Did you know that a 20 minute bike ride burns nearly 200 calories?
That’s just one of the many reasons that I try to bike to work at least a couple days a week. There are a lot of reasons to hop on a bike, but if you are going to ride in the city, watch out. Riding can be as dangerous as it is fun.
That is especially true this time of year; Trees and flowers are budding, people start running with their shirts off, happiness abounds, and everybody gets a little lost. I’m a very attentive biker. I stop (at least as much as the vehicles around me) at every stop sign, I watch for cars in all directions, I keep my eyes on the doors of parked vehicles to make sure one doesn’t swing out in front of me. Yet somehow I’ve still been nearly hit over five times this year. The reactions from drivers vary – some are mortified and apologetic, some are angry, and perhaps the worst, some don’t ever notice at all. So here, I present you with my tips for bikers and drivers on how to share the road and get where we are going safely.
Drivers
- Before you turn, look both ways and check your blindspots. Really, this is a given, but surprisingly not many do it.
- Put down the cell phone. If you were that important, you’d have an assistant. Whatever it is, it can wait until you aren’t putting anyone’s lives in danger. Pull over for five minutes if you need to.
- Leave a safe distance between you and anything else on the road. For bikes, that means a few feet.
- Keep in mind that bikers often can not ride as far to the right as you think they can. People opening car doors in parked cars pose as much of a risk to bikers as moving vehicles do. Now you know why cyclists will be a few feet away from anyone parked.
- For that matter, when you open your car doors, check for approaching vehicles – powered or otherwise. This is for the safety of your door and your body as much as anything approaching.
Bikers
- When you are on the road, you have to follow the rules of the road. If you break the rules and get hurt, your just an effing idiot.
- Have and use the proper equipment for biking. At the very least have on a helmet and have a strobing headlight and taillight.
- Bear in mind that even when a driver is wrong, they’re still in a 2,000lb+ vehicle that propels itself with thousands of explosions. You might have tree-trunk Apolo Ohno legs, but that car is still going to win if you go to battle.
- (Chicagoans) avoid the Lake path during peak times. It’s the wild west of dumb behavior. I highly suggest biking to the path and going for a run or taking a walk instead!
- If you listen to music while biking, keep the volume low and only use one side of your headphones. Listening to what is happening around you is as important as seeing it.
Okay, I’m going to sleep now so that I have the energy in the morning to bike to work 
Be safe!
It’s quite difficult to convince my friends to go stand up for what is right. I wonder – did Harvey Milk, Martin Luther King, Jr., Susan B. Anthony have the same problems galvanizing the masses of people who would eventually bring to light the need for change? Not that I’m trying to act on the same level at all, but I really think that the current generation is so much more apathetic and generally lazy about life. It saddens me that things like a shift at Starbucks, a free Yelp! party, a class that happens weekly, or something as mundane as a light sprinkle is enough to act as an excuse for not doing what is right.
The Chicago Tribune recently posted this editorial in support of civil unions in Illinois. I find myself conflicted. I’m happy that the Trib has gone on record vocally supporting some form of gay rights yet unimpressed with the language used. The argument does little to persuade and falls short of recognizing that civil unions can only be an injured step towards the real goal of full marriage rights for same sex couples.
An editorial should fervently support an argument one way or the other. I should walk away passionately in agreement or disgust. I don’t mean to sound unappreciative, I would love for the Trib to continue publishing pro-gay rights pieces, yet in a world where Iowa can unanimously approve gay marriage rights, Vermont can override a governor’s veto blocking full marriage rights, and New York’s governor can garner national press pushing a gay marriage bill this editorial does little to inspire any real movement.
What do you think? Leave your thoughts in the comments.
Legalize civil unions at chicagotribune.com
As a teenager, I, like many homosexuals, struggled to accept and love myself for who I was. The world makes it incredibly difficult to believe that being gay is okay. The idea that “gayness” is something to be ashamed of has become so ingrained in American culture that it is almost impossible to avoid encountering some form of bigotry each and every day.
Only when I finally came to believe in, accept, and be proud of myself did I begin to see that changes were happening in the world around me. Being gay was becoming more and more socially acceptable. I even stopped fearing that I would be killed for being gay (yes, this was a fear that I lived with for years.) I still never imagined that I would one day be allowed to marry.
