Part 2 of 2: Sunday
Racing, racing.
It was a good day for the Bud Team, though not a great one. I’m still a bit fuzzy on why they ordered a track bar change on a car that was running 3rd only 20 laps or so into the race. *glare* While he only went down to 15th or so, he spent most of the race struggling to get back up there. It was fun watching he and Mikey race it out, if it wasn’t for the anticipated crowing of the pro-Eury ant-Teresa crowd I’ll have to listen to on the boards for this next week. But still, it is another step forward. 20 laps before the end of the race, Dale Jr. had the second (or maybe it was the third) fastest time of all the cars on the track before his tires faded. There was some tension over the radio, but I think this is one of those things that “slow and steady wins the race”, I rather see a steady trek towards improvement, learning along the way, rather than spectacular results right out of the box only to have to team collapse in confusion when things don’t go smoothly. So Good Job Guys!
Props also to 15 team too; bit slow in the pits, but they obviously got that car goin’. Great Job Mikey! And to Elliott’s pit crew for throwing everything but the kitchen sink at that car and getting into the top 15 by the end of the race. Kasey. :( And Tony! *gasp* Dude do NOT scare us like that! I'll avoid all the "Hot-Temper" cliche jokes and just thank the Gawds the guy is relatively unharmed. How did fire get into the cockpit?
Is it just me, or does every time Biffle gets out in front he’s gone. Does that guy stash a canister of nitro in his suit or what? ;) Just kidding. Man, for a back up car coming ALL the way from the back, that was one hell of a win!
End to my Spring Break: Movies.
I watched Elektra and Hotel Rwanda yesterday. Electra was ... *M’eh*, the villains sucked, but Hotel Rwanda is something I think everyone should see.
The Rwandan genocide was an abject failure on the part of the U.N. and all the western powers (America and European) that claim a higher moral standard gives them the right to interfere in other nation’s development. These people were practically abandoned as the ethnic majority in the country, the Hutus, tried to eradicate the ethnic minority, the Tutsis, as the standing army fought off rebel forces. The media got the story out, but no government cared enough to bother. Over 800,000 Tutsis, men women and children, died in slaughter in streets and in genocidal prisons. In the middle of this incredible terror, Rusesabagina, like Schindler, used what he had, what he could charm, what he could barter, to save over 1,200 people who came from the ethnicities on both sides of the conflict.
And before people think that we, as Americans, are “so beyond this sort of thing”, look what we did to the Asian American population during WWII, at what we did to the African Americans during the Civil Rights movement, at what is happening in this country now. We have armed militia, responsible to no one, out hunting down illegal aliens. How many steps is the Minuteman Project from the genocidal Interahamwe? It might not be as far as you think. And then there is the Red and Blue divide within our own nation. Given some of the rhetoric that people such as Ann Coulter have put out there such as “We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too. Otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors." Don’t exactly cool the flames of hate and establish a dialog of understanding.
The first question one asks oneself when hearing of any story like this is, “Could I be that brave?” Rusesabagina had opportunities to leave, but he stayed simply because he felt that if he abandoned the refugees at the hotel, “it would be as if I had killed them myself”. In today's modern society of denying responsibility for anything and everything, would we be able to instinctually recognize the responsibility we each have to each other? Are people like Rusesabagina and Schindler extordinary people or are they just like you and me in the right place at the right time? I don’t know. I don’t what I would do, I don’t think anyone can answer that question until faced with the gun. I can hope that we all would.
It was a good day for the Bud Team, though not a great one. I’m still a bit fuzzy on why they ordered a track bar change on a car that was running 3rd only 20 laps or so into the race. *glare* While he only went down to 15th or so, he spent most of the race struggling to get back up there. It was fun watching he and Mikey race it out, if it wasn’t for the anticipated crowing of the pro-Eury ant-Teresa crowd I’ll have to listen to on the boards for this next week. But still, it is another step forward. 20 laps before the end of the race, Dale Jr. had the second (or maybe it was the third) fastest time of all the cars on the track before his tires faded. There was some tension over the radio, but I think this is one of those things that “slow and steady wins the race”, I rather see a steady trek towards improvement, learning along the way, rather than spectacular results right out of the box only to have to team collapse in confusion when things don’t go smoothly. So Good Job Guys!
Props also to 15 team too; bit slow in the pits, but they obviously got that car goin’. Great Job Mikey! And to Elliott’s pit crew for throwing everything but the kitchen sink at that car and getting into the top 15 by the end of the race. Kasey. :( And Tony! *gasp* Dude do NOT scare us like that! I'll avoid all the "Hot-Temper" cliche jokes and just thank the Gawds the guy is relatively unharmed. How did fire get into the cockpit?
Is it just me, or does every time Biffle gets out in front he’s gone. Does that guy stash a canister of nitro in his suit or what? ;) Just kidding. Man, for a back up car coming ALL the way from the back, that was one hell of a win!
End to my Spring Break: Movies.
I watched Elektra and Hotel Rwanda yesterday. Electra was ... *M’eh*, the villains sucked, but Hotel Rwanda is something I think everyone should see.
The Rwandan genocide was an abject failure on the part of the U.N. and all the western powers (America and European) that claim a higher moral standard gives them the right to interfere in other nation’s development. These people were practically abandoned as the ethnic majority in the country, the Hutus, tried to eradicate the ethnic minority, the Tutsis, as the standing army fought off rebel forces. The media got the story out, but no government cared enough to bother. Over 800,000 Tutsis, men women and children, died in slaughter in streets and in genocidal prisons. In the middle of this incredible terror, Rusesabagina, like Schindler, used what he had, what he could charm, what he could barter, to save over 1,200 people who came from the ethnicities on both sides of the conflict.
And before people think that we, as Americans, are “so beyond this sort of thing”, look what we did to the Asian American population during WWII, at what we did to the African Americans during the Civil Rights movement, at what is happening in this country now. We have armed militia, responsible to no one, out hunting down illegal aliens. How many steps is the Minuteman Project from the genocidal Interahamwe? It might not be as far as you think. And then there is the Red and Blue divide within our own nation. Given some of the rhetoric that people such as Ann Coulter have put out there such as “We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too. Otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors." Don’t exactly cool the flames of hate and establish a dialog of understanding.
The first question one asks oneself when hearing of any story like this is, “Could I be that brave?” Rusesabagina had opportunities to leave, but he stayed simply because he felt that if he abandoned the refugees at the hotel, “it would be as if I had killed them myself”. In today's modern society of denying responsibility for anything and everything, would we be able to instinctually recognize the responsibility we each have to each other? Are people like Rusesabagina and Schindler extordinary people or are they just like you and me in the right place at the right time? I don’t know. I don’t what I would do, I don’t think anyone can answer that question until faced with the gun. I can hope that we all would.
posted by KiplingKat | 3:26 PM
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