Evil Wordsmith

I just had a discussion recently with a Fox-breathing republican friend of mine where I pointed out that while I did drink the O koolaid, I’ve been clean and sober for about a year now. There probably should be a 12 step group for this, but I think most of the 12 steppers probably drank the W koolaid.

Now that I’m sober, I realize I haven’t liked any of our presidents much since Reagan. So I started thinking about how we could pick a good one, since this whole voting thing isn’t working out so well.

Now I don’t want to ditch voting entirely, since that seems to lead to things like the Taliban and Kim Jung Il. I kinda like the Queen of England, but after all that shooting a couple centuries back, we really can’t ask her I guess. I thought about this for a long time then it hit me:

Bring back the draft.

No I don’t mean the wholesale draft, we already got enough soldiers wandering aimlessly in deserts around the world, we can’t afford any more of those. But the President is the Commander-in-chief and by default part of the military. So next time let’s draft him. Find the guy in America who least wants the job and put him in charge.

Imagine you’re sitting there, having a beer and playing your Wii one Saturday afternoon while you wait for the race to start. There’s a knock at the door. You open it and there’s a man in black, and I don’t mean the ghost of Earnhardt. No, I’m talking Agent Smith. Behind him is a limo and more police cars than you’d need to take down Pablo Escobar.

He holds up a letter, “Mr. Jones, I’m Special Agent Smith of the Secret Service and I’m here to inform you…”

You slam the door and run for the rear exit only to find Agent Smith’s twin at the back door. “… that as of Noon today…”

You slam the door and run for the side window, as you open it you realize that Mrs. Smith obviously had triplets, “…you are now the President of the United States of…” You run to the other side window upstairs and, damn, apparently Mrs. Smith could have had her own TV show, another few of her boys are down there with a net.

“… America. Mr. President we’d prefer it if you didn’t jump or make us taser you,” Agent Smith #4 says.

Realizing you’re surrounded you consider the possibility of hiding, but as you pull the attic stairs down, you notice yet another Agent Smith already in the attic. “Sir we are very good at our job, you’ll have to come with us.”

You give up, “Ok. Can I bring my beer?”

“We have beer in the limo, Sir.”

Ok, so maybe it’s not so bad, “Got any…”

“Jack Daniels, yes, Sir, and Cheetos. chips and shrimp dip and the chef has prepared your favorite chili cheese fries.”

Ok, maybe not so bad at all, “Got a…”

“TV in the limo? Yes Sir, and the race pregame is about to start Sir.”

“Ok, I’m in.”

Agent Smith #… well, whatever, talks to his watch, “Big Cheeseball is go for extraction.”

“Big Cheesball?”

“Your codename, Sir.”

“I like it.”

Fast forward a couple weeks to the White House. Friday afternoon, you’re sitting there drinking a beer and wondering dimly who the idiot at NASCAR was that thought running a race around midnight on Friday was a good idea and whether or not the President has the power to fix that or not. On the TV your press secretary is apologizing for you telling Wolf Blitzer to “buy a clue” the other day and threatening to send Agent Smith to “adjust him with a clue by four.”

Your secretary knocks and you hear the lock on the Oval Office click, both sounds you have now associated with something like the sound of a dentist’s drill. She emerges carrying a thick stack of paper and you realize your instincts are right, she is always a bad thing. It’s the latest bill from the Stooges, which is now the official codeword for the Senate, despite being told by Agent Smith that they don’t need one.

You play the little game you invented last week with her, “Ok… I say… twelve-hundred-and-fifty pages?”

“Thirteen-hundred-twenty-seven, Sir.” You note that she never smiles.

“Damn, I’m getting good at this.”

“Yes Sir.” she says without humor. She eyes the broken chair in the corner, “I told you that the glass was shatter-proof, Sir. Besides, there are probably a hundred Secret Service between here and the fourteen foot high fence.”

“I had to try, Milli. So, which asshole sent me this bill?”

“Well, the main author is Senator Schister and the other significant…”

“Have him come see me, ASAP”

You note the oh-boy look as she sits the bill down on your desk, “Yes Sir.”

A couple of hours of Burn Notice marathon on TV, and you are disturbed again by the awful sound of Milli knocking and unlocking the door to the Oval Office. Thanks to your reputation of being dangerous, the Stooges don’t keep you waiting for them when you call. She enters followed by Schister, “Senator Schister here to see you as requested, Sir,” she says.

She exits and you notice Schister hates the sound of the door being locked almost as much as you hate hearing get unlocked. He also seems particularly nervous about seeing the broken chair.

You wait for a commercial just to annoy him, and then walk to your desk and pick up the bill and show it to him, “Are you out of your mind sending me this? You guys sure are slow learners.” You glance at the broken chair just cause it makes him sweat.

“I don’t understand Mr. President.”

You rap him on the forehead with your knuckles a la Biff from Back to the Future, “What did I tell you idiots about sending me books to read?”

