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Postcard From the Downward Spiral
Me at a party last night: "I've never really been around a lot of Republicans before." "So now you think better of us?" "Not really."
Overheard in a hotel lobby: "I get the feeling these New Yorker liverals just don't understand how 9-11 changed things. It's like they don't even remember it." (no, fuck you).
Later, in Starbucks, two Young Republicans dialogue. "What does SoHo mean?" "Maybe it's like a hooker from the South." (South of Houston Street, asswipe). "I heard the bagels here were supposed to be different, but they seem the same to me." (because you're in a fucking Starbucks moron). "I would have expected Bush to get more support in New York -- there seem to be so many Mexicans living here. (they're Puerto Ricans, and . . . what?).
Then cute girl at adjacent table: "hey...aren't you the guy who wrote that there were no cute girls in Midtown?" That turned out better.
September 1, 2004 | Permalink
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Tracked on Oct 28, 2004 8:07:31 AM
Comments
repugs soo stoopid! they cant even spell right or use englisf.
Posted by: informed voter | Sep 1, 2004 3:20:02 PM
Relax.
Posted by: Ugh | Sep 1, 2004 3:22:52 PM
Funny stuff. Hope you got her number, Matt.
One quibble... most likely they are not Puerto Ricans, they are Mexicans. Almost everyone you see clearing dishes or backing the bar, and the countless people you don't see cooking your food, are from Mexico or other countries in Central America. Chinese restaurants, Thai restaurants, fancy restaurants, dives... the whole restaurant industry in the City would go under without Mexicans.
Posted by: Mick | Sep 1, 2004 3:24:39 PM
you're making up that overheard in the lobby bit, right? I mean seriously. please for Pete's sake tell me you just threw that in as a joke to test our gullibility...
Posted by: radish | Sep 1, 2004 3:26:31 PM
Gentlemen don't brag Matthew.
Cranky
Posted by: Cranky Observer | Sep 1, 2004 3:27:46 PM
Why would you be offended that someone doesn't know what SoHo is? New York is the only city in the country where the locals expect outsiders to know about or care about the city's geography. It's that attitude that gives New Yorkers a bad reputation in the rest of the country.
Posted by: Xavier | Sep 1, 2004 3:28:35 PM
Xavier, I'm a hick from mid-Missouri and I've known my entire life that SoHo is an area of Manhattan.
I might not have know that it meant "south of Houston", or when I found that out that "Houston" is pronounced "house-ton".
The people Matt's referring to are morons.
Posted by: Ras_Nesta | Sep 1, 2004 3:32:53 PM
Why do you go through life with a perpetual sneer? Your attitude is why I stopped being a liberal and went over to the dark side of the force.
Posted by: topcat | Sep 1, 2004 3:33:08 PM
Good for you, Matt. Making new friends with cute liberal chicks women is good antidote to GOoPer dork overexposure. Heck, she almost sounds like she was auditioning to be an MY Groupie.
Posted by: Bragan | Sep 1, 2004 3:33:10 PM
"So now you think better of us?" "Not really."
That comment has made me a MY fan for life ;-)
Posted by: synykyl | Sep 1, 2004 3:33:55 PM
Too bad they left their KKK hoods at home.
Posted by: All Repugs Are Nazis | Sep 1, 2004 3:34:52 PM
I really think that these Republicans are not acting like Republicans per se, but the way that clueless people of either party would act in a strange city. I agree with Xavier - Does the average Democrat know anything about the neighborhoods of Dallas or Salt Lake City? (True, New York is a much more important city, but still...)
P.S. Is there any connection between Soho in London and SoHo in New York City? I assume that the London one came first. Is the New York one a deliberate (and not very funny) pun?
Posted by: James Kabala | Sep 1, 2004 3:35:20 PM
Why do you go through life with a perpetual sneer? Your attitude is why I stopped being a liberal and went over to the dark side of the force.
Gimme a break. "Liberals are arrogant, condescending elitists" has to be one of the most ridiculous generalizations is popular usage. I can't tell you how many pampered rich dolts have told me something to the effect of "you liberals should find out how life in the REAL WORLD works." The real world, of course, as represented by suburban splendor and rich parents. If I had a dollar for every time I heard this nonsense, I could be a pampered rich dolt myself.
Posted by: chilly | Sep 1, 2004 3:41:08 PM
I love New York, in many different ways, but having a New Yorker, and Matthew Yglesias at that, sneer at someone's geographical ignorance is, well, just a tad ironic.
