It's a beautiful Friday morning after Christmas. First time in a week it's pitch blue clear. I am at my desk, conducting last minute studying for the GMAT and I wish I were anywhere but here. I could be riding my bike over the Seven Sisters or careening down KT-22. Momentarily, I will head to the pool and sit in the hot tub because right now I am freezing. I'm either shaking from the cold or from the coffee I had earlier this morning before I went to work on becoming a sentence correcting ninja.
Last night, I could not sleep, again. Sheer nervousness, I think. And obviously, taking a test is far more nerve racking than the pool torture used to be because I slept so well before going to the pool. Not so much now. I lay in bed last night reading my laptop and heard noises in my empty house. I'm not normally the type to get scared about noises. I've always felt that I'm more frightening than anything that might have come into my house. However, I was in a weakened mental state, what with the GMAT looming before me. If I were superhero, I'd be battling whatever enemies exist, but at some point one of them would whip out a computer with the GMAT on it and start beating me to death with it. Anyways, I'm lying there in bed, lights off, staring at my laptop and I head something. One side of my brain recognizes the sound as the toilet gurgling. The other side of the brain screams in protest. No you idiot, it's someone in the house! Well, says the other side, I'm not really afraid of most people, even burglars. But what if this isn't any burglar? What if this is some highly trained psychopathic killer who is highly aggressive and skilled in killing people slowly and happens to have picked this house for a specific reason!?!?!?!?!?!?!!? I turned off my monitor to get better night vision and listen for more sounds. This battle rages in my mind for many more minutes until finally I have to get up and pee. Eventually, I decide to drug myself to sleep. At the very least, if I'm asleep, I can't be afraid of any uber assasins roaming through my house.
My dad thinks its great that I'm even taking the GMAT. This implies that my fear of taking tests is so great that I would just choose to do something else because I wouldn't want to take a test. Regardless of how I do on Saturday, I worry that my desire to beat this will consume me. I'll be some homeless man wandering Chestnut St. with a stack of GMATS. I won't panhandle. Instead, I'll threaten people with permutation questions and then beat them down with differences of squares. I'll lurk by ATMs and mutter at people as they get money, "What's the diagonal of that $20 bill you motherfucker!!!!!!!???????"
Friday, December 26, 2008
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Long Time
Partner workout, with Damian, 400 double unders and 150 snatches. I used 30lb. because I can't get into the squat position very effectively.
This is a great leadership piece.
A traveler saw two men cutting stone from a mountain and placing
the blocks on carts. He asked them, "What are you doing?"
One said, "Can't you see? We're cutting stones from this mountain."
The other man gave the traveler an understanding look and said,
..."We're building a church."
I am always screwing up; and I mean constantly. Not in big ways anymore, I've made all "those" mistakes and survived. But with little things, the things that aren't so obvious, I miss them all the time. Later, looking back, it's amazing how easy it was to do things right. Like my first real boss used to say, "I go to bed every night thinking I can?t get any smarter, and wake up every morning wondering how I could have been so stupid yesterday." That's just life, I guess. But recently, I came across a goof not so easy to spot and even harder to correct. It?s something we do readily, backed up by years of tradition and practice, yet I believe it is the single biggest mistake that any of us ever make in our work life. It causes us more unnecessary hassle and serves to incite more job dissatisfaction than anything, and until recently, I would never have guessed it was such a big problem, but it is.
We use the chain of command.
I am not talking about the chain of command itself being a bad idea, because it isn?t. And I am not referring to jumping the chain (though that is an effective tool for change agents). I am talking about giving orders. I'm talking about the whole idea that you can tell someone whom you out-rank what to do...and they'll do it. It's not the chain of command as much as it is what the idea of a "chain" implies to leaders. It's the whole idea of requiring action. It?s the long ingrained idea that telling someone to do something and then them doing it is any kind of useful leadership. It isn't.
The Coast Guard is a chain-of-command gig, I get it. And the chief is the chief and someone has got to be in charge. So you would think I would be a big fan of decisive orders from the top, down to the ranks, and they do what you say. But I'm not. Regardless of my old-school chain-of-command upbringing, I knew a long time ago that the top-down management approach was ineffective. I knew it because it was how a lot of leaders managed me and it didn't work well. To understand just how ineffective it is, you have to compare this kind of leadership to it's alternative.
The insidious thing is that "Do this because I say so" works. The system is set-up that way. If you tell someone under you what to do (strongly enough), they will do it. What you get then is called required action. They will do what you tell them to, but often nothing more...and often only once. They will do what you required of them. It's a trap. When attempting to motivate or achieve results, chain-of-command top-down leadership is for combat and big SAR. It is for situations where the high-risk nature of the mission outcome requires a single-source of ultimate responsibility. You can use the chain of command on the day-to-day operations, and it will work; but it doesn?t work effectively or efficiently because it always requires the constant input from that single-source (the boss).
Inspired Action:
Inspired action is a totally different thing altogether. Inspiring is hard work. It takes time, and integrity, and effort. It's harder (way) than giving orders. For old "do it cause I say so" types it requires a sometimes painful change from believing your people work for you, to making them believe that you work for them. You do, you know...you do work for them. That was the subtle idea that I had missed. I thought it was my job to tell my guys what to do. But the primary job of a leader is to make them believe they should be doing it.
"You don't just do a mission, you believe in it."
~Story Musgrave
The only way to create a truly great place to work is to ensure that each of the team members under you (read: next to you) are raging evangelists for the cause or...whatever your cause is. In my little corner of the Coast Guard, the "cause" is maintaining the survival gear for ourselves, our teammates, and the boating public; and also providing qualified and prepared duty standing helicopter rescue swimmers to help save lives. Yours is something else; but we all (E-5 through O-9 anyway) are responsible for causes. We call them missions or area's of responsibility, but what they truly are, are causes that are either believed in...or not.
Dr. Musgrave got it right. If you can get your team to believe in the mission, (your cause), then you can change completely the way they see the world and their place in it. If you can do that, you can create inspired action. They will automatically, because they want to, do the things that need to be done to achieve the mission. They will do all that is required, with minimal guidance from you, without being reminded. If inspired, they will do the things that need doing, often before you (the one in charge) even think of them.
The power of knowing (and better still believing) why you were doing something has always produced better results in your life than when you HAD to do something because you were forced without explanation. Think back on your career to any time you were thinking "this sucks" and I guarantee it was preceded by an order or requirement that bore no relation to your perception of the mission. The order came without explanation, without reason, and made no sense. That's why it didn?t feel right. It may have been the best thing to do and absolutely supportive of the mission, but no one took the time to explain it to you. They failed to inspire. I'll bet you failed to do the best job you could have, too.
The Power of Why:
This is where the harder work starts. This is where you learn why so many people are locked in the chain. Inspiration requires more work than giving orders does. If you have a hard time with that (the hard work part), remember that the reason you get paid more when you advance is because the work is supposed to be harder. They are NOT rewarding you for making it this far and now you deserve to coast. Rank does have it's privileges, but only because you earn (present tense) rather than earned (past tense) them.
So how do you do it? How do you inspire, instead of require? How do you move from top-down leadership to the lateral inspiration of your team? First, you must make sure that you are inspired.
You have to know why you are here:
Sorry, I hate to get all metaphysical on you, but this one is primary. You cannot inspire anyone else unless you first lock this one down. We all fall into basically one of three categories on the "Why am I here" issue:
1. You know why you're here and will never forget (some of us)...
2. You've been so wrapped up in doing it that you need two weeks on a beach in the Caribbean so you can clear your head enough to remember why you came here (most of us) ...or
3. You just needed a job and never knew why you came here in the first place. Or you didn?t care, it was just something to do. (a rare animal...you I can't help too much.)
This is the Coast Guard. Why we are here is easy, although surprisingly, easy for some (or most) to forget. There is something about the day-to-day requirements of the over-reaching mission of the Coast Guard: Our primary "cause" requires such preparation and attention to the details of preparation that it becomes easy to forget about the thing that we are preparing for:
We are all here to save lives.
That's it. That's all. The primary reason that anyone in the Coast Guard has a job is to save lives. All jobs (ALL OF THEM) are in support of that mission. When I mention this fact to people, I get a lot of complaints. I have heard every logical explanation of missions that don't save lives or support the saving of lives. They have all been wrong and I can prove it. Take away saving lives as a motivation and watch the missions that disappear. SAR Definitely, but what about the others?.Marine Safety? Why do we want it to be safe? To save lives. What about EMSST? Saving lives, no question. How about drug interdiction! Aha! ...no...wait...that saves lives too. How about a YN at Topeka? Lifesaver: No one gets paid...people quit...people die.
Though we started out as a bunch of tax collectors, the life saving aspect of all Coast Guard missions (and by default then, all Coast Guard jobs) is the primary reason for being. Everything else then, (i.e. stonecutting,) becomes a necessity in building that Church.
SK1 Saves Hundreds:
I spent some time in New Orleans during the Katrina rescue operation. I had my hands on victims and put them into the helicopter that flew them out of there. Two days before I arrived, SK1 Roy Tuck put 44 axes in the hands of 44 rescue swimmers so they could cut into rooftops. All the axes in Alabama had been sold to people preparing for the approaching storm. Our crews were having to leave people in their homes for want of a way to get in. When I told Roy that they were asking for axes in Mobile, and that we had one shot to get them on the next plane, I could see it in his eyes; Roy Tuck believed in his job and he knew what it was. He had an hour to get to town, buy axes, and get them on the C-130. It took him and his team 48 minutes. If it had taken him an hour and 48 minutes, many people would have died in the heat of their attics that night. For all my jokes about putting "the ready paperclip on the line", SK1 Roy Tuck saved more lives in under an hour than I have in 10 years.
So you think your people are fixing airplanes? Do you think the MK3 is repairing the engine on the 47 footer? Do you honestly think that all that Seaman Apprentice is doing is chipping paint? You?re wrong. What they are doing is saving lives; fixing airplanes, and engines and painting are the ways that they do it. It's not only the asset that arrives on scene, but everything and everyone that got it there that saves lives. This is why so few of us ever leave this place (the Coast Guard): It is noble work. Every kid leaving Cape May KNOWS that's what they are here for and I think the difference between those who reenlist and those who don't is only about how well we support or tear down that belief.
Now do you know why you are here? Do you believe in your job, or do you still need a few weeks on a beach? If you do...go. Stop reading this and fill out a leave chit right now. Get yourself to a place where you can remember that feeling you had on the graduation field at Cape May, or New London, or Yorktown or wherever you first wore your uniform, and dig deep for the belief that brought you here. Don't like the beach? Then try visiting Cape May, New London, or Yorktown, but do something. Because I can promise you this, if you have lost that belief; that graduates belief; if you don't remember why you are here, then there is no way you are doing a good job anymore. You are just going through the motions. Your actions are no longer inspired, you are simply doing what is required, and that is no way to live. Not for you, and not for your people.
