Backstab Coxswain

In some movies, enemies might be better than family or friends. Little Birds (2012, Elgin James, dir.) has twitchy teen Juno Temple dragging bicycling BFF Kay Panabaker straight into adult trouble. Schoolmarm Cate Blanchet rides a bike in Notes on a Scandal (2006, Richard Eyre, dir.) while being blackmailed for an illicit affair by coworker Judi Dench, a psychotic dominatrix. Requiem (2006, Hans-Christian Schmid, dir.) stars Sandra Hüller as an epileptic with an unforgiving mom who begins by biking up a high hill, then believes she's possessed by a demon. Figures. Fail to see any irony in it at all. Cruelest almost always to themselves, humans hurt targets of convenience next. Unknown others remain a plausible threat, which explains the pathetic attempts at steering spectators by unwanted advice constantly delivered over airwaves. Yet it’s what you’d expect during a dearth in leadership.

Lately disturbed by well intentioned comments on social media. Wondering what motivates commentators to repeat pithy sayings by acknowledged luminaries. Is it mental laziness or need to dominate? Bellowed beat of presumptuous bigwigs becomes unbearable. The shrewd surmise servants rise into masters. Anyone worth citing doesn’t have to quote geniuses;

he or she does and says original things. You can only learn from others when you apply their knowledge for yourself. Why not skip the middle man? Be your own genius (or pet) by formulating theories, solving problems and tackling chores. Find and fulfill needs in overlooked niches with a quantum of pizazz even if it takes a kickstart from kickstand stop.

Harvard and MIT along with other institutions offer MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) anyone can take. Eager outsiders enroll faster and finisher sooner than jaded locals, though 90% of those who enroll drop out. Ivy League education resembles advertising come-ons, taunting ambitious youth with potential earnings then tugging rug out when they request work in their field. Setting up competitions so only a few succeed and most fail perfectly mimics capitalism, where the feeble and incompetent only exist to exploit, ignore or sacrifice. Public cares more about how pets are treated than how unfortunate members of their own species survive.

Applying one’s allegedly unbiased mind can be daunting task with risk of being incarcerated or ostracized. Offspring of the privileged take freedoms for granted. Maintaining class status seems easy enough when all they have to do is nothing. Stealing is child’s play once they know the “lay of the land”. Success only means insiders were warned just ahead of profit windfalls; too early or too late, where outsiders live, won’t do. Good intentions don’t count, mere tokens that take gain into account and transcend guilt. But what you do will mostly go unnoticed anyway, whereas you’ll be condemned on what you say. Citing nobility can forgive crimes depending upon celebrity status. Smart peasants act independently, heed no false cadence, navigate own course, pull oars themselves, and serve community, not just themselves, not what they teach at their university.

La Besace de La Fontaine

After a morose litany, readers might imagine Labann only notices what’s obnoxious. They’d be wrong. Beauty and truth surface upon a sea of filth and lies; they only exist by comparison. Roses fed manure bloom above thorns, unless kept in the dark, where, like a mushroom or an unenlightened mind, they mold or remark. Anything alive will decline without absorbing energy. All life depends upon photosynthesis, you see, even if it’s predatory. Survival requires fresh air and sunshine. If you don’t first suffer, you’ll fail to spot great and take good for granted. From longing and pain arise all that’s human, including arts, magic, myths, rules, science, and spirituality. Whenever everything goes, standards cease to be necessary, but laws deter impatient idiots from causing harm daily.

So what satisfies? With normality false and nothing certain, some say only the love of a soulmate matters. Even that’s temporary before dementia sets in or sickness deprives you once again. Dogs bite their masters, do what’s instinctual, and don’t really return projected affection. Then doting masters unwittingly feed them meat byproducts and putrid substances, so people aren’t aware of all they need to know, and words do matter. Some bind themselves to a busy yoke, which can’t love back and is seldom kind. Work is often a joke, someone’s else’s delusion of privilege or progress. You can be assured of betrayal and disrespect despite all the good you share. Your outward search will barely yield much more than food at a price you can’t afford. Nature then bites back.

