Philly’s turf war against flash mobs

Posted on August 9, 2011 by oddmanout215

I had to laugh when I saw the Agence France-Presse story about the “flash mob curfew” now in effect in my obscenely humid hometown:

The measure was the latest effort to secure a city famous as the site of the signing of the US Declaration of Independence and drafting of the US Constitution, but which has spent years trying to overcome violent crime.

The story has a written-from-a-distance feel, which probably means the writer has no idea how much more violent Philly was a few years ago (in terms of fatalities) or in the early 1980s, or in the early 1970s, when gangs fought throughout the city to expand their turf, and God help you if you walked past the wrong gang’s favorite streetcorner.

The reason Philly violence is getting special attention now is because the punks in the flash mobs have been beating up people in Center City and are therefore a threat to affluent residents, tourists, big spenders from the suburbs and, in general, the city’s somewhat improved national and international image.

The curfew is to send a message: If you guys want to maim or kill people, do so in your own neighborhoods, away from the well-off sections of town.

Posted in City Hall, economic collapse, Great Recession, humor, livable cities, mainstream media, Philadelphia, Politics, unemployment | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

London calling… for more firefighters

Posted on August 9, 2011 by oddmanout215

Fans of the Clash must feel nostalgic watching events unfold in London and other English cities, where economic austerity (starve the poor) and rioting are back in style. The New Yorker quotes a Labour Party official who warned last fall that cuts to public and social services were a recipe for chaos:

These unpalatable and unnecessary cuts will be disastrous for our community. The Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives risk throwing us back to the 1980s, when the frustration and anger that flowed from squandered talent and relentless poverty led to social unrest.

I guess Prime Minister David Cameron, who was vacationing at a villa in Tuscany, thought such warnings were a lot of rot.

Cameron’s counterparts in America no doubt feel the same way about warnings from those who think impending large-scale spending cuts will have dire social consequences. Riots in America? Don’t be ridiculous.

Posted in Congress, economic collapse, globalization, Great Recession, mainstream media, Politics, The New Depression, unemployment, Wall Street | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

A no-class-system-in-America joke

Posted on August 8, 2011 by oddmanout215

Oldie-but-goodie found on the Internet — Two English professors run into each other and start shooting the breeze:

Professor A: “B, old chap, I haven’t seen you for a long while.”
Professor B: “I’ve been away in America researching my new book.”
Professor A: “Ah, what’s the topic?”
Professor B: “The persistence of social classes in America.”
Professor A: “Why, I didn’t think they had social classes in America!”
Professor B: “Neither do they. That’s how they persist.”

For weeks blowhards from both major political parties insisted the country would implode without “across the board” sacrifices. But then both houses of Congress voted for legislation that did not include long-overdue tax increases for the wealthy. Then, after having helped seal the disastrous deficit deal, Barack Obama called for a “balanced approach” to reducing the deficit.

To do otherwise would be to risk being accused of “class warfare” by David Brooks, aka the Earnest Weasel, and other right-wing propagandists, who also like to make the contradictory claim that there are no classes in America.

But Obama doesn’t take risks and he doesn’t believe in classes, except for the elitist gang that helped bring him to power — the one that stretches from Wall Street to certain Ivy League schools to the University of Chicago.

Posted in Congress, economic collapse, Great Depression, Great Recession, humor, mainstream media, Obama, Politics, taxes, The New Depression, Wall Street | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The Satan sandwich, or the seitan?

Posted on August 8, 2011 by oddmanout215

I needed caffeine badly, so I stopped in a vegan coffee shop — soy milk only — and ordered a macchiato. Reading the menu board, I noticed the seitan sandwich and asked the barista if this item was inspired by U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s recent description of the Obama-Boehner debt-deal disaster as “a sugar-coated Satan sandwich.”

The barista gave me a blank state and said the seitan sandwich has been on the shop’s menu for quite a while. She’d never heard of Cleaver, and probably didn’t know about the debt deal either.

In case you’re wondering, seitan is wheat gluten (starch-free) and is an alternative to that other meat substitute, tofu.

Clarification: I’m not a vegan, for many reasons. One is that vegans seem to be as irony-free as Bruce Springsteen fans. The latter’s fan club is another cult I don’t like, although Springsteen himself was cool back in 1975.

