Anti-Car Terrorists?

It doesn’t matter whether they’re called globalist or nationalist, libertarian or socialists:  It seems that the de facto and de jure leaders of the world’s major economy-states perceive any challenge to the fossil-nuclear fuel/internal combustion engine hegemony as an existential threat.

Case in point: The UK Counter-Terrorism Police have distributed a pamphlet to schools and hospitals that is filled with symbols of which public sector employees should be wary.  Some are the “usual suspects,” like the swastika and emblems of jihadi and anarchist groups.  Among them is this:





Yes, Critical Mass is lumped with groups that commit murder.  The British authorities believe that some CM events are “anti-car.” To be fair, England is not the only country where there’s such a fear of a group that, at its worst (or best, depending on your point of view, stops traffic.

Bike Thieves Meet The Id

Alert:  I will talk politics and religion in this post.

Donald Trump may well be the first American president to rule entirely by his id.  

That's the part of our psyche that reacts to immediate needs and impulses.  Much of our education and acculturation is, essentially, training in not living by our ids.  Of course, your teachers, parents and other authority figures don't tell you that (unless, perhaps, they're psychologists or psychiatirists).  In my milieu, I don't think anyone had even heard of that two-letter term, just as they never used words like milieu.  I didn't hear such words until I went to college.

Because of such training, most of us will only go so far in response to being wronged.  I don't think any previous president would have assassinated the military leader of another country because, well, the leaders of their country did things we didn't like.  (And he said he was doing it to prevent a war:  Even Rudy Giuliani would have a hard time being more Orwellian!)  Likewise, most sexual abuse victims won't do what a 19-year-old in France did to the priest who sexually abused him and his father:  He rammed a crucifix down the prelate's throat.

I have retaliated with physical violence once in my life, when someone tried to sexually assault me.  I'll admit I've thought about reacting with force, but didn't, on more than a few occasions.  And I have made threatening gestures against potential aggressors--including a would-be bike thief I scared away.

I'll admit that at the moment I confronted the perp, I thought about doing what a couple in Visalia, California did. Corey Curnutt and Savannah Grillot baited would-be bike thieves with a bike planted in their front yard.  When someone tried to steal it, they rushed out and beat, with baseball bats, the person who tried to take it.

According to police, they did this four times between July and November of the past year.  I'm guessing that the vigilante couple would have been caught eventually, but they probably hastened their arrests by posting videos of their deeds on YouTube.

Now I'll confess that if I were on a jury, I really wouldn't want to vote to convict Curnutt or Grillot--or the young man in France.  But one reason why we're taught not to live by our ids is that part of our psyche is incapable of restraint.  Plus, almost every ethical and moral system of which I'm aware condemns retaliatory violence.  

All right, I'll end with one more confession:  I cheered when Thelma shot Harlan.  Then I felt ashamed of myself--just a little.  At least I knew "Don't try this at home."  

The Votes Are Here

Today I cycled into Manhattan for an appointment for an otolaryngologist.  It wasn't far--about 7 or 8 kilometers--and I rode even with the threat of snow squalls because I knew I could pedal there faster than the trains or buses (or a cab--or Uber, even!) could take me.

The office was located  Rutherford Place, just across from Mount Sinai Hospital.  The neighborhood, nestled between Irving Place and the East Village, is a real oddity in today's Manhattan:  Most of the Victorian, Greek Revival and Beaux Arts tenements and townhouses are still standing and the environs aren't really gentrifying because, well, they never fell into decrepitude.  

Some of those buildings, like others throughout the city, have names that are rarely, if ever, used, today.  Some of the names make sense, like those of people who are famous or simply have a connection to the building or neighborhood.  But there are some names are just confounding:

The US Senate? On Second Avenue between 14th and 15th Streets?

I thought of the tourists and newly-arrived expats from one place and another who walked by.  Did any of them wonder whether they'd gotten off at the wrong city?   

As I was about to write this, I looked for some information about the building.  Turns out, that building was built along with another named for W.M. Evarts, a well-respected Senator who lived in the neighborhood.  Before he became a Senator, he served as Rutherford B. Hayes' Secretary of State and Andrew Johnson's Attorney General.  That meant he had the privilege of representing Johnson during his impeachment trial in 1868.  That must have been interesting, to say the least!

So I guess the name makes sense.  Even if I didn't learn about the history of the building, I suppose the name could have been justified in one other way:  Early in the nation's history, New York City was its capital, if only for a year.

