Lance Armstrong, You Can Keep the Yellow

Most Americans feel the same about watching the Tour de France (TDF) as they feel about professional soccer games.  What is it about European sports that it often gets compared to watching paint dry or grass grow?  I do feel the same about the sport of soccer, but when it comes to the tour, I really had no choice.  My mother was born in France and my grandfather was an avid follower of the tour each year.   I was brainwashed quite early. 

I can remember visiting France in the summers as a child.  During the month of July we were surrounded by the tour everywhere we went.  Helicopters, motorcycles and roadside cameras followed the event making it available on every national television.  Even local cafés and bars had a television set up to see who was in the lead for the day.  With my grandfather speaking very little English, and myself only knowing enough French to keep from being arrested, we found a way to transcend language with our mutual interest.   I admired and followed the French riders, but with the rise of Greg Lemond, I found an American cyclist to follow and be proud of.  Even more impressive was the story of a man, shot during a hunting accident, almost died, then came back to win the tour twice (a total of three tour wins).  Greg Lemond easily won the respect of my grandfather and many French cycling enthusiasts, and became an American household name. His life story, couldn’t be topped.  Or could it?

A decade or so later, the name Lance Armstrong would soon replace Lemond’s, tenfold.  We all know the story.  Badgered by the French press (not the one you use to make that disgustingly strong coffee on Saturday mornings), Armstrong endured slanderous story after slanderous story.  Tested, taunted and re-tested, Armstrong evaded capture over 500 times.  Rumors of bribes to the UCI (Union Cycliste International), disgruntled discredited riders accusations of drug use and federal cycling officials making claims of Lance’s arrogance and questionable behavior during routine and surprise drug screenings, the man’s name remained untainted.  The critics only made themselves look like fools. 

Drug use is rampant in all sports.  Cycling isn’t immune and matter of fact it has been around since the days of amphetamine use in the early 1900’s.  Technology has advanced, which has created both better ways to test and better ways to beat the system.  When the testing became more aggressive, the champions all started dropping like flies. Verinque, Pantani, Riis, Zulle, Ullrich, names that intimidated other riders and stood on the podiums of national tours for over a decade.  Armstrong, being the rider with the most Tour de France championships, was an obvious target, it goes with the territory.  With only questionable sources pointing the finger at Lance, it all remained rumor.   

The names of Americans caught up in the doping scandals have been on the rise.  Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton are two Americans who have been caught and have made claim about Armstrong’s past use.  Their stories have been dismissed by most because of their own guilt with fans claiming they were just trying to sell their books. 

Today at 6pm (5-22-11, Central Standard Time), that may all change. 

The CBS show “60 Minutes” has spent the last 3 days advertising that tonight’s episode will air a story about further claims that Armstrong is as guilty as all the rest.  Even worse for Armstrong is the testimony this week to a grand jury by his ex-teammate and longtime best friend George Hincapie.  I’m sure the story will cover this extensively, despite the advertisements focus on Tyler Hamilton’s portion of the interview.  This is huge in the cycling world.  Not the claim itself, but who is making the claim.  It would be like Robin testifying against Batman. 

I am not making judgments about this scandal, I am merely expressing my sadness as a fan.   And it takes away from any thoughts I have about other past greats like Indurain, Hinault and Merckx.  

My sadness has come as I feel it is a loss.  When I feel weak, when I have had to push on, when I have had to endure things I thought I couldn’t endure, I would think of one image.   The image of a devastated man who fought back against cancer and rode like no other TDF competitor I’d ever witnessed.  When he would pass another rider in the mountains like they were sitting still, it gave me chills up my spine (in the good way).  It gave me the strength to go on, the strength to fight harder, the strength to put up with the pain and say “F” it, I’m not giving up.  I think after this story airs,  I am going to have difficulty wearing yellow for a long time. 

Chaz Bono: Extreme Fetish Makeover

Chaz Bono is a lesbian.  Chaz Bono is also a woman, and should always be considered a woman.  Regardless of any surgery, outfit she puts on, hormone therapy, ability to regulate emotion during movies where puppies get killed, or if she stands when she urinates.  The reality is, she most likely still runs and throws like a girl. 

