Humpday Happenings...
Middle of the week, and into the home stretch of the month of March (already?).
We're aiming for the weekend, and if anyone has anything to say about it...we'll get there soon enough.
Now, as promised, the continuing "saga" (how Beowulfian) of my time in the ghettohood:

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Bobby G's Springtime - Then AND Now - Part 2
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Like I said back on Monday, Spring means many things to many people.
It used to mean hearing songbirds in our neighborhood, and if you manage to wake up EARLY enough...you can still hear them. Just forget about it after 11AM on damn near ANY day.
Even the birds don't want to hang around much after that time...and with good reason, which I will explain.
I want to talk about something that is as invasive as an army on the march; a bane to those suffering in our cities across America. There is a growing disease that usually increases during Springtime, and it all boils down to one, insidious word that you should ALL get to know: INFRASOUND.
We're not talking about city trucks filling potholes, or those April showers (that cause May flowers)...not by a LONG shot.
Infrasound occurs whenever you hear that incessant bass-thumping moron who just has to drive past your house at any hour of any given day, because he (or even she) can get away with it.
Here's the WIKI on INFRASOUND, for your enjoyment:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrasound
It's that thumping that jars you from sleep, shakes your fillings loose, rattles your windows, and basically DENIES you of YOUR RIGHT to PRIVACY (part of that pursuit of happiness thing - the right to be left alone).
Way back when, the ONLY loud noises we heard in Philly were the trash trucks and garbage trucks. We had buses, too, but none of them (combined) added up to the level of cacophony we are subjected to by these acoustic terrorists.
And it NEVER was with the frequency we see and hear it today.
John Stossel even did a spot on it when he was on 20/20.
It's the type of sound you FEEL as much as you hear, and it's been PROVEN to have adverse effects on one's health.
Here are two (of many) links to sites that chronicle the health risks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPKpQAUL4B8
http://www.lowertheboom.org/problem.htm
Hell, we (our military) even used constant, loud noise AS A WEAPON when we laid siege to Manuel Noriega's joint to get his ass in custody...and it worked!
Ever since the advent of the notorious "boom box", and the street walkers with these boxes firmly upon their shoulders, we've been assaulted. Fortunately, we no longer see THOSE people, as they've "graduated" to bigger, better, and LOUDER systems...in their VEHICLES.
(and who says you can't become any MORE stupid these days?)
As a result, citizens have petitioned their city councils to enact ordinances designed SOLELY to quiet these idiots with specific distance and noise levels for the police to enforce, and cite where applicable.
Trouble, is, many police departments, such as OURS have relegated a "noise complaint" SO FAR DOWN the priority list, so as to make the ordinance all but ineffective.
Which means if I have one, particular sh*t-for-brains "audiophile" that feels the NEED to share his 140 Db thumping every time he slows to roll past MY house, I'm pretty much boned, as far as getting him removed from my neighborhood.
Kinda like THIS a$$hole here...
Now "Mr. Loudass" (white trash skinhead wigger that he appears to be) has fallen in "love" with me and my house, for he always goes REAL slow whenever he thumps past, and turns up the volume a few BLOCKS before he gets here, to let me know he's coming. And never fails to "flip off" our house as he passes, as if to say "WTF can YOU do?...I can do whatever the f$ck I want to".
Yeah, he's SUCH a charming individual (piece of crap).
His driving slow worked well for me, as it gave me time to get some pictures of his loudassmovile, as well as his description and license plate number, which I promptly forwarded to our quadrant chief (including an eventual HARRASSMENT call)....to obviously little if NO avail.
(this after several months of almost DAILY occurrences - he's been by the house 29 times JUST this month alone).
How about you (the FWPD) try something like THIS, for example?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YzAzSAMmRg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pooZM_hBRJ4&feature=related
http://www.noisefree.org/newsroom/nfa-display.php?id=150
http://reason.com/blog/2007/09/24/turn-it-up-lose-your-wheels
Now, as you recall, I mentioned that I had about 2,975 BOOMCARS thump past our house, and these were the REALLY loud ones.
And you might also recall that I said the "cost" for each infraction to the noise ordinance was $250.00.
Now...do the math, and you come up to around $750,000 that was MISSED by our police department, because not enough priority is assigned to all this NOISE. "Mr. Loudass" is costing the city $7,250 in MISSED revenue thanks to his car stereo (so far THIS month).
Yeah, I'm keeping tabs on the money.
Now, if you place a call for a noise violation (signal 44), you might get REAL lucky and MAYBE there might be an officer driving by within say...fifteen or twenty minutes (plenty of time for the offender to make a long-gone getaway). Rare is the occurrence when an officer ACTUALLY catches some perp thumping. Of course, they're ONLY given a warning (for the 15th time) and sent on their way...to boom again some other day. But, back to that dollar amount...
Three quarters of a MILLION bucks that the FWPD (administration) has all but PISSED AWAY, and these infractions were only past MY house. I know it occurs elsewhere, because the department (last year) made a whopping 520 citations for noise all over the city...(big, frigging whoop). They STILL missed over 2,400 in MY area, and to me, that is simply NOT very good policing, nor adequate enforcement of a city ordinance.
