In an article titled "Why Obama Gets Four More Years in White House", Ralph Nader wrote the following:
"Nor does a third party or independent candidacy pose a threat, given the winner-take-all, two-party system."
Oh really, Ralph?
So, you're telling me that it was just my imagination when a certain liberal icon ran for President as a third party candidate in 2000, cost Al Gore Florida, and gave us 8 years of George W. Bush?
So, you're telling me that wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were just my imagination?
I guess I was just imagining things when George W. Bush's completely irresponsible tax cuts and his wars created so much government debt that my great grandkids will still be paying it off.
I guess I was just imagining things when the anti-regulation policies of Bush led to the the United States greatest economic collapse since the Great Depression.
I guess I was just imagining things when the huge national debt created by the George W. Bush's policies gave the Republican right-wing the idea to create the anti-debt Tea Party movement ( which has somehow convinced half the nation that the national debt is the fault of the Democrats ).
I guess I was just imagining things when Tea Party endorsed politicians responded to the debt by cutting social programs that liberals spent their lives fighting for ( While refusing the raise taxes or our cut Defense spending, despite that fact that the low taxes and Defense spending led to most of the national debt ) and stripping public unions of their collective bargaining rights.
I guess I was just imagining imagine things when New Jersey governor ( and Tea Party favorite ) Chris Christie used the anti-debt issue as an excuse to cut public school funding so much ( while giving tax breaks to millionaires ) that my youngest son Peter was denied full-day Kindergarten.
I guess I was just imagining things when George W. Bush added John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court - a pair of relatively young ultra-conservatives who will influence the Court for at least the next 30 years.
I guess I just imagined the Roberts and Alito were part of the majority in the 5-4 "Citizens United v Federal Election Commission" decision, which gave corporations the power spend as much money as they wanted to influence elections.
I guess I was just imagining the large number of 5-4 pro-business decisions made by the Supreme Court over the last few years ( There was another 5-4 decision of this sort today. ). I guess was just imagining that these Supreme Courts decisions are destroying all the consumer protections you've fought so hard for over the years.
I guess I was just imagining how the Bush Deficits led to budgets cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency, undermining lots of the environmental protections you've spent your career fighting for.
I guess I was just imagining how a certain liberal icon tarnished his legacy so much that the Simpsons made fun of him ( Wish I could find the clip ) by having him attend a meeting of the Springfield Republicans ( When this liberal icon offer a suggestion to help the Republicans, Mr. Burns tell him "Haven't you done enough already?" ).
I guess I was just imagining that a certain liberal icon screwed the country for the next 50 years by running for President as a third party candidate in 2000, and then had the balls to suggest 11 years later that third party candidates have no impact on Presidential elections.
Oh really, Ralph?!?
Rich
P.S. Yes, I'm still a little bit bitter.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Friday, April 22, 2011
Obama must be jizzing in his pants
Obama must be jizzing in his pants about Donald Trump.
( If you've been living under a rock, or are not from the USA, or are reading this years later when Obama will be remembered as the 44th President of the United States and Trump won't be remembered at all, let me give a brief summary of what is going on: Billionaire and shameless self-promoter Donald Trump has decided that he wants to run for President in 2012 ( or least wants to make people think he's running for President in order to get more attention for his TV show ). In order to attract Republican voters, he is now publicly taking positions that are 180 degrees removed from positions he publicly took just a few years ago. In the past he'd voiced his support for gay rights, abortion rights, and advocated a 14.25% wealth tax on all Americans with a net worth of more than 10 million dollars. He now claims to be against raising any taxes, against gay rights, against abortion rights, and most significantly, has taken up the widely discredited "birther" cause which maintains that President Obama was not born in the United States. As crazy as this all might sound, this strategy has been working for Trump. He is now leading all other potential Republican candidates in polls of likely Republican voters. )
Even before Trump emerged on the scene, things were looking pretty good for Obama in 2012. Sure, the economy is still rather stagnant ( Though it is doing MUCH better than it was when Obama took over in January of 2009. Back then, the US economy was in a deep recession and on the brink of a depression. Now the economy is on a streak of 13 months of positive growth. ) and the Republicans gave the Democrats a "shellacking" ( as Obama called it ) in the 2010 midterm elections, but the 2012 Republican Presidential field was full of candidates who stood no chance of winning a national election. The Tea Party movement was forcing otherwise semi-reasonable Republicans ( None of the Republicans seem reasonable to me, but at least some of them could seem reasonable to most Americans ) to take positions so far to the right that they were all ruining their chances to gain the support of the moderate "swing voters" that often decide Presidential elections. To make matters worse, the only well-known semi-moderate Republican ( Mitt Romney ) has zero chance of winning the Republican primaries, because he signed a health care bill as governor of Massachusetts that could virtually be the twin brother of the Obama health care bill that all Republican primary voters hate.
Yeah, so things were looking pretty good for Obama, but Donald Trumps takes things to a whole other level.
For as long as I can remember, Republican Presidential candidates have had to play a game in which they speak in a kind of code in order placate the far-Right base of Republican voters ( in other words, the voters they would have to win over to win the Republican primaries ), while not offending moderate voters ( The voters needed to win the general election for President ). For example, when asked in a 2004 Presidential debate about what kind of Supreme Court Justice he would pick, George W. Bush said he wouldn't pick a justice who would agree with decision in the Dred Scott case. This baffled many people ( including me ), because the Dred Scott case was an 1857 decision which affirmed that slaves remained the property of their owners, even if they were taken to places where slavery was illegal. Most people couldn't imagine how a potential justice's view of an 1857 pro-slavery Supreme Court decision ( Obviously, any justice today would be against the decision ) would have any relevance today. However, I later found out that in Christian Right circles, "Dred Scott" is code for "Roe vs. Wade" ( the 1973 decision that made abortion legal in the USA ). So, Bush was using the "Dred Scott" code word to make it clear to the Christian Right that he would appoint a Supreme Court justice that was strongly anti-abortion ( which he did twice during his second term ), while trying not offend pro-abortion moderates.
