In both Canada and America’s largest cities, on two separate incidents over the weekend, innocent people were left struggling for their lives in public, yet passersby didn’t bother to help. One even took a cell phone photo, and just kept walking.
Last Saturday, a 79-year-old man was robbed by two young men on a busy subway car in Toronto, Canada. He says he called out to those around him on the half-full car for help, but everyone simply ignored him. All he wanted was for someone to press the emergency yellow alarm tape which would have alerted authorities that there was trouble in that subway car, but instead everyone just sat and watched as he struggled with two younger men.
The senior citizen chased after the two thugs, but they got away with his wallet. All the man had to show for his efforts, was a small cut on his nose.
Then the next day in New York City, USA a man went to help a person who was getting mugged. The Good Samaritan was stabbed, and fell to the ground bleeding. Security video shows at least 25 people passing by – one even stopped to take a picture with his cell phone – but no one called 9-1-1 or offered to help the man.
About 30-minutes later, firefighters arrived only to pronounce the man dead – when all he did was try to help a now long gone victim.
If you saw someone in trouble, would you stop to render assistance? It is easy to say “yes” when asked, but would you really do so if actually facing a life and death situation?
Or would you just stop to watch, snap a few photos for YouTube, and then go about your own business?
It’s a tough call to make – by offering assistance, you could put your own life on the line. But by ignoring the situation completely, you are being heartless, cold and uncaring.
Not to even call 9-1-1 or your local emergency number is ruthless – in most places calling 9-1-1 doesn’t cost anything, so you won’t use up valuable air time.
Perhaps we have become too desensitized to everything, thanks in part to movies and television where violence just happens to be routine? Or maybe we’ve become too fearful of being sued if the aid we render isn’t perfect, in our sue-happy society? Or maybe, we’ve just lost that caring feeling?
You know that feeling you get when you see someone in need, and you feel compelled to stop and help?
It’s been almost 23-years since American President Ronald Reagan’s famous foretelling words: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” yet an Iron Curtains till abounds. President Reagan was speaking in front of the Berlin Wall, in an address targeted towards Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in an attempt to end Communism.
With the end of the Cold War, the Soviet Union collapsed and so did many of the Communistic societies that were once part of that regime.
However, after witnessing a so-called public meeting to discuss public transit in Canada’s largest city, one may think the Iron Curtain is still very much alive.
Toronto’s transit system has taken much bad press the past several months. A YouTube video of a Toronto transit subway taker sleeping on the job was followed not too long after by another video of a bus operator taking an unscheduled stop at a local donut shop. Numerous events since have further eroded the public’s view of the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) which operates and manages public transit in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
The most recent event occurred last week, when a TTC bus driver attacked a young adult over what appears to be a fare dispute. Allegedly, the bus driver tossed the young man so hard against the bus, a bus window was shattered.
To alleviate the bad press, the TTC’s union, Local 113 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, representing the bus, subway, streetcar, wheel transit operators and support staff, has been holding public town hall style meetings throughout Toronto.
The notion of these town halls is to provide an opportunity for the public to voice their comments, concerns and questions to the TTC’s union.
However, it was clear from the very start of yesterday’s town hall that this was anything but a public meeting.
Oh the public was there, seated in the auditorium of Stephen Leacock Collegiate. And a microphone was paraded around, allowing people to stand up and have their say.
But the answers were obviously spun to send one message and one message only to the TTC’s management – we need more public funding.
Although the TTC needs more public funding – all transit systems require public funding, and the amount of this funding in Canada over the years continues to drop -- the point of the town hall was to provide an opportunity for public voices to be heard. Not for the union to use the public to bolster its position against management.
But that’s exactly what happened. Every question from the public was used to forward the unions specific concerns with management – they never really acknowledged or accepted responsibility for anything, placing most blame on management’s shoulders.
It wasn’t until the very end, where one of the TTC’s operators on stage publicly apologized on behalf of her fellow bus drivers, for the physical assault of the young man by one of her colleagues. Not that this incident is a representation of her, or her co-workers typical behavior – it is a rare occurrence -- but instead of spending time addressing the causes which may have lead to this incident, those representing the union on stage kept sweeping the blame onto management’s shoulders.
Wait a sec . . . isn’t it the union which represents bus drivers – like the bus driver that attacked a young man over a bus fare?
SLAM went the Iron Curtain of the TTC’s union. All the TTC’s problems smeared across the globe via the mass media and social networking sites like YouTube come down to a lack of government funding.
Or at least that’s what they want you to believe. And they have been holding public meetings to use you to get that message out.
