Reading Standards for Informational Text
LAW 5
Analyze in detail how an author’s ideas or claims are developed and refined by particular sentences, paragraphs, or larger portions of a text (e.g., a section or chapter).
Assignment:
Read the following article from
USA Today and answer the questions on a separate piece of paper. Write your name and block on the paper.
Questions
1.
The author's idea or claim is:
a.
Lance Armstrong is a hero for admitting doping.
b.
Lance Armstrong's former lifestyle is over
c.
Cheating is OK if you admit it.
2.
Which sentence develops the author's idea?
a.
Call Oprah, apologize and move on.
b.
He's sorry that he got caught.
c.
The man who used to control everything now controls nothing.
3.
This sentence develops the idea because
a.
It reinforces and restates the idea
b.
It further clarifies the main idea
c.
Both a and b are correct
4.
According to the author, who/what is in control of his destiny for
now?
a.
Nike
b.
The Supreme Court
c.
the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency
5.
How do you feel about this entire story and drugs in sports
generally?
Brennan: Life of Armstrong over as he knows it
Christine Brennan, USA TODAY Sports7:37a.m. EST January 16, 2013
Christine Brennan writes that Lance Armstrong is 'nothing short of pathetic in defeat'
Lance Armstrong is not sorry that he doped. He's sorry that he got caught.
The worst cheater in the history of sports has come clean not because it's the right thing to do, but because he must believe it's the expedient thing to do.
Devastated by his new reality, one that prevents him from competing in sanctioned triathlons and marathons for the rest of his life, Armstrong wanted a quick fix. He wanted to take care of his latest and greatest problem the way he has handled every other issue in his career: by getting rid of it.
Facts? Deny them. Accusers? Destroy them.
Banned for life? Call Oprah, apologize and move on.
But as Armstrong, the cancer survivor and seven-time Tour de France winner, is now painfully realizing, everything has changed in his life. The man who used to control everything now controls nothing.
The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency is in charge of Armstrong's life now, a turn of events that Armstrong must find especially cruel, even as most of the rest of us find it absolutely fitting.
Armstrong had his chance to avoid a lifetime banishment just a few months ago. Back in June, in the midst of its exhaustive investigation, USADA invited Armstrong to come clean, to finally tell the truth about more than a decade of doping and deceit. He could be "part of the solution," USADA said, naming names and revealing how he avoided detection for so many years, and in return, he likely would have been suspended for years, not decades.
He could have admitted to trying to ruin the lives and livelihoods of his former colleagues and friends, those who dared question or defy him as he led the way down doping's sinister path, including fellow cyclists Greg LeMond and Frankie Andreu and his wife, Betsy .
The details of the wreckage he left behind include a who's who in cycling. He also all but destroyed the entire sport, which had precious little credibility as it was, and has even less after what he has done to it. Suffice it to say that when Tour de France officials were considering who deserved the titles Armstrong vacated, they realized almost all the possible candidates during those years cheated too, and decided to pass the yellow jerseys along to no one.
But Armstrong being Armstrong, believing that he would beat any charges USADA brought against him, belligerently declined USADA's offer, instead continuing to attack the agency that is the nation's best hope to create a drug-free sport not just for our superstars, but for our kids.
He also continued to rely on an old canard: that he had never publicly failed a drug test. A certain segment of the public bought into it, a segment that he has to have lost with whatever admission he made to Oprah.
Let's hope we can lay this one to rest for good: If you pass every drug test, you still could be doping on a regular basis. Sprinter Marion Jones never failed a drug test, and she took at least 150, but she is still seen as one of the worst cheaters of this generation in sports. She and Armstrong and others have their ways to cheat the system; sadly, the bad chemists are still way ahead of the good chemists in sports.
And while we're on the topic of old wives' tales in doping, there are still some Armstrong apologists out there who say that everyone was cheating, so why pick on Lance?
What kind of excuse is that? Just because we don't catch every bank robber doesn't mean we don't try to catch some. What's more, exposing Armstrong was even more important than catching anyone else in the sport, because Armstrong long ago transcended sports and became an icon to the cancer community. He had many people believing he wasn't just a fabulous athlete, but a fabulous person too, and millions of dollars were donated to his Livestrong Foundation on that faulty premise.
What happened next in the Armstrong saga had to shock the living daylights out of him. He didn't beat the charges levied by USADA. In fact, he gave up rather than try to fight them. In October, he was stripped of the seven Tour titles he won between 1999 and 2005. Nike, a company that has stood by some of the worst scoundrels in sports, dumped him, and shortly thereafter, Armstrong had to abandon his charity. No one would have anything to do with him, so he went into exile.
But he still couldn't stop doing what he has always done, being the biggest bully on the block. In November, he taunted USADA and his many enemies by brazenly tweeting a picture of himself on his couch, admiring those seven Tour de France jerseys.
A hero in victory, he was nothing short of pathetic in defeat.
But, within a month, somehow, someway, reality hit. He really was finished. No more appearance fees at big-city marathons and triathlons. No more fawning fans. No more sycophants to believe all those lies.
Armstrong naturally couldn't stand the thought, so he devised a completely new strategy to make himself once again the center of at least his own universe. He'd go on Oprah. He'd apologize. The American people are simpletons, he must think. They'd forgive him. Then he'd say he was sorry to USADA and back he'd come. Just before it starved to death, his ego would again be fed.
That's what would have happened in the world of Armstrong's dreams.
But he is living in his own, self-induced nightmare now. The Oprah interview means nothing, unless he divulged new information that USADA can use. To even begin to think about coming back someday, he must sit down on USADA's couch not for a couple of hours, but for days, and tell everything he did and everything he knows about doping in sports.
So far, no date for that meeting has been set, and it may take Armstrong some time to realize what he has to do when he sits down with USADA officials. But if he does cooperate, his lifetime ban could be reduced to eight years.
Yes, eight years. That's his hope: a reduction that would allow him back for age-group triathlons and marathons as he is about to turn 50, just as most of us have completely forgotten about him.
Armstrong's life as he knew it is over. It's only a matter of time before he truly understands what that means.
