It's a funny thing. One would assume that this sort of thing would normally be relegated to the realm of giant badgers and the breeding of snakes to attack innocent Iraqis and the apparent giant magnetic beams the British occupational forces use to misdirect mortar rounds from landing on their compounds and instead make them land in nearby settlements (*cough bad aim cough*). Yet, here it is: in NYC. Now, I appreciate that Americans generally can be a little crazy, but this is something only the wackier of the Mormon sects would cook up. Is the separative factor of this one, particular religion so extreme that some proportion of its adherents are guaranteed to be disposed to imaginable paranoia? Op. Now wait. There's probably a reasonable explanation. Hmm. Or not. Certainly...if there were any crosshairs...or any DNA samples. Or any scrutiny of same. It's funny how media perspective bleeds over into everyday life.
I'm of two minds on this. One the one hand, I know that *I* wouldn't want to be GPS tracked all day at work, but the chip the CIA placed in my brain tells me that tracking cabbies is a good thing.
Wow, seems like the US is following into Britans footsteps. And Orwellian nightmare where every single person is costantly being monitored.
The problem with using a New York Post story as a source for anything is that its dedication to sensationalism undermines its accuracy. Even the Post article does not come out and say the NYTWA is distributing the flyer in question; nobody else is covering this angle, not even other conservative rags. Consider the primary issues of the strike; they are interesting: Credit card system: The system will dig into take-home pay in two ways. First is the 5% surcharge paid by the cabbies every time a credit card is used. Secondly, and this is a big one: It is a tacit American right to fudge your gratuity reports. GPS tracking: You know, we tend to think of tracking as a good idea. Track the sex offender with ankle bracelets; track your kids via their mobile phones; track the taxis ... I always wonder what will happen the day I need emergency services and the 911 operator asks me where I am, and I respond, "Come the f@ck down on this signal!" This is about the only thing I can think of as useful for the taxis, although it's hard for me to see the circumstances under which it's that much of a benefit. So even though many Americans tend to think it's a good idea to track other people via GPS, how many really want to be tracked? Besides, they're Americans. 80% of the cabbies apparently crossed the strike line. Few care enough to actually do anything about it these days. The people are largely hostile to direct action. We'll hear about this again when someone is prosecuted according to the data in their cab, but in the meantime, folks mostly won't care about the fact that a segment of the population is owned and monitored in a way we wouldn't accept for ourselves. ____________________ Notes: Marks, Alexandra. "Fewer Cabs Today on New York City Streets". The Christian Science Monitor. September 6, 2007. See http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0906/p02s03-usgn.html Karni, Annie. "Cabbies May Strike To Protest Mandatory GPS Systems". NYSun.com. August 24, 2007. See http://www.nysun.com/article/61245
Tiassa, the article does indeed say that the NYTWA is distributing the flyers in question and their religious paranoia. And the system is not being used for tracking.
Can I have that in writing? Ooops I already do? http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5662500
That's Philly, not NYC. Have you ever taken the cabs around here? Even if it was used for tracking, they need all the help they can get to find a frigging address.
I always use the metro or for the hinterlands, the LIRR. For emergencies, I call my brother.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! And New York is on a grid; if you can't find an address in NY, you're an idoit.
