Girl Goes Nuts on Train
This is why many people avoid mass transit. The odds of having some nut-case verbally assault you is nil if traveling in the privacy of your own car.
Warning: bad rapping and dancing. Oh, and foul language.
Hat tip Charlie.
Indeed. But an equally valid way to look at it is that in your car it’s easy to ignore people on the fringes of your community. You never have to deal with homeless people, the very poor, or the disabled. Take me for example. I leave my suburban home cocooned in my car and arrive at my workplace (with it’s extensive groundskeeping and private security), blissfully unaware of the rest of society.
All for the low, low price of ruining the environment. Bonus!
My comments are not an indictment. Or if they are, they are certainly directed at myself as much as anyone else. My fiance just brought home a new Subaru Forester just ten minutes ago. Still, being a part of the problem does not preclude me from voicing my concerns.
Posted by scott on May 19, 2008 at 2041 hrs
Add this to the list of video’s I’ve seen on the internet that I wished ended with someone getting tazered.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 19, 2008 at 2140 hrs
“You never have to deal with homeless people, the very poor, or the disabled. Take me for example. I leave my suburban home cocooned in my car and arrive at my workplace (with it’s extensive groundskeeping and private security), blissfully unaware of the rest of society.”
That’s kinda the point. I am not some sociological experiment. My decision on whom I associate with and when is still my own. Quite frankly, I do not wish to deal with the mass of humanity before I’ve had my first cup of coffee or after a long, stressful day of dealing with my coworkers. In my car I have my Ipod, my breakfast, talk radio, music, NPR, whatever I want. On the bus I have the above confrontations and worse.
And I say that as someone who took the bus for years.
Posted by james wigderson on May 19, 2008 at 2141 hrs
I feel you, James. It’s just that I wonder if it’s ultimately good for our community to be so isolated by-economic status. socio
Posted by scott on May 19, 2008 at 2148 hrs
that’s “socioeconomic status”
Posted by scott on May 19, 2008 at 2149 hrs
I wonder if it’s ultimately good for our community to be so isolated by-economic status. socio
I agree. I think everyone should know just where the welfare tax dollars go
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 19, 2008 at 2229 hrs
I think you’re absolutely—and accidentally—correct.
Posted by scott on May 19, 2008 at 2233 hrs
Please, somebody translate. I couldn’t understand a word. I’m not kidding! Does anybody understand what is being said?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 20, 2008 at 0815 hrs
“The odds of having some nut-case verbally assault you is nil if traveling in the privacy of your own car. ” Ever heard of road rage?
Some videos for you http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=road+rage&search;_type=Umm hardly nil.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 20, 2008 at 0858 hrs
The nice lady from the Red Hat Society in the video apparently has never heard of Bernard Goetz.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 20, 2008 at 0925 hrs
Please, somebody translate. I couldn’t understand a word. I’m not kidding! Does anybody understand what is being said?
I did, and I’d be happy to translate for you but…
Unfortunately the vocabulary of the young lady in the video was relatively limited with a significant usage of verbage that only black people are allowed to use with impunity.
If I repeated them, I’d be branded a racist/bigot and sexist.
I believe the jist of it was that she couldn’t believe that the rate-lock on her adjustable rate mortgage had just ended and she was going to see her payment go thru the roof. I believe the elderly lady in the blue coat had offered the solace in that she (the girl in the red A’s hat) would have a larger mortgage interest write off on her itemized deductions this year, but it appears that came off as little comfort to the young lady in red.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 20, 2008 at 1000 hrs
Thank you xxpilot. I guess I’m a victim of suburbanization,. Seriously, I could not understand her. Where is Barbara Billingsly when you need her… “Excuse me stewardess, I speak jive”.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 20, 2008 at 1030 hrs
The way I figure it, taking the buss is a little bit like surfing the web. It’s not all leafy, manicured suburban streets. It’s not all polite dinner-table manners. It’s not always words fit for children or mixed company. But that’s what makes it so free and terrific. Who would rather listen to the sanitized words and ideas of professionally published media over the internet where people just speak with their own real voices?
It’s good for us to see the homeless, the poor and the mentally ill. The buss is a great democratizing agent: everyone has to sit together regardless of means, culture or life station. Efforts to isolate ourselves from all this reality exacerbate their problems and gives us all an impoverished sense of community.
Posted by scott on May 20, 2008 at 1058 hrs
Where is Barbara Billingsly when you need her… “Excuse me stewardess, I speak jive”.
Couldn’t resist - I had this bookmarked:Airplane! - “Oh stewardess, I speak jive”
http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=P-xHPU6NulM&feature;=related
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 20, 2008 at 1219 hrs
Efforts to isolate ourselves from all this reality exacerbate their problems
Really? How so? How does it make it worse for someone else that I don’t have to deal with them?
