At the risk of changing the topic away from swine-like Republicans (sorry if I insulted any swines) and over to bicycle racing, what is it with the Giro d’Italia? Gravel roads made of crushed limestone yesterday (admit it, you were also hoping for rain again, weren’t you?), white knuckle descents that have riders grumbling (http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/rasmussen-says-possible-rider-protest-against-crostis-zoncolan-stage), and now they’re going ahead with the finish on Mt. Etna on Sunday despite the minor detail that the friggin’ volcano is erupting! The Giro race director says that “…on-site teams are already working to clear the road. We are calm.” Just to be clear here: they’re clearing the road of VOLCANIC ASH. And, yea, you’re calm, you don’t have to ride up the thing.
Didn’t they learn anything from the tragedy of a couple days ago?
They delay baseball games when it rains. Cycling? They see volcano and think it might propel the sport to a whole new level of AWESOME. If they could add rope swings over punji sticks they would.
I’ve always preferred the sprint with a jump over an alligator infested pond myself. But if it comes to this, then I won’t complain: http://youtu.be/ogJMWcscCzM
John – I’ve weighed in on this subject probably too many times already so I won’t redo it here. You can read my comments on previous pages on this blog, more of them on VN.com and a few on the Inner Ring blog but suffice it to say that I could NOT agree with you LESS!
In fact (Etna permitting) we’ll be flying down there early next week to look for an apartment for the 2011-2012 academic year. In 2013 we plan to be living for awhile near Vesuvius/Napoli. While we arrive too late to see the epic Giro stage on Etna, we’ll be watching via Universal Sports on Sunday morning. Maybe you need to be ITALIAN or just be Italian-at-heart to understand all this? Anglo-Saxons have always had a tough time figuring out Italians…but these are the same folks who drink red wine with fish…so it’s clear they just don’t get it. I’m starting to lose patience with trying to explain it these days. On today’s ‘net coverage one of the Brit commentators was saying something like, “if you’ve not been to Italy by now, I suggest you forget about coming, I’d rather you stay home and not come over here and mess it up for folks like me”. Sometimes, despite being in the Italian bike tour biz, I admit to sharing this sentiment.
Well, Larry, I reckon’ you’re right about a fair bit of things there. I’m neither Italian nor Italian at heart, I’ve never been to Italy and, unless being underemployed starts paying a whole lot more, I don’t expect to head there any time real soon. I do, however, have more than a passing interest in volcanoes, having been tested on them more than once and having mapped the results of their activity on numerous occasions. So I will continue to question the wisdom of inviting the riders, the organizers, the press, and the fans of the Giro onto the southern slopes of an actively erupting volcano with what I presume to be a limited number of routes off the thing. I can assume that with a long recorded history, the activity of Etna is somewhat predictable and perhaps they’re confident that its current rumblings are just its normal indigestion; but with ash currently falling on the course, why take the chance? I can only hope those making these decisions exercise good judgment. It is, after all, just a bike race.
I’m sure you question the wisdom of the millions of folks who live around Napoli too. What do you figure might happen to the residents of Catania and Siracusa if/when Etna blows up bigtime? They say regarding Vesuvius and Napoli, that no matter how much warning might be given, the infrastructure will never allow the millions of residents to escape, they’ll probably die in their cars –stuck in a massive traffic jam.
Zomegnan seems to think they’ll have plenty of advance notice if it’s not a good idea to race up Etna and they’ll go to Plan B, otherwise they’ll sweep the ash off the road and run the race.
The last time we went there, the Catania airport was closed due to an eruption and they flew us into the military airport instead. By the time we left, the civilian airport was cleaned up and back in operation. We’re prepared for the same scenario this time — we trust our fates to…well, fate…as do all those folks who live there….just as the folks in Pompei and Ercolana did all those years ago. The way we look at is – the ones who lived elsewhere or fled are just as dead now too, no?
If we don’t get snuffed out by volcanic eruptions we’ll try to post some stuff on the CycleItalia blog from Siracusa/Ortigia.
Ok, I’ll bite. I’m a geochemist (but NOT a volcanologist) and my grandfather Louie came over on the proverbial boat from Naples (Grandma from central Sicily; the Spencer last name is a long story), so I am hopelessly conflicted and have no choice but to put my uninformed $0.02 in.
There is a difference between willingly riding into a likely Plinian eruption capable of letting loose with pyroclastic flows that can kill for miles (i.e., the AD 79 Vesuvian eruption, Mt. Pinatubo in 1991, Mt. St Helens 1980) vs. taunting a small eruption not likely to grow into a large one. I haven’t been following this it so I probably should do a search.
