A Motorist Strikes--And Shoots--A Cyclist In Florida

It's bad enough when any motorist's vehicle strikes any cyclist.  It's even worse, at least in some ways, when said motorist does so intentionally.

What can be worse than that? 

An account that came my way provided an answer.  On Saturday, in Florida (surprise, surprise), on the Gulf Coast specifically, two men were cycling when they heard a car behind them. Before they could react, a driver them and knocked them to the ground.

Tire marks where a motorist struck--and shot--a cyclist.  (From WINK news.)

What makes this incident especially galling is that, according to investigations, the driver deliberately left the road to hit them.  Both cyclists saw that driver pilot the SUV past them, in the opposite direction, before circling around to approach them from behind, at a high rate of speed.

Oh, but it gets even worse. After driver struck them, the cyclists leapt and tried to flee.  The driver then got out of the SUV and shot one of the cyclists before getting back in and driving off.

Luckily for the cyclist who was shot, his injuries are non-life threatening.  

The Collier County Sheriff's Office says it has a "person of interest" but did not mention any suspects or a description of the shooter.

Generating Electricity At Newport

Perhaps the Newport Folk Festival's most famous or infamous (depending on your point of view) came in 1963, when Bob Dylan plugged in his guitar. 

That moment's fame might be eclipsed by something that electrified the audience at this year's Festival--and folks like me who saw it only on video.  Joni Mitchell, who performed at the 1969 edition, appeared for the first time, in any venue, with guitar in hand, since her 55th birthday--23 years ago.  Since then, she has suffered a number of health problems, including a brain aneurism in 2015 that left her unable to speak or walk, much less play a guitar.

What may not be as well-remembered as Bob Dylan's electric guitar or the electricity Joni Mitchell generated by, well, simply showing up is the way one stage's electricity was powered.  You guessed it:  Some festival-goers pedaled stationary bicycles for the Bicycle Stage, a brainchild of the environmentally-conscious Virginia indie rock duo Illiterate Light.  

Mardi Diaz, right, performs on a stage powered by festival-goers on bicycles. (Photo by Pat Eaton-Robb for the AP) 

Jeff Gorman, the band's front man, said that the Bike Stage in Newport marked the first time the idea has been tried at a festival.  The idea came to him at the 2019 edition of the festival, when about 1300 of the 10,000 or so attendees pedaled to the Rhode Island festival.  Festival-goers take turns pedaling the bike for about five minutes of a twenty-minute set.  For their efforts, they get spritzes of water from a spray bottle, a free can of iced tea and a front-row view of the performance.

Who Leads The Way?

Susan B. Anthony remarked that the bicycle did more than anything else to liberate women.

Sometimes I wonder what she would have made of couples on tandems.  Almost any time I've seen a male-female riding duo, the male is in the front, or "captain's" position and the female is in the rear.  That means the man/boy is steering and, depending on how much input he gets or takes from his partner, is determining the course of the ride. 

Is there any way to correct that imbalance?