Blame that on the administration with "greater" concerns...like making "good community relations" when much of my part of town has SUCH a dislike for the police, it's not even funny.
Sorry, but MY individual RIGHTS are JUST as pertinent and VALID as the RIGHTS of all those who live in those upscale developments west and north of center city, are they not?
And to think this happens when the city NEEDS revenue....simply Unbelievable!
Like I say...it's a far cry from the days where the ONLY noises that could be heard was children playing, or an airplane flying overhead.
The Good Humor truck bell was a sound we ALL enjoyed, or maybe someone brought a portable TV on the front steps and some of the neighbor men watched a ballgame, but NONE of this sonic assault we have to endure today.
Are there solutions for such disturbances as these boom cars?
Yasureyoubetcha...but ONLY if the police are willing to grow enough cajones to actively PURSUE them.
You can't reason with such idiots, that's been proven.
You can't "explain" others' rights to them either...they don't give a rat's ass about that, unless it's THEIR particular rights that are being bothered. Screw everyone else is their motto.
What needs to be done (since I can't go out and shoot the loudass SOBs, and don't think that hasn't been considered by yours truly), is to set up some kind of "sting", like the one found on YouTube above:
Now THIS department (Peoria, IL) is ahead of the curve, and noise complaints have all but disappeared since this was implemented.
Or how about the solution (to the problem) in Memphis:
http://www.noiselaw.org/article14.html
So what makes THESE departments ANY better than the next?
Well, they definitely CARE about their citizens, and LISTEN to them, and are there in a much greater capacity when it comes to the whole PROTECT and SERVE thing.
Now, some people say it unfairly "targets minorities and the poor"...really?
REALLY????
When was the last time you saw a "poor person" spending over $5000 to place a stereo in their car that also had 24 inch rims and a gag-a-maggot paintjob and maybe some goofball graphics on it, hmm?
You ought to be checking THESE people out for defrauding the government if you think for ONE MINUTE that THEY are "poor".
They're most likely dealing drugs.
That's how you can easily get the amount of "scratch" needed to build one of these loudassmobiles in the first place.
So, if a police department is paying attention, they can "kill two birds with one stone", as it were.
But if they're not, then you have situations like MINE on the south side of fort Wayne.
But it's NOT a unique situation to ME...or even Fort Wayne.
In Cleveland, Philly, Oakland, Chicago...you name the city and they have the same problem. It's just that SOME cities have thought outside the box when it comes to alleviating such noise from the ears of it's citizens.
Some cities have taken to giving out IMMEDIATE citations starting at $100 and going UP (mostly up), and on the SECOND offense, you LOSE the vehicle (get towed), and have to pay storage fees until you get it back after paying the fines.
And THOSE tactics have proven successful in Peoria,IL, TX, FL, CA, and many other cities in other states across America (as well as in the UK).
So WHY don't such things work in OUR city?
Good question...wish to hell I knew.
The only answer I could attempt to infer would be that our city leaders are uber-sensitive when it comes to ethnicity, regardless of crimes committed by such people. This isn't to say that perps of every ethnicity don't get arrested...they certainly do, and with increasing regularity. But community leaders in our city prefer to claim RACIAL profiling, instead of "CRIMINAL profiling", which I personally stated was the REAL reason for traffic stops (in an article a few years back in the News-Sentinel). I stuck up FOR OUR POLICE (because I know the score a bit more than others), and I can see that meant SOMETHING to a few officers, but not much else to everyone else in the department.
Still, it always comes down to being able to enjoy a certain QUALITY-OF-LIFE.
Some of us have it, and others of us USED to have it, and WISH we COULD have it once again.
With the PROPER assistance from the officers in our police departments, we can ALL have a bit more peace...and quiet.
They just have to BE ALLOWED to remove the audio-vermin from our streets.
You want a high-end stereo AS A HOBBY...fine.
You want to enter contests with it for cash and prizes...fine.
You want to thump past MY house and tread all over MY rights...not so fine.
I want to be able to hear myself think once again...and to be able to hear the birds, and wind through our trees...along with my radio or television IN MY FRIGGING HOUSE.
I want to be able to TALK to my wife, and not SHOUT at her whenever some audibly-challenged a$$hole feels some perverse need to share his/her crap music (?) with the rest of the living (while trying to wake the dead).
I don't think I'm being unreasonable here.
I don't annoy others with MY music, and I only expect the same from others.
Live and let live...always worked for me.
But any time someone steps on my rights...it's open warfare, and anything goes.
I hope that moron considers that the next time he passes by...but he probably won't.
That's what makes HIM stupid...and me the eventual victor in this war.
It doesn't have to be this way...but as long as LAWS are on the books, they SHOULD pertain to EVERYONE, or they meaning nothing.
It doesn't make me a superior person for FOLLOWING these laws...just a lot more LAWFUL one.
It proves that I DO know what it means to be responsible...and accountable for my OWN actions.
It demonstrates to others that I do not see any reason to trample upon the rights of others.
I only wish these other people were taught as much.
We can but hope they will, before it's too late.
Have a great day, make a difference, and...
Stay safe out there, America.