Bled Duquesne

As a bike commuter, forced to follow the same streets day after day; they are not boringly familiar, since changes of season and research into history still present things to see. However, for decades made it a mission to visit new environs on weekend spins. Covered every back lane and road in a 75 mile radius, even drove to other states for loops up to 100 miles. Extraordinary only means you’ve never encountered it. Popularity only means it suits an unsophisticated throng. Recommendations don’t require your response.

Does paying attention buy endorsements, entertainment, or practical facts? Must say no, since that's not always the case. Would be nice if authors and critics could help readers divert a deluge of details, reject worthless drivel, select best and most relevant. No doubt, some try. Generalities just seem like truths, but never survive analysis. Mentors tell you what you want to hear. News anchors read scripts masking motives. Teachers stick to curricula. Writers mostly regurgitate tales deemed repeatable based on brainwashing. Your cell text is increasingly encrypted. Only barrier to B&C is a bit of poetry. In an enormous world where everything is somehow interconnected and everyone has personal agendas, you almost have to find your own way, ignore pundits, rely on own experiences, yet seek unique perspectives that free your mind and serve you in good stead.

Deplore lists that pump titles for payola; discredit selection bias that generates rest. Still feel obliged to point out bicycling books that occupy space and steal time. Life may be too short to explore endless imaginative nonsense stuffed between covers, mummified remnants of what once was vital, or overlong digressions from commonplace knowledge that informs sensible choices. Yet future historians might form entirely wrong impressions of what was happening now based on conservative broadcasts and consistent advertising that throttled the life out of truth so thoroughly practically nobody has any clue how to filter fabrications from facts. Compared to huge monthly bills for cable and connectivity, basic needs now that commerce and governance have placed everything online, where should such an annoyance rate on your grievance meter? Unless masses cherish logic and reason, and voters refuse to be duped by rhetoric, atrocities will ensue, cruelty resume, and mankind confront doom, something no one wants to hear about ever again.

Society steadily steers toward an oligarchy who would oppress everyone they can, not any destination you'd want to reach. In garage attending winter chores and reflecting upon life, sense how unchecked up-flow will eventually resemble monarchies and serfdoms. History shows that kings waged war among themselves and used subjects as pawns and proxies in battles. Next, robber barons subjugated industrial minions with long hours and small wages, and supplanted self professed birthrights. Duquesne Steel Plant, now a closed hulk in Iron City, Pittsburgh, PA, and National Tube works across the river, were once the epicenter of raw material for bicycles and “welfare capitalism” intended to block rise of labor unions. There Andrew Carnegie and J. P. Morgan battled for steel dominance and bled workers of life force by bobbing token benefits as bait. China, having stockpiled untold acre-feet of nation’s ferrous disposables, now produce most of the steel world needs, but at such an environmental cost people can hardly breathe and must buy oxygen peddled on street corners. It’s still exploitation only a century later in a different place under forced servitude. So much for the myth of communism delivering labor rights.

Teddy Roosevelt reviled monopolies and split up these monetary trusts. Roosevelt’s ancestors engaged in opium and slave trade, which positioned them among nation’s wealthiest families. Behind every billionaire lies a wake of broken promises and human ruin. Trump's casinos exploited gamblers and sex addicts. Whoever enthralls sinners invests profitably. Ethics have been slaughtered by politics. The loudest, most confident argument prevails, not the most commendable or decent. Somebody must pay for unearned privileges, usually anonymous, marginalized, middle class wage slaves, who never seem to learn from history that isolation weakens and organization strengthens.

Why can’t majority comprehend that unfair practices are reprehensible? It happens so often - kids disrespecting parents, motorists forcing others off road, public heaping abuse on civil servants, spouses forcing each other to do things they rather not - Republican, self serving, unconstitutional rules escape repeal. How does the elephant in room - GOP villainy - always go unnoticed? Free speech is a beginning, but it's far from freedom from tyranny and want. Answer lies in how distracted 75% of Americans are. If it’s not swilling beer and watching football, it’s being duped, doing chores, fighting desperation, meeting obligations, tweeting pointlessly, or working overtime. What ever happened to equality, fraternity and liberty for all men and women? Bled dry is why. You never have to care, or loyalty swear, simply track elsewhere by armchair book or real backpack.