Posted by: Will Allen | Sep 1, 2004 3:48:47 PM
Why do you go through life with a perpetual sneer? Your attitude is why I stopped being a liberal
I could never be a Bush voter because I have a highly developed sense of irony that would prevent me from making a comment like this.
Posted by: Constantine | Sep 1, 2004 3:54:35 PM
No, Matt is right. Fuck them and fuck every one of you who defends them. You don't get to come to New York and shit on us.
Seriously, I hear ONE of these motherfuckers say "New Yorker liberals just don't understand how 9-11 changed things. It's like they don't even remember it," and I will beat his pasty white ass down.
I am so not kidding about this.
DO NOT come to my town and tell me that I'm the one who forgot about Osama Bin Laden. Do not fucking PRETEND that because you hero-worship George W Bush, you have some claim to 9/11. He wasn't here. You weren't here. You will go home tomorrow and tomorrow I will to to work and I will walk through Grand Central Station with its dogs and machine guns and EVERY FUCKING DAY I WILL REMEMBER 9/11.
You have no idea what those buildings smelled like as they burned. Nobody walked down your block covered in ash. You didn't watch little kids on the street chase down scraps of paper that had blown all the way to goddam BROOKLYN.
HOW DARE THEY come here and tell US that WE'VE FORGOTTEN?? CAN YOU BITCHES SAY OSAMA? SAY IT! SAY IT ON THE FUCKING PODIUM! I FUCKING DARE YOU!
Posted by: theorajones | Sep 1, 2004 3:55:11 PM
Note to self: never suggest that a New Yorker has forgotten 911.
Posted by: praktike | Sep 1, 2004 3:56:15 PM
"Liberals are arrogant, condescending elitists [sic]" has to be one of the most ridiculous generalizations is [sic] popular usage.
Yes, Chilly. And MY seems to be doing a fine job keeping it alive.
Posted by: piraeus | Sep 1, 2004 3:56:42 PM
theorajones, how dare you denigrate Bush's heroism. Don't you know he hugged a construction worker longer than he originally planned to, or something? Four more years!
Posted by: scarshapedstar | Sep 1, 2004 3:57:38 PM
Matt and Praktike:
I know funny. And that's funny. LMAO.
Posted by: timshel | Sep 1, 2004 4:01:08 PM
Sometimes your stuff is interesting, and then are the posts like this one. So, let's see: there's a a convention and people come from all around the country and they don't know as much about your city as you do. And that is surprising how?
And you know everything about it in such detail...oh, wait...you thought that the Mexicans in the restaurants were Puerto Ricans, right?
And, by the way, the use of the f-word does not make you sound more sophisticated. It makes you sound more juvenile. Grow up.
Posted by: Dave S. | Sep 1, 2004 4:01:08 PM
Republicans in general and conservative republicans in particular are as unappreciative of cultural differences as they are scornful of of political deviation from the party line. Its the manifistation of a phsychological fear of the new or the unknown. As long as they stay within the confines of what the church and the party tells them they are comfortable. The vicious attacks and smears by conservative republican opinion makers on all outside the narrow confines of party and church keep these true believers in line.
Posted by: mre | Sep 1, 2004 4:03:22 PM
lol
Posted by: NeoSpic | Sep 1, 2004 4:05:07 PM
mre, Gosh you're really smart aren't you?
I always thought that as college graduate with a major in poltical philosophy and as a convert to the Catholic faith, my faith and political beliefs were were a result of me exercising my reason but it turns out that they are "the manifistation [sic] of a phsychological [sic] fear of the new or the unknown." Thanks for clarification.
Posted by: piraeus | Sep 1, 2004 4:09:05 PM
Um, sorry about the outburst. I've just heard people say that on TV, and I get very upset, so when I think of someone saying it to my face, I get very upset.
And also, I'm about 125 pounds. With my luck, it'd be some big guy and I'd just probably bounce off him and then do the girlfight-hairpull-jump-on-his-back thing. But, you know, with a genuine rage.
Posted by: theorajones | Sep 1, 2004 4:14:21 PM
To James Kabala-
Soho (or SoHo) for the NY neighborhood is a modern invention. My grandfather had a small luggage factory there (it went out of business in the late 40's). At that time the area was light industry and related commercial business. In the late 50's and 60's, the decline of manufacturing emptied the area out, and artists began to move south across Houston Street from Greenwich Village to take advantage of the large spaces and cheap rents. (Remember that in the 50'd and 60's abstract expressionism was still riding high - artists needed big spaces for big canvases). As artists always do, they brought creeping gentrification and soon the real estate folks decided they needed a catchy name to provide an identity. Soho was chosen to orient the area to the Village and to mimic the London neighborhood (London was then very fashionable due to the Beatles, the British invasion, mods and rockers, Mary Quant, etc. etc.) The area took on a new character as a trendy place to live and a destination for tourists -- galleries, restaurants, shops -- and the name has stuck.
