The reve-noo-ing regime

It is evident that the great apparatus of "traffic safety" which the State imposes through its statuatorial series of fines, penalties, and other depredations on productive folks are but a gigantic farce, a game played by law enforcement officials and their unwitting victims alike both in full knowledge of the futility of it all, a game which the police know has nothing to do with making the roads safer and all about generating revenues for the gleaming State monster through the backdoor taxation of selective enforcement.

Case in point:

EBR Parish has instituted red light cameras at major intersections, ostensibly for the purpose of increasing traffic safety and reducing accidents. This arrangement is conducted through one of those wonderful "public private partnerships" which are supposed to make the State more palatable for us.

The firm is based in Cincinnati, and receives a cut of every fine incurred through this program. They allow easy payment through mail or the web so it makes it that much more convenient for you to happily sign away your extraction to the State.

Cheery does it, eh?

In a few months the traffic engineering folks at the EBR public works department are supposed to "evaluate" the program to measure its "effectiveness" at curbing traffic accidents, or whether it is simply working as a revenue raising tool. Take one guess at what they will find, and take another guess as to whether this will make any impact towards the continued existence of the Orwellian eyes of the State.

Real life scenario:

It's 8:30 am on a Saturday morning and the freeways are bare and bereft of traffic. The newly modernized Interstates have been widened and made more efficient for your driving convenience. The speed limit is set at the 85th percentile of average speed, so it is inevitable that it will be exceeded. There is no danger posed as traffic on this limited access facility is minimal, and otherwise engaged in proceeding at the same speed you are for the most part (unless you happen to find a welfare cow in a used Cadillac cruising the concourse after a long night of binge consumption of various harmful substances).

The state troopers make their nests in hidden crevasses along the freeway. Every now and then they select a passing motorist for their undue exaction via the magic of the radar gun. How the process of selection is undertaken is unknown given the similarity of speeds amongst all motorists that day. The state trooper is disarmingly polite, to the point that one wonders if one has stepped inside a restaurant or other service business. The entire business proceeds in a surreal state, as both parties recognize the pomposity of it all.

The hapless motorist knows damn well that the time and money spent defending oneself from all these matters exceeds the level of exaction at hand. So he inevitably gives in, pays the fine, and accepts the massive increase in his auto insurance rate that follows.

Is traffic safety the end product? Tens of thousands continue to die in automobile accidents. The problems revolve around the inadequacy of government maintained and constructed roadways and the arrogance of a tiny proportion of reckless drivers who for one reason or another are inexplicably ignored by the State to process endlessly through the cycle of inebriation, drunken driving, accident, and tragic "accidental" death caused by negligence.

Private roads in private hands which held a reputation for danger would quickly lose patronage. Entrepeneurs would thus have a vested interest in removing the potential for accidents and the attentions of the reckless moronic set.

But such a easy option is of course verboten amongst the priests of subsidy for which every life problem can be solved by increasing costs and paperwork, so that all are impoverished and no one is benefited, save the fat civil service protected sows whose comatose carcasses warm the seats of the vast Bureaucracy. 

Random bureaucracy notes

In this collapsing economy where jobs are as scarce as pearls and sane politicians, more young graduates are duplicating the story of my life by following the path of least resistance and entering government service. While the regular economy evaporates, the State gorges on the remainder as the public sector presents an upraised middle finger to thrift and expands in the face of folly.

It has now apparently become conveniently 'trendy' amongst the newly-degreed set to gravitate to public jobs because of a renewed ethos of "public service."

Don't make me laugh. In Louisiana, where nearly one out of five workers is employed by the high-tax, do-nothing Bureaucracy, such eloquent sentiments are rarely if ever expressed with regards to the public commonweal. No desire to "serve" the public poses motivation here. It has long been accepted as a fact of life that government work in Gangman's Paradise is a massive jobs program which fills the gap presented by our lack of an economy and keeps the unemployment and poverty rates lower than they would actually be. Any other justification is a convenient excuse for seeking security in these dark times. 

Part of me does not blame them. But when you have occupied the bureaucratic hive for a number of years, you officially become incapable of escaping from the fold back into the world of productivity.

