That one time I felt like a runner: "Looking good #1501"

In March of 2006, I ran the Knoxville half marathon (http://www.knoxvillemarathon.com/). I was in pretty good shape (for me), as I was coming off of the New York Marathon the previous November, and had continued running after.

It's important to know that I'm too slow to run 5k's and 10k's effectively, and I don't have enough endurance to run marathons effectively (I always run out of gas at about the 20 mile mark). The half marathon is my best distance. I think it is the most fun distance.

Good sprinters have a lot of fast twitch muscles; Good distance runners have a lot of slow twitch muscles. My nickname on a running website is "No Twitch Muscles". I think that appropriately paints the picture of my abilities.

So, the Knoxville half starts downtown, winds its way through the University of Tennessee campus, then later enters a fairly hilly neighborhood (Sequoyah Hills), before crossing a major street (Kingston Pike), and coming back to downtown via a rolling greenway.

I've always loved this half. It is my favorite of any half marathon I've ever done. Lots of sights to see, a beautiful neighborhood to run through, dogwoods in bloom, good crowd support.

Anyhow, I navigated the first 8 or so pretty hilly miles in good fashion, crossed Kingston Pike, and started back to downtown via the greenway.  And then?  A funny thing happened.  I started passing people.  Up and down the tiny rolling hills. I felt good, and I could feel myself getting stronger - this never happens!  I usually start to fade at about the 10 mile mark, 'cause, you know, I suck.  But not on this day.  It's no exaggeration to say that I passed about 75 people during a 4 mile stretch on the greenway.

The last 2 miles or so run through the Fort Sanders neighborhood, I usually just gut those out (they are sadistically hilly), and watch as people pass me by.  But not that Sunday.  That Sunday, I not only held my own, I continued to pass people.

About a half a mile from the finish (which, by the way happens on the 50 yard line of Neyland Stadium - granted, that was more impressive before Lane Kiffin and Derek Dooley came to town), I thundered (in my mind) around a curve, and a volunteer said:

                                                     
                                                 "Looking good #1501"


This is the first time that a volunteer has ever said that to me without the accompanying look of pity, driving home the absolute lie just spoken.  THIS GUY MEANT IT!

I rounded that curve, down a hill, then triumphantly entered the stadium - passing one more person as I entered.

                                                         Didn't I look good?


A big selling point of this race is that not only do you finish on the 50 yard line, but your finish is on the Jumbotron and your name is announced for all of your throngs of admirers to hear.

I finished in 2:05:xx, my best time ever - so far  (I realize that is not an impressive time - the world record is an astounding 58:23!!!, but for me?  Pretty damned good.)

On that day, I ran the best race I could, I ran a negative split (!), and I felt that rare euphoria that a runner feels when it is his or her day. Doesn't happen often, but runners reading this know exactly the feeling I'm trying to describe.

So, on that day, walking out of the stadium with my medal around my neck, watching other runners coming down the final hill into the stadium, I felt like a runner.

Some definitions and a thought or two

Merriam-Webster online's primary definition of Socialism is:  "a way of organizing a society in which major industries are owned and controlled by the government rather than by individual people and companies."

Since we don't like Socialism, that means we don't like Tennessee Valley Authority, right? Or the local utility companies?.

How about these guys:

• Commodity Credit Corporation^[27]
• Corporation for National and Community Service (Americorps)
• Corporation for Public Broadcasting
• Export-Import Bank of the United States^[28]
• Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corporation^[29]
• Farm Credit Banks^[30]
• Federal Crop Insurance Corporation
• Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
• Federal Financing Bank^[31]
• Federal Home Loan Banks^[32]
• Federal Prison Industries^[33]
• The Financing Corporation^[34]
• Gallaudet University^[35]
• Government National Mortgage Association^[36]
• Legal Services Corporation^[37]
• National Consumer Cooperative Bank^[38]
• National Fish and Wildlife Foundation^[39]
• Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation^[40]
• Millennium Challenge Corporation
• National Corporation for Housing Partnerships (NCHP); Washington, D.C.
• National Credit Union Administration Central Liquidity Facility
• National Endowment for Democracy^[41]
• National Park Foundation^[42]
• National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak
• Overseas Private Investment Corporation
• Panama Canal Commission
• Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation; Washington, D.C.
• Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation
• St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation
• Securities Investor Protection Corporation

(source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government-owned_corporation#United_States)

Again, using Merriam-Webster's online dictionary, Capitalism is defined as: "a way of organizing an economy so that the things that are used to make and transport products (such as land, oil, factories, ships, etc.) are owned by individual people and companies rather than by the government."

I don't think that the list of organizations above would exist without the backing of local and federal governments. I think it is necessary to have government involvement sometimes.

Maybe, instead of calling people names, we should think about the meaning of those words?

