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A Perfect Storm of Incompetence
By clambam on Thu, Mar 13, 2008 10:06 pm
del.ico.us
reddit!Today I experienced what must come close to The Perfect Storm of MBTA ineptitude. I live south of the city and take the Providence commuter train in every day, then the Red Line. My train might have been a little late this morning but, since I always take the opportunity for a snooze, I didn't really notice. However, when I got down to the Red Line the PA was announcing delays due to "a police action" at Park Street. The train finally came and I got off in Harvard Square. As I was walking out I heard an announcement about delays due to "signal problems in Davis Square." Was this a different delay? Was it a different lie to cover the same screw up? The world may never know.
I got out of work at 5:30 and ran to get onto the train waiting at the station. As it happens I could have saved my breath because the train didn't leave the station for another five minutes. This time the delay was due to a "fire at Broadway Station." After frequent pauses and delays we finally got to South Station. By the time I got upstairs it was 6:05. Good, I thought, I'll be able to make the 6:10 to Providence.
There was a sea of people inching their way to the Providence train platform. I joined in and asked what was going on, and learned that the 5:40 train had broken down. These were the regular 6:10 commuters plus the 5:40 commuters (who had sat on the train for half an hour). I decided to wait for the 6:50 rather than stand in a crush for 45 minutes.
The 6:50 left on time but crawled all the way to Hyde Park. Finally it was announced that an Amtrak train had broken down ahead of us and that we would be making an unscheduled stop in Readville to pick up the stranded Amtrak passengers. I finally got home at 8:30, a scant 3 hours after leaving work. Add to that the horrible accident in Providence this morning and I would have to say it was a particularly bad day for Boston mass transit.
The T is a mess. I would like to make a few humble suggestions on how to improve service.
First of all, there's the issue of the unannounced work slowdown by the commuter rail conductors. It's now a simple fact of life that all commuter trains will be five to ten minutes late, at a minimum. While I sympathize with the conductors' grievances, I no longer feel like being the victim of their misplaced wrath. My suggestion is as follows:
Find five or six similarly disgruntled passengers and arrange to take a train different from your usual one. Ideally, take the train from North Station if you usually go from South Station, and vice versa. Have someone waiting for you with a car at the last stop. Get off the train together, grab a conductor and beat the living shit out of him, accompanied by the admonishment "No (WHACK)... more (WHACK)... work (WHACK)... slowdowns (WHACK)... OK?" That should make them think twice about screwing with the customers.
Fire the MBCR. I can't believe their contract was renewed and I suspect someone's uncle made out like a bandit in this deal (probably the same guy whose first cousin has the contract for maintaining the Charlie Card readers--five of them were broken, FIVE, at Harvard Square last week).
Now, the T. First of all, the T's debt is out of control, with no feasible strategy for bringing it down to a manageable level. The obvious solution is to declare bankruptcy and default on the loans. The difficulty in borrowing money in the future can't possibly compare with the problems associated with paying interest on the existing loans. Let the state fund the T. Implement a liquor tax to pay for it.
With the exception of the bus driver, implement an across the board 30% pay cut for T employees (driving a bus takes some skill; driving a subway car involves pressing a foot pedal while reading the Herald). Upper management should get a 60% pay cut. Want to quit? Hell of a time to do it, given the state of the economy. Go on strike? Bring in the strike breakers. Given that in order to get a job with the MBTA you must apparently take a test and flunk it, I foresee no difficulty in hiring replacements to sit on their asses and do nothing all day. The union must be broken.
Finally, and this is my most brilliant suggestion, draft Bill Bellichek and put him in charge of the T. He'll have that sucker humming in no time.
My Brother, the Neanderthal
By clambam on Sat, Jan 26, 2008 6:15 pm
I keep in touch with my brother, just because he's my brother and I love him but also because he's a political Neanderthal with politics just slightly to the right of Attila the Hun. I know that when he forwards me a political link or an email I'm getting a glimpse of the Republican talking points we can expect to see in the upcoming election. For instance, from him I know that Obama is a Muslim spy, that Hillary is a lesbian socialist, and that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid single-handedly prevented us from winning the war in Iraq and are responsible for the current downturn in the economy.
