I've Moved!

Big news--I've moved my blogging activity over to WordPress, where I had initiated a blog a few years back but never did anything with it.

So if you want to follow my future writings, get over to Bloggin' Bear and start reading. I've already published a new post on the slow death of the newspaper business model.

Thank you for reading my blog!

Slow People

Slow people got no reason
Slow people got no reason
Slow people got no reason
To run*

It was a couple years ago that a discussion broke out in the comments section of a local running blog. The upshot of the discussion was that runners who couldn't run at a certain pace should be barred from registering for races.

The person who made the suggestion was past president of the local running club.

That's right. A person who had been a leader of a group dedicated to helping people learn to participate in distance running was in favor of blocking people from ... distance running.

Well, I don't want no slow people
Don't want no slow people
Don't want no slow people
Racin' here*

I've volunteered as a running coach for people over the years. I've helped people train for 10k races and 10 mile races. There is nothing like the joy on the face of someone who's finished running a distance that seemed impossible just a few months before.

Once, a woman asked me if I would let her join my group training for a 10 mile race. "I can only go about 14 minutes a mile," she explained. "I know that's slow."

Sure it's slow. I've known people who could walk 6 miles at 14-minute pace. But as I told this woman, I have no problem with people who run slow. I'm one of them.

Slow people got nobody
Slow people got nobody
Slow people got nobody
To beat*

My fastest time in the mile was a little more than six minutes. My fastest time for the 10k was 43 minutes and change. It took me over five hours to finish my one marathon.

I'm slow. I get it. It doesn't matter to me, because I enjoy running.

But recently I've been getting ridiculed for being slow. Seriously mocked. The company I work for has an on-site health club, and when I run on the treadmill there I have been hearing co-workers tell me to go faster.

But the final straw was today. I was chugging along at my comfortable 10 minute pace when someone came alongside my treadmill. He was acting like he was running in slow motion. As he passed the treadmill, he said, "Me running!"

The mature response would have been to chuckle and utter some self-deprecating remark. Well, call Victor Fucking Mature, because I lost my shit. I told the guy to fuck off and die, finished my 5k, jumped off the treadmill, grabbed a quick shower, and emptied my locker.

I won't go back. I'll run in the predawn streets of my town. I've seen slow people running at times.

Slow people are just the same
As you and I
(A fool such as I)
All men are brothers
Until the day they die
(It's a wonderful world)*

*Apologies to Randy Newman.

Sex, Limbaugh and Videotape

Let’s all step into the go-back machine for a moment.

In June 2009, Sarah Palin and daughter visited New York City. David Letterman, who had been telling jokes on late night television for decades, decided to tell a few jokes about Palin’s visit.

One joke: The hardest part of the trip was keeping Eliot Spitzer away from her daughter.

Another joke, referring to Palin and daughter attending a Yankee game: There was one awkward moment during the seventh-inning stretch; her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez.

These jokes, taken together, were obviously about former New York governor Eliot Spitzer and Yankee slugger Alex Rodriguez at a time when both men were known for having trouble keeping their pants zipped. But Sarah Palin decided that Letterman had impugned the reputation of her 14-year-old daughter and went ballistic.

In 2009, when Sarah Palin went ballistic, she stirred up the entire media establishment. Pressure mounted on Letterman to apologize for the crude, coarse, inappropriate remark he had made about a 14-year-old girl! In just a couple of days, everyone forgot that Spitzer and A-Rod were the butts of the jokes.

The Palin family and everyone in the right-wing attack machine demanded that Letterman apologize or get fired. Or both. Letterman apologized.

Now let’s exit the go-back machine for a review of this week in media. Rush Limbaugh has spent a couple days making crude, coarse, inappropriate attacks on a woman whose transgressions include attending Georgetown University’s law school and advocating a health insurance mandate on contraceptives issued by the Obama Administration.

On Wednesday, February 29, Limbaugh labeled the woman slut and prostitute because, in Limbaugh’s view, she was asking that everyone in America pay her to have sex.

The next day, Limbaugh voiced what he thought was a great idea: “If we are going to pay for your contraceptives and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it. And I'll tell you what it is. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch.”

Uh, okay. That may be the creepiest thing I’ve ever heard anyone say. About anyone.

But the right wing attack machine that demanded an apology from David Letterman in 2009? They’re digging in and defending Rush Limbaugh. They’re saying he’s an entertainer—a satirist—and liberals can’t take a joke. Or they’re joining the attacks on that slut at Georgetown who has so much sex she can barely walk (Limbaugh’s words).

