[*BCM*] MIT ride

[Hiroyuki G Yamada]

I would have to agree to Paul's sentiment -- Yea, it's a "Private 
institution," but it's also MIT. We're not exactly sipping tea with our 
pinky out, and our students are known for the whackiest hijinx known to... 
well, at least the east coast, if not most of the country. People 
routinely ride their unicycle/scooter/what have you down the corridors, 
and for the most part they are courteous about it and often get a laugh or 
smile, over an angry response. Furthermore, the argument that "Bike ride 
behaves badly knowing a journalist is in its midst" is going to lead to 
worsened images of CM is a little off-point, imho. The fact that there's 
some tool newspaper writer shouldn't limit or control our behavior in 
anyway -- for the worse or better. We shouldn't act more brashly or rude, 
but on the flipside, we also shouldn't try to pretty up the ride. We've 
all been there, when anger and mob mentality takes the better part of the 
ride, and it would be vain and silly to try and hide that aspect of the 
ride frm the media.

In THIS particular case, with the infinite virtually empty (again, no 
students) and the ride VERY small, I can't imagine there being any 
problem. On any other day, with MIT's full student body using the infinite 
and several hundred riders, that'd be an entirely different issue.

And for reference, MIT's hallways are open to the  public, and most of 
them, or at 
least the stretch of the infinite, are open 24/7. We don't lock the doors 
or gates or anything fancy like that.

As for bicycle advocacy, I stand with anyone who recognizes CM for what it 
is -- an enjoyable and safe ride through an urban environment. If you want 
to start tossing out mission statements and philosophies, you will 
probably lose a lot of the ride's enthusiasm. There have historically been 
no leaders and that alone rules out the typical definition of an  advocacy 
group.

Yes, we're riding bikes and "educating" the city, but by a similar token, 
I educate the city and its drivers every time I clip in, just on a smaller 
scale. Am I a bike advocate? Absolutely, I read the riot act to anyone who 
complains about gas prices. Do I claim to be running a 1-man advocacy 
group whenever I'm on wheels? No.

Oh, and the argument that "you're being a leader, so how come you won't 
lead" is fallacious. Just pointing out the lack of organization isn't 
instituting it for oneself.

--Yuki


On Tue, 8 Jan 2008, Paul Centro wrote:

> MIT has been so totally cool over the years and I would hate to see this change.  Try that at Harvard and you'd probably get shot.
>
>  In the 70's I used to walk in off the street and use the punch card room w/ their material for my own purposes.  In the 80's we used random rooms off of the infinite corridor to rehearse plays.  This last perk had to be curtailed somewhat recently as the priviledge started to be abused.
>
> Antony Rudie <antony.rudie at gmail.com> wrote:
>  I had grave misgivings as we climbed up the steps, but as the last person said, it really didn't seem to bother anyone.  And yeah, the person who didn't even look up from the laptop was funny.  I second the "let's not do it again" sentiment, (the sound-bite is unfortunate:  CM rides through MIT building) but I really don't think we alienated anyone while we were there.   -ARR _______________________________________________
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