Myles Kantor's Blog

North Korea from a Torah Perspective

2010-12-09T05:07:00.001-08:00

I recently saw the documentary Kimjongilia, which examines the totalitarian crime family that has enslaved North Korea since 1948. Early in the film, former victims of the regime state about "Eternal Leader" Kim Il Sung, who died in 1994:

"They had us all worship him as a god."
"Christians say grace before their meals. We said grace to Kim Il Sung."
"He was like a supreme being."

This is ghoulish by any reasonable perspective. Considered from a Judaic perspective, there is a very specific evil here.

Judaism does not threaten damnation for everyone who is not Jewish. On the contrary, righteous gentiles have a share in eternal life. The universal standards Judaism obligates gentiles to follow are called the Seven Noahide Laws. Among these laws are the prohibition of murder, theft, and idolatry.

For over half a century, the North Korean regime has perpetrated mass murder and plunder based on an idolatrous ideology (with racism a key element as well). It is no surprise to find North Korea arming Iran, enabling Syria's recent attempt at nuclear menace, and allied with the vicious anti-Semitic gerontocracy in Cuba.

They are a congregation of the wicked (Psalm 26:5) who cannot sleep without committing evil (Proverbs 4:16). These sadists and murderers have power for now, but the Bible is very clear on their ultimate fate (Psalms 11:5-6 and 92:8, Ecclesiastes 3:16-17).

What Is Faith Without Study?

2010-10-10T00:37:00.000-07:00

A central component of Judaism is Talmud Torah (Bible study). As Joshua 1:8 states:

This book of the Torah shall not leave your mouth; you shall meditate therein day and night, in order that you observe to do all that is written in it, for then will you succeed in all your ways and then will you prosper.

The Book of Psalms similarly begins:

Praiseworthy is the man who walked not in the counsel of the wicked, and stood not in the path of the sinful, and sat not in the session of scorners. But his desire is in the Torah of the Lord, and in his Torah he meditates day and night.

There is an extremely practical dimension to these teachings. As Moshe Rabbeinu instructs Israel in Deuteronomy 32:46-47:

Set your hearts to all of the words which I bear witness for you this day, so that you may command your children to observe to do all the words of this Torah. For it is not an empty thing for you, for it is your life...

If we do not study the words of the Almighty, how can we fulfill the will of the Almighty? How can we cultivate the midot (character traits) Biblically commanded of us if we do not immerse ourselves in the Bible on a daily basis? (Such immersion can take several forms including reading Tanakh, listening to shiurim, studying the Mishneh Torah, Chovot HaLevavot, etc.) As Rav David Bar-Hayim notes:

"The purpose of the Torah is not only that one know it but that it be internalized. In order for it to be internalized...one has to be constantly dealing with it and learning it anew, even things that one has already learned."

Thus, just as Talmud Torah is a commandment, Jews are to avoid bitul Torah (wasting time from Torah study). For example, getting drunk at a bar and watching MMA fights doesn't exemplify a Judaic lifestyle.

In America today, religion is often about personal sentiment and preference instead of doctrine and obedience. The preacher Paul Washer has stated in this vein:

"When you take a look at American Christianity, it is based more upon a godless culture than it is upon the word of God."
"Most of our Christianity is based on cliches that we read on the back of Christian t-shirts. Most of our Christianity comes from songwriters and not the Bible. Most of what we believe to be true is dictated to us by our culture and not the Bible."
"What happened to our theology? What happened to our doctrine? What happened to our teaching? It went right out the window. No one wants to study doctrine anymore. They just want to listen to songs and read the back of Christian t-shirts."

These remarks are at 8:50, 22:00, and 38:25 of this link. Having spent ten years as a missionary in Peru and other countries like Nigeria where affirming Christianity can jeopardize one's life, Washer has earned his outrage. Theologian R.C. Sproul and author Stephen Mansfield similarly observe regarding contemporary American evangelical Christianity (at 9:10 and 9:55 of this link):

"We tell people they don't need to repent because God loves them just the way they are. And the only reason to come to Jesus is to have greater peace or greater happiness or a better 'trip' than they'll get from drugs. That's not the Gospel at all."
"The standard evangelistic approach is to tell non-believers, 'God loves you just the way you are.'...We've got to get rid of that kind of humanistic nonsense."

Perhaps anticipating such trends, George Orwell wrote in his 1935 novel A Clergyman's Daughter about one of the ways an English clergyman could keep his congregation:

"...be daringly modern and broad-minded and preach comforting sermons proving that there is no Hell and all good religions are the same."

Related to this Biblically alienated approach, in a sermon on 1 Timothy 4:6 Washer addresses what he considers the deficient state of Bible study among American Christians. He states regarding Christian leadership and laity:

"The word of God is the only thing we have. You cannot lead your family, sir; you cannot do it apart from being constantly nourished on the words of the faith...You cannot be godly, you cannot be an instrument of God, you cannot grow. It is an absolute essential, but it is the very thing that we do not do."
"So many Christians struggle and suffer in so many areas of their life because of ignorance of God's word, direct disobedience to God's will. And it seems as though they're not even aware of it."

