I Hate Canton planned to post from Ohio's Heart of Darkness, but between fighting off thugs and developing cultural critique, there was just no time. We have returned from our brief sojourn to the jungle and expect to catch up, or at least pick up where we left off.Village Idiots v SARTA riders
SARTA Forced to Raise Fares, Lay-off Drivers, Cut Service
I Hate Canton is surprised (if that is the correct word) at the hatred SARTA riders engender in the anti-tax crowd. Having spent 25 years using the old Canton City Lines/RTA, we feel your pain to an extent. Buses back then were full of noisy high school students (including ourself) and wrinkly old babbas dressed in black dresses and witch shoes, pounding their canes and babbling away in Greek, Italian and Yiddish. These undoubtedly illegal alien grannies of an earlier generation should have been thrown into camps for not learning to speak the Queens's English and refusing to shop the Hattie Carnegie line at Stern & Mann's. Instead, these sleeper socialists were allowed to ride the bus on the cheap and formulate SARTA socialism for a future generation of layabouts.And don't remind us of the bus drivers. I Hate Canton had one RTA driver on the South Market route who whiled away his boredom starring in his mirror and up the dresses of female passengers. (He bragged his hobby to us, though we already suspected it). Around 1974 we had a cute blond early- morning Country Fair-area driver who informed us he liked to drop acid before starting his day's sojourn through the streets of Can-town. We liked to believe that wasn't true, but his driving, while adequate, didn't lie. To this day, when we take a bus, we fortify ourselves with a couple quick hits of Wild Irish Rose before heading out the door, and hope for the best.
Nothing has prepared us, however, for comments posted the last few days after SARTA announced major layoffs and route cutbacks. Not only did Reppies exhibit jumpin' joy over tax leeches (union bus drivers, mechanics) losing their jobs, but took particular enjoyment that SARTA riders might now be forced to live like car-driving, law-abiding, tax-paying citizens, instead of the entitlement tax cheats they are.
Until we read these comments we had no idea that public transportation is welfare. We had no idea that we personally are tax chislers, welfare queens, and entitlement whores. We had no idea that bus riders were spendthrifts and that the old and feeble who need to get someplace were poor money managers, bad social planners, and a drain on taxpaying society. We had no idea that buses aren't a normal mode of travel. Having spent an inordinate amount of time in large American and European cities with buses, and trams, and subways, and trains that the majority of people--even the "rich"--use to get around, we can only guess that none of our Reppies have ever left the confines of Canton, Ohio."Unfortunately," some of the worst Reppie comments have been removed, including our favorite, the one that referred to SARTA riders as "shoplifters." That lack, however, will not stop us from dedicating today's Village Idiot Award to those anonymous Reppies who rank public transportation up there with Lenin's First 5-Year Plan. Current comments appear below in general "subject" order rather than chronologically.
PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION IS NOT NEEDED: I DON'T USE IT
past7971
Sorry public-transit fans, but SARTA has been a financial waste of tax dollars since it began. As for checking any national public transportation website for facts--Please be serious. I really get a kick out of these 'cost-savings' they promote. What do they base their cost to drive personal cars on--a brand new Lexus or Escalade??? I have a very dependable S10 pickup that gets 30 mpg i paid $500 for years ago. It costs tax-payers millions so people can ride this wasteful 'service' for $1.50 !!! How about this, raise the fare to $5.00 to help cover these expenses. As I've heard the levy supporters say---thats just the cost of a pack of cigarettes, a Starbucks coffee or a McDonalds lunch. If you cant afford that, you obviously cant afford to go to the mall anyways."
CJ74U2NVPUBLIC TRANSPORTATION IS NOT NEEDED: DON'T WORK IF YOU DON'T OWN A CAR
CJ74U2NV
Why in the world would you take a job that is driving distance when you don't have a car to drive? This is Stark County, not Fulton County Georgia (that's Atlanta for the geographically challenged here) where buses and trains are full during rush hours and on weekends. I've never seen a SARTA bus half full let alone completely full. If it were run like a private business it would close, but since it's government, they just keep wasting money so some politicians can say they have a nice public transportation system like the big cities do."If Stark County actually had a real need for this service then it would be self sufficient. The problem is the people that believe in the 'entitlement state'.
SARTA AND SARTA RIDERS = POOR FINANCIAL PLANNERS UNLIKE ME
SARTA = TAX CHISLERSzedsdeadbaybee
Justiav: We are ALREADY 'helping' by giving SARTA MILLIONS in our tax dollars.
