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Big house a symbol of an American tragedy
The Boston Globe ^ | 1-28-07 | Beverly Beckham

Posted on 01/28/2007 11:48:56 AM PST by BronzePencil

It sits on top of a hill, overlooking a busy road -- a big, pink stucco house that dwarfs all the houses around it. It is conspicuous consumption at its worst, or at its best, depending on your point of view.

It's not the biggest house around. There are many bigger -- one just a few miles from where I live, not on top of a hill but practically on the offramp of a highway. So many smaller houses have been knocked down to make room for these Goliaths. This is called progress.

I don't understand who lives in these massive homes or who can afford them

(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...


TOPICS: Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: classenvyhypocrites; classwarfare; edwards; johnedwards; mansion
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To: rabidralph

What is a "mud room?"


141 posted on 01/28/2007 2:51:35 PM PST by nwrep
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To: B-Chan
So where are the working class supposed to live? Answer: in neighborhoods. More and more urban neighborhoods have discovered that the key to beating both the gentrifiers and slumlords at their own game is the historic preservation district.

And in doing so, drive those prices right up.

142 posted on 01/28/2007 2:56:19 PM PST by RockinRight (To compare Congress to drunken sailors is an insult to drunken sailors. - Ronald W. Reagan)
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To: etlib

143 posted on 01/28/2007 3:04:05 PM PST by I see my hands (_8(|)
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To: BronzePencil

Ted Kennedy belongs in the big house.


144 posted on 01/28/2007 3:04:53 PM PST by Tribune7 (Conservatives hold bad behavior against their leaders. Dims don't.)
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To: BronzePencil

Hey, Beverly! What about all those homeless your "god" Bill Clinton displaced to build his Library/Massage Parlor down my the river?


145 posted on 01/28/2007 3:07:33 PM PST by Diana in Wisconsin (Save The Earth. It's The Only Planet With Chocolate.)
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To: nwrep

Our mud room is a little room just off to the side of the door to the garage. It's where we store wet boots and shoes, hang up wet snow pants to dry and store extra supplies like bulk paper towels and the like.

It's very handy and as an extra plus I can shut the door and not have to look at the stuff. LOL


146 posted on 01/28/2007 3:11:47 PM PST by mplsconservative
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To: marsh_of_mists

Speaking of weekenders, I know an individual with a house part of which in over 200 years old. The fireplace in that area of the house still functions; the floors on both stories have held up fine through the years; the bedroom doors are goodness knows how old and still function fine. The newer areas of the hosue are also quite old (more Victorian) and also quite functional. The newer sections were designed to match the older sections so the house looks beautiful. Now, that's a big house with character. But around it, in the once thoroughly rural neighborhood, more and more new monsters are being build for more wealthy New York City "tourists" to live on the summers and weekends. The owner of the forespoken house is also a rich New York weekender, but at least he grew up in the area and he bought a house already there.

Needless to say, the tourists not only ruin the landscape with their tasteless, but brightly-colored dream homes (one designed to look like a ski chalet), but you can imagines to crowding and traffic they cause in the village center, which is maintained in quaint, turn-of-the-last-century perfection primarily for them and their money. The natives do most of their shopping in the big box stores and supermarkets on the outskirts of town--cheap prices and a much greater variety of goods. But what are you going to do? Such small towns are only economically viable as tourist traps for urbanites who want to live in the city for it's conveniences, but also want a place to go to escape from the concrete jungle and pretend that they're gentleman farmers.

The economy, society, and technology of today encourages the big box stores and McMansions. We can decry it as vulgar and unaesthetic, but 150 years ago, people decried the main streets we now think are so quaint for destroying the old rural culture of homestead and craftsmen's stores.


147 posted on 01/28/2007 3:12:01 PM PST by marsh_of_mists
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To: redangus

Heck, my parents bought a home in the western suburbs of Chicago for $12,000 in 1964. The house next door which is smaller and frame not brick just sold for $299,000.


148 posted on 01/28/2007 3:24:12 PM PST by sharkhawk (Bear Down Chicago Bears)
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To: Howlin

I linked to a pic on FR. If you wanted it kept private, why'd you post it?


149 posted on 01/28/2007 3:35:32 PM PST by narses (St Thomas says "lex injusta non obligat.")
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To: BronzePencil

According to this idiots "logic", everyone should live in a unabomber-style shack and eat weeds. What a tool.


150 posted on 01/28/2007 3:50:57 PM PST by driftless2
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To: definitelynotaliberal

Good guess.


151 posted on 01/28/2007 3:53:42 PM PST by narses (St Thomas says "lex injusta non obligat.")
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To: KingArthur305
"drive this weak envy"

A great many libs would like to see suburbia destroyed, peoples cars taken away, and everyone forced to live in tiny high-rise apartments in big megalopolises cheek-by-jowl with millions. They hate the idea of persons not being beholden to a few power-mad, big-city Dems who would like nothing more than to have more people to regulate. Libs have hated suburbia since the fifties.

152 posted on 01/28/2007 3:57:54 PM PST by driftless2
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To: politicalwit

Neat. Thanks.


153 posted on 01/28/2007 4:28:44 PM PST by gcruse (http://garycruse.blogspot.com/)
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To: narses
That's going to be a lot of grass to cut in your back yard.

;-)

154 posted on 01/28/2007 4:45:34 PM PST by beyond the sea ( All lies and jest, still the man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest)
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To: beyond the sea

The Breck Girl can afford help. Illegals, no doubt.


155 posted on 01/28/2007 4:46:44 PM PST by narses (St Thomas says "lex injusta non obligat.")
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To: Billthedrill
Bill, you drilled it. But it's even worse than not researching by talking to a few people who live in these "massive homes." It's poor writing.

I don't understand who lives in these massive homes or who can afford them.

Ms. Beckham doesn't "understand" who lives in these homes or who can afford them? What? Ms Beckham doesn't speak these homeowners' language? Do the homeowners speak Japanese, Spanish or Farsi? Perhaps Ms. Beckham meant to say " I don't understand the mindset of those who live in massive homes, and I have never met a person who could afford one. I don't really care to journalistically pursue it further. But, continue to let me sermonize..."

156 posted on 01/28/2007 4:47:16 PM PST by Fizzie
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To: The_Media_never_lie
Just goes to show that wealth cannot buy good taste.

That's a fact.

157 posted on 01/28/2007 4:47:51 PM PST by beyond the sea ( All lies and jest, still the man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest)
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To: narses

Is that his place?


158 posted on 01/28/2007 4:54:10 PM PST by beyond the sea ( All lies and jest, still the man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest)
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To: beyond the sea

Yes.


159 posted on 01/28/2007 4:54:37 PM PST by narses (St Thomas says "lex injusta non obligat.")
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To: narses

thanks for the picture of liberal hypocrisy


160 posted on 01/28/2007 4:59:31 PM PST by VOA
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