JayB

"No further discussion useful," is an interesting attempt to subsititute a nullity for an argument, ditto for endlessly repeating "It's on the books," over and over again. Which sections of the UCMJ or the Geneva conventions applied to Al-Queda members operating in Afghanistan? Which body of law are you referring to that applies when attempting to ascertain the legality of either targetting or capturing transnational terrorists residing in countries that lack either the means or the will to capture or kill them? Congress passed a resolution declaring war on Afghanistan and authorizing the cruise missile attack on Al-Queda's compound there? The point of the Geneva Conventions wasn't to "argue against a nation of laws for expediency's sake," it was to create a legal framework to address phenomena which existing laws weren't designed to contend with. There's a reason that the legal procedures drafted to govern the Nuremburg Trials differed from those which governed the operation of the Small Claim's Court in North Dakota at the time. I'm of the opinion that drafting a body of law that provided specific rules which govern the handling and prosecution of a Yemeni national that's illegally entered Afghanistan by way of the Pakistani tribal areas for the purposes of recruiting fellow Jihadis plotting an attack on Italy and is detained by a Pushtun millitia operated by the local Warlord before being handed over to the Afghan Army who passes him along to Danish troops operating in the Nato coalition would be helpful.

Congress also authorized the use of force in Iraq, there's still the problem of dealing with terrorists in nations that have no desire whatsoever to cooperate with us, etc. The case of the "Warrantless Wiretapping," is also a prime example opportunism trumping seriousness. This term covered the monitoring of phone calls originating outside of the US and answered by known or suspected Al-Queda members operating within the US, not to read Grandma's e-mail. This was a case where serious people should have been asking how to reconcile a sensible intelligence goal with the requirements of the Constitution, but this - to put it mildly - is not what transpired. Unless chanting "Warrantless Wiretapping." over and over again like some kind of tribal incantation without actually reflecting on either the real legal problems or reasonable solutions to the same. So if the US Army had captured Osama in Afghanistan without having the action authorized by an agreement with the Taliban, would that have been kidnapping or capture? What designation should he have had, and what laws should apply. POW, US citizen? In what venue would he be tried, and under which set of laws? What if a country violates it's own laws in capturing a detainee and his rights in his own country are infringed in the process?

The flip side of that coin, is that no one who insists that all of the legal solutions are in place already has much to offer when it comes to specifics. How do you capture the likes of Khaled Sheik Mohammad using traditional law enforcement, especially if he's wisely chosen to reside in a country in which he cannot be detained because the folks in charge of the said country either lack the means, the desire, or both? How well did the current legal structure function in the wake of the Khobar Towers bombing, the bombing of the embassies in Kenya, the attack on the USS Cole? If post-detonation forensics satisfies your definition of "adequate," then I suppose that one could make the case that the responses in all of the above cases were adequate indeed. The subpoena approach doesn't seem to have done much to induce cooperation from the Taliban, either. Was the cruise missile attack that Clinton ordered an Al-Queda within Afghanistan's borders an extra-legal maneuver that would classify as a war-crime? I'm not aware of any provision in international law that covers the legal manner in which one targets and launches cruise missiles into another country's sovereign territory. I'm glad that Clinton did so, but I'm a tad puzzled by the same folks who are insisting that the grand nebulosity called "international law," has it all covered weren't subjecting Bill to the same critique then that they've leveled at Bush since day-one. How about the bombing of Serbia? Per international law, it certainly would have been more legal to do nothing and let the slaughter continue unabated. No UN Mandate for that one either. No protests either. Strange. I'm certain that party-politics had nothing to do with the deafening chorus of silence that greeted the long-overdue use of force, despite it's "illegality." Existing laws are adequate when terrorists either orchestrate or conduct their attacks withing your own borders, and/or have the courtesy to remain within the same border or those of a country that is willing to apprehend them on your behalf, provided they aren't already kicking it with the 72 virgins. If the Democrats gain power, get ready to play the part of Cindy Sheehan. They'll ride the zeal to the voting booth, but don't expect them to pay much attention once they're in office.

So is that last photo "The Quad?" If not, can someone post a link/diagram?

