Biased Blow-By-Blow - 2017 Tour de France Stage 12

Introduction

The Tour de France can be hard to watch. It’s usually pretty boring because, being the most important stage race on the calendar, it draws out the best dopers, which for the most part are on Team Sky. The way Sky dominates this race, it’s a bit like if the Chicago Cubs were up against a minor league team for the World Series. Worst of all, the announcers have to play along like this is legit and say nice things about everybody.  Well, as you can see, this blog is different.  Being an unpaid nobody, I can gnash my terrible teeth and roar my terrible roar as I see fit, which might just breathe some life into my coverage.

Today my blow-by-blow report covers a pivotal mountain stage of this year’s Tour.  Since this is the first Tour stage I’m covering, I’ll also catch you up on what’s been going on since July 1 when the race started.

2017 Tour de France Stage 12 – Pau to Peyragudes

As I join the action, the riders are on the penultimate climb, the aptly named Porte de Balles.  I think that’s the name, anyway … kind of blurry.  It’s a huis categorie climb (i.e., it could beat up your dad’s climb).  The peloton has got 44 kilometers to go. There’s a breakaway of eleven unimportant riders 4:23 ahead.

A couple of other nobodies attacks.  They’re Fortuneo-Vital Concept teammates Maxime Bouet and Brice Feillu. I guess I’ve heard of Feillu.  Kind of a strange story how he got his first name:  it was a typo.  It was supposed to be Bruce, but you know “i” is an adjacent key.

So here’s what’s going on in this year’s Tour so far.  There are only two time trials in this edition, and they’re pretty short ones at that.  Team Sky’s Geraint Thomas won the first one, which was the prologue, and kept the yellow jersey until his teammate Chris Froome took it from him on Stage 5, the first mountaintop finish of the race.  Fabio Aru (Astana Pro Team) won that stage, taking 20 seconds out of Froome.  (Thomas crashed out of the Tour a few days later.)  After a couple more mountain stages, Froome retains the lead but has only 18 seconds on Aru on the GC.  Looks like a close race, eh?

No, not really.  Aru lost 40 seconds to Froome in that measly 14-kilometer time trial, so the Italian climber will have to take at least two minutes out of Froome over the remaining four mountain stages if he wants a shot at winning the GC.  I suppose two minutes is possible, but Aru has finished the Tour just once in four tries, and was only 13th place last year.  Meanwhile, the rider currently third on GC, Romain Bardet, is 51 seconds back on GC and lost 39 seconds in the first TT, so he’d need to be like 2½ minutes ahead of Froome before the final TT.  If Froome were a normal rider, all too human and subject to bad days and so forth, that wouldn’t be insurmountable.  But Froome isn’t normal, obviously.  Anyway, of the guys who beat Froome in the opening TT, the closest on GC is Stefan Krug (Team BMC), who’s over an hour down, in 100th place overall.  ‘Nuff said.

It’s 38 kilometers to go, with the breakaway’s gap down to 3:17.  The GC group is starting to pick it up and riders are going off the back so fast it’s like they’re being clotheslined.  I saw a guy actually get clotheslined once while riding a motor scooter.  It was brutal, and he had this big red welt on this throat, like a grisly red line, for like a week. I know that has nothing to do with this bike race but it’s a lot more interesting than what I’m seeing on my screen, which is Sky predictably swarming the front, all in yellow helmets, while the Astana team, supporting Aru, lurks just behind them.

Froome’s closest rival ought to be Richie Porte (BMC Racing Team), who brought some serious high-test lube to the Criterium du Dauphiné a few weeks back.  How doped was this guy?  Well, consider that although he’s a pocket climber (i.e., 5 feet 8 inches, 137 pounds, rides a 48cm bike for crissakes), he handily won the Dauphiné time trial, beating not only Froome but Tony Martin (Team Katusha-Alpecin), the reigning time trial world champion.  When a climber wins a major TT against top riders, I get suspicious.  The surface area to mass ratio of a climber just isn’t suited to cutting through the wind in a fast TT.  Size does matter ... why do you think sprinters can’t climb?  (And what other little climber dudes have won major TTs?  Alberto Contador, Levi Leipheimer, and Tyler Hamilton, all known dopers.) Anyway, I feel like a dick bringing up Porte’s probable doping, because sadly, the Aussie is out of this Tour after a terrible high-speed crash on Sunday. I wouldn’t wish that on anybody, of course. Also, Porte would have made this a much more exciting race, and I’d rather have seen him win than Froome.  Oh well.

Oddly, Feuillu has dropped his teammate, Bouet. Why would he do that?  This is probably a coincidence, but Bouet now has a dark stripe up the back of his white shorts. What’s that all about? I don’t see a stripe on anybody else’s shorts and the road isn’t wet or anything. Maybe he shat himself! I know it’s not nice to cast aspersions like that, but then again, the dude is wearing white cycling shorts.  I think he’s got it coming, and his whole team as well.

It’s 6 km to the summit of this climb and still no attacks in the GC group.  Maybe nobody wants to get a lead before the final descent—given what happened to poor Porte—and are waiting for the last climb.

Thomas De Gendt (Lotto Soudal) attacks the breakaway!  He has a beard.  Not many racers do. Will this help or hurt his chances?  I’m not sure but in the Eurosport post-stage review with Juan Antonio Flecha we’re bound to find out how De Gendt’s beard played in to the ultimate stage result.

So, to continue my review of the rest of the Tour so far, the green jersey competition is pretty much doomed to be a yawner this year.  Marcel Kittel (Quick-Step Floors) has virtually no competition, having won five stages so far.  Two of his main rivals are out.  Peter Sagan (Hora-Hansgrohe) was disqualified for crashing Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data) in stage 4.  Cav, meanwhile, was too badly injured to continue this Tour.  Besides Kittel, the only sprinter who has won a stage this year was Arnaud Démare (FDJ), who—amazingly—was cut from the race for losing too  much time on Sunday’s mountain stage.

Why “amazingly”?  Because Démare is a great climber!  He’s that one-in-a-million sprinter who can climb like the dickens!  In fact, he holds the Strava record for the famous Poggio climb in the Milan-San Remo road race!  Okay, I’m bullshitting you here.  Not about Démare’s Strava record for the Poggio, which he actually did get, but about him being able to climb.  He won last year’s Milan-San Remo because he blatantly cheated, hanging on to his team car all the way up the Poggio.  Read all about it here! So yeah, I was stoked to see Démare fall behind in the points competition and then be sent home for missing the time cut.  What a douchebag.

The peloton continues to thin out as Sky chases.  The gap is down to 2:41 (though I can’t tell if that’s to De Gendt or the rest of the break).  Bouet has been absorbed and Feuillu will be soon.

Stephen Cummings (Dimension Data) has attacked out of the breakaway and caught De Gendt.  I didn’t see it happen … he either faked out the cameraman, or me, or both.  He’s a sneaky little bastard!  Interesting tidbit:  Cummings is the grandson of e.e. cummings, the mediocre poet whose contribution to poetry was to be the first one to eschew all punctuation and capitalization.  (Maynard, please run that down post-production and fact-check it … I’m pretty sure it’s true but am starting to wonder if I made it up.  About being the grandson I mean.)

Vasil Kiryienka (Team Sky) detonates and is going backwards, off the back like a comet.  It can’t be easy setting tempo for Froome, no matter how lubed you are.  It’s no matter though … Sky still has plenty of dudes at the front (and in fact a highly “not normal” number, though that’s normal for Sky).

