Armstrong's financial situation

[Fortyninefourteen]

Yup, book, tearful admission, blame the childhood, all with his willing accomplice.

The redemption will be tough. I doubt he will be able to apologize to the people he burned and successful redemption usually requires that the athlete returns to his sport (Vick, Woods). That option is not open for Wonderboy

Unless he has nothing left to lose, or considerably more to gain than to lose, the Oprah moment is not likely.

Woods checked himself into an 'addiction' clinic not long after his wife used his face for long iron practice. I wonder which equivalent 'help center' he will turn to......

 

[Page Mill Masochist]

The redemption will be tough. I doubt he will be able to apologize to the people he burned and successful redemption usually requires that the athlete returns to his sport (Vick, Woods). That option is not open for Wonderboy

Very tough.

He'd have to visit Betsy, Walsh, Kimmage, Lemond, Emma et. al. and ask for their forgiveness. He'd have to pay back the London Times, ASO, SCA and USPS for the stolen money. He'd have to admit to perjury and accept the consequences.

He'd have to make a public apology to Livestrong donors and anyone wearing a yellow band.

He and his PR people and lawyers would have to say they were sorry to the thousands of journalists and bloggers and commenters who were slimed and threatened.

Otherwise, an apology would be a joke. All of the parties above would be happy to say it was a joke. Betsy is a media star now. She isn't going away.

If you take all of the other athlete scandals and add them up -- Rose, Bonds, Clemons, Jones, Woods, Vick -- they don't come close to evoking the emotional backlash Armstrong guaranteed for himself with his two decades of lies and bullying tactics and moral pretension.

If Livestrong goes down in IRS flames, then the one small chance for an LA redemption probably disappears. Barred from sanctioned sports, stripped of sponsors, disinvited right and left from public speeches, LA's only remaining platform is Livestrong.

 

[MarkvW]

Very tough.

He'd have to visit Betsy, Walsh, Kimmage, Lemond, Emma et. al. and ask for their forgiveness. He'd have to pay back the London Times, ASO, SCA and USPS for the stolen money. He'd have to admit to perjury and accept the consequences.

He'd have to make a public apology to Livestrong donors and anyone wearing a yellow band.

He and his PR people and lawyers would have to say they were sorry to the thousands of journalists and bloggers and commenters who were slimed and threatened.

Otherwise, an apology would be a joke. All of the parties above would be happy to say it was a joke. Betsy is a media star now. She isn't going away.

If you take all of the other athlete scandals and add them up -- Rose, Bonds, Clemons, Jones, Woods, Vick -- they don't come close to evoking the emotional backlash Armstrong guaranteed for himself with his two decades of lies and bullying tactics and moral pretension.

If Livestrong goes down in IRS flames, then the one small chance for an LA redemption probably disappears. Barred from sanctioned sports, stripped of sponsors, disinvited right and left from public speeches, LA's only remaining platform is Livestrong.

But when you ain't got nothin', you got nothin' to lose . . .. I don't think that Armstrong is being 'handled' at all right now. I think that he is deciding his own course. Anything can happen. And if Armstrong continues to want attention, it's about the only course left.

 

[Scott SoCal]

Yup, book, tearful admission, blame the childhood, all with his willing accomplice.

The redemption will be tough. I doubt he will be able to apologize to the people he burned and successful redemption usually requires that the athlete returns to his sport (Vick, Woods). That option is not open for Wonderboy

Maybe LA and Sally Jenkins can get a one-for-two book deal. Both have some purging to do...

 

[Neworld]

Oh afro, you used to just try to be a complicated chimera of egalitarianism, an inability for brevity and with a man-crush. Now you're just insulting people! I hope the moderators don't warn you. Go have some tea and take a deep breath.

....that's not genius by any measure, pro or con, but it seems beyond you. On that score, let's be clear, there are many many intelligent people on this forum by any standard, but there seem a select few, of which you are virtually the last, who are content to let your emotional investments override and judge any thing you read and to react (knee jerk) accordingly. Not my problem.

As to your suggestion: I have, and I have. Thanks though.

