back in mid-february, i openly speculated on how much longer garry kasparov, a true hero of the union, would be with us.  i have been forced by circumstances to revise the book.  at the time i wrote:

"just happening to fall out of a eighth story window.  could happen to anyone.  9:2"

apparently, it's even more comon than i thought.  check it out.  new odds are 5:4 and i'm putting you people on notice that if any other high level party members, athletes, dissidents or bureaucrats are defenestrated in the next two weeks, i'm moving this particular bet to even money or "off".

-sg

we are here today to honor those who have done valiant work towards the goals of the glorious cause that is the revolution in cycling and the social order.  we have a few shout-outs to issue this week.  all were unexpected and all are very welcome.  both contain the same basic motif: the union message of supporting and showing stewardship for our fellow cyclists....and.....mercilessly crushing any who would inhibit us from realizing our goals.

commendation #1: the medal of outstanding valour is hereby issued to kevin stapleton and pete lindeman by the supreme revolutionary council for propogation of message.  both of these citizens independently were pursuing ways to bring attention to a rather sordid form of crime.  their nearly simultaneous calls to action have resulted in people being reunited with their hard earned and beloved bikes and some sunlight being shone into some fairly unpleasant corners of commerce.  yes, the marketplace can solve all your problems.

and that's not all.  pete and kevin will receive additional rations of cabbage, cloth and lamp oil (and the hotties that go with that kind of largess) as a result of these commendations.  cha ching.  cha ching.  in stark contrast, the punishment for the perpetrators will likely fit the crime.  though dante does not specifically detail which circle of hell is reserved of bike theives, the union has branded them traitors to the glorious revolution.  so circle nine it likely is.  good luck with that fellas.

commendation #2: the order of the 11 tooth cog is hereby bestowed, by the bolshevik vanguard of the union, on the national capital velo club.  this is not their first award, and their good works are known to all who struggle on two wheels.  however, this specific commendation is presented for outstanding progress in actualizing racing union thought.  the principles of the union are well understood but many clubs have not made progress in putting them into action.  here, ncvc leads the way.

the context for this is not widely understood.  mabra pursued sponsorship for a series of races within it's boundries.  promoters were allowed to petition to be part of this series.  if they were accepted, the money was made available to them.  rather than increase prize lists to make the race an even more mercantile exercise, ncvc has opted to lower race entry costs, hence lowering the barrier to race for all cyclists and citizens.  this populist approach pleases the vanguard of the racing union and we offer our very best wishes to this club on what we would characterize as a good start towards returning bike racing to the people.  huzzah!

- - - posted by scott

p.s. eric marshall will have every right to complain and be justifiably bitter that his excellent, and exceedingly popular, and populist, quicksilver winter solstice series race has been left out in the cold.  but i'm out of medals.  the blame for that shoudl fall squarely on those fictitous mining production quotas the vile and repugnant capitalist and imperialist interference in our pastoral and decentralized communal and collectivist economic processes.

VOLGA AND MIKULA. Illustration to the Kievan bylinas. 1913

the february mailbag is such a weak and tired collection of bitching and moaning that i can't even bring myself to publish it.  really people, if this keeps up i will die of ennui.  i didn't think the principles of the glorious revolution in cycling and the social order were so abstract or difficult to internalize.  i considered trying to change attitides based on our current government's behaviour management program but i dismissed that as unlikely to succeed.  heck, it didn't work for them and they've used it for years.  i do not have years people.  we need to get this party going.  now.  ahora mismo.  immediamente! 

i considered using some alternate materials which might hold your microscopic attention spans a few seconds longer.  however, initial testing produced unexpected, unpleasant and unacceptable reactions.

so we're going to start it out real simple like, using very basic tools that you imperialist mouth breathers probably spend an awful lot of time viewing on a regular basis. 

watch this several times and then we'll see about moving on to some more advanced material.  for those of you who are a bit further along in the curriculum, we can have a spirited discussion of the joys and irony of using capitalist tools of citizen control (tv images, mass produced culture) for our own purposes in the comments. 

