Neo-Sidran NIMBYs Take It To The Poles

We ran across these flyers stapled to some Wallingfordian utility poles on our stroll last night. They were all artistically positioned, in diagonal fashion, across campaign flyers. Aside from the obvious irony, we delighted in smashing a number of fallacies in these odious pieces of self-serving schlock.

First, a number of candidates running for the public trough this year happen to be women. Thus, when we saw a number of these stapled above flyers for female candidates, we were a little struck by the cretinous word choice. Secondly, we wonder exactly which "Seattle neighborhoods" are speaking here. And what gives the author the authority to speak for all of them? Was there a recent meeting of the area's constipation of NIMBYs ("constipation is to NIMBYs as herd is to sheep...") who passed this unanimous decree? Neighborhoods are comprised of people, each one with a different opinion.

Moreover, we take exception to the patronizing bastard author assuming that s/he knows our individual values. We happen to like seeing stuff on utility poles, even though the majority of it is pure crap. We run across all sorts of communication on utility poles, be they show flyers, illicit tagging, or official/commercial graffiti. It makes for interesting reading when we are out walking. Are signs on utility poles all that more insidious than signs on flimsy stakes, sprouting like weeds from every street corner and likely to become litter faster than sturdily-stapled signs? If anything, given the turnover of messages on poles, such signs are more likely to be taken down just so that the space can be recycled for advertising somebody else's lame band, say, or stupid 21st birthday.

Of course, it's not even worth talking about the idea of voting against a candidate not on, say, issues (or hair color) but, rather, based on where s/he puts campaign signage...

Given past ignominious history, we immediately suspected local cretins but it is unfair to jump to such a conclusion without further investigation. Perhaps this is just the work of a singular, constipated grump? In any case, we admire the grump's dedication to take his/her message to the poles and contributing to the visual litter. We don't mind civic debate; we don't even mind a little mud-slinging from time to time. What we do find objectionable, however, is self-righteous chumps claiming to speak for all Seattle neighborhoods and hijacking all your values.