Week Twenty-Seven - Day Five: Gross

BIKE: Mike
TIME THERE: 26 min.
TIME BACK: 27 min.
WEATHER: clear, -2C, 9 km/hr wind there; clear, 9C, 9 km/hr wind back.
WHAT I WORE: yoga pants, t-shirt, sweatshirt, running gloves, balaclava (balaclava in panniers on the way home)
NOTES:

Sometimes, I lose faith in humanity.

I know - what gives? It's a beautiful day, the sun is shining and it's warm outside and there's a palpable sense of hope that winter may really and finally be over. I was in a great mood today, really, for all those reasons and more . . . until I came across this picture and the accompanying commentary.

This distressed me for several reasons:
1. Because some people insist that if you aren't personally affected by a tragedy, you have no right to have any emotional reaction to it (basically: SCREW YOU, EMPATHY!).
2. Because some people insist that if you can't laugh at someone's tragic death, you're putting on some "mock indignation" and are a total pussy.
3. Because there are people in the world who enjoy this picture because it's a car plowing through a pack of cyclists, and as drivers who hate cyclists they wish this would happen more often.

Shudder. Sometimes when I think of the anger and self-righteousness of some drivers, so protected as they sit surrounded in their 2000 lbs of metal and safety features, who disparage the rights of remarkably vulnerable cyclists with whom they share the road, I lose faith in people. And I also lose faith in people when I read someone arguing that there is no difference between viewing a picture of a real-life tragedy and watching a fiction film. Really, people??

Good Lord! What's this world coming to??