Acid Rain

Don’t suppose you saw William Shughart's dopey opine "Recycling is a charade". He claims Waste Management dumps bottles and cans they collect into landfill. Why, then, do they hurry to collect recyclables and leave garbage to fester? They make money off them! A bigger issue is land, no place to put garbage residents make. If you have to keep buying more property that costs millions and worrying about groundwater contamination, line on nickels spent on recycling becomes moot. At core of their complaint, conservatives begrudge steady minimum wage jobs for pickers. Nowadays, lone drivers also run hoists that shake refuse into trucks, so no tax chiseling picker hangs perilously off back of vehicle anymore. You might figure this doubles number of trips, but even that’s untrue. Fuller trucks must frequently make distant treks, so targeting trash keeps gas guzzlers in neighborhoods longer, thereby cutting fuel use, which, you can be sure, they’ve ground to a logistical nub. Hating that, Big Oil has deep pockets to pay for junk science appearing in such disguised and dishonest articles.

All solids you bury eventually emit toxins into air and water supplies. Alternatives to burying include burning (toxic and wasteful), dumping in ocean (already killing reefs), or gasifying (could supply methane). Sometimes residents don’t sort correctly, which messes up process and results in consignment of a few loads to landfill. But recycled bottles and cans don't figure in those; separating waste doesn't cost more and has potential. Many states have enacted Zero Waste Programs. Leaves, wood, and yard clippings are already composted and spread on state lands to increase oxygen yielding foliage, though they could be combined with food/human waste to produce methane. Many electrical plants are being built or have already been converted to burn natural gas, the least toxic carbon based fuel. Though it can be directly reused once sterilized, glass is mostly ground up to improve asphalt and concrete used in road construction. Recovering aluminum from cans and jar covers saves tremendously over extracting from bauxite or smelting alumina. Plastics can be tricky, as sorting them for granulation remains labor intensive; since much consists of food wrappings that can’t be recycled because of bacteria, best to minimize their use whenever possible.

All processes involved with human inhabitation of planet involve a release of carbon dioxide and/or monoxide. Animals leak methane to atmosphere. Automobiles, household practices, and industrial operations release nitrogen and sulphur oxides, as well as volatile organic compounds such as benzene, methylene chloride, or perchloroethylene which undisputedly cause cancer. Another bad effect of burning coal and petroleum is acid rain, that is, precipitation (fog, rain, snow) whose pH is so low it poisons soil, stunts plant growth, and upsets ecosystems. Amphibians and fish in eastern lakes die because of stack emissions from midwestern steel plants. Almost as bad is how critics of sustainable practices rain acid comments against as if they were exempt from pollution's detrimental effects and not purely delusional. In the face of such insanity, can you blame protesters for going gaga or grabbing headlines?

It’s hard to estimate how much pollution bicycle makers and users cause. Components and frames are made of aluminum, steel and titanium. Lesser amounts of fabric, graphite, plastic and rubber are also used, but nearly all can be recycled. These materials collectively represent 200 times less by weight than an average SUV (0.5%). Twice as many bikes as cars doesn’t come close to automakers' expended energy in assembly. Food is the fuel that powers bikes. While food production and shipping both use fuel, motorists and non-motorists alike also eat, so you can’t hold that against bicyclists. Seven times more people walk than bike. Motility is a basic human necessity; bicycling is 4 times more efficient than walking, which probably balances negatives and clears slate. How dare critics target cyclists when huge parking lots defoliate with noxious pavement? If you're so worried about revenues being wasted, why not question the totally unsustainable $1 trillion spent every decade on nation's highways?

Taxes Your Brain

This blog has only ever given thoughtful analyses. If information had any value, Labann would minimally be a millionaire. Instead, not one cent was ever made during decades of blogs, book, comments on websites, and letter writing to officials. No compensation was ever expected or requested. It was done as an exercise in connection and experiment in unique expression. The enlightened few who follow B&C get this. Majority hates to think, so they run from anything that might tax their intelligence or patience. Most resemble needy zombies who want to eat your brain.

Sharing self seems too much an imposition to those who just don’t care. This explains why selling art has become so difficult; public doesn’t want to know the artist who produced it or what motivated it. Meanwhile, companies pour billions into worthless data and opinions. Therefore, the ultimate in commercial art is convincing corporations that reports, spreadsheets and standards are crucial, though nobody reads them including auditors and regulators. Nevertheless, an elegant cell, ironclad imperative, and spicy gossip sell. The letter of law rewards lawyers, legislators, and middlemen at the expense of consumers, innocents and taxpayers.

