Took from AIN

“Summertime and the living’s easy...” May be somewhere for someone. Nowadays, it’s when insurance premiums and property taxes come due, property maintenance and vacation spending occur, and utility and water bills peak. Must make hay and work overtime to cover savings hit. You save not for rainy but sunny days. In dead of winter where would anyone be without a warm memory of some primetime odyssey?

Anyone who's the least bit aware of current events already has PTSD. Systems based on humans suffer fatal flaws. From daily interactions one derives many a small insight, might even flesh it out with facts, form paragraphs, pen essays. Fakes scholarship truly but sounds pretty good to those desperate for certainty or security. Who's fooled? Change, violent at times, has always ruled. Agents of chaos and mayhem constantly surround. You only navigate around potholes, never fully alleviate anxiety’s tolls.

Free and wild, aboriginal people fulfilled every necessity themselves, didn’t take survival for granted, moved inland during summer to gather and hunt, shoreline in winter to harvest shellfish that cold kept from spoiling. Refrigeration reversed this perennial migration. A 1971 anti-litter campaign depicted a native chief shedding a tear for what motorists had done, though it was all a ploy aimed at a public shamed for imprudent habits so corporations wouldn’t be blamed. For a while some states did demand bottle and can recovery, pennies and nickels upon return. It didn’t keep America clean, only made a tiny opportunity for homeless trash pickers.

Money grubbers find gobs of drudgery; those who can rather pay someone else to do onerous chores in sweltering heat. Glorious explorers got bankrolled up front upon lure of riches, which resulted in Columbian Exchange that nearly wiped out AIN (American Indian Native) nations through disease, genocide and habitat destruction, though since last ice age they had thrived against animal predators using stone tools under harsh conditions. Americans today squirm in desperation; most scramble to make ends meet. Few care that Le Tour de France has begun. Science and technology over centuries improved quality of life, yet they demand constant renewal and surveillance lest they become a nuisance. Who more exemplified independence or merited a holiday?

Why not do projects for neither compensation nor credit, just because they’re interesting? Later, when others reap rewards, underpaid contributors resent them, too stressful and unsettling for many including millennials. Internships and volunteerism slyly renew slavery. Stubborn souls do just do stuff, pursue as if a hobby, shut up about it, then turn professional due to experience. In collaborative teams, writers used to produce reams being hopefully speculative, it seems. But times have radically changed. You can’t live well scraping up pittances, only by scoring on successive pay days. Patience gets you nowhere; you’ll die before patrons notice or reward your initiative. Does that matter? Getting by will always be a basic goal.

Independently wealthy? You’re free to do whatever pleases your fancy, reciprocate kindness per noblesse oblige, spend a decade updating an unread blog, or such. Even then, situations can quickly complicate, serve nobody’s needs. There’s no idling at an island timeshare for very long. Pleasurable excess catches up and creates a mess, one would guess, steam hissing off your trauma express. Anyway, chasing lifestyles of the rich puts you in opposition’s crosshairs. Must choose among bravery, drudgery, misery or skullduggery, life’s only options. With a right to pursue happiness, you’re offered no guarantee of achieving it.

When you enter “bicycling culture” into any internet browser, you’d think this 10-year blog would come up immediately. No, you get Bicycling Magazine’s Culture tab, Biking USA/EU from Reliance Foundry (bike locker/rack manufacturer), and other commercial references. Eventually you stumble across video Veer (Greg Fredette, dir., 2009), which documents five individuals involved in Portlandia’s hilarious bicycling culture, narrated by actor Matthew Modine, famed for role in Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket and resident of New York who chooses to commute around city by bike. You might never discover that Tomb Raider (Roar Uthaug, dir., 2018), the Lara Croft (Alicia Vikander) origin adventure, explains she was an East London bike courier before declaring dad dead and inheriting his millions. What better way to toughen up for nonstop action?

B&C hasn’t undergone search engine optimization and never carried advertising, so garners no notice despite its main focus. Has always avoided being characterized, pinned down, or readily dismissed. Going by bicycle means being immersed in everything, sights, sounds, vegetative life exuding fragrances. Pass a cemetery or church, religion begs attention, or spirituality sticks. See others on streets, clad in bikinis or skintight spandex, politics intervene and sex smolders. Whatever you do requires cash and duty. Big 3 taboos - money, politics, religion - appear integral and ubiquitous. When does freedom occur?

