The prez didn’t score any points here in Dog Country with tonight’s Oval Office address. More later after we gargle a little tonsil polish to take the taste of bullshit out of our mouths.

• John Nichols of The Nation.

• Kevin Drum of Mother Jones.

• The editorial board of The New York Times.

August 31st, 2010 | Category: Deep political thought | Comments (5)

Laurent Fignon died today in Paris of cancer. He was all of 50 years old.

Most Americans remember him as the pony-tailed dude that Greg LeMond punked by eight seconds in the 1989 Tour. But Fignon had a fine career of his own, winning the Tour twice (1983-84) and the Giro once (1989), and taking the flowers in some memorable one-day races as well (Milan-San Remo in 1988-89, Fleche Wallonne in 1986 and Paris-Camembert in 1989). Seventy-six victories in all. Not bad for a French hippie.

Fignon later confessed to doping during his career, and wondered whether it might have had some role in his disease. In his book “We Were Young and Carefree” he wrote: “In those days everyone was doing it. But it is impossible to know to what extent doping harms you. Whether those who lived through 1998, when a lot of extreme things happened, will get cancer after 10 or 20 years, I really can’t say.”

Requiescat in pace, Professor.

August 31st, 2010 | Tags: Laurent Fignon | Category: Bike stuff | Comments (7)

Happy birthday to expat cartoonist Robert Crumb from me and Tom Waits.

August 30th, 2010 | Tags: Robert Crumb, Tom Waits | Category: Arts & letters | Comments (2)

"Yo, America, baby ... lookin' good, honey. Say, did I tell you? I'm taking back the civil-rights movement for right-wing honky boneheads. Yeah, it makes me horny, too. But I wish you'd wear that Lady Liberty getup I got for you at the adult bookstore. I know, I know — it was slightly used. 'Pre-owned,' the guy said. But it was cheap, and you know we can't add to the deficit."

Elmer Gantry, courtesy of Sinclair Lewis:

“Let me count this day, Lord, as the beginning of a new and more vigorous life, as the beginning of a crusade for complete morality and the domination of the Christian church throughout the land. Dear Lord, thy work is but begun! We shall yet make these United States a moral nation!”

And Glenn Beck, courtesy of (who else?) Glenn Beck:

“We are 12 hours away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America. And it has nothing to do with this city or politics. It has everything to do with God Almighty.”

The Gantry soliloquy comes at the end of the book. Let’s hope Beck’s tale is likewise coming to a close.

August 29th, 2010 | Tags: Elmer Gantry, Glenn Beck is full of shit | Category: Arts & letters, Deep political thought | Comments (19)

OK, yeah, right, not a lot of O’Grady®-label content around here lately, apologies, sorry sorry sorry. A tip of the Mad Dog propeller beanie to everyone keeping the sound cranked up to 11 in the comments so none of the other WordPress blogs can get any sleep.

Herself is on the road, helping her kinfolk marry off a youngun (no first cousins were harmed in the making of this marriage, or so I’m told). Thus, for a few days now I’ve been on my own, which is never pretty, as I revert to bachelorhood at warp speed.

Lacking adult supervision, I know that there is still a place for everything, but that place has become the floor. No one in authority suggests the use of the inside voice during attempts at debt collection. Meals tend to be infrequent, unheated and taken over the sink, and the only laundry that gets done involves colorfully sublimated Lycra.

An extra added attraction this time around is that my road bike tried to assassinate me, a titanium Virgil “The Turk” Sollozzo to my all-too-vulnerable Don Vito Corleone, knowing that in Herself’s absence nobody had my back.

The treacherous titanium two-wheeler put me into a Death Wobble on a descent on Wednesday and I only survived the assault thanks to the intervention of the Blessed Virgin of Hell Is Full and Satan Is Busy But Your Call Is Important To Us And Will Be Answered In the Order In Which It Was Received.

Either that or the cats implored their dark lord to spare the hairy-legged roadie, if only until The Chosen One returns from West Texas. They have yet to master the filling of the dish and the emptying of the litter box.

August 27th, 2010 | Tags: Cats, Herself, The Death Wobble, The Godfather | Category: Arts & letters, Bike stuff, Just mumbling along, La famiglia | Comments (20)

Call me a sap, but I found this tale of a motorist-cyclist encounter reassuring, especially considering that it’s Monday, when evil tidings abound. Thanks to Bruce M., for the tip.

August 23rd, 2010 | Tags: cyclist vs. motorist, Man bites dog | Category: Just mumbling along | Comments (25)

"Peace be with you." "And also with you."

Once again we take our sermon from the Book of Comments, chapter 36, verse 49, “Yea, though we ride through the Valley of Death, etc., et al., and so on and so forth.”

The discussion about Reed Bates and his two-wheeled run-in with Texas law enforcement touches on a topic that affects me since I caught the bug of bicycle touring.

My recent reconnaissance of south-central Colorado highways gave me a bad case of The Fear — getting to some of the places I’d like to visit via bicycle would require me to share long stretches of skinny highway with wide vehicles, many of them traveling well above the posted speed limit of (usually) 65 mph.

I can ride these roads — I’m just not certain it’s smart. And while I’m trying to find suitable workarounds, they’re few and far between, our roads having been designed and constructed with infernal combustion in mind.

As a teen-ager I could and did cycle on Academy Boulevard here in Bibleburg. Today, better you should stay at home and shoot yourself in the head; it’s a cleaner, less agonizing death. And there are other roads I once cycled but now avoid because the auto traffic is too heavy, or there’s no shoulder, or what shoulder there is looks like Fort Cartoon has been using it for artillery practice.

This kind of self-segregation irks me, but I want to enjoy my rides, and finish them upright instead of in the back of an ambulance (or a hearse).

“What is to be done?” asked Lenin. I don’t care to battle The Man for my two-wheeled share of Academy, Marksheffel, Union, Circle, Powers or any of the other major thoroughfares in Bibleburg. But I would like a nice, wide slice of westbound Highways 24 and 50, both of which are gateways to some pretty attractive country.

Seems to me, then, that in the absence of an endless supply of ammo, we need sharpshooters who pick their targets carefully and nail them with the first round.

August 21st, 2010 | Tags: Share the road | Category: Just mumbling along | Comments (18)