Committed to analyzing the issues of the day rather than gritching out fellow scribblers, I've avoided of late an over-reliance on foolish conservative bloggers as grist for my mill. But it's Sunday, I'm bored, and in the course of a thread about yours truly, commenter "truewest" over at Jay Currie's place has come up with a concept that cries out to be developed.
Shaidleville.
Most bloggers of the progressive variety have run into--or been run into by--Kathy Shaidle, whose sins are far too numerous to list. No need to recapitulate them here, I hope--Google is your friend, at least to some degree.
Anyone remember Pottersville, the alternate reality laid out before Jimmy Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life? Where Frank Capra portrays what a decent American town would be like under robber-baron capitalism?
I invite readers to co-design Shaidleville. What does it look like? Who lives there? What do they do? Recreational activities? Schools? Flora and fauna? Landmarks of interest?
Let your imaginations run wild, if you have nothing better to do. We could get a new, dystopic SimCity out of this.
UPDATE: (April 12) In a post that marches over the line, die Reihen fest geschlossen (and no apologies for the reference), Wendy Sullivan/RightGirl launches a determined campaign to become Mayor of Shaidleville.
2 comments:
I imagine "Shaidleville" would be a second-rate, Galt's Gultch type commune (with a tinge of "Thunderdome"), the denizens of which would strut around doing their best Reardon/Taggert impersonations.
Sure, it'd be great fun for a while, at least until the gratuitous environmental destruction started to have an impact. Then would start the squabbling over the quality and availability of private, for-toll roads. All hell would break loose when the anti-depressants and anti-psychotics brought in from the outside world of "moochers" ran out, prompting ATV/pickup raids into the outside world to rob the local Shopper's DrugMarts. Nearby morgues and cemetaries would oddly find themselves facing shortages of blankets.
Then, when the production of food and other basic necessities became full-time obligations instead of hobbies, certain supplies and services would start to suffer. Shaidleville's "Waste Management" department would crumble as citizens scrambled instead for jobs like "Ann Coulter wannabe" and "Courageous internet bigot". The pink shotgun market would thrive, but toiletpaper production would languish.
Scurvy would run rampant, as fruits and vegetables would be scarce. No one would have living wills (DEATH PANELS!!!) and abstinence only health eduction would result in a goodly lot of Shaidleville's resources being devoted to keeping untold numbers of Terri Schiavo's alive and maternaty wards full of drooling, unplanned for children that strangely enough might all resemble Mark Steyn.
I'm unsure as to whether or not declaring war on all things non-caucasian-Christian would bring about the commune's collapse or the eventual lack of pension/social security, but it'd be an entertaining few years to say the least!
It will look sort of like the town Marty McFly woke up to in Back to the Future 1. No Lebanese cab drivers or Korean corner stores. There will be a Chinese restaurant - one - serving egg foo yung and egg rolls. Mr. Chan, the proprietor, is properly deferential, and smiles a lot.
There is a black family. They're very nice. He works as a conductor for Via, and his wife takes in laundry.
There are no Muslims, of course. They were interned years ago, then deported. Kathy and her council of governors are now turning a speculative eye on the community's Jews who, in the absence of other semites, are looking disturbingly - foreign.
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