Wrong to confront?

Mon, 06 Sep 2004 05:58:44 GMT,
<[email hidden]>, Chris

BeHanna said:

I posted that, as learned from another author on rec.running.

Googled it.
http://www.mindfulness.com/oa1.asp
Dealing with Interesting Days and Brushes with Death
© 1997 by Austin "Ozzie" Gontang, Ph.D.

To that end I have used Chuang Tzu's story tanslated by Thomas Merton
to help me in my life to avoid empty boats:

Chuang Tzu gave us a mindful way of dealing with out of control
people.

THE EMPTY BOAT
from The Way of Chuang Tzu by Thomas Merton, ©1965
New Direction Publishing Corporation

If a man is crossing a river
And an empty boat collides with his own skiff,
Even though he be a bad-tempered man
He will not become very angry.

But if he sees a man in the boat,
He will shout at him to steer clear.

If the shout is not heard, he will shout again,
And yet again, and begin cursing.
And all because there is somebody in the boat.
Yet if the boat were empty,
He would not be shouting and not angry.

If you can empty your own boat
Crossing the river of the world,
No one will oppose you,
No one will seek to harm you....

When I am confronted by reckless drivers, speeding skaters or bikers,
I simply avoid them and say to myself, "Empty boat."

Over the years, those two words have saved me from feeding anger,
aggression and violence-both mine and theirs.
--
zk

In article <[email hidden]>,

Eric S. Sande said:

Quoted message said:

It's definitely got a chilling effect.

A pair of chopsticks is as good as a .45, if you do not intend
to lock your bicycle.

I often pack a pair of chopsticks with me, along with
some Western table cutlery.

cheers,
Tom

--
-- Nothing is safe from me.
Above address is just a spam midden.
I'm really at: tkeats [curlicue] vcn [point] bc [point] ca

Chris BeHanna said:

MUPs suck if you want to get in a "serious" ride..

MUPs suck *hard* if you want to get in a "serious" ride.

Politicians who promote MUPs as part of transportation
infrastructure are [censored].

Bicycle advocates who promote MUPs as part of transportation
infrastructure are idiots.

Not all MUPs are terrible. The W&OD trail here in Northern Virginia
is actually quite good, and for the cyclist, the fastest direct route,
in many cases.

It used to be a railroad, and so inherited all the good things about
railroad engineering--decent sightlines and good grading being the
principal benefits.

It is narrow, and does tend to fill up with traffic on the weekends,
but it's significantly better than any other bicycle "facility" in the
area--especially if you want to get out to Leesburg (quite a distance
from where I am in Fairfax) without having to tangle with the
tractor-trailers on Route 7.

I will agree that most MUP designs are just plain bad, especially
where they intersect the road system.

-Luigi

"Tom Keats" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

A pair of chopsticks is as good as a .45, if you do not intend
to lock your bicycle.

I often pack a pair of chopsticks with me, along with
some Western table cutlery.

I like to walk out of a Chinese restaurant with a chopstick hanging out of
my mouth.

RobertH said:

Frank Krygowski said:

???

He said he was doing the speed limit. Are you claiming that he
shouldn't be allowed to use an unclogged lane because he wasn't breaking
the speed limit? Sorry, that makes no sense to me.

In this case, either Eric could not keep up with the flow of traffic
in the left lane, or the fulfillment of church lady's wish to have him
removed from the left lane would have resulted in no discernible
benefit for her. EITHER WAY, it behooves Eric to slide momentarily to
the right (or to the far left to share the left lane, as is legal) to
let the squacking bird pass. Law of diminishing returns. Instead of
having a big production and explaining angrily to her why she's acting
foolish, simply show her with a quick move on the bike.

The problem with this is it's too easy, and would deny some riders the
level of confrontation they crave.

Every once in a while, we see someone writing here, basing their
opinions on imagined motives.

I do expect, and get, my right to the road. If a person in a car
obnoxiously complains about it, that does not mean I'll cede my right to
the road. This has worked for me for over 30 years, and I do it because
it works. It has nothing to do with your imagined craving for
confrontation.

As I understand Eric's situation, he did the same with his riding.
That's fine by me.

It's interesting to me that you would apparently have him behave more
like a mouse, giving up his legal rights. Yet in other posts, you've
advocated illegal behavior while cycling, effectively taking more than
your legal rights to the road.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

If I have a problem with what Eric did, it's just this: He would have
been more effective if he had kept fiercely calm as he spoke to them.

Fiercely calm? I don't know what that means and I don't think I want
to know. You're freaking me out man.

It works well, if you can manage it.