Blacksmith Pierre Michaux just up and put pedals on a velocipede in late 1860’s. A century later relative and world traveller Henri Michaux won a French National Literary award, which he didn’t accept. Private and reclusive, Henri’s notoriety came from asemic writings that mimic oriental calligraphy, represent nothing, yet suggest semantic meaning. His nonfigurative abstractions resemble cave paintings, Pollock canvases, Rorschach inkblots, tipi symbols, visual vocalise, or wallpaper patterns. You sense a struggle between being lost in noise and expressing self aloud. This “bigly” reverberates with Labann, who began devoted to vocabulary’s soundscape and wonders whether B&C was worth all its effort. One must satisfy self or nobody.

If artists create crevices into which audiences can plug themselves, they garner a following. Impenetrability repulses everyone, but then hardly anyone bothers you. You never know beforehand what’s manifest in you will blossom into, reason enough to stay on course. Your ancestral tribe may be extinct, yet your totemic spirit pedals you onward beyond troubles and worries.

Had enough of being serious. Top things to enjoy include familiar moments, great meals, live concerts, lush poetry, recorded films and songs, sexual relations, smart art, and sporting events. Besides bicycling and creativity, anything else constitutes a mundane chore you might abhor, crawls out of darkness into crepuscular light of dawn, and wastes too much of your limited lifetime. Regret 16 years of school, which shunted into 45 of desk jockeying and personally finishing tens of thousands of projects, up to a dozen a day. Education should enrich, not enslave. Might have been better off collecting welfare, doing nothing, entertaining self, going fishing, growing produce, leaving projects to some sucker interested in such nonsense, reading more and sleepwalking. Only favored groups can claim such a status. Yet industrious folks do make for warm memories.

Fondly recall a holiday town with building facades next to a rideable small scale train. Fun for kids! Construction crews would restore for a few months each Fall to everyone's delight. Under your Christmas tree might be gifts of cowboy duds, feather war bonnet, and 2 cap six-shooters, presumably to replay tragic hostilities. Authors recreate mirth to raise hope that such attractions will recur, but failures to repeat, lack of skills, or lapses in funding typically disappoint. Only the alert or lucky get to savor solo ephemera and transitory thrills. Partially explains why TV networks revisit Christmas every July, propaganda to urge later spending upon which they rely.

Best of Bourdain

"What have you got to lose?" is a rhetorical question advisors ask of those chewing over change that recommends leaping before looking. Change is inevitable, necessary even. Decay feeds plants; their growth feeds humans and livestock. Days divide nights; seasons become years; centuries, eons. An incredible amount of transactions occur while one civilization after another coalesces then crumbles. Casino owners, insurers and tax revenuers size up what you have to lose and take from you whatever they can just shy of you organizing revolt. Swank restaurants charge a week’s salary for a single meal after which you’re still hungry, but at least they decorate place with a poster of a bygone track cyclist on a fixie. Life somehow perseveres despite stress.

Imagine how different society must have been several centuries ago, before education was free and opportunities abounded. Monarchs undermined education, which furnished students with tools to teach and think for themselves. Made them too clever to subjugate. Nowadays, practically no one obeys traffic laws; wonder what other covenants they break and transgressions they make while you politely stay right within limits. Some only occupy left lane and proceed slowly because it leaves space ahead, so they can react timely while savoring distractions.

What of texting? Where's the harm? How is it unlike listening to radio? Indeed. Talk radio totally transports listener into a tiny sphere alone on road with a rabid copilot urging driver to fixate on his disembodied hypnotic voice, ignore all else as if in a psychotic break, Son of Sam territory. Should instead be dancing courteously, paying close attention, and reacting defensively. Social media and traffic snarl leave participants frustrated and vulnerable, wear patience thin.

