Saddle Up
An open letter to HRH King Charles III
September 8
Greetings Your Highness,
Congrats on your… what do you folks call it, “succession?”
You don’t know me. I am not one of your subjects. Haven’t been one for — let’s do this — two hundred and forty-five years.
Anywho,’ we have a common bond. No, it’s not that we speak the same language. Although I’ll admit I prefer my accent to yours, more throat-y, less nasal-y, but that’s for another brandy.
No, our bond is that we both ride bicycles: the personal transport of the future. It’s a rational choice. We are both bipeds having migrated from loping along on all fours and a bicycle has two wheels, having migrated from four wheels necessitating a fuel guzzling platform designed for an extended family but usually sporting a single rider.
That’s where some similarities end and fewer dissimilarities begin. Your institutions have constructed an empire and have watched as external forces deconstructed the same empire. And yet my country, not part anymore of your empire, is like your country a global entity and a global polluter, therefore.
If we can both declare independence from and liberate ourselves from a global self-governing menace — colonization — can we not apply the same institutional process to liberating a failing global species?
Heh, you lowered the Union Jack over a global empire. Now working as your mum said, “side by side,” together we can lower fossil fuel emissions.
Let’s go biking. I say, you look pretty smart on a bike — see photo above — though a tad more serious than the Dutch Royals — see photo below.
And wear your helmet!
Yours respectfully,
A fellow global citizen
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