Half Marathon Shout Outs

I ran my fifth half marathon yesterday. My time was nothing to write home about. I finished in 2:50:22. That placed me 3,992 out of 4,256 finishers, which I think puts me in the bottom 6%. Among men aged 45-49, I placed 258 out of 264, which is the bottom 2%. I was five minutes slower than last year and 16 minutes slower than my personal best from 2008. I have to remind myself that the first time I ran the race, it was to see if I could finish. For the fifth straight year, I did finish.

While the news stories in today's paper focused on the Kenyans and Ethiopians at the front of the pack, I would like to point out a few remarkable individuals who were not in this group.

The oldest man to finish the race was Joe Barger of Austin, age 85, who finished in 2:40:48. Way to go, Joe. At 85, some people have trouble walking across the room. You completed a half marathon and did it faster than me.

The oldest woman to finish the race was Vonda Lee Adorno of Austin, age 76. Her time of 2:28:23 was 22 minutes faster than mine. Way to go.

The youngest girls in the race were just 14. The fastest 14 year old was Brenna Lanford of Cameron, who flew through the course at 1:42:05.

The youngest boys in the race were 13 years old. The fastest of the youngest was Ryan Mata of Dripping Springs, whose time was 1:45:26.

The final remarkable thing about the race was that 5,750 people would get up in order to be at the starting line at 6:45 a.m. on a Sunday morning and proceed to push themselves through 13.1 miles of Austin roads. To all who ran, I salute you.

Defining Moments

As I approach 50, I tend to think about the past more. Recently, there are some specific moments that have popped into my head from school days. Here they are:

1. Most Embarrassing Moment

When I was in third grade, we were reading a book about a person stranded on an island in the Pacific. The person comes across something which refers to "Dink." The teacher asked me what the significance of "Dink" was. I was horrified. The only meaning I knew for "dink" was as a synonym for penis. Was the teacher really asking me to talk about a penis in class? I sat there in crimson-faced silence. It turned out that Dink was short for Dinkum which was an Australian name and meant that someone else had been on the island. However, that meaning went straight over my head and I was mortified. I am sure that the teacher had no clue about the alternate meaning.

2. Most Disillusioning, Soul-Sucking Moment

During my sophomore year in high school, my teacher assigned the class to write an alternate ending to the story "The Monkey's Paw." To seamlessly blend the original story with my alternative, I started with the line, "I wish my son alive again." I wrote a very creative piece. However, when I got it back the grade was an F. I asked the teacher what the problem was. She had a policy that anyone using a sentence fragment would receive an F on the assignment. She said that the line I had quoted from the story was a sentence fragment and that I should have changed the language from the story! I was shocked and angry. The teacher assigned us to read this story and yet using the actual language from the story would earn me an F. To make it worse, it wasn't a sentence fragment. The verb "wish" was being used in an active sense rather than the passive "I wish my son was alive" that the teacher preferred. During this time, I was reading Ayn Rand and Alexandr Solyzhenitsyn. I became convinced that high school was a gulag designed to stifle creativity and reward mediocrity. It wasn't (at least not all of the time), but that was how I viewed it through the lens of one callous teacher.

Several years later, a friend asked me why I identified with the Pink Floyd song which had the refrain "We don't need no education/We don't need no thought control/No dark sarcasm in the classroom/Hey teacher, leave those kids alone." This moment was why.

3. Scariest Moment

This also happened my sophomore year in high school. PE was a nightmare for me. The coach would throw a ball at 30 boys and then retreat to his office for the rest of the hour. With 30 unsupervised boys, there was a lot of chest thumping, macho swagger and outright aggression. I learned that you had to push back or you would constantly be bullied. One day we were playing basketball in the gym. Someone shoved me and I shoved him back. He became enraged and shoved me down some steps. I bloodied my knee and wanted to go to the nurse to get it cleaned up. However, the coach would not let me go unless I told him who did it. Foolishly, I broke the code and told him. Later that day, I ran into the same person in the hall. He came up to me and said "I wasn't f***ing around. I'm going to finish it." Something in his eyes made me realize that this was not a garden variety threat. I went to the assistant principal almost in tears. He assured me that this person would not be hurting anyone. He was kicked out of school and I never saw him again. Later, he was arrested for murder. It turns out he had killed a freshman the year before for snitching on him.