So much for our best and brightest.

--

Another State-made disaster looms, thanks to the cable and digital programming lobby who obtain their long awaited gravy in a few short hours.

The State imposed deadline which marks the final demise of analog television arrives at 7 AM to-morrow. As if you didn't know, the way Channel 9 here carries on about "The Big Switch" six times an hour. If anything, this landmark will be welcome if only to eliminate the ongoing annoyance of their constant forewarnings of doom.

Of course, despite all this and the efforts of the other terrestrial broadcasters, undoubtedly (this being Louisiana, after all) tens of thousands of comatose trailer court and public housing residents have nary a clue of the upcoming caesura of over-the-air transmissions. So when they turn on their televisions to-morrow, the white snow that will greet them will be a mysterious malevolent force sent to disrupt their precious lives from their constant stream of trash talk shows and "reality" soap operas.

And all at once they will realize what they will need to do to replenish this electronic stream to which they are addicted (for this is more important than work, life, or the Second Coming!), and the greasy mob will doubtless swamp the electronic stores soon after...to be greeted by bare shelves. Not a good mix there. 

I would not want to have to visit Best Buy to-morrow for any reason, much less to purchase a digital antenna along with all the other last minute lemmings. In fact, I'm pretty sure that even their parking lot would be useful to avoid entirely. I would take bets as to how fast the digital converter boxes, etc. will disappear from stock, but regrettably I wasn't trained as a bookie.

More capitol lunacy, and other stuff

The legislature blackens my mornings with their antics, as dutifully reported by the pretend journalists over at WJBO radio. But no matter about that triviality, for the offenses of our solons are putrid beyond all hell.

Each day brings more potential depredations upon our lives and our freedoms. No talk is uttered of retrenchment, of living within one's means, of permanently doing less with less. Instead the cry is about "evil" budget cuts to public "education" and the protection of bureaucratic privilege, i.e. civil service merit increases.

Hey folks, guess what? I haven't received a pay increase in five years. Between inflation and taxes, that's tantamount to a shrinking income. Yet I'm not up in arms, declaring with fatted lips that I am "owed" an income increase by society, for whose "benefit" my "services" are performed. Unlike our capitol critter friends, regular folks understand that a dollar earned is equivalent to value produced for that dollar.

For those with hands outstretched in perpetual need, (apologies to EON Productions) being handed the world on a silver platter is not enough. The vacuum pit of subsidy demands more, and always delivers less in return.

Gotta love it.

--

More corpses litter the retail boneyard as the depression grinds on to its bitter conclusion.

But I ask, what about SearsKmart??

A few years back Kmart was bankrupt and on the ropes, a failed merchandiser, about two hair breaths' length from complete evaporation. Sears was healthier but hardly any better, a shell of its former glory akin to Montgomery Ward in its last days.

When these two failed firms were combined, I noted at the time that it was the equivalent of propping up two rotten sheaths of wheat, to keep each other from collapsing into ash.

So in an age of retail death, when formerly indomitable soulless national corporate conglomerates crash and burn on a daily basis, what lies in store for this reprehensible combination?

Failure and more failure, most likely. But it thankfully will have few repurcussions here. The Capital Region has only two Sears stores which are generally mostly empty whenever I visit; and one lone Kmart straggler store in an outlying exurb, rendering the Stick essentially Kmartfrei. (Though there are many dead boxes which litter the suburban landscape here that formerly housed the retailer.) Wise souls here conduct their retail business at the House of Sam (Walton, that is).

--

One last question, because inquiring minds want to know:

Will "the new GM" be similar to "the new NBC" circa 1979 and to-day?

Because I wouldn't want to go there with a 100 foot pole, if you know what I mean.

(Sorry, couldn't resist kicking a failure while it's down, and likely unable to get up again.)

Failure, failure, failure

Utter incompetence. That is what I stand for nowadays. And everyone around me knows it, but dare not utter the truth.

It seems impossible. An incompetent such as myself makes a secure sum and continues on in a responsible position, though he is an utter failure and completely and totally unsuited for the position and the work therein.

What makes it possible? Civil service protection, that's what!

