Hey,
This has been a year for outstanding challenges and they keep coming. Right up until we hit the new year. It’s fascinating.
I’ve mentioned before about business owners big and small and the risks they take daily. Any day they could make the wrong decision and destroy or jeopardize their business. I started to get nervous. In 2016 Bikernet turns 20, a milestone for any business.
I’m constantly faced with business decisions, and looking for anyway to improve Bikernet Services and the Cantina membership. I was encouraged to try something for Cantina members, but was concerned and fortunately watched it closely. I discovered a weak link and we pulled back, just in the nick of time.
Then I started to make a dream improvement to the Bikernet Headquarters and was recently contacted by the City of Los Angeles. A few years ago they changed the zoning for our area and now we don’t fit. Suddenly they don’t like the notion that we live in this building.
I wish I knew who was behind this complaint? Maybe the Port wants this corner. But hell, they could come and make me an offer. Let’s hit the news.
VINTAGE FEATURE BIKE TEASER– Tom Hart’s ’50 Indian Chief custom bobber–out now in American Iron magazine.
–Markus Cuff
Official Bikernet Vintage Feature Bike Photographer also for Magazines
American Iron
Cycle Source
HORSE
Easyriders
CENTER FOR PUBLIC INTEGRITY Commentary: The unseen toll of workplace disease in America
The deadliest scourge you probably haven’t heard of: an estimated 50,000 lives lost each year to on-the-job exposures
Guns take more than 30,000 lives in America each year.
But there’s a less-visible, even deadlier scourge that’s been mostly lost in an era of mass shootings and terrorism scares: work-related illness, which kills 50,000 annually, according to the best government estimate. Hundreds of thousands more are sickened by job-related exposures to toxic substances.
Occupational disease lacks the macabre drama of a San Bernardino or a Newtown. The bodies cannot be easily counted. The victims may hang on for years or decades before quietly succumbing. Often, their deaths are acknowledged only by their families, friends and former co-workers.
In a series called “Unequal Risk,” the Center for Public Integrity has tried to bring this little-understood, little-examined topic into the light. The most important takeaway: many work-related diseases are preventable.
Actually, it’s worse than that. In effect, these diseases are legally sanctioned by the United States government, which has made the conscious decision to treat workers more callously than the general public when it comes to protection against toxics.
The casualties of this policy have names: Chris Johnson, Mark Flores, Johnathan Welch, Gene Cooper. The first two struggle with debilitating conditions. The last two are dead – Welch at only 18.
What’s remarkable is that the agency charged with regulating toxics in the workplace, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, admits that for the most part it’s unable to do so. OSHA, Congress, industry and the White House all bear responsibility.
The nation’s worker-protection laws are so weak — and offer so little deterrent value — that the departments of Labor and Justice just announced plans to bolster the use of environmental statutes as a workaround. Violations of the Occupational Safety and Health Act at most are misdemeanors, but environmental crimes can bring felony convictions. Agency officials say employers with safety problems are often environmental offenders as well; they’ve urged federal prosecutors to investigate both types of crimes together.
The devaluing of the American worker doesn’t stop with the infliction of illness. It continues when he or she tries to win benefits through state or federal compensation programs, or seeks redress in the courts.
Often those who litigate are doing so for their families, not themselves. Such is the case with Kris Penny, a 39-year-old Floridian who is dying of an asbestos-related cancer called mesothelioma. Penny believes he was exposed to asbestos while installing fiber-optic cable a little more than a decade ago. No one warned him to take precautions, he says. “I’m not going to be the last guy this happens to, I can promise you,” he told us the day before he underwent radical surgery in Baltimore last August.
The outlook for worker health in this country is not encouraging. Certain uses of asbestos are still legal in the United States, though more than 50 countries have banned it. While a relatively modest 400 metric tons of asbestos were consumed in the U.S. last year, untold amounts are still embedded in buildings and infrastructure. Demolition, utility and other workers can knock it loose, sending invisible and potentially deadly fibers airborne.
