• He ran 22 of the 50 in under 4 hours.
• The Lakefront Marathon in Chicago was supposed to be a marathon, but someone erred whilst measuring. It was a mile too long. Craig's time - 4:05.
• Two of his races were 50k ultramarathons.
• Five times he ran 2 marathons in the same weekend. In October, he ran 4 in 9 days.

But living in China also shows you what a nondemocratic country can do to its citizens. I've seen protesters tackled and beaten by plainclothes police in Tiananmen Square, and I've been videotaped by government agents while I was talking to a source. I've been arrested and forced to flush my notes down a toilet to keep the police from getting them, and I've been punched in the face in a Beijing Starbucks by a government goon who was trying to keep me from investigating a Chinese company's sale of nuclear fuel to other countries.

When you live abroad long enough, you come to understand that governments that behave this way are not the exception, but the rule. They feel alien to us, but from the viewpoint of the world's population, we are the aliens, not them. That makes you think about protecting your country no matter who you are or what you're doing. What impresses you most, when you don't have them day to day, are the institutions that distinguish the U.S.: the separation of powers, a free press, the right to vote, and a culture that values civic duty and service, to name but a few.

• The Festivus Pole - The pole is aluminum, chosen due to its very high strength-to-weight ratio, and is never decorated (this stems from founder Frank Costanza's belief that "tinsel is distracting").
• The Airing of Greivances - Festivus devotees inform all those in attendance how they disappointed him the year before. It is also a time to report any ongoing problem or irritation that one is having with anyone else celebrating at the dinner.
• Feats of Strength - the head of the household (or the host of the Festivus dinner) challenges one of the guests to a test of physical strength. The challenger may choose anyone as an opponent and a challenge may not be refused unless, of course, the challenged has a previous engagement.

Thirty-three percent strongly agreed that Wal-Mart was a retail monopoly that threatened the future health of the U.S. economy, but 35 percent did not agree at all.