eric.openflows

today's rant:
I read in the Telegraph that a British woman is about to head to a Swedish hospital to have a womb transplant. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/8571487/Worlds-first-womb-transplant-p...

I feel a bit troubled by it, and I'm not sure why. I guess I think this is a really crappy waste of medical resources. Can't have children? Adopt!

I know a lot of people are getting creeped out by the fact that the donor is the woman's mother -- as the article states in a rather sensationalized way, she will carry a child in the same womb that she was carried in. That's a bit strange but not what is most disturbing to me.

To me this seems like yet another commodification of reproduction. I'm all for transplants of vital organs -- you know, the ones you can't live without. This just does not seem to compare.

Am I just being anti-breeder because Jenna and I are childless by our own choice? Is this creepy to anyone else because of the gender politics of reproduction?

--
today's photo, art locked to a fence:

I think that cycling is at a major crossroads. The battle to make cycling more mainstream has been won. The struggle to build safe bike paths and lanes is moving forward. With these victories comes a critical challenge -- redefining a culture of respect by and among cyclists.

If we don't make it culturally unacceptable (or simply a violation of basic etiquette that will get someone to mouth off) to ride the wrong way on bike lanes and fail to yield the right of way to pedestrians just as we demand the right of way from cars we are inviting legislative remedies to the problem. There's no good that can come from that.

Riding around recently, I started to feel the largest threat to me as a cyclist is no longer the cars, it now feels like that prize is taken by my fellow cyclists.

I'm not sure how to win this battle, but if we don't the loss will be felt for a long time to come.