Northbound

Rob Walker — you know him from The New York Times Magazine — lays bare the philosophy behind liberal media bias:

Bullshit trend stories can be a force for good.

What I mean is, it has occurred to me that it’s possible that the bullshit trend stories about consumers fleeing bottled water could, eventually, if they achieve critical mass, actually cause consumers to flee bottled water — or at least to recycle their empties.

For years, activists have made the case against bottled water. Lately, that case has also been made in some pretty good articles. But that hasn’t been enough to make any particularly noticeable impact on consumer behavior. So maybe dubious trend stories will do the trick. If enough people keep writing them, then some day, they will actually start to be true.

It’s the childlike faith that gets to me.  If we write enough nonsense, maybe one day it will all come true.  (Of course, it works both ways; there were all those stories on the Opinion Journal website about all the good news coming out of Iraq.)

Okay, so I’m running out of cool mile markers. Unfortunately, Google Maps hasn’t quite gotten around to Guam, yet, so I can’t show you where this would be, even if I could.  (Never been to Guam, never been farther west than Point Loma, outside of San Diego.)

Okay, so I walked today, and it was much easier than yesterday.  Managed a mile and a quarter in about 32 minutes (we’re not counting fractional miles, so you know).  Partly (I imagine wholly) this is because I was not as stuffed up today as I was yesterday; walking is amazingly easier when you can breathe. 

And — get this — it was momentarily enjoyable.  I don’t mean that I enjoyed myself, mind you, because I didn’t.  But there was a point where I looked over and everyone else that had been on their treadmills had gotten off, and I was alone — I had out-walked them all, at least from my perspective.  (The people who really work out at my gym, and probably yours, use the elliptical trainers.)  And this was nice.  It didn’t mean anything, other than to tell me that I hadn’t given up, at least not quite yet.

Of course, right at the moment when you feel the tiniest bit positive about yourself for walking the extra quarter-mile and not whining about it, you read about the eight year-old girl in China who runs 44 miles a day.  I mean, that’s just how these things go.

I have to admit, this one was a lot harder than I wanted it to be.  There’s not a good way to measure how easy or hard a given bit of exercise is — especially as I am constitutionally unable of thinking of anything exercise-related as easy.  But I know when I’m struggling by the first time I look at the red LED display on the camera.

I can’t look, you see.  I have to have a magazine or something propped up in front of the red LED display.  I don’t want to know how many minutes I’ve walked until I’m done.  I don’t want to keep pace with myself.  I don’t want to be a clockwatcher, grinding down weary minute after weary minute.  I want to read stuff like Byron York’s piece on Mike Huckabee in this fortnight’s National Review and not think about how much I’m sweating and how much I would rather be anywhere else.  (A nice piece, by the way, but I think York focuses too much on side issues:  the parole of a rapist that Huckabee vouched for and sort-of helped get out of jail, only to have him kill his next target – oopsie — and Huckabee’s neener-neener-neener fight with the Club For Growth over tax increases.  York doesn’t address the big question — can Mike Huckabee beat HRC — to which the only sane, logical answer is, “In his dreams.”)

So I read, and sweated, and I moved the magazine over to check the readout.  Fourteen minutes down, half a mile to go.  Bother.  I suffered a bit more.  The readout says .67 miles.  Will this never end?  I checked again, a quarter of a mile left.  I was sweating like Burt Reynolds doing dinner theater.

I stopped halfway through the magazine.  The readout said .91 miles.  I closed the magazine and stared the readout down.  When it said 1.00 miles, I got off.  I had enough.  I’m still getting over my cold, it’s been a long day, and it’s time to go home.

Seven miles down, ninety-three to go.  And I earned this one.

TMQ, on Michael Vick:

Legal note: Vick might be compelled to repay the Falcons a huge amount of bonus money, and will lose $25 million or more in endorsement income. I have no sympathy for his loss of endorsement income: Vick was hired to bring Nike and other companies he endorsed good publicity, and instead brought them bad. But think about the income loss in the calculation of overpunishment of Vick. One or two years in federal prison, and perhaps state prison time if state charges are filed as well; plus $25 million in lost endorsement income and, oh, $50 million in lost or returned NFL income. That’s overkill! Often the indirect financial consequences of legal proceedings are worse than the official ones, in the same way that a speeding ticket might cost you $75 but add $1,000 to your annual insurance bill.

