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End
of the Line
By
Joshua Citrak
As I was doing the research for this essay on sfgate.com, I got sidetracked as I often do, scrolling through articles about the acceptable levels of mercury in tuna and who had the better post-election night party, Newsom or Gonzalez. These articles were fascinating and informative, but I really needed to get back to work. I returned to the sfgate homepage and searched reference material on this newly proposed subway line I’d heard rumors of, when something caught my eye.
Yes, it was a personal ad. One for a saucy little number, ‘celticmagic’, meow! Ok, so she was pretty average looking Irish broad, but being obviously available is also very sexy. She was looking for some hunk of a man and I was thinking, hey? Let me check out what she’s offering. I mean, what would I be getting myself into to get myself in-to-her?
I scanned her profile. Seemed that she makes a ‘wicked Irish coffee,’ ok, ethnic stereotypes, check, she’s ‘bloody funny’, again, check, and- she ‘hates George Bush’. Excuse me? I mean, I don’t like the guy either but, what the hell happened to, I like R.E.M. or I’ve got a cute ass or I enjoy long walks by the beach?
My initial reaction was one of revulsion. Here’s another foreigner reaping all the benefits of living in the U.S. while the rest of us stupid Yankees are being crushed under the thumb of oppression. Goddamn, my right arm to be a European! How I envy the way they can live untainted here in the U.S. while Americans are covered in the blood of Iraqis and Afghanis. When ‘celticmagic’ buys a candy bar or a Guinness, the sales tax she pays only goes for the
good things the government does. So, it’s ok if she openly distains everything we stand for. It isn’t her fault.
It isn’t her fault, I realized, because she’s fucked up. ‘Celticmagic’s’ anti-American sentiment because of not being an American, but living in America and looking to date an American is just an impossible paradox that people everywhere put themselves through. It’s a psychological battle, not political. Ken Wilbur, the renowned philosopher, might take this opportunity to reiterate his theory that people have to make things more difficult for themselves due to an inherent boredom caused by a lack of a genuine life struggle. Freud would say she’s not getting it enough, well, duh! What other kind of person would slut themselves so desperately through a personal ad?
However, greater question is, why would someone choose to define themselves
by what they hate? What kind of badge is that? So, ‘celticmagic’ is a vengeful liberal bitch? Mean people still suck. Big fucking deal. I don’t understand the vitriolic tantrums so prevalent in modern democratic society. Peace, my brothers and sisters, you remember that one, don’t you? Not for them, stupid, for yourself. Schopenhauer who is much wiser than you said, the way that you define yourself is the way that you define your world.
So what’s it gonna be, punk?
And now back to our regularly scheduled program-
Maybe you’ve heard the rumors too. Ones about a new downtown subway? Yeah, but when you pass on that bit of juicy gossip, pass this along too.
This wonderful new rail line Nancy Pelosi has bequeathed us as part of 8.2 billion in pork pushed through on FY04 spending bill is slated to open in about twenty years and will span the distance of fifteen blocks. That’s right, a subway/light rail line from Clay and Stockton to Third and Folsom. Eventually, we’re told by the Pelosi website, they plan to extend the rail four extra blocks to Pac Bell park! A place that is currently served by more individual Muni lines than City Hall, the DMV and DÉJÀ VU Centerfolds strip club
combined.
But don’t jump for joy yet. We only get 500 million of the monies allotted for said project which is estimated to cost 1.32 billion. And at a total length of only one and a half miles, that’s nearly a billion dollars a mile.
We all know what this is about, the city could easily use 500 million in infinitely better ways. Improving existing Muni lines, putting in a subway through the Geary corridor, running more lines to places like Hunters Point and Bay View, or the purchase of portable jet packs for every citizen above eighteen. But this is about money, specifically, a lot of money. A hell of a lot of money… that the city will take and distribute with glee to its favorite cronies, bureaucrats and policy makers.
This rail line and Nancy Pelosi have one thing in mind and it isn’t the city of San Francisco. We won’t be using it. So, who will? From Moscone Center to Union Square hotels? Do I have to spell it out? As you may learn from my other pieces on somalit.com, I’m very pro tourism. It’s what makes us all money. I am also very pro money… However, this project is so disgustingly blatant in its misuse of public funds which the city of San Francisco desperately needs in other areas (public health care, the school system for fucks sake) that someone has to say something.
“This project is San Francisco’s highest transportation priority,” it says on the Pelosi website. Indeed, she only saw fit to allot the current, working Muni system a total of five point five million dollars for upkeep and upgrades. That’s one fucking percent of the money given to ‘exploratory committees’ to put the new subway into action.
These are our elected officials folks. Know them. Loathe them. I could show you a list a mile long that says Pelosi doesn’t give a fuck about San Franciscans any more, but you’d still vote for her out of fear a goddamned republican would get elected.
By the way, the ailing De Young museum? Pelosi also sliced it some pork to the tune of two hundred thousand bucks, five hundredths of a percent the ‘exploratory rail line’ received.
I suppose we should be thankful?
Copyright © 2004 Joshua Citrak
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