Archive for 2013
excitement and fatigue
In today’s post, what not to do on the Subway, a public service announcement.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
To start, I’d like to remind you that time well spent and the daily round for old Mitch normally includes trips to sewer plants, waste transfer stations, and hanging around a certain superfund site which defines the currently undefended border of Brooklyn and Queens. I can describe the different smells of residual sewage material versus that of putrescent garbage in some detail, and will often stop short and sniff at the air, proclaiming “there’s something dead nearby.” Saying that, the most disgusting thing I encounter on a daily basis is actually an electrified Petri dish we call the Subway.
from nytimes.com
The team identified no known human pathogens and found that about 5 percent of the microbial species (a fifth of those identifiable) probably came from human skin — our heels, heads and forearms, mostly.
“Every time you step down, you pressurize the air that’s in your shoe,” Dr. Pace said. “You stomp down, you squirt out a little warm air, carrying foot microbiology.” This so-called convective plume radiates from some 1.6 billion riders annually and disperses throughout the subway system.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m sure that the system is cleaned as much as possible, and that the MTA folks do everything to the letter of the law. Theirs is a hopeless task, however, as the system is the focal point through which all of us must squeeze. We apes are a particularly disgusting lot, who often carry and consume foodstuffs down there, and riding along with us are the multitudinous pathogenic organisms which infect us. Urine, blood, and sputum adorn the platforms, and god itself only knows what might be festering in the rat blown darkness of the tunnels.
from nbcnews.com
Gerba found e-coli (a bacterium often responsible for food poisoning); MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a staph infection that’s resistant to most first-line antibiotics); and fecal matter on handrails. Fecal matter is on 50 percent of all handrails (people, it’s time to seriously wash your hands after using the bathroom). It’s not uncommon for handrails to have flu, staph bacteria, and respiratory and cold viruses, as well. Previous research in England found that people are more likely to get a cold from handrails than any other public surfaces.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Sandals are, perhaps, the most illogical choice for footwear (IMHO) in the City of New York but I won’t go so far as to petition City Hall to ban them. My prejudice against this specie of shoe no doubt emanates from growing up in the glass strewn milieu of 1970’s Brooklyn, when smashing beer bottles against brick walls was all the rage. This fellow whom I noticed on the train recently, however, had apparently decided that even the open toed pseudo shoes were a bit too restraining for him. Folks, its bad enough we have to breathe the same air down there, exchanging our personal biomes via aerosol vectors, but… keep your damned shoes on when you’re riding the train. Bleh.
from myfoxny.com
Here are the numbers: in 2011, 46 track-cleaning positions were eliminated saving the MTA $3.9 million; 11 escalator cleaning positions were cut, saving $1 million; and 116 car cleaner positions got the ax, saving the agency $8.6 million.
Happy Labor Day
It took a whole lot of labor to build this thing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Don’t get sunburned, eat too much, or too drunk today. I got all those things out of the way yesterday, during and after the Tugboat Race on the Hudson.
thither shouldst
Maritime Sunday drifts into port again.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recently spotted while onboard a Working Harbor Committee trip, the tug Ireland entering the Kill Van Kull on a misty evening.
Ireland has been mentioned before, in this Maritime Sunday post from January of 2013.
That’s all the truth.
from wikipedia
A central proposition of existentialism is that existence precedes essence, which means that the most important consideration for the individual is the fact that he or she is an individual—an independently acting and responsible conscious being (“existence”)—rather than what labels, roles, stereotypes, definitions, or other preconceived categories the individual fits (“essence”). The actual life of the individual is what constitutes what could be called his or her “true essence” instead of there being an arbitrarily attributed essence used by others to define him or her. Thus, human beings, through their own consciousness, create their own values and determine a meaning to their life. Although it was Sartre who explicitly coined the phrase, similar notions can be found in the thought of existentialist philosophers such as Heidegger, and Kierkegaard.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Ireland was towing a work barge which was carrying a materials handler as it entered the Kill. Notice the bars sticking up out of the barge, they would be driven down into the soft bottom of the waterway before any work started, and act as stabilizing stilts- or so I’ve been told.
People lie to me all the time, and I pretend that I don’t realize it.
from wikipedia
Deception includes several types of communications or omissions that serve to distort or omit the complete truth. Deception itself is intentionally managing verbal and/or nonverbal messages so that the message receiver will believe in a way that the message sender knows is false. Intent is critical with regard to deception. Intent differentiates between deception and an honest mistake. The Interpersonal Deception Theory explores the interrelation between communicative context and sender and receiver cognitions and behaviors in deceptive exchanges.
The five primary forms of deception are:
- Lies: making up information or giving information that is the opposite or very different from the truth.
- Equivocations: making an indirect, ambiguous, or contradictory statement.
- Concealments: omitting information that is important or relevant to the given context, or engaging in behavior that helps hide relevant information.
- Exaggerations: overstatement or stretching the truth to a degree.
- Understatements: minimization or downplaying aspects of the truth.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Ireland was heading toward the New Jersey side of the Kill, where the petrochemical industry looms large. This shoreline infrastructure is an essential component of the mechanism which is New York City. We are, all of us, components of this machine in some way or another.
This, lords and ladies, is no lie. I think.
from wikipedia
Egocentric predicament, a term coined by Ralph Barton Perry in an article (Journal of Philosophy 1910), is the problem of not being able to view reality outside of our own perceptions. All worldly knowledge takes the form of mental representations that our mind examines in different ways. Direct contact with reality cannot be made outside of our own minds; therefore, we cannot be sure reality even exists. This means that we are each limited to our own perceptual world and views.
Project Firebox 86
An ongoing catalog of New York’s endangered Fireboxes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This municipal button has style, verve, and swagger. It towers precipitously on Crescent Street at the border of Astoria and Dutch Kills (the neighborhood, not the waterway, baby) awaiting the emergent and quite uncool news that trouble has arrived. Always at the ready to raise the roof or the alarum, this party loving firebox lets all that pass know help is just one shake of the lever away.
Things to do!
Working Harbor Committee presents: Great North River Tugboat Races and Competition, September 1st, 2013
9:30-11:30 a.m. at West 42nd Street and the Hudson River. Spectator Boat tickets now on sale.
grinning androsphynxes
In today’s post… Staten Island…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A rock thrust roughly from the sea, named for the parliamentary body of the 17th century incarnation of the nation of Holland, …Staten Island… is a place which I’ve been developing a real interest in of late. I will admit that the connections between the Kriescher and Steinway families discussed in this Newtown Pentacle post from May of 2010 spurred my curiosity, but I haven’t strayed too far from the Northern Coast of the island.
An abundance of my posts about Staten Island seem to start and end with a tugboat, but there is a lot going on out here in the deep south which one hopes to explore in the near future.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Intentions to move a bit farther out on… Staten Island… unfortunately involves the use of MTA buses due to the vast size and distances offered by the place. This introduces an distinct kink in my usual plan, which is wander around and find stuff, but for those of you who haven’t walked around the the borough, it offers steep hills and an unforgiving number of cul de sacs which branch off the main roads.
One could easily find himself isolated and surrounded by angry old women armed with brooms or shovels.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Still, there are some real treasures buried in the wooded hills on Staten Island. This little number was introduced to me by Kevin Walsh from Forgotten-NY a couple of years ago, a storybook house set on a hill from which one can see tugboats passing by on the Kill Van Kull.
Things to do!
Working Harbor Committee presents: Great North River Tugboat Races and Competition, September 1st, 2013
9:30-11:30 a.m. at West 42nd Street and the Hudson River. Spectator Boat tickets now on sale.
The Newtown Pentacle 