CLIF Coconut Winners; Random Shots of Beauty

Here’s something you can file under “things I never would have believed until they actually happened”: that a simple post describing my feelings about the tragedy of September 11th would trigger an angry rant from some maniac commenter (anonymously, of course) who eventually concludes that I’m helping to ruin America.

The exact content of the remarks isn’t worth sharing or dwelling upon, so you can’t go back and see them, and I don’t need to go into any further detail here. However, for the immediate future I’m going to ratchet up the threat level on comment security, so the one tangible change you’ll notice here is 100% comment moderation for a while. Sorry for the inconvenience.

At least there’s one piece of good news to report today: the winners of the CLIF Bar Coconut Love giveaway. Running Farmer, Lisa (in Alta Loma), and Slim Katie: e-mail me your contact info – you’ve won the contest! Thanks very much to everyone else for the great response, and big thanks again to CLIF for sponsoring it.

**
This weekend’s first Random Shot of Beauty isn't actually random at all - rather, it's one of the most memorable images from the aftermath at Ground Zero:

Photo from AP

As well as one of the most symbolic pictures of sorrow, resilience, and heroism that I’ve ever seen. It's not surprising that monuments have already been based upon it.

And in the spirit of moving forward, here’s a snapshot from the side of a small local business in Salinas, reflecting a mentality we can all use a little more of:

The text reads: Only by disregarding color, race, age, and economic status can we unite and recover from our wounds and threats. United we stand, divided we fall.

To which I can only add: Amen.



Get updates as soon as they're posted! Click here to subscribe to Running and Rambling.

Check out the Running Life book for a collection of our most popular columns.