Strata Overlain

Pick up Companion Reader, 4th [and likely final] Edition, now available for free downloaded by simply clicking on its image on right or title here. It’s been augmented with latest posts, edited for content, and laid out same as Bike&Chain, which it now exceeds in detail and girth.

Labann asks, “I wrote all this? Do I agree with it entirely? Can I endorse wholeheartedly? Who IS this crusader for human rights and social justice? Surely not the easily distracted, instantly frustrated, severest critic of the overly long, pathetically meaningless, and seriously stupid that surpasses even the most ungrudging futility tolerance?” Could claim someone else composed, some gung-ho invisible instigator with poor impulse control who intermittently possesses fingertips on keyboard, surely a brittle bicyclist beaten about by abusive automatons and belligerents with baseball bats and motorized turbo cats. Have never been so clever in person, instead minded own business and roamed withdrawn around society.

Does it matter whether selective mutism derives from dementia or indifference? Already way past what was originally intended, never meant to repeat self so often, even though withering bicycling does imply repetitive pedaling. Regret sharing 2,000 pages on bicycling culture... dumbest thing ever personally did. No good reason for it, simply saw a hole in society's swing and succeeded in pitching strike after strike for 3 decades. Yet game was rigged; those who outperformed still lost while slackers stole billions and wrecked environment. Although beaten into abject submission, did once rise against cruel domination, and imagine others so inclined. Saw it return and tossed in own two curve balls. But the older one gets, the slower both body and mind; now it’s bullpen time.

Layer upon layer of digital streams and wordy dreams fused into inseparable strata akin to what archeologists encounter at prehistorical sites where habitation existed for millennia, cities built on ruins of villages built on camps along river banks.

If anything, both Bike&Chain and Companion Reader prove bicycling culture not only exists but thrives despite all attempts to eradicate it irrevocably. Automotive interests wanted to clear streets of impeding bicyclists and walkers. Instead they distributed too many vehicles and installed road furniture as own obstacles, so they sit motionless fuming with emotions amidst exhausting fumes, fatiguing billboards, and limiting controls among hundreds of millions of fearfully likeminded. Some motorists are so witless they stop in crosswalks and intersections which they aren’t supposed to enter unless clear to proceed. Then they assault you with verbal obscenities for squeezing carefully around them. From a bicyclist’s viewpoint, it’s a war fought daily in surprising skirmishes pitifully concluded. Hard to fathom how anyone waxes enthusiastic about exercise that punishes more than rewards.

Summer is when automotive lobbyists escalate their anti-bike rant: “Bike right! Get out of my away! Watch out lest you become roadkill!!” It’s tantamount to confessing, “We don’t know what the hell we’re doing yet will never stop, so you better perform extra well to allow for our incompetence.” Presumes bicyclists can while motorists can’t.

Bicyclists retreat to back roads or wooded tracks, along with deer or other wild animals guided by instincts alone, though nowhere is totally safe. Don’t ever call for roadside service, since even though covered for first 10 miles, bicyclists will be extorted dearly for more cash than they carry for any mileage beyond. Drivers fear open spaces between car, home and office, spend <1% of their time outdoors, where they’re statistically safer by an enormous factor, and might soak up oxygen and sunshine for health’s sake.

Bicycling elevates one's brain derived neurotrophic fact (BDNF), dopamine, number of brain cells, and serotonin. According to prestigious medical journals, as little as 15 minutes a day, perhaps a short commute to work, fights ADHD, Alzheimer's, cancer, cardiovascular, fibromyalgia, Lou Gerhig's, and Parkinson's diseases. Furthermore, pedaling boosts mood and fights depression, main manifestation of mental illness considered nearly nominal since it’s so prevalent. Being in best of health benefits entire society, reduces demands upon doctors, hospitals, insurers, and nurses, which thereby elevates level of care for all. In this among many other ways, bicycling fosters better citizenship and opens eyes to cruel reality.

