop trying to dredge up Bryan or Debs at every downturn this political pendulum we're riding wouldn't keep swinging in such a wide arc. I know you're fond of the communitarian/cosmopolitan model, but I think you'll find Mr. Habermas (and Mr. Appiah) are just as fucked up as the long lineage of continental philosophers they follow. What's good for Europe ain't necessarily good for us. BTW: yes, I love Orwell. Nuanced. Hard to pigeonhole. Not at all like the latest crop. Or you.

Thanks for the stroke, er, I mean stoke!

Can we please keep your religious beliefs out of this discussion? Anyhow, if I recall, your boy Clinton oversaw his fair share of deregulation--particularly of the banking and insurance industries. Pragmatism n' all that, you see. Fact is, most Republicans I know think government's job--beyond the military and delivering mail--is, simply, to regulate. Unfortunately, the tool you elected and his rubber-stamp senate now want to take charge of our lives. We'll see how this thing plays out. Enjoy the show.