Beach Volleyball and Other topics

Please forgive a spelling/form error or two; as I am typing this professional beach volleyball is on.

Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh

are playing Branach and Youngs

in the Chicago Open finals.

It is quite distracting. Oh yeah, Walsh and May pulled it out after trailing 1-0 in games.

No, I am not talking about this.

Workout notes I had a bit of a rough walk this morning. Now the weather couldn’t have been any prettier. I walked to Boredom via Columbia Terrace and Broadway and exited Boredom on Forrest Hill; took a swing though Sprindale and then caught Madison street (Steamboat) to Hamilton, then to the Rivertrail and back up Kumpf, MLK and Moss as usual.

My time was 4:06 (slowish; I was 2:23 at mile 10) but my right calf/lower hamstring/behind the knee hurt for much of miles 11-17. It was a “too long for today” type of ache; I tend to get this here when I try to run a bit (as I did yesterday). Also, 1 20 ounce bottle of water is not enough for summertime walking.

Speaking of walking: check out racewalker Tammy. She just took a Dave McGovern racewalking clinic; I’ve taken a couple of these and have reports (with photos) here, here and here. The latter link shows my running buddy and my rubenesque wife in her shiny green spandex.

But I digress; Tammy posted this photo:

Notice how straight her support leg is; in fact it is mildly hyperextended. That is what good, fast walking (28 minute 5K) looks like. Note that her quad is relaxed though you can see her hip muscle being used.

That is technique that I am envious of!

Other stuff
Politics: Barack Obama’s style is discussed by R. J. Eskow.

I’m starting to suspect we’ve all missed the real story behind Barack Obama’s leadership style. His recent actions may not have been driven by calculation or centrism, as most people thought, but by something else. He may have a core value that’s new to our political process — one that exists on a different plane, grounded in a web of personality, spirituality, and culture.

I had to think back many years — and many thousands of miles — before I remembered where I’d seen his kind of style before:

Japan.

When I did some work there nearly twenty years ago I encountered some of the same traits we’re seeing in Obama now: The urge for consensus. The courtesy toward all parties, no matter how strong the disagreements. The nearly-holographic quality of appearing different to different observers. The centeredness and self-control. [...]

Obama’s been frustrating observers across the political spectrum lately. Progressive bloggers are debating whether he’s driven by cynicism or centrism, while the rightwingers at Human Events claim there’s a “Secret Plan Behind Obama’s Move to the Right!”

They’re all missing the point. He’s not moving to the Right. His political architecture isn’t built on the old foundation of Right vs. Left — or on Right vs. Wrong, for that matter. It isn’t even binary. When it comes to policy he inclines toward the progressive position, but he’s not thinking in terms of “winning” or “losing.” His goal is group unity around the best possible realistic outcome. That means assess the situation, get what you can, then move to bring the parties together around a new consensus. [...]

He won’t “bring the fight to the enemy” where the GOP is concerned, either. In fact, he doesn’t necessarily even see an enemy — just fellow group members with whom he must eventually reconcile. He will be able to inspire and lead — but he won’t be able to inflame and arouse. He will never be a firebrand. (Interestingly, despite his ability to excite a crowd he struck me as cool and analytical — “clinical” was the word that came to mind — the one time I saw him in close quarters.)

I should point out this is one big difference between him and either John Edwards or Hillary Clinton; the latter two described themselves as “fighters”.

Science Avenger: on what we should concern ourselves with during this election, and what we shouldn’t.

So far this presidential election final has been very disappointing. Here we have history in the making, either the first president over 71, or the first black president. We also have a ton of serious issues on the table. So what is the media talking about? Which wife said what about who, what the candidates think about cats and poker, and of course, whether Obama is a flip flopper and what in the world McCain was thinking when he joked about our exported cigarettes killing Iranians.

“Flip flop” is a word that is tossed around so much these days it has gotten as meaningless as “racist” is when uttered by Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton. It used to be a perfectly sound word used to describe a politician whose opinions bounced from pro, then con, and back to pro again, for political gain. Think Mitt Romney on abortion. A simple change of position from pro to con could be explained by other matters, the most obvious being a change of mind, or of circumstance. But going back and forth is a tough sell as an ideological path, and suspicions of political hanky panky are warranted.

However, these days the term “flip flop” is applied to any change of mind, or appearance of same even to the extent of including mere clarification of position. This approach will brand any person who has put a lot of thought into their opinions as a flip flopper, because the popular mediums (driven by our ever-shortening attention spans) demand sound-bite answers, even when it is a six paragraph question. [...]

This is Obama’s problem on Iraq, and most of the other larger issues the next president will face that are monumentally more important than gay marriage and flag pins. He’s an intellectual, and he has complicated nuanced opinions to complicated issues. He is not going to give the same answer to any complicated question twice in a row. The question “Do you think we should pull of out Iraq immediately?” is not a yes or no question. The world is just not that simple. Obama’s opinions, once you trim away the political wrapping that comes with the territory, simply reveal the intellectual he is. Labelling this as “flip flopping” runs the serious risk of excluding from the office anyone with some serious intellect, and will send politicians right back into not answering the questions at all.

Likewise, when we hear John McCain wisecrack about our cigarette exports to Iran being “one way to kill them”, we need to be really careful how we react to that. Every election we hear the complaint that politicians are plastic, stiff and insincere, and “Why can’t they just be like a normal person?” Yet, when they accede to our wishes, we hammer them for any remark that is slightly off the safe path. Be careful what you ask for. [...]

The whole post is worth reading.

Religion and Society I was going to summarize my feelings on the “cracker” incident (student walks off with a communion cracker, gets flack, P. Z. Myers writes an article and gets flack from some Catholic fundies) but Friendly Atheist does a good job with it and presents more or less what I feel and think. So there is no need for me to reinvent the wheel here.

Humor (sort of): God and Guns in Oklahoma? Yep.

An Oklahoma church canceled a controversial gun giveaway for teenagers at a weekend youth conference.

Windsor Hills Baptist had planned to give away a semiautomatic assault rifle until one of the event’s organizers was unable to attend.

By the way, this sort of reminds me of what Democratic Senate candidate Harold Ford (now chair of the centrist DLC) said during his Senate race in Tennessee (a narrow loss):

FORD: What Tennesseans will get will be a Jesus-loving, gun- supporting believer that families should come first, that taxes should be lower and America should be strong.

Note to those disaffected: look at Harold Ford. THIS is what a Democrat who has made a hard right turn looks like.

Humor:

Why I am a Republican?

1. I like winning national elections, except for 1976, 1992, 1996, and 2008.
2. I was born rich and want to be even richer.
3. I am delusional enough to think that I will be rich some day.
4. I am smart enough to have both a Ph. D. and an M. D. from the University of Chicago and land a job at Harvard; hence if *I* can make it in a competitive world, then there is no excuse for everyone else who wants to make it. In short, I am a talented social Darwinist.
5. I am dumb enough to think that Dirty Harry and Rambo reflect reality. I think that Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh make sense.
6. I am a loser who wants to think that Ann Coulter actually gives a *hit about me.
7. I think that my superstitions ought to be forced onto everyone else.
8. I am one of those 30% who still think that Bush is doing a good job.
9. I like cheering on wars from the sidelines.
10. I can’t stomach the thought that my friends and loved ones were sent to fight in an ill conceived war for no good reason.
11. I am a racist prick but want to give my racism a veneer of respectability. I think that some of the unfair (and localized) side effects of affirmative action are comparable to a couple of hundred years legalized discrimination, Jim Crow laws and slavery.

Hey, how did I do?