Explain that one to me?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 20, 2008 at 1252 hrs
Because it’s easier to feel some compassion for people whom you actually see with your own eyes in person than it is to feel for statistics and news stories. And with compassion comes the willingness to help address some of these issues.
Posted by scott on May 20, 2008 at 1306 hrs
This kind of insanity is incredibly rare. In 15 years of riding the subway in New York (one of the best things about the city, after Central Park) I’ve never seen anything this bizarre, although once there was a crazy guy who had a little plastic box on a string around his neck with a live tarantula inside. But he seemed pretty harmless. And there’s a mariachi band that sometimes rides the 7 train to Queens, but that’s actually pretty enjoyable.
Anyway, it’s far more common to see someone quietly reading a book or lost in their iPod zone.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 20, 2008 at 1856 hrs
One thing you have to remember is that driving has it’s risks too. Over 40,000 Americans die in car accidents each year. Plus mass transit is making a comeback in many US cities. I enjoy it.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 20, 2008 at 1901 hrs
This article in Smithsonian echoes what Scott says. Being brought together—in places like the subway—“seems to breed a sense of common cause. When New Yorkers see a stranger, they don’t think, ‘I don’t know you. They think, ‘I know you. I know your problems—they’re the same as mine.’” Yup, true.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 21, 2008 at 0902 hrs
NYTexan,
No offense, but that article is more of an editorial than anything fact based. I know you are not representing it as fact, merely a supporting opinion as Scotts, but I think its a bit ego-centric.
A few anecdotes from a New Yorker self-justifying the way things are there… I don’t buy it.
Spend an hour in NYC and spend an hour in Minneapolis and tell me where people are nicer.
I do believe there is one truth. That MOST people want to help other people and most people are good at heart. But those same people, when they get stressed and overcome with a whole bunch of other “stuff” the basic human desire to help their fellow man takes a back seat to self preservation.
Back to Scotts comment about not riding the bus ‘exacerbating’ the problem. I just have a problem with that attitude. Its as if to say that if a person chooses not to deal with the issues of public transit they are doing a disservice to society or their fellow man or something. I reject that. People are by and large responsible for their position in life. While its true that given the basic human (or what I believe is basic human nature) of people to do “good” and help when they can, YES, when people get exposure to people who appear to need help, they have a greater propensity to offer it. In my own personal experience I’ve evolved to the point of recognition that “help” can easily become “enabling”, but I digress… From a philosophical standpoint I reject the idea that someone who chooses to avoid the unpleasantries of public transit is exacerbating any problem.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 22, 2008 at 0928 hrs
Its as if to say that if
a person chooses not to deal with the issues of public transit they are
doing a disservice to society or their fellow man or something.
I didn’t say that at all. I drive a car to work. I drive it everywhere, in fact. I haven’t ridden a bus in years, and I’ve only taken a train to Chicago twice in my life.What I do mean to say is that we have—by means of cultural choices and public policy—created a situation where people like myself do not have to see or interact with people in different socioeconomic classes. And that isn’t good for anyone.
People are by and large responsible for their position in life.
I’m not sure how to answer that, only to say that I believe you are minimizing the role of one’s parents, one’s local economy and one’s local cultural inheritance in shaping the path of one’s life. it’s true that there’s a limited amount that we can alter this, but in some cases it’s definitely worthwhile for the good of us all.
I believe the reason that it’s so hard for some people to think that those in undesirable life circumstances are there at least partly because of forces outside themselves is because it would naturally also meant that we ourselves, in our fortunate circumstances, cannot take full credit for our station in life.
Posted by scott on May 22, 2008 at 0959 hrs
I believe the reason that it’s so hard for some people to think that those in undesirable life circumstances are there at least partly because of forces outside themselves is because it would naturally also meant that we ourselves, in our fortunate circumstances, cannot take full credit for our station in life.
Well if I came from a single mother in a single parent family on AFDC, went to college, paid 100% of my own way thru with no financial aid, do I not get to take full credit for my station in life now that I’m successful?
created a situation where people like myself do not have to see or interact with people in different socioeconomic classes
I disagree. And I think the concept is off base. Noone lives in a vacuum. Even people in gated communities have TV’s see the news, travel, go to the grocery store, go to parks and festivals where you mix with a variety of people from all walks of life.
I’ll take your original comment scott:
Take me for example. I leave my suburban home cocooned in my car and arrive at my workplace (with it’s extensive groundskeeping and private security), blissfully unaware of the rest of society.
Thats not true and you know it. You aren’t blissfully unaware of the rest of society and neither is anyone else.
Lets have an honest conversation for once and drop all the hyperbole.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 22, 2008 at 1105 hrs
I’m pressing charges!
Posted by tee bee on May 22, 2008 at 1454 hrs
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