Thu, 09/18/2008 - 12:41pm — Truth Partisan
Today, second person in two days to come to my door trying to sell me something, yesterday a "handy man," this time a builder. The builder said, "We don't have any work." He was driving around with a truckful of workers. He even had his name on the truck door; he'd been working until now. Usually the company works all year.
Nearby, a couple that is really quite old now were having their trees trimmed around their house in the woods. The worker--a licensed arborist--got caught harvesting trees off the back of their land, on town land. I was there and he said to me, "Why does the town care?" He had made a careful stack of the logs.
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Anyone else seeing door-to-door
appeals by people for work?
(Pols don't count.)
Nope. But I'm seeing very abherant behavior in general.
I'm in a metro area and most people are acting edgy, concerned and erratic. It's hard to describe but it seems like everything is out of wack.
I love this job!
I love this job!
I Get Door-to-Door Appeals
But I've learned that's not that uncommon in LA. I've gotten them for years.
What I haven't heard for years is the discussion everywhere I go about the financial mess. At work, at lunch, everywhere.
"Do what you feel in your heart to be right -- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't. " - Eleanor Roosevelt
Ditto
Just heard the discussion today when I went to get coffee at the local. And the first time, too. Yesterday, for some reason, was a breakthrough.
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
and no one is shopping
--at least in midtown--only tourists, i notice (mostly European) -- people are not buying--not carrying shopping bags on the street like they used to, and most small stores look empty.
Tent cities
Ick.
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Well, perhaps we should
sing something.
Policy not party!
Policy not party!
LL Bean tent cities
Yeah there are a bunch of stories--but all the pictures are like tent sales.
I guess I'm glad because I think they do better than boxes and roll up pretty easy but it just feels odd. Like failed vacationland?
Do you think sleeping in a car is better? The lots for car sleepers are maybe a good idea, be safer?
Woody!
Yes, sing alongs around a warm fire!
A friend from LA told me, BDB
He could tell when gas prices dropped into the 3 plus dollar range without checking because traffic picked up a lot.
I'll Have To Pay More Attention Truth Partisan
I haven't noticed that mostly because there aren't a whole lot of public transportation options in LA. There's some, but mostly buses with only a few trains.
I find LA traffic patterns to be a mystery other than traffic always sucks on the West Side and my related rule of never, under any circumstance, drive on the 405 freeway because you won't be driving, you'll be sitting. But otherwise, I can figure no pattern beyond it's worse when school is in session. D.C., OTOH, was easy. Congress is in session = traffic sucks. Congress not in session = traffic doesn't suck unless there's an accident or a bridge out or Janitors for Justice were staging a horribly misguided protest by deliberately blocking traffic (note - this is pretty much the fastest way to turn an entire metro area against your cause).
Fun fact for the few who may not know, Los Angeles once had two trolley systems and privatized one by selling it to a company that was owned by GM, Firestone, and Standard Oil (among others). LA was not the only city to do this and the story is pretty much the same in every one. As you probably realize, GM did not make trolleys, it made buses, which used gasoline and needed tires. So not that long after buying the trolley system from the city, the company tore it down and replaced it with ... buses. And, once one of the interconnecting trolley lines was taken down, it made the other one a lot less effective. It was also demolished in favor of... buses! There was a lawsuit under the Sherman Trust Act, but for some reason venue was moved from Southern California to Illinois, where there was a split verdict that mostly let the companies off the hook. Shocking!
"Do what you feel in your heart to be right -- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't. " - Eleanor Roosevelt
Same thing happened with trolleys
in the Boston area, though I don't know that it had any connection to the oil companies. THere were also quite wonderful "trackless trolleys" that were basically electric buses that connected to overhead wires, best of both worlds, really. But they went away, too.
Where I am in the country, there's essentially zero public transportation, and even the Amtrak routes have been cut so far that most of the state is effectively unreachable any other way but private car.
In the UK, Margaret Thatcher dismantled the fantastic Britrail system through a terrible privatization scheme, but it's amazing the number and frequency of inexpensive jitney buses that go from small town to small town through the countryside. In the U.S., you're on your own.
Subways, BDB?
Do the subways help in LA?