In the face of a Democratic administration coming into office with a Democrat-controlled congress, the antiabortion activists must be feeling anxious and desperate. It seems they are considering turning to Plan B or even Plan C, since the prospects for Plan A, outlawing the practice entirely, now appear so dim. What surprises me is how far out there Plans B and C truly are.

Frustrated by the failure to overturn Roe v. Wade, a growing number of antiabortion pastors, conservative academics and activists are setting aside efforts to outlaw abortion and instead are focusing on building social programs and developing other assistance for pregnant women to reduce the number of abortions.

Some of the activists are actually working with abortion rights advocates to push for legislation in Congress that would provide pregnant women with health care, child care and money for education — services that could encourage them to continue their pregnancies.

These revolutionary ideas will alienate much of the far right wing. Placing the needs of women ahead of the needs of fetuses is a dangerous idea; who knows how far it will go, and how much damage all these insidious “social programs” will do to the fabric of American society.

You think I am being sarcastic, but that is the argument.

The new effort is causing a fissure in the antiabortion movement, with traditional groups viewing the activists as traitors to their cause. Leaders worry that the approach could gain traction with a more liberal Congress and president, although they do not expect it to weaken hard-core opposition.

“It’s a sellout, as far as we are concerned,” said Joe Scheidler, founder of the Pro-Life Action League. “We don't think it's really genuine. You don’t have to have a lot of social programs to cut down on abortions.”

Full article at The Washington Post.

And this June essay in the New York Times by Waldo Fielding, a doctor who recalls treating victims of botched illegal abortions before Roe v. Wade, reminds us of one crucial fact:

The worst case I saw, and one I hope no one else will ever have to face, was that of a nurse who was admitted with what looked like a partly delivered umbilical cord. Yet as soon as we examined her, we realized that what we thought was the cord was in fact part of her intestine, which had been hooked and torn by whatever implement had been used in the abortion. It took six hours of surgery to remove the infected uterus and ovaries and repair the part of the bowel that was still functional.

It is important to remember that Roe v. Wade did not mean that abortions could be performed. They have always been done, dating from ancient Greek days.

What Roe said was that ending a pregnancy could be carried out by medical personnel, in a medically accepted setting, thus conferring on women, finally, the full rights of first-class citizens — and freeing their doctors to treat them as such.

If you have not watched the 60 Minutes interview of the Obamas from this past Sunday, you should. Entertaining and informative.

YouTube links:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4

I have not watched a single one of Bush’s State of the Union addresses, or any other of his speeches since the inaugural War on Terra speech from Sept 13, 2001. I stopped listening because I could not stand to listen to the man talk, in that pseudo-everyman drawl with the horrible grammar and the one-clause sentences that don’t even follow from each other. Every sentence depends on so many unspoken assumptions that you can’t disagree with a single claim without spending several paragraphs debunking the assumptions behind it. It was just too painful. I’m not complaining about the way the man talks; I’m lamenting that the way he talks betrays the way he operates and makes decisions.

It’s really refreshing to that we’ll soon have a president again who can speak candidly and intelligently in enumerated lists that weigh several sides of the issue. The way an opinion is expressed usually demonstrates that he’s thought thoroughly about the subtleties of many sides of the issue and tried to find an optimal approach given the constraints. Not in that boring, pedantic put-you-to-sleep way that Kerry speaks, and so much better than “my way or the highway” and “with us or against us.” So much better.

I know Bush has claimed to consult his heart rather than his mind, and perhaps the heart does tend to speak in all-or-nothing, irrational terms. But the heart is inscrutable, Bush’s even more so, and I strongly prefer someone who can articulate rational reasons for holding certain opinions rather than simply dismissing the question by explaining that his heart, or God, or inspiration told him so. It’s difficult to hold a constructive argument against such non-logic, and on occasions when it’s later proved wrong, it’s impossible to revisit the logic to determine which part was faulty.

