Before I type anything else and forget- I need to get a hose so I can do things like wash my cars and pressure wash the house and driveway and that sort of shit, and I wanted to know if there was a specific type of hose I should buy that will not immediately dry rot in the desert. Or is it just a situation where they are all gonna dry rot you just gotta store it inside between uses to extend the life?
At any rate, busy day today. Took Steve to his new vet, a delightful young Hispanic woman in her late 20’s to early 30’s, and she and all the other folks wanted to steal Steve because he was so amiable and easy to handle. My string of saying inappropriate things in front of people I do not know remains unrivaled, as I blurted out “Sorry bro didn’t know there was going to be ass play today” when she rectally checked his temperature, but she shocked me by giggling and saying “lube is love, Steve.” After everything was sorted with him, the diabetes specialist came in to talk to me and go over some stuff.
This lady was quite a character, and she was introduced to me as “Emily, the diabetes queen of Tempe.” She looked like Cheri Oteri and even had her mannerisms, swore profusely and apologized each time explaining she is a Jewish lady from Chicago and has two tweens, I told her that it is ok I was in the Army for a decade, and we locked eyes and visually agreed that we both had been in the trenches and this was a swearing safe zone. We got along well. She gave me a good block of instruction, texted me her number so I could reach her at any time.
After that, I had to work for a bit, and then this afternoon we took the bike I bought to a bike shop to get it checked out and roadworthy, and while there, Joelle, the techs, and I all agreed the bike was not going to work for me. I need a bigger one. I’m looking at a fat tired baja like this:
The problem is they are way expensive (like 1100 new), so I am looking on FB marketplace and craigslist for a used one. The people at the bike shop thought the bike I brought in was very unique and old, and worth more than I paid for it, so we are going to research it and then try to flip it with some backstory and vintage appeal.
After that we went to Lowe’s and I picked up some items I forgot the last trip (Barkeep’s friend, scrub brushes, a bucket, a new light bulb for the fridge, etc.), then stopped by the a really nice Med. Market and got some baba ganoush, pita, and olive oil.
And now we are here.
Talked to my mother today and she was mad about the President of Harvard resigning because Rep. Stefanik was doing a victory lap, and thought I would be upset, too. And I am not upset because I am a horrible person and have come to grips with that. No, I hate that Rep. Stefanik is thrilled- fuck her. But after what I have been through the last year with the bullshit at WVU, there will be no rending of garments in this household when anyone in college administration gets fucked over. Claudine Gay may be a delightful person and splendid neighbor, but she’s a college President and wouldn’t hesitate one minute to fuck me or any other faculty or staff member over and then hand everything off to the team of lawyers, so fuck her. My solidarity ends at the admin.
I guess I have nothing else to say. Zoom was fun yesterday even though I was preoccupied with emails. We should so it again.
War for Ukraine Day 678: Russia Bombards Ukraine Again Shortly After Dawn
Princess
“She’s a college President and wouldn’t hesitate one minute to fuck me or any other faculty or staff member over and then hand everything off to the team of lawyers, so fuck her.”
Truth.
eclare
If you have cars, which you do, I still don’t see the need for an extra vehicle. I would be terrified riding that bike here on the streets with cars.
Roberto el oso
One tip about living in that sort of climate (AZ). Printer ink and toner tend to evaporate if they’re left in the printer and especially if one doesn’t print things on the regular. The recommended way to store them when not in use is in a large plastic ziplock baggie in the refrigerator (NOT the freezer, lol).
Suzanne
You can keep it outside if you keep it in the shade. UV light is what destroys things the fastest there, it breaks down almost every material. (Including your skin.)
On the biggie tricycle thing…. are you ever going to try to take it on the bus or the light rail? From having hefted my own bike on those racks, I don’t know if they can accommodate a trike. Phoenix is such a sprawling city, and is hot for so much of the year, a car-light lifestyle will use the light rail a lot.
brendancalling
With all due respect, why the trike? At the end of the day, a two wheeler is faster, more maneuverable, and more useful overall.
TaMara
How are the critters all settling in? Have we had a faculty mixer yet? Is Thurston adjusting to not being an only pup anymore?
TaMara
LOL on all the bike nannies.
ETA:
Suzanne
@eclare:
The area around the University (central Tempe) has a couple of nice bike paths. There’s some along the canals, and a couple of the collector streets have protected bike lanes. Once you get out of that small area, tho…. yeah, the quality of the bike infrastructure drops fast. Midtown Phoenix has a little bit.
But a friend of mine was killed while riding her bike in Scottsdale about 18 months ago, and I am two degrees of separation from probably ten other people who have been killed while riding bikes over the years. Those wide streets just welcome insane driving. I would only ride my bike in selected areas.
John Cole
@brendancalling: Because I have two surgically constructed shoulders and like the trike.
kindness
We need critter pics. We’re just needy that way.
Yarrow
Before you get too carried away with using water be sure to check local municipal regulations on things like washing your car in the driveway hosing down the driveway. In places where water is at a premium that sort of thing can often be regulated.
Cathie from Canada
Where I live is also hot and dry in the summer. Don’t turn off a hose end attachment but leave the tap open. If a water-filled hose lies in the sun, the water will heat up and expand the hose and ruin it. Ask me how I know…
eclare
@Suzanne:
That is awful, I’m so sorry. I am only two degrees from one person killed on a bike, but that is enough.
Odie Hugh Manatee
I use nothing but commercial hoses that are rugged as heck. I have two 100′ and one 50′ Craftsman hoses from the 50’s that my wife inherited along with two 50′ Continental hoses, all black and equipped with brass ends. Whatever you do make sure that you get hoses with brass ends, not aluminum! Aluminum is not suitable for use for hose or sprinkler use as it corrodes as soon as the anodized surface is scratched or corroded through. Household hose manufacturers use it because brass lasts forever and they want you to buy more hoses.
Whoever came up with the idea to use aluminum hose ends and sprinklers needs to be beaten by a crowd of angry consumers equipped with sand-packed rubber hoses. With brass ends on them!
Joelle
@Suzanne: yes I only ride in Tempe and avoid the main crazy streets. Try to keep it neighborhood.
SpaceUnit
Even with an adjustable seat that Baja bike doesn’t look like it will give you full leg extension in your pedal cycle. You’re a fairly big dude.
A too-short pedal rep can lead to things like tendonitis in the knee. You want full extension.
Suzanne
@eclare: Yeah, it’s terrible. It’s exacerbated by the fact that huge trucks and SUVs are so common there. Their blind spots are huge and they hit with so much force. And the roadways are almost the Platonic ideal of terrible environmental design. They’re so wide and straight, and it creates a speed culture. My MIL commented to me once when she was visiting, “The speed limit here is just a gentle suggestion.”
Suzanne
@Joelle: I like that path along the canal next to the YMCA and the golf course.
Joelle
Also I’d like to congratulate all the pets for their spectacular success at pack integration. This afternoon’s triple canine nap zone and Netflix was pure bliss. I never thought it would be this easy. Next week… cat world meets dog world.
Chetan Murthy
@Princess:in-DEED. I’ve read similar comments from other academics: for solidarity to be extended, it has to be returned, and (ahem) administration never returns solidarity to faculty (of any sort). Never. It’s a pity that this (the push to get her to resign) is part of an effort to bring universities to heel, but even with that, it’s difficult to feel sorry for well-heeled administrators like her getting the boot for …. being absolutely brain-dead at one of their key job functions. I mean ….. WTF were that law firm doing when they prepped her?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
I like the trike! Looks like it’d be a comfy ride
Nukular Biskits
@John Cole:
I attended as well, although I was mum most of the time: Watching g’baby, throwing the tennis ball for Summer and trying my best not to fall into a food coma.
At least I did momentarily get a glimpse of the Blogfather.
Quinerly
I love my stainless steel garden hoses from Amazon. Lightweight, don’t kink, New Mexican critters don’t nibble them. Hoses seem to hold up with the heat. And cold.
Unywarse Metal Garden Hose on Amazon. They are on sale often.
I have really gotten into my high desert gardening.
Alison Rose
I kind of want to nominate this for a rotating tag. Maybe just the “lube is love, Steve” part. Let unsuspecting visitors to the blog wonder who Steve is and experience whatever emotions they may when they realize he’s a cat.
satby
About hoses, I bought a couple of these steel ones and I love them. I could see drawbacks in how hot they’d get in summer in AZ, but they’ve lasted for two years outside, they don’t kink up, and they’re not as clumsy or heavy to drag around.
satby
@Joelle: Congratulations! Big respect for all parties.
Kay
@Chetan Murthy:
Well, Rufo won so you can expect them to go after more, and it won’t be just “administration” who are targeted.
Seems really short sighted to me to think this is an end- it’s a start.
Kay
@Chetan Murthy:
Well, Rufo won so you can expect them to go after more, and it won’t be just “administration” who are targeted.
Seems really short sighted to me to think this is an end- it’s a start.
Jay
T’s BFF in Phoenix got tired of replacing hoses, and switched to a stainless steel clad hose.
There are two different types, one has braid like a toilet riser, the other is built like flexible metal conduit.
Kay
Now they have John Yoo pontificating on ethical behavior
Good God. He’s the model.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kay:
Is it possible that university admin will see what happened to Gay and not give people like Rufo the bait they want?
Robmassing
I hope someday you gather these stories and publish a book. You are a terrific writer, not to mention you have a head-start on building an audience.
Kay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
guffaw. No that’s not possible. They’ll be terrified of this witch-hunt.
I suggest not putting Christopher Rufo in charge of hiring and firing in education. This will end badly, and not just for Ivy League administrators.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kay:
Why is it not possible? People need to fight back against this. Moms Against Liberty eventually earned the ire of folks and were tossed out on their asses
Honus
Since John mentioned WVU, I certainly hope he’s not judging all college administrators on the Gordon Gee model.
Kay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Because they’re cowards and they won’t defend their people.
They just gave Rufo veto power over who they hire. I’ll make a prediction- the only person who will be acceptable will be a white, male conservative. Everyone else will miraculously develop a fatal flaw.
Anne Laurie
Any chance that trike could be listed as a medical expense against your taxes?
(Don’t know the exact IRS rules, but *some* exercise equipment qualifies, if your doctor will certify being ‘too fat’ as a medical condition… )
ETA: You might also want to check out local ‘medical supply’ stores — they might not have used trikes in stock, but they can probably share some online communities where people — or their heirs — are looking for buyers.
