I think that these graphs are kinda interesting.

(The blog appears to be a fairly conservative economics blog, but I'm just a nerd about data).

wordweaverlynn

supergee

About 20 years ago, I stopped going to family holidays because they made me too crazy. It took a few years for people to stop hounding me about this, but I would tell them (the ones I actually care about, that is), "Hey, look, I love you, but I don't need to see the whole family in the same room at the same time. [abuser] makes it so miserable; I'd rather see you when we can just sit and relax and catch up." And then I would do that -- make time to see the family members I love, and completely avoid the one I hate, and who made every holiday a festival of screams, slamming doors, tearful/afraid children, and passive-aggressive garbage.

(By the way, telling someone who gets it, as I'm doing now, is also therapeutic. Thanks for inviting this.)

Someone has included my (personal) email address in spam for a new "Outraged TTC Patrons"™ group. Basically, there's a new site called TTC (Toronto Transit Commission) Riders. If I had to guess, some of the organizers of this new group are involved in some of the other activisms I'm connected to, but I don't have much information about who included my email address in their spam group (I tend to give different email addresses for different purposes; my standard "friends" address is the one being used, here)

Their peeve seems to be that the TTC is hiking fares. They make comments about the underfunding of the TTC ("No other major transit system in North America expects its riders to pay for over 70% of the system's cost.") These are arguments that I'm sympathetic to. I think that one of the legacies of Fucking Mike Fucking Harris Fucker Fuck is that the TTC has been uber-screwed.

I like the TTC. I get a Metropass every month, and I subway into work most days. I've always made living in TTC-accessible areas a priority. Which is not to say that they don't piss me off periodically. Some of their policies and behaviours (like their pricing strategy for the Metropass) are dumb dumb dumb.

I believe in the various improvements that the current city council have been making to the TTC. I like the dedicated streetcar lanes. I like the new kneeling buses and stop announcement systems. I believe that the TTC is an important service and should be well supported by the municipal and provincial governments. So I feel like I should fit right in with this new group of Outraged TTC Patrons™.

But I find myself immediately turned off by the group. Primarily because they come off seeming like exactly the kind of people who don't give a shit about how badly funded the TTC is until there's either a TTC strike or a rate increase. And I realize that's petty of me, but I have difficulty respecting people who act like they can't distinguish between something that's broken and something that's a new inconvenience.