Write It Down:
Your first job in the inspiration of your team is to define for them what their part is. You have to spend some time thinking about it and then, most importantly, you must WRITE IT DOWN. Put it to paper! It is not enough to just "think about it". Writing it down is powerful and necessary. First of all, It forces you to really come up with the thing. If you don't write it down, it isn't real; it's just some stuff stuck in your head. The act of writing it down defines it clearly for you and makes the next step possible.
Share the mission and your belief in it. Put aside that feeling that you are going to look silly. You're not. The people under you want to be inspired and they want that inspiration to come from you. The "pre-inspired" guys are tired of inspiring themselves and feeling alone in it. So suck-up the risk of embarrassment, sit your people down, and show them what you came up with. If you can do this away from the work place itself that's even better, but you at least have to make time to share your belief in the base mission and your supportive missions with the people on your team. Involve them in deciding the mission, trim the mission...decide what is NOT your mission...if they can convince you that what you wrote down isn't exactly right...change it. Be flexible in the creation of the mission. This solidifies everyone?s belief (theirs and yours) in the thing. Then you can be clear with its implementation.
Continuing and Constant Reminders:
All that is left for you now is to "be inspiring".
Alright...time-out..."being inspirational" is not something that can be possibly contained in an article of this size. It's hard to contain in a library if you ask me, so before you read my humble list of idea's...realize that I know this is just me talking and your list (and you should come up with one) is just as good as mine and probably better. But, I had to include it. I didn't feel right saying "be inspiring" without some explanation of what I meant. So here goes:
1. Work harder on the mission than your people do. They are watching you and assigning levels of commitment, (theirs, in relation to yours) to the cause constantly.
2. Know more than they do, or at least try. If you get this inspire thing right, the only time your people are going to bring you a problem is when they are solving another one and need your help with a detail...knowing the answer, is inspiring in and of itself.
3. Catch them getting it right: When the miracle happens and most of your people do what is required before you know about it, make sure they know you notice.
4. Be dedicated to the success of your evangelists: Those dedicated to the cause. Don't let their dedication to the mission cloud their attention to themselves and their advancement. Be the watchdog of their best interests.
5. Get VERY familiar with the 1650.25C and the CG-1650. (If you don?t know what those are and you've been a Chief for over a year...shame on you.)
6. Talk Up The Mission. Post it. Remind them of it. Remind yourself of it.
7. When assigning tasks or truly delegating authority, always clearly explain why it is important. Better yet, start telling them the "why" first and they'll often tell you the "what" before you finish.
8. Read about, watch shows about, and notice the people who inspire you...then act like they do or do what they did.
9. Write good things about the people on the team. If you notice someone on the team doing something great, write her/his boss and tell them about it (and a copy to the subject of the letter). This ALWAYS motivates.
10. Make your own list of ways to be inspiring.
I don't know what else to tell you. I'm not simply suggesting that a mission statement is something new and will solve all your problems: It?s not and it won't. I guess what I am trying to convince you of (and I am) is that people want to feel part of something bigger than themselves. You'd think that it would be easy given that almost everything is (bigger); but if you make their work about completing required actions...because you're in charge...you rob them of that feeling. You are not the "something bigger" they had in mind. But, if you use your position and authority and privilege to inspire them instead, they will do what is required, even the mundane, with pride and commitment...and so will you.
If you stayed with me this far, I hope you can look past the part where I have no business telling you how to lead, and notice that I not trying to...I'm just trying to inspire.
This is a great leadership piece.
ASTC Mario Vittone ... A Guardian's Guardian
Shipmates,
Those of you who have read Martha LaGuardia's terrific book, SO OTHERS MAY LIVE, know Mario Vittone. If you don't know Mario, read Chapter 7, "Hurricane Baby... Mario Vittone." A Chief, Rescue Swimmer, Innovator, Leader, and the ultimate Guardian, Chief Vittone was thinking "out loud" about leadership on his Facebook page. Mario believes, as do I, that organizations that create an atmosphere where individuals understand what to do and do it without prompting achieve excellence. I asked and received his permission to post his thoughts on this blog. It is my honor to introduce my guest poster, ASTC Mario Vittone ...
ADM A
Inspired Versus Required
A traveler saw two men cutting stone from a mountain and placing
the blocks on carts. He asked them, "What are you doing?"
One said, "Can't you see? We're cutting stones from this mountain."
The other man gave the traveler an understanding look and said,
..."We're building a church."
I am always screwing up; and I mean constantly. Not in big ways anymore, I've made all "those" mistakes and survived. But with little things, the things that aren't so obvious, I miss them all the time. Later, looking back, it's amazing how easy it was to do things right. Like my first real boss used to say, "I go to bed every night thinking I can?t get any smarter, and wake up every morning wondering how I could have been so stupid yesterday." That's just life, I guess. But recently, I came across a goof not so easy to spot and even harder to correct. It?s something we do readily, backed up by years of tradition and practice, yet I believe it is the single biggest mistake that any of us ever make in our work life. It causes us more unnecessary hassle and serves to incite more job dissatisfaction than anything, and until recently, I would never have guessed it was such a big problem, but it is.
We use the chain of command.
I am not talking about the chain of command itself being a bad idea, because it isn?t. And I am not referring to jumping the chain (though that is an effective tool for change agents). I am talking about giving orders. I'm talking about the whole idea that you can tell someone whom you out-rank what to do...and they'll do it. It's not the chain of command as much as it is what the idea of a "chain" implies to leaders. It's the whole idea of requiring action. It?s the long ingrained idea that telling someone to do something and then them doing it is any kind of useful leadership. It isn't.
The Coast Guard is a chain-of-command gig, I get it. And the chief is the chief and someone has got to be in charge. So you would think I would be a big fan of decisive orders from the top, down to the ranks, and they do what you say. But I'm not. Regardless of my old-school chain-of-command upbringing, I knew a long time ago that the top-down management approach was ineffective. I knew it because it was how a lot of leaders managed me and it didn't work well. To understand just how ineffective it is, you have to compare this kind of leadership to it's alternative.
The insidious thing is that "Do this because I say so" works. The system is set-up that way. If you tell someone under you what to do (strongly enough), they will do it. What you get then is called required action. They will do what you tell them to, but often nothing more...and often only once. They will do what you required of them. It's a trap. When attempting to motivate or achieve results, chain-of-command top-down leadership is for combat and big SAR. It is for situations where the high-risk nature of the mission outcome requires a single-source of ultimate responsibility. You can use the chain of command on the day-to-day operations, and it will work; but it doesn?t work effectively or efficiently because it always requires the constant input from that single-source (the boss).
Inspired Action:
Inspired action is a totally different thing altogether. Inspiring is hard work. It takes time, and integrity, and effort. It's harder (way) than giving orders. For old "do it cause I say so" types it requires a sometimes painful change from believing your people work for you, to making them believe that you work for them. You do, you know...you do work for them. That was the subtle idea that I had missed. I thought it was my job to tell my guys what to do. But the primary job of a leader is to make them believe they should be doing it.
"You don't just do a mission, you believe in it."
~Story Musgrave
The only way to create a truly great place to work is to ensure that each of the team members under you (read: next to you) are raging evangelists for the cause or...whatever your cause is. In my little corner of the Coast Guard, the "cause" is maintaining the survival gear for ourselves, our teammates, and the boating public; and also providing qualified and prepared duty standing helicopter rescue swimmers to help save lives. Yours is something else; but we all (E-5 through O-9 anyway) are responsible for causes. We call them missions or area's of responsibility, but what they truly are, are causes that are either believed in...or not.
Dr. Musgrave got it right. If you can get your team to believe in the mission, (your cause), then you can change completely the way they see the world and their place in it. If you can do that, you can create inspired action. They will automatically, because they want to, do the things that need to be done to achieve the mission. They will do all that is required, with minimal guidance from you, without being reminded. If inspired, they will do the things that need doing, often before you (the one in charge) even think of them.
The power of knowing (and better still believing) why you were doing something has always produced better results in your life than when you HAD to do something because you were forced without explanation. Think back on your career to any time you were thinking "this sucks" and I guarantee it was preceded by an order or requirement that bore no relation to your perception of the mission. The order came without explanation, without reason, and made no sense. That's why it didn?t feel right. It may have been the best thing to do and absolutely supportive of the mission, but no one took the time to explain it to you. They failed to inspire. I'll bet you failed to do the best job you could have, too.
The Power of Why:
This is where the harder work starts. This is where you learn why so many people are locked in the chain. Inspiration requires more work than giving orders does. If you have a hard time with that (the hard work part), remember that the reason you get paid more when you advance is because the work is supposed to be harder. They are NOT rewarding you for making it this far and now you deserve to coast. Rank does have it's privileges, but only because you earn (present tense) rather than earned (past tense) them.
So how do you do it? How do you inspire, instead of require? How do you move from top-down leadership to the lateral inspiration of your team? First, you must make sure that you are inspired.
You have to know why you are here:
Sorry, I hate to get all metaphysical on you, but this one is primary. You cannot inspire anyone else unless you first lock this one down. We all fall into basically one of three categories on the "Why am I here" issue:
1. You know why you're here and will never forget (some of us)...
2. You've been so wrapped up in doing it that you need two weeks on a beach in the Caribbean so you can clear your head enough to remember why you came here (most of us) ...or
3. You just needed a job and never knew why you came here in the first place. Or you didn?t care, it was just something to do. (a rare animal...you I can't help too much.)
This is the Coast Guard. Why we are here is easy, although surprisingly, easy for some (or most) to forget. There is something about the day-to-day requirements of the over-reaching mission of the Coast Guard: Our primary "cause" requires such preparation and attention to the details of preparation that it becomes easy to forget about the thing that we are preparing for:
We are all here to save lives.
That's it. That's all. The primary reason that anyone in the Coast Guard has a job is to save lives. All jobs (ALL OF THEM) are in support of that mission. When I mention this fact to people, I get a lot of complaints. I have heard every logical explanation of missions that don't save lives or support the saving of lives. They have all been wrong and I can prove it. Take away saving lives as a motivation and watch the missions that disappear. SAR Definitely, but what about the others?.Marine Safety? Why do we want it to be safe? To save lives. What about EMSST? Saving lives, no question. How about drug interdiction! Aha! ...no...wait...that saves lives too. How about a YN at Topeka? Lifesaver: No one gets paid...people quit...people die.
Though we started out as a bunch of tax collectors, the life saving aspect of all Coast Guard missions (and by default then, all Coast Guard jobs) is the primary reason for being. Everything else then, (i.e. stonecutting,) becomes a necessity in building that Church.