Don Petterson, Old Man on a Bicycle: A Ride Across America and How to Realize a More Enjoyable Old Age (Outskirts Press, 2014, 236 pp.) visits this foreign service septuagenarian and New Hampshire native as he hits the road to San Francisco and records his impressions.

Jim Malusa, Into Thick Air: Biking to the Bellybutton of Six Continents (Counterpoint, 2008, 336 pp.): With nothing but sleeping bag and sundry supplies, this author/botanist bicycled solo to the lowest point on every continent but Antarctica, including Caspian Sea, Dead Sea, Death Valley, Djibouti in Horn of Africa, Lake Eyre outback, and Patagonia, and lived to log his observations on local culture and ecology.

Joe Boyd, White Bicycles (Serpent's Tail, 2007, 282 pp.) is both a book on Amazon and podcast from 2007. Title metaphor tells how flower power, exemplified by Amsterdam’s Provo who supplied free white bicycles to everyone and selfless brotherhood, morphed into selfish hedonism fueled by plentiful cocaine, which quickly supplanted marijuana and mind expanding hallucinogens, some say by government officals.

Boyd, remarkable for always being at the right place at right time, was an impresario and record producer for Electra label who got to know all the most notable counterculture acts during 60's and early '70's, including Jimi Hendrix and Tomorrow frontman Steve Howe, who later formed chartbuster group Yes. He notes how band Tomorrow's performance at London's UFO club after a street demonstration concluded club’s reign as an underground icon when news media they were protesting in retaliation denounced club as a drug hangout; this brought police heat and destroyed its outlaw appeal. Boyd complained that rock and roll was sanitized by silencing DJs, who had been delivering revolutionary messages.

Mike Howerton, The Ride of Your Life: What I Learned about God, Love, and Adventure by Teaching My Son to Ride a Bike (Baker Books, 2014, 194 pp.) compares how lessons used to master this particular skill can be applied to every challenge in life, and gives a video synopsis on Youtube. Readers find Howerton’s homilies absolutely credible and stirringly inspirational. Nothing new, am reminded of Baptist Pastor Harold Habecker’s Modern Parable of Bicycling podcast (2008), which was mentioned in B&C at the time. Some see spirituality in every act; some pray a painful ride will soon end, or they’ll make it to wherever they're going.

S. Ehmann, R. Klanten editors, Velo—2nd Gear: Bicycle Culture and Style (Gestalten, 2013, 256 pp.): “I bike, therefore I am.” Coffee table book proposes with photographic evidence that choices flag attitudes - certain bikes peg owners into particular demographic groups - and submits for your consideration coveted and unusual bicycles and those who ride them.

Wheeler’s Disciples, Epic Bike Rides of the World (Lonely Planet, 2016, 320 pp.): Crack team of travel writers describing 200 once-in-a-lifetime spins in far flung corners. Maureen and Tony Wheeler founded Lonely Planet when they composed a travelog following an impecunious drive from London, England to Sydney, Australia. It became an empire with broadcast series Lonely Planet and excellence award winning spinoff Globe Trekker entering its 19th season.

Dylan Thomas, Me and My Bike (McGraw-Hill, 1965, 53 pp.), illustrated by Leonora Box, is the famous poet’s unfinished screenplay. His stanza, “Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light,” has been cited wrongly and misinterpreted for decades. It’s about his dying father, who’s going blind. Such is the nature of words floating dissociated from context, taken to mean whatever by whoever stumbles across them. Freedom Medal recipient and Nobel Laureate songwriter Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman) adopted his name in homage to their mutual conflict with those to whom they spoke; occurred around 1959 when Bob gave up interest in rock-n-roll for more serious folk music. Both were originals not easily accepted by mainstream Americans.

