It is ironic, sadly and supremely so, that the group of citizens now crying and complaining over the Transportation Safety Administration’s new full-body scanners and aggressive pat-down searches are the same that drive SUVs, minivans, and cars for half-mile trips to the grocery store, to work on days when it’s “just too cold” to wait for the bus or deal with a homeless person on the train, to the gym in order to run on a treadmill, and because “I bought it, so I might as well use it.”
This is a nation so lazily and vociferously addicted to oil, believing that driving everywhere is a civil right and a way of life that they voted for George W Bush, twice, and his gigantic expansion of our already unwelcome presence in the Middle East to outright war. Not that we’d have avoided war with another president, not without changing our ways. Obama is proof of that, ineffectiveness incarnate. But by electing Bush and a propaganda machine, we convinced ourselves we could go on living as we always have, with the small inconvenience of ensuring that our Middle Eastern oil supplies aren’t endangered by Chinese or Russian intervention by intervening ourselves.
That’s the cost of “freedom,” right?
Do you really think that we’re still in Afghanistan to ensure democracy? US combat operations in Iraq may be over but our occupation is not. Do you really think that the weapons-of-mass-destruction-fiasco was just an honest error in intelligence and judgment? You are stupider than your Hummer makes you look.
Do you really think that we’re there to “steal oil?” You are stupider than your Prius makes you look.
We are awaiting the inevitable: the supply crunch. Soon there will not enough available energy at affordable prices to go around among Europe, China, Russia, and the US. It is then our Asian mission will be realized; and once it is, the terror threat will recede far into the background. If you think all parties involved will politely negotiate their way to an agreeable resolution to this shortfall, you are stupider than your protest sign makes you look.
Until then, terrorism is the most visible consequence of our oil addiction, and we bitch and moan about the TSA “abuse” with zero sense of irony. By simply reducing the amount we drive through means theoretically within our grasp we could totally eliminate our dependence on any foreign oil and any need for energy-defense missions. Most trips fewer than two miles could be made by some other mode than automobile. Why do you need so much shit from Target at one time? Why do you need such a huge truck? Can’t you drive something with better mileage? Why can’t you live in a denser area that is closer to transit?
These are all choices that you can make. However, if you have chosen to live in the suburbs and more than 2 miles from your nearest food source, voted for the candidate who cut funding for transit, or would rather drive because the bus “is for losers,” then I don’t want to hear anymore complaining about being turned into a creepy, 3D, black and white centerfold or having your genitals touched by a glorified security-guard no more qualified to be a garbage man and probably paid half as much.
We have only our own selfish behavior to blame. We're losing essential liberty for a little convenience. 300 million people changing a little can change a lot.
Showing posts with label Bullshit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bullshit. Show all posts
23.11.10
3.11.10
Humped Day: we deserve it
This results of yesterday's election were a rebuke of Obama's first two years in office, no doubt. There's a link going around, What The Fuck Has Obama Done So Far? And, sorry, I have to answer, "so? Big fucking deal."
More mental heath care for veterans is great, it truly is. So is preventing providers from excluding pre-existing conditions upon new employment. These provisions would've been easily passed with bipartisan support. This is the kind of change people wanted.
The added entitlements of insuring millions of needy Americans who cost the most to treat because they suffer from chronic disease due to poor diet and lack of exercise, caused by government policy that was left completely untouched, was not the change people wanted. And the fact that it was passed without ANY bipartisan support at all has some people rightly pissed.
Especially after they just finished paying over $700 billion, instead of lining each of those motherfuckers up against a wall and putting a bullet in their brain, to the Wall Street criminals who fleeced the taxpayers that had any money left after they hatched a scheme to sell mortgages to people who couldn't afford them, then bundled them up in fraudulently-rated securities and sold them again, while taking out insurance policies on all of them - those millions and millions of little financial hydrogen bombs, credit-default-swaps.
Who's to blame? Probably Republican Phil Graham for sponsoring the 1999 bill which repealed part of the Glass–Steagall Act of 1933 and removed the wall between commercial and investment banks, or the current standard-bearer for modern Democrats, Bill Clinton, who signed it. Take your pick.
But Barack Obama passed financial reform, you protest? Big fucking deal. Too late, the horses are already out of the barn. The accumulated debt at the core of it all - mortgages owned by people who couldn't pay them - debt that was greater than our combined ability to pay it, caused it all to fall apart. We got stuck with the bill and the world would end if we didn't pay.
This may not have come directly out of our pockets, but in the coming years, as our schools get worse, more bridges collapse, and ever-more reactionary politicians rescind funding for rail and complete streets infrastructure and planning, the criminality of it all will become very apparent.
The world, as we know it, is still going to end.
And this is what pisses me off the most: there is not one word about what the fuck Obama has done for sustainable transportation. The planning and ideas coming out of our Department of Transportation are the most innovative in years, former Republican Illinois state senator Ray LaHood is doing incredibly great work. And it may all be squandered by Obama breaking his word on being a bipartisan reformer. Not all conservatives are entirely beholden to special interests, some just think entitlement spending has gone too far. And when we're spending money to insure unhealthy people without first addressing WHY they are unhealthy, I think that's a good reason to say no.
And now, because of it, very real planning and the few good ideas to come out of this administration so far - transportation mitigating our dependence on cars - are at risk of being cut. In many states, such as Wisconsin, it's already on the block. And amid the permanent energy crunch that is being direly predicted in the coming years, we'll again be left forking over many more millions to pay for this next, now permanent, emergency.
And the folks who reacted to Obama's ineffectiveness will react the same way to these new Republican's ineffectiveness, by voting in even more reactionary politicians. All very sad, because our downfall is completely out of any politician's control. They will make Joe Miller and Sharon Angle (and her vague threats of "2nd amendment remedies") look like Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale.
Bookmark this blog entry. Title it, "was Brian right?" Come back in the fall of 2012 and see if we aren't ruing our continued dependence on cars and suburban sprawl. And I'm very sorry that your feelings are hurt because a bunch of gun-wielding insurgents got voted into office around the country yesterday, but that's what you get when you don't take other people's opinions into account.
More mental heath care for veterans is great, it truly is. So is preventing providers from excluding pre-existing conditions upon new employment. These provisions would've been easily passed with bipartisan support. This is the kind of change people wanted.
The added entitlements of insuring millions of needy Americans who cost the most to treat because they suffer from chronic disease due to poor diet and lack of exercise, caused by government policy that was left completely untouched, was not the change people wanted. And the fact that it was passed without ANY bipartisan support at all has some people rightly pissed.
Especially after they just finished paying over $700 billion, instead of lining each of those motherfuckers up against a wall and putting a bullet in their brain, to the Wall Street criminals who fleeced the taxpayers that had any money left after they hatched a scheme to sell mortgages to people who couldn't afford them, then bundled them up in fraudulently-rated securities and sold them again, while taking out insurance policies on all of them - those millions and millions of little financial hydrogen bombs, credit-default-swaps.
Who's to blame? Probably Republican Phil Graham for sponsoring the 1999 bill which repealed part of the Glass–Steagall Act of 1933 and removed the wall between commercial and investment banks, or the current standard-bearer for modern Democrats, Bill Clinton, who signed it. Take your pick.
But Barack Obama passed financial reform, you protest? Big fucking deal. Too late, the horses are already out of the barn. The accumulated debt at the core of it all - mortgages owned by people who couldn't pay them - debt that was greater than our combined ability to pay it, caused it all to fall apart. We got stuck with the bill and the world would end if we didn't pay.
This may not have come directly out of our pockets, but in the coming years, as our schools get worse, more bridges collapse, and ever-more reactionary politicians rescind funding for rail and complete streets infrastructure and planning, the criminality of it all will become very apparent.
The world, as we know it, is still going to end.
And this is what pisses me off the most: there is not one word about what the fuck Obama has done for sustainable transportation. The planning and ideas coming out of our Department of Transportation are the most innovative in years, former Republican Illinois state senator Ray LaHood is doing incredibly great work. And it may all be squandered by Obama breaking his word on being a bipartisan reformer. Not all conservatives are entirely beholden to special interests, some just think entitlement spending has gone too far. And when we're spending money to insure unhealthy people without first addressing WHY they are unhealthy, I think that's a good reason to say no.
And now, because of it, very real planning and the few good ideas to come out of this administration so far - transportation mitigating our dependence on cars - are at risk of being cut. In many states, such as Wisconsin, it's already on the block. And amid the permanent energy crunch that is being direly predicted in the coming years, we'll again be left forking over many more millions to pay for this next, now permanent, emergency.
And the folks who reacted to Obama's ineffectiveness will react the same way to these new Republican's ineffectiveness, by voting in even more reactionary politicians. All very sad, because our downfall is completely out of any politician's control. They will make Joe Miller and Sharon Angle (and her vague threats of "2nd amendment remedies") look like Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale.
Bookmark this blog entry. Title it, "was Brian right?" Come back in the fall of 2012 and see if we aren't ruing our continued dependence on cars and suburban sprawl. And I'm very sorry that your feelings are hurt because a bunch of gun-wielding insurgents got voted into office around the country yesterday, but that's what you get when you don't take other people's opinions into account.
20.10.10
Thursday hate
I couldn't wait until Thursday to pull the trigger on this one while the firestorm of idiocy on both sides of the argument rages almost out of control.
By now, even the most internet-challenged of us have seen the infamous video of the Delaware Senatorial debate where Christine O'Donnell appears not to know what the establishment clause is.
O'Donnell is no dummy, and she knew what she was doing. She was calculating, and she was in fact questioning Coons' knowledge of the 1st Amendment's actual wording.
