Think Distrain

Now for the rest of the story: Will it cast a pall over your holiday celebration? Some have little to celebrate this weekend with work cut out for them by natural disasters. Why not laugh at how commentators characterize events? Take the so called British rock invasion. American blues and jazz invaded England decades earlier. It was just a rehash that gathered a stash, whereas those from whom they stole got squat. This substance and sum of how society acts towards those who produce floats to surface when floods crest.

Corporations profit from every catastrophe. Earthquakes, hurricanes, such as Harvey, and tornados fill cashboxes of building materials and durable good manufacturers, retailers and suppliers. Charities scurry to collect alms; directors pay out 10% to those they said they would and pocket 90%. Merchants gouge customers on basic necessities made scarce. Oil refiners pass along loss of windfall profits when they shut down Gulf Coast operations; they suffered no real decline, just decided it’s an excuse to stick it to you.

The fact that all or some of this is flagrantly illegal seems to mean little. Governments could distrain, i.e., seize, money, products or property should they decide it’s in citizens’ best interest. You’ll never see a penny of it. Being in business entails a social contract to provide high quality and serve everybody’s needs, especially during debacles, which intensify deprivation and hardship. Don’t count on it. Bicyclists and citizens always get the least consideration.

Single biggest expense facing corporations is workforce compensation. One day a year they supposedly honor employees with a holiday, that is to say, “Stay home, we don’t want to see your contemptible face today.” Once that meant 1 of 10 annual paid days off. Lately, contractors and temps make up nearly half of staff, and they don’t enjoy any such bonus.

With no benefits or sick days, contingent workers will come in even though they are ill because they can't afford to take time off. They spread disease and thereby reduce productivity and timely response to next business emergency. Bean counters don't care, have no algorithm that accounts for this fare. Explains why more direct employees rather work from home: To avoid cold and flu contagion. Companies complain they can’t afford direct employment because they have to pay insurance premiums for frivolous lawsuits, health maintenance, and workmen’s compensation. Layoffs mean severance costs. Contract workers can be let go cheaply and easily based on forecast inadequacy.

While labor turns out whatever makes life livable, not everything qualifies. Would like to sue mills that weave socks. Socks top polls for worst gift to get. Got on Christmas as a kid and hated them. In some cultures socks signify disrespect; giver "walks" over recipient. Nonprofits collect and distribute shoes and socks to hapless untouchables unworthy of notice, though socks may now be trending as a fashion accessory.

Socks can be inimical by restricting circulation to feet almost as well as tourniquets. They don’t come in sizes you’d want: 6 to 12 is only good for 8, not full range, when just about any other article of clothing comes in S, M, L and XL. For a bicyclist, whose ankles are enlarged and muscular, tightness causes soles to burn and promotes blood clots, evidence enough to bring specious suits for wrongful deaths. Dead don't gripe, never mind hire lawyers. Yet socks can be a key to comfort. Lance Armstrong and NASCAR’s Dale Earnhardt even argued over them. Cleats would rub feet raw without. Proof can be seen in fabric wear at heal and toe. Why do you think infants instinctively kick off shoes?

Gravitated to footies, which have no ankle rise and rate among best selling stock, though fall and winter rides require more insulation against cold. Too bad too tight calf, crew, and knee highs are out, as they could protect ankles or replace leggings for united utility. Cotton, too, because it retains moisture. Only olefin (alkene hydrocarbon), polyester, polyester blends, and wool will do. Unfortunately, choices other than cotton causes lingering rashes or unspecified dermatitis. Polyester pills and wool smells. Wear finest silk or merino wool, but promptly remove. Let feet dry uncovered as much as possible.

