Who--Or What--Is To Blame?

Be forewarned:  Part of today's post will be a continuation of yesterday's rant, in which I lamented the terror and seeming inevitability of the mass shootings in a Texas school and Buffalo supermarket.

Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised that politicians and media pundits are blaming everything but guns.  I'm not talking about the "decay of moral values" or other talking points of the political and religious right.  Instead, I'm talking about flat-out lies spread by folks whose careers and reputations never could withstand the truth.

Paul Gosar, the Republican Congressional Representative from Arizona, is an example of who I mean. I must say, he has managed to concoct a non-reality not even the strongest drugs could induce and twist logic and reason in ways a pretzel-maker would envy.

To wit:  He tweeted that the shooter--18-year-old Salvador Ramos, born and raised in Texas--was a "transsexual leftist illegal alien."  Gosar's source for that bit of intelligence?  A social network called 4Chan, to which folks of his ilk are drawn like flies to, well, the stuff flies are drawn to.  That's bad enough, but I would really like to know where he got his thinking skills.  He followed up his out-and-out falsehood with this pearl of wisdom:  "Sandy Hook proved the need to enhance K-12 security."  OK. That's not too debatable. But then he made a leap into the (il)logical abyss:  "Congress armed Ukraine instead."

Now, as much as I sympathise with the people of Ukraine, I wonder about Congressional members' motives in voting to send even more weapons than President Biden demanded.  But talk about a false equivalency!  I mean, how can he link sending help to Ukraine with school safety, or a school shooting that happened nearly a decade ago?

Compounding the problem is that other voices in the media will amplify such nonsense--or other verbal bilge-- in the same way he was a loudspeaker for Trump's beloved "low-information voters."  Fox News, in following with a hallowed tradition, shifted the blame to parents.  

I have to hand it to the folks at Faux, I mean Fox:  They accomplished something I didn't think possible.  The excerable (even by their standards) Laura Ingraham interviewed someone even more vile than herself:  Andrew Pollack.  That I can unfavorably compare a man who lost his daughter in the Parkland shooting to a Fox host is really saying something. He, who has previously argued "guns didn't kill my daughter, Democratic principles did," in reference to the Texas shooting, declared, "It's the parents."

How he came to that conclusion took a turn of logic that rivals what brought Gosar to his blaming the shooting on helping Ukraine.  "It's your responsibility where you're sending your children to school," he explained.  "You need to check where your kids go to school."  He suggested that parents should take their kids "out of public school" and put them in "a private school, because a lot of these private schools, they take security way more serious."

Where to begin with that assessment?  Well, for one thing, private schools are not an option for most families. Most kids go to whatever public school is zoned for wherever they live and they (or, more precisely, their parents) have little or no choice in the matter.  Also, even if private school is an option, it might not meet some kids' needs.  And, finally, what does he mean by "security?"  Metal detectors?  Armed teachers?

Oh, and there are the usual diatribes about education and mental health treatment.  I would agree:  If someone were to ask me for an example of an oxymoron, I might say, "American mental health care system."  But that fixing that won't stop mass gun violence all by itself any more than better school security or any other action could.

Here's what I wonder: How the fuck did someone who couldn't even drink beer legally get his hands on a military-grade assault weapon?  Would Ingraham ask such a question?  Could--or would--Pollack or Gosar answer it?

So why am I taking up another post on a cycling blog with a discussion of a school shooting and its aftermath?  Well, what Gosar and his ilk do in these situation--blame everything but guns--reminds me of the ways law enforcement and some members of the public react, too often, when a driver maims or kills a cyclist.  Never mind that he or she was driving at double the speed limit, was distracted by a mobile device or impaired by drugs, alcohol or some other substance--or was simply driving agressively or carelessly.  The cyclist, especially if he or she is killed, is blamed.

 

An Oxymoron Ride

Peter White is an original.   He has been helpful when I've  consulted him, whether or not I bought anything.  His sense of humor, though, is, shall we say, quirky.  I like it, but it may not be for everybody.

An example is his attitude about downhill riders.  His shop doesn't carry parts for bikes ridden by "those poor unfortunate people with green or pink hair who have to be carried up the mountain on a ski lift so they can ride down yelling "Yo Dude!" He calls their machines "invalid bikes" which, he claims, is a play on what he regards as "valid" bikes.  Naturally, some  folks believe he's denigrating folks with disabilities and send him nasty e-mails, or worse.