Chetan Murthy
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Kay’s right: admin will fold like a cheap suit. Decades of “go for the gold” have taught administration to have no actual values whatsoever, and always, always turn in the direction with the most money. They’ll do as they’re told.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kay:
Then somebody needs to do something to stiffen their spines and resist Rufo.
mali muso
@Kay: Agree with you in this. They will only become more emboldened to bully and harass. Good summary by Don Moynihan here.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Chetan Murthy:
I don’t see any reason why it has to be that way
Kay
@mali muso:
Its so gross how they trumped up a character attack.
They got rid of the other one without accusing her of cheating. We all know this has nothing to do with plagiarism- if it did they wouldn’t have demanded the other two also be fired.
The NYTimes is thick as thieves with this bullshit, too, as per usual. Rufo was feeding them words and they were printing them.
mrmoshpotato
This is a masterclass in writing.
Brachiator
At first I read this as “get a horse…”
I was thinking, “That John Cole dude really is accommodating to being out West. “
Kay
@mali muso:
Its amusing to me that they think this is some expression of public will, when really it’s just the NYTimes and Christopher Rufo.
Anti woke was a big bust politically. Normal people don’t give a shit about it. It’s failed for Republicans for two consecutive cycles now.
Suzanne
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Things will usually go how they’re incentivized to go. University presidents are really just there to bring in money. So if one is interfering with the ability to bring in money, as Gay was over the last few weeks, then they have to go. That means political pressure works.
If you want to change that, then you have to change the incentives. Shit isn’t the way it is for no reason. Shit is the way it is because someone profits.
Suzanne
@Kay: Normal people don’t give a shit about Harvard, either.
Another Scott
@mali muso:
Indeed.
Good people have to speak up when bad people are trying to do damage.
I don’t know if Gay copied too much stuff without attribution, or if she (and Liz Magill of UPenn and Sally Kornbluth of MIT) could have given answers at the House hearing that would have satisfied the monsters. What I do know is that she was hounded out of her job by outside people who don’t care about the quality of a Harvard education – they care about destroying DEI and Affirmative Action and anything else that gets in the way of white supremacy and their cult.
We’ve been here before – McCarthyism, red baiting, black lists, and all the rest.
They’re not going to give up until people make them stop.
Grr…,
Scott.
Leto
John: this popped up on my youtube feed today and I was sorry it didn’t pop up before you left: Grateful Dead – Truckin
alex j.
BIKE BIKE BIKE !!!! It’s not Cheap but Lectric brand e-bikes has a fat tire 3 wheeler. Don’t poo-poo e-bikes. I think you’ll find that you will ride much further and much greater distances….evening out the “advantage” electric motors provide. You can huff and sweat as little or as much as you want. Once you have one, you’ll wonder why you waited. Another plus…..anyone can ride it confidently….friends, fam, young, old….just fun as hell
Soprano2
@Kay: Yep, I hate that Harvard gave in to the pressure because it encourages them to do it more. They want all the universities to be run by white straight men.
mvr
I am reacting by being detached from my usual vitriolic views on College administrators. Partly because I don’t know quite what to say about my university and WVA being highlighted in the Chronicle in December as “failing” Flagship Universities. What they have in common is that our current system president (the boss of the flagship boss) going to Ohio State (no doubt with a raise in salary after leaving us in shambles). And Gordon Gee heading up Ohio State twice before landing at WVA (also with many raises I am sure).
Kay
@Suzanne:
It won’t stop at Harvard. Harvard is much less vulnerable than the state schools they’ll go after next.
mvr
@Suzanne: Having been at several institutions of different sorts, I think even the role of university presidents is local. Bringing in qua president/chancellor matters more at some places than others. Probably even among the elite universities. I was a grad student at a pretty elite place and the University president at that place did a lot of different things. But the best thing they did was raise grad student stipends by multiples (after I was gone) and take grad student interests seriously. A place with lots of money can do that if there is the right perspective on things.
At my current place the job seems to involve shmoozing the R legislators and not interfering with fundraising for the Athletic Department and especially the football team.
Suzanne
@Kay: I recognize that, but don’t think this will go as well for Rufo as he hopes. He thought people would care about “wokeness”, and, like, Rod Dreher cares, and no one else. It’s gonna be hard for him to build broad support based on goings-on at Harvard.
It really feels like these dudes who are into this are really salty that they didn’t get into a good school.
mvr
@mali muso:
Yes pay attention to what mali muso is pointing out. This is a political movement and fancy or not we’re all going to get messed up if we let it go by unchallenged. (I guess there goes my professed detachment as a coping strategy.)
SpaceUnit
@alex j.:
Agree! I have a Stumpjumper and a Vintage Electric bike and everyday it’s just a choice between what sort of adventure / workout I want to have. And I get a great workout on my electric. It emboldens you to tackle crazy hills (I’m in Colorado) and to see how little assistance you need.
ETA: And before you know it you won’t need any.
Kay
@Soprano2:
Giving in to them never works. I would have bet 500 dollars Rufo would consider this as just the start, and he does. He’s gloating and vowing to go after anyone he believes is unworthy – because of course he is.
Harvard thought they’d say “well, that’s enough, we’ll stop now”?
Theyre already going after the last of the three.
dirge
Can confirm that this is an issue with inkjet printers, even without the dry climate, if you print rarely enough.
That’s why I got a cheap B&W laserjet, which is perfectly happy to wake from months of slumber and spit out whatever random thing I have to drop in the mail for some stupid reason.
Maybe I’ll eventually get around to buying more ink for the color inkjet, but since I’d probably be buying it at a place that can print things for me, maybe not. If I do, I’ll keep it in the fridge, so thanks for that.
TriassicSands
@Suzanne:
The basic problem is that human beings drive cars and bicycles are too often an afterthought (that is, thought about only after they’ve been hit).
Cole hasn’t, that I’m aware of, mentioned a helmet. An excellent helmet is mandatory for bike or trike riding on city streets, even with bike lanes. Good helmets are not cheap, but they cost less than brain surgery.
brendancalling
@John Cole: the shoulders would indeed explain it.
Kay
@Suzanne:
The Right turned against colleges when women and minorities became a majority at colleges.
Thats not a coincidence. It’s like how if a profession or trade becomes majority women wages go down – it’s literally less valuable.
Kay
@Suzanne:
The Right turned against colleges when women and minorities became a majority at colleges.
Thats not a coincidence. It’s like how if a profession or trade becomes majority women wages go down – it’s literally less valuable.
Kelly
Harvard has a 49 billion dollar endowment. They have the means to resist any pressure the racist bastards can bring to bear. They did this to avoid awkwardness at cocktail parties.
BigJimSlade
Excellent post :-)
But pressure washing shit in the desert? Get a broom. (Confession, I’m in LA and my mom gets stuff pressure washed sometimes. She’s 86 and I can’t even begin to stop her from wasting water, heat, AC, food, you name it. And I think she produces triple the garbage that my wife and I do… sigh.)
Suzanne
@TriassicSands: Agreed. And, like, the area around the university has good bike life, but at some point, you need to be on a big arterial road because all the stores are there, and people drive 60 down those roads, and the bike lanes are terrible. Some of my friends would just bike on the sidewalk because there’s so few pedestrians, and it’s much safer.
Soprano2
I got one of those flexible cloth hoses at work. I keep it in a 5 gallon bucket. It’s nice and light, but if you ever tear it you have to throw it away.
I’m in one of the worst moods I’ve been in for a long time. For some reason our dogs have decided it’s OK to shit in the house even when we’re here. It’s been happening for about 3 weeks. Nothing has changed – not their diet, not when we’re here, nothing is different. Hubby was home downstairs all day, and somehow one of them shit on the carpet right by the couch and hubby didn’t even notice it! I found it by stepping in it. I think it’s both of them because I’ve seen two different kinds of shit. One is regular turds, the other is loose stool. It’s especially fun to clean up when they travel as they go, making little piles all in a line. As if I have unlimited time to clean up after them. They just went to the vet on Saturday, and they had no indication of any health problems. It’s maddening. I’m beside myself trying to figure out what to do.
Then there’s my new therapist. I had to switch because my original therapist is going to start teaching so she quit doing therapy appointments. My new therapist is nice enough, and maybe I’ll like her more as I get to know her, but so far I miss my previous therapist. My new one is more no nonsense, and while I can appreciate that I think I need more help managing my emotions and fewer suggestions about finding things for my husband to do during the day.
I silent cried through most of my yoga class tonight. When I came home I yelled at the dogs and threw them outside. They may be spending a lot more time out there if I can’t figure out how to get them not to shit in the house.
Thanks for listening to my rant.
Suzanne
@Kay:
Agreed. I have said this many times. All of a sudden, we start hearing nonsense like, “Why do college grads make more money than trades? That’s bullshit!” when women and minorities start outdoing white dudes.
wjca
Is it petty of me to hope Yoo goes there permanently? It would be soooo nice if UC Berkeley could get shut of him! Talk about an embarrassment.
Kay
@Soprano2:
oh I’m sorry. It all sounds awful.
Soprano2
@Kay: The only people he thinks are worthy are straight conservative men and women. As long as they’re conservative he’ll be ok with them.
Suzanne
Ohhhh shit, just got bad news. I think I told y’all that SuzMom fell last Marchand ended up needing two hip surgeries, one a total replacement in September. And then months of recovery. WELL, her older sister, SuzAunt, apparently just took a fall down the stairs and broke her leg and will have surgery tomorrow. HOLY SHIT IT’S LITERALLY ONLY THE SECOND DAY OF THE YEAR.
Soprano2
@Kay: I think that’s why the Right has suddenly decided you don’t need a college degree after all to be successful at anything. They think the product has been degraded because too many non-white and female people have it now.
Another Scott
@Soprano2: Thanks for letting us know. It helps to get it out.
You’re going through a lot. Make sure to make fun time for yourself. Yoga is good, but it’s work! Do you like screwball comedies? Something different to let you be in another place in your head?
We’re pulling for you.
Cheers,
Scott.
TriassicSands
@alex j.:
Hmm. What’s missing? Oh, yeah, exercise. Plus, if Joelle has a regular bike and Cole gets an e-bike, how does that make sense?
An e-bike is a great substitute, in my mind, for a motor vehicle, not a manually pedaled bike or trike.
Punchy
I must have missed something. Did John take a job at UA? Otherwise why Tempe?
Soprano2
@Kay: Thanks. Most nights I don’t get to sit down on the couch until 9:00 or after, and then I fall asleep. I didn’t have kids, but I think I know a little how that is now because I take care of all of them. I make sure hubby and the dog have their meds every day twice a day. I have to do almost everything now. It’s exhausting sometimes.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: Oh good grief I’m sorry. Come sit on the couch by me.
