Masters Swimmers Acting Like Triathletes

Yet in spite of all the jabs, sarcasm, defensiveness, eliteism and in Thorntons case drug induced rambling the bottom line is that...whether you are a masters swimmers, a USA swimmer, a triathlete, a never ever, a soccer mom or a stalker like Jim if you are going to post pictures of yourself on-line with your trophys, blog about it, post body shots, put down others and in general show an inflated ego and lack of humility....you are/and should be fair game for mockery.... Who exactly has done that though? My masters swim buddies and teammates don't tend toward this egoism you note. I think we must be more rational in PV. I know you are in favor of stomping out all signs of inflated ego. And I don't disagree with that generally. But it appears that JS may be the one in need of a dose of humility. Isn't it egotistical to call people "lesser talents" and "wannabees" (spelling error)? Or are national finalists exempt from mockery? Wasn't it a bit early for Jim to have ingested his sonata before drafting his astute psychological profile though? (P.S. Can't resist. I guess there's no spellcheck on blackberry? lol)

The statement implies that Dara is not doing it for fun or health, granted the women is ambitious and was blessed with some fine DNA but how do we know that health and fun is not part of her motivations? I would assume someone who dated her would have a pretty good idea...

....wanna-bee masters swimmers attempting to beat former NCAA champions and Olympians who "get it". WB ..... and to think there is someone out there even more abrasive.

Mr. Thorton, Stick to palm reading and astrology. It's more accurate. Sorry Mr. Lord. Perhaps I let your various articles in different venues influence my opinion of you. Is it okay for me to call you Craig?