What the article says is that the literature is being distributed by members of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance. Notice that it never distinguishes between the independent actions of rank and file supporters and the official actions of NYTWA organizers. Additionally, the reporter, Jeremy Olshan, either did not ask NYTWA boss Bhairavi Desai about the flyers, or else chose to not publish the response: I wonder about the absence; even a "no comment" ought to be included. Anonymous sources alleging threats, loosely attributed flyers; notice that the headline and subheader represent an otherwise insignificant portion of the article exploited for sensationalist purposes. Which is a problem with the Post. The point may be true. This may be an official tactic of the NYTWA, but don't know, and can only presume because that detail was not worthy of journalistic consideration. Rather, it's mere exploitation fodder to grab people's attention. It's successful at that, obviously, but the article raises questions without providing any answers. As to tracking, you (and they) are splitting hairs. So far, the system sounds utterly useless; it needs not transmit anything. Unless the taxi industry is thoroughly unique, the automated paperwork is either redundant or will get lost. At some point, the GPS data will be used as evidence against a cabbie. Hopefully, it will be for a good cause. But I live in a country where people routinely consider governments and corporations (and unions, for that matter) evil. People are happy to point out that such developments will reduce corruption in others, but nobody wants to be tracked, and knowing where you are at regular intervals is a form of tracking. The cabbies will get used to it--after all, the truckers have--and life will go on. But to consider your topic question: I don't think it's this one particular religion inasmuch as that religion is "Islam". I know Seventh-Day Adventists who would balk at being required to tote around a GPS device for their bosses (and the public authority) to review as deemed necessary. So I would tend to look more at the prevailing culture--e.g. "American"--for the basis of exploitative fearmongering. There are folks out there getting their guns ready in case Hillary Clinton is elected president. I don't recall many Muslims among the homegrown "militia" movement of the 1990s. Some Christians believe the US will capitulate to the UN and Sabbatarians (Saturday-worshipping Christians) will be rounded up and thrown in tiger cages to await their execution in the electric chair. Black helicopters, transmitters in paper currency, Jews didn't come to work on 9/11 ... there's a lot of paranoid bullshit out there, and the common connection to this strike literature is that it is American. ____________________ Notes: Olshan, Jeremy. "Taxi 'Fear' Hike". NYPost.com. September 4, 2007. See http://www.nypost.com/seven/09042007/news/regionalnews/taxi_fear_hike.htm
I find that cabbies know Manhattan extremely well, in the grid or down below it. I once asked to be taken to Collister and Beach Streets, and the guy needed no explanation...I've lived there for a decade and I'd never heard of Collister before I had to go there and couldn't place Beach any better than "southern Manhattan, north of the WTC site". In Philadelphia, on the other hand, cabbies often need help, especially outside of Center City.
Interesting, the cab drivers don't want the dispatchers to know how much time they spend at the coffee shop so they invent this.
You may be against tracking and whatever. But, in a cab, you simply never know who the fuck is driving. Would you get into a car driven by a stranger? Under what circumstances? Recently, a girl was raped and killed by a cab driver here in NYC. She went out with her buddies, got drunk, went home alone. She was walking down a street, began to feel creepy, called her boyfriend who told her to take a cab home (what we usually do when we're drunk and can't walk ourselves). She took a cab and the cab happened to be driven by an ex-convict. Oops.
Tell me about it. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I mean, come on: it's not that bad. Heh. Ding ding! Actually, if the tech actually were going to be used for tracking people, I wouldn't really mind anyway. What's there to hide? :bugeye:
According to the discussion of the devices in the press, the GPS units won't actually be of any help in such a circumstance. Damn straight, althought I don't think you can really blame cab drivers in general for the literature. But start with a simple idea: a "hardworking" manager comes back from a two-hour lunch and, after smoking a couple cigarettes and sipping down a latte, decides to check in on Joe the Cabbie, and fires him for being parked outside a coffee shop for six minutes instead of five. Anecdotally: in the late 1990s, I worked as a temp with the Port of Seattle. While I was there, the Port was trying to institute a drug-testing policy for its employees. The company official in charge of the plan was deliberately delaying implementation of the plan, which called for pre-hire screening and random testing up to four times a year. It wasn't any particular protest at the draconian policy that compelled her to delay its implementation. It's that the Port executives refused to be included in the drug policy. Flat out, they reserved the right to go get drunk at lunch. Also, my former partner loves to talk about her work, and over the time I developed a certain view of how a set of her stories went. When she talked about how she and her friends manipulated the clock and such, it was with a devious smile, a wink and a nod about how clever they were. Some time later, she talked about "the Mexicans" (her word for anyone who speaks Spanish), and how they were dragging down the workplace being lazy Mexicans. Strangely, what she described was exactly the behavior she found so clever about herself and her friends. Thing is, I don't think that behavior is unique. I mean, given that these people will punch each other's time cards in order to make the automated paperwork think an employee is actually on the job, I don't see how she should be complaining about "the Mexicans". Hell, when I worked foodservice, we had our routines. When I worked retail, we had our routines. When I worked for insurance companies, believe me, we had our routines. And, no ... we certainly didn't want the company screwing with those routines under innocuous pretenses. Our IT department was wonderful about that sort of thing, handling embarrassing problems (e.g. gay porn on a manager's computer) quietly so that management didn't get word of it, &c. On the one hand, the cabbies will get used to being monitored, just as we were accustomed to the company knowing where we went on the internet, and what was on our hard drives (the porn was discovered during a security check after a virus release that apparently corrupted .jpg files). To the other, though, I think people need to be more sympathetic: none of us wants to be the ones tagged with GPS or other monitoring programs for any reason, and right now the hostility shown the cabbies is exactly what the Post editors want. Congratulations. They're very proud.
