Day23 Tuesday 09/21/10

ran 4.2 miles
On this day in 1780, during the American Revolution, American General Benedict Arnold committed treason. Arnold met with British Major John Andre to finalize details of handing over West Point to the British in return for a large sum of money and an esteemed position in the British army. His plans were discovered and the former American hero defined what an American traitor was for every generation to come.

Benedict Arnold was given command of West Point and, on September 21, he met with Major John Andre and sealed his traitorous pact. The plot was uncovered and Andre was captured and executed. Arnold safely fled to the British side and led British troops in Virginia and Connecticut. Never having served punishment for his traitorous act, he retired in London and died on June 14, 1801.

Other events on this day in history:

• Spaniards capture Baton Rouge in 1779.
• FDR urges repeal of Neutrality Act embargo provisions in 1939.
• First daily newspaper in America is printed (Pennsylvania Packet & General Advertiser) in 1784.
• “Star Spangled Banner” was published as a poem in 1814.
• United States performs nuclear test at Nevada test site in 1967.

2,022.9 miles to go.

Day22 Monday 09/20/10 ran 3.2 miles

Current news: Obama Can't Connect
Colin Powell as quoted by usatoday.com

"It's not just me picking on the president," Powell said yesterday on NBC's Meet The Press. "It's reflected in the polling."

“The White House would no doubt disagree,” Powell said, “But a number of Americans seem to believe Obama is spending too much time on health care, environmental legislation and education, and not enough on the primary issue: jobs.”

"I think he has lost some of his ability to connect during the campaign. It's not just me picking on the president, it's reflected in the polling. Some of the anxiety and anger that you see out there, I think, comes from a belief on the part of the American people -- whether it's correct or incorrect, and the White House would say it's incorrect -- that not enough attention (is being paid to jobs) ... his singular focus should be on unemployment.

Wall Street got fixed. They're getting their bonuses back. We fixed the auto industry. It's starting to function but people are still seeing a 9.6 percent unemployment rate. They're losing their homes. They're homes are under water. Mortgages can't be paid. Short sales.

They are anxious and they are expecting more out of the president. I think he has to do more with respect to reducing the deficit and also being careful about putting more and more programs, more and more rocks into that knapsack because the American people are looking for a singular focus on the economy and unemployment.

And as part of that, he needs to focus on the business community. In my travels around the country, the business community is not that satisfied with the administration right now. So, I think the president is aware of all of this. His advisers are aware of all of this and I hope we will see him moving more vigorously in this direction."

At a glance

There are many clutch issues right now and, realistically, if it weren’t unemployment then it would be immigration. If it weren’t immigration then it would be the war on terror. If it weren’t the war on terror then it would be health care. It is always going to be something.

Presidents endure a ridiculous amount of scrutiny with every decision they make and with every comment they are quoted as saying. But that is part of the job description they signed up for. And the less one has to hide the more easily their actions tend to flow.

President Obama is currently in the process of reassessing the positions of some of his chief economic advisors. That is a commendable move you have to respect on behalf of a president but it also comes with owning up to the fact that some poor decisions may have been made. Otherwise, he would not be seeking new economic minds with alternative ideas.

Something you may not know

I have always wondered what the ratio was between republicans and democrats who served as presidents since America was conceived. Here are the results:

Between 1789 and 2008, 42 presidents have been sworn into office. There have been 18 Republican presidents and 14 Democratic presidents. From a debatable point of view, the Democratic Party claims Andrew Johnson, but he was sworn in as a member of the National Union Party. This would technically make 18 Republicans and 13 Democrats. Only two presidents of the United States of America have not been members of a specific political party. These were the first and second presidents, George Washington and John Adams. There were also a few presidents elected as Whigs and Democratic Republicans. And it is obviously important to note that what a Republican or Democrat was defined as being in the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries has changed in many different ways, decade by decade, leading into the twenty-first century.

On this day in history

1963-U.S. President John F. Kennedy proposed a joint U.S.-Soviet expedition to the moon in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly.

