Monday, May 4, 2009

Reader Rattled by Deafening Silence on a Critical Issue

Editor,

Alameda's problems are getting worse and worse. Our skies are constantly choked with bumper-to-bumper Zeppelin traffic, Bagpipes are proliferating at rates far exceeding government safety standards, and those kids these days are getting more and more carried away competing with each other to show off the most irritating car stereos.

Why hasn't there been more complaining about these problems? Is every Right-Thinking Alamedan asleep at the switch that could turn off these "boom car" sound systems? I thought Tim Gubitnik was going to start a crusade against noise in general, and "boom cars" in particular. Instead, all I see in the Noose is complaints about Squirrels and graffiti. I don't see how graffiti is anywhere near as important as "boom cars," because graffiti never wakes me up at night, no matter how loud the colors are.

There hasn't been any good complaining about "boom cars" in this noosepaper for almost two years now! I can't always be the one complaining about these things. Other people have to step up with the grumpy letters. Why, I haven't even personally been woken up by a "boom car" for weeks, maybe because the cement and razor wire street barricades I put up in front of my house are making a difference. Sure, they make it hard for me to drive just about anywhere, but I don't have to worry about anyone parking in front of my house, either.

Still, I know that somewhere out there, someone is being irritated by ever bigger and badder arrays of massive speaker sets on wheels. It's pretty hard for me to get up a good rant about them when they don't even come down my street, so somebody else needs to pick up the slack and get cracking with the complaints. What is this town coming to, anyway?

Lon Geddoff

No comments: