For George Will there is nothing more contemptible than an heirloom tomato. Heirloom tomatoes and Toyota Prius automobiles represent all that is wrong with the Washington Metro area and the country in general. Do you know who drives Toyota Priuses and eats heirloom tomatoes? You guessed it. Liberals!! Seething liberals, that’s who. And do you know what those liberals are seething about? Not sure?
It’s speed humps. They are in such a hurry to get to the nearest Whole Foods grocery store that slowing down their Prius to go over a speed hump just plain breaks their patience. They’ve taken to honking as they go over speed humps, these liberals. They honk to annoy their liberal brethren who live on the blocks with speed humps. Hell, they’ve even been known to flip porch-dwelling liberals the bird from their Toyota Priuses as they go honking their way over the speed humps.
And the reason George Will brings this up is because it offends him that liberals have the poor taste to call access to health care a human right.
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I kinda love these neighborhood spats …
By Paul Schwartzman
WASHINGTON D.C. (Washington Post) – Actually, the humps are only part of the spat, which has a history as tortured as some marriages.
Crecca, a surgical device salesman, has lived a block over from Morrison for 10 years, on McKinley Street NW. Five years ago, residents of his block asked the city to find ways to slow traffic on McKinley, which is ineligible for humps because it’s a well-traveled route connecting neighborhoods. But Morrison residents and others in the neighborhood complained. They contended that no action should be taken to ease McKinley’s pain unless the city first studied what any fixes there might do to divert traffic to adjoining streets. McKinley’s application stalled.
Now Morrison has gotten its speed humps without the city performing any neighborhood-wide study. The Morrison humps, Crecca contends, have pushed traffic to other streets, including his own.
“You say no to us, and we just wanted a sign,” Crecca said. “Then you go out and get these mondo humps. Isn’t there a double standard?”
Crecca and others reserve much of their ire for Mary Rowse, a Morrison Street resident who opposed McKinley’s quest to slow traffic. Rowse has long been active in the community, moderating a Chevy Chase listserv, and helping to lead an unsuccessful campaign to designate the neighborhood as a historic district.
“She’s trying to turn the 3700 block of Morrison into a cul-de-sac on the Potomac,” Crecca said.
Philosophical thought:
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."I’m pretty sure this is my brother’s neighborhood. Speed humps on McKinley wouldn’t be a good idea. I think buses run up there.
Part of the reason these have become hot issues now and weren’t 30 years ago is that ignoring speed laws on urban streets is more widespread than it was then.
Another contributing factor is that traffic planners have use this trend to up the carrying capacity of existing streets without having to spend any money by creating one way streets, removing parking spaces, setting traffic lights to minimize interruptions of traffic, and in some cases actually upping the speed limits.
Finally, congestion on what were supposed to be rapid freeways causes diversion of traffic to residential streets with the driver still in a freeway speed mindset.
And the controversy can get as hot as that over local leash or “curbing your pet” ordinances.
But there are real dangers to heavy, fast traffic in an urban residential neighbor. Your comparison to leash laws is inappropriate.
drivers probably talking on their cell phones while speeding too. ok, I’m bitter, recalling the time a driver talking on the cell phone while trying to park started yelling at me for crossing the street near the proposed parking space.
I think there are many studies indicating talking while driving is a serious hazard. And don’t blame you for being annoyed at this particular one.
and I love long distance driving, but it’s become so hazardous now – another reason cell phone talking drivers annoy me so much. of course there was the guy in a red sports car going 80mph on the MA turnpike while reading an article he had propped up on the steering wheel. he was probably just proofreading it before faxing. (no cell phone involved as far as I could tell)
Well, there is an issue of distribution as well. Some streets get the speed humps and others don’t, for no apparent reason, thereby lessening the value of the houses on the less-favored, now more heavily trafficked, roads. Where I live they’ve become the new staus symbol. And that’s about all they’re good for.
Personally I think they’re a stupid idea, since people slow down a little to go over them, then gun the engine til they get to the next one, probably making it even more dangerous for wandering toddlers. Gods forbid, what with the global warming at all be seriously beginning the task of getting cars off urban streets altogether.
“Poor George”- who was it that said that about another george?
ya know- the disgrace is that these fools have a media platform upon which to spew. I gather that john the loser has been on abc 14 times already this year. and the media praises itself for being impartial. as far as i am concerned, every single street or local road should have speed bumps. every single one of them. so it takes a little more time to get from a to b. big deal.
…this episode takes place in Chevy Chase where, according to the George Will Census, everyone must be a liberal.
I wonder what the voter registration lists actually look like.
Huh. And Will is considered to be one of the intellectual leaders of conservatives. Sounds like he’s trying to out-Limbaugh Limabaugh instead.
sounds like he’s lost his mind. incoherent ramble – why doesn’t he just yell “get off my lawn, you d*** hippies”
It’s certainly telling that in his little universe, liberals are confined to dreary DC suburbs. It’s pathetic that he picks up a little “odd news” trifle and tries to piggyback it into a portentous cultural commentary. Safire might have been able to get away with such a thing. Will never did have the processing power.