                                   ______________________________

CEO pay and the minimum wage - here's a nifty little statistic:  The ratio of CEO-to-worker pay between CEOs of the S&P 500 Index companies and U.S. workers widened to 380 times in 2011 from 343 times in 2010. Back in 1980, the average large company CEO only received 42 times the average worker’s pay. 

As a business owner who has taken ALL of the risk, signed my name to ALL of the notes payable, and am on the hook for EVERYTHING that can go wrong in my business, I damned well expect to be paid significantly better than my employees.  But 380 times better? I think I might be able to share the wealth a little better than that.

Here's another fun little statistic:  The Walmart CEO gets paid 1,034 times more than the median Walmart worker, according to a new analysis by PayScale, a salary information website.

About a month ago, I was talking about how we as taxpayers are actually subsidizing Walmart and other large corporations.  

Doesn't this mean then, that I am helping to pay Mike Duke's $23.15 million total compensation, regardless of whether or not I shop there? I think it does, and I don't think I really like that.

I don't find, in dealing with my clients, many companies who can't afford to lift their employees off of the minimum wage, ESPECIALLY adults. I think that requiring a minimum wage to be a living wage, AND to be tied to the rate of inflation, is good social policy.  Sometimes, having the government decide social policy is a good thing.  The mortgage interest deduction on your tax return is a government mandated social policy designed to promote home ownership.  Likewise, the charitable contribution deduction is a government mandated social policy designed to promote INDIVIDUAL charitable giving. I've yet to hear any complaints about those examples.

Them there Gays, wanting rights again!

The City of Chattanooga is wrestling with the decision of whether or not to offer domestic partner benefits to its employees. The City originally passed an ordinance approving those benefits, but a group called "Citizens for Government Accountability and Transparency" collected 7,000+ signatures on a petition, which forced the City Council to either repeal the ordinance or do nothing (which would send the ordinance to a vote in the August general election). The Council has decided to let the citizens of Chattanooga vote it up or down.

The underlying reason for this ordinance, although not explicitly stated, is to provide same-sex couples with the same benefits that heterosexual couples already enjoy.

As you might imagine, this has created a firestorm of opinion, often centering around biblical interpretations. It seems to me, in reading various comments following online articles and polls (yeah, I realize that I should NEVER read the comments, as that is often where the worst of us reside), that the majority (not all, but the majority) of the comments coming from the pro-bible side of the argument are against providing these benefits.  Some of the comments came across as downright mean and nasty ("dirty homos").

Disclosure:  I'm a Christian - I'm an Episcopalian (a Christian denomination that encourages me to use my God-given brain as a tool for discernment).

Lacking in many of the comments is a feeling of love for our brothers and sisters. There seems to be a pervasive sense of hatred out in the world today - maybe it is not a new phenomenon, but it is one that I've really noticed over the last several years.

I realize that there isn't consensus among Christians as to the rightness or wrongness of Homosexuality.  To me though, that is beside the point.  The point is the rightness or wrongness of providing equal rights to all Americans, as our Constitution requires (I guess I'd go with the "Equal Protection Clause" of the 14th Amendment, although I'm certainly not a lawyer!).

It's not an issue to be adjudicated according to religious beliefs - although that might be how it is decided, at least at this level. It is a civil issue, much the same way that same sex marriages should be civil issues. Churches should be free to perform or not perform same sex ceremonies according to the dictates of their rules, but should have no say in how governments that follow the Constitution act.

I was reading a blog post written by an Episcopal priest (written in 2007) that pretty much sums up how I feel as a Christian - as it relates to this subject - here is a link to the whole post: http://episcopalmajority.blogspot.com/2007/01/sex-religion-and-culture-wars.html, but I'll excerpt this bit:

"Homosexuals in the Church - Episcopalians do not tend to believe in homosexuality as a moral or psychological disorder. We accept the well-researched findings of boring experts like the American Psychiatric Association, which sees homosexuality as a “normal variant of human sexuality.” An important question, then, is not the gender of your partner but rather the quality of your intimate relationship. Are you committed, monogamous, and nurturing? Most of us have come to know homosexuals who are involved in healthy, life-giving and sustaining partnerships. We see that there is no essential difference between gay and straight: we all long for love; we all fail to love perfectly; and as we deepen our spiritual journey, we seek to live in forgiveness and harmony with the Source of love. Episcopalians humbly follow Jesus as One who shows us how this is done, and for that reason our worship centers around Christ.

And yet, a handful of Christian leaders lead the charge that would deprive homosexuals of their civil and human rights. Many who call themselves Christians routinely link homosexuality with pedophilia and incest. If we did not know better, we would dismiss this position as sadly ignorant; but if this is ignorance, it appears to be of the willful variety, and it is dangerous."

I believe then that the voters in Chattanooga should vote this ordinance "up" so that this group of human beings is granted the same rights as other humans.

Thoughts on a living wage

We've been hearing a lot lately about raising the minimum wage from the $7.25 per hour it currently is to a higher number - I read quite a bit about a new number of $15 per hour. I don't know what the minimum wage should be, but I do have some thoughts.

I'm not talking about the nuts and bolts of how much, and how to implement.  I'm just talking about the issue conceptually.

I believe that employers should be required to pay a "living wage". A living wage is defined (here, by me) as the amount of money that a person requires to feed, house and clothe him/her self.

The minimum wage of $7.25 per hour has not been changed since July 24, 2009. The minimum wage is not currently indexed for inflation.  This means that the $7.25 per hour earned in 2009 will not buy as much as the $7.25 earned in 2013. Using an inflation calculator found here , we find that it would cost $21.73 to purchase an item that it cost $20.00 to buy in 2009 - an increase of 8.6% - but the minimum wage has not increased at all during that time, meaning a minimum wage earner can buy 8.6% less than he/she could have in 2009.

Recently, Walmart has come under fire for not paying a sizable chunk of its employees a living wage.  Here is one perspective (shared by me):  By paying its employees less than a living wage, Walmart increases its bottom line profit (measured at $3.7 billion during the third QUARTER of 2013

  (http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/11/14/walmart-third-quarter-2013-earnings/3524329/)

- that's not an annual profit, just the profit in the third quarter.

According to an opinion piece in Bloomberg.com  

(http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-18/always-low-wages-wal-mart-s-other-choices.html), 

"Wal-Mart's low wages have led to full-time employees seeking public assistance. These are not the 47 percent, lazy, unmotivated bums. Rather, these are people working physical, often difficult jobs. They receive $2.66 billion in government help each year (including $1 billion in healthcare assistance). That works out to about $5,815 per worker. And about $420,000 per store."

Do you know who pays for this assistance? Taxpaying citizens do.  This leads me to the inescapable conclusion that I, by virtue of paying taxes, am helping to increase the bottom line profit of Walmart. I don't want to do that.

I hear the argument that raising the minimum wage will cause mass layoffs.  I reject that argument, and ask anyone who cares, to provide me with a reputable source to back that claim up - show me where this has occurred in our history. I remember in 2009, 2007 and 2006 hearing the same claims, but don't remember any layoffs. Heck, I remember back in 1997, when the minimum wage increased from $4.75 to $5.15, the dire layoff predictions that were made.  We seem to have come out alright.

Another argument made is that people should be paid according to the value they bring to the company - I would argue that employees earning less than a living wage bring more value to Walmart (I'm going to pick on them again) than the amount of money they are paid.

There is another argument that it takes low wages to compete against low cost foreign goods made in countries with no minimum wage, and that Americans will look for the lowest price available - I'd say there is a good bit of truth to that statement (I wonder if people would be willing to pay a bit more if they made enough money to provide for the basics?).

And I absolutely reject the notion that low paid workers need to just work hard, take advantage of education and pull themselves up by their bootstraps.  Sure, that would be great, and that is what folks with that ability should do - that's what I did (as an average looking white male of acceptable cultural and religious preferences).  But, you know what?  Not everyone has those capabilities (to rise above a less than living wage).  These are the people I'm talking about.  Not the "Welfare Queens".  Not the drug abusers. Not the cheats.  Not the lazy people.  I'm talking about the segment of our society that is doomed to be poor.  They will always be with us, as Jesus pointed out (while making a totally different point from mine).  These folks should be paid enough to live on.

That's all I'm saying.

How to be successful...

....well, in the long term, you must be capable.

But how do you become capable?  Through hard work, right? Hard work at what, though? Hard work at the opportunity given you, I think.

So, I guess that you have to have the opportunity to become capable, then.

How do you get opportunity?  It can be beneficial to have a family with connections, to get you in the door at the right schools, the right jobs.

What if your family doesn't have connections, though?  What if your Mom or Dad didn't go to the right schools, or don't have an occupation that allows them to know decision makers?

What if you happen to be the wrong race or creed? WHAT IF you are a first generation American whose family emigrated to a small town in the US from Pakistan to make its life better.  What if you quietly practice the religion of your ancestors, and that religion is not the dominant one in your town?

What if you are gay?

What if you are a woman trying to break into a male dominated field?

I didn't come from a wealthy family, full of connections, but I did have an ace in the hole:

I'm an average looking, straight white male of fairly standard height, weight and intelligence.

That advantage opened several doors for me, and gave me the opportunity to show those in power what I was, and would be, capable of. I've taken those opportunities when given, and have tried to make the best of them.

I think it is pretty easy for those of us who've had certain opportunities handed to us, to sit back and criticize those who aren't successful as lazy (and sure there are those folks out there), but  I think that is a little simplistic.

I'm pretty thankful to have my particular advantage.  I wonder what would have happened if I didn't have it.

My first solo flight

Here's a little story:

Many years ago,  I learned to fly an airplane. I learned in a Cessna 150 (N-11959 was its tail number - guess what? I just looked it up and it is still in service: My training plane).

This little story is about my first solo flight.  By the way, I never got my license, but did use my student pilot license to get into more than one nightclub (although, both me not getting my license and the use of my student license are different stories).

My instructors name was Brad, and we flew out of tiny little Hardwick Field (KHDI). Brad was a pretty big fellow - over two hundred pounds, and I was a scrawny kid of about 145 - yeah, I know, things change. His weight becomes significant a little later. Brad was pretty funny. He would sometimes pretend to be asleep while I was flying, I guess trying to see how I would react? Or maybe he was asleep, I dunno.

Moving along to the day that I was to solo. My parents were there - my sister and brother were there, and I believe that a couple of my buddies were there also. The plan was pretty simple.  I would take off, hang a left, hang another left (these are technical pilot terms, by the way), fly parallel to the runway (at 1,700 feet above sea level, or about 900 feet in the air) until past it, hang a third left, then a fourth, which would line me up on my final approach, and land.

Here is where Brad's weight comes into play:  The Cessna 150 is a very small, light airplane:

Brad and my plane

So, I took off, made my first left, and as I made my second turn - the one that turns me parallel to the runway - I noticed that my altitude was a little bit high. By the time I was about halfway past the runway, I was 400 feet too high. The plane wasn't responding the way I was used to! I made my third turn, but wasn't having much luck getting the plane any lower. It finally dawned on me that the lack of Brad's weight was having a significant effect on the plane's altitude.

I made my fourth turn and was on final approach, still a couple of hundred feet too high, I was systematically cutting the throttle, lowering flaps, 10 degrees, 20, then 30, descending more rapidly, and at a steeper angle than I should have, I guess.  I say that because as I passed over the beginning of the very short runway, struggling to get the plane down before I ran out of room, I noticed my family and friends standing (with horrified looks on their faces) behind Brad who was frantically waving his arms, trying to tell me to abort the landing and go around again.

Well, heck, I didn't.  I did manage to land fairly smoothly, did a couple of touch and go's (where you touch down, then immediately take off again), and then finally parked the plane to the awaiting glory that was my first successful solo flight.  What I got, however, was a stern lecture from Brad.

I imagine the landing probably looked like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY1DugyplSk

The tradition after a person has his or her first solo, is to have their shirt tail cut off - at KHDI, the shirt tail would be displayed on the airport's bulletin board for a time. Mine was so completely soaked with sweat, that I think it was a pretty gross job.  I still have the rest of my shirt though.

Thoughts on bullying - Baylor students please read

Two cases of bullying:

@Baylor_Confess

A couple of nights ago, I noticed a new Twitter account called @Baylor_Confess, where people associated with The Baylor School would...confess things.  It started out pretty funny - a lot of it was totally inappropriate (although in the funny, inappropriate way that many parents and administrators don't like - but, whatever). Then it turned into a forum where students started making personal attacks on other students - all while hiding under the anonymous cloak of invisibility.

A better type of cloak of invisibility, IMO

Some pretty mean, nasty things were said said about individually named students. Those comments were hurtful. Again, this was all done anonymously.  There wasn't anything funny about those comments. I hope the posters feel badly about making the comments, and I'm glad that all of the tweets were deleted. Baylor is too good of a school, and the kids at Baylor are better humans than that (BTW, It also gives ammunition to people eager to judge Baylor according to their preconceived, false notions of the school).

There's really no need to have an East Tennessee version of Mean Girls.

Richie Incognito and Jonathan Martin

Richie Incognito, of the Miami Dolphins, seems to be a monumental asshole. He is trying to defend his bullying actions against Jonathan Martin, saying that it is all part of the football culture, and that he and Jonathan were tight bro's (apparently, Mr. Martin doesn't agree).  I can understand that a football locker room is a testosterone driven place, full of a lot of big, aggressive men.  I also understand that young players are hazed until they pay their dues.  But hazing is a lot different from leaving a voice-mail for a teammate, calling him a "half nigger" and texting: "I'm going to shit down your throat".

What really gets me about all of this, though, is the number of football players coming out in support of Incognito.  I mean, I'm not surprised that some dumbass fans are:

Dumbass picture #1

Dumbass picture #2

But to me, all the talk of the "brotherhood of football players", and then the willingness to approve of the things that Mr. Incognito did and said (he admits to them, so I don't have to add a stupid "allegedly"), don't go together. I don't understand why the teammates would side with Incognito.

Way too much meanness in the world.