Posted by: jr | Sep 1, 2004 4:21:02 PM
theorajones-
You have nothing to apologize for. I find it funny that those of us who live in cities (you know, where terrorists are MOST LIKELY TO STRIKE) are getting lectured by SUV-driving suburban pricks about "not taking terror seriously enough."
Posted by: Brad Reed | Sep 1, 2004 4:22:20 PM
Does the average Democrat know anything about the neighborhoods of Dallas or Salt Lake City?
The average Democrat would make the effort to learn before travelling.
Posted by: ahem | Sep 1, 2004 4:24:27 PM
Pireaus: Not to be prickly or anything, but why the "sic" after "elitists"? I'll cop to typing "is" when I meant "in." But I don't know if throwing around all those sics is the way to go when you're accusing people of arrogance and elitism.
Posted by: chilly | Sep 1, 2004 4:25:09 PM
"HOW DARE THEY come here and tell US that WE'VE FORGOTTEN?? CAN YOU BITCHES SAY OSAMA? SAY IT! SAY IT ON THE FUCKING PODIUM! I FUCKING DARE YOU!"
Yes, because you know that it was only New Yorkers who died on 9/11 and those New Yorkers were only known and loved by other New Yorkers and the only people who've made sacrifices, including sacrifices of their lives or those of their children, bothers, sisters or friends, in this conflict, have been New Yorkers.
The rabid, southern conservative ideology that's matastisized to occupy almost every square inch of the "Republican Big Tent" and the efforts to which the GOP must go to put a moderate face on that ideology (Scharzeneggar, McCain, Guiliani), have done almost all they need to to nudge my centrist posterior into the DNC.
At least the DNC will put everyone from Kucinich to Lieberman on the podium.
But material like this, from Yglesias caught-my-naked-attitude-when-my-good-taste-pants-were-down outburst to theorajones evident attitude nudism, keep the sink of intolerance good and strong in the Dem's tent too. I may have to be a Dem, but folks like you force me to do it with a clothes pin on my nose.
Posted by: Dan Wood | Sep 1, 2004 4:25:13 PM
piraeus is right. MY seems to be trying hard to make lefties look like elitist pricks.
The question is, is he doing this intentionally, ironically? Or is the experience of being surrounded by people who reject ALL of his basic assumptions about life making him lose his mind?
Posted by: Joel | Sep 1, 2004 4:25:22 PM
"And, by the way, the use of the f-word does not make you sound more sophisticated. It makes you sound more juvenile. Grow up."
I have to say, nothing really makes you soundmore juvenile than calling fuck the f-word. Say use of profanity or something, don't call it the fucking f-word.
Posted by: nethereye | Sep 1, 2004 4:26:02 PM
"Then cute girl at adjacent table: "hey...aren't you the guy who wrote that there were no cute girls in Midtown?" That turned out better."
Yeah, right! And John Kerry was in Cambodia on Christmas Eve.
Take a look in the mirror, Mattie. What do you think a "cute girl" sees in that mug?
Posted by: The Tim | Sep 1, 2004 4:31:18 PM
"Then cute girl at adjacent table: "hey...aren't you the guy who wrote that there were no cute girls in Midtown?" That turned out better."
Yeah, right! And John Kerry was in Cambodia on Christmas Eve.
Take a look in the mirror, Mattie. What do you think a "cute girl" sees in that mug?
Posted by: The Tim | Sep 1, 2004 4:32:31 PM
Then cute girl at adjacent table: "hey...aren't you the guy who wrote that there were no cute girls in Midtown?" That turned out better.
In other words, Matthew got his face slapped. But at least she acknowledged his presence.
Posted by: epistemology | Sep 1, 2004 4:38:27 PM
If Republicans can say they sympathize with NYC post 9/11, then support an administration that gives less homeland security funding to NY state than to Wyoming (are terrorists still being stubbornly uninterested in sabotaging Old Faithful?) they deserve the f-word, the sb-phrase, the dh-qualifier and a couple of shots of the db-appositive.
Point-two, if a New Yorker can't exercise his or her divine right to mock the provincials, well then, it's just not worth living there.
Posted by: djangone | Sep 1, 2004 4:40:43 PM
chilly,
Yeah I think you may be right. My thinking was that the plural for "elitist" was not "elitists" but beside my spell check flagging the word, I can't find corroboration.
I don't know if throwing around all those sics is the way to go when you're accusing people of arrogance and elitism
I agreed with you that such accusations are not fair stereotypes. My point was that MY is not doing a good job of ending such stereotypes. As for me, I throw around "sics" in order to feel better about myself. Afraid it backfired in this case.
Posted by: piraeus | Sep 1, 2004 4:40:59 PM
"Yes, because you know that it was only New Yorkers who died on 9/11 and those New Yorkers were only known and loved by other New Yorkers and the only people who've made sacrifices, including sacrifices of their lives or those of their children, bothers, sisters or friends, in this conflict, have been New Yorkers."
Hey Dan? Is it not obvious to you that this is a reaction to the GOP deciding to use NY as a manipulative cudgel, and to the remarks noted in MY's post? Does it not occur to you that the GOP convention's not being held at the Pentagon, or in a field in PA, or at Camp Pendleton?
The comment being remarked on was crass and unbelievably insensitive, the anger's not misplaced or unreasonable. And I certainly didn't take it as coming from a Democrat or left-leaning perspective, but from a New Yorker.
Context, ya know? It's not a Democratic or Republican virtue. Jesus.
Posted by: chiggins | Sep 1, 2004 4:41:46 PM
I guess you brought all the assholes who like to shriek "elitist! elitist!" the second anyone asks them to please, not be assholes.
The Republican Party showed itself to be full of assholes when they decided to use a city that despises them 3-to-1, NYC, to exploit 9/11. Fuck them all.
(FYI, I went to a shitty rural high school, attended a shitty land grant college, live in shitty St. Louis, and am on a shitty consulting gig in shitty Topeka, KS. The only thing not shitty about my current situation is the pay. I'm definitely not an elitist.)
Posted by: Ras_Nesta | Sep 1, 2004 4:47:58 PM
Yeah, but Ted Drewes has great concretes or whatever.
Posted by: praktike | Sep 1, 2004 4:49:41 PM
The average Democrat would make the effort to learn before travelling.
Not the ones I know, myself included. Maybe while I was there, although I don't usually make a dedicated effort to learn all the local neighborhoods of every city I travel too, either. OTOH, I wouldn't make idiotic comments about the residents like that 9/11 comment, at least not in public.
Posted by: cmdicely | Sep 1, 2004 4:54:43 PM
Yes, not knowing the geography of Manhattan makes one an asshole, and really, it is well known that the "average Democrat" takes the time to learn the geography of the places he or she visits. Really.
Do you folks have any notion of how goddamn stupid you appear to be?
Posted by: Will Allen | Sep 1, 2004 4:58:52 PM
No, saying that the natives of the city you're visiting have forgotten the horrific attack on THEIR city because they don't like you makes you an asshole. MAJOR LEAGUE.
Posted by: Ras_Nesta | Sep 1, 2004 5:01:13 PM
"Hey Dan? Is it not obvious to you that this is a reaction to the GOP deciding to use NY as a manipulative cudgel, and to the remarks noted in MY's post? Does it not occur to you that the GOP convention's not being held at the Pentagon, or in a field in PA, or at Camp Pendleton?
"The comment being remarked on was crass and unbelievably insensitive, the anger's not misplaced or unreasonable. And I certainly didn't take it as coming from a Democrat or left-leaning perspective, but from a New Yorker."
One wonders how it would be possible to hold a convention at the Pentagon, in a field in PA, or at Camp Pendleton.
Given that NY was the gravitational center of the attack, it does seem the most appropriate place among those possible if 9/11 is the animus underlying the choice for a venue. And given that 9/11 is the most important thing that's happened to the U.S. since, say Pearl Harbor, it's not an altogether unidimensional political ploy for the party of a sitting President to hold its venue there.
Would New Yorkers supress their urge to call out the snub if the RNC did throw up a tent in a field in PA?
And the remark you quote, states "...only New Yorkers ... only New Yorkers ... only New Yorkers", not "Democrats ... Democrats ... Democrats".
In any case, since it clearly is a "we are a Democrat town and Republicans are from Houstan" issue, the rhetorical challenge vis-a-vis context is lost on my evidently dense and provincial mind.
