Ebu Gogo

New "blog"

2011-05-03T06:13:00.000-07:00

You can find the new husband and baby here:

http://ellisandco.tumblr.com/

An (almost) finished project

2007-03-18T08:18:00.000-07:00

Many babies are arriving at my friends' homes over the next few months, and I am determined to turn out a half-dozen tiny garments. Tiny garment #1, a Crayola-colored baby sweater, is missing only the buttons. (This is a simple Fiber Trends pattern knit with Lorna's Laces washable wool.)

I've got rhythm

2007-03-15T15:17:00.000-07:00

While I anticipate starting law school next year, I've been teaching English as a Second Language at an adult learning center a few blocks from my house in Pilsen. I enjoy it: the students are a lot of fun, and the school does an excellent job of providing tuition-free classes for hundreds of people, mostly from Mexico with an occasional Salvadoran or Honduran in the mix.

The problem with working at a place that serves a Latino population is that inevitably one must attend the ritual fundraising event involving salsa dancing. Sigh. Luke was a good sport, but as you can see we spent most of the evening focusing intently on our feet.

Mabel's elephant

2007-03-12T11:34:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to post a picture of the little stuffed elephant I knit my niece for Christmas. The pattern is from Joelle Haverson's Last Minute Knitted Gifts. It came out really well, although I knit too slowly for it to be a truly "last minute" project.

meme

2007-03-06T11:20:00.000-08:00

1. What time did you get up this morning? 7:30.
2. Diamonds or pearls? Mostly silver and plastic.
3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? Volver
4. What is your favorite TV show? Desperate Housewives
5. What did you have for breakfast? Oatmeal, as always.
6. What is your middle name? Jennifer, pbbbt.
7. What is your favorite cuisine? tough one...California contemporary?
8. What foods do you dislike? Black licorice, marshmallow peeps, gummy worms. Are those foods?
9. What are your favorite chips? Tostones from El Milagro tortilleria
10. What is your favorite CD at the moment? Bluegrass Mandolin Extravaganza
11. What kind of car do you drive? 1995 Toyota Camry. Actually, the "y" fell off so now it's a "Camr". Sadly, the driver side door lock recently ceased to function, so I have to unlock it from the passenger side and walk around. Other than that the Camr is going strong at 140,000 miles.
12. Favorite sandwich? Irazu's Costa Rican steak sandwich
13. What are characteristics you can't stand? Weak knees and painful feet. (Sorry, did you say "stand on"?)
14. What are your favorite clothes? My boyfriend's giant grey sweatpants
15. If you could go anywhere on vacation, where would it be? Ecuador--maybe this summer?
16. Favorite brand of clothing? Luchesse cowboy boots.
17. Where would you want to retire? Somewhere warm, with good food. South Carolina?
18. Favorite time of day? 11am
19. Where were you born? Helena, Montana
20. Where have you lived? Montana, Wyoming, Indiana, New Hampshire, Chicago, Brighton (UK), and Los Angeles...with brief three-month stints in Kenya and Spain.
21. What is your favorite sport to watch? bicycle racing
22. Coke or Pepsi? I do love the bitter aspartame aftertaste of Diet Coke.
23. Beavers or ducks? Huh? Um, beavers. Definitely.
24. Are you a morning person or a night owl? Afternoons are nice.
25. Pedicure or manicure? That reminds me that I haven't clipped my toenails in about three months. Gross.
26. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share with everyone? Got into law school. Bought a ticket to Brazil.
27. What did you want to be when you were little? A country singer like Crystal Gayle.
28. What is your best childhood memory? Mom reading us A Wrinkle in Time.
29. Piercing? Screams, occasionally.
30. Ever been to Africa? Yup.
31. Ever been toilet papering? Yup.
32. Been in a car accident? I gently rear-ended an Escalade once. The Escalade was unscratched. The Camr required extensive body work.
33. Favorite day of the week? Tuesday
34. Favorite restaurant? Sultan's Market, Mundial
35. Favorite flower? Anything orange
36. Favorite ice cream? Pistachio coconut chocolate chip
37. Favorite fast food restaurant? In-n-out Burger
38. How many times did you fail your driver's test? I've actually never taken one.
39. From whom did you get your last e-mail? ComEd's billpay service. Sigh...
40. Which store would you choose to max out your credit? Hogeye music
41. Bedtime? 11:30PM
42. Who are you most curious about their responses to this? hmmm...
43. Last person you went to dinner with? I ate pozole at my roommate's cousin's house to celebrate the cousin's marriage. I understood nothing anyone said (in rapidfire Spanish slang), but the living room had some truly fabulous jungle decor.
44. Favorite color? brown
45. How many tattoos do you have? 0
46. How many are you sending this Email to? none, I don' t forward things.
47. What time did you finish this e-mail?8:25 PM
48. Favorite magazine? Cook's Illustrated

home redecorating

2007-02-14T06:25:00.000-08:00

I have been gently urging (okay, arm-twisting) Luke to fix up his condo since pretty much our first date. Let me clarify that the decor of said condo is really none of my business. I do not live there, nor do I pay the mortgage and condo fees. I am perfectly aware that I should keep my mouth shut and allow the poor guy to dwell peacefully in his disheveled bachelor pad, where he seemingly got along just fine for five years without my "help."

But that's clearly not realistic, is it? Just as the full moon begets the werewolf, walking through the threshold of this condo transforms me from my usually disorganized self into a less-apt but just-as-anal Martha Stewart wannabe, eyeing each closet and wall with a burning need to organize and decorate.

Luke has been accomodating of if a bit anxious about the whole Martha/Mr. Hyde deal. We succeeded in repainting the living room, dining room, and hallway with good results, replacing the horror show of pumpkin-and-gold sponge paint and electric-yellow crayon with more soothing green, blue and brown. I also recaulked a few windows, rearranged his furniture, fixed a couple of lights so that they could be turned off without unscrewing the burning hot bulb with one's hand, and sewed some curtains with the help of my patient mother (thanks mom).

The problem with the new paint was that one (one being me) now noticed the ugly furniture, particularly the stained green armchair that looked like someone with greasy hair had died in it and the scratchy blue-and-white couch, a hand-me-down from a friend's relative, that left marks on my face after a nap and did not go with anything. I largely obscured the former with a quilt made by Luke's mother. The latter, however, continued to goad me.

Frugal Luke has never purchased a piece of furniture in his life--unless a bike trainer qualifies as furniture--and refers to things inherited because his kin did not want them in their own homes as "family heirlooms". Thus a new couch was out of the question. I began to frequent the Target website, fantasizing about the perfect couch cover, a piece of fabric that could turn the scratchy behemoth into something almost tasteful. After scrolling through pages of loose-fitting waffle weave, I found it. Brown, non-scratchy, and snug-fitting--it hardly even looked like a couch cover. The problem was that it was not cheap.

I dragged Luke to Target on the pretense of shopping for a new board game. "Let's just walk this way...." and suddenly we were in the home decor section. "Oooh, this is nice. What do you think?" Luke rejected the couch cover out of hand. He was not about to spend $100 on a couch cover. "But it's the nicest couch cover I've ever seen! And it's only ten per cent of the price of a new couch!" My arguments were to no avail. We left the store with me casting wistful backward glances toward the slipcover aisle.

As the days went by, I could not shake my couch cover obsession. My friend Laura suggested a stop at Target after the gym, and I found myself again in the home decor section, clutching the plastic-wrapped bundle to my chest. I told my hands to return it to the shelf, but with a mind of their own, they instead placed it in the cart.

On a Tuesday, after Luke left for work, I retrieved the couch cover from the trunk of my car and carefully secured it over my sofa-nemesis. It fit perfectly. I left the condo and waited to see what Luke would say. On the phone that evening, however, he didn't mention it. I started to worry that I had passive-agressively overstepped my bounds. He must be really ticked off at me if he's not even going to mention it!

When Thursday came and went with nary a word about the couch cover, I was really worried. I resolved never again to interfere with other people's home decor. On Friday evening we went to the condo. I moved some of Luke's things off the couch and sat down. "Hey," he said. "Did you come over and put that on there today?" The fact that he managed to co-exist with a mysteriously-brown couch for three days without even noticing seems revealing, somehow. But I'm happy every time I get to lounge on it and watch TV without getting tell-tale couch marks on my face.

Weaving workshop

2007-02-14T06:05:00.000-08:00

Last weekend I attended a weaving workshop given by my mom at Conner Prairie, the historical museum near Indianapolis where she works. It was a lot of work, but now I have a beautiful wool scarf made from yarn naturally-dyed by my mom and her colleagues on the prairie. Now I have to persuade Luke that he wants to let me turn his guest room into a loom room.

2007-01-24T13:58:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, 3:45 pm (Caller: unavailable)

Hello?

Hey, what are you doing?

Um, not much. Who’s this?

Oh, you know who it is.

No really, I don’t.

You do so. I have a cold. Do you need a clue?

I guess I do.

Someone far away.

Uh, I still don’t know.

Tall, dark, and handsome.

Nope, no idea.

You have to know.

No, I really don’t.

Oh, c’mon, yes you do.

Well, perhaps you have the wrong number. Who are you trying to call?

This is Lindsay, isn’t it?

New Year's Eve

2007-01-18T11:44:00.000-08:00

Luke and I had a dozen or so friends over to his house for dinner on New Year's Eve--a last minute decision based on the fact that nobody had invited us anywhere. We planned a menu of food guaranteed to ensure good luck in the coming year: Bobby Flay's hoppin' John risotto with smoked bacon, cabbage salad, pork tenderloin and biscuits, and two kinds of fondue--beer/cheese and chocolate. I'm not sure what's lucky about fondue, but I had salvaged a fondue set from my grandpa's garage sale last summer and was determined to put it to use.

Everything was quite tasty except for the parmesan cheese sticks that I forgot were in the oven until the house filled up with smoke. Our guests were kind enough to help us open all the windows and to ignore the alarms that kept going off at intervals for the rest of the evening.

Glitzy garden globes

2006-12-15T09:44:00.000-08:00

I have a fascination with garden globes, the luminescent spheres cradled by concrete pedestals that one finds in yards throughout Central Indiana. I'm not sure that garden globes are a purely Midwestern phenomenon, but I'm willing to bet that Indiana ranks among the top three states in terms of garden globe density. I am intrigued by the seeming pointlessness of these lawn decorations. Why are they so popular?

