Presidents And Bicycles

 One week ago, I noted the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln—and Charles Darwin.  

When I was a child, Lincoln’s and George  Washington’s birthdays were commemorated with their own holidays on the 12th and 22nd of February, respectively.  Some time in my early puberty—when the deluge began!—that tradition ended in favor of the generic Presidents’ Day, on the third Monday of February:  today.

OK, now I’m going to get political on you, dear reader.  On one hand, I’m offended that this holiday, in essence, elevates Donald Trump to the same plane as Washington, Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt. On the other hand, it’s part of the reason why February is Black History Month, which I wholeheartedly support.  Originally, there was a Black History Week that included Lincoln’s Birthday.  When Abe lost his own billing, the commemoration of a long-deleted part of this country’s heritage was expanded into the month.

Anyway, in an earlier post, I mentioned that during the late 19th Century Bike Boom, Washington’s Birthday was Bicycle Day. Dealers and manufacturers debuted new models and offered special deals, often accompanied by a lavish party.  Bicycle Day morphed into Auto Day, which became part of the current Presidents’ Day.

When Washington’s Birthday was Bicycle Day, electoral campaign images often included bicycles, sometimes with the candidates riding them.

The “bad” government on the left (!) was that of Democrat (!) Grover Cleveland; the “good” on the right was the prospective administration of William McKinley.

So, since I broke a promise I never made to never discuss politics, I will mention one of my beefs with McKinley:  His administration included the lynching of, I mean war against, Spain, which was predicted on a lie. (Sound familiar?) The spoils, if you will, for the US included Puerto Rico, Cuba, Guam and the Philippines (which, ironically, gained its “independence” from the US on the 4th of July, in 1946). Some historians argue that the war also made the invasion, I mean annexation, of Hawai’i possible.

What Do You See?

 What do you see in these pictures?

You've probably had some teacher, professor or, uh, official of the law ask you that question.

Of course, in any photo, some things are incontestably true.  On the other hand, other things are, if you'll indulge me a cliche, "in the eyes of the beholder."

In the polarized, hyper-politicized atmosphere that is today's America (It now seems weird to call this country the United States!), people will infer, correctly or not, your sympathies when you describe what you see.

Juxtaposing a photo of Joe Biden on his bike with that of Donald Trump disembarking from his plane is meant to show how far removed the current President is from the legal proceedings in which his predecessor finds himself.  To some, however, it shows a leader who's out of touch in contrast to one who's being "persecuted" by an unjust system.  

All right...I'm going to reveal my leanings --as if you haven't already figured them out!  Nobody can do any job 24/7.  Everyone needs physical and mental relaxation.  So, I don't begrudge Joe Biden, any more than I'd begrudge anybody else, for going on a bike ride. And, as much as I hate to engage in "whataboutism," I'll say that we didn't hear a peep from same people who criticize Joe for mounting a saddle and pedaling when Trump was cheating, I mean, playing golf.

The Massacre In Colorado Springs

Today I will invoke the Howard Cosell Rule.  That is to say, I am going to write about something that has little, if anything, to do with bicycles or bicycling. 

You've heard about it by now:  Some time before midnight on Saturday, a young man dressed in a military-style flak jacket and armed with a long rifle and a handgun--both of which he purchased-- entered Club Q, an LGBTQ night spot in Colorado Springs.  

By the time a couple of patrons subdued him, he'd killed five other patrons and wounded 17 others. At least one of the victims, Ashley Green Paugh, wasn't even a member of the LGBTQ community:  She was with a friend with whom she'd spent the day.  Now there is a girl without a mother and a man without a wife--in addition to the partners, familys and friends who no longer have Daniel Aston, Kelly Loving, Raymond Green Vance and Derrick Rump in their lives. 

The last I heard, authorities were "trying to determine whether" the slaughter was a "hate crime."  Even if the suspect, Anderson Lee Aldrich, didn't know that Sunday was Transgender Day of Remembrance, and some patrons were in Club Q to commemorate it, I don't know how any other motive can be ascribed to him.  After all, if he wanted to kill people just because, there were plenty of other venues he could have chosen, especially on a Saturday night.

As if it weren't enough of a terrible irony or coincidence that it happened on the eve of TDoR or that one of the victims is named "Loving," it turns out that Aldrich, who committed one of the most lawless acts possible, is the grandson of an outgoing California legislator.  Randy Voepel, who lost his re-election bid earlier this month, reacted to the January 6 insurrection with this:  "This is Lexington and Concord. First shots fired against tyranny."  He added, "Tyranny will follow in the aftermath of the Biden swear in (sic) on January 20."