SK1 Saves Hundreds:
I spent some time in New Orleans during the Katrina rescue operation. I had my hands on victims and put them into the helicopter that flew them out of there. Two days before I arrived, SK1 Roy Tuck put 44 axes in the hands of 44 rescue swimmers so they could cut into rooftops. All the axes in Alabama had been sold to people preparing for the approaching storm. Our crews were having to leave people in their homes for want of a way to get in. When I told Roy that they were asking for axes in Mobile, and that we had one shot to get them on the next plane, I could see it in his eyes; Roy Tuck believed in his job and he knew what it was. He had an hour to get to town, buy axes, and get them on the C-130. It took him and his team 48 minutes. If it had taken him an hour and 48 minutes, many people would have died in the heat of their attics that night. For all my jokes about putting "the ready paperclip on the line", SK1 Roy Tuck saved more lives in under an hour than I have in 10 years.
So you think your people are fixing airplanes? Do you think the MK3 is repairing the engine on the 47 footer? Do you honestly think that all that Seaman Apprentice is doing is chipping paint? You?re wrong. What they are doing is saving lives; fixing airplanes, and engines and painting are the ways that they do it. It's not only the asset that arrives on scene, but everything and everyone that got it there that saves lives. This is why so few of us ever leave this place (the Coast Guard): It is noble work. Every kid leaving Cape May KNOWS that's what they are here for and I think the difference between those who reenlist and those who don't is only about how well we support or tear down that belief.
Now do you know why you are here? Do you believe in your job, or do you still need a few weeks on a beach? If you do...go. Stop reading this and fill out a leave chit right now. Get yourself to a place where you can remember that feeling you had on the graduation field at Cape May, or New London, or Yorktown or wherever you first wore your uniform, and dig deep for the belief that brought you here. Don't like the beach? Then try visiting Cape May, New London, or Yorktown, but do something. Because I can promise you this, if you have lost that belief; that graduates belief; if you don't remember why you are here, then there is no way you are doing a good job anymore. You are just going through the motions. Your actions are no longer inspired, you are simply doing what is required, and that is no way to live. Not for you, and not for your people.
Write It Down:
Your first job in the inspiration of your team is to define for them what their part is. You have to spend some time thinking about it and then, most importantly, you must WRITE IT DOWN. Put it to paper! It is not enough to just "think about it". Writing it down is powerful and necessary. First of all, It forces you to really come up with the thing. If you don't write it down, it isn't real; it's just some stuff stuck in your head. The act of writing it down defines it clearly for you and makes the next step possible.
Share the mission and your belief in it. Put aside that feeling that you are going to look silly. You're not. The people under you want to be inspired and they want that inspiration to come from you. The "pre-inspired" guys are tired of inspiring themselves and feeling alone in it. So suck-up the risk of embarrassment, sit your people down, and show them what you came up with. If you can do this away from the work place itself that's even better, but you at least have to make time to share your belief in the base mission and your supportive missions with the people on your team. Involve them in deciding the mission, trim the mission...decide what is NOT your mission...if they can convince you that what you wrote down isn't exactly right...change it. Be flexible in the creation of the mission. This solidifies everyone?s belief (theirs and yours) in the thing. Then you can be clear with its implementation.
Continuing and Constant Reminders:
All that is left for you now is to "be inspiring".
Alright...time-out..."being inspirational" is not something that can be possibly contained in an article of this size. It's hard to contain in a library if you ask me, so before you read my humble list of idea's...realize that I know this is just me talking and your list (and you should come up with one) is just as good as mine and probably better. But, I had to include it. I didn't feel right saying "be inspiring" without some explanation of what I meant. So here goes:
1. Work harder on the mission than your people do. They are watching you and assigning levels of commitment, (theirs, in relation to yours) to the cause constantly.
2. Know more than they do, or at least try. If you get this inspire thing right, the only time your people are going to bring you a problem is when they are solving another one and need your help with a detail...knowing the answer, is inspiring in and of itself.
3. Catch them getting it right: When the miracle happens and most of your people do what is required before you know about it, make sure they know you notice.
4. Be dedicated to the success of your evangelists: Those dedicated to the cause. Don't let their dedication to the mission cloud their attention to themselves and their advancement. Be the watchdog of their best interests.
5. Get VERY familiar with the 1650.25C and the CG-1650. (If you don?t know what those are and you've been a Chief for over a year...shame on you.)
6. Talk Up The Mission. Post it. Remind them of it. Remind yourself of it.
7. When assigning tasks or truly delegating authority, always clearly explain why it is important. Better yet, start telling them the "why" first and they'll often tell you the "what" before you finish.
8. Read about, watch shows about, and notice the people who inspire you...then act like they do or do what they did.
9. Write good things about the people on the team. If you notice someone on the team doing something great, write her/his boss and tell them about it (and a copy to the subject of the letter). This ALWAYS motivates.
10. Make your own list of ways to be inspiring.
I don't know what else to tell you. I'm not simply suggesting that a mission statement is something new and will solve all your problems: It?s not and it won't. I guess what I am trying to convince you of (and I am) is that people want to feel part of something bigger than themselves. You'd think that it would be easy given that almost everything is (bigger); but if you make their work about completing required actions...because you're in charge...you rob them of that feeling. You are not the "something bigger" they had in mind. But, if you use your position and authority and privilege to inspire them instead, they will do what is required, even the mundane, with pride and commitment...and so will you.
If you stayed with me this far, I hope you can look past the part where I have no business telling you how to lead, and notice that I not trying to...I'm just trying to inspire.
Thanks Chief,
ADM A
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Tuesday Dec 2
Awesome workout, but sore from Monday.
4 rounds of :
Deadlift
Burpee box jump
hydrant run
with a rep scheme of:
12 deadlifts - 3 burpee box jumps
9 deadlifts - 6 burpee box jumps
6 deadlifts - 9 BBJ
3-12
My weights and time per round were:
225/2:06
245/~2:26
275/2:41
315/3:16
I would be curious to see how I could do in this workout fresh.
4 rounds of :
Deadlift
Burpee box jump
hydrant run
with a rep scheme of:
12 deadlifts - 3 burpee box jumps
9 deadlifts - 6 burpee box jumps
6 deadlifts - 9 BBJ
3-12
My weights and time per round were:
225/2:06
245/~2:26
275/2:41
315/3:16
I would be curious to see how I could do in this workout fresh.
Monday Thruster
20 minutes of:
10 thrusters @ 65 lbs.
10 pull-ups
I got 11.5 rounds or 10 extra thrusters.
Damian got 13.
I think Tamra topped women with 12 @45lbs.
10 thrusters @ 65 lbs.
10 pull-ups
I got 11.5 rounds or 10 extra thrusters.
Damian got 13.
I think Tamra topped women with 12 @45lbs.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Sunday Deadlift
I wanted to hit deadlifts hard in a larger workout, so I did
21-15-9
of
225lb. deadlift
135lb. Push-press, jerk (however you get it overhead).
Took me 15 minutes.
The deadlifts were too slow, but the overhead stuff was even slower. My body feels rocked from it. I did some planks afterwards. Had to do this at the O-club. Got some looks. One guy looked like he wanted to join. "Just a light Sunday workout huh?"
I think I should just focus on lifting heavier deadlifts. Next weekend I will try 50 deadlifts at 275 lbs. for time.
21-15-9
of
225lb. deadlift
135lb. Push-press, jerk (however you get it overhead).
Took me 15 minutes.
The deadlifts were too slow, but the overhead stuff was even slower. My body feels rocked from it. I did some planks afterwards. Had to do this at the O-club. Got some looks. One guy looked like he wanted to join. "Just a light Sunday workout huh?"
I think I should just focus on lifting heavier deadlifts. Next weekend I will try 50 deadlifts at 275 lbs. for time.
Saturday Morning, 11-29
5 rounds of:
10 x (1 Single Arm KB snatch - 2 overhead lunges)
15 Knee to Elbows
I don't remember my time. I think I was 3 seconds behind Nick with a slightly heavier weight at 53 lbs. My big impediment was my knee to elbows. After the class I figured out how to rock them.
10 x (1 Single Arm KB snatch - 2 overhead lunges)
15 Knee to Elbows
I don't remember my time. I think I was 3 seconds behind Nick with a slightly heavier weight at 53 lbs. My big impediment was my knee to elbows. After the class I figured out how to rock them.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Thanksgiving, Nov, 27
Holiday chipper.
400m run
30 box jumps
30 pike push ups
30 dumbbell thrusters, one arm, 15 each side, 50lb
30 double unders
30 burpees
30 kettlebell swings 70lb
30 press 45lb.
30 line touches
Time 18:28
I think I was the second slowest person.
400m run
30 box jumps
30 pike push ups
30 dumbbell thrusters, one arm, 15 each side, 50lb
30 double unders
30 burpees
30 kettlebell swings 70lb
30 press 45lb.
30 line touches
Time 18:28
I think I was the second slowest person.
Monday, November 3, 2008
The Thin Blue Line
Murder is tradition in Texas. So is the death penalty. This is the stuff of trivial Hollywood movies, but in the hands of Errol Morris its fodder for one of the best law and order tales ever told. In this enthralling story about a man convicted of murdering a policeman on dubious evidence, we meet the main characters through a series of interviews. Technically a documentary, this film ranks with the best of crime noir movies. Watching it made me think of James Ellroy's Los Angeles or Dennis Lehane's Boston, where the setting is the strongest character. Only this is Texas and Morris lets his characters, the interview subjects, tell you that. You hear Texas in their accents, but you also hear them describe what it's like to live in Texas from their point of view. The details of their stories are far more complicated than most screenplays can account for. Blue Line will tackle such topics as the differences in racial prejudices between different towns and neighborhoods in and around Texas, as well as the economic factors and the poverty that these characters live in. I feel like every crime movie I've seen since 1988 used this film to find its focus. Most failed.
This film led to the vindication and freeing of the man convicted for the murder after staying in jail for ten years, but the film is not presented as a mountain of evidence trying to persuade you one way or the other. Rather, the people involved in the incident explain to you how and why things unfolded as they did and through this you get better characterization than most Academy Award winning films. Morris also brings you to the scene of the crime, where you watch the dramatization of a policeman shot on the side of a road after a routine traffic stop. Milkshakes are thrown, witnesses drive by in the night and shots are fired. We go back to this scene over and over and while it seemed excessive, it works. In the end, with Philip Glass' urgent score running through my head I walk away from the film just wondering what happened on that dark Texas road 32 years ago.
