Paul Constant works for Seattle’s Stranger, so he travelled from the RNC Con in Tampa to the DNC site in Charlotte via an appropriately alternative method of public transport:
If you’re looking for the opposite of the Republican National Convention, you can’t do much better then taking a Greyhound overnight from Tampa to Charlotte. It’s cheap, it’s small-scale, and it’s exactly the opposite of exclusive—older white men and the wealthy are nowhere to be seen. There are a lot of single moms, and as opposed to the white-collar criminals you’ll find at the RNC, the ex-cons on a Greyhound have actually done time in real prisons…
… Before I started my 17-hour trek, I suspected that I wouldn’t hear anything about politics at all. I was wrong; everyone was talking about Clint Eastwood and the empty chair where Obama was supposed to be. They thought it was fucking hilarious. The TV stations in the bus terminals were showing CNN, which was apparently running footage of Eastwood’s chair interview on a 24-hour loop, with Anderson Cooper smirking at it last night, and the Saturday morning news host presenting it straight-facedly this morning. And when my bus was leaving South Carolina, the people sitting around me couldn’t believe the billboard they saw, with an Obama head poorly Photoshopped onto the body of a baseball player. The sign warned us that Obama now had three strikes against him—no hope, no jobs, no something else I didn’t catch. “Look at that shit,” the man in the seat in front of me said. “Look what they’re saying about Obama.” The billboard pissed everyone off.
I have no idea how the DNC will go, but I can tell you that the speakers at the RNC did not mention the people on these buses even once. They don’t care about Greyhound riders. They don’t give a shit about the man who had his license suspended in Florida and was desperately trying to get to New York to get a job as a driver before electronic news of his suspension made it up to NYC. (“I’m 66. It’s not like I’m going to learn how to do anything else,” he told his friend.) They don’t care about the homeless or the mentally ill who have no other way of getting from city to city. They don’t care about the guy who works in Orlando for Disney theme parks because the money’s too good to refuse, even though he commutes by bus once a week to be with his family and girlfriend in Charlotte. This is poverty—the kind of poverty that people like Sean Hannity scoff at—and it’s very real…
And if you need a chuckle, check out his photo of the “full force of the Republican counter-offensive” now going on in Charlotte, too.
*******
What’s on the agenda this afternoon, for those of us not in Charlotte?
Cassidy
Would be nice ot know what’s on the agenda in Charlotte, but we seem to be getting some pretty spotty updates. Must be a bad signal…
Anya
By Thursday, they’ll bring the bus and start honking.They are pathetic.
Quicksand
@Cassidy:
Violet
@Cassidy: Yeah, how hard would it be for Cole or ABL to post a quick link with a photo or something? ::whine::
jl
@Quicksand: Cole says he is clumsy, and he may be walking abound with his hand in front of his face. I hope next update is not from ambulatory care clinic.
I trust the crew to dive into the scene and get back to the oppressed BJ commenter lumpenproletariat masses in due time.
Edit: remember, the photos must be ‘authorized’. Yeesh, I bet ABL does feel like she’s on a school field trip with her dad, just like she ‘joked’.
bin Lurkin'
Oddly enough I’m an older white dude now on SS who is considering taking a Greyhound for an 800 plus mile trip in the next week or two.
Go figure.
BGinCHI
“Four years ago” we were not better off.
Because George Bush was president.
Why would Obama or anyone else answer a context-free question like that?
If journalists and reporters are not providing context, what the fuck are they doing?
Roger Moore
@Anya:
And if OFA is as organized as usual, there will be people with “Honk If You’re Voting Democratic” signs there waiting for them.
JCJ
I like this calculator that James Fallows linked to for determining your time running a marathon using Paul Ryan’s timer. Maybe his calculators are equally adjusted so he can come up with his economic “plan”…
http://paulryanmarathoncalculator.com/
Bulworth
Why does this Constant guy hate Amercia?
Culture of Truth
Greyhound – that’s Marxist, right?
Bulworth
Except of course the village media will fill up at least half of its broadcasts reporting on the counter-offensive. Didn’t we already have the Republican convention last week? If only we had a real news media….
General Stuck
Sweet baby jeevus, here we go
Prepare for a self righteous shitstorm of wingnuts howling that dems hate God. or something like that.
Of course, then there is the mormon guy running for president, so a discussion on religion should have its upside, and Mitt can let us know what planet out there, that GOD is hanging his hat these days..
jl
@BGinCHI:
” If journalists and reporters are not providing context, what the fuck are they doing? ”
Schmoozing for a prime ‘get’, so they can sit down with a dowdy political or media celeb and pitch softballs. I want a cush job like that, except all the crap food and booze would wreck me.