Famous quote

“Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories.”

Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 14, 1781

2,027.1 miles to go.

Day21 Sunday 09/19/10

ran 2.3 miles

Today closes the first three weeks of running and blogging. I have run 49.7 miles averaging 2.37 miles a day and I have typed 11,365 words averaging 541.19 words a day. After twenty-one days I think now is as good a time as any to ask some important questions about what exactly I am doing and why I am doing it.

For so long I ignorantly believed that allowing Washington to do what they pleased would be inconsequential to my everyday routines and the limitless potential I had to thrive as an American citizen. Governments are like water. You need them to live a cup at a time but they can dehydrate or drown entire civilizations if their plumbing develops a clog or if their valve breaks. Right now, America’s valve is stripped and spinning uncontrollably, spewing water everywhere, which will take a lot of work to clean up as long as we can keep our heads above the rising flood.

It occurred to me one day, as I was considering why I and so many people in my state of Louisiana were so frustrated with Barack Obama’s ideas and actions, that I don’t dislike the man and I don’t think he is a fool for the direction he is taking our country; I simply disagree with him. However, America has come to a boil recently, after decades of sitting on a burner, in which many different people and two individual parties are held equally responsible. After Obama’s first term becomes history, republicans and democrats will have served as presidents of the United States of America for a nearly equal amount of time. Barack Obama just happens to be the president now, when America is boiling over at such a temperature that something has to be done. It seems Barack Obama thinks that the government can pick up the red handle of the boiling pot barehanded and move it over without getting burnt. I haven’t touched the hot handle of a pot since I was a child and this is not the solution.

People are power, not government. And right now we need to wield or power, otherwise, we will lose it.

I am no professional of any sort pertaining to politics, but I am an American who believes in hard work and the same values my parents had and raised me with. The government is the final authority for keeping our country and our economy going but we would not have to rely on them so much if more people would take responsibility and accountability for living their lives. People like me, stuck in the middle of lazy, unmotivated people who have no desire to succeed in any capacity whatsoever and filthy rich people who have more money than they could ever spend, yet still find ways to hunger for greed by any means possible, suffer huge moral blows to our egos as we strive to maintain what we have as others have no problem letting tax payers’ money finance their lazy existence or, on the other end of the spectrum, we have the rich trying to get richer by any means possible regardless of the fact that it eventually destroys the fabric of our country’s economy. America bails out the absolute laziest and the absolute greediest of its country while we continue to work as hard as we can with no certainty of anything.

2,030.3 miles to go.

Day20 Saturday 09/18/10

2.6 miles closer

There is a debatable economic theory and model, Keynesian economics, which has been implemented at different times in various countries across the globe. The theory was postulated by a British economist, John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), during America’s Great Depression. His observation was that during the Depression peoples’ natural reaction was to hoard their money, buying as little as possible, stopping the natural circular flow of money from one hand to another, decimating the economy day by day. That is obvious enough, so he suggested the public sector should intervene to increase and encourage spending, whether increasing the money supply or buying things on the market itself.

Keynesian economics depends on people not saving too much money and relies on the idea that people spend as much as possible. And when these two factors slow their momentums the first objective is to print what I like to call Monopoly money or to redistribute wealth to the poorer members of society as they will more than likely not save it but spend it.

The big difference between the Keynesian model and others is that rival models exclude the public sector intervening or interfering with the natural ebb and flow of any given economy as markets should be able to achieve balance on their own. The subject of economics is theoretical, though, and all you can do is test theories when there are no absolutes. This theory has its merits for desperate times but involving the public sector enables governments to purchase and potentially gain control of private sector industries. While Keynes developed a theory for a quick fix what I fear is government-controlled entities, such as health care providers and banks, which no longer compete in the American game of free enterprise but instead force you to purchase their insurance or to take on their interest rates because there is no other competition to compete with.

