Month: July 2010

  • The issue of “Anchor Babies”

    Anchor babies don’t exist. This has been covered by the Supreme Court multiple times since 1884. In the 1884 Elk v.Wilkins case, the phrase “subject to its jurisdiction” in the 14th Amendment was interpreted to exclude “children of ministers, consuls, and citizens of foreign states born within the United States.” The Court essentially stated that the status of the parents determines the citizenship of the child. To qualify children for birthright citizenship, based on the 14th Amendment, parents must owe “direct and immediate allegiance” to the U.S. and be “completely subject” to its jurisdiction. In other words, they must be United States citizens. 

    In 1889, United States v. Wong Kim Ark extsblished that an allegiance for legal immigrant parents based on the meaning of the word domicil(e). This extended citizenship to the children of legal immigrants who had legal permanent residence. Since it is inconceivable that illegal alien parents could have a legal domicile in the United States, the ruling did not extend birthright citizenship to children of illegal alien parents. 

    The Citizens Act of 1924 lists two separate categories of people born in the United States as citizens (a) a person born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof; (b) a person born in the United States to a member of an Indian, Eskimo, Aleutian, or other aboriginal tribe. (The original ruling did not include Indians, since they were not completely subject to the US Gov’t. at the time)

  • We’re lost without technology

    A few weeks ago, a friend invited me to the Glorious Comedy at Poco comedy show.  After leaving home, and riding the train for 20 minutes, I realized that I had left both of my phones (work and personal) at home.  Thinking about it, I figured that I would lose too much time going back home and getting the phones, and decided to continue on my way.  I only did this because I had clicked on the “map it” link on the Facebook invite.  Unfortunately, the link mapped the address to an area near St. Marks place, which is an area that I was completely familiar with.  The actual place was nowhere near that.  So I wasn’t where I should have believed the place should be, which is definitely not where I should have been.  [Read that sentence a couple of times.  It was only left in to make you feel as confused as I felt.  I've read it 15 times, and I can't figure out if it's right.]  I also hadn’t written the address in my notebook, since I thought I knew the area I was going to.

    This is where things got upsetting.  A smart phone is a great device, especially when you are carrying it.  Without it, I suddenly realized how dependent on it I was.  I couldn’t look up the Facebook invite, because I didn’t have the phones.  I couldn’t call anyone to look it up for me because all of the numbers are in the phone.  Also, I didn’t feel comfortable asking someone to use their phone.  Being resourceful, I knew that there was a bar that happened to have a small internet access point that I could use.  I also knew that there had there are stores that revolve around people paying to get online.  Sure, it cost me $3, but it was better than ending the night after only riding the train, and I had a good time at the show.

    I recently read a book call “Earth Abides” which follows a character in a post apocalyptic world, in which a disease has wiped out almost all of civilization.  The story takes covers a number of decades in which the main character, along with some people that he meets essentially recreate a small society.  It’s a very good read if you have a chance.

    I bring this up because if I hadn’t had a backup method of getting the information that I needed, there would be nothing that i could do about it.  Think about it this way.  Imagine that you lost access to the internet, and telephone communication.  Now try to do something that requires you and a few friends.  You need a phone at a minimum, unless you want a long lead time in order to get the information out.  You’re definitely not going to do anything “tonight.”  Unless your friends live very close to you, that is.  For example, Kelly lives in the East Village.  To talk to him would require me to travel for about an hour, and I would have to hope he was home, and free for the night.  Otherwise, it’s a wasted trip.  Also, that hour only gets him, and would need to be repeated for other people.  On the other hand, Kelly and I hang out a lot one-on-one [but not one-on-one :o p], so it wouldn’t be a huge difference.

    If you were to lose technology for a long amount of time, permanently even, your geographical representation of your circle of interaction would close in considerably. Forget people who live in other states.  Jarrad in Japan?  Might as well be on Jupiter.  Actually, I take that back.  Hanging out with people far away always takes some lead time.  Michigan isn’t close.  I was never able to get there quickly, or see if Mike wanted to hang out tonight.  It’s my interaction with people who are geographically close, but not that close, that would suffer the most.  However, I would always have The Lil Seany Show, since it’s every Saturday.