These Republican secret codes have become even more prevalent during the Obama administration. Republican politicians are acutely aware that a significant percentage of white Repblican voters have racist views about President Obama. Republicans candidates want to motivate these racists voters to go out and vote for them, but they clearly need to be very careful about how they appeal to these voters. Not only do they have to be careful not to offend moderates, but they also have to be careful not to offend the racist voters themselves. Let's face it, most people don't want to think of themselves as being racist, so most people with racially motivated negative views about President Obama have found ways to rationalize that their negative views are not racially motivated. For example, I know somebody ( We'll call him "Joe" ), who voted for Bill Clinton over Bob Dole in 1996, but voted for John McCain over Barack Obama in 2008. Anyone who understand politics at all ( and Joe does ) can see that John McCain has basically the same political philosophy as Bob Dole ( Both are Center Right, though I would say that John McCain campaigned far further to the right than Bob Dole. Bob Dole never called the progressive tax system "socialist" as John McCain did during the 2008 campaign ), and Barack Obama has basically the same political philosophy as Bill Clinton ( Center Left. I think both their campaigns were equally positioned to the Left, and as a frustrated liberal I can state definitively that Bill Clinton governed further to the Left than Barack Obama has so far. ). So, with all that in mind, you would expect a supporter of Bill Clinton in 1996 to be a supporter of Barack Obama in 2008. Instead, Joe voted for McCain, and now trashes President Obama every chance he gets. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say that every white person who opposes President Obama does so for racial reasons, but there are a lot of "Joes" out there, and Republican politicians know this.
So, because even the most right-wing Republicans can't get away with saying they don't like President Obama because he's black, they find other ways to imply that he's not a Real American ( in other words, not a white Christian ). This is where we get all this "birther" ( The claim that Obama was actually born in Kenya, and back in 1961, his mother, the State of Hawaii ( Which has the official documents that prove he was born in Hawaii ) two different Hawaii newspapers ( which printed birth announcements of Obama's birth back in 1961 ) conspired to fake that he was born in the USA so that he could one day become President. ) and "Obama is a Muslim" nonsense from. However, most mainstream Republican can't even get away with talking about the birther stuff or the Muslim stuff directly. Instead, they need to speak in code again. When asked if they believe if Obama was born in the USA or if he is a Muslim, just about all the potential Republican Presidential candidates say stuff like "I take President's Obama's word for it that he was born in the USA" or "I take Presidents Obama's word for it that he's a Christian". In other words, they are telling the far-Right base of the Republican party "Look, for the sake of keeping the liberal mainstream media from tearing me apart, I've got to pretend I believe that President Obama is a Christian who was born in the USA - but you and I both know that he's really a foreign Muslim socialist who wants to turn the good old USA into a Muslim caliphate.".
Trump however, isn't playing that secret code game. He's come right out and said he doesn't believe the Obama was born in the USA. He's even claimed that his investigators in Hawaii have uncovered evidence ( none of which he's released to the public ) that Obama wasn't born there. Instead of hiding the crazy aspects of the Republican party that could scare away moderate voters, he's letting it all hang out. Sorry to use a second crude analogy in this post, but the emergence of Trump really does makes it seem like the Republicans are walking around with their dick hanging out.
,,, and Obama has got to be loving this.
What's worse for Republicans is that because Trump's now leading in the polls, lots of the other Republican candidates might decide to follow Trumps lead. It things keep going the way they're going, it will eventually get to the point that where the Republican's will nominate a Presidential candidate who is completely unelectable in the general election.
Of course, I don't think the Republican's will really nominate Trump. In fact, fact I don't even think Trump really intends to run for President. I think this is all just a big publicity stunt to feed his ego and put more money in his pocket.
However, a guy can dream, can't he?
Rich
( If you've been living under a rock, or are not from the USA, or are reading this years later when Obama will be remembered as the 44th President of the United States and Trump won't be remembered at all, let me give a brief summary of what is going on: Billionaire and shameless self-promoter Donald Trump has decided that he wants to run for President in 2012 ( or least wants to make people think he's running for President in order to get more attention for his TV show ). In order to attract Republican voters, he is now publicly taking positions that are 180 degrees removed from positions he publicly took just a few years ago. In the past he'd voiced his support for gay rights, abortion rights, and advocated a 14.25% wealth tax on all Americans with a net worth of more than 10 million dollars. He now claims to be against raising any taxes, against gay rights, against abortion rights, and most significantly, has taken up the widely discredited "birther" cause which maintains that President Obama was not born in the United States. As crazy as this all might sound, this strategy has been working for Trump. He is now leading all other potential Republican candidates in polls of likely Republican voters. )
Even before Trump emerged on the scene, things were looking pretty good for Obama in 2012. Sure, the economy is still rather stagnant ( Though it is doing MUCH better than it was when Obama took over in January of 2009. Back then, the US economy was in a deep recession and on the brink of a depression. Now the economy is on a streak of 13 months of positive growth. ) and the Republicans gave the Democrats a "shellacking" ( as Obama called it ) in the 2010 midterm elections, but the 2012 Republican Presidential field was full of candidates who stood no chance of winning a national election. The Tea Party movement was forcing otherwise semi-reasonable Republicans ( None of the Republicans seem reasonable to me, but at least some of them could seem reasonable to most Americans ) to take positions so far to the right that they were all ruining their chances to gain the support of the moderate "swing voters" that often decide Presidential elections. To make matters worse, the only well-known semi-moderate Republican ( Mitt Romney ) has zero chance of winning the Republican primaries, because he signed a health care bill as governor of Massachusetts that could virtually be the twin brother of the Obama health care bill that all Republican primary voters hate.
Yeah, so things were looking pretty good for Obama, but Donald Trumps takes things to a whole other level.
For as long as I can remember, Republican Presidential candidates have had to play a game in which they speak in a kind of code in order placate the far-Right base of Republican voters ( in other words, the voters they would have to win over to win the Republican primaries ), while not offending moderate voters ( The voters needed to win the general election for President ). For example, when asked in a 2004 Presidential debate about what kind of Supreme Court Justice he would pick, George W. Bush said he wouldn't pick a justice who would agree with decision in the Dred Scott case. This baffled many people ( including me ), because the Dred Scott case was an 1857 decision which affirmed that slaves remained the property of their owners, even if they were taken to places where slavery was illegal. Most people couldn't imagine how a potential justice's view of an 1857 pro-slavery Supreme Court decision ( Obviously, any justice today would be against the decision ) would have any relevance today. However, I later found out that in Christian Right circles, "Dred Scott" is code for "Roe vs. Wade" ( the 1973 decision that made abortion legal in the USA ). So, Bush was using the "Dred Scott" code word to make it clear to the Christian Right that he would appoint a Supreme Court justice that was strongly anti-abortion ( which he did twice during his second term ), while trying not offend pro-abortion moderates.
These Republican secret codes have become even more prevalent during the Obama administration. Republican politicians are acutely aware that a significant percentage of white Repblican voters have racist views about President Obama. Republicans candidates want to motivate these racists voters to go out and vote for them, but they clearly need to be very careful about how they appeal to these voters. Not only do they have to be careful not to offend moderates, but they also have to be careful not to offend the racist voters themselves. Let's face it, most people don't want to think of themselves as being racist, so most people with racially motivated negative views about President Obama have found ways to rationalize that their negative views are not racially motivated. For example, I know somebody ( We'll call him "Joe" ), who voted for Bill Clinton over Bob Dole in 1996, but voted for John McCain over Barack Obama in 2008. Anyone who understand politics at all ( and Joe does ) can see that John McCain has basically the same political philosophy as Bob Dole ( Both are Center Right, though I would say that John McCain campaigned far further to the right than Bob Dole. Bob Dole never called the progressive tax system "socialist" as John McCain did during the 2008 campaign ), and Barack Obama has basically the same political philosophy as Bill Clinton ( Center Left. I think both their campaigns were equally positioned to the Left, and as a frustrated liberal I can state definitively that Bill Clinton governed further to the Left than Barack Obama has so far. ). So, with all that in mind, you would expect a supporter of Bill Clinton in 1996 to be a supporter of Barack Obama in 2008. Instead, Joe voted for McCain, and now trashes President Obama every chance he gets. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say that every white person who opposes President Obama does so for racial reasons, but there are a lot of "Joes" out there, and Republican politicians know this.
So, because even the most right-wing Republicans can't get away with saying they don't like President Obama because he's black, they find other ways to imply that he's not a Real American ( in other words, not a white Christian ). This is where we get all this "birther" ( The claim that Obama was actually born in Kenya, and back in 1961, his mother, the State of Hawaii ( Which has the official documents that prove he was born in Hawaii ) two different Hawaii newspapers ( which printed birth announcements of Obama's birth back in 1961 ) conspired to fake that he was born in the USA so that he could one day become President. ) and "Obama is a Muslim" nonsense from. However, most mainstream Republican can't even get away with talking about the birther stuff or the Muslim stuff directly. Instead, they need to speak in code again. When asked if they believe if Obama was born in the USA or if he is a Muslim, just about all the potential Republican Presidential candidates say stuff like "I take President's Obama's word for it that he was born in the USA" or "I take Presidents Obama's word for it that he's a Christian". In other words, they are telling the far-Right base of the Republican party "Look, for the sake of keeping the liberal mainstream media from tearing me apart, I've got to pretend I believe that President Obama is a Christian who was born in the USA - but you and I both know that he's really a foreign Muslim socialist who wants to turn the good old USA into a Muslim caliphate.".
Trump however, isn't playing that secret code game. He's come right out and said he doesn't believe the Obama was born in the USA. He's even claimed that his investigators in Hawaii have uncovered evidence ( none of which he's released to the public ) that Obama wasn't born there. Instead of hiding the crazy aspects of the Republican party that could scare away moderate voters, he's letting it all hang out. Sorry to use a second crude analogy in this post, but the emergence of Trump really does makes it seem like the Republicans are walking around with their dick hanging out.
,,, and Obama has got to be loving this.
What's worse for Republicans is that because Trump's now leading in the polls, lots of the other Republican candidates might decide to follow Trumps lead. It things keep going the way they're going, it will eventually get to the point that where the Republican's will nominate a Presidential candidate who is completely unelectable in the general election.
Of course, I don't think the Republican's will really nominate Trump. In fact, fact I don't even think Trump really intends to run for President. I think this is all just a big publicity stunt to feed his ego and put more money in his pocket.
However, a guy can dream, can't he?
Rich
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Frosty the Snowman is Jesus.
Maybe I'm being a wee bit sacrilegious, and I'm probably not the first person to notice this, but I've come to the conclusion that the story of Frosty the Snowman is basically the story of Jesus Christ. How so? Well, consider the following parallels between the biblical account of Jesus Christ, and the story of Frosty the Snowman from the song and the classic TV special.
Jesus: Was born on Christmas.
Frosty: Was made with "Christmas snow" ( snow that fell on Christmas Day - so Frosty was also essentially born on Christmas. ).
Jesus: Sacrificed himself to pay for man's sins by letting the his enemies capture him in a garden ( Gethsemane ). His enemies ultimately condemned him to death and killed him.
