A TriMet Rider: November 7, 2011

Monday, November 7, 2011

Oops

A protester climbed a 65-foot sculpture in Santa Rosa in the dark and cold early Friday, aiming to leave a “Don't tread on me,” flag at the top. But once at the top realizes he can't climb down.

I like the "Don't tread on me" flag idea, now if only he could have climbed down...

In other news...Ottawa Transit Bus Driver Loses it on Passenger

http://www.thestar.com/article/1082474--ottawa-mayor-sick-over-bus-driver-s-obscenity-laced-tirade

TriMet operator and fellow blogger Al M in trouble again

THE CAN OF WORMS HAS BEEN OPENED ONCE MORE:

Crrunch! TriMet MAX train smashes into the end of the line | Portland AFoot

TriMet investigating two operators after 'not releasable' video of Yellow Line MAX crash shows up on YouTube | Oregon Live

TriMet worker who posted crash video on YouTube put on paid leave | KPTV

Security camera captures MAX train crashing into barrier | KATU

The video TriMet didn't want you to see | Jack Bogdanski (quite surprisingly, many of the comments to this post are very good).

(and why has KGW not released anything about this? That's very strange.)

But TriMet won't take him down easily; Al has retaliated through his blog:

HOW DID I GET THE MAX CRASH VIDEO?

In Shit (again)

Here we go again...

I, for one, believe Al's story that he initially posted the video thinking that it was in the public domain. Why would he have posted the video if he knew it was stolen/ he stole it? He would have known better that if the video was stolen that it would cause trouble like it has, after all, he knows quite a bit about how things work around TriMet.
We can't only listen to the media's ideas about this and we can't condemn him just yet. It is, after all, 'innocent until proven guilty'.

Let Them Eat Cake: 10 Examples Of How The Elite Are Savagely Mocking The Poor

#1 According to an article in The New York Times, poor families that lost their homes to foreclosure were openly mocked during a Halloween party thrown by the law firm of Steven J. Baum. This particular law firm represents many of the largest mortgage lenders in the United States....

The firm, which is located near Buffalo, is what is commonly referred to as a “foreclosure mill” firm, meaning it represents banks and mortgage servicers as they attempt to foreclose on homeowners and evict them from their homes. Steven J. Baum is, in fact, the largest such firm in New York; it represents virtually all the giant mortgage lenders, including Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo.

Photos from this Halloween party are posted on The New York Times website. To say that they are appalling would be a huge understatement. The following is how The New York Times described one of the photos....

In one, two Baum employees are dressed like homeless people. One is holding a bottle of liquor. The other has a sign around her neck that reads: “3rd party squatter. I lost my home and I was never served.” My source said that “I was never served” is meant to mock “the typical excuse” of the homeowner trying to evade a foreclosure proceeding.

#2 To many on Wall Street, the OWS protests are one big joke. In fact, Wall Street executives have been spotted sipping champagne while watching the Occupy Wall Street protests from their balconies.

#3 In response to the Occupy Chicago protests, signs were put up in the windows of the building where the Chicago Board of Trade is located that spelled out this sentence: "We Are The 1%".

#4 Many columnists for major financial publications have had no fear of mocking the Occupy Wall Street protesters. For example, Doug Hirschhorn recently wrote the following for Forbes....

As your Occupation of Wall Street continues, you may want to grasp a few things. First, it is not going to change anything in the short term and probably not much in the long-term either.

I hate to be the bearer of that news, but money makes the world go round and “Wall Street” is all about money. Second, the top traders, banks and hedge funds are still going to out earn and generate substantial profits from speculating on the disconnects in the prices of things generated from all the moving parts in the global economy and it has nothing to do with why you lost your house or job or can’t find a job. If anything the successful ones are helping you, your pensions funds, retirement savings and the economy in general. If Wall Street stops. The world stops. Period.

#5 Instead of attempting a balanced report on the Occupy Wall Street protests, Erin Burnett of CNN openly made fun of them during a recent broadcast. After being a stalwart on CNBC for so many years, Burnett has very close ties to Wall Street and apparently she does not like anyone criticizing her friends. You can see video of Burnett mocking the Occupy Wall Street movement right here.

#6 Barack Obama continues to mock the poor by telling them to cut back on vacations and little luxuries like going out to eat while at the same time sending his own family out on incredibly expensive vacations. The following is one example I noted in an article earlier this year....

Barack Obama recently made the following statement to American families that are struggling to survive in this economy: "If you’re a family trying to cut back, you might skip going out to dinner, or you might put off a vacation." A few days after making that statement Obama sent his wife and children off on yet another vacation, this time to a luxury ski hotel in Vail, Colorado.

Later on in that same article I mentioned another outrageously expensive vacation taken by the Obamas that was paid for by our taxes....

Back in August, Michelle Obama took her daughter Sasha and 40 of her friends for a vacation in Spain.

So what was the bill to the taxpayers for that little jaunt across the pond?

It is estimated that vacation alone cost U.S. taxpayers $375,000.

During a time when so many millions of American families are deeply, deeply suffering it is truly appalling that the residents of the White House would be so insensitive.

#7 Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain recently declared that anyone that is unemployed or poor in America should only blame themselves....

"Don't blame the big banks. If you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself."

#8 Sometimes our politicians are so insensitive that it is almost hard to believe. In an interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News while she was still the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi stated that we need poor people to have less children because it costs the government so much money to take care of them....

PELOSI: Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children's health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those - one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apologies for that?

PELOSI: No apologies. No. we have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy.

#9 Warren Buffett has some interesting observations on class warfare. He is one of the few wealthy Americans that is willing to say what everyone else is thinking. Back in 2006, Buffett was quoted as saying the following in an article in The New York Times....

