Please use this thread to post whatever you’d like; linking to your own stuff is encouraged.
By the way, I’m off to Florida for a week, and I’m not sure how much internet access I’ll have.
And Bean emailed me this story:
Dog retrieves his best friend – a cat buried in the garden
Russell JenkinsA pet dog missed the family’s dead cat so much that he dug up his grave and brought the body back into the house.
When Oscar’s owners woke up the next morning they discovered the dog curled up beside Arthur, the late cat, in his basket.
His owners, Robert Bell, 73, and his wife, Mavis, of Wigan, Greater Manchester, believe that the dog had licked the cat clean before falling asleep.
Mr Bell said that the two pets were constant companions. Arthur, who was a large cat, used to help Oscar to climb on to the sofa.
Oscar, an 18-month-old Lancashire Heeler, had watched Mr Bell dig a grave in the garden and then lower the cat into the hole.Mr Bell said: “He had managed to climb out through the cat flap in the night, obviously with the intent to get Arthur back. Bearing in mind that Arthur was a huge cat, Oscar must have used all the strength he could muster.
“Then he pulled him into the basket and went to sleep next to him. Arthur’s coat was gleaming white. Oscar had obviously licked him clean. It must have taken him nearly all night.”
Arthur is now reburied in a secure grave. And Oscar has a new playmate, a kitten called Limpet.
I also enjoyed the first comment left by a reader:
If Oscar has broken the law, he should face the full force of the same, whether by means of tasers or detention, it doesn’t matter. Just because he is no doubt a very cute and adorable canine, doesn’t mean he should be let off with just a warning (“No!, Bad boy!”).
We need to celebrate species diversity yes, but we are all equal before the law.
I spent the morning paying money so two men could put holes in perfectly good walls. How could a leak that’s soooo tiny (well at least until yesterday, when it was a bit more tiny) cost sooooo much? Yes, I know that there’s too much wet on the floor for it to be totally blamed on the cat missing the litter box, but still, I was surfing for some plumbing blogs while the banging of pipes and sawing of wall was going on. I think plumbing blogs are more a thing in the U.K.
But here’s several.
Plumbing the Depths from the U.K.
Pretty Plumbing which is by a female plumber though she’s on maternity leave at the moment.
Not a blog, but plumbers by day, ghosthunters by night. So if your sink needs an exorcism, I guess these are the guys to call.
I spent last week in a 30 hour training course with 30 police officers in mental health crisis training. Been blogging about the budget cuts the city will face this year, which is interesting because it’s attracted a lot of folks willing to give their opinion on that issue.
Okay I’ve written two big posts garnering scant attention, so I’m going to link them here. I’m getting less self-conscious about self-promotion these days.
The first on a fairly common practice I see of blaming models and media for body image issues: Body Image Blaming
The second is on rituals of life and death and how that might fit in with rougher sex practices and attitudes: In Praise of Degradation
Oh, what the heck – I’ve also got one on living in a household with ADD and Aspergers issues sometimes taking over (like making one batch of pancakes this morning that involved three separate trips to the grocery store and 90 minutes from start to finish): In Praise of Disorders
Is anyone here considering getting, or convincing their partner to get, a vasectomy? I’m getting one tomorrow, so if you want to know what it’s like, read my blog. Can’t say I’m looking forward to it, but…
The body image blaming entry strikes me as pretty tone deaf.
This got to me over email – I’ve not put it up at my place yet, so I’ll quote it in full:
One in fifty is bad enough odds for me, Sailorman. YMMV.
Sage: I couldn’t figure out how to comment on your site, but in response to this part of your post: “Boredom is acutely painful to me. If I’m forced to do anything tedious or without consequence, I actually have to do some labour breathing to cope with the boredom.”
May I suggest playing with numbers in your head as a way of coping with boring conversation and/or repetitive tasks? I calculate prime numbers in my head when I’m stuck in line without a book or in a conversation I can’t get out of or otherwise in a situation that could otherwise bore me to literal tears. (Yes, I have cried because I was so hopelessly bored with a situation. It’s ok, it’s not like I’ll be running for president any time soon anyway.) BTW: 1001 is not a prime. It is 7x11x13 and therefore quite an interesting number nonetheless. 30030 is the product of all primes up to 13. I’m not sure whether I’m quite formally diagnosable as AS, but I’m a hopeless geek.
Sailorman: Good luck tomorrow. Having a vasectomy is about 10X safer than having an abortion and over 100x safer than giving birth, if that makes you feel any better. Get a sperm count afterward to make sure that it worked. And maybe once a year for the first few years thereafter. Better safe than sorry.
Do you collect comic strip artworks? I recently wrote about them in my blog at http://bakertoons.blogspot.com
Also, do you like talking about comic strips? Then go to http://www.toontalk.org and join the fun!
