Lance

So yesterday all I heard was Lance Armstrong saying, "For those of you who don't believe in this sport, you'd better start believing." I would be walking down the street and I would hear from a barroom TV set, "you'd better start believing." It started to feel ominous.

Do I believe in cycling? What does it mean to not believe in cycling? And what if I am not one of those that believes in cycling? What happens to me?

I suppose I would be better off if I did a little cycling, though in that case, it seems strange to specify cycling. Wouldn't I be just as well off doing a bit of jogging, or swimming or even some more walking? And why be so alarmist? Why not give me positive reasons to cycle?

Now if he meant believe in watching cycling, if anything, I think that is even a harder sell. Cycling is a sport that counts cummulative performance. It aggregates over the entire series of events. In other words, there are no events. It is as if the world series were decided by total points over the 7 games and how any particular nine innings turned out was of no particular consequence. Only the Europeans could come up with something so dismally rational. One would think after the French revolution, Communism and Fascism they would have got the whole mania for rationality guiding action out of thier systems, but no. If we can't come up with a theory that justifies murdering people then we can at least come up with one that bores them.

Of course, as a theory goes this one isn't bad. There is no doubt that LA was the best cyclist in the field, that much was tediously clear. After his early lead it was just watching a continent pray for a single bicyclist to ram into a tree. Which is, I gather, pretty much what the sport has been over the 6 or 7 years that Mr. Armstrong has dominated it. A fine test of overall cycling ability but not much fun to watch. Instead of an event each day was just another installment of the same catastrophe watch. One day was no different from any other.

Which brings us to proposals for majority popular voting in the US. Whatever other merits such proposals have, surely it is clear they would make elections a lot less interesting. For the purposes of voting, a trip through one place would be just like another. Each of the fifty states would mean no more or less than the different days of the Cycling event. Being in Ohio would mean no more than being in Mississippi. The only difference between places would be the size of thier television markets.

Political scientists have developed models that show this would put small states at a disadvantage. But more importantly would be the homogenizing effect on all of us. One state would be like the next. Hey, remember day 2? or was it day 3 or 4 or.....