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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Really bad aim...
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
Nope, this isn't about the gentlemans' loo.
This is the third night this week there has been shooting on or near my street. Drive-by, I think. Definitely drive-by the first night, Sunday, when it happened twice.
I love Detroit, and I like my neighbors (my immediate neighbors - all female heads-of-households). But whoever breaks into our house every 2-3 years, steals our license plates off our car, and attracts enemies who come by trying to shoot them is really stretching my Christian charity near its breaking point.
Ghettofuckers.
And really, someone's been by here 4 times unloading about a dozen shots each time. Can't you fucking hit your target?
I'd really like to get back to watching the Tonight Show in my living room without having to hit the floor and crawl into the kitchen (where a stray bullet is least likely to find me).
The police department, of course, is underfunded and understaffed. These are the same folks who, that night in 2000 when I wrestled a mugger's gun down from my heart inside my own car outside my own building, did nothing except fill out a form and say, "So, when you gonna move?" Sunday night, they came by after the second time we called them, and, even though my roommate asked them specifically NOT to come to our house (we don't want retribution), they came to our house. Morons.
I love this city so much, it pains me on all kinds of levels, even beyond the personal, to have this shit going on. Sometimes, you just want the shooters to hit their target and be done with it. A population decline we could live with.
Like most Detroiters, we couldn't move if we wanted to. No one would buy our house; we'd have to abandon it. We don't have that kind of money. Also like most Detroiters, we're tough, optimistic, and resilient. But come on.
[ 11. June 2015, 05:16: Message edited by: churchgeek ]
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I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
Posts: 7773 | From: Detroit | Registered: Feb 2004
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
We used to have an idiot who would get drunk every night and shoot several rounds down the alley every night, right behind our house. Hitting the floor got to be routine, except the time I was upstairs and gave myself rug burns.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
The real problem isn't bad aim, though. It's the completely callous attitude about "collateral damage" -- and that's from mainstream US culture, not the gangs taking over some of our urbs. Who came up with the hollow-hearted phrase in the first place and let it poison its way through our lives?
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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passer
Indigo
# 13329
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
Who came up with the hollow-hearted phrase in the first place and let it poison its way through our lives?
Oh, that would be an American person who is something of an expert in war and stuff.
Posts: 1289 | From: Sheffield | Registered: Jan 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by passer:
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
Who came up with the hollow-hearted phrase in the first place and let it poison its way through our lives?
Oh, that would be an American person who is something of an expert in war and stuff.
It's desperately important to point out it's an American. Because prejudice.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Jesus, Detroit sounds like hell.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
A response of "If you don't like it, move" is pathetic, because (as you point out) it is not always possible especially if you are currently in a bad area. Which would be why you want to move out in the first place.
I do think it would make a significant improvement if the people who insist on shooting up areas were to just shoot each other and leave everyone else to their world. Of course they don't, and so the violence escalates.
I would offer you hugs but as this is hell, I will suggest these people shove their gins where the sun don't shine and then shoot.
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
I will suggest these people shove their gins where the sun don't shine and then shoot.
That's one hell of a party.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Jesus, Detroit sounds like hell.
Well, it was better back when American street gangs, like their foreign counterparts, all strictly observed the Hague and Geneva Conventions.
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
If I remember my history correctly (which isn't necessarily the case), Detroit was very nearly part of Canada.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
If I remember my history correctly (which isn't necessarily the case), Detroit was very nearly part of Canada.
It was originally part of Canada, actually. And French (hence the name).
I wouldn't go so far as to say Detroit is hell, but sometimes it feels like it. It's a hard place to live, but I love it anyway. (I'm not hooked up right.)
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I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
Posts: 7773 | From: Detroit | Registered: Feb 2004
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Uncle Pete
Loyaute me lie
# 10422
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Posted
Move to Windsor, Ontario (that's to the South of you). It's much safer, and you can always go North during the day to get your Detroit fix.
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Even more so than I was before
Posts: 20466 | From: No longer where I was | Registered: Sep 2005
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Uncle Pete:
Move to Windsor, Ontario (that's to the South of you). It's much safer, and you can always go North during the day to get your Detroit fix.
I know where Windsor is!