One could directly link a lot of crime to birth defects: Bad nutrition or crack addiction while pregnant, FAS, interbreeding. Leads to brain insufficiency, inability to learn, insanity that sooner lash out against complex demands than apply reason. Later they’ll snort up nose, stick in arms, and stuff faces with harmful substances. Food gets abused most. Yet fat is where flavor’s at, dissolved by beer and wine into a triglyceride stew and vascular menace. Putting bullies on a short leash makes sense, though shouldn’t lower expectations for their achievements. Focus can easily be disrupted by social fears. Restrict sources, and some who would've sunk can now swim. A forgiving and trusting nature invites assault and theft, as Labann has too often personally undergone.

A master wordsmith concocts stories seemingly out of thin air; whence they come include inner dialogue, input responses, personal experiences, stuff that might percolate over a lifetime. Not every act in which one engages is worth repeating; not every thought imagined bears expressing. Certainly some mustn’t be stifled lest individual or society suffer. Takes copious attempts and enormous effort to master the craft. Humanity has arrived at juncture Douglas Adams joked about, where an innocuous statement reverberates across universe and starts an intergalactic war. What one mostly hears are ads for crap you don't need, come-ons for charities that only pad directors’ pockets, and propaganda aimed at intimidating you into political submission, seldom thoughtful analyses meant to inform you what's at stake, sometimes life itself.

While immersed in meaningful projects, who has time for despair? Challenges demand completion, yet suicides have risen to an epidemic proportion among middle-aged men. While clinicians search for answers, causes couldn’t be more obvious. To avoid operating expenses, insurers recommend replacing them with healthier youth, ripping rug from under their sense of purpose, tossing them onto an ash heap of uselessness. Plus they regret in silence being complicit with what ruthless executives in male-dominated industry did to consumers, employees, and stakeholders. Drugs and liquor goggles overcome disgust of a date with a gun to head or rope around neck. Who can afford food, never mind therapists once health coverage lapses? Government policies also pave way for hostile takeovers and resultant downsizing. Being displaced doesn’t exempt an individual from having to earn, eat, survive; those ineligible for Social Security or Welfare have few alternatives. Severance, unemployment, and workmen compensation only fulfill short term needs. States do almost nothing to get displaced workers back into saddle before retirement savings run out and true desperation sets in. Back in FDR’s day, there were CCC, PWA and WPA, though gap from poor to rich is bigger today.

Can’t reverently lay Anthony Bourdain’s roasted ashes to rest without saying what about him you should admire best. He was no snob. Broke bread with both celebrities and nobodies, particularly in nations where USA ran rampant leaving them in shambles. Seemed to accept role as ugly American abroad, only transformed it by being genuinely caring and warmly sociable. May have appeared an elitist globe trekker, but began humbly as a dishwasher and performed backbreaking KP on brink of bankruptcy until well after 40, when he began to write and got a break. An admitted crime buff, published stories about underworld in Manhattan’s Little Italy. But his exposé of nauseating restaurant practices brought notoriety. Expert chef, the real deal, middle-aged Tony acted out other people’s perception of a bad-boy hipster and provocateur, vilified for his addictions and candor. Apparent sympathy for sin attracts fans, but bravery was what he was all about, not anger, gluttony, greed, or pride. Passionately against food waste, Hollywood rape, and policy tyranny, he was recognized as an authentic voice for the downtrodden everywhere. This put him at odds with powerful enemies, whose spooks know how to stage a scene to look like suicide.

Do bipolar personalities fail to thrive on cycling? Long bike trips mess up hormones, elating many, leaving others in funks. Biking helps assess your vitality. Doctors even measure health by putting patients on stationary bikes. Tony spent his last day stoking a tandem through gorgeous Alsatian countryside of which one can only dream. If you must go, what better way? He once quipped, “Life’s an amusement park. Enjoy the ride,” echoes of Hunter Thompson, “Buy the ticket, take the ride,” both firmly in charge of their independence, not the bad examples snide commentators make them out to be. What have you done with your hard won freedom? Many sell it for a transitory sense of security, trade a reliable cow for a handful of fascist beans. In the end, what you choose decides your fate. Do you really know what’s on someone else’s plate?

Feeding strangers implies behaving responsibly. Quoting self, “Instead of squabbling, learn to bake cookies and brew 2 cups.” To be magnanimous, one must immerse oneself among recipients willing to reciprocate. Americans have long since ceased to match mercies, respond in kind, and transcend Darwinian imperative to eat or be eaten. Can you blame anyone for selfish motivations given mainstream opinions?

