No Moderation

Greed is not good: "Submitted by Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns."

In the 1987 movie classic Wall Street, the sinister protagonist Gordon Gekko played by Michael Douglas gives this famous quote:

In the last seven deals that I’ve been involved with, there were 2.5 million stockholders who have made a pretax profit of 12 billion dollars. Thank you. I am not a destroyer of companies. I am a liberator of them! The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind.

Since that time, this quote has become famous as the “Greed is Good” philosophy of capitalism. Gekko symbolizes an era in which it is believed that the free hand of market capitalism will steer the economy efficiently and effectively with little need for government intervention or regulatory oversight. Instead, so the theory goes, we are each allowed encouraged to pursue our manifest destiny of getting filthy rich. Screw everybody else.

Well, let me tell you something greed is not good. Greed is corrosive and it is tearing at the very fabric of our democracy. A generation ago most people in America worked for a few institutions in their lifetimes. Many had employer-paid healthcare and employer-financed defined benefit pension plans.

But, since the 1980s the moorings have come off and set us adrift in a world of economic insecurity.

• Job insecurity has increased dramatically, especially as reflected in part work statistics(see here and here). This has resulted in deteriorating health and declining work safety.


• The healthcare debate is front and center in the US today. Yet, incongruously, the focus has mainly been on how ‘socialist’ proposed remedies appear.


• And defined benefit has been almost completely replaced with 401(k) plans, leaving retirees to face potential economic hardship in old age.

This is “the Great Risk shift” in which corporations in pursuit of shareholder value (remember ‘greed is good’) have sloughed off as many economic risks onto ordinary Americans as they could reasonably get away with. This is crony capitalism, not free market capitalism. And a anesthetized American public has put up with this. I continue to ask myself why.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs was very much on display earlier in the year as we entered the worst of this financial crisis. Everyone felt vulnerable. But now that recession is over, it does seem that America is returning to business as usual, both on Wall Street and on Main Street.

What I find most galling is that just one year ago Barack Obama was saying, “Elect me! Elect me! I am change you can believe in. But, no sooner does he enter office and he continues the massive bailout of the financial services industry that was begun by the predecessor administration. And today there are really no substantive regulatory changes on offer by this Administration. It was this same support for the financial elite at the expense of the middle class which has led to a widening gulf in income and wealth.

And by the way, if you haven’t noticed, real incomes are lower now than 36 years ago. So, this is certainly not change I believe in…yet. And given many of the players today are the same as they were before the crisis, don’t expect any real change. Apparently the only thing that is going to induce change in Washington (or London) is a horrific depression.

So, what about greed then? Roger Bootle takes this on in his latest book, “The Trouble with Markets,” which I highlighted earlier in the week. Here is how the Telegraph quotes him:

The free-market vigilantes are already rushing to defend the unfettered market system. Their defence is based on one or other of three arguments. First, the market solution is to let failing financial firms fail. If the state intervenes to stop this, the blame for the resulting mess cannot be laid at the door of the market system. Second, banking has been a heavily regulated activity. The regulators have failed in their job. Third, the monetary policy authorities should have paid more attention to the growth of money and credit and the resulting inflation of the property market bubble.

In this way, they try to argue that what seems on the face of it to be a failure of markets is in fact a failure of government. So the solution, they say, is not less freedom for markets but more.

These people are dangerous. The idea of letting the financial system implode and then waiting for the market to bring spontaneous, healthy revival out of the wreckage might read well on the pages of a book, but in the real world it would bring human misery on a gigantic scale. In today’s society, people simply will not tolerate it. If that is what the market system is about then they will have none of it; and rightly so.

Have a go at the full article linked below. Bootle makes some very good points. I liked his last book, “Money for Nothing”. So I suspect his new book is a good read too.

Greed isn’t good– it’s dangerous – Telegraph

"

Link to article

This is fantastic and insightful (if very irreverant) post from 'Cracked'.

Experts have figured out that the brain has no ability to actually predict your emotional reaction to life changes that haven't happened yet. In other words, you physically do not know what you want. The act of sitting around pondering it is apparently what fucks you up.
This might be because for most of human history, we didn't have time to do that. We were too busy gathering berries and running from wild animals. Now that we've got things so under control that the animals hug us. . . well, we're like the guy up there who didn't know what to do with his lotto winnings.
This may be why studies show friendships, altruism and religious practices bring happiness. It may be that taking the focus off your own happiness is what makes happiness possible.

