Massacre In South Carolina: The Confederate Flag Still Flies

Today I’m not going to stick to the topic of this blog.  Instead, I want to talk about something that, I’m sure, you’ve heard about by now:  the massacre inside the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina .

One of the cruelest ironies is that members of a Bible study group—including the church's pastor, who also happens to be a  South Carolina State senator—in one of America’s oldest historically black churches were gunned down by a young white man who sat with them on the eve of Juneteenth— a few days after the 800^th anniversary of King John issuing Magna Carta.

And the Confederate Flag flies in front of the State Capitol.

A century and a half after slaves in South Carolina and Texas and other states got word that they were free men and women, a young man hadn’t gotten the message that the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution guarantees all citizens, regardless of their skin color, the rights enumerated in the first ten amendments (a.k.a. the Bill of Rights).  Heck, he didn’t even get the message that there’s no such country as Rhodesia anymore.  He was simply acting from the same sort of ignorance, the same sort of hate, that left earlier generations of young African Americans hanging from trees or at the bottoms of rivers.

And the Confederate Flag flies in front of the State Capitol.

More than a century and a half after the Emancipation Proclamation, in the state in which the opening shot of the US Civil War was fired, a young man entered a Bible Study group and waited for the “right” moment to shoot someone nearly as young as he is, people old enough to be his parents, grand-parents and great-grandparents.  He shattered the peace and sanctity they found in what, for many generations of African-Americans—and, perhaps, for those members of the Bible Study group—has been their closest-knit, if not their only, sanctuary.

And the Confederate flag flies in front of the State Capitiol.   

From the church's website.

A pastor was killed along with a deacon and laypeople.  Families lost sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers; friends lost friends and people lost spouses and other loved ones.  They loved and were loved; they raised families and were raised by families.  And they contributed to the lives of their communities through their professional and volunteer work, and the loves and interests they shared with those around them.

And the Confederate flag flies in front of the State Capitol.

Dylann Storm Roof, in an instant, ended the lives of Rev. (and Sen.) Clementa Pickney, Mira Thompson, Daniel Simmons Sr., Cynthia Hurd, Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Tywanza Sanders, De Payne Middleton, Ethel Lance and her cousin Susie Jackson. All of them, one hundred and fifty years after Juneteenth.

And a Confederate flag in front of the State Capitol hasn't even been lowered to half-mast.

A Bike For The Zombie Apocalypse

Emergency preparedness makes sense.  All you need to know are which emergencies you need to prepare for and how to go about preparing.

Now, I'm not going to give you advice about either. I can no more predict what sorts of emergencies or disasters are likely to happen than I can turn carbon fiber into gold.  But, apparently, there are folks who make their living (or at least a pretty good supplemental income) of telling people what disaster is most likely to strike and how to prepare for it. Some think that the disaster will be the result of a war with China or some coalition of Islamic fundamentalists.    Others think that the next economic crash will trigger a breakdown in the social order.  Still others think the cataclysm will be natural, such as solar flares or climate change. 

(For what it's worth, I'd probably pick climate change, which might in turn cause societal breakdowns, which in turn could lead to wars.  But, as I said, I have absolutely no predictive powers.)

One thing I find interesting is that nearly all survivalists, however they think the apocalypse will come, believe that a bicycle is an important part of any "survival tool kit".  That makes sense when you realize that bikes will be among the few ways we'll be able to get around if fuel supplies or their distribution networks are destroyed.  But, of course, if the world comes to an end, the bike shops won't be open and, I imagine, online retailers won't be able to do business.   So I've begun to stock tires, tubes, cables, lubes and, yes, even a spare Brooks Pro along with the crates of canned food, bottled water and cases of wine. ;-)

Seriously, though:  Bicycles will be useful, but not only as transportation.  They can also help you defend against marauding packs of thugs--and zombies.

Yes, there is a bike designed to defend against zombies:

It's actually a pretty clever design, as the motor powers the front wheel as well as the chainsaw. So, I imagine, one could rev the bike up to a pretty decent speed, whether for attacking or defending.  Now as to how effective the chainsaw would be against attacking zombies...I dunno.

As for rigging one up or actually using it, all I can say is "Don't try this at home."  That is, if you still have a home when the zombies take over. 

Eddy Turns 70

 

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have seen four athletes completely dominate their sports. Eddy Mercx was the first of them.

He turned 70 today.  Oh, how time flies--though, perhaps, not as fast as he rode in his prime!

But it wasn't his speed that makes him so memorable or that will mark him as one of the immortals.  As long as the technology of training methods and bicycles themselves develops, riders will ride faster and records will be broken.  

Even today, riders who have broken the hour record, or aspire to do so, look to Mercx--who held the record from 1972 to 1984--as the "gold standard", if you will.  Other riders, including those who have matched his record of five Tour de France victories, speak of him with reverence.

Perhaps it's because they know neither they nor anyone else will break his record of 525 race victories.  More to the point, though, is that they know that neither they nor anyone else has ever had the aura of invincibility "The Cannibal" had in his prime.

And no rider, really, has ever been as good an ambassador for the sport as he's been.  Maybe no one else ever will be.