Lets buy a couple of those blocks in Detroit and put up a massive mirror maze with one entrance, no exits, and a sign at the entrance "Treasure Maze, Gold Inside, Clothing Optional".
Probably get it all for 30 bucks using fake IDs then let the city take it back 6 months later for the 18 trillion in back taxes we never paid. We can get the mirrors free from looted target store fitting rooms.
Having (professionally) visited such garden spots as Lebanon and Tehran I found it utterly depressing to view the photographic evidence of those areas in the 50’s and 60’s. Civilised, clean, modern areas peopled with educated, healthy, wealthy, fashionable, urbane and most importantly happy people. Now? Completely destroyed.
Detroit? As a ‘damn furriner’ (I tend to leave my 'red coat' at home so I can blend in) I’ve only seen/experienced it (and SF, Baltimore, Washington, etc.) as they are now and wondered why the ‘nostalgia’ of so many Americans for the place. Then, as a Brit who during 30+ years of service had ‘maybe’ a combined total of 6 months at home (hey, if you finally get some leave, why go home when all those exotic spots are just round the corner), and then mostly visiting in London, I returned and found utter ruin. Clean, safe and centuries old vibrant communities (London was a city made up of countless tiny, separate ‘village’ communities) simply … gone, and replaced by … the very peoples I’d been sent to fight (because they wished to destroy us). I finally understood. [and it, as with Detroit et al, would be much worse if they didn’t have the rest of the country to leech off. London isn’t even British any more, it’s effectively, and actually, Mogadishu on the Thames].
The thing is, it’s ‘hard’ to build and Oh so easy to destroy. I’d lay odds that those who caused that destruction did so (as with Lebanon, etc.) not to destroy, but to suborn it, take it over, make it ‘theirs’. The ‘funny’ thing is that they didn’t build it, don’t understand the effort, the simple hard work needed to maintain it … and so it all collapsed.
The ‘masses’ who took over these edifices (cities, states, countries and even cultures) are now nothing more than jackals living off the carcasses of once great civilisation, not understanding what they destroyed to get their greedy, selfish, immediate, and undeserved ‘needs’ sated. (they’re children - nasty, vicious, ignorant, selfish, greedy, but children nevertheless – who demand more without the slightest inkling of the costs and sacrifices to produce)
Those who organised, financed, enabled and supported though? They understood and:
“...some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.”
And pawing through the trunk without being gloved up? She's lucky she didn't find a syringe sticking out of her middle finger. And then, and THEN poking her filthy hands on her phone? Arrrrrrrrrgh.
I will give her props for her closing statement though.
It really seems that way, Ed. Last time I was there it was remarkably emptier than the time before, even. Mind you, the downtown area was being fixed up a little.
"jackals living off the carcasses of once great civilisations" -- I like that, Anon. Nice turn of phrase.
I always get the feeling when I visit London and lived there, that it's inhabited by a lesser people than those who mostly built it. Look out on the sheer Victorian immensity of the thing and consider, by contrast, the Gherkin.
Still, I love London and if I had the astronomical amount of cash needed I'd have a flat (again) or house near Lamb's Conduit Street or thereabouts.
Viz. the asset-stripping sociopaths and their political pals who've been busy turning our cities into sh*tholes... well, nooses down the Mall, eh?
Adrienne, I think you're entirely right and, to be honest, this true in its way post -- note smashed up abandoned car in typical Detroit street scene -- was also a short project in trolling GL. But he hasn't commented, oddly.
Lets buy a couple of those blocks in Detroit and put up a massive mirror maze with one entrance, no exits, and a sign at the entrance "Treasure Maze, Gold Inside, Clothing Optional".
ReplyDeleteProbably get it all for 30 bucks using fake IDs then let the city take it back 6 months later for the 18 trillion in back taxes we never paid. We can get the mirrors free from looted target store fitting rooms.
Detroit is more abandoned than occupied.
ReplyDeleteSad.
ReplyDeleteHaving (professionally) visited such garden spots as Lebanon and Tehran I found it utterly depressing to view the photographic evidence of those areas in the 50’s and 60’s. Civilised, clean, modern areas peopled with educated, healthy, wealthy, fashionable, urbane and most importantly happy people. Now? Completely destroyed.
ReplyDeleteDetroit? As a ‘damn furriner’ (I tend to leave my 'red coat' at home so I can blend in) I’ve only seen/experienced it (and SF, Baltimore, Washington, etc.) as they are now and wondered why the ‘nostalgia’ of so many Americans for the place. Then, as a Brit who during 30+ years of service had ‘maybe’ a combined total of 6 months at home (hey, if you finally get some leave, why go home when all those exotic spots are just round the corner), and then mostly visiting in London, I returned and found utter ruin. Clean, safe and centuries old vibrant communities (London was a city made up of countless tiny, separate ‘village’ communities) simply … gone, and replaced by … the very peoples I’d been sent to fight (because they wished to destroy us). I finally understood. [and it, as with Detroit et al, would be much worse if they didn’t have the rest of the country to leech off. London isn’t even British any more, it’s effectively, and actually, Mogadishu on the Thames].
The thing is, it’s ‘hard’ to build and Oh so easy to destroy. I’d lay odds that those who caused that destruction did so (as with Lebanon, etc.) not to destroy, but to suborn it, take it over, make it ‘theirs’. The ‘funny’ thing is that they didn’t build it, don’t understand the effort, the simple hard work needed to maintain it … and so it all collapsed.
The ‘masses’ who took over these edifices (cities, states, countries and even cultures) are now nothing more than jackals living off the carcasses of once great civilisation, not understanding what they destroyed to get their greedy, selfish, immediate, and undeserved ‘needs’ sated. (they’re children - nasty, vicious, ignorant, selfish, greedy, but children nevertheless – who demand more without the slightest inkling of the costs and sacrifices to produce)
Those who organised, financed, enabled and supported though? They understood and:
“...some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.”
― Michael Caine, The Dark Knight
Now think about Minneapolis, Portland, …
Has she never heard of a VIN??
ReplyDeleteAnd pawing through the trunk without being gloved up? She's lucky she didn't find a syringe sticking out of her middle finger. And then, and THEN poking her filthy hands on her phone? Arrrrrrrrrgh.
I will give her props for her closing statement though.
Whoa, Kid! Now you're talking.
ReplyDeleteIt really seems that way, Ed. Last time I was there it was remarkably emptier than the time before, even. Mind you, the downtown area was being fixed up a little.
ReplyDelete"jackals living off the carcasses of once great civilisations" -- I like that, Anon. Nice turn of phrase.
ReplyDeleteI always get the feeling when I visit London and lived there, that it's inhabited by a lesser people than those who mostly built it. Look out on the sheer Victorian immensity of the thing and consider, by contrast, the Gherkin.
Still, I love London and if I had the astronomical amount of cash needed I'd have a flat (again) or house near Lamb's Conduit Street or thereabouts.
Viz. the asset-stripping sociopaths and their political pals who've been busy turning our cities into sh*tholes... well, nooses down the Mall, eh?
Adrienne, I think you're entirely right and, to be honest, this true in its way post -- note smashed up abandoned car in typical Detroit street scene -- was also a short project in trolling GL. But he hasn't commented, oddly.
ReplyDeleteWSF, very.
ReplyDelete