  Professorscott Member Username: Professorscott Post Number: 1413 Registered: 12-2006 |
Quote of the day from Sam Riddle in the Detroit News: "The only difference between Detroit and Third World nations in terms of corruption is that there are no goats in the streets in Detroit." | ||
Gogo Member Username: Gogo Post Number: 1441 Registered: 11-2003 |
In terms of corruption, what do goats in the street have to do with anything? | ||
Macknwarren Member Username: Macknwarren Post Number: 50 Registered: 10-2007 |
Gogo: I think goats in the street have to do with Third World cities, not corruption. | ||
Gnome Member Username: Gnome Post Number: 1409 Registered: 08-2007 |
GoGo, In most of the world, animals of all sorts are used as currency. The more goats or cattle one has, the higher status you have in the society. It a common practise to pay tribute to a high-status person, by bringing them an animal. Goats are a common currency because they are easier to take care of than cattle or pigs. Cows eat a lot and pigs can have sensitive skin. Need a new wife? Bring a goat or three to your future father-in-law. Want to build a bridge? Pay off the village elders with a goat herd. Need to build a school on Belle Isle, hmmm, a suitcase of dirty C-notes and the Mayor can go buy his own goats. Sam Riddle, is a word wizard, a shaper of opinion through hyperbole. I think you can safely say that Sam was joking. To wit: Detroit corruption is so prevalent that it equates to the open bribes one pays in a third-world village. | ||
Johnlodge Member Username: Johnlodge Post Number: 7408 Registered: 10-2003 |
At least we know some animals won't be in the street. in Detroit: Alligators may not be tied to fire hydrants. It is illegal to let your pig run free in Detroit unless it has a ring in its nose. Actual laws! | ||
Digitalvision Member Username: Digitalvision Post Number: 929 Registered: 11-2003 |
This whole thing is just so depressing. | ||
Retroit Member Username: Retroit Post Number: 264 Registered: 04-2008 |
We could use a few goats! They'd keep the overgrown weeds under control. Don't laugh: www.kitsapsun.com/news/2008/ju n/17/base-hires-rent-a-goats-f or-land-clearing/ | ||
Iheartthed Member Username: Iheartthed Post Number: 3255 Registered: 04-2006 |
Detroit has pheasants! | ||
Realitycheck Member Username: Realitycheck Post Number: 602 Registered: 08-2004 |
True ^ about the latest descent into depraved duplicity, Digitalvision. But right here this afternoon we also see uplifting reminders of the arcane knowledge, helpful guidance and welcome surprises that can reward those who open a DetroitYes! thread. Thank you, Gnome and Johnlodge, for your enriching asides. Who needs Wikipedia? | ||
Digitalvision Member Username: Digitalvision Post Number: 930 Registered: 11-2003 |
Oh I understand that. And many thanks for the levity... But I feel this is among the darkest days for the city of Detroit. Craig on Detroit Today was right yesterday, we're at a crossroads. IMHO, the outcome of these events in the next 60-90 days will either make the recovery permanent or completely break it and there will be yet another failed recovery like there has been every decade or so. | ||
Professorscott Member Username: Professorscott Post Number: 1414 Registered: 12-2006 |
"Descent into depraved duplicity"! That's wonderful, right up there with Agnew's "Nattering nabobs of negativism". | ||
Professorscott Member Username: Professorscott Post Number: 1415 Registered: 12-2006 |
Digital, I'm not as cynical about our prospects, for this reason: a city can do well even if its government is corrupt, even corrupt in the extreme. Chicago and New York have a long and storied history of corruption at the highest levels, yet in an overall sort of way those cities have done reasonably well. An active and thoughtful business community can more or less render the government irrelevant; let's hope for that here. | ||
Gistok Member Username: Gistok Post Number: 7086 Registered: 08-2004 |
I can understand Sam's POV... it's like we've got Robert Mugabe and his thugs running Detroit and not ever relinquishing their stranglehold on the city. I guess we can be thankful for not having our own currency... Also, I'm starting to like Sam Riddle more and more every day... | ||
Focusonthed Member Username: Focusonthed Post Number: 1899 Registered: 02-2006 |
One of the things that can be said about Chicago is that corruption is what makes Chicago work. Yes, things are ridiculously corrupt and nepotistic, and everything costs more than it should, but this corruption allows things to get done that would be caught in red tape in most cities. In Detroit, it is the opposite. In Detroit, the corruption gets in the way of progress. IMO | ||
Professorscott Member Username: Professorscott Post Number: 1418 Registered: 12-2006 |
Focus, reminds me of the sign outside Casa D'Ice, a restaurant outside Pittsburgh whose owner (a curmudgeon named Bill Balsamico) likes to use the sign to poke at things. One time it said: Let the Mafia run the country... they take their 10%... everything runs great. | ||
Matt Member Username: Matt Post Number: 1306 Registered: 10-2003 |
"The only difference between Detroit and Third World nations in terms of corruption is that there are no goats in the streets in Detroit." That's not true! In my neighborhood, one household owns like six or seven goats... and sometimes they get through the fence and are in the street! | ||
Lefty2 Member Username: Lefty2 Post Number: 1474 Registered: 07-2007 |
We do have coyotes, pheasant, dogs, cats, rodents etc. In Detroit though you don't see these as menu items. I wonder how many Coney Islands there are in Kampala | ||
Gnome Member Username: Gnome Post Number: 1411 Registered: 08-2007 |