My stance has nothing to do with what might be perceived as hostile feelings toward gays, lesbians, or bisexuals.  My concern is that once again the gay agenda is being compromised by its own inclusion of people who have an inability (or unwillingness) to set certain limits.  Men who wear dresses, heels, wigs and lipstick in public and women who try to have surgically implanted genitalia are just plain strange.  Society isn’t insensitive for thinking that.  And for gays and lesbians to let this group up on their platform, they are taking away from the legitimacy of their rights to be who they are. 

We all have impulses, fetishes, fantasies, and secret drives that we don’t tell others about.  Just the same as we all masturbate, pick our noses, fart, and surf bizarre websites when nobody else is around.   But when we feel the need to come out of the closet, just how far should we take it? 

In our politically correct, overly liberal, California minded world, limit setting has been put on the wayside.  The reality is that gender identity issues are tied to a myriad of other psychological problems.  Studies show that those who have completed gender transition are comfortable with their target gender, but often still compromised by the other mental health problems in their lives.  To me, that is like a crack head being okay with their drug use, yet unwilling to acknowledge the reality and devastation it causes in their personal and professional life.    

Call it what you want, transgender, Tran sexuality, gender reassignment, transvestism, bigender, cross-dressing, intersexuality, pangender, but in its simplest description, it is most like a fetish.  Even labeling it as a fetish is difficult because it often implies sexuality.  This population often claims it is more about the feeling of being a man or woman that dominates them, rather than their preference for certain sexual practices. 

If only we had a comparison that could express an extreme feeling that someone wanted to follow that was unacceptable in everyday society.

What about nudism?  Nudists will tell you that they have an inner drive to be nude all the time.  They feel one with nature, and it isn’t about sexuality.  Nudists will pack their things, load up their campers on a Friday after work, and truck it over to a local nudist camp where they can be free to do the normal activities of all humans, yet, in the nude.  On Sunday, they pack up their belongings, put on their clothes and drive back to mainstream America.  And on Monday, they go to work, fully clothed, yet still feeling like they want to be nude.  Just imagine if they showed up to work nude and called Human Resources for discrimination when their boss fired them. 

Chaz Bono is described as a writer, actor, and musician.   Or maybe like lots of children of celebrities, she has no real direction or career and is just bored with too much time on her hands.  If she spent some time doing anything productive, she could maybe spend less time developing her fetish.  If you run with something, there really is no end to it.  Yet for some reason, her inability to try fitting into society, will get naysayers like me labeled as homophobic and bigoted.  Acceptance is important for all of us.   That should include individuals being accepting of the expectations of society and not trying to turn everything into a freak show.  Instead, we have reversed the definition of acceptance to make the larger group fit into the smaller ideology.  Is America really that easy to push around?

Islam, Version 2.0; Porn, Pepsi and Coke Included

Is the moral of the story just……… a dude, is a dude, is a dude?  Or is this dude, and are all dudes like him, just a bunch of phoneys?

I’m referring to the recent news that a stash of porn was found at the Bin Laden Compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.  The reports are mixed, some saying it was in video form and others stating it was a box of magazines.  What guy didn’t see this one coming?  As soon as they mentioned anything about taking computers and thumb drives from the compound, two things came to mind.  One, the primary purpose of the internet is for sexual related activity.  And two, put a man and a computer in the same room and within 20 minutes they will be “punching the clown” like nobody’s business. 

 

In Osama’s case, he also couldn’t seem to resist American made products like Pepsi, Coke and Nestle.  According to Pakistani officials, these products along with western medicine were delivered in bulk to the compound on a regular basis.  Cannabis was found growing outside the compound as well (will the toxicology reports show traces of this or other drugs in Osama’s system?). 

 I have no problem with porn.  In fact, when nobody else is around, I welcome it!  And that also goes for strippers, massage parlors, naked maid services, slutty women, easy women, scantily clad women in public, nudity contests, porn shops, hookers, peep shows, escorts……………..okay, I think you have my point. 

But wait, this son of a bitch was supposed to be against all that stuff!  I thought we are the westerners who are supposed to be a bunch of heathens that are prisoners to our own impulses.  Bin Laden sent out video tape after video tape of himself preaching about the ills of western culture, only to turn off the camera, go back to his room and chug a bottle of Yoo-hoo while rubbing one out. 

