Critical Mass bicycle rides started in 1992 in California and have since spread around the world. Hundreds of people ride together in a group on roads, forcing cars to go at bicycle speed. They often chant, “Critical Mass, don't use gas!”

On September 8 (the rain date is the next day) there will be a Critical Mass bike ride in Brattleboro. The ride starts at 3 p.m. at the farmers market and ends at a rally at the town common. People who prefer to march can meet at the food co-op at 3 p.m. The march also ends at the town common. The goal is to get politicians to deal with climate change, which the world's leading scientists say is a major threat to earth's ability to support human life.

Details about the Brattleboro bicycle ride, march, and rally are at:

www.facebook.com/events/397357590755413

In Keene, there will be a rally with the same goal on September 8 at 11 a.m. It will be at Central Square. Details are at:

www.facebook.com/events/677882045888090

In related news, on August 21 a land trust in Keene announced it had saved 167 acres of farmland in Winchester, New Hampshire. Winchester borders Massachusetts and is less than a mile from Vermont. The trust has a web site at www.MonadnockConservancy.org. The USA is losing about 6,000 acres of open space every day.

In other news from the Valley, Carol Sadrozinske told the Valley Post that current and/or recently employed police officers in Keene and the New Hampshire towns of Hinsdale and Chesterfield have lied in court, lied in a police report, falsified records and/or evidence, engaged in criminal conduct, abused their power, committed “egregious dereliction of duty,” used excessive force and/or shown signs of “mental instability” that led to disciplinary action. Sadrozinske works for the New Hampshire Department of Justice. She refused to provide the names of the officers. Hinsdale and Chesterfield both border Brattleboro. The justice department is required to release a list of these officers – minus their names -- annually.

A group that has a web site at www.InnocenceProject.org has freed 362 people from prison in the USA by proving they were innocent of the crime they were imprisoned for. On average those people spent 14 years in prison. No nation incarcerates such a high percentage of its people as the USA, the “land of the free.”