True Upward Mobilty

You've heard about the snail who was insecure about himself.

He bought a "Z" car and changed the "Z" to an "S."

Now, whenever he drives by, people gush, "Oh!  Look at the S-Car go!"

What would that snail have done with a bicycle? 

What's Going On

Had I been anywhere near Washington, DC yesterday, I would have taken a ride on the Marvin Gaye Trail.

Would there have been a better way to celebrate his album, "What's Going On" on the 50th anniversary of its release?

The title song, and other tracks, were time capsules of the mood of the time--and among its most innovative works.  

Those songs were written from the point of view of a Vietnam War veteran.   It's hard not to think that he could have written it, almost verbatim, from the consciousness of someone returning from Iraq or Afghanistan.  

So much was going on then, as now.  The Summer of Love and Woodstock expressed hope that the world could change for the better; Marvin Gaye's song--as well as others released the same year (Think, of John Lennon's "Imagine," for example) said that things must change.  They remind me, in a way, of W.H. Auden's September 1, 1939, in particular its penultimate stanza:

    All I have is a voice 

    To undo the folded lie, 

    The romantic lie in the brain    

    Of the sensual man-in-the street

    And the lie of Authority

    Whose buildings grope the sky:

    There is no such thing as the State 

    And no one exists alone;

   Hunger allows no choice 

   To the citizen or the police; 

   We must love one another or die.

Interestingly, Marvin Gaye's album saw the light of day just as the North American Bike Boom was gathering steam.  Although many people purchased bikes they rode once or twice, more than a few were motivated to buy and ride by the knowledge that an economy and society in which people drive cars everywhere and burn fossil fuels to do everything else was not sustainable: The inevitable results would be environmental degradation (Now we know environmental destruction is an all-too-real possiblity!), inequality and all manner of other injustices--and war.  

What's going on now?  What would Marvin Gaye make of it?  Would he take a ride on the trail named for him?

I always suspected that Marvin was one of us!

Bill To Ban Bicycle Licenses In New Jersey

Perth Amboy, New Jersey is a largely working-class and non-White city over the Outerbridge Crossing from Staten Island, New York.  Last month, Perth Amboy cops stopped a group of boys on bikes who were popping wheelies and weaving in and out of traffic.  The cops could have used that stop to talk to the boys about bicycle safety. One of the officers did that, but the situation devolved into the cops confiscating the kids' bikes and handcuffing one of them.

The charge?  The kid they took into custody was riding without a bicycle license.

While the city has had a bike license ordinance on its books for decades, that incident marked the first time, to anyone's knowledge, that it was actually invoked.  That it was used to bring in a boy--who, guess what?, is Black--was, to be  polite, specious. 

The incident garnered national attention, which raised the question of what, exactly, are the reasons for, and purposes of, bicycle licensing regulations.  Most were enacted decades ago (That Perth Amboy's license costs 50 cents should give you an idea of how old that policy is!), ostensibly for purposes that are no longer, if they ever were, applicable.  Or increasingly-militarized police forces use them as yet another way to bully, intimidate and harass people less powerful than themselves. (The Perth Amboy cops could just as well have said they were arresting that kid for Riding While Black.)

Yvonne Lopez lives in Perth Amboy.  She also represents Middlesex County, of which the city is part, in the New Jersey State Assembly. On Monday, she introduced a bill (A5729) that, according to its synopsis, "prohibits municipal ordinances from from requiring license tag to use bicycles within municipality."  Currently, a few other New Jersey municipalities require tags or plates on bicycles, but specifics of those regulations vary.

In order to become law, the bill would have to pass in both chambers (Assembly and Senate) of the state Legislature.  I haven't heard any prognostication about the bill's chances of passing, but I suspect they're good, if for no other reason that the State probably would prefer uniformity from one jurisdiction to the next but doesn't want to be tasked with creating a state bicycle license system.