Does anyone LISTEN?

Hi, reader. If there's more than one, I'm amazed. And grateful. Anyway, I've been away for a while. Its not that there's been nothing in the news to aggravate me. I suppose its the new meds I'm on that have calmed me down. Who knows?

This one is going to be pretty short. I read a news article in the Philadelphia Inquirer this morning. I'm not sure if I can import it or share it to the blog but I'll give you the web address. Its www. philly.com. If you go to the Local News section you can most likely find it. Anyway, the subject of the article was a review of a meeting held here in the City Of Brotherly Love, a round table discussion type of meeting, discussing the problem of violent crime here in the City. People are being shot and many killed at an alarming rate. Now this is not unique to Philly and I don't even think we're in the top 5 per capita for murders but there's still too many of them.

The meeting was attended by Mayor Michael Nutter, the newly elected District Attorney, Seth Williams, Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey and other high level officials from those offices and others in the city. The discussion was "moderated" by Dave Davies, a TV host from Philly's public TV station, WHYY. Can you say leftist? I knew you could. OK, get to the point. At one point in the discussion Mayor Nutter advanced the proposition that the overwhelming majority of violent crime in the city was "intra racial" (emphasis mine) which could be interpreted, in the immortal words of Donovan McNabb, as "black on black crime". The Mayor also opined that violent crime, especially murder, was very rarely a random event. He claimed and was backed up by the Commissioner, that many of these crimes occur among people that knew each other. "Today's victime is just as easily tomorrow's perpetrator", he said. "The significant perception that there is a randomness to crime in this city is just that - a perception. There's a whole lot of activity going back and forth between a relatively small percentage of the population." Again, the emphasis on a direct quote from the Mayor is mine.

That being said, the crime statistics, especially the murder rate, is highest in several of the police patrol districts in the city where its a fact of life that the overwhelming majority of the residents are "minorities", although in Philadelphia, these "minorities" make up the majority of the total city population. Go figure.

So here's where the does anyone listen come in to play. After all the above statements were made and agreed upon by the three major players, the Mayor, DA and Police Chief (did I happen to mention that all three of these highly effective and excellent examples of public servants were African American?) the knucklehead Dave Davies then tries to take Mayor Nutter to task for the Mayor's support of a "controversial" (Davies' description) police tactic, endorsed again by all of the Big Three, the stop and frisk policy, which was implemented solely to make an effort to take illegal guns off the street. Davies contends that the program has been criticized as targeting minorities disproportionately. Who are the police supposed to stop and frisk? 60 year old, orange haired Jewish ladies in the North East? An Asian shop keeper in Olney? A Russian jewler in Center City? Did he not hear ANYTHING the city leaders said? Does any one listen?

There are so many murders by gunshot being committed in this city that a report of a shooting rarely even makes the TV news unless there's multiple victims or its domestic violence related. The steady stream of murders being committed on the streets BY African American males AGAINST African American males only gets inside, back page coverage in the newspaper. Its not a racist rant, ladies and gentlemen, its an unfortunate fact of life and a damn shame. I know there are many, many reasons these young men don't believe they have any future, any chance of grabbing a piece of the American dream, but liberal, leftist leaning, egg head Public TV commentators need to bend over and take their heads out of their asses and realize that stopping the people who are most likely to commit OR be the victim of these crimes, in the neighborhoods where the crimes are most likely to occur is NOT targeting anyone disproportionately!

Until white liberal morons and African American race baiters come up with any idea what so ever about life in the real world, good work being performed by police officers risking their lives to try and stem the tide of violence will still be branded as "profiling" and therefore unfair. Its the same reason you see 70 year old women in wheel chairs being shaken down by TSA idiots at the airports while young, ethnic Arab males (the very makeup of the 9-11 hijackers) are waved through with only cursory examination of their credentials and personal property.

If you stuck with me so far, I thank you for reading, and, as always, I eagerly welcome your opinion. Happy belated New Year!