Thugs, Hoodlums, Martyrs, and Baltimore

I've been on 'holiday' in Greece for a week, and the only English network available at the hotel....was CNN.  Naturally, the Baltimore riots are just about the only thing that CNN covered beyond the Nepal earthquake.  So, I sat and watched report after report.  After a while, you turn off the TV and you ponder.  Observations occur.

First, these are basically two-star hoodlums.  We have them in Germany and England as well.  They come out.....get active for a couple of days....burn off steam....destroy police vehicles....engage with intent to harm the cops....destroy public and private property.....pretend to have some agenda but it rarely says much of anything....and then retreat into the shadows.

Second, hoodlums can be of limited varieties.  If you look around.....you rarely find any Latino hoodlums.  The days of religious hoodlums ended around 1700 (after the Thirty Years War).  These days, the hoodlum trade is made up of blacks and anti-capitalists.  Women rarely fall into the hoodlum profession.  I'm not sure why.....maybe they've got other priorities in life....demand nearby toilet services which never occur for a proper riot.....or just think it's stupid to destroy property. Based on video of the Baltimore riots.....I'd take a guess that it's ninety-percent male.  I also noted that you just didn't see any guy over the age of forty, which is typical of most Germany hoodlum events.

Third, hoodlum riots can start up because of a good martyr situation.  Most folks can't define martyr.....so I'll give you the simple basic wording: a guy who was in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and met up with a misfortune act.....which usually leads to death by the authorities or cops. The dead guy then becomes a symbol for the hoodlums.....who can base their violent acts on the poor martyr guy.

Some famous martyrs?  Athanasios Diakos (famous Greek martyr from 1821 who was killed by the Turks.  He'd been offered various deals to just surrender and he refused.....noting at the end that he was Greek and would forever be Greek), Socrates (he made some unfortunate negative comments against the Gods, thus showing disrespect, and the authorities had to make the religious guys happy by killing Socrates....note: Socrates drank the poison willingly to demonstrate principal), and Joan of Arc (leading the French army onto victory but turned into a problem for the Catholic Church).

These recent martyrs within the last couple of years?  Trayvon Martin.  He's the kid who was suspended five times from school for unknown activities, a problem-kid who'd been sent to live with dad, who encountered some "white-Latino" and some conflict occurred, with Martin ending up on top of the white-Latino in an assault type position, then shot dead.

Micheal Brown?  Another kid who seemed to have money for marijuana but not enough money for cigars which had to shoplift and steal from some grocery.  Upon leaving the grocery and walking home......he and his associate decide to walk down the middle of some street (on the line), encounter one cop, engage in a short discussion, determines the cop disrespected him, and joins into some type of episode where the cop shoots him in the back.  Oddly, the autopsy shows Brown standing in front of the cop and in a higher position very close to the cop.

Eric Garner?  A guy whose entire profession of supporting his family is to sell loose and untaxed New York City smokes. Arrested on numerous occasions for the same type charge.....for some odd reason stood his ground and refused to be arrested peacefully (there's even another charge for disrespecting a cops arrest but why even bring that up).  The cop puts a choke-hold on the guy....rather than tasering him.  The fact that Garner was not in fabulously great health should be part of the story, but it's kinda left out.

Freddie Gray?  A guy who got a check each month for a lead-paint episode as a kid.  Freddie had almost twenty arrests.....mostly for drugs.  His health?  He had asthma.....which might be linked back to the lead-paint business.  On his final day of life, his martyrdom starts with Freddie in a drug-purchase area when the cops do a sweep.  Freddie runs.....gets arrested....tossed into the back of a holding vehicle.....has a asthma attack and asks for his inhaler.  The cops don't say much but apparently Freddie doesn't get his inhaler, goes into convulsions in the back (either from the asthma or the drug he ingested).  Freddie knocks himself around, suffers spinal injuries, and dies.

It's hard to make a real martyr out of these four guys, but for the sake of the argument.....they will serve some purpose.  Perhaps like Joan of Arc or any number of a dozen Greek martyrs.....each will get a statue some day.