Evil indeed. In the free market, my value would have been rapidly assessed long ago. In bureaucrat-land, the ability to take orders trumps all else, even criminal incompetence such as I display daily. So those who are best able to parrot their superiors (that's me!) remain in their cushy digs despite the evident and clearly obvious moral outrage it represents to professional peers and to society.

In the private sector, the rationale for keeping a person employed is whether he adds value to that organization for which he works. Like I said, if this were a non-governmental position, my walking papers would have been submitted to me long ago.

The last thing that I add to any organization is "value." Surely you jest if you believe otherwise.

You wonder why I have so much time to bang out copy in these spaces. Well, guess what? The incompetent have few if any friends.

That should explain it.

Veterans day

As we commemorate this tragic day set aside originally to mark the armistice of the First World War in 1918, we attempt as best as possible to ignore the loud paeans to State power and other such glorifications of War and all its dark and bloody works.

Today is proof that the State is greedy when establishing days to celebrate itself and all the evil deeds which it perpetuates.

The State killers we honor to-day are testaments to our greatness and freedoms, the media says. So witness the melancholy level of sickness into which our once-proud society has descended.

It is true that we should honor the memories, however, of those who died "defending our freedom" - just as we should honor the memories of any great State killing.

Of course, public workers like me inexplicably have a holiday from work to-day, while the productive sectors carry on doing what they do best, ignoring this State worshiping occasion as well they should.

Pointless holidays like this should be abolished. Enforced days of rest are only moral and proper on actual holidays that aren't rooted in the celebration of mass death.

Then again, perhaps life would be immeasurably better if every day was a holiday for public workers. Pay the fat bureaucrats to do nothing. Then perhaps they will be in a place where they can do no more damage to our freedoms.

Around the Stick Quickie

Like the Garfield and Friends Quickies of old! No Screaming with Binky here, though. Oh well, see this instead.

Nicholson Drive in the vicinity of the LSU north gate is increasingly taking on a higher-density, if not decidedly urban, vibe:





Scenes such as this bring to mind Mid-City New Orleans, in a faint sort of way.

(Hey give the area credit, this is pretty urbanized as Baton Rouge goes.)

In other urban news, here is the new fascism writ into the physical landscape:



The "designated smoking area" for the bureaucrats at the State government complex downtown. Yeah, this is the entirety - a couple benches tucked at the rear next to the freight entrance.

The numerous "No Smoking" signs/laws/probations/whatever have chased all tobacco activities to this dark and hidden location.

Smokers, the new set of second class citizens. See, it's official now!

While we are the topic of government idiocy, here is something else:



Fallen trees, debris, and other junk remains on public ways nearly two months after the late storm events.

Proving yet again that while you take care of your yard and prevent anything on your own property from becoming potential liabilities, the State feels no obligation to do likewise.

It's public property, man! Who cares!

It's about fucking time

Something that should have been done 30 plus years ago.

In private industry, a track record of 30+ years of bloody and tragic crossover accidents and collisions would be completely impossible, because that company would be without business within the blink of an eye after the first few accidents. In government, it is just the way things are - another brick in the wall that is the junglefication of our society, our now and future prison where the wardens are fat ghetto bureaucrats who tell you "I AM SOCIALIZING RIGHT NOW! YOU WILL WAIT!" when you want actual service from them.

I CANNOT BELIEVE that hundreds had to die before something as simple and cost-efficient as this was performed to our Interstate freeways. It boggles the mind that this was not done when the freeway was originally constructed in the 1970s.

As I recall, a few months ago a 12 year old girl or someone similar met a gruesome end along this very stretch, due to a completely preventable crossover accident such as the cable barrier is intended to prevent.

Just another example to demonstrate that your government that claims to "protect and serve" you does neither, and like the Latin American-like elites which it truly protects and serves couldn't give a miniscule shit whether you live or die.

Rising from chaos

The situation in south Louisiana seems to be improving in slow and incremental fashion. But chaos remains the order of the day in many places.

Day by day more services return, and more businesses reopen. Petrol and resources remain scarce, though, with what little is open in full resource ration mode, producing long miserable lines of (mostly) bedraggled Blacks.

