Thursday, April 30, 2015

Do the riot thing, or maybe #shitjustgotreal ?

It is morally right to rebel. The Black community of Baltimore exercising " the voice of the unheard" to use the words of the late Dr. Martin Luther King got a lot of people's attention while avoiding the pitfalls of the classical American riot. As far as I observe the damage done to the infrastructure was minimal, Baltimore won't be crippled for a generation like Los Angeles was. The cops murdered a Black man and were made to pay for it. Twenty were reported hospitalized, several with "serious" injuries. But the media won't have a cop funeral, which is a good thing. Several rival "gang" members came together to help the rebellion preserve its gains, and prevent "suicide by cop" (and National Guard). Sympathy actions took place in several cities where progressive people are having to grapple with the problem of how to stop the cops from being cops. Protest being fine but more strategic thinking, planning and action forcing themselves onto the agenda. A long and winding road lies ahead.



Union Square New York City early and chill Spring morning. Black Lives Matter.

Last night several thousand of the finest, the cream of New York City's youth gathered at Union Square to rally and set out to protest another apparent murder by police of another African American citizen, this time in the city of Baltimore, Maryland. I won't rehash the details that have been made public so far, other than to express my feelings of anger that apparently it's a capital offense for a Black person to make eye contact with a police  officer and then to leave in haste. If I were Black I'd avoid eye contact with a cop.  In fact I'm not a Black person and I avoid eye contact with a cop too. If I happened to make eye contact with a police officer I'd probably be pretty flustered and unsure about what to do next.
I was briefly caught up in the protest, some of which was headed away from the West Side Highway at Houston Street. I drove up to a wall of marching protesters and cop "escorts" I signalled my agreement with a two fingered "V" sign and a then a thumb up to the marchers and  in a few moments I was headed down the West Side Highway to Battery Park City. Protesters marched in several parts of Manhattan Island and made the point that from here on out there is going to be disruption any time cops execute an unarmed Black person anywhere in the United States.
I flavor that idea. Union Square is a social economic cultural odd place. Rich people live in expensive apartments, The Village, East, and West begin or end there depending on which way you are going, it's a place where protests historically from up, it's a center of skate board youth culture and a place where people live outdoors. I took this picture while waiting for the Avenue A bus.

Monday, April 27, 2015

Interesting things are happening in Venezuela

Venezuela has a serious problem with housing and now with petroleum prices halved in a year the populist government of President Maduro is forced to scrutinize expenses but one thing they say will go forward is the plan to build 700,000 public housing homes and apartments this year. The government says that they have 300,000 under construction now and that construction is to begin on 400,000 by June 30.
54 years old Marlene Olivo  needed one of those apartments
 badly.  When bus driving President Nicolas Maduro rolled into Olivo's home state of Aragua  a few days ago  Olivo  tossed a request for housing  written on a  mango at the former bus driver and union activist.  He got the message and she 's getting her apartment  today, most likely.


In other  news China just  approved another loan to Venezuela, in the amount of  five  billion dollars.  Venezuela has just cut overseas travel  subsidies that benefit  the middle class people  by two billion dollars  and foreign banks are  relaxing about the matter of Venezuela's debt  payments that are coming due. 

Sunday, April 26, 2015

The Great Taxi Strikes And Riots of 1934 - The Birth of The Taxi Medallion System

Fleet taxi drivers struck and rioted in Times Square attacking owner drivers , their passengers and taxis.  Mayor LaGuardia had taken the  Billy clubs away from the cops as part of his effort against the perennial problem of police brutality.  The desperate drivers,  many of them supporters of families,   saw their opportunity to make their case in a most effective and emphatic manner. You can imagine how much the media and '' public opinion'' were against the drivers, but they were not deterred.  Uber 's plans to increase the number of  Uber cars indefinitely may sound good to people who want instant gratification but drivers and owners must understand that life is not a  popularity contest.  The  numbers of  taxis 
was reduced and limited under the  Haas Act in order to allow the drivers to earn enough to live on.  Yes they won. 

http://untappedcities.com/2015/02/05/today-in-nyc-history-the-taxi-riots-of-1934-start-february-5-1934/

Slaves to the system

I think that this little video is startling.  Frankly I
saw myself,  not only as a taxi. The video shows us a reality that has to change. 

