The first embarrassment is Alex Jones. You may have heard some of his bad crazy on the topic of guns via the rant on Piers Morgan. The Young Turks provide the highlight reel below. This is some really far out craziness:
Alex Jones is an Austin-based conspiracy theorist of THE most wild-eyed over-the-top variety. His website is InfoWars and his shows are called Prison Planet TV. His product is massive paranoia, and a lot of people are buying that nowadays.
The other local chaff is Lance Armstrong. He lives not even a mile from my commuter road. The level of excitement, admiration and inspiration that he brought to people with his amazing performance on the bike - coupled with being a cancer survivor who established a force for good such as the Livestrong Foundation - it was amazing. There have been plenty of athletes disgraced by steroids before, and we are all getting used to that kind of disappointment. I went through that whole Mark McGwire roller coaster when I lived in St. Louis, same kind of thing, but the added cancer-related part of the story elevated Lance to a much higher place in the public's eyes.
Some Livestrong participant/supporter postcards displayed.
Plus, he was just so damned convincing in the lies that most people refused to even entertain the accusations as anything more than mean-spirited jealousy... until they just wouldn't go away, the wheels started to come off. Trouble is, he didn't just wreck himself, his fall injures so many more - folks who really don't need anything else beating down their hopes and dreams.
This is being written the night before the 2-part Oprah confession is revealed, and I am interested in what he is going to say. My prediction is that along with his confession he will point the finger at everything else possible, and I do believe that professional sports are highly poisoned by power, money, cheating, and absolutely wrong-headed priorities. Truly.
6 comments:
If Lance Armstrong had been content just to win the Tour de France once (or maybe even twice), there wouldn't have been any big issues or suspicions raised. But NOOOOOO, he had to win it seven times. Who in their right mind could believe THAT wasn't accomplished except with performance-enhancing doping? He got greedy, man, and that's what brought him down.
Debra, that is so true. It was too unbelievable. I also think that he, no doubt, defeated a lot of opponents who were also performance-enhanced, and I'll bet he mentions that in the interview.
Yes, at that elite level of cycling competition, everyone is doping. EVERYONE. Or they wouldn't be up there. That doesn't excuse it, of course, but the whole sport needs an overhaul.
Amen, Hell Yes, and Make It So. Same goes for Baseball.
he may be forgiven by the public..but I don't think his son will ever forgive him.
As long as the state legislature or the governor don't do anything stupid, Austin will only have two strikes against it...
Oh...
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