Amazingly, I have managed to sneak back into my old "blogger" account, where over a decade ago I posted over 300 entries. I have no doubt that if I go back to read them, I'll find some that make me feel foolish. Just for perspective: the last entry I posted mentioned that I had applied for a new job. Since then I've won the job, done the job, grown in the job, left the job, and gotten a new job--from which I hope to retire in the not-distant future. The last comment made on one of my posts was by a very good friend whose funeral I attended over three years ago. And the last political observations I made were decrying a changing set of norms... but predate the absolute evisceration of norms that followed. Since last I've blogged, I've had all three of my kids grow up, move out, go to college, graduate, and get jobs. I've added two daughters-in-law and five (yep, FIVE) grandchildren. I've seen a lot more of life, and sadly, a lot more of death. It's a strange time capsule, for sure. I have yet to decide if (or how much) I want to blog again. We'll see. For now, it's just neat to get back in.
Sunday, June 2, 2024
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
The Annual Resolutions Wrap-Up
Almost the only thing I still do on this blog is post my New Year's resolutions. But at least doing so puts them all in one place for future reference. The tradition continues....
Let's just say that I need a good fresh start in 2014. I didn't do well at all with my 2013 list. My Bible study and prayer habits have been a hot mess, I had my first-ever DNF in the Charleston Marathon, my personal disciplines and organization have been a shambles, and my goals involving personal health habits were basically non-starters. Somehow, in the midst of all that, I was awarded the Gibbes Award for excellence in teaching at the end of last school year, and we won our third-straight state title in track, by the largest margin in league history. We also won our 4th consecutive cross-country state championship, and my school's alumni magazine ran a feature story on me as if I were doing a lot better than I feel like I am. Go figure. This new school year has been one of the most challenging of my career in the classroom (lots and lots of change--my oft-repeated one-liner of the semester has been that if we could have picked any 3 or 4 of the big changes this year, I could have handled them well, but a dozen at a time was a bit much). On top of all of that, my athletic director (and good friend), Ed Steers, is retiring at the end of the school year, and I have put my name in the hat as a possible replacement.
So here I sit, unsettled and anxious. I am possibly entering my last semester of classroom teaching, but I don't know. We have the opportunity to win state again, which is good, of course. And I am ridiculously proud of my family. What's more, I came across some of the goals I wrote back in about 1997 and look at them now with a sense of pride. Although I haven't been the runner I once was, I quietly logged another year of over 500 miles, and take some pride on being in significantly better shape than lots of guys turning 45 this year.
So--looking ahead, what will I resolve? I can't really resolve to win the AD job; it's a goal, but one I have no control over. I will go ahead and claim the goal of winning a 4th straight boys' track title. The more difficult one, but what I really hope to do, is add a girls' title to match. I think we're close. Obviously, the athletes have to do their part, and I cannot do a thing about the quality of other teams. But I will be very satisfied if we can pull that off. It will definitely take my best work.
I do want to read the Bible through again, as well as get back in the habit of "aerobic kneeling" (serious prayer). This will require more discipline with my mornings. I really, really want to regain that element of control over my day. I also want another 500+ mile year. It gets harder and harder to be consistent, but those are big ones.
Whether or not this is my last teaching semester, I want to do a better job than I feel like I did last term. Lots of folks have said nice things about the results, but I have not been satisfied.
I also want to do a better job managing our family budget and my time with family. Neither have been that bad, but both could be better. And what these items all share is the same sense of "winging it," being out of control, and accepting the good rather than insisting on the best. And the answer is the same for all of them: discipline. So that's going to be the watchword in 2014.
Let's just say that I need a good fresh start in 2014. I didn't do well at all with my 2013 list. My Bible study and prayer habits have been a hot mess, I had my first-ever DNF in the Charleston Marathon, my personal disciplines and organization have been a shambles, and my goals involving personal health habits were basically non-starters. Somehow, in the midst of all that, I was awarded the Gibbes Award for excellence in teaching at the end of last school year, and we won our third-straight state title in track, by the largest margin in league history. We also won our 4th consecutive cross-country state championship, and my school's alumni magazine ran a feature story on me as if I were doing a lot better than I feel like I am. Go figure. This new school year has been one of the most challenging of my career in the classroom (lots and lots of change--my oft-repeated one-liner of the semester has been that if we could have picked any 3 or 4 of the big changes this year, I could have handled them well, but a dozen at a time was a bit much). On top of all of that, my athletic director (and good friend), Ed Steers, is retiring at the end of the school year, and I have put my name in the hat as a possible replacement.
So here I sit, unsettled and anxious. I am possibly entering my last semester of classroom teaching, but I don't know. We have the opportunity to win state again, which is good, of course. And I am ridiculously proud of my family. What's more, I came across some of the goals I wrote back in about 1997 and look at them now with a sense of pride. Although I haven't been the runner I once was, I quietly logged another year of over 500 miles, and take some pride on being in significantly better shape than lots of guys turning 45 this year.
So--looking ahead, what will I resolve? I can't really resolve to win the AD job; it's a goal, but one I have no control over. I will go ahead and claim the goal of winning a 4th straight boys' track title. The more difficult one, but what I really hope to do, is add a girls' title to match. I think we're close. Obviously, the athletes have to do their part, and I cannot do a thing about the quality of other teams. But I will be very satisfied if we can pull that off. It will definitely take my best work.
I do want to read the Bible through again, as well as get back in the habit of "aerobic kneeling" (serious prayer). This will require more discipline with my mornings. I really, really want to regain that element of control over my day. I also want another 500+ mile year. It gets harder and harder to be consistent, but those are big ones.
Whether or not this is my last teaching semester, I want to do a better job than I feel like I did last term. Lots of folks have said nice things about the results, but I have not been satisfied.
I also want to do a better job managing our family budget and my time with family. Neither have been that bad, but both could be better. And what these items all share is the same sense of "winging it," being out of control, and accepting the good rather than insisting on the best. And the answer is the same for all of them: discipline. So that's going to be the watchword in 2014.
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Just A Thought
I had written most of this on Facebook and then thought, "nope." I'll just write I here where nobody will read it anyway.
Deep thought regarding the filibuster modification in the house. My brother-in-law, Tommy Brown, is home for the holidays from Nicaragua. We have talked a bit about Daniel Ortega's Sandinista power grab down there. But the short version is that, for most folks there, they prefer the services the Sandinistas provide to a relatively theoretical notion of freedom. In reality, the constitutional changes are merely making official what has been de facto for some time. And the remaining Contras who would like to fight are clinging to a hope that is no longer there: the Cold War is over, Reagan is long dead, and nobody is coming to their aid.
Big disclaimer: I am not saying that Harry Reid is a communist dictator. But isn't the parallel there? A very few teachers of government and civics, a few political junkies, and some talk radio listeners really care about the role of the filibuster in our checks and balances. But times have changed (really beginning with the 17th amendment, but that's even more geekery). There are no Scoop Jackson Democrats nor Rockefeller Republicans, and most voters on both sides are just fine with that.
The country has grown more and more small-d democratic, for better or worse. I think worse. Our founding fathers would probably agree. But they made a system that could be changed. Dr. Franklin was asked in 1787 what sort of government we had. The answer was, "a republic, if you can keep it." Perhaps we don't want to,
Monday, January 21, 2013
Marathon Post-Mortem
Well, it's over. Unfortunately, not a happy ending. I started the Charleston Marathon, and I looked great through 13 miles, good through 16, not too bad through 19, and by 20 knew that my hopes of a decent time were long gone. I ended with a DNF (Did Not Finish), which I am not sure if I have ever done in a race before. To be honest, I am still not 100% sure how I feel about that. I definitely could have walked/shuffled the last 6 miles and finished the race, but I gave up.
That sounds really bad. But it's not like I bailed out as soon as it became obvious that my hoped-for time of 3:59 was going to be 4:01. I was physically toast, and it was going to be upwards of 4:20 before I limped in. Had I never completed a marathon before, or even if I could have salvaged a 4:11 and claimed an "age adjusted" sub-4, I would have soldiered on. But I already have a marathon finish. Indeed, I already have a marathon failure. Looking at another 70+ minutes of agony to produce an identical twin of my previous disaster was just more than I was willing to do.
When I raced the USMC marathon in 1996, I was 27, but I really did not train adequately. I thought I had this time. However, in every training run over 16 miles, I suffered. Even when I completed training runs of 19 and 20 miles at a good average time, that average ALWAYS was including everything past 16 being a death march. I told myself that this was probably a nutrition issue; I never took in enough calories or fluids while training. But on race day, with Gatorade every 2 miles and carbohydrate gels every 5, I thought it would be better.
In the end, it wasn't. At least I was consistent. I can honestly say I have had the exact same outcome of every run over 16 miles in my life. The weather was perfect, my pacing was good, I took in fluids and gel at every stop, without even breaking stride. Yet I crashed anyway. People talk about hitting the wall in marathon running, and pushing through it. Somehow, I never have been able to. I don't know if what I feel at mile 17 is the same as everybody else and I am just mentally weaker, or if physically I crash worse than the next guy. That's the thing that hurts worst of all.
Several folks have asked two good questions: "Do you think your time goal was too ambitious? Will you try another one?" Those two are related. Regarding the first, maybe. Had I run my goal pace, I would have been top-20 in my age group (out of 72 finishers). Maybe that's a little over my head. I feel very confident that if I "ran" slower, took walk breaks, and set out to just finish, I could do so. But like I said earlier, I already knew that I could do that. I finished in 1996. But I wanted to see if I could run under 4 hours. Apparently, the answer to that is no. And that being the case, I currently am not at all interested in doing this sort of training again to chase a lower goal than that.
That may sound pretty defeatist. But I really did not/do not enjoy marathon-style training. I think after this race, it's safe to say that my body is cut out for something else. I am in great shape; my resting pulse rate was 49 this morning. I can run 5k, 10k, and even half-marathon races and enjoy them more than this. So, for now, I am done with the marathon. However, several years ago, I took about three years totally off from racing after being disgusted that my aging body could no longer cash the checks my brain wrote. Eventually, I mellowed, and have come back with a different attitude. I won't rule out the possibility that I may one day find a way to toe the line in a marathon and take pride in just finishing. But not yet. And not soon.
I will carve out one little exception to my "no more long stuff" resolution. I will continue to crew for my brother-in-law, Adam, as he runs ultramarathons. I actually am beginning to understand better why he enjoys them, and although I don't care to actually run them like he does, I don't mind putting in 30-40 non-consecutive miles in a weekend if it's part of one of those.
Thanks to everyone who has wished me well throughout this 5 month process. I do wish it had ended more successfully, but I am very, very glad it's over.
That sounds really bad. But it's not like I bailed out as soon as it became obvious that my hoped-for time of 3:59 was going to be 4:01. I was physically toast, and it was going to be upwards of 4:20 before I limped in. Had I never completed a marathon before, or even if I could have salvaged a 4:11 and claimed an "age adjusted" sub-4, I would have soldiered on. But I already have a marathon finish. Indeed, I already have a marathon failure. Looking at another 70+ minutes of agony to produce an identical twin of my previous disaster was just more than I was willing to do.
When I raced the USMC marathon in 1996, I was 27, but I really did not train adequately. I thought I had this time. However, in every training run over 16 miles, I suffered. Even when I completed training runs of 19 and 20 miles at a good average time, that average ALWAYS was including everything past 16 being a death march. I told myself that this was probably a nutrition issue; I never took in enough calories or fluids while training. But on race day, with Gatorade every 2 miles and carbohydrate gels every 5, I thought it would be better.
In the end, it wasn't. At least I was consistent. I can honestly say I have had the exact same outcome of every run over 16 miles in my life. The weather was perfect, my pacing was good, I took in fluids and gel at every stop, without even breaking stride. Yet I crashed anyway. People talk about hitting the wall in marathon running, and pushing through it. Somehow, I never have been able to. I don't know if what I feel at mile 17 is the same as everybody else and I am just mentally weaker, or if physically I crash worse than the next guy. That's the thing that hurts worst of all.
Several folks have asked two good questions: "Do you think your time goal was too ambitious? Will you try another one?" Those two are related. Regarding the first, maybe. Had I run my goal pace, I would have been top-20 in my age group (out of 72 finishers). Maybe that's a little over my head. I feel very confident that if I "ran" slower, took walk breaks, and set out to just finish, I could do so. But like I said earlier, I already knew that I could do that. I finished in 1996. But I wanted to see if I could run under 4 hours. Apparently, the answer to that is no. And that being the case, I currently am not at all interested in doing this sort of training again to chase a lower goal than that.
That may sound pretty defeatist. But I really did not/do not enjoy marathon-style training. I think after this race, it's safe to say that my body is cut out for something else. I am in great shape; my resting pulse rate was 49 this morning. I can run 5k, 10k, and even half-marathon races and enjoy them more than this. So, for now, I am done with the marathon. However, several years ago, I took about three years totally off from racing after being disgusted that my aging body could no longer cash the checks my brain wrote. Eventually, I mellowed, and have come back with a different attitude. I won't rule out the possibility that I may one day find a way to toe the line in a marathon and take pride in just finishing. But not yet. And not soon.
I will carve out one little exception to my "no more long stuff" resolution. I will continue to crew for my brother-in-law, Adam, as he runs ultramarathons. I actually am beginning to understand better why he enjoys them, and although I don't care to actually run them like he does, I don't mind putting in 30-40 non-consecutive miles in a weekend if it's part of one of those.
Thanks to everyone who has wished me well throughout this 5 month process. I do wish it had ended more successfully, but I am very, very glad it's over.
