+ Aluminumfrog... I am happy to be associated with him.
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The Economist has a take on using PEDs...
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"+ Aluminumfrog... I am happy to be associated with him."
I always knew that you could write a complete sentence. You are making some great progress with your use of the English language.
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Jah, it was certainly better than the first sentence of his first post on this thread....
"To be free and to live a free life - that is the most beautiful thing there is."
Miguel Indurain -
Bitch slap? Please. It's one writer's opinion, basically an editorial and really no different than what's already been said elsewhere. Why can't the HOF (or cycling) evolve as regards how they view PEDs and how known users are now viewed? Standards and tolerance can change. Nobody doubts that McGuire and Bonds hit more homeruns than Maris or Aaron respectively, but they definitely don't lend any credence to them nor should they.
As to Lance, I don't think any one disputes that he won the Tours on the road. There shouldn't be too many that doubt that he did it using PEDs meaning he took drugs that allowed him to perform at a level he normally wouldn't have been able. Using these drugs is against the rules whether you get caught or not. Taking away his Tours (or letting him keep them) doesn't change the fact that he rode the Tour in fewer minutes than any of his competitors during that time, nor does it change the fact that he did so using PEDs that were/are against the rules. Further, whether the Tours are left with no winner, Lance, Lance with an asterisk, or some other guy, there is nothing that will come out that will change firmly entrenched opinions of Lance as a cyclist or person.
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Yo Mike,
I know at times I come on too personal with you over the LA subject. I apologize for that. Primarily it is because of how overwrought you sound in your venomous denunciations of a person who was only doing what he had to do to win under the circumstances he could not escape unless he gave up the sport. What you accuse him of doing you can accuse virtually every other rider he competed against to a certain extent. By the narrow definition you confine yourself to they mostly all "cheated" and they mostly all lied thereby. Yet you focus your hatred on him as if he is the perpetrator and not the victim.
As a cyclist when he was competing LA seems to have been dedicated, intelligent in his approach to winning, and generous to his loyal teammates. He repeatedly made gestures to show his respect for the traditions of cycling and I always looked forward to the interviews he gave during the grand tour in France because of his frankness and no nonsense approach to saying what was on his mind. I liked the fact he wasn't afraid to tell those who approached him on the subject of religion to take it somewhere else.
Haters show no appreciation for the respectable qualities he demonstrated but instead find every possible reason to fuel their own negative emotions on the matter.
I can understand that up to a point, because when you dislike someone you don't want to see the other side of the picture. It is the way I feel about disgusting people like Dick Cheney and about a half million other politicians on his side of the line. But in their case there are no redeeming qualities about them :-) Armstrong, like it or not, has some worthwhile human qualities and certainly deserves recognition for beating everyone else who was competing against him trying to do the same thing as he was doing but not being as good at it.
Unquestionably what he did on behalf of cancer victims was self-serving but I don't think the self-servingness of it was his primary motive for doing it.
I believed he was using PEDs or whatever it took long ago but I've made it clear many times by now that I believe what people do with their own bodies is up to them and no one has any more right to tell you what you can do with it than they have the right to tell you you can't have oral sex with your wife. I don't care if they pass a law to forbid it or not. In that world it is catch me if you can.
It has been gratifying to see that in the general public there has apparently been almost a ho hum attitude about his being uncovered and more and more the sentiment expressed in the Economist article is becoming the accepted thinking.
The incessant waving of pitchforks and torches by this little group of people who want things to be their way borders on hypocritical. The master hater on this forum made it clear Contador gets a free pass from him. It makes it difficult to separate the ones who are motivated by principle and the ones motivated by simple emotional dislike of personality.
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AF....that was a very good piece of writing outlining your views, a lot of which resonates with me.
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AF, take it up with the Oxford English Dictionary, whose entry I merely copied and pasted. Or with Emerson, whose hundred-fifty-odd-year-old "useless" citations are their evidence. The sun's out; I'm out of here.
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Sounds like the return of GrammerMoses whom I thought had a stake of holly sufficiently pounded through his heart. Guess not.
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Grammar Moses? That's good! I didn't mean to come off as a grammar Moses or grammar anything else. This is my second or third language anyway -- I'm not in that position. Yeah, it was a bit petty. It bothered me, though, that leverage for an argument against Yo Mike was a misused word, particularly inasmuch as the word had not been misused. If AF had no idea what Yo had meant by his disputed word, then fine: ask him what he meant. And I promise not to get near your "whom" with a ten-foot stake!
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Not you Elle... GrammarMoses was one of many aliases under which AluminumFrog has operated. He sheds his forum name about as frequently as a snake molts and has more identities than a gaggle of MI-5 operatives.
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Elle, you are as wrong about claiming he didn't misuse the word as you were wrong about the way I used "zealot". Stick to your 1st and 2nd languages.
Over and out.
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watermoc -
I am you and you are me and we are all together
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" What you accuse him of doing you can accuse virtually every other rider he competed against to a certain extent."
