Tuesday, September 16, 2008

On lance and other idiots

This is a snip of an exchange between me and an idiot on one of the discussion groups I belong to. It was in a thread discussing the tactics of the hard-right christian fundamentalists in this election cycle. The other participant - 'chris' - is one of those fundies.

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On Sep 15, 8:34 pm, zencycle wrote:

> On Sep 13, 4:10 pm, Chris wrote:
> Zen, w/all due respect you're a brain washed Boston liberal

followed with:

> And I'll complete the statement that I would never, EVER vote for a
> Muslim of any sort.

Right, and _i'm_ the brainwashed one.....

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The delusion is complete. Or is it? We were treated last week to another display of ego maniacal bravado, lance coming out of retirement.

Now, I have to say I'm a lance fan, and always have been.
I was quite disappointed when he retired. I thought, 'ok, so now take your shots at the giro and vuelta for a few years, or at least concentrate on the spring classics and maybe the world championships'. But, he decided it was time, and I accepted it. but now, he wants to come back and race the tour. Why? what is there to prove? I still think it would be in the better interest of cycling to concentrate on a more diverse palmares portfolio.

There's some sort of psychosis going on here. I don't understand it, it could be a simple case of egomania, though it seems more complicated than that. Maybe he just needs to get laid, though it's pretty obvious he doesn't handle intimate relationships too well.

The character 'chris' from the discussion group has made some pretty audacious comments. He has stated unapologeticly that if we allow gay marriage in this country, it will lead to our nation becoming a muslim caliphate - his exact words were 'will lead to sharia law'. He's convinced that his version of christianity is the only true version, and that makes him uniquely qualified to determine who else is a true christian, or not.

I'm not sure what lance is convinced of, but I know he's not convinced the world has had enough of him. I think we have, and I think, unless he comes back on the same form he went out on, it will be merely a side show to the already damaged image of cycling around the world. Contador has shown - between the giro and vuelta this year - that he's ready to be the new boss of the peloton. Lance coming back is merely an arrogant slap to his success.

It's a weird vague link in my twisted mind between the two, and it comes down to arrogance and ego. Unchecked, it's never a good thing. Lance, I feel, will not help the image and direction of cycling, and could even damage it. Chris, I _know_ will not help the image and direction of this country, and will end up damaging it. The only real difference is that there are alot of chris' out there, and only one lance. Lance may actually damage the sport (worst case), but he won't destroy it. Ten million christian zealots, convinced that this country should be ruled under the laws of the their bible, could certainly destroy us.

On a different note, I signed up for the Bob Beal Stage race a couple of weeks ago. since I was injured in february, I hadn't even bothered to buy my license to that point. so I bought my license specifically for that race. It was summarily canceled because the promoter was wary of the turn out and didn't want to incur a loss.

So instead of racing, I fucked around a bit, and drank more than I should have.

There are other races coming up, the protsmouth crit....jamestown...I'd love to try cyclocross but I'm just not confident of the achilles tear handling the dismounts and running.

I'll be running some...lightly....per doctors orders.

Long weekend MTB excursions seem to be in my future.

As the road racing season closes, and the election season goes super nova, here's what I hope:

I hope Lance realizes he cannot compete at the level he was hoping, and quietly goes away.

I hope America realizes that christian fundamentalism is just as bad as muslim fundamentalism and sends 'god-n-guns palin' packing.

I hope I can actually run a 5 mile race by the end of the year.

Hmmm....it _is_ all about me.......

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