The time has come, the walrus said, to speak of many things

[pjthompson]

Another way to help: In SoCal, anyway. See if there are similar programs in your area. Help pack boxes of relief supplies:

http://www.childrenshungerfund.org/

Quote of the day:

"Not only are there no happy endings, there aren't even any endings."

—Neil Gaiman, American Gods

Gas price of the day: Last night I paid $3.39 a gallon at my regular station for my regular gas. It was down in the two-nineties last time I filled up. Good thing I don't drive much. I've had the car since December and just barely passed the 3000 mile mark. Thank heavens I live close to work.

I didn't stick to my usual habit of waiting until I was on fumes before refilling--although there aren't any gas shortages here. I needed gas, but I had maybe a third of a tank to go.

I'd take mass transit if it was conveniently available. About the only way I could drive less would be to take the bus to work. And although I only live about seven miles from my job, I'd have to take two different buses to get there. Even our bus system sucks in L.A. The service is decent (especially so on the Santa Monica Blue Bus), but everything is such a patchwork of municipalities that there are three different bus companies operating in my immediate vicinity--LA, Santa Monica, Culver City. The Metro only exists in downtown LA and outlying suburbs.

So far there are no connecting lines here on the Westside. Too much pricy real estate here, I guess. The snooty rich folks don't want to encourage the riff-raff coming into their communities. So their maids and nannies have to make do with transferring buses multiple times in order to come into the Westside to do their job. Sometimes I loathe Westsiders, even though I've lived here all my life; even though I've been amongst the riff-raff contingent still clinging to the few riff-raff enclaves left over on this side of town.

Sorry. Not helpful. But scenes like the ones in New Orleans always bring out my working class resentment—even though it's not at all helpful in healing the ills there. I can't help but think that if the people left behind and in so much trouble had been rich folks, help would have gotten there much sooner.

Sorry again. Anger anesthetizes.

Typo of note: even though I've been amongst the riff-raff contingent still clinging to the few riff-raff enclaves left over on this side of time.



The Walrus and the Carpenter
Were walking close at hand:
They wept like anything to see
Such quantities of sand:
'If this were only cleared away,'
They said, 'it would be grand.'

'If seven maids with seven mops
Swept it for half a year,
Do you suppose,' the Walrus said,
'That they could get it clear?'
'I doubt it,' said the Carpenter,
And shed a bitter tear.

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I remember taking the bus from Westchester to San Gabriel, back in the late sixties, in order to go to Tolkien Society meetings. First I had to walk three miles to Sepulveda, because there was no Saturday morning bus up to Sepulveda, then it took nine hours from there--with a heart-stopping hour wait on Skid Row. (My parents never found out that I was standing alone for an hour on Skid Row waiting for a bus, or they never would have let me go, because of course there was no thought, ever, of =driving= us anywhere.) Oh, then a four mile walk from the drop-off to my grandmother's, from which I'd foray to the meetings. Then it all to be done again the next day, for home.

[pjthompson]

Yep, that's LA bus service for you! To visit my friend in Culver City from my home in Venice, I had to take three buses from three municipalities. I sure hope it's improved since then.

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

I can't help but think that if the people left behind and in so much trouble had been rich folks, help would have gotten there much sooner.

You're not the only one.

Speaking of gas prices, the lady at the station where I get mine said that there was a good chance we'd be in the $6 range next week. Ugh.

[pjthompson]

Speaking of gas prices, the lady at the station where I get mine said that there was a good chance we'd be in the $6 range next week. Ugh

I believe it. And I suspect the Europeans of quietly laughing at us--they've been paying the equivalent of $4, $5, $6 a gallon for gas for years. That's why their mass transit is often better than ours, I guess.

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

I don't blame them. The price we (used to) pay for gas is less.

That's why their mass transit is often better than ours, I guess.

I would think so. It's definitely a contributing to why I'm likely going to switch over within the next week or two.

[(Anonymous)]

Here in the UK prices are about to reach one pound sterling per LITRE. Most of it is tax.

[pjthompson]

Mommy! I remember gas for our car was about the most expensive part of our trip to England last year.