It's not hard to discern if someone's profession of faith is meaningful, because they tend to behave in certain ways. Consider three Christian verses:

"If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless." (James 1:26)
"For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." (Luke 14:11)
"When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me." (1 Corinthians 13:11)

Someone who has studied these verses and internalized these verses probably won't talk about idle or immoral matters. He probably won't have a bumper sticker that says, "Not perfect, just forgiven." He probably won't talk about enabling two abortions for an ex-girlfriend in his youth and then say, "But Jesus forgave me for that." (The final example is something a Christian once told me.) In short, having taken to heart the ethics of his faith, he will act accordingly.

Likewise, a Jew who has taken Torah ethics to heart won't be a chatterbox (Proverbs 10:19), lust after wealth (Proverbs 23:4-5), boast about the future (Proverbs 27:1), or go shopping on the Sabbath (Exodus 20:8). But these ethics can't be taken to heart if one doesn't know them to begin with.

Alienation from scripture spawns all kinds of incoherence and arrogance. Daily, intense Biblical engagement promotes reason, humility, and adherence. For those who call themselves believers, the choice should be simple.

"Get Your Technique Every Rep"

2010-09-29T02:32:00.000-07:00

In 1981, Gary Heisey was 6'7" and weighed 198 in his mid 20s. In 1992, he deadlifted 925 pounds weighing 358, the 7th highest deadlift of all time. He states at 4:25 of this video on going for a PR deadlift after the fatigue of squatting and benching in a meet:

"The hardest part is keeping your form...If you train it in the gym to get your technique every rep, every rep during every set, it's a lot easier to focus..."

World Games gold medalist Mike Tuchscherer, who has deadlifted 826 in the 275 lb. weight class, similarly notes at 3:10 of a recent squat training video:

"From the time that you approach the bar from the time that you put the bar back into the rack, every movement is important, and everything has to be efficient."

And as Ernie Frantz put it in two of his "commandments" from The Ten Commandments of Powerlifting:

"Act like your light lifts are heavy, so your heavy lifts will feel light."
"Concentration separates the good from the best."

James Toback on Spiritual Integrity

2010-09-18T18:27:00.000-07:00

I recently re-watched parts of the documentary The Outsider, about the filmmaker James Toback. I find his movies to be hit or miss--or more precisely hit and miss in the same movie. The scene in Fingers between Harvey Keitel and Lenny Montana is a brilliant example of when he hits.

At one point in the documentary, Toback discusses the importance of defending oneself in relation to a scene from Bugsy (which he wrote) where the protagonist confronts someone who has stolen from him. Toback remarks:

"I think it's cowardly and weak and very bad for the soul to allow oneself to be violated. Directors who allow themselves to be bullied into doing what they know is dishonest and untrue cinematically--that is directly connected to in one's personal life allowing oneself to be violated...It ceases to be a practical consideration. It is one of personal honor, and that may be an outmoded concept. I think there are scores that must be settled, and I think people who make excuses for their own allowance of being violated do tremendous damage to their own spiritual integrity. They cannot in honesty feel good about themselves knowing that they allowed some vile scumbag to harm them or harm someone they cared about."

I think there's a lot of truth there.

Wyatt Earp's Judaic Temperament

2010-09-12T09:53:00.000-07:00

I really like Lawrence Kasdan's 1994 film, Wyatt Earp, which I was watching again recently. In one scene, Earp orients Bat and Ed Masterson to law enforcement in Dodge City, Kansas. He asks them to disarm two drunks walking on the thoroughfare in violation of the city ordinance on carrying firearms. Ed engages them in prolonged conversation before Earp intervenes definitively. He comments:

"You talk too much, Ed."

This wasn't about a mere difference in style. It's revealed moments later that one of the men was reaching for a pocket pistol. In other words, Ed's excessive speech endangered himself and his peers.

Earp's approach might seem aloof or hostile in a logorrheic society. In fact, his comment to Ed Masterson has a strong Biblical foundation. Consider the holy words of King Solomon:

"In an abundance of words, offense will not be lacking, but one who restrains his lips is wise" (Proverbs 10:19).
"One who is sparing with his words knows knowledge, and a man with a spirit of understanding speaks sparingly" (Proverbs 17:27).
"Be not rash with your mouth..." (Ecclesiastes 5:1).

The ArtScroll edition of Proverbs notes regarding the second verse, "The Vilna Gaon understands the verse to refer to a person who values not only his speech but his thoughts, and doesn't waste them on worthless topics."

Excessive, idle talk is all about ego and arrogance--the antithesis of humility prescribed so often in the Torah. As the sage Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi summed up the matter:

"If a word is worth a coin, then silence is worth two."

We Age and Stay Strong

2010-08-18T08:27:00.000-07:00

I grew up listening to classic rock groups like The Kinks and recently heard Terry Gross' interview with the lead singer from the band, Ray Davies. At 31:10, she plays the beginning of Davies' song "Run Away From Time" from his 2006 album, Other People's Lives. Two of the verses are:

And time is the avenger
But why should we just surrender to it?

