the ALLDERBLOB

Here at the ALLDERBLOB we admire the chutzpah of those who praise our culture from behind the windshields of their automobiles. We really do. To us, they’re like the liberal-minded plantation owners of yore, who held high the banner of freedom for all as long as it didn’t impinge on their freedom to own slaves.

Of course with cars, the usual sick Freudian reversal is closer than ever to the surface: just as the sadist is a masochist and vice-versa, the car-owner is in servitude to their “chosen” means of transport, to the tune of many thousands of dollars a year.

The latest example is this week’s NOW Magazine and Car Advertiser, which labels itself “the Bike Issue.” With two full-page ads for cars though, it’s business as usual for NOW this week. No one misses who calls the shots when that kind of money’s changing hands. The long arm of a traffic cop-lovin’ editor can be seen in every story, no matter how seemingly “cyclist friendly.”

Take Paul Terefenko, for example, who writes in the cover story on how to become a commuter cyclist: “I’ll be wearing a helmet. You should, too.” Nevermind the evidence that suggests cars pass closer to cyclists wearing helmets, actually increasing the risk of a collision. Terefenko also writes: “It’s tough not going through a red light when nobody is around, but Officer Hardass will eventually nab you.” Nevermind research that suggests cyclists that run reds and generally ride more aggressively are less likely to be involved in collisions with cars. Maybe Terefenko should be devoting some ink to the suggestion that the laws around cycling should be changed. We wish his editors had encouraged him to write about what’s laughingly known as The Toronto Coroner’s Rule, or to question why the government refuses to mandate sideguards on large trucks. Nevermind the call to ban car advertisements, which like the ban on cigarette commercials once did might actually have the (ostensibly) desired effect of reducing automobile dependency.

But for really cringe-worthy stuff, take a look at Susan G. Cole’s piece. She writes “Hey bike riders, let’s be friends.” Okay, Susan, I’ll be your friend when you chop your leaky engine down to a more sane capacity for city use. As Ivan Illich once suggested,

If the world reduced the speed of all motorized transportation to 32 kph, that is, refused to produce vehicles that could not go any faster than this, ever, the following benefits would result:

* 1. The amount of energy required to supply everyone with a vehicle like this for life would be the same as what America uses in 1 year to keep its cars on the road.
* 2. There would be far less pollution, far less degradation of natural resources.
* 3. There would be far less deadly accidents
* 4.There would be no road rage.
* 5. People who choose to walk would not be in danger.

But Illich wrote in 1970, and that’s just not “NOW” enough for car dependent folks like Susan G. Cole, who after all may have to “drive to transport small children, large objects or elderly parents.” To which we say, Well, an addict will always be able to rationalize her addiction.

Of course, hardly a paragraph or two into her screed, Susan G. Cole brings out the old saw, “We have some things in common, ya know, like we all have to to obey traffic rules.” Nevermind the fact that traffic rules are written with the eye to controlling the horror she takes as a god-given right as a means of personal transportation.

Hey, it’s okay to hate cars. Everybody does. That’s what traffic laws are all about. People on bikes don’t kill people. They don’t run over small animals. They don’t cause wars, pollution or food shortages in their claim for fuel. So back off when you see us coming the “wrong way” on a one-way street. We’re there because it’s the sane place to be, under the circumstance. We’re not going to kill you. But you might kill us. SLOW DOWN.

Susan G. Cole has an easy, breezy, insouciant style. “Oh yeah,” she writes, “and you can’t have it all ways. You don’t get to be cyclist and a pedestrian. Stay off the freakin’ sidewalk.” Okey-dokey, Susie. You stay off the sidewalk too though. That means don’t mount the curb when you’re stopping to drop something off at a friend’s house and can’t find a parkplatz just out front. Actually, given two evils, a pimply-faced kid who’s mammy tol’ him to stay off the roads on his bike so he rides too fast through the crowded sidewalk along the Danforth, and the smilin’ Susan G. Cole who just hauled up on the sidewalk on Church Street in order not to impede the flow of (car) traffic while she drops off a book review at NOW magazine and Car Advertiser, but who is very much in the way of us pushing our kid in a stroller, we’re not sure which one is worse. The kid on the sidewalk seems marginally less boorish to us. At least with him there’s the chance he’ll pay heed to the call to “ride on the sidewalk as if you’re riding in your living room”

(or your kitchen, as the case may be).

