Only when it does something truly heroic.
Why can't we celebrate the little things, the random acts of kindness committed by garbage every day of the week?
(Just an idea for someone who's looking to start one of those narrow-specialty blogs.)
January 3, 2011
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25 comments:
You know what should get good press? My nephew should get good press. He returned to the US today, from his third deployment to the Mideast. Now he gets to be debriefed before flying home to see my sister and brother-in-law.
Welcome home!
Those black plastic bags are ugly. Someone should make an opaque bag of many colors. They'd sell.
"Someone should make an opaque bag of many colors. They'd sell."
I'd propose banning all colors but black (and maybe white). Garbage on the street is tolerated out of necessity. Don't start expressing yourself with it.
And why are you talking about plastic bags in connection with someone coming home from the war? That's weirdly allusive to body bags!
In any case, thanks to your nephew for his service and it's good that he's home safe.
I never would've thought that orange garbage bags with weird pumpkin faces on it would see, either, but they do. Who made a bundle on that idea I wonder.
Imagine how nice that picture in the linked article would look with different colors other than black. Garbage spilling out punctured bags that are cyan, or celadon, or lime green. Christo could market them. If they cost the same, why not?
Oof. 'would sell', not 'would see'.
As to why the link of plastic bags to nephew's return: a simple question of timing. I didn't want to post in a garbage thread :) without talking about the garbage. But I had just learned of his return and wanted to brag.
The garbage didn't do anything heroic, it was just there. It was passive.
Now, if it had swept up from the street, rushing up to the 20th floor, saying, "Fear not, I shall break your fall", then you'd have something.
Just sitting there rotting, liberal garbage commits compassion.
Snow piled up. Garbage piled up. I think we can classify New York City as a failed municipality.
MadisonMan God Bless your nephew for his service to our country. He is a true hero and deserves all of out thanks and praise from every spectrum of the internets.
If the young man suffers from problems of self esteem, the fact that he owes his life to a pile of rotting garbage will not help him resolve this issue.
If you had started a novel with someone having a suicide attempt thwarted by a pile of garbage I would have put down the book at that point. No way to suspend disbelief.
In all this hero worship, don't we fail to consider the degree to which that pile of garbage bags yelled "Jump!" to this guy?
I'm not sure it was just chance that this guy landed on this pile, nor that he would have jumped had it not been there.
When does garbage get good press? Whenever Maddow and her ilk talk about Obama. Yes, a cheap easy shot but someone had to take it.
What kind of mother abandons such a needy son? Did she return to Greece to get one of those generous pensions the government cannot afford but that the people riot to keep?
Ah, Greece, she has not now that strength which in the old days moved earth and heaven. Don't you think Greece is ripe for invasion?
If three people lived in that rent controlled apartment before, why cannot the guy get a roomie or two to pay the rent? Was the suicide attempt a cry for someone to come take care of him so he wouldn't have to make any decisions? Does he think sympathetic money will come pouring in through the mail? What's the conventional thinking on multiple failed attempts?
What kind of mother abandons such a needy son?
Yes, how cruel to leave him behind with his father.
The story says he tried to hang himself in the apartment, cut his own throat and then jumped nine stories and landed in the garbage. All he needs is a gunshot or two and a trip to the Hudson and he'd have to change his name from Vangelis to Rasputin.
And now I'm not going to be able to get that stupid "Chariots of Fire" theme out of my head!
He's like the guy in Groundhog Day, unable to die.
That boy's wasting himself, though. MadisonMan's nephew has a better alternative to a life of meaninglessness.
Snow piled up. Garbage piled up. I think we can classify New York City as a failed municipality.
Yeh, the more that comes out, the worse the NYC sanitation department looks. Apparently, the union tried to make a point about how important they were by not doing their job during the snow storm. Double the usual number of union employees called in sick, and then a lot of others just didn't work.
The most egregious, so far, at least, was the car full of supervisors who spent the night in a city car, running the car to keep it warm, drinking beer, and then complaining that they couldn't do anything because their car was now out of gas. And, there were people stranded and in need of help a couple of blocks away.
It will be quite interesting when the city comes to the rest of us and asks for money to bail them out, when that money will go to give these sanitation workers raises and to protect their pensions.
I don't think so.
How much you want to bet he sues the city?
"Kid, we found your name on an envelope at the bottom of a half a ton of garbage. . ."
Sad story.
@Christy
"When does garbage get good press? Whenever Maddow and her ilk talk about Obama. Yes, a cheap easy shot but someone had to take it."
My thoughts exactly.
Expand that to anytime the major 'news' outlets aren't experiencing a power outage.
"When does garbage get good press?"
When he gets elected as the first black ultra liberal President. Just sayn'
Bob;
If you had started a novel with someone having a suicide attempt thwarted by a pile of garbage
Your comment immediately reminded me of the movie Magnolia (first part here)
If you haven't seen it before this clip we tell you why it reminds me.
My wife hated the movie. She wanted to leave before the ending. Ironically, she couldn't find the car keys and so we had to wait for the house lights to come up. Well, the end credits are as long as the movie and so she asked with exasperation:
Is this movie ever going to end?
When Joe Biden says, "This is the summer of recovery".
Yeh, the more that comes out, the worse the NYC sanitation department looks. Apparently, the union tried to make a point about how important they were by not doing their job during the snow storm.
==============
This is NYC, where sanitation workers have a higher fatality and injury rate than the "hero cops and firefighters" who were lionized, given huge perks and sums of money after 9/11 while sanitation workers and private contractors cleaning up the same WTC mess as "Rudy's Heroes" - got squat.
It is not like cops haven;t staged "sickouts" themselves, as have whole firehouses "going off line" to protest benefits. So when sanitation workers bearing the brunt of Bloomie's planned ctbacks decide to showcase their dirty and dangerous job is just as vital as cops or firefighters....what did you expect??
And lets say the 8 billion exclusively for the Hero cops and firefighters angled for from the Feds for their "special 9/11 related problems" working in the Pit was more salt in the wounds of dissed sanitation workers, operating engineers, transit workers who also worked the Pit.
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