“Even though bicycle commuting is on the rise all over the country, as cyclists we remain vulnerable. We’re like mammals in the waning days of the dinosaurs: far more adaptable and with much better long-term prospects, yet in the meantime still in imminent danger of being squashed.”
You’d imagine that at some point Americans would wake up to the fact that they’re being sold a very expensive illusion of safety that is in fact killing them and opt for practicality and efficiency over sheer size, but until that day there’s nothing illusory about city streets filled with light-running SUVs driven by a gentry who are more or less free to maim with impunity. And when it comes to cycling for transportation, the fact that your safety–indeed your very life–is not a consideration is what you might call a “barrier to entry.”
We all approach this barrier differently depending on our dispositions. Some of us hop it as adroitly as a cyclocross racer and ride undaunted. Others step over it with considerable trepidation, riding only occasionally or strictly for recreation. Still others simply go around it by opting for other modes of transport. And of course millions of people buy gigantic “safe” automobiles and just drive through the fucking thing while jockeying their smartphones, with two or three cyclists pinned to their bumpers.
As far as the larger-cars-are-safer myth: more massive vehicles need greater stopping distance to break or perform emergency maneuvers. Having more tons of metal surrounding you helps only if you assume you will get into an accident, possibly because your vehicle is bulky and awkward and you have a false sense of security which lowers your vigilance. Then you end up killing the other guy, in the smaller, more fuel-efficient car or bicycle. If you drive an SUV you get bonus points for driving a top-heavy vehicle vulnerable to flipping, which, as a light truck, is unencumbered by the Socialist mandate of rollover protection. Live free and die an avoidable fatality!
Some folks are irritated with American reactions to the death of Osama bin Laden. Julie indicated that she had mixed feelings upon seeing our “own countrymen basically holding a frat party outside of the White House, hanging off of trees and singing ‘Nah nah nah nah, hey hey hey, goodbye!'” I have heard others moan that this doesn’t change anything, why are we celebrating?
So, I expressed my own feelings in a comment on Julie’s blog:
I was happy about the news yesterday, and I still am. We killed a bad guy who has devoted his life to killing us. That is a victory, and I am proud and glad.
When the crowd outside the White House gathered and sang the Star Spangled Banner, it brought a tear to my eye. Then, America the Beautiful. People gathered at Ground Zero for a candle light vigil. In both places, the crowd chanted “USA! USA! USA!” They spoke for me.
I think it is debatable who kills the most Muslims. Our military adheres to Rules of Engagement that put them at greater risk in order to protect Muslim civilians. On the other hand, extremists recruit the young and naive to walk into crowds of Muslims wearing explosive vests.
We are not perfect and we shouldn’t pretend to be. We make mistakes, we kill innocents, and we have failed to hold ourselves to our own standards of humane treatment of prisoners and jurisprudence.
We are drawing down forces in Iraq, which has changed from a brutal dictatorship built on terror to a messy, unstable, imperfect democracy vulnerable to sectarian violence. We now have one less reason to linger in Afghanistan, which may help motivate the government there to get its act together.
Last night was progress. America done good and a bit of pride is perfectly reasonable.
-danny
I mean, its no Moon Landing. No sincere attempt to curb global warming or end world poverty, hunger, disease . . . but it is progress and I’ll celebrate it just the same.
Yesterday, at the cash register of my local supermarket, I was asked by the cashier if I would purchase only one of the two packs of noodles I had intended to purchase. The unspoken implication was, in that way, someone else could have noodles too. Now, from the point-of-view of the supermarket’s profit, it makes no difference whether those two packs were sold to me as an individual, or sold separately. Yen is yen. But as an example of a society sharing its burden (even in this small way), it spoke volumes. I had my hand gently slapped, and was humbled.
I recall a story I heard on the radio, from I think it was Denmark, where a lady needed a medical procedure and was informed that there would be a two-month wait for the service. She explained this to her son, a Doctor, who offered to pull some strings to get her in sooner, and she shamed him because the right thing to do is follow the rules like everyone else: fairness before favoritism.
This sort of thinking in anathema in much of the world, but it is a way of thinking that I really like. I guess its because as a child I was indoctrinated with Socialist ideology at the water fountain, where we were taught to queue and each take an equal share.
Transportation Enthusiasts and Experts discuss one of many issues at Transportation Camp West, an un-conference held this weekend in San Francisco.
I waffled over whether to trek up to San Francisco this weekend to attend Transportation Camp so I signed up late and was wait-listed. They had room on Sunday so I dragged myself out of a cozy warm bed in to the cold and rain, for a two hour trek North via Caltrain and BART.
I’m glad I went. I had a lot of fun talking and learning and meeting new people. I even signed up to present the San Francisco transit map that I made a couple years ago. I got a handsome amount of helpful feedback and food-for-thought on that, and I’m thinking to actually dive in and revise / improve that puppy, despite the fact that I lost interest after moving away from San Francisco.
Today, all eyes are on Egypt. This morning it sounded as if Mubarak would be removed from power, and I felt a euphoria at all the times in my life when I have pumped my fist in the air and chanted with the crowd that “The People–United–Will Never Be Defeated!”
