Yglesiastical Contrarianism

Apologies for the Inside-the-Beltwayism, but this (shamelessly swiped from BJ) made me laugh.

Cole writes:

Can someone explain to me how this is any different from James Inhofe going onto the floor of the Senate and waving around a snowball to deny climate change or a lily white wingnut stating that racism is dead? Because it isn’t.

Actually, it is different. I don’t need to know the neighborhood that is graced by Chez Yglesias to know he’s being an ass, although it does boost the amusement value.

D.C.’s infrastructure – all of it, not just the roads – is exactly what you’d expect from an old, densely populated city where the weather swings between armpit hot and brass monkey cold. To make things even peachier, much of the city falls into two categories: Places that are allowed to rot because poor people live there and who cares about them? And places where it is difficult to make major repairs because the rich people living there bitch up a storm if they’re inconvenienced by the existence of work crews.

Thanks to the wonders of gentrification we also have places that went from rotted to very desirable and crowded, almost over night and without any investment in boring, icky stuff like sewer lines. I know some of you know what happened next. For everyone else, a hint.

Jared E. Moffett climbed atop his granite kitchen counter for refuge. Pools of raw sewage were flooding his apartment, gurgling up from his toilet and spreading like ooze.

:-(

Then there are the water main breaks. I challenge any other city of this size to produce more dramatic water main breaks. They ought to have their own reality show.

And yes, sometimes the roads do break up as you drive over them, especially when you drive over the bit that’s a collection of cracks because if you don’t, you’ll go into the gaping road maw that will devour your tire.

So Yglesias’s fit of nuh-uhism is worse than Inhofe’s snowball. It’s more like James Inhofe denying climate change after he had to fend off alligators while he rowed to the Capitol because melted ice caps have put much of D.C. underwater. Or a lily white wingnut stating racism is dead while he’s attending a GOP rally.

But perhaps I’m being unfair. Perhaps Yglesias is too busy being outraged by employees who fail to clear a sidewalk less than 24 hours after a blizzard ends to care about sewer lines and road beds.

Logan Circle location of @ChipotleTweets decided not to bother shoveling the sidewalk.

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) January 24, 2016

Putz.