While I waited for the 4 train around 12:30 a.m. at Union Square, a high/drunk/insane youth tried to provoke a friend and me into a fight by insulting the whiteness of our skin, and when that failed, he repeatedly threatened to stab us. We ignored him and walked away because if someone wants to kill you, there's really no response that will deter him.
He kept at it, and we played the part of dutiful (Jersey) city dwellers who avert their eyes and wonder if suburban development living is as awful as we think it is. By the time we got on the train, he had turned his increasingly violent attention toward a Jewish businessman, and we both agreed that Jews were good for something if it meant we'd avoid death.
As the man exited the train at his stop, the ode-to-abortion literally kicked him in his ass, and that prompted the man to turn around, punch the kid in the gut, and then shout, from the platform, "You think you can take me? Bring it on. Bring it on. I will kill you. Come on."
The deranged teen backed off and sat down. Because you never know if your intended victim was nicknamed "Shishak" during his days in the IDF.
It wasn't just another day in the subway system for me. In all of the years that I've taken every form of public transportation offered in NYC -- mostly under the reign of Rudy Giuliani, He Who Somehow Managed to Hide the Homeless Population -- this was the first time someone threatened to kill me. Insulted, pushed, glared at, sure, but usually, they just ask if I want to buy a fake Rolex or weed.
That's not to say crime didn't happen or that people weren't killed, but for those of us who came of age post-Koch and post-Dinkins, we were lulled into thinking that NYC was sort of safe if you didn't act like it was your first visit out of the cornfields and you didn't work at a Wendy's in Brooklyn. At least to those of us who grew up in Jersey City, Newark, Trenton, Patterson or Camden.
Ever since September 11, 2001, when funding started being diverted from preventing run-of-the-mill crime that affects hundreds of thousands to preventing a chance terrorist attack that might kill a few thousand, I've noticed that the number of lunatics and criminals I encounter has increased, as have the quality-of-life issues that Giuliani made a cornerstone of his iron-fisted rule.
Part of me thought that it was due to getting older, when one naturally becomes observant of the activities that the whippersnappers engage in that never, ever happened in one's own generation. But I'm only 25. This is my generation.
Then I came across an article in The New York Times that detailed how much funding police departments across the country have lost as the government shifts its focus to extraordinarly rare events that have the power to cost them an election.
According to the Times, the FBI no longer has much interest in surfers in Nixon masks robbing banks because the agency is trying to make up for the years they wasted playing Solitaire instead of engaging in counterterrorism operations. (But they'll make time to arrest a vicious criminal sharing copyrighted files.)
And of the nation's 17,000 police forces, the federal government has ordered many to redeploy officers to anti-terrorist duties, such as guarding airports and water works.
Chad Kolton, a spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget, told the Times that much of the money would flow instead to the Department of Homeland Security. "In the post-9/11 world, where terrorism is one of our most critical concerns, resources that were formerly provided through the Department of Justice will now be provided through the Department of Homeland Security," Mr. Kolton said.
Muggings, shootings, rapes -- they simply don't have the panache of a plane flying into a building, a vial of smallpox thrown on the subway tracks or Muslim ninja suicidal divers blowing up cruise ships on the new Bayonne-Bermuda route. No candidate's going to get elected because he's tough on squeegee men and carjackers, even though we're more likely to deal with one of them than with one of Osama bin Laden's evil-doing henchmen.
Domestic issues -- that is, domestic issues of value (note: most people don't care that much about Janet's tit) -- are not at the forefront, and when they accidentally are, they're couched in how to keep America safe from the bogeymen who, technically, shouldn't be in this country to kill us because the Department of Homeland Security, technically, has had close to three years to throw or keep them out.
You know, technically.
But I don't feel particularly unsafe. I'm not afraid of a terrorist attack, no more afraid than I was after the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 or the Oklahoma City bombing in 1994, when it became rather obvious that we were targets at home. When I get in my car each morning, I realize that I have a greater chance of being killed by a senile jerk-off who can't tell the gas pedal from the brake (and whose license won't be taken away because of the lobbying power of senior citizens) than being decimated by a truck bomb.
