I hope you got some good notes handy, Mr. President.

Sorry Monsanto, I didn't know these were your beans.

Just in case you want to know what's going on with Dr. Kermit Gosnell ...

Woman struck by stray bullet on Mother's Day "expected to be alright."

Steven Michael Quezada to speak at LULAC convention.

Wow, Brad Tate's got some record there.

Our local K-9's have got some good scent magic going on.

Debra Farinella, I think those deceased people would like their flowers back.

Reported cases of HIV infection are on the increase on the Navajo Reservation.

Colorado pot legalization involves some new taxes that may not have the support of pro-marijuana groups.

KOAT reports a rash of bike thefts downtown.

Are some of our contemporary English words identical to words from a 15,000 year old "proto-Eurasiatic" Ice Age language?

Kidnapped in Cleveland, hostages for ten years and an instant-classic TV interview.

The United States finally came out and accused China of cyber-espionage.

The pink dolphins of Hong Kong are dying.

I bet Bill Richardson could get Led Zeppelin back together.

The ABBA museum in Stockholm is now open!

This article explains the origins the conservative Islamist movement in Bangladesh.

There's only enough room in this world for one manufacturer of "visors with simulated hair," AKA hairy-hats.

On this day in 1980, Yugoslavian dictator Josip Tito was buried.

• Dancing Queen (cliffdweller) [ Tue May 7 2013 2:32 PM ]
  
• ABBA Museum (engineer1971) [ Tue May 7 2013 7:07 PM ]
  

"We have a lot to celebrate tonight," says Judge Jim Gray, Gary Johnson's presidential running mate.

Ending the drug war was part of the Libertarian platform this year. And Colorado has voted in favor of the sale of marijuana for recreational use.

 

Today’s Office Excavations post is about a box of phlogs. If you punch this word into Google, you’ll get a dozen different definitions. I think, in this case—although there is no explanation accompanying the box—the artist means “photo logs,” or something of this ilk.

The box, which was under a stack of junk on a bookshelf in my office, is full of black, matte, blank greeting cards, each with a black and white photo glued to the front. Most of the subjects pictured are people, although one is cutlery and dirty plates. Each photo has intriguing composition and exudes a melancholy feel, such as I like my art to have. On the back of every card is an essay relating to the image on the front. The essays are little capsules of narrative poignancy.

 

A sheet inside the box reads “Phlogs: Journey to the heart of the human predicament. Note card series by George Stranahan.” (Dirty dishes do get right to the heart of my predicament.)

It turns out that George Stranahan is a physicist, philosopher, educator, writer and photographer who lives in Colorado. He is also a brewer. He started the Flying Dog brewpub in Aspen, which expanded to become a brewery in Denver, with his friend and neighbor Hunter S. Thompson!

The note cards are an offshoot of the book, Phlogs: Journey to the heart of the human predicament, which is full of photos and essays by Stranahan. He had some help on the bound version from author Nicole Beinstein Strait, who wrote some of the essays.

The note cards are really cool and I’m willing to share. If you comment on this blog, I will mail you one at random, and you can regift it or tack it to your wall. (Up to 12 people, because that’s how many cards there are.)

 

• I would love a postcard please. (jarmon) [ Tue Aug 16 2011 4:29 PM ]
  
• the end of the age of dinosaurs (gpicasso) [ Wed Aug 17 2011 10:24 AM ]
  
• Cool! (black) [ Thu Aug 18 2011 12:16 PM ]
  

Hospital shooting suspect leaves letter for family, says girlfriend hit herself.

On the other hand, girlfriend says shooter hit her when she wouldn't give him money for drugs.

Colorado fire marshal afraid people will burn down houses with marijuana growing equipment.

Impostor horse takes field at race track.

Circumcision. Apparently it keeps women from getting cancer.

Women's tears are a big turn off.

Hungary wants to defuse tension over strict new media law.

Tyson chicken tycoon dead.

Happy birthday, Kenny Loggins.

Reading glasses hustler sent to prison.

I've been fuming since I read about a totally dick move in my former state.

See, the tiny town of Black Hawk, Colorado (home to a couple casinos and not much else) has begun to ticket people for riding bikes in town. That's right, ride your bike, pay a $68 fine.

Black Hawk's City Manager, Michael Copp, says the ban is due to safety reasons, even though there hasn't been an accident involving bikes yet.

It's been years since I've been to Black Hawk, but the traffic there is awful. Basically, imagine a bunch of cars creeping along old-timey roads as they make their way to casino parking lots. And since this is Colorado we're talking about, by cars I mean giant SUVs. Oh, there are also enormous tourist busses thrown in the mix, because why drive to Black Hawk when you can hop on an air conditioned bus and avoid the windy mountain roads.

I'll be honest, I'm not the type of cyclist whose likely to ride through a town like this--heading up mountains without gears is no fun--and I think it's probably terrifying to do so. But citing safety seems like a big smelly load of BS. The kind of people who drive all the way up Black Hawk to gamble seem to me (note the strong editorial bias here) to be the kind of people who think bicyclists shouldn't be on the road at all. A couple of bikes here and there probably scares the crap out of them, even though they're moving at a snail's pace through town.

My biggest issue is the ban itself, whatever the reason. The chain-reaction that could come from this negates all the good work bicycle advocates have been doing in the last few years. It's always going to be somewhat unsafe to ride a bike on any road (just like it's kind of unsafe to drive on any road), but that doesn't mean making biking illegal is a good answer.

Worried about safety, lower the speed limit, put up "share the road" signs, offer bicyclists alternative routes. See, there are tons of ways to let everyone win. An outright ban is backward thinking. I sure hope Colorado bike advocates invade the town, get off their bikes in the middle of the streets and shut down traffic altogether. If biking is so dangerous, maybe driving should be banned and everyone should just walk.

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Our air hockey table in the back of a truck.

This week, we ran an Alibi classified ad offering up our the air hockey table to the first person who could haul it away. We got about a zillion calls and now it’s gone. Sorry to everyone who didn’t get here first. It was really huge and took up our whole back room, so it’s kind of nice to have it gone. Our back room was packed with so much junk you could barely move in there, much less play air hockey. Farewell, air hockey table.