I am still alive

I have, alas, been very bad about blogging lately. And the funniest part about it is that it hasnt been because of a lack of things that I have wanted to write about. I swear, at least once a day I find myself thinking, "this would make a good blog post" and sometimes I even compose the whole post IN MY HEAD where it does no one any good.

I have wanted to tell the world about the people I see on the bus. Last week, I saw a mentally ill woman I used to know a long time ago. She didnt recognize me. But she was on the bus with a man who was clearly in love with her and with whom she apparently lived. I listened to their conversation for the entire TWO HOUR bus ride home (snow storm). It was funny because I found their words to each other very touching and very nice and it made me feel kind of good. But I was still stuck on the bus for TWO HOURS and I had a pee a little bit and I was hungry and frustrated and wanted to scream. Anyways, this woman was just so happy that she was, perhaps inappropriately, spreading it around by talking to people on the bus. There is, after all, bus etiquette that strangers only rarely speak to each other. As I got off the bus downtown, she said to me, "sweetie, if you need the eleven, you need to wait right by me" but I had to decline her offer since another bus which could get me home had just pulled into the transit station.

I wanted to tell everyone about my car which has now broken down twice in a week. I just spent five hundred bucks on it and now it is back in the shop and who knows how much else I will need to spend. The timing is bad because I need all the money I can get for my upcoming trip to Paris. I am going to do my taxes this weekend and I am going to hope that I get my refund before I leave. Still, on the money front, except for the car repairs, I am digging myself out of a financial hole that I am ashamed to have found myself in because I am smarter than that. Sometimes smart people do dumb things. But anyways, I have recovered from an earlier financial crisis and have enough money to live my life without the horrible budget I have been living with for the last several months. But, of course, I am going to still live with the horrible budget but just knowing that I dont HAVE to somehow makes it easier to do it. Weird I know. But there you go.



I wanted to tell everyone about last night. There was a lunar eclipse and everything worked out perfectly for it which as anyone who lives in Michigan can tell you, the chances of a clear night in Michigan in February arent especially high. But last night was crystal clear and the moon turned this cool orange color. I was at the lake where there are few city lights or at least fewer than here in Ypsilanti. So I stood on the deck there for a half an hour in the cold and looked at the beautiful moon and the stars which just seemed to get brighter as the moon got darker. I looked up at my favorite constellation, Orion for a long time and I thought about things I learned in my astronomy class about how Orion is in a part of space where new stars are being born and about how I'll be dead before any of the light from a star being born right now ever gets to earth. The nebulae in that part of space, such as the Orion Nebula, are just about the most beautiful things I have ever seen.

There has been more stuff too but I will have to save it for another time...

Car Thieves in Ypsilanti

Last night I had dinner with some neighbors and there was some talk about crime and safety in the neighborhood -- mostly in relation to reducing city services like the police force. As it happens, I am not against reducing some services but I am not so sure about reducing police and fire services.

And just in case I needed a reminder about why, the car I've borrowed from my Dad was broken into last night. At first I thought I had forgotten to lock it but the police officers who took the report pointed out where the thieves had forced open the drivers side door lock. They also pried apart the ignition which activated the anti-theft system so now, the car wont start. The cops said that they probably tried to steal it because it is a Chrysler and apparently Chryslers are easy cars to steal...usually. Not all of them have anti-theft systems I guess. The tow truck driver said the same thing.

Ok, the anti-theft system did what it was supposed to do and the car wasnt stolen. But I had to have it towed to the Chrysler dealership and I had to take today off of work (unpaid) which I can ill afford. Again, I guess I should be grateful that this happened today rather than next week when I'll be in my first week at my new job.

