Flutterby™! : Critical mess 2003-06-10 16:16:59.63669+00

Critical mess

2003-06-10 16:16:59.63669+00 by Dan Lyke 5 comments

Over at Notes on a Glamor Profession (does anyone else look at that URL and think "inside the law, it's too dark to read"?) there have been a few notes covering what he refers to as "The Bufalo Bike Riot", Buffalo News article here.

Go read it now, 'cause I don't find a good way to link to his June 2003 archives, but there's some good coverage and follow-up of a "Critical Mass" style bike ride busted up by the cops in Buffalo, New York, and the photographs and witness discussions of the event seem to indicate that this isn't a "hippies overreacting" situation, it's what happens when a small group of dedicated people try to slowly and non-violently drag middle America into the twenty first century.

Jeepers, and these guys weren't even wielding dangerous weapons, like frisbees... (Can't find a link to a story about the Chattanooga frisbee-mace incident...)

While I fully agree that it appears that the police appear to have way over-reacted, trying to drag me into the 21st century by impeding my commute home at 5:30 in the afternoon is not going to cause me to look favorably upon the folks doing the impeding or any activity that they might be engaged in while doing their impeding. I try my damndest to share the road with bicycles and I make every effort to give them all the room they need but if they are riding two or more abreast and blocking my progress they aren't being reciprocal and I'm going to be as intimidating to them as the law allows.

With that said, I ride a bicycle and would strongly consider using one to commute if Gwinnett County would make it a little safer for me to do so by supplying a few more bicycle lanes.

Yep, Larry, there's a reason I've never come out for one of the rides here in the city. Once they grow past a certain size they hurt the cause.

I was quite disappointed on the lack of information about Frisbee inspired mace attacks, although it's quite possible that that the flying disk involved was manufactured by Discraft.

Actually I'd be surprised if it was a genuine Frisbee - as it was an Ultimate player who got maced for throwing a disc... And I won't bother getting into the reasons Ultimate Disc is not Ultimate Frisbee...

<sigh> Yet another site cursed with refresh-itis by the terminally clueless. Has anybody found a good way to inhibit this technique? It's not worth the hassle to try to read anything below "the fold".