Mr. Thornton: I suggest you make "I" statements rather than gross over generalizations such as "we" and "us". I believe your wanting to justify your existence through personal attacks and self rationalization of mediocrity embarassing and transparent. Please do the majority of "competitive" swimmers, former or master's current, a favor and go away. You are a hypocrite in your self- indulgence around the mediocre, the opposite of those self indulgent around their ID, wanna-bee masters swimmers attempting to beat former NCAA champions and Olympians who "get it". WB Say what? Really, I don't know what this means, Mr. White Buffalo. I shall attempt to break it down to see if I can better understand your communique: I suggest you make "I" statements rather than gross over generalizations such as "we" and "us". Okay, we shall amend our ways. We shall forsake the Royal We and adopt the I point of view. I understand this part. Now, let us--damn!--I mean, let me move on. I believe your wanting to justify your existence... My existence, eh? Okay, I shall stipulate that when periods of profound melancholia recede, I do occasionally find myself semi-hoping to continue my existence, though the effort required to do so tends to be more than enough to occupy all my efforts. To both exist and also justify my existence presumes that I have reached a loftier rung on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs than I have, in fact, ever achieved. Still, I will not pick nits here. So okay, I am, in some sense, when not clinically depressed, both hoping to exist and in some ill-defined and muddlesome way justifying this existence (though I must admit I am already losing my sense of what you mean)-- through personal attacks and self rationalization of mediocrity embarassing and transparent. I think what you are saying in the first part here (personal attacks) is that I have been overly aggressive in my therapeutic intervention with Mr. Negative, maybe through my amateur psychoanalytic vivisection, or maybe through my mention of shoulder surgery and the ill-fated Longhorn steer tattoo, or maybe through both these things? Guilty! There is a famous saying that many successful captains of industry live their whole lives by: It is not enough that I succeed, my friends must fail! But what about those of us who are without success and without friends? What is left for us to adopt as personal mottos? Damn it! I am using the first person plural again. Let me rephrase, Mr. White Buffalo (and might I quickly and in passing congratulate you on picking as your personal namesake one of Charles Bronson's hokiest of all adversaries! I feel that you may be serving a similar purpose for me here!) Okay, so what motto do I live by, a person without success, and without friends? (Perhaps I am being disingenuous here. Like Willy Loman, I concede that in some quarters I am liked. But in no quarter am I well-liked.) Taking Occam's Razor to the liberation of a personal motto, I shall simply slice the original to fit my down-sized circumstances: It is not enough that I fail, people I have never met must be attacked ruthlessly on the USMS forums! Allrighty then. Point taken. Which leads me to the second element of the above highlighted passage of yours and its phrase "self rationalization of mediocrity." I suspect we have more or less covered this in our previous parsing. "Self rationalization of mediocrity" may mean something slightly different from "justification of existence," but let's face it (and here I am not using the royal we but rather am referring to me, Thornton, and you, Buffalo): given who we both know me to be (a good-for-nothing who would be doing everyone a favor by going away), these are pretty close to redundant phrases. I do not, however, fault you on your rhetoric, Mr. Buffalo! Far be it from me to suggest a fellow writer might benefit from trimming his prose! Rather, I concede that your redundancy on this matter is intentional and is used for emphasis, not because you are already running out of things to say in the second sentence of your comment! Which brings us now to the third part (embarrassment). Forgive me, but I am not sure who you mean is embarrassed. Are you saying it is I who am embarrassed by me? I doubt this is what you mean, but if this is your intent, please let me reassure you: I have almost never been embarrassed by anything I've done, no matter how idiotic and crude it may appear to outsiders, since a wonderful day in the spring of 1975 when I was a lifeguard in Georgia taking huge quantities of a drug called Triavil and met an 8 year old blonde girl named Catherine Person and together the two of us formed the "We love to make fools out of ourselves" club. I have adhered to our charter ever since and taken great succour from the invulnerability to embarrassment this has afforded me. Thus, please do not concern yourself with my embarrassment. I am probably capable of feeling this emotion, but I haven't actually done so for 35 years, and I am not experiencing it now. If, on the other hand, you are referring to your embarrassment, the way some people feel when they see a pathetic specimen ranting and raving and want to distance themselves from the spectacle, it would seem a very odd thing indeed to point out to the very same ranting raver that he (me!) has become a laughingstock and that it is embarrassing for you (Buffalo!)to even be in the proximity of such a spectacular dunderheadl! Would not a better strategy simply be to slink off altogether, not allow yourself to be contaminated by me, in the process ridding yourself of the contagion of embarrassment through proximity? Please do the majority of "competitive" swimmers, former or master's current, a favor and go away. But Mr. White Buffalo, sacred calf of the Cherokee Nation, who would, in point of fact, have made a much more manly tattoo than a gelded overgrown veal steak on the hoof, but I am drifting--back to the subject at hand--Mr. WB, I thought I was arguing on behalf of master's swimmers who take swimming seriously and actually enjoy competing and take deserved pride in their accomplishments! Please, feel free to check out my vlog, which features, in amongst the admitted dross of my personal failings and physical/psychological ailments, nothing less than a shrine to the Leslie "The Fortress" Livingstons, the Cream "(S)He-Man" Puffs, and the Rich Abrams of our beloved sport! As far as doing this favor that you ask of me, perhaps you might consider conducting a poll to see if, in point of fact, the bulk of the posters here, including those I have admittedly tweaked here and there over the years, agree with your banishment. In fact, perhaps we could do a kind of reality show immunity challenge here and now. I shall agree to the outcome if you will--my wife thinks I spend too much time on the computer anyhow. Jim Thornton or White Buffalo: who do you want to go away for, say, the next month? You are a hypocrite in your self- indulgence around the mediocre, the opposite of those self indulgent around their ID, wanna-bee masters swimmers attempting to beat former NCAA champions and Olympians who "get it". I concede I have been hypocritical in many matters, and I may be hypocritical in this one too, but I am not sure what you mean. Permission to go to extreme parsing? Permission granted by me to me. You (this refers to me, Jim Thornton) are (equal) a hypocrite (1 : a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion 2 : a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings) in your (my) self-indulgence (: excessive or unrestrained gratification of one's own appetites, desires, or whims) around the mediocre (: of moderate or low quality, value, ability, or performance), the opposite of those self-indulgent (see earlier definition) around their ID ( the one of the three divisions of the psyche in psychoanalytic theory that is completely unconscious and is the source of psychic energy derived from instinctual needs and drives; or, more likely, an abbreviation for identity), wanna-bee masters swimmers (I suspect a spelling error unless you mean masters swimmers aspiring to become hymenopterans, but I am willing to bet my house this is not what you mean) attempting to beat former NCAA champions and Olympians who "get it". Try as I might, I find myself hopelessly dumbfounded here in the final passage. Are you saying that masters swimmers, out of reverence for the past accomplishments of yesteryear's youthful greats, should not try to beat former NCAA champions and Olympians? That if, by some chance, I were to stand up on the blocks next to John Kinsella, I should wave the starter over and ask, "Sir! Is it true that I must scratch now? A certain Mr. White Buffalo has advised me that I should not even swim in the same waters as a former NCAA champion and Olympian!" Would it not be easier to put every former NCAA champion and Olympian in a special wax museum where their glory would never age, their midlife adoption of steer tattoos never seem vaguely ridiculous, their audience of well-wishers and sycophants and shrine builders could pay admission fees to view, and their very flesh might, at the sounding of the trumpet, take on incorruptibility? And finally, what exactly is the "it" that I don't get but you and the others in your rarefied community of Citius, Altius, Fortius do get? Please clarify these few areas I have not been able to comprehend--that is, if you don't first lose our friendly immunity challenge and get voted off the USMS posting island for the next month. At this point, I will now resume the private, as opposed to public, justification of my existence, which is, as you have rightly suggested, a very tiresome business indeed!

