This is getting ridiculous. Trains in LA are just not safe lately.

I don’t suppose that I’m going to get away without blogging about this. Be warned: this is epic.

One week after the horrific MetroLink crash and a week and a day after this fender-bender, the Blue Line injures thirteen, but fortunately none seriously.

So my morning went like this:

When I got on the train, the accident had already happened, though Metro had not bothered to announce it yet. About halfway through my commute, the driver says, and I quote:

There’s been an accident at Washington & Griffith: Train vs. Bus.

This is an amazing quote for a couple of reasons. One, it sounds like he’s referring to a new version of WWE Smackdown or a new Fox Special or something. Really it almost sounds as if our driver considered the crash situation thusly:

The driver of the Train caught the eye of the driver of the Bus, and they gave each other a squintily apprasing look. Then one of them gave the secret hand signal for “It’s on like Godzilla vs. Mothra” and the other one replied in kind. And then they commenced crashing to see who would rule South Central LA.

(N.B. - the train wins every time. Every time. This is an immutable truth.) All I’m saying that it was a weird phraseology choice our driver made.

The other reason the announcement was amazing was that it caused everyone on the Blue Line to simultaneously whip out their cell phones to call work or home. (I must say that I did it too and thus spared my wife from having to go through the subsequent ordeal.)

We arrived at Washington station. This is where all the trains were turning back south instead of going on to downtown. I can see my building from here (it’s very tall), though I’d never felt quite so far away. We had to get off, but there was a train on the other side that said “Los Angeles”. Well yippee-doo! Maybe this won’t be so bad... We can just change trains and move on. But then the driver had this weird phraseologic choice:

There is a train going on to downtown Los Angeles, and I’m going to try and get you to it.

What?, I’m thinking at this point, just make it wait, idiot! Use the radio! Don’t leave it to chance!

For a minute, I thought he might have done it. But just as our train came to a stop, the other train’s doors closed. We got off. I thought maybe that they’d see their error and open that train up and let us on. Nope. It left for downtown.

And it was almost completely empty.

Stay with me now. There’s 4-500 people on the platform at Washington Station, 96% of whom are going to downtown. I can only ask: why? Why did they not hold it for the five minutes that it would have taken to make the transfer? It was mayhem on the platform. I laughed really loud. Others had a different reaction judging by the number of shouts of ‘hell no’ and ‘this is bullshit’.

I stayed calm, and while others pushed and shoved their way to the bus bridge, I waited. Another train arrived a few minute later, full of people. It’s marked Los Angeles! Yay! I was right. So we all get on, and Metro employees and fare inspectors have a grand time cramming us all on like sardines, while the driver said - in all seriousness - things like “Please make room!” and “There’s only a few short stops to go!” and my favorite: “Get to know your neighbor!”

We stood on the train for about 10 minutes before they let us know that they couldn’t go north because of the work that was being done to crashed train.

We get off. I wade through the crowd of cursing commuters and eventually make it out to the street where the Metro sheriffs and others were helping to form a line to wait for the bus bridge. This line turned out to be the Gitmo (pardon the tacky reference) of Disneyland lines, featuring a disgruntled female sheriff shouting at us to “hug the fence” and a large deposit of fecal matter (human or canine? hard to know) covered by a newspaper. I had the bum fortune to get stuck standing near this steaming pile while we waited.

I was the last one on my shuttle bus, which gave me a chance to chat with the driver. I found out a lot of the stuff that was in the LA Times article I linked to above. The guy was in a really good mood. More on that in a minute.

The bus ride was pretty quick. More police were directing traffic away from the scene of the accident. We got to drive right by it, so I saw the giant dent in the bus in person, as well as the contraption that they were using to re-rail the train. I was really relieved to hear at that point from the bus driver that no one was on the bus at the time of the accident.

We went two stops and had to get off and then back on the train. Didn't have to wait long at all. This driver was working this bus-bridge-like train ride all by herself. Like the shuttle-bus driver, she was in a happy mood too: “Everyone going to downtown? Good!” Two more stops and I had arrived. I got to work at 8:30, 1 hour late. All told, that's not bad, but I had pretty much spent my energy for the day right there.