Basically - all these things they lay out WILL fail you. Good stuff, and so true. The last bit about pondering and how it messes with you is SO TRUE....

T

http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=144284&f=19
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Great post over on the 'Confessing Evangelical' Blog - major points quoted written by an Anglican Philip Cary BTW.  This for me really hits the nail on the head as to why I became a Lutheran (vs. a Calvanist) - the basis of assurance that is not based on my faith (my work), but on Christ's word.  The more I read about the Lutherans on their sacremental theology, the more this makes sense.  Take a look.


http://www.confessingevangelical.com/?p=1237

Well I'm a day late, but better late than never. I just realized, or more accurately just remembered, that I can send emails to automatically post to my blog which has essentially laid dormant since I began my new job.

At any rate, yesterday was Reformation Day which commerates the day Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to door of the cathedral in Wittenberg which would be the spark that reignighted the recapturing of the gospel and change history profoundly. Solo del Gloria!

T
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

This gives new meaning to don't mess with Texas.

Apparently, the new law extends a person's right to stand their ground beyond the home to vehicles and workplaces, allowing the reasonable use of deadly force.

The reasonable use of lethal force will be allowed if an intruder is:

- Committing certain violent crimes, such as murder or sexual assault, or is attempting to commit such crimes

- Unlawfully trying to enter a protected place

- Unlawfully trying to remove a person from a protected place

Watch out y'all...

Texas signs new self-defense by gun law - Yahoo! News

Classic. Thought I'd pass this along, and I can't believe it was in Slate. I see this all the time here in NYC - Yoga religion that is really just repacked self help.

I particularly liked the ending

The final step in the great journey of self-understanding the Yoga Journal editors have force-marched her on is realizing it's all about her "relationship with herself." Whitney Houston yoga: I found the greatest love of all—Me! It's the return of New Age Me-generation narcissism. And there's nothing worse than narcissism posing as humility.

Hey, if Buddhism and other Eastern traditions are about compassion, why not skip the scented bath, skip making amends with the self, skip realization of "the opportunity to embrace aparigraha or non-grasping." Instead, go down to the local soup kitchen or homeless shelter and help some people who don't have the resources to send flowers to themselves, people who actually need help. Rather than continuing the endless processes of anointing yourself with overly scented candlelit self-love.

After all this self-indulgence, it's almost refreshing to turn to a yoga magazine that offers stuff like, "BURN FAT FASTER!"

The entire article from Slate.com is clipped below - - -

Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2162283/

The Hostile New Age Takeover of Yoga
There's nothing worse than narcissism posing as humility.
By Ron Rosenbaum
Posted Wednesday, March 21, 2007, at 4:37 PM ET

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against yoga—or Eastern disciplines in general. In fact, I've done tai chi exercises for many years.

No, it's the commodification and rhetorical dumbing-down of yoga culture that gets to me. The way something that once was—and still can be—pure and purifying has been larded with mystical schlock. Once a counterweight to our sweaty striving for ego gratification, yoga has become an unctuous adjunct to it.

There is the exploitative and ever-proliferating "yoga media." The advent of yoga fashion (the yoga mat, the yoga-mat carrier, and yoga-class ensembles). And worst of all, the yoga rhetoric, that soothing syrupy "yoga-speak" that we all know and loathe.

It all adds up to what a friend recently called the "hostile New Age takeover of yoga." "New Age" culture being those scented-candle shrines to self-worship, the love-oneself lit of The Secret, the "applied kinesiology"-type medical and metaphysical quackery used to support a vast array of alternative-this or alternative-that magical-thinking workshops and spa weekends. At its best, it's harmless mental self-massage. At its worst, it's the kind of thinking that blames cancer victims for their disease because they didn't "manifest" enough positive vibes.

One "manifestation" of this takeover is the shameless enlistment of yoga and elevated Eastern yogic philosophy for shamelessly material Western goals. Rather than an alternative, it's become an enabler. "Power yoga"! Yoga for success! Yoga for regime change! (Kidding.)

And then there's what you might call "Yoga for Supermarket Checkout Line Goals." Or as the cover story of Rodale's downmarket magazine YogaLife put it, yoga to: "BURN FAT FASTER!" (Subsidiary stories bannered on the YogaLife cover: "4 WAYS TO LOSE 5 POUNDS"; "ZEN SECRETS TO: HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS ... INSTANT CALM.")

Gotta love "Zen Secrets to Instant Calm," right? It goes right along with other cover lines like "Double Your Flexibility Today!" and "Heal Winter Skin Now!"

Clearly what the ancient inventors of yogic wisdom had in mind: Now! Instant! Today! Very Eastern, calm, and meditative right?

But even more insidious than the easily satirizable but at least down-to-earth and honest magazines like YogaLife—or ethereally serious ones like Yoga + Joyful Living (which coaches readers in "The Breath of Self-Understanding")—are the mainstream yoga publications such as Yoga Journal, one of the most popular, prosperous, and respectable yoga magazines.

In fact, my impetus for this examination of yoga media came from a sharp-witted woman I know who practices yoga but frankly concedes that—for her, anyway—it's less about Inner Peace than Outer Hotness. She called my attention to what she called an amazingly clueless—and ultimately cruel (to the writer)—decision by the editors of Yoga Journal to print a first-person story that was ostensibly about the yogic wisdom on forgiveness in relationships.

The story, which appeared in the December 2006 issue, was titled "Forgive Yourself." It's by this woman who tells us about an "intense" friendship she once had with a guy nearly 20 years ago, when they were 16. She says it was "never romantic," and it clearly wasn't—on his part.

Somehow she picked a fight with him—remember, this was 20 years ago. She defaced some "artwork" he'd done on the back of her jean jacket and danced with some other boys in an attempt to make him jealous.

She claims he gave her a "stricken" look.

Then, 20 years later, she starts to hound the guy. She claims she just happened to be going through some boxes and found a journal of his. She claims the journal convinced her that what she needed to do was apologize and ask his forgiveness. So she Google-stalks him, or, as she puts it: "With the help of an Internet search engine, I tracked him down and sent an e-mail. I told him I was sorry and that I hoped we could talk."

She "got no response but figured the e-mail address was out of date." Right.

Anyway she doesn't let that stop her. "After more digging"—by what methods we're not told—"I found a phone number and left a message on his machine."

Her message: "Wow, what a trip to hear your voice! … I missed you!"

He didn't call back.

But no response doesn't really mean no, to her. So, "a month later, in desperation, I sent him a short letter," in which she tells him, "You deserved better. I betrayed your love and friendship and I'm sorry. I made life worse for you and I regret it."

Doesn't regret it enough to stop pestering him now though. And notice how at first she'd disclaimed there was anything romantic, but now she's all "I betrayed your love." And then there's the poem: "I hope you can forgive me," she concludes the note, adding: "I included a poem I'd written for him some years earlier."

Restraining order time!

Instead he makes the mistake of responding. "About a month later an envelope arrived," she writes, "addressed in that familiar handwriting. I opened it with trembling hands and found a short note wrapped around my letter and poem."

"What part of no don't you understand?" his note said. "I never want to hear from you again." Cruel, true, but maybe "cruel to be kind."

"What part of no" does she not understand? Just about every single part of no there is.

What does this have to do with yoga wisdom and its Western use? One might think yoga would counsel acceptance of his feelings. Instead, she takes it as an invitation for further intense inward gazing. Her interpretation: He's afraid of being hurt again. He just doesn't understand her: He thought "I clearly hadn't changed if I was expecting him to give me something (forgiveness) along with everything I'd taken from him." (Don't worry, it took me several readings to figure this out too.)

"I sat down and started to cry. I felt as if I'd been punched in the gut. What could I do now? How would I ever be able to move on?"

So, using her deep yogic intuition again she decides there is one way of "moving on": She can write a several-thousand-word article for Yoga Journal about him and her and how we all can learn something from this about "forgiveness."

"Moving on"? Somehow one wonders if she sent the article to him, perhaps with another poem. And an invitation to "journal" their way to a mutual understanding. Or maybe meet to discuss "closure"?