Given the demographics of the neighborhood and city,  residents of the building are more likely than members of the legislative body to vote for impeaching the current president. 

The Last Race?

Sometimes, it seems, people in other countries know the US political system and races even better than Americans known them. So it was not a surprise when, during a recent phone conversation, a friend in France asked for my opinions about the candidates for the Democratic party presidential nomination.

For now, I said, I am leaning toward Elizabeth Warren, though I also like Pete Buttigieg.  We are a year away from the election, so more than a few things could change my mind.  

Here's one:  If some candidate pledged to fund bicycling in any shape or form in the US, that might be enough to get my vote.

Of course, if it's so difficult for candidates to commit to establishing a healthcare system that doesn't leave people in poverty, or worse, when they have major medical problems, I don't think those same candidates are going to prioritize two-wheeled transportation, let alone a bike race.

That is, in essence, one reason why the Amgen Tour of California has been put "on hiatus," and why The Philly Cycling Classic, U.S. Pro Challenge, Tour de 'Toona and other major American races disappeared in recent years.  No less than Jonathan Vaughters, the current EF Education First team manager--and one-time US sprint champion--says as much.  "Municipalities or government entities are not going to sponsor cycling.  Our political system doesn't allow for that."  A result, he says, that we are not going to have " big-money, massive state-backed races like this new race in Saudi Arabia or the UAE Tour."  The money, he says, has to come from private sources.

The Amgen Tour of California was the last remaining UCI World Tour race in the US. During its 14-year history, it brought some of the world's most talented riders to these shores.  In last year's Tour, Travis McCabe nearly out-sprinted Peter Sagan, regarded as one of the world's best in that discipline.  The loss of such a race in America could be a particular blow to the cycling scene in the US because it is "aspirational," according to Adam Myerson, president of Cycle-Smart coaching services.  "We need people to watch" races like the AMTOC, he explained, "and want to be racers because of it."  Of course, they can watch footage (although it is sometimes grainy) of events taking place in Europe and elsewhere, but nothing motivates young people like seeing a hometown hero on home turf.

Kristin Klein, president of ATOC and vice president of AEG Sports (the events company behind ATOC), says that AEG is "trying to determine if there is a business model that will allow us to successfully re-launch the race in 2021." Some observers believe that while the loss of the Tour is a blow to European-style racing in the US, it might force ride organizers to reassess the organizational structure of cycling events to determine what works, and what doesn't.

While European-style racing has struggled in the US, other events, like Gran Fondos and gravel racing, have grown in popularity.  Myerson and others envision a structure similar to that of the New York Marathon:  An elite contingent of 100 or so riders would challenge for prizes and championships, followed by thousands of other participants who have helped to finance it with their entrance fees.

In other words, the US cycling scene could be remade into something different, but no less interesting, than its counterparts overseas.  Or one of the candidates could pledge some money for cycling events...

Balance On The Road To Delphi

Yesterday, I took my first trip outside Athens, in the company of an unemployed historian.

Actually, Kostas is employed in three different jobs.  He was performing one of when he drove a passenger van designed to carry a few more people but which--luckily for me--had to transport only me and him on the 2 1/2 drive to Delphi.

His employment situation is like that of too many young Greek (and American) university graduates.  Even though he didn't incur debt for his education, Greek salaries are so low (at least in comparison with other European countries and the US) and taxes so high that he has to work nearly non-stop.  That, in itself, is troubling. So is something else he told me:  "In Delphi, I can't guide you."  As he explained, he is not part of the guild of licensed tourguides.

Still, our conversation en route and on the way back to Athens was interesting.  When you talk to him, you start to see that modern Greek life, even among the uneducated, is a reflection of the philosophies of espoused so long ago.  "They all stressed balance," he explained.  "The body, mind and spirit, all should be in balance," he said.  "So should all areas of life--work, family and everything else."  The fact that so much of the media stresses materialistic values and the body--or, at least, a particular image of it--is why the cause of so many of our problems.