Unfortunately, as we learned on Mt. St. Helens, its sometimes tough to accurately predict these things in real time, i.e., fast and accurately enough to get outa the way. I’d hope that the Italian Geological Survey (or whatever it is called) has weighed in on this with an opinion tempered with caution based on ongoing seismic, strain gauge, volatiles, and other measurements as well as doing a gut check at the Stations of the Cross. Likewise, I wouldn’t offer to run a bike race down the NW coast of the U.S. if we were having a series of moderate to large earthquakes that someone who knew something said could be presaging The Big One. But that’s just me. I had friends who were fleeing for their lives and changing underwear when pyroclastic flows cut loose from Mt. Pinatubo. And they were professionals paid to measure that thing. Bike racers? Well, I’ll not decide for them. As Larry said, some of us are Italian. Try to figure us out.
But people live in geologically crazy places. Californians, for example. Or, all of us who moved to the Southwest and expect to have water coming from our taps in 30 years. Naples is lovely. But if all the residents are as crazy as my grandfather was, I wouldn’t be worried so much about the volcano.
In the long run, we have to worry about epoch-rare events such as the very large eruption that created the Long Valley Caldera in California and the Bishop Tuff (500x more material than St. Helens ejected), that tuff has been mapped over much of the Western U.S.. Or, a future Yellowstone event. If you really worry about that stuff, drink the good wine today.
That’s why I’m leaving the call to Zomegnan and not to the blogging pundits. In Italy what is more important than the Giro? Not much, so the geological/volcano wizards will be giving them the latest, best guess on what’s in store. They’ll make the right call, as will the airline folks with our flight down to Catania — if it’s not safe to fly we’ll either wait until it is or move to Plan B. And if the worst happens and we get incinerated or otherwise croaked while there (or near Naples in 2013 in a place that still has unexplored villas buried by Vesuvio in 79 AD) who cares? When it’s my time to exit the planet I can’t think of a better place to leave from…..I really don’t want my last moments to be spent sitting on the can here in Iowa!
Mad Blog Media 
At the risk of changing the topic away from swine-like Republicans (sorry if I insulted any swines) and over to bicycle racing, what is it with the Giro d’Italia? Gravel roads made of crushed limestone yesterday (admit it, you were also hoping for rain again, weren’t you?), white knuckle descents that have riders grumbling (http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/rasmussen-says-possible-rider-protest-against-crostis-zoncolan-stage), and now they’re going ahead with the finish on Mt. Etna on Sunday despite the minor detail that the friggin’ volcano is erupting! The Giro race director says that “…on-site teams are already working to clear the road. We are calm.” Just to be clear here: they’re clearing the road of VOLCANIC ASH. And, yea, you’re calm, you don’t have to ride up the thing.
Didn’t they learn anything from the tragedy of a couple days ago?
They delay baseball games when it rains. Cycling? They see volcano and think it might propel the sport to a whole new level of AWESOME. If they could add rope swings over punji sticks they would.
Shhhhh, don’t give them any ideas.
I’ve always preferred the sprint with a jump over an alligator infested pond myself. But if it comes to this, then I won’t complain: http://youtu.be/ogJMWcscCzM
John – I’ve weighed in on this subject probably too many times already so I won’t redo it here. You can read my comments on previous pages on this blog, more of them on VN.com and a few on the Inner Ring blog but suffice it to say that I could NOT agree with you LESS!
In fact (Etna permitting) we’ll be flying down there early next week to look for an apartment for the 2011-2012 academic year. In 2013 we plan to be living for awhile near Vesuvius/Napoli. While we arrive too late to see the epic Giro stage on Etna, we’ll be watching via Universal Sports on Sunday morning. Maybe you need to be ITALIAN or just be Italian-at-heart to understand all this? Anglo-Saxons have always had a tough time figuring out Italians…but these are the same folks who drink red wine with fish…so it’s clear they just don’t get it. I’m starting to lose patience with trying to explain it these days. On today’s ‘net coverage one of the Brit commentators was saying something like, “if you’ve not been to Italy by now, I suggest you forget about coming, I’d rather you stay home and not come over here and mess it up for folks like me”. Sometimes, despite being in the Italian bike tour biz, I admit to sharing this sentiment.