Now, I know some will say that there isn't a direct link between grandfather and grandson when it comes to attitudes about using violence.  But it's hard not to think that Voepel is at least emblematic of some sort of value Aldrich imbibed. Oh, and in June 2021, Aldrich was arrested for making a bomb threat in his mother's home.  Perhaps neither his grandfather nor anyone else in his family taught him that doing such a thing was OK, but I can't help but to think that from somewhere or someone in his environment--whether in his family, community or elsewhere--he got the idea that it's OK to use force and threats thereof to get his way. After all, even the crankiest and most recalcitrant baby isn't born knowing how to do such things.

That he made the threat in his mother's house has been mentioned. So has the fact that, in spite of doing so, he evaded Colorado's "red flag" law, which is supposed to prevent people with criminal convictions from purchasing firearms.  But the media has only hinted at other issues that the slaughter highlights.

Photo by Scott Olson, for Getty Images

One of those issues is that a place like Colorado Springs needs a place like Club Q.  I have spent exactly one day in the city:  I was passing through on my way to someplace else.  The city always touts its proximity to Pike's Peak, which is visible from just about everywhere.  I must admit that made me long, for a moment, to live there, if for no other reason that I'd probably be a better cyclist--or, at least, a better climber--than I am.  

But I also knew that, had I stayed in Colorado Springs, I would be living a very different life. Actually, I might not be living at all:  Aside from being a cyclist, it would be very difficult to be the person I am.  Like many "blue" or "swing" states, Colorado has its red, as in redneck, areas where some have longings like the one a taxi driver expressed to me:  to be in Alaska, Montana, Wyoming or some other place where people live, as he said, "like real Americans."  

Colorado Springs is in that red zone.  But its conservativism is amplified by some of the institutions in and around the city.  The most prominent and visible is the United States Air Force Academy.  There are also several military bases nearby.  And the town is also home to Focus on the Family which, like other right-wing Christian organizations, uses its "focus" on the "family" as a smokescreen for a homo- and trans-phobic, misogynistic, anti-choice agenda.  Several people who were interviewed, including a few lifelong residents, confirm the impression that I have about the city.

As in any place else, kids grow up in the closet. For them, a place like Club Q is the only place where they can safely be themselves.  And there are adult LGBTQ people in places like Colorado Springs because of work or family ties--or simply because they like living in the mountains.  Where else would they meet people in similar circumstances but in a place like Club Q.

Anyway, I couldn't think of much else besides the tragedy in Colorado Springs.  The most terrifying thought of all, though, is that it probably won't be the last.

Deliver Your Vote!

Today is Election Day here in the US.

I have already voted and I exhort you to do the likewise.

If you've been reading this blog--or simply know anything at all about who I am, in addition to being an avid cyclist--you probably can guess how I voted.

There was a time when I didn't vote because I "didn't think it mattered."  I can understand why people--including you, perhaps--might feel that way.  After all, your ballot is one of millions.  And you might live in a jurisdiction where one candidate or party or another is "safe."

Well, let me tell you, no district is as "safe" as it seems.  The past few elections should have taught us that.  I can recall hearing, in early 2015, that Hilary Clinton was a "shoo-in" for the Presidency and Donald Trump's candidacy seemed like a joke. Right now, here in New York State, the gubernatorial race is much closer than anyone had anticipated--and I have seen many more signs for Zeldin than for the incumbent Hochul.

Even if you don't think reproductive rights or even bodily autonomy, let alone equality for women, LGBTQ people, immigrants or any other marginalized people are relevant to you, I assume that, since you are reading this, you are a cyclist or have some sort of interest in bicycles.  While most candidates don't mention cycling or bicycle infrastructure specifically, there are a host of other issues that relate directly to what we love.  They include, of course, the environment and transportation.  But cycling also intersects--to borrow Kimberle Crenshaw's postulation--with economic and social justice in all sorts of ways. We need not only to encourage people to trade four wheels and one pedal for two and two whenever possible, we must also make communities--and jobs--safe and affordable so that people who aren't athletes can ride bikes to work or school.

Anyway...these Boy Scouts (confession:  I was one in my dim, dark past!) are delivering the message in more ways than one:

A Ride To The Truth?

The other day, on a pleasant summer afternoon, I was riding back from a trek to Westchester County.  I couldn't help but to notice more work crews than I normally see on the streets.  Some came from ConEd or Verizon, others from the city's transportation department.  They confirm one of my from-the-saddle observations:  streets and roads are in worse shape than I've seen in some time.  Whether it's a result of the weather (climate change?) or simply deferred maintenance, I don't know.

One detour led me down Prospect Avenue in the South Bronx.  I actually didn't mind:  The stretch south of the number 2 and 5 elevated train lines has some rather nice old row houses, and the people seemed to be in a rather relaxed mood.  

