Peat by Slane

You cut no chill on a treeless moor if you don’t slice peat in previous Spring with a slane, a flat short spade with or without wings designed to form combustible bricks out of compressed swamp muck, something of a last resort when you've depleted forest. Stoves usually burn equivalent sawn and split wood, which has become a costly commodity, unless you happen to own a wooded lot. Unlike coal or crude oil formed over eons, peat and wood are slowly renewable resources, just plant and wait a few centuries. Plentiful garbage and sewerage are easier to recycle, but would incur costs nobody wants. They'd rather destroy neighborhoods with fracking and refining what little is left of petroleum.

Hypothetically, anything from which you can release energy, including pedaling, can be converted to or stored as electricity, which, thanks to Edison, Tesla, et. al., can be harnessed to handle almost any task effectively. This rates high among history’s most amazing developments, a billion people cooperating toward an energy policy and labor savings. People gathering resources and providing services made it all possible. You’d think such impressive results would inspire individuals to cooperate all the more. But you can never rely on just one technology. For example, reliance on oil will end catastrophically. Electricity uses precious metals on cusp of shortfall. Cheats, egomaniacs and opportunists negate enthusiasm.

Colleges confer higher degrees upon whoever endows or pays. Doesn’t guarantee intelligence. Among other stupid practices, companies make it almost impossible to deal with them. You may dread going to a dentist, yet it’s still preferable to dealing with cable providers, energy utilities, government agencies, insurance underwriters, or other monopolies. You immediately seek out any alternative. Restaurants and Starbucks dole out decreasing points for shrinking rewards, so it’s no longer worth the effort and resentment sends you to honest competitors. A local roaster offers a free cup of coffee with a pound purchase, not some snarky lure that takes 25 or more purchases to earn one over course of a year with points expiring before you can collect. Neither savvy nor shrewd suggest smart. Quite the opposite, only mutual benefit and resource preservation instill trust and make life better. Greedy profit motives collectively doom everyone, drive majority crazy, and foster domestic terrorism.

Luxury car dealers love drug dealers. For both bling is their thing, not communal sharing. Every year drug users, who nationwide number over a hundred million, nearly half as many as motorists (120 versus 220), die due to over/wrong doses, 7 times as often as crash casualties, nearly one user per hundred versus one driver in seven hundred. Such fatalities generally fall into categories of cardiovascular collapse or suicide. It confirms that taking drugs rates among the riskiest of behaviors, though doping and driving are extremely popular and aren’t mutually exclusive. Yet pharmaceuticals designed to increase alertness or protect heart may actually avoid as many accidents and they cause, not so opioids and painkillers proscribed when operating heavy equipment with inherent bone-crushing momentum.

The least liked and most avoided activity is digging through detail and hype hoping to discover what’s crucial to you. Most fail to see how interconnected everything can be and what happens elsewhere when something nearby gets nudged. Butterfly Effect does occur, but so does Pareto Analysis to dismiss marginal and focus on major influences. Filtering out irrelevant distractions has always been a key to efficiency. Boldface lies, false conclusions, selfish opinions, and smoke screens supplant steady science. Between incessant change and swift pace, there isn’t enough time these days to make informed decisions. Unqualified to try, people let others choose and suffer consequences of being exploited by charlatans, cons, experts, frauds, and scammers. Note how “fast” describes both loyal pals and unfaithful women. Trust is hard to bestow. If trade seems good, go with quid pro quo, though it's too easy to donate possessions and sacrifice life pointlessly. Coalitions seldom last, plans don’t always meet forecast, so you must sometimes go with the flow.

