Literary Legs

Keeping Your New Year's Resolution to Exercise

What's wrong with this picture? 

This is a picture from Tuesday's Wall Street Journal accompanying the article "Quest for a Free Workout." Rising health club dues, according to the article, have made trails, paths, and...malls more crowded with exercisers.  This is a problem in January, when newbie exercisers not following proper etiquette tend to crowd trails, paths, and malls by not walking or running in single file, thus adding to congestion.

These are "veteran" mall walkers in a Sarasota, Florida mall who are power walking in January.  They are part of a group that meets regularly.  It's a distressing picture on two levels.  One, they are exercising in a mall, arguably the most depressing symbol of suburban American culture for, among many other reasons, its faux outdoorsy look.  Save for a prison yard--and hey, at least that's outside--I can't think of a more depressing place to exercise.

But it's more distressing because they are in a mall in Florida in January.  Don't people move to Florida in the first place precisely for the weather?  Because the winters are pleasant, because they can be outside in the winter in sunny 70 or 80 degree weather?  Don't get me wrong--if it's a choice between mall exercise and no exercise, hit the mall.  However, this is Florida, the Sunshine State.  I can understand exercising in the Mall of America in Minneapolis in January, but Florida?  Get those kids outside, ladies, where they belong! 

Starting an exercise program is one of the most popular New Year's resolutions.  It's also one of the first that people give up on. And this makes me wonder: do people give up on exercise routines--specifically running--because they begin them in the middle of the winter, when it's cold and dark and dreary? These conditions are tough on anyone, even veteran runners; it's a constant struggle for me to head out in the cold darkness at  6:30am.  Other people begin their exercise programs at the local gym.  But while indoor aerobic exercise can be more comfortable, it's also mind-numbingly boring.  The only thing I can do on a treadmill is a speed workout, since the thought of a steady 60 minute run horrifies me.

So, I wonder, then, how many people give up on exercise programs not because they hate the act of exercising, but because they hate the environment in which they are doing it?  Do fewer people give up on exercise routines in warm weather climates than in cold weather climates, since the warm weather people start their programs in the sunny, pleasant outdoors instead of being surrounded by sweaty, stinky people in the gym?

My solution: move the New Year to June in the Northern Hemisphere, so everyone can start their programs outside.  I guarantee more people would stick with it. 

Warm weather outdoor running certainly boosts my motivation.  I frequently travel for work, and I go to Southern California three times a year. I'll be there next week.  So Saturday I'll be running in sub freezing temps here in DC, and Sunday I'll be running along the water where the high will be in the upper 60s.  My legs will be fresher, my lungs magically larger. 

The lesson here? Exercise outdoors (more specifically, in nature, since it's better for your brain, and especially if you want to be a canonical poet).  The change of scenery—no two runs are identical, even if you cover the same route—will keep you fresh and energized far longer than a treadmill will.  Or a mall.   

Let's Hope They Don't Look Up "Scumbag"

The Menifee School District in California responded to a potentially graphic text, brought to their attention by one parent, by banning the book from all school shelves.  This book is the dictionary. (see here and here)

Yes, you read that correctly. 

The Merriam Webster 10th edition is now a banned book after one parent, shocked at seeing a child actually reading the dictionary for fun, became even more shocked when the child stumbled across the definition for "oral sex."  Outraged that the dictionary would contain definitions of things that actually happen, the parent asked that the book be removed and that children no longer be able to improve their vocabularies.  Somehow, the school district caved to the wishes of one person. 

No word on whether the dictionary contains an accompanying image.

I guess if you have to ban one book, it should be the dictionary.  After all, it does contain every word in the language.  You'll certainly cover all your bases by banning it.  This makes sense, since if children can't use a dictionary,  they'll probably stop being curious.  There is no way--no way--that they will Google the term "oral sex."

In my opinion, this parent did not go far enough. We should not stop with "oral sex." We should ban access to any source that describes less-than-ideal behavior: murder, stab, shoplift, cheat, steal, gay*, lesbian*, karaoke, Electric Slide, flashmob, etc. Just get rid of all the deadly sins as well.  Certainly we should ban plagiarize from every reference source. If kids don't know what it means, they won't do it.  

But we have much more to be worried about than oral sex.  I can only imagine the logical next step for kids: Dictionary.com will be the new source for porn, where kids can delight in the salacious definitions of such words as

• Brown nose: "from the image of an obsequious person whose nose becomes soiled in kissing the rump of someone from whom favor is sought" (American Heritage Dictionary)
• Scumbag: "a condom" (Random House Dictionary)
• Putz: "a penis" (American Heritage Dictionary)

*this is sarcasm

This is Clearly Overuse

One of the common traps into which attorneys fall when advocating is the use of the word clearly.  Eliminating this word is one of the easiest revisions to make, since it means nothing.  If you use clearly, take it out.  Even better, don't start using it in the first place.  Clearly is an ineffective intensifier.  No judge reads a brief--or for that matter, no one reads any piece of advocacy, legal or not--and says, "Well, your opponent says that the evidence 'proves his guilt,' but since you said that the evidence 'clearly proves his innocence,' you must be right."  In other words, clearly never pushes your readers one way or another.  They do not say, "You said that something was erroneous, but had you said it was 'clearly erroneous,' I would have supported you.  That's a whole different story!" 

But don't take my word for it.  Here's what Chief Justice John Roberts told the Northwestern University School of Law back in 2007:

"We get hundreds and hundreds of briefs, and they're all the same," Roberts told a crowd of eager law students and faculty members last week at the Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago. "Somebody says, 'My client clearly deserves to win, the cases clearly do this, the language clearly reads this,' blah, blah blah. And you pick up the other side and, lo and behold, they think they clearly deserve to win."

In short, clearly smacks of desperation.  I was reminded of this in a recent article by Alec MacGillis and Paul Farhi in the Washington Post entitled "In Obama's speeches, one favorite phrase: "Let me be clear.'" MacGillis and Fahri discuss Obama's overuse of this set-up in his speeches. They write that "in a presidency in which everything is murkier than Obama could have imagined, the 'let me be clear' preface has become a signal that what follows will be anything but."  Has Obama used the phrase so often that it is now cliche, a metaphorical device that once was to be taken literally but through overuse has lost all meaning?  

In the beginning, when he was still a presidential candidate, Obama used the device to say, "Listen to what I am about to tell you.  Sometimes what I say might be opaque, but I tell you this with no trace of ambiguity or shred of doubt."  MacGillis and Fahri say that once Obama became president, he used the phrase to defend against his detractors, to rebut them when things were really not that clear.  His opponents saw the phrase "as a sign of indecision to follow."

Of course, the other problem with overusing the phrase "let me be clear" is that it implies that there are times when he is not being clear, when he is not as assured or unambiguous or decisive. In his November speech announcing the troop increase in Afghanistan, Obama pronounced his clarity eleven times.  Not only does he risk tiring his audience with the phrase, but he also risks removing the power from the phrase when he really does mean to be clear. 

To sum: don't overuse any stylistic technique or rhetorical device.  When you emphasize everything, you emphasize nothing.