Browsing articles in "Bikes"

FT Confuses a continent with a brand – not

Jan 4, 2010 // by Jeffzed // Bikes, Funny // No Comments

All right – I am a dumbass – I thought they were talking about the owners of Indian motorcycles. Oops: via FT.com / UK – Harley revs up to attract Indian fans. Guess I should have known better if the Financial Times was discussing it.

Harley-Davidson is the latest of the world's motorcycle brands to target the Indian consumer. The country is the world's second-largest two-wheeler market after China, with sales of 3.52m units in the first half of the fiscal year ending next March, up 15 per cent against a year earlier.

War is hell; Peace is boring

Jan 4, 2010 // by Jeffzed // Army & More, Bikes, Blood, Iraq, Military, Racing, Veterans // No Comments

The excellent Dr. Kotrla and her research are extensively quoted in this article from Sunday’s Statesman.

Kathryn Kotrla , a psychiatrist and the associate dean at the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine's Round Rock campus, said there is a scientific reason that many soldiers seek out extreme pastimes.

Because of repeated deployments, the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have subjected soldiers to more prolonged danger than any previous war fought by Americans, Kotrla said.

And soldiers' brains actually change when they are under such a constant threat, said Kotrla, who has a master's degree in developmental neurobiology from Stanford University and completed a fellowship in brain imaging at the National Institutes of Health.

Nerves communicate via synapses, and intense experiences can alter synapses' connections. “They remodel,” Kotrla said.

via Soldiers back from war seek out new risks It is a great and unflinching article that describes a phenomenon long observed (where do you think American motorcycle gangs come from?) but not always well studied. Dr. Kotrla’s work with both troops and kids may be the foundation for better physical diagnosis of PTSD one day. Meanwhile, she is involved with several projects that directly benefit our troops, Vets, and their families, including www.TexVet.com.

IAVA gave me a creative outlet for lots of issues when I returned from Iraq. Family responsibilities help keep me focused, as does the result of my day job – blood for the still deployed. Not everyone is so lucky.

As Mike Stevens says in the article: “Everyone dies, Life isn’t worth living unless you do something with it, unless you go out and do something with your life.”