Fight Terrorism, Ride a Bike!

It's been a bit over two years since I have driven an automobile. I rarely even ride in a car. About 99% of my personal transportation is effected on my bicycle—one of the greatest inventions in human history (although under-utilized in many societies). The personal automobile certainly has a place in modern transportation models but to base our entire scheme on cars seems completely insane. Even if we could make cars that run on air, we would still be strapped with all of the other massive failings of the automobile such as the high cost of building roads, safety issues, and parking, to name only three. Airplanes are another highly flawed means of transportation but they are still the best means to travel great distances. America almost completely gave up on trains many years ago and it may be too late to create the infrastructure necessary for this to be a major player in the country's future. But the cheapest, safest, and easiest solution for many of society’s transportation demands is still the bicycle.

Just about the entire infrastructure necessary to include bicycles in urban transportation models is already in place. Sometimes the only thing required to make a bike line is a line of paint in the street. If a city wishes to be a bit more aggressive in incorporating the use of bikes, they could remove an automobile lane or on-street parking and hand this over to cyclists. If cities are looking to go way overboard on the inclusion of bikes, they can look to Amsterdam as their model. Starting in 1992 Amsterdam has been working to minimize car traffic in its historic center. Over the years the city has drastically reduced parking in the center while continually widening bike lanes and sidewalks. This certainly makes sense when you consider that the historic center of Amsterdam was designed before cars were around.

Valencia has to rate somewhere near the top of the list for bike-friendly cities—at least as far as I am concerned. For its population, Valencia is very small in area, at least compared to an American city of the same size. You can bike from one end of Valencia to the other in about a half an hour—I doubt there are many American cities where you could make that claim driving. The network of bike paths in and around Valencia is a dream come true for cyclists. The fine weather here also helps to encourage cycling. Another advantage for cycling in Valencia is that the city is very flat. In Eduardo Mendoza's hilarious farce, Sin Noticias de Gurb, the space alien visiting the very hilly Barcelona proposes a bike exchange program where citizens of that city can grab a bike at the top of the hill, coast down to the city's center, and then leave the bike. Trucks would then come along and drive the bikes back up the hill. People would have to make their own arrangements for getting back up the hill. As it turns out, Barcelona has a bicycle exchange program called Bicing and they do in fact find an inordinate amount of bikes at the bottom of the city and must transport them back to the top of the hill every day. I thought about the same thing in Seattle which has many heart-shatteringly steep hills. Valencia, as I said, is as flat as a tortilla (Mexican or Spanish versions both work for this simile).

There is almost nothing in the way of urban sprawl in Valencia; the apartment buildings of the city abruptly end where the agricultural fields begin. There are neighboring towns but they all look pretty much like Valencia: apartment buildings that are between four and six floors. I have never heard or seen any traffic reports here. Although Valencia doesn't have the nightmarish gridlock of American cities it has its own share of problems with the automobile. Traffic in the city itself is pretty much a nightmare, at least on weekdays. You won't run into huge delays. More than anything it is just annoying to drive around town. As I write this I look down on the street in front of the Ruzafa Market which, during working hours, is backed up for several blocks.

It amazes me that so many people here still choose to rely heavily on the automobile to get around day-to-day. I could understand this if it were all families choking up the streets in their cars, but most of the traffic is the same sort you see in just about every city in America: single drivers. I don't even take cabs in Valencia because the traffic is maddeningly slow. Once you arrive at your destination, parking is even more horrendous than the drive to get there. I can't see how driving in this environment can be any sort of convenience.

Automobiles in Valencia seem to be more of a status thing than a necessity. People drive because they have cars and can afford the gas. Public transportation is inexpensive and very efficient yet many people opt out of it and drive. I'm sure that many have practical reasons for making this decision but I am equally sure that many other people drive for reasons other than necessity. I would guess that a great majority of the people who now drive cars in Valencia could easily choose to ride the bus or bike to their destinations. I am surprised that the city hasn't made a greater effort to convince these people to make the change. Instead, Valencia keeps building wider roads on the outer ends of the city and erecting public parking garages at different points around town, all with the purpose of encouraging automobile traffic. It seems this money would be better spent on mass transit projects.