It's a typical tactic by religious fascists to argue that prayer and Creationism in school isn't prohibited Constitutionally. It's of course incredibly disingenuous because of COURSE the intent is to keep religion and the state separate. What the hell else could you take from that? The proof is in the pudding with their pervasive "Moslem" comments. They'd 'd no sooner support Islamic prayer in a public school than support no prayer at all.
These people always want their cake and to eat it, too. O'Donnell and her supporters are the first to cite the 1st amendment when the government is telling religion what to do. But when religion is being imposed on everyone else - via the government in public schools and policy - crickets. No problem there at all.
Anyways, the term "separation of church and state" actually originated from Jefferson's correspondence with the Danbury Baptists. I just re-learned (I vaguely recall my U.S. History), this myself via Sarah Palin's twitter (linked to the link she posted), ironically because I'm quite certain she didn't intend for that piece of knowledge to passed on.
I don't have a problem with Creationism being taught in public school, as long as it is in a Theology class, i.e. Religious Studies, or within the context of a language curriculum. We studied the Bible as literature in high school, and this is completely constitutional. A teacher instructing, or the government requiring, that it be taught as "truth" is another matter entirely. Further, Creationism is not based on deductive reason. It's totally opposite, so how can it be part of a science curriculum?
I'll grant that the way evolution is taught in most schools could fall under the same criticism. However, since I'm not a botanist, a paleontologist, or a mammalogist, I won't argue how to best instruct evolution by employing the scientific method.
Moving on, the United States Federal Appeals Court just upheld the Illinois "moment of silence" in public schools. There was a time when I would've cried "slippery slope." But who am I to begrudge the available time made for someone to utter some incantation to whatever deity they want? As long as my kid can pull out his Richard Dawkins book at the same time, I think that's fair.
The slippery slope argument is admittedly laziness on our part in place of vigilance on when the line is crossed. The court's ruling seems like pretty reasonable middle ground, making accommodations for everyone. The problem is, religious fascists like O'Donnell try to grab yards and handfuls when offered an equatable inch. Make no mistake, however; she and her ilk will try to cross that line and use these kind wedges to open the door for far more pervasive impositions on our freedoms.
So don't be lazy. Be honest with yourself about where that line really is, and guard it with your life.
By now, even the most internet-challenged of us have seen the infamous video of the Delaware Senatorial debate where Christine O'Donnell appears not to know what the establishment clause is.
O'Donnell is no dummy, and she knew what she was doing. She was calculating, and she was in fact questioning Coons' knowledge of the 1st Amendment's actual wording.
It's a typical tactic by religious fascists to argue that prayer and Creationism in school isn't prohibited Constitutionally. It's of course incredibly disingenuous because of COURSE the intent is to keep religion and the state separate. What the hell else could you take from that? The proof is in the pudding with their pervasive "Moslem" comments. They'd 'd no sooner support Islamic prayer in a public school than support no prayer at all.
These people always want their cake and to eat it, too. O'Donnell and her supporters are the first to cite the 1st amendment when the government is telling religion what to do. But when religion is being imposed on everyone else - via the government in public schools and policy - crickets. No problem there at all.
Anyways, the term "separation of church and state" actually originated from Jefferson's correspondence with the Danbury Baptists. I just re-learned (I vaguely recall my U.S. History), this myself via Sarah Palin's twitter (linked to the link she posted), ironically because I'm quite certain she didn't intend for that piece of knowledge to passed on.
I don't have a problem with Creationism being taught in public school, as long as it is in a Theology class, i.e. Religious Studies, or within the context of a language curriculum. We studied the Bible as literature in high school, and this is completely constitutional. A teacher instructing, or the government requiring, that it be taught as "truth" is another matter entirely. Further, Creationism is not based on deductive reason. It's totally opposite, so how can it be part of a science curriculum?
I'll grant that the way evolution is taught in most schools could fall under the same criticism. However, since I'm not a botanist, a paleontologist, or a mammalogist, I won't argue how to best instruct evolution by employing the scientific method.
Moving on, the United States Federal Appeals Court just upheld the Illinois "moment of silence" in public schools. There was a time when I would've cried "slippery slope." But who am I to begrudge the available time made for someone to utter some incantation to whatever deity they want? As long as my kid can pull out his Richard Dawkins book at the same time, I think that's fair.
The slippery slope argument is admittedly laziness on our part in place of vigilance on when the line is crossed. The court's ruling seems like pretty reasonable middle ground, making accommodations for everyone. The problem is, religious fascists like O'Donnell try to grab yards and handfuls when offered an equatable inch. Make no mistake, however; she and her ilk will try to cross that line and use these kind wedges to open the door for far more pervasive impositions on our freedoms.
So don't be lazy. Be honest with yourself about where that line really is, and guard it with your life.
17.8.10
Obama Un-mosqued
President Obama could have turned this entire Ground-Zero-Mosque issue right back into his critics faces with a smart, snappy reply, foregoing any emotion, gravitas, or grandstanding on First Amendment rights. With one quick and cutting retort, depantsed all of the frothing fanatics who still think he's a Muslim Manchurian Candidate biding his time and setting up the dominoes before springing Sharia law on all of us.
And given the vast middle ground of all of us the strong leadership we deserve.
"What do they want me to do? Say they can't build it? Maybe these Tea Party assholes, with their expert and infinite knowledge of the United States Constitution, could show me where in that great document I have the power to intervene in legally-established private property rights; especially when based on symbolic, emotional, and religious issues?
"Now, I'm sorry, but I've got far more pressing issues to deal with. Issues, such as getting this country motivated to work again, instead of commenting on Peggy Noonan columns all day long about how I'm a foreign-born, communist-Muslim, in all-caps, with really bad spelling and grammar..."
But, no, he equivocated. Again. Compromising his authority, by backtracking on his statements; statements that made it seem as though he was trying to find some sort of authority on this issue where none existed at all. Lowering his position by waiting too long to address and relieve the building tension.
Which ironically brings me to say that the developers of the ground zero mosque should have known better, and exercised a bit more common sense. They should have known that their chosen location would've brought heat down on them, and placed the very leaders who they count on to further their interests in the position of defending them.
This is where a true leader would've flippantly uttered the words above, pshawing and shooing reporters away, disarming his enemies and showing them what hypocrites they really are. Obama has stepped right into the snare, however, and will be fighting to get out all the way until Election Day.
Prediction: Hillary Clinton will run for and win the Democratic nomination for President in 2012. And the first words out of her mouth as she begins her acceptance speech will be:
"I told you so."
And given the vast middle ground of all of us the strong leadership we deserve.
"What do they want me to do? Say they can't build it? Maybe these Tea Party assholes, with their expert and infinite knowledge of the United States Constitution, could show me where in that great document I have the power to intervene in legally-established private property rights; especially when based on symbolic, emotional, and religious issues?
"Now, I'm sorry, but I've got far more pressing issues to deal with. Issues, such as getting this country motivated to work again, instead of commenting on Peggy Noonan columns all day long about how I'm a foreign-born, communist-Muslim, in all-caps, with really bad spelling and grammar..."
But, no, he equivocated. Again. Compromising his authority, by backtracking on his statements; statements that made it seem as though he was trying to find some sort of authority on this issue where none existed at all. Lowering his position by waiting too long to address and relieve the building tension.
Which ironically brings me to say that the developers of the ground zero mosque should have known better, and exercised a bit more common sense. They should have known that their chosen location would've brought heat down on them, and placed the very leaders who they count on to further their interests in the position of defending them.
This is where a true leader would've flippantly uttered the words above, pshawing and shooing reporters away, disarming his enemies and showing them what hypocrites they really are. Obama has stepped right into the snare, however, and will be fighting to get out all the way until Election Day.
Prediction: Hillary Clinton will run for and win the Democratic nomination for President in 2012. And the first words out of her mouth as she begins her acceptance speech will be:
"I told you so."
27.1.10
Thursday Hate: SoTU edition
Sam Alito. Did you notice how every other one of your colleagues remained stone-faced by Obama's typical and completely expected condemnation of the campaign finance decision handed down by the Supreme Court last week? It's called "restraint." As a "conservative," you should probably look it up.
In the camera shot for Bob McDonnell's Republican response was a "rainbow of diversity," as Brian Williams called it after. Four people flanking the Virginia governor: two men, two women, including a black and an Asian. I would've loved to have been there for the pre-pro. "No, no, no...can we make the women diagonal in the camera?"
McCain's crabby sniping. We could all read your lips. "Blaming Bush...blaming Bush." Yeah, after only a year in office following probably the worst president in history, I think he still has carte blanche on that angle. Deal with it. It was certainly the foundation of your 2004 campaign, and you weren't exactly begging Bush for an endorsement in 2008, either.
But the biggest stinker of the night was Obama shouting the populist line, "Jobs are our number one priority!" Then why have you been wasting almost an entire year on healthcare "reform", with virtually no action on trying to get Americans actually healthier? Michelle's lip service to childhood obesity isn't going to do squat when former McDonald's and Kraft CEOs are running the Department of Agriculture. If we don't get healthier, demand on the system will not decrease. That is what is broken with healthcare. Fix that, and then maybe we can afford to insure the entire country. Anything less amounts to enabling our destructive lifestyle.
In the camera shot for Bob McDonnell's Republican response was a "rainbow of diversity," as Brian Williams called it after. Four people flanking the Virginia governor: two men, two women, including a black and an Asian. I would've loved to have been there for the pre-pro. "No, no, no...can we make the women diagonal in the camera?"