The web features all sorts of poetry devoted to bicycling’s joys and sorrows.

Migrant Detain

As cortège passes to winter’s funeral, calculating next opportunity to commute to work by bike. Dawn already breaks so early, could actually complete entire 2-hour round trip in a blend of day and twilight. But bikeways blanketed by a half foot of snow and road shoulders packed high by plows still prohibit. Slabs of unforgiving ice exacerbate unacceptable motorist risks to bicyclists, who seem restricted this time of year to neighborhood mountain biking or some Sunday morning road outing, maybe. Meanwhile ponder how rise of polarized politics and populace rudeness will impede pedaling in a blue state.

After weeks out of saddle, inner dialogue is bound to deteriorate while muscle mass reverts to flab and gas. Collapse and decay preempt hopeful dreams until leaf buds form and pussy willows swell. Rich fear losing everything, so enact draconian laws in vain attempts at protecting. Thereby, they alienate those who'll do the fighting necessary to preserve their privileges. So, who then is your enemy? How much does your way of life align with theirs? Those who have the most to lose will always be planet’s biggest climate denialists. If you own a casino hotel on the Jersey Shore, global warming becomes too scary a threat to consider real despite documented scientific facts.

Others might be tempted to anoint Trump the “New Dealer", a knee-jerk handle given his joker name. FDR deserved this honor for social programs that dragged nation from depression resulting from decades of robber baron rule, just in time to fight off Axis aggression. Trump already labeled himself "The Fixer", as if some ace handyman with ass crack and tool belt under Lady Liberty's kitchen sink. The only fixing he's ever done is rigging slot machines and table games in favor of his house; even then he's failed to profit and left devastation of bankruptcies and layoffs for others to clean up.

Danger, Will Robinson! Trump may be an arm waving robot, who speaks in a monotone, as if no complexity of emotion affects his bluster-and-deny programming. A sincere, tragicomic mindset is easily punked. Party conservatives already expressed concern he’ll act like a tyrant and be provoked into another costly war. Impatience never wants to do things traditionally, live in White House, mend fences, or seek compromise. Announcing him by playing Hail to the Chief is out; he never served in military. But any dime store composer could concoct some pompous march to replace. The only thing about him upon which nation can rely is that he will enrich the wealthy at the expense of lower classes, just as he's always done for himself.

With indignant bravado and popped corn rants, he’s announced plans to cure “inherited mess”, but through the same old strategies that never remedied anything, in fact, spawned problems to begin with. Why don't tax breaks stimulate economic growth? Every time congress approved, all they did is grant windfalls to millionaires, silenced wage earners, and skipped altogether the poor, who pay little or no taxes. When they gave struggling families a few hundred dollars it went right into paying interest on loans, so fattened lenders. Dismantling affordable care merely transfers more money into deepest pockets. With recurrence of such token scams, wealth disparity, root cause for most wrongs, hasn’t decreased in 4 decades.

Reaganomics and savings schemes like 401k and IRA turned bankers and CEOs into powerful enemies. Record profits did not translate into job growth. Trickle down has not only failed, but increased public debt to $20 trillion; only what you owe has grown. Since banks are required for daily transactions and companies as providers of basic necessities, government ought to intensify regulatory oversight, not relax. Instead they leave it to largely ignored and typically underfunded consumer watchdogs and nonprofit informants. Congress should indict greed and recover pilferage from national treasury, but many members were complicit, particularly your typical conservative phony. Paying taxes going forward rewards their incompetence and theft. Citizens should expect more from governance or recall representatives.