Another terrorist attack undoubtedly will happen here, but one could have happened in 1997 or 2000 or 2003. If it's any more likely now, it's only due to our current administration devising an ingenius plot to further piss of a religious base that was unstable in the first place and looking for a greater cause to rally around.
What I have a realistic fear of is having my car stolen again, my house broken into, those hoodlums who beat the crap out of a guy at a nearby park coming back for more because the cops just can't seem to catch a roving band of thugs, losing my job and paying hundreds of dollars a month for COBRA coverage, someone stealing my identity due to unsecured databases that are accessed by outsourced employees who can't be touched by American law and spending months or years trying to clear it up, and watching my tax dollars get pissed away to fight costly, never-ending wars against drugs and terrorism.
And how do the candidates respond to these concerns? Do they investigate the long-term costs and consequences of throwing a junkie in jail versus forcing his sickly ass into rehab? Do they provide compelling arguments on how to fix the serious economic issues plaguing the country? Do they lay out in-depth, realistic plans to rebuild and pull out of Iraq that don't contain jingoism about Iraqi parents wanting the same things that American parents do?
Of course not. They're trying to get the vote of the average American, most of whom are predictably oblivious to serious issues that can't fit into a 20-second soundbite on their slanted news channel of choice and rightly cynical about whether either candidate can or will do anything about them.
Instead of presenting us with what they intend to do (even if we know they'll never accomplish it), we get John Kerry making a symbolic voyage on a water ferry to the convention, and Bush's team releasing a photo of Kerry in a "bunny suit" that, I guess, is meant to convey his weak position on how to reduce the burden of Social Security on current and future generations and prove how incapable he would be at tangling with terrorists.
Americans, the polls show, want a tough president. A president who isn't a girly-man. One who won't waffle. One who will be strong in his resolve. One who will clean up crime, promote social and religious values, unite the country under one flag and improve the economy. One who will fight for his people even if the entire world thinks he's nuts.
So, when you -- if you're legally able to vote in the country and aren't erroneously on a list of disenfranchised voters in Florida -- cast your vote this November, don't touch the screen, pull the lever or check the box for Bush or Kerry.
Vote Saddam in 2004.
He knows how to whip a country into shape and bypass all of that partisan bullshit, and he won't take, "No, Great Leader! I will not vote for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage even if you do cut off my ear and rape my daughter!" for an answer.
He kept at it, and we played the part of dutiful (Jersey) city dwellers who avert their eyes and wonder if suburban development living is as awful as we think it is. By the time we got on the train, he had turned his increasingly violent attention toward a Jewish businessman, and we both agreed that Jews were good for something if it meant we'd avoid death.
As the man exited the train at his stop, the ode-to-abortion literally kicked him in his ass, and that prompted the man to turn around, punch the kid in the gut, and then shout, from the platform, "You think you can take me? Bring it on. Bring it on. I will kill you. Come on."
The deranged teen backed off and sat down. Because you never know if your intended victim was nicknamed "Shishak" during his days in the IDF.
It wasn't just another day in the subway system for me. In all of the years that I've taken every form of public transportation offered in NYC -- mostly under the reign of Rudy Giuliani, He Who Somehow Managed to Hide the Homeless Population -- this was the first time someone threatened to kill me. Insulted, pushed, glared at, sure, but usually, they just ask if I want to buy a fake Rolex or weed.
That's not to say crime didn't happen or that people weren't killed, but for those of us who came of age post-Koch and post-Dinkins, we were lulled into thinking that NYC was sort of safe if you didn't act like it was your first visit out of the cornfields and you didn't work at a Wendy's in Brooklyn. At least to those of us who grew up in Jersey City, Newark, Trenton, Patterson or Camden.
Ever since September 11, 2001, when funding started being diverted from preventing run-of-the-mill crime that affects hundreds of thousands to preventing a chance terrorist attack that might kill a few thousand, I've noticed that the number of lunatics and criminals I encounter has increased, as have the quality-of-life issues that Giuliani made a cornerstone of his iron-fisted rule.
Part of me thought that it was due to getting older, when one naturally becomes observant of the activities that the whippersnappers engage in that never, ever happened in one's own generation. But I'm only 25. This is my generation.
Then I came across an article in The New York Times that detailed how much funding police departments across the country have lost as the government shifts its focus to extraordinarly rare events that have the power to cost them an election.