McCain's crabby sniping. We could all read your lips. "Blaming Bush...blaming Bush." Yeah, after only a year in office following probably the worst president in history, I think he still has carte blanche on that angle. Deal with it. It was certainly the foundation of your 2004 campaign, and you weren't exactly begging Bush for an endorsement in 2008, either.
But the biggest stinker of the night was Obama shouting the populist line, "Jobs are our number one priority!" Then why have you been wasting almost an entire year on healthcare "reform", with virtually no action on trying to get Americans actually healthier? Michelle's lip service to childhood obesity isn't going to do squat when former McDonald's and Kraft CEOs are running the Department of Agriculture. If we don't get healthier, demand on the system will not decrease. That is what is broken with healthcare. Fix that, and then maybe we can afford to insure the entire country. Anything less amounts to enabling our destructive lifestyle.
20.1.10
Hump Day
Lookin' like 1994 around here today. And if the Democrats keep it up through the summer we'll definitely be traveling back in time.
I'm not surprised in the least by Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts. To all of you that are shocked and maybe depressed about it: what did you think would be the reaction to the extremely partisan healthcare debate going on in Congress right now? Guess what? There's more coming this fall. This is what happens when you ram through legislation and mistake a landslide electoral victory for a mandate when the popular vote was still razor thin.
Obama's and the Congress' monumental sin was asking a yes or no question on "change" and not bothering to clarify "what" or "why."
Not that I care in the least. Neither party has ever learned that lesson, nor will they ever. I don't understand the emotional see-sawing of people from election to election. It's beyond annoying to have to deal with people's gloating or moaning after elections. The electorate is largely nothing but a flock of sheep staring at the greener grass on the other side of the fence every four years.
What happened after Newt Gingrich's 1994 coronation as the leader of the GOP and their sanctimonious "Contract With America"? Bill Clinton destroyed Bob Dole in the 1996 election and went on to become one of the most popular presidents of all time. Then, of course, in 2000 George W. Bush was going to save us from Democratic excess, in 2006 and 2008 the Congress and Obama were going to save us from Republican excess...[making jerk off motions]and now it's again come full circle [/making jerk-off motions].
I for one, am glad about Scott Brown's election, for two reasons:
First, it will put the brakes on the partisan healthcare reform now being crafted in Congress, the very existence of which is fomenting such dissent in the famously dark blue state. Not one goddamn word is being said about getting Americans healthier. About throwing out the leaders and powerful influence of "food" corporations from the Department of Agriculture and our national food policy. Without concrete actions to get Americans actually healthier, the demand on the system will not abate, and neither will costs. Therefore any attempt to "reform" it is only further turning it into a disease-management system perpetuating our chronic ailments and obesity and making as much profit as possible on that misery.
It's called Capitalism, people - on both sides of the equation. Meanwhile the US government continues to subsidize the industrial overproduction of food - primarily corn and soybeans - to the tune of more than 3,500 calories per American per day. And the marketing and lobbying efforts of the above mentioned companies are making sure those extra calories are purchased and consumed.
Second, this guy might just catch lightening in a bottle like Sarah Palin did just over a year ago, and hopefully has the brains to actually do something with it; not to mention distract the sheep from that other dumbass. While I really do feel the US President is not much more than a figurehead at which the sheep's' anger is redirected whenever necessary, if this country is going to have a Republican president, we could not do worse than Sarah Palin.
I'm not surprised in the least by Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts. To all of you that are shocked and maybe depressed about it: what did you think would be the reaction to the extremely partisan healthcare debate going on in Congress right now? Guess what? There's more coming this fall. This is what happens when you ram through legislation and mistake a landslide electoral victory for a mandate when the popular vote was still razor thin.
Obama's and the Congress' monumental sin was asking a yes or no question on "change" and not bothering to clarify "what" or "why."
Not that I care in the least. Neither party has ever learned that lesson, nor will they ever. I don't understand the emotional see-sawing of people from election to election. It's beyond annoying to have to deal with people's gloating or moaning after elections. The electorate is largely nothing but a flock of sheep staring at the greener grass on the other side of the fence every four years.
What happened after Newt Gingrich's 1994 coronation as the leader of the GOP and their sanctimonious "Contract With America"? Bill Clinton destroyed Bob Dole in the 1996 election and went on to become one of the most popular presidents of all time. Then, of course, in 2000 George W. Bush was going to save us from Democratic excess, in 2006 and 2008 the Congress and Obama were going to save us from Republican excess...[making jerk off motions]and now it's again come full circle [/making jerk-off motions].
I for one, am glad about Scott Brown's election, for two reasons:
First, it will put the brakes on the partisan healthcare reform now being crafted in Congress, the very existence of which is fomenting such dissent in the famously dark blue state. Not one goddamn word is being said about getting Americans healthier. About throwing out the leaders and powerful influence of "food" corporations from the Department of Agriculture and our national food policy. Without concrete actions to get Americans actually healthier, the demand on the system will not abate, and neither will costs. Therefore any attempt to "reform" it is only further turning it into a disease-management system perpetuating our chronic ailments and obesity and making as much profit as possible on that misery.
It's called Capitalism, people - on both sides of the equation. Meanwhile the US government continues to subsidize the industrial overproduction of food - primarily corn and soybeans - to the tune of more than 3,500 calories per American per day. And the marketing and lobbying efforts of the above mentioned companies are making sure those extra calories are purchased and consumed.
Second, this guy might just catch lightening in a bottle like Sarah Palin did just over a year ago, and hopefully has the brains to actually do something with it; not to mention distract the sheep from that other dumbass. While I really do feel the US President is not much more than a figurehead at which the sheep's' anger is redirected whenever necessary, if this country is going to have a Republican president, we could not do worse than Sarah Palin.
11.11.09
Thursday hate
Fuck you, Michael Pollan.
I can't walk past the meat case in my grocery store without wanting to vomit, and like Haley Joel Osment, I see dead people, and high fructose corn syrup, everywhere. Dead people made of corn syrup and oil.
Of course, I am partially kidding. I have referenced Mr. Pollan many times in this space, and I highly respect his writing. After reading his piece, Unhappy Meals, in the New York Times Magazine I felt compelled to write a somewhat longer piece than I will give tonight. Partially because it is late, mostly because I am filled with such apprehension and indecision.
I have read excerpts from his book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, before and have spoken with many people who have finished it. But I never expected that upon finally reading for myself that it would affect me so deeply.
I shop at my neighborhood farmers market almost every weekend in the summer. I try to buy free range beef and eggs whenever I can. But I honestly have never imagined anything so wrenchingly beautiful as Pollan's account of Joel Salatin's "beyond organic" farm, summed up so succinctly by his image of a happy pig scratching itself against a tree, grunting with pleasure in the afternoon shade.
That image is then contrasted with the madness that is the alternative, the shit-stained, scab-covered hordes of steer and chicken driven insane by close quarters and lack fresh air and sunlight, being fed a diet of relentlessly subsidized corn that makes them sick, requiring them to be pumped full of drugs to get them through to slaughter. It's not really the suffering that hits me so hard, for there is an equal amount of human misery to worry about, but the unsustainability of it all. The hubris we display in thinking that our answer is the only answer. It's the wrong answer: the barren, scorched, burned earth we leave behind, polluted and diseased by manure so toxic farmers can't use it as fertizer.
And yet, the days and meals go by, shopping carts and mouths fill up with colorful boxes and labels all filled with the same mountains of unending corn, just reassembled into different shapes. What was once a delicacy, what once was slaughtered in rituals and prayers, is now merely shrink-wrapped in hunks of manufactured meat, or pre-cooked into a ready-to-microwave meal, now at a low, low price. Why not have it every day? And they do.
I now know what Chris McCandless must have felt like; I understand his irrational compulsion to throw it all away and leave it all behind, to become one with the earth. It makes me want to scream, as I type on this plastic computer, made from oil and corn, powered by petroleum...I can't escape it.
To be ignorant is one thing. To be willfully ignorant is quite another. I know I can't change the world, but I can't be sociopath, in good conscience, either...and to buy into this system knowing the inputs is to be a willfully ignorant sociopath.
So I choose delusion, and hope that I can change the world.
I can't walk past the meat case in my grocery store without wanting to vomit, and like Haley Joel Osment, I see dead people, and high fructose corn syrup, everywhere. Dead people made of corn syrup and oil.
Of course, I am partially kidding. I have referenced Mr. Pollan many times in this space, and I highly respect his writing. After reading his piece, Unhappy Meals, in the New York Times Magazine I felt compelled to write a somewhat longer piece than I will give tonight. Partially because it is late, mostly because I am filled with such apprehension and indecision.
I have read excerpts from his book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, before and have spoken with many people who have finished it. But I never expected that upon finally reading for myself that it would affect me so deeply.
I shop at my neighborhood farmers market almost every weekend in the summer. I try to buy free range beef and eggs whenever I can. But I honestly have never imagined anything so wrenchingly beautiful as Pollan's account of Joel Salatin's "beyond organic" farm, summed up so succinctly by his image of a happy pig scratching itself against a tree, grunting with pleasure in the afternoon shade.
That image is then contrasted with the madness that is the alternative, the shit-stained, scab-covered hordes of steer and chicken driven insane by close quarters and lack fresh air and sunlight, being fed a diet of relentlessly subsidized corn that makes them sick, requiring them to be pumped full of drugs to get them through to slaughter. It's not really the suffering that hits me so hard, for there is an equal amount of human misery to worry about, but the unsustainability of it all. The hubris we display in thinking that our answer is the only answer. It's the wrong answer: the barren, scorched, burned earth we leave behind, polluted and diseased by manure so toxic farmers can't use it as fertizer.