Overall, I’m pretty impressed at the way Metro handled this. I give them a hard time here sometimes, but things went pretty smoothly considering the relative severity of the crash. Other people I’m sure would disagree. The Metro people were pleasant - except for the ‘hug-the-fence’ lady - clearly enjoying themselves. I don’t think they were showing disrespect. I think they were happy to have something to do that was out of the ordinary. Let’s face it: transit driving - bus or train - involves a lot of repetition. They got to do some thing different for a change.

As for the ride home? Nothing to report. And I prefer it that way.

Duck and cover!

Sarah Palin talks about war with Russia. Russia. I'm just going to crawl under my desk right now. How the hell can we afford to go to war with Russia? We don't have the money (see 9 trillion-dollar debt) or the political clout (see the squandering of our country's good will by the Bushies) to do so.

Do we really want to even consider fighting wars on that many fronts? Does anyone else recall the cold war? Nuclear weapons? Rocky IV? Hello?

We cannot elect McCain and Palin... The world will not survive it.

Celebrating 9/11 with a Transit Fender-bender.

I think I’ve mentioned on this blog that working in a tall building in downtown LA on 9/11 is - at the very least - a bit creepy.

(3:01 p.m. “Live Blogging” - That was fun. My train almost hit a car while passing under the 10 freeway between Pico and Grand stations. Now we’re waiting. At least we’re in the shade. I need an iPhone or something so this could be live. Donations accepted.)

But this year, no one at work mentioned it. I avoided reading about it. I was slightly miffed as I left work of the two sets of flags a half mass in our plaza. Not that I don’t honor the memory of the people that lost their lives, but it was just a sigh-inducing moment. Some of us are trying to move on.

(3:10 p.m. - Okay, we did hit that car. But the driver said it’s going to be clear soon. We’ll see. I didn’t feel it, really. Per usual. I’m in the back of the train...)

Maybe it’s the way the Repubs have hijacked (pun intended) 9/11 as their personal emotional scar. Maybe it’s the fact that it’s been 7 years and we still can’t seem to catch a 6-foot-5, Arab billionaire on dialysis. Maybe it’s because it’s a reminder (as if anyone needed one) that John McCain wants to continue the legacy of Bush and Co.

(3:16 - Another train just went around us. This is officially sucking. Why do I bother trying to go home even a little early?)

This is kind of turning into a weird post. Sorry about that. Anyway, it seems that the visceral impact of 9/11 is lessening over time. I’m really noticing it this year. That’s all I’m saying. I’m getting a bit distracted here.

(3:21 - Still sitting. Folks are getting a bit restless. We are apparently waiting for a “supervisor” to come to the scene and clear us to proceed. I suppose no is not the time to let metro know that an elevated or buried train would have been pretty damn helpful.)

(3:28 - We’re moving again! Huzzah! Half hour. I suppose that’s not too bad.)

Uh... 9/11 and stuff. Oh, well. It was a good distraction anyway.

(4:53 p.m. - Got home. That sucked: the bus was late too. So all told, a nearly 2-hour one-way commute. Not the best way to spend time.)

The Conventions, Part 1: The Ratings.

This post may be optimistically titled. This may end up being the only post on the conventions - and more specifically the horror that is McCain-Palin - that I can stomach.

The Neilsen ratings are in. Big numbers for McCain & Palin's speeches, and interesting points in the article. I wonder about the political identity of the people watching. From the racial makeup of each audience, it seems simple. But I think that there is an argument to be made that more Dems watched the Repubs than Repubs watched the Dems. But I think a couple of other things likely boosted the Repub numbers. (Somewhat wild speculation begins here.)

One, people just don't know Palin and there going to want to watch. And some - like me - are also frightened of what she represents: creationism, fundamentalist activism, anti-feminism, etc., that we need to see what were up against and make scathing comments after every sentence and attack they speak. Simple enough.

Two - and let me warn that I can't quantify much this beyond my own personal experience - I would guess that there were fewer Repubs that tuned in to the Dem convention than there were Dems that tuned in to the Repub convention. Again, I base this on my own personal experience. I occasionally read Redstate and the National Review and others, looking for a clue as to why people think that way and to formulate counter arguments. And I find that so many of the right's positions and arguments tend towards the absolute, stemming largely from a religious mindset that predisposes them to acceptance. Why would they need to find another answer or prepare to argue? They have all the answers already, so why tune in to the Dems? They have the answers already. This is of course a generalization. After all, somebody over there on the right has the wherewithal to produce nuanced - if despicable - talking points.

