Love Day 25: God Works Through Community

 

We Grow in Community: Love Day 25

Today was “Love Day” for Church on the Movers in Tulsa. 

Love is a Verb

It’s an annual community serve day in July where we offer help to our neighbors. Opportunities exist all over the city to clean up, renovate and remake a lot of our common areas. Not everything is about hard, manual work though. Some require prayer and relational help. Most Love Day serving requires gloves and elbow grease. I signed up for the Food on the Move nonprofit that grows vegetables for the community. They have a lot of indoor and outdoor farmland. It benefits the residents who often, don’t have enough money for basic groceries.

At the start of the day, the director gave the volunteers a short history of the facility. Started by Taylor Hanson, the 90’s pop star from Tulsa, after a Q&A with a former ambassador to South Africa. The diplomat told Taylor to engage the community instead of going through the official channels. Locals needed food. I’m not familiar with how the Apartheid regime handled food, but it sounds like it was withheld because of politics.

Deep Roots

 Whether or not South Africa’s situation on food scarcity is relatable to America, I can’t say. But taking care of those in need is smart policy in any country. Communities thrive when they support each other. Like those vertical planting towers that are so ubiquitous at Food on the Move. Water and nutrients trickle down from the top and feed the seeds all the way down. It's an efficient system when space is limited. 

My task today was to power wash the planting towers. I got a close look at them. 

Eight-foot plastic tubes with holes in them, serve as a plant towers for vertical growing. I included a picture at the top. They're filled with dirt from top to bottom and the seeds are placed in the upward facing extensions. The roots develop inside the tower and the plant grows out the side. The towers get gunked with dirt after a planting cycle and need to be sprayed out. It sounds easy, but the tricky part was trying to pull out the remaining dry roots. They don’t want to leave.

 High pressure water gets most of it, but you need a ramrod to knock out the roots that made a comfortable home inside. It took us a few minutes to finds something like our ramrod, a shovel handle.

Rain Soaked Morning

I had two companions, a father and daughter. We worked outside on a concrete slab and cleaned one after the other, getting sloppy wet and dirty the whole time. At first we thought the volunteer day might not happen. Tulsans woke up to a heavy storm this morning. We've seen too many this year. For whatever reason it’s been a rainy year. The thunderstorm subsided shortly after 7:30 and everything went on as planned. I can’t say that every group went ahead though. 

While filling out the Love Day registration, I noticed a few landscaping options to sign up for. It wasn’t exactly a mowing kind of day. After the first 30 minutes of work, it started raining again. I’m not sure if we were more wet from the power washer or the rain. It didn’t matter in either case, we had a job to do.

Why We Serve

I think we could’ve stayed all day. The farm had more towers that needed to be cleaned. They had a whole trailer full of them. Since it only took 3 of us to share the power washing duties, the other volunteers pulled weeds and harvested some of the vegetables. I would’ve liked to see the operation a little closer. But our washing kept us away from seeing the rest of the place. I’m sure the regulars that worked the farm would’ve been happy to show me around. But after the cleaning and the rain, everyone headed for the parking lot. I didn’t want to be the only one hanging around.

Most of these Love Day’s are characterized by brutal heat. It’s July in Oklahoma after all. If there is a silver lining with rain, it’s that the temperatures stay low (70’s) and the sun hides behind the clouds. It might be humid but it’s manageable. As long as the lightning and monsoon rains don’t overwhelm, it’s possible to do a little outdoor work and not wilt like a daisy.

 These community volunteer efforts make everyone involved feel good about their service. I can’t speak for everyone, but I usually have a pang of guilt over doing this only once a year. It’s not like serve opportunities don’t exist. I think there is even a Saturday serve option available on the small group finder. Without even looking, I can promise it’s the least attended of any of the groups. Not because people are terrible and selfish and uncaring. But because it’s not glamorous. It’s labor intensive and messy. It’s a little too much like real work.

But it’s also appreciated in a way that food deliveries and car service and back to school shopping sprees aren’t.

Conclusion

Some people have a knack for building, repairing and cleaning. Remodeling a person’s home in particular, adds a kind of dignified thrill that isn’t possible any other way. Groceries are great too, but adding a bedroom, a deck or a bathroom is a gift that elevates the occupants. An old home with inefficient windows and paper thin walls can feel luxurious with a decent remodel. Your neighborhood is the same but the place you spend the most time is suddenly new. What could be better?

If it sounds like I’ve been there before, it’s because I have. Members of the church I attended as a kid did a full remodel on our family home. They asked electricians, roofers, plumbers, dry wall workers and general contractors to pitch in on a particular day. It took 2 full days but the result was impressive--a fully remodeled house from basement to attic. I was in the Army at the time, but I saw the full scale of it when I came for a visit. 

God works through communities. I’ll never forget that.   

“Don’t do anything for selfish purposes, but with humility think of others as better than yourselves. 4Instead of each person watching out for their own good, watch out for what is better for others.” Philippians 2:3-4

Bunker Busters and F Bombs: Iran isn't Going Away

 

Trump avoids War but Gets Sidetracked by Foreign Conflicts

The news is usually my source of writing inspiration, but I’m struggling to understand what’s going on in the Middle East right now. The only thing I have is my instincts and they’re telling me to pump the brakes on this ceasefire. Trump isn’t falling into the war trap that so many seem to be pushing him towards. He agreed to destroy the nuclear facilities in Iran with bunker busting bombs. That part was successful, we assume. But just before the ceasefire was supposed to begin, Iran broke the ceasefire.

Israel retaliated. It’s not clear to me if Israel retaliated for the missiles that hit a US airbase in Qatar, or if they retaliated for an attack on their own soil. Trump was pissed when reporters asked him about it. He said Israel and Iran don’t know what the ‘F’ they’re doing. After supposedly getting both countries to agree to a ceasefire, they unloaded their munitions. After Trump’s tweet the internet got silly. MAGA types started posting the tweet and bragging about DJT’s “Skillz”. I count myself among the MAGA faithful but this was seriously stupid. I wanted to scream “This is the Middle East; it’s never over!”. Frankly Trump was a bit too eager to claim victory himself. Using dopey language about no more hate and peace and harmony in the region. 

He wants to move past this quickly and I don't blame him.

Trump believes everyone can move past old hatreds. Just toss in a few incentives and get the business interests on board. Who wouldn’t want to make a deal and start developing condo’s in the Levant eh? For all of his straight talk and no nonsense attitude, he seems to genuinely think he can make lasting peace. But the US should be done with the Middle East if the military is asked to intervene. Israel should remain and ally. Saudi Arabia should be a business partner that we keep at a distance. There is a mess to deal with in Ukraine after the last administration, foolishly pushed that country into an unwinnable war.

Trump told the world that the Ukraine was would be over as shortly after his term started. That’s probably the biggest misstep of his presidency so far. It’s clear to me that he wants to be a domestic president and focus on spending, immigration and law enforcement. He gets very irritated with these foreign conflicts and sees them as a distraction from his domestic agenda. A president that wants to focus on his own country is a welcome relief, but these foreign conflicts keep pulling his attention away. Like Michael Corleone, every time he thinks he's out...they pull him right back in. 

But the good news from this so called '12 day war' is that he seems to have sidelined the neocons this time. He agreed to destroy the nuclear facility in Fordow but not do the regime change that the Israelis wanted.

Israel has every right to demand regime change in the region. But they must do it alone, and they clearly won’t. As time frame’s go, it’s probably right for it. Iran is weak, their proxies in Yemen are beaten and their army in Lebanon (Hezbollah) was destroyed by the IDF. But we’ve given so much blood in the Middle East that I think it’s time for someone else. The Israelis are natural allies, but Trump made the right call to avoid doing more that bombing the facilities. As a concession to not demanding regime change, it’s a better option. 