Those who promote benefits and joys of biking underemphasize its discomforts and hazards. Biking is an earthy, risky, sweaty uncertainty. Driving is a cozy, dirty, lazy luxury. Yet either remains a personal choice. Would biking help Texans get back on their feet? Biking gives them a break from fractioning and hauling crude, though buying fuel sends cash their way even if only a few employ payees or stash proceeds. Bikes, busses, taxis and trains cost less per trip than own/rental car, but people rather withstand indebted servitude for automotive privacy. Busses and taxis have seats that get occupied by different asses, but how is that different from roads that indiscriminately carry anyone. Personal vehicles don’t place owners on pedestals above rest of planetary inhabitants. Panhandlers approach drivers as if they were spendthrift philanthropists, not an entirely wrong assumption.

Easy to be optimistic when you have a long life ahead. By your mid-sixties, all you anticipate is your next meal and wonder whether you'll digest it well. Vitality is what time wants to steal. You age better if you exert yourself, but effort exacts its price in chronic aches and pains. Fun can be had anywhere, but same old scenery becomes wearisome. The more you explore, the farther you have to go to see anything new. By the time you retire, you can't afford and don't want to travel anymore. Motivation wanes.

In the cosmic scheme your comfort means nothing. Trolls automatically assume whatever stance you reject, live to argue, and suck energy from angst as if psychic vampires. Why shouldn’t have-nots be jealous of affluent people? Granted strength or wealth, recipients have a duty to drag along the stricken and weak. Humans are born to hunger, pain, unrequited desires, and want of necessities. Either they meet challenges or suffer. Because they aren’t organized, distrain of offender assets divided equally among victims seldom occurs to them.

Capitalism looks worse every time culprits get away with cheats and fakes, and communism secures increasing appeal. However, one ought to benefit from own efforts, especially when they serve community. Wage earners deserve better but don’t financially thrive, since they pay majority of taxes, which policy makers take and waste. Private citizens and sports stars feel forced to shoulder burden of relief after FEMA cutbacks. So the cycle of get and lose continues to cause want and transfer wealth to least deserving.

Block Amain

Advertisers and oppressors automatically offer you choices between equally awful courses, suggest you pick sides, taunt by insulting and name-calling when you hesitate. Disregard them. They replaced reasons with tokens, since they’d prefer you never think for yourself. Note signs under which gangs and governments cravenly cringe, express detachment, or find solidarity: Arm bands, badges, brands, crests, flags, glyphs, insignias, logos, marks, patches, pins or tattoos. Each can be blatantly despicable or secretly discriminate. Other are innocuous.

As discussed under A Basket or a Palm, Companion Reader (2nd Edition, Nov. 20th, 2008, p 471) the swastika was derived independently by ancient pagan cultures as diverse as Celtic, Mycenean of SE Europe, North American Pima Indian, Sanskrit scholars of central Asia, and Scandinavian. Any basket weaver would recognize its interlacing pattern as an omen of good harvest, thus luck. Nazis only latched onto an eon obscured symbol for their godless regime devoid of all spirituality (but not superstition), which inevitably demands ethical treatment. “Baskets should be to gather and share, not covet and hoard.” Recent history has rendered swastika as divisive a symbol as ever known, standing for genocide, greed, heinous narcissism, murder of innocents, and sadistic perversion. Psychotic murderer Charles Manson has one tattooed on his forehead.

Those who’d rather not commingle, refuse to federate, wave a nearly as schismatic flag. Deliver klansmen some stars (as sparing partners see after a haymaker) and stupid bars (as felons spend lives behind). Indeed, many white supremacists are rightly incarcerated for antisocial animus. In the insular world of NASCAR, they festoon cars and RVs with them, race as if participants don’t matter, and show no respect for rest of nation. Most fans staunchly support Trump, so you know where they’re coming from: Rubes without culture chugging Buds to slaughter what few brain cells they were dealt.

