WARNING: The following internet posting contains objectionable curse words and racial slurs.

If you happen to be a politically correct “I’m offended” boob, don’t look.

First the cops arrested the “My Space” graffiti gang. And more recently, they arrested the 3 graffiti jag-offs hailing from G.A.R. High School. These were the goofs that got to tagging MY freaking little league field. I guess they don’t realize just how many times they can get kicked in the ribs before the cops arrive on scene, do they? C’mon back to Nord End, boys. Do it.

Now, when the My Space “artists” found themselves being arrested and instantly became the subject of front page news stories in both of our newspapers, needless to say, the subject of their arrest quickly came up on WILK, and was debated for the next couple of days. And when Wilkes-Barre comes up on talk radio, I tend to tune just about everything else out.

I was thoroughly stunned and annoyed to learn that very many of the callers to WILK called in defense of the graffiti “artists.” Still others called to make lame excuses for their obvious propensity towards the wonderful world of criminality.

Well, there’s nothing else to do. Maybe the city should provide them with a few walls somewhere so they could create pretty murals and whatnot.

Oh, jeez. They’re simply kids trying to express themselves. (29-year-old kids?)

While this sort of inane drivel dominated much of the debate, I thought to myself, whatever happened to “Wait ‘til your father gets home!!!” Remember those days? You got caught doing stupid unto others property and dad was sure to kick your ass from one room to the next when he trudged on in carrying his metal lunchbox? How did we go from getting pulverized for knocking down the neighbor’s mailbox completely by accident with the brake-less homemade go-kart, to excusing someone’s kid for committing deliberate acts of vandalism? The way I’m reading the leaves, what the world needs now is for child abuse to make a bit of a comeback. A little one.

It reminded me of the people that rushed to WILK to defend everyone involved with the Club Metropolis after some skinheads made like the local butcher.

No, they’re all good kids. But some bad kids got mixed in that night.

You see, there’s good skinheads and bad skinheads.

Well, my kid goes there.

My mom was a bit mercurial when it came to controlling me without an enforcer around. And I guarantee you she would have been swinging her Louisville Slugger at me if I was found to be anywhere near where any skinheads were known to hang out. And if there was a stabbing while I was there…Jesus! She would have been on the blower right quick to Uncle Bud begging him to roll on by and put the fear of God in me again. Man, that guy was a load.

Nope. These days, kids can do no wrong. And even if they do do wrong, we, as adults, painstakingly search for ways to condone their needless bullspit. It’s amazing how complicated we’ve made parenting where once only a wide leather strap was needed to parent effectively. Yeah, I know. I know. You would never strike your child. Yeah, but I would if I caught him spraying anything on any of my stuff. Somebody’s got to do it. Somebody’s got to make up for your lapses in parental judgment.

The city has done a great job of investigating these graffiti crimes and such, but they haven’t caught all of the little pricks just yet.

Alrighty then. Who wants to claim that one? Was that your kid? Just trying to…”express themselves,” anyone?

Is that also the work of an “artist?”

With that kind of nonsense going on, is it any wonder so many black people have so much pent-up hostility towards white people?

How ‘bout this one?

Or this one?

Do you still want to defend this sort of nonsense? Hatred as art?

Here’s a bit of classic “art” you all know.

Please help me on this one. Would that be the work of the good skinheads, or the bad skinheads?

So what do we have so far? Racists and Nazis, right? That’s what you were so quick to defend? Just kids, huh?

Try this one.

Boy, they sure seem fond of that F word, hayna? Nothing like grabbing a can of spray paint and F-bombing the city up, down and all around. What, is there a merit badge for that kind of thing these days?

Look, I shouldn’t be coming on so strong, but I can’t believe it when adults get to excusing stuff they know is wrong. If a kid, or a twenty-something spray paints anything on any building, they need to spend one week in the general population at the county prison. And after they’re released and get done duct taping their sphincters back together, let’s just inquire as to whether they still feel the need to illegally “express themselves.”