If its not enough, I'm sorry, but they need to LIVE WITHIN THEIR MEANS LIKE THE REST OF US!
If its not enough, I'm sorry, but they need to LIVE WITHIN THEIR MEANS LIKE THE REST OF US!
rincanton
Shut it down. If SARTA can't stand on its own 4 wheels, it must be because they burn a whole lot of fuel driving empty buses around. Government waste at its best.Wonder how many of those employees are union.
Clarence Beeks
More government subsidized WASTE. Ironically, the majority of SARTA riders don't pay taxes so of course they want to keep the service around at all costs.
I mean really, cuts to a program??
Perish the thought yea of little job and less future , we the tax payer will be burdened very soon so you dont have to be.
ohiodude
Bummer, what are all those invisible people going to do? Nearly every bus I see is 95% empty and that is that......NO MORE TAXES !!!
SARTA IS OPERATED BY THIEVES
PUBLIC TRANSPORATION = SOCIALISM AND ENDANGERS AMERICAN FREEDOM
csdunson
dsteelman1
I am simply amazed the people at Sarta arent protesting in the streets rioting that we havent passed an emergency 10% sales tax for them.
I am simply amazed the people at Sarta arent protesting in the streets rioting that we havent passed an emergency 10% sales tax for them.
I mean really, cuts to a program??
Perish the thought yea of little job and less future , we the tax payer will be burdened very soon so you dont have to be.
ohiodude
Bummer, what are all those invisible people going to do? Nearly every bus I see is 95% empty and that is that......NO MORE TAXES !!!
SARTA IS OPERATED BY THIEVES
lvmypets
Get rid of Sarta's Director of Finance! She was one of the thieves using SARTA's credit cards for personal purchases!!!
PUBLIC TRANSPORATION = SOCIALISM AND ENDANGERS AMERICAN FREEDOM
csdunson
Another Gov't program that is a failure. Add it to the long list: the Post Office, SS, Fannie and Freddie, Medicare, Medicaid, AFDC, and Conrail. future failures will include: Cap & Trade and Healthcare reform. Socialism doesn't work folks. Nowhere has it been tried and succeeded. You are trading a small bit of security for a large chuck of your freedom.
I RIDE THE BUS, BUT I'M NOT ONE OF "THEM"
OLD AND INFIRM SARTA RIDERS = LAZY TAX CHISLERS
This comment deserves a special note. It is dsteelman1's response to Donna Whelan, retired school teacher, Repubican, and neighborhood activist and crime chaser--and a personal acquaintance of I Hate Canton-- who rides the bus due to personal health concerns. Ms Whelan's post appears followed by dsteelman1's response.
Donna Whelan
EXCUSE ME! I actually only made it through the first 15-20 comments when I decided to make a comment. IF your health is fine, IF you think that things won't happen to you...guess again. People who ride the bus aren't beggers. I pay my $43. full fare per month. I've had a series of mini-strokes. I've CHOSEN not to drive [and not kill you all stepping on the gas rather than the break]
What dont some of you all get? Not everybody should or can drive...elderly, handicapped, ME!~ I could drive, chose not to...what art of that don't you morons don't understand?
dsteelman1
Well Donna Ill tell ya what part.
The part where paying for your ride to work takes money out of my kids mouths.
The part where some of MY money could be used to by myself a newer more reliable vehicle to get to work. For the record( 97 Suburban , 170,000 miles, no heat ,only 4th gear.)
The part where todays 'people' insist that there need of my money is so overwhelming as to describe people like me as hatemongers, wingnuts, uncaring , etc, etc.
These are a few of the 'parts' I dont understand.
What part of, we the people are having just as hard a time with paycuts , layoffs , paying bills in this economy as you or anyone else. And to top that off , we hear from people who DEMAND our money for themselves and their own needs, do you not understand
We hope that you agree that dsteelman1, who has previously argued that welfare recipients be "spayed and neutered," their "urchins" starved in the street, and that "large population centers of America aren't any safer than Iraq" deserves first prize of the day. Mr. ds1's neighbors should march on his house, confiscate his smelly SUV and pull it to the nearest junkyard leaving him desperate and carless and eventually jobless. We congratulate Ms. Whelan for not obliging ds by sticking her head in the oven. We trust she will continue her nightly raids into his kitchen to feed her greedy SARTA habit. We wonder, though, if she ought not bring a dentist with her to help extract dsteelman1's money from his children's mouths.