But look, it's not really her fault; we've all been there. As my sharp-witted friend, who is herself an editor, points out, it is here one has to question the deep yogic wisdom of the editors of Yoga Journal who don't seem to be able to—or want to—see what is going on and instead encourage the writer's "journey"—her quest, her stalking—of "self-discovery."

Thus, we get the classic Western women's magazine "relationship story" translated into Eastern yoga-speak. Indeed they give it prominent placement in the issue and subject their readers to the endless New Age clichés of pablum-dispensing yoga-wisdom "experts" who further encourage the hapless writer not to move on but to dwell endlessly, excruciatingly, on the microanalysis of the situation.

Instead of counseling her just to leave the poor guy alone, they direct her to dwell on her need to forgive herself: Some "research associate" at Stanford tells her "when people can't forgive, their stress levels increase which can contribute to cardiovascular problems."

The poor young woman! All she wants is help, and now she's told she's going to have a heart attack.

Another yogic savant, a "clinical psychologist with Elemental Yoga in Boston" even disses the poor guy and further encourages the writer's obsession, clearly getting the whole thing wrong: "He's the one that can't let go," the "yoga therapist" opines. Right. I guess he wrote that poem to himself.

More yogic "experts" are brought in to prescribe even more "work" on herself. Instead of advising her to leave the whole thing behind, and perhaps perform some act of compassion for someone who needs real help (the admirable Eastern tradition), the yoga experts advise her to enmesh herself in a tediously obsessive spiral of self-examination, which the magazine compounds by prescribing a five-step forgiveness ritual for achieving—you guessed it!—"closure."

The interminable ritual, which is the work of the purportedly steeped-in-yogic-wisdom editors, not the unfortunate writer, begins with "a ritual bath" complete with "scents" and "candles."

Then there's the inevitable "journal" in which you must write down all your "thoughts, feelings and memories." ... "What you learned ... what you'll change ... anything that comes into your head." It's a full-time job!

But that's not all there is to the endless forgiveness ritual (which, remember, is not about forgiving him but forgiving herself because he won't forgive her), there's the semi-demi witchcraft aspect: "Write down the patterns you seek to change in yourself; then burn what you've written." (They neglect to add, "Use this as reminder to change the batteries in your smoke detector.")

But it's not over, the endless ritual. You must next and last, "Send yourself flowers when you've completed letting go."

No premature floral deliveries, mind you. Only when you've "completed" letting go, which sending yourself flowers certainly signals. OK maybe one more poem, but that's it! This is the kind of misguided narcissism (it's always all about you; metaphorically, it's all sending flowers to yourself) that gives yoga, an ancient, honorable tradition, a bad name. This is what is meant by the "hostile New Age takeover of yoga." All this hectoring about the right way to feel. Yoga and other Eastern disciplines are supposed to work from the inside out and not depend on product placement candles, scented bath oils, and "yoga therapists."

And it's still not over! If the ritual bath and flower-sending don't do the trick, there's a "four-step practice rooted in Tibetan Buddhist philosophy that can take us through the process of making amends." You could spend a lifetime "moving on" from some imagined 20-year-old incident. Then move on to the next incredibly elaborate "Moving On" ceremony. You never get to move in, or move out.

The final step in the great journey of self-understanding the Yoga Journal editors have force-marched her on is realizing it's all about her "relationship with herself." Whitney Houston yoga: I found the greatest love of all—Me! It's the return of New Age Me-generation narcissism. And there's nothing worse than narcissism posing as humility.

Hey, if Buddhism and other Eastern traditions are about compassion, why not skip the scented bath, skip making amends with the self, skip realization of "the opportunity to embrace aparigraha or non-grasping." Instead, go down to the local soup kitchen or homeless shelter and help some people who don't have the resources to send flowers to themselves, people who actually need help. Rather than continuing the endless processes of anointing yourself with overly scented candlelit self-love.

After all this self-indulgence, it's almost refreshing to turn to a yoga magazine that offers stuff like, "BURN FAT FASTER!"

Ron Rosenbaum's most recent book is The Shakespeare Wars.

Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2162283/

Black Snake Moan

So I went to see Black Snake Moan on Friday with my boys Jonathan and Tim. Timmy really wanted to see Reno 9-11, but Jonathan and I were able to persuade him that Black Snake Moan was the way to go. With a name like Black Snake Moan, not a lot of persuading was needed.

