At Large If I Had Wi-Fi (And Wasn’t On Vacation)
posted by on December 14 at 10:57 AM
I’m still on vacation in Barcelona, and unfortunately, very few places have wifi, so I haven’t been able to Slog compulsively or keep up with the news the way I’d like to. (Did you know they still don’t have iPhones in Spain? It’s literally the only thing I’ve been able to do to impress the Spanish. Butchering their language just hasn’t made them love me the way I thought it would). Anyway! A few things, briefly, from afar:
1. Right fucking on, Gov. Gregoire. (And, OK, Mayor Nickels, too—although his main viaduct web page still says the city is “committed to replacing the ailing Alaskan Way Viaduct and Seawall.”) But do you think you might give your former gubernatorial opponent Ron Sims a little credit for pushing for a surface/transit alternative for replacing the viaduct? Sims was speaking up in support of surface/transit nearly a year before Gregoire got on the bandwagon—and everyone, including Mayor Greg Nickels and Gregoire, treated him like he was crazy. Props or none, I’m glad to see the city, state and county are finally moving toward a solution that’s environmentally sustainable—and that we can actually pay for.
2. Jonah noted in an email a few days ago that the family of Bryce Lewis, the 19-year-old cyclist who was struck by a dump truck and killed in September, along with Caleb Hall, a cyclist who survived the accident, are suing the driver and his company, Nelson & Sons Construction Co. According to their attorney, as quoted in the P-I, “The primary duty is on the vehicle turning right to make sure there aren’t people in the bike lane or in the crosswalk.” The truck turned right into the cyclists’ path, striking both of them. I haven’t seen anything on Slog about it; my apologies if I overlooked a post.
3. To Jonathan’s taxonomy of Slog commenters, I would like to add:
Assholus Sexistis
Distinguishing Characteristics:
Has nothing relevant to contribute. Attempts to make author feel bad specifically because she is a woman, usually by commenting on her appearance and/or speculating about her sex life.
Sample Comment
Dumbass, I can’t wait to see you when you are 40, still single and hanging around other lonely women at a stitch and bitch complaining about how there aren’t “Any good men out there”Posted by ecce homo | December 11, 2007 12:52 PM.
Cautions:Best deleted or ignored entirely. May overlap with Compulsivaris Insightfulian Crankus.
3. This is the art in my new hotel room (less blurry in real life). They knew I was coming!:
That is all.
Erica, Café Lennon in Plaça John Lennon, in Gracia, has free wifi. Good bocadillos too.
i woke up this morning and feel like i got run over by a truck.
i need a cheeseburger
Odd how Dan and Charles don't feel the need to incessantly complain about the comments they get referencing (respectively) bug-chasing and baboons/beating drums.
Assholus Sexistis? Clever..
That reminds me of the art outside my B&B in Firenze (Florence). Which was two doors down from a church filled with amazing statuary mostly done by Michealangelo, and right above a wonderful restaurant.
We also need an addition for:
Posterus Irrelevantis
See @5.
"May overlap with Compulsivaris Insightfulian Crankus". Hey, I resent that.
I will ask for the umpteenth time: do we have any sort of a collection of eyewitness accounts of the crash? How fast was the cyclist going? Did the driver signal? Did the driver, in fact, look, and could the cyclist have been moving so fast that he raced from the Harvard corner right into the intersection as the truck turned, giving the driver no chance to see him or stop? Did the cyclist look to see if the driver in fact was signaling and/or turning? Or is it, as ECB and others insist, a clear case of driver negligence in an instance where the accident could have easily been prevented?
I don't know if Bryce's family has or should have much of a case if we still don't know exactly what happened. Implicating the driver as guilty without sufficient witnessed evidence sets an awful precedent, and is a clear case of hypocrisy among a liberal crowd that insists on not punishing someone without a fair trial.
Really? I thought that was a specific response to the art. Not the other blatherings about ecce homo. If ECB is going to do a grab-bag SLOG thread with multiple elements, you have to expect different sloggers will react to different elements.
If you want a single thread, you need to limit the source post to a single concept.
The library in Plaza Lesseps has free wifi too (Maybe all of the libraries?). What are you at the camper Hotel??? Lame! Take out a bicing and drive yourself into the sea.