And yet, the days and meals go by, shopping carts and mouths fill up with colorful boxes and labels all filled with the same mountains of unending corn, just reassembled into different shapes. What was once a delicacy, what once was slaughtered in rituals and prayers, is now merely shrink-wrapped in hunks of manufactured meat, or pre-cooked into a ready-to-microwave meal, now at a low, low price. Why not have it every day? And they do.
I now know what Chris McCandless must have felt like; I understand his irrational compulsion to throw it all away and leave it all behind, to become one with the earth. It makes me want to scream, as I type on this plastic computer, made from oil and corn, powered by petroleum...I can't escape it.
To be ignorant is one thing. To be willfully ignorant is quite another. I know I can't change the world, but I can't be sociopath, in good conscience, either...and to buy into this system knowing the inputs is to be a willfully ignorant sociopath.
So I choose delusion, and hope that I can change the world.
5.10.09
Olympic-sized hypocracy
I was not a fan of the Olympics coming to Chicago.
Firstly, I believed it was a waste of time to try and beat the odds of a foregone conclusion that the IOC would remedy the fact that the Games had never been hosted in South America. The Olympics have been hosted in North America - including the Winter Games - seven times in the last 40 years. And they're back again for Vancouver in 2010.
Secondly, they have devolved into nothing more than a two week party for the rich at the expense of the poor and working class, those who can't afford even a $15 "Chicago-style" hot dog sold at Olympic Stadium, much less a ticket to the venue itself, those who would be most adversely affected by construction - either by outright displacement or the disruption of the city services and infrastructure they use every day.
I'm not against the spectacle of the universal drama in human endeavor the Games bring, of course, please don't confuse the vessel for the content. I have friends who competed in Beijing, and will do so again in London in 3 years. I just don't think it is right for Chicago now, and in fact, many things need to be fixed to bring the Games' mission back on track with the projected athletic ideal.
Do you think Rio de Janeiro is any less crime-ridden than Chicago? Any less corrupt? Does that city have its infrastructural, educational, and social priorities in order to be able to justify the $4 billion it plans to spend on the 2016 Olympic Games?
Matt Drudge apparently thinks so.
By reading his spin-zone page in the past two weeks, you'd have thought Chicago was the murder capital of the world, that Barak Obama and Mayor Daley made Third World dictators look like Eisenhower in comparison, and that Rio had solved universal healthcare and hunger, while Chicago's children ran thought the streets naked with swine flu, killing each with two by fours and automatic weapons.
For those of you not familiar with Drudge, he is merely a very biased right wing spin-artist who posts cherry picked articles to twist the street's view of the political and social landscape. His links in the weeks prior tried to get you to believe that Obama was misusing his power to selfishly influence the IOC on behalf of his corrupt hometown for his corrupt friends and cronies, such as Mayor Daley and Rod Blagojevitch.
He posted links highlighting Chicago's crime wave and the Mayor's declining approval ratings.
Conversely, pathetically - and hypocritcally - on Friday morning last week he posted a link that spoke of Rio making impassioned pleas as Madrid tugged on the heartstrings of the IOC.
Pardon me while wipe the vomit off my keyboard.
Even this weekend as I related my relief to my family members about the Games not landing here, some of the more conservative ones spoke hautily of Obama's "comeupance." I saw the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol try to make this point in a TV round table as well.
My ass.
Spain sent not only its king and queen but their prime minister as well. And Brazil and Japan sent their heads-of-state, too. If Obama had stayed home, they would've skewered him for not going to Copenhagan to promote Chicago's bid - and the United States. They'd have tried to claim he was appeasing the world with a multilateralist agenda by lessening America's stature in the world.
And now Obama and Daley are trying to shirk the "blame" by laying it on the USOC...
...which is exactly where it belongs. A relationship gone awry, and Daley's own tunnel vision, were what doomed this bid from the start. Start by blaming those two. Don't blame Obama for promoting his own country when he didn't really have a choice not to.
As well, don't blame Chicagoans for not supporting the bid. The city council voted unanimously to place the burden of any cost overruns directly on the tax payers despite the fact they were overwhelmingly against it. 45% may have supported the bid, but 84% didn't want to pay for them with public funds. This is because the city couldn't build a park for less than 4 times the budget, and sold its parking infrastructure for about a quarter of its worth. They know a raw deal when they see one.
Chicago may have it's problems, but it's no Rio, and it's heartening to see priorities still in the right place.
May God bless Brazil.
Firstly, I believed it was a waste of time to try and beat the odds of a foregone conclusion that the IOC would remedy the fact that the Games had never been hosted in South America. The Olympics have been hosted in North America - including the Winter Games - seven times in the last 40 years. And they're back again for Vancouver in 2010.
Secondly, they have devolved into nothing more than a two week party for the rich at the expense of the poor and working class, those who can't afford even a $15 "Chicago-style" hot dog sold at Olympic Stadium, much less a ticket to the venue itself, those who would be most adversely affected by construction - either by outright displacement or the disruption of the city services and infrastructure they use every day.
I'm not against the spectacle of the universal drama in human endeavor the Games bring, of course, please don't confuse the vessel for the content. I have friends who competed in Beijing, and will do so again in London in 3 years. I just don't think it is right for Chicago now, and in fact, many things need to be fixed to bring the Games' mission back on track with the projected athletic ideal.
Do you think Rio de Janeiro is any less crime-ridden than Chicago? Any less corrupt? Does that city have its infrastructural, educational, and social priorities in order to be able to justify the $4 billion it plans to spend on the 2016 Olympic Games?
Matt Drudge apparently thinks so.
By reading his spin-zone page in the past two weeks, you'd have thought Chicago was the murder capital of the world, that Barak Obama and Mayor Daley made Third World dictators look like Eisenhower in comparison, and that Rio had solved universal healthcare and hunger, while Chicago's children ran thought the streets naked with swine flu, killing each with two by fours and automatic weapons.
For those of you not familiar with Drudge, he is merely a very biased right wing spin-artist who posts cherry picked articles to twist the street's view of the political and social landscape. His links in the weeks prior tried to get you to believe that Obama was misusing his power to selfishly influence the IOC on behalf of his corrupt hometown for his corrupt friends and cronies, such as Mayor Daley and Rod Blagojevitch.
He posted links highlighting Chicago's crime wave and the Mayor's declining approval ratings.
Conversely, pathetically - and hypocritcally - on Friday morning last week he posted a link that spoke of Rio making impassioned pleas as Madrid tugged on the heartstrings of the IOC.
Pardon me while wipe the vomit off my keyboard.
Even this weekend as I related my relief to my family members about the Games not landing here, some of the more conservative ones spoke hautily of Obama's "comeupance." I saw the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol try to make this point in a TV round table as well.
My ass.
Spain sent not only its king and queen but their prime minister as well. And Brazil and Japan sent their heads-of-state, too. If Obama had stayed home, they would've skewered him for not going to Copenhagan to promote Chicago's bid - and the United States. They'd have tried to claim he was appeasing the world with a multilateralist agenda by lessening America's stature in the world.
And now Obama and Daley are trying to shirk the "blame" by laying it on the USOC...
...which is exactly where it belongs. A relationship gone awry, and Daley's own tunnel vision, were what doomed this bid from the start. Start by blaming those two. Don't blame Obama for promoting his own country when he didn't really have a choice not to.
As well, don't blame Chicagoans for not supporting the bid. The city council voted unanimously to place the burden of any cost overruns directly on the tax payers despite the fact they were overwhelmingly against it. 45% may have supported the bid, but 84% didn't want to pay for them with public funds. This is because the city couldn't build a park for less than 4 times the budget, and sold its parking infrastructure for about a quarter of its worth. They know a raw deal when they see one.
Chicago may have it's problems, but it's no Rio, and it's heartening to see priorities still in the right place.
May God bless Brazil.
22.9.09
Makes perfect sense to me
As of today, flavored cigarettes are now banned, nationwide. They're considered gateways to teenage smoking. Cloves, too.
Except menthol is still legal. And it's illegal for teenagers under 18 to buy cigarettes, anyway. No word on whether this law will actually be enforced.
And smoking, the chief cause of preventable death in the U.S., is still legal.
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So are wine coolers.
Except menthol is still legal. And it's illegal for teenagers under 18 to buy cigarettes, anyway. No word on whether this law will actually be enforced.
And smoking, the chief cause of preventable death in the U.S., is still legal.
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So are wine coolers.
19.8.09
A Hump Day retrospective on the eve of 500 posts
I started this blog over two years ago shortly after I finally became a bike racer.
I wasn't sure what I would produce or focus on, but looking back, that first post pretty much set the tone for what has followed since. "Bicycling, poetry, and other bullshit." Those first free form verses came on a Sunday night following the week in which I joined my bike racing team. The previous Monday I completed my application at the meeting, then had my first sprint practice on Tuesday, did my first time trial on Thursday, and my first team ride on Saturday.
Earlier that Sunday, I'd ridden out to a team social in Oak Park, then riding back with two seasoned messengers, Andrew Nordyke and Adam Clarke, through the Austin neighborhood after dark. We kept off both the headlights and the brakes - Augusta was banging that night. I had never ridden with such focus. It was an awakening the likes of which I'd experienced the first time I commuted to work or rode 50 miles by myself. I felt so connected with the bigger picture I was literally bursting when I got home to write it down.
My first race was also a seminal point in my life, and so I wrote my first race report as culmination of a journey. And I haven't ever really lost that perspective. Each race is a learning opportunity, another notch in the table, always a positive experience, no matter how much of an emotional wreck I may seem immediately after.
