1. BASKETBALL. File this under “all eggs in one precarious basket” or “all skill, no will”.
2. BASEBALL. Alex Rodriguez on the heels of the Yankees’ World Series victory, “This is the reason I’ve jammed syringes in my ass cheeks all these years.” My fondness for baseball has ebbed. How do enthusiasts stomach the gross imbalance in teams’ payrolls? Granted, paying big bucks doesn’t guarantee a title, but not paying it pretty much guarantees having no chance (the TB Rays last year were an anomaly). The Yankees’ payroll is greater than three other teams combined. If the U.S. is a meritocracy, and baseball is America’s national past time, shouldn’t baseball at least pretend to be somewhat of a meritocracy and institute a salary cap?
3. FOOTBALL. There’s lots of evidence that football has surpassed baseball as the nation’s favorite sport. Just when you thought we couldn’t become even more desensitized to violence. I like watching football although the games take way too long. The challenges, replays, and endless commercials are just brutal. Not sure what I’d do without ESPN highlights. I’ve been intrigued by the recent scientific research and related congressional hearings on the frequency of brain damage among too many NFL veterans. No one should be surprised that a game based upon speed and intense physical contact leads to serious health problems later in life. But here’s a question I’ve never heard asked. As a fan who watches am I complicit in these player’s shorter life spans and reduced quality of life? Purists say expanding the protection that additional equipment and rules can provide takes away from the essence of the sport. I say improve the equipment and tighten the rules as soon as possible so I can watch ESPN highlights free of ethical self-doubt.
4. RUNNING. Like me I’m sure, you were enthralled by Meb Keflezighi’s New York City Marathon victory two Sunday’s ago. First American to win in 27 years. Wore a “USA” singlet and wrapped himself in an American flag afterwards. I can appreciate Meb’s patriotism. Born in war-torn Eritrea, he grew up in San Diego and starred at UCLA. He deeply appreciates the opportunities he’s been provided as a US citizen. So I don’t begrudge Meb wearing his nationality on his sleeve, but I wonder why the rest of us seem so keen on mixing athletics and nationalism. Post-race some questioned whether it was a “true” American victory since Meb was born in East Africa like a disproportionate number of the world’s best runners. Others said it represented a clear resurgence in American long distance running and look for additional wins for the red, white, and blue. Why can’t we just appreciate elite long distance running as simple, pure, and beautiful without all the nationalism? I understand Ethiopians immense pride in Derartu Tulu’s inspiring victory in the women’s race because Ethiopia is so poor and people struggle mightily, but I don’t understand the ways people from developed countries equate national greatness with something like marathon times. What does having the world’s fastest runner in New York in a Sunday in late October or the fastest swimmer in Beijing in August have to do with national greatness? If national greatness is a zero-sum game, wouldn’t it make more sense to compare the relative health of average citizens, or every countries environmental footprint, or relative quality of life more generally? Like Meb, I deeply appreciate the privileges my US citizenship provides, but don’t expect me to be rockin’ the USA singlet when I win the NY City marathon.
5. GOLF. Like me I’m sure, you took advantage of the 13-16 hour time difference to take in a few minutes of the Shanghai Open (my name for it) last Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings. Two seriously disturbing happenings to report, three if you include my invitation apparently being lost in the mail. The Chinese are slowly learning about golf etiquette. Last year they walked right up to the edge of the greens and routinely invaded the personal space of the players which strikes me as funny. This year they roped things off. Problem solved. This year’s problem is far more heinous. I kid you not, effing billboards in the fairway. While watching people putt you can’t help but notice billboards for some damn Chinese products in the background. My fear is this spreads. I predict 22nd century historians will single this decision out as the critical moment civilization began it’s inexorable decline. Damn all of you Chinese tournament/marketing directors. May your lives be one endless double bogey. While that’s my sign of the apocalypse, the players would point to the incessant camera lenses and ringing cell phones they had to contend with this year. While it’s hard to feel sorry for guys who got as much as six figures for showing up, here’s a quote that explains a hell of a lot about global politics and life at the beginning of the 21st century. ”Yeah, I know the rules because I play, too,” said one Shanghainese man in Tiger’s gallery after being reprimanded by a marshal for talking on the phone. “I just forgot to turn it off. It was an important customer, so I had to take the call.” An important customer. An effing important customer. Now I understand the woman in church whose phone has gone off the last few Sundays, students whose phones go off in class, the guy at the movie theatre, the woman at the concert, important customers. Finally a way forward in defining what form electronic etiquette should take. It’s okay to take calls whenever, wherever, as long as it’s an important customer. Shanghainese man, may your life be a perpetual triple bogey.
