The Vietnamization of Bush’s Vacation - Frank Rich

Another anti-war (read “anti-Bush”) Times opinion column that gripes about the politics of politicians, without offering any substantial suggestions. However, the article is important in that it culturally signifies the war in Iraq’s fast approaching status as a Vietnam-like situation. And, of course, although it often goes unstated, especially in Rich’s article (curiously), an allusion to Vietnam is an allusion domestically to a reinstitution of the draft.

We need an exit strategy right now, while the draft is only a possibility, and not a necessity. (Quotes from the article.)

But don’t expect any of [Wisc. Dem. Senator Russell] Feingold’s peers to join him or [Nebr. Rep. Senator Chuck] Hagel in fashioning an exit strategy that might work. If there’s a moment that could stand for the Democrats’ irrelevance it came on July 14, the day Americans woke up to learn of the suicide bomber in Baghdad who killed as many as 27 people, nearly all of them children gathered around American troops. In Washington that day, the presumptive presidential candidate Hillary Clinton held a press conference vowing to protect American children from the fantasy violence of video games.

…

[This information just makes me sick:]
The marketing campaign will crescendo in two weeks, on the anniversary of 9/11, when a Defense Department “Freedom Walk” will trek from the site of the Pentagon attack through Arlington National Cemetery to a country music concert on the Mall. There the false linkage of Iraq to 9/11 will be hammered in once more, this time with a beat: Clint Black will sing “I Raq and Roll,” a ditty whose lyrics focus on Saddam, not the Islamic radicals who actually attacked America. Lest any propaganda opportunity be missed, Arlington’s gravestones are being branded with the Pentagon’s slogans for military campaigns, like Operation Iraqi Freedom, The Associated Press reported last week - a historic first. If only the administration had thought of doing the same on the fallen’s coffins, it might have allowed photographs.

Now, for a change of pace, David Brooks actually comes through with a worthwhile suggestion as to how to fix our broken liberation. It’s nothing new or ground-breaking, but, hell, at least he’s trying.

Minimalist Art and Articles of Faith - New York Times

this blog going, im posting some poor poetry i wrote last year… it was kind of spur of the moment stuff that hasnt gone farther than my desktop since then - but im definitely interested in any criticism you (who are you?) have, if only to affirm my low self esteem. enjoy!

Caricature of a man
What defines me?
Who defines me?
Organize and Reorganize
(Until I forget.)
Myself, My World
Until
i forget
What I came here for?
I came here for what?

Autonomy or Automaton?
I am Descartes’
Hallucination
or Hallelujah
phallus plunge into the universal void
whole of a verse
I turninto you
Sikh and you shall be fined
A litany of lost actions
Verbs
Words that feel
Like you and me
Forget speech and just
om

…to thoughts from some of America’s most prominent conservatives, at the beginning of our military action:

“Well, I just think it’s a bad idea. What’s going to happen is they’re going to be over there for 10, 15, maybe 20 years.”
–Joe Scarborough (R-FL)

“Explain to the mothers and fathers of American servicemen that may come home in body bags why their son or daughter have to give up their life?”
–Sean Hannity, Fox News

“[The] President… is once again releasing American military might on a foreign country with an ill-defined objective and no exit strategy. He has yet to tell the Congress how much this operation will cost. And he has not informed our nation’s armed forces about how long they will be away from home. These strikes do not make for a sound foreign policy.”
–Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA)

“American foreign policy is now one huge big mystery. Simply put, the administration is trying to lead the world with a feel-good foreign policy.”
–Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)

“If we are going to commit American troops, we must be certain they have a clear mission, an achievable goal and an exit strategy.”
–Karen Hughes, speaking on behalf of George W Bush

“I had doubts about the bombing campaign from the beginning… I didn’t think we had done enough in the diplomatic area.”
–Senator Trent Lott (R-MS)

“I cannot support a failed foreign policy. History teaches us that it is often easier to make war than peace. This administration is just learning that lesson right now. The President began this mission with very vague objectives and lots of unanswered questions. A month later, these questions are still unanswered. There are no clarified rules of engagement. There is no timetable. There is no legitimate definition of victory. There is no contingency plan for mission creep. There is no clear funding program. There is no agenda to bolster our over-extended military. There is no explanation defining what vital national interests are at stake. There was no strategic plan for war when the President started this thing, and there still is no plan today.”
–Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)

“Victory means exit strategy, and it’s important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is.”
–George W. Bush (R-TX)

(quotes from when Clinton committed troops to Bosnia)

A State of Mind

On June 28, 2005, I published a mediocre-at-best “poem” and then immediately, in a fit of bizarre self-criticism, denigrated it. The act was peculiarly satisfying, like I’d just eaten an indulgent meal and promptly vomited it back up, clearing stomach and conscience with one act. Unfortunately, I posted the criticism anonymously, and its somewhat derogatory tone pushed Sturgeon, our eloquent facilitator, to respond in kind.

Twice.

General, I salute your positive tone and thoughtful response, and I apologize for misleading you (and any of our million-strong readership). If any such mischief occurs in the future, accept my apologies for that as well. I would also like to retract responsibility for the poetic drivel I posted: It was a vehicle for controversy and not a genuine artistic effort on my part.

How’s that for Zizekian postmodernism.

Faith, Shame, and Insurgency: Life in occupied Iraq

- A piece on Iraq written last year by freelance journalist Steven Vincent, who was found yesterday in Basra, shot to death, only days after writing an opinion piece in the Times about the growing Shi’ite fundamentalism in that city. Supposedly, it is the first time that a foreigner has been killed in Iraq specifically for his journalism (although, I argue that some of the U.S.-perpetrated deaths of 17 journalists, including those of Yasser Salihee and Tareq Ayyoub, were not in fact “mistakes” - and, of course, there have been many, many journalists killed by insurgents). I think the total number of deaths of media personnel is about 60 now.

Anyway, read that article, because it is quite interesting - and also, its not the same old, black-and-white anti-war/pro-war kind of piece.

On June 28, just five days before the start of the Tour de France, Jure Robic of Slovenia won the brutal Race Across America (RAAM) for the second straight year. Endurance cycling’s version of Lance the Great, the 40-year-old Robic rode the 3,052 miles from San Diego to Atlantic City in 9 days, 8 hours, and 48 minutes—while sleeping a mere ten hours. - Sam Carmichael

Sam Carmichael: Tell me about the RAAM.
Jure Robic: The 2003 RAAM was really difficult, b/c it was the first one, and me and my team didn’t know what we could expect—there were a lot of stress moments for me, because of sleep deprivation, and I had a lot of hallucinations. The second one was also very hard, but I handled the conditions and riding the bike with no sleep better. For me, this year it was the hardest for me because I think I was prepared the best of the three, but the weather conditions were really tough, and the sleep, and the headwinds while climbing was deadly. I had a lot of sun burns all over my skin, I lost consciousness, on the seventh day I wanted to quit, because I didn’t know where I was, who I was, who the people around me were. I didn’t recognize my team after 2 or 3 hours of really hard working, my team prepared me to continue. This year, the heat was unbelievable, all the time it was about 40 degrees c. And the humidity was really high, and the headwinds during the Kansas and Colorado legs. It’s really hard to ride the bike when you’re tired and you know the headwind’s blowing all the time in your chest, and you’re hardly moving. That was the toughest moment for me.

SC: Have you ever been close to quitting? What puts you in that situation?
JR: On the seventh day in Ohio I was—it was because of the heat, and my team told me they wanted me to ride the same pace I was riding before. Mike wasn’t chasing me any more, but they didn’t want me to slow down. When they told me that, I told them I was still fine, and I was riding as fast as possible. This was at the really hilly course, up and down, and I was riding really fast, like time-trials, and suddenly just in a few minutes, I lost my memory, didn’t know who I was, where I was, what I was doing there. I just stood up off my bike and said to my team “ I don’t want to do this any more,” I was swearing a lot, and I told them “I want to quit!” My team put me on the RV, they cooled me down, they showed me the picture of my wife and my son, they showed me the internet guestbook and messages on my website, and all this was some kind of “doping” for me, and I kept riding the bike then.

SC: What do you eat and drink while you’re riding? How often? Do you use a CamelBak or water bottles?
JR: It was really hot this year. When it’s hot you’re hardly eating solid food. 70 percent of the calories I put in my body were liquid. I drank a lot of ensure and some shakes (powders), but also sandwiches, powerbars, fruits. I drank a lot liquid (20-24 liters/day), burned about 10,000-30,000 calories/day, and in these kind of weather it’s really difficult to put these calories into my body. They just put the food in my mouth, and say “swallow, swallow, you must swallow this, keep eating, because if you stop you’ll die.” It was crazy, difficult, really. Dreadful. They handed liquid from the car; about every 60 minutes I got the big bottle, and I drank it.

SC: How often do you rest en route?
JR: Every day about 2 AM, I went into my motor home to rest, that was the plan. We’d stop, and they’d put me in the van. The team took my clothes off, they showered me with warm water, and they put me into the bed, and the Doctor put my legs up like I was giving birth, and treat my injuries in my behind [laughs]—in my ass—and they were open and everything, and they put the dressings on w/ some cream and everything, and after that massaged my legs. For that whole time I was asleep, and after 1 hr. 15 min. they woke me up and put my clothes on and I continued with the bike race. I think I slept 10 hrs during the whole thing. Sometimes during the day I was too tired, and they’d take me off the bike and on the grass next to the RV, and I would sleep for 10 min. and after that they would wake me up, and I would continue with the race. In that kind of heat, your body doesn’t cool down, and your brain doesn’t get enough sleep, and you simply can’t continue riding. I don’t know how the other riders did it, but for me the power-naps work very well. I had a lot of wounds on ass—it was really painful. After sleep, when I got on my bike again, it was so painful. You have 1 or 2 hrs. when you must be very patient–it’s so painful you can hardly ride. I had 2-3 hrs of pain after getting on the bike. After that amount of time, you accept the pain in your body and you can deal with it.

SC: Which parts of the country do you enjoy riding through the most?
JR: I like hilly sections of the country the best, with the ups and downs. I don’t like flats. I really like the hilly, hilly parts of the land, b/c all the time you must change the rhythm, there’s something happening. On the flats, you must push, push, push, and you cannot change your rhythm.. I liked Missouri best, and at the end, West Virginia, because there were a lot of really steep, really long hills, and I like that.

SC: How many more times will you undertake the RAAM?
JR: For me, it’s very difficult to collect the money for this kind of event. For next year I really doubt that I’ll be in the race—I want to, but we still have a lot of holes in the budget for 2006. I think it’s a minimal chance we’ll be in the race. But I still want to win the race 4 times—nobody else has done that. Sometimes I think maybe I’d like to win seven times, like Lance in the Tour de France, but everything depends on the financial side.

SC: Speaking of which—how do you think the two events compare?
JR: Before extreme racing, I was a road racer, and I’ve done pretty good in stage races, but the two are different. I think stage races are much easier. You race for 5 hours per day, and for the other nineteen you can rest your mind and body. You know, the Tour is the biggest, most famous race, but The RAAM is the toughest race. There’s no doubt. Lance said the RAAM is the most painful on earth. That was really good for me to hear, because I was a road racer, and I know how you suffer in the road-races, and now I know how you suffer in these extreme races, and Lance doesn’t know. I think if he tried to do the RAAM he would take about three weeks, b/c he wouldn’t be used to it—this kind of sleep deprivation, these injuries. But, you know, we could see…

SC: The RAAM is a brutal, impressive event, yet it recieves almost no media coverage, especially compared to the Tour. Does that frustrate you at all?
JR: Yeah, a little, b/c when I look at these guys, they suffer on the climbs, but then they go and lay down, and there are the doctors, and the strategists, they treat them, and when I compare w/ me and the other guys in the RAAM, where you have no time, and if you fall down, you can kill yourself, like Bob Whitman this year, because he fell asleep on the bike. I can talk a lot about the race, but if you don’t see it with your own eyes, if you’re not IN it, you cannot imagine it. You won’t understand how difficult this race is.

SC: How do you and Lance stack up as athletes?
JR: I think he’s not an extreme racer, he’s just the best of the best professional athletes, because he know what he’s doing, he knows how he must do it. The mind he has, the body he has, the spirit he has: He has everything, he’s just perfect, and that’s why he’s my… my, ah… I don’t know the word, but he’s my favorite.

SC: Are you the “Lance Armstrong” of extreme racing?
JR: You know, with two wins in the RAAM and the WR for 24 hours distance last year—I don’t know, maybe. I still have preparations and training for this year, I’m going to race in the “Tour de France Direct”—same as the RAAM, a non-stop race. I think it’ll be tougher than the RAAM: 4,200k long, 50,000 meters vertical. If I succeed in winning this, then I can say “Yeah, maybe I’m the best.” But I must win this race, and then I can tell you.

SC: Tell me about Le Tour Direct.
JR: It starts the 4th of Sept in Holland, then bike Belgium, France, then we go the whole TdF, then go back through Belgium to Holland. It’s longer than the real Tour de France, by 700k. If I win I’m gonna have to finish the race in about 8 days. The professionals, they ride 3500k in 21 days—that’s the difference, you know? The first 40 hrs with no sleeping, then after that it all depends on how I’m feeling. You can’t come up with schedules for this kind of race. It’s up to my team: when I hit my limits, they take me off the bike, you know.

SC: Which is harder: the 24 hour distance record (which you set earlier this year, with 520 miles in 24 hrs.) or the Race Across America?
JR: It’s difficult to compare, because the RAAM is 9-10 days, but you go slower, but in the 24 hr. time trial, you’re at your limit for 24 hours, no stopping for one second. You’re just pushing yourself, mentally and physically to the limit for 24 hours. That’s really, really difficult. The RAAM is tougher, but different tougher. It’s difficult to compare.

SC: What’s your diet like during training?
JR: It’s a lot of carboloading. You know, it’s simple: when you wake up, you eat a lot of bread, muesli, milk, everything, but the first half-hour after the workout you must put a lot of carbos back in to reload your glucose/glycogen stores. Then a lot of salad and meat in the evenings to help build protein back up and help your muscles recover. You must eat also during the training, b/c if you train 7-8 hours high tempo, after a few hrs you’re empty, and you need to get some more energy. Sometimes I stop at the gas stations and buy some food and continue with my training.

SC: Tell me about your condition post-race.
JR: After the race, it’s difficult to sleep, b/c you want to sleep very very badly, and you’re sleeping during the day, and I had to continue training immediately after the RAAM, and it was difficult because of injuries on my feet, and sores on my ass, and I had a lot of problems the first 10 days before I started training normally. But now everything keeps getting better. I’m really satisfied with my condition, and after one month I’ll be in top shape for the Tour Direct.

SC: What do you do currently to train for the Tour Direct?
JR: Now I’m doing a lot of training in the hills, long hills, about 10k each. I go out and train for about 7 hrs. and also 3 or 4 climbs, about 7-10 k each, b/c in the TD there’s going to be a lot of climbs, like the Alps. I just want to prepare myself to be able to ride at a high tempo in the climbs.

SC: Who’s a better climber, you or Lance?
JR: I think Lance is better on the climbs. If we rode for four hours and then had a climb, he’d beat me, but if we raced non-stop for four days, and then had a climb, I would definitely beat him.

SC: How has your Army career helped your biking?
JR: I’m a professional soldier, and my army really helps me with time to train, and with materials. In the RAAM they gave me the people to help me. Without the Army of Slovenia I’d have no chance at doing this kind of event all over the world. I had to go to boot camp, training camp—like I said, I’m a professional soldier. I did 9 months of preparation to get a Red Beret, and after that they put me in the Sports Core of the Slovenian Army.

SC: You’ve won the last two RAAM’s quite handily. What gives you such a leg-up on the competition (no pun intended)?
JR: I don’t know—I’m 100 percent a cyclist: everything I do I’m doing for the RAAM. I did a lot of training, winter training without the bike, I also prepare myself mentally. All my life has been preparing me for the RAAM, because I had a really tough life. Nothing was given to me, I had to do everything by myself. Nobody helped me. I believe that, in life, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. When the things are going really tough, like in the RAAM, I’m used to handling it. I train hard, because when it’s hot, it’s hot, and you’ve got to be able to handle it. I’m not expressing myself well, but I think you understand what I’m trying to get across.

SC: What do you do to cross-train?
JR: XC is my winter prep, I did a lot of it. There’s a lot of bikers who become cross-country skiiers in the winter. My average is 5-6 hrs non-stop, all the time pushing up/down in the cold, miserable weather, and it doesn’t matter, I just went out and trained. My longest was twelve hours, non-stop.

SC: What could an amateur cyclist (or athlete) take from your experiences traning for and participating in the RAAM?
JR: You must believe, you must be positive, you must do everything w/ your heart. You must love cycling to do something like the RAAM. If you’re not riding with your heart–if you’re doing this about the money, you’ll never succeed. You must do it w/ your heart. If you do that, everything is poss. The pain/misery/torture, you can go through it b/c you believe it. That’s my formula: I believe in myself and in cycling and I’m positive. Because it’s really tough; Every morning you wake up and you think, “Now I must train 10 hrs, alone,” but if you continue “…and it’ll be cold, and tough, and lonely…”—no! You must think “it’s going to be fine, I feel well, and I love this climb, and this mountain,” and you think about your family, and so on, and so on, and that will make you good.
I think a lot of people don’t know what they’re capable of. We can do everything we want if we really want it. That I know by myself. If you want to do something really hard, you can do it. I don’t know how to explain—it’s pretty simple: You must believe, and you can do it. You must train, you must sacrifice a lot. You normal life doesn’t exist any more. You just train, eat, and sleep. If you want to really do something, you must think like that, and do it like that, there’s no other way.

SC: Anything else?
JR: I just want to tell the American people that they have the greatest and the toughest race existing in the world, and they just need to get the word out. You know, the race is so great, and so emotionally powerful. People from around the world enter the RAAM and come together to share something so important together—you make friends for life when you’re racing w/ those ppl around you. That race is really something you can never forget. I think no other event in the world can do that. Only the RAAM.