Quote Of The Day, With Commentary and Rant
"Chains make a large range of choices available in more places. They increase local variety, even as they reduce the differences from place to place. People who mostly stay put get to have experiences once available only to frequent travelers, and this loss of exclusivity is one reason why frequent travelers are the ones who complain. " - Virginia Postrel from an Atlantic artcle.
Me: She is exactly right. I am one of those travelers and I absolutely resent the fact that there is an increase in local variety and a reduction in differences from place to place. But not for the reason she proposes. It is not that travel is exclusive. It is the fact that travel is completely inclusive that makes the modern situation so horrible.
Travel has become so easy and so cheap that only the poorest of Americans don't have the option to travel. I did not have money to travel beacuse I was rich. I had money to travel because I was willing to sacrifice a few minor things so that I could afford to travel. I did without a car, even back when I used to like driving, because I would rather spend $500 on a plane ticket than on a month's car payment and insurance. I did without cable TV for most of my adult life because $50 was a hotel room instead of a month of shopping netorks and gardening shows. I could go on but I guess you see the point.
I made an effort. I tried. I got off my ass, put aside my fears, and went out into the world. I did not come from an adventurous family. I stumbled around cities where I didn't speak a word of the local language. I got lost. I ran out of money and ate bread and cheese in my hotel room.
My reward? I got to see, do , experience, eat and enjoy things that I couldn't at home.
Damn right I'm bitter that the lazy complacent fools I left behind now want all of it brought to them. You want to shop at Macy's? Go to New York. You want to eat real Italian food? Sell your SUV and you can go to Italy for a month.
People who "mostly stay put" have made their choice in life. If you mostly stay put, you don't get variety. But why am I surprised at this attitude ? The biggest complainers here in Louisville are the people that chose to buy a 3,000 sq. ft. tract home in a suburb located 30 miles out of town. Every day in the paper we are forced to hear their litany of complaints: the traffic on their commute is awful, gas prices are high, it costs too much to heat 3,000 sq. ft, the city isn't doing enough to make their life more comfortable, the schools are too far from their McMansion.
Well, suck it up. There is a simple answer. Sell your McMansion, sell two of your four cars, and move into a smaller home centrally located that is near your work and where your kids can walk to school. Thousands upon thousands of people in Louisville do just that. Oh, and Mr. Suburbanite: Don't expect a real Parisian bakery or a New York deli to come to your neighborhood. You don't deserve them.
OK. This has been an all-inclusive rant.
Feel free to comment as you see fit.
Me: She is exactly right. I am one of those travelers and I absolutely resent the fact that there is an increase in local variety and a reduction in differences from place to place. But not for the reason she proposes. It is not that travel is exclusive. It is the fact that travel is completely inclusive that makes the modern situation so horrible.
Travel has become so easy and so cheap that only the poorest of Americans don't have the option to travel. I did not have money to travel beacuse I was rich. I had money to travel because I was willing to sacrifice a few minor things so that I could afford to travel. I did without a car, even back when I used to like driving, because I would rather spend $500 on a plane ticket than on a month's car payment and insurance. I did without cable TV for most of my adult life because $50 was a hotel room instead of a month of shopping netorks and gardening shows. I could go on but I guess you see the point.
I made an effort. I tried. I got off my ass, put aside my fears, and went out into the world. I did not come from an adventurous family. I stumbled around cities where I didn't speak a word of the local language. I got lost. I ran out of money and ate bread and cheese in my hotel room.
My reward? I got to see, do , experience, eat and enjoy things that I couldn't at home.
Damn right I'm bitter that the lazy complacent fools I left behind now want all of it brought to them. You want to shop at Macy's? Go to New York. You want to eat real Italian food? Sell your SUV and you can go to Italy for a month.
People who "mostly stay put" have made their choice in life. If you mostly stay put, you don't get variety. But why am I surprised at this attitude ? The biggest complainers here in Louisville are the people that chose to buy a 3,000 sq. ft. tract home in a suburb located 30 miles out of town. Every day in the paper we are forced to hear their litany of complaints: the traffic on their commute is awful, gas prices are high, it costs too much to heat 3,000 sq. ft, the city isn't doing enough to make their life more comfortable, the schools are too far from their McMansion.
Well, suck it up. There is a simple answer. Sell your McMansion, sell two of your four cars, and move into a smaller home centrally located that is near your work and where your kids can walk to school. Thousands upon thousands of people in Louisville do just that. Oh, and Mr. Suburbanite: Don't expect a real Parisian bakery or a New York deli to come to your neighborhood. You don't deserve them.
OK. This has been an all-inclusive rant.
Feel free to comment as you see fit.
posted by Greg at 10:20 AM
1 Comments:
I grew up in the sticks. The fact that they have an applebee's with some sort of spanish named foods doen not make them "mexican." Also, there is a wal-mart with chinese made products. These are american products made in china, not actual chinese products.
I chose to live in an international city, with international airports (2 of them!) There are a lot of immigrants who bring their homeland foods and festivals with them.
I dont drive and take the train. Yet, it is crowded but cheap. And after taking the bus down a major major avenue and seeing every day countless large cars filled with only one person I refuse to listed to complaints about traffic or overcrowding. Fuck them. My only advice is to die in a fire.
While I love people who are resopnsible enough to raise children, if parents (the irresponsible ones) do not carpool or recycle, I refuse to help raise their kids.
If gas prices are too high, but a scooter. 100 iles to the gallon. I carry, by hand, groceries and between 2-6 bottles of wine home every day on the train. I dont need a van or pick-up truck. I only need 2$ for a ticket.
/end rant
(do any other blog posters ever thing the "word verification" is trying to get vulgar with them?)
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