The Explorers Club
№ CCLI - The Pan Am Building (now the MetLife Building), completed 1963.







Master Debating
This evening, The M.A.P. got his first look at the "fish," our curious slang for newcomers, the eager lads Too Sly & your humble narrator spent the summer coaching, & he is pleased by the foundation we managed to give them. Go, team! The summer's fish, my pal Ska Army & a libertarian environmentalist I know from the Econ. Club, are now novices; meanwhile, two new fish arrived, a friend of the code-nameless libertarian & Vitamin H., longtime cohort of The Impossible Ingenue & The Most Dangerous Game, & The Game's new roommate. Ska Army says he has yet another fish on the line (the source of our usage of the term); so, while attrition is inevitable—I recruited a third fish, but he lost interest—we might be building ourselves a real team here, not the confoundingly wee squad with which we crisscrossed the nation last year.

As far as "Master Debating," I am in arrears for three out of last spring's four tournaments. Mea culpa.

Spy v. Spy
On Sunday, at the dinner table, though I cannot recall exactly how his came up, my father & I, both ardent supporters of the American-Israeli alliance (thought for profoundly different reasons), agreed that Israel & the United States are allies, they are not friends. There are no friends amongst sovereign nations. There can be, & are, friendships betwixt peoples, such as the Americans & the Israelis, but not betwixt states. Among the proofs I cited was Israel's irksome habit of spying on the United States, an activity that happens even between allies, but one that would seem to preclude "friendship" all the same. I did not know on Sunday how timely my remarks would prove: espionage-link.

The Stars My Destination
Let's see, President Obama cancelled the program that was to take American astronauts back to the Moon & beyond to Mars, retired the Space Shuttle fleet while simultaneously pulling the plug on a replacement spacecraft, reduced our astronauts to little more than passengers on Apollo-era Russian capsules (capsules that have now been grounded due to the unfortunate frequency with which their rockets inexplicably fail), & placed the only hope for renewed American manned spaceflight in a handful of private business that have between them never managed to launch a single human being into orbit. Who wouldn't want to be an astronaut under those conditions? Human resources-link. "Nobody panics when things go 'according to plan.' Even if the plan is horrifying."

Obamboozled
This is precisely the space policy you voted for if you voted for President Obama in 2008. Is this the change you envisioned? Is this the hope you were promised?

Autobahn
Last week, I took care of some periodic maintenance on Lumi the Snow Queen, having her radiator flushed & filled, because they hadn't been done in an age, & taking her in for her annual free gearbox fluid & filter change & systems check. I had a loose wheel bearing replaced, not wanting to have that done, but deeming the expense less than the repairs that would be needed had the wheel fallen off at speed. I checked the rest of her engine fluids & her tire pressure myself. My motorcar was ready for my sojourn to verdammt Ohio next weekend; I have been invited to Where's Teddy?'s house to watch the Michigan-Notre Dame night game &, curse my bones, I could not devise a convincing lie by virtue of which to weasel out of the invitation. On Friday, not all that long after I'd returned from having the wheel bearing replaced, my father decided to play his own version of Tetris by moving his motorcars around Wilson Field. He relocated Lumi the Snow Queen, too, & in the course of so doing rolled down the windows to try & relieve the stifling heat. He then found that he could not get the window to roll back up; my motorcar has power windows. He had some errands to run & it was took blasted hot to be working outside anyway; I placed some plastic sheeting over the open window in case of rain & resolved to investigate the problem further the next morning.

In the cool of the morning, I looked up how to remove the necessary panels from the massive volumes on mid-'90s Lumina/Monte Carlo repair that were transferred from my father to me when I bought Lumi the Snow Queen. I removed the necessary door panel & lifted out the control board that we hoped was the source of the trouble, as opposed to the motor buried far deeper inside the driver's door. Dad fiddled around with the control box, not really doing anything but removing the buttons & the housing. There was no obvious damage, & window function remained intermittent; so, we thought we were sunk. To be on the safe side, I'd called the mechanic's shop on Friday & arranged an appointment for Tuesday morning. I reassembled the door & had to content myself with at least having managed to put the window up against the present threat of rain.

Whilst running to the grocer on Saturday, I chanced opening the window, to see it functionality was still only intermittent. To my great relief, the window worked like a charm. The window goes up. The window goes down. Every time. For the nonce—& I am cognizant of tempting fate, all but inviting a return of the gremlin, simply by typing these lines—our minor repair, which consisted of, essentially, just shaking the thing, appears to have done the trick. Will Lumi the Snow Queen's power windows fail again? Almost certainly, & almost certainly on a particularly rainy & windy day, soaking me in a bone-chilling horizontal downpour. (Sidepour?) But for nor at least all is right with my beloved motorcar. Hooray!

I saw a fratboy rapist I know driving a Porsche Boxster this morning. Of course, he was motoring like the proverbial Sunday driver. He may own a Porsche, but he certainly doesn't appreciate owning a Porsche.

This next bit really is much ado about nothing, even if you aren't one of the readers who passionately despises "This Week in Motorsport." The only defense I can offer is that the original version was much, much longer.

This Week in Motorsport
Coming into 2011, Lotus Renault's two drivers were to be the same pair as in 2010, Robert Kubica (Poland) as the team leader & Vitaly Petrov (Russia) as the young, rough talent in need of seasoning. But then Kubica was horrifically wounded in a terrifying rallying accident (not W.R.C., but a lower formula); Kubica's life was imperiled, & in an earlier era he would surely have perished; amidst many other grave injuries, his right hand was nearly severed at the wrist & had to be surgically reattached. Lotus Renault (not to be confused with Team Lotus, who also use Renault engines) brought in the veteran Nick Heidfeld (Germany) to replace the rehabilitating Pole. Heidfeld was consistently better than second-year driver Petrov, but not consistently better enough; so, at the Belgian Grand Prix Lotus Renault drafted one of their several reserve drivers, Bruno Senna (Brazil), who drove half of last season with the hapless Hispania (Cosworth) team. Senna brings with him millions of dollars in personal sponsorship money, but Heidfeld is clinging to his seat like grim death, even initiating legal action. Additionally, Romain Grosjean (France), who briefly drove for Renault (no Lotus then) in 2009 in place of the disgraced Nelson Piquet, Jr. (Brazil), has looked mightily impressive this year on his way to winning the GP2 Series crown, having also won the GP2 Asia Series earlier in the year. Champions are not allowed to compete further in GP2; so, Grosjean will be looking for an F1 drive. Plus, Heaven only knows when or even if the supremely talented Kubica will ever be able to return to an F1 cockpit. Petrov is showing slow but steady improvement, besides which he also has a lot of personal sponsorship money as the first Russian driver in Formula One, & it is in F1's self interest to keep him around with the inaugural Russian Grand Prix tentatively scheduled for 2014. But alongside whom will the ultra-polite Russian be racing next season? A recovered Kubica? Senna, invariably mentioned as the nephew of the martyred double World Champion Ayrton Senna? The upstart Grosjean? Surely not the long-experienced, but never victorious Heidfeld, right? Lotus Renault is a Swiss-owned team based in England with an inaccurate French name, since they haven't been the Renault factory team since '09; whom will they have driving alongside their talented Russian next season, a Pole, a Brazilian, or a Frenchman?

I freely confess that I do thoroughly enjoy the international aspect of Formula One.