Answering the News

As noted in a prior posting, it’s almost amusing when extremists start using words like “tyranny” and “loss of freedom” when describing actions the politicians they elected start to act, not just rationally, but truly for the greater good.   The view from an extreme is always narrow—extremely narrow, of course—and that view when applied to the state and nation is when freedoms are lost and tyrannies take hold; not when fact-based truths are applied, but when they are ignored.   That would be one real takeaway not just of the minor protests across America’s state capitals yesterday (April 16), but in the words on the op-ed page of Dan Huffines, former Texas Senator and current lover of ignoring reality. One must ask how adhering to facts to make a decision is being driven by emotion?  Huffines claims Governor Greg Abbott shutting down the Texas economy for safety reasons is an emotional one; the facts, however, show coronavirus spreads by human contact, and reason dictates

It’s  almost  amusing to watch protestors angrily denouncing the actions of the extremist politicians they elected.  Not quite amusing; more a sad, wan smile playing about the lips in resigned disgust. Angry calls to end the tyranny, too, are a dismaying reflection most if not all liberals, but also moderates might feel, but (more) ironically, not from the same position as the extreme rightists demonstrating in front of some capitals and governor mansions across America yesterday.  Their definitions of freedom and tyranny seem to be made up to fit the moment, and applied only to themselves. They see it as a loss of American freedom to have the government close down businesses.  They say the people should have the right to decide how best to protect themselves; that the “media” is over hyping the crisis and it’s suspicious that mega-rich big box stores are considered essential while local businesses have to close. And that’s the butter-rich irony and usual self-canceling co

Harvey Weinstein was shouted down when he started talking about the culture that he was working within as an abuser.  It sounded like he was blaming the culture of accepted abuse as an actual reason for his behavior, and if that was what he was doing it was right to shout him down. But, he did put a smudgy finger on something, and until that’s addressed the culture will really not change.  So, right now, let’s not shout anyone down, let’s examine two sides of the same coin and approach this with the full realization that something can be a part of the culture, and still be morally, even legally, wrong, and shouting won’t make it better.  In fact, the root cause might be drowned out by the shouting. Let us also address the fact that women are still not treated as equals in American society.  We can denigrate the Muslims in the Middle East—and we should continue to pressure them to at least move out of the twelfth and embrace at least the twentieth century—or the Baptists or Rom

I’ve been a cyclist for over 30 years, and most of those years I’ve been a reader of Bicycling.  Each month I pull the magazine from the mailbox and leaf through it—always front to back, like John Forester might suggest, if he cared about such things—and notate the articles I’ll read more in depth later, and maybe read the shorter blurbs on the spot. The Issue 2, 2019 was no different: What they ride, ultimate guide, how to stuff.  Then: 10 Greatest Upgrades That Changed the Way We Ride, Train, Eat, Look, Talk, and Think About Cycling. Now, I thought, that’s more a challenge than a section title. Power meter, a tiny fraction have ever used that.  GPS, most of us use that.  The Peugeot team jersey, interesting stuff in more ways than one.  Mia Birk, someone most cyclists have never heard about but who benefit from her work immensely.  I turned the page and stared at Jon Knoll’s missive on the molded, multi-density short, and it was almost a Gary Larson moment where a dog ba

Austin American Statesman Article: Giant Houses in Small Neighborhoods Giant houses in little neighborhoods is almost as bad as giant houses in giant neighborhoods.  And to successfully rationalize this trend as creating value to match what was paid for the lot the house sits on, takes ignoring a lot of realities. Forgetting the moral arguments where one compares house size to castle size, and how the average size new home talked about in the article is roughly five times the size of the average house in American in 1959.   Or how the waste of building materials to create something multiple times the size any family needs, and then the cost of heating and cooling something many times the size a family needs; or the confusion so many Americans have of the difference between ‘want’ and ‘need’; there is the simple equation that an expensive lot with a new house comparable to a neighborhood size standard will still be worth more than the investment.  Often, quite a lot more.

How Dirty Does It Have to Get Before You Realize You’re Partly to Blame It makes one wonder: all the people over the past fifty years, pointing to how dirty politics had become; have they any sense of awareness that the pure filth brought about by the political extremists today—most from the religious right, but many on the left, too—is a direct result of their failure to vote?  The feckless rancidity of Ted Cruz, the bellicose stupidities of Donald Trump, the seemingly benign hostilities of a Greg Abbott; can those who sit out democracy, opting with open arms instead for it’s mindless little brother, capitalism, still be unaware that the tarnishing of politics is greatly furthered each time they don’t vote, when they don’t demand better people running for office? This rolling Constitutional crisis is caused by the Silent Majority letting the Vocal Minority not just drive the dialogue, but elect our representatives.  Civility is not dead, it just went to the mall for a Fr