Dr. Forbush Thinks

In less than a month General David H. Petraeus is supposed to tell congress what the situation is in Iraq. People on the ground in Iraq already have a very good idea as to what is going on. The strategy for the last eight months has been to increase the troop strength in Iraq in order to calm the insurgents and allow the political process to go forward. The increase in American troops in Iraq has a definitive window of time. Without a draft we only have so many troops to dedicate to this plan. We can take away, or reduce leave time, but the long term implication of that strategy is the reduce the moral of the troops. American troops are people too, and they can only sacrifice so long before the pain becomes to great. The suicide rate for American troops continues to increase, which is some abstract measure of the stress involved in this effort.

While the window created for political action is limited the Iraqi government has chosen to withdraw and take vacation. The time is being wasted and it is running out. On the American side, much of the government is also on vacation. The president has taken a break from putting pressure on the Iraqi leaders.

General David H. Petraeus has told us himself that the only solution in Iraq is a political one. We can not use force to make the insurgents give up hope and surrender. The insurgents are driven by moral belief that what they are doing is for the greater good. They believe that the inhuman acts that they commit are worth it in the long run because they believe that they know the greater good. They have the same belief that Karl Rove had in his vision to win at any cost - the election victory is worth the lies and deception used to acquire that win. People who think that they know the right answer believe that the ends justify the means, whatever those means should be.

Of course when there are several groups that all believe that they have the truth, and that truth is not universal, then we have a recipe for civil war. Peace can only be accomplished by compromise. But like the situation in our political world, compromise is not an option for the majority of citizens.

This idea can not be changed over night. We can look at the situation in our own country for an example. Republicans don’t want to compromise, so they vote the party line. Democrats don’t want to compromise, so they vote the party line. We are getting nowhere fast. How then can we expect Iraqis to behave any differently when they look to us for an example?

Well, George W Bush knows this. He knows that we can’t win in Iraq by force alone. He knows that political action isn’t likely to happen. He knows that General Petraeus doesn’t have good news for us in September. So, George W Bush doesn’t want him to testify publicly.

George W Bush doesn’t want the public to hear General Petraeus tells us the truth about Iraq. He doesn’t want General Petraeus to tell us that this war can not be won by the use of American force. He doesn’t want the public to hear the truth about his failure from the mouth of the man who has been put there to make it happen. George W Bush knows that if General Petraeus tells us the truth the Republicans who have been supporting him will finally say enough is enough. A Republican politician would not have a chance in any political race if they continue to support the Iraq War after General Petraeus tells us the truth. So, George W Bush knows that the best strategy is to have General Petraeus’ testimony classified as a national security issue held behind closed doors so that the Republicans that continue to support the war will not be forced to change that support. Is this Karl Rove’s final obfuscation?

I’ve been called a Bush hater in the past. But, that certainly isn’t the case. I have always seen George W Bush caught up in politics like a whirlwind that he couldn’t control. He doesn’t have much of an imagination, so he is the idea candidate for a group of people that have their own ideas to imprint on him. These people wanted an actor to speak to the people while they wrote the script. George W Bush has done that job, even though his reading of the script wasn’t quite as good as Ronald Reagan’s. But, his quirks were accepted by the people who could relate to his inarticulate manor by identification. This is a good strategy for getting a predetermined agenda taken care of. But, when history brings challenges, imagination is the key to success. I sympathize with George W Bush sitting in the oval office as each tragedy hit our country through his term, and he had no answers. He sat there hoping that the people he appointed could come up with something. But, he had no vision and could not know if those ideas were any good. He was eager to flex American power and prove himself, so the Iraq War wasn’t a problem when Cheney or Rumsfeld or Wolfewitz suggested it. I don’t hate George W Bush for this short coming. I hate the sin, not the sinner. And, I have a problem with the American people who couldn’t see through the propaganda created by Karl Rove to sway the people in the elections. I hope and pray that Americans will learn from this failure of oversight and finally pay close attention to who they elect, and why. In that back of my mind I know that this is just a pipe dream.




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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

Fighting the Good Fight

Even to this day many supporters of the Iraq War contend that the war is an effort to battle terrorism. The confusing statements from the Bush administration prodded the naïve to believe that Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11/2001 attacks on New York and Washington. The more savvy supporters of this aggression believed that Saddam Hussein had dealings with terrorists or supported them in other ways. The implication was that Saddam Hussein was bad and he deserved to be hanged, therefore a guy that bad must have had terrorist connections and deserved to be attacked and held up as a terrorist icon.

Even at the time of the invasion many people knew the truth and spoke out. But, as we all know the leader of the free world gets a lot more press than the academics with the real information. The American people tend to put faith in their leaders and believe what they say until they are proven wrong. And, it takes some time to prove that lies are lies and truth is truth. The sad truth is that it is easier to accept as fact something that someone tells you than it is to weigh the evidence and come to a true conclusion. In this way religion and politics are quite similar. No wonder the old taboo about talking politics or religion has so much support. This is because to challenge someone’s religious or political beliefs is to challenge their faith in what they believe to be true and is often unsupported by strong pillars of fact.

The facts are beginning to come out on many of the Bush administration’s articles of faith.

When it was discovered that the terrorist organization al Qaeda had attacked us on 9/11/2001 many of us already knew that they had terrorist training centers in Afghanistan. We knew this because we had already retaliated against al Qaeda with cruise missiles, and this had been in the news. We had already known that the fundamentalist leaders of Afghanistan were thugs with no respect for ancient culture when they destroyed the giant stone Buddhas. Human rights activists on the political left had been pleading for some action against these people for their treatment of women in their country. So, retaliation against the Taliban and al Qaeda was considered a reasonable reaction by most Americans - left, right and center.

On the other hand, Iraq was singled out from other nations that might not be behaving as we might like them to behave. The majority of the terrorists were from Saudi Arabia. Some funding of al Qaeda came from Saudi royal family accounts. Iraq was actually our proxy against the terrorist supporting Iranian regime. And, al Qaeda moved from Afghanistan to Pakistan where they found safe haven from the long arm of American military forces. Why did we go into Iraq, instead of Saudi Arabia, Iran or Pakistan?

Iran, was mentioned in the President’s “Axis of Evil” State of the Union speech. This means that at least George W Bush thought that they should be a target of our government. But, for some reason it was determined that Iraq was priority number one. The administration went to extremes in order to justify taking action in Iraq. Of course the possibility that Saddam Hussein had begun to develop weapons of mass destruction was the key issue sold to the public. The fact that Iran, North Korea, India, Israel and Pakistan had nuclear programs didn’t come up in the discussion. Of course, Iran and North Korea were singled out as being members of the axis of evil, but Pakistan, Israel and India were left off the list. Of course all three of these countries have extremist groups that would love to have nuclear weapons in order to make the world bend to their will.

Even after the infamous weapons of mass destruction were not found in Iraq, the administration continued to justify their action in Iraq by claiming that Saddam was not Democratically elected, just like General Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan. Or, ten years ago Saddam had violated the human rights of his people, just like many of the current African leaders. In fact, just about every excuse that the administration used to defend and justify the war in Iraq could be applied to several other countries. In fact, most of these very claims could be applied to Iran, North Korea and Pakistan. But, for some reason Pakistan never made George W Bush’s list of the axis of evil powers that threaten our civilization.

So, why was Pakistan left off this list? Why was Barack Obama ridiculed for such an obviously rational thought that we should attack the perpetrators of 9/11/2001 where they live - Pakistan?

We have been assured and reassured that Pakistan might have extremist groups, but Pakistan was not a state sponsor of terrorism. This distinction was just about the only thread that could be drawn upon in order to distinguish Pakistan from any of the other countries in the axis of evil. But, today under the Freedom of Information act we now know that Pakistan was actually a state sponsor of terror. Why was is so difficult to get this information? Was this information held back for political reasons.

Personally I am against preemptive war in general. Even if Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction the invasion of a sovereign nation requires some international agreement that we certainly did not authentically have before we invaded Iraq. Therefore I am not making the case that we should attack Pakistan. Instead, I am simply pointing out the hypocrisy of taking action in Iraq when we were even more justified in following al Qaeda into Pakistan and finishing the war against al Qaeda. Pakistan should not be let off the hook in this global war on terror. With Pakistan we have a country we need to be aware of their motivations and actions. Just don’t single out one country and tell us how much more evil they are and then refuse to do anything about the rest of these countries that are just as evil.








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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

In the end Man vs. Nature is the ultimate conflict that we all end up losing. This is because nature is the environment that we all live in. Nature encompasses everything we know. Other men, society, and ourselves can all be reduced to nature itself because all of these are products of nature. In literature when we explore one of these so-called non-nature conflicts we are only peeling off one subgroup of conflict in order to examine it more closely.

Man is always in a battle against nature. This was obvious in ancient civilizations when every danger lie just outside the campfire circle. But, even today the diseases that we fight - be they bacterial, viral or even cancerous - they come from nature in various ways to damage our bodies and age them little by little. Even oxygen and the sun age our bodies little by little. Nature eats away at us every day and no matter how we fight it - we will ultimately loose that final conflict.

We don’t like to think about this fact of life. But, every once in a while death comes a little closer than we might like. Yesterday was one of those days for me.

