Late night

Ended up working till 11:30pm due to the wiring project - good thing we blew off the "Madison Winter Bike to Work Week" wind-up party, as ended up needing to get stuff done at the office. Had a burger with a friend (also on his bike) and went back in to the office.  Beautiful ride in, a bit cool (20s) but sunny.

and the Capitol at the end.  I think the bicyclist in the blue helmet had a video camera on her helmet, or something when we passed at the green light.

No Snow

Supposed to get 2 wet inches of snow, but nothing really and the ice is receding from the driveway (and a bit better on the street).  Worked later (9:30 game!) so it was a dark ride home - 3 tail lights and I keep the front light on solid now that I've learned it's illegal to have a front flashing light. I always thought it saved batteries but only emergency vehicles are allowed front flashers.

10 miles.

Ice Road Biker

Well, just my street and the block next to it but:

and, be fair, I walked it until I got to pavement. To the coffee shop, work and grocer shopping on the way home. Delicious (I thought, but I made it ;-) Scallops Stroganoff ala Joy of Cooking. 10 miles.

Errandonee/Polar plunge

The family, at least a couple of us, are looking at finishing the Winter Errandonee Challenge:
http://chasingmailboxes.com/2013/02/05/winter-challenge-the-errandonnee/

and so I want to try and track my errandonees here,  just to help remember them. Today was a Community meeting - the Madison Polar Plunge
http://www.flickr.com/photos/afbach/sets/72157632725122467/

out by the Colosseum, er, Alliant Center. In the pond actual.  Supposed to be a nice day; 36 and sunny but the sun didn't shine and there was bit of a breeze and miserable riding conditions (lots of slushy snow, lumps and ice and my kitty litter panier kept hopping off the rack and into the spokes.  Need to fix that) on the way out - got stuck on University Ave, Old U. etc. all the way until Owen.  And I forgot my swimsuit which I figured out as I was riding up to the event area.  Well, dress is pretty varied at the plunge, from a bear suit, zombies thru rubber duckies and shower caps so I figured my long johns would work. I had a bathrobe so ... I learned not to forget my suit and next time I'm wearing a hat until jump time.  Cold ride home, first time I've been on a bike in the winter w/o long johns on in a long time.  Not an improvement. 14 miles, all told.

More Snow

So, we broke the record for the most snow in WI in recorded history, some 80+ inches so far - this weekend's a miserable 8 hours of rain!!! and then cooling enough for 4+ (in Madison, north of here it was all snow)) of snow and now, for the next 5 days well be in single digits. The roads, you might guess, are now skating rinks and will be for at least a couple days. If you didn't get out and scrape the car, it'll be an ice cube. A long while back a friend moved here from CA and one morning he woke up to find his car encased in an inch or so of ice, his car and everything else on the outside. Not a big deal but I can still recall his downright befuddlement - "the whole world is covered in ice!" as he tried to scrape (scraping, the biggest PIA of the whole winter thing here) enough off to be able to even get in to his car. W/ the drop to sub zero, if you didn't get out and clean things up ... good luck!

I'm exempt from this and shoveling in a bad way - tore the last little bit of my meniscus a week ago 'gamboling' in the snow w/ my son. Just bad luck and, admittedly a pre-existing condition but he tackled me while I was on my knees and there I was I was, in trouble. Having surgery on Tuesday, 4th knee 2nd meniscectomy in a year. Be back on the bike in 2 weeks, tops, I hope ...

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Riding in the snow

yeah, Madison but a former ... icon of Madison had one of these stupid blog thingees and said, something along the lines of (mid-winter, snowiest Dec. in blah years) "bicyclist who ride in this snow should be taken out and shot" - now not to dwell on his descent from Radical to ... well, executioner; me, a well-known snow rider, w/ apologies to John Prine:
Please don't Shoot me for Riding in the Snow
Oh, please don't shoot me for riding in the snow
I've already had my brush w/ death
and I've got miles to go.
Cars and trucks
try my luck
Jack frost will bite my ears
Sure don't need no lawyers,
giving them idea-rs.

Went out this morning
bike lane full of snow
the city bus done crowd me
the 'share the road' sticker ain't so.
SUV don't see me
talking on the phone
better I guess than under the wheels
to take a face full of snow.

Oh please don't execute me
for riding in the snow
Even Brown will run you down
If you fall by the side of the road
Handle bars are no match for cars
My life is in my hands,
Don't need any lawyers,
Making any plans.

rambled Jena-6

My brother wrote and said:

As if life were not weird enough; the south rises again

http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/132845

Jena. Louisiana -- The American National Socialist Workers Party anxiously awaits the release of the Jena 6 n-----s, responsbile for an unprovoked assault on a white high student, so the six can face true justice.

"If these n-----s are released or acquitted, we will find out where they live and make sure that white activists and white citizens in Louisiana know it," ANSWP Commander Bill White stated today, "We'll mail directions to their homes to every white man in Louisiana if we have to in order to find someone willing to deliver justice."