--
--------------------+
Frank Krygowski [To reply, remove rodent and vegetable dot com,
replace with cc.ysu dot edu]

In article <[email hidden]>,

Hijo de la Changa said:

"Tom Keats" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

A pair of chopsticks is as good as a .45, if you do not intend
to lock your bicycle.

I often pack a pair of chopsticks with me, along with
some Western table cutlery.

I like to walk out of a Chinese restaurant with a chopstick hanging out of
my mouth.

If you've had fancy stuff served up where the chopped-off head
is part of the presentation, you can stick the chicken/fish head
on the end of a chopstick, make a little puppet out of it, and
do a little ventriloquist routine.

The beauty of it is, if they serve food fancily like that, they're
a snooty, up-market kind of place. The ventriloquist act is a way
of pointing-out they've been infiltrated by a lowly, low-brow
East-Ender. Then ya get asked to leave, and you've gotta look for
a place who's name ends with 'Kee', and dine on plain ol' good food.
Places with 'Seafood' in their names are just too chi-chi/fru-fru
(and too expensive.) I'm proud to say the Sun Sui Wah restaurant
never wants me to darken their threshold again.

cheers,
Tom

--
-- Nothing is safe from me.
Above address is just a spam midden.
I'm really at: tkeats [curlicue] vcn [point] bc [point] ca

"Tom Keats" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Hijo de la Changa said:

"Tom Keats" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

>
> A pair of chopsticks is as good as a .45, if you do not intend
> to lock your bicycle.

I often pack a pair of chopsticks with me, along with
some Western table cutlery.

I like to walk out of a Chinese restaurant with a chopstick hanging out

of

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

my mouth.

If you've had fancy stuff served up where the chopped-off head
is part of the presentation, you can stick the chicken/fish head
on the end of a chopstick, make a little puppet out of it, and
do a little ventriloquist routine.

The beauty of it is, if they serve food fancily like that, they're
a snooty, up-market kind of place. The ventriloquist act is a way
of pointing-out they've been infiltrated by a lowly, low-brow
East-Ender. Then ya get asked to leave, and you've gotta look for
a place who's name ends with 'Kee', and dine on plain ol' good food.
Places with 'Seafood' in their names are just too chi-chi/fru-fru
(and too expensive.) I'm proud to say the Sun Sui Wah restaurant
never wants me to darken their threshold again.

cheers,
Tom

--
-- Nothing is safe from me.
Above address is just a spam midden.
I'm really at: tkeats [curlicue] vcn [point] bc [point] ca

-LOL- i love the routine. fishheads can be an art, and soup too!. but i beg
to differ about the high brow. the lowly working class chinese dump might
serve gwai-lo with the heads removed, but would never save face serving in
such an inauspicious way to those who appreciate the noggin as a culinary
delight! admittedly i dont really like the eyeballs but how can you pass up
those cheeks? as far as the chicken heads go, just so you know, legend has
it if the beak points to you you lose your job!

O
)) >
-

Frank Krygowski said:

Every once in a while, we see someone writing here, basing their
opinions on imagined motives.

I do expect, and get, my right to the road. If a person in a car
obnoxiously complains about it, that does not mean I'll cede my right to
the road. This has worked for me for over 30 years, and I do it because
it works. It has nothing to do with your imagined craving for
confrontation.

Doesn't sound very convincing. How often do you encounter these
situations?

Quoted message said:

As I understand Eric's situation, he did the same with his riding.
That's fine by me.

Me too. I say Go Eric, number one DC commuter. Pretending to take the
license plate was kind of a Costanza moment though.

Quoted message said:

It's interesting to me that you would apparently have him behave more
like a mouse, giving up his legal rights.

This from the guy who advocates pretending to write down license plate
numbers. Holy Lord the terrorists have already won. What kind of
nation have we become? A nation of people pretending to take license
plate numbers. Once we were fierce cowboys who crossed the great
prairie and slaughtered everything in our path, fueled only by coffee
and beans, and we didn't pause to take names or numbers, much less
pretend to. We still have the USMC I guess.

Quoted message said:

Yet in other posts, you've
advocated illegal behavior while cycling, effectively taking more than
your legal rights to the road.

In every case I have advocated a more realistic method of street
riding. The laws are here and there.

Confucius say: got to know when to hold em and know when to fold em.
Crazy world out there.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

If I have a problem with what Eric did, it's just this: He would have
been more effective if he had kept fiercely calm as he spoke to them.

Fiercely calm? I don't know what that means and I don't think I want
to know. You're freaking me out man.

It works well, if you can manage it.

