Last night I was introduced to a teacher of comparative education systems at the University of Oregon. He hails from Singapore, is an Austrialian citizen. He and Derek joined us at the Bagdad. I sampled the Dry Irish Stout but stuck with my favorite: Hammerhead.
Just walking to the Bagdad had been a chore, as we'd been roller skating again, and this time I managed to wipe out big time. Some lower back muscle got very unhappy and is still giving me grief almost 24 hours later. The power walk up to Hawthorne was part damage assessment. I explained RSA along the way to keep my mind off the sharp stabs.
Jimmy just brought over some Tiger Balm patches, plus I'm doing ibuprofen. I expect to be back to normal shortly.
One of the things I remarked on at our booth was this bottle of vitamins I'd just picked up enroute to the skating rink, sporting a green label against a reddish background. The green part says "Super Crusade" while the purplish red background says "Trader Darwin's". I found this an interesting juxtaposition of contrasting memes -- and passed out vitamins to whomever wanted 'em.
Speaking of crusades, over on Quaker-P some scholarship (not mine) has unearthed a meaning of jihad amenable to Quakers. In fact, Bayard Rustin's "speak truth to power" might be construed as a reasonable translation of something Mohammed likely said: that to speak truth in the presence of a tyrant is what jihad is all about. I filed a post on that on synergeo on February 8th of this year.
