Kunstler...

[mmcirvin]

By the way, while Kunstler's Eyesore of the Month is an entertaining enough collection of abominations, it does seem to me that the captions reveal an anger that is swelling beyond all bounds to eat the man's mind whole. The earlier captions are sort of ruefully funny, and with time they get darker and crankier. By now everything he sees around him is indicative of the deep, murderous, and imminently suicidal stupidity and psychosis of everyone in the United States of America, from overbuilt wheelchair ramps to grown men wearing shorts. One gets the feeling that he fully expects to have a good, dark laugh when we lose the power of language and are reduced to cannibalism sometime next year.

Maybe I'm just so steeped in the fundamental sickness and evil of my existence that I can't fully see it for what it is. Presumably it's necessary to keep me from going mad on the spot from the horror of my own corruption.

Comments

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

When i think of "steeping evil", i think of you.

[lots42.livejournal.com]

Just checked out his latest caption. He complains that the playground won't let all the neighbors hear the kids squealing while playing.

Eh.

I'd be more worried that the playground is set up close to the woods and hard to see from any of the buildings...

[lots42.livejournal.com]

When I think of you, Chtullu appears.

[vspope.livejournal.com]

This month's entry is in Coatesville, the crotch of Chester County. Reason enough to point and laugh at it.

(The city of Coatesville is engaged in a long legal battle against the owners of a farm just outside its borders. They're attempting to seize land via eminent domain that's not even IN Coatesville... to build a golf course. To say that both the farm owners and most of the local citizenry are outraged would be a gross understatement.)

[manfire.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was frustrated by Kunstler's little attitude problem too. I'm one of those people who basically agree with the core urbanophilic values that he has, but I know that he's part of the reason that new urbanists are just going to keep winning enemies. There are plenty of tolerant urbanophiles like me, but the people who get attention are the ones like Kunstler who seem more interested in casting out heretics and condemning people with bitter sarcasm than in winning converts to the cause. Which may mean it's a lost cause.

This is a disease that's all over politics these days, of course. There's always been this dark side to politics, but lately I think it's as bad as it's been since the 19th century days of wild, unrestrained calumny.

[jwgh]

After reading some of the back entries on the site, I found myself wondering just how many monuments to the fact that our country is soon to be not worth defending there are around here. It's an odd bit of symbolism.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I'm of several minds about this sort of lament, though. On the one hand, it's absolutely true, and unfortunate. On the other hand (and you must understand I'm not talking about you here) in the center-right position there are all too many David Brooks types who start selectively preaching "civility" the moment anyone makes a forceful criticism of the sitting administration. And on the third hand, outrageous blanket condemnation seems to have become prevalent because in many situations (e.g. advocacy fundraising, get-out-the-vote efforts) it's a winning strategy, so you can hardly blame people for jumping in.

Why now? This may sound strange, but I think it has a lot to do with the decline of Big Three network broadcast TV. When there were just a few very limited channels to get news and public-affairs discussion out to the public, it was necessary for these outlets to cater to a broad constituency, and there were even things like the FCC equal-time provision moderating what they could do. Now information, whether on the Internet or on TV, is tailored more to niche markets; you can get as much information as you like and never leave an echo chamber of people who largely agree with you; and there's a fiercely competitive aspect-- it's more like the days when every city had several competing newspapers. This is an environment that encourages outrageous rhetoric.

(Note that I didn't say anything about Big Media consolidation in there. I think it's secondary. Yeah, Rupert Murdoch essentially runs an RNC propaganda outlet, but he can do this because of the rise of media niche marketing, and it isn't as if you can't go somewhere on the Web for your screaming lefty fix. Network TV was pretty consolidated when there were only three networks to consolidate.)