On a recent visit home, my kind and always-fun-to-spend-time-with parents (Christmas is coming so a little brown-nosing is in order here) took Luke and me to Bonge's Tavern in Perkinsville, IN. This is a favorite spot for people from Indy who enjoy the upscale food in a funky old tavern setting. During the 45-minute drive through the countryside, I challenged Luke to a game of "spot the garden globe" to see who could spy the most.

"Oh, you won't see many of those," my mother chided us. She was giving small-town Hoosiers too much credit, for by the time we arrived at the restaurant, we had spotted well over twenty. They usually appeared in clumps: apparently when one house aquires a globe, the neighbors cannot resist following suit.

I recently came across a craft suggestion in which a woman had cut up those trial cd's AOL is always sending out and grouted them to a styrofoam ball to create a "glitzy garden globe." Now I know what to make everyone for Christmas.

Very special or very Chinese?

2006-12-15T09:29:00.000-08:00

We went to Lao Sze Chuan the other night, but did not try any of the "very Chinese specials." For some reason we were reminded of "A Very Brady Christmas."

The November Challenge, postscript

2006-12-14T14:13:00.000-08:00

My car has yet to achieve the shiny-clean condition prescribed by the weight-loss bet Luke lost, but he is regretting the 19 chocolate truffles he ate a couple of weeks ago.

From a recent conversation:

Ellen: So when are you going to detail my car?
Luke: What does that mean, anyway?
Ellen: It means you have to wash it, and wax it, and paint the scratched spots, and vacuum it, and clean all the bike grease off the upholstery.
Luke: Wait, I have to do all THAT? Had I known it was going to be so much work, I would have tried harder.

We shall see if I ever get to reap my victory spoils.

The November Challenge

2006-12-08T17:01:00.000-08:00

The news for December is that it's, like, 10 degrees outside. Why did I leave LA?

The other news is that December marked the end of Luke and my Great November Weight Loss Challenge. On November 3, we decided that the person losing the greatest percentage of their body weight in the coming month would decide what nasty task the loser (or in this case, the lesser-loser) would have to undertake. I was gentle and told Luke he'd have to get my car waxed and detailed. He was positively mean and told me I'd have to do the Polar Bear Swim on January 1st--i.e., jump in Lake Michigan. Obviously he could care less about my health and my tendency to get bronchial infections every January.

Luke's meanness backfired, however, because fear of freezing cold water is a powerful motivator. This week we weighed in, and I came out the winner. Granted, nobody lost much, but I am 4 pounds lighter and looking forward to driving a shiny clean car.

We have re-upped for December, and I am trying to decide what the wager should be.

You too can join my band

2006-10-12T12:16:00.000-07:00

I mentioned to some people last night that I am taking a ensemble class and am thus playing with an old-time band ("4-Top"), consisting of a fiddle,an autoharp, and two banjos. We will be playing with my class on 10/25 at a bar called the Hungry Brain. Naturally, everyone wanted to participate. Most lacked "real" instruments, but they were willing to improvise.

"We have this squash at home that makes noise when you tap it," offered Sandy.

"When I toss an orange and catch it, it makes this cool 'plop' sound," Bob suggested.

I suppose if those in the produce section drop their instruments, we could become a jam band.

A warm October day

2006-10-11T10:40:00.000-07:00

My sister and my niece took advantage...

Oaxaca update

2006-10-06T10:14:00.000-07:00

I have been putting off writing more about events in Oaxaca because a) things have been quite complicated and tense there during the past few weeks, and it's been hard to stay on top of it, and b) Allie and I (with the help of a friend who is a video editor) have been busy making a little film of footage from our trip. We showed it to a group of folks in the neighborhood last night. They bought some copies and contributed more funds to our Radio Planton equipment account, so things are looking good as far as a new transmittor for the station! I will post the video once I figure out the technology involved. (I am not good at these things. If you know how to upload video online, please offer some help!!)

At the moment, what's going on is essentially this:

1. The APPO (Popular Assembly of the peoples of Oaxaca) continues to demand the resignation of the state governor. It is also trying to become more organized and to develop strategies for representing Oaxacans and future reform (I'm not sure how much progress is being made on those fronts). If the governor does resign, it will be interesting to see how the diverse groups that form the APPO work together once their one unifying goal is accomplished. It seems unlikely that the federal government will be very happy about allowing the APPO to become the authority in Oaxaca should the governor step down, nor will the APPO readily accept another PRI governor.

2. Teachers--5000 of them--are marching from Oaxaca City to Mexico City, passing through numerous communities. They have been met with a great deal of support along the way, with community members bringing them food and teachers from Cuernavaca and Michoacan joining in the march. The other teachers remain in the encampments in Oaxaca City.

3. The (ex) governor, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, is asking for federal military intervention in Oaxaca. The city is surrounded by tanks and state police, and planes and helicopters have been flying overhead. The navy is also stationed on the coast. Teachers and members of the movement see this as an attempt to intimidate the people into abandoning their struggle, and they have expressed great fear of a violent intervention. Yesterday, the Interior Secretary met with representatives and downplayed the possibility of the use of force, but he has also mentioned the possibility of a "peaceful" intervention, which sounds a bit bizarre. This issue has interesting implications for the national (PAN) government: because of its narrow victory (if it WAS a victory??) in the national elections, the PAN will need the support of the PRI party to achieve a majority vs. the PRD. The PRI is backing Ruiz and military intervention, while the PRD is all for his dismissal. This puts the PAN in an awkward position.

4. A teacher was killed yesterday in Oaxaca City. He was not a member of the movement, but rather opposed it, belonging to a group that received money from the state to divide the movement. The AP report suggests that he was killed by APPO members for this opposition, but independent journalists in Oaxaca suggest that, while nobody can be sure, it looks like the work of government-affiliated provacateurs. Independent filmmaker Jill Friedberg writes,

"While there are some aggressive folks in the APPO and Seccion 22, they are not in the practice of killing people. The only documented "violence" carrried out by members of the movement has been the use of sticks, rocks, molotov cocktails, etc. to defend themselves from attacks by heavily armed police and/or government thugs. While it's impossible to prove who killed the teacher, it certainly does look and smell like an attempt to create a level of violence and chaos in the state that justifies the intervention of federal police.

This isn't the only example. The night before last, while filming in the barricades near Radio La Ley, I was told by some teachers that they had spotted heavily-armed men a few blocks from the barricades. We drove over there, and sure enough, there were at least 20 guys (not in any kind of uniform) with very big guns and big trucks, only three blocks from the barricades."

The AP report is one of many examples of how quick the press has been to label the movement as violent, while downplaying the presence of paramilitary groups. If, that is, they cover the situation in Oaxaca at all. If you want to keep up with what's going on, I would suggest looking at:

Narconews (mostly foreign journalists reporting from Mexico)
La Jornada (Spanish daily news)
Oaxaca Study Action Group (on-line discussion group)

The Economist had a recent article that gives a fairly accurate summary of the conflict to date, one of the few reasonably comprehensive pieces I have seen in the mainstream press (Thanks Jennifer for forwarding it):

Sep 28th 2006 | OAXACA
From *The Economist* print edition
The governor v most of the people

NORMALLY the streets of Oaxaca, a city of some 250,000 people in southern Mexico, are full of tourists. They come to enjoy the nearby Zapotec ruins of Monte Albán and the city's colonial churches, Indian markets and art galleries. But Oaxaca, designated a world heritage site by the United Nations, is today a much sorrier sight.

For the past four months, it has been in the grip of a bitter political conflict that one local politician calls "a low-intensity urban war." The Zócalo, the main square, is permanently occupied by several thousand protesters; more are camped out around the city. *They have seized several radio stations and public offices.* Many streets are blocked by barricades of parked buses or corrugated iron. Angry graffiti, in red and black spray-paint, disfigure many historic buildings.

Not only has this conflict driven off the tourists; it also threatens to complicate the handover of national power on December 1st from Vicente Fox, the current president, to Felipe Calderón, the narrow victor of Mexico's hotly disputed July election.

The conflict, in which five people have been killed so far, began with a strike over salaries by the state's militant teachers, an annual ritual. Matters escalated in June when Ulises Ruiz, the state governor, sent his police force to evict the strikers from the Zócalo. The police, who are accused of handing out beatings, on this occasion received one. The teachers were promptly reinforced by a newly-created Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO), a motley collection of more than 100 community and political groups, ranging from moderate to far-left. Their demand now is the ousting of Mr Ruiz.

While Mexico has become a democracy over the past decade, Oaxaca, one of its poorest and most Indian states, has failed to follow suit. Mr Ruiz belongs to the most authoritarian wing of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which governed Mexico for seven decades until Mr Fox won the presidency in 2000. The PRI continues to govern Oaxaca as if in perpetuity, despite well-founded claims by a united opposition coalition that Mr Ruiz's election by a margin of 2% in 2004 was fraudulent.

Mr Ruiz has ruled in a high-handed manner. One of his first acts was to vacate the government palace in the Zócalo and "remodel" the square, ripping up ancient trees. He has united much of the state against him: in the federal election, the PRI lost a Senate seat and nine seats in the lower house to the left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). "Oaxaca is the Mexico of the 1970s, in which there is no allowance for citizen demands or political rights," says Marcos Leyva of APPO.

The protesters want the federal Senate to exercise its power to oust the governor. But many in the PRI and the ruling conservative National Action Party (PAN) are loth to do so. The PRI, upon which Mr Calderón will depend for a congressional majority, appears to see Mr Ruiz's fate as a bargaining chip. The PAN fears the precedent of yielding to protests that have gone a long way beyond the law. "We respect the sovereignty of the states," says Mr Fox.

This week protesters armed with clubs and pistols staged a room-by-room search of a city-centre hotel after rumours that Mr Ruiz was inside. The governor claims, without proof, that a shadowy guerrilla group lurks behind the protests; his opponents counter that the state government has organised paramilitary bands.

According to the Chamber of Commerce, the conflict has caused losses of some $300m; in the formal economy alone, 162 businesses have closed with the loss of 350 jobs. The governor wants federal police or troops to restore order. The government has readied plans to that effect. Mr Fox is resisting, doubtless fearing a bloodbath. "We must explore every possibility of dialogue before taking any other action," the president insists.

But understandably, Mr Calderón wants Mr Fox to settle the matter before December 1st. In Oaxaca, illegitimate authority and the absence of political channels for dealing with grievance are radicalising protest. Tackling the latter but not the former will not bring peace.

