I like living in Burlington, I just hate driving here. I have never encountered a group of citizens less familiar with the rules of the road than my fellow denizens of the Queen City of Lake Champlain. Yes, they’re even worse than the fabled bad drivers of Boston. At least in Boston, the intentions of the other drivers are clear – they want to pass you, cut you off, go around, over or through you to get where they’re going. Boston drivers never use their turn signals.
Burlington drivers never stop using their turn signals, a practice equally meaningless. In Burlington, half the drivers are too polite, waving me through an intersection when they have the right of way, the other half just arrived from Boston and will drive on the sidewalk to pass. Then consider that 10,000 of my fellow motorists are college students who have been driving less than five years. Then add snow.
Pedestrians are even worse, blithely launching themselves – and their dogs – into the middle of what is already automotive anarchy. Some days, as I curse and spit and pound my white knuckles on the dashboard, I long for the orderly avenues of Vienna, the world capital of traffic safety. Traffic law in Vienna is clear, fair and everyone obeys it. Mass transit is available and cheap, no one pushes getting on or off the tram. Motorists respect bicyclists and bicyclists respond by not weaving in and out of traffic.
Why did the Austrian cross the street?
Because the light said “walk.”
Perhaps a more pertinent question in Vienna today is how many pedestrians were goose-stepping as they crossed the street. One in four, say the election returns, enough to make Jorg Haider and his Freedom Party a partner in Austrian government.
Jorg Haider reminds me of David Duke – young, handsome, glib – but it’s still the same old hatred. In the last few weeks, we’ve been watching Haider dance the Austrian jig – say something outrageous, then back away from it. There was praise for Hitler’s employment policies, concentration camps were just for punishment (I guess that makes it okay), the Waffen SS as honorable veterans and Sudeten Germans are owed reparations by the Czech Republic. Not only is Haider like David Duke, he’s like a truculent child – push the boundaries until you have your hand slapped, then apologize and start pushing the boundary again.
What does this say about Austria as a nation? For one thing, they don’t seem to have learned much from the Kurt Waldheim experience. Austria is a prosperous country with a homogeneous population. Immigrants, fleeing poverty in eastern Europe or terror in the Balkans are flocking to Austria, providing Haider a convenient punching bag with which to build his political fortune.
I should note that three out of four Austrians did not vote for Haider’s Freedom Party, but that goes to show the importance of being politically active and the consequences of political inaction.
What should the rest of us do about it? Should Israel break off relations? Should the other 14 European Union countries isolate Austria? Would that be unfair interference in the internal politics of another nation? What should the U.S. do?
Well, gee… when we meet a left-wing government we don’t like, we don’t sit around wringing our hands and navel-gazing. We shot Allende, we propped up a series of unpopular governments in Vietnam, we funded the Contras, we spent millions holding down French and Italian Communists throughout the Cold War.
I’m not suggesting we shoot Jorg Haider or fund a rebel army, but we do have plenty of other sources for chocolate and cuckoo clocks. And another thing – maybe those Burlington jaywalkers aren’t so bad after all.
Hitler’s Highway
I like living in Burlington, I just hate driving here. I have never encountered a group of citizens less familiar with the rules of the road than my fellow denizens of the Queen City of Lake Champlain. Yes, they’re even worse than the fabled bad drivers of Boston. At least in Boston, the intentions of the other drivers are clear – they want to pass you, cut you off, go around, over or through you to get where they’re going. Boston drivers never use their turn signals.
Burlington drivers never stop using their turn signals, a practice equally meaningless. In Burlington, half the drivers are too polite, waving me through an intersection when they have the right of way, the other half just arrived from Boston and will drive on the sidewalk to pass. Then consider that 10,000 of my fellow motorists are college students who have been driving less than five years. Then add snow.
Pedestrians are even worse, blithely launching themselves – and their dogs – into the middle of what is already automotive anarchy. Some days, as I curse and spit and pound my white knuckles on the dashboard, I long for the orderly avenues of Vienna, the world capital of traffic safety. Traffic law in Vienna is clear, fair and everyone obeys it. Mass transit is available and cheap, no one pushes getting on or off the tram. Motorists respect bicyclists and bicyclists respond by not weaving in and out of traffic.
Why did the Austrian cross the street?
Because the light said “walk.”
Perhaps a more pertinent question in Vienna today is how many pedestrians were goose-stepping as they crossed the street. One in four, say the election returns, enough to make Jorg Haider and his Freedom Party a partner in Austrian government.
Jorg Haider reminds me of David Duke – young, handsome, glib – but it’s still the same old hatred. In the last few weeks, we’ve been watching Haider dance the Austrian jig – say something outrageous, then back away from it. There was praise for Hitler’s employment policies, concentration camps were just for punishment (I guess that makes it okay), the Waffen SS as honorable veterans and Sudeten Germans are owed reparations by the Czech Republic. Not only is Haider like David Duke, he’s like a truculent child – push the boundaries until you have your hand slapped, then apologize and start pushing the boundary again.
What does this say about Austria as a nation? For one thing, they don’t seem to have learned much from the Kurt Waldheim experience. Austria is a prosperous country with a homogeneous population. Immigrants, fleeing poverty in eastern Europe or terror in the Balkans are flocking to Austria, providing Haider a convenient punching bag with which to build his political fortune.
I should note that three out of four Austrians did not vote for Haider’s Freedom Party, but that goes to show the importance of being politically active and the consequences of political inaction.
What should the rest of us do about it? Should Israel break off relations? Should the other 14 European Union countries isolate Austria? Would that be unfair interference in the internal politics of another nation? What should the U.S. do?
Well, gee… when we meet a left-wing government we don’t like, we don’t sit around wringing our hands and navel-gazing. We shot Allende, we propped up a series of unpopular governments in Vietnam, we funded the Contras, we spent millions holding down French and Italian Communists throughout the Cold War.
I’m not suggesting we shoot Jorg Haider or fund a rebel army, but we do have plenty of other sources for chocolate and cuckoo clocks. And another thing – maybe those Burlington jaywalkers aren’t so bad after all.