My Last Rant of 2010

New York City is a mess.  Everyone is pointing fingers at the next person, but no one seems to be doing much about fixing all this.  We've had storms far worse than this that got cleared up in much less time.  I remember the storm of 1996, and the next day, everything was pretty much in order...at least, more order than this storm.  The mayor comes on television and blames the storm; the sanitation department blames the people for driving their cars despite their meager warnings, and then abandoning them;  and the people blame the sanitation department....

....Okay, it is true what sanitation says.  Too many people were out there in their cars in the midst of a storm.  As adults, they should know better.  Children, you warn about dangers; adults should at least have developed some common sense.  After all, with the snow coming down and 50 mile an hour winds blowing it all about, besides an medical emergency, there is nothing that important to make you drive your car in the city during a blizzard...what with mass transportation all around you.  (At that time, mass transit was still working).  Today is my first day out, and as I was climbing the stairs to the subway, I was shocked at the sight below me.  I wished I had my camera along just to show you.  It was like a scene out of a movie...abandoned cars all over the place.  No wonder the roads were unplowed....

....Now, usually sanitation is more on top of things.  I remember other snowstorms when the salt spreaders used to be out at the beginning of the storm... Didn't happen this time.  And it's usually pretty rough to fall asleep on the night of a snowstorm because of the plows going back and forth throughout the night....Didn't happen this time.  As a matter of fact, there's been reports of slowdowns and workers driving down the streets...with their plows up.  Some kind of union contract thing....a protest of sorts.  Well, I hope that that is not true because two people have died because of the city's inefficiency....an elderly woman and a newborn baby.  Emergency service could just not get through. Someone is responsible for this and someone--union, sanitation, and those who abandoned cars in the middle of the streets--should be held accountable.

Now, on to the transit service.  The entire city was at a standstill...including the subways.  It wasn't only one line that was down....it was 13 lines...and some people were stuck in tunnels for hours until a rescue train could get through.  What's up?  Here's another bureaucracy that makes me wonder where the money goes.  It seems the more we pay, the worse things seem to get.  I know, as I said yesterday, things happen sometimes that are beyond our control, but my goodness, the whole system down?  Tomorrow there is yet another fare hike, yet, not counting this storm, the service is getting dreadful.  What was once a 20 minute ride for me now takes me a few minutes short of an hour....and I am only 12 stops from my job.  

This morning I bore witness to the most unbelievable rudeness.  The finger cannot be pointed at one person, but the three people involved.  I had to put another $20 on my metrocard, so I am at the window of the clerk.  He's on the phone chatting away (making about $50,000 a year, by the way), so I have to tell him three times what I want.  After all, I am only a customer...not that important to him.  While I am waiting for his highness, a young lady comes up on my right and she's yelling to him...Is the train stopping on Avenue N?  Then, to my left, an older women comes up and starts yelling Can you buzz me in?  And while the two women kept repeating their requests, the token booth clerk continued chatting and laughing on the phone...oblivious to the circus going on around him....

...and, by the way, tomorrow the transit fares rise again....and there is nothing we can do about it.  If we want to work, we have to pay for it...and pay dearly.  I get a lousy 3 percent raise each year...the subway fare goes up, cable goes up, comparing electric bills from last year to this--same usage $48 more, health insurance goes up from $120 to $175 a month.  The more I make, the less I have to spend....sadly, a sign of the times...

...and finally, another subway gripe.  The train was extraordinarily crowded this morning.  Guess all those people who normally drive to work have opted for public transportation....or perhaps they have no choice.  (You never know.  Theirs might be one of those abandoned vehicles.)  Well,  most folks nowadays have those little gadgets to listen to their music; they have headphones, but play the darned music so loud that you can practically make out all the words.  It sounds so bad, and I find it so darned annoying....screechy and scratchy.    Back in the old days, there used to be someone blasting their boom box at one end of the train  and another at the other end...and you'd be sitting somewhere in the middle  trying to listen to your little transistor radio...remember them?  Annoying as those boom boxes were, at least you understood what they were singing.  


And now, my friends, there you have it...my last rant for this year.  Hoping you all are safe and warm...surrounded by love and light.