Stumble To Work Day

Java stop
The point of getting out of bed in the morning.

It’s Bike To Work Day here in Colorado, but it seemed silly to go out to the garage to fetch a bike for the 27-step slog from bed to coffeemaker to iMac. So I walked instead. Sorry ’bout that.

I don’t see a word about BTWD on either of the websites attached to the newspapers that grace our fair community, surprise, surprise. In fairness, there are other stories to be covered, like the Supremes wiping their black-robed asses with the Voting Rights Act, Fort Cartoon losing a brigade and our summer-tourism piggy bank roasting on a very big spit.

Still, if more of us were encouraged to cycle to work instead of firing up the family battlewagon, maybe we would be less inclined to build our homes 30 miles from the cube farm, up in Yahweh’s kindling pile.

Meandering and Miranda

Elephant Rock, as seen from the bike trail near Palmer Lake.
Elephant Rock, as seen from the bike trail near Palmer Lake.

It’s Bike Month here in Colorado (yeah, we’re off the back on a lot of things, including that). So, lacking official duties, I went for a nice 50-mile ride to Palmer Lake and back.

I rode the Nobilette and took the trail, and it was just about as perfect a day as could be. Just a wee bit of cross/head wind on the way out and mostly tail wind on the way home. Fat city. I celebrated with the leftovers from yesterday’s Memorial Day steak, spuds and broccoli feast and then treated myself to a short nap.

All good things must come to an end, of course. I awakened to find that yet another 5-4 majority of the Supremes has been chiseling away at the Miranda decision again. From The Washington Post:

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in the sharpest dissent of her young career on the court, accused the majority of casting aside judicial restraint and creating a rule that marks “a substantial retreat from the protection against compelled self-incrimination” that Miranda established more than 40 years ago.

“Today’s decision turns Miranda upside down,” Sotomayor wrote. “Criminal suspects must now unambiguously invoke their right to remain silent, which, counterintuitively, requires them to speak.” She was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.

Well, boys, there you have it. When the deal goes down and the coppers have you in that windowless back room, give out with two quick sentences — “I ain’t sayin’ shit, and I want my lawyer” — and then shut the fuck up. Assuming you ever want to enjoy another glorious June outing on the bike, that is.