Bicycling boosts mood. You can bake in a car or stew on steamy days, yet rolling exposed generates its own cooling breezes. Motorists hurry to peak attractions and places to earn, whereas cyclists absorb what’s in between, bits of beauty you wouldn’t otherwise behold: cacophony of birdsong, glimpses over garden walls, scents of emerging blossoms or newly cut hay, sun on your shoulders, and taste of farm fresh fruit in season. Journey itself can be a joy. You cannot receive what world has to offer unless physically capable. Getting healthy, losing weight, meeting others, and staying fit permit everything worth experiencing. Reading alone doesn’t do it. Only through doing do insights flow and texts materialize. To imagine and plan effectively, you must know facts which can only be learned by following examples or trying yourself. Don’t be surprised if you’re not elated afterwards; experiences steady nerves and highlights barely surpass lowlights. Satisfaction can only be found within; you bring it, not find it elsewhere.

Those who feel they must list blessings are probably convinced that readers have lost touch with what’s vital. Because blooms are brief and fruit ripe for a few days, only those who stay alert and engaged get to savor them. Attend any festival surrounding natural occurrences: fish migrations, produce harvests, trees in bloom, waterfalls rushing, or whatever your bag or bindle may be. Everyone has flaws. Find fewer faults, get to know strangers, and look for good in them. Mind what fabulist La Fontaine noted, “We forgive ourselves everything, and forgive others nothing.” Ashamed, it’s easier to berate another’s foibles than confess own mistakes. Life gets what it needs, gives what it must, or goes bust.

Politics of Disdain

Labann, at times radically centrist, may almost be deemed Buddhist in embracing humanity’s decent and ill will. You can hardly discuss anything these days without defending the middle against extremists and resisting labels. Since 2000 this blog never deviated from careful observation and daily meditation upon the effects of freedom (bike) and responsibility (chain). This means discussing economics, politics and religion, usually considered taboo by those who exploit others or stick to conventions. Honest folks neither judge nor pontificate, repeat all and any facts, even speculate on unknowns. Cruel users give half a story or keep you misinformed. Jokers do nobody any favor when they concoct wild lies. Metrics might inspire action or spread panic, but warning that your building is on fire sends sensible audiences to exits in an orderly fashion.

Often skewer conservatives, because they intentionally grab attention and make convenient targets. Liberals compile ill conceived spending bills and try to sneak them through Congress. You’d think government would be all about making new opportunities, providing a safety net against crimes or enemies or failures, and raising the poor above poverty line. But you’d be wrong. Let history show it was to create plutocrats who subjugated majority and tax without representation. Wasn’t that why founding fathers revolted?

Labann passionately opposes armed insurrection: Doesn’t punish or replace guilty parties, just dumps costs and losses on the poor. Guns let weak bullies win. The late Gil Scott Heron, original rap prophet, said revolution would not only “not be televised”, it would arise from a consensus of minds and consist of attitude alteration. Change can only come from inside, whether congressionally, corporately or personally. Only a progressive party with a strong coalition of elected officers might improve stagnant governance. Unfortunately, that would require decades of dubious effort, which is how plutocrats consolidated power in the first place, then exited industrial production for financial scams and tapped the deepest purse on earth, tax obligations. Only megalomaniacs believe they can wrest control completely. Real leaders serve public uniformly within budgetary constraints and society's will.

While some who collect welfare find contentment in not toiling for tyrants, people generally prefer daily challenges and the problem solving that work provides. Who wouldn’t love a job that’s perpetually interesting, suitably moral, and well compensated? Unless deluded or insane, you’ve got to revile all employment that’s tantamount to slavery or unconscionably takes advantage of need or pain. Nothing would satisfy more than incarcerating traitors and recovering trillions they stole while in office. But electorate will execute petty thieves and grant amnesty to the biggest criminals in history.

This suggests that the secret to success is to make majority complicit in your crimes. Self interest rules wherever achievement is measured in how high you reach upon a pile of dead rivals. Ethical behaviors are often considered aberrant or eccentric, for lunatics and suckers. Honesty doesn’t inspire trust; it’s usually met by gnashing of teeth, killing or maligning its messenger, and retrenching untenable positions.

Don't doubt haves and have-nots are at war; majority just hasn't yet prevailed, which they ultimately will. Those who assume you know nothing because you don't have a string of letters after your name, who run around with blinders saying, "This is not the place or time to discuss [fill in the blank]," because they think money or position insulates them against conflict, will fall all the faster. Should you pity or victimize them? In fact, they are now main quarry of plutocrats, since middle class assets have dwindled, and poor have already been beaten.

