[sustran] FW: CAR BUSTERS BULLETIN #29
Paul Barter
geobpa at nus.edu.sg
Tue Nov 13 17:58:50 JST 2001
Forwarding because this bounced due to 'bulk' headers.
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-englishbulletin-l at ecn.cz
[mailto:owner-englishbulletin-l at ecn.cz]On Behalf Of Car Busters
Sent: Tuesday, 13 November 2001 1:52
To: englishbulletin-l at ecn.cz
Subject: CAR BUSTERS BULLETIN #29
For sending messages to Car Busters use
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-- -- -- -- CAR BUSTERS BULLETIN -- -- -- -- --
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Edition no. 29 - November 2001 - English version
......................................................................
CAR BUSTERS Magazine and Resource Centre
Kratkaá 26, 100 00 Praha 10, Czech Republic
tel: +(420) 2-7481-0849 ; fax: +(420) 2-7481-6727
<carbusters at ecn.cz> - <www.carbusters.ecn.cz>
- ANNOUNCEMENTS
- UPDATE: MEDIEVAL URBANISM IN FES, MOROCCO
- öROADKILL BILLö BOOK RELEASED
- WORLD CAR-FREE DAYS 2002
- ECOTOPIA BIKE TOUR 2002 SEEKS ORGANISERS
- CLOSING THOUGHTS FROM THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
- You are hereby receiving advance notice of the 2002 United Nations
Car-Free Days programme. It will begin with an observation and
workshop at the city of Bogota?s third car-free day in February, to which
a group of 10 to 12 mayors from the Latin American/Caribbean region will
be invited to attend as official guests of the U.N.
- There?s some early information coming out about a consortium of U.S.
groups and agencies planning a programme titled öAmerican Towns: By
Foot, Bicycle and Transit.ö
- The latest issue of the on-line CarFree Times came out on October 11:
http://carfree.com/cft/i022.html.
- Car Busters? web site is finally equipped with an on-line credit card
ordering system. You can now use it to order anything from books and
stickers to memberships and subscriptions. Buy! Buy! Consume!
Consume!
UPDATE: MEDIEVAL URBANISM IN FES, MOROCCO
January 1-7, 2002 ? A week-long study tour on medieval urban design
As reported in last month?s bulletin, we?re off to Fes el-Bali, Morocco ?
the world?s largest urban car-free area, at least in terms of population.
Fes is also, along with Cairo and Damascus, one of the top three largest
medieval cities in the world, with a population of over 200,000 people.
The city, founded in 789 AD, continues to function to this day with
many of its medieval traditions intact. We will be continuing ongoing
documentation on how Fes? medieval, hypomobile urban design
contributes to its viability as a car-free city, with neither public
transportation nor cycling. (All trips are by foot, with transport of goods
via donkey, and all destinations are within walking distance.) We will be
photographing, researching, interviewing, touring and of course having
plenty of fun. Following the visit, we plan to produce a slideshow and
article promoting a revival of medieval urbanism elsewhere in the world.
Anyone wishing to join in on the tour ? and you are all welcome ?
should contact Randy Ghent at rghent at gmx.net as soon as possible. He
will be leaving for Morocco in mid-December. We?re especially looking
for a videographer, and a few more French speakers would be nice?
öROADKILL BILLö BOOK RELEASED
Car Busters has just released its second book, öRoadkill Billö by Ken
Avidor. Roadkill Bill is öa comic strip on cars, technology and
philosophy from the viewpoint of a frequently squashed rodent.ö Avidor
gives voice to the suffering soul of humanity that feels bulldozed and
paved over by industrial technology run amok. You may have already
seen some of the strips in Car Busters magazine (that is, if you've been
paying attention), on the Roadkill Bill web site, or if you're from
Minneapolis, every week in Pulse of the Twin Cities. But the book will
collect these strips together for the first time (complete with a groovy
full-
color cover, which you can view at http://www.carbusters.ecn.cz. The list
price is US$10, CN$15, 6.50 GBP, AU$18, 20 DM, and 23 NLG. That price
will include shipping, when ordered from Car Busters
(http://www.carbusters.ecn.cz) or http://www.roadkillbill.com.