Lately, though, he's been strangely silent. It's as though the Republicans have run out of smears and innuendo, as if their hearts were just no longer in it. He may be a political retard, but he's no fool. There's simply no way to pin the current mess on the Democrats, not after seven years in the political wilderness. I think the Republicans are writing off this election as a bad deal. Why throw good money after bad when you know you're going to lose? If Romney wants to spend $50 million of his own money on a losing campaign, let him. If Mike Huckabee wants to make a last ditch stand for the rights of Young Earth Creationists, so be it. If the cross-dressing thrice-divorced former Mayor of New York wants to helm the party of Moral Superiority, go for it, Rudy.
Not only that, but in order to bring even a semblance of order to the country, tough, unpopular decisions will have to be made. Why not let the Democrats take the fall for raising taxes and turning tail in Iraq? It'll just be grist for the Republican mill in 2012.
The danger in all of this is that the Democrats will somehow do a good job and clinch the Presidency for the foreseeable future. This was the rationale behind the lost 1992 campaign: George H.W. Bush betrayed the Republican party by raising taxes. He was punished in the general election by the vote for Perot, throwing the election to the Democrats. The Republicans knew this would be the result but they figured, hey, what's the worst that could happen? The Democrats will bungle the economy and a chastened nation would return to the Republican fold in 1996.
Of course, that didn't happen. The Republicans were horrified to learn that a Democrat could do a good job on the economy, in fact the best job in the past forty years. They scrambled to put their own spin on the facts: the burgeoning economy, shrinking deficit and in-the-black budget of the late '90's were not the result of the Clinton stewardship, but a magical legacy of the Reagan years (just as the current downturn is somehow Clinton's fault). When that failed to fly, they went after Clinton hammer and tongs, engineering an excuse for impeachment from Clinton's personal failings. Given how well things had been going, pushing the American people's Morality Button was about the only way the Republicans would be able to win the 2000 election. Given that Al Gore was the political heir of a disgraced presidency, the Democrats deserved to lose in 2000.
But then the Republicans took their cynical expediency a step too far. Looking over the situation in 1999, the Republican movers and shakers said to themselves "The election is in the bag--we can't lose. We don't need to nominate our best candidate, let's choose a compliant dunce who will let us feather our nests for the next eight years at the American people's expense." And so the George W. Bush candidacy was born. Ironically, the Republicans had chosen the only candidate, with the exception of Dan Quayle, who could possibly lose to Al Gore. Political cynicism had reached a new depth.
So what will be the result of a Democratic administration with a Democratic House and Senate in 2012? Well, the temptation to tax and spend, and spend and spend and spend, will certainly be there. Let's hope that the new President has the political will to rein in the natural impulses of a Democratic majority.
But the real fall-out from a Democratic government is going to be investigations: lots and lots of investigations. We will find out what happened behind closed doors when Cheney met with the heads of the oil industry. We will find out if there was a meeting at which it was explicitly stated "There are no grounds for invading Iraq, but let's lie to the American people and say there are." Of course, we can expect all such evidence to be feverishly shredded in the wake of a Democratic victory, but, given the current state of Republican ethics, there is an excellent chance that some low level hack tasked with destroying incriminating papers will say to him or herself "Hey, I can destroy this evidence like they told me, or I can save it and make a bundle later selling it to the highest bidder." Impeachment may no longer be an option, but treason trials may be in the works.
Do we want to let this happen? Is one party government the Democratic way better than Republican one party government? I don't think so. We have to find a way to let the Republicans save face without imploding in the wake of a superfluity of evidence of malfeasance. Sad to say, we need a Republican president in 2009, to keep the Congressional Democratic drunken sailors in line and to prevent the political circus cum Reign of Terror Democratic ascendancy will entail. Here is what should happen:
- Dick Cheney resigns. God know, he can plead health issues.
- Bush nominates John McCain to be the new Vice President. McCain would be approved by the Senate in a heatbeat.
- Bush resigns. McCain pardons him and Cheney a la Gerald Ford.
