Dear Dr. Laura

In her radio show, Dr Laura Schlesinger said that, as an observant Orthodox Jew, homosexuality is an abomination according to Leviticus 18:22, and cannot be condoned under any circumstance. The following response is an open letter to Dr. Laura, penned by a US resident, which was posted on the Internet. It's funny, as well as informative:

Dear Dr. Laura:

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination ... End of debate.

I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of God's Laws and how to follow them.

1. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?

2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of Menstrual uncleanliness - Lev.15: 19-24. The problem is how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

4. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord - Lev.1:9. The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

5. I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the police to do it?

6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination, Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this? Are there 'degrees' of abomination?

7. Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle-room here?

8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27. How should they die?

9. I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev.19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? Lev.24:10-16. Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair, like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy considerable expertise in such matters, so I'm confident you can help.

Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.

Your adoring fan,
James M. Kauffman, Ed.D. Professor Emeritus, Dept. Of Curriculum, Instruction, and Special Education University of Virginia
(It would be a damn shame if we couldn't own a Canadian :)

Almanzo: a film about a gravel race

From the Ground Up from Chris Skogen on Vimeo.

amazing people amazing work

Random + Perspective

1.  These past few months I became intimately familiar with my right gastrocnemius muscle, when one afternoon, just after bragging about the stellar state of my fitness for that time of year, I tore the sucker. I chose not to blog about the spectacular face plant I did after the onset of the tear, the subsequent months of physical therapy, missed races and missed training beer rides because nobody likes a cry baby.  But now the sucker is on the mend and I am back in the saddle (suffering, woah nelly).  Starting training over in late June kinda sucks no matter what you are training for, even though I am well aware it could have been way worse AND I am not someone whose financial well being relies on one's fitness.


2. A couple of weeks ago I dropped my kid off at his dad's for a six week summer visitation. Like every other year prior to the onset of said visitation, my kid cried for weeks prior, had nightmares, anxiety attacks and "anger episodes." And, like thousands of other parents out there, I stuck him on a plane anyway. Watching your kid go through this day after day, for the record, sucks donkey poop.

I am, thank the maker, allowed to visit my kid two of the weekends he is there, talk to him twice a week, and I bring him home after the visit is complete...so this means, three of those six weekends I am flying around to see/find him.

3.  So. Now that we've gotten THAT out of the way, allow me to say this:  while people's intentions are generally, I believe, overall insanely good, I find it wildly entertaining that the two things they most frequently say when they learn that my kid is gone for six weeks are (and yes, they are always said with an exclamation! point! at! the! end! for! special! happy! two-dimple-smiley! emphasis!!!):

A. "You should be able to refresh!" 
B. "I bet that will give you plenty of time to get your house nice and clean!"

Each and every time someone offers one of these responses I stare at them blankly for a moment before gathering my composure and spewing forth some bullshit kindly response. 

Refresh?  What? My savings account, only to notice that it is now empty of all funds? My fictitious supply anxiety medication? My drink?  

Seriously? Seriously. So there's that. 


And then there's "B"...to which I can only offer the truth: my house looks worse at this moment than it did at any point in college. 

You see, I am not particularly motivated to spend countless hours at home (nor am I motivated to spend any non sleeping hours there, for that matter).  It is not exactly a bundle of fresh cut flowers coming home to eerie quiet, the kid's nut cup and baseball gear still strewn by the back door, his now rotted carton of milk in the fridge, his big empty bed, or the dog crawling up there, sniffing for him and then throwing herself in a heap on his pillow and crying. ...all constant reminders of that which was not finished, a thousand things he'll learn and say and do there that I will miss, only to have him return home and act like a turd for a month while he "decompresses." 

It just ain't where I wanna be, okay? 

