Nick Johnson a native Iowan ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1974 against now Republican Senator Chuch Grassley . Imagine what the Senate might be like if Johnson beat Grassley back then.
----- Original Message ----- From: Eric Sundquist To: Bikies Sent: Tuesday, December 22, 2009 4:43 PM Subject: Re: [Bikies] The Bicycle- It's Like Giving Up Smoking --- 1973Editorial Very true, the benefit of seeing things more intently at 15 mph in the open air rather than at 45 mph behind the wheel (though the part about the rain feeling good isn't always true IMHO). FYI, Johnson now lives in Iowa, where he writes this blog: http://fromdc2iowa.blogspot.com/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: Linda Kietzer <[email protected]> To: drakes tds.net <[email protected]>; Bikies <[email protected]> Sent: Tue, December 22, 2009 2:36:09 PM Subject: Re: [Bikies] The Bicycle- It's Like Giving Up Smoking --- 1973 Editorial transcribed in full: The Bicycle -- It's Like Giving Up Smoking (Federal communications Commissioner Nicholas Johnson wrote this piece for the New York Times, Aug. 2, 1973) I ride a bicycle. Not because I hate General Motors but haven't the courage to bomb an auto plant. I don't do it as a gesture of great stoicism and personal sacrifice. I am not even engaged, necessarily, in an act of political protest over that company's responsibility for most of the air pollution tonnage in the United States. It's like finally giving up cigarettes. You just wake up one morning and realize you don't want to start the day with another automobile. Cigarette smoking is not a pleasure, it's a business. In the same say, you finally come to realize that you don't need General Motors, they need you. They need you to drive their cars for them. You are for Detroit and paying them to do it. Automobiles are just a part of your life that's over, that's all. NO HARD FEELINGS. You've just moved on to something else. From now on, you just use their buses, taxis, and rental cars when they suit your convenience. You don't keep one for them that you have to house, feed and water, insure and care for. You ride a bicycle because it feels good. The air feels good on your body; even the rain feels good. The blood starts moving around your body, and pretty soon it gets to your head, and, glory be, your head feels good. You start noticing things. You look until you really see. You hear things, and smell smells you never knew were there. You start whistling nice little original tunes to suit the moment. Words start getting caught in the web of poetry in your mind. And there's a nice feeling, too, in knowing you're doing a fundamental life thing for yourself: transportation. You got a little bit of your life back! And the thing you use is simple, functional, and relatively cheap. You want one that fits you and rides smoothly, but with proper care and a few parts, it should last almost forever. Your satisfaction comes from within you, and from the envy or jealousy of others. (Although you are entitled to feel a little smug during rush hours, knowing you are also making better time than most of the people in cars.) ON THOSE OCCASIONS when I am not able to cycle through the parks or along the canal -- because the paths are rough with ice or muddy from rain or melting snow -- bicycling enables me to keep closer to the street people folks waiting for buses or to cross streets, street sweepers, policemen, school "patrol," men unloading trucks. Needless to say, you cannot claim any depth of understanding as a result of such momentary and chance encounters but by the time I get to the office I do somehow have the sense that I have a much better feeling for the mood of the city that day than if I had come to my office in a chauffeur-driven government limousine. Although I am willing to brave the traffic and exhaust, I am aware it is dangerous. I think bicycles ought to be accorded a preferred position in the city's transportation system. At the very least, they deserve an even break. NOTICE THAT BICYCLE riding also has some significant social advantages over the automobile. Cars unnecessarily kill sixty thousand people every year, permanently maim another one hundred and seventh thousand, and injure three and a half million more. The automobile accounts for at least 66 percent of the total air pollution in the United States by tonnage -- as high as 85 percent in some urban areas -- and 91 percent of all-carbon monoxide pollution; it creates about nine hundred pounds of pollution for every person every year. One million acres of land are paved each years, there is now a mile of road for each square mile of land. The concrete used in our Interstate Highway System would build six sidewalks to the moon. Even so, everyone is familiar with the clogged streets and parking problems -- not to mention the unconscionable rates charged by the parking garages. Automobile transportation is the largest single consumer of the resources used in our nation's total annual output of energy. It is an economic drain on consumers -- in no way aided by auto companies that deliberately build bumpers weaker than they were fifty years ago in order to contribute to an unnecessary bumper repair bill in excess of one billion dollars annually. The bicycle is a model citizen, by comparison. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: drakes tds.net <[email protected]> To: Bikies <[email protected]> Sent: Tue, December 22, 2009 9:03:51 AM Subject: [Bikies] The Bicycle- It's Like Giving Up Smoking --- 1973 Editorial attached is a nice piece that is as true today as it was 36- years ago, which was written by then FCC Commissioner Nicolas Johnson. Please excuse the poor scan quality. "You start noticing things. You look until you really see. You hear things, and smell things you never knew were there. You start whistling original tunes to suit the moment. Words start getting caught in the web of poetry in your mind." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [email protected] http://lists.danenet.org/listinfo.cgi/bikies-danenet.org
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