Reading for Row

Reading for Rowing

Greetings, Gentle Reader, June 18, 2008

I see that Kathy has installed a nifty "Can-Al-O-Meter to track contributions, and while it's cool to see that we're closing in on Rochester, Whitehall seems quite a long way away…both fiscally and nautically. Hitting you all up for Financial Aid money was not the intent, but it's nice to see that many of you are already generously nudging me through the canal with your checkbooks. Thanks!!

It's hard to believe that in only four days I'll be on the water. My hands are soft, I haven't rowed a stroke in a real boat since last summer, but as I said to Brian tonight, "Sometimes you just have to push an old guy into a boat and let him go." I continue to gaze at my chart and am now scanning the long range speculations of The Weather Channel, but this hardly counts as constructive preparation. I guess I'll have to subscribe to The Music Man's "Think Method." As I recall, Robert Preston enjoyed a happy ending; we can only hope the same for this production, yes?

On a completely different note, I'm just finishing Common Wealth by Jeffrey Sachs, a treatise concerning "economics for a crowded plant." In the course of measuring our environment's health and prospects from every imaginable perspective, he optimistically charts a path to sustainability through a thicket of profoundly disturbing statistics. Of course, the reality of sustainability depends entirely on malfunctioning institutions being smitten (very soon) with the capacity for rational, holistic thought and the impulse to act rationally, in unity, for the common good.

Show of hands, please?

Nonetheless, it's a great read even for those of us who are quantitatively challenged because it raises the kinds of questions that we need to vocal about as we launch into a Presidential year. For example, did you know that within easy technological and logistical reach we have the ability to fully protect 300 million people from malaria each night for five years for the cost of one day's Pentagon budget? You didn't jump on the blog to listen to me rant, but get the book and rant to those who need to change, 'K?

On a more whimsical note, I have of late joined The Cloud Appreciation Society. There are 8,000 of us sprinkled across 43 countries, and in their recent photologue, Hot Pink Flying Saucers , editor Gavin Pretor-Pinney observes, "Our extensive and rigorously scientific research has shown us that people tend to see shapes when they are cloud gazing in a relaxed and contented manner- when they have time on their hands and are not particularly bothered whether they find a shape or not." (Go to www.cloudappreciationsociety.org for more.)

The confluence of these two recent books seems perfect for my row. Sachs argues persuasively that the beauty I will soon see is indeed ephemeral; if we don't act aggressively and soon to preserve it, it will inexorably and inevitably be gone. Pretor-Pinney, of course, will calm me down between rants as I "cloud gaze in a relaxed and contented manner."

Rant, gaze. Rant, gaze. I feel a certain rhythm, don't you?

I head to Lake George on Friday, then to Buffalo O-Dawn-Early on Sunday to be rowing by late afternoon. Some final packing tomorrow…maybe a final pull at the rowing machine at the gym down the street…I'll try another entry before I head off, but this won't really get interesting until after Monday.

Be patient. I certainly will need to be as I streak eastwards at 4 mph… for 400+ miles.

Rant, gaze, rant, gaze…repeat.

Hugs,

Mr. Frei