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I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
Posts: 7773 | From: Detroit | Registered: Feb 2004
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Uncle Pete
Loyaute me lie
# 10422
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by churchgeek:
quote:
Originally posted by Uncle Pete:
Move to Windsor, Ontario (that's to the South of you). It's much safer, and you can always go North during the day to get your Detroit fix.
I know where Windsor is!
I certainly hope so. The info was really for the benefit of others reading.
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Even more so than I was before
Posts: 20466 | From: No longer where I was | Registered: Sep 2005
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
I will suggest these people shove their gins where the sun don't shine and then shoot.
That's one hell of a party.
Might get you drunk faster. And you can use cheaper alcohol since you do not have to taste it.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by churchgeek:
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
If I remember my history correctly (which isn't necessarily the case), Detroit was very nearly part of Canada.
It was originally part of Canada, actually. And French (hence the name).
And as I recall they took it back in the War of 1812. Then like the evil scoundrels they are, they made us take it back from them as conditions for ending the war. No amount of "sorry" (or "sorey" as they say) can make up for this.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by churchgeek:
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
If I remember my history correctly (which isn't necessarily the case), Detroit was very nearly part of Canada.
It was originally part of Canada, actually. And French (hence the name).
And as I recall they took it back in the War of 1812. Then like the evil scoundrels they are, they made us take it back from them as conditions for ending the war. No amount of "sorry" (or "sorey" as they say) can make up for this.
Wait, are you saying you could have taken the whole of Canada if the war had carried on, but they offered you Detroit, and you fell for it?
[ 12. June 2015, 00:23: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Wait, are you saying you could have taken the whole of Canada if the war had carried on, but they offered you Detroit, and you fell for it?
Hey! Don't look at me! I wasn't there! It's not what I would have done!
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
Yeah, yeah.
Just think. You could've been living in Cascadia by now.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Uncle Pete:
quote:
Originally posted by churchgeek:
quote:
Originally posted by Uncle Pete:
Move to Windsor, Ontario (that's to the South of you). It's much safer, and you can always go North during the day to get your Detroit fix.
I know where Windsor is!
I certainly hope so. The info was really for the benefit of others reading.
I knew Windsor was across the border from Detroit, I didn't know it was south. Had to pull out a map for that one. Did you know Reno, Nevada is West of San Diego? (*end tangent*)
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Yeah, yeah.
Just think. You could've been living in Cascadia by now.
Shut. Up.
ETA:
Bloody peasant.
[ 12. June 2015, 04:53: Message edited by: mousethief ]
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
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Posted
Hell Churchgeek, where you live sounds like the Wild West as portrayed by the Saturday movies my brother and I used to watch about 50 years ago, only with more risk to other people in the area.
It puts the noise of loud partygoers (the worst thing that happens in my street) into perspective.
Huia
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Charity gives food from the table, Justice gives a place at the table.
Posts: 10382 | From: Te Wai Pounamu | Registered: Oct 2002
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Wait, are you saying you could have taken the whole of Canada if the war had carried on, but they offered you Detroit, and you fell for it?
Hey! Don't look at me! I wasn't there! It's not what I would have done!
Look at it this way. Canada could have led the world in automobile engineering and soul music for decades. Or maybe not.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Soul music? Canada? Got nothing against Canada, but I can't even....
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
Bieber got soul!
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Don't think Bieber has a soul, much less Soul
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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RooK
1 of 6
# 1852
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Wait, are you saying you could have taken the whole of Canada if the war had carried on, but they offered you Detroit, and you fell for it?
No, you misunderstand. 'Merica lost the war of 1812 - Canada walked down and burned their capital to express annoyance at some of their various northward aggressions. Canucks borrowed Detroit for expeditionary purposes, then threw it back when they were done with it.
Posts: 15274 | From: Portland, Oregon, USA, Earth | Registered: Nov 2001
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Huia:
Hell Churchgeek, where you live sounds like the Wild West as portrayed by the Saturday movies my brother and I used to watch about 50 years ago, only with more risk to other people in the area.
It puts the noise of loud partygoers (the worst thing that happens in my street) into perspective.
