Freedom, Civilization and Dancing Cars...
Daytona
Well, rain delays maybe be boring as hell for the fans in the stands, but you’re the folks at home you learn some interesting stuff.
Ironically, as good as a night Dale Jr. had (finishing 3rd), before the race he spoke about spending the rest of the year just trying to get things right (with the organization and the cars) rather than racing for points. GOOD! Very smart. Strip all the B.S. away and focus on what truly matters.
And congrats to Dale and the entire Bud crew on a great race! Good run guys!
Re: Quitting at 40. Dale said at the beginning of his cup career he didn’t want to be racing into his forties, yet as time goes on he still keeps pushing it back *chuckle*. I suspect that he maybe bald, deaf and blind before they pry him out from behind the wheel.
Of course it didn’t touch on the “Sterling Marlin” issue, which is being dumped by the sponsors who believe that only young=marketable.
Tony has a great attitude: There’s always racing somewhere. That’s a driver. Congrats to Tony, Zippy and the #20 on their first restrictor plate win.
EDIT: Hrm. With Tony's two wins at wildly divergent tracks, it seems as if the Hendricks/Roush model is not the only sucessful one.
Dale Jarrett talked about what racing is like now, how close and competitive it is. So maybe it is isn’t as “exciting” to the traditional fans, who are constantly bitching about how “boring” racing has become (“And get offa my lawn!”), but it proves my point that it requires more skill. Like tonight. Damn! There were some seriously hairy moments caused by some guys making some seriously hairy moves. Great race guys!
Though not for Mark Martin, who got caught in someone else’s mess. How frustrating did that have to be? Elliott was having a great night until the end, when he spun out trying to “whoa up” behind not just one, but two wrecks. I know Elliott’s struggles with restrictor plate tracks, but he has shown a steady improvement and tonight took a big step. Good on ya Elliott!
All the spins in the grass looked so elegant, I wanted to play a waltz over them. *chuckle*
And is it just me, or does the picture NBC uses of Bobby Labonte look like George Eads from CSI?
Civilizations
Check it out...
“We are so obsessed with our conventional, misleading models of technological development that we cannot imagine an impressive technology, such as the bow and arrow, being abandoned, except by retroactive savages. But it takes ingenuity to live on the ice, and the hunters never discarded anything useful. Nor, to judge the range of their meticulous carvings in soapstone and ivory, was there much beyond the range of their imaginations.
The bow was a useful instrument for the small game of the forest edge, not – except for warfare between human groups – in the big (and may Kip add, well insulated) game world of the ice lands.…Most aboriginal Australian peoples abandoned the bow when they found they could hunt more efficiently with simpler technology. The Tasmnaians abandoned bone tools of all kinds when they could manage without the bother if making them...The pre-Hispanic Canary Islanders were not the only people in the world to renounce navigation. Reversals in technology are part of the universal flow of change and are usually undertaken consciously and with good reason.”
I guess it depends on how one defines “success” as a civilization. If one counts material success, standard of living, area of dominance, etc. as the measure of a culture’s success, then by all means, the western technology forward model is the most successful. But if continuity of culture, stability of society, is the measure, then the picture changes doesn’t it?
What are other measures of “success” for a society? The first one that springs to mind is universal literacy, but there must be others. I’ll have to think about his.
Well, even literacy is deceptive, because someone can be literate, yet not have as well trained a mind as someone from an oral tradition, who relies on memory far more than the literate person does to retain information. As someone who regularly loses her car keys, I can attest to this. ;) The only difference is people in the literate cultures are exposed to more pure information than those from an oral tradition because of the wealth of it readily availble in stored form.
Independence Day.
Let me just say that I love this holiday. Next to Thanksgiving, it is my favorite of the “Official” holidays. I suppose the memories of the big parade that the entire town put together with crepe paper and wire and flat bed trucks and hay trailers, spending all day swimming around watching the boat parade, combined with the big fireworks display right over our heads on my grandparents dock has a lot to do with it. But also because, no matter objectively I try to look at our culture and what faults I may find with the current administration, I love being American. I love the fact that we a hopeful, optimistic people. That we look forward, rather than back. I love the fact that we’re an “in your face” kind of people. I love that we have so many regional cultures that all count themselves as Americans. I love the fact that there are so many beautiful places in the country that you can go and feel like you’ve just discovered it. I love the fact anyone can grow up to be president, that we have a society that is socially permeable...even if that permeability is dependant on money. I love the fact that this nation does not simply grow in numbers, but in ideals. That less than a hundred years after it was founded we had a major war not over who would take a throne, but over an ideology. What I love the most of all is the fact that we are a nation founded on ideologies and, though sometimes imperfect in their execution, what those ideologies were: Freedom, equality, rationality, justice, enfranchisement, self sovereignty & determination for all.
In short, WE ROCK!
“I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
So Happy Independence Day everyone! Have a great (and safe) holiday!