And one more comic related plug. Do you work in retail? Well, there’s a strip all about it! http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/fun/retail.asp
That dog and dead cat story is like Cute Overload posting by Stephen King.
FYI – Cute Overload often features photos of “interspecies snoogling” between cats and dogs. But they are all alive at the time the photos are taken.
Have fun in Florida, Mr. Deutsch.
If any of you are looking to read about life as a female expat in Cairo, here’s my blog:
http://egypt4.wordpress.com
It has some boring mommy stuff, but also photos from around Cairo and a few other spots. Plus musings on life in Egypt.
The oddest thing I’ve read all day is that Selling Crack counts as a job for the purpose of denying disability claims. Of course, they were already getting disability while selling crack so the decision really just means that they’ll have to move more rock to keep the standard of living up. Article doesn’t say if the court took him into custody for the police to investigate. Bog to I hate the drug war.
I started a blog a few months ago which you can find here:
http://evasicons.blogspot.com/ that includes entries (mostly) on family, art and food. I’m just starting to let the wide world know I’m posting, so if you’all have any comments please post them. Thanks.
P.S. Mandolin, thanks for the invitation to post on the effects of anti-semitism on Jewish Americans. I’m still researching it and will get back to you when I’ve got something to share.
Dianne: I’ve had to break myself of the habit of counting everything and manipulating the numbers, as it became obsessive. I do find that mental arithmetic keeps the mind ticking over nicely during boring times.
And yes, 1001 is a great number. One of my favorites. But the best thing is finding that some humongous number you picked up randomly as a phone number or whatever is actually divisible by something like 59, and factoring the whole thing out in your head. The worst thing is having to sit around and not be able to go on to the next errand because you haven’t finished factoring the humongous number.
Robert,
I am not sure how accurate wikipedia is about this subject. They’ve largely changed techniques in the last decade or so, and the newest paper in that wiki link is from 1996.
I guess I’ll know in a few weeks ;)
Sage:
I followed the link, and clicked through to brownfemipower, and did a bit of reading on the side.
I now discover that as well as having a very good fit with Asperger’s, I have a near perfect fit with the diagnistic criteria for ADD (ADHD-PI). I never looked at the ADHD conditions before because I am not hyperactive.
Self-diagnosing as AS several years ago was a huge benefit to my mental health, because it gave me a partial explanation for why my life has been such a disaster. AS+ADD provides an even better explanation than AS alone.
Thanks for leading me to this.
Dianne:
Me too.
That wouldn’t work for me, because it would be too mechanical. I do however work through the proofs of mathematical theorems in my head, trying to recapture the “grok” that I used to have, or even to grok them better.
Indeed, this product is the basis for the standard divisibility tests for 7 and 13. (The same test also works for 11 but there is an easier test for that number.)
This is known in mathematics as a primorial and is written as 13#. Question: is 13#+1 or 13#-1 prime? It cannot be divisible by any number less than or equal to 13, but it could have larger factors.
The sequences 13#-13, 13#-12, … 13#-2 and 13#+2, 13#+3, … 13#+13 must be all composite, and this generalises to larger primorials, so this provides a way of finding arbitrarily long sequences of consecutive composite numbers, (though not a very good one because the primordials blow up so quickly).
I collect the prime factors I discover of Mersenne numbers, which is pretty geeky. My latest discoveries :
Mersenne Exponent, bits, prime factor
28232387, 76, 79501072521734214446609
28242301, 89, 783996786090028239513019057
30927409, 82, 4053048662995642990241071
30996139, 90, 1261681197782060287648779481
I have discovered over a hundred of them, but I lost some when I accidently wiped a directory. (They are all recorded in a central database, along with millions of others, but they are not attributed to their discoverers, so I cannot find mine) See this site for information on the project.
I obviously stopped studying formal math far too soon…Unfortunately, I never could get theoretical math (the reasoning always seemed circular to me) so dropped it largely after applied calc. And therefore missed fun stuff like primorials. I’ll have to work on 13#+/-1…it isn’t instantly obvious to me whether it’s a prime or not.
It was my degree subject. Unfortunately I was depressed to the point of paralysis at the time, so didn’t do very well. :-(
Something wrong there, if it seems circular.
You could just look it up, but that would spoil the fun, maybe.
May I ask, how do you find factors and/or test for primality? The most efficient method for “small” numbers is also the simplest – starting at 2, test each prime number in turn to see if it is a factor, up to the square root, but there are other methods which work better for larger numbers. “Larger” means more than a few tens of digits. Of course, you would use a computer for this. (The largest prime number discovered without the use of a computer had 44 digits, and was discovered in 1951 by Ferrier using a mechanical desk calculator. See this page for more information.)
Found Go visit this link.at http://www.theagitator.com
Creepy creepy stuff.