Despite cycling season on horizon, this misanthrope no longer arranges meets, joins cyclists who vary pace, paints arrows at turns, repairs bikes, socializes nicely, or warms to whatnot revolving around riding with others. In a society potentially connected as never before, corporations condition you to choose solitude because it leaves you vulnerable to expenses and inconveniences from which they profit. However, Labann’s decision to abstain more has to do with lapses in etiquette. For those who might consider group riding:
—Assess own handling skills and health fitness before imposing a burden.
—Be prepared, bike repaired, bring spare tubes and tools specific to your equipment.
—Beware of poorly designed routes with unanticipated hazards.
—Control your descents, stay single file, tap brakes before you straddle leading wheel.
—Cross together at stop lights or signs; otherwise follow traffic code and occupy right third of lane.
—Employ hand signs: going left, letting pass, right turning, stopping (left hand extended, waving, held up, or held down, respectively), and watch out below (left or right hand circling and pointing downward)… nice to be warned of glass, grates and potholes when you can’t see through cyclist directly ahead.
—Expect certain meets to represent no-drop, stay together rambles, versus cutthroat races, self-paced cruises, or solo challenges. You forfeit commitment if you don’t stick with posse with whom you arrived.
—Maintain separation downhill; merge again at bottom.
—Remember that cycling can impact judgment, impair senses, loosen tongue.
—Say nothing; nobody wants advice, encouragement, or intimacy, though audible warnings like, “Car back,” or, “Watch out,” might save lives.
—Suspect anyone who’d join you as someone with issues not worth analyzing or overlooking.
—Take your turn at head of paceline; tow trailers into headwinds, not totally suck slipstream all day.

Some blog entries seem better than others. Insights often pass faster than one can capture. Making every effort to avoid, sometimes nevertheless repeat self. Stuff happens despite best intentions. Authors parade details then tie up disparities at the end, thus hold attention for as long as possible. Readers expect to ignore journey and jump to conclusion, thus save time for pleasure. Bicyclists understand destinations don't matter, it's the ride itself. Truth never changes, rears its head whenever it wants, remains forever the same, unlike leaders, nations, religions or terrains. Earth will eventually restore itself, but humans can’t wait that long. Only good stewardship that resists global despoilment will save mankind from extinction. When settlers first clambered through Franconia Notch and noticed The Great Stone Face, they expected it to be eternal. Motorists once drove for hours to get a glimpse of it perched high above; later bicyclists, self included, slogged up a twisty bike path. Yet just a few hundred years later it collapsed. Automotive pollution? All mountains fall down to the sea eventually for reasons you don’t know fully. Truth outlasts everything.

Deceivers run and ruin everything for deluded masses who think a vote equals democracy. Grass roots stumpers vying for offices cut turf, by which they mean plotting campaign routes for door-to-door canvassers. Slaning peat is a cultural artifact reoccurring each May, bicycle month. Cut turf, keep a straight face, or sod off. Takes teamwork: bunker peels back overburden, diggers both apply slanes, hanker transfers deep cuts upward, loader fills barrow, while wheeler pushes barrow to stackers. For the personal purpose of reducing worker wages, billionaire brothers funded an individual's case before Supreme Court long since settled that would deny closed union shops. Greed left unchecked would assuredly increase social injustice and wealth inequality. Yet unions have lost all credibility after milking paychecks for decades and securing no new benefits, which caused membership to shrink from 35% to 5% of workforce. Forget unions, what's at stake is collective bargaining upon which middle class is founded.

If you put in requisite effort and raise right questions, you can drain quagmires that liars create, thus a little warmth generate. This desperate harvest of peat merits contemplation. Wonder whether whiskey distillers in a Slane stable or World’s Friendliest Bike Shop would approve.

“I wonder, if everything could ever feel this real forever, if anything could ever be this good again. The only thing I'll ever ask of you, you’ve got to promise not to stop when I say when.” David Grohl, Foo Fighters, Everlong (about overdose victim Kurt Cobain, performed live at Slane Castle and when David Letterman returned to Late Night after heart bypass surgery)

Bit Multigrain

“Takes all kinds,” they say. Just who are "they", and why are they lying? ALL conceivable kinds probably won’t ever coexist, which might be a blessing. Roster that does, well, you can only let pass, pray they’ll stay away, probably souldn't fret over. To accurately rephrase, “Don’t sweat differences in appearances or customs, yet uphold laws for peaceful interaction without reprehensible encroachment.” Remember, diversity enables progress and preserves gene pool. Biblically speaking, “Man doth not live by bread alone.”

Cults have always rushed within boundaries, mostly to no detriment. Amish just want to be left alone, so they can sweep aside temptations of modernity and technology. The fact that some men possess multiple wives appears illegal but doesn’t harm neighbors or participants. Laws were originated when women were deemed chattel, property, slaves. Long past Emancipation Proclamation and Female Suffrage, wedded bliss persists as a legal mask to which a minority grasps. Today, women can freely choose to divorce, remain single, or remarry. Choice can be a boon. Marriage suits some, surely not eligible others. Don’t need to intercede unless harm’s done or service isn’t rendered. But defining harm and service can be problematic, while domestic disputes do hook down into a deadly zone with pistols and shotguns.

