I have not posted in three weeks. Besides a-fib we are getting ready to remodel our home and sell our house in Knoxville, so much is happening. Meanwhile I read the insanity in the news with resignation rather than anger. we voted and lost, and now we are paying the price. I do read with amusement, however, some items, which I will comment on in no particular order.
First, Lance Armstrong. I feel very sorry for him. He won 7 Tour de France titles fair and square. How can I say that when I am against performance enhancing drugs?
In baseball PEDs were irregularly and infrequently used. Also in baseball statistical continuity between eras is a treasured thing. Thus a few cheaters stand out, and their statistical achievements warp records for all time. I wish someone had had the guts of Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis. After the 'Black Sox' scandal of 1919 the players were tried for throwing games, gambling and bribery. And were acquitted! Despite this, Landis banned them from baseball 'for the good of the game', making a good decision based in morality, not law.
Of course, today no one can act morally. Instead we must have a reason to punish wrongdoing that goes beyond embarrassing yourself and your employer. Blatantly obvious wrongdoing must be 'proved', adn so obvious steroid cheats go free and no one has the guts to say and do what is right, as opposed to what is proven in court.
These steroid cheats distorted the entire history of a game by the actions of a few. Cycling is completely different.
Take a look at the Tour times for all the cyclists. Does Lance Armstrong stand out? No. Armstrong and all other winners win by a total percentage of less than 1%! Now look at the winners over the last 20 years. Look how many have been disqualified for doping. Barry Bonds stands out like a sore thumb in his records and his appearance. Armstrong doesn't stand out at all. Clearly the price to compete in top professional cycling is to use PEDs. Everyone is doing it, as testified to by Armstrong's whole team being accused, all times being very similar and the sheer number of disqualified cyclists. What are you going to do- disqualify everyone? Magically purify the sport by daily urine testing by an army of police?
I don't have clean answers to my own questions. What I am sure of is that everyone is being a dope by imagining that doping isn't happening now, and by suddenly castigating Armstrong. It was obvious he was dopipng from the very beginning.
Speaking of saying obviously stupid things, another prize goes to the reporters of NPR regarding Syria. A pair of reporters (and no they're not 'journalists, a term I hold for those who provide insight and meaning to a story, not mere reportage, or the pastiche of rumor, other reporters' opinions and over-reaction that typifies 'the news') gushed about the terrible effects of war in Syria. To date, about 60,000 have been killed in 2 years. They noted the terrible effects of mortars on a building, and waxed on and on about people without electricity for a few months, and one building they saw burn down.
WOW! Horrors!! These 'reporters' clearly have no historical background for the drivel they put forth, and no eprsonal experience of catastrophe or warfare. In saying this and what follows I am nto trying to trivialize the conflict in Syria. All human suffering and death in fighting is sad. But I am trying to put it in persepctive. These reporters amde it sound like Syria is suffering in a nearly unprecedented way, taht horrible and terrifying things are happening there. that's BS.
Just a couple fo examples from War, as opposed to war with a little 'w', or conflicts. The British had 60,000 men killed on the first DAY of the Somme offensive. The French had 250,000 men killed in the first 6 weeks of WW 1. Hearing about 60,000 dead in two years sounds terrible until put in persepctive of war. After WW 2 was OVER, 250,000 German civilians starved to death in the winter of 1945-46. In Nuremberg there were more than 30,000 unburied bodies in the rubble of the city, and it was intact enough to host the Nuremberg trials! Dresden suffered 50-80,000 dead in two days, Tokyo 80,000 dead in one night, Hamburg at least 30,000 dead nightly over two successive nights. And none of these were atomic attacks. 20 million Russians, civilian and military, died in 4 years.
Please pardon me if I don't get hysterical about a couple of buildings in Aleppo or a lack of electricity.
Last, A doping prize to 'Zero Dark Thirty' and everyone who has gushed over the movie. It was directed by a fine director, Kathryn Bigelow, whose other credits include 'The Hurt Locker' and 'K-19: the Widow-Maker'. Unfortunately, in telling the story of bin Laden's capture she has made the head of the team who tracked him female. Uhh, that's simply false. Go look it up. Men and women were both involved in hunting bin Laden for the CIA, but the head of the operation was male.
Can you imagine the roar of rage had a male director replaced a female lead with a man? Why is this any different? It isn't, that's why. This is another case of what I call misandrony being applauded by the ignorant, or even worse by those who know and excuse it to further some cause.