Well, Larry, I reckon’ you’re right about a fair bit of things there. I’m neither Italian nor Italian at heart, I’ve never been to Italy and, unless being underemployed starts paying a whole lot more, I don’t expect to head there any time real soon. I do, however, have more than a passing interest in volcanoes, having been tested on them more than once and having mapped the results of their activity on numerous occasions. So I will continue to question the wisdom of inviting the riders, the organizers, the press, and the fans of the Giro onto the southern slopes of an actively erupting volcano with what I presume to be a limited number of routes off the thing. I can assume that with a long recorded history, the activity of Etna is somewhat predictable and perhaps they’re confident that its current rumblings are just its normal indigestion; but with ash currently falling on the course, why take the chance? I can only hope those making these decisions exercise good judgment. It is, after all, just a bike race.
I’m sure you question the wisdom of the millions of folks who live around Napoli too. What do you figure might happen to the residents of Catania and Siracusa if/when Etna blows up bigtime? They say regarding Vesuvius and Napoli, that no matter how much warning might be given, the infrastructure will never allow the millions of residents to escape, they’ll probably die in their cars –stuck in a massive traffic jam.
Zomegnan seems to think they’ll have plenty of advance notice if it’s not a good idea to race up Etna and they’ll go to Plan B, otherwise they’ll sweep the ash off the road and run the race.
The last time we went there, the Catania airport was closed due to an eruption and they flew us into the military airport instead. By the time we left, the civilian airport was cleaned up and back in operation. We’re prepared for the same scenario this time — we trust our fates to…well, fate…as do all those folks who live there….just as the folks in Pompei and Ercolana did all those years ago. The way we look at is – the ones who lived elsewhere or fled are just as dead now too, no?
If we don’t get snuffed out by volcanic eruptions we’ll try to post some stuff on the CycleItalia blog from Siracusa/Ortigia.
Ok, I’ll bite. I’m a geochemist (but NOT a volcanologist) and my grandfather Louie came over on the proverbial boat from Naples (Grandma from central Sicily; the Spencer last name is a long story), so I am hopelessly conflicted and have no choice but to put my uninformed $0.02 in.
There is a difference between willingly riding into a likely Plinian eruption capable of letting loose with pyroclastic flows that can kill for miles (i.e., the AD 79 Vesuvian eruption, Mt. Pinatubo in 1991, Mt. St Helens 1980) vs. taunting a small eruption not likely to grow into a large one. I haven’t been following this it so I probably should do a search.
Unfortunately, as we learned on Mt. St. Helens, its sometimes tough to accurately predict these things in real time, i.e., fast and accurately enough to get outa the way. I’d hope that the Italian Geological Survey (or whatever it is called) has weighed in on this with an opinion tempered with caution based on ongoing seismic, strain gauge, volatiles, and other measurements as well as doing a gut check at the Stations of the Cross. Likewise, I wouldn’t offer to run a bike race down the NW coast of the U.S. if we were having a series of moderate to large earthquakes that someone who knew something said could be presaging The Big One. But that’s just me. I had friends who were fleeing for their lives and changing underwear when pyroclastic flows cut loose from Mt. Pinatubo. And they were professionals paid to measure that thing. Bike racers? Well, I’ll not decide for them. As Larry said, some of us are Italian. Try to figure us out.
But people live in geologically crazy places. Californians, for example. Or, all of us who moved to the Southwest and expect to have water coming from our taps in 30 years. Naples is lovely. But if all the residents are as crazy as my grandfather was, I wouldn’t be worried so much about the volcano.
In the long run, we have to worry about epoch-rare events such as the very large eruption that created the Long Valley Caldera in California and the Bishop Tuff (500x more material than St. Helens ejected), that tuff has been mapped over much of the Western U.S.. Or, a future Yellowstone event. If you really worry about that stuff, drink the good wine today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supervolcano
p.s. Patrick, please don’t disparage pigs.
That’s why I’m leaving the call to Zomegnan and not to the blogging pundits. In Italy what is more important than the Giro? Not much, so the geological/volcano wizards will be giving them the latest, best guess on what’s in store. They’ll make the right call, as will the airline folks with our flight down to Catania — if it’s not safe to fly we’ll either wait until it is or move to Plan B. And if the worst happens and we get incinerated or otherwise croaked while there (or near Naples in 2013 in a place that still has unexplored villas buried by Vesuvio in 79 AD) who cares? When it’s my time to exit the planet I can’t think of a better place to leave from…..I really don’t want my last moments to be spent sitting on the can here in Iowa!
Well said, Larry. Or as my grandma used to say, “when its time to go, its time to go”.
And apologies for the comma-splice in my previous post.
Yeah Khal! How dare Patrick defame the State Meat of NC like that.
You sir owe me an apology!