Another Scott
@Punchy:
And Some Details.
More in the category: John Cole Presents This Fucking Old House.
HTH!
Cheers,
Scott.
eclare
@Soprano2:
I am so sorry. I have no advice. Please feel free to vent here.
Suzanne
@Soprano2:
Yes, exactly. And they think that women and minorities are getting preferential treatment, rather than just doing better.
Suzanne
@Soprano2: Any time. I’d go to yoga with you, too. That shit resets my brain like nothing else.
eclare
@Suzanne:
I am so sorry, best wishes for your aunt.
TriassicSands
I just took a look at the Tempe craigslist and was a little surprised that there weren’t more recumbent bikes. I’ve never ridden one, but a lot of older riders in my area have them. However, I doubt John could find one at an attractive enough price.
John Cole, if your target trike doesn’t appear at a reasonable enough price, you could consider a recumbent — just in case one showed up at the right price. Unlike the trike, they won’t be that stable, but it’s a lot shorter distance to the ground should the “Inevitable” happen. I write that because after all the years of Cole accidents, I wouldn’t rule out the possibility. If you aren’t an experienced cyclist then the safest alternative, in terms of self-inflicted crashes is the trike, but they are less maneuverable than regular two wheelers, which could make it harder to get out of the way of the big danger — the massive pickup truck driver who can’t even see you way down there.
wjca
Not so sure about that. I suspect that it happened when public universities (e.g. Land Grant colleges) started to get reputations rivaling their elites’ private colleges. At least, that’s when their paymasters soured of colleges generally. The mob didn’t get the message until later.
Suzanne
@TriassicSands:
LOL, the culture of Phoenix is that you join one of the 5742258954 gyms, at least one conveniently located at every major intersection. (Shouldn’t go to the ASU rec center if you’re over the age of 30, unless you want everyone to think you’re a letch.)
The relative dearth of gyms was one of the bigger culture shocks I experienced when moving from PHX to PGH.
Suzanne
@eclare: Thank you. I was just talking with SuzMom about going out to see her (she lives in CT)…. problem is, I will need to take her, since she isn’t recovered enough. And I have a 100% deadline for five buildings on 2/23!
NotMax
One word: e-bike.
eclare
@Suzanne:
I experienced the same moving from Atlanta to Memphis. I was a five times a week stepper in Atlanta, the step classes here, if they existed, were a joke.
I am still trying to find my exercise spot.
BeautifulPlumage
@Soprano2: yikes! Rant away! I wish you had someone to take over for a day once a week to give you a break. Take care!
(and: Bad Doggies! Give your Mom a break already)
BeautifulPlumage
@Suzanne: oh wow, sorry to hear, plus with the deadlines you mentioned further down.
like a metaphor
You might want to get one of those trikes with the built in sun awning. And a fan. And possibly a juice bar.
Will
First twenty or so comments are all trike and animal comments, then honest to god someone had to turn the dial to 11. The idea that Rufo is in charge of hiring now is hyperbole. The other administrator got fired because they evidently lacked the two brain cells to rub together to produce an affirmative reaction to antisemitism being a bad thing. As Cole said, these upper crust elite institution admins would throw most staff under the bus at the drop of a hat. These aren’t people to cry over. Stop saying dumb stuff like Gay is going to be replaced with a white man, when we know she won’t be.
NotMax
@Nukular Biskits
Citizen Alan
@eclare: I went back to Mississippi for Christmas and flew into Memphis. After six months in Fresno, my first thought was “If clinical depression was a city, it would be Memphis, Tennessee.” I’m honestly disappointed that my sister didn’t do anything to piss me off so I’d have an excuse to go no-contact and never return to the South.
Suzanne
@like a metaphor:
That’s…. a car. Pulling through the Dutch Bros. drive-thru!
Ms. Deranged in AZ
Having lived here in PHX area for nigh on 25 years, I suggest you get a normal hose but a really sturdy hose container that will not itself rot in the sun. Alas, I have yet to find one myself. So you either end up buying a new hose every year or buying a new container for the hose every year. I thought about trying metal (hose or container) but that will be 3,000° in the summer and not worth the burns. Pick your poison I guess.
Gretchen
@brendancalling: I’m in the ER with my husband after his second bike accident so I second the idea of a trike. Two wheelers skid and fall over too easily. He fortunately didn’t break anything but they want to make sure there’s no internal bleeding since he’s an old guy. He doesn’t want to give up biking but maybe a trike would do?
Jackie
@NotMax: Assuming John wants to bike with Joelle, two e-bikes.
Nettoyeur
@Roberto el oso: Get a BW laser printer. Cheaper, more reliable all you need for moet stuff. When you MUST have color, go to an office shop and use their high end color laser printer, dye xfer, giant plotter.
..
NotMax
Sigh. Funky format. Can you tell haven’t quite woken up from late afternoon nap? Fix.
@Nukular Biskits
Oh, that’s what you were doing. On camera it appeared you were trying to shoo off a clutch of pterodactyls.
:)
@Soprano2
Keep an eye out for any brass monkeys.
:)
Jay
@Ms. Deranged in AZ:
The stainless don’t heat up that much, and given their no kink/self coiling features, you pretty much just handle them from the nozzle.
Suzanne
@eclare: I stuck my foot in my mouth a couple of times when I first moved here. In AZ, my small-talk go-to topic was always workout stuff. Everyone is into something…. team sports, golf, fitness classes, weightlifting competitions, whatever. I tried that tactic a couple of times when I first moved here, and a few people said, “I don’t exercise at all”. Since IDGAF about college or pro football, I have to come up with something else!
NotMax
Jackie
Why? Being “e” it be turned off.
gwangung
@Will: Not sure that’s the point. This is a campaign that’s going to be repeated at every level of society, and at levels that are not inherently prepared as an Ivy League school.
That’s going to cause damage….and it’s avoidable damage if folks are complacent and don’t take it seriously.
frosty
Sorry I missed the Zoom and I appreciate the Blogfather saying it was fun and we should do it again. I hope my schedule works out next time.
dirt_first
Hey man, what if you didn’t spray stuff down with water in the desert ?
//relurking
BeautifulPlumage
@Will:
I don’t pay enough attention to admin/ faculty/staff to agree or disagree with your comment, except for your last sentence: why are you so sure about this? The right has been freaking out about affirmative action for decades. Now they have the $$ and “non-profit” organizations to push for their ideal of white-male-run universities
Soprano2
@Suzanne: It usually helps me get away from it all, but tonight I couldn’t leave it outside the mat. It brings up a lot of emotion sometimes.
like a metaphor
@Suzanne: wouldn’t it be a nicer world if we all just drove little cars made of wicker or something, with awnings and flower vases and stuff. I get so tired of looking into the rearview mirror of my hooptie and seeing the hideous scowling frown of monster trucks and suvs threatening to eat my bumper. In the slow lane.
Suzanne
@Soprano2: I hear you. I’m thinking about you and sending the best vibes I can. Hang in there. Come vent here.
MinuteMan
Faculty unions are as necessary for profs as they are for factory workers. If you can’t trivially change to a comparable job at a better shop, then you need someway to keep the PTB from grinding you under their boot. Faculty unions are far from perfect, but otherwise it’s you against all levels of the administration with their legal and PR teams. Maybe the AAUP will get around to issuing a censure but that won’t get you rehired and the administrators probably wear it as a badge of honor.
Chetan Murthy
@BeautifulPlumage: I’d guess that whoever replaces her, will have a strong directive to “avoid that DEI shit, don’t make us look bad”. And that’ll have a deleterious impact on all sorts of things. Like, say, programs that expose college students to the rampant oppression in our society, our world.
Soprano2
@Will: What we believe is that they won’t stop there. The goal is to get rid of all DEI, and to make universities afraid to hire administrators who aren’t conservatives.
Tom Levenson
@Kay: Exactly.
TriassicSands
@Suzanne:
In one sense, it isn’t surprising that cycling might not be a popular form of exercise in many AZ cities, since cycling when it is 110 degrees isn’t a great idea. What I always found most horrifying about Phoenix weather is the harsh reality that it can be in the 90s at night. That’s just not right!
Of course, while that may rule out cycling in the late spring, summer, and early fall, it also means that during the part of the year when most Americans won’t be cycling, the weather is far more agreeable. John has arrived at a time of year when there should be promising cycling weather. Now, he just has to get a bike/trike…and a helmet.
Suzanne
@like a metaphor: I have shared here before about my undying, irrational hatred for the Ford F-series of trucks. After 32 years of living in Phoenix/Tucson, and being surrounded by dickholes who drive/park those things ludicrously…. I hate them so much.
TriassicSands
Shhh, they might revoke your citizenship.
Tom Levenson
@Suzanne: Yikes!
I’m so sorry for your elders and for you. I hope your aunt has an easy surgery and a fast recovery.
NotMax
@like a metaphor
During the 1950s the sight of oncoming gaping mouths was somewhat mitigated by the Dagmar bumpers.
Tom Levenson
Deleted.
Duplicate
TriassicSands
They’re in the slow lane because the “fast” lane isn’t moving fast enough for them.
Suzanne
@TriassicSands:
LAWL. In 2008, I was in a graduate seminar, and the prof said that climate data suggested that Phoenix would experience 100-degree nights within three years. It happened the following year. It has happened, I believe, every year since. A couple of years ago, when California had that heat wave, Phoenix more than doubled the previous record for days over 110 degrees. The burn unit at Maricopa Medical Center (Valleywise) was filled to capacity last summer with people passing out and then getting 2nd and 3rd degree burns when they hit the pavement.
I think John’s plan is to leave before it gets hot, which is smart. Snowbirding is also a thing for a reason…. though not really in Tempe.
Honestly, the heat is the biggest factor why we left. Mr. Suzanne and I both think Phoenix is unsustainable.
ETA: I like Tempe a lot and I miss it specifically. I don’t miss Phoenix at all, and if Mesa and Scottsdale were reclaimed by the earth and never seen again, it would be an improvement.
Jackie
@NotMax: If they plan to bike together, and Joelle has a standard bike, what’s the point of John having an e-bike constantly turned off?
like a metaphor
@Suzanne: it’s no wonder that people are in such bad moods on the road when they are surrounded by all of these angry-faced vehicles. The road rage is apparent before the engine is even started.
Gretchen
@TriassicSands: my husband’s helmet has a dent in it where it hit when he fell, but only a small lump on his actual head. I’m grateful for the helmet.
RaflW
@Yarrow: In the Denver area I believe the you-spray car washes are required to recycle the water. I’d recommend that anyone living in water-stressed areas look into that and, where possible, use a public wash that recycles.