Which makes me ask this: Why was David Letterman so disgusting with his jokes but Limbaugh is worthy of defense? Why did Letterman have to apologize while Limbaugh gets to gloat?

I'm Such a Snob

In the runup to the Michigan and Arizona primaries, Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum told a crowd that President Barack Obama wants everyone to go to college.

He punctuated that claim with "What a snob!"

In Santorum's view, the president is a snob for wanting people to get a college education. The desire to make college more accessible somehow disses good, solid, hard working Americans who have skills instead of a college education. Not only that, but college education is delivered by liberal professors. Few things in life are as dangerous as liberal professors.

Santorum actually said about Obama, "I understand why he wants you to go to college. He wants to remake you in his image. I want to create jobs so people can remake their children into their image, not his."

I always wonder if Republicans who spout this kind of nonsense really believe it or are just employing whatever attack they can find against a Democratic incumbent. With Santorum, I'm sure it's the latter.

You see, Santorum holds an MBA--Master of Business Administration, one of the snobbiest graduate degrees available--as well as a law degree. Santorum is an educated man, not a skilled, hard-working American. Of course, Santorum managed to avoid indoctrination by those dangerous liberal professors; he was obviously not remade in Barack Obama's image.

Neither was I. I’m a few years older than Obama and finished my college education before he started his. And I sort of agree with Santorum that Obama is wrong about making college more accessible. But that’s because I don’t he’s suggested a plan that’s bold enough.

The plan I’ve promoted for several years is free college education at public universities for anyone who graduates from high school with a B average or better. Anyone who wants to go to a private college has to find the money for it.

So I may be a snob twice over, but I know something about today’s world that Rick Santorum doesn’t know. I know that more and more American jobs require at least an Associate’s degree. A high school diploma is no longer the price of entry for most jobs. To get a job in any sort of technical field, such as medicine or information technology, you absolutely must have a bachelor’s degree.

Because hiring managers at so many American companies are apparently snobs. And no presidential candidate is going to change their minds.

Chain of Custody's Weak Link

As clearly as if it was yesterday, my first experience with drug testing is still etched in my memory. And not only because I had to use the women's restroom.

The independent lab where I had to, um, provide a sample was having problems in the men's room. A female lab tech took me to the women's room, opened a stall, poured some dye into the toilet bowl, and then handed me a cup.

I'm not going to replay all of her instructions, but she was quite adamant about the "chain of custody." After providing my sample, I had to seal the cup, initial the seal. hand the sealed cup to her (after exiting the stall) so she could put the cup in a bag. I then had to seal the bag and we both initialed the bag.

In the drug testing world, chain of custody is a pretty big deal. They made sure there were no weak liks in the chain. And this was back in 1988.

So when I heard that Ryan Braun of the Major League Baseball's Milwaukee Brewers got his substance abuse suspension overturned because of sloppy chain of custody, I chuckled. Then I looked up the details.

Instead of operating its own testing labs, Major League Baseball contracts with a lab in Montreal. Instead of maintaining a staff responsible for collecting samples at ballparks and getting them securely to Montreal, Major League Baseball ships the samples via Federal Express.

I'm pausing here for dramatic effect.

Samples of bodily fluids are collected and tested to determine whether players will be allowed to continue playing and drawing outrageous salaries. Those samples are picked up by anonymous "collectors" and shipped via the same company that delivers books, computer parts and running shoes to my door.

I understand that FedEx uses state-of-the-art tracking technology and can often pinpoint exactly where your shipment is at any time. But that's a pretty weak link; once you hand a box containing urine samples to a FedEx employee who deals with thousands of parcels a week, I think you've given up the ghost on "chain of custody."

Then there's this from ESPN.com:

According to one of the sources, the collector, after getting Braun's sample, was supposed to take the sample to a FedEx office for shipping. But sources said the collector thought the FedEx office was closed because it was late on a Saturday and felt the sample wouldn't get shipped until Monday.
As has occurred in some other instances, the collector took the sample home and kept it in a cool place, in his basement at his residence in Wisconsin, according to multiple sources. 

I'm pausing again for dramatic effect.

As has occurred in some other instances? Are you kidding me? Urine samples which can determine somebody's professional fate sit in this bozo's basement not just once, but in some other instances? Talk about the weakest link in the chain.

In 1988 I was trying to get a consulting gig that paid $25 per hour. I wasn't part of a union and I didn't have a lawyer. But that testing lab used strict procedures to ensure that it could prove precisely where my urine was from the moment I sealed the container to the time that container was opened for testing.