Postscript. Busy weekend. Anyone catch the score of the Washington-UCLA game Saturday? Also, I think I’m going to pull the plug on the “Week that Was”. Just didn’t feel it was contributing much. No juice. Then again, maybe I just want to be able to jump out of the pool after 500 meters and not feel the collective dismay of my burgeoning readership. I will now commence slacking in private. More seriously, rest assured, I will continue swimming, cycling, and running a few times each week until the body gives out and I’m sure I’ll write about those activities on occasion.
Much to the chagrin of traditionalists, the English language is dynamic as annual updates to dictionaries illustrate. The numerous ways we engage with the internet is one catalyst for change.
In my blogging I’ve recently discovered an important language gap. What do you call it when a commenter’s (e.g. Francis’s, Michael’s) reply is more insightful and engaging than the original post? Exactly, there’s no such word. So, unless any of you have a better idea, from now on I will refer to such comments as “sops”, which stands for “supersedes original post”. Here’s some possible forms it might take. “Man, the recent run-up in sops has been a bit embarrassing.” Or “Yo dude, better raise your game, you’ve been getting mega-sopped lately.” Or “Stop sopping me or start your own damn blog.”
Shifting gears, what’s with the egregious overuse of “nation” to demarcate group identity? The Colbert Nation, Raider Nation, Bruin Nation, fill-in-the-blank Nation. (When describing the current administration’s policies, my right-wing friends forgo the space and just go with Obamanation.) Maybe I should rename the blog “Ron Nation”, “Byrnes Nation”, or “A, L, to the Dizzle Nation”. Maybe this “nation” overload is a reaction to every nation’s ebbing sovereignty. As a global citizen I hereby declare myself a member of the United Nations Nation, a sometimes maligned group, but they have a much better record than Raider Nation.
Unless you’re sleepwalking through this post, you noticed a little hip hop somethin’ somethin’ smack dab in the middle of the previous paragraph. That’s right, a new nickname, thanks to ‘dra. I call Alexandra, one of my daughter’s friends, ‘dra because when you’re my age and an endurance athlete you have to conserve energy. Calling my daughters’ friends by their nicknames drives said daughter crazy, so being semi-stuck in adolescence, I do it more. Fortunately, ‘dra doesn’t mind and she’s one of my favs. The other day in the middle of swim practice she gave me a new nickname. That’s right, from Ronald, “A,L, to the dizzle.”
Nicknames are funny. They’re given to you and there’s nothing you can do about it. I’ve had some I’ve liked over the years, Rook (from an older friend), Rhode Island Red, H.D. (for Heavy Duty), and now, “A, L, to the dizzle.” Let me pause here and ask the best editor on the planet a question. Mom, should I be capitalizing the “D”? I’ve reluctantly embraced other nicknames like “Slip” and some that are not appropriate for the family audience. Slip stems from my tendency to sometimes lie down on the street and rest when running in the winter. I admit, I can be vertically challenged.
As a parting gift, a word for you to begin dropping into conversation, bifurcate, split or divide into two. It’s important to ease into it’s use though. Once it rolls off your tongue you can proceed to bifurcated, bifurcation, and if you’re really feeling it, bifurcating. It’s a perfectly balanced word in that your use of it won’t cause the guy on the stool next to you to call you a “pretentious, elitist ass,” but at the same time he’ll know you read more than the sports page. Sample sentence. Saturday’s bifurcated run included a longer, steady segment, followed by a shorter, faster one.
The title of an article on Slate.com, my favorite on-line mag. Subtitle, “Congress toys with a silly plan to make Americans lose weight.” Last line on page 1, “OK, what’s so bad about penalizing workers for being fat?”
I write a lot of book reviews and I always avoid reading other reviews of the book I’m working on until I’ve written my own because I don’t want to be influenced by anyone else’s analysis.
Similarly, beyond the title, subtitle, and one sentence, I didn’t read the article so that I could weigh in on it independently. Pun intended.
One of my close friends that I run with often complains that the two of us don’t get a health care discount despite our exercise regimen. Instead of penalizing any group of people, why not just reward individuals committed to a healthy lifestyle? Wouldn’t an economist argue though that’s a “passive penalty” of sorts on sedentary folks? It’s like giving some high schoolers “good grade discounts” on their car insurance. That means insurance companies have to collect more premiums from other students.
