Amtrak is only in a few movies:
Rainman
Trading Places
The Italian Job
Breaking All The Rules
The Manchurian Candidate (2004)
The best Amtrak scene is in Trading Spaces
Trading places train scene
The scene takes place mostly in an Amtrak cafe car. And just as in any cafe car you’re served a smorgasbord of Americana:
– an African
– Catholic Priest
– European Coed
– Bumbling unintentionally racist white American
– Pets (ie the monkeys)
– Inept Amtrak employees
– Drunk passengers
And, just like Amtrak as a whole, the scene is a beautiful developing cluster chaos. It’s just perfect!!
Thiel is an advocate for monopolies. “Competition is for losers,” he says. “People always say that capitalism and competition are synonyms. But I think they’re really antonyms.” Peter Thiel argues that monopolies rise as they uniquely solve a problem. There’s truth to that, but to a larger extent monopolies remain because capitalism encourages efficiency, usually entailing scale, raising barriers to entry and making competition unattainable.
What’s funny is that it’s Peter Thiel, libertarian and Rand Paul supporter, who’s advocating for the concentration of power in monopolies. If Paul Krugman made the same argument would libertarians and the business press be equally laudatory?
The difference of course comes to rights and ownership. Paul Krugman wants single-payer health care, a partial monopoly owned by everyone, for everyone, just like our public roadways. Peter Thiel would have monopolies owned and controlled by individuals. He believes that the freedoms of the capitalist are more important than the beliefs and desires of the many citizens. To put it another way, as said by Thiel in 2009, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.“
This is an echo years past, of the history of railroads. After the Civil War, we as a nation gave new powers to privately held monopolies. These privately owned corporations used their position to enrich a few and exploit the common citizenry. It was disastrous. The railroads used their freedoms to maim their workers by the thousand and not even pay restitution. Thus, we democratically agreed upon unprecedented federal regulations to reign in corporations. It is these regulations that libertarians find so offensive. They want more freedom to exploit.
Some freedoms are mutually exclusive. I can’t own property and be free from an authority that determines who owns what (even if it’s a public ledger — ie bitcoin). Without agreement on the rules of the road, I wouldn’t be free to drive 80mph. I can’t be free from fear without public prohibitions of food poising, slavery, careless building, murder, negligent manufacturing or any other form of coercion including price gouging. I like being free from fear. I support freedom from want. These are the freedoms of the many. Peter Thiel wants more freedom for the privileged rich. Me, I believe in freedom AND democracy.
There are FedEx trucks everywhere.
I didn’t see UPS trucks. Anyone know why?
Is it because UPS Ground uses trains and FedEx trucks? (more…)
John Henry ///
September 2014
The Legend of John Henry [HQ]
John Henry was a mighty man. He was inspired, he worked so hard, and it killed him.
Where is the modern John Henry? Where is the song about the guy who did most things right, attended 2 years college on debt, but finds himself a diabetic Walmart Associate? Does it ends on his suicide, the second leading cause of death for Americans 25-34[1]?
Why is a Disney re-creation of a 19th century folktale more true than so much of what we call non-fiction? (more…)
A balding black man sits alone with a large roller bag.
Two women approach. The younger comes up behind him and slaps hard the back of his head. He turns and says nothing.
“You’re a disgrace. You’re an embarrassment to the family.”
The older woman has a phone on speaker and she juts it into the conversation. It squawks something. He mumbles something.
“Where’d you even get the money. You steal it?” says the younger woman.
He stares at the ground.
“Uh-huh. Don’t think I’ll let you back you in. You do this now. Don’t think I can forgive this.”
The phone talks more. He mumbles something more. The older woman walks away. The younger begins to leave, then pauses to look on him.
He says nothing.
She looks at the floor. She looks at him, says “you don’t even have a job,” and walks away.
Forty minutes pass.
A young man comes. They embrace, a male hug, fists to the back. The young man gives him money. They talk, shake hands. And part.
Another hour passes. He boards a westbound train.
1943 Computers ///
August 2014
Before computers came in boxes, they were human, usually female. Here, some computers compute the day’s schedule in the Information Room of Chicago’s Union Station.
