Friday, November 25, 2011

working

We have a culture that worships work. The little red hen. The ants and the grasshopper.
  We also have a culture that needs things and  security.
  Now don't get me wrong, I am all for work as long as we are working on the right thing.
It seems that we are spending all our time pursuing the AMERICAN DREAM or trying to stay off the streets so the only people with the time and energy to think about community, the future and justice are persons who are interested in power for its own sake.
 I am reminded of a Science fiction novel where the rulers tried to assassinate the hero because he was too altruistic.   So the super wealthy are telling the wealthy and the middle class several tall tales. 1 wealthy people are better because they are wealthy. 2 poor people are destroying the economy. 3Mexicans are destroying the economy 4 If you are not super wealthy there can be only one of 3 reasons. poor people are lazy. poor people are immoral (wealthy people are the opposite) or our favorite other poor people(especially Mexicans ) are stealing your money

Black Friday

Shop until you save the banks and the Chinese economy

Thursday, November 24, 2011

a different perspective

My kids and watched a documentary on Kodiak Bear in Alaska. The only thing that stuck with me was the contrasting image of the kindly innocent gentleman dismembering a deer he had killed and the gruesome scene of the Bear murdering the hunter. Did anybody else feel a weird disconnect between these 2 images?

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

running and competition

I love winning. Winning is great and fun. However I do not think that it is as important as many seem to think it is.
   I struggle with competition because I love it and I do not agree with majority of society on the purpose of competition. Just as in politics there is a dichotomy of "liberal" vs. "conservative".
  The conservative feeling is best summed up by the famous quote "Winning is not the most important thing, it is the only thing".
 Liberal is simply "Everybody wins!!!"
   My philosophy,which I believe to be shared by a large (silent ) minority. Is that we compete with each other in order to as a group be better prepared to face life's "slings and arrows".
   This is more of a gut experience than an intellectual experience. Maybe partly from exposure as an infant and young child to the culture of Cochiti pueblo here in Northern NM. My belief is that winning and losing are the least important aspects of competition. Planning, organizing and teamwork are much more important to a healthy society.  Individual performance and or accolades are based on the "conservative" idea that nobody operates out of altruism and their other theory(which many liberals agree with)   that humans are too stupid and greedy to plan a just society.
I am not saying that these theories are wrong I am saying that I think they are wrong. We have to sport to practice the things that we value in our society. My group agrees that these values are courage, integrity, teamwork, planning and caring. Many people I run into believe that sport (and society) celebrate winning and that all else is secondary. I am not that interested in winners and losers or, as we progessives call it, zero sum games.
  When we get too involved in winning we lose sight of the big picture. And we begin to believe that short term is everything.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

more health matters

Great news! My older son Ben is 6 and is now a legal drug user. Cough medicine, that is.
This is very exciting because whenever he has a cold we stay up all night coughing. So last night Ben got his fix and we all slept great.

Now I am reading the label for childrens dimetapp

Do not use to sedate a child or make a child sleepy
Do not use if you are depressed or have heart disease high blood pressure or trouble urinating.
Can I sue if I steal my kids drugs and get sick?
     On a lighter note a conservative couple comes into the emergency room with identical symptoms of paranoia and dizziness. Nobody can figure out what is wrong and the patients were getting panicky.
The teenage son figures out that somebody stole his "special brownies" a happy ending.... As long as he has his medical marijuana permit.

Run for your health??

I know a few people who run because they think it is good for their health.   I have no argument with that until I see them running on the streets of my hometown of Santa Fe NM.
   This seems to me to be the opposite of a healthy activity                                                                         
       Hey guys lets go run on a tilted paved surface, breathe Carbon monoxide and diesel fumes while dodging local drivers. (we are well for our aggressive incompetence, number one  state in pedestrian deaths per capita.) Loose dogs and crazed bicyclists!!!
Does that sound fun to you?
If it does, go ahead. Just sign this waiver on your way out your door  in case I am on the roads that day.
 

corporat

 I got a system that keeps track of my runs online. It is great but typical marketing it only works with nike shoes.Which means that if I want to buy another shoes I have to deal with inaccuracy or pay for a whole new system. Typical corporate warfare, which I would not mind if not for the fact that it is in the complete market and is one of the ways sellers keep prices artificially high and quality artificially low

Saturday, November 19, 2011

the loneliness of the long distance runner.