Meanwhile, insane terrorists spread germs and tamper with unsealed foods and products at points of sale for viral hits. Cybercrooks and scam telemarketers work nonstop to cheat rubes from ready cash. Websites pose as government resources or innocuous portals, then phish for details or identities to steal. Promise of an internet that offers free information to enlighten curious has long been betrayed by greedy businessmen, corrupt politicians, and dastardly predators. Even stalwarts, especially saints, can’t be trusted, because all have agendas against injustice and hate vulnerable you in lieu of unassailable enemies.

So what’s the point in trying to share relevant observations? Only going to attract miscreants or be ignored or misinterpreted by audience you hoped to reach. Nobody believes in friendly, platonic relationships; all mistrust anything different and suspect underlying sexual urges. Seeing world as it is and stating how it disappoints leaves you angry and bitter. Sometimes saying nothing serves you better.

In the end, what you did and you yourself will be overlain by depressing strata. Maybe some future archeologist will dig up your primitive artifacts and find a cherished gem while sifting through tons of wasteland overburden for bits of bone and specks of metal.

“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.” Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius , 121 -180 AD. Not much changes among men over 2 millennia, but tough to stay balanced when crowded by eight billion among whom two billion are mentally disabled.

Backpedalane

Pedaled backwards along a long forgotten lane; decided to relent to assumed duties one last time. Googled current bicycling culture. With internet now heavily populated with facts and folderol, these searches have become too easy. Wasn’t at all so during mid-90’s when Labann began; meant going to college libraries and retail shops, and interviewing other cyclists. While bike musical compositions have trailed off, probably because no global heroes have emerged from America since Armstrong’s disgrace, new topical books overflow, including several about enduring Tour de France, more than you’ll read in 10 years and not mentioned. Here’s a significant smattering of late breaking others (does not constitute an endorsement of any):

Anonymous, The Secret Cyclist: Real Life as a Rider in the Professional Peloton, (Random House, 2019, 224 pp.) - “...try write a warts-and-all blog about your office. Question how the business is run, make sure you remember to call your boss a moron, and then tell me how it goes.” Management dissatisfaction probably applies to every team sport, as it surely does in most businesses, until some board or committee members, stakeholders, or whistleblowers wise up and work together to end tyranny. Can be projected to a national scale, since, as Peter predicts, incompetents rise to their highest level, though you’d overlook and tolerate them on their journey there until damage is already done.

Evan Friss, On Bicycles: A 200-Year History of Cycling in New York City (Columbia University Press, 2019, 264 pp.) - Reminds readers that no sooner than the first laufmaschine arrived from Germany its use in Manhattan was banned in parks and on sidewalks, only to return 50 years later as French boneshakers that captivated public and paved streets for motoring.

Harry Pearson, The Beast, the Emperor and the Milkman: A Bone-shaking Tour through Cycling’s Flemish Heartlands (Bloomsbury Publishing, for release February, 2020, 272 pages) - Accounts of Belgian racers of yesteryear, such as The Beast Eddy Merckx, and Jules Vanhevel, who led a World Championship drive until he collided with a cow.

Jet McDonald, Mind is the Ride (Unbound Publishing, 2019, 368 pp.), non-traditional bike book of the mental journey, not a travel guide, during a tour from England to India. “The Virtual Triangle... A bike shadow is a cyclist’s best friend. It’s an X-ray of the rider’s imagination Its never -changing geometry follows just behind or ahead, on an icy road, a desert plain, a dual carriageway. And at the peak of hunger and the depths of exhaustion, it begins to talk with you. It begins to turn you inside out.”

Jools Walker, Back in the Frame: How to get back on your bike, whatever life throws at you (Little, Brown Book Group, 2019, 368 pp.) - Autobiographical blogger Lady Velo compiled her trials as a black woman fighting depression, prejudice, a stroke, and such tough stuff to suffer from.

Lorenz J. Finison, Boston’s Twentieth-Century Bicycling Renaissance: Cultural Change on Two Wheels (UMass Press, 2019, 304 pp.) - Chronicles challenges and revives disavowed voices of black cyclists, environmental and social justice activists, and women breaking into male-dominated professions of bike messengers and mechanics.

Michael Kranish, The World's Fastest Man: The Extraordinary Life of Cyclist Major Taylor, America's First Black Sports Hero (Simon and Schuster, 2019, 384 pp.) - Whatever complaints the Secret Cyclist may have, none could match Marshall Taylor’s struggles as a black champion during Jim Crow era. This new biography was unknown to Labann when he wrote a recent article after a personal visit to Taylor’s old haunts.