Forgot to say that the greyhound story was cheering: regular folks are not biting at the GOP bait. Like the story about the Tampa bar crowd that cheered when Matthews tore into Priebus, or Probus, or Proobus or whatever the GOP head hack is named.
I see post GOP convention bounce continues with (Edit: Silver’s Fivethirthyeight giving) Obama up to slightly over 308 expected electoral votes and almost 75 percent chance of win. Doubt it will last, so enjoy it while it lasts. Oh wait, the Dem convention bounce might work different than the GOP, so maybe more smiles in the election models to come for awhile.
Then the October debates! Whoopee! I would not predict that Obama and Biden will wipe the floor with their opponents, but the GOP seems to think the opposite, and it is nice to see reckless arrogance on the other side. I do think the GOP will be in for a surprise if they do think there will be floor wiping with the Dems as the mops.
Hypatia's Momma
Generally, I’m all sympathy for anyone looking for work, especially anyone older than 40. Also, I’m not aware of the rate at which “false” suspensions of licenses occur in Florida; so far as I know, that isn’t generally done for trivial reasons.
So unless I have more information, I’m going to go with hoping he doesn’t get the job.
lamh35
have ya’ll seen this graph on Andrew Sullivan’s page? it’s def interesting to see how little Mitt has put up for ground game. Although I though I read somewhere that Mittens was counting on Mormons ground troops to do much of his ground work.
“Obama’s Ground Game Advantage”
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/09/obamas-ground-game-advantage.html
Keith
Looks like I have to put a cat to sleep :( My alpha has FIV and leukemia and dropped several pounds in 2 weeks. Really sad to see him go into a decline like this. I’m really torn as to whether or not I am going to be there when they put him to sleep (I’ve only been around for that once, and it is SUPER difficult)
Linda Featheringill
@bin Lurkin’:
I’ve done long bus rides. Tiring.
If you could go by train part of the distance, your body would probably thank you. But then, trains don’t go everywhere and they are more expensive than buses.
Calouste
@JCJ:
Paul Ryan reduced the time of his marathon by, wait for it, 27 %.
Ed Drone
@JCJ:
Nuts! The calculator is for marathons only. I was gonna figure out how to make a three-minute egg in nothing flat!
Ed
dm9871
Paul Constant is right, the Republican Party doesn’t give a damn about the people on that bus. But the crazy thing about our politics – and the reason we are so fucked as a nation – is that a substantial percentage of those people vote Republican anyway.
Bulworth
@Keith: Very sorry to hear.
scav
A solid trek on Greyhound is also a good corrective for anyone spouting off about the imminent of “death of distance” either as a pundit or trendy geography / economics type flying first class to conferences. A hefty dose of public transit every so often is good for groundedness as well.
Raven
@Keith: My experience is that you will wish you had if you don’t.
Ben Franklin
Got an apple device? You might want to read.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2012/09/04/apple_udid_hack_antisec_steals_iphone_ipad_user_info_from_fbi_laptop.html
Roger Moore
@General Stuck:
Wow, I’m just waiting to see how severe the wingnut freakout over this is going to be. It doesn’t matter that it’s a completely bogus complaint- it’s actually removing “God-given” from a claim about “God-given abilities”- it’s going to be a perfect excuse to go crazy.
lamh35
So early Monday morning, my mom went to ER because her heart was racing & she was having chest discomfort. The did a chest x-ray and the said she has bronchitis. Since she a little over 1 month ago had her heart attack and had the 2 splents put in, this morning they did an angio to look for found anymore blockage, and they found none. But they told her that what they realized was that her heart has suffered irreplaceable damage, and that it’s so damaged that basically she’s been diagnosed with Congenitive Heart Failure. They put her on LASIK & told her she would have to limit her diet & strenuous exercise & she would have to keep her stress levels down because her damaged heart is no longer healthy enought to sustain any big type of stressor (this is actually what my grandmother died from, she had CHF and the stress of Katrina was too much and she died 2 days later). If she couldn’t get the stressors down and stablilized, then the only other option and the last resort would be a heart transplant.
They told her that she does not need the transplant, and that she could actually live a long life, but she has to keep those stressors down and she has to keep on her diet…no splurges.
Chris
@General Stuck:
I’m waiting for the “Brace Yourselves” Facebook meme.
