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The Big Apple

Posted: June 20, 2023 by chrisharper in Uncategorized
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By Christopher Harper

For the first time in about a decade, I visited New York City. It’s a mess!

Although the city still has many sterling attractions, including museums, music, and sporting events, the Big Apple has hit hard times.

It reminds me of the 1990s when crime soared, racial tensions affected daily life, and the subways became a haven for crime and chaos.

Just before I arrived in town last weekend, a 34-year-old man was murdered on a subway near Union Square. That’s where I used to teach in the 1990s. Just after I left, a man slashed the legs of people on an East Side subway. I had difficulty sleeping because of the constant peel of police sirens, even in a relatively quiet neighborhood.

I spent about a dozen years in New York living and working on the West Side, which is generally considered a bit hipper and younger than the stolid East Side, where I stayed this past week to meet an old friend near the United Nations.

What surprised me on the East Side, which is generally considered older and wealthier, is how many restaurants had died from COVID. Many eateries closed, including McNally’s, a hangout for fans of the Mets and Buffalo Bills. Ironically, the locale is being turned into a healthcare facility.

Homeless people slept in the middle of the day on sidewalks across from the United Nations. I don’t remember the homeless situation being that bad when I lived in the city. However, a recent Wall Street Journal analysis found that homelessness had soared in recent months because of massive increases in rent throughout the country during COVID.

What really surprised me was the amount of dog poop on the sidewalks. Back in the day, I remember loud arguments if people left poop behind.

New York was never particularly friendly, but it seems even less friendly now than I recall. Almost no one makes eye contact or offers a hello or good morning. In a diner where my friend and I had breakfast, the waiter wore a face mask and seemed more interested in our finishing our food to seat another party than serving us.

When Rudy Giuliani became mayor in 1994, he faced many of the same problems that exist today in the city. He focused much of his time on the “broken window” theory of fighting crime. This theory states that visible signs of crime, anti-social behavior, and civil disorder create an urban environment that encourages further crime and disorder, including serious crimes. The theory suggests that policing methods target minor offenses such as vandalism, loitering, public drinking, jaywalking, and subway fare evasion help to create an atmosphere of order and lawfulness. Giuliani’s adoption of the strategy made New York a better and safer place to live.

It may be too late for such an approach.

I realize many New Yorkers will find this post offensive, but I now understand why thousands of people have left the city to find kinder and quieter climates.

100 Word Fan Fiction: An Accidental Meeting

Posted: June 18, 2023 by datechguy in fan fiction, fun, Uncategorized
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The men clamored to see but Schultz girth prevented egress “Orders of the commandant prisoners are restricted to barracks”

“Under the Geneva Convention as Senior POW…”,began Hogan.

“Believe me Colonel you are safer here the Ensign is a one man disaster area, and his Captain has been trying to throttle him since the truck pulled in.”

Schultz opened the barracks door just as the Captain fell head first into his stomach falling to the ground dazed groping for his glasses as the Ensign saluted repeatedly.

Hogan turned, “Kinch break out the coffee pot, let’s hear what’s brewing”

Previously: Looks aren’t always deceiving, Next: In Writing

100 Word Fan Fiction: A Stymied Sortie

Posted: June 17, 2023 by datechguy in fan fiction, fun, Uncategorized
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“You mean neither of them know they’re on a mission?”

“As far as they know Carter, they were captured by accident”, Hogan replied as they checked their weapons, “Our job is to convince the Germans they’re the real thing & help them find the phony info.”

At that moment Cpl Newkirk gave whispered warning: “Colonel, Krauts at the tunnel!”

Hogan peered out of the periscope in dismay, guards were right at the tunnel exit, no way out. The fake attack on the truck carrying the officers to convince the Gestapo they had invasion plans was stymied before it could start.

Previously An Appropriate Incarceration. Next: Looks aren’t always deceiving

The Democrats are dismantling America’s ballot box and jury box

Posted: June 15, 2023 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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In a speech delivered on 15 November 1867, Fredrick Douglass most famously  said:

 “A man’s rights rest in three boxes: The ballot box, jury box and the cartridge box. Let no man be kept from the ballot box because of his color. Let no woman be kept from the ballot box because of her sex”.

I would add the soap box to this most essential list of boxes where man’s rights rest.  All four of these have been under direct and relentless assault by the Democrats, who are the political left here in the United States, for the past several decades.  This assault has intensified over the past several of years to the point that these four most essential boxes have been almost entirely stripped away from those of us on the political right. 

The assault on the ballot box seemed complete with the theft of the Presidential election from Trump in 2020.  Just this week the Democrats ratcheted this up to a level I never dreamed possible with the federal indictment of President Trump on extremely phony classified document charges,  This is a tremendously transparent effort to keep President Trump off of the 2024 Republican ballot.

Phony charges issued by the Deep State is a direct assault on the Jury Box.  This box also has been under assault by the political left for a couple of decades,  George Soros led a successful campaign to make sure State Attorneys General were populated almost exclusively by hardcore leftists   The same holds true of district attorneys,

Thanks to political correctness and the war on disinformation, the soap box has been a favorite target of the political left for decades.  The soap box has not been completely destroyed.  This is thanks to the tireless work of free speech warriors.

The cartridge box is another box that has been under constant assault by the left.  Thanks to the Second Amendment and the constant work of patriots, control of this box still remains firmly in hands of those of us on the Right, This is the most important of all three boxes because it protects the other three.

With the near total victory of the left when it comes to the ballot box, jury box, and soap box, I am increasingly worried that those of on the political right will one day soon be left with only the cartridge box.  This week’s indictment of President Trump is a dangerous step along that path.

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