Somehow also stumbled upon an old song that suggests, though never specifies, bicycling per se. Journey, Still they Ride, Escape, Columbia, 1981; subsequently released as a single, hit 19th on Billboard Hot 100.
"Jesse rides through the night / Under the Main Street light
Riding slow / This old town, ain't the same
Now nobody knows his name / Times have changed, still he rides
Traffic lights, keeping time / Leading the wild and restless through the night
Still they ride, on wheels of fire / They rule the night
Still they ride, the strong will survive / Chasing thunder
Spinning ‘round, in a spell / Woah, it’s hard to leave this carousel, ‘round and ‘round and ‘round and ‘round
Still they ride..."

Shocks Sarbane

"This may come as a shock..." constitutes as cringeworthy a phrase as, “Tell me if this hurts." Brace for a beating; face stress building. People prefer ghastly lies over a nasty surprise. Yet many ignore dire warnings deemed predictions of gloom from prophets of doom. "Tell me some good news," they importune, though they rather it be nonsense or silence, because ignorance is bliss, "No news is good news." Then well laid plans go amiss.

Spent half a century in quality assurance, Six Sigma trained, totally committed to scientific method of observe, hypothesize, experiment, gather data, repeat, analyze, theorize, codify, form corollary, surveil for exceptions and failures. Unappreciated are measuring, monitoring, and sweating time consuming tasks. Jumping to conclusions is easy and quick. Learning from mishaps dissolves into trying to avoid.

Not very sexy, nobody's much interested in constant measurement, data maintenance, due diligence, or statistical assessment. Details cause countenances to droop, eyes to glaze, and jaws to yawn. As author, editor, illustrator, technical writer, and webmaster, spent 50 years rechecking and verifying minutia. Still make mistakes, but trust process when permitted favorable conditions and hours to apply logic and tools, although impatience rules and turns everyone into fools. Even when you cover all contingencies, things still go wrong. Total incorruptibility tags the saint for crucifixion. The more unconscionable and unforgivable you are, the more likeminded lummoxes like you. Worst gangsters rise fastest and highest.

No number of congressional SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley) Acts could keep accountants from destroying American industry over last two decades. Khrushchev has his revenge from beyond the grave. Once engineers designed anew just to improve continually this technology zoo. Acquisitions, insurers, mergers based upon global greed doing bean counting at the expense of what matters - increasing reliability and saving lives - destroyed incentives and eclipsed impact. SOX’s very existence even without enforcement, only voluntary compliance, still rankles conservative cheaters. Legal practices and poison pills mean stockholders never in fact obtain company ownership. Great potential has been gutted on purpose in a battle against intelligent stewardship.

Things are so bad weavers would rather make disposable socks and pick your pockets than maximize comfort and wear. Can't find any that don't pinch off blood vessels by being too tight, which results in foot burn, poor circulation, and possibly blood clots, and get threadbare faster than FedEx can resupply. Sumptuous merino wool may be best, but makers betray by tweaking mix of nylon and spandex, and split sizing of Med-XL that sacrifices perfect but unpopular XXL. Black old style pair with little white homunculus show wear points on foot to almost see-through thinness at ball edges, heels, and toes. Makers could examine to redesign and reinforce, but they don’t care. Greed for profit forever surpasses need to serve all classes when competitors are few and customers are stuck with bad or no choices. Whatever happened to, “Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back,” as an inducement? Afraid to buy a replacement, spend too much time damning and darning. Shouldn't have to include sewing among bike handling skills.

Boomers bowed out too early, believing they knocked out social injustice forever, since 20th Century was a clinic on how bad leaders who gained supremacy based on empty rhetoric hurry next catastrophe. Those who jump ship might drown, sink to bottom feeders, such as Peterson’s orange clawed lobsters. Crustacean hierarchies don’t describe human societies or prove male primacies. Big fish eat little fish only beneath the seas. Too many from this generation left country or withheld votes, as if that might work. Only meant a small cadre could seize power. Nixon’s vampire protégés took over, will never leave voluntarily, won’t summer by the sea lest they lose their ghostly and superior whiteness.