When did vehicles become weapons against citizens and innocents? Calling victims protesters doesn’t legally entitle drivers to mow them down, even if they are impeding traffic. After all, bicyclists and pedestrians, whether alone or en masse, represent traffic just as much as motor vehicles, which take up more area than their fair share. There has never been any right to proceed at speed, only the tenuous privilege of being permitted to use public thoroughfares whenever possible. Ratio of roads mobbed versus vacant is 1:10; to go freely you merely have to choose a suitable timeframe, such as 4:30 AM. Even during afternoon and morning peaks, not all space is used; buffers exist that bicyclists slip through, and sidewalks practically never get used except at malls. If you instead choose to go during surge in a huge SUV or truck, which can’t get out of its own way, you will often get stuck. Why don’t they expect it? Questions their intelligence. Bike&Chain fully realizes that “Why?” is central and essential to bicYcle. Why not cycle instead of seethe at betrayal of beaten and congested streets?

In SE Asia, dualist Yin Yang focuses on how everything consists of dark and light, empty and full, evil and good, female and male, negative and positive, old and young, opposite but reconcilable sides. This millennia old Taoist circle of intertwined amoebas, each containing a seed of other, may entreat tolerance, but stances so extreme have no place and ought not be abided. Just as you can be obnoxiously aggressive, you can be unduly passive, such as reading, talking and writing instead of showing up and taking action. Yet who wants to assume a place in harm’s way? Remark as if you care, and shrewd users take you for a chump. Better to ask questions and feign ignorance than profess preeminence. However, without deeds, losers usher mental defectives into offices of power and policy making positions. Voting alone won’t do it; organizing a new party would better represent ideals and needs than two who currently preside.

Related Gankyil, Dzogchen’s circle of primordial energy, has three parts which spiral in a way that unifies. Literally "Wheel of Joy” in Tibet, its three jewels alternatively suggest base, path and fruit - Buddha, Dharma, Sangha - discipline, meditation, wisdom - infinite, innate, external - or subject, object, action. Similar to but not to be confused with Triskelion, a 3-fold spiral to which ancient Europeans, Neopagans and postmodern BDSM identify, a Gankyil rotating resembles thing you see when you are waiting for computer to save you time. Of universal symbols discussed, none more screams bicycling: Wheels wisely revolving through disciplined effort to arrive at a destination.

Gangkyil’s trinity could also suggest art, science and spirituality, mankind’s 3 known ways of exploring reality. Earthlings can barely wrap their minds around 1 idea, never mind follow 3 swirling together interactively, each tugging upon the other. Truth will never consist of so few dimensions, usually many more than you can conceive. Any meter square environment exhibits evaporation, fermentation, insect communication, Krebs cycle, mitosis, nitrogen fixation, photosynthesis, protein digestion, reproduction, and whatnot. Whether or not you’re aware of all that concurrently occurs is irrelevant.

Some people distribute ink by publishing books. Some keep ink in the form of tattoos. Gangsters and prisoners delight in flaunting misdeeds; makes potential assailants in a violent population think twice about murderous retribution. Carrying a crucifix reminds one of how life is rife with undeserved death and pain, though only the worst reserve this princely status and religions generally condemn fleshy mutilation. Hung on a cross now seems merciful compared to seared alive in a nuclear attack. Modern expertise trumps primitive cruelty by making suffering appear inescapable. You’re a slave or soldier kept alive to serve obediently without personal latitude. Those with might should be expected to fight every threat to an individual’s right to escape this plight.

Recall a campus polarized over communist professor's tenure denial. Students on either side wore No and Yes lapel pins. Labann wore a blank one. There's always a third alternative, usually unimagined, possibly others unexplored, as well. Control freaks and petty authorities abhor choices that loosen their grip on you, reason enough to make initiating feints and perfecting parries your mission. Mainly block any expectations you’ll react in ways to which they presume you’re conditioned after a lifetime of nationalistic slogans and scholastic lies. Anarchists associate with a Circle A. If you do what’s best for entire community you’ll regret it less.

