Weeks before its predicted peak, the swine flu pandemic already has hit a historic high in the Bay State, with one hospital unit reporting a third of its nurses felled by the raging virus and a local health official warning that the Thanksgiving holiday could only accelerate the outbreak.

Turkey day could be “a recipe for viral transmission,” said Frank Singleton, Lowell’s public health chief. “We may have a really bad week.”

…

Data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control show flu activity nationwide is “substantially above historic levels in all U.S. surveillance systems.” WebMD.com reports HINI has already killed perhaps as many as 6,000 Americans.

The CDC estimated some 22 million Americans came down with swine flu by Oct. 17, and some 98,000 were hospitalized. The feds said the number of flu patients seeking medical attention was higher in September and October than in the peak of any flu season since record-keeping began in 1977.

Meanwhile, swine flu vaccines have only recently become available at local hospitals and health clinics. Nationwide, only about 44 million doses have been shipped, about one third of the amount officials had originally predicted.

Some epidemiologists believe the outbreak is peaking - but no one can be sure it won’t get worse.

“We thought that once before and we weren’t right,” said Harvard School of Public Health epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch, adding, “There is a real possibility of a second wave this winter.”

I’m not an epidemiologist, but I’m happy to play one on this blog. I predict Thanksgiving will give it a boost … just in time for Christmas. (Remember to practice social distancing at midnight on New Years Eve.)

Here’s the CDC travel advisory for people going to places where swine flu is prevalent … which is pretty much everywhere, these days. Didn’t notice “don’t go” on the list. Doesn’t say “get the swine flu vaccination,” but obliquely advises being up to date on vaccinations and quaintly recommends ”seasonal flu” vaccination, “when available.”

President Obama will not announce a decision on his war strategy in Afghanistan before Thanksgiving, his aides told Fox News on Thursday.

The latest development on the fate of up to 40,000 U.S. troops came at the tail end of the president’s eight-day Asia trip. 

For several weeks, Obama has been weighing whether to send as many as 40,000 additional troops to Afghanistan as his top commander there, Gen. Stanley McChrystal has requested, or to scale back the war effort and focus on pursuing Al Qaeda in Pakistan as his political advisers, including Vice President Biden, have urged.

McChrystal has said that without the additional troops, the U.S. effort in Afghanistan would likely result in failure.

Sooner or later. Chill, general dude. It isn’t like the president doesn’t want to show the boys and girls over there that he cares. O on the front lines in that way old school war, Korea:

“You guys make a pretty good photo op,” the president reportedly joked with the 1,500 troops at Osan Air Base.

The first is that she remains a very powerful force in American politics, the de facto leader of the opposition, and, in my mind, the likeliest nominee of either the GOP or a George Wallace style third party in 2012. This means that her attempt to recast her image, finesse her past stories and blame the McCain camp for her own errors and nuttiness should be engaged by those of us whose job it is to subject the powerful to scrutiny.

Secondly … if the Dish ignored her, she would not be in the spotlight? Once you’re on Oprah, somehow the Dish’s little niche is irrelevant.

Thirdly, it’s riveting stuff. Watching someone this delusional and this uninformed and this narcissistic strut around the world stage telling empirical untruth after untruth is a car wreck worth rubber-necking. The book is so weird, and its fiction so bad, and its facts so non-checked, you’d have to have every single journalistic bone in your body removed to be indifferent to it.

But anyway, I’m tired of all this meta-journalism. Does examining her make me look obsessed? Does not examining her make me look cool? Who gives a fuck? She’s a great story, a truly bizarre creature, an international woman of mystery, and completely off her rocker.

Just get on with it, my fellow hacks. Know your place. It’s cold and lonely work, but we chose this profession and we should get off our high meta-horses and do it.

Points well taken. It’s kind of a “just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after me” argument. Or in his case, more of a ”Just because I’m a crazy obsessive conspiracy theorist doesn’t mean she isn’t a fascinating pol and a force to be reckoned with.” Crisis seems to have passed … his employers at The Atlantic must be relieved … he’s settled out a little, maybe back on the meds, and eager to assure all he’s not nuts. Glad to see he’s onboard with being a hack, BTW. The “know your place” thing is a little snooty and hurtful, though. At last check, his place is in the UK. In some National Health Service loony bin.

OK, now Greenwald, a constitutional lawyer and best-selling author. Greenwald’s an entirely different kind of crazy. He is attacking his own people, the Obama adminstration because every step they take toward advancing his agenda … total enablance of people whose first order of business would be to stone Greenwald in the local soccer stadium … only serves to demonstrate that we haven’t entirely surrendered yet. Right now, he’s PO’d because while Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and a select group of marquee terrorists are getting full constitutional rights, discovery, subpoena power, grandstanding opportunities, all that, in New York, others are being left to languish and face no-nonsense drumhead justice in Guantanamo. He’s so far left, he’s almost coming around to the right in his demand that the left half of the nose be cut off to spite the left half of the face. “The administration guts its own arguments for 9/11 trials“:

Can anyone reconcile Obama’s homage to “our legal traditions” and his professed faith in jury trials in the New York federal courts with the reality of what his administration is doing: i.e., denying trials to a large number of detainees, either by putting them before military commissions or simply indefinitely imprisoning them without any process at all?

During his appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, Eric Holder struggled all day to justify his decision to put Khalid Sheikh Mohammed on trial because he has no coherent principle to invoke.  He can’t possibly defend the sanctity of jury trials in our political system — the most potent argument justifying what he did — since he’s the same person who is simultaneously denying trials to Guantanamo detainees by sending them to military commissions and even explicitly promising that some of them will be held without charges of any kind. 

Once you endorse the notion that the Government has the right to imprison people not captured on any battlefield without giving them trials — as the Obama administration is doing explicitly and implicitly — what convincing rationale can anyone offer to justify giving Mohammed and other 9/11 defendants a real trial in New York?

Glenn Greenwald and I agree! What convincing rationale can anyone offer to justify giving Mohammed and the other 9/11 defendants a real trial in New York? It makes no sense.

We don’t agree the “not captured on any battlefield” part (boldface his). But given Greenwald’s failure to grasp that we are at war with an insidious, amorphous enemy, and various other fundamentals of an asymmetrical warfare threat, it seems like piling on to fault him for failing to grasp that war is no longer fought on set-piece 18th-century battlefields. 

Greenwald rattles on in this post at some additional length with multiple updates, somewhat less than usual but still more than I care to read. But it’s probably important to note that while Greenwald makes no sense, seeks to undermine his own side, etc., he does not appear to be full-on, rug-chewing nuts like Sullivan, despite his historic multiple personality issues. 

So why do I waste any time even mocking these people? Well, I have to borrow a page from Sullivan’s defensive rationalization of his Palin jones on that one. When I see and hear these people and others like them cited as prominent, serious, thoughtful, expert commentators on NPR, places like that, and the team they backed, whatever their current misgivings, is actually in power, I realize that even the looniest lefties have to be taken seriously. Basically, because it drives me crazy. Also, and more importantly … because mocking them is fun.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: Sarah Palin’s Uterus speaks! It’s got a problem with my Sullivan bashing. SPU’s maternal instincts just want to give him a big hug.

Pat says: ”My schedule isn’t great for getting to the gym but I still get decent results even when I can’t make it consistently.”

OK, so what is it?

On a quick perusal yesterday, I found the CrossFit website obtuse, without an easy entry point or clear description of what it entails.

It sounds a little like make it up as you go along; do what works for you; do a lot of everything; mix it up with a lot of variety; routine kills; short, fast intensity builds. All sounds good. Sounds a lot like what I am doing, mixing a growing repetoire of calisthentics and activities that range from short and long runs, sprits and hills, walks, biking, plus two-hour sessions on a pile of logs with a 10-pound maul, with my bad-ass razor-sharp Balkan battle axe for the finer log-splitting tasks, the early 20th century “Ben Hur” roofing hatchet for kindling, then there’s the Husqvarna … sorry, don’t get me started.