“My rhetoric is better than his. My rhetoric is the best ever.” Donald Trump, 07 August 2019, present POTUS, schoolyard bully, supposed leader of the Free World whose schadenfreude for your suffering knows no bounds.

Exactly what in this brand appealed to his base? “Base” by all connotations, MAGA cleverly marketed improvements, though delivered none even with congressional backing, certainly created social ogres while stoking unreasonable fears, and currently promises to crush them should he be returned to office for another term. Almost as laughable as a cartoon villain, he's too reckless a menace to dismiss. Can nobody see through this scam? Can’t say, “You’re fired!” SOX didn’t compel him to disclose soviet contracts concerns or tax returns. Casinos are ideal setups for money laundering and people torturing. Why bother to investigate? Can talk his way out of any indictment. Wiggy presidents are only lightning rods that draw voter charges away from country’s secret bigwigs.

Can’t say you’re disappointed when you’ve foreseen inevitable outcome, except for donkeys, who won’t present anyone you’d want, just lame ducks, spring chickens, and war hawks. For the birds! No viable alternative attracts attention. Rap enough, some of what you say will seem prescient or visionary, since unresolved issues reemerge repeatedly. Was really the moment in history to introduce a whole new progressive party, but nescient citizens blew it, and world has been reset to a century ago on brink of annihilation. Well, screw it. Bike through it.

This time around marching army can’t rely on decent socks, something of a meaningless distraction until they are shot dead paying more attention to toe agony than foreign foe. Charities collect socks for vagrant foot applause in a vain gesture that does nothing to alleviate root cause. Meanwhile, traitors in Senate thrive, those who supposed to be representing you in crucial decisions of protecting and spending. Aw, shucks, who signed you up for awe, hurt and shocks if not them? Why did you not foresee and knock footing from under them? Could see some sacred cow tipping about to commence.

“Down by the railway the bicycles are there, an apocalyptic fair for the alive. It's a sign, the messengers they bring with their stainless steel wings on a 45 that plays our lullaby. Man made moons, they go on, one by one, when the sun is done for the day.” Amy Millan, Wayward and Parliament, Honey From the Tombs, Arts & Crafts, Int., 2006, inspired by serving brews at a coffee shop on Parliament Street in Toronto.

Bite Dumb Cane

Critics use the term “manifesto” in a derogatory way. Comes from the Latin “manifestus”, meaning “obvious”, therefore, disclosed as self evident. Nothing should be more welcome on your path to truth. May inadvertently connote “mandate” with which you must comply even if you don’t want to, but that’s just how things are and never what Labann intends. If fact, have always exposed both ends of spectrum, and presented conflicting approaches, not proselytized singleminded avenues. Uncompromising extremists with agendas to fulfill and axes to grind condemn and deride a centrist standpoint. Always another way to do anything, 99 out of 100 will bring pain or regret you might deserve if you don't take needs of all others into account.

When you consider unbiased numbers, nation is not perfectly divided or substantially polarized. A small minority of morons has a mouthpiece, whereas vast majority does not. Despicable Fox News claims to speak for Americans but doesn’t represent 80% of them. Not even close. By and large Americans are eager to serve a purpose, generous to a fault, hard working, mind own business, obey laws, pay taxes, rush to aid, tolerate other races, religions, and viewpoints, will smite enemies decisively when provoked, and won’t stand for unfair practices. Rest of world would emulate them. Instead, Fox conflates exceptions, generates fear, promotes hatred, and triggers terrorism.

Not all nation’s residents are Americans or citizens, though, or care about mutual benefit. A mean spirited cadre now runs country, puffs itself up to hide its impotency, and taunts bigger crowd of betters as would any bully. Criminals aren’t the norm, cause a disproportionate degree of harm, and do exist at every level in any form. When foreign nationals say they hate Americans, they mean this abominable cross section. A tormenting flea influences behavior of dog tens of thousands of times larger, but surely isn’t dog’s guiding essence. No, pets want to be rid of these pests.

