Cut out from under him

Pistorius in court. (www.npr.org)

Oscar Pistorius, the Blade Runner, was charged with the murder of his girlfriend. This no legged Olympic sprinter, a man that made us question everything, especially what we were doing with our lives, has fallen from his pedestal to crumble in tears in a South African court room.

We are reminded that those elevated by their actions -- and their sponsors -- to the top of our awareness are just humans, and in some cases really horrible humans. 

The Wall Street Journal has a fascinating article on Nike's endorsement of Pistorius. It may seem strange that Nike, a shoe company, would sign this man.  However it fits perfectly into the company's model.  Nike signed Jordan before he was a proven commodity, Woods before the company made golf products, and Armstrong without any cycling gear, explains the Journal's Matthew Futterman, because each of these athletes represent something more than being elite; they embody the story of overcoming.

We need a lot more than love

This morning as many of us on the West Coast were getting ready for work, the cheery December morning shows were interrupted shattering our normalcy.  Mocktail recipes were cut short to blast images of SWAT teams rushing into an elementary school and lackluster journalist reports telling us that many children were killed in a small town in Connecticut.

At this hour 20 children, six adults and the shooter have been pronounced dead in Sandy Hook Elementary School.  Kids were shot in two classrooms. Classrooms. At school. 

In the aftermath of today's horrific events we need a hell of a lot more than love.

Sorry, we need more. (source)

Pictures of hugging and smiling children don't stop another Sandy Hook.  They don't save the lives of the children who will be killed in the next school shooting, because we know there will be another one.  Prayers will not do anything to stop a person from legally purchasing an automatic weapon, thousands of rounds of ammunition, and pulling the trigger. Tweets and Facebook posts will not provide mental healthcare services to those who need them.

No in fact the only thing those things will do is make you feel better for not getting killed today.

So here are a few things you can do that might help.

Call the President and demand he send a bill to Congress.  Fiscal Cliff or not, dead children should be enough to make him act.

Call Congress and tell them to get their act together. They must support and improve access to mental healthcare and pass a comprehensive assault weapons ban. Again, dead kids motivate people.

If you are in D.C. join my friend Adam Barr and thousands of others tonight at the White House to demand action because #TodayIsTheDay to end gun violence.

 Make a donation. 

There is no explanation that we can give for a massacre of children. All Americans are responsible for this one.  Let this be the last day we place our hands over our mouths and watch the unimaginable play out on the news.

Thanksgiving

I love Thanksgiving. It speaks to my social and religious world view. It is a forces slow-down to be grateful and to acknowledge what you got. 

Like every year, this year other stuff is happening making it hard to be comfortable with being able to be Thankful. 

Gaza is Burning, Israelis are Running
While I stay far away from the blame game, it is clear that both sides have skin in this game. Israel shouldn't launch a ground offensive.  Hamas should stop lobbing rockets towards civilians.  The world should see this for the extremely complicated and convoluted situation it is and stop placing all the blame on one group. Ach.  Anyway, it is hard to be all happy happy joy joy when I have friends in harm's way and others digging out their boots and greens.

Remember that Storm that we Forgot About?
Yup people still don't have power and such.  Kids are still out of school.  Pets are still unclaimed. Sandy's impact won't be fully calculated until Q3 of next year.  That is nuts. We are talking BILLIONS and BILLIONS in damage but we should get back to talking about idiots waiting in line for Black Friday deals.

Complicated Number Things
Yeah the Fiscal Cliff is also getting me down. It could be the end of the world as we know it or other such doom's day things.

But, we get to eat pie.  So that is great. 

The 2012 New York City Marathon - Race Recap

Today at about 2:15pm I looked at the clock and said, "I would have been crossing the finish line now."  I was sitting with friends, some who had no power just a day ago, others who have yet to hear from co-workers, others who were spared Sandy's wrath.  I wore my marathon shirt.  But this day was about 72 hours in the making. Well more like four months in the making but that is a different story.

I made no bones about my issues with holding this race. I was relieved when it was canceled. But that doesn't mean I wasn't disappointed.  I am trying to wrap my head around the entire weekend of events but I am having some serious trouble with it right now.  But this is what I am thinking now.

Friday
After picking up my bib and other stuff, with thousands of others, we came back to our apartment to do some work and relax a bit. The Twitter rumor mill was rumbling and it was a matter of hours until the race was canceled.

