Two Rants
I’ve got two things to rant about today….and to make it more bearable, one is political and one is pure fluff.
Let’s start with political.
The news last night, and the Metro newspaper this morning, ran articles about our upcoming financial fiasco for Massachusetts transportation. Currently, the MBTA is $8 billion in debt. Yep, billion. It’s now estimated that the MBTA will become an additional $9 billion in debt within 20 years. Making matters worse, our highways and roads (and tunnels and bridges) will go nearly $10 billion in debt during the same time frame. In total, $19 billion more in debt than we are today.
Please, please, please explain to me why taxes aren’t raised? Yeah, yeah, yeah, they may be just playing doomsday by exaggerating. But still – there already is the $9 billion in MBTA today so it seems pretty realistic that such obscene amounts of debt are likely in the future.
And we MUST do preventive maintenance on our infrastructure or else people die. I mean, the brand new Big Dig tunnel ceiling collapsed last summer killing one person. Twenty years from now (when they say we’ll be at $19 billion in debt) the Big Dig will be 25 years old. If we’ve got stuff collapsing after 3 years of use, what’s it going to be like after a quarter century? And remember a few years ago that highway overpass near Fall River or New Bedford crumbled down into traffic?
Raising taxes sucks, I agree. But I remember reading somewhere that if state incomes taxes went up just 0.02 percent, it would raise the average person’s taxes just around $200/year (that’s $3.84/week….one trip to Starbucks). But isn’t that worth it than to have to dodge crumbling bridges and tunnels?
It’s definitely a balancing act (raise taxes too much and people…and business…will flee the state). But an antiquating infrastructure isn’t exactly going to be luring new businesses our way, either.
Ok, onto the fluff.
What the hell is up with Sanjaya? I mean, really now. He’s horrible! I must admit, I was impressed during his audition. In fact, I thought he had one of the best auditions of the lot. But the minute he “got to Hollywood, dawg”, he was either overshadowed by people with more talent…or he just plain sucks (I vote for the latter).
So why do people keep voting for him? I can’t believe this “Indian mafia” hype. But there must be some sort of constituency plotting his ascendency to stardom. Maybe there’s a larger population of deaf teenage girls in this country than I’d thought? I’m sure he’s a nice enough guy. And I bet he’ll be a great boyfriend to some nice fellow some day. But those qualities don’t make him a quality performer.
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1. Sanjaya is a likeable guy. People think he’s cute, and sweet, and his hair is a major draw. Similar thing with Leggy Scarnato. Why that pile of suck is still on the show has more to do with her gams than it does with her voice. And she knows it.
2. There is more to that “Indian mafia” thing than you might imagine.
3. There are several prankster groups (votefortheworst.com, for example) that make it a point to campaign and vote for the worst contestant. They have a sizeable amount of sway in the voting.
The upshot is, most of the polling sites that monitor phone traffic for Idol voting consistently put either Melinda Doolittle or Lakisha Jones in the lead. Suckjaya may be around for a little longer, but his days are numbered.