Define Insane

Sociologists estimate that 25% of people suffer from some personality disorder. Most guess that percentage is too low, given how much mayhem, murder and terrorism is reported. And how can you ignore nearly half of those who voted in 2016 elected an impeachable sociopath? News reporters prefer aberrations and perversions and seldom discuss mundane normality and reliability. Although majority associates mental illness with raging psychosis, it mainly describes life threatening depression or minor quirks commonly treatable and typically harmless other than setbacks that affect self. Oddity may even be celebrated as charismatic allure or magnetic attraction. Why stifle yourself? Express how you feel. Leads to charity, cures, friendships and patronage.

But don't ask a cyclist, "How are you doing?" He or she is suffering, of course. For whose sake? Bicycles are torture racks. Masochists? Besides, few to none would stop to discuss. One word replies are all you’ll mercifully get, unless you roll alongside, then you'll hear an earful of anecdotal fragments interrupted by curses, gasps and street noises, possibly a litany of complaints you probably didn't expect or ever wanted to confront. Doctors define insanity as persistent behaviors that harm self or repeatedly fail. Bicycling, blogging and complaining qualify.

Bad enough it takes 3 to 5 times as long to reach destinations, cyclists can't spare a minute. Will never regain 10,000+ hours spent pedaling, never mind dogged activism, event attendance, and relentless jeremiad. Do diehards expect to recoup 415 days at the end of their lives? Will it matter then? Is nothing society needs produced while they waste time? Then again, over a career bicyclists avoid 1,400 average hours stuck idling in gridlock sucking up petrochemical toxins and sweating through traffic threats as do drivers for 14,000 hours. Bicycling beats driving to a gym for a lesser workout. Yet, unless you're a jet attendant or pilot, taxi or truck driver, train engineer, or whatnot, transportation only occupies 2% of your lifespan. People sleep 33%, and work 35% or more, though policymakers deem them inconsequential by what they spend to improve.

Races on closed roads give an impression that motorists don’t really rob time from cyclists. Froome could vroom over 3,450 kilometers past exhilarating vistas and fragrant French farms to his 4th yellow costume win without dodging vehicles that continually and disgustingly fart a miasmatic fume in your face. However, without enormous automotive inducement, would they even pave streets? Asphalt derives from crude oil tars after gasoline and other fractions are extracted. Some argue that pavement of concrete or stone could be laid, but cutting and hauling them requires heavy duty tools and trucks running on fossil fuels.

Grand tours revere barriers to bicycling, stick what only peloton can overcome in spectators faces, but you should instead heed how several hundred can ride bikes for 2,000+ miles over intimidating terrain, not impossible but oh-so probable after all. Makes you wish you were fit and young enough to compete beside. Have personally tagged along with triathletes just to join joys of flying freely. Yet family has been deterred from bike path outings by outsiders acting crazily.

Specialized Bicycles Foundation debuted the Outride ADHD spot during Le Tour de France. Ride for Focus proposes that bike riding helps treat this disability affecting one out of nine American children. Always acknowledged as a mood leveler, bicycling, as recent research shows, increases concentration needed to achieve scholastically. Sure, you have to pay attention to ride; meanwhile, it increases blood flow to brain and limits video distractions. Insights in B&C came from displacing incessant outside agitprop with inner thoughts derived from the equivalent of 5 work-years of riding. Bicycles probably decompress every bit as well as sensory deprivation chambers.

All physical exercise including manual labor has a similar effect, but bicycling offers concentrated doses of enzymes and hormones. Bicycling definitely appeals to artists, autistics, brainiacs, indigoes, and whoever can’t afford to make several thousands per year in car payments. Any adult who finds employment can at least buy a bike outright, though charities exist to assist teens to build their own from used parts. Bike ownership does represent ongoing costs, particularly apparel, tires, tubes and wear ware, with which youth may have difficulty. Why does government do so little to address this need? Wouldn’t take much, staffed and stocked vans adjacent to bike paths to fix flats and teach skills, small expenses versus a trillion they spend every decade on motorways, and some severely needed jobs similar to New Deal era WPA. Great returns could come from small investments of effort, revenue and time.

