Books Lying Open
¤ Dark Tower VII, Stephen King
¤ The Dilbert Principle, Scott Adams
¤ Middlesex, Jeffery Eugenides

Soul-Devouring Worry:
¤ Mystery back pain.

Answer of the Day:
¤ Because ice cream is made to be eaten.

Curse of the Day:
¤ May your exercise prove vexing.

don't know how long distance runners do it.  I'm in good shape, I can run, or at least walk quickly) up hella-steep hills, I lift weights and do lots of situps and even take martial arts classes.  But I'll be damned if I can run at an even pace for more than a couple of miles. I either get a crippling sidecramp, run too fast and fall short of breath, or my legs start to feel so watery I'm afraid I'll fall down.

Early this year, before I sprained my knee and lost a month of exercise, I was working up to doing regular laps around the Lafayette Reservoir. It's 2.7 miles, paved, and consistently hilly, though none of the hills are exactly Mt. Everest. But I was doing it pretty well, until my knee got sprained, and when I returned I developed shin splints almost immediately (perhaps because I was running with poor form to avoid putting so much pressure on my knee). So for the past few months I've been doing shorter/more intense runs up and down very steep half mile hills, and those are pretty good for a cardio workout and working up a steady sweat, but they don't seem to do much for my long distance capability.

I know this because on Tuesday I got out earlier than usual, felt pretty good, and decided to do the entire outer rim, which is about 6 miles. Which is about twice as far as I usually go, though it's never anywhere near as steep as my usual hill.  Anyway, I was pretty good for about 4 miles, but when I got to the home stretch, which is almost entirely uphill or flat, I was lagging. Walking on the flat, trudging on the hills, and barely mustering the energy to trot down the few downslopes.

So as I said, I don't know how long distance runners do it. Are they just on the verge of exhausting the whole time but know that they can fight through that shit and that it's an illusion of their body? Or are they really in such better shape than I am that they can keep going for 10 and 15 and 20 miles without needing to stop and rest? I seem to recall, months ago when I was doing more jogging on flat, that I had a pretty good breathing technique down and wasn't getting sidecramps at all, once I was warmed up. If I did indeed have that ability, I've lost it, since I got at least 3 of them yesterday, in different places, and they kept returning no matter deeply I tried to breath and how completely I tried to exhale.

The real problem is that while I ran further, I didn't feel like I got a better workout. I never got as sweaty as I do on my usual shorter hike, and while my legs were tired all the time, I didn't feel as tired an hour later as I usually do. I'd like to be better though, and while I don't really feel like I can get all that much better at my current hill climb, I can greatly improve at the longer run. So I might try it again from time to time, perhaps as soon as Friday, since I won't be running at all Wednesday and Thursday, due to martial arts class both nights. (Double stick seminar Wednesday night, which I'm really looking forward to. Handling one stick is fun, but two at once looks like a blast.)

  ¤ There's a new Phrase of the Moment, and the PotM archive page has been updated with this one and the last one.

  ¤ There's also a new My First Time entry, and it's definitely the shortest one ever.

  ¤ Comments on the little novel excerpt I posted last time were scarce, but I was amused by this one, from Alan.

I've been reading your site for about a year now. It's always appreciated, even when (rarely) I disagree with you. I just read today's (Oct 11) update and had to say the writing on the excerpt from your novel is excellent. Thanks for the many hours I would otherwise have spent productively.

His last line is funny, but really, isn't that the highest praise a blogger can aspire to?  And thus a new main page title is born...

  ¤ Team America: World Police is opening this weekend, and while I'm not sure it'll be any good, I can't help wanting to see it, primarily because it's a product from the twisted minds of Matt Stone and Trey Parker, AKA the guys who do South Park.  If you've not heard of it, it's hard to describe, but it's an action movie that's a satire of the typical overblown Bruckheimer type film, acted entirely by marionettes on strings. Every set is a tiny little model, every explosion is real and right on top of the puppets, the plays fly with strings holding them up over the water, etc. Watch the trailer to get an idea of what it looks like.

I was curious about it, but not ready to actually make the leap until I saw some reviews. Yes, Matt and Trey are occasionally brilliant in their jokes and satire, but can they sustain it through 90 minutes of action film? With puppets?  Apparently so.

Right now it's at 66% positive on RT, but with only 11 reviews in there's no point in taking that too seriously.  The ones who like it though, really, really like it.

There's no overstating how funny TEAM AMERICA is. Laugh 'til you cry funny. Laugh and immediately feel guilty and laugh again funny. Or, as the Team would put it "Sweet Jesus Tittyfucking Christ" funny. Marionettes in a send-up of Jerry Bruckheimer by the creators of South Park funny.

The ones who don't like it think too many of the jokes fall flat, which is, of course, the risk with any comedy. Especially one that pushes the edges of so many envelopes. I'm looking forward to seeing it, anyway. And not just because we got a free movie pass for two in the mail.