Huia
Oh, we have those, too. Possibly the same people. It's an over-crowded house full of ne'er-do-wells, including a kid who's currently (I don't know if permanently) in a wheelchair for trying to off-road in a scooter right on our street. I'm not quite sure what he did. And occasionally another ne'er-do-well who put his own eye out while drunk many years ago, sometimes is allowed to squat there too. He's related to a lot of the sensible people on the street, but they've disowned him.
Alright, everyone - stop dumping on my city! As much as you're actually cracking me up. Of course you can say whatever you like, especially in Hell...but if you haven't been here, you don't get to have an opinion, in my, um, opinion. For whatever my opinion's worth.
It is an interesting thought experiment imagining what Detroit would be like had it remained Canadian. (I suspect I would like that, being a democratic socialist who says "sorry" and "eh" a lot already.) Where would the border be? As it is, the map is much simpler.
And Canada/the Brits only took Detroit in the War of 1812 because the US general here basically surrendered at the first sign of trouble. He was almost hanged for incompetence, but was pardoned by somebody or other. Our history is nothing if not fun.
Oh, and re:
quote:
Originally posted by Uncle Pete:
[qb] Move to Windsor, Ontario (that's to the South of you). It's much safer, and you can always go North during the day to get your Detroit fix.
I forgot to add that I also don't fancy moving to the suburbs, north, east, west, or south of here.
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I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
Posts: 7773 | From: Detroit | Registered: Feb 2004
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Og, King of Bashan
Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562
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Posted
So is there a South Detroit, or was Journey full of shit?
I enjoyed watching Anthony Bourdain's visit to Detroit. I don't know if it is on my list of places to visit, but it looks like there could be potential for a cool scene there, and I briefly (key word there) fantasized about buying a city block and starting a goat farm and brewery.
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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy
Posts: 3259 | From: Denver, Colorado, USA | Registered: May 2005
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Og, King of Bashan:
So is there a South Detroit, or was Journey full of shit?
I enjoyed watching Anthony Bourdain's visit to Detroit. I don't know if it is on my list of places to visit, but it looks like there could be potential for a cool scene there, and I briefly (key word there) fantasized about buying a city block and starting a goat farm and brewery.
"Detroit looks like fucking Detroit. As it should." --Anthony Bourdain
(We love that quote here.)
Journey was, if not full of shit, trying too hard to use Detroit's reputation as a gritty place to be from and make it scan. There is no South Detroit. Although Windsor was called that once - over a century ago. "Southwest Detroit" would have fit the bill if they'd had an extra syllable available, especially if they meant the Delray area - it's known to be a rough area (whereas my neighborhood isn't). Mexicantown and Corktown are also in SW Detroit, and Mexicantown has been rough at times, but people aren't scared to go there, either. The other contender for "south Detroit" would be downtown, but when Journey was writing that song, pretty much nobody lived there. Now it's quite gentrified, and people do live there. So Detroiters tend to joke about that song - although we like being mentioned - and say, "What, in the River?"
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I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
Posts: 7773 | From: Detroit | Registered: Feb 2004
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
Steve Perry wrote South Detroit because he needed a big city that scanned and Detroit worked.
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
I've learned today that less than a mile's walk from my house, some teenager shot his mother yesterday. I didn't hear that one. Luckily, the mother survived and the son is in custody. I hope he gets help and his life isn't ruined.
But this is Hell, so fuck whoever got him a gun, or sold him a gun, or let him near a gun, and fuck the gun culture here and throughout the US.
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I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
Posts: 7773 | From: Detroit | Registered: Feb 2004
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Lolly
Ship's Lollygagger
# 13347
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Posted
I still wear my favorite t-shirt from about 20 years ago...Detroit, where the weak are killed and eaten. There's a certain pride in staying and surviving, guess you have to be there to understand. I miss it.
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And draw us near and bind us tight
all your children here in their rags of light - LC
Posts: 179 | From: East of the Sun, West of the Moon | Registered: Jan 2008
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JonahMan
Shipmate
# 12126
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Posted
According to wikipedia, Detroit had 411 murders in 2012 mostly, but not all, culpable homicides), out of a population of less than 1 million. That's obscene - just about the same as the whole of the UK, pop. 60 million.
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Thank God for the aged
And old age itself, and illness and the grave
For when you're old, or ill and particularly in the coffin
It's no trouble to behave
Posts: 914 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Dec 2006
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Wesley J
Silly Shipmate
# 6075
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Posted
Look, they're just more efficient in Detroit, right?
