AnalPhilosopher

As you know, I've been without a high-speed Internet connection since Wednesday night. In my discussions with EarthLink technicians, I've learned that something is awry in the "line," i.e., the telephone line into my house. I'm sure it was caused by the thunderstorms we had Wednesday night and Thursday morning. As if this weren't bad enough, I'm unable to get a dial-up connection through my Dell computer. The Dell works fine; I just can't get online with it. So I had to fire up the old Compaq to use the dial-up connection. It's frustratingly slow. Sometimes I could scream. But at least I've been able to post my journal entries of twenty years ago.

I would not have thought that things could get worse, but this evening they did. When I fired up the Compaq, it went into safe mode. What the? Maybe the tinkering with the DSL modem messed it up; but it worked fine last night when I shut it off. I tried restoring the operating system (using System Restore), but none of the three restore points I created works. Damn! So now I have to work in safe mode, which means all the screen sizes and colors are screwed up. Fortunately, I'm able to get online, so perhaps I shouldn't complain too much. I'm able to check my e-mail, post my journal entries, and do other odds and ends.

I've decided that if my DSL modem isn't up and running by Monday afternoon, I'm leaving EarthLink. I can't impress upon them the urgency of my situation. I pay good money for high-speed Internet access and expect to have it continuously—especially when I've done nothing to lose it. I have cable television, so I can probably get high-speed Internet access through Charter. I wish I could tell EarthLink this. If they knew that they were about to lose a customer, they'd do something (I assume). My telling this to a technician doesn't accomplish anything. Technicians don't care whether I subscribe to EarthLink. If anything, they'd like me to go away.

If anyone has suggestions, I'd appreciate hearing them.

7-31-84 2502.3 [250.2 miles]. It's Tuesday morning. I've just set out from Lakeview State Park (overlooking Lake Mary), where I spent the night, and it's just a beautiful morning. There's not a cloud in the sky, the sun is bright and shining on my back, and there's a mist in front of me—a fog, if you will—covering part of Lake Mary. I'm presently coasting downhill, headed toward Flagstaff, and nothing could be better. I feel good, I'm raring to go, today's riding should be a breeze, and my destination today is Tuba City, considerably north of Flagstaff.

The riding late last night was miserable. As I approached Mormon Lake, raindrops started to fall, and it was also getting dark. [By] listening to the radio I knew that there was one hour of daylight left, so I was not only racing against the sun, but also the rain and my own fatigue. I was so tired at one point—feeling so weak—that I had to stop and gulp some vegetable crackers by the side of the road. Otherwise, I'm not sure [that] I would have made it. But the crackers must have given me a burst of energy, because I got up, covered my gear on the bike, and plugged on, past Mormon Lake and finally to the vicinity of Lake Mary, where I knew [that] there was a state park. I was helped along the way by a song from Peter Frampton on the radio, called "Baby I Love Your Way." I remember listening to that song in 1976 when it first came out, and even playing my ["Frampton Comes Alive"] tape on a date with Vicki Stout. It sure raised my spirits to hear [the song again as I pedalled] in the driving rain.

Right now I'm riding through a dense fog. I can't see more than fifty yards in front of me. The lake, which is to my left, is invisible, but I can see well enough to ride on, of course. Getting back to Lakeview State Park, I was quite disappointed at the facilities. There was no shower, no sink, no washroom—only an old-fashioned outhouse, which smelled when I opened the door. In Michigan, nearly every state park had full shower and washroom facilities, and the parks were much more well-marked. That is, there were signs indicating how far [it was] to the [various] park[s] and showing exactly where they were located. Here in Arizona, I've been greatly disappointed in the road signs. I see one [particular] sign, "Highway Littering Unlawful," a lot, but other than that, I don't get much information [from] alongside the road. [S]ince it was growing dark, I hurriedly pitched my tent and put my belongings inside, after which I ate two more sandwiches and some crackers, washed my face with cold water, and jumped into the sleeping bag for a good night's sleep [or so I hoped].

The temperature in Flagstaff at 6:10 P.M. last night was sixty-one degrees, and it was expected to get into the fifties overnight. Right now, as I pedal along, the wind is quite chilly, even though the sun is out behind me. Fog is still covering the trees to my far left, and there's a crispness in the air. But then, what I should I expect? Lakeview State Park was at seven thousand feet [in altitude]—well more than a mile above sea level—and Flagstaff itself is only a few feet lower than that.

I didn't sleep too badly last night. At least it didn't rain, and the ground wasn't too [hard]—although my hips got sore from sleeping sideways, [necessitating that I] move around quite a bit in the bag. Also, the bottom of the sleeping bag had gotten wet during my ride, and since my socks were also wet, and I had no dry ones, I ended up sleeping all night with cold, damp feet. I sure hope that I don't catch [a] cold or pneumonia from that. Finally, just before I went to sleep, I heard [a] neighbor[ing camper] exclaim that there was a skunk in the vicinity. One of [the campers] walked near my tent with a flashlight, [so] I asked him from within what it was. He confirmed that it was a skunk. Now, I ha[d] a small loaf of bread and some crackers in my tent, . . . so I thought that the skunk might be trying to find those items. Lo and behold, in the middle of the night, I awoke to [the sound of] some small animal scratching at my tent. Not wanting to trigger a blast from the skunk's olfactory generator [if indeed it was a skunk], I simply yelled, "Shoo, git, shoo!" and I heard the animal scamper away. The lesson [that] I learned from this is that when I get into "bear country," I don't want to have any food in or around my tent [at night]. The last thing [that] I need is to have a bear scavenging for food in the middle of the night while I'm sleeping. I've heard horror stories about campers being mauled [by bears], and I don't want to become another statistic.

This morning I awoke approximately one hour after sunrise, or 6:30 [A.M.], and quickly began packing up my things, taking my vitamins, brushing my teeth, etcetera. I am now quite proficient at packing my gear and taking down the tent. I would estimate that it takes about ten minutes to take the tent down, fold it up, and string it onto the bike with the bungy strap. Everything seems to be in fine order, except my [od]ometer, which has been making a loud, strange noise for the [p]ast half-day or so. I, personally, feel good. I have no aches and pains to speak of, and I feel none the worse for having had only one shower in the past three and a half days.

One other point. The [camping last night] was free. . . . I went up to the "host's" trailer and asked if there was a fee for bikers as there was for cars. [The host] said, "You're on a ten-speed?!["] and I said, "Yes," and he said, "No; go ahead." [That means that] I now have five additional dollars for my trip. [All told, I have] $410 for twenty-seven more days. Here are my objectives once I get into Flagstaff: first, eat a good breakfast; second, stop at a laundromat [to] wash and dry my clothes; third, buy food and pick up iced water for the day's trip; and fourth, send two postcards. Each day on the trip I'll try to mail two postcards. That will give me approximately sixty for the entire trip—more than enough to keep family and friends abreast of my journey.

2531.3 [279.2 miles]. I'm currently riding northward out of Flagstaff on Highway 89, and I saw a sign about a mile back which stated that the elevation at that point was seven thousand feet. I'm slightly above that [elevation] right now. I'm quite sure that that's the highest elevation [that] I've been at on this trip, and yet I feel reasonably strong and fit. The thin air hasn't made me notic[e]ably sluggish, although it's hard to tell without comparing it to something else. As I come down somewhat in elevation, I'll see if the riding becomes a little easier.

Well, I've now put thirty miles under my belt today. The sun is almost directly overhead, and I suspect that it's just past noon. Here's what happened since last I spoke. I pulled alongside the road going into Flagstaff to check out my odometer and take a salt tablet, and as I was sitting on the side of the road, a biker approached me from the direction of Flagstaff. He was decked out in the usual riding gear, and he had a nice bike, [so] we struck up a conversation about biking and other subjects. It turns out that this fellow lives in Flagstaff and that he's been biking for some thirteen years. He told me that one summer a few years back, he had ridden his ten-speed [bike] from Arizona to Philadelphia, and when he arrived at his parents' house, he vowed that he would never try such a foolish thing again. But as any biker can tell you, . . . long-distance riding becomes habit-forming, and the very next summer he not only went all the way across country, . . . he came back on his bike. That should tell you a little bit about not only the heartache of biking, but the fact that you get a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction when it's over. I certainly felt good after completing my ten-day trip around Michigan in 1982, even though along the way there were times when I was dejected, lonely, and sore.

Finally, after discussing my plans and the bike and gear that I have, the biker suggested that he accompany me into Flagstaff. Finding his company agreeable, I accepted, and on we pedalled into town. I had asked him about the Northern Arizona University campus, and so the first place he led me was through a long drive pas[t] some of the campus buildings. When we got to the domed football stadium [the Walkup Skydome], I stopped to take a picture [of] it [with] the San Francisco Mountains in the background. The biker told me that the San Francisco Mountains [contain] the highest point in Arizona, and from the looks of them, he's right. Before we went our separate ways, the biker made a suggestion and described [end of "notebook #1 (3-8-84 to 7-31-84)"—consisting of 150 single-spaced, computer-printed sheets] to me the route through Utah on Highway 89. [He was great company—the sort of person who would make a fine companion on a long bike trip.]

I just passed a sign which read, "Elevation, 7282 Feet." It's hard to believe [that] I climbed 282 feet in the past couple of miles. Maybe I did. At any rate, there's a considerable drop in front of me. It should be good riding. Finishing up the story about the biker, [his] suggestion was that instead of going northward into [the town of] Page, I [should] veer off to the left and go across the Colorado River and through part of the Grand Canyon area. I frankly hadn't considered that alternative, but the more I think about it, the better it sounds. He said that the view is much more scenic [along that route] and that the [amount of] climbing is about the same—short climbs in certain places. As for his de[s]cription of the route, he said that Highway 89 through Utah is a joy. The winds are from the south, which should assist me, and the road is basically flat. And finally, the views, he said, are spectacular. So I was encouraged to hear about the trip through Utah.

Amazing! I've been coasting for about three miles now, and I still have a huge drop in front of me. At the moment I've slowed down a bit, but the [de]cline will steepen shortly. As I was saying, the biker and I parted in downtown Flagstaff, but before we did so, he gave me directions as to how to get out of town and where to find a laundromat and a McDonald's [restaurant]. They were both on the way, so I didn't have to go on any detours. The first stop, as with the last two days, was to eat a big breakfast at McDonald's. You might think that I'd be tired of the same meal three days in a row, but it's actually a good breakfast. I had, again, scrambled eggs, pancakes with syrup, hash brown potatoes, an English muffin with jelly, a raspberry danish, and a large cup of coffee. I find that these large breakfasts get me going and stand me in good stead for most of the day. Afterward, I found a small laundromat and washed all of my dirty clothes except the shorts and underwear that I was wearing. The bike feels lighter now that I've gotten the dirty, sweaty clothes out of the rear pannier. While I was at the laundromat, I took the time to write two more postcards—to Mom and to Kutinsky, Davey & Solomon—and . . . mailed them before I left.

