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Old August 19th 16, 06:22 AM posted to rec.bicycles.soc
EdwardDolan
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Posts: 538
Default The high cost of mountain biking!

"John B." wrote in message
...

On Thu, 18 Aug 2016 12:46:46 -0500, "EdwardDolan"
wrote:
[...]

For all the time you spent in New Guinea, you seemed not to have made any
connection with the locals. A little anthropology would have corrected that
deficiency in you. No doubt, you played the role of the ugly American (or
was it "ugly Australian") there just as you are playing that role here.
There is probably nothing wrong with you that a little civilization
(culture) would not cure. I have spent most of my life listening to the
music of Beethoven. That would be a good place for you to begin.


Well, the usual "project" would have from 1,000 to 3,000 locals

working on it and strange as it may seem, we took a very great
interest in the "troops". We supplied a Doctor and medical staff to
treat them. We provided food and good water and ensured that it was
properly distributed. We supplied safety gear, and we even provided
entertainment. We showed two movies a week and they came in hordes.
Some non employees walked for several days to "go to the movies".

Just a work place environment where you and yours ruled.

But how would one not interact. there is you, maybe one other

foreigner, 4 Javanese, and 3,000 locals?

You needed to go to their villages and see how they lived away from you. And
maybe wander about the island a bit on foot so as to get the flavor of the
place. But, unlike David Diamond ("Guns, Germs and Steel"), you had neither
the wit nor the wisdom to see the world as they saw it. You might as well
have stayed in the States (or is it Australia) for all the good it ever did
you.

Oh, by the way, your knowledge of English literature, as it is in

other fields, somewhat lacking. You see, in the book, the "Ugly
American" was the good guy.

No one reads a trash book like that except the uninformed who think it is
"literature". The reference was to the movie. Marlon Brando always struck me
as an ugly guy. I am sure you were too.

What are your credentials for commenting on wilderness and wilderness
values? Because you poked your head into the jungle of New Guinea, however
briefly? Give me a break! What you lack above all else is a spiritual
grounding in the eternal verities of life on this earth for mankind. That is
something that both Mr. Vandeman and I are expert at due to our pastimes of
taking a walk in the woods. The delight and wonderment of that will forever
escape you because you are a barbarian. Only folks of high culture and
civilized knowledge know anything about the values of wilderness. Your New
Guinea savages know nothing but how to survive in it. That is apparently the
extent of your knowledge too.

Anyone who runs away from a settled area to live in a wilderness is an
idiot. The TV channels are full of programs that are about fools like that.
Such folks are crazy and are to be pitied more than condemned. But **** 'em
anyway! My patience for suffering fools was long ago exhausted.

So, here we have the brilliant and resourceful Dooley who worships a

doctor who has no doctorate and knows nothing about American
Literature and who's sole knowledge seems to be that a bicycle has
wheels.

So says an engineer and an overseer who is little better than a savage
himself.

Quite obviously an ignoramus who has seized on one tiny bit of

information and now exhibits his "knowledge" for all to see.

I know that single track trails in wilderness are for walking, not for the
sport of mountain biking. That is one hell of a lot more than you know.

Mountain bikes have wheels. Wheels are for roads.

Trails are for walking. What’s the matter? Can’t walk?

Ed Dolan the Great – Minnesota


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