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Humidity Built the Snowman, Anchorage Brought Him Down
The city of Anchorage,
Alaska has had it with "Snowzilla," a towering snowman that
annually rises from the drifts of resident Billy Powers'
yard. The first Snowzilla stood about 16 feet tall. But
as Powers and friends began building this year's Snowzilla, the
city sent Powers a cease and desist order, describing Snowzilla as
a "public nuisance" and a "safety hazard."
The next morning, Snowzilla rose anyway, this time topping a whopping 25 feet. Powers coyly insists he doesn't know where the second Snowzilla came from.
Anchorage officials say Powers has a history of thumbing his nose at city code (he apparently owes $100,000 in fines for the junk and salvage shop he keeps on his property). They also say Powers ignored their attempts to work with him to construct a more code-compliant Snowzilla this year.
The best part of the story has to be the Christmas Day pro-Snowzilla snowman protest outside of Anchorage City Hall, pictured above. From a local TV station:
A group of small snowmen supporters were caught picketing outside of City Hall on the sidewalk, but they have since been removed.
The city says the building's maintenance worker who is in charge of clearing the sidewalk of snow removed Snowzilla's friends before the building opened Friday.
The city offered no comment about the snowmen.
The Anchorage
Daily News describes a more gruesome scene, as if the city
busted up the protest by calling in a squad of icepick-packing
Pinkertons.
Today the remains of the protesters lay in frozen pieces. Their signs sat in a nearby Dumpster.
If you're wondering, yes, you can buy a "Save Snowzilla" t-shirt.
Obligatory link to Calvin & Hobbes snowman strips here.
Orange Line Special|12.29.08 @ 10:50PM|#
Here's a Radley Balko joke:
[silence]
Who's there?
[silence]
Who?
[BLAM BLAM BLAM... snow flies everywhere, bits of coal and a pipe
go flying through the air... snowdog has to be shot...]
|12.29.08 @ 11:34PM|#
$100,000 in unpaid fines? Me thinks someone has the dirt on his local councilman..
jk|12.30.08 @ 1:52AM|#
Snowmen are too secular to get a rise out of chattering class
when they are violently murdered and left in the salty street to
melt.
Next year Billy should make a SnowJesus (or a SnowMuhammad) and
dare anyone to knock it down.
JLM|12.30.08 @ 6:07AM|#
This Onion article is appropriate:
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/nations_snowmen_march_against
ed|12.30.08 @ 7:08AM|#
Next year Billy should make a SnowJesus
Why not a whole manger scene? Talk about bullet-proof.*
*Of course, the town atheist would then demand equal time for
his snow-rant...
|12.30.08 @ 7:52AM|#
Personally, I think this guy needs to go down to city hall to
the code enforcement office and kick some major butt!
Jess
http://www.anonymity.at.tc
|12.30.08 @ 8:15AM|#
First thing in the morning, I get LoneWacko AND the
Anonymity-bot?
I knew I picked a bad week to stop snorting Lexapro.
VM|12.30.08 @ 9:12AM|#
FrBunny - indeed!
might I suggest low dose amitriptyline plus your favorite of the
benzos (fewer side effects, of course. but all of the
efficacy)
I'm sure if they petition the governor, they'll get an intelligent,
well-thought-out response.
|12.30.08 @ 10:09AM|#
The Calvin and Hobbs snowman strips were a blatent rip off of Peanuts strips from the late 60s.
|12.30.08 @ 10:10AM|#
The city needs to get off this guy's back about Snowzilla. But, he shouldn't be allowed to fill his yard with junk. Living next to a pig drives down your property values. His neighbors have a right to complain about that. Snowzilla not so much.
|12.30.08 @ 10:27AM|#
VM:
Well the Lexapro was to balance out the paranoia from all the cheap
weed, which was used to mellow me out from the high-quality coke,
which kept me awake after bingeing on Cutty Sark that I drink to
counteract my vertigo.
BakedPenguin|12.30.08 @ 10:31AM|#
Sex with a 25 foot tall Snowzilla isn't normal. But on meth
it is.
For $15.
Egosumabbas|12.30.08 @ 10:36AM|#
History shows AGAIN and AGAIN how nature points out the FOLLY of
MAN.
SNOWZILLA!
Zeb|12.30.08 @ 10:43AM|#
I am never quite convinced by arguments about affecting your neighbors' property values being a strict property rights issue. Shouldn't a person be able to drive down his own property values? Wouldn't a person have an equally valid complaint if his neighbors improved their property, thus driving up property values and increasing his taxes?
|12.30.08 @ 10:54AM|#
But, he shouldn't be allowed to fill his yard with junk.
Living next to a pig drives down your property values.
OMFG! He's not NORMAL enough! He should be forcibly medicated and
put to work in an office. We cannot allow people to do as they wish
on their own property.
|12.30.08 @ 11:05AM|#
"OMFG! He's not NORMAL enough! He should be forcibly medicated
and put to work in an office. We cannot allow people to do as they
wish on their own property."
Fuck off Brooks. That is not what I am saying and you know it. If I
do something on my property that adversly affects yours, you can
sue to stop me or get compensation. If I decide to make my house a
junk yard, your property is adversly affected. Rather than fight it
out in court, we have zoning laws to solve the problem. Without
zoning laws and an effective city government to enforce them, the
bullies and the assholes of the world run things. You don't like me
parking my shit hauling truck in front of your yard, fuck you what
are you going to do about it? You don't like the fact that I
haven't mowed in two years and my yard is full of dog shit and
stinks so bad you can't sit in your yard, tough shit, what are you
going to do about it? There are small towns out there that for
whatever reason don't enforce their codes. What happens is the
crazy hillbillies run roughshod over everyone and ruin the quality
of life. It has nothing to do with being normal. It is about having
some respect for the people around you.
|12.30.08 @ 11:05AM|#
One does not have a right to a neigborhood free from neighbors who store used cars and other items one finds offensive.
VM|12.30.08 @ 11:05AM|#
Fr: LOL!!!!!
Baked:
What if it's a 50 foot snowperson dedicated to the likeness of the
WEIBSKOBOLD?
|12.30.08 @ 11:13AM|#
John-If one makes a junkyard of his property that does not, in and of itself, interfere with any rights of one's neighbors. The establishment of communist zoning agencies with their parasite employees is a much bigger problem. They are the bullies who tell property owners that they can't have colored christmas lights. They are the thugs of Caesar who prohibit property owners from painting their house a certain color. They are the petty tyrants who demand that you kiss their ass and file applications for their approval for your plans to add a garage or tool shed.
|12.30.08 @ 11:26AM|#
I have to say, the protest is much better with the dismembered snowmen laying around city hall. Well done!
|12.30.08 @ 12:57PM|#
Without zoning laws and an effective city government to
enforce them, the bullies and the assholes of the world run
things.
Freedom is sticky sometimes.
|12.30.08 @ 12:58PM|#
And thank FSM there are no bullies or assholes on zoning boards or city governments.
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