1-10-2006 Gentrify me


This has been ruminating for quite some time now, but I have had about enough of dial-up internet. As of this Friday, I will be switching over to Service Electric's high speed internet program. What can I say about dial-up that you don't already now unless you're still suffering through it? It takes too damn long to do everything. I'm looking forward to being able to upload and imbed videos into my site. Matter of fact, sounds really cool to me. My pricey camera takes really nifty videos. And if things work out, you'll be able to watch a video of police horses pooping soon enough. Somthin' like that. Anywho, I can't wait to call AOL and tell those folks to kiss off.

Let's see here, it's currently a quarter to six, and during the past hour, we had ourselves another stabbing incident up behind Sherman Hills. From what I could gather on the scanner, this was a particularly nasty event. Some guy was stabbed seven times in the chest and back. Right from the get-go, the cops were telling the 911 folks to have the medic unit 'put an X on it.' And despite the medivac being airborne already, Medic-5 decided to rush the victim to General Hospital after declaring a 'traumatic arrest.' It doesn't sound too good for the victim's chances. The coroner's office will likely be getting a call very soon. The cops, detectives and the state police forensics boys are all over Sherman Hills, and I even heard someone mention a roadblock on the scanner. There seems to be a big dragnet underway.

When will some of this bullspit subside? We've got druggies shooting druggies. We've got druggies stabbing druggies. We've got businesses acting as money laundering outfits for drug sales. And we've got druggies shooting women over who can, and can't stay in a condemned house. Why? Because the appetite for illegal drugs seems to be growing with each passing year. Wanna get high?

I snagged the following from today's Voice:

Police investigate skinhead claim

WILKES-BARRE -An apparent clash between rival groups led to a large-scale brawl Saturday outside a city nightclub during which a pair of teenagers were stabbed, city police said.

"There's nothing confirmed, but at this time there is self-proclaimed skinhead involvement," Capt. Wayne Cooney said Monday of the fight involving about 100 people in the rear of Cafe Metropolis, 94 S. Main St. "I guess there was some bad blood between two rival skinhead groups, according to one man we interviewed," he said.

Sean Fitzmaurice, Ashley, and New Jersey resident Timothy Alonzo were stabbed near the club's main entrance on Livingston Lane around 10:30 p.m. The two are believed to belong to the opposing factions, Cooney said.

Police are still investigating what caused the disagreement and how the fight spilled into the streets, Cooney said.

They have also just begun to scratch the surface on the skinhead involvement and are attempting to discover more information on the background and practices of each group, he said.

Skinhead groups are often linked to white supremacy, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

Cooney said the preliminary investigation reveals some rumblings about "prejudices" the groups held, but to what degree is unclear. Efforts to reach representatives from Cafe Metropolis on Monday were unsuccessful.

Police are still looking for the stabbing suspects, who used knives to seriously injure the victims.

Skinheads? In Wilkes-Barre? Ah, why the f>ck not! We've got every other group of losers represented here. Why not some separatist lunatics? You wanted diversity. You got it. Where's frickin' Joe Strummer when we need him?

We do have some decent local bands toiling away around here. And, something like, three or four of them have secured recording contracts for their efforts. My favorite local band happens to be The Drama Club. As you already know, I'm a huge music fan, and so is my son. He dabbles in recording with his friends, and he even played a few times in that club that used to be on the backside of the Murray Complex. The name of that slagheap escapes me right now.

The thing is, the kids that appeared there kind of knew that after their 18-month runs as rock stars had finally fizzled out, they'd be settling into their real careers driving cab. They all knew it (I hope), and so did the adoring audiences. They could play their horrible anthems, throw back a few sudsies, rub themselves up against the pretend groupies and then head on home before the baby's constant crying got their girlfriends worked into a tizzy.

Currently, the Cafe Metropolis is the last remaining slagheap where we can take in bands that can't play anywhere near as good as we can. Face it, the next Jimmy Page, or the next Axl Rose ain't ever gonna waste his time playing in that joint. Whatever. I'm sure there's some kids out well after their parent's curfew that would love to take issue with me when they sober up, but if I were them, I wouldn't waste my time on any of that. River Side Riot? Um, three chords pounded on over and over in two minutes and eleven seconds? I think not. Not my problem, though. I'll never waste any of my time by going in there.

I'll tell you this, if I owned that club, I'd be seriously rethinking my booking, and my in-house policies. With that massive theater project sitting just across the street from the rear exit of the cafe, and but a few months from a ribbon-cutting event--the last thing I'd want to be causing is skinhead riots as Wilkes-Barre is planning for the big police crackdown in the downtown. A safe environment and a state-of-the-art 14-screen theater is a recipe for success. A state-of-the-art 14-screen theater with skinheads stabbing each other directly across the street is a recipe for the skinhead club to go bye-bye faster than Charlie Weiss can offend the nose hairs of all those around him.

