The Week in Kitsch: Sagas Galore
Sunday, September 21st, 2008
EXHIBIT A: Ithaca Monorail? The Saga Begins.
Just when the Daily Sun had you convinced that Ithaca was becoming a crazy fascist anti-drunken college party state, the New York Times reminds you that they are in fact just a crazy socialist anti-gas guzzling SUV city. Last week, there was a conference held here to look into whether Ithaca could be a test site for a new commuter technology called “pod cars,” which are basically mini-monorails from Sweden and would cost the City a cool $100 mill. Which is probably about the amount of money they’re raking in from noise violations, so it all works out in the end. The idea is admittedly kooky, but it’s not the brainchild of some head-in-the-clouds faculty member: it comes straight from the files of Jacob A. Roberts, a failed Green Party candidate and canned Ithaca Festival director whose business acumen ended up landing Ithaca Fest $150K in debt. And some people, including Ithaca and Tompkins community members and a New York Times reporter, are falling for his pod car crazytalk despite his previous travesties!