Make one glad to be alive, no?

my reply may be:
> "we will find out where they live and make sure that white activists and white citizens in Louisiana know it," ANSWP Commander Bill White stated today, "We'll mail directions to their homes to every white man in Louisiana if we have to in order to find someone willing to deliver justice."

There's a certain stench of cowardice here "in order to find someone willing", as in we'll poke the looney hive until a mad bee flies out and does something. Then we'll stand back and say "we didn't do it" citing the undoubtebly ANSWP anathemic "free speech" defense. The "back story":

http://www.roanoke.com/news/nrv/wb/132825
The Jena story, according to what's been reported so far, began in August 2006 when a black student asked during a Jena High School assembly if it was all right for black students to sit under the oak tree where white students gathered for lunch. The next morning, nooses were dangling from that tree.

Jena High's principal wanted to expel the three white students who put up the nooses. The school board and superintendent disagreed. The students were suspended. There was an investigation, but no charges were filed.

A white student allegedly pulled a shotgun on a group of black students. The black kids took the gun away. The black student who took the gun home was charged with theft. The white student wasn't charged.

A black student was beaten by white students. No charges were filed.

Six black students -- the Jena Six -- beat a white student. They were charged with attempted murder. One of them, 16 years old at the time of the attack, was tried as an adult. An all-white jury convicted him of battery and conspiracy. An appeals court overturned that conviction, saying the student shouldn't have been tried as an adult.

So you have echoes of "Strange Fruit" and "My Hometown", "To Kill a Mockingbird" and ... August, 2006 somebody asks if it's alright if they sit under an oak tree? you'd ... I'd ... one'd want to say 'how in the Sam Hill could there be an oak tree like that" but there is and it's in Louisiana, for at least one place. And yet:
http://earlofarihutchinson.blogspot.com/

Mauffray [the judge in the Jena 6 case] seemed anything but the fair-minded, erudite jurist when he revoked the $90,000 bond of centerpiece Jena 6 defendant Mychal Bell. This brought howls of rage from Bell's family, attorneys, the Reverend Al Sharpton, and the thousands that flocked to Jena to demand his freedom. But Mauffray as a key juvenile judge in La Salle Parish, in fact virtually the only judge in the parish that hears juvenile cases, is certainly well familiar with Bell.

He has been involved with Bell to one degree or another when he was charged with four prior offenses. In the past two years, he was hauled into the juvenile court that Mauffray helps oversee on battery and property damage charges. The juvenile court and Mauffray did not toss the book at Bell after he committed those offenses. He was placed on probation in April 2006 until his 18th birthday. With the prior offenses that Bell had, he could have easily been held in juvenile jail for the two year period. That has been the fate of legions of other black teens in legions of juvenile courts throughout the country. Many of these youth that languish in juvenile or even adult jails with fewer prior offenses than Bell.

But Mauffray and the juvenile court gave Bell the benefit of the doubt and another chance. "

right, that one of a group of 6 who beats up somebody is troubled/involved in the legal system is not a surprise. Another post at the above notes that Bell's previous offenses were 'black on black' and that was the reason for previous leniency. Now David Bowie, among others, is going his bail. Yet, I want to say that this isn't a bad thing. Something like:
http://www.roanoke.com/news/nrv/wb/132825

Thursday, while tens of thousands of protesters converged on Jena, a much smaller protest was taking place nearly 900 miles away.

At least 85 of the 480 students who attend Radford High School wore T-shirts supporting the Jena Six. They signed letters they plan to send to LaSalle Parish, La., prosecutor Reed Walters and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco.

200 signed letters. Half the school. So, unlike, say Tony Snow

http://deadissue.com/archives/2007/09/23/lynch-the-jena-6/

Former White House press secretary Tony Snow on an October 2003 edition of Fox News Sunday: "Here's the unmentionable secret: Racism isn't that big a deal any more. No sensible person supports it. Nobody of importance preaches it. It's rapidly becoming an ugly memory."

Okay that's old and he's Bush's former P.S. - but unlike that, you, er, I gotta see some hope here. It wasn't done - the press (yes, and the press seekers) showed up and, save the truly odious
http://podblanc.ath.cx/

the story was that this needs to be handled transparently. It's not simple, it's not easy, but it won't become a tragedy. William White (you got to believe it's a name change) won't see his idea of 'justice' done. He might even (or not:
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2007/09/when-are-websites-threats-jena-6.html

) get busted for this one. But while it's not 'no longer a big deal', it's not ignored. Does make you glad to be alive.

My family is involved in public education (fine joke - a nephew is reputedly the source of:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/30911

) up here in mostly Nordic-land and they will say; yes, for the numeric minority there is a vastly skewed percentage of non-white kids in trouble w/ the system. Not a signifigant number (count 'em up, there's still more white kids in the principal's office) but ... I dunno. All the poking around and one of the more disturbing views:
http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=556
http://www.kstp.com/article/stories/S26304.shtml?cat=89

Maybe that's just my lack of perspective.

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