In Washington, Keynesianism is a great solution because our government can obviously spend more than it has, whereas everyday people like you and me cannot spend more than we have. Obama’s 862 billion dollar stimulus plan was a Keynesian move right out of the playbook and, I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel any richer. I have not felt the ability to spend frivolously in a long time and I save everything I can. I am unintentionally bucking the Keynes system, not out of conscious spite of his theory or our government, but out of fear of losing my job or my home, and I think a lot of others are, too. Keynesian economics depends on people not doing exactly what I and, I can only speculate, many others are doing. I do not feel stimulated and my future children and their children have a debt to pay and they are not even born yet.

In an article written by tax reform expert Dan Mitchell, he documented Keynesian economics being used unsuccessfully by Hoover and Roosevelt, Japan throughout the 1990s, and Bush in 2008. Now Barack Obama is doing the largest Keynesian stimulation in American history.

American economist, Kevin Hassett, addressed in his article “Obituary for Keynesianism” that when Keynesianism fails it is not because the idea is insufficient but because not enough money was injected into the market. 862 billion dollars? Obama’s departing chairman on his Council of Economic Advisers, Christina Romer, suggested the stimulus package should have been 1.2 trillion dollars, or forty percent larger.

A 2002 study by economists Richard Hemming, Selma Mahfouz and Axel Schimmelpfennig of recessions in 27 developed economies from 1971 to 1998 determined that increased spending by government was hardly noticeable in most cases and negative in some.

“…Supporters of this type of stimulus are either unfamiliar with the literature or willing to ignore it.”

“The result is policy that is harmful to our country and inconsistent with modern economic science. If the Obama economic team were medical doctors, they would be pushing the use of medicine not approved by the Food and Drug Administration.”

2,032.6 miles to go.

Day19 Friday 09/17/10

When I was in high school I felt no excitement anticipating the right to vote once I turned eighteen. When I was in college I despised conservatism, tradition, organized religion, and anything with a hint of authority. I’d venture to say that I was an anarchist bent on nihilism with my nose buried in every book that Friedrich Nietzsche had ever written. Throughout college I continued to be an unregistered voter because I did not believe that anything or anyone was worth voting for. Everything seemed to be a big, incomprehensible existence of standing in various long lines that led to nowhere. Even after college I still felt no need to vote because the whole political arena seemed like some kind of demented masquerade ball of elitists who had an insatiable thirst for being politicians for the simple sake of being politicians.

Modern American politicians remind me of the British we claimed our independence from during the Revolutionary War. Why are so many of these men and women so rich as though they belong to royalty? Why are they so pampered and taken care of more so than other American citizens? Kings, Queens, and their courts are what come to mind when I think of Washington.

It is a given that what is good for this country will be debated upon for every day of the rest of our lives, and never agreed upon. But what made me finally realize that I was a conservative and that I wanted to register to vote was when I had the opportunity to vote against Barack Obama. And by voting against him I only mean that his opponent was, in my opinion, a lesser evil. Washington, as a whole, is an eighteenth century English castle encircled by an angry mob. But we are dealing with lesser evils, or at least I am, as I can only speak for myself. America, right now, is a stray feather ever so slightly dangling on the splinter of a fence top awaiting the slightest breeze to abruptly direct it immediately left or right.

My impression of left at a glance is redistributing wealth, legalizing millions of illegal immigrants, and socializing Health Care. My impression of right in general is being proud to work hard to earn and receive what I deserve, to speak English with pride and naturalization papers, and to continue to allow insurance companies to compete for the best premiums for consumers.

Now, I vote with pride and conviction. But it is a shame that my vote is a lesser evil and not a greater good. Washington needs to be stuck in a centrifuge until all of its greed, corruption and puffery collects at the bottom to be fully concentrated, extracted and disposed of.

2,035.2 miles to go.