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
What I Really Think About the Fiscal Cliff Deal
Ok, let's get the preliminaries and disclaimers out of the way. First, let's stipulate that I would prefer that taxes be raised on no one, and also that we actually balance the budget. Let's go further, still--I wish we would even PASS a budget at all. Let us also agree that the deal passed last night does nearly zero about the deficit. It really doesn't, $620 billion over 10 years is a rounding error when we're looking at annual trillion-dollar shortfalls.
All that said, fine. We are dealing with the possible here. As I have said elsewhere and repeatedly, I'm not a big fan of utopian fantasies, whether of the progressive or libertarian flavor. If you allowed me dictatorial powers, I would do LOTS of stuff different, but that's not an option. And in terms of the POSSIBLE, this deal is about as good as it gets.
Here's why: it locks in the Bush tax rates PERMANENTLY for everybody under $400k per year. Admittedly, that does zip to reduce the deficit. But that's a spending issue anyway. And since we apparently are not serious at all about paying the bills, why screw over most of America? I'm happy to share some sacrifice, if we get serious. But this whole tax charade reminds me of nothing so much as the old "global warming" deal--asking America to drive cars made of tinfoil and pay gazillions in carbon taxes while India and China keep on churning out coal smoke and make those sacrifices meaningless. With those rates permanently locked in for over 99% of taxpayers, the whole issue of holding everybody hostage every few years while we argue over what rates should be on those making upwards of $400k goes away.
But wait, you may say. I thought you were a supply-sider. How can you be so nonchalant about jacking up taxes on small-business owners, job creators, etc.? Well, I am (read my post from a couple of days ago). And I think it's a dumb idea. But it's a dumb idea that my side cannot defeat. ALL the rates were going up. And had we gone over the cliff, I have zero doubt that the endgame would have been a restoration of low rates below $200 or $250k, with even more damage done. And let's face it--$400,000 is nothing like $200,000 in the real world. I hate class warfare, and have no desire to stick it to "the rich." But that's what the country voted for. And a case can be made that $200k is not rich--it's a high school principal married to a police lieutenant. And particularly in areas with a high cost of living, after you pay taxes on $200k, it's hard to live "rich." If you tithe, put a kid or two in college or private school, and live in a nice (but not ridiculous) neighborhood, it's easy to imagine a married couple at that level driving a used Benz or a new Honda, but not a brand-new Lexus. Those guys may live a lot better than most (better than me), but they are not the yacht and caviar club.
On the other hand, at $400k, you're talking real money. At that level, even after taxes, you can live on water. You can vacation almost anywhere. You can pay sticker price if your kid gets into Yale. You might not can do all three at the same time, but you are in an entirely different ball game at that point. Now, I happen to believe that raising those taxes is a dumb idea, will detract from economic growth, and will likely hurt small businesses and cost jobs. But such an idea is not sellable to our current electorate. Maybe if they see the consequences, they can learn. I doubt it, but it's possible. Regardless, it is impossible to have that discussion so long as everybody else is held hostage over the rates in the other brackets--least of all when the party that (allegedly) champions tax cuts is in the minority, and also in political disarray.
So what should the GOP do from here? If Hemlock is not on the menu, I suppose they can use the debt-ceiling ad the sequester to get some spending cuts. With taxes now permanently off the table, the battleground is more favorable to them on those two--just like the rates were going to rise if nothing happened, giving any tie to the tax-hikers, on the other two items a tie goes to ending-cutters. Actually, I kinda like the sequester; for all the and-wringing about draconian cuts, spending still goes UP. If you let me be in charge, I would do a true budget FREEZE. No cuts, but nothing goes up, nobody gets a raise, you just have to find a way to only spend what you did last year (the horror)! Sounds tough? No tougher than what many families (mine included) have done the last few years.
But again, that's future stuff, and assumes a fact not in evidence: that politicians can do math. For now, this tax deal was about as good a deal as we were going to get.
All that said, fine. We are dealing with the possible here. As I have said elsewhere and repeatedly, I'm not a big fan of utopian fantasies, whether of the progressive or libertarian flavor. If you allowed me dictatorial powers, I would do LOTS of stuff different, but that's not an option. And in terms of the POSSIBLE, this deal is about as good as it gets.
Here's why: it locks in the Bush tax rates PERMANENTLY for everybody under $400k per year. Admittedly, that does zip to reduce the deficit. But that's a spending issue anyway. And since we apparently are not serious at all about paying the bills, why screw over most of America? I'm happy to share some sacrifice, if we get serious. But this whole tax charade reminds me of nothing so much as the old "global warming" deal--asking America to drive cars made of tinfoil and pay gazillions in carbon taxes while India and China keep on churning out coal smoke and make those sacrifices meaningless. With those rates permanently locked in for over 99% of taxpayers, the whole issue of holding everybody hostage every few years while we argue over what rates should be on those making upwards of $400k goes away.
But wait, you may say. I thought you were a supply-sider. How can you be so nonchalant about jacking up taxes on small-business owners, job creators, etc.? Well, I am (read my post from a couple of days ago). And I think it's a dumb idea. But it's a dumb idea that my side cannot defeat. ALL the rates were going up. And had we gone over the cliff, I have zero doubt that the endgame would have been a restoration of low rates below $200 or $250k, with even more damage done. And let's face it--$400,000 is nothing like $200,000 in the real world. I hate class warfare, and have no desire to stick it to "the rich." But that's what the country voted for. And a case can be made that $200k is not rich--it's a high school principal married to a police lieutenant. And particularly in areas with a high cost of living, after you pay taxes on $200k, it's hard to live "rich." If you tithe, put a kid or two in college or private school, and live in a nice (but not ridiculous) neighborhood, it's easy to imagine a married couple at that level driving a used Benz or a new Honda, but not a brand-new Lexus. Those guys may live a lot better than most (better than me), but they are not the yacht and caviar club.
On the other hand, at $400k, you're talking real money. At that level, even after taxes, you can live on water. You can vacation almost anywhere. You can pay sticker price if your kid gets into Yale. You might not can do all three at the same time, but you are in an entirely different ball game at that point. Now, I happen to believe that raising those taxes is a dumb idea, will detract from economic growth, and will likely hurt small businesses and cost jobs. But such an idea is not sellable to our current electorate. Maybe if they see the consequences, they can learn. I doubt it, but it's possible. Regardless, it is impossible to have that discussion so long as everybody else is held hostage over the rates in the other brackets--least of all when the party that (allegedly) champions tax cuts is in the minority, and also in political disarray.
So what should the GOP do from here? If Hemlock is not on the menu, I suppose they can use the debt-ceiling ad the sequester to get some spending cuts. With taxes now permanently off the table, the battleground is more favorable to them on those two--just like the rates were going to rise if nothing happened, giving any tie to the tax-hikers, on the other two items a tie goes to ending-cutters. Actually, I kinda like the sequester; for all the and-wringing about draconian cuts, spending still goes UP. If you let me be in charge, I would do a true budget FREEZE. No cuts, but nothing goes up, nobody gets a raise, you just have to find a way to only spend what you did last year (the horror)! Sounds tough? No tougher than what many families (mine included) have done the last few years.
But again, that's future stuff, and assumes a fact not in evidence: that politicians can do math. For now, this tax deal was about as good a deal as we were going to get.
Sunday, December 30, 2012
The Year-End Reolutions Post
Even though I barely blog anymore, one thing I have done pretty consistently for the last several years is post my new year's resolutions. Not only does it provide at least a semblance of accountability, it also is fun to go back and evaluate from one year to the next.
This past year I resolved to read the Bible through again, and I was successful in that. That is somewhere around 11-12 "full" readings, not counting partials. This year I want to continue the discipline of daily reading, but I am tired of the "whole Bible in a year" format. I intend to begin this year with a 90-day plan through the New Testament, and after that I may re-evaluate and do some other directed study.
Another goal I set last year was to build on my record-setting year in 2011, when I logged the most miles I have ever run in a calendar year (745). This year I actually eclipsed that. I have 797 in the books with a day to go, so I intend to shuffle at least once around my block and make it a cool 800 in 2012. The driver of all those miles is my plan to run the Charleston Marathon in January. It's not much of a "resolution" to check off a goal three weeks into the new year when all the work took place in the previous one, but I do intend to set a new personal record, hopefully under 4 hours, in that marathon.
This coming year I emphatically DO NOT intend to continue marathon training. I really don't enjoy it. But now that I can run 15 miles pretty easily (and 20 with difficulty), my running goal in 2013 is to make a 10-miler a weekly or bi-weekly occurrence, in the hopes of running some age-adjusted personal records from 5k through the half-marathon. Since I will be 44, that makes me the oldest in my current age group (40-44), so any hopes to win age-group trophies may be postponed until 2014.
I resolved last year to try and win a repeat state title with my track team. We did, in pretty convincing fashion. (A great deal of that has to do with having amazingly talented kids and the best coaching staff we've ever assembled.). I think it is possible to three-peat; even though it's hard to resolve something that depends so much upon the performance of others (not just my own team, but all the others, too), that's going to be the goal.
Probably the main thing I want to do in terms of habits is to make better use of my early morning quiet time. I already get up at 5:30 daily, and have close to an hour before anyone else in my house is up. But too often I spend the whole time "reading the news" online. I managed to use technology (a Nook) last year to do a better job of reading books instead of blogs. This year I have an iPad, and hope to use its calendar and task list features to do better in time management.
There will also be some less-dramatic health-related goals. As I get older, my vital signs look more and more like those of my family (not the best genes), in spite of my running. So I intend to eat and drink more good stuff and less bad stuff. I've also got a couple of personal goals involving priorities at home. But that's pretty much the list.
This past year I resolved to read the Bible through again, and I was successful in that. That is somewhere around 11-12 "full" readings, not counting partials. This year I want to continue the discipline of daily reading, but I am tired of the "whole Bible in a year" format. I intend to begin this year with a 90-day plan through the New Testament, and after that I may re-evaluate and do some other directed study.
Another goal I set last year was to build on my record-setting year in 2011, when I logged the most miles I have ever run in a calendar year (745). This year I actually eclipsed that. I have 797 in the books with a day to go, so I intend to shuffle at least once around my block and make it a cool 800 in 2012. The driver of all those miles is my plan to run the Charleston Marathon in January. It's not much of a "resolution" to check off a goal three weeks into the new year when all the work took place in the previous one, but I do intend to set a new personal record, hopefully under 4 hours, in that marathon.
This coming year I emphatically DO NOT intend to continue marathon training. I really don't enjoy it. But now that I can run 15 miles pretty easily (and 20 with difficulty), my running goal in 2013 is to make a 10-miler a weekly or bi-weekly occurrence, in the hopes of running some age-adjusted personal records from 5k through the half-marathon. Since I will be 44, that makes me the oldest in my current age group (40-44), so any hopes to win age-group trophies may be postponed until 2014.
I resolved last year to try and win a repeat state title with my track team. We did, in pretty convincing fashion. (A great deal of that has to do with having amazingly talented kids and the best coaching staff we've ever assembled.). I think it is possible to three-peat; even though it's hard to resolve something that depends so much upon the performance of others (not just my own team, but all the others, too), that's going to be the goal.
Probably the main thing I want to do in terms of habits is to make better use of my early morning quiet time. I already get up at 5:30 daily, and have close to an hour before anyone else in my house is up. But too often I spend the whole time "reading the news" online. I managed to use technology (a Nook) last year to do a better job of reading books instead of blogs. This year I have an iPad, and hope to use its calendar and task list features to do better in time management.
There will also be some less-dramatic health-related goals. As I get older, my vital signs look more and more like those of my family (not the best genes), in spite of my running. So I intend to eat and drink more good stuff and less bad stuff. I've also got a couple of personal goals involving priorities at home. But that's pretty much the list.
A Little Econ
This post is actually something I wrote over a month ago, while waiting for my son to complete his driving test at the DMV. Just clearing the decks before the annual resolutions post.
A Little Econ Lesson
Sometimes I wish I could just reach through the TV or computer screen and just grab some talking head by the lapels and teach some simple economics to them, and to the apparently-ignorant audience to whom they write or speak. Don't get me wrong--it is perfectly OK for people to disagree over economics. Indeed, one of my favorite economics jokes (What? You don't have favorite economics jokes?) is about the economist with three arms. That allowed him to say, "on the OTHER other hand...." But even those disagreements should not be based on utter ignorance.
Let's begin with some pet peeves. First up, supply-side economics, and the Laffer Curve. Supply-siders (of whom I count myself one) say that, just as a tax rate of 0% will yield zero revenue, so would a tax rate of 100%. The logic is that I can stay home in my pajamas and bring home nothing, so why should I work all day for the same? That then yields a premise: just as tax rates can be too low to generate maximum revenue, they can also be too high. At the point which tax rates change behavior to the point of shrinking the overall economic "pie," taking a larger "slice" for the government becomes counterproductive.
This idea lends itself to twin falsehoods. One is the idea that raising rates always produces more revenue (the standard, "let's hike taxes on the rich" plan). But equally dumb is the reverse, conservative fallacy--that lowering rates always produces more revenue. Obviously, that's not true. We may not know what the "Goldilocks" tax rate is, but assuming there is one, you can muck things up moving either direction.
Now, that leaves aside other considerations. A famous sports scientist once wrote, correctly, I believe, that anybody who runs more than 90 minutes per week is doing so for reasons other than health. Yet I still run more than that in a single run sometimes. I just don't lie to myself and say it's for cardiovascular fitness. Same with taxes. If it were to be conclusively proven that a tax rate of 90% would generate optimum revenue, I would still oppose it on moral grounds, as I believe that confiscatory rates amount to slavery. Likewise, I can imagine that some folks might want taxes on certain groups at some set level above that which is mathematically most effective. But if you believe that, I think you should be able to say so, and explain the principle behind it. If you can't, then stick with the math!
