No Comment Is Necessary

Reader David Jackson passes along an AP dispatch from Thailand that includes these choice passages:

Greg Ferrando glistened with sweat and sea water as he went for a barefoot jog up the immaculate white sand beach, where the tsunami has wiped away almost all signs of humanity.

"This whole area was littered with commercialism," said the 43-year-old from Maui, Hawaii. "There were hundreds of beach chairs out here. I prefer the sand."

Ferrando is like many who believe the tsunami that devastated this tourist hotspot and killed thousands Dec. 26 had one positive side: By washing away rampant development, it returned the beaches to nature.

"Everyone is talking about it. It looks much better now," he said. "This looks a lot more like Hawaii now, where vendors aren't allowed on the beach."…

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said the tsunami swept away unplanned and possible illegal building, creating an opportunity to regulate growth.

The Seattle Times headlined the article "Tsunami wipes out tourist beach clutter."

Comments

[matt]

This is some of the most disgusting garbage I have read in a long time. If this asshole wants a "pristine" beach maybe he should go buy a plot of undeveloped beachfront property somewhere instead of bitching about how other people chose to devolop their own property.

[eco-imperialist]

Yeah, what's a few dead wogs when you get a clean beach.

[Henry]

Wow, that was inspiring. It almost makes me wish for a tsunami to clean up all those condos on the Florida beaches--they could be returned to their natural state almost instantly!

Ain't nature wonderful!

[Eiki Martinson]

I don't know whether to be more amazed that they found some idiot to provide the soundbite, or that the Seattle Times thought it advisable to run such a story under that title. As for Mr. Ferrando, I wonder what he would say if a tsunami wiped out Maui...

[thoreau]

Some things in life are bad,
They can really make you mad,
Other things just make you swear and curse,
When you're chewing on life's gristle,
Don't grumble--give a whistle!
And this will help things turn out for the best:
Always look on the bright side of life!

[Warren]

Well, since everybody knows that tsunami are the result of global warming, and now that we know that wiping out hundreds of thousands of shore dwellers is a good thing, I expect the watermelon crowd (Green on the outside, red at the core) will now embrace the petroleum based industrial economy. Right?

[spur]

Thailand will get to start over and have a chance to undo past mistakes in development, etc. -- this is undeniable

-- and yes --

clean beaches without a lot of blindingly white euro-trash tourists and annoying vendors is better

-- the guy wasn't asked if he thought the dead deserved it or if he was wishing for the tsumani or something, he was asked what he thought of the beach now rather than pre-tsunami -- you also don't know what he said before or after -- he coulda said 'this is an immense human tragedy on a scale I cannot imagine and I am dedicating my life to helping the area recover by striving to bring free-market capitalism to the Thai people, however, if there is a bright spot, insert quote used in piece'

[Agammamon]

"Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said the tsunami swept away unplanned and possible illegal building, creating an opportunity to regulate growth."

Creating an opportunity to strangle growth and delay recovery is more like it.

[Phil]

clean beaches without a lot of blindingly white euro-trash tourists and annoying vendors is better

Than what?

[Akira MacKenzie]

"Creating an opportunity to strangle growth and delay recovery is more like it."

Well of course. The last thing that the tinpot dictators and presidents-for-life of the Third World want is their people are economically uplifted to a level where they can make their own decisions. Keeping them in squalor keeps assholes like this in power--not to mention maintains the "quaint" primitive societies for Western leftists, like Ferrando, to swoon over.

[Akira MacKenzie]

Oh, and I don't think for a moment that most of the aid money we are pumping into that region isn't going to end up in the pockets of the slimeballs like Mr. Shinawatra.

[pragmatist]

The watermelon crowd -- now that's a new one on me. I LIKE that. 🙂

How does it come to be that the third world is ruled by idiots? But then, how does it come to be that watermelons grow best in the developed world?

Sorry, it's just the scientist/engineer in me, looking for root causes so's to try and irradicate.

[WSDave]

Henry,

You're out of luck. If a tsunami hit Florida, the Fed's cheap flood insurance would just rebuild it...

I've been reading Reason for about 10 years now, and I have a question:

How come Washington State ends up in the thumbs down column 90% of the time? Does this state have no redeeming value?

More importantly, how can I change that?

WSDave

[joe]

Settlements are never rebuilt exactly the same after a disaster. Portugal after the great earthquake, Rome after the fire...even the WTC site has been redesigned to eliminate some of the problems associated with the old site layout.

Patterns of building and that were problematic but entrenched (such as locating buildings in flood zones, or exposed outside the coastal dunes) are not included in the rebuilt settlement, and the opportunity is taken to address longstanding issues that were formerly considered unsolvable.

Thus has it always been. I don't recall anyone launching into high dudgeon when it was pointed out that the superblock at the WTC made life less pleasant for the people in the area.

[Number 6]

And I thought Rand was being hysterical in The Anti-Industrial Revolution....

It does, however, make one wonder if a tsunami could be arranged on the Potomac.

[kevrob]

I don't recall anyone launching into high dudgeon when it was pointed out that the superblock at the WTC made life less pleasant for the people in the area. - joe

I call B.S. The WTC towers were derided from the start as ugly, unimaginative architecture, that, in the eyes of some, ruined lower Manhattan. The Port Authority added an enormous, as yet unneeded amount of office space on the market. Building the towers was a textbook case of "edifice complex." People complained that they had various ill effects, from changing wind patterns in such a way that neighboring buildings were damaged, to degrading television reception.

But what are you going to expect from a government project?

Of course, nothing above should be taken as endorsement of the evil actions that demolished the WTC.

Kevin

[joe]

"Of course, nothing above should be taken as endorsement of the evil actions that demolished the WTC."

Just as nothing written in the article should be taken as approval of the deaths of 150,000 people, yet that is how those comments are being spun.

[Eric the .5b]

Joe, if some twit from Hawaii had strolled up to the edge of Ground Zero in late September and said, "But hey, at least you don't have those annoying, big buildings there," people would have called him a fuckwit.

[Kevin Carson]

joe,

That's a strawman. There are plenty of commenters here who don't equate a belief in free markets with a reflexive apology for whatever big corporations do to make money.

I don't remember for sure if I said it in this forum, but I have repeatedly derided those who treated the WTC as a monument to capitalism and markets. I have repeatedly attempted, in a variety of venues, to draw attention to the WTC's roots in statist collusion between the Port Authority, David Rockefeller, and eminent domain abuse. I'd like nothing better than to see that block as the home of the Syrian neighborhood that was there in the first place.

[Gary Gunnels]

joe,

Who is arguing that the area should be rebuilt as before? Owners of the land should rebuild it as they want to. Oh wait, that's right, we should leave it up to the government "experts" to decide what goes there.

[Komakino]

Those vendors were people in a grossly under developed country trying to make a living from tourists mainly from rich countries who added to Thailands's etc... economy. White sand will only benefit local people if they put hotels, restaurants, golf courses and 'beach chairs' on it. It's a pity, but it's a harsh reality of life. People don't go to remote areas in droves, they want comfort for their two weeks holiday a year. They generally don't give a shit about the place they visit as long as they get a sun tan and a story to tell. I hope the vendors take every penny they can, they deserve it.