Day18 Thursday 09/16/10

Tonight I’m posting about a novel I read a few years ago that regained wide popularity near the time Barack Obama was elected President. The author is Ayn Rand and the novel is “Atlas Shrugged”. Rand has a deep repertoire of books including fiction and philosophy, but this one has a special value in these present times because many consider the story to be a possible foreshadowing of what this country could unfortunately become. The book was published in 1957. In 2009, fifty-two years after being published, “Atlas Shrugged” re-emerged as a best-seller making Amazon.com’s top 50 list. Two days ago, USA Today reported, “…according to a Library of Congress survey, ‘Atlas Shrugged’ may be second to the Bible as the most influential book read in America.”

The novel deals with free enterprise and the threat of a government taking over the companies and money of brilliant, leading industrial minds in a final effort to spread wealth, only to destroy the little that is left in their civilization. It is right in line with the stimulus packages, Bailouts and Health Care decisions that have been made over the past two years. The stimulus packages have not been effective in proportion to their exorbitant sums of intention, the bailouts allowed the government to wrap its tentacles around the affairs of banks and major corporations, and Health Care Reform is likely going to be a government ordered obligation, which tens of millions of Americans will be forced to possess at the likely consequence of higher premiums and worse care.

As an aside, I stumbled upon an interesting open letter today from an article, which a doctor composed concerning America’s current health care crisis:

Dear Mr. President:
During my shift in the Emergency Room last night, I had the pleasure of evaluating a patient whose smile revealed an expensive shiny gold tooth, whose body was adorned with a wide assortment of elaborate and costly tattoos, who wore a very expensive brand of tennis shoes and who chatted on a new cellular telephone equipped with a popular R&B ringtone.


While glancing over her patient chart, I happened to notice that her payer status was listed as "Medicaid"! During my examination of her, the patient informed me that she smokes more than one pack of cigarettes every day, eats only at fast-food take-outs, and somehow still has money to buy pretzels and beer. And, you and our Congress expect me to pay for this woman's health care? I contend that our nation's "health care crisis" is not the result of a shortage of quality hospitals, doctors or nurses. Rather, it is the result of a "crisis of culture" a culture in which it is perfectly acceptable to spend money on luxuries and vices while refusing to take care of one's self or, heaven forbid, purchase health insurance. It is a culture based in the irresponsible credo that "I can do whatever I want to because someone else will always take care of me". Once you fix this "culture crisis" that rewards irresponsibility and dependency, you'll be amazed at how quickly our nation's health care difficulties will disappear.

Respectfully,
ROGER STARNER JONES, MD

Back to the point, the novel, written over half a century ago, eerily deals with some very real issues that are happening today. The staggering numbers in which it is selling and the comparison of possibly being the most influential book in America next to the Bible should be reason enough to make this a must read, even if you read only one book this year.

I ran 2.2 miles today and it was not one of my better days. On a brighter note, this blog still has some work to be done that I am getting close to completing. Just a couple more bells and whistles to keep you better informed with its progress.

2,038.4 miles to go.

Day17 Wednesday 09/15/10

I ran 3.2 miles today. It has been a busy week and time is moving a lot faster than it did three weeks ago before I began this engagement. The honeymoon of this new marriage is coming to a close and it is time to see how committed I really am to the cause.

For the first time I am realizing potential faults and presumptions that I might have in conveying my message and the goal of this blog. What I want to avoid is simply restating the news, which you read earlier in the day. I would also like to avoid being mistaken for a journalist. I have no obligation to unbiased commentary and I will be extremely judgmental. If a diverse amount of people examine this blog then I will be labeled in many different ways, both positively and negatively, but that is a good thing because this is still America.

The point I am trying to make is that this is not a news channel. If I appear to be pandering to like-minded people it is only because there are so many of us out there and we like to stand up for what we believe in. I have neither the time nor the energy to dig up facts and research articles in an effort to persuade people to see things the way I, and so many others, do. The goal of this blog is to show that one more person among millions of others is just trying to stand up and be heard. And because our government won’t listen to the majority of its citizens’ opinions on issues they undermine and do as they please with, I am going to run 2,080 miles and blog about it every day even if there is only a one-billionth of a chance that it might make our government realize that it should listen to the people it represents. I have no intention of converting anyone’s political beliefs. My intention is to band conservatives together so we can realize our true strength and numbers as American citizens in order to make a difference.