So what does the math say? Well, Coolidge, JFK, Reagan, and Bush 43 all cut tax rates, and in every case, tax receipts grew. Now, I do think it's pretty obvious that JFK's cut of a 91% top rate to 70% or Reagan slashing that down to 28% would yield far more pie-growing stimulus than Bush's cut of 39% down to 35%. But it seems proven by a pretty standardized and repeatable experiment that this works. If that's not what caused (or at least contributed to) the growth, then I am open to alternative explanations.
What about the reverse? Paul Krugman of the New York Times has waxed rhapsodic over the fact that the USA enjoyed a huge economic boom in the 1950s under Eisenhower, with top rates of 91%. But there was a little something else in the mix at the time, as well. The fact that the USA was pretty much the only industrialized economy not shattered by WWII may have had a little to do with that. Let's face it, I am a 138-pound marathoner who can eat anything I want and not gain an ounce. But I don't assume that the diet is the reason I am skinny!
The other big counter-example is the fact that the USA prospered and even ran a budget surplus during the Clinton administration. This is almost always followed by the fact that after Bush cut taxes, the deficit roared back and he wound up with a net loss of jobs over his two terms in office. But once again, was it the tax rates that caused either the prosperity or the later crash? It is my contention that Clinton was helped a good bit on the revenue side by two inflating bubbles. The fact that Clinton's first year in office was also the year that the World Wide Web went mainstream cannot be ignored. And many Americans, myself among them, made a small fortune in real estate during the same time period, as housing prices soared and down payments became relics of a bygone era. We might also note that Clinton was the first US president since before my father was born to not have to worry about a Cold War, and the last one to not need to worry about a War on Terrorism.
But we DID run a surplus, right? Well, sort of. Our surplus included Social Security receipts, earmarked for the (nonexistent) trust fund. Actually, the US National Debt never went down a penny, despite the paper surplus. But at least there was one on paper. And then Bush screwed it up. Or did he? Do you remember the campaign of 2000, back when nobody dreamed 9/11 was in our future? The big question was what to do with the surpluses that were projected as far as the eye could see. Bush wanted the "overpayment" returned to the taxpayers. Al Gore wanted the surplus put in a budget "lockbox" to offset the eventual deficit in Social Security. Bush won (barely), and we got the cuts. But the lack of a lockbox nor the declining revenue is what brought us down. It turned out that the rosy projections didn't account for the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Indeed, by Election Day of 2000, the economy was already in recession. Just a few months later, planes hit the twin towers in NYC. The seeds of both of those events had been planted and watered while Bush was still governor of Texas.
The rest of Bush's two terms were actually economically strong. The economy recovered (some might even say because of the tax cuts). It was never as good as the best years of the Clinton administration, but how many of us would not like to see unemployment under 5.7% nowadays? Even with the "two wars on a credit card" (and although the wisdom of the Iraqi adventure is still quite debatable, what the heck else were we supposed to do in Afghanistan after 9/11), the deficit, which had ballooned out to over 400 billion dollars after 2001, had begun to contract. It came down every year until 2007, when it was about 165 billion dollars. And had all those trends continued, even including low tax rates and two wars, we would have seen surpluses again. But once again, the forecasts failed to account for unexpected events. The same housing bubble whose run-up had contributed so much to the growth under both Clinton and Bush burst, and the resulting crash wiped out every gain made in the previous seven years. That is a slightly different narrative than "Bush presided over a net loss of jobs."
This all sounds somewhat dishonest, as I seem to be saying that all the apparent good stuff under Clinton can be explained away, and all the bad stuff under Bush somehow should not count. But that's not all true. Bush's biggest fault (fiscally) was not Iraq, it was Medicare Part D. There is no need to laud him as some sort of misunderstood budget-cutter. But the strawman that "Bush's policies are what got us into this economic mess," particularly when that is shorthand for tax rates, simply is not true. And I also don't deny that the 1990s under Clinton were fabulous economic times. But no one has yet demonstrated to me what policies of Clinton's can be credited for that. A week on a cruise ship is also wonderful, but meanwhile at home, bills pile up and the grass keeps growing. Once the vacation ends, the reality which had been in the background is still there. It amuses me that we do not (yet) apply the same standard of historical judgment to the 1990s as we do to the "Roaring 20s." There, too, we had a period of peace and prosperity, fueled by an inflating bubble. But we judge that decade in light of the Depression which followed, which takes off some of the shine. How are the Clinton years different?
So... what is the takeaway of this epistle? Not much in terms of policy prescriptions. I have a few, and may even write about them. But I just wish for more honest argument. Smart people can disagree with me about all of this... but they should acknowledge the fact that these arguments exist, and should be obligated to deal with them, as I hope I have with their reverse. That doesn't mean we shouldn't raise taxes. It only means that if we do, it shouldn't be based on a narrative which "everybody knows" that is nonetheless untrue. Or, if it's true, it ought to be able to be explained a heck of a lot better than we are getting these days.
A Little Econ Lesson
Sometimes I wish I could just reach through the TV or computer screen and just grab some talking head by the lapels and teach some simple economics to them, and to the apparently-ignorant audience to whom they write or speak. Don't get me wrong--it is perfectly OK for people to disagree over economics. Indeed, one of my favorite economics jokes (What? You don't have favorite economics jokes?) is about the economist with three arms. That allowed him to say, "on the OTHER other hand...." But even those disagreements should not be based on utter ignorance.
Let's begin with some pet peeves. First up, supply-side economics, and the Laffer Curve. Supply-siders (of whom I count myself one) say that, just as a tax rate of 0% will yield zero revenue, so would a tax rate of 100%. The logic is that I can stay home in my pajamas and bring home nothing, so why should I work all day for the same? That then yields a premise: just as tax rates can be too low to generate maximum revenue, they can also be too high. At the point which tax rates change behavior to the point of shrinking the overall economic "pie," taking a larger "slice" for the government becomes counterproductive.
This idea lends itself to twin falsehoods. One is the idea that raising rates always produces more revenue (the standard, "let's hike taxes on the rich" plan). But equally dumb is the reverse, conservative fallacy--that lowering rates always produces more revenue. Obviously, that's not true. We may not know what the "Goldilocks" tax rate is, but assuming there is one, you can muck things up moving either direction.
Now, that leaves aside other considerations. A famous sports scientist once wrote, correctly, I believe, that anybody who runs more than 90 minutes per week is doing so for reasons other than health. Yet I still run more than that in a single run sometimes. I just don't lie to myself and say it's for cardiovascular fitness. Same with taxes. If it were to be conclusively proven that a tax rate of 90% would generate optimum revenue, I would still oppose it on moral grounds, as I believe that confiscatory rates amount to slavery. Likewise, I can imagine that some folks might want taxes on certain groups at some set level above that which is mathematically most effective. But if you believe that, I think you should be able to say so, and explain the principle behind it. If you can't, then stick with the math!
So what does the math say? Well, Coolidge, JFK, Reagan, and Bush 43 all cut tax rates, and in every case, tax receipts grew. Now, I do think it's pretty obvious that JFK's cut of a 91% top rate to 70% or Reagan slashing that down to 28% would yield far more pie-growing stimulus than Bush's cut of 39% down to 35%. But it seems proven by a pretty standardized and repeatable experiment that this works. If that's not what caused (or at least contributed to) the growth, then I am open to alternative explanations.
What about the reverse? Paul Krugman of the New York Times has waxed rhapsodic over the fact that the USA enjoyed a huge economic boom in the 1950s under Eisenhower, with top rates of 91%. But there was a little something else in the mix at the time, as well. The fact that the USA was pretty much the only industrialized economy not shattered by WWII may have had a little to do with that. Let's face it, I am a 138-pound marathoner who can eat anything I want and not gain an ounce. But I don't assume that the diet is the reason I am skinny!
The other big counter-example is the fact that the USA prospered and even ran a budget surplus during the Clinton administration. This is almost always followed by the fact that after Bush cut taxes, the deficit roared back and he wound up with a net loss of jobs over his two terms in office. But once again, was it the tax rates that caused either the prosperity or the later crash? It is my contention that Clinton was helped a good bit on the revenue side by two inflating bubbles. The fact that Clinton's first year in office was also the year that the World Wide Web went mainstream cannot be ignored. And many Americans, myself among them, made a small fortune in real estate during the same time period, as housing prices soared and down payments became relics of a bygone era. We might also note that Clinton was the first US president since before my father was born to not have to worry about a Cold War, and the last one to not need to worry about a War on Terrorism.
But we DID run a surplus, right? Well, sort of. Our surplus included Social Security receipts, earmarked for the (nonexistent) trust fund. Actually, the US National Debt never went down a penny, despite the paper surplus. But at least there was one on paper. And then Bush screwed it up. Or did he? Do you remember the campaign of 2000, back when nobody dreamed 9/11 was in our future? The big question was what to do with the surpluses that were projected as far as the eye could see. Bush wanted the "overpayment" returned to the taxpayers. Al Gore wanted the surplus put in a budget "lockbox" to offset the eventual deficit in Social Security. Bush won (barely), and we got the cuts. But the lack of a lockbox nor the declining revenue is what brought us down. It turned out that the rosy projections didn't account for the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Indeed, by Election Day of 2000, the economy was already in recession. Just a few months later, planes hit the twin towers in NYC. The seeds of both of those events had been planted and watered while Bush was still governor of Texas.
The rest of Bush's two terms were actually economically strong. The economy recovered (some might even say because of the tax cuts). It was never as good as the best years of the Clinton administration, but how many of us would not like to see unemployment under 5.7% nowadays? Even with the "two wars on a credit card" (and although the wisdom of the Iraqi adventure is still quite debatable, what the heck else were we supposed to do in Afghanistan after 9/11), the deficit, which had ballooned out to over 400 billion dollars after 2001, had begun to contract. It came down every year until 2007, when it was about 165 billion dollars. And had all those trends continued, even including low tax rates and two wars, we would have seen surpluses again. But once again, the forecasts failed to account for unexpected events. The same housing bubble whose run-up had contributed so much to the growth under both Clinton and Bush burst, and the resulting crash wiped out every gain made in the previous seven years. That is a slightly different narrative than "Bush presided over a net loss of jobs."
This all sounds somewhat dishonest, as I seem to be saying that all the apparent good stuff under Clinton can be explained away, and all the bad stuff under Bush somehow should not count. But that's not all true. Bush's biggest fault (fiscally) was not Iraq, it was Medicare Part D. There is no need to laud him as some sort of misunderstood budget-cutter. But the strawman that "Bush's policies are what got us into this economic mess," particularly when that is shorthand for tax rates, simply is not true. And I also don't deny that the 1990s under Clinton were fabulous economic times. But no one has yet demonstrated to me what policies of Clinton's can be credited for that. A week on a cruise ship is also wonderful, but meanwhile at home, bills pile up and the grass keeps growing. Once the vacation ends, the reality which had been in the background is still there. It amuses me that we do not (yet) apply the same standard of historical judgment to the 1990s as we do to the "Roaring 20s." There, too, we had a period of peace and prosperity, fueled by an inflating bubble. But we judge that decade in light of the Depression which followed, which takes off some of the shine. How are the Clinton years different?
So... what is the takeaway of this epistle? Not much in terms of policy prescriptions. I have a few, and may even write about them. But I just wish for more honest argument. Smart people can disagree with me about all of this... but they should acknowledge the fact that these arguments exist, and should be obligated to deal with them, as I hope I have with their reverse. That doesn't mean we shouldn't raise taxes. It only means that if we do, it shouldn't be based on a narrative which "everybody knows" that is nonetheless untrue. Or, if it's true, it ought to be able to be explained a heck of a lot better than we are getting these days.
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Random Thoughts--Things I Think I Think
The sitemeter numbers for this blog still come to my email box monthly, and apparently nobody reads it. That probably has something to do with the fact that I never write anything. After the election, I had TONS of stuff to "say," but sure didn't want to post it on Facebook. It is hard to resist the urge sometimes, but I really don't want to be that guy who constantly peppers his friends' news feed with unrequested political observations. That said, if you come here, you asked for it!
I've been thinking a lot about the results of the election. I voted for Romney. And I did so happily--more happily than I have voted for any candidate I have ever voted for. Every other GOP nominee since '88 was someone I had voted against in the primaries. Not Romney. Some people called him a squish, a RINO, and worse. Who knows, maybe I am, too. In him I saw a fundamentally good and decent man, with a deep faith and a wonderful family. I saw an intelligent, highly educated, very successful person. I saw someone whose skill set seemed uniquely situated for dealing with the current issues facing our country.
But he lost. I really thought he would win. Even when the polls showed him behind, I thought they were wrong. I could not fathom that there would be a huge Democratic turnout advantage after 40 straight months of 8% unemployment, US Ambassadors' dead bodies dragged through the streets, Al Qaeda flags flying over our embassies, etc. But there was. I thought there would be a "silent majority" that showed up at the polls, just like in 1968. And they didn't.
This floored me. I wasn't so upset that Obama had won; I was upset that a majority of the country wanted him to win. (I wasn't upset that committed liberals voted for him, either--that is expected. But you expect the "undecideds" to break in the direction of certain predictable trends--and they did not, in this case). Lots of ink has been spilled analyzing the loss. And I still am not sure yet what the lesson plan on the election of 2012 will look like down the road.
Here's the big question: Is this the "new normal?" Do the combination of demographics, media bias, entitlements, and changed expectations on the part of our citizenry mean that no conservative can ever win again? One could argue that if this Republican could not win in this environment, that the GOP has become the Tories in Britain--relegated to a rump status, campaigning only on the promise that they can run a liberal nanny state more efficiently than the other guys.
