A Policing Economy.

In a new age of free wheeling debutantes in Hollywood freebasing off of public scrutiny, devouring headlines with rampant self indulgence and fast fleeting shame, it's all to easy to offer an opinion.

A bus pass, or rail card, or shuttle key (pardon, not in a space sense) might work, causing the DUI offenders to sit next to Bob and his two kids.

Bob is a worker, he smells like a worker and looks like a worker. He pays little to no attention to his kids and eats hot dogs smoldered in ketchup, dripping it onto the train floor. Someone will clean it up, but not Bob. His kids yell and scream and push and fight and spill. They, like Bob, will clean up no mess.

I'm glad I'm not cleaning it up.

Yeah, that might work. Might scare miss Lohan and miss Hilton into some relevant thought process. We could expand the idea to the general populous. DUI = Bus Pass. Forcing the population into sensibility through interaction with a world so irritable and grotesque most will swear off libations entirely.

But then again, someone would have to clean up more spills.

Baseball and Questions of Morality.

Father ______ sat next to me today again begging the question; Is it immoral to use a preachers advise on gambling. He seems spot on and I am completely lost in the area, betting and baseball or betting and anything.

If it's okay to bet, send me a sign Lord.

Wasted efforts.

Recently it's been reported that Illinois still has a disturbing trend of increase police stops based on race. I wold like to think that it is a motion to help people understand and use public transport, but wouldn't that be some hell of a silver lining.

It seems the police force would be better off sitting around fast food restaraunts. They might prevent a robbery or two.

Pangea and Baseball.

Father _____ was on the train this morn. He was of course very jubilant due to the Cardinal's victory on Sunday, which had Phili fans quoting Edison. Something like 'We've haven't failed, we've just found 10,000 ways not to win."

Good thing Father _____ isn't a Phili's fan.

Also in my grand scheme for increasing the speed and efficiency of commerce and transport I've decided to continue the rifts in Pangea to create a series of straits in which to divide the world. This way we could rely on the old world sailing rules and the star chart to move rather than planes, trains and automobiles. ( Incidentally my favorite movie.)

Anyway we've got too many choices that take too much energy. It's like words that can spelled numerous ways, we should be able to figure it out from context.

Setting the Record Strait.

Yes, I have seen the movie Speed. No it is not one of my favorite movies.

Being surrounded by the world of transit most of my waking week has provided conversations that broach such compelling questions as "Do you think that would ever happen?"

If I didn't have such a respect for the world and the direction it is going to take ( I feel that someone somewhere has a plan, call it fate or whatever Webster says is an alternative) I might have answered rudely.

But seriously, are there not bigger questions? Ones that conquer more than just a stable miles-per-hour or Sandra obstacle?

Bridges and Delays.

Most of the time a solution to a problem is the most direct route, a head on conclusion or a direct response.

In that same train of thought someone in some age decided to build bridges. They connect things seemingly unconnectable and have for years provided a considerably smaller course for many transit systems across history.

Today in St. Louis a bridge repair plan has been delayed until the fall, which means that the some eight hundred bridges slated for repair will also be delayed.

Although I'm not one for politics, I do see this as a problem. I mean has the history of the United States ever shown procrastination as a solution? Have we ever had, and are we repeating, a history of planning and not doing? Has any creation of civil engineering failed after we've already noticed it needed a pick me up?

I'm starting to feel a bit lost in this world of maps and direction. I feel like Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai, having that one thing to work toward only finished in time to be dis-repaired.

Wrong Directions

I've spent the last few days wondering if I should be obligated in my off time to helping people traverse this fair city. It's not often, but not seldom either that I find myself at the wrong end of a string of questions amounting merely to "where am I?"

They list landmarks, streets or restaurants they've noticed in the few days of waking life in St. Louis and hope that I would be able to direct them to the nearest washroom or transit station.

While I haven't yet had time to setup a google map of all the public urination solutions in St. Louis, I have a fair knowledge of transit stations and the respected destinations.

However in many instances I'm off the clock, it's past my workday and I want to go home to watch PBS, I have a penchant for roadshows. I could sit down and draw these people a map using the landmarks they provide, but am I obligated? What heavenly body governs moral nicities?

So what is worse, what will lose me more points in translation; lying and saying I don't know where you are, or sending them off on their own journey? Who knows the later might find the questioning knowing more about geography or transit, perhaps I would've taught them to fish.

Looking for Reasons to Ride.

The fourth of July is nearly here and my numbers indicate it. Just as well, this is important information that might be used in a variety of ways. First the accounting system will notice increased revenue and try to determine where to spend it, second the janitorial staff will know just how many of the tourists have a blatant disregard for general sanitary measures shown by an abundance of twenty ounce soda bottles rolling around the walkways.

I've met some of the janitorial staff, but failed to ask their opinion of holiday matters in increased transit. Their adventures would probably make a better blog then mine. I can only imagine the types of items they find, though I doubt anything of any worth.

I don't ask because I'm afraid they might take it as a sympathetic gesture meant more to make conversation than out of actual care. I do care, but in asking I might remind them what they do day in and day out. And I don't see that as pleasant, but maybe I'm taking the wrong view.

In all sincerity I wish my job had that kind of unpredictability. I have only seldom surprises. I knew from past records to anticipate an increase in traffic and I know that the money noticed by accounting wasn't spent on advertising tourism last year, well not nearly all of it. But to find a nice picture of a couple holding hands in front of the paddle boat McDonald's would certainly be better than noticing a fifteen percent increase in riders.

Irony Early in The Morning.

I take the bus to work to ride the bus for work.

I wonder if I could just do this from home.

Heaven by way of Public Transport.

Father _______ sat next to me again today, I think he was on his way to the mission. Father _______ is a wonderful kind of person. Nice, but not too nice to be imposing. He always starts the conversation by asking how I'm doing, which is rare this age when ninety percent of the people you know are only just ones you pass by from time to time.

It was the second week, early in a day and Father _______ was going about a busy day. He sat next to me and asked how I was doing. I said well, but it was only my second week and I was a still nervous from a new prospective career.

Despite being a member of the clergy, Father ______ hardly ever brings up religion. He knows it a sour subject for some and being a wonderfully nice person, he hopes never to put someone out. He would rather talk baseball and has been a Cardinals fan for as long as he's lived. And I'm sure long after.

He brought up religion on that first meeting in that second week. He asked if I went to church. I replied "no" having only been in town a short time I didn't know where the church was. The conversation was over and only now in recounting it here am I realizing my misunderstanding.

Today he was just worried about the season. I said it seemed pleasant enough.