I hope this latest cease fire and subsequent bombing shakes Trump out of his naivete. At the very least, stop calling every minor statement from world leaders a win. Foreign leaders lie. There is a reason why president’s avoid doing “deals” in the Middle East. Those people are full of ancient hatreds and deep resentment going back thousands of years. I’m making a cultural statement, not a racial one.

I recognize that America is deeply involved and ignoring these conflicts isn’t possible. But the president should be above grandiose statements that fall apart in less than 24 hours. The worst part is that anyone older than 30 could tell you this would likely happen. But even MAGA voters get over their skis all the time on this stuff. They love their big Trump-as-badass memes. But they look silly in no time flat. I think it’s time for some humility all around.  

On Blogging and the World since 2020

 Complaining About the Deep State and the Nature of Blogging

I’ve lost my nerve a bit on writing. Not that I’m not doing it. I am, but my blog pieces are getting further and further apart. 

Putting something on my website happens like twice a month now. It’s a serious fall from the previous 10 years or so. The first couple of years I was still finding my footing. I don’t count 2014 or 2015. They’re both a blip on the radar of a blog that was still finding an identity. Did it ever find it? I’m sure a clever person could scan it and find similar points of interest or a singular ‘voice’ as the writers say. The topics changed quite a bit, or at least I thought. Politics, especially foreign policy, held my interest so much in the early days that I shared my thoughts. Like most bloggers most of my opinions were like anyone else’s, off the mark by a wider margin than I’d like to admit.

That’s hardly the point. It’s really the experience and accountability I was after.

Know It All

I don’t think you’ll find a persistent arrogant or obtuse tone throughout. I tried to clean up most of pieces though the editing process. Smugness is a crutch for young writers fresh off their media studies class. I won’t deny that I had a touch of that. I will deny that they overwhelmed my writing as to make it sickening for the reader to consume, like a fountain coke mixed with too much syrup. There are times when I went too hard I’m sure. But I always tried to sound reasonable. I hope I do in real life as well. Hopefully I was smart enough to recognize that not all writing holds up well over the years. One day’s ‘SOB’ is another day’s ‘Honest Abe’. How many times has public opinion shifted on Kayne West? In the last 5 years or so the world’s changed a lot and I’m thinking differently about everything.

Know Even Less

I said 5 years because it’s about when Covid hit and we were never the same. The world didn’t change really, it just got revealed to be something darker and uglier than I think I understood before. The stolen election of 2020 was the first pillar of American greatness to fall. Such an obvious theft should have been a wake up for all Americans. For many it was, but it’s hard to believe that when your guy won the election. I’m not sure I would’ve listened either if Trump had won on such shaky grounds. But to me it showed that the deep state runs the ‘important’ affairs of life. The president doesn’t (can’t) do much in the way of changing policy. Congress doesn’t either, by the way. An Executive Order (EO) does not a policy make. Someone needs to put it into practice.

 The Constitution was a brilliant piece of legislation and even worked for a time. We’re off it now, same as the gold standard. The language persists, we still use phrases like separation of powers and judicial review. But they’re applied haphazardly if at all.  

Know For Sure

We say deep state now because it sounds more sinister. It’s also a better phrase than bureaucracy because it suggests an entrenched, network of shadowy figures with malice and greed in their hearts. A bureaucracy is just an inefficient blob of well-meaning civil servants. It’s the guy at the DMV who didn’t approve your permit because you didn’t fill out form 1455 correctly. The deep state includes those people and adds NGOs (Non Governmental Organizations) and private companies. A lot aren’t even government employees. They contract with certain federal authorities and pull down millions of dollars through various cut outs. The exposure of the USAID, via DODGE, and its nefarious dealings is one such example.

The deep state is an impossible network to quantify but it does have access to a lot of money. In that way they’re a bit like the KnightsTemplar in the Middle Ages. A group of professional soldiers started a small Christian army to protected the territory acquired by the Crusaders. They provided safe passage for traveling Knights who warred against Muslims in the Holy Land. They set up banking houses and issued legal tender all over Europe so Crusaders didn’t have to carry large sums of money. They became incredibly wealthy with their private army and land holdings. Eventually they emerged with their own order, customs and ceremonies. They were a government unto themselves. What started out as charity of the church, turned into a group of wealthy mercenaries who dictated terms to kings and rulers through their banks. Philip IV eventually had them arrested on charges of blasphemy and sodomy. He pillaged their holdings and dissolved the order.

Conclusion

It's not a perfect comparison but it works. Like the knights, the deep state has a vast network that expands to a vast number of interests. The only way to get at unraveling their influence is to hold individuals accountable for their crimes. Or at the very least, threaten someone who is obviously guilty and make them give up names the way the cops do in mob movies. The lack of any real punishment is why the deep corruption persists. I’m not suggesting they be held accountable for false crimes the way the Templars were. But their power should be reined in and their kingdom taken away.

The Knights Templar didn’t lose their power until Jerusalem fell in the 13^th century. Without a controlling army in the Holy Land, the Templars lost their reason for being. The deep state is full of little fiefdoms with a ready supply of funding and a legal system that covers their flank. I had hoped Dodge would be the beginning of the end of their reason for being. Sadly, it’s going to take more than that. But it will happen.

The lack of real understanding about political issues is why the blog has changed so much. It’s hard to write about things you don’t fully understand. I do feel like 'first principles' will focus less on day to day politicking going forward.

 

 

 

 

"A Runner's High: My Life in Motion" A Review

 

 

Dean Karnazes and the Crazy World of Ultramarathon Running

I had to google Dean Karnazes after I read his book “A Runner’s High: My Life In Motion”. I picked it up off the shelf at my local Barnes & Noble on whim. I wasn’t particularly looking for a book on running or even a book with a sports theme. But after getting lost in fiction and checking out the new authors, I traipsed back to the sports section. Sport themed books can be a mix of biography and history, business and self-help. I wanted something easy to absorb, not a deep dive. Golf had the most authors per square inch but running managed a few slots. The first one I grabbed turned out to be a textbook. It was a detailed plan for a running program with tips in between. Nothing against schedules and planning but I wanted something more personal.

That’s when I grabbed this Dean Karnazes book on ultramarathon running, his 4^th to date.

Looking Back 

Now I’m not an ultramarathon runner and I have no interest in it. But I love jogging and even marathon running. I wanted to know what got him started in this insane sport. Maybe he would answer the “Why would someone do this?” question. He does in part. But this book is an examination of the life of an aging athlete, finding a new way to endure with a different set of goals. A good chunk of it is looking back on a brilliant career and savoring the success while training for the Western States 100. Along the way he examines if he’s been a distant father, a loving husband and good son. There are some touching moments with his dad, a man who still accompanies him to his races and provides that much needed encouragement.

Dean Karnazes has a few books under his belt already. I didn’t read it but, "Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All night Runner” was a best seller in 2006. It put ultramarathon running into the public conscious. For years it was an obscure sport that only endurance junkies had anything to do with. It likely wasn’t the only book or film that did this, but it certainly made regular people aware of it. I still think it’s a sport for endurance junkies, it’s just that we have more of them now. 100 miles at any pace through the open desert or woods is a crazy thing to do. Certain people need to push themselves beyond the limits of what even endurance runners go through.

A Very Different Sport

In Runner’s High, Dean settles into the reality of his age and what’s still possible given the miles he’s put on his body. Understandably, there is a lot of comparison to his former self and his former successes. As a Western States alum, he is acutely aware of his progress when seen in contrast to his previous performance. Spoiler alert, he isn’t the runner he used to be. He was 58 or 59 when this book was published. That’s over 15 years since his first book. That’s a lot of miles for an aging athlete. But the same grit that got him through the 100 milers when he was a younger man is still there. He just needs more of it. He nearly drops out on multiple occasions but manages just enough push to finish.

