(ALIVE & KICKING) NOTES FROM A FRIDAY AFTERNOON
bending the notes of my mind.
For your consideration: another curious collection
of thoughts, reactions, and observations that didn't make it into a full-length
post this week. So they're sort of like all the shows you could be watching
when you busy watching the Olympics. But without all those annoying commercial
breaks...
• First, a bunch of follow-ups to yesterday's post about bikes and cars and their inevitable showdowns on city streets and comment threads... A regular TWM reader wrote to agree with much of what I said, but to take issue with Bram's "100% of all cyclists" comment. It's important to note, I think, that Bram didn't say 100% of all cyclists everywhere break traffic laws; he said that 100% of all the cyclists he's taken the time to watch and observe. Now. You can argue about whether or not that's true, and about whether or not there must have been some cyclist, somewhere in the city, that he watched for more than five seconds who didn't break a traffic law, but the simple fact remains that, in his experience, (damned near?) all of them have.
• In my experience, to be fair, I'd say the number is about 75%. (Though it often feels like 100%.) That number was borne out this morning, when three of the four bikers I saw blew through stop signs and/or traffic lights. My favorite was the women who blew through her stop sign and rode right in front of me -- if I'd not jammed on the brakes, I'd have broadsided her -- even though I had no stop sign in my direction; she yelled at me, of course, even though I did nothing wrong and was alert enough to have prevented the accident. Uh, yeah, lady -- you're welcome.
• It's worth noting that I also saw about a half dozen cars careening like assholes around the East End, including one guy who passed me twice -- yes, twice; he was in a hurry, but he wasn't particularly bright -- on two different streets, neither of which allow passing. Both times he crossed the center line to do it. The speed limit, apparently, is just too damned slow for him.
• I guess he was just doing it for the betterment of the car traffic [he was] in and avoiding.
• If I were asked for a solution to this endless discussion -- and Lord knows I wasn't -- I'd suggest a thorough (re-)consideration of all traffic laws, a clear articulation of how and when they do (or do not) apply to people in bikes, and then a simple but rigorous statewide licensing process. If cars and motorcycles and scooters have to be licensed to travel on Pennsylvania roadways, then let's do the same for bicycles. And if drivers of cars and motorcycles and scooters have to be licensed to operate those vehicles on Pennsylvania roadways, then let's do the same for bicyclists. Just as you do for those other licenses, you have to pass both a written and a road test to prove you're skilled (or at least competent) enough to operate your bike on a public thoroughfare. Car and motorcycle tests (both written and road) should be amended and updated to ensure that people passing those tests also understand how bicycles must follow (or, perhaps, not always follow) the rules of the road. You have education, certification, elevated status, and legal accountability all rolled into one. As an added bonus, you also have more money rolling into the state coffers. This solution won't solve all the problems -- we test and license automobile drivers, and look at how many idiots and assholes still make it onto the road -- but the screening and tracking would, as they do with cars and motorcycles and their drivers, provide a welcome layer of awareness and responsibility.
• A first-time TWM emailer -- we'll call him Mr. J. -- wrote to compliment Tuesday's Steelers-want-a-state-grant post, and then to raise an issue I'd planned to address but ultimately cut for the sake of a consistent theme: I wonder though if their business planning quantifies the NEW tax revenues that this project would generate. As long as Pittsburgh is a dying small market, it seems to me that any "entertainment" development is playing in a zero-sum game, and will merely redistribute dollars from, say the South Side Works to the new venue. In that situation, everyone is likely to lose.
• Well, everyone except the Steelers.
• Can someone explain to me why our esteemed President thinks he has the right, much less the moral high ground, to protest another country's deadly invasion of a sovereign state based on some trumped-up, bullshit rationale? Anyone?
• While we're trying to unscrew the inscrutable... Can someone please explain to me why we need to know every last excruciating detail of John Edwards' affair? Now that we know he did it, are the timelines really so important? Is the paternity (or lack thereof) really any of our business? Will the Republic crumble and die if we fail to learn the time, location, and position of every one of John Edwards' adulterous orgasms?
• The funniest read I had all week was undoubtedly this opinion piece by Special Olympics Chairman Timothy Shriver. In it, Shriver wrings his hands and rends his garments over the new Ben Stiller comedy Tropic Thunder, which will apparently bring about both the downfall of civilization and the brutalization of all people with disabilities because, while mocking Hollywood actors and awards conventions, the film includes 17 uses of the R-Word. (That would be retard.) Mr. Shriver needs to learn a little more about satire and context and the difference between depicting something and actually endorsing it. (Perhaps he should go to work for the Obama Campaign. Or MSNBC.)
• Mr. Shriver also needs to learn how best to protest something. Repeating its name over and over and over again, almost as if it were your mantra -- 12 times in all, including "Don't show or see Tropic Thunder" and Stop "Tropic Thunder" and "It's time to raise our voices against "Tropic Thunder" -- merely assures that we can not possibly forget the name of what it is you want us to forget. Or oppose. Or ban. (Yes. He wants to ban it. Really.)
