Re: Why Jed, I Didn't Know You Had It In You

1

The Kristof one was my favorite but I haven't read enough of his columns to know if it is true.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 11:16 AM
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JP has long been much funnier than his first book suggested.


Posted by: President President | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 12:28 PM
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"I Smell Moral Rot" is my favorite.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 12:29 PM
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"I Smell Moral Rot"

Anagram: Memorial Trolls


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 12:31 PM
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Although I might have gone with "Smells Like Moral Rot."


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 12:42 PM
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"I Smell Moral Rot"

Well, that was Douthat's go-to pick-up line at Harvard.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 12:43 PM
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I thought Jedediah Purdy had retired to a life of obscurity after writing that book about how as a 21-year-old Christian he was out of step with modern society, back in 2001 or whenever that was.


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 12:45 PM
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6: Anagram: Moral Molester Kills


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 12:48 PM
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9: Kills pseuds.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 12:50 PM
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10

He was home schooled, though, until he wasn't.


Posted by: President President | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 1:11 PM
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11: I don't know, even if it's not remote, it might be pretty culturally so if the nearest city is 50+ miles away and that city is Charleston.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 1:13 PM
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11: Having driven that stretch of interstate several times recently, other than being able to get to Charleston and other places accessible by the paved roads somewhat more quickly, it appears to be every bit as rusticated as theoretically more remote places where people who don't live there sometimes like to go for tourism-program-related activities and whatnot.

We could probably debate what would be an appropriate West Virginia rustication index.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 1:21 PM
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This reminds me of the time that Teo told Ogged that only places totally off the grid with less than 5 inhabitants were really remote Navajo country. I may be misremembering that.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 1:23 PM
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(I always surmised that the producers were looking for the hillbilliest place they could find that was within easy commuting distance of a Marriott)

A perhaps overspecific, but undeniably useful, google maps layer.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 1:25 PM
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I always surmised that the producers were looking for the hillbilliest place they could find that was within easy commuting distance of a Marriott

I can confirm this as basically correct.


Posted by: Horbert Ralford | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 1:28 PM
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There are places WITHIN THE CITY LIMITS of Charleston that are about as rural a place as I've ever been. e.g. Lilly Drive


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 1:29 PM
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Lilly Drive?


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 1:29 PM
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11, et seq.: His parents did graduate work in history and philosophy of science, then decided to fulfill a bucolic fantasy and move to West Virginia. He's not of the gente.


Posted by: lambchop | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 2:23 PM
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22: No, he was deliberately sheltered -- much like the Buddha, with similar results.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 2:26 PM
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20

A big belly?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 2:29 PM
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21

Spousal and child abandonment?


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 2:35 PM
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Oppression of the Tamil minority?


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 2:41 PM
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23

I see him at the bookstore sometimes.


Posted by: Bucolicly Presidential | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 3:33 PM
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I'm sure Buddha likes to read.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 3:37 PM
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You know what they say, if you meet the Buddha reading...


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 3:41 PM
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There oughta be a name for the gap between what you think you know about a Proper Noun and the facts you can easily Google up.


Posted by: slolernr | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 3:53 PM
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31: "management"


Posted by: Turgid JacobIan | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 4:19 PM
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Mangement.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 4:22 PM
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29

30 is nice.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 4:27 PM
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30

There is a lizard sex satellite floating in space and Russia no longer has it under control.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 4:47 PM
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31

Ross Douthat.is suitably horrified.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 4:58 PM
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32

Stupid phone punctuation.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 5:00 PM
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33

I'm sitting next to two guys talking about graduate school in something related to literature, but I'm almost finished eating so I can move next to normal people soon.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 5:06 PM
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34

30 is great.


Posted by: x.trapnel | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 5:24 PM
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35

38 - Fox Chapel?


Posted by: snarkout | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 5:31 PM
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On the OP, I actually like the Krugman: "I discovered politics ten years ago."

22: His parents did graduate work in history and philosophy of science, then decided to fulfill a bucolic fantasy and move to West Virginia. He's not of the gente.

Uh-oh. Isn't that something like what ogged and his wife keep contemplating? Or at least ogged is. But I think it's OK to be not truly (authentically?) of the gente.