Occasionally, I'll stop if a building or detail looks interesting. But I never expected to see, anywhere, something that sums up so many of the truths I hold to be self-evident, to paraphrase the Declaration of Independence.  

Within the past two weeks, the Supreme Court has voted to curtail a woman's right to her own body and, possibly, a bunch of other rights-- but not the one to carry a gun with you.  Why can't they support the simple truths expressed in that sign?  

  

How Not To Hydrate

I've been following the Select Committee Hearings on the riot of 6 January 2021.  Some who testified--like Cassidy Hutchinson-- gave me hope that some people will do the right thing.  Other testimony--like that of the Georgia election workers who still live in fear because they wouldn't help to overturn the election results-- was as heartbreaking as it was infuriating.  

But no matter how much I hear or read, there are still some things I will never understand.  To wit:  Some people still insist the election was "stolen," despite any lack of corroborating evidence.  And they still take everything the Former President says as gospel, even though he publicly told more than 30,000 documentable lies (about 21 a day) during his time in office. 

I can come up with only one explanation:

The past few days have brought a heat wave to this part of the world.  Somehow, though, I don't think I'd hydrate with the stuff in the image--even if my political persuasions were more in line with the folks who imbibe it.

The Leak

Warning:  I am invoking the Howard Cosell rule.

Today I'm too upset to talk about much of anything.

By now, you've heard about the leaked draft, written by Justice Samuel Alito, of the Supreme Court's opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade.

Of course, that doesn't mean the law has been struck down--at least, not yet.  But, according to the draft,  Justice Clarence Thomas as well as all of Donald Trump's appointees--Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch--had already voted to overturn the 1973 ruling that the US Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause provides a "right to privacy" that protects a pregnant woman's right to choose whether or not she wants to give birth.

Alito based his argument, in part, on the fact that abortion isn't mentioned anywhere in the Constitution.  Of course, any number of right-wing politicians and their supporters--who include those who are waiting, with bated breath, for Alito's opinion to become an actual ruling--have also tried to strike down the Affordable Care Act because the right to health care isn't guaranteed in the Constitution.  Now, I'm not a Constitutional scholar and my mind may not be suited for jurisprudence, but to me, such arguments sound a bit like saying that French pastry chefs shouldn't make a mille feuille with passion fruit, mango and coconut cream because such ingredients weren't available to Francois Pierre La Varenne when he wrote Le Parfait Confiturier during the reign of Louis XIV.  Or, perhaps, saying in essence that we shouldn't guarantee the right to something that isn't in the Constitution is like saying that money shouldn't be set aside for bike lanes and education because bicycles and cyclists aren't mentioned in a city's or state's traffic statutes.

I realize that some of you may feel differently about abortion rights than I do.  And, some of you may wonder why I, who never have been and will be pregnant, should care about abortion rights.  Well, for one thing, you might say that undergoing my gender affirmation made me into something of a feminist, if I wasn't already one.  But more important, if a government tells a woman or girl that she absolutely must, under penalty of law, carry a pregnancy to term, even if it resulted from rape, incest or other actions not of her choosing, what else can that same government tell us to do--or not do--with our bodies?  Would I have been able to get the therapy, take the hormones and undergo the surgical procedures that enabled my gender affirmation (and undid some of the damage from decades of living "in the closet?"  Will someone be forced to undergo treatments or procedures--think chemo for advanced cancer patients--against their wishes, even if refusing such procedures or treatments will harm no one else?  

Oh, and if a government can tell people what they can and can't do with their bodies, it will also more than likely have the power to rigidly enforce the traditional gender binary and to say what men and boys or women and girls can or can't do.  I can't help but to think that overturning Roe vs. Wade will also make it easier to overturn laws allowing same-sex marriage--and allow laws like the ones in Texas that criminally charge parents who seek gender-affirming treatment for their children.

Finally, I think of the time I worked with children, in camps, a hospital and in workshops I conducted as a writer-in-residence in New York City schools.  While I did whatever I could to nurture the kids in my charge for as long as they were with me, I couldn't help but to think that some of their parents simply shouldn't have been parents.  That is not to say, of course, that the children shouldn't have been born. I simply think that, whatever one believes about abortion, there are few worse tragedies than a child born unwanted, who will never be loved or cared for properly.  The worst part is that such kids know who they are and too many never recover from such knowledge.

I am scared shitless.  I am fucking scared shitless.  I don't know how else to say it.

What Leads A Charge Away From Red Bull? Greenbacks.