Kill all the lawyers

2006-10-03T11:11:00.000-07:00

I took the LSAT last week, as I am entertaining thoughts of going to law school. I've been a bit conflicted about it: I have such a negative attitude toward the legal profession that I once tried to represent myself in a lawsuit against my ex-landlord rather than hiring representation. (I thought it would be easy, as I had obtained a copy of the Chicago Tenants Ordinance and considered myself clearly in the right, but I found myself in tears in the downtown courthouse staring in confusion at reams of different-colored forms. This convinced me that justice often has as much to do with who fills out the correct form as with high-minded issues of "rights").

My experience taking the test didn't do much to elevate my opinion of the legal field. As I exited Lake Shore Drive and turned onto Hyde Park Boulevard on my way to the test center, a black SUV starting tailgating me. The driver honked at me (presumedly because I was taking up the WHOLE lane of a one-lane street and not leaving room for an illegal pass), then careened by on the right, passing a queue of cars waiting at a stoplight before pulling the classic "floor it out of the right turn lane and chump the other driver" maneuver. I wasn't surprised when the same SUV found a parking spot next to mine and the driver joined me in walking into the test site.

Clearly there are way too many lawyers in this country, and I'm guessing there are a disturbing number who aggressively drive SUV's. But maybe there is room for a few more who always use their turn signals.

More about my Mexico trip

2006-09-18T13:49:00.000-07:00

Cuernavaca, August 2006

Allie's and my first destination in Mexico, after a couple of days in Mexico City, was Cuernavaca, where we spent a little time with her boyfriend's family. Before our arrival, his mom had worried about what to feed us. "Do I give them hamburgers? Hot dogs?" She needn't have worried. We learned how to make sopes, and I politely ate everything from pozole to pigs feet. (You're right, that was no effort to be polite ...I just like to eat.)

We had intended to travel overnight from Cuernavaca to Oaxaca City, but the roads to the state capital were closed the night of our departure. Events in Oaxaca that week had been tumultuous, as paramilitaries had attacked a radio/TV station taken over by the movement. The housewives who had taken the station, previously used for pro-government addresses, had renamed it "La Caserola" in honor of the pots they had banged in their march to occupy it. The paramilitaries had destroyed the transmittor and thus taken the station off the air. Police had also shot a demonstrator in one of the huge marches through the city. In response, sympathizers of the movement blocked city streets at night with barricades, intending to prevent the passage of paramilitaries and keep movement leaders safe.

Unable to get to Oaxaca, Allie and I detoured to the coast, enjoying a spontaneous day and a half of beach vacation in Puerto Escondido before taking another overnight bus through the mountains to Oaxaca.

When we reached Oaxaca at last, we found the city filled with teachers, who for the past three months had been camped out in the city. By this point they had grown tired, bored, and worried, but they continued to sit each day, embroidering, reading the newspaper, and waiting and hoping for a resolution to the impasse between the government and the movement.

Daytime was peaceful in the city, with most stores and even the cafes around the zocalao open. Few tourists wandered the graffiti-painted streets of the city center, although a few stopped to read signs describing the movement.

The banners and tables in the zocalao gave the city an almost festive feel. After dark, however, things grew quiet. People headed home before the 500 barricades were set up in the streets, limiting vehicular passage until morning. One night we headed home in a friend's car from a dance performance after 11PM and spent an hour driving the wrong way down one-way streets and allies, stopped every few blocks by burning tires, before finally arriving close enough to walk to our friends' house.

to be continued...

My new band name

2006-09-11T18:49:00.000-07:00

I am taking an Old Time ensemble class at the Old Town School of Folk Music. During the class we break into different bands and work on pieces; the culmination is to be a performance (which I know you won't want to miss) at a local bar in a couple of months.

My band (consisting of two banjos, two fiddles, and an autoharp) needs a name...any suggestions?

For my next birthday...

2006-09-07T10:48:00.000-07:00

Mexico City, August 2006

Mexicans really really like cake, and apparently they like really really big cakes. This particular store had some amazing displays of icing, including a cake bigger than Allie!

The "permanent encampment"

2006-09-05T10:26:00.000-07:00

The Zocalao in Mexico City, August 2006

Supporters of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador have vowed to remain in the tents, which occupy the Zocalao and numerous blocks of the surrounding streets, until AMLO is declared President. That seems unlikely to happen, given that the electoral tribunal is poised to declare Felipe Calderon the offical victor. Liberals in Mexico declare with conviction, however, that AMLO was the true winner, citing evidence of fraud. The nine per cent of ballot boxes that were recounted did show evidence of discrepencies, but the election tribunal refused to order a general recount. Since most casillas are unlikely to be re-opened, the scope of the potential fraud will probably never be known. Calderon's corporate supporters did bombard the electorate in the weeks before the election with negative ads portraying AMLO as another Hugo Chavez, in flagrant violation of strict laws banning this kind of private funding for electoral campaigns.

The newspaper La Jornada notes the irony of the United States' calls to Mexicans to "respect the institutions of democracy", given that American political institutions were themselves unable to determine an undisputed victor in our last two Presidential elections.

How much it costs to nearly kill me

2006-09-05T08:36:00.000-07:00

I just talked to the demolition company that nearly decapitated me with a falling piece of building material (see below). I think $6200 sounds pretty good.

Letter from Oaxaca

2006-09-01T09:47:00.000-07:00

I've spent the past two weeks in Mexico. This is the first time I've had more than a couple of minutes on the computer, so I thought I should post a note to the long-neglected blog.

It's been, shall we say, an interesting trip. My roommate Allie and I bought our tickets a month or two ago with a couple of goals. We wanted to visit her boyfriend's family in Cuernavaca, and we wanted to bring new radio equipment to the radio station of the teachers' union of Oaxaca, Radio Planton. On June 14, the state police of Oaxaca had violently attempted to disrupt a then-month-long teachers' strike, arresting demonstrators who would be held and tortured, bombing teachers and their children with mustard gas, and entering the radio station and destroying the equipment.

Allie and I wanted to do something in response, particularly because she had spent time working with teachers in Oaxaca, so we (with lots of help from a few others) organized an event in Pilsen and raised $1400 for new equipment for the station. The station is an important source of information for the teachers and others. Unfortunately events in Oaxaca over the summer made it seem unwise to bring the equipment at the time of our departure--we didn't want to see it destroyed again--so we had to leave for Mexico empty-handed with plans to send what seemed most useful later.

We spent the first weekend in Mexico City, during which we got to visit the huge encampment of protestors calling for a recount of the Presidential election. Then we were off to Cuernavaca. It was a little odd to spend a couple of days with Allie's boyfriend's family--without him. We learned to make tortillas and his mom was very excited when our tortillas puffed up with air on the comal because apparently that means we're going to get married soon. hmmm.

Then we headed back to Mexico City to take the overnight bus to Oaxaca. We got to the bus terminal about 11PM and found out that--oops--all the busses were cancelled. That's what happens when you're trying to visit a strike, I guess. What to do? We stood there looking at the board trying to decide where to go. There was a bus leaving for Aculpulco, so we hopped on that. We arrived in Aculpulco at 5AM and walked to a different bus station, where we learned that there was a bus leaving for the Oaxacan coast in 15 minutes, but from yet a different station. So into a taxi and onto another bus with minutes to spare. Seven hours later we were in Puerto Escondido, where we decided to spend the night before trying to get to Oaxaca. Thus we had an accidental and brief but well-deserved beach holiday!

We finally got to Oaxaca a few days later than expected after spending a good 20 hours on busses. As to what we found...well, that will have to wait for another post!

For now, suffice to say that I am staying out of trouble and experiencing only minimal gastrointestinal discomfort.

My Kaplan audition

2006-08-17T12:55:00.000-07:00

As I look for a "real" job, I have sunk so low as to consider teaching test-prep classes for Kaplan. Actually, I'm thinking about taking the LSAT (again), and I thought I might as well try to make some money since I have to study for the darn thing (again) anyway.

Kaplan makes their prospective teachers do an annoying 5-minute "teaching" audition. You're supposed to teach something non-academic and hopefully entertaining. I had completely forgotten about my Monday audition until about 2 hours before I had to be there and was at a loss to think of something I actually knew how to do. I mean, you can't teach someone to play the banjo in five minutes. I'm pretty good at coming up with snarky one-liners, but that's a skill you've just gotta be born with.

So here's what I "taught" them:

How to find love, or at least entertainment, on-line
Ellen’s top 10 online dating tips

Who here is involved in a long-term, satisfying romantic relationship? Congratulations. This is for the rest of you. Why trust me? I’m a veteran of at least 50 blind dates, 5 semi-serious relationships, and I’m currently dating an adorable, reasonably-gainfully employed Northwestern alum. So I guess I know as much about it as anyone.

1. Pick a site that suits your attitude toward dating. If you’re serious about finding your soulmate, E-harmony attracts a likeminded crowd of earnest suitors, but if you’re feeling ironic about the whole process, the Onion personals might suit you better. If those people look too weird, you can always go with Match.com. If you think Jewish guys or girls are hot, there’s also J-Date, but you should probably let them know up front if you’re not Jewish. (Um, yes, I was on J-Date. And um, no, I’m not Jewish.)
2. Now you need a photo…or better yet, three. This is why digital cameras were invented—you can practice looking into the lens until you achieve the perfect friendly yet alluring expression for a head shot. Try not to get too much of your arm in there. I also recommend uploading an action shot of you doing something you love—I got a lot of attention for one of me racing my bike…perhaps it was the lycra outfit. Or the carbon-looking wheelset. Then I’d post a photo that shows some personality, like you demonstrating your awesome hula hoop technique. Don’t post a picture of you with your drunken friends or one taken from some artistic angle that obscures your features. You want people to actually recognize you when they meet you. And don’t try to Photoshop your ex out of the photo. That’s tacky.
3. Next write your headline. This can be catchy or just sincere, whatever suits your personality. I used to use “putting the funk in functional”, but if you’re a small-town girl in the big city, I guess you can go with that. Just make sure it’s spelled correctly. More harping on proper spelling to come.
4. Make a list of what makes you unique. Be specific. Don’t tell them you’re smart. Tell them you can make 113-point Scrabble words and explain the difference between Marx and Weber’s theories of class. (You can imagine what kind of men I attracted with that stuff.) Don’t tell them you can cook. Tell them you can teach them to bake a perfect pie. It’s to your advantage not to be vague. If you tell people what your actual interests are they’ll know if you have anything in common and have something fun about which to write to you.
5. That for which you are looking. Again, be specific. Everyone thinks they’re smart and athletic and funny, but not everyone wants to climb Machu Picchu with you and can make camping in a hailstorm fun. This helps to weed out the people who would rather be shopping. Also, try to avoid clichés. They will make you sound boring, or lazy, or both. Half the people on-line are looking for their “ideal partner in crime” or someone who looks equally good in both hiking boots and evening dress. Yawn…