Simply not true. Conspired with UCI, got free passes from the UCI, got heads up from the UCI. Drove people out of the sport. Ruined peoples careers in the sport. Sued a newspaper for printing the truth. Pressured Trek to shut down Lemond bikes......ect ect ect. Ya man just another doper.
LeMond VO2 max 95, Armstrong 82....doh -
I think inferno has you on this one. (not that you really care what I think, but none-the-less, he does)
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AF, before looking at the OED's entry for malfeasance, exactly half of whose definitions would support Yo's use, please re-read my comment. You'll find that I did not say that you had used zealot incorrectly. Quite the opposite. English is your first language?
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@ AF: Where to begin?
/Yet you focus your hatred on him as if he is the perpetrator and not the victim./
LA a victim? Ask Bassons or Simeoni, or LeMond, or…..they were victims. LA was also the best doper in the peleton by YOUR own admission, and that all the more reason to investigate him over others./repeatedly made gestures to show his respect for the traditions of cycling/
Like participating in smaller races post-Tour to ‘showcase the maillot jaune’? LA high- tailed it out of Europe post-Tour to parade on late-night TV and social climb wherever possible.
Like effectively getting the then current Italian National Champion (Simeoni) banned from Milan - San Remo one year?/ I believe what people do with their own bodies/
LA signed agreements effectively stating that he was not doping, and repeated the same to all who would listen. We’re not talking about private personal choices like abortion or sexual orientation here. LA knowingly, willingly and secretly broke his word, written and spoken...repeatedly on the world stage./gratifying to see that in the general public there has apparently been almost a ho hum attitude about his being uncovered and more and more the sentiment expressed in the Economist article is becoming the accepted thinking./
Cite your sources, please. Certainly not B Bissinger or the NYT./Haters show no appreciation/
He’s the biggest sporting fraud, ever. I can certainly appreciate that!/The incessant waving of pitchforks and torches by this little group of people…/
First, I don’t own a pitchfork, and LA is not subject to 'mob justice' even tho he IS from Texas. Um...Little? How do you define ‘little’? My attitudes towards LA are not unique. What is LA’s ‘approval rating’ these days? That his sponsors dropped him is a reasonable metric of his perceived popularity. His own Foundation gave him the boot!Too bad for your brand of cycling aficionado that the UCI actually isn't MORE corrupt and omnipotent than they are. They could perhaps then have made LA 'disappear' after his first retirement and he could have roomed next to Number 6 in The Village as Number 7. Cycling as we knew it may have continued in doped and ignorant bliss.....
That's it for now. I'll address any new rationalizations later.
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+AF
Simply not true. Conspired with UCI, got free passes from the UCI, got heads up from the UCI. Drove people out of the sport. Ruined peoples careers in the sport. Sued a newspaper for printing the truth. Pressured Trek to shut down Lemond bikes......ect ect ect. Ya man just another doper.
If you are going to make an omelet eggs need to get broken. A small price to pay for a cancer cure, no?
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Inferno - I said "to a certain extent…". You cited a few nits that went beyond the extent I had in mind :)
Elle - 1856 R. W. Emerson Eng. Traits xv. 147 A relentless inquisition..turns the glare of this solar microscope [sc.the newspaper] on every malfaisance.
In addition to your examples including spellings that are not the same, there is nothing in their usage to say that the way they are used is not exactly as the way I insisted they had to be used. Newspaper's typically would be where the actions of public servants are scrutinized. The 3rd example you chose looks like nothing more than poetic license being taken. "A bit of self-immolation???", "A bit of pregnancy…", "A bit of self cloning…", "A bit of suicide….". If you're going to use words that loosely I don't see how you can derive much from the example of the usage of the word we are discussing.
I have to say however, in scrounging around for more precise definitions for "malfeasance" I have to back away from my contention that it applies only to public officials. I was wrong about that. I would still contend Yo Mike's usage of the word was sloppy and inexact but could be stretched to fit the meaning.
As for "zealot", it sounded to me as if you were implying that the only acceptable use of the word was the same as its etiology.
Yo Mike - A lot of your last reply is still begging the question. Yes, LA victim because he entered into a system already corrupt by the standards you set and he had no choice if he wanted to win but to play by the unwritten rules of that system, which has been my contention on this forum for a long time.
As for your question about ho hum public attitude etc, CK partially answered the question for you…You would be shocked at the number of posters on ST who re supportive of LA and would love to see him on the start live in Kona.
Like I said earlier, I think the forecast for you is pain because when the smoke clears Lance will probably come out of this still in pretty good shape, unless the UCI takes a contract out on him. If he doesn't, it won't disturb me much. My favorite tagline on this forum is the one Keith uses. It expresses my sentiments perfectly except when I come here to enjoy the combat.