TK421
Whose fault is it that white-collar criminals aren’t being prosecuted these days? Which party heads the DoJ, the SEC, the FBI? Whistleblowers get prosecuted, but not real criminals. And there sure are a lot of people out there who have done prison time, aren’t there? That will happen when it’s full steam ahead with the useless war on drugs.
Perhaps they should talk about something more important, like our president’s belief that he can order the death of any American without any due process of any kind.
I have no idea how the DNC will go, but I can tell you that the speakers at the RNC did not mention the people on these buses even once.
Elizabelle
@Keith:
So sorry, Keith.
Might you get a good sedative for your cat that you can administer at home; wrap him in a soft blankie, take him to the vet, and let him nap away in your arms and miss that’s he’s getting a shot at all? (Might be harder to properly dose cats than dogs.)
Also, there are mobile vets who do in-home euthanasia. Did this for a wonderful dog, and it was as good an end as possible. Pet never needs to worry about traveling somewhere strange, or to the vet’s office, and pet gets a calming sedative before the second hypodermic.
Again, very sorry, but you’ll do what’s best.
Spaghetti Lee
I’ve only been on Greyhound once. It was interesting for me-I admit I’m better off than a lot of people and don’t see the other side, so to speak, very often. I was sitting in front of three guys for whom it was their first day out of prison-one of them had been in prison for 16 years. Way I figured it, cops let them out of the state prison in Jefferson City, put them on the bus to St. Louis and said “see you later.” Very sobering. I wonder if they had anybody waiting for them there.
Elizabelle
@TK421:
Your mom wonders why the yard’s not mowed and the dog needs walking.
Scram, bud.
JCJ
@lamh35:
Wow. Hope your mom is OK. Not to be a doorknob, but if you want to search for those items the full term for CHF is Congestive Heart Failure and the medication is Lasix, also known by the generic name of furosemide. It has been many years since my internal medicine days, but with the ACE inhibitors (angiotensin converting enzyme) and angiotensin 2 receptor blockers CHF can often be well managed.
scav
@Spaghetti Lee: Depending on the run, you can also pick up a lot of Amish and Mennonites although I’ve also had the long conversation with recent cons showing me their cigarette package art. Not a genre I was familiar with, honesty.
Beenthere
@lamh35:
I think you mean Congestive Heart Failure. I have that, though I must have a lesser version since no one ever mentioned about avoiding stress! Basically, she’ll need to watch her sodium and fluids. Also, weighing herself everyday is good because if the weight start to creep up, you’ll know you either need to adjust your diet or your meds. If she has any extra weight, it’s good to try and lose it too. I think moderate exercise is good. I do threadmill and weightlifting twice a week (need to get another couple of threadmill sessions in).
This is a really good book for it – lots of tips and information about diet and medications – quite cheap if you have a Kindle:
http://www.amazon.com/Success-Heart-Failure-Revised-ebook/dp/B001GQ2PPU/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1346790716&sr=1-1&keywords=success+with+heart+failure
One of the things I like is that he suggests the name should be Chronic Heart Failure – it really is just a chronic condition.
LanceThruster
@Hypatia’s Momma:
I’m hoping he gets to drive the RobMe/Lyin’Ryan 2012 campaign bus.
Beatrice
@Keith: I have been through this too many times. It’s an individual thing, so there’s no right or wrong. But I think I would regret not being there. Sorry for your loss.
Zippity
Spent some time with my wingnut brother (my only sibling) this weekend. We do not discuss politics-especially after his Ambien influenced texts after Obama was elected led to almost a year of not speaking. He retired from the Army after 27 years this spring. Took a management job at a manufacturing company and hates it. He’s planning on starting his own leadership consulting business. He said his biggest fear was taxes-not all the burdensome regulations that Obama has enacted according to my Faux News watching mother.
I held my tongue, but really wanted to say that I’d worry a lot more about having an income that would necessitate paying those taxes. I guess when you’re married to an OBGYN you don’t have to worry about the income so much.
LanceThruster
@Keith:
I was there for mine and I’m glad I did. He was sedated and I was able to cradle him in a way he would not put up with normally. It was painful but very meaningful to me. Your situation might be different, but consider it, tears and all.
WereBear
@Keith: So sorry to hear, but it sounds like the right thing.
Maybe this article will help:
How to Prepare for The Final Appointment
LanceThruster
@Raven:
x2
Jay in Oregon
I’m a bit confused by all of the people clamoring for Betty White to appear at the DNC and give some kind of “rebuttal” to Clint Eastwood’s speech. In my opinion, this “surprise guest speaker” thing at the RNC and Eastwood’s speech should be treated as the trite, lowest-common-denomiator nonsense that it is.