Saturday, April 25, 2015

Uber's strange New York numbers. (someone is full of something)

Uber now claims some 17500 Cars on the streets of New York and these cars make around 44,000 "legitimate" trips a day, i.e. they use the app, giving the company and the tax collectors their cut. I see Uber drivers hustling at clubs and hotels though by the nature of this criminal activity there aren't reliable figures. There is nothing new about hustlers splitting with club and hotel doormen and not with Uber or the government.  17500 drivers making 44,000 trips a day is not a lot. Less than three trips each. Now, Uber does have actual ex yellow taxi drivers and livery drivers who make their living and not just spare time money driving. These drivers logically must be a relatively small core who do most of the driving for dollars. Anyone who does four trips in a month is counted as an Uber driver. These drivers may never work for Uber again but they'll be counted till they return the Uber issued phone. Hailo used to play the same numbers hand. Remember Hailo?

gu.com/p/3hytpUber drivers in New York supposedly make $30 an hour. This number is skewed upwards by the number of drivers who only work the best hour or two. Uber does not count as "working" a driver who has no customers in his car, even if he has the app on and is nowhere near his home.

Yellow cab owners have lost drivers to Uber but I suspect most of them were part timers, as many yellow taxi drivers have been for ages  in New York. I suspect that many of the phantom yellow drivers have gone green, an entirely other ball of wax.


Thursday, April 23, 2015

This was news in January - Taxi Kingpin Evgeny Friedman brokered a meeting between mayor deBlasio, police sergeants union.head Ed Mullins and himself.

I was out of the country when this was news, but I think I have some cogent insights into the meeting and what it represented, handjobs all around. First we learned that deBlasio and Mullins, meeting in Friedman's "swanky apartment" "bonded "while watching the Knicks get their assets whipped on TV. Mullins, pissed because deBlasio is doing his "Park Slope Progressive Democrat" routine trying to coopt part of the movement against police brutality and impunity. Bill must have given Mullins quite a massage, considering Mullins said deBlasio is a gentleman, not a nincompoop, as he'd been calling hizzonor. Really, when you take into consideration the fact that  Mullins' membership had been working without a contract for umpity-dump years, I have to believe that Bill has some really special gift.

The guy who didn't get out of trouble, big time, was Friedman, host and matchmaker. He remains in a serious jam with Citibank, the IRS, and according to what I read, his twenty-four year old wife.

Friedman hopes to get a boost in the lease rates the government allows from the drivers, and some kind of "too big to fail" bail out from the City and State. As it is he can't get his taxis on the road without charging less than the law allows.

Many taxi drivers are as bedazzled by Uber flim-flam as are parts of the general public. Having absolutely no stake in nor sentimental attachment to "yellow." These drivers have fled one plantation for another. Friedman and his cohorts are also hoping to get permission to have an all service app approved. Like a deer in the headlights, he doesn't know what is headed for him, or maybe he does. He led the team the wrong way when he endorsed the November medallion auction. He led the team over a cliff. Medallions that should have remained on the shelf were bought by people who listened to Friedman for as much as $1,250,000, record prices. These tins are so under water the City Council doesn't see the possibility of another auction any time soon while the mayor thinks he can unload some for $250,000 to $350,000 although banks have pulled out of the medallion financing business.

The City settled with Mullins on Feb. 27 - an eleven percent raise spread out over seven years.

Going for an app that will be branded as the taxi moguls' app, and probably designed to fail by Uber and Lyft agents of influence within the City administration would be a mistake. Hailo failed as a yellow taxi app in New York, and Uber's yellow taxi app practically is useless. Apps and yellow do not mix here in the Big Apple. On top of that three major law suits are putting the whole concept of the e hail app into doubt and disrepute for causing distracted driving and unknown, unrecorded mayhem.

Yellow does need to clean up its act. Cars need to be clean and well maintained. There has to be an improvement in training and violations like passenger refusals have to become unthinkable. That would take some doing. A system of pre payment via some kind of card to be sold in kiosks as well as through a credit card and PayPal connected app would put the yellow taxi driver on an even playing field with the Uber drivers - yellow taxi drivers would have the same assurance of getting paid for the service they render, each and every time. The City has a very extensive mass transit system that serves people who have no money for taxis. Ask Uber.


