
 |
|
July 3, 2008
Rabbi Dr. Abraham J. Twerski: A spiritual budget (TOUCHING!)
Jeff Jacoby: Israel still paying for its defeat
JWisdom:: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part IV by Rabbi David Aaron
July 2, 2008
Jonathan Tobin: Appeasers Make Poor Patriots
The Kosher Gourmet
By Kathleen Purvis: Slaw, y'all: For BBQs or Sabbath dinner, these southern recipes are something else!
JWisdom:: Rabbi Mordechai Becher: Jewish Rx for A Simpler Life
July 1, 2008
The Jewish Ethicist
by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q. I think it's important to leave a legacy to my children. How much should I save towards this end?
Paul Greenberg:A President who is history deficient?
JWisdom:: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Poland's Unique Antisemitism
June 30, 2008
Jonathan Rosenblum: Remembering the architect of Torah Judaism for the modern world
Abe Novick: Hulk: Still a Jew?
JWisdom: : Putting the Spirit Back into Spirituality, Part 2: The Abandoned Child
June 26, 2008
Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Quantum leap to evil
Caroline B. Glick: Victimized families must not be allowed to dictate policy
June 25, 2008
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Today in Biblical History: King Jeroboam of Israel prevents pilgrimage to Jerusalem
Jonathan Tobin: Real Friends and Real Enemies
JWisdom:
Raping of reason By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky
June 25, 2008
Steven Emerson: Kristof: Never Mind the Terrorists
Stratfor Intelligence Briefing: Mediterranean Flyover: Telegraphing an Israeli Punch?
JWisdom: Rabbi David Aaron: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part III
June 24, 2008
Caroline B. Glick: What were they thinking!?
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Guilty knowledge
JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Warping Innocence
June 23, 2008
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Diploma dilemma
Jeff Jacoby: A world without children
JWisdom:
Rabbi Dovid Gross: Putting the Spirit Back into Spirituality --- Introduction
June 20, 2008
Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: Man: The Crowning Glory of Creation
Caroline B. Glick: Israel's darkest week
JWisdom: We aren't worthy? by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky
June 19, 2008
Rabbi Elazar Meisels: The saints who don't come marchin' in
Chris Christoff:
Muslim woman demands an apology from Obama after camera snub
June 18, 2008
Jonathan Tobin: Still Dancing Around Jerusalem
The Kosher Gourmet
by Steve Petusevsky: Chilled fruit and vegetable soups
JWisdom:
Souls Need A Check Up? by Rabbi Mordechai Becher
June 17, 2008
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Baby Einstein
Caroline B. Glick: Bush's rhetoric, Bush's policies
JWisdom:
Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part II by Rabbi David Aaron
June 16, 2008
Varda Branfman: Bob Dylan, won't you please come home?
Diana West: Academic dares to question the 'religion of peace'
JWisdom:
Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Positive Backfire
June 13, 2008
Rabbi Berel Wein: Trading manna for whine
Caroline B. Glick: Peace with friends
JWisdom: From the mouths of … by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky
June 12, 2008
Michael Feldberg: Meet Paul Revere's pal, the Orthodox Jew who played a key role in laying Boston's cultural and business infrastructure
The Kosher Gourmet by Kathy Manweiler: No need to be tempted by Wendy's mandarin chicken salad
JWisdom: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part I by Rabbi David Aaron
June 11, 2008
Rabbi Avi Shafran: What would Hillel say?
Jonathan Tobin: UNRWA and NGOs: The Real U.N. 'Insult'
JWisdom: Sara Yoheved Rigler: Greatness Made Simple: How a momentary decision shifted life's course and destination
June 6, 2008
Rabbi Pinchas Stolper: Revelation: The basis of faith
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Mere hours after becoming Israel's new 'best friend' Obama backtracks on status of Jerusalem
Caroline B. Glick: UN choosing to protect rogue nuclear programs
JWisdom: Sameness in difference by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky
June 5, 2008
David Lightman: Now Obama wants to be Israel's newest 'best friend'
Obama's remarks to AIPAC policy conference
The Kosher Gourmet
By Ethel G. Hofman: Shavous cuisine: Ruby Fruit Soup, Lokshen Kugel with Cheese, Key Lime Curd, Calsone Casserole Frittata with Wild Mushrooms, Sun-dried tomatoes and Olives, Baked Tilapia with Pepper Cheese Cream and Brown Sugar Shortbread
JWisdom: Why a Jewish Jerusalem makes so many nervous by Rabbi Mordechai Becher
June 4, 2008
Jonathan Rosenblum: A different sort of 'religious broadcaster'
Jonathan Tobin: Misgivings on the Road to Damascus
JWisdom: 44 Years Without An Argument? by Sara Yoheved Rigler
June 3, 2008
Daniel Pipes: Obama vs. McCain on the Middle East
Everything's Relative: There is a crisis growing in Orthodox synagogues worldwide, reveals Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkel
JWisdom: White Facades; Black Secrets by Rabbi Mordechai Becher
June 2, 2008
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q: Lie to outsmart discriminator?