As previously discussed, politics is a sanctuary for malignant sociopaths, who could never hold any responsible position that requires intelligence, skill, stamina and tact. Tried to advise him that being president wouldn’t fulfill his lust for power. Senate runs nation. All decisions are supposed to pass through filters of anti-discriminatory logic, 4 freedoms, and US constitution. Seems lately Congress has dispensed with all that, instead acted in self interest. A hallmark of emotional adulthood is taking neither blame nor credit for outcomes, because many hands achieve results and fulfill promises. Not at all entertaining, he’s downright frightening. Proves that chief executives ought to pass civics tests, health exams, and personality screens before being allowed to run. However, tempests with thunder and trumpets terrify pets and sheeple, not stalwart people.

Trump’s election represented nation’s repudiation of conservatives and liberals, Democrats and Republicans, and seated representatives, none of whom has done anything in the best interest of constituents in decades. But did sending this message backfire? Set up a fast track to fascism. First he negates careful plans and diplomatic solutions. Xenophobic paranoia spread by personality disorders sorts everyone newly arriving or passing through into criminals or terrorists. Long time green card holders who hold responsible jobs have been detained after visiting families in Moslem countries. Gestapo immediately attacked gypsies and other migrants, because they could slip their grasp and thumb their noses at freakish control fetishes. It’s not doing wonders for tourism, the very industry from which his billions were derived.

Nature abhors and abuses uniformity, white supremacy, yokels with local pleonexia, and zealots aimed at domination. Diversity is a survival mechanism for the human species. Lots of cultures coexisting creates lots of job opportunities. City dwellers understand, so didn't vote for Trump. Foreign nationals do represent problems, for example, arriving ill equipped so requiring welfare, sending earnings back to homeland, taking jobs from citizens, and whatnot. These merely mean enforcing existing laws and handling cases on an individual basis, something citizens expect some government agency to do after paying trillions in taxes and which has always been handled through American ingenuity. The best and brightest doing battle retreat to their corners for a time out trying to sort it all out. Threats of reprisal only handcuff and imprison them ideologically. In world’s most competent, richest, and smartest country, succinctly state what really vexes, and solutions will undoubtedly come forth from those who actually do everything. Leaders never resolve anything, residents do.

Decay Sustain

As always, had to release another year of musical attacks. Any list trailing previously mentioned 2016 song La Bicicleta by Shakira has to exhibit matching bump and grind, so don’t disappoint. Endless sex and gets exhausting, not to mention the stench. Highlights? Bizarre retro theme from Song a Day, and the surprising raw talent of duo called Bicycle, not to be confused with same named 90's pop band.

Because only surface sells, artists who don't groom or show low appeal at start often languish in gloom. Likewise, authors so despise marketing selves they'll write for free or stifle their voice rather than prostitute talents. Their drive to secure fame steadily relents after being repeatedly fingered with derision and sniggers. Most read nothing anymore but headlines and twitters. You can shut up altogether or stay your course, but unless you produce daily your abilities wither. Either way you'll be maligned and misinterpreted as everyone paints their own intentions into your delineations by number. Perfectly lay it all out, whatever you say will get obscured under layers of graffiti as if newsprint facts beneath an uncouth Basquiat outburst (shown, The Bicycle Man, 1984). Consider yourself lucky if you find some soul to travel alongside at least part of your way, because earthbound everything, relationships especially, are subject to decay.

Albeezy (Albert Gordon), Bicycle [Honduran hip hop], single, self, 2016

Amir Hedayah, Meena's Bicycle [orch.], Oticons Faculty Soundtrack Media, Recording Intl, 2015

Bicycle, The Way You Hurt Me, Bicycle [no specific bike lyrics, but certainly signifies], Ted M. Clements, 2016

Bicycle, Fallen, Bicycle [no specific bike lyrics], Ted M. Clements, 2016

Breathing, Magic Bicycle, 2014 Breathing Mix Tape, self, 2015

Chris Berry & The Bayaka of Yandoumbe, Bicycle [African folk], Oka!, Oka Prod., 2011

Consortium of Genius, Suite from Bikeman Begins, The FuMP (Funny Music Project), Vol. 28, Fidim Interactive, 2011

