Why the Fight Against Doping Is Tedious But Necessary

The complexity of doping rules in endurance sports can be alienating for fans. But what’s the alternative? 

[Outside Magazine]

Martin Fritz HuberOct 27, 2022

Cheating! Everybody’s doing it! Or so one might assume based on recent headlines from the world of stationary sports. In the past few weeks alone, there’s been news of a fishing competition where participants stuffed their catch with lead balls, as well as titillating accounts of high-stakes poker and chess matches where the suspected culprits might have duped their opponents with secret vibration devices. One thing these diverse tales of deception had in common was that they brought national (and in some cases global) attention to sports that typically fly under the radar of mainstream coverage. In turns out that all you need for a chess match to “break the internet” is a compelling narrative about a vanquished grandmaster and some anal beads.

As someone who spends a fair amount of time writing about distance running, it was hard not to regard the drama in some of these other niche pursuits without experiencing a twinge of envy. For all their outlandishness, there was something refreshingly straightforward about these alleged offenses. In endurance sports, cheating stories almost invariably involve doping, a far more insidious kind of violation than, say, trying to smuggle weights into the bellies of walleyes. To understand the specifics of a typical rule infringement often demands being familiar with the World Anti-Doping Agency’s vast list of prohibited substances, with its myriad sub-clauses and caveats. What’s more, doping violations can occasionally be so technical and seemingly arbitrary that even dedicated fans have a hard time keeping up.

Take the recent news that Kenya’s Diana Kipyokei, the woman who won the 2021 Boston Marathon, had been provisionally suspended by the Athletics Integrity Unit after testing positive for triamcinolone acetonide, a form of glucocorticoid often used to treat inflammation. (The Boston Athletic Association has said that Kipyokei will be retroactively disqualified if her suspension is upheld.) Triamcinolone acetonide is only banned in competition when administered via injection, orally, or rectally. What’s more, local injections of glucocorticoids, which the AIU notes are “commonly used as therapeutic substances in sports,” only became prohibited at the start of 2022 and can still be administered if the athlete obtains a Therapeutic Use Exemption. (Since we’re already deep in the weeds here, I might as well add that the triamcinolone acetonide TUE requirement differs depending on the route the substance takes into an athlete’s system and how many days before a competition it is last used: e.g. 30 days for oral ingestion, 60 days for intramuscular injection, but only ten days for injection into a joint or tendon.)

None of this is meant to exonerate Kipyokei or her agent, Gianni Demadonna, who, for the record, claimed to have no knowledge of his athlete’s misdeeds in an interview with Letsrun. But her case is yet another reminder of how cheating in endurance sports often involves running afoul of a banal bureaucracy, whether wittingly or not. Even before he received a four-year ban for doping violations, one of the central criticisms of Alberto Salazar was that he was violating the “spirit of the rules,” by using TUEs in bad faith. Reading the details on triamcinolone acetonide, I was reminded of Salazar’s infamous zeal for L-carnitine, another substance whose legality is contingent on the way it is administered and the dosage. Seen in this light, the difference between Kipyokei and some of Salazar’s athletes is that the latter was coached by a guy who was better at gaming the system.

In a recent piece for the Washington Post, columnist Sally Jenkins makes the case that the difference between cheating and “performance enhancement” is perhaps more arbitrary than we like to admit. Her argument is that doping might be no more of an artificial advantage than the hyper-sophisticated use of technology and nutritional supplements that have become commonplace in professional sports. (She doesn’t mention super shoes, but she very well could have.) Anti-doping becomes particularly fraught, Jenkins argues when a prohibited substance can also help counteract the physical wear-and-tear of high-level training. “What about the athlete who is simply trying to manage pain, speed recovery, or put on lean muscle to deal better with extreme demands?” Jenkins writes. “Is it so ethically wrong to minimize self-harm?”

Point taken. But this rationale doesn’t really fly when we’re talking about pain medication that might also boost your lactate threshold, to say nothing about the use of more blatant performance enhancers like EPO. In her piece, Jenkins also makes a provocative distinction between dopers and conventional cheats; she argues that a redeeming feature of the former group is that they are ultimately just looking to maximize their potential, which is the entire point of elite competition. Money quote: “Sports dopers are many things, but they aren’t lazy. They’re excessively driven.”

