Keith Burgess-Jackson

Cycling, Part 2

This past Saturday, in Cleburne, Texas, I did my 13th bike rally of the year and my 529th overall. The rally, known as the Tour de Goatneck, is in its 25th year. I've done 20 of the past 23 of them.

As many of you know, I broke my left collarbone during the Waxahachie bike rally on 23 June. I had surgery six days later to repair the break. My surgeon inserted a titanium plate and five screws. He told me to wait eight weeks before riding again. I almost made it. I waited five weeks after the accident and four weeks and one day after the surgery. Yes, I know that I'm foolish for disobeying my doctor's orders, but I needed to ride. I promised Katherine that I would ride alone, well away from others. I also rode with one arm for about a third of the 27.2-mile distance, so as not to jostle the left collarbone. Parts of the course were on rough roads.

My friend Randy rode with me for the first few miles, which was nice of him. We talked and enjoyed the beautiful countryside (even the pungent smell of manure from a feed lot). After he turned off on a longer course, I rode alone, passing people occasionally to get clear of slower riders. I got more confidence as I pedaled, which induced me to increase the speed. I ended up with 15.70 miles per hour. (Elapsed time = 1:43:57.) My average heart rate was 110 and my maximum 156. Luckily for me, there weren't any big hills on the course, because that would have required pulling on the handlebars with both arms. My maximum speed was 28.9 miles per hour. I made no stops.

I wish I could have ridden the 69.5-mile course with my friends, as I always do, but at least I got a few miles in. It did me good mentally to get back on the horse that bucked me off. Don't tell my doctor!

Addendum: I ran this morning for the first time in 41 days. I planned to run only two miles, since I didn't know how it would affect my shoulder, but it felt fine, especially when I pressed my left hand against my chest, so I increased the distance to 3.1 miles. The temperature upon my return to the house was 95º Fahrenheit. We're in the midst of a heat wave.

Journalism

CNN should come clean and admit that it's a progressive network, like MSNBC.

Hoplophobia

Here. The author should thank his lucky stars that so many law-abiding Americans own guns. He is safe because of them.

Cycling

This made me laugh. In the current Olympic games in London, men rode 155 miles and women 87. Women will be treated equally when they compete equally.

Baseball

New blood for the Texas Rangers, whose pitching has been atrocious.

James Q. Wilson (1931-2012) on Economic Inequality

We accept economic inequality here to a much greater degree than it is accepted elsewhere. Scarcely any American gets mad at Bill Gates or Warren Buffet or Michael Jordan or anyone else who has earned incredible amounts of money, so long as Americans feel the money was fairly earned. If a crime boss earns money at the point of a gun, that of course is a different matter, but that’s not a rejection of liberty in favor of equality, it is a rejection of criminal as opposed to law-abiding behavior. If you look at the American people, not only do they accept the economic inequality that exists here, they oppose the inheritance tax. This is a remarkable thing: why should average citizens be so determined to oppose the inheritance tax when it could not possibly affect most of them? I think the reason they oppose the inheritance tax is two-fold. First, they believe that their children may become wealthy enough to have the inheritance tax imposed upon them and it would be unfair for Americans to punish their children in the name of the government acquiring more revenue. The other reason is that they feel that the inheritance tax is wrong because the money that people had earned had already been taxed when they earned it—why should it be taxed again when they die? This is a problem that Congress has had great difficulty getting its arms around. Congress would like to have the inheritance tax because it is a source of revenue, and Congress likes having more sources of revenue. But Congress knows that the inheritance tax does not sit well with the American people.

(James Q. Wilson, "Tocqueville and America," Claremont Review of Books 12 [spring 2012]: 14-6, at 15)

Joe Walsh, "A Life of Illusion" (1981)

There Goes the Neighborhood (1981). Joe Walsh is an underrated musician.

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

Re “Severe Drought Seen as Driving Cost of Food Up” (front page, July 26):

The drought that is driving up the cost of milk, beef, chicken, pork and corn to feed animals may drive down the cost of health care.

When we are forced by finances to cut back on these cholesterol- and saturated fat-laden foods, many of us find that whole grains, vegetables, beans and fruit are better for our waistlines and arteries.

Since Congress does not have the political will to end the subsidies to the animal industries, this drought will level the playing field, making healthier food choices more affordable.

PATTI BREITMAN
Fairfax, Calif., July 26, 2012

Homosexual "Marriage"

As shocking as it may sound, some people think that it's "antigay" to be opposed to homosexual "marriage." Is it anti-child to believe that children should not be allowed to marry, drive cars, vote, and serve in the military? Is it anti-male to believe that men should not qualify for maternity leave? Is it anti-female to believe that Roman Catholic priesthood is reserved for men? Sometimes I wonder whether progressives think before they speak.

Dilbert

Here.

Homosexual "Marriage"

This is proof that Democrats aren't very smart. All 32 states to have voted on the question of homosexual "marriage" have voted it down. Why? Because it's unjust.

Norman Daniels et al. on Bioethics

We noted earlier that bioethics has generally tended to focus on medicine at the point of delivery, attending inadequately to determinants of health "upstream" from the medical system itself. We have tried to remedy that by putting together two elements: empirical findings about the social determinants of health, and the result of a philosophical attempt to construct a theory of justice that might apply to any society. We arrive at the result that social justice, as defined by that theory, is good for our health. In a society that complies with its principles of justice, health inequalities will be minimized and population health status will be improved. A theory of social justice turns out to be a theory about how to distribute health status in a just way, at least if the social science is correct.

The failure of bioethics to look at the social determinants of population health is not primarily a philosophical failing, nor is it simply disciplinary blindness to the social-science or public-health literature. People in bioethics, like the public more generally, concentrate on medical care rather than social determinants, for complex sociological, political, and ideological reasons that we can only mention here. The public, encouraged by scientists and the media, is fascinated by every new biomedical discovery and has come to believe that most of our "success" in improving population health is the result of exotic science. Vast economic interests benefit from this orientation of public and bioethical attention. Economic incentives for people in bioethics come largely from medicine and the scientific and policy institutions that interact with medical delivery. The idea that scientific medicine is responsible for our health blinds us to socioeconomic inequality as a source of inequity in the realization of opportunity for health across the population. Science, we are told, can rescue us all from our shared biological fate, and so we should all unite in supporting a focus on medicine and, if we care about justice, on the equitable access of all to its benefits. Challenging deeper inequalities in society, however, is divisive, not unifying; it threatens those with the greatest power and the most to lose. In the absence of well-organized social movements capable of challenging that inequality, the complaints of public-health advocates pointing the need for more basic change, rather than simply joining existing forces asking for more and better medical care, can seem utopian.

(Norman Daniels, Bruce P. Kennedy, and Ichiro Kawachi, "Why Justice Is Good for Our Health: The Social Determinants of Health Inequalities," Daedalus 128 [fall 1999]: 215-51, at 243-4)

The Beatles, "Twist and Shout" (1963)

Please Please Me (1963). The young women in this video are now between 65 and 67 years of age (assuming they were 16 to 18 at the time). I've seen many Beatles videos, and the young women seem not just pleased by the band, but ecstatic, as though they were having a religious experience. Does anyone remember those days?

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

Re “He’s Watching That, in Public? Pornography Takes Next Seat” (front page, July 21):

Whether or not people should be allowed to view pornography in public should not be a matter of constitutional rights or morality. It should be forbidden because it creates a danger to children.

To put hoods on computers so only the user can see the screen panders to perverts. Normal people do not watch pornography in public.

People do not watch pornography as an art form. They watch it to become sexually stimulated.

We as a country need to wise up, especially after the Jerry Sandusky horror. Libraries are full of children who use restrooms, often without a parent present. The last thing we need is for a child to bump into an aroused man in the bathroom.

Do we really want to debate this issue until it re-emerges as another shocking headline?

ROXANNE McCARTHY
Madison, N.J., July 21, 2012

The writer is a lawyer.

Dilbert

Here.

Religion

I leave you this fine evening with a short essay on what I call Respectful Atheism.

Health Care

Welcome to ObamaCare. Instead of good care unequally distributed, we will have bad care equally distributed. To the progressive mind, this is progress.

Politics, Part 2

Here is a good summary of Barack Obama. Key paragraphs:

The reason Barack Obama’s outlook is alien to the American tradition is not because he is black; it is because he was mentored by a Communist, raised by leftists, inculcated with foreign values in Indonesia, befriended (and willing befriending of) some of the vilest radicals and terrorists on American soil, studied and emulated the evil Saul Alinksy, and consciously chose (by his own testimony in his crafted, semi-fictionalized “autobiography”) the persona of a man disaffected from and antagonistic to many of the values historically adopted and admired by most Americans.

He says we cling to guns and religion as a way to deal with our own bitterness; he says we didn’t build our own businesses (or the roads and such paid for by taxes on the profits from our own labors); he says Americans have been arrogant and dismissive of Europe and that we are “still struggling” with the legacy of Jim Crow; he runs roughshod repeatedly over religious liberties; and again and again, he shows disdain for the actual workings of the free market that is the means of our prosperity.

Thanks to Mark Spahn for the link.

Politics

I love Dick Cheney, but he's inconsistent when he says that Sarah Palin wasn't ready to be president in 2008. Was George W. Bush ready in 2000? Bush's entire public service consisted of less than six years as governor of Texas. As political junkies know, Texas has a weak governorship. By contrast, Sarah Palin had served 17 years in public office by 2008, including two and a half as governor of Alaska. Palin was far more experienced than Dubya, both domestically and internationally. Sorry, Dick. Either both were experienced, neither was experienced, or Palin had more experience. The only thing you can't say is that Dubya was experienced and Palin was not.

Addendum: Even Cheney's daughter Liz disagrees with him.

Cycling

Here is the finale of today's women's Olympic road race. The women's winner, Marianne Vos of the Netherlands, covered 87.1 miles at an average speed of 24.27 miles per hour. The men's winner, Alexandre Vinokourov of Kazakhstan, covered 155.0 miles at an average speed of 26.88 miles per hour. Women will be respected as much as men when they ride the same distance as men.