Ziged When I Should Have Zened

On Monday Sept. 4th the Zen Cruiser went down. I had been looking forward to a ride to West Virginia with my father at the end of Sept. He and I had just finished a great day trip together the previous day. I decided to give my bike a bit of a tune up. I checked the fluids, and changed the spark plugs. I had just checked the tire pressure a few days prior, so I wasn't worried about that. My wife had stayed with her sister in the Lehigh Valley. It was her birthday and they had a "Girls Night Out." I had just spoken to her before I left.

The bike started right up and sounded great. I took off for my test loop, a couple of back roads with some nice twisting turns. I headed up 611 and the acceleration was not much better then normal but the power band seemed a little smoother. I turned onto 314 and headed down behind the Adventis Corp. The road here is basically straight and flat when you compare it to the rest of 314. Right after the fence for Adventis ends, the road drops off to the left. The crest of the hill is fairly sharp and you are already turning when you cross it. This time, however, the moment I crossed the crest of the hill the rear end went out to the right as far as it could go. I was standing up now counter steering and looking down the road. In my peripheral vision I saw a telephone pole and I knew I didn't want to hit that. The 800 lbs of bike wouldn't budge from the track it was on. I couldn't bring the rear end back in line and as I crossed the edge of the road into the gravel I knew I was going to crash. Almost at the same instant the thought of crashing came across my mind I was tossed from the bike. I tucked my arms in and my left shoulder struck the pavement and I heard and felt bones breaking. I rolled over my shoulder and back and came up to my feet. The instant I was standing the pain hit me hard and I dropped to one knee unable to breath. For a moment I tried to remain calm and get my breath back. All those years of sports as a kid had taught me to do that.

I needed help and I needed it quickly. Directly in front of me was a house and a car was in the driveway. I stumbled down a 10-foot embankment into the front yard and got to the door sitting on the porch. I tried to slam the screen door but it didn't make enough noise so I used my helmet against the door. No one answered. I looked up for a moment and saw a man coming across the street with a phone to his ear. I was able to get the word "Help" out loud enough for him to hear and he responded, "I'm getting help now." as he came over to me. Another woman stopped and helped phone my wife to let her know what had happened. The police and the ambulance showed up and asked the same questions a dozen times over of who was I and what happened. Now I assume they were more checking my awareness then the information. At the time I was getting annoyed. They strapped me up and put me on a backboard to transport me, since I had hurt my back as well in the fall. That was the LONGEST and most painful ride I have ever been on.

After three days and two nights in the hospital, I finally came home. Muldoons was the towing company that cleared the bike. They charged me $250 for pickup, cleanup, and storage. It would have been more, but the couldn't deliver the bike the day we asked them to so they gave us the extra day for free. What a deal! (Not!) Anyway, all bitterness aside, once I had the bike at home and took a good look it seems that the rear tire went flat at some point before the crest of the turn. When I crossed over the crest leaning into the turn, the bike went out. Both tire beads are still in tacked and there are no sidewall gouges from hitting objects.

After seeing the scene and the bike, it seems that the rear end hit the cable that holds up the telephone pole. That threw the bike into a spin that ejected me from the bike and back into the road. The bike then spun around taking out a curve sign and hit the telephone pole directly in front of the seat on the air cleaner and gas tank facing the opposite direction that I was traveling.

For me, I have a broken clavicle and some broken ribs in front and in the back. The hospital thought I had a small puncture in my lung, but it healed quickly if I did and they were not worried. I get a month or two of watching way too much TV before I can return to work. My helmet has a bunch of scratches on it, but my padded jacket is in perfect shape. The helmet and the jacket protected me from much more serious injuries that I would have had if I had not been wearing them. Always wear protective gear!

Some pictures of the bike:

Final Essay

Included photos have been removed.


English 101C
May 16, 2006
Dr. M. Logan
Should motorcycle helmets be a legal requirement for all riders in all states?