But the fact that you could say the same for athletes who don’t use any PEDs is a reminder that, unless we are going to advocate for the abolition of all doping regulations, we need to draw the line somewhere. That’s probably why I am more sympathetic towards WADA than someone like Jenkins, who has long been an outspoken critic of what she calls the “anti-doping movement.” WADA has the unenviable task of simultaneously trying to accommodate athletes who have legitimate cause for medical exemptions, while also not being outflanked by more cynical actors, like the Alberto Salazars of the world.

Anti-WADA sentiment sometimes sounds like wanting to shoot the messenger. In addition to the suspension of Kipyokei, at least ten other athletes from Kenya have been sanctioned in recent months, including Mark Kangogo, who won this year’s Sierre-Zinal, one of the world’s preeminent mountain races, and Lawrence Cherono, who won both the Boston and Chicago Marathons in 2019. Nobody gets any joy from seeing a race winner defrocked long after the fact––not the busted athlete, nor the champion by default who will always feel deprived of their moment of triumph.

https://twitter.com/KiplagatEdna/status/1580980784562720768?cxt=HHwWgMCiybXp4vArAAAA

It’s all very depressing. And enough to make you long for a world where a cheating conviction is as clear-cut as determining whether or not someone has a secret buzzer hiding in their ass.

10 Worst Habits for Your Heart

Everything from bad sleep to stress can hurt your heart and wreck your health

by Jeanette Beebe, AARP, Updated October 5, 2022

RoxiRosita / Getty Images

There’s good news and bad news when it comes to your risk of developing heart disease, which is the leading cause of death in the U.S. Let’s start with the bad. Several factors raise a person’s risk for getting heart disease — a term used to describe a range of conditions that affect the heart — including some that can’t be controlled, such as family history, and others that are more complex, like having access to good-for-you foods and safe, affordable housing.

That said, there's a lot you can do to prevent heart disease and, in certain cases, reverse it. Some of these actions, however difficult to achieve, are obvious: Get active, eat better, lose weight, and stop smoking. "Lifestyle changes are difficult for everyone," concedes Sabra Lewsey, M.D., a cardiologist and assistant professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins Medicine, "but they are profoundly important and can make ​lifesaving gains in your health."

Others are more surprising.

Here are 10 habits to avoid if you’re hoping to improve your heart health.

1. Being a couch potato

Not moving enough, especially on a regular basis, is risky for your health. Inactivity has been linked to cognitive decline, more frailty and even an increased risk of death. Fortunately, almost any sort of activity that raises your heart rate is a good place to start.

It’s important to move your body and elevate your heart rate for at least 150 minutes every week. You should also throw in twice-weekly strength training sessions, according to the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, established by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

That seems like a lot of exercise, but it doesn't need to be done all at once. As long as you get your heart rate up for 15 minutes or more at a time, it counts. Also, "activity" doesn't just mean a walk or a gym class or a bike ride. It could be gardening, shopping, walking the dog or cleaning.

"You don’t have to go from doing nothing to running marathons," says Quentin Youmans, M.D., a cardiology fellow at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "In fact, the biggest leap in benefit comes from doing nothing to doing something. Just start by dedicating yourself to doing some activity every day to get your body moving."

Yet a 2014 survey found that over a quarter (27.5 percent) of people older than 50 said they did no physical activity (other than their job) in the past month. Among the older age group — 75 years and up — just over one-third (35.3 percent) of people said the same thing.

2. Drinking too much alcohol

"Not everyone recognizes the connection between heart health and alcohol," Youmans says. But drinking too much alcohol can raise blood pressure, cause irregular heartbeats “and even have a direct toxic effect on the heart.”

In fact, imbibing too much "can lead to heart failure or a weakening of the heart," says Amber Johnson, M.D., a cardiologist and assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

How much is too much? Women should have up to one drink per day, and men should limit their intake to two drinks or fewer, according to HHS guidelines.

3. Skimping on sleep

Not getting your seven (or eight or nine) hours of shut-eye a night will slowly, but quite reliably, damage your health, including your heart.