Tuesday, April 21, 2015

The New York City Council transportation chair Ydanis Rodriguez on the spot regarding driver app menace

Mhttp://www.streetsblog.org/2015/01/12/council-members-grill-uber-on-prices-but-what-about-safety/

Streetsblog NYC has some pretty good questions about this for Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez.
Is Wesley Mensing the first pedestrian killed by an Uber driver in New York City?
Does the Uber driver app foster distracted driving?
Does Uber keep records of the collisions its drivers get into? Are those records available to the authorities and the public?
Does Uber have "black box" data relevant to the Mensing tragedy? If so, may you and the public get a look at it?

I also have a few questions of my own.
1- When the City Council first took approval of taxi apps into consideration had you read any study about the apps? Did the study even make mention of a possible issue regarding distracted driving?

2- Did you personally study both the customers and drivers apps for Uber, HAILO, Lyft or any other taxi drivers app?

3- Did it occur to you that these apps all invite customers to telephone drivers? 

4- Did you know that TLC rules absolutely prohibited licensed drivers from using any electronic devices while driving?

5- Have you in your capacity of transportation committee chairman asked the NYPD for hard data on cell phone and app related accidents? Does such data exist? Are NYPD officers who respond to serious accidents required to gather information about the use of cellphones and apps by drivers who have been in an accident?

Just thought I'd ask...

Sunday, April 19, 2015

Looking forward to my annual taxi driver drug test.


Someone once said that passing a drug test is like taking an I Q test. I believe that those words were first uttered by a high ranking official of the New York City Fire Department, though while that's what I recall I haven't been able to track down the origins of the quote on the internet.

Anyhow, I just scheduled my annual taxi driver drug screen mandated by the taxi driver licensing authorities. Yes, every year I schedule this test that I am mandated to take within thirty days of my licences' anniversary date. This means that unless I am a totally out of control drug addict and or very stupid I ought to be able to refrain from using cannabis for five weeks, especially considering the fact that I'm the one who schedules the urine screen with thirty days of leeway. Were I a casual abuser of cocaine and or opiates like heroin I'd have to refrain from using the drug for all of 72 hours, hours of my own choosing. So, I'm glad that hundreds of New York City taxi and livery drivers flunk the test every year. Those who flunk are either totally out of control drug addicts or really, really dumb. In New York City Uber drivers are licensed by the Taxi and Limousine Commission just like any other taxi or livery drivers are.

I can't vouch for the efficacy of any substance or regimen touted as enabling an individual to cheat any drug screen. The young stoner who made the video I feature here swears by the consumption of cranberry juice and exercise. I take no responsibility for anyone who tries to cheat any drug screen. Abstinence from the use of unlawful drugs is what I practice and advocate.

Saturday, April 18, 2015

Google and the Yellow taxi industry leaders are going the wrong way on e hail.

Google is working on an e hail app and in several US cities the legal street hail taxi organizations are clamoring for the right to have their own e hail system.

Uber has them running scared and it's not outside the box for them to seek their own e hail systems. Big mistake, though.

Uber app is under legal fire over the fact that their driver app is a public safety menace. What we have is thousands of Uber drivers racing around looking at their apps instead of the street, and in New York City the hare brained and corrupt de Blasio regime is allowing drivers to tool around looking at two or even three different apps. Because NYPD and Taxi Commission enforcement of the laws that prohibit taxi and Livery drivers from using any electronic device while they are not legally parked or standing is weak to not at all #Uber drivers are violating the law with impunity. Because investigation of traffic accidents is weak too we don't know how much damage to the public these characters are doing but we do know that when HAILO and Uber went legal the number of accidents went up.

Taxi industry leaders are being short sighted in pursuing their own app.

The number of court cases against e hail apps is going to rise, especially if the Erin Sauchelli lawsuit against Uber succeeds.


Police who want to embarrass mayor deBlasio will start going after app gazing Uber drivers making the point that the deBlasio administration's efforts to encourage the use of electronic devices while driving is irrational, irresponsible and it turns Visionzero into a joke.

The apps and the Uber fad can go the way of the hoola hoop.



Thursday, April 16, 2015

Yesterday was Jackie Robinson Day.