There does seem to be a taboo afoot - that New Yorkers feel ownership of 9/11. Teach me please, like Matt would teach those hicks about Soho.
Posted by: Dan Wood | Sep 1, 2004 5:02:12 PM
"I would have expected Bush to get more support in New York -- there seem to be so many Mexicans living here. (they're Puerto Ricans, and . . . what?).
Nice, moron. Puerto Ricans don't even constitute a majority of the hispanics living in NYC. And Mexicans are the fastest growing segment. Fool.
"Mexico, India Dominate New Immigration Into 5 Boros
By Mae M. Cheng
Staff Writer
May 22, 2001
The city's growing Hispanic and Asian populations grew ever more diverse in the past decade, according to the latest Census 2000 data being released today.
Among the fastest growing groups in New York City between 1990 and 2000 are those of Mexican heritage, who have tripled in size, and Asian Indians, whose numbers have almost doubled, the data show."
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-census-diversity,0,4532912.story
Posted by: Al | Sep 1, 2004 5:02:17 PM
nethereye- My the f-word twice! We are such a big boy!
Posted by: Dave S. | Sep 1, 2004 5:06:35 PM
Overheard in a hotel lobby: "I get the feeling these New Yorker liverals just don't understand how 9-11 changed things. It's like they don't even remember it." (no, fuck you).
Why shouldn't they say it? It's the truth.
From Roger L. Simon, reporting on the protests Sunday:
"Cops were everywhere. It was fun talking to them. One of them said to me, 'It's like fuggin' 9/11 never happened.' His buddies seemed to agree."
http://www.rogerlsimon.com/mt-archives/2004/08/hey_hey_lbj.php
Those cops are goddamned right.
Posted by: Al | Sep 1, 2004 5:07:16 PM
Hey Dan, which part of Houston's skyline was disappeared on 9/11?
Al, where the fuck does that article say anything about Chicanos losing their majority in the hispanic population. The operative words in that article are "new immigration".
Posted by: Ras_Nesta | Sep 1, 2004 5:08:15 PM
Ras - from the article: "Over the last decade, the number of Puerto Ricans in New York City decreased by 12 percent, from 896,763 in 1990 to 789,172 in 2000, the census data show. Yet the city remains home to the largest Puerto Rican population in the United States. Last year, Puerto Ricans made up 36.5 percent of the city's Hispanic population, down from 50.3 percent in 1990."
Posted by: Al | Sep 1, 2004 5:10:26 PM
"Yes, not knowing the geography of Manhattan makes one an asshole,"
No, making a shitty joke about it does.
I'll echo Matt here: I've lived in two places that get overrun by US tourists and that someone who is completely ignorant of the locale and derogatory about the locals is a prize wanker.
" and really, it is well known that the "average Democrat" takes the time to learn the geography of the places he or she visits.
Don't know about that, but yer average liberal is more likely to travel with and to actually have read Lonely Planet guide than a. I remember I was the only person in a 40-strong tour of Jordan who knew WTF the Fatamids were.
BTW Will, you come off as very annoying and humorless in your comments. But I'm sure that you're even more humorless in person. Ta.
Posted by: Tom | Sep 1, 2004 5:10:35 PM
Well, if one cop said it, it must be right. After all, they're heroes.
Except when it comes time to pay them, then Republicans like Bloomie treat them like chumps.
Posted by: Ras_Nesta | Sep 1, 2004 5:10:35 PM
jr- Thank you for the polite and comprehensive reply.
pirareus - I agree with most of what you say, but the plural of "elitist" is definitely "elitists." What else could it be? "Elitistes?"
Posted by: James Kabala | Sep 1, 2004 5:12:09 PM
The lesson here, ladies and gentlemen, is that you ignorant New Yorkies aren't properly thankful for Bush's personal heroism on 9/11. You don't appreciate his personal level of sacrifice. (The guy was just back from vacation. Picking up and heading to some "crises" in New York right after his vacation is a lot to ask....)
You're just a bunch of selfish pricks, and you've got bad manners to boot. And you say naughty words, and you're mean to visiting Republicans.
Naughty, naughty.*
*Warning for the thinking-impaired. This post contains large quantities of sarcasm. It should not be taken literally. Failure to abide by this warning probably means you're Republican, because darn few of those bitches have a sense of humor these days. I suppose having Ann Coulter as an sexual and intellectual icon tends to kill it....
Posted by: Morat | Sep 1, 2004 5:12:19 PM
Yeah, what a moron that Matt is, being ignorant of the Mexican population of New York. Asswipe.