In effect, the federal indictment of Vick is resulting in him being fined around $75 million, which is far too much retribution. The legal hang-up is that since 1984, federal courts have been forbidden to consider monetary loss in private life as counting toward punishment. But a year of banishment from the NFL, a guilty plea with suspended sentence and probation (meaning the sentence is imposed if probation is violated), seems plenty of punishment for a first offense by someone who has not harmed another human being. Prison time and a $75 million fine? What Vick did was indecent, but now excessive punishment is being imposed, and two wrongs do not equal one right. Justice, after all, must be tempered with mercy. That’s what you would think if you stood in the dock accused.

I don’t get this, I don’t get it at all.  The $75 million Vick will be losing is not a “fine,” period.  It’s his income.  It’s the money that he makes from being on the field as an NFL quarterback.  If Michael Vick is in federal prison, he can’t earn his income because he’s not on the playing field.  He’s in material breach of his contract.  He’s not earning that $75m because he’s not available to play.  If the “fine” is out of proportion, it’s because Vick’s salary is out of proportion.  (And, as TMQ surely knows, NFL contracts are overinflated anyway, especially on the back-end.)

Even if we take TMQ seriously here, what would he have the NFL do?  Pay Vick part of his salary for not playing football?  Treat the prison sentence like an injury, where Vick gets paid despite performing?  Pay Vick $25m for the privilege of watching Falcons games in prison?  I don’t get it.  Everybody who goes to prison loses their job (if they had one) when they get there, because they can’t show up for work.  We don’t consider that retribution.  If Vick can’t earn his salary, he’s not entitled to it, and it’s not retribution or a “fine” to take it away.

UPDATE:  Why is TMQ so sanguine about Vick’s endorsement money but not his football money?  It’s the exact same issue.  Nike was paying Vick for publicity; the NFL was paying Vick to score touchdowns.  What’s the difference between Vick losing out on endorsement money as opposed to football money?

Well, what does one do?

Okay.  Saturday is the kickoff of the college football season, and the mighty and fierce Baylor Bears are playing their former Southwest Conference rival, the TCU Frogs.  And — and this is something not to be discounted, those of you who went to football-factory schools — the Baylor-TCU tilt is being televised over wide swaths of the nation, through the CSTV cable network.

Said swaths, of course, don’t include my corner of New Jersey.  CSTV isn’t available where I live.  It is available in the neighboring community where we’re building our house — except that our house is, at the moment, a great big hole in the ground full of water.  As much as I’d like it to happen, our builder isn’t going to have the house finished by Saturday.

There are three things I could do.

1. Suffer.  That is to say, wallow in self-pity, try to follow the game on ESPN’s website, and generally moan, cry and complain about the lack of Big XII TV coverage Up North.  It’s not fair.  East Coast Media Bias.  Why do we get Army-Akron instead?  Oh, the pain of it all.
2. Strive.  Surely, someone else has CSTV.  Maybe some neighboring community.  Maybe it’s on satellite dish somewhere, or pay-per-view.  Or there’s a Baylor-watching party in NYC, perhaps.  You can get people to watch opera in The City, and experimental modern theater, and the Naked Cowboy, why not Baylor football?
3. Serenity.  Heck with it.  Baylor isn’t going to win this one anyway; they’re 21-point underdogs.  There’s no way this game won’t be a disaster, not with GuyMo playing merry-go-round with quarterback selection anyway.  Why not just watch Georgia Tech try to beat the living snot out of Notre Dame instead?

I’m leaning towards #3, with great big dollops of #1, especially if Baylor comes back, and, you know, makes this one close and everything.

UPDATE:  If we’ve learned anything, if history has taught us anything, it is this:  Bear Meat’s TCU-Baylor preview is going to be more exciting than the game.  Period.

In the middle of a very interesting article about how the former Portuguese colony of Macao is turning into the next Las Vegas, the New York Times has to go and take a swipe at New Jersey:

Currently, Macao resembles Atlantic City — attracting mostly residents of nearby cities, who appear less than glamorous.

