I admit I have always been put off by the the label's name. My immediate association when I first heard it was like, "What's up with that? Some twisted BDSM fantasy involving babies?" Reading about the back story here at least is somewhat enlightening. The problem with anything in communication and marketing is that it doesn't matter what the back story is - if it takes a backstory to understand how a brand name came about, but it's not a well-known or obvious story, people are forced to make their own associations, and they may not be favorable. But hey, that's just me, perhaps. As a music and vinyl aficionado, I look forward to checking out their space, and I wish them the best of success. Any effort that adds to Tucson's music scene is laudable.
I really struggle with this. Am I the only one who struggles with the problems of being "woman of color in a white patriarchy" while at the same time indulging what arguably presents itself as a misogynist culture with a capital "M"?
To quote some 21 Savage lyrics: "Spray your block down, we not really with that ru-rah shit/Glock cocked now, I dont really give no fuck bout who I hit/Yeah, your bitch, she get jiggy with me/Keep that Siggy with me/Bitch, Im Mad Max, you know I got Ziggy with me"
Maybe, just maybe, the "ugly gentrification" we see in Tucson and elsewhere might, at least in part, have something to do with the fact that people here are getting tired of being exposed to the very themes that hip-hop seems to eternally perpetuate, like all this gang crap, glorification of misogyny, violence and crime ?
Hailing from Germany, I have to admit that "bike-friendly" is extremely relative. By German standards, Tucson would qualify as the worst possible, bicyclist-maiming-and-killing monstrosity imaginable. The fact that by American standards, it is supposedly bike-friendly is kind of scary to me as it implies other US cities are even worse. At the same time, I see a great community of cycling enthusiasts here who have done an awful lot to make this city better for cyclists. Improvements are happening all over town. But to me the biggest hurdle is not the infrastructure, but the attitude and lack of responsibility on the part of the drivers.
I have been riding bikes for my entire life. Never owned a car while living in Germany. In 25 years of bike-riding over there, I can't remember ever hearing about a serious or fatal bike accident in my vicinity or my circle of acquaintances. Not once. Within weeks of moving to Tucson, I began hearing about seriously or fatally injured cyclists, now almost on a daily basis.
What baffles me most is the common practice of hit-and-run here. This simply doesn't happen in Germany. At least nowhere near to the extent it does here. I have no explanation for why it is so rampant here. Are Americans inherently less responsible than Germans? I find that hard to believe, but it seems that way. Plus, here we face the additional circumstances of uninsured drivers and illegal immigrants behind the wheel, who have a vested interest of fleeing the scene if they get into or cause an accident. And wherever I look, I see drivers texting, endangering others' lives in the name of "personal freedom."
I have ridden my bike all my life, it is an integral part of my life, but living here has me seriously question whether I have to give it up. After all, I don't smoke or sky-dive either, even though I'm convinced that either of those activities carry a much smaller risk than cycling in Tucson.
Great article, but very confusing: The subhead suggests that those nine bullet points ARE the myths. It took me a while to figure out that the nine bullet points are in fact the responses DEBUNKING the myths.
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To quote some 21 Savage lyrics: "Spray your block down, we not really with that ru-rah shit/Glock cocked now, I dont really give no fuck bout who I hit/Yeah, your bitch, she get jiggy with me/Keep that Siggy with me/Bitch, Im Mad Max, you know I got Ziggy with me"
Maybe, just maybe, the "ugly gentrification" we see in Tucson and elsewhere might, at least in part, have something to do with the fact that people here are getting tired of being exposed to the very themes that hip-hop seems to eternally perpetuate, like all this gang crap, glorification of misogyny, violence and crime ?
I have been riding bikes for my entire life. Never owned a car while living in Germany. In 25 years of bike-riding over there, I can't remember ever hearing about a serious or fatal bike accident in my vicinity or my circle of acquaintances. Not once. Within weeks of moving to Tucson, I began hearing about seriously or fatally injured cyclists, now almost on a daily basis.
What baffles me most is the common practice of hit-and-run here. This simply doesn't happen in Germany. At least nowhere near to the extent it does here. I have no explanation for why it is so rampant here. Are Americans inherently less responsible than Germans? I find that hard to believe, but it seems that way. Plus, here we face the additional circumstances of uninsured drivers and illegal immigrants behind the wheel, who have a vested interest of fleeing the scene if they get into or cause an accident. And wherever I look, I see drivers texting, endangering others' lives in the name of "personal freedom."
I have ridden my bike all my life, it is an integral part of my life, but living here has me seriously question whether I have to give it up. After all, I don't smoke or sky-dive either, even though I'm convinced that either of those activities carry a much smaller risk than cycling in Tucson.