Tonight’s ride took me down to the pizza place for dinner and wine with the new colleagues. We were set to meet at 7:00pm, the same time that Troy Davis was set to die at the hands of the state of Georgia. It was a strange feeling, riding my bike down the hill for pizza when the state was setting up to kill a man. As a society we let people die all the time, for lack of heath care, food, safety, shelter, and more. Structural violence is real and regular, and tonight’s state-sponsored killing is not the only blood on our hands tonight. And then there are nights like this one when the state gets all its bureaucracy together and plans and executes a killing. Or two, tonight. But I’m just riding my bicycle down the hill for pizza, and what else am I supposed to do, after I’ve signed the petitions and dialed the judges and sent my emails? And tomorrow I will wake up, catch a cab to the train station and head to New York for a conference and spend the weekend fretting a little too much about not riding a bike for days in a row and eating dosa at that one restaurant, and all the while the state will kill and let die in my name. It’s a complicated thing, living in the world, and oftentimes I don’t know what to do with myself. I stopped on my ride up the hill to take a picture of this flashing blue light on the corner of 22nd and Calvert. These are all over town, police cameras, reading “BCPD 24/7 Believe.” I’m not sure what exactly I’m supposed to be believing in when I pass these. A study was released yesterday that reported that these cameras have reduced crime significantly (except on North Avenue–nobody knows why), but I wonder what else they’ve done. I’m glad I will get to ride my bike again on Sunday.