A few more tips

6. Proofread. Nothing will kill your effort to come off sounding intelligent more quickly than misspelling the word “intelligent”.
7. Be positive! Don’t make a list of everything that was wrong with your ex, e.g.: “Just for once I’d like to date a guy with a JOB and his own running automobile! Is that too much to ask?” You don’t want to seem bitter.
8. Be honest. 5’8” does not mean 5’6”. If you say you work in Counter Intelligence, that had better mean you work for the FBI, not McDonald’s.
9. Don’t be afraid to contact people. I find I’m much better at finding the people who are right for me then they are at finding me. My most effective approach (with all credit due to my friend Alex for the idea) was to send people a list of the Top 10 Things I liked about their profile. That gave me a chance to show off how funny I am (or think I am)…and if I couldn’t find 10 things to mention, I knew it wasn’t worth writing. That tactic garnered me a 90% response rate, I swear.
10. Keep it fun. Online dating is often more about quantity than quality, so most people you correspond with won’t turn out to be the love of your life. Just remember that a bad date can mean a priceless story to tell your friends. My favorite date was the guy who told me, “you’re an attractive women, but you really don’t know how to dress yourself. I’ll take you out again if you let me buy you something to wear.” I’ve gotten more mileage out of that story than most relationships.

Good luck out there!

Something reeks, and it's not the saerkraut.

2006-08-16T08:23:00.000-07:00

The closing of the Berghoff restaurant after 107 years of operation in downtown Chicago garnered a lot of media attention, along with a lot of wistful reminiscing about demise of the culinary landmark. “Oh, no…first Marshall Fields and now this?” mourned many of the city’s self-appointed historians.

I learned the other day, however, that the Berghoff didn’t really close at all. Rather, it’s now reopened, albeit with some remodeling, as the Berghoff Café. The owners passed it on to their daughter, who is using it as the headquarters of her catering business. You can still go to the cafe for Berghoff beer and wiener schnitzel...if you really want to. But the food might leave a bad taste in your mouth. Apparently a main impetus for the restaurant's closing, re-opening, and name change was that the Berghoff was thus able to lay off its entire union staff, many of whom had worked at the restaurant for decades. Some were re-hired as non-union busboys. Former employees have since sued the restaurant for non-payment of pension contributions.

Do you think they can true this?

2006-08-15T21:52:00.000-07:00

The sky is falling

2006-08-13T16:30:00.000-07:00

Funny thing happened to me on the way home from the gym the other day...

There's a large new development going up in Pilsen--Centro 18, a rather hotly-debated public-private collaboration that promises to sell 21 per cent of its nearly 400 condominiums at "affordable" prices. Whether or not they're truly affordable is questionable. They may provide an opportunity for some middle-class residents of Pilsen to stay in the gentrifying neighborhood, but given that the average income of Pilsen is $29,000, few current residents will actually be able to afford even the "affordable" $190,000 condos.

I have more to say about Centro 18 from a sociological perspective, but I'll leave that for another day.

A demolition contracter is currently knocking down the factory buildings that covered two city blocks at Peoria and 18th Street, where the condos will eventually go up. They've got a wrecking ball out there and are clearing huge piles of debris. The funny thing that happened was that, as I was passing by on my way home Saturday, a six-foot-long piece of steel came off one of the buildings and HIT me. More accurately, it hit the front wheel of my bike, breaking the rim. I of course hit the ground.

I'm pretty much fine...I have a lot of bruising since I crashed without any warning and thus didn't get a chance to slow down, and I've been pretty exhausted from the aftermath of all the adrenaline and a mild concussion, but I'm pretty sure nothing's broken. I'm a little freaked out by the fact that a big piece of steel falling from four stories up missed hitting my head by about a foot. It sliced through the aluminum rim of my wheel, so I'm trying not to think too much about what it could have done to my neck!

Now I am shopping for a new bike...

Back from LA...

2006-08-08T14:35:00.000-07:00

...with all my stuff!

I spent a week in LA trying to unload all my belongings before shlepping that with which I just could not part back to Chicago. I even made Luke sit outside with me all day Saturday having a yard sale. We got pretty burned but took in almost enough to pay for 8 days and unlimited miles in a minivan. I think his forehead peeled for a week.

Oh, the van, the van... I rented a seven-passenger Mazda MPV and, as you can see, packed it absolutely full. Luke bought some new flip flops in Colorado and had to squeeze them into the glove compartment. But it all fit...sort of. The seats didn't exactly recline.

We took a detour from I-10 north through Colorado to I-70, stopping in Jerome, AZ; Silverton, CO; and for two nights in Crested Butte, CO. This was my fifth trip to C.B., where I always stay at the Christiana Guesthaus. The innkeepers Martin and Rosie offer a hot tub, homemade granola for breakfast, and friendly hospitality. This visit to the wildflower-peeping and mountain biking mecca of the Rockies was all too short, but I will be back.

Here's a picture Luke took of a townie bike in Crested Butte, where everyone rides around on old Schwinns when they're not ripping through singletrack on $3000 cross-country racing rigs. C.B. is a funny mix of bourgeois tourists and 50-year-old hippies prolonging childhood indefinitely.

A fully-loaded minivan is not the vehicle of choice for rural Colorado. Despite my vehicular limitations, however, I was determined to drive up dirt Gothic Mountain road to 11,000' Schofield Pass, where one passes beautiful Emerald Lake and trails set off through fields of wildflowers into the Maroon Bells-Snowmass wilderness area.

The van made it up that hill, although I did blow out one tire on a pothole earlier in the trip. The spare wasn't exactly accessible, given that I had spent three hours packing stuff on top of it, but luckily the tire survived long enough to make it to Crested Butte's small mechanic shop. The friendly owner at first informed me we'd be waiting a few days to order a tire, since the nearest Dunlop dealer was 250 miles away in Denver. This would've been a problem. Luckily he located a single, dusty used tire of the appropriate dimensions from the back of the storage area, and we were on our way.

Upon returning the vehicle, Hertz reimbursed me for $40 I had spent on the tire and failed to comment on the fact that the side panel of the van was coming a little unstuck after Luke hit a piece of debris on the highway. I had tried to McGyver it back together with a little piece of wire, but one couldn't tell because my handiwork was obscured by mud from the dirt roads upon which my rental contract expressly forbade me from driving.

Next time I'm renting a Jeep.

Ten things I hope never to hear again on a date

2006-07-26T00:48:00.000-07:00

I got that job. In Seattle.

I don’t really like other people.

You’re not allergic to cats, are you?

Can I interest you in a Dutch silent film?

All gay people are going to hell.

I could never live in the Midwest.

You’re so happy. Me, I have all this existential angst.

I’m like this cactus. Cute, but you don’t want to get too close.

Want to see my sub-automatic machine gun?

You’re an attractive woman, but you’re a terrible dresser.

Confessions of a middle school spelling bee champion

2006-07-25T08:02:00.000-07:00

You know what word I can never manage to spell correctly?

misspell.

Southwest gate B10

2006-07-24T12:58:00.000-07:00

I swear I am the only Southwest passenger that doesn't think it's worth queuing for 45 minutes just to get a better seat. You people are all in boarding group C!" I want to yell at them. "Do you think you're really getting an aisle seat?"

I am resigned to sitting in the back row next to the toilet and am enjoying relaxing here in my chair. I'm going to be the very last person on the plane.

I will be on my way to LA in 14 minutes, so you'd better call me tonight if you want to hang out! And by "hang out", I mean "come over and help me pack and take away items from my apartment".

Geraniums, or lack thereof

2006-07-18T06:50:00.000-07:00

This is a picture of what used to be a very attractive hanging planter basket. Actually, it was the second such planter. The first, a bodacious basket from the fancy garden store, was stolen from our back porch the day after I bought it. Saddened, I made another, simpler basket of geraniums and sweet potato vine to replace it. That too was stolen within hours, even though I had tied it on with a piece of twine to deter theft, and the thief had to open our gate and come onto the porch to procure it.

I have given up on hanging baskets. But I'm puzzled by the theft. What kind of person steals hanging baskets? A thief, but one that loves FLOWERS?

today's word

2006-07-14T05:21:00.000-07:00

from Yourdictionary.com:

Today's Word:
Levirate (verb)

Pronunciation: ['le-vê-reyt, -rêt, le-'vi-rêt]

Definition: The practice of marrying the widow of one's brother, as required by ancient Hebrew law or followed by some native North American nations.

Usage: Not very common any more in the English-speaking world, which explains the uncertainty about the pronuciation.

Suggested Usage: Best used when you want to talk about marrying your brother's wife and only want subscribers to yourDictionary.com's Word of the Day to understand what you are talking about. See also sororate (sê-'ro-rêt) "to marry your wife's sister or sisters, usually after the wife has died or proven barren." Terms like these should allay any concerns that women are making no headway in their struggle for equal rights.

(FYI, today's Spanish word was coño.)

Earth sandwich

2006-07-14T04:55:00.000-07:00

Patrick, one of the top ten people in LA (you didn't see the article in LA Magazine?), kindly posted a link to a fun NPR piece, which I will paste below. Patrick wins a prize for the best comment my silly blog has received thus far. The prize is this here free publicity.

If you go to the website http://www.zefrank.com/sandwich/tool.html (I will fix the link once I download another version of FIrefox. Until then you must copy and paste.), you can find this great tool that allows you to see where you'd have to go on the planet to make an "earth sandwich"--to sandwich the earth between two pieces of bread. Living here in Chicago, if I were to place a piece of bread here on my floor, I'd have to float another one in the ocean east of Australia in order to make an earth sandwich. I find this highly amusing and sadly unlikely to actually happen (oops, I think I just split an infinitive).

Speaking of sandwiches, my roommate Allie tells me that her favorite sandwich as a child was--get this--peanut butter, mayonnaise, and lettuce. "It's an Indonesian flavor," she claims. Allie clearly has a sophisticated palate. My favorite sandwich remains pastrami-cottage cheese-banana bread.

Anyway, here's the article...it mentions Pekin, IL!