As a CrossFit starter, you get two choices. Sign up with a licensed, certified affiliate or go it alone by picking between literally dozens of videos. Kind of like a combination of tightly controlled marketing and viral anarchy. Pat, anyone else, please explain this and tell me what I’m missing. I don’t want to watch that much TV. Or hire anyone.

All input greatly appreciated. There has been some sporadic but very useful feedback from readers. Very interested in more on what works for all of you … progress, triumphs, failures and techniques. Walkers, starters, don’t be shy. We’re not stuck on any one program or at any one level here. It’s more about exploration, experimentation and motivation than anything else. The only lame workout is one that doesn’t challenge you. That, and the one you don’t do. Speaking of which, it’s pouring out. Looks like a garage day. 

Previously, in the “Live Forever Or Die Trying” series:

Old? Fat? Feeling Death’s Icy Chill Down Your Neck? How To Live Forever Part 1, the Crittenden Workout for Middle-Aged Fat Bastards.

How To Live Forever Part 2 The Beer Workout. Drink and be healthy.

How to Live Forever Part 3 Israeli research finding: Advanced geezerdom no bar to exercise’s life-extending benefits.

How To Live Forever Part 4: Fit For Combat You think preparing for combat is healthy? Try combat. Hey, when’s someone going to market the Combat Weight Loss Program?

Run For Your Lives! Just got in that dirty little two-miler …

Danger Zone How to eat all you want this holiday season and not let something dumb like winter interfere with your workout program …

Hurt More You’ll feel better.

Ready to Hurt More Got pain? Learn from the pros.  

Working Out On The Go! J.D. Johannes’ Iraqi Forward Operating Base workout.

RCAF Plan In which a 67-year-old makes me look lame, and offers some good, simple advice.

Fit for Combat? Hardly …

Fit Fight Short, intense workout fun.

Know Your Limitations You’re not a ninja …

Rat Happy The dirty little secrets only rats, people who work out a lot, and combat veterans know …

(Care to comment? Use the “contact” link to assure me you are a real human being interested in commenting on the topics at hand. Include your preferred screenname and temporary password. Lefty Kumbayah singers, moderate handwringers, meanspirited rightwingers all welcome. This is a free speech zone as long as you keep it clean and make an effort to be accurate.)

Now hold your horses, you snarky, lefty, NPR-listening, New York Times-subscribing readers of Salon. I haven’t jumped ship to declare Sarah Palin herself “great.” I’m from California, after all; I am not a creationist, I am not pro-life, I have never shot a moose. Nor is my culinary specialty an Alaskan dish called “moose chili.” Here on the Left Coast, along with our hummus, we prefer “turkey chili,” which is perhaps less gamey and lower in fat but in the end, I ask you, is it really more humane? (Who killed the turkey? Was it a person or a corporation? This Trader Joe’s we speak of — is he union? Is his name actually “Joe”? And what is his relation to Big Oil’s manipulation of the rising price of Bristol Bay canned fishery salmon to 27 cents a pound?) These are the complexities one ponders at night while falling asleep under the gristly if at times oddly tasty caribou stew that is Sarah Palin’s new 400-plus-page memoir.

If I am giving Palin’s book a thumbs up, it is qualified by the fact that, let’s face it, the genre of the female political autobiography is itself in its infancy. It’s like some 53rd state, housing at this moment in time only a handful of crude, wooden, lean-to outposts. These are times when former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright can do a book tour based on her pins and brooches, about which “Morning Edition’s” Susan Stamberg will huskily midwife a most empathic and unironic discussion. These are times when Nancy Pelosi comes out with a memoir slender as a Hallmark card, a memoir no living person but me has apparently read, vaguely titled “Know Your Power: A Message to America’s Daughters,” which her publishers carefully deemed (”How shall we describe this?”) a “keepsake.” Then again, one understands why female political books tend toward focus group-approved mottos and tasteful brooches — women have not been in politics for very long and, even more than the men in this rabid age, if they dare utter an opinion or take a stand, they and, weirdly, also their children get media-raped and shredded. (One curious triangulation in Palin’s book is irritation with Obama’s and Biden’s relatively easy media rides coupled with unexpected sympathy for media-slogfested Hillary Clinton. Our bodies, ourselves! “Clinton-Palin in 2012!” Can you imagine? Neither can I.)