Morris graduated from The Thin Blue Line to make The Fog Of War, an analysis of lessons learned by Robert McNamara. This film is even more chilling and does an even better job of drawing you in (enough so that I've watched it or parts of it at least 10 times) than Thin Blue Line, but I'll write about that another time.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Today
Alright, I'm skipping over all the stuff for the past couple weeks because I don't feel like reaching back into my memory and trying to figure it out. Long story short is last Monday I did 5 rounds of 185lb back squat followed immediately by 300 meter row. This was a fantastic workout based on the fact that I was still shaking an hour later. The next morning I tried to do a 5 mile time trial, but I was too tight and while I started off feeling fresh and good, my hammies got me and I petered out, but still maintained an average 6 min mile. I was hoping for 27:30. Still, not bad for being tired and then I went for crossfit that night, did some more crazy stuff. I can't remember what. There were only 8 of us or so. Ah yes, it was "Chief," 3 power cleans @ 135, 6 pushups and 9 squats as many times as you can in 3 minutes and then 1 minute off for five rounds. God knows what happened on Wednesday. Oh yes, I went for a light jog, watched the JPMorgan race and cheered on Galyn who rewarded me with company at dinner for my exceptional cheerleading. On Thursday we did a half marathon or thereabouts and I ran a 1:22, which is great given that we started out slowly. I had dinner at the O club buffet that night. So good. I hadn't eaten there in a long time.
On Saturday, I did the 155lb. squat cleans (hips below the knees) x 30 for time. I was beat up. And this morning I did 10>1 45lb. DB thrusters and 1>10 Knees to Elbows. Thrusters still suck!
On Saturday, I did the 155lb. squat cleans (hips below the knees) x 30 for time. I was beat up. And this morning I did 10>1 45lb. DB thrusters and 1>10 Knees to Elbows. Thrusters still suck!
Tuesday September 9th
I have no idea what I did this morning. I ran, probably. Maybe track repeats? I have no idea. I might have run with the club too. In fact, I think I did 8 x 2 minutes repeats with 60 seconds rest.
With Kelly in the evening I did an 800meter run followed by 21 thrusters at 75 lbs and 21 L - situps. I think I scored just short of Angel. Taken from an old crossfit article.
With Kelly in the evening I did an 800meter run followed by 21 thrusters at 75 lbs and 21 L - situps. I think I scored just short of Angel. Taken from an old crossfit article.
Sunday, September 7th?
I'm catching up here. On Sunday way back when I ran for about 2 hours, methinks. Not entirely sure.
Friday, September 12, 2008
PT test
I had to take a PT test on Saturday. I did 16 dead hang pull ups, 55 pushups and 57 situps. Not too happy with the pushups or situps, but I haven't done them in a long time. Not like that. I ran a 6:42 3 mile, still tired from Thusday and swam a 19 minute 1500 (allegedly).
That night I did some heavy deadlifting. I PR'd at 335. I'd like to get 375.
That night I did some heavy deadlifting. I PR'd at 335. I'd like to get 375.
Thursday Sep 4 Tempo Run
I ran about 10.5 miles. Along the water, I ran 5 miles at a fast clip, probably averaging sub 5 minute miles.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Wednesday Sep 3
No idea what I did in the morning. I probably wandered in a lust filled craze.
That night we did 5 rounds of:
5 one armed snatches R
5 Overhead dumbbell lunges R
5 one armed snatches L
5 Overhead dumbbell lunges L
That night we did 5 rounds of:
5 one armed snatches R
5 Overhead dumbbell lunges R
5 one armed snatches L
5 Overhead dumbbell lunges L
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Tuesday
Sleeping a lot. didn't get up in the morning.
In the evening I did 4 x 1 mile repeats. Started off at 6 minute for the first one and then brought it down to 5:30 for the next 3.
5:32
5:27
5:32
3 minutes jogging rest in between. I think I will try to bring these up to 6 mile repeats, all on the 5:30 and then cut the rest down to 2:30 and then 2 mins rest. That would be hard.
In the evening I did 4 x 1 mile repeats. Started off at 6 minute for the first one and then brought it down to 5:30 for the next 3.
5:32
5:27
5:32
3 minutes jogging rest in between. I think I will try to bring these up to 6 mile repeats, all on the 5:30 and then cut the rest down to 2:30 and then 2 mins rest. That would be hard.
Saturday
With Kelly, did
10 rounds of:
10 deadlifts @ 135lbs.
15 pushups
I got awfully sore from this. Felt this pulling my hamstrings all the way to the mile repeats on Tuesday.
Tuesday night with Kelly
10 dumbbell snatchs L & R
1 hydrant run
15 dumbbell snatches L&R
2 hydrant runs
25 dumbbell snatches L&R
3 hydrant runs.
This took me about 14:22. I finished before everyone else including Angel, but I used 40lb. dumbbell instead of his 65lb. I was still feeling tired and worn out from the HTC.
1 hydrant run
15 dumbbell snatches L&R
2 hydrant runs
25 dumbbell snatches L&R
3 hydrant runs.
This took me about 14:22. I finished before everyone else including Angel, but I used 40lb. dumbbell instead of his 65lb. I was still feeling tired and worn out from the HTC.
Tuesday morning run
Slow, aching run. Saw Crosby Freeman, the stud runner from Pomona flying along the waterfront.
Monday Crossfit
Felt really tired and worn down after HTC. Trouble sleeping Sunday night.
Workout with Angel:
5 rounds of:
50 box jumps
40 kettlebell swings @ 40lbs.
30 situps
500m row
I only did 3 rounds. When I saw Erin Cafaro, the olympic gold medalist stop at 3 rounds, I felt it was ok to stop at 3 rounds too. I began the 4th round, got about 15 reps into the box jumps and decided I wasn't doing myself any good. I was looking for something to just keep me warm and moving.
Workout with Angel:
5 rounds of:
50 box jumps
40 kettlebell swings @ 40lbs.
30 situps
500m row
I only did 3 rounds. When I saw Erin Cafaro, the olympic gold medalist stop at 3 rounds, I felt it was ok to stop at 3 rounds too. I began the 4th round, got about 15 reps into the box jumps and decided I wasn't doing myself any good. I was looking for something to just keep me warm and moving.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Friday-Saturday August 24 and 25
Hood to Coast Relay
Leg 1: 4.5 miles in 26 minutes at 5:46 pace. I ran this leg too slow. It was dark and I had no idea what the course was like, so I had a hard time guessing where I was to set the pace.
Leg 2: 5.75 miles in I don't remember how long. I think it took me about 38 minutes for a pace of about 6:36. I climbed about 1500 feet cumulatively through this leg. Most spectacular sunrise I have ever seen, the light sky contrasted against the dark valley with dozens of headlamps of runners.
Leg 3: 4.09 miles in 23? minutes. I ran 6:04 pace. Kind of pathetic. I was pretty much done though.
The lack of sleep definitely plays a role in the fatigue here.
Leg 1: 4.5 miles in 26 minutes at 5:46 pace. I ran this leg too slow. It was dark and I had no idea what the course was like, so I had a hard time guessing where I was to set the pace.
Leg 2: 5.75 miles in I don't remember how long. I think it took me about 38 minutes for a pace of about 6:36. I climbed about 1500 feet cumulatively through this leg. Most spectacular sunrise I have ever seen, the light sky contrasted against the dark valley with dozens of headlamps of runners.
Leg 3: 4.09 miles in 23? minutes. I ran 6:04 pace. Kind of pathetic. I was pretty much done though.
The lack of sleep definitely plays a role in the fatigue here.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Saturday August 16th
90 minute run out to GG Park, to the water and then up by lands end. Stopped at crossfit on the way back and did:
5 rounds of
10 pullups
10 ring pushups
10 push press @95lbs.
It was very difficult to do the above having just ran briskly for 90 minutes.
5 rounds of
10 pullups
10 ring pushups
10 push press @95lbs.
It was very difficult to do the above having just ran briskly for 90 minutes.
Wednesday August 13th
Overhead lunge walks with 53lbs and sprints. Used cracks in the pavement to determine distances.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Great Article
Taunting the Bear
The hostilities between Russia and Georgia that erupted on Friday over the breakaway province of South Ossetia look, in retrospect, almost absurdly over-determined. For years, the Russians have claimed that Georgia’s president, Mikheil Saakashvili, has been preparing to retake the disputed regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and have warned that they would use force to block such a bid. Mr. Saakashvili, for his part, describes today’s Russia as a belligerent power ruthlessly pressing at its borders, implacably hostile to democratic neighbors like Georgia and Ukraine. He has thrown in his lot with the West, and has campaigned ardently for membership in NATO. Vladimir V. Putin, Russia’s former president and current prime minister, has said Russia could never accept a NATO presence in the Caucasus.
The border between Georgia and Russia, in short, has been the driest of tinder; the only question was where the fire would start.
It’s scarcely clear yet how things will stand between the two when the smoke clears. But it’s safe to say that while Russia has a massive advantage in firepower, Georgia, an open, free-market, more-or-less-democratic nation that sees itself as a distant outpost of Europe, enjoys a decisive rhetorical and political edge. In recent conversations there, President Saakashvili compared Georgia to Czechoslovakia in 1938, trusting the West to save it from a ravenous neighbor. “If Georgia fails,” he said to me darkly two months ago, “it will send a message to everyone that this path doesn’t work.”
During a 10-day visit to Georgia in June, I heard the 1938 analogy again and again, as well as another to 1921, when Bolshevik troops crushed Georgia’s thrilling, and brief, first experiment with liberal rule.
Georgians are a melodramatic people, and few more so than their hyperactive president; but they have good reason to fear the ambitions, and the wrath, of a rejuvenated Russia seeking to regain lost power. Indeed, a renascent and increasingly bellicose Russia is an ominous spectacle for the West too. While China preaches, and largely practices, the doctrine of “peaceful rise,” avoiding confrontation abroad in order to focus on development at home, Russia acts increasingly like an expansionist 19th-century power, pressing at its borders. Most strikingly, Russia has bluntly deployed its vast oil and gas resources to punish refractory neighbors like Ukraine, and reward compliant ones like Armenia.
A senior American official said that while the United States and Russia have common interests, Russia has become “a revisionist and aggressive power,” and the West “has to be prepared to push back.” But the Bush administration also recognizes that Russia has legitimate security interests, and that Mr. Saakashvili has played a dangerous game of baiting the Russian bear. Officials were laboring into the weekend — in vain, they feared — to coax both sides back to their corners. For much of the diplomatic and policy-making world, the border where Georgia faces Russia, with South Ossetia and Abkhazia between them, has become a new cold war frontier.
Georgia ardently aspires to join the peaceable kingdom of Europe; but to talk to Georgians about Russia is to enter a cold war time warp. I was speaking one evening to the owner of a fine antiques shop in Tbilisi when the conversation somehow swerved to Russia. “These Russians are so stupid,” he cried. “They do not know what is friend. They would rather have angry enemies than real friends.” Russia’s apparent hatred for Georgia provoked endless bewilderment, and no little bit of pride. I heard from three different people about a poll in which Georgia had just surged ahead of the United States as the country Russians identified as Enemy No. 1. Georgians insist that they are free of such zero-sum pathologies, though you might have thought otherwise if you had listened to the crowd in Betsy’s Hotel in Tbilisi during the Russia-Holland quarterfinal of the Euro Cup; suddenly the Dutch were everyone’s darling.
