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NYC BRACES FOR BUGGIES
Forget Scientology. Environmentalists are the new Amish.
There was shredded cabbage with fruit-scrap vinegar; mashed parsnips and yellow carrots with local butter and fresh thyme; a terrific frittata; then homemade yogurt with honey and thyme tea, eaten under the greenish flickering light cast by two beeswax candles and a fluorescent bulb.
Then they farted so loud they shattered windows all the way to East 67th Street.
Living abstemiously on Lower Fifth Avenue, in what used to be Edith Wharton country, with early-21st-century accouterments like creamy, calf-high Chloe boots, may seem at best like a scene from an old-fashioned situation comedy and, at worst, an ethically murky exercise in self-promotion.
Ouch - that’s pretty harsh coming from a NYSlimes writer.
Posted by Blue State Sil on 2007 03 22 at 12:25 PM • permalink”.... using no carbon-fueled transportation.”
So they are going to sit motionless for a year? As soon as they take a step, they are using carbon-fueled transportation.
I guess the subway is okay- somehow they can certify that the electrons pushing it along came from a hydro or nuke plant. There must be a sign in the power grid: “Green electrons this way”.
the family is still doing laundry in the washing machines in the basement of the building
I’ll bet the foul Gaia-rapers are using the dryers too. To be truly low-impact, Mr. NoPaperGuy should break out the washboard and laundry tub and start scrubbing. Come to think of it, he should also go dig a pit toilet in whatever dinky plot of land his building has as a yard, build an outhouse out of discarded pallets over it, and stock it with corncobs and leaves instead of paper. Then I might be a wee bit more impressed.
Posted by Blue State Sil on 2007 03 22 at 12:56 PM • permalinkI’m sure her co-workers appreciate the no-toilet paper bit.
Blech.
Posted by Mr. Bingley on 2007 03 22 at 01:06 PM • permalink#9 My thoughts, exactly. The kid must be real popular in school, too…
There are so many amusing lines, but I latched onto this one: “It took Ms. Conlin over an hour to get home from work during the snowstorm on Friday, riding her scooter.”
It probably has a Stop Global Warming bumper sticker.
Posted by Bruce Rheinstein on 2007 03 22 at 01:13 PM • permalinkIf these characters want to live “organic”, hey, go right ahead. But I’ll be impressed only if they are still living like this in 5 years.
But only 1 year? Just to write a book? Color me unimpressed. This article sounds more like advertising arranged by his publisher. I’ll betcha they’ll revert to their old selves soon after the book is published.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 03 22 at 01:25 PM • permalinkAre they really like the Amish? As in you can slap them around and they won’t fight back?
(Steeples fingers)
Eeeexcellent…
Posted by Don Charleone on 2007 03 22 at 01:40 PM • permalinkThe wife doesn’t seem to be really thrilled with this. How long do we give her before she snaps, slaughters him in his bed, and is found shortly afterwards in the paper goods aisle of some Wal-Mart, squeezing the Charmin with a death grip and snarling at all comers?
Posted by Blue State Sil on 2007 03 22 at 01:43 PM • permalinkAnd as an after thought.....there’s a reason why western civilization goes to lengths to build and maintain sewage disposal systems.
Time was, not all that long ago, typhoid and cholera epidemics were common in the United States. These were eliminated in part by vaccinations, and in part by purifying water supplies, but mostly by treating sewage to eliminate the organic compounds and removing unwanted solids that created the conditions for such bacteria to exist in large numbers.
I bring this up because no where in that article does it mention the happy couple hauling their drinking and washing water from the nearest open source. Clearly, they are still using tap water, provided by the same technology that they are trying to ignore. Or get around. And are failing miserably in.
You can’t stack millions of people, who produce an incredible amount of raw sewage daily, into a city without this technology. We’d be back into the age of epidemics, modern medicine or not.
Even their composted sewage has to be hauled off somewhere, to a garden or disposal facility, as composting does not “disintegrate” the material, it only renders the organic portions relatively harmless.
Luddites, neo-Luddites, or simpply idiot greenies, they just don’t understand what modern technology does to improve our living conditions. They just want to worship the new environmental gods, regardless of how pathetic their rituals.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 03 22 at 01:43 PM • permalinkToilet paper foibles aside, my favorite little bit of info was this:
And they have not had the heart to take away the vacuum from their cleaning lady, who comes weekly (this week they took away her paper towels).
They have a cleaning lady.
I wonder if they purchased the required Employee Offsets for her?
Posted by Mr. Bingley on 2007 03 22 at 01:53 PM • permalinkHmmmm.
1. Never knew the Amish to have such large apartments in such an expensive area of Manhattan.
2. The downside of using a horse and buggy is if your nemesis, my cousin as an example, feeds the damn horse a huge bucket of cabbage then you are really just plainly guaranteed to experience how it feels to have the “wind” whipping through your hair.
