Thursday, July 24, 2008

Jon Stewart: We need "more vigilante bicyclists!"

Stewart was on form during last night's Daily Show. And the muses of satire obliged, serving him up a story that has it all: black Corvette convertibles, fish heads, the Prince of Darkness, elderly pedestrians in marked crosswalks--and, of course, vigilante bicyclists roaming the streets of our nation's capital.




A p3 tip of the Bell Ghisallo helmet to DC cyclist David Bono for facing down evil incarnate. (Follow the link; you'll love the part where Novak claims he was listening to NPR when the incident occurred. That should have tipped the police off right there that he was desperately covering his ass.)

Here in the Portland area, of course, we are already quite familiar with the concept of bicyclists stopping traffic in the name of fair play, however well-thought through the attempt, as well as cycling-related incidents involving a victim sprawled across the hood and windshield of a car speeding away from the scene. But it's good to see the practice of cyclists meting out justice spreading to Washington DC, where there's so much work to be done and so little time. (Even as you read this, somewhere in DC Dick Cheney could be getting behind the wheel.)

This is the first time, and perhaps the last, that I've posted a story that had both "cycling" and "right-wing media" as topic tags. Funny old world.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I got your message on Bikeportland.org about the angry crossword puzzler. I read your posting on your blog, and it is quite clear we're talking about the same guy. I've seen him do the same thing to one other guy a time before he did it to me. He is obviously searching to sue someone by getting someone heated enough to punch him. Just out of curiosity, have you reported this to Trimet at all?

Nothstine said...

Hey, Jerrod--

I didn't actually report it; I contacted a spokesperson for TriMet who filled me in on what the applicable regs and policies were, but the incident itself seemed sort of sad and petty, so I didn't make a formal complaint.

Of course, at that time I didn't know this was a repeat offender with issues.

Given this response by TriMet--which I only discovered this morning--I'm not sure reporting the incident would have gotten me much more than TriMet's regret that I had a bad experience. Although the spokesperson I talked to said that a fare inspector would have asked the fellow to move for the bike, the TriMet spokesperson quoted at the link above seems to say pretty clearly that the bike riders have no special rights to get to the hooks.

[This is a little off-topic; so for the benefit of readers who came in in the middle, we're talking about incident #2, here.]

bn