Rambling Rhodes

Thank you. I needed that.

These pretty much write themselves, don't they?

You've kinda got me hooked on reading this doofus, or at least your dissections of him, and this latest opener--is it just me, or is a little Dowdish?

"I'm going to get your attention by naming names and stating specifics; then, once I have it, I'm going to wander wild and free. Oh, the places we'll go! Anywhere, anywhere at all--provided it's nowwhere near our starting point."

The "or what have you" is what makes it a classic, though. If he wrote a column of nothing but line after line of "RESEARCH IS YUCKY" his sentiments couldn't be plainer.

You know we all love you right? Classic.

I'm surprised he didn't describe dude as 'plucky.'

As in, plucky Young Plukey.

It does have a ring to it, doesn't it?

Ryan, have you ever set foot in the neighborhood in question? Do you know any people living in this neighborhood? Does anyone else on this thread?

The reason for Coleman's column, as I read it, was to point out that the opinions encountered by the police chief at neighborhood meetings are based on the actual experiences of people living there, and so he should listen to them. These opinions are widely shared and credible.

Your point, as I read it, is that the columnist is gullible, and the people in the neighborhood at these meetings (and in this article) are either wrong or lying.

I won't subject your post to the same inane drear of a "Fisking," but at least let me stick up for Lorraine Smaller, the woman who ran the Hands On Alternative School in South Minneapolis, one of many successful school programs cut by the city to accomodate shrinking budgets. This was the kind of "last chance" school where a lot of kids with problems in regular school went to turn their lives around, go on to higher education, and get off the track that leads many kids to the corner selling drugs.

(Calling this background irrelevant, and mocking it, is kind of baffling to me. Read the Spokesman article about the place if you think "woe" isn't justified:
http://www.spokesman-recorder.com/news/Article/Article.asp?NewsID=22344&sID=4 )

So that's Smaller. And when she says, "That's the police's job," anyone who can read will see she's referring to her previous phrase, "I'm not out there dealing with them," not to the phrase "I tell them to change their ways." In other words, no, Smaller is not saying that it's the police's job to change the ways of drug dealers. She's saying it's the police's job to deal with them. Which it is.

Her take on the job situation (and on the availability of air conditioning and public pools) seems credible to me, but I'd be glad to consider evidence to the contrary (if you offered some). The dealers in plain sight of cops is utterly believable--I hear about this all the time. I've also seen cops cracking down, but one observation does not negate the other. One kid wanting to share the good news of getting a job with Smaller, for instance, does not automatically mean there are plenty of jobs along Plymouth Avenue.

I'd encourage you to talk to Smaller yourself. I'll take glorified "man on the street" reporting over facile dismissal any day, and twice on Tuesdays.

Yes, I lived at 31st & Longfellow in South Minneapolis. Only 20 blocks from 36th & Emerson.

I also lived in Robbinsdale, about 20 blocks from Lucille's Kitchen in North Minneapolis.

Does that count as having "set foot" in the neighborhood?

Your point, as I read it, is that the columnist is gullible, and the people in the neighborhood at these meetings (and in this article) are either wrong or lying.

Then my point, as you read it, is wrong. Coleman's lazy, sets pre-determined agendas for his columns ("Cops suck, and I know stuff), and goes off on entirely irrelevant tangents. If you've ever read a Coleman column, this stuff seeps off him like pus. And, again, why is Coleman so routinely able to take the "guy on the street" as a legitimate and trustworthy source, but any time a politician or conservative opens their mouth, it's always met with derisive scorn?

but at least let me stick up for Lorraine Smaller, the woman who ran the Hands On Alternative School in South Minneapolis, one of many successful school programs cut by the city to accomodate shrinking budgets.

And entirely irrelevant to Coleman's point, such as it was. So, she's a retired school teacher. Fine. Great. That's all the background we really need, unless Coleman wants to base his column on her teaching experience, which he doesn't.

