"All of us in some way are trying to kill time. When it's all said and done, time ends up killing us... I stopped trying to figure everything out a long time ago." Bob Dylan, Masked and Anonymous (Larry Charles, dir., 2003) "Time will only move us toward freedom if it moves us toward truth." Noam Chomsky
As in all previous editions, reviewing posts led to a few more insights. Why mention Bob Dylan, Grateful Dead, or Led Zeppelin? Massive popularity and prolific repertoires deliver better bait, cultural impact, lyrics galore, and reader recognition. They played what they discovered inside themselves, and prayed for an audience that paid. Labann's not some clapping monkey dancing on a string either. Breaking fourth wall, did reference less renowned artists 400 times as often because they were more directly relevant. Plenty of evidence in sources cited, not just author’s personal expertise of riding under every condition for over half a century, and vetted texts from other participants and peers. So much has changed over so many years, media seem to melt into muck of myth.
While seldom repeating self, laid bare every topic within scope definitively, including how bicyclists are dismissed and marginalized by billionaires and their war against humanity and planet, which makes them prime targets for retribution. Americans should revoke their license to kill, seize their assets for redistribution, what taxation used to do, and send these traitors to same jungle prisons they won’t admit are funded by taxes citizens other than they pay. Majority ought to boycott taxes altogether; good time to start since thousands of IRS enforcers were fired. Consequences! No revenue would derail their national betrayal.
View from space reveals Earth as one place for entire human race, more black, brown or yellow peoples than pale or pink who seem to think only they can seal deals. Rate of annual human reproduction peaked in 1965 at 2.3%, now down to a half-century low of 0.85%, but among an all-time high population of 8.1 billion. So, though rate declined upon withering costs and ZPG awareness, headcount yet rises unbridled, which stresses sources of food, income, potable water, shelter, and transportation. How long and how many before this unsustainable situation self corrects? In response, rich preppers buy GS jets and private islands; survivalists buy bomb shelters and crypto currency; both encourage global apocalypse expecting elbow room afterwards. A flawed plan, people they want dead produce everything.
Vox verifies, “Poverty, defined... as having less than 50% of the US median household income of $71,000, is associated with 183,000 American deaths per year.” By just existing and wealth they deny, billionaires cause more deaths than mass murderers. GOP has always defunded basic education, food assistance, legal protections, and minimal standards that raise families out of poverty into prosperity. Businessmen aligned with GOP may hate taxes, but having no workforce to exploit is far more problematic. “Nobody wants to work,” signifies that not being able to apply skills for which folks were weren't trained kills. Souls go so hollow that any false ideology fills in holes. At least pick a capable leader or partner, because dictators and parasites will drag you under. Tariff policy fiasco of 47 has already collapsed all markets and cost investors $6 trillion. Seems goal remains instant poverty and wealth destruction; 6 bankruptcies later, you'd think nation wouldn't trust his business sense.
Can't expect populace to really understand science, given continual distraction, drug abuse, educational inadequacy, mental defect, naive slackness, oblivious apathy, and/or social conditioning. Should expand and qualify previous mentions. Science is a methodology that begins with curiosity, carefully observes, deduces causes, experiments repeatedly, formulates theories, and gradually gains useful knowledge through peer review, published data, and sophisticated consensus. Science delivers accuracy, quality, reliability, safety, and satisfaction. Only morons and narcissists deny its value as a cooperative principle. Sounds like too much effort and too slow results until you realize an army of practitioners built myriad tools specifically to assist (not subrogate responsibility), and together wield these computers, devices, and spreadsheets in service to society. Anemometers, barometers, modeling software, and thermometers let bicyclists know weekly weather conditions to plan rides, or you can just set out and suffer miserably like some medieval serf for sake of some sadist's schadenfreude.