And I am returning to work Monday, by some miracle. Let us hope against hope it is not merely to call us in to inform us that we are going to be furloughed, or (better yet) laid off permanently, due to the shortfalls of tax revenues and depletion of public funds. What cheer!

(For as we know the politicians, for all their bluster to the contrary, couldn't give a flivvering rat's ass about the people who do the actual work of "serving" the public.)

The lack of electricity presents a formidable barrier to the return of normalcy. My apartment remains without power and remains ruined by storm damage. Dat's the price you pay for renting a cheap apartment, I guess.

Oh, and two days of humidity has killed my laptop, and perhaps interrupted the orderly flow of blog updates here. Hooray!

So for now it looks like I will be making my residence in a shelter or some such facility. 

Entergy has finally produced some actual time estimates to power restoration in EBR Parish: 90% restored by September 17, and full restoration by September 24. Still unacceptable, but at least we are not facing months and months of powerlessness as I had feared a few days ago.

It's been over 40 years since the last big storm in BR, so dat's over 40 years of tree growth that had to fall and cause destruction of the electrical grid.

With my luck, my battered neighborhood will be one of the last places to be restored. Racism and bigotry reigns supreme everywhere, but especially in disasters.

Ten dollars for a bag of ice is understandable in these situations. (Dat's just economics at work.) But outright refusal to sell needed items to people of color because "these things are needed for our people" is absolute bullshit.

I am not going to name names or places, but suffice it to say that most people are assholes (as usual) when it comes to their darker skinned "inferiors." Say what you will about disasters bringing out the best in human nature. That line is total, complete bullshit.

In any case, it will be a while before things are back to normal here. Do not believe the media and their cries of "all clear"; they are of course all focused on New Orleans, which was only relatively lightly scathed. (Power should be totally restored in the NO area by this weekend.) The total media blackout on the spawning crisis in the rest of Louisiana, especially the rural parishes which are rapidly approaching total collapse, is proving fatal.

Bare survival in the land of FEMAcracy

Disasters, in my experience, always bring out the patronizing aspects of our State masters.

Instead of productive citizens, we are now victims.

Instead of job holding community residents, we are now refugees who have lost everything.

Instead of offering a chance to use our minds and talents to assist in recovery, we are directed to a shelter and made to stand with the rest of the mindless rabble for our government ration MRE.

We were once self sufficient citizens. Now we are helpless children dependent on government aid.

Just the way our power elites like it.

Potpourri

It's 6:30 PM and the only thing worth watching on all of cable TV, with its 70 channels and which costs me over $50 a month, is a cruddy Matlock rerun.

So I turn to Headline News and encounter the bloviating of Glenn Buck (sic), telling us how desperate the Amerikan people are, that they are "crying out for a leader" in these times of peril.  Yes, times are perilous indeed, but the last thing we need is a Leader.  You would think, given that our faith in past and present Leaders has been shattered time and time again, we would reject anyone claiming to lead us.  But the Leader Principle is the last thing to die in the fascist mind. Even as the walls crumble around them, they cry out for a Fuhrer to lead them by the nose to the gas chambers.

Yet he also says, despite the imminent collapse of civilization, that it will all be okay, since "we are Americans, and we are resilient."  Now he sounds like Oprah.  No batch of psychologizing and doublespeak can prevent the coming disaster.  It will have to be faced in all its gory monstrosity, sooner or later.

In other news, Rush has been provided a contract extension for his right to impinge on the air, until 2016. I highly doubt, by that time, that radio as a technology will exist, due to the philosophies of Rush and his fellow travellers. Thanx, Rush.

***

Brought to you by the inner city, here are some rare urban prairie images!





Not two months ago there were houses (occupied homes, too!) on these very properties which now lay vacant and bleaching in the summer sun, the green wilderness of prairie grass rising rapidly to reclaim this once urban land into the jungle.

The loss of the houses was likely no tragedy; they were dilapidated and weren't rare or special specimens of architecture.  But the disappearance of any structure from the built environment removes part of the urban form and only serves to accelerate the process of decivilization - a constant devolution from the intelligent and man-made to the bovine and animal.

What productive use will this property be put to?  Likely nothing. This patch of green will likely continue to expand, as the bleached bones of the inner city give up the ghost.

