Friday, February 08, 2008

St. Louis in the news again.

We always get in the news for great stuff, huh? A year or so ago we were the center of a baby snatching drama - some crazy lady went to a house in the boonies, cut the mom's throat and took the baby. Mom was fine, baby was found but it was all over CNN for days. Then we were the center of the drama when those two kids were found. A kid was kidnapped (again from the boonies), another kid spotted the truck that was seen near the snatching, police found the truck, and when they went inside to get the boy recently kidnapped they found another boy that had been missing/kidnapped for four years. Crazy.
Now some nut-job goes and shoots up a City Council meeting. What is this world coming to? First, while it sounds cliche' the neighborhood this happened in really is a nice, quiet suburb in the county. Second, not to be paranoid, but I deal with people like this guy - who go nuts over their stupid, very small, legal cases - every day. I've had cases that might net the people a few thousand dollars but they go nuts over them - getting so involved, thinking they were "wronged," etc. and they start filing all sorts of crazy paperwork and threatening to report me to the Bar, the Department of Justice, etc. Crazy.
Really, what is this world coming to?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Henry Thoreau very astutely said that "To every hundred hacking at the branches of evil, there is only one striking at the root."

Regrettably, our culture of fiefdoms in Amerika creates this kind of debaucle. It will devolve further into a continually more stark stratification of those inside and those outside of a gate- and the gate will be replete with metal detectors, shakedowns, demeaning while ineffective searches and steroidal "law" enforcement ready to confiscate whatever they wish from those who need to pass through it to labor for and/or pay their tributes to those within. Communities that are held hostage by their intrenched local mafia in the township halls and "courts" have become the rule rather than the exception in Amerika and any recourse involving the justice system is for those who can afford to buy the access. Afterall, with no better way to raise the money required to at least appear to be providing public services than by fines, injunctions and petty zone infractions and the sort, these fiefdoms have discovered there is a sub-radar goldmine and money-mill in masquerading as local government. I encourage any reader who feels this is hyperbole to utilize our Freedom Of Information law to inquire of their local government the numbers regarding their money- and ask for details. Be thorough, imaginative and cynical. If I'm proven wrong, work to keep your community alive and prospering by way of compliance with their local ordinances and full participation. If I'm proven right, rein fire on the same entity if and while it is possible and hold everyone's feet to it. Remember the yippie proverb that "Freedom is being able to yell 'theater' in a crowed fire." But also remember that shooting up the place will only play into their hands and carries very bad karma.

The comments here posted by an attorney point directly and lend accuracy to the fiefdom characterization that I have made. They are replete with minimization of the rights of citizens to quantitative assessments of the money involved... and make my case.

Best prayers for those departed and physically and emotionally wounded in this debaucle all the way around, no matter your varying responsibilities. Prayers too that "we the people" come to actually learn from these very ugly occasions.

Meanwhile, the beat of the disintegration of our society by those who own it and those who choose to remain helpless goes on...