 This year's Winter Olympics have just ended.  I have to admit that I didn't pay as much attention to them as I've paid to Olympiads past, though I haven't been living under a big enough rock to not know about the saga of Kamila Valieva.  Whether or not she intentionally took a banned substance, the way her teammates and coach and the Russian sports establishment have treated her is child abuse, pure and simple.  That the International Olympic Committee did nothing to prevent her situation from snowballing--and, if they do anything, they're more likely to discipline her than her team, coaches or the relevant Russian organizations--confirms something that I've long known:  The IOC is, purely and simply, one of the most corrupt organizations in the world. Even if Valieva's tale of woe hadn't unfolded as it did, the fact that this year's games were awarded to Beijing is, for all sorts of reasons, evidence of how avaricious the IOC is.

(As Harry Shearer reminds us, the Olympics are a movement, and we need one--every day!)

As bad as the IOC is, it has at least one other rival for unscrupulousness in the sports world:  the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI). (I'd also put FIFA in the same league, if you will.)  The travesty of Lance Armstrong's carrer is, alone, evidence of that.  UCI officials seem to react to doping in one of two ways:  They look the other way until they can't (that's how they acted in the L.A. farce) or they talk about how they're going to do whatever they keep riders from using banned substances and severely discipline those who did, while making some deal or another that sends the exact opposite message.

Red Bull, to my knowledge, isn't banned by any major sports organization.  I've never drunk it myself, but from what I've heard, it gives one of the quickest, most intense, legal bursts of energy.  That is probably the reason why it's so often associated, whether through sponsorship or in other ways, with high-intensity sporting events.

Evie Richards at the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup in Alberstadt, 2021

Such was the case with the Mountain Bike World Cup, the sport's premier UCI event.  Sponsors are selected by the UCI, as they are at other events under the organization's umbrella.  Red Bull is sponsoring this year's edition, as it's sponsored the past ten.  I can't help but to see some UCI official winking while making the deal.

Well, this will be the last time for Red Bull.  For next year's event,  Discovery Sports will be the sponsor.  They're part of the Discovery broadcast network, which broadcasts a wide variety of sporting events.  I don't fault their work, but, given UCI's history, it's hard not to think that the money involved swayed them--and will give the UCI even less incentive than it (or the IOC or FIFA) to act on its stated commitment to fight doping and other forms of corruption in the sporting events they sanction.

Why We Need Desmond Tutu

Two weeks ago, I invoked the Howard Cosell Rule to interrupt this blog with something not related to cycling, but too important to ignore.  I'm going to use it again.  

Desmond Tutu died yesterday.  I simply have to mention him because I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that he was the most important, and admirable, people to inhabit this planet during the past century. Martin Luther King Jr. has, rightly, a US holiday in his honor.  I think Tutu deserves that, not only in his home country of South Africa, but in the world.*

You see, he, like Nelson Mandela, was not only a leader in the struggle for equality in his own country, which alone would be a reason to name a world peace organization after him.  He not only fought, successfully, to end the country's apartheid system; he did something few countries do after the most traumatic and shameful parts of their history:  He, in essence, put apartheid, and the history of colonialism that led to it, under a magnifying glass.  He wasn't looking to punish or prosecute: something for which he was criticized. Rather, I believe he was looking to name the people and problems.  He seemed to understand that most of the world would forget, for example, that Adolf Eichmann was executed and that it's far more important to understand, not only what he did, but what motivated and enabled  him.

While the jury is out, if you will, about the results of those efforts, they are, I believe, more honest and realistic--and included people from a greater variety of experiences--than the halting and limited efforts the United States has made about its history of slavery and the unfair laws--and other forms of subservience and worse, not only for African Americans, but for other groups of people. I think the efforts of Tutu were also more intellectually honest than whatever examinations some European countries have made of their histories as colonizers and their roles in the Holocaust and other tragedies.  And the Truth and Reconciliation committee, I think, has done more to examine its country's power structures than many countries that are nominally democracies have done about their sometimes all-too-recent pasts of totalitarinism and repression.

If those things sound like intellectual exercises, I think that Tutu's efforts are the main reason why, with all of its problems (including corruption), South Africa has made progress toward becoming a democracy in the truest sense of the world as countries like the one of my birth, and where I've spent most of my life, are going in the opposite direction.  (To be fair, as much as I abhor Donald Trump, I will say that this country's slide toward authoritarianism, and even facism, didn't begin with him.)

If power corrupts and every government (and large institutional structure) has at least some degree of corruption, the only way to hold it in check, if only to some degree, is in every person having an equal stake, and voice.  One sign of corruption and authoritarianism (or a slide toward it) is a militarized police force that cites, arrests or brutalizes cyclists for spurious or non-existent charges or lets off drivers (and motor- bike and -scooter operators) scot-free when they endanger, maim or kill cyclists and pedestrians. 

