tvashtarkatena

But we all know the JSF isn't for the Pakis. Wonder how long it'd be before those Associates figured out they were bombing their own country?

Big and Beautiful.

Just back from a road trip...picked up a Mr. Coffee press to supplement our McDonald's drive through caffeine patronage and the most durable thing on it was the Made in China sticker on the bottom. Wouldn't mind a joint strike force fighter that costs a couple a hundred bucks a copy, though. Hire disposable Chinese pilots, I mean Associates, and you've got yourself a Blue Light Special on aisle Fuck You, Pakistan.

Hmmm...is it gonna be the black Reeboks or white Adidas today?

Walmart's cinnamon rolls are cheap but stale.

Mt bike descent of Thermogenesis or go home, bytch.

Um...not a repeat of the route itself...just the approach. Same partner both trips. We know the Winthrop really well now.

The Wall is currently kayable. Now that would be a first.

And now you can have one again!

Oh, it definitely took a ride in one. The tent poles were in convenient six inch pieces. Curiously uniform lengths, actually. Our guess? Somebody at Sherman didn't stake the tent down quite enough... I once ran into a group coming down from Muir that was convinced someone had five fingered their tent full of gear. "Is it yellow?" I asked. "Yeah!" "Well, I've got good news and bad news..." It was laying on its side 2000 feet up on the Nisqually.

You're depressing me again. Dysfunctional behavior usually has its roots in functional behavior misapplied.

Losing? I agree with you if you mean the distasteful gay bashing and other bottom-of-the-barrel social items are not being swallowed (except that abortion thing in the mid-west). But having the wackos cover the right wing and a lack of any organized opposition makes the "center" of the GOP's proposal seem almost reasonable. "Let's not eliminate Social Security altogether - just cut it into small pieces while spending 48% of the world's military budget". Yea, that's reasonable. Fiscal policies come and go. I'm referring to social justice, which moves more slowly, more deliberately, and more assuredly in one direction. It rarely takes a large step backward, despite the failed efforts of millions of evangelical kooks who want those good ole Dark Ages back...as long as shopping remains cheap and convenient.

There is no question that a large percentage of America is fantastically stupid. The question is whether or not it has always been that way. It has, IMO. To your point, however, America is embracing White Trash Fuck You culture - one the Right champions implicitly if not explicitly. Idiocracy has come 500 years early. On the other hand, crime rates have dropped dramatically. What's actually going on in the aggregate? It's interesting to look at efficacy of the Right's approach regarding specific examples. Take the drug industry, which is rapidly imploding due to...wait for it...NO NEW DRUGS! What happened? The Harvard "share holder value" folks took over about 15 years ago and, as they are want to do, R&D was the first to go. Couple that with a drain on publicly funded R&D (championed by the very same Best and Brightest), which produced a raft of cooked book private studies that produced shite results, and voila! Collapsed industry. You can go industry by industry and the same story unfolds. Short term versus long term. America's vastly reduced attention span ("um...my address is in the original email...on line 1") might be a more widespread version of an overall shortening of our timescales. Hey, not thinking ahead is easier...at first, anyway. You wind up with a train wreck to deal with in the end, but in this era of overpopulated depletion, open corruption, and lost legitimacy, perhaps the "git while the gittin's good" philosophy (no taxing the rich!), necessarily a short term one, has taken hold of our thinking. That's a natural result when survival is threatened. Even if that threat is entirely of our own making.

No explosions but plenty of projectiles.

You're on, buddy. A day at Index in early Sep to kick things off with, at least.

First come, first serve. One pack, two sleeping bags, two foam pads, a sweater with matching OR hat, two headbands, one pot, one fuel canister, and one tent. Vintage 80s cheap, slightly compressed, might need a wash. Fuel canister, slightly used by tvashtarkatena, on Flickr Pack and pad, well traveled by tvashtarkatena, on Flickr Fly nordic pattern syntho sweater with matching OR hat by tvashtarkatena, on Flickr

Gotta agree, here. Superstition (and that would be Kristianity here in America) over reason is nothing new to us. The Kristians have fought hard to maintain what made America great throughout our history: Slavery, discrimination against women, minorities, and gays, foreign invasions, the dumbing down of education to include their cult beliefs. For the most part, they've lost every one of those battles: they're losing the anti-gay battle as we speak. When these dysfunctionals go to court against adults, they're soundly destroyed. Take Bachmann, for example, who is in Newsweek (who roasted her) solely because of her vociferous bigotry. America loves a good train wreck, as the popularity of reality TV clearly demonstrates, but don't confuse entertainment value with the overall direction of social progress. Now fiscal policy, well, that's another matter....

