NEIN, Facebook. NEIN, Twitter!
Then, they came for social media yesterday, and I kind of agreed with them, but not entirely, so I speak out today. (By posting a letter — H/T, Sam — that two Council Coots sent to the mayor threatening legalities since they saw some kids roughing other kids up from their office windows behind extensive security protecting them from the wilding of the North Philly Youth.)
Their Kampf
Government in mf’ing action, yo!
In conclusion, I’ll post here what I put on Twitter last night:
Wanted: A flash mob of Philadelphians into wilding. Mission: Go next City Council meeting and grind on erbody in sight.
Buck-wild, baby. It’s time.
Bonus:
Wheels of Fortune
By Brian Hickey
I hate breaking promises I made to myself. For instance, I vowed for weeks not to wade into the Philadelphia Transportation War, yet here I am in a sequined robe. Just couldn’t prevent fly-off-the-handle me from column-slamming hive-minded bicyclists who get mouthy and refuse to admit they don’t have a right to cruise sidewalks because drivers don’t respectably share roadways.
Then, a funny thing happened while homebound from a nude-guy-photo exhibit at a 10th Street gallery last Friday. (No, I haven’t been naughty enough for Santa to bring me the Levi Johnston Playgirl. The artist, Butch Cordora, is a friend.) Driving the bike-laned stretch of Pine, I expected to see traffic End of Times. Yet, when I saw a cab hop into the probably-soon-permanent bike lane, I rolled my window down and shared a phase rhyming with “mucking moosh mag.”
At that moment, I realized we’re not entering a new decade on the good foot. When palpable political-and-societal anger nationally trickles down to Philly drivers openly threatening bicyclists and bicyclists openly threatening walkers, there is no one left to speak out but me. So “me” – who’s broken laws in car, on bike and while walking – called Sarah Clark Stuart of the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia who talked about a need for cyclists to bear greater responsibility, how pedestrian deaths from hit-and-run cyclists are tragic and how traffic enforcement is woefully lax.
“There’s a lot of pent-up frustration,” says Stuart. “I definitely went from hearing ‘Oh, you’re a bicyclist? How nice!’ to ‘Oh, you’re one of them.’ But, I don’t think it has to be a poisoned atmosphere in the future.”
I hope not. From a quality-of-life and being-good-earthlings perspective, we need the city to move forward with more bike lanes when the revised city traffic plan arrives in the ’010s, and we need to somehow find cash so Johnny Law can better enforce car and bike laws and help us all just get along.
“Motorists have a social contract to stop at red lights, even though some don’t honor it,” Stuart told me. “What we’re going through is figuring out the social contact that bicyclists have with society.”
Baby steps, I thought, but important ones that’ll make our love-handled metropolis a healthier, happier place. So, let me be the first to say, “Cabbie, I’m sorry. I don’t know whether you’re really a mucking moosh mag.”
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