This One is No Fun

So I found out yesterday that an old student of mine (Emily Fredricks, graduated in 2011) was riding her bike to work in Philly and got hit and killed by a garbage truck; there have been protests, uproar, and extended media coverage about the accident, because she was in a Center City bike lane when she was struck . . . and right after I heard the news, I got in my car and turned on a new episode of Reply All, which presented another podcast (Heavyweight) and a transcendent story about a dude named Jesse who was riding his bike and got hit by a car and spent 17 days in a coma-- so a weird and disturbing coincidence that made me meditate on the costs of a society built around the automobile (and tomorrow is the 12 year mark of my brother's death by a car crash, and he's just one of many that I know that died in this manner . . . for a morbid but compelling take on the evolution of our automotive culture, listen to "The Modern Moloch").