Although opinions on the use of motorcycle helmets vary, those opinions are usually quite strong, and my opinion is no exception. My father, who raced motorcycles for as long as I can remember, bought me a 60cc Yamaha for trail riding when I was seven years old. He taught me the proper way to ride and how to be safe while riding. A helmet was always part of the standard equipment I wore. It became second nature for me to wear a helmet. As an adult I have owned several street bikes and a helmet is still part of my standard riding equipment. Recently the state of Pennsylvania repealed its helmet law. On any given day a large number of riders can be seen cruising down the highway without helmets. Whenever I see these people I can't help but wonder what they were thinking when they made the decision not to wear a helmet. How can anyone believe that they will never be in an accident? As justification, I have heard things like, "If I am in an accident, I don't want to survive." I just can’t comprehend that kind of logic. Once you’ve narrowed down the issues, two clear sides emerge: individual freedom of choice verses legislation of personal safety. It seems that this brings us back to the original question of legislating helmet requirements. Can, or should, the government force individuals to be protected to any specific degree, or is our personal right to make choices more important than our health and lives?
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), a government organization that promotes and mandates all types of highway safety laws, maintains that, "motorcycle helmets provide the best protection from head injury for motorcyclists involved in traffic crashes" and "the passage of helmet use laws governing all motorcycle riders is the most effective method of increasing helmet use.” They argue that, "An unhelmeted motorcyclist is 40 percent more likely to suffer a fatal head injury and 15 percent more likely to suffer a nonfatal injury than a helmeted motorcyclist" and, NHTSA estimates, the likelihood of crash fatality with a helmet is reduced by 37 percent (NHTSA). While the site is maintained by a government agency, the data and studies listed seem biased toward mandating helmet use through legislation.
One independent study by Jonathan P. Goldstein, Ph.D., of the Department of Economics at Bowdoin College claims helmets are not the answer to reducing injury and fatalities. Instead, he outlines a program of education and stricter enforcement of alcohol and traffic laws. He rejected the claim that, “helmets have no effect on neck injuries” in favor of the claim that, “past a critical impact speed, they exacerbate neck injuries" but he does concede that helmets do reduce head injury (Goldstein). This study, and others like it, often used in the "helmets hurt" argument, tries to suggest that helmets do more harm than good, or to suggest that since a helmet increases the likelihood of neck injury, mandating helmet use is not saving lives.
The Helmet Law Defense League is a private organization fighting for the right to choose to wear a helmet by using the law against itself. "How can a motorcyclist comply, with certainty, with the helmet law?" they ask. If the law cannot clearly define what a helmet is and what requirements the helmet must meet to comply with the law, then the law is vague and cannot be enforced (Helmet). A second stand they take is a little more complex and uses the state and federal laws to contradict one another. In order to define what an acceptable helmet is some states have made lists of "approved" helmets. The argument against these lists is that the helmet law statutes require that someone maintain a list of "approved" helmets or adopt some existing standard or comply with the Federal Regulations, usually FMVSS 218. A "Federal Law requires that all states be uniform in the regulations (definition) they adopt." A court decision with similar impact stated, "states may enforce no standards which are not identical to federal standards." Since no federal agency, including NHTSA, maintain a list of approved helmets, the state laws that rely on such lists are unconstitutional (No List). Many other arguments, too numerous to mention, are made in the efforts to abolish helmet laws.
Although the Department of Transportation has set forth guidelines for helmet manufacture, they do not inspect, certify, or approve helmets in any way. One private organization does set standards and requires manufacturers to submit a number of helmets of each style for testing before they approve the design (Snell). The Snell Memorial Foundation, founded in 1957, is a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the effectiveness of all types of helmets. The Snell standards are also the standards that some states elect to adopt as "approved" helmets.
The side of freedom of choice and the side of legislated safety are at odds. In the legal war of helmet laws there are many arguments for both sides and many more examples and studies provided by both sides. In this study I have gotten a glimpse of just how complex this issue is. While I remain firmly rooted in my opinion that wearing a helmet is safer then not wearing one, I understand those that argue the idea that it should be a choice, freely made by the rider, to wear a helmet, and yet, it still seems to me that the logic from both sides is somewhat flawed. The study by Dr. Goldstein of Bowdoin College argues that helmets don’t reduce the risk of injury they merely make the tradeoff of head injury for neck injury (Goldstein). Opponents of helmet laws use exactly that type of logic to argue the effectiveness of helmets. The proponents argue with statistics and projections about the number of lives that could have been saved by helmet use. The NHTSA, in 2002, claimed that 3,244 motorcyclists died in highway accidents. They further claimed that helmets have saved the lives of 13,744 motorcyclists from 1984 to 2002 (NHTSA). Given the nature of any accident, determining the “what might have happened if . . .” type of scenario is extremely difficult, if not impossible. One of my concerns is, in this age of law suits for financial gain, will the families of riders that refuse to use a helmet tie up our courts with suits against the state or car makers because the road or a vehicle was harder then their loved one’s head? In my personal opinion, freedom of choice is only a right when it is coupled with the acceptance of responsibility for those choices. Let the helmet laws be repealed, but establish laws that define responsibility in the event of an accident to protect innocent people from the choices of others.