On the other hand, quality assurance relies on facts, metrics and polls. All design begins not with greed but with an attempt to meet an expressed customer need. Survey narratives are gold in pay dirt requiring a huge effort to sift out. A company’s worst enemy, especially since the advent of social media, is someone who doesn’t want what they offer and vocally denounces what they deal in.

In that spirit and in time for holidays, Labann presents Labann Says~ Loose Essays, a slim volume that chronicles all extraneous writings completed since the publication of B&C in 2008. Click link for free download. While you can’t deduct charity extended in reading it, you won’t have to pay any fee or sales taxes, either.

Wrap in Cellophane

A joint Coca Cola and Walmart commercial buys a boy a bike, what he "really" wants for Christmas, 2015. Displays self sacrifice and sharing among family members. Collaboration or corporate tag team? Advertising almost always focuses upon an individual company, so wonder whether viewers noticed either. Reminds one of the 10000 Maniacs video, Trouble Me, in which angelic Natalie Merchant rides a bike and shoulders concern for the elderly. Can’t imagine it was very popular during the 1990’s. But at least then people could still afford to be kind.

President Obama spoke several times lately for sharing the responsibility of rooting out terrorists and working in solidarity with Muslims, who figure as citizens in business, sports, and such roles. It’s as clear as cellophane that the world’s richest people foster terrorism, particularly media tycoons and Saudi sheiks whose empires are built on human tragedy and wasteful practices. Don’t forget religions, too, spread through exclusive ideologies and intolerance for the slightest difference in arbitrary customs among themselves.

Been studying conservatism for a long time. It appeals to clerics, cynics, knuckleheads, morons, schemers, terrorists, and whoever has given up on humanity altogether. The Unabomber was incensed by socialism despite the fact he couldn't even define it. Conservative media fuels their rage, while it isn't actually reporting on anything other than how others lead nonviolent lives that don't support their extremism, made obvious by name calling and saber rattling. Conservatism attracts isolationists, jihadists, John Birchers, neo-nazis, NRA, religious fanatics, white supremacists, and whoever is so bigoted or prejudiced they'd rather kill than suffer you to exist. They believe in fascism and final solutions, as did Hitler. They oppose decency so much because cultural fusion requires thinking, something for which they are woefully unequipped. About 25% of population is insane, and mental incompetents gravitate to this packaged hate. Don’t suppose they see the irony of listening to billionaire Rupert Murdoch, himself an immigrant recently retired from Fox News, who staunchly advocates immigration and market economy, and villainously opposes collective bargaining, public service, social security, welfare, and whatever provides a safety net for the vulnerable, for example, those he enslaves. Press profits when there’s blood in the streets. People getting by by working cooperatively isn’t newsworthy.

Only cooperation would work, because trying to fight terrorism would take more might than any nation alone can muster. You can bomb a location back to the stone age, but many terrorists are cavemen anyway. Any such approach would be costly and pointless, play right into their hands. Less than decisive approaches only appear weak, but they are really how solutions forestall crises, probably the best you can do in a complex world. Never forget how Dubya inspired and orchestrated a war that ended in global recession and perpetuated terrorism. He did Americans no favors, though he favored the few who make a killing from death.

GOP only succeeds in elections when voter turnout is light, when only crazies show up and majority stays home. But unless worthy candidates step up, why vote? Some tenets of conservatism have merit in small roles, like dog catchers and quality inspectors. One must learn to stomach it. It never works with international policy, though; instead it destabilizes treaties. Terrorists themselves are intensely conservative. Despite their impassioned rhetoric, don’t subscribe to their holy war against each other, because they’d rather you die fighting it for them. They'd gladly sacrifice a family who can barely afford to get a kid a $50 bike as well as the kid who rides it. Worst of all is how they suck whatever merriment and mirth remains from an already stressful season.

Divine Warplane

Recently viewed The Wind Rises (aka Kaze tachinu, Hayao Miyazaki, dir., 2014), a Studio Ghibli anime about the life of Jirô Horikoshi, who designed the Japanese Mitsubishi Zeros that attacked Pearl Harbor on what FDR called “a day of infamy” (December 7th, 1941) three quarters of a century ago. America responded with faster, stronger aircraft which led to victory in the Pacific. In part an apology for aeronautical death and destruction, meant more to show how progress plays leap frog, film excels at depicting culture in a pre-WWII Japan struggling through fire storms and global depression peppered with folks on bicycles. In a typical still, a contemplative Jiro sees a cyclist while clutching his slide rule. Doesn’t connect his imaginative wing designs to bicycles, instead inspired by the curve of mackerel bones.