Or... Is this election tied up in the unique personalities involved? Obama is our first black president. That's special. Romney is mega-uber-super-rich. If 4 years from now, a more populist Republican faces a less-historic Democrat, do the same messages resonate differently?
I don't know. However, historians look for patterns. I was thinking the pattern was Reagan in '80 or Nixon in '68 (or, had the economy recovered before election day, Reagan in '84, with Obama starring as the Gipper). Now the closest pattern I see is Bush in '04. Look what we had--a fellow who half the country disliked intensely, who but for the unique circumstances of his birth would have never been a contender in the first place, defending a mess mostly of his own making. The other side puts up a rich New Englander with a skill set perfectly tailored to the issue of the day (in this case, Kerry and the War on Terror). But he is seen as out of touch, and the election is held at almost the last moment that Bush or the War on Terror have more than 50% support. Certainly a year later he would have lost. Afterwards, Democrats are passing around the hemlock, and Karl Rove is pontificating about a permanent majority for Republicans. And look how that turned out.
Anyway, I still don't know exactly what I think about this election. But it's not the end of the world. And even if it is, there's nothing I can do about it.
I've been thinking a lot about the results of the election. I voted for Romney. And I did so happily--more happily than I have voted for any candidate I have ever voted for. Every other GOP nominee since '88 was someone I had voted against in the primaries. Not Romney. Some people called him a squish, a RINO, and worse. Who knows, maybe I am, too. In him I saw a fundamentally good and decent man, with a deep faith and a wonderful family. I saw an intelligent, highly educated, very successful person. I saw someone whose skill set seemed uniquely situated for dealing with the current issues facing our country.
But he lost. I really thought he would win. Even when the polls showed him behind, I thought they were wrong. I could not fathom that there would be a huge Democratic turnout advantage after 40 straight months of 8% unemployment, US Ambassadors' dead bodies dragged through the streets, Al Qaeda flags flying over our embassies, etc. But there was. I thought there would be a "silent majority" that showed up at the polls, just like in 1968. And they didn't.
This floored me. I wasn't so upset that Obama had won; I was upset that a majority of the country wanted him to win. (I wasn't upset that committed liberals voted for him, either--that is expected. But you expect the "undecideds" to break in the direction of certain predictable trends--and they did not, in this case). Lots of ink has been spilled analyzing the loss. And I still am not sure yet what the lesson plan on the election of 2012 will look like down the road.
Here's the big question: Is this the "new normal?" Do the combination of demographics, media bias, entitlements, and changed expectations on the part of our citizenry mean that no conservative can ever win again? One could argue that if this Republican could not win in this environment, that the GOP has become the Tories in Britain--relegated to a rump status, campaigning only on the promise that they can run a liberal nanny state more efficiently than the other guys.
Or... Is this election tied up in the unique personalities involved? Obama is our first black president. That's special. Romney is mega-uber-super-rich. If 4 years from now, a more populist Republican faces a less-historic Democrat, do the same messages resonate differently?
I don't know. However, historians look for patterns. I was thinking the pattern was Reagan in '80 or Nixon in '68 (or, had the economy recovered before election day, Reagan in '84, with Obama starring as the Gipper). Now the closest pattern I see is Bush in '04. Look what we had--a fellow who half the country disliked intensely, who but for the unique circumstances of his birth would have never been a contender in the first place, defending a mess mostly of his own making. The other side puts up a rich New Englander with a skill set perfectly tailored to the issue of the day (in this case, Kerry and the War on Terror). But he is seen as out of touch, and the election is held at almost the last moment that Bush or the War on Terror have more than 50% support. Certainly a year later he would have lost. Afterwards, Democrats are passing around the hemlock, and Karl Rove is pontificating about a permanent majority for Republicans. And look how that turned out.
Anyway, I still don't know exactly what I think about this election. But it's not the end of the world. And even if it is, there's nothing I can do about it.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
On Marathons,Mortality, and My Life on the Run
This coming week I will "officially" begin training for the Charleston Marathon in January of 2013. Saturday will be exactly 18 weeks out, which is the traditional start date for a standard buildup to a marathon. Technically, I've been "training" all summer, including getting my long run of the week up to 12 miles this past weekend. But doing this race is making me a bit philosophical about my running career.
This is not my first marathon. I "ran" the 1996 Marine Corps Marathon when I was 27. I had been coaching just a couple of years, and I knew that I knew far more than I really knew. Ya know? I didn't train in any way that could be called smart. With far more testosterone than brains, I figured that I could "gut out" a good race on minimal training just like I always had for every race from 400 meters to the 10k. I crashed so hard that I ran an identical time to what OprahWinfrey had run the year before (thank God she wasn't in the '96 race, as I would have likely been unable to out-kick her at the finish), and for years I claimed that I had run two marathons in the same day--my first and my last.
I actually began my running career back in 1983, when I decided to go out for track at my high school (where I now coach). The logic was simple: I weighed 105 lbs and was nearsighted and clumsy, and the track team didn't cut anybody. I started off as a very bad distance runner, gradually grew into a good-but-not-great sprinter (by tiny private school standards), and began to think of myself as a runner. In college I ran the intramural track meet twice, taking a pair of silvers in the 100 meter dash, and I occasionally went for a jog. If I ran any races, there was no internet to record the times. I know that I ran regularly when I was first married, and that I was just back from a great 5-mile run the morning that my wife told me we were going to have our first child (on our anniversary in 1993). The day he was born, in spring of '94, I had to knock on my training partner's door at 5 AM to get back my wristwatch so I could time contractions, as I had left it on his end table the day before. I began coaching at the very start of my teaching career in fall of '94, and ran with (even sometimes slightly ahead of) my team. Following the marathon in '96, I have records of running several 10k races and half-marathons, but no log of the miles. And starting in 1998, I began recording every run in a "training log" that came free with my paid subscription to Runner's World.
Since then, I have recorded every step. There is only one calendar month without an entry--July of 2005, when my family traveled 7000 miles in an RV. We saw 22 states in 31 days, and I never went for a run. It's the only regret I have about the entire trip. I've even scheduled a surgery around runs so as to avoid taking another "zero month" in my log. As I told one of the athletes on my team just yesterday who was complaining about being "out of shape," I have not been truly "out of shape" in nearly 20 years. Sometimes I've been in race shape, sometimes I've been in jogging shape, but there has never been a time during those years when I could not slip on a pair of shoes and run 3 miles at 8 minutes per mile--even if it would make me sore the next day.
But something is different now. At age 30 and 31, I was in the best shape of my life, racing even faster than I had as a senior in high school. (Incidentally, I also could bench press 50 lbs over my weight, also a personal best.) Then, almost exactly as I turned 35, I started to slow down. No matter how I trained, all I could seem to do was get worse and worse, and feel worse while doing it. I went several years without racing at all, because I found the results depressing. I got a new lease on life when I discovered the WAVA (World Association of Veteran Athletes) age-graded tables (originally actual tables written on paper, now an online calculator), which allows runners over 30 to "convert" their race times to their equivalents if run by runners in their physical prime. Last fall, I was pretty psyched that I ran an age-adjusted PR (Personal Record) in a local 5k road race.
BUT. That doesn't change the fact that, without those tables to give me the "woulda-coulda-shoulda" conversion, I'm never going to really get faster again. I'm going to keep on training, just to slow down the inevitable decline. My two training partners are both much younger (12 and 15 years--one of whom I actually coached in high school). We're doing the same sorts of workouts. We're all getting in shape. But the separation is becoming more and more evident. We'll all run the same workout, we'll all feel equally good (or bad), but I'm slowest. I'm always slowest. And I'm only going to get slower. The tables don't help with that. There's no online conversion that says, "I really would have kicked your butt today if I were 28 or you were 43" when at the end of a hard day the other guy is pulling away and you are gassed.
In the end, though, fighting the decline is preferable to giving up. I hope I can still be doing this far enough in the future to fairly compare my 43-year-old times with my young friends, even if I'll be an even slower 58 by then. The one bright spot of all of this is that my first marathon was so very bad that I can still run a true PR, even though on paper I should be almost 12 minutes slower.
18 weeks.
This is not my first marathon. I "ran" the 1996 Marine Corps Marathon when I was 27. I had been coaching just a couple of years, and I knew that I knew far more than I really knew. Ya know? I didn't train in any way that could be called smart. With far more testosterone than brains, I figured that I could "gut out" a good race on minimal training just like I always had for every race from 400 meters to the 10k. I crashed so hard that I ran an identical time to what OprahWinfrey had run the year before (thank God she wasn't in the '96 race, as I would have likely been unable to out-kick her at the finish), and for years I claimed that I had run two marathons in the same day--my first and my last.
I actually began my running career back in 1983, when I decided to go out for track at my high school (where I now coach). The logic was simple: I weighed 105 lbs and was nearsighted and clumsy, and the track team didn't cut anybody. I started off as a very bad distance runner, gradually grew into a good-but-not-great sprinter (by tiny private school standards), and began to think of myself as a runner. In college I ran the intramural track meet twice, taking a pair of silvers in the 100 meter dash, and I occasionally went for a jog. If I ran any races, there was no internet to record the times. I know that I ran regularly when I was first married, and that I was just back from a great 5-mile run the morning that my wife told me we were going to have our first child (on our anniversary in 1993). The day he was born, in spring of '94, I had to knock on my training partner's door at 5 AM to get back my wristwatch so I could time contractions, as I had left it on his end table the day before. I began coaching at the very start of my teaching career in fall of '94, and ran with (even sometimes slightly ahead of) my team. Following the marathon in '96, I have records of running several 10k races and half-marathons, but no log of the miles. And starting in 1998, I began recording every run in a "training log" that came free with my paid subscription to Runner's World.
Since then, I have recorded every step. There is only one calendar month without an entry--July of 2005, when my family traveled 7000 miles in an RV. We saw 22 states in 31 days, and I never went for a run. It's the only regret I have about the entire trip. I've even scheduled a surgery around runs so as to avoid taking another "zero month" in my log. As I told one of the athletes on my team just yesterday who was complaining about being "out of shape," I have not been truly "out of shape" in nearly 20 years. Sometimes I've been in race shape, sometimes I've been in jogging shape, but there has never been a time during those years when I could not slip on a pair of shoes and run 3 miles at 8 minutes per mile--even if it would make me sore the next day.
But something is different now. At age 30 and 31, I was in the best shape of my life, racing even faster than I had as a senior in high school. (Incidentally, I also could bench press 50 lbs over my weight, also a personal best.) Then, almost exactly as I turned 35, I started to slow down. No matter how I trained, all I could seem to do was get worse and worse, and feel worse while doing it. I went several years without racing at all, because I found the results depressing. I got a new lease on life when I discovered the WAVA (World Association of Veteran Athletes) age-graded tables (originally actual tables written on paper, now an online calculator), which allows runners over 30 to "convert" their race times to their equivalents if run by runners in their physical prime. Last fall, I was pretty psyched that I ran an age-adjusted PR (Personal Record) in a local 5k road race.
BUT. That doesn't change the fact that, without those tables to give me the "woulda-coulda-shoulda" conversion, I'm never going to really get faster again. I'm going to keep on training, just to slow down the inevitable decline. My two training partners are both much younger (12 and 15 years--one of whom I actually coached in high school). We're doing the same sorts of workouts. We're all getting in shape. But the separation is becoming more and more evident. We'll all run the same workout, we'll all feel equally good (or bad), but I'm slowest. I'm always slowest. And I'm only going to get slower. The tables don't help with that. There's no online conversion that says, "I really would have kicked your butt today if I were 28 or you were 43" when at the end of a hard day the other guy is pulling away and you are gassed.
In the end, though, fighting the decline is preferable to giving up. I hope I can still be doing this far enough in the future to fairly compare my 43-year-old times with my young friends, even if I'll be an even slower 58 by then. The one bright spot of all of this is that my first marathon was so very bad that I can still run a true PR, even though on paper I should be almost 12 minutes slower.
18 weeks.
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Back in Business!
After my friend Mike linked to yesterday's blog post, I figured I owed to my dozens, or hundreds, or... two... new readers to write something pithy today. I have two thoughts so far this morning, basically unrelated. One is a follow-up on yesterday's post, the other an observation on Super Tuesday.
So, to start with the "Slutgate" scandal, or whatever we're calling it now: I have read some more analysis since then, some of it fascinating. I'd love to link to a couple of articles, but in most cases, the content, the comments, or both, contain language that I'd prefer not go out to everybody. Two things jump out at me: despite the fact that I skimmed over the "they do it, too" argument, that's the one getting the most attention. And the standard comeback is that this situation is far worse than numerous misogynistic things said about Sarah Palin, Michelle Malkin, Laura Ingraham, Michelle Bachmann, or whoever, because those ladies are "public figures" and also because Rush has such a huge army of brainwashed dittoheads and wields so much power in the GOP. That's bull, and bull again. This Fluke-lady is a professional activist who inserted herself into the debate. She's no "Joe the Plumber" private citizen. And Joe got hammered for daring to question the prevailing media narrative. And besides, how "public" a citizen do you have to be to make it acceptable to suggest hate-rape? If there's a bright line about that somewhere, I think I prefer being the naive guy who doesn't know about it--that's just vile behavior, period. As for Rush's "influence," come on. Sure, he's influential, because he's the best at what he does. But he's no power broker. And even if he were, so what? Until I see somebody in the mainstream left publicly admit that Al Sharpton is a fraud and a hatemonger, I don't want to hear it. The second thing is that if you read the comments on this, about every third one mentions that Limbaugh is some combination of obese and drug-addicted. Admittedly, he used to be both. He currently is neither. But how does it make a situation like this better to turn up the ad hominem? And why is it that a Teddy Kennedy (or for that matter a JFK or even a Clinton) can do arguably worse and still be a role model, but any conservative's transgressions live on forever? If there were a department of double-standards, they would stay busy.
