Earlier this summer, my partner and I bought these cute, functional, folding bikes that have already become our primary mode of transportation. I used to bike when I was a wee teenager, growing up in New Jersey, while my partner had never biked before.

So lately, we have been going out biking almost everyday, getting used to the rules and routes of the city, it’s a whole other world when you’re on a bike. I noticed that when I first started driving years ago too – your perspective of the space you inhabit changes based on your mode of transportation – subways make me consider the underground routes to get from one part of the city to another, cars make me consider the highways, the one-way streets, the alternative smaller streets I can take to avoid heavy traffic. And now, biking is teaching me to notice even more things like where the ramps are, where the road is most uneven, where there are long blocks versus short blocks, and where the road is on an incline and where it’s on a decline, where cars tend to cluster and where there are bike lanes in the city.

I love noticing this shift in perspective, and I would encourage everyone to try different modes of transportation in whatever area you’re in, to get an idea of the perspective shift – try walking around for a week instead of driving to wherever you normally go in your neighborhood. Or take the train or the bus, instead of driving to a distant destination. Most of us are so hooked on cars and highways and parking lots, that we rarely just walk, or bike anywhere. I urge you to try it sometime, especially if you live in a part of the planet where it’s the later half of the summer season now. Just go, go out, and walk, or bike if you can get a bicycle (hint: they’re also a lot cheaper than cars!). You’ll love it!

On a related note, check out this site to see how Toronto is becoming more and more bike-friendly.

A long but highly insightful conversation between acclaimed authors Salman Rushdie and Irshad Manji on the nature of belief, Islamism, the history of Islam and Quran, and what to do in a world full of crazies on both the Islamist side and the racist westerner side. Rational, thinking people of all varieties will enjoy this video… please watch in full, it’s worth it. Intelligent comments are welcome.

An insightful piece about the “Third Wave” of feminists who are now redefining the meaning of the word “Feminism” as a broader, more comprehensive movement than perhaps it’s been in the past.

The word of the day is intersectionality — the understanding of multiple ways of being and living that shape a person and how we experience the world, and in turn how the world treats them. The idea that one individual can be faced with a multitude of oppressions which can’t be addressed individually any more than the person herself can be physically divided into pieces and be expected to survive.

This is encouraging news for people who are compassionate towards all animals: KFC Canada listens to PETA.

Most people saw this coming years ago.

At 10:59 a.m., a cheer went up on trading room floor

Is that in Canadian or American dollars?
“It didn’t really matter,” Mr. Feig says with a laugh. “It’s the same price either way.”

Tories reopen same-sex marriage debate.

Poor clueless Stephen Harper… just doesn’t realize what century he’s in. As one commenter on this article put it, “Harper is a complete fool. A bigot, prejudiced, homophobic simple little man.”