Japan has a well established jitensha culture with songs by Ore Ska Band (concludes Naruto Shippuuden anime), Shonen Knife’s famous Cycling is Fun, The Saboten, and Titan Go Kings. Makers include world class brands: Fuji, Panasonic, Shimano and Univega. Indeed many Schwinns were made there. As mentioned, Honda slapped a motor on a bike and the rest is history. But recent events and trends raise alarms: Earthquakes, nuclear accidents, tsunamis, typhoons, and with them the same desperation that led to WWII aggression. There’s also been a crackdown on cyclists behaving badly, with new ordinances carrying hefty fines. But blame USA, 1 of only 6 countries that after 23 years haven’t signed the Kyoto Protocol, for not shouldering environmental leadership. Nothing was done to address during disastrous Bush administration, and it took Obama until now to produce Climate Plan as a last ditch effort to garner a lame duck legacy. Of course, many signees haven’t enacted legislation to slow global warming, either, rather follow in America’s lazy, wasteful, but wildly profitable if unsustainable ways.

Not all scientific theories have a single answer or uniform resolution. Different locations face own issues. That's why they poll scientists and test theories. Humans do generally impact environment, causing extinctions of species and killing seas with pollution, just as other factors affected atmosphere over eons. There is no counterargument that justifies conservatives pillaging and raping nature, only ones used to forestall acting proactively and prudently. For a country so dependent upon the sea, Japan decimated its fisheries and warrants criticism for continuing its whaling operations. Japan remains the 5th largest emitter of air pollutants, having higher dioxin levels than any other G20 nation, that no divine wind will dissipate. Failure to conserve now resembles Kamikaze Tokkō Tai missions of old, remnants of honor and loyalty of the samurai Bushido code, which kill whoever delivers along with bystanders and targets. Better to pursue peace and ZPG policies. Tokyo is so overcrowded, people pay a lot to sleep in geki-sema, really just lockers. They even cram bicycles below ground.

Whether Vain

Egocentric cyclists seek an epic trek. They only earn bragging rights if they trained on countless routine runs. Scenery, while pleasant, doesn’t matter, though free traffic flow and fresh air do. Ocean views and ridge vistas, where hills and wind severely slow, tempt some of the hardest riding. Spins out to a park or reservoir grant a destination to breathe in for a few seconds before struggling back. Dull outings can be improved by choosing a different return route. Or you could opt for intermodal to make that a single leg, though you’re “all in”, as poker players say, and must complete, why it’s wiser to plan figure-8 loops which you can quit at intervals.

Looked at a map and noticed several city and state parks within a 12 mile radius, so set out to visit them all. Got to furthest one but was disappointed by bare oaks that signal autumn’s conclusion. Flags and weather vanes say southwest winds that bring warmth have been supplanted by northwest chill. Skipped the rest and took to an old commute route toward bikeway strewn with leaves and home. Was disgusted to compare smooth streets elsewhere with own they’ve dug up and patched repeatedly. This pavement disgrace proved dispiriting; ordinarily come home from riding emotionally boosted and pleasantly tired. The truth about bicycles is that they combine elation and pain, joys and sorrows. Brings to mind a couple of recent films with similar themes:

Irrational Man (Woody Allen, dir. 2015) - Philosophy professor Joaquin Phoenix, who was so effective in Inherent Vice, discovers the world outside his mind as he and his seductive student Emma Stone ride bikes. Not the first time Phoenix was filmed cycling, his character Lewis McBride, while on Malaysian vacation in Return to Paradise (Joseph Ruben, dir., 1998), riding with two friends foolhardily on one bike, and run off road by a truck, was so disgusted by damage he hurled bike off a cliff. During an interview he once compared his passage into intense acting to kids who get their first BMX bike, then go into extreme sports. Stone was famously featured on a yellow peeler banana bike for a GQ spread (August, 2010 issue).

Thanks for Sharing (Stuart Blumberg, dir., 2014) - Mark Ruffalo, who plays Bruce Banner in the latest Marvel Avengers action blockbusters and routinely bikes around Manhattan, stars in this less ambitious melodrama. He and other recovering addicts ride bikes. Josh Gad, trying to get into shape and shun temptations by biking, avoids getting doored only to crash into side of a van. Critics panned it for its depiction of “first world” problems. Ruffalo himself, however, is on the Board of Director for The Solutions Project, a global clean energy initiative, and Water Defense, a nonprofit aimed at preserving water supplies from contaminants. Ruffalo is currently costarring in sex abuse drama Spotlight (Tom McCarthy, dir., 2015) based on Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Award winning investigation and called by reviewer Ryan Painter, “One of the finest-acted films in recent memory.”

