Gil Can Run!A blog on Running and all the crap that runs through my head while doing it

Jul 12th The revolution will mantain

So I ran, and it was tough today. Air Quality sucked! The sun was very difficult to deal with, I ended up walking a lot. It’s strange because I’ve seen a lot of talk about Yale University. People sharing the story of the worker who broke out the window of Calhoun College, the panel where they showed slaves picking cotton. I think that’s totally fair. Frankly, the school should check for that stuff and remove that sort of stuff. Put it in a museum, dedicated to how shitty people throughout history have been treated. Why don’t we have memorials to slave revolts, people who fought for freedom, for an end to slavery? Why are all the monuments named for people who kept slavery as a thing?
Which brings me to my first point today. A. Barlett Giamatti, not born in New Haven, but he’s buried here. He was a Medieval/Renaissance Literature professor for many years at Yale. He was President of Yale, Commissioner of the National League and Commissioner of Major League Baseball. While he wasn’t great for organized labor, he was good for the game, and he was good for New Haven. His children were born in New Haven, at least one went to Yale, and is a world-class actor. Giamatti advocated for the hiring of more “minority” managers in Major League Baseball, and he handled the Pete Rose situation the best he could. So my vote is for Giamatti College at Yale University. Goodbye John C. Calhoun, you prick.
Then I thought about a way for people to expose the racism inherent in our country, and what I thought of was a hashtag like #IWasLedToBelieve. So have things like #IWasLedToBelieve you can tell something about someone based on their skin color. And people could share things they’ve been told, they believed, or they heard someone else say about people who are different than they are. They could have heard it from a parent, friend, relative, loved one, teacher, professor, coworker, the media. Like one from the media, the infamous Jimmy The Greek line coul dbe used. #IWasLedToBelieve “black people are better athletes because they have more fast-twitch muscle fiber”. Or #IWasLedToBelieve black-on-black crime is somehow worse or different than other intra-racial crime. Things that are prima facie absurd, yet we keep hearing all the time anyway. And some people really believe this stuff. But maybe if we put it out there in their face, they will see how stupid it all sounds, and maybe that will start to get people to change their attitudes and ideas.
I also saw a few homeless people on the street. I’ve talked about this before. I try to wave and smile and say hi to everyone I pass, it was difficult today. But that includes the homeless, they are people too. Even if you don’t want to/can’t give them money, at least remember they are human beings and should be treated as such. As I always say, we are all brothers and sisters. Does not matter what your judgments are! So be kind.
But mostly I thought about Bernie. I know I’ve talked about this before. But listen, yes, I don’t really like the choices, even though one is good enough for the system we have now. I get it, I am disappointed, I am saddened. I don’t want the system we have now. But Bernie wasn’t the end of it no matter what happened, he is just the beginning. Bernie was there to get people excited, and he’s even said exactly what needs to happen now no matter what happens the rest of the way with this election. We have to get involved. All politics are local. That being said here’s what needs to happen. You get your friends and like-thinkers in your area together. Go to your most agreeable political party’s events, and get yourselves nominated for positions. Get your friends to the primaries, win them, get out there knock door to door, make phone calls and get people to the polls on election day, and take office! If we all did that, we’d always have someone we wanted to vote for! When you build the movement at the local level (which is the most important for all our daily lives) then you can build it up nationally. Make the party into what you want to see, or maybe break off and make your own party. I’m using plural you here. No one person can do all this. But it takes an organization, it takes people standing together. But change can happen, if you stand together. And you’re not always going to agree with everyone, but you work with them, you work it out and you figure out the best way forward for everyone. It’s not about the best way forward for you, it’s about everyone. As long as you have everyone’s interest in mind, you can’t go wrong.
So go out and move this thing forward. What was great while thinking about all this, a song from a band celebrating their 30th year came on. Hard to believe it’s been 30 years, but it was the perfect song to have come on. This is an old song from them as well. It pretty much hits on most of the issues facing modern society.

