SandBoxBlogs: Aspen Daily News "Aspen’s latest status symbol"

Mid-morning post update:  a) notice "Anonymous" comment #1 starting off the thread for this post. b) Note the 'strike-through correction' below:   

Aspen? Sometimes the 'cost' is just way, way too high.

Politics in the valley?  Similar to pig-wrestling.  Always entertaining.

Local folk hero Correction:  "Beloved, currently out-of-state 'local' (gosh, what's a long-standing past with a weekly gig in the respected opinion columnists category of the only locally owned and operated newspaper in Aspen worth??)   and world-class famous icon  Jeremy Madden running around with a Big Chief and a #2 pencil in his souped-up 'cop engine' car?  Priceless.

Jeremy Madden:
"Congratulations Aspen. You never cease to amaze me. Nor do you disappoint. And this time you’ve really outdone yourself.

What can I say? Using the environment to further exclusivity and elitism is pure genius. Not since feudal Europe has anyone been so clever and creative at dividing the haves and the have-nots. This time you’ve even impressed me.

Aspen is all about image. In Aspen money doesn’t talk, it screams. Everything is about wealth, excess and purchasing power. It is a place where folks are free to flaunt it if they got it. The homes, the clothes, the cars, the furs, the shoes, the surgery, the shades, the bling. If there is a way to show one’s wealth in Aspen it will be done. Everything in Aspen is a status symbol.

However, just when you thought you had seen it all, somehow Aspen has managed to do the impossible. Like turning lead into gold, Aspen has taken the symbol for simplicity and frugality and made it fancy. Although unlikely, Aspen’s latest status symbol is a brown paper bag.

Yes it’s true. Following its ban on single-use plastic grocery sacks, which took effect on May 1, Aspen has taken the fight for exclusivity into the aisles of its grocery stores, and once again the people are losing.

Thinly veiled as an attempt at environmentalism, Aspen’s bag ban is nothing more than a regressive tax, a continuation of class warfare that further promotes division and exclusivity between the classes.

As part of the new ordinance, brown paper bags will still be available for a cost of 20 cents. While this may seem like a negligible sum, symbolically it is an attack on the working-class stronghold we call the grocery store. It is just another way to divide, rather than unite. Sadly, now even a trip to the grocery store can make one feel inferior.

I can already see it: The working-class folks will show up with their reusable bags while the wealthy direct their manservant to load up on provisions packed in brown paper bags. Cries of, “double bag it!” are sure to fall from the lips of the most decadent as they lord themselves above the others..."
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