There’s a lot of bad news in the world right now, so I’ve been trying to think instead for a day or two about the news in the past year that’s been most inspiring and hopeful. The best of it has involved people around the world stepping up and making public spaces their own, joyously […]
Archive | December, 2011
How I make these zines
Posted onPeople ask occasionally how I make my zines, so I thought I’d write about that process. First, why publish a zine? I do it because I want to get my and others’ writing out there in the world, and now. A zine is quicker and cheaper to create than a book or magazine, and slower […]
Why bicycle transportation will save Por...
Posted onPortland is undergoing a process to create something called the Portland Plan, a guiding document aimed towards achieving an ambitious list of environmental, educational, and economic goals by 2035. I wrote the letter below the jump as testimony to the importance of bicycle transportation in achieving the plan’s economic goals. It’s not exactly smooth reading […]
Twitter and the grammar of the Occupatio...
Posted on“Bike check!” is how you know the mic check is for the bike swarm. One of the reporters for our local daily has recently started using Twitter, mostly in live reporting Occupy events. Two things were immediately clear: First, that he didn’t really get Twitter (he learned fast) and second that he really didn’t get […]
Occupy the Ports -- Portland photos
Posted onNot without well-founded political trepidation, we got up at 4am to ride with the Bike Swarm up to today’s 12/12/11 port shutdown. Joe was after footage and I was after photos and maybe a story. Most of the bike action happened before dawn, including some seriously unwelcome flashbacks to the bad old days of motorcycle […]
Cycling's gender gap, explained
Posted onI’ve written about why there is a gender gap in cycling in the U.S., and have struggled to explain that it isn’t because women are so damn womanly but rather because we’re an economic underclass and our transportation choices are more constrained than those of our male peers. So it was great to read a […]
Sharing the road with Bitch
Posted onThe first issue of Taking the Lane zine is out of print. If you want to read it but didn’t get one of those 500 copies I underprinted, you’re in luck – you can now read a big old excerpt in the current issue of Bitch Magazine. My copy just got here and they made […]
Tea parties, chicken suits, and falling ...
Posted onFor the past year and a half I’ve been shuffling around a half-written essay about the ways in which the tea party is hopeful and exciting and, in some ways, just what this beleaguered country needs. But I never quite knew what to make of my mixed feelings, especially the part of that mix that […]