Interesting post about thinking beyond "smart growth." Smart growth is a start. But it's not enough. "I’ve now come to the conclusion that smart growth is critical to a sustainable future, but it can only get us part way there. The truth is that much of what can make people habitat great cannot be quantified or put into identifiable categories. The process of creating a better, more sustainable world – anchored by better, more sustainable places - is as much art as science.Our communities of the future must not only reduce carbon emissions, save land, and encourage use of transit, walking and bicycling. They must also contain beauty, warmth, places of solitude and reflection. They must be significantly more dense than sprawl, but also sometimes forego additional increments of density in order to maintain light, limit noise, provide privacy, and respect a human scale. They must be conducive to engaging the intellect and the spirit."

Image: source.

Another new addition to the podcast line up (I need a lot now that I'm back to bike commuting and centuries - it's possibly the best part of riding. The only issue is having the self restraint to save up some good 'casts for the long rides....): Opinonated: The Feminist You Were Warned About.

So, I've been of two minds for a while about whether or not I wanted to train for another marathon (I did my first, and only, on May 1, 2011). I loved the experience of becoming a distance runner, and race day was one of the best days of my life. But it was a huge time commitment and definitely hard on my body. Anyways, when I saw that there was a Nike Women's Marathon in SF in October, I decided to enter the drawing and let fate decide. Well, apparently fate thinks I have another marathon in me! I found out today that I got in. I have lots to say about how I'll train differently this time around, my fears and hopes, etc so...stay tuned!

Recent addition to the podcast lineup: The /Filmcast. Sometimes I think I enjoy listening to people talk about movies and tv more than I even enjoy watching movies and tv. Is there a word for this? Is this a thing?

So proud of my CrossFit box, Rogue Valley CrossFit, which was voted favorite small/medium health club in the region. And of the owner, and my coach, Jake, who was voted best trainer! I can't think of a more deserving community - they work hard to create a supportive, encouraging, and challenging environment, it's really one of a kind.

It's time to stop putting mentally ill prisoners in solitary confinement! Why Are Prisoners Committing Suicide in Pennsylvania?

Image: source.

Dear 40 year old me (from the IL Safe Schools Alliance). Yep, tears for sure. Amazing youth.

Fashion It So does it again.

I enjoyed this short first-person essay about being an out, trans athlete.

So powerful, and too true. "Dear daughter, You should know that you are hated."

Wow. 101 Spectacular Nonfiction Stories: "Conor Friedersdorf's annual collection of the very best that journalism has to offer."

Smithsonian: Where Agatha Christie Dreamed Up Murder: "The birthplace of Poirot and Marple welcomes visitors looking for clues to the best-selling novelist of all time."

Image: source.

Loved this article from the great blog Fit & Feminist (best tag line ever: "Because it takes strong women to smash the patriarchy.") , I am envious of women who “bulk up” easily. I admit that I still have moments of adjustment to no longer working towards being as small, as invisible as possible, and instead aim to be fit and strong, even if that means my thighs are, gasp, bigger. And from xoJane (I'm not a huge fan, generally...): Competitive Powerlifter Secrets: What The Diet Industry Doesn't Want You To Know Abou Weights. I’m wary (to put it lightly) of anything that’s just focused on weight loss (as opposed to general health, flexibility, strength, etc) but I appreciate popping that myth of “scary big” female body builders, etc.

Chrissie Wellington: I have got nothing to prove to anyone anymore. "Triathlete charts her troubled journey from the despair of eating disorders to becoming the unbeaten ironman world record holder." Chrissie is a hero of mine, not only hard working and incredibly gifted, but always has a smile on her face. And now she bravely comes out as an eating disorder survivor - thank you, Chrissie! "Sport has given me a different perception and respect for my body. I cannot judge its success by whether I can fit into a pair of skinny jeans. I look at other women and, yes, they're beautiful with stereotypically wonderful figures but I can think, 'Yeah, but you haven't won what I've won.' I might not be perfect but I can love my body now."

Horrible. Why I buy only local, organic, cage- and hormone- free eggs: "Is an Egg for Breakfast Worth This?"

Some of the other great movies I saw at the aiff: Detropia, Waiting Room, Austin Unbound, Paraiso, Vera Klement.

From Mother Jones: Prozac: What's Race Got to Do With It?

Image: source.

The Magnetic Fields, Live In Concert: SXSW 2012 and John K. Samson (of The Weakerthans) On World Cafe

9-Year-Old’s Homemade Arcade is Rad

“There are some good things to be said about walking . . . Walking takes longer, for example, than any other known form of locomotion except crawling. Thus it stretches time and prolongs life. Life is already too short to waste on speed. I have a friend who's always in a hurry; he never gets anywhere. Walking makes the world much bigger and thus more interesting. You have time to observe the details. The utopian technologists foresee a future for us in which distance is annihilated . . . To be everywhere at once is to be nowhere forever, if you ask me.” - Edward Abbey

And tonight, Highest Pass.