2,040.6 miles to go.

Day16 Tuesday 09/14/10

The final Primary Elections are being held today for the mid-term elections. It is too early for many of the results but I can say that the Tea Party-backed Delaware candidate Christine O’Donnell has officially secured the majority of votes for that state. This Tea Party movement that has swept across America really is amazing and they have demonstrated the power of the people. However, there is a huge risk with their intentions. As much as I admire their merit and determination, the GOP is not backing most of the Tea Party-backed candidates, which could easily result in relative splits among republicans leaving democrats a huge advantage of not having to eclipse another competitive liberal. So there is a Tea Party candidate, a government backed republican, and one single government backed democrat all vying for the win. The two conservatives could easily divide the votes they need to defeat the democrat, giving he or she a default victory and people like you and me a shot in the foot. It is a risky maneuver but it speaks volumes of how fed up Americans are with not only democrats but republicans, too. This schism the Tea Party-backers have wedged into the GOP is a huge statement and I am all for it. Although we may possibly shoot ourselves in the foot by dividing the number of votes needed to overcome the current liberal majority, I have every confidence that the millions upon millions of people in this country who are fed up with the past two years will find a way to rise above this poor administration one way or another.

It will be a historic moment that we all get to be a part of if the House and Senate get flipped upside down on November 2. Hopefully conservatives can pull this off one way or another. At this point, I would take a crash test dummy over any democrat in office or any potential runner for a liberal seat. But it would be a defining moment in history, as important as any other epic pebble of sand in American history, since the hard-fought conception of this country, if the Tea Party pulls this victory off, obliterating the stains and residual of what American politics have somehow become despite the abundant disapproval of so many tens of millions of Americans who simply want to be left alone to succeed and be happy without a government getting in their way.

I ran 2.6 miles today and it felt great. There are no signs of letting up any time soon and I don’t think there ever will be as long as Barack Obama is President of the United States of America. I have never felt so inspired to fight for this country as I do now and I will not relent until Obama’s last mile is run against him.

2,043.8 miles to go.

Day15 Monday 09/13/10

I ran 3.2 miles today. I have surpassed the soreness transition and my breathing is adapting to the challenge. I find that Sundays are my weakest runs and Mondays are my strongest. That may have something to do with drinking too much beer on Saturdays, whereas I am certain that the success of Mondays is attributed to the sense of urgency I have to start each week with a big number.

The purpose this blog serves, as I have explained, is to help get Obama out of the White House in 2012. As monumental of a victory as that would be, what happens next, though? I have always listened only half-heartedly to other peoples’ grievances and let their unrests go unacknowledged due to the fact that for all of their complaints they would offer no solution. Anyone can stand on a soapbox and complain about everything under the sun, but to offer a solution, regardless of whether it is agreeable or not, is something that wears on the reticence of any listener. I now find myself guilty of protesting too much without a solution other than to elect someone else.

This week I will gather my thoughts and try to earn the time you spend reading these posts by presenting solutions. They may not be agreeable or brilliant but it is the least any reader deserves. There is nothing worse than a person who complains only for the sake of complaining and I do not want to be that guy.

Coincidentally, the President of the United States of America is the last person any American citizen wants to see on a soapbox complaining about his problems and blaming everyone else except for the people he appointed to be in control of solutions for the shortcomings we face. His solutions are new problems. He has stimulated our economy with monopoly money that our children and grandchildren are going to have to pay back with American dollars. He wants to tax the mildly rich all the way up to the extravagantly wealthy. None of this makes sense. The economy is reaping no reward in proportion to the unprinted money he is pumping into it, if he gets his wish to tax the way he chooses then he will force much of America’s wealthy citizens and the businesses they own to go to other countries, his Health Care plan is a proven failure everywhere that its model has been used, and, for God’s sake, will you just show us your Birth Certificate?

