Bikes Could Change the World: Part 1 - Pollution

-(photo from [a daily dose of imagery])

Biking as pollution awarness vehicle: 

I've been commuting using my bike at the beginning/end of the trip, both ways, for almost two weeks now. It has given me an entirely fresh perspective on the car culture in the US. I'm hoping that this will be the beginning of an on-going series exploring my thoughts on how biking could change the way we do things in this country, if people would embrace the bicycle.

One of my first experiences on the bike as I made my way to the train station last week, was getting stuck behind a delivery truck. It was a rather old truck, the big white box for transporting various goods around the city, and as per usual, a big BLACK cloud of smoke was emanating from it tail pipe every time it took off from a light. Here little me comes along on my bicycle, huffing and puffing, trying to make it to the station in time. I go right through the black cloud and try as hard as I can to not breathe, even though my legs are screaming for more oxygen. I've never hated big trucks with their nasty black spew more than at that moment. Luckily, the truck turned off the road a few blocks later.

And oh the smells you smell- the fresh moist fog thickened air of morning, the salty tang of the ocean breeze in your face, the buttery rich smell of a bakery on a corner,  the aromic smell of freshly cut grass, the organic smell of decay from a dumpster, the toxic waste putresence of an open sewer, the rotten egg smell of sulfur dioxide, the acrid smell of gasoline dripping loose into the street, the taste of tar in the back of your mouth sent by fresh asphault, the smell of your own sticky sweat. 

This is probably the most obvious example of how a bicycle based culture would really create some major change. The very very least it would do is help to reduce emissions because people would realize that they are sucking all that crap into their lungs. We ARE ALREADY (!) sucking this crap into our lungs, but you don't realize it as readily as when you are actually gasping for air, or maybe even thinking of your own body as an engine. You put in some fuel (food), some air intake (oxygen), and you have some exhaust (carbon dioxide). What happens when the fuel or air intake is polluted? You get a crappy running engine/body. It just makes you more aware of the fact that this is going on all the time without people realizing it. By removing the bubble shell that is the automobile, and actually being outside in the environment, you become much more in touch with the things that are going on with the world around you. 

Hungry Hungry Hippos

Another Blue Bench

from the Train

Michael Pollan is the BOMB!

The man, Michael Pollan, recently wrote a piece for the NYTimes Online Magazine. He wrote a letter to Mr. President-Elect: and I find this is one of his best summaries of the entire problem. If you are interested in reading about how Food is at the center of many of the problems we face as a society today, please read this article. Here is a quote:

"Which brings me to the deeper reason you will need not simply to address food prices but to make the reform of the entire food system one of the highest priorities of your administration: unless you do, you will not be able to make significant progress on the health care crisis, energy independence or climate change. Unlike food, these are issues you did campaign on — but as you try to address them you will quickly discover that the way we currently grow, process and eat food in America goes to the heart of all three problems and will have to change if we hope to solve them."

In reading this article, I have found it to be a very good summary of The Omnivore's Dilemma. If you don't have time/desire to read Pollan's whole book, at least read this article, because this whole food issue has so many overlapping issues that effect us today. 

The Girl in Pink

Democratic Congress in Full Power?

The NYTimes always does a good job of having interactive maps for the various elections during the Fall. Here you will find a map of the House race, and here you will find a map of the Senate race. 

Things are looking good for the Democrats, and really, I think, for a reduction in the average age of the congresspeople. The incumbents are dropping, maybe not like flies, but they are losing their iron clad grip on the congress. That, in conjunction with the fact that many of these old foogies are retiring, will hopefully result in some kind of a POST-WWII-military-industrial-complex. I think that the Nixonites are finally getting out of politics. We've seen that with the retirement of the whole Bush cabinet Rumsfeld, Cheney, et al, and I think that we're starting to see the shift with Congress as well. I don't know about anyone else out there, but I really don't want to spend the rest of my life paying for our parents and grand-parents fuck ups, even though that is exactly what we are going to do. Maybe that unfair, and it really is just the grand-parents (the Greatest Generation) who fucked it up the worst and now the 40-50 year old politicians (our parents age) are getting a chance to fuck it all up now. We can only hope that some closet hippies get some power now!

I guess I HOPE (and I hate having hope- it's usually false hope), I HOPE that just maybe our culture will shift after this election, into something more sustainable. That is really the nut of all of our problems if you stop to think about it- we need a sustainable economy (this military-industrial economy is a boom-bust-boom-bust cycle)- we need a sustainable agricultural system (industrial-General Mills-Monsanto-Cargill-agriculture is killing us one obese child at a time)- we need sustainable energy (so we don't end up choking on what amounts to our own energy excrement)- we need a sustainable healthcare system (instead of one that has an exponential rise in cost)- and finally, we need a sustainable housing system (instead of this bonkers suburbian housing development thing with asphault being laid all over perfectly good farmable land). 

The World Election

Liz sent me this link from the Economist online, and I just had to pass it on, way to cool. Not that I'm suprised. 

Economy, what economy?

In case anyone out there in blogland has been living in a internet ready cave, we are going through a major downturn in the world economy. Perhaps, at least on a global level, for the first time. The folks over at This American Life have done an excellent job of describing just what the mortgage meltdown was all about, and this week they followed it up with an explaination of just WHAT THE FUCK has been happening in the last few weeks. I highly recommend you listen to these two podcasts, in this order, and it will help to clear up exactly what has been happening this year to all those poor wittle baby fatcats on Wallstreet:

The Giant Pool of Money 

Another Frightening Show About the Economy 

Things Are Getting Dirty

October is the month for getting down and dirty. In one corner we have Sarah Palin- taking shots at Obama's knee caps (here), she's apearantly White House Guard Dog elect. On the other hand we have Rolling Stone questioning McCain's military record in this article. Personally, I think both of them are reaching, and they've managed to tear up the bushes, pull up all the sod, and now they've finally made it down to the mud. 

UPDATE: Link- looks like they've completely abandoned even the pretense of truth.