When transactions demand you bring your hunger, naivete and vulnerability—not common sense, community concerns, or learned reason—should you just walk away? Maybe you want to sow weeds rather than stay perennially relaxed and unscathed. Anyway, it's impossible to go through life without regrets and tragedies. You don't have to look hard to find pain; never doubt it'll find you. Anyone who listens to media will be hounded with pleas to act out of patriotism or personal values without considering the sacrifices. They dangle a given, expect you to buy in, then take advantage of your sin of omission to perpetrate some horrible crime in your name. It doesn't matter that you only agreed generally in principle; it's a deal with the devil, a wish with unintended consequences. Are concomitant protests oddly organized best described as boycotts or oppositional defiant disorder?
If you heed anarchist Adbusters and their Buy Nothing Day, ask yourself how you'd live without trade. Total self sufficiency is massively inefficient and materially wasteful, even though likely to refuse and reuse. You'll burn furniture to stay warm when logs aren't abundant. Stuff never made invites distress and wretchedness. Yet you don't have to kowtow to commerce, either, because legions of Black Friday shoppers willingly stand in line at all hours in your stead, as gruesomely skewered by Freedomain Radio. Activists against business aren't themselves eating less or eschewing durable goods or interstate transport to profitable speaking engagements; they only want to convince enough so their own lives will be easier, thus assuage their own guilt at your expense. What they should promote is one-for-all products instead of endless choices for the sake of ego and planned obsolescences that waste resources. Yet as materials get scarce, only a multitude of approaches keeps people working and things happening. How everyone survives matters. Anarchy and apathy end badly, whereas interdependency and reciprocity yield both equanimity and prosperity.
In Jim Carrey comedy The Truman Show (Peter Weir, dir., 1998) everyone beside Carey's character is a cast member on a "reality" television show in which Truman unknowingly stars. Many residents of idyllic island town of Seahaven ride bicycles. With nowhere far to drive on set, bicycling and walking are preferred. Show's popularity has everyone fulfilling ad placements and holding up products for sale with smiles. Mankind's factual inability to escape suggestions to slurp sugary beverages has resulted in an epidemic of diabetic obesity. Focus ought to be on natural wholesomeness, instead of synthetic yellow jerseys after which glory hounds lust.
In new novel Gold by Chris Cleave (2012, 324 pp.), best friends and Olympic rivals Kate and Zoe compete and emote, while Kate and her husband Jack, also a World class cyclist, contend with recurrence of young Sophie's leukemia. Triumphs over cancer sufferance, domestic duties, and potty training get devalued versus velodome achievements. Embittered by all she'd surrendered to pursue championships, Zoe berates her coach, "Your job was to sell tickets to the freak show, the same as everyone else." See a future chick flick.
Stakes for a star with special skills in winning self selected game seem almost too high to stand. Anything done alone for fame or to amass illicit gain brings anguish and chill, while instances when participants share normally cheer and warm.
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Saturday, November 3, 2012
Trek Profane
In Bob Mionske's article in Bicycling Magazine, innocent cyclists get tazed, unjustly accused by a road/roid raging constable, then vindicated in court after an unnecessary ordeal.
First off, incident occurred in political swing state Ohio, where absurd, even unholy events can happen, do, and dopes like Double-You get reelected. That's almost enough to explain it all. But Mionske forgets to mention prima facie evidence: You don't need a license to ride a bike, thus traffic codes never apply. Sure, you ought to be courteous always, but rude isn't yet illegal. According to the United States Constitution, nobody can technically restrict your right to self propel along any public thoroughfare. Yet they routinely do so on highways and interstates, ostensibly for safety's sake. Often there's no way across rivers except for highway bridges; how are you supposed to ride or walk to your destination? Cyclists forfeit convenience and time so motorists can speed along; any notion they ever impede traffic ludicrously opposes logic. Poor road design impedes all users alike. If you can't drive faster, it's your DOT's fault or God's will.
