Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/06/14/foul-smelling-clamshell-paved.html
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And this folks, is why government regulation is a good thing.
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How could anyone think that was a remotely OK idea? It boggles the mind.
And now I’m wondering, are minds the only thing subject to boggling? I don’t think I’ve heard the verb without “mind” as its direct object. But I digress.
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I realize now, that after 35 years on this planet, I always assumed “boggle the mind” was related to shaking up the box of letter dice in the game Boggle. Corporate America wins again!
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I’ll bet nearby residents’ noses were boggled.
On a linguistic note - I often wonder the same thing about the modifier “luke.” I’ve only ever heard “lukewarm,” never lukecold, or lukesmart.
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I am more familiar with the verb in its intransitive form, “the mind boggles”. No object required. Not sure what entities are capable of boggling. Goldfish, perhaps.
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Awww man. According to “The Walking Dead”, he could have just fixed this whole thing in an afternoon with a couple gallons of gasoline.
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The direction of this thread is boggling my mind.
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like wise, i always assumed when people refer to monopolies, they’re making an analogy to the boardgame mechanic, and not an insidiously metastable state of “free” markets.
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I’m guessing the prevailing winds blow away from the property owner’s home and that once he realized he was creating a public health menace, some time after ignoring people telling him so because he was sure he was smarter than everyone else, he preferred to ruin the neighborhood rather than admit his mistake and pay for his mess to be cleaned up.
I’d also put a large wager on him being white. Am I speculating? Yes. But I also like winning bets and this is as safe a bet as they come. I’d also place a bet on who he voted for in the last US presidential election, if he voted.
Also, he wants two more seats on his booked-up flight and isn’t afraid to block other travelers from taking theirs, and he’s rather fond of red baseball caps.
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If they’d just left it alone, how long would the meat have taken to just decompose on its own?
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First they came for the maggots. But I wasn’t a maggot, so I didn’t speak up.
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Well, first of all those shells are still stinking somewhere. Only now, it’s where poor people live, next to the dump, instead of near the delicately refined nostrils of the politically influential.
Second, private property rights are a thing, and if everyone else gets to blow toxic carcinogens freely from their tailpipes and smokestacks all day long, I don’t see why anyone should object to the relatively harmless stink of mother nature. Pig farms and clam harvesting have always involved stink and sweat, although most people just want to eat pork and chowder without having to actually live like the filthy proles that feed them.
The worst of it would be over in roughly a month, I’d guess, if they’re like oyster shells. But it depends on the weather and if you put your face right down in it it’ll still stink six months later. I have driven on many an oyster shell road… but since industrial pollution wrecked the oyster industry in my mother’s home town, they aren’t making them there any more.
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[quote=“GulliverFoyle, post:10, topic:102741”]after ignoring people telling him so because he was sure he was smarter
than everyone else, he preferred to ruin the neighborhood[/quote]
Maybe he just wanted to Keep Clam and let everyone Carry On.
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Australian artist living in NYC moves to rural Rhode Island near the coast to open a nearby ocean front inn and is shocked to learn that it smells when you live next to a farm. This isn’t a neighborhood. It’s the country side. Clam shells are an environmentally friendly and inexpensive driveway surface in many parts of the country, and this is one of them. Guess what, it’s also going to smell when that farmer spreads manure on his field.
Don’t move to the country side and then complain about the smells that go with it. I’d be curious to see what names she got on the petition. Do they even live nearby or are they friends who come to her gallery.
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You’d think that after it had been there for a while, it would more quickly resolve the situation to treat it such that the decomposition got finished off rather than scraping it off and moving it, which would probably leave behind foul-smelling residue. Although at this point, regulations might mandate what’s to be done, whatever the best course of action might be.
Well, “mind-boggling” is a bit of redundant synecdoche, so… yeah, more or less.
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I seem to recall seeing that the “luke” in “lukewarm” comes from an old root that basically means “warm”. So “lukewarm” is literally “warm warm”.
And I’ll bet you’re right about the nose-boggling.
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Treated clam shells, yes. Untreated clam shells, not so much:
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I mean for sure, do not buy down wind of the local pig farmer. They are generally on the very outskirts of the village anyway, and down wind of the prevailing winds so the stink blows over crop land and is pretty dissipated by the time it reaches the next hof, hamlet or village. I assume that is no accident.
Generally the bodies of dead animals need to be disposed of properly, even in farm country. Same is true of the remains of fish and other seafood after initial processing (gutting, shelling, etc). There are also lots of regulations of how farm animal waste must be handled, storage and disposal.
[paragraphs reversed to get around spam filter since I posted this as reply to the wrong person]
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No offense, but remind me not to move in next door to you. Humans have spent hundreds of thousands of generations evolving a powerful aversion to the smell of rotting meat. Assailing one’s neighbors with it can mean nausea, sleeplessness, inability to concentrate, and chronic state of heightened anxiety with all the attendant health problems for them and their families. The fact that people routinely release other environmental pollutants is not an argument for releasing this one, it is an argument against the others.
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