In A Similar Vein
May 31, 2012 - 10:18 pm
Irradiated by Stingray
Irradiated by Stingray
Tam has gone all observant and noted that “Ey, youse gotta be tough in New Yawk” is in fact bullshit.
As it turns out, there’s a similar problem elsewhere. “Don’t mess with Texas!” “Wild West, etc!” You know the song. As we have driven our way through the perfectly flat monotony to Deepinahearta, TX to visit friends, a curious condition was observed. Nobody would set one lead foot even a mile per hour over the posted speed limit. For good reason too, as given the non-stop squealing of the fuzz-buster on the dashboard, LabRat and I soaked up so much radar that we now have either cancer or superpowers. But yeah, when your local 5-0 inspire this sort of thing, let’s get a little ego check on that “Don’t mess with” attitude, hmm?
June 1st, 2012 at 7:14 am
Who’d have guessed that “Drive all day, you’re still in Texas” was really a complaint about speed enforcement?
June 1st, 2012 at 7:04 pm
Dont pick on us Texans… we are sensitive
June 1st, 2012 at 11:34 pm
Only Texas could make an anti-littering campaign sound so threatening……
June 2nd, 2012 at 5:59 am
I’m just wondering if any of the supposed defining characteristics is true any more.
Here, the plucky, self-reliant, stoical, laconic, ‘stiff-upper-lip’ English has long been replaced by the whinging, whining, compensation-claiming, incompetent, brain-dead one.
Or is it that they remain essentially true, but the msm focus entirely on the idiots? From personal experience, I’d say that’s a possibility. Most people I meet on a day to day basis still think/act more in line with the former rather than the latter. (although dressing for dinner seems to be in the decline - I blame you colonials for your bad influence in that regard).
Intentional? Why not? Present the ignoramuses as evidence they’re the norm and they’ll be all the more likely to come out of the woodwork.
Oh, and judging a ‘people’ by the actions of their politicians - please, please don’t do that to me!!!!
June 2nd, 2012 at 6:02 am
Oh, and it has always struck me that your idea of law enforcement is decidedly more ‘Germanic’ than Anglophile in nature (Ze rules Vill be Obeyed or Ve Vill crush you. Crush you I zay!).
June 2nd, 2012 at 9:01 am
By now the Estelline speedtrap must be on its fourth generation of LEOs. “Yeah, my great-grandfather planted the speed-limit sign, and my grandpa, and dad, and I all worked it, too.” And the Amarillo police were tag-teaming I-27 yesterday morning when I whizzed through town.
June 2nd, 2012 at 5:07 pm
One thing to be tough with fellow Nooo-Yoookahs, and totally another - with Power backed by State. Don’t tell me you southerns are prepared to walk into your major’s office and call him a potz if he displeased you. I don’t think so.
We are not on equal ground, you know - major and us, working stiffs. We can’t even threaten not to elect him next time -it’s already his 3rd and he simply don’t care. He even dropped the “Republican”disguise.
June 5th, 2012 at 8:50 am
Estelline doesn’t sound all that bad. A speed trap to me is a 35mph sign hidden behind a tree or knocked down, between two 55s with no change in road quality or population density, and the cops ready to issue citations for 36 on the radar gun. Now that is a speed trap.
June 5th, 2012 at 9:07 am
That’s actually exactly Estelline, Jake. They only cut down the tree within the last few months. Last time we were through, my comment was “Gosh, that’s awfully douchy to have a fuckoff big pecan tree three feet in front of the sign changing to 35mph.”
June 9th, 2012 at 9:43 am
I think it’s Canyon down in the hill country near Austin that has a sign that reads “Slow down, see our dam - speed up, see our dam judge”. No word on whether they have a local version of Boss Hogg.
I think the speed trap thing is schmucky as fuck-all and reflects very poorly upon Texas small towns. But if there is one thing I’ve learned after moving from Dallas to the boonies, it’s that small Texas towns would much prefer you to not slow down enough to figure out you might want to live there. Their abiding wish is to remain provincial and that in ways which seem ass-backward to me. Let ‘em have it, I say. Just mind your Ps and Qs when barreling through these backward burgs.
June 9th, 2012 at 9:54 am
…but I think you already had superpowers.
June 10th, 2012 at 12:56 pm
Speed traps are tax collection for money strapped small communities. Two or three tickets per shift pays the salary of the officers, so they can be ready to tackle real crime….as long as their not making a traffic stop.
June 10th, 2012 at 12:57 pm
..and my fingers were faster than my brain. I meant they’re…don’t write me a ticket for speeding.
June 12th, 2012 at 10:00 am
It’s a sad state of affairs that, as Cami pointed out earlier, the whole “Don’t Mess With Texas” thing is the slogan of the state’s anti-littering campaign. Makes one wonder why old’ Nanny Bloomberg doesn’t take up Tough Motherfuckers Are We or some such to back his anti-soda campaign.
Same sad. Different state.
The legal douchebaggery, like so many other things, is Bigger In Texas. Most any of us can name at least three or four jurisdictions that you better not speed through, and in many cases it’s 45-not-46. Yikes.