Débat d'entrain

Feelings are fleeting, insights tricky to intercept, in tandem, require real effort to recall. But does writing them down reinforce memories or relegate forever to forgotten? In senility one misquotes statistics, mistakes billions for millions, or single-mindedly repeats same old story. Genuine and superior sail away together leaving you marooned. Precise quick recall rates just below muscular reflexes among survival mechanisms. While content here may seem disjointed, Labann knows connections but skips explanations; when warning of peril, you'd only identify immanent threat, not obscure in wordy malarkey. Could find another place to fall and flop, forsake in disgrace once duties you face dissolve, give up on it all, and stop. Expire, migrate, or stand fast: Yours to decide. Exit strategies are endlessly tempting. Once elation of peak experiences, including bicycling, wears off life grows depressing. Despair leads to losses. Disturbing.

Reconsider immigrants for a moment. Do some perpetrate crimes? Of course. Members of Bratva, Mafia, Sinaloa Cartel, and Yakuza operate internationally and pile collectively upwards of $40 billion in illegal loot each year enabled by an insatiable appetite for illicit sex, off-track gambling, smuggled narcotics, stolen merchandise, and unsecured loans, which can all be gotten legally at lesser costs/risks. Organized criminals intimidate targets into accepting their contraband and falling into their trap. They need you, not other way around.

So 95% of all crime could be eliminated through better education and policy realignment, that is, if people really wanted to be informed. Instead, mayors consider downsides, and dole out one-way bus tickets to dump addicts and indigents into some other jurisdiction. Make it go away? Solves no problem. Other mayors cynically pay for bus rides from third world to their cities to build a base of dependent voters while they extract costs from homeowners in soaring taxes, so pay nothing personally yet stay in power. Treachery against community comes easily to sociopaths in office. Heinous assaults and imaginative scams make life almost too difficult to bear.

Most acts of terrorism on American soil originate domestically, of course, given cost of travel. Any market economy that forsakes individuals and glorifies profits makes 99% losers, who then base self worth on success of 1%, blame scapegoats for failures, and lash out inappropriately wherever they reside. Capitalists, who ensure weapons remain cheap and plentiful, seldom forgive victims and vice versa. Illegal immigrants bear brunt of resentment, when it's rich patrons paying them under the table who warrant punishment. Besides, they perform menial tasks citizens don’t want: au pairs, domestics, gardeners, harvesters, or unskilled roles below minimum wage. In a race to the bottom, will you kill to be last?

Fake news pigs, who wallow in mud of culpability, and few who pay them to dupe rubes and refute scientific facts to suit profit motives, cause most attacks. Boosts ratings, reinforces fears off which mercenaries make money, and ruins reputations of real journalists. To whom do you look for guidance after all institutions have been scandalized? Silt and stones do not account for rising sea levels. Billions have made their presence felt in innumerable ways, like ants who tend jungles, without which jungles would die from rot and disappear. Unlike ants, humans negatively affect entire planet through atmospheric pollution, deforestation, ozone depletion, public confusion, worsening storms, and worst calamities. All reputable scientists agree. Yet Fox News broadcasts contradictory nonsense, because facts might be right, thus upset uptight who mine anthracite and pump crude into fossil fuel’s twilight.

Leaders lack foresight to understand how automaking, gaming, munitions manufacture, tobacco growing, and slaughtered beef saturated in artery clogging fats represent health costs that negate profits. Aren't these the ethical issues you elected them to solve? Perhaps they figure they have already, reason letting them fade away would be wisest course, reckon your perspective doesn’t matter one iota. Unless developing timely alternatives to supplant those depleted, conflict, deprivation, and devastation will result. With one hundred thirty-seven motorists worldwide dying every day, one every 10 minutes, you can be sure leaders will always sacrifice lives of the lowly to stay in power. Ought to obligate everyone to represent majority, resist upon principle, and stand resolute against tyranny.