And you know *exactly* what I mean by “wind”.
Posted by memomachine on 2007 03 22 at 01:54 PM • permalinkThanks for the lead-in Tim, time for one of the two Amish jokes that I know.
Q: What do you call a guy with his arm up a horses’s rectum?
A: Amish mechanic
Thank you, try the veal.
Posted by joe bagadonuts on 2007 03 22 at 02:07 PM • permalinkRetread, I ain’t going there.
In several manners of speaking…
Posted by Mr. Bingley on 2007 03 22 at 02:07 PM • permalinkHere’s his blog: http://noimpactman.typepad.com/blog/
Posted by Blue State Sil on 2007 03 22 at 02:12 PM • permalink#21
Q: What goes “clip clop clip clop clip clop BANGBANGBANG clip clop clip clop clip clop?”
A: An Amish drive-by.
Posted by Blue State Sil on 2007 03 22 at 02:15 PM • permalinkAn Amish boy and his father were visiting a mall. They were amazed by almost everything they saw, but especially by two shiny, silver walls that could move apart and back together again.
The boy asked his father, “What is this father?” The father (never having seen an elevator) responded, “Son, I have never seen anything like this in my life, I don’t know what it is.”
While the boy and his father were watching wide-eyed, an old lady limping slightly with a cane slowly walks up to the moving walls and pressed a button. The walls opened and the lady walks between them and into a small room. The walls closed and the boy and his father watched, small circles of light with numbers above the wall light up.
They continued to watch the circles light up in the reverse direction.
The walls opened up again and a beautiful 24-year-old woman stepped out.
The father said to his son, “Go get your Mother.”Posted by Mr. Bingley on 2007 03 22 at 02:20 PM • permalinkMs. Conlin, who bought this apartment in 1999 when she was still single, used the stove so infrequently (as in, never, she said) that Con Edison called to find out if it was broken.
Well, naturally. DP&L periodically checks in with me to see why I’m not cooking. Damn power company stove detectors, anyway.
My first thought, upon reading this article, was that Apartment 9F probably stinks to high heaven. It’s a wonder the neighbors haven’t called the police to check for bodies.
I certainly hope he’s remembering to turn his compost pile with a pitchfork every so often. Otherwise, it just won’t work out very well.
He says on his blog that he’s going to plant snap peas in the garden plot a friend of his maintains. Maybe he’ll be using his personalized compost to fertilize them. If he will be, he needs this book. Me, I’ll stick with the cow and horse variety, thanks.
Posted by Blue State Sil on 2007 03 22 at 02:34 PM • permalinkAll the buggy talk reminds me of a “cartoon” from the late 1980s(?) where the character—typical loony lefty NY’er wanted NY to be all nice again, she even wanted to ban cars and bring back horses & carriages. It seemed to have escaped the “artist’s” (badly drawn cartoon) viewpoint that horses emit their own kind of pollution—NY at the turn of the last century did not smell nice, plus when a horse died, it usually was left at the spot.
People who romanticize the past seem to forget why our forebearers wanted to improve upon their lives.
"Mr. Beavan and Isabella have been hewing closely, most particularly in a dietary way, to a 19th-century life”
This is the lefts desired solution for AGW. We all end up living a 19th Century lifestyle. As I’ve said before they think we’d all be better off if the 20th century had never happened.
Self absorbed pretentious morons.Posted by alien kiwi on 2007 03 22 at 03:13 PM • permalinkSo you have one last big spend up before submitting yourself to the deprivations of 19th century life. What do you buy?
A ridiculously expensive pair of boots.
I hope they hurt when she wears them.
Posted by alien kiwi on 2007 03 22 at 03:20 PM • permalinkIagine the look on his wifes face when the publisher rejects his book.
Posted by alien kiwi on 2007 03 22 at 03:25 PM • permalinkI think we’ll keep the real Amish here, and let these upstarts have NYC.
Posted by rightwingprof on 2007 03 22 at 04:00 PM • permalinkHmmmm.
Who on earth is crazy enough to have a composter in a Manhattan apartment?
They are.
Posted by memomachine on 2007 03 22 at 04:03 PM • permalinkI noticed the Amish similarity recently, as well. If they’re going to revert to horses then they should remember the problem New York had with them a century ago when you couldn’t walk in the streets without stepping in poo.
Posted by Jack Lacton on 2007 03 22 at 04:20 PM • permalinkI’ve a fair amount of mountain hiking, where the trails are shared by human and horses alike. Not only have I stepped around or in more than my share of road apples, and brushed away countless horse flies, I’ve seen dead horses as well.
Methinks that most New Yorkers would tell Mother Gaia™ to go and root herself, rather than put up with those conditions on Fifth Avenue.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 03 22 at 04:40 PM • permalinkHmm. Obviously, the wife’s colleagues know that she and Hubby are engaged in this bizarre performance piece. What I want to know is whether or not she had told them that her household is TP-free. If she hadn’t, imagine how they must have reacted when they read that little tidbit in the paper. Bye-bye, professional reputation! Bye-bye, office lunchmates! Bye-bye, any last remaining shred of self-respect!
