God, will Southie shut the hell up about parking spaces already?
By adamg - Fri, 12/28/2007 - 6:45pm.
Joe Keohane tells his South Boston neighbors to shove their persecution complex into the nearest puddle of melted snow and stop bitching about the nerve of the mayor for asking them to clear the streets of their cones and crap already:
... Of course Southie, which is as close to a lawless breakaway province as we have in Boston, responds to this like a bunch of Southerners who got their Confederate flags confiscated by the federal government. They have no time for logic. They're too busy playing the victim. "He's really got it in for us, let me tell you," one resident says of the mayor. "I really feel like he's singling out South Boston."
Of course he is, because you barbarians are the only ones doing this. ...
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To: Southie From: JP - with love
We need to talk. I know we've had some good times together, and we have a lot of the same friends, but between you and I, you have to know that you've been coming across as sad and pathetic. That old "it's our culture" thing just doesn't fly with anyone else. People are starting to talk, and I don't want them to think you're just an annoying little neighborhood that can't get with it. The kind people just shake their heads at the mere mention of. I mean, do you really want to be spoken of in the same breath as Allston? Didn't think so.
You're so much better than that. Really.
"Culture" is not a blanket defense of anything, as "culture" is basically anything a group of people have managed to get away with for a while - good or bad - it can go either way. You know I'm pretty open minded - I mean look at the variety of people I hang with, but not everything can be held up there with art, literature, cuisine and other things of that sort.
Sometimes you're just being a Masshole, regardless of how many other Massholes you may know, and how long you've been able to get away with being a Masshole.
And no...we're not all out to get you, but we do expect more from you.
Te quiero mucho.
Auf wiedersehen
- JP
You are not from JP. You
You are not from JP. You are not even from Brighton. You will probably move out of Boston within the next five years, so your opinion is not worth much.
Not that I have any sympathy
Not that I have any sympathy for Southie knuckleheads, but that pretty well nails it.
Ah yes, because I wasn't
Ah yes, because I wasn't born here, and happen to be an adult taking classes l get lumped in with the 17 and 18 year olds who just escaped Mommy and Daddy's house and dismissed, along with my opinions.
About what I expected.
No, you did not get lumped
No, you did not get lumped in with the 17 and 18 yr olds. You are just a fool, and age is not a qualifier.
Ya know ...
It's comments like this that make me question the wisdom of allowing anonymous comments. Argue against his arguments, but keep the juvenile retorts to yourself, please.
Anonymous comments
Aren't most of these pretty rude?
As far as I can tell, people tend to behave best on sites that make people operate under their real names.
Making people operate under their real names on a site?
How can that be enforced?
Registering under real name
It's been a long while since I registered at the sites that had this ruke. I recall you had to (essentially) apply to become a member of the group. Presumably they had to take on trust one's claim as to one's actual name -- but being caught lying would have been grounds for expulsion.
(One is a quasi-academic list about Japanese cinema, the other is a more general cinema discussion board).
There are sites that're like that, but
I would think that, since this site also requires one's email to register, which does give the person's real name, that would be sufficient.
Not real name, really
It would be a requirement to establish an account here; you could still use whatever pseud you wanted. It just seems the completely anonymous comments are getting a bit out of hand.
Sounds fair.
n/m
Right...it's frustrating to
Right...it's frustrating to read a thread with a bunch of comments by "anonymous" and not be able to tell who's saying what. A consistent handle is all I ask for, just to be able to track the source of the comments. As it is, I just usually assume all the anons are one big asshat.
Hydra-esque?
Like one big asshat with nine heads?
EXACTLY!
...and possibly nine computers.
My two cents:
I can understand reserving a space for the first 24-48 hours after a (big) winter storm with lots of snow hits, but any length of time exceeding that is ludicrous....and unnecessary. City Councilor Bill Linehan had it right when he pointed out that people can expect to have furniture, traffic cones, or whatever else they've put down to reserve their space moved by authorities after that time, and not to be selfish. Frankly, one doesn't have to live in Southie to realize that this whole "tradition" of space-saving is utterly ridiculous, and the people who want to do away with this kind of tradition are right. People should concentrate more on shoveling sidewalks, etc., and making them more passable and safer, and not fighting, screaming and beating the crap out of each other over such a stupid thing as a parking space(s). All told, cities and towns throughout the Commonwealth, including Boston, could/should do a better job of snow and ice removal from the streets after a heavy snowfall, which would go a long, long way towards solving the parking problems that invariably crop up after big winter storms hit. That, imho, is what people should be petitioning and fighting for!!
Resolving a difference of opinion
In resolving a difference of opinion, I believe it is helpful to have a trash truck.
In the point of view of certain louts, a chair placed in a cleared space in front of one's house is a mark of entitlement to park in said space.
In the point of view of the city, it is rubbish a day early.
He who has the trash truck wins this argument.
SoBo Parking issues
Ultimately, lack of parking is what drove me out of Southie.
Poor Ignorant and Angry
If by "pretty much nails it" you mean that the prior author exemplified the classic perception of Southie as "poor ignorant and angry" I agree. And that's just what the original commenter was playing upon in their satire. How wonderful and sad at the same time. I think most of the people of South Boston, like the rest of us, just quietly go about their business, don't complain too much, and get on with it, even when someone parks in the spot they shoveled or when the City takes the broken chair they put there. Its the few loud mouth, frustrated hicks pining for the "good" old days that give the place a bad rep.
While the above-mentioned quote is true, Bostonian,
It often takes only a minority of people, as opposed to a majority, to cause trouble and spoil it for others. Inotherwords, the troublemakers do not have to be in the majority to present a problem.
SB parking and snow
I grew up in Southie...it was the norm for people to put chairs or whatever they had handy out in the street to save the spot they shoveled.
Having moved from Southie many moons ago, but still go to see the family at least once a year (moved out of state)..isn't most of Southie permit parking now? I know that I have had a hard time finding a parking spot when I come home.
The snow clearing in Southie isn't the best. Why can't the city have people move their cars on one side of the street, so they can clear the snow, dump the snow at the beach, then have the other side of the street move their cars, and dump that snow at the beach? Meanwhile, the schools, playgrounds, businesses etc could open their lots to the people who have to move their cars for snow removal.
That's how it's done where I live now and parking is tight here!
In my area, it works. Everyone knows to watch the news to find out what side of the street is going to be 'cleared of all snow.'
But yes, we also have folks here who think they own the spot in front of their house..snow or no snow!
You'd move your car and the city would do nothing
Marian, the way things work here, you would move your car and nobody would come to clean that side of the street. The logistics are overwhelmed, that's why school was out today, because if it snows at all the buses can't get out of the lot.
Snow .....
I wasn't aware the schools were closed today!
Just think of the tax dollars spent on school employee's to give them a free day off for snow!
I'm sure the City can find a contractor with a bobcat or a backhoe to remove the snow....and I'm sure the city owns bobcats and backhoe's.....that they have to have employee's licensed to operate....
It would have been a cost savings to remove the snow rather than call off school and pay all the school employee's.
Boston knows they get hit by snow...why isn't there a better system in place to remove the snow?
Rest assured, Marian:
The above-mentioned quote from your post articulates precisely the point that I've been trying to drive home here....and I'm presently a resident of the Boston area.
The schools weren't closed today
They were, however, closed yesterday - when it was snowing up to an inch an hour in the morning - so students wouldn't get hit by plows or pickups, so they wouldn't slip on the snow, so they wouldn't have to get home at 11:30 p.m. again.
And it's not like Boston was the only place to close schools. And as somebody with a kid in the public-school system, I know that Boston tends to be less likely to close schools than some suburbs.