Every Time I Put My Helmet On, I Could Die

In Michigan earlier this month, a drunk, high or otherwise screwed up pickup driver ran over nine bicyclists, killing five and maiming the other four.

So many cyclists are on social media acting surprised.  They shouldn't be.  Riding a two-wheeled vehicle is dangerous anywhere.  Sharing a road with hundreds of two-ton vehicles makes it more dangerous.  When the drivers of those vehicles hate bicyclists, someone is going to get hurt, and that someone is not the driver of the two-ton vehicle.

And the hostility on the road from the two-ton cowards in pickup trucks is increasing.  The Republican nominee trashed John Kerry last week for crashing on his bike during a State Department trip.  Dumpy Trump told his even fatter fans that he, Donald Trump, would not fall off a bicycle.  Because, of course, Trump would never get on one.  Many conservative talk show hosts have attacked bicycles for various reasons that can be summarized in a fat man's envy of men who are in shape.

Most of the real hostility I have suffered on a bicycle in the last 20 years has been from pickup trucks.  If a driver swerves, spits, hits me with a can or bottle or yells "Faggot!" it is a fat guy in pickup truck.  If there are bumper stickers on the truck, they are Republican/conservative.

In Iraq when we were on the airbase, we did not have to wear battle gear, but when we went outside the wire, we wore helmets and body armor.  In Iraq, putting on the helmet meant leaving the patrolled perimeter of the Ali Air Base and flying to somewhere that we had not "won the hearts and minds" of the local people.

Although we were safe on Ali Air Base, there was on place I felt vulnerable.  I rode the perimeter of the airfield to get everywhere on base.  This nine-mile road was mostly far from the perimeter, but near the junk yard on the east side of the base, the perimeter fence was an easy rifle shot away.  As I rode around the base, especially at night with a red light blinking under the bike seat, I imagined an Iraqi with an AK-47 looking at me like I was an arcade target.  And the Arab aiming his Kalashnikov would not even know that I am half Jewish by birth, so for him I would be a double score target.

In the end I rode more than 5,000 miles in Iraq and have ridden more than 150,000 miles in the last two decades, so I know rationally, that road riding is statistically safe.  But now that I have turned in the camouflage helmet, I am very aware that the greatest routine risk I face is a porcine pansy in a pickup truck.  Sometimes people ask me how I can enjoy riding in New York City or Philadelphia or Paris.  There may be heavy traffic in cities, but there is not the malice of cowards in pickups.

Who Avoids Our Wars? The Rich, The Entitled

Watch News coverage of Trump rallies, and you will see Trump supporters portrayed as white, poor and stupid.

There certainly are Trump voters who are poor and stupid, but I have not met them. I have only seen them on the News. 

The Trump voters I know personally have college degrees, are very wealthy, and believe the world started falling apart in the 60s and 70s when they were kids.  The college degrees of the Trump voters I know are technical and professional.  I have not met a Trump voter with a degree in arts or literature.

I recently met a tall, energetic engineer named Tom. He is retired but still works as a consultant.  He owns a dozen cars, eight of them show-quality American muscle cars of the 60s and 70s.  He has a home that would house a village in much of the world, no kids, and enough garage space for his entire car collection. 

He has lived in Houston for more than 30 years, but grew up in suburban Chicago.  As a high school student in the late 60s he was bussed to a different suburban school as part of affirmative action—desegregation.  He hated it.  He seethes with resentment when he talks about it almost 50 years later.

He says he is a minority in his adopted city of Houston and is angry that cars with Mexican license plates can drive his streets.  He is angry that Houston is not a majority white city. When he says Make America Great Again he means make it white again. 

He is also a very proud, technically trained guy who does not own a cell phone or a laptop computer.  He has two landline phones and a desktop computer.  On that computer, he runs high-tech simulations for his consulting work.  So he is not against technology, he is against people who do not understand technology having access to technology.  He is very proud of not needing the technology that others around him depend on.  He uses paper maps.  He sends email on his desktop computer and does not need to check his desktop constantly as smartphone users do.

Like Trump, he wants America to have a strong military, and just like Trump, he did not serve in that military.  He went to college.  When he graduated, the draft was near its end. He got the deferments he needed and did not volunteer--though he is happy to bomb, drone or invade. He isn't going.