So what’s refreshing is that Palin seems unafraid to express herself, warts and all — informal campaign motto: “Heels on! Gloves off!” — and the book just goes where it goes.

It’s an interesting calling of bullshit on the critics that says, what’s wrong with feisty, charming and homespun, harboring some admiration for a woman who does it her way. The review kind of spins off into a wallow in the weird Alaskan rusticness of it all after that, as Tsing-Low fails to explore her own unstated premise, whether woman should be taken seriously on her own terms in a hostile world where other powerful women are punting, and demonstrably failing to take themselves seriously by anyone’s measure.

The walkaway message is, a lot of those hundreds of thousands who have already bought Going Rogue: An American Life are going to be charmed and impressed, as well, in addition to those who are tired of seeing a working mom get beaten up. 

Makes a great counterweight to pompous and, as each day goes by, less charming, as well. The big question, if she ends up running, is whether she’ll present coherent and broadly acceptable policy alternatives to the developing trainwreck, whether people will at that point be willing to roll the dice on relative inexperience again, no matter how charming it is. Again, she’s looking a lot now like Ronald Reagan in the late 1970s. Cowboy B-flick actor, in a party crawling out of post-Watergate disarray, whose greatest ally was a dithering, inept Democratic president. 

Daily Beast: 300,000 on the first day of sales. Palin-bashing media is Palin’s best friend, and she’s theirs. A regular economic media stimulus. Sounds like the media needs to be firmly placed in the “Lefties for Palin” camp.

The Atlantic has a fun “Going Rogue” quiz. Answers at the end, or you can do your homework here. Your pruchases help support the site.

I guess not, seeing as they probably would be holding the criminal suspect known as Osama bin Laden at Rikers Island if they did capture him, and the most ill-treatment he’s likely to get is the incessant badgering from the ACLU and American Friends Service Committee, which would be all over it.

“Have you been tortured yet?”

“No, inshallah maybe today.”

I hope he gets along with the other inmates. Sorry, here’s what it’s about … via The Hill, Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy: No need to interrogate OBL. It’s just the latest lunacy of that sort that has Khalid Sheikh Mohammed headed to the Big Apple for the jihadi grandstanding opportunity of a lifetime. Speaking of which, here’s Lindsay Graham stumping Eric Holder.

* Crittenden’s own GWOT Hit Parade: Decadent Western Musicians For Jihad

To Our Readers, An Update

This Dish will resume as normal tomorrow morning. We apologize for the lacuna.[*] And I suppose some will say we’ve gotten this book and the issues it raises out of perspective. But since the last campaign, we have raised many questions about Palin to which we have been given no incontestable answers (and still haven’t) and the only real evidence we have are news stories, interviews and now, critically this book.

In his hagiography of Palin, Matt Continetti accuses yours truly of earnestness about all this. I am grateful for his not accusing me of cynicism. I remain earnest in both suspecting every word she says but also in trying to find out the truth as best we can. It’s not that Palin cannot tell the truth; it is that it is so mixed up with lies and delusions that separating them all out is not a quick or easy task. The Dish, meanwhile, has aired a whole range of views about her various 33 and counting verified lies, and the Dish’s own Patrick Appel has weighed in independently on the whole, bizarre pregnancy/labor story, which has mystified me from Day One. So I feel obliged to do the homework properly - to be fair to Palin and to our readers as much as anything else. 

Anyway, we’re done now. And I hope to be up half the night trying to write a post on the great mystery of the stories about Trig, stories that have bedeviled the blogosphere and many others for months. There is no proof here of anything, but there is a much more nuanced and detailed narrative of the events (especially now we have Palin’s first considered version of the events since the campaign) that when taken together has definitely helped illuminate what was once obscure and, well, bizarre. Believe it or not, it makes a little more sense now.

