Belfast, Maine, where I live, is a popular place for tourists. Allow me to preface my rant with the fact that many of the tourists are perfectly reasonable, nice, well-meaning people, and they contribute to our economy, which I appreciate.

But I have three specific instances that are indicative of the entitlement complex I encounter among a certain segment of the tourist population:

1. Smokers - I do not believe smokers should be villified. We all have our vices. However, we all also should clean up after ourselves. I went to the beach a week ago, at our city park, and was dismayed at the number of cigarette butts in the parking lot. Then, to my absolute horror, I saw a really fat white woman lean out of her enormous SUV with New Jersey plates and dump out an ashtray!!! I ran up to the car and said, "Excuse me, this is not your trash can! Pick that up!" She was shocked, and then glared. She didn't say anything, just backed her car up and sped off.

2. Drivers - okay, I understand and agree with many of the complaints about cyclists. But Belfast, Maine, is a town FILLED with cyclists. We even have (and use!) our own freaking lanes, shocking as that is! But the thing about bicycle lanes is that sometimes there isn't a left turn bicycle lane. So, I'm turning left at a stoplight, using my hand signals, and this car comes up behind me and honks. Keep in mind, the light is red. I'm not keeping the car from going anywhere, and I have no way to move out of this car's way - there's a car going straight to my right, and the oncoming lane is to my left. I looked behind me and noticed Florida plates. Of course! The person gives me the middle finger, and when the light turns green, almost runs me over trying to get around me before I can turn. "Fucking Mainer," he screams out the window. Excuse me? Get out of my state, asshole.

3. Bikers - what is it about "bikers" that makes it "cool" to be as loud as possible? When I was a kid my stepdad had a Harley and it was really freaking quiet. He explained to me that you could buy a specific type of kit to make it loud, but that he thought that was really stupid. I do, too, and when they rev through my town at midnight - or, what the hell, anytime, they're so damned loud - they make me want to prove that despite being a tree hugging hippie I'm a good shot.

Fortunately, none of these people will be around in another couple of weeks. That's why those of us that live here year round are more than willing to brave the winter. :)

Posted by: Jessica F. at September 4, 2010 1:50 AM

Yesterday, across the radio airwaves, Canadians where introduced to a person who has instantly become one of the worlds most brusque, graceless, "cry-wolf" travellers the post-9/11 world has ever seen......her name? It's called out loud and clear in the the header of this blog.
Of course no more than a handful of regulars to the blog would ever have known the name Alkon had it not been for her self-serving tirade that pushed the boundaries of pushing-back in the name of personal rights. Few, like myself, would be visiting this "flog" had it not been for the self-serving, cry-wolf, cry-me-a-river antics of said "author".
Checking the "up-to-the-minute" thesaurus, in this post 9-11 world, we now find "Alkon" synonymous with boorish, brusque, crude, curt, discourteous, graceless, gross, gruff, ignorant impertinent, impudent, inconsiderate, insolent, insulting, loutish, low, obscene, offhand, peremptory, raw, savage, scurrilous, surly, uncivil, uncivilized, uncouth, uncultured, uneducated, ungracious, unmannerly, unpolished, unrefined and vulgar - of course - and rarely - this thersauric addition is purely self-cast.
If thousands - nay millions - of travellers have passed un-molested, much less RAPED (which she apparently screamed as she was exiting the security area), through airport security stiles the world over without going so far. How is that MS. Alkon thinks she can yell - and later espouse - that she had been RAPED at the hands of a female security person in plain view of hundreds of other travellers.
Perhaps Ms. Alkon is confused as to what constitutes rape, likely due to a distinct lack of intimate experiences to whcih she can qualify the action.
Regardless, Alkon is now the poster-child (I dare say woman, as adults do not act like this)for over-reaction the world over. If it can make someone like myself, someone having many better things to do thatn write on her "advice blog", visit her page, then I guess Ms Alkon got what she wanted. It's just too bad - even with the $500,000 suit being brought against her - that she won't get what she deserves.