The Patriot Act allows officers to detain and question anyone, but surely sanity behooves them to target trucks and vans within which criminals and terrorists can hide contraband and loot, rather than cyclists, who anyone with the least intelligence can assess as innocuous at a glance and dismiss forthwith. In practice, enforcers instead take the easy route. Why not arrest some unthreatening crank for no reason, rather than pull over an armed driver in a huge tractor and search its 45 foot trailer for dangerous cargo after getting a judge to sign a warrant? Laws favor criminals and foster victims. In a complex world, control freaks want to revert to medieval standards of morality and obligations for everyone but themselves. Such tactics turn back the calendar on hard earned freedoms. Who says time travel is impossible?
English psychedelic rock band Hawkwind had a minor hit in 1972 with "Sliver Machine". Lyrics by Brock/Calvert were inspired by an Alfred Jarry (1873-1907) 'pataphorical essay "How To Construct a Time Machine", a device which resembled a bicycle frame of antimagnetic ebony brazed with copper. Song instead referred to own new silver colored steel racing bike.
This planet's 1 billion bikes are ubiquitous space-time machines, traits they share with pop tunes, but do they become invisible to relentless duration when riders freeze in a track stand or twirl around a velodrome? Temporal means both profane and timely. Trek might connote an odyssey or pilgrimage. Bicycling feels visceral and worldly yet often effects attitudes profoundly and spiritually. Bikes have gyroscopic elements, obviously extend lives and time in which trips occur, and thus warp reality in subtle ways as does electromagnetism, friction and gravity, each of which you'll directly experience on every ride. Cycling is sensual, motoring obscene. For short spells cyclists find themselves in innocent times, while motorists repeatedly seek to violate manmade and natural laws with impunity.
First off, incident occurred in political swing state Ohio, where absurd, even unholy events can happen, do, and dopes like Double-You get reelected. That's almost enough to explain it all. But Mionske forgets to mention prima facie evidence: You don't need a license to ride a bike, thus traffic codes never apply. Sure, you ought to be courteous always, but rude isn't yet illegal. According to the United States Constitution, nobody can technically restrict your right to self propel along any public thoroughfare. Yet they routinely do so on highways and interstates, ostensibly for safety's sake. Often there's no way across rivers except for highway bridges; how are you supposed to ride or walk to your destination? Cyclists forfeit convenience and time so motorists can speed along; any notion they ever impede traffic ludicrously opposes logic. Poor road design impedes all users alike. If you can't drive faster, it's your DOT's fault or God's will.
English psychedelic rock band Hawkwind had a minor hit in 1972 with "Sliver Machine". Lyrics by Brock/Calvert were inspired by an Alfred Jarry (1873-1907) 'pataphorical essay "How To Construct a Time Machine", a device which resembled a bicycle frame of antimagnetic ebony brazed with copper. Song instead referred to own new silver colored steel racing bike.
This planet's 1 billion bikes are ubiquitous space-time machines, traits they share with pop tunes, but do they become invisible to relentless duration when riders freeze in a track stand or twirl around a velodrome? Temporal means both profane and timely. Trek might connote an odyssey or pilgrimage. Bicycling feels visceral and worldly yet often effects attitudes profoundly and spiritually. Bikes have gyroscopic elements, obviously extend lives and time in which trips occur, and thus warp reality in subtle ways as does electromagnetism, friction and gravity, each of which you'll directly experience on every ride. Cycling is sensual, motoring obscene. For short spells cyclists find themselves in innocent times, while motorists repeatedly seek to violate manmade and natural laws with impunity.
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Biogenic Sovereign
Funny how nature bounces back no matter what vicious scars humans leave. Ever consider fuel cell, rechargeable battery, or rotary hub power sources for your bike headlights on Winter commutes? Fear Fall hurricanes caused by climate change? You won't personally make any impact. Late comedian George Carlin reminded the pretentious, "The planet isn’t going anywhere. We are!" Yet why preserve corruption of production where billionaires hoard and hordes abide? Blind leaders and ignorant followers invite mutual destruction. Mankind can't continue imposing its will upon the Earth, too expensive and wearisome, so nature rebounds in crazy ways.