“Well, Sir, if you read it, you’ll see that our bill tackles some complex issues and…”

“Read it?? Nobody has read it, not even the guys who wrote it, which I’m pretty sure wasn’t you.”

“Does that mean you intend to veto it?”

“I’m not going to sign it or veto it, every time I do that I end up wanting to send Smith over to beat the Hell out of either Blitzer or Chris Wallace. No, you’re going to take it back to the Stooges and revise it to my liking.”

Schister swallows hard trying not wonder how the chair got broken, “And if I refuse?”

You feel your eyes narrow, “I’ll have you shot.”

“Sir you can’t do that, it’s not in your power…”

“Oh I didn’t say I’d shoot you, you’re right, I can’t. But I can have Moscow do it.”

“What??”

“All I have to do is launch a nuke. Then they’ll shoot you for me. And, the Drinking Buddies,” your code name for the Joint Chiefs, “assure me that my bunker will survive and yours won’t.”

“You wouldn’t…” He seems to change his mind about finishing that sentence, “Ok… So exactly how do we revise it ‘to your liking’?”

“Well, let me put it this way, if I get to page three, you better be wearing your lead underwear. Now GET OUT!”

You’re pleased that as he leaves, he backs out, never taking his eyes off you. “Milli if you need me, I’ll be in the Wii Room with the Drinking Buddies. So don’t need me.”

Yes, being President is hard work.

E.W.

Now that I think about there may be a flaw in this plan. All the people smart enough to not want to be the president will spend their life in college avoiding the draft and the morons who want the job will all drop out of high school.

It’s a continual question from those who don’t know racing and don’t take the time to learn:
Is Nascar A Sport? Are Nascar Drivers Athletes?

Every year some ’sports writer’ or newspaper columnist voices the question and then attempts to answer it by saying Nascar is just a southern activity attended by beer drinking rednecks. They profess to know more than the millions of fans who watch their favorite driver, team and races by claiming that Nascar isn’t a sport and the drivers aren’t athletes. “All they do is make left turns and waste gas” is their typical line.

Sadly their rhetoric is voiced by the millions of people who don’t have a clue what racing is about. Add to that the age of Twitter and Facebook which gives a platform to those people  to degrade and put down anyone who does like Nascar racing. After a while it does get annoying and fans of Nascar sometimes feel the need or desire to respond to these questions. We all know it falls on deaf ears and rarely makes a difference.

But let’s try to rise above the fray and actually answer the questions from an academic perspective.

According to Webster’s, the word Sports is defined as:
1a. a source of diversion, recreation
1b. a physical activity engaged in for pleasure
3a. something tossed or driven about in or as if in play.

By definition Nascar is a sport. It is a source of diversion for those who love to watch racing. For drivers, crews and owners it is something they do and enjoy doing. We can even say they do it for pleasure as many of them started racing not for the big pay checks, but as kids who spent their weekends with Mom and Dad doing something they enjoyed doing. And it’s definitely something that is driven about.

So let’s put this question to rest once and for all. Nascar racing IS a sport!

Next question, are there athletes in Nascar? I ask this question this way to include the crews who change 4 tires and fill a car with fuel in less than 15 seconds. Most often less than 13 seconds. I’d like to see the local mechanic at Pep-Boys do that. These guys are most definitely athletes. Anyone who says they’re not is welcome to duplicate what a pit crew does in the same amount of time in their own driveway on their own car. Good luck, you’ll need it.

Let’s get more scientific about the question though. In 2005 CNN sent Sanjay Gupta to Nascar to study the affects of racing on the average driver. You can review the transcript yourself @ http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0510/20/i_ins.01.html

Their results finally proved what every Nascar fan already knew….Yes Nascar Drivers are athletes.

Now let’s highlight a few things from that show. Dr. Gupta followed Rusty Wallace who was driving the #2 Miller Light at the Pennsylvania 500, that’s 500 miles of racing for those non-race fans. Here’s what CNN discovered the average race driver will experience in his car.

1. The average race goes 3 hours and 45 minutes.
2. During that time a driver endures temperatures in the car over 100 degrees.
3. Temperatures near the floorboards reach nearer to 170 degrees. This is why drivers wear protective gear on their feet to avoid melting of their shoes (something that happened to old racers like Richard Petty) and to prevent burns on their feet and heals.
4. At this track, drivers will travel very near the length of a football field every second.
5. They will experience G-forces similar to the space shuttle on lift off. That means drivers are pulled sideways on the corners with the same force as an astronaut is pushed down on a shuttle take off.

Dr. Steve Olvey from the University of Miami is asked “Are racecar drivers athletes?” Absolutely! Dr. Olvey fitted several drivers in a study of physical effects and changes on racecar drivers during all those left turns. He discovered the stresses put on them is equivalent to a very fit Olympic long distance swimmer, marathon runner or even a person playing professional basketball.