"Poor-quality sleep or untreated sleep apnea can lead to high blood pressure and affect heart health," Lewsey cautions. Lack of sleep has also been associated with diabetes and weight gain, which negatively affect heart health, too.

What’s more, sleep apnea can "cause abnormal heart rhythms," Johnson points out.

4. Opting for unhealthy foods

A heart-healthy diet includes a panoply of delicious options: fruits, vegetables, lean protein, nuts and whole grains. Data suggest that a so-called Mediterranean diet — mostly plants, with “good fats” like walnuts, almonds, olive oil and avocados — supports good heart health. This style of eating limits red meat; fish and poultry are OK, as long as you keep these proteins to under 5.5 ounces per day.

Swap sodas for water — a lot of water. Watch out for processed, sugary and fried foods, and be mindful of what you eat and drink at restaurants. Food full of saturated and trans fats, salt and cholesterol is best reserved for special occasions, rather than on the daily.

"Avoiding high sodium is really important," Johnson adds. The American Heart Association recommends that most adults consume fewer than 1,500 milligrams of sodium per day, with 2,300 mg as an upper limit.

Pay attention to those numbers from your routine blood tests, too. Watch out for an excess of bad cholesterol (LDL) and/or triglycerides and not enough good cholesterol (HDL). Also, high blood sugar can damage your blood vessels. In fact, people with diabetes are twice as likely to develop heart disease; plus, they're more likely to experience heart failure.

So try not to "overindulge with food," Youmans warns. "We all love that slice of pizza or juicy hamburger, and, in fact, occasionally, those foods can be OK. But when our diets consist of foods high in fats and sugars all the time, it starts to affect our heart health negatively. A Mediterranean diet is a great alternative,” he says, adding that it can be tasty.

5. Living a lonely life

It's so important to have a group of friends and family to lean on. Unfortunately, it's not as common as you may think. More than one-third of adults 45 and older are lonely, and nearly one-fourth of those 65-plus are considered to be socially isolated research shows. This circumstance is often terrible for your health, including your heart.

That's why it’s crucial to find a group of people who will support you and make you feel fulfilled. Try to "seek community resources and support groups to help you with these lifestyle changes," Lewsey says, and work to "build a network of support" to help you along the way.

Some populations are more at risk for social isolation, including immigrants, LGBTQ individuals, minorities and victims of elder abuse, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Ideally, the health system would be set up to be more inclusive, Johnson says, so "we are better able to provide services ... that are culturally sensitive, so that we can reach more people."

The CDC lists a number of resources that people who are feeling lonely or socially isolated can use. Among them is AARP and its Community Connectionstool, which works to connect adults with others in their community.

Vaccines and Heart Health

Vaccines don’t just help fight off some pretty nasty illnesses. Research suggests they can also help protect your heart. A study published in the American Heart Association journal Stroke found that people who were hospitalized for a flu-like illness were 38 percent more likely than adults hospitalized for other reasons to have a stroke within a month of their hospitalization. What’s more, receiving a flu vaccine within the year prior to hospitalization lowered a person’s stroke risk to 11 percent. A study published in the journal Circulation found that people with heart failure who got an annual flu vaccine were 18 percent less likely to die from cardiovascular disease or any other cause than those who didn’t get their flu shot.A study presented at the American Heart Association’s International Stroke Conference in 2021 found that the shingles vaccine may reduce stroke risk by about 16 percent in older adults.A study published in JAMA Network found that full vaccination against COVID-19 was associated with a reduced risk of heart attack and ischemic stroke after a coronavirus infection.

Source: American Heart Association

6. Smoking tobacco

Whether you vape or smoke cigarettes or cigars, tobacco is terrible for your health. Secondhand tobacco smoke is, too. Most people know this, but what you may not realize is that tobacco doesn't just ravage your lungs and cause cancer: Your heart is also a victim.

"Even in someone who has been a long-term smoker, there are immediate and long-lasting cardiovascular benefits of quitting smoking," Lewsey says.

Tobacco damages blood vessels and causes plaque buildup (atherosclerosis), which can trigger a heart attack, abnormal heart rhythms and, eventually, heart failure.

What can you do? "Set a quit date," Youmans says. "Let your friends and/or loved ones know so that they can hold you accountable, and use nicotine replacement or other medicines to help you quit with the help of your doctor."