As a quick aside, you are aware that air conditioning is not a right, right? Ditto pools. And, even if they were, what the hell would they have to do with ANYTHING? Hell, Rochester closed down one of its most popular pools a couple years ago. Should we expect an explosion of drug dealers as a result? "It's so hot, I want to smoke pot and crack!"

One kid wanting to share the good news of getting a job with Smaller, for instance, does not automatically mean there are plenty of jobs along Plymouth Avenue.

And, *gasp*, it also seems to indicate that maybe, just maybe, Coleman is exaggerating, yet again.

The dealers in plain sight of cops is utterly believable--I hear about this all the time. I've also seen cops cracking down, but one observation does not negate the other.

Perhaps not entirely, but it certainly flies in the face of someone saying All they do is drive through and try to look good every once in a while

Living 20 blocks away from Lucille's doesn't count as setting foot in the neighborhood; setting foot in the neighborhood does. If you have done that, great. I'm only saying, conjecture from a distance is no substitute from going to the neighborhood and actually talking to people.

Nowhere in the column does anyone say, for instance, "Cops suck," or anything like that. You'd probably hear something like that a lot on the north side, but you'd also hear the opposite. If Coleman's agenda in this column was to show that a lot of people share the opinion that police have basically given up on certain areas, well, his agenda succeeded. I don't know whether he's right, but I suspect he is, and I know that there are certain neighborhoods, here and in other cities, where it sure seems like cops have thrown up their hands. It's not necessarily the police on the street's fault: There are limited resources, and the drug war demands limitless ones. (Not sure where you stand on that, but maybe de-criminalization would be a step in the right direction.) In the meantime, the police chief shouldn't be shocked when people get angry.

The closed-school background on Smaller, and the stuff she mentions about pools and jobs and air conditioning, is relevant because it paints a picture of the world where she works and talks to drug dealers. It also suggests that poverty in Minneapolis has persisted alongside the slashing of city programs that tend to help poor kids. There's a pattern here of municipal indifference, in other words, even if Coleman doesn't spell it out for you. What do these programs have to do with anything? They have a lot to do with encouraging kids to go someplace besides that corner.

Do we have a "right" to everything the city provides for us? (Nobody included air conditioning in that category, by the way.) Of course not. Do these things have an effect? Of course they do.

I wouldn't argue in terms of "rights," or ever say that anyone is forced into being a criminal. Drugs are fun, and people are lazy. Everyone has to take responsibility for himself. (I don't see Coleman disagreeing with any of that.) I would say that, for me, having a good job to go to every day, having air conditioning at home, and having people around me to help, all have been pretty important in helping me stay focused, keep a cool head, and make good choices. Spending tax money on a few teachers' and lifeguards' wages to help kids do the same seems like common sense.

Nice try moving the goalpost there.

I said 20 blocks. In Minneapolis, that's about a mile. Same neighborhood. So, yes, I not only set foot in the neighborhood, I parked my ass in it.

In fact, my first night in the 'hood, there was gunfire outside my window. Back then this was disputed territory between the Bloods and the Naturals.

I told my landlord about the gunfire. His response? He asked me if it was single-shot or automatic fire.

I would say that, for me, having a good job to go to every day, having air conditioning at home, and having people around me to help, all have been pretty important in helping me stay focused, keep a cool head, and make good choices. Spending tax money on a few teachers' and lifeguards' wages to help kids do the same seems like common sense.

Glad to hear that air conditioning plays such a central role in your life, Pete.

And I'm sure you're aware, Pete, that many schools, inner-city or otherwise, are hotbeds for drug dealers. In other words, they're far from the ideal escape from the world of drugs that you'd like to believe them to be. Ditto pools, for crying out loud.

Perhaps you're content to see another $100 per paycheck deleted to fund a few lifeguards in bureacratically-funded sinkholes. I, on the other hand, am not.

Hey, Rob, no hard feelings. In my neighborhood, 20 blocks away is a different neighborhood. Completely different. But if you're saying you've hung around Lucille's, that's cool, I posed it as a question and got an answer. My assumptions were wrong.