In all honesty, at any rate, be that as it may, and so on: I'd never heard of Jedediah Purdy until now. It appears that he has, in the past, been Against Irony. I can now enjoy 30!


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 5:37 PM
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40: Squirrel Cage. It's always the Cage.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 5:40 PM
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38

I kind of feel like I'm a regular at that bar at this point. Good work Hammer.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 5:41 PM
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This reminds me of the time that Teo told Ogged that only places totally off the grid with less than 5 inhabitants were really remote Navajo country. I may be misremembering that.

You are; nowhere in the Navajo country is that remote. For that you have to go to Alaska.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 6:24 PM
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40

And while I've since granted that ogged does get at least some rural cred for living there, I still maintain that a community with a supermarket and a hospital, from which you can drive 60 miles on paved roads and get to a Walmart and a McDonald's, is not particularly remote by the standards of the rural West (even excluding Alaska).


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 6:36 PM
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I'm on knecht's side in not being impressed by the rural street cred of living 10 miles from the interstate in WV, though I guess maybe it depends what sort of exit.

I am nor rural but am really allergic to something in the air now and spent the whole day blinking. I don't think it's a good look for me.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 6:47 PM
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46: My "ugh it feels like there's sand in my eye" allergy turned out to be ocular rosacea. Fun!


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 6:49 PM
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43

Is there a "let me NOT google that for you" site to keep me from looking at the detailed symptoms? Do not want!


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 6:51 PM
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44

At least it's not W.C.Fields nose.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 6:53 PM
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45

Further to 48, I guess I'm going to urgent care after work tomorrow. My mom has rosacea and "family history" is one of the risk factors. With pale skin, itchy burning eyes and blurring vision, I guess I'd better get that checked out. Blech.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 6:54 PM
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46

Cripe. A remote-off? I suppose the remotest I've been is Hornby Island, off the coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia. Population just under 1000, but here's the thing: there is one grocery store (simultaneously the liquor store and the hardware store), one gas station. You will indeed meet and see everyone, repeatedly.

It's an island. You have to take two ferries to get to the big island (Vancouver): this takes three or four hours, all told. You could always live on Lasqueti Island, which is off the grid entirely.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 6:56 PM
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47

I didn't (and don't) actually have any intention of sparking a remote-off, but feel free I guess.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 7:18 PM
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48

50: Dermatologist put me on minocycline for 3 mos. All symptoms (and spots) gone in like 2 weeks. Thumbs up.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 7:23 PM
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49

Ugh, where I live right now is crazy remote, it's over a mile to the nearest grocery store I actually want to shop in.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 7:25 PM
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46: if it is actually allergies, the only thing that fixed my allergies = horribly itchy eyes the one year it was a huge problem for me was using a neti pot (actually given to me by my ENT doc). Of course, an amoeba could eat your brain as a result, but I was miserable enough to find the risk worth taking.


Posted by: J, Robot | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 7:40 PM
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My "ugh it feels like there's sand in my eye" allergy turned out to be ocular rosacea.

That's what they thought I might have when I first went to the cornea specialist last year. Now nobody seems to have a name for it other than "dunno, stop wearing contacts and use these medicated drops twice daily".


Posted by: Josh | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 7:43 PM
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54: Google Maps sez .8 miles. Unless you're even pickier than I thought you were.


Posted by: Josh | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 7:46 PM
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53

I spent plenty of time in my childhood summers in places where many people had no phone, no tv, sometimes no plumbing, mostly no heating except through coal fires, few cars. Sometimes these places were in major cities, sometimes near them in densely populated rural areas, sometimes in major tourist resorts. Not remote at all, but pre-internet and cell phones a hell of a lot of the world was like that - lots of people, no grid.


Posted by: teraz kurwa my | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 7:52 PM
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54

Is "off the grid" the electric grid, the phone system, or the street grid? I guess I've always thought the latter but maybe that's wrong.


Posted by: RH | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 7:59 PM
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Here it usually means the electric grid.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 8:01 PM
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56

I feel like I'm in a remote place now. The two streets bordering my hotel are currently undergoing some kind of massive construction project, and it looks like walking to the convenience store across the street is basically impossible given that it involves avoiding both giant holes in the road and fast-moving traffic in the part of the road that isn't torn up.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 8:03 PM
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54: Google Maps sez .8 miles. Unless you're even pickier than I thought you were.

.9 miles by foot actually, and 1.2 by car, but I guess so!


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 8:04 PM
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58

Why anyone would choose to live and work in this hellscape when there is a vibrant major city thirty or so miles to the east is beyond me.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 8:04 PM
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59

"My summer of travel to the boring outskirts of cities I might have otherwise liked, plus one beautiful city currently under protofascist rule."


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 8:06 PM
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60

We told you not to move to Steubenville, Ohio, essear.


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 8:07 PM
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61

I was trying to come up with the right town for an "Essear hates poor people" joke. Alternate joke: why are you on San Nicolas island?


Posted by: RH | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 8:11 PM
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62

WHERE IS ESSEAR? The clues are:

- terrible place
- 30 miles west of major metropolis

Tuscaloosa? DeKalb? Greencastle, Indiana, Siler City, NC?


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 8:17 PM
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63

DeKalb is significantly more than 30 miles out, but the right idea.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 8:19 PM
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64

a community with a supermarket and a hospital

And a restaurant now!


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 8:21 PM
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65

But I was wondering whether anyone would guess the beautiful city declining into fascism.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 8:22 PM
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66

Aren't they all just, though.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 8:23 PM
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67

The Farallon Islands.


Posted by: lourdes kayak | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 8:24 PM
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68

Oh 66 pwn.


Posted by: lourdes kayak | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 8:26 PM
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And a restaurant now!

See? A veritable metropolis!


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 8:31 PM
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70

Also DeKalb?


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 8:35 PM
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71

My first two guesses (Stony Brook, Princeton) are a little too far east of their cities.

I suppose you're going to tell me that this location makes Princeton look like a great place. You could also say the same about Stony Brook, but I wouldn't believe you.


Posted by: Unfoggetarian: "Pause endlessly, then go in" (9) | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 8:39 PM
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72

70: Anti-Semite!


Posted by: Unfoggetarian: "Pause endlessly, then go in" (9) | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 8:40 PM
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Oh, I misread which was east of which.


Posted by: Unfoggetarian: "Pause endlessly, then go in" (9) | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 8:44 PM
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I'd never heard of Jedediah Purdy until now.

Really, paris? He seems right up your alley. At this point I feel confident that you would enjoy reading For Common Things much more than the author himself.


Posted by: k-sky | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 8:45 PM
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Stony Brook is very comparable to where I am now: almost completely impossible to get around without a car and fighting with traffic. Ick. I really don't like it there, no matter how much one of my friends swears it's a great place to live. Princeton is relatively nice.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 8:45 PM
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paris s/b parsi and I can't even blame autocorrect just these fat sausage fingers


Posted by: k-sky | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 8:46 PM
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77

Is it two cities, split by a blue river?


Posted by: David the Unfogged Commenter | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 8:46 PM
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Dude, are you in Naperville? I'll laugh if you are, because it consistently makes "best places to live" lists (uh, despite being a soulless entirely new-build mcburb. Or, it was new-build when I saw it twenty years ago; I haven't been back since.)


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 8:47 PM
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79

Demigods on stilts have their charm, after all.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 8:47 PM
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Ah, I've got it. Naperville is real close but he's a bit northwest of there.


Posted by: Unfoggetarian: "Pause endlessly, then go in" (9) | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 8:50 PM
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82: yup, that's the beautiful city I had in mind.

83: yeah, but on the outskirts, not near the walkable part. Commuting to the nearby lab the last few days.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 8:50 PM
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82

It is the worst kind of local shit-don't-stinkism to look down on Naperville and the western suburbs, and I try not to engage in it, but damn, they really are pretty hellscapey.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 8:53 PM
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83

64, 82, 86 Meet their nominee for ambassador to Italy


It is not difficult to recognize them because they are cowardly and impertinent at the same time. Money is their God, their mother tongue in which they have trusted from time immemorial. Dark circles under their eyes, flabby skin, clammy palms, cold feet, freakish smiles give them away. They can be found everywhere on the earth. They are the agents of Satan

And so on and on at the link.


