The Globe is just so juicy today that The Lion is salivating on his keyboard. And his shirt. And his hands. And… never mind, there’s plenty of yuck to go around.
Charlie died on the MTA…
Remember Charlie on the MTA, Charlie being the forlorn hero/victim of the Massachusetts Transit Authority in the old Kingston Trio song? Well, the MTA has a new Charlie, an anonymous, well-dressed man with a laptop who had the great misfortune to collapse on the Red Line during rush hour yesterday.
Despite the frantic efforts of passengers to get help for him, and despite MTA employees being informed, and even looking at him, the train rolled on for twenty-two minutes, through several stops. To say that MTA employees looked at him overstates the case. Apparently they glanced at his body crumpled on the floor, said ‘hmmmph’, and ignored him.
MBTA officials said yesterday that crew members on the train determined the man was merely drunk and did not need immediate medical assistance. “Their assessment was that it wasn’t a situation that warranted medical attention, and we rely on the experience and the expertise of train crews that have been doing this for many, many years,” said Joe Pesaturo, spokesman for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.
No, Joe, you don’t get it. In the first place if it is the policy of the MBTA to leave unconscious passengers collapsed on the floor of a train then there are a lot of people who should be fired, forthwith. In fact, it might be good to remove them from society permanently since they appear to value their own arrogance and cruelty more than the welfare of the humans they share the planet with.
To leave an unconscious person, whatever the reason, even if he reeks of alcohol, lying on the floor of a train, to refuse to call for medical help, to refuse to delay the train so help could get to the victim, is callous, is cruel, and bespeaks brutality and arrogance that has no place in a so-called civilized society, despite that society’s public admiration for callous, cruel, and brutal behavior in its entertainment media.
Were this travesty the act of one person, that would be one thing. But the act, or failure to act, was committed by several T employees, indicating that there is a culture of arrogance among them that is condoned by management and that insults the taxpayers and citizens who pay for and support mass transit.
The T employees involved should be pulled out of service and set to polishing rails and sweeping floors after extensive psychological evaluation and treatment. The managers that allow this behavior, who rely on the ‘experience and expertise’ of train crews who have no medical training, should be fired.
These T employees and managers probably kick puppies and drown kittens in their spare time, and if they choose to behave like sociopaths, they should be treated as such.
And MBTA? That should now read Massachusetts Bay Total Arrogance.
And the money went where…?
The front page lead story tells about credit card companies slashing lines of credit for their card customers for various reasons. Not deadbeats, but good customers.
Taxpayers gave these companies billions of dollars for the express purpose of lending the money so that credit could flow once again and the economic collapse could be averted or at least mitigated.
Not only do they now refuse to lend the money, they grant themselves huge bonuses, despite their incompetent management and overweening greed that got the country and the world into this mess.
“Yes, our company is on the verge of collapse but obviously it’s not our fault. Therefore we are granting ourselves a few billion in bonuses this year,” they harumph as they lavish taxpayer money on their mansions and fancy cars and private jets and expensive whores.
Maybe it’s getting to be time to fire up the Molotovs and storm the mansions and gated communities. Maybe it’s time to take a page from the alienated youth and workers of Europe and start torching the Mercedes and Rolls Royces. Just for a little while. Just long enough for this bunch of financial sociopaths to get the idea that they are not a gift from the gods to humanity, but are little more than a curse on society when they choose to value greed and arrogance over all else.
On the other hand, as long as the driving force of the country is the worship of money and the pursuit of large plasma televisions, perhaps the country deserves these arrogant, egotistical, would-be barons and dukes.
Interesting how they absolutely thrive under Republican Party rule, and it takes Democrats to shrivel their balls and put things right. On the other hand, the Democrats used to be better at that sort of corrective action. We’ll see if the Obamanians can bring balance back to American government and society after years of rampant abuses by Limbaugh Republicans.
(The Lion sincerely feels that if that fat-assed, loud-mouthed drug addict wants to lead the Republican Party and wants Sarah Palin as his co-conspirator, then he should be allowed to do so, without reservation. It’s win-win for the Republicans, since no matter what happens, it won’t be their fault or his fault – nothing is ever the fault of Republicans – and when the dust settles they can all retire to wherever losers retire and tell each other how perfect they were and how the world didn’t understand them and how the disasters befalling the world had nothing to do with them or their policies.)
Grumpy Lion 