    As much as i want to continue this entry about how communication technology has allowed us to spread out and yet still be connected, the real point it that I won’t be forgetting my phone in the future.

  • Partnering up at the gym

    Friday morning, on my way to work (which is where I do my morning workout), I was just not feeling it.  In my mind, there was
    NO
    WAY
    IN
    HELL
    I was going to be able to do a workout.  I figured that if I even went to the gym, I would be shamming it.  You know those workouts.  Lift something here, move something there, not a lot of pain, but you can say that you worked out today.  I was thinking about skipping the workout that day.

    Unfortunately, as part of my plan to hit the gym early, I wore my workout clothing in.  Just changing into a suit without doing anything would seem silly.  Also, I hadn’t showered, so that would need to be taken care of, and I would have created dirty clothes for nothing.  Ultimately, I did end up going working out, and I worked out pretty hard.  I may have even pushed a few limits.  Lifting on a day where you feel like crap (without legitimately being injured or sick) really takes some willpower.

    Unfortunately, some people, especially early lifters, don’t have that drive to push through the sucky days.  At that point, they skip a lift.  Then two.  And then they aren’t working out for long periods of time.  It’s a very easy slump to fall in, and I’ve had it happen when work becomes overwhelming.

    This is why I recommend having a training partner.  Back when I was at West Point, I had a guy that I worked out with regularly.  It was great because it was very rare that we both felt like not lifting.  As long as one of us was good to go, the other person was basically guilted into attending. 

    Another perk of a partner is that you can make a lot of gains in the gym, for a number of reasons.  First off, you can remove some limits, thanks to an added level of safety.  There were weights that I never would have tried bench pressing if there wasn’t someone there to act as a spotter if (and when) i failed to lift it.  Having a spotter allowed me to take those chances.

    Second, there is a sense of competition or mentor-ship that goes on there.  If both individuals are in the same level of fitness, they will each attempt to push themselves to work harder (again, the safety of having a spotter comes into play).  If one is in significantly better shape than the other, the weaker person will push to not be weak and try to do well.  Meanwhile, the stronger person will work hard to not show any weakness to the partner.  For those in the military, imagine the PL or PSG at PT.

    Lastly, a partner can help you move through sticking points.  Just a tiny bit of help can go a long way.

    Lifters who are just starting out may have an easier time finding a partner than those who are already far along in fitness.  Experienced people may have a workout that’s intimidating, or that they do not want to adapt (especially if you have very specific goals), so convincing another experienced person to come over to your way is hard, changing your way might be hard, and a newbie will just run away.  Inexperienced people, on the other hand, can generally find someone who also wants “to get in shape for spring break,” or can approach an experienced person to work with them, doing anything the experienced person says.

    When I was in Afghanistan, Mike approached me because he hadn’t done weight training before.  He jumped onto my program, which, at the time, was hard and did a lot of strength development.  He did well with it (30 lbs of muscle in 3 months) and stuck with it.  When he was moved to a separate base, he had a hard time finding a partner.  They kept quitting.  Hell, his platoon Sergeant worked out with him once, and vowed never to work out with him again.

    Working out alone takes a different level of dedication.  For me, it borders on schizophrenia or auditory hallucination.  It’s like there is a second voice in my head that takes the place of the partner.  Unfortunately, this voice tends to call me “bitch,” “scum,” and “pussy,” and tells me to “keep going,” a lot more than any partner ever has (it does other things in other situations).  Maybe I’ll talk more on lifting with anger in another post. 

    The only other helpful advice that I can give someone who has to train alone is this: just start the workout.  When I left the military, my running fell off, and when I went to start up again, I dreaded running.  However, I found that if I got dressed and stepped out the door, I would HAVE TO run since I was already outside.  Just like the story earlier, I’m already in the clothes, I might as well just go.  If you are standing in front of the weights, there is no reason not to start lifting them.  Starting is the hardest part, but an object in motion stays in motion.

  • The Hardest Part About P90x

    A few posts back, I mentioned that I had done P90x.  I’ve gotten a number of questions about it over time.  Yes, it’s a good program.  No, there is no gimmick to it other than that the workouts are hard.  No, I did not follow the nutritional plan.  No, you don’t really need to buy any of the other stuff they sell (more on that later).  Personally, I remember on one of their commercials where someone said that when they looked at it, they saw it as something they wouldn’t be embarrassed about if one of their friends walked in on them doing it.  This is an excellent point.  If anyone were to see me doing something like Hip-Hop Abs, or Samba Slim, or Brazil Butt Lift, or whatever else is out there, I would have to leave the country. 

    Now, you may wonder what day was the hardest day of the P90x program?  Chest and back?  Arms?  Ab Ripper X?  No, those were all reasonable.  Hard, but reasonable.  The hardest day, in my opinion (as well as the opinions of people that I have talked to about it) is Yoga.

    Fucking Yoga.

    I expected the yoga disk to be something calming, maybe some inner peace stuff, and some flexibility work.  “Yoga.  How hard can that be?”  15 minutes into pretzel-ville and I’m dripping sweat from God knows how many Sun salutations to chaturanga to downward-dog combinations.  By that time, I thought I was AT LEAST 30 minutes in, so I was in for a big surprise when I looked at the timer on the screen.  Most P90x workouts are about an hour, so guess how surprised I was to also see that yoga was a 90 minute workout.  An hour and a half minutes of “hold this,” “grab those,” “lift that,” and “balance.”

    Yoga was the one thing I actually purchased any additional stuff for, because I needed a yoga block.  Using a dumbbell as a substitute wasn’t cutting it. 

    What’s worse is that during the “recovery” week, you do yoga TWICE.  How does that count as recovering.

    Eventually, it was manageable.  Especially after the first two or three times, when I knew was was coming.

    I’m thinking about doing Insanity.  Hopefully, it’s not insane enough to have yoga.  (Just looked at the website.  No Yoga)

  • Gym routines are changing

    Not a lot of people lift heavy anymore.

    At least not the people that I know.  Part of it could be because of our line of work, but even looking at magazines such as Men’s Health, the workouts they show are less about getting big muscles, and more about losing weight and developing functional strength and high stamina (most people call these CrossFit workouts, but since that is a copyrighted term, I will refere to them as CrossFit-like.  Also, I have no other term that I can think of for it, other than circuit training).  Outside of CrossFit, you see other programs like Military Athlete and Mountain Athlete.

    About a decade ago, when working out started to become mainstream again and gyms were popping up ll over the place, every workout you could find was centered around bodybuilding, e.g. 6-8 reps for 3 sets, lift to failure, bulk up, look big and sexy.  It seems that in the last 2-3 years, there has been a movement away from that.  Now it’s all about functional strength, stamina.

    There are a handful of people at work that are all about the heavy lifts.  The muscles look great and all, but 8 flights of stairs, or any excercise where the rep count exceeds 10, kill these guys.  There is also the issue of bulk, something I’m currently fighting.  The heavier you are, the more weight that you have to move.  Personally, I would like to drop 5-10 lbs .  For comparison, I’m 5’9″, 184 lbs.  Georges St-Pierre is 5’11″, 170 lbs.  However, I may also have a high bone density, which can’t be changed, and has caused issues with my swimming (lack of bouyancy).

    A couple of years ago, I began the transition out of heavy lifting, and started to work for stamina building and increasing my strength-to-weight ratio.  Initially, I added spin classes to my regimen twice a week, in addition to workouts using supersets, targeting antagonistic muscles, three times a week.  I was still in the army at the time, so running was always there, also.

    After leaving the army, my workout schedule was hectic and random.  I still did strength development workouts, but the weird work schedule I had really killed things.  About a year ago, when I was restarting a steady workout program, I did P90x.  I found it to be an excellent program, and was a good way to get back in the rhythm of things.

    In case some of you are wondering, my current workout has three crossfit-type workouts and two strength development workouts.  Those are done in the morning.  The evenings have spin class once a week, swimming once a week, close quarters combat training once a week, and I am looking to re-add running once or twice a week.  No workouts on weekends or vacations.

    Personally, I would definitely recommend a bodybuilding-type workout regimen for any beginner lifter, for anywhere from 6 months to a year.  It has nice, controlled, and defined metrics; I feel there is a lower chance of injury (when compared to the high intensity of CrossFit and plyometric type workouts); and it allows the individual to develop some strength and form before moving onto the advanced exercises.

    I think the next post or two will be dealing with some stuff in the gym.