The second doc I'll be watching today at the aiff, Invisible War.

The ashland independent film fest [aiff] starts today! Battle For Brooklyn is the first film I'm seeing.

"If we appear to seek the unattainable . . . we do so to avoid the unimaginable."

An Invitation to Create by Bill Ayers

Really interesting article about one man's experience with schizophrenia, and the way it is treated & understood, "Finding Purpose After Living With Delusion."

Image: from fuckyeahlisasimpson, of course.
An interview with Ashley Stinson about her images from Women’s Western Kentucky Correctional Facility in Fredonia, Kentucky.

"Good Fitspo Is Hard To Find" - SO true! I've unsubscribed to so many blogs/tumblrs/pins because of thinspo masquerading as fitspo (or just really boring shots of someone's every meal). (And yay for a CrossFit Babes shout out!) Here's my largely CrossFit themed "fitspo" (blech) board, if anyone's interested.

Happy Birthday, Dolores Huerta!

An interview with one female bus driver in Cuidad Juarez (one of the most dangerous cities in the world, and also where all Mexican citizens trying to emigrate to the United States must go to interview, sometimes having to stay for as long as a few years).

image: beautiful wind map

I won't lie - seeing these photos of a thin, beautiful young woman I thought, "What could she have to tell me about learning to love your body, to be healthy?" I was, of course, lame and wrong. Check out this great post (and lots more on her blog) about body image, the quest for perfection and control, and finding balance, peace, and acceptance.

Finally listened to the Fresh Air interview with Rachel Maddow. Really wonderful on multiple fronts, and I, along with many other people, appreciate her willingness to acknowledger her own struggle with depression. "Depression for me is you can’t distract your way out of it, and I think people can understand the difference, if you’ve never been depressed, you can still understand the difference between sadness and depression. It’s like the opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference. And the opposite of happiness isn’t necessarily sadness, it’s disconnection."

A short film from the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, Solitary Confinement: Torture In Your Backyard. "Torture. It’s not just something that happened at Abu Ghraib or in secret prison sites tucked away in distant countries. It’s happening now. It’s happening in prisons on U.S. soil. Prolonged solitary confinement is torture in your backyard."

Interesting essay by a queer American living in South Korea.

“For a long time now, the legalization of our community has hinged on wrapping the flag of American nationalism around us and showing mainstream America that we are just like them, and in some cases, much better than them. “Dreamers” have been long portrayed as the model-minority of the undesirable undocumented population, as the lowest hanging fruits. Only recently have we started to agitate, celebrate our differences, and proudly state that our communities are diverse, our parents are not criminals, that most of us are not Valedictorians and star athletes, that some of us have had run-ins with the law, and that some of us think of home as dispersed among many hearts rather than being a geographical location in the USA. After all, we should not need to look and act the same in order to enjoy the same rights.” - Living the Dream Without the DREAM Act

Check out this trailer for an amazing (looking) documentary about Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison - a college program operating inside Sing Sing Maximum Security Correctional Facility. This is an issue close to my heart, and the type of program I believe in (my alma mater is home to the incredible Bard Prison Initiative).

Stunning portraits of former slaves photographed seventy years after the Emancipation Proclamation

Image: source.

A great post by Amy, at Just A Titch, about finding faith in yourself (and being proud of what you've worked for - loved that moment at the Eiffel Tower, Amy!)

R.I.P. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., killed 44 years ago today. (This short TAL segment gets me every time. Kids, man.)

I really liked this post, and I'm not even into Mad Men (spoiler alert if you're not up on MM or Dowton Abbey): Betty Draper Francis Needs Your… Ice Cream? A Few Notes on the Evil TV Ex-Wife: "These stories don’t exist in a void. They actually mimic — and reinforce — the stories we tell ourselves about male accountability in the real world. Men have more of an assumed right to recover from and forget their mistakes; this is true for things like abuse and unintended pregnancy, obviously, but it’s also true for the basic, petty moral failings of day-to-day life. I suspect that for every Psycho Ex-Girlfriend story, there’s a woman who’s been screwed over. (And behind every bizarre, nonsensically villainous ex-wife on an upscale soap opera, there’s a shitty straight dude working out his feelings about his ex. But I digress!) And she gets called names if she seems angry about that; she may never even express that anger clearly, because she feels too guilty about having it in the first place."