One day normal people will pity the delusions of wealth. Excess doesn’t buy happiness, power or security, just turns you into a target. Poor or rich, you’ll die awaiting medical treatment upon insurance company’s orders. Unless you allow free reign to plutocracy, you can live well on a lot less. Independence may be a celebrated ideal, but interdependence without disappointment will always be most desirable. Promises made and maintained are the only politics that matter, though oaths can sometimes be impossible to honor.

Thomas Paine

“Common Sense” pamphleteer, patriot, seminal abolitionist and skeptic Thomas Paine (1737 - 1809) had plenty to say about “offering up human sacrifices to the pride of tyrants” that resonates all the more today. “Those who want to reap the benefits of this great nation must bear the fatigue of supporting it... The strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance... I love the man [who] can smile in trouble, [who] can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection.” America finds itself in same straits as when merciless monarchs ruled, only now it’s oligarchs manipulating media to avoid responsibility to those who made them wealthy.

Pamphlets were the founding father’s Facebook. Despite misuse, current media does reduce consumption by relaying information instead of wasting fuel. Then again, once enlightened, you might want to visit places you never did. Corporations expect employees to adapt, commute and relocate. Messages increase ecotourism and political action as much as inspire “staycations”. Have lately grown weary with local scenery, instead focus on cracks ahead hoping to finish faster and get ride over. Wanderlust only serves those with trust funds. Highways are so messed up motorists would be willing to pay more to correct, when everyone already pays too much in taxes for something totally unsustainable. A trillion dollars nationwide in the last decade doesn't seem to deter those dodging potholes.

Nothing is straightforward. You’re forced to spend all your time sorting through agendas, arguments, lies, opinions and spin. Otherwise, they’ll betray your confidence, deny earned entitlements, pick your pocket, sell you unwanted stuff, and steal public properties and revenues. They’ll allege you have trust issues while giving you reasons not to. Dullards who hate to do for themselves enjoy Top 10 lists, which are as phony as anything else compiled by those in control. The best is usually lame, runners-up an absolute bore. Popularity, extremely overrated, means nothing more than an ill-informed audience agrees. Consensus validates nothing, which is why democracy struggles, though people must agree before action can occur. “All mankind are my brethren. To do good is my religion,” said Paine just before inciting revolution.

What matters is what you think for yourself. You bring originality and perception personally, so it doesn’t much matter whether or whither you wander. But, as Bleeping Pain confirms, you can’t just stay put, need to encounter rude others. Humans must interact to thrive. Destinations don’t matter, either, because bulk of experiences occur en route. So throw a dart at at map then wend your way there. Labann crosses unfriendly city to area farms to buy vegetables, even if costlier for being fresher than supermarket, neither of which are close, makes multiple stops, and talks to many. Therefore, hopefully, farms with wild habitats and wistful vistas like a Wyeth landscape endure. In contrast, because they coerce you to drive, supermarkets in suburban exile present drab architecture surrounded by baked blacktop. Efforts to insulate make one isolated and vulnerable.

Remember being miserable pedaling along soaked in predicted 10% precipitation. Wary of forecasts, wonder why so seldom see overhangs at intervals that could shelter those who need to be out. At least Italy has its arcades, some New England strip malls awnings, and Texas covered boardwalks. They'd attract riders by covering bus stops and posting schedules. But is inconsiderate infrastructure worthy of complaint? Tyrants abuse or use others daily, expect royal treatment, make slaves out of those who have skills, and subjugate wills. All work is dangerous and tiresome, leads to broken bones and scars, while recipients grab proceeds and shrug off your trauma. Many factory workers, for example, have lost fingers. Farmers risk their lives to grow produce and raise stock, but many sell land for lack of profits. If you’ve never made hay, milked cows or picked vegetables, you have no idea what back breaking effort it takes to feed you. Be grateful; you don’t deserve it.

