Advocacy & Safety - Stumbled across a great site

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View Full Version : Stumbled across a great site


Bikepacker67
08-07-05, 03:47 PM
I think most of you will really enjoy this:

A Certain Bicyclist:
AN OFF-BEAT GUIDE TO THE POST-PETROLEUM AGE (http://www.niquette.com/certainb/prologue/0text.htm#TOC)


Roody
08-07-05, 03:59 PM
Very nice. Thank you, Bikepacker.

Bikepacker67
08-07-05, 04:56 PM
Very nice. Thank you, Bikepacker.

Pretty cool site? Eh?

Evidently this was a book written in the late '80's, but nice to find an e-version.

I especially like the poem in the epilogue:



Just Another Star

From a time before time, hath not Earth's sun blazed forth.
As if to warm up all of outer space?
Meager portions of its rays seek assignment to our world;
All the rest must simply pass us by
Toward yonder depths so dark.

Even intercepted light rebounds from high atop the clouds;
So resumes an infinite journey undelayed.
Thus from 'way far off, a blue-white speck is seen,
Our minor planet held close
By just another star.

Yet a trace of sunshine's flux
Is caused to tarry for a time.
That's what warms the surface of our globe,
Stirs the winds and lifts great seas into clouds --
All such labors unrepaid.

Life abounds in radiance from our star.
The green groves fix their share by alchemy obscure.
And all manner of fauna rove this place,
Taking nourishment from leafy works.
Some, in turn, are tasted prey.

So doth sunlight ramify to living things -- and dead.
For soon enough all must cease,
Thence, broken down by unseen germs,
Seek in vain to hide their own decay
Amongst the rocks below the ground.

Infesting our small world is a standing, thinking form,
Not satisfied with sunlight's daily ration,
Whose quest for warmth and transport and lighting up of night
Sucks up a noble treasure and flames it forth
Toward voids beyond the sky.

Behold a wheeled invention, save for which;
Exhaustion of the sungift, vexation of our kind!
Might not otherwise strife's combustions
Reduce the world to cinders? -- and our sun
To just another star?


Platy
08-07-05, 09:51 PM
That is a very interesting and thoughtful book. I enjoyed reading it this evening. Thanks for the link.

lilHinault
08-07-05, 09:53 PM
Bookmarked! Will read every word later, looks NEAT.

Bikepacker67
08-08-05, 04:49 AM
That is a very interesting and thoughtful book. I enjoyed reading it this evening. Thanks for the link.


No problem at all.
Glad you enjoyed it.

rgilmore
08-08-05, 05:21 AM
Nice site. Gives me a way to describe our times. The "Last Days of the Petroleum Age".