We remember Susan G. Cole. We remember her as the car-driver in NOW magazine and Car Advertiser’s “commuter challenge” of a year ago. Remember that one? The driver beat the transit rider (who took a pretty screwy route) but finished a whole ice cream cone’s worth behind the cyclist. She would have been even farther behind but

“5:28 Can’t get parking near our destination, La Paloma; commit a moving violation to get to a south-side parking spot. Promise to add two minutes to my time.”

Hey Susan, About that “moving violation” you committed in order to find a parking space on St Clair. What does that make you in light of what you’ve written here (“we all have to to obey traffic rules”)? Maybe you meant to say: “except when they don’t make sense?” The fact is, for cyclists, most of the time traffic rules don’t make sense.

But for NOW magazine and its Car Advertisers, that wouldn’t make “cents” to admit: bikes aren’t filling full page advertisements. We’re not holding our breath for anything other than business as usual from the aging hippies who call the shots on its pages.

In the annual tradition that has come to be known as ALLDERBLOB day, there are always winners and losers. Each year, we hold a short story contest on the theme of “Car of the Future” and each year we have been shocked and disappointed at the turnout. In short, no one has picked up our challenge in the past.

This year, we changed tactics. We sought out writers we know well and asked them to submit. We upped the prize, too: instead of our usual 12 cents (in pennies), which to us seemed a reasonable reward (they’re just words after all: words are cheap, right?) we offered a first prize of brunch at the Only Cafe.

Results! we landed a real doozy. Please put down your coffee, turn off the telephone, and draw the blinds. You will brook no interruptions as you read:

The Story of Future Cars, by Jasper Allderdice (age 10)

IN THE GRIM DARKNESS OF THE FUTURE, there is nothing but war. The only tribe that is not in the great war is a tribe called the Biomorphs. They are a rapidly evolving race. Their goal is to stop the great war and bring peace to the earth once again. Their great technology is their advantage, along with their unique fighting style. The reason they are so advanced is because they’re from the planet Mars. They have a fast technology. their vehicle is nothing like a car. Their vehicles are called Vortextrons. Let me tell you about them: their treads; their hoverflaps; their spider-like legs and their vast variety of weapons.

THE TREADS ARE POWERFUL. They have five wheels giving them extra pull. They have a massive hard-drive main computer. One hundred titanium spikes line the two sides, to that the Vortextron can almost climb a vertical slope. The treads are caterpillar style, the most common type of power treads. Their length is 50 feet. Twenty power ventilations give them up to 1000 horsepower.

THE HOVERFLAPS ARE NOTHING but the treads flipped up. The average push-power is one thousand thousand. Bio-magnetic cords attached give extra push velocity. The hoverflap is the second most powerful part of the Vortextron. Most people will tell you it’s their favourite part.

AS FOR THE LEGS, if you’ve ever seen the movie “The Wild, Wild West,” you will recognize them from that huge tarantula machine. The legs are the most helpful part on the whole Vortextrong. The legs are 60 feet tall. Bicycle chains [at last, he gets to the good part! –ed.] pull the legs in a smooth operation. Self-operating oil machines make the Vortextron ultimately noiseless. The spider legs can pierce the hardest rock.

AS FOR THE VORTEXTRON’S DEFENCES, it has many weapons. It has a missile launcher implanted into the back hatch. It also has some laser semi-cannons on Both sides. It has a plasma cannon on the rear stabilizer. Finally it has a plasma fire cannon under the treads.

I HOPE YOU ENJOYED the explanation.

[Thank you. I hope you enjoy your waffle. –ed.]

Every Saturday morning around 4:45 we awaken to the “thump” on our front porch of the delivery of that day’s Toronto Star and Get Fuzzy paper. Then we go back to sleep for a couple hours. We know that downstairs on our weatherbeaten porch the outer layers of the paper are soaking in moisture, gradually expanding. It used to be the outer layers of the paper were just one section thick, but as the expansion has taken place over the years, it’s gone to two, three and even (to our groggy and unbelieving eyes) four sections. Yes, we’re talking about the so-called “Wheels” section [should be called “motors” because you’ll never read about anything without one there–ed.] of the Saturday paper.

We always thought it was because of the wet front porch, and the absorptive qualities of the newsprint, that the “Wheels” section expanded in this way. We often vowed to rouse ourselves earlier, to see if we couldn’t get down there before the section got started in its expansion. We hoped one day to get there just as the paper was sent flying toward our wet boards, to intercept its trajectory and save ourselves from some of that “Wheels” gunk.

