It’s mostly only in America (and only since the 60’s) that “civil disobedience” is equated to “symbolic street theatre”. In other times and places, it meant deliberately disrupting the ability of the state to function, via non-violent direct action.
Or there’s this:
Most of that 15% own ice cream stands up and down the Jersey coast.
If I need to find an upside of this, at least he wore a t shirt
Andy, yer a national treasure.
Christie’s feet in the Jaws one is my favorite touch.
Snookie and the Unit wish to get in on your newsletter.
I got more… but BB will only let newbs post 3 comments per
Run for Congress, and you can have health insurance!
Optics in this case is a big old magnifying glass hovering over that beach, threatening to burn Christie’s career.
What I don’t understand is why the beach was shut? I mean, apart from Christie being a dick.
Sure, there’s a self-inflicted budget crisis, and govt functions are being closed but … so? There aren’t going to be any paid public officials on the beach … again; so what? I seriously don’t understand this concept of ‘closing’ a natural space, be it a beach, a national park, or a playground, for financial reasons.
Tell me about this freedom thing?
In New Jersey, yes there are.
The beaches have a lot of public facilities and staff, normally. I believe you pay for access, ostensibly to fund that.
One of the reasons I prefer Hatteras Island. There, I am responsible for pulling my kids out of the rip tide, spotting sharks and incompetent jackasses with surf fishing rigs, and making sure they don’t poop on the beach. In New Jersey, there are far too many people, so there are authorities.
so give the staff an unpaid day off, close the public facilities, but leave the beach open. This isn’t exactly rocket science.
Trust me on this, people would die. And regardless of how apropos you or I might feel that might be, it would not play well on the 11 O’clock News.
Have you been to a US beach? They aren’t anything like Brighton. And Jersey beaches are something of an extreme, even for us. It’s like an insane asylum let loose in a distillery, people have to be prevented from piling their heads into jetties fairly regularly.
OK I really gotta sign off, later all.
Have you been to a US beach?
Do Tybee Island and Virginia Beach count?
That’s … that doesn’t really seem a good reason. I mean, by all means there is no need to make an environment dangerouser, and having life guards on duty during busy periods is a good idea, but closing the beach?
Look, people die here on the beaches and in the mountains all the time (Piha and Taranaki; I’m looking at you) but the solution is to provide training and awareness and personal responsibility coupled with a decent-ish safety net. Not to close the mountains or beaches. People here would go fucking bananas if anyone tried that.
Yep!
I concur; people die all the time, often due to their own negligence, and that’s what we call the risks of living life.
Unfortunately, in the states too many folks are ‘litigation-happy’ (even when a tragedy is their own doing) and all anyone seems to care about is not getting sued.
Yay, Tybee!
I’ll be back there in a couple of months 
