Friday, May 30, 2008

Shock and awe comes to Indianapolis


A shocking article appeared in yesterday’s Indianapolis Star, detailing plans for turning the east side of the city into a “mock battlefield” for two weeks this summer. 2,300 Marines will be landing helicopters in parks, at an abandoned shopping mall, stadiums, and the State Fairgrounds.

“Our aim in Indianapolis is to expose our Marines to realistic scenarios and stresses posed by operating in an actual urban community, thereby increasing their proficiency in built-up areas,” Col. Mark J. Desens, commander of the 26th MEU, said in a statement. “Residents in many areas can expect to see helicopters flying overhead, military vehicles on the roads and Marines patrolling on foot,” Desens said.

The readers’ comments following the article were even more disturbing than the news itself. For every person who suggested that this is outrageous and a precursor for imposing martial law, there were at least five brain-dead commenters saying things like, “God Bless our Marines. Welcome to Indianapolis.”

Yes, welcome to Indianapolis. Welcome to soldiers patrolling our streets with machine guns to make sure we don’t get out of hand. With the economy in freefall, it’s only a matter of time before all hell breaks loose and the government cracks down. They’re getting ready. I wonder if their training will include house-to-house searches?

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Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Supporting our troops

I stopped writing on this blog for awhile because my sense of outrage had become dulled. This bit of news just sharpened it:

Imagine you’re on your third posting to Iraq, patrolling the dangerous streets, probably suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome, and you’re dealing with another all-too-common American middle-class problem. While you’ve been risking your life to make the Middle East safe for the oil companies, back home in Iowa the bank is preparing to foreclose on your house and throw your family onto the streets. Bloomberg News—not exactly a left-wing sort of outfit—reports today that foreclosures around military bases in the U.S. are four times higher than the national average.

In other news, Carly Fiorina, McCain’s financial adviser, is calling for more tax cuts for the wealthy to get the economy back on track.

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Monday, May 19, 2008

The People’s Republic of Ann Arbor

We boarded the train (yes, train) in Carbondale on a sunny Friday morning, headed for Chicago. There we’d lay over for five hours, awaiting our connecting train to Ann Arbor. The Chicago part of our journey was interesting, but it’s the Ann Arbor part that matters. Late at night, we pulled into “A2,” tired and questioning whether we’d ever take a train again.

We had two reasons to visit Ann Arbor. Our friends Gail and George moved there last year after a valiant effort as urban pioneers trying to bring Detroit back to life. It was a bigger challenge than they realized, so they decided to move to a gentle, nurturing city where life would be less difficult and more rewarding. The other reason is that my boss, Nancy D., had just moved there also, and a visit offered me an opportunity to work face to face with her for at least a day. In this age of telecommuting, a face to face session with your boss can be all too rare.

I expected to like it, but I wasn’t prepared to be as charmed as I was by Ann Arbor.

There are certain cities where liberal values prevail. The most prominent are places like Boston and San Francisco, but there’s a second tier that in some ways offers more hope. In the Midwest, where I’m from, those cities are places like Bloomington, Indiana, Madison, Wisconsin, and Ann Arbor, Michigan. They’re small enough that the liberal agenda completely takes over and changes their fabric.

What do you find in a liberal-agenda city like Ann Arbor? First off, a thriving inner city. A bustling downtown chock full of restaurants and retail stores, coffee shops, hot-dog stands, libraries and post offices, galleries and bars. Public schools that people support and that work. Public transportation, parks and libraries and other amenities for the people. Efforts to conserve energy like solar panels and bio-diesel fuel for buses.

Ann Arbor has all of these and more. It is clear this place didn’t just come to life last year, but has been nurtured and supported for decades. It’s what happens when people treat civic life as important, and don’t retreat into gated communities to keep the riff-raff at bay.

As the national economy heads into uncharted and frightening territory, the Ann Arbor city council is preparing to make it easier for residents to put food on the table. They’re working on an ordinance to allow city-dwellers to raise poultry in their backyards. To that I say “cock-a-doodle-doo!”

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