Clinton and Palin on SNL

I’m a few days late to the party on this one, but this SNL sketch was just too good not to post. I loved Amy Poehler’s impersonations of Hillary during the primaries and was delighted to see the role reprised, but Tina Fey just kills me as Sarah Palin. So good!

Nau, I Hardly Neu You

While on the subject of sweating and still looking good, there’s a clothing company called Nau to which Bronwyn recently exposed me that is unfortunately calling it quits after a year in business. Their clothing and design philosophy encompasses an unprecedented combination of style, performance, and sustainability that’s pretty hard to find anywhere else. I know because I’ve been looking. While I love REI, if you’ve got a closet full of their stuff it’s hard to avoid the stigma and dorkitude of the “outdoor chic” look. In addition to Nau’s clothes looking not only “normal” but really attractive, they are (were?) committed to socially responsible business practices, including donating 5% of their sales to environmental and social causes. That’s pretty radical, especially considering that other companies like Patagonia like to tout their affiliation with 1% for the Planet. I don’t mean to downplay that at all, especially since the average charitable contributions from Fortune 500 companies is 0.07%. 1% is great, but 5% is astounding.

Their clothes, as expected, are pricey, but as they are currently winding down their business, they’re liquidating their inventory at a 50% discount across their entire site. In my mind, that makes their prices a steal and Bronwyn and I ordered several pieces on Monday - probably spending more than we should what with the wedding coming up, but this is one of those special circumstances. Apparently they’ve gotten a flood of orders and are expecting a delay of several weeks for shipping. Hopefully we’ll get ours before we leave for our Honeymoon in Greece.

It’s a shame that Nau wasn’t able to succeed as a business. Even with the growing trend in society of environmental consciousness that should have benefited their brand immensely, they explain that they were unable to secure enough investors to overcome their financial obstacles. Sadly, we’re all feeling the squeeze of an impending recesssion, and I can understand how $60 organic cotton t-shirts might not be the most appealing options on the market, I’ll even admit that their full retail price is more than I’d be willing to pay for a lot of their items. Still, I like their clothes and I like what they tried to do. I should hope that, given more favorable economic conditions, some other company can follow Nau’s example and make a similar business model feasible.

Bike to Work Day and My Underwear

As any good cycling advocate, I’m obliged to inform you that May is Bike Month. Not only that, but this week in Los Angeles is Bike to Work Week, and, to go even further, today is Bike to Work Day! The LACMTA says they are expecting record participation, and judging from my morning commute I can attest to seeing a number of new bicycle-mounted faces on the road. It’s certainly ideal weather conditions for people to give commuting a shot: temperatures in the mid-70’s and gloriously sunny. That beats the weather from Monday at the beginning of Bike to Work Week which was overcast with a very light drizzle. Still perfectly pleasant in my mind, but probably intimidating for the average fair-weather Southern Californian.

At any rate being a daily bicycle commuter already, riding my bike for one special month or week or day of the year isn’t really a big deal. Instead, I do have two fairly minor goals. The first is to actually ride my bike to work for the entire month. I don’t own a car, but I do have a Vespa that I ride into work maybe one or two days a month. So yeah, two days tops of changing my gas-sipping habits isn’t that big of a deal, but it’s something.

The bigger challenge, actually, is my second goal, which is to be more of a plain-clothes cyclist. I don’t wear lycra bike shorts and jerseys in to work. I don’t even own a pair of lycra shorts (though I do have one pair of wool bike shorts for any kind of special event). What I tend to wear is normal shorts or knickers from Swrve or REI with a wicking wool shirt. That actually look pretty non-bike geeky and would be fine in a bar. But at work, even though it’s jeans and t-shirt casual, the thought of wearing knickers or shorts doesn’t sit right with me. I normally pack a change of clothes in my messenger bag that I bring with me everyday. The irony is that the messenger bag ends up making my back and shirt extra sweaty. Even if it’s a nice looking, wicking, stink-free merino wool t-shirt, I’d rather not wear it around the office waiting for the sweat marks to evaporate. This week, I’ve been rediscovering riding around in normal old pants, be they khakis or even *gasp* jeans, which I had sworn off doing back when I started commuting because they were extremely uncomfortable. I’m finding now that jeans aren’t so bad - the difference being the underwear.

Sorry to speak so candidly of my undergarments, but wicking underwear is absolutely key! Cotton boxers simply will not do. Patagonia active briefs are pretty good, but even better are these Icebreaker merino wool boxer briefs. They are the ultimate shiznit. Kind of pricey, but so very, very worth it.

