Martian Money and Morality

I've been intrigued by the recent excitement generated by the successful landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars.  Very cool images and an amazing engineering feat obviously capture the attention of this physicist.

I've also been amazed at some of the comments I see out in cyberspace whenever folks comment on the news stories.  Here's one comment from an LA Times reader of an opinion piece entitled "Hey, Curiosity, don't forget to look for a rusted-out Martian Beetle"

nockamixon at 5:17 PM August 07, 2012The real waste -- the travesty -- is the amount the US spends on military.  Imagine what kind of progress and breakthroughs we could accomplish if we diverted even a fraction of the money we put into war toward more humane pursuits?

This is an easy statement to make and makes one feel as though moral high ground is taken.  At the bottom of this house of cards is the faulty assumption that the money has to be spent.  Whose money is it?  From where did it come?

When it's not your money, morality and accountability soon vanish, as evidenced by the recent GSA, Secret Service, and NOAA scandals.

The founding fathers realized this, but along the way we've unlearned the notion that no one can be trusted to spend someone else's money.

Morality is preserved when individuals are allowed to spend money at their choosing.  Local community efforts are better served if individuals are allowed to spend their earnings on charities that are near to them, instead of sending the money to Washington and have the money "trickle down" to the charities and programs picked by government bureaucrats.

Allowing the government to choose winners and losers--be it charities, corporate bailouts, loan programs, or science programs is immoral, and always leads to ultimate corruption, as properly warned by the founding fathers.  Regulation is not the answer, because the enormity of the regulatory bureaucracies overwhelms the good intentions after they take over.

We have over 200,000 pages of US Code.  How much more do we need?  How much more can we afford?

I'm Roy Obadiah and these are my rants.

Government Bureaucracy--It's the right thing to do

It seems as though I hear more and more politicians justifying government programs (especially federal government) with the phrase "because it's the right thing to do."

This is equivalent to saying "it is what it is."

In other words, it is a non-statement.  Would you ever catch a politician justifying a government program "because it's the wrong thing to do?"

The founding fathers knew this.  Their vision was for the federal government to exist in a severely limited fashion, specifically so that it would NOT become a bloated powerful bureaucracy.  If it is NOT explicitly written in the constitution, then the federal government has no power.  It is instead up to the states.  This is what the 10th amendment is all about:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Bureaucracies have the unfortunate habit of taking on a life of their own to justify their existence.  It's like marketing where a business wants to become "sticky" to its customers.  

Or as the book "Government Beers" points out, a federal program NEVER gives unspent monies back to the treasury, it's always spent in a mad dash at the end of the fiscal year so that no one can accuse them of needing less money.  "Government Beers" is a funny read that teaches the intent of the Constitution, and brings awareness of "unintended consequences" that come about with large, top-down driven programs.

I wish that the states had the courage to demand that the federal government obey the constitution.  Only then will problems get solved at the intended level.

Unfortunately, any focus on the 10th amendment is met today with arguments that suggest that slavery would have never been abolished if its intended meaning were followed.

I wonder what would have happened if the Confederate States would have had the courage to declare the emancipation proclamation before Lincoln, and truly turn the war into a strict constitutional challenge instead of a human rights battle.  Then the 10th amendment might not be so politically charged as it has been of late.

That would have been "the right thing to do."

I'm Roy Obadiah, and these are my rants.

Running Injuries and the Law of Unintended Consequences

In the late '80's, I was a decent runner, able to run 10K in 32 minutes.  Not world class, but capable of winning local races if the stars lined up.

I had plans to increase my mileage, and as an ambitious runner in his late twenties, had goals of moving to a higher level of competition.  I was convinced that good running shoes were paramount to withstand the increased stress that speed work and higher mileage would impart on my joints.  I was particularly influenced by sports medics, who at the time urged me to find ways to stabilize my foot during impact.

I remember the Nike Pegasus feeling good and fitting well.

Unfortunately, as I ran "harder", my knees and hips could not tolerate the aggressive pounding that the stability of the shoes allowed.  As I've recently learned from studying the benefits of barefoot running, the unintended consequences of localizing stability to the foot results in more aggressive striding.  The result of this stride is that knees and hips are the absorbers of the shock, instead of the natural leaf spring of the foot, and my pains worsened.

Now in my late forties, I've been gently running every other day for years, never able to handle recovering from daily runs, until now.  Barefoot running, triggered by my frustration after spraining an ankle, has revealed to me that the forced stride changes required to run on barefeet is actually sustainable.  My knees and hips don't hurt after 7-8 mile runs.  I don't run barefooted, but I've switched from super supportive, orthotic-laden shoes to minimal, flexible trainers.

Barefoot Running Lessons (So Far)

Barefoot Lessons

My experimentation with barefoot running has been a revealing learning experience.  It is a slow process, which has motivated me to study running form and stride efficiency.  Conversion to barefoot running is appealing because you cannot transition faster than your body is ready.  In short, the muscles in the feet and arches have been unused for years, and to all of a sudden switch them on will cause damage.  Because of this, you must go slow.  

This fact is probably why there will be a bolus of injuries reported due to "gotta have it now, internet speed" attitudes who run 5 miles shod go attempt the same run barefoot.  I think the class of injuries will be different.  A lot of folks used to heel running will probably overuse calf muscles and plantar tendons as they erroneously cushion the blow by toe running.  I experienced this myself.

I personally experienced heel pain in my right foot as I first attempted barefoot.  It came after doing some hill intervals, which uphill forces you to toe run.  I thought the pain was from downhill running, so I naturally tried to prevent heel contact with the ground.  This caused more heel pain (plantar fascitis), and a vicious cycle started that finally broke when I read Jason Robillard's comment on this unintended outcome of toe running (versus midfoot).

Here is a summary of what I've learned after 6 months:

1. If you're feet can't take the distance, then neither can your body

2. Feedback for correct striding is most effective coming directly from barefoot sensing the ground

3. Running barefoot does not create hard callouses -- the bottoms of the feet become like soft leather

4. If you toe run, you'll have heel pain

So far I've slowly built up to where I can go 3 miles on various paved surfaces, and I can now make 3 runs per week.  My feet are tough, but not grossly calloused as one might think.  My arches are flexible, not rigid, and I'm much more comfortable running with a stride that emphasizes "lifting" versus "landing".

5. Most important, I'm having the most fun running that I can remember.

I'm Roy Obadiah and these are my rants.

Barefoot Running Update 1

I'm running in Vibram Five Finger (VFF) shoes, and I'm finding that my feet and calves are sore, at the expense of no knee or hip pain.

I'm slowly extending my weekly distance from 10 miles, trying to run the last mile barefoot.  My feet are truly paying the price, but my knees and hips are standing up to the training, which is impressive for this 48 year-old.

I'm Roy Obadiah and these are my rants.

The Cinderella Story

"...outta nowhere.  A former greenskeeper now, about to become the Masters champion. It looks like a mirac... It's in the hole! It's in the hole! It's in the hole!"
-Carl Spackler, "Caddyshack"


While the "outta nowhere" metaphor is the image that is conjured up whenever we hear the "Cinderella Story" phrase in a sound-bite, is that really what it's all about?


Not quite.  There's actually a much deeper message.  It can be a terrifying one, and it basically screams at us the fundamental premise of the human condition--that our moments on Earth are finite, and we have knowledge of it.


You see, Cinderella was given clear boundaries on the time to live her dream--and it was going to end at midnight.  What a horrendously cruel joke to give someone 6 hours to experience their dream, and know that it comes to a screeching halt when the clock runs down.


Amazingly, I was forced into this situation several years ago.  My family was vacationing at Disneyworld, and we were randomly selected to spend the night (specifically that night) in Cinderella's castle, and be treated like VIP's for the evening.  What an amazing opportunity that most everyone would love to experience!  However, as soon as we moved our luggage into the luxurious castle suite, I had a shudder come over me that "the clock was ticking."  How do we spend every moment of this opportunity that will come to a definite end in the morning?  Do we want to waste any time sleeping, or do we just stay up all night and experience the castle?  Clearly this wasn't an option as we had young kids.


What came over me instead was a desire to focus on the moment, this moment, and ignore the obvious time boundaries of the experience.  It was in all honesty, a defense mechanism, brought about because I did not want to ruin my family's enjoyment of potentially some memories that we'd carry with us for the rest of our lives.  So I put on my mouse ears and became a passive observer of each moment, instead of giving in to my overwhelming desire to plan out each of the remaining 12 hours or so that were left in the prize.  I realized that we were personally experiencing the Cinderella story, and staying in her castle to rub our faces in it.


What I discovered was something I call "living on the wave front".  I think it comes about by staying on the front side of our reaction and staying in a passive observing mode.  It's like living in the moment, staying focused just ahead of our moody reactions to people, places and events.  Not allowing the mind to drift too far backward or too far forward.  It's like surfing the moment--staying right on the face of the wave.  For me, I'm staying ahead of my mind's tendency to judge people and events.  Surfing life this way is ego-less and effortless, and allows for joy to creep into your experiences.  


So what does the Cinderella story tell me now?  We should live each moment of each day as though the clock is ticking, because it is. 


I'm Roy Obadiah and these are my rants. 

Junk Science & Global Warming (or is it Climate Change?)

I'm impressed that both camps in the Global Warming debate have factions that call the other side "Junk Science."  It's not constructive for either side.  Here's how it breaks down for me...

There is no doubt that 380 ppmv CO2 is high, based on measurements over several hundred thousand years, and I think it's hard to dispute that the recent trends since 1950 have been driven largely by anthropogenic sources.  Where it gets fuzzy is the conclusion that warming is driven by CO2 concentrations.

The ice core data suggest that temperature increase leads the increase of CO2 (and CH4) by several hundred years, and we've seen several cycles (ice ages too) over the last several hundred years where CO2 and temperature oscillate with a curious frequency.  If temperatures rise before CO2 mixing ratios, then we should be concerned--not so much by the amount of atmospheric CO2, but instead what happens when the temperature load dissipates.  Recent solar observations suggest we are headed into an unusual quiet period for sunspots, which indicates cooling.  If the sun is the main driver of global temperatures, and we've had ice ages where most of the CONUS was covered in mile thick glaciers, then it seems a bit over-reacting to legislate our global economy into a punishing retreat in order to ward off future warming.

Either way, I wish the intelligence of the scientists could somehow rise above the attacks, and bring about helpful, creative debate on which way the climate is going.  It seems to always come down to big business (conservatives) versus big government (liberals) fueling the fire that turns into labeling the other's arguments as junk science.

Maybe a 3rd party makes sense?

I'm Roy Obadiah and these are my rants.