Wasn't the gist of this ruling that since Al Queda isn't a state, members of Al-Queda cannot be classified as enemy combatants, and the guy (legal resident - yes, citizen -no)needs to be tried under laws intended for US citizens, or let go? I support the ruling, but it would be nice to see someone on the Left thinking seriously about trying to develop a legal structure that addresses some of the aspects of handling transnational terror suspects that don't seem to jive terribly well with rules developed to govern situations arising from either interstate conflict or civil/criminal matters pertaining to civilians. There may be cases where one or the other is a close enough fit that they'll work, but I'd still like to see some kind of international effort to craft rules for the classification, apprehension, detention, transfer, and trial of people for whom neither the Geneva Conventions nor routine domestic law provide a very useful structure for handling. I don't think extraordinary renditions and secret prisions are the answer, but neither is showing up at the door of Osama's cave with a warrant and reading him his Miranda rights. There's a very good chance that Democrats will have control over both the exective and the judicial branches in a couple of years, at which time they'll have to play grown-up when it comes to these issues. Whether the tactical opportunism for the sake of domestic political advantage that has characterized both their thinking and that of their base thus far can transmute into something more constructive is an open question. I don't doubt the Democratic leadership's capacity to lead in these arenas, but my prediction is that the more fervent sectors of their base will wind up feelig embittered and betrayed when realism trumps opportunism.

The book thing is at least partly to protect the brand-new climber so he'll have some basis by which to evaluate what the experienced person is telling him. An extreme example is the woman who went out with an "expert climber" who set up a top-rope for her in which the rope ran right through the webbing. Worked fine on the way up, unfortunately, not so well after she weighted the rope and began the lowering process. This kind of thing is super-rare and not really a problem, but I still think it's useful to know if someone is doing something really crazy and attempting to pass it off as "the only way," doesn't protect a traverse properly, etc....

Clove hitch to locker at powerpoint. Even in the exceptionally unlikely event that the knot slips under load, you're still attached to the anchor. If the biner breaks, you're hosed, but this is true no matter how you attach yourself to the said biner.

Watching certainly won't hurt, but your best bet is to read some of the classic instructional books, practice what you can on your own, and then find an experienced climber that's willing to head out with your for a day. Check how they climb, how they rack their gear, how they place their pro, build their anchors, etc, etc, etc, etc.

There were some mondo-discussions elsewhere about this topic, and I started a thread here about the potential shortcomings of the cordalette but it went down in flames at the time. Seems like there was some rough agreement that a doodad called the equalette that combined some of the best qualities of the cordalette and the sliding X in one rig. I think this may have been discussed in Long's latest book on anchor's but I haven't seen the book so I'm not sure. Lower graph and quote poached from gravsports: "The whole concept of equalizing belay anchors has been discussed heavily lately, both over on rockclimbing.com and also on supertopo.com. I've also had some correspondance with Jim Ewing over at Sterling, who did much of the actual lab work referenced. The basic concept is that it's very difficult to effectively equalize multiple pieces in a belay, and that shock loading when one piece pulls is surprisingly minimal. We all want to do the "right" thing when building anchors, but as I've written previously, the "right" thing often isn't. This picture is lifted from supertopo.com, where a user lifted it from John Long's new book (I still need to buy a copy of that, hopefully he won't mind posting it here as it's promo for his book--I've known Long for years, he's not the sort of individual you really want pissed at you, not because of his iron addiction but because he flips words with style). I thought people might enjoy seeing the data, when I got it from Jim it wasn't in a viewer-friendly format. I find the whole discussion sort of humorous because we all used the "sliding X" years ago, then were told that the cordellette was plus bon, now it's pretty clear that the old sliding X is pretty darn good in comparison. I've played with the "equallette," overall it seems like it's more prone to mis-rigging and requires more biners than I'm likely to carry for its performance advantage over a simple sliding X. Might use it on nice sunny days when I have unlimited time to set up an anchor, but for winter climbing it's a right pain. One of the main problems with cordellettes is that the central knot often becomes set for the day after only one use, I see the equalette as being worse. At least with a sliding X frozen knots aren't a problem. I'll likely go with a sliding X with the biner clipped directly into the rope, and the rope then clipped into a third piece as a "All hell breaks loose" backup to the two primary pieces. Or something else depending on what the situation callls for, the bottom line is that no one system for building belays will be the best for all possible circumstances. I'll continue to carry a cordellette as they are very useful for slinging pillars or other features, chopping up for V-threads, rigging rap anchors, etc., but less useful than I always thought for building equalized anchors. All of this discussion has also changed my viewpoint that tying together some "OK" pieces will make a "really good" belay. I'm now more interested in having at least one "bomber" piece in the belay, and then backing that up with with at least one and hopefully two "OK" or better pieces. I've always built my rap anchors around one "bomber" piece (Abalakov or super solid pin/nut/bush/whatever) with a backup, I'm starting to look at belays more like this given how relatively poorly even the best equalized anchor works in the lab. In combat situations systems are likely to work even less well in my experience. Lots of good gear is a good thing, this whole climbing thing is pretty unpredictable when it comes right down to it. I'm very fond of 3.5 inch stainless bolts that I've placed, grin." http://gravsports.blogspot.com/2007_01_21_archive.html To tie.... Take your coradalette, tie a couple of overhand knots a couple of feet apart to create a closed loops in the middle, secure each "arm" of each loop to the biner attached to the pro with a clove hitch instead of clipping the end of the loops through the biner, then clip a biner over each strand in the center loop to create the sliding-X effect. Wouldn't be my default anchor, but worth having in the tool kit for some situations.