This brings to mind masters powerlifters who maintain amazing levels of strength or grow even stronger. They exemplify King Solomon's holy counsel in Ecclesiastes: "Whatever you are able to do, do with all your might." Consider Brad Gillingham deadlifting a personal record of 881 pounds at 42 years old:

Or Sioux-z Hartwig-Gary winning her 15th national championship this year, setting PRs and world records at 41:

Or 50-year-old David Ricks winning the 198 lb. weight class at this year's Raw Unity Meet with a 716 lb. deadlift:

Or Larry Wallen and Bob Gaynor deadlifting 705 lbs. and 680 lbs. in their 60s:

Or Rick Melear deadlifting 589 lbs. at his first meet in 18 years:

Or former powerlifter Mark Rippetoe doing 18 real chin-ups in his 50s:

If you need added motivation to train, turn off the volume on whichever of those clips you like best, and pause to just before the lift begins. Then watch it while listening to the second verse quoted from "Run Away From Time."

Gordon Gekko's 12th Century Source?

2010-06-16T07:51:00.000-07:00

I'm reading Hillel Halkin's book on the 12th century Spanish-Hebrew poet Yehuda Halevi, who lived in cities including Córdoba. Halkin remarks on his time there:

In Córdoba he had many old friends and acquaintances. There was Avraham ibn Ezra, a ruefully witty and financially unsuccessful wanderer who once joked in a poem that if he were to go into the candle trade, the sun would never set, and that men would cease to die if he sold shrouds.

This reminded me of the scene in Wall Street where Bud Fox meets Gordon Gekko for the first time, and Gekko says about the CEO of Teldar Paper:

Why the hell is Cromwell giving a lecture tour when he's losing 60 million a quarter? Guess he's giving lectures in how to lose money. If this guy owned a funeral parlor, no one would die!

Israel's Lethal Arrogance

2010-06-15T07:30:00.000-07:00

"It's clear that the equipment for crowd dispersal with which they [Israeli commandos] were issued was insufficient," IDF Chief of General Staff Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi commented after the recent flotilla fiasco. The commander of the soldiers who boarded the flotilla commented, "We did not expect such resistance from the group's activists as we were talking about a humanitarian aid group."

This reminded me of Bar-Ilan University professor Efraim Inbar's observation regarding Israel's performance in the Second Lebanon War:

Israel's highest political and military echelons committed serious strategic errors in preparation for, during execution, and in the aftermath of the 2006 Lebanon campaign. Together, these errors enabled Hezbollah to persevere against the larger, better-equipped Israeli military and emerge as perhaps an even greater threat.

Israeli historian Benny Morris has noted regarding Egypt and Syria's joint attack on Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur War:

The Arabs' success in springing this strategic surprise--a feat that has taken its place in military history alongside Hitler's invasion of Russia and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor--owed much to the Israeli perception of the Arab forces as inherently incompetent, weak, and incapable of mounting such a deception. Zvi Zamir, then director of the Mossad, explained: "We simply did not believe that they could do it...We scorned them."

Israel probably has the second or third most sophisticated military in the world; but it has a sickening habit of jeopardizing citizens' lives due to this pattern of arrogance. Or is it as much ineptitude?

Israelis, Stop Benching Like Americans

2010-04-19T12:19:00.000-07:00

I’ve joked to my neighbors that Israel is Americanized in the wrong ways and not Americanized in the right ways. Since making aliya on November 3, I’ve trained in two Israeli gyms, both of which contain a form of negative Americanization.

Guys like to bench press, and Israeli guys are no exception. This isn’t inherently bad, although most guys bench with shoulder-wrecking form and don’t approach the bench as a technical lift to start with. Retired elite powerlifter Dave Tate gives an overview of how much technique the bench press involves:

Furthermore, benching without overhead pressing (standing, of course) and back exercises in equal volume is a recipe for shoulder problems and results in a heinous lack of balanced strength. Yes, heinous, because a healthy guy should be able to stand on his feet and deadlift twice his body weight. He should be able to clean or unrack two-thirds of his body weight and press it overhead. (That’s press, not push-press.)

The press can be especially tough in the most constructive sense. Mark Rippetoe has called the press “the soul of the sport of barbell exercise” and observes in Strong Enough?:

The press is hard. You won’t be able to press what you can bench. You have to support with your whole body what the bench supports when you lay down to press. So you are doing all the work instead of letting the bench do some of it, supporting, balancing, and manhandling the whole load. This is how strength was, and is, built.

Because of its standing nature, the press is immune from an inane—no, infernal—phenomenon: the two-man bench press. Anyone who has spent some time in the free weights area of a gym knows what I’m talking about. A guy starts to strain during a set, and bar speed slows down. Then the spotter starts “conducting the bar” by placing his hands under the bar to help lift the weight. Rip discusses the rudeness of such behavior:

But sometimes the two-man bench press is consensual, which is to say requested. Hell, the other day I saw a guy doing cable crossovers with someone assisting on the final reps. This is depraved stuff, right up there with the ghoulish Wall Street type guys in the end of Requiem for a Dream.

Barbell training is an individual endeavor. Training partners can be great, but we are alone under the bar. When a spotter participates in a lift, he subverts how we develop strength and distorts how we measure strength. As Rip writes in Starting Strength, “No rep counts that is touched by anybody other than the lifter. No spotter touches any bar that is still moving up.”

