Saw Carl Sagan on a bicycle (Cosmos, Episode 8) speak about Albert Einstein riding his own bicycle while ruminating upon light speed, thus deriving Theory of Special Relativity. Nothing can travel faster than light, and light you emit while in motion isn’t additive. Later, during year’s first night ride along a lonely country road under under headlights and starry skies, this thought thread led to recalling Hubble’s Constant (H0 = 7%/Gyr.) and red shift. Doppler is relative to one’s point of perception. No matter from which direction sound approaches, pitch rises, then lowers as it recedes, even when passing from behind at 90°. As do all cyclists inundated by phenomena, have heard this personally many times over, especially in light traffic under low visibility. Disgusted by those who deny or ignore such reality; science requires curiosity, logic, memory, and organized thought impossible while smashed, stoned, or stupid. Ignorance must be bliss, because being observant means more anxiety, suffering, and worry about what’s already wrong and what’s coming that’s worse.
While identifying worldwide bicycle brands, noticed how Asian makers don't mention who built them; individual contributions aren’t lauded or revered there as in the West; founders and workforce were considered functionaries who filled roles then were swapped out unceremoniously. Balance abhors extremes of conceit and humility. Although cultures vary, a lack of alternatives among paths to survival defines slavery. Buy-in expects rewards you trust. What’s left to incentivize workers or writers? Death threats? Fierce intimidation? Tire treads, too, almost imperceptibly daily get ground down eventually, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Latest bike boom seems to have stalled. Some blame elitist attitudes and LBS hubris. But politics do hugely influence sales. Contagion protocols, spiraling food and fuel costs, and supply chain disruptions boosted bike buys. But conservative nabobs in bed with Big Oil want to bury bicycling, because for many it’s a viable alternative to motoring and wasting fossil fuels, a dwindling state subsidized resource for which they overcharge for obscene profits. Their ill conceived tariffs will hike price of each Taiwan bike, by far world's biggest source. Republicans also object to Congestion Relief Zone Tolls, meant to free up Lower Manhattan’s streets for safety’s sake, whose proceeds partially fund bicycling advocacy. Meanwhile, GOP candidates got preponderance of campaign donations from sports team owners. These billionaires are burnt, because viewership for all sports are down based upon how exclusive they’ve become, yet you can’t even watch live broadcasts of local crits or major tours due to network bias against.
The Wheel magazine (New York, 1883) opined, “Of the city ordinance prohibiting bicycle riding in Central Park, bicyclers are as much entitled to consideration and provision for their enjoyment as the owners of carriages and light wagons. Discrimination against them on the ground that their vehicle is peculiar is simply absurd. To permit the owner of a light wagon to use it on any highway from which the bicyclist is excluded is an abuse of power...” Enter Jane Jacobs and her 40 years of social criticism covered in her centennial remembrance Jane Jacobs, Vital Little Plans: The Short Works of Jane Jacobs (Random House, 2016, 544 pp.) including essays Downtown Is for People, and Pedaling Together. If her nemesis urban planner Robert Moses had his way, he’d have replaced more bike friendly neighborhoods with multilane motorways.
How many brainy essain [essays, swarms, or trials] does it take to escape fears and feel free? Which one will resonate effectively to save constitution and democracy? It’s no easy mission. Invert letters [essian] and you wind up in a wasteland. Apathetic people only heed repeated threats. Not all essayists grind their own axes and hone at-home causes; Busy bees and Labann published dire warnings against lawless monsters, but voters rather acquit and confer power to convicted psychopaths, known rapists, and media moguls who micromanage opinions. Between illogical misinformation and willful disinformation, goal of incessant lying is not to convince victims, but to discredit truth so no one believes anything. Philip Dick assumed, “If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words.” Were that true, deranged dictators would be under thumbs of cagey intellectuals, though this usually proves exactly the opposite. Dullard jocks bully timid nerds. Dimwitted hoodlums cower compliant sheep.
The longer you’re around, the more absurd your numbers sound, for example, 250,000 miles by bicycle, then 2,500 consequent pages about bicycling culture in an imaginative style AI could never imitate including definitive brands and songs indices beyond a 150,000 page career writing nonfiction. Just needed to do, but who did it serve? Septuagenarians should go fewer miles at higher frequencies to make up for when they were weekend warriors logging centuries. Similarly, activists must organize more protests against every unconstitutional policy that favors wealthy few over vast majority.
