A Brief Analysis of Contemporary Post-Industrial American Transportation

Author’s Note: I wrote a bibliography to match the in-text citations, along with a couple other addendum, but I didn’t feel the need to insert it. I did include the list of possible offended people, just in case. Oh, and see if you can find all the Catholic jokes.

Have you ever wondered why trains are better than planes? I mean, the question isn’t even up for debate. Trains are better than every object known to man. Statistics show that 243% of awesome things in the world known to man are trains, with the runner-up being something called “sex”, which comprises about 2% of the known body of awesome things (Hitler 239). Trains are better than anything ever designed by puny mortal man and are so far superior to planes that planes were created after them, rhyme with their sacred name, and have to fly to get people to use them.

Firstly, trains are in their own spiritual essence beings worthy of intensive cult worship. Their mighty power has been observed to destroy whole villages with the mere implication of a small child saying the word ‘train’ (Clinton 2387). For instance, there is a small but influential cult in an urban area of the Potomac River that has devoted its life to the worship of the almighty train and its lesser implementations. This cult spends slightly obscenely large time during their days sitting in a semi-circle with an arc of exactly 139.27 degrees taking it in turns to slowly and reverently stroke the burnished and powerful stainless steel of the physical representation of the entirely metaphysical Train-Lord (Cervantes 221). The high priests of Its Holiness the Train-Lord are some of the most successful men in the continental United States, including Elton John, Peter Parker, John Boner, and His Lordship the Duke of Michigan Leif Eriksson VIII, better known as John Quincy Adams (Cervantes 856).

This cult’s worship is, of course, very minutely detailed, for one must appease Its Holiness the Mighty and Terrible Train-Lord in every possible respect, lest he destroys your insignificant mortal non-Train life terribly and mightily with his colossal and nasty and fully automated fifteen train-arms of Destruction and Hades which protrude from his powerful and surprise-inspiring body with mighty and terrible prominence (Clinton 1512). For example, the ceremony to divine his mighty and terrible words consists of washing the cervical vertebrae of every present member of the cult in the blood of virgin albino rhesus monkeys combined with sulfuric acid boiled in the skull of a Blessed, but not canonized, Pope, in order to achieve true Trainal catharsis (Bryant 18). If in Virginia, Rwanda, or New Jewaware, the pelvis of somebody named Edgar Allen Poe who was not actually a depressing author, with the pelvic foramen filled with an even mixture of WD-40, wood glue of any kind, and pure freon should be used as the container instead (Bryant 22). Next, each member must don a hat in the shape of an isosceles tetrahedron with the area of a semi-sphere with a radius of 2π made out of pure tellurium studded with cubes of Li₃Br₅ with faces of length exactly one centimeter.

Only then can the sacrifices begin. Firstly, the Rwandan Ambassador to the parts of Rwanda that his government doesn’t control must be nonlethally skinned and then cloned (Bryant 45). Next, the High Priest and none other must wrap the ambassador around a group of four French mathematicians who have never been to Rochester and have a median IQ equal to the floor of the mean of the ceiling, the floor, the square root, and the cube root of the EM constant, cubed (Bryant 60) . This having been completed, they should be repeatedly injected with intramuscular ethanol every 18π minutes until death from starvation of the spirit, and their remains fed to a Afrikaans-speaking Asian woman after being deep-fried in bacon grease and lost souls. She should then be led into the presence of the Its Holiness, the Duke of Liverpool, Detroit, and Nevada, the Terrible and Mighty Train-Lord where she will maybe, possibly, if you’re very lucky and very amoral, begin to speak (Bryant 90).