I have to admit though, that I am getting tired of this. I usually dont lock my car and it gets broken into on average about once a month. But no one has ever actually tried to steal my car before. They just take loose change and returnable bottles usually. This is a somewhat recent thing too. It was a few years after I first moved in here that my car was broken into. It bugs the crap out of me though. It bugs me that there are people in the world who have so little respect for the property of others. It bugs me that we have an economy were some people get desperate. This summer has been pretty bad for me crime wise too. I had my hand chair stolen from my porch, I had a guy sleeping on my lawn in his underpants and a sleeping bag stolen from my neighbor..and now this.

I cant help wondering if all of this petty theft has something to do with the whole situation at the jail. The jail is always full so often the police arrest people and then just let them go right away. The people who live far away from Ypsilanti generally are the ones who have voted not to spend money to expand the jail. Why should they? They dont have the same crime problems. They have been able to move away from such social issues.

Right now, I cant say that I totally blame them. Well, I blame them for not voting to expand the jail but I dont really blame them for choosing to remove themselves geographically from the crime that necessitates a jail and an expensive police force. If you live far from the poor people, you are much less likely to be a victim of a crime. So you can get away with less police and that saves you money on your taxes. It is normal and rational for a person to make such a decision.

As much as I complain about the tax rate in Ypsilanti, we dont pay the same taxes that people who live in the City of Detroit pay. They *really* pay through the nose tax wise and I dont mind mentioning that their city income tax combined with the highest property tax rate in the state combined with lousy services has not really encouraged people to move there. One has to wonder, is Ypsilanti headed in the same direction?

Our tax system is broken. Seriously. You see, when people are looking around for a place to live, they can choose a place like Ypsilanti or Detroit. But there is infrastructure in place in those places that has to be paid for. There are old employee pensions, roads, parks, etc. OR people can choose to live someplace close to the city where they can avoid paying for city services while still benefiting from proximity to the city. Then, as the people who can afford to move out, move out, they leave behind the people who really cant afford to leave. They leave behind the social problems and poverty that lead to higher crime levels which leaves fewer tax payers to pay for those things. That higher taxation further discourages the people who can best afford to pay for things from moving into cities. And so on... Combine all of that with other market forces and voila! You have SE Michigan and all of the sprawl that is so characteristic of this area.

So? What is to be done. I know some people take the view that the answer is to gentrify the area, to drive up rents and property values so much that the poor people are forced to move. I wonder how much of this type of thinking was behind the failed Water Street project? It certainly seems to be a technique that has worked for Ann Arbor. Ann Arbor is much more high brow than it was when I first moved there 22 years ago. But, I think Water Street is a good example of how the gentrification approach is nearly impossible.

A better approach would be to fix the property tax structure so that tax payers in areas with a lot of social problems dont end up paying for *all* of those problems while people who live in places removed from them dont pay anything at all. Of course, that solution might be just as impossible at least judging from the jail situation. I still say that the Ypsilanti police should start releasing people who would have gone to the jail if there had been room in places like Saline or Milan or even Ypsilanti Twp. That might motivate those motherfuckers to vote for a bigger jail!

Entitlement

It was snowing as I was driving home from work tonight. I will admit that I am something of a snow wimp even with the new tires on my car. I was driving at 40mph in a 45mph zone which on a snowy night isnt really all *that* slow, imho. There was a car tailgating me and I tried to ignore it but after a while, I realized that it was only inches from my rear bumper which kind of made me nervous and ok...a little pissed off. So I slowed down a bit hoping the guy would get the hint and back off. He didnt but because I slowed down, we both ended up getting caught at a red light we might have otherwise made. As soon as the light turned green and before I had a chance to move my foot onto the gas pedal, the guy started honking at me. The road opened up to two lanes in my direction by the next light. I caught a glimpse of him flipping me off as his Audi raced by. I flipped him off back but he couldnt see me because he was already past me.

I got to thinking about the level of entitlement that guy obviously was feeling. Entitled to the road. A feeling I admit to having myself sometimes. I know how really annoying other drivers can be. But still, why would he and to a lesser extent, me, have such feelings?