Endurance running takes otherworldly mental toughness. It’s one advantage that older athletes have on younger ones. Dean doesn’t say this in the book but it feels true. Your body won’t move as fast or recover as quickly, but if you’ve finished before you’ll do it again. It won’t be pretty, but you’ve solved a big piece of the puzzle on how to complete a big race while exhausted. Having others there to cheer you on helps a lot. Help and support are difficult to measure, but essential for finishing strong. Karnezes gives a lot of credit to his family and friends for joining him. During the Western States race, he encounters a few former runners who help out as volunteers at the aid stations. Their encouragement and motivation is often the difference in the late stages of an ultramarathon when you’re starting to fade. His son Nick and both his parents, along with multiple volunteers, got him over the hump.

Conclusion

The book is less than 250 pages. It’s light on detail and doesn’t bog down on race particulars. There is just enough of his personal life in there to keep this a human story. Dean explains well the emotional highs and lows of ultra racing and provides the reader with a reason for why he runs. It won’t make sense to people who don’t run though. You’ll get an answer to the question “Why would someone do this?” but you won’t like the answer. It just doesn’t make sense to most people and that’s OK. You will understand, and feel, his passion for this niche sport though.

It may even make you start jogging whatever your age.

Musing about Writing and Wasting Time

 

Writing is a Discipline that Needs Strict Parameters

It seems like I don’t have a lot of interest in writing anymore. At least not to the level that I did a few years ago. What is the culprit? Could it be that work takes up a larger part of my life, to the degree that I have less time? Not really, my responsibility has picked up and so has the number of accounts I manage. But it hasn’t added to my workload significantly. Most jobs have seasonal ups and downs that dictate how many hours you work. Mine is no different. Summers and springs are busy. The rest of the year settles into a type of normalcy, in a sense.

I should probably apologize for all the question begging that this post is bound to heap up like mulch on a freshly planted rose garden. Just think of these are rhetorical questions the writer is trying out on himself.

Am I occupied with other interests? Again, not really. I’ve had a consistent gym/fitness routine for the last 5 years or so. It changes a little from week to week but not dramatically. If anything, I’ve matured in both my running goals and weight lifting. The running is certainly easier to measure. New times can be compared against older times and I can see how much weight I’ve lost. Modern gyms have these full body composition scanners that give you all sorts of indicators. You can learn which side of your body is stronger, what your bone density is like and what an ideal weight would be.

For the first two months of the year I was busy studying for my personal training certification test. But last month I passed the test and received the certificate. I still don’t have a job, but I’m looking. Here too though, I’m not overwhelmed with a part time job.

 I might be mistaking my lack of writing interest for just plain laziness. Sometimes I like to dress up the words instead of looking at the thing straightaway. Laziness becomes “lack of interest” or “lack of passion”. Those sound high minded. No one ever admits to being lazy but it’s a common problem. Creative types talk about “writer’s block” and “creativity deserts” when the problem is much more carnal. I made up the one about creativity deserts but I kind of like it. I’ll have to work it into a conversation at some point.

Television gets the best of us sometimes and if we’re honest, we probably watch too much. Here I’m counting YouTube as TV, as it takes the same form in my life. Hours of wasted viewing on the silly, the weird and the angry, encompass evenings that I’ll never get back. YouTube is at least highly curated where TV is just a scatter shot of whatever’s in the barrel. If we don’t like the show we turn it off. YouTube allows the viewer to scrub past ads and click off. It doesn’t let you off though, it’s going to suggest something similar. Really they don’t suggest anything. They just play the next adjacent video, ready or not. For me it skews right and newsy with a dash of funny. I end up with a lot of Megan Kelly and Tim Dillon clips.

It gets in the way of writing but not too much. It used to be that I couldn’t go more than 2 days without a writing fix. I didn’t update my blog every other day, but I did feel the need to journal some event or attitude. When I couldn’t think of anything significant I’d practice. These practice sessions allowed my mind to wander. A lot of my blog posts started off that way. I’d start a mental thread about sports or politics that slowly turned into a one about family or Christianity. It’s not the best way to write but it can be fun. The best way is through narrow parameters. The stricter the focus the more creative the essay.

The mind craves discipline. This seems counterintuitive. Don’t the best artists and writers need to be free to let their minds wander? No, you lose focus without definitive goals. It might take longer to arrange your thoughts and discard ideas that don’t fit the limits, but you’ll be able to avoid wasting time on unnecessary trails. I used to write blog posts for business websites through a 3^rd party marketing company. Perusing through the list of requested blog posts, I noticed some were brief while others, very detailed. The companies with long, specific items and keywords were the easiest to write for. It’s like they cut the extra fat off the steak before they brought it to me. The websites that listed one or two instructions didn’t know what they wanted and hoped the writer would come up with something creative.

That’s OK if you understand the industry you’re writing for. But it’s rarely the case. Not to mention, the ones with marginal instructions were quick to fire my copy back for revision. It’s like they were saying “No not like that”. They could’ve saved us both some time with tight instructions and a short list of what they didn’t want.

I exaggerated when I said it seems like I don’t have any interest in writing. But a lot of the old tricks aren’t working anymore. I’ve always believed that writing is like other disciplines in life, it needs to be forced until it becomes routine. It’s not secret that I mentioned fitness at the beginning. The most important thing that fitness has taught me is that improvement must become routine. If it’s true for weightlifting then it’s true for creative pursuits. Why do I seem to fall in and out of “interest” in writing? Because it’s ceased to be routine. The reason doesn’t really matter.

Salvation is the Good News of Easter

 

Easter Commission: Reflecting on God’s Faithfulness

Easter forces reflection in me of God’s goodness in big and small seasons of life. That reflection fulfills the message of Christ to ‘go into all the world’.

In Tulsa, there is a neon cross that looms large on the West side of the Arkansas river. It’s visible in the dark from the bike path that stretches the length of the river. On occasion I’ll do my early run there. In the winter especially the sun doesn’t pop above the horizon until after 7:00. Most of my route is in the dark. I can’t tell where the cross is located. The west side is full of industrial parks and factories. There are a few churches, but none big enough to mount a cross that size. The bright contrast between light and dark makes me take notice.

Healing of the Body

It reminds me of times when I was in trouble and God rescued me. Those memories still evoke strong feelings. Difficult seasons stay in our minds long after the stress has subsided. What’s left is the faith we built through it. How many times did I run out of money and eat saltines until pay day? There was always a free meal I hadn’t counted on or a refund from a forgotten transaction.

I’ve had a few health issues too. I had severe asthma as a kid. Being able to run like I do now wasn’t a sure thing. But I witnessed God’s faithfulness through healing and restoration. In adult life I took seriously the instruction to ‘pray for those who persecute you’. This one I resisted hard. God’s way of living is contrary to ours. It takes years of retraining to develop a willing heart. But when I complied, I noticed a positive change in the person who created such difficulty for me.  

When we let Him, He brings to mind His victories in our lives. No detail is too small.

Promise of Restoration

The company I work for used to sew patches on school jackets. I called a customer one day to come pick up his jacket after we had worked on it. In the two days before he came to the store, a shoplifter walked in and stole it right off the finished rack. We didn’t realize it was gone until he’d left. I had to tell the customer that a thief made off with it. That made me look irresponsible; I don’t think the customer believed my story. I asked God to make it right. Amazingly someone spotted the thief with the jacket a few weeks later. I was vindicated.

