Blot an Inkstain

Activism advances with the first drop of ink to stain a page. Think of all those boycott handouts, homily sermons, petition forms, picket placards, political podcasts, position posters, slogan signs, and tattoo ink on stage. Whenever you want, you’re free to make a stink, even publish volumes full of outright lies and ruses in disguise. Doesn’t mean there are no consequences, though slander requires that you cause strife and name man before you need legal defenses. Famous cases as Galileo Galilei and Giordano Bruno wound up costing these truthful authors freedom and life. Wars were already and will again be fought over Bible and Quran. Whatever you pen or text can be boldly blotted, ignominiously ignored, or terroristically taken; citizens, “home grown” dissidents you probably know, might even inadvertently invite assassination or deportation to some gulag beyond Gulf of Mexico.

Better to do your duty anonymously, in silence, which is how essential business will always be conducted, despite adage, “Once all is said and done, more will have been said than done.” Goes along with, “In any project, 80% of work will be done by 20% of participants,” because corrupt louts who don’t contribute are busy claiming credit while complicating completion. Folks are largely unaware of what transpires, just rely on their needs being fulfilled. They don’t climb mountains, lead donkeys, pick beans, reconcile tariffs, route from foreign ports to local roasters, then stock in stores just to grab a cup of joe on the go. But they are responsible for improving own behaviors and state systems to avoid an otherwise predictable apocalypse. Drugs and liquor avoid issues, deaden pain, goad deeds, but leave you vulnerable to villains foisting them on you for their own gain.

Inconsistencies can indicate betrayal and redundancies reveal coercion, though conversely may show virtues of growth and tenacity. Intelligence is specifically defined by adapting to situations as they change. Life transcends stagnation upon tides of transmogrification through personal codes of conduct. You need neither forgiveness nor permission to respond with kindness, but reciprocity has limits. Cede a millimeter, monsters seize a megameter. Amorality backfires and crashes. Empathy keeps tires rolling through trenches. A just society cares for patients with defects, illnesses and injuries. If one suffers, all suffer emergencies. It’s called civilization.

"With humans it is like bicycles. Only when pedaling can they comfortably keep balance. [Beim Menschen ist es wie beim Velo. Nur wenn er faehrt, kann er bequem die Balance halten,"] - Albert Einstein, letter to son Eduard, 1930

When you stop doing, you start dying. In 8th decade but not retired, Labann still rides and writes despite joint arthritis and spiritual “authoritis”. Hit roads through 4 seasons, though outings are less long and more frequent, and weather dependent. Read every day, especially when wet deters, but really despise a lot of what’s accessible, none more than chatbox Cthulhu claptrap, as daft as rats in the wall or Rorschach fold blot tests, the diametric opposite of passionate but worrisome human communion, why conversation exists after all. You don’t need to quote geniuses to engage readers. Endowed with basic human rights, you’re entitled to choose amount, counterpoise, orientation, quality, and/or tenor of input among every other attribute. Prefer own immaculate literary tapestry covering relatable praxis, though persistence of resistance galls youth and stains recent correspondence. Nice to be involved in a solo global project full of current events and original contents that’s both devoid of cash and not for stash, so unaffected by duties, tariffs or taxes.

Rate of change in 2025 America has been cringeworthy and dizzying, intended to browbeat and cower citizens into terrifying isolated bubbles. Calling well run government programs fraudulent schemes will cause chaos and cost illegitimate DOGE bros their interloping roles. Donnis The Menace acting in contempt of courts, alienating longtime allies, breaking constitutional laws, destroying patriot families, dismantling critical functions, disrupting world trade, extorting eager apostles, misinterpreting SCOTUS decisions, rescinding contracts and programs only to rehire when public goes ballistic, usurping congressional powers, and violating oath of office will prove catastrophic for entire country including POTUS. Seems that’s the oligarchs’ end game. For half a century R in Republican signified Recession. Whiplash policy pronouncements drive markets down or up for purposes of insider investor windfalls and small shareholder losses to tune of $8 trillion. Rulers want an impoverished populace subservient to their puppet, not a proud clown who thinks he’s king. Too bad for a simian silverback not long for this world who only cares about himself, his image, and own wealth. “Ripping us off?” He never paid taxes or released filings; those who roar loudest are frequently the guiltiest whose fondest proclivity is to maraud with impunity. Kleptocrats not only routinely divert treasury assets into their offshore accounts, they want to turn US government into a private money funnel and piggy bank where they evade criminal indictment, deserved incarceration, fund restitution, and property seizure. 