This one is the funniest in a sad sort of way
This one had me cracking up:
It must be parody. It just must. Creationists can’t be that stupid, can they?
It’s the moon, right?
A parody for sure.
Never underestimate stupidity. But there are some real humdingers in there. I suspect some of them might not be…genuine.
There are some creepy evil ones in there also, so might want to know that before going in. I do want to say that I’m not claiming all Christians, or even fundies think this way. But those that do should be mocked.
Oh, and seeing as it’s an open thread…
Sorry if anyone is having problems reading or commenting on my blog. My webhost is being DDOSed. As far as I can tell, we’re not the target, just collateral damage.
Yay! Time for shameless plugging …
My blog: http://myblasphemousramblings.blogspot.com/
If anyone’s interested in reading about my experiences at Sarah Lawrence College, St. Paul’s Chapel in NYC or the Cloisters (where I recently visited), knitting, art, fashion, and such, click away.
the vasectomy report (you know yuo’re curious!)
http://moderatelyinsane.blogspot.com/2008/01/ow-ow-my-balls-hurt.html
I linked to and added my thoughts on several videos from The National Queer Arts Festival’s TransForming Community. I also looked at some transphobia and cissexism in the queer community before reposting an older rant on cissexist and ciscentric language.
Radfem, with regards to plumbing and other leaks (e.g. a roof leak), they’re kind of like icebergs. You know how the visible part of an iceberg is only 10% of the iceberg itself? Same thing with leaks. If you see a small leak on the floor, wall or ceiling you know there’s a whole lot of damage you don’t see behind it.
Sailorman: I lack the proper type of account to post on your blog, so I’ll just say here that I’m glad things went well and hope they continue to improve. In general, the worst of the post-surgical pain should be behind you. If you find it getting worse in any way that you were not told to anticipate, call your urologist. But things should be getting better from here.
thanks, dianne. I basically feel completely fine. If not for the stern warnings of the urologist (and the nurse who called this AM,) I’d be tempted to proceed about my business as usual.
I don’t shirk from taking pain meds in general, and i’m hapy to pop a pill to make things stop hurting. But I’ve not been motivated to take even a tylenol or aspirin today, much less the percocet they gave me. That says a lot about the (absence of) pain.
I’m glad it went so well, SM.
Sailorman, if you decide that those Percocets would be handy to have around just in case an emergency occurs later (like an impacted tooth at 2:00 AM on a weekend), take a jar, put about a 1/2 inch or an inch or so of calcium chloride in the bottom (the round white stuff they use to melt ice), put the pill bottle in on top of that, screw the jar’s lid on and put the whole thing in the freezer. It’ll keep for years.
I actually offer a free long-term storage facility for painkillers. Just drop me a note and I’ll send you the postal address. Then, later, when you want a Percocet, you just send me a note, and I write back to tell you that I ‘lost’ your pills.
Titles. Never understood them. I understand them even less during election years. Republicans (conservatives) are perceived as self-righteous, prejudiced, racist, money-grubbing, religious (overly religious?), self-absorbed, capitalistic, etc. Democrats (liberals) are perceived as wishy-washy, bleeding hearts, irrational, god-less (not religious enough?), whiny, socialist, naïve, amoral, etc. And any other group just doesn’t seem to matter at all. I know my beliefs spread across all the different parties and belief systems but I am constantly urged to pick one. I usually vote democratically but this is only because most of my ideals tend to fall into the Democratic arena. However, I wouldn’t necessarily categorize myself as a Liberal. I don’t think I’m alone either. Sometimes I fantasize about what my perfect party/government would look like. I think I’d call it FTPBTP (For the people by the people) in honor of the US constitution. Also, I see less big government and much less importance placed on citizen’s sex lives and how they worship or if they worship at all. I see a nation that cares about its environment but is also able to make caring for that environment affordable and easy to do. I see a nation that realizes it can’t “fix” the world if it has yet to even acknowledge its own problems and start to heal its own wounds. Oh, and I’d do away with that Electoral College madness!
What would your perfect political party look like? What would you name it? What would your platform(s) be?
@33: lol ;0
It’s not all that interesting, really. I am really only posting because I figure other men might be thinking about it and not have anyone handy to ask “what’s it like?” And after 10 years of primary BC responsibility, it’s my turn to step up to the plate, as planned.
So let me say:
-having seen three births in person
-having dated a variety of women who suffered bad menstrual cramps
-Having seen my incredibly pain-tolerant wife endure multiple breast infectinos while nursing….
Gentlemen, it’s time to step up to the plate. This is really NO BIG DEAL compared to those things. Hell, it’s no big deal compared to a lot of things. And you only have to do it once.
If you’re fortunate enough to be in a relationship where the other party is happy to use BC, mostly because you, they, or both don’t like condoms… well, by gosh and golly, when you’re done having kids you should show your appreciation by taking the BC debate off the table. It’s the right thing to do.
Anyway.
The hardest part is keeping my 5 year old from knowing exactly what’s going on. I already know that “julie’s father drinks too much” and “emily had a baby sister who died in her mom’s belly” and “John’s father weights exactly 187 pounds.” The walls have ears, and mouths, it seems.
I’d rather avoid half the town knowing “Sailorman’s father had surgery on his penis!” (not that there’s anything embarrassing about a vasectomy, but I prefer to control the dissemination* of such information myself.)
*pun intended.
You named your son after your online alias?
Well, if you blog, be prepared, be very prepared for the person you least want to read something to find it, lol. I’m glad it went well.
Well, tomorrow is the plumbing day of doom. I spent the last three nights watching the same puddle revisit different rooms. Now it’s in all three adjacent rooms to the mighty leak.
Blogging about the exciting board and commission selection process. I hope my elected official didn’t complain about my blog at the weekly meeting tonight because I had to miss it.
Glamor Diva said:
Titles. Never understood them.
Seems to me that they are mostly used to try to pigeonhole people, especially in an attempt to silence them. “Well, if you believe ‘x’, then you are a Republican/Democrat/Liberal/Conservative/Feminist/sexist and you also believe ‘y’ and ‘z’ and ….” It allows people to discount the speaker and what they’re saying without actually listening to them and judging what they say on it’s own merit. Kind of an extension of an ad hominem attack.
Thanks for reading, folks!
@ Dianne – On tolerating bordom – I do sometimes count by sevens to see how far I can get before the person notices my eyes have glazed over. I also like to imagine drawing them, focusing on the collarbone in particular if it’s visible.
@ Sailorman – On vasectomies being easier than many things women do – I have a friends who, after her first baby, had to get 14 stitches that ran into her anus. Then she got her tubes tied because her husband was too squeamish to get a vas. It’s kinda baffling, but, ahh, we all have different pain tolerances in different ways. Whatever.
@ Mandolin – On the body image post is tone deaf. Can you expand on that? One of the readings I discussed was from a girl struggling in the first stages of recovery. Do you mean I should be more sympathetic and understanding of what she’s going through – reply with kindness instead of objections? Perhaps you’re right. It’s the pervasiveness of her ideas that spurned me to write.
I think it’s important to call her on the “all models are stupid” type of prejudice that she’s putting-forth. And, generally, the idea that eating disorders are caused by pictures of skinny women in mags seems far too simplistic. The focus on an external environment takes away from a closer examination of the internal. It can feel like a safe way to understand a personal issue without actually getting into any of the real muck at a person’s depths.
As I said in my post, this isn’t an issue that has directly affected me, but I have had issues of similar magnitude which I tried to write off as situational – due to externals. But that only keeps it at bay for so long. I’m not convinced that line of reasoning does anyone any good.
Further views?
A brief run-down of objections I remember:
You’re condensing the blaming of models — stupid — with the blaming of an industry — reasonable. These are two different things. You’re also defining other people’s issues for them in a way that feels off-key to continue the metaphor. You seem to have missed the point of much of the criticism of the beauty industry. There’s also a note of ahistoricism and eurocentrism (actually, industrial-nation-centrism) in your discussion of beauty ideals, and a lack of investigation of the ways in which those ideals are wound into the patriarchy which creates them as particularly problematic for women as a class. There may be social standards of beauty in any culture, but they are not equally enforced in places without mass media distribution; for instance, there are analyses of how something as simple as mirrors drastically alters the enforcement of beauty standards, before we even get into widespread distribution of media images. It’s not a matter of “don’t blame the model in the image; if it weren’t for her, it’d be the pretty girl down the street” — it’s a matter of pervasive cultural factors, for instance sexism, which enforce those standards as the primary marker of worth in some members of the class woman, and a matter of technologies that sustain, propel, and enable enforcement of those cultural beliefs.
This isn’t a full critique — I don’t really have time to write a full critique — but it’s a thumbnail of my initial reaction to your piece.
I’m trying to find more plumbing blogs in honor of hosting two plumbers today.
Okay, we listened to the leak through the headphones b/c it did get a lot worse in terms of water coming out last night, even into patio. It can be heard from bathroom when water is turned on. Last night it was more like a heart murmur might sound. Today, more like a waterfall, granted it was amplified a bit.
They looked all over the house. Ran the shower. Shower would not turn off. Fixed shower knob. Two holes, one in sink cabinet and one in kitchen wall on other side.
Cats including hard of hearing one hiding under bed in only room where there couldn’t possibly be any pipes, I don’t think.
They’ve been jack hammaring a while now. Maybe I should go check.
There’s some newer articles about the South African(?) sprinter who’s a double amputee and his banning from the Olympic Games.