President McCain would then have eight or nine months to demonstrate he has the right stuff to be president. The Republicans could unite around him, even the evangelicals who, failing a Huckabee candidacy, were planning on sitting out the next election. A sizably portion of the Independent vote would go to McCain too. So would quite a few Democrats.
Balance of power would be maintained. Two party democracy would be secured. And my brother won't have to join a militia.
Confessions of a Democratic Fifth Columnist
By clambam on Mon, Jan 21, 2008 12:36 pm
When I registered to vote lo these 30-odd years ago, I faced the same choice as my 18 year-old daughter just did: Republican, Democrat or Independent? I chose to register as a Republican, although my politics and sympathies were and remain on the Democratic side, for the following reasons:
1. It's really easy to say "no" when the party hacks call and ask for money or volunteer time.
2. I don't have to worry about calls from the Democrats asking for money or volunteer time, time and money I can ill afford yet might be tempted to donate.
3. As a Democratic Fifth Columnist within the Republican ranks, I could vote for the worst possible candidate, helping to assure a Democratic victory.
Silly me! I never got around to voting in a Republican primary, although I have had the opportunity several times over the years to brush off Republican flacks over the phone.
That changes this year, though. This year, I will definitely be voting in the Massachusetts Republican primary. I will be voting for Mike Huckabee.
Why is Huckabee the worst Republican candidate? Well, he isn't; Ron Paul is. Huckabee, however, is the worst candidate with an actual shot of actually winning the nomination. He's the worst candidate because, despite every evidence of being a really nice guy, he's crazy as a loon (again, not as crazy as Ron Paul). I mean, he doesn't believe in the Theory of Evolution? He wants to abolish the IRS and replace it with FairTax? What's happened to this country? Even ten years ago this sort of admission would have gotten the candidate laughed off the stage and out of the running the first time he blurted it out. Now it makes him an actual contender.
In the long run it won't wash, though. Huckabee might win in states like Idaho or Mississippi, places where ideology trumps common sense, but in the big states with big populations, people want competence, not corn pone. Huckabee couldn't even win the Republican nomination in South Carolina. What makes him think he could win the general election in Illinois?
People are tired of nearly eight years of an administration that resolutely ignored the facts in order to pursue an ideology. Obama is inspiring (man, he gives good speech), but we don't need an inspirational leader right now. What the US needs is a technocrat, a can-do guy or gal who'll clean up the mess left by the Bush administration, get the economy back on an even keel and put the government back in the black.
I'm not sure Obama has the experience to do that. Mrs. Clinton got to watch competent government at first hand, but I'm not sure that plus eight years in the Senate qualifies her for the post either. On the Republican side, Guiliano best fits the mold of the soulless bureaucrat we need. Say what you will about him, running New York City for eight years is the equivalent of being Prince of a middle-sized European principality, and he did a pretty good job of it. Romney can claim to have the business experience to run the country but if his record in Massachusetts is anything to go by, after a year of governing the country he'll lose interest and start running for Pope, and I think the country knows that.
The best-qualified candidate for president has already dropped out of the race: Bill Richardson. There's still a slight chance the Democrats could do the right thing and make him their nominee. If the Democrats go into the convention with votes evenly split between Obama and Clinton and neither is willing to serve as Vice President under the other, after a hundred or so indecisive ballots the decision on the candidate could be made where it used to be, maybe where it ought to be: behind closed doors in a smoke-filled room between no-nonsense power brokers concerned only with winning.
Richardson is the perfect compromise candidate. He's served in the House, as governor, in the United Nations and in the Cabinet. He's Hispanic which will not only be a vote-getter in Florida and the Southwest but will serve him well mending fences across the world in the wake of the Rich Old White Men regime of Bush and Cheney. An exhausted Democratic convention could get behind a Richardson candidacy and an exhausted nation could get behind a Richardson presidency: one which doesn't promise pie in the sky (both Democrats and Republicans have their own versions of it), hell-fire for our enemies, or the Rapture, but only the dull competence and willingness to make the hard decisions we so desperately need.
