Sunday, August 9, 2015
Is Trump's Candidacy a Conspiracy Against the Republican Party?
After racist generalizations against Mexican immigrants, cavalier dismissals of the idea that John McCain could be considered a hero in service to the U.S. for suffering years as a North Vietnamese prisoner of war, a litany of grotesque allusions to the enormity of his personal wealth, and his continuous articulation of vacuous, overly simplistic criticisms of existing governmental policies on a range of issues absent any clearly defined policy alternatives, Donald Trump has apparently decided to use this moment in the vetting out of Republican Presidential candidates to introduce a novel and refreshingly frank species of misogynistic prejudice, attacking, of all women, a Fox News personality popular among its conservative, Republican-leaning viewer base!? Isn't there something amiss here? Trump is hammering home a cavalcade of all the far right wing racist, sexist, and classist prejudices latent within the political unconscious of the Republican base, unvarnished by the slightest hint of political correctness, let alone decorum or a basic sense of interpersonal sensitivity or human decency, and, for all his efforts, he's apparently still number one in all of the major polls of announced Republican candidates! There is something that just makes me want to ask who put him up to this. This can't be for real! It sounds more like a Stephen Colbert piece off of the Colbert Report, run amok for an audience that just doesn't get the joke, or, more to the point, it harkens back to Seventies television, when conservatives could enjoy big laughs from "All in the Family" while liberal intellectuals could laugh at the caricature the show made of conservatism. Trump is playing Archie Bunker for millions of Republican conservatives who just don't get that they are the butt of the joke, and that, if the Republican Party does not get its act together and select a serious candidate who can appeal to a much broader, culturally heterogeneous electorate with a moderately conservative agenda and a willingness to engage in principled compromise with progressive constituencies, then the country is going to elect another Clinton into the White House and, probably, at the same time, bounce one if not both houses of Congress back to the Democrats!
On Failures to Coordinate: The PVTA and Zipcar on a Summer Sunday
I am writing this post as an effort to vent my recurring frustrations regarding my efforts to employ mass transit as a viable means to get from point A to point B in my day-to-day life. The story conveyed here is a piece of a much longer story, beginning about six years ago when, in the course of a teaching gig that I had down at Holyoke Community College, I got into a fender bender in a commuter parking lot with the last car that I owned, prompting me, for a long list of reasons, to seek alternative means of transit to private car ownership. I will have to elaborate on this story at some later date, but for now it suffices to say that I rely primarily on two distinct modes of automotive transportation to get from my home in the Baystate neighborhood of Northampton/Florence to work in West Springfield and to other locations that I might need to get to. I hold a membership with Zipcar, which is very useful if I need to utilize a car either to travel moderately long distances (e.g. Boston on Sundays when I can park for free in Newton, Bennington when I feel like hiking my favorite section of the Long Trail, etc.) or I just need some means of transporting things close to home when loading things on my back won't do (e.g. getting the air conditioner out of my storage box in Hatfield). However, I just don't have the means, income-wise, to use Zipcars everyday - my reservations tend to amount to a special treat for myself on a once a month basis. On an everyday basis, I rely on the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority (PVTA), our local bus system for Hampden and Hampshire counties in the lower Connecticut/Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts.
For the most part, the PVTA tends to serve my needs. If it didn't, then I would not have been able to make not owning a car work out living over twenty miles away from my workplace. On the other hand, there are recurring problems, many of which could be blamed on the performance of individual bus drivers. I rely on one particular transfer at the downtown Holyoke Transportation Center, from the 6:30PM Purple 20 bus (Springfield bus terminal to Holyoke transportation center via West Springfield) to the 7:30PM Blue 48 bus (Holyoke transportation center to Northampton Academy of Music, the last scheduled run of the night) to get home to Northampton after work at least three nights a week. Several Purple 20 drivers have succeeded in stranding me in downtown Holyoke for the night, forcing me to either walk 11 miles home (which, sadly, I did on one occasion!) or seek alternative means to get back to Northampton (e.g. call up my roomate, Joe, who has been extremely accomodating in giving me a lift back home when I most need one). By and large, however, I have managed to combine rides from coworkers, shuffle schedules, and utilize alternate bus routes to ensure that I can get to and from work when I need to and still take care of numerous other needs, including, most recently, food preparation for my father, who has been a widower since my mom passed away last year and still hasn't mastered the fine art of preparing supper outside of throwing prepared dishes into the microwave oven! Moreover, recent schedule changes for the PVTA have accomplished wonders in giving me new alternative means of getting from the Springfield area back up to Northampton, most notably the extension of the Red 41 bus schedule (Northampton to Holyoke Mall via Easthampton Center) to a location where it frequently though not always can connect with the Purple 20 from Springfield to get me back to downtown Northampton twenty minutes before the Blue 48. Of course, there are occasions in which events beyond my control manage to throw a wrench into my commute for reasons that truly cannot be blamed on any individual bus driver. Snow will fall during winter, traffic will get diverted by the Holyoke Saint Patrick's Day Parade, and motors on PVTA buses will unexpectedly overheat during August heat waves, but, for the most part, I've found ways to deal with or plan around all such excusable failures of the PVTA system.