 

[Race Radio]

Maybe LA and Sally Jenkins can get a one-for-two book deal. Both have some purging to do...

Yup, stay tuned

 

[Scott SoCal]

Yup, stay tuned

You just know.... I mean.. With a bleach job she looks kinda like... um, uh....

I'm betting they wind up together.

 

[Page Mill Masochist]

Yup, stay tuned

Sally can try to defend LA at this point, but she'll be laughed out of park.

http://jimromenesko.com/2012/10/23/why-sally-jenkins-hasnt-written-about-lance-armstrong-lately/

 

[D-Queued]

Sally can try to defend LA at this point, but she'll be laughed out of park.

http://jimromenesko.com/2012/10/23/why-sally-jenkins-hasnt-written-about-lance-armstrong-lately/

Ok, this thread keeps getting top billing... and I haven't even commented until post 257...

Sally: "if I can wind up with a rep for being a good friend and an independent thinker..."

Ok, no chance of getting credit for being an independent thinker when you took Lance' BS and regurgitated it.

As for a good friend, perhaps that depends on your definition.

A really good friend will intervene and try and stop their friend from harming themselves or committing a crime, or both.

Guess that is two strikes for Sally than.

Dave.

 

[Velodude]

Sally can try to defend LA at this point, but she'll be laughed out of park.

http://jimromenesko.com/2012/10/23/why-sally-jenkins-hasnt-written-about-lance-armstrong-lately/

Sally can't let go. No time to keep up with Lance news except for:

I did read George Hincapie’s affidavit, which I assume is truthful

Assume: Supposes to be the case without proof.

To Sally, journalist. An affidavit is a sworn statement of facts and is evidence in a court of law.

 

[D-Queued]

...

To Sally, journalist. An affidavit is a sworn statement of facts and is evidence in a court of law.

As a fiction writer, facts just get in her way.

Dave.

 

[Page Mill Masochist]

The Washington Post sports editor is:

Matthew Vita
vitam@washpost.com

on Twitter
@mattvita

Let's let Matt know we expect an honest response from Sally Jenkins!

 

[aphronesis]

Oh afro, you used to just try to be a complicated chimera of egalitarianism, an inability for brevity and with a man-crush. Now you're just insulting people! I hope the moderators don't warn you. Go have some tea and take a deep breath.

Man crush? Who's insulting others now? Speak English. What kind of infantilized, celebrity obsessed, mass cultural pap is that? There are some men in this world I respect, certainly, but it's pretty fair to say that none of them have ever tweeted--nor written autobiographies--and the closest any of them have likely come to this spectacular debacle is this

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n22/david-runciman/everybody-gets-popped

You'd like it far less if I were terse and succinct newbie.

Got plenty of tea.

Calling other's posts babble is insulting. Mods have been over that as well. As is typical of this topic, I made one remark with regard to the editor of Thom's book and how that's reflective of the larger systemic issues at work in this scandal and it was followed by backlash rather than any form of address--words being put in my mouth essentially.

Would you like to engage that particular point re. Thom Weisel or would you like to go on sideline spectating as has been the net sum of your posts on this larger topic?

 

[aphronesis]

Man crush? Who's insulting others now? What kind of kind of politically acceptable mass cultural pap is that? There are some men in this world I respect, certainly, but it's pretty fair to say that none of them have ever tweeted and the closest any of them have likely come to this spectacular debacle is this

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n22/david-runciman/everybody-gets-popped

You'd like it far less if I were terse and succinct newbie.

Got plenty of tea.

Calling other's posts babble is insulting. Mods have been over that as well. As is typical of this topic, I made one remark with regard to the editor of Thom's book and how that's reflective of the larger systemic issues and work in this scandal. Issues which most here are content to repress and ignore: hear no evil, see no evil or, whistle while you work and all that sort of thing. No surprise that a backlash immediately followed.

Would you like to engage that particular point re. Thom Weisel or would you like to go on sideline spectating as has been the net sum of your posts on this larger topic?

 

[D-Queued]

...Last edited by aphronesis; Today at 02:54.

Since this thread has drifted to 'writers', 'authors' and 'editors', then can I comment?

