I TOLD HER SHE IS NOW OFFICIALLY A MOTOR CYCLIST.

The surprise I got for my wife was a scooter, we had seen it at a garage sale and she loved it.

But I also knew she would not get it for herself, one thing that many men would love to be able to say about their wives. Mine is not prone to spending money or wanting things that are expensive that is just for being able to say they have it.  For years she has denied herself many things she wanted but would not get because of it cost money.  When it comes to spending money she makes me look like a Bush conservative.

So after going to the bank to discuss the matter with our loan officer which seems that height of arrogant considering the situation we are in. I was able to add to the existing loan with no increase in what we were already paying a month.

She loves the scooter riding it to work everyday and taking to just going for a ride to enjoy the day.

Gee sounds kind of familiar somehow?

Well she told me after I got back of an incident that happened, one that is so familiar that I myself have lost count as to how many times it has happened to me! I have a couple of pieces of advise to those who decided to ride a motor cycle on the streets. You ride like you are invisible because that is exactly the way it is.  There is a reason that it is a old saying and one that came about since motor cycles became common place.

“Honestly Officer…. I did not see the motor cycle!”.

Another is simple logic and can save your life, what is the first thing on the car setting at a stop you should be watching? It’s the wheels, if the car is going to move the first thing that will move is the wheels.  If the wheels start to roll the car is going to pull out in front of you!

She told me it happened that she was approaching a side street where a car was waiting to pull into traffic, suddenly the car pulled out right in front of her! The woman driver seem to have been watching the traffic and waiting but then just pulled out.  I replied, “And she seem to be looking you right in the eyes didn’t she?”.  My wife said, “Yes she seem to be!”.  Again this kind of thing has happened to me so many times I can not tell you how many times.

She said my advise which I had given her just before I had left gave her the time to be prepared and stop in time. As she approached the corner she started watching the wheels and when they started moving she was ready.

My wife is now officially a motor cyclist, all that is left is to dump the scooter either through hitting loose sand or because of not noticing a bump or pot hole in the road. Then the test will be does she get back up and on or say this is not worth it! Of course to my thinking it is worth it and she is getting to that point.

I wonder how long it will be before she starts talking about wanting something bigger?

Racism v Reverse Racism

In a recent “discussion” with an individual of the Right Wing persuasion, I was told that “racism is no long a problem, reverse racism is the issue.”

I don’t believe that, in the least.

I could research pages of data to support my contention that racism is alive and well in the US. The statistics are endless and, of course, are subject to interpretation, correctly or not. Rather than a dry, academic exercise, I am just going to express my thoughts on a couple of recent observations.

It has been my thought that the election of President Barack Obama has done more to expose the racist underbelly of America than any other event since the assassination of Dr. King in 1968. In my view, the election of the first black president did not prove that America has moved past race, rather it proved just the opposite.

The barrage of racially-tinged commentary about the candidate and now president was bewildering. The intensity of commentary was made even more disconcerting by it’s acceptance, particularly by the Right.

Affirmative action is usually given as proof of the claim of reverse racism, which is laughable to me, considering the long history of discrimination in America.

“Blacks have a 375-year history on this continent: 245 involving slavery, 100 involving legalized discrimination, and only 30 involving anything else.”  – Roger Wilkins

How can leveling the playing field be “reverse racism” when the minorities were the victims of discrimination for a century and a half?

The term “affirmative action” was first used by President John F. Kennedy in Executive Order 10925, issued on March 6, 1961. Despite a 50 year history, various efforts at affirmative action have not yet to eradicate discrimination in housing, employment and education. Significant improvements have been made, but the road ahead is still very long.

I have faith that a new generation, one that has grown up without segregation and discrimination as obvious as that that we grew up with, will break through the barriers that kept racism alive during our lifetimes.

I can only pray.

(The tread photo is of the dead body of Michael Donald, a black man randomly chosen by the Ku Klux Klan and lynched in 1981, after an unrelated black man’s trial was declared a mistrial in a case of a murder of a police officer in Mobile, Alabama. The lynching was totally an act of senseless violence. Donald had nothing to do with the trial. His family sued the Klan and were awarded a $7 million settlement.)

William Stephenson Clark

Wednesday, 7/7/10, Public Square