Trip: Rainier - Liberty Ridge Date: 7/29/2011 Trip: - Prodigal Ascension: Liberty Ridge in the Summer of Eternal Snows Date: 7/29/2011 “Think Life is Full of Surprises? Wait Until You Die!” - Billboard for Zion Lutheran Church, Auburn, WA Good morning! by tvashtarkatena, on Flickr Visitation July 29th, 2011 Thumb Rock, 12:45 a.m: “Chip, chip chip RRRIPPP JESUS CHRIST!” I’ve been hit by rocks before. With the freezing level lapping Rainier’s summit, I expected to dodge a few, and I did. Being struck in the dead of night, while snugly dreaming of electric sheep grazing in fields of Blue though…that’s a bit over the line, isn’t it? Just because it nearly August and there are still idiots gunning for Liberty Ridge in this New Climate Summer of Eternal Snows, does a fellow really have to sleep in his helmet? It wouldn’t have helped. The chicken size rock only grazed my calf…after tearing through the tent door. After some speculation as to whether it had come from Thumb Rock, the outcrop upslope from us, or space, we rolled over and resumed snoring. My calf was fine – a good thing, because Liberty Ridge’s long stretches of ice demanded a fully functional pair. Fortunately, the indefatigable Don Brooks was there to shoulder half the burden…for the second time in two weeks. How that fuel canister crept out of my pack and back into the car last time remains a mystery. Liberty Ridge by tvashtarkatena, on Flickr When you climb with the Hoariest Man on Rock or Ice, plan on punching half of your own steps when he’s on lead. The man has a wider stance than any congressman. Using all of his steps increases the risk of falling through one’s own ass. Wide stance advance by tvashtarkatena, on Flickr Thumb Rock is a tiny sanctuary, in the loosest sense of the word, perched between two opposing collosi. To the east, the Willis Wall: a slumping, mile high igneous interpretation of charcoal and rotting meat which spits boulders like maggots day and night. To the west, Liberty Cap Ice Cliff, an ethereal fortress of pure white and aquamarine which stands quiescent…until it collapses to re-destroy everything below it. The glaciers below these two disparate overlords look the same: utter chaos. The Willis Wall, from Thumb Rock by tvashtarkatena, on Flickr Resurrection “Is that a weather balloon?” The blue and yellow fabric hung limply over the serac like a failed Cristo installation. One pack, two sleeping bags, two foam pads, a sweater, two headbands, one pot, one fuel canister, several bags of garbage, and one tent. Vintage 80s cheap, mildewed, foul smelling, and highly compressed. The tent poles had splintered into six inch pieces, and the nylons crinkled as if they’d been briefly held over a flame. This gear had taken a long, slow ride inside the Winthrop glacier. Fuel canister, slightly used by tvashtarkatena, on Flickr Pack and pad, well traveled by tvashtarkatena, on Flickr We fought over this one by tvashtarkatena, on Flickr Carbon sunset by tvashtarkatena, on Flickr Judgement The following morning we began weaving up the Carbon Glacier. We climbed up to the left just east of the base of ridge, then dropped to end run the Ridge’s toe before climbing up and to the right. A huge collapse had filled the bergschrund with dirty cottage cheese ice. We tiptoed quickly over and out from under the massive ice cliffs looming mile above, saving our sprinting legs for the what would come next. Carbocizing by tvashtarkatena, on Flickr Upper Carbon by tvashtarkatena, on Flickr The Netherworld by tvashtarkatena, on Flickr The shooting gallery at the base of the ridge, beneath Thumb Rock, is where the real magic happens. We climbed above the gaping bergschrund, then quickly traversed to the right, where there seemed to be fewer rock tracks. At a 13,000 foot freezing level, the rocks don’t stop for nightfall: it’s best to do it with enough light to see them coming from far enough away to improve your odds. We climbed as fast as we could; craning our necks upward every other step to check for incoming. Some near misses, including one high velocity whirler that never seemed to touch down, but no direct hits. The Ridge’s random pitching machine logged no strikes, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. By Thumb Rock we were completely winded and very happy to sleep the rest of the day away in the bright sunshine, accompanied only by a curious little finch who pecked away at the gravel nearby. Why is this man smiling? Entering the Shooting Gallery by tvashtarkatena, on Flickr Peppered by tvashtarkatena, on Flickr The Shooting Gallery by tvashtarkatena, on