After college, Tom got a good job and started a lucrative career while those who served in the military earned $168 a month and delayed the start of their less lucrative careers.

He mentioned that in 1960s Chicago he was subjected to many Polish jokes. He remembers with some pain what it was like to hear jokes about Poles.  He does not remember the 50s and 60s as an era when every racial slur was part of normal speech.  

Part of Tom’s resentment is that political correctness has removed hazing ethnic groups as an acceptable part of American life.  He was subject to terrible Polish jokes for years.  He should be able to treat the latest waves of immigrants the way he was treated. 

Tom is resentful and without mercy.  Anyone who thinks “education” will fix Tom and people like him is just wrong.  Tom is rich, privileged, smart and is perfectly happy with 11 million deportations, a Muslim ban and overturning any and all civil rights.  Like Trump, the rich and comfortable life Tom has enjoyed for half a century made him more sure that he deserves everything he has.   

Who Fights Our Wars? Volunteers

This week my family and I volunteered at GAIN, a ministry that sends food, clothes, seeds and other supplies to refugees around the world.

On Tuesday and Wednesday I was sorting clothes with a guy named Bill.  He is a retired soldier who enrolled in ROTC the same year I enlisted in 1972.  Bill retired after 22 years of active duty.  He served in Germany when the Berlin Wall came down then went to the Gulf War and retired in 1993.

We talked about living in Germany, eating C-Rations and starting our military careers during the Draft.  Both of us like the draft Army better.  His fist command was a mechanized mortar platoon. Bill told me about one of his draft soldiers who was a math whiz and could set up accurate fire with his "Four-Deuce" 4.2-inch mortars faster than more experienced soldiers.

I told him about my gunner who was a mess as a soldier, but a brilliant gunner.  We both liked an Army with soldiers who did not want to serve, but served anyway.

Bill knew David Petraeus when both of them were young officers.  Bill said Petraeus was known as a problem-solver who could fix anything that was screwed up from the time he was first commissioned.
He was, of course, sad about how Petraeus ended his career.  Bill was also sad when I told him that Petraeus was now leading a group with Astronaut/Veteran Mark Kelley to regulate guns. Bill is both very pro-gun and knows how good Petraeus can be with a tough problem.

Bill drove home to Virginia last night, but will be back to volunteer for GAIN. I just signed up as a volunteer for the Petraeus group.  Bill won't be volunteering for that one.

Ban Shakespeare!!

Open Culture published a funny Infographic about the way people die in Shakespeare's plays.

I shared the image on my facebook page.  A soldier I know who is against any regulation of guns made the comment "Ban Shakespeare."  

When I read the comment, I knew he was trying to be funny, but he is also part of the culture that is slowly wringing the life out arguably the greatest author ever.

Part of his belief that everyone should have guns comes from his belief that he needs to defend his family and himself from invaders, thieves and dangers that lurk everywhere.  

The chart carefully tabulates the means of every death in Shakespeare, but does not measure the how close the dead person is to his or her murderer.  When you summarize Shakespeare that way, nearly al the deaths are by friends, neighbors, family or coworkers--if I can call members of the kings court coworkers.

And then you get to the terrible irony of many gun deaths in America.  The huge number of guns means that accidents will happen in proportion to the number of guns.

My Army friend conceded that neither he nor any member of his rural Pennsylvania family has ever been threatened with bodily harm by anyone.  So many of the gun owners I know who claim self defense is the reason they have guns cannot point to any incident of threat to themselves or their family.

Many, sadly, know of someone who was accidentally shot by their own gun or by a family member.

My Army friend is nearly my age so he has read Shakespeare.  It was in high school, but he could vaguely remember "Romeo and Juliet" and possibly "Julius Caesar."  His most recent contact with The Bard was watching "Hamlet" the movie starring Mel Gibson.  Don't sneer.  Hamlet is an alienated loner who sees things in the night and is crazy.  Gibson is perfect for the role.

But my Army friend has not read Shakespeare or any other creative fiction in 40 years.  His life is Guns and Prose.  He wants to restore the Constitution and roll back all kinds of rights that do not apply to white males.  And he is defending his family from a threat that has never happened.

He doesn't have to do anything to Ban Shakespeare.  His whole life has made the greatest writer in English, maybe the greatest in world, just a marginal thing for elitists.