I honor his accomplishments, but for god’s sake can we shut up about Lance Armstrong already?

Since I’m starting grad school and parking and transportation around central campus is a pain, I decided to start biking it.

Only problem: My very good and nice and fabulous Bianchi Lynx bike is still in San Francisco because I had problems attaching it to the Jeep securely enough for a 3,000-mile trip to Michigan and so had to leave it behind.

It’ll cost about $150 to ship it and my ex-roomie will have to go to some pains to do it.

In the meantime, I need a really good bike now. I’ve narrowed it down to basically five choices:

• First choice (tie): Marin Bikes Bobcat Trail hardtail alloy mountain or Trek 7500 FX hybrid
• Second choice: Marin Bikes Hawk Hill hardtail alloy mountain
• Third choice: Marin Bikes San Anselmo hybrid street
• Fourth choice: Giant Bikes Cypress LX

Some of my thinking: I like the hybrids, but if we move to Santa Fe or a similar place in a year, it might not be versatile enough. I want disc brakes and the Trek doesn’t have them. The Trek is also $150 or so more than the Bobcat Trail, but I like the wheels better. The others are kind of also-rans. The Hawk Hill is a step up from the Bobcat Trail, but curiously doesn’t have disc brakes.

I took six test rides Tuesday; two at a shop in Chelsea and four at Ann Arbor Cyclery, which was an enjoyable experience. Both places were very helpful and non-pressuring. If I buy a Marin or the Cypress, I’ll buy from AAC, since it’s halfway between here and campus, so if something goes wrong, I have a convenient repair point.

Decisions, decisions.

This appears on the front cover of the hyped-to-death Karen Joy Fowler novel The Jane Austen Book Club (Miss Austen would be most amused by her post-mortem fan club; or maybe mortified).

What does this even mean?

“If I could eat this novel, I would.” — Alice Sebold

Reading it so you don’t have to …..

A full-page ad hawking Toni Morrison’s new line of handsome paperback editions of her novels “with deeply personal forewords reflecting on each work.” (I’ve never been able to finish the first chapter of a Toni Morrison novel. Maybe it’s just me.)

An ad for a new book called How to Have Children with Perfect Teeth. And, no, it’s not about genetic manipulation (I don’t think).

A review of a first novel by a Brit named Paul Burston called Shameless. The novel’s about the gay dating scene, so the title is absolutely appropriate. Apparently the problem with the book (although not a problem for the reviewer, who thinks it’s just dandy) isn’t its title but its content; the reviewer says the book “makes the gay singles scene ‘cute’” (the gay singles “scene” is about the farthest thing from “cute” imaginable) and that the author/narrator is comparable to “Bridget Jones’ gay brother.” Oh, great. Just what we need.

Reviews of four collections of short stories, kind of a departure for the NYTBR. One is by Julian Barnes (“helps sustain a reader’s faith in literature as the truest form of assisted living”), another by E.L. Doctorow (“His is a reasonable imagination”), and one by David Foster Wallace (“Too often he sounds like a hyperarticulate Tin Man”). One is a first collection by a Canadian writer named David Bezmozgis (“The collection is appealingly anthropological”).

A review of the first volume of the letters of Isaiah Berlin, published by Cambridge University Press (“Merely as a human story, Berlin’s life was astonishing”).

Reviews of a book about the murder of a Peace Corps volunteer in Tonga (” … on Oct. 14, 1976, screams pierced the warm, inky Tongan night”) and a book about abuse at a school for the mentally disabled in Waltham, MA, in the 1950s (“documents the Dickensian abuse daily endured by the boys at Fernald and its consequences”).

Last but not least, a very odd essay by Cristina Nehring titled “Books Make You a Boring Person.” Her thesis is that book lovers are dull, pathetic, desiccated snobs, which is curious considering that her essay has been published in what is arguably the single publication that panders to more book snobs than any other in the world. Is it because she shops at Barnes & Noble that she is so bitter? Would a trip to Borders improve her mood? (" ‘Absolutely not,’ I wanted to yell, and fling my Barnes & Noble bag at his feet. Instead, I mumbled something apologetic and melted into the crowd.")

Here’s her key graf:

There’s a new piety in the air: the self-congratulation of book lovers. Long considered immune to criticism by virtue of being outnumbered by channel surfers, Internet addicts, video maniacs and other armchair introverts, bookworms have developed a semi-mystical complacency about the moral and mental benefits of reading. “Books Make You a Better Person,’’ a banner outside a Los Angeles school proclaims. Books keep kids off drugs. They keep gang members out of prison. They keep terrorists, for all we know, at the gates …. To be a reader these days is to be a sterling member of society, a thoughtful and sensitive human being, a winner.

Actually, come to think of it, this may be her key point:

Books were a mixed bag, and they still are. Books could be used or misused, and they still can be.

