Slow down! and sweatshops

OK, so after that last post where I'm basically bragging about how I can run as many miles as I want with no repercussions, I'm now going to eat crow. I've had a mildly dramatic drop in weight, and my left foot/ankle is feeling a little tweaky from stepping on a rock (twice - it stuck to my foot and I didn't realize it; it was big, too!) and hitting (literally) the trails too hard in the vibrams. It was a little sore from the rock, no big deal, happens from time to time, but I kept on stepping stupidly with it. I was also running with the dogs (unruly beasts) and tweaked it again as they jerked me around down a hill (again, in the vibrams...). Basically, the Universe has been conspiring against my left foot (no relation to Daniel Day Lewis). Hey, I never said being barefoot could cure stupid.

So this week will total a little over 30 miles. I'll shorten my weekday runs this week, and hopefully I'll be up for going long next weekend. Fewer miles equals less sweat, which is my lazy segue into...

I suppose I should preemptively address the whole sweatshop issue, and whether or not that has anything to do with my ditching the shoes, as it's bound to come up sooner or later. My answer is no. It doesn't. I think the running shoe is a modern day snake oil, and am not going to spend money on something that has no scientific evidence to back it's claims. I'm also not a big fan of boycotts in general, because

1. economies are fungible. Every transaction can be traced to someone being a prick to someone else at some point, so it's a symbolic gesture at best. I don't like symbolism. Especially when it's portrayed as "doing something (just do it?)."

2. I suspect that crappy, miserable wage-slave based economies might be an unavoidable step in the transition from poverty to wealth. Every affluent country went through a sweatshop phase (I think; let me know if I'm wrong); if you take that away, I fear you'd be condemning a society to eternal poverty.

3. if I were working for Nike at a sweatshop, I would like the concerned consumer to at least ask my opinion on whether or not the company that pays me $1/week or whatever should be driven out of business.

But I digress. Nike laborers could be payed with an abundance of pancakes and micron pens (that's the currency standard in Joshtopia - take that, goldbugs!), and I would still call BS on their product. Same goes for Asics, Brooks, that saucy one I don't feel like checking the spelling of, etc.

Not all of their products, though. I wear a Nike hat. It's very lightweight, comfortable, and I think it's funny to wear a shoe-centric company product on my head while running barefoot.

Speaking of art (I know, that wasn't even trying), I have been drawing. Just nothing worth posting. Did a nice picture of my parents holding me as a baby. My parents turned out alright, but I need to work on my infant drawing. In the photograph, I look like a normal baby. In my drawing, demon spawn.