I was reminded of a recent episode at my work. I work for a large company in tech support. My team is currently very short handed and I am swamped. It would take me at least two weeks to get to the current cases waiting for my attention if I didnt get new ones every day. People have to wait for *weeks* to get some pretty annoying things fixed. Sometimes it takes days to get to anything less than a dire emergency.

But last week the CEO of the company had a problem. A problem so minor that if it were happening to my computer, I might just ignore it. Basically it has to do with the recent changes to Daylight Saving Time (It's been moved from April to the middle of March). But, minor as it is, it is a problem happening to the CEO. So, the next thing I know, my boss has me put the issue at the top of list -- highest priority! And the next thing I know, half of the IT department is holding meetings about this and running around like chickens with their heads cut off.

I cant exactly blame them for the reaction. I mean, the guy does have power over us all and could fire any one of us at any time. It got me thinking though about an article I read years ago written by some guy at the medical school at Cornell about a condition he called Acquired Situational Narcissism. The article was about how when a person becomes famous, people start treating them like they are VERY IMPORTANT and eventually, they develop symptoms of narcissism. I guess the idea is that because everyone around them is treating them like they are VERY IMPORTANT, they start to believe that they are better than everyone else.

I am not saying that the CEO at my company is like that. I have no idea if he is. I have never met him. But it got me thinking. Is this why so many rich white guys seem to act so entitled all the time? Maybe when they are driving at night on a snowy road behind a ten year old Volkswagen? Is this why guys like those executives at Enron can lie and steal and ruin other people's lives and still not get it that doing that is wrong? Would *I* start acting like a jerk if I were in their place? I like to think not, of course, but I dont really know.

Speed

Ugh. I am rather annoyed right now. This morning someone, who was almost certainly driving too fast, knocked the driver's side mirror off of my car. Naturally, they didnt stop or leave a note or anything like that. I heard it happen but because I have all that stupid plastic on my bedroom window with the blinds closed in between the plastic and the window, I wasnt able to quickly look to see who it was. Not that I probably could have anyways since it sounded like they were going pretty fast. It upsets me though because I know that for someone to drive close enough to my car to knock off the driver's side mirror, they had to be mere inches away from hitting the more expensive to replace parts on the car like the back part and the side part. I just hope that my mirror scratched the HECK out of their car but since the mirror was made of mostly plastic, that is probably too much to hope for. Maybe they will at least feel guilty all day about it.

The thing is that people drive really fast down my street. Part of my morning routine is to lie in bed and listen to NPR and the people scraping the bottoms of their cars on the street as they go over the railroad tracks. It happens a lot -- enough so that there are huge gouges in the road on either side of the railroad tracks.

It isnt even necessarily people who live on my street either although to be honest I wouldnt be surprised if I found "M. Andretti" on a mailbox down the street. No, a good number of these speed demons seem to be gunning around the light at Michigan and Prospect by turning left onto N. Grove and then right onto Locust and then left again at Prospect.

I think the main reason for all of this is that the street is just so wide. Wide streets encourage speeding. I also imagine that the N. Grove/Locust shortcut doesnt bother enough people to have any money spent trying to do something about it. The city certainly has more pressing problems on its hands (like public housing projects catching on fire and the cops shooting people in residential neighborhoods and not having any money)

I am not worried about my pets because the dog has been trained not to go into the street and the cat doesnt like leaving the yard. But I am worried about all the kids who regularly hang out in the street. There is a boys/girls club RIGHT THERE and the kids often walk home from there and they often walk in the street, especially if they are teenagers because well, everyone knows...teenagers are TOO COOL for the street. Anyways in warmer months those teenagers sometimes walk in the street wearing dark clothes. One of these days, one of the speed demons is going to squish one of those kids!

I also worry about my car. I think I am going to have to spend some time/money this summer on fencing or a new gate so that I can create a place in my back yard for parking. My neighbor parks her car in the back and I think she has the right idea.