…but Jude Russo’s description of a train ride from his home into the District of Colombia may as well be about the Twin Cities, from the post-Covid pathologies of the drivers on the freeways…:
I rarely leave the greater D.C.-Maryland-Virginia area, so I cannot speak to the case in other parts of the country, but here the drivers have simply become worse since the pandemic shutdowns.
In particular cases, it is clear what is happening—a 20-year-old Camry in the passing lane, going ten under the limit and reeking of the botanicals that the people of my state last year voted to legalize, holds no mystery. But we have also added speed demons and weavers and those inscrutable drivers who insist on going the exact speed as the cars in the lanes next to them, making passing impossible. The etiology of these pathologies, whether chemical or spiritual, is unknown to me.
…to the state of the state (or, I guess, district) overall:
It is difficult not to feel that something has come loose these past few years. Public standards for everything from dressing to doing your job to maintaining infrastructure have slipped. But the Maryland government ran a surplus last year, and may repeat the feat with the help of gambling tax revenue; Alstom is in the black, as is SP Plus.
Everyone has more money but is poorer; things are more profitable but worse; there are more legal ways to have fun than ever, but everyone is miserable. “The purveyor of rare herbs and prescribed chemicals is back. Will we never be set free?”
It’s worth a read…
…assuming you haven’t been living it,here or there.
As one who spends four days per week visiting customers in his car, I can totally relate. It seems that at least 40% of drivers are going at least 20 mph over the speed limit, tailgate and change lanes abruptly w/o signals than I remember. As I have mentioned before, the ones that make me shake my head are the ones wearing their little maskie, but driving 90 mph down Highway 52 and 50 going into Red Wing. This morning, I had five of them, all womyn.
here the drivers have simply become worse since the pandemic shutdowns.
Having driven on the Beltway, I fail to see how the driving could be worse…
It is difficult not to feel that something has come loose these past few years. Public standards for everything from dressing to doing your job to maintaining infrastructure have slipped
Let’s get something straight. These standards have been slipping for the last 70 years. One by one. Sometimes with a fight, but mostly willingly.
Conservatives have been deeply involved as they are always asking each other if they really want to “die on that hill”. Usually the answer is “no”. Not this time either. And then they get so conditioned to “just letting it go”, that they have no fight when they need it.
Even more so, those like on Gab who want to fight, to take back what was lost are considered far right wing. Which is true, of course, because the Overton Window moved so far to the left. But moreover, conservatives now consider those reactionaries who want to fight to be a bit icky (look at the election for the head of the Republican party, for an example).
The American Conservative is right in the center of this surrender to the left. Noting how much has been given away in 2023 by one of the collaborators (edited by a crunchy conservative, if I remember correctly) is bitterly amusing.
It is a sign of today’s post-covid insanity, and the insanity of Slow Joe Biden’s administration, that Biden is pusing today’s jobs report as some great accomplishment.
Anyone who wanted a job has been able to find one for two years. No one cares anymore that the unemployment rate is 3%. What they care about is the price of food, rent, and energy, all of which of which are spiraling upward and destroying the economic lives of the working class and especially the young.
The average price of a 1br apartment in Minneapolis is close to $1,300/month. Add in the cost of a car payment, groceries, gasoline, and utilities, and you are just scraping by at a salary of $50k/year.
Pingback: In The Mailbox: 02.03.23 : The Other McCain
In the past, the rules were dumb but everybody else obeyed them so we did, too.
Then the government’s response to Covid revealed the rules were not just dumb and increasingly oppressive, they were arbitrary and selective. They didn’t apply to every business, only to some businesses depending on whose friend you were. They didn’t apply to politicians having dinner at fancy restaurants or to rioters burning down the town, the rules only applied to us, locked down, wearing masks while standing six feet apart in the wind waiting to get into Menards.
And watching the election returns showed the results were so obviously fraudulent that it was plain nobody was following the rules anymore, while cheering about refusing to follow them as a good thing.
So now increasingly, everybody – all of us – feel the old rules are bullshit and we’re going to ignore them. I drive in the right lane or the center lane, never the left lane, going fast enough to keep up with the flow of traffic so I don’t get run off the road, without regard to the speedometer.
I lie to pollsters, build ghost guns that can’t be traced back to me, keep cash in the gun safe in case the banks do a Trudeau on us, locking up our funds to punish our political views. I haven’t started hunting down liberal politicians to shoot them yet, but the year is young. And there are no rules anymore.
Stripped of all the technical jargon is this stark reality: “On an unadjusted basis, payrolls actually fell by 2.5 million last month.”
Nothing to see here… move along sheople.
Pfertility Megathread: Study Funded By The NIH Finds That 40.2% Of Vaccinated Women Experienced Menstrual Changes
Funded by the NIH no less! Nothing to see here… move along sheople…
Good point on driving. There are times when I’m driving around Rochester, see the crazier drivers, and ask myself “was I teleported to Chicago or LA?”.
Regarding clothing and such, agreed as well. I’m one who tends to wear button down shirts and sweaters, sometimes even a blazer or suitcoat, almost as a protest against the clothes of today. As a dad of six kids, a few of which are addicted to fast fashion, I cringe at the sheer volume of shoddy clothing that my kids go through–and then they complain that fast fashion doesn’t keep them warm in the winter or cool off in the summer. “Yes, kids, when you wear polyester, that’s how it works.”