I have grown as a writer far more than I could've hoped for ever in my life, let alone a mere two years. It shows that whoever you are, whatever talent you have, if you are completely honest about what you write, regardless of the consequences (often in the comments), the end product will always be positive and high quality.
My chops as a poet have come exceptionally far; I will be so bold to say. The worst kind of poetry is self-serving, pretentious drivel, meant to overwhelm with haughtiness and an overwrought sense of self-importance, which masks the lack of real insight, and tells rather that shows. I’ve learned to paint with words, to communicate my experiences by painting pictures inside your head. And I’ve never been above utilizing a little humor.
At first it was completely free form, lacking even verse.
I began to experiment with metaphors to stay away from telling you what I was thinking, and instead show how I was feeling. This was written three days after Peter Ombregt died racing in Matteson.
I found that I wrote best when I didn’t think – think about how my words would be read, how I’d be perceived. That comes later. It’s best to just get it all down there, throwing paint against canvas, strumming open strings at full volume, and then sort, rework, or discard after.
This produced some wild results, at first.
Yet it led to some personal breakthroughs for me: learning how to write a Shakespearean sonnet, and successfully experimenting with new rhyming schemes after some inspiration from Dylan Thomas, such as these pieces, "Untitled" (within a larger post), "And So I Go" and "An Ode to Ride..."
This effort eventually led to “From Martyr to Gladiator,” of which I am very proud. As I began writing, I wove the rhymes and pentameter out of nothing, and just let it take its own shape. This work addresses my lack of competitiveness – in both my professional and personal lives, and especially bike racing. The martyr fears conflict, specifically risking failure. He fears not failure itself, but failing after trying. So rather than risking the disappointment of failing after trying, the martyr simply gives himself to death without effort, hoping for pity.
He receives none; nobody respects the easy way out. The crowd has no chance to cheer for him; the easy way out has no chance of success.
They heap praise on the gladiator instead. The gladiator tries no matter what the risks. He cannot succeed without first trying. So he welcomes failure and death because while winning is the goal, self-respect is what ultimately counts.
The poem definitely affected me positively. After writing it in April, it became my mantra, and I finally began to have real success on the bike in May and June.
Finally, the bullshit comes and goes on a daily basis. Sometimes it’s loaded, other times empty. I love to make you think, to help you learn and laugh, and always to piss you off, or just give you some insight into what has made me who I am.
Tomorrow will be my 500th post. How fitting it will be a Thursday Hate.
Could it be any other way?
I wasn't sure what I would produce or focus on, but looking back, that first post pretty much set the tone for what has followed since. "Bicycling, poetry, and other bullshit." Those first free form verses came on a Sunday night following the week in which I joined my bike racing team. The previous Monday I completed my application at the meeting, then had my first sprint practice on Tuesday, did my first time trial on Thursday, and my first team ride on Saturday.
Earlier that Sunday, I'd ridden out to a team social in Oak Park, then riding back with two seasoned messengers, Andrew Nordyke and Adam Clarke, through the Austin neighborhood after dark. We kept off both the headlights and the brakes - Augusta was banging that night. I had never ridden with such focus. It was an awakening the likes of which I'd experienced the first time I commuted to work or rode 50 miles by myself. I felt so connected with the bigger picture I was literally bursting when I got home to write it down.
My first race was also a seminal point in my life, and so I wrote my first race report as culmination of a journey. And I haven't ever really lost that perspective. Each race is a learning opportunity, another notch in the table, always a positive experience, no matter how much of an emotional wreck I may seem immediately after.
I have grown as a writer far more than I could've hoped for ever in my life, let alone a mere two years. It shows that whoever you are, whatever talent you have, if you are completely honest about what you write, regardless of the consequences (often in the comments), the end product will always be positive and high quality.
My chops as a poet have come exceptionally far; I will be so bold to say. The worst kind of poetry is self-serving, pretentious drivel, meant to overwhelm with haughtiness and an overwrought sense of self-importance, which masks the lack of real insight, and tells rather that shows. I’ve learned to paint with words, to communicate my experiences by painting pictures inside your head. And I’ve never been above utilizing a little humor.
At first it was completely free form, lacking even verse.
I began to experiment with metaphors to stay away from telling you what I was thinking, and instead show how I was feeling. This was written three days after Peter Ombregt died racing in Matteson.
I found that I wrote best when I didn’t think – think about how my words would be read, how I’d be perceived. That comes later. It’s best to just get it all down there, throwing paint against canvas, strumming open strings at full volume, and then sort, rework, or discard after.
This produced some wild results, at first.
Yet it led to some personal breakthroughs for me: learning how to write a Shakespearean sonnet, and successfully experimenting with new rhyming schemes after some inspiration from Dylan Thomas, such as these pieces, "Untitled" (within a larger post), "And So I Go" and "An Ode to Ride..."
This effort eventually led to “From Martyr to Gladiator,” of which I am very proud. As I began writing, I wove the rhymes and pentameter out of nothing, and just let it take its own shape. This work addresses my lack of competitiveness – in both my professional and personal lives, and especially bike racing. The martyr fears conflict, specifically risking failure. He fears not failure itself, but failing after trying. So rather than risking the disappointment of failing after trying, the martyr simply gives himself to death without effort, hoping for pity.
He receives none; nobody respects the easy way out. The crowd has no chance to cheer for him; the easy way out has no chance of success.
They heap praise on the gladiator instead. The gladiator tries no matter what the risks. He cannot succeed without first trying. So he welcomes failure and death because while winning is the goal, self-respect is what ultimately counts.
The poem definitely affected me positively. After writing it in April, it became my mantra, and I finally began to have real success on the bike in May and June.
Finally, the bullshit comes and goes on a daily basis. Sometimes it’s loaded, other times empty. I love to make you think, to help you learn and laugh, and always to piss you off, or just give you some insight into what has made me who I am.
Tomorrow will be my 500th post. How fitting it will be a Thursday Hate.
Could it be any other way?
11.8.09
I've stopped (health) caring...
Was that a moth that flew out of Palin's mouth?? It's not euthanasia, it's end-of-life counseling, and the traditional health care plan that she, and you, subscribe to includes it as well. They all do.
And apparently, the high journalistic standards employed by my uncle in sending this to clog up my inbox are all that a major newspaper should need as well.
However, a good friend of mine recently pointed out those lopsided "I want change" polls we heard so much about during Obama's runaway campaign are now be disabused and are coming back to bite the President in the ass. "Yes, I want change!" is a little more vague than, "I want my health care cheaper!"
Throw in a lot of disinformation - on both sides - and when combined with the general state of ignorance - on both sides - it's no wonder people are getting angry. But this is far from any kind of grass roots organization - on both sides.
What's next? Brown shirts vs. black shirts?
I've stopped caring, about the actual reform, because no matter what happens, nothing good will come of it. It's not heath care that needs reforming. We need reforming. Our health care system used to work pretty well when there was much less a demand on it.
Our priorities are incredibly skewed, and nobody wants to fix the problem since it will mean a few less Almighty Dollars in their pockets.
And apparently, the high journalistic standards employed by my uncle in sending this to clog up my inbox are all that a major newspaper should need as well.
However, a good friend of mine recently pointed out those lopsided "I want change" polls we heard so much about during Obama's runaway campaign are now be disabused and are coming back to bite the President in the ass. "Yes, I want change!" is a little more vague than, "I want my health care cheaper!"
Throw in a lot of disinformation - on both sides - and when combined with the general state of ignorance - on both sides - it's no wonder people are getting angry. But this is far from any kind of grass roots organization - on both sides.
What's next? Brown shirts vs. black shirts?
I've stopped caring, about the actual reform, because no matter what happens, nothing good will come of it. It's not heath care that needs reforming. We need reforming. Our health care system used to work pretty well when there was much less a demand on it.
Our priorities are incredibly skewed, and nobody wants to fix the problem since it will mean a few less Almighty Dollars in their pockets.
4.8.09
Heath Care Reform?
Until the federal government gets Kraft, McDonald's, Monsanto, etc out of the Department of Agriculture, begins to regulate their ability to advertise to our kids, and gives it's monetary support and subsidies back to individual citizen-farmers - who grow real food, not commodity ingredients for "packaged-goods" - nothing is going to happen on health care.
Health Care's costs are out of control in part because we are so unhealthy. And this is due in no small part to corporate agribiz turning food production into a profit. As a result, the majority of us eat most of our meals out of a box. Don't buy their claims that they are regulating themselves and bringing us "Better For You" options.
"0 Transfat!" "Now with more Omega 3!" BFY does not equal "healthy."
Healthy is real food. Organic when possible. Greens, fruits, veggies, and real grains like oats and rice. Free-range, grass-fed meat, in moderation. Oil-derived fertilizers feed the crops that feed you. More insidious, it feeds the corn that feeds the beef and chicken that feed you.
Take back your food and take back your body.
I've discussed this at length before, with some controversy in the comments section, but until I watched this documentary, "The Killer at Large - How Obesity is Killing America," I never really put the connection together with "Health Care Reform."
If trends continue entire generations of could be stricken with diabetes and heart disease, compromising our entire ability to be productive and protect ourselves, our entire foundation as a society.
The fact is our state of terrible health as a society probably has as much to do with the cost of health care as does business trying to turn a profit with it. I believe that modern countries with public health care have far less problems with it than our right-wing is predicting for us, due to the fact they have a far smaller obesity problem, and therefore less demand driving up costs.
If we were able to reduce the demand on our own health care system, that would at least get us halfway there to reducing costs to a level where not having insurance isn't nearly the death sentence it is today.
