It's this strange form that makes race walking such an attractive activity, however, says Jaclyn Norberg, an assistant professor of exercise science at Salem State University in Salem, Mass.

It was an attractive hope that the high technology of our society might be wrested from the grip of benighted forces and used to restore us to an idyllic natural state.

How badly the euro's standing would be hurt by a default would depend on the state of public finances elsewhere: if America were struggling too, the dollar might not seem an attractive bolthole.