2536.3 [284.2 miles]. I'm still coasting down the hill north of Flagstaff on Highway 89. There was a bike path [alongside the road] up until now, but it looks like I'm going to be on the road [proper] for a few miles, at least. As I came out of Flagstaff, the skies began clouding up quickly, and before I knew it raindrops began to fall. I pulled off to the side of the road, covered the bike, and spent fifteen to twenty minutes reading the editorial pages of the Arizona Republic. But quickly the storm clouds blew over to the west, and now the sky appears to be fairly clear in front of me, and that's really all I care about. The storms can be brewing and hashing about on either side of me or behind me; all I care about is what's in front of me.

Just that quickly, I've gone back into a somewhat desert country. All around me on the side are these small, treelike bushes, and off in the distance on both right and left are round mountains, or hills. My plan for the day is to make it to Tuba City, and, if not that far, then in the near vicinity [of Tuba City]. Tomorrow I plan to get through the Grand Canyon and possibly into Utah (or very near thereto).

I neglected to mention that yesterday, when I was near Mormon Lake, I saw an unusual "double rainbow." I was lucky enough to get two pictures of it, but I honestly don't think [that] I've ever seen such a thing. One rainbow was fairly distinct and clear, [while] the other was concentric with it but a bit larger. I noticed that it was also a bit fainter. I don't know much about the physics of rainbows, but [they] sure [were] beautiful. By the looks of things, I'm going to have some fantastic photographs when I arrive back in Tucson.

Yesterday's mileage, incidentally, was 76.8, which means that I have covered 248.8 miles in three days. That puts me over my schedule of eighty miles per day, and I must say that with the conditions being as harsh as they've been, I should pick up even more ground in the next few days. As I get stronger, and come down in altitude, I hope to get ninety to a hundred miles on some days. The odometer reading when I left Lakeview State Park this morning was 2500.9 [248.8 miles]. [Right now,] as I look behind me, I see a long, steep incline leading into Flagstaff. I'm sure that I'll be taking this same route on the way back, but I'll try to flush it from my mind for the next few weeks and worry about it on my return. I'm fairly sure, however, that I'll be taking a different route from Flagstaff to Tucson, possibly through the Phoenix vicinity.

About a week before I left on the trip, I read a newspaper article which said that the stretch of highway [that] I'm currently on, north of Flagstaff, is one of the most dangerous in the state. It has an extremely high rate of accidents. I frankly don't know why. It looks to me like a standard-sized road; [it has] two lanes; and there's even about a foot and a half [of] bike space on the side. It's not enough for me to stay within, or on, but in a pinch I could move over and avoid an accident.

My back is now fairly well burnt. I can feel the sun's rays stinging off it every now and then, and I can see (by looking in my [small] rearview mirror) that it's blistered quite badly. But I intended to ride shirtless as much as possible on the trip, in hopes that my back would turn dark brown and eventually just "ward off" the sun's rays. I realize that I run a risk of skin cancer by doing this, but, as with other of life's risks, the magnitude of the harm times the probability [of its occurring] is exceedingly small, and so I (for all intents and purposes) ignore that risk.

2540.0 [287.9 miles]. Believe it or not, it feels good to be out in open country again. Roderick Nash, in his book Wilderness and the American Mind, discusses the roots of the [prevalent human] distaste for wilderness, and he finds it in, of all places, biology and sociobiology. According to Nash, there was a period [of] time when the great forests [of the earth] were destroyed by a glacier, or by an ice age, or something, and at that point the humans who remained alive were thrust out into the open. And because good eyesight had survival value in an open environment, humans developed acute eyesight and thrived in that sort of environment. Thus, even today, Nash writes, humans prefer open spaces to dense, dark forests. Last evening, when I was riding through the forest, I felt a similar sense of confinement and loneliness. But out in the open, where I can see off in every direction, I feel safer—perhaps more in control of the situation. I really don't know how to describe it. But then again, maybe I'm just enjoying the change. I'll probably tire of the open spaces within a day or so and be ready to ride through some pine-covered mountains again.

As I climb farther and farther down the mountainside, I notice [that] there's a considerable storm off to my left, over the mountains. I see lightning flashing over one particular mountain, and the sky is an ominous, dark black. But, as I say, it's fairly clear in front of me, and that's all I care about. I'm currently coasting down a hill at approximately twenty-seven miles per hour. The riding here is fantastic, and I'm picking up mileage quickly.

Kim du Toit is way too nice to me in this post. Thanks, Kim.

7-30-84 Monday. 2435.2 [183.1 miles]. It's Monday morning, and right now I'm sitting about halfway up a mountain. I spent the night in a motel in Payson, and now I'm on my way toward [the towns of] Pine and Strawberry. Ultimately, today, I want to get near Flagstaff and camp out in a state park. Let me recap[itulate] the events of yesterday.

At last I spoke, I was approaching the Roosevelt Dam along[s]ide Lake Roosevelt—or Roosevelt Lake[.] The dam was just spectacular. I rode my bike across it, and at the end I stopped to take a couple of pictures. On one side of the dam was Roosevelt Lake, and on the other was a stream [actually Apache Lake], hundreds of feet below me. So I now see how Roosevelt Lake is maintained at its height. The road going northward from Roosevelt Dam was gravel, and I travelled on that gravel for about ten or twelve miles. It was not much fun. Since the lake itself wound its way into several coves, I found myself riding around and down into each cove and then back up the mountain along the roadway. It was a constant up-and-down battle. All the while, the clouds were massing overhead, and finally sprinkles began to come down. I continued on my way through the rain, determined to get to Payson before nightfall. Things were not looking good.

When I finally got past Roosevelt Lake, the rain began coming down a little harder. It wasn't hard enough to stop me from riding entirely, but it was enough that it would have soaked my gear if I hadn't done something. So I put my raincoat over the front of the bike (and held onto it as I rode), and I stretched my plastic bike cover over the sleeping bag and rear panniers so [that] they wouldn't get wet. In that condition I must have ridden about twenty miles. Finally, the rain stopped and the sun peeked out from behind the clouds. But [the sun] was only about an hour into the sky, and from looking at the map I realized that I wouldn't make it into Payson that night. Since there were no campgrounds on the way, and since I badly needed a shower, I decided to put my thumb out [to hitchhike].

Lo and behold, as I was climbing the steepest hill, [the driver of] a flatbed truck went by, saw my thumb in the air, and screeched to a halt. I ran up to the truck with my bike, asked the driver if he was going as far as Payson, and [was pleased when] he said, "Yes." And so I threw my bike in[to] the back [of the truck] and jumped in[to] the back with it. On we went into Payson. I can't believe how steep the hills were between where I was picked up and Payson itself. I don't see how I could have made it that night, and it probably would have taken me a good part of today just to get into Payson. All told, I must have ridden about twenty to twenty-two miles with the three youngsters who picked me up.

The driver and his two buddies were very nice kids. On the way to Payson they asked me if they could drive down a side road to pick up some friends[.] I said, "Sure! I'm in no hurry." When we got there, we had a few minutes to chat, and I noticed that one of them had on a "Black Sabbath" tee shirt. Since Black Sabbath is my favorite [musical] group, I struck up a conversation [with the three youths] and we ended up talking about rock and roll [music] for ten to fifteen minutes. When we finally arrived in Payson, it was just about dark. I popped my bike off the back of the truck and gave the driver my spare set of headphones. I have purchased [a pair of] Sony headphones [before I left on the trip], which work on my AM-FM radio, so I really didn't need the extra pair—and I wanted to give the driver something, whether he needed it or not. When I handed [the headphones] to him, he said, "Oh, you don't have to give me anything." I said, "I know I don't; but I want to." He took them and we said our goodbyes, and off I [went] on the bike to find a motel.

2435.8 [183.7 miles]. I'm still pushing my bike up this mountain. It's incredibly grueling. Sweat pours off my face and body, and I have to stop about every hundred to two hundred yards to catch my breath. However, it looks like I'm about to reach the crest of this particular hill. The sky, meanwhile, is completely clouded over. I'm not sure if that means "rain" or what. Usually, by this time in the morning, the sun burns the clouds away and it proceeds to get hot and dry. But that hasn't happened yet today. I also noticed that the riding is harder today, even downhill. I'm not sure what to make of it. My belongings aren't any wetter or heavier; I should be stronger than [I was during] the first two days [that] I rode; and the bike seems to be in as good a shape as it was in the first two days. The only thing [that] I can think of is that the altitude is now much higher. Perhaps it drains my energy quicker than lower altitudes, and . . . manifests itself in more difficult riding. Whatever the case, I'm determined to push on and make it to [a] campground south of Flagstaff before nightfall. I just hope that the weather cooperates.

Getting back to yesterday's events, when I was let off the flatbed truck by the three young fellows, I noticed [that there was] a motel right across the street. So I went there, knocked on the door, asked how much a room was for a night, was told "twenty-two dollars," and . . . decided to take it. [Twenty-two dollars] was more than I had planned to spend, per day, but I spent very little [money during] the first day [of riding] and, as I say, I needed a shower quite badly. So I gave him the money and went to the room. The first thing that I did [when I got into the room] was take a long, hot shower. It sure felt good to be clean again. Then I put on a flannel shirt and my long, brown corduroy pants and walked across the street to Burger King, where I had a nice dinner [chicken sandwich, french fries, and cola]. I must have appeared quite a sight with my hair tussled, four days' growth of beard on my face, and a tired look about me. Finally, I went back to the motel room, wrote a postcard to Mom, looked at my maps, watched part of the Olympic events for twenty minutes or so, and then went to sleep. All told, I rode eighty and a half miles on the second day of the trip. This morning (Monday), when I woke up, the odometer read 2424.1 [172.0 miles], which means that I'm approximately twelve miles [ahead of] schedule [eighty miles per day]. The only bad news is that I have "cheated" by accepting a ride. I hope to do that no more than a handful of times on this trip. One thing is clear: I won't be coming back to Tucson via Payson and Globe. There are just too many mountains to negotiate.

This morning I awoke to rays of light coming in the window. I jumped up, prepared my things, shaved, washed my face, packed my bike, and once again set off [down] the road. Like yesterday, I stopped at McDonald's for a hearty breakfast, and then [stopped] at a Circle K [store] for ice cubes and water. The road leading out of Payson was predominantly downhill. I enjoyed the ride. Now, [however,] I seem to be paying for it.