The double amputee’s story has been in the Chicago media a bit. Frankly it seems sensible to me that something like that wouldn’t be allowed in the Olympics. Right now they’re trying to get the athletes to be more natural, not less.
“More natural”? I’m not sure what this means. Is this a reference to steroids which have practically destroyed the credibility of the sport, or something else? How are the two situations comparable? For one thing, steroid use includes deception involved as Justin Gatlin, Marion Jones, Randy Barnes, Grit Breur and a long list of other athletes just in this one sport have shown. These individuals were posing as being “natural” while using artificial performance-enhancing substances, that do enhance performances.
I’m bringing up steroids because this is one of two areas in sport where the term, “natural” comes up.
“Something like that”? You mean him, right?
I’ve read a lot on this situation and am still thinking about it as admittedly an ablebodied person who’s been involved in the sport competitively. There’s a certain amount of irony to it in terms of how the sport looks at disabled athletes including amputees or double amputees in different ways and how they are looking at this individual.
Oh, and one of the plumbers just did the good news/bad news with the good news being that they switched to Geico. This was before showing me a nice cascade of water rushing out of the sleeve of the exposed pipe. Oh, and they fixed the shower for free.
So, what’s the convincing argument for letting him wear the blades in competition?
His argument is that the prostestic legs aren’t performance enhancing. A test said they required him to use 25% less energy. But that’s only one aspect of a sprinter’s performance. It’s more complex than that to make any sort of judgment.
I think he finished second in his national finals in the 400 meters, but is still off of the Olympic standard (and I’m not sure whether they’re still on the A, B, or C standards and what they are using for South Africa). Meaning that in many cases, you have to win or place among top three and satisfy a time standard.
His PR in the 400 meters is about three seconds off of the record, almost that from Jeremy Wariner’s leading standard in 2007 which is about .30 off of the world record which was set by Michael Johnson. As far as records go, this one’s will be difficult to break. Many of the sprint records are especially on the female side. It’s the distance running records especially on the longer end that have proven to be much softer. Extraordinary jumps during the past several years in the marathon distance for men and women and for women, everything from 3,000 to 10,000 meters. Though on the women’s side, the use of performance enhancing drugs especially in China and the Soviet Union and Eastern bloc has probably tainted many of them.
I seem to remember that Oscar Pistorius’ races were mostly shorter sprints. His 100m is “soft” meaning that if you compare it to his 200m record, it’s not nearly as good a performance. Either he never really focused on the event or what’s likely it’s because of the greater role played by the start in that event.
I would guess the energy that he has to use in a start in a 100 m for example is quite a bit more than 25% extra. Watch sprinters come out of the block and what do you see? When are they completely vertical? He’s got to go vertical almost immediately and most of the power in the start is based in the hips.
So the quarter is probably the best comparative time, possibly due to minimalization of the start which is still blocks but not as crucial. I’m not sure what the curves do in his case.
There are time comparisons here.
I think you have ablebodied sprinters afraid to lose to him because of the attitudes towards “disabled” people in our society probably especially in sports which some see as an arena to show in a sense who’s the most able-bodied, meaning at the top of physical talent and development of that talent. There’s this culture in the sport that’s like that a lot. There’s no shortage of labeling people using derogatory slurs against disabled people for slower times for example.
Ouch!
Good luck with that… I hate it when expensive things go wrong with the house. It feels so chancey.
Thanks.
Well, the pipe had a pretty tiny hole not in the joints. There was a rocky surface that it likely was rubbing against. It was there for a long while b/c there was a root growing in close proximity and the trees aren’t quite that close. Likely, it’s the tree next to the house that’s looked lovely as of late.
The ground got too saturated and the water just spilled out through this kind of channel that went the bathroom, utility room, kitchen and heading towards the patio.
The new pipe is in. Damage was actually just a few lanoleum tiles and some holes in the wall. The rest of the system is fine. So dirt went back in and cement is going to be in.
BTW, am I the only person here seeing a connection between Radfem getting her plumming fixed, and Sailorman getting his?
LOL.
I hope his procedure was cheaper than mine or at least insured!
I have to say it wasn’t as bad as I thought. I had sone some web research and saw pictures of entire floors being jackhammared and things ripped apart. But the holes were small. I wish it hadn’t happened where a bunch of pipes meet up but I did get a nice map of my plumbing design for my place.
I heard it was a snip.
I heard it was a snip.
I’m told he got the shaft.
I heard he got the sack.
A stitch in time saves nine.
Months, perhaps, in this case.
Well, at least the tree benefited.
The comparison between performance-enhancing drugs and prosthetics is that both are an alteration of the body that depends on something artificial, something other than the resources of the athlete themselves. There’s certainly no comparison on the morality of the two. But someone running on two blades is not someone running on their own two feet. The dispute as to whether they are performance-enhancing is not something readily resolvable, but the fact is that there IS a dispute.