Reiterations, corrections, &c. Actually, it's about sensationalist paranoia. And sensationalist crap. But that's just a minor point. The fact that people are focusing on other aspects than criticizing Islam suggests that they find other aspects at least as substantial, if not more so. To reiterate my earlier consideration of the religious question: I don't think it's this one particular religion inasmuch as that religion is "Islam". I know Seventh-Day Adventists who would balk at being required to tote around a GPS device for their bosses (and the public authority) to review as deemed necessary. So I would tend to look more at the prevailing culture--e.g. "American"--for the basis of exploitative fearmongering. There are folks out there getting their guns ready in case Hillary Clinton is elected president. I don't recall many Muslims among the homegrown "militia" movement of the 1990s. Some Christians believe the US will capitulate to the UN and Sabbatarians (Saturday-worshipping Christians) will be rounded up and thrown in tiger cages to await their execution in the electric chair. Black helicopters, transmitters in paper currency, Jews didn't come to work on 9/11 ... there's a lot of paranoid bullshit out there, and the common connection to this strike literature is that it is American. I suppose I should amend a statement from my last post: • . . . and right now the hostility shown the cabbies is exactly what the Post editors want. Congratulations. They're very proud. This may leave a wrong impression among those prone to looking for simpleminded conflicts. It occurred to me to make the amendment when I considered recycling the statement. Thus: • . . . and right now the hostility shown the cabbies is part of what the Post editors want. Congratulations. They're very proud. Another part of what the Post editors want is for people to obsess about Islam. And on that count, GeoffP, congratulations.
*cracks knuckles* All rightie. Let's churn it up a bit, see what falls out. First, this: Sorry, chief; that's not the lead story, frankly. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! First, you're commenting about the fearmongering American culture; which is fine, it's a can that everyone high and low in political savvy likes to kick. But you're ascribing the militia mentality to them as a whole - which, I hate to break to you, is by your definition also sensationalist paranoia. There's not a lot of people who've really made much of a dint in anything on the basis of backwater bumpkin entitlement. The militia movement is a joke - not to its victims, certainly, but as a whole. It's insignificance is matched only by its puny size and irrelevance. My point in posting the above is that it seems to be that any monitoring of anything is now some kind of secret conspiracy: so you were partly right, in that opposition to monitoring is being given sensationalist coverage. The fact of the matter is that the NYTWA are actually deluded enough to consider the new system spying, and to start dragging in the most absurdly unconnected ideas to provide more hand-waving and fanfare for their paranoid delusions. I reiterate from the article: DNA. Personal and family histories. Surveillance technology. "Death sentence". All that's needed is Elvis and lizardoid aliens, and you have all the makings of the dumbest conspiracy theory yet. Can this not simply be automation and service accuracy? Why does it have to be the work of a cabal? So, in conclusion, it's not sensationalist to report that the NYTWA has lost its collective mind. It's not poor journalism, unless it's false. These are near-certifiably lunatic attitudes, and they need to be countered and investigated, frankly. Why in the hell would someone think anything of the kind? If the attitudes are factual - and there appear to be flyers to that effect - how can it be sensationalistic? Was it sensationalistic of the Romans to comment to Nero that the city was on fire? Rather, it illustrates the human capacity for both dissonance, and diversion. Yet, this is not a criticism of islam, but of political religion, for which no one should have any tolerance.