4. Most Fortuitous Moment

One day during my junior year, I sat down to take the PSAT. I don't think I knew what the PSAT was or its significance. It was just another standardized test. Back then, we didn't have prep classes and didn't have it drilled into our heads that these tests were the most important things in the world. My results came back and I was a national merit semi-finalist. This changed my life. I was always a good student, but I made plenty of Bs (see #2 above) which meant that I was not an academic rock star. However, with this one test, I not only got my picture in the paper, but was inspired to believe that I could do well in life (or at least in taking standardized tests).

5. Most Ironic Moment

I took journalism for three years in high school. Every year, there was a UIL contest in journalism. My teacher entered me in headline writing. I did well enough that I got to go to regionals in Lubbock. The result of that was that I earned a letter. I bought a letter jacket to put my letter on. Suddenly, I could walk the halls with the same letter jacket that the jocks wore. It was funny because, like most Texas high schools, we had a culture which focused on football. There were no pep rallies for the math club or the school newspaper. However, someone in the school decided that letters could be given for academic contests and I had one. The really funny thing was that the actual headlines that I wrote for the school newspaper never fit right and almost always had to be done over.

6. Happiest Moment

During my sophomore year in college, I asked a girl in my dorm if she would like to go to see a campus production of Godspell with me. I don't think I had exchanged more than three words with her and she was not in any of my classes. It was a shot in the dark. She said no, that she was going with her father. The day of the play, she told me that her father had cancelled and would I like to go with her. This was a first. A girl actually asked me out. That was my first date with my wife and we have been married for 26 years now.

There are probably other moments that are worth mentioning, but these are the ones that stand out.

The Return of Big Brother?

Saturday's paper included a piece called "Land of the paranoid," which you can find here. It was all about how right-wing commentators have been raising the prospect of violent resistance to a government which will attempt to take away our guns, vaccinate our children or make us buy energy efficient light bulbs.

My first reaction was that it all sounded absurd. However, it did make me think back to high school. During those years, many of my favorite books were by authors such as Ayn Rand, George Orwell, Aldous Huxley and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The idea of the brave individual fighting back against the totalitarian machine appealed to me in those years. High school struck me as a fascist system where creativity was stifled and conformity was demanded.

I outgrew those fears in college. Once I was in a more open environment, my fear of authority mellowed to a healthy skepticism. Years later, the Berlin Wall fell and it became apparent that authoritarian regimes were not all powerful.

When I listen to the current rants, I have to laugh. Their fears seem so petty. In the books of my youth, Big Brother could make you disappear for thought crimes or banish you to the Gulag Archipelago. Barack Obama, on the other hand, can make you buy health insurance. Last year, I read Letters to Freya, a story of German resistance to Hitler. That was a story of true evil and true opposition to evil. The current fears about President Obama pale in comparison. Oppressive, totalitarian regimes exist in many corners of the world today, places like Iran, Myanmar and China. Painting the current American president as a threat to liberty cheapens the suffering of those who have no freedom.

On the other hand, if you would like a smile, listen to these high school students singing about George Orwell's 1984 to the tune of Bowling for Soup's 1985.

Say It Like It Isn't: Lies, Gaffes and Misstatements

I became an Independent because I wasn't inspired by Republicans or Democrats. It wasn't always that way.

I remember the excitement of the first campaigns that I worked on during the 1980s. In 1979, I was one of the founders of the College Republicans at Texas Lutheran College. I was campus coordinator for George H.W. Bush. I remember thinking of him as a decent, intelligent man with an impressive resume. I became a reluctant supporter of Ronald Reagan, but came to be impressed by him. I also remember the local candidates that I supported, people like Jim Sagebiel and Margie Reinhardt, who swept out the corrupt Democrats in Guadalupe County. I also remember working on Edmund Kuempel's first campaign for state representative.

