Hufterproof ("jerk-proof") bus stop destroyed. Jerks suspected.

(photo:algemeen dagblad)
"Hufters" have destroyed one of the Netherlands' new "Hufter proof" bus stops.
"Hufter" means something like jerk, or anti-social. In this case, it really means, juvenile delinquents.

The bus stops were installed to great fanfare on Oct. 12 in the town of Maasdam. That's part of Binnenmaas. That's part of Holland.

Saturday night, the destroyers stacked some kind of kindling in one, soaked it in gasoline, and burnt it to the ground.

(photo:nieuws.nl)

If I read the website of manufacturer "Havadi" correctly, the bus stops were made of styrofoam, and covered with some kind of special fiberglass resin to repel graffiti. The side doors were of plexiglass.

It could only be burned by a fire of 500 degrees centigrade. The paper said.

"We never said that they couldn't be broken," spokesman Erik Franc told Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad. "When you say something like that, you just provoke the youth."


Actually, the company's website pretty clearly claims to have developed "hufterproof" bus stops.

"The first "hufterproof" bus stops were placed in Binnenmaas on Oct. 12. The police of this municipality went crazy on the bus stop with rocks and baseball bats and it withstood the trial with great success!"

So, to their credit, they did use "smart" quotation marks around the word "hufterproof."
On the other hand, company employees also appeared saying the bus stops were invincible on youth television program "BNN."
(nieuws.nl)

According to the paper, now Havadi is going to try adding a fireproof material.
MORE

Out of the Closet

No, not that closet. This closet: I'm an Eagle Boy Scout. And I'm proud, gosh darn it!

Today, the international scouting movement is 100 years old. After the "More," I present my theory of the three kinds of Boy Scouts. Be Prepared. As I said, there are three kinds of boy scouts.

1) Kids who joined the Boy Scouts because it feels like a youth military program, complete with medals and badges. I wouldn't go so far as to say, the same type of people who became brown shirts once upon a time in Germany, but _ let's just say they believe in discipline.

2) Kids whose parents made them join because it's a good clean religious organization, a way to instill children with virtue and teach them about public service: A scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent. (See? I really was a scout).

3) And finally, those who join Boy Scouts because they love hiking, campfires, and freezing their gonads in icy cold mountain lakes.

Guess which kind I was?



(The picture is of Huntington Lake, home of Camp Oljato, where I shriveled my scrotum many a summer with Palo Alto's Troop 52).

MORE