If you believe the left says about business and what the right says about government....

[nancylebov]

.....you might be right.

Running shoes cause injuries and don't improve performance.

On the government side, it's breaking my brain a little that $30,000,000 was spent to prosecute a president for lying about his sex life while it's quite possible that another president doesn't have to worry about authorizing torture and starting a war for no good reason.

Link thanks to patrissimo. Idea for post title thanks to supergee.

Comments

[subnumine.livejournal.com]

The actually existing Right, however, supports both the prosecution of Clinton and the immunity of Bush....

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I've edited the post title for clarity.

[chomiji]

Fascinating article about the shoes! I have had support/stability problems with my feet all my life, and the only thing that seems to help them is lots of exercise (but too much walking on concrete is bad). Padding doesn't seem to make much difference, but wearing shoes that allow my toes to spread widely seems to help a lot (right now, I'm wearing men's 4E width sneakers), which would seem to follow what they are saying in the article.

[madfilkentist]

Torture is merely a "mistake," according to Obama.

[madfilkentist]

Further thought: It isn't even necessary to go to "another" president to find the irony. Clinton ordered bombings in Kosovo against the explicit wishes of Congress, but as far as I know that didn't figure into an impeachment article.

[n5red.livejournal.com]

Which "Right"? I'm finding more and more people who think both Parties are doing the wrong things.

[(Anonymous)]

You have a point about "authorizing torture" (though Clinton did too), but Saddam started the war by violating every term of the truce which ended the last one. Dubya merely prosecuted the war that Saddam started, and to a decisive victory -- which is not something for which one normally "prosecutes" a President.

Let's see how Obama does with his wars.

[(Anonymous)]

Do you stand behind your claim that sexual harassment shouldn't be treated as a "real" tort in general, or only when the defendant is Bill Clinton?

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Would you be willing to sign your posts? A nickname is ok, but I would rather be able to tell one "anonymous" person from another.

I think that if the president breaks an ordinary law, it should be handled as a routine case rather than being a matter of impeachment.

[lightningb.livejournal.com]

What sexual harassment? Paula Jones? Even if you accept her account of her little encounter with Bill Clinton (which nobody does), it did not meet the legal definition of "sexual harassment".

BTW, I got a big kick out of watching her lawyers fight over the settlement money. She ended up with bupkis.

Shoes

[sgsguru.livejournal.com]

I thought everybody who did serious running already knew that. If your heels hit the ground *at all* while you're running, you're doing it wrong. Mechanically, the system of calf muscle/achilles tendon/foot arch is a big spring -- if your heel hits the ground, you're wasting energy.

The only problem with running barefoot is that the average American has tender feet. Hitting a little piece of gravel at the wrong time will cause some serious damage.

The Dirty Little Secret of the running shoe business is that the vast majority of "running shoes" aren't worn by runners. It's no coincidence that they're really comfortable for normal wear.

[madfilkentist]

Reading the complaint, I'd say repeatedly touching her and exposing himself to her should absolutely count as sexual harassment. What's the basis for your statement it doesn't?

Whether it happened as she claimed is a separate question.

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

Bush won the war, but came perilously close to losing the peace from absolutely horrible post-conflict planning and inadequate in-theatre troop strength. I wouldn't call it a decisive victory given that the US still has troops in-country six years later.

I'd also argue that Bush's obstensable casus belli was a political fiction; perhaps inadvertant from politicising the intelligence gathering and "everything looks like a nail" syndrome, if you're feeling charitable, perhaps with malice aforethought if you're not.

I'll point out as a third argument against that the region the invasion of Iraq was intended to stabilise is even more unstable today than it was in 2001.

Mission not accomplished, and it won't be for some time yet if it is at all. Dubya might want to walk small for a while on his war record.

-- Steve thinks that the Commander in Chimp read too many technothrillers instead of doing real strategic analysis, but then again the US is traditionally good at winning on the battlefield but losing the overall war.

[avram]

Are you under the impression that the left doesn't criticize government?

[avram]

Or, for that matter, that the right does?

[lightningb.livejournal.com]

Welcome to Arkansas. To show sexual harassment, she'd have had to show that BC threatened her with retaliation in her job if she didn't have sex with him. There's no evidence that whatever occured had any effect on her career at all.

Yeah, what BC did was sleazy and gross. It was not, however, "sexual harassment" in the legal sense.

[cathyr19355.livejournal.com]

I never ran well, with or without running shoes. (And as my birthday post indicates, I'm old enough to pre-date them.) As a kid, I fell down a lot. Later in life, a chiropractor told me that one of my legs is about a quarter-inch shorter than the other, which explained a lot.

[subnumine.livejournal.com]

The self-declared "movement conservatives" who actually have mainstream media positions or hold high office under the United States; i.e. the present leadership of the Republican Party.

Do these represent the true principles of conservatism, or indeed any principle at all? About as much as the Soviet Union represented the true principles of socialism, or indeed any principle at all (save power-hunger and material greed; of course, to some self-declared conservatives, those are principles...). These are, after all, the same people who follow two men working on their third marriages (http://subnumine.livejournal.com/20473.html) in defending traditional Christian matrimony.

[n5red.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the clarification. The current situation is complex and there's a lot of name calling by members of both Parties. I get confused.

I also find myself in opposition to many folks by pointing out that ad hominem attacks really don't help their cause. And there's a lot of it going on.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

You might be interested in Running with the Whole Body-- it's a Feldenkrais book (gentle movements to increase kinesthetic awareness). I've never worked through the whole thing, but doing one of the exercises a couple or three times is the reason I have arches.

Re: Shoes

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

To judge by that article and what I heard at an athletic shoe store, some very large proportion of runners believe in running shoes.

The tender feet problem is solved with Vibram Barefoot shoes or the like.

I've been wearing running shoes for walking for a lot of years. My only complaint is that only New Balance is wide enough, and even then, I have to buy shoes a half size too long to get the width I need.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

It varies. I see leftish stuff which seems to obsess about the ill effects of capitalism while not especially noticing government.

I grant that there's plenty of left-wing criticism of government. However, people who think that government is, at best, a necessary evil to be limited as much as possible are mostly on the right. I see fundamental mistrust of business and default trust in government as appearing on the left.

Re: Shoes

[sgsguru.livejournal.com]

To judge by that article and what I heard at an athletic shoe store, some very large proportion of runners believe in running shoes.

We are indeed in the Age of Marketing.

The tender feet problem is solved with Vibram Barefoot shoes or the like.

Vibram FiveFingers are the most hilariously ugly shoes I've ever seen, outside of out- and- out clown costumes. I want a pair.

[cathyr19355.livejournal.com]

I don't have arches, either, never did, but that's not the particular condition that makes running less fun for me--it's the inability to find a comfortable running rhythm (and to a lesser extent, the pain in my bunions).

But thanks for the recommendation; I'll check it out.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I wasn't bringing up my arches as a key to good running (thought they might matter)-- I brought them up because it's an indication that that it's possible to make stable changes from the book.

That lack of a running rhythm is interesting-- let me know if you try the book.

[cathyr19355.livejournal.com]

I will. Thanks again.

[cathyr19355.livejournal.com]

I wasn't bringing up my arches as a key to good running (thought they might matter)-- I brought them up because it's an indication that that it's possible to make stable changes from the book.

I appreciate the point, though I don't know that even good exercises will do anything about the fact that my legs are different lengths. :-)