Third, the cops.  In 1965.....a cop had four potential threats of a marginal nature to face each day.  Drunks?  They were typically friendly and cops on some occasions would just drive the drunk home (we were actually that friendly at one point).  The weed smokers?  These were the guys who just wanted to talk and talk and talk.  Cops would just toss them into the tank and let the court system work as intended. The crazies?  Cops were a bit worried over them because you just couldn't be sure of the end-game.  Finally, the crook?  Yeah, these were guys who'd rob a gas station for a hundred bucks.

Today?  The cop has a strange element that arrived in the 1980s.....drugs.  Between PCP, meth, bath salts, cocaine, and a hundred-odd drugs....you sit there as a cop each day and review your reaction situations if "X" occurs or if you engage some whacko with a machete on PCP.  Just because he's doped up......he's a potential martyr.  Hundreds will riot because of the death of a whacko on PCP and waving a machete in the air.  That's how silly and how disturbing all of this has become.

The new cops of today?  They look more like military MPs than regular cops.  They can't behave or act like Andy Griffith of Mayberry because they'd be dead within the first year of employment.

Finally, I come to Baltimore.  You can draw a six-block circle with a green marker on the area around the harbor and the baseball stadium.....that's the only safe place in Baltimore for you as a  tourist.  If you go anywhere else in the city.....it's dangerous.  Drugs?  You can buy any drug you want....even LSD and heron.  The city leadership?  They concentrate on the protected area near the harbor and sell convention opportunities at the nice hotels around the harbor.  Ever since drugs arrived in the 1980s....the city leadership has staged a weekly round-up of drug thugs as their gimmick of choice......showing they have control, when they don't have control.

How many companies have made a decision to set up shop in Baltimore in the past decade?  Few if any.  Heading further west.....a hundred miles.....it's a different story, with various companies setting up shop and doing business in DC.  Baltimore as a city....is dying.  The remaining cops will protect the green-zone, and try to fake the public enough into believing it's still a legitimate city (it's not).

The mayor of Baltimore?  She was on some fast-riser list and would have gone onto some senator status quickly, and maybe within ten years been on someone's presidential candidate list.  Her actions over the past week?  Probably enough to stall those plans.

To sum it all up.....we've arrived in a new world where hoodlums, martyrs, and thugs are part of the society.  To be honest....the modern martyrs are fakes but that's our own undoing.  The icing on this cake is an active news media which turns some hoodlum episode into an epic news piece.....kinda like a Greek opera with numerous characters and some fat lady singing a woeful song near the end.  And we treat it like entertainment (something that Socrates would just shake his head over).

DC and the "Other" DC

I lived for 3.5 years in Arlington, VA.  I came to realize after a few months that DC (just two miles from my apartment) was "another land".  Once you crossed the river.....general logic and the standards of life that I'd be accustomed to.....simply didn't exist.  This week, I was reminded of this problem.

A picture came out with two Republican congressmen....holding a colorful red, white, and blue AR-15 automatic rifle.  They were doing a benefit deal in DC and the weapon was to be the prize for those who bought raffle tickets.  The picture?  Well.....it got out into the DC press (the city DC, not the federal DC), and pretty quickly.....the city DC's Attorney General got all hyped up.

You see, in the city DC (not the federal DC).....there are the strictest gun rules in America.  This helps in various ways to control the killing efforts in DC (the city, not the federal DC) and limit deaths to approximately 110 murders a year (I won't say that these are all gun related....some are done by knife, hammer, or beatings).  If you figure the six by six mile area.....then do the statistical averages.....it's a fair amount of killing.  I should note.....most of this killing takes place in the city DC, not the federal DC.

So the city DC's Attorney General got fired up and went to the capital police.  Note....the capital police don't work for the DC city police.....the capital police work for federal government.  The photo of the gun on DC grounds was immediate evidence in their mind of some no-good going on.