Yesterday I took on nature by choice. Like I did last year I chose to swim from Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay to San Francisco. The famous island lies about 1.25 miles north of San Francisco in the cold bay waters normally between 55 and 63 degrees Fahrenheit. In these waters hypothermia is a real threat, but swimming hard for less than an hour will generate enough heat for most people to counter this problem. I survived this swim last year with some major chills and shivering, but nothing life threatening. I can normally swim a mile in about 25 minutes - 30 minutes would be a lazy pace. So, I wasn’t very worried about this swim at all.

But, nature doesn’t always cooperate.

About 650 people joined me on a one-way cruise out to Alcatraz. I had no fear, because I had done this before. But, looking back on this short trip out to the island there was some foreshadowing. I began to talk to some of the experienced swimmers. Last year I worried about everything, where to site, how to pace myself. This year I made the sophomore mistake of throwing worry to the wind. Of course most of the swimmers wore wetsuits. I didn’t wear one last year, why would I need one this year?

I met a few guys who also chose to swim “naked” as they call it. Two of them worked out every day swimming in the Aquatic Park. Another guy told me that this was his twentieth crossing. I asked him if there was anything that he had learned from all of his experience. He told me, that the most important thing was that every crossing was different. And that sentiment is still bouncing around in my head today.

As we traveled across the bay, the boat was being tossed around. Someone noted that there were whitecaps on the waves. And, another guy said, “This is going to be challenging.” I began to wonder what he meant by challenging.

Last year it took me 40 minutes to swim this short distance, mainly because I needed to occasionally stop and look around. I was also slow off the boat, which I believe added to my official swim time. This year I was quick to get toward the front of the line. I wanted to get started. Why wait? I jumped into the water, pushing the button on my watch in order to get the perfect boat to beach time.

I swam ahead away from the boat, following the crowd of swimmers that had jumped before me. Like most swimmers, freestyle means front crawl, the easiest and most efficient swimming stroke. I saw the swimmers in front of me and I kept up with them as we began to swim for the shore. Then a large wave hit me. I got my breath, but the wave slammed me into the water hard. I stopped for a second, picked my head up, and swam a few strokes of breaststroke. With my head above the water I could see the waves coming, but of course my progress was much slower. I put my head back in the water and continued on with my front crawl. I was hit by waves again and again. I was slammed into the water again and again. This was different from anything I had experienced before. Then a wave hit me in the face and I sucked in water. I coughed and gagged. I picked my head up and once again began breast stroking toward the shore.
Well, I tried to swim front crawl a few more times, but the waves were killing me. One well-placed wave just might drown me. The safest thing to do had to be breaststroke, but I didn’t do just regular breaststroke, I swam breaststroke with my head up. This was slow and steady, but at least I wouldn’t be drowned by those stupid waves. This was obviously “real” open water swimming. I saw other swimmers around me. One person had their hand up signaling a boat. The boat was a few feet away. They had told us if we needed any help that we should signal the boats that would be along the course.

The waves must have been about three feet high. This might not seem like much, but it was just enough to get you high enough that I could survey the swimmers around me. I felt better knowing that there were other swimmers around me. Last year I felt like I was alone in the sea. I couldn’t see anyone around me until I got pretty close to the finish line. This year I could see heads bobbing all around me. I felt pretty good that I wasn’t alone. But, people were passing me as I did breaststroke, and somehow these people were able to swim front crawl in all of these waves. I imagined that I must be like a runner that grew up in Kansas running quite well on all the flat roads that run around the cornfields. Suddenly I was placed in the Rocky Mountains and told to run a 10K. I’d be dying on every up hill, and trying to slow myself down on every downhill. Obviously I wasn’t prepared for this swim.

I stubbornly pushed myself forward. Breaststroke wasn’t fast, but the swim wasn’t only about winning a race. There wasn’t much chance that I was actually going to win the race. This was Man against Nature now, and I was going to win this battle. This swim started out an idea that I would beat my time from last year. And, this time I was going to run after the swim was over. The race was actually to swim from Alcatraz, then run seven miles over the Golden Gate Bridge and back again. It certainly didn’t sound impossible when I started, but it sure was taking me a long time to get to the beach.

Nature, being what it is, isn’t about just one thing. Nature in the traditional sense is about aggressive wild animals, storms, lightening, volcanoes, mountains and more. And, nature in my case wasn’t just about nauseating waves. It was also about the cold water. Putting two things together, the lack of a wetsuit and the much slower pace that I was making due to the waves I was beginning to take quite some time to make this crossing. Occasionally I would panic a bit and begin to push myself a little harder. This was not necessarily the best strategy. I was already doing my best to fight the waves, did I really need to fight the exhaustion. Wait a minute, swimming at the pace I was with my head up avoiding the waves was already exhausting me. The extra time that this swim was taking was already exhausting me. And, the cold water was exhausting me.

I was thinking to myself that I was certainly in better shape this year than I was last year. What would have happened if I had to battle these same waves last year? This could have been worse. Maybe I should have worn a wetsuit? It would have been my insurance policy, giving me the margin that would have made the difference. I was certainly getting colder and my hands and feet were beginning to tingle. I could see the shore that I was aiming for, but it sure seemed to be a long way off. I struggled and pushed myself but it seemed like I wasn’t making any progress. I even tried to swim front crawl again. But, in my tired condition, even the smaller waves near the shore took their toll on me. With about 300 yards to go I finally realized that I should have been swimming sidestroke instead of breaststroke. I got a nice strong scissors kick going, and I started to pass the person swimming next to me. I felt like I was making some progress again. But I was already in a state of hypothermia.

I got out of the water and I ran to the place that I was supposed to change into my running gear. My wife met me there, and she was crying. I had taken an hour and twenty minutes to make this crossing. It took me 40 minutes last year. The difference was the waves, but my wife had seen an ambulance drive up, and she thought the worst. Even after seeing that I was OK, she was still upset, because someone wasn’t. In fact, a 51 year old woman who was swimming this same race had died. They found her floating in the bay and they didn’t know what had happened to her.

I don’t know any other way to explain how I felt after that swim, except that I had “fog brain.” I couldn’t think clearly. I knew that I was supposed to run seven miles, but didn’t know if I could. I probably needed some fluids, but I didn’t feel thirsty. My wife was trying to help me, but nothing seemed to make any sense. I had hoped that by running I would generate some heat and all of this would correct itself. At least that was the plan. I put my shoes and socks on and my wife and I started running. We ran slowly, but I was beginning to realize that I wasn’t going to be able to do this. My fog brain wasn’t going away and I was going into shock. I knew that this was bad, and my wife knew that it was bad. We turned around as we realized that this was just not worth the risk. The race was for fun. I could have run back and drink something and tried again. But, I knew that that would just be stupid. I was sad and dejected. Nature had won this one, but I had lived to fight another day. The fight goes on, even though we all really know that nature will win in the end. We just don’t know when.

I have been extremely busy the last few days. And, last week I was on vacation, which meant that I dropped everything in order to do twice as much this week. At least, that’s how it feels as this week is beginning to come to an end. Busy in the current American culture means that we have our time completely occupied from waking in the morning until sleeping in the evening. However, all of those activities are still subject to a “priority check.” I mean, I am actually busy all the time without regard for what else is demanding of my time and attention. Even while I was on vacation I was busy. It was just that I found the time to place self interest above my employer’s interest in my time. While I was on vacation I was able to occupy my time from the time I woke up until the time I went to sleep. The only difference was the priority of the things I found to occupy my time and attention.

So, what I was trying to say was that I was busy with priorities other than writing for the last few weeks. While I was on vacation I left my laptop at home, in order to insure that I focused on life experience. One important thing to remember as a writer is to have some life experience in order to write about life experience. It could become too easy to create situations artificially in order to live a scripted experience in order to write about it. Of course I know that the bloggers that I know would never do that. However, I have heard stories that these people do exist.

While I drive my number one priority is to pay attention to the road and traffic around me. But, my next priority is to listen to the radio and learn what the community is saying. While I was listening to the radio I heard a couple of interesting stories about food and religion that oddly enough seem to intersect in a strange way.

The food stories tended to be about how American’s have so much food that the food producers have invented ways to make people buy their cheap food. They make sugar and sweeteners out of corn (high fructose corn syrup) at one forth the cost of other sweeteners. America produces more than 4000 calories of food per person per day, and we only need 2000 or less for a healthy diet. The producers however would like us to buy that extra 2000 calories as well.

Well, the food industry has no self interest in limiting America’s consumption of food. The free market demands reward for consumption. But, massive consumption of food is not in the best interest of society, mainly because of health issues. Market forces may create efficient economics, but unfortunately the assumption is that society wins if every person has more. Market forces have no limits, and if everyone has more than they need, then there is no way to protect society from over-consumption.

If we look at the health side of the equation, maybe there is a way that market forces could regulate the ills of society. Over-consumption of food results in obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease, high cholesterol and diabetes to name a few issues. Over-consumption of food results in more business for the health industry. The health industry sells more drugs and procedures to aid in lowering cholesterol, controlling blood sugar, and reducing weight. The bigger the over-consumption problem, the more money the health industry pulls down. And, in addition to the official health industry there are many people who profit from this issue by selling diet books, and alternative medicines. And, the information in these diet books is recycled back into the food market in order to sell more food.

