Critical Exponent

From The National Post, via cycling.finial.com:

In a discovery that has stunned even those behind it, scientists at a Toronto hospital say they have proof the body’s nervous system helps trigger diabetes, opening the door to a potential near-cure of the disease that affects millions of Canadians.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident” wrote Thomas Jefferson, “that all men are created equal”—and yet this Founding Father believed that blacks were inferior. Jefferson tried to limit slavery in the new nation, and yet he owned about 200 slaves, of which he freed two in his lifetime and five upon his death.

How to explain this contradiction? Was he simply content with a policy of gradualism? Did the “Negro President” know he depended on the additional 60% weight given to the slaveholder vote under the three-fifths compromise? Or was he simply unable or unable to give up the slaves that buttressed his extravagant, indebted lifestyle?

Troubling questions, these, and still debated by scholars more versed in his life than I. Today’s tour of Monticello gave us a fascinating glimpse into the life and mind of a great statesman, philosopher, and citizen farmer—and an all-too-human portrait of ideological inconsistency.

It’s sobering to ponder that we too are rationalizing our stand on an issue that is also very much ethically urgent and on which future generations may judge us harshly. We pay lip service to preserving nature for our grandchildren and to living sustainably, but in reality few of us actually practice what we preach. My biking notwithstanding, I certainly am not, not with the cross-country road trip or the jet-set life, the non-regional food and the foreign-made clothes. Just like we puzzle over Jefferson’s ambivalence on an issue that is now so clear, so too may observers two centuries hence puzzle over the divide between our rhetoric and our deeds.

The National Aquarium in Baltimore is extraordinary and well worth a visit. We saw sharks and rays (and volunteers feeding them!) as well as corals, frogs, and even rainforests.

In Washington, D.C., aside from visiting some of the obligatory monuments, we went to the George Catlin exhibit at the Renwick, which Knox found very moving. Also noteworthy are the Smithsonian Art Museum/National Portrait Gallery exhibitions: Joseph Cornell’s boxes, Josephine Baker, America’s presidents. The new National Museum of the American Indian, too, contains a wealth of art and information and is housed in an intriguing building that is reminiscent both of the Pueblo cliff dwellings and of the Guggenheim.

We left DC and headed straight into Dixie. Our first stop was Manassas, where the first battle of the Civil War was fought and quickly shattered the naïveté on both sides that the conflict would be glorious and short. It was particularly interesting to see first-hand how alive the old South is: reading in one brochure for the Museum of the Confederacy about how Jefferson Davis “led the country to its destiny,” you would never guess that the Union forces won. Similarly, on the door to a gas station convenience store (where the cashier was an older black man), we saw a rather disturbing “missing” poster.

As I write this, we are in Charlottesville, VA, site of the University of Virginia. We will tour Monticello tomorrow.

A quick dispatch from the road:

New Haven: Dominated by Yale, this is a lively university town punctuated by neo-Gothic architecture. The Harry Potter movies could have been filmed here! I never quite realized how much history has come out of Yale.

Philadelphia: A city that has obviously seen more prosperous times, the birth place of America boasts some lively neighborhoods once you walk away from the tourist attractions.

One of the problems I’ve noticed in my trips is that it is something of a hassle to record your adventures after the fact. On the Newfoundland bike trip, for example, every few days I would sit in camp updating my hand-written journal. When I got back home, it took me several weeks to slowly transcribe those notes into my computer, and several weeks more to actually pull a few entries and blog about them. In fact, it was so much hassle that my life had already moved on and I did not get to blog as much as I wanted.

To fix this problem, I’ve been lusting after a voice-recording solution so I can record my adventures on the fly. Finally, last night I bought a Belkin TuneTalk for iPod. I just tested it out, and it seems to work fine! I’ll be using it on the cross-country move trip.

My dream is to get voice recognition on my computer so that I can automatically transcribe my audio logs into text files. Unfortunately, voice recognition on Linux appears to be pretty much dead at this moment (email me if you know of a one that is currently available). I may have to take a risk and buy Naturally Speaking and hope it works on Wine….