Any scandals in this Tour?  Well, there was a lot of bickering about whether Sagan should have been disqualified.  I don’t have much to say on that because I only watched the video footage like 100 times, and most of the Internet pundits have watched it at least 1,000.  The other scandal is about Aru attacking while Froome was having bike problems.  The announcers and post-race commentators zealously tore into this one, with all the Internet trolls adding their considerable expertise to the debate.  Aru defended himself, saying he didn’t notice that Froome was having bike problems, and I tend to believe him … after all, Froome’s head is down half the time anyway.  What is it with Froome and mechanical problems?  Remember the 2015 Tour when his gears were mashing or something and Vincenzo Nibali attacked him?  At least this time around, post-race, Froome declined to take the bait and cry foul—maybe he read my diatribe about this and learned his lesson!  (No, of course he didn’t.)

Anyway, I totally support attacking the GC leader, whether he’s crashed, had a mechanical, or had to take a dump on the side of the road.  All this “unwritten rule” talk is pure BS.  What other sport or contest doesn’t let you take advantage of the leader’s bad luck?  Imagine if you’re playing Monopoly and one guy has like all the monopolies and all the money and has like a dozen hotels and is gradually bleeding everybody dry—and then he gets the Chance card that says, “You are assessed for street repairs.”  What are you gonna do, appreciate the relief, or say, “You know what, just take another card, we wouldn’t want to harm your chances, since you’re already winning and everything.”  Luck is supposed to be part of this sport—it makes things more exciting.  And any Tour with Froomestrong in it needs whatever twists and turns it can get.

With under 10 km to go in the stage, Sky is still dominant at the front.  Needless to say.

Wow, Spain (I’m reduced to watching a foreign-language video feed today) has really racy commercials!  Lots of scantily-clad women!  Who knew?  Now it’s back to the race, I guess, but it’s just some unknown person blathering away about the time trial course.  WTF?!  Time trials are boring enough to watch, much less talk about.  This coverage sucks.

Okay, I’ve dismissed that silly all-TT-blather-all-the-time feed and now have nothing.  Wow, cool!  I tried a third browser and now have the Eurosport feed.  What a relief.  It’s the good announcers and everything.  Wait … okay, now it’s vanished.  I sent a note in the little chat to the admins, and they replied, “both are working. the problem is at you.”  Story of my life.

Now I’ve switched to a different PC and a different Internet feed.  Gosh, I’ve missed a lot.  Cummings is still the leader, solo, and he’s got 2 minutes on the GC group with 12 km to go.  He’s on the last real climb of the day, the Category 1 Col de Peyresourde.  Its summit is just 5 km from the finish, which is atop the supposedly Category 2 climb to Peyragudes, which looks so short on the profile I can’t imagine how it got that rating.  It doesn’t really matter though, because my feed has dried up again.  Should I just stop now?  Let you go about your day?  Okay, I’m back to the first PC. 

Wow, Kwiatowski (Team Sky) blows sky-high!  The hammer has truly gone down in the main GC bunch and Cummings’ lead is suddenly down to just over a minute.  The GC group is down to 11 riders, three of which are Sky.

Man, within the last minute Cummings’ lead went down to under 30 seconds … he’s doomed.  Oh man, suddenly he looks deflated … he’s really suffering.

And just like that, they’ve got him. 

And now Cummings is spat right out the back!  Poor dude.

Dang, while my feed was AWOL, it looks like Nairo Quintana (Movistar Team) got dropped!  I guess he’s no longer even an outside contender for this Tour.  Must have tired himself out trying (in vain) to win the Giro.

Not a single non-Sky rider has seen the front of this GC group all day.  And Froome hasn’t faced the wind for more than about a minute or two, cumulatively, since July 1.  I guess that’s how it’s supposed to work, but I wish something would break down.  The Giro d’Italia was really exciting because winner Tom Dumoulin’s team was so frail, he had to do a ton of work himself and he only just barely got it done.

Aru is just sitting on Froome’s wheel, as he’s been the whole day.  He’s brashly told the press that he’s not afraid to attack Froome, and my reaction is like, duh!  Are you a racer or not?  It’s not like he’ll do anything in the TT, so sitting around and hoping Froome’s clockworks finally wind down isn’t much of a winning strategy.  But we’re 1.4 km from the summit of this climb and it’s just Sky slogging away on the front while Froome sits there and Aru, Bardet, and Uran just sit there too.  I guess the pace is just too high for anyone to attack.  Not since the Indurain years has a Tour stage been this boring.

Wouldn’t it be cool if Froome sucked at descending, like Thibaut Pinot (FDJ)?  Then you might see people trying to take advantage.  But I have to hand it to Froome, he’s a very good descender, and deserves full credit for it.  After all, there’s no syringe for descending fast.

And just like that, the GC group is over the summit of the Col de Peyresourde.

I guess it’ll be exciting to see who gets the stage win. With bonus seconds on the line Sky won’t be giving anything up to anybody. Meanwhile, if Froome can’t put in his first real effort of the day up this last little section and increase his GC lead, I’ll eat my hat.

Of course, even if everything suddenly goes sideways for Sky at the end, remember that Aru needs to accumulate a two-minute lead over these climbing stages before the final TT if he wants to win.  If he doesn’t even have enough strength to mount a single attack today, he might as well give up his GC ambitions.  Then he could pick a stage to go off the back and build up a huge deficit so Sky no longer cares about him. Following that, he could go hunt for another stage win.  It would be pretty sad if he had to resort to such dregs, of course.

Alberto Contador (Trek-Segafredo) is somewhere off the back.  He’s crashed several times and is completely done, not just for this Tour but for his career, I’m afraid.

It’s just 1.5 km to go and still Sky, Sky, Sky. 

Warren Barguil (Sunweb), the current KOM leader, is off the back with Quintana.

With 1 km to go, Froome moves up to second position, the closest to the front of this GC group he’s been all day.  Dan Martin is moving over to the side, as if to prepare for an attack, or at least center the football for a field goal attempt.  And ... my feed freezes again.

And look at this!  George Bennett (Team LottoNL-Jumbo) attacks!  

But he’s instantly shut down!  And there goes Froome!  But this footage is just a slide show now!  I can’t see shit!  And now Aru is somehow in the front!  He’s drilling it but the grade is severe!

Now suddenly Bardet is in the lead!  Every time my feed restarts the positions are different!  Now I see why this short climb is a Category 2 ... the grade is unbelievably steep!

Froome is over the line but I can’t tell who won, I missed it!  Internet Tour coverage sucks!

Looks like Bardet got the win, with Uran getting second and Aru third.  Unbelievably, Froome lost like 20 seconds right at the end there.  Maybe his legs froze along with my feed?  Wow, I guess I need to eat my hat now! Froome is clearly not so dominant as in years past.

With the time bonuses, Aru could be the new GC leader because remember, he was only 18 seconds back. 

Here is the stage result, which is as much news to you as to me:

Okay, after some more scrambling for feeds, I  see the new GC, and sure enough, Aru has the yellow jersey, but only by six seconds.

The jersey will be a nice souvenir for Aru, and maybe he’ll even survive tomorrow and keep it for a while.  It’s too bad for him he didn’t (couldn’t?) try something earlier.

It’s tempting to think Froome could still lose this Tour.  Among the GC contenders there’s only one guy who can really time trial, that being Rigoberto Uran.  Uran did win a long time trial during the 2014 Giro d’Italia, but remember, notwithstanding his climbing prowess right now, he lost 51 seconds to Froome in this Tour’s first TT.

Meanwhile, the support Sky gave Froome today was pretty unbelievable (in every sense of the word). Time will tell, but in my biased opinion, Sky’s overall Tour campaign is looking alive and all too well.

Epilogue

I have now gone and watched the finish via freeze-free replays, and can see that I obviously missed the most exciting part of the race by far. I have also heard commentators weighing in on the controversy (recounted here) around Landa totally dropping Froome in the final sprint and taking 17 seconds out of him.  Here, I have to totally disagree with anybody who finds a problem here, and even with Landa for claiming not to have known what was going on.  Landa has nothing to apologize for.  That grade was unbelievably steep and the speed was not that high, so drafting would not have made a big difference ... and meanwhile, if Froome couldn’t find a wheel to follow that’s his problem.  At some point, you just may not have the legs, and he didn’t.  And let’s not forget that Landa is a totally legitimate GC contender and Sky’s best shot if something were to happen to Froome (e.g., crash, terribly timed mechanical, failed dope test, or one really bad day).  Why would you make Landa wait, with only like 300 meters to go? How much moral support could he even give Froome? I’m getting kind of tired of how everybody is trying to baby the yellow jersey.  He is (or was) a Tour leader, for crissakes, not an infant!  And we’re supposed to be rabid spectators, not helicopter parents! Dang.