My impression of Barack Obama is that he wants to create a level playing field for all Americans, which is also level with other countries. He wants national and, ultimately, global equality where perseverance, talent, desire and will are all replaced by reliance on government, mediocrity, idleness and self-defeat. His vision is a utopia and it is deeply disappointing that in the twenty-first century a president of the greatest country ever would believe so ardently in the proven failure, which is Communism.

So what now?

2,046.4 miles to go.

Day14 Sunday 09/12/10

Today makes two weeks. My average for the second week is 2.50 miles per day. My total average for the past two weeks is 2.17 miles per day. After running 30.4 miles over the past two weeks I can honestly say the only thing I regret is the lack of endurance I possessed to have not run or typed more.

“The man who is capable of steering a clear course through it, who can perceive under the chaos presented by every vital situation the hidden anatomy of the movement, the man, in a world, who does not lose himself in life, that is the man with the really clear head. Take stock of those around you and you will see them wandering about lost through life, like sleep-walkers in the midst of their good or evil fortune, without the slightest suspicion of what is happening to them. You will hear them talk in precise terms about themselves and their surroundings, which would seem to point them having ideas on the matter. But start to analyze those ideas and you will find that they hardly reflect in any way the reality to which they appear to refer, and if you go deeper you will discover that there is not even an attempt to adjust the ideas to this reality. Quite the contrary: through these notions the individual is trying to cut off any personal vision of reality, of his own very life. For life is the start of a chaos in which one is lost. The individual suspects this, but he is frightened at finding himself face to face with this terrible reality, and tries to cover it over with a curtain of fantasy, where everything is clear. It does not worry him that his “ideas” are not true, he uses them as trenches for the defense of his existence, as scarecrows to frighten away reality.

The man with the clear head is the man who frees himself from those “fantastic” ideas and looks life in the face, realizes that everything in it is problematic, and feels himself lost. As this is the simple truth---that to live is to feel oneself lost---he who accepts it has already begun to find himself, to be on firm ground. Instinctively, as do the shipwrecked, he will look round for something to which to cling, and that tragic, ruthless glance, absolutely sincere, because it is a question of his salvation, will cause him to bring order into the chaos of his life.”

That was written by Jose Ortega Y Gasset (“The Revolt of the Masses”) and it gleams with truth in terms of digging deep and asking yourself, “What is real?”

He wrote that in 1930 and here we are in 2010 still wondering what role we have on Earth as individual human beings. Everyone acts cool and confident as though we all actually know what we are doing here with our lives, but do we? Greatness is not something you find; it is something that is thrust upon you when you least expect it. We, as Americans, have an opportunity to harness greatness in November and to turn Washington, DC upside down with sense. America has arrived at a fork in the road in which it is either going to continue to be America or it will cease to be America. The choice is ours and greatness is extending its hand to every American who is blessed enough to be alive right here and right now.

2,049.6 miles to go.

Day13 Saturday 09/11/10

Before I do anything else and once again forget this thought, President Obama was quoted last week as saying, “They treat me like a dog,” or something of that nature, and the words he spoke were a quote from a Jimmy Hendrix song, which is neither here nor there, but, he was referring to his Republican counterparts in the House and Senate as treating him like a dog. As I’ve stated before, I am no ardent fan of Conservatives but I do advocate their being a lesser evil to the wellbeing of this country. Therefore, it is infuriating to me to hear such an uncreative and desperate comment like that from a man who fills the seat of President of this great country. What is really sad is that I think he honestly believes it when, more than likely, it is a simple truth that Republicans will not give him an inch edgewise because they disagree with his intentions and the constituents that so many Senators and House members represent don’t want his vision either. My point is, Barack Obama is not being discriminated against or treated disrespectfully because of his personality; it is because the majority of people disagree with him and fears the direction he is taking America into. His ideas are not shut down because Republicans and everyday American citizens are bullies. We just completely disagree with him. It is as simple as that. If my dog could somehow speak to me and posit some of the intentions Barack Obama has for this country I would press and rub his nose into the proverbial urine he was dispelling on my red, white and blue carpet to let him know that his actions were unacceptable. Now that that thought has come full-circle, perhaps he was right to say he was being treated like a dog. Come November, he will be locked up in the bathroom until he is trained to behave like his American family. After all, no president is our King, Monarch or Despot. He is our servant and we are his masters. Barack Obama and his democratic entourage have bit their master’s hand and November will hopefully be a meaningful result of discipline towards misbehavior.

