soapbox

Pole Dancers!

When the blocks of granite in Franconia Notch that formed the Old Man in the Mountain’s face (finally) broke off the cliff face in the spring of 2003 (how’s that for a run-on sentence?), there was a lot of discussion about what to do.

One idea was to re-build the face, but instead of using concrete or granite, architect Francis Treves suggested using glass: “the grand metaphor with this piece of glass on the mountain is it’s not really a piece of glass, it’s a piece of ice,” Treves said. The Old Man, he added, “was sculpted by the glaciers; the ice gave it birth.”

When first proposed, Treves’ idea was met with considerable criticism – perhaps the “loss” was too recent to have any satisfactory solution? Anyway, I was intrigued by the sheer scale of Treves’ solution, if skeptical of the actual implemented result.

Personally, I miss the Old Man, but I am doubtful that any attempt to actually rebuild/replace the original formation would be satisfactory. My understanding is that they will/did install some carved rock blocks down in the parking lot, has anybody been to the Notch since ‘07?

1. PECOTA and Baseball Prospectus

2. FiveThirtyEight

3. Dude knows him some math.

We’ll never see that kind of hardcore analysis on TV newsmedia, but it’s nice to see some really solid numbers cast out into the echo chamber of the blogosphere.

And, since there’s still the swine flu thing, let’s follow the advice of David Letterman: “Be sure to sterilize your pans!”

A recent Pew study reports that “churchgoers are significantly more likely to support torture”, but apparently they only asked “white evangelicals, white non-Hispanic Catholics, white mainline Protestants and the religiously unaffiliated” so insert your own GOP-bashing comment here.

More than half of people who attend services at least once a week — 54 percent — said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is “often” or “sometimes” justified. Only 42 percent of people who “seldom or never” go to services agreed. White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified — more than six in 10 supported it.

I just wish the article had a little comment somewhere saying “not all people of faith are vindictive and intolerant” with a link to the peace churches. Don’t even have to mention Quakers by name, I’m not greedy.

For details or clarification on the subject, I refer you to Nick, but it seems as though Utah has finally picked up on the idea that it might be a good idea to allow a person to just walk into a bar and order a beer. Up until a couple weeks ago, in order to enter a bar you had to be a member (or have somebody sponsor you)… or rather, all bars were required to be private clubs, and if you wanted to enter then you had to pay a membership fee or know a member. You probably have to be straight to be served, but all in good time, let’s not be hasty… there are still a bunch of other weird rules.

(Note: this is a pretty dull post, but would be way more interesting if I’d had a phone with a decent-quality camera. Sorry y’all.)

Yesterday we took a trip to the County Clerk’s office to get a marriage license, our second attempt after encountering an out-the-door-and-down-two-blocks line a couple weeks ago. This time, armed with an appointment, we were more/mostly successful.

Really, the whole thing was simultaneously both easy and frustrating. The DMV parallels were obvious in terms of long lines and lots of people just hanging out, filling out paperwork then waiting in another line, etc – except that it was a much more positive and more cheerful kind of clientele. Almost half of the couples there looked to be getting married on-site, including several girls/women/brides in pretty fancy-looking dresses and an entertaining mish-mash of suits, sport jackets, one tux, one blue-on-white pimp-stripe suit with blinged-out baseball cap, and a cute little 2-year-old in a tux with light-up LA Gear sneakers. Had we not had an appointment I suspect the entire process would have taken all afternoon – as it was, we were in-and-out in a little less than an hour.

Without getting too much into the politics of marriage and how they shouldn’t be mixed, it’s a weird experience. Cali does not require a blood test, nor is CA residency a requirement; you just have to show some kind of ID and list your parents and their state of birth. K had been planning to add one of my last names to her middle name, but apparently that’s not allowed – you can change/add something to your last name, or replace your middle name with a last name of your spouse, but apparently that’s it? dumb, I say, but oh well.

The parties may choose any of the
following middle or last names as the name they wish to be known as after marriage [FC § 306.5(b)(2)]:

♦ Current last name of the other spouse
♦ Last name of either spouse given at birth
♦ A name combining into a single last name all or a segment of the current last name or last name of either
spouse given at birth
♦ A hyphenated combination of last names