So what if Labann tosses in an occasional metaphor? Some help get points across dense divide. Unless framed as artsy or salacious, crucial messages never reach anyone. Do writers keep blogs to communicate or something else? In every interview infamous artists describe their compulsion to produce. What else is there to do? Guilt drives futile posturing and senseless strutting. Hunger, want and war force immediate, often violent reaction, but with what do you fill times of peace?

Some would suggest art, gratification and music. Others say advancement, exploration and improvement. Nitwits engage in gossip, hate, and home wrecking, pitting spouse against spouse, serving greed of divorce attorneys and those with more money than they know how to spend. Wisdom urges perpetual vigilance and steady effort when common good you must defend. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. Dumping recorded impressions and what one assesses into an internet vacuum just depresses. Decline, perversion and superstition interfere, and tailspin sets you back to yesteryear. America has almost become a medieval fiefdom, middle eastern theocracy, or murderous monarchy.

Back when primetime television audiences tuned into and were satisfied by contrived depictions of family life, political shows were filler for Sunday morning dead air. What was the first reality program? Besides news and sports, that is. The sole thrill of NASCAR is that death is defied when vehicles collide. Among unscripted shows, Cops has hung around the longest by diverting viewers with misdemeanor beatings. Shows like Survivor threw together incompetents competing for a prize, and indolent imbeciles applauded ensuing mayhem: Sports with few rules, no athletes or referees, pure mind rot for dumbed down masses. What next? Gladiator contests at the LA coliseum? Mayan football where losers get sacrificed? Political talk has now become primetime's ultimate reality show in which nation gets split into bloodthirsty camps and you pay the price with your life. It's only a game, and those who stage it profit staggeringly. How did this totally reverse? “Never criticize the populace... ‘the deceived masses’ were easy marks for a cynical and self-perpetuating ‘culture industry.’”

People falsely assume that you must be crazy if you're not famous yet speak your mind. Sure, psychos do grouse and mumble, but seldom coherently. Sane folks say little; they recognize fact that most won't grasp what they're saying anyway. "Why cast pearls before swine?" asked biblical authors, then assembled a 1000 page codex to do exactly that. When you dignify idealized depictions of life on sitcoms versus reality programs with contrived scenarios indented with Fox's thumbprints, you fall into same trap of falsehood. Both want you to believe something other than basic facts of enduring pains, hunting gains, and surviving strains, what you really do for a living. B&C only portrays how things are, not how you wish they would be, without excluding details that don’t fit anyone's closed circuit narrative.

Guilefool, O'Really, Sanctity, and whole lineup of disgruntled Fox personalities (not an objective reporter among them, nothing but paid agitators) will accuse you of behaving as if politics of 75 years ago were still relevant; it's a brainwashing tactic. They themselves ape obsolete and square Bucky smugness, Limburger stink, and Merry schemes, whatever always works. A raging world war did require teamwork and tight lips. Not much since has changed with nation still under siege by stupid thugs and war lords, who either don't understand America's stabilizing effect or do want to see world burn. Yet you let jackasses in suits and ties rant jabber and and tout white supremacy or xenophobic deportation at your peril; festivals and schools don't screen attendees for assault weapons. You know too well what divisiveness they are all about by content and tone of sound bites they deliver with insincere smirks and shifty eyes. It's Ailes advising Nixon all over again, "I am not a crook," as if supporting a paranoid sociopath were preferable. But Labann's a nobody stuck in cultural inquiry at the terminus of cosmological waste disposal, not a notable who can do or say anything because face is bloated to indisputable by big screen or world stage.

Since when have intellectuals resumed heeding clerics and pundits over scientists? Empirical facts are peer reviewed and professionally vetted; there's no room for flexibility or stupidity. Questions of morality and spirituality can never be answered and will always remain debatable. Therefore, wars are fought over them incited by neocons precisely because they can neither be proven nor refuted and nothing is more divisive. All neocons believe in is profitability created when parties disagree. Anyway, after partisan pundits, pederast priests, and proof-for-pay scientists, who can you trust?