Stay tuned. And then the Dish will return to its normal programming.

With its feverishness, weird syntax and promise to be “up half the night” obsessing … I’m guessing he goes deeper into the wee hours of the cuckoo clock than that … this is a masterful depiction of a mental breakdown in progress. 

I am really starting to develop a deep appreciation for what Andrew Sullivan does. That guy needs a special Blog Award category to accommodate the hefty blogging girth he’s been swinging around this year. “Most Bat-Shit.” ”Best Crazytown Blog.” “Lifetime Wack-Achievement Award.” Something like that. “Best Unhinged Fantasist Palin Conspiracy Theorist Blog” is more focused and probably worth considering, though people might think that was rigged a little too far in Sullivan’s favor.

Here’s just a sample of scholarship on Sullivan’s body of work in Crazytown, which of course includes other avenues than just his long, dark Palin alley:

Sullivanology

Why Palin Matters (To Andrew Sullivan)

Sullivan Watch

McCain Bash

War Is Heck

Uh oh, scary thought … do I have a weird Sullivan-like Sullivan obsession? Well, if so, I’m in good company. Hey, it wasn’t my idea for Sullivan to wreck his crazy Palin train all over the Internet.

(Honorable mention in any of the above “Best Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Blog” categories would have to go to Sullivan’s admiring acolyte, TBogg, BTW.)

* For anyone who’s wondering, a “lacuna” is a gap in a manuscript or, anatomically, in tissue such as bone. I know it sounds like a place in Maui where you relax with tropical drinks, but it isn’t. In Sullivan’s case, the lacuna would appear to specifically refer to his latest gap in rationality, though that’s probably better described as more of a sharp dip in a cavernous trough.

RSMcCain, also noting the pompous verbiage, remarks hurtfully:“wankathon” is a bit too specific, so “lacuna” it is! And he calls for the Brit scribbler’s deportation. I’ll admit, between the pot bust and this evidence of mental illness, I’m concerned immigration authorities might be tempted to remove this bottomless source of entertainment from our shores.

Riehl notes the Brits probably wouldn’t have him, but I like the idea of Sullivan blogging his Rio Grande swim back in.

Sister Toldjah meanwhile bemoans the false promise to “go silent.”

Iowahawk eloquently captures the bat shit. In a manly, two-fisted Dashiell Batshit kind of way. You might say it’s Bat-Shit Noire.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: Sarah Palin’s uterus speaks! It’s got a problem with my Sullivan bashing. I think its the maternal instincts.

Meanwhile, here’s the book that drove Andrew Sullivan crazy: Going Rogue: An American Life.

(Care to comment? Use the “contact” link to assure me you are a real human being interested in commenting on the topics at hand. Include your preferred screenname and temporary password. Lefty Kumbayah singers, moderate handwringers, meanspirited rightwingers all welcome. This is a free speech zone as long as you keep it clean and make an effort to be accurate.)

Researchers at Princeton University recently made a remarkable discovery about the brains of rats that exercise. Some of their neurons respond differently to stress than the neurons of slothful rats. Scientists have known for some time that exercise stimulates the creation of new brain cells (neurons) but not how, precisely, these neurons might be functionally different from other brain cells.

… scientists allowed one group of rats to run. Another set of rodents was not allowed to exercise. Then all of the rats swam in cold water, which they don’t like to do. Afterward, the scientists examined the animals’ brains. They found that the stress of the swimming activated neurons in all of the ’ brains. (The researchers could tell which neurons were activated because the cells expressed specific genes in response to the stress.) But the youngest brain cells in the running rats, the cells that the scientists assumed were created by running, were less likely to express the genes. They generally remained quiet. The “cells born from running,” the researchers concluded, appeared to have been “specifically buffered from exposure to a stressful experience.” The rats had created, through running, a brain that seemed biochemically, molecularly, calm.