What if factories close, farms fail, refineries shut, supermarkets empty, utilities cease, and web collapses? All are likely outcomes of derailing world economy. Supply chains could erode to survival mode within days or weeks; major retailers already foresee empty shelves. Whole system might have been rigged, but at least it worked a bit for stalwart majority. Once eliminated, it’ll be replaced by a minority syndicate with promising memes and thieving schemes. Revolutions arose on less. Sides will be chosen. Blood spilled. Diseases and pestilence spread. Harm will last forever. Must billions die to restore rights? Doomsaying is lazy and pathetic, though on April 2 WWIII began as a simultaneous assault on every country except Russia, a failing dictatorship heavily sanctioned. When asked why, glib excuse was the Ukraine war; why then were tariffs levied on Ukraine? America is in an actual but invisible civil war, and alleged but imaginary border wars with Canada and Mexico, with rumors of waging war against Europe in general, potentially a bid to remain in office. Nobody voted for this.

Vote suppression occurs through ballot cancelations in districts of opposing party, bans of early and mail-in votes to exclude overseas soldiers and overtime workers, condensed one-day voting, disenfranchising married women who changed their last names, districts redrawn for partisanship, impeding traffic to polls through bomb threats and other stunts, individual identity challenges, and stacking federal and state courts with judges who allow these tactics. If any sound improbable or ridiculous to you, be aware all have already occurred numerous times in every state. Conspiracy theorists claim that COVID was released on purpose to keep citizens from voting, because when fewer show up at polls Republican's small 25% minority increases its chances of winning. GOP’s disreputable VIPs play dirty, persecute mercilessly, terrorize domestically, and would terminate voting altogether if they could. If you must do this, you’re not serving oath of office, probably committing serial crimes, and should end term to endorse a public servant who’ll take your own seat before you secure a spot in hell.

One wonders if these radicals are blind to their own hypocrisy or focused on their tunnel vision agenda. “For decades, right-wing ideologues complained that any safety net offered by the government was a form of ‘social engineering’ that interfered with the ‘natural order’ of the market... highly engineered systems designed to keep money flowing upward; they cannot operate without a carefully constructed legal framework; and they largely consist of social networks of people hiring those from their demographic in-group (such as fraternity brothers) rather than being some pure and godly measure of human greatness... After enduring years of this market fundamentalist whining, it is laughable to see radical tech libertarians destroying America so they can engage in the mother of all social engineering projects.” - Jen Sorensen, 2025

Wall of Shame

Stable geniuses accept and appreciate place names originated long ago as cultural artifacts and historical reminders connecting past to present warning what worst intentions will threaten. Dictators want to rename everything [i.e., Tsaritsyn to Stalingrad] that might prompt those they wish to oppress that they physically outnumber and probably could easily overthrow these tyrants. Your real enemy is not a cruel ideology, but specific sociopaths who ignore aftermaths that cause bloodbaths. “Pleonexia... an insatiable craving to have what belongs to another... To deny and strip away what underlies society’s wellness is to shoot oneself in the foot or worse. Greed will never be a necessity, just capitalist propaganda and persistent programming used by advertisers to sell things that deplete resources and fill war chests to perpetuate evil.” - Labann Says, 2015

Juggling despair and hope describes life itself. Courage smothers doldrums. Hope acts responsibly after addressing and exposing risks, not ignoring them. Heigh ho, do go off to work to dig into salacious dirt, mine diamonds, and nurture growth. Never going to be famous if you lack heroic credentials and pack paragraphs too densely. Public consensus can inform an appropriate resistance to un-American, pro-Putin authoritarianism. Fact USA isn’t fascist is one of its finest features. Latest polls report POTUS disapproval by two out of three asked. Centuries of commitment to freedom earned its role as world leader; only oppressors want repression, slavery, and tariffs intended to leverage world’s biggest marketplace, by which they are idiotically destroying it. Are your civil rights being sold to reconcile $50 trillion in public debt and surrendered to appease foreclosing creditors and foreign foes? No, it’s an excuse to steal trillions from you all before bottom drops out, an extremist zero sum game in which even supposed winners lose everything. Burnt bridges, global stoppages, mass layoffs, and scorched earth yield needless madness. Would be exponentially simpler recover stolen funds from billionaires, who can’t spend such wealth over a lifetime, only use it to exert power over masses, and secretly offshore it all sequestering it from circulation thereby threatening your survival. Why not just cancel federal debt, cheat creditors, and collapse rackets? It’s called leveling the playing field, and it’s required at increasing intervals.

