Project Censored’s “Censored 2011: The Top Censored Stories of 2009-2010″ is now available for pre-order here! This year’s volume is truly Media Democracy in Action. Not only does it cover the most under-reported stories the corporate media ignore, but this year’s Censored Deja Vu, Junk Food News and News Abuse, Signs of Health, and FAIR’s 10th anniversary of Fear and Favor in the News Room. A full Truth Emergency section debuts this year for “Censored 2011″ to address State Crimes Against Democracy as well as analysis of the corporate media spin that led to the Iraq War and continues to hide US allied atrocities in the Middle East. Project Censored now has over 30 college and university affiliates contributing on our expanding websites and we introduce this year the Project Censored International section of the book, reviewing global trends in media control and censorship. Former director Peter Phillips and new director Mickey Huff describe the new directions of the Project and research methodology plus an update from Dave Mathison on Being the Media, London’s Index on Censorship and much, much more! From now to September 15th, anyone donating $30 or more to the Project will receive a signed copy of “Censored 2011″ by the editors. Regular orders can be sent through the store on the Project Censored website for $19.95 plus $3 shipping and handling. Mail orders can be sent to Media Freedom Foundation, P.O. Box 571, Cotati, CA 94931. Thank you for your support of Project Censored and for helping fight media censorship!
09/15/2010
09/11/2010
How To End the MUNI Morass.....
How To End The MUNI Morass
Or
How To Fix Bay Area Regional Transportation, Reduce Air, Noise, And Sight Pollution, Create Sustainable
Infrastructure, Provide Quality Of Life Enhancement, And Practice Fiscal Responsibility.
One crisp clear fall evening Way Back In The Day, I drove a Chevelle Malibu SS from Berkeley to Reno in what seemed like a half hour. Interstate 80 lay branny-new and wide-open before me. I had achieved Toxic Equilibrium, Hendrix and The Stones were on the radio, and it was pedal to the metal with a 4-barrel carburetor. I probably averaged about 5 miles per gallon. Ahhh, those were the days, my friend. Those days we thought would never end, but did. The age of the automobile is over. The “car” is dead. Long live the car!
Americans infantile obsession with the automobile borders on the pathological. Automobiles receive more status, respect, care, and infrastructure than do most human beings. Automobile technology is like, 150 years old, yet we still act as if cars are a necessity. Believe me, they are not. In fact, they may be the work of the Devil. OK, but they are a frivolous luxury enjoyed by a few, and paid for by everyone. Individualized personal transportation is so last millennium. I enjoyed my time of wretched excess, but my favorite form of transportation today is the F-Market streetcars.
As are the poor excuses for vehicles MUNI foists off on the public. I almost broke my coccyx on the 9-San Bruno the other day, a vehicle with no discernable shocks, struts, or springs. That’s right, I said “coccyx.”
In order to turn San Francisco back into the livable city it was in the 50’s and 60’s, we have make the commitment that this is a walk-able, bike-able, wheelchair friendly urban space, with plenty of NATIVE trees and places to sit down, get water, and use the restroom. There are many obvious candidates for pedestrian/bike only streets like the entire lengths of Market, Fillmore, Haight, and Castro, and Van Ness (once Highway 101 is put underground somewhere around Mt. San Bruno and emerges somewhere near the Presidio). This means we have to remove as many cars from the City as possible, and the space they currently occupy (mostly during the day) be put to better use, like oh I don’t know, housing? Food gardens and edible landscaping? Open space restored to pre-European conditions?
The purpose of mass transit is to move people from one location to the other as safely, quickly, and efficiently as possible. Public transportation was never intended to “make money,” or even to “pay for itself.” Public services are benefits already paid for with taxes. Whatever shortfall there is should be made up by those business entities that profit from the public services they use to improve their bottom line. Free Public Transit For All should be the rallying cry of any environmentalist, leftist, socialist, communist, liberal, conservative, or anarchist.
This is nowhere near being “One World.” And there certainly is no such entity as the “United” States. And the differences between NorCal and The Southlands culture remain irreconcilable. But there is only one Bay Area. Imagine all the municipal and district transportation agencies coordinated to the point where one could go online and plan a trip to Oakley or Occidental or Ocean Beach quickly and easily. And by “one,” I mean “you.”
Adding a solar powered light rail line from the Ferry Bldg. to Ocean Beach along Geary Blvd., from Chrissy Field to Market along Divisadero, and From Ft. Mason to the Cow Palace down Van Ness/South Van Ness/Mission would be a logical next phase in planning for a world with limited automobile presence. If the entire rail-bed is one big solar collector, it should be able produce enough power to move trains along at about 10 mph, which is plenty fast enough. Removing all overhead lines (except for the F-line) would be another priority, as would extending the F-line through Ft. Mason to Ft. Point.
Specialized vehicles could be designed and built (in the Bay Area) to serve different needs, like a nice, comfy Express bus that goes from one end of the City to the other, making only about 10 stops. Another design would accommodate people with numiferous shopping bags, luggage sets, backpacks, cellos, chickens, and goats. Vehicles designed to accommodate wheelchairs, strollers, and bicycles would help keep buses on their 15 minute/24/7 schedule.
On the regional level, extending BART to Santa Rosa, San Rafael, Sacramento, and San Jose would take thousands of cars off the roads. A ferry service to Petaluma and San Jose would accommodate both locals and the Tourons. A sailing ship to Santa Cruz, Monterey, and Points South would undoubtedly be popular, as would a dirigible to Tahoe, Yosemite, Big Sur, Kings Canyon, Mendocino, Humboldt, and Mt. Shasta.
A corporation like oh say, Chevron Corp. could jump start the process by kicking down a couple of billion in reparations for all the pollution it has caused to the Bay, Delta, and Pacific Ocean over the last 100 years. The alternative is that they face a suit for 1 trillion dollars in damages. Ditto for the Toxic Techs of Silicon Valley. Pay for damages and clean up current practices, or else get to steppin’. Go ahead, move to China. Someone will take your place in the Nicest Place in the World. Maybe someone from…China.
VISA, Wells Fargo, Bank of America? Time to pay back some of that bail-out money in a way that actually benefits the taxpayers. Oracle, Sun, Java, Hewlett-Packard, Apple, Yahoo, Google, Netflix, EBay? What’s that? You say you already pay local taxes? That’s nice. No really, it is. But we’re going to need a little more uh, civic pride from you corporate slackers. You guys are so loaded with cash you can’t invest or spend it on “innovation” fast enough. Less than 1% of your companies gross profits would pay for an integrated regional transportation that would be the envy of (and model for) the world. Besides, imagine a world in which your employees have absolutely no excuse for being late to work.
Driving a vehicle in City traffic requires all of ones attention. A bus operator free from playing toll-collector/transfer-time-decider/policeman would be free to concentrate on driving, which will reduce accidents. They may even have time to answer a question from a Touron. A modern automated public address system could announce transfer points and historic sites. This is the 21st Century. We have spaceships and ray-guns. And we can have comprehensive, clean, safe, punctual, convenient mass transit.
But for this or anything else good to happen, we must demand that our leaders uh, lead. We have to stop playing Party Politics and elect persons who actually know something and also who know how to do things. We don’t need anymore lawyers in politics. All they know how to do is argue. Engineers, farmers, doctors, history professors, we need fresh perspectives. If necessary, we must take Direct Action to make the changes, like sit-ins, sleep-ins, die-ins, pie-in-the-face, strikes, moratoriums, tax-revolts.
The People already have the Power, we simply must use it.
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