In Judaism, we are taught that "Derech eretz kadma l'Torah." (Good manners precede Torah observance.) To my new countrymen, I say: Do not be a rude spotter or an accomplice to stupidity. Stop emulating the wrong Americans, and start lifting like Jews.

Breaking Down the Walls

2010-04-12T08:39:00.000-07:00

"The end of a matter is better than its beginning," King Solomon observes in Ecclesiastes. On April 10, my friend Eric Talmant broke through a major barrier after two years of effort.

Eric is a top powerlifter in the 165 lb. weight class and the founder and director of the Raw Unity Meet. ("Raw" powerlifting doesn't use equipment like squat suits and bench press shirts. In the RUM, knee wraps also aren't allowed.) At the first Raw Unity Meet in January 2008, Eric deadlifted 622 pounds for a personal record:

He deadlifted 635 pounds a few months later:

At the second Raw Unity Meet, Eric attempted to deadlift 639 pounds and missed it at his knees. The third Raw Unity Meet this January had huge interest, and Eric accumulated an immense amount of fatigue going into the competition. He pulled 639 past his knees and was approaching lockout when his body shut down:

Missing a deadlift can mess with a lifter's head. Missing the same deadlift twice can really mess with a lifter's head. And passing out during a deadlift can rattle a lifter that much more.

Eric did not get rattled.

On April 10 at the R.A.W. United Beau Moore Classic, Eric set personal records on his squat and bench press before deadlifting. On his second attempt deadlift, 640 pounds went up with amazing speed:

Then Eric did something even more amazing on his third attempt:

Eric totaled 1435 pounds, which is the second highest raw total in the country for the 165s. His 650 lb. deadlift is number one.

Eric is usually reserved on the platform, but after deadlift PRs he often shows justified exhilaration. After he deadlifted 650, what struck me was the look of profound peace, awe, and gratitude toward his Creator.

I am honored to have a role in Eric's latest achievements. In December, Eric and his head coach David Bates brought me aboard as his technique coach. Using Mark Rippetoe's mechanical model along with my own concepts, I identified inefficiencies in Eric's lifts that I felt were blocking PRs. Eric adapted the model and concepts to his style, and the results speak for themselves.

But as I once wrote, after the meet is before the meet. We're already discussing future goals. Old walls have been broken down. Moving on to new ones...

Discovering Creation in a Barbell

2010-02-10T11:20:00.000-08:00

"Meditate, my brother, on the Creator's wisdom in structuring your body," Rabbi Bachya ben Yosef ibn Paquda advises in his classic book, Duties of the Heart. The Rambam likewise observes in his Epistle to Yemen:

"The inner parts of man are the true wonders that reveal the wisdom of the Creator: the nerves extending into the muscles which allow man to move his limbs at will; the attachment of ligaments, how they cling to bone, and the manner in which they grow; the connection of bones and joints; blood vessels that pulsate and those that do not and how they branch out; the placement of man's organs overlapping one another; how every part of the body has its proper composition form, and place."

The fundamental barbell exercises (squat, press, deadlift) are the weighted expression of this Divinely arranged physical structure. Consider the deadlift. On the surface, a deadlift is simply picking up a bar from the floor and standing up with it. (The "simply" part tends to disappear with a maximal weight.)

In fact, a deadlift contains an immense network of musculoskeletal coordination from the upper back down through the legs. Toward the end of my interview on the deadlift with Mark Rippetoe, Rip recounted how he discovered why the shoulder blades need to be aligned with the bar at the start of an efficient deadlift. I'll close this post with his reflections:

"Look at the anatomy of the traps and the rhomboids. Look at the position that the scapulas are in to receive the force transmitted up the spine. It’s right there in front of you. That is the structure that receives the force transmitted across those broad muscles isometrically and then down the arms to the bar...

The trapezius has the broadest muscle origin in the human body. It goes all the way from the base of the skull down to T12. It receives the force that the rigid spine transmits, the force generated by the muscles that open the knees and the hips. That force is then transmitted across the traps and the rhomboids to the scapulas. What hangs from the scapulas? The arms. And then if you’ll look at it, every single time you see somebody pulling a heavy bar off the floor—every single time—it’s the scapula that is plumb to the bar, not the arms. Why would that be? Because the scapula is the thing below which the bar hangs. The tensional force of the weight in the hands is transmitted between the scapulas and the grip by the muscles, ligaments, and tendons that anchor the bones in place isometrically. The traps and rhomboids transfer the force to the scapulas; the triceps, biceps, forearm muscles, grip muscles, and the ligaments and tendons form the chain from which the weight hangs; and the lats act on the humerus to keep the arms at the angle they have to be to place the load directly under the scapulas."

The Cathy Chronicles

2010-01-31T15:36:00.000-08:00

"The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows," Robert Frost once wrote. In the past year, my friend Cathy Cox has achieved amazing facts in the sport of powerlifting.