Beyond that, John your vet story was great. Glad Steve (and the rest of the gang) will be in good hands.
Good night!
NotMax
@Suxanne
Why single out Ford?
Dodge Ram, GMC Sierra, Honda Ridgeline, Toyota Tacoma…. Each in its own way a behemoth.
;)
like a metaphor
@Gretchen: pls get him a new helmet. They need to be replaced after each life-saving event
piratedan
@Jackie: the e-bike is a backup. If you get heat related illnesses, continued exertion is a non-starter. If you’re heavy and not used to the exercise, then the support that an e-bike offers is a good thing. Yes, it’s more expensive but generally its safer for those not used to biking.
Will
@gwangung: Actually I think institutions that aren’t an Ivy League school are way more prepared, they deal with real people on a day to day basis more. This whole shit storm was because they were woefully unprepared by being ensconced in a tight knit, very liberal community beyond the rest of the country that they weren’t ready for these gotcha moments. It’s like Nikki Haley living in high society in South Carolina that she didn’t know that “slavery” was the answer to the simple question of what is the Civil War about. The answers they are used to giving just aren’t programmed for normal audiences.
@BeautifulPlumage: I’m sure because the entire apparatus of Harvard, even the Corporation, are very liberal. The only reason Gay is gone is because it became untenable to hold students accountable due to her errors, no matter how light they might be. If this hadn’t been the case, she would still be there. They had already ringed the wagons for her the first time. Someone failed her in her past by either being incompetent or thinking they were doing her a favor by not challenging her to properly cite when she wrote it. The Harvard community will no doubt respond by showing they won’t be bullied any further.
@Soprano2: I’m sure they won’t stop there, but I think other people or institutions are more used to being challenged and won’t have made the same mistakes to open themselves up. If they have, then maybe they need to go. Leaders need to be serious people, so we should hold them to account, right, left, or center.
Gretchen
@like a metaphor: yes. He already has a couple of others. We brought it to the hospital to show the doctor but it’s going into the trash when we get home. Thanks for mentioning it.
Jackie
@like a metaphor: I absolutely agree! Once they’ve been dented, their protection is compromised.
Chetan Murthy
@Will: Oh, puh-leeez. As LG&M pointed out today, Gay’s omissions were de minimis, and certainly not central to any of her research. And when you compare the firestorm of media reporting about her, to a much more egregious case of academic misconduct (that of Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne, who manipulated data in his publications) where literally nothing was written until *after* his resignation became public, it’s clear that this was a hit job.
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2024/01/rufos-collaborators
Chetan Murthy
@Will:
Gay is gone because *donors* found it too embarrassing to have her in post. That’s it.
Will
@Chetan Murthy: She messed up. It is what it is. Don’t try to dance around it. Whataboutism about other people, whatever, get the pitchfork committee and go after them. It won’t change she messed up. The fact that others would be held accountable for it means she has to be as well. We don’t bend the rules for our own or we are just as bad.
TriassicSands
The time may come, sooner than expected, too, when countless people will absolutely have to leave much of Arizona. The Southwest, in general, has been on a collision course with reality for many, many years.
Chetan Murthy
@Will: 1. Who’s this “we” kemosabe? You ain’t no liberal.
2. No, she didn’t mess up in any way that was that different from others who haven’t been cashiered. These citation errors are weak tea.
3. These university presidents responded correctly to that Nazi Stefanik. You forget that they’re in loco parentis: and kids do stupid things. EVERY CASE needs to be considered in context, and there can be no hard-and-fast rules, specifically b/c we’re dealing with children here.
Go back under whatever rock you crawled out from under, MAGAt.
ETA: And we’re not doing “whatabout”: Tessier-Lavigne’s transgressions were ENORMOUS, and he wasn’t pilloried in the press: hell, he wasn’t even mentioned until *after* he resigned.
Kelly
@TriassicSands: I have ridden a recumbent bicycle. The seat is more comfortable than a bicycle saddle. The upright position is great for enjoying the scenery. One potential drawback is I found pedaling with my feet out in front of me instead of underneath me awkward without bike shoes with cleats. Snapping in and out of the pedals with cleats took a small bit of getting used to and the shoes are weird to walk around in.
TriassicSands
@Gretchen:
A dent in the helmet is, as you know, far better than a dent in the skull. I’m glad for both of you that he was wearing a helmet.
For many years, people avoided wearing helmets while cycling. An important change came when professional cyclists in the Tour de France (and other grand tours) were required to wear helmets all the time while racing. Then, if you wanted to emulate a “real cyclist,” you had to wear a helmet. You were no longer a “sissy” if you did the sensible thing.
Will
@Chetan Murthy: lol, I’m not a MAGAtard, get over yourself. Liberal that walks the walk in real life, not just on a forum. Enjoy your night, I’m out with that display of stupidity.
Chetan Murthy
@Will: “On the Internet, nobody knows youre a
dogMAGAt”Origuy
Since this thread is about Arizona and exercise, I thought I’d mention the Southwest Spring Week of orienteering in Tucson and Phoenix. I probably won’t make it this year, but I’ve heard good things about the event in past years. It looks like they will have beginner instruction and courses.
Pro tip: when running in the desert, take along a pocket comb to remove jumping cholla. Never try to pull it off with your fingers.
Chief Oshkosh
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Isn’t it pretty to think so?
ETA: still amazed that the presidents were STUPID enough to even return Stefanik’s calls. That was stupid even for an administrator. And I say that as a former part time admin.
Prescott Cactus
John,
Regular old garden hoses are disposable yearly if you leave them in outside, exposed to partial (1/2 day). Good ones will last two maybe 3 years.
A fun summer experiment is getting a 5 gallon plastic bucket and place it in a sunny area. In a couple of months you will be able to crack pieces off like they are potato chips.
Chetan Murthy
@Chief Oshkosh:
Yes, exactly! I conjectured at the time, that they showed up b/c university PR folks told them they had to. Basically, it was all PR and lawyer types who pushed them into it, prepped them, and made sure they were absolutely positively straitjacketed so they couldn’t say anything controversial at all. Hence the milquetoast replies that were lawyered to tepidity. Which, as it turned out, was exactly what Stefanik wanted.
Gretchen
@TriassicSands: yes, I remember when people wore those little cloth Italian cycling hats and helmets and helmets were for tots. I’m so glad that culture changed.
Gretchen
Funny, he sure sounds like MAGA.
Jay
@Kelly:
the shoes are weird to walk in, because the sole is reinforced and much stiffer than a regular shoe or sneaker.
Back in the day, when I got serious about Mountain Biking, I got Hood Cleats, Shoes and Pedals from a Seattle Bike shop. That was what all the bike racers, (not Mountain Bike) were using. They allowed you to really pull up on the pedal, unlike clips, doubling the pedal force.
The thing was, they were a 1′ thick aluminum stretched horseshoe bolted to the bottom of the shoes. Almost impossible to walk in, deadly on tile.
As soon as Shimano came out with their recessed cleats, I got them.
Chetan Murthy
@Gretchen: obligatory: https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/873260-sea-lioning
Chetan Murthy
@Jay:
Ha! I was about to mention those: I had a pair of Keen sandals with Shimano MTB cleats, and they were fine to walk in.
TriassicSands
@Kelly:
I always wore cycling shoes and eventually, when they came out, switched to clipless pedals. They are more efficient, but do require some coordination to get out of in an “emergency.” I had three different kinds, but the last ones were Speedplay, which I loved immediately. For me they had advantages over other brands. That included being easier on my knees, which had each undergone more than one surgery. However, as I wrote earlier, I’ve never ridden a recumbent bike, but I can see very real advantages for some riders. The much lower profile does necessitate extra care in traffic. Virtually every recumbent bike I see around where I live has some sort of “flag” attached to a long rod so that even drivers sitting in massive pickup trucks can see you — assuming they are paying any attention.
I was surprised to see a number of recumbent trikes for under $500 on Amazon (not much under, but still). That changes my mind somewhat about Cole getting one. It seems to me that he should consider one.
Mart
@alex j.: As an old I have to say I have a love hate relationship with my ebike. It is so fast going up our very steep hills drivers expect you are under 5 mph and you are doing 19 mph barely pedling. And out they dive in front of you. Also, the fucking deer when flying downhill.
NotMax
@Triadssic Sands
On the Dec. 31st Zoom he mentioned he already had a size XL helmet is his Amazon cart.
TriassicSands
Agreed. And the people for whom that may matter most are kids. Before he was exposed as a world class cheat, Lance Armstrong was widely known — more so than any other American cyclist before or since — and if Lance wore one anyone could without being considered a wimp.
TriassicSands
@NotMax:
Thanks, good to know.
Now, I’m thinking he should look into a recumbent trike. I just saw several for under $500.
I’ve never ridden one, but there are advantages, and I would expect a recumbent trike to be a lot more efficient than the bike he bought or is subsequently considering.
Jay
@Chetan Murthy:
The current shoes I have for cycling, are MEC light hikers. They have an aggressive tread, and a carbon fiber plate, so that the sole of the shoe doesn’t flex when pedaling.
They are “weird” to walk in, more so on pavement.
One of my other pairs of light hikers has an extremely flexible sole, and 5/10 Stealth Rubber for scrambling and light rock climbing. They are not so good on rock bars on rivers.
NotMax
@TriassicSands
intensely – intensely – dislike wearing any sort of head gear. hats, helmets. caps sun visors, whatever. Always have, since back in kiddiehood.
Even in the most frigid depths of winter in Minnesota when ostensibly an adult would rather go bareheaded.
Rode countless miles as a child on my trusty Rudge without incident.
frosty
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Not here in South Pennsyltucky. We’re so far behind the times that the Moms got elected here while getting thrown out in other parts of PA.
TriassicSands
I’ve long felt that the more one spends on a bicycle (up to a point), the more one is likely to ride it. There is a huge difference between riding an inexpensive bike with mediocre components and riding one that is more expensive and has high quality components. It isn’t necessary to spend $18,000.00+ (the most expensive bike in the 2023 Tour de France), but a $1000 bike is likely far more enjoyable to ride than is a $300.00 bike. It all depends on how much you want to ride and how much money (sigh) you have. It’s unlikely that a $5,000 bike will cause you to ride more than a $2500.00 bike. Unless you’re a showoff. And everyone probably has different price points.