I missed it. He was a hero of my boyhood. I stopped following baseball when the Dodgers left Brooklyn and broke my heart. I always will respect the Great Jackie Robinson.

How Uber is attacking the American Dream in New York City.

As crummy a job as it is, taxi driving in New York City has been a pathway to the middle class and the American Dream in a way that driving for Uber and Lyft could never be.



You see, with Uber and Lyft,  the driver can never even dream of having a stake in the business, let alone a million dollar medallion. No, the equity, the ownership is not for the Uberdriver, it's for Wall Street. In this scenario the Uberdriver is permanent Untermensch. Here in contrast is the success story of thousands of taxi drivers:
Starting out, he shaped up at a taxi fleet day after day. He proved to be reliable and responsible, so he was assigned a steady car. Now he doesn't have to shape up hoping for a car to work with. Over time he buys a taxi vehicle and leases a medallion. He gets a partner and double shifts the taxi. He's making a bit more money this way and he saves up for a down payment on a medallion. He double shifts the taxicab. He's a business man now. If he has the guts and ambition he gets another medallion. The sky becomes the limit. This model infuriated Wall Street. Their mouthpieces at The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Crains and so on raged because taxi drivers had created the world's best investment, the New York City taxi medallion.

By giving Uber unfair and illegal advantages such as control over the metered Uber fare and carte blanche to the Uber and Lyft fleets to violate State safety laws against the use of electronic devices while driving, the David Yassky's of the world set out to destroy the dream and put the taxi driver in his place. Yassky and Chabbra got rewarded with jobs at Uber and Lyft. Finally the taxi industry leaders are turning to the courts. The banks that finance the taxi business are also getting into the act. Time will tell...

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Why driving for Uber is neither a real job not an "American Dream" type small business.

Driving for Uber - they say you're not an employee, but they assign work, appoint their customers who get inside your car to be a supervisor who rates you and your work. A rating can result in you being suspended, cut off from work and income. The employer doesn't have responsibility for the condition of the car, your main work tool, and doesn't even pay for it. The employer might lend you the money to buy the car and those payments are your responsibility even if you are hospitalized.



But most business owners have equity, - a stake that can grow. You don't and never will. A taxi driver who puts  up a down payment on a medallion has equity. There are ways a taxi driver who doesn't own the medallion can work towards one. For you it's out of the question.

You aren't a franchise owned either. Uber can send as many competitors against you as they can trick.

You lose. No equity, no chance of ever having equity , under close supervision by Uber and its customers, but no employee rights or benefits.

Sounds like a bad idea.

Gluten free spaghetti - and news. Gluten free spaghetti doesn't taste like or smell like real spaghetti either.

Bought it by mistake.

See how it sticks together and clumped up? It doesn't taste like or smell like real spaghetti either.

Look at the water I cooked it in. Cloudy and murky. The spaghetti strands seemingly start to dissolve!



Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Abraham Lincoln was assassinated 150 Years ago on the night of April 15, 1865

The assassination of Lincoln.




Radical Republicans of the time were pro Black. They wanted the freed slaves to be given dignity and the land that they and their ancestors worked and therefore made valuable.

Fish gotta swim birds gotta fly cops gotta lie. Or why I don't like cops.

A few days ago I wrote about an accident that was imposed on me when a young drug addled make believe wigger got into a pissing contest with the driver of one of those private garbage trucks that the mythical Tony Soprano owned.
The focus of the post, though, wasn't the accident so much as a surprisingly decent act of kindness done by one of the cops who intervened in the accident situation. A homeless man was resting on a nearby stoop. One of the cops spotted him and went over to him. I fully expected the cop to chase the poor guy, possibly brutally, as I have seen happen a few times in my 69 years living in New York City. The cop astounded me by getting a take out dinner plate out of the cop car and bringing it to the guy. The cop did this twice.


I praised him then and there. He said "Not all of us are assholes." I knew that justice wasn't going to happen. You see, although my passenger acted like a jerk by opening and refusing to close the door, the trucker had brought his rig to a complete stop. After an exchange of obscenities with my passenger he hit the gas and destroyed the two passenger side doors on my car (my boss's car actually). The cops were right behind the rig so I know that they knew the trucker willfully did damage - some sort of violation at the least. I didn't expect the cops to trouble themselves over a garbage truck driver trashing a taxi. Of course not. The "nice" cop started bullshiting me about "the trucker had the right of way". The thing that was over the top was the NYPD accident report that I picked up at the 28th precinct yesterday. The cop had me giving them an excuse for the trucker and for their own failure to summons the trucker. Cops are notorious liars.

