Baby van Vlaanderen: More True Stories from Crazytown

It all seems crazy right now. The masses are occupying cities all over the US and now the world for a more equitable society, and some people still don't get it. Gilad Shalit is home. Goldman Sachs reported a loss for the quarter (although I wouldn't be surprised to hear that it was fancy bookkeeping to show that Goldman Sachs isn't a money-sucking devil in light of all the protesting). My shoe fell off in a cyclocross race. Crazy.

Why should you join the Occupy Movement? Because it represents you. It's fighting for the 99% of us that together possess less than 50% of the countries total wealth. You're probably part of the 99%. If you were part of the 1% you'd be too busy to read this blog because you are counting your money. In our political system, that means our votes are negated by special interests, also known as the people with lots of money intent on keeping everyone else subjugated. When you can buy a politician, why would a vote matter?

And somehow, the right wing has again enlisted the people that it treads upon with the 53% movement. These people are supposed to sound happy working 60 hours a week to the bone with no healthcare and barely making rent. Sounds like they're exactly the people that need to go to the other side of the fence. But I guess they're happy with the meager scraps that the plutocracy gives them.

Here's your awkward transition to my next thought. I never imagined Gilad Shalit coming home alive. It seems crazy that Israel traded 1,027 prisoners tried and convicted in a judicial system that allowed them to get educations and visit with their families for one person who was kidnapped, hidden away from everyone including the Red Cross (which, I think, is a violation of the Geneva Convention) and generally kept under really, really crappy conditions. The fear is that the released prisoners will commit murder again. Maybe, maybe not. But we should be happy that Gilad is home. It was the first time a captured Israeli soldier came home alive in 26 years.

While celebrating the prisoners returning to Gaza, Hamas said they want another kidnapping victim. They have no interest in peace; they want to continue the cycle of violence and somehow look like the they are the victim the whole time. Maybe if they sat down and talked peace they could negotiate the return of the rest of the rightfully convicted prisoners without abducting another Israel. But I doubt they'll try it.

Goldman Sachs. All I have to say here is that I hope this is the beginning of the end for the phantom economy that mints money out of thin air.

And my shoe really fell off racing cyclocross. It was at the Minuteman Road Club cyclocross race. I ran up the flyover on the first lap. Halfway up my foot popped out and my shoe rolled back down. There were a million questions in my head, including,

-"Can you guys wait a minute?"

-"Where is the pause button?"

-"Do I continue on and pick it up next lap?"

-"Really?"

-"Why did I put my foot down in that mud?"

I chose to go to get my shoe, jam it on my foot and tighten it like crazy. Then I proceed to pass almost everyone I had already passed once. I finished 12th, 39 seconds out of 6th place, easily the amount of time I lost losing the shoe. This cyclocross season has been a bit crazy. It's only four races in for me, but so far I: broke my shifter AND flatted at Quad Cross, rode like a fool at Gloucester where mistakes will destroy you in a star-studded field and didn't eat the day before at Providence (Yom Kippur). There's always the next race. Keep my shoes on, eat right, don't ever race Gloucester again and keep my bike together. That's all it takes.