To engage school kids voters would have to support Safe Routes to School programs, which provide bike lanes on streets, financial assistance, police patrols, storage lockers and racks, and teacher encouragement. Who is going to go on record telling children not to board busses but ride from home alongside? The first one killed en route will result in a precedent lawsuit. Teachers already require signed permission slips just to take class on a field trip by bus. No, the best way has family members or reliable groups escorting youth after hours and weekends on bike paths, provided such facilities exist, get lit, maintained, patrolled, and regularly swept, and lie within a reasonable distance. The jersey barrier mural above shows a kid gleefully outdistancing his dad on one.

Attempts by activists to establish infrastructure has only succeeded in enlightened communities against formidable resistance from automotive lobbies and neighborhood nimbys. Many taxpayers resent paying for education, never mind individual accommodation, saying they neither benefit from expense nor have kids who attend. Both arguments exemplify stupidity, since society as a whole benefits from an educated populace capable of making change, performing work, reading instructions, and transporting self. Ultimately, all bicycling facilities ought to connect, just as road network, include signs specific to cycling, and so become a true transportation alternative.

Reactionaries, exemplified by Trump, ascribe causality to unrelated sources and bemoan anything they think might deny them what they crave. This impedes what works and strangles any sense of community. Contributors made to feel unwanted or useless stop. Sends a chill throughout population. Misogyny attacks majority, 51% of humanity. Women as equals to men is an idea whose time has come. A woman almost became nation's president, right after first African American left office.

The 20th Century with its prejudices, problems, and totalitarian ambitions is over. In the 21st, a whole new utopian paradigm will sweep away internecine greed and unilateral sacrifices. If not, all life on planet will die. Suicide bombers prefer this option; take out as many as you can, as if self immolation deserves a retinue of billions. You’re no Chinese emperor or Egyptian pharaoh! Every Nazi falsely believes her/himself superior. Tyranny thrives on such absurdity. Unless you pertinaciously advocate for civil rights, you quickly fall victim to bullies yourself. Is cycling safe amidst senseless hate?

Pundits predict that media attacks on POTUS will fail. But do they goad retaliation with collateral damage? Social media grants self aggrandizers a forum to browbeat the weak and whip up resentment against the powerless. To get in good with conservative core of cretinous reactionaries from Mesozoic era whence fossils formed, Tyrannosaurus Trump had to dump upon children, cripples, elderly, invalids, mutilated soldiers, policy victims, single moms, social security recipients who’ve earned entitlement, and whoever survives on social welfare, since they represent revenue outflow congressmen can’t conveniently steal. An appeal ought to go to fairness and social justice, not single out personalities who violate arbitrary norms.

Forget revolution. Foster evolution. Upheavals always ruin things that already work well. What deserves to be eliminated ought to be carefully excised or supplanted with sensible options. Sure, attempt something new, but discontinue if it doesn't work. Beats abiding policies that never met goals, the worst of which was letting politicians pilfer internal revenue. Art often applies new ideas and materials, overthrows conventions, and tosses out the old and reprehensible, why it so benefits society. Some aspects stubbornly remain the same, such as criteria of art’s worth relative to when it was produced. The great example will always possess value. Some not recognized as insane continue to cause harm and never adapt.

Cubic Sugarcane

Every decision you make that affects anyone else comes under ethics, the predominant focus of B&C and prime directive of all human life. Writers but flirt with ethical notions, heap effort on more exciting action and aftermath, pander to bloodlust, and steer clear of moral conundrums that will forever be entertainment buzzkill. Dishonesty never serves best interests of society. Yet telling tales with morals probably points to higher principles of behavior than any stranger on mean streets is likely to meet. Bicycles and drugs have become criminal currency. There's hardly any deterrent to bike theft or vehicular assault.

Reach into this cyberspace maelstrom, you'll find stuff that matches what you were thinking all along. Some might dismiss this as selection bias, typical logical fallacy. But being open minded has got to ease stigma of hypocrisy, no? Since you're entitled to believe whatever you want, only restricted from forcing your beliefs on others, you may recount whatever occurs to you. Everyone has a different capacity to handle new input and an individual state of readiness to receive realignment. It’s not your responsibility to nurse humanity along. Neither can you expect to be coddled on dole, nor should you unfairly profit from needs and weaknesses.

Scruples demand that you clean up any mess you make, contribute according to your abilities, earn an honest living, and provide for your family and self. None of this is easy even if you act diligently, exercise judgment, and hang onto your nest egg. Often your talent isn’t valued. Art, for example, has generally been condemned as unwanted aberration by those who loathe innovation. Sometimes you just fall into lucky circumstances. Many born without financial worries have squandered it all on substance abuse, since they don’t know hard it was to aggregate reserves. What vexes most is the loss of brilliant lives cut short, particularly among gifted performers who got hooked on heroin, liquid death, or had minds scrambled by herbs or pharmaceuticals. A drop of LSD blotted by a sugarcube has inspired a stockpile of art, whence splendid ideas that sober engineers realized. But was acid necessary? Did it derail rights? Some celebrate Albert Hoffman’s first psychedelic trip: Phil Lesh, Bicycle Day, Songs To Phil The Air, Live at Terrapin Crossroads, 2017. Depressives and psychotics likewise imagine alternatives and nightmares.

Probably the greatest jam band ever, The Grateful Dead drew heavily upon shamanic visions alkaloids and synthetics afford. “Here comes metal angel, she looks ready to ride. What’s that she’s tryin’ to show me? Roll with it, go on, let’s roll with it… Dark Angel, what’s bothering you? The bells are ringing, it’s way unreal. Picasso Moon, illuminate me, wheels within wheels. The universe is working fine tonight.” Picasso Moon, Built to Last, 1989. The title phrase, spontaneously uttered by Phil Lesh during a recording session, so haunted Bob Weir he nearly fell off his bicycle. Weir dreamt lyrics and melody midway through a long bike ride according to Oliver Trager’s The American Book of the Dead (Fireside, NY, 1997). A decade later, Joel McNeely would score the Dark Angel television pilot with outgoing theme Bicycle Ride. Hot heroine Max Guevara (Jessica Alba), why teen geeks lustily tuned in, posed as a bike messenger for 2 seasons before this apocalyptic series was cancelled. Joel McNeely, Bicycle Ride, Complete Score from the Dark Angel Pilot, 2000. In a similar bleak vein, a synthesized theme renders mysterious a scene where a string bicyclists pass protagonist Deckard (Harrison Ford). Vangelis, Bicycle Riders, Score to Blade Runner, Esper, 2002, released 2 decades after film’s 1982 debut. Recent sexy songs include: Envy Carr, Bicycle Dance [hip hop single] - “You want to feel, you want to touch, my body. Pedal, pedal, pedal… Can’t relax when you want to be a max. Now get loose and ride your Mongoose [brand of BMX]. Back in the day I used to ride to school. Now, baby girl, I’m gonna ride you… Let me see you dance like we in the Tour de France. I pedal along like I’m Lance Armstrong.” Also, Melanie Martinez, Training Wheels [explicit lyrics], Cry Baby, Atlantic, 2016.

Talk is cheap. Too many liberals believe that protesting in virtual space will ensure equality, fraternity, and liberty. Wrong! The 20th Century was the bloodiest in history, not just because two wars embroiled most of world, but labor standing against robber barons, masses of concerned citizens laying their bodies against goon squads, and overthrow of inbred insane monarchies. In America as a result, fewer children go hungry, people of color have civil rights, poor are protected from destitution, prisons reduce recidivism rather than punish poverty, sexual preference doesn’t constitute a felony, and women, half of population, can vote. Wherever middle class earners make up country’s vast majority, democracy thrives. Slavery, however, hasn’t yet been eliminated despite Emancipation Proclamation, UN Charter, and US laws against. In fact, all of these boons are rapidly being reversed, middle class has shrunk to levels resembling a century ago, and only a few strangle the free flow of worldwide commerce in their favor. Having more billionaires than ever does not evidence a healthy economy, it signals a decline in social justice. You're unwittingly victimized unless you emerge victorious from real battle in this ongoing war.