Groups/organizations can get bulk orders for US$6 each. In Eastern
Europe or the so-called "Third World," it's US$4 for groups or
individuals.
WORLD CAR-FREE DAYS 2002
September 13-27, 2002 ? Two weeks of car-free fun and feverish
excitement
In 2000 Car Busters initiated the world?s first global car-free day, a
victorious day of actions on four continents reclaiming our streets and
our lives from the automobile. And next September, people around the
world will join together for World Car-Free Days 2002 ? two weeks of
actions and events calling for an end to the hundred-year reign of the
automobile. It all starts with the anniversary of North America?s first car
fatality (Henry Bliss, New York City, 1899). It includes September 22, the
European Car-Free Day, which has taken place annually since 2000. On a
more negative note, there?s September 23, the day of Hitler?s ground-
breaking of the first automobile-only road (autobahn) in 1933. And
finally, it all culminates with September 25, the ten-year anniversary of
the first Critical Mass bicycle ride (San Francisco, 1992), taking a stand
against automobile hegemony on our streets. It?s up to you to fill in the
days in between. Are you ready? You have just ten months to prepare!?
For a continuing stream of information, graphics, posters and other
resources to help you organise your event, see the Car Busters monthly
bulletin and web site throughout the coming months.
The dates:
*September 13* was when Henry H. Bliss, a 68-year-old Wall Street real
estate broker, was killed by a taxi cab on Sept. 13, 1899, after he and his
companion descended from a New York City street car. Bliss died the
following day. See http://www.rememberbliss.org. (The world?s first
automobile fatality was apparently three years earlier, on Aug. 17, 1896,
but we will overlook that inconvenient fact. That was when Bridget
Driscoll was killed at Crystal Palace, South London, during a car show,
on her way to a Catholic event, by a car going 4 miles per hour. There
was a speech at the time saying how terrible an accident it was and how
such a thing should never happen again!) Since these deaths, over 17
million people have been killed in a world war that nobody has bothered
to declare. That?s 250,000 people a year, one death every two minutes. In
America it?s 40,000 deaths ? equal to the number of Americans who died
in the Vietnam War ? every year. In Europe it?s 50,000 deaths a year, and
150,000 permanently disabled. Even in Northern Ireland, in the past 25
years of conflict more people have died on the roads than were killed by
the bomb or bullet.
*September 22* is the annual European car-free day, called öIn Town
Without My Carö (http://www.22september.org). In reality it is mostly a
public relations exercise for the European Union, and a means to
attracting attention away from its primary objective: to meld the diverse
countries and cultures of Europe into a homogenised, single, neoliberal
economy, in which Europe?s largest corporations sit comfortably in the
driver?s seat. Nonetheless, among a host of tokenistic initiatives, some
good things do happen on September 22, most of them thanks to the
hard work of a handful of progressive cities. The event?s already
happening, so we might as well hold hands with the Eurocrats and join in
? or steal the show with a big, bold splash on the same day. For those
activists in Europe, might this day be the perfect opportunity to call
attention to the E.U.?s nightmarish transport policies?
*September 23* marks Hitler?s ground-breaking of the world?s first
automobile-only road (the Frankfurt-Basel Hanseatic Highway) in 1933 ?
the day when the car, braked for so long, finally gained right of way.