Frosty: Selflessly put his own life in danger by carrying a freezing little girl into a warm indoor garden ( a greenhouse ). His enemy ( the magician ) was able to trap him in the greenhouse and Frosty died via melting.
Jesus: Was raised from the dead by God, who is a powerful, fatherly ( "God the Father ), eternal, omniscient figure, who judges people on whether they've been bad or good.
Frosty: Was raised from the dead by Santa,who is a powerful, fatherly ( "Father Christmas" ), eternal ( never seems to age ), omniscient ( "He sees you when you're sleeping. He knows when you're awake" ), and judges people on whether they've been bad or good ( "He's making a list and checking it twice - gonna find out who's naughty or nice."; "He knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake" ).
Jesus: Shortly after rising from the dead, he ascended up into Heaven ( where the powerful, omniscient figure ( God ) lives ).
Frosty: Shortly after being raised from the dead, he headed back "up" to the North Pole ( where the powerful, omniscient figure ( Santa ) lives).
Jesus: Predicted he would come again someday ( The Second Coming ).
Frosty: "He waved goodbye saying 'Don't you cry. I'll be back again someday'."
Well, it looks like I've set my personal record for "Most Random Post Ever".
Rich
Thursday, March 31, 2011
I'd rather be hated than misunderstood
I'd rather be hated than misunderstood.
I was reflecting a bit while reading the book "Being Wrong", and I decided that the statement above defines me.
That's it. I'm tempted to give a bunch of examples ( because I very much do want to be understood ), but I'm pressed for time, so that will have to do.
Rich
P.S. "Pressed for time" really means "It's about 9:45 PM on March 31st, and I don't want to have my first empty month in my blog archives".
P.P.S Sorry to keep anyone hanging regarding Part 2 of "Why I Run". I've been quite busy lately, but I'll get to Part 2 eventually.
I was reflecting a bit while reading the book "Being Wrong", and I decided that the statement above defines me.
That's it. I'm tempted to give a bunch of examples ( because I very much do want to be understood ), but I'm pressed for time, so that will have to do.
Rich
P.S. "Pressed for time" really means "It's about 9:45 PM on March 31st, and I don't want to have my first empty month in my blog archives".
P.P.S Sorry to keep anyone hanging regarding Part 2 of "Why I Run". I've been quite busy lately, but I'll get to Part 2 eventually.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Why I Run ( Part 1 )
I sit on the edge of my bed with a weight wrapped around my right ankle. I slowly extend the lower portion of my right leg until it is completely parallel to the floor, and then slowly lower this part of the leg back down until my right heel is about an inch from the side of of the bed. I do this over and over again, and as I do this, my right knee makes a sound very much like the sound of crinkling bubble-wrap. Eventually pressure starts to build up in the knee. The bubble-wrap sound slowly fades away, and after a few silent extensions of the leg, the knee makes a huge CRACK sound when I extend the leg.
However, as bad as this all might sound, this really isn't a problem.
The problem is ...
... my right knee is my good knee!
So yeah, my knees give me trouble sometimes. While some of these problems are the unavoidable consequence of being 41, a good deal of the problems I have with my knees can be directly attributed to my running regimen. Of course. most people who hear about my cracking knees ( or literally hear my cracking knees ) don't give me much sympathy. They'll look at me in a bemused sort of way, and say things to me that often include words like "swimming", "biking", and "elliptical machine". Let's face it - there are certainly lots of ways to do cardio that don't involve the wear and tear that running put on my knees. So, considering all this, I guess the natural question I should be asking myself is ...
Why do I run?
Well, it might take a while to give a comprehensive answer to that question, so let me start by explaining why I even started to run in the first place. My current love of running can all be traced back to one thing, and that thing is ...
Basketball
If you've known for me a while or have read most of my previous posts, you probably already know that I had rather severe asthma as a child. Back then, running long distances was the furthest thing from my mind. Back then, I would have had an asthma attack if I tried to run the length of a city block.
All that started to change when my Dad built a basketball hoop in my backyard when I was about 12 ( BTW, when I wrote "built", I really did mean "built" rather than "installed". I installed a basketball hoop for my kids last spring; my dad actually built a hoop for my brother and me. One day, when walking home from the train station after work, he noticed an old basketball hoop ( just the metal part the ball goes through - there wasn't any backboard ) that had been left out in somebody's trash. He decided to take the discarded hoop home and mount it on the garage in our backyard. He took some leftover pieces from a metallic shelving system ( he had installed metalic shelves in our basement years earlier ) and basically built what looked like a 4 foot high by 3 foot wide metallic bookcase ( 1 foot deep ) with shelves 1 foot, 2 feet, and 3 feet off the ground. He then attached a piece of plywood ( a piece about the sized of an NBA backboard - he painted the piece white ) to the front of this "bookshelf". He attached the hoop to the backboard/bookshelf structure, and then attached the entire thing to the garage ( Actually, he may have attached the "bookshelf" to the garage first, and then attached the plywood/hoop, but you get the idea. The entire hoop/backboard combo was completely homemade from discarded/spare parts. ). I'll have to remind myself to thank my Dad the next time I talk to him. That hoop gave me lots of enjoyment over the years, and the skills I eventually gained gave me an athletic confidence that will endure for the rest of my life.). At the time my upper body was so weak that I couldn't reach the basket on a 15-foot shot unless I produced momentum by starting the shot between my legs and moving the ball rapidly from between my legs to a foot above my shoulders before releasing the ball ( kinda like the classic underhanded shot a little kid might shoot, except that I would release the ball like a regular shot with one hand behind the ball ( rather than one hand on each side of the ball )). However I quickly gained both strength and accuracy, and soon I found myself spending most of my free daylight hours shooting hoops.