Nothing sharpens your focus like hardship. Did you ever get separated from your parents in a grocery store as a kid? You could feel the panic start to rise, your temperature spiked and your breathing quickened. You forgot about the magazine on the rack that stole your attention not long before. Nothing mattered like finding mom and dad. All distraction fell away instantly as you zeroed in on being rescued. Eventually it worked out and you were wiser about wandering off the next time.

Like kids we all tend to wander off sometimes. Startling events bring us into focus and strip away everything that’s not critical to solving the problem.

Finding the Lost

That was the situation in Acts 16 when Paul and Silas were arrested for preaching the gospel. The jailer faced a startling event that changed his world in an instant.

“Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” (NKJV)

An earthquake had just shaken the ground and loosened all the chains of the prisoners. Paul reassured him that no one had left and that he shouldn’t harm himself. It’s a recognition of the plight he’s in. Nothing is left but the truth of salvation. The world as he knew it changed in an instant. If not for a word from Paul, he would’ve taken his own life.

His security in the prison fell away in an instant. He recognized the immediacy of the moment and surrendered his life. Some of us coast along without an earthquake moment. We aren’t guaranteed one either. We don’t always get a chance to see our situation in stark relief. Jesus scolded the elders (Mark 8:11-13) for not being able to discern the times. It’s up to us as well, to recognize the fleeting nature of life on earth. It’s less painful to learn from another’s example. The jailer that Paul baptized, made sure his family was also baptized.

“What must I do to be saved?” should force us to examine our lives with eternity in mind. The cross still has the power to connect with the soul and bring about repentance. It still reminds us of the ultimate sacrifice and the innocent blood.

Conclusion

If you’ve wandered off and felt the immediacy of a scary moment, there’s hope in the cross. Even before your frantic search for help, God was looking for you. There are reminders everywhere of His faithfulness. It just might take a neon cross in the darkness to get your attention.

Go tell someone today. He is Risen! Happy Easter

 

Will DOGE Actually Work?

 

DOGE Saves the Country, Or the Fiscal Floor Caves In

I’ve wanted to write something about DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) for a while. There is an underlying sense that I shouldn’t get too excited about it. I tell myself not to fall for it. You’re never going to watch the government cut its waste or spending by a significant amount. The spending rot is too deep. Best to wait for the floor to fall out from under you and rebuild the house. The termites have eaten through too much of it. Yes, it's a pessimistic view. I have a twinge of guilt every time I think about it. But remember, the staggering amount graft that is uncovered on a daily basis props up someone. Actually it’s propping up a whole lot of someone’s.

DOGE is what it looks like to attack the corruption in spending from the outside. It can’t happen from inside.

Inside Baseball

Back in 2010, Senators Alan Simpson (Wyoming) and Erskine Bowles (North Carolina) put together a committee to “study” how to reduce the debt. They correctly evaluated the problems and presented a plan. The plans were sensible but the political will wasn’t there. These commissions only ever serve to provide travel opportunities and a nice pay day for fortunate bureaucrats. Nothing actually gets cut. No one needs to do a year long study to figure this out. Blue ribbon commissions find information we already know and find a way to get paid from the process. It's a neat trick.

It’s impossibly hard from a political standpoint, much easier to pay everyone off with projects for their communities and sign off on another bloated budget. It’s why my ‘wait for the floor to cave in’ is an understandable response.

Outside Baseball

But if Trump is different and Elon is different, maybe there is hope. If nothing else, DOGE is a true outsider approach. No insiders were ever going to fix it. Mafia members occasionally rat on each other, but they also take on new identities, move to the heartland and take up farming. Exposing corruption is dangerous. Make no mistake, this is corruption. And to have such a serious group of men sharing the responsibility of taking it to the deep state is very encouraging. If you haven’t seen the interview on Fox News with Brett Bair I suggest you watch it. All of these men are accomplished in the private sector. They’ve all volunteered to help reorganize federal spending and show where the fraud and waste is. No surprises yet, it’s overwhelmingly fraud so far.

Defining Leadership

At no point during the interview did I think any of these guys were press hounds. They’re sober about the future of the country and patriotic enough to do something about it. Musk put a target on his back by supporting Trump after the Pennsylvania assassination attempt. That gave others the courage to do likewise and share some of the burden of being called Nazis or Fascist's or whatever. I’m much more confident after hearing from the team. It’s easy to be cynical about motives, but they seem to care deeply about the future of the country and how much has been stolen from future generations.

Musk recognized that this administration is serious about putting the country on a track to fiscal sanity again. No businessman wants to give voice to an untrustworthy president or give support where it won’t be reciprocated. It’s risky. It’s especially risky for Republican administrations because the press can ruin you. We’re seeing some of that with the bombing of his Tesla dealers and desecration of cars in parking lots. I’m sure he knew this kind of thing was possible. But he can rely on an administration that actually punishes crime and backs American business. 

The Twitter Takeover

Buying Twitter was a watershed moment for Elon Musk. He entered the political fray and if he had any illusions about an American left that just wanted free speech, he was quickly disabused of that notion.

He let a handful of journalists (Taibbi, Shellenberger) comb through Twitter’s databases. Matt Taibbi in particular showed how the federal government was silencing conservative voices through implicit threats. Twitter was basically the communication arm of the FBI. In a lot of ways, DODGE feels like a much larger version of the same idea. Expose fraud in the federal government and show how corruption works at scale. And what a scale it is? Twitter prepared him for this. But if Twitter was an on base single to right field, DOGE is a grand slam to win the game.

Discovering wasteful spending at the federal level isn’t a tough thing to do. The late Senator Coburn, Oklahoma’s own, used to release a Wastebook every few years on government waste. We knew about the bridges to nowhere and the silly research grants for video games studies. But no one was specifically targeted or held to account. The sense you get from reading them is irritation at the lack of oversight. You can almost hear the zany Benny Hill music playing in the background as the list of dumb spending is read aloud. The tone of the report though is ‘common guys, we can do better'. But Senators have to get reelected. They can scratch the surface and point in a direction, but they can’t name names. 

Nothing against Coburn, he was an honest man. But where he grabbed the low hanging fruit of waste, Musk is going for the jugular. 

Like Simpson and Bowles, real change happens from outside because it has to. 2025 is going to be a rocky year with a lot of naming of names if DOGE is anything like what it needs to be. It will all be for naught though if guilty parties aren’t charged and we don’t have a sensible plan for budgeting. Grifters that feed off the public teat should be punished severely, or America will be overrun with them.

Conclusion

I’m usually pessimistic about the attempt to reign in a federal system. But I’m optimistic for at least some big moves going forward. What does that look like? Can we actually reduce the fraud by a significant margin and half the budget? Will known fraudsters be held to account and serve as avatars for other, would be-con artists who would fleece the taxpayers? The relentless exposure is good news so far. Had Elon Musk done enough work to allow DOGE to function with a manager once he is gone? That day might come sooner than the May deadline.

Every political fight like this comes down to willpower. If not, we wait for the floor to give way and work on a rebuild plan. 

 

Go Cubs Go: 2025 Opening Day

 

Baseball's Opening Day and the New Cubs

Yesterday was Opening Day for the 2025 season. I won’t pretend I’ve been following baseball closely for the last 5 years because I haven’t. Clicking through some of my old journals, I stumbled across one from last year with “baseball” in the title. My first thought was, “What’s this? I hardly watched any baseball last year”. But it was a preseason explainer to myself about why my interest had waned. Covid was the culprit, no surprise. Still, that was 4 seasons ago. Why bring it up? Because it’s just about the time I checked out. The George Floyd riots and the Black Lives Matter craziness, forced me to ignore sports for a while. I’ve probably mentioned this a lot in other places where I’ve written, but using sports as a platform to divide the country was unforgiveable to me.