Insane Ian, Spaghetti Bicycle, The FuMP, Vol. 57, Fidim Interactive, 2016

The Laurie Berkner Band, Bicycle [juvenile], Superhero, Two Tomatoes Records, 2016

Lex Dumitru, Omega Rose, Omega Rose [soundtrack], self, 2016

Mammoth Life, Bicycle Rider, The Singles: 2006 to 2016, Nicholas Goss & Elizabeth Mead, 2016

Parks, Squares and Alleys, Bicycle, Against Illusions and Reality, self, 2015

Rob Cantor, Old Bike, Not a Trampoline, self, 2014

Selva, The Public Bicycle [French], Segell Microscopi 2014-2015, Microscopi, 2015

Song a Day, G&O Bike Love Theme Song, Spring, 2016, Jonathan Mann, 2016

Stephen Advance & Juan Davor, Hoffman’s Bike [glitch beats], Minimal in 2016, Flat Belly Ltd, 2016

The Trip it is, French Girl Sets off on Fifties Bicycle, Ten Thousand Things, Trip, 2016

Twilight Sleep, Bicycle [alternative], Twilight Sleep, self, 2004

Wallfisch, Benjamin, Bicycle [instr.], A Cure for Wellness [soundtrack], New Regency Music, 2017

“Well, I'm so tired of crying, but I'm out on the road again… You know the first time I traveled out in the rain and snow, I didn't have no payroll, not even no place to go… Don’t you cry no more, ’cause it's soon one morning down the road I'm going… But I ain't going down that long old lonesome road all by myself… I can't carry you, baby. Gonna carry somebody else.” Canned Heat, On The Road Again, 1969

Days that Remain

A month ago commuted by bike on year’s shortest day, not even 9 hours of sunlight locally. Arrived for a short shift humiliatingly late and hypothermic despite layering, including neoprene booties, but left for holidays early enough to avoid desperate, did-not-expect-a-bicyclist, distracted, drowsy or drunk drivers, enjoy a sunlit return without freezing, and freakishly feeling a funky urge to relay these details with anyone seeming to give a ficus. Every winter ride becomes a special memory, or, as Michael Wagner asserts, “Sometimes victory counts just by getting out.” Unfortunately, whatever personal info you reveal may be used against you by some lout. Yet how can anyone find satisfaction, survive, thrive, or trade without communicating something informative or intimate? No rewards arrive unless you assume risks.

Demigods dictate, ”Good authoring cannot be achieved in a vacuum.” Well, duh, there wouldn’t be anybody to tell or anything to discuss. As social animals, humans interact upon instinct alone. An author who validates bad behavior will find favor and may savor all that can be done by a savior. Gloomy seekers of truth get bored, gored by critics, and ignored by readers. Consider books by philosophers who built proverbial houses of cards on then current thinking, dropped dead, and later had historians condemn their bona fide insights as unreliable bunk based on sea changes original text caused. Nietzsche got nailed to a cross after Hitler named him as an influence. Unfair to condemn monumental contributions, but unstoppable is the momentum to topple arbitrary conventions and entrenched institutions. Out with the old, but what of the new? Not necessarily gold or improved replacment.

Dog chasing or snake eating its own tail, spinning carousel out of control, or stupendous delusions upon which all religions and sciences are based? No metaphors mandatory, stumbling towards eternity will always be a consistent thread in mankind’s history. In first of two versions, things reliably work as long as gods are repeatedly placated by sacrificed virgins. In other model, principles are inviolable as long as chance isn't introduced at origins. Must you embrace theories after applying logic to exploiting examinations? Every false dictum exaggerates predictions and justifies misconduct.