As I entered my teen years I really didn't have the endurance ( or the confidence ) to start playing basketball games against other teens ( and young adults ) in the local parks, but I had already started a training regimen that would build the foundation of my game. I would take various mid-range shots from all over my backyard ( The deepest shots I could take from my backyard were from about 15 feet away. There was a fence 7 feet to the right of the basket, so I really couldn't take any deep shots from the right side of the basket. There was more room on the left side of the yard, but I had to contend with a garden that started at the left boarder of the garage and extended about 6 feet into the "court" ( There was a raised 2-inch concrete boarder around the entire garden, and a similar boarder about 3 feet from the right fence that extended about 3 feet into the "court". I can't tell you how many ankles I twisted landing on those concrete boarders. Those things are one of the reasons why I have a comically limited side-to-side range of motion in my ankles these days. ), as well as a peach tree in the garden and a clothesline on the far left side of our yard. If I wanted to take a shot deeper than 15 feet, I needed to step into a narrow driveway between our house and our neighbor's house ( My aunts lived next door, which was a good thing for me. I don't think that most people not related to me would have put up with the basketball noise all day ( not to mention the thousands of times I needed to go into their yard when the ball would go over the fence ))), and sprint toward the basket as soon as I released those mid-range shots. Whether the shot went in or not I would jump in the air to catch ball as it came off ( or through ) the rim and put up a layup before I landed. Doing this over and over again did 4 things for me:
1) It improved my mid-range shot.
2) It improved my leaping ability .
3) It gave me the ability to make off-balance layups with either hand from any spot near the basket.
4) It improved my endurance.
Yes "endurance". That 9-letter word is really the whole point of all the rambling tangent-laden paragraphs above. Basketball gave me endurance and help me overcome my childhood asthma. Basketball is the reason why I ultimately had the ability to run regularly.
However, having the ability and the inclination to do something are two different things. Despite that fact that I had mostly overcame my asthma ( pet allergies can still give me asthma attacks ) and had better-than average endurance, I never really had much of a desire to get my cardio exercise by running. I figured jogging would be bad for my knees, and I was quite wary about my knees, especially considering they started making all sorts of weird cracking sounds by the time I was 16.
So, I really didn't do any kind of distance running until I was 31 ( I started my running regimen 10 years ago in February of 2001 ), when basketball had an impact on my fitness again. At the time, I was playing on the company basketball team. I'd been playing on the team for 5 years ( I was actually one of the founding members of the company team. If the company team had existed a few years earlier,I certainly would have joined the team at the age of 23 rather than 26. I can't really take much credit for founding the team - the idea came from a guy I was supervising. He was fresh out of college and asked me if our company had a basketball team. When I told him we didn't have a team, he actually had the gumption to ask HR if the company could sponsor a team ( pay for league entry fees, uniforms, etc. ). The next thing you know, management said "yes" to the request and we had a company basketball team. ), and while I was still enjoying the games ( we played 30 - 40 games a year ), I was starting to feel my age for the first time.
You see, jumping had always been a big part of my game. Of course jumping is a big part of basketball in general, but I relied on my jumping ability a lot more than the average player. The biggest weakness in my basketball game is my dribbling ability. I'm not a bad dribbler these days ( I knew enough about the finer points of dribbling to teach Michael how to do it well ), but I've never really had quick hands, and dribbling wasn't a big part of the foundation of my game. As I mentioned above, I taught myself to play the game with a regimen that involved a lot of shooting and jumping, but not much dribbling. So, when I eventually gained the confidence to play games at the park, I found that I didn't have much of an ability to dribble around people to get close enough to the basket to make all those off-balance layups I had practiced. However, I found that I could jump around people. I know that "jump around people" might seem like an odd term, so I'll offer the following example:
Often when I was driving towards the basket and found a defender between me and the basket, I would leap directory towards the left or right shoulder of the defender. I would then twist my body 90 degrees in the air ( so that my back was facing the defender ( so the defender couldn't really get his hands on the ball without reaching around me and fouling me ) and arch my back to avoid contact with the defender. Once I got past the defender, I would twist my body 90 degrees back to its original orientation, and then put up a layup before I landed.
A basketball move like the one above ( plus many others where I would just jump into traffic and contort my body until I found space to put up a shot ) works fine if you can stay in the air long enough to pull it off. I could easily stay in the air long enough when I was 21, but by the time I was 31, it was getting a little bit tougher. I wasn't as if I was out of shape or anything, but very few people have as springy legs in their early 30's as they did in their early 20's. So yeah, losing leaping ability as you age is a fact of life, but it was a fact I was having a hard time dealing with. I constantly found my basketball brain writing checks that my body couldn't cash. I would leap into the air with a plan of action, and found that I was landing before I could execute that plan. I was only landing a split second earlier than I was in the past. Most people probably wouldn't have even noticed, but I noticed, and knew I was going to have to adjust my game to adjust to this new reality.
So, I decided I needed to improve my endurance. I knew I wasn't as quick and as fast as I was in my younger days. I knew I could no longer outrun a lot of the younger guys at the beginning of games. However, if I had better endurance than those younger guys, I might be able to outrun them at the end of games - when lots of games are won and lost. Thus, I resolved to dramatically improve my endurance. There were two treadmills in the fitness room of the apartment complex my wife and I were living in at the time. I tried the treadmills out, set a few goals for myself, and the rest as they say, is history.
Still, why treadmills rather than exercise bikes, stair-masters, rowing machines, or elliptical machines? Well, to lean that, you'll need to read Part 2.
Rich
However, as bad as this all might sound, this really isn't a problem.
The problem is ...
... my right knee is my good knee!