Many other reports came out this week regarding how much porn was on previous hard-drives of other captured terrorists and so called “warriors” taken custody in both Iraq and Afghanistan.  News reports this week claimed that 90% of the hard-drives taken had porn (now was that 90% of the space on the hard drives, or 90% of the actual hard drives had some type of porn?). 

What does it tell us?  Does it tell us that men are all the same?  Or does it tell us that this “leader” followed worldwide by crazies everywhere, was nothing but a poser?  The answer, yes, he was a poser (it feels nice to say "was").  And in the worst way.  It means that everything that he stood for, and everything he commanded people to do, was a sham.  He killed thousands of people and asked other young Muslims to take their own lives for his cause. 

I have to admit, that as much as I hate about Islamic fundamentalism, there is something mysterious and admirable about their devotion to their cause.  The insanity to end one’s life to defeat a power greater than yourself, know your religion and its principles inside and out, recite long prayers in unison with others of your faith several times a day, and restrict yourself from the daily temptations offered on this planet, waiting, so that someday they could be rewarded in some magnificent place, well beyond our comprehension.   

But that, my friends, is all a bunch of bullshit!

I know that earlier I mentioned we all should have seen this coming when they mentioned anything about recovering hard drives.  But now that we have the proof, I get even angrier.  Angrier for what it cost our country physically, emotionally and financially on 9/11, as well as the grief we continue to endure. I was hoping that maybe this sicko was at least for real and that those people didn’t die that much more in vain.     

Whether it’s because America is the most successful culture in the history of the world or that their whole ideology is a waste of their existence, they should at least find the balls to admit that they just hate America.  It’s not about how we live our lives or that we have entered their land.  Matter of fact, each time we have entered their lands, it was at the request of others living in their lands (why aren't they attacking those people?).  It really comes down to jealousy.  They wish they could be like America, but don’t have the means or the willingness to adjust their religion to the modern times to do so.

Osama and Saddam, Eternally Connected

Well, that’s that.  Long awaited, meagerly celebrated and overly debated, the two most infamous villains of my generation can inarguably and finally be linked together.  In death.   

I’ve always had a feeling that I would see this day come, but the long wait was really beginning to create some doubt in my mind.  This is certainly a huge victory, but only those behind the scenes really know how much better the world is without Saddam and now Bin Laden.  The college students celebrating outside the White House on Sunday evening were only about 10 years old when his name became globally and permanently imprinted into our minds. But on Monday morning, I, like the rest of America got out of bed, ate my breakfast, and went about my day.   As I arrived home from work the news continued to cover the story as it developed, but the celebration in the streets had been short lived. 

Have we as a nation become so ADD that we quickly move on to things like Zhu Zhu Pets, bacon double stacks and the unneeded sequel to the Hangover?  Or is it that for me, a conservative, working in a place saturated with liberals, I would only have been wasting my breath.  I didn’t even attempt to bring the topic up until Wednesday.  The American unity that was disassembled by liberals after 9/11 is what made this event all the more anticlimactic. 

I was a liberal on 9/11, and cringed at the sound of President Bush falling over his words right after the towers came down.  But I followed the facts, let go of my conspiracy theories and went with my instinct on what I thought should happen after this life changing event.  When I heard the opinions of those closer to the right, it became clear, I wasn’t a liberal after all.  I realized this when I started to see how the liberals I was speaking with ignored facts, changed things around or didn’t know what actually happened in history (unless it suited their argument). I also noticed how they yelled over others or easily accused people of being racists and jingoists.

The connection between Bin Laden and Saddam didn’t need to include a video of them discussing plans for 9/11 at some Paris café.   For anyone paying attention to the most recent history at the time, the connection between these two individuals was indirect, yet solid.  Bin Laden hated America as well as many other things for many reasons.  But his reason for 9/11 had everything to do with the U.S. military presence in what he believed was the holy land.  And so for one last time I ask the simple question, why were our troops deployed in the so called holy land?  The only answers I can ever get have to do with Halliburton, Dick Cheney, oil profits and American imperialism.  The true answer, as simple as it may be….. Saddam Hussein brought us there.  If he hadn’t decided to invade Kuwait and amass troops along the Saudi border, our troops would have never been sent there.  So who is the real culprit, the person who started the party, or the one who burned it down?  I say both. 