The lyrics for the hardcore impaired:

The question they keep asking me
How can one so young be so bitter and angry
Well, the answer is plain to see
Maybe if they weren’t so blind they’d see what I see
I see the homeless livin’ out on the street
On every corner they’re asking for money
I try to help them whenever I can
But sometimes I can’t afford to help myself
I see diseases and modern plagues of our times
The greed of our leaders has made them blind
To our problems
They spend millions overseas,
People right here are fightin’ wars everyday

I see the whites that hate the blacks
Blacks against the jews, race against religion
And there all too blind to see

When we fight each other it puts all of them at ease
It keeps us so busy, so they can do what they please
Election time comes and they’re out for votes
That’s when you see and hear from them the most
This is what they’re calling a democracy
That’s just another word for hypocrisy
We keep fallin’ for the bait
When we realize, it’s always too late

I see the whites that hate the blacks
Blacks that hate the jews, brother against brother
And they’re all to blind to see

As the rich get richer, the poor goin’ hungry
I’ve seen the toll it takes on the workingman’s family
Education system that’s obsolete
Can’t hold a kid’s interest or keep ’em off the street
See a father’s fear, hear a mother’s cry
What kind of a nation lets their children die
Government’s corrupt and full of red tape
Then you’re gonna ask me why I hate

Why don’t you open up your eyes so you can see
Open up your ears so you can hear
Take a look around and you will find
Take a look around and you will find out why

That’s all I have for today. Have fun, keep running, and remember; if Gil can run then so can you!

Jul 11th It’s going to be a hot, uncomfortable Summer

No doubt about it, and obviously, I’m not just talking physically. I ran today, even though it was cooler, it’s still so humid here, it was like I was running in soup. A disgusting, mildly warm, sticky soup, that no one would like.
Meanwhile, I finally got to go to Red Bulls Arena last night, it was a 0-0 draw with the Timbers, so that was disappointing. But I had a nice drive and a nice time with my niece. Which is the point of the whole thing. Wednesday night Orlando comes to town so we will go back and watch that match.
Meanwhile, I’m increasingly troubled by some of the things happening, and some of the responses I see. I understand some of my friends, who earnestly just want peace, and don’t fully understand the nuance of what is happening today. Black Lives Matter. It may not be happening to you, or anyone you know, it doesn’t mean there isn’t rampant systemic racism in this world. Let’s be clear, racism isn’t prejudice. Racism is a system by which one group of people seeks to marginalize or oppress other groups of people, based solely on the other’s ethnicity. That is racism. Calling someone names, saying someone is lazy, or dumb, or dangerous, or smart, or any of this other shit based solely on what someone looks like may be a symptom of racism, when someone shows a clear pattern of these judgments and bases their interactions with others off them, that’s racism, but the name calling and shit like that in general is prejudice. Everyone has certain prejudices, they prejudge things all the time. It’s not always alright, but I know not to touch a hot stove, that’s a pre-judging. I know I will burn myself. When it comes to people, that’s a different story. I can’t tell anything about a person based on their skin color, eye color, hair color, jaw-line, weight, height, there is nothing I know about a person based on their inherent physical appearance.
As far as people posting “All Lives Matter” things. Stop. Some of you are very well-meaning, but you don’t understand. There are a million memes out there explaining this fully. “If I go to the doctor with a broken arm, the doctor isn’t going to say “#AllBonesMatter”. Stuff like that. Talib Kweli probably had the best one, “If we say our house is on fire, but you say all houses matter, your house ain’t on fire now.” That’s the thing. It’s not about “complying”, it’s not about “respect”. There are hundreds of instances of white people not complying, not showing respect, not getting shot. Yes, overall, more white people are shot yearly by police than black people, but proportionally, the police shoot black people seven times more frequently. Seven times more frequently.
So what’s happening? We are taught to view black people as violent, disrespectful, anti-social, criminal, dangerous, threatening, intimidating. We are told they aren’t “raised properly”, their “fathers aren’t around”, they’re “troubled youth”, or my favorite (thanks a certain presidential candidate) “super-predators”, or as the other one said that “laziness is a trait in blacks.” These prejudiced views, are ingrained by the educational system, by the news media, maybe even your parents, friends, and loved-ones! When someone who believes these things to be true becomes a police officer, how do you think they will react when confronted with someone fitting the description? You take someone trained to be aggressive, and be in “control” (which is another load of bullshit), you fill their head with these prejudices, because we have a system trying to keep certain people at the fringe of society, never giving them a full stake in the way things are, and what happens? When they don’t obey fully, when they don’t comply immediately, when they take a minute to even question, they are immediately an existential threat. This is the problem. If you take a white person and a black person, you have them do the same thing, either not commit a crime and be suspected of it, or have committed a crime doesn’t matter. You put them in the same situation, with the same actions, responses, and everything, statistically speaking, the black man is 7 times more likely to be going to a funeral home. 7 times more likely to be going to a funeral home. Doesn’t matter if both men are armed, unarmed, comply, don’t comply, guilty, innocent, respectful, disrespectful, single, married, orphaned, have both parents, rich, poor, whatever mitigating circumstance you want to apply. That’s the problem that is trying to be addressed. Simple as that.
There’s more going on with proliferation of weapons and things like that too. I touched on that online today. A friend had posted about open-carry. I of course oppose gun ownership and proliferation. Another friend of his said he was the guy I wanted to have a gun, and so I had to pen a response. This is all connected. So many times when you see these shootings, for years, they’ve said “He had a gun, I thought he had a gun” blah blah blah. Well, get rid of guns, end that excuse right? So he was saying I would want him to have a gun if something happened and here’s my response:

I don’t want anyone to have one, period. I’m not saying you, yourself, are not responsible with it, I’m saying in general, I don’t want anyone to have one. It’s not like the “black market” are cobbling together guns to sell to ne’er-do-wells. All weapons on the street are legally manufactured, distributed, and sold at some point. It seems to me if we lowered the numbers being produced and sold, we’d lower the numbers of these things overall. Moreover, I fear not criminal, “terrorist”, or anything else. While not necessarily nihilistic, I actually care too much about my life, and those around me to live in fear of anyone or anything. Whatever will happen will happen. I, nor you, have any control over anybody else’s actions.
Furthermore, I believe that nobody has a right to decide who lives and dies at any time, under any circumstances. Nobody is perfect, all people are flawed, and therefore the chances that a decision of such magnitude may be flawed is highly likely. If we all learned that, then guns would be completely pointless, because let’s face it, no one’s going out and shooting a deer because they don’t have access to the supermarket*.
In summary, no, I don’t want you or anyone else carrying anything. I neither sanction, nor want anyone killing anyone else in my name, even if it is to ostensibly “protect” me or those I care about (which here’s a list of people I care about: Literally everyone, even people who claim to hate me and would kill me on sight). I accept that life is inherently dangerous, a mountain lion could chew my ass up for a snack, a shark could bite me in half, a “terrorist” could blow me up, so be it. That we then make life more dangerous by introducing weapons made for the express purpose of taking lives is preposterous.
While I appreciate your desire to protect, I assure you I’m quite alright. I hope that our society can come to terms with, not only the negative consequences on our own homes from the dearth of firearms available, but also the strife caused overseas from the absolute overflow from our manufacturing and distribution of these weapons into the hands of warlords and dictators all over.
Sorry if this is too long. I wanted to make sure I was very specific about my reasoning here. I get short-tempered having to answer a bunch of silly hypothetical situations, so I am trying to be as clear as possible.

We have so much work to do. There is so much healing that needs to happen, there is a lot of heavy lifting. If you want a world of peace, even if you don’t understand it, even if bad things happen, don’t try to negate the #BlackLivesMatter movement. If you don’t understand, if you are scared, if you are unsure, sit down with someone and talk, but more than talk, listen. Listen to what is being said, listen to how other human beings, your brothers and sisters feel and are made to feel by the country they live in, the world they live in. Sometimes listening will be uncomfortable, make you feel defensive, it’s ok, just listen and then take what you have heard and see what you can do to make positive change. That’s what you need to do, that’s how things happen. Not by trying to say “well, it’s not important to me because it doesn’t include me”. This isn’t for you and it isn’t about you. It’s really ok.
So lots of things to do, and many things may not be comfortable, we have to have a change of ideas.

Have fun, keep running, and remember; if Gil can run then so can you!