“The stark realization that asbestos is legal, lethal, and everywhere is igniting feelings of anger, fear, and disgust,” says Linda Reinstein, CEO and co-founder of the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization. “Similar to gun violence, many people have become numb and complacent about asbestos.” Reinstein, whose husband died of mesothelioma, has pressed tirelessly for a ban and has become a fixture on Capitol Hill.
Some members of Congress have different plans. In early January, the House is expected to vote on a bill proponents say would discourage “false or exaggerated” claims against asbestos trusts set up by corporations that made or used the mineral. The legislation, which passed the House two years ago, would require claimants to disclose personal information such as work histories, diagnoses, partial Social Security numbers and the amounts of money being sought.
–By Jim Morris
Center for Public Integrity
INTERNATIONAL EDITOR AT LARGE IN SINGAPORE–
Very nice time. Friendly crowd. All biker favorites by a good band.
Well done event. Again. Sp. Spore. Singapore
Feature photo bike was Vrod custom
Lots of clubs in Asia in general. Not just Sp
Known these guys 10 years or more. One of my first Sp invites was their 10th anniversary party back then
Many kinds pretty good pizzas at the bar.
Of course one of yours truly
Respectfully
Art Hall
Bikernet International Editor
BRAND New Bikernet Reader Comment!–
I have a FXR frame and a Revtech 100 ci motor with a Dyna transmission.
Will this fit together or what di I have to do it seems that the clutch will not fit on the spline shaft
— Dean Mangeris
chancer77@gmail.com
Denver, CO
Dyna transmissions have different transmission cases from FXRs. The FXR and touring transmissions can be swapped. We have reached out to Baker Transmission for some suggestions.
–Bandit
CHARGES UPGRADED in Neenah shooting– “We know you’re serious. We are scared to death.”
That’s what Michael L. “ML” Funk said after a gunman fired a warning shot into the ceiling during a hostage standoff Dec. 5 at Eagle Nation Cycles in Neenah.
The accused gunman, Brian T. Flatoff, replied, “You ought to be scared.”
Fellow hostage Ryan Moderson recounted the conversation in an amended criminal complaint filed against Flatoff on Wednesday in Winnebago County Circuit Court. He now faces 16 felony charges, including four homicide-related counts.
After police exchanged gunfire with Flatoff and retreated, Funk, 60, fled out the back door of the motorcycle shop.
Video footage shows Funk going out the door as Flatoff fired rounds at him. Police shot Funk when he left the shop. Authorities said Funk had a gun and didn’t follow commands to drop it. He was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead.
BIKERNET AUTO CONCEPT DEPARTMENT— Whatever happened to this idea?
–Harvey Tow
THE FAMOUS TEX’S MOTORCYCLE–
by Stevan Dohanos, from April 7, 1951
We showed this cover last year in a piece about illustrator Stevan Dohanos. See more of his work in The Great Covers of Stevan Dohanos.
Mil Blair, an expert at bike building, restored the Harley-Davidson. Blair saw the bike on the Post cover when he was 11 years old and fell in love with it, undoubtedly like every other boy who saw that issue. But wait until you see it today!
“Tex’s Motorcycle”
Photo by Dwight Lamb of The Saturday Evening Post
What are the chances of a long-time staffer for The Saturday Evening Post running across a motorcycle made famous by that 1951 Post cover…literally right down the street? The Post’s Dwight Lamb is a frequent visitor to the beautiful Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis. Although the Eiteljorg is known for a superb collection of Indian and Western art, the museum was having a display of classic, outlandish or otherwise unique motorcycles.
Lamb was stunned when he turned a corner and saw this big, blue…and oddly familiar bike. And yes, motorcycle buffs, Mil Blair, who restored this beauty, rode this classic to the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.