Rich.  Very rich.  Of course, I seem to remember that there was a piece in the NYT not that long ago that talked about New York City homeless folks catching free rides on gambling buses and then hanging out in Atlantic City hotel lobbies all day (too lazy to find the link, don’t you know).  So there, to use a quaint Jersey expression.

Well, I did walk this weekend, so there — to one end of the other of one of our many fine Jersey strip malls, so there.  Wasn’t continuous, though, so it didn’t count.  Came down with a cold, though, so took yesterday easy, and called in sick to work today to rest up a bit more.  Swigging down grapefruit juice and trying to keep my immune system going.  Tomorrow night, Willie Nelson concert, so walking restarts on Wednesday.

New Orleans wants the NFL Draft:

The Greater New Orleans Sports Foundation has sent a letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell seeking to host the annual draft and turn it into a week-long celebration – complete with events including a Mardi Gras-style parade and civic events involving retired NFL players.

The draft either would be held at the convention center or the New Orleans Arena, said Jay Cicero, the foundation president leading the effort. The NFL has not responded to the plan, he said.

New York has hosted the draft since 1965.

This needs to happen.  There’s no reason why the NFL Draft has to be in New York every year.  (There’s also no reason why the combine needs to be in Indianapolis every year, for that matter.)  New Orleans is a good location.  Jerry Jones would probably fight wild tigers to get the draft at Jerryworld.  Or put it in Washington and let Hillary announce the first pick.  Let’s be creative.

The Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force is, of all things, a Grand Prairie native. 

To honor Gen. Moseley, the Grand Prairie school district named its newest school after him. On Monday, the Mike Moseley Elementary School will open its doors to more than 450 students.

Classrooms are decorated. Books line library shelves. Furniture and equipment are in place. The only missing item is grass – the landscaping hasn’t been completed yet.

When asked about the name he’d prefer on the school, Gen. Moseley, 57, said he wanted the name to reflect how his friends knew him back when he was a student, said district spokesman Sam Buchmeyer.

It’s the end of a tradition, too:

Previously, schools in the Grand Prairie district have been named for notable national figures such as Barbara Bush, Colin Powell and John F. Kennedy, as well as historic Texans, including William B. Travis, James Bowie and Sam Houston.

Mr. Buchmeyer said Gen. Moseley is the first graduate of the Grand Prairie school system to have a school bearing his name.

It’s kind of nice.  I went to Lyndon B. Johnson Elementary; I don’t know if Lyndon ever set foot in Grand Prairie.  Went to Andrew Jackson Middle School and John Adams Middle School, and I know they never made it to the Metroplex.  Schools ought to be named after local heroes; the only problem has been a shortage of same in Grand Prairie.  (You won’t ever see, say, a Bonnie and Clyde Elementary School, although it would be cool.)

The one cool thing the article misses is that Gen. Moseley is a knight.  The one bad thing it misses is that he’s an Aggie.  Well, you can’t have everything.  (And if you had everything, you wouldn’t want it.)

In the New York Times today, a digression on the relative value of psychotherapy over time:

Yet unlike most other medical treatments, psychotherapy can take considerable time. An infection can be cured in days, but remission of severe depression or anxiety disorder usually takes weeks or months, and a personality disorder typically requires years of intensive psychotherapy.

So if the outcome may be months or years away, how can a person tell whether his psychotherapy is any good?

It’s harder than you’d think. For one thing, people commonly equate feeling better with getting good treatment. But since psychiatric disorders fluctuate spontaneously with time, like most illnesses, many patients would get better even if they got no treatment at all. A patient getting bad psychotherapy might flourish, while another patient getting exemplary treatment might suffer terribly.

Suffer.  Terribly.

Now, I’m not saying that this has anything at all to do with exercise necessarily.  Probably it doesn’t.  But you can make the analogy.  Some people, you’d think, can exercise in a bad way and end up feeling good about it.  And some people — heh, heh — can exercise in a personally-appropriate way and end up suffering terribly.

And — you can’t deny this — the part about the “outcome being months or years away” certainly applies to exercise.  Whatever long-term benefit I get out of this project is at least months away; I may never be able to quantify it accurately.  If I complete this project, and on December 31, I don’t look any different or feel any better, I’m not going to be happy.  But I’m not going to be surprised, either.

Six miles down, ninety-four miles to go.