The Bus Bench

Bus Bench Service Alerts. 8-07.

Foothill Transit, a public transit organization that WORKS!!!!!

Bus Bench Bits

Bus Bench Service Alerts 08-07

“I’d rather wait for the very late and dirty MTA than have to carpool with someone who thinks Celine Dion is music,” an American.
Carectomy/ 08-04

Remember last year when people did that park(ing) day when people who had electric vehicles (which are still cars)  put their cool interior design sci-arc sanctioned ideas in a truck drove them to a parking spot and then sat in that spot to protest driving or to champion open space, but actually it was real annoying and pretentious (especially in a place like LA, I mean really who is using up the most space the rich and pretentious or the poor and angry, how about doing parking day in Beverly Hills...) well for the version in NY,  this Friday is the last day to sign up to be one of those annoying people.
Streetsblog/ 08-06

Not having money to pay for your bills causes causes your power to go out, which conserves energy. That’s pretty eco.
LA Times/ 08-07

Port pollution death is so early aught.
California Progress Report/ 08-08

Do you care more about eating or trees? If you said eating you’re a horrible person.
Times Transcript Canada/ 08-02

Train riding hobo girl.
The City Paper Baltimore/ 08-06

The MTA is racist.
The Wave/ 08-08

Tapping your bus ride.
Daily Fusion/ June

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Sometimes when you're on the bus and you're angry because it's late and stinky and the MTA is ripping you off in all kinds of ways, some you don't even know yet. Think about this, at least you're in LA. At least you're not in Canada on a bus and some guy (he worked at McDonalds, more reasons to never eat there) decides that your existence is bothering him and decides to end your existence, separate your head from your body and then put your ear and nose in his pocket for a late night snack.

At least the MTA isn't that bad. If you look at it that way, a 30 minute late bus maybe isn't SO BAD..

WOW!!!!! Thanks for the heads up on that insanity 110 at the 10.
Bus Bench Bits edited, compiled and made funny by Browne Molyneux

Canadian house guests. 11/30. Union Station

I was reading an article in the Economist, "Not Such a Warm Welcome" and Canada and the US, not so shockingly, have similar issues in regards to immigration.

Apparently in Canada they are trying to ease the exploitation of  "visitor" workers. They want to do something via USA style I guess like the Bracero program.

I always think guest worker programs outside of school programs are bad ideas. How is having a guest worker program where a person barely makes minimum wage a good thing? That's like  asking a guy you met on your trip 1000 miles away from you house to come over to open a jar of mayonnaise and then paying him a quarter.

Yeah there is the argument, that the guests are doing better here than they would be in their home country, but to me there always seems to be a downside of having guests you don't really view as family in your house for long periods of time.

And house guests never leave, we all know that.

And eventually you hate them and they hate you, but it's too late to do anything about it, because of those very archaic eviction laws and your guest's old house has been torn down. If he doesn't live with you, he's just going to live by you on your sidewalk, might as well have him take out the trash.

As a kid I got to live with my mom for a time as an "illegal" immigrant in Canada. Americans often think this is the only country the whole illegal thing happens in. No, it's just talked about more. Canada, the UK, pretty much any country where they've evolved beyond having just physical ailments and have moved onto things like mental ailments i.e. stress, fatigue syndrome, and nervous conditions there are illegal immigrants.

If your country has a pill for acid reflux or panic disorder chances are you have illegal immigrants. It's a package deal.

I was more legal than my mother, luckily for me my mom only dated people from the "better" companies, oh sorry I mean better countries. She dated people with proper paperwork, but as a kid if you're legal (or rather more legal my dad was in North America, but not Canada an illegal American in Canada I would assume is more legal than an illegal Nigerian in Canada if there were some kind of hierarchy, which I'm sure there is) and your mom is not, her problem becomes your problem. 

As a seven year old how do you do stuff like eat if you don't have a big person doing things like going grocery shopping and paying rent.

"I don't want to move again I have this new friend she's really cool and..." me as little Browne.

"Do you want mommy to go to jail? Do you want to go to jail?" Browne's mom.

I think my mom desensitized me to the whole jail concept. This is probably part of my problem.

That's right I've experienced the joys of La Migra for overstaying my welcome, but I experienced it Canadian style.

Canada is not nearly as rad as most Americans think it is. It is really working on it's asshole card. It's just not sophisticated enough to do it, but don't think it's not trying.

