As a sort of informal research project, I began listening intently to people on Cap Metro's southbound route 3 that takes me to school. Crazy interesting shit happens on the bus. Today's was the best in a while:
I boarded shortly after one pm after conferring times with some crazy dude with bandaids on his arms who was talking to a fairly normal looking guy about the location of a certain hospital. He didn't seem quite as normal when he pulled out a huge empty prescription bottle and said he was new in town, from Houston, going to go refill his friend's prescription of hydrocodone. Huh. Then Bandaid Man pulled out a similarly empty bottle, and they guffawed together for sharing a mission. Bandaid Man had just gotten out of the hospital for a staph infection, which he continued to describe in gruesome detail as we got on the bus. At this point I had trained myself to stop listening. Instead I focused on the bus driver.
Most female bus drivers are either so nice they'd bring you a cupcake if you told them tomorrow's your birthday or so mean they'll not only not let you take your water on the bus but berate you on your weight or hair at the same time. Today's driver was of the latter sort. She honked irratically and swerved like a Kennedy on a boat. At the Koening stop, an equally angry disabled lady got on the bus. "Are all these people disabled?" she barked at the driver, gesturing to Bandaid Man and a dorky girl suffering from a broken foot and acne.
"Ma'am, just get on the bus," the driver moaned.
"Don't boss me around!" she growled. Bandaid Man and seemingly normal guy continued their discussion in front of me, and seemingly normal guy gave him a few of the pills he had left. I continued reading Tom Robbins and tried not to laugh. Dorky pimply broken foot girl looked like she was going to cry, and angrily texted someone about the injustices she was suffering.
For the next five or so minutes, the driver struggled to get the wheelchaired lady buckled. Her habit of backing up sharply (as if in her walking life she constantly made sneak turns and scared people and had continued her aggressive moving into wheelchairhood) knocked the seatbelt out of the driver's hands twice. She had really worked up a sweat trying to reach around the lady to get that seatbelt, too. Any attempts at directing a collaborative effort were met with the warning "don't boss me around."
We finally got buckled and arranged and were about to lurch off when the man at the stop told us we were leaking antifreeze, which resulted in five more minutes of phone calls and head shaking, bitching and clock watching. I was glad I didn't have class til four. It was a beautiful day. Tom Robbins held me in the weirdness of the moment:
"Our individuality is all, all, that we have. There are those who barter it for security, those who repress it for what they believe is the betterment of the whole society, but blessed in the twinkle of the morning star is the one who nurtures it and rides it, in grace and love and wit, from peculiar station to peculiar station along life's bittersweet route."
Showing posts with label bush. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bush. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
president evil
They say you shouldn't talk about sex or politics. I've already talked about sex.
I have the luxury of no classes on Wednesday so I'm watching this horrible abortion of a press conference. The issues of culture, education and democracy are woven into most of the books and discussions I've been into lately, all tied in by language, and I'm gritting my teeth to listen to Bush right now. I was raised in the buckle of the Midwest Bible Belt and my mom's basement is decked out in Americana decor, and I'm disgusted. He's spent a third of the speech so far dissing Congress for not doing anything and excusing himself from all governmental practices or knowledge, another third not answering legitimate questions by making excuses and heading off into tangents held together with cliches and reactionary talk, and the last third not answering questions by simply refusing to answer them and accusing the press of trying to trick him. This is our president. If I had a tank, I'd be headed southeast, and I don't even like politics. Even his speech patterns inspire doubt, full of pauses and qualifiers, completely void of confidence or direction, all delivered with a maniacal smirk. He's pulled a political Britney Spears, and I bet his speech writer feels like her management company.
I don't want to get into a whole big thing about current events, but it struck me that our government no business screwing around (I use that term loosely as some exchanges and relations are beneficial but others damaging) with other countries, simply because we don't really know how to understand them. Or maybe we do on some levels, but not the general public, and even still there's an entire culture's difference when it comes to ideas like "democracy" and "peace" and "normal." Crissy's been back from Japan for the last couple weeks and told me about all the cultural differences she's experienced in the various countries she's visited. We have no idea. Yet we're suppose to support these governmental actions carried out by people and causes who don't know how either and have their own ideological interests and agendas, filtered through a red-taped ridiculous process hampered by power struggles and personal scandal. And read this! This is bullshit. I know in real life it's not this simple, but George? Help the people and countries who need help, and be really careful about how you define "help."