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Ode on a Belly: Mine

Introduction

As I’ve commented before in these pages, I find vanity distasteful in a male.  That being said, shamelessness is probably worse.  In this spirit of shame I must now fall on my sword.  (As you shall learn, it’ll have to be a pretty long sword.)  Can self-loathing actually take the form of an ode?  Decide for yourself.

The Poem

Ode on a Belly:  Mine

So, “Eat to ride and ride to eat” is said

By almost any biker you might meet.                       2

A pile of pasta bigger than your head?

That’s just the kind of thing we like to eat.

But age, in time, makes fools of us all

(Except your oddball masters racing geek).            6

Our training programs finally start to stall;

Our bodies falter when our will is weak.

So now, alas, my belly’s on a roll.

It’s now convex that always was concave.             10

Instead of being thin, I’m Moomintroll.

By gluttony I find myself enslaved.

For years I faked it, sucking in my gut.

The camera and the mirror were deceived!          14

But now my belly’s found a way to jut

Out sideways, all the time—hard to believe!

     I’ve never actually thought about a diet

     But now I think I’ll finally have to try it.           18

Footnotes  & Commentary

Title

As I’ve explained in a previous post, “ode on” sounds a lot more sophisticated than “ode to.”  But I couldn’t title this “Ode on My Belly” because that might summon the image of somebody lying on his stomach (i.e., prone).  And “Ode On a Belly” is misleading.  I have never cared about anybody else’s belly, certainly not enough to write poetry about it.  I want to be very clear that this is my belly we’re talking about.  A belly that never before existed.

Line 2:  biker

You might think I wrote “biker” instead of cyclist because I needed to conform to the iambic pentameter of the sonnet form.  But actually, being a veteran of this sport, I prefer the term “biker,” as it teases the relative newcomers who insist on being called cyclists.  (If you don’t believe me, check out this biking glossary I wrote all the way back in 2008.)

Line 3:  bigger than your head

This is of course an allusion to the excellent book Never Eat Anything Bigger Than Your Head by B. Kliban.

By the way, you might think I’m exaggerating about how much I eat.  And while I can’t say with certainty that I ever ate a pile of pasta bigger than my head, I did once eat a giant hunk of tri-tip that was.  And that’s not all:  I ate it as tacos.  Like thirty of them.  The giant hunk of meat just got smaller and smaller until it was gone.  Years later, wishing I’d somehow verified this past feat of grilled excess, I had the great idea to weigh myself before and after a barbecue, with spectators.  The half dozen people present witnessed that I gained more than ten pounds in one sitting.

Line 5:  Age, in time, makes fools of us

This alludes to Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116, “Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks/ Within his bending sickle’s compass come.”  Literary references like this showcase the kind of highbrow literary aspiration you can expect here at albertnet, even when I’m just grousing.

Line 6:  oddball masters racing geek

In case you’re not a cyclist, this refers to the “Masters” categories (35+, 45+, and even 55+ age groups) in American road racing.  As lamented here, there are some really fast old guys whom I assume made a killing in tech and then retired early, and have all the time and energy in the world to train.  These guys set the bar really high when it comes to physique.  It’s hard to cut myself slack with them strutting around (or more to the point, riding around) being all lean, reminding us what Lycra is supposed to be showcasing.

Line 7:  training programs

This line may be a bit misleading.  Most of the older guys I ride with—accomplished racers in their day—don’t follow a formal training program.  (As detailed here, only 4% keep up such a program year-round.)  Most of us follow the very general program of riding fairly often and jolly hard.  Based on this rather sloppy regimen, we feel entitled to eat whatever we want whenever we want, in whatever quantities we want.  The slop in the program works great until it doesn’t, which in my experience seems to be the second half of my forties—i.e., now.

Line 8:  bodies falter when our will is weak

This flips around the old ditty about “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak” (originally from the New Testament) that has been celebrated in an anecdote about artificial intelligence:  a computer attempted to translate the line into Russian and then back to English, with the comic result,  “The vodka was good but the meat was rotten.”

Line 9:  belly’s on a roll

Any suggestion of rolls of fat, and/or a jelly roll, is of course entirely intentional.

Line 10:  now convex that always was concave

If you have a hard time keeping straight convex vs. concave, try out this brain teaser.  That’s how I keep these terms straight.

Line 11:  Moomintroll

In case you’ve never heard of Moomintrolls, get thee to a library!  I didn’t want to steal a picture from the Internet because these books are still in print, so I asked my younger daughter to draw me a Moomintroll. 

To be completely honest, Moomintroll wears his belly a lot better than I do.  Not all weight is created equal.  Henry VIII was a huge man, but his size gave him an air of gravitas.  Falstaff was also very large but this just added to his bonhomie.  With wiry slow-twitch endurance athletes, though, the belly is just this isolated bulge attached to narrow limbs, which conveys neither gravitas nor bonhomie ... just a fit body going to seed.  Instead of Moomintroll, I perhaps should have compared myself to E.T., the extraterrestrial ... but I’m trying to be compassionate with myself.

Imagine a big belly on this guy...

Line 12:  gluttony ... enslaved

This line may seem so obvious as to be meaningless, but it’s not.  I think in many if not most cases, overweight people aren’t actually gluttons, but just have bad habits like drinking sodas or juice, resulting from lack of information.  But cyclists tend to know a lot about nutrition; we blather on about complex carbs and glycemic index, and know to drink sugary beverages only during exercise.  We’re just so used to indulging in gluttony without consequence that it’s hard to stop when the intensity of our riding naturally declines.  We know it’s wrong to keep up our gastronomic abandon, but we can’t help it.  See?  Slaves to gluttony.

I say “we” and “our” here because I’m trying to convince myself I’m not alone in my weight gain.  But actually, my biking teammates are holding up really well, and it’s wrong for me to try to drag down this community.  I could fix this, but I’m going to let it stand, as part of my shame.

Line 13:  sucking in my gut

As I alluded to a bit ago, when a cyclist does put on weight, it’s often extremely localized.  Some have theorized that we have oversized livers, to store all that glycogen.  Or maybe it’s the position we ride in that gives gravity a clean shot at our bellies.  Whatever the case, the thick midsection can even be seen in some professional racers, such as the German star Jan Ullrich:

The difference, in Ullrich’s case, is that he was thick through the belly while in top racing form.  So, despite his reputation for gaining more weight in the off-season than other pro racers, he could reasonably shrug and say, “I’ve just got a big liver or something.”  But since my own belly is obviously the result of slacking off at my exercise regimen, I have nowhere to hide.  And it’s not just my new physique that’s on display:  the extra weight slows me down on the bike, to the point where I’m reluctant to ride with my pals for fear of slowing them down inordinately.

Line 14:  the camera and the mirror

I discovered years ago that when a bunch of bikers line up for a group photo, a great way to invoke candid, genuine smiles is to call out, “Everybody suck in your gut!”  This invariably gets a laugh simply because it’s so absurd to think we’d actually need to do this.  In my own case, though, I hereby confess that I have actually been sucking in my gut in photos for at least a couple of years, to compensate for my gradual weight gain.  Case in point:  in this picture (from early 2016) I appear as flat-bellied as the rest!  (In case you’re an albertnet newcomer, I’m the guy third from the left.)

As for the mirror, that’s where things really get ridiculous.  I’ve long taken to being embarrassed by my own reflection unless I suck my belly in.  I’ve even dabbled in the delusion that all that sucking in would develop my stomach muscles and actually fix the problem. 

Line 15:  found a way to jut

Line 15?  WTF??  Since when does a sonnet have more than 14 lines?  Well, first of all, I never said this was a traditional Shakespearean sonnet.  Meanwhile, I decided that, excess being the major theme of my poem, I’d throw in a whole extra stanza, like that side of fries I didn’t really need.

I really do feel as though my belly were its own thing, not just a section of my flesh.  It’s like it’s got a mind of its own, like octopus arms or sea star limbs do.  I wonder if my belly dreams of escaping and heading for the door, dragging a trail behind it like a slug.

Line 16:  out sideways, all the time

When sucking in wasn’t enough, I found that by also raising my arms over my head I could look exactly like the weedy guy I used to be.  Now, even when I try this desperate measure, the fat sticks out sideways like little ears (or “love handles,” as they say).  I suppose I can still fake thinness while wearing Lycra, but not while also breathing (i.e., certainly not while riding).  My dad was visiting recently and while I was shoving stuff in my jersey pockets before a ride he remarked, “You still have a flat stomach.”  Two things instantly crossed my mind:  1) this flat stomach is an illusion caused by the fact that I literally suck, and 2) he might have been saying one thing to imply the opposite, whether consciously or not.  His remark could not have been made if the issue of my having a big tummy were not already on the table.  It’s not like he could reasonably say, for example, “Both of your ears are still intact.”

Line 17:  diet

The astute reader will notice the extra foot at the end of this line and the next (i.e., instead of 5 two-syllable metrical feet, each line in this couplet has 5½).  For extra credit, I challenge you to explain why I chose to do this.  (Answer:  like my extra stanza, this extra foot is symbolic of my tacked-on, interloping appendage.)

While I truly never have considered dieting before, my paranoia about a fat belly (or “aero-belly” as a teammate affectionately calls it) is nothing new.  Click here for an albeit slippery, quasi-fictional account of my past weight issues.

Line 18:  try it

In fact, I am three days into deliberately following the South Beach diet.  This isn’t my first time being on the diet; it’s my first time wanting to be.  As described here, I was involuntarily immersed in this diet years ago, when my wife did it and cooked our family meals accordingly.  This time I won’t be gorging at lunchtime to compensate.  So far, South Beach is working okay:  I’m down eight pounds.  (That may seem like a lot, but remember that ten-pound barbecue I wrote about.  For me, eight pounds is a rounding error.)

Stay tuned, because in the coming weeks I may blog about a) an epic road ride I’m unwisely planning; b) how the diet is going, or c) both.

Epilogue - July 24, 2017

You know how in the comment to Line 11, above, I asked you to imagine a big belly on Chris Froome?  Well, I was just looking at coverage of the final Tour de France stage, and caught a gander of this:

I wouldn’t say Froomie’s belly is huge or anything, but given how skinny the rest of him is, his thickness there is not insignificant.  Maybe a cyclist’s gut really isn’t fat ... maybe it is an oversized liver or just extra guts or something, or maybe the way we’re bent over creates a true illusion (since our bellies do tend to vanish when we stand up straight).

Or maybe, just maybe, all cyclists are extraterrestrials.

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Bring Back Home Economics!

Introduction

Yesterday my younger daughter begged my wife to teach her how to use a sewing machine, so she could make a stuffed animal. This kind of “quality time” is a mixed bag for parents.  We love our kids’ enthusiasm and creativity, but sewing is really tedious. I thought, “Why hasn’t my kid learned this in home ec?” The answer, of course, is that home economics class is seldom offered anymore.  Wikipedia estimates that 5 million American students study home ec, only a tenth of the 50.4 million total elementary and secondary students tallied by the National Center for Education Statistics.

This begs another question: why the hell did we get rid of this?  Herein I provide a little history, and present my case for bringing home ec back—but in an improved version.

(By the way, here is the stuffed cat my daughter made.)

Why home ec died

The celebrity chef and writer Anthony Bourdain explains the demise of home ec quite well in an essay titled “Virtue” from his book Medium Raw: 

Back in the dark ages, young women and girls were automatically segregated off to home-economics classes, where they were indoctrinated with the belief that cooking was one of the essential skill sets for responsible citizenry—or more to the point, useful housewifery. When they began asking the obvious question—“Why me and not him?”—it signaled the beginning of the end….  “Home ec” became the most glaring illustration of everything wrong with the gender politics of the time. Quickly identified as an instrument of subjugation, it became an instant anachronism.

The problem, Bourdain goes on to say, was the lack of any parallel effort to address the flip side of this sexism: the equally ignorant notion that men who cook or sew are somehow lame. (Similar to this was the stereotype I encountered in junior high about typing only being for girls. Typing class was thought to be solely for the future secretaries of America, so I was the rare boy who took it.  Needless to say this skill has served me very well.)

The solution to the sexism of the traditional home ec approach was all backwards.  Instead of killing home ec, why didn’t the education establishment simply make this class mandatory for both boys and girls?

My home ec experience

When I was in junior high, home ec was at least offered, and due to the way our curriculum dealt with electives, lots of students ended up in this class without having actively sought it out.  Thus, a lot of us were exposed to cooking and sewing who might not otherwise have been.  Were we happy about it? Not terribly, I’ll confess. I learned more about cooking from watching my mom, and meanwhile my home ec teacher was a total flake who kept forgetting (or perhaps “forgetting”) to buy the groceries we needed, so we wasted a lot of time with BS like home ec themed spelling tests. (I remember spelling lasagne “lasagna” and campaigning, successfully, to have my alternate spelling accepted. I’d have respected the teacher more had she stood her ground.) One thing I did appreciate was being taught how, when preparing a meal, to sync everything up, so the entrée isn’t getting cold while you’re making the salad, etc. I mocked this at the time as being so obvious, but actually it hadn’t occurred to me.

And the sewing lessons, I have to admit, were pretty cool. I felt a sense of accomplishment learning how to work a sewing machine, and made a pretty fair stuffed animal (though nowhere near as cool as my daughter’s creation above). My brother fell in love with sewing, and bought his own sewing machine so he could make cool parkas—first from a kit, then a pattern (both available, amazingly enough, from mountaineering stores) and then from scratch by copying commercial designs. I remember going to the North Face store with him to be his mannequin, standing there wearing a $300 parka while he sketched it out and noted all the measurements, wielding a tape measure as skillfully as a tailor.

Are home ec skills still germane?

No, I’m not delusional:  I’ll be the first to admit that sewing is pretty much dead. My brother was an anomaly and almost nobody sews anymore. It’s hard to justify the time you’d spend, when Chinese sweat shops turn out such great stuff for so cheap, and thrift stores sell perfectly good clothing for less than you’d pay for fabric. Even my talented and skilled brother rocks an authentic North Face parka these days … I’m pretty sure his sewing machine is just gathering dust.

But home cooking? As Bourdain laments, that really is a dying art, though we all still need to eat. I’m amazed at the growth of restaurants since I was a kid. Back then, going out to eat was a big deal—not just for my cash-strapped family but every family I knew (and this was in Boulder, Colorado, a fairly affluent community). Nowadays eating out is a regular feature of life, to the point that kids are downright jaded about it. The problem is, restaurant food is no good for you. As Bourdain pointed out in Kitchen Confidential, the calorie information provided on menus is pure hokum, based on some hypothetical version of the entrée and not accounting for lack of quality control. Line cooks use way more butter than you’d have the nerve to use at home. And the giant portion sizes are absurd.  I’m a notorious glutton possessed of a cyclist’s appetite, and yet I can generally get my fill at a restaurant via a single entrée. In a sane world, I’d need two entrees. Restaurants are teaching us how to overeat.