The conclusion is that everyone knows that they should eat less and healthier food, and exercise more. But, from all of the marketing in our society all we see is buy more unhealthy food because it will make us happy. The health industry tells us that we can’t possible succeed in this futile effort, so we need to buy drugs and diet aids to help us overcome our shortcomings as humans.

Well, oddly enough, some religions offer similar messages. Religions seem to be divided into two broad groups. All religions tend to claim to have some insight into the big picture and offer us understanding of our purpose here on Earth. One group claims to have exclusive authority and demand that everyone needs to adhere to those beliefs in order to find the answers. The other group believes that there are universal values such as love and compassion that are needed to obtain these answers and are willing to accept a wide variety of religions that share these common values.

These two groups tend to have different approaches in the religious market place. The first group believes that the same marketing strategy offered by the food producers is the key. More of my religion is good less of other religions is good. Glitzy marketing campaigns and propaganda are the key to building the world in this vision. Telling people to buy religious books, icons, and philosophies are the key to making one religion dominant and therefore the winning religion.

The second group is different than the first group in that the final outcome is a world where certain religious values are the goals. If religions preach about love and compassion then a world with more love and compassion will result. It doesn’t matter if Jesus, Mohammed or Buddha tell us the importance of this love and compassion. The benefit of more love and compassion benefits society, even if it doesn’t benefit one particular religion. And, that is how these two things, food and religion, are so similar.

If we leave religion to market forces, then the religion that advertises the most becomes the more dominate religion. It doesn’t matter much about how much love and compassion they intend to inject into our society. So, this massive marketing of religion hurts the quality of the religion that we are offered. Similarly, if we leave food to the market forces, then the more food we consume the better the food producers make out. It doesn’t matter whether maximum food consumption is good for our society. Maximum food consumption hurts our society through it cost in our health care system. And, it even hurts our society in the quality of the food we get.

Quality was once believed to be driven by market forces. But, as Bill Gates showed us, marketing can overcome defects in quality. And, the food industry is no exception. Cherries, apples, tomatoes, and strawberries have all been bread to be massively produced without regard for flavor. The consumer had little choice in this evolution, because of the cost differences of massively produced varieties as compared to the flavorful but delicate varieties. So, what is the real quality we look for in food? Is it the flavor, or the convenience? What do we lose in this market driven model?

Similarly, the quality in religion has been replaced with the ability to have quick answers without contemplation. There are Bibles with answers to commonly asked questions written in alternate colored text. Does this enhance the religious experience, or does it take the work of contemplation out of the equation? Do these religions give us the values in the end, or do they give us a list of rules that are derived from someone’s values that were created long ago in the context of a different world? What do we lose in this conversion?

So, in the end the way our food has evolved and the way our religions have evolved we are losing the essence, purpose, flavor, meaning and details that make our experiences special.





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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

First off, I don’t care to gamble. Actually I do like to gamble in certain ways, take risks and expect returns on those risks. But, Las Vegas style risks are high, and the odds for a payout are low, so it doesn’t make much sense to risk my hard earned money on something that has very little chance of offering a return. In fact, if I really cared about making money I would buy stock in companies like Wynn, Bally’s, Harrah’s and the like, because the return on investment is more likely to be positive on that side of the table.

I’ve been told by a number of people that Las Vegas isn’t only about gambling. It’s about entertainment! There are so many things to do up and down the strip that you can go to Vegas and not gamble at all. It didn’t seem likely to me, but I had been to Vegas a couple of years ago and didn’t gamble. So, I knew that a gambling free Las Vegas vacation was possible.

Last time I was in Las Vegas I brought the kids. My daughter was dancing in a dance competition that occupied a large portion of our time. The extent of our time on the “Strip” consisted of driving up and down the strip, going to see a show, and walking around a casino or two. We didn’t really “do” Vegas.

This time was different. My wife and I left the kids at home and we ventured off on our first childless vacation since our oldest was born. Our vacation wasn’t about destination, it was about re-connection. It didn’t really matter where we went; it mattered that we went together and to share the experience no matter what else happened.

We decided to take an offer from a time-share company who would put us up for a week on the “Strip.” A free hotel no matter where it was located was all that we needed. We had never listened to a time-share spiel, so we even looked at that as an experience to share and talk about. The point of the vacation was not about “location,” it was about “destination.” How bad could listening to a two-hour spiel be? We had the rest of the time to ourselves.

Well, we arrived in Vegas Monday evening and realized that the trip might not be as easy as we had imagined. The first floor of our Hotel was a smoke fill dungeon of a casino. The smell of cigarette smoke filled every nook and cranny of this hotel making life miserable at first. The smell brought back memories of times when smoke filled many more aspects of my life. But, since California had made cigarette smoke illegal in so many locations, it was rare for me to even smell it at all for years at a time. My wife had it even worse than I did. Her sinus cavities had swollen shut and she had a massive headache that drugs couldn’t cure. Monday night was miserable as we tried to sleep with the smoke from seven floors down making its way up into our non-smoking room.

The next morning we couldn’t wait to get out of the room. We thought that we might benefit from a little run down the Las Vegas Strip. We figured that the distance from Circus Circus down to Mandalay Bay was about four miles. So, an early morning run of eight miles seemed to be a good way to get the day started.

At about 6:15 AM the strip was a different place than the night before. Most of the people outside at this time of the morning were fellow joggers and a few people looking for a breakfast buffet. A run up and down the strip is an excellent way to see it for the first time, in person and up close. Running early in the morning also enables you to miss the crowds in the streets that block your way later in the day or even late at night.

As we started our run we quickly saw that jogging the Las Vegas Strip was a quite popular thing to do. We passed quite a few people, as quite a few people passed us. Joggers of all sorts came toward us a well. We easily saw over a hundred, and surely there were many more running on the street that we didn’t see. As I saw all of these joggers running the Las Vegas Strip I started to think about Las Vegas in a different way.

What is Las Vegas all about? It is more than gambling, even though gambling has given Las Vegas its power and influence in American culture. But it is a mirror to American culture. But, that mirror isn’t flat. A curved mirror focuses the light, and Las Vegas is a curved mirror that focuses American culture.

There are two questions that I’d like to try to answer here. The first is how does Las Vegas focus American Culture? And, the second is why does Las Vegas focus American culture? The how and the why questions actually tell us a little about American culture itself, and more.

When you run or even walk down the Las Vegas strip you see every aspect of American culture that you can imagine. Actually, “culture” might be modified by the adjective “popular.” The strip contains every aspect of American popular culture. The appeal is to the masses, exaggeration abounds and truth is hard to find. And, it is impossible to find a bookstore or other form of culture that might be associated with something other than popular American culture. Las Vegas mirrors the world as Americans believe that it is, not as it is in reality.

One example of what I am describing is seen at the Venetian. In St. Marks square in Venice, Venezia Santa Lucia in Italian, there is a famous clock. By American culture the clock is strange, because it is a 24-hour clock instead of a 12 hour clock. The clock is reproduced at the Venetian is numbered with twenty four roman numerals, like it’s cousin in Venice. But, the hands on the clock assume the imaginary 12 hours of traditional American clocks. American culture has forced a false reality on the reproduction of this clock. Why? I can only assume that it is because Las Vegas is about encouraging American fantasy, rather than teaching reality to those who would like to learn about other cultures.

The reality of Las Vegas is that it is created for Americans to see the world the way that they believe that the world is. American’s love the circus, and Circus Circus focuses on the activities and entertainment found at a circus. Americans love New York City, and New York, New York focuses on what America culture assumes what New York City is like. American popular culture views Paris, Ancient Rome, Ancient Egypt, and Venice in a distorted way in which the Paris, Luxor, Caesar’s Palace and the Venetian Casinos do.

Las Vegas is what happens when capitalism rules without a check on its power. People want to see it, then Las Vegas offers it for the masses to view the way that the masses expect to see it. This is because the masses are willing to spend their money in places that represent what the masses expect to see. People are attracted to the casinos by what they expect to see. Americans want to see a fake replica of the Eiffel Tower, the Paris offers it to the masses. The people expect the people in Paris to be aloof, speak with French accents and charge a lot of money for French type food, then the Paris once again fits the bill. And, all up and down the Las Vegas Strip it is the same.

How did Las Vegas get trapped into this facade of a world reflection that Americans want to see? I would guess that it must have to do with what attracts people. Obviously sex, food and money attract people. Comfort and familiarity also attract people. And, if you own a casino they are the elements one must use to attract the largest number of people to their casino as opposed to every other casino on the strip. So, the Las Vegas business mantra is “give the people what they want and take their money in return.”

The only thing that Las Vegas doesn’t give people is money. But, instead of keeping money out of the equation, Las Vegas offers the chance, the hope, and the possibility that you might win some free money. The truth is that the casinos exist because the casinos take much more money than they give away. So, the casinos take money off of the free give away table and offer hope instead. That is what gambling is all about.

So, in an effort to offer everything else and in order to take the money of the masses Las Vegas has learned to appeal to the sense of expectation, comfort and familiarity. But not all people know what they should want or desire. And, that doesn’t matter, because Las Vegas tells everyone what he or she should want and expect. It is an enormous feedback loop that tells everyone what American popular culture believes is the most important thing today.