He writes the songs that make our souls sing:Gavriel Aryeh Sanders interviews Jewish music legend Ben Zion Shenker; includes stirring, uplifting song
JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Of laws and lives
March 22, 2007
J-Rhythms with Avraham Rosenblum: JWR's cutting-edge music program showcasing performers -- singers, song writers, musicians, and bands -- who learn and live the Torah lifestyle (OUR NEWEST IGODCAST !)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)
|
| |
Jewish World Review
August 8, 2006
/ 14 Menachem-Av, 5766
A summer rhapsody for a pedal-bike
By
Paul Johnson
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Nothing separates men from women more significantly than riding a bicycle.
Whenever I see a man on a bike in London, he is invariably breaking the law:
riding on the pavement, whizzing through a red light, pedaling arrogantly
along our one-way street in the forbidden direction.
I have never seen a
woman doing any of these things. Their cycling is strictly utilitarian,
economical, discreet, at modest speeds and on machines which have no element
of display. What does this tell us about the sexes? Well, it certainly makes
me revert again to my technological vision of the future, in which men have
been eliminated, their prime function taken over by perpetual sperm-banks,
and with selection procedures ruling out male babies. This would be a world
with minimal crime and no wars, no sex in the traditional sense (what a
relief) and in which it would be possible to ban alcohol, drug-taking and
professional sport.
I am thinking of buying a bike, my walking-radius now being down to three
miles. I have two already. One is an Austrian folding bike, called a Putsch,
I think; the other is a big, old-fashioned Hercules, very plain and strong,
specially made in the 1970s for heavy-duty service in Africa. Neither is in
serviceable condition, and I do not fancy going to all the trouble of
getting them repaired when the likelihood of my using them often is remote.
What I really want is a bike that I can pedal but which also has a small
electric motor to get me up the steep hills of west Somerset. Many years ago
I had a petrol-driven tricycle which had this dual character and I travelled
many hundreds of miles on it, not uncomfortably. But it was stolen and
proved impossible to replace. When I last inquired about an electric bike I
was shown a clumsy-looking machine which was too heavy to lift and
stunningly expensive. That was some years ago and it may be that things have
got better. I say this because we have just acquired a car which is fuelled
by petrol but driven by an electric motor. It is called a bisexual. No: that
is the wrong word a hybrid. It is exempt from the London congestion charge
as being 'socially moral'. It does 50 miles to the gallon and is very quiet.
It also has superb air-conditioning, a huge advantage in this horrid hot
weather, and scores of advanced gadgets. Those in the know say it is the
first really successful electric car and everyone will have them soon. So I
am encouraged to believe a successful electric bike cannot be far behind.
However, one should remember that the history of the bicycle is long and
bumpy. The first, in wood, was created in 1818. The inventor had a
comic-opera name, Baron Karl de Drais de Sauerbrun, and his machine was
called a draisienne. It did not catch on. The proper bike did not take shape
until the 1870s. But by 1882 it was fashionable enough to make an appearance
in Gilbert's lyrics for Iolanthe:
In your shirt and your socks
(The black silk with gold clocks)
Crossing Salisbury Plain on a bicycle.
The quarter century between 1890 and the first world war was the golden age
of the bike. Oh, to see Henry James making his stately progress down the
Sussex lanes, or going to call on Conrad. Or George Bernard Shaw out for a
'spin' with George Moore, or H.G. Wells pedalling industriously to keep up
with the young Rebecca West.
('I was a real thruster on a pedal-bike,' she
told me many decades later.)
Mr Gladstone, I suspect, was a little too old
to take to the bike, but Lord Salisbury tried it and his nephew A.J. Balfour
was often on one when he was prime minister. It was one of the things he
held against Lord Curzon, whom he prevented from becoming prime minister
when Bonar Law died; 'George is too grand ever to have been on a bicycle.'
Zola thought of writing a novel about the social consequences of the bicycle
but never got round to it, though a photograph survives showing him about to
mount one, dressed in what looks like a Gallic version of 1890s golfing kit.
Yet, plainly, bicycles and morality are not wholly unconnected, since a bike
is something which enables you to move by your own physical efforts, without
dependence on animals, flunkeys or minerals. Next to walking it is the most
moral form of transport, symbolising independence, unselfishness and
self-reliance. Hence Norman Tebbit's famous Thatcherite rallying cry to the
unemployed, 'On yer bike!' and the old Chilean proverb, beloved of General
Pinochet, 'El socialismo puede llegar sólo en bicicleta.'
