This doesn’t annoy me nearly as much as the showy no toilet paper yuppies and certainly not as much as the backwards thinking involved with these products. In fact I must admit that for the most part I agree with these hippies.
Of course not without exception: dumpster diving and trash picking is something poor people have been doing, well, probably since there has been rich people to throw out perfectly good stuff. Buying things at garage sales and taking them off the street is just ingrained as good sense in people without money. Truly, the lower your income, the more resourceful you have to be.
New York City is probably one of the worst places in America to be poor, yet one of the best places to find almost anything for free. And while I don’t begrudge these white people from middle and upper class backgrounds taking things from the trash (it’s public domain after all, it should be equal opportunity), I do take offense that they have co-opted it as their idea.
Only when people who retired early from investment banking start realizing that there’s a lot of waste and a lot of nice stuff in there does it become a news item (they probably came to this realization by remembering how much nice stuff they once chucked themselves). Producing less waste, consuming less, reusing more, all of these are necessary and their ideas and actions are in the right place, it’s the self-important “revolutionary” approach that is annoying.
Poor people might not pick trash to save the environment, but their impact (or lack of impact) on the environment is probably considerably more over their lifetimes since they buy less in the first place, have smaller homes, cars, etc. The New York Times however, isn’t likely to print an article about poor people picking trash, as it wouldn’t be as self-congratulatory to it’s perceived readership.
Side Note: A vegan eating meat so it doesn’t go to waste rubs me the wrong way; it seems like morals that are a bit too flexible. (Couldn’t they just give the meat to a meat-eating homeless person?)
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Monday, June 18, 2007
The New Coney Island
Gothamist posted the plans for Coney Island, and there’s no other word to describe it than creepy. Adding hotels doesn't make it more attractive or appease people who wanted to save the character of Coney Island, it just adds to the sterile Disneyfiycation of the place.
Coney Island is Coney Island because it feels a little trapped in time with the sideshows and old rides and boardwalk. The idea of it as a vacation spot is absurd, tourists come to New York for New Yorky things, if they want amusement parks with overpriced hotels, Six Flags, Cedar Point and Disneyworld are going to win out.
As for the condos, they of course ruin Coney Island more than anything. And who’s going to live there for that kind of money? Trust fund hipsters? Maybe, it might be ironic, or post-ironic, or something. And that would be the biggest crime, turning Coney Island into Williamsburg…
Related: The plans claim the Wonder Wheel will stay even though it is technically in Astroland, yet it doesn’t appear to be included in the drawing. Other rides are for sale though, at surprisingly low prices.
Update: Oh and it turns out that on top of it all the developer is a massive racist: "The hotels, Mr. Sitt said, would offer black residents not only jobs, but careers. The Russian immigrants, who enjoy a 'quality of life and activity by the water,' would flock to the hotels and nightclubs. Jewish and Italian-American residents would get the "quality retail, bookstores and entertainment venues" that they want."
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
New York's Sexiest Vegetarian
Let me just preface this with saying I think this whole thing is a bit silly.
First of all how does the fact that you don't eat meat make you more sexy? But most importantly why are only celebrities allowed to compete? What they don't get enough attention?
That said, I think I should totally win "New York's Sexiest Vegetarian" for the following reasons:
1) I am a lot less annoying than most other vegetarians and celebrities
2) I live in New York
3) I have been a vegetarian for 14 years and have never had a piece of KFC on the sly
4) As evidenced by the photo above I am totally sexy
Also, so much for being the capital of the world, turns out New York is only the number four best city to live in as a vegetarian in 'merica (damn you West Coast hippies!)
UPDATE: So PETA has named the Sexiest Vegetarian for 2007: Carrie Underwood (I don't know I think she won 'merican idol or something), all I can say is: LAME!
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