Only in Ohio can you not Fly the Flag

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Being from northwest Indiana, I have a natural distrust for all things Buckeye. As a truck driver, I found justification for this when Ohio's laws required trucks to drive dangerously slow on the interstates. I felt like I should be using my flashers and orange triangle to warn cars that I was in a slow-moving vehicle because of how much slower I had to drive. And it didn't seem to be for any purpose other than as a money grab - either you spend an extra hour crossing the state, and are that much more likely to have to buy food and gas there, or you get a thousand dollar speeding ticket for trying to be less dangerous to the people around you. I'd heard the governor was even declining federal highway funds because the state made so much money off the truckers! And as a writer, I'm finding a disproportionate amount of wacky fans coming from Ohio.

And now, Ohio residents are attempting to forbid a man his right to fly a flag in front of his house.

Normally, something like this might spring up out of some hypocrite insisting he be allowed to blow up American citizens doing whatever he can to make everyone around him as miserable as he is, but this time, it's for a much more mundane reason: it's against the rules.

Who made a rule IN AMERICA that you can't fly the AMERICAN flag in front of your own house?


A home owner's association made such a rule.

In this story, we learn that a 77 year old veteran - a COMBAT veteran, no less - is going to be sued by his home owner's association if he doesn't take down the flagpole. He's not flying anything out of the ordinary or excessively showy; it's a standard pole and a standard flag.

As scary as it is that an HOA would have a rule forbidding flags, what's even scarier is that, instead of reconsidering how that rule breaks the law and that it should be changed, they think the solution is to waste money suing a veteran. A COMBAT veteran. Someone who literally risked his life to defend our liberties! Do the members of that HOA know? Do they approve of travesty?

I can't rag too much on Ohio, not just because I have some very good friends who live there who have no part in something so obscene, but because last year, there was something even worse going on in California, the state which is the root of most evil.

Last year, at Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, on the fifth of May, a group of American kids wore American flag tee-shirts and then were suspended for it. Why should this matter? Because it just so happens that Cinco de Mayo is the Mexican equivalent to the Fourth of July, and it's celebrated on the 5th of May. A racist Mexican organization, stoically against the idea of harmony and unity with any other group, was putting on a celebration, wearing Mexican flag tee-shirts, and otherwise campaigning to have the American Southwest annexed to Mexico. As you can imagine, it was not a celebration of inclusiveness like Martin Luther King Day and Chinese New Year and Cinco de Mayo in the rest of the country. It was celebrate Mexico or GTFO.

The principal of the school asked those five American students to turn their shirts inside out, so as not to offend anyone. I'm sure it never occurred to him to do the same for anyone wearing non-American clothing on the Fourth of July, or non-Santa clothing on Christmas, or non-Orthidox clothing on an Orthidox holiday. When the students bravely refused, they were suspended.

Bravely? You may think I'm exaggerating, but refusing really was brave. Not because the principal was going to suspend them, but because the racist Mexican organization backing the day's celebrations, MEChA, is dangerous, and those students were literally taking their lives into their own hands by daring to wear the American flag within the school yard on that day. MEChA's own website declares its dangerous intentions toward our country! It's a domestic terrorist group!

Of course, you never heard about any of this, because we wouldn't want to offend hypocrites whose goal is the murder of our nation or its national pride.

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Three Miles, Island not Included

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This morning I ran three full miles.

Ok, jogged. Whatever.

My previous record was 2.1 miles. My record before that was 1.5 miles, then 1.2 miles, then 0.7 miles, and then 0.3 miles. These are jogs, with no break. They're rather slow jogs, yes, but they're jogs. Finding the proper speed is important.

Last Friday, my 80 year old walking partner and I walked 7.5 miles. Our previous record was 6.6 miles. He didn't feel like walking today, so I decided it was time to see how far I could run, and you see the results.

I'm not doing intense training here, folks. I'm just getting out there and doing it, putting in practice some techniques and habits I've developed over the years, and which are finally paying off. Here are some of them:

Habit 1: Eat breakfast, no matter what. Even if it's just a handful of peanuts (unsalted, of course) on the way out the door, eat something within 30 minutes of waking up.

Habit 2: Drink water. I've trained myself to reach for water every time I feel thirsty OR hungry. For one, most people mistake thirst for hunger; downing a glass of water will almost always eliminate the feeling of hunger. For another, it takes 20 minutes for food hitting the stomach to register and for your brain to tell you you're full. Quickly downing some water not only prepares your stomach for food, it also sends this signal so that when the food does start coming, you won't need to eat as much of it to feel full. When you feel full (BEFORE you're stuffed), stop eating. An easy way to improve your digestion and drink more water without noticing is to have a glass before, during, and after each meal.

Habit 3: Eat something approximately every 3-4 hours. It doesn't have to be a full meal; snacks count.

Habit 4: Avoid sugar, salt, bleached flour, and starch. I've finally broken my habit of ordering pop at restaurants - thank you guys for jacking up the prices to obscene levels - and I avoid things like bread, potatoes, salt, and sugar. Not all calories are created equal. If you eat 1000 calories of sugar a day and I eat 1000 calories of green vegetables, who do you think is going to feel healthier after a month? Who do you think is going to lose weight, and who is going to gain it?

Habit 5: Eat vegetables. I'm terrible at this. I hate a lot of vegetables, especially the best ones. I get mixed vegetables and stir them in with the rest of the food so I don't notice them as much. I also have been drinking  lot of vegetable juice. I have to get the Great Value brand from Walmart because V8 tastes awful and costs twice as much. I drink a glass or two a day.

Habit 6: Stay active. When I worked on the ship, I could walk a few miles a day on my routine to go fix computers, up and down stairs, back and forth to the shop, and so forth. Plenty of activity. When i was a truck driver, I had to climb in and out of the truck a lot and do some walking. I had to keep my head from bouncing all over. I'd park in the farthest spots and stop frequently for bathroom and walking breaks. Now, as a writer, staying active is a little tougher. You have to take the time to actually do it. I walk about 15-20 miles a week, I ride a motorcycle wherever I need to go (weather permiting), which does take some effort. My friend plays a lot of basketball with his kids. If I loaf, I soon look like a loaf.

Habit 7: Cheat once a week. ANYONE can put off their favorite sugary, carb-loaded, starchy junkfoods (and fruit) for a few days. Get in the habit of telling yourself, "I'll eat this in five minutes," and then go do something else for a while. Get in the habit of walking down the most evil aisles in the grocery store and JUST check the prices, then walk away. Get in the habit of eating whatever you want on one specific day of the week. Eventually, you'll be able to push away any temptation, because ANYONE can put off eating crap for a few days. And then don't buy the junk until that day, don't even have it in your house. If you have others in the house who don't love you enough to support your decision to lead a healthier life, you can still get them to hide the worst stuff so you don't notice it. Or move out. And make sure you're active during your cheat day to keep your metabolism up.

Habit 8: Don't beat yourself up. You're going to make mistakes. Don't take it as a reason to kill yourself, or to give up, or as proof that you can't do it. Accept it as part of yoru record. Do you think that when I told myself (and all of you) last year that I wanted to be able to jog 2 miles, that when I wasn't immediately able to do so, I gave up? Heck no! I kept track of what I did and noticed that each time I made improvements. I patted myself on the back for getting closer to my goal. And when I achieved it, I set a new one: to be able to do 3 miles, which I achieved in one stroke.

Those are just EIGHT of the habits I now use to improve my health. And I developed them by asking, "What's the smallest, measurable change I can make?" Try it. What's the smallest measurable change you can make to improve your health?

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Genetics Relegated to Poor Excuse

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"I'm genetically predisposed to be fat," you say. Or whatever your malady is, be it boring, annoying, stupid, tired, bald, poor, irresponsible, et cetera. People have used their learned helplessness - that gut reaction that says, "I have no control over my life and therefore should be pitied and given free stuff" - for quite some time as an excuse for why their life isn't the way they want it to be. "I was bullied in school," "The Man is oppressing me," "I was raped," "They put addictive chemicals in it," and so on are brandished like weapons to justify collective laziness and refusal to take responsibility for one's own life. The most powerful of these excuses has been, "I'm genetically predisposed..." It's the ultimate in having no control over one's destiny.

Attitude determines altitude. It's not just true for airplanes, it's also true for people. Whatever problems you've had in your life, they can be overcome and you can find your happiness. And just today, I've learned of definitive evidence that the tired old excuse for mediocrity - genetic factors - is just that: an excuse.

In this study, 30 men with prostate cancer changed their lifestyles instead of undergoing the "normal" treatments, and in ONLY THREE MONTHS, genes which fought disease had flipped on and genes that caused cancer had flipped off.

They had changed their genes!

I've known for some time that diet and exercise can make a huge difference in the way people feel and what they can do; I've experienced it myself. Tony Robbins was the first to let me in on the secret, followed by several others. More and more people are finding out that they can heal themselves simply by making a few minor changes to the way they live and what they eat, and the investment is paying off. Their friends are noticing.

So what are you going to do with this information? Are you going to continue to let your life slip by you? Or are you going to realize that you can reach for your dreams and achieve them? Are you going to realize you CAN take control of your life?

Believing is believing.

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