Week 1

Last Saturday was the first Big Spin for me this season.  Two hours on the bike on a trainer with a bunch of great folks and half an hour on the treadmill.  After some time off, it felt great.  I got all those same feelings again.  Like impatience after 30-45 min on the bike.  Like euphoria in the last 30 minutes riding and the first 20 minutes running.  Like an unfathomably deep hunger an hour later.

4000 continuous yards in the pool today, about the length of the IM swim.  Not at any kind of exciting pace, but it's an entirely doable distance.  Enough to make me tired, but no problem.

Big Spin 2 is tomorrow, and I have to get up early when I'd rather sleep in.  I can't wait.

Rick Warren

For the last couple of days, one of the big news items was Obama's invitation of Rick Warren to give the invocation at the presidential swearing-in. 

A reasonable question that doesn't seem to be noted much is whether there ought to be a religious invocation at this event at all, but I digress....

In what I will call, for lack of better terms, the "pro-gay" literature on the Bible, it is often argued that one of Jesus's traits was his radical inclusiveness.  Even many supposedly anti-gay stories (e.g., Soddom and Gammorah) are interpreted with this theme.  So, on the one hand, this invitation strikes me as an example of a similar radical inclusiveness, with Warren himself and symbolic of others who are most definitely not sympathetic to the LGBT (or for that matter, Democratic) cause.

On the other, Warren, in his otherwise non-flame-throwing persona, has been staunch in his opposition to equal rights for same-sex marriage, comparing it to incest, polygamy, etc.  His statements, while often calm and articulate, have been damning and hurtful.  So, on this other hand, inviting him to open the ceremony for Obama seems like a massive kick in the teeth to the LGBTA community.

I hope this was not a cynical calculation, that it was a genuine attempt at post partisanship, or at least inclusiveness.  It doesn't feel that way now.  At minimum it feels like a miscalculation.  At worst, it feels like a major tarnish on our otherwise still-shiny new president (-elect).  I hope it was worth it.

Gay marriage case in Iowa

The case in the Iowa Supreme Court is summarized well by the Des Moines Register.  The quick and dirty version is that in 2007, an Iowa district court judge held that Iowa's ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional and (temporarily) made same sex weddings legal.  However, within hours, he stayed his own order, and only one (I think) couple actually got married during the short window.

Here's how we know that history is going to be on our side:

"One could easily argue, and we do, that fostering same-sex marriage will harm the institution of marriage as we know it," Kuhle said. "It's not going to happen tomorrow. We're not going to see any changes tomorrow, next week, next year, in our generation. But you've got to look to the future."

Kuhle said state support for same-sex marriage would teach future generations that marriage is no longer about procreation despite thousands of years of history.

Are we kidding here?  This is the lawyer defending the ban on same-sex marriage.  Some vague, undescribed harm well into the future?  Seriously?  How about no-fault divorce if we want to talk about a harm to marriage!  And can this guy be serious about procreation being the purpose of marriage?  Undoubtely, there is a correlation, but we're not really going to have fertility tests associated with marriage licenses, or ban the weddings of 60 year old women are we?

The battle is over.  It's just a matter of how long it will take for everyone to figure that out.

Do-Overs

(I apologize for the delay here.  Got completely swamped at work for a while.)

The Bush "Exit Interviews" have started.  The one with Charlie Gibson had a section that just rang like nails on a blackboard:

GIBSON: You've always said there's no do-overs as President. If you had one?

BUSH: I don't know -- the biggest regret of all the presidency has to have been the intelligence failure in Iraq. A lot of people put their reputations on the line and said the weapons of mass destruction is a reason to remove Saddam Hussein. It wasn't just people in my administration; a lot of members in Congress, prior to my arrival in Washington D.C., during the debate on Iraq, a lot of leaders of nations around the world were all looking at the same intelligence. And, you know, that's not a do-over, but I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess.

GIBSON: If the intelligence had been right, would there have been an Iraq war?

BUSH: Yes, because Saddam Hussein was unwilling to let the inspectors go in to determine whether or not the U.N. resolutions were being upheld. In other words, if he had had weapons of mass destruction, would there have been a war? Absolutely.

GIBSON: No, if you had known he didn't.

BUSH: Oh, I see what you're saying. You know, that's an interesting question. That is a do-over that I can't do. It's hard for me to speculate.

Reading between the lines here in the last few sentences: he was going to go to war anyway.  Any reasonable person who was serious about the WMD justification for going to war in Iraq could easily answer Gibson's question.  "If we had known Iraq had no WMD, we would not have started a war."  This shows once again that the WMD explanation was just a pretense.

Crossing the Rubicon

Well, today was the day.

Today was the day that my son beat me.  He's 13.

Pretty damn cool.

We did the Living History Farms run, this huge cross country race in sub-freezing temps with about 9 little stream crossings.  It's about a 7 mile race with 7500 people.  The winners go sub-40 min and sub hour is a pretty good time.  He beat me by a minute.  I could give some excuses, but no matter how you cut it, he beat me.  Fair and square.  Way cool.  (They seem to have not done the chip timing right, because my start-to-finish time was just under an hour, and his was just under 59, but no harm done.)

Next season, it's on. I have a feeling it'll be my last where I have a chance.

Banned to Alaska

The news yesterday was that Ted Stevens conceded his senate race to Democrat Mark Begich.  Honestly, outside of removing a corrupt old hand who didn't listen to anyone, it's not clear yet that Begich will be a senate leader. 

But what he has done is kept Sarah Palin in Alaska.  No Sarah the Senator, at least for now.

