Post-111: Google Street View and the Prius Vandal

In post-109, I wrote about the July 2013 “Prius vandalism” in Arlington, Virginia. A local-news reporter interviewed one woman whose Prius (hybrid car)’s tires were slashed. She was one of the 15 victims. Here she is:

I was curious about the exact spot this interview took place (and by extension where the slashings took place). Visible is only “17th St.” on one street sign. The cross-street is not legible in the video. I tried several “Google Street View” locations before I found it. Here it is:

I was able to find this exact spot from the other side of the planet! It’d be, actually, much easier to do it online from here than if I’d been physically in Arlington but offline. The world of 2013 is amazing — or scary — or both.

In related news, “Arl-Now” reports that other Priuses were targeted in South Arlington on the same night, and one Arlington County government truck’s tires were also slashed. If the government truck was deliberately targeted, then the case for it being “political” may be strengthened, I guess.

This small affair makes me think of the 1970s novel The Monkey Wrench Gang by radical-environmentalist Edward Abbey. The roles are “reversed” here, of course.

I read Monkey Wrench Gang some time ago in the library. I also read some of Abbey’s diaries. Mr. Abbey was quite a character: I was surprised to see (to contradict what I just wrote) that Abbey was not a “radical environmentalist”. Not in the way we think of that term, of that “archetype”, today. He was a radical, certainly; he was an environmentalist, unquestionably, but… well, his diaries reveal many more (what would today be called) “radical right-wing” stances than “radical left-wing” ones. Abbey is remembered today (if at all) as a “radical environmentalist”. If you read the man’s own words, it’s…just…not…so. / I don’t think Mr. Abbey would like Arlington very much at all.