While none of the philosophers focused on the body, "it all starts with the body," he explained.  That made perfect sense when I saw this:

The stadium, for the Pythian games, is at the very top of the Delphi site.  Below it is the theatre, which in turn is behind the Temple of Apollo, where consultations with the oracle took place.  While the stadium is at a higher location, the Temple, the most sacred structure, is right at the center of Delphi, thus "balancing" different aspects of human life. 

and under that, various stages, temples and treasuries.  Near the base is the "navel" of the world.  That stone was left exactly where archaeologists found it. I suppose leaving the stone there is also a kind of balance, too:  After all, how do we define what is the "center" of our planet?  The core?  The point where zero degrees longitude (the location of which is pretty arbitrary, when you come right down to it) meets zero degrees latitude (the Equator)?  Those archaeologists, I believe, were balancing what they knew as researchers and scientists with portraying what ancient people knew about the world in which they lived. 

On our way back to Athens, we stopped in Arachova , which looks like an Alpine ski village.  Actually, it is, except that it, of course, isn't in the Alps.  I admitted to Kostas that until we saw , I never would have used "Greece" or "Greek" and "ski" in the same sentence.  Then again, I am neither Greek (as far as I know, anyway) nor a skier, so I wouldn't have known how well-known the place is among skiers--and Greeks.  

Now there's a balance:  skiing, on the slopes around Mount Parnassus.  On the other hand, I have to wonder how many folks are thinking "Nothing in excess!" as they're barreling down the slope. 

They Got It Back--Wrecked

In another era--or was it another life?--I wrote for small-town and community newspapers.  In that role, I looked at police reports and blotters. It's a vice in which I still indulge, occasionally.

Sometimes those reports make me laugh.  How else could I react upon reading something like "a caller reported a man yelling and swearing on Street X"?  

On the other hand, I mutter "What fools!" when I read some items, like the one about the woman who left her wallet in a shopping cart.  (It didn't stay there for long.) Or the one about the woman who reported that checks and deposit slips were stolen from her car.  

Then again, I'm from New York, where one of the first things you learn is not to leave anything in your car, or cart!

Perhaps my Big Apple-induced jadedness extends even further than I thought.  In the Wisconsin Rapids Tribune, the police blotter reported that a caller complained about "kids on bicycles who kept on going into dumpsters." (Someone called the cops for that?)  But my favorite item is this:  "A Wisconsin Rapids man reported someone stole his child's bicycle...and then brought it back destroyed."

Hmm...Taking something from someone and giving it back destroyed.  For a moment, I thought, "That's what my country did to Iraq." 

(Also check this out.)

 

Bike Infrastructure: A Path Out Of Poverty And Pollution

I share at least one attitude with poor black and brown residents of New York, my hometown:  a dislike of the bike lanes.

Our reasons, though, are very different.  My criticisms of those ribbons of asphalt and concrete are that too many of them are poorly conceived, designed or constructed.  The result is that such paths start or end without warning, aren't really useful as transportation or recreational cycling conduits or put us in more danger than if we were to ride our bikes on nearby streets.

On the other hand, members of so-called minority groups see bike lanes as "invasion" routes, if you will, for young, white, well-educated people who will price them out of their neighborhoods.  I can understand their fears:  When you live in New York, you are never truly economically secure, so you always wonder whether and when you'll have to move. (Those Russian and Chinese and Saudi billionaires with their super-luxe suites don't actually live here; when Mike Bloomberg famously called this town "the world's second home," I think he really meant the world's pied a terre.)  Also, as I have pointed out in other posts, cycling is still a largely Caucasian activity, or is at least perceived as such.  

My experiences and observations have made, for me, a report from the United Nations Environment Programme's "Share the Road" report all the more poignant, and ironic.  In one of its more pithy passages, it pronounces, "No one should die walking or cycling to work or school. The price paid for mobility is too high, especially because proven, low-cost and achievable solutions exist."  Among those solutions are bike lanes and infrastructure that, in encouraging people to pedal to their workplaces and classrooms, will not only provide cheap, sustainable mobility, but also help to bring about greater social and economic opportunities as well as better health outcomes.

Tanzanian girls ride to school on bikes provided by One Girl, One Bike, a non-governmental initiative.

All of this is especially true for women and girls in developing countries.  Far more women are the main or sole providers for their families than most people realize.  I think that in the Western world, we think of such domestic arrangements as a result of marriages breaking up or the father disappearing from the scene for other reasons.  Such things happen in other parts of the world, but in rural areas of Africa, Asia and South America, for example, a father might have been killed in a war or some other kind of clash.  As for girls, very often they don't go to school because a family's limited resources are concentrated on the boys--or because it's not safe for girls to walk by themselves, or even in the company of other girls.