You can find tips and other help on the CDC’s website.

7. Minimizing your mental health

Managing your stress is key for maintaining good health. If anxiety gets out of control, we're more likely to do things that are damaging. What’s more, stress raises your blood pressure. To combat this, try to find something you enjoy that will help you calm down and breathe better. For some people, it's meditating. Others enjoy hiking, cooking or playing board games with friends.

Can anxiety or panic attacks damage your heart? Not usually. Rarely, though, heartbreak can truly hurt your ticker. The condition is colloquially known as broken heart syndrome, and it's "a type of heart failure," Johnson explains. "If you are under very intense stress like if you are in a car crash or your loved one dies suddenly, that can cause a weakening of the heart," she says.

The solution is often medication (such as beta blockers) plus a plan to manage stress in a healthy way.

8. Waiting to lose weight

Carrying around extra weight, especially around your waist, is bad for your heart.

Obesity itself is a risk factor for heart disease. Researchers have found that the heavier you are, the higher your risk is for heart disease — it's a so-called silent heart injury, even if you feel healthy, even if your numbers look good.

It's also true that being overweight or obese can spike your cholesterol levels, your blood sugar, your triglycerides and your blood pressure. All of these factors damage your heart and raise your risk of developing heart disease. Obesity is commonly linked with diabetes, as well.

"One tip is to buy a scale, as knowledge is power, and this will help you keep track," Youmans ssuggests. "To help to move the scale in the right direction, remember that you need to burn more calories than you consume, so try getting more active and eating fewer calories."

Your doctor may track your body mass index (BMI), which has been cited as an imperfect and even problematic metric. No matter how you track it, if you're overweight or obese, a 5 percent to 7 percent weight loss will likely have a positive impact on your health, including the numbers that affect your heart: blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar (including diabetes).

9. Neglecting your teeth

Though a clear scientific link between dental hygiene and coronary health hasn't been established (it's still an open question), some researchers say there is an association between the two. That is, poor oral health often means poor heart health. Gum disease is associated with heart disease, and bacterial infections and inflammation appear to play a part, too.

"Good dental health, with regular cleanings, is also important [for] overall heart health," Lewsey says.

Despite that benefit, nearly 40 percent of people 65 and older haven't seen a dentist in the past year, according to a 2016 "National Health Interview Survey."

10. Giving up too soon

Good heart health is often difficult to achieve and even harder to maintain — especially when everyone around you is continuing to do things you know aren't good for you.

"A lot of these health behaviors that we have found to be important vary from community to community or culture to culture," says Johnson, who works in Pittsburgh. "Certain cultures may not eat the foods that are considered heart-healthy [...] so there may be some disparities."

Above all, it's important not to give up. And, hey, try to be patient.

"Habit change is hard," Youmans says. "It can take some time to break them, particularly if they are enjoyable."

He adds, "Anything that is worth having, takes time. Making a small change that you can sustain for a long period is much more important than a bigger change that may be harder to sustain."

And every day is an opportunity to get healthier, whether it's walking past the candy jar, meditating or taking the stairs. Make your lunch the night before, instead of grabbing fast food. Set up a weekly social group. Get 15 more minutes of sleep. Do it again, again and again.

Editor's Note: This story, originally published on Nov. 8, 2021, has been updated to include new information on the link between vaccines and heart health.

Thought You Knew Everything About Smoke Detectors?

Think again. I learned a whole lot; watch this video and you'll be on your way to replacing your home protection. 

Karl Keith, retired firefighter and Challenge Veteran will enlighten you as he did me.

The Pentagon’s Recruiting Woes (Wall Street Journal) Oct 4 2022

The U.S. Army recently told the press that it missed its fiscal year recruiting goal by 25%, coming up short nearly 20,000 soldiers. For 50 years America has relied on volunteers to defend the country, but that system is a luxury maintained at a cost, and its struggles deserve attention.

The Army’s troubles are acute but not unique. The Air Force barely hit its numbers for 2022. The Navy met its targets for enlisted sailors but came up short of about 200 officers. Both the Navy and Air Force had to dip into “delayed entry” pools of recruits usually kept in a holding pattern for later, which means the services will start a new recruiting year in an even tougher position. The numbers are worse in the reserves.

