this post goes out to all the haters.  you simply would not believe the amount of venemous mail we receive here at central receiving under the plaza de la revolucion.  some people try to emulate our smooth rhetorical style.  others try, but inevitably fail, to achieve the incredibly high levels of truthiness we bring to the table.  but most just take an anemic stab at it; calling us names or saying ridiculous things.  it's really pretty pathetic.  if it were amusing, it would bring us joy, but it's generally just grumpy. 

today, i ran into something that is not bicycle related but which did amuse me.  i wish more of our hate mail was like this.  that would please me.

http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/editorial/15986574.htm

I believe that this is what passes for a quality argument amongst the "other" side.  this thing is literally a minefield of fallacies, of every shape and sort.  non sequitur?  check.  straw man?  check.  red herring?  check.  fallacy of many questions?  heck, the whole thing constitutes an emphatic yes. 

in many posts, i try to describe something by presenting a dichotomy between them and us, or how we view the world and how they view the world.  this is what we're up against.  literally.  i was riding my bike to work a few days ago.  i was as far to the right as practicable and not impeding traffic from what i could tell.  a car pulled up slowly, rolled down it's window, and we had the following dialouge.

driver: "it's not safe for you to be on this road."

me: "it's only unsafe if someone makes it unsafe."

driver: "you should really be on the sidewalk"

me: "it's actually against the law for me to ride my bike on the sidewalk"

<pause>

driver: "get your %#$&ing bike off the %#$*^&* road."

me: <silence>

now, dear reader, you may wonder why i bring this up.  i see this as a rare glimse into the real thoughts behind the driver.  they were sort of forcing this nice facade and a veneer of caring.  the whole "it would be safer for you to be off the road" is a ruse.  you are in their way.  and they want you to know it.  they try to tell you politely, but that will only last so long.

to tie the whole post togethger, i am beginning to wonder if we are being too subtle and polite to get our point across.  we have tried to take the high road, but it's like yelling at a wall.  maybe it's time to lift the rhetoric a bit.  in the next post, a description of the surreal encounter i had yesterday of how cyclign fits into the "system".

-sg