*--So does Nelson Mandela.

 

Does The Bike Business Understand Economics?

 When I was an undergraduate, I knew a few business majors.  Some started off that way; others swtiched from fields ranging from biology to fine art because, well, they saw the starting salaries for folks with business degrees.  One thing I couldn't help but to notice was that the "B" majors--at least the ones I knew--hated Economics, which was a required course.  

I could understand:  As bad as I was at math, I was worse at economics.  Math by its nature is abstract, which is part of the reason I wished I could understand it better.  On the other hand, it seemed that economics was abstract because, well, it could be, if that was how economists wanted it.  Perhaps the business majors felt the same way.

After seeing those fellow students, it really came as no surprise, some years later, when some pundit--I forget whom--declared, "Most business people don't know a damned thing about economics, and most economists don't have a clue about business."  The first part of that statement, I think, could apply to six of the seven US Presidents who were businessmen before they ran for office.  (The exception, Harry Truman, failed at business but is generally regarded as a successful President, his decision to drop atom bombs on Japan notwithstanding.)  They showed the world that the United States (or any other nation, for that matter) can't be run as a business in part because it's an economy.  

One of those Presidents is, of course, Donald Trump. His tax cuts benefited people who didn't need them, and some would argue that they would have led to economic woes even if COVID-19 hadn't brought so much enterprise to a standstill.  

Another of Trump's economic policies that probably exacerbated the problems wrought by the pandemic were the tariffs he imposed.  He, like Herbert Hoover (one of the other businessmen who occupied the White House) passed them in the belief that making foreign goods more expensive would lead to more production in the US and "bring back American jobs."  That didn't happen in either case. Nearly every economist and historian now says that the import taxes passed under Hoover’s watch (known as the Smoot-Harley Tariffs) helped to tip the stock market crash of 1929 into a full-blown depression just as, I believe, Trump's tariffs will be see as an accelerant of the current economic crisis.

What Trump didn't seem to understand is that no matter what economic theories you follow, simply making steel from China or India more expensive isn't going to cause new mills to appear, or for shuttered plants to re-open or abandoned or demolished factories to be re-built in Pittsburgh or Youngstown or Gary or Lackawana--or anywhere else in this country.  Or, to put it in more technical terms, cutting off foreign supply does not lead to an increase in domestic capacity.

Photo by An Rong Xu, for the New York Times

I mention all of this because two leaders of the bike industry are showing that they are as ignorant of economics as Trump or Hoover.  At the Taipei Cycle Online Expo, Bob Margevicius said, "There's a gold mine today in the bike industry, but you have to invest." Component makers, according to Specialized Bicycles' Executive Vice-President, are "very reluctant to invest in additional capacity."

His belief was echoed by Ton Anbeek, the CEO of Accell Group, which owns, among other brands, Batavus, Koga, Lapierre and Raleigh.  Like Margevicius, he blamed the current shortage of bikes, parts and accessories on manufacturers' unwillingness to make more of them.  "To meet the growing demand in the coming years, we need component suppliers to invest in extra capacity to produce more critical components and parts," he urged.

While both of them are right, at least in one sense--that more products won't be available if more of them aren't made--they are missing a point:  Simply investing money isn't going to lead to more manufacturing capacity overnight, especially if new facilities need to be built.  Their exhortations will no more bring more bikes, helmets, tires or locks to bike shops or online retailers than Trump's tariffs will cause steel to be made in the US.  That might be the extent of my understanding of economics, but according to the old pundit, it's still more than what some businessmen seem to know!

It's Come Here, It's Come To This

Every country I have visited, with the possible exception of Canada, has experienced a revolution, uprising, coup d'etat or other violent attempt to unseat a sitting government or prevent a new government from seating itself.  In some of those countries, like Cambodia and Laos, people are still living with the aftermath--which is sometimes quite visible--of those uphevals.  And, for a time, I lived in a country that had one of the most famous coups of all:  The first time I walked around the Place de la Concorde in Paris, I tried to imagine it covered in blood spilled from the guillotines set up where the famous obelisks stand.

Now, I have participated in a few demonstrations in my time.  We were agitating for change that, we felt, wasn't coming from elected leaders or institutions.  But I never, at any time, threw my lot in with any person or group who tried to violently overthrow a duly-elected government or inflict harm on any person.  I am, I guess, a product of a country where things haven't been done that way.

Until yesterday, that is.  Most people, including the actual and self-appointed pundits in the media, believe that the mobs who stormed the Capitol won't succeed in their efforts to keep the results of the election from being ratified and President-elect Joe Biden from being inaugurated.  My guess is that they're right, but I don't think we should see such an outcome as guaranteed.  