Posted by Blue State Sil on 2007 03 22 at 04:40 PM • permalinkThe pretension on display here is breathtaking.
DING DING DING!!!!
We have a winner!!!
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 03 22 at 04:41 PM • permalinkOh, and how long will it be before the other tenants of that building start baying for blood? Were I a neighbor, I’d be absolutely furious that these clowns were actually “composting” human feces a couple of doors down.
There is a bright side to this, of course - once they are kicked to the curb, they can always go see that equally pretentious realtor bitch who sold her penthouse because she was afraid of flooding.
Posted by Blue State Sil on 2007 03 22 at 04:44 PM • permalinkI bet the wife holds it till she gets to the office. She’s probably working a lot of weekends too.
Posted by alien kiwi on 2007 03 22 at 04:58 PM • permalinkGod, they must smell.
But this is my personal favorite:
the neo-Modern furniture — the Eames chairs, the brown velvet couch, the Lucite lamps and the steel cafe table upon which dinner was set
Yep, it’s okay to have plastic and steel stuff in your home as long as it’s neo-Modern.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 03 22 at 06:26 PM • permalink#4--Wait, let me see if I have this straight. NoPaperGuy is a WRITER? Like, books and stuff? with, um, pages and all?
Yes, and his wife writes for a**gasp**magazine.
I stopped reading when I got to the toilet paper part because I don’t want to know what they do instead.
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2007 03 22 at 06:36 PM • permalinkI don’t know, Kyda, but I can damn well assure you that if I happen to encounter them in Manhattan I sure ain’t shaking their hands…
Posted by Mr. Bingley on 2007 03 22 at 06:54 PM • permalinkRE #49, Mr. Bingley, why do you think Muslims can’t eat with their left hands?
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 03 22 at 07:00 PM • permalinkI noticed that the 2 year old was “staggering” around. I thought that kids that age “toddled”.
No toilet paper? Disgusting.
ABC Radio idiot participating in the 40 Hour Drought yesterday announced that he had brushed his teeth with the water from the shower bucket. “Tasted a bit soapy, but I suppose that made them extra clean.”
Yes. Too much information.
Disgusting.Yes, living in Manhattan is often a freak show, and these two exemplify just one of the many sorts--like the side show at a circus.
Twenty-five years ago, before moving here, I observed to a then-resident that there were a lot of strange people in New York. His response was that you had to be a freak to stand out in this crowd, but that a lot of people simply love the limelight, so you end up with freaks.
This family’s experiment is reminiscent of the Biosphere project in the early ‘90s, which was a massive failure, despite the promotional hype and huge investment.
Their effort also represents a modern form of the Luddites--a rejection of the fruits of mankind’s ingenuity and progress. An anti-progress state of being and living.
And for the article to claim that they are attempting to live a 19th century (pre-industrial age) life is an insult to the readers’ intelligence. (Though on second thought, maybe it’s an accurate reflection of NYTimes readers’ intellect--a complete lack of historical knowledge and perspective.)
In addition to the water and sanitary sewer issue that the RealJeffS mentions above, here are a few other observations that deviate widely from the impression of 19th century life as given in the article.
How was their apartment heated during this winter? (NYC apartment buildings are usually heated by steam heat generated by a building boiler fired with fuel oil.)
They take their child to day care, they have a once-a-week cleaning lady in, electricity is used for lighting and the vacuum, while natural gas fires the oven and stove, and use the clothes washing machine in the building basement.
They utilize some aspects of modernity, while rejecting others, at the same time they rely upon the 21st century media publishing world for the incomes that allow them to play this selective game of urban vanity environmentalism.
What’s the point? All they’re doing is eating crappy food, prepared in a primitive manner, and living without paper products.
The homeless population in NYC--rummaging through curbside refuse for recyclable cans, bottles, and second hand goods in order to garner an income, and living on the street--are a daily reminder of what a small carbon footprint looks like. Who wants to live like that?
This couple reflects a vanity project truly in need of, not toilet paper, but a shovel.
#20 Retread, as someone who has long considered the viability of being seriously green (and also having discarded such idiocy ages ago), let me tell you that there is indeed a product out there that is washable and organically produced to cover just the situation you are thinking of.
Guys, don’t follow the link unless you really wish to open the TMI Files.
As far as I’m concerned, I like to throw things away.
Just a slight change of tack, regarding disposable vs washable nappies (that’ll be diapers for you furriners over the Pacific), there have been plenty of studies done that demonstrate in power/fuss/ ecological terms, there is no real difference.
From a practical perspective, bugger the cloth nappies. I did that for 7 months, and had the blood washing machine and dryer running damned near 24/7, ran up a power bill like you wouldn’t believe and had nappy rash that would kill a cow to deal with.
