Bits and Pieces

First of all, I found this article by Michael Shermer about doping in sports, specifically in cycling. After reading this, it seems nearly certain that Lance Armstrong was using some sort of performance enhancing drugs during his incredible Tour de France run. The bigger question is... Do I care?

After some soul searching, I'm not sure I do. My antipathy towards Barry Bonds and Mark McGuire seem to stem more from general dislike of their character than any stigma associated with drug use. If Armstrong had beaten the field seven times running using EPO while the others were clean... it would be different. That's not the case. More on this later as my thoughts progress.

On to baseball. The Royals seem to be coming back to earth. A 2-5 west coast road trip exposed several weaknesses. I predicted the starting pitching to falter first... but it was the hitting. Butler, Gordon, Teahen, all have tremendous potential... but hitting singles all the time isn't going to get it done. The Royals are last in the league in run production. Perhaps Jose Guillen will give them the spark they need as he has shown some signs of life on this trip.

Yes it's Earth Day 2008. What does this mean? Well, I remember celebrating Earth Day back in the 70's while in college (University of Missouri-Coumbia). It mostly meant a lot of drinking while sitting around in Peace Park listening to different activists rant and rave about the damage we were doing to the Earth. hmph. Now I seem to be one of those activists. As an Environmental Science teacher I try very hard not to dwell constantly on the negative in my classes. Yet I find that, invariably, topics discussed always tend towards the negative. Humans are inherantly wasteful, dirty and seemingly careless about the environment. None more so than teenagers... and yet, occasionally there is a ray of light. A student who does care, who does volunteer, who "listens" to The Lorax. As I am so quickly passing through middle age, it is all too easy to be pessimistic about these things...