The Wright brothers were bike mechanics.
.......... (Early bikes were expensive — eight guineas, John Keats reported in a letter to his brother and sister-in-law.) ....... “the so-called safety bicycle of the 1880s, whose invention gave the bike the classic form we recognize today.” ......... Its cheapness and mobility have aided insurgencies of every kind, whether feminism or socialism, and as a means of travel, it immediately challenged the moneyed holders of horseflesh, a “people’s nag,” or, as a famous ad from the manufacturer Columbia put it, “An Ever-Saddled Horse Which Eats Nothing.” .......... “One of Adolf Hitler’s first acts upon assuming power, in 1933,” he writes, in a disquieting passage, “was to smash Germany’s cycling union.” ......... “Pedal-driven taxis jam the streets of Singapore and Manila,” he writes. “Subsistence farmers in Vietnam, India and other countries use modified bikes to plow and till and harrow. In Peru, bicycles function as mobile fruit and vegetable stalls; in Zambia, cycles bring goods to marketplaces and the sick to hospitals. … It is pedal power that keeps cities running, that keeps commerce flowing, that stands between life and death.” Around the world, “more people travel by bicycle than by any other form of transportation.” .......... “Bike riding is the best way I know to reach an altered consciousness,” he writes, “better than yoga, or wine, or weed. It runs neck and neck with sex and coffee.” ......... Four wheels bad ........... Should we as a species be riding bicycles instead of driving cars? Probably. “The automotive age is an age of carnage,” Rosen writes. “Some 1.25 million people die in car crashes each year.” Not just that, either: “Motor vehicles are the largest net contributor to climate change.” ......... Even China, which at its peak in 1996 had some 523 million bicycles distributed among its citizens, has submitted to a new “automobile frenzy,” sending bike usage into a “precipitous decline.” For all the charm, usefulness and elegance of the bike, we as a species seem to be drawn to its calamitously problematic successor. ......... cities built around bikes would be “safer, saner, healthier, more habitable.” ............. “Ice is melting at the top and bottom of the planet,” the author writes, “forests are aflame, political systems are fracturing, a pandemic has shaken daily life at its foundations, and amid the tumult, a new global bicycle culture is emerging.”
Massacres Test Whether Washington Can Move Beyond Paralysis The United States is facing a widening gap between the scale of gun violence and what America’s political leaders can agree are the right responses to the carnage......... Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut and the leader of the effort, said he had not seen so much willingness to talk since 20 children were murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in 2012. ......... few of the proposals under discussion would have made much of a difference. The gunman did not have a criminal record that might have been caught by expanded background checks. There is no evidence that the gun had been part of a trafficking ring. And so far, there have not been reports of mental illness that might have triggered a so-called red flag law. ......... More far-reaching efforts — such as banning military-style weapons, raising the age for gun purchases and requiring licensing and registration for firearm ownership — have already been all but ruled out, the result of Republican opposition, Democratic resignation and court rulings. .........
The reaction in Washington to the horrific scenes is a familiar combination of pain and paralysis.