Well....Representative Ken Buck got the call and kinda noted that he'd done all the fine paperwork required by the capital police (not the DC city police).  The capital police kinda agreed.

In fact, at this point.....the capital police let the DC city police know of this little funny rule.  ANY Senator or Congressman.....Democratic or Republican....by the rules of House and Senate.....are allowed to keep weapons in their office (UNLOADED, naturally).

Now, it should be noted that you can't walk into any chamber or public meeting area within the House or Senate with your gun.  There are precise rules against that type of behavior.

However, every single one of these elected officials can hold weapons within their office areas.  Not just one or a dozen, but they could legally hold hundreds of guns if so desired.

I'm guessing the DC city police (not the capital police) are a bit disturbed by this.....thinking their city rules and procedures would guarantee DC (the city, not the federal DC) to be gun-free.  They were wrong.

Now, you might ask this stupid question.....in the last two-hundred years, with all these guns laying around the capital with these Senators and Congressmen.....has there ever been some incident that caused someone to get shot (intentionally or by accident)?  No.

What if some idiot fringe group got a couple of whacked up individuals into the federal building and attempted to threaten any Senator or Congressman?  I'm pretty sure that each guy or gal would pull out their arms.....open up the box of ammo....and lay some efficient layers of defense beyond what the capital police or DC city police could offer.

Some people will sit there and start to worry about this.  Frankly, on my list of 1,000 things to worry about.....this rates around 6,438.  Now, if these idiots were keeping sticks of dynamite or cranking up chain-saws in their office to 'show-off'.....I'd prioritize things higher and move this to around number 466.

“Why die on Mars when you can live in South Dakota.”

“Why die on Mars when you can live in South Dakota.”

This is the new tourism campaign for South Dakota.  Folks within the tourism trade woke up one day and noticed how a bunch of people are all stirred up and want to go visit Mars.  Thousands of people in fact.

Now, a logical guy would ask....what exactly will you be seeing or doing while visiting Mars.  Swamp fishing?  Gambling on some bayou?  Tanning on some beachfront?  Drinking Whiskey Sours at a Mars nightclub?  Dancing with some hot fifty-year-old chick from Boaz?  Mountain-biking?  Getting fitness training from some San Diego guy who only eats mushrooms and shrimp?

The general trip idea to Mars currently is a one-way trip.  You will die there.  Period.....end of story....no commas.....no plan B situation.....no exits.....no change of plan at the midway point.

I think there's a brief one-hour window of fantasy that will occur when this first group arrives on Mars.  They will don their suits.....go walk around for an hour....then come to this new reality.  I'd refer to it as "dumb-itis".  I paid all this money and for some reason.....this brief walk on Mars and my impending end to life don't make much sense.

The problem in life is that people watch an awful lot of fantasy stuff on TV and get these weird ideas.  Guys used to aspire to be on some bowling league and bowl a three-hundred game.  Now, they fantasize about some android-borg-like lady-gal who looks marvelous, stacks one-hundred-pound hay-bales with ease, and performs over six-hundred multi-task functions.

A guy used to aspire to have a truck that makes it through a whole year without a visit to the garage for repairs.  Now, a guy fantasizes about some hover-craft vehicle that gets up to 300 mph, and has a leather suit with turbo-blast air cooling for hot summer months.

A guy used to aspire to have a simple steak over the grill after work.  Now, a guy fantasizes about some Argentine steak which sat in a bowl of special Taiwanese sour sauce and Bombay peppers which are sold at only one store within seventy miles of the house.

A guy used to aspire to have four basic options for TV entertainment each evening (ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS).  Now, a guy fantasizes about 700 channels, and sixteen possible baseball games tonight for viewing.

A guy used to aspire to get in a car and drive for two days to reach South Dakota.  Don't ask me what was on the typical 'to-see-list'.....I might assume Mount Rushmore but maybe the Badlands or Black Hills interest the guy.  Now?  A guy dreams up Mars? And for what?