For me, the second half of the 1930s was the age of the bicycle. I put up
with hand-me-downs from my older brother and sister until the glorious
moment when, thanks to the munificence of a godfather, I actually acquired a
brand-new Raleigh, all to myself. Nothing I have ever owned has given me one
quarter of the pleasure of that sparkling machine, with its three gears,
light and dynamo, and its graceful, tingling carriage in all weathers. It
gave me a freedom I had never before dreamed of possessing and which, when I
think deeply about it, I have never really enjoyed since.
I ranged over the Five Towns, where we lived in Arnold Bennett-like
cosiness, and went out to draw and paint local churches with my father, who
gave me lessons in architectural draughtsmanship (he had a Raleigh too).
Together with my sturdy friend Richard, the doctor's son, I went on all-day
excursions across north Staffordshire and into Derbyshire and Cheshire,
across Biddulph Moor, to Leek and Macclesfield, to the little towns I call
the Gaskell Country of Cranford, to the Dove Valley and the Peak District (a
two-day trip, that), to weird hills called the Roaches and Cloud End and
ancient places with names like Uttoxeter. We had satchels with our grub:
sandwiches of potted meat or anchovy paste, lettuce and tomato with slivers
of gherkin, or buns with triangles of processed cheese (then a novelty)
wrapped in silver paper. How good such edibles tasted, eaten with voracious
relish sitting on a farm gate by the side of the road, the silver wheels of
our bikes spinning idly on the grass, reflecting the sunshine. We had, if we
were lucky, Tizer ('the Appetiser') or dandelion-and-burdock to drink
Coca-Cola was unheard of then where we lived and as an extra treat a Mars
Bar (new from America in 1936) or Milky Way (England's answer in 1937).
All was not idyllic, of course. There were flat tyres to contend with, even
punctures, and here I must pose a question. Why do bicycles inspire jokes in
literary circles and showbiz? Why, for instance, did Kingsley Amis write, in
'A Bookshop Idyll',
Should poets bicycle-pump the human heart
Or squash it flat?
Auden, too, was one for bicycle cracks ('Tomorrow the bicycle races ...but
today the struggle', etc) as were Tommy Trinder, Arthur Askey and the ITMA
team. Another comedian, Billy Connolly, used to say, 'Marriage is a
wonderful invention. But then again, so is a bicycle repair kit.' Had he
ever used one? Not so easy is my recollection. But I have an itch to get on
my bike again, all the same. It is, when all is said, the most ingenious of
useful mechanical inventions, the easiest to use perfect for simpletons
like me and the least harmful. Impossible to sin with a bike; anyway,
mortally.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
| BUY THE BOOK |
|
Click HERE to purchase it at a discount. (Sales help fund JWR.). |
|
Eminent British historian and author Paul Johnson's latest book is "American Presidents Eminent Lives Boxed Set: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ulysses S. Grant". Comment by clicking here.
Previously:
08/03/06: Why is there no workable philosophy of music?
07/11/06: Historically speaking, energy crisis is America's opportunity
07/06/06: The misleading dimensions of persons and lives
06/06/06: First editions are not gold
05/23/06: A downright ugly man need never despair of attracting women, even pretty
ones
04/25/06: Was Washington right about political parties?
04/12/06: Let's Have More Babies!
04/05/06: For the love of trains
03/29/06: Lincoln and the Compensation Culture
03/22/06: Bottle-beauties and the globalised blond beast
03/15/06: Europe's utopian hangover
03/08/06: Kindly write on only one side of the paper
02/28/06: Creators versus critics
02/21/06: The Rhino Principle
© 2006, Paul Johnson
|
|

Mitch Albom
Michael Barone
Dave Barry
Tony Blankley
Andy Borowitz
David Broder
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Rod Dreher
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
John Fund
Frank J. Gaffney
Lloyd Garver
Jonah Goldberg
Michael Goodwin
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Nat Hentoff
David Horowitz
Laura Ingraham
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
James Klurfeld
Ed Koch
Ch. Krauthammer
Jonathan Last
Michael Ledeen
John Leo
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
The Medicine Men
Dick Morris
Bill O'Reilly
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Jonathan Rauch
Celia Rivenbark
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Pat Sajak
Debra J. Saunders
Culture Shlock
Roger Simon
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Jonathan Tobin
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
Lisa Benson
John Branch
Gary Brookins
John Cole
Paul Combs
J. D. Crowe
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holber
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Ranan R. Lurie
Jimmy Margulies
Rick McKee
Michael Ramirez
Jeff Stahler
Danna Summers
John Trever
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters

How 2
Know-It-All
Lori Borgman
The Savvy Consumer
Elder matters
Fixit
Dr. Peter Gott
Marybeth Hicks
GET A JOB! by Marty Nemko
Richard Lederer
Tech Maven
Nutrition Myths
Supermarket Shopper
Bruce Williams
How Stuff Works
|