....... the police were wrong to have waited more than an hour to confront the gunman as he holed up inside a classroom, firing sporadically while students who were still alive lay still among the bodies of classmates ....... What remains is an enormous gap between the scale of the problem — over 1,500 people have been killed in more than 270 mass shootings since 2009, according to Everytown for Gun Safety — and what America’s political leaders can agree are the right responses to the carnage. ........ about 30 percent of adults say they own a gun. ......... And the divide is also wide between people who own guns and people who do not. (Republicans are roughly twice as likely to say they own a gun as Democrats.) ........ The response to mass shootings in the United States is starkly different than the decisive action taken in other developed countries around the world. Britain banned semiautomatic weapons and handguns after shootings in 1987 and 1996. Australia held a mandatory gun buyback after a 1996 massacre and the rate of mass shootings plummeted. Canada, Germany, New Zealand and Norway all tightened gun laws after horrific crimes. ............ A steady stream of Republican lawmakers once again delivered a two-step that has worked for them for years: declaring that none of the measures Democrats favor would have stopped the gunman — even as they steadfastly oppose broader efforts that might. ......... guns, which have surpassed motor vehicle accidents as the leading cause of death for American children ages 1 to 19 .......... “If you want to stop violent crime, the proposals the Democrats have, none of them would have stopped this,” Mr. Cruz said. ....... “This isn’t a case of Republicans hiding their position,” Mr. Schumer said on the Senate floor.The Gunman in Uvalde Left Multiple Hints Before His Attack Began the 18-year-old frequently snapped at other employees and customers, and that they took to calling him names including “school shooter” in part because of his long hair and dark garb. A California woman he had met online said she had been afraid when he tagged her in a picture of his guns out of the blue, telling him “it’s just scary.” ........ warning signs for the millions of parents and students now asking how the next mass shooting can be stopped. ....... as many as 90 percent of young attackers might tell someone in advance about their intent to cause harm. ........ The 18-year-old had unsuccessfully asked his sister to buy him a gun in September and then, in March, told friends in a group message that he was buying one. ........ he had not been explicit about his plans until the day of the attack, when he texted her that he had shot his grandmother and was about to “shoot up a elementary school.” ......... people who knew the attackers had observed concerning behavior regarding their mental health in 62 percent of cases. ........ many of the gunmen targeted their spouses and some had a history of violence against women. ....... experts caution that many people who fit the profile of a mass shooter never carry out an attack, which can make it difficult for acquaintances to determine whether the person is a real threat or not. ......... Late last year, she said, Mr. Ramos asked her out. When she turned him down, she said Mr. Ramos began creating different accounts on Instagram to send her harassing messages such as “I hate you” or “I’m going to hurt you.” Still, though, Ms. Baxter said that she had not been afraid of Mr. Ramos, saying she had never expected him to pursue violence, let alone a mass killing. .......... “Yeah, he was aggressive,” Ms. Baxter said. “But no one ever thought he was sinister enough to do something like this.”
A Heartbroken Nation many Americans have spent the past few days gripped by overwhelming incredulity and grief, exhaustion and fury over the loss of life. ....... Seventy-eight minutes elapsed after the gunman walked inside before police, believing “there were no kids at risk,” finally confronted him ....... Police held back a group of horrified parents who gathered even as shots continued to ring out inside the school and begged officers to move in and try to rescue their children. At least one mother was put in handcuffs, only to spring over a fence and sprint into the school to scoop up her child when the opportunity presented itself. The police, she said, were “doing nothing.” ........... In Buffalo, a white gunman targeted a predominantly Black neighborhood with his AR-15-style assault rifle; he was an adherent of the racist conspiracy theory known as replacement theory, which posits that white Americans are being displaced by immigrants and people of color. ......... Nearly half of Republicans told pollsters recently that they agree with the general thesis that a cabal of powerful people is encouraging immigrants to come here to sway politics. ......... There have been 213 mass shootings in the United States in the first 21 weeks of 2022. An average of 321 Americans are shot every single day. And every day, there are roughly more than 50,000 gun sales recorded. Properly maintained, those guns will fire like new for decades. ............ On Friday, the former president Donald Trump, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota and Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson of North Carolina all spoke at the annual convention of the National Rifle Association in Houston, a few hours’ drive from Uvalde. There is no better manifestation of the gun lobby’s total capture of so much of the G.O.P. ........... and allow Californians to sue gun makers. ....... And Gov. Kathy Hochul called on the legislature to raise the age limit to purchase some assault weapons to 21. The shooter in Texas waited until his 18th birthday to buy a pair of assault weapons and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. ......... “What are we doing?” he asked his colleagues. “Why do you go through all the hassle of getting this job, of putting yourself in a position of authority” he wondered, if the answer is to do nothing “as the slaughter increases, as our kids run for their lives?” .......... It’s a question that speaks to the Senate directly and the entire system of American government more broadly. ........ as currently structured, Congress is fundamentally unresponsive to the needs of its most vulnerable citizens and has been corrupted by powerful interest groups, allowing those groups to block even modest changes that the vast majority of Americans support. ........ progress is agonizingly slow and won’t be enough for the hundreds of Americans who will be shot today and tomorrow and every day until action is taken.
One Nation, Under Guns Brings back memories of when I first moved to New York back in the ’80s. When I got out of the subway after work, I’d leap into a phone booth right there on the corner, slam the door shut and call my husband to come and walk me home. It was just a block! But we were so paranoid about crime back then . …
America’s Human Sacrifices
The Good News in Georgia That’s Bad News for Trump
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