This is another grim reminder of just how destructive Detroit’s corrupt machine politics have been. At one time, Detroit was the manufacturing capital of America and one of the country’s great cities; today it’s trying to stave off a kind of modern-day bonfire of the vanities.
This is the fate of the country at large if we don’t send a better class of people to Washington.
That must make you sad, seeing that.
Well, I’m from Flint, not Detroit. But it is sad to see how far it’s fallen since I was young, when it was the fifth largest city in the country.
The collection, which include treasures by Bruegel, Rodin and van Gogh as well as Diego Rivera’s famous “Detroit Industry” murals, is ostensibly worth billions of dollars, but those measures can’t really capture what such artistic treasures mean to a community.
The thing is, how valuable is a hoard of art to a community that can’t continue to function? I would allege that it is less valuable than the billions of dollars they might get for it from someone who has the leisure to appreciate it.
Precisely. Art and entertainment are luxuries. First there is the successful state, then the state sponsored art. You don’t to keep the latter after shedding the former.
The “better class of people” don’t want to go to Washington and have their reputations and families raped by the media. And before certain “progressive” folks have a hissy fit over my terminology, yes, I meant it metaphorically!
Implyin that the ruin of Detroit be the fault of those who stay there be raciss.
The “better class of people” know what will happen to them if they get sent to washington. Until there is an Augean level of cleaning in D.C. (i.e. anyone but Republocrats and Demicans) the “better class of people” know better than to believe claims by the masses of wanting change.
I’ve always felt that we should be electing Statesmen to the presidency and senate. The House of Representatives I expect to be a den of vipers and full of politicians, but the others should aspire to something more than crass compromise, and should be setting an example.
But of course, those who count the votes decide who we get…
“an Augean level of cleaning”
My first reading of that brought to mind one of Hercules’ labors, cleaning stables, which he did by diverting a river and flash flooding the place.
That’s exactly what I was referring to, in a metaphorical or figurative sense, of course. (said for the benefit of the spooks reading this who don’t get literary allusion)
It’d probably take a Mississippi in full flood to clean out that mess. Maybe the Corps of Engineers could solve a couple problems–if they dug a big ditch through the Appalachians they could divert the Mississippi/Missouri through DC and simultaneously solve the flood problems in New Orleans.
The way I think of it is that Gov’t doesn’t really want to ever fix anything for good. They will never design a perfect mechanism that just needs the touch of one domino and then a perfect picture of society will emerge. Because in that situation there would be no need for government and they’d effectively put themselves out of business. Those in control just can’t fathom the thought that life can work itself out on it’s own. There are always going to be busy bodies with the uncontrollable urge to try and control everybody.
“X-Men”
I’d like to see a try at the meme that’s not quite so fast and loose with the Second Law of Thermodynamics, one in which the mutants channel power not from within themselves but from an alternate dimension.
“Humanity is the pinnacle of evolution.”
Well, fictional aliens are disproportionately humanoid, but there are beings evolved beyond that stage, usually an energy/non-corporeal being. (Doctor Who once saw a man evolve from humanoid to energy being during a single episode, in the classic series.)
Oops, wrong thread.
On topic, I’d like to see Detroit send its city manager to the “Pawn Stars” shop.