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Be it as it may: Wesley J will stay. --- Euthanasia, that sounds good. An alpine neutral neighbourhood. Then back to Britain, all dressed in wood. Things were gonna get worse. (John Cooper Clarke)
Posts: 7354 | From: The Isles of Silly | Registered: May 2004
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by JonahMan:
According to wikipedia, Detroit had 411 murders in 2012 mostly, but not all, culpable homicides), out of a population of less than 1 million. That's obscene - just about the same as the whole of the UK, pop. 60 million.
So, one is given a choice-- they can assume that anyone who lives there is ok with this obscenity, or they can ask themselves what it is that makes people love Detroit despite the danger.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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jacobsen
seeker
# 14998
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Posted
Or because of the danger.
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But God, holding a candle, looks for all who wander, all who search. - Shifra Alon
Beauty fades, dumb is forever-Judge Judy
The man who made time, made plenty.
Posts: 8040 | From: Æbleskiver country | Registered: Aug 2009
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
quote:
Originally posted by JonahMan:
According to wikipedia, Detroit had 411 murders in 2012 mostly, but not all, culpable homicides), out of a population of less than 1 million. That's obscene - just about the same as the whole of the UK, pop. 60 million.
So, one is given a choice-- they can assume that anyone who lives there is ok with this obscenity, or they can ask themselves what it is that makes people love Detroit despite the danger.
That's assuming that anyone living there actually has the ability to leave.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
That's assuming that anyone living there actually has the ability to leave.
It's probably reasonable to suggest that they can leave whenever they like, if they're prepared to take a hit on whatever immovable assets they have.
No one has built a fence around Detroit and declared it a maximum security prison. Yet.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Og, King of Bashan
Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562
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Posted
There are cities a few countries south of here (and actually one country south of here) where the murder rate is in the 100 per 100,000 range. We get to talk about being willing or not willing to leave. In San Salvador, there are moms who see the violence around them and make the decision that their kids are safer being sent with traffickers to the US than staying at home. I'm not saying Detroit isn't bad, but THAT is obscene.
A big reason people don't leave scary-sounding cities is simple. Many of us just don't see the violence. Two of my favorite cities to visit are high on the world violence rankings (New Orleans and St. Louis) and I have never not felt safe in either of those cities. I actually live in what has traditionally been the Blood's turf in Denver, and we still get a little violence here and there (it was really bad this spring, but it seems to have tamed down a bit in the last month), but I have never witnessed anything. So your murder rate may be through the roof, but if you don't walk around in the really impoverished areas, you don't see it- much like, I suspect, most big Canadian and UK cities.
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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy
Posts: 3259 | From: Denver, Colorado, USA | Registered: May 2005
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
Or maybe there is potential for beauty weaved in and around the danger.
Again, just got back from subbing in the Bayview / Hunter's Point area. If you have ever seen Spike Lee's " Sucker Free City" you would have seen that area as an unvarnished shithole: filth in the streets, decaying housing units, houses crammed with gang lords and their drug addled lackeys.
All that stuff is there, but this is the one Lee film I actively hate-- because that is not all that is there. You know what else is? Huge, abundant fruit trees in just about every backyard- plums, peaches, figs. Craftsman houses still in good repair after more than 90 years. An opera house ( now a community center) that has stood since the turn of the 20th century. Much, much damn good cooking. And a large population of non- ganglords, families and seniors, that take care of each other and fight for their community identity. I'm sure a lot of folk don't move because they don't have the means, but I know plenty of folk who could move tomorrow if they wanted... and don't. Because they are invested. They love their community.
I can't wait for Churchgeek to respond to " maybe she can't choose to live elsewhere." All she did in California was talk about Detroit. (well, not all, but you know what I mean.)
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
I live in one of those cities that has more murders than Detroit, and I don't walk around feeling unsafe most of the time either. That, I'm afraid, is because the murders happen mostly in particular neighborhoods among a particular group of people, some of whom we serve (and thus we get the funerals). The murders aren't spread out evenly over the population. They clump. So you will get a woman (for example) who has lost brother, father, and two sons to gang or drug-related violence (including those who are innocent bystanders) and statistically she carries the grief that would probably have been mine if things were distributed evenly.