I particularly like the bit where Obama talks about implenting good ideas, wherever they come from, whether it be FDR or Reagan, because the effective idea should be the focus, not who thought of it. Stringfellow Barr, one of the founders of the discussion-based program at my alma mater, St. John’s College, expressed the notion thusly (in 1968):

There is a pathos in television dialogue: the rapid exchange of monologues that fail to find the issue, like ships passing in the night; the reiterated preface, “I think that . . . ,” as if it mattered who held which opinion rather than which opinion is worth holding; the impressive personal vanity that prevents each “discussant” from really listening to another speaker and that compels him to use this God-given pause to compose his own next monologue; the further vanity, or instinctive caution, that leads him to choose very long words, whose true meaning he has never grasped, rather than short words that he understands but that would leave the emptiness of his point of view naked and exposed to a mass public. There is pathos in the meaningless gestures: the extended chopping hands, fingers rigidly held parallel and together, the rigid wayward thumb pointing to heaven. A knowledgeable theatrical director would cringe at these gestures and would perhaps faint when the extended palms, one held in front of the other, are made to revolve rapidly around each other, thereby imitating and emphasizing the convolutions of a mind that races like a motor not in gear. And Mrs. Malaprop herself would cringe at those long, wayward words, so much at cross purpose with the intent of the speakers. Or at the academic speaker’s strings of adjacent nouns, where all but the last noun modify adjectivally either the last noun or the nearest noun — it is anybody’s guess. We are all suffocating intellectually, not from the ungrammatical language of Cassius Clay, which is gutsy, forceful and eloquent. We are suffocating from a fausse élégance that scorns the honest, clear, four-letter word. And quite aside from the obscene ones, hundreds of splendid four-letter words are waiting to work for us. Is it possible that we discussants are oppressed by a subconscious suspicion that we are really saying precisely nothing, and that this nothing will stand up as conversation only if we say it elaborately? Is it this suspicion that forces us to speak in what our learned jargon recently christened “jargonese?” “Yoono Chinese, Japanese; well I am now speaking, yoono, jargonese.” Our failure at dialogue is building a Tower of, yoono, Babel.

Nevertheless, back of this tormenting, and tormented, babble is a ghost we cannot lay, the ghost of dialogue. We yearn, not always consciously, to commune with other persons, to learn with them by joint search. This joint labor to understand would be even more exciting than the multiplication of our gross national product or the improvement of our national defense or even than the elimination of war from the face of the earth. For we can never live wholly human lives without a genuine converse between men.

Barr’s whole essay is here.

The sky is gray and possibly turgid. Orange and yellow leaves are drifting down in dozens with every movement of the air. For most folks, bicycling season is ending or ended, but not for me. I’ve decided that I’m going to be one of those crazy dudes who rides through the winter, or at least I’m going to try. In previous bicycling seasons, I’ve always stopped soon after it becomes unpleasant in shorts and a t-shirt because that’s when the exuberant, limitless, immortal feeling ends. But not this year. And largely, I credit DC traffic or, more particularly, unblinking DC traffic light timers with motivating me to keep riding.

As I am discovering, this endeavor requires some planning and a heavy outlay of cash. Though this may change once winter arrives, the problem at this point is the coldness of the wind that hits you when you’re riding at 15 or 20 mph. Even on days when you might set out on foot in a flannel and a light jacket, the wind blows right through the flannel as soon as you start pedaling. If you ride far enough and fast enough, you start sweating, and that cold wind becomes much colder.

The problem is that I’ve always inwardly scoffed at fashion cyclists and all their ridiculous cycling fashion—the little shoes ($100+) that clip into the pedals ($100+), the form-fitting jerseys ($40–$200), the padded shorts ($95), the vented racing helmets ($150), and so on. In the summer, I ride in cotton shorts and brightly colored sleeveless t-shirts I ordered online from some guy in Miami for $3 each. But now I’m suddenly seeing the benefit of the heavy-R&D synthetic fabrics that wick moisture and form a cushion of warm air to insulate your extremities.

They actually do work, at least from what I can tell in my limited experimentation thus far with the discount models I’ve hunted down in post-season sales and slashed-price websites. When wearing the Nashbar Lightweight Glove ($14), my fingers stay un-numb much longer than they would otherwise. My fluorescent yellow Novara windbreaker ($19 on clearance at REI due to a minor zipper defect) with velcro neck flaps and wrist wraps really is windproof, and has the added advantage of keeping my backpack from turning into a wet tea bag of rank, fermenting, sweat-stewed nastiness. My Thermolite Adrenaline Beanie ($7) sits under the helmet and keeps my head warm. These accoutrements have seen me through the autumn.