We'll see how likely she is to stay there based on her travel schedule over the next 18 months.  She  matches well with the Iowa Republican party (in large part rural and conservative Christian) and could do well in the Iowa Caucuses.  The Iowa Caucuses don't choose presidents, or necessarily even the nominee (ask Pres. Huckabee and Gebhardt, for example), but they do narrow the field.  In 2008, the Democratic survivors were Obama and Clinton.  Edwards essentially tied Clinton, but everyone knew he had staked everything on Iowa and hadn't won.  That, in combination with Obama's headline-grabbing win, was enough to effectively knock him out.  On the Republican side, Huckabee and Romney got tickets.  I think McCain was a special case, in that he skillfully played his knowledge that he wouldn't do well in Iowa but could make a comeback in New Hampshire.

The point remains, though, that Palin could place well in Iowa, based on her appeal to its Republicans.  The value of that ticket to New Hampshire would depend on the rest of the field and how the next four years go.  But watch the Des Moines airport over the next while to see if she's thinking the same thing.

Prop 8 and the impasse on same-sex marriage

I picked up this video clip from Andrew Sullivan's blog. I'm completely with Savage on this one, and I think some of Perkins' arguments are specious. But that said, it seems to me that this is one of those times that your preconceptions completely predetermine who you think "wins" this exchange. If you come from a world view that civil gay marriage should be banned because of your religious convictions, then Perkins' arguments will ring a lot truer. Stuff like "using the court to overturn the will of the people." (Again, Savage is right that this is exactly one of the things that the courts are for, but most people don't see it that way when it's their will that's being overturned.)

As to the content, Savage makes two excellent points. First, he notes that we straights are the ones that have redefined civil marriage over the years in response to societal changes, so doing so is hardly unprecedented. Second, he gives the excellent and rational reply to the usual polygamy/slippery-slope objection to redefining marriage: that each such proposed change should be weighed on its own merit. Disliking polygamy has no bearing on any decision regarding same-sex marriage.

But again, if you think both same sex marriage and polygamy are abominations, does that color how you view that retort?

We will win this in time, but it will take a while.

Disingenuous

Socialist. Terrorist. Etc. This is an example of how rotten our election tactics have become (or still are). I am a Democrat, and it feels like the Republicans, on the whole pull, this crap a lot worse than the Democrats do. And of course, this is angering. But worse is how they do it and don't believe it. The NY Times documents how disingenuous it all is.

Feeling better

My marathon was three weeks ago today. After a week completely off, and a week of very light work, last week edged into daily, but brief, training again. Today I feel great, and I haven't felt the need for my good buddy Ibuprofen for a while. Aside from a run this afternoon that will be longer, workouts of 30-60 minutes were the norm, and strangely refreshing. For the month of November, it's all about preparation for training: keeping up 5-7 days/week of something, while getting fresh and ready to begin the training for the next season all healthy again.

September 2009 - Ironman Wisconsin
April 2010 - Boston Marathon

Here we go.

Alaska Senate

So now we know that a Special Election would have to be held to succeed Ted Stevens, assuming he is eventually called as the winner of the Alaska senate race and either resigns or is dismissed from the Senate. The way I read the tea leaves - admittedly just a guess - is that Sarah Palin would like this to stretch out a while so that the presidential election can be a few months in the past. At that point, some of the negative emotion of the performance of the McCain/Palin ticket and her role in it would be past, but she would still be in a strong position to take the senate seat if she ran for it. We'll see.

Palin still goes to Washington?

So it looks like Stevens will ultimately win the Alaska senate seat, despite being found guilty of a felony. He says he will appeal, but it seems unlikely he will survive this. It seems much easier to believe that this sort of talk was designed to get himself reelected to keep the seat in Republican hands. Assuming he has won, he will probably have to resign some time soon.

At that point, the governor gets to appoint his replacement. Which governor? Palin of course. It would certainly be a gutsy way for her to keep her profile up if that is what she wants to do. After all, there is now precedent for a 1-term senator who got famous for a speech at a political convention to be a successful candidate for president.

Maybe a little nuts on my part? You betcha.

An election disappointment

There are people who know who their gay friends and relatives are, or at least most of them. There are people who don't know. And there are people who pretend they have none.

The case for gay civil marriage is simple and compelling, and can be summarized in two sentences: There is no compelling state interest in denying equal civil rights to gay couples and straight couples, and the benefits to those gay couples who choose to marry are paramount. Religious institutions already restrict the marriages that they recognize and sanction, and civil marriage has no impact on that fact.

The benefits of marriage need not be expounded here. We all know them.

But what is so frustrating is the pretense that civil gay marriages would somehow be an unbearable assault on the religious sacrament of marriage (to use the Christian term). Catholic doctrine already does not recognize second marriages. Many religious groups, orthodox Judaism being only a single example, do not approve of cross-religion marriages. Yet these marriages are, of course, sanctioned by the civil states.

Many, including our president-elect, pretend that the solution is to have a new word for gay marriages, i.e., "civil unions". This would be sensible, as long as all civil weddings were "unions" and homosexual and heterosexual unions were held on equal terms. We could leave the word "marriage" to religion, if we wanted to. However, that is not what is proposed: Civil Unions are always a lesser option.

Thus, I find it crushing that California, the state I grew up in and arguably the most progressive state in the Union, has found it necessary to constitutionally enshrine civil discrimination. What a chance they had.

Day 1

I start this on Day 1.

For several more weeks, W is still president and DC is still in the undisclosed location, but has anyone been a lamer duck?

Congratulations to us all on this one. Good luck, Mr. Obama.