Jonathan's blog

Last Sunday I ran a half marathon in Detroit for the second time.  I hadn’t trained as much this year and had put on a few extra pounds, so I wasn’t expecting to improve on last year’s snail’s pace.  I was slower and ended up in the bottom 5 % of my age group.  At least improving next year shouldn’t be too hard.

Here’s a collection of video clips (the shaking sound while I’m running is the bag of M&Ms in my pocket that I eventually lost at some point):

And here are some photos:

waiting for the start

waiting for the start

onto the Ambassador Bridge…a nice view as the sun was rising

off of the Ambassador Bridge

in the tunnel

not sure what this guy was doing

in sight of the finish

afterwards

An excerpt from a letter to the editor in today's Midland Daily News:

Ultimately I would say this (and I have said this to law enforcement officials and politicians alike): do you really think that once gay marriage is the law in every state, once the border has been opened to anyone and everyone who wants to come here, once boom boxes and loud motorcycles and gangster rap music are ubiquitous across the land — do you really think this country will be a better place to live?

link

Previous installments in this series:

• The Most Bizarre Letter to the Editor Ever

Fans of Fox News have a pretty low view of the mainstream media due to its perceived liberal bias in promoting stories that to them seem irrelevant while ignoring others that seem to them to be highly newsworthy.  To me it seems kind of strange for people who gets their news mainly from Fox News to complain about biased media outlets.  If you're so offended by media bias, why in the world would you consume media from another outlet that is demonstrably as biased or even more so (but biased to the right)?  The clip below from Jon Stewart illustrates this point beautifully by showing how Fox News devoted intense coverage to the Tea Party gathering in D.C. while mocking the other networks for giving it little attention despite its significant size...and then proceeded to ignore last weekend's D.C.gay rights march of comparable size.

As I mentioned before (link), I think Nicholas Kristof was right on target when he wrote:

..there’s pretty good evidence that we generally don’t truly want good information — but rather information that confirms our prejudices. We may believe intellectually in the clash of opinions, but in practice we like to embed ourselves in the reassuring womb of an echo chamber.

I think organizations like Media Matters for America, NewsBusters, and NewsHounds are useful, and I'm glad they do what they do...but I wish the average Joe would either give Fox News as much scorn for its bias as he does the New York Times or one of the other TV networks...or give it a rest about media bias.

Some conservative pundit suggested that the president should've declined the prize, but it is not gracious to reject a compliment, one should accept it with becoming modesty, as Mr. Obama did, that's what your mother brought you up to do. The prize isn't about you, it's about Peace, or Literature, or Homecoming, or Champion Hog, or Male Vocalist of the Year, so walk up there and smile for the cameras, say thank you and sit down.

link

Friday night we watched Back to the Future (1985,PG) for family movie night.  From Wikipedia:

Back to the Future is a 1985 science fiction adventure film directed by Robert Zemeckis, co-written by Bob Gale and produced by Steven Spielberg. The film stars Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly, as well as Christopher Lloyd, Crispin Glover, Lea Thompson and Thomas F. Wilson. Back to the Future tells the story of Marty McFly, a teenager who is accidentally sent back in time from 1985 to 1955. He meets his parents in high school, accidentally attracting his mother's romantic interest. Marty must repair the damage to history by causing his parents to fall in love, while finding a way to return to 1985.

This is one of my favorites of all time.  I remember walking out of the theater after seeing this film and realizing that I had been so engaged that I had spared zero attention for anything else but the movie for those previous two hours.  I'm not sure I've had that experience with any other film.

I give it 5 out of 5.