My unrelated thought is about Super Tuesday. It's not so much about the on-again, off-again "inevitability" of Romney. But it's about the inbred pessimism of conservatives. Maybe it's because our side doesn't believe in eternal progress or utopianism. Perhaps those of us who are theo-cons have a dimmer view of fallen human nature than our progressive friends, who are always one more education reform away from perfection. But we're a gloomy bunch. If Romney wins, he'll be the worst candidate ever. Unless Santorum wins, in which case he'll be as bad or worse. We had our shot and we blew it. This is the most consequential election of our lifetime, and we've already given it away. Yada, yada, yada. You know what? That's nuts. Here's a link to something funny about guaranteed losses. Don't miss the lesson here: it's not that Romney is Reagan. It's that people really thought Reagan couldn't beat Carter. And now the conventional wisdom (flavored by hindsight) is that Carter never had a chance. Once this one is over, there will be analysis. But it likely won't line up with what "everybody knows" right now. It rarely does.
So, to start with the "Slutgate" scandal, or whatever we're calling it now: I have read some more analysis since then, some of it fascinating. I'd love to link to a couple of articles, but in most cases, the content, the comments, or both, contain language that I'd prefer not go out to everybody. Two things jump out at me: despite the fact that I skimmed over the "they do it, too" argument, that's the one getting the most attention. And the standard comeback is that this situation is far worse than numerous misogynistic things said about Sarah Palin, Michelle Malkin, Laura Ingraham, Michelle Bachmann, or whoever, because those ladies are "public figures" and also because Rush has such a huge army of brainwashed dittoheads and wields so much power in the GOP. That's bull, and bull again. This Fluke-lady is a professional activist who inserted herself into the debate. She's no "Joe the Plumber" private citizen. And Joe got hammered for daring to question the prevailing media narrative. And besides, how "public" a citizen do you have to be to make it acceptable to suggest hate-rape? If there's a bright line about that somewhere, I think I prefer being the naive guy who doesn't know about it--that's just vile behavior, period. As for Rush's "influence," come on. Sure, he's influential, because he's the best at what he does. But he's no power broker. And even if he were, so what? Until I see somebody in the mainstream left publicly admit that Al Sharpton is a fraud and a hatemonger, I don't want to hear it. The second thing is that if you read the comments on this, about every third one mentions that Limbaugh is some combination of obese and drug-addicted. Admittedly, he used to be both. He currently is neither. But how does it make a situation like this better to turn up the ad hominem? And why is it that a Teddy Kennedy (or for that matter a JFK or even a Clinton) can do arguably worse and still be a role model, but any conservative's transgressions live on forever? If there were a department of double-standards, they would stay busy.
My unrelated thought is about Super Tuesday. It's not so much about the on-again, off-again "inevitability" of Romney. But it's about the inbred pessimism of conservatives. Maybe it's because our side doesn't believe in eternal progress or utopianism. Perhaps those of us who are theo-cons have a dimmer view of fallen human nature than our progressive friends, who are always one more education reform away from perfection. But we're a gloomy bunch. If Romney wins, he'll be the worst candidate ever. Unless Santorum wins, in which case he'll be as bad or worse. We had our shot and we blew it. This is the most consequential election of our lifetime, and we've already given it away. Yada, yada, yada. You know what? That's nuts. Here's a link to something funny about guaranteed losses. Don't miss the lesson here: it's not that Romney is Reagan. It's that people really thought Reagan couldn't beat Carter. And now the conventional wisdom (flavored by hindsight) is that Carter never had a chance. Once this one is over, there will be analysis. But it likely won't line up with what "everybody knows" right now. It rarely does.
Monday, March 5, 2012
Paying the Piper, Calling the Tune
I went out of town for a weekend, and came back to 87 unopened emails and 3 days of news. Apparently while I was gone Rush Limbaugh called a Georgetown coed a slut and caused all holy heck to break loose. As I understand it, admittedly a day or two late and several dollars short, she testified that students like her need the new mandated zero-copay option for birth control because they cannot afford the $3000 such stuff could cost them during their law school careers. Limbaugh said something unfunny, relating to the notion that if she wanted somebody else to pay her for having sex, that made her a pro. A day or two later he apologized, but it's been the topic of numerous editorial screeds and much hand-wringing.
Oh, where to begin? The low-hanging fruit is to play tu quoque with the various liberal ugly jokes and character assassinations that have been thrown at the likes of Sarah Palin. That could take days, and once again illustrate the usual double-standard. Too easy, and it's been done.
Another tack is to zero in on the absurdity of the premise. Even if the young lady's numbers are correct, $1000 per year is less than $3 per day. Most law school students spend that much at Starbucks. And apparently generic birth control pills can be had for $9 per month at a Wal-Mart within walking distance from the University. I find it surprising that anybody who can afford Georgetown's tuition would have a hard time scraping that together. And along those same lines, why would there be zero copay for birth control pills, but not for penicillin or zantac or an epi-pen? For that matter, what makes the pill privileged over viagra or rogaine or even a decongestant?
But the one that really gets me is this: this shouldn't be anybody's business. Not Limbaugh's, not mine, not yours. If this young lady wants to make whatever personal choices she does, nobody should care. And I really don't, at least in theory. I may generically disapprove of sex outside of marriage, or deplore the way our social standards slouch ever more toward Gomorrah, but that's just crankiness. I'm not this girl's father, and I have no standing to judge.
...UNLESS. Unless you make me pay for it. And that, to me, is the big issue. He who pays the piper gets to call the tune. And when you let "the government," which equals, "the taxpayer" be the piper-payer, then the tune gets to be a matter of public debate. I just returned from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral. Did you know that we have cancelled all of NASA's manned space flights? Yep. Budget cuts. Somebody in a cubicle has decided that it's a waste of money, and that we can develop private-sector space travel or hitch a ride with the Chinese if we need to tinker with a satellite. So we're too broke to afford astronauts, but our budget priorities include me buying birth control for somebody to whom I am not related. I like astronauts better.
BTW, this argument works LOTS of ways. I'm no fan of nanny-statism. Even though I hate smoking (emphysema killed my Granddaddy and will one day kill my Dad), I'm OK in theory with smoking being allowed in places that are not going to have secondhand exposure (a no smoking section in a restarant is like a no peeing section in a pool). I don't like seat belt laws, or helmet laws, or big brother watching my fat intake. If you want to kill yourself (quickly or slowly), have fun! But once "society" has a stake in paying for the consequences of your (or my) actions, we get a vote. This is why I want to reach into the buggy of people with food stamps and say, "put back that steak!" You earn the money, eat T-bone every night. But in my house, I earn the money, and steak is rare. If I earn "your" money, I get a vote on your groceries.
Anyway, none of this is to defend Limbaugh. He was right to apologize. And he also owes an apology to those of us on the right side of this issue, whose reasonable arguments are undermined by him making a rude joke that distracts from the numerous good reasons to oppose this new mandate.
Speaking of prostitutes, there's an old line attributed to Winston Churchill. He supposedly asked Lady Astor, with whom he had a long-running feud, if she would sleep with him for a million pounds sterling. She indicated that she might. He then asked if she would for five pounds. She asked, "What kind of a woman do you think I am?" The famous answer was, "We have already determined that. Now we are negotiating price." I'm afraid that we're in the same sort of a pickle as a nation. We have already decided, I am afraid, that we choose to be a nation of serfs and subjects. We are merely negotiating the terms of our servitude.
Oh, where to begin? The low-hanging fruit is to play tu quoque with the various liberal ugly jokes and character assassinations that have been thrown at the likes of Sarah Palin. That could take days, and once again illustrate the usual double-standard. Too easy, and it's been done.
Another tack is to zero in on the absurdity of the premise. Even if the young lady's numbers are correct, $1000 per year is less than $3 per day. Most law school students spend that much at Starbucks. And apparently generic birth control pills can be had for $9 per month at a Wal-Mart within walking distance from the University. I find it surprising that anybody who can afford Georgetown's tuition would have a hard time scraping that together. And along those same lines, why would there be zero copay for birth control pills, but not for penicillin or zantac or an epi-pen? For that matter, what makes the pill privileged over viagra or rogaine or even a decongestant?
But the one that really gets me is this: this shouldn't be anybody's business. Not Limbaugh's, not mine, not yours. If this young lady wants to make whatever personal choices she does, nobody should care. And I really don't, at least in theory. I may generically disapprove of sex outside of marriage, or deplore the way our social standards slouch ever more toward Gomorrah, but that's just crankiness. I'm not this girl's father, and I have no standing to judge.
...UNLESS. Unless you make me pay for it. And that, to me, is the big issue. He who pays the piper gets to call the tune. And when you let "the government," which equals, "the taxpayer" be the piper-payer, then the tune gets to be a matter of public debate. I just returned from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral. Did you know that we have cancelled all of NASA's manned space flights? Yep. Budget cuts. Somebody in a cubicle has decided that it's a waste of money, and that we can develop private-sector space travel or hitch a ride with the Chinese if we need to tinker with a satellite. So we're too broke to afford astronauts, but our budget priorities include me buying birth control for somebody to whom I am not related. I like astronauts better.
BTW, this argument works LOTS of ways. I'm no fan of nanny-statism. Even though I hate smoking (emphysema killed my Granddaddy and will one day kill my Dad), I'm OK in theory with smoking being allowed in places that are not going to have secondhand exposure (a no smoking section in a restarant is like a no peeing section in a pool). I don't like seat belt laws, or helmet laws, or big brother watching my fat intake. If you want to kill yourself (quickly or slowly), have fun! But once "society" has a stake in paying for the consequences of your (or my) actions, we get a vote. This is why I want to reach into the buggy of people with food stamps and say, "put back that steak!" You earn the money, eat T-bone every night. But in my house, I earn the money, and steak is rare. If I earn "your" money, I get a vote on your groceries.
Anyway, none of this is to defend Limbaugh. He was right to apologize. And he also owes an apology to those of us on the right side of this issue, whose reasonable arguments are undermined by him making a rude joke that distracts from the numerous good reasons to oppose this new mandate.
Speaking of prostitutes, there's an old line attributed to Winston Churchill. He supposedly asked Lady Astor, with whom he had a long-running feud, if she would sleep with him for a million pounds sterling. She indicated that she might. He then asked if she would for five pounds. She asked, "What kind of a woman do you think I am?" The famous answer was, "We have already determined that. Now we are negotiating price." I'm afraid that we're in the same sort of a pickle as a nation. We have already decided, I am afraid, that we choose to be a nation of serfs and subjects. We are merely negotiating the terms of our servitude.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Political Round-Up
Some random throughts on the state of the 2012 campaign:
First, it looks like I really do have super-powers. Whoever I vote for in a primary goes on to lose the nomination, even if it's a "sure thing." Why I couldn't have gotten super-speed or invisibility, I don't know. After voting for Romney because he was "better than Gingrich," I've managed to destroy both of their campaigns. You're welcome, Rick Santorum.
Speaking of Romney, if he does happen to wind up the GOP nominee, he'll still be fine in the general election. No, he doesn't excite the conservative base. But when there is no choice besides Mitt and Obama, with potentially 2+ Supreme Court nominations in the next 4 years, the base will hold their nose and vote for him..
But Santorum, he's interesting. I worried back in the SC primary that, even though I like him a great deal, his position on social issues makes him too easy for the left to caricature. But now I'm having second thoughts. First of all, if we conservatives honestly believe that having conservative views on social issues is a guaranteed loser, what does that say about us? Secondly, for all of the talk about Romney (or McCain 4 years ago) being able to appeal to blue-state folks, that math only works in the primaries. The RINO is always the moderate-to-liberal undecided voter's favorite Republican... until they get a chance to vote for the Democrat. I'm beginning to wonder if Santorum might not actually be more electable with genuine "swing" voters that people think. Put another way, I wonder if there might be more votes to be picked up on the margins of the issues like religious liberty than there really are from moderating those positions. I don't know.
Along those same lines, I know Santorum is going to be savaged as a religious weirdo. But really, the Mormon guy wasn't? Indeed, let's take three different religious profiles and arrange them in order from most mainstream to most weird: Mormon, Catholic, Jeremiah Wright-style liberation theology. Yeah, I know. The problem is that Santorum actually seems to believe what his religion teaches. Again, this is somehow supposed to be a negative, right?
Finally, I have been exasperated of late on the internet. Darn facebook! This is at least tangentially related to the Santorum thing, by the way. Is it just me, or is there some rule that only conservatives and Christians can be lampooned as dumb hicks? Maybe I've been unlucky lately, but several conversation threads I've been involved in have involved the assumption that conservatives, Tea Partiers, and religious people are just stupid. I don't get it; I know that southerners, fundamentalists, red-states, etc. have to carry around the idea that we are the people of Wal-Mart. But why is it that the equally-large number of uneducated people in inner cities don't get hung around the neck of the left as a similar albatross? I never seem to see conservatives or Christians putting up posts online with the theme "point and laugh at those stupid liberals, boy are they dumb!" But it's a daily occurence in reverse. Perhaps this is because so many of my friends online are former students, many of whom are now college students (often at pretty elite schools).
I posted the following article online, and nobody commented on it. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123492175917805451.html
I think it describes and analyzes that issue pretty well. Anybody in this forum interested in it?