So, by capitalizing on popularity Las Vegas attracts people who are attracted to what the culture has proclaimed to be popular. And, as we know, marketing has jumped in front of this line in order to both proclaim what is popular, then they do everything in their power to convince us that they are right. And, Las Vegas is the center of the universe in the grand scheme of things.

But, as I ran down the Las Vegas strip I began to wonder again. If Las Vegas uses all of this marketing, declamation and appeal to our basic desires, how do all the joggers fit in? No one in Las Vegas is going to claim to insight these people to run up and down the strip. The joggers don’t bring money to the casinos when they probably don’t even have money on them while they are running.

I believe that there is one additional aspect to Las Vegas. That is the addictive nature of gambling. Most people have addictive behaviors. Some people are more compulsive and have more natural tendency toward addictions. Gamble in Las Vegas is the ultimate goal for a person with a gambling addiction. But having one addictive behavior means that one is also likely to have an addictive personality. And, it is clear that all those smokers in the casino of my hotel had another addiction. And, the percentage of smoking gamblers in that casino was much higher than what I perceive to be the national average of smokers among the general population. And, I began to think about other addictions. And, I couldn’t believe how many obese people that there were riding their little scooters up and down the strip, and how obese people moving slowly along the strip.

So, Las Vegas is American pop culture in a nutshell. This is initialized by the casinos use of whatever they can to attract the mainstream popular masses to the city, so that they can take as much of their money as they can. The addicted gamblers come back again and again and bring their addictive behaviors with them. And the people attracted to the pop icons bring some of their own habits and popular culture with them, and the addictive behaviors fill the open space, like smoking, over eating, and even jogging.

All I can say after all that is my Las Vegas Vacation was certainly a learning experience.







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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

The conservative political organizations have been organized in the past to pick particular topics and issues and concentrate on them until it appears that everyone is talking about the topic or issue. This agenda pops up all over the radio dial and all over the blogosphere. The opposition to the right then is forced to argue the submitted agenda and in return they lose some time that could be devoted to pushing their own agenda.

Today on the way to work I turned on Rush Limbaugh and heard him talking about “fairness.” Earlier in the morning I read a column by George Will entitled “The Case for Conservatism.” George Will also talks about the liberal idea of fairness.

It shouldn’t be surprising that Progressives would be talking about fairness. After all, the history of progress has been a succession of triumphs over the ruling class resulting in making my opportunities for the lower class, thus creating a middle class of people that have some opportunities that were once reserved for the ruling class. Peasants gradually won the ability to own land, vote and take part in politics. Each of these bits of progress gradually making life more fair for more people.

The common theme between these two presentation of the “facts” is that fairness is the antithesis of freedom. The conservatives want freedom and the liberals want fairness. In light of the piece that I wrote yesterday on values, I would suggest that both of these things are values, and they are not necessarily exclusive of each other.

Freedom is a wonderful concept, but my freedom ends at the tip of your nose is the common succinctly put limitation on our freedoms. And, juxtaposing these two values as exclusive rights makes us see into the mind of a conservative. It is quite clear that laws that limit a member of the upper class from taking advantage of a member of the lower class limits the freedom of the upper class person and limits the freedom of the lower class person. In this way, it is quite clear why George Will and Rush Limbaugh both see this issue the way that they do.

So, the question is not whether we value freedom or fairness for the poor. Because this argument suggests that the common man would lose his freedom if we make laws requiring fairness being applied to the poor and working class. But, the freedom that is being taken away is the freedom to exploit these people.

In reality freedom is not a universal value that the conservatives will fight to the death over. This is clear when we look at the USA Patriot Act that severely limited the average person’s freedom. But the limitation of our freedom in this case was in an effort to protect property of the wealthy. So, the two values in question became the value of property and the value of freedom. And, as I pointed out in yesterday’s piece, the question isn’t whether freedom or property were important values, but whether property should be placed above freedom in priority.

The point here is that these issues are continuously brought to the debate and the options are offered to us as if there is a black and white answer to the question - Is it freedom or fairness? But, the answer is not one or the other, but a priority between the two. Conservatives win if people believe that liberals are against freedom. But, if progressives can point out that fairness for more is just a continuation of the progressive movement which results in more freedom for more people in the long run. Even if it takes freedom away from those who have made their riches on raping the poor.







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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

I have been thinking about the general concept of “values” since the moral majority and the religious right brought the issue of values from religion into politics. The word “values” is a catch all word that describes something that the can be nebulously described as “a good thing we can all agree on.” But, what a society or culture finds value in is not a clear and uniform idea that should be allowed to be thrown around unquestioned.

In fact, even the ideas that we might be able to produce off the top of our heads which embody the grand examples of “values” turn out not to be so cut and dry when we think of them in detail. We all value quite a number of things, but the priority in which we value them turns out to be even more important than the fact that we value them. We value our lives and we value our children’s lives. But, what priority do we put on those two values when we are asked to choose between the two?

If we examine the current political bifurcation the religious right will tell us that the issue is in the culture wars. The culture wars are about “values.” And, the religious right will tell us that one important value is life. The religious right proceeds to focus on the issue of abortion, as the center of the war on life as a value.

But, the truth of the matter is life is not the issue. The argument is not about whether one side of the argument values life, and the other side of the argument does not value life. No, everyone and their dog values life. In fact, many people on the left may be found who value life above and beyond many of those on the right. There are vegetarians on the left who value all animal life. There are anti-war protestors that value the lives of our military and the lives of the enemy that they are shooting at. The real truth is that life is not a debatable issue, we all value life in general. The real question turns out to be - who’s life do we value more than whom else’s life?

Similarly, on the left there are people who worry about our environment. The environment is valued by these people. But, if one was to ask the question - Do you think that we should preserve our environment? - we wouldn’t find many people who would answer no to that question. The environment provides us with the resources that we need to live at all. But, many people find it easy to put a price on the environment. Cheap energy and cheap labor saving devices and cheap entertainment are the price we pay, and many people believe that the price is worth the cost.

The issue of “values” is not really about what we value, but it is about the priority of our values. And, we will never change each other’s minds if we continue to argue about who’s values are important and who’s values are unimportant. Instead we need to discuss and order our priorities.

In a way, this is what we do when we make the laws. We make exceptions for some, which in effect gives these people higher priority. We rule in the case of people’s right effecting other people’s rights and the ruling gives us the priority of the law, and the priority of those values.

For example, when the law determines that the right to walk around naked outside is overruled by the right of someone not to inadvertently see someone walk around naked outside we value lack of nudity over free expression. Our societal values are reflected in our laws.

The reality of the situation is that many of the priorities that the previous generations have written into our laws no longer reflect our current priorities. We no longer have a higher priority on virginity than the well being of our sisters and nieces. We still value waiting until the time is right. But, we no longer think that a woman should be stoned to death for being raped. We now value the woman’s life above her virginity.

The priority of our values is an old question that was being asked by the holy man of ancient history. Perhaps this is why Jesus was sure to proclaim the love of God above all other laws. Jesus was already sorting the values by priority. He said love of God was number 1, and love of your neighbor was number two. Of course we aren’t all Christian nor do we all believe in any particular God at all. So, it is quite obvious that our culture can not have the same priority of values as Jesus told us too.
Thing about values is that we can have values that we all agree upon and we can also have individual values that we can place in our personal order. And, as long as our personal values don’t conflict with the values of society, then we will get along just fine. But, when we change our personal priorities with the societal priorities, then we are in trouble. We can change the value of the priorities that are not written in law, but we can not change the laws unless we go through the law making process.

An easy example of this is the priority we place on work. In some societies it is believed that work is something that needs to be done for society to function properly. In some societies, if you make it to work and put in some time, then you will be paid for what you do, but life is more important than work in general. If a worker were to wake up at noon eat lunch and make it to work by 2:00 PM they would be treated differently in the two societies. That worker might likely find himself fired if he lived in society one, while it could be just a regular work day in society two. When a worker from society two moves to society one, he is bound to take his personal priority system and discover the harsh reality of the new society.

The point that I am trying to make with this post is that the priority of our values is the key to making our society function. But, most of us never discuss this important aspect of our culture. Perhaps this lack of discussion is due to our assumption that we all share similar orders of priority in our values. Perhaps the lack of discussion is due to the complex nature of this task. Perhaps we never really think about the order of our own priorities in enough detail. Or, perhaps we just hijack someone else’s priority list and we don’t bother to consider any other priority, because our personal feelings, wants and desires are filled into the blank slate when we feel the urge. The priority of our values have been given to us through many different and most likely random channels. We understand the priority of our values from our parents, our teachers, our leaders and our preachers. But we also set the priorities of our values from our experience, our friends and our desires. Very few of us ever take the time and effort to compare different values and debate their priorities.

Maybe if we as a community began to discuss our priorities of our values and justify our ordering we could come to a consensus on were these priorities lie within our society. Maybe if we justify our positions we could learn where stumbling blocks and problems block the way. Maybe if we could get the major values defined and ordered we could understand where other priorities should be placed and our perspective would be increased.

Just to get the ball rolling I’ll offer my first stab at this:

1) The survival of our planet.

We all live on this planet, and if it were gone, or destroyed we would not have any place else to live.