Several factors are contributing to the shortfall. Fewer than one-quarter of Americans ages 17 to 24 are eligible to serve, and the reasons for disqualification include obesity, addiction and criminal history. The decision to close high schools during the pandemic kept recruiters at bay and left many teens mentally unwell, another disqualification.

Record job openings and Covid transfer payments hurt enlistment, but the problems run deeper. Fewer than one in 10 youth are inclined to serve, according to survey data. Dismal civic education hasn’t helped; teenagers taught to think America is a racist or imperialist country won’t wear the uniform.

The left portrays the military as a retrograde institution where sexual assault and extremism are rampant, which is not borne out by evidence. The right’s affinity for military service is also in free fall.

Only 53% of Republicans had “a great deal of confidence” in the military in a 2021 Reagan Foundation survey, a 17-point drop in less than a year. Flag officers have too often associated themselves with vogue political causes, promoting books on “anti-racism,” for example, as the Navy’s top officer did last year. The services may need to relax the Covid-19 vaccine mandate as a concession to reality; thousands of National Guard members have refused it.

The recruiting crisis is an opportunity for Congress to drive a tank over anachronistic practices. That Congress recently saw fit to pass a cash supplement for some service members called a “basic needs allowance” suggests the military’s pay scales aren’t competitive with the private economy, especially for lower-ranking enlistees. The 4.6% raise slated for next year doesn’t match inflation.

The Army toyed with waiving high-school degree requirements and has thrown around signing bonuses of up to $50,000. But Congress could require the services to experiment with, say, short service contracts or a different benefit mix that might let a service member spend an entire commitment at one home base in between overseas deployments.

The services also rely too heavily on an antiquated “up or out” model that leaves human potential on the table. The Marines deserve credit for realizing, in an initiative called Talent Management 2030, that discharging 75% of its first-term Marines every year and recruiting 36,000 replacements isn’t efficient or sustainable.

Congress has offered more flexibility to let those with experience in cyber or other essential fields enter the service at a higher rank. But these are still exceptions. Especially crazy is pushing service members into taxpayer-funded retirement after 20 years of service when most have productive years left.
***

A deeper undercurrent is that young people with other prospects won’t join a military that looks more hollow all the time. After a decade of mostly diminished budgets, the services have developed a culture of doing more with less, adding stress on equipment and personnel.

Fighter pilots fly fewer than 1.5 sorties a week, according to an estimate from last year, too low to be proficient. The backlog on submarine work means Navy sailors can spend entire tours stuck in the maintenance yards instead of at sea. Ships, aircraft squadrons and Army air defense units are being run ragged by longer or more frequent deployments.

This may explain why fewer veterans are recommending military service. Only 62% of those polled in a 2021 Military Family Advisory Network survey said they’d encourage someone to sign up, down from 74.5% in 2019. This is an ominous trend, given the importance of family military legacies.

The recruiting problems are hitting even as the Navy and Air Force need to expand to meet proliferating threats from Iran to China. Tanks and planes aren’t worth buying if there’s no human capital to man them. Some might be tempted to treat this year’s recruiting failures as an anomaly, but it could be an emerging threat to national security. The American experiment can only last as long as citizens are willing to defend it.

Russia in the Ukraine

Ben May...Guest Editor

Tale as Old as Time…How Russia Sees the World

Before we talk about the absurd stupidity of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, or the obvious issue of Vladimir Putin, a calculating Narcissist with an inferiority complex that would even make Freud turn over in his grave, let’s look at some facts of Russian history. First, let me qualify myself. I experienced the Cuban Missile Crisis when I was twelve, and that scenario greatly influenced me. While it scared the crap out of me, like so many others of my generation, it sparked an interest in our ’enemies.’ Shouldn’t we be able to talk to these people? I was fascinated with the Russian Language: the guttural sounds and those letters of the Cyrillic alphabet gave me goosebumps! What if I could speak in that language?! In those days, the idea of learning Russian was off the charts. My wife of 50 years, who dated me back then, says: “You just wanted to attract attention to yourself.” Go figure. For some reason, foreign languages came easy to me. I took German in high school and got a Russian language tutor when I was 16. I went on to major in Russian, studying in St. Petersburg (Leningrad at the time), finishing with a Master’s Degree in Russian from the School of International Service of the American University.