I love Betty White. I don’t know if she’s gotten sharper as she gotten older or if I just didn’t notice until I was old enough to get the jokes. But I don’t think people get to complain about how shallow and sound bite-y our political discourse is, then clamor for a tit-for-tat stunt speech.
I was listening to Carl Wolfson on KPOJ this morning and he had a caller saying “Instead of an empty chair, let’s put Romney’s name tag on it and pictures of all of the companies he’s ruined!”
Roger Moore
@Elizabelle:
FTFY.
Peter
@TK421: TK421, why aren’t you at your post? Get the fuck out of here.
gelfling545
This is what gets me screaming & throwing things. Not just that
but that they don’t even know about them or trouble to find out about their existence. If they would spend some time with the people who actually need the benefits they keep trying to eliminate they would find that, contrary to their uninformed opinions, the poor are in general not only not “lazy” but working frantically just to survive.
Linda Featheringill
@lamh35:
Sorry to hear that.
The drug is Lasix and the condition is congestive heart failure [CHF]. I mention this only because you might need exact terminology at some point in the future.
How old is Mom? According to my research, there’s a lot of variation in length of life after diagnosis with CHF and her allotted days might not be cut short so much, if at all.
Hang in there. [hug]
SiubhanDuinne
@Calouste:
That’s just getting creepy and ridiculous.
LanceThruster
@WereBear:
That was a very good link to provide. Thanks. My remaining cats are elderly as well. They still give and get plenty of love and we take each day as it comes. They also seem to know that I grieve for their missing sibling (they each had their own “wing” of the house and did not interact – all rescue cats who thought they were the only one, more or less) and have been particularly attentive since Sylvester (Silly) “merged with the infinite.”
A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved. ~ Kurt Vonnegut, Sirens of Titan
That includes the companion animals in our orbit. That includes every living creature AFAIAC.
gelfling545
@JCJ: I would like to add that while I don’t wish to be alarmist if anything – anything– seems off with your mom get her to the emergency room & don’t mess about waiting for the doctor to call back or until office hours or anything like that. It sounds like she’s good now & I hope will continue that way.
SiubhanDuinne
@Keith:
I am so sorry. It’s never easy. Hugs to you, whatever you decide about being there.
lamh35
@Linda Featheringill: thx for the correction guys, I was forwarding stuff from my sister and I knew the names were off, but I didn’t feel like changing it.
my mother is only 52 years old, but my family has a history of heart disease and death from heart attack.
SiubhanDuinne
@lamh35:
I’m sorry to hear that about your mom, but concur with what others have said, that it can be quite controllable. If stress is an issue for your mom, you might want to consider suggesting yoga or Tai Chi — something that can be as easy on her as she wants and that will help keep her grounded and balanced. Even a little training in deep breathing could be useful. Good luck to her, and to you!
Yutsano
@TK421: Willard must really gird your loins, because all that happens under him. Have fun voting for Jill Stein/Willard.
different-church-lady
Those security screenings he talks about probably have more to do with that horrific beheading that happened on that bus in Canada than “post 9/11” security policies.
Culture of Truth
@Keith: Wow, really sorry. I did not put the last cat too sleep, I just couldn’t do it, so he died at home, pretty comfortably. However, the time before that, I did, with the cat with FIV / leukemia, because he developed an infection that was too hard to live with. So I feel for you, and I’m sure you’ll make the right decision.
Culture of Truth
Whose fault is it that white-collar criminals aren’t being prosecuted these days?
Is this a true thing or a non-true thing?
Joe Buck
It would be cool if the Democrats mentioned the people on the Greyhound bus a bit at their convention. But Bill Clinton taught us all to talk about “the forgotten middle class”. Republicans always accuse Democrats of threatening to take things away from “you” and give it away to “those people”, and too many Democrats run from that fight.
Dee Loralei
@Keith: So sorry about your kitty, Keith. Stay strong for the little guy. And know that we are here for you.
lou
My most recent experience with Greyhound was eight years ago. Because of flight cancellations in Portland, Oreg., and the need to get home sooner rather than later, I ended up booking a flight in Seattle and taking the bus. I’d been assured by someone that Greyhound had a bus that left from Portland to Seattle hourly. It didn’t. I ended up boarding the bus at 10 p.m. and arriving in Seattle at 3 a.m.
The bus was full of either foreign college students (a Japanese student sat by me) or the poorest of poor Americans. What I couldn’t get over is how unhealthy a lot of poor Americans are. They’re walking with canes, limping, crooked arms, toothless, other ailments that should be attended to and aren’t, probably because they can’t afford it.
