the insanity of the usa, el paso style

This is an insane country.

Nothing here is convenient.

Everything is far away.

I despise the air conditioning even more than the merciless sun.

Today I stood on Mesa Street waiting for a bus, smelling gasoline from the

nearby pumps.

to cross the street I had to listen to the obnoxious voice of a machine counting down the

time left for a pedestrian to cross....Nine....Eight....Seven...

How horrible!

How can people live like this? With no concern for anyone except themselves?

Buy cars. Buy new phones. Buy computers.

And just across the valley, on the other side of the ocean of traffic, lies Mexico.

Can you just ignore the poverty? Someone is born on the wrong side of the

border, and, so they will have half a life?

Just because of that arbitrary border?

How can someone look everyday at Mexico and not feel outrage or disgust?

Do they just think: I'm here. I'm okay. the hell with them?

And they all drive enormous trucks! Shiny enormous cars. Such arrogance.

I hate this city.

So ugly.

The noise of traffic is ugly.

the presumption of the numerous cars is maddening.

It is ugly, mindless, heartless......

not culture, but anti-culture

not a society in the true sense, but a wholly un- and anti-social way of being.

global warming? Let's just ignore it....

Chile's 9/11

Memories of what happened when the democratically elected government of Chile

was overthrown in a military coup supported by the United States...

http://www.zmag.org/zvideo/3237

From a film by John Pilger, link at "Z Net"

Horrible, Unpleasant El Paso, Texas

I would like to pop round to the local store to buy fresh fruit!

Think again! That's impossible in El Paso Texas.

To buy fruit I'd have to take one bus, and then transfer to another...

repeating the process to return home.

The entire process would take at least 1.5, maybe two hours.

Contrast that with Vienna or Bratislava.

In Bratislava there were five places I could buy fresh fruit or vegetables

after a five or ten minute walk..

In Vienna, there were five or six grocery stores in easy walking distance--

not more than ten minutes away, some closer...

Perhaps this may have something to do with the number of grotesquely

obese young people I see walking around.... like beached whales waddling...

El Paso Texas not a nice place to be

due to the wholly inadequate public transport,

minor activities,

routine tasks,

become a pain in the ass,

inconvenient and excessively time-consuming:

e.g. going to the library, returning borrowed books:

requires at minimum one hour of time

as opposed to:

a quick 10 minute trip there and a ten minute trip back,

which would be possible if El Paso had street cars

buying printer paper or printer ink at Wal Mart

requires a transfer--so requires a minimum of 45 minutes

one way--90 minutes for a round-trip

There's no place within easy walking distance where I could buy

grocereries or printer ink, or paper for my printer....

Not convenient

Not nice

Not pleasant

gmail

I've just read that

"Gmail is built on the idea that email can be more intuitive, efficient, and useful."

"And maybe even fun."

Fun?

Fun????

email is a g.d. pain in the ass

it will never replace face-to-face contact

ha ha ha

what universe do these people live in?

yeah, right, if I had a wad of money in the bank,

and all the time in the world,

maybe,

just maybe lots of things would be fun.

But not in the real world

It's a pathetic, condescending joke to say email or any gmail or xmail

or y mail or you-name-it mail is fun.

an insult to the English language.

fun?

my god. it's amazing how people start to believe their own propaganda...

Or maybe these people don't believe what they've written

either way it's bullshit.

Oh, and by the way, anyone interested could learn that the psychologist

Dacher Keltner generally doubts whether electronic contacts could

or should replace face-to-face.....

El Paso's Inadequate Public Transport

I've not conducted a scientific survey, but, thus far no one I've met

--and I don't get out much--has been hostile to the idea of

improved public transport.

If the politicians in El Paso had courage and creativity, they would

think about putting in street cars and improving bus service.

I do not believe it costs more than personal automobiles. You can

get the conclusion that public transport doesn't pay if you ignore

the costs associated with the use of private automobiles:

the construction of environment destroying roads, road construction

which contributes to global warming and makes an anti-pedestrian

culture...as well as the problems of social isolation and road rage....

and the problem of road accidents and deaths due to alcohol consumption.

There are even parts of the US where you can use public transport to go

home after a night out....

Poverty in El Paso Texas

The official way of counting poverty is flawed, as was conceded by its

designer many years ago.

Nevertheless, I was surprised to read the following:

" a quarter or more of all people living in Philadelphia, Buffalo, Milwaukee,

Long Beach, Atlanta, Newark,Miami, and El Paso [were poor]"

source, "The Failures of American Poverty measures", Stephen Pimpare, Journal of Sociology &

Social Welfare, March 2009.

Available at

http://web.me.com/stephenpimpare/webpage/Welcome.html

A quarter or more of the residents of El Paso Texas have incomes at or below

the official poverty level.

I do not see that prices are lower here than Vienna. I haven't noticed that food is cheaper.

Nor is it cheaper to rent a house. I've seen efficiency apartments advertised for 600US

dollars per month--more than I was paying for a similar apartment in Vienna.

Possibly it's cheaper to use the bus if you buy a monthly pass. But buses are much, much

less convenient than the public transport that's available in Vienna. Public transit in

Vienna runs through the night and is very easy to use.

I can only guess that no one lives alone and people live with their families or

have roommates...