One tires of chipping away concrete under which truth got buried, of interminable burden to analyze and inform, of paragraphs laden with paradoxes and pessimistic wordplay. Delve deeper, extraneous opinions detract from fact, and you divert further from confidence. Do have options: Plan an exit, stay until blog’s 10th anniversary next month, or stop abruptly. Suppose that’s a question followers should answer, not that there’s ever been intended débat d'entrain. Could also, if so inclined, delete content, disassemble blog, go commercial, or sell out, though that would be vengeful backlash to any lack of lively discourse. In this fragrant season of warmth, one should be outside cycling as far and often as sprung legs in shorts support, restoring own wellspring of hope.

Oil of Mirbane

If can’t be incorruptible, at least be independent. Can only speak with complete authority when no debts are owed, strings exist, or ties bind. If censors must review every word before you can disseminate, little or no decency, honesty or legitimacy remains. Any committee exist specifically to bury truth before it causes its members losses. Belong to human species with no band, group or political affiliation. Let conscience guide actions and speech, so sound off often unafraid of obligation.

So what of June 3rd’s inaugural World Bicycle Day, new praxis rite ratified by the United Nations this April? Will #June3WorldBicycleDay recur annually? Could be confused with September 17th’s World Cycling Day, first ever global bicycling cultural festival begun in 2017 to coincide with supposed 200th anniversary of bicycle’s invention. WCD originators specified this date because in Chinese “917” could also mean “Just Cycle”. In either case idea was to adjure pollution abatement, sustainable development, and traffic reduction that cycling affirms and driving negates. Been practicing and promoting all this for decades already, so don’t need to join anything, rather World joins Labann for once.

In an interview around time The Who played halftime at Superbowl, Pete Townsend disparaged Keith “The Loon” Moon for drumming wildly undisciplined. Why ridicule one of group’s better attributes? Impugns entire output; implies none of it bears listening. Instead they had John “Thunder Fingers” Entwhistle, bassist of the millennium, who provided beat and bond, so Keith, Pete and Roger Daltry could dance, noodle, sing, soar and windmill, which they surely did. The Who were the real deal: rebellious rock delivered with distinction and humor to receptive youth. Rumor has it that Pete still begrudges deceased Keith for having exploded his drums live concluding performance on Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, which may have left Pete a bit deaf, though hearing loss usually results from cumulative exposure to ear splitting decibels. Hearing heightens not only enjoyment but safety, so worth preserving.

Why not let the audience decide whether your approach works or message resonates? Rating based on arbitrary rules or repeating something that succeeded reeks of feckless and irrelevant. Right thinking lives in present and looks towards future. Past, now immutable, possesses little worth resurrecting and really can be too painful to recount. Will always prefer authentic to ersatz. Take, for example, oil of mirbane (nitrobenzene), a poison manufacturers once added to soap for its fake almond smell. Unless cheaper than almond oil itself, why bother? Makes you wonder what hides inside products as basic as detergent or foodstuff. Fruits are obviously treated with insecticides and other toxins, which is why you should always immersion wash them, even spin dry, before consuming.

Speaking of sound, regret not elaborating on birdsong in B&C chapter Guilty Pleasures. Of course, deliberate tweets and twitters constitute a significant input on morning spins. In fact, silence does disturb at dawn, since it indicates disorder that frightened away feathered friends and represents danger riders should heed before they proceed. For example, around next corner have found a bunch of police cars and sidearms drawn in a raid. Miners used to bring canaries to work; when singing stopped it warned them of noxious gases. Birdsong inspired entire classical compositions, most notably Olivier Messiaen’s Le réveil des oiseaux (1953). After decades of intense study, biologists and birders can distinguish among a cacophony of random chirps to identify individual species. These days public doesn’t value their insights into extinction and migration, since it’s seldom good news and sure to cost them more somehow. Explains why so few will be celebrating WBD.

In a deepening sea of complexity and irrelevance, the best doesn’t readily float to surface. Cyclists who spin up to high points get frustrated by fact that tallest was built by waste disposers in state’s landfill. Crowd noise, human cacophony, rises or swells at shopping malls or sporting events. It may contain potent hidden content, as do songs, each a small digest of contemporary influences, some with mind warping effects, which is why you ought to listen judiciously. But, then, songs representing bicycling culture from around planet will surely get overlooked, as were these curious expressions of individuality:

The Bennies, My Bike [Punk], Better off Dead, Jackknife Music, 2013

Café tacuba (yo soy), Bicicleta, single, self, 2010

Clutch, When Vegans Attack, From Beale Street to Oblivion, DRT Entertainment, 2007
“Manifestos at Kinkos, pinko commies play no fools. I feel the spirit moving over me. There are clouds beneath my feet. When vegans attack on ten speed bikes. Tattoos with meaning, American Spirit Lights.”