Second place goes to CJ74U2NV. As a bonus, he or she will be dropped off on the outskirts of Limaville for one week and expected to walk to The Strip from there. The walk will be monitored. No bike. No cheating allowed.
Tied for second place, csdunson is also dropped off in Limaville; only he or she will be flogged through a guantlet of red banners swung by the Peoples Congress of the Stark County Communist Party aka, the SARTA Board.
Third place goes to Clarence Beeks. He also gets an IRS audit.
For her psychic ability to sort out food card holders from the worthy low incomed (such as herself) we give our first I'm Not With Stupid Award to jessic_2001.
The rest of our winners receive honorable mention.
I RIDE THE BUS, BUT I'M NOT ONE OF "THEM"
jessic_2001
Well I didn't read the comments until after I posted mine. It is a shame that you think most riders dont pay taxes and are scum. I am 24 working at wal-mart. Been there for two years. Work my but off and pay my taxes. Trust me it does make me sick the people that do ride and collect government moneys. I see those people to lazy to get a job and now rely on a food card. When I barely make a good wage and pay every dime out of my pocket for my family's food. If all these people would try (key word) to get a job and pay taxes they could have more money without these cuts.
Well I didn't read the comments until after I posted mine. It is a shame that you think most riders dont pay taxes and are scum. I am 24 working at wal-mart. Been there for two years. Work my but off and pay my taxes. Trust me it does make me sick the people that do ride and collect government moneys. I see those people to lazy to get a job and now rely on a food card. When I barely make a good wage and pay every dime out of my pocket for my family's food. If all these people would try (key word) to get a job and pay taxes they could have more money without these cuts.
OLD AND INFIRM SARTA RIDERS = LAZY TAX CHISLERS
This comment deserves a special note. It is dsteelman1's response to Donna Whelan, retired school teacher, Repubican, and neighborhood activist and crime chaser--and a personal acquaintance of I Hate Canton-- who rides the bus due to personal health concerns. Ms Whelan's post appears followed by dsteelman1's response.
Donna Whelan
EXCUSE ME! I actually only made it through the first 15-20 comments when I decided to make a comment. IF your health is fine, IF you think that things won't happen to you...guess again. People who ride the bus aren't beggers. I pay my $43. full fare per month. I've had a series of mini-strokes. I've CHOSEN not to drive [and not kill you all stepping on the gas rather than the break]
What dont some of you all get? Not everybody should or can drive...elderly, handicapped, ME!~ I could drive, chose not to...what art of that don't you morons don't understand?
dsteelman1
Well Donna Ill tell ya what part.
The part where paying for your ride to work takes money out of my kids mouths.
The part where some of MY money could be used to by myself a newer more reliable vehicle to get to work. For the record( 97 Suburban , 170,000 miles, no heat ,only 4th gear.)
The part where todays 'people' insist that there need of my money is so overwhelming as to describe people like me as hatemongers, wingnuts, uncaring , etc, etc.
These are a few of the 'parts' I dont understand.
What part of, we the people are having just as hard a time with paycuts , layoffs , paying bills in this economy as you or anyone else. And to top that off , we hear from people who DEMAND our money for themselves and their own needs, do you not understand
We hope that you agree that dsteelman1, who has previously argued that welfare recipients be "spayed and neutered," their "urchins" starved in the street, and that "large population centers of America aren't any safer than Iraq" deserves first prize of the day. Mr. ds1's neighbors should march on his house, confiscate his smelly SUV and pull it to the nearest junkyard leaving him desperate and carless and eventually jobless. We congratulate Ms. Whelan for not obliging ds by sticking her head in the oven. We trust she will continue her nightly raids into his kitchen to feed her greedy SARTA habit. We wonder, though, if she ought not bring a dentist with her to help extract dsteelman1's money from his children's mouths.
Second place goes to CJ74U2NV. As a bonus, he or she will be dropped off on the outskirts of Limaville for one week and expected to walk to The Strip from there. The walk will be monitored. No bike. No cheating allowed.
Tied for second place, csdunson is also dropped off in Limaville; only he or she will be flogged through a guantlet of red banners swung by the Peoples Congress of the Stark County Communist Party aka, the SARTA Board.
Third place goes to Clarence Beeks. He also gets an IRS audit.
For her psychic ability to sort out food card holders from the worthy low incomed (such as herself) we give our first I'm Not With Stupid Award to jessic_2001.
The rest of our winners receive honorable mention.
For what it's worth, I ride my bike to work. It costs you AND me nothing.