In reality, crap inexplicably happens, dogs and locusts have their day and purpose, luck prevails, most lose, and winners die sooner than their tactics were worth. Order entwines pandemonium. When you expect things to work well they perversely won’t. Ready writers no longer pocket a flip book and 2 pens; they take out smart phones and text themselves for easy edit/input. But paper and pen still back up dead batteries and dropped connectivity, which happens more often than technologists admit. Embrace chaos, because life only gambles upon unlikely scenarios where spasmodic snuggles punctuate survival struggles. Uncertainty threatens. It's your mission to sort what's routinely repeatable from what's totally unreliable. Yet they stage contests precisely to highlight whoever emerges victorious; spectators appreciate most those games that go down to the wire, lost or won on a single instance.

If mankind expects to survive as a species, barriers must be broken, coalitions formed, and isolation overcome. Societies must allow all members to pursue goals, and permit least members to play roles. Requires incessant communication, yet universal communion is impossible, and any movement toward would split into factions at each other’s throats. Metaphors hinder human communion. However, how very like a garden is a blog? To present a crisp salad of ideas and opinions you have to weed out pointless drivel. You must attend daily, at least weekly, not just monthly - lest blog get overtaken by pests - cultivate growth, deadhead what's done, feed with plenty of manure, and sprinkle every few days to maintain growth. Data net resembles roadnet, since each traveler carries an important pack of knowledge and skill in a flesh sack encrypted by confusion, need and will.

Mostly for money, this wizard of a lizard dropped a blizzard of words, over 30,000,000 in 100,000 printed pages, across 6 decades. Dumped it all into a sea of indifference only to drown or float bloated and wrinkled. Metaphors can be labored recreation, but they seldom explain anything better than straightforward simplicity. Intended to rethink what was encountered and remembered for over half a century. Instead, it became a mission to explore reality, a topic defined by its enormity. Reality amazes, requires no embellishment, and stands confidently. Those who find it boring just don't look carefully or take it for granted. Had several tools, but needed more bodies, because you can't meet such a goal alone. Hoped to enlist readers, who failed to report. Therefore, aspiration succeeded, but collaboration failed.

Those in history who've had the hugest influence orated to listeners with issues but never wrote down a single word. Doesn't mean they never existed, but does raise suspicions. Ironically, Labann is a pseudonym, so stood in, like Shakespeare, for some individual or group who didn't want to be identified and persecuted by bullies or despots. Some say nothing. Majority respects silence, though menacing assassins shut up, sneak up, and take up tasks seriously, so trust must never be recklessly bestowed. Yackers infrequently say anything meaningful, instead alienate everyone with whom they come in contact, yet may inadvertently disclose details worth knowing. Oracles, prophets and sages said little but suggested immense changes that privileged powers suppress as soon as sprung. Yet saying is not writing. Even when broadcast or recorded, statements can be and often are later denied; testimony can be twisted. Writing equals evidence in court; somehow people connect validity with the effort writers took to get what happened or was imagined into print, although publishers may not corroborate facts and reasons why are typically fabricated.

Adam Conover quotes Peter Norton and ruins your bliss by debunking myths upon which they are founded. Sure, it's done humorously and randomly, meant only to con and confuse audiences; he doesn't obsessively and systematically deprogram as does yours truly, but surely it's a credible start to losing delusions and thinking pragmatically. Craving and doubt precede enlightenment; thereafter, both are shed. Don't get fooled and used. Do honor sentiments expressed at Berkeley food company Annie’s; absolutely, love Mother Earth, so ride a bike to work whenever she doesn't try to blast, drown, freeze, pelt with graupel, hail, or stinging raindrops those she didn’t design to handle yet imposes upon anyway. Plod on resolutely in dark, fog, gloom, mist, but preferably shine. A couple of Organic Chewy Granola Bars fits nicely in a jersey pocket and rejuvenates you when bonked. So reaching out to bicycling community isn't such business buzzkill as most companies believe.

“Is”, always third person single present, sounds several echoes: "consists of", "equals", "exists", and, lately, "Islamic State". Except for use as “exists”, it justifies illogical worsts, lists unrelated aspects, and suggests A equals equally dissimilar B. Metaphors rely on "is" to pretend to explain the inexplicable in terms of the commonplace; at least similes possess factual accuracy and good sense to include “as” or “like”. Poet Wallace Stevens had that doleful line, “Let be be the finale of seem,” to call death what it is, an indelicate termination of all that matters, life itself.