• I wonder if Mr. Shriver thinks that Spike Lee is a racist, and that all of his films that include the N-Word should be banned or at least boycotted. (And we won't even discuss that scene in which racist cops kill a young black man in Do the Right Thing. What sort of a thing is that to show to impressionable youngsters and police academy trainees?) Or, perhaps, if he thinks that Steven Spielberg is an Anti-Semite, because some of his films depict horrible slurs and crimes and violence against Jews. (Why, in Munich and Schindler's List alone more Jews die on screen than in most other movies I've seen put together. What kind of a message does that send?)
• Those two idiot college professors embarrassing themselves, their students, the schools, and their professions in that hot new YouTube video? Don't be fooled into thinking that's the story. The real story is what happens -- or, more accurately, what won't happen -- next. If you held a job in the real world and behaved like that in public -- with the professionalism of a middle-schooler, the maturity of a kindergartener, and the vulgarity of a drunken sailor -- you'd be fired immediately. And rightly so. But both universities are currently looking into the situation. Which means they'll talk to a few people, maybe convene a small panel of insiders to discuss it, and then, when time has passed and everyone has forgotten about it, do absolutely nothing. He's a tenured white male professor. She's a young, African-American female professor. Which means neither one of them will suffer anything more than a wink and nod and the gentlest of disappointed slaps on the wrist. You heard it here first.
• Communication professors. Both of them. My God. Watching those two in that video is like watching a med school professor stab someone in the chest. For nine minutes.
• The If It Ain't Broke, Don't Even Think About Fixing It, and If You Must Fix It, At Least Don't Destroy Much of What Made the Unbroken Original So Great Award goes to the "New Facebook." Tabbed layers of information are precisely what I don't want in a site like that; the fun for both creator and visitor was in the controlled flow and contained chaos of the single page. The only saving grace so far is that users have not been compelled to switch over. That day, I fear, is coming. It will also be the day I start using the site a whole lot less.
• The film version of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince postponed until July 17th, 2009? Less than 24 hours before the first trailer hits theaters and proclaims its originally scheduled release date? Oh, Warner Bros., you're risking the wrath of a hell of a lot of pissed-off muggles for the sake of next year's balance sheet. Good luck with that.
• And, finally... I know there's no way in hell that it is, but somewhere, deep down inside of me, the ten-year-old boy who always loved scary stories and legends and tall tales really kinda hopes that is a Bigfoot in that freezer. And wherever he is, you can bet that Roger Patterson does too...
• First, a bunch of follow-ups to yesterday's post about bikes and cars and their inevitable showdowns on city streets and comment threads... A regular TWM reader wrote to agree with much of what I said, but to take issue with Bram's "100% of all cyclists" comment. It's important to note, I think, that Bram didn't say 100% of all cyclists everywhere break traffic laws; he said that 100% of all the cyclists he's taken the time to watch and observe. Now. You can argue about whether or not that's true, and about whether or not there must have been some cyclist, somewhere in the city, that he watched for more than five seconds who didn't break a traffic law, but the simple fact remains that, in his experience, (damned near?) all of them have.
• In my experience, to be fair, I'd say the number is about 75%. (Though it often feels like 100%.) That number was borne out this morning, when three of the four bikers I saw blew through stop signs and/or traffic lights. My favorite was the women who blew through her stop sign and rode right in front of me -- if I'd not jammed on the brakes, I'd have broadsided her -- even though I had no stop sign in my direction; she yelled at me, of course, even though I did nothing wrong and was alert enough to have prevented the accident. Uh, yeah, lady -- you're welcome.
• It's worth noting that I also saw about a half dozen cars careening like assholes around the East End, including one guy who passed me twice -- yes, twice; he was in a hurry, but he wasn't particularly bright -- on two different streets, neither of which allow passing. Both times he crossed the center line to do it. The speed limit, apparently, is just too damned slow for him.
• I guess he was just doing it for the betterment of the car traffic [he was] in and avoiding.
• If I were asked for a solution to this endless discussion -- and Lord knows I wasn't -- I'd suggest a thorough (re-)consideration of all traffic laws, a clear articulation of how and when they do (or do not) apply to people in bikes, and then a simple but rigorous statewide licensing process. If cars and motorcycles and scooters have to be licensed to travel on Pennsylvania roadways, then let's do the same for bicycles. And if drivers of cars and motorcycles and scooters have to be licensed to operate those vehicles on Pennsylvania roadways, then let's do the same for bicyclists. Just as you do for those other licenses, you have to pass both a written and a road test to prove you're skilled (or at least competent) enough to operate your bike on a public thoroughfare. Car and motorcycle tests (both written and road) should be amended and updated to ensure that people passing those tests also understand how bicycles must follow (or, perhaps, not always follow) the rules of the road. You have education, certification, elevated status, and legal accountability all rolled into one. As an added bonus, you also have more money rolling into the state coffers. This solution won't solve all the problems -- we test and license automobile drivers, and look at how many idiots and assholes still make it onto the road -- but the screening and tracking would, as they do with cars and motorcycles and their drivers, provide a welcome layer of awareness and responsibility.