September 11, 2001.






















Silence.

2,051.6 miles to go.

Day12 Friday 09/10/10

I lightened up on my distance today. I managed 2.3 miles and it felt good. The Saints beat Minnesota last night and the simple fact that today is Friday had my adrenalin flowing. I may actually meet my desired weekly average this week and be on budget for my quota despite how taxing this process is.

Nine years ago tomorrow two airplanes flew into the twin towers in New York City killing thousands of Americans and making rubble of two immense symbols of American strength and ambition. Bending like steel beams all of our fears and ways of life were turned upside down and inside out in an instant.

Now a mosque is to be built in that sacred spot. Religious freedom in America is an imperative of our constitution, but this particular situation lacks reciprocation in respect and couth on the part of the Muslims who want to build this place of worship. To use the religious persecution card here is such a weak cop-out and to cite freedom of religion in America as a reason to build a mosque on the doorsteps of what was once the World Trade Center Towers is both conniving and menacing like a teenager that found a loophole with which to slant his parents’ rules. It comes down to this: There is no way any American would go to the Middle East and build a church of any religion you would like to choose next to or on sacred Muslim ground. Dome of the Rock with a Christian church next to it? Mecca with a life-size statue of L. Ron Hubbard along its walls? We accept everyone in America. You can put a Church of Scientology, a Jewish Synagogue, a Muslim Mosque, a Baptist Church, a Buddhist Temple, and an Atheist Meeting Hall of Disbelief on one single street when you are in America because that is how tolerant and understanding we are of religious freedom. In countries where Islam is the predominant religion these occurrences do not happen often. It is because they are intolerant and insensitive to other peoples’ beliefs and ways of life. The people who are behind building this Mosque at Ground Zero are being disrespectful of what happened there nine years ago and taking advantage of our tolerance to religion.

People come to America from all over the world and many of the countries they come from are in complete shambles. They come to America to start a new life and they usually succeed if they are naturalized just like anybody else would. But then, all of a sudden, a phenomenon occurs, in which many of these new citizens find it necessary to impose their beliefs and their culture, from the home country they just left to save their own lives, because it is completely cantankerous and fatally dangerous, on America and its longtime citizens because apparently they are so proud of their completely dysfunctional roots that they seem to want to make America into their own homeland of discontentment, which is ironically what they were trying to escape in hope of finding opportunity, which they have found and are apparently now unhappy with.

In America, a man in Gainesville, Florida threatened to burn copies of the Koran tomorrow. And it appears that he is going to change his decision after much coercing. In Afghanistan, they chose to go ahead and burn American flags and copies of the Bible, skipping threats all together. This is the dichotomy between America and so many other countries. So many naturalized immigrants, and illegal immigrants, leave one cruel and inhumane environment to come to America, the land of opportunity, and then they wave their flags and speak their languages so proudly as though they were in this country against their will and yearned to return to their original home. Now more than ever, and more and more everyday, nothing seems to make any sense in this country.

2,054.2 miles to go.

Day11 Thursday 09/09/10

Six people I know were laid off today as a direct result of the moratorium on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. That number is a drop in the bucket compared to what lay offs and furloughs are going on in the rest of Louisiana and other southern states, but it hits you even harder when it’s people you know.