My kids are lucky: they have a stay-at-home mom who’s a great cook and happy to teach them.  But so often, this isn’t possible because both parents work and don’t have the time or patience to let the kids help (or often, to serve a homemade meal at all).  All the more reason to teach cooking at school—nothing fancy, no fois gras, no lobster foam, no standing rib roast; just the basics so that the next generation of adults isn’t completely hopeless at it, and kids are exposed to cooking as a legit, fun, salubrious thing to do. Exposing kids to cooking early might inspire some to develop a passion for it (like my brother going on to make those parkas).

So yeah, let’s bring cooking back.  And fine, we can jettison the sewing. So wouldn’t this just make it a cooking class? No, because I want to add something, which was theoretically a part of home ec all along but never showed its face in my class:  the economics part. (Bourdain doesn’t mention anything about this, either.)  I’m not just talking about how to be frugal, but a more fundamental understanding of how money works—how it shapes the reality of your household as much as your income level.

Putting the “econ” in home economics

I think this cooking/finance combo makes more sense than cooking/sewing ever did. Having serious, important instruction in basic finance might appeal to any boys who are still so insecure in their masculinity that they think cooking is for girls.  Meanwhile, adding the study of money ought to appease any girls who think this class is grooming them to be housewives. Switching between the two subjects would keep the class from getting too dry. And the knowledge imparted could change lives—far more than teaching our kids largely trivial stuff they’ll never use, like trigonometry.  (Am I calling for decreased math instruction?  Hell no! Keep that around too because it builds mental stamina, and because a few of these kids may actually go on to build bridges.)

For starters, some nuts-and-bolts book about building wealth, such as Rich Dad, Poor Dad, should be required reading. Budding adults need to learn about the miracle of compound interest, the meaning of opportunity cost, the real cost of consumer goods (i.e., the thing’s price tag plus the tax you paid on the income required to purchase the thing), and mortgage amortization. This isn’t hard math—it’s far easier than what you’re required to learn just to graduate—but it’s important math that can affect your daily life.

None of this is currently taught in my kids’ schools. You get the normal fundamentals without any context about how to use them (other than a few word problems), and you get some weird, abstract, theoretical math that you might use in your career but most often just forget.  What’s needed is instruction about how not to be a chump, with plenty of real-life examples.

Here’s one.  As I explained to my older daughter recently, I worked with a guy years ago who—though sufficiently strapped that he carried credit card debt—bought a brand-new SUV on credit.  I was dismayed, though to be honest, also a bit smug:  my dismay carried with it a certain amount of self-congratulation because of course I knew better. (I know I shouldn’t admit this, but I’ll do so in the service of promoting fiscal education.)

To increase my self-satisfaction, and as an exercise, I calculated the true, all-in cost of that vehicle: the delta between what it cost and what a used equivalent (with the same warranty) would have cost; the interest on the monthly car payment; and the impact on my colleague’s overall net worth of having bought a used car with cash and putting the savings toward paying down his credit card.  The punchline?  The real cost of that SUV, I calculated, was about $140,000.  This kind of waste explained why my colleague, whose income was similar to mine, carried that balance on his credit card (which of course led to even more money down the drain).

Wasting money like that doesn’t just lower your standard of living, but limits your maneuverability so you can’t take advantage of sudden investment opportunities. Here’s an example of the kind of opportunity I’m talking about. Many years ago, my mom decided to sell her condo and buy a smaller one. She was being sweet-talked by a mortgage broker into taking out a bigger loan than she needed, so she could renovate, etc. I recommended she borrow only what she needed, and offered to loan her money as needed for renovations. She decided on a nice, small mortgage.

I also counseled my mom on stipulating no pre-payment penalties, so she could pay down her loan’s principal faster. I used an online mortgage amortization calculator to model multiple scenarios for her, so she could appreciate the impact this makes.  Six months or so later I happened to ask if she was paying extra principal when she could. She replied, “No, because the bank makes it difficult. I have to mail the extra principal to a different address.”  Those thieving bank bastards! Clearly they’d created this obstacle deliberately, and it was working perfectly.  I decided to punish the bank, save my mom some money, and get some income for myself all at the same time. Being a frugal guy with a used car (and, if I recall correctly, in the process of saving for my own home), I happened to have a decent amount of cash lying around, and was able to pay off my mom’s mortgage in one lump sum, and then let my mom pay me back instead of the bank. I split the difference between her former interest rate and what I could get with a money market investment, so she saved on interest and I made some nice cash with virtually no risk.

None of this is rocket science—and yet based on articles like this one, it appears household finance is blind spot for many families.  My mom surely had home ec classes as a kid, but despite being a great cook and even sewing a lot of clothes and stuffed animals back in the day, she never got formal instruction in practical financial matters.

Think of all the classes you practically slept through in middle school or high school, that never captured your imagination … shouldn’t one or two of such classes be supplanted with something more useful? This revised home ec wouldn’t necessarily be a hard sell for students.  “It’s not actually liberating to be dependent on restaurants or Kraft mac-n-cheese,” we could tell our nation’s girls.  And to the boys we could point out, “There’s nothing masculine about being broke.”

I don’t know how to influence our school systems toward this end, and will leave that up to the administrative geniuses who (in my dreams) will take this essay and run with it.  But I do have a suggestion for a name for this reinvigorated class:  how about “home econ”?

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What if Allegiant Air Pushed Things Further?

Introduction

The name “Allegiant Airlines” is a bit of a joke.  If I were to swear allegiance to any airline, it wouldn’t be the one that dangles a cheap fare in front of me and then nickel-and-dimes me to death with extra fees.  These guys charge not only for carry-on baggage but for the privilege of selecting a non-middle seat.  In fact, they even charge extra for selecting which non-reclining middle seat I want.  Allegiant Air should be called Bad Meets Evil Air, after the Eminem song:  “I’ma put air in a bag and charge people to breathe.”

How would Allegiant look if they pushed things just a bit further?  This somewhat fictional post is intended to provide a comic balm for anybody who bemoans the growing number of companies that now charge for basic stuff that has always been free.

NOTE:  There’s a lot of joking around here, some of it concerning safety.  Please do not read this while aboard a passenger airplane.  You could get me in trouble with the Federal Aviation Administration!

Booking

Carry-on bag fees apply.  Please see baggage table fee.  Oversized personal items will be assessed an at-airport fee.  Checked and carry-on bag fees are assessed on a sliding scale as described in the online baggage fee table.  An online tutorial on the baggage fee table is available for $5.  Classroom training is also available on a quotation basis.

The fee for seat selection varies with location, from the premium Giant Seats and Legroom+ ($$$) to the basic window or aisle ($$) to the middle seat in the  back row by the toilet ($).  If you skip seat selection you can avoid this fee, but you really don’t want to do that.  We know where the screaming babies and seatback-kicking children are on this plane, as well as the in-cabin pets (which are welcome on Allegiant for a $100 fee).  If you skip seat selection we will make sure you are punished for your insolence.

Allegiant Air does not allow bookings from any discount online travel websites, but we are pleased to offer you reservations by phone for a $15 fee.  You are encouraged to use our mobile app for your boarding pass at no apparent charge.  The mobile app is “free” (though you may reasonably suspect we are selling your personal information).

Airport

You may print your boarding pass at the airport for a $5 fee.  Chair and bench seating are available at the gate.  The cost is $5 when booked in advance, or $10 at the gate.  If you choose to sit down for free at an adjacent gate, please be advised that we do not employ a public address system and reserve the right to board the aircraft very abruptly.  Allegiant is not responsible for failures of the waterboarding process.  Did we say waterboarding?  We meant boarding.

Priority boarding is available:  $4 when purchased in advance, $12 at the gate up to an hour before the flight, and $20 if you waited to check the length of the line first.

Boarding

As you board the aircraft, smiles and greetings can purchased from the flight attendants for $3 (male) or $5 (female).  There is no discount for smiling back at the attendants or returning their greeting.