The foliage here is quite different than it was in southern Arizona. Although there are still barren places on the hillsides, there are pine and other northern trees scattered throughout the other bushes. In every direction there are green, rolling hills and mountains. The ground is reddish, and every so often as I ride I hear birds chirping in the trees. Off I go to Pine and Strawberry. I'm going to listen to a tape while I walk and ride.

2440.6 [188.5 miles]. I finally made it to the top of that hill, and then coasted down for a couple of miles into this delightful little town called "Pine." The name couldn't be more apt. All around the town, on the hills and in the gullies, are pine trees and other foliage. In fact, I got the feeling that it was a lumbering town, from the looks of it. The first thing that I did was to pull into a service station to fill my airs with tire [sic!], the first time that I've done that on the trip. And then I stopped at a small laundromat to wash clothes. But there was no detergent available inside, so I repacked my dirty clothing and continued on my way. I spoke for a few minutes at the laundromat with a woman who was also washing clothes, and we got to talking about my bike trip, which is usually the subject of conversation when I meet someone. She told me that she had gone on her honeymoon to Yellowstone thirty-six years ago. She then asked if I were keeping in touch with my family, and I said, "Yes"—that I had sent a postcard to my mother th[at very] morning. She must have known what my Mom is going through, because she said, "You know how mothers worry; you should keep in touch with her." And I agreed.

I'm now sitting beside the road on another steep incline. Cars and trucks are passing me quite regularly, and there's no longer a bike path on the side of the road, so I have to keep a good lookout in my rearview mirror as I push the bike. The sun, believe it or not, still hasn't come out from behind the clouds. I don't sense that there is any rain imminent, but it's an awfully strange day here in the mountains. I, personally, feel fine. I've been listening to a pre-recorded tape for a half hour or so, and I must say that when I hear a particular song that I like, I'm just euphoric. There I'll be, sweat pouring down my face and body, pushing a heavy bike up a steep side of a mountain, and I'll be singing aloud and stepping in tune with the beat. [The people in passing vehicles must think me strange.] I particularly enjoyed hearing "Flyer," by [the group] Saga, and "Murder by Numbers," by the Police. Well, here goes. [The] next town will be Strawberry, and then I'll be pressing onward to Flagstaff.

2444.3 [192.2 miles]. I'm sitting under some sort of pine tree very near to the top of this mountain, north of Strawberry. It's one of the highest mountains [that] I've climbed thus far—if not the highest. But I'm in good spirits. I sense that the peak is near, and I just know that the downslope is going to be long and steep. So I'm going to get my money's worth out of this hill yet. The other encouraging news is that I can't be much lower in elevation than the city of Flagstaff. When I left Payson, I knew that I had to climb 2000 feet to get to Flagstaff. I've come down a bit since Payson, but I'm sure [that] I'm much higher than that [now]. I may be more than halfway to Flagstaff from Payson by now. The sun has finally come out, and the clouds have scattered about, so it's turned into a beautiful day. At this high elevation, the sun doesn't beat down near[ly] as hard—or . . . doesn't seem to—and there's a light breeze up here, so I'm able to keep cool even though the sun is out. Of course, I [also keep cool by] drink[ing] huge quantities of water (I have since I left). Each day, I would guess, I drink about a gallon or more of fluid, most of that water. Occasionally I'll stop and buy two cans of iced tea, and last night I drank a quart of orange juice before I went to sleep.

The terrain is getting exciting now. I was bored stiff in southern Arizona, with the deserts and the scrub cacti all around, but now I'm in high country, and there are pine trees all around me with pine cones on the ground, rock outcroppings every which way, and steep, winding mountain curves. I can't wait to camp tonight and for the rest of the trip underneath the pine trees on a soft bed of needles in some state park. Healthwise, I feel great. I take vitamins each day, and I'm continually popping salt tablets to keep my salt level up. Since perspiration involves the loss of body salt, one has to replace it on a regular basis.

The views from this mountain are spectacular. I stopped a while back to take a picture of the road, and it was hard to believe that I had walked the bike up that far. I feel stronger now than when I left, and I'm sure that by the time I reach the real high mountains, in Utah and Wyoming, I'll be ready for them. But for now, I'm going to press on. I've gotten a little over twenty miles under my belt today, and I've got several more [to cover] before nightfall. So here goes: onward up the mountain, listening to my tape.

2453.1 [201.0 miles]. I've reached the top of the mountain, north of Strawberry, and I'm now on my way down, heading toward the road leading to Flagstaff. [End of tape one, side one.] The trip up was a lot of hard work, and when I did get to the top, there wasn't a simple peak, such that I started down immediately, but [rather,] a series of rolling hills on top of the mountain. I'm sure now that I'm coming down, because in front of me is a vast panorama, well below this altitude. I regret having to go down, because I'm just going to have to come up again to get to Flagstaff, but it'll feel nice and I'll get some miles under my belt. I've now travelled more than two hundred miles on this bike trip, and since my original calculation was a 2400-mile trip, I would say that I'm about one-twelfth complete. And as for today, I've just about knocked off my thirtieth mile. It's been slow going, but I hope to make up some ground here, coming down the mountain.

2456.4 [204.3 miles]. Amazing. I've just now gotten to the bottom of that hill, and I reached a top speed of forty-two miles per hour on the way down. That's the fastest [that] I've ever been moving on a bicycle. Sad to say, but dark clouds have moved in, and on the way down the hill I felt a smattering of rain drops. I sure hope [that] they hold off until I get camped for the evening.

I forgot to mention that while I was on the top of the mountain, I stopped to have lunch. I had bought a small loaf of rye bread and some chicken lunch meat in Payson this morning, and I stopped to eat two sandwiches along with some vegetable crackers. It sure hit the spot. Also, as I rode along through the dark, pine forest, I listened to classical music from the [Northern Arizona] University radio station out of Flagstaff[.] The mood was awfully strange. I associate classical music with movies anyway, because most movies are scored with classical music, and so wherever I looked into the forest I imagined that a movie was being shot, and that I was watching it. At one point I saw a white-faced guernsey cow staring at me through the pines. How surreal it looked! I thought for a moment that I was watching an avant-garde movie.

Now the terrain is inclining again. There are huge rocks on either side of me that have been cut through to make the roadway, so I'll put the recorder away and push my way up the hill.

2464.2 [212.1 miles]. I've [travelled] forty miles so far today. Right now I'm on the road leading northward to Flagstaff. A few moments ago I came to a turnoff, and there was a single gas station there, so I stopped for a can of lemonade and chatted with the owners and clerks for a few minutes. For the first time since I've been in Arizona I feel like I'm in the "Old West." With the tall pine trees and the cattle grazing every now and then, I somehow feel that I'm at the "Ponderosa," which is the name of the ranch in the old "Bonanza" [television] series. A man came into the gas station with a pickup [truck], climbed out with a huge belly and a large pair of overalls, and I thought [that] he could have passed for "Hoss" on [the] Bonanza [show]. I think, too, that this is "conservative" country. A couple of things tell me that. First, I overheard the man at the gas pump say, "Who requires that?," and the attendant said, "The government." [The man then] said, "I don't care about the government." Second, outside the gas station I saw a poster for (apparently) a local sheriff. The only words on the poster were "Joe Richards"—the name of the candidate, supposedly—and the pose was striking. The sheriff (or candidate) was dressed out in full uniform, standing with thumbs in pocket, peering out from under the broad-rimmed hat. It looked like a caricature from some movie. But, I must say, he looked like a sheriff, and among conservative folk that may be sufficient to get their votes.

This road leading into Flagstaff is a sight for sore eyes. For about three or four miles now I've been pedalling in a high gear, gradually downhill. The road itself is a reddish color; I'm not sure why that is. But there's a nice bike path on the side, the rain is holding off for the moment, and I'm trying to recapture some of the mileage [actually, time] that I lost while pushing my bike up those mountains.

One of the men at the gas station, upon being asked, told me that Flagstaff was fifty-four miles from that intersection. As soon as he said that, he said, "Yup, drive it every day," as if that were something to be proud of. Without even having known that man, I could tell that he was intoxicated.

About a mile and a half back, I saw a [National] Forest Service truck and several small fires on each side of the road. When I got closer, I saw a sign reading, "Forest Service, Prescribed Burn." Two or three men in yellow jackets were keeping the blazes under control. I always thought that it would be an exciting job to be a member of the National Forest Service or one of the state park ranger services. It would give me a chance to be outside, near and around animals, and not cooped up with books and paperwork all day. Oh, here's another [fire] to my right, in front of me. [It] must be another Forest Service [prescribed] burn.

2473.3 [221.2 miles]. Hills, hills, hills! What am I going to do? The first few miles from [Highway] 87 to [the town of] Happy Jack were pleasantly sloping downward, but then the hills began, and I just finished climbing what I hope is the last one for a ways. In fact, right now I'm on one of the few flat spots that I've seen on the entire trip. Judging from past experience, however, it won't last.

The weather conditions deteriorated since last I picked up this recorder. With thunder rolling in front of me in every direction, the raindrops came down progressively harder until I decided to stop and cover the bike up temporarily. I sat down by a tree with my raincoat on, looking at the map, until moments later the sun appeared from behind the clouds and the rain ceased. Right near me was a tree which had been blown to smithereens by lightning. I wonder if it happened in the recent past, perhaps today.

No sooner did I get on the road again [than rain]drops began to fall. So, once again, I covered the bike up and waited a few minutes until it slowed down. Right now the sun is shining full force, approximately three hours into the western sky. Behind me is a long decline, and the sky is considerably darker there than it is ahead. It looks like the worst is behind me. The road is still wet, and there is an incline directly in front of me. I'm going to take my flannel shirt off and start walking the bike up the hill. I'm determined to get to Lakeview State Park tonight. I think that it's about twenty-five or so miles from here. If I don't make it on my own, I'll hitchhike and try to get a ride again. But the only thing that'll stop me at this point is hills, and possibly more rain. But I think [that] the rain is out of the picture, for the moment.

2474.8 [222.7 miles]. It sure is quiet up on this mountaintop. But then, that's one of the reasons [why] I wanted to go on this bike trip—to be alone, to have peace of mind, [to] think freely, [to] forget about worries and cares: just me against the elements.

I made it to the top of another hill, and I'm now moving slowly down the other side. The town of Happy Jack can't be far in the distance. [I never did find the town.] Once I arrive there, it'll be approximately twenty-four miles to Lakeview State Park, which is just south of Flagstaff. From my reckoning, the park itself is at 7000 feet, and that's slightly above the altitude of the city of Flagstaff. So if I can make it to the park tonight, the worst will be behind me. I can get up in the morning, coast into Flagstaff for breakfast, and head northward toward the Grand Canyon. It's amazing how far I've come in less than three days. I'm actually quite proud of myself, not having ridden a bike in several weeks and having to ride through rain and hot weather—and of course the hills. So far, so good.

