(Small note: sorry, this one got long. But I promise it goes fast, and gives a lot of good info! )

Lance

I like Lance Armstrong.

Whew. That felt weird and kind of embarrassing to say.

And of course – it’s not entirely true. Because….yeah. He’s kind of icky.

I’ve been a very devoted cycling fan for years. Multiple times, I watched Lance ride across France for three weeks, dodging cars and motorcycles and fans lining the roads, over mountains, really fast in time trials – and I cheered on every second of it. It was exciting to watch an American team triumph over the Europeans, and beat them literally at their own game (race). And at the head of that team was Lance. Everyone else on that team was there for one purpose: to put Lance into Paris three weeks later, on top of the podium. It was glorious. I screamed, watching my little computer screen.

He had rivals in the peloton (group of cyclists), and was great to see him outmaneuver and outlast Jan Ulrich (Germany) and Ivan Basso (Italy) and other challengers. He didn’t always win every day, but he won the big overall prize of the yellow jersey in the Tour de France a record-shattering SEVEN TIMES, IN A ROW!

It was amazing! It was great to be a part of that!!

But..yeah. I would never want to know him in real life.

I’m guessing you did not take the time to read through the Reasoned Decision that lead to him being completely banned for life from cycling. It was 200+ pages, and it was very successful in tearing down every last shred of respect I had for Lance and for his “coach” (that’s not quite the right word for cycling; but it’s close enough).

It was sickening to read what was going on while I was cheering on Lance and his team. And I’ll tell you: I did literally cry in places while I read the testimony of some of the people who talked about the things he did to destroy their professional careers and their lives.

He’s a terrible person. He’s done terrible things. He’s pretty candid about it now – how he very deliberately set out to ruin the lives of the people he considered his enemies, or people who were dangerous to him and to his ambitions. (From my perspective, he doesn’t seem to fully understand why these things are problems; but he does know that everyone else thinks this is bad behavior. So, that’s…good?) Some of the people he hurt have forgiven him. But those terrible things are still there, they still happened.

He makes me ill. He’s not someone I would ever know. He’s cheated, lied, and been destructive. And still: in my mind he’s won the Tour de France seven times in a row – ASO’s cycling governance be damned. I saw it, and it was great.

So, I get it.

People want to root for their team – logic does not always play the role that we might wish for.

Sometimes your team recruits a great person, and it’s sunshine and roses as you ride to victory. Yay!

And sometimes your team brings in someone who…wins? But is terrible. It gets easy to overlook the terrible parts, because the good parts are so good!

But, cycling doesn’t really matter at all. It’s fun – but it doesn’t MATTER in changing the world. So I can uneasily be happy with Lance’s victories, and it’s irrelevant outside of my own personal moral uncomfortable feelings.

Governing our country matters. It’s important. And it needs to be done well. We don’t want criminals running the government – and if that happens, there is a process to deal with it so we can get better people in there.

We’ve all been inundated with words, words, words the last few weeks (and months and years) – and I think it’s too easy for meaning to get lost in that storm of words.

Because, in the end – this is really easy.

Of course, we at CMLE don’t care who you vote for in any election! All candidates and elected officials should be library supporters – so do your part to remind everyone that libraries are for the benefit of the communities they serve. “Yay Libraries!” is our political stand, and nothing else. Anyone can, and should support libraries.

As a librarian, my professional mission is Information Literacy. I’m here to help people find a storm of words and ideas, to identify the important parts, and to make sense of it for themselves.

I think the impeachment situation could use a librarian.

Let’s break this down, and really understand the meaning – not just the word storm. (Click below to go to page two!)