As the years went on, I became more involved, serving two terms as a Republican Precinct Chairman in Travis County. As Precinct Chairman, I noticed that the local Republican Party spent most of its time feuding with each other and arguing over who was more ideologically pure. I initially embraced the rise of the religious right. However, I began to notice that their version of Christianity did not line up with what I read in the Bible.

Ideologically, there were four straws that broke the camel's back: bankruptcy reform, immigration, the war in Iraq and the death penalty. However, more than these particular issues, I hated cringing whenever Republicans said something disingenuous, dishonest or just plain stupid. Accuracy and logic are not how you fire up the base. Howard Dean and the Daily Kos weren't much better.

With that really long introduction, here are some statements from this year that I found to be particularly offensive, weird or wrong.

The Health Care Debate

The Health Care debate produced many statements that were either dishonest, inflammatory or just plain stupid. For example:

"We believe that the job-killing ObamaCare law will result in a government takeover of health care. That's why we have pledged to repeal it, and replace it with common-sense reforms that actually lower costs.”--Spokesman for U.S. Rep. John Boehner

"It says specifically that people can't purchase private health insurance after a date certain, which means people will ultimately go into a single-payer plan where it is government providing health care and only one single government system. That's why this is so bad, Sean. This is socialized medicine ... This is, as I said, the crown jewel of socialism. It's what Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have wanted from the very beginning."--U.S. Rep. Michelle Bachmann

"And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil."--Sarah Palin

These statements are all examples of the Big Lie. The speaker makes an outrageous, inflammatory statement. When challenged, they spin an unlikely scenario in which the statement might come to fruition. For example, when the Obama health plan included a public option, the party line was that the public option would undercut private insurance, driving private companies out of business and lead to national health insurance which could then enforce health care rationing. The only problem with this scenario is that Republicans kept mentioning it after the public option was deleted.

"The final health care legislation that will soon be passed will deliver successful reform at the local level, but we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy."--U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi

This last statement shows why many people don't put a lot of faith in the Democrats. While Nancy Pelosi no doubt meant to say that people would like the health care law once they were familiar with it, she came off as saying that Congress should pass it first and read it later.

Anti-Muslim Hysteria and the Ground Zero Mosque

Plans to build an Islamic Center on a site two blocks away from the World Trade Center site brought out a lot of hysteria.

"We can't say no to building a victory monument at Ground Zero because that's what this mosque is. They want to build a victory monument."--Rush Limbaugh

"At its essence, our position is about sensitivity. Everyone -- victims,opponents and proponents alike -- must pay attention to the sensitivities involved without giving in to appeals to, or accusations of, bigotry. Ultimately, this was not a question of rights, but a question of what is right. In our judgment, building an Islamic Center in the shadow of the World Trade Center would un-necessarily cause some victims more pain. And that wasn't right.--Abraham Foxman, Anti-Defamation League

"No matter how you try, this isn't about religious discrimination or intolerance. This is about constructing a mosque on the very spot where the landing gear of one of the hijacked planes crashed into the building on this site. Certainly you can understand the feelings of the families and victims of 9-11 - including our client - NYC firefighter and first responder Tim Brown - who survived the attack but lost nearly 100 colleagues that day. For them, the pain never ends. They consider this site hallowed ground and, like most Americans, don't believe this is the place to build a mosque. To them, it's insensitive. To them, it should be a memorial - not a mosque. It really is as simple as that."--Jay Sekulow

The Limbaugh quote is another example of the Big Lie. Because Muslims built a mosque to commemorate a victory sometime, somewhere in the world, the only reason that Muslims would want to build a mosque in lower Manhattan is to commemorate the 9/11 attacks. Of course, he completely ignores the fact that this mosque was intended to replace another mosque that had been in the same area for many years.

Abraham Foxman and Jay Sekulow are more subtle. They use the language of sensitivity. However, the fact that the landing gear from one of the planes struck the old Burlington Coat Factory does not make it hallowed ground. In fact, it was never considered hallowed ground until after the Muslims bought the property. This is a case of 1) revisionist history and 2) using sensitivity as a weapon.