2) The survival of life.

Life needs the planet, the planet can evolve life again.

3) The survival of our society.

I would like to use society in a global term, which would include all of the nations of the world. I would sacrifice the survival of our society to allow the planet to survive, because maybe society could once again evolve, but only if the planet still existed.

4) The security of our local region.

The priority of our local region of the planet is more important than the survival of a region that my friends, relatives, family and neighbors don’t occupy. I would sacrifice someone else’s region to save the entire society or planet if I needed to make a choice. The security of other regions often results in security of our own region.

5) The survival of our regional local life - People, plants and animals.

We need life to grow the food we eat, to form the society.

6) The survival of agriculture.

How else could we sustain our society?

7) The survival of my personal culture
8) The survival of other cultures

Go ahead, fill in the blanks, there are lots of them….





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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

Exercise is never easy. Lying in front of the TV, pool or beach - that is easy.

The only thing worse than motivating yourself to exercise is trying to motivate yourself to exercise when you are sore. After my first triathlon last weekend I woke up the following morning to a stiff back, aching quads and cramping calves. I must have pushed myself or some of my muscles a bit further than I was accustomed.

My normal routine is to wake up, go work out come home and get ready for work. Having this routine almost unbroken for three years allowed me to become fit and trim, and now I am worried that breaking the routine will lead to the slippery slope of lying in bed sleeping and waking up at a reasonable time.

So, as I lay in bed Monday morning contemplating whether I should go work out I began to rationalize. I postulated that I had just done a two-hour triathlon the day before. I did deserve a break, didn’t I? But my paranoid side suggested that it might take me several days to get over the soreness. Shouldn’t I move in order to work out some of the kinks and cramps? Well, after a few minutes I came up with a compromise. I would go work out, but I would do an easy pace and work out the kinks and cramps. I was fooling myself with this disillusion because I knew that once I entered the water I would begin to push myself a little harder and the workout would be more than I had talked myself into.

Motivation always seems to be a major hurdle. Even when I know that I enjoy running now I always dread that first mile in a run. Recently I have begun augmenting my exercise routine with running at work a few times a week. I began by running a 10K on Tuesdays and Thursdays at lunchtime. But, lunch is the hottest time of the day, so I kept making excuses and putting off running until it would be too late to have enough time to run and shower and get back to work. So, I talked myself into running after work instead. This way the sun needs to set before it is too late to go running. But, the most annoying thing about all this is that I have to fool myself into starting the run.

Once I get through that first mile I am ready willing and able to do 5 more without a problem.

Yesterday I was still a bit sore from the race, so I had to convince myself that it would be a good thing to run a 10K after work. It was Tuesday and I normally run after work on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Once again I started to beg for mercy because of my sore legs. They weren't nearly as sore as they were the day before, but somehow I thought that I would be able to talk myself out of running. But, 5:00 rolled around and I quickly grabbed my running stuff and got ready to run before I had enough time to talk myself out of it.

The route that I run has some unconventional points were I take splits in order to estimate how fast I am running. This is important because I know that if I take my pace out to quickly I will eventually need to give up and slow down. I am in pretty good shape now, so I don’t need to walk, but I do need to slow down to a 10 minute per mile pace if I take it out to fast.

Yesterday I ran the first 1.75 miles in 14:00 minutes even. That is an 8 minute per mile pace, which is a bit slow for me now, but I was sore and I was just working out the kinks and cramps from the race. I knew that an 8 minute per mile pace was just under 50 minutes for 6.2 miles or a 10K. So, I talked myself into keeping that pace so I could at least run a 50 minute 10K. But I thought that I could pick up the pace ever so slightly so that I could create a safety cushion of a few seconds just in case I got tired toward the end of the run. This is just another psychological method to get me to push myself a bit harder. And, sure enough I saw that my next 1.75 miles was 13:28, which was about a 7:42 minutes per mile pace. I felt pretty good, much of my soreness was a thing of the past. After this point I have a couple of short legs that usually take me 3:10 to 3:30 to do depending on my motivation and attitude. I don’t usually push these so much. I do, however, try to pick up speed from mile 4.5 to mile 6. These are two legs of .75 miles each. I try to go fast on the first one, then I try to negative split the last one. Then I coast to the end of the run, the last 0.2 miles.

I ran 5:41 for the first 0.75 leg and I beat it with a 5:29 for the second leg. I finished with a 47:42 even with waiting a couple of seconds for cars so that I could cross the street at the end. So, I guess I was able to run under the 50-minute challenge.

The weird thing about this entire escapade are the mind games that I continue to play with myself in order to motivate myself to run a little bit faster. I would feel defeated if I were to say that I was going to run under 48 minutes before I even started to run. I would talk myself into the difficulty of not being able to do 47 anything, even though I have run sub-47 10Ks before. Keeping the pace is important, because if I run too fast, 6:30 minute per mile I would not be able to keep up the pace for the entire 10K. I would quickly lose my motivation if I became exhausted from running too fast.

Motivation is such a delicate balance. No wonder people have such a difficult time sticking to an exercise program. No one is easily motivated to go out and inflict pain on themselves. Even if they do feel better afterward. Climbing that mountain only because it is there only works for some people. For most people they would rather turn on the TV and watch a video made by someone else who actually did the hard work and actually did climb the mountain.





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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

Logically I know that no one is immortal. Personally, I know that I am not invincible. But, sometimes something gets into your head and you do something that your rational self would never let you do. Then after the inevitable disaster strikes you realize how stupid you were for not listening to yourself.

Well, this happened to me about a month ago, in grand form. I have been too embarrassed to write about it, but now I have come to look back on it and laugh.

When the kids were off from school for Easter break we decided to take in some family activities. We did things that we love to do, but generally have a hard time finding that time to do them. We went to the beach at low tide and hunted in the tide pools for starfish, sea urchins and other interesting sea life. We went to the Art Museum to admire the talent and imagination that humanity has to offer. And, we went ice-skating.

I actually hadn’t been ice-skating for about ten years. The last time we went the kids that we did have were very young and unstable on the ice. I spent most of my time holding them up and pulling them around the rink. Now, however, I had teenaged children and a new body that could do some of the things I couldn’t have imagined doing ten years ago when I was over weight and out of shape.

As our family emerged out on the ice most of us were quite wobbly. One of my daughters had more experience out on the ice than the rest of us, because she had spent a few hours at a birthday party held at a skating rink. I slowly began to remember my balance, starting and stopping skills. I actually hadn’t done a lot of ice skating as a youngster. However, I did my share of roller-skating throughout the years, so the ice wasn’t completely new to me.

As I became more stable I began to try some of the things that I had done when I was in High School. I slowly increased my speed and I started to skate backward around the rink. I was being a responsible adult among a sea of kids, until a couple of teenaged hockey players came out on the ice in their pads and helmets. They began practicing some speed drills and quick stops. Unfortunately I began to watch them more carefully and it looked like it might be a lot of fun.

I began to do some quick starts and stops. Of course, as I increased my speed I became wobbly once again. I practiced this a little, but I kept adding speed. I hadn’t fallen, so I figured that I wasn’t too far off the mark After all, how can you improve if you don’t reach for your limits. This rationalization made sense to my brain that was already critically warped by speed.

Once the dominos were all lined up there wasn’t anything that could stop me from falling down. I started out going around the end of the rink picking up speed. And there was a long straight away as I came out of it. “How fast could I go?” I thought to myself. I picked up speed and my heart began to pump. But this was a breeze for someone who could now run a 10K three times a week. Unfortunately finesse and aerobic fitness do not come in the same package. My skate began to wobble and I over corrected. My body went flying forward through the air. Fortunately no one was in front of me. I landed hard right on my elbows. And both of my elbows hurt quite a bit. I got up and looked around. Everything was blurry. Did I bang my head? Did I have brain damage? No, I just lost my glasses. I turned around and saw them lying on the ice. They were bent, but not broken, just like me. After that and some previous exertion I noticed that I had become quite warm, so I removed the jacket that I was wearing. I skated around the rink, found my wife and told her about my wipe out. I pledged to slow down and concentrate on finesse instead of speed for a while. My sore elbows emphasized that desire.

I skated around working on my backward skating and I talked to my wife. I lost my need for speed, and I was happy but my elbows continued to hurt. Some ten or fifteen minutes later my wife suddenly said, “What’s wrong with your arm?”

“I told you about the crash and burn on my elbows. Why?”

“Well, your shirt is covered in blood.”
I began to wonder how I could have cut myself. I was wearing a leather coat. So even if I hit something sharp on the ice, how could I have been cut without ripping my coat? I wondered about that as I went into the men’s room to look at the damage in the mirror. I had a gash about 0.75 inches long and about a half inch deep. I put a paper towel on it and left the men’s room. And as I watched the kids continue to skate for another 45 minutes. But my arm continued to bleed. When the public skating session was over my wife, the CERT in the family said, “It hasn’t stopped bleeding in over an hour. You need stitches.”

Of course I became embarrassed immediately. How could this small indiscretion, my need for speed, turned into a trip to the doctor? I wrestled with the concept of getting sutures for a tiny cut like this. Being on my elbow, it would continue to open every time I bent my elbow. It wouldn’t stop bleeding. Obviously there was only one solution that made sense. And, since it was now After five o’clock we opted for a trip to the urgent care.