Statistically, her speech will generally consist of 134% of the word “onomatopoeia”, 82% excerpts from screenplays which have been nominated for but have not won Academy Awards for Best Foreign Film, Original Score, or Supporting Actress, and 12% rants about people’s inability to properly use percentages (Hitler 2666). Generally, these things are interpreted simply as affirmations of the doctrine of Trainicatial, Traineriffic Trainal Trainiability, but specific phrases, such as, most recently, the article “an” and “would you kindly”, may require more metaphysical examination (Achebe 83). For instance, if the incomprehensible rants become a full-fledged proof of the quadrature of a circle the great one requires a stronger affirmation of faith from the High Priest, or It will come down with many shining and powerful hosts of brazen might and lay waste to peaceful villagers of yore with its mechanical arms of Famine, Fire, War, Plague, and Death (Achebe 125). Death, bitch. This is serious shit.

The results of the previous waste-laying can still be seen in modern downtown Tokyo, where the malignant spirits of the lesser members of Its mighty hosts still lurk, feeding on slightly obese white males looking for waifus (Orkheart 1231). Indeed, the central doctrine of Trainism is the words: “Train are love, Trains is life.” If one fails to life every second of one’s life with this phrase as one’s binding doctrine, one will be in grave danger of the destruction of one’s eternal soul and, indeed, the very essence of one’s being. This you and I must never forget, or you risk the eternal damnation of Its Holiness the Train-Lord, Duke of Liverpool, Detroit, Nevada, and Its other realms and territories, the Terrible and Mighty, by the Grace of Trains, Czar-Tsar of Communism, Arbiter of the Multiverse, True King of Ireland, Vicar of the Periodic Table, Supreme Conductor of the Universal Rails, Primate of New England, Sovereign of the continent of Africa, Defender of the HPV-AIDS Collaborative Effort.

Secondly, and less importantly, planes are dumb and unpatriotic. I mean, for the love of all that is sweet and holy, one killed three thousand good and upstanding American citizens at once once. If a citizen of this great country themselves did this, we wouldn’t stand for it, much less some undocumented immigrant taking all of our damn jobs! They take jobs from upstanding Trainist citizens and give them to these filthy goddamn preppies with their big shiny aluminum that’s Too Fucking Elitist for good, capitalist, American mercury for thermometers. For God’s sake, we invented them, they should at least show a little gratitude. All those big, polluting bastards have only ever destroyed our beautiful and proud New York City and let the Commie Chink cunts blow up our marvelous warships with their ratty little flying pieces of shit during the Big One.

As a political professional, I suggest that we take immediate steps towards the eradication of these dastardly traitors to the true cause from our beautiful capitalist nation of hope and prosperity. If we do not, they may be soon marching around our streets, painting Indian symbols of peace on the walls of our capitalism, giving the Bellamy salute, and poisoning and burning minority races. Admittedly, minor things compared to what most Democrats would do to the country if they ever got majority control of the government, but still a legitimate enough problem that one should take serious interest in dealing with it. Firstly, we should immediately ban the use of anything including the word “plane”. Hydroplaning was just a bitch word for sliding anyway, and that’s the only word, except of course for the actual word, I can think of at this moment that fits the aforesaid parameters. Then, and only then, may the real destruction begin. All of those who have ever flown a plane must be destroyed immediately, and with the highest prejudice. I also recommend the full dissolution of the Air Force, or they may later spread heresies in the government.

In conclusion, trains are better than planes, and planes are the source of most of the evil upon this earth, including the Nazi Party. The conclusion that we must draw from this is that….I just ran out of words to say. Oh, by the way, not only is this obviously not serious, it’s not even a serious satire of nationalism, or a criticism of the US Congress. Nationalism is fine by be, and there’s no original way to criticize Congress anymore. So just read it at face value…worshiping trains with gruesome rituals.

****

Kidney II: Lost of possibly offended people: The Catholic Church, Jainism, Kobe Bryant, Adolf Hitler, The Russian Empire, The United Soviet Socialist Republics, The People’s Republic of China, The State of Japan, The United States of America, William Clinton, Chinua Achebe, The Nazi Party, The United States Air Force, The Republican Party, The Democratic Party, The Libertarian Party, The World Trade Center, AIDS patients, HPV patients, The Republic of Ireland, Mitt Romney, Francis Bellamy, Humphry Davy, Jews, Adam Smith, Queen Elizabeth II, Miguel Cervantes, Bill Gates, The Beatles, Cory Booker, Harry Reid, Nevada, Detroit, Liverpool, The Academy Awards, The Republic of Rwanda, Shrek, The Communist Party, God, Saint John, Dmitri Mendleev, or George W. Bush. If you are offended, and are not included in this list, the author either didn’t care about offending you, or wanted to offend you so that this would be more widely read.