The 60's were not clean and free climbing hadn't firmed up with the ethics that ruled the 70's until the very end of that previous decade. Which leads us to... Jay's latest attempt at revisionist history. In fact, the overwhelming majority of climbers in the 70's - get set - actually did live and climb those ideals - certainly I and every human I ever climbed with in that period did. I also distinctly remembering hearing "falling" all day long at Eldo, the Gunks, and everywhere else we went - it wasn't until something like '81 before I heard someone yell 'take' for the first time. What do you suppose what average ratio is heard between those two yells these days? And please, Jump on ST and ask Jello, Werner, JStan or any of the old crew over there if it was just an illusion of an ideal, I'd love to watch that slapdown... More revisionist than the mass of self-aggrandizing conceits shape your perception of the climbing scene today? "Totally bolt dependent blah, blah, blah..." This certainly explains the massive increase in the popularity of, say, ice-climbing since the 1970's. All about the bolts out there on the ice. I'm also left wondering how, if this ethic was so sacrosanct - one can account for it's prompt demise upon the arrival of cordless powerdrills? Since it was climbers from the 1970's who pioneered the practice of powerdrilling while on rappel, it seems to me that the limiting factor was not the sanctity of the ethic, but the absence of the technology that enabled the practice. What percentage of the people who were climbing then stuck with this set of practices? This, too, is telling. This is like listening to people from the 1930's commending themselves for the hardiness and fortitude that they displayed by forgoing antibiotics.

kN for impact forces....

