Taking a pull

September 10, 2024September 10, 2024 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments

“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.

Schooled

August 14, 2024 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 43 Comments

In which local news coverage fails to pass the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

This morning I have read three stories trumpeting $6.9 million in federal aid to help Albuquerque Public Schools acquire 20 electric school buses and related infrastructure — in the Albuquerque Journal, City Desk ABQ, and at KUNM — and not one of them tells me where APS will be getting its e-buses.

One would think that after the Albuquerque Rapid Transit debacle — in which e-buses from BYD began falling apart like big-box bicycles, and the understudy, New Flyer, suddenly faced a fraud complaint over charges that it failed to hold up its end of a wage-and-benefits deal — our local newsdawgs might want to sniff out something other than a PR flack’s farts. Especially since, as far as I know, diesel, hybrids, and compressed natural gas remain the modus operandi for the bulk of the city fleet.

This will apply to the APS fleet, too — once all the e-buses are buzzing along The Duck! City streets, they will represent about 10 percent of rolling stock.

So, after two cups of strong black coffee, two slices of toast, and much bad language Your Humble Narrator surfed hither and thither along the Infobahn before finally zooming in on a bus-dashboard photo in the City Desk ABQ story, where I spotted an IC logo, which, hey presto — belongs to IC Bus, which claims to be “the market leader in school bus manufacturing,” though I’ve never heard of it. But Wikipedia has.

Drilling down through the IC Bus website in the faint hope of finding out where these rigs come from I find the following: “We build them right, right here at home. “IC buses are made in Tulsa, Oklahoma, using quality materials, and are tested to rigorous safety and efficiency standards.”

Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it? Go Furthur, ladies and gents; go Furthur.

Oh, eat me. …

July 5, 2024July 5, 2024 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments

¡Basta ya! I embarked on a news diet yesterday. As in “fasting.”

Throughout the long Fourth I consumed exactly zero news, save for checking the weather to see if it was suitable for the healthy outdoor exercise.

And really, I could’ve just stepped outside for that.

But still. Shit.

The media had been keening without letup at a pitch that made an Irish wake look like sitting zazen. The Internet is said to be bottomless, the way a cup of joe used to be, but they came perilously close to filling the fucker up.

The fans in my 10-year-old MacBook Pro were approaching a Boeing level of failure. Every hot take a platter of steaming horseshit, smack in the gob. In my Father’s Bistro there are Many Dishes, I mused blasphemously. I sure as hell don’t have to eat this shit.

So I pulled a Level One Roberto Duran: “No más, no más.”

As mentioned in the previous post, yesterday I took my coffee on the couch, not at the desk. After breakfast Herself and I went for a short trail run. I followed that up with a 90-minute ride.

Then I set a loaf of bread to baking, poured the fixings for Sarah DiGregorio’s chipotle-honey chicken tacos into the Crock-Pot, argued with the Voices in my head about which of our many subscriptions we should cancel, entertained Miss Mia Sopaipilla, and served up the grub.

The three of us dined in front of the TV, streaming a couple episodes of “The Bear,” season three. (Spoiler alert: There was less hollering, even when Sugar was in labor.)

Afterward we joined the neighbors for their annual fireworks extravaganza in the cul-de-sac. No flyers or boomers, just ground-level sparklers and sizzlers. But an enjoyable tradition nonetheless.

One of the grandkids was leaping and cavorting throughout, trying to grab a handful of smoke, as grandpa performed his pyrotechnical wizardry. I caught my share of the exhaust while sitting down, in my clothing, eyes, and windpipe, and both Herself and I had to hit the showers afterward to hose off the residue of whatever those wily foreign devils put in their whizbangs.

The Republic I left to its own devices. I expect there was no shortage of counsel, and plenty of fireworks, too.

• Meanwhile, a housekeeping note: If any of you have tried and failed to post a comment recently, and you are using an Apple device, the problem may reside with the Safari browser. Herself was able to comment from an M1 Mac Mini using Firefox. I’ve pinged the WordPress people and will get back to you with whatever they have to say. But in the meantime, you might try using another browser to make your voices heard.

Sallying Fourth

July 4, 2024July 4, 2024 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments

Five-thirty in the morning. Doors and windows open to a cooling breeze. Birds and crickets singing up the sun.

An old analog clock ticks off the seconds. The clock is the front wheel of a bicycle. I don’t think of this as time rolling away from me, because this tiny bicycle’s wheels do not move. But the hands of its clock do — tick, tock; tick, tock — so maybe I’m mistaken. I’m a scribbler, not a theoretical physicist.

As dawn unfolds the lawn looks good from my perch on the couch. After yesterday’s ride on an actual bicycle I watered, mowed, raked, and just sort of generally tidied up back there. This morning I’ve set aside my traditional practice of washing down the news of the day — The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Albuquerque Journal, The New Mexican, et al. — with the first cup of coffee. I’ve had enough of their squawking for the moment — call it a declaration of independence — so this limited reconnaissance from the couch will have to serve as my newsgathering as the sun comes up on this Fourth of July.

My first post this morning, like the ticking bicycle clock, was analog. I stepped outside and stuck our two cheapo plastic flags into the dirt at either side of the front walkway. Right side up, too.

I was thinking of our old Bibleburg friend and neighbor, Marv Berkman, who when asked why a freethinking old saloon picker like himself would fly the Stars and Stripes every morning replied, “I don’t want those people to think they’re the only ones who can do it.”

Thumbing it in soft

May 30, 2024May 30, 2024 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 4 Comments

Above you’ll see the latest example of what The New York Times finds consequential this morning.

At upper right on the homepage was more Pulitzer bait: “Should you delay your morning caffeine? Some influencers say that doing so can offer benefits. We looked at the evidence.”

Well. Shit. I thought we had a couple-three wars, the trial of a former president, and some vigorous debate over whether Supreme Court justices are answerable to anyone who isn’t a yacht bro going on. But I remain slightly muddled by the Snotlocker Surprise and may have missed a memo.

This other bullshit — what the hell, let’s add “Hundreds of readers told us their favorite soundtracks. Which came out on top?” — is strictly from the Whisky Dick Department; soft and useless.

It’s bad enough that editors are assigning this shit and parking it up top on the homepage and app. If people are actually burning 17 minutes of their day reading it we’re in more trouble than I thought. Especially if they haven’t caffeinated yet.

Back to you, Charlamagne.