The Legacy of Lance Armstrong

In the newspaper, on the internet, everywhere Lance Armstrong's name is seen it is accompanied with talk of doping and how his titles are being stripped and his sponsors are leaving him.  He's become the unfortunate end jokes all over.  This wildly different from the American hero that I heard so much about while he was winning his titles and leading a movement with little yellow wristbands.

There is no question that even after everything that has been discovered recently, Lance Armstrong has done so much more for society than he has taken away by doping.  This seems so obvious to me that it almost strikes me as strange that so few people talk of him as a hero anymore.  I think Americans generally like to see people whose lives improve overtime.  The hero who makes some unfortunate choices early on and then uses his awesome will power to turn himself around and start saving society.  Because of this I think its hard for us to still see Armstrong as a hero because we discovered everything wrong he was doing after all of the great things he did.  I also think and hope that in time, once the shock of recent events has passes, this effect will be diminished and people will slowly look at him as great again.  Do you think he deserves all the negative publicity he has been receiving  or do you agree that he should still be honored?

Third Party Debate

Today in class we briefly discussed the third part debate that occurred last night.  Being part of the majority of the class that hadn't known it happened, I was stunned to hear how little publicity this kind of debate got.  These are people that are running for president of the United States of America I had never heard of any of them.  They didn't even get a spot on network television.

An article I found from the New York Times brought up some interesting ideas regarding the debates.  One thing that caught my eye in particular came in the last paragraph of the article.

Because of Ralph Nader's role in the 2000 election, possibly taking enough votes from Gore to give Bush the presidency, many people consider these third party candidates to be "spoilers" instead of actual candidates.

In my opinion, in order to keep the integrity of our democracy, it is imperative to have smaller party candidates.  Maybe none of them are going to win any elections in the foreseeable future, but I still think they are important.  I believe that the more opinions are heard, the better a democracy will run.  It's also true that the main political parties of our country have not always been constant.  In order for a main party to change, which I think is a sign of democratic possession  a smaller party has to gain popularity.  Without these smaller parties we would be trapped in the same ideas that we've had for years and would be denying what makes a democracy.  If you disagree please comment.

My Almost American Story

Last weekend I attended the Midwest high school single handed sailing championships.  In the regatta, eleven races are run, in each race you receive as many points as your place, the scores from each race are added, and at the end of the weekend low point wins.  In this particular regatta, the top two finishers out of twenty qualify to go to nationals to compete against the top twenty sailors in the country.

Sail	Skipper	School			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11		Total	Pos
199796	Malcolm Lamphere	Lake Forest High School			1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	7	1		17	1
190239	Jack Bitney	Minnetonka High School			4	5	2	5	8	7	15	3	6	3	5		63	2
194242	Jackson Hamilton	New Trier			6	3	4	2	2	8	6	15	3	9	13		71	3
190499	R.J. porter	Loyola Academy			7	2	3	6	3	5	7	2	9	13	15		72	4
181238	Isabella Loosbrock	Minnetonka High School			5	9	13	3	5	4	5	6	10	8	8		76	5
156889	Rose Edwards	St. Ignatius			10	4	11	10	9	3	3	11	5	4	9		79	6
185898	MaryClaire Kiernan	Hinsdale Central			2	10	9	19	15	9	10	10	2	1	3		90	7
167447	Dirk Phelps	Traverse City Central High School			3	15	12	7	4	6	11	5	14	11	6		94	8
180565	Addy Ferguson	Minnetonka High School			11	18	6	9	6	2	2	13	7	5	16		95	9
148754	Samantha Foulston	Hinsdale Central High School			8	7	8	13	11	19	4	4	4	18	12		108	10

Saturday started off pretty well for me, and going into the last race of the day I was in a close race for the second qualifying spot.  Then suddenly, everything went wrong; I had my worst race of the day by far and put myself almost all the way out of reach of qualifying.  For the entire night I had to think about how I had messed up in the last race.  Going into Sunday I felt like I barely had a chance.  That's when things turned around again, I started the day off with string of great races and going into the last race I had put myself in a three way tie for second.  What was interesting, looking back on it, is that at the start of that last race I really expected that I would get the spot.  I was tied with two sailors who beat me at least as much as I beat them usually, but still it seemed as though I had to be the one to end up getting it.  Because of this, when I finished in between the two, taking third, I was incredibly disappointed.  In almost any situation, I would have been thrilled to finish third at that regatta, but I think that as an American, I am so programmed to hear the classic American story graph, that I expected it to come true in real life.  Do you think that the repetition of the same type of story can effect how we think the world works?  Have you ever seen this in your life?  Please leave comments below.

Neighborhood Shifts

Last week on after our field trip to Chicago we talked about watching the changes in your surroundings as you drive through an area.  Just this weekend I had an interesting experience while driving near Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.  I was driving from Severna Park, next to Annapolis, to pick some one up at Johns Hopkins, and then on to the inner harbor downtown Baltimore area.  Where I was staying in Severna Park was a very well off neighborhood with many aspect similar to the area in which we live.  Because of this it was a bit of a shock when I first crossed into Baltimore and was quickly surrounded by boarded up, dilapidated buildings, empty lots, and spray painted symbols on every wall.  This continued for only several blocks until there was a single street marking the edge of the university.  Across the street was a beautiful city college.  Leaving the campus from the opposite direction from which I arrived, we came to a busy, healthy looking downtown area that reminded me of downtown Chicago in many ways.  All of this raised the question: Is this university actually beneficial to the city?  On one hand it does provide an area that is very nice to drive through and be in.  On the other hand it almost seems so act as a divider, further segregating the poorest neighborhoods from the rest of the city.  I would love to hear opinions from people who have visited Johns Hopkins or have seen situations in other cities.