Looking out the window of the Metro. Today the Metro board announced that they will be putting advertisements on the tunnel walls so that as we ride by we can be sold more *@%#^!. They also plan to put video monitors in the trains for still more advertising. And to increase the bus and train ad "wraps" so more buses and eventually trains will look like giant billboards. This is how we fund public services in America today. Nobody wants to pay for anything, least of all with taxes. Look at the federal deficit--$524 billion. Less than four years ago we were projecting 1.2 trillion in surplus. Where did it go? Haliburton? Fortune 100 companies? The two percent of the population that owns most of the stock and dividends?

This impending visual clutter on Metro is expected to generate more than $5 million dollars per year. Wow! With an operating budget of $1,000 million I don't see how an extra 1/2 percent revenue can be worth the disturbance of our quiet rides to work. Personally, I like looking out the window and seeing other passengers. Or the cables and gray walls of the tunnel--a moment of peace in a world full of ads.