SUBMISSION AND REBELLION
The roots of this bitter relationship are deep and tangled, as is practically everything in the archaic world of the Caucasus. Modern Georgian history is a record of submission to superior Russian power. Threatened by the expanding Persian empire, in 1783 the Georgians formally accepted the protection of Russia; this polite fiction ended when Russia annexed Georgia in 1801. The chaos of the Russian Revolution finally gave Georgia a chance to restore its sovereignty a century later. The Georgians were Mensheviks — social democrats, in effect — and for three years enjoyed one of the world’s most progressive governments. The Bolshevik government signed a treaty respecting Georgia’s independence — which Europe, as President Saakashvili pointedly reminded me, naïvely insisted on taking at face value. By the time the Europeans woke up to reality, it was too late.
From the time of Pushkin, Russians viewed Georgia as a romantic, exotic frontier. During the long puritanical deep-freeze of Communism, Georgia served as Russia’s Italy — a warm, lotus-eating sanctuary of singers and poets and swashbuckling gangsters. The elite had their beloved dachas on the Black Sea coast of Abkhazia. At the same time, Stalin, though himself Georgian, kept the republic subdued through brutal purges. The head of the Georgian Communist party was Lavrenti Beria, a cold-blooded killer who would become the master architect of Stalin’s terror. The Georgians, though helpless, never accepted their Soviet identity, and preserved their language, culture, religious practice and sense of national identity, as they had under the czars. And when, at last, the Soviet empire collapsed as the czarist one had, Georgia immediately broke away and declared its independence, in 1991.
The infant country spent the next decade stagnating under the Soviet-style rule of Eduard Shevardnadze, the former foreign minister to Mikhail Gorbachev. But in 2003, Mr. Shevardnadze was peacefully overthrown in what came to be known as the Rose Revolution. Mr. Saakashvili was elected the following year. Since then, Georgia has become a poster child for Westernization. The growth rate has reached 12 percent. The countryside remains impoverished, but what the outside world sees of Georgia is delightful. Tbilisi is a charming city, its ancient Orthodox churches restored to life, the lanes of the old city lined with cafes and art galleries. Mr. Saakashvili has also made Georgia one of the world’s most — or few — pro-American countries. President Bush received a rapturous welcome when he visited in 2005, and the road to the airport has now been named after him, complete with a large poster of the president.
RUSSIA RESURGENT
It was, of course, at this very moment that another ambitious young figure was reshaping Russia’s politics, economy and self-image. The combination of Vladimir Putin’s reforms and the dizzying rise in the price of oil and gas have rapidly restored Russia to the status of world power. And Mr. Putin has harnessed that power in the service of aggressive nationalism.
Marshall Goldman, a leading Russia scholar, argues in a recent book that Mr. Putin has established a “petrostate,” in which oil and gas are strategically deployed as punishments, rewards and threats. The author details the lengths to which Mr. Putin has gone to retain control over the delivery of natural gas from Central Asia to the West. A proposed alternative pipeline would skirt Russia and run through Georgia, as an oil pipeline now does. “If Georgia collapses in turmoil,” Mr. Goldman notes, “investors will not put up the money for a bypass pipeline.” And so, he concludes, Mr. Putin has done his best to destabilize the Saakashvili regime.
But economic considerations alone scarcely account for what appears to be an obsession with Georgia. The “color revolutions” that swept across Ukraine, the Balkans and the Caucasus in the first years of the new century plainly unnerved Mr. Putin, who has denounced America’s policy of “democracy promotion” and stifled foreign organizations seeking to promote human rights in Russia. Georgia, with its open embrace of the West, thus represents a threat to the legitimacy of Russia’s authoritarian model. And this challenge is immensely compounded by Georgia’s fervent aspiration to join NATO, one of Russia’s red lines. Russian officials frequently recall that President Bill Clinton promised Boris Yeltsin that NATO would not expand beyond Eastern Europe. Of course NATO is no longer an anti-Soviet alliance, and the fact that Russia views NATO’s eastward expansion as a threat to its security is a vivid sign of the deep-rooted cold war mentality of Mr. Putin and his circle.
Still, they seem to mean it. Both Mr. Putin and his successor as president, Dmitri Medvedev, have reserved their starkest rhetoric for this subject. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has threatened that Georgia’s ambition to join NATO “will lead to renewed bloodshed,” adding, as if that weren’t enough, “we will do anything not to allow Georgia and Ukraine to join NATO.”
After Mr. Saakashvili, then 37, became president, Mr. Putin made no attempt to court him, and Mr. Saakashvili, made a point of showing the regional hegemon no deference. The open struggle began in late 2005 and early 2006, when Russia imposed an embargo on Georgia’s agricultural products, then on wine and mineral water — virtually Georgia’s entire export market. After Georgia very publicly and dramatically expelled Russian diplomats accused of espionage, Mr. Putin cut off all land, sea, air and rail links to Georgia, as well as postal service. And then, for good measure, he cut off natural gas supplies in the dead of winter.
ECHOES OF TRAGEDY
This new round of bellicosity struck Georgians as frighteningly familiar. Alexander Rondeli, the director of the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies, recited to me a thought he attributed to the diplomat-scholar George F. Kennan: “Russia can have at its borders only enemies or vassals.” Here, for him, was further proof, as if it were needed, that imperialist expansion and brute subjugation are coded in Russia’s DNA. The Georgian elite came to view Russia as an unappeasable power imbued with the paranoia of the K.G.B., from which Mr. Putin and his closest associates rose, and fueled by the national sense of humiliation over Russia’s helplessness in the 1990s. “You should understand,” Mr. Saakashvili said, mocking the Europeans who urge forbearance on him, “that the crocodile is hungry. Well, from the point of view of someone who wants to keep his own leg, that’s hard to accept.”
And yet the crocodile might have been held at bay were it not for Abkhazia and South Ossetia — the first a traditional Black Sea resort area that defined Georgia’s western frontier, and the second an impoverished, sparsely populated region that borders Russia to the north. Georgia is a polygot nation, and views both regions as historically, and inextricably, Georgian. Each, however, had its own language, culture, timeless history and separatist aspirations. When the Soviet Union collapsed, both regions sought to separate themselves from Georgia in bloody conflicts — South Ossetia in 1990-1, Abkhazia in 1992-4. Both wars ended with cease-fires that were negotiated by Russia and policed by peacekeeping forces under the aegis of the recently established Commonwealth of Independent States. Over time, the stalemates hardened into “frozen conflicts,” like that over Cyprus.
But the Georgians are intensely nationalistic, and viewed these de facto states on their border as an intolerable violation of sovereignty. Mr. Saakashvili cashed in on this deep sense of grievance, vowing to restore Georgia’s “territorial integrity.” Soon after taking office, he succeeded in regaining Georgian control over the southwestern province of Ajara. Then, in the summer of 2004, citing growing banditry and chaos, he sent Interior Ministry troops into South Ossetia. After a series of inconclusive clashes, the troops were forced to make a humiliating withdrawal.
Still, this violation of the status quo infuriated the Russians, and Mr. Saakashvili, for once listening to his few dovish advisors, agreed to seek a negotiated settlement in Abkhazia. By late 2005, a Georgian mediator had initialed an agreement: Georgia would not use force, and the Abkhaz would allow the gradual return of 200,000-plus ethnic Georgians who had fled the violence. But the agreement collapsed in early 2006, done in by hardliners on both sides. This chapter has been all but effaced from the history one hears in Georgia.
WAITING FOR A SPARK
This brief interval of talk came to an abrupt end two summers ago, when Mr. Saakashvili sent troops to retake the Kodori Valley in Abkhazia — in order, once again, to curb banditry (of which there was, in fact, a great deal). Both the Abkhaz and the Russians took this as a sign that Georgia was prepared to fight to regain its former province. Indeed, last year Mr. Saakashvili traveled to the Abkhaz border and promised a crowd of Georgian refugees that they would be back home within a year.
The breakaway regions were thus a stick of dynamite waiting to be lit. And Mr. Putin struck a match. Although Russia, as the peacekeeping power, was charged with preserving an international consensus that recognized Georgia’s claims over Abkhazia, Russia lifted sanctions on Abkhazia last March. This had nothing to do with local events: Mr. Putin had tried for years to prevent Kosovo from declaring its independence from Serbia, and when the Kosovars went ahead, with strong American and European support, last February, Mr. Putin responded by leveling a blow at America’s Caucasus darling.
Soon afterward, the Russian Duma held hearings on recognition of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria, a pro-Russian breakaway republic in Moldova. Moscow argued that the West’s logic on Kosovo should apply as well to these ethnic communities seeking to free themselves from the control of a hostile state. And then, in mid-April, Mr. Putin held out the possibility of recognition for the breakaway republics.
Now things began to degenerate rapidly. On April 21, Mr. Saakashvili called the Russian leader to demand that he reverse the decision. He reminded Mr. Putin that the West had taken Georgia’s side in the dispute. And Mr. Putin, according to several of Mr. Saakashvili’s associates, shot back with a suggestion about where they could put their statements. Mr. Saakashvili, prudent for once, shied from uttering the exact wording, but said that Mr. Putin had used “extremely offensive language,” and had repeated the expression several times.
Mr. Saakashvili was shaken by the naked hostility. He already feared that the West, or at least Europe, would never rally to Georgia’s side in a crisis; and here was Mr. Putin saying that the West’s support meant nothing to him. Here, indeed, was 1938.
The atmosphere during the early spring was electric with tension. Georgia accused Russia of shooting down a drone aircraft over Abkhazia; a United Nations report later confirmed the claim. Russia loudly insisted that Georgia was preparing for war; the Georgians had, indeed, mobilized troops and prepared fuel dumps.
Russia responded to the apparent Georgian preparations by dispatching 400 paratroopers and a battery of howitzers to a staging area not far from the cease-fire line, provoking a strong protest from NATO. “At the end of the day, we were very close to war” on May 9, says Temuri Yacobashvili, the Georgian minister of reintegration and a Saakashvili confidant. In fact, diplomats in Georgia and elsewhere give somewhat more credence to the Russian claims than to Georgia’s. State Department officials urged Mr. Saakashvili to calm down. Perhaps each side was trying to provoke the other into striking first, and thus losing the battle of public opinion. Of course, that’s how wars often start.
Until last week, it was Abkhazia, not South Ossetia, that seemed the likeliest candidate for a war of inadvertence, and so I visited there in late June. It was hard to fathom what people were fighting over. In the capital, Sukhumi, population 40,000, relics of the fighting were everywhere, and the giant Soviet-era Parliament building was a scorched hulk. The streets were all but deserted.