Now, of course, bike lanes in Cambodia or Cameroon are not a panacea that will resolve income and gender inequality, any more than such lanes by themselves will make the air of Allahabad, India as clean as that of Halifax, Nova Scotia.  But bike infrastructure, as the UN report points out, can help in narrowing some of the economic as well as environmental and health disparities between rich and poor countries, and rich and poor areas within countries.  

Of course, it might be difficult to convince folks of such things in non-hipsterized Brooklyn or Bronx neighborhoods.  Really, I can't blame them for fearing that, along with tourists on Citibikes and young white people on Linuses, those green lanes will bring in cafes where those interlopers will refuel themselves on $25 slices of avocado toast topped with kimchi and truffle shavings glazed with coriander honey and wash them down with $8 cups of coffee made from beans fertilized by yaks and infused with grass-fed butter and coconut oil.

(About the avocado toast:  I can't say for sure that anyone actually makes the combination I described, but it wouldn't surprise me if somebody does.  On the other hand, the coffee concoction is indeed mixed in more than a few places.  I tried it once.  It tasted like an oil slick from the Gowanus Canal.  Or maybe I just couldn't get past the oleaginous texture.) 

Be Safe. Don't Become A Memory Just Yet!

Today is Memorial Day.  

In spite of our current President, I still hope that, one day, people will be able to look at military installations and armaments in much the same way they look at Stonehenge:  as monuments to practices abandoned.  That, to me, is the only way the millions of combat-related deaths and mutilations will have any meaning.  In other words, those wasted lives and bodies will matter if they teach us that we don't have to squander our talent and treasure.

Now, I hope none of this sounds so lugubrious that you won't go for a bike ride.  If you do, be safe.  I don't want this day to be a memorial for you, before your time!

Who Needs A Wall? A Fence Will Do The Job.

In other posts, I've pointed out that bike lanes and other bicycle-related infrastructure are not always received warmly by low-income or working-class people, or by people of color.

Bike lanes are often seen as paths to gentrification.  While the income level and hue of a neighborhood may well change after one of those green ribbons winds down a street, we cannot, as at least one of your teachers has said, confuse coincidence with causation. (The same association is often made between art and the ways neighborhoods change:  More than one commentator has referred to artists as the canaries in the coal mine.)  Still, I can understand why someone who's just getting by would feel resentment when he or she sees a cyclist who seems to be having fun--even if said cyclist is riding to work.

Also, that cyclist is, as likely as not, to be white.  Or, if he or she is not, he or she is, as often as not, an educated professional, and young.  That last fact is even more important than one might realize:  Gentrification often pushes out people who have been living in a neighborhood for decades--in some cases, their entire lives--and really have nowhere else to go.  

One more thing:  Nearly all planners and designers involved in building bike infrastructure are like the folks spinning down those lanes:  white, with at least one university degree and from at least the middle class, if not a higher rung on the socio-economic ladder.  Urban and transportation planning, it seems, are a bit like architecture:  a difficult profession to enter if you're not already connected, in some way, to the people who are already in it.  And, of course, it takes financial and other resources to, not only get the education required for such work, but to endure long periods at jobs that don't pay well.  That is why, for example, most of the students in the college in which I teach are preparing to become nurses, dental hygenists and the like, if they're not studying business. 

But today, in taking a slightly different route to work, I found yet another reason why poor, working-class and nonwhite people might fear and hate the arrival of a bike lane in their neighborhood.

As you might have guessed, those tall brick buildings to the left of the bike lane are projects (or what the British call "council flats").  Guess who lives in them?  

If you were one of them, how welcome would you feel on that bike lane?

Oh, and that ferry:  It's nice.  But, even with the location of that dock, one sees hardly a dark face on board.  

By the way, just beyond the end of the lane, a new development is going up. If nothing else, it just might make the bike lane seem welcoming, by comparison anyway, to the folks in the projects. 

When The Trees Are Barest

It is always darkest just before the day dawneth.

We've all heard some version of that aphorism.  It's often attributed to the 17th Century historian and theologian Thomas Fuller, though he never claimed to be the source.  I've heard that it actually comes from Irish or Scottish folk wisdom--depending, of course, on whether you talk to an Irish or Scottish person!

In any event, there is, I believe, a parallel:  The trees are barest just before spring.

And, perhaps, the snow seems iciest when it's about to melt away.

