Nurhan's take:
Even when he is up, he likes to have the illusion of choice...
Now for a rant and rave about the local kommune... in their 'wisdom' they decided last Sunday that for nine hours they would shut the motorway into and out of Stavanger, including all the access roads, for nine hours and claim a 'car free day', indeed they even built a stage in the middle of the motorway to hold a dance workshop on. On Monday they expressed surprise at the huge traffic jams that this resulted in, not to mention folk who'd gone out for a trip out of Stavanger and were then faced with hour long delays in the gridlocked traffic to get home. Kin and I were stuck in it as we tried various roads only to find them closed. Seriously has no one mentioned to these morons that roads are for driving on, not for having dance workshops. Sadly this being Norway, no one is held accountable and fired for gross stupidity...
Which leads me onto my next rant on a similar subject. The Kommune has decided the bus is king and are doing all sorts of odds and sods to kowtow to the bus. This surprises me somewhat as when I cycle past buses they generally have as many people in them as I have on my bike. Lots of folk cycle here and the cycle paths/facilities seem to be designed by people who hate cyclist and seem to be actively trying to weed them out of the population, by horrendous road 'planning' (I use that term in it's broadest possible form). So now the Kommune/Statens Vegvesen (road service) has decided that the bus driver needs bigger bus stops for him and his bendy bus to park in, so they are shutting main roads and sending all the traffic through residential areas. Now you'd think, okay a bit of inconvenience for a couple of weeks... but you'd be grossly mistaken because to do this to 600 m of road has taken them seven months and they are still not finished. This mainly comes down to incompetence and not having anyone accountable. Soon they will start on the next section of road which means all the traffic will then pass straight past my front door, which makes the area infinitely worse for the many school children who use the road (that in places has no footpaths and has no crossings on it); but worse for Kin and I, if he does get off the lead the chances of him being hit by a car (probably) raise by a factor of 20. If this was for a couple of weeks, it would be tolerable, but it'll go on for months. And over the winter when snow/freezing conditions will doubtless lead to delays. Ring the number to talk to the nominated public interface and naturally they don't answer the phone... Much like the Fylkeslegen i Rogaland who nominate a person to be your interface and naturally this person seems to be blind, deaf, and dumb, as he doesn't answer letters, phone, and it's not possible to arrange a meeting via one of the secretaries... This weekend is local election day, I will be placing my vote after talking to see if anyone is going to give the disproportionate number of bureaucrats here a shake up, and make them accountable to the people who they are supposed to serve.
On the subject of voting, there was a statistic in the last American election that more people watched 'Oprea' then voted... If you don't vote you don't deserve a say. Voting should be mandatory, (i.e. illegal not to vote), even if you only go and mark the paper no vote. In most 'free' countries people have died to give us this right and if we can just make those folk who are voted in, accountable to the people the world will be a better place.
No comments:
Post a Comment