rich and well to do suburbanites think their 'solitude' is so much more important than addressing pressing needs for improved civic infrastructure. sudbury, ma residents are fighting the conversion of an old railroad into a bike trail. the bullshit-laden tantrums from grown adults is just hysterical:
Looking out at a lushly wooded area beyond a stone wall on her 100-acre estate, Carole Wolfe's face darkened. There, in the distance, she said, nervously pointing a finger, stretches a former rail corridor that, if some have their way, could bring trouble upon this town where her family's roots date to Colonial times.yes, my pretty. the worst thing in the world is the prospect of having lesser beings who can't afford a 100 acre estate in one of the most expensive states in the union saving money by using a bike trail near your home. your wealth and privilege totally entitle you to be free of people who aren't wealthy like you and your neighbors. the only members of lesser classes who should be permitted to enter your sanctified world are those worthy peons you hire to clean your palaces and care for all the non-native flora in your waterhog landscaped perfect lawns.
"Instead of solitude," Wolfe said, "you'd be having people."
Opponents of the "rail trail" say the path would draw hundreds of thousands of bicyclists who would bring with them noise and other disruptions into what is now a pristine landscape. Hordes of bikers, walkers, and rollerbladers would scare away wildlife, they say, and invite crime from trespassing to vandalism and assault.i presume then that the pampered, privileged, 100-acre-estate-owning twats of sudbury oppose the presence of roads near their homes. think of the noise of hundreds of thousands of motorists driving in their noisy cars along those giant four lane highways near those plush energy-hog homes that consume more power than a dozen tenements in the dirty city full of permanently suspect poor people who are dying for the chance to hop in a car and drive out to sudbury to smoke blunts, drink 40s, terrorize deer and tag the garden walls surrounding the estates of sudbury with eyesore graffiti.
so deep is the concern for wildlife and the environment that sudbury residents surely must travel everywhere by foot. who would want to damage the environment with a gas-guzzling luxury vehicle! surely, they don't want to damage the pristine and untouched wilderness dotted with naturally occurring horse stables, 5000 square foot homes, privacy hedges, mowed lawns, pools, private schools, golf courses and country clubs!
"We don't have neighbors nearby," said Marianne Maurer, whose family's tree farm is bisected by the proposed bike trail. "If something happened, no one would hear us yelling."competitive cyclists, and average bike commuters are a scary lot. they wear all those funny-looking neon spandex outfits and enormous bike helmets. this attire is beloved by burglars everywhere for their unique value as camouflage while they surreptitiously break into expensive homes before making a quick and sure getaway by bike.
Some opponents have gone so far as to make unusual threats. If the trail is built, some said, they will sell their land to developers who want to build dense clusters of affordable units.the residents of sudbury astonish me with their enduring capacity for mature and adult behavior. when you want to impress others with your capacity for respectable and dignified behavior when you face the awful prospect of not getting your way, fall to the ground, kick and scream at the top of your lungs until the shade of your face approaches the hue of a well-ripened tomato. show your concern for preserving wilderness and open space by selling to all those developers who are dying to build dense, clustered homes for people who don't have as much money as you do! especially during this horrific credit cisis and tanking housing market.
"This is not some little footpath," said Nigrelli, a statistician who works in the healthcare industry. "This is a large, state-undertaken project."my god! 10 to 12 feet. that's like.... almost half of a two lane road for motorized transport, none of which exist anywhere in sudbury!
He pointed out that the trail would probably be paved and measure at least 10 to 12 feet in width.
As far as Maurer is concerned, a better solution is for bikers to get their exercise indoors.this open space and wilderness is mine godammit! mine! all mine!!! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!
"My whole theory is: Go to the gym that you got the membership for and that you know you are not using," she said.
7 comments:
I just read this on boston.com. I knew that there are pretty stupid people out there, and they are pretty close to me, sometimes. This Marianne Maurer person of Sudbury is a class of her own, though. It is about time that these people are being told in plain words. There is simply no point in even having an argument. You can only take the BS to a certain limit. The person at the Globe responsibly for quoting Marianne and giving her the media coverate that she is getting right now should be fired on Monday.
Dick Williamson, an MIT physicist and leading supporter of the bike trail in Sudbury, believes that opponents have bandied about environmental concerns as fronts for their real worries of losing privacy.
"Only a small percent are concerned about the environmental impact," he asserted.
Well, no shit.
Anyway, fuck these clowns. It's not like they're building a 4-lane highway. It's a friggin' BIKE PATH. And the last time I checked, bikes don't emit exhaust.
i don't think it's even about a loss of privacy. i think it is about fear of people from a lower socioeconomic class biking through the area.
the thing that is really funny is that people are really into cycling tend to be... um... people with some money to blow. those racing bikes and the all the associated gear are not cheap.
i don't think the person from the globe who quoted the asshats in the article should be fired. the quotes that were printed made them seem so ridiculous that i had to take a moment to decide whether the article was a satire or not. the article made them look... well.. dumb.
I respectfully disagree. If there is one thing we should not forget after 8 years of G.W. Bush, it is that stupidity is dangerous if not reigned in early. I was not amused when I read the Globe article. I was very much in pain, and the pattern is just too familiar. I think the line of reason was clearly crossed here, and that's not funny. By giving these people this amount of attention, their case is automatically getting a certain degree of justification that is dangerous. By reading these quotes we acknowledge that they are worthy of being printed in the Boston Globe, and I simply don't think they are. Don't be amused by stupidity - this can lead to awful results.
Of course I understand the motives of the opposition against the trail, but thats' not the point.
Uh oh. Wealthy people are going to have to see upper middle class people on bikes. The horror.
I respectfully disagree. If there is one thing we should not forget after 8 years of G.W. Bush, it is that stupidity is dangerous if not reigned in early.
no argument from me there. i just don't think censorship of stupidity will eliminate the dangers of stupidity.
By giving these people this amount of attention, their case is automatically getting a certain degree of justification that is dangerous. By reading these quotes we acknowledge that they are worthy of being printed in the Boston Globe, and I simply don't think they are.
well, it's important to cover the issue. if Wolfe and Maurer are representative of the typical sudbury opponent of the trail, then the reporter can't very well cover the story without covering them. i think it's better to represent the typical reasons the people of sudbury give for opposing the path in their own words.
i read the comments associated with the article and the reaction was universally negative. the publicity they've gotten is not good PR. i think that's helpful to the cause of the supporters of the path.
Don't be amused by stupidity - this can lead to awful results.
why not? mockery of stupidity is great weapon against it. being a laughingstock generally isn't desirable.
Actually we are not whining, most of us actually care about nature and keeping it as undisturbed as possible. Cutting down thousands of trees, up rooting the natural vegetaion that has over grown the old rail trail does have an impact. Do you know that 7 days a week i see deer on our property right noext or on the old trail? I bet you I won't enjoy that any more once it's paved and the vegetation is gone. I also want to clarify that my comments were WAY out of context and some said jokingly with laughter like the "get a membership." I was appalled at how what I said and care about was not even in the artical. We bought our land when a train went by, when the land was purchased there was no such thing as old rail ways being turned into bike paths. We bought the land for privacy and we want it to stay that way.
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