No matter what the subject is, you can always count on each of the Cyclists to take a different position.
We seem to always look at things differently. It’s very rare for two of us to want to make the same point. We approach each issue from different vantage points and most days I find myself intrigued by most of what the other Cyclists have to say.
Of course one of the reasons for that is we have very different backgrounds, personally and professionally, leading us to look at each issue in different ways. We are representative of how diverse bodies will make better decisions because the variety of experiences feeds into the decision making process, thus broadening and strengthening the collective thought process.
But even now as our lives grow more similar because our days are spent moving through the extraordinary blessing of sitting at the Cycle table, even now we remain vastly different thinkers because we drink different fuel.
For example, look at the books we’re all reading right now. SE’s reading Jonathan Last’s What To Expect When No One’s Expecting. She told me, “the Malthusian paranoia of a coming population boom has nothing on the reality of a coming population implosion. Frankly it kinda makes a girl want to procreate.” Steve is reading Mad As Hell, Revolt At the Ballot Box 92 by Jack Germond and Jules Whitcover. “It’s renewed my appreciation for the degree to which the presidency really was Mario Cuomo’s for the taking.” Krystal’s reading Robert Caro’s Lyndon Johnson Passage To Power. I’m reading, devouring, David Hemenway’s Private Guns, Public Health which applies a public health lens to America’s gun epidemic and builds on all sorts of data about the reality of guns and crime. It’s really opened my eyes to the truth of guns in America and how they make us less safe, not more. But that’s a conversation for another day.
Those are the books we’re reading now, a fairly diverse group of texts. I think at any given moment you’d find us immersed in a book and one far different than the books the others are into. I think that variety of intellectual fuel is part of what makes the show interesting.
Toure