When I mention to anyone that I ride the bus and trains instead of driving, eyebrows go up. People think I'm risking disease and violence by stepping into a metal box with the kind of lowlifes who ride transit.
In reality, I'm the kind of lowlife who rides transit, and it's almost never scary or risky. I've ridden big-city buses and trains for fifty years, and seen real danger on transit perhaps a dozen times, even by the very loosest, lowest definition of danger.
People who live quiet lives don't like loudness, though, and everyone's tired of seeing homeless people everywhere, and a lot of white people don't like black people.
Jordan Neely was a black homeless guy riding a train and being loud.
A 20-something ex-Marine named Daniel Penny was riding the same train, and came to the rescue by making Neely much quieter.
He strangled the man, for fifteen minutes, while the train rolled along and other passengers watched, or turned away.
The man who fancies himself a "good Samaritan" in this story, Daniel Perry, is scarier by far than anything I've ever seen on a bus or train. When someone is loud and disruptive on the train, strangling him, or watching him get strangled and doing nothing about it, is not the appropriate response.
A black and homeless and loud man is now dead. The man who killed him is white. More than a week later, the acknowledged killer hasn't been arrested, which says something lots louder and scarier than Neely was on the train.
News you need,
whether you know it or not
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• The NYPD is greeting vigils for Jordan Neely with brute force
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Mystery links
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My browser history
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• If a press release says "artificial intelligence," there's a good chance it's meaningless
• Neil Gaiman explains residuuals
• An odd place for a subway station
♫♬ It don't mean a thing ♫
if it don't have that swing
• American Pie Doubleheader — Don McLean
• I Just Want You to Hurt Like I Do — Randy Newman
• Monkberry Moon Delight — Paul McCarthy
• There She Goes — The Boo Radleys
Eventually, everyone
leaves the building
5/9/2023
Cranky Old Fart is annoyed and complains and very occasionally offers a kindness, along with anything off the internet that's made me smile or snarl. All opinions fresh from my ass. Top illustration by Jeff Meyer. Click any image to enlarge. Comments & conversations invited.
Tip 'o the hat to ye olde AVA, BoingBoing, Breakfast at Ralf's, CaptCreate's Log, Dumnezero, Katameme, Looking for My Perfect Sandwich, One Finger Medical, Two Finger Magical, Miss Miriam's Mirror, Nebulously Burnished, RanPrieur.com, Voenix Rising, and anywhere else I've stolen links, illustrations, or inspiration.
Special thanks to Linden Arden, Becky Jo, Wynn Bruce, Joey Jo Jo, John the Basket, Dave S, Name Withheld, and always extra special thanks to my lovely late Stephanie, who gave me 21 years and proved that the world isn't always shitty.
The Randy Newman choice should be the Republican Party's Policy Anthem. -- Arden
ReplyDeleteListening to it again, yeah, definitely. It would work well with a video of the QAnon & Fuck You Brandon crowd...
Delete"People think I'm risking disease and violence by stepping into a metal box with the kind of lowlifes who ride transit. In reality, I'm the kind of lowlife who rides transit"
ReplyDeleteThank you. I think this is one of those things that is both generational and aspirational - because Uber has been subsidizing the price of a taxi and selling their services at a loss for awhile. People are going to have a rude awakening when they realize they don't own a car, can't ride a bike and that public transportation is made for people just like... them.