Days of Madness

Ugh. Lisa's sick, and I'm getting there. Doubt that being in NYC on Saturday is going to help matters much. Assuming I make it.

Where to start?

Well, clearly, someone in Washington hasn't ever been on the infield at the Talladega 500, or they wouldn't be wondering why a battery of innoculations against infectious diseases are recommended for a NASCAR race. I think they forgot the penicillin, but maybe that's just me.

House aides visiting racetrackadvised to get immunized
LISA ZAGAROLI
McClatchy Newspapers

Inside Motorsports David Poole
Fan's Guide Race Week Events

WASHINGTON --NASCAR fans might seem rabid, but are they actually contagious?

Getting a hepatitis shot is standard procedure for travelers to parts of Africa and Asia, but some congressional aides were instructed to get immunized before going to Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord and the racetrack in Talladega, Ala.

The House Homeland Security Committee planned a fact-finding trip about public health preparedness at mass gatherings and decided to conduct the research at two of the nation's most heavily attended sporting events, NASCAR's Bank of America 500 event this weekend and the UAW-Ford 500 last weekend.

Staff who organized the trips advised the NASCAR-bound aides to get a range of vaccines before attending -- hepatitis A, hepatitis B, tetanus, diphtheria and influenza.

Rep. Robin Hayes, a Republican from Concord, took umbrage when he heard about it.

I'm just sayin', it seems like the least one needs for Talladega.

Here's some more outrage/fallout from the Chicago Marathon, soon to be renamed the Windy City Fiasco (hey! sounds like a soccer team!), courtesy of Salon:

StephanieL -- 05:40 am Pacific Time -- Oct 8, 2007 -- #859 of 929
The organization of the race was actually a total debacle. And the race organizers are out and out lying to the press about what went on.

It was hot. It was seriously hot. But that wasn't the problem. Despite putting out a heat advisory that suggested everyone stop at every water stop (thus suggesting that they have water for people at every stop), they ran out before I got to the second water stop along the way.

The second! There wasn't any Gatorade at the first one; at the second, the volunteers were standing by the side of the road yelling, "We're so sorry! We've called ahead so they can try to prepare for you further down! We told them you've had nothing!"

I was not running that slowly. I was probably 3/4 of the way back, running right behind a 5:45 pace team. There were thousands behind me. I had a friend who was running in front of me with the 5:00 pace team who experienced exactly the same thing, and talked to someone in front of that who also found no water at the stops.

Also, no misting stations, no wet sponges, nothing. My friends up ahead actually went into a 7-Eleven along the course to buy their own bottles of water at mile 4 or something when it became clear they weren't going to get any. They called friends who were there watching to ask them to bring more water along the way.

I was running with my camelback (best decision I ever made), and so I was hot, but I was really OK. And the people of Chicago? ROCK. People came out of their homes with little plastic pitchers and a hose and filled people's cups. (We had to run carrying them, because they'd run out of those, too.) They set up their hoses to spray us down. There were groups that had gone and bought whole flats of bottled water and handed them out to runners. Apparently runners early in the race were shouting to spectators that if they had someone they loved on the course they'd go get water for the runners. And they did. Seriously, I could cry thinking about how wonderful they were.

...

And then at mile 14 or so (past the halfway point, you'll notice) the cops along the route started yelling, "They've canceled the race! Stop running!" We kept running. Then there were helicopters above us (nice breeze) that were announcing the race was canceled due to the heat. "You'll still get your medals!" they kept announcing over and over. As if that was the point at all. Who wants a fucking medal if you haven't gone the distance? My running partner and I agreed we'd happily walk/run along the sidewalks in order to finish if they opened the streets to cars again. And then as we were nearing the 15-mile mark, they'd barricaded the route with fences and police cars and wouldn't let us through. They rerouted us, and we even had cops run up to us and yell at us to stop running and walk right that second.

We were forced to quit. It's going to be a while before I'm even sure what to do with that. Right now, I'm just pissed off. I talked to someone last night who was physically forced off the course by a cop at MILE TWENTY! I'd be more angry if I'd gotten that far.

The whole experience was just incredibly upsetting when it could have been amazing. Had the race organizers not been caught with their pants down (how did they not prepare for 45,000 runners needing water!?), that man might still be alive, half those people might not have ended up in the hospital, and we'd have finished the race. The call to cancel things that far along was, I'm pretty sure, a CYA move on the part of the race organizers when people started passing out from lack of water they'd promised to provide. I didn't feel remotely close to passing out (I was drenched and a little sloshy, but overall, pretty good). I don't think they saved me from a damn thing.

And so it's making me outraged that the race organizers are being quoted in the N.Y. Times as saying they didn't run out of water and everyone who was past halfway with the race was called was allowed to finish. I feel like the news coverage is focused on "Those who couldn't take the heat weren't able to finish" instead of "Chicago f --- ed up and it cost people who had spent the better part of the year training and a lot of money to get there."

So yeah. If I'd started the day preparing to run a half marathon in 88-degree temperatures, I'd be pretty sure I'd kicked ass. But I didn't. And so now I just feel cheated. And like I've wasted a whole year training. So I'm just not happy.

Maybe folks (runners and race organizers) will learn from this. My main takeaway is, don't run with more than 30,000 people. Hell, don't run with 3,000 people. I did the Key City (Burlington) marathon a few years ago; a good experience, but I was overwhelmed by the numbers. Just my antisocial nature, I'm guessing.

Moving on. I think everyone is going to feel really sorry for Al Gore if he doesn't score a Nobel tomorrow. I mean, look at the Financial Times article:


Gore tipped to take Nobel Peace Prize
By Edward Luce in Washington
Published: October 11 2007 23:27 Last updated: October 11 2007 23:27

Al Gore, the former US vice-president, on Thursday overtook Barack Obama in a closely watched futures betting market on the next Democratic nominee fuelled by speculation that he would pick up the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.

Although the Nobel committee never informs the winner in advance, online speculators drew energy from the fact that Mr Gore cancelled his attendance at a global warming event in San Francisco on Thursday night, citing an unspecified overseas event on global warming.

Mr Gore also cancelled his attendance as the keynote speaker at a Citicorp conference in Delhi in early December, which coincides with the Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo. Mr Gore’s odds of winning the Democratic nomination for president moved up to 13 per cent on Intrade, the online betting shop, against 11.5 per cent for Mr Obama and 47 per cent for Hillary Clinton.

I think it might suck to be Al Gore if you don't get a Nobel tomorrow. Not suck for tomorrow, but for all eternity. If he doesn't win, he'll probably have a permanent facial tic and go into convulsions when he's given an award from a bowling league.

"You're president!"

"Um, wait. Not so much."

"You're a Nobel laureate!"

"Well, um, you were the favorite to win a Nobel, anyway."

"You've got a winning lottery ticket ... oh, no. Sorry, Al. Thought you were someone else."

It's raining like hell outside, just in time to knock down all the peak foliage. Tourists are going to be pissed this weekend.

Made it the boys' teacher conferences tonight. Three hours of meetings. They're doing well. They could be doing better, but they're doing well.

A couple of Will's teachers told me they're getting ready to start a unit on energy, and isn't Will's grandfather an oilman in Texas? Perhaps I could share my thoughts on the energy business with some eighth graders?

"My view might be a little dark," I said.

And so it might. The latest from Queensland:

“If nothing changes in our energy mix and demand patterns after that point, we can expect significant liquid fuel price increases, and price increases in those things that are made from oil such as fertilizer and plastics and those things that rely on oil such as agriculture, construction and transport.

“The Taskforce sought to present the most likely time frame for peak oil, to assess its impact on the mining, transport and primary industry sectors, and then recommend options to minimise the impact on Queensland.

“The report concludes that the overwhelming evidence is that world oil production will peak within the next 10 years. "

I don't think this is wishful thinking from Earth First!

Can't get the song out of my head now:

I see the bad moon arising,
I see trouble on the way.
I see earthquakes and lightnin',
I see bad times today.

Like the man says, I hope I'm wrong. I was wrong once before, and it wasn't good.