Urban Hellholes

 

it was bad then

Everyone here knows it but many choose to ignore it; Europeans can scarcely comprehend much less believe it, but our major cities are urban wasteland hellholes. Seriously, I'd email pals in the UK from Detroit in '98 and I don't think they believed me. 

No, fools. The urban, asset-stripped carnage of the Motor City seemed like hyperbole, mind blogging perhaps to them, wild exaggeration. But no, I was pulling punches. Here's Detroit:

And here's Philly:

Beautiful, isn't it. Here's Chicago:

But what about Baltimore?

And let's not forget the nation's Capitol, DC:

But perhaps you're wondering what happened to Gary Indiana:

And on, and on, and on.  Everywhere you look our cities are decaying into urban, hellhole wastelands. It's America's dirty little secret if you like, but not to worry, we have trans bathrooms, rainbow hurray! 

That aside, do you think the outward and visible reflects the inward and spiritual?

Just asking.

Strawberry Fields Forever,

LSP

Great Art

 

We love great art at the Compound.

Sometimes it comes from the street.

Even the streets of DC.

Comply? But of course, great art has a message.

Sabo's been busy too, on another coast.

Cheers,

LSP

Debtstar Rising

 

Do you remember the debt? No, not your paltry burden, but the US debt, standing at a mighty, earth shattering and climbing 27 Trillion, at interest, and rising every second. It's a vast, almost unimaginable amount of money and, as with all debt, the people who lent it in the first place want their money repaid.

That's the nature of debt. Take out a loan to buy stuff, like votes, how very awesome, but you have to pay it back, it's part of the deal. Now, how do you pay back 27 trillion bucks and climbing?  You can inflate your way out of it and make your money worthless, or you can can blow off the debt, and make your money worthless.

What a conundrum, and I'm glad I'm just an inconsequential kebab vendor on the information superhighway as opposed to the kind of banker who feels forced to throw himself off a balcony at the age of 57 despite being a multi billionaire. But let's get down to brass tacks.

Note Optic

Our money's rotten and waiting to implode, it's a matter of time. When it does, and it will, who's going to pay the soldiers. Seriously, what's going to happen when the people under arms don't get a paycheck? No one's talking about that, and maybe they should.

But no, they're just sending soldiers off to sleep in carparks as they celebrate the political theater of a stolen election. That'll endear you to the soldiery you have to pay to protect you and who, notoriously, voted for you in the last election. Except that they didn't.

Your Pal,

LSP