Friday, September 24, 2004Hope?!Today, after running the errands that forced me to drag myself out of the house, I went for a little drive. I was seriously upset at the report of the former Lighthouse Recreation Center experienced a fire. Seeing the photos of the minimal damage, however, gave me some hope that there was still a chance for this house to be returned to its former glory by someone who cared. Much to my surprise, something was going on today. For the first time, the gates were open to the house and there were several vehicles parked in the parking lot, including one construction type van.  The trees, unfortunately, were blocking out the other vehicles. Given that no "pre demolition" activities seemed to be happening, I'm crossing my fingers that the fire will have been a kick in the ass to do something with the house. posted @ 09:37 PM EST [link] Thursday, September 23, 2004Common Sense, 0. Stupidity, 1.Our neighbourhood tries, bless their little hearts. Several times a year a fresh copy of "O.N.E. News" is delivered (serving 4,000 homes!) to our front porch. Organized Neighbors East tries to act as a sort of neighbourhood committee of sorts, reminding everyone in bold print of garbage days and telling about local business, while tossing in a few bad fluff stories. I'm still not quite sure exactly what this organization would like to do, other than chastise those who speed down streets. Because the current president is apparently technology-phobic, there was no interest in creating a website with the important information (which neighbours usually end up asking around for, since no one keeps their newsletter for several months at a time) nor was there any interest in the leaders for some sort of community mailing list. It must sure be nice to be retired and be able to drop everything to go to some oddly timed meeting on a weekday evening. At any rate, the September newsletter gave me more giggles than usual. A half page was dedicated to well, stupidity. Perhaps I'm being too generous of people and their brain power, but I think this even went beyond "duh" for those with more than a kindergarten education. I learned from reading not to refer to a woman as "babe", "honey", "sweetie", or "girl". I also learned that one should not touch people inappropriately. (If they need to be told that, are they going to know what "inappropriately" means?) Apparently, drinking in excess "can bring out loud and obnoxious behaviour"! Who would have ever known that?! Another article touched on an issue that I'm sick of hearing. Parks in Detroit are well known to be underfunded and understaffed. Add to that a problem with too few Detroit cops and you get parks that, after dark, are just begging to see various sorts of illegal action. Apparently, those living around nearby Balduck Park do not understand that more people who belong in a formerly deserted area = more patrols, cop and non cop to chase out those doing illegal activities. Apparently, the American Cancer Society had rented a shelter in the park for an all night fundraiser with walking relays. Because the Cancer Society was granted overnight use, another group was allowed to use the park for a campout of some sorts with a band. Instead of seeing that there is a noise ordinance law (so if that band or the ACS was being too noisy the cops could get called out) and allowing the park to be used legally overnight, nearby busybodies (who wrote "Wake up noise advocates.") got the events cancelled. I hope those drug dealers and hookers enjoy the privacy they'll have at the park from now on. posted @ 04:00 PM EST [link] Thursday, September 9, 2004GahNothing like a good dose of depression to suck all coherent thought from your brain. Tomorrow would have been the 25th birthday of my friend William Lewis. He was brutally murdered at his home in New Orleans in 1998. William didn't know his attacker. He was some crackhead (literally) who spotted a young white kid who would be an easy target to take some frustrations out on then take his stuff to sell for crack money. In the year I lived in New Orleans, in addition to losing a good friend, I got to see some gunshot victim lying in a pool of blood coming from his head on the street corner, another guy bleeding from the side flagging down a street car after he'd been shot, and two "just finished up" scenes on the street where some sort of bad violence victim was just taken away, before they'd even got the blood and tissue up off the ground. In my almost 5 years in Detroit, I've seen 0 such scenes. Not, of course, that they don't happen, because they do. Unlike New Orleans, however, a vast majority of Detroit crime does not seem to be random. People flock to New Orleans for vacation, yet tell someone you're going on vacation to Detroit and they immediately begin talking about getting murdered. Yet in reality, I'd be a whole lot more worried about getting murdered in New Orleans than here in Detroit. In 2002, New Orleans had 53.07 murders for every 100,000 people. In that same 2002 time period, Detroit had 41.79 murders for every 100,000 people. Other crime crimes listed don't hold much weight with me. Tourists are less likely to report larcenies and minor assaults (especially if they are passed out drunk in a gutter in the French Quarter) and as there is no breakdown (especially in the forcible rape category) of known vs unknown attackers, the statistics could mean anything. Despite many of the similarities between the mayor of New Orleans (1994-2002) Marc Morial and His Royal Highness Kwame, Morial had something Kwame didn't have - the ability to not act like the huge jackass he was in public. While in office, the news media rarely picked up on corruption within the mayoral department because Morial didn't do overtly stupid crap like hookers, a large posse, and parties. Kwame apparently failed to learn that when everyone he hires wears an "I'm with stupid" shirt and he's got the "Stupid" shirt on, it's not going to look too good. The NOPD picked up the crackhead in his bloody tshirt, riding on William's bike, with all of his cds a few blocks away half an hour after. For all the crap given to the NOPD, they did a good job, a lot better than if the same situation happened here, I'm sure. For the crackheads sake, I hope he's in prison for the rest of his pathetic life. He would not want me to find out he's free. posted @ 12:07 PM EST [link] |
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