Radfem, if I were you I’d take some time and write down measurements and diagrams of the plumbing as you have discovered it. Then stash it in a file. I once had to do a bunch of work on my electrical system in my house, so I drew it all up and filed it. You’d be surprised how it might come in handy a few years down the road and keep you from having to punch some extra holes in the wall down the line.
People who are running on their own two feet are using shoes. Shoes are not a natural part of the body. I’m positive they’re performance enhancing.
Able-bodied people constantly use artificial supports. We just don’t label them that because we’re used to them.
True. Maybe we should have all the competitors run barefoot and naked, since shorts and shirts are artificial as well.
There’s a difference between something artificial that protects a body part and something artificial that replaces it. Heck, even with shoes there are regulations over type and length of spikes, etc.
I don’t see any real difference between something that replaces a body part and something that protects it. Nobody’s going to argue that somebody with a spinal disk replacement, for example, can’t compete.
The issue as I see it has to do with keeping the event (a) a running race, and (b) focused on the athletes, not the technology. The point about shoes is noted — but I don’t see the addition of shoes as fundamentally changing the nature of the event. People who run well with shoes are likely to be good runners without shoes as well. The same cannot be said for racing blades.
Allowing racing blades would fundamentally change the nature of the event. While it may be unclear whether the specific blades that Pistorius wears are better than flesh legs, it’s easy to imagine that in the future similar blades will clearly be better than flesh legs. If they are allowed, then they will end up being a de-facto requirement: anyone who does not wear them will be too slow to compete. The event will no longer be a running race: it will be a stilt-walking race. Part of the appeal of running is its simplicity; allowing racing blades would drastically reduce that appeal.
I am physically unable to compete at an Olympic level due to my thick, stocky legs and heavy body. Pistorius is physically unable to compete at an Olympic level due to his lack of legs. I just don’t see that much difference between us, nor can I think of a reason why he should be provided technology to overcome his lack of ability, while I should not.
Edit: I’m all for barefoot and naked, though.
I can’t really say I give a fuck about racing rules — they’re going to be arbitrary no matter what, as “fair” rules can’t actually be acheived — but the artificial/natural dichotomy is clearly a canard.
I think the “artificial is verboten” concept s generally modified by “….which is relevant”, but I don’t think it’s false.
Spinal disk replacement: not relevant to pool playing
Wheelchair: not relevant to golf
Steroid use: probably not relevant to Go tournaments.
But legs? those are relevant to running, I think, which is why artificial legs are a problem. Mainly because everyone doesn’t have them. (OTOH, the one-time exclusion of some weightlifter with no legs from the world record bench press made no sense to me. Unless legs matter in some way that i’m missing for the bench press.)
Shoes… those are relevant to running, of course. But they’re a level playing field. (If they weren’t, everyone would be wearing the same brand. Runners win my 10ths or 100ths or 1000ths of a second, and if shoes made you faster we’d know.) Adding shoes to the equation is sort of like deciding whether to run the race on grass or sand or stone; it’s a value-neutral decision. Also, they’re cheap. I don’t know what shoes Olympic runners wear but I bet they’re under $200, I suspect.
I don’t get what you mean by that…?
Hey! Did anybody notice how, in the recent bombing campaign in Iraq, the White House claimed (almost immediately afterwards) that no civilians were killed?
Well, I figured out how they know. It’s just logic.
1) All civilians are people.
2) No foreigners are people.
3) Only foreigners were present when the bombs detonated.
Ergo, no civilians were killed. QED.
It’s interesting that there’s a discussion about shoes being “protective” and apparently not “performance enhancing” because shoe companies including Nike and others have developed technology to build performance-enhancement into running shoes. Including maximizing energy return with each stride.
Oh, and spikes. Are they necessary to protect the foot? No, in fact most people who run on the track especially in the middle distance races or perhaps longer ones usually get these nice scars of polka dots and lines on their legs from being “spiked”. Or if you’re really having a bad day, on your back if you’re padding the track for the field in an 800 meters. If you get them around the ankle or foot, you’ll probably need stitches on the same body part that “shoes” in track and field are intended to protect. So putting spikes on running shoes has little and nothing to do with foot protection. In fact, it can be detrimental to other people’s feet and other body parts.
No, spikes are used on shoes because they are performance enhancing. They speed up your time through better traction and what kind you’re sanctioned to wear depends on the running surface and your event. Since they provide less support than racing flats, not everyone can wear them.
Speaking of which, if you don’t have a perfect foot with a neural gait pattern, proper level of pronation, foot plant etc, then I hate to say it but your shoe is indeed “performance enhancing” and not simply “protective”. If you overpronate for example, then it’s very hard to be highly competitive but not impossible (just ask Joan Benoit Samuelson) unless you have shoes with motion control built into them to help your foot become more efficient than it would otherwise be, not to mention increasing your number of training days and the length of your racing career due hopefully to decreasing injuries.
