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Why I Joined the Biker Mob
With the weather turning
warm, it's time for me to haul
out my bike. Since I get runny
noses a lot, if I tried to ride
through the frigid winter wind I
would run a serious risk of
Death by Mucous. But now,
with the weather getting warm
again, biking is the fastest and
most convenient way to travel.
Of course, biking also has its
NATHA X minuses, such as certain death.
T But if you want to-get
somewhere quickly, biking is
the way to go. A car is out of the question, with the
parking situation in Ann Arbor. In fact, most stolen cars
are actually abandoned - the thieves just want to take
your parking space. So a car in Ann Arbor is about as
effective, transportationally, as an aircraft carrier. And
when you factor in the cost of parking tickets, it's less
economical. Plus, owning an aircraft carrier provides the
added benefit of being able to avoid your nine o'clock by
ordering an air strike on the MLB.
Nevertheless, I'm not suggesting that all you automo-
bile drivers go out and buy aircraft carriers. For one thing,
it would do little to alleviate the lack of parking spaces
(Smith, Bob: Yourparkingspace is: North Campus). And the
activists would go nuts. Remember all the controversy
about cops carrying handguns? Think about the reaction to
aircraft carriers. We'd have a violent revolution. And
shanties. Hundreds of shanties. Shanties with elevators
and public restrooms. You couldn't even walk through the
Diag without bumping into a shanty. This would only
complicate the transportation scene. So for the time being,
aircraft carriers are not a feasible transportation option.
Roller-skating, for me, is out of the question. As a nine-
year-old, I was forced to visit a roller-skating rink with my
Cub Scout pack. When I got there, I couldn't see any
actual people roller-skating, just this blur whipping laps
around the rink at incredibly high velocity. Cautiously, I
approached the blur, contemplating a means by which I
could become part of it. I stuck out my hand and latched
onto one of the speeding skaters. For a few glorious
moments, I was one with the blur.
Then the P.A. announced that all kids under 12 had to
leave the rink. The skater I had clung on to detached
himself and left me stranded in a desolate corner. Soon the
rink was empty, with the over-twelve crowd poised on the
edge, waiting for me to get off the ice. After several failed
attempts to skate, I was forced to crawl off in humiliation.
To this day, even the sight of roller-skaters causes me
tremendous emotional trauma.
You should also rule out busing, unless you're forced
into it on account of living at Bursley/Baits. I don't care
what propaganda'the University tells us; nobody likes
living on North Campus. When you first got your housing
assignment as first-year students, did you ever hear
someone say, "Oh, you live in West Quad? Tough break. I
live in Bursley"?
Sure, the orientation leaders try to convince you
otherwise -"Burskty has many unique advantages. For
instance, its residents have the lowest cholesterol level of any
residence hall on campus."- but the fact is that North
Campus is a place where randomly selected students are
forced to stay for no good reason. This is unfair. I think
that you shouldn't have to stay there involuntarily unless
you do something wrong. They could make it a sort of
penal colony, like Siberia. Instead of getting kicked out,
students who fail classes or get into trouble could be sent
to North Campus. Then, if they study hard and keep their
nose clean, they would be allowed back on Central
Campus.
But this is beside the issue at hand, which is biking.
Aside from the convenience, the greatest advantage of
bicycling in Ann Arbor is the opportunity to maim inno-
cent pedestrians. During the fall, I personally took out two
civilians, and I don't regret it a bit. One of them was a very
serious-looking, business suit-wearing, briefcase-carrying
yuppie who clearly was the president of his high school
Young Republican Club.
What I'm getting at, pedestrians, is that we bikers try to
hit you. It's fun. We have these weekly meetings in the
steam tunnels to plan exactly when and where to strike.
Our eventual goal is to take out every non-biking student
that we can't convert, so that eventually the entire Univer-
sity community is biking. The rest can live up on North
Campus.
MklhganS
F Best of Ann Arbor Ballot '91
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