The MLB allowed and promoted that.

While not unforgivable, it forced me ignore it for a few seasons. I remember seeing a preview of the Chicago Cubs doing long toss at Wrigley right before a game. Most of the players adorned with Black Lives Matter t-shirts and smiling like they were at the lake on a Sunday afternoon. I think I was at the gym looking up at the TV which was tuned to ESPN. Similar events happened all year like that. Athletes gave bland statements of support for the violence happening all over the country; to me it looked insincere. I’ll avoid going into that morass too deeply. Nothing was real, certainly not the genuflecting to left wing activism that these athletes participated in.

Whatever…I’m glad it’s over.

This spring I started listening to a couple of Cubs podcasts again. Mostly, the idea was to familiarize myself with a team I don’t know anything about. I used to call myself a fan but the title just doesn’t fit anymore. Would I like the Cubs to win? Absolutely. Are the Cubs my team, as much as any baseball team can be said to be “my team”? For sure. But true baseball fans follow their team much closer. I’m more of an interested party in the team’s success. Frankly, I don’t want to watch even 100 games during the season. The regular season is 162 games. Baseball isn’t conducive to the modern attention span. It’s too slow. Soccer is slow too but there is always action around the ball.

Major League Baseball has tightened up a few rules to make the game a little more fan friendly. They’ve put a clock on the pitcher so he can’t shake off the catcher 3 or 4 times and keep going to the rosin bag. It’s 20 seconds. That seems about right. The national league is now using the designated hitter rule. Not sure if this speeds the game up, but it does likely add more scoring opportunities. Another rule change is adding a runner to second base in every extra inning. This was made permanent 2 seasons ago. The idea is pretty simple, increase the chances of scoring and getting out of the game. Some of these 13 and 14 inning games destroy your pitching staff. A lot of guys have to pitch more innings than they should.

Remember it’s 162 games during the season. Burning up your pitching staff for one win is costly for the next series of games. I imagine everybody was for this rule. It seems like an easy one. As for reducing the time between pitching changes, every pitcher has to face at least 3 batters or go to the end of a half inning. If you realize how much time gets eaten up bringing in a specialist to deal with a good hitter, it makes sense. I’ve seen games where the team puts in a reliever just to face one batter. Then, he exits the game and a second reliever is brought up to finish the slate of hitters. Every change requires a new pitch and catch warm up routine with the catcher until the new guy is ready to go. I think advertisers are the only ones that like it. They can jam in a few extra commercials with every change.

Opening Day is this baseball thing that football doesn’t have. In football it’s just the first game of the season. I have friends that treat Opening Day like a holiday. They take off from work and spend the day watching multiple games. One of my buddies posted a picture of him and his son, with Royals hats and sunglasses just outside Kaufman stadium. What a cool tradition for them. Why is Opening Day such a big deal? I googled it just now. I guess it has something to do with hope and optimism for the season. Everyone still has a perfect record and all of that. It’s spring too, which does feel like an awakening from winter. Warmer weather is on the way, even in Chicago.  

I said that everyone team has a perfect record just before opening day. That’s True for all but one team. Can you guess which one? Right, it’s the Cubs. Technically their season opened in Tokyo this year against the World Series Champion Dodgers. So everyone but the Cubs are perfect. No worries, spring is here and baseball is in the air. Go Cubs!

The French Connection: Review

Gene Hackman Owes His Career to Popeye Doyle

If The French Connection were made today, we’d have more detail about the heroin enterprise run out of Marseilles by the smugglers. Writers would create more backstory on the Roy Scheider character, Cloudy Russo and the beleaguered captain. We’d certainly have a compelling story arc about the black bartender, who feeds information to the police when they rough up the patrons. But writers can do too much with a movie and make a mess of the whole thing.

Simple Stories

Sometimes simple is best. Focus on one character…amoral, racist, vitriolic, determined. Don’t even bother to give him a family or a pet or an interest outside of kicking in doors and roughing up junkies.  

 Thankfully it was made in 1971. If you want an antihero with a singular focus on winning, Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman) is your guy. There were a few detective movies at the time with rule breaking cops and evil criminals without an ounce of humanity. Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry (also 1971) comes to mind, as does Death Wish (1974). Charles Bronson’s Paul Kersey didn’t carry a badge, but in a lot of ways he’s a more sympathetic character than Hackman’s Doyle.

 I’m not sure what it was about this time period, maybe the urban crime rate was high in big cities. New York, as the largest American city, was notorious for muggings, murders and all purpose felonies. The mafia ruled the city’s underworld and drug use and crime soared.

The Breakdown

William Friedkin’s The French Connection begins with 2 narcotics detectives chasing down a black heroin addict in a foot chase. Popeye Doyle is undercover as a street Santa Claus while Cloudy Russo serves hot dogs from a vendor’s cart. It’s clear that most of their time is spent roughing up junkies while hoping for larger scores. Both men go out to a disco club one night and tail an Italian café owner who they assume is a big-time dealer. Their hunch pays off, but only after they convince their captain to get the necessary warrants to wire tap the café. The heroin is coming from Marseilles on a ship, with a famous French businessman and his entourage.

The rest of the film is a chase. Either on foot or in a car, it’s cops against criminals. There isn’t a lot of detail to the plot, it’s very focused in the person of Popeye Doyle. The film is known for its riveting car chase. Doyle steals a car from a random passenger and follows the elevated train to the next stop. A sniper who tried to shoot him just minutes ago evaded him and hoped onto the train as the doors were closing. Doyle barks at the attendant for directions and tries to outrun the train to the next stop. After countless near misses and swerving onto the incoming lane he gets to the station only to see the train blow past the stop.

The Chase

The sniper held the train conductor gunpoint, forcing him to keep moving. Doyle jumps back in the car and continues his high speed, frenetic pace below the tracks. Eventually the French assassin runs out of space and Doyle shoots him. Filmed mostly from the viewpoint of the driver, it’s nerve wracking to see cars miss and oncoming traffic peal off just in time. He gets sideswiped at one point and keeps going.

The second great scene shows the wealthy drug kingpin Alain Charnier (Fernando Rey) trying to evade Doyle at the subway station. Charnier is slick where Doyle is clumsy. Realizing the police are on to him from very early on, he tricks them into following and then dumps the tail. Charnier is relaxed and stylish throughout. He dines with the wealthy in exquisite restaurants and stays in 4 star hotels. He is charming and evasive.

Popeye Doyle is messy and violent. He drinks until he falls asleep on the bar. He wears an old porkpie hat and looks as if he’s slept in his clothing. If we could smell him, he’d smell like day old bourbon. His quick and dirty nature is a perfect contrast to the sophisticated man he chases.

The French Connection doesn’t have time to develop a lot of characters around Gene Hackman’s Doyle. That makes it very similar to Dirty Harry. But what we get is a very crisp movie about a man on a mission. It doesn’t leave us with a sense of pride in the police force, but we accept his behavior because he gets results. One of the detectives complains that Doyle’s assumptions lead to good cops getting killed. Doyle takes a swing at him in a later scene. It’s a way to explain his recklessness and reinforce the image of an emotional detective who goes hard and doesn’t explain himself.

The Classics

I watched this movie for the first time probably 20 years ago. Like classic novels, I like to find out for myself what the big deal was. I’m not one who loves everything that won an Oscar (this one did) or was selected for some literary prize. But The French Connection is a fantastic movie for people who like cop movies. I like the straightforward portrayal of New York in the seventies. I like what one reviewer said, “This is a story about ugly things and awful people”. And I would add, told with excellent pacing and energy.