http://www.shrinkingcities.com /index.php?id=44&L=1 A web site collection of various articles about what to do with cities that are too big for their own good. Germany in particular has been very active in tearing down swaths of the old East Germany and replacing it with farm land. Detroit seems to be of keen interest to the Germans. At some point we have to realise that more people have left Detroit, than currently live here. We're like an old lady, who can't care her huge house anymore. She has no need for a building that raised her 10 children but she refuses to move, so she blocks off everything except two rooms and slowly declines. EDIT: Oops! Should have posed on a different thread. (Message edited by gnome on July 01, 2008) | ||
Mwilbert Member Username: Mwilbert Post Number: 308 Registered: 11-2007 |
I have often thought that Detroit would be a good subject for development economists to look at--a lot of the issues of developing countries also apply to redeveloping Detroit, not that there aren't major differences. In the matter of corruption though, Detroit has a major advantage in that there is a higher level of government that can investigate and prosecute corruption, which is something which doesn't tend to be the case in developing countries. | ||
3rdworldcity Member Username: 3rdworldcity Post Number: 1168 Registered: 01-2005 |
Detroit corruption (and there's obviously a lot of it, at all levels) doesn't hold a candle to the good old days of Mayor Daley's Chicago. The difference is that Chicago ran like a charm and prospered. Its corrupt politicians were pros and really looked after the needs of the people. Corruption was an art form. The problem with corruption in Detroit is that the players are amateurs and the place is totally screwed up, and I'd like to see someone present a reasonable scenario where it will ever get better. Key word: "reasonable," not pie-in-the-sky stuff. It's embarrassing. | ||
Gianni Member Username: Gianni Post Number: 387 Registered: 05-2004 |
I also know of a a house in Detroit that has goats. In the front yard though, not on the streets. | ||
Terryh Member Username: Terryh Post Number: 834 Registered: 11-2006 |
There are packs of wild dogs roaming the streets of Detroit. Third World countries are places that had centuries old customs and cultures destroyed by colonization. There are rural regions of America that resemble 'third world 'countries. | ||
Firstandten Member Username: Firstandten Post Number: 232 Registered: 05-2006 |
Given Chicago's long history of corruption Thats why we need to go back to the ward system for our counsel people. At least in that system there's some accountability to go along with the corruption. With the at-large system there's just the corruption. | ||
Lmichigan Member Username: Lmichigan Post Number: 6080 Registered: 10-2003 |
3rdworld makes a point, as others have. It sounds awfully counterintuitive and amoral to say, but it's the players, not so much corruption, that's the problem, here. Hell, Coleman Young's exploits make Kilpatrick's look like child's play. You've got pros and you've got amateurs. You know you've got it bad when your leaders can't even do corruption 'correctly'. In comparison to father Daley, a real "big city boss" makes Kilpatrick look like a two-bit dictator. | ||
Barnesfoto Member Username: Barnesfoto Post Number: 5224 Registered: 10-2003 |
well, those of you who have been to third world countries might recall problems with the water... Detroit has the tastiest drinking water in the US. And no pesky amoebas.. | ||
Digitalvision Member Username: Digitalvision Post Number: 938 Registered: 11-2003 |
Business is about stability - it's one of the reasons you don't see the business community throw Kwame under the bus. From a Machiavellian point-of-view, corruption tends to be tolerated as long as you know the cost and expectations, and in the end everything still gets done. If there is anything I've heard over and over in defense of Kwame from others (people who by the way I don't hold in high regard), it's that although KK's crooked, there is a set price for doing business and you can get a deal done, unlike Archer who was clean and so you didn't know what he was going to do to your project in the "interest of neighborhoods" or "being fair." | ||
Firstandten Member Username: Firstandten Post Number: 233 Registered: 05-2006 |
If the leadership added a couple hundred more guys to the EPU and throw in a few more goats in the street then we would be the envy of the third world. | ||
Goat Member Username: Goat Post Number: 10185 Registered: 10-2003 |
ProfessorScott, the difference is that those cities have a reliable small business community with relatively healthy downtowns. Detroit still has a way to go to achieve even that small feat. | ||
3rdworldcity Member Username: 3rdworldcity Post Number: 1170 Registered: 01-2005 |
Detroit's city government is like the gang that couldn't shoot straight. Imagine selling your integrity and the city down the tubes for a measly couple of grand or so. Amateurs. I don't knows what Archer made off the MGM deal but I'll bet it was a lot more than that. Then again, I never thought he was particularly bright either, so maybe it was less than I think. In which case he's really stupid.) My choice of a forum name seems to be not too far off base. | ||
Trainman Member Username: Trainman Post Number: 717 Registered: 04-2006 |
3rdworldcity, Detroit should sell DDOT for one dollar. | ||
3rdworldcity Member Username: 3rdworldcity Post Number: 1172 Registered: 01-2005 |
Who would pay that much for it? | ||
Terryh Member Username: Terryh Post Number: 839 Registered: 11-2006 |
Spend some time in the micro film room of the Detroit Public Library browsing Detroit newspapers from the roaring 20's, up to the present. Corruption in Detroit city politics is not unique to contemporary Detroit. |