Candidates, congress, courts, networks, and press all colluded with oligarchy and hoodwinked voters this election cycle; survival is up to citizens now. Not everyone concerns themselves in everyday toil or knows how miles get trod in another’s shoes. Biking beats walking, but still requires physical effort many despise. Those who enjoy privileges of affluence, comforts, and intelligence are obligated to act wisely and exercise freedoms against tyranny and want, of religion and speech, to protect such rights and set examples. Office holders are supposed to serve public, not stuff own pockets with dark money due to Citizen's United. Democracy isn't broken, representation is; worse, perceived corruption legitimizes empty promises of remorseless swindlers.
After pro-Nazi Bund rally at Madison Square Garden in 1939, one supposes that 1970 and 1973 Nicks’ NBA championships there subsequently, and 53 amazing Grateful Dead concerts, had exorcised its villainy and restored its vibe. But in 2024 another hate filled fascist/racist rally occurred at MSG. How many Taylor Swift performances will it take to cleanse venue again? She’s already vowed not to appear in red states that betrayed care of citizens and rule of law. Blue states with brain trusts bailed them out for decades. CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 disproportionately benefits red state workers as a gesture of solidarity. Why bother?
With limited capacities and lifelines, humans conveniently sort everyone into dynamic groups: Ignorables, Givers, Reciprocators, and Takers. Some rate one’s circle of trust, or rather rhombus of doubt, square of condemnation, or triangle of suspicion. Such callous discriminations cast every feature film or stage play ever written, but never capture reality of individuals across lifetimes of development and withdrawal on a spectrum from benign to lethal. Aged ED leads directly to edgy evil devoid of empathy.
Ignorables are those you don’t know and will probably never meet despite fact they mean obligations for which you tacitly pay yet vociferously resent. Givers are altruists, lovers, mothers, and others who do for everyone else and expect little, perhaps gratitude, which slowly melts these saints into puddles of self. Masses prefer Reciprocators who trade whatever they have—effort, goods, produce, skills, time, wealth—quid pro quo for something they desire or need. Describes anticipated relationships among businesses, citizens, corporations, government, neighbors chipping in to defend nation and share in programs including bridge and highway repairs, child welfare, clean water, consumer protection, healthcare availability, law enforcement, retirement security, waste management, and whatnot... taken for granted though never guaranteed. Failure thereof is despicable, particularly treasury raids. Takers are deplorables, often born into or perverted by bad habits for which they were never punished; they develop antisocial personality disorders from which they abuse privileges, accumulate property, commit crimes, lord over others, never share fairly, take revenge, and use power bestowed upon them with brutality and impunity. What of the hypocrisy of rejecting vaccine immunity while requesting legal immunity?
Steps towards authoritarian rule pivot upon consolidating power and dehumanizing ignorables: Anyone unpaid deserving relief or meeting needs including homemakers, children with birth defects, ethic minorities, illegal immigrants, indentured servants, military families, retirees on pensions and social security, soldiers overseas, trafficked slaves, welfare recipients, and whoever has no champion and looks vulnerable enough to cut off, deport, enslave, forsake, murder or sacrifice without blowback. Hungry refugees can easily be cowered into kowtowing. That why republicans create recessions whenever they control congress, courts, or presidency. Educated, self assured, successful citizens see right through demented schemes of smug thugs; dolts don’t and get duped time and again. With a smile despots elevate criminals, exploit neutrals, and persecute innocents.
Every government improvement Labann ever suggested involved vetting a candidate’s character and competence, such as picking a president from among tenured senators. What happening is the opposite, anointing someone with least experience, who’s surrounding himself with loyalists of less competence, who’ll break laws to fulfill his lust for vengeance. This insincere Sin City crime syndicate has been flooding zones with culture wars (pedophilia, transgender) and petty issues (drones over Jersey), focusing on domestic purges, and using reflexive control, so you neglect monitoring enemies, domestic and foreign, real threats. USA has never been closer to World War III, largely because of disregard of constitutional compliance, democratic norms, national unity, and rule of law.
Because of conservative congressional votes and red state sovereignty, federal minimum wage remains $7.25/hour, and $2.00/hour at worst in Oklahoma. Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich says of this rigged system, “Among American workers, the median wage of the bottom 90% has not increased, adjusted for inflation, in 52 years. Where did all the money go? It went to the top [10%].” Economists say a living wage depending upon where you reside would now be 2 to 3 times more, between $15 and $25/hour; blue states MA, NJ, NY, and WA now mandate $15/hour. Millions of American families occupy remote homesteads, usually without electricity, running water, or state services. Because so many can’t afford rents, 600,000 are still homeless. Property ownership began a downturn during Bush recession and its resultant mortgage crisis. But media predictions for and relentless caricaturization of Biden’s term as a failure were lies; GDP and stock markets hit historic highs, house values soared, 70,000 infrastructure projects began, and unemployment hit 50-year lows, but, no surprise, corporate profiteering and crony gouging incensed masses and incited voter discontent. When promised the opposite, 21% of Americans instead revisited conservatism that already failed them. More collectively but unsuccessfully chose progressive candidates. Too bad blue wave passes with election results. Be prepared to lose equity and savings when economy collapses.
