Bike odometer

Rob installed my new bike odometer this weekend (thanks, honey). I tried it out for the first time this morning. I got it partly because I was inspired by johnridley (hey, I'd like to prove I could roll 10,000 miles over on a bicycle, too) and partly out of geeky curiosity. I'd like to have a more accurate estimate of how much gas I'm saving and how many calories I'm burning. I made a few interesting discoveries: I've actually been biking faster than I realized. My average speed was about 13.5 miles (I thought I was somewhere between 10 and 11 miles per hour), and I got up to 19 miles per hour, fully loaded. Based on the time of my trip and average speed, I estimate that I burned about 200 calories on my ride in this morning. Go me.

Oh, and johnridley, feel free to snabble my mood icon to this entry, if you like. It's a quotation from Lord of the Rings (like so many of my icons) and seems appropriate for a bicycling enthusiast. It's not flattering, exactly (it's about Saruman, and meant as a perjorative), but still.

Actually, Tolkien was a bicyclist. He rode his bicycle through Oxford all the time, to classes and lectures. He loathed automobiles.

Mom puts bullying daughter in her place

Wow. As a woman who was bullied as a kid and knows how corrosive the experience is, I have to say I seriously admire this woman:

She's taken away the cell phone, she's banned the TV, but when her daughter was suspended for bullying a classmate last week, Ivory Spann felt a new punishment was in order: public humiliation.

After checking to see if it was legal, Spann forced her 12-year-old daughter, Miasha Williams, to spend four days this week in front of several Temecula schools carrying a big sign saying, "I Engaged in Bullying Behavior. I Got Suspended From School ... Don't Be Like Me. Stop Bullying."I felt I needed to do something that would make an impression," Spann said. (Read more)

From what I've read, research seems to indicate that bullying is much less likely if victims, bullies or bystanders feel that it is tolerated. I gotta think this would help. I suppose it might be argued by some that perhaps this would be counterproductive. Is the mother is perhaps "bullying" the daughter by making her do something that would humiliate her? Is this useful in a way that would teach empathy to the daughter? I suppose that it would very much depend upon the child, and the mother is the best judge of that. I also respect the fact that the mother took care to check to make sure that this was legal first.

At the very least, it might spark some useful discussions, if not between this mother and her child, or the child and the victims she was bullying, but between other children (potential victims, bullies and bystanders) and their parents.