Please take your seats immediately.  There is a $2 fee for asking the flight attendant why your seat doesn’t recline.  There is a $2 fee for each additional seatback inquiry (e.g., “You’ve got to be kidding me—no seat reclines on the entire plane?”).  Allegiant Air charges $3 for each snide comment (e.g., “I’m sorry, but a 90-degree angle does not count as “‘pre-reclined’”).

If you are seated next to an emergency exit, you will be asked to pass a written exam on the special procedures you may be required to perform.  A study guide is available for $3, and a self-paced online tutorial for $5.  The tutorial requires our Allegiant Air Exit Row app, which is available for an additional $5.  If you fail the written exam, or do not wish to take it, please ask a flight attendant to reseat you.  There is a $10 reseating fee, and the fee previously paid for reserving this Legroom+ seat is non-refundable.

Please stay in your previously selected or assigned seat.  If you decide to relocate to a better seat after the aircraft doors are closed, please note that a $10 reseating fee applies, and you will need to pay the difference in fee between your original and new seat, plus a $5 in-aircraft seat selection surcharge.  You must also pay a $10 restocking fee for the seat you vacated.

Beer and wine are available for purchase only when the aircraft has reached cruising altitude.  You may not bring your own alcohol on board. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires any alcohol consumed on board be purchased through and served by an Allegiant In-flight crew member.  To the passenger in 28E with the hip flask:  we’re looking at you.

Allegiant is a non-smoking airline.  Smoking is prohibited on the entire aircraft including the lavatories.  You may not bring your own nicotine patch aboard.  Nicotine patches are available for purchase by non-minors for $10 apiece.  There is a one-time age verification fee of $4.  Tampering with, disabling, or destroying the smoke detectors located in the lavatories is prohibited by law.  Charging of e-cigarettes, and use of the word “vape,” are strictly prohibited.  Any passenger caught smoking on board or tampering with the smoke detector will be asked to leave the aircraft.  Parachutes are available for purchase for $8,000.

Safety

Allegiant Air does not employ a video entertainment system, so please direct your full attention to the flight attendants as they demonstrate the safety features of this aircraft.  There is no fee for this demonstration but please note that our flight attendants rely on tips for their livelihood.

During takeoff, landing, or whenever the seat belt sign illuminates, you must fasten your seat belt. Insert the metal fittings one into the other, and tighten by pulling on the loose end of the strap. To release your seat belt, lift the upper portion of the buckle.  If you violate the seat belt safety policy during the flight, you will be cited and fined $35.  If you claim in your defense that you couldn’t figure out the seat belt, you will be fined another $35 for insulting the flight attendant’s intelligence.

There are several emergency exits on this aircraft.  Please take a moment to locate your nearest exit.  If we need to evacuate the aircraft, floor-level lighting will guide our Giant Seats and Legroom+ passengers towards their exit.  Passengers in other sections can use our online app to find their exit.  WiFi surcharges will apply.  WiFi is not available on Allegiant flights.  It is hoped that WiFi surcharge revenue will eventually fund this feature, pending approval from shareholders.

Cabin pressure is continuously monitored. In the event of a decompression, an oxygen mask will automatically deploy from above your seat.  To start the flow of oxygen, pull the mask towards you and swipe your payment card at the armrest terminal.  Place the mask firmly over your nose and mouth, secure the elastic band behind your head, and breathe normally. If you are travelling with a child or someone who requires assistance, secure your mask first, secure their payment, and then secure their mask.

In the unlikely event of a water landing, life vests are available for purchase, as is your seat cushion which can be used as a flotation device.  Rates vary with the size of the device and the severity of the situation.  There are inflatable slides at each exit which double as life rafts.  Seating in the raft is metered at $10 per hour.

When the aircraft reaches cruising altitude the Captain will turn off the Fasten Seat Belt sign, and you may move about the cabin.  If you loiter in the aisle you may be ticketed.  Lavatories are provided free of charge for our Giant Seats and Legroom+ passengers in the dedicated Urinal+ lavatory.  Any other passenger loitering near these seats or attempting to use the Urinal+ lavatory may be ticketed or charged with trespassing.  Standard lavatories are available for $5 for lower class passengers.  A post-use cleaning fee may apply as assessed by the flight attendant.

Flight attendants will be passing around the cabin in a few moments to offer drinks and snacks for purchase, on approved credit.  There is a non-refundable credit application fee of $5.  Bottled water may be purchased for $2.  There is a $2 fee for asking the flight attendant, in vain, for a cup of tap water.  This is in addition to any beverage purchased.  Please note that the water in the lavatories is non-potable.

Now sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight.  Thank you.

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For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

From the Archives - If I Had Defended Floyd Landis

Introduction

Almost eleven years ago, the American professional cyclist Floyd Landis won the Tour de France, or seemed to until a few days later when it was reported he’d tested positive for testosterone. I immediately wrote a fake newspaper article advancing an alternative explanation for the high levels of testosterone in the rider’s blood. I considered submitting this story to the Daily Peloton, which has published a dozen or so of my articles. But I decided instead just to e-mail the story to my bike pals. My rationale was that until Landis’ guilt was firmly established, I didn’t want to make light of his situation in a public forum.

Two years later, when the last of Landis’ appeals was finally crushed out and it was pretty obvious he’d truly doped, I submitted my story to Daily Peloton with a timely new spin: “If I Had Defended Landis.” They ran the story (with a couple extra caveats). Years later I discovered that many of my articles are no longer available on Daily Peloton’s website due to some server problems. So, in advance of this year’s Tour de France, I have decided to give the story a new home on albertnet.

(Interesting side note: I discovered recently that most of my article, along with a PDF download, are available on the Kool ‘N Fit website. Kool ‘N Fit is an aerosol analgesic designed for athletes, and I’d mentioned it in my story. The Kool ‘N Fit marketing team posted my story here under the headline “Floyd Landis pouring KNF on his privates?” and commented, “LOL we did not see this coming.” I see on their website that their reprint has been viewed over 65,000 times, which is way more pageviews than any of my albertnet posts has received.)

If I Had Defended Landis – July 11, 2008

Now that CAS has dismissed Floyd Landis’s final appeal, it may seem as though his sad fate—to be the first cyclist ever stripped of a Tour de France title for a doping offense—was inevitable. But the law is complicated enough, and public opinion fickle enough, to have brought about a completely different outcome. If Floyd Landis had hired me to defend him, and had gone along with my unique defense strategy, things could have turned out much better for the hapless cyclist. Rather than lay out my approach in its entirety, I offer you here a snapshot, in the form of a hypothetical news story, of how I could have already begun to iron out his case, mere days after his positive test.

Landis’ Latest Shocker

Scandalized cycling star blames failed drug test on night of debauchery

July 29, 2006

The story of Tour winner Floyd Landis took yet another turn today when the cycling star gave a bizarre explanation for his failed drug test. “There’s no need to wait for the B sample,” Landis said at an impromptu press conference. “I can explain everything.”

Shyly admitting that he was just too embarrassed to come clean before, Landis read a brief statement declaring that his above-limit testosterone:epitestosterone ratio was the result of a night of debauchery with Phonak teammate Axel Merckx and two other Tour riders. “My religious upbringing resulted in increased physical response to unclean images. A night of shameful behavior pushed my naturally high testosterone levels past the legal limit. I did not behave in a manner befitting a professional athlete, but I did nothing illegal.”

While Landis elaborated as little as possible during the press conference, Merckx seemed to bask in the limelight, providing a flurry of lurid details. “It all started the night after his disastrous ride on Stage 16,” he explained. “My dad [cycling legend Eddy Merckx] called me and said, “‘Axel, you gotta do whatever it takes to wake that guy up.’

“First we had a couple of beers. One thing led to another and next thing you know we’re looking at Internet porn. Like most of the guys, I’ve got hotbabes.com bookmarked, but Floyd had never even seen it. I guess with his [Mennonite] upbringing he got into computers a little late. Anyway, he got more excited than I’ve ever seen him in a bike race. He got so embarrassed he went into the bathroom and poured a bunch of Kool ‘N Fit on his privates.”