You would think the major leagues would use procedures that are at least that strict. You would think that the major leagues would be extra cautious because they're always dealing with a pretty feisty union representing all major league players. You would think they would be careful because drug testing results could potentially ruin any player's career.

But in some instances, at least, you would be wrong.

Contraception Conversations

It was one of those awkward conversations that I wish I would have handled differently. The subject of birth control came up, and I actually asked the girl I was dating at the time, "We are using birth control, aren't we?"

Yeah, I know.

She chucked and patted my hand. "Don't worry, sweetie," she said, "I've got it taken care of."

That long-ago conversation, which took place at a time when condoms weren't sitting out on the shelves in the Personal Care section of your local Wal-Mart, came roaring back to my consciousness when the nation's media recently started talking about contraception. A lot.

The excuse for the eruption of contraception conversation was a rule created under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act--yes, Obamacare--requiring religious organizations to cover birth control pills without copay for employees. Oh, that's for employees of such entities as hospitals and universities that receive federal money and employee people who are not members of the religion. It's a rule that's a matter of law in several states, and it's something many Catholic hospitals and universities just follow as policy.

But America's Catholic bishops were geared up and waiting for the announcement of the rule and executed a well-organized campaign against it, including personal statements and suggestions that parishioners lobby their Congressmen and Senators. According to the bishops, this was an unprecedented attack on religious freedom.

Republicans became Catholics in a heartbeat, including the Southern Baptists, because nothing gets a Republican's heart racing like an attack on religious freedom. Just ask the Muslims who wanted to build that community center in Manhattan.Even better, getting the nation talking about contraception, especially birth control pills, gets into an area that some Republicans have been quietly pushing for a while now.

By "quietly pushing," I mean they don't talk about it on Fox and Friends.

That doesn't mean they're not serious about it. Republicans in some states are trying to amend state constitutions to say that life begins at conception. Since the birth control pill works by preventing a fertilized egg from implanting in the wall of the uterus, these Republicans say the birth control pill is essentially a form of abortion, which they want to outlaw in all cases.

In case that's too subtle, let me spell it out: Some Republicans want to outlaw birth control pills. Period.

American bishops have their own reason for deciding to pick this particular fight on contraception and, really, they still have to answer for decades of child sexual abuse by parish priests before I will give their moral outrage any merit. And polls suggest that most parishioners choose their own path on contraception.

But the Republicans are serious, and they're in this for the long game. They want to abolish contraception. If they get their way, that conversation I had so long ago will never be repeated by anyone. For all the wrong reasons.

Race for the Flip-Flop

Today the Susan G. Komen Foundation pulled a 180 on its decision to defund Planned Parenthood. The Komen organization was no doubt swayed by the scathing blog post I wrote just the other day.

Although SGK regrets the furor that was kicked up by its original decision to disqualify groups under any type of investigation, the group might not actually restore funding to Planned Parenthood. You can read the official SDK statement here and make up your own mind. The key phrase has to do with the criteria for locking funding; under the newly revised policy, "disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political."

That's a pretty obvious admission that the "investigation" into Planned Parenthood is a political move and nothing more.

No word about the status of SGK money going to Penn State University, which is currently under criminal investigation. Oh well. 

Hopefully this whole mess has taught SGK that basing its policies on political pressure leads nowhere good. And maybe, just maybe, they learned that a lot of us hate mixing politics with cancer research policy. See, cancer don't care if you're right wing, left wing, or independent.

Cancer health care dollars shouldn't care either.

For the Political Agenda, not the Cure

The Susan G. Komen for the Cure organization has stepped in a big pile of PR trouble. Trouble of its own making. Officially, the organization has ended grant support for Planned Parenthood because that organization is currently under investigation by Congress.

SGK recently changed its policy on handing out grants; no group under investigation by any level of government gets money now.

PP is under investigation simply because Republicans in Congress are convinced that PP uses federal money to pay for abortions. The perfect example of their belief came last April when Senator Jon Kyl, Republican of Arizona, declared on the Senate floor that performing abortions is 90 percent of the organization's work.

His direct quote? "If you want an abortion, you go to Planned Parenthood, and that's well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does."

When people living in the real world pointed out that abortions account for about THREE percent of PP's activities, Kyl's office issued the political spin of the decade. The office issued a statement saying Kyl's "remark was not intended to be a factual statement, but rather to illustrate that Planned Parenthood, a organization that receives millions of dollars in taxpayer funding, does subsidize abortions."

Not intended to be a factual statement. Okay.

What does that have to do with the SGK folks? They recently hired former Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel, a well-known abortion foe, as their Vice President for Public Policy. It may be a coincidence that the biggest policy decision SGK made after hiring Handel was shutting off the money flow to a target of right-wing ire. But I doubt it.