The thing is, while their actions may have been an inevitable outcome of what President Trump and his supporters have done--and, worse, condoned--they weren't normal, at least in one sense.  Most other uprisings and revolutions are a result of deprivation:  as one of Bob Marley's reminds us in Them Belly Full , "A hungry mob is an angry mob."  More precisely, the violence is a reaction to someone in power saying, whether with their words or actions, "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche."

One thing that makes yesterday's riot--and, more accurately, rioters--different is that they're not revolting against a government that's in power.  They are trying to prevent a newly-elected government from taking power.  At least, that's their ostensible purpose. But their real anger rages against what they perceive to be the real power:  a left-liberal conspiracy in the media, academic world, governments and the world economy (globalism).  And they see, however inaccurately, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as its proxies.

Photo by Erin Schaff, from The New York Times blog

The other difference between them and earlier revolutionaries is that they're not hungry, at least not in the physical sense.  At least, my guess is that most of them aren't:  The really hungry people are too overworked or too beaten down to do what yesterday's protesters did.  Rather, they are resentful (which, it can be argued, is a kind of spiritual starvation) of people who are blacker, browner, gayer or in any other way different--and therefore, in their eyes, the beneficiaries of unfairly acquired privilege.  The guy won't wear a mask believes that his job is in jeopardy because of a woman in a hijab and that his safety is in danger from another woman who wrapped herself and her children in a shawl after a coyote left them in the desert night.  

The assault in the Capitol is a developing story and I realize that by the time you read this, new details will have emerged and some parts of this post might be out of date.  But I felt the need to say something about it because my cycling journeys have taken me to places that experienced what I never thought--until recently--would happen here in the US.  

To Truly Honor Them

We call today Veterans' Day.  When I was growing up, many people still referred to it as Armistice Day.  In other countries, it's called Remembrance Day.  

That last name would be attached to this day if I were President.  Too often, at least here in the US, anything associated with veterans is, too often, used to glorify war and military power rather than to honor the sacrifices of those who served.  

As Danny Sjursen has written, "The best way America can honor its veterans and fallen soldiers is to create fewer of them."  He would know:  Tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan left the West Point alumnus with PTSD severe enough that the Army retired him early, with the rank of Major.

I mention that because I reckon that PTSD is even more common among veterans than any of us realize. While nobody knows how to "cure" it, there are ways to cope.  One of them is, of course, bicycling.  A number of organizations offer free bikes, whether of the conventional types or modified machines, to veterans. They also sponsor rides and other cycling-related events as part of their recreational and therapeutic programs for veterans.

There is, however, an organization in Chamblee, Georgia, devoted exclusively to mountain biking for veterans.  Appropriately enough, it's called MTB Vets.

 

Vets need more such organizations and programs and, to paraphrase Major Sjursen, less platitudinous praise or trite thanks.      

The Purr-fect Endorsement

 You know I would never, ever use this blog to endorse a political candidates.  Really!  I have, however, no compunction about showing cats, whether Marlee or another, whether or not they're related to cycling.

So please don't read anything into my posting this tweet:

We’ve got to come together to defeat Donald Trump –– Democrats, Independents, Republicans, and yes, even Demo-cats. pic.twitter.com/LtsTWy7MmI

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) October 17, 2020

I've already voted.  I  won't tell you who I voted for because I don't endorse candidates. Really, really, I don't! (Try not to notice my nose growing longer.)

All I'll tell you is that the major candidate I didn't vote for probably doesn't like cats--or any other animal he can't or won't eat.

What Day Is This?

Today is the holiday commonly celebrated as "Columbus Day."  Recently, it's also come to be known as "Indigenous Peoples' Day."

As someone of mostly Italian-American heritage, I am conflicted.  I mean, for years I like many others of my background, thought of this day as "our" day, when we celebrated our pride in our heritage. There are parades, parties and lots of eating and drinking.  

I enjoyed those things, even though I knew Columbus didn't "discover" America (people were already living here) and doubted that he was the first person to arrive here after crossing the Atlantic.  Plus, he didn't even get here on purpose.  

Our culture has turned out Michelangelo, Galileo, Leonardo da Vinci, Dante, Verdi, Sophia Loren and Tullio Campagnolo--and we celebrate a guy who got lost?  That never made any sense to me.

Now, calling this "Indigenous Peoples' Day," I can understand. Of course, I have no business being any part of a celebration, as I have no Native American blood in me.  I do, however, have respect and empathy for the way they've endured, so maybe that's something to celebrate.

Those of us who have Italian heritage just need to get another holiday!

So...What will I do today?  Well, after doing some work and taking a ride (if the downpours we're experiencing taper off), I'm going to make--spaghetti or spaghetti squash?  I guess I could make both! 