Government’s principle role is to protect, secure Four Freedoms (from tyranny and want, of religion and speech), and serve citizens (not foreigners, green carders, or interlopers) for which taxpayers pay dearly. When officials don’t defend these goals, they immediately become public enemies subject to indictment, rebuke and recall. Incompletions are scandalous and treasonous. Possible reasons might include egotism, insanity, partisanship, self service, and senility, things for which they have enforceable rules and ethical huddles, though members of congress don’t block blitzers or kick out infractors often enough in a mad pursuit to hold own positions. This has led reasonable constituents to question whether they need government at all.

Consider an ungoverned nation. Agencies would cease to inspect drugs, foodstuff, meat, water supplies. Right there, residents would get sick, possibly pass by the millions. CDC combats infectious diseases. Pestilence would otherwise abound. SEC strips package from illegal equity traders. Must regulate industries that could have injurious effects on environment, finances and health. Courts potentially reverse injustice. Widespread deprivation would occur without Medicare, SNAP, Social Security, TANF, and whatever entitlements contributors earn. Enemies would immediately attack if CIA, DOD, FBI and other defenses fumbled, knelt or punted. Gangsters would organize offensive tribes among which you’d have to pick sides. Press might report debacles, but only after you’ve unforgivably lost. Hard to believe any slackjaw detractor of “gummint” would prefer anarchy. What already exists exists for good reasons. Not everyone has your back and plays by rules.

Situationally dependent, forms of government should vary. Capitalism centered purely on profit motives would negate good agencies do. Even now they draw countless complaints for bending to business and not prohibiting products that cause millions of deaths annually. Countries where strategies failed and time of possession passed now subsist on communism. Illiterate medieval masses relied on monarchies to make dire decisions. An educated majority still thrives on democracy, stateside now into its third century. Dictatorships and oligarchies always lack required stability, why populace dreads unnecessary roughness of extremists, Nazis, partisans, supremacists and terrorists.

“Good things take time,” they say. On the other hand, things fall apart over time, too. How are a thriving paradigm and time to train neither unfair advantages nor unlike performance enhancing drugs? Independent wealth provides an almost unbeatable edge. Each generation has to be educated to sustain status quo. Once established, someone must push boundaries for all to advance. In a quest for knowledge, NASA contracts corporations to innovate. To accurately rephrase, “Good things take goals, hard work, intelligence, organization, persistence and time.” Bad things occur spontaneously, require no exertion, surface as soon as you neglect maintenance or stop surveillance. Physicists predict disintegration and entropy according to laws of thermodynamics. Sitting still and twiddling your thumbs summon downfall.

Many an adage, dictum, epigram, maxim, motto or slogan proves false once examined. Proverbs based on common sense or practical experience are called truths, but only when you adopt a certain point of skew. B&C was intended to spew thousands of quotable saws, knowing full well they might not withstand rigorous scrutiny. It’s how humans grow: ask, examine, share results. Samuel Johnson’s apothegm that, “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel,” rings hollow, since better shelters present themselves to patriots, and yellow striped scoundrels persist as outsiders rather than embrace partisans. Besides, as its 1896 ad claims, “Patriot Bicycles have perfect bearings,” perhaps why they were only produced for a single year. Press pissants can’t bear perfection, cast aspersion upon innocents, display contempt despite privilege. Cheaters accuse others preemptively.

”In a hierarchy, participants can be compared and evaluated by position, rank, relative power, seniority, and the like. But in a holarchy each person’s value comes from his or her individuality and uniqueness and the capacity to engage and interact with others to make the fruits of that uniqueness available.”—David Spangler, New Age Pioneer

“There’s no I in Team,” but does offer audible anagrams of, “At me,” “Meat,” and “Tame,” thus tackles tendencies of acceptance, aggression and individuality within relationships and sports. Convening diverse multi-talented individuals of differing strengths has always been ingrained in any victorious scheme. “Next man up,” coaches help joining members progress past storming into performing. Winners withstand attrition through depth, discipline, flexibility, and foresight. But society doesn’t readily confer accolades and rewards. When winning means dough and gain, you can be sure many will contest and protest outcomes.

