If any of you follow local politics, and God bless your sanity if you do, you’ll know that the biggest threat to Cedar Falls is roundabouts. Perhaps you’re thinking to yourself, “those roundabouts?” Yes, those ones. Apparently, I assume, by having roundabouts instead of standard four way stops on University the following things will happen: all the lefty liberals (i.e. socialists, OK Communists) will win, the terrorists will win, every car on University will simultaneously crash into each other at once causing everyone in the city to die—even those safely at home—and commerce will come to a complete standstill because no one, not one single person, will be fearless enough to take on these monstrosities of modern life.

My biggest concern, though, isn’t the forthcoming loss of life, but rather, how our snowplows will handle the “circle” part of the roundabout. As you may know if you’ve lived here through a winter, our snowplows only go straight — basically they’re like cable cars pulled around town on a pulley system—and when they get to a “round” anything, they immediately crash, causing the city millions in repairs, money that could be better spent on consulting firms to determine the best placement for a billboard on a dead end street.

Of course none of this takes into consideration the possible proposals for possible future development of University at a date to be named later which includes bike lanes. I know, the horror at those words has me diving under my bed too. All people who ride bikes are clearly hippies, socialists, communists and do-gooder tree huggers who are trying to force you into believing in their way of life. They are, in a word, terrifying. And if we allow them to have their own lane on our city streets, the next thing you know you’ll be forced to recycle, or save a turtle. I can’t even imagine.

I’m kidding of course, but I make these jokes to once again draw attention to the fear inherent in people. The fear of new, the fear of different and the fear of change. What we’re talking about here is two of the simplest things imaginable, yet in every Courier article or City Council meeting there’s scared person after scared person commenting on the danger of new. This phenomenon is incomprehensible to me given how visibly and rapidly the world changes every day, yet a good portion of our population remains scared of everything and votes accordingly.

I also bring all this up to point out that bad politics, bad politicians and bad voters don’t just suddenly appear at the federal level, but rather, get their start in local politics before jaunting off to Des Moines or Washington to support the latest huckster lunatic who has convinced a majority of voters that only they can prevent the damage that will be done to your freedom and patriotic nature, you, you fine citizen of Iowa, who only eats corn and drinks ethanol.

So, the next time you’re driving down University and bouncing through pot holes like a speedy little Whac-A-Mole, remember that the same people who can’t solve this simple little problem will one day be the same people sitting on a school board dictating educational polices for your children or, if you’re really lucky and they make it to Washington, they’ll get to negotiate nuclear arms deals with foreign countries.