running – The Burning Platform

There is no truth to the rumor that Ben Bernanke created the bubble.

Bubble trouble: Man ‘running’ to Bermuda rescued off Florida coast

Image from uscgnews.com

A man trying to reach Bermuda Islands from Miami on foot in a home-made floating bubble has been rescued by the US Coast Guard after he began suffering from fatigue.

Reza Baluchi, an activist and endurance athlete of Iranian origin, intended to travel 1,033 miles (1,660km) on foot from Miami to Bermuda to Puerto Rico and back to the mainland US, to raise money for “for children in need” and “to … inspire those that have lost hope for a better future,” according to his website.

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He built a floating device for the purpose made of 3mm-thick plastic and aluminum framing, not unlike a hamster wheel. Baluchi planned to sleep in a hammock at night, complement his diet of protein bars with fish he could catch, and cool himself in the sea strapped to the bubble with a leash.

The Coast Guard first received reports of a man in a bubble on Wednesday, Florida’s 7th Coast Guard District reported. When they approached him, Baluchi seemed disoriented and asked for directions to Bermuda, but refused to leave the bubble.

On Saturday morning Baluchi’s Personal Locating Beacon was activated, and the guard, who continued monitoring his advance, dispatched an airplane and a helicopter to the rescue. He was picked up 70 nautical miles east of St. Augustine and flown to Air Station Clearwater, where emergency medical services evaluated him. No injuries were reported in the operation.

Baluchi’s website says he tested the ‘Hydro Pod’ device back in 2013 by traveling from Newport Beach to Catalina Island. The 33-mile (53km) trip reportedly took approximately 12 hours, over which Baluchi lost 15lbs (6.8kg).

Are the results in this study really a shock? I think Huxley’s famous quote captures the gist of the problem.

“Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.” – Aldous Huxley

Technological progress has included televisions with 600 stations, the internet, cell phones, iGadgets, SUVs, Minivans, drive-thru donut and fast food retailing, and mass produced food products. Why run anywhere? You can’t text while your running. Selfies don’t turn out well when you are running. Soccer moms are so terrified of letting their babies walk to a ball-field a half a mile away, they have to fire up that Chevy Suburban and safely transport them. School administrators no longer let kids run around outside at recess. Someone might get a boo boo.

When I was a kid, I rode my bike to grade school from 6th grade until 8th grade. It was over a mile away. I walked to my baseball practices that were a mile away through a cemetery. We played full court basketball for hours. We played street hockey for hours. We played touch or tackle football for hours. None of it was organized by parents. We only had one car and my dad drove it to work. I was never shuttled anywhere. Our black and white rabbit ears TV got seven or eight stations. No cell phones. No internet. We played hide and seek. We used sticks and pretended to be soldiers. We played kick the can or half-ball with a broomstick. I would throw a ball against the side of my house for hours. For high school I had to walk half a mile to the trolley.We didn’t choose to exercise, we just did it.

Our adoration of technology has undone our capacity to think, our need to exercise, our interest in wandering among nature, and we’ve been trained to love our oppression. We are amusing ourselves to death.