18.7.09
The sandbagging debate rages on...
The following is a reply back to a commenter on my last race report, in which I accused the winner of Wednesday's Soldier Field Series #3 race of being a sandbagger:
1. Jesus, haven't I apologized for this?? I've never heard of Courage Cycles, or the team, and couldn't see anything on the kit besides the colors. I assumed it was some PBK/Nashbar thing...I even wrote in the original entry it maybe was a team kit I didn't recognize. And since the results aren't posted immediately online how the hell am I supposed to know? Drop it, for God's sake. Sorry I hurt all your feelings.
2. Fine. It's still two categories higher than the race he entered on Wednesday, but it leads me to admit that...
3. ...you are right and I am wrong on this. The rules do allow for Road to a category lower on the track or Cross, but do not translate to Road (the other way around.) I did speak with an official last night:
BUT...
I'm going to lump your points 4 through 8 all together because they will get addressed in the same response:
He gets an easy win. It's not sporting to enter a field of riders who are not as strong as you, if you can just ride away from them. He did it at Hillsboro in 2008, as well. Your argument is so incredibly self-centered:He doesn't have to risk a crash. He just wants to have fun. Well, it's no fun for anyone else racing who ends up not having a chance!
Why doesn't he get his ten races in an upgrade as fast as judiciously possible so he doesn't have legions of bike racers - who paid their fee and want a sporting chance at a win - bitching about this Cat 2 cyclocross (or shitstrong time trialist for we know) who sandbagged his way to a win in whatever single race he decided to race that season for the next 10 years?
And he is a sandbagger, and so are you, by your definition. He is way too strong to be racing 4s and 5s - obviously - yet he "refuses to upgrade" (i.e. get his ten races in). By contrast - I've never won a race. I got 20th in 2008 down in Hillsboro. Got 8th yesterday at Holy Hill. 12th today in Schlitz Park. I waited on my upgrade because it's pretty borderline and I'm probably going to have to rely on my top-ten finishes. But I'm not going be riding away from any 4/5 fields anytime soon. Let alone even hang onto Mike's wheel.
I will be leaving a category in which I am just starting to become competitive in for a likely long string of DFLs. Why? Because it's the right thing to do. Sandbagging would be to wait until I was forced to upgrade at 30 points, which would probably take me into next season. Your argument doesn't hold any water at all. Especially since in both 2008's Roubaix, and Wednesday's race, Mike simply refused to work with anyone, or even make it sporting.
9. And what word? He didn't say anything to me - I'm the one who held his hand up on the podium.
It's my blog, I can rant all I want and be as mad as I want - so I won't CTFO. Mike needs to HTFU and get his 10 races because it's also my (and every other Cat 4 and 5's) money I'm spending on entry fees, training, and parts, and I want a legitimate shot at winning the race. When I finished on Wednesday I was blown and pissed because I had to TT for 20 minutes - which is not what I call "fun". But then everyone around me was laughing: "Don't you know who that is?!" But Mike had fun, so that's all that matters, right? If he's really going to spend the next ten years getting his upgrade one race at a time, I'll ask Fowkes to handicap him, at least - clamping his rear brake down or something.
Enjoy cyclocross. I'll be out there throwing snowballs at you guys.
Oh, Mike and Ben, of course I posted it - I found your twitter feed through Google Analytics :) - it's only bike racing, right?
1. Jesus, haven't I apologized for this?? I've never heard of Courage Cycles, or the team, and couldn't see anything on the kit besides the colors. I assumed it was some PBK/Nashbar thing...I even wrote in the original entry it maybe was a team kit I didn't recognize. And since the results aren't posted immediately online how the hell am I supposed to know? Drop it, for God's sake. Sorry I hurt all your feelings.
2. Fine. It's still two categories higher than the race he entered on Wednesday, but it leads me to admit that...
3. ...you are right and I am wrong on this. The rules do allow for Road to a category lower on the track or Cross, but do not translate to Road (the other way around.) I did speak with an official last night:
"You were right in thinking that a higher cat rider on the road can start at the same level in another discipline. Going from another discipline to Road though does not have the same process as far as I can tell...Road involves close quarters and a much higher chance of a crash for a rider with low bike handling skills to cause one, they appear more strict in allowing one to move up instantly on the road."
BUT...
I'm going to lump your points 4 through 8 all together because they will get addressed in the same response:
He gets an easy win. It's not sporting to enter a field of riders who are not as strong as you, if you can just ride away from them. He did it at Hillsboro in 2008, as well. Your argument is so incredibly self-centered:He doesn't have to risk a crash. He just wants to have fun. Well, it's no fun for anyone else racing who ends up not having a chance!
Why doesn't he get his ten races in an upgrade as fast as judiciously possible so he doesn't have legions of bike racers - who paid their fee and want a sporting chance at a win - bitching about this Cat 2 cyclocross (or shitstrong time trialist for we know) who sandbagged his way to a win in whatever single race he decided to race that season for the next 10 years?
And he is a sandbagger, and so are you, by your definition. He is way too strong to be racing 4s and 5s - obviously - yet he "refuses to upgrade" (i.e. get his ten races in). By contrast - I've never won a race. I got 20th in 2008 down in Hillsboro. Got 8th yesterday at Holy Hill. 12th today in Schlitz Park. I waited on my upgrade because it's pretty borderline and I'm probably going to have to rely on my top-ten finishes. But I'm not going be riding away from any 4/5 fields anytime soon. Let alone even hang onto Mike's wheel.
I will be leaving a category in which I am just starting to become competitive in for a likely long string of DFLs. Why? Because it's the right thing to do. Sandbagging would be to wait until I was forced to upgrade at 30 points, which would probably take me into next season. Your argument doesn't hold any water at all. Especially since in both 2008's Roubaix, and Wednesday's race, Mike simply refused to work with anyone, or even make it sporting.
9. And what word? He didn't say anything to me - I'm the one who held his hand up on the podium.
It's my blog, I can rant all I want and be as mad as I want - so I won't CTFO. Mike needs to HTFU and get his 10 races because it's also my (and every other Cat 4 and 5's) money I'm spending on entry fees, training, and parts, and I want a legitimate shot at winning the race. When I finished on Wednesday I was blown and pissed because I had to TT for 20 minutes - which is not what I call "fun". But then everyone around me was laughing: "Don't you know who that is?!" But Mike had fun, so that's all that matters, right? If he's really going to spend the next ten years getting his upgrade one race at a time, I'll ask Fowkes to handicap him, at least - clamping his rear brake down or something.
Enjoy cyclocross. I'll be out there throwing snowballs at you guys.
Oh, Mike and Ben, of course I posted it - I found your twitter feed through Google Analytics :) - it's only bike racing, right?
1.6.09
Sitting against a big stack of pillows...
Wishing the rain would go away.
I certainly enjoyed yesterday - nay, the entire weekend - but one can enjoy such epically beautiful weather with just a 12-pack of Old Style, a Weber grill, and 10 great friends only so much. I did miss the bike yesterday. And a harder ride on Saturday, as well.
But I am a good grasshopper. And racing five times in one weekend does take it's toll. So does day drinking.
So I lie here looking at the weather, hoping it will stay south of here tomorrow so I can ride north to work and then back to the city for a sprint practice with the XXX Big Dawgs. I want to be hard, and to be a good grasshopper.
But that's an awful lot of green on the radar. It stretches all the way west to California. Clouding the days and hopes of rides of all those who made my stay out there in March so wonderful. It's an awful lot of green to deal with to find out everyone else has stayed home and I am doing the workout alone.
But if left with no alternative, I will just ask myself, "would would Jens do?" And if it were hailing and lightening, Jens would HTFU and ride to work.
There's always Metra.
And there's always the chance that weather.com is wrong. Because, now I ask you, what the fuck have they done to their website? Would someone tell me what I am missing, and why I can't figure out how to get the radar screen in motion anymore?
I guess if not, it's wunderground.com for me now. I've been looking for just this type of excuse to switch my bookmark, anyways. The big guys get complacent, lose sight of the customer, and let some key features go by the wayside.
Like GM. Bankrupt. General Motors. What were they - the 12th biggest economy on the planet? Now less than a dollar a share, and not many people are betting on them being able to successfully reorganize. I've always said, "fuck them." They've never cared for what the customer wanted, because for so long the customer didn't know what they wanted. GM could tell customers what it was they wanted. And that was - through planned obsolescence and shitty workmanship in favor of the marketing department - a new car every other year.
Well, now that they and all our country's other industrial producers have shipped all their jobs overseas, no one can afford to buy the giant, gas-guzzling SUV's they only can seem to make. And suddenly the public has woken up - or been woken up, by their terrible credit scores (the author's included) - and knows what it wants.
And it's not what GM is making. They've ignored the market forces staring them in the face for so long, the only way they can retool their manufacturing base to make the cars the public has been increasingly asking for the last five years is to take over $50 billion from the government - and counting - and still make no promises.
So they deserve to go down. Right? But why is it really that they are getting so much assistance from the government then?
This country could very well be seriously fucked in the ass, at this pivotal moment in history. In times of great crisis when we've needed to suddenly drop everything and make serious firepower and the vehicles to deliver it - GM (and Chrysler) were there. They may not be, just there are serious conflicts brewing over oil, water, and food...while Iran is trying to get the bomb, and North Korea and a Pakistan that is losing control to Taliban already have it.
But let's get over the negative side of the collapse of the United States' industrial power and look at this from a global perspective. This is a sign that the world -at least our world - is driving less. Or using less fuel. The movement to mass-transit is growing, slowly but steadily. Ridership is up, on light rail and buses, as well as Amtrak. More and more opinion makers are calling for a larger national priority on rail, even high speed rail.