Chief Oshkosh
@Chetan Murthy: You seem awfully confident based on an LGM post. There are many in academia who do think that Gay’s dissertation is problematic. I haven’t read it and it’s outside of my field, anyway, so I’m not a great judge of the issue(s). Are there people from her field who are supporting her dissertation as not being problematic? I don’t see LGM regulars as being in a position to judge, but possibly you have more information you could share on that.
frosty
@TriassicSands: I’ve ridden a regular bike while Ms F was on her eBike. Rail trails, so flat, but in those cases it’s NBD.
In my experience, you’re wrong about an eBike not being a substitute for a bike. It’s an enhanced bike, not a small, vulnerable substitute for a car.
sab
Major Major Major Major
Can’t say I care much who runs Harvard either.
Cole moved! God I’m out of touch, anybody got a précis?
Jay
@TriassicSands:
Hard to say. I ride off road with a 1980’s hardtail chrome moly hardtail. It’s my favorite bike. It wasn’t expensive at the time, had good components, and was the lightest bike of it’s class at the time. It’s been modded over the years, tuck bars, different crank wheels, 4 sets of wheels and tires, Italian seat.
Still has the stock rubber brakes, the Shimano deraillers, same head set. It’s 18.5lbs. Steve, who I mountain bike with, has one of those high end, fat tire, full suspension bikes. 37lbs.
We ride actual mountains here, the weight makes a huge difference.
NotMax
Fire trucks screaming by on the street.
Dare one sense it’s for the “in case we didn’t piss people off enough on New Year’s Eve, here’s more fireworks tonight” in the neighborhood.
More than likely brush set ablaze in the fields at the end of the block.
TriassicSands
@NotMax:
My guess is that wearing a helmet would feel somewhat better than having a fractured skull and brain damage. YMMV.
I’ll say this and leave it at that. Unless there is something seriously wrong with you, I suspect that you could get used to wearing a helmet, just as every professional cyclist has done. The human capacity to get used to something that is initially unpleasant is virtually without limit.
frosty
@NotMax: You must be lucky. If you had one sunburn on a bald head you will wear a hat for the rest of your days. Mine are from Conner Hats, certified UPF50 by the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency.
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major
Not moved so much as testing the waters in fiancee’s environs until (IIRC) March. At which time trucking back to WV, albeit sans Thurston.
NotMax
@frosty
Not having a bald head, I wouldn’t know ’bout that.
Major Major Major Major
@NotMax: ah! Thanks
Jay
@TriassicSands:
Yeah, when I started Mountain Biking, we wore used Hockey gear and good bike helmets. Now the protective gear is so much better.
When I rode motorcycles, a SNELL helmet was one of the first things I bought, then good boots, then good leathers and gloves.
The helmet saved my life several times, along with the other gear. Now the gear is so much better, comfortable and lighter.
TriassicSands
@Jay:
I was speaking specifically of road bikes. When I started mountain biking, there were no custom made bikes. They weren’t called mountain bikes, but “clunkers” and they were heavy, outdated road bikes that weighed a ton and you could ride into a brick wall at 30mph and except for the front wheel they’d survive. When I bought my first “real” mountain bike the difference was immediate.
If you read my comment carefully, I tried to make it clear that the difference is up to a point, which will vary by person. The fact that your bike had (has) Shimano derailleurs means that it doesn’t have crummy components. And enjoyment (except in a stopping emergency) is much more closely related to components that make the bike go than those that make it stop, since going is the point most of the time. No one buys a bike just to stop. Obviously, there is a range within the Shimano family, but they make good components. One difference in my statement and your description is that on the road higher cost invarialbly means lighter weight and lighter weight is very much a part of efficiency and enjoyment on a road bike. The fact that your friend has a 37lb bike makes it far less desirable to me than a bike that weighs 15+ pounds or more less. Even with the highest end components, if it is your muscles that make the bike move, lighter is more enjoyable (up to a point — like where the bike hits a bump and folds in half) than heavier.
NotMax
@NortMax
And if follicly challenged plus loathing wearing hats as much as I do, would restrict outings to after dark.
Retirement has its bennies.
;)
Martin
@TriassicSands: You’re about as likely to sustain a head injury per mile traveled while walking than biking. Yet we don’t require pedestrians to wear helmets.
My problem with helmet laws is that they’re used as a substitute for both building proper pedestrian/cycling infrastructure and for not holding motorists accountable when they hit pedestrians/cyclists. I don’t deny their benefit, but you’re being honest about solving the problem, helmets don’t accomplish much. They do shift who you blame though.
TriassicSands
While the capacity to recover from serious brain damage is not quite so robust.
Major Major Major Major
I have a bike enthusiast friend who once told me that helmet laws are bad because they make people bike more recklessly and yadda yadda, it was, certainly a take.
NotMax
@Triassic
Quote from the Marquis de Sade?
:)
Martin
@TriassicSands: Yeah, that’s my observation as well, within reason. I have a $9K e-bike, and it replaced a 16 year old car that sold more more used. It’s the only mode of transit I use within my city, and only take my wife’s car if I have to leave the city.
For that money I got full suspension, a better motor, an internal transmission and belt drive, and a lot of comfort and convenience. The bike is quick, and smooth, and reliable. And those features helped make it enjoyable enough to ride that I could sell my car. The bike paid for itself in 3 years.
Chetan Murthy
@Chief Oshkosh: There were previous posts at LG&M with much more discussion of the details of the citations (and lack thereof). I don’t have them to hand, but it shouldn’t be difficult to search for them. Also, I looked at the bits myself, and yeah, it was no biggie. There were several academics who said “sure, everybody does this, it’s no biggie”. B/c none of the bits of text were critical to her scholarship. None of them.
I mean, in my dissertation there was a theorem whose proof was just *wrong*.[1] I. Mean. Wrong. So hey, within 6mos I’d published a paper correcting the proof. But I never went back and corrected the dissertation, b/c geeez, who does that? The thesis was still correct, after all.
[1] Or maybe it was a subsidiary theorem that was wrong, but the main theorem was still correct once the subsidiary theorem was fixed (and its proof too). I forget, it was 34yr ago.
My point is, it was *known* that that theorem/proof was wrong soon after I got my PhD. And the main body of the work was correct, and it wasn’t intentional misrepresentation. And of course, I had a corrected version in a subsequent paper. Now, it turned out, there *was* a guy who wanted to prove that I’d committed misconduct, so he put his grad student onto my thesis, reading it, etc, etc. The guy called me up, and I explained everything, pointed him at the already-published revised theorem/proofs, etc, etc, and after a bunch of back-and-forth, he concluded that, no, there was nothing there.
This was *much* more substantial than the excerpts that Gay appears to have plagiarized from other authors. Muuuuch more substantial.
In both cases though, the main contributions, the thrust, of the work wasn’t changed by the discovery of these discrepancies. *That* is the point. And also the difference with Tessier-Lavigne’s case: here’s the LG&M post about it from Feb 2023: https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2023/02/warning-lights-are-flashing-down-at-quality-control
In that post, there’s a quote from an article where we learn that T-L simply falsified his findings of a root cause for Alzheimers. I mean, that’s massive, just massive. And he’s not some guy at Podunk U: he was a bigwig at Genentech who went on to become president of Stanford. *Stanford*. And yet, he didn’t get 13 articles about his misdeeds in FTFNYT over 10 days even before he was investigated, even before he resigned. Instead, he got zero. Bupkis.
Ruckus
@brendancalling:
There is no such thing as an automatic bicycle rider. First it takes desire. Second it actually takes a level of balance. Third it takes desire.
I not only used to ride a lot, I rode for decades, owned a bicycle store, and manufactured bicycles, also owned and rode motorcycles for decades. Even raced them. I have driven motorcycles as many miles as all the 4 (or more) wheeled vehicles I’ve owned or rented. I would no more attempt to ride a bicycle or any 2 wheeled vehicle at my age and generally good physical condition than attempt to climb Mt. Everest. And no that ain’t happening either. Oh and BTW, I worked in professional motorcycle racing for 30 yrs as a part time official and full time for just over 10 yrs.
As much as I like and appreciate 2 wheeled vehicles, some people are just not made or appreciate them enough to ride them. I’m not saying that John is one of them, but John knows himself better than we do. There is a reason that trikes are manufactured, not everyone is willing to risk having to balance and ride.
NotMax
Considering Mr. Cole’s shoulder woes,. perhaps the butterfly handlebars (or whatever they’re called) may not be the optimal choice.
Will
@Chetan Murthy: Maybe you should lead with your experience rather than being a fucking child.
Llelldorin
@Chetan Murthy: To be completely fair, all those PR reps and lawyers worked for her, not the other way around.
She was supposed to be the expert in playing politics to the benefit of the university—that’s part of the job of a university president.
Jay
@TriassicSands:
My first mountain bike was a “Shasta”, an ex-courier Schwinn bike, 3 speeds with knobby tires back in 1975, I got it from work for $25, and a friend fixed it up for me, that I rode in the Marin hills with a bunch of other nuts.
Some of the new “hot” mountain bikes are just a few lbs lighter than trials motorcycles.
Going all old man, we used to have to carry our bikes, half the time around here. Now they have specific trails, boardwalks and jumps, and the trails are all groomed.
At Grouse, Kamloops and a bunch of other places, you can be driven to the top of the hill, or take the gondola, and just coast down the hill.
Chetan Murthy
@Will: Hey there, Mr. Sealion, how can we miss you if you dont go away? Dude, my experience isn’t what convinces me that Gay was railroaded: it was the reporting, e.g. this: https://donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-campaign-to-remove-the-president
Really, Mr. MAGAt, not everybody who reads your drivel is gonna be as uninformed as your own peers. We actually read your stuff, and we know that Rufo ginned up this entire controversy just as much as O’Keefe ginned up his attacks on ACORN.
Martin
Have to observe that effective this year, there are only a handful of EVs that get the full EV credit – last year’s Bolt, Equinox, the F-150, and a couple models of Teslas. That’s it.
That money would have been better used subsidizing Cole’s trike or giving people free transit passes.
The problem with that part of the IRA is that it presumed that the automakers were interested in domestic, cheap EVs. They aren’t, and never were. They entertain EVs because the market is shifting, but only as a high-end product category. The automakers aren’t interested in the bottom ⅓ or so of the US population, and are happy to leave them without any transportation at all. Lawmakers have allowed themselves to be conned into the idea that automakers are infrastructure, and they need to understand how much US GDP is lost due to lack of proper transportation infrastructure and how much worse that’s going to get. In increasingly large stretches of the US (about half), transportation costs are higher than housing costs, and people don’t seem to understand the consequences of that.
Will
@Chetan Murthy: Dude, you are a complete asshole and I hate that you are the person that delivers the message for us. You probably are a fucking thrill in real life at parties.