Broadcasts ridiculously commenting on reporting of real investigators elsewhere turns riding bikes into high-risk crossings of a fearscape, no longer an innocuous calling upon a pleasant landscape. People who count occurrences and focus on facts and can offer proof that bicycling and walking (possibly also racing and running) are much safer than motoring, even if infrastructure centers on automotive and lacks any ethical motive. Worst worry isn’t potholes, sweat or traffic, it’s up-close encounters with anyone who believes latest graphic faked by Fox, and is so incensed to senselessly punish you. These serial terrorists buzz, cut off, hook, and pelt bicyclists on purpose, park or pass in bike lanes, or pursue you with malice.

B&C tells a story of how an angry carload at a bike path crossing screamed insults out windows. Labann made an appropriate finger salute, hurried along, then slipped through next crossing just before same carload nearly chased down from around corner. Of course, can’t blame bad attitudes alone, but capitalistic enterprises of cooking crack, importing coke, and selling liquor in which neocons and rednecks collude. Exercise does builds testosterone, makes bicyclists concupiscents, but gutless drug addicts lash out against helpless innocents because those in control are inaccessible and remote, and you aren’t. No, bicyclists and walkers are powerless and vulnerable.

Tolerating, trying not to pity, these pains-in-the-asses parallels bicycling on multiple levels. Believe no one who says bicycling is nonstop joy in cresting hills, maintaining cadence, and paying costs. It's a battle against bugs, chemical burns or infectious germs splashed on you by riding through gutters awash in mystery juice, saddle sores, sorrow and worry, such onerous stuff with which you must deal but shouldn't have to, and toil that yields mood elevating endorphins and years of living longer. It's a game changer for those among you who are smarter.

David Bowie recalls with amusement how in Berlin new acquaintance Brian Eno would take a train based on how many marks he had in his pocket, then explore neighborhood in which he found himself. Situationist Guy deBord identified this behavior in Theory of the Dérive (1956), an unstructured journey where you absorb whatever you randomly encounter, and emotionally disconnect. One wonders whether anything is so utterly random, when it could be part of some otherworldly plan, or whether preordained scripts create or were derived from chaos. Still head out alert on bike on a wide-eyed dérive and let vehicle flow decide which turns to take, though know there'll be some consequence. A flaneur imposes self into a crowd just to feel alive amidst a moshpit of movement and transgression, in other words, traffic, from which everything you need to know gets revealed. In an armchair or on a couch, you yourself are mere furniture. Independent of conveyance choice, whenever in motion you are traffic, as much as any bus, car, or steel on wheels for which planners must accommodate. It's only now, 30 years since ADA was enacted, that cities are installing wheelchair ramps in intersection curbs. They ignored a whole generation of wheelchair users, though bike paths always supported motorized chairs.

Constant sweeping is what bicyclists do, surveying ahead from front wheel to vanishing point. This sweep derives from a need to dodge hazards, distant and narrow, downcast and medial, then proximal and wide, repeated as many times a minute as miles per hour in speed. Bicyclists also sweep tires side to side, like painting pavement or tango dancing. Regarding politics, citizens need to be on par: looking ahead, looking around, and staying engaged in current events. Over the last 50 years world's population has doubled from four to eight billion. Two additional generations have joined parents and grandparents on highways. Family drives on Sundays have become an anachronism. Can't see bucolic vistas when focused on bumpers inches ahead and behind. Motoring's a key defoliant and pollutant which has laid roadsides bare. Nothing much to see anymore except impending shambles. At least by bike, you soak up oxygen and sunshine.

Almost never look back, especially when someone hails. Promises no reward for services rendered. Was early on a Sunday, quiet enough to hear, so went back despite misgivings. Bicyclist on a borrowed bike had dropped chain completely off. Had tools to fix but he couldn’t figure out how. Explained that derailleur is on a spring, so bottom cog was flipped over top. A lesson later, chain was restored, and cyclist was left with a happy memory of a helpful samaritan... and how to locate nearest bike shop. Perhaps he’ll pass along a positive vibe. How many times has it been that Labann fixed a stranger’s flat and was forgotten? Then, again, always foresaw contingencies, so seldom needed reciprocity. Did roll 150,000 miles without unmanageable mishaps. Maybe karma accumulates and protects, you never know. Talking heads who incite hate may earn millions by ruining marriages, but surely are due for huge comeuppances, hopefully including reparations.