In case you missed it, this is a similar press conference, where Bush suggests the danger zombies present to the US.
Top 10 Bushisms, more can be found here:
10) "Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream." —LaCrosse, Wis., Oct. 18, 2000 (Listen to audio clip)
9) "I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family." —Greater Nashua, N.H., Jan. 27, 2000(Listen to audio clip)
8) "I hear there's rumors on the Internets that we're going to have a draft." —second presidential debate, St. Louis, Mo., Oct. 8, 2004 (Listen to audio clip)
7) "I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully." —Saginaw, Mich., Sept. 29, 2000 (Listen to audio clip)
6) "You work three jobs? … Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that." —to a divorced mother of three, Omaha, Nebraska, Feb. 4, 2005 (Listen to audio clip)
5) "Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country." —Poplar Bluff, Mo., Sept. 6, 2004 (Watch video clip; listen to audio clip)
4) "They misunderestimated me." —Bentonville, Ark., Nov. 6, 2000
3) "Rarely is the questioned asked: Is our children learning?" —Florence, S.C., Jan. 11, 2000
2) "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." —Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004 (Watch video clip; listen to audio clip)
1) "There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again." —Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002 (Watch video clip; listen to audio clip)
I have the luxury of no classes on Wednesday so I'm watching this horrible abortion of a press conference. The issues of culture, education and democracy are woven into most of the books and discussions I've been into lately, all tied in by language, and I'm gritting my teeth to listen to Bush right now. I was raised in the buckle of the Midwest Bible Belt and my mom's basement is decked out in Americana decor, and I'm disgusted. He's spent a third of the speech so far dissing Congress for not doing anything and excusing himself from all governmental practices or knowledge, another third not answering legitimate questions by making excuses and heading off into tangents held together with cliches and reactionary talk, and the last third not answering questions by simply refusing to answer them and accusing the press of trying to trick him. This is our president. If I had a tank, I'd be headed southeast, and I don't even like politics. Even his speech patterns inspire doubt, full of pauses and qualifiers, completely void of confidence or direction, all delivered with a maniacal smirk. He's pulled a political Britney Spears, and I bet his speech writer feels like her management company.
I don't want to get into a whole big thing about current events, but it struck me that our government no business screwing around (I use that term loosely as some exchanges and relations are beneficial but others damaging) with other countries, simply because we don't really know how to understand them. Or maybe we do on some levels, but not the general public, and even still there's an entire culture's difference when it comes to ideas like "democracy" and "peace" and "normal." Crissy's been back from Japan for the last couple weeks and told me about all the cultural differences she's experienced in the various countries she's visited. We have no idea. Yet we're suppose to support these governmental actions carried out by people and causes who don't know how either and have their own ideological interests and agendas, filtered through a red-taped ridiculous process hampered by power struggles and personal scandal. And read this! This is bullshit. I know in real life it's not this simple, but George? Help the people and countries who need help, and be really careful about how you define "help."
In case you missed it, this is a similar press conference, where Bush suggests the danger zombies present to the US.
Top 10 Bushisms, more can be found here:
10) "Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream." —LaCrosse, Wis., Oct. 18, 2000 (Listen to audio clip)
9) "I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family." —Greater Nashua, N.H., Jan. 27, 2000(Listen to audio clip)
8) "I hear there's rumors on the Internets that we're going to have a draft." —second presidential debate, St. Louis, Mo., Oct. 8, 2004 (Listen to audio clip)
7) "I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully." —Saginaw, Mich., Sept. 29, 2000 (Listen to audio clip)
6) "You work three jobs? … Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that." —to a divorced mother of three, Omaha, Nebraska, Feb. 4, 2005 (Listen to audio clip)
5) "Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country." —Poplar Bluff, Mo., Sept. 6, 2004 (Watch video clip; listen to audio clip)
4) "They misunderestimated me." —Bentonville, Ark., Nov. 6, 2000
3) "Rarely is the questioned asked: Is our children learning?" —Florence, S.C., Jan. 11, 2000
2) "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." —Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004 (Watch video clip; listen to audio clip)
1) "There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again." —Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002 (Watch video clip; listen to audio clip)
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