<![CDATA[Grist - Comment Feed for What’s up with that gated ‘community’ in Montana?]]> Grist Comment Feed en Comment #1 by Biodiversivist http://www.grist.org/article/go-ask-alice/ Thu, 25 Oct 2007 07:36:20 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/go-ask-alice/1 What would you do if

they had offered you, say, a million dollars to do the same? That would be real easy to rationalize.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

]]> What would you do if

they had offered you, say, a million dollars to do the same? That would be real easy to rationalize.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

]]> Comment #2 by justlou http://www.grist.org/article/go-ask-alice/ Thu, 25 Oct 2007 23:13:24 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/go-ask-alice/2 Gates and Walls

Haven't the rulers typically lived behind gated walls throughout history?  We, the "ruled" are so often accused of "class warfare" or "class envy" but it is they who choose to live behind the walls which invite such characterizations.  When the walls extend into the domain of the free then we have a real problem.  

]]> Gates and Walls

Haven't the rulers typically lived behind gated walls throughout history?  We, the "ruled" are so often accused of "class warfare" or "class envy" but it is they who choose to live behind the walls which invite such characterizations.  When the walls extend into the domain of the free then we have a real problem.  

]]> Comment #3 by Pete http://www.grist.org/article/go-ask-alice/ Fri, 26 Oct 2007 00:38:27 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/go-ask-alice/3 Go Ask Alice

Read what Ameya Preserve developer, Wade Dokken, has to say about those of us who dare to question the validity of Ameya's promotional material.  You can find it posted at the Gift Hub.  http://www.gifthub.org/2007/08/class-envy-in-m.html

I wonder if Alice feels the same way?

]]> Go Ask Alice

Read what Ameya Preserve developer, Wade Dokken, has to say about those of us who dare to question the validity of Ameya's promotional material.  You can find it posted at the Gift Hub.  http://www.gifthub.org/2007/08/class-envy-in-m.html

I wonder if Alice feels the same way?

]]> Comment #4 by amc89 http://www.grist.org/article/go-ask-alice/ Fri, 26 Oct 2007 01:18:37 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/go-ask-alice/4 Very disappointing

"In my area of western North Carolina, gated communities often cheekily take the names of the farms they have replaced. Driving around, you'll see an elaborate sign above a rustic gate proclaiming so-and-so "Farm" -- and peer up the road to see "no trespassing" signs and McMansions tarted up to look like log cabins or farmhouses."

In my community as well, Tom.  

]]> Very disappointing

"In my area of western North Carolina, gated communities often cheekily take the names of the farms they have replaced. Driving around, you'll see an elaborate sign above a rustic gate proclaiming so-and-so "Farm" -- and peer up the road to see "no trespassing" signs and McMansions tarted up to look like log cabins or farmhouses."

In my community as well, Tom.  

]]> Comment #5 by PBrazelton http://www.grist.org/article/go-ask-alice/ Fri, 26 Oct 2007 02:15:39 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/go-ask-alice/5 Even more vexing

Prefab "communities" with idyllic names like "Maple Glen" or "Arbor Mists" that were kick started with a clearcut of the land and a year of mega-ton vehicles utterly destroying the soil.  I always wonder at the character of a person who buys a home in a development with such an Orwellian naming scheme.

]]> Even more vexing

Prefab "communities" with idyllic names like "Maple Glen" or "Arbor Mists" that were kick started with a clearcut of the land and a year of mega-ton vehicles utterly destroying the soil.  I always wonder at the character of a person who buys a home in a development with such an Orwellian naming scheme.

]]> Comment #6 by caniscandida http://www.grist.org/article/go-ask-alice/ Fri, 26 Oct 2007 02:52:27 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/go-ask-alice/6 Livingston, MT

It is not far east of Bozeman on I-90; but also it is on the state highway 89, which goes generally south, along the Yellowstone River, to Gardner, the northern entrance of Yellowstone NP.

Around 20 years ago, I visited Montana for the first time, to attend a summer course on paleontology at Montana State University.  The bus had already stopped in Billings, at around 3 AM, for our "breakfast break"; but Livingston was our first walk-around stop after the sun had risen.  I thought I was in Paradise, so lovely and sweet-smelling was the air on that summer morning.  A few days later, a friend from Bozeman drove me down 89 to Yellowstone, which is a spectacularly beautiful road.

But I hear the area has indeed become cluttered lately with too many folks from outside coming to build new places and move into them.  Some of the most notorious are the members of Elizabeth Clare Prophet's Church Universal and Triumphant, who bought a ranch near Gardiner, and have constructed numerous bomb shelters in the vicinity, designed to survive a nuclear war.  They are believed to have the largest privately owned bomb shelter in the US.  They certainly did not exhibit much good-neighborliness toward the locals by allowing some of their stockpiled gasoline to leak:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Clare_Prophet

No doubt Alice Walker's new place is very nice, by some standards.  But it does seem very unlike her, to be satisfied with a dwelling situation that will inevitably put a great deal of distance between herself and the people of the area.  With what she spent, could she not have taken some of it and rented a rancher's unused house or cabin, and dedicated the rest to repairing houses on the nearby Crow Indian Reservation?

Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.

]]> Livingston, MT

It is not far east of Bozeman on I-90; but also it is on the state highway 89, which goes generally south, along the Yellowstone River, to Gardner, the northern entrance of Yellowstone NP.

Around 20 years ago, I visited Montana for the first time, to attend a summer course on paleontology at Montana State University.  The bus had already stopped in Billings, at around 3 AM, for our "breakfast break"; but Livingston was our first walk-around stop after the sun had risen.  I thought I was in Paradise, so lovely and sweet-smelling was the air on that summer morning.  A few days later, a friend from Bozeman drove me down 89 to Yellowstone, which is a spectacularly beautiful road.

But I hear the area has indeed become cluttered lately with too many folks from outside coming to build new places and move into them.  Some of the most notorious are the members of Elizabeth Clare Prophet's Church Universal and Triumphant, who bought a ranch near Gardiner, and have constructed numerous bomb shelters in the vicinity, designed to survive a nuclear war.  They are believed to have the largest privately owned bomb shelter in the US.  They certainly did not exhibit much good-neighborliness toward the locals by allowing some of their stockpiled gasoline to leak:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Clare_Prophet

No doubt Alice Walker's new place is very nice, by some standards.  But it does seem very unlike her, to be satisfied with a dwelling situation that will inevitably put a great deal of distance between herself and the people of the area.  With what she spent, could she not have taken some of it and rented a rancher's unused house or cabin, and dedicated the rest to repairing houses on the nearby Crow Indian Reservation?

Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.

]]>