Poetry: The Symbols Beneath What We’ve Seen – By Allan Raible

There she sat,

Her eyes gazing out beyond,

Her fingers wrapped around a stained coffee cup.

She knew it was forever and yet she knew there were limits in time.

She gazed at me with a loss for words.

A forgotten sense of forethought

And a twisted sense of truth.

I focused on her lips.

Half parted as if they wanted to say something,

But hellbent on silence as she took an even breath. 

These wordless moments pass the time.

They remind us each where we have been.

And tell us about our context.

The Symbols Beneath What We’ve Seen.   

Observation: Has Technology Made Our Society Flaky? By Allan Raible

If I had to guess, I would estimate that nine out of the ten most recent appointments I had with friends were rescheduled.  And they weren’t just rescheduled.  They were rescheduled at the last minute.  Often times this warning would come via a text message or an email that would read some to the effect of, “Sorry, man.”  Have other people noticed this trend?  Is it just me?  Do I surround myself with people who can’t stick to plans?  I actually wouldn’t put the blame on my friends.  I put the blame on technology. 

Thirty years ago, before cell-phones and the Internet became chic and ubiquitous, when you made an appointment, there was pretty much one way to get in contact with someone if you wanted to cancel.  That method was the old, reliable landline.  Of course, your friend would have to be home to receive the message and if your friend wasn’t home, you’d have to leave a message, most likely on a clunky cassette.  For this reason, people probably stuck to their schedules more often than they do today. 

Lately, I’ve had friends reschedule on me left and right.  I’ve had women reschedule dates.  I’ve had business contacts reschedule meetings.  It’s almost as if nothing happens when it originally is supposed to anymore.  I wake up on the day I am supposed to meet with someone and I think, “Well, I wonder if that’s ACTUALLY GOING TO HAPPEN.” 

Again, although I rarely reschedule MY appointments I find myself constantly rearranging my schedule to suit others.  That is frustrating, but a part of life I have accepted.  Now, with social media, people being able to reach us on cell phones 24/7 and the increasing size of the average work-week due to routine corporate downsizing, we are all stretched too thin.  We’ve lost the buffer of humanity that we once had.  And technology has made it easier to blow off our appointments.  If you have the mild inkling of not wanting to do something, you can now put a stop to it with a handful of keystrokes.  Lickety-split!  SEND!  DONE!

Again, this is probably a society-wide issue.  And if you are a friend of mine who has recently rescheduled on me, who is reading this, I don’t blame you.  It is part of a wider problem.  We are all pulled in too many directions these days.  There isn’t enough time to enjoy life.  There isn’t enough room in our heads for cherished memories because we have too many damn passwords to remember.  We have too many responsibilities.  We have too many commitments.  We are in a constant state of flux.

I miss the days of being able to just nicely have lunch with an old friend without having to reschedule five times.  I miss not having to rush through a date because we both have so many things to do.  I miss old friends I haven’t seen in years.  I miss spending whole days just relaxing with people I care about.  But, we are all so oversaturated and overstressed that those little personal connections have suffered in the process. 

The convenience technology has afforded us is priceless, but it has cost us a bit of stress in our interpersonal relationships.  We have bitten off more than we can chew and somehow this has become the societal norm.  This has inadvertently turned most of us into noncommittal, flakes.  Again, we don’t mean to hurt each other this way, but it is a given and has now become the standard. 

I miss the days of concrete plans! 

Op-Ed: An Open Letter To The New York City MTA – By Allan Raible

Dear NYC MTA,

As a lifetime rider of your service, I am grateful that you exist.  As a “differently-abled” person who sometimes has trouble getting around, you have often provided my only and/or easiest transportation option.  However, in the last few years, your level of service has declined considerably.  As someone who rides the F train every day to work, I can say that with each passing day I get angrier and angrier with your abusive relationship towards me and the rest of New York City’s subway riders. 

It currently takes me on average an hour and twenty minutes to get to work door-to-door.  I don’t work that far uptown and I don’t live that far into Brooklyn.  In fact, one night, I took a cab home and timed out my ride to thirty-five minutes!  There was a time when the subway provided the fastest service.  People would ride the train to avoid traffic.  Those days have apparently passed. 

Photo by Allan Raible

The F train in particular is shockingly abysmal.  I noticed the change a few years back when they extended the G line a few stops beyond Smith and 9^th. The G causes tremendous congestion on the F line.  As a result, in Brooklyn where the two trains meet, they often are reduced to a slow, painful crawl.  The G should be the local.  The F should be on the unused express tracks.  The F train should be rocketing its way forth.  But this has not happened.  Common sense would say that after a bit more construction is finished, this change might occur, but I’ll believe it when I see it. 

As the fares have risen to an astronomical $2.50, one might think the service would get better.  In fact, with every passing day, it gets increasingly worse.  The city and the subway system are taking advantage of the public.  The fact that the trains ran better in the late eighties and early nineties when the fare was a reasonable $1.00 seems to point to the fact that someone has to be scraping off the top.  The system is not being run efficiently.  Mayor Bloomberg hasn’t said a word about this.  He’s a billionaire.  He doesn’t seem to care.  I have no real proof that the books are being messed with, I’m merely speculating, but that seems to be a reasonable assumption given the drop in service combined with the routine requests for fare hikes. 

Photo by Allan Raible

But the fact that there isn’t more of a fuss being raised is something I find distressing.  This morning, my commute took nearly two hours.  Why?  Well, I waited for the F for a half hour.  A fuzzy voice came through the speakers announcing that the delay was due to a “signal malfunction.”  Accidents happen.  Things break. But there is a new excuse every day.  And sometimes you crawl or stop for long periods of time with no explanation whatsoever!  I’d accept this “signal malfunction” if it hadn’t become the norm.  The days I actually make decent time on my trip to work are rare!  More often than not, I find myself going stir-crazy sitting in a train car awaiting barely-audible instructions.  Seriously MTA, what has happened to you? 

I’ve also noticed all summer that they’ve been running older F trains.  I don’t know why this is, but it is a mistake for several reasons.  Firstly, these trains seem to have less standing room.  This means you end up getting a virtual lap-dance from the smelly stranger in front of you.  It also means that the guy insisting on reading his ipad while holding his coffee in his other hand is likely to accidentally smack you in the skull if you are sitting below him.  People insist on carrying a lot of stuff with them these days.  There’s always the person with the oversized backpack, unaware of the amount of space it takes up, or the person who insists on taking a full-sized bicycle onto a crowded rush hour train.  Modern passengers need space.  It’d be nice if they’d be considerate and adapt but who are we kidding? That isn’t going to happen. 

Photo by Allan Raible

The second problem with the older trains is that they don’t stop very smoothly.  As a passenger, one often finds oneself lurched about like a rubber ball.  As I’ve stated, I am “differently-abled.”  My walking is affected.  I often get a seat because of this, but when I’m standing, my balance isn’t all that great.  So, in these older cars, I find myself gripping onto the pole for dear life every time the train comes to a jolting halt.  And getting a seat doesn’t guarantee a lack of injury risk.  One time, I was sitting on an older train and we stopped and my shoulder got jammed into the patrician at the end of the seat.  It hurt. 

My hope in bringing this up is that it will become more of a topic of conversation.  It seems to be something the leadership of the city is ignoring.  The decline in the subway system’s performance is not something we should blindly accept as a given. One hopes the next mayor will do something to fix the problem.  In any case, the system is no longer as efficient as it should be.  We, the public are being held hostage by the powers that be as they gouge us while delivering lackluster service.  It’s time someone spoke up.

Thank you!

Sincerely,

Allan Raible – Brooklyn, New York