I may be flattering myself, but I consider myself to have at least normal intelligence. Certain fragments and some of your choices of words suggest that you possess a high intellect.

I have read your last few posts very carefully. Unfortunately, I must admit confusion. Even when reading very carefully, for the umpteenth time, I struggle.

You are obviously very passionate about this subject, and I would really like to understand you better. Can we try and meet halfway?

Dave.

 

[aphronesis]

Since this thread has drifted to 'writers', 'authors' and 'editors', then can I comment?

I may be flattering myself, but I consider myself to have at least normal intelligence. Certain fragments and some of your choices of words suggest that you possess a high intellect.

I have read your last few posts very carefully. Unfortunately, I must admit confusion. Even when reading very carefully, for the umpteenth time, I struggle.

You are obviously very passionate about this subject, and I would really like to understand you better. Can we try and meet halfway?

Dave.

Sure. I'm not sure which subject you think it is that I'm passionate about, but maybe we can define that as we go along.

For starters, any editor who takes a job and whines about it afterwards because they find the content unpalatable is beneath contempt. In my opinion. That's neoliberalized, social media complacency at its most invertebrate. Uncommon, no. Surprising? No, but deplorable nonetheless.

RR opines that this editor has nonetheless done the world a service by allowing people to see what a self inflated tool Thom Weisel is. My response to that is that anyone who needs Weisel's memoir to have that epiphany isn't going to make much of a dent in the world or contribute much to changing the much more deeply engrained absence of values and human character that seems to have been first refined and bred during the 80s.

When people look back at this and the last decade from a century or so on, Armstrong's athletic achievements will be mostly intact--despite the cermonial withdrawal of the present--and Weisel will be mostly a footnote--or full topic in histories of the Silicon valley--but the framing question (much as the twentieth century is characterized as an age of extremes violence and upheaval) will be "what were the various mechanisms, social formations, juridical--or legal--limits that allowed clowns such as Armstrong, Weisel, their circle of chuckleheads, and so many others in so many aspects of public, civic, and commercial interaction, to perpetuate ongoing acts of fraud and corruption?" Business, military, education, etc. It will be seen as the withering and fragmentation of the age of institutions in their positive and productive sense--and the emergence of more amorphous configurations of people living in proximity to one another--and tethered to various of these fragments and each other: territorial, financial, legislative, which are mostly disconnected from the State and one another and surely no longer deserving of the name society in any meaningful sense.

Equally, and this is the point that should follow from that: what was the subhuman and near jellyfish like-level of large swathes of population who would tolerate and tacitly permit such activities and then subsequently claim to be scandalized, shocked and sickened by them. This is a loaded question in part and it bears on the whole issue of the American sponsors and their audiences in this specific context, but on a particular age of advertising, media and technology more generally. In that regard, it doesn't really matter to me what hits Armstrong takes financially when many involved in this culture of hucksterism and complacency just clean their hands and walk away. Never mind the obvious cynicism of the big players, but at the level of RR's public domain, what are the contours of this docile, feeble and self-serving psychological foundation?

Back to the editor.

 

[D-Queued]

Sure. I'm not sure which subject you think it is that I'm passionate about, but maybe we can define that as we go along.

For starters, any editor who takes a job and whines about it afterwards because they find the content unpalatable is beneath contempt. In my opinion. That's neoliberalized, social media complacency at its most invertebrate. Uncommon, no. Surprising? No, but deplorable nonetheless.

RR opines that this editor has nonetheless done the world a service by allowing people to see what a self inflated tool Thom Weisel is. My response to that is that anyone who needs Weisel's memoir to have that epiphany isn't going to make much of a dent in the world or contribute much to changing the much more deeply engrained absence of values and human character that seems to have been first refined and bred during the 80s.