Sod that.
I tried disposables out of desperation, and never went back.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 03 22 at 07:35 PM • permalinkAnd while I’m ranting:
...there are hundreds of other light-footed, young abstainers with a diarist urge: it is not news that this shopping-averse, carbon-footprint-reducing, city-dwelling generation likes to blog....
Dude, 43 may not be old, but it’s fucking light years away from 20 or even 25.
Grow up already!
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 03 22 at 07:37 PM • permalink#56 Nilknarf - I figured you were linking to this option (another TMI warning for the gents).
Mother Gaia is just going to have to suffer, as there’s no way in hell I’d go with either of those choices.
Posted by Blue State Sil on 2007 03 22 at 07:43 PM • permalinkAlmost OT: The article raises the issue of food miles. The EU is seriously considering a food miles tax to “protect the environment”. But just like Kyoto, its real purpose is to cripple countries such as Australia and New Zealand and protect vocal over-subsidised European farmers.
The EU has adopted a simplistic approach which does the maximum damage to efficient food producing countries - the greater the distance to market, the greater the tax. But absolutely no consideration is given to the carbon expended in growing and harvesting. European farmers are exceptionally inefficient and the fuel burnt per kilo of beef or tonne of wheat by the time it passes through the farm gate more that cancels out the advantages of short distances. It is not unlike the fact that Australia can mine coal, ship it to Europe and put it in the bottom of one of their coal mines cheaper and more efficiently than they can get it out again.
But are they using a dry toilet ... pooh!
[tirade]
Hey, the Amish are at least honest. They make no claims other want to be left alone in the 17th century. What we are seeing with people like these is the desire to have all the goodies of industrial society without any impact upon their delicate sensibilities.
What I do not understand about them, is why they think it’s OK to build houses, which destroy the environment. Heck, the Australian aboriginals didn’t build houses, they just lived under the stars - and died at 32. They also rubbed fish guts on their heads to ward off flies and mosquitos. I’m sure they would have prefered DEET. But, they worshipped the earth, or their dreams. Rather like the modern enviro-mentalist.
The
envirosmentalists have some stupid reverence for agricultural subsistance farming. BUT, do they realise:a) that farming is NOT humanity’s natural way of life (see aussie abo hunter-gatherers)
b) farming is the greatest change to the environment that man has made.
c) Subsistance farming is not a good life, starvation is just a month away.
d) Most subsistance farmers in the world want to escape this by moving to cities and getting an industrial job, just like England in the 18th Century.Like, isn’t the spear an effing assault on the environment. Hell, humans should just allow themselves to be eaten by ants, or starve.
What gives humans the right to affect the environment in any bloody way whatsoever. I am beginning to work myself up here .. better watch it or Andrea will call time.
Bloody hell, we are guilty for ever having gotten out of the trees and strode the savannah. Language is the apple.
Hey, do you know what? Enviro-mentalism is a religion which has adopted the guilt trappings of Christianity without taking on-board the hope.
They’ve got this stupid, suburbanite view of reality - the romantic natural world. Although they consider the bible-thumpers (who think the world begin in 6500 BC) as enemies, they are, in fact, co-believers because they, ALSO, believe that nature has never changed.
They do not believe in constant evolution and adaptation and change of life; just like the creationists.
[/tirade]
They do not even have free spirits, they are tied down, like Gulliver, with the shackles of small minded political correctness.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 03 22 at 08:02 PM • permalinkAlso, he needed a new book project and the No Impact year was the only one of four possibilities his agent thought would sell.
I don’t know about you, but i’d re-think those other 3 suggestions.
Consider the ramifications of no-elevator living in a vertical city
Is this child abuse - making a 2 yr old walk up 9 flights, or will s/he carry her for a year?
Nothing is a substitute for toilet paper, by the way; think of bowls of water and lots of air drying.
Think of the bowl, and the air you breathe? nuts!
Let’s leave it to Mr B for the last words, with which we all wholeheartedly agree:
Mr. Beavan said. “We always say, ‘We’re trying not to make any trash.’ And some people get really into that and others clearly think we’re big losers.”
#21 And what’s the other joke? Still larfing from the first.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 03 22 at 08:12 PM • permalink#46 That line caught my attentionm, too, Andrea.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 03 22 at 08:28 PM • permalinkAll right, let’s get to the goddamn point which everyone seems to be tiptoeing around.
Obviously, they wipe their butts with reusable cloth.
Fine. When they’re at home.
But do they never go out? What then? Do they compromise their stupid principles and use their employers’ or hosts’ finest Kleenex? Or do they cart around their own sanitary equipment in some kind of ziplock bag or something? Answers please, Mr and Mrs Stairclimber.
And this:
Olive oil and vinegar are out; they used the last dregs of their bottle of balsamic vinegar last week, Mr. Beavan said, producing a moment of stunned silence while a visitor thought about life without those staples.