“A big book is something of a comfort during the bleakest stretch of winter, once that groundhog pronounces more of the same.”—Labann, B&C Blog, 2009. Yes, Gobbler’s Knob has a rodent issue, Punxsutawney’s marmot who predicted another wintery 6 weeks! Worse affect of a bomb cyclone is low barometric pressure sucks down arctic air, then you suffer a blizzard as wet clouds get drawn up from tropics. Doesn’t amuse bicyclists, not one bit.

“Things are bad in this world. Ugly, smelly, nasty—a world full of stupidity and starvation and disease—but things never really get as bad as they should.”—Jim Knipfel, humanist columnist, seeming successor to Alfred Jarry (Exploits and Opinions of Dr. Faustroll, Pataphysician, 1898) and Hunter Thompson (Proud Highway, “Football Season is Over”).

Bicentennial Subterrane

Depending upon whom you ask, the bicycle was “invented” between 1816 and 1818, about 200 years ago, by Karl von Drais, who fashioned his Laufmaschine, a wooden dandyhorse, upon which you sat astride and strode to glide, that is, if you dismiss Cardinal Borromeo’s compiled Codex Atlanticus (1609) of Leonardo da Vinci drawings, which clearly shows he doodled exactly the same thing 2 centuries earlier. Savvy historians point to blacksmith Pierre Michaux’s 1850’s iron boneshaker velocipede to which he attached a crank and pedals to front wheel, thus making it an integral conveyance in popular demand where sales could expand to America, eventually adding ball bearing hubs and more comfortable saddles. To this day tricycles for tots still mimic his design. Geopolitical and patent issues crimped production in 1870’s everywhere but England, where Starley and supporters added chain drives, coaster brakes, curved handlebars, and pneumatic tires, from which the safety bike emerged. In 1970’s San Francisco, Repack Races down Mt. Tamalpais hiking trails got Breeze and bros to innovate mountain bikes. Rather than a sole invention to which scores lay claim, the bicycle is better described as a technological evolution that credits many and enormously influenced modernity, particularly free locomotion on paved roads.

Labann has only been at this literary critique of bicycling culture for 2 decades, less than 10% of its existence, ridden for just 25% through 3 bike booms, though it’s history many would rather bury. Consumers don’t care or give credit due. Similarly, art economics resemble mental health treatments: Ignored too long then incarcerated to remove imagined threat to public. Sure, you’d have to be clinically insane to expect anyone to support your creations. As in Leonardo’s day, it comes down to individual patrons, such as an eager renaissance monarch, much rarer crowd funding, or steadfast self sufficiency. In 1800’s writing novels or poems was a pastime for bored well-heeled bourgeoisie, until two-wheelers boomed and they assumed another hobby. Society was thus spared a small percent of self serving drivel. Kids now attend cell phones where no education occurs, no effort is exerted, no judgment gets applied, and no rules or scruples are encouraged. This has already been identified as a new menace of depression and sleep disturbance, exactly the opposite of bicycling. Advertisers would have everyone settle for less, spend too much, and succumb to poor mental health.

Artists need not ask for a government handout. Despite existing Percent for Art laws, feds and states only endow art foundations and nonprofits, whose directors answer to entrenched institutions and power brokers, and pocket lion’s share of proceeds after paying slave wages and relying on volunteers. This is done to siphon taxation and stifle dissent. Beauty and truth undermine money-grubbing schemes, so suffer from abandonment and disenfranchisement. Without direct funding, art, something half of human brains seem wired to beget, has little chance to produce masterpieces. Consequently, too many creative minds wind up on welfare or worse. Wage earning taxpayers underwrite destructive non-production. Life without art would be unlivable. This equation doesn’t work on any level.

How does society expect advancement? Maybe get lucky when someone can’t help but innovate? From about 1880 to 1980, corporations rolled a tenth of profits into R&D, thus paid engineers to imagine more reliable ways of delivering avant-garde designs. All that changed in the 1990s, a decade of acquisitions, divestitures and mergers aimed primarily at cheapening products and cutting “backroom” efforts, particularly expensive accounting and engineering. Whenever an outsider beat them to an improvement, they’d simply buy out start-up to either absorb or block disruptive change. Corporations since spent billions NOT to introduce things that might serve your needs better or safer, thwart improvements to manage previous investments, and treat consumers as suckers. Yes, you’ll have to rebuy your favorite album, ap or book each time technology morphs per their profit motives. Already on 5th new cell phone, 8th new personal computer, 21st operating system. You either put up, shut up, or you’re crushed like a bug in their grill, do without, no real option when important information is only made available over internet, or lay down for a dirt nap.