It's fix time for political junkies. Yes, I'm a political junkie. I admit it. Have been since at least 1975, when I began studying political science as a college freshman. With the Democrat National Convention underway, it's hard for me to think or write about anything else. Thank goodness the Tour de France is over and the Olympic Games have yet to begin; otherwise, I'd have a two-track mind.

Does it seem to you as though liberals feel entitled to govern? It does to me. This sense of entitlement has two sources. First, liberals think they're more intelligent than conservatives. Do you want to be governed by a smart crowd or a dumb crowd? Second, liberals think they're better (specifically, more compassionate) than conservatives. Governance, they suggest, is a matter of having sympathy for the disadvantaged. It's about having your heart in the right place. Liberals loved it when Bill Clinton said he felt his interlocutors' pain. It struck just the right note with them.

Both liberal beliefs are false. I've addressed the first of them—about alleged conservative stupidity—in a Tech Central Station column. See here. With regard to the second, I can only point to the law of unintended consequences. Most liberals I know, and I know quite a few of them, having been one, are well-meaning and admirably motivated. They sincerely believe that their policy prescriptions, if implemented, will make the world a better place for all concerned. If only those dastardly conservatives would get out of the way, they seem to say, we would have heaven on earth.

But intentions are not outcomes. Most liberal programs have had bad outcomes, even by liberal standards. Programs designed to end poverty, for example, have entrenched it—and in the process created a class of bureaucrats who have a vested interest in continuing the very programs that have failed. Programs designed to create opportunities for African-Americans have generated resentment among whites and an insidious assumption that any African-American who "makes it" is unqualified. Imagine the effect this has on the self-respect of African-Americans. If you deprive a person of self-respect, you take away the most important thing he or she has.

Liberals think that the means to world peace is negotiation (conciliation, compromise). No conservative opposes world peace. But not all conflicts are resolvable through negotiation, for that requires rational, self-interested agents. Our enemies today—radical Muslims—are irrational, at least by Western standards. They value destruction of their enemies more than their own lives or the lives of their loved ones. How do you negotiate with someone who is suicidal? How do you negotiate with someone who wants your death more than anything else? You have no leverage. The only way to deal with implacable, irrational enemies is through force. Conservatives, to their credit, understand this. Liberals do not.

When you think about it, it's ironic that liberals believe they're more intelligent than conservatives, because an intelligent person tempers idealism with reality. Liberals conveniently ignore certain unpleasant realities, such as the effect redistributive policies have on incentive. The more people are taxed, the less incentive they have to work or invest. Liberals think that if we sit down nicely with our enemies, we can bring them around. This may work with some enemies, but not all. In their zeal to ensure that everyone has a decent minimum of health care and other necessities, liberals ignore self-respect, self-esteem, and personal responsibility. When is the last time you heard a liberal talk about such things, much less emphasize them? And yet, aren't they crucially important? Shouldn't every policy take them into account?

It's no accident that liberals are called do-gooders. They mean well, but they usually end up making things worse. Their hearts bleed for the disadvantaged, but, by helping them, liberals create unhealthy dependencies, disincentives, and dysfunctions that end up harming the very people and communities they intend to help. It's tempting to conclude that liberals are stupid, but I think it's more complicated than that. They're impatient. They want results now, not later. They're shallow. They view humans as sentient beings, not as rational, autonomous agents. They're impetuous. They don't think through the implications of their policies.

With all due respect to my liberal friends, these are not the traits of the wise. They are the traits of children. Not only are liberals not entitled to govern; they don't deserve to govern. They need to grow up, develop a more holistic view of the person, develop a more realistic view of human nature, and cultivate a sense of patience. They need to stop patting themselves on the back for being benevolent, compassionate, caring, and sympathetic. Benevolence is neither necessary nor sufficient for acting rightly. Caring, far from being a synonym for justice, is often an impediment to it. It's not for nothing that we say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Liberals prove it every day.

7-29-84 2352.8 [100.7 miles]. It's Sunday morning. I've been on the road for about two hours, [but] I've gone only about nine miles. Just a few moments ago I got to the top of the mountain and right now I'm coasting down the other side. It's a fantastic feeling after working so hard to get up the mountain. The altitude at the top of the mountain was 4983 feet—just incredible. That means that I have to come down about 1400 feet to get to Globe, which is at 3500 feet. As I see it, I climbed from 1900 feet to 4900 feet in roughly twenty miles, from Winkelman to the top of the peak, and I'm going to have to climb about 3400 feet from Globe to Flagstaff. So it's encouraging to realize that I won't have to climb much higher to get into Flagstaff than I already did.

My top speed coming down the mountain so far was thirty-seven miles per hour. Right now I'm clipping along at about twenty-seven [miles per hour], and it looks like "clear sailing" in the next mile or so. Let me backtrack a bit to give the mileage when I started out this morning. It was 2343.6, which means that I rode ninety-one and a half miles yesterday, the first day of the trip. Not bad.

Let me pick up with the events of yesterday. After I weathered the storm, so to speak, and after I [went] downhill for several miles, I came to a steep incline. I was looking for the dirt road to Pioneer Pass State Park, so that I could camp for the night, but I never did find it. I saw a couple of gravel roads, but there were no signs indicating that the park was on th[ose] road[s], so I pressed on. I decided that I would try to get to Globe, if possible, and, if not, I would have to find a convenient place on the side of the road to pitch my tent and sleep. But I was feeling incredibly sticky and sweaty, so I wanted as much as possible to find a shower. But that wasn't to be. The upward climb was just endless. I began pushing my bike very early on, and when the sun was about an hour up in the western sky, I decided that I would stick my thumb up for random trucks, in the hope that I could get a ride into Globe, where I would rent a cheap motel room for the night. But nobody saw fit to stop and help me, so I plugged on, cursing the trip itself.

This is awfully strange. I just passed a sign reading, "Globe City Limits," and there is no living thing or human structure to be seen. I'm out in the middle of a barren desert, with hills and scrub plants everywhere, but no sign of life. I don't expect to arrive in Globe proper for another five and a half miles or so. Anyway, to finish the events of yesterday, I finally came to a point where I was just too tired to go on. Rain drops had begun falling again, and so I feared that if I didn't pitch my tent right away, I would end up getting soaked and end up spending the night shivering and freezing because of the wetness. I picked out a small, flat area near the side of the road and picked up a few rocks from the area, threw the tent pad down, and proceeded to pitch the tent. Rain drops were falling all the while, but I managed to get the tent up and the bike covered before it grew too heavy.

Before I went to sleep I washed my face and upper body with a cold, wet towel, dried myself off, and ate a peanut butter sandwich and cookie for supper. The ground was lumpy and hard, but not much harder than the floor [that] I've been sleeping on for nearly a year [in my apartment], so I actually had a pretty good night's sleep. During the night I awoke several times to the sound of passing vehicles, lightning flashes, thunder rolls, and the rain, pelting down onto the tent. My hope was that the tent wouldn't leak, and I was happy to see that it didn't. What happened was that dew drops formed on the inside of the tent, and if you touch the inside of the tent, that will cause a drip, and water will come through the tent. So I had to be careful not to hit the top of the tent with my head or anything while I [was] inside of it. Well, I can now say that I've weathered a mountain storm in the middle of the day, and also held up through a nighttime storm in my tent. In fact, I had hoped that I wouldn't have to pitch a tent on the side of the road, but everything worked out well, and here I am on my way into Globe.

I awoke this morning to the gentle rays of the sun coming into the tent from the east, over the mountains. After rolling around for an hour or so on the sleeping bag, I finally got up and prepared to move on. After brushing my teeth with cold water and packing up all of my gear onto the bike, I sat briefly [on a rock] reading the [news]paper while I ate my last peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and my last two cookies, and pulled out onto the road to continue pushing my bike up to the top of the peak. The experience of pushing a bike up a steep mountain is just horrible. I grew so tired that I had to stop every hundred yards to catch my breath, and then I would grab []hold of the bike and push on. I cursed the fact that I had come through Globe instead of the Phoenix vicinity, where I'm sure [that the terrain] would have been flatter[.] But, as they say, every hill has its downside, and I'm still taking advantage of that. Today, I would like to get at least as far as the northern tip of Roosevelt Lake, if not farther. I'll have to wait and see what the conditions are and how I feel.

From the time I was in Oracle Junction until now, I've been on Highway 77, but I am quickly approaching a junction with Highway 70. I'll be taking that into Globe, and then coming out of Globe on still another highway. And so, on I go.

I'm at the edge of Globe. I notice that it has an elevation of 3544 feet, it was founded in 1876, and it's the home of "Gila Pueblo College." Mileage is [currently] 2358.8 [106.7 miles].

2369.5 [117.4 miles]. Right now I'm sitting on top of a little hill outside of the city of Globe. The first thing that I did when I got into Globe was pull into a McDonald's [restaurant] and have a large breakfast. I had scrambled eggs, an English muffin with jelly, three pancakes with syrup, hash browns, a raspberry Danish, and a large coffee. I felt uncomfortable waiting inside [of the restaurant] to order [the meal] because I must be stinking up a storm by now. I haven't showered since Friday night, when I got home from Phoenix, and I probably won't shower again until later on tonight. But I feel halfway decent right now. As long as I can clean my face and hands, that takes away most of the discomfort.

After I ate breakfast, I stopped at a Circle K [convenience store] to buy some more ice and [to] fill up my half-gallon jugs, so [that] I'll have plenty of iced water. In fact, each day I think [that] it would be a good idea to fill the jugs with iced water before I move on.

Globe is a strange-looking town. It sits amidst the mountains, and I think that it's a mining town, because there was this huge, long, white mountain to the west of town, and I could see a gravel truck of some sort driving along one of the terraces. I assume that it's some sort of ore mine or other—maybe even a copper open-strip mine. But it was a sight to see, coming upon it all of a sudden: a long—perhaps a mile-long—white mountain.

A few moments ago I stopped at a roadside park to put my tape player on my pants, which is the first time that I've listened to a tape on the trip. I also went to the bathroom and took my vitamins, so in a few moments I'll be back on the road toward Roosevelt Lake. I'm getting excited, because I saw a sign back there which said, "Roosevelt Dam, 29 Miles." I'm hoping to see a large dam and lake with a lot of scenic places. Well, here goes. It looks like a nice, downhill ride for a few miles.