And now with shortening days, lighting becomes an issue. In most areas of the city, streetlights make a headlight unnecessary. But, as I have discovered by trial and error, there is no route through Rock Creek Park—a national park that runs north-south like a fat vein through the middle of DC—that is both illuminated and safe for cyclists. Military Road is well-lit, but is high speed and has neither bike lane nor sidewalk. So heading home from work requires pedaling through wilderness-black stretches of woods so dark you cannot imagine you’re actually in the middle of a city, illuminated only by a little blinky LED light ($19), enough to be seen but not to see upcoming obstacles such as gaping potholes or ten-point bucks. So this morning I found myself researching various halogen lights ($75–$350) with rechargeable battery packs shaped like a water bottle to fit in the frame-mounted cage ($3.50) I already have.

And so you see the pattern . . . . If you plan to be a year-round cyclist, you begin accumulating riding gear and accessories appropriate to each season, and the cost begins to add up, even if you buy everything in the wrong season when it’s on clearance sale. Soon, all that money you’ve been saving on gas starts getting funneled directly into bicycle accessories, even though it pains you deep in your soul that you might be mistaken for one of those annoying fashion cyclists who dons hundreds of dollars in spandex and lycra to ride to the grocery store on Saturday morning.

And, summer now over, it makes sense to present the results of the summer’s foray into bicycle fitness. You may laugh, as you consider how much effort and anality it must take to keep such diligent records. But one must remember that data analysis is not merely a job, it is a way of life.

Apparently, I’m not the only one who has started commuting by bicycle lately, as this article in the most recent Economist points out. I find it very easy to imagine some of the bicyclist/driver altercations they describe.

I was almost nailed at a four-way stop at the beginning of the summer by a guy who rolled through a stop sign while talking on his cellphone. He didn’t just roll; he looked like he was going to come to a complete stop, and then gunned it just as I was crossing. He didn’t even know I was there (despite my safety-orange shirt). Just last week some lady in a minivan decided that she really wanted to make the green light that we were approaching. We were on a four-lane city street with no shoulder. Traffic was flowing in the left lane, but I was occupying part of the right lane and she wasn’t sure if she should try to squeeze between me and the traffic. As the green light got more stale, she decided to try it. She gunned her engine, accelerating madly until she was right next to me, only to brake abruptly as she doubted she could get through after all. She practically sideswiped the car to her left and practically knocked me off the road. People like her knock the mirrors off parked cars by forgetting how wide the piece of steel they’re piloting is. I would really hate to be a casualty of someone’s misplaced overconfidence in their spatial reasoning. Such a pointless way to go. The risks of a driver’s misjudgment are asymmetric: He risks his paint job, while he risks my life, or at least my skin and bones.

Bumpy Roads

WITH petrol the price it is, more and more people are riding a bicycle to work. In Broward County, Florida, about 35,000 people a month typically put their bicycles on a bus bike-rack, thereby shortening a cycle commute. In May of this year, 68,000 people did so. Denver saw 25,000 people register for a recent “bike to work” day, up from 15,000 a year ago. In Seattle cyclists complain about a shortage of bike stands, while in Portland, Oregon, some 6,000 cyclists cross just one of the city’s many bridges each morning.

Bicycle-boosters are thrilled with the sudden popularity of their humble machine. “Ridership is just skyrocketing,” says Elizabeth Preston of the League of American Bicyclists, a Washington, DC, advocacy group (even cyclists have lobbyists these days). Performance Bicycles, a retailer with shops in 15 states, says bicycle sales in June were the highest ever recorded.

But cycling’s popularity has a downside. The people of Portland, for instance, have been entertained over the past few days by a series of altercations between bicyclists and motorists. In one, a motorist and cyclist came to blows after the motorist berated the pedal-pusher for ignoring a stop sign. The enraged cyclist used his bike to batter the motorist’s car until a bystander punched him.