[handworn.livejournal.com]

Thinking sweeping all the sand away would be grand has underlay most human endeavors. Strip-mine! Build the world's biggest oil tanker! Walk across the country backwards to get into the Guinness Book of World Records!

Asinine. Like Dorothy Parker seeing an expensive country estate and remarking that it's what God could have done if he'd had money.

I never properly appreciated public transportation until I now discover how much we east-coasters have of it and how little other parts of the country do. Anybody want a bus route? Take two, we got plenty.

[pjthompson]

Thinking sweeping all the sand away would be grand has underlay most human endeavors.

As well as sweeping all the wetlands away so the impact of the hurricane is even greater. Human folly is bottomless.

And if you read that poem in its entirety, it's pretty chilling. I hadn't read it in years. On the one hand, you can read it as the walrus and carpenter being predators and tricking the oysters into being eaten. OTOH, if you wanted to get fancy, you could read it as developers preying on the poor or, probably more likely in a Victorian context, the upper class preying on the lower class, or the old preying on the young...

Anybody want a bus route? Take two, we got plenty.

The other thing you easties have are concentrated cities that don't sprawl all over the place. I just looked up the relative sizes: L.A. County is 4084 square miles; City is 465.8 sq mi--as opposed to Philly 135 sm; NYC 308 sm; Chicago 185 sm. So, mass transit becomes a huge problem, one our leaders have been ignoring or soft-pedaling or wasting money and not producing on for years. It's a scandal. But things are better than they were. The trains coming in from outlying areas to downtown LA are vastly improved. But those of us living in the city are still out of luck.

[handworn.livejournal.com]

Bizarrely, I know that poem as a song, from Danny Kaye's album for kids (DK if he made more than one). "Why the sea is boiling hot" stands in as a pretty good example of the necessity (and moronic quality) of social acceptability for a certain proposition to be accepted as truth. Political correctness is the modern description of it. All it takes for that to be possible (or the oppression of the poor by the rich) is a circle of people who believe it's OK, so that they all reinforce each other. It's when you convince one person in the circle to condemn it that the voted-upon truth, so called, starts to change.

The other thing you easties have are concentrated cities that don't sprawl all over the place.

That's because the cities were mostly built up in the pre-automobile age; they were built for mass transportation, not on the assumption that everyone has a car, as most of L.A.'s square mileage was. Cities like N.O. which are as old as many east coast cities, nevertheless didn't experience the same degree of growth in the late 19th century. Before Brooklyn merged with NYC in 1898, for example, it was by itself the fifth largest city in the U.S..

[pjthompson]

Carroll knew human nature amazingly well, right down to it's rotting socks. His poems seem like spritely little ditties, but there's so much dark just beneath the skin. He portrays the absurdity of social conventions and lies better than almost anyone if you read what those poems are really saying.

All it takes for that to be possible (or the oppression of the poor by the rich) is a circle of people who believe it's OK, so that they all reinforce each other.

Yes, and how many atrocities have been perpetrated, on the left and the right, by just that kind of cosy insularity?

That's because the cities were mostly built up in the pre-automobile age; they were built for mass transportation, not on the assumption that everyone has a car, as most of L.A.'s square mileage was.

Hey, I ain't knocking compact cities. I think they have a number of advantages.

[handworn.livejournal.com]

Carroll knew human nature amazingly well, right down to it's rotting socks. His poems seem like spritely little ditties, but there's so much dark just beneath the skin.

About which, I'd guess, Danny Kaye was clueless. He never did strike me as the sharpest knife in the drawer, even when I was a kid.

Yes, and how many atrocities have been perpetrated, on the left and the right, by just that kind of cosy insularity?

All of them, I bet.

Hey, I ain't knocking compact cities. I think they have a number of advantages.

Never thought you were. I love Philadelphia for many reasons, those you mention among them.Ever been here?

[pjthompson]

I love Philadelphia for many reasons, those you mention among them.Ever been here?

I was there a couple of times--in '89 and '90, I think. I actually stayed with a friend in Collingswood, but we went into Philly several times. Mostly the tourist areas, which I loved a lot, but also drove through some of the poorer parts on our way to Valley Forge and then Gettysburg. Never been to Pittsburgh, even though several of my ancestors came from that area.