Posted by: teraz kurwa my | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 9:07 PM
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My mom was born/raised in Naperville (1951) and so, with her childhood home as the point of reference, it was a complete shock for us to watch it metamorphose over the course of 20 years into the second-largest city in Illinois. The western suburbs were in fact an anxiety-triggering hellscape from an early age for me. Generally my family got its two-minute hate on over Hinsdale, though, where my youngest maternal aunt lives (and even she feels it's a bit much).

But can you tell me why it's the worst kind of shit-don't-stinkism?


Posted by: lurid keyaki | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 9:09 PM
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85

I like how Teraz's remote cred was growing up pre-internet and -cellphone.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 9:15 PM
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86

Whoa, like actual fascism. I thought you were being a little hyperbolic about Russia or Turkey or some such. I hadn't heard about the Hungary situation at all.


Posted by: Unfoggetarian: "Pause endlessly, then go in" (9) | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 9:19 PM
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can you tell me why it's the worst kind of shit-don't-stinkism?

Because the people doing the looking down still live in fucking Illinois, where, no matter how old the trees are in your yard, you're still in a place where lots and lots people, in much more fabulous places all over the world, think they "could never live." And the fact is that all the people here on the "north shore" could live there, if they had a little less money, jobs in a different location, and the desire for a house of their own and a decent education for their kids.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 9:50 PM
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88

If you dweebs learned to like driving more you could be a lot happier.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 9:56 PM
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89

I feel like the Eliza bot that posts here as Robert Halford just had a little hiccup.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 9:59 PM
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90

I'm about to see a black cat twice, aren't I?


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 10:00 PM
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91

No, that's totally in character and apropos.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 10:00 PM
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92

Learn to like commuting in bumper-to-bumper traffic? I guess that's possible with legalized marijuana.


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 10:04 PM
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93

I get in character, but I guess I don't get the comment.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 10:05 PM
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94

We had this contest previously in the form of How many Whole Foods could you plausibly walk to. I think I won with 4, and the answer has only gone up since then.


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 10:05 PM
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Or I should say, had the opposite contest, the non-remote-off.


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 10:06 PM
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96

RH is a big fan of cars, and therefore of auto-oriented suburbs like Naperville.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 10:06 PM
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If we do the remote-off in the form of distance to the nearest Whole Foods (and limit it to the US) I think I win easily.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 10:08 PM
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Ah, in that case, Ned has it: getting around those suburbs has very little to do with driving, and everything to do with sitting in a car.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 10:09 PM
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103: Yes, that the Sifu Counterpoint to the Halford Conjecture.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 10:10 PM
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100

If I go to the WF website and search for the nearest store it comes up with one in Scotland.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 10:10 PM
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101

Which couldn't possibly be right, since there are several in Seattle. Apparently all that abuse of their employees doesn't save them enough money to hire decent web programmers.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 10:13 PM
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102

I don't even know how many I could walk to now. If you're generous with walking, say 3 miles, I think it's about 8.


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 10:14 PM
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103

Good night internet reprobates.. Somebody should really get me out of the bar earlier.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 10:17 PM
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104

Abuse of employees is its own end.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 10:18 PM
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105

Maybe they're abusing the programmers too.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 10:20 PM
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106

I'm applying to fellowships in all kinds of different places now, and it's hard to overestimate how much I don't want to be sitting in traffic all the time. But that topic doesn't get discussed much when . Traffic is just like weather, something you get used to. No!

Where I live now, if you commute from the south there is no traffic, if you commute from the west there is city rush hour traffic, if you commute from the east there is constant traffic at all hours because there's a traffic light every 200 feet for eight miles. This information should be known to all.


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 07-24-14 10:25 PM
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I've been to Lasqueti! For remote, my brother's friend's family owns an island near there, and it's the closest outpost of civilization.

Here's kind of the opposite of remote, where there is nowhere in the country you don't get full cell phone coverage. Also pretty much everywhere is within 20 miles of a freeway now, or will be w/in a year. My city used to be 7 hours away from the closest big city on winding bandit-ridden roads, and now it's 3 hours away on the freeway. When they finish the high speed rail it will be less than 45 mins away.


