Alliteration Alert!

News reporters rarely, if ever, get to write their own headlines.  That can be both a good and a bad thing, as I discovered when I was writing for a local newspaper.

Sometimes titles bear little or no relation to the articles they accompany.  Other times, though, they can draw attention in a way the story itself might not. 

Case in point:  "Bavarian Bakery Bicycle Burglary". 

If I didn't know any better, I might wonder whether some thief took off with a strudel-maker's Kalkhoff  in Munich.  

Turns out, the perp robbed the Bavarian Bakery of Dover, Delaware and fled on his bicycle.  

Some time after midnight on Friday, police officers saw 56-year-old Samuel L. Curtis riding on the wrong side of the road with no lights or reflectors, and wearing dark clothing while carrying a dark backpack. When the cops tried to stop him, he kept on riding--until he fell off his bike.  That's when the constables collared the crook and, on him, found a box he took from the bakery and tools he used to break in.

Bavarian Bakery Bicycle Burglar

He was released on a $15,150.00 unsecured bond.  For that price, he could have gone to Bavaria--and a few other places!

 

The Eternal Quest

What special knowledge do I possess as a male-to-female transgender cyclist?

Well, here’s one pearl of wisdom I can offer, for whatever it’s worth:  Organized bike rides are one of the few events in which the line to use the women’s restroom is shorter than the men’s.

Still, there’s never a place to go when you really need it!

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.