It is refreshing listening to Bennet Omalu, MD. Omalu is the real hero of the story; he makes
me wear my MD hat with proudness. The
interview given by Eric Topol is very enlightening and helps to understand what
life is about. Topol was fired at the
Cleveland Clinic when he went on against Merck and the Cleveland Clinic for
using drugs that created more harm than the opposite:
Topol's advocacy on the subject led to what the New York Times described
as an "unusually public dispute" with the Cleveland Clinic's
leadership over ties between the academic institution and the pharmaceutical
industry, ultimately leading to Topol's departure from the Clinic after his
administrative position as head of the Clinic's academic program was abolished.
What does it have to do with triathlon? Triathlon is not a contact sport but
competing in places without organization and contaminated as it would be the
case of Rio endangers competitors.
Organizers do not care about the problems the athletes will have. Triathletes do not speak clearly about this
danger because they already competed in Beijing, and they are afraid of
mentioning the dangers to authorities.
Fighting against our corrupted Federations is a parallel to what
happened to Bennet and Topol. We have written
an article regarding Topol:
21 déc. 2012
Triathlon and the legacy of Eric Topol
Bennet makes me rethink what we do as human beings: “Do
what you need to do if you are seeing things.”
He was misjudged because he is an African. He suffered the “white
privilege,” and was able to survive it.
Thanks man! Your actions help us
to stay human.
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/856308
The address is for Topol´s interview with Omalu in medscape. Below is Will Smith with Omalu
We have learned many things from Armstrong. “The only rational way of teaching is with the
example, even when we are not a good example,” quoting Albert Einstein. We learned about how pervasive
doping is in cycling and it was even worse; we learned how people lied even
when they can lose everything. Are they
stupid? Nope, lack of the right education to live according to the new circumstances
is the problem. It is Peter´s principle:
“The capacity to perform well disappears when we do not have the tools to deal
with the new scenario.” It is the case
of Debi Thomas.
Lance Armstrong: "I grew up ... like a
wild animal."
This week, Lance Armstrong said he made two really big mistakes in his life,
and one of them has proved to be much more costly than the other.
One was doping, the other mistreating people.
The disgraced global sports icon was speaking on
"Movember Radio" with CEO Adam Garone
in a podcast published on Tuesday.
Armstrong, 44, talked about how attacking people
during his cycling career proved to be a much more significant mistake than his
actual doping…
He replied: "Understand that you may face some decisions in this
sport, but, man, don't ever isolate, attack, ostracize, incite another human
being."
Armstrong, who was raised by a single
mother, added, "My mom and I had more of a brother-sister relationship ...
I never had that person that in my life — and I'm not making excuses — but
nobody ever tapped me on the shoulder and said,Dude.
"I sort of raised myself. But nobody
ever said,Dude, what I just saw. Never do that again.And so it is what it is. And I got to live
with that and spend the rest of my life trying to make it right."
Our posts are an effort to
teach our kids to think about what is coming for them in order to acquire the
tools to face a much more complex reality.
We have said: Dude, what I just saw. Never do that again. Sometimes parents are unable to say it for the
very same reason Armstrong mentions, and teachers do not speak clearly because
they are afraid of losing their jobs. We
have to say it knowing all possible consequences. Most of the time we are counterattacked by pointing
out our mistakes instead of looking at how to improve as a whole. This counterattacking is an ingredient of poverty and perhaps
the strongest that keep us poor. We are unable to reflect as Armstrong is doing. I am not sure that Armstrong will do what is needed because he has a habit/addiction that is very difficult to irradicate but reflecting is the first step.
There is a well written
article that looks into this matter from a psycho-social point of view:
Born to Be Conned
By MARIA KONNIKOVADEC. 5, 2015
New York Times
And the stories the grifter tells aren’t real-world narratives —
reality-as-is is dispiriting and boring. They are tales that seem true, but are
actually a manipulation of reality. The best confidence artist makes us feel
not as if we’re being taken for a ride but as if we are genuinely wonderful
human beings who are acting the way wonderful human beings act and getting what
we deserve. We like to feel that we are exceptional, and exceptional
individuals are not chumps…In a sense, all victims of cons are the same: people
swept up in a narrative that, to them, couldn’t be more compelling. Love comes
at the exact moment you crave it most, money when you most need it. It’s too
simplistic to dismiss those who fall for such wishful-seeming thinking as saps
— just as it’s overly neat to dismiss the types of people who would take advantage
of them as unfeeling psychopaths…Nobody thinks they are joining a cult, David
Sullivan explains. “They join a group that’s going to promote peace and freedom
throughout the world or that’s going to save animals, or they’re going to help
orphans or something. But nobody joins a cult.” We don’t knowingly embraces
false beliefs. We embrace something we think is as true as it gets. We don’t
set out to be conned. We set out to become, in some way, better than we were
before.
The
great Jacques Lacan would say: “L’amour, l’amour…c’est pour ça qu’on a
inventé l’ inconscient (Jacques Lacan,Le Seminaire, Livre XX; 11).” Armstrong is working hard trying to
understand why he blew his life up, perhaps for the sake of his children.