Posted in Congress, economic collapse, food, Great Recession, humor, mainstream media, Philadelphia, The New Depression | Tagged , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Ayn Rand would rap Ryan’s knuckles

Posted on August 7, 2011 by oddmanout215

Paul Ryan has always insisted on “revenue neutral” tax reform, but now that congressional Dems have been trounced, he’s singing a slightly different tune. The Wisconsin wing-nut said today he’d

Posted in Congress, Great Depression, Great Recession, mainstream media, Politics, taxes, The New Depression, Uncategorized, unemployment | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

What if the passion was never there?

Posted on August 7, 2011 by oddmanout215

Obama blew it. That’s the point of a long piece in today’s NYT by an exasperated academic who has stopped pretending Obama is the second coming of Martin Luther King:

…[King] preached the gospel of nonviolence, but he knew that whether a bully hid behind a club or a poll tax, the only effective response was to face the bully down, and to make the bully show his true and repugnant face in public. In contrast, when faced with the greatest economic crisis, the greatest levels of economic inequality, and the greatest levels of corporate influence on politics since the Depression, Barack Obama stared into the eyes of history and chose to avert his gaze…

The writer examines Obama’s contradictory policy decisions and asks questions even true believers can no longer avoid: What if Obama’s grandiloquence was to disguise an inability to fight when necessary, or even to acknowledge the existence of enemies? More cynically, what if his disastrous insistence on compromise merely reflects the extent to which he had “already been consciously or unconsciously corrupted” by the forces we were hoping he’d combat?

Posted in Congress, Great Depression, Great Recession, mainstream media, New York Times, Obama, Politics, taxes, The New Depression, unemployment, Wall Street | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Panetta sounds like Strangelove

Posted on August 7, 2011 by oddmanout215


Ignore the jobless, kick people out of their homes, starve the kids. These consequences are grim but acceptable. The one thing we cannot afford, you slimy Congresspeople, is to cut the Defense budget. Doing so might set off a “doomsday mechanism,” perhaps identical to the doomsday machine dreamed up by the Soviets in Dr. Strangelove.

Posted in arts, Congress, humor, mainstream media, movies, Politics | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

‘Goons of August’ usher in new era

Posted on August 6, 2011 by oddmanout215

Nobody’s shooting yet, but I’ll bet Barbara Tuchman would appreciate Robert Kuttner’s headline. Kuttner does a good job summarizing Democratic stupidity regarding the debt deal, and of explaining why our government, in its current form, is in worse shape than those of most democracies in Europe:

…Economically, the budget deal will further weaken a fragile economy. Politically, the deal is a time bomb. It locks in a path to deeper cuts in programs that Democrats should be defending. Under the deal, the same scenario of default versus massive budget cutting that worked so well for the Republicans this time will be repeated next year…

In much of Europe today, far-right populist parties now typically get 20 or 25 percent of the vote. With Europe’s parliamentary and multiparty system, however, they don’t get to govern, but in several countries they are now the second of third most popular party. These parties represent about the same share of public opinion as the Tea Party in the US. But in America, with our two-party system and our constitutional machinery of blockage, if a determined minority gains control of one party it can bring responsible government to a halt…

Posted in Congress, economic collapse, Great Recession, Obama, Politics, taxes, The New Depression, unemployment, Wall Street, world-wide economy | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Snooki does Florence. Ain’t it ironic?

Posted on August 6, 2011 by oddmanout215

Did you know the hit reality show “Jersey Shore” was quickly “co-opted by the would-be hip” but overcame this potential liability “by staying true to its artificiality”?

This must be true, I read it in The New York Times, in a story describing how Snooki and her swine were cast before the pearls of Florence, Italy, courtesy of MTV.

Posted in arts, humor, mainstream media, NJ | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

How many looks-per-day on God’s Blog?

Posted on August 6, 2011 by oddmanout215


Do you spend a lot of time logged in and looking for the truth? Could be you’re searching in the wrong places, or at least on the wrong sites. Try God’s Blog, and don’t forget to tell the Divine One what you think of his work.

Posted in God Squad, humor, mainstream media | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments