Wednesday, December 13, 2006
sometimes horrifying should not necessarily be surprising
Just over a week ago a terrible crime was committed a few doors down the street from my house. Some B.U. students were jumped outside a party and savagely beaten. (see links below) Reports indicate that the students injured were not involved in the previous altercation that it is believed sparked this retaliatory attack.
The Boston Globe
Boston Herald
WBZTV 4
I was not aware of this event until recently, although in retrospect I believe I was awoken by it in the wee hours of the morning. It is a sad state of affairs when the students have taken to beating each other like drug-crazed hoodlums. What is sadder still is the fact that the students have so little respect for their neighbors and are on average such a bunch of screeching swearing belligerent nocturnal rabble-rousers and vandals that the sounds issuing from a horrific event such as this can be dismissed as “just them again.” The students through their constant late night rampaging have created a climate in which any real calls of distress can easily go unheeded. The Boston PD in their lack of response to or outright hostility towards student related disturbance calls from neighborhood residents have nurtured that climate. This is not youthful exuberance overflowing. This is a culture of entitlement and freedom from accountability that has festered long enough to bubble up to its inevitable result. The police now put forth more presence on our streets, parking and traffic laws are occasionally being enforced and cruisers drift like sharks between reefs of row houses and triple-deckers. Nice try; and too late as usual. Where were they six months, a year ago, two? People should not be shocked by what is going on in Allston, but they should be appalled. Appalled by a university that views residents of the city as so many unwashed savages under the occupying heel of its colonialist power. Appalled by a population of economically over privileged youths who view the neighborhoods they live in not as communities but as disposable places that they have the divine right to pillage and defile, spilling their vomit, urine and seed freely as they go. Appalled by a police department that failed to protect the city’s permanent residents in favor of throwing up their hands and turning a blind eye toward the crimes and misbehavior of the transient squatters until those transients turned on each other. Appalled, perhaps, by a mayor who let this happen.
The Boston Globe
Boston Herald
WBZTV 4
I was not aware of this event until recently, although in retrospect I believe I was awoken by it in the wee hours of the morning. It is a sad state of affairs when the students have taken to beating each other like drug-crazed hoodlums. What is sadder still is the fact that the students have so little respect for their neighbors and are on average such a bunch of screeching swearing belligerent nocturnal rabble-rousers and vandals that the sounds issuing from a horrific event such as this can be dismissed as “just them again.” The students through their constant late night rampaging have created a climate in which any real calls of distress can easily go unheeded. The Boston PD in their lack of response to or outright hostility towards student related disturbance calls from neighborhood residents have nurtured that climate. This is not youthful exuberance overflowing. This is a culture of entitlement and freedom from accountability that has festered long enough to bubble up to its inevitable result. The police now put forth more presence on our streets, parking and traffic laws are occasionally being enforced and cruisers drift like sharks between reefs of row houses and triple-deckers. Nice try; and too late as usual. Where were they six months, a year ago, two? People should not be shocked by what is going on in Allston, but they should be appalled. Appalled by a university that views residents of the city as so many unwashed savages under the occupying heel of its colonialist power. Appalled by a population of economically over privileged youths who view the neighborhoods they live in not as communities but as disposable places that they have the divine right to pillage and defile, spilling their vomit, urine and seed freely as they go. Appalled by a police department that failed to protect the city’s permanent residents in favor of throwing up their hands and turning a blind eye toward the crimes and misbehavior of the transient squatters until those transients turned on each other. Appalled, perhaps, by a mayor who let this happen.
Saturday, December 09, 2006
a cacophony of scrawl
So many people clamor to be heard.
Too many people grabbing for the light,
The mike,
The focus,
The channel.
I think sometimes I know what it’s like
For authors
Or Saint Trudi
And her fractured or prismatic fellows.
Role playing gone awry.
All those people,
Splinters and shards,
Made whole and clamorous beings.
I cannot give them all
The voice they demand.
I cannot give them all
the time they crave.
Incompetent parent or ill-equipped medium
I cannot let them out
Into the world as they command.
Desperate and angry
Burgeoning and eager
Anxious and driven
Stoic and destined;
I cannot let them hijack
The flesh-boat and its munitions.
Disappointment and retribution
Walking hand in hand
Would tread heavily over our shared final place.
Too many people grabbing for the light,
The mike,
The focus,
The channel.
I think sometimes I know what it’s like
For authors
Or Saint Trudi
And her fractured or prismatic fellows.
Role playing gone awry.
All those people,
Splinters and shards,
Made whole and clamorous beings.
I cannot give them all
The voice they demand.
I cannot give them all
the time they crave.
Incompetent parent or ill-equipped medium
I cannot let them out
Into the world as they command.
Desperate and angry
Burgeoning and eager
Anxious and driven
Stoic and destined;
I cannot let them hijack
The flesh-boat and its munitions.
Disappointment and retribution
Walking hand in hand
Would tread heavily over our shared final place.