I didn’t ride Tex to Sturgis. I rode it to Laughlin. Tex was in the Indian Museum in Indianapolis, Indiana a couple of years ago.
–Mil Blair
DIGITAL DISCOVERY– Best Wishes for a totally Bikernetful Holidays and Fortuitous New Year!
I just ran into some elves on this new fangled URB-E….look out Segway and Hoverboard…
E-powered, 20 mph, foldable, licensed as bicycle, a zip to ride, L.A. designed and built…
Let me know if want a bit of a story on them…
–Paul Garson
Exclusive Bikernet Senior Editor and Chief
[page break]
MERRY CHRISTMAS to all of our Nash Motorcycle Co customers–
We are offering a pre-Christmas Sale starting today, Dec 24th running until Wednesday Dec 30th. Use promo code – “NASHXMAS ” and receive 25% off your purchase of any items on the Nash Motorcycle Co website.
This excludes all frames and rollers. Visit www.nashmotorcycle.com. Merry Christmas from the Nash Family!!!
QUOTE OF THE DAY–
“I don’t need anger management. I need people to stop pissing me off !”
–from Jerry and Rogue
GLOBAL WARMING, THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN– Global warming – dud predictions.
How much longer before journalists finally challenge these false prophets?
–Andrew Bolt
2007:
Andrew Bolt: I’m telling you, there’s a lot of fear out there. So what I do is, when I see an outlandish claim being made…so Tim Flannery suggesting rising seas this next century eight stories high, Professor Mike Archer, dean of engineering at the University of NSW…
Robyn Williams [ABC chief science reporter]: Dean of science.
Andrew Bolt: Dean of science…suggesting rising seas this next century of up to 100 metres, or Al Gore six metres. When I see things like that I know these are false. You mentioned the IPCC report; that suggests, at worst on best scenarios, 59 centimetres.
Robyn Williams: Well, whether you take the surge or whether you take the actual average rise are different things.
Andrew Bolt: I ask you, Robyn, 100 metres in the next century…do you really think that? Robyn Williams: It is possible, yes. The increase of melting that they’ve noticed in Greenland and the amount that we’ve seen from the western part of Antarctica, if those increases of three times the expected rate continue, it will be huge.
2012:
Al Gore’s trek to Antarctica with global warming activists Richard Branson, NASA’s James Hansen and Climategate’s Kevin Trenberth among many others, is designed to alarm the public that somehow something is amiss there. Gore is warning of a melting continent.
”The ice on land is melting at a faster rate and large ice sheets are moving toward the ocean more rapidly. As a result, sea levels are rising worldwide,” Gore wrote on January 31 during his visit to Antarctica.
But in 2015:
A new NASA study found that Antarctica has been adding more ice than it’s been losing, challenging other research, including that of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, that concludes that Earth’s southern continent is losing land ice overall.
In a paper published in the Journal of Glaciology on Friday, researchers from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, the University of Maryland in College Park, and the engineering firm Sigma Space Corporation offer a new analysis of satellite data that show a net gain of 112 billion tons of ice a year from 1992 to 2001 in the Antarctic ice sheet. That gain slowed to 82 billion tons of ice per year between 2003 and 2008.
(Thanks to reader wesley61 and many others.)
–Herald Sun Melbourne
–from Doc Robinson
Heavy Duty Magazine
Australia
A NEW YEAR’S WISH FROM SWEDEN— Let’s make it a good one.
–Sheriff
SHERIFFMEDIAGROUP SWEDEN. The Source
QUICK, WE NEED THE BIKERNET BAD JOKE LIBRARY OPENED–
A man walks into a drug store with his ten-year-old son. They happen to walk by the condom display and the boy asks, “What are these, Dad?”
The man matter-of-factly replies, “Those are called condoms, son. Men use them to have safe sex.”
“Oh I see,” replied the boy pensively. Yes, I’ve heard of that in health class at school.” The boy looks over the display, picks up a package of three and asks, “Why are there three in this package?”