There is a scene that catches my eye every time. As someone with almost no flair for the camera, I don’t generally pick up on cool shots. But I love the image of Doyle leaving the bar when the sun comes up. It’s framed beautifully with the bar in the lower left corner of the screen while the Manhattan Bridge runs overhead and parallel while an opposite highway runs perpendicular. It looks like dawn. The only real light is from the electric red and green horizontal images on the tavern. The rest of the shot has a blueish grey hue suggesting another cloudy day is in store. It seems like a perfect image for the film somehow.

Living in the New Covenant: Thoughts on Healing

 

Learning of God's Goodness in Pain and Sickness

I’ve had a painful abscess on my back for a about a week now. At first I thought it was a pimple or ingrown hair. I was careful not to roll over on it while sleeping. But after a few days it started to become more painful; I went to a local clinic for some antibiotics. The doctor gave me a prescription and a phone number for a surgery center that, I guess, specializes in this kind of thing. What does that mean exactly? I’m not sure yet, but I think it’s a simple procedure to cut open the infection and drain it. The word surgeon sounds like “surgery” though. I hesitated to call, hoping the antibiotics would take care of it. They still might knock out the virus enough to cancel the procedure. The doctor was concerned that it hadn’t drained up to this point.

Clinic Trip

I set up an appointment with the surgery center for this Monday afternoon. Hopefully I’ll get there and they’ll say “It’s not necessary”. But we’ll see. I missed a lot of workouts this week. Partly because of missed sleep and partly because of the pain of moving around too much, I stayed in bed an extra hour. Today is supposed to be my big run day. I think we were slated for 12 or 14 miles. That’s not the kind of distance I can make up easy. Most people miss at least a few weeks during the training session, so I’m not too broken up about it. I won’t miss more than that though. After two consistent weeks of sleeping late, the gains you’ve made from weights and cardio start to fall off precipitously. At least it’s what I’ve been told.

A week is like a vacation, 2 weeks is a slide back to laziness. I can’t have that. Even it hurts to get up and jog I’m going to muscle up and make it happen.

Texas Trip

After going to Texas last week I picked up a cold from my brother. He was hacking and wheezing all weekend. In addition to the back pain, I’m congested and coughing. I Demand Your Pity!!! All things considered it’s not the worst cold I’ve ever had. Still, being even a little sick makes you appreciate health and fitness all the more. Maybe it takes getting older and realizing that your body isn’t going to recover like it did when you were 25. As Americans we’re more educated than ever about the food and weight loss and healthy living. But it still takes doing the unsexy thing and beefing up nutrition and some exercise.

But even the term “healthy eating” elicits groans and mental images of inedible plant food. Or maybe you imagine that ‘crunchy’ neighbor who shakes their head, disparagingly, when you fire up the grill. No one wants to be lectured about eating, or anything else. 

There has never been a country with such an amazing variety of food and drink. Prosperity is why. That’s not a criticism either, but it must be countered with personal restraint. What’s tough is not having a short cut to weight loss. I know about Ozempic and other weight loss drugs, but it’s likely that some awful side-effects are in store for long term users. If we learned nothing else about drug companies during Covid, we should’ve learned that they have no problem lying to the public about their studies.  

Garden of Eden Trip

This beautiful earth we live in is both life giving and life taking. Created by God for humans, turned over to Satan by the same humans. We have been given back authority because of the sacrificial death and resurrection of Christ. It means that sickness and disease are cursed from our bodies (Isaiah 53:5-6). We still have to contend with illness. The time of Satan’s reign is not yet up, but his power was taken away in the resurrection (Colossians 2:15).

For followers of Christ, it’s up to us to understand and reclaim our authority under the New Covenant. That means cursing illness and avoiding behavior that makes illness likely. There are countless diseases that have nothing to do with poor eating or a risky lifestyle of course. There are too many to list. But it’s within our ability to develop healthy habits and avoid much of the excesses of a prosperous society.   

 Part of life is trusting in God’s promise of healing and restoration. We must remember too that faith is built when we hear the Scripture (Romans 10:17). In the same way that Adam and Eve had responsibility for the Garden of Eden, we have a similar responsibility for our bodies. It’s important to understand that God’s will is perfect healthy bodies and sound minds for His children. But the fight to see God’s will come to pass takes faith. This is the First Principles part of Christianity and the New Covenant.

Conclusion

When you understand the nature of God of and His free gifts, you won’t blame Him for your troubles. This took years for me to understand. But “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding” (Proverbs 9:10). And so it is with healing, we learn and grow.

 

Cowtown 25

 

The Cowtown Half Marathon, or Getting Robbed by a Towing Company?

The half marathon in Fort Worth was a success.

My tentative goal was to run in just under 2 minutes. Not having run a half marathon in a few years, I didn’t know what to expect. My training this year has been all about slow running and fat adaption. I’ve written about it a few times. The gains in heart rate have been minimal, so far I’m not impressed with this zone 2 heart rate stuff. But that’s a topic for another day.

I signed up with roughly a month to train. In my experience, the 13.1 distance is very doable for most people. They might walk on the hills and struggle with the last couple of miles, but unless they’re injured they aren’t going to walk for long stretches. Training meant running at least 1 day per week at a below 9 minute pace. The trick is to stay below 9 minutes for the entirety of the race. I lost time going uphill and gained time going downhill. But the average was a cool 8:57. Talk about close.

My overall time was 1:58:44.

I’ve had too many let downs on the full marathon. I needed a successful half. I like going to Texas. My brother and his family live near Fort Worth. Every run feels like a mini vacation. It’s why I’ll probably run the Cowtown again. It’s a cold weather race in a state that’s not that cold. But even Texas, like the rest of the country, was hit by the artic blast that pushed its way down the middle part of the map. It started to lift on Friday afternoon when I drove down there with my mom. We still had snow in Tulsa when I left. On race day (Sunday) it was sunny and in the high thirties. Great jogging weather. We were fortunate. Cowtown has been canceled before because of snow. It’s a risk to start so early in the year, even in Texas.

There were close to 12,000 participants between the half and full marathons. A large race but far from the nearly 20,000 that show up for the Oklahoma City Marathon. I enjoy these big races more than the little ones. There is something about being surrounded by people in pursuit of the same goal. At least I think that’s it.

My brother Phillip and my nephew Christian came with me. I couldn’t get to my starting gate at first. The throng of people standing between the convention center and the corals, where the runners wait for the gun, was too thick to move. The committee put the port-a-johns along the convention center wall which meant lines of people waiting to use the toilet were in the way of people trying to cross them going both ways. I had to push through by inching across the mass of humanity. Finally I got close enough to the coral to hop over. Definitely not the way the organizers drew it up. I wonder how many people didn’t make their start time?

The second event of note wasn’t related to running at all. My brother had taken the car to a midway point of the race so they could get a video of me coming up the hill. I was grateful for that. It adds motivation like you can’t believe. But afterwards he found a parking spot near the finish. Unfortunately, it was in the lot of a CVS. They had a sign for towing. We walked to the lot after the race to an empty slot. Standing close to us were another pair of people that were in the same unfortunate situation. We split an Uber, over to the towing yard, with another guy who’d run the half. The bill for the trouble, a whopping $321 just to get my SUV out.

Clearly these guys were running a racket. They have a right to have cars towed from their lot of course, but the prices were absurd. It felt like they waited for these race days and large events for big paydays. They attract people from out of town who don’t know the layout of the city very well. The towing yard was tucked into a tough looking residential neighborhood. It was a just a dumpy junkyard surrounded by high sheet metal barriers and barbed wire at the top. This was sketch city. What’s more the people who worked there knew it. The pay window had iron bars and a tinted glass window with one of those bank slots for sliding cash underneath. You couldn’t see anyone behind the glass but you could hear them as they asked for ID and credit card info.