At any rate, now that I no longer need to pack an extra pair of pants, I’m able to use my saddle bag for my commute luggage, relieving my sweaty back and even allowing me to wear the same shirt I rode to work in around the office. Hurray for simplification!

I still wear dorky bike shoes, though. I can’t get over how much I like clipless pedals. However, I picked up a pair of Keen cycling sandals at REI recently with my member dividend, and they have been treating me very well - still dorky, but not as much as my Sidis.

Festival of Wrights

Life could be so car-free

A great little bit of anarchy hear in Los Angeles.

Yes, it’s illegal to ride your bike on most freeways, including the stretches of the 405 and the 101 these folks are riding, but what a fine piece of subversion this is. And truth be told, when traffic is that thick, what they’re doing is safer than riding surface streets.. Intersections are where the vast majority of accidents occur with any vehicles. With bicycles, the most common collisions involve a car turning right or left into a rider’s path. Freeways remove that problem and, considering that traffic is at a virtual standstill, problems from differences in speed are also negated.

A bicycle “freeway” could be just the thing the city needs to make bike commuting a viable alternative for many - and I don’t mean bike paths and trails that meander through parks and beaches or hug the Los Angeles river with casual riders ambling along at 10 miles per hour, but something that actually moves commuters quickly and safely to useful destinations. Someone cycling from Santa Monica to downtown could probably shorten their ride by a good half hour if they rode on the 101 and didn’t have to contend with stop lights and intersections. In rush hour I can assure you they’d do it faster than a car making the same trip.

At the start of the 20th century, Los Angeles had the right idea with the beginnings of an elevated wooden bikeway from downtown to Pasadena. Unfortunately that was scrapped as the automobile rapidly gained in popularity, but imagine how things would have been different if cars had come along a bit later, and a bikeway infrastructure was already in place and proven to be a viable method of transportation. How many people would opt for the car then?

I’m not saying cars don’t have their place, but would we really still need to build 8-lane freeways? Just imagine how many thousands of acres of land could be used for things other than asphalt. This photo from Germany is a pretty good illustration of that. It shows the amount of space required to move the same number of people by car, bus, and bicycle.

Tomorrow is Earth Day, and in honor of that, a portion of Wilshire Boulevard between Western and Harvard is declaring itself car-free for the day. While that doesn’t affect my usual commute at all (I work on Wilshire but ride on Melrose), I’ll be swinging by during my lunch break to check it out and support the gesture as it’s a really great thing to see this kind of support coming from the city.

New Obama Video

Another Obama video from will.i.am.

Ann Coulter Endorses… Clinton?

Ann Coulter says she’d campaign for Clinton if McCain wins the Republican nomination. What kind of bizarro universe have we entered!?!

It just goes to show the state of disarray the Republican party is in when one of their fiercest attack dogs would rather opt for a Democrat than one of their own.

Obama, on the other hand, has garnered an endorsement from MoveOn, whose members voted in favor of Obama 70.4% to Clinton’s 29.6%.

Murdering Anti-Cyclist Douchebags

A one-two punch of cycling death news articles has put me in a rather angry disposition this morning.

From Reuters today (source):

Spanish driver sues dead crash cyclist for damage

MADRID (Reuters) - A Spanish driver who collided with a cyclist is suing the dead youth’s family $29,300 for the damage the impact of his body did to his luxury car, a Spanish newspaper reported on Friday.

Businessman Tomas Delgado says 17-year-old Enaitz Iriondo caused $20,500 of damage to his Audi A8 in the fatal 2004 crash in La Rioja region, the El Pais newspaper reported.

Delgado, who has faced no criminal charges for the incident, wants a further 6,000 euros to cover the cost of hiring another vehicle while his car was being repaired, El Pais said.

The youth had been cycling alone at night without reflective clothing or a helmet, according to a police report cited by El Pais.

His family won 33,000 euros compensation from Delgado’s insurance company after the firm acknowledged he had been driving at excessive speed and this could have contributed to the incident, El Pais reported.

“I’m also a victim in all of this, you can’t fix the lad’s problems, but you can fix mine,” Delgado told the newspaper, ahead of a January 30 legal decision on his suit.

The family said they had previously pitied Delgado for the guilt he must feel at killing their son but were now disgusted that his greatest concern appeared to be money.

“This was the final straw, a kick in the teeth,” the youth’s mother Rosa Trinidad told El Pais.