Profits proliferate unilaterally when those impoverished convince themselves they must go faster. Bicyclists impede automotive recklessness, so other traffic can hardly stomach. Indeed, some would stick bicyclists below ground, with no sunshine and questionable air, already happening in Amsterdam, Louisville, London, Tokyo and Utrecht, out of sight, but still simmering in subconscious. What about safety when earthquakes occur or water table rises? Worst plan puts bicyclists on spin machines inside sweaty gyms. Breeds disease. No such necropolis could hold late avid cyclist Robin “Bicentennial Man” Williams, whose ashes were scattered in San Francisco Bay. His subterrane demise represents yet another route folks despise, so hastily surmise and seldom analyze.

News you can’t use fills airwaves, usually stuff that doesn’t affect you or you can do nothing about. Around bicycling’s dawn Mark Twain may have said but never wrote, “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” Media today seems determined to continue that way, fill you with dread through misinformation, and instruct you to act ineffectually. Lately almost everything you hear solely intends to make speaker’s life better, not yours. Scams abound. Meanwhile New England cyclists abide wet slush awaiting another chance to ride outdoors. Any more global temperature tip and you’ll instead have to invest in a personal submarine ship.

Been Ungermane

Being irrelevant gives you wings, sets you free, yet torments your security. Ungermane could also mean unemployable without skills in demand. Companies anticipate much from direct staff, yet settle for anything from contingent temps, who make up 40% of America’s workforce. Consultants per diem and expendable mercenaries can be activated or asked to desist each business boom or bust; they demand no benefits, holidays, leaves, prior notices, or vacations. Nevertheless, lack of job longevity adversely affects delivered quality, sales figures, and trust upon which reputations rely. Rampant incompetence holds sway; ignorance can’t evaluate and intelligence doubts itself, according to Dunning-Kruger, though Peter predicts buffoons will rise in any hierarchy, especially government. All but wildly profitable businesses expect to harvest continually, look only to next quarter’s results, seldom future security.

What is germane? Style alone. Only droll delivery of daily drivel matters to majority. Fake news reeks of it. For author or authority it’s all about saying the next thing noticed, thereby staying in some lame conversation. Stark reality bores morons silly and scares the savvy. You need to stew in rage to engage anyone with means or schadenfreude enough to spend minutes or pennies on your page. This blog addresses mere recognition among short attention spans, seldom keenly dissects topics, shallowly points out things that marginally connect, thereby resembles media news you never use. For gravity you have to read the book, though it may seem a scatological brown study. Was never seduced by urge to conjure fanciful tales designed to escape, as if mundane routine didn’t already fulfill every need. Can’t worry about what might be, must manage immediacy and plan accordingly, though separated from present spells death and decline.

If you’re neither overly prejudiced nor righteously horrified, you might be amused by folly/furor of Fox humor/error News, which hilariously broadcasts agitprop of illogical pap 24/7 as if it were gospel, even summons god to do their dirty work. Any serious minded person disregards how they emphasize mayhem to make points, inflate opposite opinions into public conspiracies, and instigate all instances of domestic terrorism. Doesn’t surprise that sociologists have better things to do than lavish time on such divisive nonsense and obvious ploys. The list of things becoming irrelevant - from pet ownership to presidential power - grows rapidly. Why pay taxes to nurse an ineffectual leader when it appears any cretin off the street would do a better job?

Do admire intent of company Alphabet Google X and its Director Eric "Astro" Teller, who only ask questions and invent answers to big problems. Unfortunately, novelty for its own sake does no more than alienate customers and feed creator’s ego. It’s a logical fallacy to claim that new is good. Only right message or right offering at right time combine to garner wide support. Otherwise you spin wheels and waste brain power. Innovation has never been easy, one breakthrough based on countless failed attempts and lessons learned. Drone delivery team engineer André Prager explained how complicated it can be to design for simplicity, “The best designs—a bicycle, a paper clip—you look and think, ‘Well of course, it always had to look like that,’ But the less design you see, the more work was needed to get there.” Upon what basis can you call merchandise dispatch a core competency? Customers can pick up at stores, or stuff can be delivered to them by bike, foot or truck. The desired result seems to be to eliminate all interpersonal contact, but would that improve lives? Aloof unapproachability seems an expensive luxury for which someone else pays.