Beyond parody, beyond a joke.
The other problems with horses, besides their waste and their corpses, is fodder and breeding. One of the reasons for farm land turning into wilderness over the last 100 years is the lack of need for horse feed and no need to raise horses to sell to urban markets.
How many acres of forests will need to be cut and plowed to feed a NYC running on horse power?
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2007 03 22 at 09:01 PM • permalinkRed Ken Livingstone would feel right at home in this place. They could exchange pointers on disgusting toilet behavior.
Posted by Blue State Sil on 2007 03 22 at 09:01 PM • permalinkGiven the sort of detritus they’re eating, I doubt if you’d need bumwad- it’d shoot out of them like mecury through a duck.
don’t know about the rugmonkey though- I reckon the nappies would pong worse than a hippies hair, and be full to overflowing constantly. The composter should be fragrant come summertime, or are they going to run devil airconditioning?
And just where do they think botty blotter comes from, and goes to? Is it ripped from the heart of pristine Amazonian rainforest (with 3 toed sloth fur added for extra softness*) and remains in the biosphere, glowing with a half-life longer than plutonium, or is it made from regenerating plantation timber and completely disoves in the treatment process?
These people deserve cholera.
And the enviro-fascists here would like us to emulate these nutjobs:
Dryer ban urged for city units
Posted by Art Vandelay on 2007 03 22 at 09:03 PM • permalink#74 Today it’s the dryers. Tomorrow .. who knows what? Could be you daughters. Anyone who stands up and demands the state forces you to do this or that is, at best, a misguided person.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 03 22 at 09:19 PM • permalink#76- anyone who allows the state (or noisy minorities for that matter) to dictate lifestyle is a eunuch, and deserves no better. I’m waiting for critical mass to be reached, when ordinary, resonable people finally get a gutful of all this silliness, and lay waste to the busybodies, safety nazis, enviro-tyrants and metastasing bureauracies; personally I’d prefer torched buildings, heads on pikes and the usual accompaniments of a gene pool chlorination, but I’s settle for a constitutional ammendment which clearly states that any bastard who doesn’t mind their own business will be fired by trebuchet into a patch of ocean well populated with hungry sharks. And every speedbump and roundabout bulldozed into landfill.
What is it about environmentalism that turns people into total morons?
“People don’t change, they just stand more revealed”—Edward Dahlberg, who also argued that war was rooted in boredom. So let’s be pacific and get some excitement in here. Earth’s got a fever and the prescription is—more cowbell!
Honky-Tonk Reaper!—the two most famous cowbell songs in one
(Loud cowbell)
We face a round green drama queen from Memphis,
We have to put up some kind of a fight,
Don’t fear the carbon, we are able to fly,
In big jet air planes, let Al Gore lie,I can’t go on with this. That borin’ Al Gore.
That’s it—that’s what this is all about. Gore is trying to prove he’s not boring! No wonder he’s gone insane. That borin’ Al Gore.
That insane and borin’ AL GORE!
Aaahh, look at all the bored green people....
#70 I heard (read actually) a statistic that in 18th Centruy France, 15% of the farmed land was given over to horse fodder.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 03 22 at 10:03 PM • permalink#77 Habib,
And every speedbump and
roundabouttraffic light bulldozed into landfill.There, that’s better. Nu’in wrong wi’ roundabou’.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 03 22 at 10:11 PM • permalinkWouldn’t going back to horses cause the PETA types to have a collective shitfit? After all, we can’t possibly demean such a noble, glorious animal. Come to think of it, Luddite greenies vs. PETA freaks would be a fun battle. No matter who loses, we win.
Posted by Blue State Sil on 2007 03 22 at 10:12 PM • permalinkThe houses in my childhood Brooklyn neighborhood were long, tall and narrow with steep staircases and lots of steps. In the days when many people still had ice boxes and the iceman would cometh regularly, a clothes dryer was a luxury item. You would haul your wet laundry from the washer (with a crank wringer) in the cellar next to the coal bin up to the back yard. In bad weather, you carried it to the second floor bathroom and hung it out the window on the pulley line that was strung out to the alley. (I have vivid memories of the neighborhood laundry flapping above us as we kids played in the backyards and alley.) In really foul weather, you had to hang it wherever you could in the cellar and around the house. When they used to talk about “wash day”, they weren’t kidding. It was an all-day, morning to night, affair. And that didn’t include the ironing.
So, Aussies, did you enjoy my nostalgic little journey into your future?
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2007 03 22 at 10:20 PM • permalinkThere is when you have a population of bovine dolts who stop and look at each other whenever they encounter one of these road buckles; I more speficially refer to the ones added as “traffic calming”, along with the traffic island chicanes (which admittedly can be fun late at night when there’s no traffic).
#78- is this enough cowbell for ya?