We don't honestly believe that the cute grandparents from West Wyoming with their grandrodents in tow are going to make a return visit to our theater iffin' they head outside after Harry Potter 7 only to be confronted by the disaffected skinhead nation do we?. The Smiths from Plymouth will not feel safe when they head into the parking lot where kids sporting multi-colored mohawks are toking up between acts. If I was 72-years-old and had to wade through kids that looked like they just escaped from the carnival tour, I'm thinking that commute to the theater in Dunmore wouldn't be such a big deal afterall.

Plainly stated, I think the Cafe Metropolis has a problem on it's hands that is not likely to go away. The freak shows were fine and dandy when the downtown was pretty much abandoned. The empty beer bottles, the broken glass, the crushed cigarette packs and the used condoms discarded out back used to go unnoticed in the alley nobody really used. But progress is coming to town, and the freak shows stand in direct contrast to everything the current administration is trying to accomplish in our downtown.

Something has got to give there.

I certainly wouldn't bet on the Hitler youth.


Yesterday we covered what can happen when the neighbors refuse to police their own properties. Today we'll take a peek at a, now, vacant slumlord property.

The offending slumlord does not have a good track record at screening tenants. Nor does he worry about what they do once they move in and further pollute my neighborhood. The previous tenants were all arrested thanks to the tireless efforts of Det. Joe Coffay and the Wilkes-Barre Police Department. And the most recent tenants, all teenagers still in high school, slept all day, drank all night, and generated their fair share of police blotters.

Thankfully, they filled the U-Haul some 10 days or so ago, and set off for Allah only knows. The further the better! Since the front porch is piled with empty cases of beer, and the side of the house with strewn with loose garbage and empty beer bottles, I decided to take a look out back.

Very nice. Welcome to 454 North Pennsylvania Ave.

454 Pennsylvania Ave.

Loose garbage. Discarded pizza boxes? Ever heard of a Norway Rat? No? Well, when they start runnin' up the street, I'll kill a few real grotesque like and getcha some neat pics.

454 again

Excessive vegetation near a structure. Can you say rodent harborage?

What we have here is a few sanitation deficiencies damn near becoming human health risks. What we also have here is a future drain on our Code Enforcement and Health Department resources. Because everytime a slumlord turns a blind eye to this sort of nonsense, the city has no choice but to get involved.

So the city handles it, the city pays for it, and the city puts a lien on the property. What we really need is a gallon of petrol and a Zippo.

Sorry Hose Dudes, but that's how I feel.

Sometimes it seems like we're swimming upstream with a mighty inflatable dam directly in our path. But the only way we're going to save our neighborhoods is by remaining vigilent, if not damned defiant.

Sez me.


From the e-mail inbox

New Jersey and Terrorism...

Hey Mark,

First of all, I want to with you a belated Happy New Year...hope it is healthy and prosperous for you.

I was reading about the lovely Wilkes-Barre mosque and saw the Jersey connection right away. What a lot of people don't know, is that north Jersey is a haven for these shit bags. Four blocks away from my apartment is Jersey City, which has a massive muslim population (I will not capitalize "muslim" because I do not see this farce of a religion as legit).

The link above is written by some of the loony left brigade, but all this is true and documented. New Jersey politicos keep turning a blind eye to this cancer that is taking over cities such as Newark, Jersey City, and Paterson. Our Governor-elect, Jon Corzine, who is about as flaming of a liberal as Michael Moore, promised to build another 50,000 low-income housing units in these cities right when he gets sworn in. Now, I am in favor of low income housing for families who need it to get by, but as we all know, a good deal of these residents are up to no good...not all of them, but a good number of them.

You should come out here and do a drive-about in Jersey City's Journal Square area. Here, there is tons of housing for low income families, and who lives here? it's over 80% muslim...I shit you not. All of the 1993 WTC bombers lived in Journal Square, and the 9/11 assholes lived there and in Paterson as well.

The mosques around here have these recruiting weekends, where they go into the slums of the mentioned cities, and recruit the young, black, and stupid. It really blows my mind to see some guy named Tyrone yelling on a street corner about how Americans are infidels, non-believers, and how very soon we will be suffering for not accepting some camel jockey with his 72 whores as their savior. It also blows my mind to see that the politicians in this state refuse to do anything about this disturbing trend.

Wilkes-Barre cops and the feds need to start keeping tabs on what is happening in the valley. These cats are definitely up to no good.

I followed your link and read that story twice. It's not good. In fact, it's damned upsetting. This communism run amok--this political correctness--is going to be the undoing of us all. Count on it. Bank on it.

