We have here some pictures of cute kitty-cats. …
A couple items no chamber of commerce likes to see cuddled up together on the front page:
“Tourism sector’s impact expanding.”
“2017 homicide total leads three-year spike.”
… because pictures of cute kitty-cats are proven to take the sting out of bad news. I read it on the Internet.
Headlines like these are among the reasons why I’m glad I don’t work in tourism or law enforcement. It must be a bitch, coaxing the rubes here for a visit only to mop them up later somewhere along the Mother Road.
It’s gonna be tough for the Duke City to become a “world-class community,” whatever the hell that is, if the locals keep croaking the visitors and everybody can read all about it in the daily blat.
Maybe the city can contract with Sandia National Labs to develop some sort of nuclear street sweeper, a disintegration beam to erase the corpus delicti before the scribes can tally a body count.
“Bob who?” replies the desk sergeant with a quizzical expression. “Nope, nobody by that name in the blotter. We haven’t had a homicide reported all year. Maybe he moseyed on through and up to Bibleburg. They’re killing ’em like crazy up there.”
Tags: Albuquerque, Bibleburg, homicide, tourism
Mad Blog Media 
January 15, 2018 at 8:53 am |
It all kind of makes sense if one is talking about “Breaking Bad” tours. ps. I can think of some other places that could use that street sweeper of yours.
January 15, 2018 at 9:41 am |
Obviously we need more guns. Surely the rate will go down when every man, woman and child is carrying a six shooter and an AR-15.
It is unsettling to read and compare cities nationwide, especially if you look at rate per capita. Many cities you would have never suspected as being so bad wind up on these lists like Waco and Colorado Springs. Several large cities are worst than even Chicago.
Look at how bad the mid-sized cities fared, per 100,000 residents, not total, but per capita
Birmingham, Ala. — 37.2
Jackson, Miss. — 31.1
Baton Rouge, La. — 26.2
Hartford, Conn. — 25.7
Salinas, Calif. — 25.3
West Palm Beach, Fla. — 21
San Bernardino, Calif. — 20.3
Richmond, Va. — 19.5
Kansas City, Kan. — 18.6
Dayton, Ohio — 18.5
Source: FBI
January 15, 2018 at 10:14 am |
Didn’t Baltimore MD make the list? If you listened to the news around here (especially TV news), it would seem that the city will be all killed out by 2020.
January 16, 2018 at 6:15 am |
The Baltimore Sun tracks homicides in great detail, Dale. It’s slightly unreal. Nearly 350 last year.
January 16, 2018 at 5:53 am |
Here in Michigan our elected government hacks are indeed trying like hell to arm everyone. One after another they propose relaxing all gun regs. Let teachers have guns IN the classroom? Sure, why not. Lower the age for gun permits? Absolutely! We also have term limits (I foolishly voted for it) which means as my representative you can propose and pass a totally rediculous bill but when the environmental/social/economic fallout happens-you aren’t around to blame. I wrote to one such NRA sucking rep and proposed this:
“Ok-have it your way pal. But we will be putting billboards up (along with a website) that posts every single young person under 21 that is killed by a firearm. Oh, below that will be the pictures and names of those in the legislature who sponsored and voted to relax gun laws. Even if you are out of office, you’ll take ownership of your decision to suckle at the tit of the NRA”
Geez, for some reason never got an answer. BTW..if you think I’m being harsh on the NRA then you have never attended the SHOT Show in Vegas. I have. You can almost smell the money being printed. Changed my mind 180 degrees on gun control.
January 16, 2018 at 7:00 am |
The Founders had to go and enshrine the goddamn things in the Constitution, and in its most poorly written amendment, too. Lawyers and lobbyists have been dining out on that one since the ink was still wet.
I am not hopeful. We seem hellbent on killing ourselves, from the bottom up (angry, armed, uneducated poverty) and the top down (suburban tanks with all the electronic comforts and distractions of home).
I’m surprised no enterprising auto manufacturer has tried replacing their sissified fog lamps with 20mm Vulcans; these would certainly be an upgrade in terms of clearing the road ahead during the morning drive to the cube farm. Solve the problem of Those People begging in the medians right smart, too.
