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

no, i got that you're being a dick

btw this may come as a surprise to you but people do generally work to control animal populations in cities

repping 4 serial killers?

or just vampires?

Today's bait:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/business/economy/21inequality.html?_r=1&hp

Pity the poor entrepreneur:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/08/21/business/21inequality.600.jpg

In 2007, Mr. McAfee sold a 10,000-square-foot home in Colorado with a view of Pike’s Peak. He had spent $25 million to buy the property and build the house. He received $5.7 million for it. When Lehman collapsed last fall, its bonds became virtually worthless. Mr. McAfee’s stock investments cost him millions more.

One day, he realized, as he said, “Whoa, my cash is gone.”

His remaining net worth of about $4 million makes him vastly wealthier than most Americans, of course. But he has nonetheless found himself needing cash and desperately trying to reduce his monthly expenses.

He has sold a 10-passenger Cessna jet and now flies coach. This week his oceanfront estate in Hawaii sold for $1.5 million, with only a handful of bidders at the auction. He plans to spend much of his time in Belize, in part because of more favorable taxes there.

Next week, his New Mexico property will be the subject of a no-floor auction, meaning that Mr. McAfee has promised to accept the top bid, no matter how low it is.

“I am trying to face up to the reality here that the auction may bring next to nothing,” he said.

lol i don't see how not wanting to micromanage the rather innocuous goings-on my neighborhood's public spaces makes me a "closet libertarian"

Mr. McAfee, whose tattoos and tinted hair suggest an independent streak

no, i got that you're being a dick

― congratulations (n/a)

http://tsfiles.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/pot-kettle-black.jpg

max these people are officious cunts! your local ice cream van's incessant theme tune has clearly driven you round the bend!

fyi to all i would probably sign a petition banning the fucking ice cream jingle and all ice cream trucks if possible--if u want ice cream u can go to the fucking ice cream store--feel free to killfile me

Fuck that shit, I want all my food and drink brought to me in a questionable van with an irritating music-box jingle.

One day, he realized, as he said, “Whoa, my cash is gone.”

^^^ i no that feeling :/

when that happens i just steal the popsicle from the ice cream man, fuck him

I dunno: if a big problem in your life is "insufficient shade trees," you have a pretty nice life, but I still like that people will get together and try and put in some trees, you know? I guess I'd feel different if these people were trying to control other people's natural behavior, but what they're trying to control is something the city regulates either way.

BTW I never got a call on whether I'm an officious cunt for wanting to do something about the food cart that blocks the sidewalk. I could just walk the dog around into the street, but that's a pain and marginally dangerous, and I don't want the dog thinking walking in the street is okay! If the Times asked me what I thought about it, I'd probably say that food cart annoys the hell out of me: am I an awful person?

I also once thought about reporting a restaurant for putting tables outside without a permit, because they were taking up the whole sidewalk! Also the parking garage that leaves cars sitting on the sidewalk! My life is pretty nice, and the only reason I care is cause it's irritating walking a dog when people are blocking everything. Does this make me the worst person in the universe?

no, what makes you the worst person in the universe is that you dont suffer enough to have larger things to care about

I love the way that all these stories have to feature a half-arsed disclaimer like this - "The relative struggles of the rich may elicit little sympathy from less well-off families who are dealing with the effects of the worst recession in a generation" - before returning to crying about the guy who had to sell his Cessna.

I think if everything annoys you and you are unrealistically ranty and never apologize, that makes you a hater, hopefully one that can age into "curmudgeon". If you go around asking everyone if they think your being annoyed is okay with them, that might make you neurotic.

i do think theres something narcissistic in the attitude that the whole world and everything in it shld be ordered to your satisfaction and that u should never suffer irritation. the city has been doing roadwork on the street outside my apt all week and i keep getting woken up by it which suxx cuz i have a really, really hard time falling asleep in the 1st place but i have no expectation that the city wld structure road work so as to minimize its effect on me. i no thats not a perfect analogy and drivable roads are a lot more impt to more ppl than soft serve and popsicles but u get me

i mean im pretty squirmy abt making moral judgments and i no there are times when u need to take this line to avoid being taken advantages and noble resignation has it owns drawbacks as a lyfe philosophy so idk w/e

fuck dogs, gimme a sidewalk cafe

tbh nabisco your dog annoys me and i hate tripping over its leash when i'm trying to get a gyro.

why can't you just take your dog to the park where there is room for dogs and designated dog spaces? are you afraid he will beg you for ice cream and youll have to give in then he'll get fat and never be prom king?

how do I get the dog to the park without walking up the street?

Carry the dog LOL?

Then again it's not like the people screaming against ice cream haven't used the words 'inappropriate' and 'reasonable' in thrilling combinations designed to create compliance for quite some time, and if it works...

put it down, get a cat

how can the gyro vendor sell his gyros if he is not on the sidewalk i ask you nabisco.

i don't get this lunch cart thing. it sounds like he has literally walled off the entire sidewalk!

maybe an ascii diagram would help.

at 2am i can't walk past a taco truck w/o hipsters begging me for some greasy treats

choke up onna leash dude. no one wants po but a screwdriver in a dog's eye for trying to bite of a guy's lunch.
and
how come bitches always wanna walk so slow, side-by-side on the subway steps?