Carlin was tired of, "Self-righteous environmentalists... bourgeois liberals, who think the only thing wrong... is that there aren’t enough bicycle paths," which typically resurrect foresaken rail beds. Railroads, then highways, cut off animal migrations and cyclist routes. Eventually, animals get around such impediments, and instincts genetically stored over millennia take over. Remember pedaling along one at dusk, then, flicking on headlight, saw hundreds of glittering eyes. Upon approach critters slunk away indifferently. Indicates amount of animal displacement due to human ingenuity is disarmingly marginal. Nearly ran over a slow skunk the size of an ottoman. Wrote of seeing deer crossing suburban interstates. A few years later that became urban, along with bears and cougars near rivers and similar pockets of unused property. Moose to mouse, animals retake whatever territory people don't directly despoil daily.
Fauna rely on flora as superior reclaimers. Often pass a feral side road covered in vines that have almost enveloped billboard size signs. Business is still there, but you have to access through a back entrance; suppose they gave up trying to keep curbside gate clear of vegetation. Imagine gardeners working weekly with machetes and stumpers. Bamboo, bittersweet, kudzu and wisteria destroy buildings, pavement, and stands of trees as they spread, while noxious weeds crowd out and steal nutrition from food crops. Forebears uprooted every tree they could when wood was the choice of fuel; society today seems determined to suck dry every gas and oil field. Biomass renews; a generation later trees again outnumber vertebrates by an extremely imbalanced ratio. Takes millions of years to compress organic matter into crude, however.
Majority that vows allegiance to oil will soon be betrayed by dwindling supplies, rationing, and total economic collapse. Humans will still have hands and legs to do and go. Conveyances, power tools, and vehicles merely sped them along. A bicyclist can be fueled on a bowl of rice or burger made of game or veggies. Few appreciate that microorganisms ultimately generate all energy and sustaining chemistry. Planet is a garden mankind was born to tend. Plastic literally means flexible. Any viable future demands many alternatives, all of which recycle wastes and none of which unduly strains supplies. Natural models rule everything alive. Nature conclusively and repeatedly demonstrates that diversity is key. Those who think differently should to be tolerated for diversity's sake, something closed minded conservatives can't seem to accept but might live to regret.
Carlin was tired of, "Self-righteous environmentalists... bourgeois liberals, who think the only thing wrong... is that there aren’t enough bicycle paths," which typically resurrect foresaken rail beds. Railroads, then highways, cut off animal migrations and cyclist routes. Eventually, animals get around such impediments, and instincts genetically stored over millennia take over. Remember pedaling along one at dusk, then, flicking on headlight, saw hundreds of glittering eyes. Upon approach critters slunk away indifferently. Indicates amount of animal displacement due to human ingenuity is disarmingly marginal. Nearly ran over a slow skunk the size of an ottoman. Wrote of seeing deer crossing suburban interstates. A few years later that became urban, along with bears and cougars near rivers and similar pockets of unused property. Moose to mouse, animals retake whatever territory people don't directly despoil daily.
Fauna rely on flora as superior reclaimers. Often pass a feral side road covered in vines that have almost enveloped billboard size signs. Business is still there, but you have to access through a back entrance; suppose they gave up trying to keep curbside gate clear of vegetation. Imagine gardeners working weekly with machetes and stumpers. Bamboo, bittersweet, kudzu and wisteria destroy buildings, pavement, and stands of trees as they spread, while noxious weeds crowd out and steal nutrition from food crops. Forebears uprooted every tree they could when wood was the choice of fuel; society today seems determined to suck dry every gas and oil field. Biomass renews; a generation later trees again outnumber vertebrates by an extremely imbalanced ratio. Takes millions of years to compress organic matter into crude, however.