On March 14, 2009, Cathy deadlifted 240 pounds at her first meet, the R.A.W. United South Florida Open in Deerfield Beach, Florida. Her best deadlift before the meet was 215 pounds for three reps after training the deadlift for a few months:

On April 18, Cathy competed at the USAPL Europa Show of Champions in Orlando and deadlifted a new PR (personal record) of 253 pounds:

Cathy qualified for USAPL Raw Nationals in Charlottesville, Virginia at the Europa meet. On July 24 in Charlottesville, she increased her deadlift to 275 pounds:

I wrote about the courageous circumstances behind Cathy's 275 lb. deadlift in this article. She also totaled 540 pounds in Charlottesville. (In a powerlifting meet, a lifter receives three attempts in the squat, bench press, and deadlift. The sum of the best squat, bench, and deadlift attempts is the lifter's total.)

On Saturday, Cathy competed at Eric Talmant's Raw Unity Meet in Tampa. Her goals were to PR her total, deadlift double her body weight, and then deadlift over 300 pounds. Cathy weighed in at 137 pounds and PRed her total on her first deadlift:

Cathy deadlifted over double body weight on her second attempt:

Cathy's best deadlift in training before Raw Unity was a tough 300 pounds:

She selected 303 pounds for her third attempt and crushed it, increasing her PR total to 55 pounds:

"In something that you earn, there's a tremendous pleasure," Rabbi Eli Mansour observes in a lesson on The Path of the Just. Cathy earned everything she achieved on Saturday. She earned it at one of the most prestigious meets in our sport. And she's not finished.

Was Apollo Creed a Jew?

2010-01-23T17:08:00.000-08:00

"Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring," King Solomon counsels in Proverbs 27:1. Did Apollo Creed study Proverbs before saying these classic words in Rocky III?

Perhaps more directly to King Solomon's message, powerlifting great Larry Pacifico recounts the mood before 1980's Men's National Powerlifting Championships in Champion of Champions:

"I remember several top lifters sitting around before the contest talking about what they would lift. After 6 or 7 made ambitious predictions someone asked Dave Waddington what he planned on lifting. He said he didn't make predictions but if he did he'd be saying only 'sh*t he could do' and not all this crap he's been hearing. He then got up and left."

Waddington placed second in the super heavyweight class. In 1981, he made history by breaking the 1,000 pound barrier in the squat.

Tommy Didn't Study His Bible

2010-01-23T16:25:00.000-08:00

The other day I was studying Proverbs 26:27, where King Solomon observes, "He who digs a pit will fall into it." One of my favorite movies illustrates this wisdom:

"What is it, the first hole I dug?" Tommy says after murdering Spider. Fateful words given how he turned out:

The ArtScroll edition of Proverbs comments:

"R' Saadiah Gaon cites the case of King Darius's officials who were cast into the lion's den into which they had thrown Daniel. Perhaps the most prominent example of a man who 'dug his own grave' is Haman, who was hanged on the very gallows that he had built for Mordechai."

To express this theme in Hebrew, "Midah Keneged Midah" (Measure for Measure).

Tenacity on the Platform

2007-06-16T14:02:00.000-07:00

I don't think I've seen a squat as tenacious as Priscilla Ribic's 546lb. world record in 2006. Then I recently saw Tony Cardella squat 826.7 at the 2003 IPF World Championships. (To watch, go here and click on the 125kg squats. Cardella's is 1:50 in.)

It wasn't the heaviest squat of the day for the 275s. Great Britain's Clive Henry squatted 925.9 (starts at 5:06), which had a remarkable context as well. (Henry was on the verge of bombing out, missing his first attempt at 881.8 and second at 925.9.)

But watch Cardella struggle for nearly six seconds to lift the weight, and you will see what tenacity is.

For a Free Marketplace in Sport

2007-05-30T17:57:00.000-07:00

So steroids are in the news again.

This time the spotlight is on 1996 Tour de France winner Bjarne Riis, who admitted using steroids and other drugs during the 90s. Champion cyclist Erik Zabel subsequently admitted doping before the 1996 Tour.

Given the colossal rigor of the race, is this really a surprise?

As a powerlifter who competes in a drug-tested federation, steroids aren’t my thing. My health and hairline matter to me, so I pass on the needle.

But here’s the thing that many people don’t seem to grasp:

Athletes use steroids because they work.

If steroids cause organ damage, physical deformities, and behavioral problems, they also cause marked increases in recovery ability, training intensity, and strength. This translates into improved athletic performance.

If steroids didn’t work, athletes wouldn’t use them. It’s that simple.

Some top powerlifters have been admirably candid about steroid use:

“When I reached 40 years of age, it seemed like I just was not retaining enough protein to rebuild my muscles. I wanted to stay on the top, so I chose steroids…I work hard for my power. Steroids gave me the chance to work harder.” (Ernie Frantz)
“There's no possible way I can train the way I do without taking anabolics.” (Louie Simmons)
“…I'm not going to be hypocritical and say that I haven't done things.” (Ed Coan)

Numerous elite powerlifters don’t use steroids, however, and the sport has found an elegant solution to the issue: a free marketplace of competition.

Powerlifting has drug-tested federations like the International Powerlifting Federation and non-tested federations like the World Powerlifting Organization. There are also federations with tested and non-tested divisions like the American Powerlifting Association.

That’s how it should work; private organizations arise to accommodate certain athletic preferences. Instead of coercive homogeneity, there is a spectrum of choice.

