21–30 of 53 posts
There used to be guide book for African American travelers called the green book. It helped them know places they could use the bathroom, eat, and lodge. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Negro_Motorist_Green_Boo...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even in Canada today you can still see instances of this. Fairly disgusting, to put it mildly. I found this out when we employed the one person of color in the community as a gas station attendant, the reverse situation sketched in the wikipedia article linked. Large customers would contact me and pointedly demand we fire the person or they'd cease doing business (this was fine with me, the nearest alternative was a…
How long ago was this? I thought you were a technology consultant living in the Netherlands.
Amazing how things we take for granted now were simply unnecessary in the past: Road signs were virtually nonexistent, Bauer says, because until cars came along there was no need for them. Long trips were made by train, and virtually all short trips were made by local people who already had a mental map of the roads in their area.
This is particularly visible in Europe, where magnificent centuries-old buildings are constantly scarred by road and parking signs (as well as advertising billboards).
Think about how gloriously empty were the roads everywhere in the world: there were only 1.8 billion inhabitants. Out of every 7 people, imagine 5 vanished. That was the world then.
Near here is a monument to something or other, the improved US highway was built as a 10 mile bypass through a swamp. There's 4 glorious, split, full shouldered lanes carrying a few hundred vehicles per hour. It's still empty.
There used to be guide book for African American travelers called the green book. It helped them know places they could use the bathroom, eat, and lodge. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Negro_Motorist_Green_Boo...
Even in Canada today you can still see instances of this. Fairly disgusting, to put it mildly. I found this out when we employed the one person of color in the community as a gas station attendant, the reverse situation sketched in the wikipedia article linked. Large customers would contact me and pointedly demand we fire the person or they'd cease doing business (this was fine with me, the nearest alternative was a…
There used to be guide book for African American travelers called the green book. It helped them know places they could use the bathroom, eat, and lodge. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Negro_Motorist_Green_Boo...
I found them to be quite useful but now they seem kind of quaint. It would show gas stations and motels at the exits. Every year they'd publish a new one, wish I'd saved one now but they were really meant to be disposable.
We aren't very far from the days that Google/Alexa will ask as you start the engine where do you want to go today and just take you there with little effort on your part. In a way its like we're all going to have robot chauffeurs.
There used to be guide book for African American travelers called the green book. It helped them know places they could use the bathroom, eat, and lodge. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Negro_Motorist_Green_Boo...
Even in Canada today you can still see instances of this. Fairly disgusting, to put it mildly. I found this out when we employed the one person of color in the community as a gas station attendant, the reverse situation sketched in the wikipedia article linked. Large customers would contact me and pointedly demand we fire the person or they'd cease doing business (this was fine with me, the nearest alternative was a…
There used to be guide book for African American travelers called the green book. It helped them know places they could use the bathroom, eat, and lodge. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Negro_Motorist_Green_Boo...
Steely Dan even wrote a song about it.