THE SPIRAL DOWN
Talking to the Georgians about Abkhazia, and the Abkhaz about Georgia, was like shuttling between the Israelis and the Palestinians. The Georgians said that they were “always there,” that Abkhazia was a Georgian kingdom, and that only by expelling the ethnic Georgians at the end of the war did the Abkhaz make themselves a majority in the province. The Abkhaz said that they are the descendants of a “1,000-year-old kingdom,” that they were the victims of a massive campaign of Russian deportation in the 1860s, and then that Stalin forced them into the Georgian yoke. The Abkhaz talk about the Georgians pretty much the same way that the Georgians talk about the Russians. On that point, the Abkhaz share much with the South Ossetians. For them, as for the Ossetians, Georgia is the neighborhood bully.
It’s a pretty safe bet that Georgia and Abkhazia will not resolve their conflict on their own. Both breakaway regions are quite willing to live with the Russian-enforced status quo, but even relatively moderate Georgian officials consider that status quo utterly unacceptable. When I asked Temuri Yacobashvili, a cultivated man who is one of the country’s leading art patrons, why Georgia couldn’t focus on the threat from Russia and let the Abkhaz have their de facto state, he said, “These are not two different things, because it’s not amputating hand, it’s amputating head, or heart. No Georgian president could survive if he gave up on Abkhazia.” And, he added, “if the international community by its inaction will not leave any other option for Georgia, then we have to make decision.”
If the West, that is, won’t induce Russia to stop using the border region as a pawn, Georgia will be left with no choice save war. And how will the West do that? Mr. Saakashvili suggests sanctions, like travel bans, on individual Russian leaders. When I posed the same question to Giga Bokeria, another confidante who is deputy minister for foreign affairs, he said, “If Russia ceases to be an empire.” These are not serious answers.
The situation in both Abkhazia and South Ossetia took yet another turn down the spiral of confrontation in July, when mysterious acts of violence plagued both regions. There were bombings in Abkhazia. There were shootings in South Ossetia. Who was behind the string of attacks? Criminal gangs? Provocateurs? Georgian secret agents? No one knew, but that didn’t stop the accusations from flying. Abkhazia closed the cease-fire line, then cut all ties with Georgia. On July 8, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about to visit Georgia, Russia sent fighter jets over South Ossetia. Georgian Interior Ministry forces squared off against civilians in South Ossetia. The pot was boiling. And then, last week, the lid blew in South Ossetia, for reasons that remain unclear. Diplomats are now laboring mightily to prevent the war from spreading, though hostilities may serve too many different interests to be easily contained.
THE WEST GETS SCARED
There is real alarm in the West about the deteriorating situation in the Caucasus. Diplomats from Washington and the major European capitals, as well as from the United Nations, the European Union and NATO, have been crisscrossing the region trying to bring the parties together. In July, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the foreign minister of Germany, the lead nation of the United Nations secretary general’s “Group of Friends” of Georgia, approached the Georgians and the Abkhaz with a peace plan similar in outline to the one that failed two years ago. The Georgians agreed to a meeting in Bonn; the Abkhaz, presumably with Russian support, refused. Mr. Saakashvili himself had tried to show a more conciliatory side, proposing guarantees of autonomy for Abkhazia within a federated Georgia, as well as the establishment of a jointly controlled free economic zone adjacent to the cease-fire line. (The Abkhaz rejected the offer, not only because they insist on independence, but because they assumed, perhaps correctly, that Mr. Saakashvili was posturing for the West.)
What is striking, though, is the growing consensus about Russian behavior. The United Nations, the European Union and NATO have all sided with Georgia in the disputes over Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Mr. Saakashvili was deeply disappointed when NATO declined in early April to put Georgia and Ukraine on the path to membership, but he says that the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, explained to him that while the Germans “don’t want to be pushed” on NATO, they might offer their support later this year. Almost as satisfying to Mr. Saakashvili was his discovery that Ms. Merkel “gets it” about Russia — “because she knows Russia from her own experience.”
In a recent essay, the archrealist Henry Kissinger argued that Putin-era policy had been driven not by dreams of restored glory, but by “a quest for a reliable strategic partner, with America being the preferred choice.” Some Russia experts on the left, like Stephen Cohen of Princeton, have taken a similar view. But Russia’s bellicose behavior, and now the hostilities along its border, make it increasingly difficult to act on such a premise without seeming naïve.
People of all political persuasion now seem to get it about Russia. In “The Return of History and The End of Dreams,” Robert Kagan, the neoconservative foreign policy expert who is advising John McCain, writes of Mr. Putin and his coterie: “Their grand ambition is to undo the post-cold war settlement and to re-establish Russia as a dominant power in Eurasia.” Michael McFaul, a Russia expert at Stanford who is advising Barack Obama, also views Russia as a premodern, sphere-of-influence power. He attributes Russia’s hostility to further NATO expansion less to geostrategic calculations than to what he says is Mr. Putin’s cold war mentality. The essential Russian calculus, he says, is, “Anything we can do to weaken the U.S. is good for Russia.”
For the West, the core issue is the survival of democratic, or at least independent, states along Russia’s frontier. But for this very reason, even the United States, which has been Georgia’s most steadfast ally, distinguishes between the status of Abkhazia and South Ossetia on the one hand, and Russia’s threat to Georgia’s autonomy and integrity on the other.
HOPING FOR PATIENCE
Administration officials have regularly cautioned Mr. Saakashvili to be patient on Abkhazia and South Ossetia, even as they have given private and public reassurances about NATO membership. It would, in fact, be surprising if Georgia had consciously provoked a war in South Ossetia, since Mr. Saakashvili understands that doing so would almost certainly put an end to the NATO bid; indeed, Russia may well calculate that NATO will continue to exclude Georgia so long as the country is embroiled in hostilities along its border.
Georgia’s predicament seems very simple from the vantage point of Tbilisi — 1921, 1938 — but extremely complicated from a great remove. Russia threatens Georgia, but Georgia threatens Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Russia looks like a crocodile to Georgia, but Georgia looks to Russia like the cats’ paw of the West. One party has all the hard power it could want, the other all the soft. And now, while the world was looking elsewhere, the frozen conflict between them has thawed and cracked. It will take a great deal of care and attention even to put things back to where they were before.
Monday
I ran in the morning. Slow.
Static line jump with SOV3 at night. Nauseous from whatever I brought back from Mexico. I got some cipro to combat that. Did touch and gos for a half hour waiting for it to get dark. Two of my chemlites did not work and after I jumped out the door at 135 knots, I got multiple twists, 5 or 6. Forgot to hit my strobe light. Within a hundred feet of the ground I caught a gust that rapidly pushed me in a different direction than the wind was blowing. I'm still confused by what happened. Landed fine though. Stepped to the ground like walking out an elevator.
Static line jump with SOV3 at night. Nauseous from whatever I brought back from Mexico. I got some cipro to combat that. Did touch and gos for a half hour waiting for it to get dark. Two of my chemlites did not work and after I jumped out the door at 135 knots, I got multiple twists, 5 or 6. Forgot to hit my strobe light. Within a hundred feet of the ground I caught a gust that rapidly pushed me in a different direction than the wind was blowing. I'm still confused by what happened. Landed fine though. Stepped to the ground like walking out an elevator.
Sunday
I got all fired up because my leg felt better. I went and did laps around Marina Green, which I measured and it's 3/4 miles long. I did 6, broken into 2 sets of 3. I was shooting to hit every one at 4:30, but went a bit fast on a couple of them. 1 minute rest in between and I jogged a lap for the break in between the 2 sets.
This combined with Saturday's workout destroyed me.
This combined with Saturday's workout destroyed me.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Saturday
5 rounds of:
20 pushups
15 body weight squats (185lbs.)
20 sit ups
The squat were brutal. Took me around 14 minutes to complete. I guess 21 squats is not so big a deal anymore. 225 x 21!
I did a slow 5-6 mile run in the evening. Very tight.
20 pushups
15 body weight squats (185lbs.)
20 sit ups
The squat were brutal. Took me around 14 minutes to complete. I guess 21 squats is not so big a deal anymore. 225 x 21!
I did a slow 5-6 mile run in the evening. Very tight.
Friday Morning
8 rounds of
10 kettlebell swings (50lb. dumbbell)
10 lunges with the dumbbell
11 clapping push ups
Thursday August 7
Row
4x500
Held 1:45 for the first three and then pushed it to 1:36. Big difference in exertion.
I did a few deadlifts after that just to get the blood flowing.
4x500
Held 1:45 for the first three and then pushed it to 1:36. Big difference in exertion.
I did a few deadlifts after that just to get the blood flowing.
Wednesday August 6th
500m row 1:32
3x5 Press 95lb
3x3 Push Press 135lb
3x1 Push Jerk 185lb
500m row 1:31
3x5 Press 95lb
3x3 Push Press 135lb
3x1 Push Jerk 185lb
500m row 1:31
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Tuesday Night
Tuesday Night Olympics
4 Events (Was going to be 5)
500M Row
-my time 1:30
Squat Jump
-57
4 minutes of Cindy
-162 (total reps)
800M Run
1st.
With the workout in the morning, I was smoked.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
The Biggest Issue
by David Brooks.Between 1870 and 1950, the average American’s level of education rose by 0.8 years per decade. In 1890, the average adult had completed about 8 years of schooling. By 1900, the average American had 8.8 years. By 1910, it was 9.6 years, and by 1960, it was nearly 14 years.
As Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz describe in their book, “The Race Between Education and Technology,” America’s educational progress was amazingly steady over those decades, and the U.S. opened up a gigantic global lead. Educational levels were rising across the industrialized world, but the U.S. had at least a 35-year advantage on most of Europe. In 1950, no European country enrolled 30 percent of its older teens in full-time secondary school. In the U.S., 70 percent of older teens were in school.
America’s edge boosted productivity and growth. But the happy era ended around 1970 when America’s educational progress slowed to a crawl. Between 1975 and 1990, educational attainments stagnated completely. Since then, progress has been modest. America’s lead over its economic rivals has been entirely forfeited, with many nations surging ahead in school attainment.
This threatens the country’s long-term prospects. It also widens the gap between rich and poor. Goldin and Katz describe a race between technology and education. The pace of technological change has been surprisingly steady. In periods when educational progress outpaces this change, inequality narrows. The market is flooded with skilled workers, so their wages rise modestly. In periods, like the current one, when educational progress lags behind technological change, inequality widens. The relatively few skilled workers command higher prices, while the many unskilled ones have little bargaining power.
The meticulous research of Goldin and Katz is complemented by a report from James Heckman of the University of Chicago. Using his own research, Heckman also concludes that high school graduation rates peaked in the U.S. in the late 1960s, at about 80 percent. Since then they have declined.
In “Schools, Skills and Synapses,” Heckman probes the sources of that decline. It’s not falling school quality, he argues. Nor is it primarily a shortage of funding or rising college tuition costs. Instead, Heckman directs attention at family environments, which have deteriorated over the past 40 years.
Heckman points out that big gaps in educational attainment are present at age 5. Some children are bathed in an atmosphere that promotes human capital development and, increasingly, more are not. By 5, it is possible to predict, with depressing accuracy, who will complete high school and college and who won’t.