Monday, April 13, 2015

Oh, it's good good good like Brigitte Bardot. Well, maybe not.

My favorite pop song ever.
Now the reason we're here
Every man, every woman
Is to stand by each other
Take care of each other
When love walks in the room
Everybody stand up
Oh, it's good good good like Brigitte Bardot.
When I was a kid I had a serious crush on Brigitte Bardot. 
Today she's a humanitarian animal rights activist and a prominent French xenophobe who's found herself in trouble with the law. You see, they have hate speech laws in France and the state frowns upon raw expressions of nationalist chauvinism.

I get a kick out of citizens of nations that have ruled other nations moaning and complaining about immigrants from countries they subjugated and meddled in. Perhaps if their parents and grandparents had decided not to invade and rule over others the descendants of those others wouldn't be on your doorstep demanding rights.


Saturday, April 11, 2015

New York City Council Speaker Wants 1000 Community Policing Cops - Does She Know What Community Policing Is?

Just asking...

A thousand cops -pretty expensive, especially when Mark-Viverito can't explain what they'll be doing.

Friday, April 10, 2015

Kansas City Mo. Mayor Sly James and City Council stand up to the Ubersteamroller in defense of the people of their city.


#Uberstalked #Uber drivers can have your last name too.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/03/28/uber-s-biggest-problem-isn-t-surge-pricing-what-if-it-s-sexual-harassment-by-drivers.html


A most interesting article about Uber! This article is a year old but I'll bet it's as much news to you as it was to me when I stumbled on it yesterday. 

Now, women getting sexually harassed by Uber drivers is not the newest news, but holy guacamole, did you know that a fired Uber driver- fired due to your complaint - can get your last name and track you down?

Yikes!

Olivia Nuzzi at The Daily Beast  got so weirded out by this strange, strange Uber driver that she felt like she had to make a complaint. As a New Yorker she could have called 311 and complained to the Government agency that licensed the driver to transport people for money- the Taxi and Limousine Commission- but that probably didn't occur to her, or perhaps she thought that a complaint to Uber would be more efficient and effective. She made a mistake, because they fired the guy, told him about her complaint, and gave him her complete name which he put to use. You should read her story by using the URL at the top of the article.

Now, at least here in New York City Uber is under enough government supervision that they put drivers with TLC licenses on the streets. By complaining to Uber you are not putting the license itself at question, so in a case where Uber fires a driver the driver can be working for another service that very same day, assuring that he'll have an opportunity to do his thing that same day.

So.If an Uber driver or any driver for hire breaks the rules in .re York and its enough to make a complaint the effective and efficient way to do it is to call the TLC at 311. If you've been #Ubered elsewhere, good luck!

#MyNYPD New York cops being New York cops.












Thursday, April 9, 2015

Uber's ambiguous impact on my life so far. The hustlers now have a pimp....

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2015/03/more_ubers_than_taxis_in_new_york_actually_that_doesn_t_mean_much.html
It's a mixed bag so far. Uber has recruited scads of drivers including from the garage I lease from, and for the time being that is a plus. They don't yet take many passengers compared to the yellow taxis, and probably are taking some no tip, low tip fares to remote places where I likely wouldn't find a truly remunerative fare, one that brings me into or closer to the yellow taxis home territory- lower Manhattan and LaGuardia airport at a busy time.
Now it's also true, or so it seems, that when Bloomberg brought in the Green taxis and Uber, enforcement against black car drivers stealing my income picked up, so to.me it's as though the hustlers now have an app and it pimp, namely Travis Kalanick, Ubermensch of the Ubermenschen.

So now just like I need a pimp (medallion owner in my case) in order to work the street, so now do the Black Car hustlers need a pimp (and an app).
A taxi driver ironically named Travis giving a pimp who probably is not a Travis something to suck on.



Nu?

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Taxi industry must and will fight back against #Uber in court - and so will their bankers.