One of the most stunning, detailed, and frankly appalling descriptions of life on a subsistance farm in the early twentieth century can be found in the first volume of Robert Caro’s biography of Lyndon Johnson; it is a genuinely sobering read. With, Kyda, grim Texas summer washday descriptions to go with your own.
Regarding the horse issue, several random points: first, pre-motorised London made use of its vast army of indigents and beggars to fulfill the interesting function described as “crossing boy”, a person who, for a coin of minimal value, would sweep a more or less clean path through the detritus on the street for the gentlefolk to pass from kerb to kerb. It was absolutely necessary, given the length of womens’ skirts. And second, I recall seeing calculations from several sources that if the western world suddenly had to convert back to horse power, most of the western world would be effectively doomed, since there is no way we could actually breed enough horses to serve anything like the needs of the present population in under, say, eighty years, setting aside completely the manufacture of their harness, their training, and—more importantly, the training of their handlers themselves. Guys, we’d be starving long before crossing boys ever became a part of the vocabulary again.
Bzzzzt ! No-Impact Impact violation #2,325:
The 250-mile rule, by the way, reflects the longest distance a farmer can drive in and out of the city in one day, Mr. Beavan said.
So we have a farmer driving 250 miles a day to deliver a cabbage and a couple of radishes to these halfwits ? Isn’t that a bit.......wasteful ?
(Just thought I’d add that one to the numerous other hyprocritical inconsistencies everyone else has pointed out so far....)
Posted by Rachel Corrie's Flatmate on 2007 03 22 at 11:16 PM • permalink#84
I just pray the kid never procreates to pass on the defective genesPosted by Rachel Corrie's Flatmate on 2007 03 22 at 11:18 PM • permalink84: That pair? Not to worry. Kiddy starts running a fever, throwing out spots and puking green for the video film crew they’ll be breaking world land speed records to get the EMTs on scene & demanding a lights-and-siren run from their carbon-based transport; that kind isn’t going to risk a child-endangerment charge, not in their social milieu. They were quick enough to hop in a cab to a restaurant when Sister got a little chilly, weren’t they?
I’m bullish on Scientology. You gotta think long. Mormons are just nineteenth century Scientologists: A cuckoo cult sticks around long enough, and it becomes legit.
But, I digress…
Amish pay cash: They don’t use credit cards; they don’t take out mortgages… and they GROW THEIR OWN DAMN FOOD.
Those retards aren’t new anything. Just the same old idiots the left has always spawned. Ignoble savages.
#61
I have a lot of time for the Amish, but they are certainly not living a 17th century lifestyle. Last time I was in Maryland I visited a friend who owns a farm surrouinded by Amish (who are fabulous neighbours). They do use technology, but want to use it in such a way as to add to their chosen lifestyle and belief system, not damage it. For example, they live in the cash economy, they do use tractors, but they must have steel wheels so they cannot be driven on the roads and so replace horse and buggy as a transportation means. My friend asked why. He was informed that it was because Amish tend to live close together and value a deep sense of community, and they did not want this endangered by additional physical distance between members of the community. SO in many Amish areas, steel-wheeled tractors have replaced heavy horses for agricultural work.
I do admire that process of thinking it through and sorting out the implications before adopting a new technology. It works for them, and mostly they are an admirable folk.
My friend told me of one occasion just down the road from his place when a medical emergency (an injured small child crushed under an overturned truck’s load) had a nearby family straight over to his place to get him to use the phone to get a helicopter/police/emergeny services in to medevac the child to a trauma unit - after modern machinery lifted an overturned vehicle’s load off the child. But as he said, every Amish man and ‘English’ within cooee was there slaving like a dog to help (it was a load of steel beams IIRC)and left the load away by hand until the mobile crane arrived. Using all available tech to get the poor little kid out and to a hospital presented no problem to anyone, of course.
MarkL
CanberraNothing is a substitute for toilet paper, by the way; think of bowls of water and lots of air drying.
So… does this mean that the whole family has to wander around bare-assed while their backsides dry, every time they take a poo? Boy, what an interesting education their kid is getting, eh? And are we to assume that this family went down to the artesian well and pumped forth those bowls of water, dragging them self-righteously (and sloppily) up several flights of stairs? Or did the water come up from those nasty old pipes, the ones that connect to ye olde water treatment plant of Gaia rapery? Ten bucks says those bowls are Crate and Barrel, and were made in China, too!
Ya know, if they REALLY wanted to do something for the environment (short of killing themselves—an option I’m sure they reserve only for the likes or YOU and I), maybe they should start by moving the hell out of New York City. My suggestion would be to head west to one of the lovely Amish communities in Pennsylvania, Ohio, or Indiana, and see what it REALLY means to “live off the grid”. Though I wouldn’t wish that on the very kind & decent Amish folk, for all the world. Besides, no doubt, these imbeciles would throw a fit about the methane being produced by the farm animals (cabbage grindage and fruit scraps vinegar, huh? Oh, yeah… No methane THERE!) They’re probably also PeTA nuts and think the very well cared for buggie horses the Amish use should be allowed to run free!
