9:10 PM: Romney just hammered Gingrich. Hammered him. Obama could use those exact words against him. Wow. And Gingrich is horrid.

9:13 PM: Santorum sounding sensible here, comparatively at least.

9:15 PM: Paul whacks Gingrich again – says Congress was chaos when he was in charge.

9:18 PM: Why exactly is gold useful as a currency? It’s sort of arbitrary, isn’t it?

9:21 PM: Romney won’t pay more taxes than he owes. But he should owe more.

9:23 PM: Brian Williams doing a good job here. Jen points out that he looks good too.

9:24 PM: Bet Romney’s not bragging about Staples in 5 years. Hashtag ExpectExtinction.

9:25 PM: So, are we looking at Romney and Santorum vs Gingrich and Paul? By the way, I’m thinking that Wall Street’s failure would have been a good thing.

9:27 PM: So all this about lobbyists being bad, does that mean we’re going to get rid of it? Maybe we should make laws against lobbyists?

9:30 PM: Both Romney and Gingrich started off being very civil. Not any more.

9:32 PM: Gingrich just made sense on the insensibility of government medicare policies.

9:38 PM: I am looking forward to when Obama debates whoever comes out of this. I’d like to hear something different. Everybody sounds smart when they’re the only ones presenting an argument.

9:43 PM: Romney sounds like he knows something about money.

9:44 PM: Wait, Fidel Castro isn’t dead?

9:44 PM: OK, fine, Fidel Castro is going to hell. Glad you guys have that figured out.

9:45 PM: We didn’t generate the Arab Spring.

9:46 PM: I like Paul talking about Cuba. Wow, great answer from Ron Paul. Too bad he’s an anarchist.

9:48 PM: Santorum! Axis of Evil! Al Qaeda’s going to nuke us from Cuba! Hehehehe!

9:49 PM: Love the two hawkish young white guys sitting behind Williams.

9:50 PM: I agree, navy ships are going to be around forever. We should make sure they have bayonets too.

9:51 PM: I’m about ready to leave this.

9:53 PM: Ron Paul just pointed out we committed the first act of war against Iran. Holy cow. Ron Paul on foreign policy!

OK, that’s all for me. Going to bed.

Meanwhile, if anyone has any other weather resources that they think are useful, pass them my way, I’ll add them.

Rage should scale with knowledge. If you’re well-informed (by at least one source in addition to Fox News, the Huffington Post, or the Drudge Report) you are allowed to be enraged. If you’re not well-informed, you’re welcome to be mildly annoyed. What really irks me is the people who are ignorant, yet still enraged. If you care so much to whip yourself into a froth over something, at least make sure you have your facts straight. Or at least acknowledge that there are facts, somewhere. Many people could care less about the truth or the opposite perspective in political (or religious or cultural) matters – they believe what they believe and blindly hate whatever isn’t what they believe. I have a hard time supporting such people’s continued existence.

(By the way, listen to that News From Lake Wobegon podcast above. It’s at the right-ish time, it starts about 30 seconds in.)

I could talk about buying a new camera soon and probably a macro lens with it. I could tell of how Jen worked on Christmas, how we saw Mission Impossible 4 on Christmas Eve, and how Tom Cruise always runs with his hands straight like fan blades. I could talk about Michael’s manic Christmas light drive, where we lurched between parked cars and swung around cul de sacs at roughly highways speeds, all with mutant snowmen chasing us. There’s also physical therapy, where I’ll be in a half hour, or the kid from church who was admirably careful when crossing the street in front of my car, only to dart back without looking when he forgot something. (I missed him).

I could write a lot of those things. I’m not sure that I have time. I’m trying to do a lot of things, almost always, and when I’m not doing those things, I’m staring blankly into a future of doing more things. Even in comparative leisure, I wonder how I ever had time to think coherently. I guess that’s what I did when I ran, then I’d come back and write about it. Huh. Anyway, I’m still working out how I’ll have time for all this. Maybe we’ll hire a maid service. Publish.

Either the civilized world has lost its mind…
source

All that said, I already hardly need the crutches, a mere 4 days after getting out of the cast. Dr said 1-2 weeks of crutch assisted boot-walking. I’m going to be a good boy here – crutches till Friday, day 8. I’m walking around the house without them, but I’ll continue to use them for the long hauls at work.

Strictly speaking, step 1 is the physical therapy that starts tomorrow. I’ll be doing flexibility stuff for the next four weeks, at which point I’ll start the strengthening process (alongside ditching the boot altogether). We’ll be doing stim on the calf to keep it from atrophying further.

Also part of step 1 is the loss of weight. It’s not as though I’ve ballooned or anything. Racing weight 6 years ago was about 158-159 lbs. I’m 165 now. The plan is to lower my equilibrium weight to 158 by, say, March. If I’m going to do this for real, I’d try to push it to 154-155 by September. I love eating. I’m not going to ask my body to do 90 mpw again, so I’m going to have to cut calories if I’m going to cut lbs in a meaningful way. Still, I feel like each pound under 160 is worth about 5 seconds in the 5K for me. Even if I’m wrong, it doesn’t matter – that’s what I think, and knowing is half the battle.

So, Step 1: PT and weight loss.

A preview: Step 2 is non-running boot camp in late December/early January. Step 3 is exercise bike endurance in January. Step 4 is the slow running ramp (with bike for my real fitness) in February through May. Step 5 is the start of training, basework and aerobic threshold in June-July. Step 6 is speed work and aggression in August-September. September/October, I race, leveraging the natural surge in training from the improvement in the weather.

Or, none of that. But at least I’ll have tried.