Forget the touchy-feely parenting already and go buy yourself a leather strap. Maybe with some fake glassy diamonds set into it just for effect. You mess with the bull, you get the horns. Well, you used to.

“Art” lives on in Wilkes-Barre, thanks entirely to the permissive attitudes of the “adults.”

Sez me.

This one had my eyes popping very early this morning.

The fu>king firehouse brouhaha again? Are you people kidding me?

Get a hobby already!

And explain to me how it’s fair to castigate Brain O’Donnell over that stupid firehouse. He doesn’t reside in that section of the city. Plus…he was not a candidate for the state rep job when the firehouse was first shuttered. When was that, anyway? Like, October 2004? Somewhere thereabouts?

The firehouse? You’d use that gibberish against him?

And they say I’m bad.

Jeez.

Actually, I’ve given up on the treks to the lake since those old farm roads became drag strips. At one time you could ride those lonely roads passing only an occasional home and lots of farmland. But, now that we’re growing greener, the farms were replaced with rows of lavish, sprawling mansions. And the rich white ladies in their BMWs will kill you if you happen by while they’re doing their lipstick at 45-miles-per-hour.

I wasn’t exactly sure what you meant, but I hear what you’re saying.

Even though I never made my escape from this area, my college experience at LCCC was better than nothing. When I first appeared on that campus, I was 17-years-old, hopelessly addicted to loud KISS tunage, and basically clueless. But I was exposed to more blacks that I had ever seen at Coughlin. We had a soldier just back from Vietnam, and still sporting two wounds dressed in bandages. You don’t wanna know what happened when he got to drinking some hard liquor off-campus one night. I was there, and there was no way I was going to get in his way. The State Police met their match that night.

There was a girl straight out of Iran, and she pretty much kept to herself. If you ask me, she seemed intimidated. Three short years later, “Nuke Iran” buttons were en vogue after our embassy was overrun, and I remembered her and thought that she seemed like the last person who deserved to get nuked.

I had a couple of gay professors, and we didn’t get along too well. I’m not sure what put me off more. Their effeminate ways, or their hard-left take on everything Americana. Back in those days, I had never even heard of this growing left vs. right battle. But I could tell good bullsh*t when I heard it coming from a frustrated commie.

I’ll never forget the girl I kept seeing in the hallways of one of those plastic buildings. every time I saw this girl, she was wandering about wearing a bathrobe and slippers. One day at the canteen, I had asked those in attendance if they had ever seen this obvious freak. I was carrying on like a stooge, when someone a tad older and wiser than myself pointed out that she was the model for the one drawing class. Oh.

And when they told me she would disrobe so that everyone in the class could draw her butt-naked, I inquired as to whether I could get into that class come next semester. Sadly, hotel/restaurant students were not required to take the nudie drawing class. Darn. Then again, it would have been somewhat awkward to have to hide the arousal thing when classes were changing. What were they thinking? Naked girls laying about in front of young boys?

I dunno. In high school, goofs such as myself almost fit in. But even at LCCC, this particular goof stuck out like a sore thumb with KISS embroidered in very, very bold letters across it's back.
Academically, I didn't learn too much. But I did learn other things.

As far as diversity is concerned, there are those I would definitely prefer to not be around. But that doesn’t mean I want them skulled or anything. You do what you gotta do, I’ll do what I gotta do, and don’t touch none of my stuff.

If there’s one thing I know to be true in NEPA, it’s that the folks born-and-raised here without any real escape to speak of do not like those folks of color. I think we’ve already covered what folks typically say in these parts: “I’m not a racist, but…”

A narrow view of life? Tomorrow is election day, so the only question is which Democrat will win. How utterly predictable. How utterly lame on our parts. Vote that straight party ticket every time out. And then complain that your city and county suck beyond all belief. The truly sad part is that these fools do not realize that they do it to themselves.

Maybe I should have split back when I was still young and pretty, but it’s too late now. Good or bad, I’m gonna ride this one out. I’m in Wilkes-Barre for good. (Wifey won’t move.)

Stay in touch.

CYA