Inhumanity manifests in many ways, none quite as blatant as yesterday being buzzed within inches by a big black SUV with opaque windows. Registration plates betray driver anonymity, so can report this crime if so inclined but doubt state would indict. Cause rests in what Paine impugned before traffic code was ever imagined, a “long and violent abuse of power”, which perfectly portrays entire automotive history. And to think this remarkable prophet died unappreciated and unmourned except by a pair of black freedmen and presumably a few farmers for whom he tirelessly fought. Lest Americans forget, there would be no Independence Day without Paine, who galvanized opinion by embracing the oppressed while snubbing the powerful.

*Bleep*ing Pain

Like any saying, old bicycling adage, “It never gets easier, you just go farther faster,” holds some truth. You do lose excess weight, so pedaling your bloated carcass around grows decreasingly bothersome. Pack a knapsack with 6 five-pound bags of sugar and see how carrying 30 extra pounds grinds knees and wears thin. Cycling advocates can be sickly sadistic, don’t say it so newcomers merely accept pain, rather that they masochistically embrace it. Yet the more you peddle, the better you do get and more tricks you learn. Butt turns to leather, choices help, heart and lungs improve, saddle conforms, and thighs strengthen, so you carry more weight on your legs not tender bits. You quicken your cadence to leave behind rude riders with nary a greeting for a fellow cyclist. None of this applies to those who stay fit, though. A clever saying neglects to mention every exception. As with everything on earth, blackness merges with light, commodious combines with odious, yang entwines yin. Facts and paradoxes are boring/messy/negative; people prefer encapsulated/neat/positive fiction. “Lie to me,” is their plea.

Who can separate beneficial from painful? “That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Don’t want to be conspicuously strong or to cheat death, just finish rides and sidestep primordial stimuli carried by interoceptors to thalamus. “Is sitting the new smoking?” Couch potatoes, desk jockeys, and seated motorists face cardiovascular failure while back, leg and neck muscles shrink and shorten. Bicycling and walking build; Tai Chi and Yoga stretch. Pumping iron and working out are only for those already fit. With an obesity pandemic, food choices and quantities ought to come first. People in sunless upper half of America are Vitamin D deficient, which leads to brain disfunction, diabetes, and other diseases. But the preponderance of medical evidence emphatically confirms that smoking remains the #1 health hazard. Cycling discourages smoking, which impedes breathing.

Ways to die in order of frequency (number of deaths cited annually nationwide, compiled from multiple official sources): 1. Cardiovascular diseases (clots, heart attack, stroke, 727,000 fatalities). 2. Cancers (all types including skin from too much sun while cycling, 580,000). 3. Lung dysfunctions (including COPD from car exhaust and smoking, 138,000). 4. Brain ailments (Altzheimer’s, dementia, insanity, 80,000). 5. Crime, gun violence and suicide (70,000). 6. Diabetes (69,000). 7. Accidents other than driving (60,000). 8. Kidney disorders (50,500). 9. Infectious diseases (50,000). 10. Automotive collisions (40,000). More people died in motoring accidents in the last 100 years than soldiers in wars. Causes in common are diet, driving distracted/impaired, smoking, and substance abuse, all personally preventable. Little is done to save lives, since 2 million pointless deaths provide jobs and profits. Meanwhile, other important work never gets done. It's a war. Call it what you will, criminal enterprise, but make no excuses.

Been checking out home water filters that sort cancerous toxins from sustaining necessity. How do you choose what’s best? Claims are proven phony. Had to replace truck, too. Of course, looked for a reliable, safe plug-in hybrid SUV miserly on gas at the same price as a quality bike into which it would nicely fit. At 4 times more than long awaited dream vehicle, settled for a small sedan that actually exists. Who can afford these compromises, prices, premiums, property taxes, or Tesla S? Everything involves complex decisions based on too many facts, models, and options. Traffic is so chaotic, experts try to impose controls, laws, and penalties, none of which slow daily carnage. Technologists are close to introducing the first robotic vehicles. While avoiding valuable cars will they collide with vulnerable cyclists? Built-in cameras, cell phones, cruise controls, hands-free consoles, and sound systems count as distractions that endanger everyone, new opportunities to inflict pain, and wasted resources mankind will never recover.

Can see why bicyclists become bitter; they absorb whatever torture convenience imposes and find no welcome where reckless speed dominates. For pain alone, it’s hard enough trying to convince people to ride. They ought to earn a free pass for not making world worse to live in. Seems another instance where, “No good deed goes unpunished,” although that’s no more true than, “Crime does not pay.”