As far as I can come up with, there are two culturally untouchable topics in American society. Two wrongs that are so toxic in our culture that the mere implication is ruinous. One is racism. The other is child abuse, particularly child sexual abuse. In these cases, no one is allowed to stand up for the accused, without himself being called a racist or an enabler/pervert/whatever. All involved are immediately condemned, no questions asked, no explanation accepted.

The alleged (and let’s face it, likely true) crimes were committed over the past decade. The alleged incident witnessed by McQueary and reported to Paterno took place 9 years ago. The allegations were revisited this spring. The news broke three days ago…and the mob has enacted a swift justice. Once the media catches wind of something, due process be damned, NOW is the time to prosecute the judgments against all involved. Commentators were tripping over themselves trying to ascend to the pulpit in condemnation of all involved. No one stopped to look at facts, no one waited until people had a chance to explain their side of the story, and 60 years of Joe Paterno’s otherwise sterling reputation was thrown away haphazardly in 3 days. Why such a rush to judgment?

While they might claim otherwise, the media’s assault did not save any victims – the process had already taken care of that (albeit about 12 years too late) before they jumped on board. The media serves the appetites of the American people – we love to be outraged. It’s our national past time. Look at politics, looks at sports, look at abortion, gay marriage, gun rights, whatever. We love being outraged. We invent things to be outraged about if we can find nothing else. And when we’re outraged we beat up Muslims and bomb the hell out of third world countries. We circumvent our constitution and basic civil rights. And, this week, we hold a trial in the court of public opinion instead of in a court of law.

Now, I’m not saying Joe Paterno isn’t wrong (how could I, I don’t know either!). A lot of people are wrong here. The prosecutor was wrong for not pressing charges against Sandusky for an unrelated incident in the late 90s. McQueary, who witnessed the act, was wrong to go to a football coach instead of a police officer – I’m very confused as to why he’s not being publicly crucified too, makes me wonder if maybe I don’t know that whole story with him either. That’s what little we know. One thing we don’t know is what McQueary told Paterno.

Consider these completely hypothetical scenarios:
Scenario 1
McC: Coach…I think I just I saw Sandusky being physical with one of the kids from the youth program in the locker room.
JoePa: That’s disturbing Mike. I’ll go to the AD right away and they’ll investigate. I remember some chatter of this before, we should take this up the ladder, I think the school knows what happened with this last time. I’ve known Jerry for 40 years though, I just…it’s just unbelievable – but I’ll pass it along.

Scenario 2
McC: Coach, I’m freaking out. I just saw Sandusky having sex with a boy in the shower.
JoePa: Are you sure?
McC: Positive.
JoePa: Listen, this will ruin everything we’ve built here. If you ever want to work in this industry again, you better shut your mouth or I will ruin you. I’ll pass it on to Curley, let him take care of it and you keep your mouth shut.

Do you see how those scenarios are very different? Which one happened?

We don’t know.

One is an oversight, a miscommunication, an unfortunate but ALMOST understandable travesty. The other is a despicable crime committed by a selfish, power-drunk tyrant. The truth could literally be anywhere in between. That’s why we have courts, lawyers, juries, and judges – to winnow through the stories and come out with something resembling the truth. The media and the mob are not very good at this.

Remember when we played Pile on Richard Jewell? He was an oafish security guard who spotted a pipe bomb at the Atlanta Olympics and saved many lives. The media, using untruths and assumptions, decided that he was really the bomber and dragged his name through the dirt for days. But…he wasn’t.

These situations are why the court of public opinion should not have the sort of power over people that it does. How many times does the media have to be right about something to make up for the time that it’s wrong? This is why I cannot support the death penalty – if Texas executes 100 guilty men and 1 innocent man, then the blood of the one outweighs justice on the others. This case smoldered and festered for a decade. It broke 3 days ago, and now Paterno is flushed without being given the dignity of even defending himself. Couldn’t they have waited a week to get the facts together? Hadn’t he earned the right to a fair trial, or at least an opportunity to share his side of the story?

People will jump at any opportunity to feel superior to other people. They will search for any excuse to tear down a hero. Maybe they were justified this time, but frankly, the mob, in all of its manifestations, terrifies me. When mobs make mistakes, they cannot be unmade. I don’t know what will come of this investigation, I just know that witch trials are not a good thing, even if they occasionally burn real witches.

Addendum
Since I wondered about Mike McQueary’s free pass, extra details have come out. So, how does it change things for McQueary if he did, in fact, go to police? This is why you need to wait until details come out – now, if this is true, you have to wonder why the police didn’t do anything. Pressure from an almighty football program perhaps? Where’d the pressure come from? Paterno? Curley? The president? Did McQueary tell the police and Paterno, but sugar coat the description to the point that neither took it seriously? Questions remain.

In unrelated news, I have missed my calling in life several times over. I’m decent at a lot of the things that I do. But I would have been an excellent military man. I love structure, punctuality, and performing excessive acts of physical prowess. Sorry for the lack of proper parallelism in that list. I’m not gonna fix it, but I know it’s there, just letting you know that I know, if you know what I mean.

Second, I should have been a Native American, circa about 1500. I’d vote Iroquois. I’m not a fan of the Indians from the southern US and Mexico, but the Plains Indians and those form the East Coast, I think those guys really had this world figured out. In fact, if we ever, you know, lose 6.5 billion people along with human civilization, I think we should revert to their lifestyle. It’d be nice to emulate them now, but it’s not exactly plausible in this overpopulated mess that we’ve created over the last few hundred years.

Third, and most realistically, I should have been in Star Fleet. It combines the structure and pursuit of excellence found in the military with flying around on space ships, fighting aliens, and exploring new worlds. What’s not to love? The Borg, maybe.