And if I fight, I fight for something else.

Those guys at Freakonomics are again spot on.

I know that we kinda screwed up the whole idea of invading other countries for humanitarian causes a few years back with the whole ‘Saddam is gassing his own people! (But so did many many others)’ thing, but if you still want to invade a helpless nation, ruled by a military dictatorship, in order to help the people there, here you go.

As I was finishing up my workout this morning at the Rec, this large man who I had seen working out there with a personal trainer for several weeks came up to me and reached his hand out to shake mine. ‘I just wanted to say that you’ve been an inspiration to me over these last couple months. Seeing you in here, the determination you have, and how you’ve gotten your body to where it is, has just really motivated me to keep coming in here too.’ I, of course, was speechless, and tried to stammer out some words of encouragement, but as he walked away I realized just how much of an effect each one of us can have on people around us, perfect strangers even, without ever knowing it. I’m just glad I got to know it today.

I’ve been hiding this for a couple of years, but if I lived in England (oh sweet mother of God if only that were so), I probably would vote Conservative. That sound you just heard was your head going Kablooey.

That means, first, moving beyond the Thatcherite tendency to put economics first. As Oliver Letwin, one of the leading Tory strategists put it: “Politics, once econo-centric, must now become socio-centric.” David Cameron, the Conservative Party leader, makes it clear that his primary focus is sociological. Last year he declared: “The great challenge of the 1970s and 1980s was economic revival. The great challenge in this decade and the next is social revival.” In another speech, he argued: “We used to stand for the individual. We still do. But individual freedoms count for little if society is disintegrating. Now we stand for the family, for the neighborhood — in a word, for society.”

… As such, the Conservative Party has spent a lot of time thinking about how government should connect with citizens. Basically, everything should be smaller, decentralized and interactive. They want a greater variety of schools, with local and parental control. They want to reverse the trend toward big central hospitals. Health care, Cameron says, is as much about regular long-term care as major surgery, and patients should have the power to construct relationships with caretakers, pharmacists and local facilities.

Oh, fuck yes.

The new Penguin 007 covers. It almost makes you forget how horrible the writing is inside.

There is a lot about the modern university experience that pisses me off anymore, but at the top of the list is the ‘strong’ password. You know, the requirement that you have a password with no easily identifiable words, a minimum number of characters, numerals and punctuation and what the fuck ever. Hey maybe if I want to have ‘pornlover69’ as my password* I should be allowed to, and you can go back to taking my money** and giving me a piece of paper in half a decade, instead of keeping me from registering for a damn email account.

*I don’t. 
**Actually, it won’t be my money at Ohio State, but whatev.

Seriously, we all need a fucking frying pan upside the head. Drinking orange juice instead of coffee means you’re not a grown-up yet? I’ll grant you that tea does suggest a certain refined sense of adulthood, but that still doesn’t give jackasses leave to psychobabble about one’s choice of beverage first thing in the morning.

ETA: Linkie now workie. 

‘The Race’ – Cajun Dance Party
‘All the Good Things’ – The Weepies
‘The Last of the Famous International Playboys’ – Morrissey
‘Make Mistakes’ – Infadels
‘Mistress Mabel’ – The Fratellis
‘Heat and Panic’ – The Manhattan Love Suicides
‘We Are Rockstars’ – Does It Offend You, Yeah?
‘Call It a Ritual’ – Wolf Parade
‘Abandon’ – French Kicks
‘My Favorite Mutiny’ – The Coup (with Black Thought and Talib Kweli)

Bonus track! ‘That Green Gentleman’ – Panic at the Disco

The Guardian goes ballistic against Boris Johnson, Conservative Mayoral candidate for London. You may not know what the hubbub is about, but that doesn’t make it any less fun to read.

Start:
Wanderlust: A History of Walking - Rebecca Solnit
You Cannot Be Serious - John McEnroe
The Four Gospels and the Revelation - Richard Lattimore
Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet – Jeffrey Sachs
American Earth: Enrivonmental Writing Since Thoreau – Edited by Bill McKibben

