Ownership Society

TPM has a video on a right-wing pivot on the financial meltdown: blaming past Democratic Presidents and minority home ownership.






I remember another fellow talking up an "Ownership Society" a few years ago:

To give every American a stake in the promise and future of our country, we will bring the highest standards to our schools, and build an ownership society. We will widen the ownership of homes and businesses, retirement savings and health insurance - preparing our people for the challenges of life in a free society. By making every citizen an agent of his or her own destiny, we will give our fellow Americans greater freedom from want and fear, and make our society more prosperous and just and equal.

Yes. That's George W. Bush's 2005 inauguration speech.

DFW

News of his death brought a dark cloud to an otherwise happy weekend. David Foster Wallace's piece on Roger Federer made me get a grounds pass for my first US Open in 2006.

After a couple aborted attempts, and a rendering of the book into three physical parts, I read The Infinite Jest in 2004 while studying public finance at Wagner. Both dealt with our desires and how to measure and realize them. I used to be a bit embarrassed to claim the Infinite Jest as one of my favorite books, as being a bit macho, but after reading the Memories at McSweeney's, there's no need to apologize for loving the work of a modest man who left a giant footprint.

Update (9/18): Jason Kottke provides a great collection of DFW links.

Montreal Demi Marathon

For my first major roadrace since high school I ran the Montréal half marathon in 1:27:06.8, nearly three minutes under my goal of 90 minutes.  I placed 47th out of 3053, 7th in my category of Men 30-34, and behind three women.  I averaged about 6:40 a mile, and 4:10 per kilometer.

My 5K splits were fairly consistant, 20:18, 21:06, 20:25, 20:45.  The second 5K was mostly up hill.  It took me a while to figure out the markers, so my first 4 splits are real screwy.  I would love to  push my pace down to 6:30 miles, or better yet, 4:00 kilometers, and getting down towards 85:30 to 84:30 when I run in Grete's Gallop in Central Park on October 4th.  On the otherhand, I don't really know how feasible losing 2 minutes is, it might be more like pounding out 2 minutes.  My greater goal is to qualify for Boston, I think this was a good first step.

Josh ran his first marathon, and Mollie ran the half to help prepare for the New York Marathon.

Thanks to all that sent congrats.

Yasso 800s

Josh and I did track work tonight. We a did a variation of Yasso's 800's, 8 x 800. The theory is the average time of the intervals become your target marathon time, i.e. 3:00 minute 800s translate to a 3:00 hour marathon.  Though on the website, the number of intervals is 10.

So here's how I did:

1 2:49.0
2 2:42.2
3 2:40.6
4 2:37.0
5 2:41.3
6 2:41.0
7 2:42.2
8 2:36.6

Average: 2:41.6

Before I get too excited, there are skeptics. Nonetheless, it was great, and grueling workout.  Yesterday I spilled over ten seconds to squeezing in a 5k in 18 minutes.  My goal for the half marathon is 90 minutes. We shall see.