January 15, 2018 at 10:02 am |
Sharon, its not just about guns. If you look at a homicide map of major cities, the gun violence rate differs by sometimes two orders of magnitude. North vs. South Chicago, for example. People need motive as well as means. You have to be a historian to find when te last person shot someone in anger in Bombtown. We all have jobs.
Meanwhile, my latest foaming rant here.
http://www.ladailypost.com/content/spencer-dems-have-learn-win-elections-again
January 15, 2018 at 10:25 am |
Murders per 100k residents by neighborhood.
http://www.chicagonow.com/getting-real/2017/07/chicagos-safest-and-most-dangerous-neighborhoods-by-murder-rate/
January 16, 2018 at 7:15 am |
Unemployment’s pretty low in Bibleburg, too, K. And the economy is booming. Yet the city-county homicide rate last year was just shy of a record, and may yet set one (two outstanding investigations may yet be classified as homicides). Gun violence is up 51 percent, according to the local blat.
Maybe it’s not just about “jobs,” but careers, callings, meaningful and intellectually rewarding, stimulating work. How much of that is available in our modern “service” economy?
If I pass my days wearing a paper chapeau for chump change, throwing spuds at SUVs through a drive-up window, or babysitting robots, I might be inclined to shoot a few people come nightfall too.
January 17, 2018 at 4:23 pm |
Sure, “jobs” is a simplification. Jobs up here are not quite burger flipping but as you say, careers. Plus, its the social context. Researcher Andrew Papachristos has been writing about the sociology of violence for a bunch of years now, looking at places like Chicago, St.Louis, and even places in Africa. He sees gun violence in particular as a social contagion but closer to AIDS in analogy than the flu. In other words, you get shot because you are in close social connection to other people getting shot. At least in terms of a lot of inner city violence. Which is why some neighborhoods in Chicago kill over 170 people per 100,000 population while others kill less than 1 per 100k.
January 15, 2018 at 10:28 am |
“A place becomes a world class community for many reasons, but most notably, it is because it has a world class education system, a vibrant small business community, a modern and efficient transportation network, excellent healthcare for all, a sustainable environment, a reliable source of power and water, and is an exciting place for tourism.” Sounds like that there “socialism” to me. And a sustainable environment is a world problem these days, not just a particular place.
El Paso is one the border, man. Can’t be safer than Bibleburg. El paso is full of bad hombres, rapists, and maybe a few good people.
In our neck of the woods, looks like Tucson will give Duke City a run for its money in 2018. Seems like someone has a cap busted on them every day in the Old Pueblo.
Now I’m depressed again. I just pedaled this shit out of my system an hour ago.
January 15, 2018 at 10:07 pm |
Pat, disregarding all the whinging going on down here, (because that’s what sells newspapers), inside those quotes sounds like New Zealand, (at least it does to me, love this place).
SHIT!! SORRY , what was I thinking? this place is an Apocalyptic hellhole, nothing to see here, move along.
There’s this great chunk of land to the west called Australia, maybe go there, just bear in mind that pretty much everything there can kill you.
January 16, 2018 at 7:41 am |
Good day (early) to you Hurben. Perhaps shit hole was the term you were looking for? That description of a world class community, provided in a link in Patrick’s post, is something to shoot for. Sorry, how about a future to chase after. But, Americans seem to be chasing the past these days. Our government’s vision looks out no further than the next election. That is especially evident this year.
“When you realize that everything changes, there is nothing you want to hold on to.”
Tao te Ching, translation by Stephen Mitchell
January 16, 2018 at 7:42 am |
“Something to shoot for.” Heh.
January 16, 2018 at 11:25 am |
Yep. New Zealand was my first thought as well. But I’m not going to wreck my dream of it by moving there; that is unless some fine, smart, elegant lass of poor judgement, decides that I should be her bo chum in the land of vibrant water and crystalline ice. Nope, the addition of my burdensome ass to such a locale would be akin to the prophetic lines of one Eagles song: “You call someplace Paradise…, kiss it goodbye”…..
But I do understand that Detroit is now a wonderful place to live…. “Go Lions!”