Letters to the editor
Send your letters to editor@themanitoban.com or drop them off at 105 University Centre
Jesse Beach’s ‘rant’
Jesse Beach delivered quite the rant about me and my two-wheeled brethren in the March 28 issue of the Manitoban, “Critical Mass a Critical Problem.” Why, in the first paragraph alone we are described as plagues, complainers, vicious, ignorant dangers, green-lovers, ridiculously slow, and annoying. Despite the vast differences between cyclists and auto users, I think we can all agree that eight insults of such variety and wit in a single paragraph is an achievement all English students should aim to achieve by their fourth year.
Naturally, my first “ignorant hippie radical” response to Beach’s article was to yell “Fuck you!” which Beach correctly predicted happens whenever someone “attempts to intelligently reason with (me).” I’d have yelled something better, but truthfully, I just wasn’t up to the challenge of finding the intelligent reasons Beach so cleverly buried beneath layer upon layer of insult and threat. The only sentence that seemed to make any sense was the one that said, “I say we should rise up and attack these radicals where it hurts the most: their bicycles.”
Thankfully, the mission of the Manitoban was on a previous page, so I knew that Beach’s article was meant to “stimulate meaningful debate.” But I laughed thinking about how some idiots would worry that the next time they rode their bike to school it might get vandalized because someone else once prevented some Neon from hitting 65 on Bison Drive.
I love a good meaningful debate as much as the next guy though, so I attached my own clever response to Beach in the form of a limerick. It’s called “I’m going to key all the cars on campus because last Saturday a car cut me off while I rode my bike to work. So fuck you.”
Oh, and thanks to the Manitoban for providing the forum for this stimulating and meaningful debate. Keep up the great work.
Robert Vallis, graduate studies, department of sociology
The misappropriated correlation between cycling and douchebaggery
Thank you Jesse Beach for serving up a bigger stinker than what can be found after Pembina Hall burrito night. While I do not condone the actions of douche-bag cyclists, cyclists that act like douchebags largely do so due to their own douchebaggery, not because riding a bicycle inherently makes them act as such.
Before you criticize, try looking on the flip side and take a bike ride down Pembina one day. I’m confident that you will quickly encounter a vast variety of a different sort of douchebag. Douchebags come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, in cars as well as bikes. Also, fact of the day: In ancient Athens a cheating male was sometimes punished by having his pubic hair removed and a large radish inserted into his rectum.
Matt Soprovich, admitted hippy
Jesse Beach again!
I am dumbfounded by the excessive ignorance and arrogance displayed in Jesse Beach’s article “Critical Mass a Critical Problem.” To demonize concerned citizens trying to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in such a time as this is a grave mistake. I think it is fine to disagree with the way in which Critical Mass conducts itself, but to lump cyclists in general with your negative views of the movement is juvenile.
However, are a hundred cyclists really slowing down traffic? Would you prefer to have an extra hundred cars on the road? Who is really creating the traffic jam? Last time I checked, automobiles take up more surface area than a cyclist. Let’s face it, cars are not as wonderful as our culture portrays. According to Manitoba Public Insurance statistics, cars have killed more people in Canada than all the wars of the last 100 years combined.
Thinking globally, according to the World Health Organization, 1.2 million people are killed annually as a result of car accidents. That’s the equivalent of 844 Hurricane Katrinas. Let’s not forget the direct correlation between obesity and longer commutes, or the need for higher taxes to maintain a sprawling car infrastructure, or the fact that global warming is no longer a myth. The list could go on. I’m sorry Beach, but the more I think about this, the more I realize that cars and people like you are the critical problem.
Nils Vik
Jesse Beach’s hate literature
I am a woman living with epilepsy. My seizure disorder is managed and as part of this I choose not to drive (though I could legally obtain a license I do not consider this a safe action. I do not consider our current cycling infrastructure a safe alternative either, though due to my disability I have little other choice. I do use transit but my schedule varies and transit does not run at all hours.
If I did not use a bicycle to commute I could not maintain my job. I am put at risk every day by belligerent drivers. My experience on the road as a cyclist is that drivers respond aggressively to cyclists after the publication of articles criticizing bicycle demonstrations by organizations such as critical mass. When this happens it is the influence of your publication that puts me and other vulnerable people at risk.
I am not alone. Seventy per cent of Winnipeg residents say they would cycle more if they felt safe to do so. Seventy per cent of Winnipeg’s downtown residents list active transportation as their main way of getting around (not by car). If drivers are unhappy about the current infrastructure, why is there not more support for commuter cycling routes and groups like Critical Mass and Bike to the Future who are working towards solutions? No driver feels good after hitting a cyclist but when road rage flares this is not always their first thought.
I do not participate in the Critical Mass demonstrations because I am too busy. I work a 65-hour week and I am hugely glad that there is representation for my safety on the road by organizations working to create a safer and greener Winnipeg. This summer please be objective in your reporting on cyclist issues. To encourage a perception among drivers that is hostile to cyclists being on the road result in people’s lives being put in jeopardy.
The article “Critical Mass a Critical Problem” (March 28) is hate literature. If these words were used to profile any other recognizable group of people be it women, gays or racial groups, the author might be expelled from the university and subjected to charges. To advocate second-degree murder, vandalism and the extermination of any recognizable group of people is repugnant and beyond excuse.
I am disappointed that your paper would allow this type of dialogue in your publication. For so long as people on bicycles, (which includes children, the elderly and disabled) are forced to share a lane with the largest and most dangerous vehicles on the road I urge that you use the very strong influence of your paper to encourage safety and tolerance on the road.
Lilith McRea
Get psychos off the road
This is a clear example of another dangerous situation that plagues our streets: road rage. Is it not enough that city buses can run a cyclist off the road and suffer no consequences, but to actually encourage extreme aggressive driving in a student newspaper; how irresponsible!
People need to be educated about the laws that are supposed to protect cyclists and other road users. That cyclist that you wanted to kill was taking up a whole lane because she has the right to do it. Bicycles are vehicles that, by law, are supposed to ride on the road. The other option, sidewalks, put pedestrians in danger.
I agree with you that critical mass participants (and cyclists in general) should obey the rules of the road if they intend to be considered “traffic.” They should, at the very least, leave one lane open to emergency vehicles during their demonstrations. However, their main purpose is to promote alternative modes of transportation, which is especially important considering the ever-increasing carbon dioxide emissions contributing to global warming.
The very fact that you commute to school every day in a car that emits toxic chemicals such as nitric oxides, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and VOCs, among others, illustrates your lack of concern for public health and safety. So you got to school five minutes later than usual. What an outrage!
I have a better idea than gassing the annoying cyclists: a psychological exam in order to be considered fit to drive a car. We would all be safer as a result of getting the psychos off the road.
Cheryl Jones
There’s ‘lack of sex’ in nursing too
My confession? I’m a nursing student. My problem is similar to Steve Born’s (“Lack of sex in engineering” 28/28/2007), but with a slight adjustment. There aren’t many boys around in the faculty of nursing. And just sometimes, I can’t stand the abundance of estrogen and need to hang out with the guys for a break. Perhaps engineering and nursing need to unite and have a mingle, help each other with the opposite sex because we all know how easy it is meet new and interesting people outside of clinicals and math class. If you’re lucky, we just might teach you a little bit of anatomy.
Jillian Leibert