Craig D’Andrea, Three Mile Bike Ride, Getting Used to Isolation, Candy Rat Rec., 2009; previously mentioned, recommend watching live video of this lovely guitar instrumental.

El David Aguilar, La cumbia de la bici [Mexican], single, Qué Te Importa Rec., 2014
“Everyday sees more of us because it’s so magic. A cumbia dance for bikes since they move us around. Wonder if they can recycle a track for us now.”

Eminem, Legacy, The Marshall Mathews LP2, Aftermath, 2013
"Why am I so differently wired in my noggin? 'Cause sporadic as my thought come, it's mind bogglin'... look at the bright side. At least I ain't walkin'. I bike ride through the neighborhood of my apartment complex on a ten speed, which I acquired parts that I found in the garbage, a frame, and put tires on it. Headphones, straight ahead.” Album won a Grammy Award for Best Rap.

From Autumn to Ashes, Streamline, Abandon Your Friends, Vagrant Rec., 2005
“I see an empty space next to the yellow bumble bee; that could be the perfect place to park my broken down ten-speed. Just tell me when you get off work and where you'd like to meet. Then we can pedal up and down the crowded New York streets. My shoes are worn out, because the breaks don't function. I just put my feet down, let them drag on the pavement.”

God-Des & She, Get Your Bike, Three, self, 2009

King Charles, Mississippi Isabel, Mississippi Isabel, Universal Rec., 2011
“I rode her on my bicycle all the way in the rain. She kissed me once, I took her out for lunch, and she never kissed me again.”

Sam(antha) Shelton, Bicycle, single, self, 2014

Taylor Turner, Bicycle, Versus, self (Kickstarter Project), 2014

Turbo Mansion, Bicycle, Danger Laces EP, self, 2018

Charlie Chaplain

Another Bike Week passed with little fanfare. Originated in England in 1923, nearly a century ago in Europe and North America, observances are scattered from beginning of May to middle of June. Here in New England, every year, it seems to rain during 2nd week of May, which sells more lawn products than rain gear for cycling. Sure, on Bike-to-Work Day a few diehards convene on town squares under tents for free coffee and donuts. Labann got to work from home last Friday, and rides to work year round when weather cooperates, so didn’t rise irreproachably to support cause. Bike commutes rate slightly above haircuts, something you do routinely without ceremony. But a Centennial Anniversary of Bicycle Week could be legitimately promoted among Amish, artists, geeks, mamils, moonbats, Mormons, Neo-Luddites, reactionaries, religious fanatics, and whoever else would likely attend.

Too often convening disappoints. Typical stay-at-home television viewers get an eyeful of beautiful and delightful humans of which malls, plazas and venues seem devoid. By comparison, public you meet on street appear annoyed and bent out of shape; patience, serenity and smiles were destroyed by their android and disrespect of ugly rabble you'd rather avoid. Fingertip access to information does expand opportunities and speed transactions, but social media serves practically no purpose, other than wrongly identify you as a target or terrorist.

Instead of data retrievers, mankind once built devices that really saved labor. Who can deny a clothes dryer, dishwasher, washing machine, or wheat harvester/thresher saves effort and time? True, you could arrange for wage slaves to hand pick grain, kneel by a stream, or stand at a sink for hours each day, but then you couldn’t multitask other equally crucial chores.

Machines weren’t necessarily man’s best friend, though. Mechanized warfare accounts for recurrent Memorial Day, which honors soldiers fallen to it. It’s when politicians arrive in limousines to honor their sacrifice through a litany of hollow hypocrisy. Excludes cops, firemen, guards, and workers, too, though they get equivocally remembered on Labor Day. Everyone gets their own birthday, some Father’s or Mother’s Day; better make the most of it. The Good Lord, having been tortured for all souls’ sake, only gets alpha birth and omega death of Christmas and Easter. Exactly what did YOU do to deserve even a seldom seen headstone or totally ignored obituary?

