Saturday, March 2, 2013

Time once again for the NY Metro area’s quarter-annual transit fare hike. A time when the MTA nickles and dimes its riders into paying for some important major ‘thing’ the transportation giant feels NYC strapphangers shoud pay for. Maybe if the public were given some idea of just exactly what this 25 cent hike will go towards, we’d bitch a lot less when it comes to the overcrowded trains, unexplained late buses, complicated metrocard instructions, snarky busdrivers, tiny-ass seats, garbled station announcements, and limited weekend service. Did I leave out anything? But really, I can’t complain but too much, considering The Big Apple is No. 2 in total number of passenger trips and government spending per capita on a public transit system. The MTA operates at a staggering $13.1 billion, and on an average weekday ridership is over 8.4 million–40 percent of the nation’s transit trips! Okay, here’s the quarter…but fix the damn loudspeakers will ya! ♦

The U.S. Department of Transportation put the brakes Friday on a discount bus company that operates out of NYC Chinatown–the  Boston-based Fung Wah bus company. The agency charged Fung Wah with improperly hiring drivers who couldn’t speak English and who regularly exceeded speed limits, refusing to cooperate with inspectors after it was ordered to provide safety records for its 28 buses and having a history of safety violations, including fatigued driving and lax maintenance. Pretty much sums up my experience when I took one of these buses to Phillidelphia. Literally feared for my life as I foolishly sat in the front seat of the bus watching the driver execute one hairpin turn after another, cursing out other drivers in a foreign language. The flies hanging around the mini bathroom in the back of the bus kept flying to the front to see what the heck was going on. Get your ish together Fung Wah. Cuz even though your fares can’t be beat if you need to travel from one US city to another by bus, it shouldn’t be a life or death decision. ♦ 

The United States Army Corps of Engineers’ employees made a rap video expressing their frustration over the sequester cuts that took effect on Friday. Seeing as the federal budget cuts contained in the sequester affect funding for the USACE, a number of civilian defense contractors face the prospect of  furloughs. Members of the corps took to YouTube recently to make their opposition to the sequester cuts known… in a rap video called “Furlough Friday”. The video was made to ease members’ tensions over the upcoming layoffs. The U.S. federal agency working under the Department of Defense is made up of some 38,000 civilian and military personnel, making it the world’s largest public engineering, design, and construction management agency.Good Luck fellas. ♦

Kim Kardashian is confusing me right now. I thought she said she intended to start keeping her relationship with Kanye West more private, when just a week ago she and Kanye West were plastered all over the cover of  L’Officiel Hommes magazine–nekked.

 “My boyfriend has taught me a lot about privacy, I’m ready to be a little less open about some things, like my relationships. I’m realizing everyone doesn’t need to know everything. I’m shifting my priorities.”

Uh-huh, uh-huh..that is you and Kanye on the cover right? Tell me something? How in the world does one become more ‘private’ when their entire “career” is based on having  every orifice, dimple and pimple on one’s body on display for the public viewing on the regular? Don’t kid yourself Kimmy. You’ll be milking this cow til you and your brand name finally become irrelevant and the public moves on to its next fantasy/fascination. Don’t blame you either Girfriend, cuz this here is business…♦

Later pilgrims…