These days aliens, altruists and strangers are usually met with violence by the selfish and vain. Shakespeare never said, “Vanity, thy name is woman,” though vanity fits better than “frailty”, since anatomically women can endure more pain than men, something patriarchs have used to rationalize their mistreatment. Sharing is an alien concept, for sure: implies bringing and taking, giving and receiving, sometimes introducing people or playing host. Everyone in America is either an immigrant or scion of one, whether arrived last week or millennia ago. The Mother of Exiles promises, “Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free/The wretched refuse of your teeming shore/Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me/I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" Twelve step programs encourage sharing your feelings to solicit support as a way of breaking your sexual, substance, weapon or xenophobic addiction. Native peoples were historically generous. Qu’ran demands hospitality to guests. Yet, in a war weary world, refugee issues defy resolution and draw press.

There is little difference among conservative, jihadist, neo-Nazi and terrorist hatred. All are convinced that their extremism is the only way. What made America a global magnet for countless dispossessed was its reputation for tolerance. As long as you don't cause deaths or losses, you are welcomed with open arms to act however and believe whatever you want. Foreign terrorists may infiltrate, but domestic serial killers are worse. Millions of Moslem citizens unequivocally contribute to economic diversity and productivity. It wasn’t always that way, and will revert if everyone doesn’t do their part. Moslem countries Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey opened refugee camps. Maybe they’re better suited to handle needs of Syrians with aid from industrialized countries. It would shorten the long journey to freedom many endure, some aided by bicycles. Yet the sheer number of refugees is staggering, estimated in the millions. By forcing people out of their homes, you exert control, keep them weak, and seize their assets. The only true riches are what accomplishments these people are capable of, given better circumstances.

Willie Nelson may claim there’s plenty of room for immigrants in America, but East and West coasts are overcrowded and INS quotas are maxed. Canadian and Mexican border towns are likewise overrun with waiting hopefuls. Perhaps Willie was thinking of Alaska’s bush, Montana’s expanses, Nevada’s desert, urban blight, or Wyoming’s mountains, because all the places natural born citizens want to be are already taken. At the Hotel California, they are, “...programmed to receive. You can check in any time you like, but you can never leave.” The motherly embrace personified by Lady Liberty stands for America’s core decency, but immigration can only proceed orderly, under control, weeding out undesirables exiled by foreign governments who don’t follow international laws. When citizens are treated worse than undocumented invaders, tolerance wanes.

Why does anyone want to come to America anyway? Past reputation? Life expectancy is the lowest in industrialized world. Cities are going bankrupt. Crime is rampant. Earthquakes, floods, hurricanes and tornadoes frequently threaten. Fisheries are fished out. Hunters can't trust game not to be toxic. Loess loss has nearly ruined remaining arable land. Logging and mining are severely limited. Per capita prison populations exceed worldwide counts. Politicians are corrupt, determined to drain every last penny from taxpayers. Public debt means each resident (man, women and child) owes over $150,000. The disparity in wealth between have and have nots is greater than ever in history. America has been called the worse place to live if you are poor, though that seems exaggerated compared to Sudan, Syria, and war zones. Green carders have more rights than citizens, while policies allow offshoring jobs and union busting. If conservatives who oppose immigration (affordable health plans, collective bargaining, drug interdiction, gun control, planned parenthood, separation of church and state, tax reform, and voter registration) get their way, as usual, both social security and welfare will end, so there will be no safety net. Social Security was intended to protect workers from failures caused by government policies; without it murders and thefts would make life unlivable. It's time to make some really tough choices. Forget handouts paid by taxing the dwindling middle class and growing poor.

But who are these refugees? Many are no-threat women with children. Recently viewed previously mentioned Saudi film Wadja (Haifa Al-Monsour dir., 2012), where Waad Mohammed in title role tries to earn enough money to buy her own bicycle against society's will. Film exposes the hypocrisy of Moslem practices subjugating female half of population, who insecure men treat as inferior. The vain do not share power or wealth. Wadja rides to the end of her street and surveys horizon, which seems more threatening than welcoming.

Zane Grey’s novels Riders of the Purple Sage and The Rainbow Trail were both against Mormon polygamy and for woman rights. Set in pre-suffragette 1870’s Utah, bicycles don’t appear, despite suggestive titles. Moab, where film was shot, however, is the mountain biking capitol of the universe. Grey's popular books still resonate a century and a half later because same issues continue unresolved. Why should the underserved majority demand so little from diplomats and leaders and tolerate that?