Just like riding a bike...

...well, not quite.

Eva and I hauled out our bikes today...me for the first time this season, her for the first time in twenty some-odd years. 

Mine's an old clunker restored to pristine condition by a colleague of Eva's who eats, sleeps and breathes bicycles. Hers is a work of art:

a 2009 Fuji Saratoga touted as "the ideal bike for re-starting biking".

We bought this at Braun's a few weeks back, and let me say for anyone in the area, this is the place you want to go to buy a bike. The service and selection are exceptional. So is the price: we got her fully outfitted (panniers, water bottle, lock, car carrier, helmet, etc.) for less than we'd thought we have to pay for the bike itself.

My darling wife was getting herself stressed out about the whole re-starting biking experience. As I've perhaps mentioned, Eva's a big girl. There's a lot of muscle there--167 pounds worth at last check, more than a woman her height is supposed to weigh, period--but also a fair bit of fat. And carrying around that much weight, no matter how much of it's desirable muscle mass, can screw with your psychology. Hence Eva's fear that she'd hop on the bike and the back tire would say "fuck you" and pop. My reassurances that wouldn't happen were useless, and for a while she put off getting on the bike out of that pervasive fear. We recognized together that the longer we delayed, the worse the fear would get, and so today we brought out the bikes and resolved to ride around the block.

I wasn't expecting much...last year I'd hopped on a bike myself for the first time in almost twenty years, and I vividly recall it taking a little time to get re-acquainted with pedal power. Still, it surprised me a little how wobbly Eva was. She got better as she went along, and by the time we cruised back down our street and into our driveway, she was riding like a pro. In an effort to perhaps better appreciate what she's attempting, I asked to take her bike out for the same spin we'd just done together.

And I promptly derailed her chain. Once that was fixed, I hopped back on and barely made it out of the driveway on two wheels. 

I'd adjusted by the time I got halfway around the circuit...but it took an amazing amount of adjustment. The riding position is completely different...more upright, and the handlebars are closer. Her gears, all 24 of 'em, were something else again. I've never seen, let alone ridden, a bike where you push one lever to gear up and hit a button to gear down. (Shows how out of touch I am: apparently most bikes come this way now.) And holy cow, but her brakes are good enough to practically pitch you over the handlebars with what I think of as a routine application of force.

This may well be "the ideal bike for re-starting biking", but it sure doesn't feel that way at first. Practice, practice, practice....

WTF of the Year

...and yes, I know it's only the beginning of March. But if anything comes along this year that pisses me off more  than this, I promise not to comment on it until next  year. Deal?

So here's what happened. Brazil. A nine-year old girl is raped by her stepfather. She conceives. Twins. Doctors abort the fetuses because, um, hello? The mother's nine years old and would almost certainly die if she managed to carry them to term.

With me so far?

The Catholic Church in its infinite wisdom, immediately excommunicates the stepfather for the hideous crime of rape.

Wait a second. That's not what happened at all! No, his wife, who authorized the abortion, was excommunicated. Abortion, you understand, is more serious than rape. 

Let's let Archbishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho explain this for us, because quite frankly, I'm having trouble with it.

"God's Law is above any human law. So...when a human law is contrary to God's Law, this law has no value."

...ummm, okay. So I guess the Archbishop is saying that God has decreed somewhere that abortion is Really Really Bad. Interesting. What Bible would that be in, Archbishop? Because it ain't in mine. 

Really. Go on over to bible.com and search for "abortion". It's not in there. If you don't believe me, check this site out, which does a surprisingly fair and balanced job at discussing the issue. It notes that many Christian churches are pro-choice. (Oh, but I keep forgetting, non-Catholic 'Christians'...aren't.) When will the Catholic Church ever admit that 'God's Law'  is, more often than not, something one of their Popes just plain made up? 

Hopefully the last of the Obama-thon

...at least until the man's inaugurated.

Long, fascinating article here.

So much of the press has focused on Barack's paint-by-words ability, and many critics have wondered what's going on underneath all the speechifying. I find I like Mr. Obama more and more when I read things like

So when Brian Williams is asking me about what's a personal thing that you've done [that's green], and I say, you know, 'Well, I planted a bunch of trees.' And he says, 'I'm talking about personal.' What I'm thinking in my head is, 'Well, the truth is, Brian, we can't solve global warming because I f–––ing changed light bulbs in my house. It's because of something collective'.

I do wonder about U.S.-Canada relations with an Obama administration in place. It's a truism that Canada gets along better with Democrats--but it was a truism for many years in Canada that "heil Harper" was the proper and correct greeting when facing the stern and cold visage of our current Prime Minister. I find it very interesting that opposing political factions in each country tarred Harper and Obama as extremists, when both of them are closer to the center than anywhere else. 

What will be the reaction from Obama when Canada pulls out of Afghanistan in 2011? Do Canadians even recognize that Obama means to concentrate his forces there?  What will Conservatives in Canada say when Harper makes his overture--very soon, now--to Obama about a shared greenhouse gas emissions policy? Although most people discount Obama's earlier promise/threat to tear up NAFTA as electioneering, there's little doubt Democrats are more protectionist than Republicans, and Obama will be under significant pressure to at least tinker with trade agreements to make them (even) more U.S.-friendly. And Canadians will...???

Obama will have to walk numerous balance beams, blindfolded en pointe, to maintain anything approaching the adulation he has now. If he can somehow fulfill any of his grand promises, while unifying America and avoiding terrorist attack, he'll go down in history among the greatest presidents who ever lived. I hope--there's that word again--people are prepared to be disappointed.