Decline and fall: #2

The decline and fall of Detroit, a 300-year-old city, in two vignettes.

While selling a home for the amount of change most people could find between their couch cushions is unusual, some abandoned homes in Detroit sell for $100; vacant lots can be purchased for $300.

"My 14-year-old son could buy a block of Detroit property," said Ann Laciura, senior servicing specialist for the Bearing Group.

By now the statistics are as well known in London as they are in Livonia. Detroit has lost half its population since its heyday of the 1950s, and every year the city hemorrhages an estimated 5,000 people more. First it was white flight to the suburbs; then with the city's continued spiral into poverty and violence, blacks began to flee to those same suburbs. And while census figures show that whites are returning to some of the nation's largest cities, Detroit is experiencing a flight of a different kind. As the Imbrunones' second funeral demonstrates, Detroit is experiencing the flight of the dead.

The glory of the fifth amendment

Here's the text:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

and here are eight reasons to never talk to the police, not even if you're innocent and have only God's honest truth to tell.

Slave Nation

Jim Lindgren takes a look at the historical antecedents of Service Nation.

Nall on Starbucks

This sums up Starbucks for me:

Once upon a time America drank coffee. And America was strong. An America that drinks tall skinny soy lattes — one just a tad cooler than the other — is an America that is, dare I say, French.

A final B-17 mission

84-year-old Marvin Skubick, a B-17 Flying Fortress pilot in World War II, took his final flight on a B-17 last month. According to wikipedia, "of the 1.5 million tonnes of bombs dropped on Germany by U.S. aircraft, 500,000 were dropped from B-17s."

Decline and fall?

Three posts from Glenn Reynolds today made me think of ancient Rome's decline.

By the way, we're back home now and online after a small tornado, downed trees and power lines in our yard, floods, trips to the emergency room, drowned basement appliances, no hot water or air conditioning, and an extended motel stay waiting for a/c and hot water. All fixed now - infrastructure is in good hands in Small Town, Illinois.

The 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment

Photos of WW2 paratroopers, many killed in action, all very young. Lileks and readers of this blog may know the young feller in the 3rd row, 3rd column as Commodore Matt Decker.

"Kirk riding the Constellation into the sparkly maw of Hell’s cornucopia, waiting for the beamout." Ah, Lileks.

In our image?

It's not everyday that the best, most lethal and most humane army in the history of mankind gets to pass along its lessons and help teach another army the art of civilized warfare.

Watch this

"Freedom Never Cries": Watch this cool video and John Ondrasik's charity will raise money for Operation Homefront, which supports troops' families.

The poor man's Thanksgiving

Here's Lileks on the classic American $10 Thanksgiving meal. Stay with it til the end - trust me. You'll know what to do after that.

My new theory of the Civil War

In its legal or constitutional essense it wasn't a war between the states, and it wasn't north versus south. It was the national government versus a breakaway sectional government. I haven't thought this through, of course, because I have code to write and diapers to change and cigarettes to smoke.

Intro to the Constitution

If you've forgotten your basic Constitutional principles, here's an introduction from a reliable source: James McClellan: Liberty, Order, and Justice: An Introduction to the Constitutional Principles of American Government (1989).

That's at the Online Liberty Library at the Liberty Fund; here's an obituary of James McClellan, who died in 2005.

Styen on Thanksgiving

Vide. Choice quotes:

If America were to follow the Europeans and maintain only shriveled attenuated residual military capacity, the world would very quickly be nastier and bloodier, and far more unstable. It's not just Americans and Iraqis and Afghans who owe a debt of thanks to the U.S. soldier but all the Europeans grown plump and prosperous in a globalized economy guaranteed by the most benign hegemon in history.

Americans should, as always, be thankful this Thanksgiving, but they should also understand just how rare in human history their blessings are.

An ugly similarity

I haven't thought this through, but this sort of Confederate apologetics sounds like a petulant spouse trying to justify divorce:

The Gettysburg Address was brilliant oratory, but it was also political subterfuge. As H.L. Mencken pointed out, it was the Southerners who were fighting for the consent of the governed and it was Lincoln's government that opposed them. They no longer consented to being governed by Washington, DC. Lincoln's admonition that government "of the people, by the people, for the people" would perish from the earth if the right of secession were sustained was equally absurd. The United States remained a democracy, and the Confederate States of America would have been a democratic country as well. Lincoln's notion that secession would "destroy" the government of the United States is also bizarre in light of the fact that after secession took place the US government fielded the largest and best-equipped army and navy in the history of the world up to that point for four long years.

From lewrockwell.com via the wikipedia entry for Paleoconservatism. I once leaned toward the 1980s pre-internet sort of paleoconservatism with its then-excellent magazine Chronicles and Pat Buchanan's autobiography. I left them when I discovered they're shot through with Jew-hatred.

Frank Buckles

Frank Buckles (thank God for wikipedia) is the last surviving American veteran of World War 1 - here's an excellent article by Richard Rubin in yesterday's NYT.

Two of my many great-uncles, John K Bragg and Osa Bragg, went to France in 1918. Uncle Osa kept a box of memorabilia from his tour through France and Germany that was given to me after he died. It's upstairs high atop a closet shelf to keep the kids away from it - I really need to get the material scanned and on the web, perhaps with the help of our two oldest.

Federalist Papers

Courtesy of local homeschooler Andrea Rice, here's a website devoted to the Federalist Papers, which makes a nice complement to the majestic Founders' Constitution website.

"Dante would have been terrified"

Paul Tibbets died yesterday at his home in Columbus, Ohio. Here's his obituary in his home-town newspaper, and here's a lot more background at acepilots.com. Studs Terkel interviewed him in 2002.

Tex Hill and Robin Olds

Two great American aviators died recently: David Lee "Tex" Hill and Robin Olds. Here's a half-hour of story-telling from General Hill, and another from General Olds.

A modern Cannonball Run

Wow! If you've ever been tempted to ease over the speed limit and see what your new car can do, read Charles Graeber's "The Pedal-to-the-Metal, Totally Illegal, Cross-Country Sprint for Glory" in Wired 15.11.

That explains Europe

Just between you and me, Europe seems a little off lately, doesn't it, the last hundred years or so? The elevator doesn't quite go to the top floor anymore, if you get my drift. Now I'm not a doctor, but maybe Europe's self-lobotomization has something to do with it.