a midway bikelog

Confirming what many of us have felt this summer, the Strib is reporting that bicycle injuries are markedly up from previous years. It’s one of the more balance articles on cycling issues this year, with the minimal token note that “Everybody needs to pay more attention, both the bicycle and the driver”. Don’t bother reading the story comments, they just bum everybody out.

The related story is about Virginia Heuer Bower, a 51-year-old cyclist who was killed in just the last few days on Summit Ave., a well-traveled route widely considered to be a safe place to ride a bike. The number of cyclists did increase by a good margin this year, but i don’t believe it explains the full increase in bike/car injuries. Driver attitudes have hardened too, and i’ve had more drivers yell at me or friends this year than average, and witnessed more than average poor driving behavior that is more malevolent than simple inattention.

The great promise of having more bikes in the streets is that as more cyclists use the streets, the more drivers will expect to see cyclists. This seems to be happening, but it also seems true that it’s bringing to a head the frustration of some drivers who are being much more overt in their misguided belief that bikes just don’t belong on the road. I still think more bikes on the street is a good thing, and that attitudes will come around. At the same time, if/when the number of commuting cyclists hits a point of critical mass (NOT the ride) on a regular basis such that it impacts the flow of auto traffic, public opinion will finally swing toward supporting some infrastructure that either provides protected and efficient cycling space or better planning that calms auto traffic down to the posted speed limits.

In other news, gas shortages are threatening college football, and there was some sort of kerfuffle with the stock market that i blissfully missed because i was on a splendid little bike tour. Leaves are changing, and the woolly caterpillars are on the move. It’s a good time to pause and smell the beginning of fall.

Lots of interesting developments on the idea of financial bailouts this week, with our economy tanking and the executive branch making a power grab. We need to keep banks solvent, but the companies and their executives who screwed up should suffer the brunt of the pain. There’s also a real conflict of interest issue as the government hires people from these failed firms to clean up the mess they themselves created. It’s not just a matter of getting thin concessions to get a bill passed, it’s a serious question of balance of power in the government that should not be committed to in a week.

A couple of good reference articles:

Sen. Bernie Sanders, Robert Scheer and Dean Baker on the Proposed $700 Billion Bailout of Wall Street, the Largest Government Bailout of Private Industry in US History

DEAN BAKER: Absolutely, and this speaks to the nature of the bailout. The bailout should not be fun, if it’s constructed right. … But the bailout has to be punitive, if it’s serious. It shouldn’t be a field day. We shouldn’t have people lining up to get in.

ROBERT SCHEER: …you know, there is a model for this, and Mussolini had it in Italy, and it’s called “fascism.” It’s where your big corporate interests throw in with government, destroy the freedom of the rest of the people, and preserve their power. Everybody forgets, private corporations and banks did quite well, made out quite well in Italy and Germany in those days, you know?

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: For years now, they’ve told us that we can’t afford—that the government providing healthcare to all people is just unimaginable; it can’t be done. We don’t have the money to rebuild our infrastructure. We don’t have the money to wipe out poverty. We can’t do it. But all of a sudden, yeah, we do have $700 billion for a bailout of Wall Street.

The Swedish banking crisis response – a model for the future?

One way of limiting moral hazard problems was to engage in tough negotiations with the banks that needed support and to enforce the principle that losses were to be covered in the first place with the capital provided by shareholders.

This whole idea of the trading of mortgages, as a regular non-financial analyst person, strikes me as a house of cards built purely for the purpose of having another outlet for market traders to skim money from the economy. It seems like there are layers of market trading in all kinds of sectors where the only purpose is to move money around in an Office Space-like scheme to grab the fractional pennies.

I’m starting to question the whole investment structure. My 401(k) is starting to feel like Social Security; i’m going to have to assume that neither will be there for me when/if i retire. It begs the question of why i’m continuing to put money into the house of cards.

Go go Megyn Kelly, she knows her shit and stands up for it against the loudest, dumbest asshole on TV. I wonder how fast she was fired for taking O’Reilly down a notch on the air. Good for her, for not letting him get away with his smug bullshitting. She’s too good for FOX News.

Like many others, i’ve been playing around a bit with the new iTunes version 8 software, and the new Genius feature. They have some sort of algorithm that will build a playlist for you based on picking a song to seed the list. Here’s the first one it made for me, based on choosing the first song in the list. I’m not sure what this says of my library… or musical taste… Somehow though, it seems to know that Mike Watt was a member of Minutemen and fIREHOSE, as they’re disproportionally represented; 7 out of 25 from a library of 4,400+ songs.

It’s interesting that each time you create a Genius playlist from the same song it’ll give you a different, yet similar, result.

Dagwood gets a lesson in gas savings.