When people look back at this and the last decade from a century or so on, Armstrong's athletic achievements will be mostly intact--despite the cermonial withdrawal of the present--and Weisel will be mostly a footnote--or full topic in histories of the Silicon valley--but the framing question (much as the twentieth century is characterized as an age of extremes violence and upheaval) will be "what were the various mechanisms, social formations, juridical--or legal--limits that allowed clowns such as Armstrong, Weisel, their circle of chuckleheads, and so many others in so many aspects of public, civic, and commercial interaction, to perpetuate ongoing acts of fraud and corruption?" Business, military, education, etc. It will be seen as the withering and fragmentation of the age of institutions in their positive and productive sense--and the emergence of more amorphous configurations of people living in proximity to one another--and tethered to various of these fragments and each other: territorial, financial, legislative, which are mostly disconnected from the State and one another and surely no longer deserving of the name society in any meaningful sense.

Equally, and this is the point that should follow from that: what was the subhuman and near jellyfish like-level of large swathes of population who would tolerate and tacitly permit such activities and then subsequently claim to be scandalized, shocked and sickened by them. This is a loaded question in part and it bears on the whole issue of the American sponsors and their audiences in this specific context, but on a particular age of advertising, media and technology more generally. In that regard, it doesn't really matter to me what hits Armstrong takes financially when many involved in this culture of hucksterism and complacency just clean their hands and walk away. Never mind the obvious cynicism of the big players, but at the level of RR's public domain, what are the contours of this docile, feeble and self-serving psychological foundation?

Back to the editor.

Ok, thanks, I think I got most of it.

Please allow me license to counter a few of your points - even those I may agree with.

1. Exposing Weisel

Your points are well taken, but arguably so are RR's. A bit further on, you ask the question: "what were the various mechanisms, (etc.) ... that allowed clowns such as Armstrong, Weisel, their circle of chuckleheads ... to perpetuate ongoing acts of fraud and corruption.

One of the strong elements that allowed this to perpetuate is that cycling is a fringe sport in the US. Thus, curtailing the fraud requires its exposure. That really isn't different than any other sport or venue, but the battle is even more difficult due to the obscurity of cycling.

The issue may be obvious, but it can only be obvious to those paying attention. While RR's comment about one hand clapping in the woods was flippant, that is our lot in cycling in North America. What is the sound of corruption in cycling? Same as a tree falling in the woods while one hand claps.

Even Weisel's peer group, where cycling is the new golf, would see North American cycling as pretty obscure.

2. jellyfish like-level of large swathes of population

We shouldn't veer into the political.

3. this culture of hucksterism

This is an interesting observation, and one which I share.

However, it is also arguably a critical element of silicon valley and US entrepreneurship. This is a concept that I have struggled with for years. New ideas arguably require hucksterism. Entrepreneurs must excel at promotion in order to battle through the sea of 'No' in order to see their ideas succeed.

Yes, folks like Lance will take advantage of this... but thick-skinned promoters propel the economy.

Dave.

 

[aphronesis]

Ok, thanks, I think I got most of it.

Please allow me license to counter a few of your points - even those I may agree with.

1. Exposing Weisel

Your points are well taken, but arguably so are RR's. A bit further on, you ask the question: "what were the various mechanisms, (etc.) ... that allowed clowns such as Armstrong, Weisel, their circle of chuckleheads ... to perpetuate ongoing acts of fraud and corruption.

One of the strong elements that allowed this to perpetuate is that cycling is a fringe sport in the US. Thus, curtailing the fraud requires its exposure. That really isn't different than any other sport or venue, but the battle is even more difficult due to the obscurity of cycling.

The issue may be obvious, but it can only be obvious to those paying attention. While RR's comment about one hand clapping in the woods was flippant, that is our lot in cycling in North America. What is the sound of corruption in cycling? Same as a tree falling in the woods while one hand claps.

Even Weisel's peer group, where cycling is the new golf, would see North American cycling as pretty obscure.

2. jellyfish like-level of large swathes of population

We shouldn't veer into the political.

3. this culture of hucksterism

This is an interesting observation, and one which I share.

However, it is also arguably a critical element of silicon valley and US entrepreneurship. This is a concept that I have struggled with for years. New ideas arguably require hucksterism. Entrepreneurs must excel at promotion in order to battle through the sea of 'No' in order to see their ideas succeed.

Yes, folks like Lance will take advantage of this... but thick-skinned promoters propel the economy.

Dave.