According to the Times, the FBI no longer has much interest in surfers in Nixon masks robbing banks because the agency is trying to make up for the years they wasted playing Solitaire instead of engaging in counterterrorism operations. (But they'll make time to arrest a vicious criminal sharing copyrighted files.)
And of the nation's 17,000 police forces, the federal government has ordered many to redeploy officers to anti-terrorist duties, such as guarding airports and water works.
Chad Kolton, a spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget, told the Times that much of the money would flow instead to the Department of Homeland Security. "In the post-9/11 world, where terrorism is one of our most critical concerns, resources that were formerly provided through the Department of Justice will now be provided through the Department of Homeland Security," Mr. Kolton said.
Muggings, shootings, rapes -- they simply don't have the panache of a plane flying into a building, a vial of smallpox thrown on the subway tracks or Muslim ninja suicidal divers blowing up cruise ships on the new Bayonne-Bermuda route. No candidate's going to get elected because he's tough on squeegee men and carjackers, even though we're more likely to deal with one of them than with one of Osama bin Laden's evil-doing henchmen.
Domestic issues -- that is, domestic issues of value (note: most people don't care that much about Janet's tit) -- are not at the forefront, and when they accidentally are, they're couched in how to keep America safe from the bogeymen who, technically, shouldn't be in this country to kill us because the Department of Homeland Security, technically, has had close to three years to throw or keep them out.
You know, technically.
But I don't feel particularly unsafe. I'm not afraid of a terrorist attack, no more afraid than I was after the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 or the Oklahoma City bombing in 1994, when it became rather obvious that we were targets at home. When I get in my car each morning, I realize that I have a greater chance of being killed by a senile jerk-off who can't tell the gas pedal from the brake (and whose license won't be taken away because of the lobbying power of senior citizens) than being decimated by a truck bomb.
Another terrorist attack undoubtedly will happen here, but one could have happened in 1997 or 2000 or 2003. If it's any more likely now, it's only due to our current administration devising an ingenius plot to further piss of a religious base that was unstable in the first place and looking for a greater cause to rally around.
What I have a realistic fear of is having my car stolen again, my house broken into, those hoodlums who beat the crap out of a guy at a nearby park coming back for more because the cops just can't seem to catch a roving band of thugs, losing my job and paying hundreds of dollars a month for COBRA coverage, someone stealing my identity due to unsecured databases that are accessed by outsourced employees who can't be touched by American law and spending months or years trying to clear it up, and watching my tax dollars get pissed away to fight costly, never-ending wars against drugs and terrorism.
And how do the candidates respond to these concerns? Do they investigate the long-term costs and consequences of throwing a junkie in jail versus forcing his sickly ass into rehab? Do they provide compelling arguments on how to fix the serious economic issues plaguing the country? Do they lay out in-depth, realistic plans to rebuild and pull out of Iraq that don't contain jingoism about Iraqi parents wanting the same things that American parents do?
Of course not. They're trying to get the vote of the average American, most of whom are predictably oblivious to serious issues that can't fit into a 20-second soundbite on their slanted news channel of choice and rightly cynical about whether either candidate can or will do anything about them.
Instead of presenting us with what they intend to do (even if we know they'll never accomplish it), we get John Kerry making a symbolic voyage on a water ferry to the convention, and Bush's team releasing a photo of Kerry in a "bunny suit" that, I guess, is meant to convey his weak position on how to reduce the burden of Social Security on current and future generations and prove how incapable he would be at tangling with terrorists.
Americans, the polls show, want a tough president. A president who isn't a girly-man. One who won't waffle. One who will be strong in his resolve. One who will clean up crime, promote social and religious values, unite the country under one flag and improve the economy. One who will fight for his people even if the entire world thinks he's nuts.
So, when you -- if you're legally able to vote in the country and aren't erroneously on a list of disenfranchised voters in Florida -- cast your vote this November, don't touch the screen, pull the lever or check the box for Bush or Kerry.
Vote Saddam in 2004.
He knows how to whip a country into shape and bypass all of that partisan bullshit, and he won't take, "No, Great Leader! I will not vote for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage even if you do cut off my ear and rape my daughter!" for an answer.