This included a good dose of Russian history- especially Russian military history.

So here are some things I learned. As we all know, Russia is a country with a rich culture. The world knows the great Russian composers and writers, artists and scientists who have contributed to the world. There is an amazing story of how Peter the Great in the 18th Century literally yanked Russia into the modern world with an enormous Western influence. St. Petersburg was called his “Window on the West.” In terms of military achievement, we all know Russia’s amazing victory over Napoleon, driving the French army so far back that Russian troops occupied Paris. In fact, some say that the word: “bistro” came from Russian soldiers yelling at the French waiters: “bweestra,” meaning “quickly” in Russian.

And, of course, there was ‘The Great Patriotic War’ when the Russian army drove the Germans back in record time through Berlin. In both of these examples, superior military leadership-General Kutusov in 1812 and General Zhukov in 1944- coupled with a threat to Holy Mother Russia won the day….at a horrible cost of 25 million lives. And as far as Putin and Russian leadership are concerned, they took the major brunt of the Nazi beast led by Stalin while we took up the slack. In April 2019, a Levada Center poll revealed that 70% of Russians approved of Stalin’s role in Russian history, the highest ever recorded and that 51% viewed Stalin in a positive light. No mention that millions of Russians died under his tyrannical rule. Go figure.

The Other Side of ‘Holy Mother Russia’

There are two other aspects of Russian history: endemic bureaucratic ineptitude and a pseudo-historical messianic philosophy of Moscow as the ‘Third Rome’ against the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ West. This philosophy dates back to the time of Ivan the Terrible (Ivan “Grozny” in Russian, meaning ‘awesome,’ not terrible, by the way). In Russian history, this philosophy is often referred to as Orientalism. Putin is using this old nationalistic philosophy as a pretext to support his aggression in the Ukraine, projecting himself as the defender of Holy Mother Russia against the militarily aggressive decadent West. Unfortunately, this logic makes perfect sense to him and his cronies, and if you consider it long enough, it carries a lot of validity from the Russian point of reference. This kind of view was evident during the Cuban Missile Crisis when Kruschev told Kennedy why he shouldn’t bitch so much about missiles defending Cuba when the US had missiles in Turkey aimed at Russia? Tit for tat’ didn’t work for Kennedy. But in Putin’s view: why not? Who the hell do capitalist Americans think they are?! Who gave them the right to set the world standard?! “Russia is the largest country in the world with 13 time zones and one hell of a culture, history and energy, thank you very much!”

Corruption, Ineptitude and Sloth

There are other factors involved in all of this: pure bureaucratic ineptitude, corruption and laziness with a good dose of alcoholism. The Russian government has centuries of history of bloated bureaucracies, fraught with people ‘on the take’ at every level. In fact, one of Putin’s initiatives early on was to streamline and clean up the corrupt bureaucracy.

Winston Churchill called Russia

“a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma,” and his words in 1939 spoke eloquently to the Western sense of Moscow as the “other” - an inscrutable and menacing land that plays by its own rules, usually to the detriment of those who choose more open regulations.”

Making the Ultimate Stupid, Catastrophic Mistake

I remember the immense dichotomy between the resplendent beauty of the Hermitage in St. Petersburg or the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow and cutting up magazines for toilet paper with nets around buildings to catch falling bricks from shoddy construction. There have been more than a handful of close calls over the years between Russia and the US with nuclear weapons.

All of these ‘near misses’ were in a relative time of peace. This fever pitch brought on by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and Russian ineptitude sets the stage for a catastrophic mistake. 

“The Guns of August”

Barbara Tuchman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book-The Guns of August- about how the European powers ‘tripped’ into World War One, is an instructive tale to heed. This time, unfortunately, the stakes are of biblical proportions. I wish this were hyperbole. Unfortunately, it is just the beginning... hopefully not of ‘the end’ for all of us…and based on blind megalomania and pure stupidity. Stay tuned…

The Thinnest Veneer of Civilization - Victor Davis Hanson- American Greatness September 29, 2022

The Thinnest Veneer of Civilization

By: Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
September 29, 2022

Civilization is fragile. It hinges on ensuring the stuff of life.