Ryan, again with the sarcasm and dismisals. Did you read the link I added above? Maybe that reporter was lying and/or incompetant, too.

Argh! Pete, I did read it, and it's STILL irrelevant to Coleman's column. Coleman was portraying cops as do-nothing wonks, and then he segued into his garbage about a closed alternative school. It's an IRRELEVANT aside. It's like me saying "Pete's blog is an eclectic mix of content that is engaging to the reader and. . . hey, LOOK, a shiny penny!"

As for the sarcasm and dismissals; apparently you haven't read my blog much. Sarcasm and dismissals are what I do here. Sorry if that's just too much for you.

Okay, so you read it. Then you know that this particular school was not a "hotbed for drug dealers." It was just the opposite. Coleman didn't demonstrate, or even try to make explicit, the connection between this school closing and the prevalence of drug dealers. But again, they're different parts of an emerging whole. I don't know the statistics, but I've known teachers all my life. It's practically a truism among those who deal with kids that if you close schools like this and cut after-school programs, pools, etc., more kids will get into trouble or worse. You might see no connection between this kind of civic indifference, and the alleged police indifference. I think the point of Coleman's column was: A lot of people do see a connection. And again, the chief shouldn't be shocked by their anger.

I don't want to beat a dead horse. I just wanted to argue with you because, like I said, there's no substitute for actually talking to people. So I talked to you.

I've been around teachers all my life, too. Both of my parents are teachers, in fact, and one thing they routinely pointed out, and continue to point out today, is that there are invariably good and bad students, and what makes a student good or bad has little to do with extracurricular activities, after school programs or whatever else you could list, and almost everything to do with how those students are raised at home. Schools aren't in place to raise children, they're there to educate them, leaving the raising to the parents.

That school was educating them until it was closed.

Almost all of its graduates were probably considered "bad students" at one time or another.

I imagine your parents are right about them, too: Home life has everything to do with it. But what does "raising" mean, anyway? I was guided and taught and loved by my parents, but also by the other adult figures in my life who gave a shit and helped out. Teachers, coaches, bosses, tutors, babysitters, neighbors, friends, whatever. I had four parents (two step-parents), and I still needed all those other people. Kids who aren't being "raised" at all at home will tend to seek out other people to "raise" them. (You notice how that kid brought the news of getting a job to Ms. Lorraine, the way somebody else might go to his parents.) I've talked to a lot of former gang members, and they all say the same thing: "We were each other's fathers and sons."

Pretending that nothing outside the home or the classroom affects a student's performance is just naive. A lot of my friends in Madison went to an alternative school simply to stop feeling like shit about themselves, and wouldn't you know it, they became better students in the new environment. Extracurricular activities and after-school programs are one of the things that keeps some students interested in school at all. They're one more place where you can do well, be "raised," and feel like you belong. When I hear about band and orchestra programs being cut, on the justification that they aren't one of the three "R"s, I feel sick. Delete that $100 from my paycheck.

Okay, so that $100 gets one school back up and running. Guess we better get another one up. Another $100. You know, come to think of it, let's get those pools back in running order. -$100. Hey, a few more government funded shelters for the poor, maybe some additional schools just for the heck of, with some more welfare checks thrown in for good measure. -$600. Oh, what the hell, I'm feeling too guilty about my good fortune in life, let's spread the wealth around some more through socialized healthcare. -$800. Oh, good, now we're in a Communist society, so that's nice. And, huh, look at that. . . there's STILL poverty, and drugs, and gang violence, and people exploiting the system, and on and on and on. How did that happen? Oh, right, human nature.

Wow, my pay check is higher than yours? That ain't right. And I don't mean that in a socialist way.

*sigh*

Sometimes I'm convinced Assistant Crack Whores make more than me.

Maybe it's time for a career change?

I think you would make a wonderful Assistant Crack Whore.

lots of potential upward mobility.