Why Baltimore Is DOA

The Baltimore Mayor is on trial this week on charges of shady financial dealings with a sprinkling of moral corruption thrown in for good measure. No one in the city or even the state is outraged or even curious. It’s just business as usual for this city.  Criminal indictments of  City Council members is as commonplace as Old Bay on your steamed crabs and elicits as much surprise.    They are only mirroring the actions of many of their constituents whose daily life is a washed with deals and death.

Baltimore has always been (as far back as the 60’s) an inner city environment.  There are pockets of rich people (Canton and Roland Park) who live behind security systems and private schools.  But the real Baltimore lies in the crumbling row houses painted with the sense of entitlement; vacant lives in vacant houses awaiting the next fix, the next score, the next handout.

I have a newspaper article from the now defunct News American whose title is Baltimore Leads – Are You Proud. It was originally published back in the 60’s and speaks to the murder rate. Almost 50 years later – the only change is that it has gotten worse.

Visitors will speak to the Inner Harbor and it’s summer time charm. It’s Disneyland in the middle of Afghanistan. And the cracks are showing. There has been a slow uptick in violence and even the locals know not to visit on Sunday evening.  It is only a matter of time before a tourist gets shot or killed in the Inner Harbor.  And that shot will be heard around the convention business world.

Recently I was flying back from a lovely trip to San Antonio. I talked with an older couple flying into Baltimore for a pharmaceutical convention. They asked me where to visit besides the Inner Harbor. Truth be told, I was at a lost for places of interest and safety that I could comfortably recommend. I ended up talking about Gettysburg and Antietam and mentioned the Smithsonian.  I wanted so much to tell them not to walk around Baltimore at night even the Inner Harbor.

Baltimore is beyond resuscitation. We had a period of remarkable growth under Mayor Schaefer but that only bought us a few years and sometime during the last 20 years the city  passed away.   The floral displays of a functional school system and a city based working  population of citizens died long ago.  The only remaining flower arrangements are the National Aquarium,  the Baltimore Symphony and the twin Stadiums. These are fading fast and lost, quite some time ago, any ability to hide the stench.

My humble thanks to all Veterans

The World is Charged with the Grandeur of God

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed.  Why do men not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

And all is smeared with trade, bleared smeared with toil

And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all of this, nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And through the last lights off the black West went

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs –

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Gerald Manley Hopkins

Hello world!

Hello World is an apt first name for this initial posting.  Maybe I’m a cockeyed optimist but I refuse to believe there aren’t others like me out there frustrated by organized politics, religion and the media and their obsession to pigeonhole .

Born in the early 50’s, I was raised with the motto – God, country, family. Two of those words today, much to my continuing disbelief,  have taken on an inflammatory nature.  And what is even more irritating is that those words often immediately endow one into a certain mindset of beliefs without deviation.

I am a true conservative. Today, the definition has become so often being media comprised that its original meaning has been defiled.  Specifically, I believe in small government and a government that stays out of your house and home. Simply stated, I don’t have a problem with gay marriage, or abortion or disciplining your children as you see fit. (Although it appears that discipline was thrown out the door with God and Country.) 

So many assume I’m Republican or far right.  I see the discontent in this country among the true majority which lives only slightly to the left and right of center. I’m starting to believe, more and more Americans are picking from the cafeteria plan when it comes to politics and religion.

Thanks for reading.