First, it looks like I really do have super-powers. Whoever I vote for in a primary goes on to lose the nomination, even if it's a "sure thing." Why I couldn't have gotten super-speed or invisibility, I don't know. After voting for Romney because he was "better than Gingrich," I've managed to destroy both of their campaigns. You're welcome, Rick Santorum.
Speaking of Romney, if he does happen to wind up the GOP nominee, he'll still be fine in the general election. No, he doesn't excite the conservative base. But when there is no choice besides Mitt and Obama, with potentially 2+ Supreme Court nominations in the next 4 years, the base will hold their nose and vote for him..
But Santorum, he's interesting. I worried back in the SC primary that, even though I like him a great deal, his position on social issues makes him too easy for the left to caricature. But now I'm having second thoughts. First of all, if we conservatives honestly believe that having conservative views on social issues is a guaranteed loser, what does that say about us? Secondly, for all of the talk about Romney (or McCain 4 years ago) being able to appeal to blue-state folks, that math only works in the primaries. The RINO is always the moderate-to-liberal undecided voter's favorite Republican... until they get a chance to vote for the Democrat. I'm beginning to wonder if Santorum might not actually be more electable with genuine "swing" voters that people think. Put another way, I wonder if there might be more votes to be picked up on the margins of the issues like religious liberty than there really are from moderating those positions. I don't know.
Along those same lines, I know Santorum is going to be savaged as a religious weirdo. But really, the Mormon guy wasn't? Indeed, let's take three different religious profiles and arrange them in order from most mainstream to most weird: Mormon, Catholic, Jeremiah Wright-style liberation theology. Yeah, I know. The problem is that Santorum actually seems to believe what his religion teaches. Again, this is somehow supposed to be a negative, right?
Finally, I have been exasperated of late on the internet. Darn facebook! This is at least tangentially related to the Santorum thing, by the way. Is it just me, or is there some rule that only conservatives and Christians can be lampooned as dumb hicks? Maybe I've been unlucky lately, but several conversation threads I've been involved in have involved the assumption that conservatives, Tea Partiers, and religious people are just stupid. I don't get it; I know that southerners, fundamentalists, red-states, etc. have to carry around the idea that we are the people of Wal-Mart. But why is it that the equally-large number of uneducated people in inner cities don't get hung around the neck of the left as a similar albatross? I never seem to see conservatives or Christians putting up posts online with the theme "point and laugh at those stupid liberals, boy are they dumb!" But it's a daily occurence in reverse. Perhaps this is because so many of my friends online are former students, many of whom are now college students (often at pretty elite schools).
I posted the following article online, and nobody commented on it. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123492175917805451.html
I think it describes and analyzes that issue pretty well. Anybody in this forum interested in it?
Friday, December 30, 2011
Predictions for 2012
I've seen several sites here at year-end that give various predictions about the coming year. Here's a few from me, just so I can look back and check on them later:
- In politics, Mitt Romney will win the GOP nomination. He will pick Marco Rubio of Florida as his running mate. The GOP will hold the house and get a 50-50 split in the senate, with VP Rubio breaking ties (yep, that means Romney will win. I'll say 52-48% in the popular vote, and closer in the electoral college). However, the senate being so close will result in numerous filibusters and threats of filibusters, so we'll still have gridlock.
- Economically, things will continue in our current stagflationary pattern. "Recovery" on the jobs front will continue, albeit slowly, but prices will rise. Hopefully wages will, too. (The old line about the depression was that it really wasn't so bad... IF you had a job.)
- In the 2012 Olympics, an American will make the finals in at least one distance event, but will not medal. The USA 4x100 team will finally get the baton around the track, but it won't matter, as Jamaica will have a team with all three open 100 medalists on it. The USA basketball team will have less star power than 4 years ago, but will perform better, for that very reason.
- In football, the USC Gamecocks will be good, but fall short of this year's 11-win season (yes, that means I'm picking a bowl win on Jan 2). I'm thinking 9 regular-season wins, with losses to LSU, Arkansas, and Florida. We beat Georgia again, but they still win the East due to their easier schedule. In traditional USC fashion, idiot fans will complain about 9-10 wins, not recognizing the amazing leap that has been made. Marcus Lattimore will be a Heisman contender, but will not win.
- Clemson will win the ACC again, and lose to USC again. They will beat Boise State in the Orange Bowl. Sammy Watkins will also be a Heisman contender, but will not win.
- The SEC will not win the national championship game, as their champion will not be IN the game. Southern Cal will beat Ohio State, both of whom will be undefeated at the time. The SEC champ (Alabama) will have two losses.
- In the NBA, the Heat will not win a championship. Neither will the Lakers. Which is good enough for me.
- With the Romney victory in 2012, the news media will rediscover that 8% unemployment is really not that good, and even when it drops, the slow pace of the drop and the amount that can be attributed to discouraged workers leaving the workforce will be noted.
- The Republican party will be stupid.
- In high school sports, my PG teams will have a rough year in football (but will be really good after a year), will be even better in basketball, will repeat as XC and volleyball champions, and will contend for a repeat title in track. I won't call the win, but I will predict that the top two teams will be us and Orangeburg Prep.
- Israel will bomb Iran's nuclear sites. We will pretend that was a naughty thing.
- Gas will cost over $4 per gallon during the summer.
- As inflation rises, so will interest rates. Stocks will be sluggish, but the bond market will improve.
- An offer of statehood and peace will be made to the Palestinians. They'll find a way to screw it up.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Resolution Time!
I took the time to look back at my resolutions for 2011, and I actually feel better about this past year than I have in a long time. Among the things I set out to do was to read the entire New Testament in the first 75 days of the year (done, never missed a day) and to run more consistently, but without a set mileage goal (but with the understanding that 500 was the baseline). The running is a point of great pride--As of today, with 5 days still to go, I not only have run 729 miles in 165 runs, I am on pace to break my previous all-time log record of 744 miles and 169 runs, set in the year 2000. This has been the most consistent I have ever been, and has paid off with good racing; I ran an-age-adjusted personal best for 5k this October. Imagine that! Run more, longer, and more often, and race better. Who would have guessed? I also put on paper (pixels) the audacious goal of trying to win a state championship in track. We did it, and in dramatic fashion. As a matter of fact, in just a little over a year we've won back-to-back-to-back titles (cross-country in fall of 2010, track in spring of 2011, cross-country in fall of 2011). Obviously, a great deal of that has to be credited to the athletes--I'd never even set such a goal without a terrific roster. And even more credit goes to my friend and co-coach Hugh, who is XC/distance coach. It's his kids who have done the heavy lifting in terms of scoring. But my satisfaction level is quite high. I don't know if I've ever worked harder on a track season, and the payoff was amazing. As a bonus, one of the results of all this success was a complete renovation of our track facility which I've been wanting for nearly a decade.
However, not everything was smooth sailing. I intended to blog more (and didn't). I intended to spend less time online and more reading "real" books. That was a non-starter. I wanted to be more thoughtful about my use of time while I was home, but instead spent too much time online or holding down a sofa. All of those were related--the things I did best were functions of discipline and consistency. The things I did worst were those in which I showed the least discipline and most auto-pilot. I'll also add that after my initial 75-day Bible reading success, I had spotty results in my daily devotions, and my prayer life has been just a mess. I've been getting up at 5:30 daily with the intention of having my quiet time, but have managed to spend up to an hour and a half reading "news," most of which is the same opinions rehashed over and over.
So, here's the plan for 2012:
However, not everything was smooth sailing. I intended to blog more (and didn't). I intended to spend less time online and more reading "real" books. That was a non-starter. I wanted to be more thoughtful about my use of time while I was home, but instead spent too much time online or holding down a sofa. All of those were related--the things I did best were functions of discipline and consistency. The things I did worst were those in which I showed the least discipline and most auto-pilot. I'll also add that after my initial 75-day Bible reading success, I had spotty results in my daily devotions, and my prayer life has been just a mess. I've been getting up at 5:30 daily with the intention of having my quiet time, but have managed to spend up to an hour and a half reading "news," most of which is the same opinions rehashed over and over.
So, here's the plan for 2012:
- I'm going back to my old Day-Timer (actually a Franklin Covey planner), and having a daily period of planning, prayer, and study. I also want to journal.
- I'm cutting back on the web-surfing. I've already deleted a bunch of bookmarks that were on my "daily" list.
- I'm going to "discuss" less on facebook and message boards. If I want to write out my thoughts, I'll do it here.
- I think having my Nook is going to help me read more that's not online.
- I want to keep up the momentum I've gained running. With only two years of 700+ miles in the past 13, it seems a stretch to plan on a third, but I'm putting it out there.
- I want to spend more time and effort managing our family budget. (We do really well on this, but often "wing it." With my oldest starting college, I'd like to be more hands-on.)
- I want to have more frequent and more intentional "date nights." Ann and I started doing some of this recently, and it's been great.
- We're also going to try to defend that state championship in track. It'll be even harder this season, and after this year's graduation may become impossible. But the bar has been raised.
Monday, December 26, 2011
What I'm Reading
I put together a few gift cards and got a Nook for Christmas. Very cool. This means I can have the usual dozen books on my bedside table but not have the stack so high. The best part is that most of the books I have downloaded are free or very cheap. Here's what's on tap to start the year. First, the hardcopies:
Modern Times, by Paul Johnson. (moving slowly through this one.)
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers (trying to do a 1-page devo before bed nightly.)
The Tangible Kingdom, by Hugh Halter (a book on rethinking church that Ann passed my way.)
Then come the ones on Nook that I'm actually currently reading:
The Bible
EntreLeadership, by Dave Ramsey (I actually paid for this one!)
Game Plan for Life, by Joe Gibbs (an old Promise Keepers book that was free.)
Matthew Henry's Method for Prayer (also free!)
Orthodoxy, by G.K. Chesterton.
Finally, the ones I have downloaded and not looked at yet:
The Everlasting Man, by G.K. Chesterton
St. Francis of Assisi, by G.K. Chesterton (see a theme? Lots of free Chesterton!)
The Art of War, by Sun Tzu
Between the Nook and a booklight that came from my daughter, I'm set in the evenings for the near future.
Modern Times, by Paul Johnson. (moving slowly through this one.)
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers (trying to do a 1-page devo before bed nightly.)
The Tangible Kingdom, by Hugh Halter (a book on rethinking church that Ann passed my way.)
Then come the ones on Nook that I'm actually currently reading:
The Bible
EntreLeadership, by Dave Ramsey (I actually paid for this one!)
Game Plan for Life, by Joe Gibbs (an old Promise Keepers book that was free.)
Matthew Henry's Method for Prayer (also free!)
Orthodoxy, by G.K. Chesterton.
Finally, the ones I have downloaded and not looked at yet:
The Everlasting Man, by G.K. Chesterton
St. Francis of Assisi, by G.K. Chesterton (see a theme? Lots of free Chesterton!)
The Art of War, by Sun Tzu
Between the Nook and a booklight that came from my daughter, I'm set in the evenings for the near future.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Ranking Obama
One of the things I do in my modern US history class is talk about relative rankings of US presidents. You may have seen some of the buzz lately over President Obama's statement in his recent CBS interview (it got edited out of what was on TV, but the transcript and unedited tape is now going around) that his domestic and foreign policy accomplishments put him in the top 4 presidents (after Lincoln, FDR, and LBJ). Obviously, plenty of right-wing bloggers have engaged in some snark over that, and rightly so. It's the sort of thing that, even if true, one should never say about himself. But let's step back, take off any bias, and think about the claim as objectively as possible. Where will Obama rank?
Let's begin with a metric. "Great" presidents are seen as successful in three areas: foreign policy, domestic policy, and political success. Note than none of these things evaluates whether I personally agree with their goals, only that they achieve (and are recognized for) success in them.
In foreign policy, Obama won the Nobel prize, but has the asterisk for the fact that he won it mostly for not being Bush (as the nominations were due literally 2 weeks after his inauguration). He also has wound down the Iraq war, albeit on the timetable arranged by Bush before his term ended, and has seen the death of Osama on his watch. You might argue that some of his "successes" involve keeping Bush-era policies he once vilified (Gitmo, rendition, predator strikes, even the Libya excursion), or that some of what he has done will backfire later. But for now, he gets credit there, if only for a "Nixon to China" scenario.
Domestically, the health care bill is a signature achievement, but faces either legislative repeal or judicial review still, and has yet to go into full effect. If it survives, it'll be big. On the economic front, the story has been pretty terrible. We can argue that it will improve and he'll get the credit, or that it would have been worse without him. But neither of those gets him any credit currently.
Politically is tougher. There are bonus points for being the first black president. Also for winning the highest percentage of the popular vote of any Democrat since LBJ. But he hasn't won reelection yet. If he does, he gets some serious points. If not, he is almost certainly relegated to the bottom half of the presidential pile. You also have to ask, "at what cost?" Bush 43 won reelection, but damaged his party's brand so badly that he put them in the doghouse going forward. That's very different than someone like Reagan, who set the table for his successor.
Once all the scores are in, here's the math of it. Only 16 men have won two elections. One of those is Nixon, so he drops below the one-termers. You probably can drop William Henry Harrison and James Garfield from the rankings due to their very short terms, and maybe Ford, as well. That leaves only 40 men to rank (since Grover Cleveland served twice). That means top 10 is also top 25%.
Top 5 are completely untouchable. That's the 4 guys on Rushmore and FDR. Next 5 or so has to include Reagan, Truman, Ike, Andy Jackson, James K. Polk, Woodrow Wilson, Madison, and Monroe, in any order you like. That gets you to 12, and you haven't even hit JFK yet. Some of these guys we may disagree on (I personally dislike Wilson, since he was a serious racist and since his win in WWI was combined with a "loss" of the postwar process that set the stage for WWII). I know others have issues with Jackson, Polk, and even Reagan. But you can't slice this list in such a way not to fill out the top quarter of all presidents with serious heavy-hitters who won wars, won landslides, and transformed their parties for generations (whether you like the party or not).