Passive “sorry you don’t get the discount” penalties seem much more palatable than singling out heavy people who have to deal with ample discrimination already. What’s heavy anyways? You can forget the government’s body index matrix unless you’re content with over half the population being overweight.
Another complication, how do insurers accurately assess who is committed to an exercise regimen, is fit, and deserves a discount? I can see it now, a national health care 10k every July 1st. Every minute you run under one hour, you get a percentage discount. So run a 45:00 10k and receive a 15% discount.
I’m more in favor of user taxes. Tax the crap out of cigarettes, Big Macs, cinnabuns, and even soda. Just stay away from my chocolate milk.
| 10/26 | M | T | W | R | F | SA | SU | Total |
| S | 500 | 1,9002k—29:247:31, 7:29, 7:16, 7:08100-1:04
1st place |
2,400
20,500 |
|||||
| C | 171:02
50 steady 12modhard |
171:02
50 steady 12modhard |
34
262 |
|||||
| R | 7.75
1:05Wendy |
6.9
53:36 |
6.35
Mike 50+ |
11.2
1:35 |
32
126 |
S: Odd week. Tuesday morning I was so preoccupied by my lengthier than normal work “to do” list I hopped out 500 meters in. Even freaked the life guard out. Can’t remember the last time I did that. I’m doing some guest coaching during the high school “super season” so that a group of junior varsity swimmers can extend their season. Thursday I got to practice at Evergreen early so I could finally get a swim work out in (still trying to figure out what the dude wearing sweats in the sauna was all about, did not look like a wrestler, and was swigging water every 30 seconds). By the time I got in I only had 35 minutes. I don’t know what came over me, but I decided to do a continuous 2k. Actually, I think I may have been feeling guilty for skipping the Y’s “Monster Mile” or 1650. Instead of going 1650 hard, I decided to cruise 2k. Turned out I was fresh from not really having swam all week and so I did a slow build. One daughter was embarrassed I was coaching in jammers and t-shirt while the other, who recently lowered the family 500 record again to 6:13 this time, wanted to race. I kept blowing her off until finally relenting and saying, “Okay, at the end of practice.” So that’s how I found myself on the middle block between the two co-captains, ‘dra and A. “My” junior varsity swimmers were watching so my credibility was at stake. I toyed with the co-caps for the first fifty just sitting on them wondering when they were going to accelerate. Then at the 75 yard mark my turbo boosters fired and I rocketed ahead. When coach said, “1:04, 1:05, 1:07″ A to the L to the Dizzle was the champion. Good thing my gal pal wasn’t there to see my Phelps-like victory celebration. I said to A, “Interesting three body lengths is one second.”
C: Sunday was beautiful and I should have rode, but instead I shoveled dirt to help with the overseeding project. Interestingly, after only ten months, I’m at all time yearly swimming and cycling totals. Just as I had planned for 09, my running totals are off about 20%. I’ve taken from running to add to swimming and cycling. Will probably do the same in 2010
R: Once again, no speed work. And standard runs were at slightly slower paces than normal. Maybe the backing off a bit was why I was able to push the pace near the end of Saturday’s group run. Total time doesn’t reflect my best “Meb in Central Park” impersonation over the last two-plus miles.
Interesting human interest article in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week about people struggling with their return to work. Largely focused on one man who took advantage of being laid off to connect with his two youngish sons in ways he never had before. A week at a special father-son camp, informal basketball games before dinner, etc. Over the six-nine months he was unemployed, he also began exercising and lost 25 pounds. Now he’s taken a time consuming job and is ambivalent about the loss of family and personal time. He said he gets home at 6:15 and the kid’s evening routine consists of dinner, homework, and bed. And so far he’s gained back 15 of the 25 pounds.
I’m giving the author of the article a “B” because it was incomplete. Ironic that a journalist writing for the nation’s biz paper wouldn’t explore how the family might reduce their overhead in order to enjoy better balance. My guess is that man’s family, like all families I suppose, could cut expenses in myriad ways. For example, I couldn’t help but wonder how long his commute is and whether he could reduce it by moving closer to work. If I had to cut expenses in order to strike a better work-life balance one of the first things I’d do is try to move within bicycling distance of my work. Then there’s the “new necessities”, cell phones, cable television, expensive lattes in the Pacific Northwest, that few people think about in the context of how many work hours each requires. A related example that I always find odd, the triathlete with an expensive coach who complains about too little time to train.