A theocracy doesn’t care who meets eternal justice as long as some insane cleric’s endless lust for money and power are continuously sated. Responsible folks fight through desperate times by denying self and saving for future and heirs. Nevertheless, majority are deep in debt. Windfalls don't last, get spent. The enemy is anyone who has so much stockpiled they don't know what it's for. Money and talent are tools with which you can create opportunities for friends and self. Throw a party at least. One measure of desperation is assessing what you'd save in a disaster. If objects come to mind before family or neighbors, you are a sad recipient of human genes. Won't you strive to keep your species alive? Only how you act and what you do, not what you say and think, signify. Days that remain for mankind depend upon it.

Laid Américaine

So ends an especially ugly election with a verdict laid down by the subpar mentality of deplorables and dunces. America has again been delivered to white prejudiced patriarchy. Arise, you angry, crude, ugly American men, if you can from your beer stained, chip littered couch. At last, your time has come again, as if you ever let go of it at all. Get out of the way, believers in the American dream, homeless, immigrants, jobless, liberals, people of color, residents in blue states who, despite their allegiance, can expect retaliation from conservative cadre, politically correct sensitives, rainbow coalition, sick, weak, and worst of all women. Retreat and strategize based on age-old papal pap, forever, "Weather the storm.” Hope you’ve put aside enough to cover at least 4 years worth of expenses while you struggle to reverse this profound setback.

Pope Francis, although a self appointed spokesman for the unfairly treated 99%, couldn’t support a woman atop planet’s richest country, though he didn't forbid yet she did represent society’s largest downtrodden segment, over 50% of population. Sexism was an implicit undercurrent: Better a male with no civic experience whatever in office than a female with a lifetime of service who lived for 8 years in the White House. Only idiots need to believe that any idiot can lead. Such an example of matriarchy might topple Catholic tower of phallic power. Trump owes a debt to their swollen presence; Hillary lost by getting shrill and pointing out their influential ill. Control of your assets and soul are where politics and religion convene in an unholy matrimony. Republican senate skillfully used your middle class resentment of having to carry all of the burden against you after ensuring it was so. So raped, you’ve reelected them? Elevating a billionaire suggests numbskulls prefer monarchy and serfdom. Democracy demands rational thinking, something in short supply, and rigorous effort, something few willingly expend.

Why do nonsensical candidates squeeze country through wringer every 4th year? Because they can funded by your donations and taxes, and whoever deserves job wouldn't collect enough votes. Forget fairness of meritocracy. Those eager to occupy oval office, with no corner from which an ambush can come, aired nation’s dirty laundry, drew attention to themselves, and refocused it away from issues that mattered. Every day America went from stalwart power to terrible condition on verge of collapse. Imagine how poorly this must be met by allies, and how significantly it emboldens enemies. They totally trashed office in the process. Far too much attention was paid to presidential circus, which changed nothing, though too many conservatives got into or stayed in office by riding coat tails. Remember, Republicans dominating Congress were responsible for last 16 lackluster years, despite relentless propaganda to the contrary by Fox News and talk radio shifting blame onto victims, the middle class and poor. Repeated lies lay bare luxuries too worshiped to lose.

While Hillary won popular vote, The Don carried electoral, which means he duped enough districts by tapping into fear, ignorance and pride. Country bumpkins bought his bogus slogans. Barnum, who said, "A sucker is born every minute," never had so loyal a proponent. Hillary carried urban knowledge base, who consistently provide innovation for job generation. Don awoke isolated farmers and know-nothing yokels. Klu Klux Klan boasted on how they intervened for him. National Socialists, organized crime, and white supremacists gloated. Foreign leaders awoke in disbelief and horror. #RIPUSA trended in social media worldwide, while violent protests spontaneously broke out nationwide. Vote may well have been rigged, as Trump contested, but by Russian hackers representing just about the only country that welcomed results. France, stunned, wonders what will become of global climate action, since The Don calls it a “hoax to weaken America”, which only manages perception of its pollution better than China while cramming landfills, emptying fisheries, and spilling toxins.

