The Seattle Times editorial board endorses the new Seattle-Tacoma International Airport contract with Yellow Cab, for amongst other things, improving the quality of the cabs serving the airport:
To the credit of the Port and other entities working on taxi policy, cabs serving the airport are no longer grungy and filled with house pets and cookery. A big improvement.
“House pets and cookery”…? Um… did the Times editorial board just make some sort of ethnic slur against the Sikh cabbies who dominate STITA, the taxi association that previously held the Sea-Tac contract?
I’ve been in my fair share of STITA cabs, and while I guess you could describe a few as grungy, they were no more or less so than other Seattle cabs, let alone those I was familiar with from New York and Philadelphia. And I certainly don’t remember any cabbies cooking curry in the front seat, with or without a four-legged companion.
Considering how closely the public associates STITA cabs with our region’s growing Sikh community, “house pets and cookery” just strikes me as an odd and inappropriate turn of phrase coming from the Times… the kinda rude hyperbole more at home on, say, a lowly blog, than the editorial pages of a major daily newspaper.
Not that I don’t welcome the competition.
My occasional experiences with SEATAC ground transportation have been pretty consistently professional over the years, with acceptable or better cab quality. Driving styles tend to vary.
“House pets and cookery” (“house pets”?) is indeed a very strange choice of specific words.
As you say, a strange choice of words but what is “ethnic” about pets and cookery? Is there an ethnic group that doesn’t cook and keep pets?
If Seattle wants a green image they should ban the use of big ex-police cruisers as taxis. Seattle should also quit using gas hog battleships as police cars themselves. Not needed in a city. I’m not sure those dinosaur Crown Vics are needed anywhere.
@2: Don’t you think it’s odd to suggest that cab drivers generally bring these things to work with them in large quantities? Couldn’t the writer have just stopped at “grungy” and still made the point?
@3: Agreed on this point about cabs. I can understand police wanting/needing the relative power and safety of their big cars though.
I’d call the Times remark an attempted back-handed swipe at the Sikh community. Its so far off the mark and divorced from reality that it just makes them look stupid(er).
@3
SPD could probably do more with foot and bike patrols but, those big cruisers have their place too. Some police departments experimented with smaller cars back in the day and found that they ended up driving them so hard that there wasn’t much of a difference MPG wise and they were paying more to maintain them.
Does the SPD still have a mounted unit? I used to see them using horses around Pike Street Market and it looked pretty effective. Plus, horses are solar powered and cool.
I am not sure we are getting “competition” with Yellow Cab now the exclusive purveyor of persons leaving the airport.
Why should the pay-off be happening at a state level, so that we get an officially-sanctioned monopoly like this?
It would be better if there were a queue of taxis at the airport, of all different brands, and if the pay-off were small amounts of cash to the cop who enqueues the competing taxis.
In the current situation, we get one company spraying a lot of cash at the political level, and the other companies stuck doing illegal pick-ups on the drop-off level.
ohmygod the pc police found a possible backhanded slur….
many of us would care more about the lack of competition. how much are those taxi medallions anyway? what’s the price for the airport contract? Any part of it making it downstream to the drivers? are they employees contractors, what?
and most of all.
why limit competition in the first place? the rationale that we need regulation diminishes every day now that we have internet and could post blog reports on the cleanliness and sanity of each and every cab driver.
Geez, Goldy, and you thought the HA comment threads were vulgar! Apparently Frank Blethen wants his rag to be the Pacific Northwest’s #1 cesspool. Better watch your back.
@1 When I worked in government, people got disciplined for using language less immoderate than that. I guess the private sector has no standards at all.
Can you imagine the uproar if a state lawyer referred to an ethnic group in such terms? The fishwrapper’s editorial writers would be calling for his head! There would be a Bar Association investigation, and he’d probably get censured at the very least, if not suspended, and required to attend counseling and sensitivity training.
But when you’re a multimillionaire wingnut newspaper publisher, you don’t have to answer to anyone.
I can’t do anything about it. I already read that racist rag for free, and if I quit reading it, that would only save them money and help prolong their existence. By freeloading their publication, I’m already doing everything I can to sink their ship.
@6 Is there absolutely anything the Port of Seattle does that doesn’t have a rancid odor wafting over it?
@7 “ohmygod the pc police found a possible backhanded slur….”
It looks pretty goddam intentional to me.
In all fairness to the Times they might be referring to the pre-STITA days when there were a lot of problems with the cleanliness of the cabs doing airport pickups as well as the language skills and geographic knowledge of the drivers.
However I think your interpretation may be right and if that was not what was intended a little more careful copy-editing is in order.
I have no idea why the Times might want to slam Sikh cab drivers. Nobody tell Frank that Yellow is dominated by Somali, Ethiopian, and Eritrean cabbies.
Roger:
padon moi if my degree of certitude or outrage is slightly different than yours. Are you part of one of those ethnic groups that always demands total agreement, from a viewpoint of how you know more than anyone else all the time, and if anyone has a slightly different view you feel entitled to get mad and put them down?
(That would be Euro-American white males with college and professional degrees…..)
LEt’s continue this discussion about ethnic clurs, ok?
This thread is a good example of the dynamic that is often at play. Goldy starts with a bit of humor about teaking Sikhs….this kind of pun doesn’t indicate any horrible racist crime. Then he ASKS the question ifthe Times made “some sort of ethnic slur against the Sikh cabbies”?
