quiddities and agonies of the ruling class - a rolling new york times thread

lol

Nannies With Attitudes

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/22/nyregion/bloomberg-says-social-media-can-hurt-governing.html
http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/21/ristretto-we-are-the-5-percent/
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/21/dining/must-have-gadgets-for-the-kitchen-think-again.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/22/garden/how-to-turn-abandoned-bicycles-into-hanging-lamps.html

Call it the Upcycle Bicycle lamp.

no. do not do this.

how is that bike lamp thing a "ruling class" agony

Michelle K
Houston, TX

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We pay our nanny a $1700.00/month salary for approximately 25 hours a week. We offer her 6 sick days a year and she gets paid vacations as she does not have to work when we go on holiday with our child (i.e., Spring Break, Easter Break, two weeks in the summer, Thanksgiving and the Christmas holidays). When we have special needs, such as when my husband and I are out of town at the same time (rarely) and we need her to stay with our daughter, we always consult her schedule. Our child is in the third grade and trains in a sport five days a week so her time with her is limited (3-5 pm). She does clean our house but does not have to cook. Our child absolutely adores our nanny and we feel we are not paying for essentially a taxi/housecleaning service, we are paying for "peace of mind" and someone we respect and value as a person. It's a win-win situation for all.

Don't really see what's so outrageous about this one. I have a friend that did this. If both parents work someone's gotta pick up your kid when she gets out of kindergarten.

You mean like daycare?

like grandma?

i think it is less "these people have child care" and more "these people could buy a used car every month with the money they spend on child care"

also "these people take a minimum of five vacations a year"

how is that bike lamp thing a "ruling class" agony

cuz they're noguchi!

that blog is still the brightest spot in my day.

Don't really see what's so outrageous about this one. I have a friend that did this. If both parents work someone's gotta pick up your kid when she gets out of kindergarten.

― dmr, Thursday, 22 March 2012 20:50 (48 minutes ago) Permalink

Well, I was surprised at how much they paid for PART TIME daycare, but I also just thought there were subtly funny quiddity-esque lines in the comment, like "Our child is in the third grade and trains in a sport five days a week so her time with her is limited"

Damn those ruling class New Yorkers and their Christmas, Easter AND Thanksgiving holidays!

i mean i've worked through most holidays my whole life, and i've sorta chalked it up to being the lot of my shitty low-rung wage work. i feel like numerically there might be more people on my side of the fence than the other?

"Being off school for a week" != "entire family going on holiday/vacation."

"go on holiday with our child" sounds like a trip to me but i'm not particularly interested in arguing about this

Yeah, def using the Brit version of "holiday"

I mean, yeah, rich kids and poor kids alike get Christmas vacation and spring break during the school year, but they are only an opportunity for the whole family to travel for one of those groups.

I only ever went somewhere for spring break once, and that was when my sister and I went to visit my dad for a week in luxurious Ft. Belvoir, VA. Ah, the joy of cramming three people into an efficiency apartment in the Bachelor Officers Quarters!

To be fair, it's a middle class luxury for parents to be able to plan their vacation time to overlap with spring break and travel for a day or two at that time. Really, some parents just take time off during spring break so that they don't have to pay for all-day daycare or find a place to stash kids.

I say this as I look around at a partially-empty office due to all my family-having coworkers being gone

there is something curiously british about michelle k from houston - texans don't say "go on holiday" do they? or "trains in a sport"? i know there are a lot of houston transplants from the scottish oil industry in the north sea, maybe she's one of them

or she's doing the "sounding british" affectation to seem classier, which seems like an anachronism to me

Yeah, I think Madonna put the final nail in that one.

And thanks Phil D for telling me what the B in BOQ meant! My family stayed in the BOQ between giving up our apt and going back to the US when we left Germany, and I never knew what it stood for (always assumed "base").

nah, the perception of England as classy is pretty much over :)

this is kinda quiddity-ish ... it doesn't occur to anyone here that maybe the young 'uns aren't into cars b/c they have no money (no job, students loans, etc).

As part of its “Millennial-Con,” Scratch brought in viral video stars like Sergio Flores, known as the Sexy Sax Man, a musician with a mullet and a denim jacket.

Cars are still essential to drivers of all ages

this is just stupid

If you want to be a driver, of a car, a car is essential. OTOH if you need to get from place to place, it's a different story.

I, for example, drive a steamroller.

I'm a zamboni man myself

That's why I drove a tank.

this is kinda quiddity-ish ... it doesn't occur to anyone here that maybe the young 'uns aren't into cars b/c they have no money (no job, students loans, etc).

― kurwa mać (Polish for "long life") (Eisbaer), Friday, March 23, 2012 7:33 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

we already talked about this in the cars an america thread but even people w/ money can think it's a stupid use of that money.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/27/nyregion/private-schools-mine-parents-data-and-wallets.html

Perhaps the greatest quiddity/agony headline of all time:

http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/i-regret-eating-my-placenta/

"I Regret Eating My Placenta"

also, lol:

RutabagaNew JerseyReport Inappropriate Comment. Vulgar . Inflammatory . Personal Attack . Spam . Off-topic ..SubmitCancel .
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..Are you going to eat that?
March 25, 2012 at 9:55 p.m.ReplyRecommend11

prestigious, $21,000-a-year Upper East Side preschool

"Maybe it was sheer coincidence that I went nuts right after I started taking my placental pills"

"went"

holy shit buzza is actually quoting the lede of sterling's story

ffffffffffuuu

"Say, for example, a parent sits on the board of the Museum of Modern Art."

"They put their apartment on the market the next week and moved to Larchmont, in Westchester County."

wauuu

21k/yr for preschool from an editor at Elle seemed a stretch but a quick google search shows her hubby is an investment banker so everything's as it should be

I liked the placenta-eating remorse article.

"I Regret Eating My Placebo"

same root word, I believe!

I Regret Living in Placentia, CA Where There Are No Prestigious Preschools

"I Regret Eating My Placebo"

― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, March 27, 2012 4:17 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Haha yeah, exactly.

Last summer, Mr. Martin and his team temporarily transformed part of the G.M. lobby into a loftlike space reminiscent of a coffee shop in Austin or Seattle, with graffiti on the walls and skateboards and throw pillows scattered around.

Is that really what coffee shops in Austin and Seattle are like?