If you read what I said in the first place, I said from my understanding it was a minor offense. If you had provided more information I would happily listened to change my mind more.
But you couldn’t, because you were too busy being what you are calling me.
Chetan Murthy
@Llelldorin: True enough, and I certainly fault her (and her other uni presidents) for having let themselves get cornered by Stefanik like they did. But we’ve seen CEOs (for whom also the lawyers and PR folks work) get stuck in similar situations: it’s something that happens up in MBA/C–suite cloud cuckooland, I think. I’m not defending it: its why those people are overpaid by a factor of ten or more. I’m just saying that these presidents gave answers that were crafted by lawyers in order to avoid breaking laws, contracts, etc, and not to provide the sort of clear stand that Stefanik was looking for.
Martin
@Llelldorin: Yeah, the takedown of Gay by Rufo is abhorrent, but I don’t feel bad personally for Gay – we pay leadership that kind of money because their job is to fall on their sword when asked, even if its unfair.
The bigger problem is how right wing actors can so reliably attack marginalized populations and get away with it. And this was not a particularly sophisticated effort either. Everyone should have immediately called Rufo out for his racism, and that never happens. That’s the problem. Gay will be fine.
Chetan Murthy
@Will: Oh hey, he’s still around! I did go back and re-read what you wrote, and you didn’t say that. Oh and BTW, we’re not newborns, we do understand that you MAGAts like to mix in half-reasonable statements with the batshittery. You’re doing that, e.g. when you write about how Harvard is some raving liberal place, etc. So, y’know, you’ll have to try harder, honey.
“they were woefully unprepared by being ensconced in a tight knit, very liberal community beyond the rest of the country”
Yeah, no. You’re no liberal, Mr. MAGAt.
TriassicSands
I’m sorry, Martin, but that is a ridiculous statement. When was the last time you walked (or ran) at 25 or 30mph, not to mention 40-60 which is possible descending in the mountains. Some number of walking pedestrians would be saved or have less severe injuries if they were wearing a helmet, but millions of Americans won’t wear a mask to prevent death, so asking or telling pedestrians to wear helmets is obviously a non-starter.
Again, I find that statement unsupportable. Why then are professional cyclists required to wear helmets. They are far more competent that typical cyclists and are extremely unlikely to have a run in with motor vehicles.
I think your concerns are independent of infrastructure and motorist accountability. I don’t disagree that our infrastructure sucks or that motorists are routinely given a pass or a mere slap on the wrist for criminal driving behavior. But neither of those affects the wisdom of wearing a helmet — under all cycling circumstances.
Do you mean “if you’re being honest?” Helmets aren’t going to save your life if a Ford F-350 runs over you head, but it can and does save lives and reduce the seriousness of injuries in many circumstances.
I just took a look at the CDC website concerning bicycle accidents and deaths. I didn’t find what I was looking for, but the very first recommendation to reduce deaths and serious injuries is unsurprisingly “wear a helmet.” The second recommendation:
Your argument seems to amount to “If they aren’t going to improve infrastructure and hold motorists accountable, why should I wear a helmet or why should they tell me I have to wear a helmet. Who cares what they tell you. Will you be safer wearing a helmet?
I don’t know what else to say. I don’t “argue” online; it’s a waste of everyone’s time.
Will
@Chetan Murthy: Horrendous way to behave. You represent the worst of the comment section and are evidently blind.
Chetan Murthy
@Martin: I still remember riding my bike around Rice U in the summer of 1986; the road had ancient oil on it, it’d recently rained, and as I turned, my bike slipped out from under me. My helmet saved me from a particularly bad smash into the tarmac. Another time, in 2007 I was riding down an SF street with embedded streetcar tracks; I was trying to cross the track and just wasn’t sufficiently close to perpendicular: my wheel got stuck in the track and again, I went down. This time I lost enough skin on one arm to show the subcutaneous fat, and again, banged my head. Again, the helmet saved me from a serious head injury.
Sure, better infrastructure, better drivers, would be an improvement. But if you hold infra and drivers constant, then helmets are a massive improvement for bikers. And ….. well, there’s nothing we can do, short of riding in packs and sporting recoilless rifles, to teach drivers to behave, I would think.
TriassicSands
The first time I heard of such a thing was in Hawaii on Maui, where you could pay someone to take you to the top of Haleakala and then coast all the way down from something like 10,000 feet above sea level all the way back down to sea level (more or less). Personally, I would never pay anyone to take me to the top so I could coast down. I’d ride to the top and my reward for all that work would be the return to the bottom.
Llelldorin
@Martin: I agree completely there. I’m in an awkward position— I don’t mind that she lost her job, but am irritated that it looks like it was for entirely the wrong reasons. She should have lost it for failing in her role as Speaker for the University, not because it’s easy to mount a campaign of character assassination against a black woman.
Chetan Murthy
@Will: And your cited text IS A LIE. That is not why she was forced to resign. The simple fact is, if you did that sort of text analysis on most dissertations and papers, you’d find lots of equivalent citation errors. They’re innocuous, and that’s why most people don’t care.
Chetan Murthy
@Will: [insert sealion meme complaining about incivility]
NotMax
@Chetan Murthy
Describing Harvard as some hotbed of liberalism is laughable on its face.
Starched collar, ivy covered bastion of old school orthodoxy is more like it.
Will
@Chetan Murthy: I’m literally repeating what I’ve seen other academics expressing concern just like Oshkosh and I am sorry I didn’t think they were MAGA because they never indicated they were MAGA before. I don’t even know who the fuck this Rufo guy is because that is how little of a shit I have given beyond thinking she gave a horrendous answer to a layup question and then I see none Fox News people saying she made some minor goofs that other students would get in trouble for. I felt she needed to go for handling this so bad, not cause I want some purge. I don’t think Stefanik is capable of whatever 3D chess you seem to subscribe to them carrying out. I think she is just an asshole grifter that stumbled into a gift.
Again, you could have lead with your experience to explain how BS this is, but you didn’t, you went straight for asshole.
Major Major Major Major
@Chetan Murthy: oh man I almost did that second one once.
Jay
@TriassicSands:
On Saltspring Island, there is a road that takes you from one ferry terminal, (direct to Sannich, on Vancouver Island), to the other ferry terminal, (direct to Vancouver). It goes over a very steep and massive hill. The coast down is one reward, ( if you are going in that direction), Maria’s Bakery is at the bottom of the hill, with massive, delicious and gooey cinnamon buns and good coffee, plus picnic tables.
eclare
@TriassicSands:
I had some relatives try to do that, take the van up and ride down, but it started to rain, so no bike ride.
Me, I drove up very nervously as I don’t like heights. I noticed no guardrails, no way I would bike down. There is a photo of a very tense me at the top. And that is my Haleakala story.
NotMax
@Triassic Sands
All well and good until you’re stuck in a line of traffic behind the bikes heading down on the narrow two-lane roads.
BTW, takes the better part of an hour to drive up to the top in a car. Can’t imagine how long it would take to bicycle up. Even Mark Twein was savvy enough to ascend by mule rather than attempt to walk.
NotMax
@NotMax
Twein = Twain
(Duh!)
Jay
@NotMax:
but the mule had to walk,…………… with Mark Twain on his back,………….the horror!!!!!!!!!!!!
NotMax
@Jay
“Hey Francis, is it true there’s carrots at the peak?”
:)
Jay
@NotMax:
PETA say’s “nope”.
Martin
I agree. But the data is there. Understand, the majority of these pedestrian head injuries, as with the majority of cyclists injuries is because they were hit by a car doing 25-60MPH. And you don’t need to be moving at that speed to sustain a serious head injury. Here’s video proof.
Why are professional race car drivers required to wear them but not regular motorists? More motorists die from head injuries than cyclists do.
Here, I’ll put this in all caps to make sure my point can be understood:
I’M NOT ARGUING HELMETS DON’T REDUCE INJURIES. I’M ARGUING THAT IF REDUCING INJURIES IS YOUR GOAL, MAKING IT SO THAT MOTORISTS DON’T RUN OVER CYCLISTS MATTERS MORE THAN IF THE CYCLIST IS WEARING A HELMET OR NOT.
The problem is that whenever the issue of cyclists injuries is raised, cities completely bypass the actual issues causing that problem, enact something that requires minimal effort, like a helmet law, and move on. Does that change meaningfully reduce injuries? Not really.
Here’s another way of looking at it. When the FAA was evaluating whether to require car seats for kids on airplanes, they decided against it. The data said that a car seat would dramatically improve their survivability in a crash, but the data also said that requiring car seats would cause more people traveling with kids to drive instead of flying, and even MORE kids would die in the induced trips than if they didn’t require the car seats on the planes.
The nations with the highest incidents of cycling have no helmet laws. The nations with the lowest incidents of combined road and cycling fatalities have no helmet laws. Why? Because cyclists very rarely hurt themselves. Sure, mountain bikers do, and people racing, and so on, but not people going to buy groceries. They aren’t doing 40mph downhill, they’re buying fucking groceries. Most of them are puttering along at 10mph and a fall is going to be no more dangerous than if they were walking and tripped. This is 9 minutes of cyclists navigating a fairly busy intersection. They do so without traffic lights and about 1% wear helmets. They have no problem navigating at human speeds. It’s only problematic when cars show up, in part because it’s incredibly hard to ‘read’ a car, and because the consequences of the car are so large. What places like this have found is that if you make cycling safe because the infrastructure is safe, then people will ride their bike, and in doing so, there will be fewer injuries and fatalities, because those people aren’t in a car.
The main problem with this attitude of helmet laws is that it buys in so thoroughly to the rugged individualist attitude in the US. We view the law from the individual level and not the societal level. The FAA found that the individual was safer in the car seat, but in aggregate was safer without it because it changed the decisions they made, because flying is safer than driving. This is what happens with cycling as well. If you take a person out of a car, they aren’t available to run over a cyclist, or a pedestrian. And we know helmet laws impede people riding bikes.
My city right now is dealing with a rapidly rising rate of cyclist injuries. Why? Because the city set a trap for itself. It made it so difficult for kids to ride their bikes to school that most kids get driven by mom or dad. And the kids that do TRY and ride or walk to school inevitably get run over by their classmates mom or dad. The infrastructure isn’t equipped for hundreds of drop-offs each morning and afternoon, so motorists get creative, and in doing so, hit pedestrians. The city would have fewer injuries around schools if they required parents to get permission from the school to do a drop-off or pickup (appointment, injury, etc.) and that would still be true if there was no helmet law. But they don’t do that – instead they keep regulating the cyclists – not just the helmet, but the kind of bike, additional rules of operation, and so on – some of which are actually counterproductive – like requiring kids on the sidewalk to travel in the direction of the cars – often requiring them to do two additional street crossings – which is the thing that usually causes them to get hit. Because US politicians cannot stand up to motorists. That’s the real problem.