Posted by: Will Allen | Sep 1, 2004 5:14:04 PM
Hey Ras_Nesta, how many human beings disappeared on 9/11, who came from other places than NYC, who lived, on 9/11, in other places than NYC, who had family, friends, etc, who are not in or of NYC? How many have died in Afghanistan, who had nothing whatsoever to do with NYC, apart, that is, from being a fellow American?
Keep denying the rest of the country the shared pain if it makes you feel better, meanwhile the provincials will go about doing their dying to straight the rough edges of this private, New York issue.
Posted by: Dan Wood | Sep 1, 2004 5:18:00 PM
My thinking was that the plural for "elitist" was not "elitists" but beside my spell check flagging the word, I can't find corroboration.
Sounds like my spell-check at work; it has a big problem with plural words, for some reason.
Anyway, you'll go nuts pitting yourself against the spelling and grammar of comment posters on the Internet! Especially if the site's host himself has a big problem with that "there/their" dichotomy.
Posted by: chilly | Sep 1, 2004 5:18:19 PM
Matt wasn't pissed off because they didn't know the derivation of the term SoHo. It was the "hooker form the South" wisecrack that got him angry.
Are all of you people complaining about his "elitism" really that fucking obtuse?
Posted by: synykyl | Sep 1, 2004 5:24:08 PM
I am a "provincial", Danny-boy. I've lived in 2 places in my life, Missouri, NYC, then Missouri.
The only thing that pisses me off worse than 'winger fucktards expropriating 9/11, is 'winger fucktards overreaching that all of us out here in the "heartland" agree with them.
Posted by: Ras_Nesta | Sep 1, 2004 5:25:45 PM
No one's asking you to agree with them Ras_Nesta. I've got no idea what that has to do with it.
Posted by: Dan Wood | Sep 1, 2004 5:31:50 PM
"Yes, because you know that it was only New Yorkers who died on 9/11 and those New Yorkers were only known and loved by other New Yorkers and the only people who've made sacrifices, including sacrifices of their lives or those of their children, bothers, sisters or friends, in this conflict, have been New Yorkers."
Hmmm, why do I think that if these jackasses had told a bunch of commercial airline pilots that they'd forgotten 9/11 and the pilots had beat them to a bloody pulp, you wouldn't be lecturing the pilots on their "attitude nudism"? I fully suspect you wouldn't be accusing them of trying to inappropriately "claim ownership" of the event. Would you have accused them of "denying the rest of the country the shared pain"?
I don't know what your problem is with New Yorkers, but the fact is, contrary to stereotype, we are playing the gracious host and these guys are the arrogant, ignorant, loud-mouthed pricks.
The fact is, the Republican convention came here and started invoking 9/11 for their candidate's re-election. 9/11 this and 9/11 that and 9/11 really really upset George Bush and if you disagree with us then you don't remember 9/11 and NO!
Where do you get off suggesting it's arrogant of New Yorkers to get pissed off when people tell them they don't remember 9/11? And don't tell me that I can't get even more pissed off when one of George Bush's cronys tells me that if I really remembered 9/11, I'd support the guy who let Osama Bin Laden get away.
Quit pretending that you're some kind of goddam victim here. I'm so sorry that you find the fact I remember 9/11 so threatening. I'm so sorry you think the nation has not cried enough for your pain.
But I'm not the one who's running around separating the world into "those who remember 9/11" and "those who don't." I'm the one threatening to beat the shit out of the dividers if they try to pull that crap on me. You can threaten to do it, too. Unless you'd rather whine about how you don't like New Yorkers.
Posted by: theorajones | Sep 1, 2004 5:57:59 PM
So Al goes and proves that Puerto Ricans are the largest amount of Hispanics in NYC not Mexicans and he proves MY is wrong how? Or yeah, in his imaginery world where up is down and New York is safe thanks to the big bear hug Bush gave a firefighter once.
Posted by: Rob | Sep 1, 2004 6:04:46 PM
TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Sounds like the "downward spiral" you're caught in, Matt; You got that last line down pat, anyway.
Posted by: Brett Bellmore | Sep 1, 2004 6:12:48 PM
Golly gee, Tom, I was simply following the example of the host. Listen, if Matthew wants to hate Republicans, fine, but he is a nitwit when he extrapolates from his anecdotal evidence as to what the general characteristics of tens of millions of people are. It really is quite stupid.
Posted by: Will Allen | Sep 1, 2004 6:56:21 PM
A thread so dumb that Communist Al couldn't make it worse.
