When you consider unbiased numbers, nation is not perfectly divided or substantially polarized. A small minority of morons has a mouthpiece, whereas vast majority does not. Despicable Fox News claims to speak for Americans but doesn’t represent 80% of them. Not even close. By and large Americans are eager to serve a purpose, generous to a fault, hard working, mind own business, obey laws, pay taxes, rush to aid, tolerate other races, religions, and viewpoints, will smite enemies decisively when provoked, and won’t stand for unfair practices. Rest of world would emulate them. Instead, Fox conflates exceptions, generates fear, promotes hatred, and triggers terrorism.
Not all nation’s residents are Americans or citizens, though, or care about mutual benefit. A mean spirited cadre now runs country, puffs itself up to hide its impotency, and taunts bigger crowd of betters as would any bully. Criminals aren’t the norm, cause a disproportionate degree of harm, and do exist at every level in any form. When foreign nationals say they hate Americans, they mean this abominable cross section. A tormenting flea influences behavior of dog tens of thousands of times larger, but surely isn’t dog’s guiding essence. No, pets want to be rid of these pests.
So what if Labann tosses in an occasional metaphor? Some help get points across dense divide. Unless framed as artsy or salacious, crucial messages never reach anyone. Do writers keep blogs to communicate or something else? In every interview infamous artists describe their compulsion to produce. What else is there to do? Guilt drives futile posturing and senseless strutting. Hunger, want and war force immediate, often violent reaction, but with what do you fill times of peace?
Some would suggest art, gratification and music. Others say advancement, exploration and improvement. Nitwits engage in gossip, hate, and home wrecking, pitting spouse against spouse, serving greed of divorce attorneys and those with more money than they know how to spend. Wisdom urges perpetual vigilance and steady effort when common good you must defend. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. Dumping recorded impressions and what one assesses into an internet vacuum just depresses. Decline, perversion and superstition interfere, and tailspin sets you back to yesteryear. America has almost become a medieval fiefdom, middle eastern theocracy, or murderous monarchy.
Back when primetime television audiences tuned into and were satisfied by contrived depictions of family life, political shows were filler for Sunday morning dead air. What was the first reality program? Besides news and sports, that is. The sole thrill of NASCAR is that death is defied when vehicles collide. Among unscripted shows, Cops has hung around the longest by diverting viewers with misdemeanor beatings. Shows like Survivor threw together incompetents competing for a prize, and indolent imbeciles applauded ensuing mayhem: Sports with few rules, no athletes or referees, pure mind rot for dumbed down masses. What next? Gladiator contests at the LA coliseum? Mayan football where losers get sacrificed? Political talk has now become primetime's ultimate reality show in which nation gets split into bloodthirsty camps and you pay the price with your life. It's only a game, and those who stage it profit staggeringly. How did this totally reverse? “Never criticize the populace... ‘the deceived masses’ were easy marks for a cynical and self-perpetuating ‘culture industry.’”
People falsely assume that you must be crazy if you're not famous yet speak your mind. Sure, psychos do grouse and mumble, but seldom coherently. Sane folks say little; they recognize fact that most won't grasp what they're saying anyway. "Why cast pearls before swine?" asked biblical authors, then assembled a 1000 page codex to do exactly that. When you dignify idealized depictions of life on sitcoms versus reality programs with contrived scenarios indented with Fox's thumbprints, you fall into same trap of falsehood. Both want you to believe something other than basic facts of enduring pains, hunting gains, and surviving strains, what you really do for a living. B&C only portrays how things are, not how you wish they would be, without excluding details that don’t fit anyone's closed circuit narrative.
Guilefool, O'Really, Sanctity, and whole lineup of disgruntled Fox personalities (not an objective reporter among them, nothing but paid agitators) will accuse you of behaving as if politics of 75 years ago were still relevant; it's a brainwashing tactic. They themselves ape obsolete and square Bucky smugness, Limburger stink, and Merry schemes, whatever always works. A raging world war did require teamwork and tight lips. Not much since has changed with nation still under siege by stupid thugs and war lords, who either don't understand America's stabilizing effect or do want to see world burn. Yet you let jackasses in suits and ties rant jabber and and tout white supremacy or xenophobic deportation at your peril; festivals and schools don't screen attendees for assault weapons. You know too well what divisiveness they are all about by content and tone of sound bites they deliver with insincere smirks and shifty eyes. It's Ailes advising Nixon all over again, "I am not a crook," as if supporting a paranoid sociopath were preferable. But Labann's a nobody stuck in cultural inquiry at the terminus of cosmological waste disposal, not a notable who can do or say anything because face is bloated to indisputable by big screen or world stage.