I think that in general, more Dems are going to tune in to watch Repubs than the other way around. Liberals and independents are more accustomed to the taste of something other than their own Kool-Aid, more accustomed to thinking in the cracks.

We won't know which way wins for a couple of months...

Stench.

It’s late August, so all you Blue Line riders know what that means. Yes, that’s right... it’s “stench” season, where even the smelliest of Blue Line denizens go that extra mile to make us gag. Now some of these people are truly down-trodden and deserve sympathy and a leg up in addition to a shower, but a large percentage of them are in fact construction workers that work in the hot sun and then seemingly choose not to shower for three days.

The most skillful offenders always manage to find a way to make sure that their arms are in a position as close to my face as possible by clever use of the overhead handrails.

Maybe the worst thing, though, is getting onto a train at the end/beginning of the line in downtown LA, and finding that there is a lingering stench glurping about the train car. I usually go in and sit down anyway - it’s my only way home, after all. That’s when I start wonder, though, if I was lucky enough to get the seat that the stench just vacated. This is far from a comfortable feeling. It is - in fact - the epitome of first-dregree olfactory assault with a side of creepy, nasty grossiness. Plus, I’ve ofen considred burning the clothes I’m in when this happens, but today, I’m wearing new pants.

Maybe I should rethink my wardrobe until late October.

Free will-y.

This does not refer to the titular whale in that crappy kid’s movie. And it doesn’t refer to that either. Get your mind out of the gutter.

Nope, it refers to this article.

There are several problems with the premise. But all I will say is this (if the following is incoherent, blame infinity):

Reading between the lines in this case as in many others, the way authors of such articles seem to conceptualize the cause-and-effect aspect of determinism is rather provincial. They - and many commenters - seem to be under the impression that we could in some way come close to understanding enough of the causes of a given effect (or in the context of this article, choice) to understand the extent to which we truly have a non-contingent choice about what to do next. This is ridiculous. It’s not that simple. There is not a single cause for a given effect. There are not hundreds of causes for every given effect. There are not thousands or millions... there are, logically speaking, an infinite number of causes for every effect. An infinite number of reasons to be faced with and then make a given choice. Free will - like self - is process, not event. In other words, free will is not the crux of the matter. In the infinitely complex soup that is cause and effect we have what amounts to free will. So... if we can never hope to quantify what is controlling our processes, how can anyone credibly say that we functionally lack free will? You can’t because of the infinite regress. Technically we do not have free will, but we have de facto free will because of that infinite dance that is cause and effect.

Appendix 1 - Think about what goes into a single decision. I have a choice between two different pints of draught beer that someone has thoughtfully placed in front of me in order that I decide which one I like better. Just to decide which one to smell first, there are an infinite number of causes that govern the process, but we’re not interested in that particular patch of infinity. But once the beer is flowing over my tongue, the decision about whether or not I like it begins. Because of set neural pathways that are activated by the receptors in my tongue and olfactory nerves, I get instant feedback, as the brain, programmed by the effects of previous causes to be predisposed to like red beer (with the exception of Killian’s, which is crap) I decide I like that one. Think of all the effects - every neuron, every neuronal pathway... each tiny step in the process subject to the same infinite soup of cause-and-effect as every other. And then there’s the outside effects. Peer pressure, sounds, other smells, memories, and moifnt df sfglnsl...

Oops. Infinity broke my brain.

So. Free will: technically hogwash. Functionally, I choose to go to bed without watching the Olympics.

Unpleasant flashback to merry-go-rounds.

We bloggers are so on top of things, so I'm sure you're hearing it here first: SoCal had an earthquake.

It was a surprise to be sure, but it was over before I could do much more than utter a "what tha...?"

I'm stuck home with a tweaked back, so I didn't have to live through the wildly swaying building (I work on the 45th floor of a downtown highrise), so that's nice.  Even here in Long Beach closer to the ground, it did its darnedest to make me ill and loopy in the head for about 6-7 minutes.  It's a fairly bizarre sensation.  Kinda like the tire swing on three chains or the merry-go-round from days of yore, and much like those times, I wanted to get off before vomiting.  But it's hard to get off the earth - you guys from NASA know of what I speak.  Apparently there's been a earthquakian dry spell for the last decade or so in LA...  Hopefully this is not a sign of things to come.  People in LA are loopy enough as it is.

