Bulo Remembers 2009-Most Interesting Ideas of the Year

For the ninth consecutive year, the New York Times Magazine has published its Year In Ideas section. If you have a brain, you’ll want to read it. It is, as the title suggests, thought-provoking.

I even found one idea that, were I a state legislator, I’d turn into a bill as soon as possible (more on that a little later).

Unlike the ogres at Time Magazine, this is a very user-friendly list, and you can easily find your faves. Here are some of mine:

Music For Monkeys–(anyone who works in retail understands this concept). BTW, a question for the barristers on this board: If you work in retail, are forced to listen to insipid Xmas music all day, and suddenly go postal upon hearing  “Holly Jolly Christmas” for the 598th time this season, can you be held accountable for your actions?

The Myth of the Older Deficient Employee-Tom Waits put it best when asked why he signed with the punk-based label Anti: “I was told they needed some adult supervision.”

Vampires Meet High Art-Not all the ideas are necessarily good ideas…although this mash-up would work great with opera (“First, we kill all the tenors.”) I’m reminded of Pauline Kael’s one-sentence review of “A Night At the Opera”: “The Marx Brothers, doing to ‘Il Trovatore’ what SHOULD be done to ‘Il Trovatore’.”

Hi-Tech Mosquito Destruction-Sounds promising. Just hope this isn’t the same guy that developed the ‘squirrel-proof’ bird feeder.

And this is but a small sample.

As to my idea for legislation, here it is:

The Cul-de-Sac Ban–It’s not really a ban. If you want to build one of these communities, fine. Just be aware that, since you make no provisions for thru-traffic and since all traffic from your community spills out onto a busy highway, you will be responsible for all maintenance and upkeep on your private road. That includes snow-plowing. As things now stand in Delaware, if a cul-de-sac road meets state standards, then, after a relatively brief period of time, the state assumes responsibility for the upkeep of the road from the maintenance association. This despite fact that the road is serving no public purpose and works against smart growth by failing to provide “connectivity, with ample through streets connecting them to other neighborhoods and nearby commercial areas.”

There is no reason for the State to pay to maintain roads that are built contrary to the public policy of the state. So pass ‘Bulo’s Law’. I promise to sell out: I will never cavil with the legislator brave enough to stand with me in opposition to the Cul-de-Sac Cabal. Uh, unless it’s Monsignor Lavelle…