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AF...I think for most of the cycling fans here that have an issue with LA is not simply that he doped (during a period when everyone was doping to keep up with the Lance train) but that he exhibited no scruples when it came to the sport. For those who got in his way, he made sure they never rode professionally again or were so marginalized they suffered financially, he went out of his way to protect his dubious reputation as a 'clean' rider using the shield of cancer survivor to dispel questions or doubts about his riding 'clean' when rivals on other teams or former teams mates that moved to other teams suddenly get 'popped' for doping.
The fact that others doped and were doping during the LA reign does not diminish the fact that LA doped. That other's doped doesn't necessarily mean LA HAD to dope (as he will certainly claim). Moral equivalency in this case is a dubious defense considering that the professional performance contracts he willingly signed and entered into and the "official" rules of participating in the pro-peloton precluded him from "doping." He raced because of the money, the ego boost, the power, the prestige, the 'stroke' he had amongst the other riders and racing officials, the money that he made for sponsors and charity organizations all fed into that.
You mentioned in an earlier post with regards to Madoff et al that "The names mentioned caused a lot of people real harm. In Lance's case an enormous number of people benefited and had their lives improved." In LA's case that he came back from cancer and even attempted to participate let alone return to professional cycling says a lot about a person determined to succeed. Sure it is an inspirational story. Fuck...surviving cancer is a feat unto itself. BUT the fact that LA then when on to develop an advanced and agressive doping scheme while simultaneously claiming he and the peloton were "clean" and he would NEVER dope because putting foreign agents in his body post-cancer was antithetical to his very existence on planet earth. Just because a bunch of people made money off of LA during his reign doesn't excuse the fact that he lied, cheated and doped.
IF Lance had simply retired and enjoyed the fruits of his labors we probably wouldn't be having this discussion and LA wouldn't have to be doing couch-confessions on Oprah. But his EGO and narcissism got the better of him and he just couldn't go quietly into that good night. He insisted he was clean. He denied, he sued, he harassed, he threatened those who even leaked or hinted at what was happening behind the curtain. Maybe if LA had come clean right away things would be different. That he's still equivocating his 'admissions of guilt' in the arena of public opinion says that he still sees nothing wrong with what he does.
For some psychologist the exhibition of no remorse in the face of overwhelming evidence that the acts perpetrated by that person were wrong is considered borderline psychotic. LA burned many bridges in the conquest and building of his cycling empire, many people found inspiration in his cancer survival story, many found inspiration in his cycling dominance during the Lost Decade, many more made truck loads of money off the guy and he made truckloads of money himself, and there are just as many casualties of LA actions along the way, and yet none of this diminishes or excuses the fact that he doped, lied and cheated his way to the top. His mea culpa now appears to be less sincere and heart-felt and more 'after the fact' and blase.
For some it's a big deal, for others it's not. For me? My life goes on, I still ride my bike, I still enjoy watching the tours but LA wasn't ever an inspiration for me. There were others out there riding - pack fodder, lieutenants, one-day riders that I enjoyed watching but never put on any pedestal.
But I think for the Lance-fanboys and girls out there, the denial of his doping and then subsequent equivocating is...well...just irritating to say the least. That no excuse big or small can be trotted out to justify LA's actions in cycling, least of which is "he survived cancer." Yeah he survived cancer. And? That makes him extra special and he gets a 'dope free' pass and carte blanche to steam-roll, sue, harass and blackmail other people who question doping or his doping? I don't think so. See, my mother survived two bouts of cancer, has MS and is dealing with the slow onset of Alzheimer's but she's not out there lying, cheating and robbing people out of their livelihood and I think she's a far better person than LA any day of the week.
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+ ∞ Iamus72, but likely 'over the heads of some'
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+ ∞ ∞ ∞ Aluminumfrog
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" If I knew I had cancer there would be nothing more encouraging to me than knowing there was such an effective medicine for treating my condition."
Ignorance abounds...
EPO does not "treat" cancer.
EPO is used to treat anemia when the chemo destroys red-cell producing cells.
It also enhances blood vessel growth in tumors, which leads to rapid tumor growth. This has been known for over a decade.
EPO is not benign. A recent talk I heard had one oncologist calling EPO "Cancer Fertilizer" for some kinds of cancer.
2 seconds of searching gets you a good review:
http://www.avpivnik.ru/works/anemii/anemii_pdf_014.pdf
"The stone age didn't end because the earth ran out of stones, and the oil age won't end because the earth runs out of oil" -- Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute, rmi.org -
C2K
Thanks for that. I'm dumping the rest of this goddamn stuff in the toilet right now.
If Lance knew that, which how could he not, then don't you have to admire him for having the courage to use it?
This just all goes along with what I really believe in. There isn't anything you get for nothing in this world.
* note - I DID prefix my medically absurd hypothesis with "If". Thanks to people like you, when I do win any big events I'll do it clean. That is, unless they test for ganja.
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There is also an aspect of cancer research attempting to selectively stop blood vessel creation / growth (angiogenesis). Cancer is uncontrolled cell growth, and 'simply' starving the tumor of blood supply needed for continued growth could be a powerful non-surgical / non-chemo treatment.
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