*************

Krulwich on Science
By Robert Krulwich

Dig a Hole to China? Try a Sandwich Instead

Weekend Edition - Saturday, June 17, 2006 · Let's suppose -- just for sake of argument -- that you had a drill capable of plowing below where you are standing right now and grinding its way straight through the middle of the planet to the other side. Where would you end up?

Well, for all of you reading this in North America (and specifically in the 48 contiguous states) with very, very (I can't overemphasize this, so make it very, very, very, very) few exceptions, you would come out in the middle of an ocean. The U.S mainland is antipodal to the sea that is west of Australia, down near Antarctica. So if your mother puts you in the backyard and says "Dig a hole to China," bring along a wetsuit.

Unless -- and this is the fun part -- you happen to be standing in three (by my count) lower 48 state locations that are opposite land. They are near a Colorado highway, a Junior College campus also in Colorado and part of a Montana town. In all three spots, you could drill straight through and come up in a place where you might bump into the occasional seal and, in one place if you arrive at the right time of year, a scientist or two.

But don't take my word for it. Wikipedia has a map of world antipodes that you can look at. I found that map -- and a "find the opposite tool" -- on a blog run by Ze Frank.

Ze is a perfomer, satirist, essayist, composer, dancer and wonderfully weird guy who challenged his audience last month to create the world's first "Earth sandwich."

To make an Earth sandwich you must:

1. Put a piece of bread on the ground.

2. Have someone else put a piece of bread on the ground directly on the other side of the Earth from you.

3. Do this at the same exact time, so the Earth at that moment is "sandwiched" between two pieces of bread.

To inspire his audience, Ze composed a ballad, "If the Earth were a sandwich…"

It's hummable. Beautiful even.

So for the last few weeks, all over the world people have been rushing about, emailing, texting and trekking in an effort to arrange a simultaneous sandwich moment. This past week, apparently, it happened. Somebody in Spain put half a roll on the ground, and somebody in New Zealand put something breadlike opposite. Ta Dah!

(Except, instead of lying parallel as they would on a normal sandwich, the two pieces of bread may have been perpendicular to each other, making a kind of X-like structure. But... who's quibbling?)

It was Ze's challenge that got me thinking about antipodal Earth geography.

I found two towns in Illinois that were founded in the 1820s by settlers who thought they were on prairie directly opposite Chinese cities: Peking, Ill., and Canton, Ill. (Thank you, Ian Frazier, for writing an essay on this subject in The New Yorker.)

With my engineer, Manoli Wetherell, and help from my NPR colleague Robert Smith, we decided to see where you would have to go on this planet to be able to dig a whole straight through to China.

So if you happen one day to be in Concordia, Argentina, which is about 150 miles north of Buenos Aires near the Uruguayan border, a concerted effort at digging would have you emerging somewhere pretty close to downtown Shanghai. Don't everybody buy a ticket there at once.

If you want to serve sandwiches along that route, I'd suggest something like chow mein tapas, on a roll

Take my furniture, please

2006-07-13T16:03:00.000-07:00

I'm getting ready to head back to LA and pack up my belongings to bring back to Chicago. The problem is that I rented a minivan for the trip back, which means I have a LOT of stuff that won't fit, and only one week to get rid of it all! I am stressing! So if you're in LA and see anything in this picture you want, please make me an offer! C'mon, you need another bookshelf, don't you?

Happy birthday, Alex

2006-07-11T12:01:00.000-07:00

My friend Alex recently celebrated his birthday. Upon learning that I was moving to Chicago, Alex had made a rather odd request of me: "You'll be in Illinois! You have to go to Pekin!"

Pekin is a small town about 3 hours downstate of Chicago. I'd never heard of it and couldn't imagine why Alex so desperately wanted me to visit it. He explained that Pekin's fame derives from the fact that, until 1980, it had an unusual high school mascot...horrifyingly, Pekin was the home of the Chinks. Moreover, a quick Google search revealed that the Chinks continue to have such a fierce loyalty among Pekin alumni that it is still possible to buy Chinks t-shirts in the back room of a Pekin apparel shop. Alex was determined to get his hands on some item of Chinks memorabilia and saw me as his only hope in procuring it.

My friend's fascination with Pekin may seem a little weird, especially given that he is Chinese-American. But he has a taste for irony, and the very revolting nature of such a mascot held an odd appeal. Perhaps he wants to reclaim the Chink label just as gays have reclaimed "queer". Or perhaps he just finds the idea hilarious that an item produced for midwestern racists could find its way into the hands of an Asian American in Los Angeles. Either way, he was determined to press me into his services. Given my midwestern upbringing, he thought I could easily pass as a racist and thus purchase the offending shirt: "I could never go to Pekin and get it myself," he argued, "but YOU can pretend your dad went to Pekin High!"

That is how I came to find myself driving into Pekin, IL a couple of weeks ago. I felt like some undercover agent trying to expose the seedy racist underbelly of a sleepy town. There wasn't much in Pekin: a few antique stores, a cafe, a senior home. I couldn't even find the high school that is now home to the Pekin Dragons. But I was determined not to leave until I had thoroughly inspected the place. I was losing hope of finding any trace of the Chinks when I drove by a t-shirt shop on the edge of downtown. They were about to close, so I pulled up and went in to check it out. I saw a lot of Pekin t-shirts, but nary a Chink.

"Can I help you?" asked the lady at the silk-screening counter.
"I'm, um, looking for a present for my godfather. He went to school in Pekin and I was passing by and thought I'd get him something that said 'Pekin' on it."
"You mean the Pekin CHINKS?"

I gulped, uncomfortable with the way she so nonchalantly pronounced the offending word.

"Uh, I guess it would've been the Chinks at that time..."

She motioned me to an unmarked door at the back of the shop.

"This is where we keep the Chinks stuff. I guess we oughta keep it locked, heh."

She opened the door, and I gaped. The inside of the room was lined with shelves of red and grey t-shirts, each printed with 'Pekin Chinks.'

"Wow," I said, "You still print these?"

"Oh, yeah, the alumni want the old Chinks stuff. Nobody wanted to change the name. We've got travel mugs, too!"

With her help, I selected a complete set of Chinks items: a t-shirt, coffee mug, "Once a Chink, always a Chink" travel mug, and a beer cozy reading "Official Chink Drink." I thanked her for her help ("My godfather will love these!") and left the store, feeling kind of dirty as I clutched my bag of Chinks crap. Before heading out, I stopped by the Fast Dragon Chinese restaurant, confirming that there were indeed actual Asian people living in Pekin. I didn't ask the restaurant employees what they thought about Pekin alums wandering through town in Chinks garb, but their presence in town reinforced the fact that using a racial slur for a high school mascot is just not okay.

Once home, I packed up Alex's birthday box and pondered what it all meant. Racism runs deep in the heartland. But how should I feel about buying this stuff? I decided that the birthday present was in some way a mockery of anyone who would view such items with nostalgia, a way of making ridiculous the fact that anyone would actually buy a Chinks shirt from the back room of a seedy little shop in a dead little town. Rather than simply denouncing racism, Alex makes it into something absurd, a farce. Ridicule is perhaps the more powerful tactic.

urban canoeing

2006-07-11T11:50:00.000-07:00

Since I'm not cycling, I suddenly have all this time for non-bike related activities. I am ticking things off my to-do list. Free concert in Millenium Park...check. Summerdance...check. Item #3 was to canoe down the Chicago river. On Friday the household (Allie, summer houseguest Douglas, and me) plus one Luke rented canoes next to the river near Belmont and paddled down to Lake Street, a 4-hour round trip if you're a slightly lazy canoeist. The trip got pretty interesting as we headed downtown, passing under all the major streets, rounding the Greyhound station at Goose Island, and finally ending up lunching on peanut butter sandwiches while dodging architecture tour boats and barges in the city center.

Betty and the Virgen

2006-07-07T09:28:00.000-07:00

This is my favorite storefront in Pilsen: a place that sells perfumes and cosmetics. I love the fact that Betty Boop shares equal billing with the Virgen of Guadalupe. The dark-skinned Virgen (who supposedly appeared to Juan Diego in 1531, speaking to him in his native Indian language of Nahuatl), is an important symbol of Mexican identity and Mexican feminism. In the 1810 war for independence, Miguel Hidalgo's army carried images of the Virgen. When Zapata's troops entered Mexico City in 1914, they carried Guadalupan banners. Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers also employed images of the Virgen.

What does Betty Boop, the animated vixen from the 1930s, have to do with the Virgen? Surely the juxtaposition of the two can't be random. I think they're going for some sort of madonna/whore duality.

busy, sort of...

2006-07-06T09:50:00.000-07:00

Watching soccer at Efebos cafe in Pilsen.

I haven't posted all week. I've had to follow both the World Cup AND the Tour, so who has time? The Tour is a little blemished this year by the suspension of the two favorites and Valverde's crash, but I haven't lost any interest. I love these "boring" early stages where the lesser-known riders try for a lucky breakaway that earns their sponsor a little camera time (Did you know that Agritubel makes tubular metal products for livestock pens? And that Bouygues Telecom is a French mobile phone company?). Then comes the agony of the riders off the front as the sprinters' teams reel them in a minute at a time...Can they hang on for a surprise victory? Maybe...? Nope! The dynamics of these flat stages and the sprinter's competition aren't changed at all by the absence of some of the general classification contenders.

It's a good thing I have lots of cycling to follow on the internet, because I haven't been able to ride my bike at all since I did a road race in Whitewater, WI a couple of weeks ago. My right knee, which had been feeling reasonably okay all spring, got sore and remains so. I'm not going to ride on it like this, so I am suspending myself indefinitely. Unfortunately I had to miss the state championships last weekend, which I'd been targeting for months. Pbbbbt. It is back to the pool and yoga class. I don't imagine I will ever be able to really ride again. I am dealing with that about as poorly as you might expect.

On the positive side, however, I am using the "free" time to work on a fundraiser for the radio station of the Oaxaca Teacher's union. It's going to be July 23 from 2-8PM at 1821 S. Allport. We're going to grill some carne asada and sell beer and have some music by local groups here in Pilsen. It should be fun, and hopefully we'll make enough money to buy some new equipment for the station, which was destroyed when state police violently broke up a teacher's strike on June 14. You can read more about that here:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/15/1411208

I have to go around the neighborhood this afternoon and try to hit people up for raffle donations. We'll see how that goes!

What is that thing?

2006-07-06T09:47:00.000-07:00

The only dog my niece has ever seen is Rufus, the 100 pound Rhodesian Ridgeback. Can this creature be of the same species? Perhaps it is a big rat?