George Will, like other conservatives, does not eat any vegetables at all, heirloom or otherwise. Ketchup is their only vegetable. As a result, they are perpetually constipated and vitamin-deficient. This causes them to do and say stupid things with an alarming regularity. Plus, they tend to smell kind of funny.
Ya’ know, if guns were outrageously expensive and their purchase was determined by private-for-profit corporations, George Will would be a champion of “rights” = “entitlements.” He’d be supporting a NRA push for legislation to insure access to affordable gun ownership… Or, I dunno, maybe he wouldn’t. He might think that gun ownership like good health care should be limited to the upper classes. Seething elitist!
There. My logic is as good as his. Oh, and we all know that hating speed humps is a strictly liberal emotion. WTF! The horn honking must be driving him more insane.
At one newspaper I used to work at the feature that had drawn the most letters to the editor in the history of the paper was one on neighborhood traffic circles (our version of speed bumps – planters in the middle of thousands of local intersection). War crimes? Yawn. Speed bumps? OUTRAGE!!
Meantime, I consider myself a reasonably well-informed person, and someone Will (who’s actually sometimes a bit more rational than many of his brethren) would consider a liberal.
What the hell is an “heirloom tomato”? Is that something only elites like Will know about? Or is it simply a tomato that’s been in the family for generations?
I don’t know their genetic pedigree, but they often very oddly shaped tomatoes that are often multicolored (although still mainly red) and they tend to be very juicy and soft.
Varieties bred long ago, long before long distance transport to markets and preferences of supermarket shoppers influenced breeding for different attributes such as mechanical picking, long distance transport, perishability, perfect shape, etc.
Like other “heirloom” plant varieties, they are grown from the seeds of plants that are not usually hybrids or otherwise modified. In other words, if you want to eat corn or tomatoes like your grandparents used to eat, you plant the same kind of seeds they used to plant. These varieties are less disease-resistant in most cases, less drought-tolerant, etc., and require the intense attention that only a home gardener is willing to give. BUT, they usually taste better and look quite different from the veggies found in grocery stores.
In particular, the spherical, thick-skinned, uniformly bright-red balls known as “tomatoes” cannot compare to oddly shaped, thin-skinned, multi-colored, juicy, deliciousness of real tomatoes. Heirlooms are not always better but foodie snobs think they are.
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In the food world, and in that especially obsessive corner populated by tomato aficionados, heirlooms are the embodiment of all that is good, which is to say they are not perfectly round, perfectly red and utterly tasteless supermarket tomatoes.
We food snobs prize heirlooms for their personalities.These old-fashioned varieties are lumpy, cracked and creviced, with glorious names such as Casady’s Folly or Mullens’ Mortgage Lifter. And they come in nearly all the colors of the rainbow.
Carmel tomato fest – 550 varieties
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."term “heirloom tomato” is a pro-ag marketing strategy for farmers to sell to those able to pay more for actual tomato vs. frankentomato. (correct me if I’m wrong here, this is based on some initial research). in other words, Will is slamming the small farmer interested in sustainable ag in favor of agribusiness. What else is new?
Humh!
I thought for a minute George Will had travelled in time/place and was talking about me! About a decade ago some of the streets in my corner of the world were changed radically, with the addition of speed humps, making portions one-way, closing down some intersections altogether.
As protest I would lay on the horn as I went over them.
I don’t know if I thought of the issue in a left-right frame, honestly. On the one hand, it is impossible not to note that these types of drastic alterations to public streets were only happening in rich enclaves, so I will admit that it burned me to think of those who always get their way getting their way. So I guess that’s a liberal position. Then again, I was a spoiled brat conservative at the time. And I really think that has more to do with why I honked.
If I were to write a column based on my own insights I’d say that the majority of honkers are probably people in their early twenties (who don’t think about slowing down for small children too much) who feel entitled that their environment never change.
But, then, I don’t think I’d write a column about that: I’m not a cranky old hack!
The guy behind Whole Paycheck is a “libertarian” (read: Republican who likes to smoke pot) whose stated goal is to put every Mom-and-Pop natural food store and co-op out of business.
Don’t shop there — support your local natural food store, co-op, CSA and/or enlightened grocery store instead.
Many liberals don’t shop at Whole Foods anyway, preferring to support locally-owned health food stores and to buy locally-grown heirloom tomatoes. But the CEO of Whole Foods has given liberals a further reason to avoid the chain: some of the liberals who consider health care a right are now boycotting Whole Foods because of its CEO’s public stance on health care.
They really have gone insane. That is the most ridiculous column I have read in a long time.
I particularly like this;
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Rights talk is inherently aggressive, even imperial; it tends toward moral inflation and militates against accommodation.
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Didn’t conservatives used to stand up for ‘rights’? Of course, only THEIR rights.
And what could be more conservative than a heirloom tomato? It’s changed just enough from the original weed to be eatable, yet not enough to be ‘pretty’.
I get REALLY worried that conservatives will fool the voters and regain congress. Then I read something like that and realize they are to stupid to keep a coherent thought in their head.
They are too busy yelling at clouds.
nalbar
the title of this post just made me LMAO.
thanks BooMan