I'm not in love with New York City's taxi bosses. I don't like a lot about how they operate. They've exploited and mistreated taxi drivers like me forever. They broke the taxi drivers union Local 3036, took away medical benefits, vacation pay, the minute pensions taxi drivers once got. They turned a nine hour workday into eleven, twelve, even twenty-four hours.

The onset of Uber liberated some yellow taxi drivers like me from some of the worse aspects of our exploitation. I as a public spirited citizen have been yelling high and low about the safety menace of the e hail driver apps, but frankly the powers that be have clearly decided that they don't give a rat's tail about that. So, frankly if I could freeze frame the Uber situation I would. As it is Uber helps me, and no one will look out for number one (me) but me. The problem is I can't freeze frame the Uber situation. It either takes over completely or gets squashed, so I want it squashed. I don't want to be an Untermensch in an Ubermenschen paradise. So I welcome the inevitable lawsuits that are being filed against #Uber. I imagine there are not only taxi bosses afraid of losing their shirts, there are bankers watching the collapse of the taxi medallion with trepidation. Politicians in this town best think about that, because down the road these bankers are going to conclude that New York City's government under both Bloomberg and deBlasio unlawfully assisted Uber's rise in this town. They will not be ready to take a haircut, they will sue, lobby, campaign in a thousand ways to get their medallion investments back because they are not rich by letting bygones be bygones when it comes to their money. Taxpayers will pick up the tab.

They allowed Uber to illegally operate livery cars with electronic meters. That's against the law. So essentially Uber is running illegal taxis on the nod and wink of people like David Yassky and Ashwami Chabbri who as TLC tops did everything they could to help Uber and deprecate the medallion and who got rewarded with jobs at Uber and Lyft.

They exempted Uber from collecting the fifty cent per trip Transit tax, not the thirty cent wheelchair accessibility fee. #Uber won't have to put wheelchair accessible taxis on the road.

Uber can raise, lower, raise again their fares. Lawful taxi fares are strictly regulated by the TLC by law.

No way is a banker going to know these facts and shrug it off as he eats millions of dollars in losses on what were "zero default" loans supposedly protected by a legal monopoly.

Let the court cases roll!

@UberLDN shut down it's Twitter account - overwhelmed by fraud complaints #Uber London


They're in the habit of cheating their drivers, too.
Not much I can add to that, is there?

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Stop the war on teachers and students and unions.

Matt Damon standing up for teachers and unions.

We live under the dictatorship of the activist billionaire. As I understand it  Bill Gates, who never taught a roomful of public school kids got a bug up his ass one fine day and Michael Bloomberg caught the bug. They are public figures who are heard and listened to because they are rich. And they've been thinking about public schools, that they are businesses. This idea runs head on into what once was common knowledge and what once seemed fair and reasonable: That in general a person becomes better at his job with experience, and so her pay should also improve. 

That was then, this is now. School principals are not lead educators. In much vaunted charter schools a principal may never have been a teacher at all. He's in charge of the school's budget. Senior teachers cost more than newbies. They got raises. They're more likely to use medical benefits. Besides, what the hell is a good teacher anyhow? She only needs to follow a script to get her pupils ready for multiple choice tests that demonstrate her proficiency. She needn't grade assignments. Marking a student paper with corrections attacks pupil self esteem! Use the assignments to uncover and address pupil shortcomings? The kid can benefit more from learning multiple test taking strategies!

But Eugene, budgets are important, and what about deadwood teachers? Remember when unions and Civil Service kept them on the job?

Often bad teachers stayed in place because it was difficult to remove them. This also was often an excuse for inaction. Due process protects workers from arbitrary and capricious action. Where it's needed amendments could be accomplished by good faith negotiations. What we have now is a devaluation of the profession of teaching. They are diminished by cost cutters, not by educators. Michael Bloomberg, notorious locker room bully as an executive never sat in a public school classroom except for a photo opp. A billionaire boy in a bubble, he trashed public schools. 

In a world where one percent of the people have most of the wealth we need teachers strong in math and science as well as being skilled leaders. They cost money. They have a right to demand decent compensation and leeway in doing their jobs. 

Much better to have children who are fed well, whose fathers have jobs and live at home. Teachers cannot be scapegoat for ills of society and the mass in incarceration of minority men. To learn how to pass a multiple choice test is not to be educated. That is training, not education.