Mia vs. Clif

2006-06-28T10:59:00.000-07:00

My roommate's pets live in fear.

Some of you will recall the episode of the staticky rats, in which I let my computer power cord dangle too close to the rat cage and nearly electrocuted hungry Scabbers and Little Don. Good human-rat relations ended when I discovered that Apple charges 80 bucks for a replacement power cord.

I get along much better with Mia Miranda, the teacup poodle. Mia is my roommate's boyfriend's dog, but she has come to stay with us so she can have company during the day. Mia likes to sit in my lap while I'm on the computer. But she is a fragile little dog. She is about the size of a can of Coke and too small to climb up stairs. I am constantly tiptoeing around the house trying not to step on her, because she is so easily crushable.

Yesterday I left a peanut butter Clif Bar in an open pocket of my cycling bag. Somehow two-pound Mia managed to eat the entire thing. If you added legs and a head to a Clif Bar, that is about how big Mia is. I worried that eating half her weight in pb-soy-oat-snack might actually kill her. I mean, if I ate 70 Clif Bars, I think I would die.

Mia was pretty jittery from all the sugar, but today she seems fine. The kitchen rug is not so fine!

on notice

2006-06-27T18:03:00.000-07:00

Last time I got a haircut, Luke didn't notice. I think he felt bad for not noticing when other people commented on it. So, knowing that I had a salon appointment this afternoon, he was determined to notice the minute he saw me.

"Your hair looks really nice!"

"Um, thanks. But I'm wearing my bike helmet."

I took it off and revealed my freshly-cut hair.

"Oh, I thought you were getting your hair cut today."

He sounded disappointed.

"No," I lied. "I changed my appointment to next week."

new household acquisitions

2006-06-26T22:34:00.000-07:00

My roommate is always bringing home interesting new additions to our apartment.

First there were the pet rats.

Then there was the little poodle that weighs two pounds. And yips.

Then a nice poet from New Hampshire came to stay.

Tonight I arrived home to find a huge air hockey table in the living room!

Snooty NYT

2006-06-26T15:09:00.000-07:00

I went to see "Nacho Libre" on Saturday night. It was entertaining. Manohla Dargis' movie review in the New York Times was a bit excessive, though. If this comment is meant to be tongue-in-cheek, it's kind of funny...but if she's serious, this would be bad for an Intro to Film student assignment:

"Mr. Black's arrhythmic use of the word "whatever" verges on the Brechtian — and it also works to the film's liberating vision of identity as a performance space, an existential wrestling ring, if you will, in which each of us, if only given the opportunity, can cavort freely in the mask and colored tights of our choosing."

Brechtian? Hmmm...well, I think Jack Black is really a pretty smart guy, so I looked up "Brechtian" on wikipedia. I appreciate the film much more now that I realize that he was going for an, um, Verfremdungseffekt.

Track outing #2

2006-06-23T14:18:00.000-07:00

We had about 25 women out at the track last night--a pretty great showing for a women's field. Our second race of the evening was a rare event: a race for category 4 women only. There are four women's categories, with 4 being the beginners, but usually all women race together, which means that junior national champion Natalie Klemko takes the win every time like candy from a baby. I'm a cat. 3 on the road but still a 4 on the track because you have to start as a beginner. So I figured this was my chance to get a win. Then someone pointed out that Debbie Dust, who is a cat. 1 roadie and rides for Kenda Tire, was also a cat. 4 on the track. Hmmm...suddenly victory seemed unlikely.

Wouldn't you know it, on the second lap of our 15 lap points race Debbie went off the front with me hanging on to her wheel for dear life. She was so much stronger than the rest of the field that nobody was going to catch us. I took a couple of weak little pulls, but mostly I just gritted my teeth and tried not to get dropped so that I could collect the $50 prize for second. In the picture you can see me eating Debbie's wheel for dinner. She looks tough and I look like I can't wait for the suffering to end!

Here's another picture of me explaining to Debbie what it was like to be me in that race...

The other two races, in which we raced all women's categories together, were pretty uneventful. The first was a ten lap scratch. I took sixth, which I thought was pretty respectable for my third mass start track race ever. Then four different people made a point of telling me how much I screwed up. I was in great position for a podium finish, but I haven't exactly figured out how to sprint on my track bike so I kind of blew it. I'll get there...maybe next week! The final race was an unknown distance, which is quite amusing because you ride around not knowing exactly when the race is going to end. When they finally did ring the bell, I was in terrible position and couldn't manage better than eighth.

Then we went for Korean food...I need to find some more 24-hour places in Chicago, because track racing lasts until 10pm. But bibimbop hit the spot!

(photo #2 by Carlos Cabalu with the lensbaby, and photo #2 by Luke)

Track debut

2006-06-19T10:23:00.000-07:00

Here's a photo of me and my teammate Eve doing a points race. Look how synchronized we are--down to the grimacing!

Thursday was my first night of racing at the Northbrook Velodrome. I didn't have expectations of placing well...and a good thing too, because I didn't! But I had a good time and started getting more comfortable out there, so it was a successful outing. I contested three women's races. There are all sorts of different kinds of track races, so it will take a while to figure them all out. Thursday night began with a one-lap "chariot" race. These go from a held start, which means you clip in and have someone hold your bike until the gun goes off. Then you're supposed to crank it up and sprint around the 330m track. Luke's co-worker held my bike for me. He reported later that I was very nervous and fidgety. My race lasted about three seconds because I pulled my right foot out of my pedal on the second pedal stroke. Happily I didn't crash, but I was a little shaken up. Naturally, I came in last. A brilliant start to my track career!

Race #2 was a 25 lap "scratch" race. This just involves riding around the track and seeing who finishes first--not too complicated. I had five teammates out there (Jane who I always call Janet by accident, Eve, Beth, Cecile, and Imelda). I knew Eve wanted to win this one, so I volunteered to chase down anyone who was threatening to break away from the pack. I was on every wheel that jumped for the first half of the race. Then I saw an open stretch of track and decided to attack myself. I got a little break of three riders going, but it didn't last. After that I was tired and sat on the back of the pack for the rest of the race. I think I came in second to last, which was fine with me.

Race #3 was a 20 lap "points" race. This means that the winner is the one who takes the most points by finishing in the top 5 in various sprints throughout the race. This time we decided that Janet-I mean-Jane was going to be our contender and that I would pull her up to the front so that she could sprint for the points. On lap five they rang the bell for the first sprint. I looked around and saw Jane behind me and proceeded to give her a massive leadout around the pack to the front. Unfortunately she couldn't hang on. Oops. I got a few points myself. Then I had to recover at the back for a while. This was when three women attacked off the front and got away for good. Oops again. I picked up a couple more points, but the race was pretty much over.

So yeah, kind of lackluster, but really not so bad for the first try. The beauty of racing at the track is that you can do three races every Thursday night, so I will have lots more chances!

Root beer

2006-06-19T09:52:00.001-07:00

I went camping at Devil’s Lake in Wisconsin this weekend. (This meant spending 48 hours away from my bike—it was a struggle.) For me there is really only one reason to go to Wisconsin: every meal comes with a side of cheese curds. We stopped at A&W on the way up. I was determined to order some healthy food to cancel out the bad food: grilled chicken with no mayo, a side of fried curds, and a diet root beer float. That way the grilled chicken could vouch for the cheese curds when they got to my stomach: “No worries stomach, they’re with me!” I had a little trouble placing my order when I got to the float however. It was a strange counter interaction:

“I’d like a root beer float.”
“Okay.”
“Do you have diet root beer?”
“Yup.”
“Then I’d like diet root beer.”
“So you want a root beer float and a diet root beer?”
“No, I want a root beer float with diet root beer.”
“So you want a root beer float with a diet root beer on the side.”
“No, I want the root beer float with the diet root beer in it!”

I was surprised at the confusion. Apparently in Wisconsin it is not unusual to order a root beer float and a second root beer on the side.

This was just a prelude to an entire weekend of eating. We found an Amish couple at the Baraboo farmer’s market selling oatmeal chocolate-chip brownies. That night I scooped out oranges and filled them with cake mix and baked them in the coals of the fire. We used to do that at camp when I was ten, but those always turned out either under-baked because we were too impatient to wait for them or charred because we got caught up in playing Down on the Banks of the Hanky Panky or making a human knot. Now that I am 30 I am much better at making orange cakes, and these were nearly perfect except for the one that got caught under a log and had to be extracted using the campfire equivalent of the jaws of life.

Letter to the editor

2006-06-16T17:06:00.000-07:00

The Trib's leading editorial today, endorsing Felipe Calderon of the PAN for the upcoming Mexican presidential election, annoyed me so much that I wrote a letter to the editor. You can read the offending editorial here. I'm sure they won't print my response, so I will have to content myself with posting it for a tiny audience...

"In endorsing the PAN candidate Felipe Calderon in the upcoming Mexican presidential election, your editors paint a one-sided picture of the relationship between free trade and neo-liberal economic policies, development, and emigration from Mexico. They present foreign investment as the only path to the creation of jobs that would stem the tide of out-migration from Mexico while dismissing the populist agenda of the PRD candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador as a recipe for debt and inflation.

There’s plenty of reason to doubt whether Lopez Obrador could really deliver on his campaign promises to ease the pain of Mexico’s lower classes. Still, we here in the U.S. should recognize that encouraging foreign investment is no simple solution to the pressure of undocumented migration from Mexico. At least in the short-term, free trade will actually stimulate more out-migration by disrupting the rural economy. For example, the appropriation of rural lands for the development of highways and industrial parks to attract investment displaces small landholders. NAFTA’s elimination of import tariffs on American agricultural products further threatens Mexican farmers unable to compete with cheap, subsidized U.S. corn. What happens to these people—and there are millions of them in Southern Mexico—when they are forced to abandon the countryside? Some may indeed find the promised work in industry and move into the middle class, but others will head straight to the U.S. Even those that do find work in newly created jobs have little security when foreign companies can abandon their plants in Mexico if they find they can pay lower wages in countries like China. Workers who have already moved from rural areas to the city are then likely to make a further move north.

Before deciding that the path of Fox and Calderon is the right one for Mexico (and the U.S.), let’s be realistic about the impact of free trade on Mexico’s poor and not view it as a magic bullet for our own immigration problems."