For years, both in popular imagination and in scientific circles, it has been a given that exercise enhances mood. But how exercise, a physiological activity, might directly affect mood and anxiety — psychological states — was unclear. Now, thanks in no small part to improved research techniques and a growing understanding of the biochemistry and the genetics of thought itself, scientists are beginning to tease out how exercise remodels the brain, making it more resistant to stress.

Funny. I saw a rat when exiting my urban workplace the other night. There was a rustle in a discarded bag of Chinese takeout, out comes a rat, which saunters into an area of decorative underbrush where I presume it has a bolt hole. That was one beefy, well-exercised and stone-cold calm rat. It could give a damn that a human was about three feet away. Come to think of it, I wasn’t overly alarmed either, if mildly revolted, that a rat was about three feet away, but we were both moving calmly in opposite directions.

OK, a couple days of short runs with uphill windsprints, one day of walking, plus bursts of calisthenics to burn so far this week. Today, maybe a longer run. J.D. Johannes writes from some FOB in the Tikrit area that his “combat fitness challenge of the day” the other day was “… walking around in the Iraqi mud in gear with a TV camera in one hand, tripod in the other.”  That’s a workout. No mention of incoming, which would give it the “burn” level of intensity, with the adrenaline jolt to make it easy and fun. Especially with the extended laughing fit at the other end, if they missed. Because smiling and laughing, like exercise, have the surprising benefits of making you feel better.

Johnnes also advises that I’ll eventually hit a ceiling in my “gravity gym” and have to incorporate more weights than the dumbells I’m currently using.

Your body weight workout can follow the principles of overload over
time very easily. Just follow the Rosenfield rules.

Where you will bump into a problem–and this is months down the
road–is that you will be doing more reps than are productive for
hyper-trophy. The failure point will be cardio vascular, not from
muscle overload. That is the only downside of body-weight workout.

At that point you will have to start working with some type of
additional weight to maintain hypertrophy. Unless you are some type
of Bruce Lee genetic freak–but very, very few of us are.

The key though is eating. Nita and look at it as 30% weight lifting,
5% cardio training 65% what you eat.

For the moment, I’m using his program (which lays out the Coach Rosenfield rules) for insight and inspiration in the areas of short, fast intensity, observation, pushing past plateaus and nutrition, but resisting the idea of diving full-on into gym ratdom. I like open spaces, using my body and nature against each other. My plan at present is to extend my gravity calisthenic routine by incorporating more elements from the The Official United States Navy SEAL Workout and books of that sort. Other plans include putting up one of these Joist Mount Chin Up Bars and a heavy bag, the goal again not beng to bulk up but to get lean and build endurance.

Back to the “rat happy” bit. Johannes and I also had an email exchange about being mentally “fit for combat.” He reports something I also experienced … being calm in combat. In my case, it was a bit of a surprise. My pre-Iraq experiences with hostile mortar and rifle fire had involved brief intense fear spikes. They were not debilitating and did not prevent me from doing what I needed to do, and I marked them down to inexperience, though in retrospect I was neither fully mentally or physically prepared.

Johannes reports:

I never get nervous or apprehensive. I stay very calm in a
gunfight .. like Clerachus from Xenophon’s “Persian Expedition” I
work very hard and put a lot of effort into being in wars.

In Iraq, a more intense combat exposure, I experienced a brief fear verging on panic in the dark, lonely waking hours before my first big combat assault, when I wondered whether and how I was going to be killed or maimed, why I was doing this, and wished I was safe at home. Then, a brief black depression with the belief that I would be orphaning my children, experienced the day before the big assault on Baghdad. Otherwise, in a couple of weeks of daily contact, we wanted it, we enjoyed it, and almost without exception, the men around me were composed, focused and calm. There was an intensity, which I see written all over the faces in photos from that time, but my overriding sensation recorded at the time was of an altered, enhanced state. Not to overstate the case. The intensity in the photos shows reveals stress, and the clam altered states was interrupted by “oh shit” moments, and other expressions of urgency and exasperation when, for example, RPGs tracked in our direction, or the performance of weapons and comrades failed to meet acceptable standards or the enemy popped up in unexpected places. Close calls were followed by giggle fits or shrugs, as Johannes reports in an incident in which he was grazed by rifle fire.