Barring some event that gives Obama a chance to shine on a huge stage that none of us would like to see (like a big war), I think that even if he maxes out his potential, he can't get much better than 15th. (Behind all of the above, JFK, Cleveland, maybe LBJ.) And that's not bad--it's a pretty deep field. If he doesn't get reelected, or worse, if some of the worst-case scenarios for him play out (loses reelection, Iraq goes south, health care gets repealed, economy stays crummy), he could easily get ranked in the high 20's.
I don't think there's much he could do to get worse than that, barring some scandal. There's a pretty firm floor down in the mid-30s with Carter, Hoover, Nixon, Andrew Johnson, Harding, Pierce, and Buchanan. The media and academia loves him--he can have a Carter-like tenure and still get better press clippings.
Please note--none of this reflects my personal politics. There's no judgment based on whether I like or dislike any of these men's policies. I hate the Lakers, and detest Kobe Bryant. But I also recognize that he is one of the best players in the game. I'd love to hear from both conservative and liberal friends about whether they think I'm being fair here.
Perhaps after a couple of comments from the usual suspects I'll add some more personal editorializing in the comments. I've got plenty of opinion on this topic, but don't want to take away from what I hope is a pretty academic blog post.
Let's begin with a metric. "Great" presidents are seen as successful in three areas: foreign policy, domestic policy, and political success. Note than none of these things evaluates whether I personally agree with their goals, only that they achieve (and are recognized for) success in them.
In foreign policy, Obama won the Nobel prize, but has the asterisk for the fact that he won it mostly for not being Bush (as the nominations were due literally 2 weeks after his inauguration). He also has wound down the Iraq war, albeit on the timetable arranged by Bush before his term ended, and has seen the death of Osama on his watch. You might argue that some of his "successes" involve keeping Bush-era policies he once vilified (Gitmo, rendition, predator strikes, even the Libya excursion), or that some of what he has done will backfire later. But for now, he gets credit there, if only for a "Nixon to China" scenario.
Domestically, the health care bill is a signature achievement, but faces either legislative repeal or judicial review still, and has yet to go into full effect. If it survives, it'll be big. On the economic front, the story has been pretty terrible. We can argue that it will improve and he'll get the credit, or that it would have been worse without him. But neither of those gets him any credit currently.
Politically is tougher. There are bonus points for being the first black president. Also for winning the highest percentage of the popular vote of any Democrat since LBJ. But he hasn't won reelection yet. If he does, he gets some serious points. If not, he is almost certainly relegated to the bottom half of the presidential pile. You also have to ask, "at what cost?" Bush 43 won reelection, but damaged his party's brand so badly that he put them in the doghouse going forward. That's very different than someone like Reagan, who set the table for his successor.
Once all the scores are in, here's the math of it. Only 16 men have won two elections. One of those is Nixon, so he drops below the one-termers. You probably can drop William Henry Harrison and James Garfield from the rankings due to their very short terms, and maybe Ford, as well. That leaves only 40 men to rank (since Grover Cleveland served twice). That means top 10 is also top 25%.
Top 5 are completely untouchable. That's the 4 guys on Rushmore and FDR. Next 5 or so has to include Reagan, Truman, Ike, Andy Jackson, James K. Polk, Woodrow Wilson, Madison, and Monroe, in any order you like. That gets you to 12, and you haven't even hit JFK yet. Some of these guys we may disagree on (I personally dislike Wilson, since he was a serious racist and since his win in WWI was combined with a "loss" of the postwar process that set the stage for WWII). I know others have issues with Jackson, Polk, and even Reagan. But you can't slice this list in such a way not to fill out the top quarter of all presidents with serious heavy-hitters who won wars, won landslides, and transformed their parties for generations (whether you like the party or not).
Barring some event that gives Obama a chance to shine on a huge stage that none of us would like to see (like a big war), I think that even if he maxes out his potential, he can't get much better than 15th. (Behind all of the above, JFK, Cleveland, maybe LBJ.) And that's not bad--it's a pretty deep field. If he doesn't get reelected, or worse, if some of the worst-case scenarios for him play out (loses reelection, Iraq goes south, health care gets repealed, economy stays crummy), he could easily get ranked in the high 20's.
I don't think there's much he could do to get worse than that, barring some scandal. There's a pretty firm floor down in the mid-30s with Carter, Hoover, Nixon, Andrew Johnson, Harding, Pierce, and Buchanan. The media and academia loves him--he can have a Carter-like tenure and still get better press clippings.
Please note--none of this reflects my personal politics. There's no judgment based on whether I like or dislike any of these men's policies. I hate the Lakers, and detest Kobe Bryant. But I also recognize that he is one of the best players in the game. I'd love to hear from both conservative and liberal friends about whether they think I'm being fair here.
Perhaps after a couple of comments from the usual suspects I'll add some more personal editorializing in the comments. I've got plenty of opinion on this topic, but don't want to take away from what I hope is a pretty academic blog post.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Hard Work
I don't know why this article amuses me so, but it does. It's a young journalist's account of working 3 weeks at Starbucks in NY. She makes it sound like the gulag. I don't want to be one of those old people who one-ups every story of hardship (that's my dad's job). But when I turned 16 and was eligible to get a job, there was never a time from then on that I didn't work. And until I finished grad school and began teaching and coaching (which is terrific, but is certainly not a 9-to-5), I worked some of the "worst" jobs imaginable. I started off washing dishes and peeling hundreds of pounds of shrimp in a local restaurant at $3.35 an hour (minimum wage back then). Then I got a job driving a school bus for $5 per hour. For a short time I doubled up and did both, then traded the shrimp-peeling for bagging groceries and stocking shelves at Winn-Dixie (back to minimum wage, but more hours). I eventually got up to almost 4 bucks there. Then I worked at a lumber yard building wood trusses. (That's where I lost the end of my thumb in a multi-bladed component saw.) In college I interned in the USC legal department, which was a great job, but helped convince me that I really didn't want to go to law school, after all. The summer before I got married, I went to a temp agency and asked for whatever they could give me that paid the most so I could actually afford a honeymoon. There were some pretty ugly day-labor gigs (the one that stands out was working on a loading dock unloading 55-gallon drums that had previously contained something really nasty... in a driving rain). But the big payday came when a local plastics factory realized that they had been low-bidder on a government contract to build fiberglass buoys for the navy, and that the job was so terrible they didn't want their own people to do it. Almost $8 per hour, but I lost about 8 pounds per day in water weight, and every t-shirt I owned was eventually discarded due to the fiberglass particles they picked up. That's in addition to the chemical fumes and burns (we wore goggles and masks while working). After the wedding, in grad school I never worked less than 2 jobs (the legal gig and a graduate assistantship in the admissions office), and sometimes as many as 4 (those two, a night job in the student health center, and a brief research assistantship). Sometimes I still have nightmares that I have showed up at the wrong workplace, and it's usually one of those (and sometimes the lumber yard for some odd reason). Of course, all of that was in addition to a full courseload in grad school, and the first semester also involved resolving an incomplete on my undergrad honors thesis.
But here's the thing--at the time I never thought it was bad. Perhaps I didn't know any better. Maybe it was because gas in my '78 Mustang was worth it. I never thought, "this builds character" or anything like that. Looking back at my old Day-Timers I am amazed at the schedule I kept, but only because middle-aged me couldn't keep up with it. I do know that now it provides some perspective. Even after 18 years of teaching, I still feel blessed to get paid to do something I really enjoy. And even in those weeks when a couple of away trips on the bus stretch the work-week out to 70 hours, I'm glad that my idea of "overtime" is coaching high school sports and not delivering pizzas.
The world has changed. My oldest son is 17 and has never held a "real job." He earns some money working at school for the athletic department (running the scoreboard for JV games and such), but it's hard to walk into a grocery store and ask for a job when you have to say, "but I have basketball practice and play practice and every other kind of commitment under the sun 24-7." As soon as the spring musical is over, he'll be working (working for pay, I mean--he has worked very hard at lots of unpaid stuff). I'm afraid this young lady who wrote the article just grew up in a time when busting your butt at Starbucks represents an unusual level of hardship. Maybe it's not her fault. But it's another example of the ongoing wussification of America. If you read the article, check out some of the comments, too. They are alternately amusing and maddening.
But here's the thing--at the time I never thought it was bad. Perhaps I didn't know any better. Maybe it was because gas in my '78 Mustang was worth it. I never thought, "this builds character" or anything like that. Looking back at my old Day-Timers I am amazed at the schedule I kept, but only because middle-aged me couldn't keep up with it. I do know that now it provides some perspective. Even after 18 years of teaching, I still feel blessed to get paid to do something I really enjoy. And even in those weeks when a couple of away trips on the bus stretch the work-week out to 70 hours, I'm glad that my idea of "overtime" is coaching high school sports and not delivering pizzas.
The world has changed. My oldest son is 17 and has never held a "real job." He earns some money working at school for the athletic department (running the scoreboard for JV games and such), but it's hard to walk into a grocery store and ask for a job when you have to say, "but I have basketball practice and play practice and every other kind of commitment under the sun 24-7." As soon as the spring musical is over, he'll be working (working for pay, I mean--he has worked very hard at lots of unpaid stuff). I'm afraid this young lady who wrote the article just grew up in a time when busting your butt at Starbucks represents an unusual level of hardship. Maybe it's not her fault. But it's another example of the ongoing wussification of America. If you read the article, check out some of the comments, too. They are alternately amusing and maddening.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Political Update
My buddy Mike asked not long ago, "have you picked a candidate yet?" I answered, "Yes, but I hate to spoil a blog post by telling you." So, just to keep anyone from dying of curiosity, here's my pre-primary voting plan.
First of all, I'm off the Cain Train. Not because of the allegations of infidelity--I still have zero clue as to whether any or all of those are true. But his inability to ever get a clue on foreign policy finally convinced me that he's like the dog that accidentally caught the car and had no idea what to do with it.
Secondly, although I still believe deep down that Perry must be better in real life than he is on TV, at the end of the day, you can't do a job if you can't get the job. It's like those poor guys who still think Oklahoma State should be in the national championship. They maybe should--but they blew it against IOWA freaking STATE. Likewise, Perry can't tank in three consecutive debates and expect to somehow make it to the big game.
So, like everybody else, I'm stuck with Romney vs. Gingrich. Neither is exactly my cup of tea. Either one could eventually make me regret my decision. But I'm going to stick with Romney. Here's the tortured logic--both of them suffer from a similar political affliction. They think they are the smartest guys in the room (and with some justification), and that they can operate the levers of government to make things work better than anybody else. As such, they are going to make small-government conservatives wince. I don't know which one will disappoint me the most politically, but I feel safe saying that neither one is in any way safer than the other. I actually lean toward thinking that Romney's political opportunism may work to my advantage in the current environment, as he is going to need to pander to the conservatives (and he's an expert when it comes to pandering). To quote Milton Friedman: "The trick is not to elect the right people; it is to create an environment where even the wrong people find it in their interest to do the right thing."
But the deal-breaker for me is personal integrity. At the end of the day, when either or both lets me down in a political sense, I don't want to have to look back and admit I compromised and voted for the guy with two ex-wives. Yes, Newt has asked for forgiveness. And converted to Catholicism. And a bunch of other stuff which should mitigate the situation. That's fine--and if he were a much, much better candidate than Romney, I might even be tempted to accept that. But he's not better--or at least not enough better to make me willing to sell out on such a significant matter.
That said, whichever gets the nomination will earn my vote in the general election. My conscience will not ache at all over voting for even a flawed pro-life conservative over an apparently happily-married pro-choice liberal. If the liberal in question also has his own admitted past moral failings (like cocaine use), that only makes it easier. But for now I'm sticking with the guy who has had the same wife for 40+ years, who hasn't recently changed religions (nor apparently embraced any particular flavor of theology for political advantage), and whose idea of a stiff drink is chocolate milk.
First of all, I'm off the Cain Train. Not because of the allegations of infidelity--I still have zero clue as to whether any or all of those are true. But his inability to ever get a clue on foreign policy finally convinced me that he's like the dog that accidentally caught the car and had no idea what to do with it.
Secondly, although I still believe deep down that Perry must be better in real life than he is on TV, at the end of the day, you can't do a job if you can't get the job. It's like those poor guys who still think Oklahoma State should be in the national championship. They maybe should--but they blew it against IOWA freaking STATE. Likewise, Perry can't tank in three consecutive debates and expect to somehow make it to the big game.
So, like everybody else, I'm stuck with Romney vs. Gingrich. Neither is exactly my cup of tea. Either one could eventually make me regret my decision. But I'm going to stick with Romney. Here's the tortured logic--both of them suffer from a similar political affliction. They think they are the smartest guys in the room (and with some justification), and that they can operate the levers of government to make things work better than anybody else. As such, they are going to make small-government conservatives wince. I don't know which one will disappoint me the most politically, but I feel safe saying that neither one is in any way safer than the other. I actually lean toward thinking that Romney's political opportunism may work to my advantage in the current environment, as he is going to need to pander to the conservatives (and he's an expert when it comes to pandering). To quote Milton Friedman: "The trick is not to elect the right people; it is to create an environment where even the wrong people find it in their interest to do the right thing."
