Applause all around

I’m just going to come out and say it:  Columbia University should be applauded.

 

They did the right thing.

 

Huh?  Yea, I said it.

 

The worst thing in the world is to take these crazies and lock them in a little dusty hole so that nobody can hear how crazy they are.  The best thing to do to bad ideas and ignorant world views is put them on the grandest stage possible so that they collapse under the weight of their own silliness.

 

Nothing is better than an audience laughing at a seemingly serious assertion.

 

Besides, for all the talk about “talking to our enemies” there sure isn’t a lot of talk about listening to them.

 

Put crazy out there, front and center.  The more rope you give them, etcetera etcetera.

 

Give Ahmedinijad a talk show.  It did wonders for Rosie’s reputation.  Eventually nuts like that will call American soldiers terrorists.

 

Congrats to the president of Columbia University, and congrats to the students of Columbia who aren’t as stupid as everyone is presuming.  You know a nut for a nut and you’re not so weak minded as to be influenced like everybody seems to think will happen when the Iranian president talks… you get the feeling that the expectation was the folks in the auditorium would be picking up explosive belts on the way out.  We’re just not that dumb.

 

If we are a nation that truly believes in the freedom to express yourself, and the freedom to bear the responsibility for that expression, then there would be more people applauding that invitation. 

 

Maybe we can get Hugo Chavez next?  That guy’s a riot!

One shot

Everyone’s running playlist includes Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” and Kid Rock’s “Bawitdaba”.

 

What fills out the other 25 to 55 minutes?

OUT OUT OUT OUT!!!!

I WISH YOU PEOPLE WOULD GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!!!  It’s been, what, almost 2 years now since the marathon?

 

Ok, so I’ve made no secret of the fact that I hate running.  It’s up there in the name of this blog.  I hate it.  Seriously.  It wrecks my body and it’s just plain no fun.

 

But I love finishing.  It’s quite the euphoric feeling.

 

And occasionally a good, long, run still infiltrates my dreams.

 

Last night the only thing I remember dreaming was me, on a black top trail, through some wooded country side, with a wooden fence on my left, and the leaves turning an autumny brown in the background.

That’s it… and I was just running.  All night.

I had my grey shorts, Asics shoes—the ones with blue trim that go fast—and I was just taking a leisurely run.

 

And here’s why I know it wasn’t at all real... I was smiling.

 

A nice, easy, relaxing run just doesn’t exist in my world.  Some of you may be able to take nice, easy, relaxing runs, but not me.  Running is an arduous, plodding, slow process.  And with each additional pound it’s a more arduous, slow, and plodding process.

 

The greatest tragedy of dreams like these is that they make me momentarily forget what an agonizing process training for a long run is for me.  It’s like those commercials with good looking and active young people out in the wilderness having fun and you’re thinking “I want to be those people, because they’re clearly having a wonderful time; whatever are they selling” then he turns to the camera and says “I have herpes” and she says “and I don’t, and that’s how we’re going to keep it” and you go screaming from the room looking for some bleach to pour into your eyes and hot pokers to jam into your ears to get the memory to go away.

 

Yea.  That’s what these dreams are like.  Because I start thinking “that guy is having a wonderful time out there” then the memory of actually sweating 5lbs of salt and water out of my skin and the plodding and the breathlessness and the numbness and the UUUGGGHHH comes crashing back to me and I go running for the bleach.

 

But then I remember finishing.

 

Finishing is sweet.

 

Finishing is oh, so, very, sweet.

 

Into the valley of heroes, down the final stretch of Texas Avenue…  the twos and twos of people still standing around the finish line…  cheering…  for me…

 

Or even that left turn in the Woodlands that comes right before the final stretch to the finish line, where it rises just a little as it curves to the right around the bend and the trees block the group of folks who haven’t wandered to the parking lot to wait for us to finish, and you get your one, last chance to pass the person you’ve been slowly reeling in for the last five minutes, and they see you pumping just a little harder as you catch that wittle wabbit and speed up toward the line…

 

And the crowd…

 

Goes…

 

Wild.

 

Yea, I still smile a little.  But I still hate running.

News on 11 this AM

I’ve said before how much I love local news readers.

Our own local news reader who’s name rhymes with Sebra Suncan was reading a story to us this morning about a popular lake in Texas where swimmers are getting ill.

2 swimmers have gotten ill at this lake after swimming.

It’s a popular lake in Texas.

It has doctors worried.

 

Guess what lake it is.

 

Go ahead, guess.

 

No, I’m not going to tell you what lake it was, because they didn’t bother to relay that information while reading the story for us this morning.

 

It’s just a popular lake.

 

In Texas.

 

Where you might get sick (and, we must hastily and without merit conclude, die).

 

But you have to guess, because they won’t tell you which lake.

 

Sigh.