What's wrong with America today

[Hawkmoon]

Sorry, and I hope this is not too far afield, but after today I just HAVE to vent a bit.

Lunch time today. I was in the neighborhood of a little fast food joint that has really excellent hot dogs, so I stopped in to treat myself while the wife is out of town and not watching over me. I'm in the northeast, so my car (like most) is coated in salt dust at the moment.

Immediately behind me pulls in a huge SUV (not a Hummer, but that ilk), looking as pristine as if it had just rolled out of the showroom. Out get three females of minority ethnicity (and since we have numerous varieties of minority around here, I'm not singling out any one of them, this is typical behavior but today was an extreme example). The largest of the three has in her hand a bag from McDonalds drive-though ... which she carefully hand carried to the edge of the parking lot and tossed against the guardrail. She and her friends then proceeded to walk into the restaurant ... directly past a trash can.

Then, as I was leaving the restaurant and heading for the highway, I got my nose into the intersection only to hear sirens and diesel horns. Okay ... fire trucks -- a pumper and a rescue truck. I stopped, let them go through, then (since they headed up the road I was following) I pulled in behind them.

Hmmm ... they no sooner made the turn than they cut off the sirens and the flashers. I was behind them all the way to where the street dead-ends at a tee intersection. They signaled for a left turn and stopped for the light. Obviously not on an emergency call. So why did they feel it was necessary (or, more importantly, justified) to use lights and sirens to bust traffic at the interesection on the main road?

I'm getting very tired of what I see in this once-great country. I gotta move to a place where the people are less poltically correct and more American.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Things improve slightly the farther you are from the coasts. 

Remember that there have always been scumbags and derelicts and shiftless folks in society.  But in the past it was common for decent folks to ignore and avoid the underclasses.  Now we have our faces rubbed in it.  It's our exposure that's changed, not so the quantity of lesser people.

[Perd Hapley]

Your pain I feel. 

I was in a parking lot a few months ago, and I saw a woman with her door open, sitting in the car.  She put a bag of fast food trash on the pavement beside her car.  I expected she would pick it up as she got out of the car, and drop it in the trash can by the door of the grocery store.  Not so - she was leaving.  She shut the door and pulled out.  I guess she thought I was crazy when I honked my horn and did the hands-in-the-air, "What the &%$^ was that?" maneuver.  So THAT's why I always see that stuff in parking lots. 

A few days ago, I was waiting for the light to turn green, when the man in front of me opened his door to empty the ash tray.  I did the same thing.  This time, I got to follow him very slowly until we parted ways. 

[glockfan.45]

Hawkmoon where do you live? I want to move there if thats all you can complain about.

Hey Fistful you might want to pick up a copy of the Post Dispatch today if you dont already have one. Theres an article in the editorial section about the many classes of people in the region that I am sure you would get a kick out of.

[Hawkmoon]

Hawkmoon where do you live? I want to move there if thats all you can complain about.

I don't believe I said .... and I CERTAINLY didn't mean to imply ... that that's all I have to complain about.

[The Rabbi]

Hawkmoon where do you live? I want to move there if thats all you can complain about.

Ditto.

Around here, I was pulling out into a long line of stopped traffic where the light had been red and had just turned green.  No one would let me in.  There was a car full of little old (White) ladies and they were slow to start up.  I took the opportunity and  nosed in ahead of them.  They tried to go around me and block me but were unsuccesful. I waved thanks to them and saw them cursing me in my rearview mirror.  So of course at the next intersection, with the little old (White) ladies behind me, I let in car after car of people getting onto the main road.  You should have seen the expression on their (White) faces as they passed me.

[Monkeyleg]

Littering is one of my pet peeves. Maybe it comes from spending so much time on a motorcycle.

I've had people throw cups of soda pop out their car windows, only to splash all over me. I once got a lit cigarette butt down the front of my shirt. Having to constantly watch for dangerous garbage on the highway is a pain.

For as long as I can remember, I've stripped my cigarette butts, and put the filter back in the package in my pocket. How hard is that?

As for the fire trucks mentioned in the intitial post, perhaps the call was cancelled. Don't know.

Several years ago, I had left an awards banquet, and was driving eastbound on a one-way street in downtown Milwaukee. I saw a squad approaching, going the wrong way, with lights flashing, and moving fast. I stopped. The officer pulled into a gas station, jumped out, and ran into the restroom.

When you gotta go, you gotta go. It helps when you have a light bar, though.

[glockfan.45]

Around here I can complain about the following.

• A-Holes that drive around my neighborhood at all hours of the day/night with their radios cranked up so loud the bass rattles your windows.
• Even bigger A-Holes that dump their old furniture and pets at the end of our culdesac
• Panhandling homeless drunks that harass you in every gas station, grocery store, shopping mall parking lot.

Theres more but you get the drift. Rabbi try St.Louis rush hour traffic sometime if you want to see real jerks in action. Its kill or be killed on the 55/64/40 merger into the city.