Look At What Landed On My Bike

Two weeks ago, we may have witnessed the absolute low point of American political history.

After that debacle involving the president who wants to hold onto power even more than he wants to win the election and the fellow who's trying to replace him, the event involving Mike Pence and Kamala Harris seemed like an Oxford-style intellectual exchange by comparison.  Although they were more civilized, and Harris displayed more intelligence than the other candidates combined, I wouldn't call either event a debate.

I mean, what people might remember about it is the fly that landed on Mike Pence's head--and stayed for two minutes.

I couldn't help but to think about the insects that have landed on me while I was cycling--usually, when I stopped for a red light or some other reason.  Those bugs have included flies, beetles, mosquitoes and ladybugs.

Of course I don't mind the ladybugs.  I wonder, though, whether they land on me because I'm appealing or they have to go somewhere and figure I'm a free ride, for at least part of the trip.

None of those bugs will ever have have the celebrity of the fly that landed on Mike Pence's head.

Will They Demand To See Our Papers?

 "Rob in VA," who's commented on some of my posts, notes increased aggression from drivers.

A couple of days ago, I posited that some of that aggression--and the increased hostility we, and peaceful protesters, are experiencing -- has at least something to do with the President's implicit wink and nod to haters.

If you think I'm being paranoid, check out what happened to someone who tried to ride through Portland's Delta Park:

Earlier in Delta Park, some yelled ‘get him’ to a bicyclist passing through and then pursued and stopped and harassed him - before letting him pass thru pic.twitter.com/I5KUReLQ0R

— Maxine Bernstein (@maxoregonian) September 26, 2020

 

Those folks had no authority to do what they did. Later that day, though, some people with authority--namely, Portland Police Bureau officers--shoved a cyclist off his bike and onto the ground for no apparent reason.

The Morning After: The Dream

Today is the anniversary of Martin Luther King's Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech.

It's a sad irony (How many times have I used this phrase in the past three years?) that it comes the day after what seemed like a bad drug trip that lasted four nights.  I'm talking about the Republican National Convention, which featured more gaslighting than Angela Lansbury's first film.* Dreaming--more precisely, exhorting your audience to envision and follow your dream--is an invitation to a journey toward a better place.  What happened at the convention is the exact opposite:  Speakers imputed sinister motives, words and actions to their enemies and hellish conditions to places that had been doing well (or, at least, improving) until the COVID-19 epidemic.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised at the tone of the convention, given that Trump has not only vowed not to ride a bike, but has jeered cyclists.  On the other hand, MLK was known to take a spin.  And, like Einstein, he looked so happy in the saddle!

*--Like many people, I thought Gaslight was a Hitchcock film until I saw it.  George Cukor, in fact, directed it.

Helmets Off

For a long time, I resisted wearing a helmet.  Then again, when I was becoming a serious cyclist, helmet-wearing hadn't become the norm.  

These days, if I leave my apartment with my bike and without my helmet, I quickly realize that something is off.  I feel as if I were in one of those dreams where I'm naked and everyone else is clothed.  

Just as what you wear can be a life-and-death matter (especially in extreme weather), protecting your head can protect a lot of other things.  The doctor at the hospital told me as much:  As much of a mess as I was after my recent accident, I at least don't seem to have brain or spine injuries.

I have had two occasions when, if wearing a helmet didn't save my life, it at least spared me worse injuries.  The first time, a truck driver flung his door open into my side, sending me on the one and only somersault I've ever done on a bicycle.  I came out of it with a sprained wrist.  A few years later, I rode up the wrong side of a BMX mound and did an unintentional "flip."  My helmet literally broke in two, but I--and my bike--remained intact.

After such experiences, you might (understandably) expect me to wonder what members of the Tacoma city council were thinking.

Last week, they voted for an ordinance that, among other things, repeals the city's law--on the books since 1994--requiring for helmets for cyclists. 

Lisa Kaster, a senior planner and active transportation planner for the city, cited "outdated, inconsistent code language" that "doesn't align with best practices or city and state policy" as a motive for the the Council's action.  

As in many other cities, bicycling has become a bona fide means of transportation as well as recreation in Tacoma.  Also, other forms of non-motorized mobility, such as scooters and skates, have gained popularity.  It seems that Council members faced the same dilemma that vexes their counterparts in other cities:  How can a law be written to be fair and relevant to current practices yet flexible enough to accommodate change?

Interestingly, Washington--like most other US states--requires helmets for motorcycle riders.

While I encourage people to wear helmets, I am still not certain that such a practice should be mandated.  At least, I don't think requiring helmets will prevent all, or even most, serious head injuries, not to mention other maladies.  Wearing a helmet while engaging in unsafe practices, such as wearing headphones or riding against traffic will not protect the helmet's wearer--or anyone else.