The trolls are out in force.
Posted by: Zizka | Sep 1, 2004 7:04:52 PM
Good to have the Political Officer show up to enforce correct thinking.
Posted by: Will Allen | Sep 1, 2004 7:07:58 PM
uh, Al? I hate to burst your bubble but if you stop to think about it for a minute you'll realize that the cop didn't mean what you thought he meant.
the cop was almost certainly talking about the carnival atmosphere rather than the ungrateful NY liverals [sic] that the delegate was talking about. he probably wasn't talking about the nerve of the GOP holding the convention in NY either, but that's at least as likely as your interpretation...
dumbass...
Posted by: radish | Sep 1, 2004 7:28:40 PM
"Good to have the Political Officer show up to enforce correct thinking."
If that's what he's trying to do, he's surely wasting his time on you.
Posted by: synykyl | Sep 1, 2004 8:05:34 PM
theorajones - Well put. I grew up in NYC, and was in Boston for work on 9/11. I found out about the attack from a co-worker who had decided at the last minute to not fly to LA (on AA Flight 11) that morning.
While nobody has better claim to remembering 9/11 than anyone else, there are some who were more directly affected than others. And New Yorkers fall into that category. And anyone who says otherwise can go f*ck themselves. And go back to Houston.
By the way, this New York native always tries to learn a little about a new city before visiting. For instance, night clubs and and bars can be found in Dallas's Deep Ellum district. And I always try to be respectful as a visitor.
Posted by: LarryB | Sep 1, 2004 8:43:18 PM
This was fucking hilarious. Really, I talk a lot of shit on this guy, but this was priceless, :>
Posted by: Soul | Sep 1, 2004 9:03:51 PM
OK, we can all get happily caught up in caring about Matt's statements about Starbucks and SoHo, when the real source of this expression of rage is clearly the following statement:
"Overheard in a hotel lobby: "I get the feeling these New Yorker liberals just don't understand how 9-11 changed things. It's like they don't even remember it." (no, fuck you)."
An incredibly insensitive, arrogant and wrong-headed comment.
But not unexpected.
These are the people who seriously think that if you disagree with them on issues you are less patriotic, less of a good American, and even less human.
I had my own run-in with a compassionate conservative who harassed me while I was registering voters on a college campus. When he discovered I was in NYC on 9/11, he told me I must have "enjoyed that" because all we "liberals" think the US "had it coming."
Here is the whole story of that unbelievable conversation from my Santa Clara County Demo. Party blog:
http://sccdp.org/blogentry.php?linkID=http://sccdcc.mn.sabren.com/mt-static/archives/issues/000561.html
And I continue to ask: is the average Republican PROUD that this guy treated me that way? Does he represent your Party? And if not, now is your only chance to take your Party back from the extreme right-wing faction he represents.
Posted by: Elisa Camahort | Sep 1, 2004 9:55:50 PM
"...night clubs and and bars can be found in Dallas's Deep Ellum district."
Nice little dog park too,where dogs run free. If you have a dog, I mean.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Sep 1, 2004 10:13:19 PM
Like Matt, I'm a New Yorker now camped out in DC. It used to be that when I got out of the subway in Manhattan I'd look for the World Trade Center to orient myself. It was always south. Losing it was a bit like losing the North Star. I wasn't home that day, I was in DC but NYC is and always will be home. I was lucky in that my family was fine. One cousin walked through the smoke up to Penn Station and got on his train just as it was leaving on time- a train filled with other dust covered men and women weeping and praying. My mom was sweeping the dust off her porch in Brooklyn. A dust that contained who knows what prportion of building and victim. My Dad's apartment building is one you've seen on TV. Just a few blocks from Ground Zero. When his asthma is worse I wonder if its because the EPA told us it was safe for him to breath and I wonder why we were idiotic enough to believe them. A guy I played volleyball with when I was in HS died. A good guy who I hadn't kept in touch with. Compared to many I didn't lose much at all. Yet I'll never be the same. Its like the North Star is gone.
I hate that the RNC has come to my home to dance its dance on the graves of my brothers and sisters. To wrap themselves in their blood. Doing so cheapens their memory.