Finding my voice/yay Bernard/horrible events in Mexico

2006-06-15T09:39:00.000-07:00

Luke has been writing a blog for--I dunno--fifteen million years, which I suppose makes him a bit of an expert on the whole medium. He has fans, and groupies that come up to him at bike races wanting to meet him: "Are you Luke?" Blog-expert Luke was saying something this morning about people taking time to "find their voice" in their blog. I asked what that was supposed to mean, and he said, "Well, you for instance will write one silly post about cycling, and the next will be about Chicago politics, and the next will be about how cute your niece is..." The expert blogger seems to find consistency, which I lack completely, a good thing.

Anyway, today I have two completely unrelated things about which I'd like to write. One is serious. One is not serious. One voice will not do. So I dunno, pbbbt...things will just have to continue being a little schizophrenic around here.

First I wanted to give a little shout-out to my former UCLA teammate and current second-year pro with the Navigators cycling team, Bernard Van Ulden, who took second (to 7-time Australian national time trial champion Nathan O'Neill) in the opening time trial of the Nature Valley Grand Prix yesterday. He got some nice coverage on cyclingnews.com. Bernard is super fast, and I have been a big fan of his ever since he paid me back that 85 bucks he owed me from 2004 collegiate nationals. It'll be fun to see what he can do the rest of the week. Allez Bernard!

That was the not serious item. Serious for Bernard, but not in the grander scheme of things.

The other news I got today was a lot more disturbing. Yesterday in Oaxaca, a large protest by the teacher's union in the zocalao (central square) of the capital was forcibly expelled by the Mexican military. Five people died, and the equipment used by the union to broadcast their message from a community-based radio staion was destroyed. The protest in the zocalao for better wages for teachers and more funding for education in Mexico's second-poorest state has been an annual event, but things had been becoming more and more tense recently as relations with Oaxaca's governor became worse, in part because of suspicions that state funds were being siphoned off for his (PRI) party's political campaigns, in part because the focus of government expenditures has been developing roads and airport runways when schools are in desparate need. Tens of thousands of teachers and their supporters, including children, had participated in marches and were camped out in the zocalao when the riot squad entered. I think two children were among the dead, but details are still coming out.

There will be a protest at noon tomorrow (Friday) at the Mexican consulate at Ashland and Adams. My roommate and I are also talking about planning a fundraiser to possibly purchase new equipment for the radio station which we might be able to take down to Oaxaca later this summer.

Three great recent moments in sports

2006-06-14T12:40:00.000-07:00

3. The World Cup started this week. The Czech team was brilliant, or else the US just really stinks. I am quite enamored with Czech midfielder Tomas Rosicky, mullet and all.

I am currently watching Germany-Poland and trying to learn Spanish from Univision. "La pelota no entro!" (the ball did not go in) "Se come la camiseta!" (he is eating his shirt)

2. Levi Leipheimer won the Dauphiné Libéré. It is time to start preparing for the Tour...I must stock up on bottled water, corn chips and video tapes. I received the Outside magazine "Tour Preview" issue this week. It was pretty useless, but I was amused with their futile efforts to make Floyd Landis look sexy with dramatic camerawork. I'm sorry, but Photoshop is just not up to this challenge.

1. Of course, the greatest athletic achievement of the past week undoubtedly took place just upstairs: my baby niece learned to roll over onto her belly!

(photo by Luke Seemann)

My new track bike

2006-06-13T08:06:00.000-07:00

Last month I got an amazing deal on this sweet new track bike: a Fuji Track Pro. It's super light and a legitimate track racing bike, designed to go fast. How could I resist? Unfortunately, the chassis may not have a motor to match, but I will do my best. I'm looking forward to trying track tracing because it will be an entirely new learning curve, which is exciting. I should be able to see some real improvement. I'm also hoping that the sprinting skills and tactics will come in handy on the road.

Thursday at the Northbrook Velodrome will be my track racing debut. I'm a little nervous because track racing is a lot more fast-paced and involves riding at closer quarters than riding on the road. There are some fast women at Northbrook and we all race together, so I'll probably get my whatever handed to me. But at the same time, since it's my first time racing, there will be very little pressure. If I come in last...hey, it was my first race! But I won't come in last. Not on this bike!

(I swiped this photo from Michael Lenzi's flicker page.)

Sign of summer #2

2006-06-08T12:22:00.000-07:00

My wet cycling clothes gathered around the patio table for a summit.

When you ride your bike almost every day, you accumulate an enormous amount of laundry. The local laundromat charges three bucks a load, so I am fortunate to have access to my sister's washer and dryer upstairs. I am trying not to abuse my privileges--really I am! But the other day I found myself without a clean pair of bike shorts for my afternoon ride. My sis was out, but I recalled that I had a key to the back door. I reasoned that she'd never know if I just let myself in and did one tiny load.

Naturally, I forgot about the security alarm and soon found myself caught, with a wet chamois in one hand and a howling dog in the other, by two police officers. They stayed for less than 45 seconds and told me that I didn't look like a burglar. I can imagine what they think a burglar looks like. I could probably use this to my advantage and have a lucrative career robbing houses if the PhD thing doesn't work out. Stash people's valuables in a box of Tide. "Me? I'm just here to do laundry!"

My sister found out that I'd been breaking and entering and was not happy with me. I had to pay reparations (in the form of chocolate) to try to ease my guilty conscience and restore good sibling relations.

Sign of summer

2006-06-06T07:39:00.000-07:00

The first homegrown strawberry appeared in the garden. My sister promptly ate it.

Our Lady of Spark Plugs

2006-06-05T10:13:00.000-07:00

The side of Vera's Auto Repair in Pilsen has an image of the Virgen of Guadalupe painted on the brick. I like to think that people idle for a moment before pulling their cars into the shop to beseech the Virgen to save their transmission.

When I dropped off my car for an oil change, I noticed that one of the mechanics at Vera's has a perfectly executed cursive tattoo running the length of his forearm. I've seen many similar tattoos; often they spell a woman's name. This one said "Mexico." This wasn't surprising, because I know how much pride (in my view deserved) many Mexicans take in their homeland. But I did wonder what particular series of experiences would have motivated this mechanic to tattoo "Mexico" on his arm. I would have asked, but he was busy working on someone else's car. Since he was speaking fluent Spanish, I guessed that he had grown up in Mexico, though I could be wrong. It seems unlikely, however, that a person actually living in Mexico would feel the need to tattoo himself with his nationality. Rather, like the Sicilians who discovered they were "Italian" after coming to the US at the turn of the century, he probably felt more "Mexican" after coming to Chicago and got the tattoo here. But why label himself as such so defiantly? Was the tattoo a response to an encounter in which his nationality had been disparaged? Did he feel the need to demonstrate his Mexican pride after feeling dismissed or invisible or beat-down while working tough jobs for little pay here? How many years of living in Chicago did it take for those feelings to develop? Or was the tattoo just expressing high hopes for the Mexican national team in the 2006 World Cup?

Spell my name right, er...Wight

2006-06-02T13:14:00.000-07:00

I have the sort of last name that people are just incapable of spelling correctly. Even when I spell it out for them plainly (W-I-G-H-T), they instinctively write WHITE or WRIGHT or get completely confused and end up with something incomprehensible like WHIHTE. My name, however, is actually a real word...a rather arcane one. It's an Old English word for "person". I think it has a rather nasty connotation and was originally pronounced "weecht". Here it is in Shakespeare's "Othello":

IAGO. She was a wight, if ever such wight were-
DESDEMONA To do what?
IAGO. To suckle fools and chronicle small beer.
DESDEMONA O most lame and impotent conclusion!

In Scandinavian folklore, "wights" were dwarf-like creatures who lived underground. They could make themselves invisible and lived on the milk of teeny cattle. Farmers had to be careful not to spill hot water on the ground, because a scalded and pissed-off wight might wreak havoc on their livestock. Later, Tolkein adopted the word in his stories as the name of the wraiths (the Barrow-wights) who trapped Frodo and company in the barrow-downs.

There are some famous Wights in history: James Herriot is the pen name of the veterinarian-author Alf Wight. My ancestor Lyman Wight was one of the apostles of the early Mormon church. He challenged Brigham Young for control of the church and started a colony in Texas to rival the Mormon colony in Salt Lake. Things didn't go so well in Texas, and that's why there's a BYU and not an LWU. Oh, and of course my name is shared with an island and, more importantly, appears in a Beatles' song ("When I'm Sixty-Four"). I rode my bike around the Isle of Wight once. It didn't really feel like my ancestral homeland, but I had a nice cream tea.

My friend Alex enjoys pointing out that Ellen White was a prophetess and founder of the Church of Seventh Day Adventism. Her writings are considered unquestionable doctrine by millions. Feel free to treat my writings similarly.

The machine lives

2006-06-01T09:12:00.000-07:00

Today the Trib (6/1/06) reports that, in classic Chicago political machine style, a former top official in Streets and Sanitation has admitted to recruiting 300 "white ethnic" campaign workers for Daley and pro-Daley candidates. They were promised city jobs, mostly blue collar, unionized jobs in Streets and Sanitation, in exchange for registering voters and campaigning across the city and suburbs.

This seems like a throwback to an early era of machine politics. But not only is patronage alive and well in Chicago, so too do the pipelines continue to flow along racial and ethnic lines, just as they did in the past. This particular group was reportedly founded to "complement" similar political organizations like the Hispanic Democratic Organization (HDO), which has been the primary Latino vehicle for registering voters, securing city jobs, and getting Daley-backed Latino candidates elected. Similar operations connect African-Americans to the political machine.

Some people see this as evidence of equality—whites, blacks and Latinos all have their own patronage connections, so nobody’s left out! The CEO of the United Neighborhood Organization (UNO), a group closely tied to my alderman here in the Pilsen neighborhood (the 25th ward's Danny Solis) and to the HDO, wrote an op-ed in January arguing that the HDO represents merely the latest in a series of groups--the Irish, the Poles, African-Americans—who have built political power through patronage in Chicago. He goes so far as to celebrate this as "political empowerment in its purest form" (Chicago Tribune 1/17/06). He quite correctly points out that through the work of the HDO, more Latinos have been elected to public office, appointed to influential positions, and gained access to city jobs. If this was once the path to upward mobility for the Irish, he argues, why shouldn't Latinos follow it today?

Of course, the question remains as to whether having more members of a group in positions of authority translates to having the "interests" of "the community" represented in civic life. Historically in Chicago, patronage has been antithetical to grass-roots participation. Black aldermen loyal to the first mayor Daley effectively turned a blind eye to disinvestment in their communities in exchange for patronage. The mayor was insulated from the participation of neighborhood groups and his policies promoted loop-centered development.