So yeah, my knees give me trouble sometimes. While some of these problems are the unavoidable consequence of being 41, a good deal of the problems I have with my knees can be directly attributed to my running regimen. Of course. most people who hear about my cracking knees ( or literally hear my cracking knees ) don't give me much sympathy. They'll look at me in a bemused sort of way, and say things to me that often include words like "swimming", "biking", and "elliptical machine". Let's face it - there are certainly lots of ways to do cardio that don't involve the wear and tear that running put on my knees. So, considering all this, I guess the natural question I should be asking myself is ...
Why do I run?
Well, it might take a while to give a comprehensive answer to that question, so let me start by explaining why I even started to run in the first place. My current love of running can all be traced back to one thing, and that thing is ...
Basketball
If you've known for me a while or have read most of my previous posts, you probably already know that I had rather severe asthma as a child. Back then, running long distances was the furthest thing from my mind. Back then, I would have had an asthma attack if I tried to run the length of a city block.
All that started to change when my Dad built a basketball hoop in my backyard when I was about 12 ( BTW, when I wrote "built", I really did mean "built" rather than "installed". I installed a basketball hoop for my kids last spring; my dad actually built a hoop for my brother and me. One day, when walking home from the train station after work, he noticed an old basketball hoop ( just the metal part the ball goes through - there wasn't any backboard ) that had been left out in somebody's trash. He decided to take the discarded hoop home and mount it on the garage in our backyard. He took some leftover pieces from a metallic shelving system ( he had installed metalic shelves in our basement years earlier ) and basically built what looked like a 4 foot high by 3 foot wide metallic bookcase ( 1 foot deep ) with shelves 1 foot, 2 feet, and 3 feet off the ground. He then attached a piece of plywood ( a piece about the sized of an NBA backboard - he painted the piece white ) to the front of this "bookshelf". He attached the hoop to the backboard/bookshelf structure, and then attached the entire thing to the garage ( Actually, he may have attached the "bookshelf" to the garage first, and then attached the plywood/hoop, but you get the idea. The entire hoop/backboard combo was completely homemade from discarded/spare parts. ). I'll have to remind myself to thank my Dad the next time I talk to him. That hoop gave me lots of enjoyment over the years, and the skills I eventually gained gave me an athletic confidence that will endure for the rest of my life.). At the time my upper body was so weak that I couldn't reach the basket on a 15-foot shot unless I produced momentum by starting the shot between my legs and moving the ball rapidly from between my legs to a foot above my shoulders before releasing the ball ( kinda like the classic underhanded shot a little kid might shoot, except that I would release the ball like a regular shot with one hand behind the ball ( rather than one hand on each side of the ball )). However I quickly gained both strength and accuracy, and soon I found myself spending most of my free daylight hours shooting hoops.
As I entered my teen years I really didn't have the endurance ( or the confidence ) to start playing basketball games against other teens ( and young adults ) in the local parks, but I had already started a training regimen that would build the foundation of my game. I would take various mid-range shots from all over my backyard ( The deepest shots I could take from my backyard were from about 15 feet away. There was a fence 7 feet to the right of the basket, so I really couldn't take any deep shots from the right side of the basket. There was more room on the left side of the yard, but I had to contend with a garden that started at the left boarder of the garage and extended about 6 feet into the "court" ( There was a raised 2-inch concrete boarder around the entire garden, and a similar boarder about 3 feet from the right fence that extended about 3 feet into the "court". I can't tell you how many ankles I twisted landing on those concrete boarders. Those things are one of the reasons why I have a comically limited side-to-side range of motion in my ankles these days. ), as well as a peach tree in the garden and a clothesline on the far left side of our yard. If I wanted to take a shot deeper than 15 feet, I needed to step into a narrow driveway between our house and our neighbor's house ( My aunts lived next door, which was a good thing for me. I don't think that most people not related to me would have put up with the basketball noise all day ( not to mention the thousands of times I needed to go into their yard when the ball would go over the fence ))), and sprint toward the basket as soon as I released those mid-range shots. Whether the shot went in or not I would jump in the air to catch ball as it came off ( or through ) the rim and put up a layup before I landed. Doing this over and over again did 4 things for me:
1) It improved my mid-range shot.
2) It improved my leaping ability .
3) It gave me the ability to make off-balance layups with either hand from any spot near the basket.
4) It improved my endurance.
Yes "endurance". That 9-letter word is really the whole point of all the rambling tangent-laden paragraphs above. Basketball gave me endurance and help me overcome my childhood asthma. Basketball is the reason why I ultimately had the ability to run regularly.
However, having the ability and the inclination to do something are two different things. Despite that fact that I had mostly overcame my asthma ( pet allergies can still give me asthma attacks ) and had better-than average endurance, I never really had much of a desire to get my cardio exercise by running. I figured jogging would be bad for my knees, and I was quite wary about my knees, especially considering they started making all sorts of weird cracking sounds by the time I was 16.
So, I really didn't do any kind of distance running until I was 31 ( I started my running regimen 10 years ago in February of 2001 ), when basketball had an impact on my fitness again. At the time, I was playing on the company basketball team. I'd been playing on the team for 5 years ( I was actually one of the founding members of the company team. If the company team had existed a few years earlier,I certainly would have joined the team at the age of 23 rather than 26. I can't really take much credit for founding the team - the idea came from a guy I was supervising. He was fresh out of college and asked me if our company had a basketball team. When I told him we didn't have a team, he actually had the gumption to ask HR if the company could sponsor a team ( pay for league entry fees, uniforms, etc. ). The next thing you know, management said "yes" to the request and we had a company basketball team. ), and while I was still enjoying the games ( we played 30 - 40 games a year ), I was starting to feel my age for the first time.