2377.2 [125.1 miles]. I'm still between Globe and Roosevelt Lake, in the midst of pushing my bike up a huge mountain, just as I did before. Dark clouds have moved overhead, and I felt some sprinkles a while back. It doesn't look good for me.

I had no idea that there would be this many mountains on the route [that] I had selected. I knew that when I got into Utah and Wyoming I would have to do some pushing, but I didn't think [that] I'd have to do much [pushing] in Arizona—at least this [far south] in the state. All told, I've probably pushed my bike ten miles so far. My back is extremely red from the sun. I can feel it "burn" every now and then, so I must have a sunburn. One of the things that I wanted to do on this trip was to get out into the elements—that is, be cold when it's cold outside, hot when it's hot [outside], live through the rain showers and the cold nights, etcetera. By the time I get back I should be quite dark, and also in better physical shape.

Usually, when it rains here in Arizona, the clouds pass over quite quickly, dropping their load and then moving on. But these clouds don't seem to be moving very fast. They're stretching from the southern part of the sky clear across to the north of me. I'm currently feeling sprinkles, and if it gets much harder I'll just stop the bike and throw the rain cover over it until [the storm] goes by.

2379.3 [127.2 miles]. I saw a dead rattlesnake beside the road a few miles back. It was puffed up, so I couldn't really tell how thick it was, but it was about three feet long. I took a picture of it so [that] I'd have a record to show [people].

Right now I'm cruising downhill at thirty-five miles an hour, and Roosevelt Lake is directly before me. It's absolutely breathtaking! I've been cruising at thirty-five miles an hour for a couple of miles now, and it looks like I've got a long way to go, because it's almost straight downhill.

I just about had an accident a few moments ago. A truck was cruising behind me as I was going about thirty-five to thirty-seven miles an hour, and there was some sand on the road—apparently washed across from a wash of some sort. I slowed down as much as I could before I got there, but it was too late, and I went bumpety-bump-bump over that sand, hanging on tightly to the handle bars—and I made it through OK. Everything seems to be in place on the bike.

This is by and large [sic: should be "far and away"] the funnest [sic] I've had on the trip. There's no way I can describe how I feel cruising down this mountain after all the work that I've done. The only taint is that it's currently raining, or at least starting to, but I'm going to press onward.

2381.7 [129.6 miles]. I'm still clipping along at thirty-two miles an hour without pedalling. The lake is getting nearer and the rain is letting up, but I think [that] I have a long way to coast yet.

2387.4 [135.3 miles]. I'm currently driving alongside Roosevelt Lake. So far, so good, with the weather, but the sky is clouded up in every direction now. Some of the clouds don't look good. I've been riding down a long, gradual incline [sic] for some time now, and I feel very good. I stopped at a small store to get two cans of Lipton iced tea and some postcards, and my feeling at this point is that I should try to get to Payson tonight. I know [that] there aren't any campgrounds there, but I've spent so little money thus far that I may just pop for a cheap hotel or motel. There are still several hours of daylight left, so I might as well take advantage of them. In the meantime, I'm going to be listening to the Dodgers-Reds [baseball] game on my little headset. The game is in the fourth inning and it's one to nothing, Dodgers.

2393.8 [141.7 miles]. I've now ridden over fifty miles today, and I still plan to make it to Payson before nightfall. Right now I'm paralleling very closely Roosevelt Lake. It's so big, I just can't get over it. In Michigan, we have the Great Lakes, and of course one can't see across those. But I haven't seen a "small" lake of this size, if you know what I mean. It just goes on and on, mile after mile. Right now I'm going down a fairly steep decline, and I saw a sign along the road a few moments ago which said, "Steep Mountain Curves, Next 32 Miles." Right below me, at the moment, is a motor boat pulling a water skier, and overhead the thunder is still rolling. Orel Hershiser of the Dodgers has a perfect game through six innings.

The thunderstorms I said I love (see the immediately preceding post) may have done a number on my computer overnight. When I got up this morning, the DSL modem didn't work. I've been on the telephone all morning with EarthLink technicians—to no avail. Someone is going to have to come to my house tomorrow to solve the problem, which means I have to clean the house. Where to begin? To make matters worse, I can't even use the dial-up connection on my Dell computer (the fast one), so I had to fire up the Compaq to post this. It's maddeningly slow. If I don't post anything for a while, you know why.

I love thunderstorms. Always have. There's something warm and romantic about them. I've been blessed to live in three states—Michigan, Arizona, and Texas—that have spectacular thunderstorms. We're in one right now. I should get off the computer in case the power goes out, which it sometimes does. That's okay; I've been on the computer long enough today. Time to make popcorn and watch the ballgame and the political shows. See you in the morning.

Dr John J. Ray is giving 'em hell. But hey, they deserve it. See here.

Just one in four U.S. adults exercised enough in the 1990s, the government said Thursday. Only 25.4 percent of adults met government recommendations for physical activity in 1998—virtually unchanged from the beginning of the decade, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Almost 30 percent reported no physical activity. The CDC recommends a half hour of moderate exercise, such as walking, five times a week, or 20 minutes of vigorous exercise, such as running, three times a week. The findings are based on random phone surveys conducted by health officials in 43 states and the District of Columbia between 1990 and 1998.

(From wire reports, The Dallas Morning News, 9 March 2001)

7-28-84 Saturday. [What follows is a literal transcription of notes from a microcassette. Bracketed material has been inserted after the fact to flesh out and correct original impressions.] The Second Great Bike Ride has now begun. As I walk out the door, the time is 6:37 A.M., the odometer reads 2252.1, and the outdoor temperature is eighty-nine degrees. For the remainder of the trip, each time [that] I turn on the recorder I'll give the mileage, and then say what I have to say.

2277.0 [24.9 miles]. I'm finally on the way. It's hard to believe that I've got all of my work done and [that] I'm out in the open on the highway with the bike. Right now it's, oh, probably ten o'clock or so. I've been riding since six thirty, roughly, and I'm riding northward on Highway 89 right now, somewhere south of Oracle Junction. A few minutes ago I stopped by the side of the road to take a drink of water and eat a small, energy[-producing] candy bar. The weather conditions are just excellent. The sun is out to my right, slightly overhead; most of the sky is just a deep blue, but there are some white, fluffy clouds over the mountains to my right. There are no mountains in front of me, but there are some to my left a few miles, not too big. To my right and behind me are some huge mountains, the Santa Catalinas. I'm just now climbing out of the Oro Valley, I think. It's been a hilly ride and I hope to get onto some flat ground after Oracle Junction, when I hit the Pinal Pioneer Parkway. Riding conditions thus far have been excellent. Right now I've got about a six foot to seven foot stretch of asphalt to the side of the road, all to myself, and I've had this sort of shoulder almost since I left the city limits of Tucson. I certainly hope [that] it continues like this for most of the distance through Arizona, but I sincerely doubt it. Traffic is quite heavy for a Saturday morning, but I think [that] I know why. A lot of the vehicles are pulling boats and campers and trailers, so I suspect that, like in Michigan, they're going up north for some recreation this weekend. By Monday that shouldn't be much of a problem, because the work week will have resumed. Well, here comes a hill, so I'm going to break, so I can put [the bike] into first [gear] and get up it.

2279.9 [27.8 miles]. I was faced with a serious moral dilemma a few miles back. As I was approaching the Oro Valley, with the Santa Catalina Mountains looming over me to my right, I noticed that there were [large, yellowish] caterpillars crawling from my right to my left toward the road en masse. Now, I didn't want to run over any of them, but, on the other hand, I didn't want to be watching the ground constantly to be avoiding them, so I had to choose a course of action [that] I should pursue. What came to mind was Peter Singer's argument that we have duties to assist the starving of the world. Singer argues that, if it is possible—if it is within our power to prevent something bad from happening, without sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought to do it. And the second premise here would be [that] it's a bad thing to kill caterpillars, and I think [that] that's true. . . .

2306.3 [54.2 miles]. Well, I've come a long way since I was interrupted, discussing the moral dilemma about the caterpillars. What happened was that a man rode up to me on my left as I was pedalling along and started talking, so I ended up riding with him and chatting for a good ten miles, I think. He was from Salt Lake City himself, and so he told me as much as he could about the route there, things to do and see in and around Salt Lake City, and so forth. He seemed [to be] more excited than I was about the trip. He kept saying, over and over, "Oh, I'd love to do that; you're going to have a great time." He was especially enthusiastic about the route that I've selected—predominantly Highway 89 all the way to Yellowstone. He said that he had driven that route many times in his car, and that it was very scenic and well worth the ride. That was encouraging, because much of my trip has been planned from a very detached standpoint. I've looked at maps, talked to people, and so forth, and decided which route I would take. In fact, the more I talk to people about the trip, and the route, the more encouraging it all sounds.

A pickup [truck] just went by with three girls in the back, and they were giggling and screeching when they saw me; so, of course, I waved. You've got to humor those kids. Well, let me backtrack to the caterpillars, and I'll work my way up to the present, because a lot, as I say, has changed. Right now the terrain is favorable, and I'm not too much out of breath, so I'll catch up.

As I was saying, with respect to Singer's argument, I think [that] it applies to this caterpillar dilemma because it says, basically, that if it's within a person's power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, that the person, morally speaking, ought to prevent it. In this case, since killing—or running over—a caterpillar would be a morally bad thing, in my opinion, I would need to justify not taking extraordinary steps to prevent harm to them. But I think [that] my actions were permissible, for this reason. Of all the things that I could do to prevent harm to the caterpillars, you could arrange those things on a continuum, and I think that my actions were at the innocuous, or harmless, end of the continuum, at least the more justifiable end of the continuum. Here's why. One of the things [that] I could do to prevent harm to the caterpillars would be to block off the road so [that], not only would I not hit one, but no other vehicles would hit one, either. That would be at one end of the continuum, I think. At the other end of the continuum would be to do nothing; and yet, I think [that] my actions fell somewhere near the end of taking some steps. That is, I kept my eye out part of the time and dodged those [caterpillars] that I did see crossing in front of me.

The problem here is [in] determining what is something of "comparable moral importance." Now, clearly—well, maybe not clearly—a caterpillar's life is more important than me getting to Yellowstone earlier than I might otherwise have gotten there. And so, it might seem that the trade is between a life and simply getting somewhere a bit earlier, but that's too simplified a view. It's not a question of a life, as if all life, per se, has infinite positive value. Some lives are more valuable or worthy than others. In [Peter] Singer's book Animal Liberation, for instance, there's a discussion of the different pain thresholds of various living organisms, and Singer thinks that that's a relevant consideration in weighing [the moral propriety of] action. Here, I think that the caterpillars, for one thing, are very numerous; that counts against saving any particular one of them. Secondly, a caterpillar arguably doesn't experience the same intensity of pain as, say, a human. And so the pain inflicted by running over a caterpillar would have to be discounted by the fact that it is a caterpillar.