To simplify results in efficiency. But some things, such as society, don't lend themselves to this treatment. People don’t neatly line up like bottles on conveyor belts. The Great Wall of China began to crumble before finished and failed to withstand Mongol invasion. One must compartmentalize tasks, focus when appropriate, and let some things pass. Nazis can't overlook differences or relinquish control; complicity suggests a mental defect in common.

Not alone, entire ethnic groups are deemed extraneous, mercilessly marginalized, and persecuted randomly, for example, over 10 million global Romanis, unique in that they are not bound by place, but only by a will to be free. Their flag has a 16-spoked itinerant wheel, similar to 24-spoked chakra on flag of India, to which some trace their origins, symbolic of peaceful change above earthy verdure and below heavenly sky. Their anthem, Djelem, Djelem, lungone dromensa [I went, I went on long roads], further resonates, totally aligns with bicycling culture.

Improving upon situation seems impossible when surrounded by criminals and fools, but you can only legitimately exert control over your own actions. What you covet enslaves you; extrapolated, your life alone is worth fighting for, though it shouldn't come down to this. Evil pushes extremes. Most just want to be left alone, offered a boost when down, and taxed only according to how much they profit from actions that meet society’s requisites. Some enterprises, like casinos, fulfill no need except owners’ greed, though you might argue that assembly lines and design benches feed off gaming. One wonders what good could be done with all that squandered cash and talent. Trillions have funded even stupider projects, ostensibly laser death rays mounted on satellites, really pure voracity for stealing from public treasury. Cipolla postulated that stupidity is dangerous, underestimated, widespread, and works destructively and indiscriminately.

Humans have become so adept at imagining alternatives and scientific solutions, world population jumped from one billion in 1804 to three billion in 1960 despite 2 centuries of wars. Actuaries predict a billion increase each 15 years and worldwide tripling to nine billion by 2042. US population has only doubled in half century since 1967, mostly due to immigration restraint and worse measures, such as citizen exile or internment camps for Americans of certain ethnic backgrounds including those native born.

Some would say that current US population of 370 million cannot be sustained, and predicted 520 million by 2050 will nosedive standard of living, slice percent of arable land to less than half of 1.2 acres needed per person, and void all social contracts. Imagine what it would be like quadrupling occupancy of your apartment or home and sharing same amount of food and resources among them, and you’ll get a clue as to where you’re headed: an overcrowded fiasco of general famine, Olduvai slide, recurring pestilence, and subsistence ferocity.

If human ingenuity were the ultimate resource, expanding populations should be a boon; this would only be true if scarcity inspired alternatives, mothers of invention, renewed searches for resources that serve masses. So far, mankind has primarily demonstrated a lack of planning, laxity in restoration, and lust for depletion. How has democracy helped? Both evil trends and good practices can be begun or undone by edicts, though you may kiss your constitutional rights goodbye. However, life that doesn’t adapt to real crises ceases to exist.

Prepare for an unlucky Year of the Dog. Folks now keep dogs for reasons beyond fear of other creatures (past) and humans (present). Dogs are opportunistic companions; this exonerates owners for selfish ways, settling into jobs where they get paid to arrive punctually yet do nothing, and working sans compunction solely in self interest. Dogs likewise do nothing but donate mute companionship, don’t talk back, and further dilate already inflated egos. Who’s using who? Cynics churlishly resemble snarling canines, who’ll have their day and snap at backsides until all spirals into late day shadows.

Then how do you arrive at hope? If weather cooperates, Labann can get there from home on a bike in an hour. Forecast through Groundhog Day is for more snow than not and severe icing between, conditions that break spirit even among avid bicyclists. Meanwhile, without actual saddle time, adrenaline, endorphins, and fear to inform content, quality of blog entries suffers. But, soon, conditions will relent to again become irrelevant. Ungermane might also mean unthreatening, unlike everything else lately. Even alien encounters are all about, “Frighteningly odd yet not necessarily hostile.”