The reviews from non-critics are much more positive. Glowingly so. Here's a whole batch of them on AICN, and everyone seems to love it. They're also very full of spoilers, so if you want to save some surprises, read sparingly.

In short, it's an awesome experience, one the most distinct films you're ever likely to see. It may be the funniest movie of the year, and certainly one of the most satirical.

Parker and Stone don't stray that far from their usual motifs (thankfully); this would probably work as an episode of South Park, puppets notwithstanding. I could even see it as a live action movie, although the entertainment factor wouldn't be as great. The puppets, which could have been (and to an extent, are) a gimmick, don't get old, and add to the movie greatly.

Another one:

Anyone who's been waiting to laugh their ass off like they did at "South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut" has something big to look forward to -- except maybe for Sean Penn, who's already pissed off at his portrayal here and is behaving like the crybaby F.A.G. that he is. This movie is absolute giddy, hysterical fun from beginning to end.

It's amazing how well it skewers each and every one of its targets and manages to weave so many briliant ideas and concepts into a cohesive storyline. No one is left unscathed, particularly liberal Hollywood. I can't wait to hear what the Alec Baldwins, Susan Sarandons, Tim Robbins and others have to say about their portrayals here. And who could guess that a movie starring marionettes could be perhaps the the most sexually explicit non-NC-17, non-X-rated film ever released by a Hollywood studio?

We'll probably see it this weekend, so expect a review Monday! (Well, Monday-ish, given my recent review history.)

In 2000, Bush painted Al Gore as a flip-flopper whenever possible. Voters, he declared, "don't want flip-floppers as president of the United States." Rather than dispute Gore's positions, he derided them as incoherent...

The last candidate as opportunistic and unprincipled as Gore was Bill Clinton. In 1992, George H.W. Bush's campaign ran advertisements assailing Clinton's contradictions...

There are two possible interpretations of this history. The first is that the Democratic Party, characterologically speaking, has had an astonishing run of bad luck. For four straight presidential elections, it has put forth nominees of such dismal personal integrity that they have been identified in the public mind largely by their prevarication and flip-floppery. This is the interpretation you'd reach if you believed the Sunday morning talking heads, the Republicans and their allied pundits, and the late-night comics. 

That would make for quite a coincidence. So let us consider a second interpretation: There is nothing particularly dodgy about Kerry or the previous two Democratic nominees. Their inevitable portrayal as flip-floppers instead reflects larger structural forces in our political system that would result in almost any Democratic nominee acquiring a similar reputation. And the way we understand "character" in presidential elections tells us very little about the true character of the people who would be president. 

The article suggests that after Clinton went centrist and stole a number of traditionally Republican issues, the GoP had nothing to campaign on, since the issues Democrats stand for (at least in the public opinion) are all more popular than those the Republicans embrace. So their solution was to stop running on issues and try to turn the presidential race into a character issue. It never quite worked against Clinton, but it did against Gore, and it's keeping Bush neck and neck in the race against Kerry, which is quite an achievement when you consider events of the past four years that would normally be enough to bury a sitting president.

Bush's campaign provides a list of 37 Kerry flip-flops. Of these, six appear to be legitimate reversals. Some of them clearly reflect an attempt to abandon a politically unpopular stance...

The liberal Center for American Progress has compiled a list of what it calls 30 Bush flip-flops. Of these, 13 are indisputable reversals. For instance, when running for Congress in 1978, Bush favored abortion rights, then later he flipped. He opposed the McCain-Feingold Act but later signed it. Bush insisted on holding a final vote on going to war at the U.N. Security Council in early 2003--"No matter what the whip count is, we're calling for the vote"--but dropped plans to do so. Bush opposed the creation of a Department of Homeland Security before embracing the idea. He did the same on creating an outside commission to investigate WMD intelligence failures. In turn, he opposed creating the 9/11 Commission, opposed allowing it a time extension to finish its work, opposed allowing Condoleezza Rice to testify, and insisted on limiting his testimony to one hour before eventually abandoning each impediment. 

You could debate which man has flip-flopped more. But one thing is clear: If a stranger unfamiliar with the campaign examined the two men's records, he would never conclude that Kerry is a serial flip-flopper and Bush is the embodiment of consistency. 

So how do impressions and mis-impressions of candidates take root? Blame the media, as always.

One of the curiosities of political journalism is that reporters tend to be assiduously even-handed about matters of policy (which can revolve around disputes over objective fact) but ruthlessly judgmental on questions of character (which are inherently subjective). In fact, most reporters don't know or care much about policy. They see politics primarily through the lens of the candidates' personal traits. Journalism fixture Jack Germond gives voice to this ethos when he writes, in Fat Man Fed Up, "[T]he only hope for better politics lies in the possibility of better people who can command the public's attention and win on the force of their personalities and the quality of their service." 

Read the whole article for much more detail.