And then from yesterday, a story from Tucscon (source).

Jailhouse calls lead to longer sentence

A recorded jail conversation in which a woman made light of the bicyclist she had killed led to her getting a longer sentence in Pima County Superior Court on Tuesday.

Two months ago, Melissa Arrington, 27, was convicted of negligent homicide and two counts of aggravated driving under the influence in connection with the December 2006, death of Paul L’Ecuyer.

She could have received as few as four years in prison, but Judge Michael Cruikshank sentenced her to 10.5 years, one year shy of the maximum.

Cruikshank said he found a telephone conversation between Arrington and an unknown male friend a week after L’Ecuyer was killed “breath-taking in its inhumanity.”

In a call from the Pima County jail, the man told Arrington an acquaintance of theirs believed she should get “a medal and a (expletive) parade because she had taken out “a (expletive) tree hugger, a bicyclist, a Frenchman and a gay guy all in one shot.”

Arrington laughed. When the man said he knew it was a terrible thing to say, she responded “No, it’s not.”

The article goes on to mention that Arrington “was driving on a suspended license for a prior DUI,” and “had a blood-alcohol content of 0.156 percent, nearly double the DUI level.” More about the victim, L’Ecuyer, who it seemed was a very admirable individual, can be read here.

I don’t know which of these two news stories I find more despicable, but I wish the very worst on both of them. At least some form of justice was found in the case of Arrington, which is far better than the 2006 case of Jennifer Stark who killed cyclist Matthew Wilhelm because she was too busy dowloading cell phone ring tones to pay attention to the road. She got away with what was essentially a slap on the wrist, being charged with “improper lane change” which results in a maximum penalty of “six months of conditional discharge (probation without reporting to an officer), a $1,000 fine and traffic safety school.”

Kerry Backs Obama

This just in from Kerry:

Martin Luther King said, “The time is always right to do what is right.” So I’m choosing this time to share an important decision I’ve made, one I believe is right for this country.

The JohnKerry.com community has been very important to me and very important to the Democratic resurgence over the last couple of years, so I wanted to let all of you know my decision before I confirm it with anyone else. I want to share with you my conviction that in a field of fine Democratic candidates, the next President of the United States can be, should be, and will be Barack Obama. Each of our candidates would make a fine President, and we are blessed with a strong field. But for this moment, at this time in our nation’s history, Barack Obama is the right choice.

Please join me in supporting Barack Obama’s candidacy.

I’m proud to have helped introduce Barack to our nation when I asked him to speak to our national convention, and there Barack’s words and vision burst out. On that day he reminded Americans that our “true genius is faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles.” And with his leadership we can build simple dreams, and we can turn millions of small miracles into real change for our country.

At this particular moment, with our country faced with great challenges in our economy, in our environment, and in our foreign policy, and with our politics torn by division, Barack Obama can bring transformation to our country. With Barack, we can build a new majority of Americans from all regions who can turn the page on the politics of Karl Rove and begin a new politics, one worthy of our nation’s history and promise. We can bring millions of disaffected people - young and old - to the great task of governing and making a difference, child to child, community to community.

Please click here to give what you can to Barack Obama’s campaign for President and help build this future for our country.

The moment is now, and the candidate for this moment is Barack Obama. Like him, I also lived abroad as a young man, and I share with him a healthy respect for the advantage of knowing other cultures and countries, not from a book or a briefing, but by personal experience, by gut, by instinct. He knows the issues from the deep study of a legislator, and he knows them from a life lived outside of Washington. His is the wisdom of real-world experience combined with the intellect of a man who has thought deeply about the challenges we face.

History has given us this moment. But we need to decide what to do with it. I believe, with this moment, we should make Barack Obama President of the United States.

Please join me in supporting his campaign.

Happy Iowa Caucus Day

I’ve been looking forward to this day more than I looked forward to Christmas.

Most polls say that the race is extremely close, with a few saying that Obama is going to win by a pretty good margin. If When Obama wins the Iowa caucus tonight it’ll be a huge step in breaking down Clinton’s perceived inevitability and stirring support amongst other voters, especially those who would normally feel disenfranchised by the political process as Chris Matthews points out.

Anyways, here’s a tune to get you pumped for the primaries.

And here’s Obama speaking at the 2004 Democrat National Convention on television. This is the first time I had seen him, and he was one of the most inspiring, touching, charismatic, and sincere speakers I had ever seen. Honestly, as a result I was far more excited about the prospect of an Obama presidency than a Kerry one.