Though I talk shit about the USA the USA is pretty much the best piece of shit for you if you're a shade of brown. Seriously. If there was somewhere better, I would have definitely packed my bags. I mean of course if you are African-American you can go to France and they'll think you're cool, but only if you're an artist or some shit like that. Try going there being from the Ivory Coast. That's the test right there. Or how about try being Chinese in London and not being loaded or not having a white amour as a shield. In London even people of middle class status will call you a racial slur to your face. As an American you'll be shocked, but it will happen. No one believes me, but trust me go outside the touristy areas. London is cool and all, but there is a strong consciousness of race and class. They want to know your age and some people want a picture in regards to job interviews, they even ask about your parents.

It's supposed to be illegal or they are trying to make it illegal, but in the UK it's really common for interviewers to ask illegal questions. They don't care.

Unless you can pull the exotic artist card, which if you're not a chick or an artist that is a mighty hard feat. Jimmy Hendrix was the only dude I know that pulled that off, the rest all women. The USA is one of the best bets for people of color.

It's not perfect, but less of two evils definitely, because say you're a woman and can pull off the above what if you have a kid. What if you have a kid who is a boy after you've moved to start your glamourous life in Paris. That boy may be an untalented dork and he won't have the American cache...

I think any country that wants to import cheap labor should be required to grant those people they are importing full citizenship and it should be offered in a streamline fashion. If the west claims it doesn't want low wage workers from other countries exploited and treated like slaves, that is what it should do. The measuring stick should be if one month wage (if you factored in the cost of living and how much they would have left)  wouldn't allow that person to fly home, not hitch hike or bike home, but fly home then you are required to give that person full citizenship. I'm thinking McDonalds, WalMart, and Target could do that.

That would be the humane thing to do, but corporations aren't very humane and the west has tendency to double talk.

Yeah anyways. I suggest you read the Economist. I know it sounds like it;s this very conservative rag about the economy, but it's about so much more than that. It talks about all of the countries not just America or the English speaking ones and how various social factors impact the economy.

Apparently France is getting burned down right now. They should have elected the cool chick, Segolene. She is hot and smart. Who wouldn't want that in a President? Oh and did you know the former Frech President Chirac is being tried for embezzlement. Wow France is an interesting place right now. The world is an interesting place. We're living in insane times.

Want to read what's going on the world, but don't want a freakin book, well the Economist is the rag for you.

Browne

U.S.A. on Fast-Track to Be Canada’s Bitch

On September 21st, ere the Equinox, Canada celebrated the end of its own long day: the end of the dollar’s dominance over the long-laughed-at loonie. The canadian dollar, which has sat deep in the shadows of the american dollar since 1976, seems to no longer harbour cause for alarm the decades-olde threat of "51st statehood." Now it may be the canadians laughing as the dollar becomes the new "north american peso."
Eleven years after the brief country-wide spate of twoonie-popping (prompted by the easily disengaged centre by merely dropping the damned gaff on concrete or an equally firm surface), the loonie (the basic canadian dollar from which the two-dollar coin took its name) has turned a strong feather and all but eaten the diminishing american eagle. The "parity parties" have only begun to stop. Said soirees might well have continued were it not for the encroaching shopping season that will, I wager, bring canucks streaming south like semi-soused hunters in search of the moose what drank the lion's share of last night's left-over Black Label, eh?
But that is no longer news. What should be news is: why was it NOT news then? The rest of the world knew. Wall Street knew. The Financial Times, the wire services, those with something to lose—they all knew. Hell, pretty much EVERYONE knew—save the U.S.
There is no doubt that with China building its navy in ways that remain unreported in the U.S., the so-called civil unrest in Myanmar (it is not because monks and journalists are being killed; look to the poppy markets in Afghanistan and the oil conflicts round there as well as in east Russia near China) and the on-going money pit in Iraq (who knows if more money is going to Eric Prince/Blackwater/zealous religious right or to the loyal opposition: the equally repulsive albeit brutally effective and no less fanatical facets of islam?) and the financial tide of NAFTA doing what all big waves do (get sucked back out to sea), the U.S. is looking at more fronts than Hitler dared to shake a stick at in 1944 as he marched to Leningrad.
Along with the housing bubble bursting, I can only suggest to those who have not wasted their life savings on the American dream that a small cache of reliable firearms is the best way to defend a large library of good books, decent scotch and any edibles.
After all, you do not want to end up re-living—in real-life—the ending of “A Boy and His Dog,” now do you?

BusTard