Would a women be less likely to be sexually assaulted if she wore a different outfit? Maybe. I’m sure there’s data that supports that. But that’s not a policy we would support, because we don’t demand the victims to change their behavior. Fundamentally helmet laws are, like banning short skirts, a burden placed on victims to avoid addressing the real problem. Note, helmet laws rarely apply to people doing recreational cycling because those people usually aren’t operating bikes where ordinances apply – and generally those cyclists voluntarily wear helmets because they are well aware of the risks they are incurring to themselves. These laws primarily apply to people doing utilitarian cycling – like Cole on his trike – and cyclists engaging in this activity are pretty unlikely to sustain an injury due to their own actions. Their injuries come from being hit by cars.
In order to understand these dynamics you need to differentiate between modes of cycling as well as other factors related to the incident. You’re conflating all of these things, and making the ‘maybe she shouldn’t dress like that’ argument.
Again, I’m not arguing against helmets. I’m arguing against the politics of helmet laws because those politics are disingenuous. I don’t argue against pantsuits, I argue against the politics of requiring that women wear them as some kind of public safety solution. I think women are able to evaluate their own attire. I think cyclists are as well. I should be able to ride my bike across the street to get groceries, knowing I’ll never exceed 12mph, without having to wear a helmet.
Martin
@Llelldorin: I disagree that she failed in her testimony. It was not possible to succeed in that environment without lying.
Gretchen
@Chetan Murthy: he promised that he was out an hour ago!
Martin
And Reddit reports that a cyclist was hit by car 4 blocks from my house around 5PM today. Cyclist was wearing a helmet, reported in critical condition. Maybe the rider should have worn two helmets.
Gretchen
@Martin: Helmets don’t accomplish much? If the large dent in my husband’s helmet after his bike accident today had instead been in his skull, he wouldn’t be snoring in the room next to me now. That’s enough accomplishment for me. I’m Team Helmet.
eclare
@Gretchen:
I am glad your husband is ok. Martin’s screed is abhorrent.
Will
@Gretchen: I responded because he posted his personal experience to another poster, and yeah, reading what he did and how it was sorted made me feel this was even more minor. This is what he should have lead with instead of saying I am MAGA person because I’ve seen (just like several others in this thread) people I wouldn’t think are part of some MAGA agenda saying she made errors that while small would get students in trouble.
I can’t remember if Chetan is the guy that thinks I am some sock puppet for a front pager or if he was the guy that was mad because I didn’t agree with everything on India. Either one is why I assume he went right to the MAGA bs.
Jay
@eclare:
Martin is kinda right.
I am Team Helmet, but, here the onus is on Cyclists, et al to protect themselves from cars and trucks. Not the other way around.
The change in Vancouver from the left wing, to the Reich Wing has all the Covid era bike lanes, even through Stanley Park, being ripped out, and the Parks Board canned.
When I commuted to work on a bike, 45 miles back in the 80’s, I dressed in all black, (with reflectors on the back of my jacket), wore a helmet, wore a skull and crossbones bandanna across my face, (cedar dust), and carried the 3/4″ 3″ link chain with the Paulus lock, looped over my shoulder for easy use.
Don’t ask me how I know this, but it easily on a back swing, could blow out a car’s windshield, cut through the A pillar and take out the passenger window.
Greg Ferguson
So glad to have you in AZ, Cole. Whole place glows a bit brighter for your presence.
There is a lot of bike turnover here (Tucson) at end-of semesters, and I suspect in Tempe as well. Keep an eye out.
Really nice ones can just be abandoned.
With so many geezers – like me – living here, it is no surprise to encounter health pros (animal, vegetable, maybe even mineral) who have been around the block and don’t take shit. Yay!!!
Welcome, welcome – we love you. 👍🌵🤠
Gretchen
@Martin: Agreed that we should have better infrastructure, but that’s not going to happen any time soon. What to do in the meantime? Mr. Gretchen loves his bike and doesn’t want to give it up. He estimates that he was going about 11 mph today when he hit a pothole. The last time he crashed and broke his arm he skidded on sand in the roadway. No other vehicles were involved either time. Today would have certainly been a serious head injury without the helmet.
Mai Naem mobile
@John Cole: i took a quick look on Offer Up. There’s several trikes listed on there with pics in the metro Phoenix area. Also I doubt they’ll have any but the ASU surplus store might be a worth a look. They usually have a ton of regular two wheel bikes.
Gretchen
@eclare: Thank you. I do get what he’s saying. My baby would be safer in a car seat in a plane, but in toto babies would be safer with no car seat rule because more babies would be flown rather than driven. But today one beloved head is safe because of a helmet, so population probability isn’t compelling to me in this moment. If the system isn’t protecting us, we can/have to take individual steps to protect ourselves and those we love.
eclare
@Gretchen:
So true. Detached arguments don’t count for much against real life.
TriassicSands
I think you’ve made a mistake here. Cars cause the injuries, but cyclists ignoring traffic laws and doing foolish things often cause their own accidents. In that sense they are injuring themselves. And it is always reasonable to assume that motorists will not be paying attention and will do foolish things.
I’ve watched countless cyclists ride irresponsibly in city traffic. They run red lights, change lanes without signalling, and weave in and out of traffic. To assume the American motorists drive wrecklessly, but cyclists don’t is counter to my experience observing both.
I really think we’re having a pointless discussion — arguing past one another. The reality is that American drivers are very often poor drivers who do stupid things. But the same is true of cyclists. Of course, the difference is that in this situation, the motorists are a threat to others while cyclists are mostly just a threat to themselves. Obviously, we should do reasonable things to mitigate the damage, and, I haven’t disagreed with you about either infrastructure or the lack of motorist accountability. But since those are essentially givens, and irresponsible cyclists are often also a given, there simply is no justification for not wearing a helmet. Complaining about drivers and infrastructure doesn’t do any good and taking action in the form of activism probably won’t either since we are so resistant to holding drivers accountable and our priorities don’t usually include improving infrastructure. The only person that is likely to lose if a cyclist doesn’t wear a helmet is that cyclist (yes, his family, too), so the responsibility is on the cyclist to wear a helmet, cycle defensively, and scrupulously obey traffic laws. In the end, it doesn’t do a dead cyclist any good to have the driver locked up. That may protect others and it should, but it won’t change the outcome for the cyclist.
It’s late here and I have to try to get some sleep. Be careful out there.
Martin
@Gretchen: I will again quote myself, with emphasis because people routinely fail to understand what I am saying:
I’m glad your husband is okay. I’m glad your husband wore a helmet. I trust your husband is smart enough to know when to wear a helmet without a law requiring him too. It’s a shame that instead of that law, your state didn’t make more meaningful changes to prevent the dent from even occurring in the helmet, because I guarantee as soon as they passed that law, they dusted their hands off and unrolled their Mission Accomplished banner.
TBone
@Martin: man, that is lot of words to say “libertarian.”
Joey Maloney
Probably dead thread by now but I wanted to add: recumbent bikes are great for a lot of reasons but I would never ride one in traffic, or even on a bike lane adjacent to traffic unless there were barriers to keep cars from intruding. You’re so low to the ground on a recumbent you’re invisible to even the people driving normal cars, never mind the Canyonero crowd. And no, that pennant on the rubber stick doesn’t make a difference. I’d only ride recumbent on bike trails completely isolated from car traffic.
Jay
@TBone:
Martin is not a “libertarian”.
He is arguing that rules and restrictions on cyclists and pedestrians, rather than creating safe spaces for them to ride and walk, is a “quick fix”, easy for politicians.
During early and later Covid here, city council took half a lane along major bike and pedestrian routes here.
Fatal bike and pedestrian accidents dropped by 95%.
They took it away last summer.
So, this year in 2023, fatal car/pedestrian, fatal car/bike accidents topped 156% over any previous record year.
The only semi safe place to urban ride a bike here, scooter or walk, is sometimes the sidewalk, but not always.
When I have to walk here, my head is always on a swivel.
Joey Maloney
@Jay:
True enough but even under optimum political conditions, creating safe bike infrastructure is a slower fix. What are people supposed to do in the meantime, including people who don’t have the time, inclination, and/or expertise to “do their own research”? How has that worked out in some analogous situations that perhaps you can think of?
That’s why helmet laws are a positive good.
lowtechcyclist
Given the scarcity of water in that part of the world, I bet water bills are a good bit higher there than in WV even if it’s legal to hose down the driveway.
I have a Ridgid wet-dry vac where you can take the motor off and (with the appropriate attachments) use it as a pretty damn powerful blower. With an extension cord, you can use it to blow the crap off the driveway and walkways. IME it does the job a lot faster than a hose does. Home Dopey carries the Ridgid brand – I’m sure there are other brands of wet-dry vac have the same adaptability but it’s the brand I’ve been using for the past 20+ years. It’s a regular Swiss army knife, I’ve used it for cleaning the gutters and all sorts of stuff you wouldn’t immediately think of.
ETA: Also, an electric blower is less noisy and more environmentally friendly than a gas blower. Don’t get a gas blower.
WRT bike helmets, I’m definitely on Team Helmet. Lance, schmance: I’ve been wearing them since the mid to late 1970s. Even on bike paths that aren’t road-adjacent, because cars aren’t the only way things can go awry while riding a bike.
Matt McIrvin
@Joey Maloney: I’ve heard it argued that helmet laws kill more people through heart attacks and the effects of climate change, by discouraging casual cycling as a means of transportation, than they save from head injuries–though this would probably be impossible to quantify. (I recall one op-ed from a British paper insisting on these grounds that bicycle helmets should be illegal, and we should be putting people in prison for wearing them, though I suspect the author may have been engaging in hyperbole for shock value.)
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Sounds like sophistry.
MagdaInBlack
Architect Helmut Jahn was killed on May 8, 2021, while riding his bicycle in Campton Hills, a suburb of Chicago.[6] The collision happened near his home and horse farm in St. Charles, Illinois, a Chicago suburb.[7][8][9]
raven
“I really think we’re having a pointless discussion”
welcome to BJ!
Kay
@Will:
“Someone” is me so you can just direct this to me. That isn’t “what Cole said”. He didn’t say anything about “upper crust elite institutions” – he said this:
Why do “we” know she won’t be replaced by a man? Because you, like Christgopher Rufo, believe she was only there because she’s a black woman so of course she’ll be replaced by another black woman?