To be able to eat, to move about, to have shelter, to be free from state or tribal coercion, to be secure abroad, and safe at home—only that allows cultures to be freed from the daily drudgery of mere survival.

Civilization alone permits humans to pursue sophisticated scientific research, the arts, and the finer aspects of culture.

So, the great achievement of Western civilization—consensual government, individual freedom, rationalism in partnership with religious belief, free market economics, and constant self-critique and audit—was to liberate people from daily worry over state violence, random crime, famine, and an often-unforgiving nature.

But so often the resulting leisure and affluence instead deluded arrogant Western societies into thinking that modern man no longer needed to worry about the fruits of civilization he took to be his elemental birthright.

As a result, the once prosperous Greek city-state, Roman Empire, Renaissance republics, and European democracies of the 1930s imploded—as civilization went headlong in reverse.

We in the modern Western world are now facing just such a crisis.

We talk grandly about the globalized Great Reset. We blindly accept the faddish New Green Deal. We virtue signal about defunding the police. We merely shrug at open borders. And we brag about banning fertilizers and pesticides, outlawing the internal combustion engine, and discounting Armageddon in the nuclear age—as if on autopilot we have already reached utopia.

But meanwhile, Westerners are systematically destroying the very elements of our civilization that permitted such fantasies in the first place.

Take fuel. Europeans arrogantly lectured the world that they no longer need traditional fuels. So, they shut down nuclear power plants. They stopped drilling for oil and gas. And they banned coal.

What followed was a dystopian nightmare. Europeans will burn dirty wood this winter as their civilization reverts from postmodern abundance to premodern survival.

The Biden Administration ossified oil fields. It canceled new federal oil and gas leases. It stopped pipeline construction and hectored investors to shun fossil fuels.

When scarcity naturally followed, fuel prices soared.

The middle class has now mortgaged its upward mobility to ensure that it might afford gasoline, heating oil, and skyrocketing electricity.

The Pentagon must keep America safe by deterring enemies, reassuring allies, and winning over neutrals.

It is not to hector soldiers based on their race. It is not to indoctrinate recruits in the woke agenda. It is not to become a partisan political force.

The result of those suicidal Pentagon detours is the fiasco in Afghanistan, the aggression of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, the new bellicosity of China, and the loud threats of rogue regimes like Iran.

At home, the Biden Administration inexplicably destroyed the southern border—as if civilized nations of the past never needed such boundaries.

Utter chaos followed. Three million poured into the United States illegally. They entered without audit, and largely without skills, high-school diplomas, or capital.

The streets of our cities are anarchical—and by intent.

Defunding the police, emptying the jails, and destroying the criminal justice system unleashed a wave of criminals. It is now open season on the weak and innocent.

America is racing backward into the 19th century wild West. Predators maim, kill, and rob with impunity. Felons correctly conclude that bankrupt postmodern “critical legal theory” will ensure their exemption from punishment.

Few Americans know anything about agriculture, except to expect limitless supplies of inexpensive, safe, and nutritious food at their beck and call.

But that entitlement for 330 million hungry mouths requires massive water projects, and new dams and reservoirs. Farmers rely on steady supplies of fertilizer, fuels, and chemicals. Take away that support—as green nihilists are attempting—and millions will soon go hungry, as they have since the dawn of civilization.

Perhaps nearly a million homeless now live on the streets of America. Our major cities have turned medieval with their open sewers, garbage-strewn sidewalks, and violent vagrants.

So, we are in a great experiment in which regressive progressivism discounts all the institutions, and the methodologies of the past that have guaranteed a safe, affluent, well-fed and sheltered America.

Instead, we arrogantly are reverting to a new feudalism as the wealthy elite—terrified of what they have wrought—selfishly retreat to their private keeps.

But the rest who suffer the consequences of elite flirtations with nihilism cannot even afford food, shelter, and fuel. And they now feel unsafe, both as individuals and as Americans.

As we suffer self-inflicted mass looting, random street violence, hyperinflation, a nonexistent border, unaffordable fuel, and a collapsing military, Americans will come to appreciate just how thin is the veneer of their civilization.

When stripped away, we are relearning that what lies just beneath is utterly terrifying.