Have I forgotten 9/11. No. Is everything different? Of course it is. That's why I want a president who will secure our ports. I want a president who will spend at least as much per capita in NYC as he does in Wyoming on homeland security. I want a President who not only thinks we can win the war on terrorism but who can explain how and why he thinks so coherently. I want a President who understands that torturing Iraqi civillians will create more terrorists and who holds the appropriate people responsible throughout the chain of command. I want a President who understands that fraudelent elections in Afghanistan will only create more terrorists and who will act accordingly. I want a President who understands that naming CIA agents is not productive to the war on terrorism and acts accordingly. I want a President who believes that creating the right structure for domestic security is important in and of itself rather than as a reaction to Colleen Rowley. I want a President who will build our alliances rather than undermine them. I want a President who doesn't allow his party to compare to Osama Bin Laden those who disagree with it on the work rules for a Department of Homeland security because we are all in this together and we don't have one person to waste. I want a President who will match deeds to his words about honoring the people who protect me by their service in the military. That means not cutting veterans benefits. It also means not breaking them on the anvil of stupid pipedreams - front and center being the pipedream that a fully developed civil society that is pro-israel, anti-al-qaeda, democratic and willing to sell us cheap oil could flow from the point of just one hundred thousand guns in a veni, vidi, vicci sort of way. I want a president who doesn't believe that our best hope for limiting terrorism by building a stable Iraq is an Iranian spy. I want a President who asks more than that I go shopping. I want a President who doesn't think that the first thing you do when "everythings different" is cut taxes on the wealthiest, putting the nation into a huge budget whole when there were clearly more effective tools for economic stimulus. I could go on. But you get my drift....
Yes everything is different. Which is why we need a different leader.
Posted by: ben | Sep 1, 2004 11:13:13 PM
You're just so superior, with your rich man's Dalten and Harvard sophistication. Way to go eavesdropping on someone else's conversation and then broadcasting it to the world.
Then again, you are the person who broadcasted your ugly face to the entire world. I guess you just like to broadcast.
Posted by: dellis | Sep 1, 2004 11:14:15 PM
I can only hope that Dellis wrote his or her idiotic comment before Ben's had actually been posted.
Ben, that was very moving. And ThoraJones, too.
Posted by: Saheli | Sep 2, 2004 1:09:06 AM
i lifted this from mr.sun...it's a pickup line i thought you could use on the republichicks
"....the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge isn't the only gorgeous, white thing I'd like to see drilled immediately."
Posted by: joejoejoe | Sep 2, 2004 3:54:16 AM
Why would you be offended that someone doesn't know what SoHo is? New York is the only city in the country where the locals expect outsiders to know about or care about the city's geography. It's that attitude that gives New Yorkers a bad reputation in the rest of the country.
Nonsense. Don't you go to movies? Every third one is set in L.A. and they usually assume that the viewer will appreciate references to various L.A. locales: Encino, Brentwood, W. Hollywood, Burbank, Riverside, yada yada.... I haven't the faintest idea about any of these places and no desire to learn. But I do know New York. (PA hick by origin.) I'm not going to extrapolate from my own experience (dunno why not, everybody else is doing it) but my suspicion nevertheless is that New York geography is more widely known by non-New Yorkers than that of any other city. Maybe Paris or London, I dunno....
Posted by: Evan McElravy | Sep 2, 2004 11:31:24 AM
I think articles like this one, together with the tourists in person exposure to the protesters, are far more effective than people could have imagined at changing people's opinions about people in NYC and those with strong liberal viewpoints in general.
Posted by: ampor | Sep 2, 2004 8:07:50 PM
I was here on 9/11. I thought I lost my mom on 9/11. (She was at a conference in the South Tower.) I ran around for three hours yelling into a cellphone that wouldn't connect to the overloaded local network trying to reach her.
I lost four highschool friends and two co-workers that day. Three of them expectant fathers whose children will now never know their dads.
I had to stay up with a girlfriend who couldn't sleep alone because she had a ringside view of the whole thing from her bedroom and was afraid to sleep alone for nearly a month. She's since moved to Italy because she can no longer stand to live here.
I volunteered to help in the days after in the hopes that we'd find survivors, I gave blood. I stood and breathed in air that smelled like burning plastic for weeks. I gathered with others in Union Square Park and looked at all the faces of all the missing pasted up on every available surface, I looked in the faces of all the people at the candlelight vigils, faces that looked for loved ones they'd never see again.
I'm a New Yorker, will probably be one to my dying day and I will take the memories of that day to my grave. Has the rest of the country suffered in this war? Sure. Have they suffered the way we have? Or the way DC has? Not even close. If we're pissed off because some dink from flyover country suggests we don't remember 9/11, we've got every right to be. You weren't here, you don't know what it was like and you never will.
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