I got victimized by a drug addled little make believe wigger trust fund kid and one of Tony Soprano's crew.

She wouldn't close the door, he wanted to assert his right of way. It didn't end well for me or the door. Cops came, took reports, finally let me go. I have to say something good about a cop. While paper work was getting done one of the cops spotted a homeless man sleeping on a door still. I figured he was going to chase the poor guy. What he did was give the poor guy dinner- two dinners in fact. I commended him then and there and doing it again now. An African American officer, his name might be P.O. Tiguena, of the 28th precinct. Triguena signed my copy of the police report and the Black officer gave me the paperwork. Giving the poor guy dinner and not harassing him.  That was a decent thing to do. We live in a city without a heart. This one cop this one time did something surprisingly decent good and kind hearted. Second time I personally saw or know personally the homeless Black ex taxi driver friend of mine who was given ten dollars by two white transit cops who if either of them had felt like it could even had killed him and get away with murder. They didn't though.

Sunday, April 5, 2015

Bronx ride - the fare forty dollars the tip, five cents, the feeling, priceless but I got to video a car fire on my way to the garage.

Well it was the  Bronx, at least I got paid the fare.

April 21st - London cabbies are great. They will be mobilized for what is a fight for civilization itself.

London cabbies are true professionals. Training for the London taxi drivers license is as rigorous as the training for any profession anywhere on earth.






The Knowledge - what London cabbies know about the geography of London, a most intricate layout of any city anywhere matters. In this video a London cabbie beats SAT NAV across London. These upstanding representatives of their city and their nation are in and epic battle with forces of barbarism, led by and symbolized by Uber. #Uber is out not only to wreck the lives of the London cabbies and their families, Uber is out to cheapen and dumb down work, rob work of its God given dignity and deepen the enslavement of working people. The London cabbies are upholding the banner of civilization itself, against barbarism just like their parents and grandparents did.



#Uber (Ubermenschen or supermen) signifies the notion of superior human beings born to be served by the Untermenschen (less than men.) #Uber takes its inspiration from Nietzschean philosophy, the philosophical wellspring of fascism. Their dishonesty, disregard for the laws that others follow, their contempt for labor, their enslavement and super exploitation of the drivers_ hallmarks of Nietzschean fascism.


Thursday, April 2, 2015

Foreigner learning how to use the Select Bus pre pay system the hard way.


Stoned "stoopid."
American men drafted into fighting a nightmare illegal war would self medicate with abundant "illegal"'marijuana in order to cope with a nightmare reality. Now we are on the cusp of fully legalized marijuana. I am actually a bit upset about that. Life is being made harder and less meaningful by a capitalist system that no longer works for most people. Is the correct answer to become giggling SLAVES!?
No to locking up pot smokers. I support that idea, but let's not become giggling dumbed down SLAVES either. We must fight for a future, and for our humanity.





Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Two first-time experiences in two days.

Yesterday I posted about a first-time experience I had- under model minority. Two Asian American men left my taxi without paying me. (This is something that could never happen to a Uber driver.)

FIRST TIME, Proving I suppose that anything can happen. Oh well (shrug).

Then last night three black men got in and were in a conversation that I could not help but overhear. Actually one guy was doing most of the talking. He was saying that his doctor had recommended he take blood pressure medicine, but he said that would destroy his living. As he saint, he's a whore. Now I have had male prostitute passengers before, they whore themselves to older rich gay men. This guy's client base is female. He sells not only sex, but ersatz love. He was going on about how he had ducked this customer, who told him she loves him. "Yeah, love you too" was his answer. They talked about the money he needed, then he went to the bathroom and vomited.
Sad, no?

Detectives union big Mike Palladino serves up lame excuse for racist rant-cop Patrick Cherry

http://m.nydailynews.com/new-york/nypd-investigating-video-officer-harassing-uber-driver-article-1.2167958

Palladino says that Cherry's buddy is in hospital for cardiac arrest  and all the anti terrorist detectives are stressed out.


So the flick what, Palladino. If they're all as fragile as Detective Cherry we are all in a lot of  trouble here in New York City. If a complaint for rudeness and intimidation gets to a TLC hearing do you think if the driver's excuse sounded like that his hack license would not be suspended?

Cherry can't be trusted with a gun and badge ever again.