Comments on: Poppies

By: david tiley

david tiley — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 15:31:06 +0000

Australians have the poppy thing too, though I think less and less. And Armistice Day has yielded to Anzac Day in popularity – a sad thing.

By: Michael Mouse

Michael Mouse — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 14:18:22 +0000

one prays the Livingstone initiative [to break the white male stranglehold on London cabs] will be approached with caution

She doesn’t get out much, does she? (In the sense of ‘out of London’.) I’d be surprised if there’s a single major city in Britain apart from London where the drivers of taxis and minicabs are overwhelmingly white.

And to pick up ray’s point, “The Knowledge” also looks less vital in this era of satnav systems.

By: Ray

Ray — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 12:51:15 +0000

London has the famous test of “the Knowledge”, but its not clear how relevant this is when most cabs these days are linked by radio to a dispatch office.

By: Kriston

Kriston — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 22:12:33 +0000

A good number of DC cabbies are homegrown residents. And they’re perfectly nondescript: neither as rude as New York cabbies nor so polite as London cabbies.

By: lemuel pitkin

lemuel pitkin — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 16:44:23 +0000

I always had the notion that London handled cabs much better than American cities, in that it regulated supply through strict tests of competence rather than by issuing a fixed number of permits that, inevitably, are monopolized by speculators.

By: Brendan

Brendan — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 12:08:57 +0000

Wouldn’t it be great if the war memorials were based on the Beefheart lyric above rather than that rotten Flander’s Field crap? Then, instead of a poppy, we would all have to wear squids eating dough in a polyethylene bag on remembrance day. This would provide much needed comic relief in what is otherwise a rather sad and depressing occasion.

By: soru

soru — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 11:27:02 +0000

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembrance_Day

In Britain, Australia and New Zealand the poppies are the flat Earl Haig variety and in Canada the poppies are curled at the petals.

soru

By: johnhayter

johnhayter — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 10:43:58 +0000

anna in cairo, After you've finished reading In Flanders Fields, you might try another poppy poem by way of antidote: Isaac Rosenberg's Break of Day in the Trenches. It's written from another place entirely. Break of Day in the Trenches.

By: Anna in Cairo

Anna in Cairo — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 09:40:43 +0000

Thanks for the education. I’m off to read the poem now. You really do learn something new every day, even from nutty racist xenophobes (although Ms. Gould was merely a catalyst and all of you are the ones who provided the actual info) – anyhow thanks to all of you for the historical context.

By: Martin Wisse

Martin Wisse — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 08:25:23 +0000

The purple finger shows that you support the war on Iraq.

That’s what’s wrong with it.

I was in Plymouth around 11/11, a navy town, and only about a third of the people I saw in the streets was wearing a poppy. So much for that thesis.

By: washerdreyer

washerdreyer — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 07:34:57 +0000

I’m sure I won’t take part it in it, especially because it would be perceived as supporting Republicans rather than Iraqis, but I don’t see anything wrong with the purple-finger stunt.

By: JR

JR — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 23:26:34 +0000

Jacob is correct that DC cabs have no meters, and that rates are set by “zones.” For locals who know the zone boundaries, this works well. It also makes sense. Trips within busy downtown areas are cheaper- and drivers don’t mind, because they don’t have to dead-head back downtown for their next fare. Trips to distant residential areas are relatively more expensive, because of the need to return downtown without a passenger. It’s a good system once you understand it. For out-of-towners, though, it’s confusing. You’re pretty much at the mercy of your driver. (Although fares from the airports are flat fee, no confusion there.)
The reason DC has no meters is not Congress. DC has a taxicab commission that has the power to impose meters. But the owner-drivers don’t want meters. Without meters, only the driver knows how much he’s making. With meters, fleets become possible. Corporate capital comes in, and independent owner-drivers are driven out.

There’s an interesting lesson here. Congress did bar meters up until 20 years ago. But in the mid-80’s Congress got out of the taxi business. Everyone thought meters were on the way. But by then an independent class of small business owner-drivers had developed political clout, and they have kept the meters out. The result? DC, unlike other cities its size, has no major cab companies, and drivers have remained independent.

By: a different chris

a different chris — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 23:23:27 +0000

>They, despite all we see and hear, are going to the polls next month — each election being a remarkably courageous demonstration.

I don’t think that sounds the way he thinks it sounds. When you are trying your third election of the year it starts to seem a bit futile, no?

“The triumph of Hope over Experience”, as somebody once said on another issue.

By: Bro. Bartleby

Bro. Bartleby — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 21:41:58 +0000

Oh my, I do think all you fellows have it mixed a bit—England, poppies, rememberance—what do they all have in common? Opium, of course! Or have we forgotten, 1830 England, the major drug-trafficking organization in the world! Growing opium in India, of which the East India Company shipped the produce into Canton, for further processing, thereby keeping the good fellows of China in a prolong pipe dream. I know, I know, Americans in Iraq are also trafficking in dreams. Dreams of liberty, dreams of freedom. Perhaps we could sell the Iraqis on the idea of wearing a red poppy on their hijab … over the right ear of course.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 21:22:29 +0000

thirty comments and nobody’s done:

“I had that Carol Gould in the back of my cab once”

so now I have.