Focus on what Lance Armstrong did to help
I love reading Jack Todd’s columns because he is controversial and confrontational, and stimulates strong emotions both for and against him. He is doing exactly what a journalist is supposed to do, creating interest and readership. However, Todd is dreaming in Technicolor if he thinks he was the only one who “knew” Lance Armstrong was on “the juice” and the rest of us are all stupid (Gazette, Oct. 22, “Despite damning evidence, the myth of Lance Armstrong persists”).
Todd should stop patting himself on the back and also analyze the whole Armstrong saga from a larger perspective. Most of us were as aware of Armstrong’s drug use as we were aware of the corruption in the construction business in Montreal, but we are already so desensitized to the plague of cheating in all areas of life that we just rationalized and ignored it as “business as usual.” Everyone in the Tour de Farce has been cheating ... since forever. Armstrong just made an art of it and did it better than the rest of the cheaters.
The insignificance to humanity of this annual commercial cycling extravaganza is like a pimple on the ass of a dinosaur compared to the importance of what Armstrong has done with the rest of his life and his leadership and contribution to the field of fighting cancer. This whole “feigned” shock at the revela- tion Armstrong was on drugs reminds me of that famous scene from Casablanca when the Nazi commandant orders Claude Raines to close Rick’s bar and wonders what “pretext” he could use. So he blows his whistle and announces that the bar is closed because he was “shocked ... shocked” that gambling was going on in the bar, when at the same time a croupier comes over and presents him with his “winnings.”
Armstrong made many “deposits” in his bank of life and now it is time for him to make a “withdrawal.” We should focus on what he has done to help mankind instead of the meaningless cheating he did in a world full of cheaters. Leon Maliniak Montreal