I find it atrocious that a country such as ours that was built on the back of long distance rail has gotten so far away from it's grand ethos, yet heartening that we still have not forgotten our egalitarian roots. I believe that national high speed rail could be our generation's Manhattan Project. That when fuel costs and lack of credit, material resources, and manufacturing capital have finally curbed our sense of entitlement to travel in such individual luxury, we - as a globe - and not just a nation, eventually, will construct a more economically and environmentally viable mode of getting around.
And the bikes. I know it's not just me who's noticed it, but we are everywhere over the last five years. When I moved to Chicago in 1997 I could never have imagined the number of people I would see regularly commuting to work, play, and life on two wheels with the wind in their face. Of all kinds - machines and people. Moms, suits, culture-warriors, nihilist hipsters on all-pink fixies, immigrants on beat-to-shit Walmart bikes. New bike racing teams being started every season.
Everyone is riding.
Saturday night I went to meet a friend at Do Division Fest in Wicker Park and was astounded at the number of bikes locked in every direction, in every conceivable way. As I am apt to do these days, I love comparing Wicker Park of today to the Lincoln Park I moved to from Texas back in 1997. And back then, there would have been maybe four bicycles parked up against the soon-to-be-closed Lounge Axe (bow your heads) as douchebags in cargo shorts, polo shirts, and visors scratched their heavily gelled hair with one hand while holding a cigarette and a beer in the other.
While Wicker Park - and Do Division Fest - today resemble the Lincoln Park of then in every way, the bikes are different. As much as I bitch about wanna-be hipsters riding brakeless fixies, or worse yet - brakeless free-wheels that LOOK like fixies - doing slow circles at a red light because they can't trackstand yet, at least they are riding, and not driving.
I hope it is the start of something, however small. Because we need a lot more.
This was the entrance/exit to Do Division Fest as I walked in to meet my friend:
That's maybe eight square feet, packed with fresh trash headed to the land fill. The fest stretched from curb to curb between Damen and Leavitt. As the cargo-shorts clad douches and summerdress-wearing trixies were swept out by the cops they left infinitely more of these mountains of useless, wasteful, trash. And will continue to do so throughout the summer festival season. In Chicago. Milwaukee. St. Louis. Minneapolis...
We're trying to rebuild society from the top down. Trying to repair a rotten structure over a cracked foundation. Fixing GM. Trying retrofit a high speed rail system over 50 years of neglected and misused rail right of way. The behavior like this - wasteful, pointless spending and frittering away precious resources will continue until the most uncaring and and unthinking of us has the incentive not to do so.
Those habits die hard. So hard in fact, that new habits may need to be started by those who've known no other way.
Maybe all of this has to come down, crashing suddenly and without warning, for it to happen.
I certainly enjoyed yesterday - nay, the entire weekend - but one can enjoy such epically beautiful weather with just a 12-pack of Old Style, a Weber grill, and 10 great friends only so much. I did miss the bike yesterday. And a harder ride on Saturday, as well.
But I am a good grasshopper. And racing five times in one weekend does take it's toll. So does day drinking.
So I lie here looking at the weather, hoping it will stay south of here tomorrow so I can ride north to work and then back to the city for a sprint practice with the XXX Big Dawgs. I want to be hard, and to be a good grasshopper.
But that's an awful lot of green on the radar. It stretches all the way west to California. Clouding the days and hopes of rides of all those who made my stay out there in March so wonderful. It's an awful lot of green to deal with to find out everyone else has stayed home and I am doing the workout alone.
But if left with no alternative, I will just ask myself, "would would Jens do?" And if it were hailing and lightening, Jens would HTFU and ride to work.
There's always Metra.
And there's always the chance that weather.com is wrong. Because, now I ask you, what the fuck have they done to their website? Would someone tell me what I am missing, and why I can't figure out how to get the radar screen in motion anymore?
I guess if not, it's wunderground.com for me now. I've been looking for just this type of excuse to switch my bookmark, anyways. The big guys get complacent, lose sight of the customer, and let some key features go by the wayside.
Like GM. Bankrupt. General Motors. What were they - the 12th biggest economy on the planet? Now less than a dollar a share, and not many people are betting on them being able to successfully reorganize. I've always said, "fuck them." They've never cared for what the customer wanted, because for so long the customer didn't know what they wanted. GM could tell customers what it was they wanted. And that was - through planned obsolescence and shitty workmanship in favor of the marketing department - a new car every other year.
Well, now that they and all our country's other industrial producers have shipped all their jobs overseas, no one can afford to buy the giant, gas-guzzling SUV's they only can seem to make. And suddenly the public has woken up - or been woken up, by their terrible credit scores (the author's included) - and knows what it wants.
And it's not what GM is making. They've ignored the market forces staring them in the face for so long, the only way they can retool their manufacturing base to make the cars the public has been increasingly asking for the last five years is to take over $50 billion from the government - and counting - and still make no promises.
So they deserve to go down. Right? But why is it really that they are getting so much assistance from the government then?
This country could very well be seriously fucked in the ass, at this pivotal moment in history. In times of great crisis when we've needed to suddenly drop everything and make serious firepower and the vehicles to deliver it - GM (and Chrysler) were there. They may not be, just there are serious conflicts brewing over oil, water, and food...while Iran is trying to get the bomb, and North Korea and a Pakistan that is losing control to Taliban already have it.
But let's get over the negative side of the collapse of the United States' industrial power and look at this from a global perspective. This is a sign that the world -at least our world - is driving less. Or using less fuel. The movement to mass-transit is growing, slowly but steadily. Ridership is up, on light rail and buses, as well as Amtrak. More and more opinion makers are calling for a larger national priority on rail, even high speed rail.
I find it atrocious that a country such as ours that was built on the back of long distance rail has gotten so far away from it's grand ethos, yet heartening that we still have not forgotten our egalitarian roots. I believe that national high speed rail could be our generation's Manhattan Project. That when fuel costs and lack of credit, material resources, and manufacturing capital have finally curbed our sense of entitlement to travel in such individual luxury, we - as a globe - and not just a nation, eventually, will construct a more economically and environmentally viable mode of getting around.
And the bikes. I know it's not just me who's noticed it, but we are everywhere over the last five years. When I moved to Chicago in 1997 I could never have imagined the number of people I would see regularly commuting to work, play, and life on two wheels with the wind in their face. Of all kinds - machines and people. Moms, suits, culture-warriors, nihilist hipsters on all-pink fixies, immigrants on beat-to-shit Walmart bikes. New bike racing teams being started every season.
Everyone is riding.
Saturday night I went to meet a friend at Do Division Fest in Wicker Park and was astounded at the number of bikes locked in every direction, in every conceivable way. As I am apt to do these days, I love comparing Wicker Park of today to the Lincoln Park I moved to from Texas back in 1997. And back then, there would have been maybe four bicycles parked up against the soon-to-be-closed Lounge Axe (bow your heads) as douchebags in cargo shorts, polo shirts, and visors scratched their heavily gelled hair with one hand while holding a cigarette and a beer in the other.
While Wicker Park - and Do Division Fest - today resemble the Lincoln Park of then in every way, the bikes are different. As much as I bitch about wanna-be hipsters riding brakeless fixies, or worse yet - brakeless free-wheels that LOOK like fixies - doing slow circles at a red light because they can't trackstand yet, at least they are riding, and not driving.
I hope it is the start of something, however small. Because we need a lot more.
This was the entrance/exit to Do Division Fest as I walked in to meet my friend:
That's maybe eight square feet, packed with fresh trash headed to the land fill. The fest stretched from curb to curb between Damen and Leavitt. As the cargo-shorts clad douches and summerdress-wearing trixies were swept out by the cops they left infinitely more of these mountains of useless, wasteful, trash. And will continue to do so throughout the summer festival season. In Chicago. Milwaukee. St. Louis. Minneapolis...
We're trying to rebuild society from the top down. Trying to repair a rotten structure over a cracked foundation. Fixing GM. Trying retrofit a high speed rail system over 50 years of neglected and misused rail right of way. The behavior like this - wasteful, pointless spending and frittering away precious resources will continue until the most uncaring and and unthinking of us has the incentive not to do so.
Those habits die hard. So hard in fact, that new habits may need to be started by those who've known no other way.
Maybe all of this has to come down, crashing suddenly and without warning, for it to happen.
23.1.09
Douchegate
Blago's Senate trial starts Monday. He's been in the news the last couple of days whining about the fact that he won't get a fair trial.
So?!?
A) It's not a civil trial
B) It's not a criminal trial sooooo...
C) Shut the fuck up about it and wait until the above actually happens to complain about fairness.
You've been using your position as the defender of the state constitution as your own personal lemonade stand and now suddenly you've started reading the fine print?! "And if it means I have to sacrifice myself to a higher cause, for the people of Illinois and for the principle of due process and the right to call witnesses, then so be it," Blagojevich said.
And you're Jesus?
I think Jesus would've been smart enough to file his objections to the evidence by the deadline. You instead when for a jog and whined to the press tailing you.
You constantly cite the "will of the people" who elected you. Trust me. You don't want to the turn the decision over to the people. You won't fair much better with us.
When all of this is written in the books, after however long you drag it out, I hope the sentence you receive after your "fair" trial reflects the pain and suffering you have inflicted on everyone. Those forced to endure your pompous, self-inflated pronouncements and declarations - and hair - on the news every night, instead of being blessed by you just going the fuck away - need to be considered.
So?!?