Religious Crazy Talk

When it comes to religion, the words of the Bible and the words of those who speak in the name of religion often keep little company.

"And they got together and swore a pact to the Devil. They said, 'We will serve you if you'll get us free from the French.' True story. And so the Devil said, 'Okay, it's a deal.' . . . But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after another." --Pat Robertson

“I beg you, look for the words ‘social justice’ or ‘economic justice’ on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes.”--Glenn Beck

"I mean, it is a perversion of the gospel. It is a perversion of the gospel. And I understand that we are dealing with — we're not dealing with — we're not dealing with powers of the Earth. We're just not. This is a perversion of the gospel. And it is such a clear perversion of the gospel, I want to show you the collective salvation remarks."--Glenn Beck

Pat Robertson used a little voodoo history in order to blame the Haitian earthquake on a so-called pact with the devil. While there is a grain of truth to the fact that during the slave uprising someone performed a voodoo rite, it doesn't hold up that the Haitian people as a whole made a pact or that God would send an earthquake nearly 200 years later to punish them.

While Robertson is laughable, Glenn Beck is more insidious. Although he is a Mormon, and therefore does not have a Christian take on the Bible, it doesn't stop him from talking about the Bible. In each of these quotes, he suggests that language which can be legitimately construed as love of neighbor really means something evil and subversive. It is true that social justice can be a code word for socialism and it is also true that collective salvation derives from liberation theology. However, the actual quotes from President Obama talked about not forgetting the less fortunate, which is a very Christian message. Beck takes the "collective salvation" soundbite and spins an entirely different meaning on it.

Obama Derangement Syndrome

There are many examples which could go here, but I will use just two.

This usurper in the office of the President of the United States has been shredding our Constitution. Washington is dominated by socialists. . . . Socialists do not believe in god. Their god is the state."--State Rep. Leo Berman

Obama "doesn't ... want to admit we're at war."--Dick Cheney

You don't have to like President Obama. However, that is not license to make things up. Last time I checked, being elected President of the United States does not make you a usurper. Also, President Obama has continued so many of his predecessor's policies on the war on terror that his liberal supporters have felt betrayed.

Lies and Texas Politics

Gov. Rick Perry coasted to victory in this year's gubernatorial race. The ease of his re-election didn't stop the Governor and his party from telling some whoppers.

"Today is day 164 of liberal trial lawyer Bill White refusing to debate. He also continues to refuse to release his taxes from his years in public service."--Press Release from the Rick Perry Campaign

Actually, it was Perry who refused to debate.

"Bill White has presided over the construction of what may be the world's largest abortion clinic."--Republican Party of Texas

That's true only if the words "presided over" mean that he happened to be mayor at the time.

Immigration

"I don't know that all of you are Latino. Some of you look a little more Asian to me. I don't know that. What we know about -- what we know about ourselves is that we are a melting pot in this country. My -- my grandchildren are evidence of that. I'm evidence of that. I've been called the third Asian legislator in our Nevada state assembly."--Sharon Angle

Bizarre.

"I don't know how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be a Republican, OK. Do I need to say more?"--Sen Harry Reid

Patronizing

"Worst of all, Robert Rodriguez’ incendiary race film ‘Machete’ was made, in part, with help from tax incentives and location access provided by the Texas Film Commission, a division of Governor Rick Perry’s Office. A spokesperson from the organization confirmed that Rodriguez had indeed applied for funding."--Alex Jones, Infowars.com

A little anti-immigrant hysteria? Saying that the film had applied for funding is not the same as saying that it was made with tax incentives. Also, calling it an "incendiary race film" is just plain silly. It is a good guys vs. bad guys movie where some of the bad guys happen to be Anglo.

Random

Here are some random false statements from the past year.

I never considered myself a maverick."--U.S. Sen. John McCain

Is this a case of amnesia?

"We don't get a lot of calls from this White House… I have, frankly, never had a call from them."--Rick Perry

This is more amnesia, since Gov. Perry had just received a call from the White House.

As we head into 2011, I am neither Republican nor Democrat nor likely to change anytime soon.