Even when we lived in one of those neighborhoods (with murders, drugs, gangs all around us), we were not really of that neighborhood in the same sense as the victims were. We weren't intermarried, our kids didn't run with the local gangs, and we had educational and other opportunities most of them couldn't even dream of. That all has a protective effect. ![[Frown]](frown.gif) My chance of being murdered in Mid-town was far lower than that of my young black male neighbor--though not nonexistent.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Og, King of Bashan
Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
And a large population of non- ganglords, families and seniors, that take care of each other and fight for their community identity. I'm sure a lot of folk don't move because they don't have the means, but I know plenty of folk who could move tomorrow if they wanted... and don't. Because they are invested. They love their community.
I can't wait for Churchgeek to respond to " maybe she can't choose to live elsewhere." All she did in California was talk about Detroit. (well, not all, but you know what I mean.)
If you are one of the folks who stay in a neighborhood because you are on fire for the neighborhood, you are lucky. The gang war here has been blamed on gentrification. The north-west side got hot five to ten years ago, the north side is getting there now, and the the north-east side (where I live) is due any second. So the gangs who used to occupy this territory (Los Suenos on the north west, the Crips on the north side, and the Bloods on this side) are being forced into the same exterior neighborhoods. It is a complicated mess.
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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy
Posts: 3259 | From: Denver, Colorado, USA | Registered: May 2005
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
That's assuming that anyone living there actually has the ability to leave.
It's probably reasonable to suggest that they can leave whenever they like, if they're prepared to take a hit on whatever immovable assets they have.
No one has built a fence around Detroit and declared it a maximum security prison. Yet.
Detroit's been full of people who can't leave since the 50s and 60s. And many others who have chosen to stay.
But it's pretty callous to say they can leave whenever they like if they're just willing to take a hit on their assets. Sometimes those assets, or the rest of your assets, don't add up to enough get you housing somewhere else. Sometimes you would become homeless by abandoning your house. It's not just taking a hit. Poverty is rampant here: about 50% of Detroit's children are living below the poverty level (which is pretty low to begin with); 1/3 of the whole population of the city is below poverty. Huge portions of the population can't even afford to keep (particularly, to insure) a car. Yes, strictly speaking, no one's forcing them to stay where they are. But realistically speaking, they can't move.
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
I can't wait for Churchgeek to respond to "maybe she can't choose to live elsewhere." All she did in California was talk about Detroit. (well, not all, but you know what I mean.)
Well, hell's not the place for me to list reasons I love Detroit... but re: the (in)ability to leave v. desire to stay --
For me, it's a bit of both. Not that I'd want to live in a different city, but there are parts of the city that would be more desirable to live in. Although I do have too much of a sense of solidarity with The People to live in the gentrified areas. Anyway, yes, I'm committed to this city. I have its logo tattooed on my wrist, where you find my pulse. What can I say, I'm hooked up wrong! ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
But I'm also poor. I've been unemployed now for over a year, and I'm getting all those "you're over-qualified" rejections because it's a hirer's market, and they can afford to be quite picky. And I have a master's degree and am working on a PhD. They figure I won't stick around, and don't want to invest in training and all that, I imagine. Not that people stay very long in jobs anymore...but I stayed in my last job for 9 years and would still be there had they not laid me off. ![[Mad]](angryfire.gif) (And the HR lady - a priest - who laid me off tried to convince me it was motivated solely by her desire to help me get back home to Detroit, which was so disingenuous it still hurts a little.)
So, anyway, I'm living in a house that has no mortgage, that friends and I bought abandoned in 2000 and gutted and rebuilt, so it's free housing for me. I'd be homeless if it weren't for this, and for all the people who have helped me over the past year & a half. I'm lucky. I have people. Not everyone does.
I was in a temp assignment last fall when our house was broken into, so I was able to pay for our new alarm system (the buggers ripped the old one from the wall...and we always upgrade each break-in, anyway). So much in Detroit - the housing prices, gas prices, often even grocery prices - is cheaper than the suburbs, but it gets expensive to live here because of insurance and break-ins/theft (having to buy new doors, windows, TVs/computers/whatever they took). The fact, though, that housing is cheaper here, and that it's really hard to sell a home here, is part of what keeps people from being able to move. And Detroit's over 80% Black, and the Metro Area is pretty segregated. Redlining still exists, though in a more sublimated form (e.g., just not showing homes to people of color). That also makes it hard for people to leave.