Tale of English oppression. This book left an unforgettable imprint on me. The last act of defiance and rebellion has stuck with me since high School.

Friday, November 18, 2011

the beginning

I was born in Santa Fe NM. in 1964. I am told that at that time we had moved into my Grandparents home on Tatum road because my father had gotten cancer and they had to sell the farm in Agua Fria village. We were quickly moved to Mexico in order for my parents to save their marriage. Skipping the gory details I found myself dropped into a first grade class of 30 kids back in Agua Fria in the middle of January..
How does this connect to running you may ask? Well I will tell you.

I did not like school. They forced me to go to recess whn I wanted to do math and forced me to to math when I wanted to play. One day according to the story the 6th grade school bully threatened to beat me up. Oddly i do not remember this. I told him Oh Yeah and grabbed his ankles and threw him on his a**. needless to to it was a good thing I was fast. Also I was not bothered too much after that.
  Then there was field day. The first time I was in attendance on field day was the third grade. I remember Fernando 6th grade the 2d fastest kid in School and Sally the fastest kid in school. I got a lot of attention for being the fastest kid and in3rd grade. Also being fast was a useful skill reference my first story

Thursday, November 17, 2011

lost?

My new home is on the historic turquoise trail about 10 miles south of Santa Fe NM.  It could be called semi-rural. I moved here in June of this year and  have been enjoying the sense of isolation.

there is a nice little arroyo at the end of the dead end street I live on. My two boys( Ben 6 and Soren 4) and I spend a lot of time playing there.
Anyway being averse to running near cars, well autos of any sort, and people, I have taken to running in the arroyo. It great! 5 minute warmup then I am in my own private adventure world. This arroyo runs perpendicular to the main road (state road 14, turquoise trail) I usually run upstream away from the hiway.                                 That morning I decided to run downstream to the road and back. I ran through the cockleburr field. I ran through the little cienega or swamp I climbed the fence I crawled under a fence I crossed a dirt road. I was definitely in an alternate world, the road is only a 10 minute walk from the house. Anyway I ran through the russian olive forest,the miniature burr field and finally through the tall grass to the hiway underpass. a beautiful wide unexplored arroyo on the other side of the road . After 20 more  minutes of nice easy running I turn around and head upstream towards home. 30 minutes after that I am completely lost no hiway anywhere. finally I start to think I should head  head back downstream After a few minutes I climb out  of the arroyo. behind a gas station!?? Oh Yeah I forgot to mention the big Pile of Bear poop. I head bac down the arroyo. After what seems like forever ( I am getting a little tired) I come out of the arroyo again. A huge toy car lies abandoned halfway down the hill. Interesting . when I get to the top I hear a squeaky wind generator and on the other side a familiar looking branch of my arroyo. I get back into my familiar old arroyo cross under the hiway and head home.
 After I while I notice no cienega no fence no burrs. When I get to the tree house made out of plywood with the words Fort Bragg on them I start to believe in alternate universes. However I just turn around and head back downstream to where  the giant metal culvert had led me astray. So exhausted and well satisfied like Christopher Robin I headed home through the woods and the burrs and the fences.

adventure?

So one day I realized that all my life (well since the day in 7th grade when I had to walk home from school AGAIN because my Mom had forgotten to pick my up, Looong story short beimg pathologically shy I walked down the dry riverbed and some kind soul had left their girlie magazines under a bridge) I had a dream. That dream(one of  many I must admit) was and is to explore northern New Mexico arroyos.

No sooner said than done. ( I have been told that I have a problem of doing things as soon as I think of them, they call it lack of planning,I might feel putdown if I knew what planning is. I just know that whatever it is won't happen if I don't do it RIGHT NOW) So now I bring my cool little heart rate monitor, pedometer, (hooked up to the internet of course) and  less important things such as running shoes and shorts. I drive all over NM for my work so when I see a likely arroyo I strap on my gear (it did not happen if it is not on the internet) and go exploring. 
   Like a kid in a big backyard I pass through far countries and many adventures in 45 minutes. James Annon