Dr. Jack Stark a Psychologist adds to that with a study on anticipatory timing. This is the mental dexterity that is needed by an athlete to anticipate reactions during a game, or in this case a race. Maneuvering in traffic at 180 mph or more requires a driver to have the same anticipation as a goalie or professional quarterback. With less than a second to review conditions and make decisions, it puts their reactions to the test for nearly 4 hours without a break.

Stark says, in football you go hard for 15 seconds and rest for 30 or 40. Basketball you have time outs. Add to that in hockey, a goalie gets a short break each time the puck is driven down the ice to the other teams neat. In Nascar, you can’t raise your hand and take a time out.

Dr. Gupta shares results of research that shows Nascar drivers sweat as much as a football player at practice. They can lose 3% of body weight in sweat, that’s about 5 lbs for each race. If they don’t replenish those fluids during the race, their concentration and reflexes will start declining.

Dr. Stark believes the number one thing that strikes you about Nascar drivers that you will find in other athletes who participate in dangerous sports is their ability to face fear. The mental toughness to block fear and potential life threatening hazards out of their mind each time they get into a car is another sign of mental strength.

That’s a bigger issue than some might realize. During a crash the physical stresses that a Driver goes through can triple in an instant. Jerry Nadeau’s crash at Richmond is a good example. Nadeau spun on the track and hit the wall with a force of 128 Gs, that’s 128 times the force of gravity. The hardest impact recorded by Nascar since the inclusion of black boxes in the car starting in 2001. The result of that crash caused a partial collapse of Nadeau’s lung, fractured his left shoulder blade, insured his ribs and gave him a serious head injury.

Nadeau reported “My body stopped and my brain didn’t. My brain lapped the side of my skull.” That means the force of the crash was so great that it caused tearing inside Nadeau’s brain. 20 days later Nadeau regained consciousness. Fans know that Nascar has made leaps and great strides to make racing safer to protect drivers and crews from harm. The Hans device and safer barrier walls all help to minimize the impact of cars during crashes. And so far those improvements have indeed made things a lot better for drivers during an incident on the track.

But they do nothing for what happens to a driver while sitting in the car, and driving around the track during a race. Dr. Gupta took the opportunity to go through the Richard Petty Driving Experience. He donned a racing fire suit, got into a car and began reporting on the affects.
1. Just sitting in the car waiting his turn to get onto the track his heart rate was up, as was his breathing and he hadn’t even started driving yet.
2. His body temperature raised to that of a fever, between 101 and 102.
3. After the second minute of driving his heart rate jumped from 88 beats per minute to 130.
4. His metabolic rate (how much oxygen is consumed), was four times more than his resting metabolic activity. That means he used four times as much oxygen as when he’s just sitting in a chair and not doing anything.

Dr. Patrick Jacobs at the University of Miami studies Racecar drivers and their physical condition. Dr. Gupta asked him would you describe Nascar as a physically challenging activity? Dr. Jacobs replies: “Most undoubtedly.  Very challenging in terms of physical fitness, what they have to face.”

And we can put this one to rest as well -  Nascar Race Drivers ARE athletes!

Anyone who says Nascar drivers aren’t athletes really don’t understand racing and the stress it puts on the physical body. This isn’t taking a 10 minute trip the local market for a pack of beer. It’s not even close to the energy the average person expends driving on a 500 mile trip. But if you have taken such a trip you know you feel tired when you get to your destination. Now imagine that with the G-forces a race driver experiences, in the heat and with the expanded mental acuity they go through for 4 hours.

It’s easy to put down drivers for sitting in a car when you don’t have a real idea of what that entails. And perhaps that’s what angers or annoys Nascar fans the most. The comments are made out of not knowing and taking the time to find out. Maybe this will help some gain an understanding of what our favorite drivers go through each time the announcement comes for “Gentleman Start Your Engines”!

Long live Nascar! Go Tony #14, Ryan #39, Dale Jr. #88 and Joey #20!

Spring (aka Lady SpringWolf)  is an author and deeply respected teacher of Pagan Metaphysics, Spiritual Enlightenment and personal development. For over twenty-five years, she has been committed to making esoteric material comprehensible and practical for everyone. Spring’s many gifts include clairvoyance, aura interpretation, past-life analysis, dream interpretation, numerology, Tarot, Reiki healing and Spiritual Psychology. Spring has facilitated thousands of individuals in developing greater awareness, balance and wholeness in their lives through her classes, workshops and lectures. She provides classes and services at her Spring’s Haven Spiritual Center in Virginia.

 

Spring has written many articles for magazines around the world concerning Metaphysical principles and pagan practices. Now she is sharing her knowledge through the book series Pagan Metaphysics - Guides To Spiritual Enlightenment scheduled for release in the fall of 2011 from Schiffer Publishing.

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Since 2007 the U.S. has been in a financial catastrophe. But for some reason, the only people who have gotten noticed are those laid off in 2008 when big business began to take a bigger hit. What happened to those thousands of people who were laid off in 2007, who’s companies closed and went out of business? Many of them have been left behind.