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Bus beheading... our obsession with it
"Enough of the macabre and heretofore unthinkable details of the stabbing, decapitation and defiling of Tim McLean, the 22-year-old carnival worker who lost his life on a Winnipeg-bound Greyhound bus last week when a man apparently went berserk and - well, I'm going to try not to repeat the details.
It now makes me nauseous to read them, let alone regurgitate them.
Yet since news of the murder first leaked out last week, I've mentioned "beheading," "stabbing" and even "eating the corpse" in conversation with friends and family, as if I were reading aloud from a Hannibal Lecter novel and not passing the time of day.
The details of this crime have consumed, fascinated and brutalized us, leading us in one dark direction (he was totally calm as he stabbed him) or another (but why couldn't the other passengers have done something?). Mini disquisitions on the depravity or deficiencies of the human spirit.
We seemingly couldn't get enough of the incessantly repeated eyewitness reports, preceded by that slightly officious "and we must warn you, what you are about to hear is extremely graphic" proviso, which probably made more people rush to turn up the radio than to turn it off."
Why does the macabre intrigue. Why is it the more violent the crime the more we are drawn to it? Does it mean anything about us, or is it simply that we are curious? "Enough of the macabre and heretofore unthinkable details of the stabbing, decapitation and defiling of Tim McLean, the 22-year-o... more -
Traveler Decapitates Sleeping Seatmate Aboard Canadian Greyhound
"A man sleeping on a Greyhound bus as it rolled across the Canadian Prairies was killed and decapitated by his seatmate as horrified passengers fled to safety in the night, witnesses and police said on Thursday.
"'All of a sudden, we all heard this scream, this bloodcurdling scream,' said Garnet Caton, who was sitting just in front of the victim on the bus. Caton said that when the attack was over, the knife-wielding killer displayed his victim's severed head to the onlookers." "A man sleeping on a Greyhound bus as it rolled across the Canadian Prairies was killed and decapitated by his seatmate as horrif... more -
TFL to Get the Public to Re-design the Routemaster
Transport for London have today announced that they will be looking to the public for help in redesiging the iconic London red bus, the Routemaster.
Doubtlessly lead by current mayor Boris Johnson's hatred of the bendy buses with which his predecessor Ken Livingstone replaced the previous incarnation of the Routemaster, TFL are hoping that an open-source approach to the new Routemaster's design will help counter claims that replacing the old buses will cost in excess of £800m. Transport for London have today announced that they will be looking to the public for help in redesiging the iconic London red bus, th... more -
Could public transportation ever work in LA?
Los Angeles' population will grow by 2.4 million by 2030, resulting in a total of 7 million cars on the roads each day. Already, congestion in Los Angeles is one of the worst in the nation, and the city's rapid transit surely does not have enough connections or lines to serve the entire city or region. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the percentage of commuters who use public transportation in Los Angeles County is 7% (10% within the borders of the city of Los Angeles), far lower than in other major American cities: 30% of San Franciscan workers use transit, 25% within Chicago, and 54% in New York City. With the region's growing population, the city will not be able to support itself without future investments in transportation. Los Angeles' population will grow by 2.4 million by 2030, resulting in a total of 7 million cars on the roads each day. Already, ... more
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Modern Transportation and Infectious Disease – MWV15
From your local bus route to international air travel, infectious diseases can spread across the globe in a matter of hours. In this video podcast episode filmed at the Koshland Science Museum in Washington, D.C., Stephen Eubank from the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute of Virginia Tech and Daniel Lucey from Georgetown University discuss the role of transportation in the spread of disease and examine the effectiveness of various measures to curb transmission.
Stephen Eubank, Ph.D., is a project director at the Network Dynamics and Simulation Science Laboratory at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute of Virginia Tech. His research focuses on modeling and simulating the spread of disease and regional transportation, and the analysis of complex systems.
Daniel Lucey, M.D., M.P.H., is an adjunct professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Georgetown University, where he is co-director of the master of science program in biohazardous threat agents and emerging infectious diseases. In recent years, his teaching focus has been on SARS, avian flu, and the threat of pandemic human influenza.
Resources:
Learn more about infectious diseases at
http://www.koshland-science-museum.org/exhib_infectious...
Transportation Research Board of the National Academies
http://www.trb.org/default.asp
Pandemic Flu and Travel
http://www.pandemicflu.gov/travel/index.html From your local bus route to international air travel, infectious diseases can spread across the globe in a matter of hours. In this v... more -
Idiots guide to taking the bus
A step-by-step manual on how to get on, and off, a bus has been produced for people who have a phobia of public transport.
The guide, published by Stagecoach, features the handy sections "choosing a bus", "getting on the bus", "sitting down on the bus" and thankfully, "getting off the bus".
Is this just a PR stunt, or do they really think people can't handle using public transport? A step-by-step manual on how to get on, and off, a bus has been produced for people who have a phobia of public transport. ... more -
Muni double decker may join San Francisco bus fleet
But now how are we going to be able to tell the difference between Muni and those damn tourist buses?
And are all the buses going to have flying hearts printed on them? But now how are we going to be able to tell the difference between Muni and those damn tourist buses? ... more -
Public Transportation
Sure is annoying sometimes....what does everyone else have to deal with in their cities?
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