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| My fellow New Yorkers may be able to relate to this....
So the transit strike is over (read: the MTA can now resume their practice of fucking over their employees and the general public) and I was pretty stoked to be on the train again (after commuting five hours each way to work yesterday). That is to say I was stoked until this crazy bitch got on and started screaming at the top of her lungs about any and everything to any and everyone. I had to endure this through the whole ride, so about an hour.
It got me to thinking. You've got this huge company like the MTA (I will now take this opportunity to express my opinions regarding the transit authority. They are corrupt. They have way more money than the want the public to know about. They are working with two sets of books and have been for quite some time. They're a bunch of greedy fucking bastards. There. I've just summed up every major American corporation.) arguing with their employees about who should pay for pensions and it gets all over TV.
On the other hand you've got more and more crazies (I say crazies merely to be descriptive and not in a pejorative way) on the trains every day because the mental hospitals are too full and too broke to take care of them and the train is the only place they have to go in many cases. These people are unstable and there are more and more cases of them lashing out and attacking customers on the train for no apparent reason. No one talks about that. They argue over pensions.
Don't get me wrong. I supported the transit workers' strike effort. It was a huge inconvenience personally and the city lost hundreds of millions of dollars collectively as a result but I couldn't be mad at them. There are very few people left willing to piss people off in order to stand up for what they want and what they believe. Far too many people just grin and bear it.
Roger Toussaint is my hero.
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| I am a woman so I know first hand how hard it can be to have a good self- esteem and body image these days. There's so much shit to contend with and we are constantly bombarded with images of the "ideal beauty".
Newsflash. Those chicks are not real! They build those bitches, you know. In a factory somewhere out in the Midwest probably. Come on, we all know what real women look like. They come in all shapes, all sizes. There is no one real beauty. Beauty comes in many different forms. I don't care how you think you look or what you think is wrong with you, someone out there loves you. Someone out there finds you attractive. Believe it. I speak the truth.
Would an oak tree compare itself to an evergreen? Does a hummingbird compare itself to a chicken? I'm pretty sure that is not the case and by the same token we should each learn to recognize the uniqueness and beauty within ourselves.
I'm writing this because a lot of girls (and now guys) are spending ridiculous amounts of money getting surgeries. That's right, surgeries. Plural. A little breast augmentation here, followed by a little nose job there, followed by some calf implants in a few months. And what makes it worse is that a lot of parents are paying for this shit! What happened to telling your children they're fine the way they are? What about telling them to focus on their education? I know that prettier girls seem to get farther in life but eventually boobs will sag, gray hairs grow in,and wrinkles will pop up. And then what are you going to rely on?
I'm not knocking anyone who gets one procedure if they have the money and they know they will genuinely feel better about themselves afterwards (I had a breast reduction a couple years ago and I felt so much better) but it seems to me that a lot of the people who get procedure after procedure never seem to really be happier at the core of themselves.
If you didn't get positive reinforcement from your parents, teachers or whoever then that is unfortunate. But now it's up to you to do it for yourself.
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| Today I want to talk about the whole subway bag searching fiasco. I know this is already kind of old but it's an issue that still bothers me. For those of you who don't have the pleasure of living in NYC let me fill you in. After the train bombings in London earlier this year the NY PD decided it would be a good idea to randomly search bags in random train stations before letting people get on the train. Now I know this sounds like a good idea to some of you and you're certainly entitled to your opinion (this is America after all. right?) but frankly it pisses me off. Now don't start on that bullshit of me being un-patriotic and no better than a terrorist myself because I have a problem with the police checking my bag. I love America and this is precisely why this practice makes me angry. This country was founded on the very notion of freedom. how many of you out there know your Constitution? Well for those of you who don't, the 8th amendment to the Constitution protects people like you and me from unreasonable searches and seizures. I don't know about you but I never see the police presenting a search warrant before they ask to look in someone's bag. Essentially these officers are breaking the law and what's worse is that everyone's just sitting around letting them do it? Why? Where's your backbone? Where's your substance? Does the youth of this country stand for anything anymore besides play station and the GAP? I know it sounds like I'm overreacting but I'm not. The truth is that this is only where it starts people. If we ignore things like this, it's only a matter of time before more of our rights get taken away. And you won't know when that happens because you don't even know what your rights are. And yes I know that these measure are only taken to make people "safer". I've got news for you. You can't be free and safe. You've got to choose one. Our founding father chose freedom when they came to this country. Besides how effective are these searches really? Do you know how many train stations there are in New York? There aren't anywhere near enough cops to cover them all. Do you know how many people are trying to get on a train at any given time? The cops can't stop all of them. And let's be real. If a suicide bomber really wants to blow up a train, a couple of uniforms aren't going to stop him. Truth hurts. All this ends up doing is harassing the people in this city. It doesn't make them safer.
It's a strong statement but the reality that at anytime I can get stopped and searched for no reason at all is scarier to me than the prospect of getting blown up on the train (and no, it isn't because there's probably weed in my bag = ) | | |
| Ok. When did people stop covering their mouths when they yawn? It seems as though whenever I'm on the train, whenever I turn around, I'm staring right at someone's tonsils. This one should be a no-brainer people. No one wants to see down your fucking throat! People have absolutely no sense of manners anymore. When I was young I was told to cover my mouth when I yawned, and when I coughed for that matter (don't laugh, some people still don't cover their mouths when they cough.... fucking nasty!).
And while we're on the subject of people and their annoying lack of manners( and common sense) what's up with people who take their sweet time stepping off an escalator when they get to the bottom? It's an escalator! It moves! It's not going to slow down just because you do! And guess what else? You may not have known this but most likely there is someone behind you. Gasp! This person will bump into you (and the person behind them will bump into them and so forth) if you don't move your slow ass off the escalator. Surprise!
When I'm president of the world, people who are caught yawning without covering their mouths and people who are caught taking their time getting off of moving escalators will be subject to ridiculously large fines. | | |
| When I'm president of the world, managers will ALWAYS remember what it was like when they were "little guys" and their managers were up their ass all the time. The workplace and the classroom are the last two sites of ultimate dictatorship (and yes it's still a dictatorship even if you get paid). So you would think that the people who move up in the ranks would take time to remember their roots and do their best to not perpetuate an already contentious situation.
Case in point. I had a "friend" at my job. This person wanted to move up badly and I supported him in that even thought I had more time in the company than he did because I felt him qualified and also because I was happy where I was and wasn't particularly looking to take my career to the next level just yet. Well he's gotten his wish and now he's over me. That didn't bother me and knew things would change somewhat but I wasn't expecting the complete 180 that I saw. All the things we used to bitch about together regarding management, he became himself. He cut me off, put up this cool facade and became completely standoffish. Fair enough. It can be hard being "in charge" (I put that in quotes because I'm an adult. Who's really in charge of me?) someone you were really cool with. But now things have gone too far and it seems as if my new manager feels he has to baby sit me and watch what I do all the time as if I'm an idiot that doesn't know what the fuck she's doing. That infuriates me because I work hard, we all do and I don't need another parent. I didn't get where I was by sitting on my ass and I certainly don't intend to start now. And as someone who was my "friend", he should know that.
People who turn on people when they get a little farther up the food chain are fucking corny. And when I'm president of the world, all forms of corniness will be prohibited. | | |
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