Definitely in the “slow news” part of the year, and the Feed

This is the time of year when I don’t have much to link to, mostly from Oz and other “Down Under” locations. There will be a spike starting 12/26 and generally running until 1/7 the next year as kids get run over while riding new bikes, but that is Really Depressing to think about right now. Anyway, while things are slightly less deadly around the blog I figured this would be a good time to remind people that if they make enough noise with their elected officials they can pretty much shut the Feed down by not having any stories about dead or injured cyclists to link to because there aren’t any cyclists getting killed or injured. All it takes is getting the infrastructure right so that cyclists and pedestrians are not second class on the roads. The Dutch have had 40 years of development in not-killing cyclists and pedestrians under their belts and they have all their specifications on line and freely available for anyone to use.

Up first is a kind of death that is becoming all-too-common for CA cyclists. Girl riding bike shot, killed in Compton; suspect sought This is not a bicycle problem, but just something that happens to people whether they are riding bicycles or not.

On the other side of the country a rather cryptic wreck report from a blotter. Croton Cops: Cyclist Hit By Car; Laundry Owner Wants His Carts Back. “Police did not charge the driver.” AKA “No criminality suspected” and aside from the fact the cyclist had broken bones and the driver did not suffer anything other than a slight delay that’s all I know about this wreck.

Good news from a Seattle wreck. Injured bicycle rider’s daughter looking for Good Samaritan Since nobody saw the wreck and reported on it I can’t say how to avoid it or if changes to the built infrastructure would have prevented it.

A little kid riding a bike in Oz gets hit and killed. Two children die in separate road tragedies in 24 hours Kid was JRA outside his house when hit, which under the Dutch model would have been shared space with either a 30 km/hr (18 MPH) or a 20 km/hr (12 MPH) speed limit and severe penalties for hitting children.

Last link is Infrastructure! news and very good news at that. Hadley poised to settle federal case with bicycle advocate; agrees to pay $27,500 in lawyer’s fees Basically the town has been told to stop harassing cyclists riding in the street, pay the lawyer’s fees and refund all fines and monetary penalties accrued since they started giving the guy a bad time for obeying the law. Incidentally the police chief has been “sick” since the initial summary judgement against him. Things that make you go “hmmm”.

And those are all the links about bicycles that I had, most of which did not cause fits.

Billed @€0.02, Opus

Advertisement

Call for speakers, March 31 2013

Assuming the Mayans were wrong and the world does not end 12/21/2012, a spot will be open for a speaker at my church for evening service the last Sunday in March, our traditional “April Fools” service. In the past we have done a service where children called in the elements as Yakko, Wakko, and Dot with Hello Nurse called in North by an adult, grandmotherly type. Other times previous we have had a full Coffee Service where the goddess Caffeina was invoked and various aspects of coffee represented the quarters. We have also invited artists from web comics to speak at one of these services, including Randall Millholland, Jennie Breeden, Thomas Overbeck, and an artist that does not wish to be named as having been to our church because we were boring and didn’t sacrifice a baby. I don’t know what he was expecting we may be Pagan but we’re also UU (one of the first Institutional Members of CUUPS the Covenant of Universalist Unitarian Pagans). Our church has a history that extends back to the late 1960s.

But what I’m trying to say is that we have a history of inviting outside speakers who are not religious speakers, and offer them a chance to speak on their take on the First Principle Of UU, The inherent worth and dignity of all men people. Randy went at it from a wildly obtuse angle as anyone who has read his comic knows, and Overbeck hit it out of the park with his speech. I still rank that as one of the best outside services we have ever had, even counting the professional religious speakers. The bar has been set very high, but there is no need to use that to measure yourself because we are measuring from the First Principle, the inherent worth and dignity of all people. Even the guy that got mad because we didn’t kill babies managed to get a piece of the ball with his speech.

And the suggested topic isn’t even a hard and fast requirement, Jenny Breeden spoke about growing up as a UU and becoming an artist because of that. Her speech was only tangentially connected to the First Principle, that because she had Inherent Worth and Dignity she was able to make bad awwrrt while learning to make good art and become an internationally famous web comic artist.

So, the requirements are the ability to get yourself to the Beautiful Suburbs of Hell in time for a 1930 Sunday service (there may be a 1100 service made available if that’s all you can make, and we have morning services again by then) and we need to know if you have any food restrictions because there will be a potluck dinner. We used to have our speakers come at A-kon, but we stopped that because it was interfering with their merchandising and costing them money (sorry Jennie) so now we are extending the invitation for the AF service.

More history from the first service in April, back when the time change to Daylight Savings was the first Sunday in April, we did a Reverse Service. At the time we had a set Welcoming Song, and a Dismissal Song that started and ended every service, well on the time change day we did those songs on the opposite ends of the service and deliberately let the service run long… so the Welcoming Song went off a few minutes earlier than “normal” except because of the time change it was almost an hour later. Yes I planned that service. We have had Cartoon Services on several first Sunday in April or last Sunday in March services, my favorite one was a showing of the Lum’s Springtime Special Urusei Yatsura, in Japanese. Trying to explain why there was a girl wearing a bikini flying around shooting lightning at one particular male character was worthy of a separate article all by itself. Not to mention why it was a tiger striped bikini and the girl had nubs of horns sticking out of her head. Another one of my services. In fact I have done most of the first Sunday in April or last Sunday in March services since the turn of the century for our church, it’s one of the few “traditions” we have. I didn’t present last year, but I wrote and coordinated the service. This year the brain damage has gotten worse, hence why I’m calling for outside assistance this year. If you would like you can provide a theme for calling the elements and deities (and even specify the deities, if you provide a wiki link) I will write the quarter calls and invocation of the deities.

If you want to be in the program you can contact me through this blog or via my e-mail, it’s on the blog somewhere.

PSA, Opus