You see, jumping had always been a big part of my game. Of course jumping is a big part of basketball in general, but I relied on my jumping ability a lot more than the average player. The biggest weakness in my basketball game is my dribbling ability. I'm not a bad dribbler these days ( I knew enough about the finer points of dribbling to teach Michael how to do it well ), but I've never really had quick hands, and dribbling wasn't a big part of the foundation of my game. As I mentioned above, I taught myself to play the game with a regimen that involved a lot of shooting and jumping, but not much dribbling. So, when I eventually gained the confidence to play games at the park, I found that I didn't have much of an ability to dribble around people to get close enough to the basket to make all those off-balance layups I had practiced. However, I found that I could jump around people. I know that "jump around people" might seem like an odd term, so I'll offer the following example:
Often when I was driving towards the basket and found a defender between me and the basket, I would leap directory towards the left or right shoulder of the defender. I would then twist my body 90 degrees in the air ( so that my back was facing the defender ( so the defender couldn't really get his hands on the ball without reaching around me and fouling me ) and arch my back to avoid contact with the defender. Once I got past the defender, I would twist my body 90 degrees back to its original orientation, and then put up a layup before I landed.
A basketball move like the one above ( plus many others where I would just jump into traffic and contort my body until I found space to put up a shot ) works fine if you can stay in the air long enough to pull it off. I could easily stay in the air long enough when I was 21, but by the time I was 31, it was getting a little bit tougher. I wasn't as if I was out of shape or anything, but very few people have as springy legs in their early 30's as they did in their early 20's. So yeah, losing leaping ability as you age is a fact of life, but it was a fact I was having a hard time dealing with. I constantly found my basketball brain writing checks that my body couldn't cash. I would leap into the air with a plan of action, and found that I was landing before I could execute that plan. I was only landing a split second earlier than I was in the past. Most people probably wouldn't have even noticed, but I noticed, and knew I was going to have to adjust my game to adjust to this new reality.
So, I decided I needed to improve my endurance. I knew I wasn't as quick and as fast as I was in my younger days. I knew I could no longer outrun a lot of the younger guys at the beginning of games. However, if I had better endurance than those younger guys, I might be able to outrun them at the end of games - when lots of games are won and lost. Thus, I resolved to dramatically improve my endurance. There were two treadmills in the fitness room of the apartment complex my wife and I were living in at the time. I tried the treadmills out, set a few goals for myself, and the rest as they say, is history.
Still, why treadmills rather than exercise bikes, stair-masters, rowing machines, or elliptical machines? Well, to lean that, you'll need to read Part 2.
Rich
Saturday, January 15, 2011
It's that time of year again
Another birthday, another big Jets playoff game.
Last night I wrote an email to EZ to respond to some of his Jets-related replies to my "My Excuse" blog post. The email got pretty long, and considering the time I spent on it, I figured that I might as well save all those thoughts in a blog post. I know that at least one other football fan ( a Jets Fan ) reads this blog, so I might as well take a few minutes to cut-n-paste my Jets thoughts into this post. Anyway, what follows between the two lines of "#############################################" is the Jets section of my email to EZ.
#############################################
#############################################
BTW, as I gear up for the big game tomorrow, I find myself playing the following video quite a bit ( I was playing it throughout last week's win against the Colts ):
Also, just for the sake of balance ( and humor ) I've decided to also include the following Tom Brady video in this post. I think I've mentioned it before, but the video below inspired me to get my MoLewis57 YouTube account.
Rich
Last night I wrote an email to EZ to respond to some of his Jets-related replies to my "My Excuse" blog post. The email got pretty long, and considering the time I spent on it, I figured that I might as well save all those thoughts in a blog post. I know that at least one other football fan ( a Jets Fan ) reads this blog, so I might as well take a few minutes to cut-n-paste my Jets thoughts into this post. Anyway, what follows between the two lines of "#############################################" is the Jets section of my email to EZ.
#############################################
Now, on to the Jets ...
You wrote ...
"P.S.: Last year, nobody thought they had any business being in the playoffs... this year they are closer to belonging there. Maybe they will pick things up in the postseason, again...?"
Actually, I had more confidence going into the playoffs last year than this year. While the Jets were a 9-7 team last year ( with 2 gift wins in their last 2 games ) and a 11-5 team this year, I actually thought the 9-7 teams was a stronger team. It will take a while to explain this, but here's why ...
Yes, everybody said the Jets were a 7-7 team that got handed 2 wins by the Colts and Bengals at the end of the year, but consider ...
1) While the Jets would have lost to the Colts if the Colts had been trying, there was no doubt in my mind that the 2009 Jets could beat the 2009 Bengals 100% of the time in the Meadowlands whether the Bengals were trying or not ( The Jets pretty much proved that 1 week after their final regular season game by beating the Bengals by 10 in the playoff game at Cincinnati.). So, that makes the 9-7 2009 Jets, a theoretical 8-8 team.
2) However, the Jets also played 4 games that year that could have easily gone one way or the other based on a lucky break or two ( 2 really close games against Miami in which the games came down to a 1st and goal situation at the end; a game against Atlanta that came down to a 4th and goal play at the end of the game; an overtime game against Buffalo in which a Jets run in OT that would have put them in easy field goal range was negated by a questionable holding penalty that had no impact on the play ). The Jets lost all 4 of those games. If the Jets played games like that 400 times they would have gone about 200 - 200 in those games. So, if you take the luck factor out of the equation, the Jets should have won 2 of those 4 games. When the 2009 season ended, I was convinced the Jets had the ability of a solid 10-6 team rather than a team that would have been 7-9 if they had faced real competition the last two weeks of the season
On the other hand, consider these 4 games played by the 2010 Jets:
Oct 17th at Denver:
The Jets are losing by 3 with a little more than a minute left in the game and are facing 4th and 6 from the Broncos 48. Sanchez drops back, and uncorks a bomb more than 50 years in the air towards Santonio Holmes near the goal line. Let me tell you, when that ball got airborne, every Jets fan had the same reaction Jets fans had last week when Sanchez threw a bomb to Braylon Edwards on a 3rd and 5 when the Jets were trying to run out the clock against the Colts
WFT are they doing!!!