Thoughts - in a nutshell - this is a fantastic movie. Best movie I've seen all year, though I haven't seen a whole lot of movies this year.

We had a mixed crowd of movie-goers with everyone from the tragically hip, urban hip hop types, wall street yuppies and most everything in between. Interesting mix to say the least.

Two Qualifications:
1) I'm a blues FANATIC and the sound track done on Fat Possum records is incrdeible.

Why do I like the blues? Simply, because the blues keeps it real in the realest of ways. The blues is about human weakness, sadness and at times redemption. The blues calls a thing a thing and doesn't try to cover up the rhythms of struggle that play in our world. The blues understands the human condition, understands struggle and understands weakness - and doesn't apologize for any of it.

2) I'm also a gospel junkie with a low anthropology.

What does that mean? It means that I don't think people are intrinsically good, but that we're all broken and in need of rescue. It means that I believe we we always act in our own self interest unless something external breaks in and pulls in a different direction. It means that even when this rescue happens, we will resist it and will continue to resist it the rest of our days. It means our rescue is totally undeserved and comes 100% at the expense of another. It also means that our continued resistance once rescued (or our continued desire to serve ourselves), does not make us any less rescued.

How does this relate to Black Snake Moan?

This movie (in my ever so humble opinion) is about

Powerlessness
The need for rescue
External redemption/rescue that is actively resisted and not deserved
Redemption/change in light of the rescue
Continued struggle despite being freed

I thought maybe I'd break down each of those points, but alas I'm too lazy. Check out the flick and see if you agree.

Click for article

What happens to people is that when they get to a state of betterment in their lives, instead of feeling satisfied, they feel discontent,' says Farson. 'It's the theory of rising expectations.

... or the human condition - ie we're never satisfied (Mick Jagger).

This guy has had enough with the ridiculous expense of living in NYC and decided to 'live in a van down by the river' - literally - in Williamsburg (Brooklyn for all you non NY'ers).

Click for Link

As a former smoker, and general skeptic (if not adversary) of moralizing legalistics seeking to legislate morality, I'm strangely sympathetic to these prisoners.
No smoking in prison? Come on.

Click for link to CNN

As the night progressed they started saying, 'Look, we'll give up if you let us have some tobacco. If you do that, we'll go back to our cell,'' Carlton said. 'They got them some cigarettes, they smoked them and went back to their cell and locked themselves back in.'"

Check out this interview with the director of Black Snake Moan...

"We're bound to each other" | Salon Arts & Entertainment:

I'm exploring something that has nothing to do with race or gender. I'm the crazy girl on the end of that chain. I'm the one who felt I was losing control of my mind and my body because I was not tethered to anyone. And I needed to be snapped back. I needed my father, who died at 49 of a heart attack, to tell me, 'It's gonna be OK, and you're not alone. Everybody goes crazy at certain times in their life. You're entitled to some happiness, you're entitled to some unconditional love. And it will never stop. You will constantly be getting punched in the gut, being exploited, being judged.

Interesting article from today's Boston Globe. I've yet to read that McCullough book on Truman, but it's on my short list.

Ex-presidents' big payday - The Boston Globe:

WHEN HARRY Truman left the White House in 1953, historian David McCullough records, "he had no income or support of any kind from the federal government other than his Army pension of $112.56 a month. He was provided with no government funds for secretarial help or office space, not a penny of expense money." To tide him over for the transition back to private life, Truman had to take out a bank loan. One of the reasons he and his wife moved back into their far-from-elegant old house in Independence, Mo., "was that financially they had little other choice."

Nevertheless, Truman refused to cash in on his celebrity and influence as a former president. He turned down lucrative offers, such as the one from a Florida real estate developer inviting him to become "chairman, officer, or stockholder, at a figure of not less than $100,000." He wouldn't make commercial endorsements, accept "consulting" fees, or engage in lobbying. He wouldn't even take the free car that Toyota offered him as a gesture of improved Japanese-American relations.

"I could never lend myself to any transaction, however respectable," Truman later wrote, "that would commercialize on the prestige and dignity of the office of the presidency." He did sell the rights to his memoirs for a handsome sum to Life magazine. But he turned down every other enticement to trade on his former position for private gain.

