I've been riding my bike to work the majority of the time lately. It's great for a lot of reasons, gas prices being not the least of them. I also enjoy the exercise and being more connected with my surroundings on my way to sitting in front of a screen all day.
Alicia Buxton wrote a sidebar to the cover story in this week's Flyer. She uses the statistics that there are far fewer biking deaths than auto deaths as evidence that biking is safer than driving.
I won't get into dissecting the stats comparison and belabor the fact that there are more auto deaths because, duh, more people are driving.
However, I do feel that biking is considerably more dangerous, especially in a city like Memphis.
I myself was nearly killed earlier this week by a driver not paying attention.
Riding a bike requires ten times the attentiveness of driving a car. You can't talk on the phone, both hands need to be on the bars. You have to be constantly aware of drivers entering the road that probably aren't watching for you.
In a city like Memphis, (more after the jump)
Hate Mongering Church to Picket "Brokeback Mtn" Actor's Funeral.
I've ranted against these wackos a time or two. You remember them, the radical homophobes that protest soldiers' funerals (not GAY soldiers, just dead ones) because America tolerates homosexuality and the soldiers died for their country.
Well, now their protesting a dead actor because he was in a gay cowboy movie.
I won't waste your time re-ranting about how misguided these folks are, I just have one thing to add:
Sadly, I have a feeling that their protest of Ledger's funeral may garner more public outrage than their protests of soldier's funerals. No disrespect to the recently deceased, but he died in an apartment in Soho, not fighting in some shit hole in the Middle East.
Unfortunately, most Americans care more about celebrities than soldiers.
Posted in Dinner Submitted by Grillmaster on Wed, 2008-01-23 16:42.
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So apparently, honeybees are a bit more important than we all thought...
Who knew? Kind of interesting anyway.
(BTW, Glad we're publicizing such a vast weakness in our infrastructure. If I were some kind of a terrorist, i'd probably start torching beehives.)
Wait, not that kind...
That kind.
Posted in Dinner Submitted by Grillmaster on Thu, 2007-05-03 19:16.
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First off, I'm totally amazed that this whole thing has gotten so much attention. I mean, look at it statistically...
What are the odds that at least one of the 20 or so people that listen to Imus is also one of the half-dozen that actually watches women's basketball?!
I digress. My point:
I'm sure the black leadership like Revs Sharpton and Jackson believe that by their actions they are empowering themselves to battle racism. However, they are actually pandering to and perpetuating the racism they claim to be fighting. How?
Let me ask this: Why does a comment like "nappy headed ho's" mean more when a white person says it?
By suggesting that these words, tame in comparison to the lyrics of rap music that has a much wider reach, have the power to cost Imus his job (and career, if they have their way), these leaders are projecting the message that what a white person says somehow "matters more."
Now, if they had said "Eh... fuck that guy anyway," and lampooned Imus for the idiot he is, they've taken the power away from his words.
To react in the way most of the media has is to accept a higher standard for Whites with Mics. Somewhere in the world, some neo-Nazi is posting about how "Damn right Aryans should be held to a higher standard. If it weren't for us, how would these (insert racial epithet) know how to talk about their own kind?"
When the opinions of the NAACP give ammo to arch-racist Aryans... something's off.
(BTW, where did Imus pick up "nappy headed ho's" anyway? ...while sipping a mint julep under willow trees on the porch of some plantation house? No, more like Jay Z)
And also, screw all the media (mainstream and bloggers alike) who have filed in behind the knee-jerk reaction on this one. It just goes to show how quickly accusations of racism can kill a discussion and send people on the defensive. Racism is a scarlet letter offense these days, so much so that good thinking people will accept the PC mainstream-media response without so much as a discussion, for fear of being on the other side of Al Sharpton's interview table.
Some are so desperate-to-be-liberal that they grab the first picket sign someone hands them. Most just don't want to be called racist.
Imus isn't off the hook for what he said, and the media isn't off the hook for how they cover it. Let's not stop thinking just yet...
Posted in Dinner Submitted by Grillmaster on Tue, 2007-04-10 23:37.
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...but does this strike anyone else as a little...impossible?
ATHENS, Greece (CNN) -- The captain and five other senior crew members of a Greek-flagged cruise ship which ran aground and sank off an island in the Aegean Sea have been charged with negligence and violating international maritime rules. (from CNN.com)
"ran aground and sank" ...really? If it ran aground... how did it sink? That means the ocean floor is pretty much right under it correct?
In other news...
here's what I think is going to cause the apocalypse. No really, it will be the first time in our history that we will have so many satellites during one of these peaks. And by 2011, we will be even more dependent on them by then than we already are.
Hey, the Mayan long count ends on Dec 21st 2012... Cound the solar storm last that long, plunging mankind into a final Dark Age until a worldwide nuclear war breaks out in the insuing chaos?
Maybe I'm just paranoid.
Posted in Dinner Submitted by Grillmaster on Sat, 2007-04-07 17:02.
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Wow.... That's Kinda Funny. How did someone mistake that for a bomb??
I can only imagine what fun the Adult Swim guys are going to have with this.
Who knew that Ignignokt could spark such fear into the hearts of the public?
Posted in Dinner Submitted by Grillmaster on Wed, 2007-01-31 18:18.
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