I didn’t want the doctor to laugh at me, but I knew that when I told him what had happened she would. Maybe if a nurse checked it out first? Then he would just put a Band-Aid on it and be done. No, she just said that it looked like it might need sutures, but the doctor would decide for certain. He took my vital signs, and discovered that my pulse was 43 beats per minute. He asked me if I exercised regularly. To which I told him that I did. “But, is your pulse normally this low?”

“I have seen it this low before, but normally it is a bit higher. Maybe 50 or so.”

I was told that I needed a tetanus vaccination, which would be painful. Like I didn’t have enough pain already! But, better do what the doctor (or nurse) says. Right? Well, the doctor wasn’t quite available yet. I’d just have to wait. And, a few hours later I had two sutures in punishment for my little indiscretion. Maybe the social conservatives are right. Maybe people should be punished for their indiscretions.

No, that doesn’t make any sense.





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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

The whole nutrition, diet, exercise, and health “problems” continues to baffle me.

For example, I continue to be amazed that I put on fifty pounds in less than twenty years. But, if you think about it that’s only a little more than two pounds per year. And, since we know that one pound of body fat is about 3500 calories. So, putting on an additional two and one half pounds in a year means that one would basically need to over eat just 8750 calories per year, or just 24 calories per day.

Twenty-four calories is almost nothing! And, since a person’s metabolism slows gradually as one ages it wouldn’t be unlikely that a person would eat the same amount of food over the years and as they age begin to put on weight.

One the other hand, twenty-four calories is almost nothing. That means that if a person would like to continue eating the same amount of food every day, then they just need to do a little bit more physical work to make up for the difference in metabolic rate. For example, walking at a brisk pace for 15 minutes would easily burn 25 calories.

But, what generally happens is more extreme than just a change in metabolic rate and the continuation of the status quo. In fact, people tend to be less physical as they age. You don’t usually see middle aged people out in the park throwing the Frisbee around. Hiking, biking, playing softball and even going for a swim tend to be things that the young tend to do more than the rest of us. So, sitting around watching TV and snacking at the same time tends to put those extra pounds on most of us.

Obviously it is easy to fall into the habit of coming home from a stressful day and flip on the TV and crash on the couch. Everything else seems to take effort. And stress tends to motivate us to take “down time.” The problem is that “down time” tends to be zero physical activity time. And, “down time” also means that we seek things that we hope will make the stress go away - things that make us feel good. Obviously when an “out-of-shape” person decides to make some effort they quickly learn that their body isn’t used to the physical stress. And, physical stress on top of daily stress tends to de-motivate many of us.

But, upping the activity level doesn’t mean that you need to start training for a marathon. Upping the activity level just means - go out and do something physical. Hiking, biking, and even gardening can help. But, by gardening I would suggest using the manual hedge clippers and manually walk around the yard pruning. Turn the soil by hand and carefully nurture your plants. Burn some calories. Just burning 50 to 100 addition calories per day will put you back on track and stop the endless weight gain.

Of course many people have slipped quite a ways down that path into the heavy weight kingdom. I know from personal experience that it isn’t hard to “suddenly” find yourself “fat” and “out of shape.” When you finally discover this you may need to do more than burn an additional 100 calories per day. And, based on how overweight you are and how fast you are willing to loose the weight, then more drastic measures are needed.

Starvation seems to be the course that many people opt for. I can understand the logic. People think that doing nothing is better than doing something. So, obviously eating nothing is easier than doing exercise. Unfortunately this logic needs to deal with the real world. Our bodies do not like starvation. Nature tells us that we need to eat. If we don’t eat, then we begin to crave food. This natural urge increases until it is satisfied. In fact, the urge may become so strong that it actually requires one to overeat before the urge is satisfied.

If we assume that a normal healthy person requires about 1500 calories per day for basic metabolic stability, then eating this amount one would not feel the urge to eat more, and one would neither gain nor lose weight. Starvation means eating substantially less than this amount, which brings on the hunger pangs and urge to eat.

Now, I personally lost my fifty pounds of fat over a period of 18 months. If one would try to loose fifty pound over 18 months, then they would need to eat less than calories required the metabolic rate for the entire 18 months. Since we know that one pound of fat is equal to 3500 calories; then 50 pounds of fat is 175,000 calories. And there are approximately 550 days in 18 months. So, that means that one would need to starve themselves by eating 320 calories less than 1500 calories every day for 18 months. Or, a person simply needs to eat about 1180 calories per day for 18 months to loose 50 pounds. But, remember that 1500 calories is actually about a hundred calories below what I was eating and gaining 2.5 pounds per year. So, 1180 calories is bound to put any normal person into starvation and craving mode. Could a normal person maintain these cravings and urges for one month let alone 18 months? And, many people are unhappy with loosing weight so slowly over a long period of time. But, in order to loose 50 pounds in six months one would need to eat 640 calories less or only 540 calories per day. For a reference point, 540 calories is about 3 sodas. Obviously no one could survive on three sodas per day, because there wouldn’t be any nutritional value in that sort of diet. But, how could anyone maintain nutrition and eat only 540 calories per day?

No wonder people find it so hard to loose weight. Loosing 50 pounds over 18 months of starvation would be frustrating, because the rate is so slow that there is little encouragement to suffer the starvation any longer. Trying to loose the weight even faster results in even stronger urges to eat something. And, the body also craves particular nutrition, in which 540 calories per day may not easily provide. Even eating only low sugar vegetables might not be enough to overcome the cravings for carbohydrates, protein and vitamins.

However, there is another way. The way that I lost 50 pounds in 18 months was to burn an additional 345 calories per day for 18 months. At least that’s the way I figured it. I had to loose 175,000 calories worth of fat. Over 18 months that works out to 320 calories per day, like I wrote above. But, I also had to compensate for the 25 calories per day that I had been overeating. I didn’t change my diet at all. Of course I was eating fairly well, just a bit more than I should have been eating.

I did this by exercising every day for one hour come hell or high water. I simply chose to go to the gym every morning and swim for one hour. At first I was in fairly poor shape and swimming 2000 yards took the entire hour. But, as time went by I worked myself up to swimming about 4200 yards in an hour with some variations. Slowly I added running and weight lifting as well. But, my main theme was swimming - every day. Of course I missed days occasionally, for illness or family reasons. But the default was going to the gym every morning. And, after 18 months I was down to 145 pounds and a 28-inch waist. And, I never starved myself.

And, now it is an additional 18 months later. And, I am happy to say that I now weigh about 155 pounds. But I still have that 28-inch waist. But, of course weight isn’t everything. I believe that the additional 10 pounds has come from additional muscle mass that I have put on in the last 18 months. I am certainly stronger than I was 18 months ago. But, saying that I lost fifty pounds isn’t quite right any more, so I just don’t talk about it. Except right here in this blog.






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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

If its not one thing, then its another. I just did a crazy thing and now I am wondering if I did the right thing. Was I right or was I wrong? I can’t stop thinking about it. I acted out of a spur of the moment flash of craziness, and now I wonder if I’m going to regret it in the morning.

I did it! I signed up for a triathlon. It was serendipity. I saw a running magazine sitting on the desk. It had been sitting there for a couple of months. I thought that I might throw it away, in a half-hearted effort to straighten the room. But, I thought that I might page through it just to see if anything interesting happened to pop out at me. And, it did. The magazine had a calendar that went to the end of May, featuring some local races. And, I saw that there was a triathlon just down the road a piece in just a couple of weeks. So, I logged on to their web page and signed up for it.

Now, I am wondering if I did the right thing. I know that I can do each of the legs of the race individually. I can swim 0.75 of a mile no sweat. I normally swim 2 miles every morning. I also know that I can run 5 miles with my eyes closed. I am pretty sure that I can ride 16 miles on a bike. I nearly ran that far yesterday. But, can I do all of those things right after another without taking a break? Can I even compete in the bike section with my old beat up Schwinn Mountain Bike? And, the most important question: Why did I sign up for this crazy race?

Well, after swimming from Alcatraz last year I have been thinking about doing that again. I saw that they had a more interesting race, which is to swim from Alcatraz, then run across the Golden Gate Bridge and back. That sounded like an interesting race. But, they also have an Alcatraz triathlon. But, I wasn’t sure if I could do the bike section of the race. It always seemed like the bike section was so much further than the other pieces of the race. It always seemed like the bike ride was the race, with the swimming and running just tacked onto either end.

So, I thought that I might just do a triathlon just to assure myself that it is possible to do. The Alcatraz race is longer than the one I signed up for. I figure that if I get a taste of the triathlon idea, then I could decide which race I should do during the summer. Of course, it may turn out that the race will be sold out by the time I decide. But, in any case I’ll at least have the experience of one triathlon under my belt.




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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

Some stories are only for entertainment, and some stories are meant to teach us a lesson. At least that is what we have been lead to believe for the last fifty years or so. However, when we look for the stories that are only meant to entertain us we almost always find some thoughtful instructive lessons in those stories regardless of their entertainment purpose.

When we watch a cowboy movie we almost always enjoy the meaning when the white hats triumph over the black hats. When we watch a science fiction thriller we either learn what might happen if we are not careful or we learn what could happen if we persevere and innovate. The lessons are out there.