I came of age in the '70's and was climbing beginning in 1973. I had nothing to do with the creation of sport-climbing, and those who were I consider to be sell-outs. "Sell-outs from what?", you might ask. The '70's were a time when climbing was in transition, from piton-banging siege-climbing to a new ethic promoting minimal impact: "clean climbing". Check out the philosophy in the classic and inspiring article in the 1972 Chouinard catalog: "The whole natural art of protection" by Doug Robinson. Read it on-line here: Clean Climbing Manifesto Along with other outdoor recreationalists, climbers were beginning to seriously realize that it was unethical to trash the environment. "Leave little trace" should require little explanation here (but then again, maybe it does....) Lots of bold ascents were being made, leaving the pitons and drills at home. (See for example, the article by Galen Rowell in the June 1974 National Geographic: "Climbing Half Dome the Hard Way") and numerous back-issues of "Mountain" magazine which reported a lot of the advances. As a side-benefit to the new ethic, level of difficulty improved as the gear designed for clean-climbing could usually be placed with one hand and "Friends" allowed placements in parallel-sided cracks, roofs, etc. Lots of great and difficult routes were being put up in this style all over the U.S. Bolts, if they were to be used at all, were to be put in by hand, from the ground up, and few and far between; an ethic which certainly curtailed a lot of their use. Back then, you tried a climb, and if you were up for it, you just might make it. If you fell, you started over...usually from the bottom or came back when you were up to the challenge. The now-accepted charade of hang-doggin was seriously frowned-upon. Sometime around the end of the 70's, early '80's, some dirty stunts begin to appear, most notably at the Smith Rocks. Guys like Alan Watts, to their everlasting shame, started their drilling. I thought the whole concept as it evolved was appalling...from the promiscuous use of bolts, often placed on rappel, to a new type of sieging..."red-pointing" and hang-dogging...with unlimited rehearsals after which one could claim to have ascended a "big" number. [Note: I separate the harmless stylistic affronts - "red-pointing" etc., from the truly serious methodological issues: leaving permanent bolt trails in the wake.] The manufacturers, retailers and magazine-makers loved it! Sport-climbing's cheap, dumbed-down learning curve and limited risks gave it mass-appeal and the sale of shoes, ropes, harnesses, etc. sky-rocketed. Yeah! More $$$$$$! Who cares about crowds or grid-bolting! $$$$$ And now gyms feed into the system as nurseries for new "climbers", sent "outdoors" with little or no ethical training. In my opinion, rock climbing lost its soul when sport-climbing became the dominant paradigm. I spent time at Smith Rocks before it became sporto....it was a different, and I'd say much nicer, place altogether. In terms of environmental ethics, sport-climbing belongs to the Dark Ages: a giant step backwards. I don't believe it's too late to clean up the mess...which is one reason I continue to present my views on places like cc.com, whether you like to read them or not, or like my style of presentation or not. Most people don't want to hear it, because acknowledging the impact of their beloved sport-climbing will force them to confront the fact that what they do for fun has some serious issues attached. Many people have never heard that it's even controversial!....the manufacturers, retailers and magazines don't want you to think about it too much because maybe you won't buy all the crap they're trying to sell you.$$$$$$ Access interest groups who tolerate sport-routes don't want private land-owners to know the various sides of the debate because they're afraid they won't be allowed access....which is fine with me. You can't turn back the clock, but you can try to correct the mistakes of the present and make a better future. And the future ain't all about YOU, it's about keeping things nice for your grandchildren's grandchildren. Call me "crotchedy" or whatever other names you've thrown at me. I'm not ashamed of my ideals. Maybe you should look closer at your own. By the way, I hope the Forest Service and other interested parties are reading EVERY BIT of this "discussion"...it will give them a nice taste of at least two sides of the issue and give them some insights on some of the characters who call themselves "climbers". That's a good historical summary in many ways, but it's hard to see how the prevailing ethos from the 1970's is anything but a step down from the ethics that governed the manner in which the likes of Weissner, Underhill, Ellingwood, the Stetner Brothers, etc, etc, etc, approached climbing. With regards to hangdogging, if I'm not mistaken, there's plenty of documentation out there which establishes that this practice was commonplace amongst the likes of Stoddard et al when they were pushing the grades at the Gunks in the 1960's. I accept the fact that clean climbing and many other worthy practices were the ideals that most climbers aspired to in the 1970's. Accepting them as ideals that most people aspired to is one thing, buying the notion that the average climber never failed to live up to them, and that all of the practices that you malign had their genesis in era of bolted sport climbing is quite another.

Best graffitti-insult I ever read, penned over a urinal. "Why are you reading the wall? The joke is in your hand."

I'd be surprised if the dimensional lumber wasn't cut to the same size for both markets, but given that we are the destination for the overwhelming majority of their output, I doubt they'd ever get worked-up enough to stop selling us their wood in whatever dimensions we want. I'm sure that GM, Ford, et al don't mind equipping all of the vehicles that they sell in Canada with spedometers that display speeds in km/H either....

I think that this has been a matter of debate on and off since the mid 1790's or thereabouts. It seems like the last time there was any serious debate on this topic seemed to be in the mid-70's or thereabouts, and I seem to remember people who were old enough to be involved in that debate saying something about the cost of replacing all of the tooling, etc with their metric equivalents outweighing the benefits for most businesses, and very few people in the wider world clamoring for a change in the units that they used for their day-to-day affairs. It seems like all of the business that that need to use SI have been doing so for quite a while, and the only place where the Imperial system really persists in this country is in a limited number of everyday applications like volumes, distances, elevations, heights, weights, etc.... I suppose that there's still a fair number of technical professions that might have to work in imperial units these days, though. Maybe civil engineers, surveyors, automotive engineers, etc.

"A vast majority of folks of 'climbers' today are wholly bolt-enabled and risk-averse and almost none of them would have been climbers back in the day." This notion that the days of your youth represented some kind of stylistic apogee, much less that everyone who tied-in was some kind of uber-hard, steely-eyed, nail-eating motherfucker is unparalelled in the realms of onanistic auto-mythologizing. It was the people who came of age in the 70's who *created* sport climbing, so please spare us this last-samurai business. If any generation had a right to claim that mantle, it would have been Weissner, Ellingwood, etc.