But we learned today we would’ve been wasting our time trying. Fact is, the Wheels section has expanded by design. We read today it’s all because of the evil predations of one man: Dennis Morgan, founding “editor” of the Wheels and Car Advertiser section of the Star. You can read the story above (link at Morgan’s photo), if you are as much of a masochist as we imagine you to be. The gist is as follows: it appears Dennis Morgan, a self-described “car nut,” joined the Star and Car Advertiser in 1976 as a young Turk from Wales. His earliest days, in the paperclip department, are lost to the shrouds of time, however within ten years the noted machiavel found the opportunity he’d been waiting for. The Star decided to create a new section of the paper, to contain classified car ads and relocate the so-called “car journalism” in one place. In Jim Kenzie [who he?–ed.]’s words:

Morgan, well-known for his enthusiasm of all things automotive, was afforded the opportunity to co-ordinate this effort, which was to include moving the technical “My car goes clunk – why?” column, then written by the late Ray Stapley, from the Sunday paper, and my road test column from beneath the rutabaga recipes in the Monday Life section, and creating an automotive section in the Saturday Star, the week’s largest-circulation edition.

Morgan saw well beyond this production scheduling convenience and envisioned a proper automotive section along the lines of what he had known growing up in England. It has far surpassed that, to the point where Wheels is by far the largest newspaper automotive section in North America.

Got that? “Wheels is by far the largest newspaper automotive section in North America.” And it’s all because of one man, Dennis Morgan.

Pure evil? Or just a minion of the evil around us. You decide.

The reason any of this is news, of course, is because Mr. Morgan died the other day, a victim of the automobile: at 63, the car-dependent fellow was felled by heart attack.

Here’s to the “health” of rest of the Wheels editors! Warm up your engines, it’s time for a drive to the gym!

WTF department.

Beck, a pop star big in the past century, had a number one hit with the lyrics: “I’m a loser, baby/so why don’t you kill me?”

It’s catchier than it sounds, in fact.

“I’m a loser baby…so why don’t you kill me?” La, la, la.

Hum along.

Riding a bicycle in Toronto we often find this song on our lips. La, la la. “Loser, baby…” La la.

Our route between home and work takes us past the site of a recent altercation between a loser and a “winner” that saw a gun drawn and a shot fired.

Did you read about it on the front pages? No? That’s because it only made page 14 of the Toronto Star and Car Advertiser. We never even saw it in the Globe and Mail and Car Advertiser. Not the National Post and Car Advertiser either.

Perhaps it’s because, unlike the case that made the front pages of all the papers a couple weeks ago, where a loser hexed a winner with a wrench, in this case it was the loser who was shot with a bullet, apparently for no reason, by a winner. The winner was in a car. The location was near Regent park, a famous Toronto “slum clearance” project from the 1960s 2000s.

Sorry, what was that? Did we say no reason?

The loser was riding a bike.

ALLDERBLOB readers will want to know, and with the cops we ask: was he wearing a helmet? Was he riding a “chopper?” Had he just purchased a “nickel bag?” Had he run the red light at River and Shuter streets? Had he spit at the car, or otherwise acted to rain hellfire upon himself? What was he doing, in the ghetto?

We know he deserved to be shot. He was riding a bicycle. He’s a loser, baby. We just want to know what in particular provoked this event.

But the cops aren’t telling. The event was reported in the Star on Dec. 2, but there’s no news release about it to be found on their website from around that date.

Some in the International Bicycle Conspiracy have wondered, “Where is the outrage?” Where is the call to CAA to defend car drivers everywhere from the aspersion cast by the lone looney in the car by Regent Park. Where is the front page story, and the interview on Metro Morning with Anti-Bikey, asking automobile activists whether all motorists pack guns. Is society in a state of collapse?

Not the Allderblob.

We ride a bike too, and we know.

Cyclists are losers. On a dare, we just checked the lyrics of Beck’s song and found this gem hidden in the dross:
(I’m a driver, I’m a winner… things are gonna
change, I can feel it)

What’s the difference if we’re killed by a gunshot, by breathing the crap churned from the guts of the gas guzzlers, or from being crushed against the curb by a rolling furnace while crossing the newly re-opened Dundas bridge?