Holy Gundain!

Gundain is a barley beer pastry that Tibetans savor to begin their New Year festival Losar that commemorates snake deity Naga. A king cobra devouring its own tail comes full circle, a saga from beginning to end, say after a year, or some wheel of folly from which none escape, such as a deep dive into bicycling depravity or short stint at presidency. In Dharmashala and Lhasa renewal occurs in Spring, not dead of Winter, as in Western culture, which adheres to a brutal gridiron imposing events per religious calendar instead of naturally occurring equinoxes, first snow, frost free day, full moons, last leaf drop, and solstices. Full fortnight of Christmas supplanted pagan customs having lost the war of words intended to dominate spirit. Auspicious portents influence internecine warfare and outdoor labor more than cerebral preoccupations in air conditioned cloisters and neatly kept cubicles. Bicyclists follow their own calendar.

When society transitioned from brawn to brain, work then meant finding ways to trick others into dying or exerting in your stead. Clerics deployed a potent dodge by preying upon fears of the unknown. Most would rather be a boss spending bulk of paid hours deriding minions, letting staff solve problems, and wriggling out of crises by replacing experts with novices. Labann always preferred doing something pragmatic and productive, whether mental or physical, because then had plentiful evidence to justify own existence, unlike so-called leaders, who anyway blame subordinates for failures and take credit for successes. The further you rise, the easier it becomes to cross the permeable barrier between benevolent and corrupt.

America's least wanted public enemies are conservative lawmakers who consistently stick majority with their trick of trickle down. This repulsive lie has repeatedly been proven false for decades. Every boat will only float when constituents vote Republicans out and thereby begin to note middle class members multiply. As things exist, these elected servants can continue to transfer trillions from 90% of populace to 10% for no other reason than heinous greed and vicious selfishness. If they persist, they'll completely collapse economy. Nevertheless, voters have no will to call it what it is, impeachable treason, and resist. A full year after their minority win, not one promise has been kept, no substantive issue has been addressed, and taxpayers paid millions so president could golf and indulge self spending more than any working stiff will earn in a lifetime, already more than predecessor did in 8 years. Height of the anti-Mexican wall remains at zero. Disapproval shot up to two-thirds faster than ever in country’s history. Mystifies how any president with a marginal rating would not be immediately recalled. Elected leaders frame positions as theirs until elected out. But impeachment and recalls can occur at any time. Harm done to citizens might then be reversible. Corrupt officials get bolder every day they get away with their reckless rackets.

One can serve evil, greater good, nobody, others or self. Regrettable when unilateral, works better when everyone's satisfied, but worst scenario has all unhappy because nobody’s needs get met, where society now seems headed. Not to cast aspersions or debate semantics, one must define political stances to grasp controversy.

Conservatives buy into the Malthusian myth that there's not enough resources for all to thrive, that slavery or starvation suits majority as long as they personally are exempt, and that you have no right to live, only an obligation to self to grab whatever you can. They care nothing about quality of consumer offerings, and would sell ersatz cures if permitted. They dismiss altruism as untenable, though their soulless approach spells humanity's doom.

Liberals don't concern themselves with how mutually supportive systems operate, only that everyone subsists. They rob from successes to underwrite failures. They demotivate business creators with excessive regulation and taxation, so some junkie or lout gets an undeserved handout. Liberals elevate own egos by administering such entitlements. Political correctness can only exist alongside economic surplus. They flail at serous issues, so fail.

Progressives hold that wealth generation rises out of aberration. Everyone ought to have an opportunity to contribute and earn a livelihood, short of ensuring all survive by mere presence. Progressives would permit you to chew excessively, choose badly, and die accordingly, even legalize self prescribed narcotics and psychedelics. You have a right to behave however you want and suffer consequences, likely internment camps, mental hospitals, or prisons, as long as you pay own way after having been afforded a real way to stay alive. This would include making yourself a taxation target by amassing casino cash from addicts. Instead of controlling population, progressives prefer improving systems, removing roadblocks, setting goals, and working towards them.

