Comments on Cycling Inquisition: It's all in the details. Details like Jakob Fuglsa...

Thats a really stupid thing i have seen that vid a...

2012-02-24T13:42:11.801-05:00

Thats a really stupid thing i have seen that vid already a lot and i didnt see that he writed the name wrong and that his number was in it

I have to say that I'm consistently impressed ...

2011-12-09T19:24:07.989-05:00

I have to say that I'm consistently impressed by the level of readership I have. Honestly, I'm humbled.

I have been reading this post for a while, but my ...

2011-12-09T16:54:09.825-05:00

I have been reading this post for a while, but my first comment. Excellent piece. The Hochschild cite is from "King Leopold's Ghost", a compelling story of the Belgian king's personal fiefdom, the Congo.

who would have thunk that I would gain knowledge a...

2011-12-06T18:49:31.705-05:00

who would have thunk that I would gain knowledge about history, sociology, etc. from a cycling blog. Klaus, you rock!

As a high school History teacher, I can confirm Be...

2011-12-06T18:32:27.198-05:00

As a high school History teacher, I can confirm Belgium Bastard's comments. The birth of the "cycling craze" dramatically increased the price of rubber and as the Belgium Congo had almost all of the rubber trees in existance at the time, this was a real cash-cow of King Leopold of Belgium. The treatmnt of the local people of the Congo was harsh to say the least;

"Any suggestion of non-cooperation was treated with force, but the European masters mistrusted their native soldiers, therefore, a policy of cutting off hands was used. For each cartridge issued to their soldiers they demanded proof that the bullet had been used to kill someone and not wasted on hunting or worse yet, saved for possible use in a mutiny. The standard proof was the right hand of a corpse.... Sometimes soldiers shot a cartridge at an animal in hunting (or missed their human target). In 1896 a news report was published in Germany saying that 1308 severed hands had been given to one district commissioner in a single day." (Hochschild 1998)

Between 1890-1910 at the height of the rubber boom, an estimated eight million Congolese died from the combined effects of the savage regime and introduced diseases. The Belgium Congo is not an isolated case though. An estimated 50% of the indigenous population was lost in French Equatorial Africa.

The history of the humble bicycle is not as clean-cut as we are often led to believe.

An obscure, but very DETAIL ORIENTED link between ...

2011-12-06T16:01:38.328-05:00

An obscure, but very DETAIL ORIENTED link between cycling, Belgians and slavery:

By the final decade of the 19th century, J. B. Dunlop’s 1887 invention of inflatable, rubber bicycle tubes and the growing popularity of the automobile dramatically increased the global demand for rubber. To monopolize the resources of the entire CFS, Leopold issued three decrees in 1891 and 1892 that reduced the native population to serfs.[5] Collectively, these forced the natives to deliver all ivory and rubber, harvested or found, to State officers thus nearly completing Leopold’s monopoly of the ivory and rubber trade.[3]

Snap.

I believe Jakob is also wearing makeup. We have co...

2011-12-06T14:26:05.902-05:00

I believe Jakob is also wearing makeup. We have come a long way from the days of the Cannibal.

That estrada picture is great. Good finds.

2011-12-06T01:31:57.057-05:00

That estrada picture is great. Good finds.

My mum is on holiday in Amsterdam at the moment an...

2011-12-05T17:40:56.164-05:00

My mum is on holiday in Amsterdam at the moment and only 2 days ago we Skyped and she told me about seeing a whole procession of people with blackface following St. Nic down the road. She was stunned such a practice is still acceptable (it would not be back in England) and as an expat living in Australia, I was shocked too.

Having said that, a TV variety show over here called "Hey Hey it's Saturday" did a blackface skit a couple of years ago when Harry Connick Jr. was a guest star. He voiced his disgust of the act after it was run and while the show's host apologisd to him on air, the feedback from many people in the news afterwards (it was a pretty big story here) was that many people thought he "should get a sense of humour". I like a laugh, but I'm struggling to find much to laugh about in regards to slavery.

Based on Twitter posts, Adny (or Frnak) can't ...

2011-12-05T14:47:15.488-05:00

Based on Twitter posts, Adny (or Frnak) can't sepll much of ayntihng.

"Andy Schleck doesn't know how to spell t...

2011-12-05T14:31:00.247-05:00

"Andy Schleck doesn't know how to spell the name of a guy he will be asking big favors from in July." lulz.