***

Thought this photo was appropriate for the end of the day:



The essence of our city - largely urban banality somewhat tempered by natural beauty which attempts to assert itself from time to time.

The parking lot you see here is for a restaurant that is considered a local landmark.  Can't say much for its surroundings, however.

***

A short photoessay, entitled Death of a Building!

The old State Welfare Department building (aka the A. Z. Young Office Building) was constructed by the state in the 1950s, and was a fairly decent example of Mid-Century Modern architecture, if nothing else positive could be said for it (considering what ridiculousness transpired inside its walls).  But as all things tend to go down in the Stick, progress came along - in this case, because the state decided it wanted a brand spanking new Capitol office complex, squandering millions of our dollars in the process.  So the Welfare building had to go.

Here it is when it still stood, gutted and in the process of demolition:



A few months later, all traces had been removed from the face of the earth:



(Note the white sign in both pictures, touting 'progress'.  It lists all the politicians responsible.)

The sole machine on the site was removing the last of the rubble of the former structure as I snapped this photo.  The squat white building behind it is the under-patronized Capitol visitor center, of which the Lieutenant Governor is so proud. Be proud also, taxpayers!

Across Lafayette Street (to the left of the above photos) a former parking lot is being readied, along with the old welfare building site, for its planned future role as an "outdoor ampitheatre and park":



(Not a very people friendly environs, eh?)

This should be as popular with the public as the visitor center, or the visitor center parking garage (seen at upper left, when it was in its last phases of construction).  

Well, at least the State Library patrons have a nice view of the river now!  Yay for progress!

Witness this baloney

Point your peepers to this story.

Child is obviously a product of typical stupid, permissive dumbass Amerikan parents.  A future school shooter in embryo.  I have no sympathy.  Of course they blame the victim here - the teacher.  Typical socialiste reaction.  It takes a lot to set off a kindergarten teacher in that manner.  

She was trying to save the boy, people! - to show that screwball, ghetto behavior that lacks consideration for other people wins you no friends and gains you nothing but enemies.  I should know, of course. Do ya really think those kids, at that juvenile age, were just playing along when they all chanted in unison their revulsion for our erstwhile five year old victim?

Ya know, worse things were told to me by my teachers when I was young.  I'm still alive, though - I tarried through.  It made me a better person.  Shit, their tough love probably saved me from a life of crime and destitution (that us, more destitution than I currently experience).  

I just wish corporal punishment was still used in schools.  Spare the rod, spoil the child.  Children are amoral beings - nobody comes into the world with right and wrong writ in their hearts.  They must learn it from caregivers.  If they don't, they become sociopaths. Care to understand now why our prisons are filled to overflowing with the dregs and scum of the human race?  No one taught them that there is right and there is wrong.  They developed what naturally occurs in that void - wanton thuggery, an extreme sense of narcissism and entitlement, where the first thing in order is having one's dick serviced - and slaughtering anyone who gets in the way of that pursuit.

Et tu, Bush?

What if they built a parking garage and nobody came?

To no one's great surprise, it seems the state has squandered public funds again.

In building its spanking new Capitol complex, which has all the tourist allure of a bathtub, the state decided, in its wisdom, to construct a "Capitol Visitor Center" for the throngs of tourists expected to come and take in the arid bureaucratic sights of state office buildings. And to this end, our solons understood that all these tourists would need someplace to park, though along with the Capitol complex two gigantic parking garages have already been constructed so far (guess those are for state workers only). So the state went ahead and built a third, smaller garage - a 'visitor's center' garage.

I watched as the state build it, and it opened about a month ago. A nice, very clean and modern structure, designed with the Art Deco decorative motifs of the rest of the complex. A great place to store your car for a couple of hours. Should be great for the tourists.

Look at the teeming throngs:




Those four cars (including mine) were the sum total of the garage users today. I felt really sorry for the poor parking attendant. Must be a lonely job. But it's easy money, to sit around doing nothing all the time, so I guess I can't shed too many tears.

This garage, though, has some compensations - it provides excellent views of the river and the downtown area. Let's mosey on up to the deserted fifth level (the elevators could talk, too! They spared no expense):

Not too many cars up here, either.