It was a revelation. I think every American who isn’t poor should do one Greyhound trip so they know what a lot of people are going through.
Brendan Montgomery
the full force of the Republican counter-offensive is set up…in front of the NASCAR Hall of Fame! The rich, old, white guy party in front of a hall of fame for a sport made up of rich, old, white guys…if it weren’t raining cats and dogs here now, you’d see irony weeping.
Julia Grey
TK421: Wow, that pick-the-response script Rove’s Crossroads PAC provided to you guys is getting so easy to spot. It’s so organized, so thorough, so cogently and clearly written … I’m just lost in admiration for its subtle beauties. I forget what they call it when a writer is given a canned piece to rewrite with different words to post on several different websites, but that’s what it reminds me of. All the standard horrors are on your list, no doubt. Obama HAS been a bad boy in numerous ways, but it’s hard to remember them all, isn’t it? Unless you have that nice fat flip-book to use while you’re doing your shift at the troll center.
I have no doubt that that Crossroads is spending many of its thousands to discourage or divert potential Obama votes with this kind of Oh-So-Sincere and Ever-So-Righteous emphasis on all the EEEEEEVIL Obama has done/is capable of.
The only thing missing is the chain email operation. Maybe he could start one claiming Obama’s not a secret Muslim, he’s a secret John Bircher!
Never mind that Romney would do things that would be orders of magnitude worse. That’s not the point of the “idealism” or “purity” campaign (and Rove is very anxious that his operatives lead you quickly away from any consideration of a Romney presidency). It’s the PRINCIPLE of the thing! A vote for Obama is the same thing as CONDONING everything he’s ever done, and ENABLING every evil he ever will do in the future!
An ethical lefty should never vote for a guy who …. flip, flip, pick the next terrible thing Obama did from the script.
John M. Burt
@TK421: @TK421: TK421, your choices are to
check the box marked Barack Obama and cast your vote for him,
check the box marked Mitt Romney and cast your vote for him,
check the box marked Jill Stein and cast your vote for Mitt Romney,
check the box marked Gary Johnson and cast your vote for Mitt Romney,
check the box marked Tom Hoefling and cast your vote for Mitt Romney,
check the box marked Virgil Goode and cast your vote for Mitt Romney,
or
check the box marked Rocky Anderson and cast your vote for Mitt Romney.
If you are hoping to make a statement with your vote, here’s a bit of advice: Mitt Romney doesn’t give a shit how you vote for him.
Haydnseek
@bin Lurkin’: Do it. You won’t regret it. Is it comfortable? Not especially, but so what? You’ll meet people with great stories. You’ll see places and things you would never see from 30,000 feet. You’ll see an America that doesn’t get the prime time TV gig. Do it. I used to take the bus to see friends sometimes even after I finally had the scratch to fly. They thought I was crazy. I wasn’t. Do it. I’ll be in Social Security territory in a few years, but those bus trips were, well, a trip. It’s life. Do it.
Haydnseek
@BGinCHI: What are they doing? They’re going to parties where they serve little weenies being stabbed by toothpicks topped by festive colored cellophane. If you have kissed sufficient ass, you will be tossed the occasional shrimp. Those who have fallen out of favor are still welcome to one scoop of Soylent Green from the servants trough.
Haydnseek
@General Stuck: I fully support this action, provided that the platform is of sufficient height.
AHH onna Droid
@Hypatia’s Momma: well, belly up to the bar to get informed: in Florida you can have your license suspended for not paying a bill. They figure that you have to drive to get to work so they have you by the balls and you’ll have to sit up and take notice.
Here in the third world, the peasants pay the taxes, not the rapacious kings of palm this and winter that. They wouldn’t grace us with their presence otherwise and we wouldn’t want that…for…some reason. I’m sure it’s a good reason.
Mike Pentecost
Greyhound travel is indeed not for the faint of heart. I appreciated your piece, as a fellow writer and traveler.
My book, Bus People: 30 Days on the Road with America’s Nomads was released this year. It focuses on my August 2010 trip around America for a month on a Greyhound Bus. I met carnival workers, people getting out of prison, single moms, college students and folks who were just “on the run”. If you dig the stories of people who are on the margins of society, this may be the book for you. The link to it on Amazon is: http://www.amazon.com/Bus-People-Mike-Pentecost/dp/0985141506/ref=pd_rhf_dp_p_t_1
You can also check out the blog I kept while on my bus trip at http://www.mikepentecost.blogspot.com
I would welcome any thoughts and feedback from you or your readers!
Regards,
Mike