“I should really go for a run... but, hmm. That sky looks kind of ominous. Doesn't it? So you pick up your phone to check the weather... when you look at your phone you’ve got a message or an email so you open... It’s forty minutes later and you put your phone down wonder what you were doing and remember you were going... That is exactly how I first find Alan [pioneer of The Men’s Rights Movement]... The old normal is long gone... all these factoids about how bad things are for women? Alan debunks a lot of them.” Penelope Skinner’s stage play Angry Alan, 2018, now being staged on Broadway.
A series of Youtube videos recently emerged purporting to explain demise of 1960's counterculture, what media labeled beatniks, freegans, and hippies. Of course none could succeed against oligarchic power and wealth, what Govenor Tim Walz aptly describes as, “Corrupt and cruel.” Senator Jamie Raskin says, ”Their version of justice is ‘just us’”. Altruism always clashes with capitalism and loses. Those with royal presumptions don’t want to rub elbows with filthy, rebellious, perverse, unwashed commoners, serfs, or "their subjects", rather have henchmen squeeze them for every penny then use extorted money to exile those they’ve impoverished. Every concession written into law as a human right was just negated by ruling class in their “Big Beautiful Bill” that will care for billionaires alone and dare millions to die or suffer, conspicuously seniors and vulnerable others.
Creation of Bike&Chain was compelled 30 years ago by recognizing a crisis of truth and dearth of honesty were coming. Because bicycling is a balanced activity, equally joyful and painful, leaning and upright, it often seems self contradictory. Spectrum from blatant deceit to undeniable fact climbs from Cheerleader Leave-it's press briefings, conservative news propaganda, cult leader's Truth Social tweets, depraved gaslighting, embarrassed euphemisms, eyewitness testimony, frequent white lies that get you through your day, homespun folklore, metaphors, myths, neglectful omissions, passages from Testament and Torah, state secrets, statutes of math and science, to subtle tenets beyond your grasp that make your brain hurt. Don’t reference gods and kings since they always lie to solidify ascendancy. Oligarchs and politicians are not listed in Preface of Bike&Chain, either, as it’s given they’d hate every paragraph written by Al (Labann), but not AI (Artificial Intelligence), as are many 47-era documents that cite nonsense from nonexistent sources excused as format eras. Public has no idea of trillions of pages written that few ever read, including their omnibus bill. Own goal was never to amass text but in context make sense, practice poise, and prevent failure. Both excess and paucity signify sin.
“There’s a cost for telling the truth, but you have to stand up for it,” said actor/producer George Clooney regarding Edward R. Murrow’s departure from CBS and fall from grace after nullifying Senator Joe McCarthy’s communist witch hunt. He then accepted JFK's offer to run Voice of America. “Humans have a lot of trouble with the truth; there is [sic] so many layers of lies and deceptions: political, religious, economic, moral... how do you behave toward other people?” R. Crumb, interview, 2020.
Crime lord and executive branch don’t want you to apply knowledge, just cower from their threats and jump to their commands. They deeply fear disruptive entrepreneurs and smart adversaries and direly dread relative poverty and social setbacks. They covet all power and wealth others possess. Even the power of a motor makes simple drivers lose compassion, empathy, and love for anyone other than themselves. However, most audiences prefer a positive message that enslaves them rather than a sad truth that sets them free. Bicyclists shouldn’t have to calculate dangers of political overreach, including criminal charges and prison sentences bicyclists alone must face for exceeding 15 mph limit in Mayor Adam’s New York City, only how long cassette gears, cork tape, drive chains, latex tubes, pneumatic tires, or shoe velcro will last and how many to stock up on before tariffs commence. It’s Adams himself who should be in prison for accepting bribes, being convicted, and catering to 47's optics; soon he'll be replaced by a popular progressive.