At lunch, we watched the captions on the TV as Mubarak spoke, and said he wasn’t resigning. I have work to do but I have Al Jazeera on in my headphones.
It felt like today could be one of those days when the people triumphed. Not today, but soon.
He was previously discharged due to his homosexuality. The “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy has been repealed by a court, but the Obama administration is going to appeal the repeal. (I don’t get that.)
The military needs soldiers, and Dan Choi is a West Point graduate who speaks Arabic. If he wants to serve he should damn well be allowed to serve, and that he risks being discharged yet again if DADT gets re-instated (thanks, Obama!) is just a further testament to his bravery: he’s willing to serve despite the very real risk that he will be discharged yet again . . . dude is a hero.
The people who plan to burn Korans to commemorate 9/11 sicken me. I would burn a Bible to piss them off, except I don’t think it is ever right to burn books. Which got me looking up a quote, and reading some good stuff via Wikipedia. I like that Heinrich Heine, foretelling the mess that Germany would make a century later.
Korans have already been burned: by the 9/11 hijackers themselves, along with all the bodies they incinerated. Fundamentalist Muslims already do enough damage to their own people, their own faith, and their own holy text that posers from outside the faith really have nothing to add. The difference between these lazy, bigoted American fuckwits who want to burn holy books and your average terrorist is the latter is somewhat more industrious, and less inhibited, more concerned with their vision of faith than with worldly comforts. They are both points on the same axis: “where they burn books, they will ultimately also burn people.”
Cook: You’ve said that if executions were made public, people would realize the brutality of this system and work to end it. Yet, in our past, crowds would show up for public executions, some with picnic lunches. In our age of violent media, what makes you so sure average citizens wouldn’t applaud the execution of a killer they were certain was guilty?
Prejean: There would be some, no doubt, who would pull out a beer and cheer that this terrible murderer had been killed. But for most people who see it up close, capital punishment is very unsettling. The head of the Department of Corrections in Louisiana has to arrange the protocol for executions, and part of that is gathering witnesses. At first he thought he’d have a line of people stretching across the Mississippi River waiting to get in, but soon he realized that no one who witnessed an execution asked to come back. When you’re in the death chamber, you see when they have to jab the needle eighteen times into the arm of the condemned. You hear the stumbling last words of those who are killed: “Mama, I love you,” or “I’m so sorry.” Imagine an ordinary American family having their evening meal, and the news comes on, and the kids ask their parents, “Isn’t that murder too?” and, “Why are they putting antiseptic on his arm if they’re going to kill him?” It would not take long for people to cry out against this, and that’s why it will never be public. You have to keep it from the eyes of the people.
Cook: You have served as spiritual advisor to six men who were executed. What were their last days, their last hours, like — for them and for you?
Prejean: Being with someone who is about to die is surreal. When you’re with someone in the hospital who is dying, it’s at least a natural process; you can see them leaving you. When someone is fully alive, and you’re talking to him in the way you and I are talking, you can not get your mind around the fact that in two hours, now one hour, now forty-five minutes, he’s going to be killed.
The death itself is almost scripted: Now they’re walking in. Now I’m telling him goodbye and kissing him on the back. I’m praying for him and asking him to remember me to God. Now the guards have me by my arms. They are sitting me down in a witness chair. There’s the big clock on the wall. There’s the exhaust fan, already turned on, that will suck from the room the stench of the human body burning. There’s the blank glass with the executioner on the other side. They’ve already tested the chair. It’s run on a seperate generator, so nobody can prevent the execution by throwing the main switch. The lights are bright floursecents. There are two red telephones on the wall: If one rings, it is the court issuing a stay of execution. If the other rings, it’s a pardon from the governor. Neither phone rings. The victim’s family is sitting in the front row to watch. The other witnesses and I are sitting behind them. There are two newspaper reporters writing vigorously on narrow spiral pads. And the condemned man is looking at me. And I put my hand out. And he can see my face. And they put the leather mask over his face, so tight I worry he can’t breathe. How quickly they strap him in the chair and step away. It’s an oak chair. They put a cloth soaked with saline solution on his shaved head and then the metal cap. A thick, curled wire runs from the cap to the generator. And then the strap goes across his chest.
I didn’t look the first time, because with the mask I knew he couldn’t see me anymore. With lethal injection he can see me, but not with the electric chair. I closed my eyes and heard the sound of it. The huge, rushing, powerful sound of the fire being shot through his body. Three times. They run 1,900 volts, then let the body cool, and then 500 volts, and then 1,900 volts again. What’s terrifying is that they’ve done autopsies of people who have been electrocuted, and the brain is mainly intact. We don’t know what they feel. We really don’t know, when we kill a human being, what’s going on inside, the pain of it.
Cook: You believe that the days leading up to an execution amount to torture.
Prejean: I don’t say this lightly. According to Amnesty International, torture is “an extreme mental or physical assault on someone who’s been rendered defenseless.” Just imagine if somebody took you hostage in a room and said that in twenty-four hours they were coming to kill you. And, when the time comes, they put the gun to your head and pull the trigger. It clicks. It is an empty chamber. They laugh and walk out and say, Not today. Maybe tomorrow. That’s torture.
