Rob Long writes in the LA Times:
I LEARNED THREE things after reading the account of the 15-year-old boy who tagged a bus while Los Angeles' mayor was on board.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, along with a busload of other officials, were at the Santee Education Complex in South L.A. to celebrate the successful relocation of a bus stop from two blocks away from the school to directly behind of the school complex.
So the first thing I learned was this: Moving a bus stop two blocks is so complicated a process, so thorny a political problem, that when it actually happens — when the steel pole with the Metro sign is dug up from one spot and planted a few hundred yards away in another spot — it's time for everyone involved to celebrate the moment, get in a bus, drive down to the spot and congratulate themselves.
While doing so, the mayor and his party were surprised to notice that a sophomore at the school was celebrating in his own way, by tagging the bus, which, translated for our Brentwood and Pacific Palisades readers, means scrawling his nickname — "Zoner" — on the window.
The snag: The mayor and his guests were inside the bus at the time. Zoner, I guess, didn't look before he tagged. One thing they don't seem to offer at the Santee Learning Complex, apparently, is a class called Awareness of the World Around You. ...
On the other hand, in the aftermath of the event, Zoner's act doesn't look like such a boneheaded move. The bad news is, the kid will probably have to do some kind of community service. The good news, though, is that Villaraigosa quickly realized that while Zoner is obviously a young man in trouble, he's also got a certain reckless charm. So the mayor graciously offered to mentor him, help him make better choices, guide him to more productive activities. So Zoner goes from tagger to mayor's new best friend. Not bad, mobility-wise. ...
The third thing I learned, then, is this: If you want to move up in the world, or get somebody's attention, vandalism is probably the answer. If, say, you're an aspiring writer with a couple of solid action-picture pitches, my advice would be to find out where producer Jerry Bruckheimer parks his car, and then deface it.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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10 comments:
the squeaky wheel...
first blame the jews post!
It also makes Mayor Tony look like a loser. He can't even keep taggers from defacing the bus while he's on it for a photo op.
Mayor Tony's dismantling of the LAPD should give every business and homeowner in LA great pause. There's a lot of ruin in a nation and a lot in a city. LA Latino Gangs are so rampant and brazen they'll tag even when Mayor Tony is engaging in his high profile media events. What will they do when cameras and police are not around?
Of course that will only make areas around LA that have hard-nosed police (Simi Valley) and no tolerance for gang bangers more valuable.
southern california is vomiting people, and they're landing everywhere. nevada, arizona, oregon.
one thing i noticed in 04 was the mexican gangs were expanding out of southern california and were arriving in las vegas and phoenix. in my suburb in vegas, they started tagging every wall.
now they regularly appear in the police report, often killing each other in the city parks.
On Monday, he had said the brazen act appeared to be a "cry for help" from a troubled youth who needs counseling.
The "he" here is the principal of the school, who appears to be as fucking clueless as the editorial board of the LAT, who never change their tune, no matter how often their newspaper documents the direness of the demographic trends there.
Tagging is not a "cry for help." It's an entirely natural, if primitive, way for a male to mark his territory. It's the human version of territorial pissings (to steal the title of a Nirvana song).
Next time my cat urinates on the wall, I'll take him to a pet therapist!
I'm trying to remember, didn't some of the San Fernando Valley municipalities try to secede from LA some years back?
Secession from the central city has gotta be the wave of the future.
--David Davenport
Irrelevant trivia I can't keep to muyself:
While perusing the footnotes in Niall Ferguson's "War of the World" today, I came across this:
John Galt was the name of the author of an 18th century novel titled "The Wandering Jew."
Ferguson's footnote says nothing as to whether this was Ayn Rand's inspiration.
--David Davenport
- A slight majority of the San Fernando Valley voted to secede in 2002, but the rest of the city voted overwhelmingly to hang on to it (the SFV pays in about 10% more in taxes to LA city government than it takes out in expenses), so it failed.
- I have to review Ferguson's "War of the World" one of these days.
When the mayor come shome one day and finds "Zoner" partaking of the charms of the mayors daughter he may change his tune about the poor dear boy!
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