In Which Hobbes Excorigates Retarded People

“The Record trial contradicted the results of a 2007 analysis of multiple studies by Cleveland Clinic doctors, which showed a 43% heart-attack increase.”

-Glaxo’s Avandia Wins FDA Victory, Thomas M. Burton, The Wall Street Journal, 6.7.13

Well, this is going to be one of those nasty introspective posts (The kinds, if I come across them in Freshly Pressed, I skip them and go read about fun stuff like a random blogger coming out and saying that they were the recipient of a sex change operation (I was going to link to this, but I somehow lost it.) (I don’t know if she’s approved my comment yet (or ever), but I never got any angry or offended replies, so I doubt it)). I suppose since my goal here is to be honest, I should write posts that show emotions other than cynicism (That counts, right?), despite the fact that some of my (pretty close) real-life acquaintances might be legitimately surprised if you told them that I had emotions. Anyhow, here’s the post. For a little more than the last month, I’ve been living in the same house with a 40-year-old woman with pretty severe Down Syndrome. And, when I go, I won’t be sorry to see the back of her (whatever, it’s an expression). She didn’t exactly improve my living conditions here, for various reasons, but I’m not here to complain, I’m here to…er…introspect. The amount of pure, unmitigated dislike I felt for her at some points led me to question whether I don’t, perhaps, have some sort of subconscious stereotype against retarded people. Pretty much my number three goal in life is to avoid mental bias of any kind, since I hate it with a passion (Goals number one and two, respectively? Survive and reproduce. Basic evolutionary theory. Goal number two conveniently explains Freudian bullshitpsychology.). I’ve been trying to figure out, at what point you can apply standards similarly to retards and normal people. There’s some obvious divergences. For instance, applying the same standards for table manners is hardly fair, at least according to my observations. But should we apply standards similarly for their off-topic comments about others, and if not, how much latency should we give them? For instance, it ticked me off when me and my crew came in after working outside in 95 degree heat for an hour and a half, to grab a drink of water, and she starts grumbling about how “the boys are standing around inside being lazy” when I’ve seen her outside a grand total of two times for no more than five minutes each time (To be fair, heat index has regularly been breaking 130 here, and dew point has been around 75 and up most days. It is a bit hellish.). ( She also laughed whenever I messed up at all and she noticed, but I’m chalking my annoyance at that up to narcissism.)I know literally nothing professionally about genetic retardation, so I can’t speak for it. Also, what kind of relative standards do you apply for privacy? It’s a little unnerving when you’re sitting in your room in the evening, and she just comes by and stares for five or ten minutes, saying nothing, and not responding to your confused inquiries. I’m not exactly a sensitive person that way, but I do have ADD, and it sure makes it hard to concentrate. Well, I said I wasn’t here to complain, but here I am sitting around bitching. Of course, there’s always the other shoe to drop. I often found myself thinking things like “Heh, she talks to herself out loud, she’s such a freak.” Then, of course, I realize that I talk to myself audibly quite a bit (when I’m alone). So really, she’s just more honest about it. That’s about all I have to say on this topic (I suck at writing conclusions, as you may be able to deduce from reading some of my posts). Obligatory epigram note: Yeah, I wasn’t joking about being out of reading material. Oh, and the title’s sarcastic. You seriously couldn’t figure that out?

TL;DR: Everybody’s a hypocrite. And if you’re pissed off about my use of retard/retarded, may I remind you that , firstly, that is still official medical terminology, and second, you may well want to get checked for oversensitive dumbfuckitis.