Since when have intellectuals resumed heeding clerics and pundits over scientists? Empirical facts are peer reviewed and professionally vetted; there's no room for flexibility or stupidity. Questions of morality and spirituality can never be answered and will always remain debatable. Therefore, wars are fought over them incited by neocons precisely because they can neither be proven nor refuted and nothing is more divisive. All neocons believe in is profitability created when parties disagree. Anyway, after partisan pundits, pederast priests, and proof-for-pay scientists, who can you trust?
B&C tells a story of how an angry carload at a bike path crossing screamed insults out windows. Labann made an appropriate finger salute, hurried along, then slipped through next crossing just before same carload nearly chased down from around corner. Of course, can’t blame bad attitudes alone, but capitalistic enterprises of cooking crack, importing coke, and selling liquor in which neocons and rednecks collude. Exercise does builds testosterone, makes bicyclists concupiscents, but gutless drug addicts lash out against helpless innocents because those in control are inaccessible and remote, and you aren’t. No, bicyclists and walkers are powerless and vulnerable.
Tolerating, trying not to pity, these pains-in-the-asses parallels bicycling on multiple levels. Believe no one who says bicycling is nonstop joy in cresting hills, maintaining cadence, and paying costs. It's a battle against bugs, chemical burns or infectious germs splashed on you by riding through gutters awash in mystery juice, saddle sores, sorrow and worry, such onerous stuff with which you must deal but shouldn't have to, and toil that yields mood elevating endorphins and years of living longer. It's a game changer for those among you who are smarter.
David Bowie recalls with amusement how in Berlin new acquaintance Brian Eno would take a train based on how many marks he had in his pocket, then explore neighborhood in which he found himself. Situationist Guy deBord identified this behavior in Theory of the Dérive (1956), an unstructured journey where you absorb whatever you randomly encounter, and emotionally disconnect. One wonders whether anything is so utterly random, when it could be part of some otherworldly plan, or whether preordained scripts create or were derived from chaos. Still head out alert on bike on a wide-eyed dérive and let vehicle flow decide which turns to take, though know there'll be some consequence. A flaneur imposes self into a crowd just to feel alive amidst a moshpit of movement and transgression, in other words, traffic, from which everything you need to know gets revealed. In an armchair or on a couch, you yourself are mere furniture. Independent of conveyance choice, whenever in motion you are traffic, as much as any bus, car, or steel on wheels for which planners must accommodate. It's only now, 30 years since ADA was enacted, that cities are installing wheelchair ramps in intersection curbs. They ignored a whole generation of wheelchair users, though bike paths always supported motorized chairs.
Constant sweeping is what bicyclists do, surveying ahead from front wheel to vanishing point. This sweep derives from a need to dodge hazards, distant and narrow, downcast and medial, then proximal and wide, repeated as many times a minute as miles per hour in speed. Bicyclists also sweep tires side to side, like painting pavement or tango dancing. Regarding politics, citizens need to be on par: looking ahead, looking around, and staying engaged in current events. Over the last 50 years world's population has doubled from four to eight billion. Two additional generations have joined parents and grandparents on highways. Family drives on Sundays have become an anachronism. Can't see bucolic vistas when focused on bumpers inches ahead and behind. Motoring's a key defoliant and pollutant which has laid roadsides bare. Nothing much to see anymore except impending shambles. At least by bike, you soak up oxygen and sunshine.
Almost never look back, especially when someone hails. Promises no reward for services rendered. Was early on a Sunday, quiet enough to hear, so went back despite misgivings. Bicyclist on a borrowed bike had dropped chain completely off. Had tools to fix but he couldn’t figure out how. Explained that derailleur is on a spring, so bottom cog was flipped over top. A lesson later, chain was restored, and cyclist was left with a happy memory of a helpful samaritan... and how to locate nearest bike shop. Perhaps he’ll pass along a positive vibe. How many times has it been that Labann fixed a stranger’s flat and was forgotten? Then, again, always foresaw contingencies, so seldom needed reciprocity. Did roll 150,000 miles without unmanageable mishaps. Maybe karma accumulates and protects, you never know. Talking heads who incite hate may earn millions by ruining marriages, but surely are due for huge comeuppances, hopefully including reparations.
Getting along doesn’t mean you have to bite mother-in-law’s tongue, chew dumb cane, shut up, or suffer in silence. Having personally dealt with belligerent losers, learned it’s better to go limp, neither confront nor escalate, if you want smother an emotional inferno. Once fuel is expended, fury becomes smoke and melts into thin air. Unfortunately, propaganda continually gets refueled by billionaires, so you’d better counter with equal measure lest it cost you your life, though it consumes your time.
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