As terrorist bombs tore through London, Beirut, Sharm-al-Sheik, Cairo, and Istanbul this week, the Iraq Body Count and Oxford Research Group compiled the grim statistics of the ongoing carnage in Iraq; nearly 25,000 civilians killed, at least 42,500 injured, and over 1,700 American soldiers dead. According to the study, titled Dossier on Civilian Casualties in Iraq 2003-2005, American-led forces were responsible for 37 percent of all non-combatant deaths, with insurgents responsible for 9 percent, and another 36 percent falling under the vague but lethal umbrella of post-invasion criminal violence.  

Mimi Hanaoka

For the seventh consecutive year, Lance Armstrong has  won the Tour de France. One day and 125 miles remain of the 2005 Tour, but Armstrong’s results in the time trials today have lent him an unbeatable 2 minute, 46 second advantage over the Tour’s next fastest rider, Ivan Basso. His victory in Paris tomorrow will mark the end of a cycling career which many believe will remain unsurpassed.

Linda Robertson reports in the The Miami Herald that the physical attributes Armstrong was born with and has worked to strengthen are exceptional.

”His oversized heart can pump nine gallons of blood per minute compared to five for the average person. His lungs can absorb twice as much oxygen. His muscles produce half as much lactic acid and can expel it faster, which enables him to ride harder up the steep slopes of the Alps and the Pyrenees and recover quickly.”

Physiologist Edward Coyle has worked with Armstrong for eight years, studying Armstrong’s body’s responses to a dedicated training regimen. Although Coyle’s findings show Armstrong belongs in the top 98th percentile of human beings, Coyle notes that the physical traits Armstrong possesses are not the only reason he has proven to be a world-class cyclist.

“There are about 1,000 people in the U.S. between the ages of 15 and 20 with the same physiological potential as Lance, but none of them will achieve what he has without the training and daring of Lance,” Coyle explains.

Robertson points out that cyclist Jan Ullrich shares several and even surpasses one of Armstrong’s physical attributes (“[Jan’s] oxygen capacity is higher”), but he has not reached the victories Armstrong enjoys. What has given Armstrong the edge over athletes like Ullrich? Robertson believes that Armstrong’s will to win is stronger, his discipline unrivaled.

Tomorrow after the Tour ends in Paris, Lance Armstrong will leave the world stage and begin his retirement from his cycling career in order to begin another career he has stated he anticipates will bring him immense satisfaction: fatherhood. He will leave the world wondering how many Tours he might have continued to win, had he not opted to retire at 33; and whether any cyclist will match the remarkable dedication Armstrong has brought to cycling — the mental fortitude and stamina many suspect are responsible for his victory over cancer.

In Los Angeles, the fight for diversity extends to the choice a person makes regarding transportation. It’s not merely the idea that what you drive is a reflection of your social status or dating potential. There’s an unspoken, competitive edge in the smoggy city where commuting and traveling across town to several destinations every day have become standard expectations for the “reliable” employee. Paradoxically, the yearly increase of cars and traffic in Los Angeles, which perpetually threaten to slow the city to a halt, may give cycling a new, more acceptable, and even enticing image as a transportation alternative.

BikeSummer’s Los Angeles citywide cycling festival has let some air out of the myth that to live in Los Angeles, residents need cars. The festival ran through June into the first days of July and hosted hundreds of events, showcasing the advantages of traveling by bicycle in a city with ideal cycling weather, raising cyclist awareness through visibility, and strengthening the cycling community one city at a time. An annual bike extravaganza, BikeSummer was established in 1999 and is held by various hosting cities, which have included San Francisco, Chicago, Vancouver, Portland, New York, and Seattle.

Newly awakened Los Angeles cycling advocates can join several local Critical Mass rides, support the efforts of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition in making Los Angeles streets safer for bicyclists, and look up bicycle routes across the city on the bicycle-centered alternative to MapQuest, BikeMetro. Ken Kifer’s cyclist Web pages provide a wealth of cyclist-related articles, one of which questions the viability of “fearmongering,” an attitude which, through an emphasis on the inspiration of fear,

…discourages vehicular cycling and by doing so increases the number of deaths; bicycling is at worst no more dangerous than driving an automobile and has compensatory health benefits that greatly overshadow the risks.”

In the same week that a Japanese school district incorporated a contentious revisionist history textbook into its curriculum, activists established The Women’s Active Museum on War and Peace, which will be devoted to documenting the lives of the sex slaves who have been written out of the textbook.  

The first of its kind in Japan, the museum will open its doors in August to catalogue the narratives of the approximately 200,000 women who were consigned to sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II.

Mimi Hanaoka