“Stick to cycling!” the critics would howl whenever one of my columns or cartoons drifted off the back of racing or retailing and into the gutter of politics.
But cycling and politics are inextricably linked. With the right people at the helm, if you’re lucky, maybe you get peace and prosperity plus bike paths, open space and crosswalk push-buttons that you can reach from the saddle (and that actually work).
Ever negotiated with The Authorities while promoting a bike race? That’s politics. Sought cyclist-friendly safety improvements at a dangerous intersection? That’s politics too. Ditto dealing over e-bike access to — and speed limits on — bike paths, where most of the motors run on carbohydrates and water.
Thus my retort was inevitably something like: “You don’t like my work? Don’t watch. Plenty of other stuff to read around here. Now stand back and let The Big Dog bark.”
Well. That was then, and this is now.
I still feel as though I should be writing more about politics. But damme if it isn’t a long pull into a stiff wind.
No matter what else is on my mind, it’s always there in the background, ticking away. Could be an old analog clock; could be a time bomb. Only way to find out is to have a little look-see.
Last night it was a three-hour (!) YouTube stream of a school-board policy-committee meeting. Tonight it’s the steel-cage death match between Komrade Kamala and Felonious Punk.
As debates go tonight’s action seems likely to be less lofty than in the word’s modern definition (a regulated discussion of a proposition) and more like its two-fisted past (the Anglo-French debatre, from de- + batre, to beat, from the Latin battuere).
Jaysis wept, etc. Who wouldn’t rather write about cycling, given the choice? In another corner of this little shop of horrors I’m 300 words and counting into a post about Herself’s 2006 Soma Double Cross.
But Charlie Pierce had to go and pull my chain. Actually, he was pulling A.O. Furburger’s chain for not letting The New York Times call a fascist a fascist.
Wrote Chazbo:
He is a mentally unraveling out-and-out fascist and he is within a whisker of the White House again. He is a mortal threat to everything that is vital to the survival of this republic as we know it. To write about him as such, and to write about him as such every damn day from now until the first Tuesday of November is the proper, truthful, and, yes, the objective thing to do.
Talk about a long pull into a stiff wind. ’Tis a flick of the elbow Charlie is giving us so. I don’t propose to make every post about politics, but I feel as though it’s only proper to lay off the wheelsucking and stick my snout in the breeze now and then.
Mad Blog Media 
Go, Skid, go!
You’re up early, Mr. Supervisor. Is it pedaling or politics today? A bit of both?
We all need to take a pull when we see the elbow flick from the rider in front. Not taking a pull put us where we are. I will talk politics with anyone as long as they don’t get angry or start shouting. Sandy had that happen just the other morning while walking the Duffinator. He’s lucky she didn’t release the dog. A cult member is what, and that’s what we are dealing with sometimes. And, those that use them for their own purposes. But, I don’t know a single politician that could go one on one with the Mad Dog.
Politics and Italians/Irish go together like pork and beans. Now, go forth and rant!
School board stuff? You on a school board or just a glutton for punishment? I thought about it but asked my better half, who actually ran an education program (all of remedial studies) at a community college for a number of years. She asked me if I needed a padded cell.
Just got off a six year stint on the bike-ped advisory committee and a three year stint on the Public Safety Committee up here in the Democratic People’s Republic. The PSC chair asked me to stay on but the Mayor buried it. I’m not his favorite person given I’m not left of Karl Marx, am known to be a 2A advocate, and am on the board of directors of an NRA affiliated gun club. But the PSC committee chair and several members wanted me to stay on. Nope.
Fine. I’ll take the “pay cut” along with the loss of two big committee headaches (political change is up there with other Sisyphean efforts), although we did get some things done on the bikey-ped committee in the last six years. But it’s time for other people to take a pull on the front. I’ll drift back to the back of the paceline, take a few swigs of water, and catch my emotional breath.
Herself is a ward chair, and I give her a little assist with the email newsletter now and then, so I’ve met a few of the players down here.
One is on the APS school board, and her policy committee was streaming a meeting, so we thought we’d sit in, try to get a feel for who was doing the knifing and who was getting knifed. (I used to cover school boards in Bibleburg back in the Seventies, so I guess old habits die hard.)
School boards resemble the one-horse kingdoms run by retired brigands and warlords in Robert E. Howard potboilers, the back-of-beyond variety won at swordpoint, with heads on spikes and food tasters for the king.
About 10 minutes into last night’s meeting I was ready to put a few heads on spikes myself. Jaysis H., etc. School boards, a short stint on the police beat, and a water-board meeting that was conducted in what sounded to me like Cretan Linear B were the main reasons I shifted from reporting to the copy desk.
“Fuck that noise, I’ll chase commas with the rest of the drunkards,” I said.
My brother-in-law from Marriage v. 1.0 has been on the school board of his district up in the Adirondacks for a long time. But he is not a political ideologue. He is a large animal vet (Cornell Univ. vet school) and thinks people should be able to think their way out of a paper bag when they get a graduation certificate from a public school. Not a bad idea.
Just finished The New Look, an Apple TV+ offering that I’m guessing leaves many blocks unchecked in most recommendation algorithms. Great acting, gorgeous sets and film work, but I think when they asked the director about the plot, he heard them say “plod,” and he paced the damn thing accordingly.
(But hey, I’m married to a graphic designer with a degree in fashion, so these slugfests are part of the deal.)
My big take-away from what was supposed to be a biopic of Christian Dior was: there’s no such thing as fascist adjacent or fascist curious. Fascism is a disease that affects 30% of us, and it’s the job of the other 70%, on the left and the right, is to keep those deplorables in check. Because once it takes hold, the only solution is outsiders coming in and curb stomping your ass.
For real. Americans think it can’t happen here, but Sinclair “Red” Lewis showed them otherwise in his book of the same name. And Robert Heinlein was pretty close with “Revolt in 2100,” though his dictator was a religious huckster rather than a secular con man.
Always made me nervous how some Americans live for the antics of the British royal family. There was a reason we don’t have to bend a knee to that shower of bastards, as I recall.
One smallish (but significant) victory for the People here in Mizzouri — State supreme court today overruled both an Ashcroft (son of W. Bush’s toady) and a Limbaugh (cousin of the drug addict) to confirm that a reproductive rights amendment to the MO constitution will go forward for a vote in November. Otherwise, I would have had to steal an A-10 Thunderbolt II and nuke the state capital. That’s the only way to be sure. Dale in MO
Excellent news, Dale. Every little bit helps. When we still lived in Bibleburg the tiniest step forward would have us hootin’ and hollerin’ like we just hit the lottery.
Thank you all for your support! God (She) knows we need it! Dale
Take your pull; we welcome it.
Jeebus, Patrick. Are you down to 2% body fat? You could probably take first place to the top of L’Alp d’Huez!
Well, the weight is good, and the legs are OK, but to make the top 10 I’d need a little taste of whatever Jesus Hitler was on during that “debate.”
Watch the debates?
Trump sucked so hard, he gave himself hush money.
(John Fugelsang)
Ho ho ho! He shoots, he scores!