Works Cited
Goldstein – “The Effect of Motorcycle Helmet Use on the Probability of Fatality and the
Severity of Head And Neck Injuries” United States Freedom Fighters. 1986.

Helmet – “What Is A Safety Helmet; Protective Headgear; A Crash Helmet??”
United States Freedom Fighters. July, 1997

NHTSA – “Motorcycle Helmet Use Laws” National Highway and Traffic Safety
Administration. April 2004. sheet03/MotorcycleHelmet.pdf>
No List – “No List? No Law! The Theory Explained” United States Freedom Fighters.
July, 1997.
Snell – “Snell Helmet Testing Programs” Snell Memorial Foundation

Zen Cruiser Rides Again

Finally after several months of repairs and waiting for parts my bike is fixed and on the road again. Long ordeals with radiator fans and relays held up my rinding season. It looks as if the only thing I might still need is a new battery. I need to stop and get this one tested. I ended up hard-wiring my radiator fan to an unused toggle switch because it won't turn on by itself when it should. So now the rides to and from work should be more plesent.

English Class Essay 2

This is the second essay for my English class. I recieved an "A+" for this one.

Explanatory Synthesis
By Zen Cruiser
English 101C, sect. 5B
March 21, 2006
Dr. M. L.

Pay Per Download Sites are Storming the Industry, No Rain in the Forecast

The file-sharing phenomenon has cost the recording industry billions of dollars in lost sales and reached new heights of copyright infringement. A small program called Napster has allowed computer users to download music from other computer users via the internet for free (Edwards 160). This new technology was the start of a revolution over the internet. Music industry corporations and artists claimed copyright infringements and the legal battle began. Napster lost its legal battle and was bought out and turned into a fee-based system (Edwards 161). Since the wide spread epidemic of file sharing exploded over the internet, the entertainment industry has been scrambling to provide fee based alternatives to file sharing that will attract users away from the free, but illegal, peer-to-peer systems.

In hopes of pulling people away from illegal file sharing, the recording industry has responded to the demands for selection and flexibility in music downloading with label backed services, but can’t seem to decide on the best method of providing the music people want (Jones and Benzuly 167). It seems that people really liked the idea that they could download songs on an individual basis. Record labels are built around the idea of the album, and some feel that selling music at the song level could lead to the end of the album concept. (Bockhorn 163). Selection was also an issue. Huge selections of music from all types of genre were available through the peer-to-peer networks used for illegal downloading. Price and delivery method were also issues. Some executive felt that online sales would hurt CD sales and made a decision to sell at or close to the price of a CD (Green 166). The fear of piracy has pushed some sites to monthly subscriptions with unlimited streaming, a method of viewing on demand but not actually downloading. The selection is, however, limited by the company that each site keeps. If your favorite artist isn’t on one of the labels that a site features, you won’t be able to buy their songs from that site. With all these problems, this new market has its work cut out if it intends to win the public away form peer-to-peer networking.