She’s actually already been replaced by a man- the interim is a man.
They shouldn’t run from bullies. It just makes them look weak and it won’t work anyway- the bully will want tomorrow’s lunch money too.
azlib
An interesting post on the Gay resignation:
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2024/Items/Jan03-6.html
Gin & Tonic
@raven: Ha!
prostratedragon
Economist E. Phillip Howrey died in June, 2011 in Boulder, CO where he was living when his bike was struck by a vehicle.
Another Scott
@Martin: Better bike infrastructure means more use by all kinds of people. It makes more slow-speed (less than 25 mph) crashes more likely. Meaning more head injuries (people die tripping down stairs at ~ 0 mph, after all). People will still need helmets on vehicles even with great bike infrastructure.
I don’t see why arguing that we need better bike infrastructure needs to be mixed up with helmets. They’re different things.
Cheers,
Scott.
Gin & Tonic
I’m not going to read all 200+ posts, but as an avid cyclist and skier, who likes to go fast, I’ve voluntarily worn a helmet in both activities for decades now. What I find interesting is the evolution in skiing – at this point, in North America at least, easily 99% of skiers wear a helmet, despite the absence of laws or regulations. Like the saying goes, if you have a $5 head, wear a $5 hat. I value my brain.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
I also value your brain.
Kay
@azlib:
They just won’t testify before Congress unless they get the kind of training that allows them to “answer” questions without saying anything that can be turned into an attack . So big win! Congrats everyone! We’re training everyone to testify to like a cop or a career criminal or an informant – in a way that protects themselves but isn’t truthful and doesn’t impart any real information. You’ll get only Bill Gates or Zuckerberg answers now- carefully coached, expensively vetted nonsense.
Princess
It’s unlikely Rufo had much to do with Gay’s resignation, at least not his latest charges. Her letter and the board’s reply came out pretty early yesterday morning and the Harvard website had already been changed when I checked it yesterday. My suspicion is that this was decided soon after the hearing and Gay was given another month or so in order for them to do damage control. When universities remove senior admin, they lie about everything- about the cause, the timing. I’ve seen two firings that were presented as promotions.
Gin & Tonic
@Princess: I bet this was at least 90% Bill Ackman.
Kay
@Princess:
Rufo’s colleague is the NYTimes source for the cheating allegations. They ran 62 stories about how she had to resign. They are once again relying on Right wing campaign operatives to write their newspaper for them.
Maybe it’s good,. Now Harvard is in the ridiculous position of having to get their new hires past Right wing commentators – they gave these assholes a veto. They’re cowards. They deserve it.
TBone
I’m getting gold fringe for my helmet.
Kay
Imagine the media coverage if Democratic pols told reporters they wanted to endorse someone in a primary but were too scared of one of the candidates to do it. It’s just reported like this is completely normal- they’re in the US Congress but they’re forbidden to endorse by that asshole sitting in Florida.
Quietly rooting! Hoping Trump doesn’t find out!
Cheri
Welcome to Arizona. 🌵The swearing will come in handy:)
Miss Bianca
@Martin: You mean as soon as they passed a helmet law they decided to stop fixing potholes in the roads, which is what Gretchen’s husband ran into? Ummm…okay…sure.
Another Scott
@Joey Maloney: On the way in to work this AM, there was a couple of road service trucks in the right shoulder on a blind curving ramp onto the expressway. One of the anti-tip legs on one of the trucks was sticking into the roadway. It was fairly easy to avoid it, but only by moving into the right-most traffic lane – luckily there was no traffic there so I didn’t have to slam on my brakes or do other evasive maneuvers.
There were no flags or signs indicating the trucks were ahead.
I bring this up because I was reminded of seeing some roadwork on a trip to Switzerland a few years ago. They had linked heavy-duty portable plastic walls to serve as barriers between the equipment and workers and the operating roadway. And lots of people watching and guiding the traffic. We tolerate too many easily avoidable dangers here… :-(
Too many “bike lanes” here in NoVA are just stripes painted on the road. That’s not going to cut it. Plastic pylons or cones or flags aren’t going to cut it. People aren’t going to bike instead of cars unless they have some reasonable assurance of safety.
Cheers,
Scott.
tam1MI
@Gretchen: Funny, he sure sounds like MAGA.
The “We must do the MAGA’s bidding or else we are no better than them” bullshit is what tipped me off.
wjca
Hmmm. Never Pied anyone before. But Will has managed to earn it and quickly to. Definitely a high achiever. Not.
bluefoot
@Chetan Murthy:
Definitely this.
From what I’ve seen in my industry (biopharma) the SCOTUS decision re affirmative action has had ripple effects outside of academia. There’s no longer an effort in hiring to interview a diversity of candidates, and upper management is already getting noticeably more white male just over the last year.
bluefoot
@Chetan Murthy: Tangentially about Tessier-Lavigne: For a long time he was highly regarded in the field and kind of a rock star. (Insofar as science has rock stars.) I was at the conference where he first presented the “death receptor” data. There was a *lot* of buzz about the data and the possibility of a new pathway amenable for treating Alzheimer’s. And then….crickets. I know of a couple of cases where others tried to replicate the data but couldn’t. Work on the new pathway basically faded out.My impression was that after that, and because of the roles he was in, there was a feeling that MTL was now essentially an administrator who maintained a lab as a vanity project. The more cynical amongst us thought perhaps he had taken those roles to avoid additional scrutiny of his science after the AD stuff didn’t pan out.
It took WAY WAY too long for there to be a real investigation into the data from his lab. But he was a rock star, formerly of UCSF, Stanford, Genentech, Rockefeller and then president of Stanford. And a white guy with a residual British accent.
ETA for Chetan: I am a regular reader at LGM but don’t comment because my (recently former) employer had systems in place to prevent it. But amongst other topics I have Things to Say about racism in science and the practice thereof. :) I may have to start commenting over there….
Will
@Kay: Sure. When Harvard replaces Gay and hires a POC I’m going to hop in that comment section and remind that you were doom and gloom sky is falling nonsense.
Cole pretty clearly states what he thinks of admins, be it anywhere, WVU, or Harvard.
You probably think you are a great debater, but living in this echo chamber where you selectively ignore for your cheers, just sad.
dearmaizie
I guess no one told him. It’s Arizona. Pretty soon there won’t be any need for a hose because there won’t be any water.
Paul in KY
@eclare: My beloved cousin was run over while riding his bike back in 1986. He was 18 years old.
Paul in KY
@TriassicSands: Gotta wear a helmet! If my cousin had been wearing one, he likely would have survived with some minor injuries (landed on head on asphalt).
Martin
@Matt McIrvin: That’s possible, but I haven’t seen any studies that quantify that – and I’ve been looking hard at any studies around the impacts of cycling.
I don’t believe that helmet laws are a strong deterrent to cycling – that doesn’t show up in any studies. I think there’s some deterrence there but it’s not like the FAA thing where there’s a boarding staff who will kick you off the plane if you don’t have a car seat, if you misplace your helmet, you’d just ride without it and take your chances.
I think the bigger deterrents is the overall safety situation. That does show up in a LOT of studies. Potential cyclists aren’t deterred very much by the things people think of – weather, getting sweaty, etc. By a VERY wide margin the deterrent is safety – cities have increased road speeds, capacities, reduced safe places to ride. Cars have gotten faster, larger, and so on. So there’s a collective benefit given that a person can’t both be driving a car and riding a bike, so choosing the latter reduces their ability to be a problem on the other side, and every step down that road has a compounding effect – but that individual cyclist may not show the benefit, it’s an opportunity benefit.
The climate change angle is probably going to prove true, but that’s going to apply to so goddamn many things that I’m not sure how it would be actionable.
Martin
@Another Scott: Because they aren’t to the city. I’ve written a lot of policy, and I work with my city on policy quite often, and I see this dynamic constantly. A policy problem is presented, a policy solution is offered, and that solution doesn’t actually solve the problem presented. That’s my point.
Does banning books from schools make kids not be trans? Does banning birth control make kids less promiscuous? Do helmet laws actually address the problem that was presented when the law was enacted. My city just passed a bunch of e-bike ordinances (which are overall perfectly fine) in response to a tripling of bike injuries which they cited as the problem they wanted to solve.
Now, that response was really to calm down the residents that are yelling and screaming about the yoots on their ebikes being a menace (eg, existing) and the ordinance will give police more tools to reign those kids in, but I looked at the incident data that was presented as the actual problem trying to be solved, and the new ordnances will do nothing to address that problem. The problem is most pronounced around schools where those kids are riding, but the incidents were primarily due to there being approximately a tripling of the number of people riding bikes (so you’d expect incidents to triple) and almost all of the incidents were due to motorists struggling to operate around school pickup and drop-off now having to cope with this new transit category moving faster than pedestrians, but slower than cars, and competing for bike lanes where all of the community moms and dads are parking their cars to pick up kids because neighborhoods weren’t built for that many cars to be at the school. Incidents were cases of dooring – cyclists avoiding sidewalks where kids were walking, and unable to use the bike lane because it’s full of idling cars, and someone opens their door into the cyclist passing on the drivers side. They were motorists making a right on red hitting cyclists as they hurried to get their kid to school on time or to get to work after dropping their kid off. The underlying problem is the infrastructure is insufficient to the task, and the sheer volume of people means that motorists are simply overwhelmed with how many potential interactions they need to keep track of – and are failing to do so. They aren’t necessary even bad drivers – but everyone has a cognitive limit and pickup and drop-off almost certain exceeds that for everyone. The only possible solution to that is to remove the thing that can do harm – let the pedestrians and cyclists bump into each other – they won’t result in any real problems, but remove the cars that even at low speeds can cause serious damage. That’s why that intersection video I linked above works. That intersection carries more people than a 4 lane arterial intersection – it’s a huge bit of infrastructure in terms of carrying capacity, and yet it operates safely without active traffic management systems like traffic lights, simply because the stakes are low – kinetic energy of a 10mph cyclist is next to nothing.
There are countless cases of cities instituting helmet laws after a cyclist died who was wearing a helmet. The policy did nothing to address the presented problem, but the city did ‘something’ and is now free to move on. And that’s what my city is doing – they did something – they regulated ebikes. Will those regulations reduce the number of cyclists? Maybe. But that’s a bad way to solve the problem. Will it improve safety around the schools where the problem is most pronounced? Not at all. When you write a policy you need to ask yourself at the end whether or not it addresses the presented problem, and in more cases than not, policies don’t do that. They take the problem as an opportunity to address some other desire, and generally leave the stated problem as an ongoing problem.