Sounds like a lot of work. I picture your Fierce Calm face as looking
like you're about to take a number two. Is that about right? And you
hold Fierce Calm as the church lady lectures to you on traffic law? Is
that it?

I say do some violence or get your ass down the road.

Robert

Eric S. Sande wrote in part:

Quoted message said:

...Eric actually thinks he could have handled the scenario
more effectively with a .45.

However he would be in jail without the opportunity to reply.

But then everybody would say: There goes Eric S. Sande, Man of Action.

dreaded said:

-LOL- i love the routine. fishheads can be an art, and soup too!. but i beg
to differ about the high brow. the lowly working class chinese dump might
serve gwai-lo with the heads removed, but would never save face serving in
such an inauspicious way to those who appreciate the noggin as a culinary
delight! admittedly i dont really like the eyeballs but how can you pass up
those cheeks? as far as the chicken heads go, just so you know, legend has
it if the beak points to you you lose your job!

I have found that anglos generally have a phobia around food that can
look at them. I have no idea where they learned this behaviour,
because I have never had this problem.

If you can't face up to your dinner, perhaps you should seriously
consider veganism.

Fish-heads are *crucial* to a good fish stock.

-Luigi

(RobertH) said:

Quoted message said:

It's interesting to me that you would apparently have him behave more
like a mouse, giving up his legal rights.

This from the guy who advocates pretending to write down license plate
numbers. Holy Lord the terrorists have already won.

Make up your mind. Did you want Eric to give up his space on the
lane, or didn't you?

If you did, then that's the sort of snivelling cowardice that would
have gotten you killed in your bed in the frontier days. If you
didn't, then it's the sort of bold action that got you killed with
your boots on while idiotically attempting to defeat Sitting Bull's
entire army single-handedly (Custer's Last Blunder).

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

-Luigi

--
www.livejournal.com/users/ouij
Photos, Rants, Raves

Raoul Duke said:

"Luigi de Guzman" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:xet_c.4877$aW5.2930@fed1read07...

Quoted message said:

Perhaps we cyclists should adopt something like Chairman Mao's Eight

Points

Quoted message said:

for Attention:

"The Eight Points for Attention are as follows:
(1) Speak politely.
(2) Pay fairly for what you buy.
(3) Return everything you borrow.
(4) Pay for anything you damage.
(5) Don't hit or swear at people.
(6) Don't damage crops.
(7) Don't take liberties with women.
(8) Don't ill-treat captives. "

You left out number (9) Murder millions of your own people.

What's up with all this Chairman Mao stuff, btw?

Men are stupid - we forget.

Michael J. Klein [email hidden]
Dasi Jen, Taoyuan Hsien, Taiwan, ROC
Please replace mousepotato with asiancastings
---------------------------------------------

Luigi de Guzman said:

Raoul Duke said:

What's up with all this Chairman Mao stuff, btw?

I like Mao because he is such a brilliant aphorist. There's a kind of
poetry to Maoist sloganeering that appeals to me. He is certainly far
better in the aphorisms department than Lenin (no great Leninist oneliners
spring as quickly to mind).

I'm not a fan of the level of thought control (among other forms of
coercion) that Mao's system imposes. Here, sadly, the poetry of the
aphorism doesn't keep pace (to say the least) with the reality: "Let a
hundred flowers bloom; let a thousand schools of thought contend," clangs
dissonantly against the orgy of destruction that was the Cultural
Revolution.

It's also a bit of a wry take on the way that many cyclists have come to see
themselves as revolutionaries, or members of some larger movement.

Obligatory bicycle content: Mao also put China on two wheels; the Flying
Pigeon is still probably the most numerous single type of bicycle in
existence today.

I dislike Mao because he was fond of not bathing, but washing his
genitals inside of proletarian girls, as he put it. Oh yeah, and the
murdering. Typical communist leader. Its all about the 2 Ps.
Michael J. Klein [email hidden]
Dasi Jen, Taoyuan Hsien, Taiwan, ROC
Please replace mousepotato with asiancastings
---------------------------------------------

Michael J. Klein said:

I dislike Mao because he was fond of not bathing, but washing his
genitals inside of proletarian girls, as he put it. Oh yeah, and the
murdering. Typical communist leader. Its all about the 2 Ps.

You left out the bit about not brushing his teeth, either. The
Chairman had some awful teeth.

Fascists, too, have bad teeth: as I recall, someone in Spain made a
splash a few years ago by publishing a book called "Franco's Teeth," a
biography of the Caudillo from his dental records.