Ahem, much as I did, in effect, referring to a possible slur.
Goldy then refers to seat, with or without a four-legged companion.this as an “odd and inappropriate turn of phrase” or “rude hyperbole more at home on, say, a lowly blog.”
Then in the threads this odd comment becomes a swipe a slam and anyone who questions it has no standards whatsoever, etc. etc. It then becomes “pretty goddam intentional.”
See the progression? odd to goddam intentional and NOW if you even express doubt, you’re the racist.
Sigh.
@16 “padon moi if my degree of certitude or outrage is slightly different than yours.”
As this is your first comment in this thread, what is my certitude and outrage different from?
“Are you part of one of those ethnic groups that always demands total agreement”
“from a viewpoint of how you know more than anyone else all the time”
Where do you get that from?
“and if anyone has a slightly different view you feel entitled to get mad and put them down?”
Where do you get that from? I’m not mad at the Seattle Times. I’m simply stating my opinion that this editorial contains a racist comment.
“(That would be Euro-American white males with college and professional degrees…..)”
What is this relevant to? A person’s formal education and official degrees has nothing to do with basic decency in how you treat your fellow human beings. Even numbskulls can do that, if they want to. It’s simply a matter of motivation. You don’t need a genius IQ or a college education to know right from wrong. Which is why wingnuts are culpable as hell for their ignorance and stupidity.
@16 (continued) Let’s be clear about something. This is a liberal blog, and I’m a liberal propagandist. Deconstructing wingnut bullshit is what we do here. If you don’t like it, you’re free to leave. No one is making you read this blog or post here. Unless, of course, you’re a paid troll and your boss requires you to post here as a condition of your continuing employment.
I thought the Seattle Times editorial reference to house pets and cookery was funny and a very accurate description of taxi service at SeaTac circa 1985. Many of us remember the horror of landing at SeaTac a generation ago to arguably experience the most disgusting taxi service on the planet. I still have vivid memories of riding home in a taxi that was clearly home to its driver. The reference was obviously meant to reference pre-STITA days. STITA does a fabulous job. Goldy, you’re just a little too sensitive or perhaps too young to recall the angst involved in grabbing a cab at SeaTac.
@16 correction, #7 was your first comment in this thread.
@7, 14, 17, etc.: Okay, let’s continue this discussion. The times I’ve been at the airport, I’ve seen lots of Sikh cabbies, but I’ve never seen a cab with cookware or a dog in it, either at the airport or anywhere else in Seattle. So, yeah, the editorial’s choice of words looks like a mocking stereotyping of an ethnic group, in which case it’s offensive.
You’re the one who brought up “pc.” It seems to me if anyone is the political correctness cop here, it’s you, because you’re complaining about us complaining about a racist editorial.
Well, like I said above, buddy, this is a liberal blog and I’m a liberal propagandist, so if you don’t like my criticism of racist editorials, then my suggestion is you may be happier on a different blog, because we’re gonna exercise our free speech rights here, and to hell with you pc cops.
Censoring criticism of racists is a characteristic of rightwing blogs. That doesn’t apply here.
Not a huge Times fan here, but Goldy has either failed to distinguish past, present, and future – or is intentionally misrepresenting the Times editorial.
The editorial is talking about a future contract with Yellow Cab that would reduce deadhead trips, but gives credit to “the Port and other entities” for cleaning up the issues that existed in the past. That’s to say, things have improved and are in better shape than they were in the past. It isn’t saying that grunge, pets, and cookery are a problem with SITA that Yellow Cab would improve. It says these issues have already been resolved, without making any reference to problems with SITA or any other taxi companies.
The Times did nothing to imply any kind of racial, ethnic, or religious bias. Asserting that they did demonstrates a clear misunderstanding of the editorial, or a blatently dishonest attempt to mislead readers.
Factoid: Today’s date is a palindrome.
(Source: Seattle Times)
@23 “The Times did nothing to imply any kind of racial, ethnic, or religious bias.”
Wanna buy a bridge?
http://voreblog.files.wordpres.....dge-1a.jpg
The Sikhs I’ve run into in this area have always been very polite and pleasant.
One of the things all Sikh men do is to carry around a dagger that is to be used only to defend the defenseless who may come under attack. It’s part of their religion.
re 20: ‘Angst’? As lmported beers go, it’s pretty lame.
Hmmmm
I kind of like the idea of a cab ribe that is hemisch.
Does anyone know WHY we contract with only one company? Competition .. isn’t that the Merican way?
BTW, if you take a limo from SeaT%ac, the cost is usually the same as a cab, the limo is mucho nicer, and if there is food served that is a real plus!
The Times doesn’t have to have journalistic integrity and professionalism anymore (if they ever did.) The Blethens see themselves as the only power in town.
So they feel they can insult and demean everyone with no fear of reprisal.
I think they were also implying that those four legged critters were going into the curry. They do make rice cookers that plug into a cigarette lighter, you know.
Rob @23,
Parse the Times however you want. The point is, the average reader might reasonably infer that they were talking about STITA and its Sikh cabbies. Surely, when they’re talking about house pets and cookery, they’re not talking Anglo cabbies. (Are there any Anglo cabbies?) It’s a dig at the other.