One way, I think, to avoid the—or to solve—the dilemma is to distinguish between acting and omitting to act. In other words, I don't think that I owe a duty to save the caterpillars, but only to avoid harming them, and I think [that] I have to take only reasonable steps to avoid that harm. In this case, I think [that] the steps that I took were reasonable—that is, keeping an eye out, swerving to avoid those caterpillars that I saw, and continuing on my way.

Having resolved that dilemma—for the time being, at least—let me move on to other things. After the young man veered off, I continued on my way on Highway 77, which, at that point (at Oracle Junction), veered sharply to the east. I continued that way for several miles and found myself getting progressively more tired as I pedalled. At the time, I didn't know what was the cause of my fatigue. I didn't know whether it was the heat, or the wind, or the terrain, or perhaps that I am not used to riding the bike. But now I know what the cause was: It was the terrain. I was riding up a long, gradual incline going into the town of Mammoth—strike that: into the town of Oracle. Midway up the incline I decided to take a break. The sun was beating down quite severely on me, and I was getting tired, so I thought that a break might give me a renewed spirit. I found a halfway decent tree on the north side of the road, put my bike under it, and actually sprawled out and took a short nap for about fifteen minutes. When I got up, I was surprised to see dark clouds moving over me from the south, and I actually felt a few light sprinkles as I pedalled. But nothing further came of it, and the clouds have somehow scattered themselves across the sky. There seems to be no immediate threat of rain, although I heard on the radio this morning that there was a thirty percent chance of rain this afternoon.

The short break helped a little bit. I felt a little surge of energy as I pedalled on, and every time I saw a crest of a hill I kept hoping that I had finally reached the top of whatever I was climbing. And finally, to my happiness, I realized that I was at the peak of a mountain or hill and that I would be riding downhill for quite some time. In fact, there was a sign which said, "Seven degree incline, next twelve miles." You can imagine how happy I was to see that. The long descent led into the town of Mammoth, which, as I take it, is an old mining town. The homes were bare and plain, and there were a few battered stores scattered around town. Off in the distance I could see smokestacks, and smoke coming from them, so I inferred that there is some kind of smelter or copper mill off in the distance there. And I even saw some fertile fields in the near distance, so I assume that the residents are growing some sort of cash crop here, probably using irrigation to grow it. Right to my left, at this moment, is another farming operation of some sort. I see fence rows and lots of green, which stands out here in Arizona. I also see trailer houses and a few short rows of northern trees, so they must be irrigating in that area; northern trees wouldn't grow here naturally.

Now, to back up just a few more minutes: While I was in Mammoth I stopped at a Circle K store [and] bought a large Snickers bar and two cans of Lipton iced tea. I drank one can [of the tea] and ate the candy bar while I looked at the map, outside, and now I'm on my way toward Winkelman, which, I'm told, is about twenty-one miles from Mammoth. While I was at the store, a young man saw my bike as he got off his motorcycle and asked how far I was going. I said, "Yellowstone," and he shook his head a little bit and smiled and said, "You've got a long way to go!" And I said, "Yes, I know; I'm just starting out, and it's going to be rough." At that point he gave me some advice—or at least some information. He said that from Mammoth to Winkelman the terrain is basically flat to downhill, but that starting in Winkelman, there is a steady incline going into Globe. I told him that I had inferred that from the map, because Mammoth is at about 2300 feet [in] elevation, while Globe is at 3500 feet. I enjoyed talking with that young man.

Finally, as I was leaving the Circle K store and heading northward out of Mammoth, a group of men at a gas station saw me as they were standing around a Jeep, and one of them yelled out, "Where you headed, buddy?" and I yelled back, "Yellowstone!" And then as I turned my head I heard one say, "You've got a long way to go!" Ha ha.

2311.5 [59.4 miles]. The weather's gorgeous. The sun's beating down on my back, there are white clouds scattered throughout the sky (none directly over me, however), the humidity doesn't seem to be too high today, and there's not much of a breeze. So I'm pretty happy with these riding conditions. The terrain here between Mammoth and Winkelman is typical of southern Arizona. There are rolling hills in every direction, mountains in the distance on both sides of me, and every now and then I see a green field of some sort in the middle distance. I can't tell what crop's being raised, but it's clearly some agricultural operation. Everywhere else there are these small trees and bushes. I actually don't know the names of them—they might be mesquite bushes—but I'll find out some day. There are also huge saguaro cactus [sic] interspersed throughout the countryside.

I, personally, feel just fine. I seem to have gotten a surge of energy in the last hour or so from riding downhill and stopping for an iced tea, and I must admit that the terrain is basically downhill here. I think [that] I am in about seventh gear, and I'm pedalling every once in a while, because I can actually coast down this incline [sic]. There is still a bike path on the side of this road, much to my delight. It is about six feet wide, extremely smooth, and just fine for riding. I don't have to worry about the cars hitting me or bothering me, I have room to maneuver (so I don't have to ride a tight line, as I sometimes do), and the riding is just great.

I have a correction to make. A while back, I said that I would be taking Highway 89 all the way to Yellowstone. That's not true. In fact, I turned off on Highway 77 in Oracle Junction, quite a few miles ago, and I'll be on this highway at least through Globe, and perhaps all the way into Flagstaff, at which time I'll pick up [Highway] 89 again. But I don't care what they call it [the highway]; it's a beautiful ride, and I'm going to enjoy it.

2330.5 [78.4 miles]. Well, I'm finally north of Winkelman. I've gone almost eighty miles for the day, which was the goal [that] I had set for myself, but I'm going to try to get to one of the state parks [Pinal Mountain or Pioneer Pass] tonight. It's a little bit after four o'clock, and conditions aren't too good. So far I've avoided rain, but just barely. In fact, the road and the side of the road right now contain puddles, so it has rained here in the past couple of hours, I'd say. And right now the sky is clouded over pretty thickly, including some dark clouds, and there's thunder rolling in the background. I knew when I started this trip that I'd encounter considerable rain, but that doesn't mean [that] I won't try to avoid it, if I can. It looks like there is a clearing ahead of me, and so I think [that] if I keep moving, I may be able to avoid the remainder of at least this storm.

The rock formations in this area are just incredible. I'm actually riding through a mountain range, predominantly downhill (although now I'm moving uphill), and there's a nice creek or stream running along the road to my right. There are huge, green trees growing all around the stream, and things are greener here than they have been all day. I wouldn't mind camping by a stream tonight, if I have to, but, ideally, I'd like to get to a state park so I can shower. I am sweating profusely—have been all day. It would feel great to get a shower at this point.

Winkelman is so small, I don't know how it got onto the Arizona map. By the time I pulled into town, I was running low on water (for the first time today), so I veered off course a bit to the nearest retail outlet, where I bought a bag of ice and got permission from the proprietor—or clerk—to fill my two half-gallon jugs full of water. I now have a full allotment of water, that being two half-gallon jugs, which I carry one on each side of the front, in the panniers, and two water bottles, one slightly larger than the other. It sure was nice to drink iced water again, after sipping on a lukewarm-to-hot water bottle for several hours.

This terrain is spectacular. There to my right is the creek, veering every which way through the canyon. I just passed through a carved area, made for the highway, and I'm now going further into the canyon. There are steep mountains on each side of the road. The thunder's still rolling; it's actually getting dark, prematurely (because of the clouds); but I'm pressing on. Sweat's dripping into my eyes, but I don't care; I'm having fun.

2331.6 [79.5 miles]. As usual, on this trip, I have my small, stereo radio with headphones, and I also brought my cassette deck with me along with eleven tapes. I haven't listened to any tapes yet, but I've been listening to the radio off and on all day. Right now I can't get any FM stations, but I did listen a while back to part of a Cincinnati-L[os] A[ngeles] baseball game and to some news programs. I understand that the Olympic games in Los Angeles will officially begin in about an hour, or maybe less. I would probably watch a lot of the events on television if I were home, but now that I'm on the trip, I'll probably follow the activities in the newspaper each day.

It's actually too bad that it's dark, or that it's considerably overcast, because I'd love to have some pictures of these mountains. They're carved away in several locations where the road has to pass through, and they're just the most beautiful green and brown colors. I love the way the shadows play off the mountains. The ones further back tend to be darker and more flat-looking, while the ones in the foreground have depth and color and contour to them. One of my favorite photographs of all time is a photograph of Yosemite [National Park] taken by the late Ansel Adams. It shows Yosemite National Park with a variation of shadowing from foreground to background. It's just beautiful because of the depth that you can see in the picture itself.

Bad news! I felt some drops hit my back. I'm going to put the recorder away and zoom "homeward."

2334.0 [81.9 miles]. Just after I spoke those words, I located a small ravine coming down from the mountains to my left[.] I rushed in with my bike, located my plastic covers as quickly as I could (because rain was falling by then), and finally got the bike covered up before very much got wet. Then I worried about myself. First of all, I was going to sit under a tree, but then I realized that it was raining too hard to avoid [the rain] that way; so I grabbed my old raincoat, which has no hood, and . . . threw it over my head. And for the next forty-five minutes I sat there, next to my bike, with the raincoat over me, getting bombarded with rain, and even hail—hail the size of peas, at the largest! But, eventually, the rain died down, and now I'm on my way again. The road's still slightly wet, but it's drying out nicely. It's still overcast, growing late in the day, and I am cruising down a huge hill. I'm trying to make it to the state park before evening.

In front of me, in every direction, are large mountains. I know that I'm going to have to find my way through them, sooner or later, but I hope [that it's] "later," because I've gotten over eighty miles in today and I'm—[well,] I'd say I'm tired. I'd rather get up in the morning and take on the mountains. I finally lost my bike path a while back. The road here is two lanes, and I have to ride on the road itself, but the traffic is fairly sparse and I don't think [that] there's much risk of an accident. I just stay as far to the right as I can when vehicles are passing.

Hmm. I saw a sign about a minute ago which said, "Watch For Animals, Next Twenty Miles," and now I see a sign which says, "Watch For Pedestrians." [It] must be a busy intersection here! And so on I pedal—damp, [with] soaking wet shoes, but [in] good spirits. I still can't believe [that] I'm on the trip. There's been just so much work.

Twenty years ago today (can it be?), I began a long-planned and much-anticipated bicycle trip from Tucson, Arizona, to Yellowstone National Park. It was the summer between my first and second years of graduate school at The University of Arizona. Two years earlier, I had ridden my Sears Free Spirit bike around Michigan (742 miles) in ten days, so I knew I was up to it.