Back to Mao: I think the best treatment I've seen of him, ever, was
Andy Warhol's series of Mao paintings. My favorite was Mao with
blue-green eyeshadow.

-Luigi

In article S6r_c.4939$OZ6.2245@okepread06 said:

I don't have a bell. Lately, though, I have taken to saying "DING!"
discreetly as I approach. It has the intended effect, and makes me laugh
at the silliness of it all.

I've done this for a couple of years now. Some people smile, some don't.
Most at least become aware of me approaching, and that's the main goal.

-- Dan

--
Dan Cosley ([email hidden] * http://www.cs.umn.edu/~cosley/)
GroupLens Research Lab, Univ of MN (http://movielens.umn.edu/ * 612.624.8372)
*** Just a foot soldier in the Army of Truth ***

Luigi de Guzman said:

Fish-heads are *crucial* to a good fish stock.

Eat 'em up. Yum.

Chris BeHanna said:

Zoot Katz said:

[...tale of a car-driving idiot snipped...]

Sorry I don't remember who said it, but I like it: "empty boats".

I posted that, as learned from another author on rec.running.

Quoted message said:

(. . . among the scuds)

Heh.

Fortunately, the
teenage-girls-yelling-encouragement-to-[censored]-pickup-truck-driver
ratio around here is well in excess of unity.

Man, why don't I get any of those!?

-Luigi

--
www.livejournal.com/users/ouij
Photos, Rants, Raves

Quoted message said:

They lay on the horn. Major horn blowing.
What they don't know is that I have this road timed, clocked and
dialed in as far as lights and traffic are concerned.
[...]
Imagine my surprise when I discovered two middle-aged church ladies
operating this engine of intimidation,
[...]
It was bizarre, but not too bizzare for me to forego the opportunity
to deliver my road use lecture. Somewhat obstructed by involuntary
convulsions.

Two things:

1) you "taught" them nothing and wasted your time
2) You were lucky that was not an SUV full of testosterone-soaked
adolescents

The confrontation may have temporarily satisfied your ego, but the
best thing to do would have been to ignore the honking and not risk
yourself, your bike and your time. Every year we hear stories about
cyclists who were beaten to a pulp after "keepin' it real".

So, yes, you were wrong to confront.

Luigi de Guzman wrote in part:

Quoted message said:

Make up your mind. Did you want Eric to give up his space on the
lane, or didn't you?

I wasn't there, so hard to say, but it sounds like it would have been
better for Eric to slide over momentarily, allow the church lady's
irrationality to be revealed in sharp relief. (This move would also,
not incidentally, bring the [censored] right up next to you for your
torturing pleasure, if you're into that sort of thing.) Many riders
see a choice between effectively traveling down the road on the one
hand and delivering some kind of lesson to rogue motorists on the
other. They consciously sacrifice one in hopes of achieving the other
and end up with neither. Eric's was a classic example of that. I gave
an example of how he could have achieved both goals, not just one.

Alternately, Eric could have done something worthwhile, which would
almost by definition be illegal at that point, I mean, if he's already
going through the trouble of turning around.

Seems to me if you're going to ride in such a way that theatrical
lane-taking is like your religion--not that Eric does but some
commuters do--then the honking will come like the calls of birds on
the prairie. Why even turn your head for it? Wouldn't it just confirm
that you're doing something right and make you happy?

But it takes a long time in traffic to develop instinctive
non-reaction. The method I described requires a distinct lack of rage.

Quoted message said:

If you did, then that's the sort of snivelling cowardice that would
have gotten you killed in your bed in the frontier days. If you
didn't, then it's the sort of bold action that got you killed with
your boots on while idiotically attempting to defeat Sitting Bull's
entire army single-handedly (Custer's Last Blunder).

Good lesson for cyclists and others. If you can't chew it, don't bite
it off.

Robert

Quoted message said:

So, yes, you were wrong to confront.

And I want to thank all the respondents. Including those who got
the tenor of this confrontation wrong. But I think this was an
instructive thread, it really wasn't Custer versus the Native Americans.

It was, however, a bicyclist versus a perceived entitlement.

What price has courage when liberty is threatened, etc.

A lot of you said I should have backed down, and I guess you might
have done that.

Somebody hit the nail on the head when they said it was low reward,
high risk.

But there was no way I was going to concede the right of way under
any circumstances, Robert surprised me with his negotiation strategy
as opposed to his usual accomodation with rule bending mode.

I've really learned a lot from this thread.

--

_______________________ALL AMIGA IN MY MIND_______________________
------------------"Buddy Holly, the Texas Elvis"------------------
__________306.350.357.38>>[email hidden]__________