Ah, if self-righteousness and self-congratulation could only be harnassed somehow and turned into something useful… New York and LA could power themselves for generations to come!
P.S. By what Gilligan’s Island-esque mix of a bicycle and coconuts do Mr. & Mrs. Green Jeans power their computers?
Yeah, let these idiots go back to the 19th century.
My grandmother’s family plot at the cemetary contain 3 children under the age of 10. At least one died of diptheria. My great-grandmother had her first stroke at 30. Lived to the great old age of 69. In fact, I had a life-threatening condition in 1979 that I wouldn’t have survived 100 years ago.
It seems to me that this may a plan to get other gullible fools to do it and thus help the “overpopulation” problem.
Sheesh.
Elizabeth
Imperial KeeperPosted by Elizabeth Imperial Keeper on 2007 03 23 at 09:54 AM • permalink#94 Elizabeth,
I had a sobering experience a few years ago when my son was born. Had it not been for modern medical technology neither of us would have made it. I also remember visiting my grandmother’s family’s graveyard as a child. There were 11 tiny headstones for the babies my great-grandmother had lost at birth or soon after. Why do these people romanticize the past?
There are several Amish and Mennonite communities within and near Delaware. These people are almost all industrious, willing to interact with the outside world, and run businesses that actively seek trade from the outside world, notably carpentry and food.
Sadly, I’m aware of several outbreaks of polio, as well as some genetic disorders that are emerging. Supposedly the gene pool in several of the commuunities is too small, and the local children’s hospital is seeing the results.
In any event, they are not forcing themselves upon others, or seeking to turn others back.
Because it isn’t taught. History is now “social studies,” which I believe is useless. My oldest grandson spent I believe a week on Rome. A single week. Since my major was in history, it makes me angry.
I read that in England in the Victorian era, 1 in 8 women died in childbirth. This is what these idiots want us to go back to. Deaths from diptheria, whooping cough and smallpox.
I have an abcess in my tooth right now and am on antibiotics; My mother’s cousin in the 1930’s died from one. That was just 70 years ago, people.
Give me modern conveniences over nostalgia any day.
Elizabeth
Imperial KeeperPosted by Elizabeth Imperial Keeper on 2007 03 23 at 12:24 PM • permalinkCan y’all stand another history reference? What about Marie Antoinette and her maids of honor tripping around Petit Trianon pretending to be shepherdesses? I’d say the pretentiousness factor is about even, New Yorkers and Frogs ... and the New Yorkers have a few hundred years of history education less excuse.
It’s fairly obvious that they have stumbled onto the secret of the three seashells.
#74 I’m with you ladcraig. I had the same situation.
And Dave S, regarding the nappy rash for the poor baby? It was most definitely worse on her than it was on me. She only started sleeping through the night after I put the disposables on her.
I do wonder if the organic nappies these tossers have on their daughter are disposable or reusable.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 03 23 at 06:11 PM • permalinkThe difference between the Amish and the NYC couple with a personal odour problem is that the Amish believe in what they are doing. The NYC pair have gone over the top being green because they want to be the most fashionable. If next week it becomes fashionable to amputate a limb, they will amputate all four.
#99 Kaboom -
That’s exactly what my husband said when I told him about these morons.
Posted by Blue State Sil on 2007 03 23 at 08:45 PM • permalinkWell, let’s just hope their motions fall into the first two categories (see below). There are bigger lists out there, and I’ll have to beg your forgiveness for not researching them further just right now, but let me hazard a guess that the ratio of messy to clean motions is not in this struggling couple’s favour. I seriously hope Metamucil’s not on the banned list.
The Shit List
1. GHOST SHIT. You know you’ve shitted.
There’s shit on the toilet paper, but none
in the toilet.2. TEFLON-COATED SHIT. Comes out so slick, clean and easy that you
don’t even feel it. No trace of shit on the
paper. You have to look in the toilet to make
sure you did something.3. GOOEY-SHIT. This has the consistency of hot tar. You wipe
your arse 12 times and it’s still not clean.
You end up putting toilet paper in your jocks
so that you don’t stain them. This kind of shit
leaves permanent skid marks in the toilet.4. SECOND THOUGHT SHIT. You’re all done wiping, and you’re about to
stand up when you realise....you’ve got more.5. POP A VEIN IN YOUR The kind of shit that killed Elvis. It doesn’t
FOREHEAD SHIT. come out till you’re all sweaty, trembling and
purple from straining so hard.6. WEIGHT WATCHERS You shit so much, you lose several kilos.
SHIT.7. RIGHT NOW SHIT. You had better be within 30 seconds of a toilet.
