Detroit's bankruptcy is racist

David A. Lombardo

What ever happened to personal responsibility? When I was in fifth grade, Sister Lucille launched a yellow #2 test taking pencil across the room directly at me. Apparently the Penguin-a name we more-or-less affectionately called all nuns of the Dominican order because of the black and white habits they wore-apparently the Penguin had been a javelin thrower in another life, a supposition that was bolstered by the fact that she had a moustache that any eighth grade boy would kill for. 

 Anyway, the yellow #2 test taking pencil flew through the air as if gyroscopically-stabilized and stuck into the first joint of my left hand forefinger like William Tell's arrow in the apple on his obviously over-trusting son's head. For me it was less a matter of trust and more a matter of being a target of opportunity-the result of an act that has long since vanished from my memory banks into the fog. 

 To be fair, I doubt Sister Lucille actually intended to impale me with a #2 test taking pencil, but impale she did. Rushing across the room to come to my aid, her long rosary beads trailing behind and randomly whipping innocent fifth graders, Sister Lucille demonstrated an abject lack of understanding of physics. Rather than pulling the still vibrating pencil out of my finger, she grabbed it and jerked downward, neatly breaking off the lead point in my finger. 

 Later that afternoon I told my father I had a piece of pencil lead stuck in my finger. My father, physician and doting man that he was, went to the car, got his bag, and we sat down at the kitchen table to get the lead out-something I was not particularly known for academically in fifth grade. As he began to perform what would no doubt be some barbaric ritual including leeches and power tools, he casually asked me how I came to have a piece of lead in my finger. 

 "Sister Lucille threw a pencil at me," I said with a certain sense of pride, basking in the warmth of the knowledge I was able to rise above the rest of the class in at least one small endeavor.  

 To this day that piece of lead remains in my finger. Barbaric ritual put aside, the ensuing discussion as to why Sister Lucille threw a #2 test taking pencil at me overshadowed the medical experiments he had planned to conduct just moments before. It was that day I learned all about personal responsibility and how actions have consequences, which brings me to the point, no pun intended. 

There is unrest in the Detroit African American community. You may recall Detroit is going bankrupt. Not one of those bankruptcies where politicians, weeping and gnashing their teeth on the network news, tell us the government is going bankrupt only to suddenly solve the problem by raising the debt ceiling. No, Detroit really is going bankrupt, as in creditors, banks, wolves, vampires, zombies and lawyers are lining up to pick the municipal pension fund's bones, sell off the artwork in the mayor's office and strip the copper plumbing out of government buildings. 

This has resulted in additional weeping and gnashing of teeth on the network news, only this time it's the good citizens of Detroit. And guess what? The whole bankruptcy thing is... wait for it... if you're thinking "racist," you win and get a one week vacation, all expenses paid, to Detroit. 

One African American woman is pictured showing a sign that says, "Governor Snyder and the right wing's attack on the poor working class is domestic terrorism at its finest." 

Another is quoted in the Chicago Tribune saying, "When my 9-year-old grandson asks me, 'Grandma, are they trying to make us slaves again?' how do I answer that child?" Umm, let's see... how about "NO!" 

Let me just get this straight: an African American woman, living in a city where 82 percent of the citizens are African American and have consistently elected liberal, African American mayors for over 40 years, doesn't see a correlation between that and the city going bankrupt. Instead she tells some left-wing nut-job journalist that the city's bankruptcy is racist. Obviously this is a sick woman, and Detroit allows medical crack snorting. Talk about not taking responsibility; what alternate universe does she live in? Everyone knows it was George Bush's fault. 

 Runner's World promotes handgun ban

One of the regrettable consequences of the political class's obsession with gun control legislation is that it encourages people and publications that otherwise aren't political into sharing their oblivious opinions on the matter. Such is the case with a November 5th column on the website of Runner's World magazine. Nestled on a front page that includes an article on "How Pumpkins Can Help Your Running" and a video titled "Power Yoga for Runners" is a piece by track athlete Nick Symmonds, calling for a ban on handguns and popular semi-automatic rifles. Attempting to pander to those who actually value their rights, Symmonds starts off the column by boasting, "I love my Second Amendment right."  Symmonds then spends the remainder of the paragraph channeling Bill Clinton and John Kerry by listing his hunting bona fides as pro-Second Amendment credentials. Later on, Symmonds proposes a legislative "compromise" that would "ban assault rifles and handguns for everyone except police and military personnel."  Under his proposal Symmonds would graciously "allow responsible citizens to own rifles and shotguns," because "rifles are for big-game animals, and shotguns are for birds."  Nowhere does Symmonds entertain the notion that firearms have legitimate, constitutionally-protected, self-defense applications. [Source: NRA/ILA]