They had stayed put Sunday despite a voluntary evacuation order, but this morning Khal told me via e-mail that ash was raining down on their house. A few hours later he sent a brief note: “Outa here: Mandatory evacuation. Talk to you soon. I hope.” He’s been blogging about the fire at Los Alamos Bikes, but I expect updates will be few and far between as they get themselves and their critters to safety.
So, like the headline says, keep your fingers crossed — not just for Khal and Meena, but for all the other folks dodging fiery bullets down there in New Mexico. And I’ll keep you posted.
We’ve been getting a taste of burning Arizona timber lately thanks to the Wallow Fire, which at last glance had scorched more than 120,000 acres near the Arizona-New Mexico border.
Could be worse, I suppose. We could be living in the path of the sonofabitch, which shows no signs of petering out thanks to high winds and a wealth of fuel. Or we could still be living in Santa Fe, which has been seeing ash fall from that fire and four homegrown conflagrations.
Come to think of it, it wouldn’t take much to set Bibleburg alight. It’s been drier than a popcorn fart here, so much so that local officials are conducting fire drills, and as you know we are not exactly lacking for small hat sizes. A smoldering butt flicked out of an SUV window, an unattended campfire or a live-fire exercise gone wrong at Fort Cartoon and we won’t have to worry about those beetle-killed pines anymore.
The Jamis Aurora Elite, rigged for heavy touring. I've been riding this for a couple of weeks now. I'd tell you about it, but then the folks at Adventure Cyclist magazine would have to kill you.
Again with the hysterical gas-prices stories. The difference in this latest run-up, says analyst Trilby Lundberg, is that the national average price of $3.765 would be even higher had refiners and retailers passed on rising crude-oil prices to consumers, who already seem reluctant to put that tiger in their tanks as the mythical $4-per-gallon ceiling looms like a windshield full of oncoming Peterbilt with a full load of live pigs and a drunk, texting driver who doesn’t realize that he’s drifted across the yellow line into oncoming traffic.
“Demand has been falling at these prices,” Lundberg told the Reuters news agency.
I bet. If you don’t have a job — anyone remember the unemployment figures? You know, the story that kinda-sorta mattered before deficits, gas prices and The Donald sucked all the metaphorical oxygen out of the virtual pressroom? — a tank of gas must look like a bottle of Cristal champagne; too rich for your tastes.
But if cash-strapped drivers are buying less gas, how are they getting from point A to point B? Driving hybrids? Scooters? Bicycles? Skateboards? Hush Puppies?
Being biased, I’d like to think “bicycles.” It’s spring, and the weather is improving — well, as much as a Coloradan can expect in April, anyway — and suddenly that two-mile commute from the family seat to the cube farm looks doable on two wheels.
But can the typical Chubbo-American too pinched to buy gas afford the kind of bikes my people sell, or even look at them without hearing their dads, long dead of heart disease, liver failure and homophobia, calling them gay? Are they gonna trade in the family battlewagon for a couple of gaudy plastic-fantastics with saddles shaped like designer perfume bottles and wheels that look like the rings of Saturn? Will they spring for the reasonably priced, sensible machinery like the bikes I’ve been reviewing for Adventure Cyclist magazine?
Frankly, I have no idea. But, ever the optimist, I keep envisioning a graphic depicting the Descent of Motorist — from SUV to small car to hybrid to motorcycle to scooter to pawn-shop bicycle to Keds.
I’ve always been able to find that dark cloud surrounding the silver lining.*
* And yes, I know those front panniers should be swinging lower than an old man’s testicles over the toilet, but I didn’t have a low-rider rack that would work with disc brakes.
Some of those tasty middle-class gigs that went away during The Great Recession aren’t coming back, says Kevin G. Hall at McClatchy.
It’s not exactly news — the author of the report cited, MIT economist David Autor, says the trend has been under way for more than a decade. But it got worse during the latest installment of hard times, with zero job growth for professionals and an 8 percent decline in office and administrative employment.
But wait, there’s more! Writes Hall: “This loss of middle-skill jobs — what Autor calls polarization of the job market — intersects with another discouraging trend, the concentration of wealth at the highest rungs of the wealth ladder.”
Another study, this one from UC-Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez, suggests “that the top 1 percent of earners in the nation captured almost half of the growth in income over a period of stellar growth in the U.S. economy.”
“And this,” Hall writes, “came against the backdrop of disappearing good-paying union jobs in manufacturing, and what now appears to be an escalating departure of well-paying middle-skill jobs.”
Like I said, hardly news — the rich getting richer is right up there with “Dog Bites Man,” headline-wise. But still, is it any wonder that Miss Mia Sopaipilla is checking under the range for loose change? She has no idea where her next bowl of kitty chow is coming from.
People sometimes ask me, “Mr. Mad Dog, dude, sir, why on earth did you ever abandon the spectacular high-country beauty of Crusty County for the gritty unreality of the clusteropolis known as Bibleburg?”
The answer lies (or rather, jogs) here. A few more years on that wind-scoured rockpile outside Weirdcliffe and I’d have started running barefoot in the snow, too. What the fuck, it was only 10 miles to the liquor store, and most of it was on pavement.
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