Meanwhile, Le Tour de France raced right through Bastille Day with Italian Fabio Aru in yellow jersey as if the hard lessons of revolutionary engagement have been lost to ersatz tokens for combat in sports spectacles. Do admire peloton for their physical commitment that epitomizes greatness. Just wish more among them would recognize sacrifices made so they can compete, not just by advertisers or organizers, but by fans, farmers, gendarmes, hoteliers, merchants, road crews, soldiers, taxpayers, writers, and whoever else contributes to a society where such opportunities exist. Can’t blame them for taking something for pain caused by thousands of miles of strain. Serious moralizing should focused upon crimes against humanity, not innocuous foibles of pedalers, who are only deemed goat or hero by the rabidly righteous. Surely they take on challenge for personal satisfaction, not to serve as symbols.

Authority Sovereign

Bicycle, the freedom machine, means independence, for which they’ve designated a holiday, forever Labann’s favorite. But bicycling will never guarantee safety. Neither will lighting fireworks, lounging around, or trading autonomy for security. Self sufficiency, its true meaning, means never having to rely on the kindness of strangers, rather provide for yourself all you need, thus thrive outside civilization despite whatever Nature throws at you.

The further you separate from human settlement, the more apex predators threaten: Not only bears, coyotes, lions or wolves, but mosquitoes, planet’s deadliest creature. Climate change elevates humidity that fosters pestilence. Bug bites, dehydration, sweaty spandex, too few places to pee legally: Soon an army of vicious pathogens take up residence and wither your internal organs, or clots form into deadly emboli that attack brain, heart or lungs. Aseptic practices save lives. Always change promptly; don't stubbornly retain wastes; drink fluids until urine drains clear. When all else fails a hospital nearby is a necessity, and interdependence makes perfect sense. Why would you ever want to spurn informed assistance stuck in a bubble when to disdain is to die?

Infirmaries remain rewarding enterprises with profits over the last decade up $100 billion/year to $270 billion nationally. You’re meat they inspect or treat for a fee within a huge controversy whether taxation ought to mean it’s free. Health maintenance costs ruin lives that medicine saves; poverty persists as nation’s number one killer. Yet Republicans want to repeal ACA. Religions preach selfless love. “Why do you eat fish?” a rabbi asks. You reply, “I love it.” Caught, cleaned, cooked and devoured: Not much fun for the fish, zero reciprocity in that. Where’s the love? Shellfish are as precious to Aphrodite as Cialis and Viagra are to impotent senators. There’s no greater love than to lay down one’s life for another, what fish does for you. In a commercial selfish world, love is in short supply. Roads offer the best evidence of that reality.

Unsettled weather or unwell status will force cyclists to drive or stay home; rain gets bikes filthy and rust results in disgustful chain cleaning and oiling. Refuse to worship chains, dark over light, duty without license. Wet slick notwithstanding, motorists all want to go as fast as possible, often dart impulsively into open spots and weave licentiously to gain a single car length, which cuts ETA by an inconsequential fraction of a second. No wonder every year 4 million accidents (thoughtless behavior? willful folly?) occur. To bad attitudes, mutual contempt and petty differences add continual construction, crumbling infrastructure, lane closures, and like confusion. Collisions become inevitable.