And those private organizations also have the right to establish certain policies. To cite a policy that to my knowledge has caused no controversy, my federation requires a t-shirt beneath the required singlet during the squat and bench press and prohibits t-shirts with “pockets, buttons, zippers, collar, or vee neck.”

These are the rules of performance. If you show up for squats with a Polo shirt and no singlet, don't expect to participate in a meet.

To extend this to the more controversial issue of steroids, the problem with Riis and Zabel isn’t that they used steroids—it’s that they used for an event they knew prohibited steroids, violating the rules of performance and honorable competition.

The principle of self-ownership means that athletes should have the right to pursue their fullest potential with Deca, HGH, EPO, or whatever. That doesn’t create entitlement to compete wherever they want.

But steroid-using athletes are entitled to form organizations where use won’t be an issue. The evolution of powerlifting shows how this can be done.

Releasing Dissidents Doesn't Mean Reform

2007-04-30T16:06:00.000-07:00

There's a scene in Syriana where the CIA agent played by George Clooney presents at a meeting about Iran. An official refers to "students marching in the streets" and "Khatami making the right sounds," to which he responds:

They let young people march in the street and then the next day shut down fifty newspapers. They have a few satellite dishes up on roofs, let 'em have My Two Dads, but that doesn't mean the Ayatollahs have relinquished one iota of control over that nation.

This exchange comes to mind with the Castro regime's release of seven prisoners of conscience including Jorge Luis García Pérez, imprisoned since 1990.

Certain knobs, forever eager to soft-pedal the brutality of the regime, will cite the releases as proof of reform in Cuba. There are four responses to this:

1) Jorge Luis García Pérez and his peers shouldn't have been imprisoned to begin with. They are owed restitution for their immense suffering, and those who perpetrated this suffering must be held accountable for their crimes.

2) The "crime" García Pérez was convicted of, "enemy propaganda," remains. Nothing has changed institutionally.

3) Many more prisoners of conscience remain in Cuba.

4) This month, human rights activists Rolando Jiménez and Oscar Sanchez were sentenced to twelve years and four years for "disrespect" and "social dangerousness."

In 1976, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn observed of the Soviet Union after the Helsinki Accords, "They're released Plyushch, but continue to lock up others. There you have detente and the spirit of Helsinki."

Now Cuba releases some while locking up others, in this case to end European Union sanctions. The EU's likely response brings to mind another observation by Solzhenitsyn:

The Soviet Union and the Communist countries know how to conduct negotiations. For a long time they make no concessions and then they give in just a little bit. Right away there is rejoicing: "Look, they've made a concession; it's time to sign."...They give one one-thousandth of what natural law should provide--things which people should be able to do even before such negotiations are undertaken--and already there is joy. And here in the West we hear many voices that say: "Look, they're making concessions; it's time to sign."

There are still many voices like that.

Emersonian Israelis

2007-04-27T12:37:00.000-07:00

"People in the southern town of Sderot have a choice," begins a recent article in Ha'aretz, "obey the law, or protect their homes against constant Qassam fire [from the Gaza Strip]."

See, municipal regulations prohibit construction of shelters in homes.

But some Israelis, stubbornly concerned for their lives and the lives of their families, are building shelters anyway.

"Good men must not obey the laws too well," Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote. This truth is urgently apparent in Sderot.

Naughty Henry

2007-04-26T15:59:00.000-07:00

Historian Robert Dallek was recently in the news for "revealing" in his new book that Henry Kissinger delayed telling Richard Nixon about the start of the Yom Kippur War in October 1973.

While Dallek's Nixon and Kissinger surely adds to the story, Kissinger's withholding has been known for some time. The late Stephen Ambrose noted in 1991 in the third volume of his Nixon biography:

Kissinger was willing, even eager, to take advantage of Nixon's preoccupations [with Watergate, etc.] to ignore the President as he dealt with the crisis. It was two and a half hours after he had the news that Kissinger called [chief of staff] Al Haig in Key Biscayne to inform him that war had broken out. He did not ask to talk to the President. He had already contacted the Israelis, the Soviets, the Syrians, the United Nations, the Egyptians, and Jordan. This set a pattern that persisted, justified by Kissinger on the grounds that "it was not clear that Nixon retained enough authority to manage the manifold pressures about to descend on him." He had no doubt about his own authority.

To quote Borat, "Naughty, naughty!"

Edgar Allan Poe, Muse of Rocky III?

2007-04-26T13:26:00.000-07:00

A little known fact is that Sylvester Stallone is a longtime admirer of Edgar Allan Poe. Stallone's dearest unrealized project might be his movie about Poe.

On this note, I recently came across the following passage in Jeffrey Meyers' biography of Poe, about a fight Mr. Masque of the Red Death had when he was a teenager:

...he got into a fight with a heavier boy and was vigorously beaten for some time, before turning the tables and giving him a sound whipping. When asked why he had allowed the boy to beat his head for so long, Edgar explained that he was waiting for him to lose his breath before administering the final defeat! As always, Edgar offered an ingenious explanation of his strange behavior.