Swimming makes me fat. I strive to be non-argumentative in my posts, but I have to call BS on this one. -LBJ

Mr. Thornton: I suggest you make "I" statements rather than gross over generalizations such as "we" and "us". I believe your wanting to justify your existence through personal attacks and self rationalization of mediocrity embarassing and transparent. Please do the majority of "competitive" swimmers, former or master's current, a favor and go away. You are a hypocrite in your self- indulgence around the mediocre, the opposite of those self indulgent around their ID, wanna-bee masters swimmers attempting to beat former NCAA champions and Olympians who "get it". WB WB I think you didn't "get" that most of what Mr. N and Mr. T wrote was for comedic effect (not that the posts were without any validity)! I mean geez, light'n up! Perhpas WB is also JS?

Perhpas WB is also JS? Nope. Everything is spelled correctly, and there are compound words.

Really?? No. It's probably John C. Smith, rumored to be recovering from both shoulder surgery and the late life adoption of a Longhorn steer tattoo. I am only speculating here, but it's possible that when Mr. Smith discovered that the tattoo artist had, in fact, permanently inked a gelded steer--as opposed to a potent bull--upon his aging body, something snapped within his brain. The resulting patholological sequellae appear to include, but may not be not limited to, the triggering of peevishness and a lashing out against all of us Lilliputians with weak but still healthy shoulders, and skin unmottled by horned creatures destined for the abattoir and dinner plate. I would further speculate that there is a quality of bullshit to much of this thread. However, as I just speculated above, bull is perhaps too strong a term. In any event, best of luck to you, Mr. Negative--and I mean this sincerely. I hope your shoulder heals up quickly, and that with time and the encroachment of the fat that you seem to think overtakes all us masters eventually, that the graven image of that sad gelded cow will disappear forever within wrinkled folds of your crepey flesh!

I strive to be non-argumentative in my posts, but I have to call BS on this one. -LBJ "Swimming makes people fat"? I would rephrase this to "Eating too much makes people fat" Here is more about fitness vs. weight from other, admittedly not quite parallel universe: www.worldclassbodybuilding.com/.../35884-fast-or-fiction.html "*Fiction--Fat turns into muscle *Fact-----Fat is burned off in muscle, it does not turn into it *Fiction--Muscle turns into fat *Fact-----Muscle grows and shrinks, it does not turn into anything *Fiction--Weight training develops muscle *Fact-----Weight training tears muscle, diet develops it *Fiction--a person should first lose there weight and then work out *Fact-----a person who diets without working out will lose muscle and fat *Fiction--Carbohydrates make people fat *Fact-----Eating too much makes people fat, carbohydrates feed your brain and fuel the body. *Fiction--Fat makes people fat *Fact-----Eating too much makes people fat, fats supply needed vitamins and fuel the body *Fiction---Proteins destroy your liver *Fact-----When is the last time you heard of somebody dying form protein (now cigarettes?) *Fiction---High reps are better for muscle *Fact-----Whose legs are more muscular a long distance runner or a sprinter? *Fiction--The Stairmaster will enlarge your butt *Fact-----The butt is a muscle, training does not enlarge muscle it tears it, eating enlarges your butt *Fiction--Training your abs makes your stomach smaller *Fact-----Training your abs tears tissues, dieting makes your stomach smaller *Fiction--You should train your abs daily *Fact-----Train your abs once a week just like every other body part, *Fiction--You can spot reduce weight by training a particular body part *Fact-----Training tears tissue diet reduces weight, you can not spot reduce weight *Fiction--Walking like a duck in the gym is good way to train *Fact----Walking like a duck makes others who know what they are doing laugh *Fiction--Rolling around on a ball in the gym is good training *Fact----Another very funny thing to watch *Fiction--half hour workouts are the way to go *Fact----while it is better then nothing, it won't do much (easy way for trainers to make quick money) *Fiction--In shape people write diet books *Fact----Well there may be some, I have not seen one lately *Fiction--I should listen to an out of shape person on how to get in shape *Fact-----You will look like them when you are done *Fiction--Most people want the right information on getting in shape *Fact-----Most people want to hear how fast they can do it. *Fiction--Most of the field of fitness is honest *Fact-----One of the biggest rip offs in the world "