Simple as black and white, continued

For more than a week now, the airwaves, the Internet, and the print media have all been filled with facts, speculation, and opinion about the Trayvon Martin killing. Well-meaning people have been spending hours and using reams of paper and millions of bytes to debate the causes and effects of this shooting.

In America, we're taught to take pride in our justice system being blind. Carved into the facade of the Supreme Court building are the words, "Equal Justice Under Law." In America, no person is supposed to get special treatment, positive or negative, in the justice system.

For me, the core issue of this case comes down to one question: Can anyone claim, with a straight face, that the outcome to date of this episode would be the same if the races of the two people involved were reversed?

Imagine a black man, a self-appointed vigilante in a neighborhood not his own, carrying a handgun. With a pattern of calling 911 almost every day for the first two months of the year, this wanna-be law enforcer follows a young, white boy who is innocently walking from a local store back to his father's girlfriend's house. During yet another call to police, the 911 dispatcher specifically tells him not to follow the young male. The black man continues, regardless, and soon shoots the young, white boy, killing him in the street.

Imagine the local police duly arriving, surveying the situation, and not even questioning the black shooter. In fact, they let him go, still carrying the gun he used to kill a young, white boy. Also imagine local authorities taking away the body, doing virtually nothing to find his family and placing him in the morgue as a "John Doe." Not until days later do the boy's family find out where he is and what has happened to him. It takes weeks for any of this to become an issue.

Can you really imagine any of this happening if the shooter was black and the victim was white? I certainly can't. But this is all exactly what happened in the murder of African-American Trayvon Martin by Caucasian George Zimmerman.

It says a lot about our country that this case has once again highlighted the horror that is racial prejudice and violence; it will say a lot more about our country in 2012 how this case is handled going forward.

Energy independence and other fairy tales

For years, politicians and energy industry spokespeople have been touting the idea of energy independence for America. If only we'd drill here, there, and everywhere, we could lower gas prices and rid ourselves of all those nasty alliances. To put it bluntly, this is almost completely a load of bull.

While developing more of our own energy resources -- which, by the way, the Obama administration is doing -- will lessen the need to align ourselves with countries with which we would otherwise have no natural connection, it will do little to lower fuel prices.

Oil, the resource most often spoken about in this manner, is a commodity traded worldwide on open markets. Virtually all oil is bought and sold this way, and the prices paid affect what you and I pay when we stop at the local Exxon, Shell, or Wawa station. Whether those prices are due to actual supply and demand, or to wild speculation on future market trends, matters little. The price is the price.

Those who claim oil companies will harvest oil in North Dakota, refine it, and sell it to American gas stations at some discounted price out of patriotic zeal are either fools or liars. Corporations will do what makes the most sense for their profit margin and their investors. This is neither good nor bad, necessarily, but it is the fact. To do otherwise would be a violation of the trust of those investors, who would show little hesitation installing corporate leadership more attuned to their financial interests.

The main benefit to increasing our own energy independence is lessening our national reliance on states such as Saudi Arabia, which share little with us culturally or politically. Indeed, the way the Saudis treat women repels all Americans who value that half of our population, and the Saudi's religious intolerance disgusts anyone with a conscience. The only reason we are so close to Saudi Arabia, and the only reason we care so much about the Middle East, is directly linked to our reliance on oil.

For our country to stand on its own metaphorical two feet, we must develop alternatives to oil power, not increase our dependence on it. With no help from Republicans, President Obama is at least trying to broaden our energy options. It will not be an easy or rapid transition, and oil will be with us for decades, especially in the transportation field. But we must invest in other energy-generation ideas, even suffering the occasional failure. If we persist, and if we're smart about it, we will find the answers. Despite all our troubles, America is still capable of great things, especially if we are being led by greatness. The current Republican field of presidential candidates contains none of that.

And the next time someone promises you $2.50 a gallon gas, know that's it's a lie.

New skins

There is nothing so transformational for a motorcycle as a new set of tires.

Car drivers don't quite get this. When you put a new set of tires on your car, the effect is usually pretty minimal unless you're putting on snow tires for the winter. On a motorcycle, however, replacing a worn set of skins with some new ones is like getting a brand new bike.

I was reminded of this on Saturday, when one of our technicians put a new set of Metzeler Tourance tires on my BMW GS. The ride home was wonderful. Despite knowing what to expect, the difference is always amazing.

Since you lean a motorcycle to turn it, the shape of the tire's cross-section has a strong impact on the handling.

Consequently, motorcycle tires are designed with rounded edges to allow the bike to transition smoothly from one side to another. As tires wear, they tend to square off the tread and make the edges more angular. As you wear out your tires, the process can be so gradual as to make it hard to recognize the change, but mounting new tread brings it all back to you.

That's why my ride home was so great. I purposely chose twisty back roads so I could enjoy the quickened steering and agile response of my machine. As I kept a brisk pace down the country roads, I was smiling in my helmet, feeling the bike roll right and left under me. This is what motorcycling is all about!

I thought of a conversation I had earlier that day. A man and his fianceé were in my motorcycle shop, and he was looking at the bikes. While he browsed through riding gear, I had a conversation with her. A non-rider, and not very enthusiastic about the idea of her boyfriend riding, she told me about a relative of hers who suffered severe injuries in a motorcycle accident.

This is a common occurrence, by the way. Non-riders seem compelled to tell us about every motorcycle accident they're ever heard of, almost always resulting in graphic injuries or even death, as if we do not know these stories already. Any reasonably intelligent rider recognizes the risk involved, takes actions to mitigate it, and accepts the outcome.

Anyway, the girlfriend told me her relative took the settlement money from his accident (it was a car driver's fault, another common occurrence) to buy a new bike. She was astonished. I told her that any motorcycle rider would understand his actions. She was even more astonished.

I tried to explain the feeling of riding, how it's as close to flying on the ground as you can get, how it feels like ballet as you glide along, angling this way and that, at one with the machine under you. To her credit, she tried to understand, but it's really something you have to feel for yourself.

And trust me, it's a lot easier and more fun to feel it when you've got some new skins on your bike.