Here I am, on my way to work this morning:
All right, that was just a slight exaggeration. A very, very slight one. I won't use the "l" word--no, not that one. (I'm more like the "b" word.) I mean, I'm not lying. Just, shall we say, creating an alternative fact about myself. Or, at least, a fact about myself in an alternative universe!
Anyway, that photo was taken--by somebody else, of course--in a location just a few pedal strokes from where I am now.
More details to follow.
Hint: The above photo can be found on The Amsterdamian. I am not, however, in the Dutch capital.
Its romantic style with dips and crests take (sic) us back in time onto the bumpy, narrow passages of Italy.
Does anyone describe anything Italian in the English language without using words like "romantic", "love" or
"amore"?
This year, a beautiful pair of Sudini boots I wore for years finally gave out. What I'll remember as much as the boots themselves is the box in which they came. It was unremarkable, at least as Italian boxes go, except for the slogan underneath the Sudini name: "Make love to your feet."
I am guessing it was, shall we say, an idiosyncratic translation of something. To my knowledge, there are no more foot fetishists, per capita, among Italians in Italy or the diaspora, than among any other people in the world.
So what has the "romantic style" with "dips and crests" that are meant to remind us of "the bumpy narrow passages" (Sounds like a relationship or two in which I've been involved!) of my ancestors' (some, anyway) country?
It's something called "Velorapida". That, of course, means "fast bike" in Italian. There's nothing wrong with a name like that: After all, "Motobecane" means "motor bike" in French.
But the "Velorapida" is something I don't normally associate with romance: an e-bike. Most of the ones I've seen here are ugly and are, most of the time, ridden by delivery workers or people who want to believe they're riding bicycles but don't want to put forth the effort.
I must say, though, that the Velorapida does challenge my belief, at least a little, even if it won't turn me to an e-biker:
To me, it looks like a newer, updated version of bikes you see all over Europe. It even has the requisite charm and character.
The handcrafted leather bag, however, is not there to merely to add charm or even to carry formaggio or frutta from the local market. Instead, it encases a "secret" battery pack.
Oh, no! I'll never look at leather bike bags the same way again!
I must say, though, that if someone is riding an electric bike instead of driving a car--or because he or she, for whatever reason, can't ride a regular bike--I am happy. And I can't begrudge someone who's trying to make a living on an ebike: If it's more expedient for them in any way than any other delivery vehicle, I can understand why they'd ride it.
I don't know what the Velorapidas cost. If I were President (tee hee), I would decree that employers could provide them (or regular bicycles) for their workers and deduct them from their tax bill!
Someone--I forget who, exactly--told me that growing up is becoming what you hate. I think most of us have had a day when we thought--or said--or, worse, did--something at which our younger selves would have recoiled.
So what does it mean when you hear something of which your younger self would have approved--and you agree with it? Or when an opinion you agree with is expressed by someone your younger self wanted to be, but who now makes you cringe?
I am thinking now of day I heard exactly what I thought about the US invasion of Iraq and our meddling in the Middle East--with the exact reasons I had for my belief, expressed almost verbatim in the way I'd expressed it--from none other than Pat Buchanan. And, I have to admit that even though I have long dismissed my youthful embrace of Ayn Rand's philosophy (such as it is) as a jejune fever-dream, there are still times I find myself siding with libertarians--at least to a point--on some issues.
So it is today. But I am not the only left-ish person to find herself siding with anti-tax conservatives about a law just passed in Oregon.
Last month, I wrote about the debate in the Beaver State legislature over a proposed bicycle tax. The bill, in its original form, would have placed a levy on sales of new bicycles costing $500 or more. Apparently, the authors of the bill thought bikes in that price range are "luxury" items. I argued that if you are going to buy a new bike that you want to use for daily transportation, you have to spend at least that much if you want something that's reliable and will last.
One of the bill's authors--Lee Beyer, a Democrat--argued that it would ensure that cyclists had "skin in the game", ignoring the fact that cyclists pay the same taxes that everyone else pays. A fellow Democrat, Earl Blumenauer--a Congressman who regularly appears on C-Span with a bicycle pin conspicuously attached to his lapel--also defended the tax, saying that it would "raise the profile of cycling."
Well, yesterday the State legislature voted in favor of the tax as part of a sweeping transportation bill. Worse, the threshold for the $15 tax is not $500, but $200, and would apply to bikes with wheel diameters of 26 inches or more.
(Does that mean small-wheeled folding bikes are exempt? What about 650s?)
Not surprisingly, Bike Portland publisher Jonathan Maus called the tax an "unprecedented step in the wrong direction." He found an ally in Bill Currier, who blasted Governor Kate Brown's "endless obsession with finding new and innovative ways of taking money out of the pockets of Oregon taxpayers."
Who is Mr Currier? The Oregon Republican Party Chairman!
My concern about a bicycle tax is the same one I have almost any time a government tries to raise revenue for some ostensible purpose or another--in this case, improving bicycle and other transportation infrastructure. New taxes--whether direct ones on sales or incomes, or less direct ones like lotteries or other government-sponsored gambling schemes--are sold to the public as a way of funding what people want and need, whether it's education or infrastructure improvements. Too often, however, the money doesn't find its way to those stated purposes. I've a feeling that whatever is raised from bicycle sales won't go to bike lanes (which, more often than not, are of questionable value anyway) or other facilities for cycling, or even for other forms of non-automotive transportation.