It's remarkable the degree to which societies subsidize the automobile while practically ignoring other means of transportation. In the United States people scream bloody murder when public money goes to fund mass transportation projects like Amtrak (America's passenger rail system) but nothing is said when tax dollars pay for airports and the incredible infrastructure necessary for automobiles. Even a city that is purported to be as “bike friendly” as Seattle seems to only grudgingly add bike lanes to the urban transportation model—and in Seattle this usually means merely slapping down a line of paint in the street to designate the bike lane (which works rather well, I might add).

What I can't understand about bike transportation is why it isn't more popular. Why aren't as many people riding bikes in Seattle or Valencia as in Amsterdam? How can we get more people out of their cars and on bikes? I have an idea, try asking. I have seen a couple of posters around Valencia on the metro routes encouraging citizens to ride bikes but I think the movement needs a little more of a push. How about a few television commercials of attractive people choosing to ride their bikes instead of dealing with the hassles inherent in automobiles?

Letter to My Brother

13SEP08*

This began as a letter to my younger brother. I wanted to compliment him on the incredibly brilliant essays he has been writing. My brother and I have written thousands and thousands of pages of letters to each other over the years yet you will find very little in the way of anything even remotely personal. Our letters are concerned almost exclusively with our intellectual development with regards to books we are reading, politics, sports, popular culture, you name it. What these letters rarely touch on are our private lives which, at least for me, is a rather dull subject. This isn't to say that my own private life is any more boring than that of anyone else, it's just that I think there are a lot of more important topics in the world to address in letters. Instead of just sending this to my brother, I will share it with anyone who cares to get a glimpse of what our correspondence looks like.

* The title of this essay comes from the military manner of writing the date. It is one of the few things the military does right. It is the easiest and least ambiguous way to write the date. It is also how I title most of the letters I have sent to my brother.

First of all, let me again say just how great your writing has been these past several weeks. Yours was absolutely the best response I read regarding the McCain acceptance speech. I just amazes me that the race is so close considering what a wreck the country is in after eight years of Bush. Could you imagine eight years equally as disastrous after a Democratic administration? Christ, the Supreme Court would just appoint a Republican without bothering with an election. The hicks still want to believe in all of the mythology and buzz words they are fed: the liberal press, “tax and spend” democrats, American might and its ability to sway the world, and the power of Jesus Christ our savior. It's all pretty much the same lie when you think about it. The hicks just can't stop thinking about all of those aborted fetuses, never mind that more abortions are probably necessary under their type of ignorant (as far as sex education, among other things) rule. And don't even to mention that botched abortions were the number one cause of death of women of child bearing age before it was legal.

That is what delivered all of the religious hicks to the Republican camp: the sanctity of life. The Republicans took an incredibly complex and agonizing issue and turned it into a campaign slogan. They reduced one of the most difficult moral quandaries of our modern era and turned it into a fucking bumper sticker. Of course, everyone is “against” abortion; anything else is a complete absurdity. I remember being taught about sex education in the 10th grade. The first speaker we had was from the anti-abortion camp. This woman showed us pictures of aborted fetuses. The next day we had a young woman from Planned Parenthood talk to the class. Talk about a hard act to follow. The kids were literally screaming at her about how terrible abortion is. I mean, why not? It is terrible. What you come to realize as a rational adult is that the issue is extremely complicated. The conservatives have made sure that the argument has remained decidedly uncomplicated among their constituents. Abortion is killing babies.

Of course, they never talk about the alternative, even though we know exactly what the alternative looks like—it's called history. History is a taboo subject for the conservatives because history looks a lot like the world they are trying to create. History looked pretty awful, for the most part, and we have been trying to distance ourselves from history for the benefit of nearly everyone. It's called progress, it's called making the world better. History tells us that abortion was always with us and that is was dangerous and even more horrifying before it became legal for every woman. History tells us that relatively safe abortions were always available to any woman of means, but for poor women their choices were unsafe and often lethal. A return to that history will not be a step forward, to think otherwise is insane and irresponsible.