The SFRRC was slammed with media requests and I fielded a number of them. I was "a lot mad" at the mayor for his late game move but it was the right choice to make. However, he should have made it on Tuesday.

 

The interviews, one from the NY Daily News and one with the SF Chronicle, both stressed runners' frustration with Mayor Bloomberg for not making the obvious call earlier.  People around the city and on the social medias were talking about conspiracies about getting the people to the city to salvage as much economic benefit from the marathon as possible.  I have a hard time believing that but I can't say it didn't cross my mind.

We went to services on Friday night at our old congregation and ordered in Thai food for dinner, so I could be at home for the interviews.  And while it is hard to say when so many are out in the cold, Friday was the first good night of sleep I had since the storm.

Saturday
In that I am still running another marathon this season, I set my alarm to get up and run but that did not happen. After checking in with the volunteer activities list from my State Senator, I saw that there was no longer a need for just walking up stairs but for people with cars, we left and got out to Brooklyn to check in on friends and spend some quality time with them and their baby.

Blog, this is Ruthie. You met last time we were in NYC. She is bigger now.

We exchanged some stories about the storm and were pissed at the Mayor together.  Walking around their neighborhood, you would have a hard time believing that just a few miles away entire sections of the city were destroyed.  It was surreal.

After a nice day, we took the train/shuttle bus home.  Again, it was like nothing was wrong and that was strange.  I came home and made a donation to a friend who is doing some grassroots work to get stuff into the hands of those who need it.  If you want more info, let me know.  She is trying to keep it small so it can be effective.  I do have to say it made me feel a bit better.  I do hope to help organize some "next week" relief efforts through our Synagogue and running club in San Francisco.

Marathon Sunday
The weather was perfect today. Cold. Crisp. Sunny. A perfect day for a marathon.  I went out to get in 17 miles for the CIM training and was joined by at least 10, 000 runners in the park.  It was strange.  I had a little trouble with it all but it was very powerful to see all those people out there getting something out of their trip.  Many, many runners joined a relief run, where they collected goods and cash for the worst hit areas.  But most were international runners who were just out for a run in their marathon gear.

This doesn't do it justice. (via Catie Becker)

My buddy Steve and I ran the last nine or so miles of the course together and met up with another guy in from out of town for the race.  The three of us went up First Ave into the Bronx.  We ended up flying along the course at about race pace.  I got to run my 5th Ave hill and got to the finish line.  It wasn't the finish I wanted but it did just fine under the circumstances.

Thanks to a nice Canadian,  I have this finish photo.

People in the park were excited, disappointed, and understanding. 

Parting Thoughts

• I don't know how to feel.  I wanted to get my hands dirty and help but I didn't. I feel a bit guilty about that.  But I know that I would have been in the way for much of it and I know what most people need right now is money.  I have done some of this disaster relief in the past and honestly right now, hands on the ground can just be an additional burden. This knowledge doesn't make me feel any less guilty.
  
• Mayor Bloomberg really screwed up here and the NYRR should have canceled this race with or without the Mayor.  In light of pushing off the cancellation, the organization should have written a better explanation, something like this would have been better.  
  
• Not living in this city and being here this weekend made me feel like a disaster tourist. I believe that is part of the reason why I didn't volunteer during this trip. Perhaps next time we are here we will do something, you know when everyone has forgotten about Staten Island, Stony Point, The Rockaways and Red Hook.
  
• Nearly 100 people died earlier this week in this city and many more throughout the region. Ten thousand or so runners were celebrating in Central Park today. It is a hard thing to get your head around these things.  But as our rabbi noted at services on Friday night, even in the face of such unimaginable tragedy, we still celebrate.  We did get to see loved ones. Babies and wish congratulations to expecting parents personally and open our (empty) apartment to friends. And thousands of runners did help out today and thousands of others celebrated their own accomplishments.
  
• My automatic bid for the 2013 New York City Marathon may go unused. 

I still have no idea what to make of this trip and the race that thankfully was not.

Book Report: Beasts of No Nation

Remember that time I was going to read something that was both not depressing and not about Africa.  Oops.

Beasts of no Nation is a powerful and disgusting view into the lives child soldiers. The author, who was born in the U.S. but spent significant amounts of time with his family in Nigeria, opens the door to a world that anyone reading this book will have trouble imagining. This was Iweala's first novel and it reads painfully true.  War is awful and kids should not have to deal with it at this level.

