B
Bob Schwartz
Guest
Revtom wrote:
> On Jun 2, 12:35 am, Bob Schwartz <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>> Revtom wrote:
>>> Thanks; I'll stand back and wait for the assault to begin.
>> I guess my biggest issue with your proposal is that it's a
>> pretty major production over something as insignificant and
>> unimportant as bike racing.
>>
>> Bob Schwartz
>
> It could be applied to all sports. After all, sport in general is a
> multi-national, multi-billion dollar enterprise. Plus, when you think
> about it, the only thing a zero-tolerance policy does is get kids
> expelled for bringing tableknives to school.
Ummm, If you can't justify it for cycling then the solution is to
do something unjustified on a much larger scale? Do I have that
right?
I'm glad you brought up the economics of sport. That allows me to
make the point that the industry looks a lot like entertainment.
Lots of money into stuff that doesn't matter in people's daily
lives. Looks like entertainment to me.
Look, if I could wave a magic wand and make the problem go away, I
would. But there is no magic wand. And I am not going to support
creating a huge and expensive testing and monitoring infrastructure
to ensure that a particular field of entertainment is pure. That
makes no sense. Sport is entertainment. It isn't that important.
And besides, you don't really care that much about doping. Really,
you don't. No one does. Maybe because it isn't that important. It
just bothers you to see it. If you couldn't see it, you'd be totally
OK with it, no matter how depraved it was.
Want to know how I know that?
A couple of years ago I was reading an article in the Minneapolis
newspaper about how the size of US high school football linemen was
accelerating. The author had gone back to newspaper listing for about
10 years and determined that the average All Minn/St Paul Metro
lineman had gained about 50 pounds over that period.
When I read that I thought "Hmmmmmm." I know what is going on there.
You know what is going on there. Everyone knows what is going on
there.
But no one cares. The article was not about kids taking steriods. It
was about the negative health effects of being a big as a house,
once your football career was over. Really, I'm not making that up.
People don't want to see stuff like that so they make a point of not
seeing it. They know it's there, but if they have an option to not
see it, they will choose to not see it. A friend that went into
social work tells me that kids take steroids for no reason other to
look good at the beach. So they are certainly going to load up for
something like football. But no one wants to see that, so they don't
see it. Things only hit the fan when people are forced to look.
That's what has got you going, you've been forced to look. If you
hadn't been forced to look you'd feel everything was OK.
So I guess I'm of the opinion that all the doping warriors that want
to throw unlimited enforcement resources at something that really
isn't that important are hypocrites with totally screwed up
priorities.
And I will also point out that there is a mountain of evidence that
education is much cheaper and more effective against doping problems
than enforcement.
Bob Schwartz
> On Jun 2, 12:35 am, Bob Schwartz <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>> Revtom wrote:
>>> Thanks; I'll stand back and wait for the assault to begin.
>> I guess my biggest issue with your proposal is that it's a
>> pretty major production over something as insignificant and
>> unimportant as bike racing.
>>
>> Bob Schwartz
>
> It could be applied to all sports. After all, sport in general is a
> multi-national, multi-billion dollar enterprise. Plus, when you think
> about it, the only thing a zero-tolerance policy does is get kids
> expelled for bringing tableknives to school.
Ummm, If you can't justify it for cycling then the solution is to
do something unjustified on a much larger scale? Do I have that
right?
I'm glad you brought up the economics of sport. That allows me to
make the point that the industry looks a lot like entertainment.
Lots of money into stuff that doesn't matter in people's daily
lives. Looks like entertainment to me.
Look, if I could wave a magic wand and make the problem go away, I
would. But there is no magic wand. And I am not going to support
creating a huge and expensive testing and monitoring infrastructure
to ensure that a particular field of entertainment is pure. That
makes no sense. Sport is entertainment. It isn't that important.
And besides, you don't really care that much about doping. Really,
you don't. No one does. Maybe because it isn't that important. It
just bothers you to see it. If you couldn't see it, you'd be totally
OK with it, no matter how depraved it was.
Want to know how I know that?
A couple of years ago I was reading an article in the Minneapolis
newspaper about how the size of US high school football linemen was
accelerating. The author had gone back to newspaper listing for about
10 years and determined that the average All Minn/St Paul Metro
lineman had gained about 50 pounds over that period.
When I read that I thought "Hmmmmmm." I know what is going on there.
You know what is going on there. Everyone knows what is going on
there.
But no one cares. The article was not about kids taking steriods. It
was about the negative health effects of being a big as a house,
once your football career was over. Really, I'm not making that up.
People don't want to see stuff like that so they make a point of not
seeing it. They know it's there, but if they have an option to not
see it, they will choose to not see it. A friend that went into
social work tells me that kids take steroids for no reason other to
look good at the beach. So they are certainly going to load up for
something like football. But no one wants to see that, so they don't
see it. Things only hit the fan when people are forced to look.
That's what has got you going, you've been forced to look. If you
hadn't been forced to look you'd feel everything was OK.
So I guess I'm of the opinion that all the doping warriors that want
to throw unlimited enforcement resources at something that really
isn't that important are hypocrites with totally screwed up
priorities.
And I will also point out that there is a mountain of evidence that
education is much cheaper and more effective against doping problems
than enforcement.
Bob Schwartz