I completely understand that these things happen in every industry and in every state and in many various forms of unfairness, but this moratorium is a clenched hand slowly choking the life out of Louisiana. Every day that this moratorium continues is crucial. If the companies that own these rigs send them to South America, which is likely to happen, then two or three year long leases could be signed, leaving little to nothing for Louisiana drilling. Even if Obama lifts the moratorium it could easily be too late. And it will be a slap in the face to this entire country if he uses this action as political maneuvering to make himself look good for re-election when it is a completely bogus deed because everything Louisiana needs to drill has already been contracted elsewhere.

I am admittedly unqualified and not educated enough to fully assess this moratorium situation fully. I have no qualms about confessing that I hardly have a right to have just explained to you the possibility that rigs, which are usually in the Gulf of Mexico may be in South America for two or three years. I would be the last person you would want to quote on this topic. But I do have eyes and ears. I see lives being turned upside down and I hear a lot of disdain and disapproval. I read and hear news stories all with the same sentiment that this moratorium is wrong. I think we can all agree, regardless of any differences one may have with another politically or ideologically, that Barack Obama is one of the richest hues of green there is and that he is obviously very much against coal and oil as an energy resource. But this moratorium is an abuse of power similar to what a juvenile bully might use as a tactic to get what he wants as quickly and as unfairly as possible. I don’t know much about the coal industry, except for Obama’s dislike of it, but I know a bit about oil and how much of a vital resource it is for Louisiana. Phasing oil out would take a long, long time in a civilized world if the ones doing the phasing actually cared about the wellbeing of the people it was trying to help by not destroying the lives they had previously known in a matter of months.

I ran 3.2 grueling miles again today fueled only by pure frustration and an utter sense of helplessness. In my head all I could think to say over and over again as a mantra to keep me going was “Don’t stop. Don’t stop.” Left, right, left, right. “Don’t stop. Don’t stop.”

2,056.5 miles to go.

Day10 Wednesday 09/08/10

I matched my mileage from yesterday, 3.2 miles, but it was not nearly as smooth as yesterday. It is odd how one day can feel so good and the next day can be a torture. This new investment in my health, which Barack Obama has inspired me to begin, has me feeling absolutely phenomenal and empowered. I have more energy, I feel more focused, and I don’t eat or drink half of the unhealthy things I was consuming two weeks ago.

Thank you, President Obama, for driving me to run against your policies, your actions, and your desire to level this country into an even playing field of mediocrity. Thank you for your lack of experience and your pretentious ability to actually believe you could turn this country into something it’s not. Thank you for your birth certificate. Thank you for Reverend Jeremiah Wright. There is just so much to be thankful for. There are no words to express the fact that there is no way I would have ever taken this challenge on under any other circumstances that I can imagine.

Our generation stands on the shoulders of giants, the generations before us stood on the shoulders of giants, and the generations after us will stand on our shoulders as long as we continue to tower as a nation. One of the most inspiring and meaningful passages I have ever read is John Adam’s “Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law” written in 1765. Just to type that date and to think about its composition raises the hair on my arms.

“Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge; I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers. Rulers are no more than attorneys, agents, and trustees, for the people; and if the cause, the interest and trust, is insidiously betrayed, or wantonly trifled away, the people have a right to revoke the authority that they themselves have deputed, and to constitute abler and better agents, attorneys, and trustees. And the preservation of the means of knowledge among the lowest ranks is of more importance to the public than all the property of all the rich men in the country…

Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write. Let every order and degree among the people rouse their attention and animate their resolution.”

This document reads a bit further but this portion encapsulates what role our government should play and it identifies the fact that the people being governed have every right to be heard and listened to. Obama’s administration and the left fight to pass bills that the clear majority of American citizens do not want, at least according to polls, pertaining to health care, stimulus packages and immigration issues. We the people were not asked to vote on Health Care but I speculate that if the House and Senate did not have the ability to do whatever they chose that it never would have passed in any shape or form resembling what it is.

2,059.7 miles to go.