This book is critically acclaimed and deservedly so. Ever so often there would be an allusion or point of clarity that was so beyond our narrator but always within his voice. Without giving too much away I was pleased that the fictitious ending was both true to history at the same time that it provided a glimmer of hope.

Read this book.

5 out of 5 stars.

Nazis are still bad

Golden Dawn MP Ilias Panagiotaros
(No Head Tattoo in Real Life)

Over the past few years there has been an alarming increase in the power far right wing political parties, especially in Eastern and Southern Europe.  Quietly, they have amassed power and influence.  Now we all know that Nazis were bad and we probably don't want them ruling parts of Europe again.  So I am puzzled why more people aren't pissed off about the rise of the Golden Dawn in Greece and Jobbik in Hungry, among others.

It is not really surprising that the inflation that is killing these poorer nations is being inflicted by the stronger Northern and Western European powers and that this economic shift came before the real power surge for these right wing groups. For those of you not getting my less-than-subtle histo-economic reference, I point you to the Great War Reparations that were levied upon Weimar Germany.  In short, Germany, loser of the First World War, got hosed in the post war deal making room.  It lead to technical hyper-inflation, where burning currency to stay warm was more efficient than paying for heat with the same paper notes.

Now, we have the European Central Bank and the IMF and others pushing Greece and others to make HUGE cuts to social services.  So why not blame the Jews and the Muslims and the Gypsies and the immigrants who are taking up the share of social services that belong to real Greeks/Hungarians/others?  It has worked before, so why change?  No good reason I can see...

The Business Insider has been reporting on this issue for a while and the New York Times has a few articles on the issue. With the U.S. Presidential election completely into allegations of Big-Bird-a-cide odds are we aren't going to hear much about this from Obama or Romney.  This is sort of surprising since the European economic recovery, which will be hampered by the return of Facism, is pretty central to the U.S. economic recovery.

Surprisingly it hasn't really made the rounds in the Jewish community.  You might think Jews would be a bit less pleased with Nazis in new clothing roaming around the birthplace of Democracy.

But not so much.

This has me worried.

Book Report: Zeitoun

There is some really nasty stuff that happens in this country, and Zeitoun is the perfect example of this nasty stuff.

Set in the days leading-up to, during, and the months after Hurricane Katrina, this book follows the lives of the Zeitoun family as they deal with the city they loved under water, the business they built, and the strange after shocks of the Patriot Act.

As with all Eggers' books, this is beautifully written and provides a glimpse of reality that is just so close to unbelievable that it hurts to read.  However, I got home after work yesterday and read 100 pages before I went to workout and finished the next 150 after going to bed.

Abdulrahman Zeitoun (pronounced Zay-toon), a Syrian Muslim living in New Orleans, owned a contracting company, lived a normal life, and seemed to love his wife and kids.  He stayed behind to protect his investment and personal properties in New Orleans after the storm. He saved a few lives along the way.  He also saw things no one in this country should see.

He was wrongfully imprisoned on suspicions of terrorism and it changed him.  He was not extreme but devout according to the book.  This was clear based on his drive to pray regardless of conditions and rejection of pork product when he was feed during his illegal incarceration. But he was also, according to the book, a tolerant man who called a gay married couple close family friends and was honored to restore churches as Houses of God after the storm.

The book chronicles the PTSD that his wife was dealing with but it didn't really jump deeply into Zeitoun's issues.  Which is sad.  Because, as I went looking for a book cover photo today to include in this post I learned that the Zeitouns have divorced due to his violence against his ex-wife.  It is sad.

We could say it is because of the storm, his illegal processing at the hands of Homeland Security, or even, as his wife says in the above linked article, his "adoption of a 'radical' religious philosophy that she emphasized does not reflect true Muslim beliefs."  Anyway you slice it, it is sad.  In some ways I am happy I didn't Google them until after I finished the book. But in truth, his depraved violence against his wife and her sickness post-storm don't take away from the story nor does it change the injustice done.  It just makes me sad.

This book shines light on one of the worst times in Modern American History, so I suppose it was naive to expect the somewhat happy ending that was presented.

5 out 5 stars.

An Anti-Government Rant

Over the course of my running I have lost a good deal of poundage.  I was pushing American unhealthy when I started running. Now I am in better shape...I even have one of those before and after shots. 