Several fee-based web sites are now offering many new features and payment plans to entice music lovers to pay for their music instead of downloading it illegally. Many new payment and downloading options are being offered to attract a broad base of new customers away from peer-to-peer file sharing. Sites now boast over 250,000 songs from the five largest record labels and many of the independent labels (Jones and Benzuly 169). With guaranteed quality and user-friendly interfaces to find the music you want, these sites are becoming much easier to use then file-sharing systems. Partnerships are being formed between companies that supply the music and companies like Real Networks who supply player technology to make listening even easier.

Pay sites still haven’t gotten it completely right. Several issues still make these sites difficult and limited. The music still costs money. In some cases you can pay as much for the music you download as you would for a CD from the store even though the cost of overhead for online music is almost zero (Green 166). Although many sites boast large collections of music, not all music is available at every site. You may need to have more then one membership to get all your favorite artists. Also, the peer-to-peer networks have a lot of music that the pay sites don’t have, such as alternative music and older and more obscure tracks. You may need to research several sites to make sure you can get the music in the format you want it in. Some sites offer downloadable MP3 formats that can be played on devices other then your computer while other sites offer unlimited streaming of songs to your computer only. You have to decide how you want to listen to your music and pick the site that is best for you.

With the introduction of Apple Computer’s iTunes and the iPod, a new player has jumped onto the scene and is taking a strong hold of the market. Apple secured the backing of the largest labels with the concept of a non-interoperable player and format. The iPod is Apple’s tool for listening to your music. It can be compared to the Walkman except that you can’t take the cassette out and stick it into another player. The iPod is the only player that will play music downloaded from iTunes. Despite the cost of the iPod device, iTunes and the iPod are selling fast. Apple is, however, beginning to run into some obstacles in Europe. A French law is in the process of being passed that would force Apple to share information about the file formats that keep iTunes from being copied. Apple has stated that if the law is passed it would result in "state-sponsored piracy". In a response issued after the law was initially approved, Apple said: "If this happens, legal music sales will plummet just when legitimate alternatives to piracy are winning over customers" (BBC.com)

The future of this broad market is still uncertain, but it is clear that a lot of work needs to be done to provide everyone the music they love in a simple inexpensive package. The market is still young and the direction it will ultimately take is uncertain. For now it seems that the marketing plans are beginning to work, to get people to make a mental shift into the pay per download idea and to pay for their music in general. The legal campaigns may never completely stop peer-to-peer file sharing, but the industry is attacking the problem from both angles and I’m sure they will put a severe dent in the issue. For now, though, we must muddle through as the industry continues to take shape and grow.

Works Cited

Bockhorn, Lee. “MP3 and Me: How I stopped Worrying and Learned to

Love Online Music File-Sharing (sort of)” He Weekly Standard.

October 16, 2002.

BBC.com. “Apple attacks plan to open iTunes” BBC News Online.

March 22, 2006.

< http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4833010.stm>.

Edwards, Catherine. “The Napster Challenge” Insight on the News.

January 2001.

Green, Heather. “Digital Media: Don’t Clamp Down Too Hard”

Business Week. October 14, 2002.

Jones, Sarah, and Sarah Benzuly. “Paying to Play” Mix. May 1, 2003.

English Class Essay

The following article was writen for my English class. I recieved an "A" on this paper.

Critique of Brent Staples’ Essay
By Zen Cruiser
English 101C, sect. 5B
February 18, 2006
Dr. M. L.

Crying the Blues for Pop Music

Brent Staples is an editorial writer for the New York Times and holds a PhD in psychology from The University of Chicago. He was also the winner of Anisfield Wolff Book Award in 1995. In his editorial “Driving Down the Highway, Mourning the Death of American Radio” published in the New York Times June 8, 2003, he attempts to persuade the readers of the New York Times that American radio is too commercialized to be worth listening to for any length of time. He goes so far as to insinuate that commercial radio restricts our freedom of speech and is, in general, a detriment to our culture.

