Walk+Roll Over

I and other select, powerful people received an email today announcing this:

Walk+Roll, a Cleveland organization that emphatically puts the "non" in nonprofit, is "looking for inspired, energetic, productive people to serve" on its board and further its mission of pushing biking and pedestrianing.

Now, I'm pretty ambivalent, even doubtful, about the wisdom of some of Walk+Roll's goals -- e.g. lobbying for "Bike-Friendly Cities" crap like bike lanes and bike paths, to which we cyclists are supposed to be condemned forever to share with fat dog walkers, baby strollers, broken glass and detrius.

Also, I have well documented my disdain for being lumped under some "cycling-community" umbrella with all sorts of other bike-riding miscreants who seem dedicated to making us all into targets for Gatorade bottles, doors and legislative backlash. (You know, the two-wheeled jerks who can't follow simple rules of civility --- who ride the wrong way and blow red lights in heavy traffic; who fly up between the curb and a long line of traffic at red lights so that all the cars that passed them already now have to slow down and pass them again; who won't use headlights; and who yell "F--- you!" at anyone who comes within six feet.)

I'm even more loathe to be lumped in with other "pedestrians," a class of people that includes mall walkers; winos who walk around talking to the air and masturbating; overly pink Susan G. Komenoids; Barry Bonds and this guy (whom I actually thought was funny back around 1976, when I was probably high -- secondhand).

Even so, I have a little bit of admiration for good intentions, and a lot of admiration and envy for folks whose outlook on life is cheerful and optimistic instead of poisonous and caustic. Walk+Roll and Lois Moss are good people in that way -- pleasantly deluded, perhaps, but good-intentioned and perhaps happy.

If you like working with people like that, while trying to keep them grounded in some semblance of reality, maybe you ought to apply. Find out how by emailing to getactive@walkroll.com. Judging by the tone of the email I got, Walk+Roll folks are pretty down in the dumps and worried that any chance of reprising just about all of their 2007 programs is doomed by lack of funding and political support. (Maybe Frank Russo or Jimmy Dimora will get on board?) They obviously will need a lot of help with fundraising and prioritizing.

Then again, forget I brought it up. If you read this blog, they ought not want you.

- JN