That’s not even getting into the area of orthotic devices. If someone without flesh-covered legs (as they are called, I guess) can’t run without them, a lot of athletes who compete at the elite level probably wouldn’t be there without other performance enhancing measures, and that’s not counting the illegal drugs, i.e. steroids, “clear”, hGh, EPO (which in terms of performance enhancing, is in a class by itself) and others.
Elite athletes are always finding ways to “performanc enhance” and when they aren’t, they are looking. Because it’s about 1/100 seconds in sprints and often seconds in even distance events or inches in jumps and throws. Equipment has “improved” in many events that require it (i.e pole vault especially) and no not everyone has equal access to it. Sometimes, it’s money, geographic access, endorsement access to new products.
I don’t agree that the issue of “performance enhancing” has been decided at all. The studies focus on one area of seemingly greater energy efficiency while not taking into account or ignoring parts of the running action where there might be less energy efficiency (i.e. starting from blocks).
This conversation is very interesting. An athlete that’s “disabled” is suddenly a concern because he might beat “able-bodied” athletes and already has and suddenly, the sport is suffering an identity crisis of sorts. Never mind, you have able-bodied athletes who’ve practically destroyed it.
Lack of ability? I don’t think so. His times put him up in the top 1% and I suspect performance enhancing or not, they’d still be up there if he were able-bodied. If an able-bodied athlete runs a 46 in the 400 meters, it’s assumed he has “ability” but if this man does, it’s all about no ability, just technology? Especially on stilts, as someone called them here. Which is kind of a strange analogy to use because stilts wouldn’t come to mind as a performance enhancing aid yet if there’s this idea that the sport is going to be irrevocably changed by “blades” because they are seen as performance enhancing, that’s a bit of a contradiction.
Above is more of the track nerd perspective from me, but what’s actually more interesting is watching the reaction to this athlete by other people, in that he’s got a designated identity by a sport that’s for able-bodied athletes only and place to be which is outside of that venue and suddenly, he’s stepping out not only because he’s made that choice but through his running and all of a sudden the sport’s in danger even before it’s been proven that the “blades” are performance enhancing, not for him (which they are in the sense that he’s able to access his obvious genetic talent) but in comparison to other elite athletes who are able-bodied. The “blades” aren’t “natural”, it’s a “simplistic” sport, they are not “legs”, not “natural” and so neither is he. What is he then, as artificial as his legs?
Of course shoes enhance performance, but in a way that everyone can use. Blades, not so much.
Spikes? Sure. There’s no really technical need for them, since we could just ban them from everyone.
Same with orthotics, of course. We’de lose some runners to injury of course possibly including this guy, BTW. I don’t think it makes sense to assume he’d be performing at the same level, right now, as he is. He might be a multiple gold medalist–or he might have hurt his leg, or knee, or ankle, or foot, and be unable to run well.
Chances are that he’d be a good runner–but how good? Hard to say.
And therein lies the rub. How are we to tell if he’s winning “because of the blades,” and how are we to tell if he’s winning because he “would have won anyway,” or because he “should” win? Who the heck is going to handicap him? In a race where hundredths count, that seems like a pretty crucial question.
For some reason, this makes me think of academic accommodations. They’re an inexact science, of course. after all, how many people do you know who get “1 hr, 5 minutes” extra time on a three hour exam? How many people get “seven minutes”? people’s minds don’t develop in 30 minute blocks.
But in academia, it’s (usually) OK because accuracy is a not all that crucial. the difference between a 71 and 71.5 is not huge.* but where accuracy is paramount, the handicapping becomes hard to do. And with sprint running, accuracy is everything.
*There are exceptions to this, of course.
Of course shoes enhance performance, but in a way that everyone can use.
Not quite everyone.
Radfem, I think your analysis here is very good — especially the bit about the real problem with the blades being tha the may beat able-bodied athletes with them.
I agree that “performance enhancing” is a red herring, but I think Bjartmarr’s analysis concerning the “fundamental nature” of the activity is right on the mark. We do not not permit athletes in foot races to use such performance enhancing devices such as bicycles and racing cars, and I see no reason why we should treat blades any differently.
If the blades allow a differently abled person to compete at a level they otherwise wouldn’t should steroids/HGH and other performance enhancing drugs be allowed? The same reasoning applies as best I can tell.
You can have a “technology limited” game with certain agreed-on rules. The rules are arbitrary of course, but what matters is that they’re agreed on and apply to everyone. That evenness, even if it’s arbitrary, is what makes it a game between people who play the game (or interpret the rules), as opposed to a game between handicappers.
You can have a “technology unlimited” game with a different set of rules. Same goes for arbitrariness, agreement.