What does this election mean to bicyclists? Beware the crass grasp of capitalist greed bound to proceed from examples set. Conservatives hate any alternative to their coal and petroleum burning agenda, especially bicycling. They foster gun sales to children, who Labann has seen on several occasions shooting indiscriminately toward bucolic roads you might be riding along. Since WWII they’ve been trying to drive bicyclists off roads altogether. The last Republican president, the dumbest and most divisive ever, curtailed all spending aimed at improving bicyclist and pedestrian access according to laws that mandate; he bragged about rendering these laws unenforceable without funding, although bicyclists could have brought a class action suit bound to be struck down by Supreme Court.

You don’t have to be happy and shut up about this outcome. If anything, it proves that nation has had it with bad governance, grown desperate for improvements, and may be ready to embrace a new progressive party to supplant both Democrats and Republicans, neither of whom represent mainstream thinking or majority interests. Both bicyclists and independents outnumber those who affiliate with either party.

Surely a storm is coming. The Don will prove a corrupt puppet in the hands of a shrewd senate. International agreements will falter; foreign aid will ebb to lowest in a half century. During Dubya’s administration, nation suffered its worst recession, nearly equal to the Great Depression, some say worse. He already boasted of tax cuts for billionaires, voodoo trickle down economics that caused it. Oil prices will soar with his promise to end trade deals. War cannot be far off, since that represents fast track and last resort to diverting revenue into offshore accounts and private pockets. Billionaires laid their exit contingencies in place long ago with bicyclists, soldiers and workers providing a human shield for them.

As to domestic policy, "Fend for yourselves," has always been a conservative manta. This translates into grab whatever you want, ignore responsibilities, kill anyone who gets in your way, and run recklessly into ruin. Casinos cater to such piggish self interest, which president elect exemplifies. You will have to pay to secure president’s extensive holdings; Secret Service already plans to rent an entire floor of Trump Tower at $1.5 million/year. On Inauguration Day or soon after riots end, heads will roll, starting with FBI Director Comey, for not indicting Hillary when ahead in polls. "You're fired," an oft repeated and well known phrase will resound. He vows to cut NASA’s budget for studying earth’s climate. As under Bush, Trump will shrink agencies that oversee commerce, provide watchdog regulations, or succor the less fortunate. All this will foster consumer complaints, crime, death, frustration, joblessness, lawlessness, murder, repression, tyranny, and want. It will cost hundreds of thousands of good paying jobs. Abortion patients may serve mandatory jail sentences while miscreants freely roam. They intend to clear gridlock for the privileged to race along unimpeded wherever they want. Those forsaken may turn to bicycling their last resort to remain mobile. Almost everything on your bicycle will cost more since prices for imports will increase, though maybe the few remaining small domestic builders could expand.

Armageddon? The unthinkable can only cross threshold into reality when reason ceases and sociopaths decide policy. Changes affect rural homesteads least; suburbs and towns absorb most of the burden and harm. So backward rubes keep rabid conservatives in office on promises to punish anyone who thinks differently. One would call this textbook tyranny if aware beyond primitive and civilized above tribal. Yet society survived 8 years of Dubya because opposition maintained its resolve and people tightened their belts.Those with twin gifts of intellect and means will have to redouble their efforts to restore balance. On each beautiful ride, sometimes you crawl, sometimes you glide. You don’t need congressional or presidential approval to pursue decency, equanimity, fair trade, sustainable practice, and zero carbon footprint. But some policy shift could always sweep away almost anything that stands in the way of extremists, fascists and radicals, who wrestle for dominance alone.