Finished:
The English American: A novel - Alison Larkin
The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight - Thom Hartmann
On Empire - Eric Hobsbawm
Buckeye Madness: The Glorious, Tumultuous, Behind-the-Scenes Story of Ohio State Football - Joe Menzer
The Heisman: Great American Stories of the Men Who Won - Bill Pennington
God Save the Fan [subtitle too long to include here] – Will Leach
Nazi Games: The Olympics of 1936 – David Clay Large
Breaker Boys: The NFL’s Greatest Team and The Stolen 1925 Championship – David Fleming
Bowerman and the Men of Oregon – Kenny Moore
Blessed Unrest – Paul Hawken
The Learners – Chip Kidd
The Undercover Economist – Tim Harford
Memoir from Antproof Case – Mark Helprin (with this, I have completed his entire catalogue of work)
The Color of the Dog Running Away – Richard Gwyn
IV – Chuck Klosterman
Love & Blood: At the World Cup With the Footballers, Fans and Freaks – Jamie Trecker
Friday Night Lights – H.G. Bissinger
Men’s Health Power Training – Robert dos Remedios
The Onion’s Our Dumb World – [Who do you think?]
I Am America (And So Can You!) – Stephen Colbert
Saturday Rules – Austin Murphy
Driven from Within – Michael Jordan
Ecology Against Capitalism – John Bellamy Foster
Storming the Gates of Paradise – Rebecca Solnit
Refiner’s Fire – Mark Helprin
Pretensions to Empire – Lewis Lapham
Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs – Chuck Klosterman

Say what you want about the Mustache of Understanding, and I’ve said a lot, but when he gets on something, he really gets on it.

To wit, the law of supply and demand (as well as price elasticity of demand–the one thing I remember from Microeconomics!) still exists. Also, TB skin tests are just weird.

When the fuck did we get new ones? Seriously, did they show up like ‘Hey, saw the neighborhood and thought we’d move in. Seemed pretty safe and cozy, not a lot of drive-by meteor showers and that sort of thing. Are the schools good? We hear you have some great Ethiopian food around.’

My headline: ‘That’s it; he’s gone senile. Can we please get him home for his nap now?’ For the record, we shouldn’t do tax cuts because they might be a ‘nice thing to do.’ We should do them when the economics make sense, and in this case, trying to push through a savings of maybe $2.75 a week (if you fill up your 15-gallon tank every single week) in an era when gas consumption should be the last thing we’re trying to encourage does not make sense. It is also precisely what the ‘special interests’ would want. But what do I know; I’m only gonna have to live with a planet ravaged by climate change and a shortage of natural resources. This has been another edition of My Headlines.

On the face of it, this posting from Slate about why Obama should drop out of the race does make sense, but only if you’re looking at elections as games that play out for their own sake rather than the sake of what people are being elected to (the shorter term for this is the ‘horserace’). Yeah Obama would be a strong position in 2012 if he handed the nomination over to Hillary, but a strong position to do what? Clean up an even greater mess than he has to now? Deal with John ‘Bomb Bomb Iran’ McCain’s disastrous war with…wait for it…Iran? This election is literally the turning point for America in terms of what kind of nation and what kind of policies we’ll have for the next two decades; we don’t have the luxury of indulging in hypothetical scenarios where Obama can win in 2012 if he gives up today. How about he wins in 2012 by winning today? Elections don’t happen in a vacuum, and if somebody could forward that memo to Fox and ABC News, that would be great.

My headline: ‘Cause they totally fucking need it.’ This has been another edition of My Headlines.

Why aren’t you watching? Indeed. Suck it Gossip Girl!

For Buddy, the Panther booster and car salesman, faith amounts to praying alone in a chapel, after an all-important game: “I know you truly are an all-powerful God to let such a crap team win.” Jason, the quarterback who is paralyzed, scorns God after his accident. Lyla, his former girlfriend, goes the opposite direction and joins a megachurch. When she tries to hand a flyer about “Christ Teen Messengers” to Tim Riggins, a wayward soul and the town heartthrob with whom she once slept, he gleefully informs her, “I had a three-way with the Stratton sisters.” Tim is the Christopher Hitchens of Dillon.

McCain, in explaining his opposition to legislation that would extend the statute of limitations for workers to sue their employers for wage discrimination:

And what about John McCain? He didn’t show up for work (again), but he made a point of telling reporters he’s against the legislation: “In New Orleans today, McCain explained his opposition to the bill by claiming it ‘opens us up to lawsuits for all kinds of problems.’ He added that instead of legislation allowing women to fight for equal pay, they simply need ‘education and training.’”

But wait, our soldiers could use some education and training too, you know, for their lives after the military. What’s that, Senator? You don’t want to help them? Why am I not suprised? Why not tell them to skip vacations and get second jobs so that they can keep their house while you’re at it? Meanwhile, Bill Maher explores the finer details of being an elitist; are you one?

Sorry for being incommunicado lately; went home for the weekend, and otherwise just been spending a lot of time at work, playing teh girl’s new PS2, or most importantly, at the gym. And while we’re on that topic, here’s a surprisingly good article about medicine balls. Is it me, or has ESPN magazine become really good in the last few months? I far prefer it to Sports Illustrated anymore. Also, not for nothing but Outside magazine redesigned for the second time in as many years; I looooove the new flag (here was the previous version), and the insides look even better. Heh, the inside of Outside. God it’s a slow day.