That's such a low percentage pass!!!
JUST GET THE FUCKIN' FIRST DOWN!!!!!
GOD, I HATE BEING A JETS FAN!
GOD, I HATE MY LIFE!
( Well, Maybe not everybody had those exact thought, but you get the idea. )
So, this game was pretty much lost, until the Jets got a ridiculous amount of luck. Specifically ...
1) Sanchez underthrows the ball.
2) Santonio Holmes see the ball has been underthrown, stops short, turns around, and subsequently loses his balance and falls on his butt.
3) The defender stops short, turns around, loses his balance, and instinctively flails one of his arms backward to try to keep from falling down.
4) That hand on the flailing arm hits Santonio Holmes on his facemask and gets caught in it. The defender is called for pass interference. The only reason the Jets get the call from the official ( and it was the right call ) is that the hand caught the facemask. The only reason the hand caught the facemask was that Santonio had already fallen on his butt!
The Jets were RIDICULOUSLY lucky here. On the next play they score the touchdown that wims the game.
November 7th at Detroit:
With about 4 minutes left in the game the Jets get the ball down by 10 points. I'm pretty sure they had already blown at least 1 timeout earlier in half. Somehow, they manage to score 10 points in the last 4 minutes without having to attempt an onside kick. This was only achieved due to some incredibly poor clock management by the Lions when they had the ball. The game goes to OT and the Jets win.
November 14th at Cleveland:
About 5 minutes into OT, a Cleveland receiver catches a pass an runs into field goal range. Just as I'm about to scream about what an awful loss this would be ( Cleveland scored a TD late in regulation to tie the game ), the receiver fumbles. He's really close to the sideline, but somehow the ball stays in bounds and the Jets recover the ball.
Later Sanchez throws and interception with about 90 seconds left in the same. I'm just hoping for a tie at this point, but somehow the Jets get the ball back ( AWFUL playcalling by the Browns ) and score a touchdown with seconds left to win the game.
November 21st vs. Houston
The Texan's kick a field goal to go up 27-23. This happens one play after they fail on a 3rd down conversion that would have clinched the game. There are 55 seconds left in the game and the Jets have NO timeouts. This was shaping up the be the worst loss of the year, becasue the Jets were ahead 23-7 going into the 4th quarter. Somehow Sanchez drives them down the field to win the game on a touchdown pass to Santonio Holmes. I scream so load at this point that I literally make a few kids cry ( A bunch of Ruth's college friends and their kids were at the house that day ).
If the Jets had played 400 games like the ones above, I think they'd be real fortunate to win 100 of them. However, I'll be real generous and give the Jets credit for 1 out of those 4 wins. Thus, I think the 11-5 Jets are really more like an 8-8 team.
If you are still not convinced that the 2009 Jets were a better team than the 2010 Jets consider the following stat. In 2009, the Jets defense gave up only 8 touchdown passed all year. Think about how incredible that is for a moment. If a quarterback throws only 8 TD passed over 16 games he'd be out of a job. The 2009 Jets made QBs look like guys who did not even belong in the league. In 2009, they played against Tom Brady twice, Drew Brees once, as well Peyton Manning for about 2.5 quarters.
The 2010 Jets gave up 24 touchdown passes. That's not awful, but it can't compare to the defense of the 2009 Jets.
Anyway, before I seem too much like a Gloomy Gus, here are a few more stats.
Career records on the road in the playoffs ( I'm not counting the Superbowl as a road game )
Peyton Manning: 2-5
Tom Brady: 3-2
Mark Sanchez: 3-1
Now, I'm not trying to suggest the Sanchez is better than Brady or Manning. I'm simply pointing out ( as Drew Brees learned last week ) that winning on the road in the playoffs is a hard thing to do, and Sanchez has been able to do it. That bodes well for the future.
Also, I think it's kinda interesting that Eli Manning had more road playoff victories in one season ( 3 in 2007 ) than his big brother has had in his whole career. As a big brother, I'm a little bit insulted. Time to step it up, Peyton!
It's also worth nothing the Jets victory over the Colts last week marked the first time the Jets franchise has ever won playoff games in consecutive years. It also made Mark Sanchez and Rex Ryan the Jets all time leaders in playoff wins with 3 ( Yes, even counting Superbowl III, Namath only won 2 playoff games in his career.). I don't know whether to be happy or sad about that stat.
In any case, it should be Sunday, though as usual, I'm not really expecting much.
However, for the first time in my life, I do believe the the Jets have a coach/QB combo that WILL ( evenatually ) take us to the Promised Land.
#############################################
BTW, as I gear up for the big game tomorrow, I find myself playing the following video quite a bit ( I was playing it throughout last week's win against the Colts ):
Also, just for the sake of balance ( and humor ) I've decided to also include the following Tom Brady video in this post. I think I've mentioned it before, but the video below inspired me to get my MoLewis57 YouTube account.
Rich
Friday, December 31, 2010
Peter's Christmas Pageant
Happy New Year folks!
I don't have anything to write about the the New Year, but I would like to share some Christmas songs from Peter and his classmates ( Peter is in the grey sweater and plaid tie ).
Note: The video below is actually too wide to fit on my blog page, so just double-click on the video if you want to see it full-sized on he YouTube page.
Rich
I don't have anything to write about the the New Year, but I would like to share some Christmas songs from Peter and his classmates ( Peter is in the grey sweater and plaid tie ).
Note: The video below is actually too wide to fit on my blog page, so just double-click on the video if you want to see it full-sized on he YouTube page.
Rich
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)