Thunderstorms…aging, cheating, etc.

and our cherry tree bit the dust. That means more yard work this week…yuck.

Workout notes yoga, then weights. Weights: seated military presses with dumbbells: 20 x 40, 15 x 45, 15 x 45, pull ups (varied hands: 10, 10, 10, 6, 5, 5, 4, 1 (yes, I can’t count. ), rows (dumbbell: 3 sets, machine, 3 sets), incline press (two sets), pull downs (3 sets), rotator cuff exercises.

I’ll walk over lunch (probably on the treadmill).

Age I was belly aching over aging. Then I read this about one of my Naval Academy classmates:

In today’s tight middleweight division competition at the unsanctioned Raw Unity Meet, 50-year-old David Ricks (198) came out on top.

Ricks defeated a strong performance by fellow 198, Arnold Coleman, when Ricks made and Coleman missed their final attempt deadlifts of 716 pounds. Ricks totaled 1,818 to Coleman’s 1,796 pounds.

Ricks’ total breaks the all-time record (without wraps) held by Ryan Celli of 1,807 pounds.

Canadian Jeremy Hamilton dominated the 220 class on his way to placing third overall. Hamilton totaled 1,813 pounds.

198
1. David Ricks (USAPL) – 655/446/716 – 1,818

This is a “no drugs, no special suits” meet. He still squats 665, benches 446 and deadlifts 716 at 50 years old.
So much for my excuses. Ok, this guy was our starting fullback and had one of the best physiques I’ve ever seen on a drug free male even while at Annapolis. He was just cut as if chiseled from marble.

Speaking of sports

So, what do I do post surgery? I’ve got some conflicting thoughts.
1. Judged racewalking. The cons: meets are so far to get to (6 hours of driving!), and I don’t know if my knee will straighten post surgery.

2. ultra walks: I like these but these take up lots of time and

3. running: I sure miss it at times. But will my knee tolerate it?

4. Just staying healthy and mixing 2 with 3: that is, do a few 5ks and a few marathon/50K walks with maybe a 24 hour to challenge me once in a while.

I’ll continue to swim as my primary “second” activity as I enjoy it.

Anyway, none of the above really matters until I find out what my knee will be like post-surgery.

Posts
I found this comment interesting:

I think it shows far more respect for the faithful to engage their arguments honestly and openly than to pat them on the back and say, “There, there—even though I don’t share your beliefs I won’t risk upsetting you by questioning them.”

That may be true, but it really depends on who you are talking to. Frankly, there are many who simply don’t enjoy thinking about ideas. That is why I think it is important to hang around like-minded individuals; not like minded in “having the same opinion” but like minded in that “thinking and honestly discussing ideas is good” type people.

Superstition: Yes, this sounds ridiculous:

“God said a curse would fall on a land which turned its back on him, and one consequence would be more tragic deaths at the hands of predatory animals.” – thus spake evangelist Bryan Fischer, referring to a recent deadly bear attack on a 70-year old man in Yellowstone National Forest. Earlier this year, Fischer made waves with his claim that a trainer at SeaWorld in Florida died from a Killer Whale attack because SeaWorld didn’t pay proper attention to Biblical scripture. Fischer is a confirmed scheduled speaker at the upcoming Family Research Council’s Voter Values Summit. Other confirmed speakers for the event are Mike Huckabee, and Republican Congressional Representatives Michelle Bachmann, and Mike Pence.

Though this might seem a bit over the edge to those unfamiliar with the contemporary Christian right it’s arguably the predominant belief, from the Christian Reconstructionist wing of the movement over through the more numerous charismatic evangelical camp, that all manner of disasters, from hurricanes and earthquakes, tornadoes and floods, murder and crime, economic downturns and stock market crashes, sickness and even death itself are divine vengeance, predictable outcomes of America’s failure to follow every last jot and tittle of Old Testament law.

But this is entirely consistent with Biblical beliefs (2 Kings, 2:23-24):

23 Then he went up from there to Bethel; and as he was going up by the way, young lads came out from the city and mocked him and said to him, “Go up, you baldhead; go up, you baldhead!” 24 When he looked behind him and saw them, he cursed them in the name of the LORD. Then two female bears came out of the woods and tore up forty-two lads of their number. 25 And he went from there to Mount Carmel, and from there he returned to Samaria.

Yes, many educated Christians and Jews just see this as folklore or perhaps a story to prove some point. But remember that, at least in the United States, there are millions who see this story as actual history!

(as an aside, the Annotated Skeptics Bible is a fun reference for stories like these)

Anyway, those who believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible are really being as ridiculous as these people:

Nature Can an animal do immoral things or commit crimes?

University of Michigan primate behavioral ecologist John Mitani’s findings are published in the June 22 issue of Current Biology.

During a decade of study, the researchers witnessed 18 fatal attacks and found signs of three others perpetrated by members of a large community of about 150 chimps at Ngogo, Kibale National Park.

Then in the summer of 2009, the Ngogo chimpanzees began to use the area where two-thirds of these events occurred, expanding their territory by 22 percent. They traveled, socialized and fed on their favorite fruits in the new region.

“When they started to move into this area, it didn’t take much time to realize that they had killed a lot of other chimpanzees there,” Mitani said. “Our observations help to resolve long-standing questions about the function of lethal intergroup aggression in chimpanzees.”

Mitani is the James N. Spuhler Collegiate Professor in the Department of Anthropology. His co-authors are David Watts, an anthropology professor at Yale University, and Sylvia Amsler, a lecturer in anthropology at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Amsler worked on this project as a graduate student at U-M.

Chimpanzees (along with bonobos) are humans’ closest living relatives. Anthropologists have long known that they kill their neighbors, and they suspected that they did so to seize their land.

“Although some previous observations appear to support that hypothesis, until now, we have lacked clear-cut evidence,” Mitani said. [...]

The bouts occurred when the primates were on routine, stealth “boundary patrols” into neighboring territory. Amsler, who conducted field work on this project described one of the attacks she witnessed far to the northwest of the Ngogo territory. She and a colleague were following 27 adult and adolescent males and one adult female.

“They had been on patrol outside of their territory for more than two hours when they surprised a small group of females from the community to the northwest,” Amsler said. “Almost immediately upon making contact, the adult males in the patrol party began attacking the unknown females, two of whom were carrying dependent infants.”

The Ngogo patrollers seized and killed one of the infants fairly quickly. They fought for 30 minutes to wrestle the other from its mother, but unsuccessfully. The Ngogo chimpanzees then rested for an hour, holding the female and her infant captive. Then they resumed their attack. [...]

Surf to the link to read more. Now of course, my little lead in was somewhat tongue in cheek; of course “crime” is a human term. But it does lead one to think “where does the concept of crime start to make sense in our past?”

Education Sure, educators should be held accountable. But how? After all, how well students do on standardized exams depends on many things, including the student’s home lives, innate abilities, etc. The quality of teaching is only one variable.

But when people are measured this way…well, this is going to happen:

The staff of Normandy Crossing Elementary School outside Houston eagerly awaited the results of state achievement tests this spring. For the principal and assistant principal, high scores could buoy their careers at a time when success is increasingly measured by such tests. For fifth-grade math and science teachers, the rewards were more tangible: a bonus of $2,850.

But when the results came back, some seemed too good to be true. Indeed, after an investigation by the Galena Park Independent School District, the principal, assistant principal and three teachers resigned May 24 in a scandal over test tampering.

The district said the educators had distributed a detailed study guide after stealing a look at the state science test by “tubing” it — squeezing a test booklet, without breaking its paper seal, to form an open tube so that questions inside could be seen and used in the guide. The district invalidated students’ scores.

Of all the forms of academic cheating, none may be as startling as educators tampering with children’s standardized tests. But investigations in Georgia, Indiana, Massachusetts, Nevada, Virginia and elsewhere this year have pointed to cheating by educators. Experts say the phenomenon is increasing as the stakes over standardized testing ratchet higher — including, most recently, taking student progress on tests into consideration in teachers’ performance reviews.

Colorado passed a sweeping law last month making teachers’ tenure dependent on test results, and nearly a dozen other states have introduced plans to evaluate teachers partly on scores. Many school districts already link teachers’ bonuses to student improvement on state assessments. Houston decided this year to use the data to identify experienced teachers for dismissal, and New York City will use it to make tenure decisions on novice teachers.

No, I am NOT justifying cheating. (hat tip: Schneier’s security blog)