But the deal-breaker for me is personal integrity. At the end of the day, when either or both lets me down in a political sense, I don't want to have to look back and admit I compromised and voted for the guy with two ex-wives. Yes, Newt has asked for forgiveness. And converted to Catholicism. And a bunch of other stuff which should mitigate the situation. That's fine--and if he were a much, much better candidate than Romney, I might even be tempted to accept that. But he's not better--or at least not enough better to make me willing to sell out on such a significant matter.
That said, whichever gets the nomination will earn my vote in the general election. My conscience will not ache at all over voting for even a flawed pro-life conservative over an apparently happily-married pro-choice liberal. If the liberal in question also has his own admitted past moral failings (like cocaine use), that only makes it easier. But for now I'm sticking with the guy who has had the same wife for 40+ years, who hasn't recently changed religions (nor apparently embraced any particular flavor of theology for political advantage), and whose idea of a stiff drink is chocolate milk.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Cain, In Context
So, now we've got this woman who claims to have been sexually assaulted by Cain. Not harassed, but assaulted--unwanted physical touching of an intimate nature, and with a level of crudity that surpasses any simple flirtation. And, to be clear, even if there WERE "only" simple flirtation, that would still be the kiss of death for me when dealing with a fellow who was (and is) not just married, but a minister.
But.
Yeah, there's a but. If it's true, it's damning. And I may have to eat crow down the road on this. But I still don't think it's true. We have a case of he-said, she-said. No witnesses, no evidence. We have affadavits that she told two people long ago that she felt uncomfortable, but provided no details (I cannot imagine my wife or girlfriend saying something like that and me just blowing it off). We have this story which is so darned weird--it seems like the whole scene could have been cut from some low-budget caricature of a documentary on sexual harassment. If you told me he had tried to steal a kiss, or whisper in her ear, or something like that, maybe. But straight for the crotch? Dude, I don't know any 17-year-olds whose game is that bad. And we've got the woman's personal history of terminations, lawsuits, bankruptcy, even dishonesty over paternity... and the presence of Gloria Allred. Any one or two of these would draw a presumption of his innocence from me. The preponderance of all of them is enough to send up a host of red flags.
But, they say, this is woman #4 (or is it 5?). But it's not. We have non-specific allegations of unspecified complaints, resulting in teeny-tiny settlements by a third party (settlements of a sort that indicates nothing, in most cases). Even what little we have heard, "gestures of a non-sexual nature," doesn't make any darned sense. I just can't string this guy up on such flimsy evidence. And some of the "gotcha" stuff doesn't do anything for me. When I read, "he said her story was 100% false, but they really DID meet!" I don't see that as bad at all. I think anyone with a middle school command of the English language can understand that he is denying the allegations of misconduct, and not claiming that the woman's every word is false, right down to "and" and "the."
However, here's what I'm NOT going to do. Despite the completely blatant double-standard involved, I'm not going to defend him on the grounds that it wasn't "really" harassment based on some legalistic parsing of the word. I'm not going to claim that it's OK because he complied with the Clinton "one free grope" rule, and quit after she said to stop. I'm not going to say that he was only flirting, or that perhaps somehow the woman involved led him on and then pulled a bait and switch. If Herman Cain, a married Christian man, made a pass, crude or otherwise, at this woman, then he is done, in my book.
Sadly, I don't think that's the case, at least not yet. But it won't matter. Without the help of a compliant media like Clinton had, this charge, even if proven 100% untrue, is fatal to Cain's campaign. I'm reminded of Casey Stengel's famous quote about baseball: "Can't anybody around here play this game anymore?" I think he would be a good vice-president. But it's not going to happen.
Maybe I'll take another look at Gingrich. For years I've always said he was unelectable because of demanding a divorce from his dying-of-cancer wife while she was in the hospital. Now it turns out that the story on that was completely false (once again, the lie can circle the globe before the truth laces up its boots). Otherwise, we're looking at Romney. Ugh.
But.
Yeah, there's a but. If it's true, it's damning. And I may have to eat crow down the road on this. But I still don't think it's true. We have a case of he-said, she-said. No witnesses, no evidence. We have affadavits that she told two people long ago that she felt uncomfortable, but provided no details (I cannot imagine my wife or girlfriend saying something like that and me just blowing it off). We have this story which is so darned weird--it seems like the whole scene could have been cut from some low-budget caricature of a documentary on sexual harassment. If you told me he had tried to steal a kiss, or whisper in her ear, or something like that, maybe. But straight for the crotch? Dude, I don't know any 17-year-olds whose game is that bad. And we've got the woman's personal history of terminations, lawsuits, bankruptcy, even dishonesty over paternity... and the presence of Gloria Allred. Any one or two of these would draw a presumption of his innocence from me. The preponderance of all of them is enough to send up a host of red flags.
But, they say, this is woman #4 (or is it 5?). But it's not. We have non-specific allegations of unspecified complaints, resulting in teeny-tiny settlements by a third party (settlements of a sort that indicates nothing, in most cases). Even what little we have heard, "gestures of a non-sexual nature," doesn't make any darned sense. I just can't string this guy up on such flimsy evidence. And some of the "gotcha" stuff doesn't do anything for me. When I read, "he said her story was 100% false, but they really DID meet!" I don't see that as bad at all. I think anyone with a middle school command of the English language can understand that he is denying the allegations of misconduct, and not claiming that the woman's every word is false, right down to "and" and "the."
However, here's what I'm NOT going to do. Despite the completely blatant double-standard involved, I'm not going to defend him on the grounds that it wasn't "really" harassment based on some legalistic parsing of the word. I'm not going to claim that it's OK because he complied with the Clinton "one free grope" rule, and quit after she said to stop. I'm not going to say that he was only flirting, or that perhaps somehow the woman involved led him on and then pulled a bait and switch. If Herman Cain, a married Christian man, made a pass, crude or otherwise, at this woman, then he is done, in my book.
Sadly, I don't think that's the case, at least not yet. But it won't matter. Without the help of a compliant media like Clinton had, this charge, even if proven 100% untrue, is fatal to Cain's campaign. I'm reminded of Casey Stengel's famous quote about baseball: "Can't anybody around here play this game anymore?" I think he would be a good vice-president. But it's not going to happen.
Maybe I'll take another look at Gingrich. For years I've always said he was unelectable because of demanding a divorce from his dying-of-cancer wife while she was in the hospital. Now it turns out that the story on that was completely false (once again, the lie can circle the globe before the truth laces up its boots). Otherwise, we're looking at Romney. Ugh.
Friday, November 4, 2011
The Cain Train
I've got a few thoughts on Herman Cain and the GOP race that are not really suitable for Facebook. And since my buddy Kim says I need to blog more, here's an attempt.
First of all, this "sexual harassment" charge against Cain is terribly frustrating. For starters, I do not buy the argument that there is any racial component to it. There is, however an obvious party/ideological component. While it may be arguable that Cain (like Rubio) represents a unique threat on account of his race, and therefore is even more in need of a good Borking, I do not believe for a second that a white Republican would get treated any differently. If similar rumors swirled around Perry, Romney, or whoever, I am sure they would get the same treatment. However, a Democrat (regardless of race) would not. The evidence for this should be obvious: witness the wagon-circling and covering for not only Bill Clinton, but also John Edwards, and even Anthony Weiner (who, by the way, would possibly have gotten away with it if his name had been Anthony Smith).
The most frustrating thing is that the charges so far are without a single detail. There was an unspecified charge, and a realtively small settlement. Apparently there may have been "gestures of a not overtly sexual nature that caused discomfort." I don't have a clue what that means. I just cannot imagine any legitimate media source giving airtime or column space to a similar story about Barack Obama. The double-standard never fails to rile me up.
That said, if there really is any fire to go with the smoke, I don't want him, double standard or not. Yes, I know that Bill Clinton paid $800k to settle with Paula Jones over a genuine sexual harrassment lawsuit that had specific charges of behaviors that could not possibly be any kind of misunderstanding. And yes, I know that he not only survived his impeachment trial, but left office with a 60% approval rating and now enjoys elder statesman status, even though there were even credible allegations of rape against him. I also know that JFK and FDR were notoriously unfaithful to their wives, and wound up with their profiles on coins. But that does not mean that I therefore want that to be the standard. Even if Cain's problems came out through dirty pool, if he really is a lecherous old man, he won't get my vote. But I also won't throw him under the bus just yet. The law of sexual harassment is pretty crazy--as a teacher, I sit through annual updates on exactly where the lines are. Intent doesn't matter, and the standard of a "reasonable person" doesn't matter. If a "reasonable woman" can be made uncomfortable, even by an innocent compliment, you can be in trouble. So I'm withholding judgment on this issue for now.
But this issue is not what bugs me about Cain. What bugs me is that he's Ross Perot. He is a good businessman, and folksy, and likeable. And in a time when the professional politicians have so obviously screwed the pooch, that makes him very attractive. But he is a rank amateur. He apparently has not given 5 minutes thought to some of the key issues that would be key components of his job description were he to actually win--things like... all of foreign policy. I'm sorry, I think the current occupant of the White House should be fair warning to us that the presidency ought not to be an entry-level job.
And if it's not Cain, it's probably Romney. I really don't care much for Romney. Maybe it's the perfect hair, or the fact that he comes across as a guy (like George Bush 41) who was born to the job. Maybe it's the fact that he seems like Bill Clinton--a guy who will do or say anything the focus groups tell him if it will help him become president. And mostly it's because I feel like he's just another "progressive" with a different ideology--that he'll still be willing to use the heavy hand of government to manage every facet of our lives. It's still tyranny, but he's just a tyrant from the party I like better. Bah! I'd like to quote St. Ron: "In the current crisis, government is not the solution to our problems. Government IS the problem."
Yet Romney does seem to be squeaky clean. And perhaps if he is going to govern by opinion poll, maybe the polls of the current population will lead him to do the right things. Maybe we can get Romney with Cain as Veep (assuming no bombshells). I could imagine Cain's instincts being a good check on Romney's pragmatism, and Romney's wonkery more than making up for Cain's inexperience. It's like Rocky and Adrian: "She got gaps, and I got gaps. But together, we ain't got gaps." And I feel certain that Cain is not too week for the second spot. After all.... JOE BIDEN. Nuff said.
First of all, this "sexual harassment" charge against Cain is terribly frustrating. For starters, I do not buy the argument that there is any racial component to it. There is, however an obvious party/ideological component. While it may be arguable that Cain (like Rubio) represents a unique threat on account of his race, and therefore is even more in need of a good Borking, I do not believe for a second that a white Republican would get treated any differently. If similar rumors swirled around Perry, Romney, or whoever, I am sure they would get the same treatment. However, a Democrat (regardless of race) would not. The evidence for this should be obvious: witness the wagon-circling and covering for not only Bill Clinton, but also John Edwards, and even Anthony Weiner (who, by the way, would possibly have gotten away with it if his name had been Anthony Smith).
The most frustrating thing is that the charges so far are without a single detail. There was an unspecified charge, and a realtively small settlement. Apparently there may have been "gestures of a not overtly sexual nature that caused discomfort." I don't have a clue what that means. I just cannot imagine any legitimate media source giving airtime or column space to a similar story about Barack Obama. The double-standard never fails to rile me up.
That said, if there really is any fire to go with the smoke, I don't want him, double standard or not. Yes, I know that Bill Clinton paid $800k to settle with Paula Jones over a genuine sexual harrassment lawsuit that had specific charges of behaviors that could not possibly be any kind of misunderstanding. And yes, I know that he not only survived his impeachment trial, but left office with a 60% approval rating and now enjoys elder statesman status, even though there were even credible allegations of rape against him. I also know that JFK and FDR were notoriously unfaithful to their wives, and wound up with their profiles on coins. But that does not mean that I therefore want that to be the standard. Even if Cain's problems came out through dirty pool, if he really is a lecherous old man, he won't get my vote. But I also won't throw him under the bus just yet. The law of sexual harassment is pretty crazy--as a teacher, I sit through annual updates on exactly where the lines are. Intent doesn't matter, and the standard of a "reasonable person" doesn't matter. If a "reasonable woman" can be made uncomfortable, even by an innocent compliment, you can be in trouble. So I'm withholding judgment on this issue for now.
But this issue is not what bugs me about Cain. What bugs me is that he's Ross Perot. He is a good businessman, and folksy, and likeable. And in a time when the professional politicians have so obviously screwed the pooch, that makes him very attractive. But he is a rank amateur. He apparently has not given 5 minutes thought to some of the key issues that would be key components of his job description were he to actually win--things like... all of foreign policy. I'm sorry, I think the current occupant of the White House should be fair warning to us that the presidency ought not to be an entry-level job.
And if it's not Cain, it's probably Romney. I really don't care much for Romney. Maybe it's the perfect hair, or the fact that he comes across as a guy (like George Bush 41) who was born to the job. Maybe it's the fact that he seems like Bill Clinton--a guy who will do or say anything the focus groups tell him if it will help him become president. And mostly it's because I feel like he's just another "progressive" with a different ideology--that he'll still be willing to use the heavy hand of government to manage every facet of our lives. It's still tyranny, but he's just a tyrant from the party I like better. Bah! I'd like to quote St. Ron: "In the current crisis, government is not the solution to our problems. Government IS the problem."
Yet Romney does seem to be squeaky clean. And perhaps if he is going to govern by opinion poll, maybe the polls of the current population will lead him to do the right things. Maybe we can get Romney with Cain as Veep (assuming no bombshells). I could imagine Cain's instincts being a good check on Romney's pragmatism, and Romney's wonkery more than making up for Cain's inexperience. It's like Rocky and Adrian: "She got gaps, and I got gaps. But together, we ain't got gaps." And I feel certain that Cain is not too week for the second spot. After all.... JOE BIDEN. Nuff said.
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