7-20-89 . . . Yesterday’s seventeenth stage in the Tour de France was arguably the most grueling. It covered 100.4 miles, ending at the ski resort of l’Alpe d’Huez. I understand that the last 8.3 miles of the stage were up a steep mountain road. I hate to blow my own horn, but the two riders I chose to win the Tour finished first and second. Gert-Jan Theunisse, a Dutchman, won the stage with an average speed of 19.39 miles per hour. Pedro Delgado of Spain, last [sic; should be “the previous”] year’s winner, was second, sixty-nine seconds behind Theunisse. Unfortunately for both of them, the tour leaders, Greg LeMond and Laurent Fignon, did almost as well. Fignon came in with Delgado, while LeMond finished seventy-nine seconds later. That means Fignon has taken the lead once again from LeMond—by twenty-six seconds. There are two mountain stages to go, followed by a flat stage and an individual time trial. Theunisse is in fourth place, five minutes and twelve seconds behind Fignon, which is probably too much to make up in four stages. Delgado is in third place, one minute and fifty-five seconds behind. He still has a decent chance to win. I’ll be waiting with anticipation for the morning newspaper, as I have all month.
Of all the advertisements on television, those pitching beer are the most offensive and insulting to the intelligence. In ninety percent of televised beer ads, the theme is machismo. You see men in fishing boats, seated beside campfires, playing football, baseball, and other sports, driving four-wheel-drive trucks, riding horses, climbing mountains, putting out fires, and windsailing. There is usually a woman somewhere in sight, either serving the beer to the men or preparing a meal to be eaten with it. Many of the ads suggest that drinking beer—better yet, drinking the right kind of beer—will help a man “get a woman”. For example, in a recurring ad for Coors Light, we see a handsome man leaning against a bar in a crowded tavern. An attractive woman gazes longingly at him as he sips his beer. The announcer says “When the game’s this close, you don’t want to drop the ball”. As I interpret the ad, the message is this. The pursuit of women by men is a game, like football, the objective of which is to “score”—to attract and “catch” a mate. But it’s a competitive game, so each man has to get an edge on the others. One way to do this is to drink the right beer—namely, Coors Light. If you drink that beer, the ad suggests, you won’t “drop the ball”. Instead, you’ll carry it into the end zone for a touchdown. In other words, you’ll get the woman. What kills me is the idea that some, many, or most women are attracted to men who drink a certain kind of beer. Isn’t that hilarious? Imagine a woman thinking these thoughts: “Yeah, I like Bob a lot; he’s got everything going for him and I’d love to go out with him. But he drinks that damned Old Milwaukee beer; I just can’t deal with that.”
I spent the day inside, outlining David Richards’s Toleration and the Constitution and reading an article by David Lyons on original-intent theories of constitutional interpretation. [David Lyons, “Constitutional Interpretation and Original Meaning,” Social Philosophy & Policy 4 (autumn 1986): 75-101.] Lyons does an excellent job of demonstrating the inconsistencies of theories such as those put forward by Robert Bork, Edwin Meese, and William Rehnquist. It’s great to see a powerful philosophical mind play with these alleged legal heavyweights. In fact, that’s one reason I got into philosophy: to learn how to pick apart the arguments of other people. I knew that philosophers were trained to do that, and I wanted the training.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 