A Mayor Story

It's an odd story.  Election occurs in some small (700 residents) town in Missouri (Parma).  For thirty-seven years.....the same guy has held the job.  He was defeated by a black gal.  Within days....the town attorney, the chief of the water department, the city clerk and the bulk of the cops in town (five out of six) resign.  They also wipe the computers as they exit.

Normally, you'd look at this and ask some questions.  Folks appear to have registered some dislike for the old 'regime' and the 'old-boys-network'.

Then you start to look at potential corruption.  It's odd.....the eight people in town to handle money and funds?  They up and leave.....erasing all computer records. The paper records?  No one says much but I suspect there's no more than a year's worth of records in the cabinets there.

Generally, if you are running a corrupt funds department in town.....it'll show up with what the city attorney does, the paperwork that the clerk generates, the acts of the city cops, and the cherry on the cake is usually the city water department which can always hide expenditures easily.

If I were the new mayor.....I'd ask the state to come in with some investigation.  The five cops who left?  I imagine they will be hired within weeks by some small town nearby and they will continue their money-making talents for that organization.  Why would you need six total cops for a town of 700 residents?  That's another odd thing.  Normally, a town of this size would not be able to generate enough income to pay the cops.....unless there's tons of tickets issued monthly.

Across the nation, there are thousand of Parma-like towns with the same issue.  They've built up a network of 'good-buddies', and made the cops into revenue-generators.  There ought to be a rule in every state that determines that a town of 1,000 residents can have as many cops as they want, and generate as much revenue via the cops as they want......until they get to a certain point in relation to the town's size.....then all cop-generated revenue would go to some state educational fund.

An Old Ad

An ad in the Daily East Oregonian newspaper (19 Apr 1915), page 8 (the back-page):

"Backtime (the theater)

A queen without a home; A king without a throne

Today's last chance

Elinor Glyn's

"Three Weeks"

in five parts

Sensational drama of thrilling love and royal intrigue in two-hundred-and-eighty scenes.  Passed by the National Board of Censors"
-------------------------------------
Around this period of 1915, because of advancements in technology (marketing of trampy magazines, silent movies, and public interest in racy material).....we were advancing into a territory where people had lusty thrills and censorship needed to be a daily task.

Along came Elinor Glyn.  She was born in 1864 to a simple middle-class family.  Her father would pass on in her youth, and mom relocated the family from the Channel Islands (off the UK) back to Canada.  Fairly well educated.....Elinor found herself at age twenty-eight with limited suitors and would eventually marry a successful British lawyer who was seven years older than her but fairly well known for being a spendthrift.

Spendthrift isn't a term that most Americans deal with today.  If you were going to make a template and use it with today's society.....then a spendthrift is a guy who goes to buffet discount restaurants (the $6.99 dinner), drives a seven-year old car, would never spend more than $100 for a suit, shops mostly at Wal-Mart, drinks only tap-water and not the $3 bottles of French glacier water, and still wears clothing from two decades ago.

Writers tend to say that Elinor and her man (Clayton Luis Glyn) were a total mismatch.  Her husband had a family history.....his father was a Lord Mayor of London, and he had various connections which meant invitations to parties and dinners.

By the age of thirty-six......Elinor was fairly bored with things and enjoying various relationships on the side.  She wrote a book based on some letters she'd written and found a small audience of readers.  A year or two later, she sat down to write "Three Weeks"....which is mostly a semi-fictional....semi-fact piece....over a highly sexed queen from the Balkans who gets all hot and bothered with a young British lad (at least fifteen years younger than the queen).

For some reason, "Three Weeks" turns into some hot lusty curiosity piece.  Around this same time period......Elinor finally came up with a worldly phrase....."IT".  It was supposed to be lust and charm all rolled into one.  When some gal walked into a room in a skimpy gown.....and guys gawked at her....then she had "IT".   "Three Weeks" was about "IT".

The book got Elinor noticed and brought in some revenue.   Seven years would pass....her husband's health was failing...his income was limited....and Elinor became a book-a-year writer.  As the silent movies arrived....the production teams were on the prowl for books and themes for their movies.  Elinor's passions, writing skills, and creativity were a perfect match.