The thing is, these days you don't even need to rely on history to point out the horrible flaws in the argument of the Pro-life movement. Just compare countries in the world in which abortion is legal with those where it is not. I seriously doubt that any modern person—man or woman, but especially women—would choose to live in a country where abortion is illegal. Ireland, one of the only European countries where abortion is completely illegal (unless the mother's life is at risk), probably isn't as bad as the rest on the list, but I would imagine that the Catholic Church's grip will break and laws there will change to mirror the rest of Europe. Spain, where legal abortion is now limited, is in the process of writing a new law on the procedure to put the country in line with the other European social democracies. Even Turkey, with a mostly Muslim populace, has legal abortion until the 10th week. Does America want to be more like Sweden, Holland, Germany, and France, or more like Brazil, Belorussia, Saudi Arabia, or Iran? Take your time. Think about it.

Conservatives never talk about the past when framing their black-and-white argument for making abortion illegal once again. They want you to believe that abortion has always been legal and that by criminalizing it, America will return to an age of innocence (which is an incredible contradiction if you think about it). However, that age of “innocence” is right there to see in history books. It was a pretty bad place, for the most part. Most liberals want America to be a place where abortions are not necessary, not a country where abortion is illegal. That is the huge difference between American conservatives and liberals. Conservatives who oppose abortion almost always are also opposed to contraception and sex education. We have recently seen the results of this type of thinking. Just take a look at the family of the Republican candidate for vice president.* The leaders of the Republican Party don't give a damn about abortion. As America's economic elite, abortion will always be an option for them.

The conservatives are also trying to push our economic world back to a former era. An era before income taxes, a time before labor unions, an age of no government control of industry, back when they were able to operate without any regard for the environment or the health and safety of workers. Once again, the Republicans' vision of getting “the government off our backs” is something we have already lived through as a nation. We just spent the better part of the part of the last century literally fighting in the streets to escape from that bleak past and now conservatives want us to return on our own free will. The economic model conservatives are seeking has already existed in our past and we didn't like it. It also exists in the world today in countries like Brazil and Mexico with grinding poverty living beside people with incredible wealth. We can also choose another economic model, a model that we invented and then let slip away with the advent of the conservative movement under Ronald Reagan. Once again, does America want to be more like modern day Brazil with its horrible disparities of income, or more like the social democracies of Western Europe?

Another incredibly irony of the mentality of conservatives is their refusal to accept the fact that life on earth has evolved, that it is a process. A political movement that has denied history is also denying the history of species. Once again, our economic elite couldn't give two shits about evolution, one way or another. They do pay lip service to the evangelicals, however. If Republicans didn't court the Jesus freaks, who the else would vote for them? The platform of the Republican Party only represents about the top ten percent of American earners so they fill their ranks by claiming to be the party of morality, or at least a parody of morality that they have created to dupe the religious fanatics.

To me the choices are simple: we either go back or we go forward. You can either deny history (and be forced to repeat it) or work to change things for the better

*The subject of the family of the Republican candidate for vice president is supposed to be off-limits in this political debate. I would agree if only she herself had not spent at least ten minutes introducing her all-American family during her acceptance speech at the convention. This is a woman who opposes sex education in schools yet her own 17-year-old unmarried daughter is pregnant. I guess the message here is that it's OK for a teenager to have an illegitimate child if you come from a family of means.

Economic Crisis Forces Reduction in Minute of Silence

The completely empty gesture of sympathy formerly known as the ''Minute of Silence'' has been officially reduced to 30 seconds because of the looming economic crisis in the country. The announcement was made at a press conference in New York City by the head of the Federal Reserve Bank, Ben S. Bernanke. ''We are facing high unemployment, rising prices, and slow economic growth. Do we look like a nation that needs to be wasting a minute of silence every time there is an untimely death of a celebrity in the world? Maybe they all need to be more careful so we can get on with the business of making a living. See those instructions on that bottle of pills? Try reading them. Car being chased by paparazzi? Tough shit, deal with it. If you think annoying photographers make your life miserable, try not being famous for a few days. Believe me, it's not all it's cracked up to be.'' the chairman said. ''If we all stood around for a minute with our fingers up our asses every time someone famous died, our thumbs would fucking hatch.''