Well, rain delays maybe be boring as hell for the fans in the stands, but you’re the folks at home you learn some interesting stuff.
Ironically, as good as a night Dale Jr. had (finishing 3rd), before the race he spoke about spending the rest of the year just trying to get things right (with the organization and the cars) rather than racing for points. GOOD! Very smart. Strip all the B.S. away and focus on what truly matters.
And congrats to Dale and the entire Bud crew on a great race! Good run guys!
Re: Quitting at 40. Dale said at the beginning of his cup career he didn’t want to be racing into his forties, yet as time goes on he still keeps pushing it back *chuckle*. I suspect that he maybe bald, deaf and blind before they pry him out from behind the wheel.
Of course it didn’t touch on the “Sterling Marlin” issue, which is being dumped by the sponsors who believe that only young=marketable.
Tony has a great attitude: There’s always racing somewhere. That’s a driver. Congrats to Tony, Zippy and the #20 on their first restrictor plate win.
EDIT: Hrm. With Tony's two wins at wildly divergent tracks, it seems as if the Hendricks/Roush model is not the only sucessful one.
Dale Jarrett talked about what racing is like now, how close and competitive it is. So maybe it is isn’t as “exciting” to the traditional fans, who are constantly bitching about how “boring” racing has become (“And get offa my lawn!”), but it proves my point that it requires more skill. Like tonight. Damn! There were some seriously hairy moments caused by some guys making some seriously hairy moves. Great race guys!
Though not for Mark Martin, who got caught in someone else’s mess. How frustrating did that have to be? Elliott was having a great night until the end, when he spun out trying to “whoa up” behind not just one, but two wrecks. I know Elliott’s struggles with restrictor plate tracks, but he has shown a steady improvement and tonight took a big step. Good on ya Elliott!
All the spins in the grass looked so elegant, I wanted to play a waltz over them. *chuckle*
And is it just me, or does the picture NBC uses of Bobby Labonte look like George Eads from CSI?
Civilizations
Check it out...
“We are so obsessed with our conventional, misleading models of technological development that we cannot imagine an impressive technology, such as the bow and arrow, being abandoned, except by retroactive savages. But it takes ingenuity to live on the ice, and the hunters never discarded anything useful. Nor, to judge the range of their meticulous carvings in soapstone and ivory, was there much beyond the range of their imaginations.
The bow was a useful instrument for the small game of the forest edge, not – except for warfare between human groups – in the big (and may Kip add, well insulated) game world of the ice lands.…Most aboriginal Australian peoples abandoned the bow when they found they could hunt more efficiently with simpler technology. The Tasmnaians abandoned bone tools of all kinds when they could manage without the bother if making them...The pre-Hispanic Canary Islanders were not the only people in the world to renounce navigation. Reversals in technology are part of the universal flow of change and are usually undertaken consciously and with good reason.”
I guess it depends on how one defines “success” as a civilization. If one counts material success, standard of living, area of dominance, etc. as the measure of a culture’s success, then by all means, the western technology forward model is the most successful. But if continuity of culture, stability of society, is the measure, then the picture changes doesn’t it?
What are other measures of “success” for a society? The first one that springs to mind is universal literacy, but there must be others. I’ll have to think about his.
Well, even literacy is deceptive, because someone can be literate, yet not have as well trained a mind as someone from an oral tradition, who relies on memory far more than the literate person does to retain information. As someone who regularly loses her car keys, I can attest to this. ;) The only difference is people in the literate cultures are exposed to more pure information than those from an oral tradition because of the wealth of it readily availble in stored form.
Independence Day.
Let me just say that I love this holiday. Next to Thanksgiving, it is my favorite of the “Official” holidays. I suppose the memories of the big parade that the entire town put together with crepe paper and wire and flat bed trucks and hay trailers, spending all day swimming around watching the boat parade, combined with the big fireworks display right over our heads on my grandparents dock has a lot to do with it. But also because, no matter objectively I try to look at our culture and what faults I may find with the current administration, I love being American. I love the fact that we a hopeful, optimistic people. That we look forward, rather than back. I love the fact that we’re an “in your face” kind of people. I love that we have so many regional cultures that all count themselves as Americans. I love the fact that there are so many beautiful places in the country that you can go and feel like you’ve just discovered it. I love the fact anyone can grow up to be president, that we have a society that is socially permeable...even if that permeability is dependant on money. I love the fact that this nation does not simply grow in numbers, but in ideals. That less than a hundred years after it was founded we had a major war not over who would take a throne, but over an ideology. What I love the most of all is the fact that we are a nation founded on ideologies and, though sometimes imperfect in their execution, what those ideologies were: Freedom, equality, rationality, justice, enfranchisement, self sovereignty & determination for all.
In short, WE ROCK!
“I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
So Happy Independence Day everyone! Have a great (and safe) holiday!
posted by KiplingKat | 2:57 AM
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