Posted by: Buttercup | Link to this comment | 07-25-14 12:16 AM
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108

If we are going to do the remote-off, I guess I'll have to go with St. George. Hopefully one of these days I'll make it to Little Diomede, though.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 07-25-14 12:33 AM
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109

In Minas Ned they endure the north road, but they do not ask it for transportation.


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 07-25-14 5:19 AM
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110

83: Mrs Gonerill grew up in Naperville and would gladly nuke it from orbit if given the opportunity.


Posted by: Gonerill | Link to this comment | 07-25-14 5:59 AM
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Traffic is just like weather, something you get used to. No!

I no longer have any conception of how I was able to stand the amount of time I sat in traffic when I lived in LA. Clearly I did it, and at the time it didn't really bother me noticeably on a day-to-day basis, but I have no access to the state of mind that would have allowed that. I can't deal with it at all now.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 07-25-14 6:12 AM
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112

Anyhow, essear should give ogged and the kids a tour of whatever highly sensitive, dangerous scientific research facilities are near him.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 07-25-14 6:13 AM
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113

Lasqueti has regular ferry service, and Hornby has an annual festival, for God's sake. If you're going to go with settled communities near Vancouver Island, shouldn't they at least be accessible only by float plane? (eg http://www.ahousaht.ca/////Home.html )


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 07-25-14 6:21 AM
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114

Why anyone would choose to live and work in this hellscape when there is a vibrant major city thirty or so miles to the east is beyond me.

For the schools, typically. Or because that's where your first job was an the vagaries of fate have since made escape impossible. So I hear.


Posted by: Di Kotimy | Link to this comment | 07-25-14 6:21 AM
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115

Also, based on the description in 61, I am fairly sure I know which hotel you are staying in, Essear. And yeah, that is the most shitty planned, pain-in-the-ass construction ever. It's looked almost exactly the same since late April.


Posted by: Di Kotimy | Link to this comment | 07-25-14 6:36 AM
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116

88: Ugh. I hadn't seen that.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 07-25-14 6:38 AM
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117

Ahousaht's wealth comes from its bountiful natural supply of forward slashes.


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 07-25-14 6:42 AM
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118

120: What's really unclear to me is whether they have a good reason for tearing up such a giant stretch of road instead of doing it a little bit at a time.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 07-25-14 6:48 AM
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119

Preach it. It makes no sense to me.


Posted by: Di Kotimy | Link to this comment | 07-25-14 6:51 AM
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120

My sister and her husband have worked in Naperville for 30+ years, but have managed to resist the urge to shorten their commute by moving there.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 07-25-14 6:56 AM
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121

If all this western burb talk results in a hellscape meetup, let me be the first to suggest North of the Border in Bartlett. Sadly, and despite the name, they don't serve Canadian food.


Posted by: Todd | Link to this comment | 07-25-14 7:33 AM
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122

The prospect of a Western Wastelands meet up pits "Desperate Need for a Drink" against "All the Crushing Deadlines That Drive Me to Drink."


Posted by: Di Kotimy | Link to this comment | 07-25-14 4:29 PM
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123

Ahousaht is certainly a western place for a meet-up.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 07-25-14 5:44 PM
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118: True, Lasqueti has regular ferry service; a proper remote-off would have to define "remote", wouldn't it? Is it a function of population density per square mile? A function of accessibility (via road, rail, train or plane)? Or ... what sounds to be the case in discussion here, a question of how many, and what types of, amenities are available within a given distance.

Obviously these things are related, but still: you've got your Hornby Island with its annual festival and explosion of tourist activity in the summers, and relatively dense population, considering, but it takes hours and hours to get there!

Then you've got, say, the top of a mountain in Puerto Rico. (Note to Knecht: I too am liking Google Maps' topographical feature!) I cannot recall the name of the place/mountain in PR at which I spent a few weeks after college graduation, but it was near-ish to Bayamon. At the cabin at the top of the mountain, no water, no electricity: only two residents within half an hour, as far as we knew, one a crazy old man living in a shack in the jungle, the other the widow of a former Senator, who was set up, I tell you what. You had to look out for scorpions in your shoes. Middle of the jungle, banana trees and orange trees and stinging plants. It was delightful and tremendous.

