[Cape Town, South Africa on 10/15/21]
Living in Philly for over two decades, I read the Inky and Daily News each day, so was well aware of the mayhem in the City of Brotherly Love. Brother splattering brother was a near daily occurrence, but others also got brained. As for armed robberies, they were barely noticed.
Plus, like everybody else in Philly, I had a pretty good idea of the relative safety of each neighborhood. Crossing from Passyunk Square into Point Breeze, I had to be more vigilant. Kensington was dicey and ghastly, but Fairhill was more lethal. Port Richmond was miserable enough but not deadly.
[Fairhill in Philadelphia, 4/11/14]
On his birthday around 1993, my housepainting boss, Joe LeBlanc, treated the whole crew to beer and shots, so Jameson stocks shot up that day, I’m sure. Staggering home from West Powelton, I lay down behind some bush at UPenn. Waking up, I resumed my long march, only to be nearly mugged by a hammer-waving black gentleman in Bella Vista.
In front of a black judge, I got him nailed, then a black cop shook my hand, “He’s been in here seven or eight times, but this is his first conviction.”
My friend, poet and painter Jerome Robinson, was murdered by a teenager at the Wheels of Soul clubhouse on Market Street. Pissed at having been ejected, kid went home to grab his gun. Jerome just happened to be the first one he could shoot.
In 2011, I wrote about this Philly mass murderer:
Kermit Gosnell spent more than 30 years performing illegal abortions. Many of his clients were 6, 7 or even 8 months pregnant. If babies were born alive, as they often were, he killed them by snipping their necks. He punctured women’s uteruses, left fetal bits and chunks inside them to cause sepsis and infections. He cut off little feet, placed them in jars and arrayed them on a shelf. A woman would be given labor-inducing drugs, then told to sit on a toilet to “precipitate” her baby into the shitter. A particularly large offspring plopped into the water, and was “swimming,” according to a Gosnell aide, before being fished out to have its neck slit. High on the wall outside Gosnell’s clinic, there’s a white metal silhouette of a man and woman swinging a child between them. “FAMILY PLANNING” is among the advertised services.
Visiting a friend in the neighborhood, I often walked by this house of horror in Powelton, so innocuous on the outside. My article about Gosnell was rejected by Common Dreams, interestingly enough, though they published just about everything else I wrote. They also disliked my criticism of Obama. As an abortion doctor, Gosnell’s on their side, you see. Plus, he’s black.
Though I was familiar enough with crime in Philly, or Camden, just across the river, what’s happening there now is even worse, as it is across the USA. When I brought this up with Kevin Barrett recently, he disagreed, surprisingly.
Kevin’s a long-time resident of Madison, Wisconsin. Maybe it’s not too bad there, but how could he not see what’s happening in nearby Chicago? San Francisco, where Kevin used to live, has also been plunged into barbarity. Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Denver, Portland, Seattle and Houston, etc., are also experiencing an appalling increase in public destitution, squalor and crime.
Having left the USA in August of 2018, I can only follow what’s happening there through news stories. With one outrageous incident after another, the most shocking behaviors have become normalized, so this is The New Normal, as planned.
In April, police found a 62-year-old man, Charles Cunningham, lying on the ground, near death, at the corner of 5th Avenue and 110th Street in NYC. That’s Spanish Harlem now rebranded Upper Carnegie Hill. It does sound better. It was assumed Cunningham had just fallen down and hit his head, but a video footage revealed he had been punched by 40-year-old Ariel Nunez, after they had accidentally bumped into each other. Nunez’ reaction was immediate. There was no argument.
Wading through countless cities, I’ve bumped or been bumped into many times, but neither bumper nor bumpee ever resorted to violence. At least until now, most of us just aren’t coiled and cocked to unleash sucker punches. If at all civilized, the appropriate response by both parties is a reciprocal, “Pardon me,” “Excuse me” or “Oh, I’m sorry!”
Earlier this year, I spent a month in urban India. There, a short stroll is a bumping, rubbing, juking and grinding orgy, though with your clothes on. Should Nunez ever be sprung from his homoerotic retreat, all paid for, I don’t recommend India as an unwinding vacation.
Notice the age difference. If Cunningham was a 20-year-old weightlifter, Nunez would have just shuffled on. As with all these violent incidents, it’s the weak, old, grossly outnumbered or unsuspecting who are suddenly shot, stabbed, punched, kicked or stomped on the head.
Even with this minor incident, we can see something is deeply wrong. Many are ready to snap.
On 6/15/23 in rural Ohio, 32-year-old Chad Doerman executed with a rifle his three sons, aged 3, 4 and 7, as his daughter, Alexis, escaped screaming from the house. In custody, Doernam confessed it was premeditated. Just five days before, Doerman had posted on FaceBook a photo of his boys at a monster truck event.
On 5/23/23 in Landover, MD, just outside DC, 44-year-old Candace Craig murdered her 71-year-old mom, then enlisted her 19-year-old daughter, Salia Hardy, to help destroy the corpse. As neighbors drove by on Memorial Day weekend, they saw Craig and Hardy prepping their large grill with charcoal and lighter fluid, so they, too, were getting ready for a wholesome BBQ, except the irregular chunks of meat were grandma, crudely chainsawed in the blood-splattered basement.
Granted, family members killing each other is a timeless and universal phenomenon, nearly a ritual, but what’s unusual about this is the 19-year-old’s involvement in the extremely messy and drawn-out aftermath. They weren’t caught until nearly two weeks later.
Maybe it’s nothing. This morning, I woke up to more nothing headlines, “Two Women Slashed in the Leg on Upper East Side Subway Platform,” “Police Seek Man Who Fatally Stabbed Couple’s Dog in Central Park,” and that’s just a cursory glance at NYC. As for Chicago, there’s this, “Twenty-Two Injured, One Dead in Shooting at Chicago Area Juneteenth Gathering,” but it’s nothing. It’s normal for that shining, haunted mansion with doors opening to brick walls and stairs rising to ceilings, on Skull Hill.