Whatever the reality, a memorial to those who died in war is always bleak, and any attempts to soften the reality that the commemorated folks are dead, and usually for no good reason, only makes it more so.

But it was still a lovely day, and ride the other day.  The roads were clear, but, seemingly on cue, snow banked the sides of the roads as soon as I crossed the state line.

For Once, I Hope The Results Are Fixed

Given my experience working for Mr. Trump, I fear that if he loses the election in 2020, that there will never be a peaceful transition of power.

Michael Cohen echoed something I've thought for some time.  But even if he hadn't made that the remark at the end of his testimony yesterday, the talking heads and political bloggers would have been talking about who might run against the incumbent, and whether Cohen's testimony makes it more likely that Trump will indeed lose to one of them.

So many people have already "tossed their hats into the ring" for the Democratic nomination that it's no surprise when anyone else--including someone almost no one outside of his home towns has heard of--does the same.

Until last fall, Beto O'Rourke fit that category. Then the three-term Congressman narrowly lost an election for one of Texas' two US Senate seats to Ted Cruz, who himself came in second to Trump for the Republican Presidential nomination two years earlier.

I'm still learning about O'Rourke.  He sounds pretty good to me.  I must say, though, that even though I like most of his views, there is something else about him that appeals to me:

Lest you think he is trying to appeal to the hipsters on his Surly Steamroller fixed-gear bike, here he is on an '80s Bridgestone:

Waddya think? Could he beat el Trumpo?

A Real Freedom Ride(r)

I am not the first person to say this:  Donald Trump's promise to "Make America Great Again" doesn't hold up because, well, America was never great.  No nation ever has been.  A few have been powerful and influential.  But great, no.

A nation should not be confused with a culture or people.  Whether or not a culture is great is open to interpretation.  Every nation, however, has at least one interesting or even inspiring culture:  That is the reason why I have taken trips to France, Cambodia and other places.  

Even though nations aren't great, and even if cultures might or might not be great, within each of them there have been great human beings.  Of course, most of us might be seen as great by some people, but not others.  There are a few, though, who are undeniably great.

Today is a holiday to commemorate one of them. Although his actual birthday came last Tuesday, his "birthday" is celebrated on the third Monday of every January.  I am talking, of course, about Martin Luther King Jr.  Whether or not you agree with the ways in which he tried to achieve his goals, it cannot be denied that this country, and this world, are better for his having been part of them.

Here he is, on Fire Island, just off Long Island,  seven months before he was assassinated:

What He Couldn't Win

During his career, Marty Nothstein won a lot of races.  But he couldn't win one on Tuesday night.

Most of his victories came on the velodrome, including the gold medal he won as a sprinter in the 2000 Olympics.  The following year, he turned professional and met with considerable success on the road.  In doing so, he defied common wisdom (Is that an oxymoron?) that said a sprinter couldn't stand up to the long distances of road racing.

The other night, however, he couldn't defy the odds or common wisdom.  He ran as the Republican candidate to represent Pennsylvania's 7th Congressional District.  Although 20 of its previous 25 representatives have come from Nothstein's party, his Democratic opponent, Susan Wild, was favored to win the election, in part because district was redrawn.

I am not a political scientist or analyst, but it seems to me that most of the district's Republican representatives were moderates.  Indeed, the most recent rep, Pat Meehan--who resigned in April amidst scandal--even supported the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which most of his party opposed.  Perhaps it's not surprising that politicians like him would represent the district, which includes the blue-collar areas near the oil refineries of Marcus Hook and Trainer, as well as the Main Line and Haverford College.  

Such an area seems like fertile ground for a backlash against President Trump--which, of course, people expressed, in accordance with expectations, by voting against his party.  So, it really wasn't such a surprise when Marty lost that race.

He might, however, win a consolation race, if you will:  He and Wild are locked in a dead heat for a special election to finish the term of Charlie Dent, who retired as representative of the neighboring 15th District.  If he wins, Marty will represent that district until the end of this year.

After that...well, maybe he'll win another race.  He still cycles and has also driven hot rods to victory.  If nothing else, he's a competitor.  

Now, about his--ahem-- party affiliation....

Labor Day: Bicycles, Workers And This Economy

Today is Labor Day here in the US.

In years past (here and here), I've written about the ways in which bicycle manufacturers, at least in this country, haven't always treated workers very well.  Now there's not much left of the cycle industry:  All but the most expensive bikes from makers like Trek and Specialized are made in countries where workers make much lower wages and have practically no rights.