“There’s class warfare, all right,” Mr. Buffett said, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

Buffett was not taking pride in the fact that the elite have won, but there are many others among the elite that are very proud of what they have done and they are not afraid to look down on the poor.

The level of income inequality that we have in the United States today is absolutely amazing. According to data from a few years ago, the average household income for the top 0.01% of all Americans was $27,342,212. According to that same data, for the bottom 90% of all Americans the average household income was just $31,244.

#10 Every single day, our "representatives" in Washington D.C. are living the high life at our expense. It is amazing that out of the entire population of the United States, we continue to overwhelming elect rich people to Congress. As I noted in a recent article, more than half of all the members of Congress are millionaires, and the median wealth of a U.S. Senator in 2009 was 2.38 million dollars.

Without a doubt, the wealthy rule over us all and they intend to maintain control and perpetuate the system which has rewarded them so handsomely.

When necessary, they are not afraid to call in the police to bust some skulls. Sadly, we are already seeing some brutally violent confrontations between law enforcement authorities and Occupy Wall Street protesters in many areas of the country. The other day, I wrote about the horrific violence that took place in Oakland recently....

Unfortunately, the authorities are not just going to sit by and watch these protests happen. In fact, they are already clamping down hard in many areas of the nation. For example, police in Oakland recently used tear gas and rubber bullets to break up the Occupy protest in that city. When police opened fire, the streets of Oakland literally became a war zone for a few minutes. You can see shocking videos of the violence here, here and here.

Power and wealth have become incredibly concentrated in the United States today. As one scientific study demonstrated recently, the elite control almost the entire global economy. In fact, the University of Zurich study discovered that there are just 147 gigantic corporations at the core of it all.

It is not a good thing that such a very small group of people completely dominates all the rest of us.

Once again, there is absolutely nothing wrong with working hard, making great contributions to society and becoming very wealthy.

However, what we have today is a fundamentally broken system that funnels most of the wealth and most of the power into the hands of the ultra-wealthy and the gigantic corporations that they own.

It would be great if the American people could come together and work to make some positive changes to our system.

But right now, it appears that strife, discord and hatred are going to continue to rapidly grow in this country. We have become a very divided nation and we are watching anger and frustration grow to very dangerous levels.

All of this is a recipe for mass chaos. Our country is marching toward a date with disaster and right now we show no signs of changing course.

Please pray for America.

We definitely need it.
http://rantingsofatrimetbusdriver.blogspot.com/2011/11/let-them-eat-cake-10-examples-of-how.html

Is this the coolest bus shelter or what?

Fear and Loathing on the Blue Line

I could feel it creeping in… I had The Fear. Despite clutching The Gold Pass in my sweating hand, the Ultimate Ticket, procured on a damp November night on a blood-slicked NE 102nd Ave. MAX platform from a short mustachioed brute named Hector, I was still afraid. The Inspector was a goggle-eyed ether-sniffer let loose from his short leash by a money-crazed Trimet bureaucracy, and he didn’t give a shit about Gold Passes. It was clear that before the day was done I’d have to use every trick in the book to finish the assignment with my balls intact. It was clear that I needed the strong medicine. There was Work to be done.

Read the rest: http://trimetdiaries.com/2011/11/fear-and-loathing-on-the-blue-line/
Dr. Jeff's stories just keep getting better, don't they? I couldn't quit laughing after reading this.
On another note, after reading this, it inspired me to do a drawing related to the story and I'm going to try to figure out how to scan it onto my computer within the next few days (I hope).

OCCUPY

@PoORstudent42Namregnuy Yaj

I'm a human being goddammit and my life has value…I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore @OccupyPdx@OccupyPortland @ows

Welcome to Spokane, where your bus driver decides what you can talk about on the bus.

Off the bus! Transsexuals kicked off for talking about bisexuality

What not to do

Don't rob a hotel when guests are MMA fighters from Eugene. They will take you down.http://bit.ly/v1AV3B

PDXrailtransit's Blog

Riding the Solarium Lounge on TriMet's type 4s
COEXISTING on the Transit Mall
Where is SP106, the Oregon ?

Where are the tickets going? Part One.

Dr. Jeff

Clusterfuck Nation

I have no idea who else might be waiting in the background, someone tortured with disgust by the leveraged buy-out of the American common good, someone capable of articulating the terms of the convulsion we face in national life if we don't start doing things differently. Surely in a population of 310 million you can find more than a few resolute personalities who refuse to just sit back and watch the sickening spectacle of inept vacillation.

Of course, the first order of business is to get corporate money out of politics. Are we capable of doing that? Can we legislate a redefinition of corporate "personhood?" After all, corporations have no allegiance whatsoever to the public interest, only to their shareholders and boards of directors. Who was the Supreme Court kidding when they proposed in 2010 that corporations have a personal stake in politics. Corporations are sociopaths. They need to be tasered!

Critical State

It's a miracle!

SERVICE WORKER: Fuel, monitor and record fluid levels, vacuum interior, wash exterior, and park vehicles. Clean the interior of vehicles; remove graffiti, clean exterior when necessary.

Now TriMet needs a whole lot more of these guys so that our buses and trains can actually get cleaned more than once a year.

Another Lying Transit Agency

In another transit-agency lie, C-Tran follows TriMet’s example of calling light rail “high-capacity transit,” even though TriMet’s light-rail lines–being limited to two cars per train–have some of the lowest capacities in the nation. Moreover, since Vancouver is one of only four lines that cross the Steel Bridge, which can only move 30 trains an hour each way, an average of only 7.5 trains an hour can make it to Vancouver; at 300 passenger per train (which is probably packed tighter than TriMet rail cars ever really get), that’s just 2,250 people per hour. By comparison, buses can move tens of thousands of people per hour at higher speeds without anyone having to stand in the aisle.

The Antiplanner