Humpday Happenings...
Sorry about being a bit tardier than usual for a humpday...You'll have to thank some friends of some "neighbors" for that one.
Amazing how getting less sleep at night tends to put one off of one's game as one gets older.
And, as chronicled here, there are other AMAZING aspects to living in such an area as ours, which will invariably want to keep you up to all hours, JUST so you can take in all the nuances...(yeah, right).
IT would be nice to be permitted to purchase a few WOLVES, and after the sun sets, turn them out to patrol around the house, leaving them to "indulge themselves" as far as fun and survival goes, but there'd be WAY too many hoops to jump through (for me), and someone would probably not find it as "amusing" as I would (damn).
Our "newbies" (the Hispanic male and white female) across the street are finally "flexing their muscles", as it were, JUST like I predicted and mentioned here yesterday. They had one loudass car with more Hispanics over to their house AFTER MIDNIGHT, and shining a spot light on them means nothing (like shut the f$ck up you wetback bastards...people MIGHT want to sleep at a normal time).
Now, THIS is NOT what I meant (yesterday) when I spoke about the makeup of a GOOD neighborhood...not one damn bit.
One of MY favorite Bob-isms goes something like this (and I know most of you have hard this at least ONCE):
"Any neighborhood is ONLY AS GOOD as it's WORST resident."
You can also apply this all the way up to the top of ANY leadership totem pole, management hierarchy, or military situation.
(and feel free to do so)
*** But first, let's take a refresher course as to HOW a city can take a once nice area and turn it into a slum, shall we?
Let's set the WAY-BACK machine to around September of 1982, when International Harvester decided to CLOSE the truck plant on the near SE side and move to Springfield Ohio.
Much of the immediate neighborhoods felt the impact as the plant laid off close to 11,000 employees (many of them took a 125-mile bus ride to and from Ohio JUST to preserve their jobs and retirement pensions).
That hurt this city, and the city leaders didn't seem to want to do much to recoup the losses or even to avert such an economic disaster.
Interestingly enough it as also the same year we had a MAJOR flood in town, prompting a visit from (then) President Reagan (at least he gave a damn).
We were called "The city that saved itself"...for what will soon be evident.
Win Moses was mayor during this time. And he was (you guessed it) a DEMOCRAT. (well that explains a lot, Bob)
He left office in 1985 due to a scandal over campaign financing and plea-bargains his ass out of jail. He is back in office TWO WEEKS later after a landslide vote in the special democratic caucus.
Gee, Matt Kelty didn't get off THAT luckily...wonder why the DEMS get it easy?
Anyway, the city was hard hit for jobs back THEN, and did little to acquire anyone to replace Harvester.
People moved away, looking for work (because that's what normal, working-class people do), and THAT opened the door for the likes of HUD, and the Section 8 "brigade" to wander in and "take over" part of the SE side.
Now, in 1987, republican (in name only) Paul Helmke was elected to THREE consecutive terms as mayor.
(what were you people thinking?)
All THAT did for the city was to build UP the NORTH END of town, while leaving the SOUTH end to "it's own devices"...
But Helmke was never without some good lip-service to the masses like in THIS story:
http://fwnextweb1.fortwayne.com/ns/projects/helmke/helmke4.php
This IS a good read (if all of what was said and done MADE a damn DIFFERENCE, which is really has not), but goes to show HOW EFFECTIVE his "efforts" were to deter crime (they were not), and clean up an area that was on the brink of sinking into Dante's 7th layer of Hades (which it pretty much has).
Amazing what some politicians will do (or in this part of town's case, NOT do) when it comes to being ignorant...they become BLISSFUL, don't they?
The all-time high for homicides came under Helmke's watch (42 back in the mid 90s, thanks to the advent of CRACK coming to town), and the AMOUNT of crime has grown, although some would have you believe that crime IS going DOWN...
Thank THAT on reclassification of certain CRIMES from one area of severity to another. What was once a really BAD crime is not "not so bad", so we don't count it any longer.
Well, that wail make the citizens sleep a LOT better...(maybe not down here).
All that serves to do is lull some into that false sense of security...ripe to become the next victim.
So, over the last two decades, we 've continued to lose jobs down here...AND businesses...AND NEIGHBORS (who were replaced with ghetto-fleas...scum-of-the-earth vermin with no respect for anyone or anything).
*** Now, I said all that, to say this:
I actually had a lot more HOPE for having this area change around, and even our property taxes were reflecting this (our once $40K house went up to almost DOUBLE assessed value - $76.3K and change).
Then, the bottom dropped out and the value PLUMMETED to a current assessment "value" of around $28K...!
(yeah, that's pretty much what I was saying, too)
Real estate around here is traded like stocks on Wall Street...trouble is, the properties have SO LITTLE value, because of it, and your assessment is based on such things.
Some people up and buy a place for cheap, and then rotate RENTERS without background checks.
(which means they don't know WHO or what THE F$CK is moving in...or whether they have a JOB to PAY for the hovel)
But, thanks to a THRIVING drug trade down here (we're probably the ONLY household around here that DOESN'T use street-pharms), money is easily obtained.
Hell the SE side of town, where most of the "action" is, has been "touted" (?) as the part of Fort Wayne that has the SECOND HIGHEST LEVEL of disposable income (from WELFARE checks?). That puts us behind the NW part of town (who really DO have jobs, and make their money the old-fashioned way...they EARN it).
If THAT isn't a "WTF?" moment, I can't figure out what is.
And if we're SO damn "wealthy", why the hell doesn't the area LOOK a helluva LOT BETTER, as a result?
(that would be due to a lack of knowing one's PRIORITIES)
*** What goes on down here is a disease for this city, but it's not totally incurable.
It just needs the RIGHT DIAGNOSIS, THE RIGHT MEDICINE...and REHABILITATION.
Sure, it might taste nasty, and the "rehab" might hurt like hell, but there ARE solutions that will enable this section of Fort Wayne to get about the task of being able to WALK AGAIN, let alone stand on it's own two feet, and actually CONTRIBUTE to the city's coffers.
Remaining on the current path does no one any good, and creates MORE victims...not fewer ones.
It punishes the innocent, and rewards the guilty...and that needs to change.
Another quote I love comes from the movie The Punisher (2004):
"...In certain extreme situations, the law is inadequate. In order to shame its inadequacy, it is necessary to act outside the law. To pursue... natural justice. This is not vengeance. Revenge is not a valid motive, it's an emotional response. No, not vengeance. Punishment."
Maybe we don't need to become vigilantes (although having one around to keep the peace would be a godsend at this point)...just become a lot more VIGILANT, period.
It's a damn good start, anyway.
Just when you misbehaved as a youth, there was punishment provided by parents, teachers, relatives...whoever.
And it wised you the hell up as you matured.
Problem is, too many out there today have been denied this, and as a result, have become self-serving and narcissistic.
They need to be corralled in, and trained back up in the manner regarding CIVIL behavior.
We've gone too long without chiding such people, and have permitted what used to be abhorrent to become our new social standard.
We, as a people...as a nation CAN do better, and we really need to see to that as soon as possible.
The consequences of inaction are too insidious to contemplate.
And our nation really does not want to go there.
Be well, make a difference to someone, and...
Stay safe out there, America.