Then in December 2003, in a twist that I really never thought I would see, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that gays could not be denied the right to marry. The emotions that were stirred in me were strong. My heart swelled with hope and my eyes teared. Thinking back on it still causes those same feelings to resurface today.
Five years later and relatively little progress has been made though. On the contrary, a lot of steps backward have been witnessed. DOMA still prevents any union between same-sex couples from being recognized federally, a handful of states have constitutional amendments outlawing gay marriage, and what is arguably the most progressive state in the nation has claimed a first: stripping rights from a minority that were previously afforded to them.
At the same time celebrities are coming out, television shows and movies are regularly featuring gay characters, major corporations are enacting by-laws protecting gay employees and offering domestic partner benefits (links go to companies that scored 100 on the HRC Corporate Equality Index for 2009), and gay-straight alliances are becoming commonplace in schools.
So why is it, then, that the gay rights movement has moved at a snail’s pace? Why is it that five years later only two states offer homosexuals the right to marry while so many states have been able to quickly outlaw that capability? It’s because we are too lazy.
A few months ago, after Proposition 8 passed and gays in lesbians in California stripped of their rights, half a million people around the country came out in protest. Chicago alone saw 10,000 take to the streets. Finally people were upset and demanding action. What happened that day was amazing. People of every orientation, race, religion and background imaginable were out in full force fighting for what is right. Not only was it empowering but it was emotional. I struggled at times to hold back tears. I was full of happiness, pride, comfort… outrage, anger, and motivation.
I looked around at my friends who came with me as we poured out onto Michigan Avenue. Everywhere there were chants. “Gay, straight, black, white same struggle, same fight.” “What do we want? Equal Rights. When do we want it? Now.” “Hey Hey, Ho Ho, Homophobia’s got to go.” Shoppers in stores along the Magnificent Mile came to the windows and drivers stuck in traffic cheered instead of getting angry. It seemed that maybe things would start turning around.
Two months later, on January 10th, Chicago’s DOMA protest drew barely one hundred and garnered no news coverage.
Some chose to sleep in because it was snowing. Others stayed home with hangovers. Quite a few people didn’t bother to take the day off from work. Out of over three hundred people that I invited personally only three showed up, and quite ironically, all three were straight.
I was there with my three friends and a small handful of others. We all had picket signs. We also were covered in snow, cold and drenched, feet soaked from road slush and ourselves very hungover. But for the few who made it that day we realized that equality mattered more than a few extra winks of sleep.
What I want people to understand is that for progress to happen we have to fight for it. Politely but steadily and without wavering. The single reason why bigots have been able to make so much progress is because they, not we, have been organized and committed to their mission.
On the eve of a “change we can believe in” it is important to remember that the changes we want don’t happen while idly waiting for them.
- Educate people through casual conversation.
- Stop people when they call things “gay” or use the word “faggot.”
- Attend events like the protests that have happened. Attendance get media coverage and media coverage reaches far and wide.
- Absolutely under no circumstances support anything or anyone that supports bigoted views.
- Fight not just for your own rights but for those of others.
- Leave your comfort zone, push the limits.
- Come out – to everyone.
Nobody ever said I wasn’t a creepster…
I’m fairly certain I’m not the only one this happens to. You are looking at pictures on facebook, first ones that you are tagged in, then the album, then just in general. You happen upon a photo of someone you know with someone you don’t, and that mysterious stranger is drop dead droolworthy. The obvious thing to do, then, would be to click through to their profile and see what they are about, right? You read a bit, check out more pics, suddenly you know all this information about some stranger…
So what do you do? This is the type of situation that, once upon a Myspace time, would have been obvious… add them or say hello! But with the emphasis on true social connections that seems to come with facebook that almost seems unreasonable.
Even worse is you may actually meet this person someday through your “Kevin Bacon.” The chances are probably pretty good since you are only once removed. And then you stand the chance of accidentally mentioning something they didn’t already tell you. CREEPSTER!
Of course I am making to much of this, but I can’t be the only person out there who feels this way. Let me know what you think.
Oh, and by the way, if you stumble across my facebook profile and we haven’t already met, feel free to send me a message and say hello
