Month: July 2003

This is a major blow

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

As if losing nine out of the last 12 wasn’t bad enough, now Patterson’s out for the season. The Cubs may now be especially tempted to trade away the farm for a slugger, any slugger, maybe even the slugging third baseman Mike Lowell. But I think the opposite is called for.

Patterson is a big part of the Cubs’ future, and there’s no point trying to desperately make up for his absence the rest of this season, when the team has clearly demonstrated it doesn’t have the stuff to make the playoffs anyhow.

The Cubs should be looking to unload Alou, Alfonseca (though who would take him?), Juan Cruz, etc. to teams in the mix with weaknesses at those spots.

Bass ackwards

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

Andrew Sullivan is seriously deluded:

One of the many layers of the arguments for invading Iraq focused on the difficulties of waging a serious war on terror from a distant remove. Being based in Iraq helpsus [sic] notonly [sic]because of actual bases; but because the American presence there diverts terrorist attention away from elsewhere.

By confronting them directly in Iraq, we get to engage them in a military setting that plays to our strengths rather than to theirs’ [sic]. Continued conflict in Iraq, in other words, needn’t always be bad news. It may be a sign that we are drawing the terrorists out of the woodwork and tackling them in the open.

It’s true that Hussein was a big financial supporter of Palestinian terrorist groups, but the people attacking U.S. forces in Iraq right now may be many things, but they’re not the terrorists who attacked us on Sept. 11 and they’re not the terrorists we had any cause to take over a country for.

And to say that we’re actually in a better position now is absolutely ludicrous. A base in Iraq might make it easier for the United States to wage war on terror in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, etc., but U.S. occupation is itself the proximate cause of Iraqi terrorism — in this case, perhaps legitimately labeled rebellion — against the men and women who came to win a war, and now want to go home.

(Also posted to Circle Bastiat.)

Biking’s the best

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

At least for me, cycling is the best form of exercise. I had an old used bike fixed up and went on my inaugural ride yesterday. I remember now how much I love it. To ride along Lake Michigan on a beautiful summer day and feel wind on my skin … it’s a good thing, as Martha would say.

As exercise, I love it because I can go as fast or as slow as I want, I’m actually going someplace and doing something and seeing people, not sitting in a health club with a bunch of sweaty people around. And I don’t tire as easily when cycling, since what tire first for me are my feet and my butt.

Well, both are at rest — more or less — when I’m on the bike. And if I get a little winded I can just pedal hard and let the momentum take me for a bit until I recover. There’s less temptation to stop more often. It’s probably not the best form of exercise; I’m sure there’s some fitness trainer who’d tell me that much. But for me, for now, it’s a lot better than nothing.

And fun to boot. Life can’t be all bad, in spite of what goes on in the world.