Thought I'd post a Velonews response to the two articles posted earlier in the week:
http://www.velonews.com/news/fea/2809.0.html Friday's Foaming Rant: Smack the hack By Patrick O'Grady VeloNews editor at large This report filed July 26, 2002 Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for f---offs and misfits - a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy, piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage. - Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas It must be a dull Tour. Otherwise I wouldn't be getting a dozen e-mails a day about the latest outrage perpetrated upon the cycling public by the mainstream media, which as usual are either completely indifferent or actively hostile to us. First came word of a column by Dimitri Vassilaros, in a Pittsburgh-area cage liner called the Tribune-Review, that trotted out the requisite hoary complaints - O, woe the poor, beleaguered motorist, who occasionally must set down his cell phone and coffee cup to steer a safe course around a bicyclist who shouldn't be on the roads at all because motorists pay all the costs of their upkeep, woe, woe. This geek clearly has spent too much time ensnarled in metro traffic, mesmerized by Clear Channel radio and chasing hydrocarbons with an occasional nip from the hip flask, to scribble an original thought. Then there was a silly-ass screed by Ron Borges on the MSNBC Web site which postulated that not only is Lance Armstrong not the world's best athlete, he may not be an athlete at all. Borges, a sports reporter for The Boston Globe, is an authority in such matters, because he covers boxing, an activity in which two representatives of rival minority groups batter each other for the amusement of white folks until Don King or Tony Soprano tells one of them to lay down, and pro football, a ritualized form of mock combat intended to satiate the nation's bloodlust between wars. Subsequently, howls of disbelief and cries for vengeance have ricocheted around the Internet like stray rounds in the West Bank. And if you are among those wounded, you can certainly dash off a critical letter to Vassilaros' and Borges' editors, if indeed they have editors, and they are sober, and can read, all of which seems highly unlikely given the quality of their employees' published work. But if you follow that impulse, why, then, the terrorists win. See, this is what columnists are. Terrorists. On the outside, we are largely indistinguishable from our fellow citizens, but inside each of us dwells a wild-haired, unshaven, bomb-throwing anarchist awaiting the chance to disrupt society for our own nefarious purposes, which generally involve generating letters to the editor. For a columnist, letters to the editor are the equivalent of letters of recommendation. "He must be good," muses the editor as he tosses off a sixth martini at lunch. "Just look at all the mail we get. I can't read the sonofabitch myself, but I guess there's no accounting for taste. Speaking of taste, double up on that, would you, barkeep?" So toward that end, knowing that cyclists have thinner skins than a ballpark frank, professional spectators like Borges underhand us a slow pitch like, "For my money, being the greatest athlete in the world involves strength, speed, agility, hand-eye coordination, mental toughness and the ability to make your body do things that defy description. Chief among them is not pumping your legs up and down while your feet are strapped to bicycle pedals." You could tell Borges, "Hey, you couch-bound jock-sniffer, it takes strength to ride a 52km time trial, speed to drop Joseba Beloki on Mont Ventoux, agility to navigate a corkscrew alpine descent at 60 mph, hand-eye coordination to snag the musette you'll need to survive six hours in the saddle in 90-degree heat, mental toughness to even finish a grand tour, and the ability to make your body do things that defy description to win one." But then he's got his letter, and job security. Meanwhile, Vassilaros, facing another deadline with a head full of not much, taps out a lame-o like, "I don't want to share the road with a bicycle. However, you and I must because if we did not, it could lead to tragedy. Drivers have to follow the law, but that does not mean we have to like it." You could tell Vassilaros, "Spaseba, tovarisch, but we don't exactly relish sharing the road with you, either. And as regards the equitable division of expense, you'll be getting your payback down the road, when we fit, healthy cyclists are picking up the tab for your Medicare-funded nursing-home bed." But then he's got his letter, and maybe an extra couple of bucks in the old pay envelope. Hell, I could write a nasty column calling Borges and Vassilaros ignorant, sloppy hacks, talentless space-fillers with smaller audiences than Rosie O'Donnell stripping to "In-a-Gadda-da-Vida" at a roadside rest area. But I'd probably just be trying to score myself a few letters to the editor. I'm thinking about buying a new bike, and frankly I could use a raise. "Never doubt that a small group of dedicated individuals working together can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." -- Margaret Mead _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.danenet.org/mailman/listinfo/bikies