Yes, the murder rate's high, but it's mostly people who know each other. Sometimes, though, it's the police or stray bullets that kill people, especially when the victims are children and teens. So there are lots of white people from the suburbs and exurbs who believe if they set foot in the city, someone will kill them. There are even major donors to institutions in the city who won't enter the city.
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I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
Posts: 7773 | From: Detroit | Registered: Feb 2004
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
That's assuming that anyone living there actually has the ability to leave.
It's probably reasonable to suggest that they can leave whenever they like, if they're prepared to take a hit on whatever immovable assets they have.
No one has built a fence around Detroit and declared it a maximum security prison. Yet.
Let them eat cake.
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by churchgeek:
But realistically speaking, they can't move.
There comes a point where moving is better than staying. That half of the Middle East appears to be camped out on the southern shores of the Med is proof of that.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
There does.
For most US home owners, though, so much of their assets are sunk so deep into that not-yet-owned house, leaving will plunge them deep into a permanent financial hole.
In a place like Detroit, your property has probably depreciated enormously in value. If you can sell at all, it will be at substantial loss.
You won't recoup anything you've put into it; you won't be able to buy a replacement elsewhere (especially if you're abandoning a job along with your address), and moving itself -- if you take your sticks-&-bits with you -- costs a lot.
Most of us really, literally, have to believe that our very lives are at imminent stake if we don't move to sacrifice so much, and we also have to have enough liquid assets to effect the change. The power of human denial -- "This will eventually blow over; I'll stick it out" -- is enormous, especially when we stand to lose so much.
Do we have to remind each other about all the Jews who continued living under the Third Reich until the Third Reich took that decision, and their lives, away from them?
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
Thanks for the response, churchgeek, I knew you could be more thorough than I could.
The house value issue never occured to me-- what I said about HP is accurate; even there you could sell a pretty dilapidated house for around $400-500K and move just about anywhere else in the country/ many parts of the state,while still leaving plenty left over to live on while you look for a job. The people in the Bayview who don't sell their quite valuable real estate parcels are often doing so specifically to protect the area from encroaching gentrification.
But as you say, it is all different if you have people-- although the territorial violence is scattered throughout the area, there is a big difference between living on Ingalls Street, where there is plenty of opportunity to build a neighborhood, and being stuffed into a decaying housing development on Velasco, where everybody hates being there, and everybody often winds up taking it out on each other.
But it's odd-- even in the godawful third world esque hellhole that is Velasco-- some people have taken the time to grow avocado trees in their tiny backyards, and share them out with the neighbors. or to pull together lawn chairs to make something resembling a sitting porch, or to decorate the awning over their door with fairy lights and wind chimes. I don't know how to articulate it, but if you walk into a place like Velasco, and you focus on the " obscenity" of the crime rate, while overlooking what signs of life are there, you are missing something very important.
I guess I mean I am less in favor of whisking people off to better living areas than I am of actually figuring out ways to help people improve the places they have already put down roots, but maybe my viewpoint is skewed by living in a materially modest area that suddenly and evidently irrevocably became very difficult to afford.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
I don't know how to articulate it, but if you walk into a place like Velasco, and you focus on the " obscenity" of the crime rate, while overlooking what signs of life are there, you are missing something very important.
I guess I mean I am less in favor of whisking people off to better living areas than I am of actually figuring out ways to help people improve the places they have already put down roots
This is precisely what pisses us off about the media's reporting on Detroit: they focus on abandonment, crime, and decay - and now on the "revitalization" but only involving young, white entrepreneurs and artists moving in from elsewhere - and completely ignore all the people who have been living here, making their part of the city liveable and contributing to the wider community. Part of it is that they have their scripts ready before they even visit - they know what they're coming here to say - but even more basically, they don't see what they expect to see in a city, and don't know how to see anything else.
(BTW, your use of "HP" threw me for a bit - I figured out you meant Hunters Point, but to me, it means "Highland Park," an enclave in Detroit.)
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I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
Posts: 7773 | From: Detroit | Registered: Feb 2004
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