Be it old-school or new-school, the LBPD gets its man.

Addie shared this with me the other day and it deserves to passed along.

She was driving home from work, passing through the club district in downtown Long Beach. She says she saw a homeless guy with a shopping cart stopped by 4 of LBPD's finest.

Get this: the homeless guy had a huge mattress on the cart, and the cops? Two were riding Segways and the other two were on horses. What kind of schizophrenic PD do we have around here? And how am I supposed to decide whether this is overkill or ridiculous?

But I know that this is both.

Did I just hear that right?

The scene: 7:28 am. Grand Ave. Station. Two Blue Line trains going in opposite directions. I’m on the Northbound train (of course).

Heard on the outside loudspeakers, so all the world can enjoy it:

My driver (female) “Oooh, you so luckyyyy!”

The other train driver (male): “That’s not luck, baby. That’s skill.”

I have no idea what they were talking about, and I think I’m glad.

Why do I even try sometimes?

I’m not at all superstitious. I don’t really believe in karma. Or in curses. But I have to say that it's hard not to have a bit of a complex about trying to leave work early on a Friday afternoon when I’ve a Monday - or in this case a Monday and Tuesday - off. When I try to do this, something happens to the Blue Line. Every time. Sometimes it’s extra slow for mechanical problems. Sometimes there’s an accident. Sometimes they have emergency track maintenance. It’s always something. It's always slow and crowded. And it happened again. I promise that I have not found religion... though I may start planning for train suckiness in these situations in the future.

Roundup:

Seen on the Blue Line recently: a baby duck. It’s a zoo on here.

Overheard yesterday on the Blue Line:

Young Latino skateboarder number 1 (after a long, long silence): “I think I’m going to be a Navy Seal.”

Young Latino skateboarder number 2 (without blinking or looking up): “My ass.”

Silence again.

Seen today on Long Beach Transit, Line 111: a middle-aged, skinny gay dude, with no teeth, black fingernail polish, a Laguna Beach tee-shirt from the 1980s, all topped off with a beautifully embroidered ivory-white yarmulke. We get all kinds in the LBC.

Are we sure it's over? I think we are.

This is hard to describe. I - like many others I’m sure - feel like I’ve singlehandedly willed Obama to victory in the primary. Hoping against hope. Railing against the status quo. Parsing every speech. Wondering when we would be able get out of the Bush-induced quagmire. I’m wrung out.

Let’s look at tonight:

The speeches didn’t compare. Obama killed. Just fucking killed. Right now, you’re either happy beyond measure that he’s the nominee, or you wish your candidate were anywhere near as inspiring and on top of things as he is.

McCain’s speech was a disaster. Uninspiring, devoid of new ideas or real change. It was painful to watch. He looked like a ventriloquist’s dummy. That green screen? Not good. Abysmal.

HRC was better. In fact, she was much better than McCain. Much better. She could beat him going away. But she’s crazy. She confirmed this - in case we didn’t already know - by embracing that non-real reality for all the world to see. And she’s trying to use her supporters to leverage a high-level spot in an Obama government. This none-too-hidden beggary for the VP slot is pathetic and unworthy of someone who would call herself President or Vice-President.

Obama sounded like himself, sounded like the man that could lead the nation out of the dark forest, the man with the plan. Only he’s refined his words and sentiments to a razor-sharp precision unseen since the 1800s. He has mastered that balance between soaring, inspiring rhetoric and biting, substantial policy that can make a speech spear itself into your mind and punch its way into your gut. He’s ready for the general. He can taste the work. He’s eager to kick ass and take McCain’s name. Only one name? No problem.

Some are worried about Democratic part unity. P’shaw. We’re not trying to unify something old, to make some kind of frankenstein monster - that might lose - out of the pieces of the old politics. We’re trying to create something new. Unification will happen naturally with a new coalition, a new electoral energy. The contrast with McCain... well, I already went there.

I am floored; I am moved. I am excited; I am hopeful. If I feel these things this strongly now, how am I going to feel in November, when Obama becomes the President of the United States America?