Pretty sneaky. Maybe they got Gorbachev to teach them how to run these things?
I remember way back when I was a kid in school, on a day like today I’d be a bundle of raw energy, just itching for the clock to buzz it’s last alert for the week – and for the next two weeks – as today marks the start of March Break across much of Canada.
Back then, all the school boards across the province were pretty much unanimous in their timing of the annual spring break. All the school boards in the province gave us two weeks off, all starting at the same time.
For me and my brother, the March Break meant two weeks of lounging around the house, sleeping in, and fighting over who got to watch what on the big TV in the living room.
Some did a typically Canadian thing – they packed up and flew to warmer climates, to enjoy a spring break away from the Canadian winter chill.
The March Break was a well deserved vacation – two weeks to rejuvenate and refresh our minds, bodies, and souls.
Even if you didn’t go anywhere or do anything really significant, it was a pleasant time to just take a break.
These days, March Break has been reduced to a mere week. Kids in school these days have such jam-packed schedules, school boards have become stingy in their allowances of time off.
One of the downsides to our technologically advanced world which surprisingly gets little coverage is the pressure it puts on educators and kids.
When I was a kid, they only had two computer classes – basic computing and advanced computing – and both were only offered as electives in high school. The computer classes were taught on what are now ancient relics, the original IBM PC running at a turtle-blasting speed of 4.77 Mhz. These days, if you find one of these monsters of a machine it would be best used as a paperweight than anything else.
Kids these days don’t get basic or advanced computing classes as electives – they learn this stuff as part of their regular curriculum. Many even learn some of the more advanced programs I use every day as part of my job: Adobe PhotoShop, Dreamweaver, and MS-Office.
When I did a presentation in school, I’d often have a handful of scribbled hand written notes, as I improvised much of what I said. These days, even the teeniest tiniest kids are creating highly graphical PowerPoint slide shows, with music, video and animated elements for their school presentations.
The computer revolution – contrary to what was thought at its onset – has not reduced the amount of paper used, it hasn’t created a society of typing mindless drones blindly following unimaginative corrupt business leaders (well that depends where you work), and it certainly hasn’t given us shorter work weeks, longer weekends, or more time off to pursue personal passions.
What the computer revolution has done is create a society which needs to be up and running from day one.
When I was a kid, the closest thing we had to a computer in the house was a typewriter – until the 1980’s when computers were just starting to make their way into the home. Back then, I released my creative juices building imaginary towns with Lego building blocks, racing toy cars down imaginary roads, drawing imaginary worlds, and filling them with imaginary characters using crayons, finger paints, paper and glue.
These days, kids blend their imaginations into technology – creating PowerPoints for school, well shot, edited and produced videos they upload to YouTube, or even just “texting” their thoughts to their friends over their Blackberry. Why a kid needs a Blackberry is still beyond me – when I was a kid, I’d be lucky if my parents gave me change for the pay phone . . .
Kids these days have learned how to blend technologies we never had before, into their daily lives.
But all of this – and more – has created a society where schools are forced to teach more than reading, writing and arithmetic.
Or more to the point, educators have had to embrace the new technologies, to teach the basics, or else the kids of today – which are literally born into the information age – wouldn’t understand what the teacher is teaching.
Sure, you can still use colored blocks to teach kids how to count, but they may lose interest, and stop listening unless those colored blocks were animated on a computer screen.
So why then, at a time when technology has put even more pressure on educators and kids alike, have many school boards cut the March Break down by a week?
Ironically it is the very same reason we need a break – the demands of technology.
It is the technology used by kids, and the need for educators to constantly stay one step ahead of kids by learning how to use these technologies, which means school years are all the more impacted to keep up with it all.
As the latest advances constantly enter our lives – three-dimensional HDTV systems are due out next week – that just adds to the wealth of technical-know how we’re expected to use.
Bus drivers in Canada’s largest city are pissed off, and they aren’t going to take it anymore. Problem is, much of what upsets them is caused by their own immature unruly behavior.
Over the past couple of weeks, the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) which operates 150 bus and streetcar routes, three subway lines and the above-the-ground Scarborough Light Rail Train (LRT) has faced some very public gaffes.
A couple of weeks ago, a person took video of a TTC subway collector clearly sleeping in his collection booth – when he should have been collecting fares from passengers. The video made international headlines, thanks to the ‘viral’ media of the web, when it was posted on YouTube, and not only was an embarrassment to the transit operator but also the city.
