Ross Astoria Hi from Nevada Hey Everybody. It's me, your friendly neighborhood Ross-man, checking in from the cross-country ride. About ten days ago twenty-two individuals set out from San Francisco on our bicycles headed for Washington D.C. We started out by riding over the Golden Gate Bridge and spent the night in northern Marin County. From there we began to head east through, Sonoma, Davis, then into the Sierra Nevada's, where we spent a night at Tahoe City. In Lake Tahoe City we spoke with a rep of The League to Keep Tahoe Blue. For those of you who don't know, Lake Tahoe is the clearest (as measured by a Secchi disk) lake in the world, although in the past 40 years the clarity has dropped from over 120 feet to about 70, mostly do to “development” (shouldn't we use the work “building” since this word is more neutral-- after all, not all "development" is actually what it claims to be). The next day we hauled ourselves out the Lake Tahoe Basin along 431, crossing Rose Highway Pass at 8900 feet and then began the wicked steep, wicked gnarly, tight cornered 4000 foot descent to Reno Nevada, "The Biggest Little City in the World." Group dynamics are interesting. We make all decisions by consensus, which means that the group takes no action not approved of by everyone in the group, which means that it could take more than half an hour to decide how many crates we should buy for the SAG or whether or not we should buy tofu. But it also means that everyone's voice is equally powerful – direct democracy at its best. It also fosters a different form of thinking. Rather than majority rules democracy, which fosters a "how do I get enough votes to win passage of this bill", consensus fosters a sense of solidarity amongst individuals in the group. One of the drawbacks of consensus decision-making is that it can only work amongst a small group of individuals who share a common conception of the good. In our group, where the common good is making it to DC and spreading a message of Peace and Justice, consensus works great. In the US Senate, where no common conception of the good is shared, there would be very little action taken, which, upon mentioning it, really might not be such a bad thing. The political message we are trying to spread includes a multitude of issues, including support for the Afghan victims fund (Currently, the US government has appropriated $300 million to the government of Afghanistan to reconstruct infrastructure—in comparison, it cost $50 million a day to bomb Afghanistan). The Afghan victims fund of $20 million would allocate money for victims and families of victims of the US bombing of actual people. We also support the International Criminal Court, which the US Senate does not. In fact, the US Senate just passed "The Hague Invasion Act" which would allow military action to free any US soldiers imprisoned for trial by the ICC. Well that's all for now folks. I'm off to take a shower and eat something or other (Raspberry Yogurt mixed with Mixed-Fruit Gatorade is absolutely marvelous, if you every want to give it a try). Peace came to town, and they were wearing spandex. Moon and light, Ross