Today represents one of those occasions when all my transit planning and calculations break down. As I am writing this post, I should have been enjoying Italian food and, quite possibly, small quantities of Italian wine down in Waterbury, Connecticut, at the Pontelandolfo Community Club Festa di San Donato with my friend, Kirk, who lives and works as a librarian in Naugatuck, the next town over. I had reserved a Zipcar for the purpose of getting myself down to Waterbury. However, in the interest of reducing the total cost of the rental, I developed a rather complex plan. Rather than simply reserving a car in downtown Northampton as I usually do, I decided to reserve an infrequently used Ford at Veterans' Park in downtown Holyoke, across the street from the Transportation Center. Being relatively closer to Connecticut, the mileage that I would have expended driving from Holyoke would have been less than what I would have incurred had I reserved a car in Northampton. Also, estimating that I would, at most, spend about two hours indulging on Calamari, Lasagna, and other regional delicacies at the festival, I limited my rental to 5 hours (Zipcars rent by the day or the hour and come with a limit of 180 free miles per rental). This should have given me a generous 90 minutes for each trip and two hours to enjoy myself. In hindsight, maybe I was cutting things a little close, but I can concede my frugal nature without embarrassment! Also, there probably would not have been a problem extending the reservation by half an hour if I was due to run a little late. The one possible wrench that could have disrupted the mechanics of my plan consisted of the fact that I would have to take the 12:00PM Blue 48 from Northampton down to Holyoke in order to get to my rental precisely at 12:30 when my five hours were due to start. At the close of my rental, I would have to take either the 5:30PM or 6:30PM Blue 48 buses back to Northampton. None of this seemed remotely problematic, however, when I initially made my Zipcar plans.
As it was, there was a major automobile accident on route 5, between Northampton and Holyoke. The Blue 48 was diverted, I'm guessing, through Easthampton and around the Northampton Oxbow. As a result, the 12:00 Blue 48 that I was waiting for to get down to Holyoke never arrived! The Blue 48 was not back onto its schedule until 1:00PM, at which point, I had already texted Kirk to let him know that there were to be no Canolis in my future today and called Zipcar to cancel my reservation 20 minutes after I was supposed to have picked up my car. It is difficult to attribute blame to anyone in this situation. I made my plans under uncertain knowledge that the Blue 48 would be running on schedule as it does every Sunday. The folks at Zipcar were nice enough not to charge me the full value of my five hour rental, although I did get socked with a fee for tying up a car for a couple of hours that probably wasn't going to be driven by anyone else for the remainder of the week. The individuals involved in the accident on route 5 certainly didn't leave their houses this morning planning to get into a major accident, with injuries, that would divert traffic flows, playing havoc with bus schedules among other things. Lastly, again, the PVTA tries its best to adjust to incidents that will obstruct bus services, but there are certain events that cannot be remedied. The one complaint that I might have concerns the fact that I took a FULL HOUR for Blue 48 service to be restored after the traffic diversion.
As a summary point in this respect, in most circumstance, I try to plan my transit usage in the area on relatively tight schedules, taking advantage of every opportunity to limit the amount of time lost from taking particular buses and arranging Zipcar reservations in order to minimize my rental costs from hourly charges and mileage. When I design a particular plan to combine PVTA travel with a car reservation, I need the plan to fall together like clockwork. That is a little bit more than I can expect from the dedicated but otherwise somewhat unreliable members of the PVTA. That is not to say that I think mass transit under the PVTA is a miserable failure or that bus drivers within the system are ambivalent toward the needs of individual passengers to get somewhere on schedule. It is, on the other hand, simply a fact that the system runs with given limitations in both rolling stock and manpower that hinder its ability to adjust to situations like a major accident on a key thoroughfair. As a result, attempting to coordinate my travel, especially in connection with my Zipcar use, against PVTA schedules requires a great deal more flexibility than I am willing to extend to the system or include within my travel planning.