I mean, look, I know we all have different levels of where we think people are unreasonable about trying to control their environments. But part of what I think is cool about civic life is that there's a realm where, if you care a bunch, you can actually go make your preferences known. Like you can go to community board meetings and complain about sidewalk seating permits, or the number of liquor licenses on your block. Half of the people who bother doing that are just batshit and weird and entitled, it's true! But on the other hand the whole point of it is so normal people can go and say, you know, I live here, and just for the record, I'd kinda prefer it this way. That's kind of a cool system.

xpost - he doesn't have gyros. The problem is that he sets up at the narrowest part of the sidewalk, right next to the line/smoking area for a nearby venue. (And he sets up there on nights when the venue's full.) So the sidewalk is totally impassable. Between the two things, traffic is actually walled off. Which makes one think: hey, this is dumb and a nuisance, and he needs to move down past the venue.

never mind your dog, what about parents having to navigate their strollers down those blocked sidewalks?

glad to see someone's thinking of the children

name names; we need google maps ref

\<-width of sidewalk->| 
\                     |
\  CART  v VENUE ROPE |
\ .----. |            |
\ |    | | people in  |
\ |    | | line or    |
\ .----. | smoking    \
\        |             DOOR
\        .-----------------
\                     |
\<-width of sidewalk->| 

is the cart there primarily to sell to people at the venue?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lnkm9ReVyo

haha Sarah, is there any answer that question that doesn't make the cart's placement really, really dumb, traffic-wise? it's partly aimed at the venue but it's also a busy street at night in general. I have like zero doubt that someone who's not me will make it move (probably the venue), because look at the diagram, that's just idiotic, nobody can walk by.

definitely, if it's selling to people other than those at the venue, then moving a bit wouldn't really hurt business much, is why I'm asking.

nabisco that diagram exceeds all of my expectations!

though it's hard to work out what the first steps towards the kind of citizen engagement you're limning would be, were you to spearhead the drive to rationalize the current sidewalk situation, but yeah that's some bullshit

I love the way that all these stories have to feature a half-arsed disclaimer like this - "The relative struggles of the rich may elicit little sympathy from less well-off families who are dealing with the effects of the worst recession in a generation" - before returning to crying about the guy who had to sell his Cessna.

― Dorian (Dorianlynskey), Friday, August 21, 2009 5:31 PM (35 minutes ago) Bookmark

I would love it if they'd quite literally make this a disclaimer before every such article: "The following details the relative struggles of the rich, which may elicit little sympathy from less well-off families..."

Or if such pieces were folded into a regular feature called Boo Fucking Hoo. They could have a logo - the world's smallest violin, playing just for them.

I don't know, I think it's a little unfair to target that McAfee article -- the phenomenon of boom entrepreneurs suddenly losing huge chunks of their net worth is interesting in its own right and need not be seen as a plea for sympathy. I mean that's the guy that invented that anti-virus software I have on my PC. I don't feel bad for him at all, but it's striking to see an era of lavish wealth ending and he makes a good symbol of that.

Sure, if it was an isolated example but there's a steady stream of this stuff. It's like all the Madoff coverage in Vanity Fair - an excuse to say fuck the average victims of the recession, what about the super-rich?

One where-did-all-my-money go story that I do love is NY magazine's Annie Liebowitz feature, largely because it accepts that she's been stupid with her money. I think you can point out folly and still elicit sympathy, but these NY Times pieces don't display that kind of rigour and nuance.

tbh I think a more accurate disclaimer/intro would also include "GET YOUR PIPING HOT SCHADENFREUDE HERE," cuz they've gotta know people like us follow these things just to gawk and sneer!

(also yeah Tracer it should be clear that I would feel like an idiot calling 311 about a food cart. pretty sure the venue will handle it so as not to be accused of being a nuisance.)

is the other side of the street blocked off? do you live on the block? can you get to a crosswalk with a puppy and cross the street to avoid the crowded sidewalk? i mean i have to walk in the road leaving work almost all friday/saturday nights due to the crowd outside of Sea (of all places.) but i'm not about to write them an angry letter asking them to better control their patrons.

what happened? i am confused.

how do get foxes and chickens on boat?

xpost Do they realise that though? I like the idea of the writer typing that Cessna line and thinking, "heh heh, the schadenfreude crew are going to love this shit! Maybe I'll throw on a line about his tattoos and tinted hair," but I'm not sure these writers are that self-aware.

BTW, I'm trying to draw some flak away from Gyrogate here but it's clearly not working.

first you take the chicken iirc, then come back & take the wolf, but when you get to the far bank you drop off the wolf and take the chicken back, and when you get to the first bank u exchange the chicken for the grain & take the grain to the other side and leave it with the wolf, then u go retrieve the chicken? xp

yeah sorry, I was going to respond to Ian's question but there is no point in belaboring the very minor cart example