Curtis Dahlgren
Just another day in paradise (Detroit)?
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By Curtis Dahlgren
October 11, 2012

"Eat all the apples you like but stay away from the tree of idiocy." — God (Non Sequitur version of Genesis, by Wiley Miller)

CHICAGO: DID YOU KNOW THAT'S NOW A VERBOTEN WORD? "Chicago" is a code-word for something else, according to some liberals, bless their hearts. Hope I'm "permitted" to use the word Detroit. Where I live I can buy newspapers from Milwaukee, Chicago, and Detroit, and I bought the Free Press yesterday (10/9). WOW! Here are some of the headlines:

"BOARD HAS DIRE WARNING FOR BING"; City of Detroit is going to be broke in a few months unless Mayor Dave Bing moves faster and more aggressively to restructure city services, the joint city-state financial advisory board warned Monday." Here's a related story:

"SEWAGE WORKERS WILL BE SUSPENDED"; 33 workers who walked off the job face a 5-day suspension, and union leaders "who orchestrated the job abandonment" will have 10-day suspensions. AND — on the same page:

"JURORS TO HEAR: $159,000 WENT TO KILPATRICK" (former mayor). He's accused of using charity funds for personal and campaign purposes. He also allegedly had "a lot of cash" in his bank account that couldn't be traced to a source.

And on the same page: "Funeral services will be Wednesday for the 3-week-old girl mauled by a dog on Detroit's west side on Thursday." Also the same page:

Pontiac — "BOY, 2, FOUND IN CAR WITH CRACK PIPE": No he wasn't arrested, but he was turned over to his father after the boy's aunt and mother arrived (they had run out of gas). While the aunt left to get gas, "the child's mother left to search for drugs."

In the case of another vehicle running out of gas, in the Monroe area, the passenger was killed attempting to pour gas into the pickup, as it was rear-ended by another truck. At least it wasn't a hit-and-run (the guilty vehicle was probably inoperable after the crash).

[It seems that the price of gasoline has gotten so high that people can barely afford their dope anymore. Even a medical marijuana card holder was arrested for growing "more than his share" which isn't fair.]

In other stories, here a page one item: "Candidates for Detroit's next police chief will be asked a touchy question [about relationships] . . . The questioning is designed to avoid a sex scandal like the one that forced [Chief Godbee] to retire Monday . . .

"It was the second time Godbee was accused of having an affair with a subordinate during his two years as chief. His predecessor . . was forced to resign, in part, because of his relationship with the same lieutenant Godbee had been involved with before being appointed." [The female was an "internal affairs officer." No shock there I guess.]

There was also a page-1 story about Govt. Motors wanting to hire high-tech people, but the headline says that those positions may be 'tough to fill.' [It's not that these are "jobs Americans won't do," but it's just hard to find people who are qualified.]

"Reward grows in Jabalee killing; Macomb Co. couple found in garage [6 yrs ago]," another headline says. And there was a short item about a Bears fan who had his throat slit in a Jacksonville bar after the suspect "saw the man talking with his wife." The Bear fan died.

Did you ever notice that the bigger our so-called "benevolent" government gets, the less character the people have?

One of the saddest stories in Tuesday's edition was about "More horses going hungry in Michigan":

"The Humane Society of Huron Valley is seeing an increase in the number of cruelty calls about hungry horses, spurred in part by a nation-wide shortage of hay. . . The shelter is dealing with a dozen horse cruelty cases . . .

"The worst may be yet to come, said farmers and livestock owners. Horse owners are digging into their winter supplies months early. And prices have tripled and quadrupled," says writer Megha Satyanarayana.

[However, government "statistics" continue to tell us that there is "no inflation" (don't worry; be hoppy, no pun intended).]

I can't take much more of this. Was there any good news in Tueday's paper at all? Well, just for the record, a page one headline says: "Debate hurts president; tightening race means [Michigan] is a battleground once again."

FYI, a page 5A headline says: "Ryan: 'Great Glimmers of hope' in Detroit; Fund-raiser follows charter school tour."

I'm glad to see some attention given to education quality, but I can't understand why inflation — and homocides — haven't even been brought up in the presidential campaigns.

AMERICA HAS LOST MORE PEOPLE IN CHICAGO AND DETROIT (ETC) THAN IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN (oops — I wasn't supposed to say Chicago, was I?).

P.S. Another headline: "Re-elected Hugo Chavez faces looming Venezuelan crisis": (AP) he's set to start a fourth presidential term under the toughest circumstances he has faced, with the prospect that "his free-spending days may be over." Does that bring to mind anyone else (bless his pea-picking heart)?

PPS: The Democrat party has explicitly said that it wants the U.S. to "be more like Europe" (if not like Venezuela), but WHY? Did you know that unemployment in Greece is 55 percent?

BY THE WAY — despite all these stories in the news, the most controversial issue in Detroit this week has been:

"Is it appropriate for a pitcher to kiss the baseball before throwing it to first base?"

PPPS: If only we could convince fence-sitting citizens that the November election is more important than who wins the World Series — or the Lottery (if states started paying Lotto winnings with I-O-Us, maybe those people would wake up!


© Curtis Dahlgren

 

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Curtis Dahlgren

Curtis Dahlgren is semi-retired in southern Wisconsin, and is the author of "Massey-Harris 101." His career has had some rough similarities to one of his favorite writers, Ferrar Fenton... (more)

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