True enough, but it was amusing to envision the moral and intellectual game of twister that the choosing sides in this rhetorical contest must have forced the average denizen of Berkeley into playing. If you read the summary from "Alternet," it seems to capture this tension quite well. For me the spectacle of Hitchens deftly eviscerating a limpdick "progressive" who excoriates the likes of Jerry Falwell yet gets misty eyed while composing compound apologetics for both the ruthless barbarism of the suicide bomber and the dank, sub-medieval religious fanaticism that both inspires and sanctifies it was quite a treat. The clip below captures Hitchens at his most devastating. The moral and intellectual ass-whupping on display here makes the average UFC highlight-reel look like pairs figure skating. "I ask you: You pick that kind of relativism, you'll also find you're dealing with a very surreptitious form of absolutism, which is only capable of describing as fascistic relatively comical forces (who I've denounced up- and downhill all my life in the United States), but cannot use the word totalitarianism about the religion that actually conducts jihad, actually organizes totalitarianism, actually inflicts misery, pain, unemployment, and despair upon millions of people, and then claims what it has done as the license for suicide and murder. A perfect picture [gesturing towards Chris Hedges] has been given to you of the cretinous relationship between sloppy moral relativism, half-baked religious absolutism, and the journalism that lies in between." Swap "Hedges" for "American 'Progressives'" and you have a concise summary of what's become of the political block that Hithchens once considered himself a part of. O-YvJahRTrU

"Visualize this spectacle: a debate between a neocon and a progressive. The subject is religion. One of them is there to defend religion, to praise God, to cheerlead for even the most devout. The other -- his opponent -- is an atheist. He skewers deities and those who follow deities. He calls them evil. Toxic. Childish. He mocks doctrine. Railing that the devout want to kill us and control the world, he is on a mission, as it were, to vanquish missions. You'd expect the liberal to be the atheist and the neocon to vouch for the devout. No-brainer, right? Well, no." http://www.alternet.org/story/52449/ zQe0NuvhoR4 TMAgpr2I9pQ bPDBfXflP70 D5Dg_ys9ri0 J5U3sRJqtyE GeF4KPL_al4 dU0k5K9QqFc

"Human Retro Elements Retro Elements are a diverse assemblage of related molecular entities. Originally, they were described as genetic parasites that inhabit the genomes of all eukaryotes and many prokaryotes. The molecular thread interweaving this complex phylogenetic tapestry is the copying of RNA into DNA during a step in the life cycle of each of these organisms. This process is carried out by reverse transcriptase (RT), in most cases encoded by the retro element but, in a few cases, such as the retrotranscripts, borrowed from another retr oelement. Endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) and non-LTR retrotransposons are two groups of retro elements covering about 42 % of the human genome. They were shown to affect their host quite dramatically. Of the two groups only the non-LTR retrotransposons were clearly demonstrated to actively sprawl throughout the human genome at present, leading to generation of ~34% of the chromosomal DNA. Retro Elements can cause genetic disorders and are associated with tumour development by a number of mechanisms. Additionally, their gene products are suggested to directly influence the developmental status of specific cell types. In general, retro elements are strictly repressed, especially in adult tissues. They can, however, be activated under conditions inflicting stress to cells, in particular to DNA. Activation of replication competent or pathogenic retro elements would pose a substantial risk to innovative applications such as gene therapy, stem cell therapy or tissue transplantation. Research aimed at understanding the regulation and the pathogenic potential of retro elements in physiological and tumourigenic processes may provide a profound basis for the risk assessment of retro elements in ex vivo manipulated biomedicinal therapeutics."