I'd love to hear what he'd say about a "downhill bike tour."  I never knew such things exist until someone sent me an article about people who want to regulate them in Hawaii. Apparently, tour groups meet their guide and support vehicle at the top of a mountain, where they watch the sunrise before barreling down into the town.  

Photo by Matthew Thayer, for the Maui News

Me, I don't know how you can call something a "bike tour" if it's only downhill.  I can understand a ride that's flat.  But whatever anyone wants to say about the speed at which I currently ride, I can say that on every tour--or even every transportation ride--I've taken, if I've ridden down something, I've ridden up it, or something else.  Well, OK, once I went on a downhill mountain bike ride back in the 90s when that first became a "thing."  Yes, I went up on a lift, as everyone else in my group did.  But I did it on a hardtail bike, albeit with a Rock Shox front fork.

Now some folks in Maui want to impose tighter regulations on those downhill tours.  They complain that even the guided tours show little regard for the safety of children and pedestrians.  Not surprisingly, they believe the "wildcat" riders are even worse.

Not only have I never taken a "downhill tour;" I've also never been to Hawaii.  So I have to take their word about those tours. I, though, would want to regulate them in another way:  They shouldn't be allowed to call themselves "tours."  I'd bet that at least half of the people on those rides don't pedal even a single stroke.  To me, if all you do is coast down a hill--as much fun as it is--you don't have the right to say you did a "tour."

In other words, I believe the phrase "downhill tour" is an oxymoron.

What Should They Be Trained To Do?

 Thirteen is a difficult age for almost anyone.  The body is going through all sorts of changes, so everyone and everything in the world seems capricious, unjust and even cruel.  Sometimes the anger you may have  felt at that age was justified, especially when you're mocked, bullied or punished for, well, being thirteen years old.

My family had recently moved. (I forgave my parents for that when I turned 40. ;-)) As if everything else I was experiencing weren't enough, that Christmas a recording that's still a hazard to my mental health polluted and smothered the airwaves.  Like many other people, I got a kick out of the novelty of dogs barking "Jingle Bells"  for about the first 15 seconds it played.

A few days ago, when I was running some errands, a store was blaring the barking monstrosity in the street.  I might get it out of my ear by Groundhog Day. Aargh!

These days, I own two Christmas CDs: Celine Dion's "These Are Special Times", which my mother gave me the year it came out, and an album of the late, great Jessye Norman's concert with the Orchestre de Lyon in the Notre Dame cathedral.  Other CDs of mine include a Christmas song or two, like John Lennon's "War Is Over."  But if anyone gave me a disc of the Singing Dogs, I'd use it for a coaster or frisbee.  Whoever made and promoted that recording should be indicted for animal abuse!

On the other hand, I want to applaud whoever created this image:

You can buy a print of this on Etsy 

What We Came From?

Being a writer and English teacher, I'm irked by overused (and often inappropriate) words and phrases.  It drives me crazy, for example, when a literate, erudite interviewer asks a good question and the interviewee begins his or her response with "So."  

Another annoying language tic is the use of the word "evolution" when "development" makes more sense.  I even heard someone talk about the "evolution" of medical devices.  Trust me, if you've ever had a mammogram or been treated with a vaginal device (I know that at least half of you haven't!), you know that some medical devices haven't "evolved" much!

And so it is with bicycles.  Writers facing deadline will refer to the "evolution" of the bicycle when they're describing how the Draisienne became today's computer-designed machines.

Then again, they might not be too far off the mark:

Hmm... Maybe the bicycle has "evolved" more than humans have--or, at least, more than humans ever will if we don't get rid of war.

Into The Ocean Blue...To Where?

In school, we were taught that Christopher Columbus "discovered" "America" on 12 October 1492.  

During my elementary school years, we got the day off on 12 October.  Then, around the time I was beginning adolescence, "Columbus Day" was moved to the second Monday of October.  So it is observed today.

As the story goes, he set sail for India. Instead, he landed somewhere between Port-au-Prince and Santo Domingo.  Thus, he didn't even make it to what we call America (i.e., the continent) today.

What I have never understood, though, is why we have a holiday for a guy who got lost.

And, as an Italian American, I don't know why he's a source of pride for us.  I mean, we have Michelangelo, Galileo, Leonardo, Raphael, Dante, Bocaccio, Cassini (OK, he turned French), Marconi and all sorts of other folks who distinguished themselves in every imaginable field.  Heck, we even have great fashion designers.  I'd rather have a day for Armani or even Versace--or, of course, any number of Italian cyclists.

All right, I'll shut up and go for a ride--and enjoy my lasagna afterward!