Extremists malign progressives, because they can't refute any centrist message of tolerance without individual judgment or safety net. Plus an alternative third approach disrupts their strategy to divide to conquer, or engage you in warfare as cannon fodder. Progressives make no distinction among domestic and foreign terrorists, rather convert enemies into partners, though it's not always possible or profitable, and recognize ignorance and want as everyone’s enemies, since they lead to bad decisions, conservative and liberal extremism, and frustrated retaliation against vulnerable innocents, never those responsible. Because they are intelligent, progressives can’t organize a like-minded coalition, since ready access to information without ethics or logic spreads mostly partisan ignorance. True intelligence doesn’t require governance yet only lasts until dementia sets in.

Regressives figure everything was better before whatever occurred, though what that thing was they can’t say, yet they elected backward current administration. Impossible to restore a construct they can no longer evaluate, they'd just as soon destroy everything and start over, except reserving electronic and mechanical conveniences, retaining expert systems, and usurping positions of dominance. Bygone era meant throng had to perform daylong manual labor, while overlords dreamt ways to exploit them. Education was nonexistent, since knowing anything threatened oligarchs. Bonfires of books illuminate nothing, increase suffering, spread pestilence, and warrant setbacks. Because they don’t move forward, both conservative and liberal align with regressive. Only progressive offers a new hope for sustainable growth.

While diverse opinions round out picture of needs and wants, basic survival must be prioritized. Americans and rest of world who survive on their contributions cannot afford politics of the past. New governance based in reality must prevail, or you'll have to suit up in armor and toughen up for what will ensue in new year.

Depressing and disappointing when you discover things don’t meet what you were expecting. Some gifts can’t be returned, or seem trivial until lost forever. On your bike, for every delightful landscape encountered - brook, expanse, field, garden, lawn, park, primordial forest, stands of trees, tangle of bramble, waterfall - 10 times as many abused properties and ugly dumps must be overlooked. You can cherish Mother Nature until you learn what a cruel bitch she can be. You can likewise worship God before realizing horrors He/She condones. You're pretty much at both their mercy. Cross either at your peril; hope they don't notice you creeping along as if just another beetle among trillions. Posting random musings doesn't camouflage skin from imminent attack, instead infuriates enemies and puts you square in their crosshairs.

Power only has value if you know when to apply it or use it as a deterrent. Aggressive posturing betrays weakness. Teddy Roosevelt spoke softly but carried a big stick. Democracy demonstrates racy talk and mocks arrogant leaders. Republicans spend a lot of time in can of some gin-soaked pub, likely relishing illicit drugs and sex trysts which they’ll later deny while hypocritically upholding morality and impudently equating Clinton’s few legal if salacious affairs between consenting adults with multiple accusations of groping, pedophilia, rape, and sexual harassment among own team. Fraudulent Fox fiends Ailes and Hannity aren’t gone, but persist on supportive media that spew propaganda. One side clearly isn’t as bad as the other, though both are reprehensible. They delight in taking advantage of perks they’ve conferred upon themselves, even gloat on social media.

So, what’s wrong with Facebook, Indeed, Instagram, Pinterest or Twitter? They pose as ways to reach a global network, but really exist inside echo chambers. You only reach a small number of people by design, yet expose your personal ideas and identity to whoever wants to hurt you from afar. What you might say in a moment of pique becomes your defining attribute. Ask Juli Briskman, whose only mistake was her honesty. Welcome to Labann’s world. Publicity enables anyone to accuse, blackball, categorize, characterize, defame, deny, dox, indict, investigate, misquote, peg, persecute or prosecute you; it will put you on the scene of a crime but won’t provide you with an alibi. Where’s the upside? For Briskman, liberal partisans collected a consolation bailout. If you portray self as a model citizen, nobody will believe and you’ll be profiled as a deadbeat, narcissist, or small man to ignore. D-I-Y media solely provides an outlet for those with no self control.

You have no right to privacy in public places. If those who surveil cameras see you riding roads or roaming about, they may accuse you or form opinions about your behavior. Same goes for internet’s information highway. What you do in your own home is sheltered by law from peeping toms, though walls do not screen you from cyber stalking, heat sensors, and other invasions. Computer monitors feature cameras and microphones that can record conversations you’d think were hidden and intimate. Data flows back to carriers as to which programs or websites you prefer. Browsing inclination invites telemarketing molestation. Worse, carefully composed statements you intentionally broadcast gets maligned and misconstrued. Unless you show up in person to defend what few rights you still have, better stick to exchanging transparent recipes like a wireframe cook from atop a mountain on other side of world.