Unfortunately, that brings me to our current President.  How any working person can see him as an ally is beyond me.

I mean, he imposed tariffs with the ostensible purpose of bringing jobs back to this country.  But I don't think steel mills, let alone bicycle factories, are going to reappear in the US any time soon, if ever.  And, tariffs or no tariffs, corporations will go to wherever they can get the job done at the lowest cost.  That leaves the rest of us holding the bag:  Unless you're buying a bike like Shinola or the most expensive racing machines from Trek or Specialized--or a custom frame--it's all but impossible to find a bike that's made in the US.  And, even those super-bikes are outfitted with components that come from those low-wage countries.

Then again, for some categories of products, there isn't even a partially-made-in-the-USA alternative to something from China or Indonesia or wherever.  Just try to find a computer or "smart" phone, or just about any article of clothing (except, again, for the most expensive) that's made in any fair-wage country where workers can organize.


Still, I think cycling is a better remedy than automobile travel or other kinds of industry for workers and their rights.  Dependency on fossil fuels (or, worse, fracking or nuclear power) will not make workers safer, healthier or more prosperous:  Only cleaner, "greener" jobs can do that in the current economy.

And at least we can still enjoy a ride on this day. It sure beats sitting in traffic!

Why We Need Her: Aretha Franklin

Spoiler Alert:  Today's post is on a non-cycling topic.

The other day, the Andrew Cuomo said something that will probably haunt him for the rest of his days:  "America was never that great."

Now, I just happen to think that Cuomo wasn't expressing a lack of patriotism.  Rather, I think the utterance shows, more than anything, that he doesn't quite share his father's intelligence or eloquence.

I'm guessing that he was trying to refute Trump's oft-echoed mantra:  Make America Great Again.  If anything, I would say that America was never great (rather than "not that great") because no nation in the history of this world has ever been great.  Some nations have been powerful, have been mighty.  Others have been prosperous; still others, influential.  A few nations have combined more than one of those qualities.

But no nation* has ever been great, including my own.

To me, the proof is this:  Aretha Franklin.  No one ever would have sounded the way she did had her nation, or any other, had been great.  In fact, nobody ever could have sounded like that, like her.

If any nation in history had ever been great, there never would have been any need for someone to sound like her.  And that's why, to me, almost all of her work is art of the highest order.

Yes, I said art.  I see no contradiction between it and popular music or other entertainments.  Shakespeare was popular in his own time; so were any number of painters and sculptors who received commissions from wealthy patrons and whose works we gaze at, with awe, in museums and galleries today.

Of course, we've all heard Natural Woman and Respect.  In those songs, she combines vulnerability and strength, anger and empathy, joy and grief, need and the yearning for freedom, the need to sing and the urge to fly, better than just about anyone who's ever sung.  In other words, she captures the complexity--and the fearsome complications--of our existence.

For my money, though, her best expression of the gifts only she could bring us was on I Never Loved A Man.  On the surface, it seems like just a song that expresses--if you'll pardon my appropriating the title of an '80s self-help book--the dilemma of a woman who loves too much, or at least seems to love the wrong man.  But, to me, it's really about being beaten down and beaten up by, not only another person, but by life itself--and realizing that the only choice is to move forward. The world is excruciating, people are mean, and her man is cruel--but she cannot do anything but love:  love him, love the world.  I think it's what W.H. Auden meant when he wrote, "We must love one another or die."



That song alone would place her in my pantheon of great American artists.  To me, it's worthy of Leaves of Grass, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Kind of Blue,Christina's World, The Great Gatsby,  Citizen Kane, Blue and Green Music, the first Godfather film and Rhapsody in Blue.

Now Aretha Franklin is gone.  Well, she--her body--has left us.  But not the body of her work.  As long as there are no great nations, we'll need it.  And if there ever is a great nation, we'll have the luxury of simply savoring it.

*--By "nation", I mean geo-political entities, which are not to be confused with the cultures or peoples contained within them, which often are great.

The Fourth

In France, they have le quatorze.  Here in the US of A, we have The Fourth.

It's what we call our Independence Day.  Today, though, when I hear "the Fourth", I can't help but to think of the Amendment--which, like so much else in the Constitution, is in peril.