Balance is one of 6 basic human senses along with hear, see, smell, taste, and touch. Balance in all its forms - essay length, exercise/rest, health homeostasis, justice scales, Lagrange points, ledger sheets, mathematical equality, moderation always, personal composure, posting frequency, prudent judgment, reasonable reciprocity, relationship harmony, right gear to shift into, sangfroid presence, self control, staying upright, steady handedness, things owed versus owned, universal equilibrium, wealth evenness, ZPG - is a faculty bicycling strengthens more than anything else in which you might engage, as well as a stimulant to all human bodily responses, up to 53 in total depending how you define them.

As described by ecopsychologist Dr. Michael J. Cohen’s List, Labann can personally testify to fearing death in traffic and feeling gravity’s pull on demanding climbs and screaming descents. Removed from cycling situation, you notice neither as much. Of course, integral to bicycling experiences are bonking for lack of sweet glycogen, hearing noises vacuum packed motorists don’t, meditating dreamily, navigating space, noting weather, seeing everything, sensing time passing or unseen presences, shivering in cold, smelling aromas from dung to petrichor, soaking up heat, sporting for adventure’s sake, surviving dangers, sweating back humidity, tasting whatever’s in the air, and thinking logically. But pupation? Wrapped in lycra might you resemble a butterfly metamorphosing beyond former self? Bicycling heightens awareness of all that occurs, once happened, or possibly could, and with that obligates one to pass observations along. Your opportunity to find wellness, follow your instinct to belong, and reconnect to nature looms, according to League of American Bicyclists. National Ride a Bike Day is May 4th. Bike to Work Week is May 12th to 18th with Bike to Work Day on 16th.

Poli-Urethane

“Father, father, we don't need to escalate. You see, war is not the answer for only love can conquer hate. You know we've got to find a way to bring some lovin' here today. Picket lines and picket signs: Don’t punish me with brutality. Talk to me so you can see, oh, what's going on... Everybody thinks we're wrong; but who are they to judge us simply 'cause our hair is long?” Al Cleveland, Obi Benson, and Marvin Gaye, What’s Going On, What’s Going On, Tamla, 1971 - Protest song inspired by police brutality on Bloody Thursday in Berkeley hit #1 among Billboard R&B singles, made money for Live Aid chartities, and was covered profitably several times.

Bike&Chain exists because of marginalized bicycling culture, and recognizes “Fertilization Administration” has declared war on citizen cyclists, independent women, and public servants, so any program that supports lane designations, reproductive rights, or safety nets is now forfeit unless they unite to fight. Not to justify latest tirades to youths, culture inseparably intertwines with politics, though often authors won’t admit it. Small shop owners as Aaron Johnson of GoGrava must react to de minimis shutdown and new tariffs. Seems politics at its core tries to score through biased polls, deliberate lies, and varnished truths. David Nyberg debates, “Deception appears to be normal... a workday attribute of practical intelligence,” though ethics advise elsewise on sticky evidence. Mucilaginous polyurethane dries into several bike components including apparel cloth, bar tape, helmet inserts, inner tubes, pump gaskets, saddle shells, and such accoutrements. You're not a thane just because you back a baby daddy dictator politically, have assets worth billions, and want to be called a doge or minister; you must get elected first to govern or represent nation's constituents.

Bike Radar compiled a list of Best Cycling Books 2025, and said it’s for “cycling bookworms”; instead, most titles would only appeal to endurance athletes and wannabe racers rather than poli sci majors. Even James Hibbard’s The Art of Cycling (Quercus, 2021, 320 pp.), previously reviewed, has nothing to do with art or culture at all, rather what’s in it mentally for you, though more recently published than bulk of titles they recommend. By assembling citations and specifying contexts you elevate importance of items probably beyond their worth. Not surprisingly, Labann’s noncommercial volumes were again overlooked.

Zachary Mooradian Furness, Put The Fun Between Your Legs! The Politics and Counterculture of the Bicycle "(University of Pittsburg, 2005, 228 pp.) - Peer reviewed doctoral dissertation includes an extensive bibliography and short filmography, and touches upon all historic points of bicycle advocacy. “My analysis is focused upon the politics of cycling in the United States... largely based upon a critique of car culture, and with it, the ideological assumptions that inform our labor practices, consumption habits, uses of technology, and our relationship to our material world... important to analyze because globalization has resulted in the mass exportation of American culture and economics to other parts of the world.” Dicatators hate that, so VOA was just silenced. Must’ve been something in the air, since Bike&Chain also had been written by then.

Treatment equality among bicyclists, motorists, and pedestrians has been federal law since 1990, but same old culture war persists after decades. Federal Highway Administration officialy reaffirmed in 2010, "Because of the benefits they provide, transportation agencies should give the same priority to walking and bicycling as is given to other transportation modes." Federal regulations prohibit planners from impeding bicycling or severing routes bicyclists use during new construction; bridges must accommodate bicycling and walking. Despite long established guidelines, mounting lawsuit losses, and repeated court injunctions, new regime bullies onward, defies constitution, and ignores observance. But such criticism assumes normality and precedents one hopes, not criminality and disobedience from public servants. Charity directors, law enforcers, and school teachers who witness incivility may somethimes turn into misanthropes. Government officials are supposed to work for your reciprocal cooperation and toward your best interests. Seems cabinet of April fools, Mad Hatter, and March Hare rather make millions of resentful antagonists. Better consider what they do, not believe what serial liars say, to those they harm.

Ken Avidor, Bicyclopolis (2017, 98 pp.) - Intricate bike-centric graphic novel 17 years in the making was self published by this Minneapolis based cartoonist, first mentioned in March of 2011 while still being developed. Through a time travel theme, Avidor predicts where demented environmental and political abandonment lead. Amidst a global climate crisis, it’s not the time to shutter NOAA or withdraw from Paris Accord.

DeFranzy, Cycling is Freedom [German pop], single video, self, 2018 - Just so, suffragette, and when they begin to infringe upon basic motility, call it what it is: verboten slavery, vicious repression, or vote suppression. In a democracy, everyone gets a vote, women in majority foremost, unless theonomic ideology of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaiden’s Tale comes to pass as a direct consequence of Project 2025. Can’t happen here? Read Genesis 29:29. Already has with sex slaves, toxic bros, and worse offenses upon horizon.

Adonia E. Lugo, PhD, Bicycle / Race: Transportation, Culture & Resistance (Microcosm Publishing, 2018, 192 pp.) - Cultural anthropologist defines “mobility justice”, and discusses racial discrimination and sustainable transport. Gets Labann thinking of how bicycles are stolen and vandalized less often than cars, with a huge black market for catalytic converters, quarter panels, and wheel rims to fulfill. Bicycles don’t suit lazy thieves, who'd rather plunder US Treasury, world's biggest target. "Infrastructure neglect" is just another tactic to funnel funds their way. Senator Booker's filibuster set record straight: American people are in charge.

“In mid-2018, women in Saudi Arabia gained the freedom to ride a bicycle, and the efforts of women’s activists such as Baraah Luhaid played a part in this, as she established Spokes Hub... We often see the bicycle just as a form of transport, but it’s much more than that; it’s a classless item that billions of different people across the globe own.” Zain Hussain, The bicycle: a symbol of unification, Medium magazine, 2019 - So, Saudi women are bestowed this right a century later than Americans and Europeans? Wow!

Ken Avidor, Courier, single video, self, 2019; short animation related to a future dystopia where bicycle couriers have to deliver food to front line battle zones instead of Door Dash, Grubhub or Uber Eats after petroleum paradigm crashed. First in a series where sabotage hero poses as a bicycle courier.

Avidor Family Singers, My Bike is Freedom, single video, self, 2020 - Short Ken Avidor animation with an original song. Bicycling is the fifth freedom, along with freedoms from tyranny and want, and of religion and speech, all of which are at risk under authoritarian attack.

Max Whittle, Cycling is Freedom, single video, self, 2020
It’s a sentiment that adheres longer than orange facepaint, more like steadfast shellac.

Peter Cox and Till Koglin (editors), The Politics of Cycling Infrastructure: Spaces and (In)Equality (Policy Press, 2020, 261 pp.) - “Physical infrastructure is currently posited as the primary key to unlock cycling’s potential as a primary mode of sustainable transport... Governance mechanisms that provide for and respond to citizen voices... recognize the need for and implement change... Infrastructure is never neutral and always inherently political.” Most articles in this anthology based analyses on European cities. In USA, conservative congressmen aren’t even holding public forums anymore.

