ivan

i hate to inject humor into what is clearly a very serious conversation, but john oliver's recent piece on college costs and the resulting massive growth in student debt might give both of the prime combatants in this soiree something to comment on [video:youtube]

whether charter schools work or not, as I understand it, the point of the court is that charter schools should not draw off funds needed for public schools - the court is no doubt grumpy that its earlier ruling on public school funding is being ignored

would it be fair to compare a charter school cherry-picking it's students w/ a public school taking the left-overs? does a test score really indicate what's a good student? is the ideal path for every kid one that a test score can easily be attached to?

how on earth would one go about putting a price tag on a human being's path to enlightenment?

reckon anybody w/ a pair of prusiks could make it happen you gonna be around next weekend steve? plenty of room for company, though i think you might be valley-bound? lost arrow gonna happen?

if i were a charter school fan i wouldn't freak out just yet - the current government and legislature of our fair state has proven quite capable of utterly ignoring the decrees of the high court, no?

9/5-6 - trip the fourth w/ geoff n' bryan - 3 days of school, the easy ones, dispatched and snap, whizz, bang it was friday afternoon and we were flying down the highway, heading north, clutching cans n' cackling at this wicked world we are so at home in - ominous omens, devil-eyed little girls glaring out of death-cold cars at us - road signs: "the time of the lord is here" - jesus, we'd best tread lightly the tower rock rv park at dusk, the ride dispatched in minutes it seemed, fueled by high-octane what-have-you n' plebian pbr's - the park much as i left it, riddled w/ well-heeled red-necks n' pam n' pete n' a feller i'm pretty sure ain't named larry but will ever here-after be for me got good n' whiskey-drunk w/ hood-river spirits sitting round the fire n' sorted n' packed n' planned for the day to come and soon enough it was upon us - up at 630 to grits n' coffee n' black tobacco holy shit, plenty of weight to pull us down on the slow amble up-hill but within the hour we'd handled it and got to the glory - bryan, his first visit to the wall, had spoken in pure-drunken-honestness of the ease w/ which he'd dispatch it all, so for his sins we gave it to him - he gamboled up the first 2 pitches easy enough as geoff n' i smoked n' chuckled n' occasionally jugged geoff did p3, a looooong way to go on bolts, much like leaning tower i suppose - i then did p4, so much fun now that i'm not fear-sweating it like on the first ascent, more than half-certain the huge roofs blocks would rain down on me once rattled by the roar of the drill atop 4 the boys lost their motivation n' sense of adventure i reckon - it was late afternoon for sure, but i'm sure we could have completed p5 and put in our new rap line by dark, but it would have meant being late for a triumphant performance by the tower rockers band down at the rv park and of course cutting into precious drinking time, so with tears in my heart i consented to just fixing the first 4 pitches and coming back the next day a surrealistic night for certain - dogs n' fishers n' baby gymnasts n' rv's of a thousand descriptions - not 1 but 2 bands, quite possibly the laziest ever, each managing to play perhaps a total of 30 minutes w/ at least 6 set-breaks thrown in to keep their buzzes on - a roaring fire n' light-flecked lake to seperate us from the heathen masses, which we nonetheless joined from time to time to see if any hotties under the age of 50 had arrived (they hadn't ) the hedonistic scene concluded with brutal finality when the heavens opened and the fuck-sky descended around eleven - a steady baptist downpour off and on from then till well after dawn sunday morning a savage one, as they always are it seems - the dregs of the whiskey sitting sullenly upon my senses - the unceasing rain toasting all hopes for progress up the mist-wracked tower - in time the melancholia did end though, as all misery must, and we hoofed it back up to the wall to see if anything could be done - by then it was so late, the wall so streaming, the likelihood of yet another dousing so certain that it was w/ half a heart me n' bryan began jugging - i made it most of the way back up to the highpt, cursing n' crying on the last stretch, only to see bryan fighting the soaked ropes of the first pitch w/o much success - the signs were shit, so i surrendered to the inevitable yet again and settled for a few hours drink'n'n'smoke'n around the base, poking around to suss out future projects - bryan contrived to bring the party to a smashing conclusion by slipping and slicing a big fat bloody smile into the meat of his hand, a moment redolent w/ nostalgia for geoff n' i as we thought of nastia last year in the end we said fuck it and resolved to return next weekend, with the pleasant reward of getting to walk back down the hill w/ fuck-all upon our backs