Everybody I’ve known on death row has had the same nightmare: they dream it is their time, and the guards come and drag them out, and they are screaming and sweating, and then they wake up and realize they are still in their cell. Just think about when you have to go to the dentist for a root canal. If the appointment is for Friday, all week you are living in dread. That’s just for a root canal.
I spent my share of time collecting unemployment insurance in the previous recession. I managed to land a job just as my benefits were nearly expired — I thanked my lucky stars on that one! Sure, the job paid 60% of my previous salary, but that was still several steps up from unemployment insurance.
Now I worry that the Republicans, in an uncharacteristic bow to “fiscal responsibility” have put the kibosh on extending unemployment benefits. It is rough out there and everyone expects the economic recovery that seems to have begun to possibly take a very long time. We have millions living hand-to-mouth somewhere between earning a living and being desperately poor. Now we want to cut the cord and let them plunge?
And, okay, let us say we are rugged individualists and we don’t care about the suffering of the unemployed. But . . . these unemployment payments go straight back in to buying groceries and other necessities . . . we’re taking a huge chunk of consumer spending offline! That means falling retail profits, that means more layoffs, a tumbling stock market . . . we are inviting upon ourselves the next Depression, or at least a “double dip” recession.
We need to not f*ck the economy in the rear while it is still teetering on its knees. I wish the nation were more shrill about this issue . . . I hope I am wrong but this just seems incredibly stupid and self-destructive. Americans will be hungry, times will be harder, and Obama will go down in history as one of those haplessliberal presidents who couldn’t rally the nation in a moment of crisis, to be replaced by some jingoistreactionary.
When 9/11 happened we grounded all the planes until we got the situation sorted out.
When the volcano erupted in Iceland we grounded all the planes until we got that situation sorted out.
When one of many many offshore, deep-water oil rigs begins spewing oil all over the Gulf of Mexico we don’t shut down all the other disasters-waiting-to-happen. No, instead we complain that the President’s temporary moratorium on expanded off-shore drilling is reactionary and counter-productive.
Our current national information security policy basically amounts to every company hires their own militia to provide collective security against attacks, large and small. The major ISPs will cooperate with each other to filter out attacks when they can, but . . . it is basically “every man for himself”
And our own critical infrastructure, like the power grid and the military, is constantly being hacked by the Chinese, who have a standing Army of highly competitive, over-caffeinated nerds and a shortage of women. Guys who can’t get laid acquire a lot of energy that needs to be directed somewhere.
So, this new initiative, to use a military analogy, amounts to giving the President an especially large white flag which can be deployed at a moment’s notice. “The Internet is under attack!? Quick, turn everything off and hide!!”
I mean, I thought I was all for Socialism and all, but this rapid surrender option isn’t the part of French national policy that I was hoping we would emulate . . .
How about instead of a “kill switch” we invested some time and energy and patriotism in to building a common defense strategy that analysed threats in real time and coordinated with the parties who manage our national networking infrastructure to deploy a rapid response to threats? Too obvious? Maybe oh maybe that is what they’re trying to do, but they have this “kill switch provision” in there that is making the whole effort look more retarded than it is.
Michael Pollan explains the situation well in “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” . . . because agriculture yield and prices are highly volatile, it is desirable to balance out the wilder potentially-devastating-to-farmers price fluctuations. Historically the Department of Agriculture did this by buying crops when prices were low and storing them for sale when prices were high.
During the Nixon administration there was a shortage of affordable meat, so the government moved to a flat subsidy of certain crops to maximize food production. It worked, but today we are dealing with the unintended consequences.
I think it is good for the government to regulate food safety and to provide food stamps for poor people. I suspect that with the contemporary globalized food system that price stabilization is a lost cause, and less of a concern, because the overall market is larger.
There’s been a lot of buzz in the tech community over Google’s Tuesday announcement that they are just totally fed up with the Chinese government’s utter contempt for human rights and for playing nice on the Internet, and that as a consequence they are going to remove either the censorship filters from Google.cn, or Google.cn from China.
I don’t entirely grasp Google’s strategy here, but if a plucky technology company that I admire wants to goad an autocratic government, I’m naturally inclined to sympathize with them.
So, while it is still around, I figured I’d translate Google.cn‘s “I’m Feeling Lucky” button: 手气ä¸é”™
手shuo3 is a pictograph for “hand” æ°”qi4 is a pictograph for curling clouds, meaning “air” ä¸bu4 is a pictograph of a bird rising to heaven, which once meant “to soar” but today means “not” é”™cuo4 etymologically combines “metal” and “dried meat” for the archaic meaning “gilt” which nowadays means “mistake”
But don’t get hung up on hand-air-not-mistake as the characters combine to form two words:
手气 means luck ä¸é”™ means “not bad” as in “pretty good”
So, 手气ä¸é”™ translates for me as “luck not bad” and that is what I hope for both Google (è°·æŒ) and the ä¸å›½äºº.