And as new terror plots and conspiracy theories unfold, we will all soon have plenty of writing material and much more to argue about.  Just remember libs, to please be fair.  Lift the lid once in a while, be sure to put it back down when you are done, and if you sprinkle while you tinkle, be a sweetie and wipe the seaty. 

Ooops! Osama Dead, Crowd Celebrates in Front of White House

That's what happens when you take your ambien and then see a news flash that you end up getting glued to. 

Obama Dead, Crowd Celebrates in Front of White House

Fantasy Royal Wedding Camp

                                                                                        

Congratulations to the royal couple! And I mean that.  They have had a splendid wedding that was viewed by over 2 billion people worldwide.  One third of this planet’s population.  Of course now, this wedding is every little girl’s fantasy.  And a fantasy it should be.  Because as we all know, most fantasies don’t come true. 

When I speak of fantasy, I’m not talking about the wonderful relationship that I hope this couple has found in each other.  That is something that is real, and that most little girl’s, if they someday find the right man (or woman to be politically correct), deserve. 

When I use the word fantasy, I mean the image in women’s (and some men, to be politically correct again) minds about what a wedding should be.  Excessive, expensive, and unrealistic, yet realistic if one is willing to go in debt for a one day event.  For the royal couple, this wedding was well within their means.  But for the average couple, the new standard has just been set.   

The wedding industry loved this event.  It was a free commercial that will earn this industry another 40 billion dollars over the next year.  I’d be willing to bet that despite the current recession, the wedding industry, because of this televised event alone, stands to massively increase their profits over the next two summers.  And there is nothing wrong with that, they’re entitled to it.  But I believe it’s the perception of what a wedding has to be, that is the problem.   

I am the usual over-spender, and even I tried speaking sense to my future bride back in 1997 (or was it 98?..... 96?) .  What seemed like the usual disagreement at the time (we couldn’t agree on anything), was in retrospect, a financial nightmare driven by a mind poisoned lifelong distorted image of reality.   Brainwashed by the popular sense of what a wedding should be, we had the wedding that a person making 4 times our income couldn’t afford.  We we’re conditioned to believe that we needed this type of wedding. After all, it was the standard.  It was the type of wedding that all of her friends had.  It was what all of her aunts, cousins and nieces had talked about when they described weddings.  We had the little gifts, the right photography company (who still had half the people’s heads cut off in the photos), 2 flower girls, flowers (which die right after the wedding), 6 bridesmaids with accompanying groomsmen, horse and buggy, limousine, jewelry, clothing (to be worn for one day only, yet cost the same amount as a whole wardrobe), honeymoon suite, honeymoon vacation with another honeymoon suite, should I go on?   

I married a budget minded, overly frugal woman (which was actually part of the cause of our divorce) who worked very hard to keep costs down and get the best wedding bang for her buck.  This was a woman that hang dried her clothes to save money on the electric bill that would go up after having the drier running too long.  $18,000 later, one of us in college, living on our measly $26K income, and paying off wedding related credit card bills 3 years later, my frugal wife had nothing to show for her dollars but the same loser boyfriend, a video, and a wedding album.  

The bottom line is that we couldn’t afford it.  Neither can most of the couples out there getting married.  The culture of modern day society feeds into this idea, making women believe that they have to have the ultimate wedding.  Since my wedding long ago there are reality shows, cooking shows regarding wedding cakes and pastries, seminars/bridal shows, wedding planners, bachelor/bachelorette party companies, etc.  The bar has been raised several times and the expectations for weddings will continue to grow.

I tell you, the industry wasn’t always like this.  Back in the day when women were traded and sold like cattle, or just kidnapped from another tribe, this industry didn’t stand a chance.  I think I will start a business to help women save money on weddings.  Fantasy Royal Wedding Camp!  Just like sports fantasy camps that are all the rage, women can live the experience without having to put in all the hard work.  And their bankbooks and husbands will thank them in the end.