Site Presented By
Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
folger
Published Letters: 159 Editor's Choice: 3
Newark's continuing crime problem stems from all those inmates paroled to Newark plus problematic people being forced out of other areas such as New York by high prices. If you don't have a job, it's pretty hard to hold on in Manhatten, but you can move a few miles to Newark.
Newark schools serve a tough clientele, but they are surprisingly good. The average per pupil expenditure is $15,000, which is one of the highest in the nation, and many teachers make over $100,000 per year.
The high murder rate is in part attributable to rich white people driving in from the suburbs to buy their drugs. They are either killed and robbed or dealers kill each other for the suburban business.
Newark is in the midst of a building boom. It is being repopulated with Hispanics and other recent immigrants. The proximity to New York City and high paying jobs and the excellent transportation system makes Newark an excellent place to live if you want low costs and easy access to New York City. The town's got a great future and Booker knows it.
Moving out the drug trade would help.
Before we catagorize drugs as a victimless crime, consider Al Gore III who was arrested for the FIFTH time yesterday for multiple drug possessions. Here's a kid with all the advantages of rich and famous parents, plus a Harvard education, who is throwing his life away.
Plenty of not so rich and famous kids have also ended up dead through overdoses, suicides, ruining their kidneys or other organs or violent crime. And plenty of nice people in cities like Newark have been murdered or been victims of crime as fiends do whatever is necessary to get drugs.
Recently a husband and wife in Newark had plastic bags put over their heads and suffocated in front of their young children by other relatives attempting to find drugs.
Lives are wasted by incarcerating low-level drug dealers, but even more lives are wasted if the dealers aren't stopped.
I went to Berkeley and everybody smoked a little pot. But that was some time ago and I haven't really thought about pot much since. It seems, though from reading these letters, that people who kept with the pot smoking got really addicted and have come to see pot as the center piece of their lives, not as something to do on a lark. They also seem to have lost all proportionality equating the kid criticizing his mother with an attempt to take away their own pot, possibly confusing the concept of taking away mother's pot with mother taking away my pot. I'm sure it's too late for mom or most of these posters to stop using pot. I guess I just wasn't aware how strong the addiction was or that it lasted your entire lifetime.
If you think pot doesn't destroy your mind, read the strange letters from brickbat and traidep. These two really need to put down the bong and go for a really long walk until the clouds in their brains start to clear. Pot makes you stupid. That is clear. Stupid is a sad way to go through life.
You would think this bridge was in Egypt with all the denial going on. Blame Bush. Blame Halliburton. Blame Republicans. Well the simple truth tht Garrison and others can't see to accept is that this bridge was poorly built or poorly maintained by people who live in Minnesota. Unionized government workers went out year after year and inspected this bridge and signed their names on forms that said it was safe. At the very least, anybody who signed off on this bridge's safety in the last 10 years should be fired and those who have retired sould be stripped of their pensions. In other states, some of the state highway folks might be looking at prison terms for manslaughter, but I bet in Minnesota, the Democrats will protect state workers and the entire investigate will be muddied. Uzeckistan indeed.
The owners love Barry Bonds. His homeruns sell millions of tickets and aggragate eyeballs for advertisers. However, Congress leaned on baseball about it's attitude towards steroids so Bud Selig was the designated grump, showing concern about illegal drugs, while the other owners high fived in the back room. The kicker is Barry Bonds probably shaved 20 years off his life with steroids which the owners will pocket through a reduced pension.
Really is America's or the world's factory owners had their choice we would all be taking steroids and growth hormones and amphetamines every day so we could work harder without tiring and die quicker to save on pensions. Way to go Barry. You are modeling the ideal worker of the 21st century.
Always blue states -- Katrina, the Minnesota bridge, the roof on the big dig in Massachusetts, the conector ramp to the Bay Bridge in California. Why always in areas controlled by the Democrats? Could it be they tell their inspectors to lay off the Democratic campaign contributors who build crappy stuff? Could it be that jobs like bridge inspector go to party loyalists regardless of qualification? When it comes down to it, I prefer my bridge inspectors to be CONSERVATIVE.
according to state bridge inspectors.
Travelers go from Sydney to London via Vancouver instead of Los Angeles for two reasons -- they hate the fascist Bush regime; and its 200 miles shorter. Yes, going through Vancouver is a short-cut, but hasn't been possible until the introduction of very long range planes in the last couple of years. Still, you save at least a half hour of flying and landing fees at YDR are lower than landing fees at LAX.
According to Great Circle Mapper, it's 496 miles shorter to fly from Sydney to London via Vancouver rather than Los Angeles. That's a savings of almost an hour.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
