Uber, Lyft and taxi pickups were banned from the curb at the infamously congested airport. Photo credit: Rennett Stowe
The new “efficiency” move at LAX to clear up curbside congestion is to make passengers arriving from longass flights wait for a shuttle to take them to a lot to then wait for a rideshare vehicle to take them home.
This has been such an unmitigated disaster in its first week that when the LA Times tried it, for a video, it took a full 52 minutes to get a ride home. And this is AFTER winding your way off the plane and out of terminal in the first place.
In these destabilizing times, the exhaustive effort it must have taken to make an already not-great situation substantially worse sums up my feelings about the global economy, internet commerce, telling my kids to stop yelling, and so much more.
Tonight someone died by stabbing when an argument broke out in a line for the much-hyped Popeye’s spicy chicken sandwich. Felt related somehow.
Assistant Jihye said her cabbie kept falling asleep when he drove her out to our interview this morning. She had to loudly talk to him the entire time to keep him awake. Little did I know it was a harbinger of things to come. After said interview, while riding home in a cab and the car started drifting in the lane. Then, the driver oddly didn’t pull up to the other cars to queue at a light. What was happening? I looked at his face and realized the driver HAD FALLEN ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL. (Note: This is an instance when you really want to be able to speak the same language.) All I could do was yell, “AJOSHEEE!!!” (A reverential term for an older man.) He suddenly awoke and hit the gas again, but continued to drift in and out of consciousness for the entire harrowing final block to my apartment.
That shit was cray. I promptly messaged Jihye to tell her about this, and she goes, “Yeah, yesterday another guy was falling asleep and he was on the highway and i had to cough and make noises.”
I don’t think these incidents should be happening so often…
There Are Three Types?
Big brains from around the world, around a table.
I spoke at a seminar about “nationalism in the Asia-Pacific context and how it might affect UNESCO’s suggested curriculum for global citizenship education.” I think this was the longest named seminar I’ve ever been a part of, and as usual the room was full of giant brains. At one point a professor discussed a slide in which he broke down relativism into three different types and I started chuckling because it was all so over my head.
Korean anthropologist observation at lunch: Anthropologists, diplomats, journalists and spies all essentially do the same work. Observe, develop sources, work those sources, hunt and gather information, present a framework for thinking about such information, make a persuasive case for your analyses.
New Word
I had no idea what THOT was. Stiles had to explain it to me. He thinks THOT is hilarious! (He loves finding sexist things hilarious just to irritate me.) People have too much time on their hands.