In his essay, Staples states that despite the crime rate in his neighborhood he sees the purchase of a CD player as a symbol of “despair that commercial radio . . . has become so bad as to be unlistenable” (85). Radio stations have become a big money business. Once congress increased the number of stations a single company could own, the value of stations increased dramatically. Now only a few companies own almost half the airways in the country. The large corporate owners have large corporate debt and place their focus more on making money then on quality programming. They are cutting corners by cutting staff and increasing advertising to as much as thirty minutes per hour. The shortcomings of corporate ownership are apparent in the lack of attention to local news and issues. Concentrated ownership’s ability for wholesale censorship across large audiences is an even more important issue. This type of ownership, he feels, is killing “the heart of popular culture itself” (86). Independent radio of the past was important to the local community as well as the country by allowing new musicians to showcase a variety of musical styles, which brought about the popularity of many famous musicians. Staples concludes that record companies are trying to duplicate the popular music that currently gets airplay and, in doing so, are creating an unimaginative music scene.

Brent Staples’ essay starts off in a very odd manner with references to crime in Brooklyn. A subject that seems very far from the topic of his essay and yet he uses it much like the “hook” in a song to grab your attention and lead you toward the bold statement that radio has become “unlistenable” (85). His references to the cost of a radio station are vague at best, and he makes no reference to specific sales data. He claims that radio stations 25 years ago were “as important . . . as city hall” (86). He also claims that DJ’s were let go in an almost wholesale fashion and the ones that remain do not define their area as DJ’s in the past did. In my local area Jeff Walker, Rocky and Sue, Chris Michaels, Bear Man and Keith, and Ken Mathews are just a few of the DJ’s that have been on the air for many years and help to define the stations for whom they work. Many of his references to factual data are just as vague and difficult to confirm or deny. Because of this, it is difficult to say if Staples used his information fairly. Since none of his information was contrary to the point of the essay, it seems that Staples has been biased in his selection of information. Although some issues may actually lie somewhere under the references to his childhood and lament for radio of old, he never really addresses any of them beyond grand accusations.

The essay is filled with emotionally loaded wording and unsupported facts. Why would Staples feel that today’s radio is unlistenable? At first it seems that he is just not happy with today’s music. “Spin it yourself,” he says of pop, rock and country’s “mind-numbing list of songs” (86). Also, he argues that commercial stations are bland and repetitive because they are so expensive. I don’t see the connection between expensive and bland. It would seem to me that the larger the expense of a station, the more important it would be to have exciting programming to attract listeners. Stations of old may have kept advertising down to 8 to 12 minutes in an hour and now you might hear up to 30 minutes of commercials at peek times, but it would seem that radio is just keeping up with TV and newspapers that see similar amounts of advertising if not more. Squeezing “every cent out of every link in the chain” (86) is a corporate fact of our economy. If today’s companies don’t make money, they get bought out or go under. Congress may have risen the cap on how many stations could be owned by one company, but that is doubtful that was the sole cause of today’s radio formats that Staples seems to detest so much. Censorship issues are the only plausible argument against corporatized radio that Staples makes, but he over emotionalizes the argument by saying that the issues go beyond censorship “to the heart of popular culture itself” (86) making it seem as though corporatized radio is killing our very way of life. Elvis and R.E.M. may have become popular by barnstorming the country, but the radio I here today is filled with new artists. I hear as many “one-hit-wonders” now as I did in the past. If Brent Staples feels that pop music is flat and unimaginative, might I suggest to him an oldies station?

While I agree that having “one voice” across the nation in radio would be a bad situation, I don’t believe that we are near that point, as Staples would have us believe. The format of radio has undoubtedly changed over the years, as has the music itself. Radio stations have picked a theme and that is what they play. Chris Michaels, a DJ at WSBG in Stroudsburg, told me a 500-song play list is the industry standard and DJ’s today don’t pick the music for their show. Program directors are the ones who decide what gets played when. It would seem that Staples wants the old free radio style he grew up with rather then categorized radio where each station plays it’s own genre. Undoubtedly, corporatized radio has issues that need to be discussed and addressed, but I think Brent Staples spent more time crying the blues over the loss of his old music than addressing the issues of today’s corporate radio.