4.  On a personal note...I have these friends. These friends who are single, or newly married, or with very young babies, all of whom I never see because their children's or their lives no longer coalesce with the vibrations of my own my kid's when every night I am ass-planted in a lawn chair, or throwing extra B.P., or trying to get his new ball to bounce over the top of our house, or driving my kid around to practices, or driving home to pick up that which he forgot like some kind of crazed mad woman, or making some half baked meal, or insisting 57 times that he shower, or laundering his skid-stained underpants... and my god it's 11 already, we MUST go.to.bed. 

So. These precious few weeknights, this time, it is much more judicious of me to spend it trying like hell to catch up with these friends I used to have and love so dearly than it is to clean my god damned house. It's also kind of fun to live like a slob again.  So let's not remind me of it, okay? 

Phew! That was a very windy (and therapeutic) way of saying, don't say A. or B. 

Say this: "That blows, want to go ride bikes + get a drink?"

5. Since the year my kid began making this westward trek each summer, during the final week of his absence, I ride RAGBRAI. There could be documentaries shot and books written solely about the adventure and journey to, and then the week that is Ragbrai. 

Suffice it to say,  for each of the 10,000+ of us on the road each year, my story is unique, only in that it is mine. We've all got one....and what brings us all there mostly though is the common intrinsic understanding, that there has been, or will likely be at some point, a radical, unexpected internal seismic shift that occurred or will occur in each of us while pedaling.

There have been, to be sure, MANY different instances where I have quite literally 'found myself' pedaling. There have also been plenty of times when I've been up shit creek without a map or a paddle and half in the bag, but those are stories for other days because there are children and proper people that read this blog and those stories are not G-rated and they all implicate Chew someone. 

Every year T leaves, the process to/during/after the visitation is so overwhelming for him, by the time he leaves, I am so exhausted I can barely function. But every moment I want to curl up fetal, cry, retreat to a dark closet, sleep for days on end, or am overcome with anxiety that feels like a vice grip on my heart, instead... I pedal. 
  
My first seismic shift came years ago in the training, pedaling for hours on end; forcing myself into efforts that required breathing harder than I ever knew possible.  I quickly learned that the exertion and effort of turning the pedals can readily mask any other pain, distress, anger or anything on my mind.  

Years and thousands of miles later, I learned that the monotony and simplicity of turning pedals strangely also allows forgiveness, healing and then a complete calm to creep in...and then even more miles under my belt, riding with this family on wheels I've found: ...the keeled over until you almost fall off your bike, bubbling up still hours, days, years after the fact: laughter.

RAGBRAI, I like to think, is merely placed somewhere on the journey for emphasis, a huge and necessary set of exclamation points to celebrate the adventure of us all getting ourselves there, skidding in each year, however, and wherever we might be....laughing and dancing and drinking and pedaling regardless..

6. ...in 18 days... and then we all go back to our respective journeys, inevitably after all that pedaling, laughing, thinking whatever 'it' was, all of it, could have been worse. So much worse.   

Love

"The most important word in our language is love. The second most important word in our language is balance."

Friday

Deflated

For most bikers there is at some point an evolution that takes place, whereby one day we realize that flats happen, and they rarely happen in the confines of one's home.  I came to this point kicking and screaming like a spoiled rotten baby.  In prior years, when I'd flat in the middle of nowhere, I leaned on these guys, these guys, this guy, and a host of others to save me from my plight.

Then I went and fell in love with one of these three guys.   After he mowed me flat over with his massive hugs and quick wit, he sweetened the deal (among many other notable virtues) with a few lightening fast tube changes, tune ups, and some astoundingly beautiful ass whippings by bike.

Then one lovely day as we enjoyed a ride together on a rural northwest Washington Indian Reservation...I flatted.

When I looked over the top of my shades sweetly towards my lover for assistance, he shrugged his shoulders, raised a blonde eyebrow, looked me dead in the eyes and said: fix it.

I pled my case as he turned towards the sun, surely soas not to catch the daggers I threw his direction.  I'd stood in his shop and watched him change flats, but this would be my first time giving it a go alone.  I'd long since learned to carry the proper supplies, he ingrained that into my mind many moons prior, but this was a whole new challenge.  