Which, is, um, enlightening. Wow. I never knew that a book could be “misused” before. Gee.

“Even a hint of idolatry disables the mind,” Nehring sonorously and pompously intones, reminding us finger-waggingly to be critical readers while making a golden calf of Ralph Waldo Emerson, whom she quotes three times in the space of two paragraphs. (She also ignores any discussion of a topic that Emerson would have found vital, namely, what is it that books are supposed to do to us? Is reading a book or other text merely a one-sided proposition? Nehring appears to think so.)

Best of all, Nehring is a whiz at straw-man argument. “Perhaps the best lesson of books is not to venerate them—or at least never to hold them in higher esteem than our own faculties, our own experience, our own peers, our own dialogues,” she warns.

I have not met a single person, book-lover or not, who does that, but maybe I don’t know the people that Nehring claims to know. She says, “We all know people who use a text the way others use Muzak: to stave off the silence of their minds.” Maybe that’s how Nehring uses a text, but I doubt that anybody I know uses any text that way. If anything, books help “stave off” the over-hyper amphetamination of modern culture: they still a mind that is too jumbled with facts and sensory input from cell phones and websites and TiVos to settle down. Books are a meditative experience, not a filling-the-emptiness experience.

“If only we [would] disperse the pious fog that is gathering around book culture,” Nehring sighs. Well, I’d rather have a “pious” book culture any day of the week—a culture that at least makes a pretense of still respecting intellect and history—than what passes for culture in this age of reality TV, screeching pundits, and teen-flick glut, but I suppose that makes me a dull snob.

I can’t speak for myself, not being objective (maybe I do over-venerate books), but the people I work with, go to school with, and am friends with, and most acquaintances I have met, love books for all the usual reasons: books are a complement to life, they make life much richer, they help make life understandable and better to negotiate, but they are obviously no substitute for life, and I have never met anyone who thinks or professes that they are.

The man who exposed serious security flaws in airport security was « sentenced to probation this week »:

‘A college student who says he hid box cutters on airplanes to expose weaknesses in security was sentenced Thursday to two years supervised probation and fined $500. Nathaniel Heatwole also must serve 100 hours of community service and reimburse his parents for up to $500 in legal expenses. Heatwole, 21, of Damascus, Md., told U.S. District Judge Paul Grimm that his intentions were constructive and he never meant to embarrass security officials or put anyone in any danger. But the judge said Heatwole’s actions “produced an opposite effect.” The best way to bring about change is “civilly, rationally, and openly,” Grimm told the student.’

Shame on that activist judge. They should give Heatwole a medal … and jail the people who failed to provide good security at the airports and aboard the ‘planes.

United is reporting that « it lost $94 million in May alone »:

‘United Airlines said in a bankruptcy court filing Thursday that it posted a net loss of $93 million in May its efforts to return to profitability complicated by near-record jet fuel costs. The nation’s No. 2 carrier, which is seeking an additional $500 million in financing after trimming its request for federal assistance, pointed to a $9 million operating profit for the month as evidence its restructuring work is paying off.’

Its restructuring work may be paying off, but UAL CEO Glenn Tilton is telling employees « the hurt will continue to be put on them »:

‘Speaking to employees after submitting United’s slimmed-down request for federal assistance, Tilton said in a recorded message that the company is seeking potential debt and equity financing to cover the $500 million difference from the previous bid. Without specifically mentioning further concessions by workers, he reiterated that United will have to “dig deeper” on costs. “We are going to have to maintain a relentless focus on cost improvement,” Tilton said on the employee hot line. “United has to continue to meet the demands of a competitive marketplace, and cost reduction is going to continue to be a major part of everything that we do,” he said. “We’re going to have to do everything we can to be successful as we exit bankruptcy.”

’… Employees have made $2.5 billion in annual concessions since United filed for bankruptcy-court protection in December 2002, providing about half the company’s estimated $5 billion in lowered expenses. Many fear their pensions will be targeted by any outside investor, particularly with United facing billions of dollars in pension obligations in coming years.’

So they’ve given up $2.5 billion, face the ruination of their retirement futures and are still being warned they will have to give more.

Meanwhile, CEO Glenn Tilton makes how much a year?

Well, he’s apparently taken a pay cut himself, but still makes over a million a year in total compensation according to Forbes, down from around $4 million in 2001.

Bless his heart.

So after all the wrangling and expense, not to mention the Republicans’ largest expansion of the federal government in American history, « airport screening is being returned to the private sector » by the Transportation Sicherheits Dienst:

‘Airports that want to replace government security screeners with privately employed workers can do so by early next summer, the Bush administration told Congress on Thursday. Thomas Blank, assistant administrator at the Transportation Security Administration, told the Senate aviation subcommittee that airports will have three options: remain in the federal system, use a private contractor to hire and train screeners, or run the screening themselves. They can apply for a change in November.’

Oh, this promises to be fun …