The Top Ten Worst Lyrics on Christina Aguilera's new album.
Postcard from Hell. Photographs from the world's most failed states.
You really need a home with 23 bathrooms, don't you?
Many friends have canceled their vacations to Florida. This is why. (video).
Al Gore is a "crazed sex poodle?" Ew.
Apt. 11d 
why would parents allow their children on a beach with oil? And why aren’t the officials closing the beach? It’s quite disturbing.
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Impressively tacky for $100M.
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I always wondered what people do with houses that big. I can understand wanting a fancy house, and lots of land, and barns for horses or something, but what is the purpose of 13 bedrooms? Are there really 6 or 8 people you want to have visit you and sleep over all at once?
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but what is the purpose of 13 bedrooms? Are there really 6 or 8 people you want to have visit you and sleep over all at once?
I agree. I can see how it had a point for landed gentry in the past- people who were regularly expected to be hosting all sorts of visitors for extended periods, to throw large events that lasted for several days, and so on. But I don’t think that even the very rich do that sort of thing all that often any more. (Not that I have any first-hand experience with the very rich, as opposed to the modestly rich, of whom I know a few, though not too well.)
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“But I don’t think that even the very rich do that sort of thing all that often any more.”
Don’t certain kinds of celebrities tend to be infested with hangers on (Kato Kaelin, etc.)?
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” Are there really 6 or 8 people you want to have visit you and sleep over all at once?”
I was theorizing a large family. So, the 13 bedrooms are for 1) yourself, your 5 kids & their spouses, and for their 25 kids. And, the family is old enough that the 25 kids are not necessarily children. But, it does seem like something that would be pretty specific to the needs of a particular person.
And, maybe, celebrities (and potentiall ypoliticans) do host the equivalent of country house parties. They do have special needs, since it’s not trivial for them to just book a block of rooms at a hotel. Again, though it does seem like a pretty refined need.
The house is ugly, too.
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I was theorizing a condo or resort hotel plus some kind of property tax loophole.
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A scientology cult? It had a cult-like look to it, but it has to be a rich cult.
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Jenny, I grew up vacationing on Bolivar Penninsula, Texas after Ixtoc I. Because of the currents, the oil had mostly turned to tar by the time it hit the Texas shore, but I do remember puddles of black, sticky oil a foot or two wide on the beaches when I was six or seven, and smaller balls of asphalt-like tar lasting through high school.
Quite simply, you adapt. Everyone carries a gallon-sized jug of mineral spirits and a roll of paper towels in their cars, with another near the stairwells of the cabins. You have separate beach shoes that never are to be used on pavement, decking, or carpet. You avoid expensive swimwear, since going into the water means you’ll likely end up with a small smudge or two on your suit when you get out. Cabin owners build special facilities for tar removal, shoe storage, and showers at ground level. You stay out of the debris at the high-tide line — especially the seaweed, which is guaranteed to be covered with tiny bits of tar.
And fifteen years later, you’re astonished that these routine parts of visiting the beach become unnecessary, since the visible effects of the oil spill are gone.
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I should mention that I wouldn’t want my daughter to swim in the water I’ve seen pictures of from the current spill, of course.
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Another Texan. I lived near Houston and went to Galveston during those years. I was young – 7 or 8 – and I don’t remember anyone worrying about the tar balls, which stuck to feet and bathing suits (which meant black spots on your suit for the rest of your summer at the neighborhood pool). Like Ben I remember using gasoline or turpentine to clean it off (which frankly sounds worse than tar balls!)
Seemed to last a few years. The explanation I was given at the time for the tar balls was all the refineries and oil business in the area. Times were different – parent’s didn’t pay a lot of attention. At least in my blue collar neighborhood. I also wore no sun screen and played on the beach all day long (and I’m a red head). Skin peeled off in sheets, days later.
In defense of the parents in the video, they said there was no oil the day before, and what are ya gonna do – if they booked a hotel on the beach for a vacation, they probably wanna get something out of it.
I wouldn’t let my kid (if I had one) play in it either though, but I’m a coastal blog-reading elite now.
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If the people won’t go to the beaches, maybe the crazed sex poodles should go there to play.
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23 bathrooms?? They must eat a LOT of prunes in that family!
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Things were similar on Fire Island (New York) forty years ago when I was little, though maybe not as bad as Texas: there were tarballs on the beach and in the ocean and sometimes it got on your feet or your bathing suit. I presume that the tar came from passing ships in an era of laxer pollution controls, but I’m not sure. No one made a big deal of it.
Nowadays there is somewhat more plastic debris on Fire Island than when I was young, and huge levels of “light pollution,” but no tar.
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I’m just glad Portland is is the news for something other than the hipsters moving here and not being able to find jobs to support their art.
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Santa Barbara, too. You can stay in “nice” spa resorts, and read the signs on the beach that say that the tar on the beach is a natural phenomenon and you should just try to avoid stepping on it. I pretty much believed them, though I’ll admit it was a bit hard to believe that while also looking at the oil rigs off the cost.
The New York Times had an article on “cold seeps” and the organisms that live near them along with some quotes from scientists who argue that oil is part of the ecosystem in the Gulf. The cold seeps are pretty fascinating (and, habited by giant tubeworms, the subject of my 6yo’s “expert project.” They grow slower than their compatriots at hot vents, though. They live for centuries, which is pretty amazing. )
I think a spill/issue at Santa Barbara is supposed to have sparked the Earth Day phenomenon.
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Kai,
Are you familiar with “Look at this f*ing hipster”? It’s not safe for work, but it may brighten your leisure hours:
http://www.latfh.com/
I especially like “Somebody call the gang sign police,” which has a slide show of inept efforts.
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Growing up in coastal New England, we cleaned the tar from our feet with cotton balls and mechanic’s goop. We’re still healthy, decades later.
A few tar balls now and then’s a different situation than the Gulf of Mexico today.
The large house seemed to be designed for a jet-setting oil sheikh. The inside decorations seemed Moorish to me.
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