I sang this post's headine to the tune of "If I Had A Hammer" and now the song's stuck in my head...
Gomez, you forget that in ECB's world, the driver is always wrong and the biker is always right. No letting pesky facts get in the way.
Oh, did someone hurt your little feelings?
Let sit down, have an encounter group, and support each other transcending your negative emotions.
And call the president, someone offended poor little ECB's sensibilities. Boo hoo
Grow up, and join the big leagues. Quit acting like a little girl.
This isn't a princess fantasy. And I suspect that my prediction, that you found so offensive, will come true.
People treat ron sims like he's crazy because he is crazy.
Having a good idea or two doesn't mean you're not crazy.
What a piece of shit ecce homo is.
See, Erica, this is why a DSM parody would be superior to the field guide... ecce homo defies taxonomy.
Ignore her, Ecce, she's just a fish on a bicycle.
LOL #17
Man Erica,
In all seriousness: You complaining about sexism in comments threads just go to prove that women are not "equal" to men. You simply have too thin a skin to play with the big boys, and we should not lower ourselves to cater to your infantile emotional needs.
Ecce makes a good case for women being superior to men, or at least superior to him.
Women are the reason I am gay.
We know, Ecce. The reason you're gay Ecce is because women never wanted anything to do with you.
Wow, Mr. Poe,
I never pegged you for a homophobe...
Erica:
no te preocupes por las respuestas des los assholistas. Tu tienes razon cuando quejas sobre el sexismo masculino en el Slog. La mayor parte de los Slogistas son masculinos de disposicion irracional y argumentativos y necesitan un buen golpe en la cabeza de vez en cuando!
Espero que continua en escribir sobre eses asuntos y tambien las bicicletas.
Hasta lumbago,
@24 - la violencia es el sello de pequeñas mentes.
Um, aren't overseas charges for the Iphone something like a million frajillion dollars a second?
@21: Women are the reason you are gay?
If you were doing it right, *men* would be the reason you are gay.
RE: Point the First. I'm taking it personally that nobody is acknowledging what a political genius I am for having predicted all of this. I told everybody that Gregoire and the other leaders would fall into line. If I were less noble, I'd probably be a dick about how much righter I am than anybody else ever.
RE: Numero two-o. The law does put the burden on the turning vehicle and they'll probably win their suit. But it's an unrealistic demand to put on drivers. Can you imagine if they allowed car traffic to turn right across car another traffic lane that way, so long as it looked clear? The critical place where drivers have to check is right where their blind spot is. Sharing the road is a nice thing to wish for, but it doesn't work and we shouldn't be sacrificing lives trying to make it work. Painting the lane blue will just make it slippery when wet. At least move the bike lane to the left of the right-turning car lane. And stop wishing we could PSA our way out of this.
RE: #III. Trolling is an art form in its own right, with its own inner logic. Instead of getting mad all the time, why not simply admire the sublime, terrible beauty of a really vile troll? Sort of like admiring without approving of a really well executed con game or burglary or genocide. (Maybe not a genocide.) ECB is, after all, perhaps the greatest provocateur on the slog.
I’m sure people cringe at my butchering of the English language, but 24 I can not resist:
Espero que continua en escribir sobre eses asuntos y tambien las bicicletas. This is atrocious. Sorry.
It should read, “Espero que continúes escribiendo sobre estos asuntos y también sobre las bicicletas.”
#21 reminds me of some graffiti my dad once saw in a New York subway:
Graffiti #1: My mother made me a homosexual.
Graffiti #2: If I give her the materials, will she make me one too?
women are the reason i'm straight. that and uh...i was born that way. or no, maybe it was all those aspirin i scarfed when i was five and had to be induced to vomit. yeah, that might be it.
Ah, I recognize that room. That's from the Gat Xino, yes?
ECB is, after all, perhaps the greatest provocateur on the slog..
well put, "aggravateur "is another term which comes to mind.
Certainly makes SLOG fun to follow - I want ECB to take every line and check out every stop on the metro - that's one city I've been pining to experience and she's there. I want to bike the coast and up the hills. I can't, she can. Let's hear about some of that, too.
@29 It's late so you will probably not see this but your English is excellent!
@ 32: Close! The Gat Raval. Best deal in BCN--super nice, clean, and criminally cheap.
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