Monthly Archives: August 2008

Back to school

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This somehow passed me by (although CBF did report on it): Saint Xavier University, on the southwest side, will launch a campus bike sharing scheme this fall.

“Over the summer, the University will install the SXU Green Bike Program, providing 65 European pedal bikes that can be automatically checked out 24 hours a day, seven days a week with a Cougar card and returned to any of several computerized docking stations around campus. The first 15 minutes between docking stations will be free, and patrons can use cell phone technology to more easily arrange for a bike.”

I’ll see how it works on an upcoming visit to London, where “OYBikes” are available throughout the west end. The procedure sounds a bit fiddly — check online for available bikes (stands only house three), push some buttons, call in, enter two randomly generated codes, tug on the lock — but the price is right (£10 initial deposit, first half-hour free, £8/day). One interesting bit: they’re shaft-driven (and thus chainless).

OYBike also sites bikes at many train stations run by French utilities group Veolia, which in turn has introduced its own sharing scheme.

Edit 1 October: the Sears Tower has started a free bike share scheme, with tenants reserving time online for three bikes — or two shared I-Go cars.

Edit 20 October: there are 75 campus bike-sharing/bike-lending programs nationally, according to the AASHE (protected link; Google cache here), but St. Xavier’s is the first such “smart” scheme. Most others rely on cheap student labor with manned check-out desks, which seriously impede spur-of-the-moment and short-trip use but which might be appropriate for occasional weekend use.)

Modest punishments

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Since the citizenry (as exhibited, for example, in blog comments following the incident at Seattle’s Critical Mass in July) is crying out for a vigilante response to the menace of bicyclists blocking traffic, I hear that state legislators have passed a bill declaring “inhibiting the free flow of traffic” to be a capital offense — punishable by cruel and unusual forms of the death penalty (like, for instance, having one’s bones crushed by a speeding car and then left to bleed to death in the middle of the road). Let’s see what kind of “appropriate” punishments have already been meted out just in the first few minutes after the new law’s passage:

double parking
Double parkers, like the violator being dealt with here, no longer receive “the Denver boot.” Instead, the “Spanish boot” was applied: “high boots made of spongy leather had been placed on the culprit’s feet, he was tied on to a table near a large fire, and a quantity of boiling water was poured on the boots, which penetrated the leather, ate away the flesh, and even dissolved the bones of the victim.”
(photo: toner/Flickr)

Tow Away Zone
For the crime of standing in a No Parking/No Standing/Tow Zone, the delivery truck driver was “estrapaded”: “they raised the victim, with two hundred and fifty pounds attached to his feet, to the ceiling by means of a capstan; he was then allowed to fall several times successively by jerks to the level of the ground, by which means his arms and legs were completely dislocated.”
(photo: Thingo/Flickr)

red light runner
The driver of this car, which ran a red light and caused a crash which tied up traffic, was executed by the wheel: “a rope was attached to each of the limbs of the criminal, one being bound round each leg from the foot to the knee, and round each arm from the wrist to the elbow. These ropes were then fastened to four bars, to each of which a strong horse was harnessed… These horses were first made to give short jerks; and when the agony had elicited heart-rending cries from the unfortunate man, who felt his limbs being dislocated without being broken, the four horses were all suddenly urged on with the whip in different directions…” You can guess how that ended.
(photo: SFPD via SF Weekly/The Snitch)

blocking the crosswalk
This driver drove past the stop line and into a crosswalk, thereby blocking the free flow of pedestrians through the intersection. The driver will be dragged “from the prison to the place of execution upon an hurdle or sled, where they are hanged till they be half dead, and then taken down, and quartered alive; after that, their members and bowels are cut from their bodies, and thrown into a fire, provided near hand and within their own sight, even for the same purpose.”
(photo: Brother Grimm/Flickr)

(Gory medieval execution details excerpted from The Middle Ages Website)

Cross purposes

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The Twin Cities have an image problem. A national survey conducted by FutureBrand on behalf of the corporate community — facing the prospect of a critical labor shortage in a “creative class” economy — found that Americans have a fairly negative perception of the area. In particular, respondents “describe the area as quite conservative,” ranking it second most conservative, second least liberal, and last on an array of positive attributes like sophisticated, cultural and artistic, unique, multicultural, livable, youthful, economically vital, flourishing and vibrant, alive, fun and exciting, when compared to six peer areas (the others being Atlanta, Austin, Chicago, Denver and Seattle). So, the corporations looked to the area’s large advertising industry to help with a comprehensive branding campaign, “aiming to change perceptions of our community, attract and retain talent as well as visitors.” Little & Company provided some fresh-looking, if somewhat predictably boosterish, creative to introduce the brand as Minneapolis Saint Paul: More to Life.

Looking up

Ironic, then, that the exact same ads which attempt to dispel “too conservative” prejudices by trumpeting the area’s performance artists (among other things) are being used as talking points for media covering… the Republican National Convention. Someone [h/t Wonkette] even amateurishly pasted an elephant into several of the spots in an effort to make the campaign relevant to the right-wing hoohah.