Essay on boxing

Boxers in Pakistan: By Maniza Naqvi a moving essay:

Ringed in by swirls of rope, I train for that golden fight. Without power, now, yes, yet, the night is lit up by a winking star within my reach. I stretch, I practice and I meditate. This, till Fajr’s first light. The sea breeze washes over Lyari at this time and as it comes into the Ali Mohammad Qambrani Stadium, it caresses my wet skin, the sweat cools and evaporates and my muscles ache as the heat inside me subsides. My lungs clear of the day’s petrol fumes that still burn my throat and eyes. Here in Lyari the name Qambrani means something: pride. The breeze, weightless as a fly, as soft as a feather, whispers and places a burden on me: be unique, be the one, be unparalleled, be unrivaled, be superlative. Be. That’s the cheer in every street in every alley here. Be unique! Be unique! Be without comparison! Be incomparable! Be! And I know what that means. Its meaning belongs to the poor. Be unique belongs to the poor.

A head injury may be the price to be golden to belong, to be, that way.

That’s the price for being caught in the web, the ropes of family ties, carrying on the family name, the family tradition, the family honor and pride. That’s the price of being a hero. That’s the price of limelight and being on the ropes.

Saima is afraid. She says that this will destroy my pretty face—I’ll get bruised and battered and get scars and a busted nose, lose teeth. She says if I get ugly she might not want to marry me. I know that she’s only joking.

Boxing belongs to the poor. Yes it does. Look at the conditions in which we still become champions. What would happen if we had resources? [...]

Read the whole thing.

Worthy of its own post

Hitler finds out that the Republicans have no ideas of their own.

22 March 2010; they got the job done!

Workout notes I was sore and bloated so I decided to do a rather tame swim: 1000 very slow (18:10), 10 x 25 drill, 25 swim (fins), 5 x (25 fly, 25 free, 25 back, 25 free) on the 2:10 (about 1:50-55), 4 x 50 paddle. I was just “off” and achy.

Injury: it is killing me this morning; then again I am wearing the old shoes again.

Other topics

Yes, the House got it done; it was quite a feat for Speaker Pelosi. Yes, I’ve been furious with some of the Democrats but today I am proud of them; I made my first contribution to the DCCC in a long time.

Of course, I remain a realist: the Representatives who backed the bill were largely those from districts where President Obama had done reasonably well.

Of course this represents the graphs for non-retiring Democrats. For example, in Rep. Schock’s (R, IL-18) district, President Obama got 48 percent of the vote to Senator McCain’s 49 and he was a “no”.

My take Yes, I was one of those who opposed the Senate Bill from the left; this person is about where I am on this issue.

But in the end I am glad that Rep. Peolsi got the job done and got it through; this is an improvement from where we are now and a giant step in the right direction.

One of the biggest ironies is this bill is very similar to the compromise offered by the Republicans in 1993 during the debates with President Clinton and similar to what then Gov. Romney came up with in Massachusetts. In fact, this is really a moderate Republican bill; I am a bit surprised that some savvy moderate Republicans didn’t break away and support it and claim a bit of credit. The bill does have some Republican ideas.

But then again, many were just so sure that the bill was going to fail:

Krauthammer: “If [Brown] wins, health care is dead.” On the January 18 edition of Fox News’ Special Report (accessed via Nexis), Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer stated of Brown, “If he wins, health care is dead.” Krauthammer later stated: “If Brown wins tomorrow the bill as we see it is dead. The only hope is if the House swallows the Senate bill whole, which I think is not going to happen. The only alternative is to delay the swearing in of the Republican in the Senate, and that would be catastrophic for the Democrats.”

Barnes: “The Health Care Bill Is Dead.” In a January 20 Weekly Standard post, Fred Barnes wrote: “The impact of Republican Scott Brown’s capture of the Massachusetts Senate seat held for decades by Teddy Kennedy will be both immediate and powerful. It’s safe to say no single Senate election in recent memory is as important as this one.” Barnes added: “The health care bill, ObamaCare, is dead with not the slightest prospect of resurrection. Brown ran to be the 41st vote for filibuster and now he is just that. Democrats have talked up clever strategies to pass the bill in the Senate despite Brown, but they won’t fly. It’s one thing for ObamaCare to be rejected by the American public in poll after poll. But it becomes a matter of considerably greater political magnitude when ObamaCare causes the loss of a Senate race in the blue state of Massachusetts.”

Barnes: “It’s dead in the House, it’s dead in the Senate.” On the January 21 edition of Special Report (accessed via Nexis), Barnes claimed, after Brown’s victory, “Scaling back Obama care is a non-starter. Look, it is dead. It is dead in the House. It is dead in the Senate. I’m not sure it would have passed even before Brown. Nancy Pelosi was down to 218 votes and some of the more moderate Democrats were queasy. But the whole thing is dead. Republicans aren’t going to help out on this. The Republican position is get that off the table. We will start anew.” [...]

Will: “I don’t see how” health care reform survives Brown’s victory. On the January 19 edition of ABC’s Nightline (accessed via Nexis), during a discussion of Brown’s victory, host Cynthia McFadden asked, “Can the president pull the chestnuts out of the fire on this one? Can health care survive?” ABC News contributor and Washington Post columnist George Will replied, “I don’t see how. There’s no clamor in the country for this. There is a clamor in the country to pay attention to other things.”

Hannity: “Prince Harry has to accept the fact that his health care bill is dead.” On the January 21 edition of his Fox News show (accessed via Nexis), Sean Hannity said that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid — who Hannity referred to as “Prince Harry” — “has to accept the fact that his health care bill is dead” because of Brown’s victory.

Gingrich predicted Dems “cannot pass a reconciliation bill through the House.” Also during the January 21 edition of Hannity, after Hannity stated that Democrats were “floating the idea” that they would use reconciliation to pass health care reform, Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich stated, “OK, let me predict that they cannot pass a reconciliation bill through the House of Representatives. The American people will be so enraged by some kind of a cheap political act by somebody like [Sen. Dick] Durbin who is the Democratic whip.” Gingrich continued, “I think the reaction of the country will be so angry that that bill would never get through the House.”

(surf to the article to see more conservative pundit FAIL)

So, will the plan work? I honestly don’t know; my guess is that it will get tweaked over and over again. But at least we have something to jury rig and tweak; that is easier than starting from scratch. And hey, maybe, just maybe, the Republicans can play a positive role in this process?

But I do know this: though I can’t predict how well it will work, I can see who is cheering it and who is jeering it.

Cheers: here and here and here.

Jeers: Just read.

A bit from Paul Krugman:

The day before Sunday’s health care vote, President Obama gave an unscripted talk to House Democrats. Near the end, he spoke about why his party should pass reform: “Every once in a while a moment comes where you have a chance to vindicate all those best hopes that you had about yourself, about this country, where you have a chance to make good on those promises that you made … And this is the time to make true on that promise. We are not bound to win, but we are bound to be true. We are not bound to succeed, but we are bound to let whatever light we have shine.”

And on the other side, here’s what Newt Gingrich, the Republican former speaker of the House — a man celebrated by many in his party as an intellectual leader — had to say: If Democrats pass health reform, “They will have destroyed their party much as Lyndon Johnson shattered the Democratic Party for 40 years” by passing civil rights legislation.

Cheers: Barack Obama. Jeers: Newt Gingrich.
Note how they made the appeals: Obama: “do what is right, even if it costs you.” Gingrich: “lets win a political battle”.

The contrast couldn’t be starker. I know which side I’d rather be on. It isn’t even close.

A Rational Republican View

Via David Frum

At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision: unlike, say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for all the marbles. This would be Obama’s Waterloo – just as healthcare was Clinton’s in 1994.

Only, the hardliners overlooked a few key facts: Obama was elected with 53% of the vote, not Clinton’s 42%. The liberal block within the Democratic congressional caucus is bigger and stronger than it was in 1993-94. And of course the Democrats also remember their history, and also remember the consequences of their 1994 failure. [...]

We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat. [...]

There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal. But they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible. How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your grandmother? Or – more exactly – with somebody whom your voters have been persuaded to believe wants to murder their grandmother?

I’ve been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes it mobilizes supporters – but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead.

Emphasis mine. Really Republicans: you could have had more say in this bill and you could have driven a bigger wedge between President Obama and his liberal base who wanted him to act like President Bush and just roll over the Republicans. The President really wanted to work with you but you said “no” to everything in hopes that you could stop it.

21 March 2010 (pm)

Swimming workout 5500 yards: I swam in the afternoon after a nap. I did NOT go straight through: 500 yards easy (9:15), 5 x (25 front, free, sfs, free) with fins, then on the 2: 5 x 100 fist, 5 x (25 3g, 75 free) on 2, 5 x (25 catch up, 75 free) 10 x (25 side, 75 free), 5 x (25 free, 25 back, 50 free), 10 x (25 fly, 75 free). Then alternating 100 paddle, 100 free for 500; total time was 1:50.

It wasn’t that hard and not that intense. My endurance is ok though.

Health Care Reform: I am listening to the debate on C-SPAN; most the Republicans who are speaking are real idiots.

I am not quite as confident as Paul Krugman but Intrade is at 95.0.