I.Q. matters, but Heckman points to equally important traits that start and then build from those early years: motivation levels, emotional stability, self-control and sociability. He uses common sense to intuit what these traits are, but on this subject economists have a lot to learn from developmental psychologists.
I point to these two research projects because the skills slowdown is the biggest issue facing the country. Rising gas prices are bound to dominate the election because voters are slapped in the face with them every time they visit the pump. But this slow-moving problem, more than any other, will shape the destiny of the nation.
Second, there is a big debate under way over the sources of middle-class economic anxiety. Some populists emphasize the destructive forces of globalization, outsourcing and predatory capitalism. These people say we need radical labor market reforms to give the working class a chance. But the populists are going to have to grapple with the Goldin, Katz and Heckman research, which powerfully buttresses the arguments of those who emphasize human capital policies. It’s not globalization or immigration or computers per se that widen inequality. It’s the skills gap. Boosting educational attainment at the bottom is more promising than trying to reorganize the global economy.
Third, it’s worth noting that both sides of this debate exist within the Democratic Party. The G.O.P. is largely irrelevant. If you look at Barack Obama’s education proposals — especially his emphasis on early childhood — you see that they flow naturally and persuasively from this research. (It probably helps that Obama and Heckman are nearly neighbors in Chicago). McCain’s policies seem largely oblivious to these findings. There’s some vague talk about school choice, but Republicans are inept when talking about human capital policies.
America rose because it got more out of its own people than other nations. That stopped in 1970. Now, other issues grab headlines and campaign attention. But this tectonic plate is still relentlessly and menacingly shifting beneath our feet.
Tuesday Morning
8 x 3 minutes at 5k pace with 90 seconds rest. 4 minute rest halfway through. Legs hurting.
Monday Night
I'm still draining out the tequila.
I finally beat Damian at something.
We started off with 5 sprints. After each spring I did 10 ring dips and 10 pull ups with chest to bar.
Then we did 3 sets of tabata, 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off (8 rounds of that for each set for a total of 12 minutes working out).
Deadlift @ 225lb
Box Jump
Row
Score is cumulative reps and calories on the rower. I got 185.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Saturday morning
Single arm overhead dumbbell squats, 5 each arm and then run with the dumbbell. 12 mins. I did 8 or 9 rounds.
Friday
I swam around 1500 meters with McCall. About 800 meter warm up followed by 10 75s on the 1:20. Then we ran about 5 miles. Then we stretched.
Thursday Night
3 sets of 3 minutes of as many reps as you and your partner can get.
1. Snatch 95lbs.
2. 1 snatch, followed by overhead squats.
3. 5 snatches followed by max pull ups.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Counterpoint
My point regarding yesterday's speech by Obama is that he is acting Presidential even though he isn't the President. That is why I think he has a good chance of winning. All I hear from McCain, or imagine to hear, is grumbling and when he does say something about Obama, it's almost like he's setting himself up for failure. "Obama should go visit Iraq." So Obama went to Iraq. "The surge worked and I backed the surge." You're right, now Obama wants to pull out of Iraq, which, the majority of Americans want too. Even those that are the most fervent supporters of being in Iraq eventually want to get our troops out. McCain's campaign is dead in the water right now. I would like to see a better race.
The only criticism I have of the commentary below is that Kennedy and Reagan were President's when they made their trips/speeches. It's kind of hard for Obama's rhetoric to be grounded in reality when all he can talk about is what he would do. Still, I agree with the overall theme. Obama is just talking about hope. Hope flies out the door quickly when things go bad and people start pointing fingers.
Op-Ed Columnist
The only criticism I have of the commentary below is that Kennedy and Reagan were President's when they made their trips/speeches. It's kind of hard for Obama's rhetoric to be grounded in reality when all he can talk about is what he would do. Still, I agree with the overall theme. Obama is just talking about hope. Hope flies out the door quickly when things go bad and people start pointing fingers.
Playing Innocent Abroad
Radical optimism is America’s contribution to the world. The early settlers thought America’s founding would bring God’s kingdom to earth. John Adams thought America would emancipate “the slavish part of mankind all over the earth.” Woodrow Wilson and George W. Bush preached their own gospels of world democracy.
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David Brooks
The Conversation
Times columnists David Brooks and Gail Collins discuss the 2008 presidential race.
Barack Obama is certainly a true American. In the first major foreign policy speech of his campaign, delivered in Chicago last year, he vowed a comprehensive initiative to “ensure that every child, everywhere, is taught to build and not to destroy.” America, he said, must promote dignity across the world, not just democracy. It must “lead the world in battling immediate evils and promoting the ultimate good.”
In Berlin on Thursday, it was more of the same. Speaking before a vast throng (and a surprising number of Yankees hats), he vowed to help “remake the world.” He offered hope that a history-drenched European continent could “choose its own tomorrow free from the shadows of yesterday.” He envisioned “a new dawn in the Middle East.”
Obama’s tone was serious. But he pulled out his “this is our moment” rhetoric and offered visions of a world transformed. Obama speeches almost always have the same narrative arc. Some problem threatens. The odds are against the forces of righteousness. But then people of good faith unite and walls come tumbling down. Obama used the word “walls” 16 times in the Berlin speech, and in 11 of those cases, he was talking about walls coming down.
The Berlin blockade was thwarted because people came together. Apartheid ended because people came together and walls tumbled. Winning the cold war was the same: “People of the world,” Obama declared, “look at Berlin, where a wall came down, a continent came together and history proved there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one.”
When I first heard this sort of radically optimistic speech in Iowa, I have to confess my American soul was stirred. It seemed like the overture for a new yet quintessentially American campaign.
But now it is more than half a year on, and the post-partisanship of Iowa has given way to the post-nationalism of Berlin, and it turns out that the vague overture is the entire symphony. The golden rhetoric impresses less, the evasion of hard choices strikes one more.
When John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan went to Berlin, their rhetoric soared, but their optimism was grounded in the reality of politics, conflict and hard choices. Kennedy didn’t dream of the universal brotherhood of man. He drew lines that reflected hard realities: “There are some who say, in Europe and elsewhere, we can work with the Communists. Let them come to Berlin.” Reagan didn’t call for a kumbaya moment. He cited tough policies that sparked harsh political disagreements — the deployment of U.S. missiles in response to the Soviet SS-20s — but still worked.
In Berlin, Obama made exactly one point with which it was possible to disagree. In the best paragraph of the speech, Obama called on Germans to send more troops to Afghanistan.
The argument will probably fall on deaf ears. The vast majority of Germans oppose that policy. But at least Obama made an argument.
Much of the rest of the speech fed the illusion that we could solve our problems if only people mystically come together. We should help Israelis and Palestinians unite. We should unite to prevent genocide in Darfur. We should unite so the Iranians won’t develop nukes. Or as Obama put it: “The walls between races and tribes, natives and immigrants, Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down.”
The great illusion of the 1990s was that we were entering an era of global convergence in which politics and power didn’t matter. What Obama offered in Berlin flowed right out of this mind-set. This was the end of history on acid.
Since then, autocracies have arisen, the competition for resources has grown fiercer, Russia has clamped down, Iran is on the march. It will take politics and power to address these challenges, the two factors that dare not speak their name in Obama’s lofty peroration.
The odd thing is that Obama doesn’t really think this way. When he gets down to specific cases, he can be hard-headed. Last year, he spoke about his affinity for Reinhold Niebuhr, and their shared awareness that history is tragic and ironic and every political choice is tainted in some way.
But he has grown accustomed to putting on this sort of saccharine show for the rock concert masses, and in Berlin his act jumped the shark. His words drift far from reality, and not only when talking about the Senate Banking Committee. His Berlin Victory Column treacle would have made Niebuhr sick to his stomach.
Obama has benefited from a week of good images. But substantively, optimism without reality isn’t eloquence. It’s just Disney.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
When Was The Last Time McCain Acted Presidential?
It's funny, the more I see of Obama acting Presidential, the more skepticism about Obama is raised in the media.
In Berlin, Obama Urges Europe,
![[Obama Overseas]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/it_globe-asia06082007170534.gif)
OBAMA OVERSEAS
In Berlin, Obama Urges Europe,
U.S. to Renew Their Alliance
By JAY SOLOMON and MIKE ESTERL
July 24, 2008 5:01 p.m.
July 24, 2008 5:01 p.m.
BERLIN -- Sen. Barack Obama, seeking to burnish his image as a global statesman ahead of the U.S. presidential election, made an impassioned call for rejuvenated U.S.-European ties in a speech before an estimated 200,000 Germans in this city's historic downtown Tiergarten.
The Democrats' presumptive candidate drew on Washington's historic role in rebuilding post-World War II Berlin to call for an enhanced U.S.-European alliance to combat everything from a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan to the spread of nuclear weapons.
![[Image]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-BX405_obama7_20080724142418.jpg) |
| Reuters |
| Obama in Berlin |
The Illinois lawmaker also sought to heal the trans-Atlantic rift fueled by President George W. Bush's 2003 invasion of Iraq by pledging a more humble and engaged American administration should he be elected in November.
"I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we've struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people," Sen. Obama said, his words generating perhaps the loudest applause during his 25-minute address. "But I also know how much I love America. ... What has always united us ... is a set of ideals that speak to aspirations shared by all people."
Sen. Obama's speech, however, also hinted at some of the divisions that will likely continue to hinder U.S.-European relations, even if as president he were to pursue a more conciliatory line with Europe.
The massive crowd offered a muted response to Sen. Obama's call for Germany and other European nations to play a larger role in fighting the Taliban and al Qaeda along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Those in attendance also showed guarded enthusiasm for the candidate's call for greater European involvement in international efforts to combat Iran's nuclear program.
"He brings hope," said Manfred Brüss, a 60-year-old German who received powdered milk from American servicemen as a child in 1948. But "we Germans think we're doing enough," he added, citing the role of German peacekeepers in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Lebanon and elsewhere.
OBAMA OVERSEASSome in the crowd said the sometimes-flat response to Sen. Obama's oratory was driven by poor acoustics and the lack of a simultaneous translation into German. Some complained that it felt like a campaign event. But most seemed thrilled to engage a politician already deemed a "superstar" in German magazines ahead of Thursday's performance.
Sen. Obama confidently walked onto a stage at the foot of Berlin's Victory Column to intermittent chants of "Obama, Obama, Obama." Some in the crowd compared the event, accompanied by vendors selling bratwurst and beer, to the music and sporting events that often take place in the Tiergarten.
"A lot of Germans think he can save us," said Andrea Loehr, a 29-year-old American studies major from Berlin. "People want to see the change."
A spokesman for the Berlin police estimated the crowd size at 200,000. That's more than twice the size of Mr. Obama's biggest rally in the U.S. to date, which was 75,000.