He sat silently on the side of the road in the weeds and trash, swatting an occasional fly, patiently watching me struggle, cuss, and try to wrestle the tube inside my tire.  I had to look like a blindfolded drunk.  To his credit and good fortune, he never laughed and he didn't leave me there, although he probably wanted to and likely should have given my tantrum.

A long while later, when I couldn't muscle the last bit of rubber over the rim, he helped me finish and lent a few pointers. 

I didn't listen. I was pissed. Pissed that he chose that moment, pissed at my own exhaustion, pissed that there were black flies biting my legs.  And most of all I was pissed that I allowed myself to travel this many miles by bike, and had never taken the time to teach myself how to do this.  I was...OMG the horror of it all in that moment, wholly DEPENDENT.

Safely home, blood pressure returned to normal, and a few days under my wounded belt, my man appeared from his shop one afternoon with a spare wheel in hand.  He held it in front of him and flatted it.  He then tossed me a wedge, and the wheel, and told me to get to work.  I sat on the floor in our spare bedroom: cussing, sweating, sputtering my way through.

When I proudly shoved my first victory in his face nearly forty-five minutes later, he took a quick look and replied: tire's on backwards.  I wanted to punch his lights out.

I've changed many tubes since then...but I admittedly rely on the help of the guys I ride with far too often.  To my own credit, I always ride prepared.  Somewhere in my seat bag there are always a couple spare tubes, CO2 cartridges and a wedge, there for the taking by anyone who needs them. Lord knows it's the least I could do to repay the kindness of these fine fellows who have cared for me along the way.

It's something all these guys taught me: if you can, you help.  

***  

When my buddy M showed up at my house a couple weekends ago and we set off on our first ride together, I surveyed his set up and noted that he had no supplies. I'd just repacked my seat bag and figured we'd be fine.  When he flatted about 15 miles outside of town, I got to work.  

It felt good to finally be on the other side of this ordeal. I actually knew what I was doing, and changed his flat with a surprising amount of efficiency.  A kindly, concerned farmer stopped by in the most gigantic tractor I've ever seen offering shade, a ride, the run of his farm if we needed.

Disaster averted, we pressed on.  Except within two miles of the change, he flatted again.  My second tube was shot.  I still had some air.  Suddenly short on supplies, I weighed our options.  I used the remainder of the air, and we pointed ourselves in the direction of the closest town, but there was also a rural gas station a mile or so up the road.  Within seconds, he flatted again.  He made a call for a pick up from a buddy, and we hoofed it up the road towards the gas station. 

I figured I'd send M off with his buddy, and I'd pedal back to town to retool, reembark.  When I saw two bikes pedaling towards us, I was amazed at our good fortune and filled with hope that they'd lend me minimal supplies so I could hammer out a few more miles.  

When I realized one of them was one of my oldest (and always prepared) friends, I waved and hollered.  Except in that moment he chose not to stop, instead lowering his head, disobeying the most important of all unwritten biking rules: if you can, you help.  

It was in the subsequent miles of pedaling in solitude that day, after shock turned to anger and many miles passed, that I reflected back with great gratitude all those times I found myself in similar situations when others had helped me, and I remembered for the first time, that day, years ago, in all my stubborn anger when that man gave me the priceless gift I took from him so begrudgingly on the side of that Washington road: independence.  

Because he insisted that I learn how to fix my bike at that precise moment, I realize now, that only under the most extreme of circumstances do I need even ponder the potential risk of asking for help.  This is why, I know now, he insisted on my learning.   

It likely never occurred to either of us, that in my moment of need, one of the people I thought to be my greatest friends might not choose to help.  That too, was blissful ignorance while it lasted, and for the many years it did, I am grateful.

There is safety and power in knowing now what I didn't know then, albeit exceptionally deflated.