Kool ‘N Fit, an obscure sports product developed in the early nineties comprised of equal parts alcohol and marketing hype, is not on any banned list. “It wouldn’t have given Floyd any performance advantage, but it did keep him awake after his second fifth of Jack [Daniels],” Merckx laughed. Too worked up to sleep, Merckx and Landis and two other Tour riders, José Rujano (Quick-Step-Innergetic) and Juan Miguel Mercado (Agritubel), drove two hours to 17 Etapes, a strip club in Grenoble. “I told Floyd, ‘Before you come out swinging tomorrow in Stage 17, you’re gonna go out swinging at 17 Stages,’” Merckx quipped. “It was quite a scene there. At the door they asked Floyd for ID and he couldn’t understand why. Dude’s been asked to piss in a cup hundreds of times but he’d never been carded in his life.”

Merckx was quick to point out that while they saw some graphic acts at the club, Landis managed to behave himself. “He broke some new ground for himself, sure, but he steered clear of the Champagne Room,” Merckx said. “As always, he was the consummate professional cyclist and obeyed the age-old rule of no sex during a grand tour.”

Merckx explained that the four stayed until the club closed and returned to their hotel mere hours before the start of Stage 17. Rujano passed out on the floor of his room and missed the race entirely. Mercado, reeling from a terrible hangover, dropped out 30 kilometers into the stage. “It was a rough morning, that’s for sure,” Merckx said. “Poor Floyd was still sporting a Woodrow at the start line. I was really worried until he spotted Pereiro in the yellow jersey. Then, man—I could hear the blood rushing out of his member.”

Asked how it was possible for him to channel his pent-up sexual tension into improved athletic performance, Landis replied, “Aw, hell, I’ve been doing that since I was a teenager. Don’t forget, I went to a public high school.”

To investigate whether or not suggestive images could really account for such a swing in testosterone:epitestosterone levels, the Daily Peloton contacted Professor Guido Norbiato of the Faculty Of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Luigi Sacco University Hospital, Milan. Norbiato explained, “I’ve been looking through the medical literature on this, and there have been a few studies. A 1998 study found that static pornographic images drove the T:E level up anywhere from 1.14 +/- 0.07 to 1.52 +/- 0.09 in normal ‘red-blooded’ males. The increase ranged from 30% to 90% in the different subjects studied with an average of 43%. Live sex shows drove it up further, anywhere from 1.21 +/- 0.08 to 1.68 +/-0.10, or 40 to 93% with an average of 55%. This still wouldn’t be quite enough to explain Landis’ increase, but then, the study didn’t include any Mennonites.”

The question is, will Landis’ defense put the issue to rest? Reached for comment, WADA president Dick Pound, whose name takes on new significance in light of current events, was unsure. “It comes down to the definition of ‘natural,’” he stated. “We’ve confiscated Merckx’s laptop and will investigate every cached URL to see what websites these guys visited. I’ve seen stuff out there that’s clearly unnatural.” Pound then flushed bright red and refused to take any more questions.

UCI President Pat McQuaid expressed grave concern about the impact Landis’ revelation will have on cycling. “We’re having to scramble now to develop an Internet ‘acceptable use’ policy before the sport’s reputation is tarnished further,” he lamented. But the ultimate impact of this development has other media entities increasingly optimistic about the sport’s future. “Already the doping story was increasing interest in cycling,” said Outdoor Life Network producer Ralph Edwards. “Drugs represent about the only nexus between cycling and more mainstream sports like baseball. Linking a Tour champion with booze and women may be our best way to reach other OLN viewers, like those who tune in for our Bull & Rodeo shows. Landis may have just blazed a trail between cycling aficionados and the NASCAR set.”

While Landis’ account of his positive A sample has met with widespread skepticism, it has helped to explain circumstances following his incredible comeback victory in Stage 17 from Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne to Morzine. “His post-race behavior did reflect something closer to, well, outright horniness than the effect of a doping product,” said Phonak team physician Dr. Denise Demir. “Just talk to the podium girls.” Sure enough, when the Daily Peloton contacted Stage 17 podium girl Evette Bellefemme, she told us, “You know, it really was weird. The podium routine is always the same—the winner gets three kisses on the cheek from each of us. I’ve never had somebody kiss me back before. And then he asked for my phone number! Mon Dieu!”

The next step in clearing his name will be for Landis to submit to a battery of tests designed to establish the effect of lurid images on his natural testosterone levels. Dozens of fellow Tour riders, in an act of apparent solidarity with Landis, have signed up to participate in the study as a control group. “It’s a completely new test, of course,” said Pound, “but the medical community has been very responsive and our panel is already complete. We should have an answer within a few weeks. Landis may yet be innocent, regardless of the results of the B sample.”

Whatever the outcome of Landis’ doping investigation, chances are good that he will be fighting a difficult public relations battle, and has more than a little explaining to do at home.

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For a spoof on how I’d have defended Lance Armstrong, click here.

For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

Family Internet Use Policy

Abstract

Generally, parents don’t go snooping around in their kids’ laptops or phones.  We want to respect our kids’ privacy.  And yet, these devices are like mega-megaphones, capable of blasting our kids’ unbridled ideas and photos all over the Internet.  Privacy in this realm is an illusion:  even with peer-to-peer online communication, kids cannot prevent their supposedly private content from being posted publicly or forwarded.  I describe here a way for parents to put much-needed limits on our kids’ online autonomy.

Introduction

My community has been through a serious scandal.  Some high school kids formed a secret Instagram group and, over a period of weeks, posted a lot of racist and misogynistic content (e.g., doctored photos and hateful sentiments).  Only a couple of kids were actually contributing content, but 14 or 15 others followed along, on an ongoing basis, instead of leaving the group.  What’s more, a number of these followers posted supporting comments and/or “likes.”  (It is widely hoped, but impossible to establish, that peer pressure was a stronger force here than bigotry.)  Finally one kid blew the whistle, and the whole thing unraveled, to the great shame of the students and families involved.

This episode has engendered a lot of soul searching among us parents.  We like to think we are instilling proper values in our kids—that we really know these people—but how can we be sure?  It’s easy to appraise the benefits of private music lessons, great schools, and organized sports teams, but how do we measure character and virtue?  At a minimum, how can we feel confident that our own kids won’t be embroiled in the next Internet scandal?

In this post I describe a solution.  It isn’t complicated, but it’s difficult.  I propose that every family establish and enforce a family Internet use policy.  The idea is to put limits on the secret online life that modern kids have, that gives them total freedom of expression with no parental supervision.  If we fail to instill the values and character we’re looking for, at least we can safeguard our kids against shaming themselves, their families, and their community.

A sample family Internet use policy

My family Internet acceptable use policy is based on the one my employer uses.  To wit, “[Company] monitors employees’ use of [Company’s] communications devices, computer systems and networks.”  I have told my kids up front, “I know your computer password and network logins, and reserve the right to read any of your online correspondence.  Consider nothing on your computer to be private.”  (If my kids had phones, those would be fair game, too.)

The premise here is that kids are less likely to post or consume offensive content if they know their parents can see it.  If this seems Orwellian to you, remember than in 1984 it was the government snooping, not parents.  I have a right to know what my kid is doing on the Internet, just as my employer has a right to know what I’m doing with the tools they give me.

Your policy doesn’t have to be this restrictive, of course—but you should have a policy, and something with more teeth than “Do whatever you want and we’ll hope for the best,” or “If you do something bad we might take away your phone.”

Do my kids tolerate this?  Yes, though of course they’re not thrilled.  Fortunately, I got an early start with this policy.  I introduced it before my kids were even online, so they were fine with it initially.  In fact, as they hadn’t yet developed the recklessness of teenagers, they were rightly concerned about accidentally stumbling on gross stuff online.  As they’ve reached their teens, their feelings have changed, but my wife and I won’t budge and they know it.  At least they’re used to the constraint.

