Defending the SLUT
I’m a bit surprised at myself for writing this. But this is actually more about defending the idea of the SLUT, more than the actual SLUT itself. I know there is considerable suspicion that surrounds anything connected to Vulcan and it’s perceived influence on city matters. But this maybe a step in the right direction, at least on an ideological basis, as well as a reversal of trends that are more than vaguely criminal in origin.
James Howard Kunstler was in town a couple of weeks ago. I heard him on KUOW, plugging his new novel while explaining how the entire economic structure behind the automobile and the suburb is not sustainable and sooner than later it will fail. I decided to pick up a copy of his Geography of Nowhere and get more into his nasty details. Now I’m not totally sold on his more economic doomsday tone, but his history on the murder of municipal public transportation is very enlightening indeed.
It was is a complex criminal conspiracy involving the auto industry, the oil industry and tire companies that killed such things as the electric street car lines. And this is not one of those tin-hatted theories that one usually finds on badly designed webpages with atrocious grammar. General Motors was actually indicted and convicted of criminal conspiracy in 1949 for what they did to bring down the trolley system in Los Angeles.
Maybe something like the SLUT is simply a small step in the direction away from the ultimately dysfunctional residence pattern that was criminally foisted upon us by a small number of very wealthy individuals looking for even larger profits, ironically taken by a single, wealthy individual looking for larger profits. Not sure what to think about that…