Getting along doesn’t mean you have to bite mother-in-law’s tongue, chew dumb cane, shut up, or suffer in silence. Having personally dealt with belligerent losers, learned it’s better to go limp, neither confront nor escalate, if you want smother an emotional inferno. Once fuel is expended, fury becomes smoke and melts into thin air. Unfortunately, propaganda continually gets refueled by billionaires, so you’d better counter with equal measure lest it cost you your life, though it consumes your time.

Orbital Plane

How can anyone be interested in bicycles alone? Bikes are only a means to take in wide world beyond your doorstep. Have gotten stuck on transportive processes, but what else have you? Vegetative? Yes, you can learn plenty from barnyard animals, insects and plants, but warmest relationships can only form once you meet some percentage of planet’s seven billion seven hundred thousand other humans. Universe includes everything; culture and science explain how you fit into it. Heaven is gliding effortlessly to hear, see, sense and understand everything.

Fact is that during short time allotted there’s a glut of input and surplus of stupidity. Whole of internal logic, poetic rhyming, suggestive innuendo, and whimsical wordplay gets totally lost in translation, meaning filtered from consciousness of most readers whether or not foreign or native language fluent. Audience flocks to whatever bundles, digests, and eases reach, usually radio or television, then Twitter memes or websites. May attend live lectures or performances, but whenever highly motivated most knuckle down and read chapters and paragraphs. If you think about it, literature originates raw material for all other media, yet remains the least loved. A bond must be formed between audience and author that requires extraordinary effort from both, even undeserved pain, to achieve rapport, meld minds, and start word of mouth that breaks barriers. Wastes too much time.

Same dynamics describe transportation choices. The path of least resistance appears to be a private passenger car... that is, until gridlock becomes intolerable, parking impossible, or roads impassable. Then you’re back to walking, for which most are so out of shape they’ll pathetically stay in place until death overtakes or situation resolves. Planes and trains never reach where you want to be, so you still must rent a car or take a taxi. Costs and hassles of arranging, boarding and delaying have become so bad motorists may often be tempted to drive thousands of miles instead. Along with distracted and intoxicated, sleep impaired motoring is a major cause of accidents and fatalities, though many find it impractical to snooze aboard planes or trains, then drive upon arrival anyway.

Exactly half a century ago many of Earth’s three billion six hundred thousand people - less than half its current population - were riveted to Apollo 11 broadcasts. CBS anchor Walter Cronkite invited futurist fictionist Arthur C. Clarke to comment, since Clarke had speculated in books a generation earlier all that was about to occur, though admitted going to the moon was a lot more complicated and costly than imagined. Historic precedents excite, but space exploration since has drawn less acclaim than criticism, even with another moon landing planned around corner. Although you’re tracking more junk in orbital plane than you care to admit, because its influence is plainly incontrovertible, you live in a gravity well that's hard to escape and mustn't be taken for granted. News of alien visitation wouldn’t make things any weirder than they already are. Nobody at that time was reading instead of listening or viewing. During current events, literature gets abandoned, then resurges when buzz passes and people seek new perspectives. However, authors seldom rate among celebrities. Action heroes amass accolades. Wordsmiths are accursed.

A perfect case in point was Marshall “Major” Taylor, the first African-American international sports star. Not only did he set USA cycling records, Taylor surpassed all competitors on three continents and won every championship. Despite denial, racism, and violence stateside, the Black Cyclone was invincible from 1896 to retirement in 1909. He sat atop a fortune in winnings when age and rivals began to catch up. Although he expressed no bitterness or regrets in his autobiography, The Fastest Bicycle Rider in the World, self publishing in 1928 and peddling copies himself, along with crashing of stock market and declining popularity of bicycling, ruined his marriage and net worth. Residing penniless at Chicago’s YMCA, Taylor succumbed to heart disease at 53 years old, about same age Labann began publishing Bike&Chain. So, fans lavish cash upon athlete, yet look past author as if he didn’t exist, even when one in the same person.