The Federal Reserve considered a plan to link the time of silent prayer to the value of the dollar in overseas markets. ''We thought of that plan a couple of years ago when the dollar was relatively stable. Luckily we didn't go through with it, considering that the dollar has since gone into the toilet,'' Bernanke said. ''Maybe we'll use the euro as our guide or the price of a barrel of crude oil. You don't see the Chinese standing idly by praying in this global economy. They are probably trying to buy the copyright on a 'minute of silence' or manufacturing some sort of gizmo that does a silent prayer on your MP3 player.''

The move was roundly criticized by religious leaders who feel that it discounts the importance of prayer in daily life. ''Prayer, are you serious?'' the chairman scoffed, ''We all know that almost no one was praying during that minute and certainly not for the entire 60 seconds. Most people said some lame-ass prayer and then spent the next 55 seconds thinking about how they should probably cut down on their drinking, or staring at some woman's chest, or both. Whenever I get stuck doing a minute of silence I like to say the alphabet backwards for practice, just in case I ever have to do a field sobriety test. Sometimes I get busted actually saying it out loud. Oops, sorry about that but we all got to die sooner or later.''

The announcement was welcomed by American atheists. Tom Logan, president of the Godless Coalition, said that shortening the minute of silence to half a minute was half right but the reduction should be taken another 30 seconds further. ''Zero seconds of silence to honor the dead seems about right,'' Logan said. ''This comes at a good time for me, personally. I was getting really sick of people asking me—an atheist—to bow my head and pray. That would be like force-feeding a vegetarian a Big Mac. While we're at it why don't we all bow our heads and consider astrology. I swear, if someone says I have to do a minute of prayer one more time I am going to climb up on a tower with a deer rifle and I'm not coming down until I'm a household name.''

The president of the Godless Coalition continued his rant, ''A minute of prayer represents 1/1440 of the day, hardly a block of time that would impress a god even if there were such a thing. Just think about it. A whole minute of prayer to honor the genocide in Armenia or Rwanda? Wow people, do you think you can spare that much time away from your video games, reality TV, and Pilates classes?'' Mr. Logan was told ''point taken'' and was asked to please stop talking.

From the Bookshelf

I often feel like I am not learning Spanish well enough or fast enough. In many ways it is the hardest thing I have ever set out to achieve. There is never going to be a finish line nor is anyone going to unfurl a big banner proclaiming “Mission Accomplished!” As self-deprecating as I am about my ability to speak my new language, I have been fairly pleased with my rapidly-improving reading ability. I just finished my most productive week of reading in Spanish. One of the things I really like about reading in Spanish is that it is thoroughly quantifiable as far as seeing how hard I am working and how much I have achieved—I just need to count the pages I've read. This week the pages I have read include those making up Carlos Ruiz Zafón's novel, La Sombra del Viento (569 pages!) and the farce by Eduardo Mendoza, Sin Noticias de Gurb (143 pages).

I began reading Sombra last year after returning from a trip to Barcelona where the novel is set. I read about 300 pages, understanding it fairly well until I got bogged down and started getting confused. I was only reading at a rate of about 20 a day back then and I simply got lost in the labyrinthine narrative. This time around I set my goal at 40 pages a day, then upped that pace to 50, and ended by reading more than 100 pages the last two days of reading the novel. I really felt like I had made a quantum leap as I was reading this book which has been a phenomenal bestseller, not only here in Spain but all over the world. It's nice when a great book reaches such a massive audience. If you are looking for something to read, I can't recommend this book highly enough (the English title is The Shadow of the Wind).

In this novel you see shades of Jorge Luis Borges and Gabriel García Márquez, part suspense novel and part fantasy fiction. He uses Barcelona as one of the characters in the book and I was so glad that I got to know that city a lot better before I started reading. I am warning you now, if you start reading this book make sure you don't have anything pressing on your calendar for a day or two because from the first sentence you will be hooked.

Todavía recuerdo aquel amanecer en que mi padre me llevó por primera vez a visitar el Cementerio del los Libros Olvidados.

(I still remember that morning when my father took me for the first time to visit the Cemetary of Forgotten Books)

Continue reading at your peril, or at least the peril of the other shit you may have been planning to do.