We're rapidly approaching the point where the Muslim vote and the Mexican vote will be sought after more than yours or mine. Ours is not to wonder why. Ours is but to do and die. You know, work tons of overtime and pay for all of the goodies the immigrants get hand-over-fist, while your kid will never qualify for financial aid for college unless they carry an M-16 for 365 days beforehand.

True story: My kid was thinking about applying for that LIHEAP heat asistance plan. When he asked me about it, I told him to give it a try, but kiss his chances goodbye if he checked the box denoting he was a white American. Actually, I told him to check the hispanic box and then sit back and enjoy all of the freebies he could have ever imagined. He didn't even bother to apply. In his mind, he'd rather have his gas shut off than be a slacker bastard who cheats the system. He's got some serious learning to do if he wants to get by in Hillary's vision of Amerika.

He'll probably learn. In other words, he'll probably stop producing much of note and become a straight-ticket Democrat voter. Why fight it? Why have to leave the house at all except for when the government checks are delivered? Liberalism works. Well, that is, if you have no remaining self-respect--it works. Be a Kennedy Democrat. Get drunk. F>ck it. Who cares.

Dude, there are those who would say your e-mail proves you are a racist, but I have yet to see a white chick wandering around town with a tent draped over her body. The black folk in this country seem to be gravitating towards Islam in increasing numbers, but I suspect it has less to do with religion that it has to do with racism. One racist's infidel is another racist's honky. What's the difference other than all of those offensive white folks being the descendants of pigs and donkeys, and needing to be blown to smithereens?

As far as the politicians are concerned, they are all scared sh*tless by the cuffs of political correctness and will no longer speak their minds. Consider what would happen if WWII broke out right now. We'd be called sh*t like Naziphobes. We'd be told we're frightened by diversity. And Abu Gharib would be called Torture Central, while the Nazi concentration camps would be ignored by The New York Times, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and Chia Kev. Pearl Harbor would have been blamed on US policies. Adolf Hitler would be named Time magazine's Man of The Year, and be invited to speak at the UN in New York. Dubya would be accused of invading Tarawa without the proper armor. The sinking of the USS Yorktown would result in Congressional hearings and a special prosecutor being named. And the dropping of the atom bomb. Jesus H. Christ!!! Let's not even go there. The only way the apologists leftists in this country would ever tolerate the dropping of atomic bombs is if they were dropped on US soil and they could in turn blame Dubya for being weak on Homeland Security.

New York's one thing. Houston is another. We don't really need those cities and the folks contained therein. But there's no way we should nuke anyone before we get nuked first. Hiroshima in 2006? Holy fug! Talk about your basic rush to impeachment!!! Your metro-sexual left would never stand for America making bold strides to defend itself. Achtung, baby!

Jon Corzine? Yeah, whatever. Why not elect Bert & Ernie? Send me a picture of yourself so I can build a memorial site after the next big one comes down. Then again, we've got the out-of-state plates dominating the parking lot of our local house of "worship." Maybe I should send a picture of myself along to you. How's your HTML skills coming along?

Dude, when they close the Mexican border, then we'll know they're getting serious about protecting American lives. Until then, horde some water, canned goods, batteries and ammo. It seems as if the votes of illegal immigrants are suddenly more important than the votes of the born-and-raised Americans. Sad but true.

Stay in touch. Oh, and keep your head down.

Streetlights: Phase 1

New streetlights? I never thought I see our sidewalks being roto-rootered. Whatever works.

Electrical conduit doesn't lay itself.


This is from one of those military think-tanks. Sorry, but I forget which one it's from. I'm kinda beat.

In 1981, Israeli jet fighters bombed the Osirak reactor, then nearing completion at Iraq's Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center, north of Baghdad. That step was taken, according to former Israeli intelligence officials, after Israeli agents in France assassinated an Iraqi scientist involved in the project and tried to sabotage delivery of equipment French industry had manufactured for the reactor. While Iraq had agreed to declare the reactor under IAEA safeguards, evidence which surfaced when the IAEA began investigating Iraq's secret nuclear program beginning in 1991 documented that Iraq had intended the Osirak reactor to produce weapons-grade plutonium.

Wanna sound really, really smart at the office water cooler? Yeah? Do a Google search for "Natanz." Based on the misguided words and actions of the Iranian government of late, Natanz will be subjected to massive airstikes long before we elect Dubya's replacement. The remaining members of the 'Axis of Evil' continue to press on towards the open hostilities they wanted all along.

So be it. But let's do it before one of those appeasing Democrats has a legitimate shot at the White House. They'll cut and run away as sure as the welfare checks will go out on time. They've already stated as much. Weak on national defense?

You betcha!

Kelsey's

Another new business in the downtown.

CYA