In Seattle, meanwhile, two cyclists were arrested after they attacked a motorist during a so-called “Critical Mass” ride, events where large groups of cyclists ride through city streets to demonstrate their right to the road. New York cyclists are up in arms about an incident in which a police officer, for no apparent reason, knocked a cyclist off his bike and then arrested him and tried to pretend the man had run into him until a video recording proved him wrong. And in Colorado, reports the Los Angeles Times, cyclists have been feuding with the sheriff of Larimer County for his aggressive—cyclists say unreasonable—enforcement of bike-related traffic laws. More seriously, most bicycle advocates say cycling deaths are sharply up, although the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration has no figures as yet for 2008.

After years of federal and local spending on bike routes and other amenities, most cities are ready to handle more cyclists. But many motorists simply don’t see their two-wheeled brethren or, when they do, find them aggravating. Managing more cyclists is going to take more than new bike paths or fresh stripes on the roads. It looks as though there is a need, on both sides, for a revolution in manners.

DC, by the way, is not one of the cities that has invested in infrastructure and is “ready to handle more cyclists.” Many of the thoroughfares do not have bike lanes or shoulders of any kind. I often have to resort to all sorts of side streets and shortcuts to get where I’m going, and some places I just can’t go by bike. Until roads are built with an extra foot or two for the rest of us, riders will keep getting killed in pointless ways (an intern was run down by a garbage truck just a couple of weeks ago), and people will keep throwing their bicycles through people’s windshields.

Here are some audio sketches I've been working on lately. I don't think any of them will ever become more finished than they are now, so I may as well share them as is. Otherwise they’ll just be collecting dust until the next B-sides collection comes out.

• Annocent. Sort of wishes it were Eno.
• Manic Toybox. Sort of wishes it were Radiohead.
• Prophecies Make the World Go 'Round (Do-Over).
• Taxi Bender.
• Fratchy Fro Froo Five.

While it’s not technically correct to say that a number divided by zero is infinity, in a certain sort of intuitive way it is true. How many miles will I bike before I burn through a gallon of gasoline? Well, I can bike forever and not one drop of gasoline will be consumed. Therefore, I get infinity miles to the gallon. Q.E.D.

The good mileage is not the main reason I’ve gotten so into biking lately, but it is certainly a bonus. Neither are the health benefits my main motivation, though they also are profound. No, the main reason I’ve been riding all over and around the capital of our fair nation is that it’s fun as hell.

These days, though, I’m catching myself getting just a bit smug on my daily commute. It takes me about 30 minutes to drive to work in traffic, though it’s only a six mile drive. Lights and traffic make it a chore, partly because DC has never heard of traffic sensors. Every single light is on a timer. Even if no car has approached 16th street from some minor side street in seventeen hours, that side street a green light every 45 seconds anyway. The 65 cars lined up on 16th street wait the 30 seconds, just in case a driver should happen to drive down that street someday, and then they continue on their way until they hit the next red light a couple of blocks down. Hurry up and wait. Hurry up and wait. I hate driving in this town.

I can bike to work in about 35 minutes. Part of that speed comes from being able to blow off red lights and stop signs when no cars are coming, as God intended for us all to do, and part comes from being able to hop up on the sidewalk and circumvent the long lines of cars waiting at stoplights. I’m usually the first vehicle at the intersection even if I pulled up last. Sometimes I have private moments of gloating when the same car passes me at several sequential stop lights. “See, buddy?” I find myself thinking, “You should ditch the car and ride with me. It’s just as fast and a hell of a lot less annoying.”

Now with gas prices as they are, I have another reason to gloat. As the poor souls who bought Lincoln Navigators and Ford Expeditions trudge down the road, watching the gas gauge dip visibly every block, I pedal along for free. I’ve filled up my car once since the beginning of June. It’s due for another sometime soon, but not until I next get in it, which could be late next week or even later. It only needs a fill-up now because I made two trips to and from Dulles airport a couple of weeks back. Instead of burning expensive gasoline, clogging up the air with my exhaust and clogging up the roads with a 1.5-ton,15-foot by six-foot steel contraption that transmits but a single piece of human cargo, I zip along on a 21-pound, two-foot by six-foot vehicle that runs on body fat. What’s not to love?

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