International free trade is a war deterrent. It gives all parties reasons to avoid war because it risks own productive infrastructure and supply chains to resources not locally available. Rabid nationalists don’t grasp this subtle diplomacy. Intended to punish foreign traders and reboot domestic producers, tariffs attack trade, curb income, hike taxes, impoverish population, invite boycotts, and welcome isolationism, enough to drive entrepreneurs away, leaving only exempt billionaires and poor masses, who they’ll treat as slaves until they revolt. This scenario has often been repeated but never ends well. Zero sum games kill everyone alike, including alleged winners. A social contract of constitutional rights built USA into an economic powerhouse and world leader. China may boast of burgeoning growth, but America has been its main customer; another GDP downturn will preempt their plans and project weakness. If they can’t dominate trade, they’ll have to invade.
The diversity of hundreds of sovereignties suppresses evil bids for world domination and vile ambitions of megalomaniacs. Every territorial grab urges other countries to expand their empires as well. China eyes Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam, has already made inroads into Africa and South America, and owns expanses of American farmland. Incoming POTUS jokes of annexing Canada, Greenland, and Mexico as a half dozen USA states while ignoring protectorate Puerto Rico. Russian bots ferret out any social media discussion and input spin to counter anything that detracts from their political goals. FBI caught RT red handed bribing influencers to sway USA’s elections. As did Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin, Putin had troops target Ukrainian bicyclists as a control tactic. Bicyclists evade capture, represent freedom, and spread intel among resistance, facts well documented by WWII historians. Despots can't allow that.
Preamble spells it out. “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” Amidst divisive splinters where are these unified blessings? Framer Thomas Jefferson warned, “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” Whose freedom? What vigilance? Where has everyone’s yearning for justice gone? Worn down by a decade with no due process? When overrun by own government factions, 330 million disorganized residents who hitherto exercised freedom without responsibility forfeit whatever recourses they once had. Consensus on critical issues that once led to cooperative solutions now represents the greatest threat to authoritarian rule, therefore becomes its primary target for disruption.
If economic aid was offered to Russian people provided they’d overthrow Putin, threat of current war expanding throughout Europe would be mitigated. Inflation there is hovering at 23%/year. However, if you value sovereignty, you don’t go about toppling other governments; no, you abide will of their citizens, presuming they must be content with mismanagement, given they vastly outnumber rulers and own everything, at least on paper. Yet Russia actively provokes Americans into believing nonsense and fighting among themselves. Atychiphobic Putin is desperate to discredit democracy, because his autocracy is failing. Seeing hundreds of thousands of army age males fleeing country, with war against Ukraine going just about as well as Afghanistan, he doesn't want remaining subjects figuring out he's a foundering fraud. If you believe to build nation you must invade neighbors, you’ve misgoverned own domain and wasted citizens' resources.
What is a nation anyway? Blood may be thicker than water but it’s woefully less refreshing. America is the sum of its constituent diversity, each experimental component strengthening it as a whole. Confidence in 250 years of consistent entitlement to steer ship safely despite whatever comes along naively overlooks Civil and World Wars, elected domestic enemies, organized crime syndicates, and others who would rather burn it all down than revitalize democracy for mutual benefit, which means barring billionaires from buying influence. Downside of leveling a revenge curse is it diminishes both the sender and recipient. Dig 2 graves.
Doom and gloom are feckless holiday topics. People rather assess blame and blindly complain than resolve differences and solve problems. Hope demands action revealed by truths and resolved by efforts. Tyrants take no responsibility for their violence. Can myth and promise of an American way of life survive vultures circling? Wishing for a Christmas miracle won't cure malignant normality, a term recently coined by psychology scholar Robert Jay Lifton. After decades of abusing drugs, letting politicians raid treasury, and running up public debt, future you borrowed from is here to collect what’s it's owed.
“So Many Roads I know... Mountain high, river wide, so many roads to ride... all I want is one to take me home. So many roads tease my soul.” - Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter, 1992
“When ya get half crazy from the August heat, or on a frozen rutted road with no one to complain to about your achin' feet, you're gonna walk that endless highway, walk that highway till you die… With the cost of livin’, and the price of dyin’, well it looks like t'me this time I wont be buyin’... I sing by night, wander by day. I'm on the road, and it looks like I'm here to stay.” - Again relevant Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan, Endless Highway, Before The Flood, 1974, half a century ago
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