Re: Food
- From: "Loren MacGregor" <churnworks@xxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2005 03:39:29 GMT
"Seth Breidbart" <sethb@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:dg563d$oth$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> In article <300820050038107639%orange@xxxxxxxxxx>,
> Michael J. Lowrey <orange@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>Seth Breidbart <sethb@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>> Michael J. Lowrey <orange@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>> >But there's no reason, other than their poverty, to assume that our
>>> >kids are any more likely to be dishonest than any random Jan Smidt off
>>> >the streets of the old Warsaw Pact.
>>>
>>> How about the crime statistics in their respective neighborhoods?
>>
>>Well, that's true, kids in my neighborhood ARE more likely to be
>>victims of crime than kids in some other neighborhoods.
>
> And who are the perpetrators? Somehow I doubt they're Europeans who
> come into your neighborhood to commit crimes.
I don't see why not. That was the case when I lived in Glendale, and it
appears to be the case here. At least, the local police have told me that
the burglaries and car break-ins in this area have generally been caused by
white kids from outside the neighborhood, primarily for drug-related
reasons.
"Crime statistics" are also fairly slippery. When I moved to the Capitol
Hill area of Seattle in the 1970s, my parents and our family friends were
horrified, because crime statistics bolstered by television, radio and
newspaper reports all indicated that the area was rife with crimes. They
knew this because the read it and heard it, so it must have been true. On
the other hand, they lived in a nice suburban area of Seattle where crime
was almost unknown.
At the same time they were complaining about the high crime in my area,
there were several incidents in the course of a year within six blocks of
their home, from the robberies at the drug store across the street (three
times that I know of) to the burglary of the real estate office on the
corner, one house away from my parents' house, up to the multiple robbery
and rapes of the staff of the convenience store three or four blocks up
Roosevelt.
None of those stories made the newspaper, or the nightly news, or the radio
reports. All the crimes I know about were done by caucasians -- I don't
know if they were European or not. In two of the cases I mention above, I
was a witness, and the others I learned about from local sources. But, of
course, that was a nice neighborhood and had no crime to speak of.
Meanwhile, in my crime-ridden neighborhood the worst thing that every
happened to me was that I was pan-handled. Gosh. I don't recall that there
were that many reports of violence from my friends living in the area,
either.
There were those times in the early 70s during which I was working as an
actor at the Cirque Theater, at the time in the heart of the multi-ethnic,
primarily Black, Central District. I never had any problem there, but one
day when I was walking home after the final curtain, I was held up by an
extremely nervous young man holding a handgun in a noticeably twitchy
manner. He kept apologizing. I thought then (and thought now) that it was
remarkably silly to NOT give my wallet to a nervous man with a gun, as I had
very little money in the wallet and I was not fond of the idea of being shot
by accident.
That was very near a college campus, in what was considered a safe area at
the time.
In that case, neither of us was from the neighborhood where we had our
interaction.
-- LJM
--
Loren MacGregor
churnworks@xxxxxxx
.
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