Osler's Razor

It sounds like "mere anarchy" in Detroit is possible, too. How sad . . .

Yes, maybe the best thing is if the population would match the jobs available.
 

I had to read that guy in college but I cannot remember what it was I read. I love Yeats but this is soooo sad.

I guess Detroit has been in a hard place for a long time and has spent a lot of time at the bottom of a lot of lists. Then when things turn bad for EVERYONE ELSE TOO? Then they get reallllly bad.

I don't know what the answer is... You cannot just REQUIRE that politicians have integrity and even if a lot of great politicians took the place over maybe it would not be enough! This has to be a concerted effort EVERYONE has to save the place: the cops the citizens, the city the schools the businesses, everyone and honestly? You would have to inspire a LOT of people in a town where EVERYONE is either cynical or apathetic or criminals. Hard to inspire a bunch of people who are all just in SURVIVAL mode. Its as if no one can afford to care.

Maybe some enigmatic charismatic person will come along and get everyone on board, but then with that you get....I mean, Hitler was inspiring to a lot of people in the beginning too! A lot of poor desperate people...

I heard a TERRIBLE idea the other day: some joke that "Republicans are just Democrats who have been crime victims" or something like this. The worst thing about Detroit is that while there are great people there and it does have potential for greatness again, the level of crime and the types of crime and all of the other problems inspire only FEAR in people That is the first thing to overcome: the bad reputation and the fear.

The people in the suburbs are the people there who have the money to try and save Detroit, if they would come back and patronize the businesses and all of that.. However they are busy enriching only their own communities and they are ALSO I think the MOST FEARFUL people. The striking thing about Detroit is the POLARITY and when I left I thought every place was like this. People in the burbs of Detroit a lot of them are racist and they HATE Detroit. In Chicago and SFO and other places you know people WANT to live in the thriving city but in Detroit it is a place to flee from.

Who knows what will happen but I do remember a time when CLEVELAND was thought of to be the worst place on Earth Indeed one time the part of Lake Erie near Cleveland actually caught FIRE. I mean when your shores are so polluted that the water is ablaze I mean how do you come back from that???? but they did!! Cleveland is not so bad now! So there you go.
 

I think the answer to Detroit's rampant problems with crime, poverty, and corruption is pretty obvious:

Batman.
 

The funny thing to me isn't how ineffective the police were, it was that the body was there for months probably.

I used to go through abandoned buildings late at night and we would always find and see weird stuff. We never found a body though.
My favorite was the factory with the water tower at the 94 75 junction.
 

As Randy Newman said about the Cleveland lake fire:

"The lord can make you tumble, the lord can make you turn, the lord can make you overflow, but the lord can't make you burn."

Or, as Wally Pleasant said about Detroit:

"Shoot someone and tell everyone you're from Detroit.
Steal a car and then tell them you're from Detroit.
Become addicted to a major narcotic and tell people you're from Detroit.
Join a street gang and act really idiotic, if you're from Detroit.

Rob from your neighbors and kill your friends, if you're from Detroit.
Receive public assistance and drive a Mercedes-Benz, if you're from Detroit.
Own a store that gets robbed four times a week, in Detroit.
And buy some crack cocaine right on the street, in Detroit.

Now I'd be shot and killed if I played this song in Detroit,
'Cause there's a City ordinance that says you gotta say nice things about Detroit.
But since I can't do that, I'm going to move away and be in route,
To a safer destination, like Beirut."
 

Who is "Wally Pleasant?" Is that an alter-ego of RRL?
 

And what rough beast,
Its hour come 'round at last,
Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?

As an aside, the title of the worst book of jurisprudence ever to be written also contains an allusion to Yeats -- "Slouching Towards Gomorrah," by Robert Bork Bork Bork.
 

Lane- I assume you're aware of Dan Savage's take on that, Skipping Towards Gomorrah?

For some reason the saga of Detroit reminds me more of Frost than Yeats..

So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay.
 

I don't think anyone ever has confused Detroit with Eden.

But, while we're on the subject of Paradise Lost (which, incidentally, I quoted liberally from at the end of my PC III outline; the front had a picture and quote from Aligheri's "Divine Comedy"), this seems oddly appropriate concerning either Detroit or Blagojevich.

"Him the Almighty Power
Hurld headlong flaming from th' Ethereal Skie
With hideous ruine and combustion down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell"

I, 44-47
 

I had a Yeats poem read at my wedding. "When I am Old" Or something:

When You are Old

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.


People actually cried. I did not cry until later, when I saw myself in my dress, which was SO not a good look for me...
 

Wow...someone else has heard of Wally Pleasant. Awesome.
 

Does anyone recall the future Detroit depicted in the Robo op movies? It almost seems prophetic now. So do we just scrap it and start over, building a new city in it's place or do we dig in and save what's there?

It's still a good location and there's an infrastructure in place. What if someone was able to develop a plan to renew the city, making it a vision of things to come? I think the symbolism of the Motor City being transformed into the green city of the future could be quite powerful.