God blesses me when I trust in Him. I’m trusting that my money will come back to me in some form, because I was wronged for sure. I didn’t let that ruin my day though. I hit my target pace and had a great run. As usual after the race, my brother grilled ribeye steaks for everyone. It’s become a tradition for me, the after race dinner. I’m just glad he’s doing the grilling.  

Blogging About Snow Days Past and Future

 

Snow Day: Thoughts on Cold Weather and Education

Oklahoma, like the rest of the nation is experiencing some winter weather this week. 

Yesterday the temperature dropped, and it snowed all day. The wind increased, pushing the wind chill into the minus category. The roads became slick, snow covered and treacherous. The plows couldn’t keep up. I left work at 2 in the afternoon, as did everyone else. Today is likely a full day off for everyone. You can’t expect people to come in and work after lunch and work till 5:00. Once you’ve said don’t come in, employees assume it means all day. There was only talk of taking today off. I don’t expect to come in until tomorrow.

Northern Exposure

There may be a zoom call later with the people from work. I’ve never gotten comfortable with zoom. It’s a poor substitute for the in person work group. But in this case it’s a fitting alternative to sliding into the parking lot and putting in an hour.

It reminds me a little bit of the snow days we used to get in Illinois. The snow would drift up and cover large portions of the road. Our school was just country enough. Surrounded by empty lots and undeveloped spaces, it was in the city but with the density much closer to farmland. The school was private and small. We canceled more than most but not nearly as much as the schools here in Oklahoma. It’s understandable as the plows don’t put in as much work. I’m not sure how many they run in the city, but it’s a lot less than a northern climate city would have. Most snow is usually gone the next day after an inevitable warming. The difference is when the whole country experiences a kind of artic blast that lasts a few days or a week.

Southern Exposure

Currently we’re in the middle of such a blast. Without looking it up, I’m fairly certain the last 10 years or so have seen colder days on average. We seem to be in a cycle of these artic blasts or “vortexes” that didn’t occur when I first moved here. I’ve seen more single digit cold days in Oklahoma than I thought possible.

That didn’t happen much my first 5 years here. On one other occasion we had a massive blizzard that shut down the city for a whole week. That was 2011, February. A freakish one off as I remember. I had been living in my current home for just over a year. It’s the first time I’d experienced cabin fever. My brother was here too. There’s only so many movies you can watch. We made a few trips to the grocery store by walking through knee deep snow. That was real work. We grabbed a few DVDs at the Redbox and chalked it up to needed exercise. We were bored enough where it felt necessary. And the grocery store stayed open which was the biggest surprise.

One major difference between the upper Midwest and Oklahoma is the lack of plowing that happens of the neighborhood roads. I don’t mean the suburban areas. I live in the city; I’ve never had my roads plowed. But it’s a short 200 yards or so to the main city street. It’s not a complaint, there just aren’t the resources available to send large plows through the neighborhoods. It’s not usually necessary anyway. Schools cancel at the very suggestion of snow, ice or extreme cold. We always laugh about how little school these kids attend. Distance learning is the culprit. Most of them have zoom classes if the district cancels. The Covid years changed a lot of this and I’ll think we’ll regret how damaging it was for learning.

National Exposure

Nearly all measures on education show a dismal picture of learning. Test scores are a disaster. Previous benchmarks of literacy are collapsing in all age groups. This is a blog topic for another day, but our reliance on distance learning is largely to blame in my opinion. Covid shows the learning falling off a cliff. Most states did away with the SAT requirements, in 2020, for entrance into college. When the kids suffer we all suffer.

I’m far from an expert on education, but we’re in a time of tearing down old systems and exposing tax funded failures. I’m optimistic that the exposure of federal waste (DOGE) will inspire reformers to restart critical thinking across this country. Ideas that redirect money away from government schools in the form of vouchers are a good start. Much of the education establishment exists to feed the teacher unions and by extension, support damaging philosophies like DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion).

I’m optimistic about the future. There is an Iron will, for once, to show all the corruption we’ve just assumed is part of doing business in Washington DC. Real reform should follow real exposure. Maybe in 10 years we won’t worry as much about a few snow days that shut down the school. The principles of education will be sound enough to withstand a rough winter.

Conclusion

I’m OK with missing a few days here and there of work or church or whichever social event gets canceled because of the weather. We all need a break in the routine once in a while. A quite morning with nothing on the agenda and a full pot of coffee is a bit like heaven on earth. When the off-day comes as a surprise, it’s even better. I can think of a few ways to spend it that don’t include sleeping 12 hours. Catching up on my blog posts, now there’s a thought.

 

The Upcoming Cowtown Race

 

Final Prep Week Before the Half Marathon: Cowtown in February

I ran an extra 4 miles yesterday morning. 

The regular route called for 10 miles. Ever since my slower running trend, 10 miles has started to much easier. I’ve learned that if I feel good after the initial run, it’s best to try for extra. Some weeks you aren’t able to get all your miles in. Adding extra on Saturday is a good way to bulk up the totals on a slow week. Not to mention, I run at around 11 minutes and want to feel what a harder pace is like. I normally run at a harder pace on at least one day. I’m used to it. But I’ve never run hard after a slow start.

I did 4 miles at around 9:35 per mile. It’s useful for dealing with exhaustion at the half marathon distance.

My reasoning being, I have a race next weekend. I’m going to run in the Cowtown Marathon in Fort Worth, Texas. I haven’t trained for that race for at least 3 years. It was basically my introduction to big races. I’d never seen a race on that scale. I’d done a few 5K races and even a small half marathon in Missouri. Those were useful for the experience and distance, but the size made them feel more amateurish. My brother, who lives in Fort Worth, drove me to the Will Rogers Memorial Center on that blustery Sunday morning. The temperature was in the low 30s. That’s not as cold as it seemed at the time. I’ve run in much colder temps since then, but at the time it felt impossible. 

We started in groups to avoid tripping over others along the way. The organizers set up race stalls based on either your time or when you signed up. Each stall is released every few minutes. One of the unique things about the Oklahoma City Memorial race is the All Start. That’s not an official phrase but it sounds good. I’ve heard that elite runners hate it. 20,000 people all taking off at the same time can be a disaster unless you’re near the front. The fast guys usually are, so it’s kind of a moot point. Also, you’d think a marathon in February would be risky in every U.S. city except Miami. Texas is certainly a better option than Michigan, but cold and snow still threaten to shut it down.

 A woman in my group signed up for this very race a few years ago. It was canceled because of a snow storm. It does happen.

Half marathons don’t require the same kind of training as the full. For one thing you run much faster for the half. Maintaining a pace is tough for all the usual reasons, exhaustion and cramping. Not to mention, if you don’t run fast often enough you won’t know when to slow down. Calories don’t come into play like they do for the marathon either. I don’t need to cram in a lot of food or GU gels for the half. One is enough. You could almost get the impression that a half marathon is an easy challenge. It’s not, but it’s also not the grueling exercise of that a whole 26.2 miles can be.

Finally, I remember how much fun I had at Cowtown. It’s on a Sunday. The route goes past a few churches which have a band outside playing as you zip past. Neighborhood communities line the streets as people hold funny signs and high five you as you run by. The old Stockyards area is full of music too. Bar tenders hold trays of whisky shots for those who prefer an eye opener to a Gatorade. And no, I’m not one of them. On second thought, it does get chilly in the morning. Maybe a whisky fireball isn’t the worst idea.

But the biggest difference between the two types of distances is the fun. The half is doable for most people and manages to be fun without being too exhausting. I’m glad I started with this distance. I’ll have a follow up blog after the race too. I’d like to finish in 2 hours. I won’t be broken up if I’m a little slower than that. I’ve been running closer to 11:00 minutes per mile these days anyway. But I’m shooting for 2 hours or just under this time. Having family there to cheer me on is the real win. For now I'm praying for good weather. 

 

 

 

 

Trump 2.0 and the Blitzkrieg Campaign

 

The Trump Administration's Quick Moving Attack is Keeping the Press Off Balance

The word Blitzkrieg, lightning war, describes the attack from the Trump administration on the media. By moving fast and throwing a lot of information at them, they can’t focus their artillery. Not only is the administration moving fast and tearing down corrupt institutions like USAID, they’re doing it on multiple fronts.

 I recognize the connection of the word to the German military from World War II, and I’m careful with applying it. But as a tactic of warfare it’s genius. The Trump administration knows its enemies are largely in media. Remember the ‘kids in cages’ nonsense from the first administration? You have to separate children from adults at the border. It’s necessary to protect the kids. Until you can verify that the child is related to the adult, it’s irresponsible not to. Trump and co were blindsided by the media attack. It didn’t matter that the Obama administration used the same ‘cages’.

On Trump 2.0

In too many ways, Trump 1.0 wasn’t ready for the onslaught. I believe he really expected to change the minds of people of the Left by growing the economy and keeping the country safe. I’m not making excuses for his lack of success at the border. He accomplished far more by making it a priority, but he was hampered by a powerful deep state. His Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, was openly hostile. His AG, Jeff Sessions, checked out once the Russian collusion scam began. The useless Jim Mattis was more aligned with the swamp than the American people. He didn’t even want to keep transgender soldiers out of the Army. General Milly was even worse. He publicly apologized for the president’s photo op with a Bible, after the church was nearly set alight by rioters.

On The Team

The ones that stayed with him through the lean years have learned a few tricks. Move fast and don’t explain. Trump 2.0 was thwarted by a fraudulent election. Their plans for the second term would have to wait. Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro spend time in prison for a few months because they wouldn’t testify before congress. President’s can classify documents about their time in office. Trump had classified some papers (Executive Privilege) related to January 6^th. Both men would’ve broken the law by revealing that information to congress. Stephen Miller is back, as is Dan Scavino and Charlie Kirk. It was obvious on day 1 that this was going to be a fast moving attack. After the flurry of Executive Orders, he started talking up Panama and the canal. Not to mention Greenland and the Gaza strip, both of which he’s threatened to take.

On Foreign Policy

In all of these cases, Trump’s goals are probably more muted. He wants China out of Latin America and Russia out of Greenland. Is he prepared to take back the canal and buy Greenland? Possibly, but if all he gets is a new deal where the US essentially manages the canal it might be enough. Talking like this puts people on the defensive and softens them up to make deals. Marco Rubio is pushing Trump’s agenda through the Secretary of State’s office. That’s huge. The State Department is usually the first to tell the president why he can’t do something.  

Greenland isn’t for sale but the Danes, the official owners, have sent additional troops there for security. And they're rounding up support from the European countries to resist Trump. Both Greenland and Panama are perfect examples of areas that weren’t even mentioned in the campaign. But right after he is elected, it’s a race to get these items in the news and propose takeovers. After taking his oath, it’s like someone fired a starter pistol and the race to take back America was on.

On Immigration

Border Czar Tom Homan is on TV practically everyday. He’s become a play by play announcer on immigration raids and deportations. This is strategic as well. Let people know directly from the Czar what’s going on with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). Show criminals being cuffed and tossed into a van. Detail their crimes and talk about where they’ve been hiding out. Let everyone know the Democrats are responsible for this because they don’t care. Do it every single day and the press won’t be able to keep up with the amount of information. Instead of trying to explain away ‘kids in cages’ they’re creating their own news and speaking directly to the American people.

On Tariffs

I never thought the threat of tariffs on Canada and Mexico were real. Not that he wouldn’t do it, but that Trump was more concerned with protecting the borders. He wanted a concrete commitment from them to put the military and law enforcement at the borders and shut down illegal traffic. It’s not just illegal aliens, but fentanyl from China. Thankfully that’s what happened. Canada and Mexico remain are biggest trading partners. I’m hopeful that this will put a massive dent in the cartels as well.

Conclusion

In keeping with the Blitzkrieg tactic, the administration isn’t wasting time explaining much either. Elon Musk’s DODGE rehired Marko Elez after some of his racist social media posts came to light. He tried to resign but the Vice President supported rehiring him and basically said, we all make mistakes. The press would love to take a week on this but they can’t. The administration has already moved on to something else. I expect to see a lot more of this tactic on the media. Move fast, create flash news and speak directly to the American people.

Michael Connelly "The Waiting": book review

 

"The Waiting" Introduces New Characters and Solves Historic Murders

I read the Michael Connelly’s most recent book “The Waiting” over the last week.

It features Renee Ballard, the surfer detective with an unfinished backstory about her life in Hawaii. This is the 6th addition with this character if my counting is right. If you’re new to the series, Renee was a tough detective that worked the overnight shift until she came across Harry Bosch while researching a case. In the first book she sued a high ranking official for sexual harassment. Her relationship with the department is frosty to say the least. Harry’s primary role in these new books is researcher and undercover investigator. He knows a lot of old cop tricks and finds a way to keep her away from any departmental blowback. Not to mention, showing her how to maneuver around legal roadblocks.

They’ve both settled into a comfortable arrangement. Ballard heads up the Open Unsolved Unit and uses Bosch when she thinks the department may not approve of her decisions. Think of the Open Unsolved Unit as a library of cold case files that Renee’s crew works from. She has a handful of volunteers that dig up old addresses and social security numbers to connect murderers to deaths. “The Waiting” gets its name from the Tom Petty song of the same title. As the lyric goes, “The waiting is the hardest part”. It sums up police work. Whether waiting for the results of an autopsy or a stakeout, it’s both tense and boring at the same time.

Renee goes surfing and has her badge and gun stolen from her car while in the water. She can’t report it missing or she’ll lose the ability to run the cold case unit. She’s made a lot of enemies since leaving the LAPD. Some of the higher ups would love to kill the unit altogether. She calls Harry for help. The trick is to get her badge back from the thieves while keeping the loss a secret until they can locate it. Another new piece to this story is the addition of Maddie Bosch, Harry’s daughter. She needs access to the Open Unsolved Unit because of some information she ran across on one of her cases. It just happens to be one of Los Angeles's most notorious homicides, the Black Dahlia murder.

I’m not sure if this is the first book that has Maddie as a cop. It feels like she was written in a few books ago, but I must have missed it. To me she’s always Harry’s kid, away at college or visiting her mom. But she knows Renee Ballard from all the times spent working with Harry finding a murderer. It makes me think she’s going to be another regular character with her own case load and missing person’s. Most of the fan reviews about this book were positive. But across the board, people want more Harry Bosch out of these stories. Readers complained that he didn’t have a large part to play. Although true, it’s not a Bosch novel. It does make me wonder if author Michael Connelly wants to write Renee Ballard as a stand alone character with only occasional references to Harry Bosch. Bosch is still the reader’s choice though.

I think we can expect to see Renee’s mother make an appearance in the series as well. She is alluded to a few times via Renee’s visits with her therapist. So there’s another possible link to Hawaii and her past. Connelly’s a wonderful writer who could probably be a detective himself. The city must give him a lot of access to records and police files in order to put such compelling stories together. I don’t mean they’re all true, but the process and politics feel very real. He had to stop writing his latest book in order to incorporate the recent fires into the narrative. I feel like I know Los Angeles a little better every time I read a Michael Connelly book.