Check Your Premises

One of the first things we all learn in drivers education class is that driving is not a right.  It is a privilege.  All drivers, with no exceptions, are required to follow traffic laws.  We also learn that bicyclists have the same access to the roads as cars.  Bicycles must be registered, and they must follow the same traffic laws as drivers.  No exceptions.  Shame on the San Diego Police Department for not only turning a blind eye to bicyclists who are vagrantly, arrogantly and aggressively “taking over” the roads, but actually escorting them!  SDPD claims that since there are so many of them, they don’t know what to make of it.  “There’s a thousand of them!  Is it civil disobedience?  How do we handle this?” 

My question to the SDPD is this: how many prostitutes or drug dealers would it take doing their thing on public streets before their activities are deemed merely “civil disobedience”?  A hundred?  A thousand?  Certainly twenty drunks getting rowdy on Mission Beach were given the full SWAT treatment; why are bicyclists treated with kid gloves?

With the price of gas being what it is, and with the threat of global warming looming over our heads, many more people are taking to their bikes these days.  Not a day goes by that I don’t see bicyclists flying through red lights and stop signs, riding in the wrong direction, riding on the sidewalk, weaving in and out of traffic, crossing intersections diagonally, and not using hand signals.  Never have I witnessed a bicyclist suffering the consequences from ignoring the law.  I’m amazed there aren’t horrific accidents every day, just like the bicyclist who was fatally hit by a car in midtown recently after running through a red light. 

The Critical Massers maintain that by running through red lights en mass, they have safety in numbers.  They then proceed to pound on cars that fail to yield to them, getting into shouting matches and fistfights.  Here’s an old adage for proponents of biker’s rights:  You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar.  This is not the way to convince people of your cause.

Every few years, SDPD launches a public awareness campaign warning people about jaywalking, usually after a spate of deaths.  Is this what it takes?  This policy not only endangers bicyclists, but also does a disservice to drivers.  If bicyclists don’t have to follow traffic laws, why should drivers bother?  Shame on the San Diego Police Department for being so shortsighted and empty-headed.

Remember that show "Pinky and The Brain"?  Well, so does my co-worker Katelyn.  We got this flyer from some other firm crowing about their two new partners.  The two of them look exactly how Pinky and the Brain would look if they were human.  She sent this as a submission to totallylookslike.com.

Pinky and the Brain

Fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too. Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny
iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

"I have no desire for riches. Honest poverty and a conscience torpid through virtuous inaction are more to me than corner lots and praise."

This is by Joseph Miller, the New Yorker columnist who specialized in long-form journalism. Old Mr. Flood is a 93-year-old seafood lover who refuses to reconcile himself to the inevitibilty of death.

Mr. Flood snorted again. "Oh, shut up," he said. "Damn your doctor. I tell you what to do. You get right out of here and go over to Libby's oyster house and tell the man you want to eat some of his big oysters. Don't sit down. Stand up at that fine marble bar they got over there, where you can watch the man knife them open. And tell him you intend to drink the oyster liquor; he'll knife them open on the cup shell, so the liquor won't spill. And be sure you get the big ones. Get them so big you'll have to rear back to swallow, the size most restaurants use for fries and stews; God forgive them, they don't know any better... And don't put any of that red sauce on them, that cocktail sauce, that mess, that gurry. Ask the man for half a lemon, poke it a time or two to free the juice, and squeeze it over the oysters. And the first one he knifes, pick it up and smell it, the way you'd smell a rose, or a shot of brandy. That briny, seaweedy fragrance will clear your head; it'll make your blood run faster. And don't just eat six; take your time and eat a dozen, eat two dozen, eat three dozen, eat four dozen. And then leave the man a generous tip and buy yourself a 50-cent cigar and put your hat on the side of your head and take a walk down to Bowling Green. Look at the sky!  Isn't it blue? And look at the girls a tap-tap-tapping past on their pretty little feet! Aren't they just the finest girls you ever saw, the bounciest, the rumpiest, the laughingest? Aren't you ashamed of yourself for even thinking about spending good money on a damned doctor?"