E. Danneberg.

Posted by: Ed at September 11, 2011 3:49 PM

Ed, in America, we have the Fourth Amendment, prohibiting searches without probable cause -- reasonable suspicion we've committed a crime. I was going to Binghamton, New York for an anthropology conference. There was no indication I'd be having coffee with al Qaeda while I was there.

There are times when the most civil thing to do is to be uncivil -- to not go quietly and politely as our rights are yanked away from us, and that is what I did, and that is what I urge others to do as well.

I benefit greatly from our Constitution; I don't feel I have a right to go quietly as it is ripped up at the airport door.

In Nazi Germany, people were mostly quite polite as their civil liberties were taken away. That worked out really well for them, didn't it?

I'll be posting your comment on my blog. It's really rather amazing.

Posted by: Amy Alkon at September 11, 2011 3:58 PM

Ed's comment reposted as blog item here:

http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2011/09/11/why_im_the_rude.html

--Amy Alkon, civil libertarian and publicity whore for the Constitution and other worthy causes

P.S. I also strongly support theFIRE.org (which defends free speech rights on college campuses, free of charge to the accused) and IJ.org -- Institute for Justice, another important civil liberties defender -- and thought I'd use this opportunity in my media whoredom starturn to send a little attention their way.

Posted by: Amy Alkon at September 11, 2011 4:32 PM

"It's just too bad - even with the $500,000 suit being brought against her - that she won't get what she deserves."

When the lady simply expects to travel unmolested, as a free citizen of the United States of America, one wonders what Ed Danneberg actually wants to happen - to her and to others just like her.

Ed, your thinking - what there is of it - is not pretty. Your post has topped any chart Rude People might occupy.

Time to stop posting for awhile and launder your brown shirt.

Posted by: Radwaste at September 11, 2011 7:33 PM

Time to stop posting for awhile and launder your brown shirt.

Perfectly put!

Posted by: Amy Alkon at September 11, 2011 7:40 PM

I agree that Ed's thinking is over the top and rude. His comment is simply a waste of space on this page.

However my one of my bigger pet peeves is when people travel to other countries and expect to be treated the same as they do back home. Therefore I will say that Ed mentioned that the country was Canada, where the rules are different. Though the US is respected; the title "a free citizen of the United States of America" as Radwaste put it, is not held as high of a regard in other countries as some believe it is.

The response from the lady mentioned by Ed is also over the top, and I'd like to mention that it could have been worse if it were a country that was more chaotic and possible war-torn. I admit there could have been some mistakes on both sides and possibly what the lady claimed happened, but there are better ways to address it and certainly more believable ways.

Posted by: Danielle at September 13, 2011 11:55 PM

O.K., so I am a glutton for punishment and I have an AMeripass bus pass on greyhound. Though there is much to grieve about in the customer service department, I will not go into that just yet.
My complaint is about the snot nosed wanna-be-gangsta little white boy 20 year old of whom there seem to be so many. Using the angst of African American past to wreak havoc on any whom they deem small enough to bully. When the Asian busdriver, yes, with an accent announces that we are in Santa Rosa or anywhere, merely doing his job this dumb ass never worked a day in his life wanna be gangsta is like all facetious: " Nah, really it's Santa Rosa?" And making fun of the Chinese man's accent in a way that if Bruce Lee were on the bus, he would wrap a nun chuk around the stupid kids neck and make him sing R-E-S-P-E-C-T- in his best Aretha Franklin voice. He randomly spouts off his idiotic selfish homophobic opinions that betray him as the type that will bully his way with who he can but kiss the as of the one who is tougher than himself.
It makes me angry that this piece of garbage used the hard working bus driver of Asian descent for his vitriol. One of the people who make this society work is getting assailed by the type of garbage that gay teenagers are killing themselves over from wanton frustration of the human race, and others just shake their heads in defeat as these meatheads rule the airwaves of random conversations in the lives of the people of the United States. FOrgive the rambling, just got off several thousands miles of buses, including a bus crash in Nebraska. All the best to you AMy.

Posted by: Bri at October 15, 2011 5:32 AM