My family and I attended a swanky golf tournament yesterday (the Barclays, played at the austere Ridgewood Country Club). Needless to say, the place is populated with a slice of folks from the very top of the income distribution with a sprinkling of “regular Joes” tossed in. Two small obsvervations:
- I have rarely encountered more rude, self-centered and obnoxious people in any other setting I’ve been in. Crowding around professional athletes like they were the Pope. Budging little children so that swankily clad elites could get a better glimpse at Phil Mickleson, budging through lines of patiently waiting people, peeing off in the trees when there are hundreds of portapotties around the course, and more.
- Related, here is what I encountered in the first port-a-potty I entered:
I have been running around with my camera taking pictures of the routine flotsam one encounters, even in the swankiest and richest of places. But folks, if at a swanky golf tournament we can’t get people to behave with a modicum of decency, throwing plastic bottles into the port-a-potty toilets, then you are not going to get anything serious done. I don’t care how good and thoughtful policy is – there needs to be pretty darn dramatic cultural and ethical changes to go along with any economic and political change. Saldy, there is little understanding of how, actually, to get these changes to take place. But at a swanky country club, I see rich dudes pushing kids around and throwing Coke Bottles into toilet bowls … in other words, we’re doomed.
Surely WC has heard the Aristocrats joke, which cannot be repeated on TUW because of its polite standards.
I would not be surprised if that Coke bottle had been smuggled in by some cheapskate to avoid buying a Coke in a cup at a concession stand.
No wonder why WC likes to the tops of mountains, far away from these lazy b******s.