As I said, I began reading Sombra with a 40 page a day goal. I was having so much fun reading that I increased that to 50. It would take me three solid hours to bag my 50 page limit. To achieve this modest reading rate I had to sequester myself to the local Ruzafa branch library, away from noise and distractions. Like everything else in my world here, the library is a mere two blocks from the front door of my building. Besides the peace and quiet, my little library also offers a couple of reference items that I have been using to help me improve my reading skills. I have been wearing out their Spanish dictionary for foreigners, which is a terrific resource for students of the language. It gives simple Spanish definitions for words and then uses the word in a sentence. I also use the Spanish thesaurus. I have had to rebind my Spanish/English dictionary with packing tape as I have thoroughly worn it out through heavy usage. And I keep filling notebooks as I write down every word that I look up along with the definition and the context sentence. If anyone has a better strategy for learning Spanish, please let me know.

Sin Noticias de Gurb is one of those books that you could kick yourself for not thinking of the idea first. It is a diary of messages sent by an extraterrestrial who comes to earth, takes on human form, and dryly narrates what he discovers about life here on earth—or at least life in Barcelona. It is laugh-out-loud funny in many parts and even more so if you happen to be something of an outsider yourself but have been in Spain just long enough to recognize some of the more absurd aspects of modern society. It has been a very entertaining week of reading.

Sol y Sombra: The Beginning of the End

August ended just a few hours ago. There are still a few weeks of official summer as far as the calendar is concerned, and here in Valencia we probably have a few months of shirt sleeve weather. It is every bit as bright and sunny this morning as yesterday morning but I can't help but feel that summer has somehow slipped past. Yesterday was the last Sunday of August and probably the last really busy day at the beach this season. I remember growing up in America's Midwest when right about now you were just waiting for that first cold day when the temperature dropped to around freezing—a real sign that summer had ended. The climate here isn't nearly as drastic and summer slowly slides into fall like a hot bath gradually cooling after you turn off the spigot.

If the spigot here wasn't turned off about two weeks ago, someone definitely turned it down to a slow dribble. Just when you thought the heat was unbearable, summer hit its apex and, almost overnight, it was just warm outside instead of sweltering. Instead of leaving for a bike ride to the beach at 5:30 in the afternoon, lathered in 50 spf sunscreen, I find it safe to leave at 3:30 with 30 spf. Instead of diving into the sea that is practically at body temperature, I find that first dive to be a bit refreshing. Hot coffee in the morning has edged out the ice frappés that I preferred during the hottest couple of weeks of August. I don't have to run throughout the day to find shade, fearing the sun like some celestial bully.

Today most people in Valencia will go back to their businesses, take down the signs they had put up bragging about their month-long absence, and get back to work; appetites start returning for food that hasn't come directly out of the refrigerator; turning on an oven doesn't seem like suicide; and you begin to think that, sooner or later, you may have to return to wearing socks. Fall is a great time of year in Valencia, it's like summer in Seattle. As pleasant as autumn may be, I can't help but cling to summer like a shipwreck victim holding on to a bit of driftwood.

I still have to close all of the curtains and blinds in my apartment to keep out the heat, but this battle with the sun has lost the desperation of only a few weeks ago when I had threatened to turn on the air conditioning almost daily. As it turns out, I only bothered with the AC on about three occasions this summer, following instead the example of the Spanish who use resources like electricity a lot more judiciously than we Americans. This was about how many times I was forced to turn on the heat last winter. Last night I actually groped for a top sheet to pull over me.

I can't recall the first day I opted to wear shorts this year but I'll try to keep a record of when I return to long pants. I don't know how my feet will take to being shod again after at least three months of going in flip-flops. I can't believe that soon I'll have to start wearing a shirt around the house. I love summer here in Valencia and I want to wring it out for all it's worth. I am going to celebrate summer today by christening my new 46 centimeter paella pan that covers almost the entire top of my stove. My 40 centimeter pan just left me feeling like half a man. It also really wasn't big enough for a paella that contained half of a rabbit and half of a chicken, so it wasn't all male overcompensation issues that made me buy the new pan.

*I had written about this same sort of phenomena before, back when I was trying to adjust to my northern migration to Seattle from south Florida.