The summer of 1984 had been extremely busy. Too busy. I taught a five-week Introduction to Philosophy course, entertained friends for a week (in my tiny apartment), wrote a long fellowship paper (later published as "The Ethics and Economics of Right-to-Farm Statutes" in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy), researched and wrote a federal appellate brief for the Michigan law firm for which I had clerked before moving to Tucson, and, most importantly, studied for and took the Arizona Bar Examination. (I was already licensed to practice law in Michigan.) The bike trip was my carrot.

The outlandish plan, unreasonable by any standard, was to ride an average of eighty miles a day for fifteen days, which would put me in Yellowstone. I would then retrace my route, arriving back in Tucson the day before fall classes began. All told, I would ride 2,400 miles in thirty days. I had only $450 with which to survive—an average of fifteen dollars a day. As you will see, the trip was aborted before I reached Utah, in part because my back was fried, but I had fun. I learned a lot about myself and about my new state during this trip.

I'm going to post the journal entries from this trip in my blog so you can see what I did, what happened to me, and how I felt. I spoke into a Sony microcassette recorder as I pedaled, and later transcribed the tapes to the computer. I will post today's entry this evening, after my softball game. Perhaps soon I'll scan and post some of the photographs I took. I have one on the wall in front of me right now. It's beautiful.

The Great Straddler

By WILLIAM SAFIRE

Boston—Too-careful politicians think the best defense is giving no offense. To avoid offending any voters, John Kerry has come down foursquare on both sides of three social issues.

1. He says he opposes the death penalty—except for terrorists.

To a principled minority that believes government must never take a human life, this Kerry straddle is untenable. It makes no sense to hold that society has no right to execute a rapist-murderer whose DNA proves guilt, nor a confessed serial killer or genocidal dictator—but if the killer's motive is to terrify, then execution is in order.

You can take an honest stand against the death penalty, as Mario Cuomo did despite the political cost, but as soon as you begin to equivocate—making exceptions based on the degree of heinousness or public fear—you erode your moral position.

2. Kerry has long identified himself with a woman's right to choose abortion, but recently revealed to a supporter that he believed "life begins at conception."

People who are resolutely pro-choice believe that life begins at birth, and that a woman has a right to abort what is taking place in her own body any time during a pregnancy. People who are resolutely pro-life believe that life begins at conception and that aborting that embryo or fetus is akin to murder.

Though the two sides disagree about when life begins, they agree on what they are arguing about. You can be pro-choice with no restrictions on abortion, or pro-life with absolute restrictions, or—like most Americans—comfortable enough with current law discouraging late-term abortion. But most find it difficult in logic to be for both extremes at the same time.

That has relevance to today's debate about federal funding for stem cell research. If you hold that life begins at conception, you have a rational basis for arguing that taxpayer dollars should not be used to augment private support for medical research that extracts stem cells from even a tiny blastocyst already destined for destruction.

Kerry is making a campaign issue out of his desire to add federal funds to this lawful research at this convention. That's the vote-getting view (and my own as well), but he will not risk disavowing his contradictory belief that "life begins at conception" lest he seem indecisive or mistaken or anti-pro-life. And so his straddle goes on.

3. He says he is against same-sex marriage, on one hand, and against a constitutional amendment to ban it, on the other. His position: leave it to the states to battle out.

Pollsters show this neat dodge to be popular. But the Supreme Court may well declare the federal Defense of Marriage Act, signed by Clinton, unconstitutional. If not, the Supremes are likely to decide that marriages legal in one state cannot be illegal in any other. To overturn that decision would require amending the Constitution, and the necessary huge majority for that is not there.

This Kerry straddle works; he can say he opposes same-sex marriage (appealing to the majority) while opposing doing what it would take to stop it (which also polls well). Bush, contrariwise, seriously opposes it and is willing to put his opposition to a test that Congress and the state legislatures would decide.

What pattern emerges from these three issues? What difference does it show in the leadership quality of the two candidates?

On the death penalty, Bush is for and Kerry straddles. On abortion, Bush is against and Kerry straddles. On same-sex marriage, Bush is demonstrably against, while Kerry is rhetorically against but cleverly finds a policy resting place that allows him to straddle.

It happens that I agree with Bush on the death penalty, prefer the Supreme Court compromises on abortion and disagree with him on a same-sex amendment. But in all cases, this president takes a stand and makes clear what it is. Bush is not trying to be, in the biblical phrase, all things to all men.

Contrariwise, these Kerry straddles are troubling in one who aspires to trustworthy leadership. I won't be watching his acceptance speech tomorrow for war stories, Clintonian crowd appeal or sudden, soaring eloquence. An end to the straddling would help.

Some proponents of homosexual "marriage" took heart recently when the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) failed to receive enough votes in the United States Senate. They said or implied that this shows that the American people, speaking through their elected representatives, either support homosexual "marriage" or do not feel strongly enough about it to want to ban it.

This is risible—and fallacious. What the Senate vote shows is that not many people want to amend the Constitution until they think it's necessary. But I'm confident that if they come to believe it's necessary, they will not hesitate to amend the Constitution. Too much is at stake.

It's only a matter of time before a homosexual couple "married" in Massachusetts moves to another state, such as Texas, and files suit to have the "marriage" recognized. I believe several such suits have already been filed. Some court will rule that the United States Constitution forbids states to restrict marriage to heterosexuals. At that point, the proverbial shit will hit the fan. Suppose the state in question is Texas. Texans will rise up as one and demand that their elected representatives amend the Constitution to nullify the court decision. People in other states will see what happened and follow suit.

Give it some time. Once people realize that courts are forcing homosexual "marriage" on them, without a debate and without a vote, they will see the necessity for a constitutional amendment. Right now, they hope it won't be necessary, and rightly so, for we should amend the Constitution only when necessary to protect important values. Marriage is an important value.

Some people think that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) will protect states, but it won't. It's a statute. The United States Supreme Court may rule that DOMA is unconstitutional. Many states have enacted "baby DOMAs." These, too, will be struck down. Even state constitutional amendments prohibiting homosexual "marriage" will fall if the United States Supreme Court rules that the United States Constitution forbids states to restrict marriage to heterosexuals. The United States Constitution is the supreme law of the land. Anything to the contrary is ineffective.

If the FMA passes, no state, even Massachusetts, will be able to allow homosexual "marriage." Marriage will be restricted to heterosexuals throughout the country, as it always has been. As I've argued in this blog on several occasions (but not recently), the FMA is not a federalist provision. It denies states the right to decide for themselves whether to allow homosexual "marriage." I'm a federalist. What I would like to see is an amendment that lets each state decide for itself. If Massachusetts residents want to allow homosexual "marriage," fine. But that decision should have no effect on Texans or others.

Unfortunately, proponents of homosexual "marriage" have been unwilling to compromise. They're trying to force this absurdity on everyone. They're greedy and aggressive. It will be poetic justice if, in trying to force it on everyone, they don't get it anywhere.

Rime, n. Agreeing sounds in the terminals of verse, mostly bad. The verses themselves, as distinguished from prose, mostly dull. Usually (and wickedly) spelled "rhyme."

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

What's a vegan? How does veganism differ from vegetarianism? Is veganism healthy? These and other questions are answered by Jo Stepaniak at Grassroots Veganism. See here.

I just posted a thoughtful letter from North Carolinian Mark Ruscoe on my Ethics of War blog. See here.

I hope you're reading Donald L. Luskin's blog every day, if only to stay informed about Paul Krugman's errors, distortions, and fallacies. Keep up the good work, Don.

Masterpiece

By Dick Morris

THE master returned to center stage last night as Bill Clinton showed how to address a convention and use issues to win elections.

Facing a national consensus that terror, Iraq and homeland security are the key issues, Bill Clinton dragged America back to the domestic issues on which Democrats retain a strong edge. Long after Clinton's recitation of his own achievements has faded, his effort to reinject health care, Social Security, Medicare, drug prices, education and crime into the national debate may endure.

By reminding voters how much they would support the Democratic agenda were it not for Bush's strong stance in fighting the War on Terror, he opens the door for a major shift of national issues to those on which Kerry has a clear edge.

Can John Kerry walk through the door that Bill Clinton has opened? Will he realize that he can't win on terrorism and focus on the domestic agenda on which Democrats can win?

By framing the issues as he did, Clinton articulated the differences between Democrats and Republicans without bashing Bush by name. By avoiding the four-letter word B-U-S-H and speaking instead of party positioning on key issues, he avoided the backlash that comes against any candidate who spends his convention time bashing his opponent. But, at the same time, he attacked Bush all the same by articulating the opposition in programmatic and partisan, rather than personal terms.

How odd that it took Clinton, the draft dodger, to make the case for Kerry the war hero. By speaking of "sailing the ship," Clinton has given Kerry a metaphor he can use for the rest of the campaign.

But one other four-letter word was almost entirely absent: I-R-A-Q. Clinton raised the possibility that a Democrat can again win not just by maximizing the domestic issues that dominated our attention before 9/11, but also by minimizing the war we are now in. Rallying his constituency and his program once again, he worked to roll back the clock to the simpler times in which we once lived.

But there is still a reality out there. Al Qaeda will be heard in this election. The date is not Sept. 10, 2001. The War on Terror is unavoidable. It will intrude into this contest and remind us of why we need Bush.

But for one night, in the thrall of the master's voice, we recognize the beat of the drummer to which we once marched.

And what of the contrast between Bill's speech and Hillary's introduction? How could one witness the modulated, varied, emotional delivery of the former president and not realize that the would-be president's delivery was flat, shrill and one-dimensional? The now brown-eyed lady from New York couldn't stand on the same platform with her husband.

I believe . . . that newspaper editors and journalists bear a heavy responsibility for the prevalence of faulty spelling and grammar. Students who have not been trained to be conscious of how words are spelled and sentences constructed naturally absorb mistakes they come across in their reading. Those whose trade is in the printed word have a duty to the language, over whose use they have an exceptional influence.

(Michael Dummett, Grammar & Style: For Examination Candidates and Others [London: Duckworth, 1993], 7)

Here is a site where you can buy "metaphysical surrealist art." (I have no financial interest in it. I just like it.) By the way, here is one of my favorite album covers: Styx, The Grand Illusion (1977). I just listened to this album, which I once had on eight-track tape and now have on compact disc.

Addendum: David Cusimano sent this link as well—and he informed me that the Styx album cover is based on this work by René Magritte (1898-1967). As Johnny Carson would say, I did not know that.

This week's link is to A Field Guide to the Philosophy of Mind.