Germany remains tentative about dropping its post-World War II reluctance to engage in a muscular foreign policy. Its 3,500 troops in Afghanistan are based in the north of the country, away from the worst of the fighting. Polls indicate about two-thirds of Germans don't want their army in Afghanistan at all --something that German politicians are acutely aware of ahead of their own general elections next year.
Sen. Obama met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel earlier Thursday, but a spokesman for the leader would only say the encounter was "a very open and detailed discussion in a very good atmosphere." Topics included Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Middle East peace process, in addition to trade, climate, energy and the global economy, the spokesman added in an email.
![[See more photos]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-BX417_obtrip_20080724152103.jpg) |
| Associated Press |
| Sen. Obama spoke in front of the Tiergarten's 225-foot high Victory Column. |
Analysts and politicians in Europe also question whether Sen. Obama would be a fit when it comes to trade, where the candidate adopted a protectionist posture during the Democratic primaries. Germany's economy in particular is highly geared toward exports.
Relations between the U.S. and Europe have already improved enormously during Mr. Bush's second term -- after a near-divorce during the first -- as Mr. Bush has become more willing to consult with allies. Europe's changing political landscape also has played a role, as the generation of leaders that clashed with Mr. Bush over the Iraq war has been replaced, mostly by fellow conservatives.
Ms. Merkel, a conservative, has worked hard to mend ties with Washington since replacing former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in late 2005. In France, former President Jacques Chirac has been replaced by Nicolas Sarkozy, while Italy recently returned Silvio Berlusconi, a close Bush ally, to power.
Eckhart von Klaeden, a member of Ms. Merkel's Christian Democrats on the parliamentary foreign affairs committee, described German-U.S. relations as already "very good," adding that Mr. Obama's Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain enjoys a lot of respect among his party colleagues. At the same time, he suggested it's a little early to join the public "euphoria" in Germany about Mr. Obama's candidacy. "It's wait and see," he said.
![[Obama]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-BX401_obama7_20080724140642.jpg) |
| Associated Press |
| Sen. Barack Obama waved as he arrived at the Victory Column in Berlin Thursday. |
Still, polls in Europe suggest Mr. Obama is dramatically more popular than Mr. McCain, who many Europeans believe would not bring as much change to U.S. policy. The Republican candidate sought out his own German stage Thursday, at Schmidt's Restaurant und Sausage Haus in Columbus, Ohio. "Well, I'd love to give a speech in Germany. ... But I would much prefer to do it as president of the United States," he told reporters.
Mr. Obama will make shorter stops -- and give no big public speeches -- in France and the U.K. on Friday and Saturday. He will meet with President Sarkozy at the Elysee Palace in Paris, and the two will hold a joint news conference later in the day. Since his election in May 2007, Mr. Sarkozy has met with Sen. McCain twice, according to the Elysee Palace.
While Mr. Obama is well known in the U.K., where the primaries made daily front-page news, his visit to London has generated less publicity here, where the country is focused on the plunging fortunes of its own leader Prime Minister Gordon Brown. No joint press conference is planned in London after Mr. Obama meets with Mr. Brown because Mr. Brown did not hold one when Mr. McCain visited recently, according to a spokesman for the British leader.
Morning workout
6x1000 @ 6, 5:45 and 5:30 pace with 1 minute recovery.
I screwed this one up. Dropped out of number 5 in part because of a strained muscle in my back was making it hard for me to breathe, but I also felt very tight all over. The minute recovery makes this a very challenging workout indeed. I'm ashamed at not finishing it, although I did jump back into #6. Essentially, I was a pussy; weak and fragile like an injured hummingbird that has had its wings torn off. I'm not pleased with myself. Breathing is a crutch.
I screwed this one up. Dropped out of number 5 in part because of a strained muscle in my back was making it hard for me to breathe, but I also felt very tight all over. The minute recovery makes this a very challenging workout indeed. I'm ashamed at not finishing it, although I did jump back into #6. Essentially, I was a pussy; weak and fragile like an injured hummingbird that has had its wings torn off. I'm not pleased with myself. Breathing is a crutch.
Like Science Fiction, comic books are just an extension of our own reality.
I wrote the following in response to the article below.
I can't speak about other people, but the dilemma that Batman faces in Dark Knight in combating The Joker is what we as a people and nation face every day. Joker is just the extreme. He is the terrorist and the Investment Banker without scruples merged into one and beyond. You better believe you become something like your enemy in order to defeat your enemy. You think just because the Taliban believe what they are doing is right makes them any less the monsters that they are? I've been over their several times now and believe me, I don't care whether they act in the name of God or opium, what they do to defenseless people is pure evil. They torture and kill with imagination and glee. And we don't have to look to Afghanistan for the only source of it. It's everywhere in the world. Pick up the paper.
The evil and the ease with which Joker manipulates his adversaries doesn't affect me at all because I've seen it happen so many times in real life. Maybe people are interested in the movie because the fantasy is watching one character, Batman, handle that evil a little or a lot better than most of us do on a daily basis. Maybe the comic book world is closer to the real world than you think, only there isn't someone like Batman to take care of things. It's just you and if you're lucky someone will stand next to you.
Matt
The evil and the ease with which Joker manipulates his adversaries doesn't affect me at all because I've seen it happen so many times in real life. Maybe people are interested in the movie because the fantasy is watching one character, Batman, handle that evil a little or a lot better than most of us do on a daily basis. Maybe the comic book world is closer to the real world than you think, only there isn't someone like Batman to take care of things. It's just you and if you're lucky someone will stand next to you.
Matt
Too Far From Escapism
By ALLEN BARRA
July 24, 2008; Page D5
July 24, 2008; Page D5
Director Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight," currently on track to be the biggest box-office smash of the year and maybe of all time, crosses a line that perhaps did not need to be crossed, the fantasy-into-reality line.
Nothing illustrates how much movies have changed over the past 20 years than to compare Tim Burton's "Batman" (1989) with Mr. Nolan's "The Dark Knight." The Burton film, starring Michael Keaton as Batman and Jack Nicholson as the Joker, was photographed in garish, neon-noir colors in a gargoyle-infested neo-gothic city designed by the late Anton Furst. The action was highlighted by Danny Elfman's rousing pop-Wagnerian score.
![[Christian Bale as Batman and Heath Ledger as the Joker in 'The Dark Knight.']](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/ED-AH925_dark_20080723112633.jpg) |
| Peter Vaughan and TM |
| Christian Bale as Batman and Heath Ledger as the Joker in 'The Dark Knight.' |
In contrast, Mr. Nolan's movie drains the fantasy element from the material. Gotham City bears a striking resemblance to Chicago, where some scenes were filmed, as photographed in shades of black, green and drab industrial gray. Gone are the Batcave and "stately Wayne manor." Bruce Wayne lives in a penthouse, and the closest thing to a cave is an underground garage where he tests high-tech weapons with his armorer (Morgan Freeman). The Batmobile is banished, replaced by an assault vehicle -- a high-speed tank, really. The minimalist score by James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer evokes not exhilaration but dread.
All color, lyricism, and virtually any humor that doesn't partake of the macabre is gone from this Batman story. There isn't even a hint that this PG-13 film might be suitable for youngsters, as many parents of distraught preteens have discovered. The Joker's psychotic brutality -- he impales one character on a pencil and in a shocking scene blows one of the franchise's leading female characters to smithereens -- makes a mockery of the rating system.
What, then, is "The Dark Knight"'s near-fanatical audience responding to? To Heath Ledger's Joker, of course. Mr. Ledger's character has clearly touched some national nerve, and it will be interesting to see how the rest of the world responds to the film after the initial wave of hype has passed.
"The Dark Knight" isn't simply another superhero movie. In fact, taken on its own terms, it's really not a superhero movie at all: It's a supervillain movie, and the many critics and fans who are calling for Mr. Ledger to be nominated for an Academy Award are reading the film correctly -- they want him nominated for best actor, not best supporting actor.
This Joker is the most thoroughly principled and incorruptible character in modern movies. He doesn't care about money -- he contemptuously burns a pile of cash containing millions of dollars -- and, unlike Mr. Nicholson's Joker, he doesn't even care about power. He consolidates the various mobs of Gotham City merely as a means to his end, which, contrary to numerous editorials we are seeing, isn't terrorism. Terrorists, in their hearts, believe that they are really the good guys; Mr. Ledger's Joker has no such illusions. He's a nihilist whose avowed purpose is to disrupt society by corrupting and destroying its heroes -- Batman and Aaron Eckhart's straight-arrow D.A., Harvey Dent.
In the most unsettling scene ever presented in an action movie, Christian Bale's Batman is left to interrogate the Joker in a police lock-down room while the police simply watch. Mr. Ledger snickers, leers and goads Batman into beating him up -- thus violating his civil rights, which is precisely what the Joker wants Batman to do. It's a stunning victory for the villain that makes Batman seem helpless and foolish. This is the first time I've ever seen a superhero humiliated like this in his own movie. "The Dark Knight" seems to be telling us that, ultimately, we're completely helpless against any characters as ruthless and ideologically pure as the Joker. We can't even win by becoming vigilantes -- that's what the Jokers of this world want us to be.
Although pop-artists such as Frank Miller (creator of the "Batman: The Dark Knight Returns" series) and Mr. Nolan (who also directed the previous Batman film, "Batman Begins") are undeniably gifted creators of images, the film is a bleak reminder of the limits of comic-book literature when it comes to dealing with serious themes. "Some men," says Michael Caine's Alfred the Butler to Bruce Wayne, "aren't looking for anything logical, like money. Some just want to watch the world burn." Is the only alternative to become as merciless as your opponent? It's a dilemma that leaves Batman and his fans in the dark.
The mania that "The Dark Knight" has touched off in a certain segment of the movie-going audience -- and it's not hyperbole to call it mania when people are going to eBay and paying up to $100 each for Imax tickets and $229 for action figures -- is reminiscent of the nuttiness exhibited by American teens in 1955 when "Rebel Without a Cause" was released after James Dean was killed in an auto accident. Media pundits who ask if Heath Ledger's death has anything to do with the obsession surrounding this movie know that the answer is yes.
But there is another, more troubling, aspect to this part of the story. We know that Mr. Ledger died of an overdose of prescription drugs after a period of insomnia and acute depression. What we see on the screen in "The Dark Knight" -- as we are plunged into a netherworld that provides no escape from its brutal realities -- may well be a projection of Mr. Ledger's inner torment as he tried to fight those afflictions: a portrait of a Method actor who could not keep a proper distance from his role, an artist who stared too long into the abyss and saw a twisted, drug-addled death mask staring back at him. (This past weekend, Christian Bale was arrested then released on bail following charges of assault from his mother and sister; "The Dark Knight" must present one heck of an abyss.)
We know enough about how involved actors can be in their roles to see that this idea is not far-fetched. Does that make "The Dark Knight" a $180 million-plus snuff film? Give that a thought before you plunk your $229 down for that action figure.
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