It’s as if all of us are on a materialistic treadmill that impairs our ability to logically think through the time/material possession trade-off. I can’t downsize my life when the people on the treadmill to the right and left of me are seemingly living larger and larger. Of course their debt, like their treadmill, isn’t visible either.
Why don’t more people question “the wealthier the happier” assumption that powers the materialistic treadmill? Few of us can practice conspicuous consumption and also carve out the necessary time to enjoy close interpersonal relations with family and friends. Not everyone chooses conspicuous consumption, but m0st do it seems.
Why is that?
What form does your procrastinating take? This morning I delayed grading papers by skimming the forum on Slowtwitch.com, where tens of thousands of triathletes gather from around the U.S. and world. Before you report me to my boss, whomever that is, I only read one thread about race fees getting totally out of control.
The discussion got me so fired up that I almost registered on Slowtwitch (I lurk) so I could post, but chose not to tip my toes in that water. So this will probably interest two or three of my regular readers.
The original poster said the NY Olympic Triathlon has increased it fees 40% the last two years and is now $245. He said he feared triathlon may become a country club sport. About two in ten posters sympathized, eight in ten attacked him for not blindly supporting free market capitalism. I didn’t know Milton Friedman has such a tight grip on the triathlon community, but it makes sense since triathletes tend to own the means of production. (My right wing friends have informed me that we have a Marxist president so I’m going to go along to get along and start dropping Marxist terminology throughout my written and oral communication.) The majority’s thesis is that race directors should charge whatever they can get and that a race is not over priced until it’s not sold out.
That’s all well and good, but they are slow on the up-take and have a major blind spot that no one on Slowtwitch has or will point out. Triathlon ALREADY is a country club sport. Take an enthusiast golfer, tennis player, and triathlete and compare annual expenses and I guarantee you the triathlete would be right in the mix. And look at the demographics of each group and again the triathletes will be every bit as homogenous.
Most importantly, they ignore the fact that outrageous entry fees weaken the competitive pool. If they were serious athletes who wanted to throw down with the best (read economically and culturally diverse) athletes, they’d temper their love of free markets and work to make their sport more accessible. As it is they feel much better about themselves placing second or third among other rich white guys with six figure salaries. Good thing I didn’t register because that line would unleash a tidal wave on Slowtwitch.
If you can’t tell, this topic gets me fired up, but I really should get back to the papers.
Carry on comrades.
I have some close friends whose politics are almost the complete opposite of mine. Our friendships endure because their personal attributes trump their whacked out politics 
. Occasionally, one likes to send me ultra conservative mass emails “just to keep you up to date on what we crazy right-wingers are passing around these days to keep our morale up.”
Sunday’s was a video mocking how successful Barack Obama has been considering he graduated from a “community organizer community college”. Occasionally, I’ll crack a smile. They’re rarely good, but this one was particularly bad.
For satire or comedy to work, there has to be an element of truth in it. President Obama has an impressive education history that I suspect some of my friends on the right would wrongly attribute to affirmative action.
Much of the credit probably goes to his no-nonsense mother who demanded excellence. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, and the President and his wife, whose parents were equally demanding apparently, are holding their daughters to the same high standards. The right won’t acknowledge this, but the President hasn’t used race as an excuse for not achieving. What’s more traditional and conservative than two married parents holding their daughters to very high educational expectations? The power of their personal and parenting examples seem lost on the right.
I don’t know, but my guess is my conservative friends can’t bring themselves to acknowledge that Obama’s well-educated and a committed and caring parent because it doesn’t fit into their intensely negative narrative they’ve crafted. Acknowledging these points might lead to a slippery slope of having to concede other things that might compromise their conservative street cred. Short of eliminating taxes, privatizing everything, and doubling the size of the military, there’s nothing Obama can say or do over the next 2.5 or 6.5 years to change their negative opinions.
For someone who sees subtleties, nuance, and ambiguity around every corner, this is exasperating, but I have to concede that for every right-wing ideologue, there’s a left-wing one somewhere that, because of their passionate dislike of his policies, never could bring themself to acknowledge George Bush the man had redeemable qualities.
Somewhat related to this, can’t help but notice an increasing percentage of lefties are becoming disillusioned with the President. He’s brought some of it upon himself by raising expectations so fast on so many fronts. Take all the references to a “post-partisan era” as just one example. And there’s some truth in the overarching criticism that too often he acts as if he’s still in campaign-mode, trying hard not to offend instead of leading boldly. And I still wish he’d narrow his focus.
