Flashbacks:
The RNGC Caddyshackpocalypse
Bollards!
Everybody in Reston is rich, right?Ha ha ha FAIL, as the Internet cool kids are wont to say. Everyone knows Reston's curbs are painted one of four (4) acceptable earth tones, not silver! But let's read on, as columnist John Kelly makes his predecessor, the pathetically needy Bob Levy, look like Edward R. Murrow:
That's what I always thought, anyway. I mean, Reston's got a Morton's Steakhouse and four Starbucks. And it's in Fairfax County, which regularly tops the list of the wealthiest counties in America. The streets may not be paved with gold in Reston, but surely the curbs are made of silver.
"Please understand, there are some rich people who live here," LaShawn Timmons told me. "But the people we serve here are not that group."Do you think John Kelly ran into the Post newsroom, holding his fedora on his head, and screamed in shock, "I found someone with an ethnic sounding name! In Reston!" Never mind that creating a place where people of all socioeconomic backgrounds would live side by side was the entire freaking goal of our beloved planned community; this makes for exciting copy, at least in the mind of an editor who rarely ventures far from their home in Bethesda or Kensington.
It just gets worse. Really.
LaShawn is youth director of Reston's Southgate Community Center. The Restonians she serves are a diverse group, families from Ghana, Cameroon, Nigeria, El Salvador, Mexico, Iran, Pakistan -- "the list goes on and on," LaShawn said. "We also have the typical American kid, too."Turns out this is all a come-on for the Post's annual charity fundraiser for some summer camp. But at this point, Kelly is ready to trot out the relatables, to prove that he actually came to "Reston" and spoke to this "LaShawn":
There are plenty of deer in Reston -- as there are in every suburb in Washington -- but to see deer bound through the woods at Camp Moss Hollow is different from seeing them dodge cars on Hunter Mill Road.NII Holdings of Reston is sponsoring a one-night trip to this camp for the Southgate kids -- which is truly laudable. Patronizing crap like this? Less so, but we're not one of those "experienced journalists," so maybe we're missing something here.
"Never mind that creating a place where people of all socioeconomic backgrounds would live side by side was the entire freaking goal of our beloved planned community"
ReplyDelete=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Somebody failed to get that message when they designed North Reston and Reston Town Center. However, we here in the Gulag embrace diversity and all of the orbiting police helicopters that might entail.
Convict, it was a loose interpretation of 'side by side'...as in "their" side of the toll road and "our" side of the toll road and never the twain shall meet. Just think -- those of us on the south side get to see really cool aircraft...up close and almost personal sometimes!
ReplyDeleteThere are a few of us poor folk up in the frosty north side of town as well. I think some of the neighborhoods around the lakes in south Reston are the nicest parts of town.
ReplyDeleteNow, when you pen "poor folk up in the frosty north side of town", do you mean "Section 8 and WIC and undocumented" poor folk or "I can only afford to go to Starbucks once a day because I have to fill up the Escalade" poor folk? Just wondering because "poor" is a relative term.
ReplyDeleteHAH! And Kelly calls himself a reporter? There are EIGHT Starbucks in Reston, not four! Even a humble peasant like me was able to find this out by going to Starbucks' Website and typing in a Reston Zip code in the store locator field. Bang your fedora one more time against your head, John! This is just the type of accurate reporting by experienced journalists that Smudgins holds up as a role model? HAH!
ReplyDeleteI'm writing in to the Washington Post on this -- let's see if they run a correction in less than a year's time, now that their ombudsman recently raised holy hell with the Post's editorial staff about their lack of timely corrections.