The dad replies, “Those are for high school boys: one for Friday, one for Saturday and one for Sunday.”
“Cool,” says the boy. Then he notices a six-pack and asks, “Then who are these for?”
“Those are for university students,” the dad answers, “two for Friday, two for SaturdaY and two for Sunday.”
“WOW!” exclaims the boy. “Then who uses these?” he asks, picking up a twelve-pack.
With a sigh and a tear in his eye, the dad replies, “Those are for married men… one for January, one for February, one for March…”
–from Jerry and Rogue
THE WORST CAR ON THE PLANT– And I thought that my ’59 Renault Dauphine was the worst. Not!
I never knew about this car ….. NEITHER DID YOU….. but you need to watch this 3-minute video, as, will not only be enlightening, BUT, the test driver’s comments will make you laugh your ass off…… ENJOY.
Now, this is the car you really want to own.
It’s a “1951 Hoffman”.
–Harvey Tow
LOWBROW Hot deals added daily– With discounts up to 80% off
FREE SHIPPING ON ALL U.S. ORDERS OVER $100
BIKERNET CORRESPONDENT ON THE IRON AND KNUCKLE HUNT— He discovered two cool examples in Lemont, Illinois, owned by Dirty Sanchez.
–PSD
MERRY MERRY —
So, here we are again, wishing you and all those you hold dear a most Happy and Merry Christmas, full of joy, warmth and nog. And maybe pie. Lots of pie. And more nog.
Merry, Merry,
–Joshua Placa
949-220-7655
joshuaplaca@gmail.com
Bikernet Travel Contributor and Whiskey Testing Agent
BONHAMS, THE LAS VEGAS MOTORCYCLE AUCTION– January 7, 2016 at 11am, Bally’s Las Vegas Hotel & Casino, The Event Center
Las Vegas, Nevada
PREVIEW
January 6, 9am-6pm
View Online Catalog
Buy Catalog
For more information, please visit www.bonhams.com/vegas, or contact us at:
General Information – Bidder Registration
+1 (415) 391 4000
motorcycles.us@bonhams.com
Motorcycles
+1 (323) 436 5470 (US)
nick.smith@bonhams.com
Motorcycles
+44 0208 963 2817 (UK)
ben.walker@bonhams.com
BIKERNET UNIVERSITY ENGLISH DEPARTMENT MERRY WORD OF THE DAY—
noun
1. Chiefly British. the wishbone or furcula of a fowl.
Quotes
“The merry-thought! Pull with me, old man?” “Certainly!” Mr. Scantlebray and Mr. Cargreen were engaged on the merry-thought, each endeavoring to steal an advantage on the other, by working the fingers up the bone unduly, when the window was darkened.
— Sabine Baring-Gould, In the Roar of the Sea, 1891
Origin
Merrythought originates in the custom of pulling the wishbone of a fowl apart until it breaks with the person holding the longer (sometimes shorter) piece supposedly marrying first or being granted a wish at the time. It entered English around 1600.
’61 TRIUMPH CUSTOM FOR CYCLE SOURCE– While you were lazing around in the hospital, I was out crawling on pavement. I shot Anthony Robinson’s ’61 Triumph custom bobber out in the wilds of Santa Clarita, California, for Cycle Source…
–Markus Cuff
Supremely Certified Bikernet Feature photographer
PICKING THE RIGHT PATH— Choosing the right path is easy. It’s not always the easy path, but you know it’s the right one.
Watch for the feature on these cool puppies this coming week.
Did you read this episode featuring George Fleming’s illustration. He’s amazing. It’s the latest Cantina Episode. Maybe there’s a message there?
If you can, reach out to Atomic Bob and help out. I’ll bet he’ll draw something special just for you. Great guy to work with .
Keep smiling as 2015 comes to a close.
Ride Free, Forever,
–Bandit