Now compare Poe's fight with the climax of Rocky III. Balboa encourages Clubber "I Pity The Fool" Lang to get piñata on him to fatigue the champion. (He earlier lost the title to Lang.) The tactic works, and by the end of round three Lang's getting the piñata treatment.

I don't know if Stallone read about Poe's fight in an earlier biography (Meyers' came out ten years after Rocky III), but it's a cool commonality in any case.

A Good Man, A Good Husband, A Good Friend

2007-04-23T16:02:00.000-07:00

"He was a good man, a good husband, and a good friend," recently remarked the widow of late dissident Miguel Valdés Tamayo, whom I wrote about in January. Now the regime that brutalized her husband holds Bárbara Elisa Collazo captive and terrorizes her family.

All she wants to do is leave, but the vicious jerkoffs who enslave Cuba won't allow that.

When Revolution Is Worse

2007-04-23T15:37:00.000-07:00

One of my best friends recommended I see Land of the Blind. This being a guy who shares my affection for Superman II--"Kneel before Zod!" is inexplicably absent from the American Film Institute's 100 greatest movie lines--I took his recommendation.

Land of the Blind is about the exacerbation of a country's misery through revolutionary rule. It obliquely represents what happened in Russia after czarism, Cuba after Batista, and Iran after the Shah (not so obliquely regarding Iran).

The movie is also about the need for foresight. A rival to a tyrant is often worse than the tyrant, and support for the wrong movement has disastrous consequences. (See Cuba since 1959 and Iran since 1979.)

This isn't an argument for the conservation of oppression, rather the prevention of worse suffering. If you care about your country, you don't replace a pit bull with a Queen Xenomorph.

And by depicting a revolution not as salvation but damnation, Land of the Blind is itself revolutionary in a community (Hollywood) where several denizens are prone to kissing totalitarian ass.

Boost Your Training and Fight Cancer

2007-04-18T19:28:00.000-07:00

Lift Strong is a CD containing 800 pages of training and nutritional information from the best in the business. At $25.00, it's a damn good deal.

And all of the proceeds go to fighting leukemia.

I have a personal interest in this cause. A couple of years ago, I donated platelets for a young boy with AML (Acute Myelogenous Leukemia). He later died from the disease.

To listen to an interview with the two-time cancer survivor behind Lift Strong, click here.

Where Is Al Sharpton's Apology?

2007-04-10T17:10:00.000-07:00

With the lame atonement of Don Imus before Al Sharpton yesterday, I ask:

Where is Sharpton's apology?

Apology for what? Praising a notorious oppressor of black people comes to mind.

In his 2002 book Al on America, Sharpton recounts a meeting with Fidel Castro in Cuba. This is the same Castro whose regime imprisons and tortures Afro-Cuban human rights activists like Oscar Elías Biscet, Iván Hernández Carrillo, and the late Miguel Valdés Tamayo, whose death was murder by degrees.

This is the same regime that imprisoned the late black Cuban patriot Eusebio Peñalver for almost 30 years.

This is the same regime where it's a crime to criticize Castro and the rest of the regime's mostly white functionaries.

And how did Sharpton describe Castro in Al on America? He called him "brilliant" and "absolutely awesome."

Sharpton said that Imus' comments were "abominable." Abominable describes Sharpton's comments, which are also an offense against the aforementioned Cuban heroes.

In addition to solidarity with black Cubans like Biscet and Carrillo, Sharpton owes these men an apology. Until he acknowledges his despicable error, Sharpton has as much moral credibility as Charles Lindbergh after he called Hitler "a great man" in 1937.

That would be less than zero credibility.

When Cuba Was A Nation Of Immigrants

2007-04-05T11:35:00.000-07:00

In response to my post on the conflict between Cuba and Sweden, Pureplay Press publisher David Landau notes:

The truth is that Cuba used to be a nation of immigrants before Castro took over; but then the regime's policies turned Cuba into a nation of emigrants.

The fate of Cuba's Jewish population illustrates this key point. Before 1959, Cuba had approximately 12,000 Jews who immigrated mostly during the 20th century. Over 90% of that population is gone thanks to the Castro's regime's totalitarian anti-Semitism.

When immigration ceases and emigration sky rockets, it's reasonable to infer that awful shit is happening in a country.

Is That Blood On Your Hand, Miguel?

2007-04-04T19:32:00.000-07:00

I remember thinking Miguel Moratinos was a knob when I saw him in Oliver Stone's 2003 documentary, Persona Non Grata. Back then he was "EU Special Representative to the Middle East Process."

Well, I was wrong about Moratinos. He's way beyond knobdom.

Now foreign minister of Spain, Moratinos recently met with Raul "Machine-Gun People And Throw 'Em In A Ditch" Castro in Cuba to re-establish relations. Here's one of the photos Moratinos took with the mass murderer.

Wash that hand, Ministro de Asuntos Exteriores. There's a lot of blood on it.

Moratinos didn't meet with dissidents during the visit, as that would have clashed with kissing totalitarian ass.

"Moratinos's visit was an insult to the Cuban people," said former prisoner of conscience Vladimiro Roca. "He came and gave tyranny a slap on the back."

The next time Moratinos or some other Spanish leftist gets outraged about Franco or Pinochet, keep this visit in mind.