Without right of way, the automobile was worth only half as much. The
old rural roads were narrow, twisting, dusty and few. Planned according
to small scales, laid out for slow speeds, twisting along creeks and over
hills, and emptying directly onto market squares, these streets were ideal
for bicyclists and horse carts but not fit for the space-mastering power of
the automobile. A totally new type of road was required to make space
penetrable, designed for high speeds and reserved solely for motor
traffic ? a type of road whose spread would ensure the automobile?s
success. It was Hitler?s way of melding the German people into unity,
encouraging a homogenous society in which the pulse of life beats to a
uniform rhythm, unopposed by local consciousness or cultural
particularity. Industrialism can only become effective when it coincides
with the creation of a homogenous society [as seen today in the
European Union?s gushing love for the word ömobilityö ? CB]. (text
paraphrased from Wolfgang Sachs? öFor Love of the Automobile,ö aside
from the final comment)
*September 25* marks the ten-year anniversary of the first Critical Mass
bicycle ride, organised by San Francisco urban cyclists in 1992. Forty-
eight people attended, but the rides quickly grew, expanding to 230 cities
around the world and sometimes attended by several thousand people,
generally on the last Friday of each month around 5 p.m. There are no
real organisers; people just show up each month and organically decide
where the ride will go. The cyclists make the point öWe?re not blocking
traffic; we are traffic,ö since on every other day of the month they don?t
get their fair share of public roads. The largest rides occur in London,
Sydney, Melbourne and San Francisco. (See http://www.critical-mass.org
or http://www.criticalmasshub.com.)
*September 27*: Critical Mass! This global urban bike ride is generally
on the last Friday of the month, 5:30 p.m., in a city near you.
Extra bonus day (optional, for those who want to end on a negative note):
*October 1* marks the coming of the auto age in 1908 with the release
of Henry Ford?s first Model T car. By 1913 they were rolling off the
assembly line every three minutes, a miracle of mass production leading
to mass motorisation. Ford introduced a new strategy for corporations to
accumulate wealth; öFordismö was based on the mass assembly-line
production of standardised consumer goods, made possible by the
replacement of skilled workers by semi-skilled assembly-line workers,
which in turn allowed management detailed control over the labour
process. This opened up a huge potential for öscientific managementö
and automation, which together opened the way for an enormous growth
in labour productivity?while turning work into an endless repetition of
tedious tasks. The raised productivity meant wages and profits could
both rise at the same time. With rising wages and the relatively secure
employment offered by Fordist production, Fordism was able to provide
the basis for mass consumption, which was a necessary condition for its
own reproduction. By 1920 there were 9 million cars on U.S. roads alone.
Soon most of the industralised world would be made captives of car
culture, as well as the individualistic, domestic consumer culture which
has bred many of today?s social and environmental problems.
ECOTOPIA BIKE TOUR 2002 SEEKS ORGANISERS
European Youth for Action has two six-month öEuropean Voluntary
Serviceö positions open for organising the 2002 Ecotopia Bike Tour. The
tour will bring together 20 to 50 European activists for a month of travel
to Ireland, where the annual Ecotopia gathering will be held. It?s an
experiment to discover how sustainability works even for a large
community in an unusual situation. It's about supporting grassroots
activism and making contacts with groups, individuals and organisations
all over Europe. It's about friends, other cultures and other people, other
languages...and more!
The job is to facilitate all of the above ? to find the groups, the people,
the money, the places, the inspiration that will drive the others. In
practice this means doing a wide range of jobs, from fundraising to
outreach, to web design, to t-shirt making, to participant attracting. You
must be under 26 years old, have a valid passport for an E.U. or E.U.
accession country, be available to work somewhere in or near to Ireland,
speak good English, and be free from February to October/November
2002. For more information and an application, contact
<kevin at eyfa.org>. Some general information on the network and past
bike tours can be found at http://www.eyfa.org.
CLOSING THOUGHTS FROM THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
öWhen the USS John Paul Jones fires a Tomahawk cruise missile, the
Navy destroyer shakes from the force and the noise rumbles through
every corner of the mammoth vessel. ?Have you ever driven a Ferrari at
200 miles per hour? That's about what it feels like,? said Jason, a
quartermaster responsible for the ship's navigation. ?There's a great deal
of noise, of smoke. It's very dramatic.?ö
[end]
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CAR BUSTERS Magazine and Resource Centre
Kratka 26, 100 00 Praha 10, Czech Republic
Tel: +(420) 2-7481-08-49 ; Fax: +(420) 2-7481-67-27
<carbusters at ecn.cz> <www.carbusters.ecn.cz>
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