But The Fourth is also my birthday.  And this year it just happens to be a round-number year for me.  I'll let you guess which one! 

For the occasion, I gave myself a gift--which actually came to me all the way back in March.  I am referring, of course, to Dee-Lilah, my new Mercian Vincitore Special.


You could say, though, that I got an unexpected gift when the bike I mentioned yesterday--a 1973 Mercian King of Mercia--showed up on eBay.  In my size.  And the seller dropped the price.

And I'm going to meet friends.  I am lucky indeed.  Now, to do something about my country!

Heather Heyer Didn't Deserve It. Nobody Does.

By now, you've no doubt heard about the awful events in Charlottesville, VA this past weekend.

If anyone didn't deserve to die the way she did, it was Heather Heyer, the young woman run over by  "white nationalist" James Allen Fields Jr.,  who drove his car into a group of protesters at high speed, then backed up to flee the scene.

Heather Heyer

His action is despicable and cowardly.  So is the reaction of Justin Moore.  In an e-mail, he said, "I'm sorta glad them people got hit and I'm glad the girl died."  He went on to denounce Ms. Heyer and the other protesters as "a bunch of Communists out there protesting someone's freedom of speech, so it doesn't bother me that they got hurt at all."

Such a tirade, shocking as it is, shouldn't come as a surprise from Mr. Moore, who is the Grand Dragon for the Loyal White Knights of Ku Klux Klan, based in the neighboring state of North Carolina.  Nor, I suppose, should it surprise us that he praised Fields as the sort of man who "made the great white race strong" and who will help to make it "strong again."

When I first heard the news about Heather Heyer, I immediately thought of the former Park Slope neighbor of mine whom I encountered in Paris last year, some two decades after we last saw each other.  Now she, her husband and daughter live in Charlottesville.  I knew her reaction would be strong, not only because the clash took place in her backyard (more or less), but also because of her convictions:  She has spent all of her professional life in the service of women and children who are vulnerable in physical, economic and other ways.

After corresponding with her, I checked some of my other e-mail.  I found a message from a professor who heads the Italian American Institute of the university system in which I teach.  He pointed out that because Italian immigrants (like my grandparents) experienced hate and bigotry--back then, they weren't considered "white"--we should stand with others who are hated for their race, ethnicity or any other intrinsic trait.  I responded to him with this:

The murder of a peaceful protester by a hater is tragic in and of itself.

The President's response is salt in the wound of our grief  At first, he denounced "all sides" which, of course, implies that the young woman was run down was somehow complicit in her own death  Until he was pressed to do so, he did not specifically name the sorts of people who foment the hate expressed by the driver of that car.  Then, he used only labels, some of which overlapped each other (white nationalists, etc.).

Even more important than denouncing the act of hate and the person who committed it--as well as whatever group(s) supported the hate he espoused--is to understand, and fight, the ignorance that makes it possible.  They do not understand the profound effect racism and slavery have had upon this country, and they seem to think that whenever someone different from themselves is finally gaining the same rights they've always taken for granted, they are somehow "losing out."  To them, blacks and LGBT people and whoever else you might name are "taking over" "their" country.  

Sadly, I have relatives who share this mindset.  Never mind that their parents or grandparents were among the people who earlier generations of haters and resenters tried to keep from "taking over" their country.  (My Italian grandparents were not considered "white".)  They say that blacks, LGBT people, Hispanics and others are getting "special privileges" at their expense.  (As a transgender woman, I can only dream of having such "privilege.!) Not surprisingly, they thought Hillary is the she-devil (I'm no fan of hers, but I also know she's not that powerful!) and voted for Trump even though much of what he promises can and will hurt them.

Some would say that such ignorance is a result of the way history is or isn't taught.  That is one part of the problem.  Another part is ignorance of what the definition of "American" is.  Nowhere in the Constitution is this country defined by a race of people or a culture.  To this day, we don't even have an official language.  I always had the impression the framers of the Constitution wanted it that way:  To them, the definition of "American" would change over time but still be bound by principles to which all who call themselves "Americans" would subscribe.  In short, this is a country founded on ideas, not on racial identity, national origins or religion.

In other words, white nationalism or white supremacy is nothing more or less than the expression of a notion that white people, however they are defined, are the only "real" Americans:  Never mind that blacks and Native Americans were here long before any of their ancestors--and that some of them were gay, lesbian, transgender or otherwise gender non-conforming long before anyone came up with names for them!