A) It's not a civil trial
B) It's not a criminal trial sooooo...
C) Shut the fuck up about it and wait until the above actually happens to complain about fairness.
You've been using your position as the defender of the state constitution as your own personal lemonade stand and now suddenly you've started reading the fine print?! "And if it means I have to sacrifice myself to a higher cause, for the people of Illinois and for the principle of due process and the right to call witnesses, then so be it," Blagojevich said.
And you're Jesus?
I think Jesus would've been smart enough to file his objections to the evidence by the deadline. You instead when for a jog and whined to the press tailing you.
You constantly cite the "will of the people" who elected you. Trust me. You don't want to the turn the decision over to the people. You won't fair much better with us.
When all of this is written in the books, after however long you drag it out, I hope the sentence you receive after your "fair" trial reflects the pain and suffering you have inflicted on everyone. Those forced to endure your pompous, self-inflated pronouncements and declarations - and hair - on the news every night, instead of being blessed by you just going the fuck away - need to be considered.
18.1.09
9.12.08
In the Wake of the News...
Choose: Kwame...or Blago.
If anyone needs me, I'll be out on the tollway painting over Blago's name on the I-Pass arches. Strictly volunteer. The State should not have to pay for the indignity.
And let's make it easy on everyone. I suggest Patrick Fitzgerald just take Blago to a nice dark room - oh hell, maybe a lakefront condo with a nice view just to rub it in at what he will be missing - and leave him there with a bullet and a gun and fifteen minutes to think it over.
If anyone needs me, I'll be out on the tollway painting over Blago's name on the I-Pass arches. Strictly volunteer. The State should not have to pay for the indignity.
And let's make it easy on everyone. I suggest Patrick Fitzgerald just take Blago to a nice dark room - oh hell, maybe a lakefront condo with a nice view just to rub it in at what he will be missing - and leave him there with a bullet and a gun and fifteen minutes to think it over.
1.12.08
Hate Preview
Texas has beaten OU, yet OU wins the division...because a computer says so? A head-to-head tie breaker means nothing? What could possibly be wrong with this system?! And how can straight up voting on the rankings be any worse?
In fact, why play any games at all? Let's just let the computer simulation run from the pre-season rankings and have a big parade in September and save everyone the trouble!
Well, I at least can laugh about this decision to rely on the BSC computer rankings as a tie breaker while it bites Big 12 Leadership in the ass - they very well may have a riot on their hands and they should definitely be careful when passing under the clock tower. But, still...how fucked up is all this? What was wrong with the old system - with it's emphasis on conferences and bowls? Does a national champion really matter that much among so many teams?
More later this week in Thursday Hate. I will be seething about this until then.
In fact, why play any games at all? Let's just let the computer simulation run from the pre-season rankings and have a big parade in September and save everyone the trouble!
Well, I at least can laugh about this decision to rely on the BSC computer rankings as a tie breaker while it bites Big 12 Leadership in the ass - they very well may have a riot on their hands and they should definitely be careful when passing under the clock tower. But, still...how fucked up is all this? What was wrong with the old system - with it's emphasis on conferences and bowls? Does a national champion really matter that much among so many teams?
More later this week in Thursday Hate. I will be seething about this until then.
28.10.08
WTF of the Day
A minor working the checkout line at the grocery store isn't allowed the touch the unopened, sealed alcohol you are trying to buy (as if merely touching the bottle would corrupt their young, open minds...making her completely lose self-control and run down the liquor aisle, smashing open Miller Lite Bottles and ripping open boxes of Franzia) yet an 8-year old (EIGHT!) is allowed to fire a fully automatic Uzi at a gun show, with tragic results.
Not sure I understand the core-values that lead to that, but I know it's what you get when you replace judgment and moderation with knee-jerk fanaticism.
God Bless the U. S. Fucking A.
Not sure I understand the core-values that lead to that, but I know it's what you get when you replace judgment and moderation with knee-jerk fanaticism.
God Bless the U. S. Fucking A.
26.10.08
Now I Understand...
...why people become Republicans.
I really do.
Saturday night, while mine and Katy's bikes were locked up outside of a friend's condo, her saddle and seat post were stolen, and my headlight was broken in the attempt as well. Even the headset on her bike was loose after they tried to take the handlebars and fork off, too.
Just the thought of some asshole with his hands on my property sent me into a frothing rage. Realizing he'd probably get less than five dollars for the seat post that I'd spend more than $50 replacing - including the saddle - induced a torrent of profanity to explode from my face as I threw the broken headlight down the alley, ricocheting off the wooden fence and splintering into pieces on the orange, streetlight-bathed pavement.
A group of people leaving for a party scooted past us, regarding me warily.
I'd barely lost $300 dollars worth of property and I was having fantasies about catching the motherfucker in the act. Angrily whipping my telescoping truncheon out, its malicious clacking sound - as it locked into place - would alert the thief to turn around just before it's hard black metal smashed into his jaw. His teeth would barely have time to hit the ground before I grabbed a handful of hair and dragged him out of view behind the dumpster where his pleas for mercy - bubbling through his own blood - wouldn't be heard by anyone else.
Even as I recognized the genuineness of my visceral reaction, I took a deep breath. Embarrassed, I realized I am of course better than that. Reaction is the dominating driver of people who don't or refuse to account for any of their own actions. I should've remembered the quick release on Katy's seat post and removed everything else that could've been stolen. Of course anything you leave out will get stolen. In fact, I needed to assume it would have and acted accordingly.
In other words...I should've acted proactively.
I'm not saying that Republicans are violent, of course. But I am saying the reactionary response that is typical of that line of thinking only gets us in more trouble. By simply cracking down on people stealing easily accessible property without addressing why the property is so easily acceptable or why they need to steal it to get a few dollars will never fix the problem. Shit will continue to get stolen and people will continue to react violently about it, police sanctioned or otherwise while nobody is any better off (except seat post makers and prison guards).
Along the Republican line of thinking, however, this is all fine, as long as we are not wasting time and money to remove the need to steal or blaming ourselves for why it got stolen.
This could really turn into a book, I suppose, so I will close with this: I can see why people identify with this ethos. Completely. I don't agree with it, yet I recognize the need for it as well. The essence or Republicanism is reaction - certainly an outlook that clarifies any situation and can be a way to reach a quick resolution - yet, unchecked and allowed to grow unabated, it becomes fascism. On the opposite end of the spectrum is pro-action, the essence of Democratic thought. It's dark-side is social-engineering, unchecked it becomes Communism. Both ironically find kinship in totalitarianism.
It is important to use both to play against each other, to counterbalance the system and keep it upright and strong. Truly great leaders recognize this principal and uphold it, at the expense of their own power and advancement.
"Nihilism? Fuck, Dude. Say what you want about tenets of National Socialism, but at least it's an ethos."
--- Walter Sobchek
I really do.
Saturday night, while mine and Katy's bikes were locked up outside of a friend's condo, her saddle and seat post were stolen, and my headlight was broken in the attempt as well. Even the headset on her bike was loose after they tried to take the handlebars and fork off, too.
Just the thought of some asshole with his hands on my property sent me into a frothing rage. Realizing he'd probably get less than five dollars for the seat post that I'd spend more than $50 replacing - including the saddle - induced a torrent of profanity to explode from my face as I threw the broken headlight down the alley, ricocheting off the wooden fence and splintering into pieces on the orange, streetlight-bathed pavement.
A group of people leaving for a party scooted past us, regarding me warily.
I'd barely lost $300 dollars worth of property and I was having fantasies about catching the motherfucker in the act. Angrily whipping my telescoping truncheon out, its malicious clacking sound - as it locked into place - would alert the thief to turn around just before it's hard black metal smashed into his jaw. His teeth would barely have time to hit the ground before I grabbed a handful of hair and dragged him out of view behind the dumpster where his pleas for mercy - bubbling through his own blood - wouldn't be heard by anyone else.
Even as I recognized the genuineness of my visceral reaction, I took a deep breath. Embarrassed, I realized I am of course better than that. Reaction is the dominating driver of people who don't or refuse to account for any of their own actions. I should've remembered the quick release on Katy's seat post and removed everything else that could've been stolen. Of course anything you leave out will get stolen. In fact, I needed to assume it would have and acted accordingly.
In other words...I should've acted proactively.
I'm not saying that Republicans are violent, of course. But I am saying the reactionary response that is typical of that line of thinking only gets us in more trouble. By simply cracking down on people stealing easily accessible property without addressing why the property is so easily acceptable or why they need to steal it to get a few dollars will never fix the problem. Shit will continue to get stolen and people will continue to react violently about it, police sanctioned or otherwise while nobody is any better off (except seat post makers and prison guards).
Along the Republican line of thinking, however, this is all fine, as long as we are not wasting time and money to remove the need to steal or blaming ourselves for why it got stolen.
This could really turn into a book, I suppose, so I will close with this: I can see why people identify with this ethos. Completely. I don't agree with it, yet I recognize the need for it as well. The essence or Republicanism is reaction - certainly an outlook that clarifies any situation and can be a way to reach a quick resolution - yet, unchecked and allowed to grow unabated, it becomes fascism. On the opposite end of the spectrum is pro-action, the essence of Democratic thought. It's dark-side is social-engineering, unchecked it becomes Communism. Both ironically find kinship in totalitarianism.
It is important to use both to play against each other, to counterbalance the system and keep it upright and strong. Truly great leaders recognize this principal and uphold it, at the expense of their own power and advancement.
"Nihilism? Fuck, Dude. Say what you want about tenets of National Socialism, but at least it's an ethos."
--- Walter Sobchek
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