Well, in terms of Weisel, I think it will take far more than his autobio to expose him. But, you miss my point there. What I'm saying is that that circle is only one of many small overlapping circles running throughout this country. Many--most of which--have nothing to do with cycling. Therefore I can't get that worked up about this particular instance when there are going to be so many apposite examples.

Which leads on to your validation of RR's claims. I have rarely said that he is wrong, more often that his desired results and outcomes are insufficient. From my perspective of course.

On point 2. I don't see any reason not to veer into the political. This entire scenario is politicized. If the federal charges were reinstated, there would certainly be grounds to locate it in the political. Never mind the fact that all the things Lance was once thought to represent had a moment or part, arguably, in replacing what used to constitute politics in this country. If one couldn't look at the peak years of his ascendancy and find them reflective of the political situation we were in, then they were looking at different things than I was. Because I certainly wasn't killing time watching the blue train.

Similarly on point 3, with Weisel as with so many, innovative ideas are one thing, but it's frequently the case that after a period of time the ideas stop coming and are replaced by the whims of the successful individual.

Equally, it's not just folks like Lance, it is cultures that produce and enable people like Lance. He didn't come out of a vacuum and the much favored designation of "sociopath" is nothing if not a historical construction.

 

[Wallace]

Man crush? Who's insulting others now? Speak English. What kind of infantilized, celebrity obsessed, mass cultural pap is that? There are some men in this world I respect, certainly, but it's pretty fair to say that none of them have ever tweeted--nor written autobiographies

Really? So Augustine, Marcus Aurelius, T.S. Lawrence, Nabokov, Rousseau, Gibbon, Hume, de Quincey--just a bunch of self-important ****ers?

 

[aphronesis]

Really? So Augustine, Marcus Aurelius, T.S. Lawrence, Nabokov, Rousseau, Gibbon, Hume, de Quincey--just a bunch of self-important ****ers?

I said in the world. Since you ask: Aurelius, Nabokov and Hume. The others have never done much for me.

 

[silverrocket]

Who uses the word 'monochromatic' anyway. Such an uncolourful word.

Two short and sweet posts in a row from Fortyninefourteen (I also liked the one about the slain beast...). Chapeau.

 

[DirtyWorks]

....When people look back at this and the last decade from a century or so on, Armstrong's athletic achievements will be mostly intact..

BBzzzzt! Wrong. Wonderboy's podiums have evaporated, the sporting myth shattered. I could go on with some other nonsense you posted, but your case doesn't get any better the more you write.

Wonderboy can't stay away, so there's more embarrassment coming for him. Maybe you'll be one of the dozen or so people standing in line at a bike show for an autographed 8x10 while hundreds steer clear of the stain a decade from now?

Dave, I'd argue another factor to Wiesel's system is the IOC silo. Their sports are set up similarly. Money talks, rules are there to lend an air of legitimacy, but IOC blessed sports administration is pretty much non-transparent.

 

[Race Radio]

Someone has confused quantity with quality. Common mistake

 

[Oldman]

For starters, any editor who takes a job and whines about it afterwards because they find the content unpalatable is beneath contempt. In my opinion. That's neoliberalized, social media complacency at its most invertebrate. Uncommon, no. Surprising? No, but deplorable nonetheless.

=spineless whiners are not good.[/B

Economy in writing is a virtue, although hot air feels good right now.

 

[D-Queued]

...

Equally, it's not just folks like Lance, it is cultures that produce and enable people like Lance. He didn't come out of a vacuum and the much favored designation of "sociopath" is nothing if not a historical construction.

You may be right about the historical construction, but it is only through assessing behavior that the diagnosis can be adequately assessed.

I do take some personal pride in how frequently the term is bandied about with respect to Armstrong, however, and am flattered when you describe this as a "much favored designation".

There was a time, not too long ago, when the inference or suggestion of it would get you an automatic ban on most sites.

Thus, the description was first introduced as a broad suggestion... five years ago. Then, the proposition was ever so slowly ramped up such that descriptions were provided with increasing frequency three years ago.

Sometimes you have to use a lot of line to land the fish.

Dave.