Majority that vows allegiance to oil will soon be betrayed by dwindling supplies, rationing, and total economic collapse. Humans will still have hands and legs to do and go. Conveyances, power tools, and vehicles merely sped them along. A bicyclist can be fueled on a bowl of rice or burger made of game or veggies. Few appreciate that microorganisms ultimately generate all energy and sustaining chemistry. Planet is a garden mankind was born to tend. Plastic literally means flexible. Any viable future demands many alternatives, all of which recycle wastes and none of which unduly strains supplies. Natural models rule everything alive. Nature conclusively and repeatedly demonstrates that diversity is key. Those who think differently should to be tolerated for diversity's sake, something closed minded conservatives can't seem to accept but might live to regret.
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Blown Acclaim
Appears the only pelaton racers who weren't doping were the ones who never won. Who cares? On Fall rides, the air sometimes smells of sour grapes. Lance was a particular disappointment to fellow cancer survivors and Livestrong followers who felt he shouldn't have taken risks that might have threatened remission or tax-deductible donation. Maybe it's the opposite; after loading up on chemotherapy, doping seemed comparatively milquetoast. Isn't the mission always to succeed at all costs? Or survive to fulfill some purpose? Dopers are pushing themselves hardest, beyond sanity and training to a whole new level, Russian roulette on a wheelset. How do you define "hero"? Results? Do you have to perform timidly in handcuffs? Even Houdini had tricks.
Rumors has it UCI was complicit in a doping coverup. If so, they roll a fine line when enforcing any ban or title withdrawal, which might involve a fiery back draft. You can't prove anything that nobody wants proven. Belief seems to require human sacrifice and impossible resurrection.
Safer to do, say or want nothing, because champions must fit preconceptions, give up self, and handle inquisitions. Why do critics denigrate adverbs? Denigrators don't like to have verbs qualified, rather do than do carefully/fairly/politely/ steadily/well. Attitudes and details live in adjectives and adverbs, reveal what writers loathe, think, trust and value. Nouns are practically interchangeable lumps, verbs no more than abstract gestures, winners statues without flaws. In processions of Roman Triumph, a slave held a golden wreath over head of imperator while whispering in his ear, "Fame is fleeting. Life is short." How it's done trumps what was accomplished. Nobody knows why, not even person who does it, likely some conditioned response or unexamined instinct. Whoever gets credit probably doesn't deserve it. Blame, liberally distributed though usually undeserved, hounds any achievement. Posterity judges whatever you do. Why consider consequences when you never know what they'll be? Acclaim belongs mostly to those who train in perpetual obscurity.
Rumors has it UCI was complicit in a doping coverup. If so, they roll a fine line when enforcing any ban or title withdrawal, which might involve a fiery back draft. You can't prove anything that nobody wants proven. Belief seems to require human sacrifice and impossible resurrection.
Safer to do, say or want nothing, because champions must fit preconceptions, give up self, and handle inquisitions. Why do critics denigrate adverbs? Denigrators don't like to have verbs qualified, rather do than do carefully/fairly/politely/ steadily/well. Attitudes and details live in adjectives and adverbs, reveal what writers loathe, think, trust and value. Nouns are practically interchangeable lumps, verbs no more than abstract gestures, winners statues without flaws. In processions of Roman Triumph, a slave held a golden wreath over head of imperator while whispering in his ear, "Fame is fleeting. Life is short." How it's done trumps what was accomplished. Nobody knows why, not even person who does it, likely some conditioned response or unexamined instinct. Whoever gets credit probably doesn't deserve it. Blame, liberally distributed though usually undeserved, hounds any achievement. Posterity judges whatever you do. Why consider consequences when you never know what they'll be? Acclaim belongs mostly to those who train in perpetual obscurity.
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Yikes! Job Bane
Cycling has a critical downside: tired downtime. You could fill it watching a presidential debate. Offers ideas to digest during next ride, because pedaling itself is the last thing anyone wants to dwell upon on a 20 mile commute; it's a job in itself, although work seldom entails so much fun yet usually pays more. Who's idea was it to tie compensation with survival?