Fascists are nihilists. They don’t want to do cooperative work, rather coerce or kill to achieve their callous agenda. You’d have to be a burbling moron, drug addict, or execrable menace to endorse such behavior, as does DOGE oligarch Leon, meddling in every federal agency while on Adderall, Ecstasy, and Ketamine. Now silent, GOP hypocrites relentlessly vilified Hunter Biden for his self admitted addiction, though he had no role whatever in government. They’ve been doing that for at least half a century when they humiliated presidential brother and southern farmer Billy Carter. Not one word of B&C has done any harm or was generated through substance abuse. By closing USAID DOGE caused 300,000 deaths to date, a small fraction compared to the millions trade wars will ultimately kill. Resultant chaos and cuts cost billions more than expenses avoided. Republican Senator Ron Johnson called their bijou fugly bid “grotesque and immoral”; Leon called it “a disgusting abomination” for adding $5 trillion to public debt. Doesn't meet ratified criteria of Four Freedoms: From tyranny and want, of religion and speech; in fact, passed Senate on narrowest of margins, one vote by Vice Vance, nullifies all four, and strips most rights. Demented grifter boss is back at it, stealing from poor trying to surpass former pal as world’s richest SOB. Idiots bribing him for influence by buying his goldcard citizenship and grift-coin will lose it all, not be repaid, and probably get deported should they complain. Ponzi schemes bilk marks and monetize presidency; a few million seems his price for a prison pardon. Supporters are being deceived and thieved by a gang who federal counselor Michael Popok identifies as, “a cyrpto-currency fueled, ferocious, godless, unpatriotic kleptocracy.” Just 18 months from now there will be a Democratic Congress and Senate impeaching entire administration for gross violations of articles of Constitution and oaths of office, not to mention hundreds of felonies including mass murder, other capital offenses, and ursurping congressional and court powers. Hard to commit treason, do favors, or pardon others for pay while incarcerated in El Salvador.
Labann’s predictions on politics of plunder began with 1990’s listserve posts, so it's maddening when what was avoidable imposes itself anyway. Countermeasures for this emerging Milieu of Murder can’t be polite or timid. Abiding laws doesn’t involve contriving loopholes, such as delaying judicial cases indefinitely, or returning names of military bases for confederate traitors by slightly altering spellings. Courts, military, and most states have so far shown they aren’t on board with such absurdity, so there’s still a spark of optimism. Nikita Khrushchev threatened he’d bury USA through financial warfare; he couldn’t, but own congress is now taking same tactics. First they'll fail to deliver on promises, so you can't pay home ownership costs, then you're forced out, mobile, and vulnerable, as corporations absorb all properties and raise rents so high that only slaves they own get housed as a measure of control, "I owe my soul to the company store." Same old game. Happy Independence Day!
“Don't give it up, you got an empty cup only love can fill... From day to day just letting it ride. You get so far away from how it feels inside. You can't let go cause you're afraid to fall, but the day may come when you can't feel at all. The words come out like an angry stream. You hear yourself say things you could never mean.” Grateful Dead, Comes a Time, Europe ’72, Warner Bros., 1972
Jimmy Kimmel Live was nominated 35 times and won 3 Emmy Awards over its 24 year run to date; it reaches 43 million viewers monthly. Top rated late night show Stephen Colbert was nominated 31 times and won 4 Emmy Awards, as well as 107 total nominations among dozens of different awards through 1600 episodes, since taking over from David Letterman in 2015. Beatles on Ed Sullivan Show in same theater attracted 73 million viewers. Cynically capitalistic, The Apprentice hosted by Donald Trump for 14 seasons was nominated for 4 Emmys but won none through 178 episodes with an average 20 million viewership (mediocre back then) and earning a below par Nielsen rank, 4 out of 10, before being canceled. Nielsen rates as #1 game Grand Theft Auto 6, where players take on roles in organized crime to drive badly while shooting helpless bystanders and smuggling drugs, as if public needed a blueprint for more violence against innocents or example of a crime lord running government. Hateful leadership also promotes intolerable traffic violence.
Finally, as curtain closes, this vinyl track of finality: “...the singing man is at his song; the holy on their knees. The reckless are out wrecking; the timid plead their pleas. No one knows much more of this than anyone can see... all we ever wanted was to learn and love and grow... Gave the best we had to give, how much we’ll never know... there were days, and there were days between.” Last collaboration between Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter before Jerry’s untimely death, Days Between, live 1993, Long Strange Trip soundtrack, 1999
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