A few years back meant to mention Momentum’s flawed but interesting analysis that uses miles traveled not trips made, both hard to capture with bicycling and walking, as opposed to motoring. Still they conclude that bicycles convey users more safely than cars. Insurers, law enforcers, and legislators carefully monitor motored miles from several angles. How many axles flow past an arbitrary point justifies more highway construction, a huge profit center with over $1 trillion spent every decade. Since economy unfortunately depends upon motor vehicles, they focus improvements on moving along ever more, even if that cuts off and discourages cyclists and walkers. Can’t relate what goes on in Amsterdam with Boston because of differences in cultures. Can, however, see importance of a perception of safety. Adequate infrastructure, law enforcement laxity, and long term policy do encourage more cycling.

Etiquette won’t ever equal ethics. Greeting with a smile cheaply substitutes for performing diligently without a grimace. Sports make a show of athletes playing through pain which patrons on a holiday pay dearly to ogle. Unlike so called reality television, sports broadcasting presents teams who've culled planet's best, so any game is a real contest without foregone conclusion. Uncertainty heightens excitement; lopsided scores send fans to exit doors. Amidst these observations you can see why the war between bicyclists and motorists fails to merit public recognition. Factions just claim road exclusivity.

Adding to list of bicycling songs is Benjamin Wallfisch, Bicycle, A Cure For Wellness Soundtrack, New Regency Music, 2017. Well produced box office flop A Cure For Wellness is an allegory that bashes ongoing health fads that actually undermine immunity. Categorized as a horror story by silly reviewers, it’s more a psychological triller with a serious message. Audiences barely get metaphors, never mind 3 hours of biological imagery and medical history woven into a symbolic tapestry. Viewers don't get the caduceus, hallmark of Hermes, snakes entwined in balanced harmony, signifying commerce, deceit and quackery, entwined on spa's gate. Contrast with staff of healing god Asclepius, the actual medical symbol, derived from doctors millennia ago discovering herbal remedies and having to use a walking stick to visit patients on a serpentine route. It’s mythical versus real, pretense over sincerity, stingy commerce above virtuous compassion. Eels reel just beneath a surface surreal. Humans can actually convert eel toxins during digestion. Viewers prefer more actions and explosions to unresolved mysteries that force them to think, especially considering how dependent populations are on fish and potable water, resources they’ve despoiled, treated with contempt, and turned into cesspools and looming crises. Patients fear insulting their doctors lest poisons get prescribed, and submit to malpractices.

Lockhart (Dane DeHaan, shown), sent merely as a messenger,

escapes as if a knight on a bike with the girl, who has set papa’s spa behind ablaze. But en route to redemption he collides with, goes over handlebars, and lands on hood of transporter car. Yet that’s nothing compared to being free from evil remedies. “Actually. I'm feeling a lot better now,” explains Lockhart, and well he should once liberated from grips of racketeers and pedaling forth toward former health. Like eels, humans squirm and wriggle - right out of responsibility for fairness and kindness - over life’s long voyage amidst blood, humors, spit, sweat, tears, and things wet. Persistent guilt suckers them into participating in charitable frauds. They'd rather pay someone to cure their remorse or whip them back into shape than work diligently with community's best interests in mind. This film rubs their noses in this hypocrisy.

Celebrate your liberty to learn what's true, propel self without having to earn back an inalienable right, regain health by choosing wisely, and say with authority whatever you think. Those who do rule in sovereignty.

I’m tired of driving everywhere I have to go. When I’m driving to work the traffic just creeps along so slow. There’s never nowhere to park at a concert, ballgame or just a plain old picture show… There’s too many lights, stop signs and another one way street. I’m tired of buying gas and pulling the belts from under my seat, driving bumper to bumper during the rush hour. I feel the tension from my head down to my feet. I’m tired of driving in the rain, the fog, and the snow. I’m going out tonight and party; it means, I have to drive some more.—Eddie Harris, title track from album I’m Tired of Driving. Harris blew tenor saxophone on song Real Compared to What, for which Chapter 11 in B&C was named, one that directly questions benefits of driving.