This overall phenomenon persisted through combat that included friendly WIAs, a lot of enemy death and threats very close at hand, plus news of the loss of acquaintances. Presumeably there are diminishing returns, with heightened loss and intensity, though a Marine I know reported the same sensation persisting through loss of friends in heavy combat in Falluja, though he reported his Iraq experience no longer had the “warm and fuzzy” feel of the invasion. Having lost his leg, he was trying to figure out how to get back.

Rat happy? In the company in which I moved through heavy combat, everyone, myself included, had been in extended fitness programs and had been living a rigorous lifestyle since halting daily workouts a few weeks earlier.

So maybe our neurons were nicely infused with new, fearless genes, as the Princeton research would suggest. That, and then there were the more proximate infusions of lots of adrenaline and I’m guessing some heavy endorphin jolts. I’ll need to look into this, because I’ve heard similar reports of transcendental experiences from a number of combat veterans, and my theory ever since experiencing it is that humans are combat animals, hardwired for combat, because where we came from, it wasn’t a choice, it was a lifestyle. Aided, back in the day, by the arduous workout of irregularly alternating heavy lift, endurance and short-bursts intensity that daily life entailed.

In any case, far from combat, here in this sheltered 21st-century civilian world, with all the usual daily and long-term stresses and aggravations exascerbated by uncertain times, I am noticing a benefit from my six monhs of escalating physical activity, a pervading sense of calm, with endorphin spikes on intense workout days. Eating, loading up on sugar and starch, impulses some people turn to, have an extremely short benefit in this regard and as a stress reaction are almost immediately followed by more stress.

The stress-reducing benefits of exercise, on the other hand, are more enduring both in the short and long runs. I hope to expand on this, because I like being … rat happy.

Previously, in the “Life Forever Or Die Trying” series:

Old? Fat? Feeling Death’s Icy Chill Down Your Neck? How To Live Forever Part 1, the Crittenden Workout for Middle-Aged Fat Bastards.

How To Live Forever Part 2 The Beer Workout. Drink and be healthy.

How to Live Forever Part 3 Israeli research finding: Advanced geezerdom no bar to exercise’s life-extending benefits.

How To Live Forever Part 4: Fit For Combat You think preparing for combat is healthy? Try combat. Hey, when’s someone going to market the Combat Weight Loss Program?

Run For Your Lives! Just got in that dirty little two-miler …

Danger Zone How to eat all you want this holiday season and not let something dumb like winter interfere with your workout program …

Hurt More You’ll feel better.

Ready to Hurt More Got pain? Learn from the pros.  

Working Out On The Go! J.D. Johannes’ Iraqi Forward Operating Base workout.

RCAF Plan In which a 67-year-old makes me look lame, and offers some good, simple advice.

Fit for Combat? Hardly …

Fit Fight Short, intense workout fun.

Know Your Limitations You’re not a ninja …

(Care to comment? Use the “contact” link to assure me you are a real human being interested in commenting on the topics at hand. Include your preferred screenname and temporary password. Lefty Kumbayah singers, moderate handwringers, meanspirited rightwingers all welcome. This is a free speech zone as long as you keep it clean and make an effort to be accurate.)

How about the ripoff? Runner’s World said that shot was under a one year embargo. Newsweek used it without permission:

EDITOR’S NOTE:
On the cover of this week’s issue of Newsweek is a photo that was shot exclusively for the August 2009 issue of Runner’s World, in which Sarah Palin was featured on the monthly “I’m a Runner” back page. The photos from that shoot are still under a one-year embargo, and Runner’s World did not provide Newsweek with its cover image. It was provided to Newsweek by the photographer’s stock agency, without Runner’s World’s knowledge or permission.

Sexist lefty hypocrite photo misappropriators! Shocking! … For an actual publication with a return address and a bank account, that is. 

(With a nod to reader Sarah Rolph.)