Every author or artist has created a stories interlaced with the lessons that he or she wishes to convey. Even if the lesson is that the Pizza Boy sometimes gets a break, the message is out there whether we agree with it or not. In fact, the point is that sometimes we might disagree with a particular message and we might shun particular stories because of our disagreement.

I can imagine many stories told by many people with messages that disagree with my world view. I believe that all people should be respected, therefore I would find a story with a message of singling out a particular group and subjecting them to mental or physical torture because they are different to be particularly repugnant. And, I could also imagine stories that teach that breaking religious laws have no consequences might be a distasteful message for those of us who are religious.

However, we are all human and we all look at the world from different perspectives. Stories teach us lessons as they inform us about these particular perspectives.

When I was very I young I was told that it was a sin to steal. Being a child I could understand that there was “good” and there was “bad,” and stealing came under the category of “bad.” But I was also told a story about a man who was so poor that he couldn’t feed his family. He lived in a town where everyone was poor and they could not afford to hire him because they were just barely feeding themselves. So, the man resorts to stealing bread from the people in the town. The man eventually creates a business and becomes a town leader and he is able to change the course of the whole town through his leadership. The message here is that sometimes doing the wrong thing may result in something good. Or put more simply the ends justifies the means. If the man had followed the rules and not stolen the food he would have died and never change the course of the town’s history. Benefiting himself, his family and his town resulted in a greater good for the greater number of people. And, many people are not happy with the message of this story.

Another author might justify the extermination of a whole group of people with some benefit resulting from this extermination. And, that message could also be interpreted as the ends justifying the means. So, obviously placing the results above the method of achieving those results is a very slippery slope indeed.

Even if you agree with the message of the man stealing to provide for his family the message may result in unintended consequences for our entire society. For example, if we send out this message we may not realize that the people across our border are only trying to survive. These people break the law to cross our border not unlike the man in the story breaks the law to feed his family. But, we should realize that it is human nature to do whatever one can to survive as an individual and also as a family. The preservation of the individual and the family will rise above any arbitrary law put in the way of survival. Even the far right survivalists know this, because they practice it themselves. And, as long as economic conditions south of our border continue to put people in survival mode we can expect that those people will not be stopped by our efforts to put laws in their way. And, when we tell stories that emphasize family values such as the man stealing to feed his family we are saying that we agree that some laws should be broken if it is justified.

The message of the story has always been the most important part of the story for me. If the story’s message disagrees with my personal perspective, then I find the story problematic. Some stories don’t seem to make the effort to make a worthwhile or meaningful message. Some messages are trite and pointless. Even if the storytelling is interesting I loose interest if the message isn’t compelling. Sometimes I find a very poorly filmed movie to be quite intriguing when the message is compelling.
Maybe the message generated by the TV show “Heroes” is why I am so compelled to tune it in each week to this show. But, exactly what are the messages generated by this show? The obvious one would be that ordinary people can be special. Everyone wants to believe this message, so this message has broad appeal. But, the show generates more than this obvious surface message. For example, Hiro’s ability to travel through time and Isaac’s ability to see the future offer’s a message of questioning, “Are you doing what you can to make a better future?” But, there are so many characters with so many powers, and how they choose to use those powers furthers additional messages. “Should you hide your special ability so that you don’t stand out?” “What is more important, the individual or the society?” And, the always important, “Does the ends justify the means?”

The messages of the show are in the form of questions, because the show actually tries to make you think or imagine what you would do in each of these people’s situation. This is truly a sign of good storytelling, but it is good storytelling with good messaging.

The story makes it clear that learning how to do something is never easy. This meshes well with the reality that we face every day. As we acquire new technology that should make our lives a little easier we struggle to learn to use this new technology. Some of us have problems learning to set the clock on the VCR, while some of us are struggling with writing e-mail or downloading music. Still others have progressed further more quickly.

In fact, Heroes might be a metaphor for the Internet age. The special people are those who have taken to the Internet. Not all of those who use the web use the same aspects of the web. However, some people learn from those who excel at various aspects of the web and are eager to become powerful users of the web. And, others like Sylar have embraced power with a greed for more power and he has taken this new power to the extreme like the Internet hackers who continue to write and spread viruses around the web for both fun and profit. Is this a message for us today?

I particularly liked this week’s episode that showed how the future had evolved despite Hiro’s effort to change the future. But, this week’s episode also sent another message of how those with power can manipulate the American people. I haven’t read anywhere yet as to how the liberal media was using this show to parody the evil in the White House. But, I am certain that I won’t need to wait too long before I hear that accusation. After the release of Star Wars Episode III people were telling us how George Lucas must have a vendetta for the president even though George Lucas had written the story long before the Bush presidency. But, Heroes was written during this administration and post 9/11. There isn’t any question here that the intention is to send another message to the American people asking them to please wake up and consider thinking before you vote.

It is quite certain that Heroes could never be reality. We don’t watch shows like this in order to learn about reality. Instead Heroes is a story with modern everyday messages that we can use if we take the time to think about those messages. Well, actually some of these messages will seep into your sub-conscience and like the story of the man stealing the bread for his family they might make you think about what you might do in order to survive in the real world.





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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

A while back I was watching a political comedy sketch on the subject of the Global War on Terror. I don’t remember who it was, but the point was made. At the time the British had just announced that they would be withdrawing their troops in the next year. The comedian quickly pointed out the Bush doctrine on terrorism. George W Bush has told us that if we withdraw from Iraq the terrorists will follow us home. So, this being the case it would make sense that if the British withdraw from Iraq, then the terrorists will follow them home leaving Iraq terror free.

Well Richard Clarke wrote a piece published this morning in the New York Daily News.

Richard Clarke, you should recall, was one of the terrorist experts that had warned the Bush administration that they would spend the majority of their military efforts fighting terrorism. The Bush administration laughed at Richard Clarke and proceeded to fund the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) also known as Star Wars. The lack of imagination in the Bush administration proved fatal when they finally realized that terrorists wouldn’t use missiles to cause havoc in New York City.

Richard Clarke makes the same point as the comedian that I saw. He tells us that George W Bush imagines that the terrorists are like puppy dogs. If we leave Iraq, then the terrorists will follow us home. This idea shows how flawed the logic of George W Bush is. If There was only one terrorist and he was Hell bent on attacking the nearest terrorist, then this theory might hold water. But, the point is that there are many terrorists and they are increasing as a result of active recruiting. Young Muslims might be recruited into the cause if they may be convinced of the dire need to fight for their noble religious cause. But, what could possibly convince any young person that a cause is worth dying for?

Imagine for a moment that the United States was occupied by a foreign government. Would there be any doubt that no matter what that foreign power had in mind the majority of Americans would not like the occupation. Perhaps the French would occupy us in an effort to teach us how we should care for our people. Perhaps it would be Nazi Germany offering their idea of how we should be more efficient. No matter what the foreign power had in mind we would not like it.

OK, maybe that case was a little extreme and it falls into the realm of unbelievably impossible. So, maybe something a little more believable would be the occupation of a traditionally Christian nation by a Islamic occupying force. Do you think that there might be some Americans that might believe that they were justified in dislodging the occupation. Of course they would, after all they felt justified in dislodging the occupation of oil rich Kuwait from Saddam Hussein.

Now, for one last leap of imagination, imagine that we didn’t have the military might that we currently possess. How could we fight this evil occupation without the might to dislodge it? If you can imagine that, then maybe you can understand why the young Muslims are being drawn into the terrorist ranks. The terrorists will continue to recruit more terrorists as long as we give those terrorists convincing reasons for them to use as recruiting tools. The Iraq Study Group told us this. Richard Clarke has told us this. And the Bush administration continues to ignore this.

The failure in Bush logic is that terrorists are creating more and more terrorists every day. They create them in Iraq, and Afghanistan. But, they also create them by recruiting them around the world. And, if they are created in our very own country there is no way that our borders can be protected from those who are already here. They truth is that the puppies are already here. They didn’t need to follow us home, because the anger that we provoke by our actions is a very effective recruiting tool. We don’t need to worry about the puppies following us home when they are already here.






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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

Before I start I just want to make sure that every reader understands that this is a description of a hypothetical situation for the sake of an extreme case for argument only. I am not making any statement about the current administration, or our current situation in the Middle East. That being said, I’d like to begin with the following hypothetical.

Imagine the possibility of a president with a racist perspective of world order. This has happened in the past in other countries, and it is possible that a person’s racist thought might slip through the election process. This being the case, there have been people in the past who have come to believe that a person’s race could be the problem in a conflict such as a war. For example, some person might believe that the conquering of an enemy isn’t complete until the bloodline of that country has been changed. There have been cases of this thought process even in modern times. And, if the country continues to move toward the right there could be a possibility of this very same thought process occurring in our country in the future.

Let me jump back into reality for one moment in order to make a comment. The president has made the case that congress should not “micromanage” the war in Iraq. He has told us that he is the decider and we should let him run his war and make his decisions without interference. And, when the US congress was controlled by the Republicans the president was given carte blanche in this regard. So, for several years half of the country was left out of the loop in regard to the decisions being made in regard to this war. By most polls the majority of the congress disagrees with the actions of the president. But, the president continues to assert that he is the decider and the congress has no power in limiting his ability to conduct his war in his way. The only action that he has conceded is the ability of congress to cut off funding for the war. However, the president contends that he would find money to conduct the war to the detriment of the soldiers rather than pulling them out of harms way if the funds were cut.