You burn rubber getting to the toilet. Usually
it has its head out before you can get your
pants down.8. KING KONG or This one is so big that you know it won’t go
CHOKER SHIT. down the toilet unless you break it into smaller
chunks. A wire coat hanger works well. This kind
of shit usually occurs at someone else’s house.9. CORK SHIT Even after the third flush it’s still floating in
(also Floater) the bowl. You think “SHIT” how do I get rid of it.10. WET CHEEKS SHIT. This shit hits the water sideways and makes a big
splash that gets you all wet.11. WISH SHIT. You sit there all cramped up in the foetal position
and fart a few times, but no shit in sight.12. CEMENT BLOCK SHIT. You wish you had a spinal anaesthetic before you
attempted this one.13. SNAKE SHIT. This shit is fairly soft and about as thick as your
thumb, and at least a metre long.14. BEER AND PIZZA This happens the day after the night before. Most
SHIT. of the time your shit doesn’t smell so bad but this
one is BAD....usually this one happens at someone
else’s house, and someone is always waiting outside
the toilet door.15. MEXICAN FOOD SHIT. You know will know it’s safe to eat again when your
(or Screamer) arse stops burning.(Sorry, can’t be bothered fixing format bloopers on the above copy and paste job)
That can’t be good for the kid. If it was an older child--ten, twelve years old--who could agree to be part of an experiment, I could see that. But given that this couple are pretty much making it up as they go along, learning on the fly, there’s the possibility that they could do something to seriously damage that little kid’s development.
My father grows his own garden in the back yard--every year, we get grapes, pears, apples, tomatoes, broccoli, peppers, and a whole patch of irises. He does it because he enjoys gardening and is very good at it, and I have fond memories of helping peel the tart apples to make apple pie on fall nights. But we use gas, heat, running water, toilet paper, and all the rest. We don’t own a car, but that’s because it’s easier to walk everywhere in a pedestrian city like Chicago.
If the environmentalists are really serious about reducing their carbon footprints, they should buy a house with a backyard, plant a garden, take public transportation, and get a big garden fork for turning over the compost pile. The whole schtick with the scooters and no toilet paper is just a form of publicly demonstrating how great you are by emphasizing your humility and sensitivity.
It’s a charade. Worshippers of the Asian mother goddess Cybele would do just the same thing; they publicly castrated themselves with shards of pottery and then flung the severed genitals into the street or through a window. It’s the same, a “Hey! Look at how amazingly dedicated I am! Hand me a book contract (or, in the case of the worshippers, a towel)!”
Posted by Tungsten Monk on 2007 03 23 at 09:49 PM • permalink#77 Habib: What is it that makes trebuchets so attractive?
I was one of three kids that set one up behind the bike-shed at high school.
Ever mindful of safety rules, we used only clods of earth as ammo. The device was much smaller and simpler than the one in your link but it could hurl the missile so far out of the school grounds we never did see where they landed.
Recently, I planned to buy one for my 5-year-old grandson, but his mother wouldn’t let me.
The kid was all for it and wanted to know how far it would send a cow.I have to concur with a few others here. I do prefer the AMISH (perhaps has something to do with my Menonnite roots). The AMISH exclude themselves, keep their righteousness to themselves, do not parade themselves around with trying to be holier than thou and do not ramm their belief system down other people’s throats.
The whole carbon footprint reduction thing reminds me of chinese womens’ footbinding. Make the feet smaller to be vunerable and more attractive. In reality all that was done was impede a natural process of growth and create a huge reduction in quality of life. Sound familiar?
Posted by CanberraNeoCon on 2007 03 24 at 03:14 AM • permalinkI don’t really see anything in the current envirowackanut movement that is about actual environmental care or concern.
Oh sure, they have the memes they are given to memorize and rantochant but none of them understand the issue, even a little bit.
What is behind it all is a hatred of the people they see as their inferiors and a desire to see them (us) eradicated from the face of the earth.
All the rest of their idiocy, from the way they dress, the dietary none sense, the codified speeches, etc etc are simply the uniformed trappings displaying their membership to that specific tribe. It is their way of displaying who belongs to what group.
But underlying it all is a desire to mass murder all those who are not them.
For real off-the-grid living, it’s hard to beat the folks on Tristan da Cunha. They’ve got a home page at tristandc.com, I think (sorry - tried and failed to make a link).
#92, KK, I just about fell off my chair laughing at your post. You sounded so much like Sgt. Ivan there (who is returned to civilian life as of last December, BTW).
And was it Wimpy Canadian who wanted to know what the *other* Amish joke is? It’s posted at #24.
Posted by Sonetka's Mom on 2007 03 24 at 09:08 AM • permalinkDminor, I have had just about every one of those in the past two weeks. What I can’t figure out is what the hell I ate. Usually I can trace it to one of Orlando’s fine, tourist-haunted eateries.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 03 24 at 02:05 PM • permalink
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Did the little kid get her vaccinations, or are those verboten now too?