The issue here is that running, though arbitrary, has a set of rules, written and unwritten. You can change those rules–you can change distances, allow wheelchairs, make everyone crawl or carry a cross or both, or allow blades–but then you’re playing a different game. Not a lesser game, just a different game.
Obviously nobody would give a shit if the guy couldn’t run. But that’s a stupid sound bite, if you think about it. I mean, why would they care–or even know–if it wasn’t relevant to their lives, which only happens if he’s good?
Who cares about a cheating poker player that loses all her money? Who cares if an 18 year old plays in the youth league, if he’s small, slow, and worse than everyone else? Nobody ever cares if you break the rules and LOSE. It’s not ableist, it’s just life.
You can have a “technology limited” game with certain agreed-on rules. …. You can have a “technology unlimited” game with a different set of rules. Same goes for arbitrariness, agreement.
Every year across the country Cub Scout Packs sponsor the Pinewood Derby. The kids get a kit from which they make a small race car. The rules specify that the car must be made from the kit and that the finished product has to have a certain length and width and maximum weight, and that it’s to be made by the Scout. There’s no motors, the car runs down a ramp. Each car is measured and weighed to ensure that it meets the rules. It’s a technology limited game.
There are problems. Sometimes we find that banned lubricants are used, the car is gimmicked up with moving weights, or it violates the maximum weight rule. Most of those are caught during pre-race inspection, but the big one is that there’s no way to prove that the Scout and not the parent actually built the car, although at times it’s quite obvious that no 7-year-old child is able to produce what is being presented as his work with the fit and finish and precision of shaping, quality of the paint job, etc. In some Packs there’s little of this, but in other Packs there are a few parents that think it’s more important for their son to not suffer the disappointment of not winning than it is to teach him that working within the rules and doing his best is what this is all about. That in turn gets the parents who did teach their kids to stay within the rules pretty upset.
The solution that some Packs have reached is to have two competitions. One is the official “technology limited” Pinewood Derby. The other is a relatively “technology unlimited” race. Dad or Mom can openly build their own car from whatever the hell they want to. The only rules are a) no motors and b) it can’t interfere with any of the other cars on the track. Size, weight, etc. are otherwise unrestricted. The result usually is that now every car in the “technology limited” race is produced according to the rules, and the parents AND the kids have a great time with the “technology unlimited” race as well.
Mandolin. It’s really interesting to see where it’s been going. There’s actually kind of a deja vu feeling, if you consider track and field’s history in this country and worldwide too involving for example, able-bodied women.
What’s ironic is that disabled athletes in track and field are undergoing a similar process to what happens with able-bodied athletes both men and women (though together in some ways, separately in others particularly newer events sanctioned for women). Better equipment in terms of performance, more research on technology, adopting new and sometimes better, sometimes not training regimins. Plus like able-bodied women, perhaps they see what works for the earlier male athletes through that group’s own trial and error so their development is faster.
But it’s hard not to be reminded too of the history of able-bodied female runners. Only in their cases, the concerns at least in the beginning weren’t about being better or faster or stronger, but about uteri somehow dropping out of the body and I guess bouncing down the road behind them or women not being good breeders. That might sound like a harsh thing to say but not really considering how ignorant, sexist and territorial the excuses by men in the sport particularly at its executive level were providing.
The last is kind of interesting b/c in many cases pregnancy and child birth isn’t only possible in female long-distance runners but many have come back as fast runners afterward for reasons still unknown.
There was actually a brief flurry a while back when ultra runner Ann Trason was running and placing high against men in top events about whether able-bodied women would ever win outright against men, not at sprints but at longer distances. Oh, that was pretty contentious. I think if that could seriously happen, we’d stop seeing co-ed races because just having separate divisions by gender in those races wouldn’t be enough.
And on the rules, oh yeah. Let’s think back a moment about the history of able-bodied women. 1960s, women are banned from running road races at marathon distances without getting bodily thrown off the course as Kathy “K.V.” Switzer did in 1967 which is shown in one of the photos (below three photos) on this site.
More on Switzer and the rest of the draconian history of female long distance running is here.
1970s, women’s 1500 is added to Olympics
1984: Olympic 3,000 and marathon are added
1992: women’s 10,000
The 3,000 meter steeple is still to be added. It’s only been world-sanctioned for about three years.
Awwwws! That’s so sad! I thought this was an article about a dog eating a cat or something, then I come here and it’s about a dog who misses their cat friend. I feel like a heel, for assuming the worst.
When our cat Rhys* dissapeared, my cat Taylor kept trying to sneak into the basement where he was last seen. I suppose he was trying to find him.
*The name Rhys came out of, when I was obsessed with the actor Jonathan Rhys-Meyers.
New Scientist Magazine said:
Heath Ledger dies at 28
Damn.
Check out what goes into the food you give your dog – this is scary stuff!