Pissed Off!

Time to vent a bit. Traveling this country has proven to be a mixed pleasure. I've seen some absolutely beautiful places and witnessed some disgusting behavior.
Beautiful places? New York City at sunset, the Thousand Island region of Lake Ontario, the New River Gorge filled with mist as seen from the bridge in West Virginia and a desert sunset as seen from Highway 54 in New Mexico.

Disgusting behavior? bottles, bags and puddles of urine seen along the roads, truck stops and drop yards across the country. Most truck stops reek of the smell of piss and diesel except for some of the newest that have yet to be defiled to the degree that older stops have been. Clear or translucent bottles with tell-tale amber glow. Even ziplock bags lying on the pavement just waiting for the next tire to pop the bag and spray piss all over the place. There have also been bags and soda cups filled with feces and subsequently run over. C'mon guys, really? You can't make the 100 feet to the restroom? I say guys because I really doubt that women are responsible for this type of act. Well, perhaps a few, but doubtless this is a male dominated kind of thing.
Granted, there can be emergencies, but can't you deliver your "product" to a trash receptacle? It seems there are many that can't. If you look, you'll see these bottles on roadsides and off ramps. I've seen them set in quantity on concrete light post bases like a display. I pity the poor municipal employees and volunteers that clean the road sides and medians of our public roads.

Sorry State of Our Economy

Just left the Philadelphia area the other day and feel the need to comment on the neighborhood I visited. An urbanized industrial area called Chester along the Delaware River just south and west of downtown Philly. I delivered to a large, national manufacturer of consumer goods with a factory right on the river. It was a large facility with multiple properties and was a damn obstacle course to drive through, a fact attested to by a bit of graffiti left on a sign in the drop yard. It was poorly maintained and dirty.
The area itself was interesting to say the least. Lone houses standing on a small block where every other structure had been torn down. What appeared to be abandoned houses, some boarded up and some with gaping holes due to missing doors and windows, side-by-side with tidy homes and some others that were still lived-in but should be torn down. There were businesses mixed with the houses, some open but many closed. There were shuttered industrial buildings, some vacant lots and some brand-new construction.

What was the brand-new stuff you ask? A huge Harrah's Casino on the river bank and a prison. Really? This is the new growth moving in to replace our rotting industrial base? One to take your hard-earned money via what's called "entertainment" and the other to lock up more and more of our population who do not conform to our societies rules. Granted, there are a number of incorrigible and dangerous individuals that need to be removed from our communities but many are repeat offenders of petty crime and drug users that should not be warehoused at a huge cost to our society. I don't see either of these "industries" providing anywhere near the number of jobs that manufacturing provided.

I was amazed as I entered this area at 11pm on the Wednesday before New Years Eve, at the sheer volume of cars pouring into the casino with people apparently willing to shell out their cash on the hopes of a big win. The odds were not in their favor and never will be. Let's hope that we can do better for ourselves and this country.