La, la la. La la. Baby…

Required reading from the hands of Michael Dudley in Winnipeg:

“Most American weapons (missiles, smart bombs, dumb bombs, bullets, tank shells, cruise missiles, etc.) contain high amounts of radioactive uranium. Depleted or non-depleted, these types of weapons, on detonation, release a radioactive dust which, when inhaled, goes into the body and stays there. It has a half-life of 4.5 billion years. Basically, it’s a permanently available contaminant, distributed in the environment, where dust storms or any water nearby can disperse it. Once ingested, it releases subatomic particles that slice through DNA.

click for higher resolution

“At the Uranium Weapons Conference held October 2003 in Hamburg, Germany, independent scientists from around the world testified to a huge increase in birth deformities and cancers wherever NDU and DU had been used. Professor Katsuma Yagasaki, a scientist at the Ryukyus University, Okinawa calculated that the 800 tons of DU used in Afghanistan is the radioactive equivalent of 83,000 Nagasaki bombs. The amount of DU used in Iraq is equivalent to 250,000 Nagasaki bombs.”

Who says we can’t build a “hydrogen economy?”

The east end: home to councillors De Baeremaeker, Heaps, Fletcher, Bussin et al, and no longer home to the latest two cyclists killed in this city of 2.5 million.

A few days ago it was a little girl, run down and killed while pedaling in front of a stopped car in a crosswalk near Warden and Sheppard avenues. And now yesterday, a cyclist was killed on Pharmacy Ave, the victim of a truck traveling south in the northbound lanes.

People will blather about helmets, but perhaps the critical question is about blinders:
click for larger image
those on the heads of our so-called “cycling champions” at city hall. We’re talking about Councillor Heaps, the erstwhile leader of the city cycling committee, who has yet to call a meeting since his appointment after last October’s election. We’re talking about Councillor De Baeremaeker, profiled in the Toronto Star and Car Advertiser as a hero for cycling to work at city hall although terrified of taking Eglinton Ave E. in his ward (where there’s a “diamond lane” reserved for carpoolers, buses and cyclists, and just beyond where a cyclist was killed during last year’s election campaign). And we’re talking about Councillor Fletcher, a “big supporter” of the environment and of cyclist issues, who together with her ward neighbour Councillor Bussin, deputy mayor, has yet to define just why a critical two-block stretch of Leslie street in her ward (which links residential neighbourhoods to the north to the Leslie Street Spit, one of the most-used car-free infrastructures in the city) is not on the table for immediate creation of bikelanes. This part of Leslie street, of course, was the site of another cyclist fatality, where a truck hit cyclist Isaac Morkel head-on as Morkel was riding through a green light south to do some shopping at the Loblaw’s and PriceChopper grocery stores. It carries fewer cars at rush hour than many other four-lane streets in Toronto where two car lanes have been removed to provide bikelanes.

Two cyclists in the space of less than a week, dead by motor traffic in Toronto’s East End. Who’s looking out for us? Councillor Case Odious with your twenty-vote margin of victory, there’s a vacuum to be filled.

Our colleague Joe Hendry caught this one, pulled it to earth and wrestled with it for a minute. It’s a report from CITY TV’s news website about the seven-year-old girl who was killed by a construction van while crossing the street on her bike in front of her house. In a crosswalk. Just behind her brother on his bike, who crossed first and whom the driver had managed not to hit and kill.

Victoria Jones died after riding into the path of an oncoming vehicle in front of her house at Warden and Sheppard Ave. Initial reports suggested the driver may have been distracted and talking on a cell phone, but police now say that wasn’t the case. They also add that he was driving well within the speed limit.

As Joe puts it, “Perhaps CITY-TV could tell the family what exactly is the speed limit for driving through a pedestrain crosswalk with a 7 year-old girl in the middle of it. I thought it was zero.”

Members of Toronto’s Advocacy for Respect for Cyclists have planned a memorial ride to the site of the collision, scheduled for Tuesday, September 4th. Details are below:

What: Cyclist Memorial When: Tuesday September 4th 8pm. Meet: Spadina and Bloor 6pm. or 630pm if you are taking the subway. Re-group at Warden Station (outside west entrance) at appx. 7pm., departing 715pm Memorial site. Bay Mills Blvd near Warden appx. 8pm

Please bring candles and/flowers. It will be dark for our return ride home.

For more info Darren Stehr 416-707-4744 or Derek Chadbourne 416-828-0370 www.respect.to