After the husband died in 1915 and movie production went into high gear after WW I....Elinor packed up and moved to Hollywood, California.  At the age of fifty-six (1920), she became a big-time screen-play writer, producer, and director.  In 1926, she took a twenty-year script idea of "IT" and combined with Clara Bow....making "Red Hair".  Sex appeal, lust, and censorship all played together for it's success.

As for the ad in the Oregon newspaper?  A guy sitting off in rural parts of the nation in 1915 was fairly desperate for risky weekend fun, and "Three Weeks" played into that effect.  Toss in the notice of being censored to some degree, and it meant that it just barely made it out of censorship (many people would think that anyway).

Gov Mike Huckabee for President

There are ten potential folks running for the Republican nomination in 2016.  There's supposed to be an announcement this week that Huckabee is also running.

The odds of him getting in the top three?  Zero.

He has some limited appeal to a small audience across the south, and I suspect his end-game is to subtract votes from Jeb Bush in five or six states.  Three percentage points here, six percentage points there, and limited to strictly six states (my guess: Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Louisiana).

This will end up being a bit of a tough race and no clear winner prior to the convention.  Since most states have dropped a winner-take-all point system for the primary.....folks get a percentage of delegates showing up for the convention.  My humble guess is that Huckabee hopes to have five percent of the votes.  He's doing this mostly to swing his votes around at the right time to another candidate.

As for a cabinet post later for Huckabee?  Maybe he'll get some ambassadorship....like to Cuba or such.

The Alabama State Parks Analysis

From my previous essay over Alabama State Parks on a closure list, there's some interesting history to the ones listed on the closure list.

Cheaha State Park: Carved out by the Roosevelt CCC-gang in 1933.  It's on the highest point of Alabama, and for the first forty years.....had just a couple of stone cabins and one small lodge.  In the late 70's, they added another lodge and a restaurant to the operation.  Basically, there's a campground, some minor fishing, a swimming pool, an area for conferences/weddings/events, and a fair amount of hiking.

Bladon Springs used to be a health spa in the 1800s.  The local area had gone down hill and the state acquired the property in the 1930s....again, in the middle of the depression.  There's only ten spots for camping and a couple of pavilions for picnics.  It is a bare-bones state park and it's questionable why anyone ever put money into it.  Minimal profit operation and nothing really to add on it.

Blue Springs State Park is an operation which is bare bones.  Beyond some swimming in the local springs and a picnic pavilion, there's nothing much there (barely 100 acres of state property).  Zero potential for any profit.

Chickasaw State Park.  It's a 500-acre plot of land with some picnic tables and a kid's wading pool.  Toss in a couple of hiking trails and several pavilions, and that's it.  Zero potential for any profit.

Buck's Pocket State Park.  Twenty-odd miles of hiking trails, some picnic tables, a boat launch point, and a couple of primitive camping spots. Zero potential for any profit.

Paul M. Grist State Park.  Minor-league park with eleven RV spots.  Some Pavilions with picnic tables, and a 100-acre pond for fishing.  Very minimum potential for profit.  Maybe if they had forty RV spots and some cabins for rent....but it's nearest town is Selma and folks just don't go there for recreation.

Florala State Park.  Good location on Ala-Florida border, but only forty acres.  A couple of camping spots, some swimming in the local lake (500 acre lake).  Some picnic pavilions. Zero potential for any profit.

Roland Cooper State Park.  A curious park....it has a nine-hole golf course.....no plans to expand to eighteen holes.  Built on the side of a reservoir with plenty of fishing opporunties.  There's a couple vacation cabins, a bait and tackle shop, and a couple of picnic pavilions.  With infrastructure money and expansion (toss in another forty cabins, some advertising, and a lodge).....it might have potential.  Issue?  It's in the middle of nowhere.....twenty miles south of Selma.  Again, I'll ask....who the heck goes to Selma for recreation?