I figure most folks are assholes regardless of age - I'm willing to risk senility for a leader I like...

da'lright, I done broke the google - to whom do we owe this grand clench?

again, I don't we're really arguing - Bernie's indeed old but then the average age of members of congress is rising as well http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2013/01/average_age_of_members_of_u_s_congress_are_our_senators_and_representatives.html

lord knows I love whitman, but he woulda made a shitty climber

nothing like a 1/2 inch bolt in a big old brownie

sheeeeeit, steve, smooth dancer don't hardly take pins nor bolts, just angel's wings to get up and yah, seem to recall we left a few wounded soldiers behind - let's go get'em together, eh? think it'd only be the 3rd ascent

i realize i'm risking getting shot at from both sides if i agree in any part w/ joe, but i DO think there are some beacon routes for which pins are best, if fixed gear must be had this mostly on routes that don't get a lot of traffic but have cracks that cry out to have lost arrows n' bugaboos bashed into them - pipedream, flight time, stephenwulf - all have fixed pins b/c they fit great where even small cams n' nuts don't so much - in the off chance they blow, it's plenty easy to put'em back

it's easy to be cynical - american electoral history contains many surprises so to blanket dismiss any serious candidate like bernie is silly not saying i'd put a big chunk of cash on the boy, but if somebody wants to offer decent odds on a 5$ bet i'm willing to take a risk and yup, plenty of old candidates across the board - the reality is politics is all about connections, and making them thare connections takes a lot of time - is this some sort of new human political development? i think not

woulda been the same situation minus 3 years if it had been mccain in '08 and, though his politics aren't mine and it's fun to call him grandpa, he clearly would have finished 2 terms w/o embarassing himself i don't think we're truly arguing here - we're agreed his age ain't great - if our roles were reversed we'd be saying similar things in reverse i'm sure in the meantime, i have faith in the 25th amendment which has not yet been needed and the voters in a hypothetical 2020 re-election - bernie doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who'd insist even on running for a 2nd term, should it come to that - he's not quite a mugabe

don't need to split the hairs too fine - sure, it'd be better from the liberal perspective to have somebody younger, though in truth the most important part of any administration is the various cabinet secretaries and political appointees who are invariably younger - at any rate, though senility and dementia are classic problems w/ older folks, bernie in fairness doesn't seem to show any signs of them and clearly many folks can continue w/ undiminished mental powers at greater ages - ruling him out solely on age is silly - luckily i know you have many other objections

by 7 years, not a huge difference i suppose, 'specially since folks are more frequently living to biblical ages these days you can disagree w/ his politics of course, but charging him w/ senility seems daft - i've heard him speak frequently on bill maher's over the years and he's clearly still quite sharp, even if you think he's wrong assuming he won and also a re-election, he'd be 83 when he stepped down - hugh hefner's a few months off from 90 and warren buffett's 85 and they both still seem to be killing it i suspect the bernie-backers would be w/ elizabeth warren, if they had the choice - guess the democratic bench is weak at the moment, a problem republicans should be familiar w/...

I was hoping for something fresh and new. You mean you don't want to vote for the septagenarian verging on senility? worked for Reagan, amirite?

I was hoping for something fresh and new. I seem to recall he changes his campaign slogan every election (but hopefully not the haircut) the challenges to governing the human monkey being roughly unchanged over the past few thousands years, it's cruelly unfair to expect the current generation of politicians to have come up w/ a cooler approach, don't you think?

if the conversation's about using pins as fixed gear then the point about scars being left behind is irrelevant, no?

why not vote for "the rent is too goddamn high" guy?

it's been a long time since i fucked a dog and, in truth, i thought it a cat at the moment of entry

"stone soup" is next eric, umm., er,.. i mean ivan while we're at it, reckon we could rename you "one trick pony" there, precious

could put a dent in the natonal debt if'n we auctioned off the names of all our prime landmarks - mt. walmart n' target tower's gotta certain ring