Had a chance to roll along Major Taylor Boulevard and stop at the [shown] Mendez memorial to the Worcester Whirlwind, dedicated in 2008 by Greg Lemond himself, outside public library next to YMCA just 7 blocks from George Street, an 18%, 500 foot hill Taylor used to train on, now venue for an annual race held every July in his honor in Worcester, where he began his professional racing career and first found fickle fame. These days city itself seems filled with anger, blight, ghosts, and reminders of region’s biggest KKK rally, while ugly white supremacy has wormed into nation’s highest offices.

There used to be an anti-religion, immigration hostile Know Nothing Party. Ever wonder what happened to it? Lincoln drew its xenophobic adherents into Republican Party. This same thinking monolith of anti-intellectuals, bigots, denialists, and racists represent only about 25% of Americans, which, coincidentally, is the same proportion of insane people loose in society at any given time. Without scruples they are better organized than any other party, especially Democrats, a loose confederation of idealists, labor unionists, and splinter groups that collect over 45% of voters, though not all routinely show at polls. In the 1930’s, Republican Smoot Hawley tariff was principally to blame for deepening The Great Depression and making recovery impossible, now known as the most catastrophic act in congressional history. In 1940 another of their bills, Taft Hartley, restricted unions to keep wages low. In the 1950's, McCarthy's communist witch hunts, with his protege Reagan, condemned innocents and curtailed progress. Nixon was forced from office for his misconduct and paranoia. Politics were much healthier before Reagan destroyed unions in 1980’s to end labor’s clout in picking candidates and speaking for up to 35% of voters. Unions have since dwindled to municipal, paramilitary, and shrunken industrial groups, only 5% of today's workforce. Bushes gave billionaires bailouts and tax cuts precipitating recessions that savaged all but the wealthiest few. Yet dunces who couldn't see trough this century of lunacy and villainy elected Trump. Just how stupid can Americans be? Who can you blame but yourselves for this condensed history from New Deal to No Deal?

People react as if astonished that a politician dares to cheat and deceive them. It's all they ever do. Honest folks have no place in office. Even when they do get elected, they're forced or maneuvered out, usually through sex scandals, as if intimate encounters weren't healthy and normal but lewd and shameful. Probably dupes celibates, crones, and virgins. Rest of voters engage in some frequency from "get lucky once" to "once an hour on average". Scandal tactics don't work against Republicans, who are the first to accuse others of what they themselves have been caught and doxed doing countless times. Over the last 3 GOP presidencies alone that includes homosexual trysts, pedophiliac perversion, rancorous infidelity, and statuary rape. More outrageous than this bitchy behavior is their outright hypocrisy.

Maybe relative decency, social programs, and wide tolerance weren’t so good as strategies when planet’s population doubled since 1969 threatening natural resources to tipping point and tripling traffic with which you have to deal. Yet non-stop war over same period did nothing to reduce, single child laws failed to achieve zero population growth, and threats of apocalypse urged births to preserve species. If world’s going to end soon, what’s the difference? Validates don’t-give-a-f*ck attitude of climate denialists, self servers, and unchecked sociopaths in office. GOP’s gross misconduct emboldened miscreants, enabled worst transgressions, and exposed an execrable underbelly allowed to operate in society. Nobody expects perfection, only works toward it to bring improvement.

Situations change while stuff stays the same. Bush recessions hurt, but collapse of social entitlements earned over a lifetime would be ruinous. Most of all Neocons drool over trillions duly invested into Social Security, the last federal treasury from which they’ve not been able to steal. For many retirees, it’s still an important foundation for monthly income, though small amounts doled out represent less buying power than dollars involuntarily contributed. Now they want to take even this away in pursuit of their zero sum game that will kill everyone including themselves. Conservatism describes the terminal scenario before sink hole sucks entire system to bottom. A clean sweep of Congress can’t be done within year left before next election, may take several cycles, would require viable candidates, yet almost anyone would represent you better, and America survived bad administrations before. Worst catastrophe in homo sapiens history would be to allow this conservative cancer to spread to another planet. Colonization must be apolitical and freegan.

“When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read ‘all men are created equals, except negroes and foreigners and Catholics.’ When it comes to that I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty—to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.” Abraham Lincoln, 1855