Pre and Post Running

I am in even better shape now than I was in this picture which was taken during the IU Mini Marathon in 2011.  But according to the USDA I am border line obese with an estimated Body Mass Index (BMI) of 29.  Now I don't feel like I am on the edge of death by heart disease or walking up stars and having the house lit on fire. 

Not in the humble brag way, but I have run 974 miles this year and will complete two marathons within a month and I love it. I eat at least 1/3 of a plate of greens with every meal and I don't have red meat more than a few times a month. We have cut most of the "bad" foods out of our at home diet and have low-fat high-protein breakfasts 6 days-a-week.  I can't tell you the last time I had McDonald's and I have  completely ended my Diet Coke addiction.  All of this and the Government says I am border line obese -- which sucks.

Published in a Book

Almost two years ago, I was contacted by a woman who was working on her Master's thesis on 20's and 30's Jewish life in America.  I had written a pretty easy going post on the in-your-face Jewschool blog about joining Shaaray Tefila, my New York congregation, and its young adult program JeTSeT's Shabbat Unplugged and this student was interested in using the post for her work.

Sure, go for it. It would be my honor.  She then asked if she could put it in her book.  I said great! Thanks.  That was December of 2010.

A few weeks ago, I got an email saying that the book was out.  I looked at the cover, recognized a number of friends and "Liked" their links on Facebook but didn't think I was in the book because I didn't remember anything besides the brief interactions in October and December of 2010. 

Today, I thought, I should check to see who else made the final cut for the book.  And I found my name on the contributor's list.  A nice way to start a Monday.

Unplugging Expectations, By Donald C. Cutler

So I am now a published author. 

You may want to buy this book.  So here is the link: Living Jewishly: A Snapshot of Generation.

I have yet to get my copy, and I look forward to reading the other essays, but I got to say I am pretty proud that my essay made it into print.  I have written a lot of this subject and had another blog post (which I think is better) that was published on RJ.org on a very similar topic around the same time. The more we learn about engagement of younger people in the Jewish community, the better we will be in the longer term. And if my point of view will help make our communities and congregations stronger, then I am a very pleased, published author.

Book Report: Running the Rift

Naomi Benaron's well researched and beautifully written book was impossible to put down.  Following the story of a young boy through school, running, and genocide in his native Rwanda, Running the Rift is a great book.

As a student of international politics and the West's abject failures during the Rwandan Genocide, as well as a runner, I found this book to be a painfully perfect historical fiction.  While you know what happens, and if you don't you need to do some research, you can't stop reading and must know what happens next.  The interpersonal relationships are complex, real, and haunting.  The political realities of a neo-colonial Africa are presented without pretense, even when presented by a white American woman.

Benaron explores the real impact and long term effects of European definitions and divisions on neighbors and families. The nationalism felt by all was overpowered by myth that was eternal even if it was perpetuated by European colonialists.  The powerlessness of moderation over extremists was defeating.  Only the extremist tendencies of Jean Patrick -- which were positive in nature, but extreme all the same -- gave a reader hope for the future.

Benaron's inclusion of a degree of fiction in the form of love blunted the harsh realities of the early 1990s in this small central African nation.  The love story, which honestly didn't seem very believable, enabled me to read this book before bed without nightmares.  However, it was the many stories lines of humanity, which remind you that while reading this horrific history, people tend to be good, even in times of extreme evil.

5 out of 5 stars. 

11 guys, 5 Rings, and 1 Minute

I love sports.  I have my teams and my preferred events, but more or less, I am a sucker for a televised or live competition. I will take tickets to anything off your hands and the game could be on ESPN the Ocho and I will watch it, choose a side, and yell at the refs (because they always deserve to be yelled at by the guy in his living room).  Just ask my lovely wife. She might say I would put the game on the TV and promptly fall asleep on the couch but that is a salacious lie.

I also love my country.  For all its bull, the United States is the best country in the world and I am proud to call myself an American.

So when these two things come together, I get crazy excited.  I love me some Olympics.  NBC has this thing down to a science.  Meaningful music, a story of some kid from [city/town/farm] had it tough.  Kid lost [mother/father/training facility/ability to walk] but made it to the Olympic team to win and wave the Stars and Stripes (insert crescendo here). USA USA USA USA!!!!! We all cry, we all cheer.