Transit employees are often the first point of contact visitors to a big urban jungle like Toronto encounter, and so they represent not just their employer, but in a sense, the entire city.
Though you wouldn’t want to meet some of our city’s bus driver’s in a dark alley. Last week, a bus driver got off the bus in the middle of his route to make an unscheduled stop at a local donut shop. He left the door open on his midnight-run route, leaving passengers unprotected from both the elements and the world. Passengers complained they were cold, though in the wee hours of the morning, they could have easily been mugged, robbed, or worse.
Upon returning to the bus, a passenger confronted the driver, asking him not to delay the already late bus any further. The driver just snarled back his employee and bus route numbers and said go ahead and file a complaint “my union will protect me.”
Are labor unions in the business of protecting thugs and low-lifes now too? This bus driver certainly displayed thug-like behavior, threatening the passenger with “his transit badge” as a force to be reckoned with.
Testing this force, the passenger snapped some photos of the driverless bus while the person who should have been behind the wheel doing his job wasn’t, and these photos also ended up on the Internet for the world to see.
Media attention quickly narrowed in on the TTC and the city, as the largest public transit operator in Canada – and one of the largest in the world – was quickly gaining a bad reputation on the international stage.
TTC management issued a letter to all their drivers, reminding them that they are front-line employees, and customer service is of the utmost importance. In his letter to his drivers, TTC General Manager Gary Webster says he knows the recent problems are from a minority, most provide excellent customer service. However, he – rightly – points out that all it takes is for the minority slackers to create real public relations and customer relations issues for everyone else – which is what happened.
Not a harsh letter by any means, it was balanced with praise as well as condemnation. It wasn’t threatening, nor was it an angry letter. It was what it should have been – a communication from management to praise employees for their hard work, while providing some feedback and a solution to the recent public gaffes. Webster indicates that they are looking into resolving these issues, and he does mention that those caught doing things they shouldn’t on the job will be held accountable.
However, “the union will protect me” mentality runs deep at the TTC. The letter was sent out on Saturday, and today there are rumors about TTC operators working-to-rule in protest. The TTC’s union is stepping away publicly from the work-to-rule job action some drivers are claiming to be engaged in. The union has not mandated any public protest, so it would be wrong to work-to-rule.
Though the real issue isn’t working-to-rule (a work slowdown by union members used as a negotiation tactic to get what they want) or the content of the letter for that matter. The real issue which Toronto residents should be concerned with is the thug-like behavior of their unionized transit operators.
Yes, every time the city’s transit system goes on strike, Canada’s largest city practically shuts down. For many the TTC is their lifeline to the world – without it, millions of people are unable to get to work to make money to pay for their food, clothing and shelter.
However, instead of taking their importance with a sense of pride, TTC workers use it as a tool to hold the city hostage whenever they don’t like something about their jobs. Be it salary, back-pay, benefits, or most recently -- getting caught misbehaving on the job -- unionized TTC employees use their union and their importance in keeping the city functioning to get what they want.
Wish I was able to do that – like most people, if I don’t like something about my job, my only choices are either to quit or just deal with it.
And we aren’t exactly talking about life or death needs either – sleeping on the job or grabbing a donut in the middle of work aren’t serious enough to warrant the driver’s thug-like behavior.
Nobody wants to be made a fool of, especially in this era of cell phones with cameras, and high traffic websites to upload those images too such as YouTube. But because of cell phone cameras and globally popular websites like YouTube, anyone can be made to look good or bad, anywhere, anytime and viewed by anyone, anywhere, anytime.
And if the TTC’s bus, streetcar, subway and light rail operators continue to act like thugs, bullying their customers, then they will constantly be under the media microscope from around the globe.
And worse than just a bit of bad press, as the tension grows between the city’s thugs – I mean bus drivers – and their customers, their non-unionized bosses and the city, potential visitors to Canada may stay away, because our city’s most visible public face isn’t one you’d want to meet in a dark alley – or even in a donut shop.
Jordan H. Green began his never-ending journey for life-long learning while writing for the campus paper in university.
From student protests, to student politics, he eventually discovered his passion for knowledge -- and even more importantly, that he could write.
And write he did, for major big city dailies, small town weeklies, monthly magazines, even doing on-air work in television and radio -- Jordan mastered the media.
Jokingly calling this blog his place to "bitch and moan" he's once again mastering the media -- this time that new fangled thing called "the net."
Enjoy.
Want to chat and discuss what you see here with Jordan H. Green? Check us out on Facebook and on Twitter -- follow the links on the main page, or search for "Jordan's Daily."
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