[Perd Hapley]

Glock Fan, you live HERE?  I've never seen any dancing bananas in these parts.  I usually don't like to dirty my hands with the Post Disgrace, but I'll look for that.  Thanks.  Too bad they ran it today, I'll be buying one tomorrow to look for a new job.

Rabbi, it's not very nice of you to pick on us White folks like that, when we were having so much fun at the expense of minorities.  I work on a residential street (Delmar, between 170 and Price).  No one seems to think twice about passing on the right.  It happens constantly, and I use that word advisedly.  And of course, it's in the good, White/Jewish left-wing part of town. 

[crt360]

Speaking of parking lot litterbugs, what's with all the dirty diapers?  The worst parking lot has to belong to Wal-mart.  It is frequently a minefield of half eaten Big Macs and discarded poop-filled diapers.  I swear some people must load their dirty kids in the car and drive them to a parking lot just so they can leave their bundle of smelly refuse where it will be someone else's problem.     Should I determine their identity, God help any depositor of a parking lot poop package that I happen to step on.

[spinr]

So why did they feel it was necessary (or, more importantly, justified) to use lights and sirens to bust traffic at the interesection on the main road?

What Monkeyleg said.

Having a call cancelled or downgraded while enroute to the scene happens rather often.  Happened to me more times than I could count when I was doing the EMS thing.  Sometimes you even get requests to turn off the loud & flashy stuff before arriving at the scene so as not to upset/disturb/panic the patient/victim/creep.

[Lee]

"Hmmm ... they no sooner made the turn than they cut off the sirens and the flashers."

It's very likely that they were scrambled along with some other stations and were called off because other units were closer or already on site.  That's how it seems to work around here.

[The Rabbi]

Actually failing to let someone else in front of you drives me nuts.  Especially when it's slowing down for a traffic light.  I mean, WTF?  You're not going to get there any faster just because you wont let me in.

[Sindawe]

Its a power thing Rabbi.  They have the power at that moment, and you don't.  Some people lead such sad lives of quite desperation that even those trivial moments of power are a boot to them.

And its also a power thing for folks like myself who DO let others onto the road when such occurs.  I let somebody in and then enjoy the hard looks and the like from those around me who are angered when I show such politeness and civility.

[The Rabbi]

You're probably right.  And it is sad.  And it makes everyone else's life just a little worse.  And once I succeed in getting in front of one of these yayhoos (using the NY "drift" technique") I delight in letting everyone and anyone in front of me.

[glockfan.45]

Its a power thing Rabbi.  They have the power at that moment, and you don't.  Some people lead such sad lives of quite desperation that even those trivial moments of power are a boot to them.

I think its more of a combination of several factors. The primary one being the mentality of "I am more important than you therefore you may go s**t in your hat I have somewhere to be". Another as metioned is the power trip, or they could just be inattentive dummys totaly oblivious to the surrounding world.

[Art Eatman]

Once was a gathering at the porch in GhostTown.  A station wagon with a bunch of folks, with grandparents, mom'n'pop and a couple of kids and an infant, was in the line of cars and trucks.  They sorta looked like they might have been kin to the Jukes.  Or the Kallikaks.

When they got ready to leave, the momma changed the baby's diaper and put the old one in the back of my buddy's pickup.  The folks got all upset when he handed it back through the window and said, "'Scuse me, ma'am, I think you forgot something."  And dropped it in her lap.  Poppa started to look macho, and then realized the odds were seriously against him.

When you drive south from Ojinaga, Mexico, at the edge of town you see the bar ditches full of disposadiapers.  It seems to be the custom to stop, change the ankle-biter's nappies, and throw out the old ones along the highway.  On both the Chihuahua and Camargo highways.  And, entering Chihuahua, you'll see the same thing there.  Thousands of them.  Mexico doesn't have an "adopt a highway" deal, I guess.

So, one rambling tour of a trip with a lady friend, north out of Texas, she commented that it was intriguing how much cleaner the roadsides were as we got on up into northern Colorado and suchlike.  "Yeah, " I said, "We're getting farther from Mexico."  Dang if she didn't get mad!

, Art

[markdido]

So why did they feel it was necessary (or, more importantly, justified) to use lights and sirens to bust traffic at the interesection on the main road?

What Monkeyleg said.

Having a call cancelled or downgraded while enroute to the scene happens rather often.  Happened to me more times than I could count when I was doing the EMS thing.  Sometimes you even get requests to turn off the loud & flashy stuff before arriving at the scene so as not to upset/disturb/panic the patient/victim/creep.

Ditto.

When I ran Rescue in Virginia Beach, if I was on a busy road and got cancelled, I would usually turn down a side street before killing the lights/siren so as not to appear to the motorists that I went through that red light just for fun.

[280plus]

Aw don't give me that, you guys do it all the time! 

Just don't turn off the flashy stuff and then turn into McDonalds drive thru, or the Dunkin Donuts either, THAT might look bad. 

[Phantom Warrior]

People are dirtbags.  *shrug*  What are your questions?