- - - posted by scott

yesterday, i needed to consult with racing union legal counsel on a number of miscellaneous matters.  we roll hard, and occasionally, we need backup.  and backup we've got.

one of the topics brought up was seeking justice for those citizens who fall injured in the line of duty, valiantly struggling on two wheels, through unacceptable conditions.  roads are cleared but multi-use paths are left alone, untreated, and barely rideable.  does the state, and i'm using state in the largest and most generic sense here of the agent in control, have some obligaiton to make sure all rights of way are safe including multi-use trails?

this is really complicated.  first off, ownership (and stewardship and maintenance) of some of the extensive trail networks in our area is not entirely clear, at least to me.  we are all familiar with obvious examples of different approaches that different jurisdictions may take.  the doctor gridlock discussion on the post web site yesterday involved some questions on this topic, pointing out that the CCT is generally cleared in DC but as soon as you hit the maryland border, it's untreated.  is this because the dc section is maintained by the national park service and the maryland section is maintained by some other agency such as maryland national capital park and planning service?  unclear.  but why would they have different ideas about whether the multi-use paths need to be cleaned or not.

while you're figuring that out, you may also struggle with whether someone can actually bring a case against a jurisdiction for injury sustained on an untreated path.  racing union legal division pointed out a few useful things.  you would need permission to bring the case and that may not be the easiest thing to do.  even if you could bring the case, dc, md and va all incorporate the ideas of contributory negligence into decisions so it's unclear what your rights versus responsibilities are.

kevin posted some useful information on cases which illustrate some of these principles:

sample case: http://www.cicle.org/cicle_content/pivot/entry.php?id=1297#body

more information on a similar case: http://www.cicle.org/cicle_content/pivot/entry.php?id=1300#body

just to be clear, i'm not suggesting people go out on dangerous, icy trails, take a long and traumatic tumble (the yard sale) and then look for a free lunch courtesy of a hungry lawyer.  i'm more interested in the issue from the perspective of regarding alternative transportation as a serious alternative.  when snow and ice comes, "the state" is serious about clearing the roads.  i hardly expect them to be equally serious about clearing paths, but some areas are not the slightest bit serious about it now.  lobbying doesn't seem to work.  i'm curious as to whether other types of pressure can be brought to bear on the situation.

-sg

so natural.  so perfect.  the proper way to start the day.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/26/AR2007022601203.html

we used to show up to group rides with a box or three of dunkins or krispy kremes.  i loved how guys would get all sanctimonious and tell me that their body was a temple and they didn't ingest garbage.  they'd preach on that for a while.  in the meantime, we'd be stuffing our faces, putting these things down like they were our last meal.  the things are like rocket fuel, like alcohol in the four barrel carbeurator.  tom meyer, an old teammate of mine, took to calling them "virginia power bars" because the guys from virginia always showed up to rides with a box, ate too many and just exploded out of the parking lot on a massive sugar rush.

instead of musettes, team directors should hand up sticks with dounts stacked on them.  that would be tight.

-sg

oh, yeah, and we've backed the racing union commuter climactic alert system (ruccas) level back down to yellow.  the wo&d and custis trail are clear from the washington beltway to their respective termination points near the district of columbia.  bryan and i rode them last night and they are ducky.  as soon as you get past gallows road going west, it's a different story entirely and i'd recommend avoiding it.  so all citizens and cyclists should be on their bikes again.  all hail the glorious cause that is the revolution in cycling and the social order.

also, quicksilver is cancelled for 2/24/2007.  please pass that along to your friends who may not be on the appropriate email lists.

-sg

in a truly puzzling turn of events, our government has chosen to embrace a maoist course of action to achieve decidedly non-maoist objectives. 

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/829441.html

the idea that conflict, and specifically armed struggle, is necessary to bring about social change was present around the edges of marxist-leninist thought but really came to the front under mao.  in fact, the major schisms in political philosophy between china and soviet union were predominantly based on the ideas among the chinese vanguard that the soviet union was willing to diplomatically engage with the west and as a result become tacitly corrupted in the process

you know, i'm probably going to lose all my revolutionary street cred here, and the social-labor-workers-democratic-cooperative-nihilist-alliance party will probably pull my membership, but lately i've bene more of a mind to take to the philosophy of lennon rather than that of lenin.  but let's keep that on the down low...