To be honest, nothing really gets me down about the Olympics.

"But why then," you ask, "are you blogging about it?  You never have something only good to say about something when you blog, so something about the Games must be getting you down."

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is refusing to take a minute out of the open ceremonies to remember 11 athletes who were murdered in a terrorist attach 40 years ago in Munich.  Everyone from President Obama to Governor Romney, from Aish HaTorah to the Reform Jewish Movement has pushed for this minute.  The IOC refuses to take some time to remember 11 athletes who were murdered at the Olympic Games 40 years ago.

That has me down.

The IOC is a semi-governmental organization and should be accountable to someone. But they are not.  You can sign petitions and such but it won't make much of a difference; more than 100,000 signatures haven't made an impact yet.  The group of widows  have been brushed off (again) and will have a moment of silence during the opening ceremonies regardless of its official recognition, and while that is nice, it doesn't fix or really honor the memory of these guys in the right way.

The Palestinian Olympic Committee (POC) called this moment of silence "racist" today and that makes my head hurt.  The POC's own statement leads a logical person to believe that they would be supportive of this remembrance. "Sports are a bridge for love, communication and the spreading of peace between nations," the POC said in its statement, before it went on to say this remembrance was racist. The entire movement here is to remember people killed, not as a condemnation of terrorists, Palestinian or otherwise.

The politics of this situation are nasty but the reality is that 11 guys, kids mostly, were gunned down by bad dudes during the Olympics.  A minute to remember them during the ceremony would not only be right but should be support the sprit of the Olympics.  We all cheer and hope our country will win the gold but we all hope that one, lone athlete can make the splash, stick the landing, break the tape and make his or her home country proud.  The Olympics at least should be about the purity of sport and competition.  Not about politics. 

So as I watch the Olympics and in a mob-like manner, wave my flag, I will try to remember these guys.

History is Written By the Victors

This is a political post so, here is the requisite puppy link.

While the title quote cannot be attributed to one source, we can attribute the degradation of our educational system to the Tea  Party.  In a story you can file under "You have got to be kidding me" we learn that Tea Party activists in Tennessee are actively lobbying to include the rosier aspects of the Antebellum South in the state educational curriculum.

This group of activists wants to include the following in the standards for selecting text books, according to the HuffPost's report:

"No portrayal of minority experience in the history which actually occurred shall obscure the experience or contributions of the Founding Fathers, or the majority of citizens, including those who reached positions of leadership."

In order to celebrate the Founding Fathers, says the Tea Party, we must ignore aspects of history.  Look at the bright side, at least they aren't out-right denying the rape, pillage, and murder.

Idiots, and Nuance in Debate

Over the past few months I have been trying to figure out why I don't care about politics as much as I used to care about politics.  I also wanted to know why I have become so much more cynical about almost everything.

My lovely wife thought it may have to do with the somewhat isolating experience and the fact that many of my secondary needs (my wife, my stuff, my "life") were still in New York while I was living in San Francisco.  In other words, my Maslow's hierarchy of needs were down graded.  She has a Master's degree in this stuff so I trust her on that front. 

But I have an other idea. While I still care a bit, I am significantly more suspicious of "true change agents" and "value based conservatives." I can't stand the bullshit of it all any more and it seems like I could very easily unplug and just care about myself and my family.  It would be hard at first, but eventually, it would be easier than hitting my head against the wall working for the fairness of it all.

Unfair: Cheese Destroyed By Earthquake - via The Atlantic

But beyond the "life isn't fair" argument I think the loss of perspective and nuance is what makes me crazy.

Earlier yesterday I posted an article from The Jerusalem Post on my Facebook wall. This article reported that a number of Jewish women were detained briefly by the police for wearing Jewish prayer shawls and p the Western Wall in Jerusalem, to which I commented that Israel can't use the open access of its holy sites as justification of the occupation of the West Bank if the state isn't going to provide actual open access to its holy sites.

The reaction from my right-wing radical friend was swift, saying that these 'brave' (quotes where his) women should also fight for access to Muslim holy sites because Islamic regulations are worse than those ratified by radical regressive rabbis and enforced by the state of Israel.  Even if the world was a series of choices between clear rights and wrongs, without any shade of grey this would still be a stupid ass argument.  But this isn't the only example of the loss of nuance within debate that is bugging me right now. 