Now, lets jump back into the fictional world of this fictional racist president. Suppose that he instructs his army to indiscriminately kill as many men as possible and rape as many women as possible. From his racist perspective he is creating a future world in which the US will finally be able to live in peace with the children that will be the product of these rapes.

Of course this process may take quite some time and word of this process gets back to the US media. The president will of course deny that this is happening publicly, while he tells his army to lay off on the rape until the “rumors” fade away. Congress, at the behest of the American people begin to draw up laws that limit what the soldiers are allowed to do, but the president continues to deny the rapes and indiscriminate violence fights against such a law. The president says he will veto the bill. The president says that passing such a law would validate what the enemy has said, the soldiers are raping their women. Thirty-five senators support the president out of loyalty to favors the president had done for him earlier, so the law is not going to pass. Many people who support the president believe that it is just impossible for a modern American to have such racist ideas, therefore he must not be guilty. Soldiers who have returned are to ashamed to talk about the rapes if they had participated or if they knew about them.

Finally, the congress works out a deal to include some very mild language in the funding bill that suggests that rape is not in the interest of the American military in the current conflict. This language wins over three more senators, and the president curses the senate in its interference of his conduct of the war.

In this hypothetical situation, who would you side with?

Let us jump back into the real world again. Many Americans believe that the current president has conducted the policy in Iraq in the same way that he has run his businesses in his previous life - failure mode. The Iraq Study Group addressed this issue and determined that this was most certainly the case. The ISG also came up with the best plan for the US to move away from this failed policy. The ISG was almost completely ignored by the Bush administration which continues to move onward in its failed direction by adding even more lives and money to the pile that has already been wasted.

The American people have voted against the failures of this administration and they have elected a congress with a majority that opposes this administrative policy. The congress is finally beginning to speak out against the administration, and they are being called Benedict Arnolds and worse by those who support the administration. Senator Harry Reid has pointed out the true failure of the administration’s policy and the inevitable defeat if this policy is followed. He has been called a defeatist for pointing out the obvious.

What would that racist president call those who would oppose his policy of rape and murder? Would there be any different accusation? Now my fictional account is only meant to point out the point that there is some extreme action that we Americans would all agree is a president going past his authority. Maybe this president has not exceeded that authority, but maybe he has. We can not even study the issue when those who disagree are called enemy sympathizers. The accusation alone eliminates any form of Democratic debate. And, if we are to deny the Democratic debate, then what the Hell are we fighting for anyway?








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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

When I was in High School I took a trip to Toronto, Ontario, Canada and I loved the city. Then about ten years later I had the opportunity to travel to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and it was my new favorite Canadian city. I thought that it would be tough to top Vancouver, but I recently returned from Montreal, Quebec, Canada and I find it even more intriguing than Vancouver.

Now, it is quite difficult to compare any two places based on trips of less than a week in duration. And, it is especially difficult to compare cities when most of the time spent in the city is for business. Basically my comparison of the cities is based on what could be done for a few non-working hours, including eating and entertainment. And, of course I also base my attitude toward the city on the rudeness of the people that I run into along the way.

I arrived in Montreal on Saturday night and I immediately checked into my hotel got comfortable and fell asleep. The trip was about 10 hours of travel time from door to door and there was a three hour time change between California and Quebec.

I thought that if I were to work out in the morning I could get my blood to flow and perhaps I could get used to the time change a bit quicker. The Hotel had a health club, and so I ran eight miles on the treadmill. I may have overdone the workout a bit, or it might have been dehydration or caffeine withdrawal, but I didn’t feel very good for most of the day. I normally drink coffee everyday, but because of the logistics of the flight I hadn’t had coffee on Saturday, or Sunday. After working out I got together with a couple of guys from my company and we worked until mid afternoon, only pausing for lunch. But because we kept at it we finished with plenty of time to take a hike of the city before the sun went down.

Up until this point there wasn’t really anything different about Montreal and any other big Midwestern city that couldn’t accommodate us. So, the hike outside to check out the city was the first opportunity to see what Montreal was all about. Of course, a hike through a city is mainly filled with looking at typical building that occupy most cities. And, of course the route that one chooses dictates what one sees and what conclusions one may draw on that experience. But, there are special differences that every city uniquely offers. In Montreal we chose to walk to Mount Royal, a small hill by California standards that offers a view of the city from the mount. The route from our hotel was simple, travel straight up University until it ended at the Mount Royal Park. We didn’t quite know what to do once we got to the park, but we figured that there should be paths around the mount that would allow us to walk through the park, and perhaps even to the summit.

The walk up University took us through the heart of McGill University. The architecture of many of the buildings displayed imagination and attention to detail. I’m not an architectural expert, but I know how to appreciate the form as well as the function. And, as it turned out, much of the culture of Montreal appeals to the senses while keeping in mind the practical as well.

When we reached Mount Royal we found it difficult to actually enter the park. There were fences as well as gates. There were steep muddy slopes as well as gradual inclines with wheel chair accessibility. And we finally managed to find a main path that encircles the mount. Unfortunately the temperature had begun to drop while we were hiking and it had begun to sprinkle a light but steady rain. And as the cold intolerant Californians realized that they needed heat soon we aborted our mission and turned back toward the hotel. And, when we arrived back at the hotel we were drenched. But, the hike was a successful first look at this interesting city.

While we were in the city we experienced a wide range of very interesting food. I won’t go into the details of every meal that I ate, but I did have walleye, venison, duck, and salmon. I experienced maple pudding and pancakes with maple syrup. No matter what the mean price of the restaurant meals I found a very close attention paid to detail. Even when we ate at a place that specialized in BBQ ribs and chicken I found that the food was displayed with attention paid to the details. In fact, the food and the architecture have that in common - they both pay attention to both form and function. In the case of the food, it looked as good as it tasted in every case I witnessed.
If you look at the city of Montreal on the surface, or from the 27th floor of the hotel we stayed in, it would be difficult to tell the difference between Montreal and another Midwestern US city - Cleveland for example. There is quite a bit of industry. There is its port on the St. Lawrence seaway. Montreal, however, is further north than many Midwestern American cities, and therefore needed to deal with the practical problem of cold weather for more than half of the year. (At least that was before Global Warming.) And, in order to battle this practical problem a huge network of tunnels have been constructed under the city. These tunnels connect buildings and Metro stations. But, in addition to this practical application there are stores and shopping areas in these recesses below the surface of the city.

Now, if these tunnels had been constructed for the merely practical application of connecting the buildings together, one could imagine cinder block passageways, the smell of urine in a parking garage, rats running around, and waste piled knee deep. But, these passageways are clean and well kept. In certain areas the passages have carpeting, although that idea may contribute to a moldy smell. In other areas there are quite creative and artistic themes. There was an entire hallway that seems to have been lifted from “The Matrix.” Another passageway was lined with marble. And, still another looked like it once resided in a medieval castle. No matter where one walked the tunnels were safe and clean. Specific spots were labeled for use by street musicians, and they were. Like I noted above, Montreal seemed to have a good balance of both form and function. The tunnels connected most of the places anyone would want to go throughout the downtown area of Montreal. And, it connected these places to the Metro lines that could take people out into the suburbs of Montreal as well. It was a keen combination of both form and function working together.

As visitors from a far off land we found these tunnels a curious and interesting exploration. If you have ever played Dungeons and Dragons and enjoyed the exploration aspect of the game these tunnels might offer many hours of entertainment. One night we decided to take the tunnels beneath the city to a special event. We could have taken a bus, but for shear entertainment purposes we explored the tunnels and eventually found our way to the event. And, the experience was well worth the time.

These are the differences that stand out above other cities that I have been to. Every city has more or less unique aspects that come across to a visitor. Not every visitor is going to discover every aspect. But the pervasive extent of a good balance of form and function is a theme that seems to run through all of these.

Before I finish, however, I need to mention another great discovery that we found in Montreal. This was the “Maison de Jazz” Or “House of Jazz.” This place offered a very pleasant experience of Jazz, drinks and food that is difficult to find in many places other than maybe New York, Chicago or New Orleans. This particular establishment does not set Montreal out above these places, but the existence of it says a lot about the underlying culture of music and sensibilities. These places need enough people in the audience to support the musicians and there also needs to be enough musicians of a high enough quality to populate a nightly entertainment calendar. There needs to be a critical mass of both musicians and those who appreciate the art form for a place like this to succeed. And, “Maison de Jazz” is able to offer an interesting menu of BBQ ribs and chicken as well as items for those not so taken by BBQ. If one considers the population of Montreal, this is truly a unique gem that may be hidden from the typical visitor.

After this trip, Montreal has now popped up to the top of my Favorite Canadian City list. However, my list actually means very little in the grand scheme of things. It isn’t scientific. I didn’t spend a lot of time trying to study any of the Canadian Cities that I visited. All I can say is that it was very easy to find good food and entertainment in the few number of hours that I had for food and entertainment. And, that alone was all I ever want when I’m on a business trip.

Bonjour!




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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection