Chad's spot for various thoughts, musings, poetry, ideas and whatnot

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Today I find myself cranky and out of sorts. Much of this can be traced to a lack of sleep and a too ambitious training schedule. I'd like to blame it on a variety of stupid things I find in the world around me but, to be honest, those things are always there. They're just annoying me a lot more today. Still, that isn't going to stop me from a bit of ranting:

(1) The Middle East. We only care about the Middle East for two reasons: oil and Israel. We are responsible for the spot of bother we find in both right now. If we didn't buy the crap Syria and Iran suck out of the ground, Hezbollah would be a bunch of camel traders trying to fight a war with swords and Soviet era AK-47's. Instead, the Western world buys too much oil from corrupt regimes who then use it to buy advanced military hardware for their favorite extremists to hassle the very people who buy their oil with. The sooner we park our SUV's, turn down the AC/heating and decide to live lives that don't demand drive-thru crap food that's only vaguely distinguishable from the above mentioned sludge at 2 am, the sooner we can put these terror groups out of business. Terror is funded with oil. Turn off the faucet and the oil revenues dry up and the camel traders go back to killing each other over their wives. Rather than trying to control their culture to ensure our supply of oil, why don't we change our culture so that we can eliminate our need for them. George Bush may be a "Democracy Evangelist" but I think the better approach is to stop funding the despots with our desire for cheap, polluting energy. Listen to me, I sound like some sort of tree-hugger. I'm not as much as all that; I just hate that we may get dragged into a stupid mess because of our addiction to Detroit's need to make mioney by selling huge slabs of stupid metal.

(2) African-American Moms. Did my "They're Not in College Anymore" talk to the parents today. There were about five big African-American ladies who wanted to know how to get to look at their kids grades and harrass faculty members. Here I am teaching college skills classes and I don't see a single black kid and then I have to listen to "helicopter parents" try to figure out how to bully their kids into success. HELLO!!!! I can't tell you the number of times I've seen these young African-American men who come here and who don't give a damn about their education but are here because Big Momma has pushed them into it and who then yells at them for not doing well. The whole thing is a cultural and sociological disaster. I'm even more frustrated by my seeming inability to communicate with the culture in any meaningful way. I don't know what I'm missing but I know that I am missing something really fundamental to how all this works. How do I explain that if Jr. doesn't have a real work ethic by now, calling and getting his grades and abusing him over them isn't going to cause him to develop them? How do I explain that if he decides that there's more value in playing hoops, getting stoned or chasing girls for easy sex it's because there's been a real breakdown in how the parents see the way the world works? There's got to be a better way.

(3)The Weather: When did the cooling mechanism break? I got up this morning at 6 am to 75 gegree temps at 100% relative humidity and it's just gotten worse. I rode early a few days back and had sweat pouring down my face while traveling at 20 mph with a medium level heart rate. I made the mistake of riding outside in the heat again and my legs were toast yesterday. I should have known summer was going to be bad when winter was so mild. I'm sick of riding inside but there aren't any other options right now.

(4) The Tour. I'm just sick for Floyd who lost nine minutes today. I'm guessing (ok, more than guessing giving Martin Dugard's blog comments from Floyd's press conference) that Floyd has gotten the respitory infection that's been going around and that forced Boonen to abandon. I don't know if Floyd will abandon now but I won't be too surprised given the hip situation. The unpredictable nature of this Tour continues and I'm worried about what it says when the two top riders are Spanish. Will there be more doping charges? Will Fuentes come out and reveal who he's treated that's still riding in the peleton (a claim he's already made) and we'll end up with a result like last year's Vuelta where the winner is named after the race because of a failed drug test of drug allegations? I hope not. I like Sastre a lot. I've liked him for a long time (since 2002) and have wanted to see him do well. Carlos, I know you're not reading this but just in case, if you're a doper, please drop out of the Tour right now and admit it. Do it for us, your fans. Pereiro, the same goes for you too. If you were involved in the doping ring with the Hamilton version of Phonak and have continued your involvement in the dark side of the sport, give it up. Don't drag down the Yellow Jersey.

OK, that's enough for now. I have to go and try and get students a schedule for Fall semester. We've got 250 of them and no College Algebra or Quantitative Skills courses. This should be fun. Lots of fun. Climbing the Galibier with cement water bottles fun.

I need a nap...and milk and cookies...and a foot massage...and a vacation a long ways away from Barnesville...and a million dollars (tax free, of course)...and other things I can't mention...

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