quiddities and agonies of the ruling class - a rolling new york times thread

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/14/nyregion/affordable-housing-project-divides-woodstock.html?_r=1

“It’s like if you can’t afford to live in Aspen, you don’t go to Aspen,” said Iris York, who lives near the project site. “You live where you can afford to live and where the jobs are. Go to Aspen and say, ‘What are you doing to make this affordable?’ — and they’ll laugh at you.”

*the legacy of The 60s*

Also: “It’s politically incorrect to oppose an affordable project, so you can’t even look at it,” said Robin Segal, who has a doctorate in energy policy and who moved to town two years ago in search of a garden and peace and quiet.

oh shii

1992 called and it wants its attitude back

Out on the road today I saw a deadhead sticker on a cadillac.

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Little voice inside my head said, "Don't look back, you can never look back."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/business/media/discovery-woos-the-man-with-cash-for-cars-sports-and-fancy-toys.html

When Discovery Communications set out to reformat HD Theater, the nine-year-old home of high-definition documentaries, its executives assessed the crowded cable programming landscape and asked what was missing — where there was “white space,” as one later put it.

What was missing, they decided, was a channel for the Rich Man — the successful, college-educated man who earns $150,000 or more a year and who wants to know how to spend his time and money.

That’s how Velocity was hatched. Replacing the low-rated HD Theater on Oct. 4, Velocity is being billed as a high-end men’s lifestyle channel about fast cars, fancy auctions and football stars. On Monday, the channel will announce that its first three months will feature 140 hours of programming premieres, a high number that reflects the channel’s need to be sampled by its chosen demographic.

If you are college-educated and make $150k+ and don't know how to spend your time and money please report to re-education camp for sterilization and liquidation kthxbye.

can they call the channel 'white space'

tbh usually you solve that problem by paying people to tell you what to buy, or at the lower end of that income, buying what salespeople recommend.

Channel will be useful to figure out who gets rounded up first, Come The Revolution.

'fancy auctions'

man if theres anything that workaholic men love its fancy auctions believe me

^^^ I actually saw this channel at a hotel last week! I could not figure out what the deal was--there were these shows that were like antiques road show except for cars and boats.

eh it's a pretty common thing, tho. when people who reach a certain income level and want to project their status, they rely on specific media to instruct them in what their taste & values should be. see also: most fashion & lifestyle magazines

hearty lols @ "white space" tho

When I was a kid I used to buy the Robb Report for the cars.

the Financial Times has a section just called "How To Spend It" which serves this noble purpose for FT readers- it's a win/win because advertisers LOVE this shit, and you can always cruise it from below if you're actually middle class- same fake it til you make it vibe as the old 80s "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" show imho

people like that do exist; they inherit their money

I would buy a lot of expensive vegetables like hop asparagus and truffles.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/nyregion/steps-away-but-worlds-apart.html?_r=4&ref=nyregion&pagewanted=all

on a certain level this is the anti-quiddities article and the author is coming from the right place

otoh 'there are poor people in new york' is not really a news article anymore than 'tall buildings are in manhattan' is a news article.

regardless, worth it for the first comment in the comments section

I tried from my phone and from my laptop and I hit a sign in page. I don't know if that's the paywall, but regardless, it's not working. Please copy and paste the whole article, photos, and the first comment.

you've hit the paywall, I would c+p the article if this were 77 but prob against some ilx policy? anyway what you gotta do is after you hit the paywall, copy and paste the same address but delete everything after the "?" and it will reload the page sans paywall

otoh the first comment, I can paste

1.
Jacob handelsman
Houston
September 16th, 2011
12:59 pm
There should be a security checkpoint at all upper income neighborhoods where non-residents must stop and be cleared. This is commonly found in many countries throughout Europe, Asia and South America. The hodge-podge pattern of American housiong patterns where low income minority, high crime rate areas directly abut higher income housing only benefits the criminals. Obviously not Politically Correct for the Libera-Left but it passes the higher test of Common-sense and Sanity.
Recommend Recommended by 14 Readers

Not the paywall, something about that link - it logs me out of NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/nyregion/steps-away-but-worlds-apart.html?ref=nyregion

Impressed Jacob Handelsman is willing to attach his full name to that comment. I also enjoy his capitalization techniques.

oh man I have never clicked on the wedding section before. good way to make yourself feel awful

haha we should do a 'create a nyt wedding section post' thread

I actually thought about posting that article with a similar take. It's also a very superficial treatment of the subject and she pats herself on the back an awful lot for, like, noticing that there are poor people.

Still, none of that is 1/4 as bad as some of the comments. Peoples' capacity to believe that everything in life is the product of our free will and our character traits is astounding.

it's baked into our culture

really wish we would stop teaching that america is a 'meritocracy' in schools

OTM x2

yeah. the way that plays out given how segregated our schools are by class and race is particularly pernicious.

it also reinforces the invidious "poor people are poor for a REASON" line of thinking which is so utterly abhorrent

I am mostly tired of the "we can't just throw money at failing schools" canard

YES YOU CAN, DUDE

except in DC where apparently the school system is just a money black hole by its nature

that's what i mean. a lot of well-intentioned informal instruction in how to behave middle-class happens in underfunded urban schools ime. as though culture is what's keeping those kids parents poor.

xxp it's not like we ever threw money at poor schools. it would be nice to try it once before turning against it as a measure.

Ha yes. That's my stock response to "we can't throw money at a problem." Let's try once and see!

x-post

Silby, while DC's school system has its problems and has thrown and flushed money away, it still has and had less available to spend per pupil than some nearby suburban districts

hm I had the impression that it was spending close to as much per pupil as Ffx and Arlington lately, will investigate further

ugh finding a lot of hits from some presumably-awful Cato Institute thing

"they spend HOW MUCH!?"

NYC wedding pages are mostly personal mergers.

haha

curious to see if some friends' wedding ends up in the nyt

I dj'd a wedding that made the wedding page a few summers ago. It was a halloween costume party in the prospect park picnic house featuring several burlesque/performance art type performances. It was a friend from college marrying someone who worked for Henson so everyone there was a puppeteer of some sort. They even had puppets of the bride and groom.

I am mostly tired of the "we can't just throw money at failing schools" canard

YES YOU CAN, DUDE

― ilx user 'silby' (silby), Monday, September 26, 2011 1:27 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Well there's a big logical flaw in the argument. I mean yes, throwing money doesn't NECESSARILY fix anything, but that's a poor reason to not spend more or to cut. There is plenty of wasteful spending in some school systems. But the answer is probably to spend more AND spend better. Cutting budgets doesn't mean spending better.

Tax cuts huh? You can't just throw money at a family, jeez!

Cut the corporate tax rate? You can't just throw money at a failing corporation and expect them to create jobs with it! Are you daft?

tbh not even sure what sarcastic point I am trying to make now, have crossed the meta event horizon

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