← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Roy Batty
Thread ID: 6886 | Posts: 6 | Started: 2003-05-23
2003-05-23 23:04 | User Profile
The Washington Post and Money magazine are focusing their journalistic efforts on informing the American public just which town is the "Armpit of America." WP 'humor writer' Gene Weingarten first tagged the town with this term. While Weingarten gives his reasons in the article, I would bet he is being disingenuous at best. Simply put, I'll bet Battle Mountain has no (or very few) non-whites. This includes jews. The location doesn't hurt, as we know jews are terrified of open spaces, preferring to hide in the rubble of once great cities, surrounded by decay, vermin, and like minded destructive individuals.
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What Town Named 'Armpit' of America?
Once a year, Money magazine publishes a list of the best places to live. But what about the worst place to live? What about a town that is so awful it's been dubbed "the armpit of America" by The Washington Post?
That town would be...ta-dum: Battle Mountain, Nevada. (To find it on a map: Look for Interstate-80 and then go about 220 miles east of Reno.)
Battle Mountain, whose residents really do call it BM for short, were a bit miffed by the recognition at first. After all, THEY don't think of their hometown as the armpit of this great country. But this is America! The land of the free, the brave, and the public relations gurus. The land where even bad press can be turned into something lucrative--or at least fun.
Exhibit A: Old Spice deodorant has agreed to sponsor Battle Mountain's "Festival of the Pit" from Aug. 15-17 and will spend $75,000 on the festivities, reports The Associated Press.
Exhibit B: The national news media are reporting it.
Hey, if you can't beat a bad rap, then celebrate it! That's what they're doing in Battle Mountain with this quirky festival. Instead of an old-fashioned egg toss, there's a deodorant toss. Instead of a wet T-shirt contest, there's a sweat T-shirt contest. And you wouldn't want to miss the armpit beauty pageant or the "quick-draw" antiperspirant contest.
It may be the armpit of America, but Battle Mountain has a sense of humor we should all envy. The town has erected billboards along I-80 reading "Battle Mountain, Voted the Armpit of America by the Washington Post," and "Make Battle Mountain Your Next Pit Stop."
The dubious honor was bestowed on Battle Mountain by The Washington Post in December 2001 by humor writer Gene Weingarten. (It was a joke. Of sorts.) He citied the Nevada town for the armpit award for its "lack of character and charm," its "pathetic assemblage of ghastly buildings and nasty people," and its location "in the midst of harsh and uninviting wilderness." * must be no tenements, no blacks and browns, no jews*
But Weingarten got told. Specifically by Shar Peterson, executive director of the Battle Mountain Chamber of Commerce. When he told her what The Washington Post was going to say about her little mining town, she thought for a minute and then retorted: "Okay, maybe we're an armpit. If so, we're shaven and clean and sweet-smelling because out here in the desert, we're arid, extra dry."
She's so good at spin, she could work in Washington.
I wonder how jews would react if one of their enclaves was named the Armpit of America? Then again, their 'homeland' is the ashole of the earth.*
I also wonder how the crime rate and other embarrassment indicators from say, DC or NYC, or LA, or any other big city compare to those in the "armpit"? Why wonder, everyone already knows.
2003-05-23 23:19 | User Profile
Yeah, I read that article and it was crazy. I've been to Battle Mountain, just struck me pretty much as an ordinary little Nevada town in the middle of the Nevada high desert.
These ratings are very weird and subjective of course. The craziest one I ever saw was when New Yorkers were rated first in the nation in politeness of all things. :rolleyes:
I agree the results seem to say a lot more about the commentator than the place.
2003-05-24 19:55 | User Profile
Traditionally, these kind of competitions generated winners like 90% black Camden, New Jersey or East St. Louis, Illinois. But those relied on comparing statistics, not the subjective impressions of some white hating cosmopolitan jew.
2003-05-24 20:36 | User Profile
Jews talking about nasty people? :lol:
2003-05-24 20:59 | User Profile
Some of the worst towns in America are military gate towns:
1) Many of them could not survive without a military base nearby and have almost no diversification in their economies
2) Ethnic groups that otherwise would never be found in these locations suddenly number in abundance. If the cost of living around a base is low, it spawns an off-base criminal subculture of dirtbags who got thrown out of the service and shack up with their girlfriends in town, fathering more illegitimate gangbanger children themselves.
3) With transient military populations always moving in and moving out, the sense of community is utterly lost in these towns. Since the military personnel have no stake in the area and planning on leaving soon, supporting local businesses is anathema to them. Not surprisingly, Wal-Marts and fast food chains dominate the landscapes of places like Killeen, Texas, and Lawton, Oklahoma.
Gate towns like Anchorage and Fairbanks in Alaska are nice because the cost of living there is higher, the economies have alot besides the military going for them, and many military personnel of color hate cold climates and don't stick around when they get out. Likewise, Monterey, Calif. was another place military couldn't afford to live after they got out and has tourism going for it outside of Ft. Ord.
4) The military subculture spawns numerous sleazy businesses in such areas like pawn shops, skanky titty bars (don't even call them "gentlemens clubs"), car washes (homie's gotta polish da chrome on his heavily financed car every weekend) and check cashing services, all of which seem to attract criminal elements
I have a litmus test for determining how bad a town is:
1) On a 3-day weekend, does everyone leave to go somewhere "better," or do people from outside the area come to visit. If it's the former, you're living in an armpit.
2) Do local restaurants cringe whenever an Applebee's, Outback Steakhouse, or Olive Garden opens up? If they do, the town sucks.
Good towns have quality local restaurants that could care less about competition from chains because their food and service is that much better and appreciated in the community. Crappy towns have greasy spoon dives that the locals eat at because nothing better is around, and if something better comes along--chain or not--they'll go there to eat.
2003-05-24 21:15 | User Profile
Very stupid article. What exactly did some Nevada town do to win the distinction of being the worst town in America? Did the counduct a masisve nation-wide study to determine that it was indeed worse than any other crappy little town out there? I am inclined to agree with Roy, the town probably just lacks "diversity".