Scott Douglas’ Terse Bloviation

Come back, $4/gallon gas! All is forgiven! Someone has been running a leafblower for the last several hours now. Given the size of yards in my neighborhood, they could have raked the damn thing three times over by now. Thanks to tinnitus, I gots me enough going on in my ears as it is, so the moan of the leafblower is that much more irritating. If I’m lucky, the ladies a couple of houses down will soon start their daily chainsawing and drown out the yard worker.

Hi there. How have you been? You’re looking well. Have you lost weight?

What’s that? What’s up with me? Why, thanks for asking! The near future should include:

• A turkeyless Thanksgiving at the home of vegetarian friends.
• Final harvesting of brussels sprouts and sunchokes.
• My second race in the last 26 months.
• A weekend in Montreal.
• A few days with Zola Budd Pieterse for a Running Times story.
• Publication of the second edition of Advanced Marathoning.
• Continued daily sits in front of the lightbox to account for the fact that the sun, when it deigns to appear, checks out for the day at about noon.
• Continued vicarious pleasure in the well-earned success of Stacey’s great 2009 wall calendar.

How about yourself?

11/14/08

Is this country going to slide into progressive corporatism, a merger of corporate and federal power that will inevitably stifle competition, empower corporate and federal bureaucrats and protect entrenched interests? Or is the U.S. going to stick with its historic model: Helping workers weather the storms of a dynamic economy, but preserving the dynamism that is the core of the country’s success.

11/11/08

In one camp, there are the Traditionalists, the people who believe that conservatives have lost elections because they have strayed from the true creed. George W. Bush was a big-government type who betrayed conservatism. John McCain was a Republican moderate, and his defeat discredits the moderate wing….

The other camp, the Reformers, argue that the old G.O.P. priorities were fine for the 1970s but need to be modernized for new conditions. The reformers tend to believe that American voters will not support a party whose main idea is slashing government. The Reformers propose new policies to address inequality and middle-class economic anxiety. They tend to take global warming seriously. They tend to be intrigued by the way David Cameron has modernized the British Conservative Party.

11/7/08

They’ll do this by explaining to the American people that there are two stages to their domestic policy thinking, the short-term and the long-term.

10/27/08

Roughly speaking, there are four steps to every decision.

10/21/08

For all the talk of plumbers and investment bankers, populists and elitists, Patio Man is still at the epicenter of national politics. He is the quintessential suburban American, the service economy worker, the guy who wears khakis to work each day, with the security badge on the belt clip around his waist.

9/2/08

The main axis in McCain’s worldview is not left-right. It’s public service versus narrow self-interest.