“Send the dessert up to our room.”

Funny guy, I thought. “No, we don’t really have a room here. I’ll—”

“You might want to know what your room is,” said the waitress, placing the check, Knox’s credit card, and a room key on the table.

Thus did we cap an extraordinary meal at Spire, one of Boston’s top restaurants. After all the negotiating and sorting and packing and moving and hassles and cleaning and goodbyes, what I thought would just be a fancy meal out turned into a night (and morning!) of pampered luxury at Hotel Nine Zero, where Knox and I first met.

The following, uhm, afternoon, on the spur of the moment we decided to go into King’s Chapel for a Christmas recital. We were treated to some really lovely holiday music.

Friday was my last day of work: making sure everything got written down, saying goodbye to everyone.

This weekend was spent downsizing our belongings. Knox and I managed not to throttle each other as we argued about what to chuck, what to take, what to mail, what to move.

The movers came today. The guys from R.C. Mason Movers were very professional and very efficient: the apartment was packed and loaded in an hour and a half!

Now, we just have the last few pieces of furniture (and my old, old bike) to sell or give away. The apartment is just one big echo chamber. We’ll be using our sleeping bags tonight and taking off tomorrow or Wednesday.

Over the past two years, we have been trying to get Knox’s crowd to come visit us in Boston with little success. With us moving across the country, this is the very last chance—and we were delighted when Knox’s mom took us up on the offer and came up for the weekend.

We treated Judi in style. Although she was shocked by the social coolness of casual interactions in Boston (”Take her home!” the airport shuttle driver apparently told her when she tried to make conversation with fellow passengers), she was delighted with the many culinary delights we presented: dinner at Tasca, dessert at Athan’s, snacks at TeaLuxe, the chocolate buffet at Café Fleuri (which was Mike’s farewell celebration for me), the meal at Mr. Sushi’s, brunch at Great Bay, dessert at Caffé Vittoria, and dinner from Bazaar, the Russian deli.

She was enchanted by Boston architecture, charmed by the North End, and impressed by Harvard Yard. She quickly learned that the balmy weather on Friday was not typical when the temperatures dropped over the weekend. We all marveled over the glass flowers at Harvard, and while she took in BodyWorlds 2 at the Museum of Science, Knox and I went to the butterfly garden (a treat in itself!) and the show at the Theater of Electricity.

Judi also provided some fun of her own. She not only regaled us with a few stories from “son’s” youth, but she also introduced me to the game of Rummy. I am almost as slow in Rummy (and as bad a loser) as I am in Cribbage, but I finally got it! We stayed up way too late playing cards, but I held my own: Judi had two victorious games while Knox and I had one apiece.

Now, with Judi back home, we set our sights on our last week in Boston: sorting detritus of the past, saying good-byes to our Boston crowd, and planning the transition.

From The New York Times, an article on how society is slowly learning to support gender-variant children:

[A]s advocates gain ground for what they call gender-identity rights, evidenced most recently by New York City’s decision to let people alter the sex listed on their birth certificates, a major change is taking place among schools and families. Children as young as 5 who display predispositions to dress like the opposite sex are being supported by a growing number of young parents, educators and mental health professionals.

Doctors, some of them from the top pediatric hospitals, have begun to advise families to let these children be “who they are” to foster a sense of security and self-esteem. They are motivated, in part, by the high incidence of depression, suicidal feelings and self-mutilation that has been common in past generations of transgender children. Legal trends suggest that schools are now required to respect parents’ decisions.

If you are reading this, then you too can swap soup!

The First (Inter)National Soup Swap Day is scheduled for January 23, 2007. There will be soup swaps occurring in Seattle (here’s the last one), Boston (here’s the last one), and Washington, DC (new location). If you are not in any of these cities, or want to participate with your own crowd, set up your own soup swap (here’s how) and tell us about it. If you are in one of these three cities but have not participated before, let us know and we will add you to the invite list.

Click on the logo for more info:

Contacts

Seattle: Knox, me

Boston: Wolftone

Washington, DC: Gracious Bowl