Is This Any Way To Teach A Lesson?

 “Caution” tape blocks off a section of a parking garage. Kids on bikes take it down.

It’s annoying, to be sure. But kids do things like that all the time. So how, if at all, should those kids be disciplined?

I don’t think even a parent who’s a martinet would approve of how Melvin Anthony Kennedy handled the situation last week.

The California mall security guard shouted at the youngsters. Then he pursued them in the mall’s security vehicle.

He struck one of the children—deliberately, according to San Rafael police—and drove away.

Later, he returned to the scene and turned himself in to police. He’s faces charges of assault with a deadly weapon and child abuse.

All because some kids saw that two-story parking garage as a slalom course and couldn’t see why the area was cordoned off.

The youth he struck was treated for non-life-threatening injuries.

How Would You Celebrate?

 Yesterday’s military parade in Washington DC was a birthday bash for the Fake Tan Fūhrer, I mean, celebration of the US Army’s 250th anniversary.

I’ve marched in a few parades but I am not a fan of them in general. If I were to have one, however, it might look something like this:

Oops!

 A bicycle company rolls out a prototype of a new bike. Someone wins a race on it. The Union Cycliste Internationale bans it.

All right, that’s not the exact sequence of events. But it’s close, and the reality is as absurd as I’ve made it seem.

Jake Stewart pedaled Factor’s prototype aerobike to victory in the Criterium du Dauphine, a multi-day stage road race in France. At or around that moment—no-one seems to agree on the timing—the UCI issued a new set of rules that includes regulations on frame dimensions, in particular rear stay and front fork width.

Image Credit:  Will Jones, Cycling News

While none of the journalists covering the race could get close enough to the bike to measure it, almost all agreed that it’s at or beyond the limits, which will bind road bikes starting the first of next year and track bikes one year later.

Focus, perhaps not surprisingly, does not want to release details about, or grant access to, the bike. I can just imagine the reaction of the company’s designers, engineers and marketing folks if the UCI bans the machines, as I don’t think enough everyday cyclists, no matter how wealthy, would be in the market for it for the company to continue producing it.

Image credit: SW Pix

But if the timing is anything I described at the beginning of this post, I can imagine the folks at UCI exclaiming, “Oh merde!” when Jake mounted the podium—and not only because Stewart is British.