-sg

One must seek to understand the pressing issues of our time, but without the baggage and distortion of the pre-revolutionary mindset.  the society that fails to embrace and elevate the bicycle will fail repeatedly.  and worse still, their conceptual blinders, bred into them by media and capitalism, will prevent them from seeing the true source of their mistakes.  hence they are doomed to repeat ever greater disasters; a downward spiral, from great and lofty heights to the mean and low pits of mediocrity.

you can break this cycle through education.  begin here:

a marxist analysis of the decline of the simpsons.

http://theproles.blogspot.com/2007/02/marxist-analysis-of-simpsons.html

i'll be out of town all weekend, and from the looks of the forecast, most of you will be cooped up inside.  don't fret.  make a nice "stone fence" and sit down and read some wild bike stuff...

http://howtofixbikes.blogspot.com/

exceedingly cool.  post the stuff you've been surfing in comments and we'll bump the best stuff up into separate entries. 

-sg

p.s. maybe this will finally convince mikhail to turn over and make public his special exploratory photojournalism work into alternative bicycle geometries of the revolutionary liberal arts colleges of the midwest.

p.p.s.  if you do go out for a long ride, be safe.  bundle up, tell someone how long you'll be gone and where you're going.

our brothers and sisters abroad on two wheels throw a nice party and what happens?  the man mucks it up. 

http://www.periodico26.cu/english/sports/byke021207.htm

so.  god.  damned.  typical.

i have to admit that this makes no sense to me on any level.  even assuming i wasn't a radicalized revolutionary, i'd assume people would want to spread their own personal gospel and help facilitate change.  self-indulgent capitalists could go over there as ambassadors of the efficiency of free markets and distribute publications by the university of chicago school of economics.  assuming you're some sort of american nationalist zealot, sending people over there as spies and subversives (the classic james bond meets pat buchanan fantasy paranoia psychosis) to distribute copies of the u.s. constitution and ronald reagan's autobiography couldn't hurt and might help.  maybe you're just not big on socialism and want to politely engage them on their system.

no matter where you're coming from, wouldn't sending people over there as ambassadors be more effective than pouting and sulking and doing the whole "passive aggressive i'm not talking to you because you said hurtful things in a hurtful way" routine, which even my five year old son has mostly outgrown be an improvement?

next year.  cuban training camp from december through march.  you heard it here first.

yesterday, one of the many union stewardship and advisory committees met at an undisclosed location, and the meeting went well, with the exception of mikhail’s obsession with a split screen car chase on cnn which caused us to re-arrange our seating in the midst of a nuanced discussion of the differences between comrades mao’s and comrade lenin’s vision of how struggle and conflict precipitate revolution.  a small amount of re-education is likely in order, but that’s not the point of this communication.  one of the topics discussed was prayer breakfasts.  i got to wondering what the opposite of a prayer breakfast would be?  my answer, after careful thought, was sitting around in my boxers, drinking whiskey and watching the colbert report.  and along those lines, i offer this news, the only thing that could make the colbert report better….

http://entertainment.msn.com/tv/article.aspx?news=251651&affid=100055

this is union approved, and i want to offer, in advance, an indulgence.  any racing union rider this year who cannot fulfill their assigned duties in the course of a race and who indicates that consumption of this product was directly responsible for their inability to support the glorious cause will be held harmless.  that may not be expansive enough.  any rider, on any team, who succumbs to fatigue when engaged on two wheels on account of this confection will be considered a brother or sister of the union and will be welcomed and supported by us.

now, on the other hand, failing to support the glorious cause that is the revolution in cycling and the social order because you couldn’t train because you were sitting around in your boxers, drinking whiskey and watching this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjIfaMwIFxU&eurl=

will have you on the trains to the re-education camps so fast your head will spin.  forewarned is forearmed.  that is all.