My Age

Je suis le soleil.

I am the law.

Believe it or not, Donald Trump didn't utter the first of the above declarations, mainly because he doesn't speak French. (He barely speaks English.)  But if he could--or if he had any flair for figurative language--he would. "I am the sun" would sum up the way he sees himself.

He probably wishes he could make the second statement.  Sometimes I think he hired Rudy Giulani for the express purpose of finding a loophole in the Constitution that would allow him to appropriate such power unto himself.

Now I am going to say something just as audacious and ridiculous--and something El Cheeto Grande has fever-dreams about saying:  I am this country.

How is that?, you ask.  Well, today is Independence Day here in the US. Or, as some people like to say, it's this nation's birthday.

It's also my birthday.  And I am identifying myself with this American nation because, for the first time, I feel as old.

My wounds are healing and I have to go for another MRI in a week.  Hopefully, it won't tell me I'm not as well as I feel because, well, I'm used to feeling better than I feel now.

Fourth of July Bike Ride, 1934

I might get on my bike today.  If it doesn't leave me in more pain--and if I don't crash--I'm sure I'll feel younger, or at least better.

If only a "cure" for this country, or this world, were so simple!

I'm sorry for whining.

Cycling In A Time Of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor And Others

I suppose that most of us can say we are privileged in some ways but not in others.

If you are reading this blog, you have the privilege of my unparalleled adventures, timeless insights and deathless prose.  All right, I'm kidding.  The privilege you have, though, is the time for, and choice of spending time with me.  You could be doing other things, after all.

On the other hand, even if you love my blog more than anything else in the world, you probably have other things tugging at your sleeve, so to speak.  In short, you don't have all day to read this.  

Also, I suspect that most of you who are reading this are cyclists by choice.  That is a privilege, certainly.  If you are cycling because you have no other choice but your unaided feet, I feel extremely honored by your presence.

I have long had awareness of who has privilege and choice, and to what degree.  But I may not have ever been so cognizant of my own privilege as I was the day took a bike trip into the Cambodian countryside with You Sert, who lives in that milieu.  During that ride, I spent some time with a farmer who is a traditional healer and played with her children, who didn't speak any language I speak but who understood, perhaps better than I ever will, the ways we communicate through motion, through touch and toward the heart.  Also, I went with You Sert to a market, where we picked up the ingredients for a lunch we shared with a family.  And, before the end of that ride, a woman showed me how she weaves her grass roof and led me through weaving a row of it.  (I hope she stayed dry through the rainy season!)

I mention that day because, as rewarding as it was (I've stayed in touch with You Sert as well as other people I met there), at the end of it, I returned to my room in the inn which, although it wasn't the Ritz, was nonetheless palatial--with its air conditioning and cable channels beamed in from France, England and Australia--compared to the conditions I only glimpsed.

That day, as it turned out, was emblematic of my understanding of  being black, or anyone not white, in America.  While riding my bike, I have been stopped and frisked for no discernible reason--other than, perhaps, my gender identity or the fact that I am cycling in a car-centric culture.  One incident in particular was scary:  One of the officers who stopped me was clearly afflicted with "'roid rage."  Still, even then--on a hot day early in my gender transition, when I was riding home from work in the skirt and blouse I wore on the job--I felt at least somewhat certain that I would soon be home and riding my bike the next day.  

I didn't think, then, that I would meet the same fate as George Floyd.  Or Breonna Taylor.  Or Sandra Bland.  Or Tamir Rice.  Or Eric Garner.  Or Freddie Gray.  Or Amadou Diallo.  I didn't even expect that I would be stopped, again, by some other police officer for "riding while trans" or whatever they call it in legal lexicon or cop argot.  And, so far, I haven't.

Unfortunately, though, I have met a few riders who were stopped for no apparent reason other than "cycling while Black" or Hispanic or fill-in-the-blank.  And even if they managed not to get summonsed, or worse, I could understand if they felt even more anxiety than I did about having to deal with the police.  After all, the only people who have a greater chance of being murdered, by police officers or anyone else, than transgenders are African-Americans, particularly the young.

And, let's face it, as a white woman, I can be seen, at least by some, as an educated creative person and educator who likes to ride her bike.  It seems that my professional pursuits and passions--or even being an honest, law-abiding person trying to make a living and help others--are enough to for folks like Ms. Bland to escape whatever biases accrue to them on account of the color of their skin.

In short, even as a member of one "minority", going for a bike ride or a walk is something I can do, on most days, without thinking.  That is a privilege Ms. Bland, George Floyd and others did not have.  I try not to forget that.