Trump Declares War on Roundabouts

Fake News.  I made this headline up.  Although this headline is Fake News for now, it seems like just a matter of time before Trump gets bored with the NFL and sets his sights on a new target like roundabouts.  I readily admit, this blog post title is a cheap ploy to get your attention.

But I want to talk about roundabouts for a moment because I think they perfectly encapsulate the political divide we are facing today.

First off.  I’m staunchly pro-roundabout.

Roundabouts decrease travel times, they are safer than 4-way stops, they are better for the environment, they keep super old people off the road because they are afraid of them, the list goes on and on. 

I’m listening to Yes’s Roundabout right now as I type this. 

If you wanted to nickname me Roundabout, I wouldn’t stop you.  It’s better than some of the nicknames I’ve gotten in the past.  Ben Gay.  Ben Dover.  Ben Stiller Show.  Yeah, I’d be happy as hell if Roundabout somehow became a thing.

As I whiz through these infrastructure wonderlands, I often marvel how they came about. 

I like to think there is an unsung hero at the DMV that dreamed up the idea of the roundabout in the middle of the night.   He went to a 24-hour Kinkos Jerry Maguire-style, and toiled throughout the night to present a plan to the top brass at the DMV the next day.

I wasn’t there, obviously, but I ONE THOUSAND PERCENT know that they shot the idea down right away.  With these exact words, they said “we’re going to keep building 4-way stops and traffic signals because they work and that’s the way we’ve always done it”.  I guarantee our hero heard this phrase a million times over but he persevered, maybe went over a few heads, and because of his determination, I can now hit up the Woodman's in Howard and be back to the house, door-to-door, in like 6 minutes. It’s crazy. 

We should build a monument to celebrate this DMV guy.  We can put it…wait for it...at the center of a prominent roundabout.  Everyone wins. 

To make a long-winded point, there are some people who don’t want to change or go back to the old ways of doing things and there are some people that want to tinker and try to make things better.

Don’t get me wrong, sometimes the old ways are the best ways but I just no longer accept “because that’s the way we’ve always done it” as a reason to keep doing something.  The old ways should always be challenged and have to stand on their own merits when new ideas are presented. 

So now you are wondering “When did Brain Litter get so political?” 

That is a good question.  I’ve been writing this blog since 2005.  I’ve posted 193 times and racked up 19,000 hits over 12 years.  On Monday, I made a stand on the national anthem protests with post #194 and now I’m over 20,000 hits.  It is by far the most popular post I’ve ever posted and I wrote it in less than an hour on a whim.

There’s clearly demand for this kind of content and I have an established platform so I am going to explore these political topics going forward in addition to my typical rants. I am obsessed with demographics lately (millennials AMIRIGHT!?!?!) and being 36 years old is an interesting age to be at.  I am calling this stage of life SECOND PUBERTY and I have lots of future posts planned on this non-partisan topic and more.

Yes, I am leaning left these days as you can tell, but stay with me, I promise to call out all forms of hypocrisy when I see it.  Feathers will be ruffled going forward for sure, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have some laughs and find some common ground as we navigate these tumultuous times ahead.

Somebody please buy me this mug please.