About adamhoffer

adamhoffer

Location:

Budapest (Hungary)

Joined on:

05/15/07

Occupation:

Student

• not yet rated

  Mobility

  response to  Ben Jervey's post Train in Vain

  transcontinental connection

  this is a well-written, balanced article featuring a journey diary and good background information on the past, present and future of railways. i was pleased with it both as a traveller who prefers trains over coach cars and planes, and also as someone who is interested in the wider questions of public utility / private utility and direct profits / indirect benefits.

  the author frequently compares the situation in the US with that in Europe. well, coming from Europe, I have to recommend revisiting the topic in a more ambiguous way.
  Europe does struggle with its railways. efficiency is one huge issue: companies are constantly shutting down shorter, local lines. major focus is on long, international (transcontinental) connections.
  the issue of rail maintenance emerges in countries where both private and public companies are operating.
  and one still has to consider additional problems in post-socialist Central and Eastern Europe where marketisation is still an on-going and very much uncertain process.

  while the article pictures railways on the European continent as first-class service - clean, fast and affordable - experiences might falsify these claims once you get off France's TGV.

  Comments (0)

  Commented on June 23, 2008 by - adamhoffer

• 1 vote

  Art & Design

  response to  Morgan Clendaniel's post Ignore This Sign...

  we have never been clever

  What I find interesting is that such humour isn't the product of the late 20th / early 21st century, it's not at all new. It has been around for decades in absurd art, I can see the connections. (And I would risk saying it has always existed!)

  So the question is: are we really becoming increasingly stupid? Is there really a tendency? How stupid can we get, if (e.g.) playwrights in the 1950s have already been making attempts to point out the phenomenon of being stupid?
  Maybe we have never been clever, maybe humans have always been so stupid (while thinking they were smart), maybe we are only able to find new ways for being stupid, and art (or at least some of it) has always tried to underline this basic characteristic. (I wouldn't call my opinion pessimistic, it's rather realistic.)

  Thus we can admire the artists' creativity, how they adapt to contemporary life, but we should not think that the message is something essentially new. (As there isn't much new under the sun.)

  Don't get me wrong, I like the ideas, it does add something new to the old discourse, and it does speak about contemporary society, culture, etc. But we shouldn't forget it's predecessors.

  Comments (0)

  Commented on May 17, 2007 by - adamhoffer