Mayor Cory Booker and Governor Deval Patrick have come out in support of Private Equity generally and Bain Capital specifically. Again this is a huge problem for those black and white thinkers. As you most likely know, Booker and Patrick are both rising stars in the Democratic Party and both openly and wholeheartedly support President Obama.  

Now, as you also know Bain Capital is evil because Governor Mitt Romney ran it for many years and now he is running for President.  Bain has created and cut jobs.  There is no denying this. But painting all Private Equity with one brush is just as ridiculous as thinking that three politicians at different levels of government, working for very different constituencies would be in lock step ideologically because they are all black.

However the truly atrocious issue here is that Booker has had to publicly clarify his statements to prove he was loyal to the President Obama.  He said that a company that has a role in the market isn't evil or bad.  Yet the reaction of the press has been as if he endorsed Mitt Romney and the GOP platform. Where is the critical thinking?

We could go on and on but these two examples of all or nothing, black and white thinking is why I am on the brink of being done. 

I do have some hope but not too much.

Great. Now What.

Yeah. This happened:

“At a certain point,” Mr. Obama said in an interview in the Cabinet Room at the White House with ABC’s Robin Roberts, “I’ve just concluded that for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.”

Great news, and the two sure things that come from this news is that every LGBT and Marriage Equality group (and the bigots on the other side) will make money off of the news and that LGBT rights will be a major presidential campaign issue.  Other than that, nothing has changed.

Words are powerful, especially when they come from the leader of the free world. But as of right now they are just words.

If anything, this great news makes for more work.  So get to work, you say.  I say, this isn't a letter writing campaign or liking something on Facebook, this is lots of work.

As we know, it is an election year and there is no chance that Congress will do anything about this.  There is no chance a Democrat in a tight race will come out in favor and there is so no chance a Republican anywhere outside of the Castro, West Hollywood, or Chelsea is supporting these words.

So yeah, this is good but nothing will happen. Now we need to get a Democrat majority in the House and a filibusterer proof majority in Senate and then maybe we can celebrate. So that is the work.  Now we got to do it. Like I said, more work.  And it isn't like young people vote and we can't count on the pissed off left like the Republicans can count on the pissed of fright.

Celebrate today.  Celebrate something that should have been done years ago.  Tomorrow, it is time to get to work.

People are still idiots

Remember that time last week when we used social media for good?

I do.  It gave me hope in humanity.

This use of social media does not do that.  In fact it diminishes my hope for humanity.

Cynthia Boris of Marketing Pilgrim, explained that the SoCal centric media obsession with car chases has taken a turn to the social:

"Yesterday, the phenomena took on an even stranger turn when a man in a tow truck led police on a two hour “low speed” pursuit through the streets of Los Angeles. It was rush hour, so he hardly ever moved more than a few miles per hour and like a good driver, he stopped for red lights. He also stopped to chat with fans."

Read her post for the rest, but come on guys! This is just sad. 

Course Records and Social Media

Yesterday was pretty interesting.  As you know, I wrote a short blog post about Jon Gugala's sexist and disrespectful engagement with fellow journalists and members of the running community online.  This post garnered a lot of attention, not only from my friends and family who normally read this blog but from about one thousand other people as well.

Without any doubt, I did not expect that kind of reaction.  Over the course of my personal blog's lifetime, it averaged between zero and 60 hits per day.  Yesterday, after some proactive social media promotion, which I do with most of my posts, the blog saw over 900 visitors. By this morning the post had over 1,040 hits and eight comment (including two about a typo that I didn't remove after fixing the mistake). OK, enough with the self-congratulations.

After posting and pushing my post out to my small Twitter and Facebook community, the re-Tweets started coming in with small edits about how this is unacceptable.  It would appear that the call to email the editorial and publishing executives at his major outlets also was successful, in that by yesterday evening Runner's World's official Twitter feed published two Tweets distanced itself from Jon (H/T Charles Mandel).

Now, Jon is entitled to his view and should be free to express said views, however, he can't expect others not to react.

Sexism is ok when funny, right Jon?

My running chum Tracy wrote about Jon Gugala's sexist remarks in his Twitter Feed from yesterday's Boston Marathon.  But the strange thing was that when he was called on it by a fellow journalist and my other running chum Sara, he replied with an ill fated attempt at humor and more sexist commentary.