Some American mayors brazenly act out their bicycling abhorrence. According to Jody Rosen’s article The Bicycle as a Vehicle of Protest, (The New Yorker, 2020), “N.Y.P.D. has a long history of hostility to cyclists... police have used questionable, sometimes violent tactics to sweep up participants in Critical Mass, the guerrilla group rides that aim to promote cyclists’ rights... Transportation issues are social-justice issues... American bike riders [are] of all races and backgrounds, but... The term ‘invisible riders’ has gained currency among critics who decry the marginalization of black, brown, female, and working-class cyclists by establishment activists.” Bike boom at the time kept reluctant bus riders moving alternatively, minimizing recession effects of pandemic quarantines.

Chris Watson, The Bicycling Guitarist, pedals beyond politically correct into some sort of unbalanced chauvinist rant while playing original tunes, poising himself and his Stratocaster guitar, and riding his 1977 Schwinn Sportabout 10-speed in circles.

The Bicycling Guitarist fea. Chris Watson, Repoman, Elektra’s Room, self, 2020 “Oh, Repoman. He likes my band. So I guess my Schwinn is safe from being repossessed. That means it was possessed more than once. Possessed and depossessed, then repossessed. But, fortunately, fortunately it's an ‘exorcise bike’.” Among a half dozen albums, this oddly appears to be only song that directly references bicycling.

American cycling team gets Trapped Inn (Leah Sturgis, dir., 2024) at a remote European mountain lodge; teammates then start unexpectedly dying. Taps into contagion angst. Peloton protagonists Connor (Matt Rife) and Greg (Robert Palmer Watkins) compete to solve this otherworldly mystery. Horror film genre merely mirrors and woefully understates what's now actually occurring because of DOGE meddling in earned benefits, established services, and foreign aid.

Heartfelt 2024 testimony from Claire Pomykala of Living By Bike declares that bicycling at all is a political act. “Resist capitalist forces and lifestyles that sit, to fight status quo, to reconnect with nature, to recognize our ignorance: bicycling is inherently political... Bicycling is revolution.” Battle hardened Claire has bike-packed from Atlanta to Oz through Europe, learned hands-on loads of lore, and taught self a myriad of truths through living vulnerable to what world provides. New US administration believes it can rescind visas. restrict travel, and strip citizenship from anyone who opposes their goal to control, because laws only apply to you, not them. Bicycling is human, not conservative, liberal, or partisan; all demographics ride except abject invalids and beer swilling, coal-rolling, extreme right, fossil fuel addicted wimps, who may or may not notice X's tweet logo now includes a sieg heil salute despite billions in stockholder losses undermining temporary victory. As in all crime syndicates, fraudulent DOGE forwards same fascist agenda yet insulates felon POTUS from prosecution. Unless you're a multimillionaire, you'll pay more taxes and suffer loss of services.

Montreal, Quebec has enjoyed better bike accommodations since Claire Morissette’s advocacy in 1990’s. Yet after decades many residents still don’t get it. A short Oh The Urbanity! documentary, I Went to an Anti-Bike-Lane Revolt (Patrick Murphy, dir., 2024) shreds local misconceptions about alleged bike issues of ableism, ageism, school safety, and such notions adopted without regard of indisputable evidence to the contrary. Everyone is mistreated, some more than others, though goal is to avoid egregious examples. Bruised egos can be self inflicted, so too close to exercising personal freedoms to cure. Roads mistreat bicyclists who nevertheless ride and tolerate them.

Wes Marshall, PhD, PE, Killed by a Traffic Engineer (Island Press, 2024, 424 pp.) - A professor of civil engineering whistleblower contends that AASHTO (American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials) guidelines aren’t wholly based on inclusive safety or sound science. “There wasn’t nearly as much science behind the numbers as the 1,000-page manuals make it seem.” No sh*t! says Labann, who spent decades battling bull and writing manuals. Since 1899 when they began counting vehicle crash fatalities, 4 million Americans have died, many times that globally, more Americans than all military conflicts in which they fought including founding revolution. Best laid plans of Three E’s - Education, Enforcement, and Engineering - are rife with shortcomings among texting, tired, and twisted motorists, planners, and police.

“Asking Americans to sacrifice their beloved cars is not a winning political message, but helping them rediscover something they love more can change the world.” Steven Goodridge, The Conservative Case for Walking and Bicycling, Medium magazine, 2024 - Informative article appends a nice bibliography. Could continue with citations and contexts, but do conclude politics concern cyclists. It's too easy to round out paragraphs with so many asinine, bizarre, criminal, and despicable executive fiats signed daily, then immediately struck down by courts as illegal and unconstitutional. Forever forward, forge past onto next spin session and subsequent post toward velorution.