In Pakse, Laos, we have a slightly different definition of normality. Two days ago, I made a 2 minute 30 second, one-shot video of Vida Bakery Café, which elicited this comment, “Wow, schoolgirls who are not trying to act like degenerate whores! And they’re quietly doing homework!”
At Lankham Hotel, the manager’s daughter sets up restaurant tables before going to school. After dinner, she heads to English class. The manager herself works from 6AM to nearly 10PM, each day.
In two months in Pakse, I’ve seen or heard no argument, and local Vietnamese tell me Laos don’t even curse. (During five months in English-speaking Namibia, I also never heard anyone say fuck or shit, so I learnt to curb my Philly dialect. What the fook!) My drugging and mugging by a foreigner in Pakse was so unusual, everyone thought it was hilarious, including the cops.
In the 1960’s, Truman Capote remarked that all murderers had tattoos, but now, even American preteens can showcase something Satanic on their arms and legs, if not necks, so it’s super cool to look murderous. Away from the Satanic West, however, most kids are still kids, thankfully, and most adults don’t get off on anonymously flinging virtual shit, when not busy circle jerking online. They are so brave.
When there’s no face, name or biography behind a statement, anyone can say anything, thus cacophony increases to an insane level and society becomes even more unmoored. Don’t think this is accidental. We’re certainly being played. Until a moment ago, each man stood behind his statement. Now, there are almost no men left, just “catdompa,” “Stogumber” and “profnasty,” etc. I am Linh Dinh.
In Asia, countless Chinese restaurants have “kee” or “ký,” meaning “signed,” in their names, so Sang Kee means Mr. Sang is vouching for his food. He’s proud of it.
If you fear being canceled, fired or even bankrupted by linking yourself to your own opinions, then don’t use your anonymity or pseudonymity, they amount to the same thing, to troll or heckle, but that’s exactly what most people are doing, to their overlords’ delight.
With tremendous success, they’ve turned much of the West into quaking hypochondriacs, Jewjbabbed morons, drag queen scholars, Zelensky fan boys or online assholes who think they’re empowering themselves.
In his Covid 19: The Great Reset (2020), Klaus Schwab confidently declares, “Many of us are pondering when things will return to normal. The short response is: never. Nothing will ever return to the ‘broken’ sense of normalcy that prevailed prior to the crisis because the coronavirus pandemic marks a fundamental inflection point in our global trajectory.”
As for the Third World, Schwab predicts, “In the poorest countries of the world, the lockdowns and the economic recession happening in high-income countries will trigger major income losses for the working poor and all those who depend on them. The decrease in overseas remittances that account for such a large proportion of GDP (more than 30%) in some countries like Nepal, Tonga or Somalia is a case in point. It will inflict a devastating shock to their economies with dramatic social implications.”
Three years later, it appears the worst social consequences of lockdowns and Jewjabs are in the West, and not the Third World, with even Sub-Saharan Africa not getting much worse, but they have, after all, mostly refused to get “vaccinated.”
With spike proteins coursing through your veins and multiplying endlessly, you’re no longer the same Jack or Jill, but have Jewjabs made you more stupid, volatile or violent?
In late 2022, a triple-jabbed friend acted so ugly, I wasn’t just shocked, but saddened, and I had known this goofball over four decades. I have stayed in his house, and gotten to know his wives, sons, daughter, parents, sister and girlfriends. He’s no longer himself.
It’s almost closing time at the Lankham beef noodle eatery. The two Lao employees smile and laugh often. When not busy, they may even do each other’s hair. Each morning, they bring a large pot of broth on a converted motorbike, then take it away in the afternoon. Never hurrying, they do everything efficiently. Whenever I asked for another large bottle of Beerlao, one couldn’t help but look amused.
As you get older, the young find everything you do at least slightly amusing, when not repulsive, but that’s OK. I’ve had my share of this buffet. I wish them the best. So lovely, they deserve nothing less.
[Pakse, 5/4/23] [Phonsavan, 1/23/20][Pakse, 5/4/23] [Pakse, 5/4/23]
4 comments:
"As you get older, the young find everything you do at least slightly amusing, when not repulsive, but that’s OK. I’ve had my share of this buffet. I wish them the best." :) Nothing beats being young, or at least healthy and lusty for life.
hi linh,
i used to live right in bella vista, but didn't know it. when i looked it up just now, it pointed directly to where i lived, 10th and christian. it was violent all around there, except the italian market for the most part. i used to go down to the 711 on i think 11th and washington for smokes, snapple, smartfood etc in the evening and, like most forays out anywhere in the city, i was always on very high alert. see a black man, arms crazily swinging, two blocks ahead? turn, go around the block!
i also used to work at powelton village, right by drexel, but didn't know i was in that neighborhood either. head over to lancaster, hit the projects--or better, don't! one of the first things i did when i moved to philly and walked around at random. also, move was originally there in powelton, but before my time--i got there five years after rizzo bombed them out on 51st (?) and osage.
as for madison, i had one harrowing bus ride from there to chicago via milwawkee, a near race riot. all the blacks were on the back half of the bus. at some point someone starts loudly making fun of the middle aged bald white driver, then someone else of a guy in a cowboy hat, and it just got worse. no physical violence erupted though, something i can't imagine now. but now as then i always tell people that if they want to see some shit, go live in philadelphia, it will change you! it certainly changed me.
cheers,
dan
Yo Dan,
Wilson Goode. a black mayor, bombed MOVE, not Rizzo.
Linh
oops, forgot that! thanks,
d
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