Our collective expectations for our presidents are probably too high. Maybe our problems have become too complex and our politics too corrupted by special interest money for any president to achieve Lincoln or FDR-like greatness anymore. Maybe we’d be better off pursing personal excellence closer to home, in the ways we listen, parent, educate, care for other others, work, and conduct our lives more generally.
| M | T | W | R | F | SA | SU | Total | |
| S | 2,500
1kpb 14:24 150k/150d 2×2im1540 2×1im3550 6×1002335 300cd 23’s-better |
3,400
300 wu 200k 3×3004:45 6×2003:10 9×1001:35 23’s-24’s 200 cd |
5,900 | |||||
| C | 17 indoors
1:02 52steady 10modhard |
20 indoors
1:15 60 steady 15modhard |
19
17.7 950’ hoodcrit 8x best 6:45 |
56 | ||||
| R | 7
53:00 |
6.9
53:00 |
10.3
1:17:03 |
24 |
S: Last week’s interval workout where I went harder than normal helped this week. Times were a bit better.
C: Thursday night I enjoyed watching a documentary on August’s Leadville 100 mountain bike race titled “Race Across the Sky”. Sobering, a tough race.
R: Decided not to do the track workout M to not tax my calf. Good call it’s been fine. Then didn’t want to do in a teammate returning from an injury on W. So no speed work. Well, except for Saturday when Lance went hard early, harder in the middle, and hardest at the end. Perfect morning, great workout.
More mature than average
My third grade class picture. See if you can find me.
Post title most likely to drive away traffic?
Despite following global politics closely, a bachelors degree in history, doctoral coursework in international studies, and extended experience in developing countries, I’m relatively uninformed about the “stans”. Lately though, I’ve begun to educate myself. I found the recent PBS Frontline documentary titled “Obama’s War” an interesting introduction that nicely outlined the complexities. Last night I finished David Rohde’s five-part series on being kidnapped by the Taliban and held hostage for seven months. I found his story utterly riveting and am completely baffled by the commenter on the Times website that wrote of his story, “I’ve learned nothing.”
Next, I’m turning to Jane Mayer’s New Yorker article on drones titled “The Predator War”.
I still don’t know nearly enough for you to justify continuing to read, but then again, every U.S. citizen should be thinking it through since it’s our military (and tax dollars) at work. So here are my initial thoughts.
First, like in Iraq, the military campaign is too much of an American enterprise and not enough of an international coalition. If the premise is that the West’s security could be threatened by a victorious Taliban that empowers Al Qaeda, then Western countries should work in concert to defeat the Taliban. Going it mostly alone guarantees that with each civilian death antipathy towards the U.S., instead of the West more generally, intensifies.
Second, we should make a commitment to additional troops dependent upon other western countries contributing more. If other western countries refuse to commit more troops, we should adjust our plans downward.
Third, we could gain the upper hand against the Taliban in the next few years (win the military battle), but still compromise our medium-long term security if collateral death and destruction leads to even greater anti-Americanism (lose the hearts and mind war). Sons will avenge their fathers’ deaths.
Fourth, if Pakistan’s top intelligence agency props up Taliban commanders and if Afghanistan’s national election was rigged, what are the odds that any of our efforts to stabilize the countries, let alone improve their “medieval” infrastructure will pay dividends?
Fifth, in our efforts to avert another 9/11 terrorist attack, we must not add to Afghan and Pakistani civilians’ suffering. On that note, here’s a particularly disturbing excerpt from Rohdes story:
A stalemate between the United States and the Taliban seemed to unfold before me. The drones killed many senior commanders and hindered their operations. Yet the Taliban were able to garner recruits in their aftermath by exaggerating the number of civilian casualties. The strikes also created a paranoia among the Taliban. They believed that a network of local informants guided the missiles. Innocent civilians were rounded up, accused of working as American spies and then executed. Several days after the drone strike near our house in Makeen, we heard that foreign militants had arrested a local man. He confessed to being a spy after they disemboweled him and chopped off his leg. Then they decapitated him and hung his body in the local bazaar as a warning.
At present, I can’t support committing more troops or money to the war effort because the military campaign is too much of an American enterprise, we risk even greater anti-Americanism in the medium-long term, we don’t have dependable political partners, and the plight of Afghan and Pakistani civilians will most likely worsen.
