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CounterPunch
February
1, 2003
Just Do It
Outrunning the
President
by ADAM ENGEL
They pump their bodies with grim determination.
Hard labor and inspired hormones. Diets
optimized through professional intervention. Trainers expert
in the chemistry of lean architecture. The human form. Pills,
shakes, powders, injections; natural herbs and synthetic wonder
molecules. Water with more oxygen than water itself. There are
methods. There are numerous methods tried and true. And the machines.
Ergonomically correct. Designed for comfort in distress. The
latest developments in physical physics, the use of electric
power for tension and torsion. Maximum results.
They will stay firm and young forever.
Ubiquitous "fitness consultants" oversee their trials.
Male and female forms stretched, flexed,
pressed and pulled side by side. Musk of pheromone and torment.
Pure mist of ideal.
"Faith, purity of mind, strength
of will," say the trainers. "Lean, raw food. Clean
digestion. Work it. Pump it. Work it out. Pump it out."
They run on treadmills, pedal stationary
bikes.
Huge overhead monitors blast music videos
and the War into their sweating heads. Do they imagine themselves
in those jets, roaring over the Enemy of the Nation, dropping
bombs on its demon progeny? Hear and see the War thrum to the
beat of hippy-happy-hoppy tunes. Sex and Death set to digital
post-pop pop provoke intense work-outs. They leave their anguished
forms to soar with planes and scream raw lust at dancing, cheering
crowds.
"We love you, [your name here],
we LOVE you!"
Zip! Whoosh! Kaboom. Kaboom. Kaboom!
They bare tamed bodies in thin shorts
or conceal wayward fat under baggy sweats.
To log regular hours at the Health Club
is to have one's insurance premiums reduced. And of course it
is good for overall productivity if the workers and executives
are allowed to live with the jets and pop stars for an hour each
day -- to leave the cold, onion sweat of the cubicle for steamy
muscle action.
Each in his own infinite mental space,
soaring, pumping, cycling with the sexy siren-icons and grooving
to the War.
Do it, America. Just do it.
Adam Engel
is in BETTER SHAPE than the President of the United States. He'll
challenge George to a bench-pressing/treadmill running / pretzel-eating
contest any day of the week. He can be reached at asengel@attglobal.net
when he's not at the gym or buying.
Yesterday's
Features
Muqtedar Khan
Heavy
Rhetoric, Wistful Thinking and Hydrogen Cars: a response to Bush's
State of the Union
William Hughes
An
Open Letter to France:
Justice is On Your Side
David Wilson
Meet
the Gloucester Weapons Inspectors: the Protest at the Fairford
Stealth Bomber Base
Anthony Gancarski
Free
Press? "There's No Damn Thing"
Josh Frank
Who Would Jesus Bomb?: 10 Reasons to Oppose War on Iraq
Abu Spinoza
Iraq: Web Resources
Dr. Gerry Lower
Class Warfare Against the Poor
Natalie Johnson Lee
Green
Party Response to Bush's State of the Union
Russell Mokhiber and
Robert Weissman
Stealing Money from Kids
Maria Tomchick
Bush's Smallpox Boondoggle
Paul di Rooij
War: It's Already Started
Website of the Day
Tie
Yourself to the Mast Brave Odysseus: Ashcroft Sings!
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January 25
/ 26, 2003
Ron Jacobs
Iraq
War as Football Game
Bill and Kathy
Christison
Too Many Smoking Guns: Israel, American Jews and the War on Iraq
Chris Clarke
Collateral Damage: Draft Resistance and the Peace Mvt.
Bruce Jackson
Killing an Oak Tree: a Gratuitous Death
Jennifer Berkshire
Porto Allegre Diary II: Building the Party, Lula Style
Forrest Hylton
Left Turns in South America
Edward Said
When Will Arabs Resist?
William A.
Cook
Israeli
Democracy: Fact or Fiction?
Anthony Gancarski
America Never Was America to Me
Subcomandante
Marcos
Zaps to Basques: Lighten Up!
Ellen Cantarow
Music Lives in Palestine
Marta Russell
Extinguishing Frida Kahlo
Adam Engel
Man in the Black Suit: a novelini
Read
Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
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