To the Editor:

In accusing Congress of voting "to deny the federal courts the ability to decide a key constitutional issue involving gay marriage" ("A Radical Assault on the Constitution," editorial, July 24), you got it backward.

Marriage has for all time and in all societies been understood as a serious commitment between a man and a woman, with benefits accorded because of the important role marriage plays in the procreation and education of children. Any radical change in this natural and historically legal definition of marriage is the responsibility of the people's elected representatives in the legislative branch, not the courts.

The "radical assault on the Constitution" is coming from our courts, not from our legislators.

Frank J. Russo Jr.
Port Washington, N.Y.
July 25, 2004
The writer is state director for the American Family Association of New York.

Daring, n. One of the most conspicuous qualities of a man in security.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

As I watch the televised proceedings of the Democrat National Convention in Boston, I can't help but think that the party is unprincipled. The message seems to be, "Vote for us and we'll take money from the wealthy and give it to you." The "you" is organized labor (including teachers), homosexuals, women, blacks, Hispanics, the poor, college students, and the elderly. (Some of these groups overlap, obviously.)

This isn't politics; it's socioeconomic warfare. It's about using the power of the state to redistribute wealth. Never mind that most wealth is earned or that much poverty is deserved. These facts inconveniently complicate the Democrat message. The appeal is to envy and greed, not to justice. It's about punishing the successful and rewarding the lazy and profligate. It's about securing power in order to engineer society.

Democrats seem oblivious to basic facts of human nature. Why should I work hard or make sacrifices if the fruits of my labor will be taken from me against my will (i.e., without my consent) and distributed to people I don't know, whether they deserve it or not? Why should anyone try to get ahead if he or she will be provided for anyway at public expense? The poorest people in the United States are light years ahead of the affluent in other nations. They're far more likely to be obese than starving. How much of the so-called homelessness problem is the result of bad choices and lack of self-control rather than misfortune?

You might say that Republicans are no more principled than Democrats. I disagree. Republicans believe in personal responsibility. It's their core value. It explains most of the planks in their platform, from reducing taxes to allowing individuals to take control of their retirement to promoting school choice to regulating or prohibiting abortion. Republicans believe that if the welfare system is dismantled, individuals will increase their charitable giving. There will be no more poverty than there is now (probably much less) and the giving will have moral worth, since it will be voluntary rather than involuntary. Coerced benevolence is an oxymoron.

I'm not a Republican, so don't dismiss this as a partisan rant. I don't subscribe to all the planks of the Republican platform. The only Republican presidential candidate I've ever voted for is Gerald Ford, when I was nineteen. I have no plan to vote for President Bush. But the Republicans are more principled than the Democrats. That, to me, is beyond cavil.

How would you like to hike across North America, from east to west (or conversely)? Daunting, eh? The next best thing to doing it is doing it vicariously. See here. (Thanks to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof for the link.)

Several readers have asked me in recent weeks whether there is anything morally objectionable about raising animals humanely and then killing them painlessly. If the animals are raised humanely and killed painlessly, it is said, there's no suffering being inflicted. Yes, a happy animal's life is ended, but if it is replaced by an equally happy animal, how could it be wrong? The amount of happiness in the world is the same. Actually, the amount of happiness is greater, since presumably humans who consume the animal's flesh and make use of its other body parts are made happier by it.

This line of thought will appeal to certain theorists: those who believe that the sole aim of morality is to maximize overall happiness. But notice that hardly anyone thinks this way about humans. Would it be acceptable to humanely raise and painlessly kill humans if there were a use for their body parts, or if, all of a sudden, many humans acquired a taste for human flesh? I suspect you will say no. But why?

Isn't it because humans aren't interchangeable? Each human has an inherent worth or dignity. Each life is precious. If we didn't think this, we would not mourn the loss of an infant, for in most cases the infant can be replaced in a matter of months via another pregnancy. While we care very much about human happiness, we don't think that the moral value of humans is exhausted by it. Happiness is just one dimension of human value.

Why is it different for animals? Why do people think that animals, but not humans, are interchangeable, and therefore replaceable? Why do we reduce animals to their happiness, such that, if one happy animal is replaced by an equally happy animal, nothing morally significant has been lost? I submit that this is irrational. Just as each human life is precious and irreplaceable, so is each animal life. That animals can't protest their treatment as happiness-receptacles is morally irrelevant. Babies can't protest. The severely retarded can't protest. The senile can't protest. You can be sure that if animals could protest, they would.

There needs to be a revolution in our thinking about animals. They are no more replaceable than humans are. Unless you are indifferent about replacing one of your children with an equally happy child, you should not be indifferent about replacing a cow or a pig with an equally happy cow or pig. It may be convenient to apply consequentialist reasoning to animals and deontological reasoning to humans, but there is no warrant for it. It's as arbitrary as applying consequentialist reasoning to other races and deontological reasoning to one's own race.

We now have the outlines of an answer to the enigma of what women want. Women are judicious, prudent, and discerning about the men they consent to mate with because they have so many valuable reproductive resources to offer. Those with valuable resources rarely give them away indiscriminately. The costs in reproductive currency of failing to exercise choice were too great for ancestral women, who would have risked beatings, food deprivation, disease, abuse of children, and abandonment. The benefits of choice in nourishment, protection, and paternal investment for children were abundant.

Permanent mates may bring with them a treasure trove of resources. Selecting a long-term mate who has the relevant resources is clearly an extraordinarily complex endeavor. It involves at least a dozen distinctive preferences, each corresponding to a resource that helps women to solve critical adaptive problems.

That women seek resources in a permanent mate may be obvious. But because resources cannot always be directly discerned, women's mating preferences are keyed to other qualities that signal the likely possession, or future acquisition, of resources. Indeed, women may be less influenced by money per se than by qualities that lead to resources, such as ambition, status, intelligence, and age. Women scrutinize these personal qualities carefully because they reveal a man's potential.

Potential, however, is not enough. Because many men with a high resource potential are themselves discriminating and are at times content with casual sex, women are faced with the problem of commitment. Seeking love and sincerity are two solutions to the commitment problem. Sincerity signals that the man is capable of commitment. Acts of love signal that he has in fact committed to a particular woman.

To have the love and commitment of a man who could be easily downed by other men in the physical arena, however, would have been a problematic asset for ancestral women. Women mated to small, weak men lacking in physical prowess would have risked damage from other men and loss of the couple's joint resources. Tall, strong, athletic men offered ancestral women protection. In this way, their resources and commitment could be secured against incursion. Women who selected men in part for their strength and prowess were more likely to be successful at surviving and reproducing.

Resources, commitment, and protection do a woman little good if her husband becomes diseased or dies or if the couple is so mismatched that they fail to function as an effective team. The premium that women place on a man's health ensures that husbands will be capable of providing these benefits over the long haul. And the premium that women place on similarity of interests and traits with their mate helps to ensure the convergence of mutually pursued goals. These multiple facets of current women's mating preferences thus correspond perfectly with the multiple facets of adaptive problems that were faced by our women ancestors thousands of years ago.

(David M. Buss, The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating [New York: Basic Books, 1994], 47-8)

The Democrats and the Loony Left

By Fred Barnes

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION is curtailing democracy in America. President Bush himself, in case you hadn't noticed, is like Hitler. By the way, he knew about 9/11 beforehand. On top of that, he let Osama bin Laden's relatives sneak out of America shortly after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The war in Iraq? It's a war for oil. And while we're on the subject of the war, Vice President Cheney intervened to assure contracts in postwar Iraq for Halliburton, the company he once headed.

These flights of paranoia, far-out analogies, conspiracy theories, and wild charges devoid of evidence are the stock in trade of the Loony Left. Normally such ideas are ridiculed or ignored by those in the political mainstream. But these days the fantasies of the Loony Left are increasingly embraced and nearly always tolerated by the Democratic party and its auxiliary groups. The result? The Loony Left now has a toehold on the Democratic party.

A toehold, but not a foothold. The work product of the Loonies is only beginning to become mainstream among Democrats. You won't find many of the wild ideas in the party platform, nor are they routinely voiced by party leaders. But they have been treated with tolerance, rather than active disapproval, by most Democrats. So far at least, this phenomenon has cost Democrats nothing politically. Certainly they haven't been tarred in the way Republicans were in the 1990s when a few of them flirted with lunatic notions about President Clinton. Ultimately, however, identifying with the far-fetched and the eccentric is bound to harm Democrats.

The classic tactic of the Loony Left is to liken a target to Hitler. So it's not surprising that placards with Bush's face made to look like Hitler's are now commonplace at left-wing demonstrations. But who would have thought former vice president Al Gore would link, none-too-subtly, the president to Hitler? In a speech at Georgetown University in June, Gore said this: "The [Bush] administration works closely with a network of rapid responders, a group of digital brownshirts who work to pressure reporters and their editors and publishers and advertisers, and are quick to accuse them of undermining support for our troops." The brownshirts, as most people know, were Nazis working for Hitler. If any Democrats chastised Gore for this slur, I missed it.

Gore is not alone. Billionaire George Soros, a lavish Democratic donor who was recently introduced at a political event by Senator Hillary Clinton, said late last year, "When I hear Bush say, 'You're either with us or against us,' it reminds me of the Germans." He wasn't referring to the Germans today. And there was Judge Guido Calabresi of the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. He told a lawyers' group in June that Bush came to power through "illegitimate acts of a legitimate institution," the U.S. Supreme Court. "The king of Italy had the right to put Mussolini in, though he had not won an election, and make him prime minister. That is what happened when Hindenburg put Hitler in." Calabresi said he wasn't "suggesting for a moment that Bush is Hitler," and he later apologized for his remarks altogether. Nonetheless, he had publicly analogized Bush's situation to Hitler's.

Michael Moore, whose anti-Bush movie Fahrenheit 9/11 has made him a favorite of Democrats, has explicitly argued Bush is moving the nation toward a Hitler-like dictatorship. "The Patriot Act is as un-American as Mein Kampf," he wrote in his book Dude, Where's My Country? Later on CNN, he said, "The Patriot Act is the first step. . . . If people don't speak up against this, you end up with something like they had in Germany." Moore was also a judge in a contest by MoveOn.org, a group closely allied with the Democratic party, to choose the best anti-Bush TV ad. Two entries, posted for a time on the MoveOn website, likened Bush to Hitler. However, MoveOn founder Wes Boyd said his organization doesn't share that sentiment.

Democrats in Washington turned out in droves for a special screening of Fahrenheit 9/11 in June. "There might be half of the Democratic Senate here," said Florida senator Bob Graham. His Florida colleague, Senator Bill Nelson, gave the film a thumbs-up as he left the theater. The film pushes numerous conspiracy theories about the president and his administration, and Democratic