BUT it took only an hour or so to get down off the mountain, at which point, hey, you could visit a grocery store with Kola Champagne! And on the way down the mountain, there were scads of fallen mangoes by the side of the road, along with the occasional roadside shack selling empanadillas, though you were not encouraged to step foot in those places if you were a woman.

In other words, there was a lot of stuff there, so it wasn't that remote.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 07-25-14 6:27 PM
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a proper remote-off would have to define "remote", wouldn't it? Is it a function of population density per square mile? A function of accessibility (via road, rail, train or plane)? Or ... what sounds to be the case in discussion here, a question of how many, and what types of, amenities are available within a given distance.

Yeah, this is really the decision that needs to be made for this kind of thing. I've been thinking of it primarily in terms of accessibility, whereas ogged seems to think of it more in terms of amenities available nearby.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 07-25-14 7:11 PM
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Pretty sure that St George Island in the Pribilofs is going to take the prize here on whatever metric you use. 200 miles off the coast of Alaska.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 07-25-14 7:22 PM
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Yeah, but direct scheduled flights from Anchorage. Not very many, admittedly.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 07-25-14 7:24 PM
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Anyway, I'm perfectly willing to bask in my victory.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 07-25-14 7:27 PM
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Actually it looks like the PenAir flights to St. George stop in St. Paul, which makes sense. When I went there it was on a charter. We did have to stop briefly in Dillingham to refuel.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 07-25-14 7:29 PM
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Had a job, a temporary job that lasted seven months on the western edge of N'perville a few years ago. In a huge lab complex, the one the highway goes right by. Our building had been abandoned as a lab because of cancer clusters; it has since been demolished, I think the only building on the campus that has.

I would leave my house at 6:00, very dark in winter, and be there in just under an hour, from the far north side of Chicago. Coming back in the late afternoon was 1.5 to 2 hours though.

I would walk down into the older part of town down Washington Street. Very little infrastructure for walking between were I was and the older parts. I thought it resembled Northbrook and Deerfield, where I'd worked for the previous 14 years, a lot. Small old town around the railroad tracks, a belt of postwar housing close in, much bigger and drive-only housing, in complexes and gateds, farther out. Teardowns of small houses and replacement by big here and there on the older streets.

I didn't hate it, despite the far-side-of-the-moon disparagement Ogged's referring to among people I mentioned it to. Like I said, it felt familiar to me, from growing up in Ohio and working in the Northern suburbs of Chicago.


Posted by: idp | Link to this comment | 07-25-14 7:50 PM
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Friends of our family moved there sometime late '60s/early '70s. We visited them once. So yeah, a suburb. However, I distinctly recall the father driving us around in his car basically gawking at all the recent and ongoing development. "This was all farms two years ago!"


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 07-25-14 8:06 PM
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Meetup in Skidegate?

I don't know, I feel like there are plenty of places in Alaska way more "remote" than the Pribilofs. (I watched the 2004 Democratic Convention from St. Paul -- doesn't cable TV disqualify a place?) Same with BC: Hornby is visible from my parents' house (https://www.flickr.com/photos/charleycarp/358817222/in/set-72157594481952595 -- Hornby is to the left of the tree) which, I think, introduces the critical feature of remoteness, which is that it's relative.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 07-26-14 7:18 AM
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When Cactus Partner and I were looking for homes in the metro area, Naperville made it to the finals on the basis of (1) excellent public schools that are (2) substantially more racially diverse than their peer institutions. Obviously nowhere near city demographics, but the difference between Cactus Baby being the only black child in class and one of a handful. So step off, haters.


Posted by: Lambent Cactus | Link to this comment | 07-26-14 8:30 AM
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Just yesterday I saw a black man in town who seemed to be a resident. I bet that eventually I'll see him again, so that will be twice that I've seen a black resident. No, I've actually solved the diversity problem by considering Jews black, so we might actually be majority minority by now. Take that, Naperville.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 07-26-14 8:36 AM
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138: Yeah, the diversity of Rory ' social circle out here is pretty sweet.


Posted by: Di Kotimy | Link to this comment | 07-27-14 7:08 AM
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