Fiona left for her first day of school as a half-day Kindergartner today. She was really really excited to go, and Ella was just as excited to be the big sister and to be in school together. Both of my girls are in school now! Can’t wait to hear all about it tonight.

more pictures here

I spent part of yesterday listening to some of the key speeches from the Democratic national convention. They’re posted at the WNYC website, a good reference. They also have a collected page of the Republican speeches available. After listening to a day of Democratic speeches, the overwhelming impression was that of optimism, of the possibilities inherent in our ingenuity and boundless energy. There were ideas such as an Americorps-like service to allow students to earn their way through college, talk of tax breaks and job growth at home. Big ideas and a willingness to jump in and work for them, the sort of feeling that i imagine Kennedy inspired in his campaign speeches.

Then, when i got home later that night, i listened to the Rudolph Giuliani speech live on the radio and got pissed off. There were blatant lies and comical simplifications, parroting the old saw about Democrat’s tax & spend policies and the call for smaller government, as if GW Bush hadn’t overseen the largest government expansion since the WPA. Much worse than the lying though, was the fear mongering. Giuliani brought the fear of terrorists right up to everyone’s doorstep, amplified the echoes of 9/11 and the (never-ending, fruitless) manhunt for Bin Laden. The Republicans weren’t preaching hope, they were preaching fear, and the crowd ate it up. John McCain, according to Giuliani, is the benevolent father for our country who will keep the wolves at bay and protect our Way of Life. The sheep in the hall baa’d yes! They desperately want a shepherd to tend them. We can’t build a peaceful and fruitful society on fear.

One other aspect of the speech nagged at me, but i couldn’t put my finger on it until reading Rushkoff’s essay today. It’s the idea of centralization. The very party who publicly rails against big-government, yet ironically champions the NRA and the right to personal armament, is quietly expanding their influence in the name of our protection. That expansion is coming at the direct expense of our personal rights and liberties. If the NRA wasn’t so firmly embedded in the Republican party, they would be seen as a dangerous outlier, ready to help arm the “Angry Left” against the government and their corporate contractors who are only “acting in our best interest”. It doesn’t seem like such a stretch, given the recent arc of government reach, that it would be the Republicans pushing for gun control and even more checkpoints than at schools and airports. For our convenience, of course.

The thesis that the Republicans are afraid of local organizing and neighborhood groups strikes me as very very true. They’re most comfortable placing these things in the hands of experts, and it’s not hard to imagine a day when community gatherings are frowned upon as suspicious and potentially dangerous. Whereas the Democratic speeches were built on a platform of unity (for the party and country both), the Republican speeches felt isolationist and wary. They’ve already set the precedent for pre-emptive interference with other countries, and against protesters at their own convention.

The way to build a better world is to get to know your neighbors, make friends, work together to fix what’s wrong. Think about the big picture, and not just your own backyard. Honor the sacrifice our soldiers are making, whether you agree with the war or not, by conserving our energy resources. Hold a door open for a stranger. Smile at someone random today. And, of course, ride a bike! (it makes that smiling thing automatic)

Ella started 2nd grade today! She was very excited and had a great day. Fiona was a little jealous that she didn’t get to ride the bus too, but she starts next Monday, and is really looking forward to it.

I’m working on building a bike trailer from a couple of bike frames diverted from the scrap heap. Today i chopped off the front-end of each frame – actually sawed off the downtube at the bottom bracket shell and un-brazed the top tube at the center-of-the-seat tube lug, in hopes of re-using that lug connection later. To get the brazed joint apart, i just heated that joint until i could pull the tube out*. The frames are small step-through frames, so the top tube is roughly parallel to the downtube. Here’s a photo of the Schwinn frame after cutting and unbrazing:

The tubes are parallel, and intersecting a tube at a right angle, so the miter should be perfectly in-line with the tube. You can see that the Schwinn work is a little off. The tube didn’t deform on removal, it was just mitered crooked and brazed in anyway. You can see the difference between the brass from the lug point and the center of the curve of the miter. Here’s a shot of the same miter on the Huffy Free Spirit:

Yeah, even worse. Not only is the miter crooked, it’s only for maybe half of the tube. You can see the outline of the lug point where the centerline of the tube is, and the miter is almost 1/8 of a turn away. Sheesh, even i can do better than this. The joint was relying pretty much entirely on the lug for support, and that lug is a fairly thin piece of mild steel. With this sort of workmanship, Huffys are better off being welded.

* As i’d heard from a couple of sources, taking a brazed joint apart doesn’t work very well. In both cases, the lug deformed and tore when i pulled the tube out, presumably from overheating it to get the brass to flow again. I was hoping to change the angles and re-use those lugs for a crossbar, but i might just end up welding or filet brazing that bar instead.

A couple of pictures of cooking with the girls from Friday, we were making soup for dinner, their own recipe of leeks, carrots, chicken, salt and pepper, chicken broth, and green pepper. Delicious!