• A first-time TWM emailer -- we'll call him Mr. J. -- wrote to compliment Tuesday's Steelers-want-a-state-grant post, and then to raise an issue I'd planned to address but ultimately cut for the sake of a consistent theme: I wonder though if their business planning quantifies the NEW tax revenues that this project would generate. As long as Pittsburgh is a dying small market, it seems to me that any "entertainment" development is playing in a zero-sum game, and will merely redistribute dollars from, say the South Side Works to the new venue. In that situation, everyone is likely to lose.
• Well, everyone except the Steelers.
• Can someone explain to me why our esteemed President thinks he has the right, much less the moral high ground, to protest another country's deadly invasion of a sovereign state based on some trumped-up, bullshit rationale? Anyone?
• While we're trying to unscrew the inscrutable... Can someone please explain to me why we need to know every last excruciating detail of John Edwards' affair? Now that we know he did it, are the timelines really so important? Is the paternity (or lack thereof) really any of our business? Will the Republic crumble and die if we fail to learn the time, location, and position of every one of John Edwards' adulterous orgasms?
• The funniest read I had all week was undoubtedly this opinion piece by Special Olympics Chairman Timothy Shriver. In it, Shriver wrings his hands and rends his garments over the new Ben Stiller comedy Tropic Thunder, which will apparently bring about both the downfall of civilization and the brutalization of all people with disabilities because, while mocking Hollywood actors and awards conventions, the film includes 17 uses of the R-Word. (That would be retard.) Mr. Shriver needs to learn a little more about satire and context and the difference between depicting something and actually endorsing it. (Perhaps he should go to work for the Obama Campaign. Or MSNBC.)
• Mr. Shriver also needs to learn how best to protest something. Repeating its name over and over and over again, almost as if it were your mantra -- 12 times in all, including "Don't show or see Tropic Thunder" and Stop "Tropic Thunder" and "It's time to raise our voices against "Tropic Thunder" -- merely assures that we can not possibly forget the name of what it is you want us to forget. Or oppose. Or ban. (Yes. He wants to ban it. Really.)
• I wonder if Mr. Shriver thinks that Spike Lee is a racist, and that all of his films that include the N-Word should be banned or at least boycotted. (And we won't even discuss that scene in which racist cops kill a young black man in Do the Right Thing. What sort of a thing is that to show to impressionable youngsters and police academy trainees?) Or, perhaps, if he thinks that Steven Spielberg is an Anti-Semite, because some of his films depict horrible slurs and crimes and violence against Jews. (Why, in Munich and Schindler's List alone more Jews die on screen than in most other movies I've seen put together. What kind of a message does that send?)
• Those two idiot college professors embarrassing themselves, their students, the schools, and their professions in that hot new YouTube video? Don't be fooled into thinking that's the story. The real story is what happens -- or, more accurately, what won't happen -- next. If you held a job in the real world and behaved like that in public -- with the professionalism of a middle-schooler, the maturity of a kindergartener, and the vulgarity of a drunken sailor -- you'd be fired immediately. And rightly so. But both universities are currently looking into the situation. Which means they'll talk to a few people, maybe convene a small panel of insiders to discuss it, and then, when time has passed and everyone has forgotten about it, do absolutely nothing. He's a tenured white male professor. She's a young, African-American female professor. Which means neither one of them will suffer anything more than a wink and nod and the gentlest of disappointed slaps on the wrist. You heard it here first.
• Communication professors. Both of them. My God. Watching those two in that video is like watching a med school professor stab someone in the chest. For nine minutes.
• The If It Ain't Broke, Don't Even Think About Fixing It, and If You Must Fix It, At Least Don't Destroy Much of What Made the Unbroken Original So Great Award goes to the "New Facebook." Tabbed layers of information are precisely what I don't want in a site like that; the fun for both creator and visitor was in the controlled flow and contained chaos of the single page. The only saving grace so far is that users have not been compelled to switch over. That day, I fear, is coming. It will also be the day I start using the site a whole lot less.
• The film version of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince postponed until July 17th, 2009? Less than 24 hours before the first trailer hits theaters and proclaims its originally scheduled release date? Oh, Warner Bros., you're risking the wrath of a hell of a lot of pissed-off muggles for the sake of next year's balance sheet. Good luck with that.
• And, finally... I know there's no way in hell that it is, but somewhere, deep down inside of me, the ten-year-old boy who always loved scary stories and legends and tall tales really kinda hopes that is a Bigfoot in that freezer. And wherever he is, you can bet that Roger Patterson does too...
Posted: Fri - August 15, 2008 at 02:19 PM
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Published On: Jan 16, 2009 04:50 PM
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Published On: Jan 16, 2009 04:50 PM