A Californian Perspective on History, Arts, Land, Literature, and Politics
A little transit nostalgia, courtesy of the Imagineers at Disney California Adventure.
Yeah, we should have spent the money on faster Red Cars operating on above- or below-grade tracks. We learned. We’re paying for the lesson now. Hindsight and all that.
Under pressure from harassment and sexism allegations, the ride-hailing giant is rethinking its approach to hiring.
Source: As Uber Grew Hastily, Diversity Took a Backseat – Bloomberg
We can engage in long conversations about diversity in the workplace, but one thing should come as no surprise: that Uber executives behaved exactly as they saw fit, and social pressure, political correctness, and societal norms be damned.
Why are we surprised when we discover that the people who set out to make a lot of money by laying waste to entire industries are not very nice? Uber has never apologized for what it is: a bunch of guys armed with an ounce of vision, a pound of opportunism, a kilo of greed, and an algorithm that mixes all of that into an earth-scorching business proposition.
But we’re kidding ourselves when we ignore the fact that every time we take an Uber ride that we’re fucking over a cabbie, that every time we stay in an Airbnb we’re giving a little shafting to a housekeeper at the Hilton, or that every time we order a book from Amazon we’re devaluing that erudite guy earning 10.50 an hour at the local independent bookstore.
Whatever their economic value, robber barons have never been humanists. It is now, and ever will be, up to us to make sure their depredations do more good than harm.
Crossing, San Diego, February 2017, by David Wolf
Twilight at Golf-n-Stuff in Ventura on a quiet Thursday night.
Silent Twain, Anaheim, California, February 2017
The venerable Mark Twain sits quietly dockside, as an army of Imagineers reroute Rivers of America and fashion Star Wars Land.
All of which makes one wonder: will Disney find a way to revive Rivers from its status as a quaint-but-tired throwback to the park’s founding?
And what will become of Tomorrowland when Star Wars moves out? After all, it was Star Wars that saved Tomorrowland in the first place. My bet: a huge facelift followed by a focus on the Marvel universe.