Rickwood Caverns.  Basically, you've got a four-star cave, an Olympic-sized pool, some hiking, zero cabins, no lodge, a minor campground, three hundred acres which they advertise as a 'wilderness' but it's really just a heavily wooded area about twenty-five miles north of Birmingham.  Has potential but you'd have to put in a real hotel.....market it for the caverns adventure folks....build up forty cabins and run the operation in a totally different manner.

Lake Lurleen State Park.  It offers around a hundred RV camping spots on a fairly big chunk of property (1,600 acres).  Lake front view, with more picnic pavilions, and roughly twenty miles of hiking trails.  Big selling point?  Mountain biking.  No lodge, no cabins.  Within twenty miles of Tuscaloosa.  With development and more infrastructure for mountain biking.....it might attract a unique crowd.....but you'd need to bring forty cabins and remarket the operation.

DeSoto State Park.  Another 1930s Roosevelt CCC-project.  Three thousand acres of property.....all in high terrain areas, with mountain streams.  Oddly, just twenty-five miles of walking trails and barely eleven miles of mountain biking trails.  There is a lodge, a couple of cabins, a restaurant, and a decent camping area.  It's a park which need redevelopment.....market it as a mountain paradise with adventure trails and triple the mountain bike trails.  Close enough to Huntsville that you could advertise around the nation for a 'rough adventure' and have several hundred people a week fly in and want to have some type of bold experience.

Lakepoint State Park.  This is one of those odd parks which ought to make it.  It's hidden away on a 45,000 acre site near Lake Eufala.  Sadly, it's in the middle of nowhere in central Alabama....far east side.  They've got a convention center, a eighteen-hole golf course, 100-room lodge, and a huge 192-site campground.  They've actually got almost forty cabins, and a boat marina area.  More picnic pavilions, and a couple of minor hiking trails.  It has success written all over the potential but has never been really marketed the right way.  Everybody in Atlanta and Nashville ought to know about the golf course and marina.  The convention center?  It ought to work better but with only a hundred rooms in the lodge.....I'm not sure they have adequate rooms for the bigger conventions.

Guntersville State Park.  A six-thousand acre park on Lake Guntersville.  Has a lodge area, boat ramp, eighteen hole golf course, and convention center.  Has a decent campground and beach area to the lake.  Has a fair amount of potential.  Advertised right?  No.  If the local community ran the operation....they'd have fishing derby situations all year-round, and probably add another hotel to the complex.  It's near Huntsville and they could easily attract people to fly in for weekends and get a recreation blast from the lake.

Frank Jackson State Park.  Another park in the middle of nowhere.  Ninety minute drive northeast from Mobile.  Underdeveloped.  Basically a fishing and boating park, with some picnic pavilions.  Limited RV and camping possible.  Even if you added more money and structure to the park.....it's out away from the interstate and bigger cities.

Finally, Joe Wheeler State Park.  Structured around a golf course, a boating marina, a significant convention center, a lodge and within three miles of highway 72.  With 2,500 acres, they've got plenty of possible expansion situations.  Advertised right?  No.  Toss in sixty cabins and another lodge, and upgrade the golf course.....you might triple the current income levels of the park.  Barely a 2.5 mile looped area for mountain biking.  Turn that into a twenty-mile mountain bike trail and you'd get some heavy interest throughout the south.

Here's the thing....at least six of these state parks are dead in the water.  No matter what you do......they can't achieve any profits.  The dimwits in the 1930s and all the way to the 1970s....never cared about profits.  Now?  It's important.

At least three of the sites ought to be turned over to local municipal communities and let them manage it better.  Five or six of these could be turned in mega visitor sites.....if they were managed by a business operation.....built up more hotel space....went heavily on mountain biking potential.....and were advertised as adventure centers.

Sadly, the Alabama conservation folks are not the ones who ought to be managing this operation.  And the state just refuses to get smart and realize the potential here if they were managed right (add one million more tourists a year if half of these were run the right way).