Jul 8th What the hell? Seriously, the hell people

So I ran, and walked a bit because my knee still hurts. All I can think about is how I have been in this country for less than a week and how many people have been shot? Now that it’s 5 cops plenty of people are talking  about how to bring all this to an end, ideas to help. I am going to say what I have always been saying as plainly as I can, and hopefully folks will get it now.
The very first thing we need to do is demilitarize the population, the civilian population, the police, everyone. The Second Amendment was written at a time when the best in the world were shooting 3 rounds per minute out of a muzzle-loaded, smooth-bore rifle. We obviously have to accept that times have changed and our laws need to change to meet that. No “right” is absolute. Many times the “right to free speech” has been limited when it comes to terms of public safety, this gun epidemic is a matter of public safety. Part of this is people need to realize the NRA is merely the lobbying wing for gun manufacturers and distributors. They are not interested in your rights, they are only interested in making money.
The second thing is we need to change our ideas and language. Phrases like “well so-and-so deserved it because…” will only perpetuate more violence. Nobody deserves it, nobody should have the power of life and death over another. We are imperfect, our judgment cannot always be trusted, and therefore, nobody has the right to decide who should live and who should die. Even in the most “obvious” of circumstances. This includes the police. Because when you say people have the right to decide these things, there will always be someone who doesn’t agree with you making that decision at some point. Simple solution, nobody can make that decision. Period, end of argument, no extenuating circumstances, that’s it. “but what about” no. There is no instance where it’s ok to take someone’s life. If everyone understood that, then the whole thing ends right away.
This includes the police, needing to be more careful with how they approach situations. Maybe instead of charging in like they were Wyatt Earp, they should wait for backup to arrive, wait until you don’t need to use force, wait until things have calmed down. I’ve been talked to by police. They really do try and escalate situations. They act all “alpha” try to intimidate and be in “control” try to exert “authority”. It does not make me comply, it makes me jumpy, nervous, it makes me want to fight. They are aggressive toward me, and I react with aggression. It’s not good. Even immigration at the airport the other day were unnecessarily aggressive toward me. I wanted to lash out, but that wouldn’t have done any good. But I really hated it. People shouldn’t be treated that way. It’s not the way a free society should be acting towards other human beings.
We really have to start looking at all human beings as our brothers and sisters. There’s no “but this person wants to kill me” or any of that mess. So be it. You have to accept that not everyone will be your friend. Some people will be swayed, due to lack of education, lack of empathy, lack of whatever, to want to harm you. They’ll listen to politicians, “religious” leaders, whatever and believe what they are doing is right. If we’ve truly learned that no one person has the authority to take the life of another, then we know they are wrong. That’s all. Us trying to kill them in return, is just as wrong. There is no winner there. There is no “winning” a war, a battle, a fight, whatever. When you answer violence with violence, everyone has lost. That’s just the way it is.
None of this touches on the deep problems in this country, and world society in general, where we routinely treat people differently based on how they look, or what religion they belong to. That shit needs to stop. The things I talk about seem very difficult and they are. I’m talking about a complete change in consciousness. Intersectionality is a real thing, and once we accept that all these things are connected and we need to change our attitudes, modes of thinking, language, then we can truly start to change these things.
There are some people who won’t change, that’s true. We need to do our best though and we have to accept that as long as we allow weapons to permeate this entire world, we will always be at risk. As long as we keep our populations armed, police armed, armies pointed in every direction, at every level of society, we are at risk. Until we allow understanding and peace to rule the day, until we accept that all people have value, all people have a voice, all people are allowed to exist as they are , and we have no right to judge whether they should live or die, we are at risk. I accept it. I understand these things. People who would shoot me on sight, that’s their problem. If I’m devout, I understand that my God will accept me into my heaven, and condemn those who hated me to my hell. If I’m not then I simply accept that I go back into the void from which I came, my struggle done. That’s that, it’s that simple. Somebody has to go first in this Mexican standoff, and we can either all start shooting, or someone can just disarm, and hope that the others disarm as well. Here I am, I’m just going to put my weapons on the ground (figuratively, I don’t own any weapons) and walk away. I’m not here to rule or dominate anyone. I’m not here to tell anyone how to live. I’m just saying I want a world where everyone can live.

Have fun, keep running, and remember; if Gil can run then so can you!

Jul 4th Ran a race today

Yep, ran a race. I have to say, not bad for not racing in a long time and my first 5k in over 5 months.
Things with the phone are not going well. I failed in my first attempt at a custom ROM. But I did have a great day with my friends and family. My mind is still generally blank. This coming back to the US after some many months in Europe has me in a haze. It’s very difficult. I’ll sort things out tomorrow and have more to day hopefully.

Have fun, keep running, and remember; if Gil can run then  so can you!

Jul 3rd I’m back for now!

Back in the New World. Went for a run today and hurt my knee. It’ll hurt tomorrow when I’m running the race. I’ll go slower than I wanted and try and take it easy. That sucks.
Other than that, spent my first full day back in the US rooting my phone. I’m considering trying to flash the system and try installing a new custom ROM tonight. But I may wait on it. It’s been a bit of a process to this point, and I’m getting sleepy thanks to the fact I still think I’m at GMT +1. So for me right now it feels like 3am. Plus I have to study my Italian, so that takes precedence.
With that I’m keeping this short and sweet tonight. It was nice to get a run at home. It sucks that I’m injured yet again, and I need sleep. Big day tomorrow. Race, party, booze, probably lots of booze.
Since it’s 4th of July weekend, and everyone’s doing it anyway, here’s a party song:

Have fun, keep running, and remember; if Gil can run then so can you!