davis_square | Attacks on cyclists in the area

About an hour ago a friend of mine was pelted with eggs and beer cans while riding her bicycle on Boston Ave. While this isn't specifically Davis Square, this sort of thing has happened to me and several of my friends in this area over the past couple of years, typically at night but not exclusively. Usually it's just eggs (but even those can do damage or cause you to wreck) but I've second hand knowledge of significantly worse.

So among other things, this is a warning to cyclists in the area.

But I wonder if people can do things about this.

I'm guessing that if people were to call the police immediately after this happened there would be a decent chance of the perpetrators getting caught. Especially if they're in a car that can be described. But normally people wait until they get home and are less wound up before calling the police at which point the people involved are typically long gone.

There are many really cheap digital video cameras around, some are even waterproof, that can be attached to a bicycle or helmet. It might be worth doing so.

Anybody else have any ideas?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I wish I had a simple way to explain it. The best I can do is to consider a tree, if you want it to grow up healthy and strong and flexible enough to endure through storms, you have to ensure that it gets all that it needs. Humans are just like trees, only the things we need are, perhaps, more complex.

You can try with all your might to demand that individuals (flora or fauna) "be healthy, dammit", but the fact is that if they don't get what they need to be healthy, they won't be. No amount of force, coercion, blame, expectations, etc., will do you any good because when you are deficient in something, the only way to heal is to eliminate that deficiency.

Just one simple example is a deficiency in Omega-3 fatty acids. Nearly all US Americans are deficient in it. And do you know what disorders Omega-3s are directly connected to? ADHD. Anti-social disorder. Anxiety. Depression. Learning Disabilities. Of course, you can complain until you're blue in the face at people who suffer from these disorders, and bitch about them not being good members of society who aren't able to "pick themselves up by their own bootstraps" (which is impossible, by the way...), or you can invest your energy, instead, in finding a way to get more Omega-3s into the food they eat.

Also, you are joking about there being jobs, right? How many even well educated folks out there have jobs that they feel are honestly important and valuable and that they enjoy doing (making them feel good about themselves and their work)? Maybe 20%? Maybe? And that's if you are privileged enough to have a decent education. Most folks around Somerville aren't that lucky.

For example, anyone could a job doing catering in one day. There are a number of catering temp agencies, you don't need to speak English really, and they pay at least $10/hour. Due to the low or nonexistant tax rates at that rate (factoring in both low rates and EITC) most of that money is not taxed. So working 40 hours a week (I myself work 100 hours a week, but whatever, I guess we can only expect them to work 40), that's 1600 a month. Rent you could get for 600 assuming you have roommates and don't pick a big room. There's 1000 for food and other items.

This is the easy case scenario. It be better to get a job as a waiter and push that rate up to the teens. But I'm keeping it at the easiest possible scenario. I've used these catering temp agencies to get extra work. They did not ask me *any* questions about my background/education and did not background checks. As long as I had a SSN/ID # they were fine to hire me.

Its not that hard to take care of yourself and achieve basic functionality.

I definately hear you, and you have great points about mental issues, etc. The problem is you don't put any allowance for person responsibility in your equation.

Again, I'm sorry that I can't explain it in simple enough terms for you to really understand. People don't heal because you believe they "should" heal. They heal when they have what they need to heal. If they are still sick, then you absolutely know that they aren't getting their needs met.

Plus, catering? There's a 99% chance that it's not at all going to be a meaningful job. Serving people expensive, unhealthy food isn't going to make someone grow into a healthy person. Even if someone could get a job there (maybe a 50% chance) working there is very likely only going to exacerbate their problems.

Its not 50% change of getting a catering job, its 95%. As I stated before, the application process was, "do you have a pulse? OK, show up at 2PM at the JFK building on the Harvard campus" Is catering a great job, no, but its not like its horrendous job like breaking big rocks into little rocks or something.

I'm going to drop discussion of should and what not, and this will be my last post in this thread, I'm just pointing out that the solution is out there for any person that needs money to pay for Maslow basic needs. Whether they choose to take an easy way to do that, apparently that's your expertise and you are not able to explain simply who I should feel sorry for someone that doesn't take advantage of an easy solution because I'm not bright enough according to your inference. But I was bright enough to take catering jobs when that was my only option to raise myself out of poverty.

Well put, pjorgan.

My wife started in the catering biz and her experience was exactly as you described. Over three years, she worked her way up to assistant pastry chef in a fancy hotel in Boston. Most of her coworkers have culinary degrees for the same job. My point is that there is upward mobility in this area, if you work for it. You don't need to come from a rich background (but, as they say, it helps!).

So, turil, don't tell me that catering is 99% "not meaningful". That statement alone shows that you don't know what it's really like out there. You're missing the point pjmorgan is making because you are so blinded by theory. As a researcher in the social sciences, I see this all the freakin' time. The theory-practice chasm is mind boggling large and a main reason why social science theory is advancing so much slower than natural sciences.

Not every job can be meaningfull. That's life. It's each person's own responsibility to find meaning and inspiration in his life, on the job or off. It's not something we can, or should, provide to people on a silver platter.

Actually, nothing is meaningful by itself. Observing ants for hours can be a totally meaningless experience for some people and a major source of inspiration and ideas for another one who knows what to look for etc etc...

+10000000 bonus points for bringing up Omega-3 deficiency in a thread on egg throwing.

Now I guess we need to hire a dietician to let these clods know they're supposed to *eat* the eggs, all their problems would be solved.

Seriously, this may be the most amusing thread ever.

WIN.

Attacks on cyclists in the area

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