What is Wrong With the MTA? (Part 1 of many)

A couple of weeks ago, the MTA, everyone's favorite provider of mass transit that feels more like mass standing there being pissed, announced that it plans to suspend service at the Smith & 9th Street subway station in Brooklyn for in 2010 for over a year. Yes, you heard that right. Users of the Smith/9th station may be without service for a year.

For those of you unfamiliar with the neighborhood, Smith/9th serves the communities of Red Hook and Gowanus in south Brooklyn. The neighborhoods are known more for light industry than for residential uses, but there is a substantial residential population, including the residents of an enormous public housing complex. There's another station about 8 blocks away, and I suspect (hope) that the MTA will run a bus between the stations, but hey, this is the MTA we're talking about.

So, what do you think? Does the MTA hate poor people? Minorities? Brooklyn? Is there really no other way to do the repair and maintenance work than to close this station for a year? Are they dumb? Lazy? I can think of a lot of things that could be wrong with the MTA? I suspect the answer is a combination of (1) this is the easiest way for them to do it, and (2) they don't care that much about who is inconvenienced.

MTA, what the hell is wrong with you?

What Is Wrong With Bloggers? (Part 1 of many)

Before I started this blog, I had imagined that I would title it "What Is Wrong With You?" I could see the title edged in flame against a dark background, a beacon for all those dumbstruck by the idiocy of 99% of the rest of the world. Ok, not really. That would be cheesy. And also, my graphics skills are weak, so I settled for black against a white background. But the title, and the sentiment, remain the same.

I figured there were probably blogs with this name already, but I also figured they'd either relate to medical diagnosis (true) or be all together inferior to my blog (also true). And I welcomed the competition. And if called upon to render a medical diagnosis, sure, I'll step up and give it a shot. I watch House.

I also figured that the URL whatiswrongwithyou.blogspot.com would be taken. And I was right. As were lots of different configurations of that URL. What I didn't realize was that they were all taken by people who don't use them. I typed a few of the different variations of the URL into my web browser and with few exceptions got a screen that looked like someone had started a blog, but never posted anything.

Now, I have no problem at all with lack of follow-through. If I had a nickel for every time I had a good idea, spent a little bit of time on it, then abandoned it before really accomplishing anything, I'd have quite a bag of nickels. But I don't think any of my stopped short endeavors ever got in the way of anyone else's plans.

People who go to the trouble of registering a blog and titling it but who never post anything for several years, what is wrong with you?

What Is Wrong With You? or I Have A Blog Where I Tell People How Irritating They Are!

This morning Jen asked me if I had heard the controversy about Dumbledore. My first question: What's a dumbledore? This tells you how up-to-date I am on the popular culture. That's not exactly true. I was way ahead of the curve on Rock of Love. But really, how can anyone resist a show about skanky strippers who catfight for the affection of an over-the-hill skeezy former hair-band rock star? Exactly. It's impossible. But I digress...

Jen explained that Dumbledore is a character in the Harry Potter books, and, apparently, the author has announced that the character is gay. I also learned that this gayness is nowhere apparent in the text of the actual books. The controversy is that this wildly successful and popular book for children of all ages has a prominent gay character which may make children think that being gay is ok. This is a controversy?

First, lets skip past the whole "being gay is ok" issue. Being gay is ok. Ask any gay person. They'll all tell you they're ok with it. In addition to gay people, you can also ask rational human beings who aren't living in their own little version of the dark ages. They'll tell you its ok too. Yes, I have no patience at all with bigotry. This kind of backward thinking will probably be the subject of future blogs. But there's a smaller, but no less mind-boggling issue at play here.

The gayness isn't in the books! Right, so I haven't read the books. I have read recent articles about the books. Dumbledore discusses a man-crush he had on some dude who later turns out to be evil. But until the author revealed in a recent interview that Dumbledore is gay, no one else knew that he was gay. I'm sure some thought so. But when you read a book, and a character expresses love for another character, you generally figure it's just a strong bond. Like with Frodo and Sam in the Lord of the Rings, who people also sometimes think are gay. Maybe that's not a good analogy. Or maybe its the perfect analogy. The point here is that if there's no explicit gayness in the book, even if the character seems pretty gay, and even if you've got some medieval brain malfunction about gayness, there's still no gayness in the book. How do you get worked up about character in a book being gay, when the character is only gay in the mind of the author and not on the pages of the book.

Seriously, people who are bothered by Rowling saying that Dumbledore is gay, what's wrong with you?