So is this a perfect fix?  Probably not, but I’m sure it helps.  Without parental oversight, a kid is bound to be more bold and less inhibited with his or her expression.  I guarantee that the kids in my community who posted offensive photos to that Instagram account would not have printed hard copies and left them around the house.

Isn’t social media visible to parents anyway?

Kids might have you believe you can keep an eye on their virtual life via the public nature of social media.  But this isn’t true anymore.  Snapchat is all about messages and photos that are designed to be temporary. (Of course they’re actually not; your kid’s blunder can be captured for eternity by another kid’s screen grab.  It’s true, though, that once that transmission leaves your kid’s device, it’s too late for you to see it.)

Do parents grasp this?  Not always, as I learned from a workshop given by My Digital TAT2, a nonprofit organization seeking to promote responsibility in the digital era.  The lecturer quoted a teen correspondent as saying, “My favorite thing about Snapchat is that my parents don’t understand it.”  Most teens using Snapchat and Instagram have two accounts each:  one that their parents know about, and one that they don’t.  Many have a third account with which to assume a fictitious identity, which they use for retaliation and/or catfishing.  With all this subterfuge about, doesn’t it make sense to have access to the source of our teens’ online content—that is, their devices? 

Again, the point isn’t that you’re always snooping—it’s that your kids know you could, and behave accordingly.  As I candidly told my older daughter, I have peeped at her online correspondence exactly twice so far.  I explain to my kids that I generally don’t bother checking up, because I trust them—but I have to reserve the right to do so, or my policy goes up in smoke.

A kid’s right to privacy

Is my stance fair and reasonable?  Or am I violating my kids’ right to privacy?  That begs another question:  do kids even have a right to privacy?

Of course they do!  When one of my daughters was ten, she kept a diary.  Although I was sorely tempted to read it (because it was surely very cute), I honored my promise not to.  Likewise, I wouldn’t eavesdrop on my kids’ face-to-face conversations or phone calls, and I wouldn’t read a letter they got in the mail.  But the Internet is a game-changer.  It gives these kids the capability of broadcasting their ostensibly private communications to 3 billion people.  Mistakes are made, due to these kids’ own poor judgment, that of their friends (or “friends”), and by sheer accident.  I consider it irresponsible to give kids total autonomy online.

Setting limits isn’t just a parent’s right—it’s our job.  Are adults allowed to keep loaded guns around the house?  Unfortunately, they are.  Is it a good idea to give kids access to those loaded guns?  Of course not!  But think about Internet platforms like Snapchat, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter:  they’re dangerous too, in their own way.  You almost couldn’t devise a more efficient way of giving teens new ways to screw up; of catching them in the act of screwing up; of widely publicizing the screw-up; and of documenting, time-stamping, and definitively establishing the fact of the screw-up, and the identity of the perpetrator, for all time.

Consider this scenario:  the year is 1980.  Teen 1, who is stupid and ignorant, tells Teen 2 a racist or misogynist joke.  Teen 2 laughs (maybe not because he even thinks the joke is funny; maybe because he’s uncomfortable).  Teen 3 overhears this exchange, and tells Teens 4 through 20 how racist/misogynistic these two are.  The damage is limited, because it’s all hearsay.  Teen 1 denies telling the joke, Teen 2 denies hearing it, Teen 3 is largely ignored, and Teens 4 through 20 shrug and move on.  Years later, Teen 1, who has become less ignorant, is privately ashamed of having told that joke, and Teen 2 is privately ashamed of having laughed.  They were just stupid kids, and thank goodness they can put that joke in the past and move on.  That’s pre-Internet.

Today, a couple dozen parents in my town—good, respected people, contributors to our community—are suffering deep shame because there is irrefutable evidence that their children consumed and in some cases “liked” racist and/or misogynist online content.  There is no way to repudiate the evidence; about all these beleaguered parents can do is assert that their kids aren’t actually hateful, that they were just swept away by a hateful meme.  That doesn’t go very far … not with the victims, and not with the community. 

Of course this isn’t an isolated case; these scandals are popping up everywhere.  And yet we parents have been standing back and allowing our teens unfettered access to these volatile Internet technologies.

The crux of the matter

Whether or not you agree about the non-sanctity of a teenager’s connected device, we need to help our kids understand something fundamental:  there’s no such thing as Internet privacy.  Once a photo or sentiment leaves your kid’s device, it’s a short step away from the great unwashed Internet.  If copy-and-paste isn’t available on the app that was used, screen grabs always are.  Any content that touches the Internet can be posted publicly and/or forwarded, whether by a recklessly playful or vindictive pal, or by mistake.  And we’ve seen that the law does not uphold the anonymity of Internet haters; consider this landmark case.  If a kid (or adult) thinks he or she can safely communicate his or her darkest thoughts via the Internet, even under some kind of shadow identity, he or she is mistaken.

Why isn’t it considered bad parenting to give these kids unfettered access to fun, easy, powerful online tools capable of permanently disgracing themselves and their families?  Probably because the beloved tech companies behind this Internet revolution are having their way with us.

The Internet and FOMO

I can’t think of a parent who hasn’t complained about his or her kid being glued to a screen all day, but nobody seems to know what to do about it.  In many cases parents are afraid of what would happen if they took away a kid’s phone or laptop.  (Ray Bradbury’s short story “The Veldt,” published in 1950, was eerily prescient in this regard.)  The Internet and its addictive social media trappings weren’t dumped on us; they evolved so gradually we never saw the danger coming.

Meanwhile, to push back against technology is to seem backward, unsophisticated, and out of touch.  Society expects all of us, including students, to use the Internet daily.  As we adults suffer our own insecurity around keeping up with the rapidly evolving online culture, we are tempted to celebrate and emulate our kids’ prowess.  We blithely accept this totally separate virtual world, which becomes a constantly growing blind spot, like a locked door between ourselves and our kids.  In the process we lose touch with our kids’ morals, standards, and character.  Kids are typing things online that we’d shudder to hear them say out loud, and sharing photos that might shock us.

So if parents aren’t policing this, who is?  The Internet platforms themselves?  Yeah, right.  Remember, Mark Zuckerberg’s first online venture was a site where you rated your fellow students in terms of who was hotter than who.  He and his ilk most certainly do not have your kids’ backs. 

Consider this excerpt from a New Yorker article, which describes the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre’s misgivings about the Enlightenment, and how it threatened the idea of a universal moral code: 

It becomes impossible to settle moral questions or to enforce moral rules; the best we can do is agree to disagree. Such a world falls into the hands of managers and technocrats, who excel at the perfection of means but lack the tools with which to think deeply about ends.

I don’t have strong opinions about the Enlightenment, and MacIntyre was writing in the ‘80s, but that last sentence fits social media companies to a T.  The means of capturing and directing people’s attention are being perfected, but the impact on society is being largely ignored.  Venture capitalists are backing the companies best poised to monetize this stuff; they’re not throwing money at watchdog outfits like Digital TAT2.  Popularity—measured by the number of eyeballs on your app, the number of “likes,” and the number of links to your content—comprise the currency of our era.  (We parents are somewhat complicit here.  I’m sure many a parent dreams of his kid becoming the next Zuckerberg.  I doubt many are hoping their kid becomes the next great moralizer.)

Platforms like Instagram and Snapchat have our kids’ attention.  To an increasing degree we parents do not.  The scale is tipping increasingly toward a peer orientation where our parental influence is marginalized.  Only by reigning in the access to this virtual world can we hope to maintain our crucial role in guiding our children.  Failing that, the least we can do is limit the damage they can do online.

More albertnet posts on this topic

Dopamine, Parenting, & Social Media

Teens, Texts, & the Marshmallow Test

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