Back when Americans in Korea were fighting Charlie, chaplain bicyclist Emil Kapaun ministered to soldiers so effectively, he has since been awarded a Medal of Honor by Obama, considered for sainthood, made into a film hero, and woven into Latham’s war biography Cold Days in Hell: American POWs in Korea. Apparently that’s wasn’t enough suffering to deter current administration from resuming hostilities. A treacherous few will always profit by provoking war. You know who they are: They wrap themselves in a shroud of religiosity while accepting bribes from gun lobby, fueling fascist Fox agitprop, inciting domestic terrorism, and profiling blacks and muslims as militants. Without God’s blessing, they are just Neo-Nazis eager to promote your sacrifice for their gain.

Chaplains such as Kapaun [shown with trusty bike during WWII] can be distinguished from pastors by their advanced training and lack of fixed parish; they minister not only to own denomination but whoever needs spiritual guidance navigating boredom and stress that binds just about any occupation. A cynical appraisal of most company’s codes of conduct would be that employees agree under duress to abstain from what executives routinely do, mustn't harass, intimidate, relate misconduct to unauthorized outsiders, retaliate, and so on. Chaplains even address fear in the fog of battle. If you’re a chaplain, shouldn’t you forgive minor insults? Not always so, as article attests. Did instead make a federal case over it, but didn’t specify convict’s sentence.

Saints who possess a semblance of piety humble themselves before deity, put others before own, and sense by man not all can be known. They are loathe to inflict deserved punishment, don sackcloth to suffer alike, tolerate petty transgressions, and turn other cheek to facilitate further pummel-ment. Society has to compartmentalize duties among those less high-minded lest criminals rampage unchecked. Sometimes crimes derive from elected officials not acting responsibly or doing job appropriately.

Neglected roads loaded with debris and holes cause riders to weave, thereby aggravating motorists and endangering cyclists. They do slow everyone, which some might consider a blessing. On a recent motor trip was following a cyclist, who was going briskly along road edge and waving all behind to pass. Couldn't provide a meter margin so didn't. Only when he turned onto side street could one see it was a small unregistered motorcycle, which resembled a kid's single-speed cruiser. Funny, bicycles conversely used to mimic motorcycles to make kids feel grown up. As Summer approaches, see more and more unlicensed riders on midget motorcycles, minibikes, pocket rockets, and scooters. Tiny target does not exonerate lawbreaker, though operators are usually children and teens. Tickets ought to be issued to abetting guardians and parents, who likely provided or willfully condone use of an illegal vehicle.

As dangerously as they cut corners and dart about unexpectedly, they aren't a bicyclist's arch nemesis. Garbage trucks, RVs, and tandem trailers seem worse for sheer bulk at excessive speeds, although pickups and SUVs outnumber them, so really constitute greater risk. Luckily, drivers of Motheaten Tree Service are few, out at dawn, terrorizing travel lanes, unfortunately on roads Labann frequents. Talk of traffic hazards may seem lame compared to gun violence or infectious disease, though currently kill more people than both combined. Where’s a bicycle chaplain when you need homilies to encourage better road ethics? The silent comedian you thought this entry was about at least made you chuckle; maybe that’s all you can do while immersed in menace. Riding in silence was never Labann's strength.

“‘Go, God, You know that to win is not getting there but continuing.’ Everyone, on the sidewalks rolling on the ground with laughter, we applauded him like crazy! But, a certain night, his horrible bicycle with a trailer began to cast an enormous fluorescent tail. Unbelievable! The pickpockets were returning wallets on the bus; the powerful were ending hunger; the UFOs were revealing... the mayor himself was filling the potholes in the streets. I cried of joy, dancing under that light the polka of the cyclist... sinister rage, I do not know why... we assaulted him, and from behind, his white bicycle we started to destroy... turned it into a thousand pieces... he shouted, ‘May I save you!’ took a look at his bicycle ...smiled ...walked away. Skinny Guy Who Art on Earth, how come you forgot that we are not angels, but men and women?” - Astor Piazzolla, La Bicicleta Blanca