Half a century later, Truman's rectitude seems as quaint and obsolete as George Washington's wooden teeth.

I particularly liked Rick's connection between making the law-gospel distinction and the assurance of salvation. I can totally relate. If I look to my own performance (vs looking to the performance of Christ alone - on the cross) than I only become discouraged and doubting b/c I know I'll never pull it off.


Click for Rick Richtie's thoughts on Law - Gospel

"When I discovered Systematic Theology, and especially the distinction between Law and Gospel, I was able to recover the assurance I had lost earlier. I was able to return to my previous conviction that Christ's death could get me into heaven despite my sin, or flabby repentance. Let's be clear about this. There are probably not very many people who imagine that Christ's death didn't pay for all the sins of those he suffered for. What goes into question is whether faith in that is enough to keep the connection despite sins."

Thought I'd post this b/c it is such a good summary of glory theology vs. cross theology - - - Tom

A Theology of Glory and a Theology of the Cross by Don Matzat:

Living in a theology of the Cross never makes you any "better" than anyone else. Every day in every way you are not getting better and better. In fact, the preaching of Law and Gospel will not lead you to an awareness of your holiness, but rather to greater awareness of the depth of your sin. As a result, you will develop an ever-increasing faith in and appreciation for the redeeming work of Jesus Christ.

Your witness will focus upon the work of the Cross, not upon your experience of getting saved, sanctified, or becoming more spiritual. You have taken no step toward God or arrived at any higher level of holiness. You don’t talk about your spirituality. You talk about the grace of God in Christ Jesus.

When dealing with these issues on the radio, I often encounter opposition. People will fight to defend their theology of glory. I often challenge them to share their testimony without ever talking about themselves. I have developed the pet phrase, "This thing called Christianity – it’s not about you!"

Martin Luther accurately defined sin as man turning in on himself. While a theology of glory continues to turn you to yourself as you measure your growth in holiness against a plethora of spiritual experiences, the theology of the Cross turns you away from yourself. As a result of the conviction of the Law, you forsake your own good works and spiritual experiences and cling to the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ.

Gotta love the Wii. Check this out from endgadet....

Horn Swoggled has some great Lutheran satire - think of it as the Onion for the Wittenberg crowd.

Nondenominational Church: "Did We Say Lutherans?"

A non-denominational church in St. Louis has fired its marketing director after a series of online advertisements featured the headline, "Lutherans welcome." Ever since the ads appeared on relevant blogs and other websites, the church has been beseiged by people who believe things. " We want to reach out to people of all denominations," said Pastor Don Shallows of Big Life Community Church. "We also have ads targeting unhappy Methodists, unhappy Baptists, and even unhappy Muslims.

"But when we say 'Lutherans welcome,' we're not actually referring to people who believe Lutheran teaching. That's going a bit too far."

Since the Google ads began appearing on Lutheran websites, the 1,000-member congregation has been plagued by controversy. It started when a small group of Lutherans grumbled about a 10-week message series on Biblical parenting, because it didn't center on the cross of Christ.

When church leaders ignored their complaints, the Lutherans enlisted several Roman Catholics, and began openly making the sign of the cross at the conclusion of prayers.

What advances the sinner on the way to righteousness? The utter futility of human work in contributing toward this advance has now been exposed....
- Gerhard Forde from On Being a Theologian of the Cross

Jonathan Hansen - my dear friend and brother sent this to me this morning and what an encouraging word about failure - specifically about that great paradox of how when we lose we win.

Soli Deo Gloria,

Tom

Please be patient (not like anyone is reading anyway), b/c I'm not done editing this new template.

"The first commandment assumes that before you had God, He had you."
- - Patrick Miller via Pastor Priest.

Check out this amazing thread on one of my favorite sites - adventure rider. This guy is a fantastic storyteller. Short story - guy enters the Paris-Dakar rally, which for all you not in the know is a race across the North African desert and is prob. the most dangerous and thrilling road race on the planet. All types of vehicles race in this thing - motorcycles, rally cars, trucks, huge Unimogs, etc... Think Mad Max across the desert. These guys and girls are straight up Chuck Norris tough.

Anyway, Guy crashes. Guy gets airlifted to the Canary Islands and the medical adventure begins. Good times and a GREAT read.

Dakar crash - ADVrider