"I Support Hamas," Says Israeli Professor

2007-04-04T14:34:00.000-07:00

I wrote an article in 2005 called "Israel's Enemies Within," which emphasized academic anti-Zionism in Israel. One of the professors I wrote about was Ilan Pappe from the University of Haifa.

"I support Hamas in its resistance against the Israeli occupation," Pappe recently told a Qatari newspaper. Way to show the neo-Nazi love, professor. (Pappe was recently in Doha, but are Israelis otherwise allowed in Qatar?)

Pappe said he's moving to England. Kol HaKavod.

As the University of Haifa's president said after Pappe endorsed an academic boycott of Israel, "It is fitting for someone who calls for a boycott of his university to apply the boycott himself."

If You Care About Your Knees...

2007-04-03T16:42:00.000-07:00

Mike Robertson's writings and DVDs have benefited me immensely as a powerlifter and trainer. If knee health is important to you, check out Mike's new manual and DVD set: Bulletproof Knees.

This package is a major expansion of Mike's article last year on knee health. Bulletproof Knees is the product not only of extensive professional and athletic experience but also Mike's rehabilitation of a severe knee injury.

On a related note, I have a cool interview with Mike that will be up soon.

I Guess Castro Won't Be Visiting Stockholm Soon

2007-04-03T12:06:00.000-07:00

Cuba and Sweden aren't getting along after foreign minister Carl Bildt noted how the Castro regime treats human rights like a piñata. The island prison now seems to be screwing with the Swedish embassy's mail.

"Cuba, unlike Sweden, does not persecute migrants," said Cuban UN representative Juan Antonio Fernandez Palacios.

To persecute migrants, don't you need to have migrants?

Cuba isn't exactly a magnet for immigration. After all, people tend to avoid countries where it's a crime to criticize officials, travel without permission, and engage in free enterprise. Likewise, you don't see people flocking to other Bruegel adaptations like North Korea and Zimbabwe.

"Whilst Shame keeps its watch, Virtue is not wholly extinguished in the heart," Edmund Burke wrote in Reflections on the Revolution in France. In addition to its almost unmatched brutality, the Castro regime has excelled at shamelessness--thus its complete depravity. The regime's reaction to Mr. Bildt's remarks is yet another example of this.

Nietzschean Athletics

2007-04-02T10:13:00.000-07:00

I referred to Dennis Cieri's 2006 raw 525 lb. bench press at 198 lbs. in my recent article on powerlifting. Here's a new video of the feat. Watch this elite athlete's splendid tenacity in lifting over 250% of his bodyweight.

No bench shirt.

No wrist wraps.

Pure power.

"Where is beauty?" Friedrich Nietzsche once asked. "Where I must will with all my will..."

The Vato-ization of Batman

2007-04-01T11:08:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite movies is Training Day, which portrays Ludwig von Mises' observation in The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science:

The men who are to protect the community against violent aggression easily turn into the most dangerous aggressors.

This week I saw Harsh Times, directed and written by Training Day screenwriter David Ayer. If for no other reason, rent it to see Christian Bale as a vato loco.

That's right, Patrick Bateman/Batman talks about pistos, cohetes, and other stuff in excellent Spanish.

Like Denzel Washington's character in Training Day, Bale plays a witty and gifted psycho who serves the State and was trained by the same. Both worldly and savage, Bale's character is multilingual and uses words like "parasitic" and "harem" when he's not throwing beer bottles against windshields and putting guns to heads.

These incongruent traits make for a very memorable protagonist and highly entertaining movie with important themes.

Lessons from a Tragedy

2007-03-30T11:48:00.000-07:00

Joshua Peterson of Putnam, Connecticut died on March 19 from compression asphyxiation while working out at a local gym. I extend condolences to his family and friends.

It is likely that Mr. Peterson was doing one of the following exercises:

The decline press is especially hazardous, and the guillotine press speaks for itself.

There are inherent dangers in having a weighted bar near one's neck. This makes a training partner or spotter that much more important on heavy sets. Training partners are good enough for elite powerlifters, and they're good enough for you. (I realize finding a good training partner can be very difficult. The point is just find someone to cover you when the weight gets up there.)

Doing dumbbell bench presses avoids the risk of asphyxiation since the bar element is removed. Other risks remain, though. In a state of fatigue, a person could drop a dumbbell or otherwise lose control, with severe consequences.

Strength training is a wonderful endeavor. Learn from this tragedy to pursue it safely.

The Deep Sleep of Ariel Sharon

2007-03-29T21:00:00.000-07:00

Former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon turned 79 last month in a coma. He has been in a coma for over a year.

In August 2005, Sharon dispossessed 8,000 Israelis in the Gaza Strip. This was after Sharon played a key role in establishing Israeli settlement in Gaza and said that withdrawal "will only encourage terror and increase the pressure on us." (See notes 10 and 11 of this article.)

With reference to the dispossession, former Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel Ovadia Yosef said in 2005:

The Holy One wants us all to return to the Torah, and then he will strike him [Sharon] with one blow and he will die. He will sleep and never wake up.

The question of prophetic veracity aside, I ask: Is it smart to upset one of the world's preeminent Judaic scholars who convincingly sports eyewear like this?