Should you vote for a suddenly moderate Republican because: a) He says anything you want to hear and willingly promises prosperity with no intention of delivering? b) Nation doesn't but ought to exercise its clout globally? c) Terrorists controlling airwaves cannot live in a manner befitting their massive arrogance without totalitarianism? d) Things aren't improving fast enough to suit you personally? e) You must fear self fulfilled prophecies and unseen threats that conservatives create? Sounds like a desperate plea to suspend reality. Anyone who entertains such malarky forfeits their freedoms. One could argue that Bush tax breaks eliminated jobs; there's no evidence they produced any. Tax cuts do effect economy but don't speak to fifty million unemployed. "Government doesn't create jobs..." domestically; they are too busy handing out aid to rest of world or rewarding millionaires who offshore opportunities. Worse is this obsession to get everyone to produce; haven't manufacturers already depleted all available raw materials? Positions they'd create would mostly be unpaid. Who can even survive on minimum wage? Of course there's a recession; it predates current administration and was created intentionally. Inflation has only occurred in protected or subsidized industries, notably oil. There's plenty of wealth to spread around, but the few who have the most clearly won't share fairly with those who might successfully compete with them. You cannot subjugate healthy, imaginative, smart people. To seize control you must build weapons, cut educational funding, dumb down, erode strength, and generate fear.
Bike&Chain exists because no one person can figure everything out alone. Self reliance only means successfully harvesting surplus and working cooperatively. The scientific method, around since the 13th Century, yielded substantial results through a cumulative amassing of knowledge among a chain of researchers. In each generation volunteers step up to record observations, test hypotheses, and verify findings. Tons of tiresome details confirm simple truths. People are calmer when they can look on Internet and obtain factual answers. Nothing said during this election cycle can be fact vetted, because it's only opinions and personalities. News analysts are sadly reduced to playing back what hypocrites previously said to refute later fiction and rhetoric. Candidates are job applicants vying for a role as public servant, but expect voters to elect them king with unlimited powers to enslave. Sorry to inform: Application rejected.
Should you vote for a suddenly moderate Republican because: a) He says anything you want to hear and willingly promises prosperity with no intention of delivering? b) Nation doesn't but ought to exercise its clout globally? c) Terrorists controlling airwaves cannot live in a manner befitting their massive arrogance without totalitarianism? d) Things aren't improving fast enough to suit you personally? e) You must fear self fulfilled prophecies and unseen threats that conservatives create? Sounds like a desperate plea to suspend reality. Anyone who entertains such malarky forfeits their freedoms. One could argue that Bush tax breaks eliminated jobs; there's no evidence they produced any. Tax cuts do effect economy but don't speak to fifty million unemployed. "Government doesn't create jobs..." domestically; they are too busy handing out aid to rest of world or rewarding millionaires who offshore opportunities. Worse is this obsession to get everyone to produce; haven't manufacturers already depleted all available raw materials? Positions they'd create would mostly be unpaid. Who can even survive on minimum wage? Of course there's a recession; it predates current administration and was created intentionally. Inflation has only occurred in protected or subsidized industries, notably oil. There's plenty of wealth to spread around, but the few who have the most clearly won't share fairly with those who might successfully compete with them. You cannot subjugate healthy, imaginative, smart people. To seize control you must build weapons, cut educational funding, dumb down, erode strength, and generate fear.
Bike&Chain exists because no one person can figure everything out alone. Self reliance only means successfully harvesting surplus and working cooperatively. The scientific method, around since the 13th Century, yielded substantial results through a cumulative amassing of knowledge among a chain of researchers. In each generation volunteers step up to record observations, test hypotheses, and verify findings. Tons of tiresome details confirm simple truths. People are calmer when they can look on Internet and obtain factual answers. Nothing said during this election cycle can be fact vetted, because it's only opinions and personalities. News analysts are sadly reduced to playing back what hypocrites previously said to refute later fiction and rhetoric. Candidates are job applicants vying for a role as public servant, but expect voters to elect them king with unlimited powers to enslave. Sorry to inform: Application rejected.
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