I know movies are entertainment, not history, but when we deliberately distort truth to make entertainment with 'a message' I think that's wrong.
Maybe I'll continue with doping prizes in the future....
Ted
First, Lance Armstrong. I feel very sorry for him. He won 7 Tour de France titles fair and square. How can I say that when I am against performance enhancing drugs?
In baseball PEDs were irregularly and infrequently used. Also in baseball statistical continuity between eras is a treasured thing. Thus a few cheaters stand out, and their statistical achievements warp records for all time. I wish someone had had the guts of Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis. After the 'Black Sox' scandal of 1919 the players were tried for throwing games, gambling and bribery. And were acquitted! Despite this, Landis banned them from baseball 'for the good of the game', making a good decision based in morality, not law.
Of course, today no one can act morally. Instead we must have a reason to punish wrongdoing that goes beyond embarrassing yourself and your employer. Blatantly obvious wrongdoing must be 'proved', adn so obvious steroid cheats go free and no one has the guts to say and do what is right, as opposed to what is proven in court.
These steroid cheats distorted the entire history of a game by the actions of a few. Cycling is completely different.
Take a look at the Tour times for all the cyclists. Does Lance Armstrong stand out? No. Armstrong and all other winners win by a total percentage of less than 1%! Now look at the winners over the last 20 years. Look how many have been disqualified for doping. Barry Bonds stands out like a sore thumb in his records and his appearance. Armstrong doesn't stand out at all. Clearly the price to compete in top professional cycling is to use PEDs. Everyone is doing it, as testified to by Armstrong's whole team being accused, all times being very similar and the sheer number of disqualified cyclists. What are you going to do- disqualify everyone? Magically purify the sport by daily urine testing by an army of police?
I don't have clean answers to my own questions. What I am sure of is that everyone is being a dope by imagining that doping isn't happening now, and by suddenly castigating Armstrong. It was obvious he was dopipng from the very beginning.
Speaking of saying obviously stupid things, another prize goes to the reporters of NPR regarding Syria. A pair of reporters (and no they're not 'journalists, a term I hold for those who provide insight and meaning to a story, not mere reportage, or the pastiche of rumor, other reporters' opinions and over-reaction that typifies 'the news') gushed about the terrible effects of war in Syria. To date, about 60,000 have been killed in 2 years. They noted the terrible effects of mortars on a building, and waxed on and on about people without electricity for a few months, and one building they saw burn down.
WOW! Horrors!! These 'reporters' clearly have no historical background for the drivel they put forth, and no eprsonal experience of catastrophe or warfare. In saying this and what follows I am nto trying to trivialize the conflict in Syria. All human suffering and death in fighting is sad. But I am trying to put it in persepctive. These reporters amde it sound like Syria is suffering in a nearly unprecedented way, taht horrible and terrifying things are happening there. that's BS.
Just a couple fo examples from War, as opposed to war with a little 'w', or conflicts. The British had 60,000 men killed on the first DAY of the Somme offensive. The French had 250,000 men killed in the first 6 weeks of WW 1. Hearing about 60,000 dead in two years sounds terrible until put in persepctive of war. After WW 2 was OVER, 250,000 German civilians starved to death in the winter of 1945-46. In Nuremberg there were more than 30,000 unburied bodies in the rubble of the city, and it was intact enough to host the Nuremberg trials! Dresden suffered 50-80,000 dead in two days, Tokyo 80,000 dead in one night, Hamburg at least 30,000 dead nightly over two successive nights. And none of these were atomic attacks. 20 million Russians, civilian and military, died in 4 years.
Please pardon me if I don't get hysterical about a couple of buildings in Aleppo or a lack of electricity.
Last, A doping prize to 'Zero Dark Thirty' and everyone who has gushed over the movie. It was directed by a fine director, Kathryn Bigelow, whose other credits include 'The Hurt Locker' and 'K-19: the Widow-Maker'. Unfortunately, in telling the story of bin Laden's capture she has made the head of the team who tracked him female. Uhh, that's simply false. Go look it up. Men and women were both involved in hunting bin Laden for the CIA, but the head of the operation was male.
Can you imagine the roar of rage had a male director replaced a female lead with a man? Why is this any different? It isn't, that's why. This is another case of what I call misandrony being applauded by the ignorant, or even worse by those who know and excuse it to further some cause.
I know movies are entertainment, not history, but when we deliberately distort truth to make entertainment with 'a message' I think that's wrong.
Maybe I'll continue with doping prizes in the future....
Ted
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