The sad part of this episode is that it fits in with SGK's tendency to put effort into things that have no relationship to the fight against cancer. Or finding the cure. SGK is the organization that has trademarked the phrase "for the cure" and has sued anyone who innocently tried to use it. I'm sure women dealing with breast cancer were gratified to know that dollars donated to SGK were being spent on that kind of legal action.

I haven't given money to SGK for years now. I give to the American Cancer Society. Through my participation in Relay for Life, I've come to know people in the local ACS office, and I know this: They care about cancer patients. Period. Political and legal crap is just that -- crap. You got cancer? ACS has programs to help. They're funded through donations.

Want to donate to a group focused on battling cancer and helping cancer patients without other agendas? Click the button in the top right corner. Let Karen Handel and Susan G. Komen find donations somewhere else.

Relay Time

It's time for me to promote Relay for Life again.

Relay is an annual event that has two goals--raise money for the American Cancer Society and honor cancer survivors. I was involved with Relay for Life of Sangamon County for several years because of the family members I've lost to cancer, including my mother.

Then, in November 2008, I heard those words: It's cancer.

In my case, though, the followup was, "But it's the good kind of cancer!" What the doctor quickly explained was that my form of testicular cancer was curable. And he was right--I'm currently in complete remission and feeling fine.

Others aren't so lucky, including a college classmate who passed away near the end of 2011. It was the reminder I didn't need that the fight against cancer unfortunately hasn't ended yet.

If you would like to join the fight, just click on the Relay icon in the upper right corner. That will take you to my online donation page, where you can give to your heart's content.

Thank you for reading, and thanks for any donation you might give. Every dollar makes a difference.

Leave Paula Alone?

Paula Deen has her detractors, but she has at least one fan.

A Springfield, Illinois woman wants us all to leave Paula alone. Well, good luck with that.

In case you've never heard of her, Paula Deen is a Southern cook who has written some cookbooks and had her own show--several shows, actually--on the Food Network. Nearly all of her recipes involve butter, butter, and more butter. Some of them involve meat or flour and sugar.

Fat, carbs and calories are the running themes in her recipes.

Someone pushing that type of cuisine would naturally stir up some detractors, but Paula Deen has now given the naysayers even more reason to criticize her. She recently announced that she's a Type 2 diabetic and has been for, oh, three years.

She also announced that Novo Nordisk has hired her to endorse a new diabetes management drug. I'm sure it's all a coincidence.

Now, I've never made any secret of the fact that I'm also a Type 2 diabetic (see The Diabetic and the Dilly Bar). But I control my blood sugar with diet and exercise. Nobody has called to ask for an endorsement, although I walk and run in New Balance shoes and drink GeniSoy soy protein shakes (soy protein helps prevent kidney problems) and use Nautilus exercise machines. That's okay, because I really don't want to be the guy who pushes people to exercise or eat a certain way.

That's Paula's job. She's always very entertaining, even when she's answering those detractors I mentioned earlier. When she's been criticized in the past for the dishes she pushes on her show, she has used the following dodge: "I'm your cook. I'm not your doctor."

Soon, however, she will be appearing in TV commercials promoting a diabetes drug. I hope the people who see those commercials will remember that Paula is a cook instead of a doctor. I hope they'll realize there are other ways to manage diabetes than to get the Paula Deen drug.

Leave Paula alone? Probably not, but I will continue leaving her recipes alone.

Slow Death of a Newspaper

My hometown newspaper is dying a slow death, and it’s pretty painful to watch.

The State Journal-Register will be losing 10 copy editors soon. The paper’s corporate owner, GateHouse Media, plans to consolidate copy editing for some papers at an office in Downers Grove, a suburb of Chicago.

I’m looking forward to copy editors in Downers Grove trying to grasp that the arts center in Springfield, Illinois is spelled Hoogland or trying to understand a local address like 801 North Grand Avenue West.

The copy editing idiocy was announced about the same time that rumors circulated of new layoffs on the editorial side of the paper. The upshot is that fewer people will be writing local news, and the local news stories will be edited a couple hundred miles away.

Unbelievable.

I realize that the situation facing The State Journal-Register is the same one facing papers across the country. But that realization doesn’t make it easier to watch this paper slowly die.

The newspaper industry is scrambling to figure out how to continue making a profit as its former audience moves away from buying physical newspapers every day. One day somebody is going to figure out how to turn a profit by gathering and distributing news in the online age.

Until that day breaks, people in cities all over America will experience what I’m seeing now, the slow and painful death of their local daily newspaper.