The current administration seems to operate in a similar style. In Pilsen, a predominately working-class Mexican neighborhood embattled by surrounding development and gentrification, the HDO and the alderman, a leading HDO member, are accused of paying insufficient attention to the concerns of "the community" as they adhere to a pro-development agenda. Grass-roots organizers and the alderman regularly toss back and forth conflicting definitions of "the community" and its interests as they battle over affordable housing, zoning, education, and the proper use of tax money in Pilsen.

Two recent issues illustrate this contest over "community". First, as part of its efforts to combat gentrification, in the March 21, 2006 elections, the grass-roots group Pilsen Alliance placed a down-zoning referendum on the ballot. The idea behind the “advisory” (i.e. nonbinding) referendum was to demonstrate support for a zoning ordinance that would prevent the conversion of single-family homes to condominiums, thus eliminating the huge potential for developers and “flippers” to profit from multi-unit condo development. This was seen as a way to slow the inflation of real estate values in Pilsen and perhaps the increase in rents and consequent displacement among a community that is composed primarily of low to middle-income Mexican renters. Moreover, by requiring future zoning decisions to be made on a case-by-case basis, they hoped to bring wider input into the process and perhaps to balance new development with set-asides for affordable housing or other benefits for current residents. The referendum passed with 75% of the vote. The organizers of the referendum called alderman Solis to a meeting last week to force him to “listen to the community” and support the ordinance. The alderman, however, sent a spokesperson in his place. The latter read a disparaging letter that rejected the proposed ordinance while denouncing the referendum and its sponsoring organization as attempting to confuse and “manipulate the community.”

Second, public school teachers in Pilsen recently protested the granting of a charter to a new school run by UNO, closely tied to the HDO. UNO promoted the school as offering another option for community residents. The sentiment among protesters, however, was that the new school was intended to make Pilsen a more attractive neighborhood for new middle-class residents, not for those already living there: “Just because we won’t be paying $2000 a month for a condo doesn’t mean we don’t deserve good schools,” declared one speaker. Opponents argued that the process through which the charter was granted was not open, that there was insufficient “dialogue with the community,” and that the school district administrators had not bothered to investigate whether there was a need for the new school. Teachers emphasized the work being done to improve existing neighborhood schools and questioned whether the charter school would drain resources from these. UNO was criticized for using its political ties to secure a charter school while bypassing local participation in the decision-making process.

So what should we conclude about the relationship between the political representation and political empowerment of a particular group? We sociologists like to put that word “group” in quotes to add a little uncertainty to its very "groupness". That's because group boundaries are often questionable and members may find they have little in common with those purported to represent them. These incidences demonstrate that access by “group” members to city jobs and political influence doesn’t neatly translate into the representation of “group” interests in city life.

Memorial Day in Amish Country

2006-05-31T14:15:00.000-07:00

Everyone else on my team seemed to be traveling to bike races over Memorial Day weekend, but I had plans to go home and help organize a giant garage sale for my family. My grandfather had just moved from his large and lovingly restored home to an assisted living center, and we spent two long days selling a huge number of the things one accumulates over a lifetime, some treasures, some junk. I was glad to be there, especially when I got to chat with long-time neighbors who had fond memories of my late grandmother, and I took away my share of treasures (mother-of-pearl opera glasses bought in Poland years ago) and junk (an electric fondue pot?). Still, I was itching to race my bike. On Sunday I went to the Indy 500 and peppered my stepdad with my endless questions about how auto racing was like cycling: "Do they draft?" "Can you block?" I declared his favorite sport vastly inferior to mine: "What? All they do is drive fast and stop for gas? What kind of tactics are those?" Still, I did get inspired by Danica Patrick's competitive drive to shlep up to northern Indiana and do a little racing myself.

Unfortunately only six women showed up for the Bristol Road Race near Elkhart with the same idea. Darn. Small fields are tactically not very interesting. Four of them didn't look too tough, but the fifth was Tracy "Texas Roadhouse" Huber. Hmmm...I hate to have a bad attitude, but line me up against a cat. 1 national TT champion and I figure I'm racing for second. They decided to mix our little field with the cat 5 guys, even though they were doing 2 laps and we were doing 3. Tracy was having none of that and started attacking on the first roller. I couldn't blame her--every time we went around a corner some guy rode into a ditch. Pretty soon I was chasing her with the lead group of five men, but after two laps we were making little headway. I didn't care if we caught her; I was rather enjoying watching her beat up on the guys Danica Patrick style. Since the other women had all gotten dropped I amused myself by trying to help my new friend Steve, a friendly older guy from Wabash, bridge back up to the leaders after getting dropped on a roller.

After securing Steve a top 5 finish, I had to ride another lap on my own. Boring! Nobody up the road, nobody behind. Plus my computer was reading 92 degrees and I was ready to find some shade. I don't understand these people who find solo breakaways appealing. (Not that this was a breakaway--all my riding partners had sprinted for their cat. 5 finish and I still had one to go.) My only entertainment was my teammate Brian Boyle waving as he rode by and the occasional Amish buggy.

Anyway, it wasn't really much of a race, but I did get a nice second-place check for $65, which paid for my entry fee and onion rings for lunch. Luke kindly drove all the way home while I interrupted my snooze only for a stop at Dairy Queen.

The comeback

2006-05-31T12:08:00.000-07:00

If you haven't heard much from me in a while, it's because I've been back on my bike.

I spent a lot of time training and competing in local bike races in 2003 and 2004 – in two years I never went more than three days in a row without riding – but then I had to take a year and a half off. I had stubborn tendonitis in my hip flexors, and worse, my knees had gotten misaligned as a result of muscle imbalances and tightness in various places after ramping up my mileage quickly over a year without giving my body time to develop resiliency. I was in persistent pain, especially after willing myself up 29,000 feet of the Sierras during the Everest Challenge in September '04. My intended three-week "off-season" turned into three months when the pain didn't go away, but I did my PT exercises diligently and had hopes of salvaging the 2005 season.

When 2005 arrived, however, I still couldn't ride for 20 miles without pain, and my once-encouraging physical therapist, the man who'd preserved multi-million-dollar paychecks for LA Clippers, finally told me that he'd done everything he could for me. I resigned myself to the facts that professional cyclists are unique physical specimens; that my body with its abnormally small kneecaps, tilted pelvis, and other imperfections would never be able to endure the kind of abuse of which theirs are capable; that sometimes, where the mind goes, the body just can't follow; and that there are more important things in life than riding your bike (well, I already knew that, but I was in need of a reminder). I watched the girls I used to battle with in collegiate races improve and win both the crit and road race at the 2005 Nationals while I spent a year in the pool and in yoga classes, trying to come up with a dissertation topic, spending a month in Mexico working on my Spanish, and sating my competitive impulses by memorizing all the two-letter Scrabble words.

It was a good year, but still, I dearly missed my bike. When I moved to Chicago in January 2006 and fortuitously learned of a welcoming local bike club, I decided I'd try to start racing again. My knees were feeling better after all the stretching and yoga and PT exercises, and I desperately wanted to meet some new people. I was so exited to get started that I unpacked my bike the day I arrived in town, on December 30, 2006. It was below 30 degrees outside and I only had California riding garb, so I put some plastic grocery bags over my snowboarding socks and headed out to join the Saturday group ride. The team website billed it as a friendly "no-drop" ride, so I figured that was a good way to start getting my legs back.

Wow, that was a miserable day. Only four people turned out in the cold: women's team co-captain Gigi, strong cat. 4 riders Pat and Ansgar, and me. Ansgar pulled us all the way to Highland Park in the northern suburbs at 20 miles an hour, an easy enough pace for a bike racer, but rather challenging for someone who has been off her bike for the better part of two years. After 20 miles I was completely cracked and dangling behind the others.

Ansgar, a horse of a man with a monstrous sprint and a delightfully German accent, dropped back to find out what was wrong with me.

"Come on," he encouraged. "Let us catch up to them."
"You go ahead. I think I need to turn around now."
"What is the matter?" he asked, looking at me perplexedly. "Are you...tired?"

That day I became the only person ever to take the train home from the “no-drop” Saturday group ride.

The next 5 months were an exercise in patience.

I spent January and February doing weights to strengthen the muscles around my knees and get ready to ride again. I could only ride twice a week and felt weak, sluggish and frustrated. People in LA were well into the racing season, and I was barely starting my base mileage.

In March I attended the team’s training camp in San Luis Obispo. I got dropped every day, rode less and suffered more than almost everyone else that participated. I was ashamed to be wearing my old team kit when I was riding so badly. I took a day off to drive up to San Simeon to watch the baby elephant seals trying to scoot their blubberly way across the sand with their fins. That’s about how I felt on my bike.

I raced in a couple of practice criteriums in March. The first one was slow and I sprinted for second in a weak field, but the pace was faster in the second and I was too tired by the end to take advantage of the opportunities that presented themselves. I was completely frustrated. I knew exactly how to get my teammate in a position to win, but I just didn’t have the legs to execute. I put my bike on my trainer to cool down without speaking to anyone and put on my sunglasses so people couldn’t see me crying.

Bit by bit, however, I’ve started feeling like my old self again. A couple of months of sprint practices, intervals, and long weekend rides are starting to show results. In April I did a stage race in Indiana and managed to take 6th in the Women’s Open general classification even though my calves cramped in the road race and I rode a lousy time trial. I pulled off a sprint for fifth in the crit to bump myself into the prize money. It was only a check for $30, but I was pretty pleased with myself.

I raced three times in May, taking tenth in a fairly tough Open field at Baraboo, WI, sixth in the 1-3’s at the Monsters of the Midway crit in Hyde Park after a crash derailed the otherwise perfectly-executed leadout I was trying to give my teammates, and second in a small field at a race in northern Indiana. Every time I felt like I was one of the weaker riders physically, but that I could make up for that somewhat by being smart and having sharp instincts.

Next up is the Wisconsin state championship road race in a couple of weeks, and then the Illinois state championships in a month. And then there’s the Thursday night series of track races at the velodrome. I’m not expecting anything great out of this season, but it’s gone much better than I had expected so far. And I think I can get faster. But the best part has been that after not being able to ride for so long, I can appreciate the joy of coming home tired and fried after a long day in the saddle, of being able to hang on someone’s wheel at 30 mph, and of just being able to ride a bike again.

(Photo by Luke Seemann)