" Int J Cancer. 2007 Apr 15;120(8):1769-75. Links Mobile phone use and risk of glioma in 5 North European countries.Lahkola A, Auvinen A, Raitanen J, Schoemaker MJ, Christensen HC, Feychting M, Johansen C, Klaeboe L, Lönn S, Swerdlow AJ, Tynes T, Salminen T. STUK, Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority, Helsinki, Finland. anna.lahkola@stuk.fi Public concern has been expressed about the possible adverse health effects of mobile telephones, mainly related to intracranial tumors. We conducted a population-based case-control study to investigate the relationship between mobile phone use and risk of glioma among 1,522 glioma patients and 3,301 controls. We found no evidence of increased risk of glioma related to regular mobile phone use (odds ratio, OR = 0.78, 95% confidence interval, CI: 0.68, 0.91). No significant association was found across categories with duration of use, years since first use, cumulative number of calls or cumulative hours of use. When the linear trend was examined, the OR for cumulative hours of mobile phone use was 1.006 (1.002, 1.010) per 100 hr, but no such relationship was found for the years of use or the number of calls. We found no increased risks when analogue and digital phones were analyzed separately. For more than 10 years of mobile phone use reported on the side of the head where the tumor was located, an increased OR of borderline statistical significance (OR = 1.39, 95% CI 1.01, 1.92, p trend 0.04) was found, whereas similar use on the opposite side of the head resulted in an OR of 0.98 (95% CI 0.71, 1.37). Although our results overall do not indicate an increased risk of glioma in relation to mobile phone use, the possible risk in the most heavily exposed part of the brain with long-term use needs to be explored further before firm conclusions can be drawn. © 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc." "1: Environ Health Perspect. 2001 Dec;109 Suppl 6:911-33. Links Review of the epidemiologic literature on EMF and Health.Ahlbom IC, Cardis E, Green A, Linet M, Savitz D, Swerdlow A; ICNIRP (International Commission for Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection) Standing Committee on Epidemiology. Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. anders.ahlblom@imm.ki.se Exposures to extremely low-frequency electric and magnetic fields (EMF) emanating from the generation, transmission, and use of electricity are a ubiquitous part of modern life. Concern about potential adverse health effects was initially brought to prominence by an epidemiologic report two decades ago from Denver on childhood cancer. We reviewed the now voluminous epidemiologic literature on EMF and risks of chronic disease and conclude the following: a) The quality of epidemiologic studies on this topic has improved over time and several of the recent studies on childhood leukemia and on cancer associated with occupational exposure are close to the limit of what can realistically be achieved in terms of size of study and methodological rigor. b) Exposure assessment is a particular difficulty of EMF epidemiology, in several respects: i) The exposure is imperceptible, ubiquitous, has multiple sources, and can vary greatly over time and short distances. ii) The exposure period of relevance is before the date at which measurements can realistically be obtained and of unknown duration and induction period. iii) The appropriate exposure metric is not known and there are no biological data from which to impute it. c) In the absence of experimental evidence and given the methodological uncertainties in the epidemiologic literature, there is no chronic disease for which an etiological relation to EMF can be regarded as established. d) There has been a large body of high quality data for childhood cancer, and also for adult leukemia and brain tumor in relation to occupational exposure. Among all the outcomes evaluated in epidemiologic studies of EMF, childhood leukemia in relation to postnatal exposures above 0.4 microT is the one for which there is most evidence of an association. The relative risk has been estimated at 2.0 (95% confidence limit: 1.27-3.13) in a large pooled analysis. This is unlikely to be due to chance but, may be, in part, due to bias. This is difficult to interpret in the absence of a known mechanism or reproducible experimental support. In the large pooled analysis only 0.8% of all children were exposed above 0.4 microT. Further studies need to be designed to test specific hypotheses such as aspects of selection bias or exposure. On the basis of epidemiologic findings, evidence shows an association of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis with occupational EMF exposure although confounding is a potential explanation. Breast cancer, cardiovascular disease, and suicide and depression remain unresolved. PMID: 11744509 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE" I got the sense that there was no conclusive data linking either. There certainly doesn't seem to be a general consensus on these points amongst those who are qualified to evaluate the evidence.

http://www.professorpaddle.com/media/videoview.asp?File_Id=1545

I think what scares people the most is the stark reality that if they dropped the vain pretense concerning their own level of achievement and cultivation they'd actually be just as comfortable living a long, long way from the institutions of high culture that they are neither a part of nor frequent with any more regularity than the average cargo-short-and-waist-pouch-thingy sporting tourists that roll into town for a visit every couple of years.

Yes - railing against the hip-urban-insertadjectivehere. When I see Hilton Kramer, Roger Kimball et sporting sandwich boards and bullhorns while leading their legions of Brooks-Brothers-and-Wingtip-clad followers in protest outside the local SoyMart then I'll be perfectly happy to concede this point.

So, a failure of the marketplace? When people say "culture" they mean an Olive Garden next to a Multiplex theater. Pfft. As a denizen of this fair city I hardly need to acknowledge the commments issuing forth from a resident of...."Te-ni-no".