I would wholeheartedly support a government funded program to distribute free video cameras to everyone living in the midwest.

Chapel Hill and Carrboro love to brag about their bicycle infrastructure and their respective bronze and silver “bicycle friendly” awards.  And, to some extent, they’ve got good reason.  Though the bicycle infrastructure is disjointed, the two towns have pretty high rates of bicycle use (at least by North Carolina standards), but we’ve still got a long way to go before we’re Copenhagen, Amsterdam, or even Davis, California.

Cohesive infrastructure is a necessary component of increasing bicycle use, but it is far from sufficient.  As this study of bicycle use in Davis, CA illustrates, whether or not people choose bicycles as a means of transportation depends as much on attitude as infrastructure: http://uctc.net/access/39/access39_davis.shtml 

…just getting up is difficult.

The first few weeks of each new year are usually spent discovering all of the great albums that came out during the previous year that I almost missed entirely.

The first great album of 2012 (that actually came out in early 2011) is Son Lux’s sophomore album, We Are Rising.

Son Lux’s debut album, At War With Walls and Mazes is a chamberpop record along the lines of Sufjan Stevens or Owen Pallett (aka Final Fantasy).  We Are Rising further develops this sound with added layers of psychedelia and, of all strange things, dubstep.

Pop enough to be listenable, artsy enough to be challenging.

Listen and buy here.

This bike part chandelier was made by Carolina Fontoura Alzaga.

Check out more photos and an article about her art here:

http://www.bitrebels.com/design/bicycle-chain-chandelier-no-more-running-for-the-light/

Vermin Supreme is the WXYC of the political realm, and while he may not be the most well-qualified presidential candidate, he’s certainly the most straightforward.

Furthermore, he’s promising a pony to every American, and I want a pony!

If radio stations were people, commercial pop stations would be salespeople of the most overbearing variety while college radio stations would be the babbling sketchball on the corner that’s either brilliant, insane, or both.

It’s hardly a mind-blowing revelation that cities with college radio stations consistently have the most interesting sounds on the airwaves, but the Triangle is exceptionally well-endowed.  As all good college stations do, WKNC and WXDU regularly play good music that is grossly underrepresented, but Chapel Hill’s WXYC plays an absolutely stunning array of aural mayhem, much of which wouldn’t even be considered “music” by casual listeners.

On days when I scroll through the thousands of albums stored on my computer’s hard drive and find nothing that inspires, I take comfort in the fact that I can tune in to WXYC and hear something that I’ve probably never heard before.  For that alone, WXYC has my undying loyalty.