Line me up.
I saw a thread about the line-drying debate (srsly? we need to debate this?) over at pollanesque, based on the NYT article about it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/us/11clothesline.html. So I though I would share my own thoughts on the right-to-dry movement, and those who oppose it:
You know, there's something deeper (and sicker) going on in the minds of folks who "just don't want their view obstructed" and are concerned about their "property value", and it was hinted at in the article when someone said that line-drying had become synonymous with "being too poor to own a dryer". So what's the real problem with line-drying? Is it ugly? Of course it's not. Now, maybe a line of underwear isn't the loveliest of things, but it's just not ugly, and about anything else looks somewhere between fine to downright pretty. Is it dangerous? Unsafe somehow? Toxic? Uh, no, not really. So what is the problem? The problem is that [conspiratorial whisper] it might look like there are *poor* people living near you!!!! (GASP!) Now we all know how terrible it would be for POOR folk to live nearby, what with their no-skiing-vacation and budget-eating ways. And poor people bring down the value of *your* property because, well, living next to a poor person really is just as bad as living near a trash dump, or superfund site, or prison, right? I mean, hell, it's practically the same thing! No no no, we can't have poor people living near rich people, and if it becomes too difficult to tell the difference between poor people and rich people, we might accidentally ostracize people based on actual character flaws and behavior, in which case we'd all be kicked out of our own communities....
*headesk headesk headesk*
You know, there's something deeper (and sicker) going on in the minds of folks who "just don't want their view obstructed" and are concerned about their "property value", and it was hinted at in the article when someone said that line-drying had become synonymous with "being too poor to own a dryer". So what's the real problem with line-drying? Is it ugly? Of course it's not. Now, maybe a line of underwear isn't the loveliest of things, but it's just not ugly, and about anything else looks somewhere between fine to downright pretty. Is it dangerous? Unsafe somehow? Toxic? Uh, no, not really. So what is the problem? The problem is that [conspiratorial whisper] it might look like there are *poor* people living near you!!!! (GASP!) Now we all know how terrible it would be for POOR folk to live nearby, what with their no-skiing-vacation and budget-eating ways. And poor people bring down the value of *your* property because, well, living next to a poor person really is just as bad as living near a trash dump, or superfund site, or prison, right? I mean, hell, it's practically the same thing! No no no, we can't have poor people living near rich people, and if it becomes too difficult to tell the difference between poor people and rich people, we might accidentally ostracize people based on actual character flaws and behavior, in which case we'd all be kicked out of our own communities....
*headesk headesk headesk*