Here are some choice tid bits:

Today Jon Gugala, who is a freelancer for "Runner's World, Running Times, Competitor, RunBlogRun, and more," [sic] according to his Twitter bio, said that Tracy, as an amateur blogger, should stay in the shallow end. The shocking assumption he makes is that he is a professional blogger, considering his extremely impressive social media presences puts his Klout score at 12 out of 100 and he has a breathtaking 218 followers on Twitter and 60 likes on Facebook (as of the writing of this post). It is even more shocking because this professional blogger had the time to engaged me in a back-and-forth on Twitter for hours about his "perceived" sexism. 

Granted I am not trying to measure up to this professional writer with my admittedly amateur blog post or more highly ranked Twitter feed.  What I want talk about is the acceptability of his sexism within sports reporting.

Some facts for Jon and others: Women make up more than 50% of the US population and have been the fastest growing segment of the running community over the past several years, according to Running USA.  My current PR will not qualify me for the Boston Marathon and I am OK with that.  I hope one day to come close but I don't see it happening. However, I do not believe my current pace per mile has anything to do with my ability to identify sexism. 

Ann Romney's Experience is the Question

Stay at home parents -- moms or dads -- do work. It isn't easy raising children. I know, I was a child and a pain in the ass.  There is no doubt in my mind that those who stay at home contribute to the family and provide real economic benefit to the household.

Now, parents who work full time also raise children. They also do laundry, make dinner or leave early to see kids at said dinner, help with homework, and even sometimes have to deal with the negative consequences of having kids due to pesky social norms.  These parents contribute to the household with both income and to those other areas where stay at home parents provide their primary contributions.

All of this being said, Hilary Rosen's resume building statement on CNN yesterday was 100% true and has nothing to do with Ann Romney being a stay at home mom.

The Romney family is rich. Like really rich.  They have people to clean their many homes and cook meals for them. I am sure that there were many times that Ann or Mitt or one of their five boys cooked or cleaned but I would imagine that it wasn't often and it was for recreation rather than out of necessity. As my mother (a working one, for the record) said, "Ann Romney has no more idea what it is like to be a working woman than George H.W. Bush knew about the price of milk in the grocery store."

But that isn't even the whole point.

Power: Africa, Social Media and Meaningful Change

For those of you who do not choose to earn a liberal arts degree in the International Relations and have not sat through a number of courses that focused on Sub-Saharan Africa, here is the 30 second version of history:

There were thousands of small and large communities, states, and nations that lived, grew and shrank for thousands of years in Sub-Saharan Africa with as many government, political, and religious structures as there were communities, states, and nations. There were times of peace and prosperity and times of strife and war.

Then Europeans showed up. Stuff started changing. We can talk about the raping and pillaging if you want but what is key is that European powers saw the continent as a place for raw materials, from minerals to rubber to slaves. LOTS of things happened over the next five or so generations but here is the take away: Africa was a place for resources and nothing else.

Then "Africans" -- that singular group of people (...) -- started demanding independence and started getting it. Through this process some bad stuff happened, most notably the violent expression of repression tactics employed by the Europeans to control different groups identified as different by the Europeans.

You are now up to date.

Clearly this is unbelievably abridged and painfully flawed but so was that video you told me to watch yesterday.

Equality and Differences

The debated surrounding access to healthcare products and reproductive choice has jumped from a question of religious liberty to one of sexual liberation and sluts over the last few weeks.

Democrats have responded to the atrocious attack on women's rights by attaching rectal riders to abortion ultrasound bills and hairy palm reduction amendments to so-called personhood bills to "prove a point." (Mind you this is because we have Republicans seriously putting forth forced ultrasounds for women seeking legal medical procedures and the codification of religious doctrine in states' legal codes.)

I believe the reactions don't make sense. Men and Women must have equal protections under the law. However, men and women are different. These games being played belittle the harassment being put forth by the right under the thinly veiled name of religious freedom or whatever else they are calling it today.

While these masturbation prohibitions and pre-Viagra-Rx prostate exam regulations attract a whole hell of a lot of media attention, they don't address the issue. I get that without the glaring light of public outcry these horrific bills will be come laws, but is joking about this the only way to do it?

The power of social media and the nearly unbearably divided nation should give to some powerful outcry. There is time for jest, but I have trouble with this being that time.