Election Today!! (and some random thoughts)

Aldermanic and mayoral elections are today, 6am-7pm. Find out where your polling place is HERE. Seriously, find out right now.


On a completely unrelated note, I found a 20 minute Q & A with David Simon, creator of HBO's the Wire. The video was taken from Loyola University (the one in Maryland). If you're wondering why The Wire is probably, without hyperbole, the best television show in history, one of the biggest reasons is that it came straight from this guy's noggin.



That's part 2 of a 3 part series on YouTube.

The basic idea is that the manufacturing fallout in this country, beginning in the 70s and nearly complete today, has created an existential crisis for an entire generation of people. There's no longer any demand for the kind of unskilled labor that many urban blacks and rural and small town whites used to depend on for a living. No legitimate demand at least. Thanks to some Columbian and Nicaraguan entrepeneurs, there is a huge black market demand for unskilled labor in the underground drug market. So when we ask people in the inner cities to "say no to drugs", we're asking them, in Simon's words, to say no to "the only viable economic engine in their community"-- and doing so without giving them an alternative to which they can say "yes". Not only that, but the "war" against this drug market has created entrenched institutional problems in the police force, giving them less incentive to solve "real" crimes (against people), and the downward cycle of the inner city continues. Simon used to be a reporter on the crime beat in Baltimore, so he knows what he's talking about here*. And he says it better than I have in any case, so I'd encourage you to check out the full 3-part discussion on YouTube.

Oh, and in case you don't believe me about The Wire being the best thing on TV, here's a clip of Snoop (an enforcer for a local gang) stopping by Hope Depot for a new nail gun. The nail gun's for boarding up old row houses that they've been using to hide bodies. It's a classic meeting of the two Americas that Simon's talking about above.



And on that note.... Happy Voting, Mothaf#%#$@!

*I originally said, mistakenly, that Simon was a narcotics police in Baltimore. In fact, that was the other co-creator of The Wire, Ed Burns. No, not that Ed Burns. This Ed Burns.