The Whole Work-Life Balance Thing

It just sucks right now. Another night, another wrapping-up around 130a. This just cannot be good for me. I need to blow through this project and get things a little better organized. I've got kazillions of things that I need to get back to people about, a few dozen projects on the burner. In no particular order:

*** Finishing the damn chicken barn
*** Getting my butt whipped back into shape
*** Another job opportunity
*** Book chapter for speech
*** Book outline to publisher

And a few other odds and ends, for sure.

Wah. Poor me.

But I'm having a better day than this person:

Panel: Landis guilty of doping

By EDDIE PELLS,
AP National Writer
12 minutes ago

The verdict said "guilty."

Like so much else in the confusing, contentious Floyd Landis doping case, though, none of the answers are really that simple.

Landis lost his expensive and explosive case Thursday when two of three arbitrators upheld the results of a test that showed the 2006 Tour de France champion used synthetic testosterone to fuel his spectacular comeback victory.

The decision means Landis, who repeatedly has denied using performance-enhancing drugs, must forfeit his Tour title and is subject to a two-year ban, retroactive to Jan. 30, 2007.

Not that it changes his opinion of who the rightful winner was.

"I am innocent," he said, "and we proved I am innocent."

The majority of the panel disagreed.

According to documents obtained by The Associated Press, lead arbitrator Patrice Brunet and Richard McLaren voted to uphold the positive test with Christopher Campbell dissenting.

In its 84-page decision, the majority found the initial screening test to measure Landis' testosterone levels — the testosterone-to-epitestosterone test — was not done according to World Anti-Doping Agency rules.

But the more precise and expensive carbon-isotope ratio analysis (IRMS), performed after a positive T-E test is recorded, was accurate, the arbitrators said, meaning "an anti-doping rule violation is established."

What a circus. I'm thinking the Tour people should make the riders suit up as clowns and give them fish to smack each other. Maybe someone can figure out a way to charge $39.95 for pay-per-view rights to this WWF-like fiasco. Asshats.

Truly, this whole Tour mess is up there with "Kid Nation," as far as outrages du jour. I'm not as careful as I should be about what my kids watch, but at least I'm not pushing them into this (description from the NY Times):

The show takes 40 children, ages 8 to 15, and places them in a “ghost town” in New Mexico to see if they can build a working society without the help of adults.

But after the production ended in mid-May, the parent of a child in the production complained about her child being injured and about working conditions on the set.

...

New Mexico had passed a law limiting the number of hours each day that children could be used on a film project before production on “Kid Nation” was started.

But by the time the state began its first investigation into the show, the production had ended and state officials decided the issue was moot.

Most states have even tougher laws than New Mexico’s regarding children and labor. And the attention that has swirled around “Kid Nation” could render it too hot for any state to handle, one CBS executive said.

That executive, who asked not to be identified because he was not speaking for the network or the show, said it was conceivable CBS could look to some location outside the United States.

Asked if the show could be relocated to Mexico or elsewhere, Mr. Forman said, “Nothing is off the table.” But he insisted that he expected to be able to produce a second edition somewhere in the United States.

And how did the show do?

The premiere of the new CBS reality show placed first in two of Nielsen’s hard-to-measure demographics (children ages 2 to 11 and children ages 6 to 11), the network announced today, citing preliminary data.

Some grown-ups were tuning in, too. The show also placed first among adults ages 18 to 49, but it came in second to NBC in households and total viewers (9.07 million). Marc Berman, a columnist for MediaWeek, called it a “slow start” for the show, given all the talk surrounding the no-parents-permitted premise.

CBS said that “Kid Nation” won more viewers in the 11- to 22-year-old category than any other CBS show in the same time slot since the 2006 Grammy Awards, which aired in February, 2006.

I'm with this person:

Yes, it is an interesting concept. Exploit children by putting them in a dangerous and unsupervised situation so that the grownups can make money. What a country we have become.

As long as I'm in a dyspeptic (a fine word) mood, a selection from another late great, H.L. Mencken. Who shouldn't be confused with my late cat of the same name:

Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.

Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.

It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.

Nature abhors a moron.Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them.

When you're quoting Mencken, you know it's time to get a freakin' life.