Longhorns & Goat in Austin. Rain in New Orleans

When I flew into Austin I had it in my mind that every place in Texas has tumbleweeds blowing across dusty highways between oil wells eventually leading to modern skycrapers. Why is Austin so green? Another perception shattered...
I went there to present at a the national bicycle education conference. A couple of days laterI was sitting in a workshop and the presenter said "start you Blog now! You all are intelligent and passionate people and I need you to put your voices out there." It was on the topic of bicycle education, but I realized that I am indeed a passionate person and am often putting out my ideas, and indeed it is time.

We were staying close the University of Texas. GO LONGHORNS! I really liked seeing this statue and thinking of this statue at a heavy metal concert. ROCK ON TEXAS!

I presented a tool for teaching bicycle and pedestrian safety concepts at the conference, got people of color together to begin conversations and visualize moving forward in the generally white field of Transportation Advocacy. Being a minority within a minority movement is an interesting position. I think that as cyclists what we are asking of the world is our share of space on the road and yes this involves following the common language of traffic laws. When we face drivers who are livid and upset because of our request, sometimes dangerously so we are facing their discomfort in giving something up that they take for granted. The privilege of driving with all of its assumed benefits are like a lot of other forms of privilege. Going where ever you want to in your vehicle whenever you want to may seem like freedom, but it's supposed benefits are the leading cause of death in the US for people after surviving infancy and before heart attack or cancer comes on the scene. The "benefits" are obesity, lack global climate change, war, destruction and so much more. I think that automobiles are a good option at times, but currently we aren't given much access to other options. That's a thought for later. It's the same from other types of privilege where the supposed benefit is harmful all around. I want folks to take on the work of examining what we have over others and what they have over us. Being the in group is a very fluid thing. Class, race, gender, age, sexual orientation, immigration status can affect who has the high or low hand in each given moment.
I think that if folks in the cycling and Transportation Advocacy world kept moving to understand this and step out of the perceived privilege of not working on race then they would join folks on the cutting edge that are rapidly building "the world we could have" vs. settling for a world that values profit over our one lives as a survival strategy. Paraphrasing my friend Art, "We haven't been around as humans for all that time and I'd like to think that we're gradually figuring all this out." I agree with Art. I think we are.
We all have an interest in transportation and it will be around for a long long time. Transportation is more ordinary and inevitable than death or taxes.


Currently I'm in a New Orleans coffee shop and it's raining much more than I'm used to as a west coastie. It's raining ALOT. Hurricane season in upon the Gulf and I'm getting an introduction to the Creole version of normal precipitation.

Before my 12 hour Greyhound trip down here I visited with a bike artist and activist I knew in Eugene, OR when I lived there. She had a pygmie goat with a wicked vertical jump, that liked to steal food and liked to head butt your knees, all in the name of fun. It was so darn cute when sleeping. It tried to eat everything including the wheels of my suitcase trailer.

In Austin, I had a conversation with a man who had been in the military for 12 years and over the course of the evening and many beers told me he had killed 2600 people personally. He repeated that the US public didn't want to know what he was doing in the name of our national interests. Personally, I think we do need to know and that the people who are in his position need a place to tell their stories.


Today in this coffee shop I rolled my eyes at a sensationalist statement about the Iraq war and was invited to join a conversation with a self defined "liberal" Jewish woman about the legitimacy of preemptive war and Israel's treatment of Palestinians the middle east. It was a good conversation, hard to keep my mind clear at times, but a good dialog. My family is Arab heritage and I have relatives in Beirut.

I'm volunteering here in New Orleans doing bike work and some bike work with youth.
I found a place to stay in a 6 person squat and it's like camping in an urban/frontier setting.
It's pushing my comfort zone, but even after just one day it seems more normal.

I'm off to an anti racism gathering /Potluck. I didn't read the Common Ground Anti-Racism reader, but I will later.

There are excellent potato chips here called Zap's and they come in many different flavors.

That's all for now,

Jason