This garage is located adjacent to some state office buildings, about a block from the state library (a hard walk in the May humidity) which you have to walk around to enter since the single entrance (it's called 'sealing the perimeter' by our friends in the TSA) faces away from the river, and just around the corner from the visitor center. The whole vicinity of those few blocks sports the clean and arid feel of bureaucratic sterility. Oh, by the way, there's a huge ass utility facility smack between the garage and the visitor center. Be proud, bureaucrat planners, of your subpar efforts.

On Mardi Gras parade days, which comes around once or twice a year, the garage will be filled to capacity since it sits directly on the parade route. Kudos to the advanced planning of the state solons!

Lame-Brain Idea of the Week

This featurette may become a regular thing on this blog, maybe not....depends on my mood.

As in most American cities today, the local government here has established a special purpose 'development' district which encompasses the downtown area and its immediate environs. The district, like other similar special public entities of this sort, receives its income from a special tax which is levied on all businesses located within the bounds of the district. Only businesses operating within the district pay the tax. The purpose of the district, which is funded by this tax, is to promote economic and residential development within its jurisdictional area.

As Butt-head would say: Ehhhh, what?

Operating businesses in urban areas already have many taxes and fees to contend with: property taxes, sales tax (and cost of collection), liquor license fees, building permit fees, inspection fees, income tax (state and federal), etc. etc. - the list goes on and on. Explain to me how adding an additional depredation, on top of all these others, is supposed to help stimulate economic activity.

(Sound of crickets chirping)

I didn't think you could.

"But what about all the non-economic, aesthetic benefits the district provides? After all, that has done some good. Doesn't downtown look cleaner and nicer today than it has in years?"

Let's count the physical benefits, then: Cypress trees which look sort of out of place in a concrete canyon, new shiny benches for hobos to sleep on, and wayfinding signage that will probably go the way of the last wayfinding signage installed ten years ago, which is still standing up rotting in place. The place is still as lively as a funeral on most weekends and after five on weekdays, though. Not sure if that's worth Joe Businessman's money, and certainly not worth the hassle. Last I heard, he decided to open his restaurant in that new strip center out by the mall.

And we wonder why downtown is practically dead here.

Unsealed state highways - please explain?*

Here now the long awaited Roads Scholaring AKA Viatology material!!

(Is 'Roads Scholar' a pun on 'Rhodes Scholar'? Not intentionally, it just comes out better that way.)

And to start this off, a rant (what else?).

The state in which I live has a higher than average number of state maintained highway miles - we rank in the top ten in miles per capita (state miles/all road miles). This does not include Interstates, but does include US, ahem Federal Highways. (CalRog strikes again!)

I have never understood what makes a country back road, which by no stretch of mental gymnastics could be considered of state importance or even a semi-important connecting road, worthy to be included in our, or any, state highway system. Literally thousands of miles of these roads bloat the state system here, to the point where they comprise the majority of miles....and then our solons in state government wonder why they hardly have any cash to improve the overloaded and critically important transportation arteries in our cities.

Of course, roads should be a private sector matter; as with everything else State socialism has produced nothing but failure in the transportation system. But that is a post all in itself.

And to top it all off, we come across this absurdity:


(Captured by my cellphone camera during one of my excursions away from the urban center.)

The green sign is a standard state highway shield here. The road surface, as you can clearly see, is gravel - that is, unsealed (or unpaved, take your pick of words).

Would somebody please explain??!?!

This is by no means the only case of an unsealed state maintained road here - I know of various examples besides this, in just this region of the state. I e-mailed the state DoT with the faint hope of obtaining an explanation, but nothing have been forthcoming so far. Big surprise there; it's a State bureaucracy, after all.

I know this seems petty. But these are your tax dollars, people. These are rural backroads which receive virtually no traffic. That is why they have remained unsealed to this day. So why is this a state responsibility? The state DoT is supposed to focus on maintaining and improving high trafficked roads such as multilane highways.

I say let the local governments in these areas deal with these farm roads (for lack of a better expression), since they're the folks who (occasionally) have to drive them.

*With apologies to Pauline Hanson.