Flickr "Back up...back up, now..." by tvashtarkatena, on Flickr Loogout! by tvashtarkatena, on Flickr Thumb Rock daze by tvashtarkatena, on Flickr Ascension Thumb Rock farewell by tvashtarkatena, on Flickr Parting with Thumb Rock wasn’t a sad thing. We ascended east of the ridge crest. Snow conditions varied but were generally decent. The sky was clear, the wind strong. We hugged the highest rock outcrop to avoid projectiles, rounded a corner, and started up the Ridge’s long final slope, the last several hundred feet of which was frozen solid. The wind had freshened with the altitude. I climbed up to a small perch overlooking the Willis Wall, now at point blank range, lassooed a rock, threw a puffy on, and brought Don up. What-could-go-wrong fantasies had crept in with the wind. Perched on that narrow ridge, overlooking all that mayhem, I felt grateful for the grizzled man on the other end of the rope who would propel us over the top. Ascent by tvashtarkatena, on Flickr Don finished off the slope, placing 3 screws just before it rolled over onto the traverse. Red and black yielded to white and blue, brimstone to ice. I zigzagged through the bergschrund pitch, placing 3 screws and a picket for the belay. Don climbed up and past to the base of the final ice pitch, a shimmering shield that took three screws before transitioning to steep snow and Liberty Cap’s heavily corniced summit. A crevasse tugged Don’s foot not 100 feet below the top. We paid it little mind. The classic vision of a fluffy white Sky Heaven intrigues me. Clear, clean, lifeless. Wind purifies the Reality version of Sky Heaven of all its earthly imperfections: foul humors, footprints, tents, desire, life. Wind also makes Reality Sky Heaven fucking cold – which makes me wonder whether Sky Heaven’s inventors ever ventured very far from the beach. Ah, Perfection. According to a third of our fellow patriots, entry into Sky Heaven requires it. One must be pure. Ass Masters and their fellow fallen need not apply. Why an anus performs just as well as a vagina is not addressed. Purity over absurdity. There is only One Knowing Plan. Trust in it. The Wind must have found us wanting, because it sure as Hell tried its damndest to blow us off the peak. Sky Heaven crashers by tvashtarkatena, on Flickr Return Is there any feeling like that first step down? To leave Sky Heaven’s clean abstraction and return to the clutter of the living world? No place provides a more apropos port of entry than Camp Sherman. Turn one way, some old guy’s taking a dump. Turn the other, some young chick’s peeing a foot from her tent. That’s the way of it, I suppose. I’ve been there…and there can be comfort in numbers on occasion. Sherman is an outpost. We plunged into a radiant sea of salmon fog and found the true living world as we left it, although somewhat darker. Burroughs, whose crumbled slopes we’d maligned two days prior, was now resplendently shrouded and worthy of a monastery. Headlamps. Frogs, crickets, and finally, voices. Reentry comes in stages. The next involved getting in line behind what appeared to be a tattooed draft horse and her pole bean boyfriend at the Enumclaw Subway. Pulled pork. Not great pulled pork, but still. As Don drove back through the Arby’s and Petsmarts of Seattle’s insulation against the brutish hinterlands, I thought about Colleen, who I would see very soon, and the summit, which I would never see again. There has to be a last time for everything, and enough time to bask in summer’s imperfect warmth. If this requires leaving the colossi to rage against the purifying wind on their own, so be it. Pat Gallagher 8/18/11 Gear Notes: 3-4 screws, 2 pickets Approach Notes: Booty!

Who wouldn't want a few white slaves helping out around the compound these days?

It's a thin red line between fire and salvation.

I think the Baggerz are on to something. Heather never shoulda had two mommies. Now God's mad at us. And his angels are swarming from their trailer courts to burn it all down.

I'm sunburned all to hell

Um...what planet do you live on?

Yes, cultists do represent a significant percentage of the population here, they are well represented in our 'leadership', and they're ideas are considered mainstream. Other than restating the obvious, I'm not sure of the point you're trying to make.

Cultists, whether they choose to follow Jesus, Rand, or Hitler, are the real threat to the well being of everyone in this country. Perhaps someday our fine citizens will choose to enter the Age of Reason, where magic is relegated to its rightful place in fiction. I'm not holding my breath.