For the most part, the PVTA tends to serve my needs. If it didn't, then I would not have been able to make not owning a car work out living over twenty miles away from my workplace. On the other hand, there are recurring problems, many of which could be blamed on the performance of individual bus drivers. I rely on one particular transfer at the downtown Holyoke Transportation Center, from the 6:30PM Purple 20 bus (Springfield bus terminal to Holyoke transportation center via West Springfield) to the 7:30PM Blue 48 bus (Holyoke transportation center to Northampton Academy of Music, the last scheduled run of the night) to get home to Northampton after work at least three nights a week. Several Purple 20 drivers have succeeded in stranding me in downtown Holyoke for the night, forcing me to either walk 11 miles home (which, sadly, I did on one occasion!) or seek alternative means to get back to Northampton (e.g. call up my roomate, Joe, who has been extremely accomodating in giving me a lift back home when I most need one). By and large, however, I have managed to combine rides from coworkers, shuffle schedules, and utilize alternate bus routes to ensure that I can get to and from work when I need to and still take care of numerous other needs, including, most recently, food preparation for my father, who has been a widower since my mom passed away last year and still hasn't mastered the fine art of preparing supper outside of throwing prepared dishes into the microwave oven! Moreover, recent schedule changes for the PVTA have accomplished wonders in giving me new alternative means of getting from the Springfield area back up to Northampton, most notably the extension of the Red 41 bus schedule (Northampton to Holyoke Mall via Easthampton Center) to a location where it frequently though not always can connect with the Purple 20 from Springfield to get me back to downtown Northampton twenty minutes before the Blue 48. Of course, there are occasions in which events beyond my control manage to throw a wrench into my commute for reasons that truly cannot be blamed on any individual bus driver. Snow will fall during winter, traffic will get diverted by the Holyoke Saint Patrick's Day Parade, and motors on PVTA buses will unexpectedly overheat during August heat waves, but, for the most part, I've found ways to deal with or plan around all such excusable failures of the PVTA system.
Today represents one of those occasions when all my transit planning and calculations break down. As I am writing this post, I should have been enjoying Italian food and, quite possibly, small quantities of Italian wine down in Waterbury, Connecticut, at the Pontelandolfo Community Club Festa di San Donato with my friend, Kirk, who lives and works as a librarian in Naugatuck, the next town over. I had reserved a Zipcar for the purpose of getting myself down to Waterbury. However, in the interest of reducing the total cost of the rental, I developed a rather complex plan. Rather than simply reserving a car in downtown Northampton as I usually do, I decided to reserve an infrequently used Ford at Veterans' Park in downtown Holyoke, across the street from the Transportation Center. Being relatively closer to Connecticut, the mileage that I would have expended driving from Holyoke would have been less than what I would have incurred had I reserved a car in Northampton. Also, estimating that I would, at most, spend about two hours indulging on Calamari, Lasagna, and other regional delicacies at the festival, I limited my rental to 5 hours (Zipcars rent by the day or the hour and come with a limit of 180 free miles per rental). This should have given me a generous 90 minutes for each trip and two hours to enjoy myself. In hindsight, maybe I was cutting things a little close, but I can concede my frugal nature without embarrassment! Also, there probably would not have been a problem extending the reservation by half an hour if I was due to run a little late. The one possible wrench that could have disrupted the mechanics of my plan consisted of the fact that I would have to take the 12:00PM Blue 48 from Northampton down to Holyoke in order to get to my rental precisely at 12:30 when my five hours were due to start. At the close of my rental, I would have to take either the 5:30PM or 6:30PM Blue 48 buses back to Northampton. None of this seemed remotely problematic, however, when I initially made my Zipcar plans.
As it was, there was a major automobile accident on route 5, between Northampton and Holyoke. The Blue 48 was diverted, I'm guessing, through Easthampton and around the Northampton Oxbow. As a result, the 12:00 Blue 48 that I was waiting for to get down to Holyoke never arrived! The Blue 48 was not back onto its schedule until 1:00PM, at which point, I had already texted Kirk to let him know that there were to be no Canolis in my future today and called Zipcar to cancel my reservation 20 minutes after I was supposed to have picked up my car. It is difficult to attribute blame to anyone in this situation. I made my plans under uncertain knowledge that the Blue 48 would be running on schedule as it does every Sunday. The folks at Zipcar were nice enough not to charge me the full value of my five hour rental, although I did get socked with a fee for tying up a car for a couple of hours that probably wasn't going to be driven by anyone else for the remainder of the week. The individuals involved in the accident on route 5 certainly didn't leave their houses this morning planning to get into a major accident, with injuries, that would divert traffic flows, playing havoc with bus schedules among other things. Lastly, again, the PVTA tries its best to adjust to incidents that will obstruct bus services, but there are certain events that cannot be remedied. The one complaint that I might have concerns the fact that I took a FULL HOUR for Blue 48 service to be restored after the traffic diversion.
As a summary point in this respect, in most circumstance, I try to plan my transit usage in the area on relatively tight schedules, taking advantage of every opportunity to limit the amount of time lost from taking particular buses and arranging Zipcar reservations in order to minimize my rental costs from hourly charges and mileage. When I design a particular plan to combine PVTA travel with a car reservation, I need the plan to fall together like clockwork. That is a little bit more than I can expect from the dedicated but otherwise somewhat unreliable members of the PVTA. That is not to say that I think mass transit under the PVTA is a miserable failure or that bus drivers within the system are ambivalent toward the needs of individual passengers to get somewhere on schedule. It is, on the other hand, simply a fact that the system runs with given limitations in both rolling stock and manpower that hinder its ability to adjust to situations like a major accident on a key thoroughfair. As a result, attempting to coordinate my travel, especially in connection with my Zipcar use, against PVTA schedules requires a great deal more flexibility than I am willing to extend to the system or include within my travel planning.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)